Retro POY '07-08 (Voting Complete)

[Silver Bullet]

Can we please take a detour and reach some sort of a conclusion on APM. To me it's a useless stat, but it's dictated the voting for this whole year.

I mean, the standard deviation on that thing is probably 10 points, which makes it unusable.

Well first off, we're not going to enforce any conclusions about advanced statistics here. People are welcome to ask for explanations of stats, and voice their opinions, but if someone else uses a stat you don't like simply as part of their reasoning in making their vote, please leave it alone.

To mention something relevant to the immediate conversation: By +/- Amare doesn't look as good as some other guys, even if you don't use APM. However, by the raw team net +/-, the team certainly did better with him on the court than with him off of it.

You misunderstand. I am not implying that we need to enforce something to keep people from using APM.

I don't know if I like it or not - I know that one year it ranked Durrant near the bottom of the league and the next year it ranked him near the top of the league. Same with Howard.

I was suggesting, that different people give their perspective on APM - and I'm sure one of us here has more expertise in it, than I do - so I, along with others get a better sense of why there is such huge variation from year to year.

[Silver Bullet]

Okay, I'm kind of dissuaded from Amare as my #5 pick... but at the same time, I don't know who else to go with here. The top four were one tier; the next group were another, but picking one is splitting hairs. Doctor MJ, I'll edit my rankings post in a bit when I pick someone... don't tally my fifth vote yet.

In Amare's defense, he has been a vital cog of probably the 3rd or 4th winning-est franchise of the 00's.

It's not like he's a career loser - I hope people don't lump him in with Randolph and guys of that ilk.

I mean, do you guys remember his first Conference Finals against the Spurs - he practically almost won the series on his own. He was unstoppable. Does that come from someone who's a losing type of a player ? I certainly don't see any other power forward dominating on offense like he does.

And yes, he doesn't play defense, but it doesn't hurt his team - they don't win by shutting down teams. At the same time, he is effective enough, that Phoenix more often than not, is an above average defensive team. If both Amare and Nash were as bad as people say they are defensively, then Phoenix would be last in defense year in and year out.

Plus, when you look at his numbers - he's the best big man, statistically this year.

[drza]

We're on the last day, so time for me to give my votes.

The 2 - 4 ranking has been very difficult for me, and the #5 ranking as well. For 2 - 4, I could almost flip a coin on LeBron, Kobe and Paul even after all of the analysis and posts I've read in this thread. In the end, I decided the order with my own little logic games. Kobe vs LeBron '08 is very similar to Kobe vs Wade '09, and that decision came down to the wire for me as well. But in '09, Wade was hurt by my impression that he didn't get the Heat as far as he reasonably could have because I think they could have beaten a pedestrian Hawks team in the 4/5 matchup. And Kobe '09 obviously was helped by the fact that he couldn't have taken his team any further than he did.

In '08, though, LeBron did what Wade didn't...he dominated the 4/5 matchup, and took his team as far as could be reasonably expected and came THAT close to getting them even further. And Kobe '08 wasn't able to bring home the hardware like Kobe '09 did. That, plus my impression that LeBron was more impressive against the Cs than Kobe was edges LeBron over Kobe.

For Kobe vs Wade, the talent levels are at least more similar (though the Laker's crew was still better), so I just asked myself: if you swapped Kobe and Fisher for Paul and Mo Pete, what happens to the two teams? I still feel that the Lakers would have been just as good, with Paul getting more out of Gasol and Odom to replace the scoring that he yields to Kobe. But with Kobe on the Hornets, I don't see him elevating Chandler and Peja the way that Paul did. Kobe would still be individually brilliant, but I don't think the Hornets team is quite as good. Thus, I also edge Paul over Kobe.

In a similar Paul/Peja for LeBron/Delonte swap, though, I don't think the Paul-led Cavs are nearly as formidable against the Celtics while I could see the LeBron-led Hornets taking out the Spurs. Thus, LeBron over Paul as well.

Finally, for the fifth slot, I'll go with Duncan and his solid season that helped lead to a final-4 appearance over Dirk, Nash and the other close competitors. I didn't put nearly as much into determining slot 5 as I did slots 1 - 4, but I also didn't read anything compelling to change my mind from putting Duncan there. So, final order for '08:

1) Kevin Garnett
2) LeBron James
3) Chris Paul
4) Kobe Bryant
5) Tim Duncan

[drza]

Can we please take a detour and reach some sort of a conclusion on APM. To me it's a useless stat, but it's dictated the voting for this whole year.

