Doctor MJ wrote:ardee wrote:Doctor MJ wrote: Ah, well I suppose my perspective is that to do it really well, you want to understand the team play of the season first and foremost just like we do when we evaluate play live during the season.
Let me go with something from the ‘45-46 NBL.
You can see by looking at the main bkref page for that season that the two-time defending champ Zollner Pistons had the best regular season record and that their star player Bobby McDermott won another MVP as a big scorer that year.
You’ll also see that the Pistons got upset in the playoffs and that McDermott had very low scoring numbers in that series.
Can you come up with a ranked list just based on that information? Sure.
Might it matter though why it was McDermott had low scoring numbers in that series?
What about the team that upset the Pistons and win the title (Rochester Royals), might it matter if one of their players was primarily responsible for McDermott’s performance?
I think it does, and that the deeper into history you want to be able to go, the more your ability to have a meaningful list is dependent on understanding context.
I don’t mean to be super-elitist here and say people can’t do what I think they need to do, but I do think people need to be expecting to really try to get all this context in their head if they want the project to be done well.
The reason why it’s not natural for this project to get re-done frequently compared to something like a Top 100 list is because there’s nothing new about these old years except possibly new information.
Hence, if it can’t be done better than was done before, why would we want to try replace the original?
Now, in practice, there’s nothing objective about which list will be “better”, and I wouldn’t want people to feel they can’t do this simply because they are insecure about their knowledge. But for anyone in that boat, I’d hope that they’d really be looking to learn all they can.
I ask the forbearance of folks here pertaining to my persnickety perspective here. The reason why I came up with the RPOY way back when was to create a project that allowed us to iteratively walk through the entirety of the history of the NBA in a way that GOAT lists and all-time projects did not, so I’m rather attached to it being a series of season deep dives.
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1. It's not being redone frequently though: it's been 12 YEARS (Good God I can't believe I've been on this board over a decade already). That's 400% longer than the wait between top 100 projects.
2. There's new information and a whole bunch of new perspectives from all the new posters. For example, someone like 70sFan: he seems to know a lot about that particular decade, which is considered the forgotten part of the shot-clock era. Surely having someone like him around would enrich the deep dives you're talking about.
Also, with regards to the top 100, besides the active players adding to their careers, isn't it basically the same thing? Just new info and new stats offered by different players?
Y'know, if there's enough passion to do this and do it well, then we should do it.
I'm open to suggestion about gauging that interest and getting folks ready.
A few things:
1. I definitely don't want this project started until after the '21-22 POY voting happens.
2. I'd want to do this going forward in time, rather than backward. I ran it backwards last time because I thought it likely that the project would run out of steam at some point - which it did - and I wanted to make sure we addressed the years we knew the most about. However, I think you get a much better picture of what actually happens in a given year when you go forward.
3. I'd recommend starting from '45-46 - the first season after World War II when talent flooded back in to domestic basketball leagues - with consideration for the NBA's two tributary leagues, the NBL and the BAA (though note the BAA starts in '46-47). We can have a general discussion about preferences, but to me us ending it "at the birth of the shot clock" way back when was always a bit of a cop out for the fact that the will of the voting base really seemed expended as we moved earlier than Russell. In reality, the shot clock was a pretty minor rule change that certainly wasn't implemented to adjust for Mikan, and so what we essentially did previously was ignore the Mikan era, which I see as a gaping hole.
4. I would recommend that we add the other awards for outlier performers (OPOY, DPOY, COY & EOY) as well. I don't actually think it takes much more work to think them through the same time as POY. (I would advise against including awards for minor players - ROY, MIP & 6MOY. I don't think these awards matter all that much when you aren't voting "for the present", and they're actually quite challenging to do well.)
1. I don't think it'll happen anytime soon given LA Bird has already started a Peaks thread. Let's wait and see how long that takes.
2. I think that is a pretty good idea. I don't envision the project running out of steam that way as people will get more engaged coming into the seasons we know best.
3. I suppose that's fair enough. I freely admit I don't know much about the pre-Russell era, but I suppose the point is to learn.
4. OPOY and DPOY are fine, COY too, not sure about EOY though, especially given team workings are very unclear past a certain point. Are there even easily findable records of that sort of thing when you go far back enough? Though I will admit it would be cool to vote for Russell for both POY and COY in '69.