2024-25 RealGM All-Season Awards Discussion Thread

[Special_Puppy]

The opinions flipped because Wemby was injured, the Grizzlies spiralled, the Cavaliers cooled off while Mobley individually had a couple of uninspiring defensive games with attention on him, and the Warriors rapidly improved with Butler while Draymond also individually stepped up his play. I know of absolutely no one who said, ah, Draymond said he should win, and he knows defence better than I do, so I will take him at his word.

As for the rest of the contenders, Zubac, Gobert, and Amen never quite cracked the discussion — you can argue they should have, but that is a different issue from whether Draymond’s campaigning had any effect — and this forum consistently knows to take a more skeptical approach to the idea of players like Dyson or Dort winning.

Does anyone have any idea why Amen and Zubac haven't gotten more DPOY consideration? Their teams defense is better than the non-Dort candidates and AFAIK typically do about as well or better in the advanced stats than the other candidates too (YMMV about how much you care about that)

[AEnigma]

The opinions flipped because Wemby was injured, the Grizzlies spiralled, the Cavaliers cooled off while Mobley individually had a couple of uninspiring defensive games with attention on him, and the Warriors rapidly improved with Butler while Draymond also individually stepped up his play. I know of absolutely no one who said, ah, Draymond said he should win, and he knows defence better than I do, so I will take him at his word.

As for the rest of the contenders, Zubac, Gobert, and Amen never quite cracked the discussion — you can argue they should have, but that is a different issue from whether Draymond’s campaigning had any effect — and this forum consistently knows to take a more skeptical approach to the idea of players like Dyson or Dort winning.

Does anyone have any idea why Amen and Zubac haven't gotten more DPOY consideration? Their teams defense is better than the non-Dort candidates and AFAIK typically do about as well or better in the advanced stats than the other candidates too (YMMV about how much you care about that)

Amen I think is held back by perimetre attention going to Dyson and Dort. And Zubac is just not marketed at all; we already saw that a bit with the all-star campaigning, where Norm Powell received more attention than Zubac did. The other most significant issue though is that I do not think Zubac appreciably passes the eye test — which is why all the talk here is more about the Clippers’ defensive finish and how he fares in various all-in-ones than about how Zubac seems like he visibly plays better defence than other bigs like Mobley, Gobert, Draymond, etc.

[lessthanjake]

I haven’t really thought about it much, but I actually think Zubac has a pretty good argument for DPOY. Just at a basic level, if you look at his defensive on-off, it looks fantastic—in fact, it’s better than any of the other significant candidates for the award. He also had this kind of impact for the #3 defense in the league, which obviously is important. And then we can layer on the fact that he played significantly more minutes this year than the other candidates. I don’t think it’s a slam dunk, but I think if you erased my memory of the season and showed me the available data for the relevant players but without the players’ names, I might well say Zubac should get it.

[Doctor MJ]

Okay, just to put something out there in data like I described:

Using Defensive EPM (not beholden to it and would like to see other metrics done the same way)
Multiply by GP
Multiply by MPG
Divide by 1000 just to have non-astronomical numbers

Here's the leaderboard of the guys I thought to check:

Amen Thompson 6.44
Ivica Zubac 6.30
Kris Dunn 6.24
Dyson Daniels 6.17
Jalen Williams 5.14
Victor Wembanyama 4.89
Draymond Green 4.77
Ausar Thompson 4.38
Rudy Gobert 4.30
Alex Caruso 4.06
Jaren Jackson Jr. 3.75
Evan Mobley 3.46

Two comments:

1. Having 4 of the Top5 be non-bigs leaves me thinking that EPM indexes too much on box score stats and not enough on pure +/- scoreboard.

2. Zubac is a big and has the clear lead here among bigs...but he's really not much of a shot-blocker and never had an elite defensive reputation before which also leaves me wondering if another metric might show him to be considerably lower.

