Player of the Year Voting Thread 2009-10 (Voting Complete)

[Doctor MJ]

Panel members, place your votes here.

The preceding discussion thread is here:
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1028786

[JordansBulls]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... aders.html

The Contenders

Dwyane Wade (4th in MVP voting)
Lebron James (1st in MVP Voting)
Kobe Bryant (3rd in MVP Voting)
Dwight Howard (4th in MVP Voting)
Pau Gasol (Finished 7th in Win Shares on the season, 5th in WS PER 48 Minutes, 8th in PER and 1st in Win Shares in the playoffs)
Kevin Durant (2nd in MVP Voting)



1. Dwyane Wade - Finished 4th in MVP Voting, Finished 4th in Win Shares on the Season, and 3rd in Win Shares Per 48 minutes on the season, 2nd in PER in the season and 1st in PER in the playoffs, 1st Team All NBA, 2nd Team All Defense

Wade averaged 33.2 ppg / 5.6 rpg / 6.8 apg on 56% FG against the Celtics defense in the playoffs. Just didn't have the help.
http://www.nba.com/heat/stats/2009/conf ... stats.html


2. Kobe Bryant - Finished 3rd in MVP Voting, Finished 2nd in playoff Win Shares, but outside of the top 20 in Win Shares in the regular season, Also finished 13th in PER in the Regular season. 1st Team All NBA, 1st Team All Defense .
Much better in the playoffs finishing 2nd in Win Shares and 4th in PER, but his numbers overall in the season really hurt him here.



3. Lebron James - Won League MVP, 1st in WS Per 48 minutes in the season 1st in Win Shares in the season 1st in PER in the season. 1st Team All NBA, 1st Team All Defense, Finished 2nd in PER in the playoffs. However in the critical Game 5 he laid an egg in this one. So he drops down a spot.


4. Kevin Durant - Finished 2nd in MVP Voting, Finished 2nd in Season WS and 2nd in WS Shares PER 48 minutes and 3rd in Season PER, 1st Team All NBA

5a. Dwight Howard - Finished 4th in MVP voting, 3rd in Win Shares on the Season, 4th in Win Shares PER 48 Min, and 6th in PER. 1st Team All NBA, 1st Team All Defense

5b. Pau Gasol - (Couldn't lead him off the top 5 list considering he led his Led the Lakers in both Win Shares and PER in the Season and Led the entire NBA in Win Shares in the Playoffs)


HM: Dirk Nowitzki

[Gongxi]

1- LeBron James
2- Dwyane Wade
3- Kobe Bryant
4- Kevin Durant
5- Dwight Howard

[lorak]

1. LeBron
2. Wade
3. Dwight
4. Kobe
5. Durant

[An Unbiased Fan]

#1 Kobe - 3rd in MVP, All-NBA 1st, All-D 1st, Finals MVP. Went through 4 straight 50+ win teams in route to a title playing with a fractured finger and bum knee. Tremendous leadership.

#2 Lebron - MVP, fantastic RS, All-NBA 1st, All-D 1st. Lost in 2nd round with HCA and the best record, and more importantly showed a serious lack of leadership during that series. Great production, but how much of that is a product of the Cavs system.

#3 Dwight - Seems to be forgotten so far. DPOY, 4th in MVP. All-NBA 1st, All-D 1st. Coasted the first 2 rounds because the Magic demolished the competition, but came up really small against the Celtics, and lost with HCA.

#4 DWade - All-NBA 1st, All-D 2nd, 5th in MVP. Slow start to the RS, came alive at the end and had a good series against Boston. But that late season run isn't enough for me to put him higher.

#5 Durant - All-NBA 1st, 2nd in MVP. Had a great season offensively, and led an upstart OKC team to the playoffs. Weaknesses were somewhat exposed in the LA series, but still a great year.

