RealGM Top 25 Player Poll-#12 2018-19

[Tai]

Also makes the vote better in situations like this where there are a lot of voters who wouldn’t have Kyrie in their Top 5 or 6 picks right now, but he’s getting propped up by a lot of first place votes among those who like him.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by the bolded? As far back as I could find, heres how many votes Kyrie's gotten and where he placed:

Poll #5 - 2 votes (T-7th)
Poll #6 - 2 votes (T-7th)
Poll #7 - 1 vote (T-6th)
Poll #8 - 6 votes (4th)
Poll #9 - 20 votes (3rd)
Poll #10 - 22 votes (3rd)
Poll #11 - 26 votes (2nd)

So it seemed that there wasn't any serious votes for him until the #9 player was voted on, didn't make top 2 until #11, and only now at #12 as a serious shot at winning, and if not definitely going #13. That sounds reasonable, assuming you don't hate Kyrie's guts.

So what needs to change about the poll that would better reflect where you think Kyrie should be? Or is it possible that people just like Kyrie more than you expected? I'm honestly convinced you're trolling with that he may not be a top 3 Celtic next season BS , but that aside, I think the people have spoken and I'm not sure how a different format really changes that.

I'm pretty sure he's saying a lot of people wouldn't have Kyrie in their top 5 or 6 picks out of the people currently left on the board. And that's very true. I would put Jokic, Gobert, Draymond, and Lillard ahead of Kyrie for sure. I would probably put Oladipo ahead of him but would need to look closer at the numbers, and I'm not sure whether I'd vote for George or Kyrie, but right now I think I'd lean Kyrie. So Kyrie probably isn't in my Top 5 of players left, probably is in my top 6.

Um ok? So you don't like Kyrie as much as most. Fine. That doesn't prove that the poll is flawed, and for some reason guys like you and iggy think it does . What's "very true"? People are VOTING for Kyrie as THEIR _TOP_ person at #12 out of the 10 guys on the poll, and you're trying to tell me they wouldn't have him top 5 or 6???? I posted those numbers for a reason; I thought iggy was trying to claim Kyrie was getting more votes earlier by virtue of supposedly being put on earlier than he should've been. So I checked for myself, and again, he didn't really start getting anything until #9. It's not like he almost got considered the 5th best player in the league per the GB. He MIGHT not even get #12.

Also to the bolded parts, I've said Gobert + Draymond don't have any true advanced statistical advantage over Kyrie outside of RPM, which proves me that's all you're using. I'm well past having to tell you that I'm not taking that bait on it's own, and I'm venturing that most Celtics fans couldn't be bothered on arguing whether Kyrie's a top 15 player on the GB of all places, let alone based solely off ****ing RPM, which is why you're not seeing a lot of them.

[picc]

Draymond adds more wins to your team than Jokic or Irving.

[yoyoboy]

If there were 2 expansion teams, one got Kyrie, one got Draymond, then the rest of the players were chosen out of teams pine riders you'd have to take team Kyrie to win a 7 game series. Draymond benefits too much from the players around him. Teams, as a strategy, leave him wide open and dare him to shoot 3's. Hes not very good on the dribble drive. Hes just not a star in the same way Kyrie is. For me it's Kyrie over Draymond all day.

And that's where I just disagree. And I think it come's from people's tendency to think of offense first, second, and third before they really take into account defense. Others benefit from Draymond far more than Draymond benefits from those around him. It's just very strange to me to think that a guy who's DPOY level and is capable of being the lead distributor on a GOAT level team...

2016: 65.0 passes per game (#1 on team, #4 in the league), 7.4 assists per game (#1 on team, #7 in the league), #1 offense GSW
2017: 62.2 passes per game (#1 on team, #6 in the league), 7.0 assists per game (#1 on team, #9 in the league), #1 offense GSW
2018: 63.8 passes per game (#1 on team, #4 in the league), 7.3 assists per game (#1 on team, #7 in the league), #3 offense GSW

...benefits "too much" from others. Just to bring up again what I posted on the last page, in the past 4 playoffs without BOTH Curry and Durant, in a 522 minute sample size, here are Draymond's individual numbers and the Warriors' performance:

