Retro POY '00-01 (Voting Complete)

[Doctor MJ]

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 best player seasons of '00-01. Some pointers:

-Change in schedule. We will now operate by splitting the week into thirds: Mon-Wed, Wed-Fri, Fri-Mon. I will label each thread with it's deadline.

-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 ... _2001.html
Playoff Summary http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... _2001.html
Award Voting http://www.basketball-reference.com/awa ... _2001.html

Topics for '00-01:

-Lakers flip the switch
-Iverson
-Heck, those awesome eastern conference playoffs.

[Baller 24]

There's no contest for first IMO, it's Shaq with pretty ease, it's going to be hard to sway me to vote for anyone else.

[Gongxi]

Just for posterity's sake, I'm going to say that throughout this thing I'm going mostly by on-court production, with games in December mattering as much as games in March, and games in the playoffs meaning only about 50% more than games in the regular season. Which is to say: if you play 20 playoff games and 82 regular season games, your regular season still accounts for roughly 2/3rds of where I'm placing you. Why? Because a 20 game sample size pales in comparison to 82 or, together, 102 games.

Also, I don't much care about how well your team did. It's basketball, not ping pong- one player can't dictate whether an entire team wins or loses. That said, the Gongxi top 5 for 2000-2001 are:

1- Shaquille O'Neal
2- Tim Duncan
3- Kevin Garnett
4- Kobe Bryant
5- Jason Kidd

Shaq played out of his mind. I think most observers believe Shaq kinda got ripped off on this MVP award, as people were caught up with Iverson's showmanship, scoring (even more so the way he did it), and general vibe. He's my clear cut winner this year and really no one is in his stratosphere.

After him, there's a slew of folks: Duncan, Garnett, Kidd, Kobe, T-Mac, Carter, Malone, Webber, and Iverson, in my mind. Duncan had one of his weaker regular seasons, but a very good postseason- not like anyone else's (aside from Diesel) had a gangbusters regular season anyway. For me, Kobe was better this year than he was in 02-03, possibly because less was asked of him and he still pretty young both seasons. Kidd enjoyed one of his best seasons, and as some can probably tell, I think he was a player that really did it all. McGrady was just a little bit worse than he would be the season after (in which he was a little bit worse than his historical season), but still good enough to place fifth.

If someone wants to plug in any of those other people mentioned here for McGrady (or for Kidd, or for Kobe), I wouldn't protest too much. There was one phenomenal player this year, one who was pretty great, and a bunch of guys that just had great- although not historical or even too notable- seasons, too.

Iverson...Iverson seems to stand atop that last group to a lot of people, but I'm not convinced. I don't think he would at all if not for the team assembled around him, clouding our memories with grandiose thoughts of him leading some nobodies nearly to a championship- something I don't think is true. I'm sure encyclopedias regarding Iverson's season have been written here. It wasn't his best- that would come later, in Denver, but it was very good. He did what the team asked of him, and he did it pretty well. The thing is, though, I don't think it's anything other talented swings of the era couldn't have done, either. And no, Kidd couldn't have done that with that particular team, but he could do it with a team tailored to suit him, which he exhibited the very next year. And we know Duncan and Shaq could do it.

I'm prepared to get as much **** as I did last time I left the MVP off this list, but...he doesn't do it for me. He had one role on that team and I think there wasn't much stopping several other people from executing that role.

Edited in light of looking further at Garnett and his relation to Duncan and Bryant. Kidd just dropped a spot, didn't look at him again.

[ItsMillerTime]

I will probably have Iverson at No.2. His performance in the playoffs really sealed the deal for me. Will try to post my list later today, after I get some time to study all the candidates again

[JordansBulls]

Best Stats = Shaq
Winning = Shaq


1- Shaquille O'Neal (finished 3rd in MVP voting)- Led the league in WS in the season and PER. Led in RPG and PER in the playoffs and a historic finals.

2- Allen Iverson (finished 1st in MVP voting led his team to the finals as the man with 7 games of 40+ in the playoffs including scoring 50+ twice in the same series). Averaged over 35 ppg in the finals and even averaged more than Shaq in them.

3- Tim Duncan (finished 2nd in MVP voting and 3rd in DPOY voting and led in Defensive WS

4- Kevin Garnett (finished 5th in MVP voting and 2nd in DPOY voting)

5- Kobe Bryant (finished 9th in MVP voting, but led LA in WS in the playoffs and tied for 1st in WS with Dikembe

[Silver Bullet]

Gongxi - how do you justify putting Mcgrady over Carter ?

[bastillon]

playoff head2head:

Code: Select all

          MPG   PPG   TS%   APG   TOV   RPG   BPG   SPG
Duncan   38.5  22.5  0.51   3.5   2.8  13.0   2.0   1.0
Garnett  41.3  21.0  0.57   4.3   1.5  12.0   1.5   1.0

Code: Select all

          MPG   PPG   TS%   APG   TOV   RPG   BPG   SPG
Duncan   42.3  23.0  0.54   4.3   4.5  12.3   4.3   1.3
Shaq     39.0  27.0  0.55   2.5   3.5  13.0   1.3   0.8

I guess Duncan's much closer to Garnett than to Shaq. you can make a good case that KG outplayed him in their h2h series.

RS

Code: Select all

          MPG   PPG   TS%   APG   TOV   RPG   BPG   SPG
Duncan   38.7  22.0  0.54   3.0   3.0  12.2   2.3   0.9
Garnett  39.5  22.0  0.53   5.0   2.8  11.4   1.8   1.4

pretty damn close.

