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I’m curious what the consensus on the board is on this?

Lebron is not an option lol

durant. it's basically a meaningless award because there was no pressure to get it, but i don't care how many times you say the word gravity, durant put up 35 ppg on 70 TS% and hit the only semi-meaningful shot of the series.

Steph lol. Was better all-season, all-playoffs outright outscoring and outcreating durant and outimpacting for the rs and the postseason(including against the best defense they faced), not to mention Steph literally outplaying him fresh off an injury in the conference finals(with what was probably a second conseuctive postseason where Westbrook had outplayed his teammate). Anyone placing KD over or equal in any capacity that season is being rather reactionary and given the finals were both a dead-rubber and there's nothing really suggesting the points(as the secondary focus) outweighed curry's creation, giving durant an accolade here is just wrong by principle. That said, Lebron was rather clearly better than both, so maybe he should have got it anyway.

f4p wrote:durant. it's basically a meaningless award because there was no pressure to get it, but i don't care how many times you say the word gravity, durant put up 35 ppg on 70 TS% and hit the only semi-meaningful shot of the series.

Not sure this effects finals-voting specifically, but I feel obliged to point out that KD over Steph in 2017 is basically a very weak version of 2001 kobe over shaq.

MyUniBroDavis wrote:I’m curious what the consensus on the board is on this?

Lebron is not an option lol

He should be though

OhayoKD wrote:Steph lol. Was better all-season, all-playoffs outright outscoring and outcreating durant and outimpacting for the rs and the postseason(including against the best defense they faced), not to mention Steph literally outplaying him fresh off an injury in the conference finals(with what was probably a second conseuctive postseason where Westbrook had outplayed his teammate). Anyone placing KD over or equal in any capacity that season is being rather reactionary and given the finals were both a dead-rubber and there's nothing really suggesting the points(as the secondary focus) outweighed curry's creation, giving durant an accolade here is just wrong by principle. That said, Lebron was rather clearly better than both, so maybe he should have got it anyway.

f4p wrote:durant. it's basically a meaningless award because there was no pressure to get it, but i don't care how many times you say the word gravity, durant put up 35 ppg on 70 TS% and hit the only semi-meaningful shot of the series.

Not sure this effects finals-voting specifically, but I feel obliged to point out that KD over Steph in 2017 is basically a very weak version of 2001 kobe over shaq.

The question was who deserved finals mvp lol

MyUniBroDavis wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:Steph lol. Was better all-season, all-playoffs outright outscoring and outcreating durant and outimpacting for the rs and the postseason(including against the best defense they faced), not to mention Steph literally outplaying him fresh off an injury in the conference finals(with what was probably a second conseuctive postseason where Westbrook had outplayed his teammate). Anyone placing KD over or equal in any capacity that season is being rather reactionary and given the finals were both a dead-rubber and there's nothing really suggesting the points(as the secondary focus) outweighed curry's creation, giving durant an accolade here is just wrong by principle. That said, Lebron was rather clearly better than both, so maybe he should have got it anyway.

f4p wrote:durant. it's basically a meaningless award because there was no pressure to get it, but i don't care how many times you say the word gravity, durant put up 35 ppg on 70 TS% and hit the only semi-meaningful shot of the series.

Not sure this effects finals-voting specifically, but I feel obliged to point out that KD over Steph in 2017 is basically a very weak version of 2001 kobe over shaq.

The question was who deserved finals mvp lol

Not KD

f4p wrote:durant. it's basically a meaningless award because there was no pressure to get it, but i don't care how many times you say the word gravity, durant put up 35 ppg on 70 TS% and hit the only semi-meaningful shot of the series.

regarding the %s, well it felt like a training session. Durant was never that good again. I've never in my life watched an easier playoff series for a superstar. It was like shooting over confused mannequins.
Few teams in history have the personnel to even attempt to bother Curry and Durant together (Spurs with Green and Kawhi had it..for game 1 at least, Raptors and Rockets had it for one season each). Cavs had different strenghts, but over the course of an entire series you couldn't stop Durant capitalizing and cannibalizing on bunnies.

• Analytics. The number crunchers have descended on the sport like locusts. Their findings will carry more weight than ever with the voters, and the analytics tend to illuminate Curry’s true value, above and beyond the standard eyeball test.

