Who's the Top PF?

There are a lot of names that probably pop out when you think about "the best PF in the league", the number gets narrower when you go to "the best PF ever".  T'Wolves blogger College Wolf asked the question who is "better" or who would you rather go with?  Tim Duncan or Shaquille O'Neal?  Legitimate question.  There's always of course that controversy of whether or not Duncan is a PF or a C, or is he a PF that plays like a C, etc...  However you want to look at it.  Now a lot of people speculate over the best way to develop a big man to play at the NBA level, and I believe that either way is successful depending on the player.  Now, I pose this question, comparing two polar-opposites that play the same position: who would you rather take; Tim Duncan or Kevin Garnett?

Let's do a peripheral comparison first:

Career Profile	Tim Duncan	Kevin Garnett
Height	6-11	6-11
Weight	255 lbs	253 lbs
Age	32 (born April, 25 1976)	32 (born May 19, 1976)
Experience	12 years (1st pick 1997 draft)	14 years (5th pick 1995 draft)
Points per game (PPG)	21.5	20.2
Rebounds per game (RPG)	11.8	11.1
Assists per game (APG)	3.2	4.3
Steals per game (SPG)	0.8	1.4
Blocks per game (BPG)	2.4	1.7
FG%	50.8%	49.6%
FT%	68.4%	78.2%

While their stats, size, age, experience are all pretty similar, these two players are about as different as night and day.  

Duncan spent 4 years in Wake Forest averaging 16.5 points, 12.3 rebounds, and 2.3 assists per gameshooting 57.7% from the field and 68.9% from the charity stripe.  Additionally, Duncan has won 4 championship rings with the Spurs (1999, 2003, 2005, 2007).  Duncan is a 10 time All-Star (soon to be 11), and is also a 2 time MVP, 3 time Finals MVP, 1 time All-Star MVP, and former Rookie of the Year.  He's made the All-NBA first team 9 times, the All-Defensive first team 8 times, the All-NBA second team twice, the All-Defensive second team three times, and was on his draft class's All-Rookie first team.  Throughout his career Duncan has scored 18,765 points, grabbed 10,236 boards, dished 2758 assists, blocked 2,078 shots, stolent he ball 674 times over his career.

Garnett on the other hand, went straight to the NBA from Farragut Academy High School in Chicago.  Garnett has won one championship ring with the current Boston Celtics, appeared in the All-Star game 11 times (soon to be 12), won Defensive Player of the Year, as well as 1 MVP and 1 All-Star MVP.  Made his draft class's All-Rookie second team, was named in the All-NBA first team 4 times, the second team 3 times, and the third team once, was on the All-Defensive first team 7 times and the second team twice.  Over his career he's scored 21,146 points, grabbed 11,618 rebounds, dished out 4,515 assists, stolen the ball 1,439 times, and blocked 1,723 shots.

If we were to do a straight timeline comparison, we could take out Garnett's rookie and sophomore year, and start from when Duncan entered the league.  Then we would have something like this:

1997-2009	Tim Duncan	Kevin Garnett
Total Points	18,765	19,002
Total Rebounds	10,236	10,499
Total Assists	2,758	4,134
Total Steals	674	1,248
Total Blocks	2,078	1,429
Games Played	871	888
PPG	21.5	21.4
RPG	11.8	11.8
APG	3.2	4.7
SPG	0.8	1.4
BPG	2.4	1.6
FG%	50.8%	49.5%
FT%	68.4%	78.6%

We could do statistics all day, but, you have to also note who each player played with to attribute some of their success to, let's compare the starters for each team when they won championships:

Teammates	Tim Duncan	Kevin Garnett
1998-1999	Avery Johnson Sean Elliott Mario Elie  David Robinson	Stephon Marbury Anthony Peeler Joe Smith Dean Garrett
2002-2003	Tony Parker Stephen Jackson Bruce Bowen David Robinson	Troy Hudson Wally Sczerbiak Anthony Peeler Rasho Nesterovic
2004-2005	Tony Parker Manu Ginobili Bruce Bowen Rasho Nesterovic	Sam Cassell Wally Sczerbiak Latrell Sprewell Michael Olowakandi
2006-2007	Tony Parker Manu Ginobili* Bruce Bowen Fabricio Oberto	Mike James Trenton Hassell Ricky Davis Mark Blount
2007-2008	Tony Parker Manu Ginobili* Bruce Bowen Fabricio Oberto	Rajon Rondo Ray Allen Paul Pierce Kendrick Perikins

* While Ginobili technically was coming off the bench for Michael Finley, we'll count him as a starter as he got the starter's share of the minutes

So given the sorry state of the Timberwolves for the majority of the time that Kevin Garnett was with them, we can't really base this on championships alone.  

What's your take?