Retro POY '03-04 (Voting Complete)

[Doctor MJ]

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 best player seasons of '03-04. Some pointers:

-I will tally up the votes 3 days from now. I encourage people to wait to actually cast their votes until there's been some discussion - Ideally waiting until the 3rd day. However, I know everyone's schedule is busy - I'm not going NOT count votes just because they come in relatively early.

-The voting panel is not officially closed. However, if you'd like to be a part of it, contact me - more dedicated, knowledgeable voters will always be wanted.

-This includes both regular and post-season. You should be weighing both in to some degree, and should not be ranking one star over another just because of how far each got in the playoffs.

-Vote sincerely. Do not move a player down in your voting to give another player an advantage. I would encourage every voter to give some explanations while they do their voting - but particularly if you have a top 5 that deviates strongly with the norm and you haven't expressed your thoughts on it earlier in the thread. If I'm not satisfied, I may ask you for more of an explanation - and it may come to actually booting people out of the project.

Some things to start us off:

Season Summary http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... _2004.html
Playoff Summary http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... _2004.html
Award Voting http://www.basketball-reference.com/awa ... _2004.html

Regular Season Raw +/- http://82games.com/teams.htm
Post-Season Raw +/- http://www.82games.com/playoffs.htm
Regular Season Adjusted +/- (combined w/ 02-03) http://www.82games.com/comm30.htm

Topics for '03-04:

-The Laker collapse
-How to credit the Pistons
-KG at his best

[sp6r=underrated]

KG is the # 1 player this year, and the debate should be over who is number 2.

[Sedale Threatt]

Would have gone with "Lakers implosion" myself. "Lakers immolation" would have been good too. Or "Lakers evisceration."

[Sedale Threatt]

Another KG/Duncan debate.

Let me also plant this seed: Brian Cardinal finished third in win shares per 48 0.212.

[sp6r=underrated]

Another KG/Duncan debate.

I don't see a debate:
better in RS
better in PS
team had greater success

[ItsMillerTime]

Obviously KG is No.1. But the rest of the top 5 is pretty tricky. Duncan, Kidd, Shaq, and Peja would brobably be my choices, but that is just off the top of my head with little research done. I could see arguments for Kobe, Wallace, Artest, or Jermaine.

I would probably rank them

1. Garnett
2. Shaq
3. Duncan
4. Peja
5. Kidd

[Sedale Threatt]

I meant, they're basically the only two candidates worth talking about. I might just leave the other three spots blank. Pretty lame year.

[shawngoat23]

1. Kevin Garnett in a landslide
2. Tim Duncan
(big gap)

I'm not sure how to rank the other guys. Kobe and Shaq deserve a mention for their regular season success and raw statistics, but that whole chemistry blowup thing at the worst time kind of leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, even if it's not necessarily fair. I feel Kobe was slightly better in the regular season, even if the stats don't reflect it, and maybe even for much of the playoffs, but he blew/sabotaged the FInals in a big way whereas Shaq actually delivered quite well.

Peja Stojakovic had a great season statistically, and while it was an excellent year, I'm not comfortable considering him a top 5 player even for this year.

Jermaine O'Neal deserves a nod as well for an excellent regular season and leading the Pacers to the best record in the NBA (and deep into the playoffs).

I have to give a nod to all of the starters on the Pistons--great regular season, great playoff run, culminated the by championship. All the advanced stats point to Billups as the best player on the team, but I feel like Ben Wallace was the inspiration behind that squad, so I'm going to give him the nod over Billups.

So tentatively, I'll go...

3. Jermaine O'Neal
4. Ben Wallace
5. Kobe Bryant/Shaquille O'Neal (split)

[Tesla]

1. Kevin Garnett
2. Tim Duncan
3. Shaquille O'Neal
4. Kobe Bryant
5. Ben Wallace

Snub: Jermaine O'neal
HM: Chauncey Billups, Peja Stojakovic, Jason Kidd, Tmac, Dirk, and Artest.

I also go for Ben Wallace over Chauncey by just a hair, despite Billups being awarded finals MVP, I feel that Wallace was more consistently important throughout the season, and as Shawngoat said sort of the inspiration behind the squad, but it's such a collective team that its difficult to pinpoint it on one player, but I would feel that it would be a disservice for no piston to be on the top 5 this year.

Jermaine O'Neal is my snub this year, although he finished high on MVP voting and just behind TD and KG on All NBA, I felt that Indiana was much like the Pistons and being a collective team more than a particular leader, Reggie was still the leader of the team in my mind, while Jermaine was probably their best player but his production wasn't overwhelming and dipped a bit in the playoffs... still I feel bad leaving him out.

KG at first is pretty much a shoe-in, hard to argue for anyone else IMO.
TD at second could be arguable, but he was the sole anchor of a championship calibur squad
Shaq wasn't the same 3peat Shaq but he wasn't the Miami Shaq either, he was himself in spurts, and still got to the finals, where production wise he was the best player on the court.
Kobe - for all his failures in the finals, he was pretty brilliant in the previous 3 rounds in route to a finals appearance, and given his off-court drama he was able to perform and produce on the court more than people expected.
Ben Wallace - I could be swayed for flip-flopping Chauncey here, but Wallace was the anchor of the team, and he really was all over the place with his defense and tenacity, he was the player that most embodied that championship Detroit squad.

[Sedale Threatt]

You could also say that Kobe's off-court drama -- which was self inflicted, let's remember -- had a hugely negative impact on the season, capped off by his flame-out in the Finals. I can't seriously consider him.

[Doctor MJ]

1. Kevin Garnett in a landslide
2. Tim Duncan
(big gap)

Agree. Doubt I'll change my top 2. Rest I'll have to think about.

