Retro POY '05-06 (Voting Complete)

[ElGee]

Wade Jump Bank
Wade Driving Layup
Wade Free Throw 1 of 1
Posey Jump Shot
Wade Jump Shot
Wade Driving Layup
O'Neal Free Throw 1 of 2
O'Neal Free Throw 2 of 2
Wade Jump Shot
Haslem Free Throw 1 of 2
Haslem Free Throw 2 of 2
Posey Free Throw 2 of 2
Payton Jump Shot
Wade Free Throw 1 of 2

12 points, 5-7 FG...all with 5 fouls. That's a decent 6 minutes to save the season.

In Game 5 he started a little earlier. 1:30 left in the 3rd, 71-63 Dallas. Wade goes:

Jumper
Fade Away
Assist Posey Jumper (Now 71-70)
(miss at buzzer)
Turnover
Jumper
Miss Fade Away
2 FTs
2 FTs
Assist Payton Jumper (83-82 Miami)
2 FT's
Fade Away + FT
Turnaround
Fade Away
Miss Jumper
Jump Bank
Jump Bank (ties game at 93 with 2 seconds left)
Miss Jumper
Miss Jumper
2 FT's (GWers 1 second left)
---
25 points, 8-13 FG, 2 Ast

[mopper8]

From the outset, I'll make it clear, I probably won't be voting for Wade in my top 3 at least - I have always maintained that Shaq's impact on the Heat gets overlooked - of course he's gonna fare badly in APM or on any stat based on box score numbers. He was 2nd in MVP voting in the preceding year and all of a sudden, in the space one year his contributions are delegated to role player status.

The Heat wouldn't have won a title without Shaq. It's Shaq who has proven he can take a team to the Finals time and again. You can change the shooting guard to Wade, or Kobe or Penny and that team still goes to the Final. You change the center and that team flames out in the Conference Finals.

I already basically dismantled the "Shaq was like Duncan and nothing like Gasol" portion of your argument, but I'd like to point out that

in 04-05 Shaq averaged 23/10 and had a PER of 27 while Wade averaged 24/7 and had a PER of 23.1
in 05-06 Shaq averaged 20/9 and had a PER of 24.4 while Wade averaged 27/7 and had a PER of 27.6

Nobody is relegating Shaq to "role player", they're just stating the obvious--it went from Shaq 1a and Wade 1b (or Shaq 1 and Wade 2) in the offense to clearly Wade 1 and Shaq 2

You could switch Wade with 2 of the all-time great wings and they'd still be great? Wow! By the same logic, you could just switch Shaq with Duncan and they'd still win the title. Devastating!

It'd mean something if you felt that switching Wade with, say, Mitch Richmond wouldn't change the outcome. But that would be absurd.

[mysticbb]

And I mean, really, this is Player of the Year...when people think of this season, do you really think they're gonna say, "05-06, yeah...that was the year Dirk was just a monster?" No.
Or, "oh, that was the year Nash got his 2nd MVP?" No.

When people think of that season, they'll say, "oh that was the year Wade went apesh*t on the Mavs in the Finals". Which is why IMO he's the obvious #1.

You are right about that, but I don't base my vote on what other people think. ;)

Wade is the best player in the playoffs, which has a huge influence on my vote, but he doesn't seperate himself statistical so much that it would overshadow everything else what other players done. Nowitzki still posted the 2nd highest Win Shares in playoffs history that season (better than Wade), that has to count for something. But in the end: Wade got it done, won the championship with an incredible performance in the Conf-Finals and Finals. With that kind of performance I can't have him lower than #2 even though Bryant and James had clearly the better regular season.

[Doctor MJ]

Hmm. I believe you said something like "How can you win when the other team takes so many more free throws?", so a response of "Well they made about the same number of free throws" is relevant because it says Miami won by outscoring the Mavs with field goals. It's not disputing Dallas' right to complain about the refs, but it is disputing Dallas' right to complain that the series was made impossible to win because of free throws.

