2013-14 Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[Dr Spaceman]

Right now, I'm looking at:

1. James
2. Durant
3. Love
4. Paul
5. Griffin

With a small gap between 2/3 and a large gap between 3/4. 1/2 and 4/5 are very, very close.

I have Nowitzki, Curry, Westbrook, and Howard pretty close, and could reasonably see one of them being bumped into my top 5.

[mysticbb]

I gotta think more, I was disappointed w/ the playoffs, but Durant's RS I need to think about more

A small hint here: Durant in the RS vs. Memphis, Clippers and Spurs: 30/6/6, 58 TS%, 4.5 TOV, 20.4 GmScore in 40 mpg.

If we compare the GameScore per 36 min from the playoffs vs. that per 36 min in the RS against those teams, he still achieved 95% of that in the PS. Would you have guessed that?

In fact, most of Durant's better RS numbers are steaming from the fact that he beat up on below average teams. That he couldn't hold those numbers was to expected.

[bondom34]

I gotta think more, I was disappointed w/ the playoffs, but Durant's RS I need to think about more

A small hint here: Durant in the RS vs. Memphis, Clippers and Spurs: 30/6/6, 58 TS%, 4.5 TOV, 20.4 GmScore in 40 mpg.

If we compare the GameScore per 36 min from the playoffs vs. that per 36 min in the RS against those teams, he still achieved 95% of that in the PS. Would you have guessed that?

In fact, most of Durant's better RS numbers are steaming from the fact that he beat up on below average teams. That he couldn't hold those numbers was to expected.

Good point. I've got it as a really close 1/2 right now. I guess there's still a few days to think about it as a whole.

[sp6r=underrated]

The Pacers made it look ugly, but in the end getting to G6 of the ECF was not under performing.

That isn't a good way to evaluate team performance. You can't just evaluate destination. You have to look at how teams performed. This is especially the case when the conferences are woefully imbalanced. Indiana played the equivalent of a lottery team and an 8th seed on the way to the conference finals. Accordingly, you have to actually look at how they performed in those series to determine if they met expectations.

Their record against this abysmal playoff competition was 8-5 with a +1.5. They had to play two elimination games against the Atlanta Hawks and were playing from behind in most of those games. They played from behind a majority of the time against Washington. Against a weaker Miami team they played significantly worse than the year before. Brooklyn gave a better go of it. That isn't a successful post-season.


Their offense in the post all-star break was the worse in the NBA. Their offensive effectiveness was actually at the level of this year 76ers, a historically bad team, despite playing the softest schedule in the league during most of that span.

Indiana making the conference finals is almost entirely a product of how bad their playoff competition was. I would be comfortable in betting on Memphis, Dallas, Phoenix, Minnesota to make the Conference Finals if they played that competition. I think Denver could have done as well. I would favor all of those teams save Denver in a series against Indiana based on how they finished the season.

They pretty clearly underacheived giving the expectations.

My point is more that the Pacers had a strong year results wise for a roster who's 2nd-4th most valuable were Lance, Hibbert before he went in a vampire coffin for a few months and a declining West, with a usually unimpressive bench. Enough for PG as the 4th most valuable player to check out for me

I've already shown above that Indiana's success was below expectations. Furthermore, the success they did enjoy was entirely due to their defense. George is a big part of that but he isn't prime Mutumbo out there. I'll use Dirk Nowitski as an example. How do you think Indiana would have done if you swapped out Dirk with West and replace George with a similar level SF to West at George?

I think they would improve. Scoring 20 ppg on a terrible offensive team that played at the level of the worse offense in the league for the 2nd half of the season doesn't impress me.

He's a good player but he doesn't warrant top 5 consideration. That he is getting it is primarily a function of people over-valuing how far players played into the playoffs and not taking into account environmental factors such as team support and competition.

