Retro Player of the Year 2007-08 UPDATE — Lebron James

[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 2007-08.

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 17:00PM EST on Tuesday, January 21st. 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]

1. Lebron
2. KG
3. CP3

4. Nash

5. Duncan

For me this is the year Duncan drops out of his prime. The Spurs record a Drtg of 101.8, the first time in Duncan’s career they’d been over 100. Duncan had a career worst Drtg too. His pp100 in the playoffs was the lowest in his career, tied with his rookie season, and his playoff TS% was by far the lowest of his career (488 v.s a PS average to that point of 560). More than any numbers though, Duncan just didn’t look right when you watched him. He was still a top 5-10 player, and an all-nba player easily, but the decline from his prime was visible. A few years later we learned that Duncan’s knees were bone on bone, and I’m guessing they weren’t in great condition this season either.

This year comes down to 3 candidates for me; KG, CP3, and Lebron. The other candidates aren’t really close. KG led the Celtics to a record 42 game turnaround. All the numbers say the Celtics were a godlike defensive team when KG was playing, and frankly he was always more impactful than Kobe anyway. He didn’t have high volume stats this year, but that’s because he was now on one of the 2 deepest teams in the league next to the Lakers and he had to take less touches. The Celtics also played at a slow pace. Per 100 possessions he was putting up 30/15/6 on 588 TS%, at a 118 Ortg and a 94 Drtg. When you look at Kobe’s per100 numbers of 36/8/7 on 576 TS%, an Ortg of 115 and a Drtg of 105, it’s pretty hard to see what possible argument Kobe had for the MVP this year.

Before I move on to CP3 and Lebron, let’s just talk a bit more about the 2008 Lakers. The team was suddenly stacked, and it showed. Bynum came into his own and was discussed as a future all-star 5, and then as soon as he gets hurt the Lakers are gifted Pau and go on a 22-5 run with him. Pau is a guy who on paper was better at leading teams than Kobe from 04-06, he was an unrecognised superstar in his own right who carried mediocre Memphis teams to 50ish win seasons in a deep West while Kobe was struggling to even make the playoffs.

Kobe fans point to the Lakers finally having a good record under Kobe this year before Pau arrived (unlike the 135-137 record the Lakers had from 00-07 in games with Kobe but no Shaq). Yes, the Lakers were 30-16 before Pau arrived, but that’s a 53 win pace. In 2008 that would have been good for the 7th seed and a first round exit. The importance of Bynum is hard to overstate. People forget him now because of all the injuries, but there was a good reason he got offered a max contract by Philly at age 24. He'd just made the all-nba 2nd team and the all-star team at that point, and was averaging 18-12 and looking like a future star. It just sucked about the injuries. 20 year old Bynum wasn’t quite that good yet, but the flashes were there. He just didn’t get many touches with all the mouths the Lakers had to feed. The Lakers pre-Pau were 24-11 with Bynum, and only 6-5 without him. If not for the emergence of Bynum, and then Pau arriving, this would have just been another low 40s win season of futility for Kobe.

The Lakers had a top 2 supporting cast around Kobe this year, being able to field Pau/Bynum at the 5, and then Odom and Fisher as starters too. They had other solid bench role players too, such as Radmanovic, Walton, Turiaf, and Jordan Farmer. They also had the legendary one good Sasha Vujacic season this year. Radmanovic in particular was a solid all around guy among those others.

The Lakers came out of the West, but with that team they were the overwhelming favourites to do so once they got Pau. In the finals though, Kobe was extremely underwhelming. He shot 505 TS% and had a comical 98 Ortg, while insisting on jacking up 131 shots to Pau and Odom’s 62 and 60. Given Pau and Odom had a TS% of 572 and 560 that was a pretty selfish approach. I wouldn’t say Kobe shot them out of the series, because I don’t think they had any chance of beating the Celtics anyway as long as KG was healthy. Thankfully for Kobe’s legacy, KG got hurt in 09 and was never quite the same again when he returned in 2010. The game 6 blowout by 40 points to end the series was pretty embarrassing, and especially the way it happened; with Kobe going 7-22 while Pau took a mere 7 shots. Kobe took almost as many shots as the rest of the starters combined. I’m not a big plus minus guy, but Kobe’s -35 this game (worst on the Lakers) accurately reflected his affect on the game.

