2010-11 POY Voting Thread - Congrats Dirk Nowitzki!

[Gongxi]

Jesus Christ, .900? Funny compared to how people had him after the first round. Are we sure this isn't the Retro Finals MVP award, again? It really is kinda jaw-dropping how strong the perception/narrative that the best player holds the championship trophy at the end of every season. No other sport has such a culture around it...

[lorak]

If I'm allowed to vote (I was participating in POY project from the beginning):

1. Dirk
2. LeBron
3. Dwight
4. Wade
5. CP

[NO-KG-AI]

Jesus Christ, .900? Funny compared to how people had him after the first round. Are we sure this isn't the Retro Finals MVP award, again? It really is kinda jaw-dropping how strong the perception/narrative that the best player holds the championship trophy at the end of every season. No other sport has such a culture around it...

The fact that LeBron is dropping below Wade is getting funny too, he's better all year, and Wade plays like ass in Chicago while LeBron saves the series.

LeBron goes on to play like ass, while Wade does well, and they lose. Doesn't that say it all right there?

[ronnymac2]

Jesus Christ, .900? Funny compared to how people had him after the first round. Are we sure this isn't the Retro Finals MVP award, again? It really is kinda jaw-dropping how strong the perception/narrative that the best player holds the championship trophy at the end of every season. No other sport has such a culture around it...

The fact that LeBron is dropping below Wade is getting funny too, he's better all year, and Wade plays like ass in Chicago while LeBron saves the series.

LeBron goes on to play like ass, while Wade does well, and they lose. Doesn't that say it all right there?

I get the logic behind that.

But that's an odd argument to prove 2011 LBJ over 2011 D-Wade. You're saying Miami can't afford to have LBJ play badly. If he plays badly, they lose. Well, he played badly, and they lost in the NBA Finals. That event itself doesn't prove which player is better or worse at basketball.

It just shows that LBJ's individual play was a direct cause of his team losing. Why should that fact benefit LeBron?

[NO-KG-AI]

Well, it's a poor argument either way, because LeBron just had a flat out better season, but we really have two major series with a basis for comparison, and Miami won with Wade playing poorly (in 5 games no less) and when LeBron flatlined, they got beat.

If Wade's better finals, a series they lost, nullifies everything else that happened this season, then this project needs to be renamed or something, because the finals are carrying far too much weight.

[mopper8]

I'm very comfortable with Dirk-Wade-Howard in that order somewhere in 2-4. I'm very comfortable with Rose at 5.

I have -zero- conviction as to where to place Lebron though lol.

FWIW, I thought Wade was better before the season started and while Lebron was a little better than I thought, I still had the same frustrations with him that I had when he played for Cleveland, and he didn't do a ton to change my mind about his limitations as player. So its not like me sliding Lebron behind Wade (after initially having him at #1) is that surprising.

[kaima]

Have no idea if my vote will be counted.

But...

1)Dwight
2)Durant
3)Nowitzki
4)James
5)Wade

Try to flesh this out later.

Point and argument is this: correct balance of regular+playoff performances, and not allowing a team narrative, as well as favorable matchups, to cloud individual worth either pro or con.

In that sense, I very much looked at the context of the Finals -- wherein Dirk wasn't overwhelming, while James was simply under -- and that nudged Nowitzki over James.

Is that fair? I don't fully know. But I can't see James as number 1 after that, and I don't see a way in which Nowitzki was the best player for the entire, aggregate, look at the year.

Dwight Howard had the best mix of regular and post-seasons. I firmly believe that.

Small sample size? To me, it's the opposite -- Nowitzki's season, and career, are being defined by twenty games, while the other 82, wherein he was often an after-thought, are forgotten.

I believe that both players greatly helped their teams, but the team-result shouldn't overwhelm the individual's skillset and worth.

The problem for me, with LeBron, is that they conflated quite obviously at the absolute worst time. The team losses because he loses the plot individually, including his ability to facilitate -- i.e. beyond common box score stats, particularly PPG.

