When All's Said and Done, Will We Talk About KG's Unfulfilled Potential?

Any feedback is much appreciated, thanks.

It’s often said that the best players are the ones that makes his teammates better. I think this is how KG should be evaluated. I disagree with what Flip Saunders says. In basketball it is fundamentally sound to take the shot that has the best chance of going in. An undefended layup is a higher percentage shot than a three pointer.

In this respect, I would compare KG;s idea of how basketball should be played to Larry Bird’s. Yes, Bird took alot of shots (his skillset was different from KG’s), but how many open shots did Larry turn down to pass to McHale under the basket. Larry made his teammates better as does KG. The only times Larry wanted to be a shooter first was if his teammates weren’t playing well or in end-of-game situations. In the latter, his reasoning was that if you needed a three pointer to win a game who do you want to take it?—Someone who’s practiced it 100 times a day or 500 times a day (or whatever). Thus, in end-of-game situations who do you want to take the last shot. Someone who is double-teamed and not used to taking the shots, or a Ray Allen or Paul Pierce who are the go-to guys in that situation. If KG was open and it was his shot I don’t doubt he would take it.

If you like to watch the game of basketball what would you rather see. The Kobe’s, LeBron’s, Wade’s taking crazy shots (even if they make them), or the great pass that goes unnoticed and you need to see the replay many times to see what a great pass it was.

No matter what your view KG has had a great basketball career. He was a team player, he was coachable, and when asked to by Doc he did take more shots and did take the ball to the basket more. Maybe if he did this when he was younger and had fresher legs and a better coach his numbers would be off the chart, I’ll take KG just the way he is. Without him we would not have won the Championship in ‘08 and maybe if he was healthier and maybe if age and injuries wasn’t a factor we would have won more.

it’s a simple as that. Bird was a great teammate and a great passer and also an unselfish player. But he accepted the fact that his team needed him to score and when the game was on the line he took that responsibility and delivered. One thing that will always separate bird from pierce in my opinion was Bird’s ability to deliver when we needed a basket. Pierce has had his share of game winners but more often than not he’s failed in that situation. KG should have been one of the all time greats but I think his legacy will be that of a very good player who had a long career. If I were starting a team and you said I could have KG or Kevin McHale I would take McHale every day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Thanks Paddaball for putting in this subject. It is one that is fun to discuss when there is really nothing else to talk about now.

I screwed up in some way. My original posts are now present so sorry for some repetition.

This was a well done article, but I strongly disagree with your hypothesis. Kevin Garnett plays exactly the way I would want a Celtics’ star to play. He embodies Ubuntu.

If one reads the headline they would consider it blasphemy, but you can make the argument that once Garnett signed with Bos. he sacrificed shots in favor of sharing. In his prime KG was averaging 1400+ FGA. His last year in Minn. he shot 47.5% on 1341 attempts. Next year in a green uniform … 54%, but only on 990 FGA. His offensive production this year was on par with the championship season, but because of age he can’t put together back-to-back scoring nights. Games 3 and 4 of the Miami series hammers home this revelation. Moving forward it may make sense to rotate his minutes in 5-5-5 min. intervals rather than 8-8 each half, which should keep him better rhythm because he will not consistently use his post up game.

There’s also the level of intensity on defense to consider. The Celtics with KG on the floor had a Defensive Rating of 98.5. The Magic with Dwight had a rating of 103.8. When KG is off the floor it goes from 98.5 to 105.6. Now Howard can play both ends with fervor every night, but KG cannot. I love his passing skills, but like RR he has a habit of turning down lay ups or at the rim opportunities.

Still, I don’t think you can blame him for the drop off in points per possessions (09-10’ 5th, 10-11’ 19th). Their offense is predicated on ball movement and getting RR out on the break. Aside from PP there is no consistent creator of points and until RR manufactures a jump shot their offense will continue to struggle even if Garnett shoots 50% next season.

His prime years were wasted by playing with “sub-par teammates” in Minny.

His Boston years were “jinxed by injuries”…his, Perk`s, Shaq`s, etc.

Only guys like KG, Kobe, Duncan, L.James, Dirk, Iverson and Shaq can come to a team change the culture and take that team to the finals. Not many players have done this within the last 15 yrs. Think about it…

… then I hope the Celtics are endlessly plagued with guys similarly cursed with unfilled potentials.

But Paddaball, I appreciate the effort and welcomed reading the piece.

KG never paced himself for the playoffs. He was way too used to playing only 82 games.

I wouldn’t trade one minute of the time KG has spent on the Celtics. My only wish was that he was here years ago. I can’t even think of comparing him with Big Al!!! KG is the best.
The wonderful games he has given us, the excitement, the defense. You would trade that away???? No way. My biggest regret is that he has only one year left. There is still alot of
basketball left in that long, tall body!

