Retro Player of the Year 2009-10 — Lebron James

[AEnigma]

General Project Discussion Thread

Discussion, Ballots, and Results from the Official Player of the Year voting in 2010.

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 players and the top 3 offensive and defensive players of 2009-10.

Player of the Year (POY)(5) — most accomplished overall player of that season
Offensive Player of the Year (OPOY)(3) — most accomplished offensive player of that season
Defensive Player of the Year (DPOY)(3) — most accomplished defensive player of that season

Voting will close sometime after 12:30PM PST on Tuesday, January 28th. I have no issue keeping it open so long as discussion is strong, but please try to vote within the first three days.

Valid ballots must provide an explanation for your choices that gives us a window into how you thought and why you came to the decisions you did. You can vote for any of the three awards — although they must be complete votes — but I will only tally votes for an award when there are at least five valid ballots submitted for it.

Remember, your votes must be based on THIS season. This is intended to give wide wiggle room for personal philosophies while still providing a boundary to make sure the award can be said to mean something. You can factor things like degree of difficulty as defined by you, but what you can't do is ignore how the player actually played on the floor this season in favor of what he might have done if only...

You may change your vote, but if you do, edit your original post rather than writing, "hey, ignore my last post, this is my real post until I change my mind again.” I similarly ask that ballots be kept in one post rather than making one post for Player of the Year, one post for Offensive Player of the Year, and/or one post for Defensive Player of the Year. If you want to provide your reasoning that way for the sake of discussion, fine, but please keep the official votes themselves in one aggregated post. Finally, for ease of tallying, I prefer for you to place your votes at the beginning of your balloting post, with some formatting that makes them stand out. I will not discount votes which fail to follow these requests, but I am certainly more likely to overlook them.

Contrarian votes can be and have been sincere, but they look a lot more sincere when you take the time to fully present your reasoning rather than transparently pretend nothing is amiss.

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.

There is a significant difference between a properly justified and internally consistent contrarian vote, and a vote whose purpose is to undermine the project itself. Ballots which threaten to do the latter and derail project discussion via blatant vote manipulation are liable to be tossed. If it happens twice, the offending poster will be removed from the project.

Current Voter List

Spoiler:

[One_and_Done]

This is another one Lebron should be unanimous for. Will have to think over my 2-5. Nash will be in it for sure.

I'll edit in reasons later.

1. Lebron


2. Dwight
3. Wade
4. Nash
5. KD

I elaborate on Lebron in later posts, but there's not much to say. He was clearly the best player in the NBA. The Cavs played at a 65 win pace with him, and lost in the playoffs due to a trash support cast. The fact that Lebron somehow carried these guys to 60+ wins is unbelievable. One of the GOAT carry jobs of all time. His playoffs was a little below his high standards, but not enough to drop him from #1.

Dwight continues to be underappreciated for carrying a pretty ordinary support cast to 59 wins. His impact on both ends was just that huge.

Wade and Nash had great seasons, they're tough to parse. What Nash had around him was incredibly ordinary; Cast-offs like Frye and J.Rich, and 37 year old Grant Hill. Just a weaker than usual support cast, yet they were great anyway. I've ultimately gone with Wade due to his superior playoffs, but honestly I'm not sure.

As I note in later posts, KD is an easy 5th for me. He was better than guys like Kobe in the RS by a large margin, and I'm honestly not sure he was any worse in the Lakers series than Kobe was. He was also just a better player in general, which is a good tiebreaker if it's close (which I don't think it is).

[trelos6]

OPOY

1.Steve Nash. Back where he belongs. Anchored the 5th best rOrtg of all time, +7.7. 18.9 pp75 on +7.2 rTS%. Playoffs got to 20.85 pp75 on +10 rTS%. Best passer and playmaker in the league.

2.Lebron James. So good that I considered him at 1. 30 pp75, +6.1 rTS%. Team rOrtg of +3.6. Playoffs, he was “only” 27 +3.6%.

3.Deron Williams. There used to be a discussion about who was better, Deron or CP3. This is why. Prime Deron was a great playmaker and passer. Arguably top 4 in the league in both. Scoring wise, he was 19.4 pp75 on +3.1 rTS% while driving a +3.1 team rOrtg. In the playoffs, he upped his scoring to 23.4 pp75 on +7.1 rTS%. Beat’s out Wade, because although Wade was the far better scorer, and a top 5 playmaker, his team’s offense wasn’t great.

