Retro Player of the Year 2014-15

[Top10alltime]

In hindsight, it seems obvious that Lebron was the best player in the league from 2011.....

Lebron wasn't the best in 2011, that was Dirk, who was the best in 2011...

[Elpolo_14]

In hindsight, it seems obvious that Lebron was the best player in the league from 2011.....

Lebron wasn't the best in 2011, that was Dirk, who was the best in 2011...

What is your argument for that? Or any criteria or reasoning to make you think this way?

[One_and_Done]

In hindsight, it seems obvious that Lebron was the best player in the league from 2011.....

Lebron wasn't the best in 2011, that was Dirk, who was the best in 2011...

I went over my reasoning in the 2011 thread.

[Elpolo_14]

Not a voter on this, but this seems like a shocker to see LBJ winning.. I would’ve thought this was the lock of locks for Curry.

I think it because People who Voted for Curry last time. Aren't available yet so it make an illusion of Lebron winning it by big margin instead of a hard race against Curry. I do think the list will be more tight at the end of the voting time tbh

[IlikeSHAIguys]

okay lets get this out before the finals start...mission failed

lets get this out while i'm in a terrible mood? YAY

1 - Lebron James
2 - Steph Curry
3 - James Harden
4 - Chris Paul Bu
5 - Draymond Green

So Lebron went bananas in the finals with 35/13/8 and great defense and winning 2 games with delly. But reading makes me feel like I underrated the rest of it because of stats and true shooting. Like the Hawks sweep kind of just flew under the radar and honest saying he really only swept and crushed a 50 win team not a 60 win team doesn't really change thats crazy impressive to do with almost no help haha. I don't think curry mega choked or anything but seeing Lebron still having mega impact when he's not taking things seriously or at least people ay he isn't and then the Cavs are still balling in the playoffs with all those injuries? And then you find out the Warriors in the playoffs were like mostly defense? Like Steph won MVP and all those games and a ring so I get voting that way but I think Lebron was better to be completely honest.

Chris Paul goes 19/10 but Harden goes 27/7 on a better True shooting and I think his stats are still better. Also if we're going to call GSW a -10 defense then Harden has to get credit for going 28/6 on like 63% true shooting. It is kind of interesting that the poster who is going in detail and listing his own stats based on eyetest for chris paul is taking cp3 ahead but I don't think it's fair to use that against Harden when we don't know how Harden looks in them. Harden also was 2nd in MVP and guys didn't feel it was some landslide so for now I'm going all in on beards.

Draymond? Yeah I mean if the Warriors won on defense it seems fair to let Draymond get some credit you know? His stats aren't great but he's the best defender in the league and Warriors kind of go off in part because of him so. Guys like Ben Wallace get POY votes so I feel it's alright to give someone like Draymond those too

Defensive Player of the Year

1 - Draymond Green
2 - Lebron James
3 - Kawhi Leonard

Offensive Player of the Year

1 - Steph Curry
2 - James Harden
3 - Lebron James

[Elpolo_14]

It is kind of interesting that the poster who is going in detail and listing his own stats based on eyetest for chris paul is taking cp3 ahead but I don't think it's fair to use that against Harden when we don't know how Harden looks in them. Harden also was 2nd in MVP and guys didn't feel it was some landslide so for now I'm going all in on beards.

Do you base these Two offense on Eyes test or Impact or Maybe Both ( that the best way )? And what do you mean " we don't know how Harden will look in them" what are you implying here? Do you meant we don't know how harden will be with The supporting cast / the system CP3 was usetalise in the Clippers to generate this Offense. because by Impact both Regular Season and Playoff CP cast without him are around the same tier as Harden offensive cast ( a bit better or worse depends on who you ask tho ) but CP was able to uplifted them to a much higher height. Being higher/lower rank in MVP( or any kind of award ) voting is not really a good way to judge ( ex. MJ was top 3 in 1990 and I will say that he was the best player that year )

Also by eyes test both were elite to be fair so if you choose either one I would definitely agree with if that your criteria

Edit: forgot to ask. Why lebron top 2 dpoy

[Top10alltime]

In hindsight, it seems obvious that Lebron was the best player in the league from 2011.....

