Retro Player of the Year 1988-89 UPDATE — Magic Johnson

[konr0167]

1. Magic

Best offensive player, best player, goes 12-0 in the west and then looks like he’s about to tie the finals up at 2 before he’s injured. Rightly wins MVP and easily could have three-peated without much help. if not for injury luck. Team is probably worse now then when they were -3.8 without him in 1988 yet on Magic’s scoring and efficiency jumping the Lakers are even better.

2. Hakeem

Bad situation. Not his fault and I can definitely see him racking up more 1 votes if his team and front office weren’t KG-levels. But I can’t just vote on hypotheticals. Good but not mind-blowingly so in a first round exit

3. Jordan

Jordan makes his first real POY argument with a pretty good playoff performance. Magic (and Hakeem) was better healthy, but the injury makes it close I guess. Some fake playmaking in the final 2 losses though and it’s obvious to me his assists going up, something he even argued with scorekeepers over, at the end of the season actually benefited the team. Lots of KD-assists there. Bulls played alot better going point by commitee and got blown out when they went back to Point-Jordan at the end of the ECF. Cavs win sounds impressive but in the context of the price injury and their general playoff track-record, it’s a little disappointing how close that was. Thing is I voted him over Hakeem who might be better in large part because he won MVP and won 50 games. Neither is true now so even though Jordan is better relative to himself I think it’s only fair for me to swing the other way.


4. Ewing

Break out year for him. Knicks get to 50-wins and then sweep Barkley on the back of a -6 D performance before taking Jordan the distance. His offense is good enough that I think being the league’s 2nd best defender gets him above Chuck.

5. Barkley

Goes crazy despite being swept. Wasn’t easy to pick Ewing honestly but the offense underperformed so maybe there’s something there about Barkley’s playmaking that should be criticized. He’s also obviously a bad defender

[OhayoKD]

I think the narrative of Jordan collapsing in the last three games in the Pistons series is very overblown. He still had a +3.1 rTS and a better than 2:1 assist to turnover ratio not to mention excellent D against Isiah. Individually, he played a very strong series.

At least in game 6, my tracking found a creation quality gap between him and playmakers like Magic which wouldn't be reflected in assist:tov.
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=115597879#p115597879

Spoiler:

For Jordan’s 13 tracked assists, I gave him 21 DTOs, 9 EDTOs, and 8 ADAs giving MJ a total of 28 defenders affected; This also gives Jordan per-assist rates of 1.6 defenders taken out, 0.7 extra defenders taken out, and 2.2 total defenders affected.

For a comparison to other perimeter contemporaries, over 13 tracked assists(86 Finals Game 1), Bird had 16 DTOs, 7 EDTOs, and 9 ADAs for a total of 25 defenders affected and per-assist rates of 1.2 defenders taken out, .54 extra defenders taken out, and 1.9 total defenders affected.

For Magic’s 17 tracked assists(86 WCF Game 1), I gave him 37 DTOs, 19 EDTOs, and a total of 3 ADAs giving Magic a total of 40 defenders affected; This also gives Magic per-assist rates of 2.2 defenders taken out, 1.1 extra defenders taken out, and 2.4 total defenders affected.

[Cavsfansince84]

I think the narrative of Jordan collapsing in the last three games in the Pistons series is very overblown. He still had a +3.1 rTS and a better than 2:1 assist to turnover ratio not to mention excellent D against Isiah. Individually, he played a very strong series.

I think you suffer from cognitive dissonance when it comes to MJ tbh where even the worst series he had are still great and any criticism is "very overblown" in your mind. It's not a narrative either, both MJ and his team collapsed in the final 3 games. MJ wore down that season. MJ was limited to 8 and 15 fga in 2 of those games because he was gunshy and was getting swallowed up by Rodman at times. He also kept doing the thing where he'd act like he was shooting it near the foul line and then end up kicking it out because he didn't like his shot so someone like Pippen would have to throw up a 20 footer as the shot clock was expiring. It's this idea that MJ in 88/89 was this finished product who could never take any blame for needing to improve that's frustrating to see on this board. You gotta be able to at least admit that he hit a wall against the Pistons in both 88&89. He also benefited from the triangle and having Pippen step forward with more ballhandling duty.

[lessthanjake]

As strange as it may be, I don't think the poster leaving Magic off his ballot is voting strategically for Jordan. He just has a history of weird votes. If we look at his 1987 ballot for example, he didn't mention Jordan at all while ranking Drexler second:

The Trail Blazers weren’t as good at offensive rebounding as the Sixers, but they were in the top 10 of the stat, while having less turnovers and drawing even more fouls. Clyde was the Trail Blazers 2nd leading scorer and playmaker, while also being decent at rebounding.

Though the Trail Blazers and the Sixers were both mediocre defensively, I’ve heard way more positive talk about Clyde’s defense than Barkley’s, which gives him the nod in my opinion.

Just like with the Michael Adams pick, I don't think this guy buys his own argument. How is #2 in the league someone who is not even the best scorer nor best playmaker on his own team and only a decent rebounder who plays better defense than Barkley? There is zero chance a strategic Jordan fan would leave him out of the top 5 completely, let alone rank Drexler second ahead of him. I feel like this is a troll testing how far he can push the boundaries of a "legitimate" vote before getting banned.

