Retro POY '96-97 (Voting Complete)

[Sedale Threatt]

Probably not his best effort, but he was still pretty dominant through the course of the series. Much more so than Barkley, who was about an even split between good and mediocre, and Drexler, who basically didn't show up until Game 6.

[ElGee]

I'm also somewhat amazed at the lack of respect the Utah Jazz team is receiving here. They were cohesive, healthy, well coached and still not old enough to be over the hill (vis a vis Stockton and Hornacek).

Hornacek was a small guard, and that created issues defensively against bigger scorers like Jordan. But the makeup of the league was different in 1997 and there weren't a boatload of great, athletic, scoring 2-guards to exploit Horny.

Stockton was playing 35 minutes a game at the age of 34 and playing quite well. He was capable of what we saw at the end of game 6 vs. Houston: 11 points and an assists (on a Russell 3) to close the game and the series. No other Jazz player scored in the final few minutes.

Then there's Russell, who was an above average defender and capable of making big shots and putting up big games as a 4th option. He could slash and spot up well, although not really someone to generate his own offense. I always thought he was underrated and that was before Jordan rendered him an Ehlo (Ehlo - n. Someone with all positive qualities forgotten in time, who is now only remembered for being Jordaned see: "To Jordan.")

Then they actually had quality role players deep in to the bench: Ostertag (defense, rebounding), Antoine Carr (good post offense). Shandon Anderson and Eisley were good bench players as well.

[bastillon]

Stockton was playing 35 minutes a game at the age of 34 and playing quite well. He was capable of what we saw at the end of game 6 vs. Houston: 11 points and an assists (on a Russell 3) to close the game and the series. No other Jazz player scored in the final few minutes.

"was capable", uh huh. maybe against Maloney, but then again I could probably score 5 pts too.

One thing I feel compelled to point out is that people shouldn't underestimate Barkley. Being a 19/13/5 guy with great efficiency is awesome - and the only reason he only scored 19 was because he was sacrificing his scoring more than Hakeem was.

he was also a guy largely responsible for Rockets meltdown defensively against the Jazz. Rockets were great offensively in that series, the problem was the defense because excluding Hakeem that team had no business being anything competitive on the defensive end. Barkley-Drexler-Ellie-Maloney considering the age of the first three is one of the worst defensive combos I've ever seen.

Hakeem's of course the Rocket MVP this year, but when people mention that the team went 41-12 with Barkley, and 16-13 with him, know that he's not just a well fitting role player - despite his age and his rep for peaking young, when Barkley was healthy even in his mid-30s, he was an incredible player.

how is that surprising on a team without any depth ? and it's not like Barkley was the only missing piece in those games, Drexler missed a lot of those too. Rockets were on 50W pace with Drexler-Olajuwon and 55W pace with Barkley-Olajuwon. that's not a big difference right there. Barkley was a legit all-star player, but nothing more than that considering his defense, health issues, playoff dropoff and poor attitude.

I'd also like to mention that in the 1998 playoffs, Barkley led the league in PER putting up a higher score than Hakeem did this year.

16.2 PER in 22 MPG in '98 playoffs. I don't know what you're talking about.

[bastillon]

Jazz ORtg vs Rockets:
G1 - 109.2
G2 - 117.8
G3 - 111.8
G4 - 106.6
G5 - 107.8
G6 - 117.8

avg 111.8

that's ridiculously bad playoff defense, especially against a team so limited as Utah.

[ItsMillerTime]

Heres my vote

1. Michael Jordan - Same as last year, second best player in the regular season, clear best player in the playoffs makes him No.1
2. Malone -Great all around season for him.
3. Hill - Such a dominant season, really showed his potential ths year.
4. Hakeem-
5. Payton - Almost had Pippen here, but Payton was the man for another good Sonics team, and was near his peak defensively.

HM: Pippen, Rice, Barkley, Ewing

[CellarDoor]

Jazz ORtg vs Rockets:
G1 - 109.2
G2 - 117.8
G3 - 111.8
G4 - 106.6
G5 - 107.8
G6 - 117.8

avg 111.8

that's ridiculously bad playoff defense, especially against a team so limited as Utah.

considering Hakeem is the anchor, that's not helping your argument.

