Retro Player of the Year Project

[Gongxi]

I vote right away because it helps set up a ranking that people can look to to base things off. I have no problem changing it later. I mean, I already have my initial votes and my write ups well into the 90s at this point. I see no reason to change that to satiate someone's sense of drama. So I already have a top 5 prepared and ready to argue on their behalf and/or adjust my rankings, but I should just be quiet about that?

Wouldn't that be kinda transparent anyway? Hey guys, I'm gonna talk about Grant Hill here and how awesome he is...not as awesome as Jordan or Malone this year, but more awesome than Olajuwon and Pippen and anyone else in the league. Can you guess where I have him ranked? Tee hee hee. Instead I'll just come out and say: 1) Jordan 2) Malone 3) Hill 4) Olajuwon 5) Pippen, here's why, if you disagree, let's go.

It worked fine last year when I had McGrady at 5 and there was no decent argument for Carter over him or when I eventually inserted Garnett into the rankings. We can each just give our impressions of players, but if we're not comparing a specific player to another specific player for a specific spot, it's kinda useless (see: the Grant Hill example).

[drza]

I vote right away because it helps set up a ranking that people can look to to base things off. I have no problem changing it later. I mean, I already have my initial votes and my write ups well into the 90s at this point. I see no reason to change that to satiate someone's sense of drama. So I already have a top 5 prepared and ready to argue on their behalf and/or adjust my rankings, but I should just be quiet about that?

Wouldn't that be kinda transparent anyway? Hey guys, I'm gonna talk about Grant Hill here and how awesome he is...not as awesome as Jordan or Malone this year, but more awesome than Olajuwon and Pippen and anyone else in the league. Can you guess where I have him ranked? Tee hee hee. Instead I'll just come out and say: 1) Jordan 2) Malone 3) Hill 4) Olajuwon 5) Pippen, here's why, if you disagree, let's go.

It worked fine last year when I had McGrady at 5 and there was no decent argument for Carter over him or when I eventually inserted Garnett into the rankings. We can each just give our impressions of players, but if we're not comparing a specific player to another specific player for a specific spot, it's kinda useless (see: the Grant Hill example).

I would say to look at the last couple of pages in this thread, where people have been discussing 2000. There are lots of questions and lots of gray area to discuss in any given year beyond just a ranking. Things beyond just the stats but the circumstances surrounding the stats. Memories that one person might have that another has forgotten. Just getting the feel for what all was going on, which is more and more important the further back we go.

You mentioned that you changed your vote, and that's cool, but not everyone is flexible. I've noticed that a lot of the people that vote early are never heard from in the thread again. That doesn't necessarily mean they stopped reading, but for some it might mean exactly that. All having a day or so of discussion before starting any votes would do is make sure that people had a chance to get the year straight in their minds before seeing someone else's top-5 spurred them into putting their's out there as well. Just like you mentioned that seeing your top-5 gives people a frame of reference, this type of discussion thread would IMO give folks a broader frame of reference from which to make their own decisions as opposed to just the top-5 of the first few people that voted.

:Shrugs: I guess I don't see the downside to this, especially since Doc MJ said from the start that he preferred people to wait until the last day to vote. Having a day of pure discussion thread would still give people two full days to vote under our new schedule, but would seem to fit more along the lines of the original purpose of the project. At least, that's my 2 cents on it.

[Gongxi]

Without an initial framework, it's very hard to argue anything. Let's talk about Britain in the 1870s. Well, are we comparing it to Germany or to Italy? Our language will be very different, dependent upon that. Are we talking army strength, naval strength, or economic strength? Different yet again. If we have no parameters and boundaries, the analysis will suffer.

If everyone just started with someone- a random player, yet someone still considerable for ranking in this project- and played them up, that'd be one thing. I'd be down for that. Just random suppositions without knowing exactly what we're arguing for or against ("Oh well, if I woulda known you were arguing that he was 4th, I would've agreed, but I thought you were saying he should be like second or something") isn't very fruitful. I have no doubts that if no one gave a ranking at all in the first two pages that there would be a lot of discussion. Pertinent discussion? I'm not so sure.

As it is, when a few ballots- but not all, basically the way it's been going down- are presented early, discussion is both spurred on and honed down to more arguable candidates.