On the broader topic, strategic voting could easily be fixed with a change in vote counting system. It's a question of whether the commissioner wants to deviate from previous project norms since a key part of the results is not just the final placing but also the POY share. Perhaps use H2H to determine the final winner between the top 2 so a lopsided vote has no effect? The POY share would still be tainted but at least you can't swing the vote for the winner as easily by putting your favorite at 1 and leaving their biggest rival off.

This is actually a fairly persuasive argument that that particular vote wasn’t an example of strategic voting, but rather mere idiosyncratic voting and/or trolling. Of course, One_and_Done makes a good point that it could be strategic voting both times, but just with different goals. The poster definitely might’ve decided who they wanted to win in each year (even if that person was different in different years), put that person 1st, and then filled the rest of the ballot with non-threats in order to strategic vote for their favored player. That certainly is consistent with the ballots themselves IMO. The fact that that favored player seems to have changed each year definitely does make that seem less obvious, though, since strategic voting seems most likely to occur to prop up a person’s favorite player(s). And this is why it’s so hard to police strategic voting. There’s always some plausible deniability. I suppose I might’ve spoken with too much certainty in implying that that vote was definitely strategic voting, though (and it’s not a poster I’m familiar with, so there was perhaps reason for me to express less certainty there).

[Djoker]

I think the narrative of Jordan collapsing in the last three games in the Pistons series is very overblown. He still had a +3.1 rTS and a better than 2:1 assist to turnover ratio not to mention excellent D against Isiah. Individually, he played a very strong series.

I think you suffer from cognitive dissonance when it comes to MJ tbh where even the worst series he had are still great and any criticism is "very overblown" in your mind. It's not a narrative either, both MJ and his team collapsed in the final 3 games. MJ wore down that season. MJ was limited to 8 and 15 fga in 2 of those games because he was gunshy and was getting swallowed up by Rodman at times. He also kept doing the thing where he'd act like he was shooting it near the foul line and then end up kicking it out because he didn't like his shot so someone like Pippen would have to throw up a 20 footer as the shot clock was expiring. It's this idea that MJ in 88/89 was this finished product who could never take any blame for needing to improve that's frustrating to see on this board. You gotta be able to at least admit that he hit a wall against the Pistons in both 88&89. He also benefited from the triangle and having Pippen step forward with more ballhandling duty.

In 1988, he still arguably had room to grow as a playmaker but by 1989 he truly reached his peak and didn't really improve much thereafter. If he did it was minimal. Any growth in skillset and experience was balanced by a loss in motor and athleticism.

The reason the narrative of collapse is overblown is that the Bulls were heavy underdogs against the Pistons in 1989 with just +450 odds of winning the series. Them being up 2-1 to begin with was a huge surprise. In Game 1 and Game 3, the commentators keep mentioning over and over how poorly the Pistons are playing. 47 win teams very rarely beat 63 win teams (large SRS deficit). The Pistons were also an elite defense that went up a notch in the PS. Relative to how the Pistons defended in the PS, Jordan's efficiency looks even more impressive. The Bulls as a team actually shot 52.7 %TS which is +1.0 rTS. And they held the Pistons to 49.8 %TS but lost the series because they got absolutely killed on the boards. Rodman coming off the bench was the X-factor IMO. Hardly a mention in this thread that Pippen only played 1 minute in Game 6 too before he came off with injury.

Anyways of course Pippen maturing and becoming a star as opposed to just a role player was the reason the Bulls improved. Everyone needs a team to win. For curiosity sake, how many games do you think the 1989 Bulls win without Jordan? And where to they rank in terms of offense and defense? I think they would be one of the worst teams in the league.

[falcolombardi]

This is a neck and neck year for magic vs jordan to me

OPOY-

1-magic. As i have said before i think magic is one of the 3 most accomplished offensive engines ever alongside lebron and nash (may add oscar too) for consistent elite offensive results so he likely will be my #1 guy until he retires

That magic with a relatively mundane (outside the excellent all star level james worthy) offensive cast still could produce such a strong offense is a reason why even as "floor raisers" magic may still be ahead or on par with this version of jordan (while having evidence of higher offense ceiling reached as a team engine)

2- prime jordan is firmly in what i call the "outer circle" of goat tier offensive engines to me (jokic, shaq, curry are some other guys there) due to the sheer quantity of solidly efficient offense he ca produce with his scoring + playmaking of said scoring threat

In a vacuum his greater scoring ability may be better than magic passing in some contexts, particularly as a floor raiser but magic has the greater proof of concept by leading a offensive dinasty in both reg season and playoffs

3- kevin johnson. Suns impressive offense (admiteddlt with good talent around) and his own really solid numbers convince me to put him over isiah who was in a offensively talented team himself but didnt produce the same results

HM: isiah thomas, charles barkley

DPOY

1-hakeem i think eaton continues to lead the #1 defense in better defensive rosters, but i give hakeem defensive prime the edge for better reproducibility against teams with better spacing (such as the whole league would slowly develop towards going forward)

2- mark eaton. I honestly considered bol here. His offensive issues probably not being as bad as eaton own and i honestly wonder if put in eaton place could have produced similar impact while being sligtly less of a offensive handicap

But in reality i cannot change how much more one played than the other

3- ewing. Physically at his prime he was kind of hakeem lite in how athletic he was yet such a great rim protector. Worse rebounder than hakeem (some of it may be spacing the floor more?) Less mobile and agile but that is no shame as hakeem was a russel esque outlier in those aspects

Hm: samute bol outlier rim protection in limited minutes

POY

1-magic. I thoufht hard about this year as in a vacuum i think jordan may have become a sligtly better player.

