RealGM

That time a year again. At the end of the post-season we'll do a voting of the top players of this season from start to finish in the manner of MVP voting. Each voter gives a top 5, and the higher on the list, the more points a player earns.

The idea is that we'll have a discussion active all through the end of the regular season and playoffs, and then that community will be the ones voting at the end. This doesn't mean you have to post every day to get a vote, but we would like this to be something where you do more than just show up at the end give a vote, because the purpose of a forum is in the communication give-and-take.

Note also that no votes will be tallied from the Discussion thread. A separate Voting thread will eventually be made.

If you're interested in voting, you should PM me in response to this post and make a request.

Additionally, I will be creating a second discussion thread to discuss other awards which will be voting on for the first time this year...presuming people are interested.

Voting Panel (thus far):

1. Doctor MJ
2. fuzzy_dunlop
3. fpliii
4. PaulieWai
5. Clyde Frazier
6. RSCD3
7. Dr. Spaceman
8. trex_8063
9. Quotatious
10. MO12msu
11. bondom34
12. HeartBreakKid
13. Chuck Texas
14. JordansBulls
15. therealbig3
16. MisterHibachi
17. GSP
18. Dr. Positivity
19. RebelWithACause
20. CBA
21. JLei

I think my vote is coming down between Davis and Curry as of the RS.

Interesting, would you mind making a case for Davis?

fuzzy_dunlop wrote:Interesting, would you mind making a case for Davis?

he scores a lot, rebounds a lot and blocks a lot


I'm starting to come around that he might be the best player in the league. His scoring really does seem pretty close to unstoppable. He finishes/pops extremely well, and when teams throw it to him in the post he gets the job done pretty well. He shows up nearly every game (I think even more so then someone like James does), and does his best to elevate his team for the win. He's also an all-nba defender this season, he's not perfect at that end, but I think his impact may get understated since people are wary of bigs with high blocks and steals.

Considering his roster, I feel like he is somewhat underappreciated because the Pelicans just can't get any media attention like the Thunder can (a team in the same situation, where Westbrook gets way more credit for good play).


I think about him and LBJ, and I really feel like when I watch a game there I have more confidence that Davis will do extremely well than LBJ. LBJ's jumper just looks embarrassing, his turnovers even more so, his defense jekyl and hyde like.

Harden and CP3 I'd like to see in the playoffs, more so Harden.

I'm definitely interested in some other awards. We could have the PC Board awards.

My early top 5:
1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Right now my top 5ish would look like this:

Curry
Harden
Paul/LeBron/Davis
RW

I need to breakdown the Paul/LeBron/Davis group.

Right now, I'd go with:

1. Curry
2. Harden
3. Davis
4. LeBron
5. Westbrook

but I'll seriously consider replacing one of these guys with CP3. Especially considering that CP3 hasn't missed a game yet, while Davis, LeBron and Westbrook all missed quite a few. There's no chance I'm putting Paul over Curry or Harden, though. Nobody else is even close to these six players.

My list so far, i.e. regular season performance, would be:

1. Curry
2. Harden
3./4. Davis / LeBron (after the season ended I'm going to go into detail with these two guys and make a definite choice)
5. Paul

I have Westbrook at #6 right now. Like Quotatious already mentioned, after these six players there's a gap. If OKC makes the playoffs, Westbrook could move up in my ranking depending on how he performs.

HeartBreakKid wrote:

fuzzy_dunlop wrote:Interesting, would you mind making a case for Davis?

he scores a lot, rebounds a lot and blocks a lot


I'm starting to come around that he might be the best player in the league. His scoring really does seem pretty close to unstoppable. He finishes/pops extremely well, and when teams throw it to him in the post he gets the job done pretty well. He shows up nearly every game (I think even more so then someone like James does), and does his best to elevate his team for the win. He's also an all-nba defender this season, he's not perfect at that end, but I think his impact may get understated since people are wary of bigs with high blocks and steals.

Considering his roster, I feel like he is somewhat underappreciated because the Pelicans just can't get any media attention like the Thunder can (a team in the same situation, where Westbrook gets way more credit for good play).


I think about him and LBJ, and I really feel like when I watch a game there I have more confidence that Davis will do extremely well than LBJ. LBJ's jumper just looks embarrassing, his turnovers even more so, his defense jekyl and hyde like.

Harden and CP3 I'd like to see in the playoffs, more so Harden.

Yeah, I get that this is more of a qualitative thing so there's no point to just bombarding you with numbers, but I think you're overrating AD's defense. I get the general sentiment that the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction when it comes to blocks, but it's hard to ignore the sportvu data about his rim protection being very average.

