Retro Player of the Year 1992-93 UPDATE — Hakeem Olajuwon

[OhayoKD]

I think going through individual ECF games to ding Jordan for in order to find reason to vote for someone who did not even make the conference finals (and didn’t exactly light the world completely on fire while losing) definitely feels like a real stretch. This is one of those years that’s not that complicated. There’s a prime ATG who had a great year, culminating in winning the finals while averaging more points than anyone has ever averaged in finals history (not to mention also leading the league in essentially every box metric we have, in both RS and playoffs, FWIW). A guy who led his team to a 3.57 RS SRS and a second-round playoff exit against an opponent that lost to an opponent that lost in the finals is not POY. Again, there’s years where that might be enough. Not every year has a prime GOAT candidate putting up a record-breaking Finals performance. This particular year does, though. Was Jordan great in the ECF? No, he had a few rough games (though also a truly great game at a crucial time). But let’s not overthink this. Is a prime ATG who won the Finals while putting up a genuinely historic Finals performance really not POY because of a series where he put up 32/7/6, with +1.8% rTS% and more steals than turnovers?

To be clear, we’re not nitpicking individual games in the series because there’s no need to, he shot 35% from the field outside of an admittedly incredible game 4. And if it weren’t for an incredible performance from Pippen and the rest of the team in game 3, likely would have lost the series.

At the end of the day, they won, and he gets the glory. But responding to 2 of the worst shooting games of your career coming back home, down 0-2, with a 3-18 performance? Yea, that’s deserves quite a bit of scrutiny, as I’m sure we would with literally any other player.

Despite the FG%, Jordan actually had a +1.8% rTS% in that series. And he also had averages of 32/7/6 and more steals than turnovers. Is the positive rTS% caused by one game being amazing? Yeah, it was a bit negative without that game. But that game happened and the Bulls won the game and probably wouldn’t have won if Jordan hadn’t been incredible. It’s not something you can just hand-wave away—Jordan being amazing that game was tremendously important. And, as I said, when we don’t handwave away that game, we get a series where Jordan put up numbers of 32/7/6 on +1.8% rTS% and more steals than turnovers. Looking at that overall picture, is that a great series by Jordan’s standards? No. But, to repeat myself, is a prime ATG who won the Finals while putting up a genuinely historic Finals performance really not POY because of that series? Seems like a stretch to me, especially when the beneficiary of that would be someone who didn’t even make the playoff round in question.

It's a garbage series by 1993 Hakeem standards. A standard Jordan failed to meet all season. I don't know why this is hard

[One_and_Done]

During Duncan's prime from 98 to 07 the Spurs Drtg was always under 100. In 08 it dropped to 101.8, and the following 2 seasons it was over 104. The timing of this aligns with the progression of Duncan's loss of mobility and athleticism.

The timing coincides with offensive efficacy increasing league-wide. It is like you cannot be bothered to even spend half a second thinking before offering the most convenient excuse you see.

The best bit here is that the worst league-relative Spurs defences in Duncans first eleven years were 2002 and 2003.

In 08 his Drtg was 97, the worst number of his career.

Still a box metric. This one is even less excusable than it already should be: we know Duncan’s actual defensive rating that season was 101.6, which was -5.9 league relative. In 2002 his individual on-court defensive rating was -5.8 league relative, and in 2003 it was -4.9 league relative.

I have to assume if Hakeem was just as good from 86 to 97 then Hakeem had alot of underachieving seasons.

Literally no one has ever said that.

I also have to assume that, if the Sonics had played Hakeem in 94 or 95, that the Sonics should have been favoured to win.

Oh, incredible, I was joking about Dikembe and Vlade, and you decided to fully commit to the joke. I suppose in the future I should remember that absolutely no bar is too low for you to try to duck under it.

We can disagree about how to interpret the results as I said.

I don't find your analysis above terribly compelling. The average Ortg in 07 was 106.5. In 08 it was 107.5. Not much of a difference. Between 08 and 2018 it hovered between 104 and 108, bobbing up and down in no particularly obvious pattern. That looks more like random variance than some sort of offensive surge that happened between 07 and 08. The actual spike in offence for that period occurred between 04 and 05, which was when the interpretation of the touch rules changed. Ortg spiked from 102 in 04 all the way up to 106 in 05. TS% also spiked, from 516 to 529, and league TS% has never been below 527 since then. These days it hovers around 58%. Between 07 and 08 however it only changed from 540 to 541. It actually dropped.