[bastillon]

I wonder what's the reasoning for Hill over Hakeem if playoff discrepancy was so big in Hakeem's favor here.

[bastillon]

Jazz ORtg vs Rockets:
G1 - 109.2
G2 - 117.8
G3 - 111.8
G4 - 106.6
G5 - 107.8
G6 - 117.8

avg 111.8

that's ridiculously bad playoff defense, especially against a team so limited as Utah.

considering Hakeem is the anchor, that's not helping your argument.

we've seen what Hakeem did when his teammates were anything competitive defensively. Barkley at 34 was one of the worst defenders in the league. Maloney was no doubt the very worst defensive PG. Elie was mediocre at best. Drexler at this stage was poor. how the hell can you expect anything from them ? I can give you tons of examples of great defenders playing with atrocious teammates and their team defense being awful. seriously, you can go so far given that cast and their flaws.

[CellarDoor]

Jameer Nelson
Vince Carter
Matt Barnes
Rashard Lewis
Dwight Howard

I'd be curious to know what Dwight's doing defensively. I know his team is top 2 or 3 this season (not POs, not sure there) and was a top defensive team last season with Turkoglu instead of VC.

[Dr Positivity]

But Shaq still did enough in his 60% season for the Lakers to win 56 games. Hill played the whole year and won 54, albeit with a worse team. I do favor Hill's RS for playing more and having slightly lesser teammates to get his W total, but not as much as I value what Shaq brings to the table in the playoffs compared to Hill by being the better player. Especially this year when Hill had a mediocore shooting playoffs (.49 TS%, something like 38% shooting/.47 TS% on the road including a 9 for 24 stinkbomb in Game 5) while Shaq dropped 33/9 .58 TS% on Portland. I value Shaq's superiority for the playoffs when it mattered, more than the extra regular season wins Hill got his team by playing more

But you're conflating team success with individual success. The Lakers were 18-13 without O'Neal, which is indicative of a fairly good supporting cast (they were). If he's on a more average team, suddenly LA's win total is below Detroit's. Not to mention Detroit's SRS is way ahead of the Lakers anyway, which is a better way of gauging team success since it adjusts for schedule.

I suppose if you value the playoffs significantly more than the regular season, I guess you can make this argument. But does that mean 86 Jordan will be in your top 5?

Nah, because Jordan did nothing to get his team to the playoffs or in a good position (HCA) when there, which is the main objective of the regular season. If it wasn't the flukiest of years when a 30-52 team made it (lol) he wouldn't have been there. Shaq OTOH did a lot to get his team to the playoffs. I just looked at the wins the Lakers had during Shaq's 2 month absence that year, counting the game he played 8 minutes:

1x Chicago (69-13)
1x Minnesota (40-42)
3x Denver (21-61)
2x Vancouver (14-68)
1x Washington (44-38)
2x Dallas (24-58)
2x NJ Nets (26-56)
2x Golden State (30-52)
1x Toronto (30-52)
1x Cleveland (42-40)
1x Milwaukee (33-49)

The losses:

2x LA Clippers (36-46)
1x Seattle (57-25)
1x Cleveland (42-40)
1x New York (57-25)
2x Houston (57-25)
1x Atlanta (56-26)
1x Indiana (39-43)
1x Miami (61-21)
1x Orlando (45-37)
1x San Antonio (20-62)
1x Utah (64-18)

10s wins teams: 2 games, 2-0
20 wins teams: 8 games, 7-1
30 wins teams: 7 games, 4-3
40 wins teams: 5 games, 3-2
50 wins teams: 5 games, 0-5
60 wins teams: 3 games, 1-2

Basically the Shaq-less Lakers played the definition of middle ground basketball: Beating up on the weak teams, getting crushed by the good ones, and splitting against the middles. They had 12 games against 40 W+ teams and 17 against less than 40 Ws, which is quite similar to their 18-13 overall record without Shaq (he must've missed a couple other games elsewhere in the schedule).

