Retro POY '07-08 (Voting Complete)

[lorak]

I’m still undecided and for me it’s basically a wash between KG, LJ, KB and CP.
But despite what I said earlier I can’t find reliable argument against KG as no 1. His 2008 impact on Celtics is overrated, because they also added Allen and several very good role players, but still he was the best player on the best team and the closest thing to Bill Russell we’ll ever see.

So my votes:
1. Garnett
2. Paul – another amazing season
3. LeBron – if only he played better two first games against Celtics he would be no 1
4. Kobe – regular season production and elimination game against Boston put him slightly behind LJ
5. Duncan – as always very underrated

[mysticbb]

Again, I've never seen anyone defend Kobe Bryant like that.

Ok, I remember that stretch, and yes, it was very, very good. Just not as good as the comments make it sound. Battier was more consistent against Bryant, and in some of those scenes Pierce had help.
Anyway, your argumentation is strong and I will reconsider my opinion about Pierce here.

Thanks for pointing out the stuff about offense and defense. Most people aren't really aware of that.

[Doctor MJ]

I don't think picking Dirk there is an unreasonable pick, but I will see a bit about how I see it:

-As mentioned, Nash is a bit better from a +/- perspective. (Though Dirk's good too)

-Dirk being better in the box score? Well, two different roles, tough to compare for me. Here's what I'll say, I'd understand being less impressed with Nash if you are reluctant to go with a guy who can't take over as a scorer. Thing is, Nash has acted like a volume scorer in the clutch, pretty much since he's been in Phoenix. Example here's the clutch data for '07-08 according to 82 games:

http://82games.com/CSORT11.HTM

Comparing Dirk & Nash. In clutch time, Dirk scores 46.0 points per 48 minutes - while Nash scores 40.3. So not saying Dirk doesn't still score bigger, but with Nash you've got a guy leading all-world offenses with himself having all-world efficiency, and who can go big when he needs to.

Re: playoffs. Yeah, if it's a tie in the regular season, then Dirk takes it with the playoffs. Just generally though, it'd have to be pretty close in the regular season to sway my opinion toward a guy whose team who lost in 5 games in the first round to a team that lost in the next round.

My issue with Nash over Dirk -- and it is a close contest -- is Dirk basically murders Nash in the advanced metrics in regular season and playoffs. His playoffs were better. Phoenix wasn't the same after Duncan's 3 in G1 and I think in other seasons Nash has a better response to that. He never really did from what I recall. Dallas was a mess too post-Golden State and the Kidd trade muddled matters, I just think Dirk maintained a lot of regular season value despite this.

So, in another really close race, those elements all point toward Dirk. I suppose if you didn't think it was that close and Nash inherently carries more value running his offensive dynasty, then Nash makes sense.

Sorry what advanced metrics are you talking about? If you're talking about things like PER, I'll just say I'm really reluctant to compare players in different roles by them.

[ElGee]

I don't think picking Dirk there is an unreasonable pick, but I will see a bit about how I see it:

-As mentioned, Nash is a bit better from a +/- perspective. (Though Dirk's good too)

-Dirk being better in the box score? Well, two different roles, tough to compare for me. Here's what I'll say, I'd understand being less impressed with Nash if you are reluctant to go with a guy who can't take over as a scorer. Thing is, Nash has acted like a volume scorer in the clutch, pretty much since he's been in Phoenix. Example here's the clutch data for '07-08 according to 82 games:

http://82games.com/CSORT11.HTM

Comparing Dirk & Nash. In clutch time, Dirk scores 46.0 points per 48 minutes - while Nash scores 40.3. So not saying Dirk doesn't still score bigger, but with Nash you've got a guy leading all-world offenses with himself having all-world efficiency, and who can go big when he needs to.

Re: playoffs. Yeah, if it's a tie in the regular season, then Dirk takes it with the playoffs. Just generally though, it'd have to be pretty close in the regular season to sway my opinion toward a guy whose team who lost in 5 games in the first round to a team that lost in the next round.