Lebron wasn't the best in 2011, that was Dirk, who was the best in 2011...

What is your argument for that? Or any criteria or reasoning to make you think this way?

The reason I think this is because lebron disappointed in the playoffs, dirk was better throughout the whole playoffs, not just the finals, as one_and_done states.

Also dirk was a better scorer, and overall offensive player. Lebron will have the defensive edge, but for me it wasn't enough. Wade mightve been better that season too.

[Top10alltime]

In hindsight, it seems obvious that Lebron was the best player in the league from 2011.....

Lebron wasn't the best in 2011, that was Dirk, who was the best in 2011...

I went over my reasoning in the 2011 thread.

Thing is, dirk was better throughout the whole playoffs, not just the finals, where it was made clear to me that lebron wasnt better than dirk.

Lebron might have an RS edge, but it isn't enough to wipe the PO edge from dirk. I can see a case for bron tho....

[One_and_Done]

Lebron wasn't the best in 2011, that was Dirk, who was the best in 2011...

I went over my reasoning in the 2011 thread.

Thing is, dirk was better throughout the whole playoffs, not just the finals, where it was made clear to me that lebron wasnt better than dirk.

Lebron might have an RS edge, but it isn't enough to wipe the PO edge from dirk. I can see a case for bron tho....

Nah, Lebron was better over the course of the PS as a whole.

[Top10alltime]

I went over my reasoning in the 2011 thread.

Thing is, dirk was better throughout the whole playoffs, not just the finals, where it was made clear to me that lebron wasnt better than dirk.

Lebron might have an RS edge, but it isn't enough to wipe the PO edge from dirk. I can see a case for bron tho....

Nah, Lebron was better over the course of the PS as a whole.

What is argument for that??

[One_and_Done]

Thing is, dirk was better throughout the whole playoffs, not just the finals, where it was made clear to me that lebron wasnt better than dirk.

Lebron might have an RS edge, but it isn't enough to wipe the PO edge from dirk. I can see a case for bron tho....

Nah, Lebron was better over the course of the PS as a whole.

What is argument for that??

Go read the 2011 thread.

[lessthanjake]

I think this argument about the Warriors’ rORTG and rDRTG in the playoffs when Steph was on the court is just very weak.

We all watch the playoffs. We know full well that different series have their own tenor, where some are a real grind and some are more of a shootout. A lot of it is how the series is officiated, and some is where the teams are deciding to expend more of their energy, what lineups they decide to lean on, etc. But we all know that this matters a lot, and it’s really not the case that the defense-focused guys must have been more impactful in a grind-it-out series. It’s actually often quite the opposite—where having a guy who is actually able to generate some offense in that situation is the most important thing because offense is so difficult to come by.

The Warriors played in some pretty grindy series in those playoffs. One could go back and watch to see this (or just remember it), but it’s also just pretty obvious looking at the numbers from each series. In their last three series, *both* teams scored fewer points per 100 possessions than they did in the regular season. That’s what happens in a series that’s has a real grindy tenor (see, for instance, this year’s Thunder/Nuggets series for a recent example of this). It’s not a coincidence that the first round series for the 2015 Warriors had by far both the Warriors’ best ORTG for the playoffs *and* their opponents’ best ORTG for the playoffs. That series simply had a different tenor and was not a grind (though it wasn’t exactly a shootout either). Of course, in that series, the Warriors rORTG with Steph on the floor was better than their rDRTG with Steph on the floor—the opposite of what it was for the rest of the playoffs. So I think this largely just came down to the tenor of each series. Draymond isn’t more important for the Warriors than Steph just by virtue of several series having a grindy tenor.

The flaws in this argument are made even clearer when we think about some obvious context. As we all know, the Cavs had Kyrie and Love injured for most/all of the Finals. People in this thread are certainly accounting for that when assessing LeBron’s offensive performance in that series. But then that context seems to be lost when it comes time to downplay Steph. Kyrie and Love were better players than their replacements on the Cavs, because they’re significantly better players offensively. That said, they were also worse defensively than their replacements. So looking at the Warriors’ rORTG and rDRTG in that series (relative to the Cavs’ regular season data) and using that to draw a conclusion about how valuable different players on the Warriors were is very obviously flawed. When you take away substantially better offensive players on the Warriors’ opponent and replace them with better defensive players, we would absolutely expect that the Warriors rDRTG would end up far better than their rORTG.

