Repost bc the last one was low effort. I’m gonna start this off by saying KAT every day of the week and twice on Sundays. I’ll explain my reasoning, but let’s clear some things up first.

This concerns who you feel is the most IMPACTFUL player, not necessarily the most skilled. While team success is a way to measure impact, I wouldn’t use that as my main argument, because everyone knows the Kings were horrible. At the same time, please don’t let that cloud your judgment on DMC’s actual impact on winning. Now let’s get to some juicy stats!

Using the 2015-2016 season* as DMC’s “peak”, the averages are as follows:

DMC-

65 games, 26.9 PPG/11.5 RPG/3.3 APG on 45/33/72 splits, NBA All-Star and Second Team All-NBA

KAT-

62 games, 21.8 PPG/8.3 RPG/3.0 APG on 50/41/87 splits, NBA All-Star

*IMO his best statistical season, but feel free to argue another season if you’d like.

Now for my opinion. Hate to be the one to break it to some of y’all, but DMC was wildly overrated. KAT could easily put up the same stats on a bad team, and he nearly did in the 2018-2019 season (24/12/3 on 51/40/85 splits) while also being an All-Star.

DMC was one of the best centers in a weak era for centers. He played no defense, was very inefficient, turnover-prone, foul-heavy, and legitimately lost games for the Kings with his attitude.

Was he still a very skilled scorer stuck on a horrible team? Yes. Did he influence the game for stretch bigs? Yes. Did he have some ridiculous scoring performances? Yes. But he would not be a top 5 center in today’s league, and we have to stop letting nostalgia trick us into thinking he would be.

KAT>DMC, but I would love to hear some arguments for the other way around.