Retro Player of the Year 1985-86 UPDATE — Hakeem Olajuwon

[Paulluxx9000]

1 Hakeem
2 Magic
3 Larry Bird
4 Barkley
5 Kevin Mchale
And here’s a big man. Best defender. One of the best offensive players in the league. Maybe even top 3 in the playoffs.
Hakeem Olajuwon isn’t perfect. Definitely not this young. He has a perchance for dumb fouls, overhelping, ill-advised shots, all that jazz. But there’s no one else in the league who blends offensive threat, and defensive dynamism like he does and he had himself a dream (heh) of a playoff run. Sampson played great those playoffs (at least before the finals)), key guys stepped up, but this was Hakeem’s show and that show bulldozed the west while holding itself pretty well against a proper superteam even with the key guys went off-key.
I think Magic is better (that isn’t shade, I just think he’s the best)) but Hakeem’s an all-time guy himself and when rubber met road he took a convincing victory with pieces that were ordinarily ordinary playing great two way basketball on both ends of the floor. It’s tragic how Houston wasted him. I think Olajuwon’s sophomore year might be remembered as an omen instead of a flash if that front office wasn’t so aggressively incompetent.
He’s HOU’s best scorer, playmaker (yes, even with those eh assist numbers)), man defender, rim-protector. Doing all that for a good team is admirable. Doing it for a team that interrupted showtime before scaring one of the best teams ever? I think that deserves a #1.
Bird wins and moves down?!? Look, fair is fair. Just like I don’t move Bird below players he’s better than just because player this or that was better in this way or that way over a few games, I’m not going to move Bird above players he’s worse than just because he won. And it really would just be winning. Magic was better against the Rockets. Hakeem was better sharing the same court.
Don’t get me wrong, Bird is really good. But those two are above his paygrade.
Philly Barkley is underrated. Very efficient scorer, better passer than you’d think, adds a lot on the boards. Not a defender despite the the block numbers but neither is the guy above.
Mchale is a bit disrespected these days. He didn’t have the gaudiest stats but he was the Celtics swiss-army knife. He was both Bird and Parishes backup, while also starting and having a role alongside them. He didn’t quite shoot or pass like Bird, but did everything else and wasn’t a scrub at those things either. I think you can even say he played better than Bird in the final. Good at everything on defense(I’m a little higher on him than other people though), good at everything on offense except passing, just a reliable guy who came through when you needed him to.

[One_and_Done]

Maybe Bird was really the best but I can't just go off you saying he is.

This has been my biggest frustration with this year. I think it is fine to take the “MVP + Finals MVP = RPoY” approach. For the most part, that will not garner too much opposition; the by far worst example of that is 1970 Willis Reed, and he is still a reasonable choice.

… But for a discussion to have enduring value, it cannot just be that. That approach says nothing about the game. It is one thing when we all collectively go that way in 1950 when no footage is available, but everyone here at minimum can watch Finals and conference finals games from this year. We can see what these players do and judge them ourselves without blindly relying on reputation or box scores or distant memories.

Despite that, I feel like the Bird arguments this year have been a retrain of what they were in 2010:

1. Bird -Obvious IMO

Bird is the obvious #1. By the end of '86 he was getting GOAT arguments, nearly averaged a triple double in the Finals.

Larry Bird is an easy choice at number one.

1. Larry Bird - Won League MVP and Finals MVP, Led the league in Win Shares and Win Shares PER 48 minutes and PER. Led in Win Shares in the playoffs and finished 2nd in Win Shares per 48 minutes and 4th in PER in the playoffs.

For all Bird's hype as the ultimate team player, I think this is the year where he superseded and thus extirpated his own cachet; he ruled the league, period.

The irony of Bird's dominance is, of course, that his team was stacked. Bird's presence was close to being bigger than the league, or its stand-in through personification, but for all his individual greatness this would have been likely a non-starter without that team.

Saw that with Jordan's frustrations, and how overlooked even Air could be when put on a lacking roster.

Context as conflation and, from that, confusion. Bird was Bird because of Boston, and vice versa. Simplified. Not altogether true, but partially so on perception.

No question, he was the man. Team helped to put him in position, but so few have ever excelled to such a level when given the opportunity.

Logo Redux. Either bigger than the league's image, or just that.

