Retro Player of the Year 2005-06 UPDATE — Dwyane Wade

[Lebronnygoat]

I don’t think this really matters all *that* much for this year, since I don’t think it relates to any real discussion for 1st place, but I really have to say that it is pretty absurd to hype up a series against the Wizards as having any comparison to a series against an actually good team. I lived in the DC area back then and watched almost every Wizards game. They were not a very good team, and had an awful defense. LeBron had a fantastic series against them, but those Wizards just weren’t a team that we should hype up playoff performances against. Comparing a series against the 2006 Wizards to a series against the 2006 Mavericks is just silly IMO. The difference between those two teams is really night and day. This would be akin to comparing Jimmy Butler’s performance against the Hawks in the 2022 playoffs to Steph’s performance in the Finals that year.

You’re not serious, the Hawks had no personal quite like the Celtics and to add on they were a bottom 4 defense, the Celtics were quite literally the best Curry could have faced that year. Name the defenders the Mavs have that somehow clear the Wizards, please do. Who’s guarding D Wade better than Caron Butler? We’re comparing the defense they faced, not offense. Mavs were arguably the best offense in the 2000’s and most offensively slanted team.

If you think that the 2006 Mavericks weren’t a way better team defensively than the 2006 Wizards and that playing well against the Wizards in the first round should actually be compared to playing well against the Mavericks in the Finals, then I really just don’t know what to tell you. You are obviously not old enough to have watched the 2006 Wizards. I was, and I watched almost all their games (regular season and playoffs). They were a bad team defensively (and also just not very good in general). The point of analogizing to the 2022 Hawks is not that they’re the exact same teams (of course they aren’t!), but rather to say that no one really cares how well Jimmy Butler played against the 2022 Hawks because it was a first round series against a team that really wasn’t good. No one would or should compare that performance to someone’s performance in a Finals series. The same is true of LeBron’s 2006 series against the Wizards.

This is matchups, not just look at team DRTG or try and remember off the top ya head 20 years ago how good a team was in a specific season at a specific facet of the game. LeBron was played harder than Wade with a better individual defense, Haywood and Dampier are probably similar as protectors, as I remember recently watching the 02 Wizards. I don’t see the big gaps on defense within the matchups, sorry.
PG- Terry vs Arenas
SG- Adrian/Devin vs Butler
SF- Howard vs Antwan
PF- Dirk vs Jeffries
C- Diop/Dampier vs Haywood

Maybe there’s a bench discrepancy but the Wizards didn’t utilize their bench much, plus there’s no pieces that are “omg, he’s better than Antonio Daniels for sure!” lol. I’m taking the SG, PF and C’s cancel out, in series where LeBron is receiving harder coverages, and just as good individual defense. To really act like there’s a huge gap, like the Hawks vs Boston in 2022 is just disingenuous. For example, I’d say Kobe vs the 2006 Suns is more hard on him to score, than Wade vs the Dallas Mavs, even if the defensive rating is far away.

[lessthanjake]

The Wizards were throwing harder coverages at LeBron than they were Wade especially with the pieces Wade had and the situation LeBron was in.
LeBron has a higher defensive load, offensive load, coupled with a worse offensive situation. How in the world does LeBron having more loading up in the backline and harder or just as hard individual defense than Wade not matter? Is all you can resort to is the team DRTG? Thats surface level thinking. If you care about what I said at all, you’d realize opponent defense wouldn’t be some landslide in Wade’s favor. Also, we see the Cavs as a team shoot -2.2rTS, and their highest scorers are Larry Hughes at 12.3, Ronald Murray at 11.0, and Donyell Marshall at 10.5. So if the Wizards weren’t playing defense, I wonder why LeBron’s team was that bad? Shouldn’t a top 9 offense be able to be efficient vs this horrendous defense that didn’t play defense at all? Make it make sense…

I’m actually just astounded by you doubling down on this. I am going to assume that you weren’t actually alive to watch the 2006 Wizards.

