Player of the Year Discussion (Not Voting) Thread 2009-10

[ronnymac2]

uggghhhh **** Ay.....I'll post in your thread.

[Doctor MJ]

:lol: You know, I saw some of your posts about Yao in teh past and it sounds like you hate him to death, so maybe I shouldn't bother. I meant to say if Yao were healthy would he be better than Dwight, but you are right it's not relevant, but I do have a thread about it, but there would no point in asking you to join because you would just spew more of your hate about Yao.

Worthy, enough with the recruitment/bullying to get people to answer your question.

[An Unbiased Fan]

MVP voting is very team dependent.

True, which is why I also pointed towards the All-NBA & All-Defense teams. Kobe was regarded higher by most in the RS.

Stastically speaking, Wade was better, but Kobe played in a more structured offense, while Wade was in a ball-dominant system.

I'm not focusing solely on Boston. You seem to be focusing solely on team accomplishment, though.

Kobe's individual & team play had a direct influence on the team's success. He put up 29.2/6.0/5.5 throughout that playoff run, won Finals MVP, and showed great leadership throughout.

And years prior, his team overachieved. Makes me think it has more to do with the team than it does with him.

Well, this is about 2010, not 2007. Lebron's lack of leadership, and 1 on 5 play was a major reason why Cleveland under-achieved yet again. This isn't baseball where individuals have very little influence on the team.

[semi-sentient]

I'd like to hear more about Wade's defense against the Celtics. If anyone has time to rewatch some of the games and give a break down how he played Rondo/Allen, that might provide valuable in this discussion.

[Manuel Calavera]

1. Lebron
2. Wade
3. Dwight
4. Kobe
5. Batum

HM Greg Oden

[ElGee]

What is your analysis of Wade, LeBron and Kobe's play against Boston? How would you rate those three series?

Wade seemed clearly ahead of the other two. He looked great. I'm reluctant to reward a guy too much for a losing series where his team got beaten easily. I'd really love to see your take on him. Do you think that if Boston played hims later in the playoffs that have played better? Do you think that Wade's success was partly due to a strategy of letting-Wade-get-his?

Kobe & LeBron are close. Kobe went into his typical "I'm going shoot my way out of it" mode several times where he really shouldn't have - including in Game 7. However, after Game 3, LeBron really never got into a groove again, and his Game 5 was clearly the worst performance between those two players in the playoffs. I probably give Kobe the nod just on those two series - but Kobe's problems are chronic ones, whereas I doubt LeBron ever has Game 5 again.

Well, you're hitting at something I think everyone should be thinking about with these 3 players and the common opponent of the Boston defense, which is context. Wade, LeBron and Kobe all play a different style with a different team, and that changes how Boston defends them.

With that said, Wade was the most impressive. I don't think if they met later it would've changed much - I see this is as a case of matchup dynamics, not time related. I really wouldn't say Boston "let him get his." He was just incredibly hard to contain, either with his first step or in pick and roll situations. One of Perkins strengths is his pick and roll defense, and Wade did a good job collapsing the defense on a fairly consistent basis against him, KG and the on-ball defender.

Tony Allen -- who played utterly elite defense this spring -- did a fantastic job and Wade still created havoc at times. The Celtics still loaded up against his action. They still cheated off of Beasley and JO and forced them to hit. Wade was willing to make the pass instead of shooting into pressure. I have him creating offense for others at a considerably higher rate LeBron (who's at a slightly better rate than Kobe). He's actually sort of a Nash-Jordan hybrid in his production in this series: elite levels of creation for teammates coupled with elite scoring at high-efficiency.

I'd like to hear more about Wade's defense against the Celtics. If anyone has time to rewatch some of the games and give a break down how he played Rondo/Allen, that might provide valuable in this discussion.

In the series opponents shot 28% against him while Wade guarded them. He had a handful of balls slapped out of bounds. Took 2 charges. Blew 2 assignments and was completely blown by twice. He blocked 8 shots -- two of which were layup saves I believe -- and had 8 steals. This, in 390 possessions.

