Retro POY '96-97 (Voting Complete)

[Doctor MJ]

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 best player seasons of '96-97. 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 ... _1997.html
Playoff Summary http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... _1997.html
Award Voting http://www.basketball-reference.com/awa ... _1997.html

Topics for '96-97

-Jordan vs Malone I
-The great experiment of Hakeem, Clyde and Charles.
-Shaq goes West

[bastillon]

I don't know if I'll be able to participate in the discussion so:

1.MJ
2.Dream
3.Malone
4.Pippen
5.Shaq

I feel strong about this list anyway, so I'll probably leave it like this anyway. Shaq gets punished for poor impact and low total minutes. Pippen was playing great on an epic team. Malone was obviously 27/10/4.5 and Stockton wasn't exactly making his life a lot easier at this point. Dream was phenomenal in the playoffs, but that team was atrocious defensively with old Drexler, old injured Barkley and Matt freaking Maloney.

WCFs:
Hakeem
27/9/4a/2stl/3bl 64% TS - this is crazy.
Malone
23.5/11/3/1/1 49% TS

Dream just outclassed Karl in the WCFs and that just sways me. I know Dream is gonna get robbed, people will probably put him out of the TOP5 in many cases, but when it mattered, when the season was on the line, Hakeem was every bit as good as in the championship years (okay, probably a bit worse). that should challenge MJ and I'm sure he would challenge him in the finals. Malone's illegal screen FTW though... so Jordan had a better season and that's why he gets my POY.

[Baller 24]

I was looking throughout the '97 season, and I came down to the following guys:

Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, Grant Hill, Scottie Pippen, Tim Hardaway, Patrick Ewing, Shaq and Gary Payton. Though I've got Hardaway on the short leash, absolutely terrible in the playoffs.

I think this is one of the seasons where Grant Hill definitely deserves a shout, not that high on Pippen over him despite his contributions to the championship team.

[Silver Bullet]

Mann, I've always thought the 90's was the weakest era in NBA history - but even I didn't realize how weak it was till we started this competition. Going from the 00's to the 90's is such a turnoff - we went from debating for hours and still not being able to decide to now, where I don't see 5 people I think are good enough to be in the discussion.

[Baller 24]

Definitely disagree with your post SB. The 90s have a lot more polished centers, maybe not enough guard play, but some awesome forwards and top notch centers.

[Silver Bullet]

Definitely disagree with your post SB. The 90s have a lot more polished centers, maybe not enough guard play, but some awesome forwards and top notch centers.

good individual players on badly constructed teams.

[lorak]

I was looking throughout the '97 season, and I came down to the following guys:

Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, Grant Hill, Scottie Pippen, Tim Hardaway, Patrick Ewing, Shaq and Gary Payton. Though I've got Hardaway on the short leash, absolutely terrible in the playoffs.

Yeah, overall he played bad in playoffs, but if we look series by series it don’t look so bad:
1st round vs Magic: 14.4 PTS, .404 TS%, 9.8 AST, 2.72 AST/TOV, 1.6 STL
ECSF vs Knicks: 22.9 PTS, .538 TS%, 6.0 AST, 1.68 AST/TOV, 2.3 STL
ECF vs Bulls: 17.2 pts, .488 TS5, 5.6 AST, 2.8 AST/TOV, 0.6 STL

So he was very good against Knicks (I remember game 7, it was a blowout, but that game turned that way because of AMAZING Hardaway play), shot bad against Magic, but was great as playmaker and against Bulls he was mediocre but so was all Heat team (for example Mourning averaged 5.4 TOV (!) and only 15.6 PTS and had THREE games with FG% below .400 – two of them below .300) because Bulls were so good defensive team (BTW, that’s one of the reasons why I think Pippen should be at least in a discussion this year).

[bastillon]

I was looking throughout the '97 season, and I came down to the following guys:

Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, Grant Hill, Scottie Pippen, Tim Hardaway, Patrick Ewing, Shaq and Gary Payton. Though I've got Hardaway on the short leash, absolutely terrible in the playoffs.

I think this is one of the seasons where Grant Hill definitely deserves a shout, not that high on Pippen over him despite his contributions to the championship team.

I believe Ewing injured himself in the playoffs or smth. Payton sucked in the playoffs IIRC, too. Tim Hardaway ? c'mon now, he's not a top5 level player, more like top10-15 (so even with terrible competition he might be borderline top8 or smth but that's it).

MJ, Karl, Hakeem is a CLEAR top3.
then you have guys like Shaq (only 1900 mins total and swept in the playoffs), Pippen, Hill, maybe Ewing but I don't know about that injury.

[lorak]

Nah, Jordan, Malone and Grant Hill – that’s the clear top 3.

Interesting fact – despite playing less games Barkley had more WS than Olajuwon! And of course he had far better WS/48 (0.224 to 0.154) and slightly better PER.

