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Summary of the 2016 Playoffs

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My votes:

1st Team
C - Draymond Green, Golden State, Finals
F - LeBron James, Cleveland, Champs
F - Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City, Conference Finals
G - Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City, Conference Finals
G - Kyrie Irving, Cleveland, Champs

2nd Team
C - Kevin Love, Cleveland, Champs
F - Kawhi Leonard, San Antonio, Second Round
F - Klay Thompson, Golden State, Finals
G - Stephen Curry, Golden State, Finals
G - Kyle Lowry, Toronto, Conference Finals

3rd Team
C - LaMarcus Aldridge, San Antonio, Second Round
F - Paul George, Indiana, First Round
F - DeMar DeRozan, Toronto, Conference Finals
G - Damian Lillard, Portland, Second Round
G - J.R. Smith, Cleveland, Champs

Others Considered:
Dwyane Wade, Miami, Second Round
Andre Iguodala, Golden State, Finals
Paul Millsap, Atlanta, Second Round
Hassan Whiteside, Miami, Second Round
Tristan Thompson, Cleveland, Champs
Serge Ibaka, Oklahoma City, Conference Finals

- Curry missed 5 games in these playoffs and his numbers were down slightly, so that combined with not winning the title this year, and Westbrook having probably his best playoffs ever while taking Golden State to 7 games in the conference finals was enough to for me to give Westbrook the 1st team spot over Curry. I still had Curry in my top 5 but it was not enough to beat out Westbrook or Kyrie.

- 3rd Team Center was close between Aldridge, Whiteside and Tristan Thompson, but I'd say this was Aldridge's best playoffs of his career, averaging 22 & 8 on 52% shooting and the Spurs were a tough out in the second round losing to OKC in 6.

- Paul George was incredible in a 7 game first round loss to Toronto. I had him and DeRozan narrowly edging out Iguodala and Millsap for the 3rd team forward spots, but these 3rd team forward spots were tough decisions.

- I can't believe I actually gave JR Smith a spot here, but he did play an integral role in Cleveland's title this year. He averaged 3.1 threes per game at 43% on their run to the title. He narrowly edged out Dwyane Wade for the last guard spot.

- I debated Lowry and Lillard for the last guard spot on the second team. Both shot poorly, .398% for Lowry, .368% for Lillard. They had comparable numbers overall but the Raptors put a minor scare into the Cavs tying them 2-2 in the conference finals before Cleveland put the hammer down so I felt he was overall slightly more meaningful than Lillard in these playoffs.

- I gave Klay forward eligibility here as he played 36% of his overall minutes there in this season.

Series MVPs:

Atlanta over Boston - Kyle Korver
Cleveland over Detroit - LeBron James
Miami over Charlotte - Luol Deng
Toronto over Indiana - Paul George
Golden State over Houston - Draymond Green
Oklahoma City over Dallas - Russell Westbrook
Portland over Clippers - Damian Lillard
San Antonio over Memphis - Kawhi Leonard

Cleveland over Atlanta - LeBron James
Toronto over Miami - Kyle Lowry
Golden State over Portland - Klay Thompson
Oklahoma City over San Antonio - Kevin Durant

Cleveland over Toronto - LeBron James
Golden State over Oklahoma City - Steph Curry

Cleveland over Golden State - LeBron James

1st Team

Draymond Green
LeBron James
Kevin Durant
Kyrie Irving
Klay Thompson

Another year without classic all-star centers, Green gets the nod in the spot.

Obviously the year where Kyrie shined brighter than he probably ever will again, but Klay also had a fantastic playoffs.

2nd Team

Tristan Thompson
Kawhi Leonard
Paul George
Steph Curry
Russell Westbrook

As a Kevin Love fan it breaks my heart including Thompson here, but the reality is that against the Warriors, when it really matters, Thompson was a bigger part of the team than Love.

Curry obviously had an extremely disappointing playoffs after his GOAT regular season, but all things considered he was still the MVP of the OKC series to me. That'd be a big deal for almost anyone.

3rd Team

Steven Adams
Luol Deng
Paul Millsap
Kyle Lowry
Damian Lillard

Not a lot to say here. I will say I was surprised to note how big of a deal Deng was getting the team into the 2nd round. In my memory Deng drops off a cliff after Chicago, but of course, there's a reason why the Lakers were still infatuated with him this next off-season.

Doctor MJ wrote:1st Team
Klay Thompson

2nd Team
Steph Curry

Is this because Curry missed many games?

