Retro POY '90-91 (Voting Complete)

[Doctor MJ]

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 best player seasons of '90-91. 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 ... _1991.html
Playoff Summary http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... _1991.html
Award Voting http://www.basketball-reference.com/awa ... _1991.html

Topics for '90-91

-Jordan breaks through
-Magic's last hurrah
-Spurs' first collapse with Robinson - Robinson still puts up numbers.

[Doctor MJ]

Guys, Friday's swamped for me, and we're taking a break this weekend anyway. Pushing the deadline to Saturday monring.

[JordansBulls]

1. M.Jordan - Won League and Finals MVP (31.5 PER in Finals), Led in Win Shares on the season and WS per 48 minutes, Led in Season PER. Led the league in scoring in the season and playoffs. Was 1st in Playoff PER, 1st in Playoff WS, All NBA 1st Team And Defense, Led the league in Scoring and won title the same year.


2. Magic Johnson - Finished 2nd in MVP voting, was 2nd in Win Shares in the playoffs, 5th in playoff PER. Was 4th in Season Win Shares and 4th in season PER. All NBA 1st Team.


3. David Robinson - Finished 3rd in MVP voting, was 2nd in Win Shares, 3rd in PER on the season and playoffs, All NBA 1st Team and 1st team Defense.


4. Karl Malone - Finished 5th in MVP voting, All NBA 1st Team. 3rd in season Win Shares and 5th in season PER


5. Charles Barkley - Finished 4th in MVP voting, 2nd in Playoff PER and 2nd in Season PER. All NBA 1st Team.


HM: Hakeem, Drexler, Dominique

[semi-sentient]

1990-91 Candidates

Regular Season

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Player   GP  MIN   PTS   TS%   REB   AST   STL  BLK  TOV  WS    PER
====================================================================
Jordan   82  37.0  31.5  .605   6.0   5.5  2.7  1.0  2.5  20.3  31.6
Magic    79  37.1  19.4  .623   7.0  12.5  1.3  0.2  4.0  15.4  25.1
D-Rob    82  37.7  25.6  .615  13.0   2.5  1.5  3.9  3.3  17.0  27.4
Malone   82  40.3  29.0  .596  11.8   3.3  1.1  1.0  3.0  15.5  24.8
Pippen   82  36.8  17.8  .561   7.3   6.2  2.4  1.1  2.8  11.2  20.6
Barkley  67  37.3  27.6  .635  10.1   4.2  1.6  0.5  3.1  13.4  28.9

Post Season

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Player   GP  MIN   PTS   TS%   REB   AST   STL  BLK  TOV  WS    PER
====================================================================
Jordan   17  40.5  31.1  .600   6.4   8.4  2.4  1.4  2.5  4.8   32.0
Magic    19  43.3  21.8  .598   8.1  12.6  1.2  0.0  4.1  3.3   22.7
D-Rob     4  41.5  25.8  .760  13.5   2.0  1.5  3.8  3.8  0.8   26.1
Malone    9  42.6  29.7  .536  13.3   3.2  1.0  1.2  2.9  1.2   21.4
Pippen   17  41.4  21.6  .564   8.9   5.8  2.5  1.1  3.2  2.9   22.0
Barkley   8  40.8  24.9  .630  10.5   6.0  1.9  0.4  3.1  1.5   26.8

Awards Recognition

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Player      MVP     DPOY   All-NBA   All-Defense
================================================
Jordan      1       7      1st       1st
Magic       2       -      1st       ---
Robinson    3       2      1st       1st
Malone      5       -      1st       ---
Barkley     4       -      1st       ---
Pippen      -       7      ---       2nd

Early Rankings:

1. Michael Jordan - Let me start by saying eat a dick. Now that that's out of the way, he tore up the Lakers in the Finals with a spectacular performance, and thus the passing of the torch. IIRC, he was the primary defender on Magic, which makes what he did even more spectacular.
   
   
2. Magic Johnson - Leading that team to the Finals was one hell of a feat, particularly since they took out a deep Blazers team to get there. Played very good in the Finals, but ultimately fell short against Jordan and Pippen, both of which were phenomenal.
   
   
3. David Robinson - Pretty stellar season, especially considering it was just his 2nd year in the league. This time he actually played well in the post-season, but ultimately it wasn't enough to advance to the 2nd round.
   