I mean, the standard deviation on that thing is probably 10 points, which makes it unusable.

Well first off, we're not going to enforce any conclusions about advanced statistics here. People are welcome to ask for explanations of stats, and voice their opinions, but if someone else uses a stat you don't like simply as part of their reasoning in making their vote, please leave it alone.

To mention something relevant to the immediate conversation: By +/- Amare doesn't look as good as some other guys, even if you don't use APM. However, by the raw team net +/-, the team certainly did better with him on the court than with him off of it.

You misunderstand. I am not implying that we need to enforce something to keep people from using APM.

I don't know if I like it or not - I know that one year it ranked Durrant near the bottom of the league and the next year it ranked him near the top of the league. Same with Howard.

I was suggesting, that different people give their perspective on APM - and I'm sure one of us here has more expertise in it, than I do - so I, along with others get a better sense of why there is such huge variation from year to year.

I have a couple of thoughts on APM:

1) First, there's no such thing as "The APM". Each APM calculation is unique to the author, it's not just one homogenous measure. It's analogous to box score stats like PER, Win Shares or Wins Produced. Hollinger looks at the box score and has his interpretation of the best way to rate players based on that box score: PER. The basketball-reference people interpret the box scores differently to produce Win Shares. Berri interprets the box yet another way for Wins Produced. Each method uses the same information but comes to different conclusions, and each method has their own strengths and weaknesses.

The same is true for APM, just interpreting the +/- data as opposed to the box scores. The BasketballValue APM is calculated differently from the Ilardi or Rosenbaum APM methods, which is calculated differently from Wayne Winston's APM method. There are some similarities, of course, because all are based on the same raw information. But they can tell different stories, and it's best to know the strengths/limitations of whichever method you're using.

2) Strengths/weaknesses: For instance, the BasketballValue APM measure is calculated using only 1-year of data or 2 years of data. This allows for very large standard errors, so you'll see cases like Dwight Howard in '08 having an APM of +12.71 with a standard error of +10.73. What that says, essentially, is that "we are confident that Howard's APM for '08 was somewhere between 23.4 (by far first in the league) and 2 (way down the list). That's a huge weakness to me, because that kind of error range makes it impossible to delineate between players that might have similar value.

Ilardi gets around that huge noise by using data for 7 years (so far) to help make the measure cleaner. His standard errors are much lower, allowing for more accurate comparisons between similar players. The problem with his method, though, is that players aren't contributing at the exact same level every year and if you give too much credence to what they did before you might either over- or under-value their performance in a given year.

I'm still fairly new in my understanding of APM as well, and I haven't taken the author's methods apart in detail the way I'd like to express full confidence in something. But I know what the family of APMs are trying to measure, I have access to the raw +/- data from sites like 82games.com, and I have enough of a general idea about how the calculations are done that I feel comfortable relying on APM as a data point the same way I would PER or Wins Produced. I wouldn't use any of these stats in a vacuum as a total decision-maker, but I think all of them contain useful info if used with reason and sense.

[Doctor MJ]

I don't know if I like it or not - I know that one year it ranked Durrant near the bottom of the league and the next year it ranked him near the top of the league. Same with Howard.

I'd like to address Durant specifically. As mentioned before, I think Howard's fluctuating scores say bad things about the stat.

I don't feel the same way about Durant's scores. One of the most interesting trends in +/- for me is that young star players tend to do really poorly in +/- compared to other star players. LeBron was nothing his first year, then great his second year. Paul was nothing his first couple years, then strong his third. For the 21 year old Durant to all of a sudden make his mark in +/- is basically just par for the course - and of course, it's not like we haven't seen some pretty major improvement in his box score numbers to go along with the +/-.

Now, given what we see with Howard, I wouldn't claim that absolutely all of what we see with Durant's scores is precisely accurate - but I wouldn't be scared off by a huge improvement in a young player either.

[CellarDoor]

I have a hard time with KG, simply because it's difficult to gauge his impact opposed to others'. Lets not forget his team the year before when he stood alone was trash. Lebron basically stood alone this season, but his team wasn't complete trash. Kobe won the MVP, and CP3 had a statistically freakish season. Finally: who goes 5th?