PS Can I get suffrage Doctor MJ? I know you said PM but I'm gonna make this like one of those awful public marriage proposals and shame you into saying yes and immediately regretting it.

fuzzy_dunlop wrote:PS Can I get suffrage Doctor MJ? I know you said PM but I'm gonna make this like one of those awful public marriage proposals and shame you into saying yes and immediately regretting it.

Hey fuzzy, the reason for the PMs is that I'll go through my inbox periodically and add people to a spreadsheet. If they are just doing it in a thread, and it's a long thread, then it's hell trying to figure it all out.

Incidentally, this is basically the same reason why the Discussion and Voting threads are separate. It's all about logistics. So definitely PM me.

I'm quoting a post I just made in the Davis vs Westbrook thread because frankly I think this might be the thread where the best conversation happens for it. In a nutshell:

Westbrook's defense look weak by RPM, but it looks godawful by RAPM.
Is there something I'm missing?

More generally: As much as I objected to xRAPM/RPM replacing RAPM, with it becoming as available as it has, I've come to use it hoping that my general skepticism would be enough to counterbalance any box score bias it has. But, wow, the Westbrook numbers seem really far off.

Doctor MJ wrote:

mdonnelly1989 wrote:Who's higher on your MVP list?

Davis. And if you know me, I'm probably a bit of a broken record, but anyway:

Fundamentally Westbrook's play concerns me. It doesn't concern me in the sense that I think he's a bad player, but in terms of talking about the best of the best, I think there's a good portion of his play that I would call strategically naive. This starts with the more long-lived concern about the face that his primary goal as a player should be to develop abilities that work well with Durant, and not only has he not really done this in the past, the style he's playing right now seems even more problematic than before. Then there's the matter of what I'd call an offensive approach to defense. He goes after defensive rebounds so that he can attack on offense. He goes after steals so he can attack on offense. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but people mistake it for him playing good defense when in actuality it's not actually focused on defense at all. These are defensive acts you can do that put you in a position to score personally.

By contrast, I don't really see any fundamental issues with Davis. He can improve no doubt, and some overrate his actual offensive impact, but he's not taking a lot "off the table" in the words of Bill Simmons. Meaning, he's doing things to help his team and he doesn't really get in the way very much given how much he does. The irony of that phrase is that I first heard Simmons use it to refer to Westbrook in college - and he was absolutely right - but I would not call Westbrook the very opposite of that. He's attacking the game individually in a way that makes it up to the other players and coach to figure out how to be useful. "Okay, I'm bigger than him and better at getting rebounds, but he wants the rebound himself, so what do I do?"

Now I'll add this, for this thread I looked up +/- stuff. I already basically knew the Real Plus Minus so no great shock there:

Overall: Davis 7.27, Westbrook 6.26
Offense: Westbrook 7.30, Davis 3.60
Defense: Davis 3.67, Westbrook -0.64

You look at that, it supports picking Davis here, but it's not blowout. No one should be staunch for Davis on that alone. But then I looked up Evan Z's RAPM numbers right now. These are numbers that aren't as reliable, but they also aren't biased by the box score:

Offense: Westbrook 4.05, Davis 2.95
Defense: Davis -3.86, Westbrook 3.04

Here's the thing though: That minus sign by Davis isn't accidental. Negative means good by that metric. Westbrook according to this metric is so bad on defense that he's not only almost as bad as Davis is good, he's almost as bad on defense as he is good on offense. Add them together you get:

Overall: Davis 6.81, Westbrook 1.01

So yeah, no one thing should end the debate here, but people should understand the concerns I have about Westbrook's current style generally, and the regression data seems to be actually indicating it's a bigger issue than I even imagined.

Doctor MJ wrote:I'm quoting a post I just made in the Davis vs Westbrook thread because frankly I think this might be the thread where the best conversation happens for it. In a nutshell:

Westbrook's defense look weak by RPM, but it looks godawful by RAPM.
Is there something I'm missing?

More generally: As much as I objected to xRAPM/RPM replacing RAPM, with it becoming as available as it has, I've come to use it hoping that my general skepticism would be enough to counterbalance any box score bias it has. But, wow, the Westbrook numbers seem really far off.

Doctor MJ wrote:

mdonnelly1989 wrote:Who's higher on your MVP list?

