Retro POY '08-09

[Warspite]

I think we have a lot of very good explanations that my talking wouldn't add much to. So. . .

1. LeBron James
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Dwight Howard
4. Dwayne Wade
5. Chris Paul

I concur this is my list and rankings as well.

[ElGee]

1) LeBron James


2) Kobe Bryant
3) Dwight Howard
4) Dwyane Wade
5) Chris Paul

Based on regular season production, I was strongly considering going James-Wade-Paul-Bryant-Howard, and that's how I would have rated their impact that year. However, in previous "All-Time List" voting, I put a lot of weight on playoff performance and team success, and I'm trying to be somewhat consistent with that. Not enough to move anyone over the King, who had a historical year, but enough to move Kobe and Dwight above the rest.

Can someone explain the bumping of Bryant and Howard based on their postseasons?

If it's strictly a matter of the team advancing, that's indisputable (although I don't value that when measuring players). Otherwise, I'm not following the logic on this one.

[lorak]

*Kobe gets the postseason bonus for a championship run in which he led his team statistically,

That’s arguable.

2009 playoffs

APM
Odom 12.5
Kobe 7.58
Gasol 3.85

net pts per 100 poss.
Odom +17
Kobe +11.9
Gasol +6.9

WS/48
Kobe 0.238
Gasol 0.221
Odom 0.173

As for his blocks, there is the research paper on "value of blocks" by Huizinga that shows Howard's are by far the most valuable (I think the paper had his blocks value last season as the highest of the decade). Not all blocks are created equal.

Oh, you’re completly wrong. It was the other way
Huzinga’s paper shows that Dwight’s blocks are the less valuable! (and Duncan’s the most valuable).
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... ocked-shot
The paper also found that, with many different new factors taken into account, Tim Duncan's blocks are the most valuable in the NBA. The least valuable, they say, are Dwight Howard's.


My votes:
1. LeBron – obvious choice
2. Paul – one of the best seasons ever
3 and 4 is tossup for me, but
3. Kobe – gets the nod because of championship and I think that he sacrificed his stats for team good
4. Wade – very good season, but not as great as we think (advanced stats shows that he was closer to Kobe than to Paul)
5. Dwight – his impact is IMO overrated, but he still was one of the five best players that year.

[Doctor MJ]

Can someone explain the bumping of Bryant and Howard based on their postseasons?

Well I can speak to what Kobe's post-season did for me. Kobe vs Wade/Paul was about Kobe looking worse, but his team doing better. Which side do you go with? Well, in the post-season, Kobe looked better, and the others looked worse, meanwhile the Lakers won the title despite not having the best record in the league. Hard for me to not pick Kobe amongst that trio.

[TMACFORMVP]

I'll provide reasoning later, but I'll go with:

1. LeBron James
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Dwyane Wade
4. Dwight Howard
5. Chris Paul

I had a tough time with Kobe and Wade, in fact I feel Wade had a greater impact for his team in the regular season. But when you factor in what Kobe was able to do in the playoffs, and what his team accomplished (granted it was a team effort, Kobe was still the catalyst), I'd lean towards Kobe.

[ElGee]

*Kobe gets the postseason bonus for a championship run in which he led his team statistically,

That’s arguable.

2009 playoffs

APM
Odom 12.5
Kobe 7.58
Gasol 3.85

net pts per 100 poss.
Odom +17
Kobe +11.9
Gasol +6.9

WS/48
Kobe 0.238
Gasol 0.221
Odom 0.173

As for his blocks, there is the research paper on "value of blocks" by Huizinga that shows Howard's are by far the most valuable (I think the paper had his blocks value last season as the highest of the decade). Not all blocks are created equal.

Oh, you’re completly wrong. It was the other way
Huzinga’s paper shows that Dwight’s blocks are the less valuable! (and Duncan’s the most valuable).
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... ocked-shot
The paper also found that, with many different new factors taken into account, Tim Duncan's blocks are the most valuable in the NBA. The least valuable, they say, are Dwight Howard's.


