2010-11 Player of the Year thread

[mysticbb]

Still the same for me so far, even though Wade didn't play well. In fact I would even say he played worse than Rose in that series. That only gives me more confidence to put Nowitzki at 3 over him.

1. James
2. Howard
3. Nowitzki
4. Wade
5. Rose

HM: Durant, Paul, Garnett, Ginobili, Nash ... Bryant, Gasol, Pierce

Took a deeper look at Nash's season and if he would have played on a better team, a lot of people would talk about him being a Top5 player over Bryant, Gasol or Pierce. Switch Warrick and Lopez for Bynum and Odom and the Suns would have had a legit chance to reach the finals. Just imagine, if the Suns would have played as good without Nash as the Lakers played without Bryant, the Suns would have ended up with a +4.2 scoring margin. And that doesn't even include the improvement with Nash, if he would have had a better support.

[nonemus]

Yeah, Wade played uncharacteristically horrible that series. It may have been his worst playoff series, ever.

[Rick45]

I' am a LeBron, and Miami fan, but I' am not a homer by any means. In these playoffs if you go just on offense yes Dirk is number 1. Most casual fans really only look at offense. Most of us here are true hardcore fans that appreciate defense. When I talk POY I' am counting defense 50/50 with offense. LeBron has been the 2nd or 3rd best offensive player behind Dirk, and maybe just maybe Durant. He has been THE BEST DEFENDER IN THE PLAYOFFS. Too me at lease the gap between LeBron, and Dirk on defense is MUCH BIGGER than it is on offense. So I have LeBron number one.

P.S I have a question which are you guys making hold more weight 82 game reg season, or the Post season? If you win the title ok it's the post season.

[ColeSummer]

I'd give it to whoever wins the ring. (between Lebron and Dirk obviously)

[JordansBulls]

D-Rose is probably out of my top fan. That was craptrocious.

Yeah he wasn't great, but can you knock him out of the top 5 when his 2nd man scored 5 points in the pivotal game? The fact Boozer got outplayed by Bosh this series and the bench didn't really outplay Miami's bench is the key here. So then you have Rose and Deng to try to outproduce Lebron and Wade. Not going to happen.

While Boozer is supposed to be the #2 scorer, he typically hasn't been. The Bulls were the most impressive team in the regular season on the back of Rose & Deng, and those two have been the top scorers in the playoffs, and where the top two tonight. While one can still try to play the "Rose has less help" card, the it does not make sense to talk as if the Heat lost the series simply because Boozer fell apart.

They lost because Bosh simply outplayed our frontcourt which was pretty much our biggest strenght and our bench was matched by there's.

[drza]

So, here's my link to the purely stats comp that I did (keep in mind, not rigorous at all. Just kind of a rough and ready way to rank players into tiers across many advanced stats): http://rotosynthesis.rotowire.com/Best- ... BD2823.htm

The 20 players in that link:

Dwight Howard, LeBron James, Chris Paul, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Love, Dwyane Wade, Pau Gasol, Steve Nash, Kevin Garnett, Manu Ginobili, Andrew Bynum, LaMarcus Aldridge, Paul Pierce, Kevin Durant, Al Horford, Derrick Rose, Kobe Bryant, Russell Westbrook, Rajon Rondo, Deron Williams

Coming into the playoffs, I thought that any of those players that were still active could have played their way into the mix. Nash and Love were impressive, Deron less so, among those that didn't make the playoffs but I don't really foresee any of them being dominant enough in the regular season to make my top-5.

My top-4 this year will be LeBron, Howard, Dirk and probably Wade, likely in that order. But I'm going to spend this post talking about the guys that I've spent some thought on as potential 5th players. Contrary to most that I've read in this thread, Durant/Rose/Kobe were not clear-cut top-5 guys for me. They were all in my mix, but all of them needed strong postseason runs to catch some of the other guys I'll talk about here. The contenders:

Chris Paul. Paul seems to have suffered in perception this year because of concerns about his knee and because he maybe wasn't all of what he was a few years ago, but if you follow my link above he was CLEARLY the best statistical point guard in the league this year and was right there clustered with Dwight and LeBron for best statistical player this season. Then, in the playoffs, he had a pretty huge first round against the Lakers. Frankly, I'll have to be extremely impressed in my review of Durant's/Rose's/Kobe's postseasons for them to jump over Paul.

