'17-'18 POY discussion

[Dr Spaceman]

I could see LeBron at 1 now.

I don’t think he’s even all that close to making up the regular season gap vs. Harden. Harden right now is at 32 PER in the playoffs and leads the league in playoff OBPM. Lebron’s advanced stat profile does look a little bit better, but Harden is playing at an obscene level, well above his RS self and his team has been much more successful than lebron’s. Not even sure what the argument would be given Lebron’s RS issues.

[Mystical Apples]

Nostrelgee called the shot. Wow.

Like the other great megastars who excel in non-scoring phases of the game, I do wonder if I’m undervaluing LeBron, given the unique shape of his offense.

In a few weeks, he will likely move to No. 2 on this list

[Dr Positivity]

Lebron is number 1. I have no complaints about his regular season, I think the +/- is misleading here. Looking at that roster and considering Love only played 59 Gs, that's a bottom 3 team in the league without him on it and they went 50-32

[Dr Spaceman]

Lebron is number 1. I have no complaints about his regular season, I think the +/- is misleading here. Looking at that roster and considering Love only played 59 Gs, that's a bottom 3 team in the league without him on it and they went 50-32

It doesn’t matter to you that LeBron literally quit on his team in January and was one of the worst defensive players in all of basketball for 40% of the season?

[Dr Positivity]

Lebron is number 1. I have no complaints about his regular season, I think the +/- is misleading here. Looking at that roster and considering Love only played 59 Gs, that's a bottom 3 team in the league without him on it and they went 50-32

It doesn’t matter to you that LeBron literally quit on his team in January and was one of the worst defensive players in all of basketball for 40% of the season?

He had a bad stretch but what's less valuable, Lebron mailing in 10 games or Harden missing 10 games?

[HeartBreakKid]

Lebron is number 1. I have no complaints about his regular season, I think the +/- is misleading here. Looking at that roster and considering Love only played 59 Gs, that's a bottom 3 team in the league without him on it and they went 50-32

It doesn’t matter to you that LeBron literally quit on his team in January and was one of the worst defensive players in all of basketball for 40% of the season?

Does basketball in January really matter?

[Reservoirdawgs]

Yeah, I’m not really getting the hype for Lebron even being in the top 5. He just didn’t put in the effort, particularly on defense, during the year. Now you can certainly say it’s because he was saving himself for the playoffs, but even if that was the case then that doesn’t excuse his lack of effort during the regular season. For someone like Lebron it’s certainly understandable that he would coast during the regular season to save himself for the playoffs. However, his poor defense and effort during the regular season shouldn’t be negated when determining the player or the year just because he’s having another amazing pistseqson


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[SideshowBob]

Yeah, I’m not really getting the hype for Lebron even being in the top 5. He just didn’t put in the effort, particularly on defense, during the year. Now you can certainly say it’s because he was saving himself for the playoffs, but even if that was the case then that doesn’t excuse his lack of effort during the regular season. For someone like Lebron it’s certainly understandable that he would coast during the regular season to save himself for the playoffs. However, his poor defense and effort during the regular season shouldn’t be negated when determining the player or the year just because he’s having another amazing pistseqson


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I think that is a discussion that's still open. Debate over individual criteria has been a running theme in this project.

[Dr Spaceman]

Lebron is number 1. I have no complaints about his regular season, I think the +/- is misleading here. Looking at that roster and considering Love only played 59 Gs, that's a bottom 3 team in the league without him on it and they went 50-32

It doesn’t matter to you that LeBron literally quit on his team in January and was one of the worst defensive players in all of basketball for 40% of the season?

He had a bad stretch but what's less valuable, Lebron mailing in 10 games or Harden missing 10 games?

I think the bad LeBron stretch was much more than 10 games. HE displayed peak effort for the 19 game winning streak and yet the team was below .500 at the deadline. That’s a horrible, horrible win percentage over like a quarter of the season and especially given that during the second half of the season the Rockets played at like a 77 win pace.

[Dr Spaceman]

Lebron is number 1. I have no complaints about his regular season, I think the +/- is misleading here. Looking at that roster and considering Love only played 59 Gs, that's a bottom 3 team in the league without him on it and they went 50-32

It doesn’t matter to you that LeBron literally quit on his team in January and was one of the worst defensive players in all of basketball for 40% of the season?

Does basketball in January really matter?

It sure as hell seems like it does given that home teams are winning like 75% of games this post season.

Do you think Cleveland is able to get by Indiana on the road in a game 7? Honestly I doubt it.

[HeartBreakKid]

It doesn’t matter to you that LeBron literally quit on his team in January and was one of the worst defensive players in all of basketball for 40% of the season?

Does basketball in January really matter?

It sure as hell seems like it does given that home teams are winning like 75% of games this post season.

Do you think Cleveland is able to get by Indiana on the road in a game 7? Honestly I doubt it.

Home teams win more due to correlation than to causation...naturally the home teams will win more because they are usually seeded higher which means they're more likely to be a better team.

The Cavs don't have home team advantage and they're up 3-0 against the Raptors. What is the impact of basketball in January again? I think playing all time great basketball in the playoffs greatly outweights playing "bad" basketball in January.

