2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[Dupp]

Playoff davis > mvp giannis > Rs davis > playoff giannis

Alot of it is role for giannis in terms of his underperformance but playoff davis is better and his different

Uh, no.

MVO giannis was a goat level regular season. Cap.

1. Do you think giannis is a different player in the RS and the playoffs?
2. Davis has had a historic playoffs on multiple fronts
3. Do you think if Davis performed like this for a whole regular season, itd be considered as good as well

If davis had a full season playing how he has been, scoring at a near top of the league rate, doing it mostly off of self creation (maybe not during these finals but i mean theyre playing a zone lmao), hitting a TS of 67.0 (which is higher than 2016 curry), while playing elite D overall, heading the best offense (oncourt offrtg is between 2016 and 2017 curry, brons is also good deal below so its not from him) and top 3 defense in the league, would that not be considered as good as Giannis's season? Keep in mind that this lakers team is essentially playing at a 70 win level atm based off of that

Offensively they arent particularly close because giannis still isnt all that great in the half court because of his limited kick out ability, and tendancy to stagnate offense if his initial drive doesnt work. Not to mention davis is substantially more effecient and not in a 5 out system based on him getting easy iso looks with an open paint. Not to mention things like spacing and scoring versatility too.

So its if the defensive gap of regular season giannis is better than playoff ADs defense by a larger gap than the offensive one, which obviously isnt a foregone conclusion

Yeah no cap here. AD is significantly better and significantly less flawed than Giannis in the playoffs against the best defense and opposition. There’s really no debate to be had there.


Can Davis lead a team like Giannis in the reg season? Maybe not but his flaws won’t prevent that team from winning a title. These aren’t minor flaws either there’s a major problem there.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Uh, no.

MVO giannis was a goat level regular season. Cap.

1. Do you think giannis is a different player in the RS and the playoffs?
2. Davis has had a historic playoffs on multiple fronts
3. Do you think if Davis performed like this for a whole regular season, itd be considered as good as well

If davis had a full season playing how he has been, scoring at a near top of the league rate, doing it mostly off of self creation (maybe not during these finals but i mean theyre playing a zone lmao), hitting a TS of 67.0 (which is higher than 2016 curry), while playing elite D overall, heading the best offense (oncourt offrtg is between 2016 and 2017 curry, brons is also good deal below so its not from him) and top 3 defense in the league, would that not be considered as good as Giannis's season? Keep in mind that this lakers team is essentially playing at a 70 win level atm based off of that

Offensively they arent particularly close because giannis still isnt all that great in the half court because of his limited kick out ability, and tendancy to stagnate offense if his initial drive doesnt work. Not to mention davis is substantially more effecient and not in a 5 out system based on him getting easy iso looks with an open paint. Not to mention things like spacing and scoring versatility too.

So its if the defensive gap of regular season giannis is better than playoff ADs defense by a larger gap than the offensive one, which obviously isnt a foregone conclusion

Yeah no cap here. AD is significantly better and significantly less flawed than Giannis in the playoffs against the best defense and opposition. There’s really no debate to be had there.


Can Davis lead a team like Giannis in the reg season? Maybe not but his flaws won’t prevent that team from winning a title. These aren’t minor flaws either there’s a major problem there.

Honestly its not even that

Like ive said this multiple times but i feel people really arent getting it

Normally when a star activates "playoff mode" it means theyre a better version of themself, or maybe they are more aggressive or focus on a certain skill more

With AD, that was the case in 2015 and 2018.

2020 hes literally like not the same player he was. ADs thing is supposed to be he struggles to create his own offense relative to other superstars, and now hes doing it at an ATG level.

I think the important way to look at it is, that if this wasnt ad but a random undrafted guy that had never played a game doing this, No one would be talkjng about him not being able to create his own shot or things like that. Its because these weaknesses were present before that people assume they are present now despite direct rvidence showing otherwise

[freethedevil]

Uh, no.

MVO giannis was a goat level regular season. Cap.