[Doctor MJ]

The opinions flipped because Wemby was injured, the Grizzlies spiralled, the Cavaliers cooled off while Mobley individually had a couple of uninspiring defensive games with attention on him, and the Warriors rapidly improved with Butler while Draymond also individually stepped up his play. I know of absolutely no one who said, ah, Draymond said he should win, and he knows defence better than I do, so I will take him at his word.

As for the rest of the contenders, Zubac, Gobert, and Amen never quite cracked the discussion — you can argue they should have, but that is a different issue from whether Draymond’s campaigning had any effect — and this forum consistently knows to take a more skeptical approach to the idea of players like Dyson or Dort winning.

Does anyone have any idea why Amen and Zubac haven't gotten more DPOY consideration? Their teams defense is better than the non-Dort candidates and AFAIK typically do about as well or better in the advanced stats than the other candidates too (YMMV about how much you care about that)

So, I think what's going on here is that if there aren't super-obvious box score stats, defensive accolades tend to depend on a process of building up defensive reputation.

Now, I do think a race like this can allow a relative unknown to become very known quite quickly if no one else fills the vacuum - think of Marc Gasol who had never made All-D before winning DPOY - but right now it doesn't seem like that's going to happen for either of these guys.

[eminence]

Zubac is the (RS) pick for folks who like traditional rim protectors but don't want to give Rudy a 5th DPOY.

[AEnigma]

The opinions flipped because Wemby was injured, the Grizzlies spiralled, the Cavaliers cooled off while Mobley individually had a couple of uninspiring defensive games with attention on him, and the Warriors rapidly improved with Butler while Draymond also individually stepped up his play. I know of absolutely no one who said, ah, Draymond said he should win, and he knows defence better than I do, so I will take him at his word.

As for the rest of the contenders, Zubac, Gobert, and Amen never quite cracked the discussion — you can argue they should have, but that is a different issue from whether Draymond’s campaigning had any effect — and this forum consistently knows to take a more skeptical approach to the idea of players like Dyson or Dort winning.

Does anyone have any idea why Amen and Zubac haven't gotten more DPOY consideration? Their teams defense is better than the non-Dort candidates and AFAIK typically do about as well or better in the advanced stats than the other candidates too (YMMV about how much you care about that)

So, I think what's going on here is that if there aren't super-obvious box score stats, defensive accolades tend to depend on a process of building up defensive reputation.

This is true and can be negative (Kobe), but it is also not wholly unmerited. As an illustration, I will use a couple of RAPM samples extending beyond just this season (with the caveat that different calculations will give different values, and that yes, this is a rate metric):

Draymond — 2nd over past two years (behind Caruso), 1st over past three years (and also 1st from 2022-24)
Gobert — 10th over past two years, 16th over past three years
Zubac — 17th over past two years, 42nd over past three years
Mobley — 31st over past two years, 20th over past three years

Which is to say I have a lot more confidence in Draymond having truly played at a best-in-the-league level than I do any of those other three.

(Excluding the young guys from this exercise for what I hope are obvious reasons, although the general principle holds true there too.)

[Doctor MJ]

Does anyone have any idea why Amen and Zubac haven't gotten more DPOY consideration? Their teams defense is better than the non-Dort candidates and AFAIK typically do about as well or better in the advanced stats than the other candidates too (YMMV about how much you care about that)

So, I think what's going on here is that if there aren't super-obvious box score stats, defensive accolades tend to depend on a process of building up defensive reputation.

This is true and can be negative (Kobe), but it is also not wholly unmerited. As an illustration, I will use a couple of RAPM samples extending beyond just this season (with the caveat that different calculations will give different values, and that yes, this is a rate metric):

Draymond — 2nd over past two years (behind Caruso), 1st over past three years (and also 1st from 2022-24)
Gobert — 10th over past two years, 16th over past three years
Zubac — 17th over past two years, 42nd over past three years
Mobley — 31st over past two years, 20th over past three years

Which is to say I have a lot more confidence in Draymond having truly played at a best-in-the-league level than I do any of those other three.

(Excluding the young guys from this exercise for what I hope are obvious reasons, although the general principle holds true there too.)

I think your confidence focus makes a lot of sense.

