Retro POY '98-99 (Voting Complete)

Post #1 » by **Doctor MJ** » Wed May 19, 2010 5:54 pm

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 best player seasons of '98-99. Some pointers:

-Change in schedule. We will now operate by splitting the week into thirds: Mon-Wed, Wed-Fri, Fri-Mon. I will label each thread with it's deadline.

-The voting panel is not officially closed. However, if you'd like to be a part of it, contact me - more dedicated, knowledgeable voters will always be wanted.

-This includes both regular and post-season. You should be weighing both in to some degree, and should not be ranking one star over another just because of how far each got in the playoffs.

-Vote sincerely. Do not move a player down in your voting to give another player an advantage. I would encourage every voter to give some explanations while they do their voting - but particularly if you have a top 5 that deviates strongly with the norm and you haven't expressed your thoughts on it earlier in the thread. If I'm not satisfied, I may ask you for more of an explanation - and it may come to actually booting people out of the project.

Some things to start us off:

Season Summary http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... _1999.html
Playoff Summary http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... _1999.html
Award Voting http://www.basketball-reference.com/awa ... _1999.html

Topics for '98-99

-The strike year
-The transition year
-Spurs emerge

Post #2 » by **semi-sentient** » Wed May 19, 2010 6:35 pm

The infamous * season, as dubbed by the great Phil Jackson.

Final Rankings:

1) Tim Duncan
2) Karl Malone
3) Shaquille O'Neal
4) Alonzo Mourning
5) Grant Hill

Some of the points made by TrueLAFan sort of soured my thoughts of Shaq even more. The team was already pretty out of whack, but I had forgotten about some of those situations that he mentioned. That, and the poor defense... it's really hard to overlook. I can't justify putting Shaq above Malone, and that was the only real debate for me in these rankings. I don't think I can put him any lower than 3rd either. Zo had a nice season, but falling to the Knicks is a pretty big deal when you consider how badly Duncan dominated them. There isn't any question in my mind that Shaq would have severely raped them as well.

ronnymac2 · Post #3 » by **ronnymac2** » Wed May 19, 2010 6:36 pm

I see this as Shaq vs. Duncan, with Malone and Mourning entering the conversation at some point, too.

Just FWIW....Shaq played 49 out of 50 games this year and all of his post-season games. This isn't a year where the games played affects him.

Post #4 » by **semi-sentient** » Wed May 19, 2010 6:45 pm

For me, it's between Malone (MVP) and Duncan (Finals MVP). Both guys were 1st Team All-NBA and All-Defense, finished higher in MVP voting, and played more games/minutes overall. It doesn't help that the Lakers had one of the worst defenses in the league and were swept by the Spurs where he was outplayed handily by Duncan (my mom and sister, both Spurs fans, wouldn't let me here the end of it). That's a tough match-up for Shaq though with D-Rob and Duncan controlling the paint, but still. He has almost no advantages over Malone/Duncan overall.

Shaq and Zo will be interesting, and I think that's who will be fighting for that 3rd spot, although I haven't looked into things heavily just yet.

tha_rock220 · Post #5 » by **tha_rock220** » Wed May 19, 2010 6:50 pm

1. Duncan
2. Malone
3. Shaq
4. Mourning
5. Jason Kidd

mysticbb · Post #6 » by **mysticbb** » Wed May 19, 2010 6:58 pm

semi-sentient wrote:For me, it's between Malone (MVP) and Duncan (Finals MVP). Both guys were 1st Team All-NBA and All-Defense, finished higher in MVP voting, and played more games/minutes overall.

Well, you might want to look up what Malone did in the playoffs, especially game 6 against the Trail Blazers. That might change your mind a little bit.

Early vote:

1. Tim Duncan
2. Shaquille O'Neal
3. Karl Malone
4. Alonzo Mourning
5. Grant Hill

HM: Jason Kidd, Gary Payton, Allen Iverson

ronnymac2 · Post #7 » by **ronnymac2** » Wed May 19, 2010 7:05 pm

semi-sentient wrote:For me, it's between Malone (MVP) and Duncan (Finals MVP). Both guys were 1st Team All-NBA and All-Defense, finished higher in MVP voting, and played more games/minutes overall. It doesn't help that the Lakers had one of the worst defenses in the league and were swept by the Spurs where he was outplayed handily by Duncan (my mom and sister, both Spurs fans, wouldn't let me here the end of it). That's a tough match-up for Shaq though with D-Rob and Duncan controlling the paint, but still. He has almost no advantages over Malone/Duncan overall.

Shaq and Zo will be interesting, and I think that's who will be fighting for that 3rd spot, although I haven't looked into things heavily just yet.

I disagree with Malone being above Shaq in 1999. I put Malone second in 2000, btw, so it's not like I think the guy was too old or couldn't play anymore.

I can't do it right now, but I'm going to explain why I think Shaq should be POY- or at least in the conversation with Tim Duncan. My argument is going to have to do with:

1.) The idea that in the middle, when it is two all-time greats against one, the one usually looks a little less like an all-time great.

2.) Shaq having more effect on a basketball game.

3.) The situation that the Lakers were in that season compared to the Spurs, Jazz, etc.

