2023-24 NBA Season Discussion

eminence · Post #3921 » by **eminence** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 7:53 pm

Bit of a hot take - through the RS the Suns duo outperformed the Lakers duo.

lessthanjake · Post #3922 » by **lessthanjake** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 7:59 pm

AEnigma wrote:I do not think Jokic has remotely near the separation over the league that Kareem had in 1978/79, or even that Lebron had in 2010. I disagreed pretty thoroughly with 1988 Jordan, and I think the Pistons matching up with all three lead MVP candidates gave us a clear picture of the true postseason pecking order at that time, but it is what it is. However, at minimum I can at least say all four of those seasons — and 2022 Jokic, for that matter — involved losses to the conference champion. The 2022 Nuggets were not especially competitive in their series, but you could conceivably defend it by saying they lost to the actual champions and put up more of a fight as a 6-seed than that season’s 4-seed did. I myself have generally placed Steph ahead of Gus Williams, but hey, maybe people disagree!

What bothers me about this year is that the Nuggets do not even have that. They lost to the team that was comfortably handled by the team that [TBD but probably going to lose in five or six games to the champions]. An ultimately irrelevant series. (And for the record that is why I will be unlikely to give a vote to the Lakers over the Timberwolves, even though I think the Lakers have two players better than anyone on the Timberwolves.)

As Doc highlighted, we have precedent for that too — 1973 Kareem and 1982 Moses — but there at least we could retroactively assess those as one-off blemishes in the middle of otherwise very successful runs, with 1982 Moses sandwiched between Finals appearances in a period after Kareem’s true prime and before Bird’s and Magic’s true primes, and Kareem being in the third year of his five MVPs in seven years run and yet again captaining a top two SRS team (which the Bucks were for the first five years of his career). Personally I disagree with both selections, but I have a much easier time arguing for Moses separating himself from runner-up Erving (who one year later became a relatively distant second option presence to Moses) and Kareem separating himself from runner-up Frazier (not exactly a Luka/Shai-level talent, even though I would have given him my vote that year). Nor do I think pointing to two exceptions forty years prior makes for a serious “precedent” in itself.

It just kind-of feels like a lot of people have basically abdicated all assessment to what they see in the box score, and that barring a championship from either Shai or Luka, the playoffs may as well have never mattered; we could have all just submitted our ballots at the all-star break for all the difference it has done. Two absolute blow-outs, plus two second-half dissections (where Jokic had the worst plus/minus on the team)? Meh, who cares, skip ahead to next year and what evidently will be a fourth consecutive PotY so long as he plays the bulk of the season.

I’m a little confused by this. You first try to draw a distinction by saying that some of these guys at least lost to the team that was conference champion. But then you acknowledge that that’s actually not the case for 2 of these 7 examples (i.e. 1973 and 1982). So what’s the force of this point supposed to be?

And when you talk about losing to the conference champion, does it matter that the 5 examples where that was actually the case included the POY’s team losing in 5 games (1979), 5 games (1988), 6 games (2010), and 5 games (2022), while the Nuggets lost in 7 games? (Note: the 5th one was the 1978 Lakers losing a series 2-1, so is hard to compare to for these purposes). Is it actually better to lose to a better team when you also lose more handily? I don’t really see that it is. And that’s assuming the opponent actually *was* better, when actually the Nuggets’ opponent was a 6.38 SRS team, and the SRS of the opponents in question in these other years were 1.48 (1978), 2.69 (1979), 5.46 (1988), 3.37 (2010), and 5.52 (2022). The Timberwolves also had more wins (56 wins) than the other opponents of these players, who won 47 games (1978), 52 games (1979), 54 games (1988), 50 games (2010), and 53 games (2022). SRS and wins aren’t everything, and I personally wouldn’t actually say the Timberwolves were the best team of the bunch despite them having the best SRS and most wins (I’d say that’d go to the 2022 Warriors), but it’s not really clear that there’s a particularly meaningful distinction to be made here, when Jokic’s team actually lost less handily to a higher SRS & wins team than these other guys did. It seems like this point is really just indexing a whole lot on how one subsequent playoff series went, at the expense of considering the broader picture.

sp6r=underrated · Post #3923 » by **sp6r=underrated** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 8:06 pm

How long is the drag between draft quality and league quality?

The table below shows the number of players with a career VORP greater than 30 per draft class. This isn't a perfect stat I just used it because it is cumulative.

Spoiler:

The table below shows the number of players with a career VORP greater than 30 for draft classes over a 5 year span. 5 year span to show generational depth

Spoiler:

The draft classes of the 80s were fairly strong while it was really weak in the early 90s. How long do you think it take for successive strong drafts to improve league quality? Same for weak draft classes.