[Dr Positivity]

IND struggled with ATL but I disagree about WAS and MIA. First off WAS was not an 8th seed caliber team or else they wouldn't have killed the Bulls. They had a 45 W Pythagorean and got better after adding Miller and Gooden in place of some terrible bench players so I don't know where them sucking for their seed came from. IND started slow but after taking both road games to go up 3-1 they had it handled before the weirdest letdown game of the playoffs. As for MIA IND was in every game until the G6 ass kicking, it was the 2-2-1-1-1 equivalent of the Thunder in 2012 Finals who's 3 road losses after they lost HCA in a close game Game 2 played out the same.

As for Atlanta they were also a weird spacing inconventional swordsman matchup for some of the same reasons Mavs messed with the Spurs.

I don't know if IND was 56 W caliber team by the playoffs but I think they were at least 50, where their WAS and MIA advantage/disadvantage makes sense

[ElGee]

Elgee, I don't see how you can put Westbrook ahead of Griffin. Westbrook played just 46 games this year. Griffin had more than 2x the minutes played than Westbrook. That is a massive difference and there is no way that RW impact was 2x more per minute. If Westbrook was leading a normal team, chances are they don't make the playoffs because he played in just 36% of his teams minute.

I can't see how RW had more impact at all. When he missed games, the Thunder barely missed a beat. Durant played his best basketball ever. When CP3 missed 20 games, Griffin stepped up and the Clippers barely fell off without CP3. Griffin should be ahead of CP3 because of the fact that the Clippers didn't dropoff much without CP3. Plus, Blake Griffin actually led the NBA in plus/minus this season.

On 99% of teams that can win a championship, his team won't miss the PS. I don't need 1986 Michael Jordan to have 5x more "per minute impact" than 1986 Karl Malone to take Jordan over Malone. I've explained this is great detail in other posts.

I also reject the "barely fell off" description. Sometimes, good teams can perform well for short stretches, especially in the RS. We can still say "they look like a 4 SRS team on average even though they played those two weeks at 6 because of X," just like we can say "his mechanics make him look like a 75% FT shooter, even though he hit 10 in a row."

I think the top-5 are:
LBJ
Durant
Paul
Curry
Westbrook

Can you elaborate on Westbrook as you see him in general here?

Also, what's your take on the whole Durant-Westbrook-Brooks love triangle? Do you think this is a smart offense?

I've spoken on Westbrook over the years but it's certainly been quiet compared to other topics. I think the bashing he gets in completely misguided. To me, it would be very similar to bashing Rose. As far as I can tell, the two main issues against RW are his volume and efficiency (another way of saying "shot selection" or "ball-dominance"/"hoggery").

Let's assume he's a 51-54% TS guy. Like Rose. What makes these guys so effectively offensively is their creation/disruption of the defense. (Let's leave defense alone for a second.) By itself, the disruption can make a good positive offensive player. See Jason Kidd. When you add the benefit of high volume scoring, you potentially add more. Of course, RW isn't a 57-60% guy, so the tendency is to say "Iverson!" But Westbrook would have to be hurting his creation with too many silly shots for this to be a problem, and I don't see evidence for that at all.

This leads to meta-game. This is an issue with guys like Kidd, Rose, Westbrook, even Kobe, etc. It's not necessarily an issue if you can't pass, are a black hole and have no semblance of a floor game. Meta-game is simply the effect that your own shots have on future possessions. Do I think RW has the perfect balance between his own pull-up and something else? No way -- he can pound the ball a lot. But some of his distribution success comes from his own self-creation. If you're saying "he's not Nash," no, Nash basically had perfect balance. But I'd rather have:

20 shots (@ 1.04 pps) that open up 10 Opportunities Created for teammates than
8 shots (@ 1.10 pps) that open up 3 Opportunities Created for teammates

There is an optimal balance curve in that equation and I don't think RW has found it at all. He's still exerting a massive positive force on offense. (You don't have to find this balance perfectly to be great offensively -- Kobe/Michael.)

