NBA Blog

I’ve been out of commission for about a week.  For that, I am sorry.  However, per usual, I have a plethora of excuses.  I recently put in my notice that I will no longer be an litigator working primarily in insurance defense cases.  That’s right, I will not be working for the ‘man’ (or ‘those big, bad insurance companies) anymore.  Nope.  Unfortunately though, I will not be going into journalism, nor have my postings drawn the attention of NBA franchises to the point that I am making the move to a front office gig.  Instead, I will be going into the transactional side of legal work.  I’ll work primarily in real estate deals, which should benefit me and the lady friend a great deal financially.

Also, I returned from my bachelor party in Las Vegas on Sunday night, and you could say that I am still recuperating.  No, I will not share ANY stories with you guys.  I will advise that spending a night at Club Tryst (and going VIP with a table and “bottles”) is highly advisable.  Also, spending 10 hours poolside at the Palms on a Saturday with Weeman from Jackass and the Apple computer commercial guy (with a bucket of the beverages of your choice) is highly advisable, but your skin will hate you for the next 5-7 days (especially if you have that Casper the Friendly Ghost complexion). 

Oh, and there is that little thing called a wedding that we are planning.  I’m down to three weeks of bachelorhood.  It is a sad, sad time.  However, one of my groomsmen has guaranteed that there will be a car with the engine running and handles of choice beverages waiting outside the church if need be.  (He’s the guy who set me up with the lady-friend, long story, so I doubt he will follow-through). 

One story I will share from my weekend is the fact that I had the opportunity to fly next to the new head coach of the Sacramento Kings, Reggie Theus.  Great guy, because he actually answered every question that the in-flight friend in front of us wrote down for him, but because he just sat there and talked to us.  It looked like he enjoyed it as much as we did.  He was a little impressed with the hoops knowledge yours truly dropped on him.

(Quick sidebar) Anybody who knows me will verify that most of the knowledge I tend to drop on this site comes completely off the top of my head.  Unless I hit you with a list of stats, like in the Kobe season stats rant or the Timmy/KG comparison pages, I’m throwing things out without any research.  Reg was pretty impressed that I was asking him about his days with the Bulls, Heat, and Kings both in Kansas City and Sacto.  (By the way, look for the powder blue throwbacks for the Kings this season, and do not expect many eyesore gold uniform sightings.  I begged him for those two things).  I also hit him up with some quick knowledge about his roster, specifically NBA HOOPS favorite, Justin Williams; his days at UNLV under Tark, announcing NBA games, and much more.  Return to story:

I do not want to misquote Reggie, nor do I want to turn this into an interview session that he did not know about, so I will just give you a couple of positive quotes about some of the things we talked about.  Let’s just call this the ‘Cliff Notes’ version of my flight.  (Keep in mind, these are not EXACT quotes, rather condensed versions).

Reggie on:

-NBA HOOPS favorite, Justin Williams: “He’s an athletic freak.  An absolute freak.  He just cannot shoot or score yet.  He has to learn that I won’t yank him out for doing everything else, like rebounding, hustling and blocking shots.”

-playing in Italy: “It was tough, because, at the time they always pinned the losses on the American players.  If we lost it was my fault.  I was averaging 30 a game and leading our team in assists, but it was never enough, even if the Italian guys were only putting up 9 points a night.  After one season, I asked them to buy me out, because I didn’t play 13 NBA seasons to be the scapegoat all the time.”

-the eyesore gold Kings jerseys: “I’ve heard that they were bad from a lot of people.  I don’t think they won a game in those things last year, so don’t expect to see them very often.”

-on the suggestion to go throwback powder blues: “I like that idea.  Wear the blues with the names under the numbers.  That would be pretty cool.”

-on announcing NBA games: “It’s the greatest job in the world.  I felt like I was robbing them.  I’m going to watch the game anyway, and they were paying me to talk about it.  I loved it.”