Davis. And if you know me, I'm probably a bit of a broken record, but anyway:

Fundamentally Westbrook's play concerns me. It doesn't concern me in the sense that I think he's a bad player, but in terms of talking about the best of the best, I think there's a good portion of his play that I would call strategically naive. This starts with the more long-lived concern about the face that his primary goal as a player should be to develop abilities that work well with Durant, and not only has he not really done this in the past, the style he's playing right now seems even more problematic than before. Then there's the matter of what I'd call an offensive approach to defense. He goes after defensive rebounds so that he can attack on offense. He goes after steals so he can attack on offense. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but people mistake it for him playing good defense when in actuality it's not actually focused on defense at all. These are defensive acts you can do that put you in a position to score personally.

By contrast, I don't really see any fundamental issues with Davis. He can improve no doubt, and some overrate his actual offensive impact, but he's not taking a lot "off the table" in the words of Bill Simmons. Meaning, he's doing things to help his team and he doesn't really get in the way very much given how much he does. The irony of that phrase is that I first heard Simmons use it to refer to Westbrook in college - and he was absolutely right - but I would not call Westbrook the very opposite of that. He's attacking the game individually in a way that makes it up to the other players and coach to figure out how to be useful. "Okay, I'm bigger than him and better at getting rebounds, but he wants the rebound himself, so what do I do?"

Now I'll add this, for this thread I looked up +/- stuff. I already basically knew the Real Plus Minus so no great shock there:

Overall: Davis 7.27, Westbrook 6.26
Offense: Westbrook 7.30, Davis 3.60
Defense: Davis 3.67, Westbrook -0.64

You look at that, it supports picking Davis here, but it's not blowout. No one should be staunch for Davis on that alone. But then I looked up Evan Z's RAPM numbers right now. These are numbers that aren't as reliable, but they also aren't biased by the box score:

Offense: Westbrook 4.05, Davis 2.95
Defense: Davis -3.86, Westbrook 3.04

Here's the thing though: That minus sign by Davis isn't accidental. Negative means good by that metric. Westbrook according to this metric is so bad on defense that he's not only almost as bad as Davis is good, he's almost as bad on defense as he is good on offense. Add them together you get:

Overall: Davis 6.81, Westbrook 1.01

So yeah, no one thing should end the debate here, but people should understand the concerns I have about Westbrook's current style generally, and the regression data seems to be actually indicating it's a bigger issue than I even imagined.

Doc:
RE: RAPM

I'll toss this out there, and I still get it if people vote Davis over Westbrook but a few points...

1. There's an incredible amount of noise and fluctuation in these numbers, especially the NPI ones. Lorak and I had gotten in a debate a few weeks back over this in another thread, where Harden jumped up to near top 10 defense from way back in the field. We couldn't figure out the issue, but he was using older numbers (January) when I was using ones from March. It was a jump of around 2 points if I'm remembering correctly, and in a really short period. Saying that, I wouldn't doubt that WB's numbers could drop pretty drastically when the OKC lineups lost Ibaka, Roberson, Adams for some time, and Collison for some time all while Kanter got heavy minutes.

2. Looking at last year's gotbuckets DRAPM:
Davis at -.68
WB at -.19 where positive is better.

That's saying to me that something is fundamentally off, and why I'm becoming more skeptical of RAPM in general. To drop or jump that much in a single season seems just a bit wrong to me, and I think a mix of WB's minutes being played alongside weaker defensive players and Davis gaining Asik has flipped the numbers a little. Having said that, WB hasn't been as good as usual defensively this season with the offensive load carried, but he hasn't dropped to the point of being near worst in the league as RAPM is showing. Personally I buy the DRPM numbers a bit more, as he's been a little below neutral to my eyes having seen him a good bit. His offense has still been excellent and personallly I'd vote him overall ahead of Davis.

So this is yet another debate where I'm starting to turn from someone who followed RAPM and was a big fan of it to someone who's starting to wonder about its efficacy in these sort of things.

Also, on his offense not "fitting" with KD, I'd say this season he really couldn't play like it should w/ Durant. There's no Durant out there. Honestly, you remove a guy like that from any team, and I'd hope his teammates play differently.

Edit: Found the conversation w Lorak. It starts here:

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1379361&start=60#p43118777

So far this year I'd go:

1. Curry/Hardn
3. CP3
4. Davis
5. Lebron
6. Westbrook

I have a strange feeling that Harden may drop off a little bit in the playoffs but I can't ignore the combination of load he has taken on and the team success he's had given the circumstances so far. That gives him the slight edge over Curry, but I actually feel that Curry has been a been a better per minute player so far this year. So I'll just keep them tied until the playoffs come around.