My issue with Nash over Dirk -- and it is a close contest -- is Dirk basically murders Nash in the advanced metrics in regular season and playoffs. His playoffs were better. Phoenix wasn't the same after Duncan's 3 in G1 and I think in other seasons Nash has a better response to that. He never really did from what I recall. Dallas was a mess too post-Golden State and the Kidd trade muddled matters, I just think Dirk maintained a lot of regular season value despite this.

So, in another really close race, those elements all point toward Dirk. I suppose if you didn't think it was that close and Nash inherently carries more value running his offensive dynasty, then Nash makes sense.

Sorry what advanced metrics are you talking about? If you're talking about things like PER, I'll just say I'm really reluctant to compare players in different roles by them.

I don't consider PER advanced

I see I had a typo in what I was looking at (thought Dirk was ahead in a stat he wasn't). Apologies.

I see they're close in R APM, but I was looking at Roland and WS/48 in reg and post season (big edge for Dirk). I see Nash edges him in WP, although I've read some seriously valid criticisms of that stat. I suppose it depends on which of these you value...

[Silver Bullet]

I don't see how people can put Lebron ahead of Kobe. For starters, up until the end of the 08 season, Lebron himself was saying, Kobe was the best player in the game. Then you look at their regular season matchups (and please don't post the stats) it is clear who the better player was. Watch the Cavs-Lakers regular season games, and tell me you feel like Lebron was the better player at that point in time.

Then we have some posters claiming that Lebron had a better series against the Celtics because he at least gave the Cavs a shot at winning while the Lakers got blown out in six games. Well that is partially true, but none of that can be attributed to Lebron.

Look at the charts below:

Ray Allen was horrendous in the Cleveland series, he made a total of 4 threes in 7 games against the Cavs.
He made 22 threes in 6 games against the Lakers.

Now this gets overlooked.
But Paul Peirce shows a similiar trend (as does the rest of Celtics supporting cast)




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If you look at those charts, it should be clear to you, why I and a bunch of other people including a majority on the Celtics boards at the time, felt that Ray Allen deserved to win the Finals MVP.

Regardless, the fact is that the Celtics were on fire from outside in the Finals and that is a major reason why they won relatively comfortably. People put too much emphasis on Kobe's failure's, but he couldn't have done much more. He couldn't have stopped those 3's from falling, which the Celtics were putting in, even with hands in thier faces.

If Kobe played as badly as you guys say, and if he took as many bad decisions, it would show up in his hot spots. It doesn't - -at least not relative to Lebron.



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To review, here are some notes on LeBron James against Boston in the 2008 Playoffs:
In seven games against Boston, LeBron did not shoot over .500 once.
His overall FG% for the series was .355.
He struggled offensively in five out of seven games; his only good offensive outings were Game 5 (12-25 for 35 points) and Game 7 (14-29 for 45 points). He was below his season averages in rebounds and assists in both of those games.
Through the first four games, he shot 20-78, for a FG% of .256.
Including Game 6, he shot .287 in five of the seven games.
Meanwhile, he tallied double-digit rebounds and assist only one time each, and neither of those coincided with his two good shooting games.
Meanwhile, here are some notes on Kobe Bryant against Boston in the 2008 Finals:
In six games against Boston, Kobe was able to shoot over .500 in one game (12-20 for 36 points in Game 3).
His overall FG% for the series was .405 — significantly higher than LeBron’s .355.
In his four worst games he shot .341 — drastically better than LeBron’s .256.
His shooting percentage was never below .310, while LeBron shot .250 or worse in two different games.
He made almost the exact same number of shots as LeBron (53 makes for Kobe, 55 for LeBron), but it took him 24 fewer shots to do it.

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Again, you guys are going to toss these charts aside, but Kobe's the better long range shooter here. He's the better mid-range shooter and he's the better short range shooter.
He takes more shots from short to mid range.
Lebron basically is either taking it to the basket or shooting it from 3.

[mysticbb]

Fair enough, but would you agree that Kobe was a better defender in 2008 than Lebron?