ElGee · Post #8 » by **ElGee** » Wed May 19, 2010 7:06 pm

There was basketball in 1999?

ItsMillerTime · Post #9 » by **ItsMillerTime** » Wed May 19, 2010 7:28 pm

TD, Zo, and Malone are looking to fight for the number 1 spot for me. Shaq, Kidd, Hill, Payton, and Iverson are who im debating on rounding out the top 5.

Final Ranking
1. TD
2. Shaq
3. Mourning
4. Malone
5. Iverson

Gongxi · Post #10 » by **Gongxi** » Wed May 19, 2010 7:34 pm

Just for posterity's sake, I'm going to say that throughout this thing I'm going mostly by on-court production, with games in December mattering as much as games in March, and games in the playoffs meaning only about 50% more than games in the regular season. Which is to say: if you play 20 playoff games and 82 regular season games, your regular season still accounts for roughly 2/3rds of where I'm placing you. Why? Because a 20 game sample size pales in comparison to 82 or, together, 102 games.

Also, I don't much care about how well your team did. It's basketball, not ping pong- one player can't dictate whether an entire team wins or loses.

This isn't close. It's just not. Shaq rapes the competition and then asks them how his ass tastes, which is just tradition where he's from. This is before Lazy Shaq reared his head, and the season was only 50 games long to boot, so he had all the focus and energy needed to score 26 points and grab 11 rebounds a game while shooting 58%. How's that impressive, you ask? He did it playing 35 minutes a game. Not his best season per 36 minutes, but much better than anyone else that season. Much better.

Beyond Shaq, there gets to be a glut of players, with Malone subtly at the front of the pack, so the MVP comes in second for me. Another ho-hum season of 24/9 (actually kinda weak by his standards), while playing in 98% of his teams' games.

After the top 2, though, things get very tight. The quality differences between Grant Hill, Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett, Jason Kidd, and Alonzo Mourning are very subtle. But I guess I can only vote for three of them, huh?

Kidd went for 17/11/7 with 1st team All-D defense. The best PG of the time playing his best. No, he didn't play very well in the playoffs, but that was only three games of his season. Sure, it was a larger percentage than usual because of the strike, so where I would place him third (for those scoring at home, there were 7 triple-doubles this season: 13% of the games he played in), I'll instead drop him down a notch.

Who's waiting in take his spot? Grant Hill with his great regular season and amazing- although very short- playoff experience. Again, wasn't fantastic by his standards (21/7/6 on 54% TS), but it was very good.

Again, Duncan and Mourning need to be talked about together. At this point in their careers, they're such similar players, it's hard to avoid it. I guess the just speaks volumes about Duncan's resume that a pre-prime period for him is comparable to Zo's best, but with such a consistently stellar career, Zo should be pretty proud of himself, too. I think Mourning had a better statistical regular season, and I think Mourning was again the better defender the whole year through. And I think Mourning, although suffering from only the second 1 vs. 8 upset at that point ever, played at a very high level in the playoffs. I'll say this: if the season wasn't strike-shortened to almost half its normal length and everything still occurred (Heat get bounced in the first round, Spurs win the title), Mourning takes 5th here for me. But because the playoffs were a much larger portion of the whole season than usual, Duncan's excellent play for more games in the playoffs is able to overcome the advantage Mourning had through the first round of the playoffs. Very close, but I'll give the nod to Duncan.

1- Shaquille O'Neal
2- Karl Malone
3- Grant Hill
4- Jason Kidd
5- Tim Duncan

JordansBulls · Post #11 » by **JordansBulls** » Wed May 19, 2010 7:51 pm

1. Duncan - Top 3 MVP Voting, Led in Playoff WS, was 5th in playoff PER, Finals MVP, All NBA 1st Team And Defense
2. Malone - All NBA 1st Team And Defense, MVP for the season
3. Shaq - 2nd in WS on the season and 1st in PER and 2nd in scoring
4. Mourning - Finished 2nd in MVP voting on the season.
5. Jason Kidd - All NBA 1st Team and Defense and 5th in WS and 5th in MVP voting

bastillon · Post #12 » by **bastillon** » Wed May 19, 2010 8:05 pm

1- Shaquille O'Neal
2- Karl Malone
3- Grant Hill
4- Jason Kidd
5- Tim Duncan

Kidd over Duncan is laughable. c'mon man.

it's close for Malone, Duncan, Shaq, Mourning. then for the 5th there are couple of candidates too, GP, DRob, Garnett, Hill.

Silver Bullet · Post #13 » by **Silver Bullet** » Wed May 19, 2010 8:07 pm

JordansBulls wrote:1. Duncan - Top 3 MVP Voting, Led in Playoff WS, was 5th in playoff PER, Finals MVP, All NBA 1st Team And Defense
2. Malone - All NBA 1st Team And Defense, MVP for the season
3. Shaq - 2nd in WS on the season and 1st in PER and 2nd in scoring
4. Mourning - Finished 2nd in MVP voting on the season.
5. Jason Kidd - All NBA 1st Team and Defense and 5th in WS and 5th in MVP voting

Jordan Bulls -

buddie -

you are breaking your own rules....