I have to dock him for that, even though I think he was the best player in the league for the rest of the year.

Honestly, I feel I'm being a bit harsh on LeBron and generous with Nowitzki. The latter wasn't top five for me before the playoffs.

And the past POY threads have been pretty consistent with that as well, wherein Nowitzki more often than not missed the cut.

The hagiography inherent with a championship.

Feels bizarre to leave Kobe off. And sad.

[kaima]

Jesus Christ, .900? Funny compared to how people had him after the first round. Are we sure this isn't the Retro Finals MVP award, again? It really is kinda jaw-dropping how strong the perception/narrative that the best player holds the championship trophy at the end of every season. No other sport has such a culture around it...

Rather explaining the career of The Sports Guy. A guy who was a lousy comedy writer, now using lame pop culture analogy and/or allegory to prop up opinions that are often unsupported by watching the games, with it all leading back to misty-eyed retellings of McHale-Bird-Russell-Cousy dominating games through team-result.

New England Bias clouds the sports media, and no sport has more NE (positive) myth-making than the NBA.

[shawngoat23]

1. Dirk
2. Dwight
3. Rose
4. LeBron
5. Wade

(And yes, Dwight and Dirk were my two leading MVP candidates before Dirk missed seven games with injury then became disrespected.)

(Also, pretty busy, didn't notice this thread until just now, so I slapped up a ballot without reading what others had to say. I feel pretty good about it though.)

[Doctor MJ]

Last call.

[Doctor MJ]

Alright guys. So here's the deal, in addition to the list of people at the beginning of this thread, there were a few people from the RPOY project who basically participated to the bitter end (when it was damned hard keeping the momentum alive) who submitted votes. I really don't have the heart to not count their votes. They've earned a spot.

However, I'm not still not counting every vote that was submitted here because I did mean what I said before. If I wanted this to be open to everyone who happened to want to cast a ballot at a particular time, I'd put it on the General Board. For me these projects are meant to be inclusive for basically anyone...who is willing to stay committed to a discussion-based project.

Without further ado:

'10-11 Results

Code: Select all

Player             1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts   POY Shares
1. Dirk Nowitzki    19   3   1   0   0 216   0.939
2. LeBron James      3  10   6   3   1 140   0.609
3. Dwight Howard     0   7  10   5   1 115   0.500
4. Dwyane Wade       1   3   4  11   3  87   0.378
5. Derrick Rose      0   0   1   3  11  25   0.109
6. Kevin Durant      0   0   1   0   5  10   0.043
7. Chris Paul        0   0   0   1   2   5   0.022


[Doctor MJ]

So if Dirk gets .900, he will edge out Baylor for #20 on the overall list. That's like exactly where he should be. Also looks like something #16 for Lebron and #19 for Wade. Looks pretty good for both as well

Hopefully sentient will update the DOLEM site. If he hasn't done it by tomorrow I'll post more details. But for now:

LeBron moves up from 18 to 16.
Wade moves up from 21 to 19.
Dirk moves up from 28 to 21 (and is only kept from entering the top 20 by Wade's move)
Howard moves up from 45 to 34
Durant moves up from 69 to 64
Rose enters the list at 70.
Paul despite his votes falls from 37 to 38 due to being passed by Howard.

[kaima]

Alright guys. So here's the deal, in addition to the list of people at the beginning of this thread, there were a few people from the RPOY project who basically participated to the bitter end (when it was damned hard keeping the momentum alive) who submitted votes. I really don't have the heart to not count their votes. They've earned a spot.

I don't fully see the logic in that, particularly to the side of coherence. Certain posters have helped to shift outcome with arguments and votes in certain threads -- for certain years -- therein already shifting results in an asynchronous manner.

Further, there are posters that have basically just cast votes year after year, while others -- though bowing out early -- vigorously debated for multiple threads.