Back to other candidates, and I feel Lebron and CP3 have very strong cases. CP3 led a team with no business going anywhere to contention. They won 1 game less than the Lakers, despite a clearly inferior support cast, which let the media push for Kobe to get the MVP as a lifetime achievement award. On no planet was that the right decision. CP3 had a 125 Ortg – he was a better offensive player than Kobe, who lifted up his whole team’s offense, and at this point in his career Kobe was a mediocre defender, while CP3 was elite. He actually had the highest Drtg on his team, and was quite rightly given serious DPOY consideration (he was 7th in the voting). CP3 had another all-star calibre guy in West, and an excellent if unheralded rim rolling 5 in Chandler, but this team should not have won 56 games. Peja was past his prime by this point with his various injuries, and Mo-Pete was an average starter at best. There was nobody with the impact of Pau on this team, and while Chandler was a very good player he wasn’t as good as Lamar Odom.

Ultimately though, I’m going with Lebron. The team he had was absolutely destitute of talent. They took the Celtics to 7, but had no business even being competitive with them. I mean, the Celtics were still finding their footing early in the playoffs, so they weren’t at full throttle yet, but it’s hard to put into words how bad that support cast was. In the 7 games Lebron missed, the team was 0-7. If Lebron had played, they’d have likely won 50 games and then the MVP narrative this year would have been much more favourable to Lebron. Back then 50 wins was considered a minimum threshold of sorts for many voters.

Lebron was better than Kobe on O and D, and if you look at the stats it’s honestly not even close.

Lebron per 100: 40/10/10, 568 TS%, 116 Ortg, 104 Drtg

Kobe per 100: 36/8/7, 576 TS%, 115 Ortg, 105 Drtg

Lebron is better at almost everything, and given the defensive personnel around Lebron, that Drtg understates the difference between the 2 of them a lot. The only real question is whether I take Lebron over KG and CP3. Tentatively, I’m going to do that for now, mainly because I just feel like Lebron was the best player in the league at this point and it was being masked somewhat by his horrible supporting cast. If Lebron had the support cast of KG, or even CP3, he’d have won the title this year. Certainly he’d have won the title with Kobe’s support cast.

The last 2 spots are tough to nail down. I see the final guys as well below the top 3. I’ve taken Nash and Duncan for now, but I might waver and flip back to Dwight or even Dirk over one of them. Kobe gets an HM, but he wasn’t a top 5 guy this year. I feel like Dwight’s case is very underrated. He might have to move into my top 5 over Duncan. I'm still thinking it over.

[Special_Puppy]

This is an interesting year without a clear POTY frontrunner. The best players this year were probably CP3 and LeBron but they got eliminated early in the playoffs. Kobe and Garnett were the leaders of the finals contenders, but I think they were a step below both CP3 and LeBron in terms of actual play

[AEnigma]

Yet Kobe played substantially better against the Spurs than Paul did.

[trelos6]

OPOY

1.Chris Paul. 22.4 pp75 on +3.6 rTS%. Team rOrtg of +4. Overtook Nash as the best playmaker in the league. Playoff volume increased slightly, and efficiency dipped slightly. Performed better than Nash vs the Spurs defense in playoffs.

2.Steve Nash. 18.4 pp75 on +10.1 rTS%. Team rOrtg of +5.8. Still the best passer in the league, and second best playmaker. Scoring dipped in playoffs and efficiency went back to league average, but it was only 5 games vs Spurs.

3.Kobe Bryant. 27.4 pp75 on +3.6 rTS%. Team rOrtg of +5.5. Top 10 playmaker in the league. Great scoring volume on good efficiency. Scoring volume increased in playoffs, while efficiency remained.

DPOY

1.Kevin Garnett. We finally see what having good teammates allows a Kevin Garnett defense to look like. Led the league comfortably. Anchored an all time great defense in the regular season (-8.6 rDrtg).

2.Tim Duncan. Anchored a top 3 defense.

3.Rasheed Wallace. Could have given him a nod in many previous seasons. This season he’s anchoring a top 4 defense so gets a spot.