I perceive jordan while not close to a dpoy (no matter what the 80's voter obsession with high steals guards say) a solidly strong guard/wing on D. Probably worth around 1 point or so (estimation) over the average 2 guard. Whereas magic to me is much more of a neutral element at the wing

Is magic offensw more than 1 point better than jordan? Probably not in most circunstances

On the -other- hand. It arguably was in 1989. As magic seens to have been a league leading figure in what little aproximations we have for impact data. Led monster offenses without monster (still good) offense supporting cast, dominant regular season and swept a excellent suns team who through the late 80's/early 90's had been every bit as good as the cavs jordan beat (cavs who also lose a lot of its luster accounting for price injury so i am not even sure jordan did beat the strongest team amongst the two)

His team regular season is better and his conference playoffs run may be too.

2-jordan for the reasons mentioned above albeit i think he is a 50-50 ish pick for this vote as i think he may be a slightly better player in a vacuum at this point anf gets a little better in 90/91 (realizing how good the suns team magic beat was and that jordan own win vs cavs was likely helped by injuries nullified the "achievement gap" i first considered for jordam having beat the "better team" this year)

3-isiah. Not the 3rd best player to me. But with hakeem rockets being and afterthought and pistons winning the ring he slightly beats other candidates for me

4-hakeem. A better player than isiah but i felt like tje achievement gap is too huge between both this year even if normally i go for better players first then achievement later

5- kevin johnson for a great team and individual season that still had then reaching the wcf

[Cavsfansince84]

In 1988, he still arguably had room to grow as a playmaker but by 1989 he truly reached his peak and didn't really improve much thereafter. If he did it was minimal. Any growth in skillset and experience was balanced by a loss in motor and athleticism.

The reason the narrative of collapse is overblown is that the Bulls were heavy underdogs against the Pistons in 1989 with just +450 odds of winning the series. Them being up 2-1 to begin with was a huge surprise. In Game 1 and Game 3, the commentators keep mentioning over and over how poorly the Pistons are playing. 47 win teams very rarely beat 63 win teams (large SRS deficit). The Pistons were also an elite defense that went up a notch in the PS. Relative to how the Pistons defended in the PS, Jordan's efficiency looks even more impressive. The Bulls as a team actually shot 52.7 %TS which is +1.0 rTS. And they held the Pistons to 49.8 %TS but lost the series because they got absolutely killed on the boards. Rodman coming off the bench was the X-factor IMO. Hardly a mention in this thread that Pippen only played 1 minute in Game 6 too before he came off with injury.

Anyways of course Pippen maturing and becoming a star as opposed to just a role player was the reason the Bulls improved. Everyone needs a team to win. For curiosity sake, how many games do you think the 1989 Bulls win without Jordan? And where to they rank in terms of offense and defense? I think they would be one of the worst teams in the league.

I'm willing to read your reply and reply to it but let me preface it by saying I do think you have major cognitive dissonance when it comes to MJ as I already stated. Nothing you say at this point is likely to change my mind on this. So having said that, the commentators also kept saying how tired he looked and unwilling he seemed to attack. Re: MJ improving, imo he followed the same natural progression that all top 20 players tend to follow of improvement from age 21-27. He became a better shooter, added more post game, got into a better system that relied less on him to create offense and became a better leader. Which is to say he kept improving after 88 & 89. That was not peak MJ. I said absolutely nothing of expecting the Bulls to beat the Pistons from 88-90 either so no need to bring it up or address that as though I am holding the loss over MJ's head. I just don't think you are capable of saying he deserves any of the blame for them losing if we are judging him by the standard of being the goat sg at age 25-27. The Pistons made him look mortal.

[falcolombardi]

In 1988, he still arguably had room to grow as a playmaker but by 1989 he truly reached his peak and didn't really improve much thereafter. If he did it was minimal. Any growth in skillset and experience was balanced by a loss in motor and athleticism.

The reason the narrative of collapse is overblown is that the Bulls were heavy underdogs against the Pistons in 1989 with just +450 odds of winning the series. Them being up 2-1 to begin with was a huge surprise. In Game 1 and Game 3, the commentators keep mentioning over and over how poorly the Pistons are playing. 47 win teams very rarely beat 63 win teams (large SRS deficit). The Pistons were also an elite defense that went up a notch in the PS. Relative to how the Pistons defended in the PS, Jordan's efficiency looks even more impressive. The Bulls as a team actually shot 52.7 %TS which is +1.0 rTS. And they held the Pistons to 49.8 %TS but lost the series because they got absolutely killed on the boards. Rodman coming off the bench was the X-factor IMO. Hardly a mention in this thread that Pippen only played 1 minute in Game 6 too before he came off with injury.

Anyways of course Pippen maturing and becoming a star as opposed to just a role player was the reason the Bulls improved. Everyone needs a team to win. For curiosity sake, how many games do you think the 1989 Bulls win without Jordan? And where to they rank in terms of offense and defense? I think they would be one of the worst teams in the league.