There are always two things here: the abilities on the defensive and the effort on the court. Bryant clearly has/had the abilities to be a top defender in the league, he just didn't use those abilities very often. Thus he gets not really a huge plus for his defense in comparison to James.

I just wanted to hear your arguments as to why you though Lebron was clearly better that year.

Well, depends on what you think "clearly" means. For me the gap was big enough to not get closed by Bryant's better playoffs. James was by far the better rebounder and playmaker, both were similar as scorers (Bryant a little bit more efficient, James with the higher volume). James is clearly better in terms of boxscore metrics, both are similar in terms of +/- numbers. Thus James was better in the regular season.

For the whole year, as I pointed out, the gap is pretty close. If I want to stay consistent with my argumentation James is the #1, and Bryant either 3rd or 4th (I'm still not sure, but I tend to put him on 3rd over Chris Paul now). Following another path of argumentation I would put Garnett at #1, Bryant at #2 and James at #3. Thus it is not complete off to put Bryant ahead of James for that year. But that is not just a comparison between those two. There were 4 players rather close to each other, I can make a case for James being #1 and for Garnett being #1, just not for Bryant and Paul, which brings me back to Paul vs. Bryant for the 3rd spot.

[semi-sentient]

Looks like Garnett is going to take the POY, unless something drastic happens in the voting. Reading everyone's thoughts, I think it's a solid choice.

Chris Paul ahead of Kobe? Not so much.

[Doctor MJ]

I don't consider PER advanced

I see I had a typo in what I was looking at (thought Dirk was ahead in a stat he wasn't). Apologies.

I see they're close in R APM, but I was looking at Roland and WS/48 in reg and post season (big edge for Dirk). I see Nash edges him in WP, although I've read some seriously valid criticisms of that stat. I suppose it depends on which of these you value...

Ha. Well it does depend on what you value, but all the non-PM ones, I'm still reluctant to compare guys in very different roles. What I want to see with the box score stats is whether they stand out roughly similarly relative to their counterparts. If there's not a dramatic difference there, then my judgement is going to be dominated by other indicators.

[Prolific Scorer]

K. Garnett
C. Paul
L. James
K. Bryant
T. Duncan

[ElGee]

Again, you guys are going to toss these charts aside, but Kobe's the better long range shooter here. He's the better mid-range shooter and he's the better short range shooter.
He takes more shots from short to mid range.
Lebron basically is either taking it to the basket or shooting it from 3.

^^^I'm not understanding why offensive versatility necessarily = better?

You're overlooking the fact that LeBron gets to the rim 3 times more per game, converts at the rim more and takes ~1.5 more FT's per game. I look at that chart and see that it reflects that Kobe took too many deep, contested jump shots. LeBron needed to clean up shot selection that year too - he was often criticized for that.

I thought LeBron had a slightly better series against the Celtics. The gist of it is this: he stunk in the first 2 games. He went home and started to solve that Boston defense. I don't have the G3 tape laying around, but I remember him probing more and being more calculating and trying to exploit Boston's D by passing instead of forcing. The box certainly jives with that recollection: 16 FGA and 8 assists. Boobie Gibson and Varejao's offensive production spiking support this (these players don't create their own shot).

By game 4 he started to actually shot the ball decently and they ended up nearly winning the series, in large part because of him (the Cavs were 0-7 without LeBron that year -- he was a huge huge part of the team).

Defense is another issue: his rebounding (6.4 rpg) and size and matching up with Pierce carried way more value to me than Kobe's (often bad) roaming defense against Rondo. You are having a detailed discussion about Kobe vs. SC in G4, but his defense in that game was subpar for most of the night. He switched onto Pierce and had a number of good possessions in the fourth, but Pierce still did damage.

So basically, Kobe had 1 good game in 6. LeBron got it rolling and played well for the last few games. Kobe unarguably had a better offensive supporting cast, yet look at LeBron's numbers in the last 5 games of the series:

35 ppg, 7.6 apg, 54% TS%

Defensively, 2.4 spg, 1.4 bpg. He guarded Pierce primarily, who in 3 losses in Cleveland averaged 14.3 ppg 47.5 TS%.

