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Doctor MJ wrote:Vote sincerely. Do not move a player down in your voting to give another player an advantage. I would encourage every voter to give some explanations while they do their voting - but particularly if you have a top 5 that deviates strongly with the norm and you haven't expressed your thoughts on it earlier in the thread. If I'm not satisfied, I may ask you for more of an explanation - and it may come to actually booting people out of the project.

The rules here are that you've got to use the same type of thinking for all 5 votes. I understand putting more thought into #1 than #5, but I don't want PJ Brown votes. Voters do Brown type votes to give a guy an honorable mention. Makes sense if people only care about who finishes 1st, but I've been clear that I want to measure more than that. I've been trying to encourage literal "honorable mentions" to serve that purpose, and I'd ask that people use that as the way they honor guys who did something special but who aren't actually a top 5 guy that year.

OhayoKD wrote:Jordan should notch himself a dominant victory here.

Narigo wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:Jordan should notch himself a dominant victory here.

Why is that? This is arguably peak Magic on offense

AEnigma wrote:Patrick Ewing (1990)
Shouldered a heavy offensive load like 1982 Moses Malone while providing strong defence. Ewing sadly had no true chance at MVP that year with peak-ish Magic and Jordan in the league, nor was he fortunate enough to be traded to a 1982 76ers equivalent. However, he did go on his own monstrous scoring run and pull off an unexpected upset of Bird’s Celtics, where Ewing won three straight elimination games averaging an efficient 36/13/5, including a road win in the league’s toughest road environment. Shortly after, with Pat Riley as his coach and a better but still unspectacular supporting cast, he came the closest to beating each of the 1992 Bulls, 1993 Bulls, and 1994 Rockets in their respective title years. If he had been his 1990 self, instead of a few years on with degrading knees and overall athleticism, maybe he could have broken through (almost certainly in 1994). Timing is such an under-appreciated element of how legacies are built in this sport.

Here are some of the best posts and articles I was able to find about that season:
https://hardwoodhype.com/the-work/f/nba-1989-90-peak-patrick-ewing

Hardwood Hype wrote:Already a bona fide star, the 1989-90 season is the one in which Ewing catapulted himself into SUPERstardom.

Ewing hit on 55.1% of his shots and a career-high 77.5% of his free throws en route to 28.6 points per game, third-best in the league and a career-high. For good measure, 10.9 rebounds per game, which was fifth in the league, was his best to date, as were his Assist (10.0%) and Turnover Rates (12.4%).

Twenty-one times he scored at 35 points in a game – in no other season did he do so more than eleven times. Eleven times he went for at least 40 – it’s the only time he reached 40 more than four times in a season. He set a single-season high with twelve games of 30+ and at least 15 rebounds. On ten of those occasions he scored at least 35 – he never did this more than five times in any other season. Eight times in his career Ewing scored at least 30 and grabbed at least 20 rebounds. He did it three times in ’89-‘90 – it’s the only season in which he did it more than once. Two of these were the only 40-20 games of his career. By Basketball Reference Game Score, this is the season in which he turned his top four (and five of the top-ten) individual performances, regular and postseason. Only once since 1983-84 (the date from which B-R has Game Scores) has a center topped four such games in a season.

This is a breakout season of volume greatness and performances, by a short-lived version of Patrick Ewing. Beyond the goofy great statistics and but special, historic performances (more on this in a sec), this is a different Ewing than the Dream Teamer, let alone, the one who anchored the contending Knicks teams to come.

Consider the first of those 40-20s. A month into the season, during the Knicks’ annual visit to Oakland, Ewing positively battered the Warriors, making 17 of 27 shots on his way to 44 points, while grabbing 24 rebounds – ten of them offensive –blocking three shots and handing out four assists in an easy win.

And the hits just kept coming. Three nights later in Phoenix, he had 41, 8 and 4, with five blocks. Two weeks after that, on December 16, it was 30, 14 and six blocks in a home win over the Sonics. Three nights after that, 41, 15 and four blocks in another win, this time over the Jazz.

By the numbers, that night in northern California remained the best regular performance of his career… for about five weeks. On January 7 he basically replicated the feat at home against the Clippers, again scoring 44, this time with 22 rebounds, seven blocked shots, four assists and a pair of steals. Two nights later he hung 35 on the Bullets, before putting a 33 and 12, with five assists and eight blocks on the Bulls at MSG.