I'm willing to read your reply and reply to it but let me preface it by saying I do think you have major cognitive dissonance when it comes to MJ as I already stated. Nothing you say at this point is likely to change my mind on this. So having said that, the commentators also kept saying how tired he looked and unwilling he seemed to attack. Re: MJ improving, imo he followed the same natural progression that all top 20 players tend to follow of improvement from age 21-27. He became a better shooter, added more post game, got into a better system that relied less on him to create offense and became a better leader. Which is to say he kept improving after 88 & 89. That was not peak MJ. I said absolutely nothing of expecting the Bulls to beat the Pistons from 88-90 either so no need to bring it up or address that as though I am holding the loss over MJ's head. I just don't think you are capable of saying he deserves any of the blame for them losing if we are judging him by the standard of being the goat sg at age 25-27. The Pistons made him look mortal.

I think jordan historical evaluation tends to be too black and white because

1- when he loses it was to better teams or there is somethingh like 95 being a "rusty year" and there is the fallacy that if you were not expected to win the there is no way you can be said to have underperformed

2- outside like, literally his rookie year there is never a opposite high volume star who scores or even shots enough to havea chance of scoring as much as him. Highest ppg usually shields a player from criticism. Jordan super high volume heroball-esque approach tends to shield from criticism in losses because he is still filling the stat sheet and the feel is he is leaving his barrel empty in a heroic losing effort (sometimes true, sometimes may be just shooting a ton)

Other goat tier or semi goat tier players dont always get this benefit of the doubt in their losses

[OhayoKD]

In 1988, he still arguably had room to grow as a playmaker but by 1989 he truly reached his peak and didn't really improve much thereafter. If he did it was minimal. Any growth in skillset and experience was balanced by a loss in motor and athleticism.

The reason the narrative of collapse is overblown is that the Bulls were heavy underdogs against the Pistons in 1989 with just +450 odds of winning the series. Them being up 2-1 to begin with was a huge surprise. In Game 1 and Game 3, the commentators keep mentioning over and over how poorly the Pistons are playing. 47 win teams very rarely beat 63 win teams (large SRS deficit). The Pistons were also an elite defense that went up a notch in the PS. Relative to how the Pistons defended in the PS, Jordan's efficiency looks even more impressive. The Bulls as a team actually shot 52.7 %TS which is +1.0 rTS. And they held the Pistons to 49.8 %TS but lost the series because they got absolutely killed on the boards. Rodman coming off the bench was the X-factor IMO. Hardly a mention in this thread that Pippen only played 1 minute in Game 6 too before he came off with injury.

Anyways of course Pippen maturing and becoming a star as opposed to just a role player was the reason the Bulls improved. Everyone needs a team to win. For curiosity sake, how many games do you think the 1989 Bulls win without Jordan? And where to they rank in terms of offense and defense? I think they would be one of the worst teams in the league.

I'm willing to read your reply and reply to it but let me preface it by saying I do think you have major cognitive dissonance when it comes to MJ as I already stated. Nothing you say at this point is likely to change my mind on this.

Lol

[Cavsfansince84]

Lol

Well that's just me going off of dozens upon dozens of posts I've seen him make over the years regarding MJ. It's like if a politician runs for office over and over and say and do one thing then suddenly try to get people to believe another it's not going to make much of any difference to me or most people at that point. Not that I dislike him as a poster either but just when it comes to MJ I think there's cognitive dissonance that comes into play so he's not going to give me a reply today that will suddenly make me change my mind about it. I don't think this is hard to understand. As posters we tend to understand where most of the other posters are coming from on many things that are discussed here due to how often certain things get brought up.

[OhayoKD]

Voting Post

1. Magic Johnson
2. Micheal Jordan

Ultimately it comes down to the two MJ's. On the basis of the regular-season Hakeem might be 2nd here but Jordan rose in the playoffs while Olajuwon simply maintained.

This was my 1988 reasoning:

Spoiler:

Voting Post

[spoiler]1. Magic Johnson

Bulk of my reasoning here can be found on the previous 2 pages but to TLDR this,

-> Best impact signals of the era
-> Arguably a better signal this year than any other player in contention has seen at any point in their career (-3.8, +7 with, Lakers had all it's players save for Cooper)
-> Era Outlier in both creation quantity and creation quality by tracking from multiple sources (yet to see contradictory counts)
-> Much better team offensive and overall performance vs a common opponent relative to two offense-centric competitors
-> Wins repeat title despite diminished cast
-> Extremely impressive in surrounding years including 1989 where the team theoretically should perform worse

To me this shouldn't be a particularly contentious choice though I imagine many disagree because of a series of all-in-one outputs that have been spammed for decades on lists like this one. Here's my take on that:

They're the same type of data. Humans choose what to count and then put weights on what they've counted, That decades were spent enshrining a narrow set of approaches as objectively valuable does not magically give the formulas and inputs you prefer inherent value and pretending it does would get you discredited in any space with an ounce of serious academic rigor.

Beyond the extent you can justify the approach or weightings vs approaches/weightings that favor alternative players, your formulas are not legitimate evidence.

IBM of course is not a few games, Lebronny's tracking covers multiple years of full playoff runs. If sample size is the issue, then the solution is to increase the sample, not keep reinforcing a set of priors that have never been seriously tested because they produce outputs you find convenient.