   
4. Karl Malone - Great RS, but disappointing finish in the playoffs. This time we can't blame Stockton as he played pretty well against the Blazers, so I think it just boils down to Malone not having that great of an impact -- at least not as great as his numbers would suggest. I'm sure my opinion will change once others chime in on what actually went down, but there's no way I'm putting him above Magic either way. At best he switches places with Robinson, and at worst he stays right where he is.
   
   
5. Scottie Pippen - He was great throughout the RS and PS, and pretty phenomenal in the Finals against the Lakers. Why over Barkley? He played in 15 more regular season games and 9 more post-season games, which is a pretty significant advantage, and I think his all around game is good enough to warrant a ranking. Offensively he's not nearly as good as Barkely, but defensively he's much better so it somewhat equals out. Games played, as well as his great performance in the Finals gets him in my top 5.

[ronnymac2]

Michael Jordan was awesome this year. I just watched his 38/19/7 game against Philly. His scoring sucked in the first half, and his rebounds weren't impressive, but his passing and defense were terrific. Then, he continued with even more great defensive play in the second half. Pippen was playing Barkley at first, but in the third, they moved HoGrant on him. Jordan seemed to really pick up his activity on the defensive glass here while Horace was occupied. He was snatching everything. His scoring picked up as well. He scored like 8 in a row at the end of the game or something like that. He made huge defensive plays near the end of the game, too. Really closed the door on the series when this game was in the balance.

I've also seen game 3 of the DET series, game 3 of the Philly series, and games 1 and 2 of the finals. I think this was absolute peak Michael Jordan. His game 2 of the finals was the perfect basketball game imo.

Semi-sentient....Jordan guarded Magic for 95% of the possessions in game 1. In game 2, Magic drew a bunch of fouls on MJ, so they switched Scottie onto him in the first quarter I think, and Pip played him really well. Pip played him the whole game after that. I'm not sure about the other three games as I've only heard a variety of stories regarding who guarded Magic.


Magic will be my number two. He was awesome.

Not sure yet about the rest.

[Sedale Threatt]

Finally get to start voting for Magic. Yay.

His postseason illustrates something I don't understand about PER: How do you average 22, 13 and 8, with a great TS%, and not have a great rating? Do the turnovers make THAT much of a difference?

[NO-KG-AI]

Finally get to start voting for Magic. Yay.

His postseason illustrates something I don't understand about PER: How do you average 22, 13 and 8, with a great TS%, and not have a great rating? Do the turnovers make THAT much of a difference?

That, and pace.

PER is notorious for undervaluing distributors. When you see one rank highly, it's all the more impressive IMO.

[semi-sentient]

Man, I have the Lakers/Bulls Finals on VHS, but no damn VCR!

[JordansBulls]

Man, I have the Lakers/Bulls Finals on VHS, but no damn VCR!

They had a special before at Amazon where it got down to like 12 bucks.

http://www.amazon.com/Chicago-Bulls-199 ... 968&sr=1-2


It has each game of the championship series.

[mysticbb]

Man, I have the Lakers/Bulls Finals on VHS, but no damn VCR!

I have the whole series on DVD. ;)

But there are several youtube videos of those games. Unfortunately it looks like they were grabbed from a VHS version.

[shawngoat23]

Preliminary ballot:

1. Michael Jordan
2. Magic Johnson

Should be no question about those two.

3. David Robinson - He was a beast the entire season. On paper, it looks like one of his more talented supporting casts, but which isn't saying much, and he was able to lead them to 55 wins and the #2 seed in the West. He had a great playoff performance statistically, but got upset 3-1 by the Warriors. If anyone can contribute some insight into this series (and how he played, not just statistically), I'd appreciate it.
4. Charles Barkley - Chuck gets a lot of criticism for his defense, probably appropriately so, but he has such a huge impact on the game offensively and is able to dominate the glass. Team record in the regular season wasn't terribly impressive, but he performed well in the RS and playoffs, and the Sixers were able to make it to the 2nd round, where they lost in 5 to the Bulls (which is as far as anyone took them that year).
5. Karl Malone - Great regular season, both statistically and in terms of team record. Solid postseason (not great), made it to the 2nd round where the Jazz lost to a better Blazer team.

[sp6r=underrated]

3. David Robinson - He was a beast the entire season. On paper, it looks like one of his more talented supporting casts, but which isn't saying much, and he was able to lead them to 55 wins and the #2 seed in the West. He had a great playoff performance statistically, but got upset 3-1 by the Warriors. If anyone can contribute some insight into this series (and how he played, not just statistically), I'd appreciate it.