CP3 has been absolutely spectacular this year and gets the edge over Davis out of playing in every single game this year(which is very important in this Western Conference) compared to Davis missing games with nagging injuries. I think Davis has been a better per minute player but not enough to make up for the edge CP3 has in games/minutes on the floor.

I really really wasn't a huge fan of Lebron's play before he took some games off. I don't think he should get a pass for that at all just because he's been balling since then. Don't think it's enough to make up for the edge in consistency by Davis and Paul at all, especially considering how neither of those two have slowed down much at all these last few months.

I'm still not sure how I feel about Westbrook. But I think he's clearly below the first four. I'll have to do more research on him.

1. Steph Curry- I just think he has clearly been the best player in the league. There really isn't much else to say about him as everyone has really broken it down.

2. Chris Paul
3. James Harden

I feel like Chris Paul's +/- stats are really noisy this year. Last year by virtually every metric (RPM, xRAPM, vanilla, talkingpractice, mystic's formula) he rated top 3 in the league and higher than Kevin Durant. Yet this year he is having an objectively superior season and his numbers are down. RPM had his defense go from nearly +2 to +.5 and Curry has double that. It just screams noise.

I have just been more impressed by Chris Paul's two way play over what Harden has had to do. People claim that Harden has had to carry the Rockets and while that is true I think it is important to note that the Rockets are running with a far superior record than they should be given their point margin. The Clippers have played basketball at a significantly higher level. Combine that with the fact that Harden's team actually plays better with him off the court than Paul's does with him off the court and I feel like the Harden narrative should be the one used by Chris Paul.

4. LeBron James
5. Anthony Davis

I feel like Anthony Davis is getting overrated a bit by people that do not watch the Pelicans enough. His biggest weakness on the defensive end is that he has horrendous transition defense instinct. He goes for rebounds and puts himself in position when shots go up that he has no shot of collecting. His team as a result has poor floor balance and is one of the worst transition defending teams in the league. There are many reasons the Pels defense isn't very good. Perimeter defenders are weak, poor scheme, Jrue has been hurt but Anthony Davis really doesn't help things with his floor balance instinct. As a result, I feel like his offensive stats get a little overinflated. Also, we have played just a tad too well with him out for me to truly consider him better than LeBron or the guys above him. Now that is also because Monty coaches less vanilla but given that the team went 5-1 without Davis/Anderson/Jrue I have a hard time putting him higher. He will have his time just not yet.

LeBron as the LeBron thread has pointed out has insane amount of value when he does play and the Cavs have performed closer to the Warriors than the rest of the league since his comeback. I just value games played so I can't really put him over three guys having all time great seasons who haven't cost their teams 8-10 games due to "rest".


HM: Russell Westbrook and Kawhi Leonard

I feel like Leonard is closer to the other 6 guys than most people make him out to be but there really isn't much of a point discussing him since he won't get any traction.

Westbrook has been fun to watch but when it comes to playing in a way that can make a team compete for the title I just don't see his current style translating. His season has basically emulated a path of

Entered December fresh as he got 15 games off due to injury. Played at an unsustainable level using 40 percent of his team's possessions. Fell off a cliff on both ends for all of January because he was exhausted. Did the same thing for another 1.5 months (got some help with the All Star break giving him some rest) and then fell off the cliff again to the point that his defense and the Thunder's in general is a mockery. I just don't think a 40 percent usage player who is such a liability on the other end because of exhaustion can be in the top 5 with the candidates we have, especially when you consider he has missed games as well.

bondom34 wrote:Doc:
RE: RAPM

I'll toss this out there, and I still get it if people vote Davis over Westbrook but a few points...

1. There's an incredible amount of noise and fluctuation in these numbers, especially the NPI ones. Lorak and I had gotten in a debate a few weeks back over this in another thread, where Harden jumped up to near top 10 defense from way back in the field. We couldn't figure out the issue, but he was using older numbers (January) when I was using ones from March. It was a jump of around 2 points if I'm remembering correctly, and in a really short period. Saying that, I wouldn't doubt that WB's numbers could drop pretty drastically when the OKC lineups lost Ibaka, Roberson, Adams for some time, and Collison for some time all while Kanter got heavy minutes.