I see… basically no discussion of the basketball being played. This is by reputation one of the forum’s banner projects, and one which up to now has individually been immortalised more than any single Top 100 project, and all anyone can say about Bird are variations on “obvious #1, he was the man, nice box score on GOAT team.” Not every vote needs a high effort explanation, but if no one can even gesture at any real analysis, what exactly does that say about the true strength of that player’s case? This is not a random fifth place pity vote; this is “peak Larry Bird” (ostensibly). And no one voting him #1 has anything to say about what he was doing on the court relative to his competition?

Somehow the most affirmative Bird case we have thus far, across fifteen years of this project, is my tongue-in-cheek joke that Bird’s sheer presence could have conceivably made his entire team shoot and rebound better than the Lakers did with Magic. With that type of “support”, I am not surprised several voters feel disillusioned or outright dismissive of that type of treatment on a “player comparisons” board.

I think it’s fair to say some players are underdiscussed. I personally don’t feel like putting a huge chunk of my time into analysing players every vote, because I’ve done it in a lot of other threads and I don’t feel I’m going to persuade anyone among this tiny cluster of voters.

It’s not hard for us to wax lyrical about what Bird’s game “looked like”. There are good videos on this too (e.g. Thinking Basketball’s greatest peaks project). I agree with a lot of the sentiments that Bird is a little overrated, and that people are letting nostalgia blind them to his shortcomings. His prime isn’t very long (80-87), with 88 being a slightly sub-prime season, and that anything after that is just bonus value. That has to hurt him in comparisons with comparable sorts of players like Shaq or KG who have huge amounts of longevity. Bird’s physical limitations also had consequences in the playoffs, which is why he had some suboptimal performances over the years. Bird is not the playoff killer everyone remembers him to be, not all the time anyway.

However, Hakeem is overrated by a large segment of voters here too, who are too focused on what Hakeem became in 93-95, but was certainly not earlier in his career. I don’t feel the need to get into this in much depth, because I have spent pages and pages on it in previous threads that anyone here can check if they want to (including the top 100 project). Hakeem was not perceived as a top tier player in these earlier years, and many indicators support that (e.g. his team’s Drtg this year was not good), despite that supposedly being what he was bringing.

Bird is a great facilitator and passer, who is your offensive engine. Not just with scoring, but in so many other ways people have alluded to (e.g. screening, offball movement, co-ordinating everyone and knowing where guys were, keeping the ball moving, etc). That shows in the team’s Ortg and it’s the main way he was having this huge impact on the team results, best seen in the 1980 turnaround. Debating with Hakeem fans on this won’t work, because they don’t care about the lack of signal Hakeem has over his prime (pre 93), and are focused on an analysis that is either driven by advanced stats, or which goes something like “Bird was top tier on O, but bad on D, whereas Hakeem was top tier on D and still good on O, so he must be better”. That’s not how impact works. A guy can be bad on O or D, and still be more impactful. Either because the thing he was good at was just so huge it barely mattered for the most part, and/or because they have other things they’re bringing (e.g. floor game, intangibles, etc)

We can debate why Hakeem didn’t seem to have a Bird like impact for most of his prime, and the reasons will never be known for sure, but I have no doubt about what the outcome was. Hakeem is an easy player to enjoy. He was one of the GOAT defenders over his prime, with pogo stick like jumping in his youth. I’d have very few players over him defensively (Duncan for sure, and maybe a few others like D.Rob maybe). Offensively we all remember his amazing moves in the mid 90s when he was dream shaking his way to 2 titles. He was a great player, but for most of his career not as great as it seemed in that moment. Also not as great as he’d be if he had to play under modern rules, where he wouldn’t be protected by illegal D rules. Hakeem’s offensive and defensive awareness were limited in some ways, and that’s probably why we see some of his teams have poor Drtgs, or why the Sonics killed him in 93 and 96 with a defensive scheme that pushed the limits of illegal D rules. It’s also probably why his team’s generally underachieved, at least relative to a guy with his supposed profile (i.e. someone supposedly as good as guys like Bird or Duncan).

[Djoker]

VOTING POST

POY

1. Larry Bird - 1st Team All-NBA. MVP. Finals MVP. The post by One_and_Done above mine explained why Bird was so great outside of accolades. To me he's the best scorer in the league and combines it with elite passing. He creates a low viscosity offense by moving without the ball, spacing the floor and just making elite reads that most others simply can't dream of making. Bird doesn't just anchor a championship team but an all-time great juggernaut this year. Averaged 25.8/9.8/6.8 on 58.0 %TS (+3.9 rTS) in the RS then 25.9/9.3/8.2 on 61.5 %TS (+7.6 rTS) in the PS. For all the talk about how Bird doesn't raise his game in the PS, this is a perfect counterexample. His scoring efficiency and assists both go up considerably.