As a result I would venture Shaq was responsible for +30 in W/Ls the Lakers had this season (56-26), or 15 extra Ws overall. The real stats showed him putting up +25 and the non Shaq's +5, but I consider the non Shaqs judging from the above analysis to be a 40-42 W team stretched out over the season. So I would say the difference between 40 to 42 and 56 Ws is Shaq. Despite his missed games I consider this value to be high enough to get him in the top 5 with the addition of the playoff stats, albeit I will give further consideration to the Hill arguments and haven't finalized my vote yet

[ElGee]

^^^Right, but he was on a terrible team. If he were on a good team, they'd be in the playoffs in a normal year. In other words, where do you draw the line? 51 games of Shaq helps a team more than 80 games of Hill?

[ElGee]

Mufasa I see you added to your post...

We've encountered the Games Played issued before in this project, and I can only share how I attempt to weigh it. I suppose if you balance playoffs differently or have different criteria to begin with, that will change things. As long as that remains consistent with people that's cool.

But let's look at Shaq vs. Hill this way: Did 80 games of Grant Hill do more to get Detroit a 5.5 SRS (that's a really solid team) than 51 games of Shaquille O'Neal did to get LA a 3.7 SRS?

If the answer to that is yes, does Shaq's playoff performance make up for it? If it does, then either his playoff contribution has to be vastly greater than Hill's, or his regular season contribution has to be close to Hill's. I don't see an argument for either. I mean, Hiil nearly DOUBLED his RS Win Shares.

(And again, your original reasoning was 97 Hill isn't a better player than Shaq...but that isn't what this project is about, unless I'm mistaken...in which case we come back to 86 Jordan.)

Regardless of how you feel about prime Grant HIll (top 3 or top 10 or whatever) he had a monster season, defended well, rebounded, created for teammates, worked that pullup, slashed with the best of them, and the results were fairly impressive.

[lorak]

Jazz ORtg vs Rockets:
G1 - 109.2
G2 - 117.8
G3 - 111.8
G4 - 106.6
G5 - 107.8
G6 - 117.8

avg 111.8

that's ridiculously bad playoff defense, especially against a team so limited as Utah.

considering Hakeem is the anchor, that's not helping your argument.

we've seen what Hakeem did when his teammates were anything competitive defensively. Barkley at 34 was one of the worst defenders in the league. Maloney was no doubt the very worst defensive PG. Elie was mediocre at best. Drexler at this stage was poor. how the hell can you expect anything from them ? I can give you tons of examples of great defenders playing with atrocious teammates and their team defense being awful. seriously, you can go so far given that cast and their flaws.

LOL
Hakeem’s campaign started quickly. I guess now every year we would hear how bad were Olajuwon’s teammates.
Unfortunately we know that the truth is Hakeems’s partners were good. For example in 1997 season they were 3-1 without Hakeem.

[ElGee]

My 1997 POY Ballot:

1. Michael Jordan
2. Karl Malone
3. Grant Hill
4. Scottie Pippen
5. Hakeem Olajuwon

Jordan stands alone. Malone is comfortably in the next position as well.

After that it's Hill and Pippen for 3rd. This turned out to be the trickiest call for me. I'm not a huge fan of Grant Hill's peak, but he had a phenomenal season. My recollection of that series against Atlanta was that the Hawks would win comfortably - Smith, Blaylock and Mutombo were a really nice trio -- and Hill just did everything to push the series to 5. His TS% was down but Atlanta was an elite defensive team and Hill had little help, as he was basically the only player creating offense for that team.

I consider Pippen's peak (92-97) to be quite high, so I'll try and make a brief macroscopic point about him outside of the defensive impact I think he had. Offensively, he orchestrated a lot of offense for the Bulls. At this point he was extremely effective operating in the mid-post area (turnaround, hook shot, bank shot), optimal for starting the triple post, and when he wasn't "point forwarding" his post game led to good shots for Chicago. As I've said, that 22-point 3-point line served him well also. As well as +2.0% relative TS% in 1997, his turnover rate dropped as well. 94-97 was probably his absolute peak as a player, and this was one of his best all-around seasons.

Olajuwon slides in last ahead of Gary Payton, Penny (injury) and Shaq (injury). This reminded me of Duncan in 06, where the playoffs showed that Hakeem was still a top 3 player in the league, but his regular season wasn't on par with those ahead of him. That Rockets team was not bad, yet they posted a 3.9 SRS which was a touch disappointing. Depth was certainly an issue, so the injury to Barkley hurt.