Unsurprisingly, the games aren't online. I tried find some press reports summarizing the series but didn't find much.

NY TIMES: 4 Guards and 4 Games Do It For Warriors

Tim Hardaway scored 32 points and the seventh-seeded Golden State Warriors eliminated the San Antonio Spurs, 3 games to 1, with a 110-97 victory tonight in their Western Conference first-round playoff series.

The Warriors stayed with their four-guard offense most of the way to beat the Midwest Division champions for the third game in a row, and advance into the Western Conference semifinals against the Los Angeles Lakers.


Golden State led by 80-64 in the third quarter and by 82-73 going into the fourth before the Spurs closed to 84-79 on Willie Anderson's driving layin with 9 minutes 53 seconds to play.

After a Warriors timeout, Richmond's 18-footer followed by a 3-pointer by Hardaway put Golden State up by 89-79 with 8:59 left. Another 3-pointer by Hardaway with 6:05 remaining made the score 92-82 before Sarunas Marciulionis, making an 18-foot jumper falling onto the seat of his pants, converted a 3-point play to make the Warriors' lead 95-84 with 5:16 to play.

San Antonio could not get closer than 95-89 the rest of the way as the Warriors made nine of 10 free throws in the final two minutes.

Chris Mullin added 23 points and Richmond had 17 for the Warriors.

Sean Elliott scored 23 points to lead the Spurs, who were 55-27 during the regular season. Rod Strickland added 21 points and David Robinson, taking 11 shots, scored 18 points.

NYTIMES The Domineering Center Could Be Losing His Grip

Patrick Ewing, Hakeem Olajuwon and David Robinson are the premier centers in the National Basketball Association. Yet, with the playoffs a little more than a week old, Ewing is back home tending to his newborn daughter, Olajuwon is looking after his business interests in Houston and Robinson and the San Antonio Spurs are one defeat from an early summer vacation.

Whatever happened to the concept that it takes a dominant center or at least a quality one to win a championship?


The last team that failed to win a National Basketball Association title without one was the 1975 Golden State Warriors, who won it with centers named Clifford Ray and George Johnson.

But maybe that concept needs re-thinking, especially since the Warriors, again without a dominant center, hold a 2-1 edge over the Spurs in their three-of-five-game series that resumes tonight.

"With the sophisticated double-team type defenses, it's much more difficult for centers to doiminate offensively the way they used to," said Rod Thorn, the N.B.A's vice president of operations, who played, coached and was a general manager in the league. "It's easier for a guard who can post-up or drive the middle -- people like Michael Jordan, the Detroit Pistons' three guards or the Warriors' threesome of Chris Mullin, Tim Hardaway and Mitch Richmond -- to dominate than a center."

"The cast around the center also makes a difference." Thorn said. "San Antonio doesn't have great outside shooting and the Warriors do."

Mitch Kupchak, the Los Angeles Lakers' assistant general manager, who played center 10 seasons with the Washington Bullets and Lakers, said: "There have been a lot of discussions around the league that you need a good point guard to win. I don't agree with that. I still hold to the theory that to win you need the dominant or quality center. But no one man is an island. You also need the supporting cast."

Warriors a Game Away

Sticking with the small lineup of four guards that was so successful in Game 2, the Warriors moved within one victory of meeting the Lakers in the Western Conference semifinal by beating the Spurs, 109-106, Wednesday night. Golden State got 71 points from its big three -- Richmond (27), Mullin (22) and Hardaway (22) -- plus a bonus of 21 off the bench from Sarunas Marciulionis.

"They outplayed us," said Terry Cummings, the Spurs' forward. "We allowed them to dictate the flow of each of the last two games. We have to play our game and not get into the up and down game they like."

If the young Indiana Pacers had any thoughts they could just run away from the old Boston Celtics the way they did last Sunday afternoon, the Celtics dispelled that notion Wednesday night during their 112-105 victory in Indianapolis that gave Boston a 2-1 series edge.

Although the Pacers had the momentum and their first capacity crowd for an N.B.A. playoff game, the Celtics had Kevin McHale. He had 22 points on 8-for-10 shooting, eight rebounds, three assists and four blocks. The Celtics also regained some punch from Kevin Gamble, who took only 11 shots in the first two games. Gamble shot 8 for 13 and scored 18 points.

