MVP Rankings 1.0

[InBoobieWeTrust]

So by improve in the playoffs you mean sacrificing seeding (and HCA) by getting a worse record knowing the celts would be healthy?

Were you the one talking about spin??

The Cavs learned last year that HCA really doesn't matter. If you can't beat an elite team on the road, you aren't going to win the title, or probably not even make the finals.


By "improve in the playoffs" I meant add someone in the front-court who won't get used and abused on both ends by the more physical bigs in the league like Big Z did. (Howard, Perkins, Bynum). We completely changed the structure of our team and how we play basketball because we feel that we didn't play a style that could truly compete with the teams that had amazing front-courts. We feel we can outplay the other teams in every other area, which is why we got Shaq to try and make the front-court battles as close to neutral as possible instead of getting dominated(40 points to two points..Dwight vs. Z last year)


And it's not even spin. My argument is that the majority of people expected that the Cavs would win less than 66 games this year. Therefore the Cavs are not failing to meet expectations, which is what you were trying to argue. It's just not true. The Cavs are falling in-line with the expectations that most people had of them this season as it pertains to regular season success. The Cavs are not falling short of expectations. You are WRONG in that assertion.

[YLSKillaCam]

So by improve in the playoffs you mean sacrificing seeding (and HCA) by getting a worse record knowing the celts would be healthy?

Were you the one talking about spin??

The Cavs learned last year that HCA really doesn't matter. If you can't beat an elite team on the road, you aren't going to win the title, or probably not even make the finals.


By "improve in the playoffs" I meant add someone in the front-court who won't get used and abused on both ends by the more physical bigs in the league like Big Z did. (Howard, Perkins, Bynum). We completely changed the structure of our team and how we play basketball because we feel that we didn't play a style that could truly compete with the teams that had amazing front-courts. We feel we can outplay the other teams in every other area, which is why we got Shaq to try and make the front-court battles as close to neutral as possible instead of getting dominated(40 points to two points..Dwight vs. Z last year)


And it's not even spin. My argument is that the majority of people expected that the Cavs would win less than 66 games this year. Therefore the Cavs are not failing to meet expectations, which is what you were trying to argue. It's just not true. The Cavs are falling in-line with the expectations that most people had of them this season as it pertains to regular season success. The Cavs are not falling short of expectations. You are WRONG in that assertion.

Grasping for straws much?

So I'm wrong in assuming that a team ASPIRING for a championship wants to preserve HCA? I'm wrong in assuming that adding an all-star to a team should make them better?

The entire idea that the Cavs brought O'Neal in knowing that it would cost them a worse regular season record and HCA in the process is so laughable that I didn't even know whether to respond to it or not.

Either you'll say anything in order to argue for Lebron or you're just a very very funny comedian. Either way, well played.

[semi-sentient]

They both fit the criteria of having team success, Kobe gets 5 points, LeBron gets 4. Let's move on to statistics. LeBron gets 5 points, Kobe gets 4. Let's move on to "how good would this team be without this player".LeBron gets 5 points, Kobe gets 4 points. Let's move on to "leadership". Kobe gets 5, LeBron gets 4.5(he loses a half point for the first Chicago game).

Bam, there's my formula. LeBron has the lead by .5 points. Like I said, it's close.

Defense?

[YLSKillaCam]

They both fit the criteria of having team success, Kobe gets 5 points, LeBron gets 4. Let's move on to statistics. LeBron gets 5 points, Kobe gets 4. Let's move on to "how good would this team be without this player".LeBron gets 5 points, Kobe gets 4 points. Let's move on to "leadership". Kobe gets 5, LeBron gets 4.5(he loses a half point for the first Chicago game).

Bam, there's my formula. LeBron has the lead by .5 points. Like I said, it's close.

Defense?

no, cause then Boobie will just add in dance skills and we'll be back to where we were.

[Dat Pass]

They both fit the criteria of having team success, Kobe gets 5 points, LeBron gets 4. Let's move on to statistics. LeBron gets 5 points, Kobe gets 4. Let's move on to "how good would this team be without this player".LeBron gets 5 points, Kobe gets 4 points. Let's move on to "leadership". Kobe gets 5, LeBron gets 4.5(he loses a half point for the first Chicago game).