You missed not only one point here. The Heat got more opportunities to score on a higher efficiency by going to the line. If they would have went less to the line, their overall offensive efficiency would have dropped.

Let me show you that: The Heat score 0.99 points per scoring opportunity from the field, but they scored 125 from the free throw line in 91 scoring possessions. That makes 1.37 points per scoring possessions. As you can see the difference is 0.38 points per scoring opportunity. Now we reduce the amount of possession from the line to the amount of possessions the Mavericks had (68). That makes 23 possessions in which the Heat scored 0.38 more points than they would have scored without that FTA advantage. That makes around 9 points. That doesn't sound much in the first place, but the Heat won 3 of their 4 wins by 3 points or less.
Additional to the points they gained due to that the Mavericks players were also in foul trouble, which results in a different style of defense, less physical, avoiding fouls, etc., which helped the Heat on offense.

From the opposite standpoint: Give the Mavericks those 23 possessions from the free throw line more, they score 20 points more over the course of the series. That would also mean more foul trouble for the Heat players, which would normally result into a less aggressive defense, especially Haslem and Posey would have had likely foul trouble against Nowitzki, if the referees would have called the ticky-tack fouls which they called for Wade also for Nowitzki.

That changes the whole dynamic of the series. And the Heat clearly got more foul calls in their favour than usual, while Mavericks got less than usual.

No, you're making this way too complicated. I get your reasoning, but it's not addressing the point I made (if you want to say my point itself was off topic, then let's talk about that). The Heat outscored the Mavs by 3 points at the line total in a 6 game series. It's simply wrong to say the game was made impossible because of the refs when it actually added only 0.5 points per game to the Heat.

Again, this doesn't mean the Mavs can't complain about the calls. The fact that the Heat got way more free throws is of course relevant to that. However, if the Mavs played clearly superior to the Heat on everything but the free throws.

Now, you do get into the impact of the Dallas defense possibly becoming gunshy due to the foul calls. That IS a good point. It has to be noted though that the actual PF differential between the two teams isn't that crazy. It's a 3 foul per game difference. By contrast in '04, the Lakers had 7.8 more PFs per game than Detroit. In '02, the Nets had 7.8 more PFs per game than the Lakers. The "ref advantage" of the Heat overall just isn't that crazy by historical comparison. Now if you're willing to say "Yeah, those series were even more affected by refs! The one team totally wasn't allowed to even play!", I'll give you credit for consistency. I personally don't buy it. I think a lot of people think the PF disadvantage in the '06 series was some incredible outlier, and so extrapolate consequences accordingly - and the reality is the Mavs didn't face a disadvantage that was THAT spectacular.

[ElGee]

From the outset, I'll make it clear, I probably won't be voting for Wade in my top 3 at least - I have always maintained that Shaq's impact on the Heat gets overlooked - of course he's gonna fare badly in APM or on any stat based on box score numbers. He was 2nd in MVP voting in the preceding year and all of a sudden, in the space one year his contributions are delegated to role player status.

The Heat wouldn't have won a title without Shaq. It's Shaq who has proven he can take a team to the Finals time and again. You can change the shooting guard to Wade, or Kobe or Penny and that team still goes to the Final. You change the center and that team flames out in the Conference Finals.

Just curious - when do you think Kobe Bryant ever played at Wade's level in the 06 playoffs?

Against a similar Detroit defense in 04, Bryant, with a younger Shaq, and similar quality role players, was horrendous against Detroit. Lakers lost in 5. The closest 4th quarter, I'm-not-losing-this-game, takeover act to Wade's he pulled on such a stage was in 2000 G4 vs. Indiana...4 shots in OT. Bryant's been in the playoffs and on the Finals stage numerous times and I've never seen anything close to that.

I'm just not see what the evidence is for "just swap in Kobe" and they suddenly win...? (Would Kobe even want to play with Shaq )

I'm sorry - did you just compare the 04 Pistons with the 06 Pistons ?