DPOY


1.Kevin Garnett. Anchored a top 5 defense. Second best defense in the playoffs. https://insider.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/7599083/nba-kevin-garnett-revolutionized-player-evaluation-espn-magazine. Great article about KG’s defensive impact. In the playoffs, KG shut down Beasley, Jamison, Lewis and Gasol when he was on them. Their scoring volume and efficiency cratered. 4 successive rounds of elite big man defense.

2.Dwight Howard. Anchored a top 3 defense. Very mobile and great rim protection. Best defensive team in the playoffs.

3.Andrew Bogut. Pre arm injury Bogut was nice. Anchored a top 2 defense. Beats out Duncan by a hair.


POY

1.Lebron James. +7.1 OPIPM, +1.57 DPIPM, +8.66 PIPM. 23.4 Wins Added. Great on both sides of the ball. Played well in playoffs, but they weren’t going to beat the Celtics in that series even if we had 2009 Lebron.

2.Dwayne Wade. +5.63 OPIPM, +0.41 DPIPM, +6.04 PIPM, 16.4 Wins Added. 29.4 pp75 on +1.9 rTS%. Playoffs were only 5 games vs Celtics, but Wade was amazing. Increasing volume to 31.3 pp75 and bringing his rTS% to +10.7%. Great defensively for a guard.

3.Steve Nash. Terrific offensive season. +4.3 OPIM, -1.97 DPIPM. +2.33 PIPM. 9.79 Wins Added.

4.Dwight Howard. 20.7 pp75, +8.7 rTS%. Team offense of +3.8 rTS%. Dominates the paint, allows the team to have 4 spacers. Defensively, he was great. +2.64 OPIPM, +4.1 DPIPM, +6.74 PIPM, 19.54 Wins Added.

5.Kobe Bryant. +3.53 OPIPM, +0.32 DPIPM, +3.85 PIPM. 15.44 Wins Added. 26.9 pp75 on league average ts%. Upped volume and efficiency in playoffs. Defense was good. Top 10 playmaker. Decent passer. Was huge against the Suns weak D. Against the Celtics, his ability to get to the line and finish them at 88% was a large reason why the Lakers won the title.

[Djoker]

Lebron had a subpar PS and was just plain bad down the stretch of the Boston series. This time his better RS just isn't enough to put him ahead of Kobe who had a strong PS and wins the title. Will probably have Wade over him too considering the far superior performance against the same opponent. Nash and Dwight probably fill the rest of the ballot with conference finals appearances accompanied by strong play.

[One_and_Done]

Lebron had a subpar PS and was just plain bad down the stretch of the Boston series. This time his better RS just isn't enough to put him ahead of Kobe who had a strong PS and wins the title. Will probably have Wade over him too considering the far superior performance against the same opponent. Nash and Dwight probably fill the rest of the ballot with conference finals appearances accompanied by strong play.

Lebron PS per100: 36/12/10 on 607 TS%
Kobe PS per100: 39/8/7 on 567 TS%, while being a much worse defender than prime Lebron.

Yeh, not seeing it. Lebron had a healthy PS advantage, and a ginormous RS advantage. I'm supposed to care that he couldn't carry his crud support cast past the absurdly stacked Boston Celtics or Lakers? That support cast went 8-32 without him the next season before they pulled the plug on trying to win.

[OhayoKD]

Lebron had a subpar PS and was just plain bad down the stretch of the Boston series. This time his better RS just isn't enough to put him ahead of Kobe who had a strong PS and wins the title. Will probably have Wade over him too considering the far superior performance against the same opponent. Nash and Dwight probably fill the rest of the ballot with conference finals appearances accompanied by strong play.

Lebron PS per100: 36/12/10 on 607 TS%
Kobe PS per100: 39/8/7 on 567 TS%, while being a much worse defender than prime Lebron.

