Retro POY '06-07 (Voting Complete)

[bastillon]

You're being awfully generous, in my opinion. The bottom line was, he was substantially worse from the regular season, playing probably the biggest role in his team getting bounced out of the first round by the eighth seed. That is a miserable failure -- and I count myself as someone who really likes Dirk's game.

well, but if you didn't know what happened that year in the playoffs, how do you think you would predict Dirk's play in that postseason ? the guy historically raised his game come playoff time. I'm going to think about it a bit more.

in the meantime, Nash and James vs Spurs:

Code: Select all

        PPG   TS%   RPG   APG   TOV   SPG   BPG
Nash   21.3  0.61   3.7  12.7   4.5   0.3   0.0
James  22.0  0.43   7.0   6.7   5.7   1.0   0.5

not only Suns were much, much closer to beating the Spurs (I'm going to treat it as the finals... Cleveland was no match for them), but also Nash played much better individually. they were guarded by the same defender (Bowen) and against the same anchor (Timmy).

this, to me, proves that James was no match for Nash in that postseason. had he played on the west he'd never get out of the first round that year, assuming he even makes the playoffs which isn't guaranteed at all either.

definitely it puts LeBron in bad light.

[sp6r=underrated]

I haven't really thought about Duncan in detail as yet - and then there's Baron Davis and Stephon Jackson as really darkhorse fringe candidates.

I assume this is a joke that you would even consider Captain Jack or Baron over TD.

I don't know man - From what I remember that year, they were both very special. I know TD has a game, that can get overlooked at times - but I also know that the Spurs have a system that's conductive to winning. hmmm - I don't know.

For the purposes of my vote, I'm treating the Spurs as if they lost in the first round, and the Suns went on to win the ring.

I understand, I sometimes think like this when I'm really hammered.

[Sedale Threatt]

well, but if you didn't know what happened that year in the playoffs, how do you think you would predict Dirk's play in that postseason ? the guy historically raised his game come playoff time. I'm going to think about it a bit more.

I guess I just don't see the point in assuming or projecting or extrapolating instead of just trying assess what actually happened.

Just like I don't see the point of not punishing LeBron or Kobe for playing poorly against a historically great defense, as one of our fellow voters wanted to do. That's how the bracket shook out that year, and Dirk was miserably bad. That's the reality of it.

Kind of like cutting England slack for losing the Revolutionary War. "If only they'd been more aggressive and/or lucky in any one of about 20 or 25 instances, they never would have lost." Well, true -- but that's not how it worked out.

Regarding the Nash/James vs. Suns, something to chew on -- Bowen did not guard Nash exclusively during that series, from what I remember. Definitely in spots, but not nearly for as much time as he spent on LeBron.

At any rate, I'm not going to give LeBron a bonus for getting to the Finals; the East was terrible that year.

[bastillon]

I laughed at Kobe being elite defender that year.

Baron Davis was great though and shouldn't be overlooked as a top player. he has as much of a case as T-Mac does IMO.

I'm wondering about LBJ vs Kobe vs Dirk. thoughts ?

[Silver Bullet]

I laughed at Kobe being elite defender that year.

Baron Davis was great though and shouldn't be overlooked as a top player. he has as much of a case as T-Mac does IMO.

I'm wondering about LBJ vs Kobe vs Dirk. thoughts ?

LBJ plays in the East, I think that matters in something as close as this.

[An Unbiased Fan]

I laughed at Kobe being elite defender that year.

Baron Davis was great though and shouldn't be overlooked as a top player. he has as much of a case as T-Mac does IMO.

I'm wondering about LBJ vs Kobe vs Dirk. thoughts ?

To each his own. Kobe did make All-D (1st), so the coaches thought he did good.

As for LBJ vs Kobe vs Dirk.....

I give Kobe the edge for a historical season scoring wise. He also took a bad injury plagued cast to the playoffs. Dirk had a very efficient year, but a disasterous playoffs. Lebron was good, but a step behind the other 2. He didn't even make 1st team.

[Gongxi]

Duncan wasn't nearly as good in the regular season.

Except this isn't true as outlined by other posters in this thread.

I guess that depends on your definition of 'nearly'. He quite simply wasn't as good, though. I don't think it was particularly close, either.