Averages Per 36: 15.2 points / 10.3 rebounds / 7.0 assists / 53% TS
Minutes Played: 522
Warriors ORTG: 110.5
Warriors DRTG: 99.8
Warriors Net Rating: +10.7

Do I have to take out Klay Thompson, too? Is Draymond not allowed to have any good players on his team for his contributions to be recognized? Again, the guy leads the entire league in playoff RAPM (2014-2018) at +7.29. He consistently finishes at the top of the league in RAPM and all impact metrics season after season. Is this a coincidence or is it possible that there's much more to the game than volume scoring, which happens to be the only part of the game that Green isn't excellent at. And in the playoffs since 2015 he's averaged 13.3 ppg on 54% TS, which is league average efficiency and most likely above average in the postseason. So you're talking about a guy who's not even a bad scorer while being elite at everything else and yet he's widely not viewed as a top 15 player.

Kyrie was the second best player on a title winner and yet we don't say that it doesn't count because he "benefits too much" from LeBron and Kevin Love, so why do we say the same about Draymond who's been the second best player on a title winner and at worst the third best player for two other titles?

[LoveMyRaps]

Oladipo is still highly underrated.

True. He is a good defender too unlike Kyrie but Kyrie is getting votes from Cs fans. Actually there should be a rule that you can't vote for your own players.

Yeah Oladipo is easily a better all-around player than Kyrie.

[LoveMyRaps]

Draymond adds more wins to your team than Jokic or Irving.

Jokic WS for 2017/18 - 10.7
Kyrie WS for 2017/18 - 8.9
Draymond WS for 2017/18 - 6.1

Next.

[picc]

Draymond adds more wins to your team than Jokic or Irving.

Jokic WS for 2017/18 - 10.7
Kyrie WS for 2017/18 - 8.9
Draymond WS for 2017/18 - 6.1

Next.

WS

Sorry. Just in disbelief someone actually posted win shares and had the audacity to be smug about it.

[iggymcfrack]

Can you elaborate on what you mean by the bolded? As far back as I could find, heres how many votes Kyrie's gotten and where he placed:

Poll #5 - 2 votes (T-7th)
Poll #6 - 2 votes (T-7th)
Poll #7 - 1 vote (T-6th)
Poll #8 - 6 votes (4th)
Poll #9 - 20 votes (3rd)
Poll #10 - 22 votes (3rd)
Poll #11 - 26 votes (2nd)

So it seemed that there wasn't any serious votes for him until the #9 player was voted on, didn't make top 2 until #11, and only now at #12 as a serious shot at winning, and if not definitely going #13. That sounds reasonable, assuming you don't hate Kyrie's guts.

So what needs to change about the poll that would better reflect where you think Kyrie should be? Or is it possible that people just like Kyrie more than you expected? I'm honestly convinced you're trolling with that he may not be a top 3 Celtic next season BS , but that aside, I think the people have spoken and I'm not sure how a different format really changes that.

I'm pretty sure he's saying a lot of people wouldn't have Kyrie in their top 5 or 6 picks out of the people currently left on the board. And that's very true. I would put Jokic, Gobert, Draymond, and Lillard ahead of Kyrie for sure. I would probably put Oladipo ahead of him but would need to look closer at the numbers, and I'm not sure whether I'd vote for George or Kyrie, but right now I think I'd lean Kyrie. So Kyrie probably isn't in my Top 5 of players left, probably is in my top 6.

Um ok? So you don't like Kyrie as much as most. Fine. That doesn't prove that the poll is flawed, and for some reason guys like you and iggy think it does . What's "very true"? People are VOTING for Kyrie as THEIR _TOP_ person at #12 out of the 10 guys on the poll, and you're trying to tell me they wouldn't have him top 5 or 6???? I posted those numbers for a reason; I thought iggy was trying to claim Kyrie was getting more votes earlier by virtue of supposedly being put on earlier than he should've been. So I checked for myself, and again, he didn't really start getting anything until #9. It's not like he almost got considered the 5th best player in the league per the GB. He MIGHT not even get #12.