2. Hakeem Olajuwon - 2nd Team All-NBA. Merely a top 10 player in the RS before he exploded in the PS leading the Rockets to a great defense and a competent offense. Hakeem took them past the heavily favored Lakers while outplayed Kareem in the battle of big men. Defensively, Hakeem is so great and that's what propels him past a few the other men on this list who are all superior offensively to him due to largely his passing limitations. He took his scoring up in the PS but the efficiency was merely moderate as well. He averaged 23.5/11.5/2.0 on 56.0 %TS (+1.9 rTS) in the RS then 26.9/11.8/2.0 on 56.6 %TS (+3.6 rTS) in the PS. He is reaping the rewards of an amazing playoffs run here.

3. Magic Johnson - 1st Team All-NBA. With Kareem getting older, Magic was 1a) and his edge in minutes played over Kareem becomes a factor that gives him an edge in total impact. As always, Magic is an incredible offensive floor general anchoring the #1 offense. He averaged 18.8/5.9/12.6 on 61.0 %TS (+6.9 rTS) in the RS then 21.6/7.1/15.1 on 59.9 %TS (+5.5 rTS) in the PS. Getting upset by the Rockets in the WCF is a big reason Magic isn't higher.

4. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 1st Team All-NBA. The 39 year old was still the leading scorer and go-to guy when the Lakers needed a basket but he couldn't play the big minutes anymore despite being super productive when on the floor. He dominated Hakeem in the RS before the table turned in the PS and the Dream returned the favour. Kareem still upped his scoring volume significantly when it mattered and was an elite producer. Averaged 23.4/6.1/3.5 on 60.3 %TS (+6.2 rTS) in the RS then 25.9/5.9/3.5 on 58.6 %TS (+4.2 rTS) in the PS.

5. Kevin McHale - 1st Team All-Defense. The mighty Celtics' second in command was a formidable player. Unstoppable in the post with his fakes and up-and-under, McHale was also a stalwart defender and the Celtics' most impactful player on that end. Combine it with a marvelous PS with some seriously blistering scoring and bone-crunching D and he rounds out the ballot for me. Averaged 21.3/8.1/2.7 on 62.3 %TS (+8.2 rTS) in the RS then 24.9/8.6/2.7 on 63.6 %TS (+9.7 rTS) in the PS.

HM: Michael Jordan - fantastic/GOAT level shown against the monster Celtics and one can argue that if he's on a good team that makes the PS without him, he brings title equity as good as anyone but 64 missed games is a bit much and takes him off the list for this year.

OPOY

1. Larry Bird

2. Magic Johnson

3. Isiah Thomas - 1st Team All-NBA. A lesser version of Magic in that his scoring efficiency was poorer. Still an extremely potent floor general.

DPOY

1. Mark Eaton - Still the most insane shotblocker and paint presence in the league. Utah was #3 on defense.

2. Hakeem Olajuwon - Monster PS defensively brings him up here.

3. Kevin McHale - Anchored the #1 defense in the league in both the RS and the PS.

[AEnigma]

It’s not hard for us to wax lyrical about what Bird’s game “looked like”. There are good videos on this too (e.g. Thinking Basketball’s greatest peaks project).

Those are highlight reels, not game by game analysis. And the specific video you cited exalted 1986 Bird as the fifth highest peak ever. Neither of us come close to believing that is reflected in his play, so why cite it as a good example? Hell, why cite Ben Taylor at all when you vociferously disagree with him at pretty much every turn when it comes to Hakeem, and to Duncan, and frankly even to Bird in a broad sense (is Ben Taylor taking Luka or Giannis over Bird)? I know why: because in this particular moment it was convenient for you to do so.

However, Hakeem is overrated by a large segment of voters here too, who are too focused on what Hakeem became in 93-95, but was certainly not earlier in his career.

That is absolutely not what is happening throughout this thread.

I don’t feel the need to get into this in much depth, because I have spent pages and pages on it in previous threads that anyone here can check if they want to (including the top 100 project). Hakeem was not perceived as a top tier player in these earlier years, and many indicators support that (e.g. his team’s Drtg this year was not good), despite that supposedly being what he was bringing.

These are not good or relevant arguments, no, nor do they even engage with what has already been said in this thread.

1) As already stated, the point is not contemporary “perception” when we can perceive these games ourselves. Want to defer to voters on a large regular season sample, okay; I think that gives too much credit but it is fair to say most of us either have not seen or do not clearly remember the bulk of the regular season. That is not the case when playoff games are available.

