All-Season Player of the Year Discussion thread

[HeartBreakKid]

Matt Barnes is a glue guy, but I don't really get the "legit" add on - that almost infers that Matt Barnes is not an 8th man caliber player.

Also, calling DeAndre Jordan a star on the offensive end is just bizarre. DeAndre Jordan is awful when Chris Paul isn't on the court. If he didn't have the most talented passing PG and PF he wouldn't very effective at all, and to be frank, he can be quite a huge liability. He's a passable offensive player, but a star?


I get the point that the Clippers are basically a one way team, but GSW's offensive talent is just as good. Who cares about reputation? Iguodolla doesn't have an offensive reputation, but does anyone really think Jamal Crawford is a better offensive player than him? What side of the court is David Lee or Speights value? They're not brought in for defense. Shaun Livingston is a legit 3rd guard, while the Clippers don't even have a back up point guard.

Andrew Bogut could put up stats if GSW wanted him too, he could certainly get into the double digits on high %. He's a better offensive player than DeAndre Jordan, GSW just has better options than giving it to him and they'd rather save him for defense and initiating rather than scoring.

Harrison Barnes is not much worse than Matt Barnes on offense, if at all. I might give the edge to Matt because he can make some nice plays in transition, but they both pretty much serve the same purpose.


After Jamal Crawford, Clips are fielding Glen Davis, Turk, Rivers, Hawes. One might say that those players are offensive oriented, but a better way to describe them is that they are just bad at both offense and defense.

[RSCD3_]

Forget me including Blake Griffin, last nights game was terrible

[Doctor MJ]

Matt Barnes is a glue guy, but I don't really get the "legit" add on - that almost infers that Matt Barnes is not an 8th man caliber player.

Also, calling DeAndre Jordan a star on the offensive end is just bizarre. DeAndre Jordan is awful when Chris Paul isn't on the court. If he didn't have the most talented passing PG and PF he wouldn't very effective at all, and to be frank, he can be quite a huge liability. He's a passable offensive player, but a star?


I get the point that the Clippers are basically a one way team, but GSW's offensive talent is just as good. Who cares about reputation? Iguodolla doesn't have an offensive reputation, but does anyone really think Jamal Crawford is a better offensive player than him? What side of the court is David Lee or Speights value? They're not brought in for defense. Shaun Livingston is a legit 3rd guard, while the Clippers don't even have a back up point guard.

Andrew Bogut could put up stats if GSW wanted him too, he could certainly get into the double digits on high %. He's a better offensive player than DeAndre Jordan, GSW just has better options than giving it to him and they'd rather save him for defense and initiating rather than scoring.

Harrison Barnes is not much worse than Matt Barnes on offense, if at all. I might give the edge to Matt because he can make some nice plays in transition, but they both pretty much serve the same purpose.


After Jamal Crawford, Clips are fielding Glen Davis, Turk, Rivers, Hawes. One might say that those players are offensive oriented, but a better way to describe them is that they are just bad at both offense and defense.

If you want to take issue with my labels of guys being overly generous that's fine. I honestly didn't take them that seriously. Jordan's considered a star, rightly or wrongly, and I was simply pointing out that it's the offense where he has the impact.

Look fundamentally here: Paul is leading the best offense in the league here. In NO he did nothing of the sort. You may not like the Crawfords of the world, but the fact of the matter is that 5 of the 6 core Clipper players are considerably better offensive players than defensive players...and the Clippers are a lot more effective offensively than some of Paul's previous teams have been. I just can't look at that and be sympathetic to a "look at the crap Paul has to work with on offense" argument.

Re: Jordan & Bogut. You're not seeing Bogut clearly here. Bogut has a similar usage to Jordan, he simply has lesser volume because he plays so little, and he plays so little because of physical limitations. There's no parallel universe where a Bogut like this right now is "putting up stats". Not saying the guy can't do great things on defense when he plays, but the body issues are real.

So yeah, Bogut's not going to get you more points than Jordan, he's not going to get the same kind of efficiency even with Paul, and his offensive rebounding isn't on the same planet as Jordan's. I like Bogut a lot, but if you're seeing him as a major blessing on offense at this point you're fooling yourself. Meanwhile, Jordan is a big man who can jump out the gym and is capable in the pick & roll (point guard can't do it by himself, and plenty of bigs struggle there). That ain't nothing.

Re: Barnes vs Barnes. I'm not trying to say Matt is a clearly better offensive player than Harrison, Matt is the one I said was a legit defensive player of the Clipper bunch. The only 1 of the 6 major Clippers I can say that about, and that's got everything to do with why he's out there. The Warriors meanwhile of course whenever possible have a defensive-oriented center and a defensive-oriented power forward (when they could have David Lee) out there.

The Warriors have made a choice to sacrifice their offense for their defense while the Clippers - to the extent they know what they are doing - have chosen to sacrifice defense for offense. It makes little sense given this to focus on the Clippers being slightly more effective on offense and talk about that as if that says something decisive about the two star players on the opposing clubs.

[Dr Spaceman]

Matt Barnes is a glue guy, but I don't really get the "legit" add on - that almost infers that Matt Barnes is not an 8th man caliber player.

Also, calling DeAndre Jordan a star on the offensive end is just bizarre. DeAndre Jordan is awful when Chris Paul isn't on the court. If he didn't have the most talented passing PG and PF he wouldn't very effective at all, and to be frank, he can be quite a huge liability. He's a passable offensive player, but a star?


I get the point that the Clippers are basically a one way team, but GSW's offensive talent is just as good. Who cares about reputation? Iguodolla doesn't have an offensive reputation, but does anyone really think Jamal Crawford is a better offensive player than him? What side of the court is David Lee or Speights value? They're not brought in for defense. Shaun Livingston is a legit 3rd guard, while the Clippers don't even have a back up point guard.

Andrew Bogut could put up stats if GSW wanted him too, he could certainly get into the double digits on high %. He's a better offensive player than DeAndre Jordan, GSW just has better options than giving it to him and they'd rather save him for defense and initiating rather than scoring.

Harrison Barnes is not much worse than Matt Barnes on offense, if at all. I might give the edge to Matt because he can make some nice plays in transition, but they both pretty much serve the same purpose.


After Jamal Crawford, Clips are fielding Glen Davis, Turk, Rivers, Hawes. One might say that those players are offensive oriented, but a better way to describe them is that they are just bad at both offense and defense.

If you want to take issue with my labels of guys being overly generous that's fine. I honestly didn't take them that seriously. Jordan's considered a star, rightly or wrongly, and I was simply pointing out that it's the offense where he has the impact.

Look fundamentally here: Paul is leading the best offense in the league here. In NO he did nothing of the sort. You may not like the Crawfords of the world, but the fact of the matter is that 5 of the 6 core Clipper players are considerably better offensive players than defensive players...and the Clippers are a lot more effective offensively than some of Paul's previous teams have been. I just can't look at that and be sympathetic to a "look at the crap Paul has to work with on offense" argument.

Re: Jordan & Bogut. You're not seeing Bogut clearly here. Bogut has a similar usage to Jordan, he simply has lesser volume because he plays so little, and he plays so little because of physical limitations. There's no parallel universe where a Bogut like this right now is "putting up stats". Not saying the guy can't do great things on defense when he plays, but the body issues are real.

So yeah, Bogut's not going to get you more points than Jordan, he's not going to get the same kind of efficiency even with Paul, and his offensive rebounding isn't on the same planet as Jordan's. I like Bogut a lot, but if you're seeing him as a major blessing on offense at this point you're fooling yourself. Meanwhile, Jordan is a big man who can jump out the gym and is capable in the pick & roll (point guard can't do it by himself, and plenty of bigs struggle there). That ain't nothing.

Re: Barnes vs Barnes. I'm not trying to say Matt is a clearly better offensive player than Harrison, Matt is the one I said was a legit defensive player of the Clipper bunch. The only 1 of the 6 major Clippers I can say that about, and that's got everything to do with why he's out there. The Warriors meanwhile of course whenever possible have a defensive-oriented center and a defensive-oriented power forward (when they could have David Lee) out there.

The Warriors have made a choice to sacrifice their offense for their defense while the Clippers - to the extent they know what they are doing - have chosen to sacrifice defense for offense. It makes little sense given this to focus on the Clippers being slightly more effective on offense and talk about that as if that says something decisive about the two star players on the opposing clubs.

The last paragraph seems to be the crux of your point, and I'm not even sure I can agree on the basics on this one. For one thing, moving Harrison Barnes into the starting lineup is explicitly and offense-first move, and I don't see how it can be argued. He was chosen to play with the starters pretty explicitly because he's a superior shooter to Iguodala, has the athleticism to finish the break and cut, and doesn't mind when the ball doesn't find him for stretches. If the Warriors truly were looking to make choices to maximize their defense, well that's a pretty easy place to start, given that Iggy is the best perimeter defender on their roster.

