Retro Player of the Year 1987-88 UPDATE — Magic Johnson

[Djoker]

VOTING POST

POY

1. Michael Jordan - 1st Team All-NBA. MVP. DPOY. Just a ridiculous season. Rookie Pippen and Grant show up with the former especially not even close to a difference maker and yet MJ leads his team to 50 wins. Just carrying a massive load on offense while putting up one of the best greatest defensive campaigns by a non-big in NBA history. GOAT scorer while becoming an ever better playmaker by the season. Averaged 35.0/5.5/5.9 on 60.3 %TS (+6.5 rTS) in the RS then 36.3/7.1/4.7 on 59.8 %TS (+7.0 rTS) in the PS.

2. Magic Johnson - 1st Team All-NBA. Still a bonafide offensive engine leading a talented team to an elite offense and was still the engine nonetheless despite Worthy winning the Finals MVP. In the PS, the Lakers had some hiccups and didn't look particularly dominant going the full 7 games in three series. While he did have better team results than Jordan and won the title, it wasn't super impressive from neither team nor individual perspective. 1987-88 was Magic's worst season statistically from 1987 onwards. He averaged 19.6/6.2/11.9 on 58.1 %TS (+4.3 rTS) in the RS then 19.9/5.4/12.6 on 60.0 %TS (+7.6 rTS) in the PS.

3. Hakeem Olajuwon - 1st Team All-NBA. 1st Team All-Defense. Another elite season by Hakeem despite a lack of team results. He lost in the 1st round of the playoffs but dominated to such a degree that he honestly gets no blame. Putting his ability to scale up his scoring with the elite defense he brings puts him right after the two goliaths of this season. He averaged 22.8/12.1/2.1 on 55.5 %TS (+1.7 rTS) in the RS then 37.5/16.8/1.8 on 64.1 %TS (+11.9 rTS) in the PS.

4. Larry Bird - 1st Team All-NBA. Fantastic RS and led the Celtics to the #1 offense. He dominated the first two rounds of the playoffs until he completely fell apart against the Pistons in the ECF. Such a sour finish puts him at #4 in a year as competitive as this. In many other seasons, Bird gets higher finishes or even outright wins the vote with an effort as this. Bird was still an elite all-around force in what would be his last great season. He averaged 29.9/9.3/6.1 on 60.8 %TS (+7.0 rTS) in the RS then 24.5/8.8/6.8 on 53.8 %TS (+0.4 rTS) in the PS.

5. Charles Barkley - 1st Team All-NBA. FIrst prime season for Sir Charles who jumped onto the scene. He was becoming an unbelievable offensive force as his combination of speed, strength and offensive rebounding inside could hardly be dealt with. Just an insane efficient player scoring the ball. On the defensive end, he had some serious issues so I don't think he can be much higher than this. It also doesn't help that his team missed the PS. He averaged 28.3/11.9/3.2 on 66.5 %TS (+12.7 rTS).

OPOY

1. Michael Jordan - GOAT scorer with an improved playmaking profile. Best offensive player ever in his first peak year.

2. Magic Johnson - One of the few players in history I can say is legitimately close to a peak Jordan on offense.

3. Larry Bird - Great combo of scoring and playmaking.

DPOY

1. Mark Eaton - The best rim protector in the league. Anchored the #1 defense.

2. Hakeem Olajuwon - Once again an amazing combination of vertical and horizontal defense. Anchored the #4 defense.

3. Michael Jordan - Insane motor that makes him one of the best non-big defenders. #3 defense in the league as well and also elite in the PS. While I don't think he deserved DPOY over the two names ahead of him here, it is a testament to just how insane this season was.

[Narigo]

1. Michael Jordan- I think he was best player in the league by a wide margin imo. His defense is improved and so his jump shot making him a complete two way player.

2. Larry Bird- Arguably has the best regular season in his career statistically. In the playoffs he played well in the first two rounds in the playoffs. But had one of the his worst playoff series ever as a pro

3. Magic Johnson- Maybe I'm looking too hard at box score stats. But to me it seems like he had a down year compared to 1987 and the seasons surrounding it like 1989 and 1990. I'm pretty sure his offensive impact is great and he did win the title.

4. Hakeem Olajuwon- Carried the Rockets offense abit and his defense is still very amazing

5. Charles Barkley-Again improved from last season, but unfortunately his supporting cast isn't that good. Also I want to give a shout out to John Stockton as he was very underrated this season

[OhayoKD]

3. Magic Johnson- Maybe I'm looking too hard at box score stats. But to me it seems like he had a down year compared to 1987 and the seasons surrounding it like 1989 and 1990. I'm pretty sure his offensive impact is great and he did win the title.