Bam, there's my formula. LeBron has the lead by .5 points. Like I said, it's close.

Defense?

no, cause then Boobie will just add in dance skills and we'll be back to where we were.

[InBoobieWeTrust]

Grasping for straws much?

So I'm wrong in assuming that a team ASPIRING for a championship wants to preserve HCA? I'm wrong in assuming that adding an all-star to a team should make them better?

The entire idea that the Cavs brought O'Neal in knowing that it would cost them a worse regular season record and HCA in the process is so laughable that I didn't even know whether to respond to it or not.

Either you'll say anything in order to argue for Lebron or you're just a very very funny comedian. Either way, well played.

Are you serious? Are you so blinded by the purple and yellow glasses that you honestly can't understand that the Cavs knew they needed to make some big changes to be able to compete at all with guys like Howard, so they traded for Shaq?

When you trade for a guy like Shaq, there are obviously going to be some adjustment periods..and when a 66 win team adds three new starters, it's pretty obvious that there are going to be a few random losses that happen because of lack of familiarity.

You're ignoring the question and statement. The expectations of the Cavaliers by the majority of people(analysts, people on RealGM, even Cavs fans and even some statements BY the Cavs coach/GM) is that they probably wouldn't win 66 games again.

You're putting way too much stock into home-court advantage. The Cavs value that less after losing with it last year, because it showed that it didn't matter at all and that you need to be able to win on the road if you want to win a title.

But like I said, you're refusing and have been refusing to respond to what I'm stating.

The majority of people's expectations for the Cavs this year was that they probably wouldn't get to 66 wins again, but would be in the range of 58-64 wins. This completely disagrees with your assertion that the Cavs are not meeting expectations. If you wish to defend your assertion, I welcome you to try, but I'll tell you right now, you're wrong.

[InBoobieWeTrust]

They both fit the criteria of having team success, Kobe gets 5 points, LeBron gets 4. Let's move on to statistics. LeBron gets 5 points, Kobe gets 4. Let's move on to "how good would this team be without this player".LeBron gets 5 points, Kobe gets 4 points. Let's move on to "leadership". Kobe gets 5, LeBron gets 4.5(he loses a half point for the first Chicago game).

Bam, there's my formula. LeBron has the lead by .5 points. Like I said, it's close.

Defense?

I think it's hard to make defense an MVP criteria for a few reasons. It's evident that Kobe and LeBron are both elite defenders, but last year....Kobe was surrounded by a bunch of lackadaisical defenders effort-wise and in the regular season, the Lakers weren't very good defensively. The Cavs had a great system in place and LeBron had some great defenders around him in the starting lineup in Varejao and Delonte West. It wasn't really fair to Kobe last year to count defense. This year, LeBron doesn't have Varejao or Delonte starting, and Kobe has Artest and two moblie 7 footers who seem to care a lot more than they did last year flanking him. Also, a lot of what goes into defense is effort and I took effort into account with Leadership because they're supposed to lead by example, and that first Chicago game got LeBron a deduction.

(at the time, it was a big deduction and I had Kobe over LeBron in my rankings because of it..but since then LeBron has pretty much completely cut that out and that's why he's gained in that area and taken the slight advantage over Kobe)

[YLSKillaCam]

Grasping for straws much?

So I'm wrong in assuming that a team ASPIRING for a championship wants to preserve HCA? I'm wrong in assuming that adding an all-star to a team should make them better?

The entire idea that the Cavs brought O'Neal in knowing that it would cost them a worse regular season record and HCA in the process is so laughable that I didn't even know whether to respond to it or not.

Either you'll say anything in order to argue for Lebron or you're just a very very funny comedian. Either way, well played.

Are you serious? Are you so blinded by the purple and yellow glasses that you honestly can't understand that the Cavs knew they needed to make some big changes to be able to compete at all with guys like Howard, so they traded for Shaq?

When you trade for a guy like Shaq, there are obviously going to be some adjustment periods..and when a 66 win team adds three new starters, it's pretty obvious that there are going to be a few random losses that happen because of lack of familiarity.

