Retro POY '06-07 (Voting Complete)

[Sedale Threatt]

Two things about that: Nowitzki was only really bad in game 6, in those other games he played fairly well.

14 points on 4 of 16 shooting in Game 1 is fairly well? Or scoring under his RS average on sub-50% shooting in Games 2, 3 and 4? Sorry, but that's just not true. He had a terrible series, with only one game that could be described as truly MVPeque (Game 5).

Otherwise, I appreciate the fact you took the time put into the rest of your post, but I'm really going to do my best to be bottom-line in this project. I'm interested in results, not justifications why Player A failed to perform in a particular situation.

Every great player gets an inordinant amount of defensive attention. Every great player has challenges to overcome. It comes with the territory.

[Gongxi]

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?

Well, Robinson played worse in the playoffs as opposed to the regular season for much longer (15 games as opposed to 4), and against a variety of defense (3 instead of 1). Both of those observations indicate that where you can say Dirk had a cold spell or a bad matchup (or both), you can not say the same for Robinson. I mean, that was over 15% of his year- over 25% of it if you're double weighed the playoffs as I am.

So what was just a drop in the bucket- against a team that he had already struggled against in the regular, no less- for Nowitzki, was a good chunk of his season, against multiple opponents, for Robinson.

Still, 94-95 is very close. I'd probably still have Robinson over Olajuwon were it not for the fact that the two actually played each other in the WCF. And I don't mean Bryant vs. Duncan, I mean they actually played each other. Guarding each other and all that. And we saw what happened.

For anyone who's unaware, they played each other 12 times that year. I'd give Robinson the nod in two of those matchups, say 2 were virtual dead heats, and say Olajuwon won the other 8. If you go with my math of the playoffs counting double, they played 18 times: still 2 'wins' for Robinson, 3 ties, and a whopping 13 'wins' for Olajuwon.

It's enough to give him the slight nod.

[Sedale Threatt]

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?

The postseason has to be given enough weight where a player cannot maintain a top ranking with a performance as poor as Dirk's. That was the equivalent of taking an A into your final exam and flunking. It's only one test, but your final grade is going to take a huge hit as a result.

Otherwise -- to borrow one of your previous statements -- what is the point? We're just wasting our time here.

The grade analogy is actually a pretty good description of how I'm going to try to approach this. Start off with the regular season, and then adjust as necessary depending on what happened in the playoffs. Play great, then do nothing to hurt yourself -- like LeBron in 09 -- and you're fine. Play very well, then fail miserably in the postseason -- like Dirk in 07 -- and you're f'd.

That's my approach, I guess. If you don't like it, keep in mind I only have one of 20 some votes. It carries no more weight than anyone else.

[sp6r=underrated]

Just for comparison sake. I'll just use some of B-R stats that a lot people like to compare the gap between Robinson and Olajuwon/Dirk-Duncan

RS
PER: Dirk +1.5
PER: Robinson + 3.1

WS: Dirk + 3.3
WS: Robinson + 6.8

WS48: Dirk + 0.048
WS48: DR + 0.092

[bastillon]

SeTh and mysticbb, your discussion convinced me to put Dirk at #5. I don't want my best player to have off-court issues affecting his play come playoff time. also, as SeTh pointed out, he was expected to win championship. bad matchup isn't good enough excuse. his teammates showed up. he was the problem.

for now, I have:
1.Duncan
2.Nash
3.Bryant
4.James
5.Nowitzki

I'm fairly certain about 3 guys from that list. I'd like to hear some more arguments in Kobe vs LeBron debate.

[Sedale Threatt]

Another thing that colors my opinion about Nowitzki -- it wasn't like that was a heroically great RS.

Outstanding, to be sure. But just looking at PERs, his was the lowest to lead the league since Bird in 86, more than 20 years. Looking strictly at box score stats, he put up 25 and 9 -- really, really good, but not mind-blowing or anything. He does that in 08 or 09, he probably doesn't even finish in the top three.

The tone from that year seemed to be, "Well, we have to give it to somebody. We've already given it to Nash two years in a row, Kobe didn't have the team success, LeBron is too young, Duncan's too boring. Let's give it to the best player on the best team."

Not that Dirk didn't deserve it. I have no problem with him winning the award that year. Generally I've been a big fan of his. I just don't think it was THAT great a season, certainly not to absolve what happened in the playoffs.