Celtics' Defense a Key

But most of all, according to Coach Chris Ford, the Celtics were at their best defensively since a game on March 10 when they beat the Trail Blazers in Portland. They limited Chuck Person to 6 points, one game after the Pacer forward had a record seven 3-point baskets and 39 points.

"Sunday was a slap in the face to Celtic tradition," Ford said. "Our game plan did not change against Person. I did nothing special. The only thing I asked the guys to do was to carry out the game plan and not allow him or Reggie Miller to get the three's off."

Game 4 is tonight at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

[sp6r=underrated]

On Scottie Pippen this year. I wasn't planning on reviewing much Bulls footage for this year because MJ is so obviously a no-brainer. Still, looking at the contrast between Pippen's production RS and PS and his lack of recognition makes me curious. I wonder if this was a case of a young guy not getting recognized in his first year to elite status.

[JordansBulls]

On Scottie Pippen this year. I wasn't planning on reviewing much Bulls footage for this year because MJ is so obviously a no-brainer. Still, looking at the contrast between Pippen's production RS and PS and his lack of recognition makes me curious. I wonder if this was a case of a young guy not getting recognized in his first year to elite status.

With Pippen people wanted more from him in the playoffs. People were still on his case about the migraine headache in game 7 the previous year. In fact, I'm not sure if you have the 1990-1991 championship video, but in it Craig Hodges mentions that Pippen learned to stop wining to the officials and learned how to step up.
So basically he wasn't going to get the recognition until he stepped up big time, which is why the following season he was considered an elite superstar.

[sp6r=underrated]

On Scottie Pippen this year. I wasn't planning on reviewing much Bulls footage for this year because MJ is so obviously a no-brainer. Still, looking at the contrast between Pippen's production RS and PS and his lack of recognition makes me curious. I wonder if this was a case of a young guy not getting recognized in his first year to elite status.

With Pippen people wanted more from him in the playoffs. People were still on his case about the migraine headache in game 7 the previous year. In fact, I'm not sure if you have the 1990-1991 championship video, but in it Craig Hodges mentions that Pippen learned to stop wining to the officials and learned how to step up.
So basically he wasn't going to get the recognition until he stepped up big time, which is why the following season he was considered an elite superstar.

This is a good point, often times afters a playoff failure, a player struggles to gain recognition the next year.

[ronnymac2]

Wow. Looking at all the candidates, this is a really, really strong year. Mj, Magic, Malone, Barkley, Robinson, Ewing, Olajuwon, and Drexler all had really strong years.

I was going to say that you could make a case for Magic's biological twin, Larry Bird. However, I believe he got injured in the playoffs. He missed a game against Detroit IIRC, and his play in that series clearly showed he was injured. Still, he was a feared man in the NBA. He even outplayed MJ in a game that season.

[sp6r=underrated]

Shaq was left off a ton of ballots for missing a lot of games. Hakeem missed 26 games this year, so I think he has to take a hit.

[jicama]

Based on some advancing stats I've cooked up over the last several years, eWins (equivalent wins added), I've estimated regular season (RS) and playoff (PO) contributions. Players are then ranked according to RS + 2*PO eW.
The lines are for RS and PO. The last column is eWins per 484 minutes, so 1.00 is average.
The average player sees a PO e484 about 91% of his RS e484.

Code: Select all

32.6      Michael Jordan  Chi               
Gm   mpg   Eff%   Sco   Reb   Ast   Stl    TO   Blk    eW    e484
82   37   .594   35.4   6.5   5.3   2.7   2.5   1.0   21.7   3.46
17   41   .588   35.5   6.9   8.0   2.2   2.4   1.3    5.5   3.84
                             
25.6      Magic Johnson  LA               
Gm   mpg   Eff%   Sco   Reb    Ast   Stl   TO   Blk    eW    e484
79   37   .606   22.5   7.4   12.2   1.3   4.0   .2   17.0   2.81
19   43   .580   20.9   8.1   11.0   1.1   3.6   .0    4.3   2.53
                             
23.8      Karl Malone  Uta               
Gm   mpg   Eff%   Sco    Reb   Ast   Stl    TO   Blk    eW    e484
82   40   .580   30.1   12.0   3.0   1.0   2.8    .9   19.8   2.90
_9   43   .525   26.1   12.7   2.8    .9   2.6   1.1    2.0   2.58
                             