The Draymond thing is a bit more nuanced, but let's be clear: he has a small forward's stature and is playing power forward. This is kind of an inherently offense-first sacrifice, and it clearly shows up in the fact that the Warriors are 18th in the league in DRB%. This is a team that plays smallball, and it's hard to see this as a choice favoring defense unless you've got some evidence I'm not seeing. Yo could say that simply putting Green on the floor is a defense-first move, and that's true, but Draymond starts specifically at the 4 because he makes dramatically more offensive impact as a shooter and passer from that spot than he would if played at the 3, and his defense is so good that he doesn't hurt the team nearly as much as a traditional stretch 4 does.

This is essentially the Spurs choosing to start Diaw, if Diaw happened to be a DPOY candidate. Sure, Green is a great defensive player, but you play him at the 4 to reap the offensive benefits of having a player with his skills at that position. And it's hard for me to see it another way unless you've got reason to believe Green is a much better defender at the 4 than the 3, and I don't think that's accurate, at least not to the degree we're talking about here.

[bondom34]

Ultimately, just glancing at the simple on/off tells a lot to me. The Clippers have a better offense sure, but they have zero players capable of really running a halfway decent offense outside of Paul. GSW is slightly worse, but have more capable players overall as an entire roster. LA has the starters and Crawford, and that's it. That roster is just bad which isn't said to discredit Curry but simply as a fact. With Paul off court, LA has an O rating of 98.4, he's a +19.9. GSW can at least keep about a 102 w/o Curry.

Neither guy is getting an award for his D, and its debatable as to who's the more impactful defender. If we're honestly saying who's made more w/ less, to me Paul clearly has.

[Mutnt]

From there my next step tends to be: So, what's the basis for being confident in Paul's superior impact? Paul is obviously the superior floor general - and that's my favorite type of player - but Curry's gravitational impact is quite possibly unprecedented in NBA history here. What exactly is causing doubt in his numbers?

It is unprecedented - you know what else is unprecedented in NBA history? Paul's ability to be a GOAT level playmaker while still providing 20 ppg on 60%TS and having a ridiculously low turnover rate. How many players have combined those attributes with above average defense for every game 35 minutes per game for their team?

That might be moving the goal post a bit given that I didn't simply pick Curry but found it hard to even grasp an argument for Paul, and an argument should require confidence in Paul's superiority.

But why wouldn't you have confidence in Paul's superiority, as stated in this topic already, there are several areas of basketball where Paul is indisputably better than Curry. You speak of individual numbers that have Curry outshining Paul, I assume you're talking about plus/minus statistics in which case I wanna ask how confident are you in extracting the true impact of Curry individually out of those stats or you simply don't care?

[I also don't necessarily agree with your school of thought that ''doing more with more is better than doing less with less''. I'm not sure how that follows logically. If you have more talent on your team, you should be doing more if you're a great player (unless your team has glaring issues like overlapping talent/fit, bad coaching/system, extremely weak in certain positions/areas - think Heat w/o size/rebounding etc.). Unless you think Paul would've done a worse job in Curry's shoes this season I'm not sure what we're really taking about here.

It's just that what I sense from you and Lorak is a kind of disbelief that Curry could actually be more impactful than Paul given how much say Paul has over his team's play, and I don't see what justifies that disbelief. You say "the numbers don't support that" but I don't know what numbers you mean. The only data we have involving regression indeed gives Curry the edge over Paul. Skepticism about Curry and the potential of impact through shooting-based gravity used to make a lot of sense, but the Warriors were totally off the charts this year.

Note that we are discussing probably the two most impactful players this season, so I don't see how me playing with the idea that Paul could've had the most impact individually for his team this year equates to me being in disbelief about what Curry's doing in GS.
I acknowledge Curry being very very good, but it's something between the stats, the eye-test & the offensive numbers the Warriors are putting (inferior to the Clippers mind you) that evokes a bit of skepticism on my part.

I'll say it up front, I don't think you're giving the Warriors outside of Curry (that is the supporting cast + coaching staff) enough credit. You're talking about Curry's shooting-based gravity and that's all fine and acceptable. I don't think anyone is disputing Curry being the clear-cut best player on offense for the Warriors but:

1. Why are you selling Klay Thompson's shooting-based gravity so short?

Klay is right there with Curry in terms of volume & efficiency. Obviously, Curry is still the more dangerous shooter and needs less assistance to get good shots off but we're really not talking about big discrepancies here. It's pretty close. Also, when we speak about 'shooting-based gravity', I don't think we're talking about an area with unlimited potential as in ''see, this guy shoots 55% from 3pt, he's got more shooting gravity than the guy with 45% 3pt''. Once you're shooting in the high forties from the perimeter you're gonna get the opposite defense's best attempt to stop you from shooting threes on pretty much every single possession possible, from out here it's just who can convert their opportunities the most. I guess the gist of what I'm trying to say is that Klay doesn't really have any significant amount of less ''shooting-based gravity'' than Curry, yet I get the feeling that when we're analyzing the Warriors offense only Curry's ability to do so gets factored in. Conversely, there's not even close to a member on the Clippers who can provide the ''playmaking-based impact'' that Paul does pretty much by himself.

2. Beside great scoring and shooting by Curry & Klay, the 2nd biggest attribute of the Warriors is their amazing ball-movement. Again, Curry is the main guy here, no disputes, but again I have a feeling you're underrating the others contributions here. We're not talking about a team like the Clippers where Paul needs to have the ball in his hands and needs to create & assist pretty much on every single play because of how poor the spacing/shooting and also ball-movement ability of the Clippers are that the only other alternative is pretty much a Griffin or a Crawford 1v1 (and Crawford isn't really good at 1v1). With the Warriors, of course everyone benefits immensely from Curry & Klay's ability to suck the defense, but we're talking about with a plethora of great passers and guy who can move the ball one way or the other. I don't believe it's simply a matter of putting Curry & Klay on some mediocre team and that would be enough to make a top 3 offense. Bogut has always been a good and willing passer, Igoudala has always been known as a guy who can penetrate and make plays with great efficiency and Green has also proven this year very apt in that role. Livingston
is another guy who is unique in the sense that he combines size with great passing and decent scoring and he is a match-up problem for a lot of teams in the post.

I don't know why you're underselling these guys and the amazing job Kerr has done. You speak about how Paul isn't really doing anything we haven't seen him do in years, but... Curry is somehow a very different player from last year? He was a 24/8 player last year, obviously he's been able to almost replicate that with better efficiency and less turnovers on less minutes, kudos to him, but the production is pretty much the same from what he did last year when the Warriors were like 12 in offensive team rankings. Curry didn't change much, but you know what did? Yeah, they brought Kerr over, Klay and Green got a lot better, Barnes improved his shooting, they got rid of some chuckers, Iguodala is used more to facilitate and move the ball than to score etc. A lot of things changed for the Warriors in this season compared to last year and I had Curry around my Top 5 for 2014 POY but without really changing much of what he does, just mainly on the basis of team performance, the perspective is that Curry is a whole different animal right now, supposedly... Why?

And on that note: Off the charts. The Warriors' "inferior" offense here was #2 in the league while having a core that was able to focus comparably on defense (#1 in the league). The Warriors' main rotation here is basically Curry, Thompson, and then a bunch of guys who for the most part have meh reputations on offense. Pretty damn easy to imagine they could have a better ORtg if they chose a more offense oriented core.

Wait wait wait... You're telling me that the Warriors can play better offensively if they so choose? If they shift their core priority from defense to offense? That's... interesting. I already disagreed with the Warriors being Curry, Thompson and meh offensive players (the reputation part was a nice add-in to make the claim more slippery:D) and I disagree here too. The Warriors had the same type of core focus last year, they were primarily a defensive team. This year the biggest improvement has been on offense, so how did they improve offensively if their core focus stayed on the defensive end? Also, Dr.Spaceman supported this notion by providing the example of the Warriors switching the starting SF spot from Iguodala to Barnes. That was purely a move to improve offensive efficiency by adding a guy who's much better at shooting and spacing the floor for the primary unit.

The Clippers on the other hand, have 6 guys averaging 20 MPG or more:

Paul - offensive star
Griffin - offensive star Ok, but I can argue Thompson being better offensively if you want
Jordan - offensive star (more on that later) simply no (more on that later)
Redick - offense only yea, Redick is a nice player
Barnes - legit glue guy role player who needs to be fed on the perimeter or in transition to be useful on offense
Crawford - offense

chucking machine who suppresses ball-movement in favor of dwindling down the clock for long bricks

It's not exactly a shock that their defense is so mediocre when only 1 of their 6 key guys can seriously claim to be more impactful on defense than offense, and yeah, that helps the Clipper offense.

So, you just used the Clippers players defensive incompetency to bolster their value on offense? That's an interesting way of trying to prove a point.

Now, Jordan. You called him one of the "orrible offensive players who do nothing without Paul's virtuoso play on offense". Dude, you missed that really damn hard. I've said it before and I'll say it again: When you see a young giant racking up offense & defensive rebounds plus blocks, it's entirely possible that the latter 2 stats are doing more harm than good, and that even the benefits of the first come at the cost of hurting defense. Why?