[Gongxi]

The postseason has to be given enough weight where a player cannot maintain a top ranking with a performance as poor as Dirk's. That was the equivalent of taking an A into your final exam and flunking. It's only one test, but your final grade is going to take a huge hit as a result.

Well, to an extent I agree. That's why he fell behind Kobe for me. But the idea that "Oh his first 82 were amazing, but he sucked in those last 4 games so let's drop him way down" is a tad silly.

That's my approach, I guess. If you don't like it, keep in mind I only have one of 20 some votes. It carries no more weight than anyone else.

Oh, it's not like that. I don't want to curse you out or anything. I just really, really want people to think about these things, and how incredibly minor things end up being very important when it comes to teams, but could've gone either way at the time. And then how we turn that team success into being very instrumental when assessing a player. A rebound instead of a tip in 2002 and maybe Chriss Webber was our Finals MVP that year. Would that make him an actual better basketball player, though? It's an exaggerated example in that most things aren't that random, but it bears thinking about at all levels. If the Mavs don't draw a team that gave them- and Nowitzki- fits all season, maybe he ends up being the Finals MVP (they did go 67-12 against the rest of the league and 2-7 against GS that year). Would he have been a better player, though? I bet lots of us would have him first.

I'm just saying when your rankings depend on those types of things, they deserve to be checked and rechecked. If Garnett doesn't get traded to the Celtics, does that mean he wouldn't have been the best player the next year? Our rankings shouldn't hinge on things like that. Or at least we should try our damnedest to mitigate that.

[Gongxi]

Just for comparison sake. I'll just use some of B-R stats that a lot people like to compare the gap between Robinson and Olajuwon/Dirk-Duncan

RS
PER: Dirk +1.5
PER: Robinson + 3.1

WS: Dirk + 3.3
WS: Robinson + 6.8

WS48: Dirk + 0.048
WS48: DR + 0.092

And through 15 games and three different opponents, Robinson's advantage markedly fell off. Nowitzki played just 6 games against one opponent that he sucked against. The comparison in sample sizes is profound.

Ignoring that he didn't get destroyed by Duncan in individual matchups throughout the year.

[sp6r=underrated]

Another thing that colors my opinion about Nowitzki -- it wasn't like that was a heroically great RS.

Outstanding, to be sure. But just looking at PERs, his was the lowest to lead the league since Bird in 86, more than 20 years. Looking strictly at box score stats, he put up 25 and 9 -- really, really good, but not mind-blowing or anything. He does that in 08 or 09, he probably doesn't even finish in the top three.

The tone from that year seemed to be, "Well, we have to give it to somebody. We've already given it to Nash two years in a row, Kobe didn't have the team success, LeBron is too young, Duncan's too boring. Let's give it to the best player on the best team."

Not that Dirk didn't deserve it. I have no problem with him winning the award that year. Generally I've been a big fan of his. I just don't think it was THAT great a season, certainly not to absolve what happened in the playoffs.

That's partly were I'm coming from. His RS was great, but it wasn't a historic RS like KG 2004, and his post-season was truly awful.

Furthermore his stats don't do justice to how bad he was playing. A player like KG can still help his team a lot if his shot isn't falling. How can Dirk really help his team in a significant way if shot isn't falling? He is not a dominating defender or rebounder. He is a good passer but not a great play-maker.

[mysticbb]

14 points on 4 of 16 shooting in Game 1 is fairly well?

Fairly well in average, that is what I meant. And while you are only looking at the scoring output you forget about the rest. He had 12 rebounds in game 1, 4 assists, 2 steals and 3 blocked shots. He played rather good defense against Al Harrington, which should also be noted. But again, he was supposed to play center on a team which had no point guard who was able to play the entry pass. A couple of his shots were bailout shots, because the Mavericks didn't get their offense going. Especially that one 3pt attempt in the 4th, a crucial possession, but the Mavericks were just too dumb to make the right pass until Nowitzki ended up taking a bad shot.

Or scoring under his RS average on sub-50% shooting in Games 2, 3 and 4? Sorry, but that's just not true. He had a terrible series, with only one game that could be described as truly MVPeque (Game 5).

