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Who's #4?

***Voting Deadline: Friday 11:59pm***

Top 25 Players Ranking
1) LBJ
2) AD
3) KD

Include your votes as nominations please.

Blake?



CP3?



Curry?



Harden?



Kawhi?



Westbrook?





Blake -
CP3 - jeff (1)
Curry - kk, hbk, macgyver, trb3 (4, jeff tiebreak)
Harden -
Kawhi -
Westbrook - Claud, N.S., MDB, prok (4)


Nominees:
DMC - 6
PG13 - 1
LMA - 1
M.Gasol - 1

General Voting Rules:


Voting rules for non-Nets board posters:


Here's the voting history of our Top 25 players threads since its inception:

Vote: Westbrook.

Nomination : Cousins.

I almost went with Curry, but he disappeared too much for my liking in the finals.

Vote: Westbrook
Nominate: Paul George

Westbrook, easily. A nightmare match up for any defender.

I nominate DMCousins

Claud wrote:Vote: Westbrook.

Nomination : Cousins.

I almost went with Curry, but he disappeared too much for my liking in the finals.

What?

He averaged 26 ppg on 44% shooting overall despite taking over 10 threes a game.

Vote: Curry

Nominate: Cousins

Curry is a better scorer than Westbrook and playmaker. Man y'all really sleeping on the MVP.

Vote: Curry

Nomination: Cousins

I got to say Curry still.

Nominate LMA

jeff1624 wrote:

Claud wrote:Vote: Westbrook.

Nomination : Cousins.

I almost went with Curry, but he disappeared too much for my liking in the finals.[/quote

What?

He averaged 26 ppg on 44% shooting overall despite taking over 10 threes a game.

Yeah seriously, and his team had one of the best regular season records of all time, and they ended up winning the finals this year!

jeff1624 wrote:

Claud wrote:Vote: Westbrook.

Nomination : Cousins.

I almost went with Curry, but he disappeared too much for my liking in the finals.[/quote

What?

He averaged 26 ppg on 44% shooting overall despite taking over 10 threes a game.

I take that as a vote for Curry?

If so, who's your nomination? If not, vote please.

v: westbrook
n: cousins

the kawai nomination this early suprised me

NyCeEvO wrote:

jeff1624 wrote:

Claud wrote:Vote: Westbrook.

Nomination : Cousins.

I almost went with Curry, but he disappeared too much for my liking in the finals.[/quote

What?

He averaged 26 ppg on 44% shooting overall despite taking over 10 threes a game.

I take that as a vote for Curry?

If so, who's your nomination? If not, vote please.

I could have sworn I had made a post before making that reply. I actually vote for Chris Paul. Curry might be my next pick... but I still have Chris Paul as the best PG.

I nominate Marc Gasol

I just want to make a point: I don't think it's a given that Durant is better than Curry. What we saw out of Curry last year...IDK if Durant is on his level offensively, and IDK how big of a defensive gap there really is, since Durant isn't that great of a defender himself, and Curry is an underrated one.

I understand that is probably a minority opinion, however.

But not sure I understand Westbrook's case over Curry. Curry was clearly superior to him this past season, and I have no reason to think that's going to change this year.

Vote: Curry

Nominate: Cousins

therealbig3 wrote:I just want to make a point: I don't think it's a given that Durant is better than Curry. What we saw out of Curry last year...IDK if Durant is on his level offensively, and IDK how big of a defensive gap there really is, since Durant isn't that great of a defender himself, and Curry is an underrated one.

I understand that is probably a minority opinion, however.

But not sure I understand Westbrook's case over Curry. Curry was clearly superior to him this past season, and I have no reason to think that's going to change this year.

Vote: Curry

Nominate: Cousins

This thing is that what curry did this season, Durant has been doing it for the past 4. Despite Curry's edge at 3pt% and slight edge at FT%, Durant has had roughly the same TS% during the past 4 seasons despite taking more shots and playing ISO ball in Scott Brooks dumb offense. Curry is the better passer of course, but Durant is one of the better passing SF's in the game as well. I still think Durant is the best scorer in the game and that literally no one can stop him. Curry is almost unguardable as well... but it's possible to contain him. I don't think anyone can guard Durant... Lebron, Tony Allen, Kawhi, Dramond.. no one. Durants length gives him the advantage big time.

jeff1624 wrote:

therealbig3 wrote:I just want to make a point: I don't think it's a given that Durant is better than Curry. What we saw out of Curry last year...IDK if Durant is on his level offensively, and IDK how big of a defensive gap there really is, since Durant isn't that great of a defender himself, and Curry is an underrated one.

I understand that is probably a minority opinion, however.

But not sure I understand Westbrook's case over Curry. Curry was clearly superior to him this past season, and I have no reason to think that's going to change this year.

Vote: Curry

Nominate: Cousins

This thing is that what curry did this season, Durant has been doing it for the past 4. Despite Curry's edge at 3pt% and slight edge at FT%, Durant has had roughly the same TS% during the past 4 seasons despite taking more shots and playing ISO ball in Scott Brooks dumb offense. Curry is the better passer of course, but Durant is one of the better passing SF's in the game as well. I still think Durant is the best scorer in the game and that literally no one can stop him. Curry is almost unguardable as well... but it's possible to contain him. I don't think anyone can guard Durant... Lebron, Tony Allen, Kawhi, Dramond.. no one. Durants length gives him the advantage big time.