POY

1.Kevin Garnett. 22.7 pp75 on +4.8 rTS%. Kept volume in playoffs but efficiency eroded to league average. Team rOrtg was +2.7 (rs). Anchored an all time level defense in regular season. +2.88 OPIPM, +3.99 DPIPM, +6.88 PIPM, 20.27 Wins Added.

2.Kobe Bryant. +4.35 OPIPM, +0.03 DPIPM. +4.38 PIPM. 18.4 Wins Added. Great offensive presence and the high level defense returned.

3.Lebron James. +5.32 OPIPM, +0.9 DPIPM. +6.22 PIPM, 20.42 Wins Added. 29.7 pp75 on +2.8 rTS%. Team rOrtg of -1.5. Scoring and efficiency took a dive in the playoffs, but made a mini leap as a playmaker, and will make another leap next season as a playmaker.

4.Chris Paul. +6.04 OPIPM, -0.33 DPIPM, +5.71 PIPM. 18.59 Wins Added. OPOY, who was a pesky guard defender.

5.Steve Nash. +5.62 OPIPM, -1 DPIPM, +4.62 PIPM. 13.7 Wins Added. 2nd OPOY, just a shame they traded for Shaq. Dirk is the HM. I tried, but couldn’t quite fit him in.

[jjgp111292]

Kobe's performance in the Western conference playoffs is probably the best of his career, even 2001. But KGs impact on Boston as a whole is just insane.

LeBrons jumpshooting woes from 2006-07 continue but whatever the hell was affecting his motor and engagement that season is nonexistent here. Aside from the 2012 Finals, this year is peak LeBully Ball. Playmaking also goes up a level as hes figured out how to balance high level scoring and passing. Continues his progression as a defender and becomes a big threat as a weakside shotblocker. We're pretty much 9/10ths of the way there to prime Bron. He was pretty bad most of the Boston series though, aside from the fourth quarter of Game 6 and then all of Game 7.

Interestingly, after the trade deadline we see a skeleton of what the Cavs would become the next year, roster-wise.

[AEnigma]

Defensive Player of the Year

1. Kevin Garnett
2. Tim Duncan
3. Dwight Howard
HM: Tyson Chandler

Garnett did miss a fair bit of time, but the championship Celtics were such a significant outlier with him that it does not matter. This year he reaps the benefits of finally being on an strong team, after years of potential contention were wasted in Minnesota.

Duncan is at the end of his prime; however, with the next generation still rounding into form, he is an easy runner-up as the anchor of an elite conference finals defence.

Taking Howard over Chandler because of greater confidence in his prime value (which does apply to this year) and more minutes played. Chandler is often under-appreciated though, and we see his impact next year when the Hornets sink without him (30-15, +3.4 with; 19-18, -0.5 without).

Offensive Player of the Year

1. Kobe Bryant
2. Chris Paul
3. Steve Nash
HM: Deron Williams

Maybe the argument is that the surrounding roster was so much worse. First, not everyone thought so. Second, the Lakers still did run their offence significantly through Kobe, and while I do not think his creations were as valuable as Paul’s were, I think the team’s offensive struggles can only mildly be attributed to that disparity — especially with Pau, who was outright stifled by Duncan in a relatively inexcusable way. David West impressed a lot more than Pau did at basically everything other than playmaking out of the post (where he was still at least comparable).

I think if you are truly enamoured with Paul as a playmaker — I am not, but many are — you could call it reasonably close through five respective games (which the Lakers won 4-1 and the Hornets led 3-2, but could have been 3-2 for the Lakers as well with slightly worse shooting variance in Game 1). However, Paul did not play to that level in the final two games, and that has to weigh against him seeing as it removed any real hope his team had of closing out the series.

Nash had the best regular season, but his postseason was too disappointing to reward more than this. I like Deron, but he would have needed a head-to-head advantage over Kobe to crack the top three. Without any significant wins or accomplishments, I am leaving Lebron off; his true offensive leap occurs next year.

