Retro Player of the Year Project

[bastillon]

well, I'd like to see drza's explanation. we've been supporting Garnett ever since I came to realGM (and he was one of the main reasons I joined anyway), but we hardly ever had a disagreement. I'd like to hear his thoughts about Nash and why he ranks below those players.

2005
me: TD, KG, DW, Shaq, Dirk
drza: KG, TD, Manu, DW, Nash
So is it really so awful that I put Shaq or Dirk above Nash?

2006
me: DW, Dirk, LJ, KB, KG
drza: DW, Dirk, LJ, KB, KG

2007
me: TD, Dirk, LJ, KB, KG
drza: TD, LJ, KG, Dirk, KB

my take on that:

2005: Dirk was totally outclassed when they matched up head2head and Shaq played poorly in the playoffs so I think it wasn't really a contest there. I didn't include Garnett but I could see a strong case for him that year. Wade though, was injured in the playoffs so that kind of makes it a lopsided comparison. Manu wasn't really close to Nash as a player.

2006: Nash posted much better team results than either LBJ or Kobe despite lack of enourmous advantage in supporting cast. I can't see how you can justify that. also, Kobe was outplayed by Nash h2h as he didn't play very well in that Suns series.

2007: the argument that convinced me vs LBJ was their play against the Spurs in the playoffs. Nash dominated and James simply sucked. that's the same competition and being guarded by the same defender. I don't see any excuses for James. Suns were also demonstrably better than Cavs so team success isn't something to bring up in this case. also I don't know how would Dirk be higher than Nash that year when they had very similar RS and then followed it with vastly different postseasons in Nash's favor.

[sp6r=underrated]

I'm already girding my loins for the Cult of Hakeem. I've got him penciled in for 94 and 95, but there's no way I'm picking him over Jordan in any season before that.

Out of the one that are coming up were he matters
94 and 95 are no brainers for Hakeem.
93: You can make a very good case he was best player in RS. Debate should be him and Barkley for # 2
96: He won't be in my top 5 but I bet a lot of people will push him for top 3.
97: Last great PS campaign from Hakeem, but I think CB was their best player in RS. Malone Olajuwon should be a great debate in the never ending PS RS debate. I'm not sure about this year.

[Sedale Threatt]

97 was one of Malone's best seasons ever. Olajuwon was still very, very good, but clearly past his prime at that point. Like Kareem as the 80s wore on, when holes started to show up in his game. Although Dream did have a really good series in the WCFs, so that's probably something to consider.

[mysticbb]

I generally don't subscribe to that view. Defense does win championships (see Celtics '08), but a competent offense is still required the overwhelming majority of the team. There is a reason that the '90's Knicks never won diddly squat, and it wasn't just because of Jordan. They sucked on offense and lacked a much needed "take over" player or consistent threat.

For each of those examples you can find another example for a team which played better offensively than defensively. It gets overlooked, because a really poor defensive team will not have much of a chance, but the same is true for a team with really bad offense. The Bulls in 2007 would be my example for that. They had a great defense, really great defense, but their offense was really poor.

Regarding individual defense, why is it overrated? Was Artest overrated for "shutting down" Durant? Did you think it was overrated when Kobe took Westbrook completely out of his game in the OKC series (and yes, there were other factors, but you can't deny the impact)? If anything, individual defense is starting to get underrated as a way to overlook certain players poor individual defense.

Actually not, if the team concept doesn't allow it, an individual defender will not be able to do a great job. Bowen's defense was also not overrated, but without the defensive scheme of the Spurs and Duncan he would have looked bad.
How did Bryant look on defense on those poorly defensive Lakers in 2005 or 2007? He looked way worse than he really is as a defender. In both cases he had no impact on the Lakers defense at all. You mentioned Garnett and the Timberwolves defense already. That is a similar thing. A player can have a individual player can have bigger impact on offense than on defense. That is the reason a team with Nash as his main piece can go deep in the playoffs, that is the reason a team built around Nowitzki can win 50+ games in each season. Their defensive failures for their position is clearly outweighted by their offensive brilliance. For Nowitzki the data even shows that he has a positive impact on defense in comparison to an average player.

