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

[Sedale Threatt]

Pretty much agree.

1. James. I can't stand putting him here, as I'm now absolutely convinced, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he already had one foot out the door, and that when things got tough against Boston he basically said, "F it."

Again, it wasn't just one game. He had four mediocre to poor games in that series -- four -- lowlighted by the stink bomb in Game 5. Cleveland goes up 2-1 in the series, and he proceeds to shoot under 40% with an average of six TOs over the final three games to end his Cavs career not with a roar but a pathetic whimper. That's preceded by his 24/7/7 outing -- below his averages in both offensive categories, with five more TOs -- in Game 2 to help put the Cavs behind the 8-ball in the first place.

So, again, it wasn't just one game. He had low moments throughout, and it cost his team in a huge way.

But in the end, he separated himself so far from the rest of the pack in the RS, and neither Kobe nor Wade did enough to bridge that gap in the playoffs. Kobe had a very good all-around year, and probably had the best season when you factor achievement in. There are times in the past with this project that I've voted along those lines, and I wish I'd have been more consistent.

But three things stick in my craw about putting Bryant first -- 1. the two-month slump in the RS; 2. the marginal series against the Thunder; 3. Game 7 against Boston. Take even one of those away -- especially the RS stuff, which I don't value nearly as much as most -- and I'd probably have him first. But it all adds up to really, really good, which isn't enough to bridge that gap.

Wade, I thought, was pretty spectacular at times, esp. against Boston. We're about to be reminded just how great he is in a pretty big way here coming up. But for now, like Kobe, he just didn't do enough to bridge the gap with LeBron. Wasn't his fault; his team doesn't suck, and they beat Boston, and he puts up another monster series or two, and it's a debate. But it didn't happen, so...

2. Bryant
3. Wade

4. Howard. I criticize Dwight quite a bit, especially for his inability to consistently take over games offensively, which is a prerequisite for the position of franchise center, in my opinion. But you look at some of the individual parts on that team, with cream puffs like Carter and Lewis, and it really brings home everything that he brings. Dominant defense and rebounding, and he's still putting up close to 20 on a great %. That's a pretty awesome package.

5. Nash. I'd been going Durant the entire way, and am changing my mind at the last second. I don't think I've given Steve the respect he so richly deserves, and here's my chance to throw him a tiny little bone. I sort of soured a bit on Durant after the L.A. series; still a phenomenal scorer with a very bright future. But he does so little else. In comparison to Nash, who had another great season as a shooter, playmaker and all-around PG.

It was pretty close, and I'm going with Steve.

[ItsMillerTime]

1. Wade
2. Lebron
3. Kobe
4. Nash
5. Durant

HM: Gasol, Dirk, Howard, Dwill

[ElGee]

Elgee, would you mind explaining some of these stats ?

For example, losing contact with defensive responsibility ? How do you measure that ? There are numerous times in a game where losing contact is the right defensive play. For example, Kobe against the Celtics, his job is to be a roamer, to disrupt passing lanes and play free lance defense. In other words, it's part of his job description to lose contact with Rondo.

Sorry, that was just my language for the table. It's losing your man and guarding no one, basically. For instance, most of Kobe's errors come from being blown by off the dribble when he's guarding the ball. He was one of the worst in the playoffs defensively in this regard. (Roaming has nothing to do with it...unless he roamed into the stands or something. His best defensive series was easily against Boston.)

Incidentally, when this happens, it basically creates an unexpected 5 on 4 for the offense. Offensive efficiency league-wide jumps to about 1.6 points per possession. It's a fairly devastating position to put a defense in.

Regardless, it says Defensive Errors/100 posessions -- Nash and Durrant were the best in the league ? Am I reading this right ?

No - just the top 10 POY candidates in the postseason (I suppose one could swap Melo with Manu if they pleased).

And how do you measure fouls drawn ?

When a player is fouled on offense.

And how are you measuring opp fg% against ?