1st team:

C: Green (finals)
F: Lebron (finals)
F: Leonard (2nd round)
G: Irving (finals)
G: Westbrook (WCF)

2nd team:

C: Love (finals)
F: George (2nd round)
F: Durant (WCF)
G: Curry (finals)
G: Thompson (finals)

3rd team:

C: Adams (WCF)
F: Aldridge (2nd round)
F: Iguodala (finals)
G: Lowry (ECF)
G: Wade (ECF)

3rd team guard got iffy for the last spot (same for forward for me), but that Miami team was really good and felt like someone had to represent them.

1st Round:
Hawks over Celtics - Team effort, but Horford/Millsap leading the way, Thomas solid for the Celtics
Cavs over Pistons - Kyrie might've actually outplayed LeBron. Love solid
Heat over Hornets - Deng/Wade/Whiteside all solid, Kemba probably the best player
Raptors over Pacers - PG13 easily the best, Lowry probably outplays DeRozan
Warriors over Rockets - Dray is spectacular, Klay/Iggy solid, Harden alright
Thunder over Mavs - Westbrook great, KD okay, Dirk's last hurrah
Blazers over Clippers - CP3 great until going down, Clips collapse without him, Lillard/McCollum both alright
Spurs over Grizzlies - Prime Kawhi has arrived, Aldridge okay

2nd Round:
Cavs over Hawks - All is right with the world as LeBron returns to #1, Kyrie/Love both play well, Horford/Millsap still alright
Raptors over Heat - Lowry leads the Raptors to the ECF, Wade is still very solid
Warriors over Blazers - Draymond is great, Klay/Lillard are very solid. Curry good in short return
Thunder over Spurs - KD takes over as Thunder #1, Westbrook great, Kawhi/Aldridge both very good

Conference Finals:
Cavs over Raptors - Cavs big three all great. Raptors duo both play solid
Warriors over Thunder - Curry the best player in the series, KD/Westbrook about equal, Klay with the legendary game 6, Dray with one of his weaker series

Finals:
Cavs over Warriors - LeBron with a legendary series, Draymond leads the Warriors, Kyrie great, Steph/Klay just alright

1st Team:
Kyrie Irving
Stephen Curry
LeBron James
Kevin Durant
Draymond Green

2nd Team:
Russell Westbrook
Klay Thompson
Kawhi Leonard
Paul George
LaMarcus Aldridge

3rd Team:
Kyle Lowry
Damian Lillard
DeMar DeRozan
Paul Millsap
Kevin Love

Odinn21 wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote:1st Team
Klay Thompson

2nd Team
Steph Curry

Is this because Curry missed many games?

And because Klay was great in those games.

Results so far:

1st Team
C - Draymond Green, Golden State 20
F - LeBron James, Cleveland 20
F - Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City 18
G - Kyrie Irving, Cleveland 20
G - Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City 16

2nd Team
C - Kevin Love, Cleveland 7
F - Kawhi Leonard, San Antonio 14
F - Paul George, Indiana 10
G - Stephen Curry, Golden State 14
G - Klay Thompson, Golden State 14

3rd Team
C - LaMarcus Aldridge, San Antonio 5
F - Tristan Thompson, Cleveland 3
F - Paul Millsap, Atlanta 2
G - Kyle Lowry, Toronto 6
G - Damian Lillard, Portland 3

Others Receiving Votes:
Steven Adams, Oklahoma City 2; DeMar DeRozan, Toronto 2; J.R. Smith, Cleveland 1; Luol Deng, Miami 1; Andre Iguodala, Golden State 1; Dwyane Wade, Miami 1

Ballots Counted: Ken D, Doctor MJ, bondom34, eminence

Doctor MJ wrote:

Odinn21 wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote:1st Team
Klay Thompson

2nd Team
Steph Curry

Is this because Curry missed many games?

And because Klay was great in those games.

Not only I don't see that big of a gap between the two to put Thompson ahead of Curry despite Curry missing 25% of the games, it's strange to have Thompson over Westbrook at the same time.

You're a big on +/- driven data, bigger than myself per say, Thompson was a +3.4 NRtg player on a +4.5 NRtg team. His on/off NRtg differential was -4.6.
Westbrook was +8.8 on a +5.5 team, +14.4 on/off differential.

Westbrook's production and impact, both were certainly better than Thompson's ones.

Odinn21 wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote:

Odinn21 wrote:Is this because Curry missed many games?

And because Klay was great in those games.

Not only I don't see that big of a gap between the two to put Thompson ahead of Curry despite Curry missing 25% of the games, it's strange to have Thompson over Westbrook at the same time.