Pau Gasol and Manu Ginobili. These guys had similar arcs this year. The perceptual 2nd fiddle on their respective teams, they both started off the season like gang-busters, slowed down over the course of the year and then ground to a halt in the playoffs. I think Manu's was due to injury, though I don't know if we'll ever really know what happened with Pau and the Lakers this year. If we were looking at top-5 for the 2010 portion of the season both of these guys might make it, but as is they were both easier than I expected to leave off.

Kevin Garnett. KG had one of the really overlooked great seasons this year due to, I believe, a mix between perception (past his prime, "Big 4") and his area of influence (defense as opposed to offense). His PER and win shares scores aren't as high as others (primarily offensive measures), but Garnett measured out as clearly the best defensive player overall in the NBA this year by pretty much any method you care to use which played a large part in why he was right there with Dirk and Howard in the top-5 of the APM measures this year. He followed that up with a solid postseason with hints of brilliance that he just couldn't physically sustain. That physical limitation may be what eventually keeps him out of my top-5, but the season was still worthy of discussion here.

Rose and Durant (and to a lesser extent Kobe) have all been discussed in this thread, and I don't doubt that I'll be weighing in on them at some point as well, but I did want to see at least a mention if not discussion for some of these other guys. And at the moment, I'm not sure that Paul isn't my frontrunner for that 5th slot.

[Sedale Threatt]

D-Rose is probably out of my top fan. That was craptrocious.

Yeah he wasn't great, but can you knock him out of the top 5 when his 2nd man scored 5 points in the pivotal game?

I can absolutely consider it, because he was pretty miserable in the three games preceding that, too.

Then again, I wouldn't really say Rose stunk either. He simply got outshined.

That's an extremely generous assessment.

I'm not going to condemn the guy, as so many are doing. He's a great player who has a super-bright future. He ran into a fantastic defense, and he doesn't have anybody on his team who can chip in by creating his own offense. A day removed, I'll still consider him for the five spot.

At the same time, he did a lot more than get outshined. Dominique vs. Bird in 88 -- that's getting outshined. Rose, on the other hand, shot 33 percent on huge volume as his team blew four straight to a team they hadn't lost to all season.

And the coup de grace -- with HCA.

[Sedale Threatt]

...

Will definitely listen to cases for Chris Paul. Was not considering Bryant. Absolutely zero chance I'll consider Gasol, Ginobili and especially Garnett.

[Vinsanity420]

I have it something like this going into the finals -

1. LeBron
2. Dwight
3. Dirk
4. Wade
5. Rose/Durant/Paul tossup.

I didn't feel like Kobe was Top 5 material this season... Nash has a better case for Top 5 than Kobe this year IMO.

[ElGee]

Nash was awesome this year -- glad to see him with some love here. My only reservations about Nash were that he basically fell apart at the end of the season physically. He shot 41% and averaged 10 ppg post all-star break.

Aldridge is another guy who was great -- pretty sure people should be taking a closer look at him. Seriously.
Paul, when healthy, is amazing. Unfortunately, we have one of these situations again when he was only healthy at the very end of the season.
Thought Ginobili had a great year, but hard to see him moving past some of these guys (even someone like Kobe).

My vote it pretty much set at this point -- although I have Dirk/Wade really close so I suppose extreme results in the Finals could shift that. In general, not much should change in the last mile of the marathon.

[JordansBulls]

And the coup de grace -- with HCA.

That just means you won't rank #1 on the year, doesn't mean you won't be in the top 5 that year.

[Tim_Hardawayy]

And the coup de grace -- with HCA.

That just means you won't rank #1 on the year, doesn't mean you won't be in the top 5 that year.

wtf... you and your inane criteria.

Btw, Deng was 2nd to Rose in win shares in the playoffs by only .1. And Noah averaged more WS/48 than Rose.

[NO-KG-AI]

Lmao, at least back in the day when JordansBulls arguments were terrible, they were consistent. Now he's just a total flip flopper on his own crappy logic.

[Sedale Threatt]

Rote formula, FTW.