This isn't about any specific player just interested for your opinion on how long it takes for strong/weak draft classes to impact league quality.

lessthanjake · Post #3924 » by **lessthanjake** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 8:21 pm

sp6r=underrated wrote:How long is the drag between draft quality and league quality?

The table below shows the number of players with a career VORP greater than 30 per draft class. This isn't a perfect stat I just used it because it is cumulative.

Spoiler:
Code: Select all
Draft Year Player Count 1980 1 1981 2 1982 2 1983 3 1984 4 1985 5 1986 3 1987 6 1988 2 1989 3 1990 1 1991 2 1992 1 1993 1 1994 3 1995 2 1996 6 1997 3 1998 4 1999 8 2000 0 2001 2 2003 4 2004 2 2005 1 2006 2 2007 4 2008 2 2009 3 2010 1

The table below shows the number of players with a career VORP greater than 30 for draft classes over a 5 year span. 5 year span to show generational depth

Spoiler:
Code: Select all
Draft Class # of Players with VORP Greater than 30 1980 - 1984 8 1981 - 1985 11 1982 - 1986 14 1983 - 1987 15 1984 - 1988 18 1985 - 1989 16 1986 - 1990 14 1987 - 1991 12 1988 - 1992 8 1989 - 1993 7 1990 - 1994 5 1991 - 1995 7 1992 - 1996 7 1993 - 1997 12 1994 - 1998 14 1995 - 1999 15 1996 - 2000 21 1997 - 2001 17 1998 - 2002 18 1999 - 2003 16 2000 - 2004 9 2001 - 2005 9 2002 - 2006 9 2003 - 2007 9 2004 - 2008 11 2005 - 2009 10 2006 - 2010 9

The draft classes of the 80s were fairly strong while it was really weak in the early 90s. How long do you think it take for successive strong drafts to improve league quality? Same for weak draft classes.

This isn't about any specific player just interested for your opinion on how long it takes for strong/weak draft classes to impact league quality.

Interesting data! I wrote about a similar thing in a thread a bit ago: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=2373809. I think the best answer is basically that the effect of this peaks at whatever point we think the players of that draft class should be peaking. I think that that may depend a bit on era (different eras seem to have slightly different peak ages, and they also have different ages at which players are generally coming into the league), but that’s the general heuristic that makes sense to me.

AEnigma · Post #3925 » by **AEnigma** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 8:41 pm

lessthanjake wrote:
AEnigma wrote:I do not think Jokic has remotely near the separation over the league that Kareem had in 1978/79, or even that Lebron had in 2010. I disagreed pretty thoroughly with 1988 Jordan, and I think the Pistons matching up with all three lead MVP candidates gave us a clear picture of the true postseason pecking order at that time, but it is what it is. However, at minimum I can at least say all four of those seasons — and 2022 Jokic, for that matter — involved losses to the conference champion. The 2022 Nuggets were not especially competitive in their series, but you could conceivably defend it by saying they lost to the actual champions and put up more of a fight as a 6-seed than that season’s 4-seed did. I myself have generally placed Steph ahead of Gus Williams, but hey, maybe people disagree!

What bothers me about this year is that the Nuggets do not even have that. They lost to the team that was comfortably handled by the team that [TBD but probably going to lose in five or six games to the champions]. An ultimately irrelevant series. (And for the record that is why I will be unlikely to give a vote to the Lakers over the Timberwolves, even though I think the Lakers have two players better than anyone on the Timberwolves.)

As Doc highlighted, we have precedent for that too — 1973 Kareem and 1982 Moses — but there at least we could retroactively assess those as one-off blemishes in the middle of otherwise very successful runs, with 1982 Moses sandwiched between Finals appearances in a period after Kareem’s true prime and before Bird’s and Magic’s true primes, and Kareem being in the third year of his five MVPs in seven years run and yet again captaining a top two SRS team (which the Bucks were for the first five years of his career). Personally I disagree with both selections, but I have a much easier time arguing for Moses separating himself from runner-up Erving (who one year later became a relatively distant second option presence to Moses) and Kareem separating himself from runner-up Frazier (not exactly a Luka/Shai-level talent, even though I would have given him my vote that year). Nor do I think pointing to two exceptions forty years prior makes for a serious “precedent” in itself.

It just kind-of feels like a lot of people have basically abdicated all assessment to what they see in the box score, and that barring a championship from either Shai or Luka, the playoffs may as well have never mattered; we could have all just submitted our ballots at the all-star break for all the difference it has done. Two absolute blow-outs, plus two second-half dissections (where Jokic had the worst plus/minus on the team)? Meh, who cares, skip ahead to next year and what evidently will be a fourth consecutive PotY so long as he plays the bulk of the season.