“Gravity” is one relatively new term and metric. It refers to a player’s knack for drawing double-team defenses, and in Curry’s case, some triple-teams.

When Curry draws multiple defenders, his teammates have more room to do damage. Voters will consider Curry’s gravity. Had that been more of a factor in 2018, Curry might have been MVP.

“Kevin Durant was absolutely insane” in 2018, Draymond Green said recently on a Colin Cowherd podcast, “but Steph Curry got double-teamed probably seven times the amount that KD did in a given series.”

True dat. In the ’18 Finals, Durant was double-teamed twice and Curry was double-teamed 40 times (per @Baltej_hoops). That wasn’t mentioned then. It will be a factor this time.

https://dubnationhq.com/p/the-great-stephen-curry-vs-kevin

Here only shows how many point Curry created for KD in 2017 finals. Would be nice to see what Curry did for others.

SpreeS wrote:

Watch on YouTube

• Analytics. The number crunchers have descended on the sport like locusts. Their findings will carry more weight than ever with the voters, and the analytics tend to illuminate Curry’s true value, above and beyond the standard eyeball test.

“Gravity” is one relatively new term and metric. It refers to a player’s knack for drawing double-team defenses, and in Curry’s case, some triple-teams.

When Curry draws multiple defenders, his teammates have more room to do damage. Voters will consider Curry’s gravity. Had that been more of a factor in 2018, Curry might have been MVP.

“Kevin Durant was absolutely insane” in 2018, Draymond Green said recently on a Colin Cowherd podcast, “but Steph Curry got double-teamed probably seven times the amount that KD did in a given series.”

True dat. In the ’18 Finals, Durant was double-teamed twice and Curry was double-teamed 40 times (per @Baltej_hoops). That wasn’t mentioned then. It will be a factor this time.

https://dubnationhq.com/p/the-great-stephen-curry-vs-kevin

Honestly I went through the games earlier and this kind of gets overstated a lot, outside of game 1 in transition at least

It looks like they were blitzing those pick and rolls and rotating off of dray, and blitzed get counted as double teams which is why the double team data kind of sucks.

Like idk why they called that a split cut because it wasn’t but idk about giving Curry credit because Durant rejected the screen, or like outlet passes/3v2 in transition or off of offensive boards when the defense crashing

Like just going through game 2 onwards in that film cuz it got compiled nicely, it’s not all encompassing front the c hart iirc but there were a few screens where Durant shot over a guy but it didn’t create much advantage

Game 2:

1st blitzed pick and roll and TT was late rotating
2nd blitzed pick and roll and Klove was there, Durant hits a off balance and one
3rd Curry doesn’t draw 2 Durant just rejects the screen and bron doesn’t anticipate it. It’s a pretty typical play from them but this wasn’t a situation where he’s trying to switch either

Game 3:
Offensive rebound to open three when the defense goes in
Outlet pass to Durant whose open at the end
They blitz, klove is kind of there but is late Durant does a good euro

Game 4:
They blitz, KD slips to open wing, bron closes out but Kd gets him

This is def a set to counter Cleveland’s coverage with the screen after the slip (forgot what type of screen it would be called)

Transition the cavs being stupid lol, idk why they both ran on curry

Game 5: offensice rebound assist but Curry doesn’t get him open it’s drays cut

Outlet pass in transition

Early offense pick and roll with open space Blitz gets fts

Blitz and shoots the midrange over korver



Like Cleveland went to a blitz and recover and about half the time KD got by and other times KD had some nice footwork or hit a shot over someone, outside of that I don’t think currys gravity in terms of creating shots for KD was particularly noticeable, but like, outlet passes or just offensice rebound situations aren’t gravity moments it’s just scramble or in the run of play type moments. Itd be one thing if Curry was the only player who commanded blitzes (dame might have been the only other at this time though, consistently at least) or if there was no other coverage teams could run but I don’t think that’s necessarily true either, but KD is probably a big reason they can’t run switches

Also just based on that graph if an off ball screen like that (im gonna call it a hammer cut I know it’s not) is gonna count then you basically have to count every time Curry ran off a screen as one too, it’s not like it was this unique situation only a Curry screen would have done when you look at how they played it, or if this was something that was constantly happening this series with KD using Curry off ball screens

I perhaps would say Durant for the award pertaining to the series only, but that doesn't take away from the fact Curry was the significantly more impactful and valuable player throughout the 2017 season (and from 2017-19 as a whole) for Golden State - in the RS and the PS, regardless of what 'advanced box stats' may say. Empirical play-by-play data and impact measures more or less focused on the on-court team side of things favor Curry, in line with this viewpoint.