Duncan finished 3rd in DPOY, right behind KG who was 2nd.

Wolves
ORtg 105.2 (11th of 29)
DRtg 103.7 (16th of 29)
won 47 games
1.81 SRS
with Brandon, Szczerbiak, Peeler, Laphonso Ellis, Billups in 23 MPG off the bench
coach: Saunders

Spurs
ORtg 106.6 (6th of 29)
DRtg 98.0 (1st of 29)
won 58 games
7.92 SRS
with Robinson, Avery, Antonio Daniels, Elliot and Derek Anderson
coach: Pop

[bastillon]

Lakers were 11-3 in Kobe's absence (Shaq played). no way I'm putting him anywhere near POY. he's TOP5, not much more than that. they were 5-3 in Shaq's absence (Kobe played).

[Gongxi]

Gongxi - how do you justify putting Mcgrady over Carter ?

Ya know, looking over it more, I'm not sure I can. They're so close that a convincing argument for Carter could easily sway me. I thought McGrady played a little better in both the regular season and the playoffs but there's no very clear distinction between them.

[semi-sentient]

If I see one more person put AI ahead of Kobe, I'm putting Kobe at the top of my list to make up for it.

[Gongxi]

Yeah, I think that's exactly what Doc has been pretty fervent about people not doing.

[Silver Bullet]

Gongxi - how do you justify putting Mcgrady over Carter ?

Ya know, looking over it more, I'm not sure I can. They're so close that a convincing argument for Carter could easily sway me. I thought McGrady played a little better in both the regular season and the playoffs but there's no very clear distinction between them.

Carter- AI had the greatest mano-a-mano duel in NBA history in what I rate as the GOAT series.

I'm not sure how T-Mac had the better post-season, when Carter was putting up 50 whenever we needed a win.

[bastillon]

Toronto
2-5 without Carter (23.4W)
45-30 with Carter (49.2)

Orlando
4-1 without T-Mac (65.6)
39-38 with T-Mac (42)

[Gongxi]

Gongxi - how do you justify putting Mcgrady over Carter ?

Ya know, looking over it more, I'm not sure I can. They're so close that a convincing argument for Carter could easily sway me. I thought McGrady played a little better in both the regular season and the playoffs but there's no very clear distinction between them.

Carter- AI had the greatest mano-a-mano duel in NBA history in what I rate as the GOAT series.

I'm not sure how T-Mac had the better post-season, when Carter was putting up 50 whenever we needed a win.

Carter: 27 ppg, 7rpg, 5apg, 52% TS.

McGrady: 34 ppg, 7rpg, 8apg, 48% TS.

Putting up 50 whenever he wanted doesn't really do much for me when, just glancing at the ppg, he apparently didn't want to all that often.

[bastillon]

Wolves lost their only game without Garnett by 20 points vs Dallas.

[NO-KG-AI]

If I see one more person put AI ahead of Kobe, I'm putting Kobe at the top of my list to make up for it.

[JordansBulls]

If I see one more person put AI ahead of Kobe, I'm putting Kobe at the top of my list to make up for it.

They both have cases, but you have to consider the Sixers got the #1 seed as well and that Iverson led the league in scoring and he also led his team to the finals. And even averaged more in the finals by 10 ppg with a fg% within 1% as Kobe.
Also it has already been recognized that Shaq is above Iverson.

Also Kobe finishing 9th in MVP voting doesn't really help him here.

[bastillon]

I wouldn't put Iverson in my TOP20.

[Silver Bullet]

Ya know, looking over it more, I'm not sure I can. They're so close that a convincing argument for Carter could easily sway me. I thought McGrady played a little better in both the regular season and the playoffs but there's no very clear distinction between them.

Carter- AI had the greatest mano-a-mano duel in NBA history in what I rate as the GOAT series.

I'm not sure how T-Mac had the better post-season, when Carter was putting up 50 whenever we needed a win.

Carter: 27 ppg, 7rpg, 5apg, 52% TS.

McGrady: 34 ppg, 7rpg, 8apg, 48% TS.

Putting up 50 whenever he wanted doesn't really do much for me when, just glancing at the ppg, he apparently didn't want to all that often.

Oh Man, that is so depressing -

Carter played the Knicks in the first round, a historically good defensive team - Mcgrady played the Bucks, one of the worst defensive teams -

He was being defended by Glenn Robinson most of that series - one of the worst defenders ever.

Carter went back to back against two great defensive teams.

Not to mention, you're looking at a 4 game sample versus a 12 game sample -

[An Unbiased Fan]

If I see one more person put AI ahead of Kobe, I'm putting Kobe at the top of my list to make up for it.

They both have cases, but you have to consider the Sixers got the #1 seed as well and that Iverson led the league in scoring and he also led his team to the finals. And even averaged more in the finals by 10 ppg with a fg% within 1% as Kobe.
Also it has already been recognized that Shaq is above Iverson.

Also Kobe finishing 9th in MVP voting doesn't really help him here.

Why does MVP matter though? Kobe was the best player for LA in the 2001 playoffs, where they went 15-1 and nearly undefeated. AI did make the finals, but it's not like he swept through Portland, Sactown, and SA. He had more ppg, but that's because he shot a whole lot more. Kobe was the better faciliatator and defender.