I was fairly impressed with his defense. It's bordering on elite in impact, although he's definitely not a classic ball-hawker or stout man defender. He jumps passing lanes, has quick hands for steals/deflections and makes some impressive blocks.

--

2010 v Celtics in playoffs

Code: Select all

Wade   33.2 ppg 65.0 TS% 5.6 rpg 6.8 apg 5.2 TO
James  26.8 ppg 55.6 TS% 9.3 rpg 7.2 apg 4.5 TO
Bryant 28.6 ppg 52.8 TS% 8.0 rpg 3.9 apg 3.9 TO

With regards to the other two, it's really hard for me to say Bryant had a better series against Boston than James. First of all, Kobe had a good defensive series. But LeBron had a fantastic defense series -- utterly elite impact throughout the series. An example of what he did to Paul Pierce:

Pierce iso's vs Cavs 18.2 % FG, 12 pts 0.4 pts/play
Pierce iso vs Magic 45.5% FG, 36 pts 1.2 pts/play

Celtics shot 25% against James. He very rarely fouled: 2.27 FT's from fouls/100 possessions. (Bryant's corresponding numbers were 46% and 3.93.) James had 8 blocks and 13 steals (Bryant 15 steals and 5 blocks). James played 25 fewer possessions than Kobe against Boston.

Offensively, James certainly gets the nod on the classic box stats above. He's creating more for others and drawing nearly 3 more fouls per 100 possessions.

*deep breath*

So after we put that in a stats blender and shake it around, there are other factors to consider. The Cavs had absolutely no inside presence. Well, accept for Shaq, who actually functioned as a black hole at times. All of the Celtics defensive principles overloaded Cleveland's pick and rolls well. Pierce defends LeBron very well straight up.

Conversely, the Celtics did their thing against Bryant, but he had Gasol and Bynum (at times) sucking focus away from him. Credit Bryant for making certain reads to make that happen, but the reality is his superior team makes it a little harder for Boston to treat him in exactly the same way they do James. Kobe actually does the Celtics a favor a lot of the time by "settling" for jumpers and going into isolation mode.

James actually ran more PnR versus Boston than compared to the regular season. He had 30% of his action vs Boston from PnR (1.10 pts/play) and 25% in isolation (0.64 pts/play).

Bryant's isolations increased vs. Boston from 28.5% to 32.1% (0.77 pts/play). He posted up 22% of the time during the season but just 9% of the time in the Finals (0.60 pts/play). PnR jumped from 11% to 18% (1.05 pts/play).

Hard for me to put all that into perspective and say Bryant had a better go against them.

[Silver Bullet]

For starters, Wade's playoff sample size is all of five games. Despite his gaudy stats, he was able to take a grand total of 1 game from the Celtics. And it's not that his team mates are crappy, his team was the 5th seed. In a 4-5 match up, the guy gets nearly swept and somehow becomes the unanimous POY ?

I'll chime in here with how I see Wade's place in the dilemma: A first round exit, no matter how gaudy the performance, is not enough to move a guy above other guys who were superior in the regular season, and strong in the playoffs leading actual contenders.

However, if a player is superior in the regular season, and he performs on a jawdropping level in the playoffs with his team doing about as well as you'd expect, how do you drop him?

So this is the Kobe/Wade debate for me: Was Kobe better in either the regular season or post-season than Wade? In the regular season he was clearly hurt - it's not a debate about true Kobe/Wade there. Kobe had some great performances in the post-season, but is there any way to think he outplayed Wade when when they both played Boston, Wade looked better?

I should be clear, I probably rate Kobe and LeBron both ahead of Wade - but the above issue is why I'm not easily satisfied in doing so.

Sorry for getting back on this very very late, but two things:

1. It's only 5 games, 4 of which were losses. Wade did not have a ja dropping performance in the playoffs, he performed fairly well in one series.