[bastillon]

I have a feeling Duncan will finish on many ballots despite having no such shot at this. what's the value of the guy who doesn't play in the PS ? (and IIRC whose injury-concerns stopped him from being there as he practiced with the team)

as for Garnett and the Blazers. nobody is gonna shoot high-percentage against that team when he has nobody to turn to. Wolves team in 2000:

-sophomore Rasho, played 30 mins in rookie year
-past prime Terrell Brandon
-rookie Wally
-Malik Sealy (that's before he died... ironically it was on Garnett's birthday when he was returning from his birthday party or smth like that)
-Peeler... nuff said (btw. my top hated player in Wolves uniform)
-Joe Smith, good role player

there's no way you can get away with having SO BAD teammates and perform in the playoffs at a high level. let's not act like teammates don't matter, because they do obviously. there's a reason Hakeem suddenly "improved" in mid 90s and it has nothing to do with him. it's one thing to blame Garnett for shooting poorly, but when he's dishing out an insane 8.8 APG, it becomes clear how much the defense swarmed him during that series. meanwhile Wolves scored 85 PPG in that series so KG was directly responsible for over 40% of those pts. Blazers, on the other hand, scored only 87 PPG (93 in 2nd round, 95 in WCFs), so Garnett MUST HAVE been doing something right, because there's no way Brandon or Wally could play anything short of awful defense. you can also see this in Sheed's postseason, because he played by far the worst against the Wolves.

so you have to understand how specific that series was. it was a defensive, grind-it-out series, with teams scoring in mid-80s and Garnett being absolutely swarmed by everyone (as evidenced by his 8.8 APG). do you want to knock him for taking that team to 50 wins and staying competitive against top2 team in the league (again, lost by 2 PPG on average) ?

also let's not act like Garnett had bad production:

Code: Select all

              MPG   PPG   TS%   APG   TOV   RPG   BPG   SPG
 00 Malone   39.2  23.8  0.53   4.0   2.6   8.2   0.8   0.8
 00 Garnett  42.8  18.8  0.44   8.8   2.8  10.8   0.8   1.3
 00 Shaq     45.7  25.9  0.55   4.3   2.7  12.4   1.9   0.1
 02 Shaq     39.0  21.4  0.49   3.2   3.0  12.2   3.0   0.6
 05 Duncan   40.7  20.6  0.47   2.1   2,4  14.1   2.1   0.4
 07 Duncan   37.8  18.3  0.48   3.8   2.8  11.5   2.3   1.3

this is Garnett vs Blazers compared to other dominant big men of this decade: Malone's 2000 series vs Blazers, Shaq vs Blazers, Shaq vs Spurs in 02, Duncan in '05 finals, Duncan in '07 finals. four of those big men are POY winners, Malone is likely to finish in TOP3. suddenly Garnett is downgraded because of his playoff series while in fact he played at the level of these guys ? Garnett is not the odd man out here.

now I'm not saying Garnett deserves a POY over Shaq, that'd be idiotic. I just don't see how you can call KG's PS bad, when he did PLENTY to push his team over the top. you don't expect him to beat the Blazers with rookie Wally and Rasho and freaking Terrell Brandon, do you ?

and Garnett led this sorry team to 50 wins in very tough conference and managed to get 6th seed. he just had really bad luck in terms of his first round opponent. Blazers were best or second best team in the NBA... and KG still almost put up a triple double on average in that series. I don't see how this is a knock on Garnett.

[KING JAMES1978]

Kobe?
An Unbiased fan?
Your favorite player was never the best in the game?Why that?
You considered him as the best of the decade,right?
This is one of the reasons that Kobe was never near to Jordan.He wasn't never clearly the best in the game.
No chance for the GOAT.

[semi-sentient]

I have a feeling Duncan will finish on many ballots despite having no such shot at this. what's the value of the guy who doesn't play in the PS ? (and IIRC whose injury-concerns stopped him from being there as he practiced with the team)

Duncan's off my ballot for exactly that reason. It's a shame, because he had a solid RS and got All-NBA/All-Defensive 1st selections, but so did lots of other players.

[Silver Bullet]

Kobe?
An Unbiased fan?
Your favorite player was never the best in the game?Why that?
You considered him as the best of the decade,right?
This is one of the reasons that Kobe was never near to Jordan.He wasn't never clearly the best in the game.
No chance for the GOAT.

Please, no trolling in this thread -

[Dr Positivity]

I'm leaving Duncan and Hill off my ballot... I need my player to be there/able in the playoffs, at least to make a top 5

For 2-4 the guys I mostly considered were Malone, KG, and Zo.