[Doctor MJ]

So I happened to just see John Hollinger's vote for DPOY:

1. Amen Thompson
2. Evan Mobley
3. Dyson Daniels

He clearly sees Amen & Dyson as stand out non-big candidates and had Mobley as the top big.

Now, I too had Mobley as my top big for much of the year post-Wemby, but his metrics softened with the Cavs cooling off. I could see continuing with Mobley based on the idea that he was better during the part of the season where it mattered, but then that also gets into the whole confidence thing. I'm confident Mobley's a quality defender, but he doesn't have a proven track record at DPOY levels.

Hollinger says one thing about EPM that I'm just really confused by:

"EPM has five centers in the top seven to go with Thompson and Daniels"

He's using this to say that Thompson & Daniels stand out more from their actual peers than the bigs do...but I'm really not sure what he's looking at here. As I've said, when I used Actual Defensive EPM along with minutes to make something like a "Defensive Estimated Wins", 4 of the top 5 were non-bigs, and Dyson wasn't even Top 2 among non-bigs (Amen & Dunn were).

It's possible he's essentially just chopping anyone out who didn't play more than a certain threshold of minutes, but if that's what he's doing, then he's chopping out top perimeter players and then saying "See, it's just bigs, Thompson & Daniels", which I think undermine his point.

Still, Amen seems like a pretty compelling candidate for me - and I'll note that he topped that tally I gave earlier, while also being seen in general as tied with his twin for the best athlete in the game right now. Could wash away in the playoffs with Draymond stomping him, but right now? Yeah, I can see it.

Dyson? Eh, I'm just really hesitant to go for a guy on an outright ineffective defensive team that literally has a better DRtg when he's on the bench. Maybe he really is the best defender of the year - it's a team game and lineup pairings matter - but we really cannot say we've seen doing his thing in an extremely successful context, and thieves are often fool's gold.

[jalengreen]

Rough estimates for top 10 d-LEBRON WAR along with the defensive role classification BBall Index includes

1. Ivica Zubac (Anchor Big)
2. Rudy Gobert (Anchor Big)
3. Draymond Green (Mobile Big)
4. Jarrett Allen (Mobile Big)
5. Dyson Daniels (Point of Attack)
6. Amen Thompson (Point of Attack)
7. Josh Hart (Helper)
8. Jaden McDaniels (Point of Attack)
9. Evan Mobley (Mobile Big)
10. Bam Adebayo (Mobile Big)

I don't feel beholden to any particular stat, but I gotta say, I've always preferred the vibes of d-LEBRON over d-EPM. Just hard for me to see the top three defenders in the league on a rate basis being perimeter guys, which is what d-EPM suggests. d-LEBRON goes the other direction as its top 25 (rate basis, not filtering by minutes) has just two guards - maybe too extreme? Unsure

[AEnigma]

^ Those are not the values I get? Draymond’s D-LEBRON is 2.42 and his minutes are 1983; Zubac’s D-LEBRON is 1.76 and his minutes are 2624; and Gobert’s D-LEBRON is 1.85 and his minutes are 2388.

EDIT: Explanation given below.

[Doctor MJ]

Rough estimates for top 10 d-LEBRON WAR along with the defensive role classification BBall Index includes

1. Ivica Zubac (Anchor Big)
2. Rudy Gobert (Anchor Big)
3. Draymond Green (Mobile Big)
4. Jarrett Allen (Mobile Big)
5. Dyson Daniels (Point of Attack)
6. Amen Thompson (Point of Attack)
7. Josh Hart (Helper)
8. Jaden McDaniels (Point of Attack)
9. Evan Mobley (Mobile Big)
10. Bam Adebayo (Mobile Big)

I don't feel beholden to any particular stat, but I gotta say, I've always preferred the vibes of d-LEBRON over d-EPM. Just hard for me to see the top three defenders in the league on a rate basis being perimeter guys, which is what d-EPM suggests. d-LEBRON goes the other direction as its top 25 (rate basis, not filtering by minutes) has just two guards - maybe too extreme? Unsure

First, thank you so much for sharing! I'd love to do a group analysis of the best of these competing tools and try to figure out how to most reasonably proceed in their usage.