-on why college coaches struggle at the NBA level: “In college, the head coach controls everything and can manipulate or will a player to do what the coach wants.  You cannot do that at the NBA level, those guys (players) will not go for that.  You will lose them that way.”

-on Spencer Hawes: “He has tremendous feet.  It is really impressive.  He will struggle some early, because he is so young and raw, but his footwork is amazing.”

-on Ron Artest: “Nobody realizes how big he really is.  He’s like 260 lbs. of solid muscle.  He’s a tree out there. … He’s got some things going on, and I know that at some point during the season, he will have his issues, but that is to be expected.”

-on college life as a basketball star at UNLV: “If I told you everything that went on, I’d have to kill you.”

Quick hits:

• I am excited about the new era of basketball in Boston.  Watching Garnett’s passing ability with a real shooter in Ray Allen will be great.  No longer will he be kicking the ball out to Marko Jaric or Trenton Hassell.  Now he will be feeding dimes to Ray Allen, only the prettiest jumper in the NBA. 
• Too many people are saying that Boston lost it’s depth by dealing five players to Minnesota.  I don’t see that.  Theo Ratliff was not going to see any minutes this year, and neither was Bassy Telfair.  If anything, they lost two key components in Ryan Gomes and Al Jefferson and one erratic scorer in Gerald Green.  Ray Allen was already going to eat up the minutes for Green and Gomes will be replaced by Leon Powe, who will give them the exact same style of hard-nosed, glue guy hustle.  Now, Rondo will be forced to develop his game, which is a good thing.  Watch for him to make a jump to a Second Team All Defensive player this year.  And there will plenty of vets looking to hook up with Boston now.  P.J. Brown should sign with them soon.
• Switching gears: The Braves should lock down at least the Wild Card spot in the N.L. now that they added Mark Teixiera to their lineup.  McCann will see a ton of pitches hitting behind the switch-hitting first baseman, which is a great thing.  And the Braves added the one thing their offense was missing, production from the first base position.  Was giving up Saltalamaccia a lot? Yes, but he is probably better suited for the A.L. anyway, so he can catch some and play a lot of DH.  He certainly was not going to see a lot of innings behind McCann.  Also, Dotel will give them some great set-up production, like he did in Houston as Billy Wagner’s set-up man.  He belongs in that role, because he is too much of a head case to close games.

Enjoy the weekend, because A-Rod and Bonds will both reach their milestones very soon.

I want to thank the good people at ArmChairGM.com for being the first to compile a complete list of games officiated by Tim Donaghy over the past two seasons.  Not only that, they linked each game to the box scores of the games that are posted at NBA.com.  They saved me a ton of time, and allowed me to get some work done that will actually pay some bills. 

Anyhow, I plan to spend some time over the next few weeks looking at this site (and probably some others because I’d rather look at this stuff than analyze more medical records).  Stay tuned…

So I was working all morning, scrambling to find a file that we needed ASAP and I missed the entire David Stern press conference.  I’m going to try to catch it later.  I doubt that it will be worth posting anything by that time, because I am certain that everyone else out there in the blog world will have beaten the issue to death. 

In other federal indictment news, Michael Vick will not even need to heed my advice and take a ‘voluntary’ leave of absence, because Roger Goodell just told him to avoid showing up for camp altogether while this whole affair is analyzed under the player conduct policy of the NFL.  For Tim Donaghy, what is the over-under on games Vick will be suspended?  (Was that in bad taste?) 

For now, get caught up on the Legend.  He even made the cover of the mysanantonio.com coverage for the Dallas Cowboys camp.

Fox Sports had an excellent posting discussing the amounts of calls that Tim Donaghy made in relation to other officials.  Sorry, I don’t have the link yet, but you can easily find it at their website.  It was worth noting that the other official at the top of all of the statistics was NBA henchman, Dick Bavetta!!  I’m joking of course, but Bavetta has always been the guy quickly accosted in the “NBA is fixed” rumors. 