[sp6r=underrated]

Sorry, I missed the last week as I was traveling for job interviews. Haven't really had a chance to research this season yet, so I'm open to persuasion.

[Silver Bullet]

Sorry, I missed the last week as I was traveling for job interviews. Haven't really had a chance to research this season yet, so I'm open to persuasion.

Good Luck man.

[sp6r=underrated]

Sorry, I missed the last week as I was traveling for job interviews. Haven't really had a chance to research this season yet, so I'm open to persuasion.

Good Luck man.

Thanks.

[Gongxi]

I agree with DavidStern- the top three are MJ, Malone, and Hill, and I think that's pretty cut-and-dried. In that order, too.

[ElGee]

I was looking throughout the '97 season, and I came down to the following guys:

Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, Grant Hill, Scottie Pippen, Tim Hardaway, Patrick Ewing, Shaq and Gary Payton. Though I've got Hardaway on the short leash, absolutely terrible in the playoffs.

Yeah, overall he played bad in playoffs, but if we look series by series it don’t look so bad:
1st round vs Magic: 14.4 PTS, .404 TS%, 9.8 AST, 2.72 AST/TOV, 1.6 STL
ECSF vs Knicks: 22.9 PTS, .538 TS%, 6.0 AST, 1.68 AST/TOV, 2.3 STL
ECF vs Bulls: 17.2 pts, .488 TS5, 5.6 AST, 2.8 AST/TOV, 0.6 STL

So he was very good against Knicks (I remember game 7, it was a blowout, but that game turned that way because of AMAZING Hardaway play), shot bad against Magic, but was great as playmaker and against Bulls he was mediocre but so was all Heat team (for example Mourning averaged 5.4 TOV (!) and only 15.6 PTS and had THREE games with FG% below .400 – two of them below .300) because Bulls were so good defensive team (BTW, that’s one of the reasons why I think Pippen should be at least in a discussion this year).

I think prime Pippen had the greatest impact on the game of any perimeter defender ever (or at least in the 3-point era). It's still short of the elite defensive bigs, but he's the closest one can get to an "anchor" without being an interior player. I've never seen numbers from then, but he was certainly one of the best at taking the charge. He blocked shots on help, swarmed to loose balls, etc. - he was basically just everywhere. Add in steals and rebounding along with his other obvious strengths as a defender (guarding multiple positions, length bothering opponents shots, cutting off driving angles) and I think he stands alone as a non-big defender.

In 1995, the Bulls had neither Jordan, nor Grant, nor Rodman (and started Kukoc, Will Purdue an backcourt of Armstrong and Harper) and finished 2nd in DRtg.

[ronnymac2]

Guys, what about Penny? I know he only played 59 games, but everybody knows what type of player he is. He exploded in the playoffs against the top-ranked defense in the league, the Miami Heat. I mean, he ripped them apart. He almost beat them all by himself.

The other Hardaway isn't touching my top 5. He's not a top 5 player. He did have an amazing game 7 vs. NY, and I don't blame him for his team losing to the Bulls, but his playoffs in general kind of sucked individually, and again, he just isn't that type of player. I'd take Alonzo's 20/10/3/50%/elite defense over Hardaway any day.

[ElGee]

Guys, what about Penny? I know he only played 59 games, but everybody knows what type of player he is. He exploded in the playoffs against the top-ranked defense in the league, the Miami Heat. I mean, he ripped them apart. He almost beat them all by himself.

The other Hardaway isn't touching my top 5. He's not a top 5 player. He did have an amazing game 7 vs. NY, and I don't blame him for his team losing to the Bulls, but his playoffs in general kind of sucked individually, and again, he just isn't that type of player. I'd take Alonzo's 20/10/3/50%/elite defense over Hardaway any day.

95-97 Penny was very good. I suppose this needs further examination, but he did miss 23 games. It might be hard to overcome that...

[Gongxi]

I remember that series well. Notable, but he only played particularly well in the last three games. Not enough to put him in my top 5 even if he had dominated through all five games.

[sp6r=underrated]

Critical Question

Why was Jordansbulls suspended?

[mysticbb]

Going from the 00's to the 90's is such a turnoff - we went from debating for hours and still not being able to decide to now, where I don't see 5 people I think are good enough to be in the discussion.

Well, it most years the debate was more over the order of the Top5 guys than talking about 5 other players who could be in the discussion for the POY. There is in fact no difference in the 90's, but I guess you didn't pay that much attention to basketball in those years.

[bastillon]

I wonder how many people have anti-Hakeem bias here. I know about at least 5, so he's gonna be raped in this project.

it'll be interesting how much credit people will give him for stepping up big time in the playoffs. he was consistently a different player in the PS. in 97 you had 0.154 RS WS48 and 0.229 PO WS48. PER: 22.7 -> 27.6.

I've been focusing on the PS throughout entire project and I'm gonna be consistent about it.