Statistically his impact was higher than the guy you are claiming was "best player in the league by a wide margin"
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=115553794#p115553794

Him not being 1 is already dubious. Him not being top 2 seems indefensible.

[LA Bird]

Not voting this round but I should point out the best impact signals of the late 80s don't actually belong to Magic either

1986: +9.8 over 2 games (+9.3 with, -0.5 without)
1987*: +10.0 over 20 games (+8.4 with, -1.6 without)
1988*: +12.8 over 8 games (+1.8 with, -11.0 without)
1989: +8.2 over 15 games (+5.1 with, -3.1 without)
Total: +9.5 over 45 games (+5.8 with, -3.7 without)

Spoiler:

It's Paul Pressey

[Djoker]

.

Apologies for not quoting your previous post because it's very cumbersome with all the stuff embedded from our back and forth but believe me when I say I read all of it. I will respond here.

Re: Tracking Data

Thank you for making a very detailed post explaining what was tracked by you and other posters. I am a big proponent of tracking and having more data than just the basic box score. The more the merrier because it helps us understand players' games in a way that we can't from the basic box score. We are definitely on the same page here.

Re: WOWY/Who was more valuable?

Magic has above a 1 point advantage in MOV differential for 8-year WOWY samples but Jordan has a 2-point advantage in terms of on court MOV. That is no small potatoes. Many people will value a 16 PW lift over a 18 PW lift if the former lifts the team to greater heights.

Regarding 1988 specifically, we don't have any WOWY data for MJ for this specific season since he played all 82 games. But if you give Magic an edge in rate impact (based on Lakers' on court performance) then he still loses the edge for the totality of the season because of 10 missed games. You can't give him Magic credit for 72 games and then ignore the fact that he missed 10 games. Not when you're comparing him to a guy who played all 82 games. Being available does factor into votes like this and most of us have penalized players in this project for missing RS games. It's also worth noting that Jordan played more minutes per game (40.4 mpg vs. 36.6 mpg) so his total value surely eclipses' Magic's.

You also can't say that WOWY favors Magic specifically for 1988 either because we don't have WOWY for 1988 Jordan. Lack of data doesn't give you a green light to rank someone with data over someone with no data. And of course, a 10-game OFF sample is far too small to have any degree confidence in it anyway. Even a 53-game OFF sample for the 8-year WOWY I posted is a smallish sample to be honest but it's way better than 10 games.

I think you are an idealist and can't accept that we simply don't have the data to reach definitive conclusions in many cases. We don't have large samples of WOWY data for every season, we don't have almost any tracking data, we don't have an effective way (even with tracking) to measure defensive impact and grading defense remains very subjective.

[EmpireFalls]

Not voting this round but I should point out the best impact signals of the late 80s don't actually belong to Magic either

1986: +9.8 over 2 games (+9.3 with, -0.5 without)
1987*: +10.0 over 20 games (+8.4 with, -1.6 without)
1988*: +12.8 over 8 games (+1.8 with, -11.0 without)
1989: +8.2 over 15 games (+5.1 with, -3.1 without)
Total: +9.5 over 45 games (+5.8 with, -3.7 without)

Spoiler:

It's Paul Pressey

That actually makes sense, elite perimeter defender on team with elite perimeter defense

[falcolombardi]

My votes

Dpoy

1- mark eaton. I am not a huge fan of his translation into different eras but in the spacing lacking 80's a shot blocker of his size was a cheat code

2- hakeem, imo the actual "best" defensive player of the era. But not in that era style of play

3- paul pressey. moncrief was the era premier wing defender but paul seems to have been considered the lead of bucks great D this year


Hm- buck williams. Big fan of his "impact signals" across his career as a defensive presence.


OPOY

1-magic. He kind of solved offense in his prime by being able to dominate in the full court as well as being both a great passer and scorer who had enough counters to always be a scoring threat in hiper efficient rates at a high enough volume to leverage his playmaking

2-bird imo a step down from magic. But still clearly around his offensive peak this season. Brilliant passer, questionable scorer in the playoffs

3-jordan, best scorer in the league but still had serious scoring blindness issues and i dont think weaker teammates can explain all of it

HM: isiah thomas. Hakeem olajuwon

POY

1-magic. Best offensive player ever up to that point. Able to both carry a offense or elevate it to the sky

2- jordan dominant scorer. Probably a plus but overstated guard defender as high stocks numbers are both not closely related to defemsive impqct and in jordan case are likely to be score keeper inflated (twice as many steals in home games is a wild data point)

