Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 — Lebron James

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Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 — Lebron James 

Post#1 » by AEnigma » Tue Feb 4, 2025 4:52 am

General Project Discussion Thread

Ballots and Discussion from the Official Player of the Year voting in 2013.

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 players and the top 3 offensive and defensive players of 2012-13.

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 12:00PM EST on Friday, February 7th. 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.
Doctor MJ wrote: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.

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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#2 » by trelos6 » Tue Feb 4, 2025 5:05 am

OPOY

1.Lebron James. 28.1 pp75 on +10.5 rTS%. Team r Ortg of +6.5. Arguably the best playmaker in the league, and a top 5 passer. Playoffs was 25.5, +5. Career year from 3. Midrange was a lot better. He could now score from anywhere.

2.Kevin Durant. 28.2 pp75 on +11.2 rTS%. Team rOrtg of +6.6. Top 15 playmaker in the league, and if you remove lead guards, only trails Lebron and Kobe. Playoffs 27.2, +3.9.

3.Chris Paul. Top 3 playmaker and best passer in the league. 20 pp75 on +5.9 rTS%. Team rOrtg of +4.8. Playoffs 25, +9.8.


DPOY

1.Marc Gasol. Anchors the grit n grind Grizzlies, top 2 defense in the league.

2.Kevin Garnett. He’s getting old but he was still effective.

3.Tim Duncan. Young Paul George, Lebron, there were some great wing defenders. Even Tony Allen was a beast. But old man Duncan was just solid. Anchored a top 3 defense.


POY

1.Lebron James. Candidate for best individual season of all time. No brainer here. +6.32 OPIPM, +1.46 DPIPM. +7.78 PIPM. 24.8 Wins Added. About as complete a player as we will ever see.

2.Kevin Durant. +4.58 OPIPM, +0.61 DPIPM. +5.19 PIPM. 18.1 Wins Added.

3.Chris Paul. +5.55 OPIPM, -0.16 DPIPM. +5.39 PIPM. 13.01 Wins Added.

4.Tim Duncan. 22.6, +1.9 in the regular season. 20.85, -1.2% in playoffs. Old man Duncan was Mr Reliable. Went up against a small ball juggernaut of a team, and just got the rebounds, played great defense, got some solid shots up. Probably would’ve won FMVP if they snuck out the victory in G6. +0.96 OPIPM, +3.38 DPIPM. +4.34 PIPM. 12.87 Wins Added.

5.Marc Gasol. Considered Conley, Curry, Parker and Harden, but kept coming back to Gasol. I think he was an incredibly cerebral player, and still scored at 16.4 pp75 on +2.4 rTS% while providing great defense. +0.55 OPIPM, +4.42 DPIPM. +4.97 PIPM. 17.1 Wins Added.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#3 » by One_and_Done » Tue Feb 4, 2025 5:17 am

Well, this will be Lebron for me again, with it not being particularly close.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#4 » by Djoker » Tue Feb 4, 2025 6:07 am

The gap between Lebron and KD is much narrower than in 2012. KD is starting to make strides as a playmaker and defender.

RS
Lebron: 26.8/8.0/7.3 on +10.5 rTS with 3.0 topg
Durant: 28.1/7.9/4.6 on +11.2 rTS with 3.5 topg

PS
Lebron: 25.9/8.4/6.6 on +7.3 rTS with 3.0 topg
Durant: 30.8/9.0/6.3 on +4.5 rTS with 3.9 topg

Also worth noting that by SRS, OKC was actually the better team than the Heat with 65-win pace (+9.15 SRS) vs. 60-win pace (+7.03 SRS). Wonder how it would have gone if Russ doesn't get hurt in the PS.

Of course still no good reason to take KD over Lebron when the latter is still the better player largely on the back of superior playmaking and won the title. Heck, even if Allen missed that shot, I'd still have Lebron #1 but KD is now an elite player. In 2014, they are neck and neck for me as KD improves even more and Lebron's defense regresses. Likely I will take KD #1 next year but this year definitely still Bron #1.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#5 » by homecourtloss » Tue Feb 4, 2025 2:49 pm

2013 RPoY

1. LeBron. Great regular season and post season despite injury to Wade that changed dynamics for the Heat as evidenced by LeBron’s and the Heat’s numbers without Wade.
Regarding the bolded, this was primarily a function of Wade’s injuries and his presence on court hobbling the offense, i.e., opponents not respecting his shooting, sagging off of him, while Wade didn’t have the other explosive aspects of his game that in the regular season ameliorated for this.