Finally, I also think that the assumption that Steph has little effect on his opponents’ ORTG is just wrong—especially in the playoffs.

For one thing, as per NBArapm website data, the FG% diff on shots contested by Steph in those playoffs was actually better than it was for Draymond (albeit on smaller volume of contests)! Teams would try to hunt Steph in the playoffs (to tire him out), and it typically worked quite badly for those teams in terms of offense. For instance, I did an analysis of this in the past, and found that over the course of all those Finals against the Cavs, the Cavs shot a worse FG% when defended by Steph than they did when defended by any other Warriors player that got meaningful minutes, and it wasn’t even close. So a basic look at some numbers would suggest that Steph was playing great defense and having a significant effect on that end.

But that’s not even getting down to what’s probably the biggest effect here for Steph on the Warriors’ playoff defense—which is the effect of tiring out defenses chasing him around all the time. We all know about Dellavedova needing to be hospitalized during the NBA Finals because of chasing Steph around. But that’s just an extreme example. Guarding Steph with playoff intensity is extremely tiring. Doing it requires expending a ton of energy, which makes players play worse on the other end. Just as one example, Dellavedova had a 38.9% TS% in that Finals series. That’s not a coincidence. Of course, this point dovetails with the “grindy series” point above: If opponents decide they need to expend most of their energy on the defensive end, you will be much more likely to have a grindy series. And that’s what a lot of teams tended to do in order to try to avoid a Curry eruption.

[Top10alltime]

.

[Top10alltime]

Chris Paul goes 19/10 but Harden goes 27/7 on a better True shooting and I think his stats are still better. Also if we're going to call GSW a -10 defense then Harden has to get credit for going 28/6 on like 63% true shooting. It is kind of interesting that the poster who is going in detail and listing his own stats based on eyetest for chris paul is taking cp3 ahead but I don't think it's fair to use that against Harden when we don't know how Harden looks in them. Harden also was 2nd in MVP and guys didn't feel it was some landslide so for now I'm going all in on beards.

CP3 clears Harden this season, Harden didn't lead even a top ten offense this season with better support than CP3. And plus, Harden was FAR FAR worse defensively this season (a negative on that end), so he is worse on both ends of the floor. CP3 also has a better PO, his series against the Spurs wipes any series Harden has. CP3 definitely clears Harden, and it isn't much of a debate.

CP3 is at his peak this season, and tbh he is probably better than Steph this season as well, I am moved by his peak. A clearly better defender, a clearly better playmaker (Steph on-ball was mid, and he was doing that a lot this year), and he was a top scorer this season(Granted, Steph is still better).
CP3 also had a worse situation offensively (Klay clears anyone CP3 has on his team), and yet.. he still had an offense that is 0.8 points better than Steph's stacked Warriors. Here is CP3 and Steph's teams adjusted rORTG in the playoffs.

CP3: +5.6 opp adjusted rORtg
Steph: +2.3 opp adjusted rORTG

I won't go any farther, but CP3 is better than Steph this season.

[OhayoKD]

Not a voter on this, but this seems like a shocker to see LBJ winning.. I would’ve thought this was the lock of locks for Curry.

(I am actually on one of those discords so I’ve seen this happen, and amusingly enough, OhayoKD does not know it’s me and is quite cordial to me there, and actually is complementary about my basketball knowledge haha).

*Pats head

Speaking of regular contributors vs. drive-by posters (love that phrase ), if you actually look at people who OhayoKD brought on this forum who have voted in this Retro project, none of them have stayed as contributors. I don't see any of these guys regularly posting on the forums.