1. Do you think giannis is a different player in the RS and the playoffs?
2. Davis has had a historic playoffs on multiple fronts
3. Do you think if Davis performed like this for a whole regular season, itd be considered as good as well

If davis had a full season playing how he has been, scoring at a near top of the league rate, doing it mostly off of self creation (maybe not during these finals but i mean theyre playing a zone lmao), hitting a TS of 67.0 (which is higher than 2016 curry), while playing elite D overall, heading the best offense (oncourt offrtg is between 2016 and 2017 curry, brons is also good deal below so its not from him) and top 3 defense in the league, would that not be considered as good as Giannis's season? Keep in mind that this lakers team is essentially playing at a 70 win level atm based off of that

Offensively they arent particularly close because giannis still isnt all that great in the half court because of his limited kick out ability, and tendancy to stagnate offense if his initial drive doesnt work. Not to mention davis is substantially more effecient and not in a 5 out system based on him getting easy iso looks with an open paint. Not to mention things like spacing and scoring versatility too.

So its if the defensive gap of regular season giannis is better than playoff ADs defense by a larger gap than the offensive one, which obviously isnt a foregone conclusion

Yeah no cap here. AD is significantly better and significantly less flawed than Giannis in the playoffs against the best defense and opposition. There’s really no debate to be had there.


Can Davis lead a team like Giannis in the reg season? Maybe not but his flaws won’t prevent that team from winning a title. These aren’t minor flaws either there’s a major problem there.

Davis never played the raptors, so I have no idea what you're going on about "best defense" for.

Giannis already established he's good enough to win a title in 2019. "Flaws" are no worse than "limitations" and davis is obviosuly limited compared to giannis in terms of playmaking or interior scoring.

Giannis is vulnerable to a couple potential playoff matchups, and was vulnerable to exactly one in 2019. Its no debate if you go out of your way to ignore context.

There's this rather wierd thing you're always doing where players who can do more(giannis) have "weaknesses" but players who can't even hope to do as much(kd) are "flawless".

Unlike kd, davis has a reasonable argument against giannis due to his defense, but the idea that his jumpshooting renders giannis typically being alot more valuable an invalid argument is overeactionary nonsense.

Giannis can lead a 43 win team to contention, davis can't. Davis fits better with better teamamtes, but that doesn't at all neccesarily mean the gap in terms of value is bridged.

Fact of the matter is, davis hasn't even been his team's primary rim prtoector for half of these playoffs, that alone renders your post stupid.

[70sFan]

Giannis already established he's good enough to win a title in 2019.

When and how?

[yoyoboy]

1. Do you think giannis is a different player in the RS and the playoffs?
2. Davis has had a historic playoffs on multiple fronts
3. Do you think if Davis performed like this for a whole regular season, itd be considered as good as well

If davis had a full season playing how he has been, scoring at a near top of the league rate, doing it mostly off of self creation (maybe not during these finals but i mean theyre playing a zone lmao), hitting a TS of 67.0 (which is higher than 2016 curry), while playing elite D overall, heading the best offense (oncourt offrtg is between 2016 and 2017 curry, brons is also good deal below so its not from him) and top 3 defense in the league, would that not be considered as good as Giannis's season? Keep in mind that this lakers team is essentially playing at a 70 win level atm based off of that

Offensively they arent particularly close because giannis still isnt all that great in the half court because of his limited kick out ability, and tendancy to stagnate offense if his initial drive doesnt work. Not to mention davis is substantially more effecient and not in a 5 out system based on him getting easy iso looks with an open paint. Not to mention things like spacing and scoring versatility too.

So its if the defensive gap of regular season giannis is better than playoff ADs defense by a larger gap than the offensive one, which obviously isnt a foregone conclusion

Yeah no cap here. AD is significantly better and significantly less flawed than Giannis in the playoffs against the best defense and opposition. There’s really no debate to be had there.


Can Davis lead a team like Giannis in the reg season? Maybe not but his flaws won’t prevent that team from winning a title. These aren’t minor flaws either there’s a major problem there.

Davis never played the raptors, so I have no idea what you're going on about "best defense" for.