During the regular season: James/Wade paired really well together, +14.4 per 100 possessions on court, 114.4 ORtg, equivalent to about a +8 rORtg, would be the #1 offense in the league by over 3 points per 100 possessions

During the playoffs

2013 Heat ORtg with LeBron on court (960 minutes): 109.9
2013 Heat ORtg with LeBron and Wade on court (678 minutes): 105.0
2013 Heat ORtg with LeBron on, Wade off (282 minutes): 121.8

2013 Heat ORtg vs. Bucks with LeBron on court 115.1
2013 Heat ORtg vs. Bucks with LeBron On, Wade off: 116.8

2013 Heat ORtg vs. Bulls with LeBron on court: 110.1
2013 Heat ORtg vs. Bulls with LeBron on court, Wade off: 118.2

2013 Heat ORtg vs. Pacers with LeBron ON court: 110.6
2013 Heat ORtg vs. Pacers with LeBron on court, Wade off: 121.2

2013 Heat ORtg vs. Spurs with LeBron on court: 106.7
2013 Heat ORtg vs. Spurs with LeBron on court, Wade off: 131.3

His individual numbers with Wade off the court those playoffs:

33.8 inflation adjusted PTS/75 on +7.8 rTS%
8.6 REB/75
8.6 AST/75
1.8 STL/75
1.2 BLK/75 (0.9 at the rim)

All while leading a +17.7 offense


Though still not a near perfect roster like we’ve seen with other teams, the team started to put parts together. +5.8, +10.9, +12.1, and +6.9 rORtg series. The offense was starkly different than what we saw in 2012 when the Heat didn’t shoot threes nor did they shoot threes; as a quick aside, take a look at the 2012 Heat and 2020 Lakers for the “LeBron needs shooters” narrators:

Image

Lastly, the 2013 Spurs were a much better team than what most remember:

Spoiler:
2013 Spurs are underrated by most because they’re seen as the lesser team (rightfully) than the great 2014 team, but the 2013 SAS were really, really good in their own right. Obviously Duncan was at his peak in 2003, but the 2013 Spurs were overall a better team.

Sansterre has a great writeup of the 2013 team ‪[url]https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2042247‬[/url], #21 on his top 100 list.

Consider that 2013 team was a +6.7 SRS team with these regular season minutes:

Duncan, 69 games, 30 mpg (a much stronger version of Duncan compared to 2014 at least in the regular season)
Parker, 66 games, 32 mpg
Manu, 60 games, 23 mpg
Kawhi, 58 games, 31 mpg

58 games won, +6.7 SRS with this many missing games and so few minutes played relative to other teams’ best players’ minutes.

2013 was a 63+ win, 8+ SRS team in disguise.


2. KD. Great year though the impact profile isn’t the strongest. Would have been interesting to see them with Russ.
3. CP3. You can see all the pieces falling in place for Paul to have his monster two-way impact run. His playoffs again Ho,d him back.
4. Duncan. Old man Duncan still a defensive force and the best player on basically an 8+ SRS team in disguise (see above)
5. Marc Gasol. Could also go with Russ, Kobe, maybe even Conley who had a great year.
lessthanjake wrote:Kyrie was extremely impactful without LeBron, and basically had zero impact whatsoever if LeBron was on the court.

lessthanjake wrote: By playing in a way that prevents Kyrie from getting much impact, LeBron ensures that controlling for Kyrie has limited effect…
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#6 » by ceoofkobefans » Tue Feb 4, 2025 3:26 pm

The big thing for me this year is how to judge Kobe since if we’re looking at the RS it’s hard for me to argue against him being top 5 but he misses the playoffs due to injury so that might be enough to kick him out of the top 5

At least Melo will be able to make a ballot this year 13 Melo is amazing and this is a weaker year
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#7 » by tsherkin » Tue Feb 4, 2025 3:32 pm

MVP Lebron (again), 2nd in the DPOY vote, 27/8/7 type season, shot what was at the time a career-high of 60.2% inside the arc. One of his last reasonable FT shooting seasons. 40.6% from 3. Arguably the best individual RS of his career, and a pretty awesome playoff run as well. Led the league in a wide variety of stats and crushed heads in the playoffs.

