Retro Player of the Year 1994-95 UPDATE — Hakeem Olajuwon

[penbeast0]

I have Stockton pretty easily over Hardaway. Penny plays bigger and is the better volume scorer but Stockton was more efficient this year, is always the better playmaker, and from the information we have is more impactful on defense as well. When I looked it up, Penny in 95 and 96 was also very efficient (.599 ts%) and better than I remembered but Stockton led the entire league in 95 (.651).

[capfan33]

1. Hakeem- Despite taking a step back defensively, orchestrating likely the greatest playoff run ever is a pretty easy #1 choice.

2. Shaq- Actually very close between Shaq and Robinson, could go either way. Robinson had another historic regular season but ofc fell short in the playoffs, however his team was very competitive vs the Rockets despite Hakeem’s individual domination. Shaq otoh was better individually and made the finals but his team got swept. Ultimately I just can’t get their with perennial playoff faller Robinson, I’d much rather have Shaq and with the emphasis on accomplishment and the narrative of the season, Shaq wins out.

3 Robinson- another goated regular season and competitive with the Rockets despite a mediocre supporting cast.

4. Malone- While a quick exit I will give credit to Malone for playing well in the playoffs, especially without many compelling alternatives.

5. Reggie- tentatively going with Reggie who had another venerable playoff performance but could be easily swayed to Pippen or Penny.

[konr0167]

1. Hakeem

Not as much of a gimme as last year but he’s still the best player in the playoffs outplaying almost all the other best players and teams in the league including MVP David Robinson and the 62-win Spurs and 2x MVP Malone and the 60-win Jazz. Those records are kind of fake for sure but still. Also straight up sweeps Shaq, Penny, and Grant. Old Drexler helped but he was barely a superstar at his best. If you’re big into the regular season I guess you might vote different but Hakeem was the dude for the part of the season that matters the most.

2. Shaq

So he’s swept but he probably played the best against Hakeem and had a pretty great RS and conference finals. He also beats Pippen and Michael who is rusty but still has really good help. Probably wins MVP if Drob isn’t doing crazy things in the RS at the same time.

3. David Robinson

One of the best regular-seasons ever but Hakeem just dominates him and exposes the same weaknesses he’s usually getting exposed tbh. He does do pretty good against Mutumbo.


4. Pippen

Being able to lead a winning team without your two best teammates is pretty impressive and Pippen low key has a DPOY case here. I’d say he also probably plays better than MJ in the playoffs. Yeah Jordan scores more, but Pippens’ efficiency is as good and he’s the better playmaker and kind of doing everything for the Bulls on D.


5. Malone

Wins like 60 games but chokes with a really good team. At least more help than Drob had.

[One_and_Done]

I have Stockton pretty easily over Hardaway. Penny plays bigger and is the better volume scorer but Stockton was more efficient this year, is always the better playmaker, and from the information we have is more impactful on defense as well. When I looked it up, Penny in 95 and 96 was also very efficient (.599 ts%) and better than I remembered but Stockton led the entire league in 95 (.651).

If you build a team around Penny you've got a contender, if you build a team around Stockton they probably don't even make the playoffs. They are 2 entirely different categories of player.

[penbeast0]

When Shaq left, Penny led Orlando to a pair of 1st round exits. I would guess Stockton could do better the Nash did even after Amare and Marion left in Phoenix.

The year after Shaq left, Orlando had:
C Rony Seikaly 17/10/1
PF Horace Grant 13/9/2 defensive stud
SF Dennis Scott 13/3/2 -- 3 point shooting
SG Nick Anderson 12/5/3 -- 3 point shooting
PG (Hardaway or Stockton)

All between 28 and 31 years old so in their primes. They won 45 and lost in the 1st round. I'd guess Stockton could make them all better with his playmaking, add stronger defense, and probably add 5roughly 5 wins and win at least 1 playoff series. No proof, just based on watching the players and Stockton playing 82 games instead of Penny's 59. Stockton's consistency and durability get underrated by people who look mainly at scoring and flash.