2) As already stated, you freely disregard those perceptions when it suits you. Voters have a myriad of irrational biases, which you know, but when it comes to Hakeem those magically vanish.

3) As already stated, Hakeem was the league’s consensus best centre for three years after this, and second to Kareem this year — whom he then thoroughly outplayed in the postseason.

4) As already stated, “team d-rating” is a deeply unserious analytical approach, but for your benefit I go over this more later because of how desperately you insist on using it as a crutch.

5) As already stated, this is also yet another gesture to a (nonsensical) principle which you only apply when convenient and disregard when inconvenient.

6) And speaking of selective application, he was recognised as the league’s best defensive centre the following two years, its second best defensive centre last year, and its third best defensive centre this year (behind Manute Bol, who very evidently only received that recognition because of his gaudy block totals). No one at the time thought, “gee, if only his team’s defensive ratings were better.”

Bird is a great facilitator and passer, who is your offensive engine. Not just with scoring, but in so many other ways people have alluded to (e.g. screening, offball movement, co-ordinating everyone and knowing where guys were, keeping the ball moving, etc). That shows in the team’s Ortg

Which was third in the league (despite Magic missing several games) and worse than it was last year.

and it’s the main way he was having this huge impact on the team results, best seen in the 1980 turnaround.

So a citation to a 1980 WOWY result; very compelling in 1986.

Debating with Hakeem fans on this won’t work, because they don’t care about the lack of signal Hakeem has over his prime (pre 93),

This is also absolutely not what has not been happening in this thread. At this point I must question whether you are even reading anyone’s posts. It is you who seems entirely stuck on one far removed year, and you who is forcing arbitrary narratives on prime — “Hakeem’s prime was only 1993 through 1995, but Bird’s prime ended immediately before his offensive peak and conveniently right before his weaker signals.”

and are focused on an analysis that is either driven by advanced stats, or which goes something like “Bird was top tier on O, but bad on D, whereas Hakeem was top tier on D and still good on O, so he must be better”. That’s not how impact works. A guy can be bad on O or D, and still be more impactful. Either because the thing he was good at was just so huge it barely mattered for the most part, and/or because they have other things they’re bringing (e.g. floor game, intangibles, etc)

This describes one poster who does not even have a vote, and this description does not actually offer anything beyond gestures at a hypothetical alternate interpretation.

We can debate why Hakeem didn’t seem to have a Bird like impact for most of his prime, and the reasons will never be known for sure, but I have no doubt about what the outcome was. Hakeem is an easy player to enjoy. He was one of the GOAT defenders over his prime, with pogo stick like jumping in his youth. I’d have very few players over him defensively (Duncan for sure, and maybe a few others like D.Rob maybe).

I do not think that is well reflected in the film at all, but for 1986 specifically, sure.

Offensively we all remember his amazing moves in the mid 90s when he was dream shaking his way to 2 titles.

Okay so again this does not seem like you have actually watched him this year. He had more range in the mid-1990s. He was more refined, as most players are with age. But the scoring repertoire is largely here already.

He was a great player, but for most of his career not as great as it seemed in that moment.

His lack of team success over the next several years is not applicable to 1986 — and also very evidently not something you actually value, considering how you voted Jordan third last year and I am sure will have him third or higher next year.

Also not as great as he’d be if he had to play under modern rules, where he wouldn’t be protected by illegal D rules.

Not relevant to this project, although imo deeply wrong even if it were.

Hakeem’s offensive and defensive awareness were limited in some ways, and that’s probably why we see some of his teams have poor Drtgs,

This is absolutely not reflected in the film, no, but again, I also know you do not actually believe this or you would not be so high on Jordan leading an eleventh ranked offence last year and a twelfth ranked offence next year.

This reads like a drowning grasp rather than a sincere attempt to engage with what is happening. What if I said 2000 Dikembe Mutombo, in-between DPoY runs, and with a historic outlier D-RAPM, must not have been that “aware” because the Hawks were a 25th ranked defence. What if I said Kevin Garnett simply lacked awareness in Minnesota because he only led four above average defences his entire time there (whereas this is the sole prime year leading a below average team defence for Hakeem…), but then oh suddenly he became “aware” in Boston. Do these seem like serious positions to you?

or why the Sonics killed him in 93 and 96 with a defensive scheme that pushed the limits of illegal D rules.

Yes, if only Hakeem had been more aware, that would have fixed his inept guard play. Oh if only we had good guards readily available in the modern league.