FGA's against in guarding situations when the defender is on the ball.

[Silver Bullet]

To clarify - someone is watching all these games and figuring out who's fouling who ?

And opp FG% against - so if Wade blows by Kobe, Artest come over to help, contests the shot and Wade makes an impossible shot... how does that affect this stat ?

[ElGee]

To clarify - someone is watching all these games and figuring out who's fouling who ?

And opp FG% against - so if Wade blows by Kobe, Artest come over to help, contests the shot and Wade makes an impossible shot... how does that affect this stat ?

Yes people are watching the tape. For fouls, they announce the culprit over the loud speaker and in the game logs.

Artest gets a FG against there, regardless of aesthetic. Anyway, I think Synergy has a lot of good stuff as well if you have an account there. I'm going to vote and purge 2010 from my system...

[ElGee]

My 2010 POY Ballot:

1. LeBron James
2. Dwyane Wade
3. Kobe Bryant
4. Dwight Howard
5. Steve Nash

The Kobe Bryant love is baffling to me. I suppose it depends on criteria -- I understand people who value playoff performance and "potential," because, when Kobe was healthy in 2010 I think he was fantastic. Still giving less at times defensively than Wade, and especially James, but definitely in that mix. I don't think it was a coincidence that after Title No. 1 as No. 24, Bryant found a better balance and was able to put together an offensive performance like the Phoenix series. That was a splendid offensive series.

However, he had a down year in production, missing 9 games and basically struggling through two months of the season. When Tim Duncan had a similar regular season in 2006 and then went bonkers in the playoffs, not many people even considered him in the top 5. I think that's inconsistent and Bryant is the beneficiary of (1) Having better teammates and (2) Having an army to advocate for him when Duncan had no one.

Some final, major stats:

APM (from bvalue: http://basketballvalue.com/topplayers.php)
James 17.6
Durant 17.3
Nash 15.6
Howard 15.3
Wade 14.1
Williams 10.9
Bryant 6.1
Dirk 3.7

Roland Rating
James 19.7
Durant 17.0
Wade 16.2
Howard 13.2
Bryant 11.7
Dirk 10.3
Nash 7.6
Williams 7.4

WS/48
James .299
Durant .238
Wade .224
Howard .223
Dirk .194
Nash .178
Williams .177
Bryant .160*

*Most of that is from Bryant's poor ORtg. In fact, since the 3-point line, Bryant's 109 offensive rating ranks 51st out of 63 guard seasons over 25 ppg. Clearly worthy of a No. 1 spot for some Laker fans. http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... by=off_rtg

Much like Duncan in 06, is Bryant a better player than Dirk, Nash Howard and Durant? Yes. But his regular season performance is arguably below all of these players. His playoff performance is on par with or below Dirk's, Howard's and Nash's.

So, James is first, fairly comfortably. Wade second, comfortably.

The third spot gets tricky, because there is a pack of players here and Bryant doesn't headline it in the regular season OR playoffs. Unless we throw out the OKC series, which seems ridiculous. Or we can weigh the Phoenix series more than normal because of it's brilliance, which seems more reasonable.

Howard, however, is like David Robinson without the bulkier regular season stats. There are just elements of his game that hinder him in the postseason against certain defenses. This might be slightly unfair because Perkins, according to Dwight, plays him better than anyone. Then again, there are so few bigs in the league I'm not sure how much to hold this against Howard. He is, in that sense, a beneficiary of his era.

As others have noted, Durant slides because I thought his performance dropped because of his playoff inexperience. It wasn't just Artest -- he missed shots he made throughout the year and his numebrs against LA dropped sharply. I think a more experienced Durant actually would have upset LA outright given how they played.

After Bryant goes Howard. The final spot comes down to the other 3 players, and Nash's postseason and quarterbacking of a historically good offense give him the edge. This was near peak Nash and it was slightly better than Williams (weaker regular season) and Dirk (wonderful performance v San Antonio but not enough to overcome regular season difference).