And so it went… 38, 15 and four blocks in Dallas… 24, 11 and nine against Miami… 35, 13 and seven the next night in Orlando… 33, 13 and six in Houston… a pair of 41s in wins on either side of the All-Star break, with a combined 25 rebounds and eleven blocks… 37, 13, six assists and three blocks against the defending champion Pistons… 30, 18 and six blocks against Philly… and on… and on…

The game at the Garden on March 24 was always going to be an event, as any visit from the Celtics was in those days. Though the Knicks ultimately fell by five, it was another milestone for Ewing, who grabbed a whopping 18 rebounds to go with a career-high 51, and looked completely unstoppable doing it.

The next time out it was 41 and 12 with four blocks against the Bullets. Four days later it was 37, 21 and six against Denver. This is one of ten 35/20/6 performances recorded since 1973-74 – it was Ewing’s second of the season, and remains the most recent. He went for 37 twice more in the week that followed, first with 17 rebounds in Washington, and two nights later, with 19 rebounds and nine blocks in a home win against Philly. Six times since 1973-74 has a player has scored 35, grabbed 15 rebounds and blocked nine shots in a game. Only four times has it been done in regulation. This is one of them. No one has done it since.

fatal9 wrote:Some context around the 1990 Knicks: The Knicks started out 34-17 before making the Strickland/Cheeks trade. Then finished the season 11-20 for a combination of reasons. I wish I had game 3 of the Celtics series on my computer because Peter Vecsey does a decent job in a halftime segment of showing all the chemistry issues the Knicks had in the last couple of months of the season (these issues were why Knicks were given no chance to beat the Celtics). From making the Strickland trade, to Mark Jackson getting booed on the court and benched for 33 year old Cheeks, to Oakley fracturing his left hand and missing games, to Kiki V coming back and joining the team. These are a LOT of lineup changes for a team to endure mid-season, Knicks had a different starting PG, a different starting PF (Oakley out), a different starting SF (all of whom were defensive downgrades) in the last month of the season than they did when they were winning and putting up one of the best records in the league. I don't think it's a coincidence how the team performance changed so much just as the Knicks began encountering instability in their lineup. Unfortunately this stretch thwarted Ewing's MVP campaign as well (he was in the convo with Magic, Barkley, MJ for it). That was a 50+ win team disguised by the issues at the end of the season, so I would say Ewing was doing a great job of getting the best out of what he was given.

Some posts here seem to be have no sense of context surrounding his season, no analysis of his game (probably haven't bothered to watch any games), just going off a very very superficial analysis of "let me check PER and team defensive rating" and draw conclusions. This type of analysis is only going to produce outrageous statements such as "90 Malone was better than Ewing" or that Ewing "wasn't even on par with Dwight".

This is a peak project, I have a feeling people are letting their bias from mid/late 90s Ewing (who I have issues with offensively too) cloud their judgement on how good he was this year. I had a similar bias, but then I began watching his games from that season (about 15 or so) and what I'm seeing a dominant defender (his defensive versatility is better here than later in the 90s, my one gripe defensively would be that he was more prone to foul trouble this season than he would be later) with an offensive package like we've never seen Ewing put together at any other point of his career.

Why was he so much better offensively? As I've been mentioning, he had more variety in his offensive game, this was something everyone in the league was talking about. He went from being a predictable offensive player who was easy to game plan for, to being a lot more well rounded who mixed up and expanded his scoring repertoire. He was better at creating space on his shots, got that extra bit of separation he wasn't quite getting later as the years went on and a result he was having a lot of success as a one on one scorer in the post. He was at his physical peak in the NBA, insane stamina, a lot more athletic, moved better, had a bit more spring in his legs, which naturally allowed him to have a better conversion rate around the basket. His aggressiveness is completely different, he wasn't content to bail you out with fadeaways all game, he attacked the defense more often ever and consequently posted the best FTA numbers of his career (combined with a career best FT% which further raised his efficiency). His passing also took a big leap that year. While he wasn't Shaq or prime Hakeem, he was competent at reading doubles, this is another observation that is obvious to me from watching games and also reading/listening to what people around the league were saying.

This isn't a guy who saw an increase in his averages because he just upped his numbers and feasted on bad defenses either (like say D-Rob in '94), he was lighting up everyone. [He put] up 41/15 on Eaton [and] he put up 45/16 against [the Pistons]. His offensive numbers against good defensive teams/centers were very good over the course of the entire season.