I don't think I've called Jordan a ''horrible offensive player'', but I believe you called him an offensive star just above and that's definitely not the case. Jordan has his pros and cons on offense, but overall his cons outweigh his pros in relation to both sides of the court (as you've pointed out). The strengths Jordan has on offense is rebounding (which in turn hurts the defense, so less overall impact for the Clippers as a team) and he's a pretty efficient scorer around the rim if they lob him balls. His weaknesses are he clogs the paint, he provides zero spacing, he's pretty incompetent as a passer, he can't dribble the ball and he's a basketball hazard from the line. Are we really gonna argue that he's a better offensive player than a defensive one? Maybe he boosts the actual ORtg more than he adds actual value, but that basically means more power to Paul

I mean, I'm not even gonna continue arguing about Jordan because I've realized we actually agree on this subject - that is Jordan is a type of player that is clearly overrated by the boxscore (I believe on both sides of the court, not only on defense), yet, isn't this something that should make you more impressed with what Paul is doing?

[GSP]

Ultimately, just glancing at the simple on/off tells a lot to me. The Clippers have a better offense sure, but they have zero players capable of really running a halfway decent offense outside of Paul. GSW is slightly worse, but have more capable players overall as an entire roster. LA has the starters and Crawford, and that's it. That roster is just bad which isn't said to discredit Curry but simply as a fact. With Paul off court, LA has an O rating of 98.4, he's a +19.9. GSW can at least keep about a 102 w/o Curry.

Neither guy is getting an award for his D, and its debatable as to who's the more impactful defender. If we're honestly saying who's made more w/ less, to me Paul clearly has.

Its debatable who the more impactful defender is???? Between Chris Paul and Steph Curry???

[fuzzy_dunlop]

Why is this turning into a number free meditation about who's "doing more with less"? We have pretty good stats for offensive impact at our disposal.

[RSCD3_]

Also to keep every updated on the Kawhi-Watch

20.5/7.5/3.0 on 63.3 TS%, 3.5 Turnovers is a little high
Defense continues to look good.

[E-Balla]

This constant downplaying of the Clippers supporting cast is alarming.

The Clippers' best 4 man lineup this season is Redick-Barnes-Griffin-Jordan and that lineup has played 1200+ minutes together which is 5th on the team. Can we seriously stop acting like Blake Griffin (3rd in 2014 MVP voting), DeAndre Jordan (3rd in DPOY voting - even if undeserved - and in reality a meh defender and very good offensive player), and J.J. Redick (19 points per 36 on 62 TS) aren't the best combined 2nd-4th options in the NBA?

The Clippers' top 4 3 man lineups don't include Chris Paul. His team offense is way more of a team effort than the Warriors' is. Curry is in four of the top five 3 and 4 man lineups for Golden State.

And to the person that said Klay is better than Blake offensively you're crazy. Are we seriously forgetting Blake Griffin is a great offensive player because it fits this random narrative that Chris Paul is now better than ever because they went 9-6 when Blake went down? This is the exact same thing that happened last year when Chris Paul went down.

[bondom34]

Ultimately, just glancing at the simple on/off tells a lot to me. The Clippers have a better offense sure, but they have zero players capable of really running a halfway decent offense outside of Paul. GSW is slightly worse, but have more capable players overall as an entire roster. LA has the starters and Crawford, and that's it. That roster is just bad which isn't said to discredit Curry but simply as a fact. With Paul off court, LA has an O rating of 98.4, he's a +19.9. GSW can at least keep about a 102 w/o Curry.

Neither guy is getting an award for his D, and its debatable as to who's the more impactful defender. If we're honestly saying who's made more w/ less, to me Paul clearly has.

Its debatable who the more impactful defender is???? Between Chris Paul and Steph Curry???

Sorry, was just saying that neither guy is winning this award for defense. FWIW, Curry's numbers are better, but not vastly for the most part. DRPM is like .3 points different, and he's playing w/ a lot more capable defenders.

[bondom34]

This constant downplaying of the Clippers supporting cast is alarming.

The Clippers' best 4 man lineup this season is Redick-Barnes-Griffin-Jordan and that lineup has played 1200+ minutes together which is 5th on the team. Can we seriously stop acting like Blake Griffin (3rd in 2014 MVP voting), DeAndre Jordan (3rd in DPOY voting - even if undeserved - and in reality a meh defender and very good offensive player), and J.J. Redick (19 points per 36 on 62 TS) aren't the best combined 2nd-4th options in the NBA?

The Clippers' top 4 3 man lineups don't include Chris Paul. His team offense is way more of a team effort than the Warriors' is. Curry is in four of the top five 3 and 4 man lineups for Golden State.

And to the person that said Klay is better than Blake offensively you're crazy. Are we seriously forgetting Blake Griffin is a great offensive player because it fits this random narrative that Chris Paul is now better than ever because they went 9-6 when Blake went down? This is the exact same thing that happened last year when Chris Paul went down.

I feel like this is selling CP way way way short. First, basketball isn't 4 on 4, second, the lineup listed played 1222 minutes and was + 19.2. Paul is in their 4 next best 4 man groups, all of which played more minutes, with respective plus minuses of 18.3, 18, 17.9, and 17.7. He's still leading Curry in overall on/off as well. I'm not saying he's getting my vote just yet, but he's clearly very very close at the least, and you could debate him either way in my mind.

[MO12msu]

I love Chris but it seems we have to do some serious context twisting while straight up ignoring most metrics and actual production to put him ahead of Curry this year.

FWIW I'm pretty sure the Clippers were like the third best passing team in the league(behind GSW & ATL) based on assists per game and points created off assists. Redick and Griffin are very good passers. DeAndre provides strong offensive value because he is a low usage big that you can throw it up to, defenses know that and will back up off Griffin and Paul knowing that DJ is lurking in the background. That value shouldn't be ignored or downplayed at all.

And Steph has been a very good defender all year, you can credit the rest of the team defense for helping him out, but that doesn't change the fact that he has been good on that end all year.

[Doctor MJ]

The last paragraph seems to be the crux of your point, and I'm not even sure I can agree on the basics on this one. For one thing, moving Harrison Barnes into the starting lineup is explicitly and offense-first move, and I don't see how it can be argued. He was chosen to play with the starters pretty explicitly because he's a superior shooter to Iguodala, has the athleticism to finish the break and cut, and doesn't mind when the ball doesn't find him for stretches. If the Warriors truly were looking to make choices to maximize their defense, well that's a pretty easy place to start, given that Iggy is the best perimeter defender on their roster.

The Draymond thing is a bit more nuanced, but let's be clear: he has a small forward's stature and is playing power forward. This is kind of an inherently offense-first sacrifice, and it clearly shows up in the fact that the Warriors are 18th in the league in DRB%. This is a team that plays smallball, and it's hard to see this as a choice favoring defense unless you've got some evidence I'm not seeing. Yo could say that simply putting Green on the floor is a defense-first move, and that's true, but Draymond starts specifically at the 4 because he makes dramatically more offensive impact as a shooter and passer from that spot than he would if played at the 3, and his defense is so good that he doesn't hurt the team nearly as much as a traditional stretch 4 does.

This is essentially the Spurs choosing to start Diaw, if Diaw happened to be a DPOY candidate. Sure, Green is a great defensive player, but you play him at the 4 to reap the offensive benefits of having a player with his skills at that position. And it's hard for me to see it another way unless you've got reason to believe Green is a much better defender at the 4 than the 3, and I don't think that's accurate, at least not to the degree we're talking about here.

I'll start off by saying I really like you as a poster from everything I've seen so far. I take the time to do that because I don't think I've said so before and, well, I really don't get your thinking here. I'm going on the second point because it's the more important of the two:

Green started the year over Lee because Lee was hurt. He stayed the starter, and Lee often fell out of the rotation because he made the team so much better, particularly on defense. I've yet to hear anyone suggest that keeping Lee on the bench was part of a ploy to sacrifice defense for offense...well, until now I guess. I understand small ball generally means more offense and less defense, but for the Warriors this year that just obviously wasn't the case.

More generally and simply: Green probably should have won DPOY this year, so you really should have just abandoned this post before you hit submit when you reflected and thought "I'm trying to use the massive minutes of a defensive specialist as part of an argument that a team sacrificed their defense for offense. This will never, ever make sense."

I do get that you're saying to a degree "Forget the defense, Green was a good player on offense.", but we're talking about a guy shooting 11 PPG without any great efficiency when the other option was David Lee and where the other star's power forward teammate was Blake Griffin. The contrast is striking to say the least.

Now getting back to Barnes, the big thing to me is that this is just really minor. Barnes is a 4th scoring option who doesn't score with much greater volume or efficiency than Iguodala, and who doesn't play much more than him. Even bringing him up like this feels like you're just looking for any little point to counter me no matter how trivial.