The one with a 95 Drtg with a team with a 104 Drtg ?

The one that allowed a opp 3% of 30.2 vs the one that allowed 35.6 ?

I mean, one of em is a top 5 defensive team all time - the other was barely top 5 that season -

Yes, I did compare them...so is that your thinking for why Kobe could just replace Wade? Because Detroit's defense in 04 was better than in 06?

Can I assume you don't have Wade in your top 5?

[ElGee]

From the outset, I'll make it clear, I probably won't be voting for Wade in my top 3 at least - I have always maintained that Shaq's impact on the Heat gets overlooked - of course he's gonna fare badly in APM or on any stat based on box score numbers. He was 2nd in MVP voting in the preceding year and all of a sudden, in the space one year his contributions are delegated to role player status.

The Heat wouldn't have won a title without Shaq. It's Shaq who has proven he can take a team to the Finals time and again. You can change the shooting guard to Wade, or Kobe or Penny and that team still goes to the Final. You change the center and that team flames out in the Conference Finals.

I already basically dismantled the "Shaq was like Duncan and nothing like Gasol" portion of your argument, but I'd like to point out that

in 04-05 Shaq averaged 23/10 and had a PER of 27 while Wade averaged 24/7 and had a PER of 23.1
in 05-06 Shaq averaged 20/9 and had a PER of 24.4 while Wade averaged 27/7 and had a PER of 27.6

Nobody is relegating Shaq to "role player", they're just stating the obvious--it went from Shaq 1a and Wade 1b (or Shaq 1 and Wade 2) in the offense to clearly Wade 1 and Shaq 2

You could switch Wade with 2 of the all-time great wings and they'd still be great? Wow! By the same logic, you could just switch Shaq with Duncan and they'd still win the title. Devastating!

It'd mean something if you felt that switching Wade with, say, Mitch Richmond wouldn't change the outcome. But that would be absurd.

I just don't understand why Silver Bullet didn't mention this at all with Kobe in 2008? The Lakers were 22-5 with Gasol and jumped significantly to about a 66-win pace which they've maintained since Gasol arrived (first 3 game losing streak at the end of 2010). If we replace Kobe with Wade, James, Jordan or any other great wing, can't the Lakers beat Denver, Utah and a hobbled Spurs team?

Furthermore, here he is playing up the contributions of a big who is a secondary scorer (O'Neal) while in 2008 completely downplaying Garnett. Here are the two compared:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 01&y2=2006

Shaq played fewer minutes per game, missed 22 more games and played 500 fewer minutes in the season. His PER was lower, his WS/82 were significantly lower and his defensive impact paled in comparison to Garnett's. Yet here, he is downplaying the wing (Wade) and championing Shaq's value, while in 2008 downplaying the big (Garnett) and championing the wing's value (Pierce).

SB, do you not see this inconsistency?

[Silver Bullet]

Just curious - when do you think Kobe Bryant ever played at Wade's level in the 06 playoffs?

Against a similar Detroit defense in 04, Bryant, with a younger Shaq, and similar quality role players, was horrendous against Detroit. Lakers lost in 5. The closest 4th quarter, I'm-not-losing-this-game, takeover act to Wade's he pulled on such a stage was in 2000 G4 vs. Indiana...4 shots in OT. Bryant's been in the playoffs and on the Finals stage numerous times and I've never seen anything close to that.

I'm just not see what the evidence is for "just swap in Kobe" and they suddenly win...? (Would Kobe even want to play with Shaq )

I'm sorry - did you just compare the 04 Pistons with the 06 Pistons ?

The one with a 95 Drtg with a team with a 104 Drtg ?

The one that allowed a opp 3% of 30.2 vs the one that allowed 35.6 ?

I mean, one of em is a top 5 defensive team all time - the other was barely top 5 that season -

Yes, I did compare them...so is that your thinking for why Kobe could just replace Wade? Because Detroit's defense in 04 was better than in 06?