Player of the Year

1. Kobe Bryant
2. Kevin Garnett
3. Lebron James
4. Chris Paul
5. Tim Duncan

Tim Duncan remaining the best player on a conference finalist (and top five team generally) makes him an easy fifth place choice. Chris Paul impressed more in their series, but ultimately it is just another semifinals loss to a non-finalist, and I do not think this season was as much of a surprise as many did — as Dirty Dez mentions on the next page, this is an exceptionally well-designed starting lineup for a point guard.

That leaves the top trio. Could pre-2009 Lebron dominate the 2008 Spurs the way Kobe did? I do not think 2007 is an especially positive indicator that he could. So the argument is that his defence and playmaking would make up for it, and that is mostly theoretical. If Lebron had been a 7-seed and upset the Pistons then I probably would be giving him more serious consideration, because that would be a better win than any of Kobe’s. As it stands, his only achievement for the season was losing the closest series against the champions — and if we want to say that gives him a strong argument over Kobe, then that leads us to some truly ludicrous reasoning next year. More defensible is the sentiment that Lebron individually outperformed Kobe against their common opponent, and if that is all people need to see to vote Lebron at the top, okay, but for me the achievements of the season matter more than something as subjective and indeterminate as that. And with Lebron having none, and Garnett not even looking like the definite team standout in the Finals on a roster which next year shows could compete for the semifinals without him, Kobe threads the needle as the season’s defining player.

[Djoker]

Some initial thoughts...

Kobe #1 KG #2 I'm pretty set on. Lakers played like a 53-win team (+4.1 SRS) before the Gasol trade and then at a whopping 66-win pace (+9.7 SRS) after the trade. The Lakers were clicking on all cylinders. Kobe was the deserved MVP as the biggest singular force on an elite team. KG was also huge for Boston which had a monster 65-win pace (+9.31 SRS) season. He changed the culture of that team and gave them a defensive identity. In the Finals, the Celtics were healthier (no Bynum or Ariza for LA) and had homecourt. LA had to start Radmanovic at SF. Those two teams were a class above everyone else in the league. KG had PP and Allen and wasn't so clearly the best player in Boston as Kobe in LA but make no mistake; he was still the most important piece thanks to his two-way impact.

Then CP3 vs. Lebron and I'm leaning CP3. I'm super impressed with CP3's season. Honestly after his injuries he was never the same player to me and 2008 may have been his peak. He carried a decent (wouldn't even say good) roster to 57-win pace (+5.46 SRS) in the RS so he has an MVP case. In the PS, he played really well even though they lost to the Spurs. +4.0 rORtg in the RS and +7.8 rORtg in the PS is fantastic with that cast.

Lebron's Cavs had a rough RS playing at a 39-win pace (-0.53 SRS) with a -1.5 rORtg. LBJ himself had a strong season statistically but this was a disappointment compared to 2006 and 2007. His PS was also a mixed bag with a strong Wizards series and then a memorable Game 7 against Boston but he also had several really poor games in the Boston series. His series averages were 26.7/6.4/7.6 on -2.8 rTS with 5.3 topg. Thanks to defense (+0.8 rORtg, -7.8 rDRtg), the underdog Cavs thrived in the second season and pushed the C's to the brink and overcame those poor performances. I like CP3's PS more than I like Lebron's PS and same for the RS. He just played at a higher level. In 2009, Lebron would take a huge leap forward.

Fifth spot may go to Duncan.

[IlikeSHAIguys]

1 - Lebron James
2 - Kevin Garnett
3 - Chris Paul
4 - Kobe Bryant
5 - Tim Duncan

This seems sorta obvious? The person putting Kobe ahead lists out their scoring basically being the same and then just ignores Lebron's a way better passer and defender and even scoring better vs the same team. And then for KG it's wow look at the impact and Lebron's team doesn't even win once when he's out? Between all the talk about how MJ was actually as good at playmaking and the wow lets blame lebron for when his team loses when he's gone and the but the Cavs stopped trying to win at some point after losing a bunch it seems like people are trying way too hard to take him down. He's got the best stats probably and lots of people have actually posted games and stuff showing awesome playmaking and defending while the other people have just been like wow here's a number from ben taylor saying he's not. And he's like this close to beating the champs despite having the least help and has better stats than Kobe vs them too. I guess you could just be like but KG has crazy defense and they have the best defense and they win with the best defense but someone explain to me how Kobe can be better when Lebron stats are better and his impact id better and he's a better defender and he and his team does better against the same team with no help?