My votes:
1. LeBron – obvious choice
2. Paul – one of the best seasons ever
3 and 4 is tossup for me, but
3. Kobe – gets the nod because of championship and I think that he sacrificed his stats for team good
4. Wade – very good season, but not as great as we think (advanced stats shows that he was closer to Kobe than to Paul)
5. Dwight – his impact is IMO overrated, but he still was one of the five best players that year.

Sorry about that -- thanks for the correction. I completely flipped the paper results and should have double-checked it before posting. It was Duncan who had the best season in his study in 08, and Howard the worst (in 08). Duncan saved 1.12 points per block, Howard just 0.53.

I remember thinking while typing it, "wouldn't Howard's blocking of jumpers be less valuable." Doh. They are.

[ElGee]

Can someone explain the bumping of Bryant and Howard based on their postseasons?

Well I can speak to what Kobe's post-season did for me. Kobe vs Wade/Paul was about Kobe looking worse, but his team doing better. Which side do you go with? Well, in the post-season, Kobe looked better, and the others looked worse, meanwhile the Lakers won the title despite not having the best record in the league. Hard for me to not pick Kobe amongst that trio.

Maybe this is a reaction to the HCA thing that's out there on this site, but I'm not entirely understanding the relevance of winning despite not having the best record. They were 65-17. They had HCA in every series. Neither Paul nor Wade were on very good teams to begin with (particularly Wade). I thought Kobe had two really good series and two not-so-good series -- so not following what you mean by Kobe looked better (at least with regard to Wade).

[ElGee]

Pretty homogeneous mix so far -

I wish we wouldn't focus on statistics so much, but I suppose there aren't many alternatives.
Just a few smattering of thoughts:

- I'm on the fence with Paul. His statistics are always impeccable, yet I always have this vibe from him, that he dominates the ball way too much than is healthy for a contending team. I mean, if you look at either Nash or Deron, they're not within touching distance of Paul statistically. Yet, I personally think they both run their respective teams better. (Not saying, I'm penalizing Paul for this, I wouldn't mind hearing arguments both ways)

- A few names that might get overlooked when we're focusing too much on statistics:
Nowitzki: The guy was a monster in the playoffs, no one thought they could get by the Spurs, yet they did, with relative ease.

Duncan: Always gets overlooked if we go by statistics only. Defensive impact is still unmeasurable.

Melo: Had to totally change his game right at the start of the season to accommodate Billups. Took his team to the conference finals and was a virtually unstoppable scorer at times. Played probably the best defense of his life in the conference finals.

- Compiled some stats for players performances vs "Good" teams compared to performances against "Poor" teams.
Source: http://www.82games.com/0809/COM4S0.HTM



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Hey SB - do you have the z-scores for these numbers instead of raw data? Looks like a lot of standard variance in those numbers...

[mysticbb]

Do you mean Wade played worse than he did in the regular season, or do you mean he played worse than Kobe/Howard in the playoffs?

Both, Wade played worse than in the regular season and Bryant and Howard played better than him and in the regular season. Well, at least that is my impression.

And as I said you have to give player credit for what they have done, not so much for what they could have done in a different situation.

You can also argue completely theoretical. The question would be: At the start of the 2008/09 season which player would you pick to build the most successful team around him? That obviously includes all we know about the season. In that case my order would be: James, Howard, Wade, Paul and Nowitzki. I would pick Duncan also over Bryant.

[mysticbb]

Hey SB - do you have the z-scores for these numbers instead of raw data? Looks like a lot of standard variance in those numbers...

I would also like to point out that having more turnover is hardly a plus. I don't put much stock into that kind of chart anyway.

[ElGee]

Do you mean Wade played worse than he did in the regular season, or do you mean he played worse than Kobe/Howard in the playoffs?

Both, Wade played worse than in the regular season and Bryant and Howard played better than him and in the regular season. Well, at least that is my impression.

And as I said you have to give player credit for what they have done, not so much for what they could have done in a different situation.