It’s also probably why his team’s generally underachieved, at least relative to a guy with his supposed profile (i.e. someone supposedly as good as guys like Bird or Duncan).

Or maybe it is because Bird and Duncan both had legitimate NBA Hall-of-Fame talent for their entire career, while Hakeem’s best teammate across his first ten years was… Otis Thorpe?

Talk about “underachievement” while upsetting the Lakers — led by two first-team all-NBA players, plus an easy all-star who also finished twelfth in MVP voting (which in this moment you value very deeply), plus next year’s DPoY, plus a veteran ex-star power forward, plus an up-and-coming guard scorer — and pushing the Celtics — led by a three-time MVP supposedly at his peak, next year’s first-team all-NBA forward, a consistent all-star centre, one of the best defensive guards in league history, one of the league’s best guard shooters, and one of the greatest sixth men in league history. Again, very serious.

[penbeast0]

...
DPOY

1. Mark Eaton - Still the most insane shotblocker and paint presence in the league. Utah was #3 on defense.

Actually Manute is the leading shotblocker per minute in NBA history (for those who ever qualified for the shotblocking title) and his defense in Washington was 4th in the league, right behind Utah. Contemporary voters for DPOY also rated Manute 2nd, while Eaton didn't make the top 3. He was so skinny he might not have had Eaton's paint presence though. I might still rate Eaton higher because Manute couldn't hold position against anyone,. Even Chuck Nevitt could push him around while Eaton was much harder to move in the post, but Manute was much quicker and more mobile than Eaton while being even more ridiculously long.

[AEnigma]

Yet the Bullets were also worse relative to the prior year.

[penbeast0]

Yet the Bullets were also worse relative to the prior year.

Almost identical, which implies that it may not have been Manute replacing injured Jeff "McFilthy" Ruland (or more likely, that they were both strong defenders) . . . or that Ricky "McNasty" Mahorn may have been a key loss for the defense. Mahorn has consistent good impact signals over his career as I remember. Of course so does Dan Roundfield who replaced him. Charles Jones was a defensive specialist as well so their interior was strong and deep enough to survive the loss of Ruland, at least defensively.

Of course the real dRTG difference is Houston where they dropped 10 spots from #4 to #14. Hakeem played 68 instead of 82 game this year which may have been a factor. Or, possibly replacing Lionel Hollins (strong defender) with Allen Leavell (rookie and not known for defense) at guard. This is why there is room for debate.

[AEnigma]

I do not think Hakeem was defensively better than Eaton yet either, but I am a lot more confident in him as a defender relative to Rick Mahorn.

I also do not think it reflects overly well on Manute that the Bullets proactively sought out Moses and permanently stuck Manute to the bench. I am sure that was more for his offensive limits than for his defensive limits (Moses was certainly not a better defender, especially in 1987), but to me it is still a defensive negative if a player has capped minutes because of how bad they are offensively, and it should have been theoretically possible to play Moses and Manute together if the Bullets felt it benefitted the team to do so.

[penbeast0]

I remember going to games that year and we were always rooting for them to play Moses and Manute together but the coach never would. He may have had limitations but playing Moses with Terry Catledge who had the same limits as Moses but a lot less talent was just not a winning combination.

[LA Bird]

89? Say, isn't that the year they, with bird, played like a...checks notes...-4 team in the postseason.

The confidence in using this to attack Bird when ...checks notes... he didn't play in the 89 postseason. McHale did though so maybe you should question his impact instead? How did a team, with prime McHale, fall off that much without an inferior player who played bad defense, was a limited playmaker, and wasn't a top scorer?

The Celtics also replaced Bird with a bordeline all-star in 92 and...nearly made the conference finals with him barely being a factor.

Instead of pulling up a 2nd round team from six years later when the dynasty had long ended, why not look at the immediate playoffs before and after?

1985 Apr 23 (no Bird): Lost to -2.3 SRS Cavs, -9.3 MOV vs rest of series with Bird.
1987 Apr 28 (no McHale): Beat 1.3 SRS Bulls, +5.5 MOV vs rest of series with McHale.
1987 May 5 (no McHale): Beat 4.0 SRS Bucks, +14.8 MOV vs rest of series with McHale.

Where exactly is the evidence of McHale elevating his impact from regular season to postseason?

And in a year where we have WOWY with solid sample size for multiple POY candidates, it's funny how nobody is posting the data.