There is no league wide trend that explains the Spurs Drtg starting to drop precipitaciously from 07 to 08, and then really take a slide in 09 and 10. On the other hand, it aligns perfectly with the decline of Duncan's athleticism and mobility. While I don't go in for flat adjustments based on relative numbers, as you should know by now since I think adjusted TS% is trash, the fact that the Spurs Drtg was not as good as some other years in 02 and 03 shouldn't be a shock because the support cast around Duncan was horrible, a fact I've harped on endlessly. Some of those bad team mates will also tend to bleed into your stats too, because some of them have to be on the court with you at all times.

Probably time to put the focus back on guys who actually played in 93 though, like Shaq who improved the Magic by literally 20 wins and isn't getting a look in.

[AEnigma]

To be clear, we’re not nitpicking individual games in the series because there’s no need to, he shot 35% from the field outside of an admittedly incredible game 4. And if it weren’t for an incredible performance from Pippen and the rest of the team in game 3, likely would have lost the series.

At the end of the day, they won, and he gets the glory. But responding to 2 of the worst shooting games of your career coming back home, down 0-2, with a 3-18 performance? Yea, that’s deserves quite a bit of scrutiny, as I’m sure we would with literally any other player.

Despite the FG%, Jordan actually had a +1.8% rTS% in that series. And he also had averages of 32/7/6 and more steals than turnovers. Is the positive rTS% caused by one game being amazing? Yeah, it was a bit negative without that game. But that game happened and the Bulls won the game and probably wouldn’t have won if Jordan hadn’t been incredible. It’s not something you can just hand-wave away—Jordan being amazing that game was tremendously important. And, as I said, when we don’t handwave away that game, we get a series where Jordan put up numbers of 32/7/6 on +1.8% rTS% and more steals than turnovers. Looking at that overall picture, is that a great series by Jordan’s standards? No. But, to repeat myself, is a prime ATG who won the Finals while putting up a genuinely historic Finals performance really not POY because of that series? Seems like a stretch to me, especially when the beneficiary of that would be someone who didn’t even make the playoff round in question.

It's a garbage series by 1993 Hakeem standards. A standard Jordan failed to meet all season. I don't know why this is hard

In the other three Bulls wins, Jordan averaged 25.3 points per game on 46.7% efficiency.

[lessthanjake]

Okay, so as an initial matter, I think it is a little silly to just ignore actual individual output

I am not. I am disputing your baseless assumption that higher scoring output = higher individual output. Hakeem is exerting the most output for his team on half or so of their defensive possessions. By comparison, Jordan's output on that end is near non-existent.

Hakeem also has plenty of output offensively on non-scoring attentions considering the entire scheme of the Sonics was to prevent him getting the ball and to immediately force it out of his hands and the scheme of the Rockets was to make him the focal point of the offense. Neither applies to the same degree describing Jordan vs the Suns.

More generally, POY isn’t a “Most Impactful Per 100 Possessions Player of the Year” award. That’s what your cherry-picked extrapolations are all geared towards. And I could definitely argue with those assertions, which are all based on cherry-picked inferences. But obviously POY is, in a significant part, about a player’s concrete achievements that year.

Jordan won the title with a genuinely historic finals performance.

It can be. Player of the year is by design vague so that people can choose their own criteria as long as it centers on what transpired in the season in question. Impact on winning is the centerpiece of most voters criteria because it is the "accomplishment" which an individual exerts the most control over. And when the gap is clear, I see no reason to reinforce groupthink by voting against more deserving candidates.

We define accomplishment here. And I plan on defining it according to what I think is the most useful history for the project to tell. And I see nothing more useful than when we tell the story of players who already achieved being the best in the sport but went unrecognized. Hakeem was the best. Easily. That's why he should be POY. that's more than enough accomplishment for me.

Being the final person to touch the ball 41 times facing mediocre defense is not inherently valuable beyond whatever one is willing to assume about the impact touching the ball last has (assuming that is uniform which it obviously isn't). The only historic bit I see here is an arbitrarily weighed milestone which not you or anyone bringing it up is actually willing to try and ascertain the value of.

It's not team of the year, or last-ball-toucher of the year, it's player of the year and generally most people agree, myself included, the point of a player is to make their team better. Hakeem likely did that better than Jordan for a full season and postseason. That's clear cut POY to me.

It only balances out anything when it's explained why Jordan's ultra valuable 41 ppg led to a result indicative of lesser impact than Hakeem Olajuwon. There is nothing inherently irreplaceable about higher points by higher-shot totals, especially when it's a defense especially weak at your area of attack and you are attacking it facing less defensive coverage than most superstars would, including the one you are being compared to.

This is not retro scorer of the year. Cherrypicking aspects of the game does not an argument make.

It’s not really cherry-picking aspects of the game to put a lot of weight on massive performances in the NBA Finals,

You are putting a lot of weight on a scoring performance. AKA cherrypicking. We know scoring alot more doesn't mean you are more or as valuable than someone. And we have no reason to think it made Jordan as valuable in 93. That's really all there is to it.