In addition to that, RW has the ability to self-create, which can come in handy in situations just like in OKC where the team has a poorly run offense and few offensive weapons/structure outside Durant. To me, this is why OKC had no chance last year and why Westbrook sort of stood out for people this year. When the tire hits the pavement, he's an important offensive player. Really important in their case. Is he Chris Paul? Absolutely not.

Interestingly, RAPM has had him as a top offensive player, with this year being his best offensively and defensively. Would he be even better if he shored up his shot selection? Yes. But the current product is really damn good.

[PaulieWal]

For my top 5 I am going:

LeBron (He was a little bit less spectacular in the RS on the account of his defensive slippage but the guess about him "coasting" on defense was true given how he is playing as a two-way force in the playoffs).
KD (Great RS, I am not that surprised with the drop in efficiency because he played tougher defenses but I was surprised to see the drop in his defense and playmaking which we saw improve in the RS. You have to give him some leeway because of the minutes played but he was really up and down in the post-season).
CP (Missed games in the RS but still an amazing floor general. Had he not made a few mistakes at the end of game 5, we could have had a Clips-Spurs WCF).
Griffin (Saw him improve as a player in the RS and I think he will be a legit MVP candidate going forward).
Curry (Had a good RS though I feel the team's offense was limited by the coach).

HM to: RW, Howard, Aldridge, Melo, and Love.

[RSCD3_]

As of now

If only counting regular season

KD
LBJ
Blake
Love
Curry

If only counting post season

LeBron
Russell
Kevin
Paul
Dwight

Probable compromise

James
Durant
Paul
Griffin

as my top 4

Dwight/ Russell / Curry / Love is my options for 5

can someone give me opinions on the value of these players which accounts for time missed and value on offense + defense

[MisterHibachi]

I am torn on Paul. I wanna put him at 4. But I'm not sure how to account for the missed time. He was amazing in the playoffs, clearly the best player on his team, but missed 20 games in the RS and his team didn't miss a beat.

[MisterWestside]

The definition for Player of the Year wasnt clearly stated by the OP. Is this just the RealGM version of the RS+PS MVP (in terms of team value), or for the best player (in terms of basketball goodness, and how the players used those particular skills within the confines of what their teams asked them to do) in the league?

As usual, I'm much more interested in the latter than the former. I'll keep this to the top 2 players at the moment, because these are the players that RealGM are most obssesed with

1. LeBron James

<sizable gap>

2. Kevin Durant

Before the playoffs started, I had James and Durant tied for 1, with a slight push to Durant. James slacked defensively for much of the season, and Durant fine-tuned alot of the skills that he already excelled or was solid at: shooting, ball-handling, taking care of the ball, drawing fouls, setting up teammates, rebounding, and even defending. He didn't revolutionize his skill-set this season (although he was sensational during the Thunder's Westbrook-less stretch, he wasn't doing anything radically different on offense; Brooks simply put the appropriate lineups around Durant that allowed him to showcase his superb slashing and shooting abilities). Even still, it's not like Durant was the clear-cut favorite here. James set a new mark in converting shots from the field (again), he shot 38% from 3 at a solid volume, and he displayed his usual playmaking brilliance. This one quibble I had with him was his occasional recklessness with the ball; those turnovers were understandable given James's propensity to set up teammates, but it was still annoying nonetheless. And, even though he dialed down the defensive effort, it's not like James was a crappy defender.

