Defensive Player of the Year
1. Hakeem Olajuwon
2. Mark Eaton
3. Patrick EwingGave Eaton some serious thought because of the near Lakers upset, but Stockton/Bailey/Malone more than makes up for the disparity in defensive results in my eyes. Still an order of magnitude above any defender other than Hakeem though.
The last two years the Jazz have easily had the best defense in the NBA. No one's really been close to them. The main reason for this has obviously been Mark Eaton. Over the last two years, Eaton has had no individual competition for the blocked shot leadership and has actually outblocked the whole Golden State team by 21. There is a lot of defensive talent around Eaton, but without him, it is a vulnerable defense.
The other big reason for the tremendous defensive stats this team has put up is the way it rotates on defense. Pat Riley was complaining throughout the series with the Jazz that they were playing a zone defense, but he rarely got the call. In a sense, the Jazz were playing a zone, but it was a match-up zone, heavy on the match-up, light on the zone. In college, most match-up zones you see are heavy on the zone and defenders can be caught being indecisive on staying with a player cutting through the middle.
The Jazz defense is devised to keep Eaton down low in the key. They don't have much trouble doing that even when Eaton's man plays outside as Eaton can usually take someone else who is playing close to the basket and send a defender out to his former man. The other players fight through picks a lot like in a normal man-to-man, but exceptional quickness keeps them from getting burned too much. The Jazz doesn't have to play that sort of straight man-to-man too long, though, because they double-team or entice dangerous passes by laying off defenders early in a possession. In that way, the Jazz are one of the few teams to force a quick pace with their defense.
Ewing plays lower minutes than guys like Laimbeer or Oakley… because Cartwright’s presence permits him to be extremely aggressive. 4 fouls per 31 minutes of game time, just silly stuff. But it does correspond with one of the two highest block rates of his career and a team defensive rating which will not be eclipsed until 1992. Hard for me to see the Pistons being any worse or the Knicks any better if Laimbeer and Ewing switched places.
Offensive Player of the Year
1. Magic Johnson
2. Larry Bird
3. Michael JordanBird might have eclipsed Magic here if the postseason had gone differently, but despite the historic regular season offence, and despite the advantage in games played, in the postseason Magic yet again shone and Bird yet again faded.
Jordan fared better against the Pistons than Bird did, but five games does not erase 82 games where it was not even a question.
Keeping this section short because there is so much overlap with my RPoY reasoning.
Player of the Year
1. Magic Johnson
2. Michael Jordan
3. Larry Bird
4. Hakeem Olajuwon
5. Isiah ThomasStill a case of four MVP-calibre players; next year it drops to three before a temporary rebound in 1990. Jordan has his best season to date: he finally brings his team above .500 and wins a tight first round series, before having one of the worst series of his career against the Pistons. He does not struggle quite as much individually against the Pistons as Bird does, but his limited team playmaking is unable to leverage the attention directed his way, and the Bulls’ offence is consequently abominable.
semi-sentient wrote:the Pistons couldn't have played Magic the way they played Jordan anyway. Magic was always looking to get out on the break and didn't put himself in the same situations that Jordan did. I've seen plenty of video during the "Jordan Rules" years where he is taking shots with 3 defenders on him, much like Kobe did in 2004/2008.
Jordan is supposed to get a pass for those type of low percentage shots? Go look at some of that video on YouTube and you'll see plenty of situations where he took a bad shot when he could have dumped the ball off to someone else. He was just taking it personally and trying to beat the Pistons on his own. When Magic posts up he usually gets a very high percentage shot for himself or dumps it off to someone with a brilliant pass when the defense least expected it. You hardly ever see Jordan doing that kind of thing unless he gets caught in the air and makes on of those wraparound passes, which is more of a fortunate bailout than a spectacular offensive play.
Maybe that's why Magic is more valuable though -- because you can't shut him down by forcing him into taking poor shots or making bad passes. He controls/dictates what happens on offense and that's a bit more difficult to stop than someone whose primary role is to score points.
Not the case for Magic, who is absolutely brilliant against the Pistons. 21/13 on 67.4% true shooting against a defence that erased the other two best offensive players in the league. Worthy’s Game 7 was extraordinary enough to be worth a Finals MVP, but for the full series, Magic was yet again the championship engine in a way no one else in the league could replicate. He played four elimination games this year (two against the Pistons) and averaged 22/15 on 67.2% efficiency across them. Ludicrous. No one you would rather have if you cared about winning a title.
ronnymac wrote:maybe Magic in 1988 wouldn't beat out Magic in 87, 89, or 90. But he doesn't have to here.