But it was just a down regular season for Olajuwon - he turned the ball over more than usual, his assists (and in all likelihood offense created) dipped, probably due to Barkley's presence. Even his block% dropped off, although he was having a strong defensive impact at this point. His postseason earns him the nod over Payton. If only he had played like that that all season...

[NO-KG-AI]

1) Jordan
2) Malone
3) Hill
4) Olajuwon
5) Ewing

Don't think Pippen or Payton had the impact Ewing did, thought he was pretty damn good this year, and he upped his efficiency and stuff in the playoffs, while still anchoring an epic D.

[ronnymac2]

There are many very good players this year.....

My list is MJ, Malone, Hill, Pippen, Penny, Payton, Kemp, Ewing, Shaq, ZO, Deke, Hakeem, and Barkley.

Picking Tim Hardaway or Glen Rice is wrong imo. Hardaway had a good season and was rewarded because his team won 61 games, but his playoffs were so-so. Like I said earlier, I think Alonzo was the guy there.

And Rice.....If Reggie Miller is too one-dimensional for everybody, what the hell is Rice? The guy was poor in every other area besides shooting the ball. At least Reggie gave you average production in other areas. Rice was a bad defender and averaged 4 rebounds per game at 6'8. Selecting him would be like selecting Peja in 04. 1997 isn't as weak ito individuals as 04 though. I don't think Rice is a top 10 player for me.


All right.....no to Kemp or Deke. Reignman showed up in the first round, then did okay vs. Houston. I think Kemp is overrated in general though. Without GP and the spacing that those Sonics could provide, he is limited. He's also stupid. He commits too many turnovers because he thinks he can handle the ball in tight spots and pass. He can't. He also commits too many fouls. Deke was a monster in that first round against the Pistons and played well against CHI. He won DPOY. I'd take Ewing over him this year though. And Shaq. And Hakeem. He gets an honorable mention though.

Jordan and Malone are in. Hakeem, too.

I'll take Patrick over Alonzo. It is weird though, because Ewing missed that game vs. Miami in the playoffs. Still, I think Patrick was the better player when both were in their primes, and this year was no exception. This was probably the last year of real dominant play from Patrick. He put up 37/17 in his gm 7.

Shaq imo is just as good as latter-prime Hakeem and prime Malone as a player- possibly better than Malone. He did miss 30 games though. I know this is purely a psychological thing, but that looks worse than 20 games. Still, his production is there, and he destroyed Portland. 22/11 vs. Utah's strong interior defense is just decent. Nothing special. 2nd round exit. I think this will be Shaq's worst year from 94-05.

Honestly....I'm taking Ewing over Payton. Payton played really well that year, and he's one of my sentimental favorites, but I value what Patrick brings here. I'll take him over Hill and Pippen, too.

Charles is out. No room for him. I don't think he had the take-over ability he once had. He could have done better against Malone and Utah.

Olajuwon and Malone over Ewing.

I'm going with Hakeem over Malone. By the slightest of margins.........no, I take it back. This is latter-stage prime Olajuwon and almost peak Malone. So as players, they are just about even. Karl wins just about every tie-breaker though. It's just enough to put him over Dream this year. Barely.

I'm trying to justify putting Scottie Pippen, Grant Hill, and Gary Payton over Shaq, and I just can't. He's just a better player than they are. By a lot. Hill wasn't all that in the playoffs, Payton got as far as Shaq, and if Shaq got to play second fiddle to my 1997 POY, he'd probably be my runner-up for 1997 POY. I can put Patrick over Shaq though.

Penny is on the level of Zo, Hill, Pippen, and Payton. I think I'd actually put Penny over all four of them.

Final Vote:

Michael Jordan
Karl Malone
Hakeem Olajuwon
Patrick Ewing
Shaquille O'neal

[kaima]

Olajuwon slides in last ahead of Gary Payton, Penny (injury) and Shaq (injury). This reminded me of Duncan in 06, where the playoffs showed that Hakeem was still a top 3 player in the league,

Did he really do that in the post-season? Olajuwon had one series where he scored at high volume, whereas in the prior two series he had a scoring average of 20.

