Whitlock amiss on Garnett

This discussion won't be about whether or not Garnett has crashed the boards hard enough or taken too many outside shots in the finals. Someone else can debate that. I'm going to challenge the most important part of what Jason said in today's column.
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"Garnett started this championship series in the debate for the greatest power forward of all time. You could mention him in the same sentence with Tim Duncan, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley and Elvin Hayes.

Now, I'd put Garnett a cut ahead of Dirk Nowitzki and Dan Issel.

He's a 7-footer with too much skill.... He looks like the second coming of Ralph Sampson."
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Here is my objection. How does any 13-year veteran go from being in the debate for X level of greatness... and 3 games later (which his team leads 2-1, by the way) is being downgraded to Y level of greatness?

Garnett can EASILY be mentioned in the "same sentence with Tim Duncan, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley and Elvin Hayes". Frankly, there is little comparison between Garnett and Nowitzki or Issel - even if they are/were very good players. Furthermore, comparing him to Ralph Sampson is completely unfair. Simply put, Garnett is one of the top 25-30 players in NBA history.

Garnett, Duncan, Malone, Barkley all won at least one MVP trophy. Hayes, Nowitzki, Issel and Sampson did not. Except for Duncan, there are few titles among the group.

Shown below are the comparative stats between Garnett, Duncan, Malone, Barkley and Hayes. Even though Garnett more than holds his own in these comparisons, one category simply isn't measured at all here - defense. Garnett and Duncan have both been named to the All-Defensive first team seven times. Malone received that honor on three occasions. Neither Barkley or Hayes received such acclaim.

Player	PPG	RPG	APG	FG%	FT%	EFF*
Garnett	20.4	11.2	4.4	49.4	78.1	27.13
Duncan	21.6	11.8	3.1	50.8	68.4	26.59
Malone	25.0	10.1	3.6	51.6	74.2	26.94
Barkley	22.1	11.7	3.9	54.1	73.5	28.16
Hayes	21.0	12.5	1.8	45.2	67.0	23.29

In my opinion, Jason is basing a career upon a single game or a single series or a single playoff season. Garnett has participated in well over 1,000 games in 13 years. If he was one of the greatest power forwards of all time a week ago, guess what... he still is.

*EFF = NBA Efficiency Rating = [(Pts+Reb+Ast+Blk+Stl)-(TO+MissedFG+MissedFT)]/Games Played