I'd imagine you'd say that I'm bringing up players no more significant that Barnes, but I'm only doing so when talking about a general trend: 6 core players, 5 of them offensive focused, and a team that is only elite on offense. Doesn't seem like a coincidence, and doesn't seem like a situation where people should say "Oh that poor star, he has no help on offense."

I think the more noteworthy thing is that Barnes' minutes didn't actually go up this year, Iguodala's went down...until, it would seem, the playoffs when Iguodala is again playing at a higher clip. While this does indicate that the Warriors probably could have had an even better defense - plus all the time the starters sat in blowouts would take it even further - it's hard for me to look at it as anything else beyond that.

[Texas Chuck]

Doc,

I think he believes that Green was going to end up getting those "massive minutes" no matter which forward position they played him at so you were going to get the defensive benefits regardless. But by choosing(almost forced to initially) to play him at PF it had the effect of helping the offense as well.

If they played Green at the 3, I assume they would have tried Speights at the 4 in the absence of Lee as no other option really makes sense and I think we can all agree that the offense works better with Barnes on the floor rather than Speights and Bogut together.

I don't know--his point seems legit to me.

[Dr Spaceman]

Spoiler:

I'll start off by saying I really like you as a poster from everything I've seen so far. I take the time to do that because I don't think I've said so before and, well, I really don't get your thinking here. I'm going on the second point because it's the more important of the two:

Green started the year over Lee because Lee was hurt. He stayed the starter, and Lee often fell out of the rotation because he made the team so much better, particularly on defense. I've yet to hear anyone suggest that keeping Lee on the bench was part of a ploy to sacrifice defense for offense...well, until now I guess. I understand small ball generally means more offense and less defense, but for the Warriors this year that just obviously wasn't the case.

More generally and simply: Green probably should have won DPOY this year, so you really should have just abandoned this post before you hit submit when you reflected and thought "I'm trying to use the massive minutes of a defensive specialist as part of an argument that a team sacrificed their defense for offense. This will never, ever make sense."

I do get that you're saying to a degree "Forget the defense, Green was a good player on offense.", but we're talking about a guy shooting 11 PPG without any great efficiency when the other option was David Lee and where the other star's power forward teammate was Blake Griffin. The contrast is striking to say the least.

Now getting back to Barnes, the big thing to me is that this is just really minor. Barnes is a 4th scoring option who doesn't score with much greater volume or efficiency than Iguodala, and who doesn't play much more than him. Even bringing him up like this feels like you're just looking for any little point to counter me no matter how trivial.

I'd imagine you'd say that I'm bringing up players no more significant that Barnes, but I'm only doing so when talking about a general trend: 6 core players, 5 of them offensive focused, and a team that is only elite on offense. Doesn't seem like a coincidence, and doesn't seem like a situation where people should say "Oh that poor star, he has no help on offense."

I think the more noteworthy thing is that Barnes' minutes didn't actually go up this year, Iguodala's went down...until, it would seem, the playoffs when Iguodala is again playing at a higher clip. While this does indicate that the Warriors probably could have had an even better defense - plus all the time the starters sat in blowouts would take it even further - it's hard for me to look at it as anything else beyond that.

Well, thanks for the kind words. I'll start by saying I don't have a dog in this fight at all- I've got Curry at #1 at that hasn't changed, so if you think I'm trying to nitpick to push some pro-Paul narrative you can drop that notion. I simply was responding to the idea that the Warriors were making choices that benefitted their defense at the expense of their offense- which to me doesn't follow.

Let's start with the most obvious thing: Last year, the Warriors were a +0.7 offense and a -4.1 defense. This year, with the changes we've been over, they've become a... +6.8 offense and a -4.2 defense. The thing to note here, in my opinion, is that they exploded offensively while remaining exactly where they were on defense.

And that's the crux of my point. Please don't boil it down to "Draymond gets more minutes, ergo Warriors prioritize D>O", because that isn't what the results are telling us. The fact that they so wildly improved on offense and stayed neutral on defense tells us, mostly, that Draymond's presence is causing a massive eruption in the team's offensive ability. Now there are other factors too, not the least of which Gentry's offense, but all of that together is not enough to account for a team improving their offense by +6, especially with no major offensive personnel changes to speak of.

And again you try to simplify it by saying Green isn't the individual offensive talent Lee is, and while that's true, if you think of the trickle effects this has on the whole roster it can sort of become apparent why this massive improvement is happening. Draymond is one of the best playmaking PF's in the business, he has a 3 point shot that defenses have to respect, and he can stay out of the way when need be. Lee is much more of a lane-clogger, much less of a shooter, and much less of a passer. And RPM shows us, pretty resoundingly, that Green is having more positive impact on the team offense than Lee is this season.

So my argument this whole time has been that Draymond's individual defense didn't improve the Warriors- it simply allowed them to remain at their already elite level while they reaped the benefits of having a player with that skill set at the 4 offensively. Smallball is well established as a massive boon to an offense- and indeed, the Warriors went small and exploded offensively.

The Barnes thing isn't really that minor when you're trying to say that Green's huge minutes are evidence of the Warriors prioritizing D, because if that were the case than Iguodala's minutes reduction seem directly counter to that. Add 1 DPOY player, remove another, kind of breaks even although Green is definitely the better defender. I think the overarching theme we're looking for here is that the Dubs are striving for roster balance, and decidedly not prioritizing one end over the other. This is what I'm saying.

Fundamentally I'm just not comfortable saying a team that jumped +6 ORTG points was making any kind of offensive sacrifice. And especially not when the evidence points to what it does.

[Doctor MJ]

From there my next step tends to be: So, what's the basis for being confident in Paul's superior impact? Paul is obviously the superior floor general - and that's my favorite type of player - but Curry's gravitational impact is quite possibly unprecedented in NBA history here. What exactly is causing doubt in his numbers?

It is unprecedented - you know what else is unprecedented in NBA history? Paul's ability to be a GOAT level playmaker while still providing 20 ppg on 60%TS and having a ridiculously low turnover rate. How many players have combined those attributes with above average defense for every game 35 minutes per game for their team?

As hyperbolic as "unprecedented" sounds, we likely exist in the jurassic period of NBA space manipulation due to the rise of the 3. If a player in this era were to come into the league and have an off-the-charts 3-point shooting on-ball with solid playmaking ability, it would seem to me to be a pretty clear cut thing that he'd possibly have a gravitational impact unlike any we've seen before. Not saying Curry's the GOAT player obviously, but the doubting of Curry's ability to impact the game when he seems to me to be the player tailor made for this era like none other just seems weird.

Take any earlier era, good chance Paul has more impact than Curry, but in this one, if the data tells us Curry seems to have the edge, I don't understand what's so hard to believe about it.

Re: Paul also unprecedented playmaker while still low turnovers, etc. I don't view Paul like that. That's just my opinion of course, but the more important point is: I don't really see what makes you think he's such an unprecedented player. With Curry we all agree we've never seen his equal as a shooter. I don't know where that comes from with Paul unless you're fixated on a PER-like stats, and there it's his low TO% that gives him such a boost.

I'll note that when it's come to regression analysis of the 4 factors, Paul's always lagged a bit behind on impact on eFG% compared to someone like Nash, as well as non-all-world playmakers like Shaq, LeBron, and Wade (and now Curry).

That might be moving the goal post a bit given that I didn't simply pick Curry but found it hard to even grasp an argument for Paul, and an argument should require confidence in Paul's superiority.

But why wouldn't you have confidence in Paul's superiority, as stated in this topic already, there are several areas of basketball where Paul is indisputably better than Curry. You speak of individual numbers that have Curry outshining Paul, I assume you're talking about plus/minus statistics in which case I wanna ask how confident are you in extracting the true impact of Curry individually out of those stats or you simply don't care?

[I also don't necessarily agree with your school of thought that ''doing more with more is better than doing less with less''. I'm not sure how that follows logically. If you have more talent on your team, you should be doing more if you're a great player (unless your team has glaring issues like overlapping talent/fit, bad coaching/system, extremely weak in certain positions/areas - think Heat w/o size/rebounding etc.). Unless you think Paul would've done a worse job in Curry's shoes this season I'm not sure what we're really taking about here.

Why wouldn't I have confidence that Paul was better? The numbers side with Curry, and Curry has a particular far-better-than-anyone-else attribute in his shooting that has an impact that is very difficult to put a ceiling on. Honestly dude, when you talk like this to me you sound like a homer. Find to side with Paul, but to brush Curry away so swiftly, I just don't get it. They are two different players, Curry has an advantage that happens to right at this moment in history be defining the entire league on most teams - how can you confidently say you know the limits to that impact?

Re: Doing more with more. The bottom line is that if two guys are achieving equal lift for their teams, and one is doing it in a healthier context that seem more likely to lead to a championship, then that's the guy I'll typically be more impressed with. Taking the extreme route: If there were an Ultra-Abdur-Rahim who could take any collection of YMCA players and make them win 30 games, but couldn't add more value with better teammates, then despite the fact he can in theory give 30 games of list (which is insane), he wouldn't simply fail to be my MVP, I wouldn't even want him on my team and I'd advise no team to even give him a minimum contract.

