'17-'18 POY discussion

[INKtastic]

Pretty sure I've voted for him for POY every time the committee has. Think it's actually 7 times in 9 years.

Not sure I'm understanding though. Are you assuming that my votes were more anti-LeBron than other people's, or asserting that my recent criticism of LeBron means that is must have recently contracted an acute case of hating LeBron?

No, I’m only referring to this year and perhaps last year.

You downgrade LeBron for Kyrie leaving. I don’t recall you doing the same with Westbrook when Durant left.

If I recall correctly, last year you downgraded LeBron for missing too many games, yet this year when LeBron plays every game you have Chris Pau ahead of him. Correct me if I’m confusing you with another poster on this.

Like I said earlier, I respect you as a poster you are one of the people on here I really pay attention to.

I brought up prior poy voting because LeBron, who dominates that, just had one of his best seasons ever and is thus far having one of the best playoffs of all time. I don’t see how a player who missed the number of games Chris pau has could be Ahmed of him. And why does Davis get extra credit for winning without cousins. But LeBron gets downgraded for winning without Kyrie.

I absolutely did it with Westbrook when Durant left. Ask bondom. Pretty sure he felt a lot like you do now. You may recall I had a long history of drawing the ire of Kobe fans despite being born and raised an Angeleno Laker fan, and certainly other fanbases have felt similarly irritated by me (Hi Iverson fans!).

To the deeper point, it just seems we're in an impasse. I freely admit that I factor in the loss of Kyrie into my evaluation of LeBron in a way that you and many others don't agree with. You would say it's blaming the player for things beyond his control, while I would say that it is just factoring in the whole picture, and doing so without absolute beliefs of single causes and effects. It's okay we don't see things the same way.

three questions

1 - do you give Davis get extra credit for winning without Cousins?

2 - How far does LeBron have to advance in the playoffs to move him above 4th on your list? What is his ceiling?

3 - If you were looking back on this season as "retro" instead of current, but only had access to the playoff data through the end of round one, do you seriously think you'd have the player who had a top 2 individual regular season and a top 2 all time playoffs for players who played more than 4 games as 4th in your POY list?

LeBron this playoffs: 35.8 ppg, 10.1 rpg, 7.7 apg, TSS .655
Advanced stats - 35.8 PER, .346 WS/48, 16.9 BPM

Thus far LeBron is having the 2nd best playoffs in the history of the league, only behind his own 09 season.

[Doctor MJ]

three questions

1 - do you give Davis get extra credit for winning without Cousins?

2 - How far does LeBron have to advance in the playoffs to move him above 4th on your list? What is his ceiling?

3 - If you were looking back on this season as "retro" instead of current, but only had access to the playoff data through the end of round one, do you seriously think you'd have the player who had a top 2 individual regular season and a top 2 all time playoffs for players who played more than 4 games as 4th in your POY list?

LeBron this playoffs: 35.8 ppg, 10.1 rpg, 7.7 apg, TSS .655
Advanced stats - 35.8 PER, .346 WS/48, 16.9 BPM

Thus far LeBron is having the 2nd best playoffs in the history of the league, only behind his own 09 season.

1 - I suppose you could say that. Cousins being out certainly changes things.

2 - No ceiling and no clear cut thresholds. I will say that it's hard to imagine placing him at #1 if he doesn't at least make the finals.

3 - So if I understood less what actually happened might I overrate LeBron's achievement due to overreliance on individual production? You betcha.

[dhsilv2]

I'm honestly surprised people haven't locked in Harden at 1 yet. I can't think of a scenario where he'd fall from that, he's so far ahead at this point.

[eminence]

Please please stop saying LeBron had a top 2 regular season, it's just not true.

[eminence]

I'm honestly surprised people haven't locked in Harden at 1 yet. I can't think of a scenario where he'd fall from that, he's so far ahead at this point.

Injury is the big one. Donovan Mitchell breaks out the brooms for a gentleman's sweep. I dunno, seems like plenty of scenarios to me where he comes up short even though he's the clear favorite as of now.

[NinjaSheppard]

Please please stop saying LeBron had a top 2 regular season, it's just not true.

Well I mean he is going to finish second in MVP voting by a lot so a lot of people definitely think he did.

[INKtastic]

Please please stop saying LeBron had a top 2 regular season, it's just not true.

LeBron and Harden were 1/2 in many advanced stat, some favoring LeBron, some favoring Harden.

This year LeBron had the best VA/EWA in the league by a mile. EWA of 27.3 vs 23.9 for #2. Statistically LeBron personally accounted for 54.6% of the cavs wins.
Thus far this year LeBron is having a top 2 all time best playoffs. Second only to his own performance in 09.

[dhsilv2]

I'm honestly surprised people haven't locked in Harden at 1 yet. I can't think of a scenario where he'd fall from that, he's so far ahead at this point.