I agree with the OP that KG’s public image would probably be better if he’d averaged 30/10/3 at his peak instead of 24/14/5. The general public loves a scorer. Heck, most of the basketball-watching public (players included) love scorers.

But if the question is if Garnett would have actually BEEN a better player with the larger emphasis on scoring, I think the answer is no.

Consider, if you hang out with basketball nerds like on the APBRmetrics message board, they absolutely gush over KG. Why? Because by any statistical measure you care to look at, Garnett measured out as both the most productive player (box score measures) AND the highest impact player (+/- measures) in the NBA over his prime. In the box score measures he was normally competing in close races with Duncan, sometimes even Dirk, for the top spot in the 2000s. But in the +/- measures Garnett measured out as the highest impact player in the NBA by a LOT.

So, the question becomes…what are the nerds seeing that the general public doesn’t? The answer, especially in Minnesota, was that scoring comes at a trade-off. Even for the best-of-the-best, there are a finite number of things that they can maximize. And the Wolves, from year-to-year, tended to have a LOT of weaknesses. There was little-to-no defensive talent outside of KG, and there was no defensive philosophy. On offense Mchale stocked the team with shooters and Flip Saunders’ offensive schemes were designed to create open mid-range jumpers, but there were very few players on the team that could create their own shot or create shots for others. In many years Garnett was the primary, if not the only, shot-creator on the team. And there were no rebounders except for Garnett.

So, let’s examine the trade-off if Garnett starts putting more of his energy into creating his own shot. He did have the skills to do that, but creating shots from the post/elbow against consistent double-teams requires a lot of energy. This means less to go into defense, rebounding, and running the team offense. And all of these areas suffer directly in proportion to Garnett’s priority switch, because there was no one else there to do those jobs effectively. To go back to the Flip Saunders quote, the Wolves were full of players that could knock down an open shot…but they didn’t have anyone to do the other things that KG could do.

Thus, KG’s game wasn’t PURELY about being unselfish or even “JUST” about making teammates better. Instead, in a very pragmatic, very clinical way his decision to maximize the other aspects of his game made the Wolves better than they would have been if he focused more of his energy on scoring. Which is why all the nerds/stat guys love him. And why all of the impact +/- stats tag him as the most impactful player of his generation by a pretty significant margin.

Will that make KG be remembered as the best player of his generation? Maybe not.

Even if it is true.

When he was at Minny and in the playoffs… He took that team on his back and carried them A LOT. I mean just look at the 2002-2003 playoffs where it went 6 games against the Lakers and 2nd/3rd best player on his team was Wally (who has no D to speak of) and Troy freakin’ Hudson.

Then you can go to his 03-04 playoffs where he finally got to the Western Conf. Finals (cuz he finally had some players around him in Spreewell and Cassell)… KG in the series against the Kings was probably the best series I’ve seen from a big man EVER and he was CLUTCH in that series… Esp. in game 7.

Got to the Finals and facing the Lakers again and Cassell got injured in game 3 and Troy Hudson was injured as well so Darrick Martin and Fred Hoiberg (yes you’re reading that right) were the PGs for the rest of the series. It still went to 6 games. Had Cassell never been injured, I think Wolves would’ve won against the Lakers and possibly won it all.

Plus to the people talking about 30/10/3 or him taking more shots to get to 30 pts/gm… do you know how rare that is for a PF or C to score that much a game in the past 30 years??? Even Duncan only scored more than 24 pts/gm once in his career. That’s why Shaq was so dominant in his prime. Heck getting to 27 pts/gm or more is hard to do regardless of position and only a handful of them per year can do it.

Think about it this way, KG went 20/10/5 for 6 straight seasons which I believe he’s the only one in history to ever do that (Bird did that 5 straight). When you combined that with his AMAZING defense, you got one of the best bigs in history.

I just don’t or can’t see the “unfulfilled potential” when you look at KG’s career. The only way is if you say what if he had some players around him in Minny or if he went to a contender earlier in his career. I guess you can say he didn’t go to the line enough, but his game wasn’t built for that. KG in his prime pretty much didn’t have any weakness on both side of the court. Not a lot of big men can say that. I’m just glad I got to see his whole career

KG had a big game(#3) as a offensive leader.We have three stars with the potential of scoring big on any given night.Maybe if Paul had a big scoring performance and Ray another,it might be possible we are still watching our team play.However,it didn’t happen and im not blaming an individual player,and neither should you.Trying to equate KG’s Minny days with how he’s performed in 2011 doesn’t work.Obviously you want to blame KG alone for the series but going about it with his entire career is just lame.imo