You're ignoring the question and statement. The expectations of the Cavaliers by the majority of people(analysts, people on RealGM, even Cavs fans and even some statements BY the Cavs coach/GM) is that they probably wouldn't win 66 games again.

You're putting way too much stock into home-court advantage. The Cavs value that less after losing with it last year, because it showed that it didn't matter at all and that you need to be able to win on the road if you want to win a title.

But like I said, you're refusing and have been refusing to respond to what I'm stating.

The majority of people's expectations for the Cavs this year was that they probably wouldn't get to 66 wins again, but would be in the range of 58-64 wins. This completely disagrees with your assertion that the Cavs are not meeting expectations. If you wish to defend your assertion, I welcome you to try, but I'll tell you right now, you're wrong.

Link to the majority of people's expectations?

Look, I'm not stupid. I know what I've seen. It isn't just about WINS/LOSSES. Most people thought the Cavs would be the best team in the league this year or top 2 at least.

Most people didn't expect the Lakers to win 65 again after adding Ron (except for a few who thought they'd win 75 or so)...but the expectation was they'd be a top 2 team in the league.

Lakers = meeting expectations
Cavs = Not so much

your turn?

[INKtastic]

The lakers are 16-3, they were 17-2 last year. How are they better?

And one thing being overlooked is LeBron won in a landslide last year. Kobe is shooting better this year, but so is LeBron.

Lakers record when healthy is 100%. Can't get much better than that.

also a small sample size. The cavs won't be heathy for 2 more months when Powe starts playing.

[Chris Hansen]

How do you add an all star and become a worse team from a year ago and then have people say that you're still the MVP? It is ridiculous if you think about it.

Thats a great point, and I think it will come down to that for a lot of voters.

3 STARTERS from a 67 win team are now coming off the bench for this current Cavs roster (Big Z, Varejao and West). Thats pretty damn impressive the more you think about it. So how do they give the "most valuable player" award to a guy that won less games with quite a bit more help? (Added Shaq, Hickson, Moon and Parker while losing no significant pieces)

yeah but they lost 4 time dpoy and all star in wallace, and all star in wally and former number 1 pick in joe smith.

[YLSKillaCam]

The lakers are 16-3, they were 17-2 last year. How are they better?

And one thing being overlooked is LeBron won in a landslide last year. Kobe is shooting better this year, but so is LeBron.

Lakers record when healthy is 100%. Can't get much better than that.

also a small sample size. The cavs won't be heathy for 2 more months when Powe starts playing.

Fair enough. That's the one caveat. The sample size so far is 19 or so games. A little over 1/5th of the season. Things could change.

I have no interest in either one of them winning. Lebron is certainly capable of winning and still might. Kobe has the better argument right now though. I think the arguments for Lebron are pretty weak considering how good the Lakers are in the West.

[JimMurray]

An increase in wins from 45 to 66. Everyone always talks about how if you have the stats, you need at least 50 wins. LeBron will get those 50, and probably 60 or more. He'll have the stats, he meets the criteria.

Wrong, it's enough to win 50 if you're playing on a bad team, and Lebron is playing on a team that won 66 games last year, should have went to the finals, and got substantially better in the off-season. 50 wins would be a sufficient for Wade, not Lebron or Kobe.

And no, your deduction of the logic of my post is simply illogical. You know you're being dumb. Pau Gasol is still in his prime, possibly better than ever, he is still every bit the player he was that year. Shaq is obviously not the same player he was when he did that. In-fact, his all-star performance last year had Phoenix at 46 wins with Steve Nash, Jason Richardson, and half a season of Amare Stoudemire. So, reducing that "supporting cast" would obviously lower the win total of Shaq's team to approximately 42!

How could you possibly be qualified to quantify something like that? What you are arguing here is irrelevant. You can't use the "Lebron plays on a bad team" argument anymore. They've already proved that they are a championship contender, and you're only allowed to use that argument once. The Cavs added Shaq...yes, but they also added some other pieces to give themselves more depth on a squad already playing at a championship level. That's not going to cut it anymore.

[INKtastic]

So by improve in the playoffs you mean sacrificing seeding (and HCA) by getting a worse record knowing the celts would be healthy?

Were you the one talking about spin??

Cleveland certainly isn't conceding HCA.