1. Lebron
2. Kobe
3. Garnett
4. CP3
5. Duncan

[lorak]

The BasketballValue APM is calculated differently from the Ilardi or Rosenbaum APM methods, which is calculated differently from Wayne Winston's APM method.

It seems that you know the difference so could you elaborate? (Maybe in new thread?) What specifically is different, maybe you could describe method or provide equations? For example what is different between Winston and basketballvalue?

[CellarDoor]

The BasketballValue APM is calculated differently from the Ilardi or Rosenbaum APM methods, which is calculated differently from Wayne Winston's APM method.

It seems that you know the difference so could you elaborate? (Maybe in new thread?) What specifically is different, maybe you could describe method or provide equations? For example what is different between Winston and basketballvalue?

This is a good discussion for the statistical analysis forum.

[Doctor MJ]

shouldn't KG get a free pass on this when his team was BY FAR 1st in the league at the time ? I mean after that abdominal strain (not the knee injury as someone implied) Garnett could play in all games, as he did in the very same game he injured himself (and made a game winning steal on Telfair diving to the floor, how's that for leadership ?), but why would they bother to do so when in fact they still led the league by a wide margin and thus there was no need to rush him back in the game.

A great point. I wouldn't knock a guy on the team with the best record for missing games that his team lost. The missed time goes in conjunction with what the team did without him. People have made the point that it was a relatively easy schedule without him, and they're right. I just can't shake the feeling, particularly with what we've seen since, that the Celtics minus Garnett on the court were a pretty solid team.

drza, your post on Garnett's off the court impact is great. It's not that I totally ignore the off-court impact, I just don't give all the credit to Garnett. If I were asked to choose between Garnett & Kobe on intangibles, I'd pick Garnett but primarily because I don't like Kobe acts when when things aren't going his way. I really think putting Kobe in an analogous situation to the '08 Celtics leads to nearly the same level of fire because Kobe's got plenty of intensity, and the hope and faith the Celtics had were really driven primarily by very tangibles matters.

One other thing I'll mentioned comparing Garnett to previous years. I don't think Garnett's apparent off court impact in the last years leading up to the trade was anywhere near what happened in Boston. Don't get me wrong, Garnett was a big net positive impact - but it wasn't a 40 win impact, otherwise we'd have seen his team manage to at least achieve mediocrity. The fact that a player's off court impact is so variable to me means you've got to be a little cautious in going to far with giving massive amounts of credit for it.

[lorak]

I have a hard time with KG, simply because it's difficult to gauge his impact opposed to others'. Lets not forget his team the year before when he stood alone was trash. Lebron basically stood alone this season, but his team wasn't complete trash. Kobe won the MVP, and CP3 had a statistically freakish season.

Wow, it’s very simple but also very interesting argument against KG as no 1.
Between 2007 and 2008 he suddenly became much better player? I doubt it. What’s change is his partners, and so our perception of KG also changed. But is it right?

[drza]

I have a hard time with KG, simply because it's difficult to gauge his impact opposed to others'. Lets not forget his team the year before when he stood alone was trash. Lebron basically stood alone this season, but his team wasn't complete trash. Kobe won the MVP, and CP3 had a statistically freakish season.

Wow, it’s very simple but also very interesting argument against KG as no 1.
Between 2007 and 2008 he suddenly became much better player? I doubt it. What’s change is his partners, and so our perception of KG also changed. But is it right?

Well, the counter-argument would be that KG had a similar impact both on the court (#1 in 2007 Ilardi APM, #1 in 2007 Wins Produced, etc.) and off the court (I've got a few quotes from former teammates and associates in Minnesota of the ilk I posted earlier) in '07 as he did in '08. The difference is starting material.

For example (not to sideline this too much because I'm sure it'll come up in the '07 thread), these were the other starters on the '07 Wolves:

Mark Blount, Ricky Davis, Trenton Hassell, and Mike James. Outside of the obvious "those guys aren't that good", it really hits home when you look at what happened to them the year AFTER playing with Garnett.

Blount and Davis went to Miami the next year as rotation-players that started about 46 or 47 games with Wade and Shaq both dealing with injuries. That team won 15 games. By the next season Davis was an 11th man on the Clippers and Blount was effectively out of the NBA.

