2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[JordansBulls]

Should kawhi really be ahead of Jokic yet? Jokic had a way better regular season and basically was faultless in the playoff..,

Yes, it wasn't like Jokic was way better and lost to a team he should have beaten in Portland who was good but not really better than Denver. Jokic also lost with HCA.

[Dupp]

Should kawhi really be ahead of Jokic yet? Jokic had a way better regular season and basically was faultless in the playoff..,

Yes, it wasn't like Jokic was way better and lost to a team he should have beaten in Portland who was good but not really better than Denver. Jokic also lost with HCA.

Wut

[Dupp]

No one is talking about how Steph Curry was exposed against the Rockets and he had a brutal series but his teammates managed to keep him in it for the most part until he took over one half.

No one is talking about it because he was exposed until he wasn't. If he was playing well and then KD went down and he played awful that's one thing, but playing badly with KD but then playing well without him is another.

Rockets are a significantly better team than Portland so it is relevant to this discussion.

[Jaivl]

Jokic is still ahead of Leonard in my book.

Please don't overreact after each game, it's a bad look on the board If Giannis plays great tomorrow he'll be back to #1 and you know it.

[Jurassic_Park]

Jokic is still ahead of Leonard in my book.

Please don't overreact after each game, it's a bad look on the board If Giannis plays great tomorrow he'll be back to #1 and you know it.

I agree with you. I think people get carried away in this thread because they suddenly forget the regular season plays a BIG part in this, and mix it up between who is the best player.

No one in the world thinks Jokic is a better player than kawhi leonard, even Jokic doesn't think it (and if he does, he should go see a doctor). But for this individual season, Leonard did miss a lot of games and that factors in to this result.

Once the raptors beat golden state in the finals though, Kawhi will be at minimum top 2 on all lists.

[Joey Wheeler]

Clearly anointing Giannis as the best in the world is premature as his game has flaws that can be exposed deep in the playoffs.

That's always the thing. Young superstar hasn't seen all counters to his game yet so eventually stumbles against the right opponent in the playoffs. I don't see it as "premature anointing" so much as it's just a new hero stumbling at the part of the journey most of them stumble on.

But yeah, unless something changes in this series, Kawhi will definitely be above him on my list.

Any superstar would 'stumble' to some degree against the Raptors, that includes the likes of Lebron James or Kevin Durant, who will almost certainly have the worst Finals of his career if he's even fit to play. They have insane defense. Don't think there's any other team in the playoffs that could slow down Giannis to a comparable extent.

[clyde21]

Jokic is still ahead of Leonard in my book.

Please don't overreact after each game, it's a bad look on the board If Giannis plays great tomorrow he'll be back to #1 and you know it.

this is RealGM..people change their opinions after every single game.

[Pillendreher]

Jokic is still ahead of Leonard in my book.

Please don't overreact after each game, it's a bad look on the board If Giannis plays great tomorrow he'll be back to #1 and you know it.

this is RealGM..people change their opinions after every single game.

This is slander. I've been on the fire Donovan train for quite some time now.

[inDe_eD]

Kawhi is in GOAT-ey playoff run territory. He will be the all-time leader in scoring for a single playoff run if the Raptors advance and he averages 30/game along the way. He's currently at 534, and Jordan's record is 759.

[cpower]

No one is talking about how Steph Curry was exposed against the Rockets and he had a brutal series but his teammates managed to keep him in it for the most part until he took over one half.

isn't this how Harden played the last few seasons? Putting up crazy amount of FGAs , keep missing threes,somehow game got close and he scored a few points late and ended up like 40 pts on 35 shots...Harden basically cheated the system to get himself that stat line.

[Jaivl]

Jokic is still ahead of Leonard in my book.

Please don't overreact after each game, it's a bad look on the board If Giannis plays great tomorrow he'll be back to #1 and you know it.

this is RealGM..people change their opinions after every single game.

Obviously I don't think it's exclusive to RealGM, au contraire.

The difference maker for me is the number of great, thoughful opinions that usually populate this board, but somehow this thread and a few others are extremely fixated on the flavor of the day, and that shows in how some opinions change radically day to day. Won't quote any, but I'm sure everyone will remember some examples (I may have some myself ).

[Dupp]

Kawhi is in GOAT-ey playoff run territory. He will be the all-time leader in scoring for a single playoff run if the Raptors advance and he averages 30/game along the way. He's currently at 534, and Jordan's record is 759.

What did lebron get to last season? Assume that record is his or mjs. Finals sweep probably hurt a lot

[inDe_eD]

Kawhi is in GOAT-ey playoff run territory. He will be the all-time leader in scoring for a single playoff run if the Raptors advance and he averages 30/game along the way. He's currently at 534, and Jordan's record is 759.

What did lebron get to last season? Assume that record is his or mjs. Finals sweep probably hurt a lot

Great recall by you. Lebron’s run last year was the 2nd best ever at 748.

[Timmyyy]

Hello guys,

longtime reader of the board from Germany here. Wanna say that i love the basketball discussion on this board. Learned a lot from you over the years.