Opening round against the Bucks, he "only" scored 24.5 ppg, but did it on 67.9% TS because he shot 62.7% from the field. At 90.7 poss/g for the Heat, too, so it's not like he was doing it all in transition (though obviously here and there). He was such a monster in that series.

Then against Chicago, he was much more mortal, but hitting threes and shooting almost 81% at the line. Game 5 wasn't his finest, especially at the end, but they got it done.

Obliterated the Pacers, shooting over 40% from three and over 51% from the field. His first big scoring series of the playoffs. Ray had a rough series. Bosh didn't do a lot but hit the 3 from the right corner, Wade was a little rough. Lebron was rocking over 43 mpg. And they traded big wins at the end of the series, which worked out for Miami. Lebron put the nail in the coffin in Game 7.

Finals were a little rough, not his best work, but that was a San Antonio defense with Duncan and Kawhi, and Duncan still had the juice to be a 19/12 guy over 36 mpg. Kawhi was still a defensive roleplayer at that point, in his second season, but still. Lebron was hitting the 3 and hitting his FTs, but struggling to dominate inside the arc, but he brought it pretty hard in three of the last 4 games, including the last 2. He had nearly 70% TS in Game 7, rocking 37/12/4, and putting down 9 points in the fourth. From about 9:45 remaining with Miami up by 3, he had an answer for everything San Antonio tried. He was winning jump balls, drawing fouls, hit three long jumpers, etc, etc. He closed them out quite effectively while they tried to come back. Not-Lebron was 5/14 in the 4th, and that's WITH Shane Battier going 2/4.


Anyway, that's mostly just recitation of the past. But basically, he killed it in the RS and had a nice PS, and had a bunch of clutch moments. Was hitting 3s, jumpers, post-ups, making his FTs.. it was a season where none of the usual criticisms of Lebron applied and in which he was a statistical monster, leading the league across a wide panel of categories. He was pretty clearly the best player in the league at the time, and that was pretty well-established during the season itself. And then he put the stamp on it with the defeat of San Antonio.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#8 » by AEnigma » Tue Feb 4, 2025 5:55 pm

Defensive Player of the Year

1. Marc Gasol
2. Tim Duncan
3. Paul George


Easy top choice and runner-up for me this year. Marc was by pretty much any reasonable measure in discussion for most impactful defender in the league, played more minutes than any other big man contender, anchored a top two defence, and led a conference finals run. Duncan in turn was also highly impactful (setting a regular season career high in block rate at age 36), anchored a top three defence, and was a shot away from winning the title. Minutes is a significant weakness for him relative to Marc, but not relative to other contending bigs — none of whom even won a series.

I was pondering options for third because of the fact most top bigs other than Marc missed a lot of time this year, without a 2013 Duncan / 2010 Garnett postseason run to offset it. One exception to that trend in minutes was Dwight, but I do not think Dwight deserves any particular reward for how that Lakers season went. That all opens a potential spot for a non-big, and among them I am looking at either Lebron or Paul George, who both had strong postseason runs of their own. And seeing as the Pacers were the league’s best defence, and George did play (slightly) more than Lebron did this year, I suppose that is enough for me to decide on George to occupy that final spot.

Offensive Player of the Year

1. Lebron James
2. Chris Paul
3. Kevin Durant


Same top two as last year (and probably next year). Not too much different for Paul; his regular season scoring dipped, but that was circumstantial, and even though this time the series ended with a loss, I was more impressed by his offence against a better version of the Grizzlies team he beat last year. Lebron meanwhile was further improved, reaching historic new heights in scoring efficiency and taking on a larger share of the team’s playmaking. The Spurs did a good job limiting him for the first few games, but by the end he was once again dictating the series and securing another title.