HM: Nash, Deron, Dirk

[An Unbiased Fan]

5b. Pau Gasol - (Couldn't lead him off the top 5 list considering he led his Led the Lakers in both Win Shares and PER in the Season and Led the entire NBA in Win Shares in the Playoffs)

If you had never heard of PER or WS, would you have Pau in your Top 5 based on observation and watching the games? Did he really have a better year than Dirk, Durant, Nash, Melo?

[sp6r=underrated]

I've discussed before so I'll vote

1. LBJ
2. Kobe: I had him 5th in the RS behind LBJ, then the trio of Wade, Durant Howard. He outplayed Durant in a big way over the entire PS, so he moved up. Howard's limitation caused trouble against Boston, so I passed him over Howard. I do think Wade was probably a slightly better player than Kobe this year, but it wasn't a large gap and Kobe had the more important season.
3. Wade
4. Howard: I put him over Durant easily based on PS play. They were neck and neck in the RS, but Durant laid a total egg and Howard did have a better PS.
5. Nash: I had Nash in the same range as Kobe in the RS. He didn't play as well as Kobe but he did enough to pass Durant

HM
Durant: Thunder knock out the lakers if he played even close to his level in the RS. He looked totally lost out there.
Dirk: since the MVP he's been a bit under appreciated

[semi-sentient]

I had Wade and Kobe about as close as can be to tied, but the one argument that convinced me to select Kobe was DoctorMJ's post regarding Wade's short playoff run and sub-par start to the season (it was on par with Kobe's Jan/Feb -- except he was healthy which makes it weird(er)). I think I might have been a little to guilty of doing what I despise -- looking too much into what the cumulative box score numbers "said" and ignoring the intangibles that aren't quit reflected there. Getting deeper in the playoffs and playing at a high level for 20+ games has got to have more meaning than having a strong 5+ game series, and that's another reason I like Kobe over Wade. Let me say right now that this is the opposite of how I voted in 2005-06, but I've already admitted in other threads that I deeply regret that vote (and yes, I'd be willing to change my vote for that year if it's allowed).

LeBron is my #3 guy. Yeah, great numbers in the regular season and blah, blah, blah. How he handled himself against Boston when it mattered most is absolutely unforgivable to me. I've seen people knock guys like Magic for getting injured against the Pistons (something way beyond his control), so they damn sure better hold LeBron to the same standards for his nonchalant attitude, lack of leadership, and generally not performing up to his abilities. Anyway, a lot of what I suspected about LeBron is coming out now, so that only serves as confirmation for me. I felt that his head was elsewhere and now I can understand why. He managed to undo a fantastic RS with his play against Boston, and I don't particularly care about sample size here. Individual games matter when you fail to show up for reasons other than the defense playing you well. You don't award someone "POY" for doing what LeBron did against the Celtics. Turn a blind eye to game 5 (and a couple others) if you want. I won't.

Steve Nash is my #4 guy. He ran the 2nd best offense ever and he was tremendous even in defeat. I gained a ton of respect for this guy after how he played, and more importantly led, against a Lakers team that he had no business being competitive with. He's never been a well rounded player in terms of playing both sides of the court, but his impact on offense was too big to ignore this year.

Dwight takes the final spot. Easily the worst offensive player of the bunch, but also the best defender.

1) Kobe
2) Wade
3) LeBron
4) Nash
5) Howard

[ronnymac2]

Early rankings that will likely change.....

Wade
Bryant
Dwight
Deron
Nash


My own personal "**** you" to the King......

[shawngoat23]

1. LeBron James
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Dwyane Wade
4. Dwight Howard
5. Kevin Durant

I already explained my logic previously.

[DumbyTheWizard]

Early rankings that will likely change.....

Wade
Bryant
Dwight
Deron
Nash


My own personal "**** you" to the King......

Thats bs... If you cat be objective dont vote. I dont really follow after this project (it is amazing tho) but I hope you guys werent voting based on unknown reasons this entire thing...