Injury is the big one. Donovan Mitchell breaks out the brooms for a gentleman's sweep. I dunno, seems like plenty of scenarios to me where he comes up short even though he's the clear favorite as of now.

I don't see anyone close enough to catch him if he goes down with an injury.

[dhsilv2]

Please please stop saying LeBron had a top 2 regular season, it's just not true.

LeBron and Harden were 1/2 in many advanced stat, some favoring LeBron, some favoring Harden.

This year LeBron had the best VA/EWA in the league by a mile. EWA of 27.3 vs 23.9 for #2.
Thus far this year LeBron is having a top 2 all time best playoffs.

Wow...I can't recall the last time I saw someone mention VA or EWA, talk about stats that were never good and should never be talked of.

[INKtastic]

Please please stop saying LeBron had a top 2 regular season, it's just not true.

LeBron and Harden were 1/2 in many advanced stat, some favoring LeBron, some favoring Harden.

This year LeBron had the best VA/EWA in the league by a mile. EWA of 27.3 vs 23.9 for #2.
Thus far this year LeBron is having a top 2 all time best playoffs.

Wow...I can't recall the last time I saw someone mention VA or EWA, talk about stats that were never good and should never be talked of.

People talk about PER, VA/EWA is the adjustment to PER to account for games/minutes played. So a player who plays 20 minutes doesn't rank slightly ahead of another player who plays 35 minutes. And a player who misses 30 games doesn't rank ahead of a player who plays 80 games.

People make adjustments when players miss games. VA/EWA is an attempt to objectively quantify that because sometimes people subjectively get it completely backwards and decide one player gets extra credit in value because his team wins while he's out while another player in a different season gets downgraded in value when his team loses while he's out.

[eminence]

I'm honestly surprised people haven't locked in Harden at 1 yet. I can't think of a scenario where he'd fall from that, he's so far ahead at this point.

Injury is the big one. Donovan Mitchell breaks out the brooms for a gentleman's sweep. I dunno, seems like plenty of scenarios to me where he comes up short even though he's the clear favorite as of now.

I don't see anyone close enough to catch him if he goes down with an injury.

Comes down to a difference in philosophy I suppose.

[INKtastic]

more stats that show LeBron has been by far the best player in these playoffs.

Read on Twitter

[dhsilv2]

LeBron and Harden were 1/2 in many advanced stat, some favoring LeBron, some favoring Harden.

This year LeBron had the best VA/EWA in the league by a mile. EWA of 27.3 vs 23.9 for #2.
Thus far this year LeBron is having a top 2 all time best playoffs.

Wow...I can't recall the last time I saw someone mention VA or EWA, talk about stats that were never good and should never be talked of.

People talk about PER, VA/EWA is the adjustment to PER to account for games/minutes played. So a player who plays 20 minutes doesn't rank slightly ahead of another player who plays 35 minutes. And a player who misses 30 games doesn't rank ahead of a player who plays 80 games.

People make adjustments when players miss games. VA/EWA is an attempt to objectively quantify that because sometimes people subjectively get it completely backwards and decide one player gets extra credit in value because his team wins while he's out while another player in a different season gets downgraded in value when his team loses while he's out.

Oh, I know what VA and EWA are. PER imo should not be used to measure future results in terms of wins or "value add". More importantly it also adjusts PER by position which poses massive concerns. It is simply a very very bad use of PER.

[Mystical Apples]

more stats that show LeBron has been by far the best player in these playoffs.

Spoiler:

Read on Twitter

Having John Wall 6th and Anthony Davis 23rd feels like a case against Lebron and using this metric in general.

[dreamshake]

more stats that show LeBron has been by far the best player in these playoffs.

Spoiler:

Read on Twitter

Having John Wall 6th and Anthony Davis 23rd feels like a case against Lebron and using this metric in general.

Cumulative stat right? So minutes played is the reason for that. Of course 6 & 7 game series guys are going to be higher. Which I agree makes it not a great indicator to use in this context. Not fair to penalize a guy for sweeping his series. Interesting to see how highly Mirotic rates here though, especially on defence.

That said I don’t think it’s a case against LeBron because he’s got a pretty big gap above even the number 2 guy here. So divide by games played or minutes played and he’d still rate very well but Wall would drop way down and AD would shoot up the list

[INKtastic]

Wow...I can't recall the last time I saw someone mention VA or EWA, talk about stats that were never good and should never be talked of.

People talk about PER, VA/EWA is the adjustment to PER to account for games/minutes played. So a player who plays 20 minutes doesn't rank slightly ahead of another player who plays 35 minutes. And a player who misses 30 games doesn't rank ahead of a player who plays 80 games.

