Retro POY '85-86 (Voting Complete)

[JordansBulls]

So far I've got:

1. Bird
2. Magic
3. Dominique
4. Kareem
5. Moncrief

Explain to me how both Magic and Kareem make your list and Hakeem does not when Hakeem took them out in the WCF as a major upset?

[semi-sentient]

Yeah, I think Hakeem has to be in the mix somewhere. Really, I think the top 3 are pretty easily Bird, Magic, and Hakeem. After that is where it gets very difficult because there are 5 or 6 players battling for the final 2 spots, and each of them has a great argument.

[bastillon]

I'm sorry not to have been able to participate in the recent votings. anyway:

1.Bird
2.Olajuwon
3.Magic
4.Barkley
5.Moncrief

[tha_rock220]

1. Bird
2. Magic
3. Hakeem
4. Kareem
5. Wilkins

KAJ got exposed this season. In the playoffs he was totally outmatched by the Rockets front line or I would have put him over Hakeem. I don't like volume scorers who do little else so I didn't really want to put 'Nique on my list, but it was either him or Dantley, and the Hawks at least won 50 games.

[ronnymac2]

Great articles. I still want to do a little more research on Magic and Hakeem outside of the WCF, but seeing that Magic really played well....I think he'll be my number two. Dream will be number three. Nobody is really close to him at this point.

Bird is number one. I remember Magic learned different post moves going into 87 and became a better player. I think Magic and Bird at their respective peaks are equal. This is Bird's peak. That means Bird gets the edge this year as a player, and seeing as how he won all the tiebreakers, Bird is number one.

Jordan missing THAT many games is a bit too much. He may get a weird HM for that insane playoff performance. If he had played 40 more games, he'd have the number four spot wrapped up. Maybe even three.

The others in contention are Barkley, Kareem, Moncrief, Nique, English, and Isiah Thomas. Moses had the injury and missed the playoffs, so he is out.


I'm sorry if I just haven't noticed the name, but I don't see Isiah Thomas in contention for people here. How is that possible? How? Isiah isn't somebody you can ignore this year. He had one of his best regular season, and then in typical fashion upped his game in the playoffs. I'm not saying I'm voting for him, but he NEEDS to be seriously looked at here.

[sp6r=underrated]

I have my top 3 set after reading through all those articles.

Bird: Larry was the consensus best player in the regular season this year. He led the Celtics to a historic season. Then, he had a great PS.
Magic: The articles make clear to me that even if Hakeem marginally outplayed him, and I don't think that is at all certain, he still over the season was the second best player. I also think this was a season were people didn't recognize how the lakers were truly Magic's team.
Hakeem: easy third choice.

[ElGee]

Sorry a little late on these - forgot to post them this morning. Apologies if there's any overlap - haven't finished all the posted articles yet.

First Round:

PRO BASKETBALL—In Eastern Conference quarterfinal playoff action, Boston thrashed Chicago 122-104 for a three-game sweep of the Bulls. The Celtics held Michael Jordan—who averaged 56 points in the previous two games—to 19 points. Jordan's 131 points broke Wilt Chamberlain's 26-year-old playoff record of 116 points for a three-game series. Detroit, down 2-0, held Dominique Wilkins to 21 points and won Game 3 106-97 to stay alive in its best-of-five series with Atlanta. But Wilkins came back to score 38 points in Game 4, and Spud Webb sank a pair of free throws with three seconds on the clock to give the Hawks a series-clinching 114-113 win. Boston beat Atlanta 103-91 to take the lead in their best-of-seven semifinal opener. New Jersey, leading Milwaukee at the half after scoring 73 points, blew the lead (18 points), the game (118-113) and the series (3-0). Philadelphia, tied 1-1 with Washington at the start of the week, topped the Bullets 91-86, but the return of Jeff Ruland, who had been out since mid-March after arthroscopic surgery on his left knee, lifted Washington to a 116-111 series-tying victory. The Sixers then took the series, trouncing the Bullets 134-109 in the final game (page 50). Rookie Terry Catledge, subbing at center for Moses Malone, who will be out the rest of the season, scored 27 points. Philadelphia will face Milwaukee in an Eastern Conference semifinal. In the West, the Lakers wrapped up their quarterfinal series in three straight by defeating San Antonio in the clincher 114-94. Magic Johnson set a new three-game playoff record with 48 assists for Los Angeles, which achieved its victories by an average margin of 32 points. The Lakers then met up with Dallas, which had eliminated Utah in four games, and in their semifinal opener in L.A. on Sunday beat the Mavericks 130-116. Denver won twice and ousted Portland three games to one. Houston's Ralph Sampson and Lewis Lloyd each scored 25 points in a 113-98 win over Sacramento to eliminate the Kings in three straight. The Rockets won their semifinal series opener against the Nuggets 126-119, thanks to Akeem Olajuwon's 38 points and 16 rebounds.