Second, I'll say that this seems more aligned with how I generally see things.

However, I will say I that while I completely see the value in the concept of role adjustment when doing prediction in general, I'm not sure I think it's appropriate for crediting past performances in a discussion like this one.

Let's consider for example: Zubac is an Anchor Big while Amen is Point of Attack.

Is it misguided of me to be concerned that potentially in their role-adjusted PIPM that a block by an Anchor Big man might effectively end up being weighted to be worth more than a bloc from a Point of Attack? Such a factor could literally mean that Zubac gets more credit from his lesser BPG than Amen gets for more, does that seem right to others? I'm not comfortable with it.

Incidentally, I have similar concerns about luck-adjustment. I get it in principle, but the devil is in the details.

[Doctor MJ]

^ Those are not the values I get? Draymond’s D-LEBRON is 2.42 and his minutes are 1983; Zubac’s D-LEBRON is 1.76 and his minutes are 2624; and Gobert’s D-LEBRON is 1.85 and his minutes are 2388.

Haven't done the math, but definitely see where you're getting the numbers you are. Seems like Draymond should be ahead there.

[jalengreen]

Assuming you two are alluding to multiplying D-LEBRON by Minutes? This would not give you the "AR" part of WAR because replacement level is not 0, it is -2.7.

So if you add 2.7 to each player's D-LEBRON and then multiply that by their minutes, then I have the ordering as Zubac > Gobert > Draymond.

Suppose one could then question why we're going off of replacement level, but that's just what the site is doing for WAR so I stuck with it.

(Let me know if I incorrectly assumed)

[eminence]

^ Those are not the values I get? Draymond’s D-LEBRON is 2.42 and his minutes are 1983; Zubac’s D-LEBRON is 1.76 and his minutes are 2624; and Gobert’s D-LEBRON is 1.85 and his minutes are 2388.

Hypothetically those D-LEBRON numbers (2.42, etc) are above *average* and they calculated value above *replacement*. Depends where they set replacement.

Or it could be a mistake, or something else. I should really let them answer...

Edit: Whoops, they did. And wow, the LEBRON folks set defensive replacement level at -2.7? That seems extremely low.

[AEnigma]

Assuming you two are alluding to multiplying D-LEBRON by Minutes? This would not give you the "AR" part of WAR because replacement level is not 0, it is -2.7.

So if you add 2.7 to each player's D-LEBRON and then multiply that by their minutes, then I have the ordering as Zubac > Gobert > Draymond.

Suppose one could then question why we're going off of replacement level, but that's just what the site is doing for WAR so I stuck with it.

(Let me know if I incorrectly assumed)

Thank you for explaining the approach.

[jalengreen]

^ Those are not the values I get? Draymond’s D-LEBRON is 2.42 and his minutes are 1983; Zubac’s D-LEBRON is 1.76 and his minutes are 2624; and Gobert’s D-LEBRON is 1.85 and his minutes are 2388.

Hypothetically those D-LEBRON numbers (2.42, etc) are above *average* and they calculated value above *replacement*. Depends where they set replacement.

Or it could be a mistake, or something else. I should really let them answer...

Edit: Whoops, they did. And wow, the LEBRON folks set defensive replacement level at -2.7? That seems extremely low, I was going to guess -1 to -1.5 or so.

Oops, that was a mistake in explaining it on my part. -2.7 is their overall replacement level. Same ordering for the 3 when you use something like -1 for defense specifically though. No idea what their defensive replacement level is (or if they even have one, given that d-LEBRON WAR isn't something they report). I just guessed tbh, so fair warning there, but using 1 vs 1.5 doesn't have any significant effect on the top 10 anyway (Hart/McDaniels and Daniels/Allen switch places is all I can see) so it should be a *decent* estimate.

[Doctor MJ]

Assuming you two are alluding to multiplying D-LEBRON by Minutes? This would not give you the "AR" part of WAR because replacement level is not 0, it is -2.7.

