Retro Player of the Year Project

[Sedale Threatt]

You could probably say the same thing about every individual fan base.

[TrueLAfan]

Seriously, guys...no more personal attacks or cheap shots.

[TrueLAfan]

I agree about Kareem in 1975…I struggled with the #5 decision that year as much or more than any other decision that year. I ended up with Kareem at #5 and feel good about it for three simple reasons.

1) He missed 17 games—and the team was 3-14 without him.
2) The team lost three of its five previous starters in the offseason or within the first two weeks of the season…and then lost its starting PG for the last two months of the season
3) Despite that, the Bucks were 38-44…in league that had only two teams with more than 49 wins. If Kareem had played in those 17 games and the Bucks had played as well as they did with him in the rest of the season, the Bucks would not only have made the playoffs, they would have had a first round bye.

I didn’t put him higher than #5 because

1) He missed 17 games, and that still matters (even if he did play over 2700 minutes)
2) His team won only 38 games, and that still matters

But, overall, I don’t think Kareem was overstated/overrated. He ended up at #5 overall in 1975; if you think he was #4 or #6, it’s not much of a difference. If you think he was #3 or higher, or #7 or below…well, then you’re probably an extremist. That’s fine, as long as you recognize that you’re likely not in the mainstream (and you're not necessarily smarter than anyone else ).

In general, I’m almost 100% in accord with what Doctor MJ said. Lost some serious respect for Wilt…he’s no longer part of the top 3 with Russell, Kareem, and Jordan. Solidified my respect for Russell. And I want to, again, give my thanks to Doc for putting together such a great project that was so fun to participate in. And more thanks to all of you (and it was almost everyone) who were able to argue with passion and thoughtfulness that didn’t degenerate into mudslinging and insults.

I do want to respectfully disagree to an extent with drza … I think advanced stats now are interesting, if problematic. I think they’re much more problematic for the past. Numbers and (especially) analytic tools can be set up to argue whatever you’d like. What I found far more insightful were the first hand accounts of the time…and lest we forget, Bill Russell outpointed Wilt Chamberlain in actual MVP voting in the 1960…and those voters didn’t take playoffs into account. I’ve gained more respect for the observations at the time, which were more thorough and thoughtful then I had previously thought. I enjoyed having some of the advanced estimates from posters, but I ultimately came away more impressed and swayed by what was said by those who saw the players play.

[Optimism Prime]

Seriously, guys...no more personal attacks or cheap shots.

Whatever, you expletive redacted.

Fans of [insert your favorite team/player here] can all go graphic sex act performed on an animal deleted.

That is all.



PS: RealGM "debates" are fun!

[Doctor MJ]

Yes, Kareem seemed to get a lot of rep votes in the 70s, more than any other player from the periods I was involved in of 1980 and earlier (I couldn't participate fully earlier so just read along rather than just put out bare bones stuff).

Kareem did get rep votes, but I've got to admit my namesake (Erving) did too. Kareem obviously does spectacular no matter what, but Erving, while I'm pleased he did so well in this project, may look more like that cluster of guys around 4.5 POY shares if the 70s had more consistent superstars.

Interesting, I first suspected this was coming when people started leaving Bernard King out of their top 5 in his big year. People I think, understandably, are skeptical of one year wonders - but I think they're not skeptical enough about player consistency.

[Doctor MJ]

In general, I’m almost 100% in accord with what Doctor MJ said. Lost some serious respect for Wilt…he’s no longer part of the top 3 with Russell, Kareem, and Jordan. Solidified my respect for Russell. And I want to, again, give my thanks to Doc for putting together such a great project that was so fun to participate in. And more thanks to all of you (and it was almost everyone) who were able to argue with passion and thoughtfulness that didn’t degenerate into mudslinging and insults.

Thanks for sharing about Wilt, I was curious about your opinion on him in particular. Thanks also for the kind words.

I do want to respectfully disagree to an extent with drza … I think advanced stats now are interesting, if problematic. I think they’re much more problematic for the past. Numbers and (especially) analytic tools can be set up to argue whatever you’d like. What I found far more insightful were the first hand accounts of the time…and lest we forget, Bill Russell outpointed Wilt Chamberlain in actual MVP voting in the 1960…and those voters didn’t take playoffs into account. I’ve gained more respect for the observations at the time, which were more thorough and thoughtful then I had previously thought. I enjoyed having some of the advanced estimates from posters, but I ultimately came away more impressed and swayed by what was said by those who saw the players play.

For me, the stat breakdowns were definitely part of what made me gain confidence in a conclusion. Not everything of course. The exhaustive research posts were huge, and of course, the actual MVP voting was big. Had Wilt killed Russell in MVP voting every year, that would have made it very hard for Russell to win out for my opinionn, but since Russell had the edge there, it always became more a matter of just getting confident that the contemporary observers knew their stuff.