On/off is even in the regular-season and then it collapses for Jordan. And Magic is clearly advantaged in WOWY (something you cleverly side-stepped by throwing in games Magic did not play with his "with")[/quotte]]

Here's is how these players grade out with career samples (near career for those who played longer) samples:

Magic Johnson(3x MVP) 1980-1991
Lakers are +0.8 without, +7.5 with

Micheal Jordan(5x MVP) 1985-1998
Bulls are +1.3 without, +6.1 with

Hakeem(1x MVP) 1985-1999
Rockets are -2.8 without. +2.5 with

I'd say conventional all-in-ones aren't very useful here.

Here's what changed:
-> Kareem is now a 7th man, yet the Lakers win more in the regular-season
-> Kareem now a 7th man, yet the Lakers are more dominant in the playoffs (until Magic gets hurt
-> Magic scores more on significantly better efficiency
-> The Lakers post an all-time +9 playoff offense en route to going 11-1 until Magic goes down with the Lakers on pace to win game 2
-> Jordan wins less in the regular-season
-> Jordan's team performs worse against a more injured iteration of the cavs side they beat in 88
-> Jordan team performs much better than they did last time
-> Jordan's improves in 89 from 88 in the playoffs
-> Jordan's regular-season production goes down in 89 from 88

I value the playoffs more so I consider Jordan's 89 an upgrade but Magic's jump is arguably clearer and he started from a higher-spot. And yes, this ignores the elephant in the room:

Spoiler:

Better regular season? Magic, close, but not very close. Jordan vs the Cavs is probably on par with Magic vs the Suns that year. But Jordan vs the Knicks is a bigger gap, beating Magic out vs the Suns. Jordan dropped vs Detroit but still had an elite series, likewise with Magic vs Seattle. But it’s honestly not Magic’s fault he couldn’t have played vs Detroit, as he was injured. If he had translated from his 88 self in the finals vs Detroit, to the 89 year? Well, I think as far as an overall better season, Magic would win that. But, Jordan’s got that title because hypotheticals in this case isn’t reality. Though, better overall player on a per possession/per game basis? I don’t think Jordan had yet surpassed Magic, not quite yet.

But is this elephant really worth our attention? "Hypotheticals in this case isn't reality"...but the hypothetical that Jordan makes the final and doesn't get injured is? Yeah, I'm not compelled:

Spoiler:

Magic meanwhile won MVP with a better regular season than in 1988 (it in turn seems relatively uncontroversial to say Jordan’s regular season was a step down from what it was in 1988) and swept his way to the Finals. The Lakers looked as dominant as they ever had been. Magic won more games than any non-Piston. 11-1 record in games he finished; make it 11-2 if you want to count Game 2, where the Pistons needed a furious fourth quarter comeback to erase the lead Magic had built for the Lakers. And then we throw that out because of a hypothetical where a different player might not have suffered a Finals injury had they made it that far? We are putting multiple first round exits over the guy who brought his team to the Finals? Come on now.

The most ridiculous aspect of this is in the last project, Magic was voted higher in 1990. Multiple people saw Magic losing to the Suns in the second round and said to themselves, you know what, that is worth more than sweeping the Suns in the conference finals — because at least this time you did not miss any postseason games with injury! His 1989 player share was closer to what it was in 1986 — 1-4 conference finals exit — than to what it was in 1990. What are these standards?

Magic was the top regular season player. Through the third quarter of Game 2 of the Finals, he was the top postseason player as well. To me, that makes him the Player of the Year. And if your stance is ever that a player would have been better off losing early, I think your stance is so completely divorced from the game that there is no possible reconciliation.

The Bulls improvement coming on the back of Jordan scaling down his offensive involvement is also notable to me. Magic scales up, team improves in he regular-season and the playoffs. Jordan scales up, team goes 13-11, downgrade from previous year, slight upgrade by net-rating over pre-pg MJ, but significantly down from their playoff performance where MJ is closer to his typical role.

Says something to me about cast improvement and also something about the ceiling of an all-MJ offense.

3. Hakeem
Better in the RS than last year but not quite dropping 38 in the playoffs and a less impressive first round less team-wise.

4. Ewing
Sure, why not.

5. Kevin Johnson

I have no strong opinions on KJ vs IT vs Barkley but the reasoning offered in KJ's favor seems the most compelling:

Spoiler:

Kevin Johnson will probably be overlooked because of later off-court problems but I think he has a top 5 case.
- Suns were #2 offense behind Lakers, #2 SRS overall, and dominated the first two rounds before losing to LA in conference Finals.
- Team fell from +7.0 to +0.8 without KJ over 90-92. He places above any other star besides Magic in Moonbeam's RWOWY for 89-93.
- 20/4/12 on 60% TS in regular season and 24/4/12 on 62% TS in playoffs. Usually a strong playoffs performer throughout his career.
- Skillset wise, KJ is pretty complete except for a 3pt shot which no other POY candidate has anyway. Best dunking PG in the league, elite handles, excellent playmaker, draws tons of free throws, shoots around 90% from the line (88 RS, 93 PO), and is above mid 40s from long 2s when tracking data is available.