Can I assume you don't have Wade in your top 5?

I already said he wasn't in my top 3 - I don't know about top 5 but it's unlikely.

I'll admit I'm wrong, if someone here can tell me - without looking - what Wade's shooting percentages were without Shaq - with Shaq he shot 51%.

[Silver Bullet]

From the outset, I'll make it clear, I probably won't be voting for Wade in my top 3 at least - I have always maintained that Shaq's impact on the Heat gets overlooked - of course he's gonna fare badly in APM or on any stat based on box score numbers. He was 2nd in MVP voting in the preceding year and all of a sudden, in the space one year his contributions are delegated to role player status.

The Heat wouldn't have won a title without Shaq. It's Shaq who has proven he can take a team to the Finals time and again. You can change the shooting guard to Wade, or Kobe or Penny and that team still goes to the Final. You change the center and that team flames out in the Conference Finals.

I already basically dismantled the "Shaq was like Duncan and nothing like Gasol" portion of your argument, but I'd like to point out that

in 04-05 Shaq averaged 23/10 and had a PER of 27 while Wade averaged 24/7 and had a PER of 23.1
in 05-06 Shaq averaged 20/9 and had a PER of 24.4 while Wade averaged 27/7 and had a PER of 27.6

Nobody is relegating Shaq to "role player", they're just stating the obvious--it went from Shaq 1a and Wade 1b (or Shaq 1 and Wade 2) in the offense to clearly Wade 1 and Shaq 2

You could switch Wade with 2 of the all-time great wings and they'd still be great? Wow! By the same logic, you could just switch Shaq with Duncan and they'd still win the title. Devastating!

It'd mean something if you felt that switching Wade with, say, Mitch Richmond wouldn't change the outcome. But that would be absurd.

I just don't understand why Silver Bullet didn't mention this at all with Kobe in 2008? The Lakers were 22-5 with Gasol and jumped significantly to about a 66-win pace which they've maintained since Gasol arrived (first 3 game losing streak at the end of 2010). If we replace Kobe with Wade, James, Jordan or any other great wing, can't the Lakers beat Denver, Utah and a hobbled Spurs team?

Furthermore, here he is playing up the contributions of a big who is a secondary scorer (O'Neal) while in 2008 completely downplaying Garnett. Here are the two compared:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 01&y2=2006

Shaq played fewer minutes per game, missed 22 more games and played 500 fewer minutes in the season. His PER was lower, his WS/82 were significantly lower and his defensive impact paled in comparison to Garnett's. Yet here, he is downplaying the wing (Wade) and championing Shaq's value, while in 2008 downplaying the big (Garnett) and championing the wing's value (Pierce).

SB, do you not see this inconsistency?

Of course I see the inconsistency - which is why I did not vote for KG and I'm not voting for Shaq.

I'm only playing up Shaq and playing down KG relatively - KG was considered the best player in the league by the majority of voters - I did not agree with that.
Shaq is being considered a role player - I don't agree with that either.

Both thier relative values were out of whack - Shaq's too low and KG's too high.

How does a player go from almost being the MVP to being a role player in one season ?

If you look at Wade or Kobe's percentages with and without Shaq, you'll understand what his impact outside of numbers on offense is.

[mysticbb]

No, you're making this way too complicated. I get your reasoning, but it's not addressing the point I made (if you want to say my point itself was off topic, then let's talk about that). The Heat outscored the Mavs by 3 points at the line total in a 6 game series. It's simply wrong to say the game was made impossible because of the refs when it actually added only 0.5 points per game to the Heat.

Who cares whether a team gets outscored from the line or not? The important thing is the overall offensive efficiency. The Heat got an advantage which made their offense more efficient than it usually would have been and the Mavs didn't.

