Retro Player of the Year UPDATE 1999-2000 — Shaquille O’Neal

[AEnigma]

General Project Discussion Thread

Discussion and Results from the 2010 Project

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 players and the top 3 offensive and defensive players of 1999-2000.

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 6:00AM EST on Thursday, December 26th. 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]

With Duncan's injury, this is Shaq in a hopefully unanimous vote. I'm going to have to spend some time thinking more about whether I go with Shaq or Duncan in 01.

[Special_Puppy]

Should be unanimously Shaq

[AEnigma]

Defensive Player of the Year

1. Alonzo Mourning
2. Kevin Garnett
3. David Robinson

I know some harp on the low single-season RAPM numbers, but that is why larger samples are important: this is still probably one of Mourning’s three best defensive seasons, and he repeats as the league’s top shotblocker, repeats as the official Defensive Player of the Year, repeats as the Atlantic division winner, repeats as the loser of a winner-take-all game against Ewing’s Knicks… Basically, no reason for anyone who had him top two last year to not have him at least that high when every other top contender saw a a comparatively larger decrease in their seasonal success.

Garnett sets a new high in defensive rebounding and minutes played, and the Wolves have their best season yet. In the postseason, the Timberwolves hold the Blazers to their worst offensive result despite both the Jazz and Lakers being higher ranked regular season defences than the Timberwolves are. Not quite the per possession monster he will become, but good enough that I think his aggregate value is too significant to place him lower.

Robinson is again limited by his minutes (200 below Mourning and 700 below Garnett), and I think the defensive success against the Suns is exaggerated by Kidd’s injury. Nonetheless, he is in discussion for league’s best defender per minute/possession, and it is only next year where I start to feel Duncan has absolutely eclipsed him as the Spurs’ defensive leader.

Offensive Player of the Year

1. Shaquille O’Neal
2. Reggie Miller
3. Gary Payton

Most of Shaq’s value comes from his offence, as teams bend themselves to prevent him from getting the ball in position, and he has the passing vision to often punish that. With Jackson leading the Lakers, Shaq becomes more of a post hub than ever before, and on a team with Kobe and fair shooters, that produces a title-winning offence.

Reggie cannot “take over” a series to the same degree Shaq could (and did), and by next year, he will be surpassed by several up-and-coming star guards. However, the 2000 Pacers again have the league’s best regular season offence and again beat the Bucks and 76ers to set up a conference finals against the Knicks. Reggie’s performance improves against all three compared to last year, and this time he leads the Pacers to what remains their only NBA Finals. The Pacers ultimately lose 4-2, but they outscore the Lakers and were a point away from going to a Game 7. In the postseason, Shaq is the only player this year whom I would prefer to have as my first option.

By now I feel comfortable calling Payton the league’s best creator, and this year his minutes load is one of the five highest post-merger. Valiant losing effort on the road against the Jazz. While he lacks the volume we see from modern point guards, not many point guards have been so clearly their team’s top scorer and playmaker. Interestingly high volume shooter too.

Player of the Year

1. Shaquille O’Neal
2. Alonzo Mourning
3. Kevin Garnett
4. Karl Malone
5. Rasheed Wallace
HM: Reggie Miller

Shaq was the best regular season player, and while his conference run has more blemishes than often portrayed, there was also no other serious contender for best postseason player. His defensive quality is also exaggerated, but in a slow and inefficient league, being the league’s too offensive player while also providing reasonably good rim protection and defensive rebounding is more than enough to separate from the pack.

1997: 81.5% of total minutes played alongside Hardaway
1998: 82.5% of total minutes played alongside Hardaway
1999: 77% of total minutes played alongside Hardaway; will note that Mourning scored at 52.2% efficiency in his first 14 games of the lockout season and at 58.7% efficiency in his subsequent 32 games
2000: 49% of total minutes played alongside Hardaway

Mourning set career highs in scoring rate, scoring efficiency, and relative scoring efficiency in 2000, as well as setting career lows in turnovers and turnover percentage — all despite playing a large portion of the season without his primary offensive initiator, taking more shots than ever from midrange, and (relatedly) generating a career low free throw rate. He also matched his spike in block production from the prior season. His best series was in 1999, but 2000 similarly saw Mourning provide his team’s only capable scoring output. And for as maligned as his turnover rate has been in these types of projects (perhaps excessively as a peak), should note from 1998-2000 Mourning consistently decreased his turnovers in the postseason.