Also to the bolded parts, I've said Gobert + Draymond don't have any true advanced statistical advantage over Kyrie outside of RPM, which proves me that's all you're using. I'm well past having to tell you that I'm not taking that bait on it's own, and I'm venturing that most Celtics fans couldn't be bothered on arguing whether Kyrie's a top 15 player on the GB of all places, let alone based solely off ****ing RPM, which is why you're not seeing a lot of them.

All I was saying with Kyrie is that he’s kind of an all or nothing player. So if we say had a runoff vote between he and Jokic, I’d guess that probably about 75-80% of the remaining voters who didn’t vote for either player would take Jokic since a lot of the people who don’t have Kyrie in their Top 10 don’t have him in their Top 15-20 either.

Personally I wouldn’t give him any serious consideration until at least the 20s, but I understand that he’s a popular player that a lot of people rate highly and I actually defended his right to be in the poll 2 or 3 threads ago since he obviously has support.

[iggymcfrack]

RPM shouldnt be ignored, but that is all you are using. When many, many other stats point to Kyrie being a fringe top 10 player (including BBR's own advanced plus-minus stat), it's unwise imo to use just one stat to dismiss them. Otherwise you end up being too reliant on a stat that had Robert Covington, Otto Porter and Tyus Jones in the top 15 of its ranking for last season. RPM, in my experience, more often has outliers that just don't pass the smell test. ESPN's QBR in the NFL is similar in this regard.

I can totally understand why someone would choose Jokic over Kyrie. But your posts leaning on RPM to discredit Kyrie show that you're way too reliant on one advanced stat that is a vast outlier compared to a large volume of traditional and advanced stats that see Kyrie much more favorably.

Every stat that has a way to include individual defense is low on Kyrie because he makes the defense much worse on every team he plays for. RPM thinks he’s super overrated, so does RAPM. I’m not aware of any advanced plus-minus system on B-Ref (that’s what you mean by BBR, right?) Youre not taking about BPM, are you? Plus-minus actually isn’t an input in BPM. They call it BPM because it’s a way to try to guess plus-minus from box scores. It doesn’t actually look at whether the defense plays way worse whenever they’re on the floor.

It’s not just the advanced stats that make me think Kyrie’s low impact either. It’s the fact that he didn’t elevate the Celtics at all. They actually played better after he got hurt. If he was such a huge impact player and all the advanced stats were wrong about him, the Celtics wouldn’t be the 2nd best team in the conference with or without him, and the Cavs wouldn’t be the conference champions and no threat to the Durant Warriors in the Finals with or without him.

If advanced stats are too much for you, how about simple NetRtg. Just how much your team outscores the other team by when you’re on the floor. Simple, right? The last 2 years, the Nuggets are better when Jokic is on the floor than the Cavs/Celtics are with Kyrie on the floor. That means that just being on the floor, Jokic is able to do more with a lottery team than Kyrie is with a team that can go to the conference finals without him. That’s insane. Same for Oladipo and last year’s Pacers who went 0-7 when he doesn’t play. Does that not sway you at all? That the Pacers and Nuggets were better with their superstars than the Celtics were with Kyrie even though the supporting casts are worlds apart.

The fact is that advanced stats such as WS/48, BPM and VORP rank Kyrie highly, in the top 10. RPM is the outlier by a significant amount, and is what deserves the scrutiny, particularly given its lack of transparency (ESPN has a similar lack of transparency in its NFL QBR stat, and has rightly taken criticism for it).I definitely agree that Kyrie is a negative on defense, but imo defensive prowess should be less of an emphasis for PGs compared to wings and bigs anyway.

Celtics did better with Kyrie than without. Don't remember the difference, but their win% was higher with him than without. So you are mistaken.

In regards to NetRtg, Kyrie's was higher last season than Jokic, the same the season before, and higher two seasons ago. So again, you are mistaken.

And besides, I already said I could understand why someone would take Jokic over Kyrie. What is ridiculous is the multiple claims in this thread that Kyrie shouldnt even be on the poll yet.