I know that the NFL keeps very detailed statistics about the impact of calls during a game, and hopefully some of you out there will be able to let me know if the NBA keeps similar statistics about the timing of fouls called.  Most teams frequently get to the bonus during games, but it would be interesting to see if Donaghy’s few extra calls were able to speed that process up as a means to add points with the clock stopped.

Urban Watch: In some totally unrelated, and actually positive football news, my man the Legend is getting ready to start Dallas Cowboys camp this week.  I will be watching the depth chart intently for his hopeful ascension up the receiver depth chart.  He is also stealing a Rosey move by trying to become the holder.  A good holder is essential, as Cowboy fans well know by now.  (In order to feel good that there are still some great people in professional sports, take a look at an older article about the Legend when he was a Seahawk.

And I’m not referring to my lady friend’s bachelorette party in Chicago (or my makeshift bachelor party in Louisville this weekend which served as a precursor to the upcoming festivities in Las Vegas). 

I am actually referring to the Tim Donaghy fiasco that could potentially rip up the NBA.  If you do not know what I am referring to, you obviously live in a cave (or a van down by the river).  You should probably study up on the subject, because right now Mr. Donaghy is all over the ESPN.com front page.  The Sports Guy even had a fresh column ready to read this morning.  (Check it out here).

More importantly, several people have already started throwing stuff on YouTube regarding games that Donaghy officiated.  Some of you may remember one of these games fondly, Game 3 of the Spurs-Suns series, which we had been referring to as the “knee-to-groin” game.  If you need a refresher, check out the link.  I’m pretty sure that I mentioned how awful I thought the officiating was in that game as well, and I was a fan of the team that ALLEGEDLY got officiating assistance. 

This is terrible news for the NBA, which has always had those rumors floating around about potential fixing, no matter how outlandish those ideas were.  You know what I am referring to.

Now it has been released that Donaghy has retained an attorney who has developed the reputation for working with ’whistle blowers.’  Who will Donaghy talk about, his mob ties or other officials?  This will get a lot worse before it gets any better. 

For right now, I will wait to post anything else about this subject.  What I would like to do, is find out the list of games that Tim Donaghy officiated over the past two seasons and then get a report about the betting lines and outcomes of those games.  How many games did Donaghy actually alter?  Another question to ponder is how far back does this go?  Just go ahead and Google Tim Donaghy’s name and see what else you can find out.  This could get really ugly, and it will give those NBA haters plenty of material for the coming seasons.

In other criminal news, the NFL is set to open training camps, and Michael Vick may have some more indictments coming, this time from the State of Virginia.  Unfortunately for Vick and the Falcons, this is not his first legal battle since coming into the league.  Who can forget the story of Ron Mexico?  Mr. Vick and the Falcons are rumored to be working on the voluntary leave of absence that I mentioned at the beginning of last week.  I would highly recommend it.

At least Major League Baseball was able to stay out of the negative press over the weekend.  Thank goodness Barry Bonds only hit two homeruns last Thursday at Wrigley Field.  Although, with all the nastiness that is surrounding the other two big sports, maybe this is the perfect time for Barry to break the record.  It may be as under-the-radar as possible right now, and after all, steroids versus the slaughtering of animals, which one do you think is worse? 

I must admit, I was furious when I heard about the Spurs-Rockets trade.  Jackie Butler and Luis Scola for a European player that does not want to return to the U.S. and a future 2nd round pick?  That is terrible.  Today, the real reason for the deal will become evident.  Spanoulis does not want to return to the U.S. and the Spurs expect him to make a formal request to have his contract removed from the books.  He is in the final year of his rookie contract, and because the Spurs are over the luxury tax threshold, this would save them close to $4 million.  Butler was not going to get minutes this year for the Spurs, because he is too big, too out of shape and too weak defensively.  However, I am still not a fan of this trade.  I really like Luis Scola’s toughness, rebounding, and ability to do the little things on both ends of the floor.  He is also a better scorer than Fabulous Fabrico Oberto. 