[Gongxi]

Because it was only four games out of the whole season. Look guys, if we're just going to count the playoffs then let's say so. I thought we've been ranking players as to their ENTIRE YEAR this whole time. Even if you say that each one of those playoff games showcase Dirk ten times more accurately than any regular season game, that's still only only a third of his entire- amazing- season.

I think it's extremely valid to give extra weight to playoff performance. I'm definitely looking at the whole year, but when you fail to measure up in the postseason, I'm marking down.

I did it to Kobe and LeBron from the previous year, and I'm definitely doing it here, where the player in question was horrendous in a terrible playoff loss.

If he'd been just subpar, losing as a 3rd or 4th seed, not too much damage. But to flame out like that...I just don't see how you can't assess a pretty severe penalty for that.

I already said I put extra weight on the playoffs. We're arguing about how much. I'm considering playoff games as being twice as important as regular season games. My point was that some people seem to be giving them TEN TIMES as much weight which is just dumb. We might as well just rank them based upon their playoff performances (and at least half of that revolving around whether their team advanced or not) and be done with it. Because it's a farce otherwise.

Duncan wasn't nearly as good in the regular season.

Several of the measures posted in this thread show that's not true.

And, again, that depends on how you define 'nearly'. Was he closer to Nowitzki than he was to Rafer Alston? Sure!

Because these are individual players, not teams! If Duncan had a fantastic, historic first round but the Spurs lost, would it be short-changing him to rank him lower as opposed to him playing deep into the playoffs? I think it obviously would. But to some people, it seems quite clear that that's exactly what they'd do. It's nonsensical?

Well, of course you wouldn't punish somebody for raising their game in the playoffs. That's why I didn't punish LeBron for Cleveland's loss in 09. He was phenomenal.

Frankly, I don't see how this is an apt comparison, as Dirk did the exact opposite -- he played terrible in a historic loss. If he'd have gone down with guns blazing, and exceeded his regular season performance, than I'd probably stick him at first. But that didn't happen. His poor play had a catastrophic effect on a team that entered the playoffs with serious championship hopes. That is an epic failure, in my opinion.

Let's assume everything you say is correct and it has nothing to do with poor match ups. It's...still only 4 out of 86 games. Count them double. It's 8 out of 90. Count them triple. It's 12 out of 94. Only twelve "games" out of 94.

Like I said, if we're gonna just make this a postseason award (as bastillon has been honest enough to say), then let's do it. Otherwise, what's the point?

[bastillon]

LBJ plays in the East, I think that matters in something as close as this.

absolutely. east was an absolute trash that year. I have a hard time believing he'd be competitive in the first round.

btw. Cavs were 3-1 without LeBron that year. on average, 112-98 in pts scored/allowed. they played great without Bron.

[sp6r=underrated]

I know one thing, if Gongxi is still around when you guys get to 95 he is going to be furious with the results based on his advocacy of Dirk here.

[bastillon]

he's gonna be furious about '01 too so we don't have to go that far. I mean Lakers were not at all dominant if you look at the RS.

[Silver Bullet]

lol. But he has a point - 7 game series by themselves should not outweigh 82.

[sp6r=underrated]

he's gonna be furious about '01 too so we don't have to go that far. I mean Lakers were not at all dominant if you look at the RS.

I don't know about that. Shaq's box score numbers were great that year. Also, to be clear, I really enjoy reading his posts even when I disagree, so I'm not trying to put him down here.

[Gongxi]

Maybe by that point we'll just be honest and change the title to "Best playoff performer paired with a good GM/good teammates".

In actuality, though, I have Olajuwon as the best player in 94-95 (I've done this before, just not down to the top 5), and although Robinson would've gotten the nod were he to play better against Hakeem, Robinson's mythos that year was also overvalued due to-you guessed it!- his team's success.

[sp6r=underrated]

Maybe by that point we'll just be honest and change the title to "Best playoff performer paired with a good GM/good teammates".

In actuality, though, I have Olajuwon as the best player in 94-95 (I've done this before, just not down to the top 5), and although Robinson would've gotten the nod were he to play better against Hakeem, Robinson's mythos that year was also overvalued due to-you guessed it!- his team's success.

I gotta say, I find this very inconsistent and quite contradictory to your general stance of basing things on statistical production and RS performance. The statistical gap between Robinson and Olajuwon is much larger than Dirk-Duncan, especially when you factor in that there is no significant defensive advantage for Olajuwon over Robinson.

[An Unbiased Fan]

lol. But he has a point - 7 game series by themselves should not outweigh 82.