[LA Bird]

I have Stockton pretty easily over Hardaway. Penny plays bigger and is the better volume scorer but Stockton was more efficient this year, is always the better playmaker, and from the information we have is more impactful on defense as well. When I looked it up, Penny in 95 and 96 was also very efficient (.599 ts%) and better than I remembered but Stockton led the entire league in 95 (.651).

Efficiency comparison is only relevant between players with similar volume. Otherwise, we might as well say Davis has better volume but Gobert is more efficient so they are equals. Stockton was very good in his regular season role but his TS% collapsed from 65.1 to 54.6 in the playoffs once his volume increased. I agree Stockton was the better playmaker but most teams would still be better off with (healthy) Penny running the offense because of the far greater scoring threat. Look at how both played in the Rockets series and tell me Malone/Penny wouldn't have been a better duo.

[LA Bird]

Already rambled too much in previous post so I'll just keep short bullet points of new thoughts

Player of the Year
1. David Robinson
2. Hakeem Olajuwon
3. Karl Malone
4. Shaquille O'Neal
5. Scottie Pippen

Offensive Player of the Year
1. Karl Malone
2. Shaquille O'Neal
3. Hakeem Olajuwon

Defensive Player of the Year
1. David Robinson
2. Scottie Pippen
3. Patrick Ewing

- Robinson had the largest lead in RS on/off in +/- era I can think of and lost a close series in the WCF to the champion with a weaker cast. Slight reservations based on Jazz series the year before and after though.
- Rockets defense were only slightly above average in both regular season and playoffs and none of the opponent big men were shut down in the postseason. Still great but hard to see DPOY case for Hakeem this year.
- Rockets were better on offense than defense all season and especially in the playoffs. Turnover disparity in the Finals is often used as an argument for defense when actually Orlando was consistent with RS numbers. It was the Rockets reducing their own turnovers by 40% and of the 6.4 fewer turnovers as a team, only 0.5 were Hakeem's FWIW.
- Instead of the many solo acts last season, we now have Shaq + Penny, Hakeem + Drexler, Jordan + Pippen, on top of the usual Malone + Stockton. Penny led a +3 team next year without Shaq but it's +9 with Shaq. Drexler trade didn't have much impact on Rockets in RS but he had led a +7 Portland team in first half of season. Robinson was the only POY candidate without a #2.
- Mutombo wins his first DPOY thanks to his performance from last season but he has a strange 2 year period where the Nuggets team defense were average and his individual on/off was mediocre too. Not sure what happened since he was still leading the league in blocks and his +/- would become amazing again when he join the Hawks. I'll play it safe and reward others with clearer defensive results.

[One_and_Done]

When Shaq left, Penny led Orlando to a pair of 1st round exits. I would guess Stockton could do better the Nash did even after Amare and Marion left in Phoenix.

The year after Shaq left, Orlando had:
C Rony Seikaly 17/10/1
PF Horace Grant 13/9/2 defensive stud
SF Dennis Scott 13/3/2 -- 3 point shooting
SG Nick Anderson 12/5/3 -- 3 point shooting
PG (Hardaway or Stockton)

All between 28 and 31 years old so in their primes. They won 45 and lost in the 1st round. I'd guess Stockton could make them all better with his playmaking, add stronger defense, and probably add 5roughly 5 wins and win at least 1 playoff series. No proof, just based on watching the players and Stockton playing 82 games instead of Penny's 59. Stockton's consistency and durability get underrated by people who look mainly at scoring and flash.

This is not a great take.

There is only 1 relevant season for Penny “after Shaq left”, which is 1997. That’s because after 97 Penny was never the same again with his constant and debilitating injuries.

In 1997 Penny only played 59 games, but in those 59 games he led them to a 38-21 record (a 52+ win pace). That’s excellent, given the support cast he had (which was fine, but not great; his other starters missed a total of 58 games and weren’t 100% for a dozen others. Penny projects as a superstar type player. He also led the Magic to a 20-8 record without Shaq in the previous year, despite a notably worse support cast and with Ho Grant missing 20 games.