One thing I like about Malone is amazingly at 36, he's still one of the best FT line players in the league (7.2/9.0 - 2nd in FTM, 3rd in FTA) and as a result the Jazz are 3rd overall in FT/FGA. In comparison Zo and KG's teams, the other guys I considered for the 2nd spot, rank 25th and 28th respectively in FT/FGA. With that said his FG% (.509) is much lower than Zo's because Karl at this point took a lot of jumpers

I'm really impressed by Zo's efficiency though and again it shows up in the stats. The Heat rank 3rd in eFG despite finishing 9th in 3PM. This told me they were superb at scoring at the rim. Then Zo himself is a .59 TS% guy (good for 4th in the league and is the most efficient 20ppg player), despite being merely decent at getting points from the FT line (5.2/7.4). He shot 55.1% from the field. All of this tells me his inside scoring was superb that year.

KG was more of a perimeter based player at this point in his career, as shown by his weak FT line numbers (3.4/4.5) and .497 FG% which indicates lower efficiency jumpshots. Offensively he's basically Malone without the FT line production

KG and Zo are obviously the superior defensive players, but Malone is still pretty good. Right now I'd lean towards voting Zo 2nd, Malone 3rd, KG 4th, just based on my voting technique of asking if this was a draft, in what order would I take them? I like Zo most as the super efficient inside scorer who has 3.7bpg as a dominant defensive anchor, Malone next as the best offensive player of the group, and then KG who's offense I really don't like this year but is still an excellent defender

The 5th slot I have between Payton, Iverson, Webber, Carter, Kobe. I was leaning towards Iverson until I saw he only played 70 games... nah. Webber has the best stats with his 24/10/4 line. The guy who's probably underrated is Carter. Put up 26/6/4 and won 45 games with an OK team. Nice year. I'd probably put those guys in front because I just don't like Payton's offensive style

[semi-sentient]

BTW, I'm watching the Sacramento/Lakers series right now (2000) and Doug Collins can't say enough good things about Shaq and Kobe defensively. He said the biggest reason that the Lakers are so good is because both of them are dominant defensively (best post and perimeter defense in the league), and that they are the most dominant 1/2 punch by far. Lots of interesting comparisons being made to the Jordan/Pippen one-two punch.

Also, Webber is scoring efficiently, but you can tell he has little impact outside of that. Lakers are getting all kinds of offensive rebounds/putbacks. He's getting the short end of the stick though because there have been some terrible calls against him. Horry might be the MVP of this series with all the flop calls he's gotten... lol. Still, not impressed at all with Webber. He's basically a more efficient Garnett in that he's just taking those 15-18 footers and hitting, but he's putting ZERO pressure on the defense outside of that. I can say with a high level of certainty that Kobe has a bigger impact on offense than Webber based on their playing styles/responsibilities, that much is clear.

Jason Williams has turned into nothing but a jump-shooter. He's not able to create anything for his teammates, so again, very little impact outside of scoring. Kobe, so far, has been the main guy guarding him. Delk has had more success by taking it to the basket, but again, not creating anything for anyone. The Kings offense looks pretty much out of sync even though they are still scoring.

[Sedale Threatt]

This is the dichotomous thinking that leads to these conclusions in the first place. This isn't tennis or golf, it's a team sport. There are thousands of variables outside of James' control. No player is close to perfect. So, his team needs to be held accountable for losing. But to say "you either perform or you don't" is some kind of black-and-white thinking that makes for catchy headlines but not very honest analysis. There's a lot of nuance in sports.

Absolutely. But at what point to you become so bogged down in micro-analysis that you completely lose sight of the trees from the forest?

I mean, before we glean through these thousands of variables outside of his control, shouldn't we start at the very top, with the player himself?

Which is why I found some of the arguments to defend Kobe in 04 and 08 pretty unsatisfying. Yeah, he was going up against outstanding defenses. And yeah, he didn't get much help.

Doesn't change the most important factor of all -- Kobe himself didn't play well.

It's the same case here. Especially after James performed so spectacularly last year despite being hampered by many of the same shortcomings -- crappy coach, crappy supporting cast, etc.

[lorak]

If Webber wasn't in top 5 in 2001 because of his poor playoff shooting that same should apply to KG in 2000:
2001 Webber .388 FG%
2000 Garnett .385 FG%

[NO-KG-AI]

If Webber wasn't in top 5 in 2001 because of his poor playoff shooting that same should apply to KG in 2000:
2001 Webber .388 FG%
2000 Garnett .385 FG%

8.8 assists to 3.1 assists.

DPOY candidate, to not DPOY candidate.

Apples to oranges.

[lorak]

If Webber wasn't in top 5 in 2001 because of his poor playoff shooting that same should apply to KG in 2000:
2001 Webber .388 FG%
2000 Garnett .385 FG%

8.8 assists to 3.1 assists.