Kola
Paullux
konr0167
Lebronnygoat

Let's break that down

-> Kola, was banned for trolling after a post was reported as bait since it made a joke at Jordan's expense

-> Paul, lost interest in the forum specifically citing being accused by MJ fans of being fake accounts despite a history mostly consisting of high-quality effort posts

-> Konr, ditto

Noticing a common denominator here.

(You might notice I excluded Lebronnygoat...because they were on realgm before they were in any discord. I'm as responsible for their participation as I am for posters like 70sfan, Bad Gatorade, McBubbles, Lukathegoat, and...yourself)

Perhaps if we were more welcoming of new posters, they'd become regulars at a higher clip.

Water under the bridge though. We have a new batch of high-quality posters coming (multiple are voting in this thread). Hopefully they'll be treated better than the last.

[metta-tonne]

writing a vote for fun here. might count?
Wow this was a fun year.

Entering 2015, no one was really thinking of the Warriors like that and everyone was actually pretty skeptical of the Cavs despite Lebron and K Love joining them. Alot of people actually didn't like trading for Kevin even though he was great in Minny. There was obviously hype for the Spurs but I think something alot of people might not know is many had the Bulls as the team coming out of the east.

Nowadays people treat the 2015 finals matchup as some inevitablity everyone expected but both teams really shocked people in their own way and it's got alot to do with the stars leading them.

Lets start with those guys then. Lebron or Steph? Man it's tough. Steph had the better advanced numbers and was on the better team but as guys have brought up here those numbers kind of really undersell what Lebron brings to the table: Incredible rim-pressure, basically better ablity to control tempo than anyone ever, and insanely intelligent basketball guy and bviously plenty of physical tools which make other guys not want to come at him at all in the first place. This means you get a lot more than the statsheet says on both end and yeah there's the rapm. Really it comes down to the regular season and playoffs for me. I think Lebron started the season pretty weak and that gave Steph an edge but he comes back he balls and then whatever his shooting clips man just wills his team to the finals in honestly kind of dominant fashion. Really if I have to choose, I think i'll have to go to the final. Man Lebron shot horribly but, somehow he just, made it happen. I think it's that tempo thing. Other than Magic Johnson Lebron might be the best ever at it. Just slowing the game down to a snail's pace, getting everyone where they need to go, and obviously being where he needs to be when he needed to be on the defense end so guys like delly and mozgov could do their thing on Steph

Steph was great don't get me wrong but really man. You're not supposed to let that get 2 wins on you, and honestly I feel like the win had more to do with Steve Kerr and the Warriors incredible defense than Steph's magic. And i think pulling back the curtain really takes a bit of the magic away like. Opposing pgs hurt every series. And you then are really getting pressured by Lebron and kind of just whoever. Steph is awesome but I just don't think he has that ablity to get the absolute most out of a team Lebron showed, even though he was not himself in different ways this season. So I think I'll put Lebron ahead.

Think I have to put chris paul over harden when you breakdown how the series actually unfolded. Chris Paul was just awesome vs the spurs too. I'm not someone who dings people for getting hurt that much.

Finally feel like I have to go Anthony Davis? I know people think he's street clothes now but he was alot better in nop then people remember. JUst incredible ability to cover ground and could score really well too. Carried the team to the playoffs and people dont remember now but he played as good if not better against the Warriors than Harden did. I'm teally thinking of him at 3 or 4 but I think that's just caring too much about one series. Still awesome. Hope he gets some love

in case my vote counts it's Lebron, Steph, Cp3, Harden, Davis in that order. Thanks for reading.

[Narigo]

A bit busy atm to give reasonings and will edit this post for later. But here is top 5 so far

1. Curry
2. Bron
3. Paul
4. Harden
5. Westbrook

[Djoker]

VOTING POST

POY

1. Stephen Curry - 1st Team All-NBA. MVP. Should have been FMVP if voters didn't get creative. Steph was easily the best Warriors' player in the Finals. Iggy doesn't get those open looks from 3pt range if not for Steph. Steph this year starts one of the best offensive peaks ever. Huge impact metrics as well. Going into the Finals he's a massive favorite for #1 and after the Finals still an easy choice to me. Averaged 23.7/4.6/7.7 on 63.8 %TS (+10.4 rTS) in the RS and 28.3/5.0/6.4 on 60.4 %TS (+7.7 rTS) in the PS.