[semi-sentient]

^^^ I questioned the impact of Garnett when the Wolves were bad defensively because the argument keeps coming up that Kobe has little impact even when the Lakers are one of the better defensive teams in the league. Yes, defensive schemes are very important and even defensive anchors rely on support of others (like, perimeter players not letting their guys blow by them, funneling them properly, providing help), but players should be rewarded when they play solid defense instead of overlooked and underrated.

Oh, and I think Kobe's defense was good from 04-07, but not great. He didn't go from elite to poor. His defense was elite probably through the 02-03 season, then went down to above average for the next few, then went up a little to very good (but not elite) as the team improved.

[lorak]

But again, whatever impact Steve has had -- and no question, it's been substantial -- it doesn't match, in my opinion, what guys like Garnett and Duncan bring to the table as dominant two-way players, or overwhelming forces of nature like a Shaq or a Lebron or a Wade. Kobe, too.

+1

Of course I would add Dirk to that list.

[Doctor MJ]

Guys,

-Extending out the '02-03 deadline to tonight as per request.
-Extending out the '01-02 deadline to Thursday due to that request and the already cramped schedule.
-'00-01 will remain a Wed-Fri thing, we'll then break for the weekend and be on the new schedule.

Going forward I want to get to the point where the deadlines are more hard and fast, but given the changes going on this week, some flexibility seems wise.

[mysticbb]

Yes, defensive schemes are very important and even defensive anchors rely on support of others (like, perimeter players not letting their guys blow by them, funneling them properly, providing help), but players should be rewarded when they play solid defense instead of overlooked and underrated.

Well, nobody is saying that we should overlook those players, that isn't the point, but we are overrating them right now in comparison to the real MVP voting. The problem is that impactwise Nash and Nowitzki are right up there or even better than some players with "defense" in some of those years.

Oh, and I think Kobe's defense was good from 04-07, but not great. He didn't go from elite to poor. His defense was elite probably through the 02-03 season, then went down to above average for the next few, then went up a little to very good (but not elite) as the team improved.

Bryant played way more inconsistent since O'Neal left and he has more responsibilities on offense. He picked it up again at the beginning of this season, but after the injury he slipped again.
But I was more talking about impact on defense. I picked two specific years in which the Lakers had a really bad defense. In 2005 the defense with Bryant was at 112.8 and without him 110.4 (well, the weight and the injury are also a reason here), in 2007 with him 109.8 and without him 110.5. Neither of those OnCourt DRtg shows any kind of big impact by Bryant. That's how it is.

[Baller 24]

Out of the one that are coming up were he matters
94 and 95 are no brainers for Hakeem.
93: You can make a very good case he was best player in RS. Debate should be him and Barkley for # 2
96: He won't be in my top 5 but I bet a lot of people will push him for top 3.
97: Last great PS campaign from Hakeem, but I think CB was their best player in RS. Malone Olajuwon should be a great debate in the never ending PS RS debate. I'm not sure about this year.

Listen, I'm a HUGE Rockets fan, and obviously love Hakeem and whatnot, but here's somethings to consider:

In '95, Robinson put up an absolutely amazing season, it was '09 LeBron like how he carried that cast. That team got all the way to the WCF and lost to the Rockets. Now, if LeBron gets the nod over Bryant for his regular season dominance in '09, why shouldn't Robinson over Olajuwon?

'93 is a really good season where he could be considered the best, I think however, with the way Jordan dominated throughout the dramatic playoff run in '93, and then in the finals, It's got to be Jordan. Hakeem though makes a solid case for # 2 OVER Barkley, with how his cast was and whatnot.

'96 probably a top 5 year, I wouldn't be surprised. And as for '97, maybe, but I doubt it. Jordan and Malone are a for sure, Pippen had a solid year, then there's Grant Hill, and Penny Hardaway.