Giannis already established he's good enough to win a title in 2019. "Flaws" are no worse than "limitations" and davis is obviosuly limited compared to giannis in terms of playmaking or interior scoring.

Giannis is vulnerable to a couple potential playoff matchups, and was vulnerable to exactly one in 2019. Its no debate if you go out of your way to ignore context.

There's this rather wierd thing you're always doing where players who can do more(giannis) have "weaknesses" but players who can't even hope to do as much(kd) are "flawless".

Unlike kd, davis has a reasonable argument against giannis due to his defense, but the idea that his jumpshooting renders giannis typically being alot more valuable an invalid argument is overeactionary nonsense.

Giannis can lead a 43 win team to contention, davis can't. Davis fits better with better teamamtes, but that doesn't at all neccesarily mean the gap in terms of value is bridged.

Fact of the matter is, davis hasn't even been his team's primary rim prtoector for half of these playoffs, that alone renders your post stupid.

What are you basing this off of? What 43 win Pelicans roster has Davis had that he failed to elevate? You realize the Lakers won 37 games last year and played at 60 win pace this year right? - and probably would have been closer to 64 without the break. And that they’ve utterly wrecked the competition in the playoffs with AD having a better postseason than anybody not named LeBron who he’s basically right there with. Of course LeBron’s health, adding Dwight, and basically replacing Lonzo with Danny Green help, but I’m really not convinced without Davis this team is more than a 44-45 win roster at the most.

And did Giannis lead his teams to real contention? It looked to me like this Bucks team wasn’t much of a contender this year considering they were very close to getting swept by a team that looks completely overmatched against this Lakers team, as Davis is making a strong FMVP case.

[HeartBreakKid]

Not sure why you're making it seem like the Lakers were the worst team ever last year. They probably would have been an 8th seed last year if James doesn't get hurt - and pretty much any superstar paired with James is probably the favorite - not much different from pairing someone with O'Neal in the early 2000s. Davis made them a first round elimination team to a championship team, but that doesn't mean he's the only guy in the league who was possible of that type of increase.

You said Davis played against the best defense - but didn't he play Portland, Houston and Denver? Which of those are the best defense, unless you mean the 2020 Heat? None of those were the best defenses in the league or really in conversation for it (especially the finals version of the Heat).

And did Giannis lead his teams to real contention? It looked to me like this Bucks team wasn’t much of a contender this year considering they were very close to getting swept by a team that looks completely overmatched against this Lakers team, as Davis is making a strong FMVP case.

The Lakers basically played only one game against the Heat. It's not like Spolstra wouldn't have adapted to make it a more competitive series. I do agree that the Bucks are not a real contender this year.

[Dupp]

Bucks actually only won a game and then looked super competitive without Giannis..

[HeartBreakKid]

Bucks actually only won a game and then looked super competitive without Giannis..

I saw this on the general board so much that I assumed he was injured in like one minute and didn't play.

He scored 19 points before leaving...in 11 minutes, and they still barely won. So if he wasn't red hot before he went out they would have lost.

This is almost inferring 'they are better without him' when the only game they won was the one where he played the best. In general we see this type of logic in the general boards every season, but this one in particular is really off.

[Dupp]

Bucks actually only won a game and then looked super competitive without Giannis..

I saw this on the general board so much that I assumed he was injured in like one minute and didn't play.

He scored 19 points before leaving...in 11 minutes, and they still barely won. So if he wasn't red hot before he went out they would have lost.

This is almost inferring 'they are better without him' when the only game they won was the one where he played the best. In general we see this type of logic in the general boards every season, but this one in particular is really off.

Offensively they did look better without him in game 4 and 5. Obviously they aren’t better without him but it was easier for Miami to pack the paint when he was in.


And Giannis did play well early in that game.. and most others. Fourth quarters and late game situations was where he became a liability offensively. Even still they were down 9 after one quarter and turned things around without him.

Dude needs to completely change his role next year. They’re not gonna have success with him as the primary ball handler. It’s way to easy to game plan against.