76ers: (full article here http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm)

The 76ers as overachievers seems a quaint notion, but it's an accurate one. Philadelphia needed five games to eliminate the Washington Bullets in the NBA's most competitive first-round series, the decisive win coming in decisive fashion, 134-109, on Sunday at the Spectrum. It's hard to say whether the clincher was the result of the Sixers' reaching down deep or the Bullets' not even bothering to stoop. The Sixers led 40-22 after one period and finished up by biting the Bullets on the break (42 points to 10), on blocked shots (13-5) and on the boards (49-42 and 255-192 in rebounds for the series). The total team effort (seven players in double figures, eight with three or more rebounds) may well have signaled the Sixers' readiness for Milwaukee, which won four of five regular-season meetings.

At the very least, Philadelphia hardly looked like a team that had lost players for a combined 119 games to a variety of injuries during the season, but it made sweet use of its adversity. Here's how:

Toney's six-game season was a nightmare, what with stress fractures of both feet, surgery to remove bone spurs from his left foot, surgery to repair a twist in his spermatic cord and an ongoing feud with management, which treated him, in Toney's words, "like raw meat." But in his absence, Maurice Cheeks, who this season became only the sixth guard to lead the NBA in minutes played, turned shootist. His 15.4 average was two points higher than his previous season best and four points higher than his career average. He was even better against the Bullets, scoring 21 per game, second only to Charles Barkley's 21.4. (If Cheeks hasn't recovered from the ankle sprain he suffered in the fourth quarter on Sunday—team officials said Monday that Cheeks would play in the first game—the Sixers can forget about beating Milwaukee.) And, save for a late-season slump, Threatt was a treat for the Sixers with his on-the-move jumper, which produced 9.9 points a game.

Erving's scoring average, never below 20 points in nine previous NBA seasons, dipped to 18.1, and he had a career low of 5.0 rebounds. Reason? The man turned 36 in February. But Doc's diminishing light was simply refracted to Barkley (20 points, 12.8 rebounds), and surely no one disputes Jones when he says, "Charles is the heart of this team right now."

Dominique (full article touting his MVP-ness here http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm)

Well, wonder of wonders, deep into April the name of Dominique Wilkins is still on everyone's lips. After winning the NBA's regular-season scoring championship with a 30.3 average, Wilkins scored 28 and 50 points last week as the Hawks whipped the visiting Pistons 140-122 and 137-125 in what was supposed to be the most evenly contested of the NBA's first-round miniseries. One more win and the Hawks would advance to the second round for the first time since the 1978-79 season, when Wilkins was a high-flying senior for the Washington ( N.C.) High School Pam-Pack.

What was most impressive about Wilkins' 50-point performance, the first in the playoffs since Bob McAdoo scored that many for Buffalo in 1975, was that his 19 field goals did not include a single dunk. (The next day, Chicago's Michael Jordan reached the 50 mark and then some with a playoff-record 63 against Boston, page 32.) There were square-up jumpers, post-up jumpers, jumpers off the break and jumpers off moves in the lane, but no dunks. A dunkless

Mid-season piece about the strength of the 86 Celtics: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

Fun 1-pager from McCallum entitled "Rockets have no chance" against LA:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

And then this 3-games later, highlighting Akeem's dominance:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

One-pager about what Boston did to Milwaukee: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

McCallum's recap of the Finals:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm

[Doctor MJ]

I'm sorry if I just haven't noticed the name, but I don't see Isiah Thomas in contention for people here. How is that possible? How? Isiah isn't somebody you can ignore this year. He had one of his best regular season, and then in typical fashion upped his game in the playoffs. I'm not saying I'm voting for him, but he NEEDS to be seriously looked at here.

Honestly, he seems like someone I wouldn't be surprised if he got a few points, but not someone who I'd think was a must top contender for everyone. He's got a worse RS PER than everyone else mention except Moncrief, and Moncrief was close, plus a better defender, leading a more successful team. In the post-season, he put up big volume numbers with terrible efficiency en route to a first round exit.