2. Looking at last year's gotbuckets DRAPM:
Davis at -.68
WB at -.19 where positive is better.

That's saying to me that something is fundamentally off, and why I'm becoming more skeptical of RAPM in general. To drop or jump that much in a single season seems just a bit wrong to me, and I think a mix of WB's minutes being played alongside weaker defensive players and Davis gaining Asik has flipped the numbers a little. Having said that, WB hasn't been as good as usual defensively this season with the offensive load carried, but he hasn't dropped to the point of being near worst in the league as RAPM is showing. Personally I buy the DRPM numbers a bit more, as he's been a little below neutral to my eyes having seen him a good bit. His offense has still been excellent and personallly I'd vote him overall ahead of Davis.

So this is yet another debate where I'm starting to turn from someone who followed RAPM and was a big fan of it to someone who's starting to wonder about its efficacy in these sort of things.

Also, on his offense not "fitting" with KD, I'd say this season he really couldn't play like it should w/ Durant. There's no Durant out there. Honestly, you remove a guy like that from any team, and I'd hope his teammates play differently.

Edit: Found the conversation w Lorak. It starts here:

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1379361&start=60#p43118777

I'll say up front that you're right that there is noise to consider. This is why a more reliable metric like RPM exists. Just keep in mind that we also know that that reliability comes with a bias. We don't know exactly what that bias will mean, but we know that guys who look better by the box score will probably get helped by it. And we can also guess that the players helped the most will be those who look good by statistical +/-, and that the most used variant of that stats, b-r's BPM, calls Westbrook the best player in the game. So bottom line is: We should probably expect that Westbrook's defense is worse than his Defensive RPM lets on.

In terms of major jumps from year to year, I understand the skepticism and the tendency to attribute it to noise. But I also think it's important to just recognize that actual impact is more finicky that pure production. Even improving production-based efficiency, like in a stat like WS or BPM, is based going after easy to identify check boxes. History tells us though that veterans are a lot more effective than their box score let's on particularly because they know how to see all the little things that don't have a neon sign pointing to them.

What I said about Davis last year - and this year too to an extent - is that a low +/- scoring for him doesn't mean he's doing big things fundamentally wrong, it could well just be that there are some subtle things that Davis and his coaches are still trying to work out the kinks on. Identifying countermeasures that opponents can take that move them past the first, effective line of defense.

And, well, last year the NO defense was flat out bad with Davis on the court. This year it's quite a bit better.

Over at OKC, let's understand that while it's totally reasonable that OKC would fall off with injuries - particularly to the MVP of the team - it is very, very interesting that the team has seen more of a drop off on defense than on offense. On the one hand, that's points to precisely why people rightly want to throw some praise Westbrook's way. Dude has really stepped up his game to levels many of us didn't think was possible.

But on the other hand, we have to say to ourselves: The Thunder actually miss something on defense more than they miss Durant on offense. And as we say this, we should have our jaws on the floor, and wonder what that could possibly be.

This I think is a good time to point out that the defense with Westbrook NOT playing this year is about the same as it was last year. Last year, with Durant & Ibaka out there the whole year was only slightly better than this year with all the injuries on defense. So whatever is happening to the OKC defense that's making them considerably worse this year, it's happening while Westbrook plays.

I'm not going to try to put that all on Westbrook, but at the same time, the +/- telling us negative things about Westbrook's D doesn't seem all that weird to me. The defense hasn't been great when he plays, and there's a tendency to basically have every one else just try not to get into Westbrook's way while he does his thing. Whenever we see this I start questioning whether it's making the players look a lot less capable than they actually are.

Re: starting to become skeptical about RAPM, particularly about 1-year NPI RAPM. I get that, particularly when you see big swings occur. Find to bring those up. I would just emphasize again that it's not really a question whether RPM has a bias to it, and it's not really a question as to whether that bias would help or hurt Westbrook.

Re: Westbrook doing what he needs to without Durant. To some degree, that's what's so tough. Offensively you can't really object to the strategy of the moment, it's just that we're now more than a half decade into these two guys playing together, there are still issues, and these issues aren't likely to be made better by the directions Westbrook has grown this season. As such it's well and good to praise Westbrook, and in some ways I undoubtedly should back off, it's just that to me this OKC is going to go down as a true success based on what happens when Durant & Westbrook are healthy and playing together and I don't really see the sense of embracing any tactic this year that could get in the way of that.

Doctor MJ wrote:
I'll say up front that you're right that there is noise to consider. This is why a more reliable metric like RPM exists. Just keep in mind that we also know that that reliability comes with a bias. We don't know exactly what that bias will mean, but we know that guys who look better by the box score will probably get helped by it. And we can also guess that the players helped the most will be those who look good by statistical +/-, and that the most used variant of that stats, b-r's BPM, calls Westbrook the best player in the game. So bottom line is: We should probably expect that Westbrook's defense is worse than his Defensive RPM lets on.