Butler for Spanoulis is something of a wash because it saved the Spurs money and Butler may not even get much time for the Rockets this season.  But, I still do not like the deal.  The Rockets needed some help in the post, specifically at power forward, and the Spurs gave two post players away for a 2nd round pick.  They should have held out for more.  There is speculation that several other teams showed plenty of interest in Scola.  If that were the case, I am sure the Spurs could have at least pried one or two more 2nd round selections from some teams.  Many teams just throw their 2nd round picks around freely without ever considering the possibility of landing a talented player. 

For those of you that want to do a little more learning about front-loaded or back-loaded player contracts, and why they are used, take a look at this article from realgm.com

One got 6 years, $126 million, the other got 5 years $57 million.  They both play the same position.

One has been in the league 9 seasons and is 27 years old, the other has been in the league 6 seasons and is 25 years old.

One played 60 games last season and averaged 39.2 minutes per game, the other played in 72 games and averaged 36.7 minutes per game.

One averaged a career-high 22.4 points per game last season on 46% shooting, while the other averaged a career-high 18.1 points per game on 50% shooting. 

If you did not know by now, the first player is Rashard Lewis and the second is Gerald Wallace.

Let’s take a better look at last season’s statistics:

Lewis -     39.7 mpg     46% shooting     6.6 rpg     2.4 apg     1.1 spg     0.7 bpg     22.4 ppg
Wallace -  36.7 mpg     50% shooting     7.2 rpg     2.6 apg     2.0 spg     1.1 bpg     18.1 ppg

Now, I did not list the fact that Rashard Lewis shoots about 12 percentage points higher than Wallace does from beyond the arc.  I also did not list the fact that Lewis is, at best, an ole’ defender while Wallace is one of the better defensive small forwards in the league.  Wallace also does a much better job of attacking the rim.  Despite the fact that Wallace is about 2 inches shorter, he averages more rebounds per game, which further shows his toughness. 

In case you were wondering, take a look at the stats for Lewis after his sixth season:

36.6 mpg     43% shooting     6.5 rpg     2.2 apg     1.2 spg     0.7 bpg     17.8 ppg

Aside from the increase in scoring, Lewis has been the exact same player statistically for about 5 years.  He will not dominate a game in any category, yet he is earning twice the amount of money that Wallace will earn.  I do not understand that, especially when Wallace is further along the curve than Lewis was after his sixth season.  The Magic chose to spend all of their money on Lewis this offseason, instead of spending their money on Wallace and Millicic.  Last time I checked two players were better than one, after all, this is a five person game.  The other thing that kills me about this deal is the fact that the Magic already have the same type of player, a much lesser version no doubt but still the same player, in Hedo Turkoglu.  Hedo is a 6′10″ three point shooter who plays little to no defense.  What was Lewis again? 

Look, I’m not knocking Rashard Lewis.  I like him both on and off the court (my limited sources have said he’s a great guy).  He’s young, talented, and a rare commodity (a tall athlete with a sweet shooting stroke).  But there is absolutely now way that he deserved that contract.  I think the Magic just would not know what to do with themselves if they were not severly overpaying a player to the point that it hamstrung all of their options for the foreseeable future.  (Read Grant Hill).  It is just totally absurd that Lewis would get that much money, more than any other player this summer.  The Magic would have been fine re-signing Millicic, Howard, Nelson, and Ariza and rolling over some of their cap money into next summer when players that are true franchise players become available.  Instead, the Magic have made themselves a middle of the pack team in the Eastern Conference that will not be good enough to go the distance.  Hope Lewis is enough to win over those Billy Donovan fans who are stuck with season tickets. 

In case you were wondering who you would probably spend $126 million on, I’m guessing it is this guy (well, eventually)

Urban Watch:  I was in San Antonio a few weeks ago, and I had the opportunity to spend the day with my old teammate/friend, Jerheme Urban.  Jerheme is still living the D-III dream.  He’s on the Cowboys roster, and according to him (and this), he has a great shot at making the team.  Hopefully, he will make the squad and I will get to hear some more great stories about his continuous efforts to have Jerry Jones recognize him on the golf course.  (Someday, I will tell you guys the story also).