Stockton on the other hand, for reasons I have outlined in considerable depth in other threads, would not be able to do the same thing as Penny (or Nash). He can’t create his own shot like these guys, and is an old school PG who dribbles it up and methodically runs a set that usually finishes with a pass inside to his PF to get to work.

[KembaWalker]

I have Stockton pretty easily over Hardaway. Penny plays bigger and is the better volume scorer but Stockton was more efficient this year, is always the better playmaker, and from the information we have is more impactful on defense as well. When I looked it up, Penny in 95 and 96 was also very efficient (.599 ts%) and better than I remembered but Stockton led the entire league in 95 (.651).

If you build a team around Penny you've got a contender, if you build a team around Stockton they probably don't even make the playoffs. They are 2 entirely different categories of player.

what does this even mean

[capfan33]

Always very confused as to why Stockton is even compared to Nash when there’s an extremely easy modern day analogy to Stockton in cp3. Like, Stockton is just a worse version of CP3 in basically every way.

If you want to argue he’d be as good as CP3, I’d heavily disagree but I can at least see the similarities. Stockton being Nash modernly is like two leaps of faith too many.

[capfan33]

Always very confused as to why Stockton is even compared to Nash when there’s an extremely easy modern day analogy to Stockton in cp3. Like, Stockton is just a worse version of CP3 in basically every way.

If you want to argue he’d be as good as CP3, I’d heavily disagree, but I can at least see the similarities. Stockton being Nash is two leaps of faith too many.

[IlikeSHAIguys]

Let me get my vote down.

1 - Hakeem
2 - David Robinson
3 - Karl Malone
4 - Shaq
5 - Scottie Pippen

Again the guys really going deep into the weeds are going Hakeem and whatever we think of his stats vs Shaq its the Bill Russell thing where at some point I think you just have to accept things as what they are. The Rockets can't do much when he isn't playing and then when he is playing they're beating 60 winners or like almost 60 winners and sweeping a team which is Shaq plus another superstar who can go win a bunch of games himself? We voted Bill Russell 1st over and over even though he didn't score much because he made the team win more than anyone. Hakeem's teams go from really sucking it seems to beating everyone and he's a russell like defender who also goes 33/4/10 but his True shooting isn't high enough so maybe Shaq was better when his way better team gets swept? Yeah, I can't go on that. David Robinson won MVP and that's cool but it doesn't seem anyone here including the David Robinson voters think he was actually as good when they played and it's kind of wierd to me how they don't say anything about how Hakeem's unfair teammates won like once.

I don't care that Malone lost in round one instead of the finals when his team was better and played better against the same team. Malone stats are better than Shaq and the breakdown last year showed Shaq's defense was bad so why are we giving Shaq votes over Malone for a sweep? Isn't this just rewarding him for a weak bracket? Accomplishment is going way too far if we're just going to say how you play and how your team does both don't matter if you're unlucky enough to be in the wrong side of the country.

People really like how much you win by for some fancy smarty pants reason maybe someone can explain to me but I'm going of wins so I'm not going to act like Pippen won 50 games or whatever. Still his best 2 teammates our out and they're over 500. That's pretty good and honestly makes the wow MJ really carried the team in 93 talk sound stupid.

Defensive Player of the Year

1 - Pippen
2 - Hakeem
3 - Ewing

Offensive Player of the Year

1- Malone
2 - Shaq
3 - Hakeem

[IlikeSHAIguys]

I have Stockton pretty easily over Hardaway. Penny plays bigger and is the better volume scorer but Stockton was more efficient this year, is always the better playmaker, and from the information we have is more impactful on defense as well. When I looked it up, Penny in 95 and 96 was also very efficient (.599 ts%) and better than I remembered but Stockton led the entire league in 95 (.651).

