The truth is that Kevin Garnett was never as good as Paul Pierce

[Junkyard Dawg]

what is the point of this thread?

KG is a power forward.

Paul Pierce is a SF.

They have different games, different strengths and different weaknesses.  Saying one is 'better' than the other is like saying apples are better than oranges.  Don't get it.

[4THQTR]

Folks, don't you get it ... Garnett was never a player who inspired a double-team on him.

Have you watched Garnett before he came to Boston...?
Have you watched him in 08...?

Yes, in '08, a Cav's team, where the 2nd best scorer was Delonte West, pushed us to a game 7. And throughout that game 7, the Cavs didn't implode, unlike the Hawks, and we got some lucky stops and scoring by Brown, followed by Posey, which sealed the deal.

And now, you'll tell me that KG was a post player but all the evidence points to him being a jump shooter.

Lucky scoring = Wide open midrange jumper by PJ Brown...?
And that implies Garnett has never commanded double teams...

 

For some strange reason KG was still our leading 4th quarter scorer in the playoffs the one year we actually won it all...

I fail to see what you see and therefore will leave it at that

[wiley]

Luckily KG was nice enough to play power forward throughout his career....I'm sure he could have played small forward through the first half of his career.

[Who]

Teams Garnett faced in the playoffs

• 1997 -- Houston Rockets = title contender
• 1998 -- Seattle Sonics = title contender
• 1999 -- San Antonio Spurs = NBA Champ
• 2000 -- Portland Trailblazers = title contender
• 2001 -- San Antonio Spurs = title contender
• 2002 -- Dallas Mavericks = non-contender, second tier side
• 2003 -- Los Angeles Lakers = title contender
• 2004 -- Denver Nuggets = .500 team
• 2004 -- Sacramento Kings = non-contender, second tier side due to Webber's injury
• 2004 -- Los Angeles Lakers = title contender

Here are the teams Pierce faced in the playoffs

• 2002 -- Phily = quality playoff squad, third tier team
• 2002 -- Detroit Pistons = quality playoff squad, third tier team
• 2002 -- New Jersey Nets = title contender (strong argument that they were a second tier squad in weak conference)
• 2003 -- Indiana Pacers = quality playoff squad, third tier
• 2003 -- New Jersey Nets = title contender (strong argument that they were a second tier squad in weak conference)
• 2004 -- Indiana Pacers = title contender
• 2005 -- Indiana Pacers = non-contender, second tier squad (no Artest)

The teams Paul Pierce's Celtics beat where considerably less talented than the teams Kevin Garnett faced.

** Playoff series won in colour Brown.

[BballTim]

Folks, don't you get it ... Garnett was never a player who inspired a double-team on him. In reality, he passed the ball, way too early and settled for the jump shot, for a majority of his career, when he could have made an easy post move. Realize, his position is power forward/big man, not shooting guard.

If he doesn't inspire others to run doubles on him, then he's not effective in making teams pay for not over covering him. Realize, Pat Riley had to have Oakley/Ewing and then Mason/Ewing work on Hakeem throughout the '04 series, otherwise, Olajuwon would have dropped 50 on them.

  What you don't get is that KG is one of the best defensive players of all time, and you're basing your argument on offense only. Has PP generally been a better and more versatile scorer than KG? Yes. Better overall player? No.

[BASS_THUMPER]

i have always felt that too..

before we got ray we asked him over he said no and i felt no biggie

ray and kevin is part of pauls supporting cast

with out paul we would not have gotten that ring

[Who]

That was a very talented Pacers squad but they had a lot of inner-turmoil and had under-achieved throughout the year (especially late in the season if memory serves, dominant start to the year but limped to the finish line).

They had that big mid-season trade and were still finding their chemistry. Had several off the court issues. Isiah Thomas never managed to bring that team together. They never maxed out their talent levels.

It wasn't really until the year after when Rick Carlisle came in that they turned that squad into a title contender. With a lesser squad really after losing Brad Miller.

If it's the team I thinking of, that was the year with the Detroit brawl so various of their main guys were suspended through much of the year, so the season record was not representative of the strength of their team.

That was the third time the C's faced the Pacers. In 2005.

With Antoine Walker and Gary Payton along with the rookies Al Jefferson, Tony Allen and Delonte West.

That short-handed (regular season) Pacers team had a full-strength team by the time the playoffs rolled around. Oh wait, no, Ron Artest was still suspended wasn't he? They had Jermaine O'Neal and Stephen Jackson back though. More of a second tier squad than a title contender without Artest though (on my list above, need to change that).

[kgiessler]

I've always felt that way too OP.  I think its too difficult of an argument to make, but know that I share the sentiment.

In my opinion, Pierce had unthinkably bad teammates for the majority of his career.  He often had the effect of bringing them up so they looked better playing with him.  But as soon as they went to other teams, their careers flubbed.

It's depressing to go back and look at the rosters that man has played with.  But do it, and you'll see a list of people who looked even worse once they left the c's.

Who knows how impressive his career could have been if he had some teammates to at least be a distraction for defenses.

[4THQTR]

I've always felt that way too OP.  I think its too difficult of an argument to make, but know that I share the sentiment.

In my opinion, Pierce had unthinkably bad teammates for the majority of his career.  He often had the effect of bringing them up so they looked better playing with him.  But as soon as they went to other teams, their careers flubbed.

It's depressing to go back and look at the rosters that man has played with.  But do it, and you'll see a list of people who looked even worse once they left the c's.

Who knows how impressive his career could have been if he had some teammates to at least be a distraction for defenses.

Same can be said about KG though.
Quite frankly I think Walker was better than anything KG ever played alongside in Minnesota...

[kgiessler]

I've always felt that way too OP.  I think its too difficult of an argument to make, but know that I share the sentiment.