Mike James went and became the 11th man on teams in Houston, New Orleans and Washington.

Hassell went on to become the 10th man in Dallas and New Jersey.

Bottom line: the other 4 starters on the '07 Wolves weren't even good enough to be rotation-level players the following season on any team that could win more than 15 games. And oh yeah, the '07 Wolves were coached by Randy Wittman, who I believe is among the 5 worst coaches of all time by win percentage. And it was put together by Kevin Mchale, one of the least successful GMs of this decade. I don't think it's an exaggeration at all to say that without Garnett, the '07 Wolves may very well have broken the 76ers record of 9 wins in a season. LeBron, Kobe...no superstar in my lifetime has ever been surrounded by a mess on that order that I've ever heard of. I mean, even Devin Harris of this year's Nets would look at KG's '07 support like "DANG, at least I don't have it THAT bad!"

Suppose the '08 Celtics had a ceiling of 50 wins and a 2nd round exit without Garnett. The ability to elevate that to a 66-win cakewalk and a championship is huge. In '07 he likely took a team with a 15-win ceiling and elevated them into the 30s. His individual impact on and off the court could be the same, but it was just a much different starting point.

[Dr Positivity]

5. I'll actually go with someone I'm not sure has gotten mentioned yet... but was third in Win Shares and WS/48, third in PER, first in TS%, and put up a 25/9/1.5/2... Amare Stoudemire.

Don't let the boxscore stats fool you here. Stoudemire has zero positive impact on the game. His APM (adjusted +/-) for that season is -2.2, hardly something you expect from a Top5 player.

Other than that your ranking looks good.

Can we please take a detour and reach some sort of a conclusion on APM. To me it's a useless stat, but it's dictated the voting for this whole year.

I mean, the standard deviation on that thing is probably 10 points, which makes it unusable.

I wouldn't call APM useless, but when it comes to individually comparing players like in this voting I have no use for it.

APM measures how well your team plays when you're on the floor. Now this includes a ton of other variables... how much the other players on the floor are contributing to that level of play, how well your replacement fits in, and most importantly whether the SYSTEM favors the player's importance

So when I see a stat like Nene's highest APM on the Nuggets, I don't say Nene is the most important player, I say "the Nuggets work really well when Nene's on"

I much prefer to look at a player's skillset combined with the factors involved in winning, and tieing together the correlation together. For example Amare is a huge efficiency weapon because of how many points he gets you at the rim and he does this playing solely off the ball. You can build a very effective offense running pick and rolls with Amare for this reason. He clearly, CLEARLY has value if you want to build an effective offensive system. Defensively he's OK but you can always cover a single player's defensive lapse if the rest of the lineup is up to it. It's not like he's worse defensively than Jeff Green and Michael Beasley who play on very effective defenses.

I will always turn to breaking down offensive/defense systems logically ahead of +/-...

[mysticbb]

2) Strengths/weaknesses: For instance, the BasketballValue APM measure is calculated using only 1-year of data or 2 years of data. This allows for very large standard errors, so you'll see cases like Dwight Howard in '08 having an APM of +12.71 with a standard error of +10.73. What that says, essentially, is that "we are confident that Howard's APM for '08 was somewhere between 23.4 (by far first in the league) and 2 (way down the list). That's a huge weakness to me, because that kind of error range makes it impossible to delineate between players that might have similar value.

The weakness is more due to wrong interpretation than anything else. A single stat is not the way to rank players in the first place, they are helping to get a better impression about the player. You can create a rating by using more than one stat. If you do that right, you will always get a better ranking.
Those stats are also about consistency. If a player consistently has good APM values, he most certainly helping his team more than a player with bad or average APM values.

And even with boxscore stats you can easily add a +/- 5% error just due to human errors like assigning the wrong player with the turnover or assists. Those kind of stuff happens in every game. Thus a player with a 25 PER is not necessarily better than a 24 PER player even according to that PER rating. But, if a player consistently has worse values in all advanced metrics he is most certainly the worse player.

Stoudemire, as an example here, scores consistently average to bad in +/- stats, that isn't a fluke anymore. Every team which wants to build just around Stoudemire will be disappointed, because he is not that kind of guy. He is an AWESOME complementary player to a great pick&roll guard, but he is nothing more in the end. He is neither a defensive anchor nor is he a player you can give the ball and expect him to create his own efficient offense on a consistent basis. Stoudemire is one of those cases where boxscore metrics are implying a bigger impact than he really has, he is like the opposite of Bruce Bowen.