You can also argue completely theoretical. The question would be: At the start of the 2008/09 season which player would you pick to build the most successful team around him? That obviously includes all we know about the season. In that case my order would be: James, Howard, Wade, Paul and Nowitzki. I would pick Duncan also over Bryant.

Yes - I agree with this. Especially since it's a POY vote, my understanding is we're looking at performance within a year. I imagine there would be a lot less variance in the "who would you build around" question year-by-year (particularly if age were factored).

[bastillon]

I regret not being here earlier. I guess what I would wanna say right now is how I value postseason much more than the RS. I only consider RS important as the comparative tool when player made it to the playoffs. there isn't a massive difference past that. if, say, you have 25 PER in the RS and your team is 45W team, then it doesn't make much of a difference overall (RS and PO concerned) whether you have 30 PER. being 2 seeds higher doesn't have much impact on the outcome of the whole season.

that being said, I think Paul has gotten massively overrated here. I don't know why nobody mentioned it yet, but he had injured hamstring in the playoffs. now I wanna give him all the credit in the world for his regular season, but you can only go so far when you're injured come playoff time. I'm questioning value of a player that's injured in the postseason. why would you want a guy to have a dominant RS when he's dominated by Chauncey Billups on one end, and stopped by one of the dumber players in the league (Dahntay Jones) on the other ? Paul doesn't belong in this conversation.

as for Dwight, I think you have to understand how APM stats function. there's some way to adjust those numbers but in the end you have to consider that backups do have impact on your performance. Gortat IMO is one of the best centers in the league (and certainly was that in his CY last year) so you have to take those numbers with a grain of salt.

more importantly, as much as he struggled offensively vs Celtics and vs Lakers, he was extremely dominant against the Cavs. he averaged like 26/13 and 70% TS (forgot exact numbers) and obviously was providing his DPOY defense in the meantime. and even when he wasn't dominant offensively against other teams, he still had excellent impact on opp defenses with his presence inside. Magic's system was based on the opps collapsing on Dwight inside so that's how they had so many 3s. I feel like stats strongly misrepresent his overall value. in the end, his team was top of the league defensively and his teammates were Turkoglu, Lewis and Nelson (give me a break anybody ?), none of whom are known for playing good defense (and then you have to consider that Turkoglu's one of the members of the worst defensive team in '10).

as for LeBron, his stats may have been great, but you have to take the context into account. he started the playoffs by playing against mentally collapsed Detroit Pistons that had finished the RS in an embarrassing fashion. then, he played against physically collapsed Atlanta that had relied on their starters to win in the RS, but now that Horford, Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams were flat out injured and the other guys were pretty banged up as well, they had nothing to showcase against the Cavs. that's a great way to padd your stats and the main reason Cleveland was so overrated before the Magic series started.

then James played against a serious playoff team for the first time and Cleveland failed immediately. for those who don't wanna give Dwight any credit for that series and handle LeBron the POY right away, consider this: IIRC Cleveland was twice winning by 20 points or more in the first two games. first time the Magic came back and won, the second time LeBron hit that shot to rescue their series. how much can we blame LeBron for this ? I mean those two games were basically won and LeBron let them win. blaming Mo and Delonte for playing really bad is one thing, but when your team is already up by 20, you CAN'T lose when you're as good as James.

also, how can you give LeBron the credit for his great defense when it was no longer the case in the playoffs ? the whole season for Cleveland basically started in the ECFs. they faced crap before and the east was pretty much terrible last year anyway (KG went down, Atlanta was a lottery team after the injuries etc). the only opponent that's worth mentioning was Orlando. now whether you like it or not, James defense was horrendous during that series and it's possibly the biggest joke ever to give him runner-up DPOY after you watch that series. not only that James was hidden on Rafer freaking Alston AKA the worst starting PG on finals team, but also Alston torched him twice in that series. I forgot which game that was, but he had like 25-pt game and 17-pt game at some point. those were 2 crucial games that let Magic won the series. LeBron being great offensively on one end is one thing, but when he was pretty much a liability on defense, it's something you have to take into account.