I’m a little confused by this. You first try to draw a distinction by saying that some of these guys at least lost to the team that was conference champion. But then you acknowledge that that’s actually not the case for 2 of these 7 examples (i.e. 1973 and 1982). So what’s the force of this point supposed to be?

“You distinguish some… and then group him with those without the distinction! How confusing!”

But alright, since that confused you so deeply, I will spell it out: Jokic was irrelevant to the story of this postseason in a way that has only been true of Players of the Year twice before, in more rudimentary leagues forty years removed and with less top-end competition, via voters using the benefit of total hindsight to excuse what they knew was functionally a one-off blemish.

And when you talk about losing to the conference champion, does it matter that the 5 examples where that was actually the case included the POY’s team losing in 5 games (1979), 5 games (1988), 6 games (2010), and 5 games (2022), while the Nuggets lost in 7 games? (Note: the 5th one was the 1978 Lakers losing a series 2-1, so is hard to compare to for these purposes). Is it actually better to lose to a better team when you also lose more handily? I don’t really see that it is.

What? Yeah, I would rather lose to a team that made it farther. Who cares about the 2019 Celtics/Pacers series or the 2021 Raptors/76ers series. Neither mattered.

And that’s assuming the opponent actually *was* better, when actually the Nuggets’ opponent was a 6.38 SRS team, and the SRS of the opponents in question in these other years were 1.48 (1978), 2.69 (1979), 5.46 (1988), 3.37 (2010), and 5.52 (2022). The Timberwolves also had more wins (56 wins) than the other opponents of these players, who won 47 games (1978), 52 games (1979), 54 games (1988), 50 games (2010), and 53 games (2022). SRS and wins aren’t everything, and I personally wouldn’t actually say the Timberwolves were the best team of the bunch despite them having the best SRS and most wins (I’d say that’d go to the 2022 Warriors), but it’s not really clear that there’s a particularly meaningful distinction to be made here, when Jokic’s team actually lost less handily to a higher SRS & wins team than these other guys did. It seems like this point is really just indexing a whole lot on how one subsequent playoff series went, at the expense of considering the broader picture.

The “broader picture” is that the 1978 Sonics were a couple of baskets away from a title, the 1979 Sonics won a title, the 1988 Pistons were a couple of baskets away from a title, and the 2010 Celtics were a couple of baskets away from a title, while the Wolves will be reduced to a historical trivia piece as a functional fourth place finisher. No serious person (or player) would rather celebrate the 1993-95 Sonics for their immense #1 SRS threepeat.

However, even if we pretend SRS matters more than winning, the Nuggets still would not be one of the most relevant teams this year. And they were dramatically less so in 2022. The 1973 Bucks were at least second in SRS and the top seed in their conference; with that additional distinction, I guess now we are left with 1982 Moses as the sole precedent for winning in spite of overall team irrelevance.

Post #3926 » by **tsherkin** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 8:42 pm

sp6r=underrated wrote:How long is the drag between draft quality and league quality?

The table below shows the number of players with a career VORP greater than 30 per draft class. This isn't a perfect stat I just used it because it is cumulative.

Spoiler:
Code: Select all
Draft Year Player Count 1980 1 1981 2 1982 2 1983 3 1984 4 1985 5 1986 3 1987 6 1988 2 1989 3 1990 1 1991 2 1992 1 1993 1 1994 3 1995 2 1996 6 1997 3 1998 4 1999 8 2000 0 2001 2 2003 4 2004 2 2005 1 2006 2 2007 4 2008 2 2009 3 2010 1

The table below shows the number of players with a career VORP greater than 30 for draft classes over a 5 year span. 5 year span to show generational depth

Spoiler:
Code: Select all
Draft Class # of Players with VORP Greater than 30 1980 - 1984 8 1981 - 1985 11 1982 - 1986 14 1983 - 1987 15 1984 - 1988 18 1985 - 1989 16 1986 - 1990 14 1987 - 1991 12 1988 - 1992 8 1989 - 1993 7 1990 - 1994 5 1991 - 1995 7 1992 - 1996 7 1993 - 1997 12 1994 - 1998 14 1995 - 1999 15 1996 - 2000 21 1997 - 2001 17 1998 - 2002 18 1999 - 2003 16 2000 - 2004 9 2001 - 2005 9 2002 - 2006 9 2003 - 2007 9 2004 - 2008 11 2005 - 2009 10 2006 - 2010 9

The draft classes of the 80s were fairly strong while it was really weak in the early 90s. How long do you think it take for successive strong drafts to improve league quality? Same for weak draft classes.

This isn't about any specific player just interested for your opinion on how long it takes for strong/weak draft classes to impact league quality.

Nice post!