Yeh, not seeing it. Lebron had a healthy PS advantage, and a ginormous RS advantage. I'm supposed to care that he couldn't carry his crud support cast past the absurdly stacked Boston Celtics or Lakers? That support cast went 8-32 without him the next season before they pulled the plug on trying to win.

Actually they were on pace for 18-pythagorean wins over 21 "full-strength" games. Very misleading of you.

But yeah, an injured Lebron was still comfortably the best performer vs the Celtics.

[One_and_Done]

Lebron had a subpar PS and was just plain bad down the stretch of the Boston series. This time his better RS just isn't enough to put him ahead of Kobe who had a strong PS and wins the title. Will probably have Wade over him too considering the far superior performance against the same opponent. Nash and Dwight probably fill the rest of the ballot with conference finals appearances accompanied by strong play.

Lebron PS per100: 36/12/10 on 607 TS%
Kobe PS per100: 39/8/7 on 567 TS%, while being a much worse defender than prime Lebron.

Yeh, not seeing it. Lebron had a healthy PS advantage, and a ginormous RS advantage. I'm supposed to care that he couldn't carry his crud support cast past the absurdly stacked Boston Celtics or Lakers? That support cast went 8-32 without him the next season before they pulled the plug on trying to win.

Actually they were on pace for 18-pythagorean wins over 21 "full-strength" games. Very misleading of you.

But yeah, an injured Lebron was still comfortably the best performer vs the Celtics.

They were 8-32. The rest is noise. Alot of teams aren't at 100% every game, and it's clear now that those guys all sucked and wouldn't have moved the needle either way.

[lessthanjake]

So I think we have a pretty similar situation to last year, but with some crucial differences.

LeBron is the best player in the NBA this year. But Kobe is one of the best few players and won the title while having a good playoffs. So Kobe’s case should be very hard to overcome, and the question is whether LeBron did it.

Last year, when posed with a very similar scenario, I didn’t think it was straightforward but I leaned LeBron in significant part because he was fantastic in the playoffs and the Lakers’ playoff run was abnormally easy so that lowered the quality of Kobe’s case particularly when it relies a lot on winning the title. This year, those two factors are not the same.

LeBron was not fantastic in the playoffs. He did have a great first round against a -1.64 SRS Bulls team (albeit one that’d become very good the next year). And he was great in the first three games against the Celtics. But in the last three games he was genuinely poor—shooting terribly and turning the ball over way too much. It was so bad that borderline conspiracy theories arose to try to explain how he could’ve played like that. And those games determined the series and ended the Cavaliers’ year. When taken in context with the first three games, LeBron’s series as a whole wasn’t actually all that bad IMO, but those last three games definitely made his playoff run far from fantastic, and his struggles were undeniably a key reason his team got knocked out of the playoffs. It matters a lot, and is a huge differentiator between this year and 2009.

Meanwhile, the Lakers’ run was more difficult/impressive this year. Unlike last year, their playoff run was undeniably pretty difficult. They faced Durant’s Thunder in the first round—which was a very young team, but was already a good team and a very difficult first round opponent. The Jazz in the second round were not a real contender-level team IMO, but they had a 5 SRS (albeit they were not entirely healthy in the playoffs). Not a particularly difficult second-round team, but not abnormally easy either IMO. Then they faced the Suns in the conference finals—who were not at their very best, but were still a very worthy opponent. And the Celtics were a tough team in the Finals, even if this was probably not them at their very peak as a team. I wouldn’t say this title run was the most difficult, but it was definitely not easy. And that makes Kobe’s achievement of leading them to the title more impressive for POY purposes than his achievement doing so in 2009 against a notably easier set of opponents.

Of course, the above-discussed issues aren’t the only differences between this year and 2009. Box metrics do suggest Kobe wasn’t quite as good in the 2010 regular season as he was in 2009, and the Lakers didn’t do as well in the regular season. The same is true to an extent with LeBron, but I do tend to think Kobe probably fell off more than LeBron did, so the gap in RS performance is probably a little bit bigger this year than it was in 2009. It is also true that Kobe had struggles of his own against the Celtics—particularly in Game 7.