as for Bryant, I think he's generally overrated. I think he doesn't have the tools to compete with the likes of Hakeem, Magic etc on ATL. that being said, he's being overlooked in this thread. have you forgotten yet the "bad mofo" face against the Nuggets ? have you forgotten how he played against Battier/Artest combo in the 2nd Round ? the "hand in the face" shots he made consistently against picture-perfect defense of Battier ? have you forgotten how inspired the Lakers were in ALL statement games ? have you forgotten the 35/6/7 Kobe (or smth like that) in the WCFs ? have you forgotten how far they were from losing in those playoffs ? they pretty much demolished every statement game that year and Bryant was clearly the best player on by-far the best team. I'm gonna credit him for that... and he won the title as well.

I mean... what could he have done more ? put up better stats when you have Gasol, Odom and Bynum on your team ? do you really think it was the most important thing. Bryant dominated in the playoffs like nobody else.

1.Kobe
2.Dwight
I know this isn't very popular view, but as far as I'm concerned he outplayed LeBron in that series when you consider James defense. Dwight also dominated against Varejao and Ilgauskas, both good-to-very good defenders. James had his 40-pt games vs Hedo "I make Raps fans hate the entire country of Turkey" Turkoglu with Magic gameplan focused to stop everyone else BUT LeBron. oh, and don't forget the star bonus which was easily comparable to Wade in '06... 20 FTA/game ? shooting free throws after you have your jumpshot blocked ? please.
3.LeBron
4.Nowitzki
5.Wade
Dwyane played uninspired basketball in the playoffs. Dirk pretty much everything he could've done to help his team win... but you can only go so far with Kidd and Terry when both are being dominated by their counterparts. Wade also played against injured team, making it easier for him to put up stats. Dirk played vs Kenyon Martin, one of the best man defenders in the game.

[Gongxi]

So you're just rating the best players on their teams' success in the playoffs and then on their play in the playoffs? Alright.

[ElGee]

as for LeBron, his stats may have been great, but you have to take the context into account. he started the playoffs by playing against mentally collapsed Detroit Pistons that had finished the RS in an embarrassing fashion. then, he played against physically collapsed Atlanta that had relied on their starters to win in the RS, but now that Horford, Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams were flat out injured and the other guys were pretty banged up as well, they had nothing to showcase against the Cavs. that's a great way to padd your stats and the main reason Cleveland was so overrated before the Magic series started.

then James played against a serious playoff team for the first time and Cleveland failed immediately. for those who don't wanna give Dwight any credit for that series and handle LeBron the POY right away, consider this: IIRC Cleveland was twice winning by 20 points or more in the first two games. first time the Magic came back and won, the second time LeBron hit that shot to rescue their series. how much can we blame LeBron for this ? I mean those two games were basically won and LeBron let them win. blaming Mo and Delonte for playing really bad is one thing, but when your team is already up by 20, you CAN'T lose when you're as good as James.

also, how can you give LeBron the credit for his great defense when it was no longer the case in the playoffs ? the whole season for Cleveland basically started in the ECFs. they faced crap before and the east was pretty much terrible last year anyway (KG went down, Atlanta was a lottery team after the injuries etc). the only opponent that's worth mentioning was Orlando. now whether you like it or not, James defense was horrendous during that series and it's possibly the biggest joke ever to give him runner-up DPOY after you watch that series. not only that James was hidden on Rafer freaking Alston AKA the worst starting PG on finals team, but also Alston torched him twice in that series. I forgot which game that was, but he had like 25-pt game and 17-pt game at some point. those were 2 crucial games that let Magic won the series. LeBron being great offensively on one end is one thing, but when he was pretty much a liability on defense, it's something you have to take into account.

as for Bryant, I think he's generally overrated. I think he doesn't have the tools to compete with the likes of Hakeem, Magic etc on ATL. that being said, he's being overlooked in this thread. have you forgotten yet the "bad mofo" face against the Nuggets ? have you forgotten how he played against Battier/Artest combo in the 2nd Round ? the "hand in the face" shots he made consistently against picture-perfect defense of Battier ? have you forgotten how inspired the Lakers were in ALL statement games ? have you forgotten the 35/6/7 Kobe (or smth like that) in the WCFs ? have you forgotten how far they were from losing in those playoffs ? they pretty much demolished every statement game that year and Bryant was clearly the best player on by-far the best team. I'm gonna credit him for that... and he won the title as well.