Here's a Sports Illustrated article midway through the season (when Knicks were 25-10) talking about Ewing's amazing improvement on offense and how surprised everyone was by how much he improved:

But what the NBA is seeing these days, and is likely to be seeing through a good bit of the next decade, is much, much more. Some of the old images of Ewing are dated. He has buried them under an avalanche of soft, turnaround jump shots. "The book on him always was, Make him shoot over you, make him earn it," says Boston's backup center, Joe Kleine. "Well, now he's earning it." The power, the intimidation, the fearlessness are still there, but so are grace and finesse and economy of movement, terms previously associated with Houston's Akeem Olajuwon, Ewing's yardstick through most of the '80s, and San Antonio rookie David Robinson, the only other NBA center currently mentioned in the same breath with Ewing and Olajuwon.

Ewing's play has been an even more important component of New York's success. "He might be the best in the game right now," Los Angeles's Mychal Thompson told the New York Daily News after Ewing scored 29 points in a 115-104 loss on Dec. 3. "He and Magic [Johnson] are shoulder to shoulder."

"I know what people are saying now," says Jazz coach Jerry Sloan, "but when he came out of college, I don't recall anybody thinking he would score like this."

"I worked on some things this summer, just like I always do. I wanted to get better on coming into the lane with my left hand, and I've done that. I'm getting to the foul line more [his eight attempts per game are about two more than last season], and that's helped my scoring. But I haven't changed my jump shot. It just got better.

Ewing gradually improved under Pitino, but only recently has the whole package been unwrapped. It reveals an agile seven-footer whose turnaround jumper is accurate up to 20 feet; a heady player who discourages double-teaming with canny passes; an outstanding athlete who has somehow figured out the exotic fast-break passing strategies of point guards Mark Jackson and Rod Strickland, both of whom never make a simple move when 13 complicated ones will do; and a defensive intimidator whose 3.7 blocks per game at week's end were second only to Olajuwon's league-leading 4.2.

''He has taken his game to another level,'' Johnson continued, ''a level I've never seen him play at before. He's dominating offensively and defensively, but he's also making the right plays at the right time. He's leading his team, as opposed to before, when it seemed he'd just as soon let somebody else lead. That's the real mark of an MVP.'

https://vault.si.com/.amp/vault/1990/01/22/the-big-man-gets-bigger-patrick-ewing-has-added-finesse-to-his-intimidating-presence-and-made-new-york-an-nba-force

And people are questioning this guy's defense? Come on...this is '92-'94 Ewing but with way better knees. I mean every game I've seen of his from this season, it's the type of combo of scoring variety, defense and athleticism, Knicks fans always wished he had. He was seen as a better center than Hakeem that year, made the all-NBA first over him and had coaches around the league saying he was the best center in the league.

Parish said that Ewing "is a better player today because he has variety of shots, just doesn't throw the fadeaway jumpshot, he gives you the jump hook and his spin move on the baseline is the toughest thing for me to guard" (so this isn't exactly the fadeaway jumpers all game long offensive version of Ewing we remember most). From what I've read guys say about him, he took a big leap in his post game that season but declined as the 90s went on because his knees got worse and worse (and of course he aged, he was in his 30s during '92-'94...and consequently shot jumpers wayyyyyy more often), and as a result so did his efficiency. Even in something like FT shooting, it's way above his career average and his best year ever. He is doing a lot of heavy lifting offensively...must be turning the ball over a lot like he always did, but nope, while putting up the scoring numbers he did, he also posted the third best TOV% of his career. It's not like Ewing is inexperienced here either, he is 27-28 which is usually when players peak so career trajectory wise, it makes sense.

Knicks were still above average defensively considering the following things: a rookie head coach (Stu Jackson, fired 15 games into next season...and only coached one other team after that, the 6-33 Grizzlies), the second best defender on the team missing 21 games, a bad defensive backcourt particularly when Kiki joins the team. I would say he's making pretty good impact here (and we know he can probably make a lot more if he is on a championship caliber team where he doesn't have to score as much). This is one of the great interior defenders of all time, he didn't learn defense when he was 30 years old just like KG didn't magically learn to play defense when he joined the Celtics. His comparison was Bill Russell coming out of college, he was seen as one of the finest defensive talents ever. The questions weren't "can he defend?" but "can he add enough to his post game?" (and he did in 1990). In terms of interior defense, he's ones of the best ever, anything you threw around the basket was going to get challenged, no easy baskets even it meant you put him on a poster. He's second in the league in blocks behind Hakeem, I know averages aren't everything but this isn't Javale McGee we are talking about, but a fundamentally sound defensive player, who plays great post defense and whose block averages reflect his ability to absolutely lock down the paint. I'm going to guess a better moving version of the guy who was anchoring historic defenses a year and a half later was still pretty damn effective on defense. Seems like a reasonable conclusion.

