Retro Player of the Year 1996-97 UPDATE — Michael Jordan

[One_and_Done]

There's absolutely no evidence Malone's off court stuff (from age 20) affected on court performance.

I agree, it just makes me disinclined to vote for him.

I mean, I'll leave it to others to get into this, but you seem to be saying 'I admit Malone was top 5, but I won't vote for him because I hate him'. I find it hard to believe that is consistent with the principles of this project.

[LA Bird]

There are over a hundred better players you can pick before Isaiah Rider even if you refuse to vote for Malone.

But then again, not really out of the norm considering voting history...

[B-Mitch 30]

There are over a hundred better players you can pick before Isaiah Rider even if you refuse to vote for Malone.

But then again, not really out of the norm considering voting history...

I'll admit it was hard to find players who fit my criteria (guys who played in 70+ games, were efficient in eFG and true shooting, and led top offenses).

[OhayoKD]

Kola's Ballot:

Spoiler:

1997

Arc Highlight - Conference Cross-Over Trial West - Game 6

For the Waffle-o era’s strongest sorcerer, the right to challenge its strongest school was finally within reach. Facing Utah school, Russell’s remnant went on one last flash flurry with the King of Buckets in his sights. But when the mailman dropped his delivery, the stockman secured the package, ensuring Utah School a trip to its first ever conference cross-over.

Hakeem Olajuwon - (Grain Version) Maki
Grade: Special 1
Hoop Expansion - Center Cemetery

Ball Techniques
+ Russellian Remix
+ Post-up Nightmare; Reverse Ball-Technique - Dream Shot; Maximum Output - A Three-Man’s Dream
+ A Dreamer’s Postseason - 2 arc use
+ Bucket-Getter - Grade 2 3
+ Rim-Protection - Special Grade 1
+ Stoppah - Special Grade; Reverse Ball-Technique - Running Robinsons - 1 arc use 1
+ Board-Bringer - Grade 1

Baller Vow
+ In exchange for dominating Micheal Jordan in Baller-Battles, Hakeem may never face MJ in a battle that matters

Key Chapters:
+ Hoop Flash Flurry vs Utah School - Bucket-Getter - Grade 1; Stoppah - Special Grade

Shaquille O’Neal - (Grain Version) Yorozu
Grade: Special 2
Hoop Expansion - Post-Bound Sphere

Ball Techniques
+ Humpty Bumpty; Reverse Ball Technique - Gravitational Collapse
+ Foul Furnace
+ Bucket-Getter - Special Grade Grade 1
+ Rim-Protector - Grade 1 2
+ Stoppah - Grade 3
+ Board-Bringer - Special Grade 1

Baller Vow:
+ In exchange for everyone acting like he deserved the 2001 MVP, everyone will also act like Hakeem was the Shaq-stopper

Key Chapters:
- Hooper Burnout vs Utah School - Rim-Protector - Grade 3
- Sealed for 31 battles

Michael Jordan - (Grain Version) Kashimo
Grade: Special 2[/b]
Hoop Expansion - Collinearity Merchant

Ball Techniques:
+ Cursed Chucker
+ Mid-Range Kitchen
+ Gifted Gambler; Reverse Ball-Technique; Fastbreak Frenzy
+ Bucket-Getter - Special Grade Grade 2
+ Stoppah - Grade 2 4

Baller Vow:
+ In exchange for a fake DPOY, Jordan can only win playoff games with Pippen

Key Chapters:
+ Chicago School wins Conference Cross-over
- Hooper Burn out vs Utah School - Bucket-Getter - Grade 2
- Hooper Burnout vs Miami School - Bucket-Getter - Grade 3
- Hooper Burnout vs Atlanta School - Bucket Getter - Grade 2
+ Hoop Flash Flurry vs Washington School - Bucket-Getter - Special Grade

Karl Malone - (Grain Version) Mei Mei
Grade: [b]2
Hoop Expansion - Mailing Children

+ Barely Dunk-man
+ Bucket-Getter - Grade 2 4
+ Rim-Protector - Grade 2 1
+ Stoppah - Grade 3 2
+ Board-Bringer - Grade 2