For the 2017 Season:
R.S. PIPM: Curry - 8.3 | Durant - 5.9
LEBRON: Curry - 6.7 | Durant - 5.3
AuPM/Game (RS -> PS): Curry - 6.6 -> 7.5 | Durant 4.9 -> 4.6
BackPicks BPM (RS -> PS): Curry - 6.9 -> 8.7 | Durant: 7.9 -> 8.7

It's worth noting that Durant played much less than Curry this year (62 vs. 79 games, ~600 less minutes) which perhaps gave him more bandwidth to save energy for exertion in the Finals - even with the nuance that GSW's offense ran through Curry's hybrid on/off-ball chops.

Curry in games Durant didn't play, RS only:


From 2017-19:
LEBRON (RS -> PS): Curry - 5.8 -> 6.89 | Durant - 4.8 -> 4.99
Shot-Charts L.A. RAPM (RS only I believe): Curry - 6.34 | Durant - 3.55
AuPM/G (RS -> PS): Curry - 5.9 -> 5.9 | Durant - 4.3 -> 4.8
R.S. PIPM: Curry - 7.4 | Durant - 5.5
BackPicks BPM: (RS -> PS): Curry - 6.4 -> 6.9 | Durant - 6.6 -> 7.6

Across all of these, BPM is the metric which favors Durant - not too surprising given that is more proportional towards rebounding & defensive box score, and treats every possession equally from a standpoint of equating end-player as the one starting a given play - thus not factoring in more granular details over a larger sample of plays.

Both so good, they probably should have got co-MVPs

Man those were the golden days of the league, back when the game was pure

The answer is probably Curry in the sense that the defense sold out to stop him so much that that’s what created things for the offense. But Durant played so well with the opportunities that that gave him that I have no problem at all with him having gotten Finals MVP.

OhayoKD wrote:

f4p wrote:durant. it's basically a meaningless award because there was no pressure to get it, but i don't care how many times you say the word gravity, durant put up 35 ppg on 70 TS% and hit the only semi-meaningful shot of the series.

Not sure this effects finals-voting specifically, but I feel obliged to point out that KD over Steph in 2017 is basically a very weak version of 2001 kobe over shaq.

I'm not seeing the parallels, OKD.

2017 Finals
Durant: 35.2 ppg, 8.2 rpg, 5.4 apg (2.2 TOs), 1.0 spg, 1.6 bpg, .698 TS%, +43
Curry: 26.8 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 9.4 apg (3.8 TOs), 2.2 spg, 0.0 bpg, .619 TS%, +29

2001 Finals
Kobe: 24.6 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 5.8 apg (3.6 TOs), 1.4 spg, 1.4 bpg, .429 TS%, +31
Shaq: 33.0 ppg, 15.8 rpg, 4.8 apg (4.0 TOs), 0.4 spg, 3.4 bpg, .575 TS%, +40

KD has a strong box stat case over Curry, only highly detailed advanced analysis could make a deeper case for Curry. No case can be made for Kobe, the box stat case against him is so overwhelming that it's obvious who brought more value.

rand wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:

f4p wrote:durant. it's basically a meaningless award because there was no pressure to get it, but i don't care how many times you say the word gravity, durant put up 35 ppg on 70 TS% and hit the only semi-meaningful shot of the series.

Not sure this effects finals-voting specifically, but I feel obliged to point out that KD over Steph in 2017 is basically a very weak version of 2001 kobe over shaq.

I'm not seeing the parallels, OKD.

2017 Finals
Durant: 35.2 ppg, 8.2 rpg, 5.4 apg (2.2 TOs), 1.0 spg, 1.6 bpg, .698 TS%, +43
Curry: 26.8 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 9.4 apg (3.8 TOs), 2.2 spg, 0.0 bpg, .619 TS%, +29

2001 Finals
Kobe: 24.6 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 5.8 apg (3.6 TOs), 1.4 spg, 1.4 bpg, .429 TS%, +31
Shaq: 33.0 ppg, 15.8 rpg, 4.8 apg (4.0 TOs), 0.4 spg, 3.4 bpg, .575 TS%, +40

KD has a strong box stat case over Curry, only highly detailed advanced analysis could make a deeper case for Curry. No case can be made for Kobe, the box stat case against him is so overwhelming that it's obvious who brought more value.