2. Lebron James - 1st Team All-NBA. Missed 13 games in the RS so he takes a bit of a hit for that. In the games he played, the Cavs' offense is elite at +6.0 rORtg which is the 2nd best in Bron's career after 2013. In the playoffs, despite Kyrie missing half of the ECF and Love out after the first round, Lebron takes the Cavs to the Finals. However, with Curry having an all-time great season, Lebron would need something exceptional in the Finals to get the nod. Either win the series or still lose but be transcendent and he didn't do that. He scored with really poor efficiency and yes he did take a 2-1 lead but then got completely dominated in the last three games of the series. The 4-2 loss conceals the fact that the Cavs weren't competitive from Game 4 onwards. They had a -0.1 rORtg the first three games then -3.4 rORtg the last three games. Lebron himself also had particularly poor Game 4 and Game 6 of the series so he's not blameless. He wasn't a shoe-in for #2 either but I think he just gets there. Averaged 25.3/6.0/7.4 on 57.7 %TS (+4.3 rTS) in the RS then 30.1/11.3/8.5 on 48.7 %TS (-3.4 rTS) in the PS.

3. Chris Paul - 2nd Team All-NBA. 1st Team All-Defense. CP3 against anchored a really strong offense in LA and this might have been their peak as a team. Unfortunately Paul got hurt in the 2nd round of the playoffs and the team lost to the Harden-led Rockets. Playoff injuries are tough but he missed the first two games and then came back so the injury doesn't totally kill his chances. I think pretty highly of him and if it wasn't for the injury and losing a 3-1 lead with a (IMO) stronger team, he would be #2 on the list for having such a strong RS and taking out the Spurs but that's not what happened. Averaged 19.1/4.6/10.2 on 59.6 %TS (+6.2 rTS) in the RS then 22.1/4.4/8.8 on 62.7 %TS (+10.4 rTS) in the PS.

4. James Harden - 1st Team All-NBA. 2nd in MVP voting. This wasn't peak Harden yet but he was slowly becoming a heliocentric force of nature. The Houston offense wasn't amazing at +1.6 rORtg and in the PS, the team didn't seem to miss beat without Harden making the comeback against the Clippers largely without him. This is an individual year vote but Harden's general decline in the PS and lack of defensive impact makes me put CP3 ahead of him even with the latter's injury. If it was peak Harden, he is much higher on this list but this version of Harden just didn't lift those Rockets teams that much to me. Averaged 27.4/5.7/7.0 on 60.5 %TS (+7.1 rTS) in the RS then 27.2/5.7/7.5 on 62.0 %TS (+8.9 rTS) in the PS.

5. Anthony Davis - 1st Team All-NBA. 2nd Team All-Defense. This year, Davis becomes an all-time great two-way big men and drags a bad Pelicans roster into the PS. He also performs really well against the Warriors once there. Not much to nitpick here except a lack of team success. The man was an individual force. Averaged 24.4/10.2/2.2 on 59.1 %TS (+5.7 rTS) in the RS then 31.5/11.0/2.0 on 61.3 %TS (+9.9 rTS) in the PS.

A bit of a weak year with Durant, George, Kyrie all out injured for big chunks.

OPOY

1. Stephen Curry - Steph got his POY nod due to his offense so easy choice here.

2. Lebron James

3. Chris Paul - I would be tempted to put CP3 over Lebron because of latter's really poor efficiency in the PS but Paul got hurt in the PS and missed games which is much worse.

DPOY

1. Draymond Green - Anchored the best D in the NBA and kept up the form in the PS. Not a huge vertical presence but horizontal D and communication is exceptionally good.

2. Anthony Davis - Better vertical defender and elite rim protector but still young and improving.

3. Timofey Mozgov - Huge rim protection numbers since joining Cleveland including in the PS. Very much flies under the radar.

HM: Kawhi Leonard

[Elpolo_14]

Is the project finish? How are the voting looking right now for every player

[Djoker]

This thread stays open till the end of the Finals. More people should vote in the coming days.