2010-11 Player of the Year thread

[drza]

I've started and stopped posts about 3 times today because my thoughts are still too scattered to make coherent statements, but this recent "fit" topic from Doc MJ is one of the areas that I've tried (several times now) to approach. But I find that I don't want to jump straight to it, because my other thoughts are almost needed to put my thoughts on this into context. So, a quick review of some of my initial post-championship thoughts:

1) I thought LeBron and Howard were the 2 best players in the regular season, and that LeBron had put space between him and everyone else through the first 3 rounds. While Wade was often the one attacking the Celtics and keeping them in the games early, late it was LeBron that just murdered them. Similarly, LeBron just took it to the Bulls even when Wade was lagging. He was #1 with a bullet for me 2 weeks ago. Then, the Finals happened. I still haven't wrapped my mind completely around how much he was at fault for the results, but he clearly didn't play up to standards and I'm not sure there's a reason good enough to justify it. But he was SO good before that, for like 95% of the season. Just how much do I move him, if at all, in my final rankings?

2) Dirk just put the cap on an outstanding season, and one that is very interesting to me on a level outside of the player rankings. His season, and the way we eventually decide to characterize it, to me plays a big part in how we should define player greatness. Dirk is a great scorer, which fits the Sportscenter-level narrative for greatness, but among us nerds on the message boards we generally look a bit further than that. We like to look at the advanced stats, and the team situations, and put things in context. But there's been a big push-back lately around here against using +/- stats. The thing is, to me, you can't put Dirk's season in correct context nor can you fully explain what we just saw in the Finals without looking at the family of +/- stats. As Kaima points out, by traditional stats Dirk's regular season was nothing special. Even with the advanced box score stuff like PER, WS, WP or whatever Dirk didn't show up all that special. But when you look at APM, he measures out as one of the best players all season even with the injury/recovery issues. To me, this is a noteworthy example of APM indicating a truth that traditional viewing and box score stats couldn't capture. And while I believe it happens often, that this case also ended with a dramatic championship run that even the non +/- believers would also have to respect makes it noteworthy.

3) No idea where to put Wade, now. Coming into the Finals I had him fourth, with the thought that Paul could still end up passing him on my ballot. Then, he had an excellent start to the Finals while LeBron was struggling a bit, making me consider moving him up a bit. Then, he leveled off enough in those last 2 games that now I'm back to thinking about how I feel about his season with respect to Paul's again.

4) Howard and Paul are almost definitely in my top-5 somewhere. But right at the moment, I couldn't tell you where. Rose and Durant just didn't impress me as much as I think they did others, and KG showed just enough age effect in their loss to the Heat that it keeps him out of my top-5 despite what I still believe has been an under-ratedly good year for him.

[mopper8]

No one is going to respond to mystic's PEDs speculation?

When Wade was younger, he was 20lbs lighter and chased around Rip Hamilton without much issue through an entire playoff series with no ill effects. He's put on all that extra muscle now to help reduce injury (and indeed, including playoffs has played over 80 games in 3 straight seasons now). But the upshot of that is that he's less equipped to deal with strenuous cardio. In the 2nd round, instead of chasing Rip, he was chasing Ray Allen, which is even more of a challenge, and I think that explains the dead legs vs Chicago, missing dunks and layups and such.

He got 4 days off between both series (the 2nd round and 3rd, and then the 3rd round and Finals), but he got all the practices off before the Finals, while he did not get that rest after the 2nd round. So that would be my guess.

Who knows though. Maybe PEDs.

[Doctor MJ]

My goal has always been who played the best basketball that year. Sometimes, due to circumstance outside of that player's control, the fit won't be as good and he nor the team will look better because of it.

And if the player specifically chose his team based on maximizing talent rather than fit and as a result contributed less lift and team results disappointed?

[ElGee]

My goal has always been who played the best basketball that year. Sometimes, due to circumstance outside of that player's control, the fit won't be as good and he nor the team will look better because of it.

And if the player specifically chose his team based on maximizing talent rather than fit and as a result contributed less lift and team results disappointed?

Haha. I'm not judging GM here. I suppose Russell in 1969 had some boost for being the coach, but it's no different than a guy re-signing in a mediocre situation out of loyalty. It's sort of off my radar, just like any role Howard had in Orlando's personnel decisions.

[ElGee]

James (correctly?) is a player with a history of undershooting when he's not shooting well. He looked like a guy to me without confidence in his outside shot, despite torching Boston and Chicago with some of those shots. When the shot is not opening up the drive -- and quick open shots are there for teammates -- it's not the worst "trap" to fall into.

It's not. In certain circumstances, it would absolutely be the smart thing to do.

But if you're going to scale back in a pretty critical area, you've got to find a way to impact the game in other areas. This, to me, is perhaps LeBron's biggest failing -- he doesn't seem to have much else to fall back on if Plan A isn't working. It's even worse considering what a fabulous all-around player he is.

Shot isn't falling -- OK, get into the post, at least. Do something.

I get the fact that he and Wade overlap; that's an issue that's probably going to raise its head throughout their partnership. But to simply fade into the background like he did, and not dominate a single Finals game, simply isn't acceptable for a player of his caliber.

As you touched on, he's been in the NBA for nearly a decade now, MORE than enough time to develop some credible counters to whatever opposing teams and circumstances throw at him. He hasn't, and that's on him.

I certainly don't buy fatigue as a legitimate excuse. I know he's played a ton of minutes. But he's 26 years old, and it's the Finals. Suck that isht up.