Okay, if you want to define POY for yourself in a way that conveniently puts little value on having a genuinely historic Finals-winning performance and instead vote for someone who led a 3.57 SRS team to a second-round exit, you are right that you’re free to do so. You can define POY however you want—you could even vote for Will Perdue for POY if you wanted. Ultimately, you’ll vote based on the things you have decided are and aren’t important to you and based on whatever information you can pull to support your intended conclusion, while I am not a voter. But I think the way you’re going about things is not how the vast majority of people think about this sort of thing (though my guess is it probably will end up being how the majority of the very specific set of people who vote in this thread end up voting, and that’s okay). It’s certainly extremely counter to how I would think about POY voting (and my guess is it probably won’t have any other analogue even in this project). And I think the way the vast majority of people think about things would lead to this being pretty straightforward in Jordan’s favor, for the same general reasons I’ve articulated.

[lessthanjake]

To be clear, we’re not nitpicking individual games in the series because there’s no need to, he shot 35% from the field outside of an admittedly incredible game 4. And if it weren’t for an incredible performance from Pippen and the rest of the team in game 3, likely would have lost the series.

At the end of the day, they won, and he gets the glory. But responding to 2 of the worst shooting games of your career coming back home, down 0-2, with a 3-18 performance? Yea, that’s deserves quite a bit of scrutiny, as I’m sure we would with literally any other player.

Despite the FG%, Jordan actually had a +1.8% rTS% in that series. And he also had averages of 32/7/6 and more steals than turnovers. Is the positive rTS% caused by one game being amazing? Yeah, it was a bit negative without that game. But that game happened and the Bulls won the game and probably wouldn’t have won if Jordan hadn’t been incredible. It’s not something you can just hand-wave away—Jordan being amazing that game was tremendously important. And, as I said, when we don’t handwave away that game, we get a series where Jordan put up numbers of 32/7/6 on +1.8% rTS% and more steals than turnovers. Looking at that overall picture, is that a great series by Jordan’s standards? No. But, to repeat myself, is a prime ATG who won the Finals while putting up a genuinely historic Finals performance really not POY because of that series? Seems like a stretch to me, especially when the beneficiary of that would be someone who didn’t even make the playoff round in question.

It's a garbage series by 1993 Hakeem standards. A standard Jordan failed to meet all season. I don't know why this is hard

It’s actually a very good conference final series by 1993 Hakeem standards, since 1993 Hakeem put up zero stats whatsoever in the conference finals.

[Special_Puppy]

I think going through individual ECF games to ding Jordan for in order to find reason to vote for someone who did not even make the conference finals (and didn’t exactly light the world on fire while losing) definitely feels like a real stretch. This is one of those years that’s not that complicated. There’s a prime ATG who had a great year, culminating in winning the finals while averaging more points than anyone has ever averaged in finals history (not to mention also leading the league in essentially every box metric we have, in both RS and playoffs, FWIW). A guy who led his team to a 3.57 RS SRS and a second-round playoff exit against an opponent that lost to an opponent that lost in the finals is not POY. Again, there’s years where that might be enough. Not every year has a prime GOAT candidate putting up a record-breaking Finals performance. This particular year does, though. Was Jordan great in the ECF? No, he had a few rough games (though also a truly great game at a crucial time). But let’s not overthink this. Is a prime ATG who won the Finals while putting up a genuinely historic Finals performance really not POY because of a series where he put up 32/7/6, with +1.8% rTS% and more steals than turnovers?

Ok at this point you are restating yourself. I get that MJ has a strong argument. What I don't agree with is a. disregarding the ecf when looking at his overall playoffs(in some ways he was lucky to win that series) and b. putting MJ's rs on Hakeem's level. This was by most metrics Hakeem's best offensive season and prob top 3 defensively(he was dpoy). He had a strong playoffs even if it ended in the 2nd rd. I'd go so far as to say rs wise it was as good or better than any MJ ever had(with 93 definitely not being his best) but this is also me repeating myself from the last voting thread where I made a case for two way centers in general in terms of impact. So we can disagree, its not the end of the world. You made your points and I made mine. Voters will give their own rationale for how they rank them.