Kobe basically had 4 bad games in the Finals (sub 40% FG%), including the last 3.

All of that outside of the context that Boston had more to worry about outside of Kobe than versus the Cavs.

[Silver Bullet]

Again, you guys are going to toss these charts aside, but Kobe's the better long range shooter here. He's the better mid-range shooter and he's the better short range shooter.
He takes more shots from short to mid range.
Lebron basically is either taking it to the basket or shooting it from 3.

^^^I'm not understanding why offensive versatility necessarily = better?

You're overlooking the fact that LeBron gets to the rim 3 times more per game, converts at the rim more and takes ~1.5 more FT's per game. I look at that chart and see that it reflects that Kobe took too many deep, contested jump shots. LeBron needed to clean up shot selection that year too - he was often criticized for that.

I thought LeBron had a slightly better series against the Celtics. The gist of it is this: he stunk in the first 2 games. He went home and started to solve that Boston defense. I don't have the G3 tape laying around, but I remember him probing more and being more calculating and trying to exploit Boston's D by passing instead of forcing. The box certainly jives with that recollection: 16 FGA and 8 assists. Boobie Gibson and Varejao's offensive production spiking support this (these players don't create their own shot).

By game 4 he started to actually shot the ball decently and they ended up nearly winning the series, in large part because of him (the Cavs were 0-7 without LeBron that year -- he was a huge huge part of the team).

Defense is another issue: his rebounding (6.4 rpg) and size and matching up with Pierce carried way more value to me than Kobe's (often bad) roaming defense against Rondo. You are having a detailed discussion about Kobe vs. SC in G4, but his defense in that game was subpar for most of the night. He switched onto Pierce and had a number of good possessions in the fourth, but Pierce still did damage.

So basically, Kobe had 1 good game in 6. LeBron got it rolling and played well for the last few games. Kobe unarguably had a better offensive supporting cast, yet look at LeBron's numbers in the last 5 games of the series:

35 ppg, 7.6 apg, 54% TS%

Defensively, 2.4 spg, 1.4 bpg. He guarded Pierce primarily, who in 3 losses in Cleveland averaged 14.3 ppg 47.5 TS%.

Kobe basically had 4 bad games in the Finals (sub 40% FG%), including the last 3.

All of that outside of the context that Boston had more to worry about outside of Kobe than versus the Cavs.

Re: Offensive Versatility
I don't mean to say offensive versatility makes Kobe better - just that Lebron hadn't developed his perimeter game yet - as he would go on to do in later seasons.

Re: Rebounding
Remember you are comparing a SG vs a SF. It would make more sense to compare Kobe against other SG's and Lebron against other SF's. Kobe is one of the best, if not the best rebounder for his position, but he's not gonna fare too well in comparisons against SF's.

Re: Getting to the line. You're exagerating here, Kobe got to the rim 549 times, Lebron 708 times. Considering he's what ? 8 years younger - that is to be expected. That doesn't automatically make it a plus for him, when you consider that Kobe is better from every other spot on the floor.

Re: Lebron having a better series
He shot 28.7% in 5 games. I don't know how you extrapolate that to him having only 2 bad games. Through the first 4 games, when you say Lebron had the Boston defense figured out for two of the games, he shot 20-78 for a FG% of 25.6. Considering that he got to the rim 49 times in the series, he probably nailed no more than 5 or 6 jumpers the first 4 games.

Re: Lebron's defense vs Kobe's defense
You are letting statistics cloud what you remember from that series. For starters, Cleveland's defense is head and shoulder's above the Lakers. If you look at their playoff stats, very few teams in NBA history put up the kind of Statistics they do. But other than that, both PP and Ray Allen were Ice-cold during that series. If you look at their hotspots against both those teams, you see that they were missing from every where. Now, you might be right, Lebron did a better job relatively. But I remember you saying in the last thread, that Lebron should not be penalized for guarding Alston because that was the coach's defensive scheme, but here you're penalizing Kobe for guarding Rondo and basing the rest of argument over one quarter of him playing Pierce ?