Tim Duncan did not lead his own team in PER in the regular season in 98-99.

Moreover by every reliable measure, D-Rob, when on the floor was a slightly better player.

Silver Bullet · Post #14 » by **Silver Bullet** » Wed May 19, 2010 8:12 pm

Shaq had a PER of 30.5 - the next closest guy, was Malone at 25.... Duncan isn't even top 5 -

How and why is everybody voting for Duncan ?

Post #15 » by **semi-sentient** » Wed May 19, 2010 8:18 pm

mysticbb wrote:Well, you might want to look up what Malone did in the playoffs, especially game 6 against the Trail Blazers. That might change your mind a little bit.

One game is definitely not going to change my mind, but giving it a closer look, Malone did stink it up in the post-season. Shaq at least had an excuse because he went up against the twin towers, so the advantage goes to him.

I'd like to get a better idea of what Malone did defensively though. The Lakers were straight poo poo defensively that year, and our FC was a big part of the reason why IIRC. It's impossible to gauge by using raings and All-defensive selections, and I didn't watch the Jazz nearly as much as I watched the Lakers.

ronnymac2: I agree with the situational argument. The Lakers were kind of a mess and that took its toll on everyone. Didn't they win like 10 in a row when Rambis took over? Heh. I remember Rodman being more of a coach than Rambis was though. He'd go over to the sideline in certain situations and tell Kurt, "Hey, you should take a timeout in this situation..." and other stuff like that. That's kind of sad, actually.

JordansBulls · Post #16 » by **JordansBulls** » Wed May 19, 2010 8:47 pm

Silver Bullet wrote:
JordansBulls wrote:1. Duncan - Top 3 MVP Voting, Led in Playoff WS, was 5th in playoff PER, Finals MVP, All NBA 1st Team And Defense
2. Malone - All NBA 1st Team And Defense, MVP for the season
3. Shaq - 2nd in WS on the season and 1st in PER and 2nd in scoring
4. Mourning - Finished 2nd in MVP voting on the season.
5. Jason Kidd - All NBA 1st Team and Defense and 5th in WS and 5th in MVP voting

Jordan Bulls -

buddie -

you are breaking your own rules....

Tim Duncan did not lead his own team in PER in the regular season in 98-99.

Moreover by every reliable measure, D-Rob, when on the floor was a slightly better player.

You are correct. In the season it was pretty much almost a tossup between the two, but in the playoffs, Robinson's overall production dropped a bit more than Duncan's. Also he only averaged ~ 16 ppg.

Silver Bullet · Post #17 » by **Silver Bullet** » Wed May 19, 2010 9:20 pm

JordansBulls wrote:
Silver Bullet wrote:
JordansBulls wrote:1. Duncan - Top 3 MVP Voting, Led in Playoff WS, was 5th in playoff PER, Finals MVP, All NBA 1st Team And Defense
2. Malone - All NBA 1st Team And Defense, MVP for the season
3. Shaq - 2nd in WS on the season and 1st in PER and 2nd in scoring
4. Mourning - Finished 2nd in MVP voting on the season.
5. Jason Kidd - All NBA 1st Team and Defense and 5th in WS and 5th in MVP voting

Jordan Bulls -

buddie -

you are breaking your own rules....

Tim Duncan did not lead his own team in PER in the regular season in 98-99.

Moreover by every reliable measure, D-Rob, when on the floor was a slightly better player.

You are correct. In the season it was pretty much almost a tossup between the two, but in the playoffs, Robinson's overall production dropped a bit more than Duncan's. Also he only averaged ~ 16 ppg.

but I thought your criteria was that a guy has to lead his team in WS, PER in both the regular season and playoffs -

btw, D-Rob leads the team in WSper48 as well...

An Unbiased Fan · Post #18 » by **An Unbiased Fan** » Wed May 19, 2010 9:32 pm

Silver Bullet wrote:Shaq had a PER of 30.5 - the next closest guy, was Malone at 25.... Duncan isn't even top 5 -

How and why is everybody voting for Duncan ?

PER is a stat Hollinger made up, it should in no way effect opinion at all. Shaq was lazy & poor on defense in 99'. He also disregarded Rambis as coach and was a pretty crappy leader all year long. I have TD, Malone, and Kidd over him.

JordansBulls · Post #19 » by **JordansBulls** » Wed May 19, 2010 9:35 pm

Silver Bullet wrote:
but I thought your criteria was that a guy has to lead his team in WS, PER in both the regular season and playoffs -

btw, D-Rob leads the team in WSper48 as well...

I voted Kobe in 2009 even though he didn't lead the Lakers in WS in the season, but did in PER. Why? Because he led them in both in the playoffs.

Gongxi · Post #20 » by **Gongxi** » Wed May 19, 2010 9:36 pm

bastillon wrote:
1- Shaquille O'Neal
2- Karl Malone
3- Grant Hill
4- Jason Kidd
5- Tim Duncan

Kidd over Duncan is laughable. c'mon man.

Are we talking all time or just 98-99? I thought we were just talking about this season, and not just awarding this to the best player on the best team? I dunno, tell me if the rules changed.