Those team aspects could be for a variety of reasons. I mean, look at KAJ from 87 to 88. All of his stats went down, expecially in the playoffs. Why is that important? Well, on a run-n-gun team like LA, Jabbar's ability to score in the halfcourt in the playoffs when things bog down was important. The playoffs were a lot tougher for the Lakers in 1988, and I think Jabbar's decline could be the biggest reason for that. Seriously, look at his playoff TS% in 87 and 88.
Was Magic a worse player? He had worse stats, sure. HIs team still won 62 games (they were 5-5 in the games played without him), he still was third in mvp voting, and his team won the championship, with Magic performing like a superstar individually. He played like a GOAT in the finals and was screwed out of a finals MVP (yeah, I said it). He was better in the finals against Detroit than Michael Jordan was against Detroit. 21/13/6/2 with 3 to's and 10 trips to the line per game. Great percentages.
He was the constant in the series. Worthy and Scott and the rest could have great shooting nights or poor ones, but Magic was the constant, even in losses. He had the flu in game 2, and with his team in danger of losing both games at home, he dropped 23/13/7. He dropped 22/19 in game 6 with his team down 3-2. He dropped 19/14 in game 7. He's such a mismatch that the pg's can't guard him. Joe Dumars could at least try to take some aspect away from Jordan. Magic took Dumars right into the post and shot uncontested hook shots over him. Worm? Probably the best matchup physically, but he obviously didn't work out too well looking at Magic's numbers.
It should be noted that in over 50% of Magic's playoffs games, he was going up against a top 2 defense in the league that year ito defensive rating. That might explain his so-called "drop" in play.
Bird again accomplishes more than Hakeem, who is a year away from settling into his true defensive peak, and Hakeem having one of the most productive series in league history does not quite erase that achievement gap.
In addition to this being the first time Jordan won more games and went farther in the playoffs — sadly will become the norm as their team situations continue their inverted trajectories — Hakeem is also no longer a
clearly superior playoff performer: for as productive as Hakeem was against the Mavericks, Jordan was similarly productive against the Cavaliers. As it will often be, difference there is ultimately team support, with some excellent defence and rebounding from the Bulls’ frontcourt rotation of Oakley, Grant, and Corzine, plus a breakout game 5 from Scottie Pippen to secure the series. Meanwhile, Joe Barely Cares is a comically terrible fit as a frontcourt partner, Robert Reid and Purvis Short are finished as starter-calibre players, Rodney McCray struggles to do anything, and Sleepy Floyd is unable to recreate his stunning play from last year outside of one game (although does at least provide enough competent guard play in the other three games to ensure Hakeem is given the ball). Better get used to it, because we are five seasons away from a return to serious contention.
The Mavs still couldn't stop Olajuwon, but they kept the rest of the Rockets under control as they swept to a 53-45 halftime lead.
In the first half, the Rockets had no perimeter game other than an occasional 18-foot turnaround by Olajuwon. Shooting guards Robert Reid and Purvis Short were a combined 1-for-9 to start the game.
The Rockets came out with a more determined inside effort to start the third quarter.
McCray, who missed 6 of his first 7 shots, went coast to coast for a driving layin as Houston tied at 59. That brought the crowd into the game.
When Carroll hooked in a rebound, the Rockets led 64-63, and Olajuwon followed with a fast-break slam to put the Rockets up by three. By now The Summit was in pandemonium.
The Mavericks continually sagged in on Olajuwon and gave the Rocket guards the outside shot, aware that they were having trouble hitting it.
Reid continued to miss open shots and became visibly frustrated, pounding the press table after he clanged a 16-footer that bounced over the backboard.
Floyd did sink a 3-pointer to put the Rockets ahead 75-71 with a minute left in the third period, and they carried a four-point lead into the final period.
But then they went into their half-court, motionless shell and produced 15 points for the quarter.
"We were double-teaming Akeem all the time," Tarpley said. "We were hoping to force someone else to shoot."
But no one else could hit. And finally, not even Olajuwon could.
Isiah is not an automatic inclusion for me the way he will be the next two years, but he is the leader of the league’s second-best team (by both SRS and playoff results), and that is more worthy of recognition than what any other mere all-NBA calibre player can offer.
