2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread

theFireBlanket · Post #201 » by **theFireBlanket** » Mon Aug 31, 2020 3:12 am

JordansBulls wrote:Would have been nice having Luka with Dirk when Luka was ascending kinda like Kawhi had Duncan when Kawhi was ascending.

Doesn't compare to Giannis & Larry Sanders.

MyUniBroDavis · Post #202 » by **MyUniBroDavis** » Mon Aug 31, 2020 3:14 am

MisterHibachi wrote:Murray with 25 with a few minutes left in the second quarter. He's almost for sure going to drop 40 for the third straight game. Pretty insane.

Laughs in 50

HeartBreakKid · Post #203 » by **HeartBreakKid** » Mon Aug 31, 2020 5:08 am

I have Luka over Harden at this point, more for the subtles as his boxscore stats are a bit worse. Taken into account the talent gap Luka had in his series, it seemed like the Mavericks may have had a chance of taking out a contender if they had Kristaps and maybe a bit of luck.

I do like Harden quite a bit this year, probably more than any other season. He seems really strong, I think the break did him a lot of favors as he usually tries too hard in the RS and probably wears him self out.

No-more-rings · Post #204 » by **No-more-rings** » Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:55 pm

If the season stopped today, I'd probably go with this as my top 5.

1. Giannis
2. Lebron
3. Kawhi
4. Harden
5. Luka

Not really convinced of Davis as top 5, but that says more about how tough the top level competition is. I could see Jokic perhaps slipping into the top 5 depending what he does in game 7 and if they advance what he does beyond that.

No-more-rings · Post #205 » by **No-more-rings** » Mon Aug 31, 2020 3:10 pm

GSP wrote:
Homer38 wrote:Will Luka finish in the top 5 even if they are eliminated?

With the way Ad has been playing no he wont

Giannis/Lebron/Kawhi/Harden are clearly above and Ad has been dominant so far on both ends

We'll see what happens when the voting comes around but i don't know why you think it's a given that Luka won't finish top 5. AD's been great, but he'll still kind of fall a little bit under Lebron's shadow i think win or lose. I think people will be more gravitated to vote for clear first options like the Lukas, Hardens etc over AD. I don't really think much more could've been expected of Luka in that series, i mean he lacks experience compared to these other top guys but that that didn't seem like much of a problem.

70sFan · Post #206 » by **70sFan** » Mon Aug 31, 2020 3:15 pm

No-more-rings wrote:If the season stopped today, I'd probably go with this as my top 5.

1. Giannis
2. Lebron
3. Kawhi
4. Harden
5. Luka

Not really convinced of Davis as top 5, but that says more about how tough the top level competition is. I could see Jokic perhaps slipping into the top 5 depending what he does in game 7 and if they advance what he does beyond that.

Do you think that Luka has a case over Harden?

No-more-rings · Post #207 » by **No-more-rings** » Mon Aug 31, 2020 3:25 pm

70sFan wrote:
No-more-rings wrote:If the season stopped today, I'd probably go with this as my top 5.

1. Giannis
2. Lebron
3. Kawhi
4. Harden
5. Luka

Not really convinced of Davis as top 5, but that says more about how tough the top level competition is. I could see Jokic perhaps slipping into the top 5 depending what he does in game 7 and if they advance what he does beyond that.

Do you think that Luka has a case over Harden?

Yeah and i almost went with Luka over Harden, but gave Harden the edge due to his outside shot and experience facing off different types of playoff defenses. It's not a big difference, but if you asked me at this point who I'd trust more for a playoff run 3-4 series deep I'd have to say Harden. But that's the thing about when we do this voting, players probably get unfairly docked if they lost in round 1 they didn't get the chance to prove anything beyond that simply because either their team wasn't good enough or they just faced a better superstar. In this case it's both.

ardee · Post #208 » by **ardee** » Mon Aug 31, 2020 7:34 pm

No-more-rings wrote:
70sFan wrote:
No-more-rings wrote:If the season stopped today, I'd probably go with this as my top 5.

1. Giannis
2. Lebron
3. Kawhi
4. Harden
5. Luka

Not really convinced of Davis as top 5, but that says more about how tough the top level competition is. I could see Jokic perhaps slipping into the top 5 depending what he does in game 7 and if they advance what he does beyond that.

Do you think that Luka has a case over Harden?

Yeah and i almost went with Luka over Harden, but gave Harden the edge due to his outside shot and experience facing off different types of playoff defenses. It's not a big difference, but if you asked me at this point who I'd trust more for a playoff run 3-4 series deep I'd have to say Harden. But that's the thing about when we do this voting, players probably get unfairly docked if they lost in round 1 they didn't get the chance to prove anything beyond that simply because either their team wasn't good enough or they just faced a better superstar. In this case it's both.

I actually would swap Luka and Harden right NOW but that's only based on my feeling they were close to tied after the RS and Luka had the better round 1. I expect Harden to reclaim the 4 spot with a big series in round 2 though (assuming OKC doesn't pull the comeback).