Just to provide one more reason this is just an absurd argument, you have been talking up the defense of Caron Butler. So let’s look at that. What did Caron Butler’s DRAPM look like? Well, in terms of five-year RAPM from the NBArapm website, the five-year periods Caron Butler had that included the 2005-06 season had him ranked 589th, 583rd, 557th, 651st, and 473rd in the league in DRAPM. He had a negative DRAPM in every one of those spans. We see similar things in three-year RAPM on that website. If we look at TheBasketballDatabase RAPM instead, it’s even worse, with Butler being ranked 716th, 718th, 769th, 814th, and 696th in the NBA in five-year RAPM time periods that included 2006. It’s also awful for three-year time periods too. In terms of lifetime RAPM, the 28-year RAPM dataset has Caron Butler with a -0.9 DRAPM. These are absolutely awful numbers! And this is the guy you’re talking up as why facing the 22nd ranked 2006 Wizards defense was comparable—and you seem to actually even be suggesting it was “harder” and that the Wizards had “better individual defense”—than facing the 2006 Mavericks in the Finals. It is just completely crazy stuff. The Mavs actually had some weak defenders too, but they were clearly a better defensive team, as anyone who looks at any data or who watched basketball at the time would know, and the Finals was also far more intense defensively than the first round against the Wizards.

I’m sorry but I actually find you to have less credibility in general as a poster after seeing your assertions on this. If you’re able to somehow get yourself to this conclusion then I really just don’t know what to say. I also do want to note that Wade torched the Pistons too—who I assume even you wouldn’t try to compare to the 2006 Wizards.

[Narigo]

1. Dwayne Wade
2. Dirk Nowitzki
3. LeBron James
4. Kobe Bryant
5. Kevin Garnett

Wade and Dirk are top 2 contenders for the top spot. Wade was fantastic in the last two rounds of the playoffs. Despite Shaq not playing great in the finals, Wade managed to carry the team to a championship. Also he was number 1 in a RAPM if I recall. So there is some evidence that he was probably the best player in the regular season. Although I do think Dirk overall was the best in the regular season but his performance in the finals against the Heat drags him down to 2

Kobe was the best offensive player in the league and carried the Lakers offense. Outside of Odom, he didn't really have a good supporting cast. Unfortunately his defense fell off a cliff based on how much energy he used for offense. LeBron wasn't as good offensively as Kobe. But I don't think he was negative there so I will put him over Kobe

Kevin Garnett Anchored a top 10 defense despite not having any strong defensive players on the roster. Also, the Wolves tanked their offense by trading Wally for Davis. If I recall, the Wolves had the same record as the Lakers until the Wally trade happened. Also, Garnett was a better offensive player than Duncan this season. He scored more and had better efficiency carrying bums while Duncan had Parker and Manu. Duncan had a good postseason offensively but in the regular season he wasn't as good as his last few seasons and 2007.

Nash would be in my honorable mention. But I think he gets too much credit for the Suns success without Amare. Shawn Marion was arguably a top 10 player himself this season and Barbosa, Thomas and Diaw were pretty good too

[jjgp111292]

The Wizards were throwing harder coverages at LeBron than they were Wade especially with the pieces Wade had and the situation LeBron was in.
LeBron has a higher defensive load, offensive load, coupled with a worse offensive situation. How in the world does LeBron having more loading up in the backline and harder or just as hard individual defense than Wade not matter? Is all you can resort to is the team DRTG? Thats surface level thinking. If you care about what I said at all, you’d realize opponent defense wouldn’t be some landslide in Wade’s favor. Also, we see the Cavs as a team shoot -2.2rTS, and their highest scorers are Larry Hughes at 12.3, Ronald Murray at 11.0, and Donyell Marshall at 10.5. So if the Wizards weren’t playing defense, I wonder why LeBron’s team was that bad? Shouldn’t a top 9 offense be able to be efficient vs this horrendous defense that didn’t play defense at all? Make it make sense…

The Cavs were a +.8rTS against Washington. Do you mean the Cavs outside of LeBron shot -2.2 rTS? Because in that case, Miami outside of Wade were a -3.6 against Dallas while scoring significantly less points at that ( and also Cleveland's offense performed slightly better against Washington than they did in the regular season, actually). Wade's supporting cast didn't perform well at all, so I'm not sure how exactly LeBron has a higher offensive load. Defensive load isn't even worth mentioning because LeBron was not a good defender at all this point beyond crashing the passing lanes, consistently getting blown by and making errors.

And y'all wanna talk about hagiography...