Baller Vow:
In exchange for not going to jail, Karl Malone will have to spend his prime with John Stockton and Jerry Sloan

Key Chapters:
+ Made Conference Cross-over
+ Hoop Flash Flurry vs Los Angeles School - Rim-Protector - Special Grade; Stoppah - Grade 1
- Hooper Burnout vs Chicago School - Bucket-Getter - non sorcerer
- Hooper Burnout vs Houston School - Bucket-Getter - non sorcerer

Scottie Pippen - (Grain Version) Mai
Grade: 2 3
Hoop Expansion (Incomplete) - Perimeter Purgatory

Ball Techniques:
+ Biggy Wingy
+ Powah Passer
+ Bucket-Getter - Grade 4
+ Rim-Protection - Grade 2
+ Stoppah - Special Grade Grade 1
+ Floor-General - Grade 2 3
+ Board-Bringer - Grade 2 3

Key Chapters:
+ Chicago wins Conference cross-over
+ Hoop Flash Flurry vs Utah School - Rim-Protection - Grade 1; Stoppah - Special Grade
- Hooper burnout vs Washington School

[LA Bird]

There are over a hundred better players you can pick before Isaiah Rider even if you refuse to vote for Malone.

But then again, not really out of the norm considering voting history...

I'll admit it was hard to find players who fit my criteria (guys who played in 70+ games, were efficient in eFG and true shooting, and led top offenses).

Took me literally a second

Rice: 54.6 eFG%, 60.5 TS%, #4 offense
Rider: 51.4 eFG%, 55.7 TS%, #10 offense

[One_and_Done]

1. Jordan
2. K.Malone
3. G.Hill
4. Hakeem
5. Shaq

HM: Pippen

This is a tough year. I'd have had Shaq #1, but he missed too much time. Hakeem dropped off and out of his prime after 96, so he's below Jordan too, and D.Rob and Penny are hurt. Ultimately I have to stick with Jordan at #1, even though his performance this year is not commensurate with what I expect from a #1 player at thus point in time. Grant Hill makes an appearance. I think alot of people forget how good Hill was before his injuries, many pegged him as the new face of the league. In hindsight, that was never going to happen with Duncan and Shaq coming to prominence, and Dirk and KG in the wings, but he was better than post-prime Hakeem and 51 games of Shaq.

I was sorely tempted to go with Malone at #1, his offensive and defensive impact at this point was in line with an older version of Jordan, but I can't do it. I think it's clear Jordan was still the better player, and that is reflected in their playoff performances. MJ just outplayed Mailman in the finals.

[B-Mitch 30]

Took me literally a second

Rice: 54.6 eFG%, 60.5 TS%, #4 offense
Rider: 51.4 eFG%, 55.7 TS%, #10 offense

I actually considered Glen but his eh two-point shooting turned me off.

[OhayoKD]

Making the case for Penny because it seems most people jumped on the Grant Hill hype train instead this season.

- Ridiculous 28 win WOWY signal which further goes up to 30 wins (24 -> 54 win pace) if we exclude the final game of the regular season where Penny only played 5 minutes before resting.
- Against the #1 defense, Penny had a poor first game in a blowout but then went on to average 36/7/4 on 60% TS with 3.5 stocks the rest of the series. This same Miami defense held Jordan to 30/8/3 on 47% TS in the ECF with only one game over 52% TS.
- Orlando was missing Horace Grant in the postseason and the starting C Seikaly was injured halfway through the series too. A frontcourt of Derek Strong and almost 38 year old Danny Schayes is absolutely not playoffs caliber and yet Penny almost carried them to victory over a 6 SRS team. Jordan in Penny's place would have lost too.

Grant Hill had much weaker impact signals than Penny at +1.6 on/off and got outplayed by Mutombo in the first round.

Not a bad 1 case honestly. Lock for top 3 at least I think for me with Shaq's disappointing rs and performance vs the Jazz and Malone disappearing for the last two rounds.

It helps he also led a great team without Shaq in 96.

[LA Bird]

Took me literally a second

Rice: 54.6 eFG%, 60.5 TS%, #4 offense
Rider: 51.4 eFG%, 55.7 TS%, #10 offense

I actually considered Glen but his eh two-point shooting turned me off.

