Consider the following:
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KG averaged under 20 PPG career
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KG never averaged 25 PPG for a season
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KG’s career FG% is under .500, and his 2PT% is only .504. He is 234th all-time in career 2PT% and has none of the 250 best seasons of 2PT%
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KG’s TS% was only .546, and he never shot 59% TS%.He does NOT rank in the Top 250 in career T5%, nor does he have any of the 250 best seasons by TS
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KG wasn’t a great spacer. His career 3 PT% was under 30%, he averaged far less than one 3PM a game, and never made more than 50 3s in a season
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KG wasn’t elite at finishing from close. Many other 4s and 5s converted a higher percentage of close shots than he, and on higher volume as well
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KG wasn’t a creator. Over two-thirds of his field goals came off of assists.
I could go on, but I think those seven points establish why KG is NOT an elite scorer or shooter. Compared to other forwards, KG is far outstripped on scoring not only by fellas like KG, LeBron and Kawhi, but even by somebody like AD, who a) had higher volume in his prime, b) does better from the inside, and c) does better from the outside.
That’s probably his biggest weakness. Rarely a double team threat.
I think he’s just someone fans think could have done more had he wanted to maybe. Offensively.
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Adjust this to today’s pace.
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isn’t even a thing. 3 point spacing wasn’t a thing bigs needed to do in the 2000s. his long midrange was “spacing”.
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This is fine if you mention how good KG was at creating for others as a big. 6 seasons with 5+ assists was elite for a big back then, in again, one of the slowest eras of ball.
Adjust KG’s minutes to today’s levels tho.
Adjust KG playing in the ISO heavy era to today’s more team oriented era.
People simplify it too much. Guys back then played huge minutes and got to ISO like crazy. Nowadays you see MVPs like Giannis play 30 minutes a game. Some dudes (Luka, Trae, etc) control the offense at insane levels, but the average star is part of a very team oriented offense.
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You really can’t compare KG to any of the people you mentioned. It would have to be Duncan, Webber and Dirk. And we know that Dirk is the best shooter out of those 3.
Also, I don’t think anyone ever said that KG was an elite scorer, so no idea where this is coming g from. He was however, and absolute amazing all around player who spent his prime averaging 20/10/5 as a defensive anchor.
A major knock on him in the Minnesota media during his prime was that he was not doing the sort of AI/Kobe “put the team on my back and take all the shots” sort of player.
Overall sounds like you just want to take KG down a peg for some bizarre reason, when there’s no need to do so.
In his MVP season (where he didn’t cross 25 ppg), he was tied for second in the league in scoring, and had an eFG% that was better than Dirk, and the same as Duncan