However, with the playoffs, James simply reached another level that Durant did not. I won't get number-happy here to show this, but you can visit that popular site at BBallRef and scroll down to James's playoffs numbers at your leisure People will cite the Heat's lack of competition, but this is shortsighted. The overall competition was lacking, but the defenses that James played against (particularly the Bobcats and Pacers) were no slouch. The Bobcats were a top-5 defense, and the Pacers were top-1. And the Pacers were still tenacious on defense, even with their stumbles and swoons through the homestretch of the season and playoffs (they held the Hawks and Wizards to below their usual offensive outputs). Meanwhile, Durant fell off significantly in the playoffs after his MVP campaign - he played some stingy defenses as well, but he did not come close to approaching his counterpart in the East. Also, the lack of tools in his offensive skillset was also apparent, as teams were able to stymie Durant with smaller, fleeter-footed defenders and quick double teams. Durant did not get his usual calls that he did during the regular season with his forays to the rim, and he took more shots from distance than he did during the regular season. And, as Barkley said, you don't win with jumpshots (unless you're super-hot with your jumper, of course. Durant was not.) Simply put, Durant did not punish those defenses that were able to keep him away from the basket/FT line on his dribble-drives, which was also part of the reason why Westbrook was more assertive with his offense and shot-creation.

Now, it's a bit unfair to dock Durant for this - after all, it doesn't help that he plays in the Brooks offensive system (if someone can PM me about what kind of system Brooks implements for OKC, that would be great), and the Thunder bench and starters outside of Westbrook and Ibaka (who was out for some key games in the WCF) were worthless. These things put plenty of pressure on Durant, and they throw off that basketball ecosystem that helps him to excel as the MVP. But then again, these facts were overlooked when we decided to slam James for his relative lack of production in the 2011 playoffs and the 2011 Finals, despite the Heat's laughably uncreative offense, and lack of roster depth and balance. We just told James to add a post game, and he did (even though, as mysticbb has done a great job of explaining, post play wasn't the key to countering the Mavs' defense in the 2011 Finals). Well, Durant isn't used to playing in the post, and James has grown into that role of playing close to the basket. More tricks in James's offensive arsenal ---> more counters against defenses that seek to neutralize certain advantages that you have ---> better player (and, as a corollary, ---> more ways to be used in a countless number of random lineups in order to achieve the desired IMPACT! that people love on this board). And this reflects (not entirely, of course) in the Durant and James's respective offensive outputs and performances.

Doctor MJ talks about how he still wants to see what James does in the Finals against the Spurs before he votes. I can see the reasoning behind that, because then you can see how Durant and James performed against a common defense. But I respectively disagree with his take, for three reasons. For one, it's a paltry sample size to go by. For another, we have several other series to account for, in which James has leapfrogged Durant in the playoffs. And finally, the fact is that while James is playing in the Finals, Durant is sitting at home. Even if James doesn't play as well versus the Spurs as Durant did, he's still contributing to an extra playoff series. Mediocre or crappy play is better than no play. The way to make up for the lack of longevity (minutes played) is by being super-spectacular when you are on the court (performance), and doesn't this favor James, anyway? Superior play (again, this isn't close) AND more minutes? It's a lock from my standpoint.

So there. That's this poster's take

[bondom34]

ElGee, thanks for the WB analysis, I'm gonna steal it for a minute for another thread.....

[toodles23]

I just want to put a little perspective into Durant's "disappointing playoffs" 30/9/4 57\%TS.

So while not up to the absurd standards of his RS, how many all-time greats would kill to have a playoff run like that statistically? And its hard to be too angry that the Thunder lost to the Spurs.

You shouldn't leave out the fact that it took him 43 minutes to compile these numbers, that he averaged 3.8 turnovers, and that his defense was awful at times (for the postseason as a whole, I'd rate his defense as bad). His advanced stats were extremely underwhelming, 22.7 PER and .145 WS/48 is below most all time greats average postseason run.

Personally, I was very surprised at how human Durant looked in the playoffs - this was the 2nd worst postseason of his career, only ahead of 2010. I'm wondering how much of this was the league "figuring him out", exposing flaws in his game that you can't necessarily gameplan for in the regular season, how much of this was fatigue, and how much was simple bad luck.

[Texas Chuck]

help me understand why the turnovers are so terrible for Durant, but Paul has a higher turnover rate and is getting lauded for his play and not one person has mentioned turnovers when discussing him?