[Doctor MJ]

You could also say that Kobe's off-court drama -- which was self inflicted, let's remember -- had a hugely negative impact on the season, capped off by his flame-out in the Finals. I can't seriously consider him.

This is tough. I blame Kobe, and I actually blame Shaq even more - and yet still, I'm not sure if I can leave either out of the top 5. Really tough to take the #3 & #4 guys from the MVP voting seriously at all.

[JordansBulls]

Well in this season in 2003-2004 Garnett had the best stats, however no other top 5 or even top 10 player won the title that year.

Also of note this is a weird year where each of the top 5 players in the league all lost series where they had the better record/HCA.

Duncan
Garnett
Kobe
Shaq

Jermaine O'neal finished top 5 in MVP voting as well and he even lost with the Best Record that season with Reggie and Artest on the team.

So in this case, since they are the only ones that merit consideration for being the best in the league that year, you have to look at other factors now.

In the case of Garnett, his 2nd best player got injured.

Also the man won 4 Player of the Months Awards if IIRC and led in Double Doubles and Points in the NBA as well as WS, PER and the MVP voting wasn't that close.

Next I would put Duncan.

Then Kobe and Shaq are the next 2 and interchangeable really. Kobe led the team in Points in the season and playoffs, but led in Win Shares in the Season with Shaq leading in PER.
In the playoffs, Shaq led in both Win Shares and PER, but Kobe was leading in WS and PER prior to the finals.


My voting would go for this season.
1. Garnett
2. Duncan
3a. Kobe
3b. Shaq
5. Jermaine O'neal (finished 3rd in MVP voting)

[Sedale Threatt]

This is tough. I blame Kobe, and I actually blame Shaq even more - and yet still, I'm not sure if I can leave either out of the top 5. Really tough to take the #3 & #4 guys from the MVP voting seriously at all.

Indeed. Jermaine O'Neal? Peja Stojakovic? Has there ever been a worse top five than that?

Regarding Kobe -- a lot of people seem to think his being able to regularly fly back and forth between L.A. and Colorado, even on game days, and still perform at a high level was some sort of heroic act.

In my opinion, there was nothing heroic about it. Indeed, it was the least he could do after putting himself in that position with a poor decision off the court.

That team might have fallen apart regardless, but that certainly didn't help much. And that's not even getting into the horror show that was the Finals.

If I can punish Dirk severely for his first-round flame out, then it's only fair that I apply the same standards here to Kobe for putting his team in such a bad spot, then bombing epically with the championship at stake.

[Sedale Threatt]

Way to man up, JB. Doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down, but how many times you get back up. Stay strong!

[Tesla]

You could also say that Kobe's off-court drama -- which was self inflicted, let's remember -- had a hugely negative impact on the season, capped off by his flame-out in the Finals. I can't seriously consider him.

Well, that's true. I'm still not sure how you can't consider probably the best player in the playoffs until the finals, and one of the most important players on a championship team in the regular season... if Minny eliminates the Lakers in 7 in WCF people would be singing a little bit of a different tune.

I think that Laker squad is one of the most interesting stories in recent memory and people all have a different sense of what happened that year with them, which makes it even more intriguing. I don't think the Lakers had any business being in the Finals to begin with, given their circumstances that year, people will remember that year as a epic Laker failure, given the talent, etc... but in retrospect given the injuries and circumstances surrounding the team, and the fact that they actually weren't all that talented, it was a miracle they were even in the finals.

[Sedale Threatt]

Looking at some of these candidates, and the overall summary, it was just a lame season all around. If the regular-season records had held up, we'd have been headed for a Minnesota-Indiana Finals. How strange would that have been?

[sp6r=underrated]

You could also say that Kobe's off-court drama -- which was self inflicted, let's remember -- had a hugely negative impact on the season, capped off by his flame-out in the Finals. I can't seriously consider him.

Well, that's true. I'm still not sure how you can't consider probably the best player in the playoffs until the finals, and one of the most important players on a championship team in the regular season... if Minny eliminates the Lakers in 7 in WCF people would be singing a little bit of a different tune.

I think that Laker squad is one of the most interesting stories in recent memory and people all have a different sense of what happened that year with them, which makes it even more intriguing. I don't think the Lakers had any business being in the Finals to begin with, given their circumstances that year, people will remember that year as a epic Laker failure, given the talent, etc... but in retrospect given the injuries and circumstances surrounding the team, and the fact that they actually weren't all that talented, it was a miracle they were even in the finals.

Agreed.

I was stunned they made the finals, going into the playoffs I had them pegged as the 4th best team. I think they were overrated for three reasons: (i) the name on the front of the jersey. I do think there is a tendency to overrate laker teams going into a season based on the franchise's past success. (II) The names on the back of the jersey. No one really realized that Payton was finished. (III) Their hot start to the season.

Shaq turned in a heroic effort to turn around the SA series and performed great in the Minnesota series.

[Sedale Threatt]

.04 didn't hurt, either.

It still pisses me off that we ultimately wasted that shot.

[sp6r=underrated]

Looking at some of these candidates, and the overall summary, it was just a lame season all around.

I think what also made the season rough was the NBA had legalized zone defense while still allowing Riley ball era hand-checking. That made it very easy for teams to maul perimeter players and drag the game to a stop. I don't understand why people got angry at Stern for trying to clean up perimeter contact, when most of the fans bitched endlessly about how slow and physical games were getting.

If the regular-season records had held up, we'd have been headed for a Minnesota-Indiana Finals. How strange would that have been?

There have been worse match-ups in NBA finals history.