BPM and VORP are the exact same stat. It’s like WS and WS/48. And all those stats that rate Kyrie highly have something in common. They’re all purely box score stats. Their only inputs are points, rebounds, FG%, assists, blocks, steals, etc. You can’t gather a good picture of someone’s defense from boxscore stats. It’s just impossible. 90% of what makes a good defender is completely invisible to box score stats.

Things like RPM, RAPM, and raw plus/minus are a different category of stat altogether. These are called impact stats because they measure how the team’s performance is impacted when the player’s on the floor compared to on the bench. Impact stats, pretty much without fail tend to rate Kyrie much lower than boxscore stats since they can “see” how he’s hurting the defense by how much worse that defense performs when he’s in the game. That’s why those stats which might still rate Kyrie highly as an offensive player only, rate him much lower when accounting for his defense as well, something that WS and BPM have no mechanism to judge accurately even if they claim to have a defensive component.

The Celtics regular season win percentage did go down 6% with Kyrie (equivalent to one less win), but given how well they performed in the playoffs I’d say their overall performance after he was injured was probably more impressive than what they did with him earlier in the season. I’ll take 14-8 regular season, beating the Bucks, beating the red-hit Sixers in 5 and taking the Cavs to 7 over going 41–19 in the regular season.

[SlowPaced]

If I'm honest, I think Kyrie's a borderline top 10 PG, let alone top 12 player. There's more to being great than scoring and flash.

You're usually a level-headed poster but that's borderline insane.

Are we talking about the same Kyrie Irving that greatly outplayed Stephen Curry in an NBA Finals?

And that's where I just disagree. And I think it come's from people's tendency to think of offense first, second, and third before they really take into account defense. Others benefit from Draymond far more than Draymond benefits from those around him.

Draymond would look lost on offense if he didn't have Steph and Klay's (and later Durant's) gravity around him. He's a very good playmaker yes, but he gets an amount of space most playmakers can't even dream about. I think his lack of shot creation would be badly exposed if defenses actually paid close attention to him. He can't get by people, he can't post up, he can't catch lobs, only hits 30% of his threes despite getting wide open looks all game.

His impact on defense is undeniable, that combined with his playmaking and screen-setting make him a Top 15 player, but his offense benefits greatly from the situation he's in. What you said is completely true on defense, but not at all true on offense.

Oladipo is still highly underrated.

True. He is a good defender too unlike Kyrie but Kyrie is getting votes from Cs fans. Actually there should be a rule that you can't vote for your own players.

Yeah Oladipo is easily a better all-around player than Kyrie.

I think everybody knows Oladipo is a better all-around player. But being an all-arounder isn't the end-all be-all. The reason Kyrie is favored over Oladipo is the former's track record in the Playoffs. Kyrie has proven that his offense is always going to be there no matter what. There aren't many players for which you can say that.

[THE J0KER]

Irving playing his 8th NBA season in a team where this season youngsters Tatum and Brown will take a bigger role, and Hayward will be there. With Hayward and Brown both around, Irving will be far more PG than SG, and we know he is much better used when someone else (co-)playmaking. In Cleveland it was James, and last season it was Horford together with some other guard with good passing skills (Smart, Rozier), but this season I can't see so often Kyrie playing in backcourt rotation as SG. Oladipo has the arguably better position to have an individually more notable 2018-19 season than Irving.

On the other hand, 23 old Jokic playing his 4th season, the whole team was built around him as the franchise player, and everything than clear improvement compared to the previous season would be surprising.

[Saints14]

Can you elaborate on what you mean by the bolded? As far back as I could find, heres how many votes Kyrie's gotten and where he placed:

Poll #5 - 2 votes (T-7th)
Poll #6 - 2 votes (T-7th)
Poll #7 - 1 vote (T-6th)
Poll #8 - 6 votes (4th)
Poll #9 - 20 votes (3rd)
Poll #10 - 22 votes (3rd)
Poll #11 - 26 votes (2nd)

So it seemed that there wasn't any serious votes for him until the #9 player was voted on, didn't make top 2 until #11, and only now at #12 as a serious shot at winning, and if not definitely going #13. That sounds reasonable, assuming you don't hate Kyrie's guts.