DPOY candidate, to not DPOY candidate.

Not even close - KG wasn't DPOY candidate in 2000 (he got two votes, Kidd, Gill level)

Bottom line - if big shoot below .400 in playoffs there's no excuses, that’s simply awful.

[NO-KG-AI]

KG was 1st team all defense.

Anyway, it is awful, and there are no excuses, but when you are an excellent defender, still have a huge rebounding advantage(we went over this) and you put up 8.8 assists as a big, you can have games where you score less.

Webber was shooting bad, but it wasn't like he was being swarmed and dishing out big assists.

[KING JAMES1978]

Kobe?
An Unbiased fan?
Your favorite player was never the best in the game?Why that?
You considered him as the best of the decade,right?
This is one of the reasons that Kobe was never near to Jordan.He wasn't never clearly the best in the game.
No chance for the GOAT.

Please, no trolling in this thread -

I'm not trolling believe me...I said that because look at this thread how many times he said Kobe was the best in the game.Some of these years he said Kobe was the best were at least jokes...
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1005415

[An Unbiased Fan]

Please, no trolling in this thread -

I'm not trolling believe me...I said that because look at this thread how many times he said Kobe was the best in the game.Some of these years he said Kobe was the best were at least jokes...
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1005415

That list was off the top of my head for the most part, and I changed my opinion on some of those choices, including 2001 when I looked at it more in depth. You try listing players over a freakin 50 year period, by the time I got to the 90's I was really fatigued.

That's the whole point of this project. Evaluating players year to year, and challenging your pre-conceived thoughts. If you have an issue with me picking Kobe from 06'-09', then why didn't you speak up in those threads? I would be more than happy to restate why he was chosen in each year.

As for your player of the decade crack. I would point out that Kobe has been Top 5 in 8 of the 9 years so far, which leads all players. TD has the highest POY share. So basically both players have a legit case as player of the decade for a variety of reasons, and equal each other with 7 All-NBA/All-D (1st) selections.

[KING JAMES1978]

^^^
I don't give a ..... how many times he was top-5.
Kobe was never clearly the best in the Game.And that's more important.Top-5?Who cares except Kobe homers...

This is a very interesting thread but I haven't a lot of time.
But i made that thread with my peaks 1950-2010..

[An Unbiased Fan]

^^^
I don't give a ..... how many times he was top-5.
Kobe was never clearly the best in the Game.And that's more important.Top-5?Who cares except Kobe homers...

This is a very interesting thread but I haven't a lot of time.
But i made that thread with my peaks 1950-2010..

According to the list YOU made..... Shaq was POY 3 times, and Kobe/TD/Lebron were POY 2 times in the 00's. So there is hardly a consenus on your own list.

I'm just not sure what your beef is.

[semi-sentient]

AUF - Ignore the trolls. If you feed them, they'll continue, and all it's going to do is derail our discussion of the 99-00 POY candidates.

[bastillon]

I'm leaving Duncan and Hill off my ballot... I need my player to be there/able in the playoffs, at least to make a top 5

For 2-4 the guys I mostly considered were Malone, KG, and Zo.

One thing I like about Malone is amazingly at 36, he's still one of the best FT line players in the league (7.2/9.0 - 2nd in FTM, 3rd in FTA) and as a result the Jazz are 3rd overall in FT/FGA. In comparison Zo and KG's teams, the other guys I considered for the 2nd spot, rank 25th and 28th respectively in FT/FGA. With that said his FG% (.509) is much lower than Zo's because Karl at this point took a lot of jumpers

I'm really impressed by Zo's efficiency though and again it shows up in the stats. The Heat rank 3rd in eFG despite finishing 9th in 3PM. This told me they were superb at scoring at the rim. Then Zo himself is a .59 TS% guy (good for 4th in the league and is the most efficient 20ppg player), despite being merely decent at getting points from the FT line (5.2/7.4). He shot 55.1% from the field. All of this tells me his inside scoring was superb that year.

KG was more of a perimeter based player at this point in his career, as shown by his weak FT line numbers (3.4/4.5) and .497 FG% which indicates lower efficiency jumpshots. Offensively he's basically Malone without the FT line production

KG and Zo are obviously the superior defensive players, but Malone is still pretty good. Right now I'd lean towards voting Zo 2nd, Malone 3rd, KG 4th, just based on my voting technique of asking if this was a draft, in what order would I take them? I like Zo most as the super efficient inside scorer who has 3.7bpg as a dominant defensive anchor, Malone next as the best offensive player of the group, and then KG who's offense I really don't like this year but is still an excellent defender

The 5th slot I have between Payton, Iverson, Webber, Carter, Kobe. I was leaning towards Iverson until I saw he only played 70 games... nah. Webber has the best stats with his 24/10/4 line. The guy who's probably underrated is Carter. Put up 26/6/4 and won 45 games with an OK team. Nice year. I'd probably put those guys in front because I just don't like Payton's offensive style

love your bias. you managed to mention all of Zo's and Malone's advantages but failed to recognize Garnett's at the same time bringing up all of his worst qualities, while completely dismissing factually obvious statistical evidence that puts him in completely different light.