I really don't have a problem, if a series is called very restrictive or not, if it is just consistent on both sides. Call the fouls on Wade on one end of the floor, but also call the foul on Harris on the other end. It wasn't consistent.

I think a lot of people think the PF disadvantage in the '06 series was some incredible outlier, and so extrapolate consequences accordingly - and the reality is the Mavs didn't face a disadvantage that was THAT spectacular.

It was spectacular, because it really changed the way the Mavericks played in comparison to the way they played before in the playoffs. They started not attacking the basket as much anymore, because they were called for offensive fouls, they started to play less aggressive defense to avoid foul trouble, really watch the whole series and you can see how the foul calls changing the dynamic of the Mavericks. At a certain point the Mavericks players didn't even know anymore what they are allowed to do and what not. That is the mental advantage the Heat players gained due to the discrepancy. And show me a series in which a team was able to win while getting 9 FTA per game less than the other team.

[ElGee]

Of course I see the inconsistency - which is why I did not vote for KG and I'm not voting for Shaq.

I'm only playing up Shaq and playing down KG relatively - KG was considered the best player in the league by the majority of voters - I did not agree with that.
Shaq is being considered a role player - I don't agree with that either.

Both thier relative values were out of whack - Shaq's too low and KG's too high.

How does a player go from almost being the MVP to being a role player in one season ?

If you look at Wade or Kobe's percentages with and without Shaq, you'll understand what his impact outside of numbers on offense is.

I don't think anyone considers Shaq a role player. Perhaps I misread if someone did.

Regarding relative values, it seems you're trying to make a case for Shaq being, say, a solid No. 2 and important presence as a way of downgrading how good Wade was, and I'm not following the reasoning. You didn't do that with Pau and Kobe in 08 or 09...and essentially every NBA championship has had a solid No. 2 and secondary important presence. No one wins a title alone...and I don't think anyone has argued that Wade did.

It seems to me what people are saying is that Wade was the best player on a title team and his performance throughout the year and in the last 2 rounds was exceptional.

[Silver Bullet]

Gasol's PER in 08-09 was 22.2, lower than Shaq's, but certainly not a huge difference. Especially considering Gasol played in 81 RS games while Shaq only played in 59.

Also, you're touting Shaq's PER next to Duncan and KG, but neither of those guys played with someone else with a higher PER...Wade's PER that year is 27.6. If you're really going to pimp that stat hard like you are now, how can you not acknowledge that Shaq didn't even have the highest PER on his team? Neither RS nor Playoffs? That's totally dishonest. Manu Ginobili had a PER of 24.3, slightly lower than Duncan's, and Parker was at 20.0, and that's certainly nice help...but that's far from being far-and-away the #2 player on your team in PER, to a guy who:

Played more games (75-59)
Played more MPG (38.6-30.6)
Took more FGA/game (18.8 to 13.6)
Had a higher USG% (32.5 to 30.0)

By comparison, Duncan played more games (and certainly started more games) than Ginobili, played more mpg, took more fga/game, and had a higher PER (in the interest of full disclosure, Gino did have a slightly higher USG%, 28.7-28,2). Shaq's place on his team was nothing at all like Duncan's. I mean, it's not even close.

Further, and I think this is important: you brought up PER and the comparison between Shaq and Gasol, well: The difference between Wade's PER in 05-06 and Shaq's PER that same year is +3.2 in favor Wade, a bigger margin of difference than that between Shaq 05-06 and Gasol 08-09 (+2.2 in favor of Shaq)

You're using that to demonstrate that Shaq was superior to Gasol, and yet...the very same metric says Wade was superior to Shaq by an even bigger margin.

What's more, the difference between Gasol's and Kobe's PER (24.4 for Kobe, 22.2 for Gasol) was smaller in favor of Kobe than it was in favor of Wade. That is to say, according to PER (which, again, YOU brought up, not I), Gasol was closer to Kobe in production in 08-09 than Shaq was to Wade in 05-06. Not really debatable when looking at that metric.