Magic (9G): -0.3 SRS with Kareem/Worthy/Scott in
Hakeem (13G): +1.9 SRS with 25mpg players in
McHale (14G): +2.6 SRS with 25mpg players in
Jordan (52G): +2.0 SRS with Woolridge in

All four not only missed many more games than Bird (especially MJ), their teams barely fell off much without them this season. Guess it's not very convenient for this new McHale > Bird movement though so I can understand why everyone is ignoring the data.

[One_and_Done]

Honestly, the Bucks and Sixers were better than the Rockets probably. They just played in the wrong conference. Aside from an anomalous win over LA, the Rockets beat nobody that mattered.

If Barkley played out West, I suspect he'd be getting more votes over Hakeem.

[Cavsfansince84]

Honestly, the Bucks and Sixers were better than the Rockets probably. They just played in the wrong conference. Aside from an anomalous win over LA, the Rockets beat nobody that mattered.

If Barkley played out West, I suspect he'd be getting more votes over Hakeem.

Who else mattered outside of those teams anyhow? I mean, it sounds like you're giving the Sixers and Bucks credit for beating 39 win Nets, 39 win Bullets and then the Bucks beating the Sixers. The Bucks are interesting in the sense that they had an 8.7 srs that year which is pretty monstrous as a 57 win team and they definitely could have beaten the Rockets but the Sixers were a 2.5 rs team and at the end of the day gave the rockets gave the Celtics a much tougher series than the Bucks did.

[70sFan]

Honestly, the Bucks and Sixers were better than the Rockets probably. They just played in the wrong conference. Aside from an anomalous win over LA, the Rockets beat nobody that mattered.

Of course the Sixers barely beating 39 wins Bullets team is more valuable than reaching the finals.
The Bucks also did remarkably well, beating 39 wins Nets team, winning a very close 7 games series against the Sixers without their best player and getting swept by the Celtics with ridiculous point differential. These teams were just unlucky they didn't face the Lakers.

[70sFan]

Honestly, the Bucks and Sixers were better than the Rockets probably. They just played in the wrong conference. Aside from an anomalous win over LA, the Rockets beat nobody that mattered.

If Barkley played out West, I suspect he'd be getting more votes over Hakeem.

Who else mattered outside of those teams anyhow? I mean, it sounds like you're giving the Sixers and Bucks credit for beating 39 win Nets, 39 win Bullets and then the Bucks beating the Sixers. The Bucks are interesting in the sense that they had an 8.7 srs that year which is pretty monstrous as a 57 win team and they definitely could have beaten the Rockets but the Sixers were a 2.5 rs team and at the end of the day gave the Celtics a much tougher series than the Bucks did.

The Sixers also lost Malone for the playoffs.

[70sFan]

Even though I am a massive supporter of McHale's talent, I don't see any reason to put him ahead of Bird. I would have him in my top 5 for that year (along with Hakeem, Bird, Magic and Kareem).

[Bad Gatorade]

Hakeem Olajuwon
Larry Bird
Magic Johnson
Kevin Mchale
Kareem Abdul Jabbar

Okay so my first vote is being casted for Hakeem Olajuwon.. I penned this some years back and it strikes me as applicable

Spoiler:

The real reason that people might value Kobe above KG tend to be:
* Team success
* Aesthetic bias, aka the eye test
* Scoring bias

Another poster said something earlier in this thread - there are different degrees of bad, and when KG's team was at its lowest in 2007, the only players who even over 3 years in the league beyond that season were Randy Foye (who was a rookie that season and generally quite unremarkable), Mike James (who was actually playing in Turkey, but returned to the NBA after 2011 and was a horrible player post-2006) and Craig Smith (a rookie who played 6 seasons in his NBA career). That is a horrible team.

I think people are enamored with Bird’s style of play and let that somewhat oversell what he’s contributing.

I actually find it crazy Bird and Kobe have such distinctly different reputations for efficiency, despite being comparable on that front career wise. It seems people think of Bird as a similar shooter to Durant, Reggie etc, and consequently, superimpose their efficiency onto Bird.

This isn't to say Bird isn't great, but he clearly gets a boost based off playing style and because his play was what they view as an additive style. His efficiency is excellent this season but as people have argued earlier in this thread, what he offered in other facets seems a bit lacking.

Hakeem’s team was not horrible like KG but nonetheless to scale the heights they managed speaks to a herculean carry-job (Others have covered this well).

We underrate Magic in general. Magic (like Nash) is an excellent scorers, but their propensity to pass can overshadow how talented they are at scoring. They lose but Magic shines racking up a high-volume of high-value assists alongside efficient volume scoring.