He cruised against the Timberwolves, and deferred in some ways against the Sonics (his nemesis).

Basically, Olajuwon had one great series in 97. The telling point is how important Barkley was against Seattle.

That's not to say that Olajuwon wasn't near his peak, but that it's specifically questionable as to how well this was demonstrated over the course not only of the regular season but the playoffs as well.

That also can be blamed on matchups. In 94/95, missing the Sonics was a godsend. Hakeem just did not play well, relative to expectation, against George Karl's schemes.

[drza]

1) Michael Jordan

I had trouble deciding on #2. The problem is, I sincerely believe that Olajuwon was still a better player than Malone in '97. My memories support this. But by the objective measures that I have available, Malone toasted Hakeem in the '97 regular season. Hakeem smoked him right back in the postseason, which could even things a bit, but as a tie-breaker Malone's Jazz sent Hakeem's Rockets home. My gut is telling me to take Olajuwon here, and if someone makes a great post giving me solid reasons to do so I could come back and change this. But for now, I'm slotting the Mailman at #2.

2) Karl Malone
3) Hakeem Olajuwon

The last two slots are similarly challenging. There are several players that I could put here, without a lot of separation from each other. I'm leaning towards the do-everything swing men in this slot. Penny's postseason could really have got him in here. The problem is, he missed so much time in the regular season and even his postseason run, while great, was only 5 games long. Ultimately, it wasn't quite enough to jump him over the others. Hill was outstanding this season, and I tend to think that Pippen is generally underrated because so much of what he did (defense and playmaking, especially) for those Bulls aren't well measured with stats. I've gone back and forth on this, but for this season I think Hill gets the nod.

4) Grant Hill
5) Pippen

Vote:

1) Jordan
2) Malone
3) Olajuwon
4) Hill
5) Pippen

[lorak]

At the beginning I want Olajuwon In top 5, but what you guys wrote about Barkley make me rethink things about Hakeem and I think his impact that year wasn’t as great as in previous seasons. So I’ll leave him off, because I think Penny deserves 5th spot. Yeah, I know, he missed a lot of games (23). But the thing is he was really good in regular season and AMAZING in playoffs against Heat (so very good defensive team). In fact he even lead the league in PER and WS/48 in playoffs – yeah, he was better than Jordan or Hakeem!

Besides, I guess his +/- numbers that year were amazing because I checked how Magic were doing with and without him. And I think people don’t realize how bad was that Orlando team, and how good was Hardaway during that season. So look at the numbers:
7-16 (30.4%) without Penny
38-21 (64.4%) with Penny

That’s huge difference, I don’t know if we could find similar case in history. That’s like difference in regular season between 25 wins and 53 wins.

1. MJ
2. Malone
3. Hill
4. Pippen
5. Penny

[sp6r=underrated]

1. Jordan: easy choice


I said in the RPOY thread that 97 Hakeem/Malone would be a battle and it didn't disappoint. This is difficult one to measure. I thought Malone was the best player overall in the NBA that year until the playoffs when he declined dramatically. I love pointing out to Jazz fans that if Malone played in the PS as well as he did in the RS the jazz would have been no question champs, but I digress.

Hakeem, well I wasn't impressed with his RS at all that year. His rebounding was below average. Normally with Hakeem, people point out numbers don't fully show his impact because of his defensive impact. But my memory of this time period is that Hakeem wasn't having any significant defensive impact anymore. I don't even he think he was a top 5 RS player that year. But he did pick up his game in the PO. Still when there is this large of a gap between two people in the RS, I'm not elevating the guy who didn't perform as well in RS unless they advanced.

2 Malone
3. Hakeem

It was a tie between Ewing and Hill. Ewing turned in his last great season. He was still dominating on defense. He was relying more and more on his jumper at this point, but it worked for him. Hill turned in the best season of his career, but I've said before in threads about Hill that I felt he was a great player but one who had too much of a number 2 mentality at times. That and his sub-par PS elevated Ewing over him for me.

4. Ewing
5. Hill