Im just saying if we stop comparing him to his RS and just look at his actual play its not terrible at all.

I agree he needs to work on his game still, but his coach does him no favors having no offensive plan other than give ball to Kevin. Give ball to Russ. Repeat.

[toodles23]

help me understand why the turnovers are so terrible for Durant, but Paul has a higher turnover rate and is getting lauded for his play and not one person has mentioned turnovers when discussing him?

Im just saying if we stop comparing him to his RS and just look at his actual play its not terrible at all.

I agree he needs to work on his game still, but his coach does him no favors having no offensive plan other than give ball to Kevin. Give ball to Russ. Repeat.

Assists aren't taken into account for turnover rate (and because of this it's not a very useful metric), so there's your answer to that.

And no, nobody saying Durant was a scrub, pretty much everybody in this thread has him at least at #2, including me. We're just surprised at how much he dropped off from the regular season, a 7 point PER drop doesn't happen often.

[SideshowBob]

help me understand why the turnovers are so terrible for Durant, but Paul has a higher turnover rate and is getting lauded for his play and not one person has mentioned turnovers when discussing him?

Citing turnover rate in a comparison between a high volume creator in Paul and a high volume scorer in Durant i̶s̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶i̶n̶g̶e̶n̶u̶o̶u̶s̶ does not make sense here, as it does not account at all for playmaking. Without even getting into the chasm-sized gap in ability/volume between those two, let's simply look at Hollinger's TO rate, which is the same stat, only it also includes assists as possessions (not passes leading to FGA, not passes leading to FTA, just passes leading to assists). Now Paul has a clear advantage, 9.9% as opposed to Durant's 11.2%.

Now consider that Paul made 77.4 passes per game in the playoffs, while Durant made 38.5. All else held equal, the guy who makes double the passes should be expected to have double the turnover rate. That should be the equivalency point. Yet Paul averaged 3.0 turnovers (3.9% of 77.4), opposed to Durant's 3.8 (9.9% of 38.5).

If anything, ball control is a facet in which Paul has a major advantage over Durant. I don't see how it can be painted the opposite way at all.

[Texas Chuck]

I didnt ask about assist to turnover rate. I asked about turnovers. If Paul ends a possession with an assist and Durant ends it with a basket its the same result. So if turnovers are an issue for a SF, surely they are for a PG, right?

edit: Thanks Bob. That's a very useful explanation.

And re the PER drop--that's my point here. His RS was spectacular. He could drop a long way and still be really good. I think we agree and Im just focusing on the positive rather than the negative.

[Texas Chuck]

Citing turnover rate in a comparison between a high volume creator in Paul and a high volume scorer in Durant is disingenuous, .

Actually it was ignorence

[SideshowBob]

Citing turnover rate in a comparison between a high volume creator in Paul and a high volume scorer in Durant is disingenuous, .

Actually it was ignorence

Haha it's all good (didn't mean to call you out there). We can all learn from your willingness to admit that.

------------------------------------------------------

Quick expansion on the former point. NBA.com tracks touches per game, but the degree to which a player is involved in the offense isn't denoted. I've therefore just added together passes per game with FGA, FTA*.44, and TOV, and then derived a quick TO% from that.

For the postseason:

Durant 5.6%
Paul 3.1%

[Texas Chuck]

Thanks Bob. That info is really helpful to me. I just wish I had been about 2 minutes slower to post and could have saved myself the egg on my face.....

[MisterWestside]

Of course, RW isn't a 57-60% guy, so the tendency is to say "Iverson!" But Westbrook would have to be hurting his creation with too many silly shots for this to be a problem, and I don't see evidence for that at all.

This seems like a nice little swipe at Iverson But I would love to see what Iverson does on a team with Durant and Ibaka on it, along with some solid spare parts on offense and a clueless head coach that doesn't use an offensive system. Certainly plausible for him to have similar impact.

Carry on, sir