[GauchoGuy]

Not sure whether to laugh or cry that this board is going to vote Lebron James in as the POY 09-10, but whatever, there are lots of things in this world that don't make much sense.

1) Kobe Bryant
2) Dwight Howard
3) Dwyane Wade
4) Kevin Durant
5) Lebron James

HM: Steve Nash, Pau Gasol

[Doctor MJ]

Last call.

[kaima]

Getting it in, while I can.

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

Explanation pending.

[Doctor MJ]

'09-10 Results

Code: Select all

Player             1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts   POY Shares
1. LeBron James     10   5   4   0   0 155   0.816
2. Dwyane Wade       5   7   5   1   0 127   0.668
   Kobe Bryant       4   7   7   1   0 127   0.668
4. Dwight Howard     0   0   2   9   5  42   0.221
5. Kevin Durant      0   0   1   3   6  20   0.105
6. Steve Nash        0   0   0   4   7  19   0.100
7. Dirk Nowitzki     0   0   0   1   0   3   0.016
8. Deron Williams    0   0   0   0   1   1   0.005


[semi-sentient]

Site updated: www.dolem.com/poy

The only change is LeBron knocking Robinson out of the top 10. If we're still doing this thing after next season, the LeBron will surpass Garnett and Kobe would pass Hakeem and possibly Malone.

Code: Select all

1.  Michael Jordan    9.578
2.  Magic Johnson     6.407
3.  Tim Duncan        6.153
4.  Shaquille O'Neal  5.910
5.  Karl Malone       4.649
6.  Larry Bird        4.623
7.  Hakeem Olajuwon   4.380
8.  Kobe Bryant       4.326
9.  Kevin Garnett     3.388
10. LeBron James      3.083

[Dr Positivity]

4 straight 2nd place finishes for Kobe. Damn.

[ElGee]

4 straight 2nd place finishes for Kobe. Damn.

Magic has 7. Sometimes there's just a guy.

[Gongxi]

Talk about clutch play! SB's big time vote in crunch time on the last page was able to draw Kobe (#1) up into a tie with Wade (unranked). When the pressure is on, SB can deliver!

Probably not enough time in his life to look at 81-82, though.

[Doctor MJ]

4 straight 2nd place finishes for Kobe. Damn.

Magic has 7. Sometimes there's just a guy.

Yeah, I'm getting a kick how Magic's only going to be #1 once but seems pretty clear he'll be #2 in the shares until Kareem.

[kaima]

Wanted to finally provide some thoughts on why I voted like I did.

The biggest problem I had with this was that, by my standards (oxymoron?), I very quickly arrived at votes that were largely default. It's arguable that this would be a good thing, and exactly how we should want these polls to play out.

But it also felt depressingly mediocre -- instead of being brilliantly obvious, then, more like preordained to the side and degree of arranged marriage -- in a mix of individual play and circumstance. Vague way to end that sentence, as that's always the case, but in this one it seemed as if, more than the other threads I participated in, the brilliance was always tempered either by banality or a critical flaw.

Would I say that LeBron, Kobe or Wade were mediocre? No, but somehow the result felt that way.

Kobe was relatively subpar for the regular season and first round, and he wasn't exactly stellar at the end of the Finals, either. LeBron was omnipresent -- as marketing device and player -- in the regular season, but I feel that he underperformed against the Celtics. Wade was great in both contexts, but his team wasn't -- I wasn't going to penalize him for that.

The question remains, did I penalize LeBron too much?

On a basis of play against a common opponent, LeBron was not the strongest player. He also may have had the heaviest load.

It's not necessarily the fault of LeBron, but it returns to the question of superstar promotion -- not that it's simply overdone (can it be, under the selfsame rubric?), but whether it's misconstrued by an altogether gullible audience (that may include me) -- versus factors and truths that the NBA would like to ignore.