And that doesn't even begin to account for certain posters that shifted standards depending on player(s). Or those born to different eras, more familiar with some than others.

I suspected that I would be left out, and as someone who was invited into this, rather than asking for a vote, that doesn't particularly bother me.

The logic, beyond some sort of "punishment", does however.

In that same sense, to be coherent, I think it would make sense -- under your own rubric -- to either re-debate and vote certain threads, or simply delete votes from people like myself.

Coherence -- in the context of argumentation and justification of votes, or for them, over the course of 'decades' of NBA play -- doesn't seem to be the baseline for these threads, or many arguments, though. Which was disappointing for me as the project dragged on, truth be told.

I would hope that you take into consideration the points made in this post, at least if the point is at all supposed to be a long-form, contiguous voting pattern that dovetails with posters providing real argumentation.

Is quantity also quality? Is a 'present' vote that is nothing beyond that standard, really worth more than information argued out in-depth, but in a more limited number of threads, by certain posters?

From a number of standpoints, it seems that this is not the point at all.

The project itself, it would seem, under your own standard has lost coherence, which is not to say cogency. Is it?

And if a vote is all that matters, well, it seems you have some re-tallying to do. If not? Well, then that's quite a bit more messy, I would say. Specifically as relates to this project's aggregate relevance by your own argued standard.

In any case, best of luck with future projects.

[_SRV_]

Jesus Christ, .900? Funny compared to how people had him after the first round. Are we sure this isn't the Retro Finals MVP award, again? It really is kinda jaw-dropping how strong the perception/narrative that the best player holds the championship trophy at the end of every season. No other sport has such a culture around it...

Just out of curiosity and justification sake, what would you vote for the '06 season?

Actually here it is:
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1007686#p23270359

Seriously? I mean, really, seriously?

[Gongxi]

My vote is in there, why do you ask?

And about the Sports Guy: exactly! One of the reasons I can't stand the dude, as entertaining as he can be, is because of that narrative bull. One of the reasons he gives for Jordan being the best ever is "command of the room". "Command of the room", are you **** kidding me? Let's just do this on how they played basketball, the real MVP is enough of a joke as is.

[_SRV_]

Because it was very similar scenario, only the opposite roles, and you didn't hesitate on making it "Wade's year". Despite Dirk leading the league in PER and WS, and finishing second in MVP votes.
Your lack of consistency is screaming.

[kaima]

And about the Sports Guy: exactly! One of the reasons I can't stand the dude, as entertaining as he can be, is because of that narrative bull. One of the reasons he gives for Jordan being the best ever is "command of the room". "Command of the room", are you **** kidding me? Let's just do this on how they played basketball, the real MVP is enough of a joke as is.

I believe in the "it" factor, but I also think it's a Hollywood stage presence argument rather than proof of athletic greatness.

The Sports Guy's narrative is disturbing to me only because so many people take it seriously -- he often mis-remembers events, plainly twists them to fit arguments that he has arrived out through pre-existing notions and underlying bias (particularly for the Celtics, obviously), and tries to cover for so much of this through compounding allegory/analogy that appeals on some sort of 'Family Guy' (ugh) scale.

From my perspective, it's all pretty awful.

And he gets away with it, most of all, in regards to the NBA, moreso than MLB or NFL. Why? Because he knows more about that sport?

Hardly. Or perhaps he understands its intertext, and its meta-trappings -- such as those you've complained about in this thread.

The MLB has such a rich history, much of it based on statistical obsession and analysis and, later, the ability to analyze decades of tape (my particular preference, if allowed the choice) that the type of arguments that The Sports Guy makes for the NBA simply wouldn't pass the smirk test, be taken seriously, were they used in relation to the latter sport, as broadly and shamelessly.

In basketball, there's always the sense of the moment -- not relative to the greatness of the past, in deference or respect, but as an element that MUST be better than what has come before -- and this obviousl,y leads to analysis that is zero-sum through team-result.