You're a big on +/- driven data, bigger than myself per say, Thompson was a +3.4 NRtg player on a +4.5 NRtg team. His on/off NRtg differential was -4.6.
Westbrook was +8.8 on a +5.5 team, +14.4 on/off differential.

Westbrook's production and impact, both were certainly better than Thompson's ones.

I think you make some great points and I'm going to chew on the Westbrook comparison more, but I will say some things:

In general I see Klay as basically you're ideal #2 scoring option. Oh sure you could wish for Magic Johnson level passing in there, but in terms of how good Klay is at scoring and how his style of play allows him to blend in around a #1 option, Klay's right up there with the best in history. The Warrior core is one of the great cores in history and Klay is such an essential part of it that arguably the team's core's nickname references him ("Splash Brothers"), and quite frankly this ability to scale means that if I'm trying to build a serious contender, I pick Klay over, well, a lot of other guys who are generally seen as better alphas.

In this playoffs, after the signature regular season run of this core's existence where Klay is very much playing the #2, Klay leads the playoffs in scoring on a high efficiency and had some legendary moments while also seamlessly moving back in the #2 spot when Steph was ready. He proved something in these playoffs. Steph & Dray's season got worse because of these playoffs, but it elevated my assessment of Klay's shape as a player.

Now, just to discuss some obvious counters and caveats:

Klay didn't lead the playoffs in PPG, he only led the playoffs in scoring because of how many games he played. Yup, playing games helps in this conversation.

Steph didn't miss the big series, and in the big series, by and large, the pecking order was normal, so a vote for Klay over Steph is a vote for Klay based on some time in series that really weren't all that challenging, isn't that weird? It is a bit, and I wouldn't begrude anyone putting Steph over Klay. Nevertheless, the entirety of Klay's performance feels like more of an accomplishment to me.

Klay didn't have a great finals. Yup, the team peaked against OKC. I feel uncomfortable holding the next series against the players of the winning team in comparison with the guys from the losing team.

Re: +/-. I'm cautious about using +/- in the small sample size of the playoffs for obvious reasons. I think it's good for asking questions, but my default will tend to not let it flip rankings.

I think Westbrook in OKC in his best years was a more impactful player than Klay in their respective team contexts, but scalability and portability matter a great deal to me when comparing players of this stature. Show me a #2 demonstrating exceptional scalability & portability, and this is generally going to be more impressive to me than a guy who I see as having problems along these dimensions.

I think what I'd need to see here to flip my opinion is a clear detailed analysis of why Klay's raw on/off was negative in that playoff run, with the understanding going in being that aside from everything pertaining to small sample size theater Steph Curry's injury and recovery plays havoc with consistency.

Edit: Double

Doctor MJ wrote:

Odinn21 wrote:

Doctor MJ wrote:
And because Klay was great in those games.

Not only I don't see that big of a gap between the two to put Thompson ahead of Curry despite Curry missing 25% of the games, it's strange to have Thompson over Westbrook at the same time.

You're a big on +/- driven data, bigger than myself per say, Thompson was a +3.4 NRtg player on a +4.5 NRtg team. His on/off NRtg differential was -4.6.
Westbrook was +8.8 on a +5.5 team, +14.4 on/off differential.

Westbrook's production and impact, both were certainly better than Thompson's ones.

I think you make some great points and I'm going to chew on the Westbrook comparison more, but I will say some things:

In general I see Klay as basically you're ideal #2 scoring option. Oh sure you could wish for Magic Johnson level passing in there, but in terms of how good Klay is at scoring and how his style of play allows him to blend in around a #1 option, Klay's right up there with the best in history. The Warrior core is one of the great cores in history and Klay is such an essential part of it that arguably the team's core's nickname references him ("Splash Brothers"), and quite frankly this ability to scale means that if I'm trying to build a serious contender, I pick Klay over, well, a lot of other guys who are generally seen as better alphas.

In this playoffs, after the signature regular season run of this core's existence where Klay is very much playing the #2, Klay leads the playoffs in scoring on a high efficiency and had some legendary moments while also seamlessly moving back in the #2 spot when Steph was ready. He proved something in these playoffs. Steph & Dray's season got worse because of these playoffs, but it elevated my assessment of Klay's shape as a player.

Now, just to discuss some obvious counters and caveats:

Klay didn't lead the playoffs in PPG, he only led the playoffs in scoring because of how many games he played. Yup, playing games helps in this conversation.

Steph didn't miss the big series, and in the big series, by and large, the pecking order was normal, so a vote for Klay over Steph is a vote for Klay based on some time in series that really weren't all that challenging, isn't that weird? It is a bit, and I wouldn't begrude anyone putting Steph over Klay. Nevertheless, the entirety of Klay's performance feels like more of an accomplishment to me.