22.2      David Robinson  SA               
Gm   mpg   Eff%   Sco    Reb   Ast   Stl    TO   Blk    eW    e484
82   38   .599   28.2   13.0   2.4   1.5   3.3   3.9   20.1   3.14
_4   42   .736   29.5   13.6   1.7   1.4   3.5   3.5    1.1   3.14
                             
19.8      John Stockton  Uta               
Gm   mpg   Eff%   Sco   Reb    Ast   Stl   TO   Blk    eW    e484
82   38   .591   19.1   3.1   13.8   2.8   3.6   .2   16.0   2.50
_9   41   .631   19.6   4.5   12.3   2.1   3.3   .2    1.9   2.43
                             
18.9      Charles Barkley  Phl               
Gm   mpg   Eff%   Sco    Reb   Ast   Stl    TO   Blk   eW    e484
67   37   .618   30.8   10.3   4.0   1.6   3.1   .5   15.1   2.92
_8   41   .612   26.6   11.1   5.5   1.8   2.9   .4    1.9   2.81
                             
17.8      Patrick Ewing  NY               
Gm   mpg   Eff%   Sco    Reb   Ast   Stl    TO   Blk    eW    e484
81   38   .550   26.4   11.4   2.9   1.0   3.5   3.1   17.2   2.69
_3   37   .463   14.0   11.7   2.1    .3   3.7   1.7     .3   1.16
                             
15.1      Chris Mullin  GS               
Gm   mpg   Eff%   Sco   Reb   Ast   Stl    TO   Blk    eW    e484
82   40   .606   24.2   5.1   3.3   2.0   2.8    .7   12.9   1.88
_9   41   .609   19.8   6.4   2.1   1.6   2.6   1.3    1.1   1.47
                             
14.9      Dominique Wilkins  Atl               
Gm   mpg   Eff%   Sco   Reb   Ast   Stl    TO   Blk    eW    e484
81   38   .545   24.3   8.9   3.0   1.5   2.5    .8   13.9   2.18
_5   39   .466   17.0   5.9   2.5   1.7   2.1   1.0     .5   1.27
                             
14.0      Kevin Johnson  Phx               
Gm   mpg   Eff%   Sco   Reb   Ast   Stl   TO   Blk    eW    e484
77   36   .588   23.8   3.6   9.4   2.2   3.6   .1   13.5   2.35
_4   37   .375    8.6   3.5   9.8    .5   3.1   .3     .3    .86


These are just the top 10 in RS eWins. It's unlikely anyone outside the top 10 in RS would crash the top 5, even if they had a killer postseason.
This is actually a good test case; Pippen was #12 in RS eW (after Drexler). A great playoffs, double valued, launches him into the #5 spot ahead of Stockton (19.9 to 19.8)

Code: Select all

19.9      Scottie Pippen  Chi               
Gm   mpg   Eff%   Sco   Reb   Ast   Stl    TO   Blk    eW    e484
82   37   .552   18.7   7.9   6.0   2.4   2.9   1.1   12.7   2.04
17   41   .553   22.9   9.5   5.5   2.3   3.0   1.0    3.6   2.46

Eff% is effective shooting = Pts/(FGA*2 + FTA). It's like TS% but is a bit lower.
The other categories are per 36 minutes, adjusted to team and opponent total points and rebounds.
If this is too much too quick, let me know.

[sp6r=underrated]

Jicama

Could you give a brief explanation of how EW is calculated? Why did you choose the measurements that you did? What would you say are its strengths and weaknesses? I'm interested.

Thanks

[jicama]

The categories shown -- Sco, Reb, Ast, Stl, TO, Blk -- plus fouls (small negative) are assigned weights and added (T) to arrive at a player's per-36-minute productivity. This sum then has a 'replacement player' value (Tr) subtracted. Tr is just about 1/2 of average T. The whole league's eWins must sum to the number of games played, so a player's eWins are:
eW = (T - Tr)*Min/x
x is just whatever number causes eWins to total 1230 in a 30 team * 82G season (41*30).
x and Tr vary a bit from year to year. In this exercise, Tr = 13.0 and x=5200 -- these are close to annual averages.

Unlike b-r.com's Win Shares, eWins are designed to be independent of team strength. A player's eWin rate should translate from one team to another, regardless of pace, team defense, etc.
Other big differences are less correlation to high shooting% and low turnovers. For example, Scottie Pippen is a lot better than Horace Grant. WS (in my opinion) gets it backwards. Horace didn't turn it over or miss many shots; but Scottie did a lot more.