[Silver Bullet]

Looks like Garnett is going to take the POY, unless something drastic happens in the voting. Reading everyone's thoughts, I think it's a solid choice.

Chris Paul ahead of Kobe? Not so much.

I don't understand how people are so easily discounting Allen and Peirce's contributions. Not to mention Rondo, who was perhaps the Celtics MVP this year - we're now starting to realize that he's much better than previously given credit for.

- You can make a case - a pretty strong one at that - that KG was the third best Celtic in the NBA Finals. Yet he is being rewarded as if he won the Finals MVP.

Let me ask you guys one thing, would you guys vote the same way, if the Celtics had lost in the Finals ?

[Baller 24]

Nope, Kobe easily gets 1st for me if they won.

[ronnymac2]

SB- It's true that Lebron had more defensive support in 08 than Kobe, and that is what enabled CLE to make it a close 7 game series. But...Kobe had more offensive support. I know that support didn't play too well against Boston's all time great defense, but Kobe did have superior offensive players compared to Lebron. Lebron didn't even have Mo at that point. Kobe had Pau and Lamar.

BTW....I blame neither Bryant nor James for what happened in those playoffs. Boston's defense was everywhere that year. Mainly due to Kevin Garnett. Both played as well as what is to be expected. I do have a problem with Bryant's game 4....that 24 point lead should have never evaporated.

[semi-sentient]

I don't understand how people are so easily discounting Allen and Peirce's contributions. Not to mention Rondo, who was perhaps the Celtics MVP this year - we're now starting to realize that he's much better than previously given credit for.

I don't think any of those guys should be discounted, particularly when you consider that Garnett's teammates where healthy the entire season when compared to the supporting casts of Kobe and LeBron. Chris Paul enjoyed a fairly healthy supporting cast as well.

This played a factor in my rankings, and it's why I thought Kobe deserved his MVP over CP3 despite the season CP3 was having. What he did with Bynum was pretty phenomenal, and I have to believe that if Bynum came back sooner and Ariza never got injured, there wouldn't have been much of a race in the WC and the Lakers are challenging the Celtics for best overall record. People forget that the Gasol also missed 10 games in the 2nd half of the season, meaning that Ronny Turiaf was starting at the 5, which is a massive downgrade. Look at the Lakers roster during that stretch. It's pretty pathetic compared to the others supporting casts, so there was really much less room for error. Still, Kobe played pretty good during that stretch (Lakers were 5-5, including the game where Pau went out after 3 minutes). His efficiency dropped, but overall his numbers were damn good with 31.1 PTS (.519 TS%), 7.3 REB, 5.6 AST, and 2.3 TOV.

You can make a case - a pretty strong one at that - that KG was the third best Celtic in the NBA Finals. Yet he is being rewarded as if he won the Finals MVP.

I tend to agree with that, but I also kind of think that Garnett had a bigger impact than Kobe in the Finals. Overall in the post-season I still think Kobe was the best player, but then Garnett and CP3 were pretty damn good as well.

Let me ask you guys one thing, would you guys vote the same way, if the Celtics had lost in the Finals ?

From my perspective, that would change things, but it would also matter how the players performed. Still, the fact that Kobe got there while CP3 and LeBron fell short should IMO add to his case, not take away from it just because he didn't pull through. Winning your conference should count for something, particularly when you consider how well Kobe played in his WC series.

[TMACFORMVP]

I don't understand how people are so easily discounting Allen and Peirce's contributions. Not to mention Rondo, who was perhaps the Celtics MVP this year - we're now starting to realize that he's much better than previously given credit for.

- You can make a case - a pretty strong one at that - that KG was the third best Celtic in the NBA Finals. Yet he is being rewarded as if he won the Finals MVP.

Let me ask you guys one thing, would you guys vote the same way, if the Celtics had lost in the Finals ?