[Silver Bullet]

Mark Blount, Ricky Davis, Trenton Hassell, and Mike James. Outside of the obvious "those guys aren't that good", it really hits home when you look at what happened to them the year AFTER playing with Garnett.

Well, you have to look at what happened BEFORE too.

Mike James had a monster year in Toronto. He was one of the most sought after free agents that off season. He had a PER of 19.8, which would make him an all-star level player - He put up 20-6-3 on a TS% of 59 shot 47% from the field and 44% from the 3.
After coming to Minnesota his numbers dropped by nearly 50%. His PER went from nearly 20 to 13.

Mark Blount and Ricky Davis were putting up exactly the same numbers before coming to the Wolves as they were putting after.

Furthermore, Blount, James and Hassell were all defensive specialists (James might be a stretch, but he was known for his defense with the Pistons and Rockets).

They had decent defensive personnel (including Eddie Griffin on the bench), and yet they ranked 23rd in opp FG% that season and 21st in defensive rating. Compare that with the Cavs, they ranked 4th in defensive rating - their starters were Ilgauskas, a hobbled Larry Hughes, Drew Gooden, Sasha Pavlovic and an ageing slowing Eric Snow.

Did the Cavs have a better supporting cast, well it's arguable- but they had similiar defensive personnel - I'd argue KG had a better SC defensively, yet they were one of the worst defensive teams in the league.

Then you come to Thibedeau - From 1994 to 2009, the guy has been on a top 5 defense in the league, I'd guess 90% of the time. He went to the Rockets in 03-04 and they went from 23rd in defensive rating to top 5 (off the top of my head, might not be 100% accurate).

So, are you sure, we're not overestimating his impact ?

I mean you had the Sonics that year win just as many games as the T-wolves, and it's not like Ray Allen had more help. Once you factor in all the changes the Celtics made, once you consider that Boston won 45 games, the last time they had a healthy line up - and you consider that they got rid of defensive sieves in Green, Jefferson and to a lesser extent Telfair - You're probably looking at a 43 win team. Then you add in Ray Allen, a guy who himself has featured on 50 teams in the past, without having a ton of help - a guy who took his team to the Conference finals, and you have to think that he'd help win some extra games. So did KG take a 52-53 win team to 66 ? Absolutely. Anymore credit than that is unreasonable, IMO.

[Optimism Prime]

Well, you have to look at what happened BEFORE too.

Mike James had a monster year in Toronto. He was one of the most sought after free agents that off season. He had a PER of 19.8, which would make him an all-star level player - He put up 20-6-3 on a TS% of 59 shot 47% from the field and 44% from the 3.
After coming to Minnesota his numbers dropped by nearly 50%. His PER went from nearly 20 to 13.

Mark Blount and Ricky Davis were putting up exactly the same numbers before coming to the Wolves as they were putting after.

Furthermore, Blount, James and Hassell were all defensive specialists (James might be a stretch, but he was known for his defense with the Pistons and Rockets).

They had decent defensive personnel (including Eddie Griffin on the bench), and yet they ranked 23rd in opp FG% that season and 21st in defensive rating. Compare that with the Cavs, they ranked 4th in defensive rating - their starters were Ilgauskas, a hobbled Larry Hughes, Drew Gooden, Sasha Pavlovic and an ageing slowing Eric Snow.

Did the Cavs have a better supporting cast, well it's arguable- but they had similiar defensive personnel - I'd argue KG had a better SC defensively, yet they were one of the worst defensive teams in the league.

Then you come to Thibedeau - From 1994 to 2009, the guy has been on a top 5 defense in the league, I'd guess 90% of the time. He went to the Rockets in 03-04 and they went from 23rd in defensive rating to top 5 (off the top of my head, might not be 100% accurate).

So, are you sure, we're not overestimating his impact ?

