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Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce Enjoy Pleasant Gentlemen's Argument

Duo debates best player in the Eastern Conference.

Kyle Koster

It's the NBA offseason so that means Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce got to argue about who the best player in the Eastern Conference is at the current moment on the latest episode of All The Smoke's The Ticket and the Truth.

The following 107 seconds is a stunningly efficient microcosm of sports-debate content in 2024 with no clear winner and someone saying what the other person just said they couldn't say—replete with a vague hand wave toward someone or something "being in the conversation."

All set in motion by Pierce, quite reasonably, suggesting that Giannis Antetokounmpo was atop the Eastern Conference mountain. Perhaps you remember him from winning a championship the last time he was healthy. Garnett was not having it and they were off.

This feels like ... what most arguments are, beat by beat. One person is interested in exploring the gray areas and the other won't even consider playing in that space. There's a lot of focus on semantics and the exact meaning of intentionally nebulous terms. Then the requisite "would you take it/them over X" for a few rounds. And ultimate both parties just kind of stands pat in their belief in their player or team. Like a big debate about what the best flavor of soda is that ends with the person who likes root beer choosing that and the one who likes Sprite passionately disagreeing.

It's also a good reminder of how much recency—or recency bias—can come into play. It's impossible to imagine a world where someone would say Embiid was better than Giannis before the Olympics. Heck, before the gold medal game in the Olympics. And the knock on Tatum is that he couldn't win the big one before he won the big one and then didn't play meaningful minutes in the Olympics.

Excited to check back on this a week into the next season.

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Kyle Koster

KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

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