Overall, though, with Kobe having actually led his team through a pretty tough playoff run to win the title and LeBron having actually been a significant reason his team lost in the second round, I don’t really see this as a season where LeBron’s case could overcome the case of one of the league’s best few players leading his team to the title. There have been plenty of years where a superstar leading his team to the title had an even stronger POY case than 2010 Kobe, but, given the last three games against the Celtics, I don’t really see how LeBron could get the nod over Kobe for POY purposes, even though LeBron was surely the better player in a vacuum.

[One_and_Done]

So I think we have a pretty similar situation to last year, but with some crucial differences.

LeBron is the best player in the NBA this year. But Kobe is one of the best few players and won the title while having a good playoffs. So Kobe’s case should be very hard to overcome, and the question is whether LeBron did it.

Last year, when posed with a very similar scenario, I didn’t think it was straightforward but I leaned LeBron in significant part because he was fantastic in the playoffs and the Lakers’ playoff run was abnormally easy so that lowered the quality of Kobe’s case particularly when it relies a lot on winning the title. This year, those two factors are not the same.

LeBron was not fantastic in the playoffs. He did have a great first round against a -1.64 SRS Bulls team (albeit one that’d become very good the next year). And he was great in the first three games against the Celtics. But in the last three games he was genuinely poor—shooting terribly and turning the ball over way too much. It was so bad that borderline conspiracy theories arose to try to explain how he could’ve played like that. And those games determined the series and ended the Cavaliers’ year. When taken in context with the first three games, LeBron’s series as a whole wasn’t actually all that bad IMO, but those last three games definitely made his playoff run far from fantastic. It matters a lot, and is a huge differentiator between this year and 2009.

Meanwhile, the Lakers’ run was more difficult/impressive this year. Unlike last year, their playoff run was undeniably pretty difficult. They faced Durant’s Thunder in the first round—which was a very young team, but was already a good team and a very difficult first round opponent. The Jazz in the second round were not a real contender-level team IMO, but they had a 5 SRS (albeit they were not entirely healthy in the playoffs). Not a particularly difficult second-round team, but not abnormally easy either IMO. Then they faced the Suns in the conference finals—who were not at their very best, but were still a very worthy opponent. And the Celtics were a tough team in the Finals, even if this was probably not them at their very peak as a team. I wouldn’t say this title run was the most difficult, but it was definitely not easy. And that makes Kobe’s achievement of leading them to the title more impressive for POY purposes than his achievement doing so in 2009 against a notably easier set of opponents.

Of course, the above-discussed issues aren’t the only differences between this year and 2009. Box metrics do suggest Kobe wasn’t quite as good in the 2010 regular season as he was in 2009, and the Lakers didn’t do as well in the regular season. The same is true to an extent with LeBron, but I do tend to think Kobe probably fell off more than LeBron did, so the gap in RS performance is probably a little bit bigger this year than it was in 2009. It is also true that Kobe had struggles of his own against the Celtics—particularly in Game 7.

Overall, though, with Kobe having actually led his team through a pretty tough playoff run to win the title and LeBron having actually been a significant reason his team lost in the second round, I don’t really see this as a season where LeBron’s case could overcome the case of one of the league’s best few players leading his team to the title. There have been plenty of years where a superstar leading his team to the title had an even stronger POY case than 2010 Kobe, but, given the last three games against the Celtics, I don’t really see how LeBron could get the nod over Kobe for POY purposes, even though LeBron was surely the better player in a vacuum.

Lebron had 27-9-7 on 556 TS% vs the Celtics, while playing great D, and having absolutely no support. Meanwhile, Kobe who had the best support cast in the league to draw defensive attention away from him, put up 29-8-4 on 528 TS%. I don't even think Kobe played better than LeBron vs the Celtics, and that's the low point of Bron's season. Now you want to reduce the analysis to 3 games? Seems absurd. Let's reduce it to 1 game then. Kobe's game 7 vs the Celtics when he shot 6/24 and needed Pau to bail him out.

Lebron was better in the RS and PS. I don't care about narratives or who won the title, because that's a team accomplishment and Kobe had the far, far better team. Odom would easily be the Cavs 2nd best player, and he was the Lakers 6th man. None of the Cavs starters would even start on the Lakers probably.

