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Who was the better player in 2006? I think KG was underrated that season. He anchored a top 10 defense pretty much by himself

Did someone erase KG from the the MVP voting? What gives?

VanWest82 wrote:Did someone erase KG from the the MVP voting? What gives?

Well that kinda happens when you have 33 win season and sprewell kids didn’t get fed.

Pretty much a coinflip. I'd go Nash by a hair.

VanWest82 wrote:

Crazy that LeBron finished 2nd in the MVP voting at age 21.

Glad we have official nba and media track some player of the week, play of the month, and MVP every year by watching games and counting team winning. Otherwise some years later the revisionists can justify Bridges better than Jokic this year by some way of rearrangement of numbers and new advanced calculations...

dygaction wrote:Glad we have official nba and media track some player of the week, play of the month, and MVP every year by watching games and counting team winning. Otherwise some years later the revisionists can justify Bridges better than Jokic this year by some way of rearrangement of numbers and new advanced calculations...

Such thing literally never happened on this board...

I think it’s arguable either way on who was better. Nash clearly had the better season though.

Very close, but decided to give it to Nash. KG leading such a bad teams sort of tells me his all time great floor raising ability either wasn’t there anymore, or he just didn’t put in as much effort. Most likely the prior, he was 30 by the end of the season and KG still put up good numbers and even anchored them to a top 10 defense somehow. Offensively, he just wasn’t providing a ton of lift. Nash in 2006 was as good as he was in 05 and 07 more or less.

iggymcfrack wrote:Crazy that LeBron finished 2nd in the MVP voting at age 21.

Third year in the league, but yeah. I don't think he should have finished ahead of Kobe, Wade, and Dirk, but top 5 was absolutely deserved. 3300+ mins, 31 ppg on decent efficiency. He was already a super stud.

Blame Rasho wrote:Well that kinda happens when you have 33 win season and sprewell kids didn’t get fed.

Maybe part of the reason you had a 33 win season is because a certain superstar saw the writing on the wall due to inuries and whatnot and didn't go all out. Like, why on a team starved for offense was KG shooting less? I think it's ok to admit KG was human and succumbed to the reality of his situation a little bit.

VanWest82 wrote:

Blame Rasho wrote:Well that kinda happens when you have 33 win season and sprewell kids didn’t get fed.

Maybe part of the reason you had a 33 win season is because a certain superstar saw the writing on the wall due to inuries and whatnot and didn't go all out. Like, why on a team starved for offense was KG shooting less? I think it's ok to admit KG was human and succumbed to the reality of his situation a little bit.

More than that I think the reality is MVP isn't a best player award and if your team is really bad without you it's really hard to get MVP because the team overall needs to be reasonably good. Maybe less so now that more people are aware of impact stuff? Yes, Jokic did it last year and maybe could again.

I do think that 05-06 "Nash window" is interesting. A lot of very good candidates, not many great ones (absolute top tier guys maybe not at their best).
Nash with impact and narrative, less box production than typical candidates and pretty out of nowhere.
Duncan's '06 is down by the box.
Kobe down year '05 then '06 is unique, extreme seasons and thus probably divisive in terms of how valuable doing that type job is.
Garnett '05 is huge box, weak impact signal. Both years are on non-playoff teams (though SRS drops significantly over the years). Also not a huge media market or NBA destination/history.
James is rising. Wade is rising, arguably peaking (but playing next to a known megastar, which maybe cast some shadow)
Nowitzki is peaking in production on good teams, though impact signals at first glance more just typical for him.
Shaq is kind of holding on.

Billups ends up getting a decent vote share in '06.

fwiw, Manu, and when available, Kirilenko are up there in impact measures and productive in their own right, if not quite at typical NBA levels, and minutes (and ppg).

Brand has his big box peak in '06.

Anyway, even with the field and the criteria, interesting that nobody even put him on the ballot at all.

KG is closer to Nash on offense than Nash is to KG on defense.

JRoy wrote:KG is closer to Nash on offense than Nash is to KG on defense.

Nash's combined offense/defense contributes to winning though. He brought Phenix to 54 win after losing all-star and all-nba center Amare together with solid starter Joe Johnson. KG led TWolves to 34 win. Sell me it is all because role players not their superstars.

dygaction wrote:

JRoy wrote:KG is closer to Nash on offense than Nash is to KG on defense.

Nash's combined offense/defense contributes to winning though. He brought Phenix to 54 win after losing all-star and all-nba center Amare together with solid starter Joe Johnson. KG led TWolves to 34 win. Sell me it is all because role players not their superstars.