If you build a team around Penny you've got a contender, if you build a team around Stockton they probably don't even make the playoffs. They are 2 entirely different categories of player.

what does this even mean

I think it's just a fancy and all sophisticated way of saying he's better.

[One_and_Done]

I have Stockton pretty easily over Hardaway. Penny plays bigger and is the better volume scorer but Stockton was more efficient this year, is always the better playmaker, and from the information we have is more impactful on defense as well. When I looked it up, Penny in 95 and 96 was also very efficient (.599 ts%) and better than I remembered but Stockton led the entire league in 95 (.651).

If you build a team around Penny you've got a contender, if you build a team around Stockton they probably don't even make the playoffs. They are 2 entirely different categories of player.

what does this even mean

Exactly what I said.

This thread goes into some depth on it:
viewtopic.php?t=2405908

[KembaWalker]

If you build a team around Penny you've got a contender, if you build a team around Stockton they probably don't even make the playoffs. They are 2 entirely different categories of player.

what does this even mean

Exactly what I said.

i'm pretty sure Stockton never even missed the playoffs one time in 19 years playing in almost every game, starting all of them for 15+ years straight and probably 10 of them at 35+ mpg. Seems like he was pretty easy to build around and pretty successful. and they basically played in the same era, except Stockton started a decade earlier and was substantially better when he retired than Penny was

[One_and_Done]

what does this even mean

Exactly what I said.

i'm pretty sure Stockton never even missed the playoffs one time in 19 years playing in almost every game, starting all of them for 15+ years straight and probably 10 of them at 35+ mpg. Seems like he was pretty easy to build around and pretty successful

A real nice sidekick to an actual MVP player.

[IlikeSHAIguys]

what does this even mean

Exactly what I said.

i'm pretty sure Stockton never even missed the playoffs one time in 19 years playing in almost every game, starting all of them for 15+ years straight and probably 10 of them at 35+ mpg. Seems like he was pretty easy to build around and pretty successful

one and done talked about the player and you're just talking about his team. I always see you here complaining about other people's takes and opinions. Don't you think you should do more than well see here he always made the playoffs so you're wrong.

[KembaWalker]

Exactly what I said.

i'm pretty sure Stockton never even missed the playoffs one time in 19 years playing in almost every game, starting all of them for 15+ years straight and probably 10 of them at 35+ mpg. Seems like he was pretty easy to build around and pretty successful

A real nice sidekick to an actual MVP player.

When I think sidekick, which is a goofy term to begin with for people who pretend basketball players are their comic book heroes, Penny Hardaway comes to mind sooner than Stockton tbh. Stockton was part of a great duo, Penny was a "sidekick" for the short period he was actually good

[KembaWalker]

Exactly what I said.

i'm pretty sure Stockton never even missed the playoffs one time in 19 years playing in almost every game, starting all of them for 15+ years straight and probably 10 of them at 35+ mpg. Seems like he was pretty easy to build around and pretty successful

one and done talked about the player and you're just talking about his team. I always see you here complaining about other people's takes and opinions. Don't you think you should do more than well see here he always made the playoffs so you're wrong.

wat

[OhayoKD]

i'm pretty sure Stockton never even missed the playoffs one time in 19 years playing in almost every game, starting all of them for 15+ years straight and probably 10 of them at 35+ mpg. Seems like he was pretty easy to build around and pretty successful

A real nice sidekick to an actual MVP player.

When I think sidekick, which is a goofy term to begin with for people who pretend basketball players are their comic book heroes, Penny Hardaway comes to mind sooner than Stockton tbh. Stockton was part of a great duo, Penny was a "sidekick" for the short period he was actually good

Hmmm:

Spoiler:

In 1997 Penny only played 59 games, but in those 59 games he led them to a 38-21 record (a 52+ win pace). That’s excellent, given the support cast he had (which was fine, but not great; his other starters missed a total of 58 games and weren’t 100% for a dozen others. Penny projects as a superstar type player. He also led the Magic to a 20-8 record without Shaq in the previous year, despite a notably worse support cast and with Ho Grant missing 20 games.