For the sake of brevity, I combined two points in this week’s Three-Man Weave to create a very special two-point edition.

Three days ago Sean Deveney of Sporting News reported that the Los Angeles Clippers were interested in acquiring 36 year-old Kevin Garnett from the Boston Celtics.  There were a couple weird things about the report, including its timing.  Deveney tweeted the tip hours before tip-off of a Super Bowl Sunday game between the Clippers and the Celtics, and the story broke on Sporting News NBA shortly after halftime.  It’s impossible to know how much impact the report had on the game, but all signs from the Celtics point to no impact whatsoever.

The other odd thing about the Clippers’ alleged interest in Garnett is his contract.  It isn’t prohibitively expensive for Los Angeles (he signed a three-year, $34 million contract last June), but it does have a no-trade clause that only Garnett can waive.  Garnett took a pay cut to join Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki as the only players in the league with the clause in their contracts.

The NBA trade deadline is February 21, and anyone who has followed the NBA near the trade deadline knows about all the frenetic trade rumors that come at this point in the season.  Just look at HoopsHype’s “Rumors” page.  The closer we move to the deadline, the more that page title will look like it ought to have “Trade” in front of it.  For a refresher on the 2011-2012 NBA trade deadline moves, check out NBA.com.

Injuries to Rajon Rondo and Jared Sullinger, coupled with a shaky season, provide enough incentive to speculate the Celtics trading away Garnett (or Paul Pierce) to get younger.  Without Garnett, the character of the team would change; there’s no arguing that.  Instead, this week’s Give-and-Go uses data to argue why Garnett should stay a Celtic, regardless of offer.

1. The Celtics cannot realistically replace Garnett’s impact on the defensive end. 

According to 82games.com, the 2012-2013 Celtics are 22-20 with Garnett on the floor.  This is not far off from their 24-23 overall record because Garnett is on the floor 30.1 minutes per game.  But take a look at Boston’s most experienced five-man floor units.  Garnett is a part of five of the six Celtic lineups with the highest winning percentages.

Why might that be?  Garnett has always been a gifted scorer (this season he averages 17.7 points per 36 minutes, right on his average the past four years), but I think his defense is what makes him invaluable to the Celtics. Unsurprisingly, Garnett plays with 13 of the top 20 most-used Celtics units.  Only two of those 13 units give up more than 0.99 points per opponent possession.  Out of the seven most-used lineups without Garnett, only one gives up less than 1.01 points per opponent possession, and it is the least-used lineup in the top 20.

It’s tough to objectively gauge defensive performance in basketball, even with points per opponent possession.  There are plenty of variables: who’s on the floor for both teams, what’s the score, what quarter it is and what’s at stake all come into play.  But Garnett’s presence in the Celtic’s best, most-experienced defensive lineups is enough evidence to suggest that he has a large, mathematically tangible impact on the Celtics defense.  As of now, there is no young frontcourt player on the market that comes close to replacing his defensive value.  Maybe that will change in the offseason when Dwight Howard and (gulp) Andrew Bynum become free agents.  They are 27 and 25 years old respectively.

2. Garnett measurably raises his level of play in the playoffs, while facing tougher competition and more pressure.

In the 2012 playoffs, Garnett became a better player than he was during the 2011-2012 regular season.  In 20 Celtic playoff games last year, Garnett averaged 3.4 more points per game, jumping from 15.8 points in the regular season to 19.2 in the postseason.  He also raised his total rebounding percentage (an estimate of the percentage of available rebounds, offensive and defensive, a player grabbed while he was on the floor, per Basketball Reference) 2.2 points.  Granted, the sample size of playoff games is considerably smaller than regular season games.  However, due to the lockout-shortened season and the Celtics long, highly contested playoff run, Granett’s 20 playoff games would represent a third of the 60 games he played in the regular season.  The sample size is proportionally much larger than it would be any other season.

On top of that, Garnett has averaged about 18.1 points per 36 minutes in his three playoff runs of 20 games or more with the Celtics.  In Boston’s second round exit during the 2010-2011 playoffs, Garnett averaged just 14.7 points per 36 minutes in nine games.  And in case you place too much of that on Garnett’s poor performance against the Heat, notice that his efficiency rating was only a fraction smaller then than it was during the 2009-2010 playoffs, when the Celtics made it to the NBA Finals.  If Boston wants its best chance to win playoff games this year or next, Garnett should to retire a Celtic.