I personally think quite highly of Paul so I don't mean to knock him here, but to me it's completely within the realm of debate to think that perhaps Curry's super-gravity game is easier to built around than Paul's control-freak game.

Re: Unless I think Paul would've done worse in Curry's shoes. I think that's pretty clear cut actually. The Warriors' entire set up is based around having one guy who is both on-ball and an insanely scary shooter who will be the lead scorer most games. I see no reason at all to think that replacing such a monstrously successful first scoring option with a pass-first player is a move anyone would want to make, and I don't even see that as a knock on Paul.

It's just that what I sense from you and Lorak is a kind of disbelief that Curry could actually be more impactful than Paul given how much say Paul has over his team's play, and I don't see what justifies that disbelief. You say "the numbers don't support that" but I don't know what numbers you mean. The only data we have involving regression indeed gives Curry the edge over Paul. Skepticism about Curry and the potential of impact through shooting-based gravity used to make a lot of sense, but the Warriors were totally off the charts this year.

Note that we are discussing probably the two most impactful players this season, so I don't see how me playing with the idea that Paul could've had the most impact individually for his team this year equates to me being in disbelief about what Curry's doing in GS.
I acknowledge Curry being very very good, but it's something between the stats, the eye-test & the offensive numbers the Warriors are putting (inferior to the Clippers mind you) that evokes a bit of skepticism on my part.

Note that what I said was speaking to the tone I sense from you. It's your vehemence that I'm responding to when I say this, and this is something I've seen again in this post I'm responding to. That can be a red herring and a product of rhetorical tendencies of course, and if it is, then perhaps no biggie.

I'll say it up front, I don't think you're giving the Warriors outside of Curry (that is the supporting cast + coaching staff) enough credit. You're talking about Curry's shooting-based gravity and that's all fine and acceptable. I don't think anyone is disputing Curry being the clear-cut best player on offense for the Warriors but:

1. Why are you selling Klay Thompson's shooting-based gravity so short?

Klay is right there with Curry in terms of volume & efficiency. Obviously, Curry is still the more dangerous shooter and needs less assistance to get good shots off but we're really not talking about big discrepancies here. It's pretty close. Also, when we speak about 'shooting-based gravity', I don't think we're talking about an area with unlimited potential as in ''see, this guy shoots 55% from 3pt, he's got more shooting gravity than the guy with 45% 3pt''. Once you're shooting in the high forties from the perimeter you're gonna get the opposite defense's best attempt to stop you from shooting threes on pretty much every single possession possible, from out here it's just who can convert their opportunities the most. I guess the gist of what I'm trying to say is that Klay doesn't really have any significant amount of less ''shooting-based gravity'' than Curry, yet I get the feeling that when we're analyzing the Warriors offense only Curry's ability to do so gets factored in. Conversely, there's not even close to a member on the Clippers who can provide the ''playmaking-based impact'' that Paul does pretty much by himself.

I've said nothing negative about Thompson, let alone his gravity. Let's note though that the mere fact that Thompson is also a "gravitational" player doesn't mean it particularly sucks credit away from Curry. Thompson being a great player is something that is bound to get factored in in that way, but the fact that he does it by shooting from the perimeter is not more damning to Curry than it would be if he had a Griffin-like player of quality similar to Thompson.

And in terms of whether it's a question of Thompson being as valuable as Curry or something like that, it isn't, right?

2. Beside great scoring and shooting by Curry & Klay, the 2nd biggest attribute of the Warriors is their amazing ball-movement. Again, Curry is the main guy here, no disputes, but again I have a feeling you're underrating the others contributions here. We're not talking about a team like the Clippers where Paul needs to have the ball in his hands and needs to create & assist pretty much on every single play because of how poor the spacing/shooting and also ball-movement ability of the Clippers are that the only other alternative is pretty much a Griffin or a Crawford 1v1 (and Crawford isn't really good at 1v1). With the Warriors, of course everyone benefits immensely from Curry & Klay's ability to suck the defense, but we're talking about with a plethora of great passers and guy who can move the ball one way or the other. I don't believe it's simply a matter of putting Curry & Klay on some mediocre team and that would be enough to make a top 3 offense. Bogut has always been a good and willing passer, Igoudala has always been known as a guy who can penetrate and make plays with great efficiency and Green has also proven this year very apt in that role. Livingston
is another guy who is unique in the sense that he combines size with great passing and decent scoring and he is a match-up problem for a lot of teams in the post.

I don't know why you're underselling these guys and the amazing job Kerr has done. You speak about how Paul isn't really doing anything we haven't seen him do in years, but... Curry is somehow a very different player from last year? He was a 24/8 player last year, obviously he's been able to almost replicate that with better efficiency and less turnovers on less minutes, kudos to him, but the production is pretty much the same from what he did last year when the Warriors were like 12 in offensive team rankings. Curry didn't change much, but you know what did? Yeah, they brought Kerr over, Klay and Green got a lot better, Barnes improved his shooting, they got rid of some chuckers, Iguodala is used more to facilitate and move the ball than to score etc. A lot of things changed for the Warriors in this season compared to last year and I had Curry around my Top 5 for 2014 POY but without really changing much of what he does, just mainly on the basis of team performance, the perspective is that Curry is a whole different animal right now, supposedly... Why?

Re: Paul needs the ball because of bad spacing. Nah, this is just how Paul has always been. He's a control freak who given his druthers would slow things down and make the entire possession's success be based on who him thinking his way past the defense. Put him in a scheme where the ball is really in his hands a lot less, and you're literally diminishing his best attribute. You probably know I'm a Nash guy - it'd be the exact same thing for him. Not that spacing isn't a good thing everywhere, but the ball is in these guys hands all the time because that's where it needs to be to max out their value.

The thing about the ball movement in Golden State is that that's just a smart way to play if you have great gravity above all else, and while Thompson helps that, it would be the smart way to use Curry regardless. So again: 2 different superstars, 2 different ways you'll want to build around them, and it's thus tough to say fundamentally which is better. Given that lack of objectivity, I tend to look at numbers, and all the numbers point Curry's way right now.

Re: underselling. I don't know what I said that gave you that impression. Green would get my vote for DPOY, Kerr might have gotten my COY (I never settled between him and Bud) and Iggy's my 6th Man. I'm not underselling the rest of the Warriors, I'm emphasizing how extreme the Warriors accomplishment is.

Re: Curry is a whole different animal now, why? Well first let's say it's for no reason other than he's a scheme that better makes use of his talents. So what? I've said it for years: It never makes sense to look to split credit between player and coach. If the nature of the scheme makes a player look more valuable than he actually is that's one thing, but if the coach finds a way to make the player more valuable, that's two separate lines of credit.

But in addition to that Curry's a young guy whose game isn't based on being a superior physical specimen than everyone else. We should be expecting him to improve from year to year by trimming the fat on the little moments he now recognizes won't pan out, no? I just don't see where the skepticism comes from that a player like him wouldn't get better even if his box score didn't indicate improvement...which of course it does.

And on that note: Off the charts. The Warriors' "inferior" offense here was #2 in the league while having a core that was able to focus comparably on defense (#1 in the league). The Warriors' main rotation here is basically Curry, Thompson, and then a bunch of guys who for the most part have meh reputations on offense. Pretty damn easy to imagine they could have a better ORtg if they chose a more offense oriented core.

Wait wait wait... You're telling me that the Warriors can play better offensively if they so choose? If they shift their core priority from defense to offense? That's... interesting. I already disagreed with the Warriors being Curry, Thompson and meh offensive players (the reputation part was a nice add-in to make the claim more slippery:D) and I disagree here too. The Warriors had the same type of core focus last year, they were primarily a defensive team. This year the biggest improvement has been on offense, so how did they improve offensively if their core focus stayed on the defensive end? Also, Dr.Spaceman supported this notion by providing the example of the Warriors switching the starting SF spot from Iguodala to Barnes. That was purely a move to improve offensive efficiency by adding a guy who's much better at shooting and spacing the floor for the primary unit.

As I said to Dr. Spaceman:

The Warriors have a PF and a C who are noteworthy for their defense. Give Curry two bigs who are similarly noteworthy for their offense and we'd expect the team's offense to be better. There's nothing controversial about that. It's just an obvious statement.

And as I also said: Trying to use Barnes against Curry? Seriously? Forget about what the intent was - I'd say it's much more about trying to make the most of Barnes with a side of the given reason (to let Iguodala lead the second unit) than it is about offense, but say it was only about adding offense, he's still just Harrison Barnes. He's not noteworthy.