[One_and_Done]

1. Dwayne Wade
2. Dirk Nowitzki
3. LeBron James
4. Kobe Bryant
5. Kevin Garnett

Wade and Dirk are top 2 contenders for the top spot. Wade was fantastic in the last two rounds of the playoffs. Despite Shaq not playing great in the finals, Wade managed to carry the team to a championship. Also he was number 1 in a RAPM if I recall. So there is some evidence that he was probably the best player in the regular season. Although I do think Dirk overall was the best in the regular season but his performance in the finals against the Heat drags him down to 2

Kobe was the best offensive player in the league and carried the Lakers offense. Outside of Odom, he didn't really have a good supporting cast. Unfortunately his defense fell off a cliff based on how much energy he used for offense. LeBron wasn't as good offensively as Kobe. But I don't think he was negative there so I will put him over Kobe

Kevin Garnett Anchored a top 10 defense despite not having any strong defensive players on the roster. Also, the Wolves tanked their offense by trading Wally for Davis. If I recall, the Wolves had the same record as the Lakers until the Wally trade happened. Also, Garnett was a better offensive player than Duncan this season. He scored more and had better efficiency carrying bums while Duncan had Parker and Manu

Nash would be in my honorable mention. But I think he gets too much credit for the Suns success without Amare. Shawn Marion was arguably a top 10 player himself this season and Barbosa, Thomas and Diaw were pretty good too

I struggle a little bit to understand how these 5 names have emerged, with no Duncan or Nash. The first thought I had was that you were looking at “ppg” a lot, and sure enough you wrote that KG “scored more” than Duncan. However, when you consider per 100 stats Duncan actually scored more per 100 in the playoffs than Kobe or Wade, and was equal to Lebron. He scored on better efficiency than them in the playoffs too. He did that, while being the best defensive player in the league, whereas Kobe is a negative on D at this point, and Lebron and Wade are very, very far from being the best player in the league on D. I can’t compare him to KG’s playoff scoring per 100 because KG didn’t even make it.

You certainly don’t seem to be ranking these guys on their playoff success, because you have Kobe and KG here, who either missed the playoffs or lost in the first round, and Lebron who progressed no further than Duncan did (but in a worse conference). Nash progressed further than any except your top 2 candidates, and given how Dirk played in the finals I struggle to see the reasoning for putting him ahead. Like, there are reasons to not put Duncan and Nash top 2, but to leave them out of the top 5 completely?

I don’t personally care about RAPM, but was Wade #1? I saw a bunch of advanced stats posted earlier in the thread by Jake, and the only one I recall Wade being #1 in was one form of EPM, and then he wasn’t anything like #1 in the others.

Just looking at KG v.s Duncan in the RS, Duncan is carrying his team to 63 wins while KG’s team won 33, a full 30 games less. When you factor in how much harder it is to win each extra game above a certain point, the discrepancy is actually much bigger than just 30 wins. Ok, KG had a clearly worse supporting cast, but Duncan’s supporting cast wasn’t that great without him. Unfortunately he only missed 2 games this year against weak teams who they beat, but his 05 and 04 support cast was pretty similar and from 04-06 the Spurs were 16-15 in games he missed. It feels odd to put KG in here over Duncan because of his small edge in per 100 stats, given how much worse his team performed, then list Wade and Dirk #1. I can’t tell if you’re weighting the playoffs more or less, because it seems to be given a lot of emphasis for your first 2 choices, and zero emphasis for Duncan or Nash (or Kobe, who is listed despite a bad playoffs). Kobe per 100 had 32-7-6 on 587 TS%, including his game 7 stunt where he pouted and refused to shoot in the last quarter to “make a point”, yet he ranks over Duncan whose PS numbers per 100 were 37-15-5 on 625 TS% while being the best defender in the league.

I also don’t see how Kobe was “the best offensive player in the league”. His Ortg was 114. Dirk had 123, and Nash had 121. If you’re just looking at “ppg” here’s a simplified way to look at that. Kobe is scoring a career best 45.6pp100. He’s really jacking up those shots. But he’s also getting only 5.8ap100. So if we were generous to Kobe, and pretended like every assist only was worth 2 points, then in total he’d be contributing 57.2pp100 to the team. But when you combine Nash’s pp100 and ap100 it comes to 56.3pp100. The difference is Nash is scoring at 632 TS% compared to only 587 TS% for Kobe… and Nash’s team mates are scoring more efficiently thanks to him… and in reality assists lead to more than 2ppg on average, so Nash is actually creating more pp100 than Kobe. That’s a very simplified analysis, but it’s intended to highlight how Kobe really wasn’t generating more pp100 than Nash, and certainly was doing it much less efficiently, which is why his vastly worse Ortg shouldn’t be surprising. You could say “well, Nash had better team mates”, but that breakdown I provided of efficiency and points contributed remains in Nash’s favour even in years like 2010, or 2011 and 2012, where Nash had very little around him. The reality is Nash was just a better offensive player than Kobe.