Special_Puppy · Post #3927 » by **Special_Puppy** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 8:48 pm

AEnigma wrote:I do not think Jokic has remotely near the separation over the league that Kareem had in 1978/79, or even that Lebron had in 2010. I disagreed pretty thoroughly with 1988 Jordan, and I think the Pistons matching up with all three lead MVP candidates gave us a clear picture of the true postseason pecking order at that time, but it is what it is. However, at minimum I can at least say all four of those seasons — and 2022 Jokic, for that matter — involved losses to the conference champion. The 2022 Nuggets were not especially competitive in their series, but you could conceivably defend it by saying they lost to the actual champions and put up more of a fight as a 6-seed than that season’s 4-seed did. I myself have generally placed Steph ahead of Gus Williams, but hey, maybe people disagree!

What bothers me about this year is that the Nuggets do not even have that. They lost to the team that was comfortably handled by the team that [TBD but probably going to lose in five or six games to the champions]. An ultimately irrelevant series. (And for the record that is why I will be unlikely to give a vote to the Lakers over the Timberwolves, even though I think the Lakers have two players better than anyone on the Timberwolves.)

As Doc highlighted, we have precedent for that too — 1973 Kareem and 1982 Moses — but there at least we could retroactively assess those as one-off blemishes in the middle of otherwise very successful runs, with 1982 Moses sandwiched between Finals appearances in a period after Kareem’s true prime and before Bird’s and Magic’s true primes, and Kareem being in the third year of his five MVPs in seven years run and yet again captaining a top two SRS team (which the Bucks were for the first five years of his career). Personally I disagree with both selections, but I have a much easier time arguing for Moses separating himself from runner-up Erving (who one year later became a relatively distant second option presence to Moses) and Kareem separating himself from runner-up Frazier (not exactly a Luka/Shai-level talent, even though I would have given him my vote that year). Nor do I think pointing to two exceptions forty years prior makes for a serious “precedent” in itself.

It just kind-of feels like a lot of people have basically abdicated all assessment to what they see in the box score, and that barring a championship from either Shai or Luka, the playoffs may as well have never mattered; we could have all just submitted our ballots at the all-star break for all the difference it has done. Two absolute blow-outs, plus two second-half dissections (where Jokic had the worst plus/minus on the team)? Meh, who cares, skip ahead to next year and what evidently will be a fourth consecutive PotY so long as he plays the bulk of the season.

I mean I disagree with the idea that people are just ignoring the post-season (as Jokic voters generally think that Jokic played great in the Lakers+TWolves series). If you strenuously disagreed with Jordan 1988 being the POTY then I don't have much of a problem with you disagreeing with Jokic being the 2024 POTY though as you are just being consistent.

lessthanjake · Post #3928 » by **lessthanjake** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 8:55 pm

AEnigma wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:
AEnigma wrote:I do not think Jokic has remotely near the separation over the league that Kareem had in 1978/79, or even that Lebron had in 2010. I disagreed pretty thoroughly with 1988 Jordan, and I think the Pistons matching up with all three lead MVP candidates gave us a clear picture of the true postseason pecking order at that time, but it is what it is. However, at minimum I can at least say all four of those seasons — and 2022 Jokic, for that matter — involved losses to the conference champion. The 2022 Nuggets were not especially competitive in their series, but you could conceivably defend it by saying they lost to the actual champions and put up more of a fight as a 6-seed than that season’s 4-seed did. I myself have generally placed Steph ahead of Gus Williams, but hey, maybe people disagree!

What bothers me about this year is that the Nuggets do not even have that. They lost to the team that was comfortably handled by the team that [TBD but probably going to lose in five or six games to the champions]. An ultimately irrelevant series. (And for the record that is why I will be unlikely to give a vote to the Lakers over the Timberwolves, even though I think the Lakers have two players better than anyone on the Timberwolves.)

As Doc highlighted, we have precedent for that too — 1973 Kareem and 1982 Moses — but there at least we could retroactively assess those as one-off blemishes in the middle of otherwise very successful runs, with 1982 Moses sandwiched between Finals appearances in a period after Kareem’s true prime and before Bird’s and Magic’s true primes, and Kareem being in the third year of his five MVPs in seven years run and yet again captaining a top two SRS team (which the Bucks were for the first five years of his career). Personally I disagree with both selections, but I have a much easier time arguing for Moses separating himself from runner-up Erving (who one year later became a relatively distant second option presence to Moses) and Kareem separating himself from runner-up Frazier (not exactly a Luka/Shai-level talent, even though I would have given him my vote that year). Nor do I think pointing to two exceptions forty years prior makes for a serious “precedent” in itself.

It just kind-of feels like a lot of people have basically abdicated all assessment to what they see in the box score, and that barring a championship from either Shai or Luka, the playoffs may as well have never mattered; we could have all just submitted our ballots at the all-star break for all the difference it has done. Two absolute blow-outs, plus two second-half dissections (where Jokic had the worst plus/minus on the team)? Meh, who cares, skip ahead to next year and what evidently will be a fourth consecutive PotY so long as he plays the bulk of the season.

