Dutchball97 wrote:Baski wrote:Dutchball97 wrote:I'm the only one who has even mentioned Kawhi as up for consideration so far so I'd like to ask people in what range they're thinking of voting for him.
He's 4th in career play-off WS/48 behind MJ, LeBron and Mikan. He's 3rd in career play-off BPM behind MJ and LeBron. Both these stats don't take longevity into account but in terms of WS and VORP in the play-offs he's 24th and 17th respectively as well. Which is better than several players who are already voted in and definitely good enough to complement his insane peak impact considering we're voting for the #27 spot now.
In the regular season he's not as legendary on a per game basis as in the play-offs but he still makes the top 10 for both career WS/48 and BPM once again. However, the main argument against him is his lack of regular season longevity.
When I look at what Kawhi has done in his career I'm looking at a guy who has elite impact in the regular season and somehow manages to step it up even further in the play-offs. Despite not having the best longevity, he more than makes up for it in my eyes with the accumulated play-off stats.
Are you guys just a few spots off for voting him or does his so-so regular season longevity keep you from voting him top 50? I can understand people being a lot lower on him than I am due to the regular season stuff but I'd like to know what I'm up against here. Don't want to vote for him for like 30 spots straight, while feeling like nobody is listening to my arguments like how I felt when I voted KD/Curry for like 10 spots straight, while things went more and more antagonistic as time went on.
Around where Westbrook ends up for me: high 40s to low 60s. Kawhi has had pretty much the perfect team situation for any star ever from day 1 while being a less than capable leader. For all of his successes, there's always an element of "Player X could do this too if he had it so easy". His low career totals and individual accolades support this as well as the general notion that he didn't "pay his dues" compared to his contemporaries.
Of course a lot of it is fueled by a necessary (imo) pushback on his greatly exaggerated status all time due to the LeBron factor.
It also can't help that the one time his situation was 80% perfect instead of 100% (let's not kid ourselves, any other superstar would kill for the 2020 Clippers cast behind them), they went out in a disappointing (or rather, mortal) fashion.
Basically Kawhi is what some people wrongly think Tim Duncan is. And given how the discussions on Durant, Wilt, LeBron, Hakeem, CP3 and Curry have gone so far, Kawhi's personality flaws are going to have a lot of spotlight.
Given all of this I'd be surprised to see him get serious consideration anytime soon, but I've already been surprised on this project so I guess we'll see.
You think Kawhi only did what he did because of his teams? Were the 2019 Raptors an All-Time great supporting cast? Because Kawhi's performance in the play-offs sure was. Also putting all of the blame for the 2020 2nd round exit on Kawhi feels really disingenous. Sure, he wasn't some amazing leader that got everyone on the same path but the same can be said for many guys already voted in.
I'm a bit worried Kawhi is going to get the same treatment as KD. They've been the only two players so far where I've seen people argue they should be ranked lower because people don't like them. So, double standards.
I think he did what he did because he's Kawhi. But it's extremely hard to deny/ignore how favourable his team situations have been for his entire career that enable him to simply "do what he does" and not worry about the rest. I don't know what you mean by ATG supporting cast, but the 2020 Raptors minus Kawhi didn't drop off in the RS and went just as far as he did with an even more talented team. Their defense was freakishly good, historically good and it's pretty much a fact that defense is what wins championships, not offense. On the flipside, their offense did not depend on Kawhi in the classical sense. They were able to effortlessly switch between Kawhiso and their more movement-oriented system when the situation called for it. I remember feeling completely flabbergasted watching their games.
We're talking about a player with a glaring playmaking flaw that has been masked by every team he's been on for all but one year of his career. There are virtually no other superstars who have been afforded the freedom to just do what they're comfortable doing and leave the rest to the team, and zero others who can choose when to play and have their team maintain a steady winning pace without them, twice.
I'm not putting the full blame for the Nuggets loss on Kawhi. I don't think you can really do that with any player. But I am saying that his flaws as a player and leader were on full display in that series-scratch that-this entire season, and they just couldn't talent it out against the Nuggets like his teams have done previously. It was a full on team-wide mental collapse, on par with the 2015 Clippers, with him valiantly leading the charge. Before this event, the general sentiment was that this was simply impossible for Kawhi (Look at how he carried the perpetual choker Raptors to a title amirite?). Now we're wiser, but shouldn't have taken us this long. LeBron effect.
For all of KDs unfair treatment, he's been voted in as a top 20-25 guy even though his career is far from over. Most of us are over the "dislike" phase. At least, I've come to appreciate some of his finest moments as a Warrior and I think he got a lot of support in the voting thread despite what you'd expect.
It's kind of ironic that you're saying Kawhi is "disliked", considering he's been outed as the biggest diva of the past 3 seasons and hasn't been blasted half as much as LeBron and KD have in the same time period. KD's burner account thread was longer than the longest Kawhi-bashing thread ever. For obvious reasons, I dislike him, but I feel confident that I can speak on his weaknesses (and strengths if I have to). It actually confuses me when people act like his transgressions are no big deal, which leads me to the below quote:
"Sure, he wasn't some amazing leader that got everyone on the same path but the same can be said for many guys already voted in. "
I'm actually interested in this. Who has been voted in that's as incapable/damaging a leader as Kawhi is?
I had a while writeup to show how bad a leader he's been since 2016, but it's probably too early in the project to go that deep. I will say though that I'm as stunned at how downplayed Kawhi's transgressions are as Doc MJ was that Curry didn't get in till 24.