[Homer38]

Lebron had a subpar PS and was just plain bad down the stretch of the Boston series. This time his better RS just isn't enough to put him ahead of Kobe who had a strong PS and wins the title. Will probably have Wade over him too considering the far superior performance against the same opponent. Nash and Dwight probably fill the rest of the ballot with conference finals appearances accompanied by strong play.

I understand putting Kobe over LBJ since James was not good in his last 3 games vs Boston but I do not agree to put a player who was a first round exit (Wade) even if he was great in the regular season and vs celtics....We can not ignore LeBron's regular season which was as good as 2009 and the cavs had the best record in the nba even if the roster were not a special one.....He was as good that 2009 in 2010 before the final 3 games vs Boston and the final 3 games vs Boston matter big time and this is why I understand putting Kobe ahead of LBJ but not behind Wade because of 3-5 games

[Homer38]

This is another one Lebron should be unanimous for. Will have to think over my 2-5. Nash will be in it for sure.

I'll edit in reasons later.

1. Lebron


2. Dwight
3. Wade
4. Nash
5. KD

2010 KD over Kobe....another rock bottom for you.

He shouldn't be qualified in this project.He is too biased against one player and Kobe is not even one of my favorite player

[Cavsfansince84]

So I think we have a pretty similar situation to last year, but with some crucial differences.

LeBron is the best player in the NBA this year. But Kobe is one of the best few players and won the title while having a good playoffs. So Kobe’s case should be very hard to overcome, and the question is whether LeBron did it.

Only issue(s) here are that a. Kobe by bpm and vorp has his worst rs since 99(compared to 09 which was prob like a top 4 rs for him) b. the Lakers fall from 65 to 57 wins and c. despite placing 3rd in MVP voting he is only 15th in bpm and 10th in vorp and its not like he's one of those players where defense is compensating for box score. I'm guessing his rapm isn't that good either this year. In short, I think he coasted or declined in this rs and despite leading his team to a title this is not a replay of the previous season the way you painted it above. Kobe had a poor rs by his own standards that year.

[One_and_Done]

This is another one Lebron should be unanimous for. Will have to think over my 2-5. Nash will be in it for sure.

I'll edit in reasons later.

1. Lebron


2. Dwight
3. Wade
4. Nash
5. KD

2010 KD over Kobe....another rock bottom for you.

He shouldn't be qualified in this draft, He is too biased against one player and Kobe is not even one of my favorite player

KD had a disappointing playoffs, with an inexperienced group around him, but he was better than Kobe in every other respect including the whole RS. Why am I punishing KD for having a worse support cast?

In the Lakers series KD was 25-8-2 on 499 TS%. That's disappointing by his high standards, but understandable for a playoff rookie. Kobe in the same series was 23-4-4 on 507 TS%. I don't think that's enough to offset KDs vastly superior RS. I'm not even convinced Kobe played better that series, he just had the better team.

[Homer38]

This is another one Lebron should be unanimous for. Will have to think over my 2-5. Nash will be in it for sure.

I'll edit in reasons later.

1. Lebron


2. Dwight
3. Wade
4. Nash
5. KD

2010 KD over Kobe....another rock bottom for you.

He shouldn't be qualified in this project He is too biased against one player and Kobe is not even one of my favorite player

KD had a disappointing playoffs, with an inexperienced group around him, but he was better than Kobe in every other respect including the whole RS. Why am I punishing KD for having a worse support cast?

You would not put Kobe in your top 5 even if he had a amazing regular season and a poor first round series like KD,no matter what.

[Cavsfansince84]

2010 KD over Kobe....another rock bottom for you.

He shouldn't be qualified in this project.He is too biased against one player and Kobe is not even one of my favorite player

idk. As I just mentioned in another post, Kobe by most ways I see had his worst rs since 99 and I think was feeling the toll of 2 straight finals and playing through a lot of injuries over the years. You can easily make the case he was not a top 8 player in the rs. So his placement on a ballot has a lot to do with how impressed you are with his playoff run and how much you weigh ps vs rs. So I don't think its that far fetched to have him outside of the top 5 just as I'd say it is to have him as high as 1 or 2 even though I think his rs was way too weak to have him at #1. KD was 2nd in MVP voting and win shares fwiw.

[OhayoKD]

This is another one Lebron should be unanimous for. Will have to think over my 2-5. Nash will be in it for sure.