I don't know for sure about this like KG's stats are pretty weak and they didn't just trade for KG but their defense is awesome and KG's been an awesome defender according to everyone and 40 points in a close out game is alot. I voted Duncan high alot and I guess his stats weren't always amazing but KG not even being named finals MVP or considered the duh best player just makes me a wonder a little.

I think oneanddone made good points on Kobe's help being pretty good and the Lakers being stacked so I'm not really feeling like woah he beat the spurs and chris paul didn't automatically puts him higher. Especially when he chokes that badly vs KG. Seriously in 2007 we're like wow Lebron sucked vs the Spurs because of his scoring even though his defense and playmaking is awesome. Well okay but if Kobe's scoring just sucks vs Boston and he isn't doing the same passing or defense then I can't really be like wow let's ignore this. CP3's stats are honestly better looking to me and my vibe from this project is playmaking is a little better than scoring and I don't feel like 22/10 on good true-shooting means he choked just because he lost with less help.

Kobe really choked with a great team and all. Chris Paul just lost and I feel like that's different.

Duncan has to dropgetting beat that bad and shooting sub 50 true shooting but I don't feel like he just went from best or 2nd best to a scrub in a year and he did led the spurs to the conference finals in the really tough west anyway

Defensive Player of the Year
1 - Kevin Garnett
2 - Tim Duncan
3 - Dwight Howard

Offensive Player of the Year
1 - Lebron James
2 - Steve Nash
3 - Chris Paul

[One_and_Done]

Was Nash as good this year as previous years? Pretty much. But he's being dropped below Kobe because Kobe's Lakers got Pau. Not seeing the logic with that at all. I don't think Kobe played much better in 08 than the previous 2 seasons. His finals was pretty poor.

The Suns were 34-14 before they foolishly traded for Shaq. They closed the season 21-13. It feels like Nash is being punished for his front office sucking.

[AEnigma]

Feels like you are very transparently only looking at one series for Kobe and disregarding the superb three others.

Nash had a great regular season, but his performance against the Spurs was the worst of his Suns prime.

[Cavsfansince84]

Some initial thoughts...
Lebron's Cavs had a rough RS playing at a 39-win pace (-0.53 SRS) with a -1.5 rORtg. LBJ himself had a strong season statistically but this was a disappointment compared to 2006 and 2007. His PS was also a mixed bag with a strong Wizards series and then a memorable Game 7 against Boston but he also had several really poor games in the Boston series. His series averages were 26.7/6.4/7.6 on -2.8 rTS with 5.3 topg. Thanks to defense (+0.8 rORtg, -7.8 rDRtg), the underdog Cavs thrived in the second season and pushed the C's to the brink and overcame those poor performances. I like CP3's PS more than I like Lebron's PS and same for the RS. He just played at a higher level. In 2009, Lebron would take a huge leap forward.

Fifth spot may go to Duncan.

Regarding the bolded I'm a bit confused. Despite posting career highs in nearly every stat(including a scoring title) and continuing to improve on defense you are saying he was a disappointment compared to 06&07? I'm guessing this is due to the Cavs having a negative srs that year? If that's the case you might want to go look at games played for the Cavs that season and notice how LeBron and big Z were the only Cavs rotation players who didn't miss 30+ games and the only Cav besides LeBron who posted a positive BPM was Delonte West(who only played 26 games for us). So maybe consider that when comparing LeBron this year compared to prior years because I think this is the year where he put it all together and became LeBron. Next year he has arguably the best rs of all time(obviously debatable but you get my point).

[lessthanjake]

I don’t think there’s a particularly strong candidate this year.

The best players on the finalists were Kobe and Garnett, so we’ll start with them. Kobe was good, but it wasn’t a peak regular season for him IMO. He was great in the first three rounds of the playoffs and that’s definitely the best part of his case here. But then he had a pretty rough Finals in terms of shooting, and his team lost.