I think it's more a body of work thing, he had a poor finals shooting the ball, but he still contributed with 18 PPG, while grabbing 13 rebounds, and anchoring that Boston defense. Not to mention he set the tone in Game 6 with a dominant 26/14/4 game on 10-18. Then take that, and factor in he was their overall leading scorer in the playoffs (23/10 against the Pistons), in their run to the finals, KG certainly had the most impact/was the best player.

I love what Garnett did, he came into Boston, changed the complete dynamic of the Celtics, anchoring an all time great defensive team en route to an NBA Championship. Anyone saying he wasn't the Celtics best player in that post-season run is misinformed. I've seen many people on here try to discredit Iverson by saying Mutombo was their best player in their respective run to the finals, because the sole reason they got there was their defensive prowess (this is not directed at you SB, I mean just in general). In this case, not only did KG anchor far and away the best defense in the league, but frickin led them in scoring on the second highest percentage on the team (only behind Perkins).

I want to put him first because of that, but something is leaning me towards picking Kobe. I'd have Paul, LeBron and Duncan behind those two. I honestly felt Paul had a better regular season than both of these guys, but I'm not sure enough of one to out weigh the fact that both Kobe and Garnett were on finals teams.

[ronnymac2]

MY FINAL VOTE:

I'm going to take Timmy D over Dirk. I flip-flopped here, because I think this is really the first season where Tim needed to pace himself during games and couldn't dominate at will offensively anymore. I know prime Duncan would have dominated Pau in the playoffs; 08 Duncan was decently defended by him though.

I'd rather have Tim's combination of offense and defense over Dirk though. That, combined with Tim's slightly better success, gave Tim the slight edge.

I'm putting CP3 fourth. I think Mamba and King were better players that year, plain and simple. I'll take KG over him, too.

Now it gets interesting. Here is the thing with Garnett. His per 36 numbers are very similar to his 07 per 36's when he had to dominate for a **** team. I remember thinking 07 Garnett was basically 04 Garnett, except he had terrible teammates. Garnett was still a top 5 player ability wise in 07, and I don't see any evidence suggesting he dropped off too much in 08. He had statistical domination, and more importantly, his effect on the game was just fantastic. Perimeter players couldn't get within 12 feet of the rim without KG's hand coming within 6 inches of their eyes/line of vision.

I don't usually value things like this, mainly because we as fans can never fully grasp something like this, but....I remember reading a story about how KG was staying after practice to rebound for Rajon Rondo as Rondo practiced shooting jumpers. Now, what former MVP and superstar who gets paid 20 million a year does that for some young, stupid piece of crap pg with no experience in the a big setting? I can't see any superstar doing something like that. KG did though. That's impressive.

KG, in that team setting (meaning, with the offensive options on that team), could not produce with Kobe and Lebron, who I believe were the two best players in the league. BUT...his impact was in nuetralizing their impact. He basically equaled them in a playoff setting. He was a playoff constant for Boston. Nevermind that he was a 20/10/3/1/1/50%/elite D player. I have to laugh at the notion that Garnett wasn't clearly the best player on Boston during the Finals run.

That is what makes this so interesting for me. Because I think Kobe and Lebron were the best players, but Garnett's TYPE of impact was different, and possibly equal. He also had more team success than either because his team won 66 games and the title.

This was the year that I had Kobe over Lebron in the beginning, or at least they were equal. Then Lebron became better. Kobe had more team success. LBJ figured out Boston at the end of his series, but it was too late. Scoring 40+ with crap offensive players in a game 7 on the road is pretty impressive. Lebron has the edge in raw production. Nothing Kobe did closed the gap in my player-to-player comparison though. I'm taking James over Bryant. Real close.

So where does Garnett go? Where the hell does Garnett go? After all I just said about Garnett, I want to put him first, yet I feel he belongs in third. I've always said prime Kobe over prime PG just because I value the offense over the defense, but....KG did so much that year. Like I said, he nuetralized the two superstars.

