RealGM

fatal9 wrote:

DavidStern wrote:According to your numbers in 1985 KAJ had +18.7 (+13.4 on, -5.3 off), Magic +11 (+9.6 on, -1.4 off).
According do 82games in 2009 playoffs Odom had +17.1 (+13.2 on, -3.9 off), Kobe +12.0 (+9.3 on, -2.7 off).

http://www.82games.com/0809/playoffs/0809LAL.HTM

I see Kobe at +13.4. Odom at +15.1

Go to player card and then "on court/off court" - there is data similar to that which you used in 1985 (pts differential when on and pts differential when off).

Rest of your post - ok, I agree.

Mean_Streets wrote:My final thoughts on this wonderful project.

- Kobe should have definitely been #1 for 2008
- I also think Jerry West should have been #1 in 1969.
- McHale should have been #5 in '86 over Barkley & #5 in '87 over Dominique.
- I think 1982 is the hardest year to determine the #1 player.

Agreed on the bolded part.

Mean_Streets wrote:My final thoughts on this wonderful project.

- Kobe should have definitely been #1 for 2008
- I also think Jerry West should have been #1 in 1969.
- McHale should have been #5 in '86 over Barkley & #5 in '87 over Dominique.
- I think 1982 is the hardest year to determine the #1 player.

He was the MVP that season. That award alone by title, should give some merit to Kobe having a very good case for best player in the league. Plus great playoff series:

TS% = Points / (2 * FGA + FTA * 0.44) Note: Will bold TS%, not for emphasis, but to be able easily differentiate from formula.

2008 1st Round Playoffs Kobe Bryant vs Denver Nuggets
33.5 ppg 5.3 rpg 6.3 apg 50%fg 33%3P 74%FT 59%TS = 134/(2*(96+38*0.44))

2008 2nd Round Playoffs Kobe Bryant vs Utah Jazz
33.2 ppg 7.0 rpg 7.2 apg 49%fg 21%3P 83%FT 62%TS = 199/(2*(116+96*0.44))

2008 3rd Round Playoffs Kobe Bryant vs San Antonio Spurs
29.2 ppg 5.6 rpg 3.8 apg 53%fg 33%3P 91%FT 58%TS = 146/(2*(120+11*0.44))

Kobe's series against the Spurs that year was phenomenal. Considering how poorly Pau Gasol performed in that series.

2008 3rd Round Playoffs Pau Gasol vs San Antonio Spurs
13.2 ppg 9.6 rpg 3.6 apg 45%fg 0%3P 73%FT 47%TS = 66/(2*(65+11*0.44))

People always mention how poorly Kobe played in the 2008 Finals. It wasn't up to par with the rest of the series he played earlier, but it wasn't that bad.

2008 NBA Finals Kobe Bryant vs Boston Celtics
25.7 ppg 4.7 rpg 5.0 apg 41%fg 32%3P 80%FT 50%TS = 154/(2*(131+49*0.44))

Overall 2008 Playoff Numbers for Kobe Bryant
30.1 ppg 5.7 rpg 5.6 apg 48%fg 30%3P 81%FT 58%TS = 633/(2*(463+194*0.44))

Kobe has a damn good case for being the best player in the league that season.
1. Kobe seeded #1 in the WC with higher W-L record over Paul.
2. Kobe got further in the playoffs than Paul.
3. Kobe beat the Spurs with Pau Gasol only averaging 13.2ppg on 45%FG and 47%TS(Very poor percentages for a big man). Kobe averaged 29.2ppg on 53%FG and 58%TS. Best Player in the series outplaying Gasol, Duncan, Parker, and Ginobli.
4. Kobe only had Gasol for 27 games.
5. Paul had David West for 76 games.
6. Kobe won MVP, that is an argument for best player in the league.
7.Kobe 1st Team All-NBA
8.Kobe 1st Team All-Defense
9.Out of the 2008, 2009, and 2010 Lakers. The 2008 Lakers were easily the weakest supporting cast that Kobe led to the Finals.
10.Kobe beat 3 50+ win teams to get to the Finals, one of the most impressive individual led runs by a perimeter player of the decade. (Sorry to use this argument, but putting this into perspective, Lebron has only beaten 1 50+ win team in the playoffs for his entire career).
11.Lebron's Cavs were only 45-37 this season. Kobe's team had 12 more wins at 57.
12. Kobe played better than Lebron in the playoffs:

2008 1st Round Playoffs Kobe Bryant vs Denver Nuggets
33.5 ppg 5.3 rpg 6.3 apg 50%fg 33%3P 74%FT
2008 2nd Round Playoffs Kobe Bryant vs Utah Jazz
33.2 ppg 7.0 rpg 7.2 apg 49%fg 21%3P 83%FT
2008 3rd Round Playoffs Kobe Bryant vs San Antonio Spurs
29.2 ppg 5.6 rpg 3.8 apg 53%fg 33%3P 91%FT

13. Lebron played equally as bad or worse than Kobe did against the Celtics. Yes Lebron scored 47 points in game 7, but shot 2/18 with 10 To's in game 1.
Lebron shot 35%fg(48%TS) 5.3 TO's/G
Kobe shot 41%fg(50%TS) 3.8 TO's/G

14.Kevin Garnett had the best supporting cast in the league that year. He didn't win Finals MVP over his teammate Paul Pierce. He missed 11 games that season, and the Celtics went 9-2 over that span while he was gone.