I mean... what could he have done more ? put up better stats when you have Gasol, Odom and Bynum on your team ? do you really think it was the most important thing. Bryant dominated in the playoffs like nobody else.

1.Kobe
2.Dwight
I know this isn't very popular view, but as far as I'm concerned he outplayed LeBron in that series when you consider James defense. Dwight also dominated against Varejao and Ilgauskas, both good-to-very good defenders. James had his 40-pt games vs Hedo "I make Raps fans hate the entire country of Turkey" Turkoglu with Magic gameplan focused to stop everyone else BUT LeBron. oh, and don't forget the star bonus which was easily comparable to Wade in '06... 20 FTA/game ? shooting free throws after you have your jumpshot blocked ? please.
3.LeBron
4.Nowitzki
5.Wade
Dwyane played uninspired basketball in the playoffs. Dirk pretty much everything he could've done to help his team win... but you can only go so far with Kidd and Terry when both are being dominated by their counterparts. Wade also played against injured team, making it easier for him to put up stats. Dirk played vs Kenyon Martin, one of the best man defenders in the game.

There's some conjecture and unsubstantiated opinions here which I'll leave alone. In general, I'm not sure we should be judging seasons based on faces and picture perfect jumpers.

Let's start with the season starting in the ECF. How good would a team have to be for their season to start in the FInal 4? Who gets credit for that? Mo Williams? Delonte West?

And how exactly did LeBron "let them" win when he had 49 points on 71% TS, 8 assists and 6 rebounds? What did he have to do with Orlando hitting 7 of its last 11 3's, Howard scoring 30, Lewis making two shots in the waning moments and overcoming a 15 point lead? He also set up West for 3 to take the lead, then converted a 3-point play to take the lead again, all in the final 40 seconds of the game. I'm not seeing how that's "letting a team win..."

RE: his defense, he had 3 blocks on layups and 2 steals alone in G1. That's a lot of value just on those 5 possessions. If we're blaming that guy, then how would it ever be possible to play a good game and lose?

In one sentence you downgrade LeBron by railing on the Hawks (despite 4 double-digit wins), and then praise Kobe for beating Aaron Brooks, Ron Artest and Luis Scola in 7, when Kobe had a subpar series.

Seems to me you aren't holding these players to even remotely the same standards.

[CzBoobie]

I regret not being here earlier. I guess what I would wanna say right now is how I value postseason much more than the RS. I only consider RS important as the comparative tool when player made it to the playoffs. there isn't a massive difference past that. if, say, you have 25 PER in the RS and your team is 45W team, then it doesn't make much of a difference overall (RS and PO concerned) whether you have 30 PER. being 2 seeds higher doesn't have much impact on the outcome of the whole season.

that being said, I think Paul has gotten massively overrated here. I don't know why nobody mentioned it yet, but he had injured hamstring in the playoffs. now I wanna give him all the credit in the world for his regular season, but you can only go so far when you're injured come playoff time. I'm questioning value of a player that's injured in the postseason. why would you want a guy to have a dominant RS when he's dominated by Chauncey Billups on one end, and stopped by one of the dumber players in the league (Dahntay Jones) on the other ? Paul doesn't belong in this conversation.

as for Dwight, I think you have to understand how APM stats function. there's some way to adjust those numbers but in the end you have to consider that backups do have impact on your performance. Gortat IMO is one of the best centers in the league (and certainly was that in his CY last year) so you have to take those numbers with a grain of salt.