In comparison with some other candidates,
- Malone/Stockton: A below league average offense despite playing together and got swept by a negative SRS team in first round.
- Barkley: Top 3 offense but bottom 2 defense. Also got swept in first round (albeit very close and by a better team)
- Ewing: Dropped from 23 ppg on 61% TS to 20 ppg on 54% TS in playoffs. Defensively, not near peak form as reflected in Knicks' FF splits and overall PO results (+2.4 relative defense).

OPOY

1. Magic Johnson
2. Micheal Jordan
3. Kevin Johnson

DPOY

1. Hakeem Olajuwon
2. Mark Eaton
3. Patrick Ewing

[Djoker]

I'm willing to read your reply and reply to it but let me preface it by saying I do think you have major cognitive dissonance when it comes to MJ as I already stated. Nothing you say at this point is likely to change my mind on this. So having said that, the commentators also kept saying how tired he looked and unwilling he seemed to attack. Re: MJ improving, imo he followed the same natural progression that all top 20 players tend to follow of improvement from age 21-27. He became a better shooter, added more post game, got into a better system that relied less on him to create offense and became a better leader. Which is to say he kept improving after 88 & 89. That was not peak MJ. I said absolutely nothing of expecting the Bulls to beat the Pistons from 88-90 either so no need to bring it up or address that as though I am holding the loss over MJ's head. I just don't think you are capable of saying he deserves any of the blame for them losing if we are judging him by the standard of being the goat sg at age 25-27. The Pistons made him look mortal.

With all due respect, not being willing to change your mind is on you, not on me. If you see specific instances where my arguments show cognitive dissonance, please point them out to me. I won't be offended. Quite the contrary. 70sFan for instance is one poster here who I can proudly say I learned a lot from. And Regul8r too who used to be active back in the day.

Regarding MJ's improvement, he did become better in those areas you mentioned after 1989 but like I pointed out, he also got worse in terms of motor and athleticism. And someone like Ben Taylor who tracked thousands of hours of MJ video agrees with me. Besides, even if you have a different take that he got a bit better after 1989, a far bigger factor for the Bulls' success in latter seasons is the improvement of the supporting cast, not Jordan himself.

As for expectations, I simply said that in response to the whole narrative that the Bulls collapsed. If anything the Pistons collapsed in Game 1 and Game 3 and the Bulls were just themselves in the other four games. A weak pretender who got their asses kicked by a real championship team. The Bulls were a surprise to make it to the ECF to begin with.

[Cavsfansince84]

With all due respect, not being willing to change your mind is on you, not on me. If you see specific instances where my arguments show cognitive dissonance, please point them out to me. I won't be offended. Quite the contrary. 70sFan for instance is one poster here who I can proudly say I learned a lot from. And Regul8r too who used to be active back in the day.

Regarding MJ's improvement, he did become better in those areas you mentioned after 1989 but like I pointed out, he also got worse in terms of motor and athleticism. And someone like Ben Taylor who tracked thousands of hours of MJ video agrees with me. Besides, even if you have a different take that he got a bit better after 1989, a far bigger factor for the Bulls' success in latter seasons is the improvement of the supporting cast, not Jordan himself.

As for expectations, I simply said that in response to the whole narrative that the Bulls collapsed. If anything the Pistons collapsed in Game 1 and Game 3 and the Bulls were just themselves in the other four games. A weak pretender who got their asses kicked by a real championship team. The Bulls were a surprise to make it to the ECF to begin with.

The bolded wasn't on you to begin with. It was me just stating where I stood from the get go(ie how I view your replies). It's also important to separate to some degree between MJ the box score composite and MJ the actual person in a specific year which also carries with it context that he both does and does not have control over. However you want to look at the 89 ecf in terms of how they matched up the reality is that they did go up 2-1 on the back of a 46 pt game by MJ in game 3. They then proceeded to lose the next 3 while MJ avged 24ppg on way fewer shot attempts and mediocre efficiency at best for him. So the use of the word collapse isn't dependent upon the end result. It's based on how things went after the Bulls gained a 2-1 advantage and I also said I didn't hold the end result against him anyhow.
I just find it a bit bewildering that there was basically zero criticism of MJ's performance against the Pistons in 88 or 89 and instead just saw people saying he had an elite series and stuff like that. He wasn't elite by the standards we'd have for him or most players being considered for top 2 status in a given year imo. What happens though is series get conflated together and we end up with box sore composites which make him look very good in both years but that isn't the full story of how he performed.
So at this point I'm not really arguing anything. All I am saying is that MJ was brought down to Earth in both of those series. They aren't anymore a feather in his cap than I would count the 89 finals against Magic on the basis of his getting injured. It's sort of impressive that the Bulls took the Pistons to 6 games but it did end rather oddly for a goat level player in what you are calling his peak year. He was noticeably worn down imo from switching to pg and carrying them through the first two rds. So either this is peak MJ and he just wore down or he still improved a decent amount(while his rs motor probably declined by 91) but he figured some things out and Phil made his life a bit easier.

[OhayoKD]

With all due respect, not being willing to change your mind is on you, not on me. If you see specific instances where my arguments show cognitive dissonance, please point them out to me. I won't be offended. Quite the contrary. 70sFan for instance is one poster here who I can proudly say I learned a lot from. And Regul8r too who used to be active back in the day.