I’m a little confused by this. You first try to draw a distinction by saying that some of these guys at least lost to the team that was conference champion. But then you acknowledge that that’s actually not the case for 2 of these 7 examples (i.e. 1973 and 1982). So what’s the force of this point supposed to be?

“You distinguish some… and then group him with those without the distinction! How confusing!”

But alright, since that confused you so deeply, I will spell it out: Jokic was irrelevant to the story of this postseason in a way that has only been true of Players of the Year twice before, in more rudimentary leagues forty years removed and with less top-end competition, via voters using the benefit of total hindsight to excuse what they knew was functionally a one-off blemish.

And when you talk about losing to the conference champion, does it matter that the 5 examples where that was actually the case included the POY’s team losing in 5 games (1979), 5 games (1988), 6 games (2010), and 5 games (2022), while the Nuggets lost in 7 games? (Note: the 5th one was the 1978 Lakers losing a series 2-1, so is hard to compare to for these purposes). Is it actually better to lose to a better team when you also lose more handily? I don’t really see that it is.

What? Yeah, I would rather lose to a team that made it farther. Who cares about the 2019 Celtics/Pacers series or the 2021 Raptors/76ers series. Neither mattered.

And that’s assuming the opponent actually *was* better, when actually the Nuggets’ opponent was a 6.38 SRS team, and the SRS of the opponents in question in these other years were 1.48 (1978), 2.69 (1979), 5.46 (1988), 3.37 (2010), and 5.52 (2022). The Timberwolves also had more wins (56 wins) than the other opponents of these players, who won 47 games (1978), 52 games (1979), 54 games (1988), 50 games (2010), and 53 games (2022). SRS and wins aren’t everything, and I personally wouldn’t actually say the Timberwolves were the best team of the bunch despite them having the best SRS and most wins (I’d say that’d go to the 2022 Warriors), but it’s not really clear that there’s a particularly meaningful distinction to be made here, when Jokic’s team actually lost less handily to a higher SRS & wins team than these other guys did. It seems like this point is really just indexing a whole lot on how one subsequent playoff series went, at the expense of considering the broader picture.

The “broader picture” is that the 1978 Sonics were a couple of baskets away from a title, the 1979 Sonics won a title, the 1988 Pistons were a couple of baskets away from a title, and the 2010 Celtics were a couple of baskets away from a title, while the Wolves will be reduced to a historical trivia piece as a functional fourth place finisher. No serious person (or player) would rather celebrate the 1993-95 Sonics for their immense #1 SRS threepeat.

However, even if we pretend SRS matters more than winning, the Nuggets still would not be one of the most relevant teams this year. And they were dramatically less so in 2022. The 1973 Bucks were at least second in SRS and the top seed in their conference; with that additional distinction, I guess now we are left with 1982 Moses as the sole precedent for winning in spite of overall team irrelevance.

I’m really struggling to see how you think a team that loses handily in an early round to an eventual finalist or champion is somehow particularly “relevant to the story of the postseason,” in some way that should actually meaningfully matter for POY purposes. Jokic lost a very close and hard-fought series against a team that lost in the next round. If you want to say he’s therefore irrelevant to the story of the postseason, then fine. But losing handily in an early round to a team that went further isn’t meaningfully more “relevant to the story of the postseason,” except as a footnote of who was easy roadkill along the way for a team that made the Finals—and having that be your part in the story of the postseason isn’t exactly persuasive for POY purposes.

AEnigma · Post #3929 » by **AEnigma** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 9:33 pm

lessthanjake wrote:
AEnigma wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:I’m a little confused by this. You first try to draw a distinction by saying that some of these guys at least lost to the team that was conference champion. But then you acknowledge that that’s actually not the case for 2 of these 7 examples (i.e. 1973 and 1982). So what’s the force of this point supposed to be?

“You distinguish some… and then group him with those without the distinction! How confusing!”

But alright, since that confused you so deeply, I will spell it out: Jokic was irrelevant to the story of this postseason in a way that has only been true of Players of the Year twice before, in more rudimentary leagues forty years removed and with less top-end competition, via voters using the benefit of total hindsight to excuse what they knew was functionally a one-off blemish.

And when you talk about losing to the conference champion, does it matter that the 5 examples where that was actually the case included the POY’s team losing in 5 games (1979), 5 games (1988), 6 games (2010), and 5 games (2022), while the Nuggets lost in 7 games? (Note: the 5th one was the 1978 Lakers losing a series 2-1, so is hard to compare to for these purposes). Is it actually better to lose to a better team when you also lose more handily? I don’t really see that it is.