3- bird. Monster offensive player but a tier below magic imo due to lack of resilient scoring amd weaker self generation out of bal handling

4- hakeem. Lacked team success but has an aegument to be even mpre impactful than 4th with his 2 way impact. Like a defense slanted jordan in a way

5- isiah thomas for being the leader amd besy player (not by as much) in a runner up team

[konr0167]

1. Magic

Best offensive player, best player, wins the title, should have won MVP and repeats with a shell of what he had in 87. Awesome in the finals. Seems pretty easy. Don’t really care about a fake MVP

2. Jordan
3. Hakeem
Jordan’s not obviously better or anything but he does win MVP and he gets further in the playoffs

4. Bird

Horrible choke in the conference finals but big regular-season impact and he makes the conference finals

5. Barkley

Misses the playoffs but 28 points on 66% TS is really good. Think them losing is more on his teammates

[ShaqAttac]

MAGIC
crazy impact and wins chip. voting mj coz of ppg and fake steals don't make sense to me. if it didnt matter when wilt statpads vs russ. why does it matter when mj statpad vs magic

HAKEEM
Great d and great o. drops 38 in the pos and prob bigger impact than mj too.

MJ
finally win more games than he loses and then cooks vs cavs. chokes vs pistons tho

BIRD
chokes in the pos again but i guess he got p close to the finals and his impact good

LAIMBEER
Tbh, I was gonna vote IT but OandD has a point. why we give IT most credit when Pistons be winning on D?

beats BIRD and MJ and almost wins chip

[One_and_Done]

MAGIC
crazy impact and wins chip. voting mj coz of ppg and fake steals don't make sense to me. if it didnt matter when wilt statpads vs russ. why does it matter when mj statpad vs magic

HAKEEM
Great d and great o. drops 38 in the pos and prob bigger impact than mj too.

MJ
finally win more games than he loses and then cooks vs cavs. chokes vs pistons tho

BIRD
chokes in the pos again but i guess he got p close to the finals and his impact good

LAIMBEER
Tbh, I was gonna vote IT but OandD has a point. why we give IT most credit when Pistons be winning on D?

beats BIRD and MJ and almost wins chip

Or you could vote for an actual star plater like K.Malone or Barkley, both of whom were much better than either Laimbeer or Isiah.

[Lebronnygoat]

How can you say that when Magic Johnson had one of the greatest playmaking seasons ever, and played way better against the Pistons than Jordan did, who Jordan also dropped against. Magic’s first 3 playoff rounds negate Jordan’s one round vs the 1988 Cavs with injured Harper.

He got outplayed by John Stockton

Magic scored 4 more pts on 1% less efficiency and cleared as a playmaker… next?

[Lebronnygoat]

I assume my vote for the next 6 years will be for Jordan. We'll see if there's an unusually good case for someone like D.Rob in a singular year, but I doubt it.

How can you say that when Magic Johnson had one of the greatest playmaking seasons ever, and played way better against the Pistons than Jordan did, who Jordan also dropped against. Magic’s first 3 playoff rounds negate Jordan’s one round vs the 1988 Cavs with injured Harper.

Because Jordan is a better player? Magic has the benefit of a great supporting cast around him, which impacts how each performs.

That has NOTHING to do with what I just said, and is a cop out to my argument that only talked about THEIR play. Nothing about winning.

[One_and_Done]

How can you say that when Magic Johnson had one of the greatest playmaking seasons ever, and played way better against the Pistons than Jordan did, who Jordan also dropped against. Magic’s first 3 playoff rounds negate Jordan’s one round vs the 1988 Cavs with injured Harper.

Because Jordan is a better player? Magic has the benefit of a great supporting cast around him, which impacts how each performs.

That has NOTHING to do with what I just said, and is a cop out to my argument that only talked about THEIR play. Nothing about winning.

You don't think the fact that the other team can triple team you affects your performance?

[AEnigma]

Yeah it is crazy how Jordan was apparently shooting over triple coverage rather than try to pass to his teammates.

[AEnigma]

Votes are tallied. I recorded 13 approved voters: Djoker, AEnigma, B-Mitch 30, ShaqAttac, ILikeShaiGuys, Penbeast, OhayoKD (submitting “kola’s” ballot as his official one), falcolombardi, Paulluxx, konr0167, One_and_Done, trelos, and Narigo. DJoker, AEnigma, B-Mitch 30, trelos, OhayoKD, IlikeShaiGuys, and falcolombardi also voted for both Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year. Please let me know if I seem to have missed or otherwise improperly recorded a vote.