1% lower efficiency on 40% higher volume is "eh" shooting

[OhayoKD]

I think you need to examine why exactly you're so biased against Malone to the point you would leave him off a ballot like this(guessing its more off court based than on court). If you can't bring yourself to even place him maybe just not vote in the 97-99 projects in the name of objectivity.

It is mostly off court stuff, but I do genuinely believe Stockton was very critical for his success. I'll probably have him on my ballot next year just because of the former's knee injury. If you check my previous ballots, you'll also see I've voted for him a few times.

There's absolutely no evidence Malone's off court stuff (from age 20) affected on court performance.

It should be highly relevant for anyone who likes to factor intangibles into their evaluation. Though not nearly to the degree Malone should be left off for role-players

[B-Mitch 30]

Took me literally a second

Rice: 54.6 eFG%, 60.5 TS%, #4 offense
Rider: 51.4 eFG%, 55.7 TS%, #10 offense

I actually considered Glen but his eh two-point shooting turned me off.

1% lower efficiency on 40% higher volume is "eh" shooting

I think that 1% matters when one is the league average eFG and the other isn't. Even though Rice literally had the highest three-point percentage in the league, it's still easy to go cold from three.

[trelos6]

The aforementioned Rice was 25.6 pp75, +6.9 rTS% on a + 4.2 oRtg team.

Hakeem was 24.9 / +2.2 / +2.1

Hill was 23.2 / +2 / +3.9

Payton was 22.1 / +0.9 / +4.5

Steve Smith was 21.3 / +1.2 / +1.8

Pippen was 21.4 / +1.8 / +7.7

Kevin Johnson was 20.5 / +9.5 / +2.6

Kemp, Baylock, Schrempf, Mason.

So many guys I’d pick before Isaiah Rider and Hershey Hawkins.

[One_and_Done]

It is mostly off court stuff, but I do genuinely believe Stockton was very critical for his success. I'll probably have him on my ballot next year just because of the former's knee injury. If you check my previous ballots, you'll also see I've voted for him a few times.

There's absolutely no evidence Malone's off court stuff (from age 20) affected on court performance.

It should be highly relevant for anyone who likes to factor intangibles into their evaluation. Though not nearly to the degree Malone should be left off for role-players

But it was a private affair that most if not all players at the time would have had no knowledge of, and clearly didn't care about. Intangibles are worth discussing when there's evidence that something about a guy's character had a positive or negative effect on the court. Here there's no such indication.

[OhayoKD]

There's absolutely no evidence Malone's off court stuff (from age 20) affected on court performance.

It should be highly relevant for anyone who likes to factor intangibles into their evaluation. Though not nearly to the degree Malone should be left off for role-players

But it was a private affair that most if not all players at the time would have had no knowledge of, and clearly didn't care about. Intangibles are worth discussing when there's evidence.

There is plenty of evidence that people who make decisions like that are prone to making decisions that negatively affect collective efforts.

[One_and_Done]

It should be highly relevant for anyone who likes to factor intangibles into their evaluation. Though not nearly to the degree Malone should be left off for role-players

But it was a private affair that most if not all players at the time would have had no knowledge of, and clearly didn't care about. Intangibles are worth discussing when there's evidence.

There is plenty of evidence that people who make decisions like that are prone to making decisions that negatively affect collective efforts.

But none for Malone specifically.

[OhayoKD]

But it was a private affair that most if not all players at the time would have had no knowledge of, and clearly didn't care about. Intangibles are worth discussing when there's evidence.

There is plenty of evidence that people who make decisions like that are prone to making decisions that negatively affect collective efforts.

But none for Malone specifically.

why would malone be taken to be an exception?

[One_and_Done]

There is plenty of evidence that people who make decisions like that are prone to making decisions that negatively affect collective efforts.

But none for Malone specifically.

why would malone be taken to be an exception?

Because of the word 'prone'. Maybe ppl who do X are more likely to do Y, but it's a logical fallacy to then declare all ppl who do X will do Y. We have absolutely zero evidence over 19 years that it caused any sort of chemistry issue for the Jazz. It's also not clear that your premise is even right btw, many serial killers for instance were thought to be quite charming by people they knew. It's irrelevant either way though.