What? Yeah, I would rather lose to a team that made it farther. Who cares about the 2019 Celtics/Pacers series or the 2021 Raptors/76ers series. Neither mattered.

And that’s assuming the opponent actually *was* better, when actually the Nuggets’ opponent was a 6.38 SRS team, and the SRS of the opponents in question in these other years were 1.48 (1978), 2.69 (1979), 5.46 (1988), 3.37 (2010), and 5.52 (2022). The Timberwolves also had more wins (56 wins) than the other opponents of these players, who won 47 games (1978), 52 games (1979), 54 games (1988), 50 games (2010), and 53 games (2022). SRS and wins aren’t everything, and I personally wouldn’t actually say the Timberwolves were the best team of the bunch despite them having the best SRS and most wins (I’d say that’d go to the 2022 Warriors), but it’s not really clear that there’s a particularly meaningful distinction to be made here, when Jokic’s team actually lost less handily to a higher SRS & wins team than these other guys did. It seems like this point is really just indexing a whole lot on how one subsequent playoff series went, at the expense of considering the broader picture.

The “broader picture” is that the 1978 Sonics were a couple of baskets away from a title, the 1979 Sonics won a title, the 1988 Pistons were a couple of baskets away from a title, and the 2010 Celtics were a couple of baskets away from a title, while the Wolves will be reduced to a historical trivia piece as a functional fourth place finisher. No serious person (or player) would rather celebrate the 1993-95 Sonics for their immense #1 SRS threepeat.

However, even if we pretend SRS matters more than winning, the Nuggets still would not be one of the most relevant teams this year. And they were dramatically less so in 2022. The 1973 Bucks were at least second in SRS and the top seed in their conference; with that additional distinction, I guess now we are left with 1982 Moses as the sole precedent for winning in spite of overall team irrelevance.

I’m really struggling to see how you think a team that loses handily in an early round to an eventual finalist or champion is somehow particularly “relevant to the story of the postseason,” in some way that should actually meaningfully matter for POY purposes.

Because at least you can say their teams lost to the best team in the conference. I think the 1988 Bulls had no shot against the 1988 Celtics, but ultimately both teams ended their season the same way against what with hindsight we know was an all-time team (despite what the SRS says). Similar with the 2022 Nuggets: zero chance of a serious run, but hard to be ashamed of losing to the champions. The 1978/79 Lakers were a pretty forgettable team… but both times they were taken out by a championship level squad, and if they had instead lost to the Nuggets or Suns, I would be less willing to back Kareem as the defining player of those years.

Jokic lost a very close and hard-fought series against a team that lost in the next round. If you want to say he’s therefore irrelevant to the story of the postseason, then fine. But losing handily in an early round to a team that went further isn’t meaningfully more “relevant to the story of the postseason,” except as a footnote of who was easy roadkill along the way for a team that made the Finals — and having that be your part in the story of the postseason isn’t exactly persuasive for POY purposes.

Oh, I agree. Yet all but three people voted for Jokic in 2022.

I would be less annoyed if this were not the second time Jokic were going to win without accomplishing anything in the postseason. Yeah, 1970s Kareem had multiple of those types of results; I already said I disagreed with giving him 1973. This will be Jokic’s 1973 equivalent, except with worse regular season results, less separation from the pack, and no knowledge of subsequent years making this look like a fluke loss.

OhayoKD · Post #3930 » by **OhayoKD** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 9:34 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:
Special_Puppy wrote:
I don't think its clear at all that SGA was better than Jokic in the playoffs. Jokic is ahead in SGA in both playoff EPM and playoff BPM

And I care about these made-up formulas that don't have any inputs on Jokic's primary offensive weakness, why?

Measures like this give us an objective starting point both for our own analysis, and to help others understand where we're coming from. Doesn't mean you have to value them and use them, but if you're looking to convince others of your perspective, grounding them in your approach helps.

They do not. That's literally my point. What is objective here is whatever was observed and then defined to be an input thrown into a formula. The output is not an objective anything and an infinite amount of outputs can be made to favor either player dpending on what inputs you input in the first place.

Which is why, again, I'll ask, what value do outputs produced by a formula which has zero inputs on Jokic's primary offensive inputs, in terms of Jokic being ahead or below Shai?

If people wanted to justify the inputs chosen and how they think they would lean or not lean, there might be some insight to be had here. But the output is just an output. And it can be gamed in any direction. Simply listing whatever output is output is not a objective starting point for anything beyond describing what is popularly conceived of as relevant to goodness(and here it's really whatever involves a player touching the ball right before a possession ends).

Special_Puppy · Post #3931 » by **Special_Puppy** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 9:42 pm

OhayoKD wrote:
Doctor MJ wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:And I care about these made-up formulas that don't have any inputs on Jokic's primary offensive weakness, why?