Malone is a good passer. Zo is a poor passer. Garnett averaged 5 assists, to put that into context that's the best season post-merger for a big pace-adjusted. obviously Garnett's liability here.

Zo's Heat 17th in ORtg, Garnett's Wolves 8th with inferior teammates. clearly advantage Mourning

Wolves 6th at TO-r, Jazz 18th, Heat 21st. another advantage Zo and Malone.

Mourning below 16 and reb. rate, Malone merely at 16 and then dropped to 13.7 in the playoffs. Garnett meanwhile at over 17. clearly another advantage Mourning and Malone.

this is just silly. every single one of your posts focuses on how inefficient Garnett's jumpers are, despite the fact that he's still making 50% of his FGs and shots FTs at epic level for a big. you're always dismissing his great passing which in fact is Garnett's main weapon offensively because he's a pass-first big in the first place (but I guess that doesn't matter). you never said one thing about his rebounding... or his elite help/perimeter defense... or leadership widely recognized as top-notch. the way you describe Garnett I'd say he's a David West, if I didn't know him. news: Garnett does significantly more to help his team win than just shoot the ball. he has a massive advantage in passing/rebounding over both of this guys which far outweighs relatively small adv in scoring efficiency. now I could understand Mourning at least, because you can make a case he's a better defender than Garnett.

but for Malone ?

Code: Select all

              MPG   PPG   TS%   APG   TOV   RPG   BPG   SPG
00 Malone   39.2  23.8  0.53   4.0   2.6   8.2   0.8   0.8
00 Garnett  42.8  18.8  0.44   8.8   2.8  10.8   0.8   1.3

these are their numbers against the same opponent in the playoffs. Malone's far more efficient, but he comes nowhere near Garnett in either passing or rebounding, whereas scoring isn't a complete blowout (4 APG more at 0.2 more TOV IS).

but individual production is only so important. let's look at how their teams did against Blazers:
Wolves 85 PPG, 87 allowed
Jazz 82 PPG, 93 allowed

so not only that Garnett had less around him, but also did more. Wolves remained competitive in the Blazers series while Jazz were just completely shut down and dominated. 11 PPG difference ? lost 3 times by 18 or more in the first 3 games of the series ? 1-4 ? ouch. Wolves were at least close in these games. Jazz never showed up for the series.

I love how people already dismissed my previous post about Garnett producing more than 40% of his team's pts via boxscore numbers and how Blazers were shut down in contrast to other series (again, PPG vs Wolves - 87, 2nd Rd - 93, WCF - 95). let's also ignore the impact he had on Rasheed who scored 13.5 PPG in 42 MPG against the Wolves but 19.3 PPG in 36 MPG against the rest of his playoff opponents. that sure didn't contribute a damn thing to Portland scoring over 10 pts below their scoring average and about 5 pts less than what they did the rest of that postseason. clearly Garnett's defensive impact was non-existent and that wasn't the sole reason why they were in the game. obviously it's Terrell Brandon and his 6'0 frame and Wally's rookie energy and defensive fundamentals that kept them in the game, nevermind that Pippen was torching them, why would you even consider a crap like that ?

I don't see how this is a question when Garnett had a vastly better (more impactful) series against the Blazers than Karl Malone did. it weren't Wolves who got blown out in first 3 games of the series and just merely avoided the sweep while being beat up on by 11 pts on average.

at the end of the day all people are gonna do is:
Garnett shot 38%, poor performance. nevermind anchoring the defense that severely limited the Blazers. nevermind producing 40% of his team's pts while dishing out his epic 8.8 APG on mere 2.8 TOV. nevermind being far away best rebounder in the series (and vastly outrebounding both of his opps here). after all, the only thing that Garnett does is scoring - he's widely known for lack of versatility in his game... so let's just toss all that crap aside and focus on the only important factor here which is...

the defense!...
... the rebounding...
...unselfishness ?...

oh, wait, right - got it now !
... which is THE SCORING !111ONEONE
38%, bad performance, period.