Again, I can see him getting in the top 5 on some ballots, but are there guys who've been mentioned here who you think are easily worse than Isiah?

[ronnymac2]

^^^Ehh....I see Moncrief as a "he won't hurt his team, but he won't take the big chances to push you over the top" type of player. I think that is a good quality to have if you are a superstar, and Isiah had it. Barkley is a young guy who makes a ton of mistakes. Nique...ehh, I'd rather have Isiah.

Isiah was all-nba first team and was top 10 in MVP shares, PER, apg, and spg. That's a nice amount of stats/accolades.


I'm confident with my first three picks. Those will not change. My last two are subject to change.

Larry Bird
Magic Johnson
Hakeem Olajuwon
Isiah Thomas
Dominique Wilkins

I don't think Jabbar could carry a full load throughout a season at this point. His rebounding is pedestrian, too. He came close though. He's like 06 Shaq at this point imo.

Barkley came really close. Nique wins tiebreakers- basically, better accolades, PER, and a scoring title. 2nd in MVP voting, too.

Alex English had a great year as well.

Moncrief came really close. It's basically the Barkley situation. This is one I want to look at further if possible.

[Manuel Calavera]

I've changed my votes a bit, I think I was overrating Moncrief a bit, but who can blame me.

1. Bird
2. Magic
3. Dominique
4. Kareem
5. Hakeem

I'm not set with any of this though, I'm just not being swayed at all to change it much. Right now Bird is the easy #1, but the next 4 I'm flip flopping. I'm trying to be more consistent now with how I vote in this and from now on my criteria will only be:

Which player would I pick to contribute to a team knowing how the player will perform in the regular season, against certain opponents in the playoffs, and getting injured/suspended for whatever amount of time.

I also don't like to evaluate players by saying things like "each playoff game should count twice as much as the regular season" or something to that effect. The regular season is a totally different animal than the playoffs and should be evaluated completely differently. In the regular season the player plays 82 games spread out across every team, statistically you get little noise and a wide range of opponents making a nice spread that gives a good idea on how a player performs on a regular basis against the average opponent. Still certain things need to be taken into account like if your franchise is falling a part of a coach gets fired mid season or something like that.

However, the playoffs are completely different. Here you play a 5 to 7 game series against one opponent and that changes the way you evaluate players. I like to use simple math to explain concepts that might be hard to explain in words so that's what I'll do right now:

I've used the God Index number before, so if you don't remember it was a "perfect" stat that encapsulated everything about an NBA player giving a completely unbiased reflection on the player. But here's another made up stat, the reverse God Index number, and this I will say is the ability for a team to stop ONE SPECIFIC PLAYER (meaning the reverse God Index is different for the same team if we look at two different opposing players - not sure if that made sense). So for the example I was going to use, let's say there's a Player A and a Player B that each have a God Index of 10, they both make the playoffs. According to some peoples logic if Player A encounters a team that has a reverse God Index of 50 and Player B encounters a team with a reverse God Index of 5 and Player A's team gets swept (and Player A performs extremely poorly) and conversely Player B's team sweeps (and Player B performs extremely well) then Player B is the superior player for that season. But why? The God Index says they're basically the same player, it's only because one player had the unfortunate luck of playing a team that was geared to stop him that they lost and the other player won. In a vacuum, this doesn't make sense and a lot of the posts defending certain players rely on this faulty logic. The problem I'm really having are the people that say that because of this logic that Player A would be mentally weak or that he failed to elevate his game in the playoffs, all because the other team was geared to stop him. I can believe that sometimes a player might fall victim to choking but it gets way overblown. I might sometimes also believe that a player can increase his production in the playoffs because he was conserving his energy during the RS (like Duncan does year in and year out).

When you look at the playoffs I think you really need to reserve judgement on preliminary statistics or outcomes of games until you really analyze the series on a case by case basis. I don't have a ton of time to analyze each year (especially since I didn't watch the NBA back then) but I am reading every post and so far I'm still flip flopping on some things:

1. I don't see any reason to doc Dominique's placement for his playoff performance when he played the best defensive team in the league for 5 of the 9 games. I haven't seen it be touched on that much though.

2. Houston's 2-4 seems to have substantially outplayed the Lakers 2-4, but that's just my impression from the articles I read. It also seemed like the series was basically played 2 on 1 with Sampson and Hakeem versus Kareem. Kareem still played excellently though, and the article even says that Houston knew they were playing the best center in the league.