The Clippers on the other hand, have 6 guys averaging 20 MPG or more:

Paul - offensive star
Griffin - offensive star Ok, but I can argue Thompson being better offensively if you want
Jordan - offensive star (more on that later) simply no (more on that later)
Redick - offense only yea, Redick is a nice player
Barnes - legit glue guy role player who needs to be fed on the perimeter or in transition to be useful on offense
Crawford - offense

chucking machine who suppresses ball-movement in favor of dwindling down the clock for long bricks

It's not exactly a shock that their defense is so mediocre when only 1 of their 6 key guys can seriously claim to be more impactful on defense than offense, and yeah, that helps the Clipper offense.

So, you just used the Clippers players defensive incompetency to bolster their value on offense? That's an interesting way of trying to prove a point.

The Clipper offense is awesome.
Paul's NO offense was not.
It makes little sense to cry boo hoo for Paul on offense for his teammates when the results are clearly better than what he's had elsewhere and his new teammates are offense-oriented. You may not think much of these guys, but clearly he could do plenty worse.

Perhaps you'll say Paul is just that much better now, but I suppose I'm skeptical.

Now, Jordan. You called him one of the "orrible offensive players who do nothing without Paul's virtuoso play on offense". Dude, you missed that really damn hard. I've said it before and I'll say it again: When you see a young giant racking up offense & defensive rebounds plus blocks, it's entirely possible that the latter 2 stats are doing more harm than good, and that even the benefits of the first come at the cost of hurting defense. Why?

I don't think I've called Jordan a ''horrible offensive player'', but I believe you called him an offensive star just above and that's definitely not the case. Jordan has his pros and cons on offense, but overall his cons outweigh his pros in relation to both sides of the court (as you've pointed out). The strengths Jordan has on offense is rebounding (which in turn hurts the defense, so less overall impact for the Clippers as a team) and he's a pretty efficient scorer around the rim if they lob him balls. His weaknesses are he clogs the paint, he provides zero spacing, he's pretty incompetent as a passer, he can't dribble the ball and he's a basketball hazard from the line. Are we really gonna argue that he's a better offensive player than a defensive one? Maybe he boosts the actual ORtg more than he adds actual value, but that basically means more power to Paul

I mean, I'm not even gonna continue arguing about Jordan because I've realized we actually agree on this subject - that is Jordan is a type of player that is clearly overrated by the boxscore (I believe on both sides of the court, not only on defense), yet, isn't this something that should make you more impressed with what Paul is doing?

[/quote]

Re: horrible offensive player, Jordan. I'm literally quoting you dude. And yeah, clearly it came off as bizarre to me as it does to you, and shaped how I responded to you.

Re: "you called him an offensive star". Right and I've owned up somewhere recently to say I have no problem with someone saying I'm exaggerating. It was a statement made without a bunch of thought based on the fact that Jordan is indeed seen as a star, and his game is actually offense-oriented contrary to popular opinion. I take no issue with someone saying he's no star at all, but he's definitely a plus on offense not "horrible".

Re: cons outright the pros. On the whole I disagree. I'll grant that Hack-a-Dre is something that could tip the scales. Other than that, a guy who can get offensive rebounds extremely well and function in a pick & roll at that size & athleticism is to me a clear positive. I think it's also worth noting that when you're on Chris Paul's team, the passing of everyone else is going to get underutilized. Again not a knock on Paul, just an acknowledgement that if you have Paul, passing ability in your other guys is your last priority.

Re: are we really going to argue he's better on offense than defense? His signature stat on defense is the defensive rebounds, and regression data indicates he actually makes defensive rebounding worse. That's a huge freaking problem and importantly: Not remotely hard to believe. As I've said, it's a common issue with young bigs, although granted it's more than a bit extreme for someone who is a 7th year player and just finished 3rd in DPOY voting.

The bottom line is that if someone gets defensive rebounds by treating them like they are offensive rebounds, we shouldn't be shocked at all if that player is better on offense than on defense. It indicates major issues in the ability to understand what it means to defend.

[Doctor MJ]

Doc,

I think he believes that Green was going to end up getting those "massive minutes" no matter which forward position they played him at so you were going to get the defensive benefits regardless. But by choosing(almost forced to initially) to play him at PF it had the effect of helping the offense as well.

If they played Green at the 3, I assume they would have tried Speights at the 4 in the absence of Lee as no other option really makes sense and I think we can all agree that the offense works better with Barnes on the floor rather than Speights and Bogut together.

I don't know--his point seems legit to me.

Kerr could be lying, but he insists that what many think of being his brilliant move - starting Green instead of Lee - simply wasn't in the cards until the injury happens. His plan was to move Barnes into the starting lineup for Iguodala and keep Green with the 2nd unit. I tend to believe him because 1) it makes him look less smart, 2) benching the owner-loved, big-salaried, former all-star Lee for an unproven young guy as a rookie coach take huge balls, and 3) the conversations Kerr had with Barnes and Iguodala about the switch soon after Kerr got hired are well documented and I'm not aware of anything similar involving Green and Lee.

I do think it's very interesting though that if you were only going to move one to the starting lineup, according to Kerr it was Barnes that was his priority. I think it's quite likely that had Lee been healthy Green would have eventually moved into the starting lineup at SF just as you say, but only after Barnes was given serious opportunity to prove himself.

[Doctor MJ]

Spoiler:

I'll start off by saying I really like you as a poster from everything I've seen so far. I take the time to do that because I don't think I've said so before and, well, I really don't get your thinking here. I'm going on the second point because it's the more important of the two:

Green started the year over Lee because Lee was hurt. He stayed the starter, and Lee often fell out of the rotation because he made the team so much better, particularly on defense. I've yet to hear anyone suggest that keeping Lee on the bench was part of a ploy to sacrifice defense for offense...well, until now I guess. I understand small ball generally means more offense and less defense, but for the Warriors this year that just obviously wasn't the case.

More generally and simply: Green probably should have won DPOY this year, so you really should have just abandoned this post before you hit submit when you reflected and thought "I'm trying to use the massive minutes of a defensive specialist as part of an argument that a team sacrificed their defense for offense. This will never, ever make sense."

I do get that you're saying to a degree "Forget the defense, Green was a good player on offense.", but we're talking about a guy shooting 11 PPG without any great efficiency when the other option was David Lee and where the other star's power forward teammate was Blake Griffin. The contrast is striking to say the least.

Now getting back to Barnes, the big thing to me is that this is just really minor. Barnes is a 4th scoring option who doesn't score with much greater volume or efficiency than Iguodala, and who doesn't play much more than him. Even bringing him up like this feels like you're just looking for any little point to counter me no matter how trivial.

I'd imagine you'd say that I'm bringing up players no more significant that Barnes, but I'm only doing so when talking about a general trend: 6 core players, 5 of them offensive focused, and a team that is only elite on offense. Doesn't seem like a coincidence, and doesn't seem like a situation where people should say "Oh that poor star, he has no help on offense."

I think the more noteworthy thing is that Barnes' minutes didn't actually go up this year, Iguodala's went down...until, it would seem, the playoffs when Iguodala is again playing at a higher clip. While this does indicate that the Warriors probably could have had an even better defense - plus all the time the starters sat in blowouts would take it even further - it's hard for me to look at it as anything else beyond that.

Well, thanks for the kind words. I'll start by saying I don't have a dog in this fight at all- I've got Curry at #1 at that hasn't changed, so if you think I'm trying to nitpick to push some pro-Paul narrative you can drop that notion. I simply was responding to the idea that the Warriors were making choices that benefitted their defense at the expense of their offense- which to me doesn't follow.

Let's start with the most obvious thing: Last year, the Warriors were a +0.7 offense and a -4.1 defense. This year, with the changes we've been over, they've become a... +6.8 offense and a -4.2 defense. The thing to note here, in my opinion, is that they exploded offensively while remaining exactly where they were on defense.

And that's the crux of my point. Please don't boil it down to "Draymond gets more minutes, ergo Warriors prioritize D>O", because that isn't what the results are telling us. The fact that they so wildly improved on offense and stayed neutral on defense tells us, mostly, that Draymond's presence is causing a massive eruption in the team's offensive ability. Now there are other factors too, not the least of which Gentry's offense, but all of that together is not enough to account for a team improving their offense by +6, especially with no major offensive personnel changes to speak of.

And again you try to simplify it by saying Green isn't the individual offensive talent Lee is, and while that's true, if you think of the trickle effects this has on the whole roster it can sort of become apparent why this massive improvement is happening. Draymond is one of the best playmaking PF's in the business, he has a 3 point shot that defenses have to respect, and he can stay out of the way when need be. Lee is much more of a lane-clogger, much less of a shooter, and much less of a passer. And RPM shows us, pretty resoundingly, that Green is having more positive impact on the team offense than Lee is this season.

So my argument this whole time has been that Draymond's individual defense didn't improve the Warriors- it simply allowed them to remain at their already elite level while they reaped the benefits of having a player with that skill set at the 4 offensively. Smallball is well established as a massive boon to an offense- and indeed, the Warriors went small and exploded offensively.