The reason why Chris Paul was, magically, one of the best players in the league in a six-game playoff series, and possibly the best PG again, only to be an also-ran within a couple weeks of elimination.

It rather reminds me of my own introduction to the NBA, watching Magic and the Lakers from infancy.

By the time I actually paid any attention, say by five, it was myth made real. An assumption that couldn't be disproven.

When I later thought about skillsets, it was an odd deconstruction that started with my favorite player and has continued; that is, did it matter that Magic was a mediocre, at best, defender?

I've wrestled with that since I was about 13. (kosher cliche?)

These are, I believe, the types of questions that Simmons can dismiss, simply by offering up pop-culture-narrrative schtick; the thing about that is, of course and appropriately, it all has a very short shelf life as far as sell-thru. A decade from now, it may be like reading Latin or Aramic.

To me, the Bill Simmons pose, the sophistry of it, is to make emotional arguments that have little technical merit.

It's mental and emotional blackmail, by way of retardation or neoteny.

It's a five-year old making arguments to an adult audience, itself little more than a debased example (redundant) of the Id let loose.

And the dramatic argument -- relative to cinema -- is negatively applied in another sense: it's too limited.

Great drama can be great tragedy as well. Can be individual greatness failing Quixotic-like in its cause.

But rarely is this narrative painted in sports.

Tellingly, one of the few times it has been, it was for a New England team.

The rest of the time, we're only to respect cliched sports movie-like endings made real -- and I never even liked the schmaltz of Hoosiers -- that point to a league that is intent on simple narratives so obvious they could be directed by Ron Howard, propped up by guys who couldn't even make Jimmy Kimmel more entertaining than Letterman's zombie corpse routine ("i-rony").

Personally, I'd rather watch something from Hitchcock or Kubrick (though the idea that I'd ever want to watch Howard is laughable). Even though, unlike Ron Howard, they never won the Academy Award.

Vivaldi or Beethoven (though we are arguing Romanticism, aren't we?) rather than Katy Perry. HL Mencken rather than David Brooks.

Maybe things simply have gotten worse.

Then again, I could as easily say Shirley Manson over Katy Perry, and Christopher Hitchens over David Brooks.

For that matter, I'd take Hollinger over Ric Bucher. And The Sports Guy is disturbingly close to the latter option.

Most disturbingly, so is the overall NBA narrative. Perhaps as shown by some of these threads.

[Doctor MJ]

kaima, understandable you'd feel the need to respond. I'm responding publicly here because you wrote publicly. I don't want to get into a long public conversation here though I'd appreciate you taking this private if you want to continue.

You mention that I asked you to join the project. This is partly true. I asked you if you wanted to join the project with the understanding that it was a long-term commitment, and you agreed. I did this after you'd made some strong posts arguing for Karl Malone in the project threads...and you lasted in the project basically until Malone's rookie year and then disappeared.

You entered the discussion for this year's POY after the playoffs had ended, and did so to criticize people before saying you didn't want to be involved if it meant dealing with the things you criticized.

And now when I make a decision to not bend the rules for you, and after you fail to give the effort you committed yourself to, you take the time to tell the guy who has given orders of magnitude more effort to build a project that is fun, community-building, and educational what all he has to re-do in order to make it meet with your logical standards.

Do you see how you're coming across here?

I think you're intelligent and knowledgeable, and if you'd done what others had done I'd have given you a vote here. I am not punishing you. I am however rather bemused by your intellectual hubris.

There is no such thing as a perfect project. I don't need your IQ, I need your BBIQ and your elbow grease.

[ThaRegul8r]

I'm getting more and more reason to be skeptical about how the next project will go...

[kaima]

kaima, understandable you'd feel the need to respond. I'm responding publicly here because you wrote publicly. I don't want to get into a long public conversation here though I'd appreciate you taking this private if you want to continue.

So why not lead the way, by example?

I didn't feel that I was particularly personal with you, yet you're now being specifically personal about my posting history in a public forum.