In terms of major jumps from year to year, I understand the skepticism and the tendency to attribute it to noise. But I also think it's important to just recognize that actual impact is more finicky that pure production. Even improving production-based efficiency, like in a stat like WS or BPM, is based going after easy to identify check boxes. History tells us though that veterans are a lot more effective than their box score let's on particularly because they know how to see all the little things that don't have a neon sign pointing to them.

What I said about Davis last year - and this year too to an extent - is that a low +/- scoring for him doesn't mean he's doing big things fundamentally wrong, it could well just be that there are some subtle things that Davis and his coaches are still trying to work out the kinks on. Identifying countermeasures that opponents can take that move them past the first, effective line of defense.

And, well, last year the NO defense was flat out bad with Davis on the court. This year it's quite a bit better.

Over at OKC, let's understand that while it's totally reasonable that OKC would fall off with injuries - particularly to the MVP of the team - it is very, very interesting that the team has seen more of a drop off on defense than on offense. On the one hand, that's points to precisely why people rightly want to throw some praise Westbrook's way. Dude has really stepped up his game to levels many of us didn't think was possible.

But on the other hand, we have to say to ourselves: The Thunder actually miss something on defense more than they miss Durant on offense. And as we say this, we should have our jaws on the floor, and wonder what that could possibly be.

This I think is a good time to point out that the defense with Westbrook NOT playing this year is about the same as it was last year. Last year, with Durant & Ibaka out there the whole year was only slightly better than this year with all the injuries on defense. So whatever is happening to the OKC defense that's making them considerably worse this year, it's happening while Westbrook plays.

I'm not going to try to put that all on Westbrook, but at the same time, the +/- telling us negative things about Westbrook's D doesn't seem all that weird to me. The defense hasn't been great when he plays, and there's a tendency to basically have every one else just try not to get into Westbrook's way while he does his thing. Whenever we see this I start questioning whether it's making the players look a lot less capable than they actually are.

Re: starting to become skeptical about RAPM, particularly about 1-year NPI RAPM. I get that, particularly when you see big swings occur. Find to bring those up. I would just emphasize again that it's not really a question whether RPM has a bias to it, and it's not really a question as to whether that bias would help or hurt Westbrook.

Re: Westbrook doing what he needs to without Durant. To some degree, that's what's so tough. Offensively you can't really object to the strategy of the moment, it's just that we're now more than a half decade into these two guys playing together, there are still issues, and these issues aren't likely to be made better by the directions Westbrook has grown this season. As such it's well and good to praise Westbrook, and in some ways I undoubtedly should back off, it's just that to me this OKC is going to go down as a true success based on what happens when Durant & Westbrook are healthy and playing together and I don't really see the sense of embracing any tactic this year that could get in the way of that.

My issue w/ the noise is that:
Davis added Asik to his team and many lineups.
WB added Kanter, and removed Ibaka and KD.

Again, not saying he's been good, but the massive jump that the numbers are saying to me are flat wrong. Pre trade deadline, post WB's return, they had a D rating of 103.9. Not world beating, but not awful. Post Ibaka injury, its at 112.2.

Re: Style of play, I'm not sure what could be expected. Are we saying he should play to try to win with Durant, even without Durant? If you pull Curry off GSW and replace him with Westbrook, should they play the same? I mean, it seems pretty straightforward that they shouldn't.

Looking forward to the thread. I think CP3's placement will be the most difficult part of this year's discussion. Absolutely no clue where to place him. I do feel like the one spot might be difficult (unless we see something eye-opening from Curry or LeBron in the playoffs).

Kinda OT...since this does seem like a "house money" year from OKC with KD out and who knows with Ibaka's status, I would love to see Davis in the postseason for the first time. Matching up with GS would be an incredibly tough draw, but it would be good for the experience (also from the OKC standpoint, maybe missing the playoffs, even with the injuries to all the key guys, will finally spell the end for Brooks...nothing against the guy, but I'd like to see someone else manage their talent).

EDIT: Also, does Leonard have much support here? What can the playoffs do for him?

I think Leonard can make my top 5 for sure if he dominates the playoffs.

So far: Curry, Harden, LeBron, CP3, Brow in my top 5. We'll see what happens in the playoffs but I don't really imagine any of these five really dropping outside the first five spots.

1. Curry
2. Harden
3. Davis
4. Irving
5. Westbrook/CP3/Lebron