more importantly, as much as he struggled offensively vs Celtics and vs Lakers, he was extremely dominant against the Cavs. he averaged like 26/13 and 70% TS (forgot exact numbers) and obviously was providing his DPOY defense in the meantime. and even when he wasn't dominant offensively against other teams, he still had excellent impact on opp defenses with his presence inside. Magic's system was based on the opps collapsing on Dwight inside so that's how they had so many 3s. I feel like stats strongly misrepresent his overall value. in the end, his team was top of the league defensively and his teammates were Turkoglu, Lewis and Nelson (give me a break anybody ?), none of whom are known for playing good defense (and then you have to consider that Turkoglu's one of the members of the worst defensive team in '10).

as for LeBron, his stats may have been great, but you have to take the context into account. he started the playoffs by playing against mentally collapsed Detroit Pistons that had finished the RS in an embarrassing fashion. then, he played against physically collapsed Atlanta that had relied on their starters to win in the RS, but now that Horford, Joe Johnson and Marvin Williams were flat out injured and the other guys were pretty banged up as well, they had nothing to showcase against the Cavs. that's a great way to padd your stats and the main reason Cleveland was so overrated before the Magic series started.

then James played against a serious playoff team for the first time and Cleveland failed immediately. for those who don't wanna give Dwight any credit for that series and handle LeBron the POY right away, consider this: IIRC Cleveland was twice winning by 20 points or more in the first two games. first time the Magic came back and won, the second time LeBron hit that shot to rescue their series. how much can we blame LeBron for this ? I mean those two games were basically won and LeBron let them win. blaming Mo and Delonte for playing really bad is one thing, but when your team is already up by 20, you CAN'T lose when you're as good as James.

also, how can you give LeBron the credit for his great defense when it was no longer the case in the playoffs ? the whole season for Cleveland basically started in the ECFs. they faced crap before and the east was pretty much terrible last year anyway (KG went down, Atlanta was a lottery team after the injuries etc). the only opponent that's worth mentioning was Orlando. now whether you like it or not, James defense was horrendous during that series and it's possibly the biggest joke ever to give him runner-up DPOY after you watch that series. not only that James was hidden on Rafer freaking Alston AKA the worst starting PG on finals team, but also Alston torched him twice in that series. I forgot which game that was, but he had like 25-pt game and 17-pt game at some point. those were 2 crucial games that let Magic won the series. LeBron being great offensively on one end is one thing, but when he was pretty much a liability on defense, it's something you have to take into account.

as for Bryant, I think he's generally overrated. I think he doesn't have the tools to compete with the likes of Hakeem, Magic etc on ATL. that being said, he's being overlooked in this thread. have you forgotten yet the "bad mofo" face against the Nuggets ? have you forgotten how he played against Battier/Artest combo in the 2nd Round ? the "hand in the face" shots he made consistently against picture-perfect defense of Battier ? have you forgotten how inspired the Lakers were in ALL statement games ? have you forgotten the 35/6/7 Kobe (or smth like that) in the WCFs ? have you forgotten how far they were from losing in those playoffs ? they pretty much demolished every statement game that year and Bryant was clearly the best player on by-far the best team. I'm gonna credit him for that... and he won the title as well.

I mean... what could he have done more ? put up better stats when you have Gasol, Odom and Bynum on your team ? do you really think it was the most important thing. Bryant dominated in the playoffs like nobody else.

1.Kobe
2.Dwight
I know this isn't very popular view, but as far as I'm concerned he outplayed LeBron in that series when you consider James defense. Dwight also dominated against Varejao and Ilgauskas, both good-to-very good defenders. James had his 40-pt games vs Hedo "I make Raps fans hate the entire country of Turkey" Turkoglu with Magic gameplan focused to stop everyone else BUT LeBron. oh, and don't forget the star bonus which was easily comparable to Wade in '06... 20 FTA/game ? shooting free throws after you have your jumpshot blocked ? please.
3.LeBron
4.Nowitzki
5.Wade
Dwyane played uninspired basketball in the playoffs. Dirk pretty much everything he could've done to help his team win... but you can only go so far with Kidd and Terry when both are being dominated by their counterparts. Wade also played against injured team, making it easier for him to put up stats. Dirk played vs Kenyon Martin, one of the best man defenders in the game.