Klay didn't have a great finals. Yup, the team peaked against OKC. I feel uncomfortable holding the next series against the players of the winning team in comparison with the guys from the losing team.

Re: +/-. I'm cautious about using +/- in the small sample size of the playoffs for obvious reasons. I think it's good for asking questions, but my default will tend to not let it flip rankings.

I think Westbrook in OKC in his best years was a more impactful player than Klay in their respective team contexts, but scalability and portability matter a great deal to me when comparing players of this stature. Show me a #2 demonstrating exceptional scalability & portability, and this is generally going to be more impressive to me than a guy who I see as having problems along these dimensions.

I think what I'd need to see here to flip my opinion is a clear detailed analysis of why Klay's raw on/off was negative in that playoff run, with the understanding going in being that aside from everything pertaining to small sample size theater Steph Curry's injury and recovery plays havoc with consistency.

I know you really don't like his playstyle but Klay at that point is really vastly underselling Westbrook to a pretty inarguable point to me. At that point, Westbrook had outperformed Durant in the entirety of the postseason. OKC managed a 100 O rtg in Durant's non-Westbrook minutes:

https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos/nba?TeamId=1610612760&Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Playoffs&PlayerIds=201566,201142

Klay was amazing vs OKC but largely not otherwise, and not GSW's true number 2. That was Green. TBH if Klay is over either OKC guy it would be at forward.

Edit: Thompson also posted a negative on/off vs OKC. Through 5 games he was actually pretty bad, a .519 TS and -14.7 on/off. In game 7 it was a .528 TS and negative on/off (his off court sample was 6 minutes and they posted an 87 net rating, he was a negative net rating on court). Game 6 was the one game his numbers really popped. I'm a bit confused giving consideration to it based off essentially one game at that point. Any form of impact or basic data pretty clearly points to Westbrook being arguable as OKC's best player, let alone at the level of Thompson.

My teams without first round exits:

1st team:

G: Kyrie Irving
G: Russell Westbrook
F: LeBron James
F: Kevin Durant
C: Draymond Green

- Irving and Westbrook over Curry are clear choices to me, Westbrook had questionable moments against GSW but overall was very good in playoffs,
- James is clear choice and Durant was also good despite weak efficiency,
- Green was 2nd best player in 2016 playoffs, so it's easy choice as well.

2nd team:

G: Kyle Lowry
G: Klay Thompson
F: Andre Iguodala
F: Kawhi Leonard
C: Tristan Thompson

- why Lowry over Curry - because Curry was nothing special for more than half of his games and he played in a team that could reach WCF without him basically,
- Klay was very solid in 2016 playoffs, clear 2nd team to me,
- Iggy is underrated as always, he was spectacular in 2016 playoffs and I can't see any other forward over him here (PG lost in first round),
- Kawhi was great, close battle between him and KD but he got outplayed H2H,
- I picked Tristan over Love because Love didn't play that much at C in 2016 but also because Thompson was more important for them in the finals.

3rd team:

G: Stephen Curry
G: Damian Lillard
F: Demar Derozan
F: Paul Millsap
C: Steven Adams

- Steph gets 3rd team nomination due to some hot streaks against Thunder,
- Lillard was solid, but not spectacular,
- Derozan is questionable mention, but I always think that he's a bit underrated at this point, he was very solid co-leader of ECF team after all,
- Millsap was very good as always, but he had tough competition this year at forward position,
- I picked Adams over LMA because I'm not a fan of LMA and I beieve that Admas gave Thunder more positive impact with his sheer hustle and hard work.

Results so far:

1st Team
C - Draymond Green, Golden State 25
F - LeBron James, Cleveland 25
F - Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City 23
G - Kyrie Irving, Cleveland 25
G - Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City 21

2nd Team
C - Kevin Love, Cleveland 7
F - Kawhi Leonard, San Antonio 17
F - Paul George, Indiana 10
G - Klay Thompson, Golden State 17
G - Stephen Curry, Golden State 15

3rd Team
C - LaMarcus Aldridge, San Antonio 5
F - Tristan Thompson, Cleveland 6
F - Andre Iguodala, Golden State 4
G - Kyle Lowry, Toronto 9
G - Damian Lillard, Portland 4

Others Receiving Votes:
Steven Adams, Oklahoma City 3; DeMar DeRozan, Toronto 3; Paul Millsap, Atlanta 3; J.R. Smith, Cleveland 1; Luol Deng, Miami 1; Dwyane Wade, Miami 1

Ballots Counted: Ken D, Doctor MJ, bondom34, eminence, 70sFan