2011-12 RealGM Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[Doctor MJ]

KG is rising up fast. He's having one of the best Playoffs of his career.

True, but Rondo is still the main engine of the Celtics.

He's the main engine of a weak offense. Garnett is the engine of their defense, which is what their competitive advantage is. It's hard for me to really understand how people don't see this distinction and why it is so significant.

[AnaheimRoyale]

People do remember that so far KG has been playing well against an injured Hawks team, the 76ers, and a Boshless Heat. People do get this context, right?

[Doctor MJ]

People do remember that so far KG has been playing well against an injured Hawks team, the 76ers, and a Boshless Heat. People do get this context, right?

Hehe, good post. People know doubt will get a little carried away.

[bastillon]

People do remember that so far KG has been playing well against an injured Hawks team, the 76ers, and a Boshless Heat. People do get this context, right?

and you do understand he's been going up against very good defenses ? Jason Collins is elite man defender, Josh Smith lacks size but he's still one of the best defenders in the game, Sixers were one of the top NBA defenses and Brand/LaVoy are certainly solid defenders. as for Boshless Heat I don't see how that makes any sense. Heat struggle without Bosh because of his offense. Haslem is easily a better man defender than Bosh. if anything, Garnett would play better with Bosh on him.

[GrangerDanger]

KG is rising up fast. He's having one of the best Playoffs of his career.

True, but Rondo is still the main engine of the Celtics.

He's the main engine of a weak offense. Garnett is the engine of their defense, which is what their competitive advantage is. It's hard for me to really understand how people don't see this distinction and why it is so significant.

This is true, but you really need to watch the games to get a feel for what is happening. The Celtics offense is TERRIBLE in general. Without Rondo their offense is worse than the Bobcat's (KG and Pierce are inefficent chuckers who never won a thing without Rondo setting them up for easy baskets. It's not a coincidence their career highs in efficency came with Rondo). Look at last's night's game. Rondo leaves to take care of an apparent injury, the Celtics offense and defense stalls, and the Heat build a good lead. Rondo comes back, offense starts clicking and Rondo is disrupting the Heat's ball movement. I would credit KG with 60% of the defense, and 15% of the offense, and Rono with 80% of the offense and 15% of the defense

[ElGee]

The evidence points to the Celtics offense being WAY better than the Bobcats as long as a healthy Paul Pierce is on the court, so Boston has someone to initiate offense. By my estimations, add another point or two for their offensive rebounding strategy. With Rondo, they are around an average offense. http://www.backpicks.com/2012/06/05/how ... jon-rondo/

This doesn't mean Rondo needs to be denigrated, but people really need to put this into perspective. In basketball there are DEGREES of impact. Rondo's on offense is somewhere around moderate (he's a very inconsistent player so that statement can be tweaked based on variance), but on defense Garnett is a consistent juggernaut.

While the Celtics have no backup PG (increasing Rondo's value) they have no one close to replicating what KG gives them on defense, and in every series (especially Miami) the second he hits the bench the opposition attacks the paint with little resistance. It's important to note The Celtics would be a terrible team with an average defense. They are winning "because" of their defense.

(As an aside, as someone who champions creation, not assists, and has tracked Opportunities Created, I find it startling that people want to praise Rondo for having a good game last night because he had a lot of OC's (3-15, 5 TOV), but when someone like LeBron James pressures defenses endlessly, they skewer him if he doesn't shoot well. Chris Paul, for instance, is one of the top OC players in the league, kills people in PnR, has a great feel for Global Offense, and this is CONSTANT, throughout the game. That's why the Clippers have a good offense.)

[C-izMe]

Wow that's a bad post. PP and KG was an inefficient chucked before he had Rondo? I guess Ray Allen couldn shoot either or that Doc couldn't coach. KG's most efficent year is pre Rondo and his next mos efficent is before Rondo was even good. Unless your saying not having Doc, Ray, and Pierce to set him up made him better and it was Rondo's 10/4/5 that did it?