Box Composites put Jordan's RS above Hakeems in 1993. +11.2 BPM for Jordan vs +7.5 for Hakeem. 10.2 VORP For Jordan vs 7.8 for Hakeem. 20.3 RAPTOR WAR for Jordan vs 17.1 for Hakeem. +10.5 RAPTOR for Jordan vs +7.7 for Hakeem. This is not definitive proof that Jordan was better in the RS than Hakeem, but the make the idea that MJ wasn't "on Hakeem's level" in the RS pretty unlikely

[homecourtloss]

Despite the FG%, Jordan actually had a +1.8% rTS% in that series. And he also had averages of 32/7/6 and more steals than turnovers. Is the positive rTS% caused by one game being amazing? Yeah, it was a bit negative without that game. But that game happened and the Bulls won the game and probably wouldn’t have won if Jordan hadn’t been incredible. It’s not something you can just hand-wave away—Jordan being amazing that game was tremendously important. And, as I said, when we don’t handwave away that game, we get a series where Jordan put up numbers of 32/7/6 on +1.8% rTS% and more steals than turnovers. Looking at that overall picture, is that a great series by Jordan’s standards? No. But, to repeat myself, is a prime ATG who won the Finals while putting up a genuinely historic Finals performance really not POY because of that series? Seems like a stretch to me, especially when the beneficiary of that would be someone who didn’t even make the playoff round in question.

It's a garbage series by 1993 Hakeem standards. A standard Jordan failed to meet all season. I don't know why this is hard

In the other three Bulls wins, Jordan averaged 25.3 points per game on 46.7% efficiency.

Must be nice to have a positive rTS% when you shoot a lousy 43.2 eFG%, lowest on the team outside of washed Cartwright. It sure does help to be gifted 68 free throws, many of which were on touch fouls out on the perimeter.

[OhayoKD]

I am not. I am disputing your baseless assumption that higher scoring output = higher individual output. Hakeem is exerting the most output for his team on half or so of their defensive possessions. By comparison, Jordan's output on that end is near non-existent.

Hakeem also has plenty of output offensively on non-scoring attentions considering the entire scheme of the Sonics was to prevent him getting the ball and to immediately force it out of his hands and the scheme of the Rockets was to make him the focal point of the offense. Neither applies to the same degree describing Jordan vs the Suns.



It can be. Player of the year is by design vague so that people can choose their own criteria as long as it centers on what transpired in the season in question. Impact on winning is the centerpiece of most voters criteria because it is the "accomplishment" which an individual exerts the most control over. And when the gap is clear, I see no reason to reinforce groupthink by voting against more deserving candidates.

We define accomplishment here. And I plan on defining it according to what I think is the most useful history for the project to tell. And I see nothing more useful than when we tell the story of players who already achieved being the best in the sport but went unrecognized. Hakeem was the best. Easily. That's why he should be POY. that's more than enough accomplishment for me.

Being the final person to touch the ball 41 times facing mediocre defense is not inherently valuable beyond whatever one is willing to assume about the impact touching the ball last has (assuming that is uniform which it obviously isn't). The only historic bit I see here is an arbitrarily weighed milestone which not you or anyone bringing it up is actually willing to try and ascertain the value of.

It's not team of the year, or last-ball-toucher of the year, it's player of the year and generally most people agree, myself included, the point of a player is to make their team better. Hakeem likely did that better than Jordan for a full season and postseason. That's clear cut POY to me.




It’s not really cherry-picking aspects of the game to put a lot of weight on massive performances in the NBA Finals,

You are putting a lot of weight on a scoring performance. AKA cherrypicking. We know scoring alot more doesn't mean you are more or as valuable than someone. And we have no reason to think it made Jordan as valuable in 93. That's really all there is to it.

And I think the way the vast majority of people think about things would lead to this being pretty straightforward in Jordan’s favor, for the same general reasons I’ve articulated.

Well you thought wrong:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1020700

Jordan has been the nigh undisputed POY on any space/site ever for 88 despite being destroyed in the second round for the same reason Hakeem is in the lead now. The only real difference between this specific set of voters and all the others is a majority felt the concept of 88 Jordan is analogous to 93 Hakeem as the clear individually most valuable is wrong...for much of the same reason "wow he averaged 41" isn't being valued much here.

If this is how "most people viewed things", 1988 would not be considered for greatest season ever. There are fundamentally different theories about basketball as well as what qualifies as evidence at play here. At no point was "wow you were clearly the best, let me give it to this clearly worse player" a typical approach. People just take one as proof of the other.

[Cavsfansince84]

Box Composites put Jordan's RS above Hakeems in 1993. +11.2 BPM for Jordan vs +7.5 for Hakeem. 10.2 VORP For Jordan vs 7.8 for Hakeem. 20.3 RAPTOR WAR for Jordan vs 17.1 for Hakeem. +10.5 RAPTOR for Jordan vs +7.7 for Hakeem. This is not definitive proof that Jordan was better in the RS than Hakeem, but the make the idea that MJ wasn't "on Hakeem's level" in the RS pretty unlikely

Generally speaking box composite metrics are only somewhat good at comparing players of similar defensive value(or even better similar position) imo. So I mean you can rely on them as much as you want but those are not going to make a good case for his rs being on Hakeem's level for me personally. Just as per doesn't think that much of Bill Russell's regular seasons either(granted blocks and steals were left out for him).