Regarding MJ's improvement, he did become better in those areas you mentioned after 1989 but like I pointed out, he also got worse in terms of motor and athleticism. And someone like Ben Taylor who tracked thousands of hours of MJ video agrees with me. Besides, even if you have a different take that he got a bit better after 1989, a far bigger factor for the Bulls' success in latter seasons is the improvement of the supporting cast, not Jordan himself.

As for expectations, I simply said that in response to the whole narrative that the Bulls collapsed. If anything the Pistons collapsed in Game 1 and Game 3 and the Bulls were just themselves in the other four games. A weak pretender who got their asses kicked by a real championship team. The Bulls were a surprise to make it to the ECF to begin with.

The bolded wasn't on you to begin with. It was me just stating where I stood from the get go(ie how I view your replies). It's also important to separate to some degree between MJ the box score composite and MJ the actual person in a specific year which also carries with it context that he both does and does not have control over. However you want to look at the 89 ecf in terms of how they matched up the reality is that they did go up 2-1 on the back of a 46 pt game by MJ in game 3. They then proceeded to lose the next 3 while MJ avged 24ppg on way fewer shot attempts and mediocre efficiency at best for him. So the use of the word collapse isn't dependent upon the end result. It's based on how things went after the Bulls gained a 2-1 advantage and I also said I didn't hold the end result against him anyhow.
I just find it a bit bewildering that there was basically zero criticism of MJ's performance against the Pistons in 88 or 89 and instead just saw people saying he had an elite series and stuff like that. He wasn't elite by the standards we'd have for him or most players being considered for top 2 status in a given year imo. What happens though is series get conflated together and we end up with box sore composites which make him look very good in both years but that isn't the full story of how he performed.
So at this point I'm not really arguing anything. All I am saying is that MJ was brought down to Earth in both of those series. They aren't anymore a feather in his cap than I would count the 89 finals against Magic on the basis of his getting injured. It's sort of impressive that the Bulls took the Pistons to 6 games but it did end rather oddly for a goat level player in what you are calling his peak year. He was noticeably worn down imo from switching to pg and carrying them through the first two rds. So either this is peak MJ and he just wore down or he still improved a decent amount(while his rs motor probably declined by 91) but he figured some things out and Phil made his life a bit easier.

Did he figure some things out? Or did his efficiency naturally improve with the triangle leaving him single coverage a bunch and people conflated that with a substantial improvement as they did with KD on the Warriors

Regarding MJ's improvement, he did become better in those areas you mentioned after 1989 but like I pointed out, he also got worse in terms of motor and athleticism. And someone like Ben Taylor who tracked thousands of hours of MJ video agrees with me

He may have tracked thousands of hours but as far as I know all he's actually offered in terms of countables for MJ is "error rate" and "good pass" and "percentage of high-quality openings". I've soured quite a bit on "well this happened more, this happened less, i haven't actually counted how often or not often it happened but still" approach to film-analysis that seems popular in sports

[Cavsfansince84]

Did he figure some things out? Or did his efficiency naturally improve with the triangle leaving him single coverage a bunch and people conflated that with a substantial improvement as they did with KD on the Warriors

There is some nuance there between his improvement and him being in a better situation with the triangle and better players around him plus being able to focus more on scoring. Just as there's different ways of viewing a player's peak. In terms of floor raising 89 probably is his peak. There's also the fact that MJ started working on his body more after 89 and hitting the weights in the off season to gain strength which also allows him to do more things on offense. Just as his mastery of the triangle does help his on court performance and I think he also gained a better of understanding of when to lean on teammates and when he needed to take over. Having better teammates also makes it easier to get through a rs and save your energy for the playoffs but I think Phil also helped him to better understand how to win.

[AEnigma]

Tough to ever truly settle on how different iterations of Jordan may have performed in that series, but for my part I think 1990/91 Jordan would have likely been better offensively and overall, 1990-92 Jordan could have conceivably been better on defence, and 1992/93 Jordan could have conceivably been better offensively and overall. I can also envision similar results but shifted timing, e.g. maybe 1993 Jordan trades a Game 1 win for a Game 4 or 5 win, and maybe we feel better about those wins because they reflect better on chances to win a long series, or maybe we feel worse about those wins because we think it is more important to take the lead early rather than be better equipped for a comeback.

But regardless of where each of us falls on that spectrum, the point is that Jordan was not as equipped to handle that defence over the course of a full series as he would be the following year, and although the Finals injury muddies the water a bit, what we saw from Magic in 1988 and in this period generally do not suggest that Magic would individually struggle to the same extent (even if Magic also likely would not be winning that series in Jordan’s place).

[OhayoKD]

Tough to ever truly settle on how different iterations of Jordan may have performed in that series, but for my part I think 1990/91 Jordan would have likely been better offensively and overall, 1990-92 Jordan could have conceivably been better on defence, and 1992/93 Jordan could have conceivably been better offensively and overall..

This Jordan?

Spoiler:

Colts18 did some tracking of Jordan's defense during the 92 finals against Clyde Drexler, and Drexler shot better against MJ than he did against everyone else by a decent margin. He shot 41% overall, but against Jordan specifically shot 44% while he shot 38% against everyone else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=QiATYF2_3Vc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fforums.realgm.com%2F&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE
[quote]Yeah, they are. Have you watched them? I only needed to wait 27 seconds in video 2 to see "lockdown defense" where Jordan gets dribbled past and Grant stops him cold. I just needed to wait 50 seconds to see it happen again, except this time Jordan's teammates can't bail him out.