People make adjustments when players miss games. VA/EWA is an attempt to objectively quantify that because sometimes people subjectively get it completely backwards and decide one player gets extra credit in value because his team wins while he's out while another player in a different season gets downgraded in value when his team loses while he's out.

Oh, I know what VA and EWA are. PER imo should not be used to measure future results in terms of wins or "value add". More importantly it also adjusts PER by position which poses massive concerns. It is simply a very very bad use of PER.

SG and SF get the same adjustment, so when comparing LeBron and Harden, that issue is completely irrelevant. And worst case is there is a 10% difference in adjustment. LeBron is way more than 10% ahead of everyone, regular season and playoffs. I would agree with removing the difference, though. In the playoffs, he's 71% ahead of #2, where #2 also gets the same position adjustment.

[dhsilv2]

People talk about PER, VA/EWA is the adjustment to PER to account for games/minutes played. So a player who plays 20 minutes doesn't rank slightly ahead of another player who plays 35 minutes. And a player who misses 30 games doesn't rank ahead of a player who plays 80 games.

People make adjustments when players miss games. VA/EWA is an attempt to objectively quantify that because sometimes people subjectively get it completely backwards and decide one player gets extra credit in value because his team wins while he's out while another player in a different season gets downgraded in value when his team loses while he's out.

Oh, I know what VA and EWA are. PER imo should not be used to measure future results in terms of wins or "value add". More importantly it also adjusts PER by position which poses massive concerns. It is simply a very very bad use of PER.

SG and SF get the same adjustment, so when comparing LeBron and Harden, that issue is completely irrelevant. And worst case is there is a 10% difference in adjustment. LeBron is way more than 10% ahead of everyone, regular season and playoffs. I would agree with removing the difference, though.

The stat is bad before that, the use of position just shows that PER simply was not designed for this purpose. There is a reason NOBODY quotes it and sites like basketball reference never bothered to add it in. It's just bad.

And LBJ was primarily a 4 this year. The stat is going to call Harden a 2 which is weird in and of itself given Paul was playing more 2 and he was playing more 1 when they were on the court together, but I don't decide position (they don't even exist)

[INKtastic]

Oh, I know what VA and EWA are. PER imo should not be used to measure future results in terms of wins or "value add". More importantly it also adjusts PER by position which poses massive concerns. It is simply a very very bad use of PER.

SG and SF get the same adjustment, so when comparing LeBron and Harden, that issue is completely irrelevant. And worst case is there is a 10% difference in adjustment. LeBron is way more than 10% ahead of everyone, regular season and playoffs. I would agree with removing the difference, though.

The stat is bad before that, the use of position just shows that PER simply was not designed for this purpose. There is a reason NOBODY quotes it and sites like basketball reference never bothered to add it in. It's just bad.

And LBJ was primarily a 4 this year. The stat is going to call Harden a 2 which is weird in and of itself given Paul was playing more 2 and he was playing more 1 when they were on the court together, but I don't decide position (they don't even exist)

Again, LeBron is still well ahead if you remove any position adjustment. He played more minutes per game, and also played more games, both add value. Both make it harder to sustain high efficiency.

41.1 minutes/game, PER 35.9 in the playoffs. What other player in history of the league is even capable of that. The only other time it's happened in league history with more than 4 games played is LeBron in 2009.

[dhsilv2]

SG and SF get the same adjustment, so when comparing LeBron and Harden, that issue is completely irrelevant. And worst case is there is a 10% difference in adjustment. LeBron is way more than 10% ahead of everyone, regular season and playoffs. I would agree with removing the difference, though.

The stat is bad before that, the use of position just shows that PER simply was not designed for this purpose. There is a reason NOBODY quotes it and sites like basketball reference never bothered to add it in. It's just bad.

And LBJ was primarily a 4 this year. The stat is going to call Harden a 2 which is weird in and of itself given Paul was playing more 2 and he was playing more 1 when they were on the court together, but I don't decide position (they don't even exist)

Again, LeBron is still well ahead if you remove any position adjustment. He played more minutes per game, and also played more games, both add value.

And again the stat is so terrible from the start there is no reason to discuss it at all.

[INKtastic]

The stat is bad before that, the use of position just shows that PER simply was not designed for this purpose. There is a reason NOBODY quotes it and sites like basketball reference never bothered to add it in. It's just bad.

And LBJ was primarily a 4 this year. The stat is going to call Harden a 2 which is weird in and of itself given Paul was playing more 2 and he was playing more 1 when they were on the court together, but I don't decide position (they don't even exist)

Again, LeBron is still well ahead if you remove any position adjustment. He played more minutes per game, and also played more games, both add value.

And again the stat is so terrible from the start there is no reason to discuss it at all.

why is it terrible to account for minutes played and games played? Doesn't being on the court being productive bring more value than not being on the court?