So if you add 2.7 to each player's D-LEBRON and then multiply that by their minutes, then I have the ordering as Zubac > Gobert > Draymond.

Suppose one could then question why we're going off of replacement level, but that's just what the site is doing for WAR so I stuck with it.

(Let me know if I incorrectly assumed)

I love that you're thinking about the true replacement level.

Question: How was the replacement level defined?

[jalengreen]

Assuming you two are alluding to multiplying D-LEBRON by Minutes? This would not give you the "AR" part of WAR because replacement level is not 0, it is -2.7.

So if you add 2.7 to each player's D-LEBRON and then multiply that by their minutes, then I have the ordering as Zubac > Gobert > Draymond.

Suppose one could then question why we're going off of replacement level, but that's just what the site is doing for WAR so I stuck with it.

(Let me know if I incorrectly assumed)

I love that you're thinking about the true replacement level.

Question: How was the replacement level defined?

They say the replacement level of -2.7 is the "estimated LEBRON for a G-League replacement added to the roster", nothing I see beyond that

As for what you said earlier about role adjustments, it's not entirely clear to me what role the player classifications play in the calculation. Definitely a good thought and now I wish I knew more about the methodology.

They mention using offensive roles to help w/ stabilizing box score priors:

Stabilization

To deal with smaller minute players from previous year and better process data for future seasons to help determine if high performance on a small sample is noise or real, we’ll be stabilizing/padding data by combining a technique outlined by Kostya Medvedovsky here with our Offensive Archetypes, which label players based on their jobs on offense.

What this approach does is determine the volume at which each box score statistic stabilizes (and becomes a good indicator of performance rather than noise). A tiny sample of outlier performance won’t get the math’s full buy-in, but sustained performance over a higher sample will be respected by the math.

Incorporating role allows us to treat the expected values component of that math with a bit more common sense. An Off-Screen Shooter, operating via pin downs and flare screens often for 3-point looks, won’t use the same average value in their calculations as a Roll & Cut Big, who does their work at the rim and rarely (if ever) takes 3-point shots.

Through these techniques, we’ll end up with a stabilized and role-adjusted version of boxPIPM as our box score prior.

It only mentions offense so unclear if it's doing what you referenced, by applying the defensive roles to defensive box score stats. I imagine it wouldn't affect much in this discussion specifically because we're not talking about any lower minute players, but regardless it's definitely something to consider with the metric anyway.

[eminence]

^ Those are not the values I get? Draymond’s D-LEBRON is 2.42 and his minutes are 1983; Zubac’s D-LEBRON is 1.76 and his minutes are 2624; and Gobert’s D-LEBRON is 1.85 and his minutes are 2388.

Hypothetically those D-LEBRON numbers (2.42, etc) are above *average* and they calculated value above *replacement*. Depends where they set replacement.

Or it could be a mistake, or something else. I should really let them answer...

Edit: Whoops, they did. And wow, the LEBRON folks set defensive replacement level at -2.7? That seems extremely low, I was going to guess -1 to -1.5 or so.

Oops, that was a mistake in explaining it on my part. -2.7 is their overall replacement level. Same ordering for the 3 when you use something like -1 for defense specifically though. No idea what their defensive replacement level is (or if they even have one, given that d-LEBRON WAR isn't something they report). I just guessed tbh, so fair warning there, but using 1 vs 1.5 doesn't have any significant effect on the top 10 anyway (Hart/McDaniels and Daniels/Allen switch places is all I can see) so it should be a *decent* estimate.

Mmkay, that all makes sense now. Good stuff.

I'd lean towards -1. Deep bench/replacement players that teams actually bring in tend to skew defensive (makes sense, I'm looking for a third stringer to not screw things up, not to do anything meaningful on offense).

Also some mumbo jumbo about bad young players skewing general replacement level lower than it *could* be in the NBA. A team wanting to win now can get a higher level replacement than the actual worst players in the league because the worst players in the league are (mostly) a bunch of young guys that teams are hoping will turn into something more down the line.