[Lebronnygoat]

The Wizards were throwing harder coverages at LeBron than they were Wade especially with the pieces Wade had and the situation LeBron was in.
LeBron has a higher defensive load, offensive load, coupled with a worse offensive situation. How in the world does LeBron having more loading up in the backline and harder or just as hard individual defense than Wade not matter? Is all you can resort to is the team DRTG? Thats surface level thinking. If you care about what I said at all, you’d realize opponent defense wouldn’t be some landslide in Wade’s favor. Also, we see the Cavs as a team shoot -2.2rTS, and their highest scorers are Larry Hughes at 12.3, Ronald Murray at 11.0, and Donyell Marshall at 10.5. So if the Wizards weren’t playing defense, I wonder why LeBron’s team was that bad? Shouldn’t a top 9 offense be able to be efficient vs this horrendous defense that didn’t play defense at all? Make it make sense…

The Cavs were a +.8rTS against Washington. Do you mean the Cavs outside of LeBron shot -2.2 rTS? Because in that case, Miami outside of Wade were a -3.6 against Dallas while scoring significantly less points at that ( and also Cleveland's offense performed slightly better against Washington than they did in the regular season, actually). Wade's supporting cast didn't perform well at all, so I'm not sure how exactly LeBron has a higher offensive load. Defensive load isn't even worth mentioning because LeBron was not a good defender at all this point beyond crashing the passing lanes, consistently getting blown by and making errors.

And y'all wanna talk about hagiography...

Why do you think you using how Wade’s team shot vs the Mavs is a defeater to the Wizards not being able to defend or being a horrible defense??? The point wasn’t that the Wizards were a better overall defense at all. And I’m not using their stats to say he’s in a worse situation, the point was to say, how can a team that’s HORRIBLE, and DIDNT PLAY defense, keep LeBron’s cast to such poor shooting? Wade’s cast can perform lower and still have lesser of a load… Shaq is clearing anyone Wade has. And when you get deeper down the roster it’s slightly in Wade’s favor considering Larry was playing hurt.
Key points goes as follows…
1. I never used the cast’s stats to say they were worse than Wade’s you strawmanned me. It was to show how the Wizards clearly weren’t a defense that let the Cavs walk all over them, neither were the Mavs, hence I never said the Mavs were horrible on defense
2. Just because a cast’s stats are lower than someone else’s in a particular series doesn’t mean you have a higher load, and not once did I make that claim.

Also, having a higher defensive load literally doesn’t have anything to do with how good LeBron was defensively, and to say he wasn’t a good defender is hilariously bad. If LeBron has higher loads, it means it takes more out of him/makes things harder. The coverages he gets > Wade’s, offensive situation is worse, defensive situation is worse, coaching situation, individual defense a tie. So how in the f###, is there some big resilience gap here. Please, I need to know, and it’s not like Dallas was this otherworldly defense, or even a GOOD defense. You’d have a point if they were very elite, but they’re not. This is honestly y’all just grasping at straws to diminish LeBron’s series being over Wade being you can’t argue within anything in the actual series themselves. Again, Suns team defense was overall worse by DRTG than the Mavs in 2006, yet, I think we can all agree Kobe vs the Suns is a better matchup defensively than the Mavs. How come y’all didn’t bring up that point?

[Lebronnygoat]

The Wizards were throwing harder coverages at LeBron than they were Wade especially with the pieces Wade had and the situation LeBron was in.
LeBron has a higher defensive load, offensive load, coupled with a worse offensive situation. How in the world does LeBron having more loading up in the backline and harder or just as hard individual defense than Wade not matter? Is all you can resort to is the team DRTG? Thats surface level thinking. If you care about what I said at all, you’d realize opponent defense wouldn’t be some landslide in Wade’s favor. Also, we see the Cavs as a team shoot -2.2rTS, and their highest scorers are Larry Hughes at 12.3, Ronald Murray at 11.0, and Donyell Marshall at 10.5. So if the Wizards weren’t playing defense, I wonder why LeBron’s team was that bad? Shouldn’t a top 9 offense be able to be efficient vs this horrendous defense that didn’t play defense at all? Make it make sense…

I’m actually just astounded by you doubling down on this. I am going to assume that you weren’t actually alive to watch the 2006 Wizards.