I always try to give the contemporaries the benefit of the doubt but earlier in my basketball analysis life I had a tough time really buying Russell. With everything we saw in this project though, it just becomes obvious that the contemporaries were aware of pretty much any pro-Wilt argument you'd see on RealGM, and sided with Russell because of knowledge that went above and beyond that.

[Shot Clock]

Without further ado:

The RPOY 56 (for the 56 years of shot clock basketball) based on POY shares:

1. Bill Russell
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Michael Jordan
4. Wilt Chamberlain
5. Magic Johnson

6. Tim Duncan
7. Larry Bird
8. Shaquille O'Neal
9. Julius Erving
10. Karl Malone


Players with the most years at #1 - our POYs:
1. Michael Jordan (9 years)
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (8)
3. Bill Russell (7)
4. Larry Bird (4)
Tim Duncan (4)
Wilt Chamberlain (4)


Highest 80s POY shares:

1. Larry Bird
2. Magic Johnson
3. Moses Malone
4. Michael Jordan
5. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Just wondering how you were calculating the final POY shares? For example, Bird trumps Magic in 6 out of 8 years before Jordan takes over and dominates the voting. Bird has 4 PoY to Magic's one. It looks like you are taking the horse that rarely wins a race over horses which have actually won.

side note: When you take into consideration competition at the time you have some years where there were 3 guys ranked in your 3-7 range fighting for the same votes. That's gotta hurt.

[JordansBulls]

Without further ado:

The RPOY 56 (for the 56 years of shot clock basketball) based on POY shares:

1. Bill Russell
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Michael Jordan
4. Wilt Chamberlain
5. Magic Johnson

6. Tim Duncan
7. Larry Bird
8. Shaquille O'Neal
9. Julius Erving
10. Karl Malone


Players with the most years at #1 - our POYs:
1. Michael Jordan (9 years)
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (8)
3. Bill Russell (7)
4. Larry Bird (4)
Tim Duncan (4)
Wilt Chamberlain (4)

Highest 80s POY shares:

1. Larry Bird
2. Magic Johnson
3. Moses Malone
4. Michael Jordan
5. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Just wondering how you were calculating the final POY shares? For example, Bird trumps Magic in 6 out of 8 years before Jordan takes over and dominates the voting. Bird has 4 PoY to Magic's one. It looks like you are taking the horse that rarely wins a race over horses which have actually won.

side note: When you take into consideration competition at the time you have some years where there were 3 guys ranked in your 3-7 range fighting for the same votes. That's gotta hurt.[/quote]

I think he is just adding it up based on the year. So if you got a .75 in 1985 you add that total to the rest of the years of the shares you have.

[Shot Clock]

That would definitely benefit players with longer careers. Personally I've never bought into the argument that if I drive my car for 5 years it will somehow end up being better then my neighbors Porsche that he drove for 3 years.

[JordansBulls]

That would definitely benefit players with longer careers. Personally I've never bought into the argument that if I drive my car for 5 years it will somehow end up being better then my neighbors Porsche that he drove for 3 years.

True that. That is why I think there are two ways to measure. One by total POY and the other by how many POY you have won.

[semi-sentient]

That doesn't even make sense unless Magic is a Kia Sportage and Bird is a Porsche.

They're both Porsche's.

One stands out over the other though...

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1066500

[Doctor MJ]

That would definitely benefit players with longer careers. Personally I've never bought into the argument that if I drive my car for 5 years it will somehow end up being better then my neighbors Porsche that he drove for 3 years.

JB is exactly right, the only way to do career voting shares is to add up the yearly voting shares linearly, so that's what we've done.

As far as that benefiting longevity over peak, well, there's a bit more to it than that. For example, our voting scheme is the same as the MVP scheme: 10-7-5-3-1, only giving points to the top 5 guys in the league. Because of that, Bill Walton does a lot better in this format than John Stockton, whereas if we had a format that just gave 1 point for each year you were in the top 10 regardless of where in the top 10 you were, if would obviously favor Stockton. So in that sense, our scheme is pretty peak-heavy.

However, I agree with you, by this metric, if Karl Malone had been able to hang around at his peak another quarter century, he probably takes the POY share lead - and imho that makes it clearly too longevity-heavy, because there's no amount of longevity Malone could add that would make up for his inferior peak for me.

So what I'm driving at is that the true bias here clearly exists, I would never use this list alone for my GOAT list - but the bias is very complicated and very difficult to improve. Keep in mind that this was a 6 month long project involving dozens of people. I considered more complicated variants of what we actually did, but felt what we actually did hit a sweet spot achieving a good amount of tangible meaning which could be used as a starting point for truly nuanced ranking without making the process so painful it would unravel.