So what needs to change about the poll that would better reflect where you think Kyrie should be? Or is it possible that people just like Kyrie more than you expected? I'm honestly convinced you're trolling with that he may not be a top 3 Celtic next season BS , but that aside, I think the people have spoken and I'm not sure how a different format really changes that.

I'm pretty sure he's saying a lot of people wouldn't have Kyrie in their top 5 or 6 picks out of the people currently left on the board. And that's very true. I would put Jokic, Gobert, Draymond, and Lillard ahead of Kyrie for sure. I would probably put Oladipo ahead of him but would need to look closer at the numbers, and I'm not sure whether I'd vote for George or Kyrie, but right now I think I'd lean Kyrie. So Kyrie probably isn't in my Top 5 of players left, probably is in my top 6.

Um ok? So you don't like Kyrie as much as most. Fine. That doesn't prove that the poll is flawed, and for some reason guys like you and iggy think it does . What's "very true"? People are VOTING for Kyrie as THEIR _TOP_ person at #12 out of the 10 guys on the poll, and you're trying to tell me they wouldn't have him top 5 or 6???? I posted those numbers for a reason; I thought iggy was trying to claim Kyrie was getting more votes earlier by virtue of supposedly being put on earlier than he should've been. So I checked for myself, and again, he didn't really start getting anything until #9. It's not like he almost got considered the 5th best player in the league per the GB. He MIGHT not even get #12.

Also to the bolded parts, I've said Gobert + Draymond don't have any true advanced statistical advantage over Kyrie outside of RPM, which proves me that's all you're using. I'm well past having to tell you that I'm not taking that bait on it's own, and I'm venturing that most Celtics fans couldn't be bothered on arguing whether Kyrie's a top 15 player on the GB of all places, let alone based solely off ****ing RPM, which is why you're not seeing a lot of them.

You keep talking about only using RPM, while throwing out stats like BPM/WS/VORP/PER as if they make distinct cases for Kyrie as a top 10 player. The above stats are all box-score based and have only slightly variation on each other, while RPM/RAPM are +/- based, so it's an entirely different argument. So it's not it just one stat, but an entire statistical framework that doesn't rate Kyrie as a top 25 player.

Are we allowed to change our vote if the guy we voted for is clearly out of contention?

[Canadafan]

Draymond adds more wins to your team than Jokic or Irving.

Hmmm, I think I would add more wins to a team than those 2 if I played on Warriors too

[bondom34]

If I'm honest, I think Kyrie's a borderline top 10 PG, let alone top 12 player. There's more to being great than scoring and flash.

You're usually a level-headed poster but that's borderline insane.

Are we talking about the same Kyrie Irving that greatly outplayed Stephen Curry in an NBA Finals?
I admit I'm lower than most on him, but I don't think that's a good reason. There are tons of times in NBA history when a worse player than Kyrie's outplayed a star. His overall impact isn't on the level of Lillard, and I don't think Lowry or Walker or a few others. Pre-Lebron he wasn't good individually and still outside of scoring doesn't run an offense as well as quite a few others.

BTW same to you, always love your posts .

[Ritzo]

Kyrie just can't stay healthy.
I love Victor, one of my favorite two-way player in league, but I gotta go with Jokic here.

[bondom34]

I'm pretty sure he's saying a lot of people wouldn't have Kyrie in their top 5 or 6 picks out of the people currently left on the board. And that's very true. I would put Jokic, Gobert, Draymond, and Lillard ahead of Kyrie for sure. I would probably put Oladipo ahead of him but would need to look closer at the numbers, and I'm not sure whether I'd vote for George or Kyrie, but right now I think I'd lean Kyrie. So Kyrie probably isn't in my Top 5 of players left, probably is in my top 6.

Um ok? So you don't like Kyrie as much as most. Fine. That doesn't prove that the poll is flawed, and for some reason guys like you and iggy think it does . What's "very true"? People are VOTING for Kyrie as THEIR _TOP_ person at #12 out of the 10 guys on the poll, and you're trying to tell me they wouldn't have him top 5 or 6???? I posted those numbers for a reason; I thought iggy was trying to claim Kyrie was getting more votes earlier by virtue of supposedly being put on earlier than he should've been. So I checked for myself, and again, he didn't really start getting anything until #9. It's not like he almost got considered the 5th best player in the league per the GB. He MIGHT not even get #12.