Just to provide one more reason this is just an absurd argument, you have been talking up the defense of Caron Butler. So let’s look at that. What did Caron Butler’s DRAPM look like? Well, in terms of five-year RAPM from the NBArapm website, the five-year periods Caron Butler had that included the 2005-06 season had him ranked 589th, 583rd, 557th, 651st, and 473rd in the league in DRAPM. He had a negative DRAPM in every one of those spans. We see similar things in three-year RAPM on that website. If we look at TheBasketballDatabase RAPM instead, it’s even worse, with Butler being ranked 716th, 718th, 769th, 814th, and 696th in the NBA in five-year RAPM time periods that included 2006. It’s also awful for three-year time periods too. In terms of lifetime RAPM, the 28-year RAPM dataset has Caron Butler with a -0.9 DRAPM. These are absolutely awful numbers! And this is the guy you’re talking up as why facing the 22nd ranked 2006 Wizards defense was comparable—and you seem to actually even be suggesting it was “harder” and that the Wizards had “better individual defense”—than facing the 2006 Mavericks in the Finals. It is just completely crazy stuff. The Mavs actually had some weak defenders too, but they were clearly a better defensive team, as anyone who looks at any data or who watched basketball at the time would know, and the Finals was also far more intense defensively than the first round against the Wizards.

I’m sorry but I actually find you to have less credibility in general as a poster after seeing your assertions on this. If you’re able to somehow get yourself to this conclusion then I really just don’t know what to say. I also do want to note that Wade torched the Pistons too—who I assume even you wouldn’t try to compare to the 2006 Wizards.

I stopped reading once you brought up defensive advanced metrics. If you think Butler having “awful defensive numbers” means he’s an awful defender, you live in a false fantasy. Address my argument without using noisy numbers. Must I show a lot of weird DRAPM numbers of a bunch of players who aren’t what their numbers speak of them?

[lessthanjake]

The Wizards were throwing harder coverages at LeBron than they were Wade especially with the pieces Wade had and the situation LeBron was in.
LeBron has a higher defensive load, offensive load, coupled with a worse offensive situation. How in the world does LeBron having more loading up in the backline and harder or just as hard individual defense than Wade not matter? Is all you can resort to is the team DRTG? Thats surface level thinking. If you care about what I said at all, you’d realize opponent defense wouldn’t be some landslide in Wade’s favor. Also, we see the Cavs as a team shoot -2.2rTS, and their highest scorers are Larry Hughes at 12.3, Ronald Murray at 11.0, and Donyell Marshall at 10.5. So if the Wizards weren’t playing defense, I wonder why LeBron’s team was that bad? Shouldn’t a top 9 offense be able to be efficient vs this horrendous defense that didn’t play defense at all? Make it make sense…

I’m actually just astounded by you doubling down on this. I am going to assume that you weren’t actually alive to watch the 2006 Wizards.

Just to provide one more reason this is just an absurd argument, you have been talking up the defense of Caron Butler. So let’s look at that. What did Caron Butler’s DRAPM look like? Well, in terms of five-year RAPM from the NBArapm website, the five-year periods Caron Butler had that included the 2005-06 season had him ranked 589th, 583rd, 557th, 651st, and 473rd in the league in DRAPM. He had a negative DRAPM in every one of those spans. We see similar things in three-year RAPM on that website. If we look at TheBasketballDatabase RAPM instead, it’s even worse, with Butler being ranked 716th, 718th, 769th, 814th, and 696th in the NBA in five-year RAPM time periods that included 2006. It’s also awful for three-year time periods too. In terms of lifetime RAPM, the 28-year RAPM dataset has Caron Butler with a -0.9 DRAPM. These are absolutely awful numbers! And this is the guy you’re talking up as why facing the 22nd ranked 2006 Wizards defense was comparable—and you seem to actually even be suggesting it was “harder” and that the Wizards had “better individual defense”—than facing the 2006 Mavericks in the Finals. It is just completely crazy stuff. The Mavs actually had some weak defenders too, but they were clearly a better defensive team, as anyone who looks at any data or who watched basketball at the time would know, and the Finals was also far more intense defensively than the first round against the Wizards.

I’m sorry but I actually find you to have less credibility in general as a poster after seeing your assertions on this. If you’re able to somehow get yourself to this conclusion then I really just don’t know what to say. I also do want to note that Wade torched the Pistons too—who I assume even you wouldn’t try to compare to the 2006 Wizards.

I stopped reading once you brought up defensive advanced metrics. If you think Butler having “awful defensive numbers” means he’s an awful defender, you live in a false fantasy. Address my argument without using noisy numbers. Must I show a lot of weird DRAPM numbers of a bunch of players who aren’t what their numbers speak of them?