Garnett was good and definitely very impactful. We can’t do any real WOWY analysis here given that the team brought in Allen too, but I do think it’s safe to say Garnett was the most impactful player on the team. And the Celtics had a great regular season. However, Garnett’s box numbers were significantly down. Partly this is a natural consequence of being on a team with more talent, but his minutes were also significantly scaled down and this wasn’t actually peak Garnett. Garnett was pretty good in the first three rounds of the playoffs, but nothing overly special, while his team struggled more than it probably should have. And then, like Kobe, Garnett had a pretty rough Finals offensively. But Garnett’s team did win the Finals, and that matters. The Celtics title win was seen at the time as more of a three-headed monster than a team really led by Garnett. I do think in retrospect that was a bit wrong and that Garnett was their best player, but it’s *a little* different to me than a situation where there’s a clear-cut #1 guy on a title team.

So neither of those guys have an airtight case. I’m torn on which one I’d have above the other. I know Kobe felt to me at the time like the more significant player that year, but in the end Garnett won the title and I think was probably actually more impactful. So maybe I’d go with Garnett over Kobe, but it’s not an easy choice.

Beyond those guys, I think the best two players in the regular season were LeBron and Chris Paul. LeBron had a good series against the Wizards, but had a very rough series against the Celtics, in a loss (though, to his credit, his Game 7 performance was really good). Can’t really fault him much for losing to the Celtics, since they were the better team, but the performance itself was definitely subpar and that does matter for POY purposes. As does the fact that he lost in the second round of the playoffs, even if it was understandable. Chris Paul had a good series against the Mavs, and then was good but not spectacular against the Spurs in a 7-game loss. I think overall I’d have Chris Paul above LeBron. While he did have more talent on his team IMO, he led them to an SRS that was 6 points higher (and they won 11 more games). Meanwhile, beating the Mavericks was significantly more impressive than beating the Wizards, and I think Chris Paul was better against the Spurs than LeBron was against the Celtics (though that fact is tempered a bit by the Celtics being a better team than the Spurs, even though the Spurs were definitely good).

After that, there’s some guys like Dirk, Duncan, and Nash vying for 5th place, but I don’t think any of them are above the aforementioned four guys.

So then the question is how to order Garnett, Kobe, Chris Paul, and LeBron. I mentioned that I have Garnett and Kobe very close, but maybe am leaning Garnett. And I mentioned that I have Chris Paul above LeBron. But that doesn’t totally answer things. I’m actually kind of tempted to have Chris Paul at #1. It feels to me like he was the best player in the regular season, and this was backed up by his EPM being pretty easily the highest. He then had the highest EPM in the playoffs too. I think he was the best player in the NBA this year. But I’m not sure, because team results matter to me a lot in this, and Garnett and Kobe did win the Finals and make the Finals, while Chris Paul lost in the second round. Is this a year where the case for the guys who went further in the playoffs is weak enough that a guy who’s the best player in the NBA but on a lesser team is the POY? Maybe! I guess my instinct is probably to still go Garnett #1, Chris Paul #2, Kobe #3, and LeBron #4. But that top 3 is all really close for me, and LeBron is not super far off any of them.

[Djoker]

Some initial thoughts...
Lebron's Cavs had a rough RS playing at a 39-win pace (-0.53 SRS) with a -1.5 rORtg. LBJ himself had a strong season statistically but this was a disappointment compared to 2006 and 2007. His PS was also a mixed bag with a strong Wizards series and then a memorable Game 7 against Boston but he also had several really poor games in the Boston series. His series averages were 26.7/6.4/7.6 on -2.8 rTS with 5.3 topg. Thanks to defense (+0.8 rORtg, -7.8 rDRtg), the underdog Cavs thrived in the second season and pushed the C's to the brink and overcame those poor performances. I like CP3's PS more than I like Lebron's PS and same for the RS. He just played at a higher level. In 2009, Lebron would take a huge leap forward.

Fifth spot may go to Duncan.

Regarding the bolded I'm a bit confused. Despite posting career highs in nearly every stat(including a scoring title) and continuing to improve on defense you are saying he was a disappointment compared to 06&07. I'm guessing this is due to the Cavs having a negative srs that year? If that's the case you might want to go look at games played for the Cavs that season and notice how LeBron and big Z were the only Cavs rotation players who didn't miss 30+ games and the only Cav besides LeBron who posted a positive BPM was Delonte West(who only played 26 games for us). So maybe consider that when comparing LeBron this year compared to prior years because I think this is the year where he put it all together and became LeBron. Next year he has arguably the best rs of all time(obviously debatable but you get my point).