Also giving Rondo 80% credit for a bad offense is a slight on him. You can say he impacted the game beyond the boxscore and beyond scoring but when you impact the game negatively by missing easy shots they level out.

[An Unbiased Fan]

KG is rising up fast. He's having one of the best Playoffs of his career.

True, but Rondo is still the main engine of the Celtics.

He's the main engine of a weak offense. Garnett is the engine of their defense, which is what their competitive advantage is. It's hard for me to really understand how people don't see this distinction and why it is so significant.

But wait, wasn't KG getting credit in earlier POY discussions, despite being the main engine of a weak defense in MInn? Seems a bit unfair to Rondo, considering most would call him Boston's best player this year.

[GSP]

1. Lebron James
2. Kevin Durant
3. Kevin Garnett
4. Chris Paul
5. Kobe Bryant

Number 5 has few others competing for it but with Wades constant coasting and inconsistent player (plus lots of missed regular season games) cant give him an edge over the Mamba.

[Dr Positivity]

I don't think Rondo will make my top 5 but he's just annilhilating the Heat in a way the stats can't quite capture. History might suggest Rondo flopped in Game 5 with his 3-15 shooting but he dominated the 2nd half IMO

how the hell is Dwight top5 ? you do remember he missed the postseason because of the injury right ? in terms of winning a championship, Dwight Howard 2012 is a useless player - you need your star to play in the playoffs, doesn't matter why he didn't play. I'd rather have Andrew Bynum 2012 just because he was actually healthy. the same way Bill Walton 78, Duncan 00, KG 09 were all penalized.

Not to mention that unlike 78 Walton, Dwight was barely a top 5 regular season player to begin with, it's hard for me to see any justification for him to be over Kobe, Wade, Dirk, KG or Parker when they actually played the playoffs while being somewhere between 90% and 110% as valuable as RS Dwight

I agree Dirk is prob getting underrated, the biggest thing he did wrong is having such a high standard of excellence that his coasting season felt much worse than it was. In comparison to someone like Howard, Dallas had a similar season as ORL (one less W, better SRS) and Dirk wasn't playing with a more talented team so I don't see a lot of reason to separate him from Howard, who was a downgrade from his best years as well

[Dr Positivity]

This is true, but you really need to watch the games to get a feel for what is happening. The Celtics offense is TERRIBLE in general. Without Rondo their offense is worse than the Bobcat's (KG and Pierce are inefficent chuckers who never won a thing without Rondo setting them up for easy baskets. It's not a coincidence their career highs in efficency came with Rondo). Look at last's night's game. Rondo leaves to take care of an apparent injury, the Celtics offense and defense stalls, and the Heat build a good lead. Rondo comes back, offense starts clicking and Rondo is disrupting the Heat's ball movement. I would credit KG with 60% of the defense, and 15% of the offense, and Rono with 80% of the offense and 15% of the defense

Vastly disagree with your digs at KG and Pierce historically, but yea, Boston's entire offense begins and ends up with Rondo right now. I would go as far to say the difference between 2012 Pierce/Allen and even their 2010 Finals run versions is just massive. Makes me sad to see Ray like this and this is what happens when Pierce, a guy who's style of play made him seem much slower than he is for years, actually becomes a slow player

[GSP]

I don't think Rondo will make my top 5 but he's just annilhilating the Heat in a way the stats can't quite capture. History might suggest Rondo flopped in Game 5 with his 3-15 shooting but he dominated the 2nd half IMO

Agreed and this is a very good point. What makes AllTime lists never definitive is stuff like this for all the older players where we can't watch the games or a screen changing something of a momentum or 2nd half explosions or even like with Rondo where the stats dont show how great he was.
I think a lot of AllTime lists are objective towards players we haven't seen play and just base a lot of the reasonings on stats/accomplishments whereas the ones we have tape for were able to break down play by play or quarter by quarter or mannerisms/leadership etc so the choices there become more subjective.