I thought Durant was grossly over-rewarded by this voting bloc last year. However, the narrative around him as a player this year has frequently been too critical. The postseason was a disappointment depending on how much you felt/knew Westbrook provided to the team, but what it really came down to was 93 disappointing minutes. Without Westbrook, Durant played 9 postseason games this year. Without Westbrook, Durant went 2-2 (+0.8) against a good Rockets team and 1-4 (-4) against a better Grizzlies team. The first Grizzlies loss has no real blame on him: the Grizzlies mounted a furious fourth quarter comeback, and although Durant hardly helped the defensive bleeding, he was doing what he could to keep pace on offence. Two games into the semifinals, Durant still looks every bit the part of “world’s second-best player”.

Then the Thunder head to Memphis. The second loss is more on him for a terrible second half (after a strong first half), and the third loss followed a similar path. With four and a half minutes left in the third quarter of Game 4, the Thunder led by 9. Durant at that point had provided 22 points on 8 of 13 from the field and 4 of 4 from the line. For the rest of the game, he provided 5 total points on 2 of 14 from the field and 1 of 3 from the line, as the Grizzlies brought the game to overtime and ultimately won by 6. That collapse carried over to an abominable Game 5, where the Thunder lost by 4 as Durant only made 5 of 21 shots, turned the ball over ~7 times, and continued his uncharacteristically mediocre free throw shooting (11 of 15).

Because of the sample size involved, that all significantly drags down his overall postseason averages. Through say 7.7 games without Westbrook, Durant was averaging 32.5/9.9/6.1 on 62.9% true shooting per game, which looks a lot like his 2014 Westbrook-less numbers. He plummeted at an inopportune time, but seeing as it did not exactly cost his team a title — they were never beating the Spurs without Westbrook, and who knows if they even close out the series against the Grizzlies — I can only really penalise him for two or two and a half games of atrocious scoring (after halftime of Game 3, he scored 57 total points on 43.16% true shooting… and that was with a strong first two and a half quarters in Game 4 providing a highly efficient 22 points to that total).

Player of the Year

1. Lebron James
2. Kevin Durant
3. Tim Duncan
4. Chris Paul
5. Marc Gasol
HM: Kobe Bryant

colts18 wrote:2013 LeBron gets underrated because of the context of the situation he faced. 2013 LeBron was facing one of the toughest defensive playoffs ever for a superstar. Going against young Jimmy Butler, Paul George, and Kawhi who were all hungry athletic defensive stoppers. Then he had to go against Joakim Noah, Roy Hibbert, and Tim Duncan, the top 3 defensive rim protectors in the league. The #1, #3, and #6 defenses in the league. There has never been a wing player who to go against a tougher defensive slate. Even his 1st round against Milwaukee was no joke as he had to face Mbah a Moute and Peak Larry Sanders. He did all of that while playing with a hobbled Dwyane Wade who had to get his knees drained during the finals.

Then to top it off LeBron was a legit DPOY candidate in 2013. His finals defensive performance was underrated. He completely shut down Tony Parker when he guarded him. Everyone knows that LeBron scored 37 Points in Game 7 and hit the game clinching shot. What's forgotten is that LeBron was guarding Tony Parker for the whole 2nd half. Do you know what Tony Parker's stats was for the 2nd half? 0 Points, 1 Assists, 2 Turnovers, 0 Rebounds. Completely taken out of the picture by LeBron. He was scared to attack LeBron. This is peak Tony Parker who finished 6th in MVP voting.
letskissbro wrote:Many knock this season for his postseason dip, I used to myself, but I've become more forgiving the last few years as I've come to understand it as a situational drop and symptomatic of sharing the floor with Wade, who was a ball dominant guard with basically no off-ball utility.

With Wade off the floor in the 2013 playoffs LeBron averaged

33.8 IA PTS/75 on +7.8 rTS%
8.6 REB/75
8.6 AST/75
1.8 STL/75
1.2 BLK/75 (0.9 at the rim)

He propelled the Heat to a +17.7 rORtg in these minutes as well (would be the best all time). Even against the Spurs, the series that people remember for LeBron struggling, Miami fielded an insane 131.3 offensive rating with LeBron on the court and Wade off.

Sample size is 282 minutes. If that isn't large enough he averaged 36.5 per 75 on +7.8 rTS% across his entire 3 year peak in Miami from 2012-2014. That's 703 minutes which roughly amounts to 18 games. These numbers are consistent with the regular season too.