[JordansBulls]

I just don't see how you can put both Magic and Kareem over Hakeem when Hakeem took them out as a heavy underdog. You may be able to put one of them above Hakeem, but both of them do not have a case over him.

[bastillon]

Kareem at this point rebounded like Rashard Lewis and his defense was like Bynum post-injury. that's hardly a TOP10 player. perfect example of Magic making his teammate look far better than he actually was.

1. I don't see any reason to doc Dominique's placement for his playoff performance when he played the best defensive team in the league for 5 of the 9 games. I haven't seen it be touched on that much though.

excellent. why don't you give Hakeem the same benefit of the doubt as he dominated against the Celtics, despite them being still a great defensive team and actually triple teaming him every time down ? I suppose being guarded by Bird is more impressive than being guarded by Walton, McHale or Parish with DJ coming down too.

2. Houston's 2-4 seems to have substantially outplayed the Lakers 2-4, but that's just my impression from the articles I read. It also seemed like the series was basically played 2 on 1 with Sampson and Hakeem versus Kareem. Kareem still played excellently though, and the article even says that Houston knew they were playing the best center in the league.

having watched the series recently, Kareem didn't play well at all. Rockets just pounded offensive glass and dominated interior on both ends of the floor. Kareem looked like a toy out there, because as was often the case in the 80s, he couldn't get a rebound to save his life. actually Sampson might have been a better player than Kareem in that series. had it not been for Magic's excellence, they'd hardly come close to win one game.

Barkley came really close. Nique wins tiebreakers- basically, better accolades, PER, and a scoring title. 2nd in MVP voting, too.

Barkley's RS value is lowered because of Moses' presence. don't you think he was basically the same player he was year later etc ? after all, 25-16-5.6 in the playoffs, without Moses... nasty. Barkley is getting terribly overlooked here. Nique shouldn't be in the same sentence after he choked away the playoffs.

[Doctor MJ]

Hey, officially pushing back the deadline because I won't be able to tally the votes until the evening.

And remember, we're on break this weekend.

[Doctor MJ]

My probable vote:

1. Bird
2. Hakeem
3. Magic
4. Barkley
5. Nique

Bird's the obvious #1.

Magic vs Hakeem for #2. Basically using the upset win as the tiebreaker. To be clear though, Hakeem "moving" above Magic this year has more to do with Magic not rating as highly as his amazing '86-87 than any change in Hakeem.

I'll go with Barkley at #4. Such a beast to be able to come in and in a lot of ways just make Moses look like his poor man version. I know we're technically talking about post-prime Moses, but his numbers weren't dropping off dramatically. It's becoming clear to me that Barkley's someone who gets short-changed by the way this metric is because of how he regularly missed time in the regular season - glad not to have to knock him for that this year.

I'll give Nique the 5 spot, but not enthusiastically. Not a huge fan of the not-so-efficient volume scorer. However, it is possible to get that great volume/efficiency and not show any big positive impact on team results (Dantley), and Wilkins once again led a winner. I don't feel comfortable moving any one else ahead of him.

Honorable Mention:

McHale - Huge contribution to an all-time great team.

Moncrief - Still would like more discussion about the guy, but for him to have such "smart" numbers on offense, and with such tremendous defense leading a great team impresses the hell out of me.

Isiah - I can see the argument for him in the top 5. Where I run into problems with him is that he often acts like what I don't like about Nique (poor efficiency), but I consider this an even worse flaw in a point guard. This doesn't mean I don't think he's elite, but I don't think we'd look at him as orders of magnitude better than Wilkins if not for the later title runs.

Kareem - His last elite year.

English - Tempted to put Dantley here, or even higher, but I'm just blown away by how consistently throughout his career he put up great numbers, and his team and his team's offense didn't seem to benefit. English was a guy capable of being the primary scorer on all-time great level offenses, and he was still doing his thing this year.

[Gongxi]

I thought I need at first, but then you started listing random peaks?

Don't drink and post, people.