I'll edit in reasons later.

1. Lebron


2. Dwight
3. Wade
4. Nash
5. KD

2010 KD over Kobe....another rock bottom for you.

He shouldn't be qualified in this project.He is too biased against one player and Kobe is not even one of my favorite player

Fortunately voters do not qualify base on the incredulity other voter share over their votes. Though I do see the irony of defending this particular poster's inclusion.

That said Kobe below Durant seems pretty absurd.

[Homer38]

2010 KD over Kobe....another rock bottom for you.

He shouldn't be qualified in this project.He is too biased against one player and Kobe is not even one of my favorite player

idk. As I just mentioned in another post, Kobe by most ways I see had his worst rs since 99 and I think was feeling the toll of 2 straight finals and playing through a lot of injuries over the years. You can easily make the case he was not a top 8 player in the rs. So his placement on a ballot has a lot to do with how impressed you are with his playoff run and how much you weigh ps vs rs. So I don't think its that far fetched to have him outside of a top 5 just as I'd say it is to have him as high as 1 or 2 even though I think his rs was way too weak to have him at #1. KD was 2nd in MVP voting fwiw.

I understand and my argument would have been better if I had mentioned this in 2008, 2009 or any other year before since Kobe was not in his top 5 in any year, which I find a bit ridiculous!

[Cavsfansince84]

I understand and my argument would have been better if I had mentioned this in 2008, 2009 or any other year before since Kobe was not in his top 5 in any year, which I find a bit ridiculous!

I agree he has a pretty low opinion of Kobe relative to others but its prob a bit late to revoke his voting rights given we are in the last year Kobe will get much votes or close to it.

[lessthanjake]

So I think we have a pretty similar situation to last year, but with some crucial differences.

LeBron is the best player in the NBA this year. But Kobe is one of the best few players and won the title while having a good playoffs. So Kobe’s case should be very hard to overcome, and the question is whether LeBron did it.

Last year, when posed with a very similar scenario, I didn’t think it was straightforward but I leaned LeBron in significant part because he was fantastic in the playoffs and the Lakers’ playoff run was abnormally easy so that lowered the quality of Kobe’s case particularly when it relies a lot on winning the title. This year, those two factors are not the same.

LeBron was not fantastic in the playoffs. He did have a great first round against a -1.64 SRS Bulls team (albeit one that’d become very good the next year). And he was great in the first three games against the Celtics. But in the last three games he was genuinely poor—shooting terribly and turning the ball over way too much. It was so bad that borderline conspiracy theories arose to try to explain how he could’ve played like that. And those games determined the series and ended the Cavaliers’ year. When taken in context with the first three games, LeBron’s series as a whole wasn’t actually all that bad IMO, but those last three games definitely made his playoff run far from fantastic. It matters a lot, and is a huge differentiator between this year and 2009.

Meanwhile, the Lakers’ run was more difficult/impressive this year. Unlike last year, their playoff run was undeniably pretty difficult. They faced Durant’s Thunder in the first round—which was a very young team, but was already a good team and a very difficult first round opponent. The Jazz in the second round were not a real contender-level team IMO, but they had a 5 SRS (albeit they were not entirely healthy in the playoffs). Not a particularly difficult second-round team, but not abnormally easy either IMO. Then they faced the Suns in the conference finals—who were not at their very best, but were still a very worthy opponent. And the Celtics were a tough team in the Finals, even if this was probably not them at their very peak as a team. I wouldn’t say this title run was the most difficult, but it was definitely not easy. And that makes Kobe’s achievement of leading them to the title more impressive for POY purposes than his achievement doing so in 2009 against a notably easier set of opponents.

Of course, the above-discussed issues aren’t the only differences between this year and 2009. Box metrics do suggest Kobe wasn’t quite as good in the 2010 regular season as he was in 2009, and the Lakers didn’t do as well in the regular season. The same is true to an extent with LeBron, but I do tend to think Kobe probably fell off more than LeBron did, so the gap in RS performance is probably a little bit bigger this year than it was in 2009. It is also true that Kobe had struggles of his own against the Celtics—particularly in Game 7.