[Shot Clock]

That doesn't even make sense unless Magic is a Kia Sportage and Bird is a Porsche.

They're both Porsche's.

One stands out over the other though...

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1066500

Agreed.

It's clear that Bird's Porsche has clearly been better then Magic's in this voting but somehow Magic's Porsche gets elevated. Must be due to better gas mileage.

I've read a couple times where you've explained how Magic won 2 out of 3 times in the Final's vs Bird and would have won 3 if the "Lakers" didn't choke. We know it wasn't the Lakers choking Magic choked in 3 different games at key points. He's also been swept in the Finals twice. I've never forgiven Shaq for getting swept and can't for Magic either. A team of the quality they had have no reasons for rolling over and taking a broom handle.

It also ignores how much tougher the East was. LA could cakewalk to the Finals to face a beat up Celts.

Either way the voting shows 6 guys had 4 or more PoY. There's only one guy in the top 7 with less and he has a single PoY. Definitely an outlier.

[semi-sentient]

So the argument for Bird is that he had tougher competition in his conference, and the argument against Magic is that he had better teammates early on and played longer?

Bird losing didn't have anything to do with his numbers typically falling off in the playoffs and getting upset, which happened in 1980, 1982, 1983, and 1985?

Anyway, Bird had no business getting votes above Magic in 1982-83. The Lakers had the better record, superior offense (which is where these two impact the game), and Magic was better in the playoffs, plain and simple. The Lakers got swept in the Finals against a team widely regarded as one of the GOAT teams, while Bird got swept (upset) in the 2nd round by the Bucks. Criticizing one over the other for getting swept is kind of shady, and the truth of the matter is that it wasn't either guys fault for coming up short. Kareem got owned by Moses and Bird was sick I believe (missed a game).

Bird deserved it in 1983-84, without question, and no matter how you slice it you have to knock Magic for his choking on the biggest stage. He was directly responsible for some of those losses.

What about 1984-85? Celtics have a better record by a single game in the RS, but gets beaten by Magic and the Lakers in the Finals. Bird has the better RS, and Magic has a better post-season run. Magic was considerably better in the Finals when their teams met. The Lakers are again the top offense in the league, but somehow Bird is the POY despite losing in Finals with HCA, all while not living up to his RS standards (again)?

1985-86 is easily Bird, just like 1986-87 is easily Magic.

After that, it's Magic and there was no looking back at all. Bird was not going to be getting any younger, so even had he not gotten injured there would have been little reason for him to be considered better. Magic was tearing it up in the RS, PS, and especially NBA Finals, year after year, so I'm not sure why those years wouldn't matter in the Magic vs. Bird debate. They absolutely should, and do.

It also ignores how much tougher the East was. LA could cakewalk to the Finals to face a beat up Celts.

Bird's Celtics got upset 4 times, so what difference does it make? The Lakers were mostly beating the teams they were supposed to beat.

[Shot Clock]

I'm not arguing the value of Bird over Magic. I'm questioning how Magic shows up that high on the total list when he stands out as having very few seasons (1) of PoY.

I can argue the Magic vs Bird thing in the thread I inspired you to make.

[ElGee]

I'm not arguing the value of Bird over Magic. I'm questioning how Magic shows up that high on the total list when he stands out as having very few seasons (1) of PoY.

I can argue the Magic vs Bird thing in the thread I inspired you to make.

Because he still gets 7 points for 2nd place.

[semi-sentient]

Well, it's because he was never ranked lower than #3 from 1981-82 through 1990-91. During that stretch he finished at #2 7 times, at #3 2 times, and was #1 once.

[Shot Clock]

And like I said, that's like taking the horse that finished second all the time over the one that beat him.

[Sedale Threatt]

That analogy would make a lot of sense if it wasn't a cumulative list.

[Shot Clock]

That analogy would make a lot of sense if it wasn't a cumulative list.

If you followed the discussion I was asking if it was cumulative. I thought maybe they took your totals for the years you were in and came up with a percentage average. It wasn't.

I'm not arguing the location of a specific player right now, just how the overall results look good except for this one player. I knew there's a lot of Magic fondness on the forum so it wouldn't be popular to single this out.

You can't ignore the fact that Magic makes it high up the list with only 1 PoY. You have 6 of the top 7 with (PoY wins).

1. Bill Russell (7)
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (8)
3. Michael Jordan (9)
4. Wilt Chamberlain (4)
5. Magic Johnson (1)
6. Tim Duncan (4)
7. Larry Bird (4)
8. Shaquille O'Neal (3)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FClGhto1vIg

I picked Bird because he had a lot of head to heads years against him. In 6 of 8 years Bird was higher. then injuries took over and Magic went on to play second place to Jordan for the rest.