1987-88 Results

(Retro) Offensive Player of the Year — Magic Johnson (7)

Code: Select all

Player       1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Magic Johnson   4   3   0    29    0.829
2. Michael Jordan  2   1   4   17    0.486
3. Larry Bird    1   3   2    16    0.457
4. Clyde Drexler   0   0   1    1    0.029

(Retro) Defensive Player of the Year — Hakeem Olajuwon (2)

Code: Select all

Player         1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Hakeem Olajuwon    5   2   0    31   0.886
2. Mark Eaton    2   5   0    25    0.714
3. Bill Laimbeer    0   0   2    2    0.057
3. Michael Jordan   0   0   2    2    0.057
5. Charles Oakley   0   0   1    1    0.029
5. Patrick Ewing   0   0   1    1    0.029
5. Paul Pressey   0   0   1    1    0.029

Retro Player of the Year — Magic Johnson (4)

Code: Select all

Player      1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Magic Johnson  8  4  1  0  0   113   0.869
2. Michael Jordan  5  4  3  1  0   96   0.738
3. Hakeem Olajuwon   0  4  2  5  1    54   0.415
4. Larry Bird  0  1  5  4  1   45    0.346
5. Charles Barkley   0  0  1  0  5   10   0.077
6. Clyde Drexler   0  0  1  1  0   8   0.062
7. Isiah Thomas  0  0  0  1  4   7   0.054
8. Karl Malone   0  0  0  1  1   4   0.031
9. Bill Laimbeer   0  0  0  0  1   1   0.008

In the prior project, there were 21 votes, with no overlap. These are the aggregated results of the two projects across 34 total ballots:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

Player   1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Michael Jordan  18  12  4  1  0   287   0.829
2. Magic Johnson  17  11  7  0  0   282   0.800
3. Larry Bird  0  7  20  4  2   163    0.476
4. Hakeem Olajuwon   0  5  2  13  5    89   0.241
5. Charles Barkley   0  0  1  5  11   31   0.091
6. Dominique Wilkins   0  0  0  6  3   21   0.062
7. Karl Malone   0  0  0  2  5   11   0.032
8. Clyde Drexler   0  0  1  1  0   8   0.024
9. Isiah Thomas  0  0  0  2  4   10   0.021
9. John Stockton   0  0  0  1  4   7   0.021
11. Bill Laimbeer   0  0  0  0  1   1   0.003

1989 thread will open shortly.

[OhayoKD]

Because Jordan is a better player? Magic has the benefit of a great supporting cast around him, which impacts how each performs.

That has NOTHING to do with what I just said, and is a cop out to my argument that only talked about THEIR play. Nothing about winning.

You don't think the fact that the other team can triple team you affects your performance?

Do you not understand how illegal defense works?

If Jordan was a magic-johnson level passer he would

A. not be getting triple teamed unless he wanted to
B. those triple teams would be leading to a bunch of open baskets for teamamtes.

[One_and_Done]

That has NOTHING to do with what I just said, and is a cop out to my argument that only talked about THEIR play. Nothing about winning.

You don't think the fact that the other team can triple team you affects your performance?

Do you not understand how illegal defense works?

If Jordan was a magic-johnson level passer he would not be getting triple-teamed.

Who thinks Jordan is a Magic level passer?

[OhayoKD]

You don't think the fact that the other team can triple team you affects your performance?

Do you not understand how illegal defense works?

If Jordan was a magic-johnson level passer he would not be getting triple-teamed.

Who thinks Jordan is a Magic level passer?

You are using an excuse for jordan's worse performance that largely only is present because of his own individual defiencies relative to Magic

[One_and_Done]

Do you not understand how illegal defense works?

If Jordan was a magic-johnson level passer he would not be getting triple-teamed.

Who thinks Jordan is a Magic level passer?

You are using an excuse for jordan's worse performance that largely only is present because of his own individual defiencies relative to Magic

Magic plays completely differently to Jordan. Jordan creates in the half court much more. Double teaming him is a more viable strategy if he has nobody around him to pass to. There are different things Magic needs to succeed.

[OhayoKD]

Who thinks Jordan is a Magic level passer?

You are using an excuse for jordan's worse performance that largely only is present because of his own individual defiencies relative to Magic

Magic plays completely differently to Jordan. Jordan creates in the half court much more. Double teaming him is a more viable strategy if he has nobody around him to pass to. There are different things Magic needs to succeed.

Dead wrong lol. Magic frequently takes out 3-4 defenders in the half-court. Jordan is only doing that if he's near the basket (and sees/gets the pass off which he often fails to do).