He actually scored more against the Warriors in the playoffs than he did in the regular season. But I have an idea where the problem is here, you assume that Nowitzki can only contribute via scoring, you ignore the rebounding (btw. a 11.5 ORB%, for those who say he is a bad offensive rebounder), you ignore the 1.6 steals and 2.2 blocked shots per game. And even though Nowitzki didn't play up to his standards his Net+/- for that series was +5.6.

Otherwise, I appreciate the fact you took the time put into the rest of your post, but I'm really going to do my best to be bottom-line in this project. I'm interested in results, not justifications why Player A failed to perform in a particular situation.

Well, I do the same, as I mentioned in my post Nowitzki gets punished for his playoffs performance, but I really wanted to put that in, because I saw you posted in a rather rude manner about his performance. Sometimes other things in life are more important, at least I can understand why Nowitzki performed subpar.

Just to let you know Nowitzki was an awesome clutch performer during the regular season. Had a +29.6 per 48 rating, scored 46/15/3 per 48 minutes on 61 ts% and a 3.2 turnover rate in clutch situations. Now when a player like this all of the sudden starts to play that much worse, and his body language is even worse than his play, there has to be something wrong other than his game. That was the case for Nowitzki. Can that be called just a lame excuse? Yes, it can.

[mysticbb]

Furthermore his stats don't do justice to how bad he was playing. A player like KG can still help his team a lot if his shot isn't falling. How can Dirk really help his team in a significant way if shot isn't falling? He is not a dominating defender or rebounder. He is a good passer but not a great play-maker.

Yeah, 13th best DRB% All-Time in the playoffs is most certainly not good enough: http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... eer_p.html

But well, the players behind him were probably also not helping their teams with rebounding. As I said Nowitzki still had a +5.6 Net+/- for that series. He most certainly helped his team without getting his really efficient scoring going.

[Gongxi]

Nowitzki really helps with spacing even when his shot is off. Re-reading that makes me sound like a wacko apologist, but it is true. When his shot isn't falling he still opens things up the way few players do.

[FJS]

1. Duncan
2. Dirk
3. Lebron
4. Kobe
5. Nash

[sp6r=underrated]

Just for comparison sake. I'll just use some of B-R stats that a lot people like to compare the gap between Robinson and Olajuwon/Dirk-Duncan

RS
PER: Dirk +1.5
PER: Robinson + 3.1

WS: Dirk + 3.3
WS: Robinson + 6.8

WS48: Dirk + 0.048
WS48: DR + 0.092

And through 15 games and three different opponents, Robinson's advantage markedly fell off. Nowitzki played just 6 games against one opponent that he sucked against. The comparison in sample sizes is profound.

Ignoring that he didn't get destroyed by Duncan in individual matchups throughout the year.

You have been hammering away in all of these threads that production is what counts. Thus, head to head really isn't relevant by your standards what counts is player production.

Furthermore, those extra 11 games won't make up for the significantly larger difference in RS performance between HO and DR. Any honest analysis backs that up. Especially when you factor in that TD enjoys a significant advantage on defense over Dirk which helps close the gap between the two during the RS. There is no significant defensive advantage between Olajuwon and Robinson.

Now, I have no problem with ranking HO over DR in 1995. In fact I do based on the post-season. But considering how strident you are that people don't factor in production enough in your analysis, it is inconsistent to favor HO over DR based on your method of evaluation by favoring the player who wasn't as productive.

If you are going to allow nuance in your method of evaluating player's seasons, by considering things like head to head. you should allow others to do the same and avoid saying they are ranking players who weren't "nearly as good." Because you are doing the exact same thing in 1995.

[mysticbb]

Outstanding, to be sure. But just looking at PERs, his was the lowest to lead the league since Bird in 86, more than 20 years. Looking strictly at box score stats, he put up 25 and 9 -- really, really good, but not mind-blowing or anything. He does that in 08 or 09, he probably doesn't even finish in the top three.

Well, for people who think in that way, he was probably not great in the regular season.

But well, let us see how many players had a 27+ PER, 60+ ts% and 0.27+WS/48 while playing 2000+ minutes season:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... i?id=AgSZl

10 seasons overall, only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, David Robinson, LeBron James and Dirk Nowitzki got that done. Not impressive? Well, it is probably more impressive than you think.

[sp6r=underrated]

Nice post mystic. I did underestimate his rebounding in the PS.