This has been underlined to me by LeBron's last two playoffs and the Celtics/Lakers trades that have resulted in those two franchises playing against each other in 2 out of 3 Finals (3 for 3 with Garnett healthy or present?), and taking the 3 championships in the same period.

The league has very much tried to shift to a guard-focused system of checks and balances, but beyond statlines (under which, there is no doubt, they have gotten what they wanted for so long) there is team result. And here is where the result does not carry through from the concept and implementation stages -- independently of all the focus on tweeners and guards, we still have a league where true contention is defined largely (ugh, wink, nudge, and ugh again) by frontcourt play.

Dwight Howard is the best C in the league. In the mid-90s he might not have been in the top 5.

Yet, without homecourt advantage, he was arguably the key factor in eliminating a 66-win Cavs team, led by the league's latest transcendent Elohimesque-figurine-made-man-then-promoted-as-the-former (I don't know if that worked, it was a *ahem* hail mary; like when Kobe decides to take a 35-foot jumper to heat check), all with barely any post-game to speak of.

The Cavs were so soft up front that Howard was, it seemed, literally moving a pansy like Verejao around with his attitude as much as his body.

LeBron was good, sometimes great, but also helpless against this matchup differential.

Enter Shaq. This was as close as the Cavs could come to a Garnett-like deal.

They understood the problem in Cleveland, but they didn't fix it. They bought a Hummer, yes. Too bad the interior's covered in greasy drive-thru stains, and the engine overheats after about 5 miles.

That doesn't mean that LeBron isn't the best player in the league, though it begs the question of what transcendence truly means, and where he ranks next to a name like Jordan -- a player that went through better bigs than anything seen today (Rodman/Grant were great, but also consider the competition).

This was a question that was on the table before LeBron bolted. John Hollinger PER articles didn't do much to answer that, or the differences in era (to my recollection).

All that led to this:

V Celts

LeBron: 26.8 PPG, 9.3 REB, 7.1 AST, 2.1 STL, 1.3 BLK, 44.7% FG. 3P 28%

Wade: 33.2 PPG, 5.6 REB, 6.8 AST, 1.6 STL, 1.6 BLK, 56.4% FG, 3P 40.5%

Mamba: 28.6 PPG, 8 REB, 3.8 AST, 2.1 STL, 0.7 BLK, 40.3% FG, 3P 31.3%

LeBron's stats remain impressive in this context, but do they remain so in others? Are they truly superior to Wade's stats? Are they as impressive as LeBron's regular season numbers?

No, I don't think so. I don't believe they're superior to Wade's numbers, or even as impressive compared to expectation and the follow-through of what I saw in action.

Going further into the numbers, or simply picking out decisive games, you could say that LeBron was impressive -- 27, 19, 10 -- though messy -- 9 TOs, 38% FG -- in defeat.

Compared to Kobe's game 7 against the Celtics, it's very impressive. On numbers, again. But there was a feeling of gutsiness and grit in Kobe's performance, while LeBron's felt...for show. Going through the motions.

Is this projected? Am I simply picking up on media memes? Open questions, but I felt I was watching it at the time. The aggression didn't appear to be there.

Looking at it in another context, that of the frontcourt, I find that the whole thing -- the overwhelming hype versus the current hate -- coalesces in LeBron's lacking skillsets in the post when compared to all the talk of his POWER player physique.

Unlike Kobe, who is slight, LeBron doesn't appear to have taken full advantage of his genetics. 24 blows him away as far as not only general understanding of the game, but even the direct ability of creating options and scoring out of the post.

Looking at how the Cavs lost, that's a rather big issue.

But then, that may just return to the question of whether I'm being unfair by paying attention to the hype.

Shifting to Kobe, I love watching the guy, but there was a huge stretch last season where it was bordering on painful. Even before the injuries, particularly to the hand, set in, Kobe had not only lost his vertical but also a great deal of his speed.

