RealGM

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=38

thoughts about this article?..

I think it's an interesting concept. Although Kobe/KG fans are gonna come in a hammer this thread now. Spurs are definitely looked after well with D Rob and Duncan getting major props according to his system.

so he uses a subjective vote as the basis for his statistical analysis?

Interesting article and an innovative way to tally perception.

It does happen to give a pretty good summary of the players who were dominating the league. I'm moderately surprised that Shaq's not on there a little more but the weakness of the method is that it's based on subjective valuation, MVP voting. I still can't fathom how Shaq has been so consistently underrated in MVP voting, and that's the critical factor at the core of this method. The poster doesn't really address that, saying that the only year Shaq didn't win that he should have was '01 and not actually addressing the fact that Shaq finishing outside of the top 3 in MVP voting most of those years was essentially a crime, given what he was achieving on the court.

Still, it does capture some pretty clear trends; Bill Russell, Wilt, Kareem, etc. It gives some fodder to the Bird-over-Magic argument (much as it pains me to say it and especially if you happen to like win shares) and it definitely fogs up the GOAT conversation a little bit.

Very interesting stuff, nice post, thanks!

Cevap wrote:so he uses a subjective vote as the basis for his statistical analysis?

It's not statistical analysis, really, it's more qualitative because he's talking about the perception of who was the best in the league, not a statistical breakdown of efficiency and productivity.

mj was only the best 5 times
i knew he was overrated

hermes wrote:mj was only the best 5 times
i knew he was overrated

Heh. It's funny, Justin has some discussion on the APBR boards where he uses Win Shares to show that all three of Magic's MVP seasons seemed to have stepped on MJ as the rightful winner.

Any list with Steve Nash as the best player in the league 2x's I can give no serious consideration to.

Dumb article. If many fans think the eventual winner was underserving for a given year, why would they support this stat?

Nash finished 1st, 1st, and 2nd in the MVP voting in consecutive years, so there must have been more than a handful of people who thought he was the best player in the NBA

This only proves how clueless the voters were..

This may be useful for earlier eras, but not today. The MVP isn't a measure of the best player in the league anymore, but the best player on a top 5 team. Steve Nash was never the best player in the league. Shaq has 1 MVP. The MVP is simply given to the media's favorite player now.

well the guy who wrote this article did say that he didn't fully agree with what the results were, and that it would change with a little tweaking..it's just an interesting look at who the voters perceived as the best players during those eras..

it does bring up an interesting point though..pretty much all of those players on the list were considered to be in the discussion for best player in the NBA at the time..so what made the system change in the last few years? Steve Nash is a great player, but A LOT of people have dismissed him as the best player in the NBA for the last few years..Dirk didn't even get ANY consideration for being the best player in the NBA last year..so what has changed so much, that has put some of the "best" players at a disadvantage that don't win as much as Nash or Dirk? simply bad management? or flawed voting? because the voting seemed to be accurate in most of those years..

there have also been guys like Dream and Duncan that did get high consideration and won championships with weak supporting casts(for championship teams)..so what is the actual reason for the MVP "system" changing for the past few years? since apparently so many people have disagreed with Nash being the best player in the NBA for the last few years..

the only problem is with the actual voting......1 thing in particular, Kobe has never been top 3 in voting, and we all know that he's deserved AT LEAST top 3 status for more than a few seasons.

Basileus777 wrote:This may be useful for earlier eras, but not today. The MVP isn't a measure of the best player in the league anymore, but the best player on a top 5 team.

Agreed. I do love the idea of using MVP shares as opposed to just raw MVPs to measure 'greatness' though. If someone finishes second every year in the voting, each time to a different players, and each of the other four years, the winners of the other years don't even crack the top ten...

It's pretty clear the the second place finisher is, overall, the better player.

The MVP isn't based on the best player, so the article is pointless.