On top of that, unlike Shaq vis-a-vis Wade, Gasol actually played more mpg than Kobe (37.0-36.1).

So no, Shaq wasn't playing Gasol's role on the Lakers, he was playing Duncan's role on the 07-08 Spurs - that is MVP level production.

As I demonstrated above, Shaq's place on the Heat in no way resembled Duncan's role on the 07-08 Spurs, and its not really debatable. Duncan had a "1st-among-equals" place on offense with Gino and Parker--they're USG% was all within .5 points of one another, and their FGA/game were all within .8 of one another, and Duncan had the best PER on that team by a slight margin, and Duncan lead them in MPG. All while easily being the team's most important defensive player.

Shaq, conversely, was clearly the 2nd option and 2nd in production in any metric you'd like to choose: MPG, USG%, FGA, PER, raw stats, etc etc. And its not even obvious that he was the best defensive player; Alonzo Mourning had a huge impact on Miami's defense. Per 82 games:

Mourning On/Off opponent Pper100: 101.2 on/107.9 off
O'Neal On/Off opponent Pper100: 107.2 on/104.4 off

I mean, you're really just wrong here.

So how about you answer me this riddle ?

Without Shaq, the Heat were 10-13, a lottery team

With Shaq they were 42-17, a 60 win team.

Now, Wade missed some of those games, so even when we factor those out, the Heat were a .500 team without Shaq and a 60 win team without him.

Why ?

EDIT: I wouldn't mind Elgee answer this post either.

[Baller 24]

So how about you answer me this riddle ?

Without Shaq, the Heat were 10-13, a lottery team

With Shaq they were 42-17, a 60 win team.

Now, Wade missed some of those games, so even when we factor those out, the Heat were a .500 team without Shaq and a 60 win team without him.

Why ?

Dude, no one is discrediting Shaq's impact to the overall team, not at all. No one in this thread has stated he's a "role player", but simply that Wade surpassed Shaq as the best player on the Miami Heat, it's as simple as that. His impact and presence were still felt all throughout the playoffs, no one can replicate that, but how hard is it to ACKNOWLEDGE the FACT that Shaq was surpassed by Wade as the best player on the team, like mopper said, it was a clear 1) Wade 2) Shaq. It's backed up by pretty much every statistic out there.

It's funny to me how you're not acknowledging that, when in reality you're the one stressing and backing up information related to all kinds of statistics. Furthermore, Shaq's impact isn't being questioned, it's the fact that he became the 2nd best player on that team throughout the span of the regular season and playoffs. And it could be "argued" that statistically Yao could have been the best center in the league that season, playing pretty much the same amount of games as him (2 less than him), and still out-producing him, and they pretty much had identical TS percentages.

[Doctor MJ]

Who cares whether a team gets outscored from the line or not? The important thing is the overall offensive efficiency. The Heat got an advantage which made their offense more efficient than it usually would have been and the Mavs didn't.

Oh good lord.

You said:

How do you want to overcome a 52! disadvantage in FTA over 6 games? Seriously, that is impossible.

In my multiple attempts to try to make you understand what someone else said it response to that ridiculous statement, I said multiple times this didn't mean you couldn't complain about the refs. And your response when you finally stop trying to uses complicated math to prove your original point is a "Who cares!" statement that then tries to move the goal post away from the this crazy statement.

No need to carry this conversation on further since it seems clear now you understand the situation. The point everyone else should realize is that Miami did not win the series due to hitting way more free throws, and the foul differential between the two teams was not very big relative to some other series in history.

[mysticbb]

In my multiple attempts to try to make you understand what someone else said it response to that ridiculous statement, I said multiple times this didn't mean you couldn't complain about the refs.

Seriously, you either don't get it or you just try to win an argument here. The 52 FTA advantage implies not only more points via a MORE efficient way to score, but also a serious disadvantage to the amount of foul calls for the other team.