The Barnes thing isn't really that minor when you're trying to say that Green's huge minutes are evidence of the Warriors prioritizing D, because if that were the case than Iguodala's minutes reduction seem directly counter to that. Add 1 DPOY player, remove another, kind of breaks even although Green is definitely the better defender. I think the overarching theme we're looking for here is that the Dubs are striving for roster balance, and decidedly not prioritizing one end over the other. This is what I'm saying.

Fundamentally I'm just not comfortable saying a team that jumped +6 ORTG points was making any kind of offensive sacrifice. And especially not when the evidence points to what it does.

I get your perspective on this - it is very interesting how the offensive transformation is the real story of this year. But GS still isn't anywhere near where what we'd call an "as good as it gets" offense. Meaning, there are times when it doesn't make sense to talk about a team getting potentially better with another player because the synergy is so strong that anything else would gum up the works. I don't think this is one of those times. While I'm by no means looking to put blame on Green & Bogut here - love them - I don't see any reason to doubt that you could put together a front court that helped the offense more than they do.

I'll also note that last year the one negative thing we all noted was: How the hell is their offense not better? To which the answer was: Look at the dinosaur schema they run. That's literally what got Jackson fired. Say what you want about his attitude: Everyone saw the problem on offense and he wasn't doing anything to fix it. So the leap forward, particularly when it means that Thompson actually was as good as something thought he was (not me btw, I was a skeptic) isn't that huge of a shock in that sense. That they leapt to become the #2 offense despite Bogut & Green on the interior is of course beyond what we expected, but the fact that there was a leap isn't weird at all and it should not be cause to become superstitious about guys we know are limited on offense.

And let's also be clear: If the regression data told us that Green's presence actually transformed the team's offense, I'd be much more cautious saying this. I'd also be very confused as to how that was possible. As is though, the data tells us that Green is having huge impact on defense, which is also what our eyes are telling us. Green deserves a ton of credit this year, but I think that treating him as the offense's lucky rabbit foot goes a bit too far.

Re: striving for balance not prioritizing one side over the other. I don't disagree. I'm not literally saying the Warriors decided one side of the ball was more important than the other, I'm just saying that when Bogut & Green are your interior players, this should be no means be seen as "the best offense Curry could lead", and hence using the Clippers' slight ORtg edge as if it's a big deal is something to be careful about.

[RSCD3_]

Spoiler:

From there my next step tends to be: So, what's the basis for being confident in Paul's superior impact? Paul is obviously the superior floor general - and that's my favorite type of player - but Curry's gravitational impact is quite possibly unprecedented in NBA history here. What exactly is causing doubt in his numbers?

It is unprecedented - you know what else is unprecedented in NBA history? Paul's ability to be a GOAT level playmaker while still providing 20 ppg on 60%TS and having a ridiculously low turnover rate. How many players have combined those attributes with above average defense for every game 35 minutes per game for their team?

As hyperbolic as "unprecedented" sounds, we likely exist in the jurassic period of NBA space manipulation due to the rise of the 3. If a player in this era were to come into the league and have an off-the-charts 3-point shooting on-ball with solid playmaking ability, it would seem to me to be a pretty clear cut thing that he'd possibly have a gravitational impact unlike any we've seen before. Not saying Curry's the GOAT player obviously, but the doubting of Curry's ability to impact the game when he seems to me to be the player tailor made for this era like none other just seems weird.

Take any earlier era, good chance Paul has more impact than Curry, but in this one, if the data tells us Curry seems to have the edge, I don't understand what's so hard to believe about it.

Re: Paul also unprecedented playmaker while still low turnovers, etc. I don't view Paul like that. That's just my opinion of course, but the more important point is: I don't really see what makes you think he's such an unprecedented player. With Curry we all agree we've never seen his equal as a shooter. I don't know where that comes from with Paul unless you're fixated on a PER-like stats, and there it's his low TO% that gives him such a boost.

I'll note that when it's come to regression analysis of the 4 factors, Paul's always lagged a bit behind on impact on eFG% compared to someone like Nash, as well as non-all-world playmakers like Shaq, LeBron, and Wade (and now Curry).

That might be moving the goal post a bit given that I didn't simply pick Curry but found it hard to even grasp an argument for Paul, and an argument should require confidence in Paul's superiority.

But why wouldn't you have confidence in Paul's superiority, as stated in this topic already, there are several areas of basketball where Paul is indisputably better than Curry. You speak of individual numbers that have Curry outshining Paul, I assume you're talking about plus/minus statistics in which case I wanna ask how confident are you in extracting the true impact of Curry individually out of those stats or you simply don't care?

[I also don't necessarily agree with your school of thought that ''doing more with more is better than doing less with less''. I'm not sure how that follows logically. If you have more talent on your team, you should be doing more if you're a great player (unless your team has glaring issues like overlapping talent/fit, bad coaching/system, extremely weak in certain positions/areas - think Heat w/o size/rebounding etc.). Unless you think Paul would've done a worse job in Curry's shoes this season I'm not sure what we're really taking about here.

Why wouldn't I have confidence that Paul was better? The numbers side with Curry, and Curry has a particular far-better-than-anyone-else attribute in his shooting that has an impact that is very difficult to put a ceiling on. Honestly dude, when you talk like this to me you sound like a homer. Find to side with Paul, but to brush Curry away so swiftly, I just don't get it. They are two different players, Curry has an advantage that happens to right at this moment in history be defining the entire league on most teams - how can you confidently say you know the limits to that impact?

Re: Doing more with more. The bottom line is that if two guys are achieving equal lift for their teams, and one is doing it in a healthier context that seem more likely to lead to a championship, then that's the guy I'll typically be more impressed with. Taking the extreme route: If there were an Ultra-Abdur-Rahim who could take any collection of YMCA players and make them win 30 games, but couldn't add more value with better teammates, then despite the fact he can in theory give 30 games of list (which is insane), he wouldn't simply fail to be my MVP, I wouldn't even want him on my team and I'd advise no team to even give him a minimum contract.

I personally think quite highly of Paul so I don't mean to knock him here, but to me it's completely within the realm of debate to think that perhaps Curry's super-gravity game is easier to built around than Paul's control-freak game.

Re: Unless I think Paul would've done worse in Curry's shoes. I think that's pretty clear cut actually. The Warriors' entire set up is based around having one guy who is both on-ball and an insanely scary shooter who will be the lead scorer most games. I see no reason at all to think that replacing such a monstrously successful first scoring option with a pass-first player is a move anyone would want to make, and I don't even see that as a knock on Paul.

It's just that what I sense from you and Lorak is a kind of disbelief that Curry could actually be more impactful than Paul given how much say Paul has over his team's play, and I don't see what justifies that disbelief. You say "the numbers don't support that" but I don't know what numbers you mean. The only data we have involving regression indeed gives Curry the edge over Paul. Skepticism about Curry and the potential of impact through shooting-based gravity used to make a lot of sense, but the Warriors were totally off the charts this year.

Note that we are discussing probably the two most impactful players this season, so I don't see how me playing with the idea that Paul could've had the most impact individually for his team this year equates to me being in disbelief about what Curry's doing in GS.
I acknowledge Curry being very very good, but it's something between the stats, the eye-test & the offensive numbers the Warriors are putting (inferior to the Clippers mind you) that evokes a bit of skepticism on my part.

Note that what I said was speaking to the tone I sense from you. It's your vehemence that I'm responding to when I say this, and this is something I've seen again in this post I'm responding to. That can be a red herring and a product of rhetorical tendencies of course, and if it is, then perhaps no biggie.

I'll say it up front, I don't think you're giving the Warriors outside of Curry (that is the supporting cast + coaching staff) enough credit. You're talking about Curry's shooting-based gravity and that's all fine and acceptable. I don't think anyone is disputing Curry being the clear-cut best player on offense for the Warriors but:

1. Why are you selling Klay Thompson's shooting-based gravity so short?

Klay is right there with Curry in terms of volume & efficiency. Obviously, Curry is still the more dangerous shooter and needs less assistance to get good shots off but we're really not talking about big discrepancies here. It's pretty close. Also, when we speak about 'shooting-based gravity', I don't think we're talking about an area with unlimited potential as in ''see, this guy shoots 55% from 3pt, he's got more shooting gravity than the guy with 45% 3pt''. Once you're shooting in the high forties from the perimeter you're gonna get the opposite defense's best attempt to stop you from shooting threes on pretty much every single possession possible, from out here it's just who can convert their opportunities the most. I guess the gist of what I'm trying to say is that Klay doesn't really have any significant amount of less ''shooting-based gravity'' than Curry, yet I get the feeling that when we're analyzing the Warriors offense only Curry's ability to do so gets factored in. Conversely, there's not even close to a member on the Clippers who can provide the ''playmaking-based impact'' that Paul does pretty much by himself.