Because of these 3 main issues, we got off to a slightly slow 0-2 start

- the disrupted training camp. We started out behind because we had to do media day the following day due to a power outage, then half the team got the flu.

- the Delonte situation which has been more disruptive than it was last year.

- the disruption of integrating 4 new players into the rotation. 3 new to the team, one basically a rookie.

Since then we've played on a 67 win pace despite shaq missing 6 games, Andy missing a game, and delonte's availability basically being a night to night issue. We're just 1 game out of first in the east with 62 games left to play. We are in fine shape, you make it sound like we are struggling like the Spurs.

[INKtastic]

Lakers record when healthy is 100%. Can't get much better than that.

also a small sample size. The cavs won't be heathy for 2 more months when Powe starts playing.

Fair enough. That's the one caveat. The sample size so far is 19 or so games. A little over 1/5th of the season. Things could change.

I have no interest in either one of them winning. Lebron is certainly capable of winning and still might. Kobe has the better argument right now though. I think the arguments for Lebron are pretty weak considering how good the Lakers are in the West.

I was referring to the sample size of the healthy lakers being undefeated. For overall, lets see how the standings look christmas night.

[JimMurray]

^The league isn't stagnant either. Other teams improved along with CLE. It's not like CLE added good players and no one else did, so to say CLE should automatically win more games is a (Please Use More Appropriate Word) argument. Also you have to factor in injuries (Shaq has already missed a high number of games, West has his issues) you can't just blindly look at # of wins without context. That applies to Kobe and the Lakers also.

The Kobe fans debating in this thread know this already, clearly some serious homer spin going on.

WTF?! Take a 66 win team that finished with the best record in the NBA last season, add Shaq, Anthony Parker (excellent player, good depth guy), Jamario Moon (another depth guy), and Leon Powe (a meat and potatoes guy), and that somehow is irrelevant because other teams made moves as well? The only team who arguably got better than the Cavs in the off-season was Boston. The Lakers brought back the same team and swapped Ariza for Artest. The Cavs added a hell of a lot of fire power to their bench and beefed it up in the middle to help out Z. And no matter how you want to spin Shaq being a bad player....he's a hell of a lot better than Ben Wallace and Big Z. So no....Lebron is held to a higher standard this year. If he doesn't finish with a better record than Kobe, he can't be MVP.

[JimMurray]

The lakers are 16-3, they were 17-2 last year. How are they better?

And one thing being overlooked is LeBron won in a landslide last year. Kobe is shooting better this year, but so is LeBron.

Doesn't matter...they're better than the Cavs...or anyone else in the NBA at this point. So what exactly is YOUR point.

[InBoobieWeTrust]

How could you possibly be qualified to quantify something like that? What you are arguing here is irrelevant. You can't use the "Lebron plays on a bad team" argument anymore. They've already proved that they are a championship contender, and you're only allowed to use that argument once. The Cavs added Shaq...yes, but they also added some other pieces to give themselves more depth on a squad already playing at a championship level. That's not going to cut it anymore.

How is anyone in here "qualified" to quantify anything?

It's my opinion, I looked at the teams, who they have, and tried my best to estimate how good they would be without their respective best players.

I'm not saying LeBron has a bad team. I'm simply saying that Kobe has a better team, which isn't even debatable in my opinion. If the Lakers win 3-5 more games(65-67 wins versus 62 for the Cavs), is that really such a strong argument for Kobe's MVP rights, is it a reflection of Kobe performing better than LeBron, or is it a reflection of having two 20-10, skilled, mobile seven footers starting, Artest complimenting him on the wings, and Odom coming off the bench?

Look, I'm not stupid. I know what I've seen. It isn't just about WINS/LOSSES. Most people thought the Cavs would be the best team in the league this year or top 2 at least.

Most people didn't expect the Lakers to win 65 again after adding Ron (except for a few who thought they'd win 75 or so)...but the expectation was they'd be a top 2 team in the league.