Alonzo Mourning in the first 11 games of the 2000 season: 22.5/9.5/3.5 (blocks) on 61.7% efficiency with a +8 plus/minus in 36.4 minutes per game.
Alonzo Mourning during Tim Hardaway’s 26-game absence in the middle of the 2000 season: 23/10/5 (blocks ) on 56.65% efficiency with a +0.7 plus/minus (team went 16-10 in that stretch) in 37 minutes per game.
Alonzo Mourning’s next 37 games with Tim Hardaway: 21/9.5/3 (blocks) on 61.83% efficiency with a +4.1 plus/minus in 33.6 minutes per game.

By net rating, the Timberwolves fare about as well against the Blazers as the Lakers do. Unfortunately for Garnett, wins are what matter, but he does keep the Timberwolves more competitive against the Blazers than Malone does for the Jazz. Malone is rightfully praised as a post hub for his team, but by now Garnett is much more dynamic with the ball. Malone is ultimately a limited creator, so even when he has a relatively impressive scoring series — as he does here — he lacks the ability to truly create team offence to the same degree. And defensively, Garnett has completely eclipsed him. Part of me will always wonder what might have happened if the Jazz had been in the Lakers’ bracket though; the Lakers had much better capacity to disrupt Stockton than in 1997/98, but if Rasheed was capable of burning Shaq, I would generally expect Malone to have done the same.

That segues into my final decision: Rasheed or Reggie. Last season I held off on Rasheed because of his low minutes; that is not an issue this year. Both Reggie and Rasheed were the best players on ensemble teams that came reasonably close to winning a title this year, although neither player is at their peak (imo, 1994/95 for Reggie and 2002/03 for Rasheed). Reggie went a round farther, but that is more about the bracket / a conference quirk, and the result — outscoring the Lakers across the full series but ultimately permitting the Lakers to mount a strong fourth quarter comeback in the series-clinching game — is not appreciably different. Narrow call, so as a functional tiebreaker, I will side with who impressed me more in their respective last game.

[trelos6]

OPOY

1.Shaquille O’Neal. 28.6 pp75, +5.5 rTS%. Slight volume reduction in playoffs, and 2% TS drop. Team rOrtg +3.2

2.Karl Malone. 28.6 pp75 on +5.9 rTS%. Team rOrtg was +3.2. In the playoffs, his stats basically stayed the same.

3.Reggie Miller. Looked at Payton (good creation, passing, not as efficient), Vince (good volume), and Allen (good volume and efficiency). Ultimately, going with Reggie. 19.1 pp75 on +8 rTS%, Team rOrtg was +4.4 (league leading). In the playoffs, upped his scoring to 23.9 pp75 on +7 rTS%.


DPOY

1.Alonzo Mourning. Peak Mourning. He was in contention for OPOY as a play finisher, but on defense, he was also elite. Heat had the 2nd best playoff defense.

2.David Robinson. Spurs were the best defense all season (ok slightly second in regular season). Duncan missed the playoffs, and D Rob was still a great defensive anchor.

3.Shaquille O’Neal. Regular season Lakers were the league leading defense. Shaq was a force protecting the rim, so gets the nod over KG.


POY

1.Shaquille O’Neal. Best offensive player in the game, and impactful on D. Shaq has entered his prime. +5.13 OPIPM, +2.03 DPIPM. +7.16 PIPM. 25.74 Wins Added.

2.Alonzo Mourning. Very good offense as a play finisher (25.1, +7.3%) and elite D. +2.34 OPIPM, +2.68 DPIPM. +5.02 PIPM. 15.44 Wins Added

3.Kevin Garnett. He was close to being on both ballots. 22.4, +2.2% scoring, playmaking and passing were as good as Kobe’s, which is valuable from a big, and of course, his elite defensive play. +2.55 OPIPM, +1.44 DPIPM, +3.99 PIPM. 14.46 Wins Added

4.Gary Payton. 22.4, +1.2% in the rs, upped volume a little at the cost of a little efficiency in the ps. Top 5 playmaker and passer. Very good defensively for a guard. +4.45 OPIPM, -0.28 DPIPM, +4.17 PIPM. 15.74 Wins Added.

5.Tim Duncan. Would’ve been higher if not for his post season injury. +2.36 OPIPM, +1.94 DPIPM, +4.3 PIPM. 12.97 Wins Added.

[Djoker]

Shaq at #1 obviously.

Zo, KG, Robinson, Payton, Malone, Miller, Kobe also in the running to make my ballot. Kobe is probably out because he got hurt in the Finals but I gotta think about the others.

[One_and_Done]

I don't see the logic in punishing guys much for random injuries that took place at inconvenient times. Like, Kobe got hurt in the finals, so his injury matters less than Duncan's injury in the 1st round? How does that work? If Duncan had Shaq then the Spurs get past the 1st round and Duncan comes back for Rnd 2 and nobody cares about or remembers his injury.