True. This is why I put Dirk at #3 and not #4 or #5.

[Sedale Threatt]

And, again, that depends on how you define 'nearly'. Was he closer to Nowitzki than he was to Rafer Alston? Sure!

Come on. You're usually a very reasonable poster, but this is just a silly statement. Duncan put up 22 a game with excellent efficiency. He pulled down 11 rebounds a game -- more than Dirk. He dished out 3.4 assists -- the same as Dirk. He was probably the best player in the league. Plus, he measures up very favorably with several of the advanced measures that have been posted here. He very much deserves to be in the conversation.

Like I said, if we're gonna just make this a postseason award (as bastillon has been honest enough to say), then let's do it. Otherwise, what's the point?

Likewise, if we're not going to give postseason a huge amount of consideration, we've already got the MVP award, so what's the point?

You're free to balance the two however you like. I'm going to do my best to measure every season on its own merits.

In this particular case, I think Dirk was catastrophically bad, coming up well under his regular-season standards as his team, which had been a championship favorite, was bounced out in the first round by an eighth seed.

Not only that, it's not like he had a heroically great RS. He was a "best player on best team" MVP. His numbers were impressive but hardly LeBron-esque.

That, combined with the postseason failure, leads me with an easy conclusion -- there is absolutely no way in hell he was the best player in 07. Probably not even in my top three.

[sp6r=underrated]

Gongxi

Could you please explain to me how Robinson-Olajuwon was statistically closer than Duncan-Dirk in the RS such that it is reasonable to invalidate the RS performance in DR-HO comparison and not TD-DN?

[mysticbb]

That's how the bracket shook out that year, and Dirk was miserably bad.

Two things about that: Nowitzki was only really bad in game 6, in those other games he played fairly well. 22/12 on 54 ts%, if we exclude game 6. Given the fact that he was put in a bad position by Avery Johnson, because he had to play in the post and no player on the Mavericks were able to play that entry pass effectively. Also the Warriors were more concerned about Nowitzki than about anyone else. They even skipped the defense against Josh Howard nearly completely, to have either Jackson or Richardson help out immediately. That was the reason Howard was able to have a rather good playoff series on offense. Well, Howard played awfully bad defensively, because his transition and perimeter defense was never really good in the first place. But anyway, matter of fact is that the Warriors forced the ball out of Nowitzki's hand more often than not, and also double and triple teamed him in nearly every situation.

Well, but even with that in mind Nowitzki played subpar in comparison to his abilities he had. The explanation for this is related to the surgery his father had at the same time. His sister Silke Nowitzki said later in an interview that Nowitzki unlike in other events wasn't really able to get that out of his mind during the games. Nowitzki also didn't want that the public knows about that, because he felt it would have been a lame excuse.

In this article it is mentioned briefly: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 2549e.html

Well, it still doesn't change the fact that Nowitzki didn't play well, but at least that should put a different light on it.

[Gongxi]

And, again, that depends on how you define 'nearly'. Was he closer to Nowitzki than he was to Rafer Alston? Sure!

Come on. You're usually a very reasonable poster, but this is just a silly statement. Duncan put up 22 a game with excellent efficiency. He pulled down 11 rebounds a game -- more than Dirk. He dished out 3.4 assists -- the same as Dirk. He was probably the best player in the league. Plus, he measures up very favorably with several of the advanced measures that have been posted here. He very much deserves to be in the conversation.

I have him in the conversation: I have him 3rd. Nash is the guy that didn't even draw my attention at all, but I'll get into that next (last?) season.

Like I said, if we're gonna just make this a postseason award (as bastillon has been honest enough to say), then let's do it. Otherwise, what's the point?

Likewise, if we're not going to give postseason a huge amount of consideration, we've already got the MVP award, so what's the point?

Well, no, because the MVP is very much based upon your teammates (just like postseason success is). But regardless, I think I am giving the postseason a huge amount of consideration. Even though individual match up problems can be exploited to inflate successes (like Westbrook so far againt the Lakers- sure it's five games so far, but four of the five have been with Fisher on him most of the game, so of course it's going to look like he's a great playoff performer), or to inflate failures (Dirk against the Warriors), and even though the amount that any individual player plays in is very dependent upon his teammates and (sorta) coach, I'm still saying those games are twice as important as any game in the regular season. How much huger can we get without relegating the regular season- all five and half months of it- to NFL preseason status?