Here’s the thing. I’ve already told you that I watched almost every single game the 2006 Wizards played. I don’t need metrics to tell me that I’m right. I’m just providing you with metrics saying that, because you obviously did not watch the 2006 Wizards, so you might actually need data to explain things to you. Your response is to suggest that I’m “liv[ing] in a false fantasy” even though you’re the one who is doubling down on an opinion that is contrary to essentially all data about a team you didn’t watch. At this point, you are obviously intent upon coming to a completely baseless conclusion about a topic that you are clearly very uninformed about. I think the discussion has run its course. I am quite confident that the percent of human beings who would laugh at the opinion you’re espousing is basically asymptotically approaching 100%.

[Lebronnygoat]

You watched it TWO DECADES ago. Did you watch the 2006 Mavs? How can you thus accurately compare the two if you didn’t? Again, you’re ignoring everything I said outside team DRTG. “Data” defensive advanced metrics for individual players is not good. To say Caron Butler is an awful defender based off awful stats is a horrible argument. The point of this argument is, how hard is the defense making it for LeBron or Wade to be effective. All the points I listed above you cannot debunk, you simply turn to DRAPM which is literally nothing of substance, and team DRTG, and you watching them 20 years ago. Team DRTG is the only useful tool in your argument, and I concede that the Mavs had a better overall defense. You can’t debunk Kobe facing the Suns this year makes it harder for him to score as opposed to the Mavs regardless of the team DRTG placement being far away. Personal, matchups, load, situation, team defense and coverages matters in this argument. LeBron’s opponent literally takes all but one facet, team defense. For the record, you should really think about Malone > Jordan in 1992, you know, he only had one series that should be talked about. Since Miami was the 3rd worst defense. Meanwhile, all of Malone’s series was against competent defenses, and his scoring looks way better than Jordan’s.

[One_and_Done]

On a related note, I like to go back and watch old games in my downtime. Every time I do I'm shocked at how bad past leagues look, with relatively few exceptions the players back then couldn't cut it today or would at the very least have reduced effectiveness. Your memories of games can be deceptive, especially when nostalgia is involved.

[trelos6]

KG 22.7 pp75 +5.4 rTS%

Duncan 21.7 pp75 -1.2 rTS%. Playoffs he did improve to 27.8 pp75, +9 rTS%. Which is super elite, and I have no qualms if you have him at 5 over KG.

As I said in my post, there are 7 guys for 5 spots, and it's pretty tight at the 5 spot.

[DirtyDez]

Thru game 2 of the finals Dirk would’ve been the unanimous #1. I don’t remember the specifics of Dallas/SA that series other than the Manu foul but San Antonio was clearly the best team in the league that year. They had just added Finley to give them legitimate depth. Duncan was amazing that series in a loss.

[penbeast0]

On a related note, I like to go back and watch old games in my downtime. Every time I do I'm shocked at how bad past leagues look, with relatively few exceptions the players back then couldn't cut it today or would at the very least have reduced effectiveness. Your memories of games can be deceptive, especially when nostalgia is involved.

You ever referee, even at the HS level? I sometimes find it difficult to watch NBA games as the rules have been changed or ignored so consistently.

That said, athletes today are incredible, even compared to 20 years ago. But those guys from earlier eras with equivalent weight work/conditioning/PEDs, would generally be incredible too. I don't think you understand just how big a difference the rule, conditioning, medical, and equipment changes are. I could see it changing the HS game drastically just in the 4 years or so I coached.

[jjgp111292]

The Wizards were throwing harder coverages at LeBron than they were Wade especially with the pieces Wade had and the situation LeBron was in.
LeBron has a higher defensive load, offensive load, coupled with a worse offensive situation. How in the world does LeBron having more loading up in the backline and harder or just as hard individual defense than Wade not matter? Is all you can resort to is the team DRTG? Thats surface level thinking. If you care about what I said at all, you’d realize opponent defense wouldn’t be some landslide in Wade’s favor. Also, we see the Cavs as a team shoot -2.2rTS, and their highest scorers are Larry Hughes at 12.3, Ronald Murray at 11.0, and Donyell Marshall at 10.5. So if the Wizards weren’t playing defense, I wonder why LeBron’s team was that bad? Shouldn’t a top 9 offense be able to be efficient vs this horrendous defense that didn’t play defense at all? Make it make sense…

The Cavs were a +.8rTS against Washington. Do you mean the Cavs outside of LeBron shot -2.2 rTS? Because in that case, Miami outside of Wade were a -3.6 against Dallas while scoring significantly less points at that ( and also Cleveland's offense performed slightly better against Washington than they did in the regular season, actually). Wade's supporting cast didn't perform well at all, so I'm not sure how exactly LeBron has a higher offensive load. Defensive load isn't even worth mentioning because LeBron was not a good defender at all this point beyond crashing the passing lanes, consistently getting blown by and making errors.