[StateOfThunder]

I'm willing to change my top 5 slightly right now with the way KG has played so far in the post-season.

1. Lebron James
2. Kevin Durant
3. Chris Paul
4. Kevin Garnett
5. Kobe Bryant

HM: Russell Westbrook.

Depending on KG plays in the Game 6 (and possibly Game 7 as well if he and his team don't close it in Game 6) and how he plays in the Finals assuming he eliminates Miami, I might put KG above Chris Paul.

[Doctor MJ]

True, but Rondo is still the main engine of the Celtics.

He's the main engine of a weak offense. Garnett is the engine of their defense, which is what their competitive advantage is. It's hard for me to really understand how people don't see this distinction and why it is so significant.

But wait, wasn't KG getting credit in earlier POY discussions, despite being the main engine of a weak defense in MInn? Seems a bit unfair to Rondo, considering most would call him Boston's best player this year.

In all honesty, the primary issue here is probably most fundamentally that people don't actually realize that the Celtics are so defense dominated. Were they starting from a realization that during the season the Celtic offense was a very, very poor, they'd be asking "What's going wrong?" rather than "Look at what Rondo's accomplishing!".

So what they are doing is taking the team's overall success and attaching the competitive advantage in the wrong place.

To your specific question:

1. Obviously if you're with a horrible, horrible supporting cast, it's possible to be a praise-worthy player and still have a weak offense or defense.

2. However, when Rondo is sharing the floor with Pierce and Garnett who are both far superior scorers than Rondo, and when Rondo is a shooter far worse than any other point guard around, it's just crazy to talk about Rondo's offense as if the team's offense is his carrying a bunch of nobody's.

3. There is also the matter of course that despite the fact that people seem to think the offense falls apart without Rondo on the floor, that's really never been the case.

4. Last regarding Garnett, while I do defend him with regards to point (1), I also attached a great deal of skepticism to him at the time simply because I don't take it as a given that someone who can make a bad team less bad can have a similar lift on a good team.

The whole "RealGM Garnett" movement really came into being when Garnett proved that indeed his lift on a good team looked just impressive, if not more so, than what he'd done before, which made it pretty silly to assert that the previous lift was somehow based on some weird statistical benefit that theoretically came from playing with terrible teammates.

[Doctor MJ]

Holy crap OKC...

[GSP]

Holy crap OKC...

I cant believe the Spurs lost. Durant was a monster against them and the whole playoffs so far. I dont see how anyone can have any player besides Lbj above him.

[colts18]

How can anyone rank CP3 ahead of Durant? At best, they are tied for the regular season.

Well I'll stop you there because there isn't a soul alive who disagrees with your opinion in general who agrees with the last sentence. Obviously any Paul>Durant argument is based on them preferring Paul in the regular season.

There is no argument because Durant has been light years better in the postseason (more important than Regular season). Durant averaged like 28-8 on .620 TS%. That is so much better than the egg that CP3 laid. There is no denying that CP3 was real bad and cost his team vs. the Spurs. I don't see how you can rank him ahead of Parker after what Parker did to him.

[Sinant]

Holy crap OKC...

They beat the Spurs at full strength more times in a row than anyone had in 50 games(or something like that, 43-4, i think?).

Crazy run they're on.

34-14-5 in a WCF closeout ain't half bad either. He doesn't make that pass to Perkins 2 years ago.