I mean you had the Sonics that year win just as many games as the T-wolves, and it's not like Ray Allen had more help. Once you factor in all the changes the Celtics made, once you consider that Boston won 45 games, the last time they had a healthy line up - and you consider that they got rid of defensive sieves in Green, Jefferson and to a lesser extent Telfair - You're probably looking at a 43 win team. Then you add in Ray Allen, a guy who himself has featured on 50 teams in the past, without having a ton of help - a guy who took his team to the Conference finals, and you have to think that he'd help win some extra games. So did KG take a 52-53 win team to 66 ? Absolutely. Anymore credit than that is unreasonable, IMO.

Going out on a limb here--I think the Rockets' new head coach that year, Jeff Van Gundy, had a teensy bit of impact on that as well.

[drza]

Mark Blount, Ricky Davis, Trenton Hassell, and Mike James. Outside of the obvious "those guys aren't that good", it really hits home when you look at what happened to them the year AFTER playing with Garnett.

Well, you have to look at what happened BEFORE too.

Mike James had a monster year in Toronto. He was one of the most sought after free agents that off season. He had a PER of 19.8, which would make him an all-star level player - He put up 20-6-3 on a TS% of 59 shot 47% from the field and 44% from the 3.
After coming to Minnesota his numbers dropped by nearly 50%. His PER went from nearly 20 to 13.

Mark Blount and Ricky Davis were putting up exactly the same numbers before coming to the Wolves as they were putting after.

Furthermore, Blount, James and Hassell were all defensive specialists (James might be a stretch, but he was known for his defense with the Pistons and Rockets).

They had decent defensive personnel (including Eddie Griffin on the bench), and yet they ranked 23rd in opp FG% that season and 21st in defensive rating. Compare that with the Cavs, they ranked 4th in defensive rating - their starters were Ilgauskas, a hobbled Larry Hughes, Drew Gooden, Sasha Pavlovic and an ageing slowing Eric Snow.

Did the Cavs have a better supporting cast, well it's arguable- but they had similiar defensive personnel - I'd argue KG had a better SC defensively, yet they were one of the worst defensive teams in the league.

Then you come to Thibedeau - From 1994 to 2009, the guy has been on a top 5 defense in the league, I'd guess 90% of the time. He went to the Rockets in 03-04 and they went from 23rd in defensive rating to top 5 (off the top of my head, might not be 100% accurate).

So, are you sure, we're not overestimating his impact ?

I mean you had the Sonics that year win just as many games as the T-wolves, and it's not like Ray Allen had more help. Once you factor in all the changes the Celtics made, once you consider that Boston won 45 games, the last time they had a healthy line up - and you consider that they got rid of defensive sieves in Green, Jefferson and to a lesser extent Telfair - You're probably looking at a 43 win team. Then you add in Ray Allen, a guy who himself has featured on 50 teams in the past, without having a ton of help - a guy who took his team to the Conference finals, and you have to think that he'd help win some extra games. So did KG take a 52-53 win team to 66 ? Absolutely. Anymore credit than that is unreasonable, IMO.

Much of this discussion is probably better off in the 2007 thread, but you sorely, sorely, sorely stretch your credibility when you claim that Mark Blount was a defensive specialist by 2006. I'll give you a mulligan on Hassell because his reputation far outstripped his ability, but James is another that was in no way a defensive positive in a Minnesota uniform.

You mentioned what came before '07. Interestingly, there wasn't a Celtics fan alive that wasn't overjoyed when Blount was traded from the team. After he signed his new contract a couple of years before, it was universally accepted that he stopped playing defense, became purely a finesse jump shooter on offense, and became an absolute horror in the locker room.

Davis "put up the same numbers", I believe you put it, but that was his problem in a nutshell. Ricky was always about getting HIS numbers, but he never learned how to play successful team basketball. It's why if you scroll through 82games.com, his net +/- numbers are consistently negative.

And Mike James' '06 might be the greatest Jerome James balling-for-a-new-contract season in NBA history. You're right that when he was with the Pistons he was a hustle/defense guy. But he figured out in his contract year that if he started scoring he could earn bigger money. He did that to the T in Toronto in '06, but the problem is that once the contract was signed he forgot how to shoot. Ask anyone that watched any T-Wolves games that year, he just couldn't hit ANYTHING, no matter how wide open. But he had already transitioned from his hustle-player past, so just because he wasn't scoring didn't mean he was going to start hustling again. The result is what the Wolves got: an offensive chucker with no redeeming defensive value. He was like a guard version of the Sheed Wallace signing for the Celtics this year.