I've said nothing negative about Thompson, let alone his gravity. Let's note though that the mere fact that Thompson is also a "gravitational" player doesn't mean it particularly sucks credit away from Curry. Thompson being a great player is something that is bound to get factored in in that way, but the fact that he does it by shooting from the perimeter is not more damning to Curry than it would be if he had a Griffin-like player of quality similar to Thompson.

And in terms of whether it's a question of Thompson being as valuable as Curry or something like that, it isn't, right?

2. Beside great scoring and shooting by Curry & Klay, the 2nd biggest attribute of the Warriors is their amazing ball-movement. Again, Curry is the main guy here, no disputes, but again I have a feeling you're underrating the others contributions here. We're not talking about a team like the Clippers where Paul needs to have the ball in his hands and needs to create & assist pretty much on every single play because of how poor the spacing/shooting and also ball-movement ability of the Clippers are that the only other alternative is pretty much a Griffin or a Crawford 1v1 (and Crawford isn't really good at 1v1). With the Warriors, of course everyone benefits immensely from Curry & Klay's ability to suck the defense, but we're talking about with a plethora of great passers and guy who can move the ball one way or the other. I don't believe it's simply a matter of putting Curry & Klay on some mediocre team and that would be enough to make a top 3 offense. Bogut has always been a good and willing passer, Igoudala has always been known as a guy who can penetrate and make plays with great efficiency and Green has also proven this year very apt in that role. Livingston
is another guy who is unique in the sense that he combines size with great passing and decent scoring and he is a match-up problem for a lot of teams in the post.

I don't know why you're underselling these guys and the amazing job Kerr has done. You speak about how Paul isn't really doing anything we haven't seen him do in years, but... Curry is somehow a very different player from last year? He was a 24/8 player last year, obviously he's been able to almost replicate that with better efficiency and less turnovers on less minutes, kudos to him, but the production is pretty much the same from what he did last year when the Warriors were like 12 in offensive team rankings. Curry didn't change much, but you know what did? Yeah, they brought Kerr over, Klay and Green got a lot better, Barnes improved his shooting, they got rid of some chuckers, Iguodala is used more to facilitate and move the ball than to score etc. A lot of things changed for the Warriors in this season compared to last year and I had Curry around my Top 5 for 2014 POY but without really changing much of what he does, just mainly on the basis of team performance, the perspective is that Curry is a whole different animal right now, supposedly... Why?

Re: Paul needs the ball because of bad spacing. Nah, this is just how Paul has always been. He's a control freak who given his druthers would slow things down and make the entire possession's success be based on who him thinking his way past the defense. Put him in a scheme where the ball is really in his hands a lot less, and you're literally diminishing his best attribute. You probably know I'm a Nash guy - it'd be the exact same thing for him. Not that spacing isn't a good thing everywhere, but the ball is in these guys hands all the time because that's where it needs to be to max out their value.

The thing about the ball movement in Golden State is that that's just a smart way to play if you have great gravity above all else, and while Thompson helps that, it would be the smart way to use Curry regardless. So again: 2 different superstars, 2 different ways you'll want to build around them, and it's thus tough to say fundamentally which is better. Given that lack of objectivity, I tend to look at numbers, and all the numbers point Curry's way right now.

Re: underselling. I don't know what I said that gave you that impression. Green would get my vote for DPOY, Kerr might have gotten my COY (I never settled between him and Bud) and Iggy's my 6th Man. I'm not underselling the rest of the Warriors, I'm emphasizing how extreme the Warriors accomplishment is.

Re: Curry is a whole different animal now, why? Well first let's say it's for no reason other than he's a scheme that better makes use of his talents. So what? I've said it for years: It never makes sense to look to split credit between player and coach. If the nature of the scheme makes a player look more valuable than he actually is that's one thing, but if the coach finds a way to make the player more valuable, that's two separate lines of credit.

But in addition to that Curry's a young guy whose game isn't based on being a superior physical specimen than everyone else. We should be expecting him to improve from year to year by trimming the fat on the little moments he now recognizes won't pan out, no? I just don't see where the skepticism comes from that a player like him wouldn't get better even if his box score didn't indicate improvement...which of course it does.

And on that note: Off the charts. The Warriors' "inferior" offense here was #2 in the league while having a core that was able to focus comparably on defense (#1 in the league). The Warriors' main rotation here is basically Curry, Thompson, and then a bunch of guys who for the most part have meh reputations on offense. Pretty damn easy to imagine they could have a better ORtg if they chose a more offense oriented core.

Wait wait wait... You're telling me that the Warriors can play better offensively if they so choose? If they shift their core priority from defense to offense? That's... interesting. I already disagreed with the Warriors being Curry, Thompson and meh offensive players (the reputation part was a nice add-in to make the claim more slippery:D) and I disagree here too. The Warriors had the same type of core focus last year, they were primarily a defensive team. This year the biggest improvement has been on offense, so how did they improve offensively if their core focus stayed on the defensive end? Also, Dr.Spaceman supported this notion by providing the example of the Warriors switching the starting SF spot from Iguodala to Barnes. That was purely a move to improve offensive efficiency by adding a guy who's much better at shooting and spacing the floor for the primary unit.

As I said to Dr. Spaceman:

The Warriors have a PF and a C who are noteworthy for their defense. Give Curry two bigs who are similarly noteworthy for their offense and we'd expect the team's offense to be better. There's nothing controversial about that. It's just an obvious statement.

And as I also said: Trying to use Barnes against Curry? Seriously? Forget about what the intent was - I'd say it's much more about trying to make the most of Barnes with a side of the given reason (to let Iguodala lead the second unit) than it is about offense, but say it was only about adding offense, he's still just Harrison Barnes. He's not noteworthy.

The Clippers on the other hand, have 6 guys averaging 20 MPG or more:

Paul - offensive star
Griffin - offensive star Ok, but I can argue Thompson being better offensively if you want
Jordan - offensive star (more on that later) simply no (more on that later)
Redick - offense only yea, Redick is a nice player
Barnes - legit glue guy role player who needs to be fed on the perimeter or in transition to be useful on offense
Crawford - offense

chucking machine who suppresses ball-movement in favor of dwindling down the clock for long bricks

It's not exactly a shock that their defense is so mediocre when only 1 of their 6 key guys can seriously claim to be more impactful on defense than offense, and yeah, that helps the Clipper offense.

So, you just used the Clippers players defensive incompetency to bolster their value on offense? That's an interesting way of trying to prove a point.

The Clipper offense is awesome.
Paul's NO offense was not.
It makes little sense to cry boo hoo for Paul on offense for his teammates when the results are clearly better than what he's had elsewhere and his new teammates are offense-oriented. You may not think much of these guys, but clearly he could do plenty worse.

Perhaps you'll say Paul is just that much better now, but I suppose I'm skeptical.

Now, Jordan. You called him one of the "orrible offensive players who do nothing without Paul's virtuoso play on offense". Dude, you missed that really damn hard. I've said it before and I'll say it again: When you see a young giant racking up offense & defensive rebounds plus blocks, it's entirely possible that the latter 2 stats are doing more harm than good, and that even the benefits of the first come at the cost of hurting defense. Why?

I don't think I've called Jordan a ''horrible offensive player'', but I believe you called him an offensive star just above and that's definitely not the case. Jordan has his pros and cons on offense, but overall his cons outweigh his pros in relation to both sides of the court (as you've pointed out). The strengths Jordan has on offense is rebounding (which in turn hurts the defense, so less overall impact for the Clippers as a team) and he's a pretty efficient scorer around the rim if they lob him balls. His weaknesses are he clogs the paint, he provides zero spacing, he's pretty incompetent as a passer, he can't dribble the ball and he's a basketball hazard from the line. Are we really gonna argue that he's a better offensive player than a defensive one? Maybe he boosts the actual ORtg more than he adds actual value, but that basically means more power to Paul

I mean, I'm not even gonna continue arguing about Jordan because I've realized we actually agree on this subject - that is Jordan is a type of player that is clearly overrated by the boxscore (I believe on both sides of the court, not only on defense), yet, isn't this something that should make you more impressed with what Paul is doing?

Re: are we really going to argue he's better on offense than defense? His signature stat on defense is the defensive rebounds, and regression data indicates he actually makes defensive rebounding worse. That's a huge freaking problem and importantly: Not remotely hard to believe. As I've said, it's a common issue with young bigs, although granted it's more than a bit extreme for someone who is a 7th year player and just finished 3rd in DPOY voting.

The bottom line is that if someone gets defensive rebounds by treating them like they are offensive rebounds, we shouldn't be shocked at all if that player is better on offense than on defense. It indicates major issues in the ability to understand what it means to defend.[/quote]

How does deandre's rebounding hurt the team's overall rebounding?I thought you were a big proponent of calling russell westbrook and other point guards with high rebounding numbers as hurting their teams rebounding too? How can Jordan getting the lion's share of the rebounds hurt the team if he's not ignoring contesting shots to grab defensive rebounds as other big men ( love was criticized for this, so maybe his rebounding was overrated as well... ) have done in the past?

Not trying to be combatative but I hope you can expand on this