And y'all wanna talk about hagiography...

Why do you think you using how Wade’s team shot vs the Mavs is a defeater to the Wizards not being able to defend or being a horrible defense??? The point wasn’t that the Wizards were a better overall defense at all. And I’m not using their stats to say he’s in a worse situation, the point was to say, how can a team that’s HORRIBLE, and DIDNT PLAY defense, keep LeBron’s cast to such poor shooting? Wade’s cast can perform lower and still have lesser of a load… Shaq is clearing anyone Wade has. And when you get deeper down the roster it’s slightly in Wade’s favor considering Larry was playing hurt.
Key points goes as follows…
1. I never used the cast’s stats to say they were worse than Wade’s you strawmanned me. It was to show how the Wizards clearly weren’t a defense that let the Cavs walk all over them, neither were the Mavs, hence I never said the Mavs were horrible on defense
2. Just because a cast’s stats are lower than someone else’s in a particular series doesn’t mean you have a higher load, and not once did I make that claim.

Also, having a higher defensive load literally doesn’t have anything to do with how good LeBron was defensively, and to say he wasn’t a good defender is hilariously bad. If LeBron has higher loads, it means it takes more out of him/makes things harder. The coverages he gets > Wade’s, offensive situation is worse, defensive situation is worse, coaching situation, individual defense a tie. So how in the f###, is there some big resilience gap here. Please, I need to know, and it’s not like Dallas was this otherworldly defense, or even a GOOD defense. You’d have a point if they were very elite, but they’re not. This is honestly y’all just grasping at straws to diminish LeBron’s series being over Wade being you can’t argue within anything in the actual series themselves. Again, Suns team defense was overall worse by DRTG than the Mavs in 2006, yet, I think we can all agree Kobe vs the Suns is a better matchup defensively than the Mavs. How come y’all didn’t bring up that point?

Nobody's trying to diminish LeBron's series, we're pushing back on the ridiculous notion that it was more impressive than roughly the same scoring performance in the finals just because of Caron Butler.

And yes, LeBron was not a good defender at this stage of his career - you're in luck, because that turns around the very next season! Patience.

[OhayoKD]

The Wizards were throwing harder coverages at LeBron than they were Wade especially with the pieces Wade had and the situation LeBron was in.

And y'all wanna talk about hagiography...

Considering injuries/defensive matchups when comparing two defenses is not hagiography.

[OhayoKD]

The Wizards were throwing harder coverages at LeBron than they were Wade especially with the pieces Wade had and the situation LeBron was in.
LeBron has a higher defensive load, offensive load, coupled with a worse offensive situation. How in the world does LeBron having more loading up in the backline and harder or just as hard individual defense than Wade not matter? Is all you can resort to is the team DRTG? Thats surface level thinking. If you care about what I said at all, you’d realize opponent defense wouldn’t be some landslide in Wade’s favor. Also, we see the Cavs as a team shoot -2.2rTS, and their highest scorers are Larry Hughes at 12.3, Ronald Murray at 11.0, and Donyell Marshall at 10.5. So if the Wizards weren’t playing defense, I wonder why LeBron’s team was that bad? Shouldn’t a top 9 offense be able to be efficient vs this horrendous defense that didn’t play defense at all? Make it make sense…

I’m actually just astounded by you doubling down on this. I am going to assume that you weren’t actually alive to watch the 2006 Wizards.
...

I’m sorry but I actually find you to have less credibility in general as a poster after seeing your assertions on this.

You have never tracked a game in your life, and you were just caught ignoring opponent offensive rating so you could inflate a player's defensive signal over a 1 game sample by a factor of 2.

Who are you, of all people, to be finding posters credible or not.

[lessthanjake]

The Wizards were throwing harder coverages at LeBron than they were Wade especially with the pieces Wade had and the situation LeBron was in.
LeBron has a higher defensive load, offensive load, coupled with a worse offensive situation. How in the world does LeBron having more loading up in the backline and harder or just as hard individual defense than Wade not matter? Is all you can resort to is the team DRTG? Thats surface level thinking. If you care about what I said at all, you’d realize opponent defense wouldn’t be some landslide in Wade’s favor. Also, we see the Cavs as a team shoot -2.2rTS, and their highest scorers are Larry Hughes at 12.3, Ronald Murray at 11.0, and Donyell Marshall at 10.5. So if the Wizards weren’t playing defense, I wonder why LeBron’s team was that bad? Shouldn’t a top 9 offense be able to be efficient vs this horrendous defense that didn’t play defense at all? Make it make sense…

I’m actually just astounded by you doubling down on this. I am going to assume that you weren’t actually alive to watch the 2006 Wizards.
...