[fallacy]

The number 5 spot is basically Durant vs Rose, and the numbers point to the cunclusion that Rose should get it. Both stunk it up in the PS. When considering Rose's atrocious numbers vs MIA, you have to acknowledge that he went against a much tougher defense than Durant did. I mean, regardless of what happened in the ECF, Rose still perfomed well in the RS, especially towards the end of the season.

He has a higher APM than Wade, Lebron and Durant. His WS48 blows Durant's out of the water. Durant had Westbrook to help him, who had similar RS impact, Rose had no-one of the same sort. Thus, although Durant may have produced better in the PS, Rose's impact and role on his team coupled with late season production should give him the number five spot over Durant.

I would agree that the 5 spot is between these two, and I could listen to arguments either way.

I don't see though any case that Durant "stunk it up in the PS". His numbers are slightly up across the board, and his team got further than was expected. Then again, I wouldn't really say Rose stunk either. He simply got outshined.

Right now, I'd lean toward Rose for the 5 spot. His team did ask him to do more than OKC asked Durant, and his team really did accomplish a heck of a lot more.

Wait what? How has Rose been better this year than Durant?

During the regular season Durant had better;
Points/game, Rebounds/game, Steals/game, Blocks/game, less Turnovers/game, fg%, 3pt%, ft%, PER, ts%, eFg%, OffRtg, OWS

During the regular season Rose had better;
Assists/game, DefRtg, DWS

Not counting Team stats like DefRtg and DWS, Rose was literally only better than Durant in assists.


During the post season Durant was better than Rose in everything again but assists/game. Statistically there is literally no argument for Rose over Durant.


And now people will argue this by saying, "Rose didn't have any help blah blah blah and Durant had Westbrook OMG OMG!" By the way that most of you guys have been attacking Westbrook this postseason, the fact that Durant got all these numbers next to Westbrook's "ballhogging" actually makes it even more impressive.

[nonemus]

Minutes (36) Adj and Pace (91) Adj stats of Rose and Durant:

Durant: 25.1/6.2/2.4 on 59% TS, PER of 23.6, WS48 of .189, APM of +4.91
Rose: 24.3/5.0/7.5 on 55% TS, PER of 23.5, WS48 of .208. APM of +11.66

[fallacy]

Minutes (36) Adj and Pace (91) Adj stats of Rose and Durant:

Durant: 25.1/6.2/2.4 on 59% TS, PER of 23.6, WS48 of .189, APM of +4.91
Rose: 24.3/5.0/7.5 on 55% TS, PER of 23.5, WS48 of .208. APM of +11.66

so you're just going to ignore steals, blocks, turnovers, fg%, 3pt%, ft%, eFg% and instead substitute APM and somehow come to a conclusion that Rose is better?

I guess ignorance is bliss

[nonemus]

S/B/T of Rose and Durant:

Rose: 1.0/0.6 with 3.3 TOV
Durant: 1.0/0.9 with 2.6 TOV

TS% is the "all-in-one" shooting metric.

But yeah, I guess a 0.3 advantage in blocks and a 0.7 advantage in TOV makes up for the massive differential in WS48 and APM, good call.

[fallacy]

S/B/T of Rose and Durant:

Rose: 1.0/0.6 with 3.3 TOV
Durant: 1.0/0.9 with 2.6 TOV

TS% is the "all-in-one" shooting metric.

But yeah, I guess a 0.3 advantage in blocks and a 0.7 advantage in TOV makes up for the massive differential in WS48 and APM, good call.

The only difference between their win shares is because Rose was a much superior defensive team which increases his DWS and overall WS. That and plus minus has to have a huge context to it, there are way too many variables between two players on two different teams for me to take plus/minus over stats like PER, ts%, eFg%, etc.

But anyway, Rose is still only better than Durant non-team dependent stat which is assists. +/- is dependent on the other four people that you're playing with on the court.

Actually, I'll just back off that argument. Rose is better than Durant at assists and plus/minus. I guess being better at two stats makes you better than someone who's better at 10+ stats

EDIT: By the way, Joel Anthony had a higher +/- than Rose this postseason

[nonemus]

Yeah, because all stats are totally created equal.