Also to the bolded parts, I've said Gobert + Draymond don't have any true advanced statistical advantage over Kyrie outside of RPM, which proves me that's all you're using. I'm well past having to tell you that I'm not taking that bait on it's own, and I'm venturing that most Celtics fans couldn't be bothered on arguing whether Kyrie's a top 15 player on the GB of all places, let alone based solely off ****ing RPM, which is why you're not seeing a lot of them.

You keep talking about only using RPM, while throwing out stats like BPM/WS/VORP/PER as if they make distinct cases for Kyrie as a top 10 player. The above stats are all box-score based and have only slightly variation on each other, while RPM/RAPM are +/- based, so it's an entirely different argument. So it's not it just one stat, but an entire statistical framework that doesn't rate Kyrie as a top 25 player.

Are we allowed to change our vote if the guy we voted for is clearly out of contention?

Poll allows it, I don't see why not. I have.

[ITYSL]

BPM and VORP are the exact same stat. It’s like WS and WS/48. And all those stats that rate Kyrie highly have something in common. They’re all purely box score stats. Their only inputs are points, rebounds, FG%, assists, blocks, steals, etc. You can’t gather a good picture of someone’s defense from boxscore stats. It’s just impossible. 90% of what makes a good defender is completely invisible to box score stats.

Things like RPM, RAPM, and raw plus/minus are a different category of stat altogether. These are called impact stats because they measure how the team’s performance is impacted when the player’s on the floor compared to on the bench. Impact stats, pretty much without fail tend to rate Kyrie much lower than boxscore stats since they can “see” how he’s hurting the defense by how much worse that defense performs when he’s in the game. That’s why those stats which might still rate Kyrie highly as an offensive player only, rate him much lower when accounting for his defense as well, something that WS and BPM have no mechanism to judge accurately even if they claim to have a defensive component.

The Celtics regular season win percentage did go down 6% with Kyrie (equivalent to one less win), but given how well they performed in the playoffs I’d say their overall performance after he was injured was probably more impressive than what they did with him earlier in the season. I’ll take 14-8 regular season, beating the Bucks, beating the red-hit Sixers in 5 and taking the Cavs to 7 over going 41–19 in the regular season.

OK. Really, though, my point stands. RPM is an untested and undocumented stat put out by a company, ESPN, that has put out similarly untested, undocumented advanced stats in other sports (NFL QBR). While I am absolutely OK with looking at RPM as one of the advanced stats, it is not the end-all, be-all of stats, and to rely solely on it to dismiss Irving's impact is foolish. Irving is top 10 in multiple advanced stats, but 45th in RPM - a stat that had Covington as top 10 last season and had PGs such as Tyus Jones, Fred VanVleet and Spencer Dinwiddle ahead of Irving. Those type of glaring outliers should give pause to anyone who feels the need to rely solely on that single stat to make an argument for or against a player.

My point also stands regarding win% and NetRtg, the latter of which you didn't address following your initial erroneous statement. You were wrong about those regarding Irving and Jokic.

[The_Hater]

Sorry people, Irving and Jokic are not better players than Paul George or Victor Oladipo Unless defence suddenly a non-requirement in playing basketball?

Irving remains the most overrated player in the league (going on 4-5 years now) which is kinda sad because his teammate Al Horford is probably the league’s most underrated.

[TravisScott55]

Wow you Jokic lovers are outrageous.

How is Jokic at #12 outrageous?

Doesn't play a lick of defense, hasn't sniffed the playoffs in his career but he's somehow better than Paul George, Kyrie and Oladipo? OK.

[iggymcfrack]

BPM and VORP are the exact same stat. It’s like WS and WS/48. And all those stats that rate Kyrie highly have something in common. They’re all purely box score stats. Their only inputs are points, rebounds, FG%, assists, blocks, steals, etc. You can’t gather a good picture of someone’s defense from boxscore stats. It’s just impossible. 90% of what makes a good defender is completely invisible to box score stats.