For now, let’s just relish in the fact that my man scored his first (and only thus far) NFL touchdown on Monday Night Football.  

Every once in a while while scouring the Summer League rosters, I see long lost college stars that never quite made to the NBA.  Then, once in a blue moon, I discover something far more interesting, players that I actually played well against while growing up in San Antonio.  This always makes me feel good, in an I-need-something-because-I-never-really-achieved-the-success-I-was-hoping-for-and-now-feel-aged-and-diminished-athleticly type of way.  This feeling began when I had the opportunity to watch Devin Brown succeed as a Spur.  Brown was a star in the San Antonio high school sports scene when I was entering my junior year in high school.  We had the opportunity to play West Campus at our house that year.  Brown showed up wearing the Horace Grant blue rec-specs, and we immediately wrote him off.  We also had a 6′9″ center who was hoping to garner some area recognition by shutting Brown down.  Well, Devin went for something like 40 points, at least that’s how I remember it.  I guarded Devin for about 1 minute and 33 seconds, and he did not score on me.  It’s pathetic, I know, but at this point, I’ll take whatever recognition I can get. 

Two summers ago, I was watching some Summer League games and I discovered a player that I played many games against in high school.  His name was Steven Barber and he was playing for the New York Knicks.  I watched that game intently, and Barber played very well.  In fact, he played well enough to earn a preseason roster spot with the Knicks.  He did not make the roster, and I failed to pay too much attention to what he was doing.  The story does not end there however.  Earlier this morning, when I should have been working, I was checking out the 2007 Pepsi Summer League rosters.  During my search, I was happy to see that Steven Barber was once again on the NBA radar.  He is currently on the Orlando Magic summer league roster.  He did not play in the first game (check the box score), but I will be watching the Magic box scores in the hopes that Barber will get some run. 

You see, I went to a high school that was in the same district as Barber’s high school, and we were in the same class year.  Therefore, I played against Steven two times per year.  His high school was much more talented than ours, and they always killed us in basketball.  During our freshman year, we were both the leading scorers for our teams.  He was the point guard, he was probably 5′5″ at the time, and I was our power forward.  They ran a 2-3 zone against us, which always suprised me, because they easily could have manned up on us.  (It did not matter, they beat us by 30 every time).  However, I was able to find all kinds of holes in their zone at the high post, and averaged 23 against them.  (I can only verify this, because when I was cleaning things out of my old room at my parents’ house, I found an old scrap book of newspaper clippings and other sports stuff that my dad kept for me).  We also met up in AAU games during the summer.  There were guys who were just as talented as Steven, both on his high school teams and his AAU teams, but for one reason or another, they disappeared off the radar.  Obviously, my game never fully developed (neither did my height, I think I grew one inch in high school) and I went on to be another anonymous Division III athlete (football and baseball), while Steven went on to be a star at UT-Arlington.  (Read more here).  It just feels good to know that some people that I played against have been able to continue playing and doing what they love to do.  Trust me, I would rather be pulling 1,000 jumpers a day than sitting at a desk. 

Recently, he has been bouncing around leagues (playing briefly in the new ABA, the USBL, and the NBDL last year), looking for a home and an opportunity to continue to play the game we all love.  I can only hope that he enjoys every second of his journey, and the people here at nbahoops.blog.com (me) will be rooting for him and keeping a watchful eye on his career.