Regarding the Ewing Theory. It refers to the mid/late 90s version of Ewing (in his mid 30s) who is 5+ years away from the year in question here and a CLEAR step down offensively. Even if it were true, it's not very relevant. It's like using Kobe's impact last couple of years to define his impact in '08.

One thing I kind of wish there was more of an argument for was D-Rob (who I think went a few spots too high) vs. Ewing. Would people really take '95 D-Rob in a playoff series over '90 Ewing? Has D-Rob ever taken over offensively for his teams in the playoffs like that? Could D-Rob give the bad boy Pistons defense 45 point game and then come back and drop 30 points in the second half of the next game? And don't forget the intangibles, Ewing was intimidating on the court, a better leader, a guy who has an impact over the entire mentality of the team. I think a great argument I read for D-Rob was that he'd be a great second banana offensively on a championship team but would still be the best overall player on the team...could the same thing not be said about '90 Ewing?

lorak wrote:Another great post by fatal and I agree with you 100% (even youtube video you posted was uploaded by me, because I was so impressed by Ewing's play).

And Ewing theory is completly BS... at least until he was 36 years old. In 1986 he missed 32 games and NYK without him were worse by 6.2 efficiency pts (Ewing improved offense by 1 and defense by 5,2).

1987: 19 games missed, -7 without Ewing (0.4 offense, 6,6 defense)

1996: 6 games missed, -10.6 without Ewing (he improved defense by 12.2 drtg! but offense was worse with him by 1.6)

1998: 56 games missed, -5.4 without Ewing (he improved defense by 7.3 but offense was worse with him by 1.9)

1999: 12 games missed, NYK were better without him by 2.7 eff pts (but still defense was better with Ewing by 1.5)

2000: 20 games missed, team worse by 1.1 with Ewing (but with him offense was better by 3.5 and defense worse by 4.6)

So we see that through almost whole career he was great defensive player and during his early years, before knees were destroyed by injuries, he was also slightly positive player on offense. I really see no reason to put him so much behind DRob whose profile and impact on the game are very close to Ewing's.

E-Balla wrote:1990 Patrick Ewing - This season is spectacular. Ewing was legitimately up for MVP along with Barkley and Magic for most of the season prior to his team making some moves that hurt them. In the first 52 games of the season the Knicks went 34-17 (55 win pace) with Ewing averaging 27.8/10.2/2.3 (4.9 combined blocks and steals) on 58.7 TS% with a 114 ORTG. After the trade the Knicks went 11-20 which would make one assume Ewing didn't play well but he actually played better with the team around him falling apart. He averaged 30.0/12.1/2.1 (4.9 combined blocks and steals) on 61.9 TS% with a 116 ORTG in the last 31 games.

At one point they had a 1-9 stretch where Ewing averaged 32.1/12.5/1.3 (5.0 blocks and steals combined) on 64.5 TS%. His career high was in that stretch, a 51 point performance in a loss to the Celtics.

Then the playoffs came and Ewing went off. In game 1 vs Boston they lost pretty handedly and in game 2 they allowed Boston to break the playoff record for points with 157 (a record that still stands). Following that embarrassment at Boston they were facing elimination in game 3. Ewing and Oakley really turned on the defense and dominated the glass with Ewing grabbing 19 boards in the 3 point win. They followed that with a game 4 blowout win where Ewing played what's probably his best game ever with 44 points, 7 steals, 5 assists, and shooting 75% from the field. Now they were tied up in the series attempting to become the 2nd [sic] team to comeback from being down 0-2 and at the same time hoping to break a 28 game losing streak in Boston (the last time they won in Boston was in 84). The Knicks won that closely contested game with the momentum shifting towards the end of the game with Larry Bird missing an easy dunk and Ewing shortly after making his iconic turnaround 3 pointer.

On Larry Bird missing that dunk this is from SI's article on that series:

When Larry Bird missed the dunk—a point-blank dunk at crunch time in a do-or-die playoff game in Boston Garden—he did so not as a result of any strange astrological occurrence or the Massachusetts budget crisis or even tough defense.