[Doctor MJ]

Giannis is vulnerable to a couple potential playoff matchups, and was vulnerable to exactly one in 2019.

Felt I needed to respond to this.

I can understand how you might think "it's just 2 matchups out of 29 and he hit them both in two years, unlucky guy!", but I'd have to point out:

1. It's not a random two teams. His Eastern Conference opponents are building their defenses against him, and the result so far is that in both years they've succeeded in upsetting him.

2. Nick Nurse's Raptors may have been the only team that could have beaten the Bucks last year, but they absolutely provided a blueprint that others are following now. It has to be expected at this point that the Bucks are going to have a harder time of it in the playoffs going forward unless they come up with something new.

I think the right way to think about everything with Giannis and his team is that figure something new out that makes their flow less fragile, and if they succeed, then quite possibly the way in which Giannis is better than AD may give Giannis the edge again. But until they do, there's a block in the way.

And it's important that that block isn't in any way relevant to AD. No one (serious) is saying that AD can play Giannis' role as well as Giannis, but if AD's way of playing seems to be the better way to build a champion and if you think AD's a better AD than Giannis, then why wouldn't AD have the edge?

And of course, if you actually think the Lakers would be better with Giannis than AD, then I'd expect you vote Giannis ahead of AD.

[Dupp]

Bucks need cp3 and they’ll be set up for success. Bledsoe is such an unbelievably bad fit for giannis.

[Doctor MJ]

+ Pair Giannis with another star he looks better. Is that ACTUALLY something you disagree with?

Hey, I'm ripping this out of context but I wanted to respond to a specific point:

I think the synergy between LeBron and AD is exceptional and it in particular is super-charging AD's effectiveness.
I don't think it should be any kind of assumption that Giannis would work similarly well with LeBron or anyone else.

It makes sense for AD precisely because he's not the lead attacker on offense. Yes he's also good with the ball, but he's an absolute killer reacting off the ball with incredible feel and touch.

Giannis punched his ticket superstardom as the head of his team's offensive snake. On ball. So ironically, Giannis could really use a guy like AD right about now, because Giannis himself hasn't cultivated AD's skills.

Last note:

This is where 'winning bias' gets so tricky. There are people right now who are rating AD higher just because he's winning, and that's the wrong way to go about it of course. But really what's going on on the court is AD playing his way through match up after match up playing differently with the opponent, but performing incredibly well in all circumstances.

This is not something Giannis has shown.

Might he be able to show it? Might he be able to learn it? Sure, but he hasn't yet, and it matters - to the degree you decide - that AD has.

[Heej]

Dude needs to completely change his role next year. They’re not gonna have success with him as the primary ball handler. It’s way to easy to game plan against.

I think this is what it really comes down to. I remember back in 2016 as the Cavs were going down to a relatively evenly matched Warriors team that there was a big part of me wondering whether LeBron just had to give up seeing himself as a perimeter player and transition to 4 full-time. He turned out to prove me wrong.

Giannis might be at a similar crossroads here, but in Giannis' case he may actually have to give up his dreams of being Point Giannis full-time. He already plays roll man the most out of every perimeter superstar we've seen, it may be the time to just transition into a different position for his career and learn how to kill people from the block. That way if they scheme that away he can fall back on his secondary skill of steamrolling his way in from the perimeter.

[Dupp]

The biggest issue with giannis and the bucks is the exact same thing happened to them last playoffs and they seemingly did nothing to address the issues.

Kinda similar to lebron and the heat in 2011 but then the heat just change nothing.

[freethedevil]

Bam and drgaic being injured/semi injured for 2/3 games gives butler the "most valuble player on the heat award".

Butler's also been better this series than he was vs the bucks or the celtics

[E-Balla]

Jimothy > LeBron Lames

[E-Balla]

Jimothy > Magic Bronzeson

[E-Balla]

Jimothy > Ron Artest

[GSP]

Imagine thinking that Bam Adebayo is better than Jimmy Buckets

[70sFan]

One of the best one game finals performances ever. He was everywhere on the court and I especially love his work on the glass. What a game!

Man, I used to underrate Jimmy so much!