Other years I could see people making a case of Olajuwon: '89 & '86

[drza]

well, I'd like to see drza's explanation. we've been supporting Garnett ever since I came to realGM (and he was one of the main reasons I joined anyway), but we hardly ever had a disagreement. I'd like to hear his thoughts about Nash and why he ranks below those players.

2005
me: TD, KG, DW, Shaq, Dirk
drza: KG, TD, Manu, DW, Nash
So is it really so awful that I put Shaq or Dirk above Nash?

2006
me: DW, Dirk, LJ, KB, KG
drza: DW, Dirk, LJ, KB, KG

2007
me: TD, Dirk, LJ, KB, KG
drza: TD, LJ, KG, Dirk, KB

my take on that:

2005: Dirk was totally outclassed when they matched up head2head and Shaq played poorly in the playoffs so I think it wasn't really a contest there. I didn't include Garnett but I could see a strong case for him that year. Wade though, was injured in the playoffs so that kind of makes it a lopsided comparison. Manu wasn't really close to Nash as a player.

2006: Nash posted much better team results than either LBJ or Kobe despite lack of enourmous advantage in supporting cast. I can't see how you can justify that. also, Kobe was outplayed by Nash h2h as he didn't play very well in that Suns series.

2007: the argument that convinced me vs LBJ was their play against the Spurs in the playoffs. Nash dominated and James simply sucked. that's the same competition and being guarded by the same defender. I don't see any excuses for James. Suns were also demonstrably better than Cavs so team success isn't something to bring up in this case. also I don't know how would Dirk be higher than Nash that year when they had very similar RS and then followed it with vastly different postseasons in Nash's favor.

I'm pretty sure I have long posts in each of those threads detailing the decisions that I made per year (I know I did for '05, I had several). But the extreme cliff-notes version is that, like Sedale Threatt said, I just don't believe that Nash is as good as Duncan, Garnett, LeBron, Wade, Kobe, Dirk, etc. I think he's a great player, I just think that he's not usually one of the 5 best players in the league.

Also, I've been pretty consistent using the same body of advanced stats as support, and Nash rarely measures out at the very top of those either. In '05, for instance, Manu and Nash played similar minutes and had similar regular season rankings in the stats. In the postseason he kicked it up a notch, to the point where he very arguably could have been the best player overall in the playoffs. That's what got him into my top-5 in the first place. In fact, my original top-5 for '05 was KG, Duncan, Shaq, Dirk and Manu with Nash and Wade as HMs. As the thread went along and people made strong cases for Nash, pointed out that Shaq and Dirk both struggled in the playoffs, and used the numbers to illustrate/remind me just how much Wade was taking over the team as the season went along. Yeah he eventually got hurt, but by the time he did he had taken his team as far as any of the other contenders outside of Ginobili (I even mentioned that as part of the reason Manu stayed ahead of him in my ranking). Essentially I took my original 5, dropped Shaq and Dirk, then moved everyone else up 2 slots strongly due to the discussion part of the thread.

At the end of the day we obviously won't all agree. In general I've noticed that I think higher of KG (and ironically, in the '02 thread perhaps of Duncan as well) than some others do. I obviously don't think Nash is quite as good as some others do, nor do I think that Kobe was ever the best player in the league in any year (almost always top-5, though. Sometimes top-2). Other than that, I don't know that my picks are really that controversial. I do think it's funny that I was held up earlier in the thread as a "poster that everyone respects", when I've been catching a good amount of flack in the last couple of days. I'm not sure that I'm the one that someone should really be using as an example right now

[Sedale Threatt]

In '95, Robinson put up an absolutely amazing season, it was '09 LeBron like how he carried that cast. That team got all the way to the WCF and lost to the Rockets. Now, if LeBron gets the nod over Bryant for his regular season dominance in '09, why shouldn't Robinson over Olajuwon?

Because LeBron was even better in the playoffs, while Robinson was disemboweled.