Hmm, I think you're overrating Durant's passing. He's good, of course, and he does get a lot of assists, but I don't see anything all that special in terms of his vision or technical passing ability. He makes the simple plays, and he gets a lot of assists more so because he handles the ball a lot. OTOH, I actually do think Curry is quite a good passer. Not quite CP3, but not too far off either. I've seen him make some really special plays in terms of setting teammates up.

Durant has been slowed down though...he's struggled for the last couple of years in the playoffs. Furthermore, when has Curry really been contained? Even when he was struggling for the first half of the Cavs series, his presence on the PnR still forced Cleveland to trap him and basically gave GS a 4 on 3 literally every time, because they had to commit two defenders to Curry, or give up a 3. And even with his struggling jumper, they were more scared of his 3. The reason they were down 2-1 had more to do with the fact that Green and Barnes couldn't do ANYTHING with those 4 on 3 opportunities. Curry having an absolutely awful game 2 didn't help, obviously, but it was clearly an aberration, and he kind of lit them up the last 3 games. IMO, he was robbed of FMVP, because Iggy only won it because he had a good offensive series in addition to his defense...but the only reason he had a good offensive series was because Curry drew so much attention and the Cavs basically left Iggy by himself as a result.

IDK, I've never seen defenses play anyone the way they play Curry. His outside shooting scares defenses more than any player in the history of the game. On top of being the GOAT shooter, Curry also has an insane handle, is an excellent passer, and can fit next to anyone because of how good he is off-ball too. He's also not just a shooter in terms of scoring, he's gotten quite good at getting to and finishing around the rim. Really crafty player. IMO, his offensive impact really approaches historic levels when you look at the whole package.

Again though, I understand if I have a minority opinion, Durant's fantastic, and he's certainly the superior scorer for sure.

Just a note though, I don't think Curry has only been doing this for 1 season. He was really underrated in 2013, and finally got some more legit notice in 2014. I think he's been an MVP-caliber player for 3 years now, even though this past year was clearly his best.

therealbig3 wrote:
Durant has been slowed down though...he's struggled for the last couple of years in the playoffs. Furthermore, when has Curry really been contained? Even when he was struggling for the first half of the Cavs series, his presence on the PnR still forced Cleveland to trap him and basically gave GS a 4 on 3 literally every time, because they had to commit two defenders to Curry, or give up a 3. And even with his struggling jumper, they were more scared of his 3. The reason they were down 2-1 had more to do with the fact that Green and Barnes couldn't do ANYTHING with those 4 on 3 opportunities. Curry having an absolutely awful game 2 didn't help, obviously, but it was clearly an aberration, and he kind of lit them up the last 3 games. IMO, he was robbed of FMVP, because Iggy only won it because he had a good offensive series in addition to his defense...but the only reason he had a good offensive series was because Curry drew so much attention and the Cavs basically left Iggy by himself as a result.

im not sure how durant "struggled for the last couple of years in the playoffs"

13-14: 30/9/4/1 on 57 TS% and 22.1 PER
12-13: 31/9/6/1 on 57 TS% and 26 PER

thats not struggling.

Looks like it's two horse race between Curry and Westbrook.

If there's still a tie by the deadline, those who did not vote for either player will need to choose a side. If there's still a tie after this, I will break the tie with my vote.

NyCeEvO wrote:Looks like it's two horse race between Curry and Westbrook.

If there's still a tie by the deadline, those who did not vote for either player will need to choose a side. If there's still a tie after this, I will break the tie with my vote.

I think Curry is the better player between... So I'll change my vote to curry.

Jeff's tiebreaker gives this round to Curry.

DMC is the new nominee.

Prokorov wrote:

therealbig3 wrote:
Durant has been slowed down though...he's struggled for the last couple of years in the playoffs. Furthermore, when has Curry really been contained? Even when he was struggling for the first half of the Cavs series, his presence on the PnR still forced Cleveland to trap him and basically gave GS a 4 on 3 literally every time, because they had to commit two defenders to Curry, or give up a 3. And even with his struggling jumper, they were more scared of his 3. The reason they were down 2-1 had more to do with the fact that Green and Barnes couldn't do ANYTHING with those 4 on 3 opportunities. Curry having an absolutely awful game 2 didn't help, obviously, but it was clearly an aberration, and he kind of lit them up the last 3 games. IMO, he was robbed of FMVP, because Iggy only won it because he had a good offensive series in addition to his defense...but the only reason he had a good offensive series was because Curry drew so much attention and the Cavs basically left Iggy by himself as a result.

im not sure how durant "struggled for the last couple of years in the playoffs"

13-14: 30/9/4/1 on 57 TS% and 22.1 PER
12-13: 31/9/6/1 on 57 TS% and 26 PER

thats not struggling.

Well, just to start off, a 22 PER is a significant dropoff from his regular season average, and although it's a good PER, it's not THAT crazy, especially for an efficient volume scorer...PER loves those kind of players. And he was pretty obviously imo the 2nd best player on his own team in those playoffs...Westbrook outperformed him in every series. The stat line looks nice, but he was also playing a ton of minutes. IMO, he struggled against Memphis and SA that year, while he lit up the Clippers (but again, Westbrook was even better against the Clippers, and he was better against Memphis and SA too).

For 2013, it was a tale of two series. He lit up a poor defensive team in Houston in the 1st round, and then he really got stifled by the Grizzlies in the next round. His overall numbers look nice, but it was obvious that once he went up against a legit defensive team, he had problems. It's really no different than what happened with Curry when he faced Memphis and Cleveland this year, so it's weird to use those series against him but then ignore what happened to Durant in his last two playoffs when we compare them to each other.