[Paulluxx9000]

God this year was really hard lol, also I completely forgot Drob last time, that’s my bad. Atleast this year he’s injured.
1 Karl Malone
2 Hakeem Olajuwon
3 Micheal Jordan
4 Scottie Pippen
5 Gary Payton
Malone is underrated maybe because of the horrible things he did outside of basketball but in the basketball court he’s alot better than people give credit for. Scores in bunches and those bunches are largely self created. Yeah he’s fed by Stockton but Stockton is really just hitting the cracks Malone is damaging the defense with. He’s also a bit underrated defensively. People think it’s all blocks for bigs but block or no block you don’t try to take it in if Malone’s waiting for you. And Malone usually is waiting for you, at the right spot, at the right time, and when he’s not waiting on you, he’s letting you do your worst on him at the post, and he can even stretch out a bit to the perimeter. Not like Hakeem but still. On top of that for the whole season and 3 rounds of the playoffs he’s great on offense too. He’s not Shaq but he’s the next most Shaq-like thing. Bending defenses and then usually breaking them with good passing or just taking it in himself. Yeah yeah, the finals. Finals underperformance doesn’t prevent him from being great prior to the finals and way better than Jordan defensively and Hakeem offensively.
This is Hakeem’s last great year. I had him 1 but Hakeem was worse in the regular season and Malones team won the playoffs series, it just wouldn’t make sense. He’s not insane venturing outside but he’s still very good top rim-protector and had himself a performance against Utah. There are no defense invalidators like Magic or Kareem in the league but for stretches Hakeem did the next best the way Shaq or Malone can do. Double at the post and a third guy who may as well be tripling and boom, open shot. Next possession you leave him a little room and wow he’s scored it. If Hakeem could do that all season like he could at his peak he’d be 1st. But he couldn’t. Age comes for everyone, even the dream.
Incredible team result for Jordan but I just don’t see the same capacity to turn the game like I see the first two. I can see him 2nd still. Hakeem just isn’t there in the regular season but for 3 of 4 playoff rounds he’s just not doing enough. Waiting for the ball, shooting it, missing it as much as he makes and he has teammates he’ll only give it to if the read is easy and open. The defense was always way off when compared to the pippens or lebrons and it’s miles away from bigs but as long as he was on that 2nd tier of offense, capable of almost invalidaing defensive concepts himself, sure. But for the postseason he isn’t. Their offense is good because of rebounding which he contributes almost nothing to (getting the final hand to the ball is not the important). They’re middling at actual shot efficiency and I can’t Jordan is helping enough playing this simplistic sort of offensive basketball. Get open. Shoot. Maybe it’ll go in. That’s not enough
Hakeem and Jordan in consideration here is more than anything an indictment of this period of basketball. Magic leaving really left a vacuum and in that vacuum Jordan and Hakeem duke it out for the 90s. They’re not all-timers at this point but the league lacks any so they can still hang. Theoretically Shaq can be that all-timer but he’s always injured or lazy and that’s really that. Magic is old and washed yet Shaq joins and hardly a difference. I wonder if Magic could have copied Bill Russell a bit if he wasn’t forced out for nothing but paranoia and fearmongering. You could see flashes of the stuff that let him lord over the 80s even then.
As for Pippen. Say what you want about his scoring but the Bulls win this title on defense and Pippen is still the man there. Rodman isn’t as sharp at the rim so Pippen takes over again like he did in 95. And he’s still their best man on the perimeter. And he’s still unselfishly pulling defenders from Jordan with the ball and creating and making sure everyone is where and when they need to be and getting little to no credit.
Payton was the best player on one of the best teams. Maybe Mourning was better. His defense is overrated like all guards but not as much as others. His offense is not respected enough. Loses out to Hakeem and Barkley just barely.

[capfan33]

1. MJ- while im not overly impressed by him in the playoffs I don’t really see a viable alternative even with Hakeem probably playing better vs the Jazz.


