MVP Watch 2008... Part 5

[prekazi]

F*** the box scores. . KG deserves it

Exactly, f... the box scores, KOBE deserves it.

[Philly Fresh]

You have to be kidding yourselves if you don't think Chris Paul is this year's MVP.
Lebron? Not even close.
Garnett? Come on, he has Pierce and Ray Ray with him, do they not any credit for the Celts success?
Kobe? I barely heard his name prior to the Gasol trade.

[tracey_nice]

You have to be kidding yourselves if you don't think Chris Paul is this year's MVP.
Lebron? Not even close.
Garnett? Come on, he has Pierce and Ray Ray with him, do they not any credit for the Celts success?
Kobe? I barely heard his name prior to the Gasol trade.

Time to order a new hearing aid

[prekazi]

You have to be kidding yourselves if you don't think Chris Paul is this year's MVP.
Lebron? Not even close.
Garnett? Come on, he has Pierce and Ray Ray with him, do they not any credit for the Celts success?
Kobe? I barely heard his name prior to the Gasol trade.

Obviously you haven't watched the Lakers recently. Watching them and not understanding Kobe's effect is impossible.

[eatyourchildren]

You have to be kidding yourselves if you don't think Chris Paul is this year's MVP.
Lebron? Not even close.
Garnett? Come on, he has Pierce and Ray Ray with him, do they not any credit for the Celts success?
Kobe? I barely heard his name prior to the Gasol trade.

You're from Philly? Really? Wouldn't have guessed

[greenbeans]

-= original quote snipped =-



Obviously you haven't watched the Lakers recently. Watching them and not understanding Kobe's effect is impossible.

you not get his point??

[Andrew Bynasty]

Kobe? I barely heard his name prior to the Gasol trade.

Where have you been? The Lakers were top in the West even before Gasol.

And the Lakers are going to finish with a better record than the Hornets despite less talent. That is a pretty huge boost to Kobe's candidacy... And people forget that half the game is played on defense. Kobe's d this season has been among the elite defensive guards.

[eatyourchildren]

Newsflash: You were all saying that the records would determine it, remember?

[Andrew Bynasty]

Yea no joke... It was always, "whoever wins the West deserves it."

But now that the Lakers are gonna win the West... Its still "CP3 is the MVP."

Anyone but Kobe right? (That seems to be the motto around here)

[Tesla]

Newsflash: You were all saying that the records would determine it, remember?

I was one of those. My words were something along the likes of ... unless something drastic happens, the MVP is Paul or Kobe granted they finish close to the top of the West, or even better the top of the West. The one out of the two with the better record, would be my MVP (especially if they lead the conference) -- thats what I was saying the past few weeks.

Assuming the Lakers stay were they are at (1 in West), and win tonight against Sac-town-- Kobe is the MVP.

Crazy close race though, nothing so definite. The thing is though... based on how past MVP's have been given, Kobe is the pretty clear choice. Also, PER doesn't mean that KG is better than Kobe statistically... PER is only one measurement. I'd be shocked if Kobe doesn't win the MVP if the Lakers are in 1st in the West... flat out shocked.

1. Kobe
2. CP3
3. KG
4. Lebron

[ILikeTheGrizz]

You're either arguing something else or mischaracterizing him. Probably both.

Really?

The box score is simply not the game nor an accurate measure of player performance, action, or impact.

With you guys, you have to take it one step at a time or you rush to conclusions and whatnot. He said that the box score isn't accurate. He is WRONG (as usual). Why are all the best players in NBA history rocking great stats if it wasn't accurate.

Once we decide that no only is it accurate, but it's the most accurate measure of a player's performance, action, or impact, we can go from there. No one is saying there are factors that aren't measured that have to do with a player's performance, action, or impact. I never have. But the continuing disregard of any and all statistics that don't paint Kobe in a flattering light is embarrassing for everyone reading this.

Refusing to believe that statistics have any bearing on anything is juvenile to this debate. Without that, I can argue Tyrus Thomas is the MVP. And all that leaves us with is a bunch of quotes, and as I've already shown (although I didn't really want to- I thought it was self-evident but apparently many of you needed to know) many different "experts" think many different things.

No matter how much you want to downplay stats, you can't. As evidenced by the guy who says KG is the MVP because, more or less, "The box score is simply not the game nor an accurate measure of player performance, action, or impact."

[greenbeans]

ok Hollinger

[ILikeTheGrizz]

Ok Tommy.

[greenbeans]

id take that as a compliment. Tommy knows more basketball when hes droppin a deuce than 9 out of 10 of these "experts"

[eatyourchildren]

Two words: Stephon Marbury


Besides, Kobe doesn't have great career stats?

[Big Bird]

New Orleans is 1-3 in the last 4 games that will play the deciding role in the final standings.

Boy, the words written by many when the Lakers lost to Charlotte and Memphis still linger fresh in my mind:"Bad back to back losses will hurt your MVP no matter what." Where are all you people now?

Or the "Whoever leads the team to the best WC record is my choice for the MVP." people? I guess they must've felt pretty safe with that big 1,5 lead the Hornets had going for themselves.

Pathetic. Even more pathetic is Hollinger's "deciding whether he wants out or not" reasoning.