He did so, by his own account, because he was worried. "I wasn't going to dunk it," he explained after the game. "But I thought Patrick was coming, so I tried to. And then I jumped too high, if you can believe it."

Believe it, as hard as it may seem. It is not the business of Boston Celtics to feel shadowy presences, least of all for Larry Legend to feel one from a New York Knick in the building in which New York had lost 26 straight times and hadn't won in the playoffs since the Nixon administration. This was the Garden, and the ghosts are supposed to be friendly. But: "I thought Patrick was coming."

If the truth be told, at the time of Bird's misguided dunk attempt, any Celtic was entitled to be wary of these Knicks. A little more than four minutes remained in Sunday's fifth and final game of these teams' first-round Eastern Conference playoff series, and the Patrick in question, a certain Mr. Ewing, had just feathered in a jump-hook to give New York a 103-99 lead. Ewing did just about everything asked of him in this game. He finished with 31 points and 10 assists, and those figures are stark testimony to how shrewdly he picked apart Boston's double teams with opportune passes and drives.

https://vault.si.com/.amp/vault/1990/05/14/oh-those-cheeky-knicks-mo-cheeks-drove-new-york-to-a-stunning-win-over-boston

Following that series they were completely outmatched by the Pistons but Ewing wasn't. He had some stinkers but overall averaged 27.2 ppg on 56 TS% which is more PPG than anyone outside of MJ (who was only as efficient as Ewing one of those 3 years) averaged against the Pistons in a series between 88 and 90.

EDIT: I punched the numbers. MJ averaged 30.0 ppg on 56.0 TS% against the Pistons from 88 to 90. He averaged 25.4 points per 36. Ewing averaged 26.2 points per 36 against them on 56.0 TS%. So his scoring performance against them was right there with MJ's average scoring performance against them.

Overall that's a pretty great season, but it's not the most impressive left on the board so why 90 Ewing? Well here's how I see his game:

Scoring - 28.6 ppg on +6.2 rTS% speaks for itself. Post merger only Moses (in 81), Robinson (in 94), and Shaq (in 94, 95, 00, and 01) have scored more ppg as a center. Only Shaq in 94, 00, and 01 did it on higher efficiency. In the playoffs he showed he could consistently score on that level scoring 29.4 ppg on 57.9 TS% in the playoffs. Post merger only Shaq (in 98, 00, and 01), Hakeem (in 88 and 95), and Kareem (in 77 and 80) scored more ppg than Ewing in the 90 playoffs. Only Kareem in both years, and Shaq in 98 did it on higher efficiency.

Then you look at his skillset. He had a robotic but effective post game with a predictable but at times unstoppable running hook shot, great speed and strength, the best jumper for any true C I've seen outside of KAT, and his one weakness was probably his small hands which at times limited him on lobs and lead to easy misses of his signature finger roll. There's a solid argument to be made that outside of the true greats (Kareem, Hakeem, Wilt, Moses, Shaq) he's the best scoring C ever. I think his scoring game would suit the modern game amazingly too. Ewing got most of his buckets back then off quick actions and turnaround jumpers, things that would be more valued in today's league at his size.

His passing and rebounding on the other hand were never strong. His passing was below average and his rebounding was mediocre at best for his size.

There's been a lot of discussion about his defense this year. Discussion I don't really understand. Ewing was still an elite defender in 1990 and I don't really have any reason to think he improved after 1990. Played better? In 1992, definitely, but outside of that the biggest change in the quality of the Knicks defense those years was due to his support and most of all the coach. The coach's effect on defensive ratings is always overlooked but there's no great defenses that don't have great defensive coaches and his supporting cast was Oak, Wilkins, and a bunch of scrubs in 1990.

On that end he was a beast out on the perimeter capable of sticking with smaller guys, super athletic and capable of blocking shots at their apex, the best PNR defender of all the Cs of that era (DRob, Hakeem, Deke, and a little later Zo) and he had fast hands capable of stopping drives. Can anyone actually say what he improved at under Pat Riley? I mean performances aren't consistent which is why I think he was better defensively in 89, 92, etc. but why believe Ewing was a meaningfully better defender in the mid 90s just because he finally got a supporting cast that was dominant on that end and a great defensive coach?