[mysticbb]

I agree Dirk is prob getting underrated, the biggest thing he did wrong is having such a high standard of excellence that his coasting season felt much worse than it was. In comparison to someone like Howard, Dallas had a similar season as ORL (one less W, better SRS) and Dirk wasn't playing with a more talented team so I don't see a lot of reason to separate him from Howard, who was a downgrade from his best years as well

Well, Nowitzki also had a stretch, when he was hindered by his knee injury, which was rather bad. For a 12 game stretch he scored 13 ppg on 46 TS%. In the other 54 games Nowitzki actually had 24.5 ppg on 58 TS%. Well, only 5 points above league average in terms of efficiency (last year it was 7), but his scoring average was 0.5 points per 36 minutes higher than last season. Also, during those 54 games Nowitzki had a +20.2 Net+/- per 48 minutes, last season it was +17.0. If we take into account that Nowitzi was fully healthy at the end of the season, that overall he missed just 4 games (Howard missed 12, Wade missed 17, Bryant missed 8, Paul missed 6), I don't see a good reason to take Nowitzki out of the Top5.

For me a player performance is definded by 3 things: production, efficiency and impact. My SPM is based on the combination of production and efficiency while adjusting for the strength of schedule. That would be one aspect, the other aspect would be impact, and I use the best available method for that, prior informed RAPM.

The combination (linear combination of SPM and RAPM based on best fit) has currently (without the game last night between OKC and the Spurs) the following Top30 (values are per 100 possessions):

Code: Select all

                    Off   Def   Off+Def
LeBron James           5.0   1.9   6.9
Dirk Nowitzki          4.2   1.5   5.8
Manu Ginobili          5.2   0.3   5.5
Chris Paul             4.8   0.5   5.3
Kevin Garnett          2.0   2.9   4.9
Kevin Durant           4.1   0.7   4.8
Dwyane Wade            3.8   1.0   4.8
Tim Duncan             1.8   2.6   4.4
Dwight Howard          1.4   2.9   4.3
Derrick Rose           3.0   1.3   4.3
Steve Nash             4.0   0.1   4.1
Josh Smith             1.2   2.7   3.9
Blake Griffin          3.1   0.6   3.7
Kevin Love             3.5   0.1   3.6
James Harden           3.9  -0.3   3.6
Paul Millsap           2.1   1.4   3.5
Tony Parker            2.5   0.9   3.4
Chris Bosh             1.6   1.7   3.3
Russell Westbrook      2.9   0.3   3.2
LaMarcus Aldridge      2.1   0.9   3.0
Luol Deng              0.6   2.4   3.0
Kobe Bryant            3.0  -0.2   2.9
Marc Gasol             0.6   2.2   2.8
Danny Granger          2.1   0.7   2.8
Pau Gasol              1.8   1.0   2.8
Matt Bonner            2.4   0.4   2.7
Zach Randolph          1.9   0.9   2.7
Stephen Curry          3.8  -1.1   2.7
Mike Conley            2.3   0.3   2.6
Taj Gibson             0.3   2.3   2.6


Obviously, players have different responsibilities in terms of minutes. Thus, we should factor that in. That would give me the following Top5 for this season:

1. LeBron James
2. Kevin Durant
3. Chris Paul
4. Dirk Nowitzki
5. Kevin Garnett

HM: Dwyane Wade

Assuming Garnett can keep his level of play and the Celtics really make it to the finals, he could end up ahead of Paul and Nowitzki. The rest is basically set unless Wade goes nuts. I don't see any reason to believe that there is some magic unmeasurable something which would make other players jump into the Top5 for this season.

[mysticbb]

34-14-5 in a WCF closeout ain't half bad either. He doesn't make that pass to Perkins 2 years ago.

Keep in mind that he also gets different attention from the defense than two years ago. Without Harden on the court Durant has 23 points per 36 minutes on 58 TS% in the playoffs, that is a clear drop in efficiency and scoring volume. With the emerge of Harden the game for Durant changed, he has more freedom and Harden adds a lot to the spacing. Teams seem actually more concerned stopping Harden than Durant or Westbrook when Harden is on the court. Still, Durant has to put the ball into the hope and he is doing it. Add his rebounding, which improved, and he is a better player than two years ago, but he is still not on the same level as someone like James, even though people want to put him there.