Playing off the ball with another ball dominant slasher, while effective enough to win 2 championships, actually was not the most optimal strategy for the Heat and suppressed his raw numbers and impact. If LeBron had the opportunity to play with an off ball motion shooter like Klay or a star guard who could pass and shoot like Kyle Lowry as examples he realistically could've been putting up 2009/2018 playoff numbers every season of his prime.

Some might point this out as a criticism of LeBron's portability but I think Wade's own portability issues get unfairly attributed to LeBron. LeBron himself has shown to mesh well with basically any archetype of player outside of ball dominant, non-shooting guards like Wade or Westbrook. He and Bosh were extremely effective as a duo and worked well off of each other but this was ruined when Wade was on the court. Portability absolutely matters when it comes to secondary stars and role players but it's pretty overrated to me when talking about superstars because teams typically construct their rosters with their best player's strengths and weaknesses in mind.

LeBron gets a bad rap off the ball. He's an elite roll man, an elite secondary passer, the best cutter in the league when he actually gets the opportunity to play with good passers, a great post player, and shot 40% on catch and shoot 3s in Miami. He actually shot a higher percentage on perimeter shots than MVP Kevin Durant as well, 42.5% to 40.8%. If this doesn't constitute elite off-ball play then I don't know what could outside of running around off the ball and shooting 3s like Reggie Miller.

Wrote plenty about Durant already; stays locked in that #2 spot, with a brutal scoring slump midway through the Grizzlies series insufficient to change his position. Paul was a relative consensus top three among the 2013 voters, and…. Ahhh… he was again pretty irrelevant to the story of the season (the Grizzlies did manage to win a round after beating Paul, but they were still ultimately swept by a non-champion). I know Duncan was more frequently argued as a potential 1b to Parker, but that means little to me when Paul was playing next to Blake Griffin. Either way I end up with an underwhelming choice for third, but at least with Duncan I can say that yes, he was an essential part of any decent recollection of the season and managed a season on par with what Garnett did last year (when the majority of us had him top three and a couple even put him top two).

Kobe had an admirable regular season, but I cannot put him on this ballot with a missed postseason. Paul George will be a strong candidate for me next year, but he took a little too long to truly come into his own as a first option this year. Similar story for Steph, whose breakout in the last third of the season earned a lot of attention on this board… but nevertheless ended with some ugly slumps against the Spurs more in line with the player we saw at the beginning of the season, or an otherwise “mere” all-star player like Lillard or DWill. So my decision for the fifth spot is between Carmelo and Marc, and although I associate this season more with Carmelo, the combination of Knicks media and the infamous first place MVP vote probably has an outsized effect on that enduring impression. If he had played a complete season, then perhaps I could make a stronger case for him; however, tough for me (and evidently anyone) to advocate for him when he missed fifteen games on top of a bad impact profile and a postseason run only notable because the Knicks had been (and would return to) a long drought of any postseason success. Therefore, the beneficiary is Marc, who in what I assess as his peak season was atop ten player all year and led the Grizzlies to their only (to date) conference finals.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#9 » by f4p » Tue Feb 4, 2025 6:53 pm

What's the most years someone has won in a row so far on the project (is there a list of the results?). Seems hard to see how LeBron won't get 7 in a row.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#10 » by AEnigma » Tue Feb 4, 2025 7:04 pm

f4p wrote:What's the most years someone has won in a row so far on the project (is there a list of the results?). Seems hard to see how LeBron won't get 7 in a row.

Main thread is pinned at the top of the board. Bill Russell won 8 consecutive from 1959-66. Kareem won 10 of 11 from 1970-80 with a break for 1975 right in the middle; not consecutive, but felt it was worth noting.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#11 » by tsherkin » Tue Feb 4, 2025 7:07 pm

AEnigma wrote:
f4p wrote:What's the most years someone has won in a row so far on the project (is there a list of the results?). Seems hard to see how LeBron won't get 7 in a row.

Main thread is pinned at the top of the board. Bill Russell won 8 consecutive from 1959-66. Kareem won 10 of 11 from 1970-80 with a break for 1975 right in the middle; not consecutive, but felt it was worth noting.