I am not saying Kobe is the clear choice. Garnett, Lebron, and CP3 are good choices as well. But they're not clear either. They all have strong arguments, and I don't have a problem with someone picking another player than Kobe. But to say its clearly Lebron or CP3 is just asinine.

But to me I pick Kobe. In terms of overall individual awards, individual success, team success, and improvement(leadership). He had most well-rounded season considering all of those out of the 4 players.

Wow Kobe isn't #1 for any year? No way KG was better than Kobe in 07-08, him and CP3 were the two best players in the league that year.

HighFlyer23 wrote:Wow Kobe isn't #1 for any year? No way KG was better than Kobe in 07-08, him and CP3 were the two best players in the league that year.

I would encourage people to read through the '07-08 RPOY thread in particular. Lots of disagreement, great debates.

Doctor MJ wrote:

HighFlyer23 wrote:Wow Kobe isn't #1 for any year? No way KG was better than Kobe in 07-08, him and CP3 were the two best players in the league that year.

I would encourage people to read through the '07-08 RPOY thread in particular. Lots of disagreement, great debates.

Garnett won that year with .692 shares, Kobe was second with .650. Very, very close vote.

I stand by my top-four rankings from that year (Garnett, Paul, Bryant, Lebron).

I personally did my best to treat each season as a vacuum--building a team in 2K in season mode as opposed to franchise, if that makes any sense. When you have a transcendent season, like Garnett in '08, Nash in '05... you deserve to be first, or at least a very VERY close second (as happened with Walton in '77 and Kareem in '70). Garnett that year, both on and off the court, was a transcendent force. Paul was fantastic, and I think that a phenomenal PG season is inherently more valuable than a phenomenal SG season.

Not to rehash the debate, but I don't think Garnett's '08 team was his own most 'transcendent' season, let alone one for the ages. He just played on a better team.

Gongxi wrote:Not to rehash the debate, but I don't think Garnett's '08 team was his own most 'transcendent' season, let alone one for the ages. He just played on a better team.

Agree... he was actually better in 07, where he didn't finish in the Top 5 of voting.

Gongxi wrote:Not to rehash the debate, but I don't think Garnett's '08 team was his own most 'transcendent' season, let alone one for the ages. He just played on a better team.

One of the things I noted during the project was that, despite there being no one set criterion set, on the whole there was a bit of group-conformity to the results. What was cool was that this wasn't an endemic effect (i.e. it's not like everyone just started voted the same), but more that it was almost like a Gaussian curve, with your "pure production" guys at one end and your "pure team success" guys on the other with the bell of the curve mixing the two, leaned a bit more towards the team success end of the pool. And things like unique accomplishments (i.e. the big historical turnarounds) also played their part in the voting.

Bottom line: like you, I don't believe that 2008 was KG's 2nd best season as an individual player. He was better in 2003 or 2005, for example, than he was in 2008. But when you combine the statistical dominance (which he still had, in 2008), the team success (best player on the best team, even more-so in the postseason), the accolades (top-3 in MVP vote, DPoY), and the historic nature of that team (biggest turnaround in history, one of best defenses in history, both of which Garnett gets a lot of credit for)...it's not surprising that, for the sake of this project, 2008 is a year that he got more credit for than he did for earlier years when he may have been better but didn't have the team success. It's not necessarily the most fair way to judge a player, IMO, but it's the prevalent way on both these boards and among the general basketball public as a whole. In that way, it is what it is.

And more importantly to the actual project results: KG in 2008 didn't have to be better than KG in 2005 to justify him winning that year. He had to be better than Kobe, LeBron, and Paul of 2008. And as we hashed out to the nth degree in the 2008 discussion thread, he had an excellent case against those guys in that year.

Gongxi wrote:Not to rehash the debate, but I don't think Garnett's '08 team was his own most 'transcendent' season, let alone one for the ages. He just played on a better team.

Certainly we're not going to cover the whole debate again here, and drza made a good response.

There is the fundamental point though: Boston was a bad team the previous two seasons, and in '07-08 they became the highest SRS team since the Jordan era. To dismiss someone on that team's merit for accolades by say "He just played on a better team" then is kind of a crazy thing to do. One can debate about who deserves what credit, but what happened there was one of the more remarkable things you'll ever see.