Overall, though, with Kobe having actually led his team through a pretty tough playoff run to win the title and LeBron having actually been a significant reason his team lost in the second round, I don’t really see this as a season where LeBron’s case could overcome the case of one of the league’s best few players leading his team to the title. There have been plenty of years where a superstar leading his team to the title had an even stronger POY case than 2010 Kobe, but, given the last three games against the Celtics, I don’t really see how LeBron could get the nod over Kobe for POY purposes, even though LeBron was surely the better player in a vacuum.

Lebron had 27-9-7 on 556 TS% vs the Celtics, while playing great D, and having absolutely no support. Meanwhile, Kobe who had the best support cast in the league to draw defensive attention away from him, put up 29-8-4 on 528 TS%. I don't even think Kobe played better than LeBron vs the Celtics, and that's the low point of Bron's season. Now you want to reduce the analysis to 3 games? Seems absurd. Let's reduce it to 1 game then. Kobe's game 7 vs the Celtics when he shot 6/24 and needed Pau to bail him out.

Lebron was better in the RS and PS. I don't care about narratives or who won the title, because that's a team accomplishment and Kobe had the far, far better team. Odom would easily be the Cavs 2nd best player, and he was the Lakers 6th man. None of the Cavs starters would even start on the Lakers probably.

I think you can look at the overall numbers in that series and say LeBron had a better series against the Celtics. But I think there’s two important things here:

1. Against the Celtics, LeBron had higher highs but also had more sustained lows. He had games where he played better than any of Kobe’s games against the Celtics that year—I actually was at Game 3, and LeBron was great! But he was very poor for the entire second half of the series. This wasn’t him just not being able to carry a weak team. He himself was bad. And I’m sure even LeBron would admit that. Kobe had a bad game in Game 7, but was steadier otherwise. That may result in a little better overall numbers for LeBron, but those overall numbers obscure the fact that LeBron was a massive reason his team lost the series. If LeBron had had a bit steadier of a series—rather than personally collapsing in the last three games—I think his team would have had a higher chance of winning the series.

2. The series against the Celtics wasn’t the only series that Kobe played against a good team, like it was for LeBron. In the second round and the conference finals, while facing two of the top four SRS teams in the NBA outside of the Lakers & Cavs, Kobe averaged 33.0 PPG, 7.3 APG, and 5.8 RPG, on 63% TS%. So even if you might argue that LeBron was better individually against the Celtics than Kobe was despite LeBron collapsing for half the series, Kobe has a lot of notable positives on his playoff resume that year, while LeBron does not because the Celtics series was the only good team he faced.

And, more generally, I understand that you don’t credit team success as something that matters for purposes of these votes. And that’s fine. But that makes your vote basically just a question of “Who does One_and_Done think was the best player?” If that’s the question, then I actually think coming to an answer of LeBron is the right one. But, for most people, POY is also about what they achieved that year. Kobe won the title. LeBron lost in the second round. That is a big deal. It’s not impossible to overcome, but it’s very hard to overcome, and LeBron collapsing in the latter half the series against the Celtics makes it hard to see how he could overcome that. Again, though, that all presupposes one cares about what the player achieved. You don’t seem to care about that, and that’s fine.

[One_and_Done]

2010 KD over Kobe....another rock bottom for you.

He shouldn't be qualified in this project.He is too biased against one player and Kobe is not even one of my favorite player

idk. As I just mentioned in another post, Kobe by most ways I see had his worst rs since 99 and I think was feeling the toll of 2 straight finals and playing through a lot of injuries over the years. You can easily make the case he was not a top 8 player in the rs. So his placement on a ballot has a lot to do with how impressed you are with his playoff run and how much you weigh ps vs rs. So I don't think its that far fetched to have him outside of a top 5 just as I'd say it is to have him as high as 1 or 2 even though I think his rs was way too weak to have him at #1. KD was 2nd in MVP voting fwiw.

I understand and my argument would have been better if I had mentioned this in 2008, 2009 or any other year before since Kobe was not in his top 5 in any year, which I find a bit ridiculous!

Kobe made my ballot last year. If you want to criticise votes you disagree with, I'd suggest there are some that look alot less objective than KD over Kobe. KD was a better player than Kobe in general.