I took some time this weekend to watch some NBA Summer League Games, which was quite enjoyable.  True, these games are guard-dominated, and 95% of the players will be playing in Europe or the D-League, but I just enjoy watching basketball.  Here are some thoughts:

• Kevin Durant’s silky-smooth offensive game looks just as good when he shoots 5-17 as it does when he shoots 12-17.
• Rudy Gay may be poised to make the leap this year, because all the skills are there.  He doesn’t show much intensity, he just makes everything look easy and fun.  His demeanor reminds me of Carmello Anthony when ‘Melo flicks the switch on.
• The Memphis Grizzlies are going to shock some teams early by running and gunning. 
• The Celtics may actually have been lucky to trade for Ray Allen instead of Shawn Marion, because it looks like they found the bootleg version of Marion in Brandon Wallace.  Wallace is 6′10″ and oozes super-athlete out of his pores.  His body size and length even closely resembles Marion.  If he can play solid ball for the Celtics in his limited minutes this year, he could be a dominant rebounder at the small forward/power forward positions. 
• Gerald Green, on the other hand, still takes too many TERRIBLE shots.
• I really hope that Daniel Gibson did not seriously injure his ankle against Team China.  Gibson looked extremely confident in the first half of that game, and should be ready to start at the point for the Cavs next season.
• Shannon Brown is an athletic freak.  I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do when Larry Hughes goes down for an extended stretch of time this season.
• I would like to apologize to Team China for saying that the Houston Rockets’ uniforms look like theirs.  That was just wrong, the Rockets’ uniforms look MUCH worse.
• Speaking of Team China, Yi Jianlian looks pretty darn good against D-Leaguers.  He’s not dominating them like 5′6″ trainers or folding chairs, but Yi is definetly putting up a pretty good showing thus far.
• Trying to be a defensive force in a Summer League game while D-League-in-training officials are calling the game has not helped Greg Oden.  However, there have been faint glimpses of his monstrous ability, like his three point play on an offensive rebound in his first game.
• If I’m a Portland Trailblazers fan right now, I’m giddy.  The twosome of LaMarcus Aldridge and Greg Oden looks really impressive.  That team is loaded with young talent at every position.  At point guard, they have Sergio Rodriguez and Jarret Jack.  At shooting guard they have Brandon Roy.  At small forward, they have Martell Webster and Travis Outlaw.  At power forward, they have LaMarcus Aldridge and Josh McRoberts, and they’ve got Greg Oden at center.  Then they have five other players developing overseas.  In the words of my old friend Mox, ouches.

In other news, fairwell to Dan Patrick.  Patrick will be leaving ESPN Radio, and his final broadcast will be August 17. 

Alright, so immediately after I posted my story about Tim Duncan being the greatest power forward of all time, there were numerous attacks demanding I look at the facts.  They all requested that I place Kevin Garnett ahead of Tim Duncan.  Just ain’t happening.  Sorry.  Too bad.  I don’t care how many times you say that Tim has had better support around him.  Anyway, I will go ahead and counter some of their arguments for you.

One person had the gall to say that Tim’s supporting cast was better, because he had Hall of Famer David Robinson alongside of him for two championships.  You will never, EVER hear me say anything negative about The Admiral, who I believe is the greatest human being to ever play professional sports.  However, David was not even a shell of himself during his final season, which was championship number two.  Check out his stats that season.  Then, that person went on to use the name Rasho Nesterovic, which completely discounted his opinion.  Hello, the Spurs signed Rasho from Minnesota (go here to refresh your memory).  He was playing alongside Kevin Garnett first where he had his best statistical season, and Rasho lost his job to Nazr Mohammed during championship number 3.  Yes, that is the same Nazr Mohammed who started 33 games for the Pistons this season.  The point being, Tim took Rasho a heck of a lot farther than K.G. was able to do.  In my opinion, Rasho was worthless in both locations.  Meanwhile, Nazr Mohammed has been worthless in Atlanta, Detroit, and New York.  The only time he was relevant and useful was during his late season play after being dealt to the Spurs during 2005.  Other than that, he’s been a stiff.  I think that production had something to do with the guy on the other end of the post with him. 

Also, during the first title season, Tim was the only All Star.  The rest of his starting five consisted of severly UNDERRATED Avery Johnson, the rapidly aging Mario Elie, Sean Elliott on dialysis (seriously because of his kidney failure, yet he played his tail off every game of the postseason), and David Robinson who was having serious back problems by that time. 