It's clearly two tiers though. 1 is Giannis-LeBron-Kawhi and 2 is Luka-Harden-AD. I think AD actually can match the two-way top end of the first tier but he's not as consistent.

I was gonna say AD could crack the top 3 if he keeps up his round 1 production but then I realized all 3 of them were keeping up absurd production too....

Yuri36 · Post #209 » by **Yuri36** » Mon Aug 31, 2020 9:46 pm

HeartBreakKid wrote:I have Luka over Harden at this point, more for the subtles as his boxscore stats are a bit worse. Taken into account the talent gap Luka had in his series, it seemed like the Mavericks may have had a chance of taking out a contender if they had Kristaps and maybe a bit of luck.

I do like Harden quite a bit this year, probably more than any other season. He seems really strong, I think the break did him a lot of favors as he usually tries too hard in the RS and probably wears him self out.

Actually agree about Harden, I really like his bubble version, much less about heavy scoring and more about trying to make his teammates better.

eminence · Post #210 » by **eminence** » Tue Sep 1, 2020 1:25 am

Jimmy is alive!

MyUniBroDavis · Post #211 » by **MyUniBroDavis** » Tue Sep 1, 2020 1:39 am

In terms of hardens production, keep in mind that dort isnt switching off of harden literally no matter what even if he probably should in certain situations, its helping the offense not so much his numbers

70sFan · Post #212 » by **70sFan** » Tue Sep 1, 2020 9:13 am

MyUniBroDavis wrote:In terms of hardens production, keep in mind that dort isnt switching off of harden literally no matter what even if he probably should in certain situations, its helping the offense not so much his numbers

Harden figured out Dort in my opinion, he's much more comfortable against him now than he was at the beginning of the series. Fortunately for OKC, Houston don't shoot non-corner threes well and Westbrook is back

MyUniBroDavis · Post #213 » by **MyUniBroDavis** » Tue Sep 1, 2020 1:52 pm

70sFan wrote:
MyUniBroDavis wrote:In terms of hardens production, keep in mind that dort isnt switching off of harden literally no matter what even if he probably should in certain situations, its helping the offense not so much his numbers

Harden figured out Dort in my opinion, he's much more comfortable against him now than he was at the beginning of the series. Fortunately for OKC, Houston don't shoot non-corner threes well and Westbrook is back

I think figured out is a bit much, hes still not really able to penetrate against him like some others

Dort not wanting to switch at all seems fine in theory and this isnt a fault on him but that split second that it gives either harden or the player he should switch on to an opening does create layups if they cut since harden can exploit these small windows

eminence · Post #214 » by **eminence** » Wed Sep 2, 2020 3:11 am

No Jazz men in the top 5 for 2 decades in a row*

*Though I really think '04 AK47 deserves consideration.

GSP · Post #215 » by **GSP** » Wed Sep 2, 2020 3:44 am

That was a great game and thus ends one of the weirdest series ive ever seen

ardee · Post #216 » by **ardee** » Thu Sep 3, 2020 10:23 am

If the Heat win this series does Giannis lose his no. 1 spot?

HeartBreakKid · Post #217 » by **HeartBreakKid** » Thu Sep 3, 2020 10:49 am

LBJ will probably finish #1. I don't see anyone left as a real threat to him.

But I always give my vote to who I feel is the 'best' not someone who has the best year - because I'm not really sure what that means.

Dupp · Post #218 » by **Dupp** » Thu Sep 3, 2020 12:00 pm

HeartBreakKid wrote:LBJ will probably finish #1. I don't see anyone left as a real threat to him.

But I always give my vote to who I feel is the 'best' not someone who has the best year - because I'm not really sure what that means.

Kawhi.. everything comes down to the clippers and Lakers series

HeartBreakKid · Post #219 » by **HeartBreakKid** » Thu Sep 3, 2020 12:01 pm

Dupp wrote:
HeartBreakKid wrote:LBJ will probably finish #1. I don't see anyone left as a real threat to him.

But I always give my vote to who I feel is the 'best' not someone who has the best year - because I'm not really sure what that means.

Kawhi.. everything comes down to the clippers and Lakers series

Yeah, I guess there is Kawhi. He'll certainly have the narrative advantage if the Clippers win and he plays well. But I'm not really convinced he's better than LBJ this year.

If the Clippers win the title or possibly just go to the finals he'll probably get POY, but not my personal #1 vote.

therealbig3 · Post #220 » by **therealbig3** » Sat Sep 5, 2020 1:21 am

So I understand the massive sample size of the RS compared to the PS, and that Giannis certainly had one of the most dominant RS of all time.

But in a situation like this, where he's CLEARLY not the best player in the league because he simply can't maintain anywhere close to the same effectiveness in the PS (second year in a row now), and his team struggles massively as a result, how do we reconcile that?

Like, based on what I'm seeing, is there an argument that Giannis shouldn't be in top 5, since I can see myself preferring 5 other players over Giannis for a playoff run? Because isn't the most important thing when evaluating players how good they are when it comes to a playoff run, and how effective they are when it comes to facing playoff defenses? Isn't that what makes the biggest difference in terms of raising championship odds for a team?