[Dr Positivity]

Yeah, I’m not really getting the hype for Lebron even being in the top 5. He just didn’t put in the effort, particularly on defense, during the year. Now you can certainly say it’s because he was saving himself for the playoffs, but even if that was the case then that doesn’t excuse his lack of effort during the regular season. For someone like Lebron it’s certainly understandable that he would coast during the regular season to save himself for the playoffs. However, his poor defense and effort during the regular season shouldn’t be negated when determining the player or the year just because he’s having another amazing pistseqson


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Regardless of how he got there if the end result was there for regular season success it's good enough for me. While that's up to debate due to the underwhelming +/- stats, for me at the end of the day 50-32 with a mediocre cast outside of Love who only played 59 games is a still pretty damn impressive lift to me. Behind Harden in regular season but not light years behind him. I said in the middle of the season when they had the same record and Love/Cousins missed the same amount of games that Lebron's carry job compared to Davis was underratedand now it seems obvious Davis actually has the better supporting cast

[Dr Spaceman]

Does basketball in January really matter?

It sure as hell seems like it does given that home teams are winning like 75% of games this post season.

Do you think Cleveland is able to get by Indiana on the road in a game 7? Honestly I doubt it.

Home teams win more due to correlation than to causation...naturally the home teams will win more because they are usually seeded higher which means they're more likely to be a better team.

The Cavs don't have home team advantage and they're up 3-0 against the Raptors. What is the impact of basketball in January again? I think playing all time great basketball in the playoffs greatly outweights playing "bad" basketball in January.

I mean that all teams combined have a 75% winning percentage at home. That means lower seeded teams are winning at home as well. There’s no possible way the higher seeded team can have more than 1 extra home game in a series. But having that one extra home game is a massive advantage if you’re going to win it at a 75% clip.

So for me what you have is 2 guys playing all-time great ball in the playoffs. One of them, was also doing it in January, while the other sucked. And if Houston really does go on to win the title, it’s almost certain his play in January to lock up the #1 seed made a difference.

[Krodis]

It certainly does seem to be a 2 man race at this point, with Davis being a dark horse at a distant 3rd. Curry has missed too much time and I don't think Durant has done enough.

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[INKtastic]

It doesn’t matter to you that LeBron literally quit on his team in January and was one of the worst defensive players in all of basketball for 40% of the season?

He had a bad stretch but what's less valuable, Lebron mailing in 10 games or Harden missing 10 games?

I think the bad LeBron stretch was much more than 10 games. HE displayed peak effort for the 19 game winning streak and yet the team was below .500 at the deadline. That’s a horrible, horrible win percentage over like a quarter of the season and especially given that during the second half of the season the Rockets played at like a 77 win pace.

he only played poorly in the games Isaiah Thomas played in. And it wasn't the whole stretch. The first two games were good, and LeBron dominated the last game with IT. Since IT only played 15 games, it was at most 12 games LeBron played poorly. And I doubt it was even all 12 games. Something happened with IT.

[eminence]

Stevens has coached absolute circles around Brown, but it still feels like Philly could be one of the best candidates we've ever seen to come back from down 0-3. CLE v TOR was over CLE finished off IND. Jazz would be happy to steal one more. NO vs GS will be an interesting one to watch this afternoon.

[Dr Spaceman]

So does anyone still think Embiid is a better basketball player than Anthony Davis?

I think Embiid’s conditioning isn’t up to par after missing a stretch right beforehand the playoffs. He looks great to start games and then just dies.

[therealbig3]

Playoffs are obviously hugely important, but the RS matters too, and it's a huge sample size, and honestly, I thought LeBron's RS was bad by POY standards. So much so that he wasn't a top 5 candidate for me at the end of the RS.

So for a few playoff games to bump him up to the top 3, I just can't go there. Not when guys like Harden, Davis, and Giannis clearly outplayed him in the RS, and have been amazing in their own right in the playoffs. Giannis unfortunately ran into a better team in the 1st round...but actually overachieved with his team in pushing them to 7 games.

Winning bias shouldn't be the reason we just forget about how awesome Davis and Giannis were all year, and just how much better they were than LeBron for the vast majority of the season.

I mean, if LeBron had the exact same performance in game 7 against Indiana, but his teammates played like garbage and they lost that game...is anyone seriously considering LeBron POY? Even though his 1st round performance didn't change at all, and he would be exactly the same player that he is right now?

BTW, I also don't think that LeBron has been amazing outside of a small bad stretch...I think he's had limited impact throughout the season, because his defense has been trash for most of the year. He's stepped it up in the playoffs...but not even to what we're used to, just a little above average. This has been his 2011 Kobe season...stats that look similar to his prime, but he clearly isn't having prime impact. At least that was the case in the RS. And he hasn't really outplayed Harden or Davis by all that much in the PS.

[RSCD3_]

If Celtics make the finals does Al Horford have a case for 5, he's look by far the best true center throughout the whole year. Davis has been in between positions although I'd argue his edge isn't as big as the boxscore paints the difference

[therealbig3]

If Celtics make the finals does Al Horford have a case for 5, he's look by far the best true center throughout the whole year. Davis has been in between positions although I'd argue his edge isn't as big as the boxscore paints the difference

Horford is basically like Draymond...he's not a big time scorer, but he does everything else at such a high level that he's going to leave a big imprint on the game no matter what, and there isn't a team out there that he wouldn't help in a big way.

But I'm a Davis believer now. I wasn't before, but I've really come around on just what a stud this guy is. I love his offensive game, and while he doesn't have the smarts of a Horford on defense...it almost doesn't matter. He's just so active and so athletic with such a great motor that he's always altering shots or causing deflections or cleaning up the glass. He's one of my picks for DPOY.