Now to the topic. My top guys for this year are:

1. Giannis
2. Harden
3. Jokic

4.-6. Kawhi, Green, Curry (not sure about the ranking)

I had Giannis and Harden as 1st and 2nd after the regular season with Jokic, PG, Curry and Durant following. After solid but not great playoffs from Giannis and Harden, Jokic was definitly able to close the gap but not quite enough to overtake one of them. PG playing pretty bad in the PO and inconsistent to end the season and Durant missing so many Playoff games pushed them out of the picture for me. Curry was really inconsistent in the playoffs but still has a chance to climb up to the first tier and overtake some guys if he can sustain his recent level against Portland in the finals. Kawhi and Green only looking at the playoffs are in the top 3 along with Jokic but both are somewhere in the 10-20 range for regular season so they come from waaay behind. That is why i have a hard time putting them above Jokic who was at least close if not equal in the playoffs and cleary better for regular season.

Some thoughts and questions to other peoples positon:

1. I am generally a guy that values postseason really high but even i have a hard time seeing Kawhi on top or near the top for this year. His regular season wasn't just trailing a bit behind the top guys. It was flat out bad for a top player in the league. Missing 20 games and having a pretty meh impact accoridng to plus/minus numbers when he played can be a really big deal in a lot of situations (the Raptors had really good top end talent and depth to make up for it). In my opinion a case can be made he was only the 3rd most important player in the regular season for his own team. Both Lowry and Siakam have a comparable or even better impact footprint (depending on which stat you are looking) and more or in Siakams case even way more games played. And for the guys saying if Toronto was worse in the regular season he could/would have stepped up...Very likely true but then i guess he wouldn't be quite as rested for the playoffs and his performances weren't as good as they are right now. So in my opinion either way Kawhi somehow gets an advantage for having the luxury of a really good team.

2. I don't quite understand how a lot of people are splitting Giannis and Harden now (having Giannis still on top and Harden somehow at 4th or something like that) when they had them right next to each other at the top before the playoffs. Both didn't stand out in any way still both made their impact. But in what way did Giannis separate himself from Harden that he isn't overtaken by the same guys that are over Harden right now?

[eminence]

Hello guys,

Welcome!

I think as of now I'm a hair lower on Jokic and would have Harden/Giannis/Curry/Kawhi/Green as my likely top 5, with Jokic next in line to take a spot should one of the 1st 5 falter (namely Curry/Green vulnerable). Agreed that Harden is being forgotten a bit, to me seems like he's still a good candidate for #1 overall.

[Dupp]

Hello guys,

Welcome!

I think as of now I'm a hair lower on Jokic and would have Harden/Giannis/Curry/Kawhi/Green as my likely top 5, with Jokic next in line to take a spot should one of the 1st 5 falter (namely Curry/Green vulnerable). Agreed that Harden is being forgotten a bit, to me seems like he's still a good candidate for #1 overall.

How can you have green over Jokic? At best greens playoffs have been very slightly better than jokics. On the season though they werent close at all.

[eminence]

Hello guys,

Welcome!

I think as of now I'm a hair lower on Jokic and would have Harden/Giannis/Curry/Kawhi/Green as my likely top 5, with Jokic next in line to take a spot should one of the 1st 5 falter (namely Curry/Green vulnerable). Agreed that Harden is being forgotten a bit, to me seems like he's still a good candidate for #1 overall.

How can you have green over Jokic? At best greens playoffs have been very slightly better than jokics. On the season though they werent close at all.

Warriors/LeBron have earned a ton of leeway from me regarding the regular season at this point.

[Dupp]

Welcome!

I think as of now I'm a hair lower on Jokic and would have Harden/Giannis/Curry/Kawhi/Green as my likely top 5, with Jokic next in line to take a spot should one of the 1st 5 falter (namely Curry/Green vulnerable). Agreed that Harden is being forgotten a bit, to me seems like he's still a good candidate for #1 overall.

How can you have green over Jokic? At best greens playoffs have been very slightly better than jokics. On the season though they werent close at all.

Warriors/LeBron have earned a ton of leeway from me regarding the regular season at this point.

But how does that promote them in a POY ranking? Sure if we're talkign better player. But ranking their impact on teh season i dont see how thats that relevant.

[eminence]

How can you have green over Jokic? At best greens playoffs have been very slightly better than jokics. On the season though they werent close at all.

Warriors/LeBron have earned a ton of leeway from me regarding the regular season at this point.

But how does that promote them in a POY ranking? Sure if we're talkign better player. But ranking their impact on teh season i dont see how thats that relevant.

POY to me isn't strictly collective impact on the season.

[iggymcfrack]

Kawhi’s #1 for me now. I don’t care if Giannis was way better in the regular season. Kawhi made a strategic decision to treat the regular season like 82 practices and it turned out to be correct as he THOROUGHLY outplayed Giannis when it really mattered to get to the Finals.

For me, a lot of the value of the regular season is in the larger sample and showing that a player who plays great isn’t just “running hot” over a small number of games. Well, Kawhi’s been at an all-time level for three postseasons in a row. It’s not a fluke. He’s proven it.

1. Kawhi
2. Giannis
3. Harden
4. George
5. Jokic