Real vote:

1- Larry Bird
2- Magic Johnson
3- Isiah Thomas
4- Hakeem Olajuwon
5- Dominique Wilkins

[mysticbb]

Stats for 85-86:

Code: Select all

Rk Player                 PER  WS   ON   SUM
1  Larry Bird            24.9 20.9 10.7 56.5
2  Magic Johnson         24.6 15.9  7.9 48.4
3  Kevin McHale          21.4 14.5  8.6 44.5
4  Hakeem Olajuwon       24.9 14.2  4.3 43.3
5  Adrian Dantley        24.6 12.8  3.1 40.5
6  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar   22.2 12.0  5.6 39.8
7  Charles Barkley       22.9 13.3  3.5 39.7
8  Sidney Moncrief       18.1 10.6  4.5 33.1
9  James Worthy          18.0  9.7  5.3 33.1
10 Kiki Vandeweghe       19.7 10.7  2.1 32.5
11 Dominique Wilkins     21.6  9.7  0.9 32.2
12 Moses Malone          20.6  8.9  2.1 31.6
13 Isiah Thomas          21.2  8.8  0.8 30.8
14 Alex English          20.4  9.8  0.5 30.7
15 Larry Nance           20.5  8.4  0.2 29.1
16 Terry Cummings        18.4  8.1  2.3 28.8
17 Mike Gminski          18.7  9.1  0.0 27.9
18 Alvin Robertson       19.6  8.3 -0.1 27.8
19 Ralph Sampson         17.8  8.3  1.7 27.8
20 Michael Jordan        28.7  2.3 -4.2 26.9


Bird ahead of Magic, after that McHale with the 3rd highest value. I will still give Hakeem Olajuwon the nod over McHale. I will also put Barkley over Dantley. To me Dantley never was a high impact player. Moncrief had not so good playoffs, that knocks him off too much, unfortunately, otherwise he would have been a good choice for the 5th spot (at least imho). McHale over Barkley might be questionable, because I had Barkley in my 2nd tier and McHale as 3rd tier. Wilkins is completely off, the difference is just WAY too much here.

Vote:

1. Larry Bird
2. Magic Johnson
3. Hakeem Olajuwon
4. Kevin McHale
5. Charles Barkley

[kaima]

^^^Ehh....I see Moncrief as a "he won't hurt his team, but he won't take the big chances to push you over the top" type of player. I think that is a good quality to have if you are a superstar, and Isiah had it. Barkley is a young guy who makes a ton of mistakes. Nique...ehh, I'd rather have Isiah.

Isiah was all-nba first team and was top 10 in MVP shares, PER, apg, and spg. That's a nice amount of stats/accolades.

The points listed for Isiah are parallel to, broadly, the average prime Stockton season. I didn't see him getting many votes, or much consideration, even, so...I don't see why I should be impressed with Isiah to great degree. Certainly very few seemed swayed by Stockton's clockwork ability year in and year out on the above standards, including me (and you).

Rather reminds me of ESPN panels being awed at Nash's 15, 11 and 50+% on FGs as a PG back in 2005, as if we hadn't seen this or better for a about a decade from a recently-retired PG that faced tougher defenses. All of is of the moment -- which might mean that Isiah's best argument is weakened competition between years.

Isiah also was a pretty mediocre defender, which only further raises my questions about him contrasted to what eventually made his team so successful. A name like Dumars jumps out.

[bastillon]

Rather reminds me of ESPN panels being awed at Nash's 15, 11 and 50+% on FGs as a PG back in 2005, as if we hadn't seen this or better for a about a decade from a recently-retired PG that faced tougher defenses. All of is of the moment -- which might mean that Isiah's best argument is weakened competition between years.

lol, nobody was awed by his boxscore numbers. it was all about making teammates better, always.

[kaima]

Rather reminds me of ESPN panels being awed at Nash's 15, 11 and 50+% on FGs as a PG back in 2005, as if we hadn't seen this or better for a about a decade from a recently-retired PG that faced tougher defenses. All of is of the moment -- which might mean that Isiah's best argument is weakened competition between years.

lol, nobody was awed by his boxscore numbers. it was all about making teammates better, always.

Then you didn't watch some of those ESPN segments. Which probably makes you smarter by default, specified to context.

Which is all I was talking about, natch.

As far as the 'making his teammates better' meme, that's not something that raises Nash above the competition mentioned, either.

I remember more than one media (insert descriptor)head arguing that a vote for Nash was a "vote for Zeke, Stockton and GP", only to later point out that those MVPs somehow proved Nash's superiority, either contextually or altogether, to those aforementioned players.

This isn't so much an attack on Nash, but instead annoyance with the media's ADD-driven zeitgeist-push; that is, propaganda and personality-worship in place of honest or coherent longform narratives.

Occam's razor: Marc Stein is a hack.

Of course, this post has now inspired me to seek out some articles from the 1986 playoffs. So much for coherence.

[kaima]

Decided to create a separate thread for articles, as they arguably take up too much room contrasted to the purpose or attempt at debate.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1023664