I also wonder how McHale would be perceived if Bird was never a Celtic. Excellent all-around-player.

* Defensive force that defends with deceptive dynamism
* Self-sufficient offensively offering playmakers a plethora of easy assists
* Strong ball-handler breaking defenses a little

Kareem gasps near his last legs here, but he’s still a good scorer, an underrated playmaker - leveraging length and defensive draw, and a strong defender - if diminished.

[OhayoKD]

89? Say, isn't that the year they, with bird, played like a...checks notes...-4 team in the postseason.

The confidence in using this to attack Bird when ...checks notes... he didn't play in the 89 postseason. McHale did though so maybe you should question his impact instead? How did a team, with prime McHale, fall off that much without an inferior player who played bad defense, was a limited playmaker, and wasn't a top scorer?

The Celtics also replaced Bird with a bordeline all-star in 92 and...nearly made the conference finals with him barely being a factor.

Instead of pulling up a 2nd round team from six years later when the dynasty had long ended, why not look at the immediate playoffs before and after?

1985 Apr 23 (no Bird): Lost to -2.3 SRS Cavs, -9.3 MOV vs rest of series with Bird.
1987 Apr 28 (no McHale): Beat 1.3 SRS Bulls, +5.5 MOV vs rest of series with McHale.
1987 May 5 (no McHale): Beat 4.0 SRS Bucks, +14.8 MOV vs rest of series with McHale.

Not going to lie, you cooked. I'll flip Bird and Mchale.

Where exactly is the evidence of McHale elevating his impact from regular season to postseason?

For 86, it's him leading his team in usage as a rim-protector by a decent margin on tape while also getting beaten the least in those spots on-top of rarely getting beaten or breaking down multiple positions. Given the various defensive specialists who accrued consistently strong wowy over the last 10 seasons just with that attribtue, a clear paint-protector on a great defense who is also seemingly the best man defender and is also capable of leading the team in scoring in key series, and also pressuring defenders as a ball-handler seemed fair to consider vs Bird.

That said, it would be inconsistent with my past reasoning to not give some weight to the impact signals here, so I'll flip bird/mchale. Well done. Still think the finals can be debated but can't say that for the whole season.

And in a year where we have WOWY with solid sample size for multiple POY candidates, it's funny how nobody is posting the data.

Magic (9G): -0.3 SRS with Kareem/Worthy/Scott in
Hakeem (13G): +1.9 SRS with 25mpg players in
McHale (14G): +2.6 SRS with 25mpg players in
Jordan (52G): +2.0 SRS with Woolridge in

All four not only missed many more games than Bird (especially MJ), their teams barely fell off much without them this season. Guess it's not very convenient for this new McHale > Bird movement though so I can understand why everyone is ignoring the data.[/quote]
Noted. That said, to really move me on Bird, I'd probably need to see either

A. Creation tracking demonstrating frequency and quality much higher than what's been tracked thus far
B. Defensive tracking showing significantly more usage as a rim-protector or a big drop in breakdowns then what's tracked so far.

Magic is right now crushing Bird in both creation quality and quanitity, And Hakeem is crushing everyone on the Celtics in rim-usage and efficacy ontop of being dynamic in help. If nygoat's full postseason run tracking is not wildly off, then meh. Hakeem and Magic look strong enough overall along with the latter being the era-standard in team-wide and internal box improvement come the postseason(with 86 being the best example statistically)

[AEnigma]

Honestly, the Bucks and Sixers were better than the Rockets probably. They just played in the wrong conference. Aside from an anomalous win over LA, the Rockets beat nobody that mattered.

If Barkley played out West, I suspect he'd be getting more votes over Hakeem.

Depends, is he leading a win over the 60-win defending champions with a mediocre supporting cast? No? Then probably not.

“Anomalous win.” What exactly does Barkley achieve in this era as his team’s lead star? Beats the -1.3 SRS Bullets 3-2, oooooh, impressive. Loses 0-3 to the Moncrief Bucks but then manages to superficially salvage the series by going 3-1 in the games Moncrief misses, wow! Loses 2-3 to the Moncrief Bucks next year. Loses 0-3 to a decent but not noteworthy Knicks team in 1989. Finally, in his fifth year as his team’s lead star, he beats his first team with a winning record 3-2 before being easily dispatched 1-4 by the Bulls in 1990. And then sweeps a decent but again not noteworthy Bucks team before being eviscerated in turn by the 1991 Bulls. You can add up the SRS totals of all three series wins (for the sake of argument we can treat the Bullets as a flat 0) and still not even hit what the Lakers were this year.