2. Hakeem- Very possibly the best player in a vacuum but that isn’t enough to put him over the conventional #1 choice in MJ here.

3. Malone- Not a great performance the last 2 rounds but is still the centerpiece of a very strong (relative to era) team that had a competitive finals against the all-mighty Bulls.

4. Penny- Very strong impact metrics and a great (albeit abbreviated) playoff performance are enough for me against the field.

5. Pippen- Had another very good year as second banana on a dominant Bulls team, think it’s more than enough for 5th as I don’t like Hill in the playoffs, Mourning is reasonable but going with the conventional pick.

[Djoker]

VOTING POST

POY

1. Michael Jordan - 1st Team All-NBA. 1st Team All-Defense. Finals MVP. The 1997 version of Jordan and the Bulls as a team is underrated because 1996 happened. Individually and team-wise, there was a decline. However, these Bulls were still likely a top 5 team in history (+10.70 SRS is bonkers followed by a very strong PS) and Jordan was the catalyst for that. In fact, he should have been RS MVP too. MJ's shooting efficiency was the worst of his PS career but given his low turnover numbers, he was still a very efficient offensive player with a very high offensive load. And the PS opposition was also very strong on the defensive end. Averaged 29.6/5.9/4.3 on 56.7 %TS (+3.1 rTS) in the RS then 31.1/7.9/4.8 on 52.4 %TS (+0.2 rTS) in the PS.

2. Karl Malone - 1st Team All-NBA. 1st Team All-Defense. Being in the shadow of the Bulls makes the late 90's Jazz underrated. This team had an elite +7.97 SRS and kept up the torrid pace in the PS and they were increasingly led by Malone as Stockton took a secondary role in the offense. The Utah offense was historically great and just barely behind that of the Bulls. Karl could score, rebound, pass and defend with the best of them. His efficiency in the PS was poor but excusable IMO given his very high offensive load historically and the strength of defenses he faced. He wasn't as good as MJ but he was likely the second best player in the world at this point. Averaged 27.4/9.9/4.5 on 60.0 %TS (+6.4 rTS) in the RS then 26.0/11.4/2.9 on 50.1 %TS (-1.9 rTS).

3. Hakeem Olajuwon - 2nd Team All-NBA. 2nd Team All-Defense. Last great season by the Dream and although a clear step below his best on both ends, he's still good enough to take the #3 spot and his defense was likely the best since 1994. The Rockets' big three were underwhelming in terms of team achievements but Hakeem couldn't really be blamed much for it. He was very efficient scoring the ball in the PS although team defense was quite a bit worse in the PS too. Averaged 23.2/9.2/3.0 on 55.8 %TS (+2.2 rTS) in the RS then 23.1/10.9/3.4 on 62.8 %TS (+9.4 rTS) in the PS.

4. Shaquille O'Neal - 3rd Team All-NBA. Shaq's first year in LA was a good one and with a young core around him, Shaq anchored the Lakers on both ends including producing their best pre-Jackson defense. Shaq missed a ton of RS games and didn't have a great series against Utah but he was still a high impact player on a team that wasn't quite ready. Averaged 26.2/12.5/3.1 on 55.6 %TS (+2.0 rTS) in the RS then 26.9/10.6/3.2 on 55.2 %TS (+2.3 rTS) in the PS.

5. Scottie Pippen - 2nd Team All-NBA. 1st Team All-Defense. The Bulls were suffering from lots of injuries this season, most notably to Rodman and Kukoc but the Bulls stayed afloat because Pippen played all 82 games and played very well at that. The team relied a lot on him and he delivered on both ends with his all-around play. Averaged 20.2/6.5/5.7 on 55.4 %TS (+1.8 rTS) in the RS then 19.2/6.8/3.8 on 52.6 %TS (+0.4 rTS) in the PS.

OPOY

1. Michael Jordan

2. Karl Malone

3. Shaquille O'Neal

DPOY

1. Alonzo Mourning - Anchored the #1 defense in the league. Great paint defender.

2. Dikembe Mutombo - Anchored the #3 defense in the league. Great paint defender.

3. Hakeem Olajuwon - Best defensive year since probably 1994. Really good paint defender.