During the second title season, Tony Parker was still figuring it out, and even spent the majority of the finals series on the bench being replaced by Speedy Claxton.  Manu Ginobili was still figuring the NBA out, and Stephen Jackson, when not losing his mind, was the second most important player on that roster.  Oh yeah, go ahead and check out Tim’s stat line in the closeout game.

During title number three (2005), Tim once again had a monster game in game 7.  This was his most frustrating NBA finals, and arguably, Manu Ginobili could have been the Finals MVP.  Instead, Tim got Finals MVP number three to go along with his three titles.  This team, however, began to show the evolution of the Spurs, especially when they ran through the Mavericks and the Suns, outscoring their running-and-gunning opponents as well as beating them up defensively.  And who can forget Robert Horry’s 21-point performance?

During this last title, which by my count is four, the Spurs continued their push towards a higher octane offense, despite the incessant labeling of ‘team vanilla’ by the media.  Once again, that makes four titles in ten years.  The first one came during Tim’s second season.  Each of these titles have had different key players, except for these last two where the Spurs have relied on the three-headed monster of Tim-Tony-Manu.  The 1999 title team and the 2003 title team were completely different rosters, with the only returning players being David Robinson, Tim Duncan, and Steve Kerr.  Yep, you read that right.  If you really need more information than this, I’ll let USA Today break it down for you as well.

Is Tim as entertaining as Kevin Garnett?  Hell no.  I once watched K.G. get all in Steve Nash’s grits as Nash tried to break him down off the dribble on the defensive end.  All Garnett did was man him up, beat Nash to every spot, and then clap in Nash’s face as Steve got frustrated.  That was during a first-round playoff series against Dallas.  The problem, Minnesota lost.  That is exactly what they’ve done every year in the postseason since K.G. became their guy (with the exception of the first year of the Sam Cassell, Latrell Sprewell experiment).  Has K.G. had a lot of help from the front office?  No.  In fact, that front office has been, in my opinion, the worst in basketball over the last six years.  I know that such a statement pisses off Billy Knight, Billy King, and Elgin Baylor.  However, this was a franchise that had players pining to play alongside Garnett, unlike Atlanta.  K.G. was also willing to openly accept a potential star, unlike Philly, who had to ship out potential stars like Larry Hughes and Jerry Stackhouse during the early Iverson years.  And Elgin Baylor actually fleeced Kevin McHale in the Cassell-Jaric swap.  Unbelievable, when Elgin, the veteran of the lottery process, makes you look dumb as a general manager, you know you are in over your head.

The only problem, Kevin Garnett, the supposed greatest power forward of all time, has missed three consecutive postseasons.  Three.  There is no way that happens when over half of the NBA teams get into the postseason.  Therein lies the problem.  As it stands right now, with Duncan’s four titles and K.G.’s one foray into the second round of the playoffs, this argument is somewhat (repeat, somewhat) like comparing Tracy McGrady to Kobe Bryant.  (By the way, Tracy is the other uber-talented star to never play in a second round).  Much to my chagrin (and Tracy’s), Kobe has three rings while T-Mac can’t get out of the first round.  Has Kobe had a better supporting cast? Um, yeah, until recently, yet without Shaq, Kobe has gone just as far as T-Mac has gone (with Yao). 

Their regular season statistics are very close, with Tim edging out K.G. in field goal %.  But, I will break it down accordingly for everyone, because I am the person who believes that winning is the most important factor of them all.

Tim                                                           K.G.
4 titles                                                     0 titles
2 regular season M.V.P.’s                        1 regular season M.V.P.’s
3 Finals M.V.P.’s                                       0 Finals M.V.P.’s
4-0 in NBA Finals                                      0 NBA Finals

By the way, Tim has been higher in voting for regular season MVP and Defensive Player of the Year for the duration of his career.  Even when nobody is talking about him, just like this past regular season, he ends up finishing in the top-3 in both categories.  Just thought I would throw that in there for good measure.