Things like RPM, RAPM, and raw plus/minus are a different category of stat altogether. These are called impact stats because they measure how the team’s performance is impacted when the player’s on the floor compared to on the bench. Impact stats, pretty much without fail tend to rate Kyrie much lower than boxscore stats since they can “see” how he’s hurting the defense by how much worse that defense performs when he’s in the game. That’s why those stats which might still rate Kyrie highly as an offensive player only, rate him much lower when accounting for his defense as well, something that WS and BPM have no mechanism to judge accurately even if they claim to have a defensive component.

The Celtics regular season win percentage did go down 6% with Kyrie (equivalent to one less win), but given how well they performed in the playoffs I’d say their overall performance after he was injured was probably more impressive than what they did with him earlier in the season. I’ll take 14-8 regular season, beating the Bucks, beating the red-hit Sixers in 5 and taking the Cavs to 7 over going 41–19 in the regular season.

OK. Really, though, my point stands. RPM is an untested and undocumented stat put out by a company, ESPN, that has put out similarly untested, undocumented advanced stats in other sports (NFL QBR). While I am absolutely OK with looking at RPM as one of the advanced stats, it is not the end-all, be-all of stats, and to rely solely on it to dismiss Irving's impact is foolish. Irving is top 10 in multiple advanced stats, but 45th in RPM - a stat that had Covington as top 10 last season and had PGs such as Tyus Jones, Fred VanVleet and Spencer Dinwiddle ahead of Irving. Those type of glaring outliers should give pause to anyone who feels the need to rely solely on that single stat to make an argument for or against a player.

My point also stands regarding win% and NetRtg, the latter of which you didn't address following your initial erroneous statement. You were wrong about those regarding Irving and Jokic.

I was talking about the average of the 2 years with Jokic and Irving, but double-checking it, you’re right, Kyrie is slightly higher. Don’t know how I got that mixed up. Still the point stands though that if a lottery team is only 0.4 points per 48 minutes worse with Jokic on the floor than a conference finals team is with Kyrie on the floor that Jokic’s performance is obviously much more impressive.

As for RPM, forget about it if you want. Here’s how the top contenders rank in RAPM which has nothing to do with ESPN. This is just simply looking at how much they affect their team’s point differential with no confusing box score priors:

Victor Oladipo: +4.017 (10th)
Nikola Jokic: +3.778 (12th)
Draymond Green: +2.428 (40th)
Kyrie Irving: +0.644 (184th)

These results have less priors to smooth things out and are gonna be much noisier as they’re just looking at the year’s on/off data. As you see though, the pattern that Kyrie affects the game much less than his box score data would say holds true. For the record, that’s only regular season data. In the playoffs, Draymond Green ranks 2nd overall while Oladipo ranks 14th.

[iggymcfrack]

No matter what the formula is, the general point is the same: Kyrie Irving didn’t make the Celtics a much better team if at all last year. You can use RPM, RAPM, on/off, team record with and without, or you could just watch the team in the playoffs and see what a dynamic defensive juggernaut they were without Kyrie constantly getting caught out of position or blown by. If you can get replaced by a third-string PG with a career PER of 12.8 and the team doesn’t miss a beat and is arguably better afterwards, you’re not one of the Top 15 players in the league.

When Jokic leaves the floor, Denver collapses. When Oladipo leaves the floor, Indiana collapses. When Gobert was hurt, the Jazz looked like they had no shot at the playoffs. The Warriors are pretty good without Draymond, but they absolutely need him more than anyone when they face a really tough test in the playoffs like Houston.

When Kyrie gets hurt, it’s like “oh is he gone? Didn’t notice.” Celtics didn’t miss him at all. In the 2015 Finals, Bron was missing Love too and still went 2-3 against the Warriors without him. In 2016 when he missed extended time, the Cavs were 37-16 with him and 20-9 without him. Whether he’s taking rest time during a game or missing several months with injury, there’s just no evidence that he has a significant effect on whether his team wins or loses. I mean, he effects the total points a lot sure. If you were betting over/unders, Kyrie’s elite offense and embarrassing defense would be a lethal combination to increase the total points scored in the game. But those effects tend to balance each other out enough that you just can’t conpare him to the 18-20 players that really matter in this league.