Do you know who also shot worse last season? The entire NBA because it was a lockout season. If I wanted to use stats that are biased by the lockout, I could argue that KG anchored the greatest defense in the no handchecking era based on their DRtg, but that would be stupid because all teams were better defensively because the league was worse offensively.
Yeah, and mostly because of increased minutes for crappier players, not because the already good players all played a lot worse. If you look at the top 50 players in the NBA, they averaged to produce the same as the previous year.
KG is declining. You addressed shooting percentage and ignored rebounding. That shouldn't be lockout affected, either.
The moment Bosh came back he went back to being the KG we saw the 1st half of the season. The one people argued was done.
I don't think this Boston team is good, I think they got super lucky that Horford, Rose, Noah, and Bosh all got injured or they would have been a first or second round exit. They're a completely terrible offensive team as well and not really a threat in the East, but this is a bad argument for why.
I didn't argue Boston's offense sucks because of KG at all. Where did you get that from. I argued their offensive rebounding kills their team's offense.
I said their gains by acquisitions will be offset by Pierce and KG's continual decline. Those two are going to get worse every season from here on out (really, this has been true for at least 2 seasons now).
Getting worse does not mean bad. KG at 75% of his 2008 self is still better than most of the league. But it's still worse. And a team like Boston isn't getting better without a bigger splash.
If this was 2008 KG, Boston would have beaten the Heat. But it wasn't. He isn't close to that anymore which was elite. Now he's just good.