[eminence]

The closer a team is to .500/0.0 Net the less 'impact' (by an APM/WOWYR type measure) a player needs to have to move the win total. In practice at least, there are stupid extreme theoretical exceptions - eg a team could go 0-82 losing every game by 1 pt and a consistent +2 player could turn them into a theoretical 82-0 squad that wins every game by 1 pt.
 
I have 20 wowy wins starting at 30 as worth 16-17 when translated to starting at 50. It falls off some as you move from .500, but not too dramatically until you're way out on the fringes below 10 or above 70 wins (so also mostly theoretical).

[AEnigma]

The closer a team is to .500/0.0 Net the less 'impact' (by an APM/WOWYR type measure) a player needs to have to move the win total. In practice at least, there are stupid extreme theoretical exceptions - eg a team could go 0-82 losing every game by 1 pt and a consistent +2 player could turn them into a theoretical 82-0 squad that wins every game by 1 pt.
 
I have 20 wowy wins starting at 30 as worth 16-17 when translated to starting at 50. It falls off some as you move from .500, but not too dramatically until you're way out on the fringes below 10 or above 70 wins (so also mostly theoretical).

Are we talking win increases or SRS increases? Because the former is relatively apparent, but the latter I think is more a matter of how much you are adding without taking away from somewhere else. Usually that tends to involves some amount scaling back, but the degree is highly variable.

[lessthanjake]

You are putting a lot of weight on a scoring performance. AKA cherrypicking. We know scoring alot more doesn't mean you are more or as valuable than someone. And we have no reason to think it made Jordan as valuable in 93. That's really all there is to it.

And I think the way the vast majority of people think about things would lead to this being pretty straightforward in Jordan’s favor, for the same general reasons I’ve articulated.

Well you thought wrong:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1020700

Jordan has been the nigh undisputed POY on any space/site ever for 88 despite being destroyed in the second round for the same reason Hakeem is in the lead now. The only real difference between this specific set of voters and all the others is a majority felt the concept of 88 Jordan is analogous to 93 Hakeem as the clear individually most valuable is wrong...for much of the same reason "wow he averaged 41" isn't being valued much here.

If this is how "most people viewed things", 1988 would not be considered for greatest season ever. There are fundamentally different theories about basketball as well as what qualifies as evidence at play here. At no point was "wow you were clearly the best, let me give it to this clearly worse player" a typical approach. People just take one as proof of the other.

You’ll find that I’ve already addressed this exact analogy in this thread. I think it’s safe to say that if Magic had a genuinely historic finals performance in 1988, then he would’ve easily won POY. I certainly would easily regard him as POY over Jordan if that were the case. As it was, Magic didn’t have a genuinely historic Finals—indeed, while he was good, he didn’t even win Finals MVP (though I personally think he probably should have)—and he still almost was voted POY in the 2010 vote and was voted POY in this more recent vote. I don’t think this analogy leads to the conclusion you think it does. If we ratchet up Magic’s 1988 Finals performance to be as historically great as Jordan’s in 1993, then Magic would’ve been the clear 1988 POY, just like Jordan in 1993.

[OhayoKD]

And I think the way the vast majority of people think about things would lead to this being pretty straightforward in Jordan’s favor, for the same general reasons I’ve articulated.

Well you thought wrong:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1020700

Jordan has been the nigh undisputed POY on any space/site ever for 88 despite being destroyed in the second round for the same reason Hakeem is in the lead now. The only real difference between this specific set of voters and all the others is a majority felt the concept of 88 Jordan is analogous to 93 Hakeem as the clear individually most valuable is wrong...for much of the same reason "wow he averaged 41" isn't being valued much here.

If this is how "most people viewed things", 1988 would not be considered for greatest season ever. There are fundamentally different theories about basketball as well as what qualifies as evidence at play here. At no point was "wow you were clearly the best, let me give it to this clearly worse player" a typical approach. People just take one as proof of the other.

You’ll find that I’ve already addressed this exact analogy in this thread. I think it’s safe to say that if Magic had a genuinely historic finals performance in 1988, then he would’ve easily won POY. .

Magic's performance in 88 was better than Jordan's in 1993 lol.

[lessthanjake]

Well you thought wrong:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1020700

Jordan has been the nigh undisputed POY on any space/site ever for 88 despite being destroyed in the second round for the same reason Hakeem is in the lead now. The only real difference between this specific set of voters and all the others is a majority felt the concept of 88 Jordan is analogous to 93 Hakeem as the clear individually most valuable is wrong...for much of the same reason "wow he averaged 41" isn't being valued much here.