All right, I'll feel bad for doing this, but somebody has to come in third.....

1.) Lebron James
2.) Kobe Bryant
3.) Kevin Garnett
4.) Chris Paul
5.) Tim Duncan

This was a tough year. I hope all the years aren't like this.

[Silver Bullet]

Nope, Kobe easily gets 1st for me if they won.

So Paul Peirce and Ray Allen were responsible for the Celtics winning the Final.

You have Kobe first if they win that one series.

But somehow KG benefits from all of this ?

[ElGee]

Again, you guys are going to toss these charts aside, but Kobe's the better long range shooter here. He's the better mid-range shooter and he's the better short range shooter.
He takes more shots from short to mid range.
Lebron basically is either taking it to the basket or shooting it from 3.

^^^I'm not understanding why offensive versatility necessarily = better?

You're overlooking the fact that LeBron gets to the rim 3 times more per game, converts at the rim more and takes ~1.5 more FT's per game. I look at that chart and see that it reflects that Kobe took too many deep, contested jump shots. LeBron needed to clean up shot selection that year too - he was often criticized for that.

I thought LeBron had a slightly better series against the Celtics. The gist of it is this: he stunk in the first 2 games. He went home and started to solve that Boston defense. I don't have the G3 tape laying around, but I remember him probing more and being more calculating and trying to exploit Boston's D by passing instead of forcing. The box certainly jives with that recollection: 16 FGA and 8 assists. Boobie Gibson and Varejao's offensive production spiking support this (these players don't create their own shot).

By game 4 he started to actually shot the ball decently and they ended up nearly winning the series, in large part because of him (the Cavs were 0-7 without LeBron that year -- he was a huge huge part of the team).

Defense is another issue: his rebounding (6.4 rpg) and size and matching up with Pierce carried way more value to me than Kobe's (often bad) roaming defense against Rondo. You are having a detailed discussion about Kobe vs. SC in G4, but his defense in that game was subpar for most of the night. He switched onto Pierce and had a number of good possessions in the fourth, but Pierce still did damage.

So basically, Kobe had 1 good game in 6. LeBron got it rolling and played well for the last few games. Kobe unarguably had a better offensive supporting cast, yet look at LeBron's numbers in the last 5 games of the series:

35 ppg, 7.6 apg, 54% TS%

Defensively, 2.4 spg, 1.4 bpg. He guarded Pierce primarily, who in 3 losses in Cleveland averaged 14.3 ppg 47.5 TS%.

Kobe basically had 4 bad games in the Finals (sub 40% FG%), including the last 3.

All of that outside of the context that Boston had more to worry about outside of Kobe than versus the Cavs.

Re: Offensive Versatility
I don't mean to say offensive versatility makes Kobe better - just that Lebron hadn't developed his perimeter game yet - as he would go on to do in later seasons.

Re: Rebounding
Remember you are comparing a SG vs a SF. It would make more sense to compare Kobe against other SG's and Lebron against other SF's. Kobe is one of the best, if not the best rebounder for his position, but he's not gonna fare too well in comparisons against SF's.

Re: Getting to the line. You're exagerating here, Kobe got to the rim 549 times, Lebron 708 times. Considering he's what ? 8 years younger - that is to be expected. That doesn't automatically make it a plus for him, when you consider that Kobe is better from every other spot on the floor.

Re: Lebron having a better series
He shot 28.7% in 5 games. I don't know how you extrapolate that to him having only 2 bad games. Through the first 4 games, when you say Lebron had the Boston defense figured out for two of the games, he shot 20-78 for a FG% of 25.6. Considering that he got to the rim 49 times in the series, he probably nailed no more than 5 or 6 jumpers the first 4 games.

Re: Lebron's defense vs Kobe's defense
You are letting statistics cloud what you remember from that series. For starters, Cleveland's defense is head and shoulder's above the Lakers. If you look at their playoff stats, very few teams in NBA history put up the kind of Statistics they do. But other than that, both PP and Ray Allen were Ice-cold during that series. If you look at their hotspots against both those teams, you see that they were missing from every where. Now, you might be right, Lebron did a better job relatively. But I remember you saying in the last thread, that Lebron should not be penalized for guarding Alston because that was the coach's defensive scheme, but here you're penalizing Kobe for guarding Rondo and basing the rest of argument over one quarter of him playing Pierce ?