2. It's the Celtics. They never play well in the first round. We've seen that three years in a row now. Their defense starts to crank up in the 2nd round and reaches full potential deep in the playoffs.

[Silver Bullet]

Minge is pwning this thread, unfortunately I don't think anybody is reading any of his posts.

[Doctor MJ]

Sorry for getting back on this very very late, but two things:

1. It's only 5 games, 4 of which were losses. Wade did not have a ja dropping performance in the playoffs, he performed fairly well in one series.

2. It's the Celtics. They never play well in the first round. We've seen that three years in a row now. Their defense starts to crank up in the 2nd round and reaches full potential deep in the playoffs.

1. No player can do it alone. The mere fact that a player loses in the first round doesn't mean he's playing worse than guys who went further. Again to be crystal clear: I'm not talking about elevating Wade based on the playoffs, I'm talking about not dropping him. If you think Kobe was already ahead - cool. If you think Wade did something that means he should drop, I'd love to hear it.

2. I think you've got to go more concrete than that my friend. Expound. As it stands, yes '07-08 Celtics started slowly - they were playing much worse than the '09-10 Celtics were in the first two rounds. The fact that they let a team MUCH worse than these Heat get to 7 games makes that pretty clear.

[Silver Bullet]

Sorry for getting back on this very very late, but two things:

1. It's only 5 games, 4 of which were losses. Wade did not have a ja dropping performance in the playoffs, he performed fairly well in one series.

2. It's the Celtics. They never play well in the first round. We've seen that three years in a row now. Their defense starts to crank up in the 2nd round and reaches full potential deep in the playoffs.

1. No player can do it alone. The mere fact that a player loses in the first round doesn't mean he's playing worse than guys who went further. Again to be crystal clear: I'm not talking about elevating Wade based on the playoffs, I'm talking about not dropping him. If you think Kobe was already ahead - cool. If you think Wade did something that means he should drop, I'd love to hear it.

2. I think you've got to go more concrete than that my friend. Expound. As it stands, yes '07-08 Celtics started slowly - they were playing much worse than the '09-10 Celtics were in the first two rounds. The fact that they let a team MUCH worse than these Heat get to 7 games makes that pretty clear.

A player can't do it alone, but putting up big stats in losses is different than putting up big stats in wins. Maybe, and this is how it happens a lot of times but people don't seem to acknowledge it, but a lot of teams lose precisely because the star puts up huge stats.

Why would Boston go 120% on defense, when they know they're gonna win anyway if they go 80% on defense. Look at the Celtics-Heat series, they didn't play Wade like they played either Kobe or Lebron, they played him one on one for the most part.

And some teams win precisely because their star does not put up huge stats i.e. Kobe.

I mean, Gasol is getting all the credit, but how much defensive attention did he really get from the Celtics - I don't think they doubled him once for even a possession in the Finals.

[Gongxi]

I particularly like the jervis quote - which is consistent with the point that in noisy, data-poor environments, adherence to an objective methodology isn't going to get you much closer, if at all, to the truth than subjective evaluation, regardless of the possible corruption of the latter. unfortunately, in the case of basketball where the publicly available metrics to the casual fan are poorly correlated with whatever we wish to define as "performance", "objective" analysis is simply another form of cognitive failure - albeit one that doesn't tilt towards one's favorite player.

which is why we pat those casual fans who "prize objective analysis" gently on their head and give them a cookie.

Is this this thread's version of "being intolerant of intolerance makes someone likewise intolerant"? I think it is!

nah. it's just "being intolerant of intolerance makes one tolerant". (and, btw, the protagonist here isn't you

You prize anecdotes (well, the one that favor your guy, anyway), I prize objectivity. I would've thought with the Enlightenment and all you'd be in the minority here, but I guess you're not. Most of the time, though, there's enough homers for either side to even it out and let analysis shine through. Let's hope this turns out the same way.

i don't prize anecdotes. with good data, i'd prize objective analysis. when we lack good objective measures that capture all aspects of performance, i recognize that anecdotes are able to encapsulate information that existing objective measures lack. anecdotes are susceptible to homerism. poor measures are susceptible to being poor measures. pick your poison.