He posted career highs in rebounds and blocks. I don't think his season was statistically better than 2006 though he did play better defense. And yes I was clearly referring to team performance when saying it was disappointing. The injuries are there but 39-win pace is still really poor for POY purposes. And I think Lebron became Lebron in 2009. He really took a huge leap.

[One_and_Done]

The Cavs were 0-7 without Lebron this year, and that undersells how terrible they looked without him. From 08-10 the Cavs were a pitiful 1-13 minus Lebron. In that context, him losing in 7 games to the champs strikes me as mostly meaningless.

[Cavsfansince84]

He posted career highs in rebounds and blocks. I don't think his season was statistically better than 2006 though he did play better defense. And yes I was clearly referring to team performance when saying it was disappointing. The injuries are there but 39-win pace is still really poor for POY purposes. And I think Lebron became Lebron in 2009. He really took a huge leap.

Also in fg%, tied for high in apg and in terms of bpm it was by far his highest to date and actually tied for the 4th highest of his career. Having watched a ton of early LeBron I think he'd obviously turned a corner that year. Also when you cling to calling them a 39 win team by srs despite the fact they actually won 45 it comes across as a bit disingenuous. Do w/e you want though, its just calling his 08 season disappointing when by probably any metric you can find it is like top 40 all time seemed strange to me and then also when the team result is so obviously tied to injuries. It was similar to the season Jokic had a couple of seasons ago where his team was totally depleted with injuries and he still led them to 48 wins.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

I've got Garnett, LeBron, Kobe, and CP3 for four of my top 5. So here's my question: Does anyone think Pierce has a case for the #5 spot over Nash/Dirk/Duncan? I'm not sure, but I'd point out the following:

("Top 5 candidates" refers to the pool of players I was looking at to take my Top 5 from - LeBron, Garnett, CP3, Kobe, Pierce, Dirk, Duncan, Nash, Manu, Pau, Wade, and Dwight).

1. He was tied with CP3 at #3 in PIPM wins added amongst Top 5 candidates(18.59, with Garnett[20.27] and LeBron(20.42] ahead).

2. He was #6 in actual PIPM amongst Top 5 candidates(and that's including Dwight, who hasn't gotten any serious consideration yet), at 4.71 with Garnett, LeBron, CP3, Dirk, and Dwight above him.

3. He was #5 amongst Top 5 candidates in RS on/off, at +9.8, with Nash, Dirk, Garnett, and LeBron ahead of him.

4. Whereas Dirk and Nash fell in the first round(with Nash in particular not playing very well against the Spurs), and Duncan also had a fairly pedestrian playoffs by his standards going by on/off(+2.6 is the lowest positive PO on/off of his career, though he has some negative on/offs too), Pierce was the #2 on a championship team, putting up good numbers all around.

5. He was #7 amongst Top 5 candidates in PO on/off, at +8.6, with LeBron, Garnett, Pau, Dirk, CP3, and Kobe ahead of him.

6. He won Game 7 vs the Cavs for his team, vs a huge LeBron performance. LeBron came very, very close to eliminating Boston's Big 3 with little help; whereas the Celtics blew the Hawks off the court by 34 in Game 7 of that series, this Game 7 was decided by 5 points. Pierce recorded 41 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds, and 2 steals on 13/23 shots(56.5% FG), 4/6 3P, 11/12 FT, with 7 of those 13 FGs being made against LeBron. With less than a minute left and the Celtics up 3, a jump ball became a loose ball and Pierce dove on the floor and got to the ball and called a timeout; the Cavs get the ball there, that could change the outcome of the series. Then it became a FT contest, and with the Celtics up 3 - only one possession - Pierce iced his last two FTs to put the Celtics up 5(though he got a lucky bounce on one of them). Pierce doesn't have that game, we're sitting here talking about how LeBron beat the Celtics Big 3 by himself and where KG ranks on the all-time ringless list.