Well, they're both wing players. Now, if you think there is something inherently more valuable when it comes to rebounding by playing the 3 than the 2, then...well, LeBron still has that advantage.

I'm not exaggerating at all about getting to the line. +1.3 FTA's in the regular season, +5 in the playoffs. And again, if it's inherently better to be younger...LeBron still retains that value. 8 years younger? I'm not comparing them at the same age, but instead at the same time.

RE: LeBron having a better series -- I think you need to re-read what I wrote. I don't mind responding to you but you have to stop warping what I say.

I never said LeBron figured out the defense in the first 4 games. I said he stunk! He was struggling to attack the defense AND his jumper was off in the first two games -- that's a deadly combination against Boston.

I could care less if he went 2-38 in game 1 instead of 2-18, thus making his total series averages worse. It's a small sample and if you stink in one game and are awesome in 4, we shouldn't try to manipulate all 5 games by using outlying data. After all, at a certain point basketball is binary -- it's a W or a L and we move onto the next game. And in the playoffs you can have a bad game or two within a series and still be OK. Kobe arguably had four - that's harder to overcome.

RE: defense, I'm fairly certain I'm not cloudy at all...if you can provide evidence to the contrary, go ahead.

Otherwise, stop lumping Pierce in with Ray Allen. Allen had a personal issue off the court in the period leading up to the playoffs and it affected him greatly. His jump shot -- his bread and butter -- was way off for weeks. Pierce, on the other hand, didn't have any shooting issues against Atlanta - shot nearly 50% from 3 in the whole series. James historically gives Pierce problems. Pierce shot 37% against them in the 4 regular season games.

Dude, you keep finding stuff in my posts that isn't there. I'm not "penalizing" Kobe -- LA's defensive strategy was to put Kobe on the weakest offensive player. At the time, Kobe had superior defensive tools, but if you don't use them, it doesn't matter. LeBron didn't guard the weakest option, but the best option in Pierce. Those are the two series we are comparing here -- am I supposed to ignore this? This was also a trend throughout the season -- so while Kobe was a more talented defender, I thought it was bogus to have the notion that his defense had a greater impact than LeBron's. JVG actually called it "a joke" for Kobe to make all-defensive for this very reason.

I'm not sure why you're pointing to the Magic series, because I don't think I ever said LeBron had a greater defensive impact against the Magic than...?? I broke down a game film - he played good D in the game -- nothing like 15 defensive rebounds 4 blocks and shutting down the opposing superstar in terms of impact, but that wasn't the issue. I'm fairly certain the issue was "some defense would be nice" and his effort regarding "letting the other team win." It was also said he didn't guard Hedo, when in that very game he did.

In the regular season, LeBron often guarded better players than Kobe guarded, and since you're so hung up on Cleveland being one of the greatest defensive team ever, I assume you think the 6-8 athletic guy who plays 40 minutes a night with 2 steals and a block is pretty valuable in that area. Z, Gibson, Gooden, West, Pavlovic and Varejao...Is that the makings of a defensive dynasty?

(The Cavs defensive rating in the 7 games without LeBron was 108.7. 2.3 pts worse than their season average. That was against Tor (110.2 ORtg) Bos (110.2) NJ (104) Was (109.2) Cha (104.6) Sea (100.5) Det (111.4) -- mean of 107.2, below league average. Cavs went 0-7)

[Doctor MJ]

This was a tough year. I hope all the years aren't like this.

My first thought was "No way, rarely will you see a toss up like this one". Then I thought about it, and I could see '05-06, '04-05, and '03-04 all being kinda like this. After that it will calm down I think - which is interesting if my prediction comes true, implies that the less fresh the memory, the more certainty.