I believe he’d be referring to Kobe in the 2001 WCSF/WCF

rk2023 wrote:

rand wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:Not sure this effects finals-voting specifically, but I feel obliged to point out that KD over Steph in 2017 is basically a very weak version of 2001 kobe over shaq.

I'm not seeing the parallels, OKD.

2017 Finals
Durant: 35.2 ppg, 8.2 rpg, 5.4 apg (2.2 TOs), 1.0 spg, 1.6 bpg, .698 TS%, +43
Curry: 26.8 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 9.4 apg (3.8 TOs), 2.2 spg, 0.0 bpg, .619 TS%, +29

2001 Finals
Kobe: 24.6 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 5.8 apg (3.6 TOs), 1.4 spg, 1.4 bpg, .429 TS%, +31
Shaq: 33.0 ppg, 15.8 rpg, 4.8 apg (4.0 TOs), 0.4 spg, 3.4 bpg, .575 TS%, +40

KD has a strong box stat case over Curry, only highly detailed advanced analysis could make a deeper case for Curry. No case can be made for Kobe, the box stat case against him is so overwhelming that it's obvious who brought more value.

I believe he’d be referring to Kobe in the 2001 WCSF/WCF

That makes sense

rand wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:

f4p wrote:durant. it's basically a meaningless award because there was no pressure to get it, but i don't care how many times you say the word gravity, durant put up 35 ppg on 70 TS% and hit the only semi-meaningful shot of the series.

Not sure this effects finals-voting specifically, but I feel obliged to point out that KD over Steph in 2017 is basically a very weak version of 2001 kobe over shaq.

I'm not seeing the parallels, OKD.

2017 Finals
Durant: 35.2 ppg, 8.2 rpg, 5.4 apg (2.2 TOs), 1.0 spg, 1.6 bpg, .698 TS%, +43
Curry: 26.8 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 9.4 apg (3.8 TOs), 2.2 spg, 0.0 bpg, .619 TS%, +29

2001 Finals
Kobe: 24.6 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 5.8 apg (3.6 TOs), 1.4 spg, 1.4 bpg, .429 TS%, +31
Shaq: 33.0 ppg, 15.8 rpg, 4.8 apg (4.0 TOs), 0.4 spg, 3.4 bpg, .575 TS%, +40

KD has a strong box stat case over Curry, only highly detailed advanced analysis could make a deeper case for Curry. No case can be made for Kobe, the box stat case against him is so overwhelming that it's obvious who brought more value.

I was talking about the whole season as it is argued by many, including fp4 I think, that Durant was better. And with that in mind...

rk2023 wrote:

rand wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:Not sure this effects finals-voting specifically, but I feel obliged to point out that KD over Steph in 2017 is basically a very weak version of 2001 kobe over shaq.

I'm not seeing the parallels, OKD.

2017 Finals
Durant: 35.2 ppg, 8.2 rpg, 5.4 apg (2.2 TOs), 1.0 spg, 1.6 bpg, .698 TS%, +43
Curry: 26.8 ppg, 8.0 rpg, 9.4 apg (3.8 TOs), 2.2 spg, 0.0 bpg, .619 TS%, +29

2001 Finals
Kobe: 24.6 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 5.8 apg (3.6 TOs), 1.4 spg, 1.4 bpg, .429 TS%, +31
Shaq: 33.0 ppg, 15.8 rpg, 4.8 apg (4.0 TOs), 0.4 spg, 3.4 bpg, .575 TS%, +40

KD has a strong box stat case over Curry, only highly detailed advanced analysis could make a deeper case for Curry. No case can be made for Kobe, the box stat case against him is so overwhelming that it's obvious who brought more value.

I believe he’d be referring to Kobe in the 2001 WCSF/WCF

Actually I'd be referring to all three intra-conference series


(1st round)



(2nd round)



(Conference Finals)

Very curious what people who think KD was as good or better than Steph in 2017 have to say about Kobe and Shaq in 2001