While asking me not to reply publicly to that.

Huh.

You mention that I asked you to join the project. This is partly true. I asked you if you wanted to join the project with the understanding that it was a long-term commitment, and you agreed.

And life happened, as did disenchantment that came about due to standards that were disturbingly close to what Gongxi has mentioned.

I'm not perfect, and I didn't necessarily live up to my word, point blank. But I don't know if I believe that the project lived up to its argument, as antecedent.

Which frustrated me at the same time I had other commitments.

I did this after you'd made some strong posts arguing for Karl Malone in the project threads...and you lasted in the project basically until Malone's rookie year and then disappeared.

Certainly, the idea that I would stick in the project for Malone's rookie year is...bizarre.

I certainly didn't vote for him. In fact, the last year I voted for him was 1989.

And I made it beyond that rookie year, as point of fact.

But it seems that you think my contribution is limited to Karl Malone. I wouldn't agree, and it wasn't my purpose to only vote for Malone seasons or push Malone in a generalized context, as its own or only purpose. I argued for him because I think he's one of the players that gets hurt the most by team-result arguments, as a macro bit of revisionism.

You entered the discussion for this year's POY after the playoffs had ended, and did so to criticize people before saying you didn't want to be involved if it meant dealing with the things you criticized.

Hm?

I believe I said that I'd bow out if not given time to consider my vote. I never said that anyone had to agree with me.

All I did was point out my disagreement with certain arguments, particularly Dirk's unquestionable ascendency.

And now when I make a decision to not bend the rules for you, and after you fail to give the effort you committed yourself to, you take the time to tell the guy who has given orders of magnitude more effort to build a project that is fun, community-building, and educational what all he has to re-do in order to make it meet with your logical standards.

I notice that you're being very broad about this, instead of really considering my arguments on a logical scale.

You're emotionalizing this. And attacking me personally.

While I questioned your logic, I don't believe I questioned your character, or attacked you personally.

As I said, I replied on logical grounds. I'm not seeing any counter-argumentation to those points.

I note this without malice, as I have never disliked you, or thought of you as some pernicious force.

Even now, I just question your, cause and effect, overall analysis and logical application so far as rules in this project. That's it.

And that's the level I'd prefer arguing on.

If I'm not, now, allowed to disagree with you on logical standards, well, then I'll leave.

But ratiocination is rather inherent, and yet you're trying to make this a subjective plea on an emotional scale -- that because you run the project, you shouldn't be questioned in this manner or on grounds of context and logic. That's what I see. Analytically.

Do you see how you're coming across here?

I...wait, I've got a kettle whistling, and a pot of coffee to start.

I think you're intelligent and knowledgeable, and if you'd done what others had done I'd have given you a vote here.

Like I said, I could have managed votes throughout.

I didn't because I didn't think that would be coherent to my history of detailing my beliefs.

But if an all-present vote is all that matters, then, yes I failed. Blatantly.

I also had my doubts: about the project, the assumptions made on team result and legacy, as well as my ability to find enough tape as we went on to support my beliefs. Or my votes.

I am not punishing you.

I know.

I don't feel all that bad about it.

My point is, what's the macro-logic?

If the all-present vote is required, I failed before I started. And it would be a mistake -- if this isn't some attempt at punishment, or negative-reinforcement -- to consider my earlier arguments and to count my votes.

My point is that the damage, if that's how you see it, has already been done. So why would I be stopped from voting?

Logically, it appears to be punishment. That's what I see.

Without rancor. I honestly think you're generally a credible source, even if I disagree with you on occasion.

I am however rather bemused by your intellectual hubris.

I don't believe I'm smarter than you, or the room.

But I do disagree with your logic here.

There is no such thing as a perfect project. I don't need your IQ, I need your BBIQ and your elbow grease.

And I believe that I provided more of that than some people that voted in far more POY threads.

Hence, my disagreement with you.

It's pretty simply. Really.