To put in short, my imaginable e-ballot:
1. Bryant
2. Paul
3. Garnett
4. James
5. Nash

[ILikeTheGrizz]

Two words: Stephon Marbury

What about him? The guy whose PER never even reached Derrick Coleman heights? If all you look at his is points/assists/rebounds you're sure to think he was a star, but that's not the fault of stats. There's plenty of other, more in-depth stats that prove that he wasn't. Marbury isn't an argument against stats, it's an argument against using stats poorly.

Besides, Kobe doesn't have great career stats?

He certainly does!

New Orleans is 1-3 in the last 4 games that will play the deciding role in the final standings.

Boy, the words written by many when the Lakers lost to Charlotte and Memphis still linger fresh in my mind:"Bad back to back losses will hurt your MVP no matter what." Where are all you people now?

Or the "Whoever leads the team to the best WC record is my choice for the MVP." people? I guess they must've felt pretty safe with that big 1,5 lead the Hornets had going for themselves.

Pathetic. Even more pathetic is Hollinger's "deciding whether he wants out or not" reasoning.

Do you have some names? Or have you had that in mind for weeks and have just been gunning to use it, whether or not people stuck to their guns?

[yaya banana]

Dammit

-= original quote snipped =-
With you guys, you have to take it one step at a time or you rush to conclusions and whatnot. He said that the box score isn't accurate. He is WRONG (as usual). Why are all the best players in NBA history rocking great stats if it wasn't accurate.

Once we decide that no only is it accurate, but it's the most accurate measure of a player's performance, action, or impact, we can go from there. No one is saying there are factors that aren't measured that have to do with a player's performance, action, or impact. I never have. But the continuing disregard of any and all statistics that don't paint Kobe in a flattering light is embarrassing for everyone reading this.

Refusing to believe that statistics have any bearing on anything is juvenile to this debate. Without that, I can argue Tyrus Thomas is the MVP. And all that leaves us with is a bunch of quotes, and as I've already shown (although I didn't really want to- I thought it was self-evident but apparently many of you needed to know) many different "experts" think many different things.

No matter how much you want to downplay stats, you can't. As evidenced by the guy who says KG is the MVP because, more or less, "The box score is simply not the game nor an accurate measure of player performance, action, or impact."

Without taking a side, let me try to repeat what has been said, multiple times, in this thread. Clearly there is a strong correlation between box stats and (some canonical measure of) player performance. It is not surprising that top players have top stats. If all the info we had was the box score, we'd have to concede that we can at best make a noisy inference about performance. However, there are also significant aspects of performance that do not show up. Implicitly, to make your claim that box stats give few incorrect rankings of player performance, you are assuming that the differences in observables between top players significantly outweigh the differences in out-of-box performance. That assumption is untenable - for example, compare Marbury's best year with that of other point guards, or jordan pre vs post championships.

Unfortunately, given the non-verifiable nature of "intangibles", the only way to substantiate the claims being made in this thread are by appeals to authority - otherwise we'd just keep going in circles. And the point about appeals to authority are simple: if a rational observer (us) knows that someone has far better information about a particular issue, and has little incentive to misreport his information, then he would put substantial weight on the authority's message. The appropriate authority figures here are coaches. They have the best incentives to gather information about the performance of the players in question, are in the best position to do so and to make rational inferences based on this information, and are (relatively) unlikely to give a biased opinion. (Note that for these reasons, journalists aren't appropriate authorities in general.) Of course there are going to be differences in opinion, even amongst experts, due to differences in their measure of performance or other biases in inference; but when there is a strong consensus, as there seems to be this year, strong inferences can be made by the observer.

BTW, Ilikethegrizz, your list of experts has basically one coach saying that TD was the best in 2003 - which doesn't seem like a particularly controversial opinion, or too inconsistent with what has been said in this thread.

Note that given the nature of the issue that we are looking to authority to resolve (the component of performance that is off-box and difficult to properly elucidate), it is unlikely that we can make further inferences based on what their "reasons" for their choice (except when they say "I'm giving mvp to xxx as a lifetime achievement award" - ie when they have a different conception of the problem as us). Perhaps we could if we had the opportunity to sit down with them for a few weeks and watch game film 24/7 - too bad we can't and we're stuck with their terse pronouncements.

[BRINGTHEPAIN]

The Celtics are 9-2 without Garnett. They started the season 29-3.

[Big Bird]

Do you have some names? Or have you had that in mind for weeks and have just been gunning to use it, whether or not people stuck to their guns?

I really won't go through 100 pages to find the quotes. I think the people know for themselves.

Here are two more "notable" quotes though, just a click away:

Petersen (On nba.com:"I know the Kobe cultists will fill the e-mail box, but if you lose at home to Charlotte and Memphis in the same week, you're MVP candidacy will take a serious hit below the belt, even if you drop 53 against the Grizz. If the Lakers win those two games, they're up one game on the Hornets instead of one game behind."

Stein (on espn.com):
"Did we speak too soon? Could back-to-back home Ls to Charlotte and Memphis cost Kobe his first MVP trophy? Is the division slipping away? Just add those to list of injury questions about Pau, Bynum and now Fisher."

The latter did come around though . I've not waited to gun anything. I, like many others, did keep quiet though... not giving too much implication on one game (Utah @ NOH). Or the next one @ LA... or the next one @ SAC. But those bad, deciding losses with poor performances just keep on piling, don't you think? I just find it interesting that things are still being debated with a lot of flawed reasoning. But that's just me.

toodles