Well, he did *something.* He facilitated. The issue is he "should" have gone to the line more or posted up more. I don't care about the psychology behind why, he just didn't. Was it a disaster of an offensive series? Not really -- I think Miami's team ORtg was still like 108 or something -- but we just hold him to this ridiculous standard that frankly, makes basketball less fun.

We can't talk about Dallas, or Wade or Bosh or team dynamics or Carlisle or whatever because we have to stop the presses every time LeBron James stumbles or loses a basketball game. All players have weaknesses, all struggle, all miss shots. Even the best player in the game. Dude has weaknesses and sometimes they are displayed. He was 5-23 from 3 after G1. If he goes 10-23, there's a parade in South Beach, Miami boasts a Finals ORtg of closer to 111, and he finishes the series averaging over 20 a game and everyone hails him as an efficient creator who trusts his teammates and "took what the D gave him."

I'm not sure what "such that isht up" means. It's not a mental issue. When you have dead legs and you rely on athleticism, you can't jump or explode as well. I didn't see that from James, particularly on defense around the rim. Against Boston, he was blocking bigs at the rim. Against Dallas, he was borderline useless on the rotations in the paint against the whole team.

[Sedale Threatt]

It's not that we hold him to this ridiculous standard, it's that he set it himself with nearly a decade of historically great play.

So when you drop seven or eight points off your scoring average, disappear in the fourth quarter just a series after totally dominating in the same instances, and don't really excel in any other facet while your team blows three fourth quarter leads, and loses four of the last five games, some accountability is in order.

I don't know the reason for it, either. I don't buy the whole "not clutch" criticism, because we've had multiple instances throughout his career when he's been just that. Most recently against the Bulls, when he was about as good as you can be with games on the line.

To me, the whys don't really matter. All the contributing factors are well and good, and deserve to be discussed, but the bottom line is that he failed to dominate, or really even control, a single championship game in a series his team should have won, and easily could have if he'd been just a little bit better.

Is that really acceptable for the best player in the world?

And "suck it up" basically means, deal with it. You're tired, you've got dead legs, you want to quit. Great. How bad do you want a championship? I know that kind of mentality probably doesn't fit in with the quantum crowd, but in the realm of athletics, sometimes -- and maybe this is one of those times -- it's really that simple.

I mean, does this sound like a decent excuse to you: "Yeah, well, it was a tough series, Dallas played well, and I could have played better. A lot better. But I was tired."

[drza]

But does Nowitzki automatically become number 1? I don't believe so, no.

I think his teammates and, particularly, cleverness of team construction are being overlooked. The shooting for this team, matched to the softer rules, amalgamated in a great way with Chandler's addition.

Basically this is becoming another zero-sum argument on title outcomes.

Dirk played great. Sure. But I don't see much evidence that he was one of the top 3-5 players from October to June.

If the voting must be done now, then I will bow out.

mystic went over the +/- argument.

The more general thing which doesn't get talked about enough is this: How do you factor in team fit when ranking the players on that team? Especially the star.

Anyone who thinks they have an easy answer, I'd love to hear it, but I think you haven't thought it through.

Consider LeBron.

His Cav team last year was literally about as good as his Heat team this year. The Heat team has better talent. What did the Cav team have? Fit. Literally, the Cav team was built with the ability to make use of LeBron's talents such that you could have Mo Williams in place of Dwyane Wade (with the other substitutions), and achieve about the same thing.

I don't think it makes any sense to say "Well, LeBron had good fit on his team in Cleveland, so he wasn't as valuable as you think?" I say the same thing with Dirk.

Now, I get that you can have ensemble casts like the Pistons of a few years ago with such good fit that they win a title even without a clear star, but that's where both common sense and +/- helps matters. This Mav team and its great fit totally disappear without Dirk. He *makes* the fit. For that I think he should be praised.

Now, about this 'fit' issue. That's a key point to me, but it also ties directly into the idea of "supporting cast". And into the idea of the level of talent that it takes to win an NBA title, and our assumptions about the best players being able to "carry" teams to titles. I'm still trying to follow my line of thought to its conclusion, and I haven't fully vetted these thoughts yet. I'm sure that I'm going to say some things in here that many won't agree with, and maybe I'll even come back to it later and shake my head at myself. But these thoughts have been swirling around in my head for awhile, and it's time I try to get them out.

1) Dirk's performance in the context of his team fit did remind me a lot of the Duncan Spurs of '03 and the Hakeem Rockets of '94 that so many around here consider to be almost sacred seasons. While he did it in a different way than they did, I think that Dirk was about as important to these Mavs as they were to their teams. And this is one of the things that the +/- stats are able to help confirm for us.

2) On the other hand, I don't agree with the narrative that is emerging that Dirk carried a bunch of nobodies to a title. The other Mavs most CERTAINLY played a big-time part in things.

*Tyson Chandler's size, athleticism and defense were one of the keys for the Mavs all year, and he played a big role in exploiting a Heat weakness that I had thought only the Celtics and Lakers (when healthy) had the personnel to exploit. Essentially, both Chandler and DIrk were too big and athletic for Haslem, Anthony or Bosh to prevent them from doing what they want. Their size added a dimension for the Mavs team approach that the Heat were unable to effectively combat, even with Haywood injured.

*Jason Terry, Barea, and Kidd, between them just took turns making huge plays, huge shots, and settling the team down at huge moments.

*Marion and Stevenson, similarly, tended to make timely contributions on the wing whether it be with scrappy defense or an important shot. Stevenson's treys in the first quarter of game 6 put an early stamp on things.

But when you look at the box scores, none of these guys ever put up huge numbers on a regular basis. That could be because their areas of impact aren't readily visible (Chandler) or because outside of Dirk (and to an extent Terry), no one of them had to play at a huge level on offense every night...they had enough quality depth that SOMEONE would step up, just not necessarily the same someone.