He had a lot more help than KG did.

JRoy wrote:

dygaction wrote:

JRoy wrote:KG is closer to Nash on offense than Nash is to KG on defense.

Nash's combined offense/defense contributes to winning though. He brought Phenix to 54 win after losing all-star and all-nba center Amare together with solid starter Joe Johnson. KG led TWolves to 34 win. Sell me it is all because role players not their superstars.

He had a lot more help than KG did.

but he also won a whole lot more. It is like one argues KG 08 had a lot more help than Antawn Jamison... Before we start mocking on Jamison, he just had a 32ppg playoff series in 07 with .55TS%, a scoring output KG never came close in his entire career.

dygaction wrote:

JRoy wrote:

dygaction wrote:
Nash's combined offense/defense contributes to winning though. He brought Phenix to 54 win after losing all-star and all-nba center Amare together with solid starter Joe Johnson. KG led TWolves to 34 win. Sell me it is all because role players not their superstars.

He had a lot more help than KG did.

but he also won a whole lot more. It is like one argues KG 08 had a lot more help than Antawn Jamison... Before we start mocking on Jamison, he just had a 32ppg playoff series in 07 with .55TS%, a scoring output KG never came close in his entire career.

Cool.

What did Jamison provide on the other end?

JRoy wrote:

dygaction wrote:

JRoy wrote:
He had a lot more help than KG did.

but he also won a whole lot more. It is like one argues KG 08 had a lot more help than Antawn Jamison... Before we start mocking on Jamison, he just had a 32ppg playoff series in 07 with .55TS%, a scoring output KG never came close in his entire career.

Cool.

What did Jamison provide on the other end?

Yes, I believe KG was better than Jamison on the defensive end.

dygaction wrote:

JRoy wrote:

dygaction wrote:
but he also won a whole lot more. It is like one argues KG 08 had a lot more help than Antawn Jamison... Before we start mocking on Jamison, he just had a 32ppg playoff series in 07 with .55TS%, a scoring output KG never came close in his entire career.

Cool.

What did Jamison provide on the other end?

Yes, I believe KG was better than Jamison on the defensive end.

Lol

Owly wrote:More than that I think the reality is MVP isn't a best player award and if your team is really bad without you it's really hard to get MVP because the team overall needs to be reasonably good. Maybe less so now that more people are aware of impact stuff? Yes, Jokic did it last year and maybe could again.

I do think that 05-06 "Nash window" is interesting. A lot of very good candidates, not many great ones (absolute top tier guys maybe not at their best).
Nash with impact and narrative, less box production than typical candidates and pretty out of nowhere.
Duncan's '06 is down by the box.
Kobe down year '05 then '06 is unique, extreme seasons and thus probably divisive in terms of how valuable doing that type job is.
Garnett '05 is huge box, weak impact signal. Both years are on non-playoff teams (though SRS drops significantly over the years). Also not a huge media market or NBA destination/history.
James is rising. Wade is rising, arguably peaking (but playing next to a known megastar, which maybe cast some shadow)
Nowitzki is peaking in production on good teams, though impact signals at first glance more just typical for him.
Shaq is kind of holding on.

Billups ends up getting a decent vote share in '06.

fwiw, Manu, and when available, Kirilenko are up there in impact measures and productive in their own right, if not quite at typical NBA levels, and minutes (and ppg).

Brand has his big box peak in '06.

Anyway, even with the field and the criteria, interesting that nobody even put him on the ballot at all.

We're a long ways removed from anyone claiming MVP voting is a perfect metric for best player. I certainly wasn't trying to do that.

But MVP voting is a relevant and important piece of information to help guide us in discussions about who the best players were, especially when people try to go back in time and re-write history using impact numbers. Context matters. That 05/06 Wolves team was starving for offense with Sprewell and Cassell gone. What happened? Instead of doing what the team needed, KG did the opposite and scaled his offensive role way back.

Duncan scaling back his offense to accomodate improving players like Manu and Parker on a 63 win Spurs team is nothing like KG deciding to take on a lessor role on a 33 win Wolves team. Kobe, coming off a very dissapointing 05 season both professionally and personally, upping his contribution significantly while leading to an 11 win increase in 06 - basically dragging a Lakers team bereft of talent to the playoffs - is exactly what KG should've done, or at least tried to do, but didn't. It's not interesting that nobody even put him on the ballot. That's exactly how it should've went down. He didn't deserve to be on it in 06. I get that his impact numbers don't tell us that story but it's why we follow the league and why it pays to look back at how voters who followed the league voted.