[ronnymac2]

^^^If you think I'm ever objective at all, you have another thing coming. It's all about being subjective for me. Whatever I'm feeling at the moment, that is how how I'll decide. Screw the consequences. I don't call it overreaction. I call it how I personally see it. My personal reasons are what matter to me the most..........



On a completely unrelated topic: I'm most likely putting LBJ at number one, with Wade at two and Bryant at three. All of the evidence that I've seen points to Lebron screwing up in game five individually, but playing like normal Lebron (even if he struggled a bit) in all the other games in the Boston series. I'm not saying game five was an abberation or that it shouldn't factor into people's decisions. For me though, it just didn't factor in enough to move James down. I don't think he actually quit on his team. I'm supremely dissappointed in his decision less than 24 hours ago for many reasons, but I still don't think he quit on Cleveland during that series.

I'm not going to finalize my vote, but that has nothing to do with the top three. I'm just still undecided about spots four and five.

[Rick45]

If this is anyone but James just stop doing this. A few people who have voted so far are letting emotion get the better of them.

[Rick45]

Early rankings that will likely change.....

Wade
Bryant
Dwight
Deron
Nash


My own personal "**** you" to the King......

See this is what I' am talking about

[Sedale Threatt]

Are you even voting in this thing?

[ronnymac2]

Early rankings that will likely change.....

Wade
Bryant
Dwight
Deron
Nash


My own personal "**** you" to the King......

See this is what I' am talking about

You're **** blind.

[An Unbiased Fan]

I'm still trying to figure out why Wade is ranked so high on many lists. He had a great series against Boston, but what else? Lebron won the MVP and was All-NBA/AllD 1st. Kobe was Finals MVP, 3rd in MVP voting and was All-NBA/All-D 1st. Wade was 5th in MVP, All-NBA 1st/All-D 2nd.

RS:
Lebron - 29.7/7.3/8.6 MVP, All-NBA 1st, All-D 1st, Best record
Kobe - 27.0/5.4/5.0 3rd in MVP, All-NBA 1st, All-D 1st, Best record in West
Wade -26.6/4.8/6.5 5th in MVP, All-NBA 1st, All-D 2nd, 4th seed in the East

Wade is third in the RS, IMO. I would love to hear why he's higher. I would put Dwight's DPOY, All-NBA/All-D 1st team performance over Wade too. Dwight was also higher in MVP voting than Wade. Wade was the lowest rated defender, scored the least, led his team to the worst record...so why exactly is he above any of these guys?


PS:
Kobe - 29.2/6.0/5.5 Finals MVP, 30 point streak during 8 game win streak, led LA through 4 50+-win teams
Lebron - 29.1/9.3/7.0 Monster 1st round, Showed zero leadership in 2nd round en route to upset with HCA and best record. Huge drop in numbers against Boston vs what he had against the Bulls.
Wade - 33.2/5.6/5.8 Great series individually, but led Miami to a 5 game series loss in the 1st round.

In the PS, Kobe led LA to a 16-7 record and a title. He guarded Westbrook which turnd that OKC series around. He went on a 30 point streak and LA won 8 straight. He won Finals MVP in a tough series with Boston. Lebron was great against Chicago,not so much with Boston, especially leadership wise. Wade played a great series, but a 5 game loss doesn't register much when considering POY. Dwight had a foul prone 1st round, play a great 2nd round, and then sputtered in the ECF. But did a series where Miami lost, push Wade over Dwight for POY? I just don't see it.

[NO-KG-AI]

LeBron
Wade
Kobe
Howard
Nash

I'm not sure Durant is more crucial to an offense than Nash is, and Nash played possessed in the post season, while Durant flamed out hard.

[Silver Bullet]

How did Durrant go from near unanimous 2nd to outside the top 5 based on a Wade series ?

[ElGee]

Early rankings that will likely change.....

Wade
Bryant
Dwight
Deron
Nash


My own personal "**** you" to the King......

Hahaha. You showed him ronny!