3) Which, again, reminds me a lot of the '03 Spurs and '94 Rockets. I remember watching those Rockets, and while they were definitely Dream's team I can't count how many times I saw Cassell or Elie or Horry or Smith or Thorpe or whoever step up and hit the big shot at the big time or make the right defensive plays or crash the glass or get the hustle points. Similarly with the Spurs, as during their playoff run every one of the 2 big men, 3 wings and 2 point guards that they rotated in/out took turns stepping up. Such that while Dirk, Duncan and Hakeem were definitely the superstars on their teams, they also weren't out there ALONE.

4) Bringing it back to Doc's "fit" comments, I don't have a problem with the superstar getting some extra credit for being the one that makes the "fit" work. Take the superstar away from any of those 3 teams, and the championship hopes die quickly. The others, on their own, aren't enough without their lynchpin. Plus, the lynchpin has the additional pressure of having to always produce while the others can have off nights. And again, the +/- numbers tell the story for both Dirk and Duncan and I'm sure they'd say something similar for Hakeem if we had that data from those years.

But what I haven't liked through the years with the Hakeem and Duncan arguments, and what I can already tell I'm not going to like with the developing Dirk storyline, is the concept that they took a bunch of "nothing" and made it into a Finals team. They may not have had other All Stars, but they had both talent and fit in their cast that made big contributions to the team. In short, not having All Stars in the cast != not having a good cast. While the superstar should get his share of credit for the fit, the cast and their contributions should not go ignored either.

5) Because the other championship teams that these Mavs remind me of are the three Pistons champions. In '04 Ben Wallace was the only Piston to make an All Star or an All NBA team, and his postseason +/- was crazy as well (I believe his on/off +/- was on the order of +24 in those playoffs, similar to or better than both '03 Duncan and '11 Dirk), but in the RPoY '04 thread there were many that begrudged him even a spot in the top-5. His playoff run was in many ways a mirror to Dirk's this year, but because his contributions were overwhelmingly defensive in nature it was easy for us, the public, to see that a) the other "non All Stars" were obviously contributing (offense is easy to see) and b) the team itself was still extremely vital even if there was one star that stood above the rest in both the accolades and the +/-.

Similarly, in '89 Isiah was an All Star but none of the Pistons made the All NBA team. But the fit was there, the team was deep and strong, and in the end as a group they could topple the titans.

6) In the end, I think what I'd most like to see is for us to recognize that, whatever you want to call it...fit, sum-greater-than-the-parts, old school teamwork...whatever, I'd like for us to start recognizing that there is TANGIBLE value in that. It may be hard to quantify, but it is getting easier to recognize. And it's not a fluke. That's the trap that I seem to see the majority of us fall into when discussing those types of championship teams. The Pistons? Aw, that was a fluke (all 3 times) that just happened because it was a changing of the guard. The Rockets? A fluke that happened because Jordan had retired and Hakeem just went into video game mode. The Spurs? Another fluke that just shows that Duncan could reach that Hakeem level. Now, the Mavs. The thing is, by my count, that's now 6 of the last 23 NBA champions that would fit into this similar category. That no longer sounds like a fluke to me. It just sounds like an area that we haven't yet wrapped our minds around how to value talent that isn't obviously concentrated into individuals.

7) And as such, I'm just not sure how much "extra credit" the superstar should get in that situation vs the superstar in what we consider to be traditional "championship" runs. I don't know that just a lack of "star" teammates, of itself, automatically boosts a championship run beyond any one of Jordan's 90s titles or Shaq in 2000 or Wade in '06, just because they had All Star teammates. If, upon further review, it does appear that one person's contributions to a title run were more impressive than another person that also led a title run, then I have no problem giving that credit. But just "a lack of All Stars" alone doesn't do it for me, and I think that I'm very much in the minority as far as that opinion goes.

[Sedale Threatt]

Fabulous post.

[ElGee]

@ Sedale. Is it acceptable to see such a drop in scoring such? You mean if I were LBJ would I be pissed? I think I would. Should he be penalized because of it? Depending on one's criteria (it certainly devalues his season a little for me).

I'm happy to be part of this quantum crowd, but there is a difference between mental strength and physical failure. "Tired" isn't the right word when the body just doesn't respond. I CAN get punched over and over again in the gut. I CAN'T make myself win the tour de france by just telling my legs to keep pedaling. Wade probably had dead legs vs. Chicago. It's not a good thing, but it can happen.

@drza Excellent post. I was actually thinking about this last night, and I think the obsession is with simplification. It comes from how people need to classify players.

People MUST identify players, in a very black and white manner, as stars or other. "Hakeem" won a title. Or "Shaq and Kobe" won a title. There's never an understanding that it is a team game, nor is there acknowledgment of the role of depth, balance, fit, interior defense/rebounding, shooting, coaching, etc.

You see it constantly in player discussions: "Dirk carried nobodies to the Finals in 06 but KG couldn't make the playoffs." As if all NBA players and systems are equal once you get past the all-stars/all-nba guys. How different was Dirk last year than this year? Personally, I had him just missing the cut last year, and I believe mystic was the only one to give him a vote. Now he has an all-time peak?

Pistons (3x), Rockets, Spurs, Mavericks. Heck, the 99 Spurs had exactly 1 all-NBA player. If David Robinson were named Al Horford or Tyson Chandler but played *exactly the same,* would people call that a fluke? That team closed 46-7 (71-win pace!) with Robinson as the second leading scorer (15.8 ppg) and the average age of the 6 other players to start besides Duncan was 32.5.