If this is how "most people viewed things", 1988 would not be considered for greatest season ever. There are fundamentally different theories about basketball as well as what qualifies as evidence at play here. At no point was "wow you were clearly the best, let me give it to this clearly worse player" a typical approach. People just take one as proof of the other.

You’ll find that I’ve already addressed this exact analogy in this thread. I think it’s safe to say that if Magic had a genuinely historic finals performance in 1988, then he would’ve easily won POY. .

Magic's performance in 88 was better than Jordan's in 1993 lol.

That’s definitely a take. And I’m sure you’ll justify it with some more of your trusted extraps.

[Djoker]

I may not have time to post tomorrow because of a work inspection coming up next week and too much **** going on in general so here goes my vote a little earlier than usual.

VOTING POST

POY

1. Michael Jordan - 1st Team All-NBA. 1st Team All-Defense. 2nd in DPOY. In a season in which his two best teammates had down years, Jordan stepped up huge and carried the weakest Bulls title team to a championship. As lessthanjake explained so well in this thread, on top of everything else MJ had done, he also had a historic Finals, in many people's eyes the best individual Finals series ever played. Not just 41 ppg but a 41/8/6 statline on good efficiency and hyper low turnovers. He didn't deserve to finish that high in DPOY with so many great big men but it just shows how much the Bulls rode him with Pippen and Grant being off most of the time. He's honestly an easy choice here. Averaged 32.6/6.7/5.5 on 56.4 %TS (+2.8 rTS) in the RS and then 35.1/6.7/6.0 on 55.3 %TS (+2.9 rTS) in the PS.

2. Charles Barkley - 1st Team All-NBA. MVP. Honestly if anyone was going to dethrone MJ here, it would be Chuck. He led the Suns to a 59 Pythagorean Win season despite KJ missing major time and not even being 100% the rest of the way including the PS. Injury to Ceballos further weakened the Suns and yet Barkley led them to the Finals and played the Bulls to virtually a draw. After Jordan, Barkley was far and away the best performer here. He is a deserving MVP with the best RS of anyone and honestly going into the Finals, he and Jordan were pretty neck and neck. Barkley put up a legendary performance against a really good Sonics team with a monster 44/24 outing in a pivotal Game 7 in what has to be on a short list of greatest clutch performances in history. MJ with his historic Finals stole the show but Barkley still had a very good series. While I do think the next two guys are way way better than Chuck on the defensive end, I also think his edge over them offensively is very large and he has more to show than both of them in terms of results here. Averaged 25.6/12.2/5.1 on 59.6 %TS (+6.0 rTS) in the RS then 26.6/13.6/4.3 on 55.2 %TS (+1.7 rTS) in the PS.

3. Hakeem Olajuwon - 1st Team All-NBA, 1st Team All-Defense, DPOY. Averaged 26.1/13.0/3.5 on 57.7 %TS (+4.1 rTS) in the RS then 25.7/14.0/4.8 on 56.8 %TS (+3.0 rTS) in the PS. Lost in the 2nd round to a good Seattle team that lost to Phoenix in the very next round.

4. Patrick Ewing - 2nd Team All-NBA. Averaged 24.2/12.1/1.9 on 54.6 %TS (+1.0 rTS) in the RS then 25.5/10.9/2.4 on 53.5 %TS (+0.1 rTS) in the PS. Lost to the eventual champs Chicago.

This was kind of a close one. Both guys had a team of role players around them. Ewing lifted his team to greater heights in the RS and then had a better PS offensively dominating against a tough defense of the Bulls. However, when it comes down to it, I just think Hakeem's defense was much better. Ewing was definitely very good on D but he also had so many defensive studs on that team while Hakeem more singlehandedly anchored the Rockets. He is still the superior defender and he's close enough on offense to pull ahead.

5. David Robinson - 3rd Team All-NBA. 2nd Team All-Defense. Great season by the Admiral but overshadowed in a year with such strong competition that he barely makes the ballot. When it comes down to it, both Hakeem and Ewing just had better years than he did. 23.4/11.7/3.7 on 56.9 %TS (+3.3 rTS) in the RS then 23.1/12.6/4.0 on 52.9 %TS (-0.4 rTS) in the PS.

OPOY

1. Michael Jordan - GOAT scorer with high volume playmaking.

2. Charles Barkley - Supercharged a really good Suns offense despite injuries.

3. Karl Malone - Another very strong scoring season.

DPOY

1. Hakeem Olajuwon - Carried a cast of good but no great defenders to a #3 defense. Just too good both in terms of vertical and horizontal defense. Nearing the end of a great defensive prime.