Now, to disprove my point you need to find the single playoffs series in which a team were able to overcome that kind of difference and went on to win the series. Please. I didn't check that, but I seriously doubt that any team done that.

[mopper8]

So how about you answer me this riddle ?

Without Shaq, the Heat were 10-13, a lottery team

With Shaq they were 42-17, a 60 win team.

Now, Wade missed some of those games, so even when we factor those out, the Heat were a .500 team without Shaq and a 60 win team without him.

Why ?

So, you're not going to address a single of the myriad points I made? Just deflect?

Well, I'll give you an answer: the team wasn't built to play off Wade's strengths. That's why they were mediocre. By comparison, in 04-05, Shaq missed 9 games, and Miami went 6-3 in those games, a 55-win pace, and that's with the following very mediocre supporting cast: Damon Jones, Keyon Dooling, Eddie Jones, Rasual Butler, Udonish Haslem, Malik Allen, MIchael Doleac.

Are those players better than Jason Williams, Gary Payton, James Posey, Antoine Walker, Alonzo Mourning? No, of course not. But they're more suited to Dwyane Wade's style of play: all the bigs in 04-05 are solid P/R guys who are money from 15-feet on the pick/pop play, and then E. Jones, D. Jones, and Butler are all great spot-up 3 point shooters, giving Wade plenty of room to work. Unlike the unreliable Walker, Posey who was totally lost in the Heat's offense for the vast majority of the season, Zo who's shot completely abandoned him after he came back from the kidney transplant, GP whos never been a great spot-up shooter, etc etc.

The Heat had a cast of players that just wasn't very suited to Wade's style of play. In fact, I personally felt (and still do think) that fully healthy, the 04-05 team (with Zo) was better than the 05-06 team. The 05-06 team had more players who could create their own shot, so it was more suited to withstand an injury to Wade, but fully healthy, Miami's 04-05 compliment of role players was far more reliable and consistent and better fits than the 05-06 season.

BTW, I'm running the 04-05 #s now, having trouble figuring out some stuff out as the game logs aren't clear about the # of games Shaq played, but I have Wade putting up in Shaq's absence: 36 mpg, 26.2ppg, 7 apg, 54% from the floor. All better #s than what he put up with Shaq playing. How do you explain that?

Or the fact that Wade had no trouble shooting 49% from the floor last year? Etc etc. If you're going to deflect, I can play that game as well.

[Tim_Hardawayy]

Damn Mop, its good to have you back.

[mysticbb]

Damn Mop, its good to have you back.

Well, I can't say "have you back", but I like reading his posts.

[mopper8]

And I mean, really, this is Player of the Year...when people think of this season, do you really think they're gonna say, "05-06, yeah...that was the year Dirk was just a monster?" No.
Or, "oh, that was the year Nash got his 2nd MVP?" No.

When people think of that season, they'll say, "oh that was the year Wade went apesh*t on the Mavs in the Finals". Which is why IMO he's the obvious #1.

You are right about that, but I don't base my vote on what other people think.

Wade is the best player in the playoffs, which has a huge influence on my vote, but he doesn't seperate himself statistical so much that it would overshadow everything else what other players done. Nowitzki still posted the 2nd highest Win Shares in playoffs history that season (better than Wade), that has to count for something. But in the end: Wade got it done, won the championship with an incredible performance in the Conf-Finals and Finals. With that kind of performance I can't have him lower than #2 even though Bryant and James had clearly the better regular season.

I never responded to this, so I want to say that this is totally fair. Still have no idea where SB is coming from though.

[ElGee]

Gasol's PER in 08-09 was 22.2, lower than Shaq's, but certainly not a huge difference. Especially considering Gasol played in 81 RS games while Shaq only played in 59.

