Retro Player of the Year 1981-82 UPDATE — Magic Johnson

[Djoker]

Post your lists guys regardless if they get counted or not. I for one always want to read them!

[LA Bird]

Player of the Year
1. Moses Malone
2. Larry Bird
3. Magic Johnson
4. Julius Erving
5. Gus Williams

First things first, I think Kareem is out. This is not a hard rule but for there to be two top 5 players from the same team, I want to see either an incredibly dominant team, an extremely weak cast outside of the big 2, or some strong statistical evidence (box or non box score). We don't really get any of that with Kareem this year. He had his two lowest points per 36 series of his entire postseason career up until he turned 40 (besides the two Thurmond shutdowns) and while some might ignore this decline because of his resurgence in later years, I think he fell just short of making the top 5 this year. And with Bird having a bit of a down year, that leaves Moses as my pick for #1. Outlier season statistically especially in the second half of the season where team success also matched his incredible numbers (35/16 on 59% TS over 40 games). First round loss isn't ideal but just like Kareem the previous season, I don't think 1-2 is a death sentence either. Fun fact: 82 Moses had more offensive rebounds in a 3 game series (28) than anyone has ever had in a 4 game series (27, also by himself in the 83 Finals).

Bird scored poorly in the playoffs but I think he still contributed enough in other areas of the game to have a better H2H series than Dr J in the ECF. He lost but it was a 7 game series where the Celtics outscored the Sixers by 4.7 points per game. It's a far cry from the following year where Bird gets destroyed by the Bucks by 14 points (on top of missing one game). Drops a bit from his best regular season yet but still among the top. Magic has an argument here too but I am not super high on his early seasons in general because of the role he was in. Nixon was still running point a lot of the time and the Lakers don't reach the offensive heights they would later in the decade. Magic deserved to win FMVP but at the same time, it's quite an ensemble effort. All 5 starters were within 3.5 ppg of each other (16.2-19.7) and Nixon was the assist leader that series (60 with 15 turnovers vs Magic's 48 with 26). If we look at scoring per 36, Magic was actually the lowest of any Lakers rotational player behind even Rambis. He still had super high impact in this lesser role (see WOWY) and perhaps I am too biased against early Magic because he didn't play like late Magic.

There are a few options for #5 here but I have no idea why there are talks of Gervin over Moses. He had some of the most underwhelming impact numbers among all time greats and is a one dimensional scorer who scored a whopping 31 more points total than Moses on 83.6 more true shot attempts (ie, a marginal TS% of 18.5). My personal pick is Gus Williams. Came back from a contract holdout season to bring the Sonics back into relevancy (-1.8 to +3.7 SRS) as the #2 team in the West. Career high RS numbers and a strong playoffs performance where he outplayed Gervin despite the loss. Not sure he deserved All NBA 1st over Magic but still cool nonetheless.

[AEnigma]

Oh, I missed the voting... I even had my list prepared.

Yeah post them. I have been pretty consistent about offering a post-tallying grace period, especially in a scenario where I would have held it open an extra few hours if asked.

[70sFan]

Player of the Year
1. Moses Malone
2. Magic Johnson
3. Julius Erving
4. Larry Bird
5. Gus Williams
HM: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, George Gervin

Moses is my clear choice in that year. I know that people complain about his postseason results, but he lost against far better team with a weak supporting cast and that cast disappointed badly in the short series. I don't even care about the mediocre efficiency numbers in his case, considering that he gave his team almost 10 additional possessions by his rebounding alone.

It's a huge shame that we don't have the full series available, we can only watch the last game that was the least competitive:

https://youtu.be/NdS6AK0EVcU
https://youtu.be/IPsLe8Etctg

Overall, Moses was clearly the best player in the RS and I don't think that any of the remaining POY candidates did enough to overcome this gap.

Magic/Julius/Bird were all very close to me, so I simply decided to put them in order of the most to least impressive postseason run.

Kareem had a strangely off season, probably because the Lakers didn't need that much from him, but that's why he finished outside of my top 5. Gervin vs Gus was a close debate to me and with a slightly more competitive series against the Lakers, I would put Iceman ahead, but I rewatched it not too long ago and Gervin really struggled against Lakers D. I think Gus versatility puts him ahead of slightly past his peak George.

OPOY
1. Magic Johnson
2. Gus Williams
3. Moses Malone
HM: Larry Bird

DPOY
1. Robert Parish
2. Jack Sikma
3. Bobby Jones