I know you aren't big on APM fan so I'll leave off any adjusted values and let you marinate the raw numbers. KG had the highest raw on-court/off-court +/- in the NBA in 2007 (+15 per 48 minutes, tied with Duncan). Now, the other 4 starters by definition are playing the majority of their minutes with Garnett. So, if they were all "solid" players and I'm over-estimating Garnett's impact on that team, how on earth did all four of them manage to post either zero (Davis, Hassell) or negative (James, Blount) +/- numbers? http://www.82games.com/0607/0607MIN.HTM I mean think about it...they play the majority of their minutes with a guy that is +15, yet somehow they all manage to turn in zeros or negative values themselves? That means that they were absolutely PUTRID when they were on the floor without Garnett. How can that possibly jive with them being "solid" NBA contributors?

Anyway, any further talk of 2007 should probably go into the 2007 thread. But the '07 Wolves were absolutely abysmal outside of Kevin Garnett. Yes, Ray Allen had more help. No, it's not arguable that LeBron's cast was similar. KG's cast and coaching SC combo in '07 was historically bad.

[bastillon]

In '08, though, LeBron did what Wade didn't...he dominated the 4/5 matchup, and took his team as far as could be reasonably expected and came THAT close to getting them even further. And Kobe '08 wasn't able to bring home the hardware like Kobe '09 did. That, plus my impression that LeBron was more impressive against the Cs than Kobe was edges LeBron over Kobe.

that's a massive exaggeration. if you look at it individually, LeBron 08 didn't do much better than Wade 09 in the first round:

Code: Select all

            PPG   RPG   APG   TOV   SPG   BPG   FG%   3P%
LeBron 08  29.8   9.5   7.7   2.8   1.3   1.3  48.3  29.0
Wade   09  29.1   5.0   5.3   3.6   0.9   1.6  43.9  36.0

his stats were better... but that's a bit misleading - LeBron played against far worse defense. it bears mention that Wizzards 08 were ranked 24th (out of 30 teams) in DRtg. in comparison, Hawks were above average defensive team, ranked 12th in DRtg.

as for the team success, it's vastly different situation as well. not only that Hawks were superior team to Wizzards... they were also favorites to win against Miami. as much as it's a joke argument here, they had HCA after all. Cleveland on the other hand came as 4th seed, having HCA and playing against depleted Wizzards team. I'm pretty sure Wade would win against .500 team as well.

as for the ECSFs, I still think people don't realize how poor LeBron was during that series. shooting 35% on high volume shot attempts, while at the same time averaging 5.3 TOV is a liability for his team in all boxscore metrics but PER (which doesn't value efficiency).

let's take a look at simple boxscore metric:
Win Score (PTS + REB + STL + ½*BLK + ½*AST – TO – FGA – ½*FTA – ½*PF) - this is WP-like tool that puts emphasis on rebounding and efficient scoring, but values every contribution.

LeBron vs Celtics posted 4.3 Win Score.

this is just ridiculously poor for superstar standards. his win score fell all the way. Kevin Garnett in the very same series posted a Win Score of 13.79... he pretty much tripled LeBron's contributions.

I just don't see why you would give LeBRon a free pass and argue that he "led" those Cavs to 7-game series. the only reason they were competitive was because of Ray Allen transforming into Smush Parker for that series (and as aforementioned, it had a lot to do with his off court problems). why would you give LeBron credit for that ?

if anything, it's more like the Cavs played 7-game series DESPITE their superstar clearly not playing at the level you would expect out of your best player. he had 2 great games and 5 horrible. it's a knock on him, not a compliment to his supposedly great play. he failed on every account on the biggest stage.

side note: because of that series I just don't see why people would put KG behind LeBron on this list. he dominated him in head2head series. tripled his contributions (Win Score). scored on 20% (!!!) better FG% (55% vs 35%). rebounded twice as much. turned the ball over 5 times less (1 for KG, 5 for LBJ) if there was any doubt who was a better player... that series explained everything.

[wigglestrue]

Furthermore, Blount, James and Hassell were all defensive specialists (James might be a stretch, but he was known for his defense with the Pistons and Rockets).

[Silver Bullet]

f it - first person on my ignore list.

[tha_rock220]

Chris Paul was a monster that season. He should have won the MVP.

1. Paul
2. Kobe
3. Garnett
4. LeBron
5. Duncan