Also, you're touting Shaq's PER next to Duncan and KG, but neither of those guys played with someone else with a higher PER...Wade's PER that year is 27.6. If you're really going to pimp that stat hard like you are now, how can you not acknowledge that Shaq didn't even have the highest PER on his team? Neither RS nor Playoffs? That's totally dishonest. Manu Ginobili had a PER of 24.3, slightly lower than Duncan's, and Parker was at 20.0, and that's certainly nice help...but that's far from being far-and-away the #2 player on your team in PER, to a guy who:

Played more games (75-59)
Played more MPG (38.6-30.6)
Took more FGA/game (18.8 to 13.6)
Had a higher USG% (32.5 to 30.0)

By comparison, Duncan played more games (and certainly started more games) than Ginobili, played more mpg, took more fga/game, and had a higher PER (in the interest of full disclosure, Gino did have a slightly higher USG%, 28.7-28,2). Shaq's place on his team was nothing at all like Duncan's. I mean, it's not even close.

Further, and I think this is important: you brought up PER and the comparison between Shaq and Gasol, well: The difference between Wade's PER in 05-06 and Shaq's PER that same year is +3.2 in favor Wade, a bigger margin of difference than that between Shaq 05-06 and Gasol 08-09 (+2.2 in favor of Shaq)

You're using that to demonstrate that Shaq was superior to Gasol, and yet...the very same metric says Wade was superior to Shaq by an even bigger margin.

What's more, the difference between Gasol's and Kobe's PER (24.4 for Kobe, 22.2 for Gasol) was smaller in favor of Kobe than it was in favor of Wade. That is to say, according to PER (which, again, YOU brought up, not I), Gasol was closer to Kobe in production in 08-09 than Shaq was to Wade in 05-06. Not really debatable when looking at that metric.

On top of that, unlike Shaq vis-a-vis Wade, Gasol actually played more mpg than Kobe (37.0-36.1).

So no, Shaq wasn't playing Gasol's role on the Lakers, he was playing Duncan's role on the 07-08 Spurs - that is MVP level production.

As I demonstrated above, Shaq's place on the Heat in no way resembled Duncan's role on the 07-08 Spurs, and its not really debatable. Duncan had a "1st-among-equals" place on offense with Gino and Parker--they're USG% was all within .5 points of one another, and their FGA/game were all within .8 of one another, and Duncan had the best PER on that team by a slight margin, and Duncan lead them in MPG. All while easily being the team's most important defensive player.

Shaq, conversely, was clearly the 2nd option and 2nd in production in any metric you'd like to choose: MPG, USG%, FGA, PER, raw stats, etc etc. And its not even obvious that he was the best defensive player; Alonzo Mourning had a huge impact on Miami's defense. Per 82 games:

Mourning On/Off opponent Pper100: 101.2 on/107.9 off
O'Neal On/Off opponent Pper100: 107.2 on/104.4 off

I mean, you're really just wrong here.

So how about you answer me this riddle ?

Without Shaq, the Heat were 10-13, a lottery team

With Shaq they were 42-17, a 60 win team.

Now, Wade missed some of those games, so even when we factor those out, the Heat were a .500 team without Shaq and a 60 win team without him.

Why ?

EDIT: I wouldn't mind Elgee answer this post either.

I'll answer that, when you address this:

Just curious - when do you think Kobe Bryant ever played at Wade's level in the 06 playoffs?

And when you address this:

I just don't understand why Silver Bullet didn't mention this at all with Kobe in 2008? The Lakers were 22-5 with Gasol and jumped significantly to about a 66-win pace which they've maintained since Gasol arrived (first 3 game losing streak at the end of 2010). If we replace Kobe with Wade, James, Jordan or any other great wing, can't the Lakers beat Denver, Utah and a hobbled Spurs team?

In the meantime, mopper's answer is a good start.

[ronnymac2]

I have a question to Laker fans who were able to watch Kobe play throughout the entire 2006 season. Was that his peak? If he had the 09 team around him back then, would they have won the title (and ignore maturity issues...because I feel he was mature in 06...he just didn't have the team)? How did he play in games where he wasn't dropping 32+?