I guess it's pseudo-intellectual to look at it like that instead of getting into random anecdotal chats about who "quit" when and who "made their teammates better" here.

No, but another cut-and-paste job from your "Windbag 101" textbook definitely is. You make Dennis Miller look humble.

Seems like some folks are butthurt. I'm reminded of Jack Handey now:

Instead of having "answers" on a math test, they should just call them "impressions," and if you got a different "impression," so what, can't we all be brothers?

Some people would like that very much.

[bert stein]

i don't prize anecdotes. with good data, i'd prize objective analysis. when we lack good objective measures that capture all aspects of performance, i recognize that anecdotes are able to encapsulate information that existing objective measures lack. anecdotes are susceptible to homerism. poor measures are susceptible to being poor measures. pick your poison.

I guess it's pseudo-intellectual to look at it like that instead of getting into random anecdotal chats about who "quit" when and who "made their teammates better" here.

No, but another cut-and-paste job from your "Windbag 101" textbook definitely is. You make Dennis Miller look humble.

Seems like some folks are butthurt.

i think you mistake mild annoyance (quite forgivable when encountering textbook cases of the dunning-kruger effect, really) for butthurtosity.

I'm reminded of Jack Handey now:

Instead of having "answers" on a math test, they should just call them "impressions," and if you got a different "impression," so what, can't we all be brothers?

Some people would like that very much.

it doesn't seem like you have a firm grasp on why and how i've been gently mocking your arguments. quotes that continue to miss the point aren't really helping your case much, unfortunately.

[ElGee]

Top 3 aside, I'd like to hear more arguments for the No. 4 and No. 5 spots.

I have Durant, Dirk, Howard, Nash, WIlliams and Anthony all for 2 spots.

[Gongxi]

Oh, I have a firm grasp that you've been trying to do it, bert, but you really don't know what you're talking about. Reading your old posts, it's no surprise why.

[bert stein]

Oh, I have a firm grasp that you've been trying to do it, bert, but you really don't know what you're talking about. Reading your old posts, it's no surprise why.

i'm not surprised that you understand neither my recent posts nor my old ones. that's not a major slight on you, though, so don't get your panties in a bunch again. you, like most, are ill-equipped to do any substantive statistical inference.
by all means play with your toys, but don't get mad when we condescend to you for doing so.

[Gongxi]

I'm not playing with statistical toys. Or even talking about statistics.

Are you saying you don't even understand what I'm talking about yet still posting? That Dunning-Kruger reference was probably more apt than you know...

[bert stein]

I'm not playing with statistical toys. Or even talking about statistics.

Are you saying you don't even understand what I'm talking about yet still posting? That Dunning-Kruger reference was probably more apt than you know...

your claim about objectivity in methodology being preferable to subjective evaluations (amongst other instances of hilarity) require the slightest smidgen of knowledge about statistics to justify, or in this case mock. somehow, i'm not too surprised that this escaped your notice. you're right: i underestimated how apt my reference to dunning-kruger was!

[An Unbiased Fan]

I would love to hear arguments for Wade over Dwight & even Durant. I'm think these 3 will be in my #3-5 spots.

[Sedale Threatt]

Had a great regular season followed by a highly impressive showing against the Celtics. MUCH better all-around player than Durant. As for Dwight, I don't really have anything negative to say about him -- 18 efficient ppg plus league-best rebounding and defense is great -- I just think Wade is a better player and had a better season. He can carry you on his back and win games over the final five minutes, whereas Dwight rarely does. I kept wanting to see more from him in the PS and it never came. He had two miserably bad games against the Celts, a huge reason Orlando fell in a 3-0 hole.

[Gongxi]

bert, please try to keep up. Sheesh- when Kobe fans attack!