So that's arguably a 7th team to fit that model.

[mysticbb]

I didn't vote for the 2009-10, thus I wasn't the guy giving Nowitzki a vote. Additional to that: Nowitzki played better this season, attacked the basket via postups more, further improved his midrange game and was quicker at decision making. His numbers were deflated in the regular season due to the injuries in this season, but overall his better play showed up in nearly every advanced stats.

A similar thing I said about Zach Randolph before, also a guy some people claimed didn't play different than in years before when in fact he played much different.

Regarding stars and roleplayers: I'm pretty confident that every NBA player could have a great shiny moment or even game. They are all capable of doing it. The seperation happens through consistency, that's were you get the seperation between star players and role players. That's why Manu Ginobili is better than Jason Terry, that's why Dirk Nowitzki is better than Al Harrington. The former can bring their performance level much more consistent than the latter. That is a seperation we have to accept. And a team with more than one consistent star player will always have a greater chance at winning games than a team with just one consistent star player, assuming the average level of the support is the same after the best player. Consistency matters a lot, the ability to make the right plays throughout the game is important. That's why star players can let their teammates get on to a hot start, because the teammates need that to gain confidence much more than the star player who can also just start to make plays in the 3rd quarter or in the closing moments of games. That's where the ability of that star player comes into play in "making his teammates better", by just letting them play their games.

In a team game the support is obviously critical, but the ability to make a team work together should not be overlooked. The Dallas Mavericks of this season are a pretty good example of this. Without Nowitzki they really looked like that lottery team, it isn't just a narrative, we actually saw them playing like one of the worst teams in the league. It wasn't just coincedence that they got outscored during the 9 games Nowitzki missed as much as we should have expected due the information we had from the time Nowitzki was on the bench. Judging the supporting cast is not just evaluating how they played with the superstar on the court, it is also evaluate how they played without that star player. That's why it is correct to call the Mavericks support weak, even though they made great plays. You will find similar things by role players on every championship team, nobody is doing it alone. For the 2008 Celtics we saw Rondo making great contribution in game 1, Powe in game 2, Posey and House in game 4 and basically everyone in game 6. Timely contribution which helped to win those games in the 2008 finals. Different players stepping up at the right time for their teams, but the star player enabled them to get to the point in the first place.

Watch how Barea looked without Nowitzki on the court, because the spacing was off, or how Chandler's rebounding numbers went down when Nowitzki was on the bench, because the help for boxing out wasn't there on the defensive end, how Jason Kidd made only 27% of his field goal attempts when Nowitzki was out in the playoffs, while making 43% with him. You will find that for a lot of players, when Nowitzki was not on the court, the Mavericks became worse, their individual flaws showed up and the work as a team wasn't there.

If we judge a supporting cast, we should look at how they are able to do without that star player. Otherwise we would assume that the bad minutes without that player is just coincidence, just bad luck and the players have in fact no real impact overall on each other.

drza, I understand your motivation for your post, you are afraid that people will look at Nowitzki's resume in 2011 and compare that to Garnett's, and they will come to the conclusion that Garnett never did a similar thing in the end. Which is basically true, even though it might be just more circumstantial than actually due to different abilities in terms of carrying a team. Now you are trying to play it down, but the fact remains that Nowitzki just carried a bunch of players to a championship who played like a lottery team when Nowitzki wasn't on the court. And that wasn't just during the playoffs, it was for a whole season. That is the difference to your Ben Wallace argument, who had a mere +5.6 APM for 2004, not +1x.xx like Nowitzki had. For Wallace the +/- numbers in 2004 playoffs are looking like the outlier here, a clear outlier in comparison to the numbers we have seen from him in a bigger sample during the regular season and in other years. That is not the case for Nowitzki in 2011, and it wasn't the case for Duncan in 2003.

And if you might think that Nowitzki gets overrated due to that, I honestly say: I don't care, seeing how underrated he was in all those years and how his total POY shares differs from his All-NBA awards and MVP shares.

The championship run of the Mavericks was amazing and Nowitzki was the most important player in that run. His impact was huge and it is backed up by +/- numbers. And for sure the Mavericks wouldn't have won without the contribution by the other players, neither would the Rockets anno 1994 or 1995, the Bulls in 1998, the Spurs in 2005 or the Celtics in 2008.

[ronnymac2]

3) Which, again, reminds me a lot of the '03 Spurs and '94 Rockets. I remember watching those Rockets, and while they were definitely Dream's team I can't count how many times I saw Cassell or Elie or Horry or Smith or Thorpe or whoever step up and hit the big shot at the big time or make the right defensive plays or crash the glass or get the hustle points. Similarly with the Spurs, as during their playoff run every one of the 2 big men, 3 wings and 2 point guards that they rotated in/out took turns stepping up. Such that while Dirk, Duncan and Hakeem were definitely the superstars on their teams, they also weren't out there ALONE.

An unspectacular part of a spectacular overall post.

I say it's unspectacular because it SHOULD be obvious to a basketball fan population as dedicated to RealGM's. Nowitzki, Duncan, Olajuwon and Barry literally weren't doing everything. Marion, Jackson, Cassell and George Johnson deserve as much credit for the championships their respective clubs won as the stars do.

A superstar's legacy is only as good as the eighth best player on their title teams. That goes for every superstar, every GOAT candidate.


Nowitzki should not get extra credit simply for being the fulcrum of the Maverick offense, simply because Dallas has a flawed offense overall. That's what the MVP award is for.