Measures like this give us an objective starting point both for our own analysis, and to help others understand where we're coming from. Doesn't mean you have to value them and use them, but if you're looking to convince others of your perspective, grounding them in your approach helps.

They do not. That's literally my point. What is objective here is whatever was observed and then defined to be an input thrown into a formula. The output is not an objective anything and an infinite amount of outputs can be made to favor either player dpending on what inputs you input in the first place.

Which is why, again, I'll ask, what value do outputs produced by a formula which has zero inputs on Jokic's primary offensive inputs, in terms of Jokic being ahead or below Shai?

If people wanted to justify the inputs chosen and how they think they would lean or not lean, there might be some insight to be had here. But the output is just an output. And it can be gamed in any direction. Simply listing whatever output is output is not a objective starting point for anything beyond describing what is popularly conceived of as relevant to goodness(and here it's really whatever involves a player touching the ball right before a possession ends).

“ ut the output is just an output. And it can be gamed in any direction. ” I’m not really bothered by this critique as it applies even more so to qualitative analysis or more old-school quantitative analysis

OhayoKD · Post #3932 » by **OhayoKD** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 9:47 pm

Special_Puppy wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:
Doctor MJ wrote:
Measures like this give us an objective starting point both for our own analysis, and to help others understand where we're coming from. Doesn't mean you have to value them and use them, but if you're looking to convince others of your perspective, grounding them in your approach helps.

They do not. That's literally my point. What is objective here is whatever was observed and then defined to be an input thrown into a formula. The output is not an objective anything and an infinite amount of outputs can be made to favor either player dpending on what inputs you input in the first place.

Which is why, again, I'll ask, what value do outputs produced by a formula which has zero inputs on Jokic's primary offensive inputs, in terms of Jokic being ahead or below Shai?

If people wanted to justify the inputs chosen and how they think they would lean or not lean, there might be some insight to be had here. But the output is just an output. And it can be gamed in any direction. Simply listing whatever output is output is not a objective starting point for anything beyond describing what is popularly conceived of as relevant to goodness(and here it's really whatever involves a player touching the ball right before a possession ends).

“ But the output is just an output. And it can be gamed in any direction. ” I’m not really bothered by this critique as it applies even more so to qualitative analysis.

You should be bothered by the fact you didn't realize that "qualitative analysis" is all those outputs you are posting represent. Its just an eyetest with extra steps that make it harder to see what the eyetest even came from

lessthanjake · Post #3933 » by **lessthanjake** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 10:07 pm

OhayoKD wrote:
Special_Puppy wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:They do not. That's literally my point. What is objective here is whatever was observed and then defined to be an input thrown into a formula. The output is not an objective anything and an infinite amount of outputs can be made to favor either player dpending on what inputs you input in the first place.

Which is why, again, I'll ask, what value do outputs produced by a formula which has zero inputs on Jokic's primary offensive inputs, in terms of Jokic being ahead or below Shai?

If people wanted to justify the inputs chosen and how they think they would lean or not lean, there might be some insight to be had here. But the output is just an output. And it can be gamed in any direction. Simply listing whatever output is output is not a objective starting point for anything beyond describing what is popularly conceived of as relevant to goodness(and here it's really whatever involves a player touching the ball right before a possession ends).

“ But the output is just an output. And it can be gamed in any direction. ” I’m not really bothered by this critique as it applies even more so to qualitative analysis.

You should be bothered by the fact you didn't realize that "qualitative analysis" is all those outputs you are posting represent. Its just an eyetest with extra steps that make it harder to see what the eyetest even came from

That’s not true. As you know, the box inputs on these measures are specifically formulated to correlate well with RAPM. Which doesn’t make it perfect (after all, something can correlate well with RAPM in general, but not very well for a particular player), but this isn’t someone deciding to just make up box inputs that they just personally think makes intuitive sense and then using that as the prior. They’re not using PER as the prior, for instance. Meanwhile, of course, when talking about a lot of these measures, the box stuff you are talking about is only a prior for RAPM, and obviously your whole point doesn’t apply in the slightest to RAPM itself, so you’re getting more objective data from these measures than from “qualitative analysis,” even if you think the prior isn’t any better than that qualitative analysis.

I’ll note that this sort of relates back to a claim I’ve seen you repeatedly make where you basically say that Nate Silver said RAPTOR was formulated to make Kawhi look good. I’ve asked you to show me the basis for that claim and never received a response from you about that, so, even though it’s only tangentially relevant, I’ll ask for it again, since this post reminded me of it, and I’m curious to see substantiation for your oft-made claim.