7. He won the Finals MVP. That's not an automatic get-into-the-top-5 card(Billups and Parker didn't make it), but I think Pierce deserved it for that series.

8. He was the #10 RAPM in the league in JE's RS+PO set, at 4.87.

It's probably a tough sell, and I'm sure you guys are going to credit Garnett for some of this stuff(hey, I've got him at #1), but I feel like with all of this together, there's an argument.

[One_and_Done]

I've got Garnett, LeBron, Kobe, and CP3 for four of my top 5. So here's my question: Does anyone think Pierce has a case for the #5 spot over Nash/Dirk/Duncan? I'm not sure, but I'd point out the following:

("Top 5 candidates" refers to the pool of players I was looking at to take my Top 5 from - LeBron, Garnett, CP3, Kobe, Pierce, Dirk, Duncan, Nash, Manu, Pau, Wade, and Dwight).

1. He was tied with CP3 at #3 in PIPM wins added amongst Top 5 candidates(18.59, with Garnett[20.27] and LeBron(20.42] ahead).

2. He was #6 in actual PIPM amongst Top 5 candidates(and that's including Dwight, who hasn't gotten any serious consideration yet), at 4.71 with Garnett, LeBron, CP3, Dirk, and Dwight above him.

3. He was #5 amongst Top 5 candidates in RS on/off, at +9.8, with Nash, Dirk, Garnett, and LeBron ahead of him.

4. Whereas Dirk and Nash fell in the first round(with Nash in particular not playing very well against the Spurs), and Duncan also had a fairly pedestrian playoffs by his standards going by on/off(+2.6 is the lowest positive PO on/off of his career, though he has some negative on/offs too), Pierce was the #2 on a championship team, putting up good numbers all around.

5. He was #7 amongst Top 5 candidates in PO on/off, at +8.6, with LeBron, Garnett, Pau, Dirk, CP3, and Kobe ahead of him.

6. He won Game 7 vs the Cavs for his team, vs a huge LeBron performance. LeBron came very, very close to eliminating Boston's Big 3 with little help; whereas the Celtics blew the Hawks off the court by 34 in Game 7 of that series, this Game 7 was decided by 5 points. Pierce recorded 41 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds, and 2 steals on 13/23 shots(56.5% FG), 4/6 3P, 11/12 FT, with 7 of those 13 FGs being made against LeBron. With less than a minute left and the Celtics up 3, a jump ball became a loose ball and Pierce dove on the floor and got to the ball and called a timeout; the Cavs get the ball there, that could change the outcome of the series. Then it became a FT contest, and with the Celtics up 3 - only one possession - Pierce iced his last two FTs to put the Celtics up 5(though he got a lucky bounce on one of them). Pierce doesn't have that game, we're sitting here talking about how LeBron beat the Celtics Big 3 by himself and where KG ranks on the all-time ringless list.

7. He won the Finals MVP. That's not an automatic get-into-the-top-5 card(Billups and Parker didn't make it), but I think Pierce deserved it for that series.

8. He was the #10 RAPM in the league in JE's RS+PO set, at 4.87.

It's probably a tough sell, and I'm sure you guys are going to credit Garnett for some of this stuff(hey, I've got him at #1), but I feel like with all of this together, there's an argument.

He's not even above Dwight. Honestly, he's not even above Pau, who is significantly better.

[ShaqAttac]

I've got Garnet.

It's probably a tough sell, and I'm sure you guys are going to credit Garnett for some of this stuff(hey, I've got him at #1), but I feel like with all of this together, there's an argument.

if KG 1 and Pierce 5 how Bos getting go 7 vs bron and scrubs or the hawks

[One_and_Done]

I've got Garnet.

It's probably a tough sell, and I'm sure you guys are going to credit Garnett for some of this stuff(hey, I've got him at #1), but I feel like with all of this together, there's an argument.

if KG 1 and Pierce 5 how Bos getting go 7 vs bron and scrubs or the hawks

Sometimes new teams need time to iron out the kinks in their first run together. They took 7 games to put away the 37 win Hawks too. I don't think PP is even close to top 5, but we have seen this movie before. The 04 Pistons were a little shakier than you'd expect in the playoffs too, but by the finals they were clicking and ready.