[Gongxi]

Just for comparison sake. I'll just use some of B-R stats that a lot people like to compare the gap between Robinson and Olajuwon/Dirk-Duncan

RS
PER: Dirk +1.5
PER: Robinson + 3.1

WS: Dirk + 3.3
WS: Robinson + 6.8

WS48: Dirk + 0.048
WS48: DR + 0.092

And through 15 games and three different opponents, Robinson's advantage markedly fell off. Nowitzki played just 6 games against one opponent that he sucked against. The comparison in sample sizes is profound.

Ignoring that he didn't get destroyed by Duncan in individual matchups throughout the year.

You have been hammering away in all of these threads that production is what counts. Thus, head to head really isn't relevant by your standards what counts is player production.

Furthermore, those extra 11 games won't make up for the significantly larger difference in RS performance between HO and DR. Any honest analysis backs that up. Especially when you factor in that TD enjoys a significant advantage on defense over Dirk which helps close the gap between the two during the RS. There is no significant defensive advantage between Olajuwon and Robinson.

Now, I have no problem with ranking HO over DR in 1995. In fact I do based on the post-season. But considering how strident you are that people don't factor in production enough in your analysis, it is inconsistent to favor HO over DR based on your method of evaluation by favoring the player who wasn't as productive.

If you are going to allow nuance in your method of evaluating player's seasons, by considering things like head to head. you should allow others to do the same and avoid saying they are ranking players who weren't "nearly as good." Because you are doing the exact same thing in 1995.

Absolutely not. If you weigh playoff games just twice as much as regular season games- not crazily inordinate, but not just the same- the difference can clearly be seen. Dirk's 6 games against a team he already played poorly against is insignificant both in sample size and because it showed us what the regular season already told us: he wasn't very good against the Warriors.

[Sedale Threatt]

mysticbb, good stuff. Apprciate the effort you're putting into this.

But again -- DRB% against an undersized "small ball" team? Does that really make up for the drops in production and efficiency from a player whose primary responsibility is scoring?

Gongxi, you raise some good issues.

It brings to mind Roy Smith's comment after he finally won the national championship: "I guess I'm a great coach now." Very insightful statement.

Then again, as fickle and abitrary as some of these things are, they have to be considered.

For me, it's 100% based on the fact that Dirk played poorly, as an individual, in a huge upset. By my definitition, that is a catastrophic failure, the antithesis of raising your game and overcoming obstacles.

I did the same thing with LeBron and Kobe in the last vote. I had them 1-2, but the fact they both played below par in season-ending losses knocked them down a notch. Those sort of failures are important, and must be accounted for in my opinion.

[Sedale Threatt]

Outstanding, to be sure. But just looking at PERs, his was the lowest to lead the league since Bird in 86, more than 20 years. Looking strictly at box score stats, he put up 25 and 9 -- really, really good, but not mind-blowing or anything. He does that in 08 or 09, he probably doesn't even finish in the top three.

Well, for people who think in that way, he was probably not great in the regular season.

But well, let us see how many players had a 27+ PER, 60+ ts% and 0.27+WS/48 while playing 2000+ minutes season:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... i?id=AgSZl

10 seasons overall, only Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Jordan, David Robinson, LeBron James and Dirk Nowitzki got that done. Not impressive? Well, it is probably more impressive than you think.

Very interesting.

[mysticbb]

But again -- DRB% against an undersized "small ball" team? Does that really make up for the drops in production and efficiency from a player whose primary responsibility is scoring?

Well, Nowitzki was still able to have a 20.9 PER, 0.128 WS/48. And that was the ORB% (you are right, it was against smaller players), I just pointed out that Nowitzki can rebound offensively, when he is put in the position under the basket, when it is his job. And again, Nowitzki contributed in different ways, the teams efg% went from 42 to 47 with him on the court, the Mavericks got outrebounded without him on the court while with him they got 53% of the total rebounds (they got better on both ends of the floor), and the team overall drawn way more fouls.

Given the circumstances, the Warriors as the bad matchup, Nelson knowing everything about the Mavericks, brainfart by Johnson to go away from the working lineup in game 1, that stupid bad pass by Harris in game 4 which costs the Mavericks the chance to tie the game or even win that game, a situation in which Nowitzki was really hot late in that game, similar to game 5 when he won that game for the Mavericks after Johnson finally let him play and so on.
Nowitzki should get punished for that series, but I don't think in a way that you have to competely through is incredible regular season out of the window.