If 2011 Dirk was on a team with an offense not as reliant on him yet he played the same way- put up great stats, made great decisions and closed games out- would he be a lesser offensive player? Absolutely not.

I appreciate how great Nowitzki played and the kind of offensive value he provides, but he doesn't get extra credit as a player for Dallas being flawed without him.

[Doctor MJ]

An unspectacular part of a spectacular overall post.

I say it's unspectacular because it SHOULD be obvious to a basketball fan population as dedicated to RealGM's. Nowitzki, Duncan, Olajuwon and Barry literally weren't doing everything. Marion, Jackson, Cassell and George Johnson deserve as much credit for the championships their respective clubs won as the stars do.

A superstar's legacy is only as good as the eighth best player on their title teams. That goes for every superstar, every GOAT candidate.

Nowitzki should not get extra credit simply for being the fulcrum of the Maverick offense, simply because Dallas has a flawed offense overall. That's what the MVP award is for.

If 2011 Dirk was on a team with an offense not as reliant on him yet he played the same way- put up great stats, made great decisions and closed games out- would he be a lesser offensive player? Absolutely not.

I appreciate how great Nowitzki played and the kind of offensive value he provides, but he doesn't get extra credit as a player for Dallas being flawed without him.

Hmm. You're talking some sense. Seems like I should agree with you, but I don't.

No, Marion and the 8th best Mav don't deserve as much credit for the title as Dirk.

Yes, a player should get extra credit for being able to make a top tier team with a relatively easily replaceable supporting cast compared to someone who is harder to build around.

Nobody does it alone, agree with you there, but I think you've got to judge a star partially based on the supporting cast he had to work with.

[mopper8]

I agree with some of what you wrote Doc but some I have to question. For one thing, is Tyson Chandler really "easily replaceable"?

For another, how much credit does a guy get for his supporting cast going to crap when he's off the floor when the team is basically designed that way? For example, Lebron did not get worse from last season to this, and yet this year's team did not struggle nearly as much without him on the floor as his Cavs teams did.

I do think a star should get credit for being able to take a well-arranged cast of secondary players to elite level, but I don't think he should get extra credit for that cast being specifically-tailored to his skills. If the players are chosen precisely to complement the star, then it would make sense if that they struggle in his absence and flourish in his presence. That doesn't change the fact that he's a superstar and that he's allowing them to flourish, but it does perhaps lead us to draw exaggerated conclusions about his impact.

[Doctor MJ]

I agree with some of what you wrote Doc but some I have to question. For one thing, is Tyson Chandler really "easily replaceable"?

I said "relatively easily replaceable". Tyson Chandler is the most in demand person on the Mavs (other than Dirk) and he's bounced around the NBA putting up meh numbers. Even considering that there's such a dearth of big men in the game right now, Chandler certainly isn't as tough to replace as most #2's on championship teams.

For another, how much credit does a guy get for his supporting cast going to crap when he's off the floor when the team is basically designed that way? For example, Lebron did not get worse from last season to this, and yet this year's team did not struggle nearly as much without him on the floor as his Cavs teams did.

I do think a star should get credit for being able to take a well-arranged cast of secondary players to elite level, but I don't think he should get extra credit for that cast being specifically-tailored to his skills. If the players are chosen precisely to complement the star, then it would make sense if that they struggle in his absence and flourish in his presence. That doesn't change the fact that he's a superstar and that he's allowing them to flourish, but it does perhaps lead us to draw exaggerated conclusions about his impact.

Teams are never designed to suck when a player goes out. When it happens it's because that player has skills that are hard to replace, which honestly, I can't think of a better way of describing a star.

"LeBron did not get worse", no, but he handled the challenges of this year worse than he handled the challenges of the previous year. I was less impressed with what he did this year compared to what he had done before. I don't expect Miami to totally fall off the map without LeBron like Cleveland did, but in exchange I expect that I am expecting that he can do more with Miami when he's on the court than he did with Cleveland.

Seriously, am I literally supposed to ignore any failing he has in the future because of how well he met the challenges in Cleveland? That seems absurd to me. I might as well give Jordan my vote for '93-94 if I'm doing that.

"extra credit" for "specifically-tailored", hey if you think that the supporting cast around Dirk is super duper special, and that he'd have nowhere near the same success otherwise, that should be factored in against Dirk. I think people are overrating the amount of tailoring going on here. Marion, Barea? These are all guys who were available for scraps. Kidd? Was special years ago. Terry? A 33-yeard-old combo guard. Heck, Caron Butler was more in demand than any of those guys, was the starter over Marion, and he didn't even play. This is not a case of half a dozen genius moves that made something out of nothing. The Mavs have won 50+ games 11 straight years, and this year they had Dirk at his best, a great coach, and some luck on their side.

Chandler has really worked out, but again let's not blow him out of proportion. He's a big man who averaged a single-single in the playoffs without even blocking a shot per game.

[mysticbb]

Nowitzki should not get extra credit simply for being the fulcrum of the Maverick offense, simply because Dallas has a flawed offense overall. That's what the MVP award is for.

If 2011 Dirk was on a team with an offense not as reliant on him yet he played the same way- put up great stats, made great decisions and closed games out- would he be a lesser offensive player? Absolutely not.

I appreciate how great Nowitzki played and the kind of offensive value he provides, but he doesn't get extra credit as a player for Dallas being flawed without him.

You sound like Dallas picked a "flawed roster" on purpose to make Nowitzki look better than he is. If his team is less reliant on him, if the team plays better without him on the court, but still the same with him, the Mavericks would have finished the season with more wins and the championship would have come easier for them. The team didn't want to suck without Nowitzki, it just happened that the players, that the great plays of those players when Nowitzki was on the court overshadowed their individual flaws.