2. David Robinson - My gut tells me he's a bit better than Ewing on D. Just more long, quick and athletic.

3. Patrick Ewing - Anchored the #1 defense although with lots of help.

[OhayoKD]

I think going through individual ECF games to ding Jordan for in order to find reason to vote for someone who did not even make the conference finals (and didn’t exactly light the world on fire while losing) definitely feels like a real stretch. This is one of those years that’s not that complicated. There’s a prime ATG who had a great year, culminating in winning the finals while averaging more points than anyone has ever averaged in finals history (not to mention also leading the league in essentially every box metric we have, in both RS and playoffs, FWIW). A guy who led his team to a 3.57 RS SRS and a second-round playoff exit against an opponent that lost to an opponent that lost in the finals is not POY. Again, there’s years where that might be enough. Not every year has a prime GOAT candidate putting up a record-breaking Finals performance. This particular year does, though. Was Jordan great in the ECF? No, he had a few rough games (though also a truly great game at a crucial time). But let’s not overthink this. Is a prime ATG who won the Finals while putting up a genuinely historic Finals performance really not POY because of a series where he put up 32/7/6, with +1.8% rTS% and more steals than turnovers?

Ok at this point you are restating yourself. I get that MJ has a strong argument. What I don't agree with is a. disregarding the ecf when looking at his overall playoffs(in some ways he was lucky to win that series) and b. putting MJ's rs on Hakeem's level. This was by most metrics Hakeem's best offensive season and prob top 3 defensively(he was dpoy). He had a strong playoffs even if it ended in the 2nd rd. I'd go so far as to say rs wise it was as good or better than any MJ ever had(with 93 definitely not being his best) but this is also me repeating myself from the last voting thread where I made a case for two way centers in general in terms of impact. So we can disagree, its not the end of the world. You made your points and I made mine. Voters will give their own rationale for how they rank them.

Box Composites put Jordan's RS above Hakeems in 1993. +11.2 BPM for Jordan vs +7.5 for Hakeem. 10.2 VORP For Jordan vs 7.8 for Hakeem. 20.3 RAPTOR WAR for Jordan vs 17.1 for Hakeem. +10.5 RAPTOR for Jordan vs +7.7 for Hakeem. This is not definitive proof that Jordan was better in the RS than Hakeem, but the make the idea that MJ wasn't "on Hakeem's level" in the RS pretty unlikely

Uh, no:

Spoiler:

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.

I know this is tough for people to wrap their mind around, but Jordan's all-in-one parity means like...nothing outside of vibes lol

[Djoker]

Ok at this point you are restating yourself. I get that MJ has a strong argument. What I don't agree with is a. disregarding the ecf when looking at his overall playoffs(in some ways he was lucky to win that series) and b. putting MJ's rs on Hakeem's level. This was by most metrics Hakeem's best offensive season and prob top 3 defensively(he was dpoy). He had a strong playoffs even if it ended in the 2nd rd. I'd go so far as to say rs wise it was as good or better than any MJ ever had(with 93 definitely not being his best) but this is also me repeating myself from the last voting thread where I made a case for two way centers in general in terms of impact. So we can disagree, its not the end of the world. You made your points and I made mine. Voters will give their own rationale for how they rank them.

Box Composites put Jordan's RS above Hakeems in 1993. +11.2 BPM for Jordan vs +7.5 for Hakeem. 10.2 VORP For Jordan vs 7.8 for Hakeem. 20.3 RAPTOR WAR for Jordan vs 17.1 for Hakeem. +10.5 RAPTOR for Jordan vs +7.7 for Hakeem. This is not definitive proof that Jordan was better in the RS than Hakeem, but the make the idea that MJ wasn't "on Hakeem's level" in the RS pretty unlikely

Uh, no:

Spoiler:

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.

I know this is tough for people to wrap their mind around, but Jordan's all-in-one parity means like...nothing outside of vibes lol

Even if for some reason you want to wave away all box score information, the impact data with 79 Bulls games sampled paints Jordan in a very strong light.

His raw ON-OFF is very strong.

Regular Season - 79 games (partial)

ON: +8.9
OFF: -6.1
ON-OFF: +15.0

Playoffs - 19 games

ON: +8.7
OFF: -5.6
ON-OFF: +14.4

He's also #1 in RAPM.

https://squared2020.com/2023/08/25/1992-1993-nba-rapm/

[OhayoKD]

Box Composites put Jordan's RS above Hakeems in 1993. +11.2 BPM for Jordan vs +7.5 for Hakeem. 10.2 VORP For Jordan vs 7.8 for Hakeem. 20.3 RAPTOR WAR for Jordan vs 17.1 for Hakeem. +10.5 RAPTOR for Jordan vs +7.7 for Hakeem. This is not definitive proof that Jordan was better in the RS than Hakeem, but the make the idea that MJ wasn't "on Hakeem's level" in the RS pretty unlikely

Uh, no:

Spoiler:

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.