Nice.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#12 » by lessthanjake » Tue Feb 4, 2025 9:08 pm

This one is really similar to last year. The league is in a weak period at the top end. The older generation is naturally even more diminished this year, while guys like Steph and Kawhi haven’t quite emerged yet as major stars. Harden has kind of emerged this year, but at best it’s only the very beginning of his prime and meanwhile Dwight had a disappointing year and is probably not really in his prime anymore. Westbrook was emerging a bit already, but he also missed almost all of the playoffs, so is pretty irrelevant. Wade was really good in the RS, but his decline due to injuries definitely was significant by the playoffs, so he’s clearly worse than he was the year before.

This weak period basically means that for the time being, the only major guys that were anywhere near their peak were LeBron, Durant, and Chris Paul. And I think those are my top 3. Amongst those, LeBron is clearly #1. There wasn’t huge separation between them in the RS, but LeBron was solidly the best of the bunch. This is indicated, for instance, by LeBron being ahead in essentially any metric you might look at—sometimes by only a small amount, but sometimes by a solid margin. And, of course, the Heat won 66 games, though it is worth noting that the Thunder had a decently higher SRS and the Clippers weren’t far off the Heat in that regard. Then we get to the playoffs. LeBron wasn’t as good in the 2013 playoffs as he was in the 2012 playoffs IMO. Part of that may be that the degree of difficulty was tougher, with Wade being pretty diminished. Overall, it was not a historic playoffs from him. But it was still good, and he led his team to a title, despite some notable adversity (i.e. Wade not being his best). In terms of opponents, the Heat had a pretty easy road to the Finals, but the Spurs were a difficult opponent once they got there, so it wasn’t exactly abnormally easy overall (for instance, it wasn’t like that 2009 Lakers run I discussed a few threads ago).

So we have LeBron being the best player in the RS and then leading his team to the title while playing well. As always, that sort of case should basically always be our POY, unless there’s something extraordinary from someone else. And there really wasn’t. As discussed, Durant and Chris Paul are the only other real contenders. But Durant went out in the 2nd round of the playoffs. The loss wasn’t really his fault (they were missing Westbrook and he played pretty well), but he could’ve done better and losing in the second round is a knock against him for POY purposes regardless of why it happened. Even worse, Chris Paul went out in the first round, and again he played pretty well but nothing super special. So there’s just no plausible argument that either of those guys got even close to putting together a POY case that would overcome LeBron.

In terms of Durant vs. Chris Paul, I find that to basically be a toss up, but I suppose I’d lean towards Durant, in part just because I’m impressed by the Thunder’s super high SRS. I think Duncan is probably 4th for me. He’s old by this point, but his impact numbers this year were actually very good, and he got perilously close to winning the title. For the 5th spot, I really am not sure at all. Maybe Harden?
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#13 » by Narigo » Wed Feb 5, 2025 12:07 am

f4p wrote: Seems hard to see how LeBron won't get 7 in a row.


Even in 2015? I think Curry was better that year imo
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#14 » by One_and_Done » Wed Feb 5, 2025 12:41 am

Narigo wrote:
f4p wrote: Seems hard to see how LeBron won't get 7 in a row.


Even in 2015? I think Curry was better that year imo

This project stops at 2014. So it won't alter the current 2015 result.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#15 » by IlikeSHAIguys » Wed Feb 5, 2025 1:49 am

1 - Lebron James
2 - Chris Paul
3 - Kevin Durant
4 - Tim Duncan
5 - Steph Curry

Lebron's like the GOAT and 2013 is a year most people say is the best. Can't not be #1. Like if it wasn't for some Knicks homer it would be the first unanimous MVP and there was that winning streak and all that. Only thing I can say is he didn't shoot great vs the Spurs but he was awesome in game 6 and 7 and against the Pacers and he obviously does all this other stuff people don't talk about.

CP3 is like 17/10 in the regular season on 59% true shooting and then is 23/6 on 63% true shooting. I think KD's 28/5 at 64% is better but in the playoffs it's 30/6 at 57%. Feel like I prefer CP3 and he did alot better vs the same team talking stats and the clippers won two instead of one so I think CP3 has to go 2nd.

Spurs almost win and I think Duncan's their best player. Almost 20 points and great defense seems okay for top 5?