I think tons of people just aren't used to seeing young Ewing so they see the numbers and can't connect it to him being legitimately better, and assume he had to have improved later when in reality he lost a ton of his athleticism and really didn't add much to his game. 93/94 Ewing isn't locking down Edwards on the perimeter, forcing Isiah to pick up his dribble and rush a pass (causing a turnover) after a switch in the PNR, drawing a charge on Isiah all the way at the dotted line with his quick reaction and movement (it was called blocking but he's clearly there in time), stopping 3 on 1 fast breaks because no one wanted to go up with it with him around, and at the end of the game blocking Isiah's layup from the other side of the basket.

TrueLAFan wrote:The Lakers won 63 games, and the team was full of holes. It may have been Worthy's best year. But Byron regressed and was pretty average (especially without Magic). A.C. Green was slightly above average. Vlade was good, but a rookie; he and Mychal Thompson (a below average C and player in 1990) combined to give the Lakers an average starting C. Woolridge was, literally, the only decent bench player; behind him the bench was next to non-existant. Without Magic, that is not a good team. Put an average PG on there, and they have Worthy and four average starters and a below average bench. That's a 38 to 45 win team. They won 63. Put it this way; I agree that David Robinson had a good year. Compare the rest of the Spurs to the Lakers—Terry Cummings, Mo Cheeks/Rod Strickland at PG. Willie Anderson was good--better than Byron, IMO, in 1990. Sean Elliot, David Wingate, and Frank Brickowski on the bench. I'd take the Spurs without Drob six days a week and twice on Sunday over the Lakers without Magic. The Lakers won 7 more games in the RS. Magic wasn't just better than Drob, he was much better.

OhayoKD wrote:

Narigo wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:Jordan should notch himself a dominant victory here.

Why is that? This is arguably peak Magic on offense

Impact gets alot harder to argue when Jordan's team does much better than Magic's in the postseason. Granted one could simply point out Magic scored alot better than usual vs portland but that's not exactly consistent with the reasoning used for Magic vs Jordan in 88 and 89 (impact on winning matters, conventional box-score doesn't)

Narigo wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:

Narigo wrote:
Why is that? This is arguably peak Magic on offense

Impact gets alot harder to argue when Jordan's team does much better than Magic's in the postseason. Granted one could simply point out Magic scored alot better than usual vs portland but that's not exactly consistent with the reasoning used for Magic vs Jordan in 88 and 89 (impact on winning matters, conventional box-score doesn't)

Jordan arguably had a better supporting cast than Magic in the playoffs given how great Pippen was if you disclude the "migrane game" he had in gm7 against the Pistons. Worthy was trash against the Suns.

One_and_Done wrote:Leaving aside the downplaying of Magic's support cast, how does it compare to the support cast of Barkley (who is not even in your top 5)?

If the support cast is so crucial to note,

why is Isiah listed. He had the best support cast in the league, to the point that it's debatable if he was even their best player.

AEnigma wrote:Yes, and this is not the first time I have told you that we have different criteria for the project either.

One_and_Done wrote:

AEnigma wrote:Yes, and this is not the first time I have told you that we have different criteria for the project either.

I recognise other people are going to have different criteria to me, and that's fine. But when the criteria is 'I don't necessarily rank people based on how good they were in a given year', I do question how it's consistent with the purpose of the project.

We just had a long chat about whether certain voters are voting in a way that's not in the spirit of the project. I would suggest that when you say 'player A was better this year than player B, but I am ignoring that fact because I want to vote on something other than who was the best player this year', that it's problematic. If you want to vote for Isiah because you think he's better, go for it. I wouldn't buy it, but that's your view. But you are telling me you actually think Barkley is better, and you're still not voting for him.

One_and_Done wrote:

AEnigma wrote:Yes, and this is not the first time I have told you that we have different criteria for the project either.

I recognise other people are going to have different criteria to me, and that's fine. But when the criteria is 'I don't necessarily rank people based on how good they were in a given year', I do question how it's consistent with the purpose of the project.

We just had a long chat about whether certain voters are voting in a way that's not in the spirit of the project. I would suggest that when you say 'player A was better this year than player B, but I am ignoring that fact because I want to vote on something other than who was the best player this year', that it's problematic. If you want to vote for Isiah because you think he's better, go for it. I wouldn't buy it, but that's your view. But you are telling me you actually think Barkley is better, and you're still not voting for him.

One_and_Done wrote:I am under no illusions as to the nature of the project