I know this is tough for people to wrap their mind around, but Jordan's all-in-one parity means like...nothing outside of vibes lol

Even if for some reason you want to wave away all box score information, the impact data with 79 Bulls games sampled paints Jordan in a very strong light.

His raw ON-OFF is very strong.

Regular Season - 79 games (partial)

ON: +8.9
OFF: -6.1
ON-OFF: +15.0

Playoffs - 19 games

ON: +8.7
OFF: -5.6
ON-OFF: +14.4

It certainly looks better for him than what we see over full games the next 2 years. There's no comparison here vs Hakeem though.

He's also #1 in RAPM.

https://squared2020.com/2023/08/25/1992-1993-nba-rapm/

Player whose team's sample is twice as large as anyone else's (5 times larger than Hakeem's) leads, shocker.

[IlikeSHAIguys]

1 - Hakeem Olajuwon
2 - Patrick Ewing
3 - Michael Jordan
4 - Charles Barkley
5 - Scottie Pippen

Begging voters to just ignore what we actually think about Hakeem vs Jordan because Jordan's team did better feels like you know Hakeem was better lol. He's obviously a better defender and his team isn't like 2 wins worse than when he leaves and his supporters seem to have an opinion about his play other than he scored 41 which is cool but like if that's what it took Jordan would have won all of these POYs.

Don't really get Jordan over Ewing either tbh. Like, do you think the Knicks are winning 50 games if he goes? Idk maybe he does but all I saw was someone saying that maybe Ewing had more rs help and they didn't say anything else about it. Ewing won more games and shot way better when they went against each other while being a defensive monster obviously. I was thinking it was okay his ts isn't terrible but when you see its 1 good game and 4 horrible ones yeah lol. Don't really like giving MJ credit for his teammates saving him.

He won an MVP and made the finals so I think TNT guy should be here too. KJ was being voted OPOY so doing it with him injured is pretty impressive.

Pippen for 5 seems okay.

Defensive Player of the Year
1 - Hakeem
2 - Ewing
3 - Pippen

Offensive Player of the Year
1 - Jordan
2 - Barkley
3 - Hakeem

[lessthanjake]

The closer a team is to .500/0.0 Net the less 'impact' (by an APM/WOWYR type measure) a player needs to have to move the win total. In practice at least, there are stupid extreme theoretical exceptions - eg a team could go 0-82 losing every game by 1 pt and a consistent +2 player could turn them into a theoretical 82-0 squad that wins every game by 1 pt.
 
I have 20 wowy wins starting at 30 as worth 16-17 when translated to starting at 50. It falls off some as you move from .500, but not too dramatically until you're way out on the fringes below 10 or above 70 wins (so also mostly theoretical).

Are we talking win increases or SRS increases? Because the former is relatively apparent, but the latter I think is more a matter of how much you are adding without taking away from somewhere else. Usually that tends to involves some amount scaling back, but the degree is highly variable.

I think there’s surely significant diminishing returns in terms of SRS increases (or MOV increases). This is mostly a function of the fact that teams that are ahead by a good bit in a game tend to do quite a bit worse than normal, while those that are behind by a lot do quite a bit better. Anyone who watches basketball intuitively knows this, but there’s also a lot of data showing this, and the effect is really quite large. The better your team is, the more you end up ahead by a lot in games, and the less you end up behind by a lot. The effect of that ends up being to mitigate a good deal of the effect of a team becoming better. To some extent, this comes into play regardless of what SRS the team would otherwise be—improving a team always is mitigated somewhat by this. But since the effect of this is way smaller (or virtually non-existent) in fairly close situations and a team’s results will generally tend to form a bell curve around their median outcome, pushing a team to the higher end of the SRS spectrum will encounter a good deal more headwinds in this regard. In other words, for instance, it’s a bigger lift to take a team from 3 SRS to 8 SRS than it is to take a team from -2 SRS to 3 SRS, because that move from 3 SRS to 8 SRS comes in spite of a more dramatic increase in situations where the team is naturally letting up due to being ahead by a lot (and also a more dramatic decrease in situations where the team is naturally catching up due to being behind by a lot).

There’s other related factors—including potentially improving a team to the point where they have nothing to play for near the very end of the season. And of course there’s the fact that a player will of course have more impact filling in gaping flaws in a team than improving areas where the team is already pretty decent, and the latter will be the case more often when it comes to teams that are being improved to high SRS heights while the former will be the case more with bad teams being improved. That’s a big factor too. But I do think the factor discussed above is a really important one. Improving a team to the highest heights has large diminishing returns because of how much of the improvement gets cannibalized by the large catch-up effect that exists in basketball.