On Friday, Kevin Garnett announced his retirement after 21 seasons in the NBA, joining fellow legends Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan in bringing a curtain down on Hall of Fame careers in 2016. It truly is the end of the era.
Garnett is obviously an all-time NBA great, but just where does he belong in the conversation? How does he stack up against Bryant and Duncan?
While Garnett's career won't likely put him in the discussion of the top 10 players of all time with Bryant and Duncan -- he finished 21st in ESPN's All-Time #NBArank earlier this year, while Duncan finished eighth and Bryant 12th -- his performance in the regular season stacks up favorably.
In fact, a case can be made that Garnett would be at the same level as Duncan and Bryant if not for the weak supporting cast Garnett played with in his prime with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Garnett's regular-season success
Earlier this year, I unveiled the championships added metric to evaluate NBA players historically using Basketball-Reference.com's win shares for the regular season and playoffs as well as award voting.
When it comes to the regular-season component, Garnett finishes his career 12th in NBA history with 1.15 championships added -- ahead of Bryant (.98, 17th) and not far behind Duncan (1.27, 10th).
In part, that owes to longevity. Because he was the first NBA player in the modern era to enter the league directly out of high school, Garnett played 21 seasons and the fifth-most games (1,462) in NBA history. Because of his superior durability late in his career, Duncan narrowed the gap, but Garnett still played nearly a full season of games more than Duncan (70). And because of Bryant's injuries, Garnett edges him out by 116 games.
Additionally, value statistics suggest that Garnett had the best individual regular seasons of the three players. His 18.3 win shares in 2003-04, when Garnett won his only MVP award, surpass the best seasons by Duncan (17.8 in 2001-02) and Bryant (15.3 in 2005-06).
My wins above replacement (WARP) metric ranks Garnett's 26.3 WARP in 2003-04 as the fifth-best season since 1977-78 (the first season the NBA tracked individual turnovers).
Just three players -- LeBron James, Michael Jordan and David Robinson -- have surpassed that total in a regular season.
ESPN's real plus-minus (RPM) is even more effusive about Garnett's value. In terms of the wins above replacement (WAR) derived from RPM and minutes played, Garnett has the two best seasons since RPM was first calculated in 2000-01. (Surprisingly, his 2002-03 season ranks just ahead of his MVP campaign.)
The key to Garnett's success in these metrics was his versatility. Garnett had three seasons during which he averaged at least 20 points, 10 rebounds and five assists per game. Over the past two decades, Chris Webber (in 2002-03) is the only other player to accomplish that feat, according to Basketball-Reference.com.
Missing playoff success
Garnett's 2002-03 is perhaps emblematic of his first stint in Minnesota. That season, when he posted the best RPM in the past 16 years, the Timberwolves finished fourth in the Western Conference with 51 wins and lost in the opening round of the playoffs to the three-time defending champion L.A. Lakers -- Minnesota's seventh consecutive loss in the first round.
The following season, when Garnett won MVP, Minnesota enjoyed its best season with newcomer Sam Cassell at point guard, winning 58 games and earning the top seed in the West. In the conference finals, however, the Timberwolves were knocked off by the Lakers, and their best chance to contend with Garnett was already past. Minnesota missed the playoffs the next two seasons despite Garnett posting MVP-caliber statistics -- the first two years of an ongoing, 12-season streak.
By the summer of 2007, Garnett's desire to win had surpassed his loyalty to the Timberwolves, and he agreed to a trade to the Boston Celtics. Teamed with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce in Boston, Garnett put the lie to the notion he couldn't succeed in the postseason, helping the Celtics to a title in 2008 and a seven-game Finals loss in 2010.
Still, the damage to Garnett's playoff value was already done. He finished his career tied for 47th (with Kendrick Perkins and James Worthy) in playoff games played with 143, 77 fewer than Bryant and an incredible 108 fewer than Duncan. As a result, he ranks just 48th in playoff championships added (.34) as compared to .88 for Bryant (12th) and 1.18 for Duncan (sixth).
In part, this does reflect that Garnett was not quite as dominant in the playoffs. As I noted in comparing him to Duncan in 2013, Garnett's per-minute rating in WARP dropped by 8 percent from the regular season to the playoffs through that point. Duncan's did not drop at all.
Still, the larger factors in Garnett's limited postseason track record in Minnesota were the quality of his teammates and the opposition in the West. The Timberwolves had the misfortune of being in the wrong conference when the West was near the peak of its dominance relative to the East. In 2003, for example, Minnesota would have had the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference but finished fourth in the West.
Bryant and Duncan also had the luxury of playing with other star teammates, something Garnett didn't enjoy until his trade to Boston. From 1997-98, when Duncan was drafted, through 2006-07 the Spurs had six All-Star appearances besides Duncan, and the Lakers had eight besides Bryant. The Timberwolves had just two other than Garnett: Cassell in 2003-04 and Wally Szczerbiak in 2001-02.
Because playoff success is equally weighted with regular-season performance (also captured by awards) in championships added, Garnett (1.7) finishes 18th in NBA history, behind Bryant (2.33, 11th) and Duncan (2.78, sixth). But it's not entirely because of his own performance.