I know he's usually empty stats but in 2013 melo scores a bunch and New York win 54 games and beat a good Boston team. His true-shooting is pretty bad though and 1.8 assists makes me think it was more about the defense than him. Steph has alot more assists and alot higher true shooting and he's supposed to be a ok defender so I can't really get around putting Melo higher just because he scored more. I guess Steph didn't win as many games but I feel his team did better in the playoffs anyway.

Defensive Player of the Year

1 - Lebron James
2 - Tim Duncan
3 - Marc Gasol

Offensive Player of the Year

1 - Lebron James
2 - Chris Paul
3 - Kevin Durant
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#16 » by OhayoKD » Wed Feb 5, 2025 3:22 am

Narigo wrote:
f4p wrote: Seems hard to see how LeBron won't get 7 in a row.


Even in 2015? I think Curry was better that year imo

You can argue that pretty well for the regular-season. But Lebron is much better during the playoffs and had all-time impact in the RS anyway.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#17 » by lessthanjake » Wed Feb 5, 2025 4:54 am

OhayoKD wrote:
Narigo wrote:
f4p wrote: Seems hard to see how LeBron won't get 7 in a row.


Even in 2015? I think Curry was better that year imo

You can argue that pretty well for the regular-season. But Lebron is much better during the playoffs and had all-time impact in the RS anyway.


Steph had way higher playoff EPM that year (+5.9 for Steph vs. +2.9 for LeBron). Steph had way higher playoff RAPTOR that year (+8.7 for Steph vs. +4.7 for LeBron). Steph’s vanilla RAPM in the playoffs was higher too, as per TheBasketballDatabase, though playoff RAPM is so noisy that this doesn’t mean much. Steph also had higher BPM in the playoffs (8.8 for Steph vs. 7.9 for LeBron). And more Win Shares and Win Shares per 48 mins in the playoffs. Steph’s playoff AuPM/g was also higher than LeBron’s, as was his Thinking Basketball BPM in the playoffs. Steph’s PIPM was higher than LeBron’s in the playoffs too. The data definitely suggests Steph was better in those playoffs. Which isn’t all that surprising, given that LeBron actually had an abnormally bad shooting playoffs that year—if I recall correctly, he had a negative rTS% in every series that year.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#18 » by OhayoKD » Wed Feb 5, 2025 5:22 am

lessthanjake wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:
Narigo wrote:
Even in 2015? I think Curry was better that year imo

You can argue that pretty well for the regular-season. But Lebron is much better during the playoffs and had all-time impact in the RS anyway.


Steph had way higher playoff EPM that year (+5.9 for Steph vs. +2.9 for LeBron). Steph’s had way higher playoff RAPTOR that year (+8.7 for Steph vs. +4.7 for LeBron).

Lebron James torches Steph in RAPTOR non-box for the year. MAMBA's RAPM also strongly favors Lebron, and there is the matter of a team that consistently played sub-30 basketball when he missed games (including with kyrie and love) going 12-2 in the East with Love missing nearly all of the playoffs, Kyrie being injured for 2 series and barely playing in the conference finals (a blow-out sweep of a 60-win opponent, 50-win by srs), and JR missing games, and then taking a 2-1 lead Steph's 67-win team, which looked on pace to make the conference finals without him the following year.

That Cleveland got better in the playoffs despite Lebron's best teammate missing nearly half of them, and his 2nd best missing nearly all of them while the Warriors got worse despite maintaining health, makes it pretty doubtful to me that Steph, who wasn't significantly advantaged that RS vs Lebron outside of made-up formulas, wasn't lapped in the postseason.



Steph also had higher BPM in the playoffs (8.8 for Steph vs. 7.9 for LeBron). And more Win Shares and Win Shares per 48 mins in the playoffs.

Do you think spamming outputs barely anyone voting cares about is going to make people care about them? Lebron anchored a -5 playoff defense (sans) that had it's second best performance against Steph's Warriors. Despite a comical advantage in terms of help, the Warriors didn't look much better heading into the finals and are potentially losing the finals if not for iggy's insertion and Lebron injuring his head.

And we haven't even gotten to Memphis.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#19 » by lessthanjake » Wed Feb 5, 2025 5:56 am

OhayoKD wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:You can argue that pretty well for the regular-season. But Lebron is much better during the playoffs and had all-time impact in the RS anyway.


