shawngoat23 wrote:penbeast0 wrote:I'm with JB on this one Benjammin, he's been fairly consistent with his HCA fixation. His voting is in line with his pattern so far without any "Jordan issues" needed to explain this year. Plus, the Kareem voting has greatly overstated his impact on team wins in my opinion; he's been getting "career" votes (not that the actual voting for MVPs doesn't do this a lot).
I think it's pretty fair to say that JB is a fan of Michael Jordan, and while his voting pattern is sometimes different from other voters (but never in a hugely drastic way), it's also been very consistent with what he's stated for years was important to him:
1) Winning championships as the #1 guy
2) PER
3) Win shares
4) Accolades (for example, as indicated by MVP voting)
And conversely, he's always docked players pretty hard for losing with HCA, which seems counterintuitive to me, since I feel a player should be commended for overachieving in the regular season and falling short in the postseason (versus say, underachieving in the regular season AND falling short in the postseason despite efforts to step it up). Consistently applying this "losing with HCA" standard doesn't really distinguish between the two cases, but if nothing else, JB has been remarkably consistent in applying this criterion, so you can't really accuse him of being inconsistent with how he applies things.
From that perspective, his ballot makes perfect sense. Both Erving and Kareem won MVPs in their respective leagues. Both led their leagues in WS (with a slight edge to Kareem). Erving led the ABA in PER at 25.7; Kareem was 2nd in the NBA at 24.4. Both had HCA, but Erving's Nets won it all, while Kareem's Bucks lost in 7 to the Celtics in a controversial Finals.
I certainly question whether his criteria is "accurate" in identifying the best players each year, but what I do not question is his consistency in applying those criteria. He's probably more consistent than anyone else on the panel in regards to sticking with what he deems important.
Sorry, I don't see how it's been consistent at all (and I can think of a bunch of voters who have been consistent throughout). His ballot is a confusing smokescreen, other than the fact that I know who he's going to shaft before the year begins (
)
Just look at the last 5 years:
Walton's first in 78...but he
lost with HCA!?
He missed the playoffs. He missed 24 regular season games. But in 1975, Kareem is left off because he misses 17 games and the playoffs. Yowzers.
Kareem (4th) does well on his checklist in 78, but presumably is leveled for winning only 45 games. Of course, he played in by far the toughest division in basketball and posted a 2.6 SRS. Who's his No. 2? George Gervin. Who won 52 games (3.2 SRS)...
and lost with HCA! So maybe HCA doesn't matter? My head is starting to hurt.
Then, in 77 Erving is ahead of Kareem, despite Kareem trumping Erving in literally every JB category (MVP, PER, WS, All-NBA, All-D, Playoff stats, team record).
They BOTH lost with HCA to the same team.In 1976, Kareem again wins out in nearly every JB category, but he doesn't make the playoffs. So he's established that
team record is enough to really drop someone! 7 team wins usurps WS, PER, MVP voting and All-team accolades.
But in 1975, Barry's No. 1 and McAdoo No. 2 and their teams won 48 and 49 games respectively. Huh? That's weird. So wins are not really that important
if someone wins FInals MVP? My head really hurts now. Kareem doesn't make the list because of the missed 17 games AND the playoffs...So maybe it's that wins trump everything except if trumped by Finals MVP? I think it got it.
Except for 1985 (the only year I looked up because Kareem was involved), when Kareem was 4th in MVP voting (like Barry) and won Finals MVP (like Barry) and finished 5th...
behind a rookie Jordan, who was 6th in MVP voting and won 38 games. THIRTY EIGHT. 24 fewer wins than Kareem's Lakers. So apparently team record and Finals MVP aren't really that important.
Sorry, but that's not consistent.
And in 1974, we were 1 quarter/Richie Powers from Kareem winning MVP, FInals MVP and a title in the same year. But because someone did it in a weaker league, he gets "automatic" first status, which should illuminate how silly rigid rules are. What would JB have done if they BOTH met his "automatic" rule in the same year?
Rote application of rules doesn't work. Somebody has a back mark and they drop like a fly -- who cares if they were 200% better than the next player, they must move down the line! He lives off two stats, and I don't know if he even knows what they represent. Then he cites stuff like MVP ranking, but it's unclear how much that matters. If we wanted to base the project on a composite of MVP ranking or uninterpreted stats, I don't think we need a project. Then there's HCA...
But we're 35 years in - nothing's going to change. We know he'll give Russell 4 1st place votes and probably have Wilt and Russell slotted in weird positions in years they don't meet his "automatic" 1st rule. Just don't say he's consistent with his criteria.
PS - I went crazy with the emoticons because, at this point, I think there should be some levity to this issue, and emoticons are fun. Although I don't know what the hell this one means: 
This project has been fun and should stay that way, even if we disagree.