It's been a precipitous drop on the scale of explosiveness, but there's great entertainment in just watching his aptitude as far as spacing and general reads. I don't think there's a smarter player, which is quite the contrast to what I thought when I was watching those late-90s Lakers.

That he was so beat up on through to the OKC series, made his turnaround against Utah and PHX all the more impressive.

But it was also predicated on those teams' inherent flaws, and thus somewhat predictable.

Utah's pound and pack defensive strategies are a no-go against LA, as is their methodical offense against a quick, long team that can man them up or zone their passing lanes into instant TOs. Combine that with the skill and size differential going the wrong way in the frontcourt, Utah's trump and specialty in playoff situations when they don't see LA, and there was no doubt how this series would end.

Utah couldn't create a rhythm because they couldn't centralize through their frontcourt on either end. They couldn't pack the paint to stop Bryant effectively, because they already had too much between Gasol and Bynum manhandling Boozer, Millsap and...Fesenko? OK, right.

And then you have the oddly effective play of Fisher on Williams, though I think that may be just a bit of a mirage; Fish holds his ground (when he isn't flopping), but the constraints Williams' game is put under against LA is the real key.

He has to run the system. Which is also why Utah looked more effective at moments when they pulled Williams and had a high-energy guy like Price on the floor, a guy who doesn't have the mentality or skillsets to run Utah's sets consistently. Meaning Utah was better without the halfcourt method, but Sloan wouldn't let go of it.

With the Suns, I look at game 5's final minute as an outlier versus microcosm for Phoenix. To tie the game, they needed, what, four shots at the basket I believe, 2 of which were created on offensive rebounds. The ball bounced long twice, allowing perimeter players to grab and quickly reset -- this is the type of serendipity that will create a game-tying three, and that's the point front to back, in that you can't count on it.

On the other end, yes, the defense focused on Kobe. But when you watch the replay you can clearly see Suns players giving up on the play, assuming overtime, not hustling or blocking out.

When you already lack size, this type of mentality is unforgivable. But it's also pretty typical for the smallball mindset, as well as the energy so often shown (or not) during the Nash era in Phoenix on D and fundamental dirty work such as spacing.

In all but one game they were out-rebounded, and their "power" forward managed one game of 11 pulls. In every other game, this clown was beneath the ten rebound threshold. His next closest game was 8. Then 6. In the remaining three, he managed 3, 4 and 4.

Their attempt at zone rotation was pretty disastrous as well. It gave Kobe seams and jumpers that just built and built as far as rhythm.

It's arguable that Phoenix's starters were overvalued, their bench underrated. That bench gave them a different look, some hustle, toughness and actual defensive intensity that allowed them back in games 5 and 6.

The team a versus b thing -- count chocula versus a side order of meat and potatoes -- is not something that is conceivably contention-worthy, though. The Suns are still defined by softness, lacking defensive fundamentals and bad "luck" that has become predictable, which means that it's not luck at all.

A lot of this is defined by Nash's game, in my estimation, making it hard for me to see him in contention for a top 5 slot.

As far as the top 3, frankly LeBron lost yet again because of depth issues, particularly in the frontcourt, while this is why Kobe has one for thumb.

Wade played on a mediocre team, his facilitation not up to LeBron's, but his individuated play was baseline brilliant in the regular season, playoffs and against a carry-over and common foe.

It became a default answer. AKA the beginning is the end is the beginning.

[Bgil]

As far as the top 3, frankly LeBron lost yet again because of depth issues, particularly in the frontcourt, while this is why Kobe has one for thumb.

Shaq, Z, Varejao, Jamison, Moon, and even Parker can lineup at the 3 effectively. And don't forget Lebron is part of that frontcourt.

In comparison to 2007, when they made the Finals, and 2008, when they took the C's to the limit, they were far deeper in 2010.

In 07 and 08 they had defensive players but no spacing for Lebron and therefore his game suffered. By 2010 they had swapped all those defensive players for offensive players that gave Lebron floor spacing but couldn't guard a chair.