I’m sorry but I actually find you to have less credibility in general as a poster after seeing your assertions on this.

You have never tracked a game in your life, and you were just caught ignoring opponent offensive rating so you could inflate a player's defensive signal over a 1 game sample by a factor of 2.

Who are you, of all people, to be finding posters credible or not.

I literally don’t know what you’re talking about and this is the second time you’ve made this assertion today and I’ve already told you before that I don’t know what you’re talking about, without receiving any explanation. That description bears no resemblance to anything I’ve done recently, and is so vaguely written that I have no idea what you’re even *trying* to refer to. As best I can guess, you seem to have made up in your mind that I talked about a one-game 40+ minute 1986 sample that I did not talk about. Just weird stuff.

[lessthanjake]

You watched it TWO DECADES ago. Did you watch the 2006 Mavs? How can you thus accurately compare the two if you didn’t? Again, you’re ignoring everything I said outside team DRTG. “Data” defensive advanced metrics for individual players is not good. To say Caron Butler is an awful defender based off awful stats is a horrible argument. The point of this argument is, how hard is the defense making it for LeBron or Wade to be effective. All the points I listed above you cannot debunk, you simply turn to DRAPM which is literally nothing of substance, and team DRTG, and you watching them 20 years ago. Team DRTG is the only useful tool in your argument, and I concede that the Mavs had a better overall defense. You can’t debunk Kobe facing the Suns this year makes it harder for him to score as opposed to the Mavs regardless of the team DRTG placement being far away. Personal, matchups, load, situation, team defense and coverages matters in this argument. LeBron’s opponent literally takes all but one facet, team defense. For the record, you should really think about Malone > Jordan in 1992, you know, he only had one series that should be talked about. Since Miami was the 3rd worst defense. Meanwhile, all of Malone’s series was against competent defenses, and his scoring looks way better than Jordan’s.

I watched both teams and every game of both series. Unlike you, I was alive and watching lots of basketball in 2006. You didn’t watch these teams, and *also* have decided that team data and individual metrics must be discarded in an assessment of those teams/series, in favor of your own idiosyncratic pet assessment of “matchups” of teams and players that you did not actually watch from years that you did not consume basketball. It’s just completely hollow wishcasting. Anyone can just decide to look at teams/games they have barely watched if at all and to discard all data and just come up with a random absurd conclusion while vaguely gesturing towards the idea of matchups. Again, it’s just completely hollow.

[Lebronnygoat]

“Just because of Butler” you’re being a disingenuous person rn. I clearly made much more points. I have 4 more points while you have 1. I guess I have the most room to argue “just because of team DRTG you think Wade was more impressive”. Again, LeBron’s scoring was objectively better, and not only that but, LeBron is a way more capable facilitator and creator than Wade at this time. Just got done watching 2 games and Wade’s not the creator LeBron was nor the passer. But both of those should be obvious.

[Djoker]

Interesting thing about this season is I think the voters completely got the RS MVP vote wrong. I am by no means a proponent that the best player on the best team should always get MVP but if it's a lone superstar then that player should at least be one of the favorites. It's baffling that the two studs playing for the two best teams in the league finished so low in the voting. Dirk at #3 and Duncan at an unfathomable #9. Dirk would probably get the nod for me because I don't find the Mavs' roster that impressive at all. Definitely nice depth as they are legit 10 or 11 deep but no secondary all-stars and even most of the guys they have minus Josh Howard are one way players. I don't see that team without Dirk doing much at all. The 2006 PS opened people's eyes on how good Dirk is and then he kind of disappointed them against the Heat within weeks. Duncan even though he had a great cast still led the best team in the league by SRS. He has to finish top 5. Maybe voters didn't like his low scoring numbers and ignored his massive two-way impact. Then no Love for Kobe even though he led a horrible roster (Odom + total scrubs) to the 7th best SRS in the league. Along with 2003 T-Mac, Kobe led one of the biggest carryjobs of the decade. T-Mac's roster was worse but he also played in the weak East and the SRS was a lot weaker. I remember at the time being super impressed with Kobe. Wade would be further down as Shaq also had a strong RS and the Pistons are an ensemble where you can't really say one guy led them.

If I voted for RS MVP I'd probably go something like #1 Dirk #2 Kobe #3 Nash #4 Duncan #5 Lebron #6 Wade. But no one really stands out way ahead of the others after the RS so Wade with a huge PS gets #1.