Steph had way higher playoff EPM that year (+5.9 for Steph vs. +2.9 for LeBron). Steph’s had way higher playoff RAPTOR that year (+8.7 for Steph vs. +4.7 for LeBron).

Lebron James torches Steph in RAPTOR non-box for the year.


There’s so many problems with this statement that it’s hard to know where to start.

To begin with, it is 100% false. Steph blows LeBron away in 2015 in “RAPTOR non-box” in RS. Steph blows LeBron away in 2015 in “RAPTOR non-box” in the playoffs. And Steph blows LeBron away in 2015 in “RAPTOR non-box” in the combined ‘full season’ version.

And, of course, that’s ignoring the fact that you’re resorting to looking at a component of an overall metric, which is silly. It’s also ignoring that my post was clearly about the playoffs, and was obviously made in response to your statement about the playoffs. You’d already conceded that you can argue “pretty well” that Curry was better in the regular season.

MAMBA's RAPM also strongly favors Lebron,


We don’t have MAMBA’s RAPM output each year, and Steph is ahead in the actual MAMBA metric that year. In any event, my post was about the playoffs, so this is irrelevant since MAMBA is not a playoff metric. Again, you already conceded that you can “pretty well” argue that Curry was better in the regular season.

and there is the matter of a team that consistently played sub-30 basketball when he missed games (including with kyrie and love) going 12-2 in the East with Love missing nearly all of the playoffs, Kyrie being injured for 2 series and barely playing in the conference finals (a blow-out sweep of a 60-win opponent, 50-win by srs), and JR missing games, and then taking a 2-1 lead Steph's 67-win team, which looked on pace to make the conference finals without him the following year.


Of course, maybe that’s because other players you don’t mention actually stepped up and happened to play surprisingly well in the playoffs. That’s actually what the impact metrics tell us. But of course you’d prefer to handwave and give all credit to LeBron, despite box and impact data not suggesting that’s right.

That Cleveland got better in the playoffs despite Lebron's best teammate missing nearly half of them, and his 2nd best missing nearly all of them while the Warriors got worse despite maintaining health, makes it pretty doubtful to me that Steph, who wasn't significantly advantaged that RS vs Lebron outside of made-up formulas, wasn't lapped in the postseason.


Again, you’re just handwaving here. The data doesn’t agree with you at all. It’s really quite the opposite. “These two players were close in the RS, and Player A’s team did better in the playoffs than the RS while Player B’s team did less well in the playoffs than the RS, so Player A must’ve been better in the playoffs” is just obviously absurdly flimsy reasoning. And it’s especially flimsy given that the data on their actual individual playoff performances squarely says the opposite, not to mention that Player B’s team won the title. And that’s not even getting into the fact that this flimsy reasoning relies on the idea that they were close in the RS, when there’s a boatload of data that says the opposite (which you naturally just try to handwave away too).

Steph also had higher BPM in the playoffs (8.8 for Steph vs. 7.9 for LeBron). And more Win Shares and Win Shares per 48 mins in the playoffs.

Do you think spamming outputs barely anyone voting cares about is going to make people care about them? Lebron anchored a -5 playoff defense (sans) that had it's second best performance against Steph's Warriors. Despite a comical advantage in terms of help, the Warriors didn't look much better heading into the finals and are potentially losing the finals if not for iggy's insertion and Lebron injuring his head.

And we haven't even gotten to Memphis.


“Spamming outputs” is otherwise known as marshaling the large amount of evidence that is contrary to your claim. You are not able to marshal any data otherwise, so you just complain that I’ve provided *too much* data that says you’re wrong. Lol.

Anyways, as usual, the idea that LeBron “anchored” the Cavaliers defense is odd. LeBron had a below-average 4.5 rim contests per 100 possessions in those playoffs.

And you can talk about the Warriors “potentially losing the finals” but that’s not what happened, nor was it even particularly close to happening. Maybe if LeBron had *actually* been as good as Steph in those playoffs, then it might’ve happened! We’ll never know though!
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
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Re: Retro Player of the Year 2012-13 

Post#20 » by trelos6 » Wed Feb 5, 2025 7:07 am

Sad to think this project will end next thread.

I have Curry over Lebron in 2015.

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