Pretty much as I would anticipate, an exercise in retro-fitting POY awards to fit the popular opinion of players (right or wrong) at realgm. Predictably, Hakeem, Garnett and Wade get pumped up - while someone like Kobe doesn't win any?

Pretty silly.

Doctor MJ wrote:

Gongxi wrote:Not to rehash the debate, but I don't think Garnett's '08 team was his own most 'transcendent' season, let alone one for the ages. He just played on a better team.

Certainly we're not going to cover the whole debate again here, and drza made a good response.

There is the fundamental point though: Boston was a bad team the previous two seasons, and in '07-08 they became the highest SRS team since the Jordan era. To dismiss someone on that team's merit for accolades by say "He just played on a better team" then is kind of a crazy thing to do. One can debate about who deserves what credit, but what happened there was one of the more remarkable things you'll ever see.

Well yes, it was amazing on a team level. On an individual level, it wasn't one of KG's best.

Laimbeer wrote:Pretty much as I would anticipate, an exercise in retro-fitting POY awards to fit the popular opinion of players (right or wrong) at realgm. Predictably, Hakeem, Garnett and Wade get pumped up - while someone like Kobe doesn't win any?

Pretty silly.

I think your notion of "popular players at RealGM" is bizarre. Kobe finished above Wade in each of the last 4 seasons in the POY project, and you cite Wade finishing ahead of Kobe 5 years ago as evidence of favoritism? C'mon.

I realize the statement is a part of an increasingly common "only on RealGM" rationale, but I've never thought it a reasonable statement. If the people on RealGM are really that far off the mark, isn't there some other place you'd rather be? Not saying people shouldn't feel free to criticize RealGM, I just personally wouldn't be spending time here if I thought there was a better place to talk basketball - and if it's the best place to talk, seems pretty silly to dismiss a project like this.

I'm not sure the idea is that strange. We have an accepted wisdom here to some degree as we have talked out certain issues and trashed out the terms of debate if not the results. Because of this I think there are players who are more favorably received here at RealGM than in the fan community at large or even at places like TSN or ESPN -- usually more efficient/better defensive players, whereas other players -- usually less efficient/lower defense athletic scorers, are less favored here than in other places where an Allen Iverson might be considered one of the top 4 guards of all time (Magic, MJ, Kobe, Iverson).

I tend to think that as a community we are more "right" on these issues than most communities (maybe less so than APBR though) . . . where right is defined as how often people agree with me rather than holding idiotic opinions (I went to school in NY where the locals generally considered the NJ duo of Derek Coleman and Kenny Anderson to be superior to the UTAH duo of Karl Malone and John Stockton).

There was also more consensus about the older players, as we were more dependent on anecdotal evidence and evaluation than personal bias. And fewer participants helped too.

penbeast0 wrote:I'm not sure the idea is that strange. We have an accepted wisdom here to some degree as we have talked out certain issues and trashed out the terms of debate if not the results. Because of this I think there are players who are more favorably received here at RealGM than in the fan community at large or even at places like TSN or ESPN -- usually more efficient/better defensive players, whereas other players -- usually less efficient/lower defense athletic scorers, are less favored here than in other places where an Allen Iverson might be considered one of the top 4 guards of all time (Magic, MJ, Kobe, Iverson).

I tend to think that as a community we are more "right" on these issues than most communities (maybe less so than APBR though) . . . where right is defined as how often people agree with me rather than holding idiotic opinions (I went to school in NY where the locals generally considered the NJ duo of Derek Coleman and Kenny Anderson to be superior to the UTAH duo of Karl Malone and John Stockton).

Oh, I'm not saying the sum of opinion on RealGM leads to something identical as the sum from other sources, I just think it's got a valid perspective.

Optimism Prime wrote:There was also more consensus about the older players, as we were more dependent on anecdotal evidence and evaluation than personal bias.

Or we simply know less about older players.

DavidStern wrote:

Optimism Prime wrote:There was also more consensus about the older players, as we were more dependent on anecdotal evidence and evaluation than personal bias.

Or we simply know less about older players.

My question: How much disagreement would we have had if we all lived through it? I wasn't entirely in line with the group vote for many of the older years just based on re-watching games and whatnot, but would we all have wildly different ballots if we did it "live' in the 70s?

We know less about the old players (and TV exposure was different then), but the league was also smaller and there were fewer top players to choose from.

ElGee--question for you, since you maintained the database. Any way to get the top-20 or so sorted by total points instead of POY shares?

Optimism Prime wrote:ElGee--question for you, since you maintained the database. Any way to get the top-20 or so sorted by total points instead of POY shares?

Semi has the database and website. You'll have to ask him.