Lakers = meeting expectations
Cavs = Not so much

How is it not about wins and losses? If the Cavs were expected to win 58-64 games, and they meet that range, how is that not meeting expectations? That's the DEFINITION of meeting expectations.(I wish I could find the RealGM predictions thread...they really need to let us use the search feature)

I think most people thought L.A. was clearly the best team in the league(I sure as hell did and still do), with Boston, Orlando, Cleveland, and S.A. rounding out the "big-5" slightly under the Lakers level. The Cavs, Celtics, and Magic don't have much separation between each other(the Spurs aren't good but that's a different discussion for a different thread). The Cavs are right where I think they were pegged to be by most, which is right in the mix of the top 5 and on pace for probably more than 60 wins..they're meeting expectations)

[InBoobieWeTrust]

So no....Lebron is held to a higher standard this year. If he doesn't finish with a better record than Kobe, he can't be MVP.

I disagree, simply because you can't expect an inferior team to post a better record. If they do post a better record, then we see land-slide victories like last year.

LeBron took a team that didn't have as much talent as the Lakers to a better record. Because of this, he won the MVP by a land-slide and it was the clearest MVP since KG won it by a land-slide.

Maybe it isn't the land-slide it was last year, but a few wins one way or the other don't take LeBron from land-slide winner to runner-up...it just takes LeBron from land-slide winner to leader who should make sure to take a glance over his shoulder.

[JimMurray]

I'm not punishing Kobe for anything. I'm giving credit to both players for meeting expectations. It's one part of the MVP criteria, and both are meeting it.

Kobe surpassing Lebron in one criteria, is not the same as them both meeting a criteria.

Kobe has a better team around him, and is expected to have a better record.

The Cavs finished with the best record last year, added FOUR solid players in the off-season to make themselves better, so the Cavs are expected to do the same thing, or they underachieve and Lebron doesn't deserve MVP. If they're tied, than fine...if' it's within a game or two, than it's irrelevant, but Lebron is held to just a high a standard as Kobe.

They won 66 games last year, but the expectation this year, even though we improved, was that our regular season win total would decrease. We made moves to help us in the playoffs and completely over-hauled a 66 win team because of it. You can't expect a completely overhauled team(three new starters) to throw up 70 wins, and nobody did expect that.

Why? How does that make sense? Nobody said the Cavs would win 70, and I don't think anyone at this point is seriously expecting the Lakers to win 70. But the Cavs were fully expected to compete for the leagues best record.

Code: Select all

It's not some huge surprise the Cavs might not win 66 games again. In-fact, the majority of people had pegged the Cavs win total somewhere between 58-64.

It's not about win total, it's about how they finish in relation to the other teams.

Both are meeting expectations. They both fit the criteria of having team success, Kobe gets 5 points, LeBron gets 4. Let's move on to statistics.LeBron gets 5 points, Kobe gets 4. Let's move on to "how good would this team be without this player".LeBron gets 5 points, Kobe gets 4 points. Let's move on to "leadership". Kobe gets 5, LeBron gets 4.5(he loses a half point for the first Chicago game).

Wrong, Kobe gets 5 points, Lebron gets 4 points. Lebron has to prove he can beat inferior teams in the playoffs before you can make a claim like this. Losing to the Magic was unforgivable.

Bam, there's my formula. LeBron has the lead by .5 points. Like I said, it's close.[/quote]

By you're formula I have Kobe ahead by 2. I'm taking a half point away from Lebron in the leadership department because the guy screws around too much to be taken seriously as a leader. When you screw around too much you do (Please Use More Appropriate Word) things fail to the best team in the conference to the finals because you lost to an inferior team with a broken wing.

Team Success: Kobe 5 Lebron 4
Stats: Kobe 4 Lebron 5
Swap Teams: Kobe 5 Lebron 4
Leadership: Kobe 5 Lebron 4
----------------------------------------------
Kobe 19 Lebron 17

[JimMurray]

And it's not even spin. My argument is that the majority of people expected that the Cavs would win less than 66 games this year. Therefore the Cavs are not failing to meet expectations, which is what you were trying to argue. It's just not true. The Cavs are falling in-line with the expectations that most people had of them this season as it pertains to regular season success. The Cavs are not falling short of expectations. You are WRONG in that assertion.

The majority of people also expected the Cavs to finish with the best record in the East...who cares about what win total you want to put on it. Yes...the Cavs are failing to meet expectations. We'll see where they're at in January, but yes, for now, they are not meeting expectations.