In my opinion, Pierce had unthinkably bad teammates for the majority of his career.  He often had the effect of bringing them up so they looked better playing with him.  But as soon as they went to other teams, their careers flubbed.

It's depressing to go back and look at the rosters that man has played with.  But do it, and you'll see a list of people who looked even worse once they left the c's.

Who knows how impressive his career could have been if he had some teammates to at least be a distraction for defenses.

Same can be said about KG though.
Quite frankly I think Walker was better than anything KG ever played alongside in Minnesota...

I just can't agree to that.  Cassell?  Sprewell? It's not something I'm willing to argue in detail, there are just too many player comparisons to be made.  I simply disagree.

[garz]

"with out paul we would not have gotten that ring"

Probably

But without KG I'd say definitely no ring. Look at what happened the following year.

Also I don't understand the need to separate the best player. The Cs are about team play.

Also Pierce was finals MVP. Why do you need to convince everyone when the league already satisfied your belief?

I guess I just don't understand, but posted this anyway.

[Lord of Mikawa]

Instead of cannibalizing our team, we should be talking about what if our Big 3 had teamed up a few years earlier.

[byennie]

Folks, don't you get it ... Garnett was never a player who inspired a double-team on him. In reality, he passed the ball, way too early and settled for the jump shot, for a majority of his career, when he could have made an easy post move. Realize, his position is power forward/big man, not shooting guard.

If he doesn't inspire others to run doubles on him, then he's not effective in making teams pay for not over covering him. Realize, Pat Riley had to have Oakley/Ewing and then Mason/Ewing work on Hakeem throughout the '04 series, otherwise, Olajuwon would have dropped 50 on them.

Patently false. Are you honestly tell me that when Garnett was scoring 24+ per night, with 5+ assists and 3 offensive rebounds, he didn't attract double teams... with no other credible scoring options on his team.

No, he wasn't Olajuwon in his prime, but neither was Paul Pierce. Hakeem was as dominant a single player in 1994 as anyone not named Michael Jordan in the past 25 years.

When you inspire a double team, as a big man, you draw 'em in the paint, and then you pass out to a man in the mid-range for a jumper. Do you think that if Ewing had Pierce on his squad, to receive that ball, that the Knicks wouldn't have dominated the Rockets?

And yes, I'm Hakeem's greatest fan.

Couple things. How can you say Garnett didn't make teams "pay" for double teams, when he was dishing 5-6 assists per game in his prime WHILE being the team's go-to scorer?

I'm not sure I follow your Pierce point. Of course he would have made those Knicks teams better. Adding Garnett to that team would have helped quite a bit too!

[4THQTR]

I've always felt that way too OP.  I think its too difficult of an argument to make, but know that I share the sentiment.

In my opinion, Pierce had unthinkably bad teammates for the majority of his career.  He often had the effect of bringing them up so they looked better playing with him.  But as soon as they went to other teams, their careers flubbed.

It's depressing to go back and look at the rosters that man has played with.  But do it, and you'll see a list of people who looked even worse once they left the c's.

Who knows how impressive his career could have been if he had some teammates to at least be a distraction for defenses.

Same can be said about KG though.
Quite frankly I think Walker was better than anything KG ever played alongside in Minnesota...

I just can't agree to that.  Cassell?  Sprewell? It's not something I'm willing to argue in detail, there are just too many player comparisons to be made.  I simply disagree.

Definitely debatable.
The issue with Cassell and Sprewell is the following:
Cassell was hurt when it mattered most, so while he may have been the overall better player he wasn't able to play his best in the playoffs.
Spreewell was aging, but definitely still effective.
If you think about their regular season record and take the Cassell injury into account (and take a look at the Lakers team they were facing and took to 7 games) I'd say that squad did pretty darn well...
Other than that KG had Billups before he blossomed and Marbury when they both were still learning the game...
Factor in a much tougher conference and I just don't see how you can claim Pierce has had less of a shot than KG given their respective circumstances.

[kgiessler]

I've always felt that way too OP.  I think its too difficult of an argument to make, but know that I share the sentiment.

In my opinion, Pierce had unthinkably bad teammates for the majority of his career.  He often had the effect of bringing them up so they looked better playing with him.  But as soon as they went to other teams, their careers flubbed.

It's depressing to go back and look at the rosters that man has played with.  But do it, and you'll see a list of people who looked even worse once they left the c's.

Who knows how impressive his career could have been if he had some teammates to at least be a distraction for defenses.

Same can be said about KG though.
Quite frankly I think Walker was better than anything KG ever played alongside in Minnesota...

I just can't agree to that.  Cassell?  Sprewell? It's not something I'm willing to argue in detail, there are just too many player comparisons to be made.  I simply disagree.

Definitely debatable.
The issue with Cassell and Sprewell is the following:
Cassell was hurt when it mattered most, so while he may have been the overall better player he wasn't able to play his best in the playoffs.
Spreewell was aging, but definitely still effective.
If you think about their regular season record and take the Cassell injury into account (and take a look at the Lakers team they were facing and took to 7 games) I'd say that squad did pretty darn well...
Other than that KG had Billups before he blossomed and Marbury when they both were still learning the game...
Factor in a much tougher conference and I just don't see how you can claim Pierce has had less of a shot than KG given their respective circumstances.

It's infinitely debatable, there ends up being hundreds of comparisons with no definite answer.

I think I am looking at it from a different perspective too.  You are considering who was the best player(s) either one had to play with.  

I am really thinking about who are the worst. I feel like Pierce had to spend more time (actual playing time) with guys that were far more towards the bottom of the barrel than KG had to spend.  

At the end of the day, it's too bad they both had miserable situations and so many years of greatness were stifled.