The injury isn't irrelevant, it's keeping Duncan from #1 because with the games he missed in the RS and PS he can't compete with Shaq's peak year, but Duncan's still going to be in my top 5.

[Djoker]

I don't see the logic in punishing guys much for random injuries that took place at inconvenient times. Like, Kobe got hurt in the finals, so his injury matters less than Duncan's injury in the 1st round? How does that work? If Duncan had Shaq then the Spurs get past the 1st round and Duncan comes back for Rnd 2 and nobody cares about or remembers his injury.

The injury isn't irrelevant, it's keeping Duncan from #1 because with the games he missed in the RS and PS he can't compete with Shaq's peak year, but Duncan's still going to be in my top 5.

I see the point in punishing random injuries because those injuries are affecting what that player contributed in games for the given year. If a player gets injured and is DNP in the PS, he's giving his team zero contribution across the board. Thus Duncan is not making my ballot and Kobe almost certainly isn't. Without injury they probably both would but you can't rank players on what ifs.

[One_and_Done]

I don't see the logic in punishing guys much for random injuries that took place at inconvenient times. Like, Kobe got hurt in the finals, so his injury matters less than Duncan's injury in the 1st round? How does that work? If Duncan had Shaq then the Spurs get past the 1st round and Duncan comes back for Rnd 2 and nobody cares about or remembers his injury.

The injury isn't irrelevant, it's keeping Duncan from #1 because with the games he missed in the RS and PS he can't compete with Shaq's peak year, but Duncan's still going to be in my top 5.

I see the point in punishing random injuries because those injuries are affecting what that player contributed in games for the given year. If a player gets injured and is DNP in the PS, he's giving his team zero contribution across the board. Thus Duncan is not making my ballot and Kobe almost certainly isn't. Without injury they probably both would but you can't rank players on what ifs.

You have to rank players on what happened, but what happened is also based on opportunity.

There are years Kobe or Barkley got eliminated in the 1st round. So am I to assume they were healthier than Kawhi in 2017, when he got a random injury 2 rounds later? I think that's kind of ridiculous.

Duncan was hurt, which matters, but it also matters that the injury wasn't that severe and he could have come back the next round if he had been fortunate enough to have a support cast as good as some of these other guys.

[DCasey91]

But 74 games played is above the mean for bigs no? 53 wins as a team 1st All NBA, 5th in MVP etc.

Is it because the higher you go as a team getting injured at a vital point it should be more punishable then earlier because you are closer to completing ultimate objective?

Breaking down before the hypothetical finish line vs not being there in the first place

[70sFan]

It's always a hard thing to evaluate, but I truly don't think Duncan should be automatically off the panel because he was injured in the playoffs. He was clearly the 2nd best player in the RS and I don't think Gary Payton playing 5 postseason games should put him over Timmy.

[Narigo]

1. Shaquille O'Neal
2. Alonzo Mourning
3. Karl Malone
4. Tim Duncan
5. Kevin Garnett

Shaq is the clear 1. He was very great defender this year and was nigh unstoppable. And put up one of tue best finals.performances ever

2-5 is interchangeable however. Duncan missed the playoffs but Garnett wasn't very good against Portland in the playoffs. Also, Duncan was better in the regular season.So I put Duncan ahead of KG

Karl Malone once again was the only capable scorer on the Jazz and anchored a pretty good Jazz offense.. Great overall season that was better than his 1999 season. Due to his excellent first round performance in the first round, he had arguably his best playoff run. He did ok against Portland.

Alonzo Mourning is number 2 mostly due to his two way play and his playoff run being good overall

[AEnigma]

It's always a hard thing to evaluate, but I truly don't think Duncan should be automatically off the panel because he was injured in the playoffs. He was clearly the 2nd best player in the RS and I don't think Gary Payton playing 5 postseason games should put him over Timmy.

I do not think he did anything to separate himself from that Garnett/Mourning/Malone group, no, and at that point I think it is much more important to reward the players who were legitimately contending for a title.

[KembaWalker]

I think you gotta go LeBron James here, 27-0 leading SVSM to the state title as a freshman. No brainer

[70sFan]

It's always a hard thing to evaluate, but I truly don't think Duncan should be automatically off the panel because he was injured in the playoffs. He was clearly the 2nd best player in the RS and I don't think Gary Payton playing 5 postseason games should put him over Timmy.

I do not think he did anything to separate himself from that Garnett/Mourning/Malone group, no, and at that point I think it is much more important to reward the players who were legitimately contending for a title.

These 3 along with Shaq still gives a space for Duncan though.