Why don't we actually track what happens here.

Possession 1: Jordan gets caught on a screen giving drexler time to kick it out

Possession 2: Jordan gets dribbled past, Horace Grant cleans up

Possession 3: Drexler has Jordan scrambling, makes him fall too far back, exploits this by giving his teammate a hand-off leaving him with acres of space, and then creates even more by catching Jordan and Pippen with a screen

Possession 4: Drexler dribbles by Jordan again, converts

Possession 5: Drexler draws a double, creates separation, fakes jordan out for a pass, Jordan's teammate deflects it, Drexler prevents the turnover

Possession 6: Intercepts a pass, his first positive play this video

Possession 7: Stonewalls Drexler for a few seconds, Drexler passes it away. second positive play this video

Possession 8: Is baited out of position by a pass-fake, prevented from recovering by a screen, Drexler capitalizes with a dunk

Possession 9: Jordan contests late, Drexler misses anyway

Possession 10: Jordan and Grant successfully prevent Drexler from receiving a pass

Possession 11 Weak contest, Drexler misses anyway

Even going by videos titled "Jordan locks down X" form youtube accounrs called "no one touches Jordan", Clyde torched Jordan on a bad hamstring.

What makes Jordan likely to perform better from 90-92 defensively?

[AEnigma]

^ Where did “conceivably” turn into “likely”?

[AEnigma]

Votes are tallied. I recorded 15 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, 70sFan, homecourtloss, and Narigo. DJoker, AEnigma, B-Mitch 30, trelos, OhayoKD, 70sFan, 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.

1988-89 Results

(Retro) Offensive Player of the Year — Magic Johnson (8)

Code: Select all

Player       1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Magic Johnson   5   1   0    28    0.800
2. Michael Jordan  2   4   1   23    0.657
3. Kevin Johnson   0   1   3    6    0.171
4. Charles Barkley   0   1   2    6    0.143
5. Michael Adams   0   0   1    1    0.029

(Retro) Defensive Player of the Year — Hakeem Olajuwon (3)

Code: Select all

Player         1st   2nd   3rd   Points  Shares
1. Hakeem Olajuwon    5   1   0    28   0.800
2. Mark Eaton    1   5   0    20    0.571
3a. Patrick Ewing    0   0   5    5    0.143
3b. Bill Laimbeer   1   0   0    5    0.143
5. Larry Nance   0   1   1    4    0.114
6. Manute Bol   0   0   1    1    0.029

Retro Player of the Year — Magic Johnson (5)

Code: Select all

Player      1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Magic Johnson  10  3  1  0  0   126   0.840
2. Michael Jordan  5  6  2  1  1   106   0.707
3. Hakeem Olajuwon   0  5  6  2  1    72   0.480
4. Charles Barkley  0  1  2  4  3   32    0.213
5. Patrick Ewing  0  0  1  5  3   23   0.153
6a. Kevin Johnson   0  0  0  1  4   7   0.047
6b. Isiah Thomas   0  0  1  0  2   7   0.047
8. John Stockton   0  0  1  0  0   5   0.033
8. Larry Nance   0  0  1  0  0   5   0.033
10. Karl Malone   0  0  0  1  0   3   0.020
10. Bill Laimbeer   0  0  0  1  0   3   0.020
12. Michael Adams   0  0  0  0  1   1   0.007

In the prior project, there were 21 votes, with no overlap. These are the aggregated results of the two projects across 36 total ballots:

Spoiler:

Code: Select all

Player   1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts  POY Shares
1. Michael Jordan  26  6  2  1  1   316   0.878
2. Magic Johnson  10  21  3  1  0   265   0.736
3. Hakeem Olajuwon   0  7  12  11  4    146   0.406
4. Charles Barkley  0  2  11  10  7   106    0.294
5. Patrick Ewing  0  0  2  6  7   35   0.097
6. Karl Malone   0  0  3  4  4   31   0.086
7. John Stockton   0  0  1  1  4   12   0.033
8. Kevin Johnson   0  0  0  1  6   9   0.025
9. Isiah Thomas   0  0  1  0  2   7   0.019
10. Larry Nance   0  0  1  0  0   5   0.014
11. Bill Laimbeer   0  0  0  1  0   3   0.008
12. Michael Adams   0  0  0  0  1   1   0.003

1990 thread will open shortly.

[OhayoKD]

Did he figure some things out? Or did his efficiency naturally improve with the triangle leaving him single coverage a bunch and people conflated that with a substantial improvement as they did with KD on the Warriors

There is some nuance there between his improvement and him being in a better situation with the triangle and better players around him plus being able to focus more on scoring. Just as there's different ways of viewing a player's peak. In terms of floor raising 89 probably is his peak. There's also the fact that MJ started working on his body more after 89 and hitting the weights in the off season to gain strength which also allows him to do more things on offense.

He also was getting hella knee procedures in the offseasons, A much much worse version of the Pistons in 91(their defense was an outright negative in the first 2 series of those playoffs) did a decent job limiting him when Rodman wasn't missing half the game(or they weren't defending hyper-aggressively down 15 in the 4th):