People are talking about their positive contribution, but Chandler looked badly against Bynum in the 2nd round. The Mavericks played better when Chandler wasn't on the court, better offensively and defensively against the Lakers. Barea was a non-factor against the Blazers, Terry's performance against OKC was anything but good, the Mavericks played better without Marion against the Blazers and the Lakers. BUT in all series there was one consistent scheme, the Mavericks played at their best when Nowitzki was on the court. But somehow the people are looking for Nowitzki's flaws, but want to ignore the flaws of the rest of the Mavericks. There is a reason not many teams wanted Shawn Marion or Tyson Chandler. Nobody made a play for Barea.
And that all leaves out the facts that the Mavericks missed their 2nd best player in Caron Butler and a supposed to be better version of Barea in Beaubois.

Making things work to the highest degree, coming up with the biggest accomplishment in this season should be factored in, especially when the team around that said player can't do anything without him. Jordan was picked as POY when the Bulls were bad without him, he was picked POY when the Bulls were able to play like a 50 wins team without him. Because in both cases we saw how much Jordan elevated that team to a much better overall product. A similar thing can be said about Nowitzki.

Even though people have a hard time understanding why a non-traditional power forward like Nowitzki can be used as a cornerstone of a championship team the fact remains that in the last 11 years a team with Nowitzki as the best player finished every season with at least 50 wins. And those teams were different, they had different players around Nowitzki. And I'm rather sure that the Mavericks would have picked another star player over their inconsistent role players, if the chance to get one would have been there. But somehow the flawed role players were easier to get than that 2nd star player. I wonder why. ;)

[kaima]

My point is context, yes.

My question is, where was the general aggression of the earlier rounds? The idea that defensive gameplanning would take away what he had in earlier rounds is not something that flies on its own.

Were the Mavs a better defensive team than the Celtics or the Bulls? As good? This is context -- broad versus specific -- but the stage LeBron was playing on is its own context; a context that may have been at play in this series.

The point is, then, that it seems LeBron psychologically prostrated himself to Wade, and the moment.

Is that too simple? Perhaps. But as your post argued, this was a factor.

It may be more nebulous, or it may simply be that we agree on specific elements but not their order or primacy in what unfolded.

I went over a theory that said that LeBron began deferring because it was a logical response to the defense and it seemed to work for the Heat (they could have easily been up 3-0). Wade being hot and LeBron's bricking some shots took it further.

And I explained my issues with this scenario.

It seems you're so attached to it that you have no interest in discussing it.

That's okay, but I'm not interested in text-pong, yin/yang binary, or recursion as a standard for posts in this thread.

Completely understand if you don't buy that, but it is pretty clearly about the context of the series giving a logical explanation for how LeBron got started in a certain direction.

And I would hope that you read my post and understand my problems with the narrative, if not their disparate pieces.

Interesting fact: there are only two playoff series in LeBron's career where he didn't manage one game of thirty-points in the span. One guess as to the other common element, i.e. the 'when'.

It's an odd conflation -- Dirk is NOWitzki because of, well, now. If his team loses in the first round, he likely isn't making any top 5s no matter how well he played.

In past POY threads, the argument was made that a top player eliminated early, especially with big stats, could be argued as an underwhelming presence. It may be a Devil's advocate moment for me, but at the same time I find Dirk and Dwight being placed together as 1 and 2 particularly odd considering season trajectories.

Count me among the few then who had Dirk at #1 on my POY/MVP list for most of the year, and then gave my regular season nod to Dwight after Dirk and the Mavs stumbled.

Well, there is another side or end to all that.

I'm curious as to whether Dwight gets praise for putting up stellar stats in defeat, or blame. Certainly there was a standard to question impact previously when losing early with big stats.

I will look at Dwight's performance in the regular season+playoffs, and not look only or much at all over whether his team went out early. I certainly don't think he was to blame for the losses, or a hindrance.

In that sense, and to be consistent with my outlook for other players, I could even see myself ranking him over Dirk.

It will be interesting to see how many others are season/player-specific or broadly coherent in outlook so far as POY votes and the criteria that creates them.

One thing that has been consistently annoying, if not disturbing, is the push to rank players based on osmosis and media legacy, or through team-result.

I hope the latter doesn't take place here. Though I think the former with the latter are already retrofitting and metastasizing.

The blanket statements for Dirk, and call to ignore team and matchup factors, are pointers. I particularly find the assumption that the Chandler pick-up was lacking -- from the Dirk all-time Legacy side of this -- to be lacking in analysis for how Dirk had this run.

All that said, I still could see Dirk as number 1. I can see the argument. But I fail to see how it's an automatic.

And I especially am disappointed in the idea that management didn't make some key moves to help him.

Does that line of thinking, it's all-or-nothing nature, mean Dirk was a complete loser or lacking before this title?

The team-result far too often ignores what this is supposed to be about: individual performance.

Which is why I think Dirk would be ignored, relatively, if he put up the same stats in, say, two rounds instead of four.

That's not a knock on Dirk, but it is on the process of how he -- and the other players in this process -- are being judged through it.

[kaima]

But does Nowitzki automatically become number 1? I don't believe so, no.

I think his teammates and, particularly, cleverness of team construction are being overlooked. The shooting for this team, matched to the softer rules, amalgamated in a great way with Chandler's addition.

Basically this is becoming another zero-sum argument on title outcomes.

Dirk played great. Sure. But I don't see much evidence that he was one of the top 3-5 players from October to June.

If the voting must be done now, then I will bow out.

mystic went over the +/- argument.

OK.