OhayoKD · Post #3934 » by **OhayoKD** » Mon Jun 17, 2024 10:13 pm

lessthanjake wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:
Special_Puppy wrote:
“ But the output is just an output. And it can be gamed in any direction. ” I’m not really bothered by this critique as it applies even more so to qualitative analysis.

You should be bothered by the fact you didn't realize that "qualitative analysis" is all those outputs you are posting represent. Its just an eyetest with extra steps that make it harder to see what the eyetest even came from

That’s not true. As you know, the box inputs on these measures are specifically formulated to correlate well with RAPM.

Did you even read anything I said here?

What is objective here is whatever was observed and then defined to be an input thrown into a formula.

I do not understand how you saw "output" and then immediately went "as you know this box --inputs--".

The outputs are produced by choosing certain inputs and then weighing them. Both processes are qualitative/ RAPM informing that does not change that the process where you are differentiating between the quality of contributions rather than counting the contributions is qualitative, not quantitative.

lessthanjake wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:
Special_Puppy wrote:
“ But the output is just an output. And it can be gamed in any direction. ” I’m not really bothered by this critique as it applies even more so to qualitative analysis.

You should be bothered by the fact you didn't realize that "qualitative analysis" is all those outputs you are posting represent. Its just an eyetest with extra steps that make it harder to see what the eyetest even came from

I’ll note that this sort of relates back to a claim I’ve seen you repeatedly make where you basically say that Nate Silver said RAPTOR was formulated to make Kawhi look good. I’ve asked you to show me the basis for that claim and never received a response from you about that, so, even though it’s only tangentially relevant, I’ll ask for it again, since this post reminded me of it, and I’m curious to see substantiation for your oft-made claim.

He went into it in his podcast appearance on thinking basketball iirc. Kawhi was brought up as an acid test and the sentiment they thought big defense was overrated. 538 chats during the last two rounds of the playoffs and in the lead-up to their release kept mentioning kawhi as the best offensive and defensive player in the league. (Kawhi outplaying giannis on both ends was a pretty popular take in general)

therealbig3 · Post #3935 » by **therealbig3** » Tue Jun 18, 2024 12:32 am

OhayoKD wrote:
therealbig3 wrote:Why would Shai take it over Jokic though? Jokic was by far the MVP, and I don't think played demonstrably worse against Minnesota than Shai did against Dallas. The gap in the RS just seems too big to overcome, and Jokic didn't play poorly in the playoffs at all.

Shai was the better RS player, won more in the same conference, and was clearly better in the playoffs on a team that also did better. Wierd take. Are you forgetting defense and ball-handling as aspects of basketball?

I haven’t been following the thread that closely, so if it was posted and discussed in more real time, then I’m not familiar, but what would be your case for SGA over Jokic in the RS?

As for your question at the end, dude stop with the condescension. We’re all fans, we’re all interested in the game, and we all have a basic understanding of what the different aspects in basketball are, even if we may interpret things differently. Obviously, if I have Jokic over SGA, it’s despite the fact that SGA is a better ball handler and defender.

rk2023 · Post #3936 » by **rk2023** » Tue Jun 18, 2024 1:25 am

Colbinii wrote:
Doctor MJ wrote:
'16-17: LeBron James, Finals. Consensus best player takes it despite neither winning the MVP (Westbrook) nor the title. Hampton 5 Warriors seen murder everybody on their way to the title.

'17-18: LeBron James, Finals. Consensus best player takes it despite neither winning the MVP (Harden) nor the title. Hampton 5 Warriors refrain from murdering each other on their way to the title.[/color]

A+ commentary on the Warriors.

2017: Warriors murder everyone en route to NBA Finals
2018: Warriors refrain from murdering themselves en route to NBA Finals

I chuckled

rk2023 · Post #3937 » by **rk2023** » Tue Jun 18, 2024 1:27 am

eminence wrote:Bit of a hot take - through the RS the Suns duo outperformed the Lakers duo.

I think the Lakers statistically played better against T10 teams, and were clearly a better PS team than Phoenix imo. At that, I’m pretty sure many catch-alls paint LAL’s star duo > that of PHX

eminence · Post #3938 » by **eminence** » Tue Jun 18, 2024 2:29 am

rk2023 wrote:
eminence wrote:Bit of a hot take - through the RS the Suns duo outperformed the Lakers duo.

I think the Lakers statistically played better against T10 teams, and were clearly a better PS team than Phoenix imo. At that, I’m pretty sure many catch-alls paint LAL’s star duo > that of PHX

Completely agreed on the Lakers looking better in their PO series.

jalengreen · Post #3939 » by **jalengreen** » Tue Jun 18, 2024 2:38 am

This is gonn be a unexciting FMVP

Post #3940 » by **Texas Chuck** » Tue Jun 18, 2024 2:57 am

disappointing ending but what a season for the little Mavs. Boston just too good