[Doctor MJ]

In '95, Robinson put up an absolutely amazing season, it was '09 LeBron like how he carried that cast. That team got all the way to the WCF and lost to the Rockets. Now, if LeBron gets the nod over Bryant for his regular season dominance in '09, why shouldn't Robinson over Olajuwon?

Because LeBron was even better in the playoffs, while Robinson was disemboweled.

Yeah, I don't see the situations as similar. You can't just go by team playoff results.

[Gongxi]

There are only two players which seems to have a clear biased influence here: Steve Nash and Kevin Garnett. Garnett gets more shares in our voting in years in which he done nothing in the playoffs, and Nash gets less even though he was reasonable successful in the playoffs.

I'd like to think that's because Garnett got less attention due to his teams being bad and Nash got more due to his teams being good, and we're slowly getting past that in this project.

[JordansBulls]

To be fair, I don't think it is right to put MJ on the top 5 in 1995 simply because he only played 17 regular season games. I would think to qualify on any of these lists you should have played at least 50 of the 82 games.

I'm not sure "Doctor MJ" but should certain players have played a certain amount of games to qualify? Another example would be Wilt in 1969 when he played 12 games in the regular season or Bird in 1989 when he played 6 games or Robinson in 1997 when he played 6 games.

[Doctor MJ]

To be fair, I don't think it is right to put MJ on the top 5 in 1995 simply because he only played 17 regular season games. I would think to qualify on any of these lists you should have played at least 50 of the 82 games.

I'm not sure "Doctor MJ" but should certain players have played a certain amount of games to qualify? Another example would be Wilt in 1969 when he played 12 games in the regular season or Bird in 1989 when he played 6 games or Robinson in 1997 when he played 6 games.

The project is supposed to be about what the player accomplished in a given year. No threshold should be necessary, but if a player misses a lot of time that's very relevant. Maybe someone could make a case otherwise, but I don't think there's any player in history who missed 3/4ths of the regular season who could really be a POY contender. It would certainly take a post-season of absolutely epic proportions.

[bastillon]

so drza you're punishing Nash for relatively poor boxscore statistics ?

[JordansBulls]

To be fair, I don't think it is right to put MJ on the top 5 in 1995 simply because he only played 17 regular season games. I would think to qualify on any of these lists you should have played at least 50 of the 82 games.

I'm not sure "Doctor MJ" but should certain players have played a certain amount of games to qualify? Another example would be Wilt in 1969 when he played 12 games in the regular season or Bird in 1989 when he played 6 games or Robinson in 1997 when he played 6 games.

The project is supposed to be about what the player accomplished in a given year. No threshold should be necessary, but if a player misses a lot of time that's very relevant. Maybe someone could make a case otherwise, but I don't think there's any player in history who missed 3/4ths of the regular season who could really be a POY contender. It would certainly take a post-season of absolutely epic proportions.

Not neccesarily POY, but since we are doing top 5 per year, are they going to be allowed to be placed in it if they could not qualify for any All NBA Teams, etc because of lack of games?

[sp6r=underrated]

It is for the voters to decide how much GP matter

[Gongxi]

Was "Doctor MJ" in quotes like that anyway? Were you implying that isn't his real name? If you just wanted to imply he wasn't a real doctor, you should've just put quotes around the Doctor part.

[Doctor MJ]

Not neccesarily POY, but since we are doing top 5 per year, are they going to be allowed to be placed in it if they could not qualify for any All NBA Teams, etc because of lack of games?

Allowed? Well look, I'm very reluctant to not count votes for anyone in the project. If I become convinced somebody has an absolutely crazy agenda, I'll boot them, but it's not going to happen just because of what I subjectively feel to be bad logic.

To reiterate though, this is basically an MVP project. I changed the name to make it clear that there was indeed a difference, but that difference is the inclusion of the post-season. This isn't a project about potential to contribute if only the player was healthy, etc, it's about actual contribution. So if a guy hardly plays in the regular season, that's a pretty major issue.

As far as a threshold goes, I'm not going to give one, I can't look at it that way. This is greyscale stuff. Everyone's got to weigh what the player actually contributed based on how good they were and how much they played.