[Homer38]

I think you gotta go LeBron James here, 27-0 leading SVSM to the state title as a freshman. No brainer

Your obsession with LBJ is very annoying at this point.

[AEnigma]

It's always a hard thing to evaluate, but I truly don't think Duncan should be automatically off the panel because he was injured in the playoffs. He was clearly the 2nd best player in the RS and I don't think Gary Payton playing 5 postseason games should put him over Timmy.

I do not think he did anything to separate himself from that Garnett/Mourning/Malone group, no, and at that point I think it is much more important to reward the players who were legitimately contending for a title.

These 3 along with Shaq still gives a space for Duncan though.

Yes, so I am not surprised that those who care more about raw player quality / regular season value added are voting for Duncan, but he would probably need to be on par with Shaq in the regular season for me to be thinking about him in the context of “year’s defining players” without a postseason appearance.

[LA Bird]

It's always a hard thing to evaluate, but I truly don't think Duncan should be automatically off the panel because he was injured in the playoffs. He was clearly the 2nd best player in the RS and I don't think Gary Payton playing 5 postseason games should put him over Timmy.

Agree with players not being automatically excluded based on playoffs injury but it seems to depend on the voting panel and competition that year - 92 Robinson still got plenty of votes whereas 24 Giannis was almost unanimously excluded in POY votes. Duncan has an argument for 2nd in regular season but I wouldn't say it's clear cut. Also don't think Payton should get singled out like that. Good top 5 case for him based on both box and non box metrics and if anything Mourning looks the weakest in +/- of any of the big names once we remove his crazy prior from the previous season.

[Djoker]

You have to rank players on what happened, but what happened is also based on opportunity.

There are years Kobe or Barkley got eliminated in the 1st round. So am I to assume they were healthier than Kawhi in 2017, when he got a random injury 2 rounds later? I think that's kind of ridiculous.

Duncan was hurt, which matters, but it also matters that the injury wasn't that severe and he could have come back the next round if he had been fortunate enough to have a support cast as good as some of these other guys.

Ok here is a breakdown of how I rank players in this project. Obviously the points are just estimates but it shows my train of thought when ranking players.

Regular Season (RS) Performance: out of 30 points; 30 points for historic, 25 points for all-time, 20 points for MVP level, 15 points for All-NBA level, 10 points for All-Star level; deductions for missing games
Postseason (PS) Performance: out of 50 points; 50 points for historic, 40 points for all-time, 30 points for MVP level, 20 points for All-NBA level, 10 points for All-Star level; deductions for missing games
Accomplishments: out of 20 points; championship is by far the biggest one and it's tough to be exact with other accomplishments because sometimes players don't get accolades perfectly based on merit

Total: out of 100 points

---

So for instance, for Duncan this year.

RS Performance: 20 points (MVP level) - 10% (8 missed games) = 18 points
PS Performance: 0 points (DNP; 100% of PS games missed)
Accomplishments: 10 points (1st Team All-NBA, 1st Team All-Defense)

Total: 28 points

Let's do Shaq.

RS Performance: 25 points (All-Time)
PS Performance: 50 points (Historic)
Accomplishments: 19 points (Championship + MVP + FInals MVP + 1st Team All-NBA + 2nd Team All-Defense)

Total: 94 points

And then let's do Mourning:

RS Performance: 15 points (All-NBA level)
PS Performance: 20 points (All-NBA level)
Accomplishments: 7 points (2nd Team All-NBA, 1st Team All-Defense)

Total: 42 points

A guy who gets injured and DNP in the PS gets 0 points in that category. Thus unless he has a historic RS and in a weak year, he will have a hard time making the ballot. In the example above, Mourning who is a lesser player than Duncan clearly surpasses him. In a very weak year, Duncan could make it but 2000 has a lot of strong contenders so missing the PS is a death knell.

[OhayoKD]

Let's do Shaq.

RS Performance: 25 points (All-Time)
PS Performance: 50 points (Historic)
Accomplishments: 19 points (Championship + MVP + FInals MVP + 1st Team All-NBA + 2nd Team All-Defense)

.

The implication Shaq was better in the postseason when
-> The Lakers far underperformed their regular season (despite getting alot more kobe byrany)
-> Lakers specifically collapsed in terms of paint-defense (whose responsible for that do we think?)
-> His defense goes from league-best to below average
-> His offensive numbers aren't better in the postseason

is pretty odd.

1. Shaquille O'Neal
2. Alonzo Mourning
3. Karl Malone
4. Tim Duncan
5. Kevin Garnett

Shaq is the clear 1. He was very great defender this yearl

Certainly not in the playoffs