The idea that I automatically care for plus/minus stats, or should, is something I'd take issue with.

Further, I never really argued that Nowitzki was a poor player, or that he didn't matter greatly to the Mavs.

But does the fact that he was the best player on the best team -- rather, the best player on the best playoff team, through whatever limited measurement and matchup contexts -- then prove he was the best player for the entire season?

I'm not seeing how that's an automatic. Not at all.

The more general thing which doesn't get talked about enough is this: How do you factor in team fit when ranking the players on that team? Especially the star.

I believe this has been debated quite a bit, actually.

What strikes me is how the standards shift based on legacy -- the assumptions that result -- and that selfsame team-result.

Dirk didn't magically become a better player with this run. Yet many see it that way.

In that context, looking at team-makeup is of great value. And very reasonable.

If Dirk had compiled similar stats over fewer rounds, suddenly he'd be worth less?

Let's say he provides the same offense without Chandler's presence to push the team further, was he really less of a player? If the team loses despite his great play, why is he worth less as a player than he is when they win with that same level of play?

These are not questions to attack Dirk, but provide context and sense in place of hype. Hype he's now the beneficiary of, whereas he could just as easily have been attacked through it with a slightly different team.

Or, hell. just ignored.

Over the last three POY votes, Dirk hasn't ranked in the top five. He was out of the top ten for MVP voting in two out of three years. This year he wasn't in the top five, and garnered .093 of the votes. In fact, he hasn't been in the top five since the Warriors debacle (fair for MVP? I don't know. But for POY shares, I believe it makes sense in that he arguably played so poorly as a matchup or star prop that he harmed his team).

In the time he's been acknowledged or ranked at all by the POY vote, he's missed the top five seven times. He's made it twice.

Yet he's automatically the best player in 2010/11?

The question is not whether a career can make a jump, but what the basis is for this assumption.

It appears to be team-result, very greatly.

The number of people that suddenly think he's the best player in the league has sky-rocketed.

Has he really changed so much, so quickly?

Anyone who thinks they have an easy answer, I'd love to hear it, but I think you haven't thought it through.

Of all the people in this process, you're aiming that charge at me?

Wow.

Just because you dislike or disagree with how I rank players for a season, doesn't mean that I haven't thoroughly thought about it, and how to fairly evaluate it.

On the other hand, I've seen examples, by season, where measurement of player value fluctuates wildly from the same source(s).

If you want to debate this further -- and provide detail as to your statement about me -- I'm all for it.

His Cav team last year was literally about as good as his Heat team this year. The Heat team has better talent. What did the Cav team have? Fit.

And...?

This is an argument that proves what. exactly, as far Nowitzki or James?

Literally, the Cav team was built with the ability to make use of LeBron's talents such that you could have Mo Williams in place of Dwyane Wade (with the other substitutions), and achieve about the same thing.

The interesting part of that statement, is one of individual player worth as opposed to team result.

I think LeBron was very much still LeBron. But I don't agree that the team result was all that close. Not in the playoffs, certainly, which is a very big part of this process.

Regular season records can be smoke and mirrors, as I'd assert it was with the Cavs. Or merely as example of how LeBron can dominate.

I don't think it makes any sense to say "Well, LeBron had good fit on his team in Cleveland, so he wasn't as valuable as you think?" I say the same thing with Dirk.

Which is why you were arguing for Nowitzki as a clear number 1 when his teams were bowing out far earlier, right?

Hm.

Now, I get that you can have ensemble casts like the Pistons of a few years ago with such good fit that they win a title even without a clear star, but that's where both common sense and +/- helps matters. This Mav team and its great fit totally disappear without Dirk. He *makes* the fit. For that I think he should be praised.

So you're basically saying, hey, team-result is conflated with the individual star, and defines his worth.

As to whether Dirk deserves praise, I don't believe that I denied it.

What I asked was whether he was the automatic number 1, as you seem to think is the case.

If praise is synonymous with being number 1, that's another matter. And certainly an interesting interpretation of the limits of the word.

Saying that Dirk had help this year, and that the Chandler move was key, is just analysis.

The one-man wrecking crew argumentation used by his fans -- however broad or limited to this vote -- is hagiography-level nonsense, that I think does a great disservice to analysis as well as Dirk's career before winning a title.

[JordansBulls]

OK.

The idea that I automatically care for plus/minus stats, or should, is something I'd take issue with.

Further, I never really argued that Nowitzki was a poor player, or that he didn't matter greatly to the Mavs.

But does the fact that he was the best player on the best team -- rather, the best player on the best playoff team, through whatever limited measurement and matchup contexts -- then prove he was the best player for the entire season?

I'm not seeing how that's an automatic. Not at all.

You don't see how a guy whose team was 2-7 without him and who were missing essentially 2 starters in the playoffs in Beaubois, Butler and then Haywood later and a guy who was the only allstar on his team and who beat a team who was the 2x defending champions with HCA and 2 allstars and then another team with 2 allstars and then another team with two of the top 3 players in the league and another borderline top 10 player in the league can not be the best in the league?

[Doctor MJ]

Well, there is another side or end to all that.

I'm curious as to whether Dwight gets praise for putting up stellar stats in defeat, or blame. Certainly there was a standard to question impact previously when losing early with big stats.

I will look at Dwight's performance in the regular season+playoffs, and not look only or much at all over whether his team went out early. I certainly don't think he was to blame for the losses, or a hindrance.

In that sense, and to be consistent with my outlook for other players, I could even see myself ranking him over Dirk.

It will be interesting to see how many others are season/player-specific or broadly coherent in outlook so far as POY votes and the criteria that creates them.