If you want to twist your vote to better prop up your #1 player, that is your prerogative (yes, I saw your ballot edit), but I would hate to see this project devolve into a series of votes where people invent excuses to progressively drop any potential threats to their top choice. Posts like what LA Bird offered are a lot more conducive to meaningful discussion than posts which unsubtly just look to spite players.

[AEnigma]

Even though I am a massive supporter of McHale's talent, I don't see any reason to put him ahead of Bird. I would have him in my top 5 for that year (along with Hakeem, Bird, Magic and Kareem).

And you are encouraged to post that official ballot when you have the opportunity; I expect to leave discussion open for at least another 16 hours.

[trex_8063]

It's interesting to me that most Hakeem voters seem to think McHale was better than Bird even though:
1) Bird made the Celtics a 61 win team before he got there.
2) McHale had a small role in the initial Celtics title.
3) When McHale had the chance to lead the team without Bird in 89 they won only 42 games.
4) in the 1 year where prime Bird and McHale overlapped where McHale did miss a decent chunk of games (1986) the Celtics were 11-3 without him (I.e. this very year).

89? Say, isn't that the year they, with bird, played like a...checks notes...-4 team in the postseason.

The Celtics also replaced Bird with a bordeline all-star in 92 and...nearly made the conference finals with him barely being a factor.

Mchale isn't being voted ahead because of regular-season play. He's being voted ahead because people feel he played better in the postseason where the WOWY stuff you selectively care about tends to turn bad for him. In a year where Bird's defense is bad, and his playmaking seems limited, and Mchale ends up scoring better in the only games the Celtics are meaningfully challenged, voting for Mchale seems fair to me, particularly when the people voting Bird, not just over mchale, but for #1 showcase minimal interest in engaging with the actual basketball involved.

I'll try to find some time to do some play-by-play evaluations [no promises], but I don't recall Bird being "bad" defensively this year. By '87 and after, OK. In '86, I feel like he was still more or less a neutral. He rebounded well [and he DOES box out], and his quick hands and [at times] almost pre-cog anticipation allow him to generate turnovers, too. Is a sound [if undersized] post defender. Maybe nearing the point where a number of perimeter players can blow by him around '86, I suppose, but those other things provide defensive value to counter-balance.

Also, I'm not sure, are you saying Bird is a "limited playmaker" in '86? I wouldn't know what else to say other than I disagree.

I suspect there are instances where his off-ball movement provide value [for teammates], too, though that is where I'd need to do some play-by-play.

Overall, I'm not sure I can be on-board with saying McHale outplayed him in the ps (or specifically in the Finals), at least based on the numbers (that's a series that's maybe due for a re-watch, though).
I note, for example that, Bird is +1.0 ppg, +0.7 rpg, and +5.5 apg [while also being -0.1 topg] compared to McHale in the playoffs. McHale is +2.1% TS as the counter-balance (and +0.1 in stl+blk, fwiw).

Bird has the better PER, WS/48, and BPM (while playing +2.9 mpg, too).

In the Finals, specifically, McHale is +1.8 ppg and +5.1% TS compared to Bird........but he's also -1.2 rpg, -7.8 apg, and +0.7 topg. Statistically, it doesn't feel like he outplayed Bird there, either.

Now it could be that he had his big games in more timely spots, or that Bird shrunk in the tight ones; not sure.
One might point to Bird's 44.3% TS in game 3 of the Finals [a 2-pt loss], while McHale outscored him (28 to 25) on excellent shooting efficiency.
otoh, that was a 25-pt triple-double Bird had, with just 3 turnovers. McHale turned the ball over FIVE times [and had just 1 ast].

In game 4, the Celtics just barely squeek out a 3-pt win, McHale with excellent TS%, though only 19 pts and again FIVE turnovers (zero assists). Bird meanwhile had an efficient 21/9/10 night with only 2 turnovers.
Game 6 is a helluva closer for Bird, too.
Only one truly close game in the ECF; both of them have what looks like a good game. In the closest game of the ECSF it looks like [again, this is just based on the box] that Bird soundly outplays McHale in that win. In their one loss in that series, both of them struggle (Bird arguably slightly more so).

idk; must be some nuance I'm missing.


Also, regarding '89 being the year they play like "-4 team in the post-season with Bird"--->Bird didn't play in the post-season. If referring to the rs, worth noting it's a 6-game sample (I'd be reluctant to read into that too much).