What an incredibly **** post...

[mysticbb]

What an incredibly **** post...

If you don't have any substantial critique, I would suggest not commenting at all. Bastillon represents a somewhat unique view in a overall good discussion so far. While I for sure disagree with bastillon's opinion about James, your post still remains useless!

[Optimism Prime]

I'll expand upon this in a bit, but here's how I'm picking my top five:

Hypothetically, every player in the league has been put up for draft, for this one season only. Rosters will default back after this year. Future/age doesn't matter. Who would I take with (pick 1-5)?

I'll use stats to justify my argument, but sometimes it'll just come down to "Player X just has IT this year." Lebron had IT. Like I said--ball bounces differently a couple times, we'd have a totally different opinion of his offseason. I can't penalize the guy for having an historically great season, only to get an unlucky bounce. Lebron was the best last year, hands down.

[CzBoobie]

What an incredibly **** post...

If you don't have any substantial critique, I would suggest not commenting at all. Bastillon represents a somewhat unique view in a overall good discussion so far. While I for sure disagree with bastillon's opinion about James, your post still remains useless!

ElGee summed it up nicely before me. I'll leave it at that. Sorry for interruption, I had to.

[bastillon]

Let's start with the season starting in the ECF. How good would a team have to be for their season to start in the FInal 4? Who gets credit for that? Mo Williams? Delonte West?

sorry but I won't give him credit for playing in a conference that has one team capable of competing on the highest level. along with Hawks' injuries, Pistons trading Billups for Iverson and Celtics losing KG due to injury, eastern conference became a trash besides two teams - Cleveland and Orlando. if you wanna praise over LeBron's success because he got to ECFs... fine. at the same time he was outplayed head2head by Dwight Howard in the most important moment of the season. (and yes, I'm talking about whole series - Dwight was better if you value defense at all)

And how exactly did LeBron "let them" win when he had 49 points on 71% TS, 8 assists and 6 rebounds? What did he have to do with Orlando hitting 7 of its last 11 3's, Howard scoring 30, Lewis making two shots in the waning moments and overcoming a 15 point lead? He also set up West for 3 to take the lead, then converted a 3-point play to take the lead again, all in the final 40 seconds of the game. I'm not seeing how that's "letting a team win..."

I'm not sure if you understood my point. the general idea is that LeBron's cast performed poorly and LeBron himself was great during that series and that's supposedly the reason why they lost. I'm arguing that the reason was perhaps Cavs blowing huge leads twice that made Magic win that series... which I'm sure James should be responsible of, at least to some extent.

RE: his defense, he had 3 blocks on layups and 2 steals alone in G1. That's a lot of value just on those 5 possessions. If we're blaming that guy, then how would it ever be possible to play a good game and lose?

I think you'd have to watch the whole series over again to judge his D. 5 possessions out of 90 isn't exactly a good measure. what I remember from that series is how I bashed James on another forum for his pathetic D during that series. I recall one moment when he flat out didn't know what was happening and Pietrus, who he was guarding, just cut to the basket for wide open lay-up... and then there were (IIRC) game 3 and game 4, when Alston repeatedly torched Cleveland.

In one sentence you downgrade LeBron by railing on the Hawks (despite 4 double-digit wins), and then praise Kobe for beating Aaron Brooks, Ron Artest and Luis Scola in 7, when Kobe had a subpar series.

it has a lot to do with Kobe playing against the best pair of wing defenders since MJ and Pippen, whereas LeBron played against a team that heavily relied upon their starting five, which was mostly injured during the course of that series (and even earlier actually). you know, the same pair of defenders completely stopped LeBron in the RS game in March (IIRC), when he had 0 ast for the first time in his career and pretty bad game overall as well. I strongly value competition.

[sp6r=underrated]

I have to say, I'm going to enjoy reading these threads if the first thread is any indication. Even when I disagree with the conclusions, I'm learning a lot.