One thing that has been consistently annoying, if not disturbing, is the push to rank players based on osmosis and media legacy, or through team-result.

I hope the latter doesn't take place here. Though I think the former with the latter are already retrofitting and metastasizing.

The blanket statements for Dirk, and call to ignore team and matchup factors, are pointers. I particularly find the assumption that the Chandler pick-up was lacking -- from the Dirk all-time Legacy side of this -- to be lacking in analysis for how Dirk had this run.

All that said, I still could see Dirk as number 1. I can see the argument. But I fail to see how it's an automatic.

And I especially am disappointed in the idea that management didn't make some key moves to help him.

Does that line of thinking, it's all-or-nothing nature, mean Dirk was a complete loser or lacking before this title?

The team-result far too often ignores what this is supposed to be about: individual performance.

Which is why I think Dirk would be ignored, relatively, if he put up the same stats in, say, two rounds instead of four.

That's not a knock on Dirk, but it is on the process of how he -- and the other players in this process -- are being judged through it.

-One of my tenets is that I don't like seeing a guy's all season ranking raised above his regular season standing raised by a big stat first round loss, which might be what you're remembering. However, I had Dwight at #1 before the 1st round, so that's not really relevant to my vote here. I'd imagine it's similar with anyone who has Dwight high on their list.

-I don't think Dirk should be an automatic #1 either. I must have missed where people called for that.

-Team results affecting Dirk's ranking. Sure, that's a valid point. What I'm trying to get across is that Dirk was on a lot of people's minds before the playoffs.

-I'm all for crediting management for acquiring Tyson Chandler. What I chafe at is the idea that benefiting from someone like Chandler drastically changes the picture. We know you can't win 1 on 5, and most stars of title winners have #2 guys that are better than Chandler. I don't see the sense it trying to use Chandler's presence to seriously take away from Dirk.

You want people to acknowledge he didn't do it alone? Fine, he didn't do it alone.

[mysticbb]

Dirk didn't magically become a better player with this run. Yet many see it that way.

To me that is rather a problem of Nowitzki being underrated before. Now we have some who overrate him, but we have still some who haven't grasp the real impact a Nowitzki has on the game.

In that context, looking at team-makeup is of great value. And very reasonable.

If Dirk had compiled similar stats over fewer rounds, suddenly he'd be worth less?

The Mavericks would have been out, if Nowitzki would have produced similar stats, because they would have been outscored even more than they already were when Nowitzki wasn't on the court. That is hardly Nowitzki's fault, unless you believe the "rule changes" made it impossible to cheer as tough as during the 80's or whatever you have in mind in terms of tough era.

Let's say he provides the same offense without Chandler's presence to push the team further, was he really less of a player? If the team loses despite his great play, why is he worth less as a player than he is when they win with that same level of play?

Why? The Mavericks actually outscored their opponents whenever they had Nowitzki playing and Chandler was sitting on the bench. In the opposite situation the Mavericks were outscored.

Minutes with Chandler and Nowitzki: +8.5 per 36
Minutes with Nowitzi and without Chandler: +6.6 per 36
Minutes with Chandler and without Nowitzki: -3.0 per 36

And that includes all minutes, regular season and playoffs. I honestly think people start to overrate Chandler in order to bring Nowitzki down. Watch Chandler in the Lakers series, in which he was even pulled away from Bynum. Nowitzki done a better job defensively on Bynum than Chandler. But well, how should someone know this, who watched basketball the last time in Nowitzki's rookie season.

Over the last three POY votes, Dirk hasn't ranked in the top five. He was out of the top ten for MVP voting in two out of three years. This year he wasn't in the top five, and garnered .093 of the votes. In fact, he hasn't been in the top five since the Warriors debacle (fair for MVP? I don't know. But for POY shares, I believe it makes sense in that he arguably played so poorly as a matchup or star prop that he harmed his team).

The funny thing is that the Mavericks played similar in the regular season with a healthy Nowitzki as they played in the playoffs. Nowitzki only ending up 6th in the MVP voting was a joke. When Nowitzki played the Mavericks won at a rate to have the best record in the league. If we take out the games in which he played still injured (knee and later shoulder injury) the Mavericks would have been on pace for 66 wins. Nowitzki was on top of a lot of MVP rankings before his knee injury and only dropped off, because he missed games. That he somehow finished behind Durant despite the fact that Durant missed 4 games in which OKC went 3-1 and Durant overall had a worse record than Nowitzki can't be explained with a normal voting process. Even with the missed games Nowitzki should have finished 3rd, if we take the historical context as the measuring stick. But somehow the voters doubted Nowitzki's impact.

The question is not whether a career can make a jump, but what the basis is for this assumption.

The basis? UNDERRATED since 2007!

The number of people that suddenly think he's the best player in the league has sky-rocketed.

Well, who is thinking he is the best player in the league? The voting is about "who had the best season". And Nowitzki had arguable the best season, especially in the context that he completely outplayed the rather consensus best player in the league in the finals. There were people expecting James to be able to defend Nowitzki, but Nowitzki was even capable of driving by him in crucial situations. And on offense James didn't look as dominant as usual.

So, people are saying that Nowitzki had the best season in 2010-11, doesn't mean they think he is the best player in any given situation. But the best player has also perform like that. James failed to do it in the finals. That doesn't make him per se a worse player, but for sure that will dimish his overall season performance level. And playing on a lower level performance-wise will most likely result in a lower overall impact. Which is seen for James.
Nowitzki raised his level in the playoffs and had an even bigger impact. Thus it is not unreasonable to pick Nowitzki ahead of James in a voting about the player who had the best overall season.