3rd - 7th best players in 2015-16 season

[OhayoKD]

I think I have KD over Russ too, mostly on the strength of his defense

that would theoretically be baked into his weaker playoff impact signals(raw and hybridzed)

the raw advantage actually extends beyond what i think peopl emight expect(2012-2016 i think) but i'll leave it to you which degree of that you would assume as noise or situational

[Dutchball97]

Chris Paul was on the lower end of this group in the regular season and then cemented his place at the bottom of the group with an early play-off injury. KD similarly wasn't a serious MVP contender and then had a disappointing post-season, if Paul had been able to stay healthy I'd likely have dropped Durant below him as well. They're a pretty clear bottom 2 to me.

I think I'd put Green next but he's someone who you could realistically have either 3rd or 7th depending on what you value. While he had the luxury of playing a role that suited his skills perfectly on a team with players that maximized Dray's skillset, he still had a massive impact footprint. He probably got a bit underrated in the MVP race due to low scoring and playing next to Curry but I do think Kawhi and Westbrook still have him beat in the regular season at least.

Kawhi and Westbrook is a tough choice imo as there wasn't much between them in either the regular season and play-offs. I was leaning towards Kawhi at first but Russ was the main reason OKC made it such a close game against the Warriors and Kawhi didn't really set himself apart from Westbrook (or KD for that matter) when his Spurs lost to the Thunder.

3 - Russell Westbrook
4 - Kawhi Leonard
5 - Draymond Green
6 - Kevin Durant
7 - Chris Paul

[rk2023]

Chris Paul was on the lower end of this group in the regular season and then cemented his place at the bottom of the group with an early play-off injury. KD similarly wasn't a serious MVP contender and then had a disappointing post-season, if Paul had been able to stay healthy I'd likely have dropped Durant below him as well. They're a pretty clear bottom 2 to me.

I think I'd put Green next but he's someone who you could realistically have either 3rd or 7th depending on what you value. While he had the luxury of playing a role that suited his skills perfectly on a team with players that maximized Dray's skillset, he still had a massive impact footprint. He probably got a bit underrated in the MVP race due to low scoring and playing next to Curry but I do think Kawhi and Westbrook still have him beat in the regular season at least.

Kawhi and Westbrook is a tough choice imo as there wasn't much between them in either the regular season and play-offs. I was leaning towards Kawhi at first but Russ was the main reason OKC made it such a close game against the Warriors and Kawhi didn't really set himself apart from Westbrook (or KD for that matter) when his Spurs lost to the Thunder.

3 - Russell Westbrook
4 - Kawhi Leonard
5 - Draymond Green
6 - Kevin Durant
7 - Chris Paul

How is the former true here out of curiosity? His efficiency was down, but Paul still brought his bread and butter playmaking and guard defense. On top of that, the Clippers were 30-14 in games Paul played without Blake - where Paul had a 10.17 "on" rating / 100 possessions. At that, his production in aggregate increased within this span. If you're lower on this year because of his PS injury, that's fair I guess.. but I think Paul's 16/17 campaigns remain to be underrated (like his entire Clippers tenure).

[Dutchball97]

Chris Paul was on the lower end of this group in the regular season and then cemented his place at the bottom of the group with an early play-off injury. KD similarly wasn't a serious MVP contender and then had a disappointing post-season, if Paul had been able to stay healthy I'd likely have dropped Durant below him as well. They're a pretty clear bottom 2 to me.

I think I'd put Green next but he's someone who you could realistically have either 3rd or 7th depending on what you value. While he had the luxury of playing a role that suited his skills perfectly on a team with players that maximized Dray's skillset, he still had a massive impact footprint. He probably got a bit underrated in the MVP race due to low scoring and playing next to Curry but I do think Kawhi and Westbrook still have him beat in the regular season at least.

Kawhi and Westbrook is a tough choice imo as there wasn't much between them in either the regular season and play-offs. I was leaning towards Kawhi at first but Russ was the main reason OKC made it such a close game against the Warriors and Kawhi didn't really set himself apart from Westbrook (or KD for that matter) when his Spurs lost to the Thunder.

3 - Russell Westbrook
4 - Kawhi Leonard
5 - Draymond Green
6 - Kevin Durant
7 - Chris Paul

How is the former true here out of curiosity? His efficiency was down, but Paul still brought his bread and butter playmaking and guard defense. On top of that, the Clippers were 30-14 in games Paul played without Blake - where Paul had a 10.17 "on" rating / 100 possessions. At that, his production in aggregate increased within this span. If you're lower on this year because of his PS injury, that's fair I guess.. but I think Paul's 16/17 campaigns remain to be underrated (like his entire Clippers tenure).

I start off by looking at how he was viewed that year and then check the stats if there is dissonance between the two. CP3 was 6th in the MVP race in 2015-16, which is good but it is behind everyone else in this list except for Draymond.

For regular season RAPM Paul was ranked below all the others on the list, he was 4th in RAPTOR (behind Curry, Green and Kawhi), 5th in BPM (behind LeBron, Curry, Kawhi and KD) and 5th in EPM (behind LeBron, Curry, Westbrook and Kawhi).

I personally don't see a reason why Paul should be ranked significantly higher in the 15-16 regular season than he was.

In any case the point was meant to show the others didn't really have to make up much, if any, ground on Paul's regular season.

[iggymcfrack]

I think I actually probably underrated Dray putting him at #5. He really had an incredible season. I already knew that he had either the best on/off of all-time or 2nd best behind ‘23 Jokic depending on which source you use and I remembered the crazy Game 7 he had against Cleveland, but look at the playoff on/off for all the Warriors’ starters:

Draymond: +13.9
Bogut: +1.7
Barnes: -2.9
Curry: -3.7
Klay: -4.6

That’s WILD. He really was a cheat code when he was actually making threes. Look at what he averaged in the playoffs when Curry missed 4 consecutive games:

23.0 PPG, 11.3 RPG, 8.5 APG on 47/44/78

The Warriors were +73 over that stretch with Dray on the floor and -29 with him on the bench.

He was at another level defensively that year too. His motor was absolutely insane. I think it’s very fair to say that he was the Warriors’ best and most important player through their playoff run with Steph banged up.

[tone wone]

Yeah a Draymond whose a reliable 16ppg scorer, making 37% of his 3s really might be a top 5 player.

It's hard to fathom given how awful a scorer he's been since but that season Dray was legitimately good offensively

[Pelly24]

3. KD
4. CP3
5. Westbrook
6. Harden
7. AD

[NBA4Lyfe]

klay making all-nba over james harden is still one of the biggest gaffes in nba history

[TheGOATRises007]

3. KD
4. CP3
5. Westbrook
6. Harden
7. AD

No Draymond? That's interesting.

How come?