All-Season Player of the Year Discussion thread

[Doctor MJ]

How does deandre's rebounding hurt the team's overall rebounding?I thought you were a big proponent of calling russell westbrook and other point guards with high rebounding numbers as hurting their teams rebounding too? How can Jordan getting the lion's share of the rebounds hurt the team if he's not ignoring contesting shots to grab defensive rebounds as other big men ( love was criticized for this, so maybe his rebounding was overrated as well... ) have done in the past?

Not trying to be combatative but I hope you can expand on this

They are the same issue actually.

The general issue:

Imagine a scenario where the rebound always goes to whoever is closest to where the ball bounces after the shot. On average that's going to mean the team closest to the rim is going to get the rebounds.

How does the offense combat this? Pretty simple: Try to figure out where the rebound is going, and get there as soon as possible. And if they do that with no counter from the defense, they'll tilt the odds considerably better in their direction.

The interesting question though is what the best strategy is for the defense. The simplest solution is to do the exact same thing as the offense. It's certainly better than standing still of course, and given the initial advantage they'll surely get the rebound most of the time. Obviously this is crashing the boards.

But there's another approach to consider: What if you focus first on preventing the offensive players from getting to that ball? If you can do this 100% of the time whenever the ball is closer to you than your opponent it ought to be just as successful as running to the ball directly, there will just be a little delay in getting the ball. Obviously this technique is called boxing out, and every team down to the grade school level is supposed to do it. It's obviously important.

Now realistically, it's not an either/or choice. These are two different tools, and often they can be used one then the other in the same rebounding attempt. Choosing badly, or simply executing badly, in either direction will yield worse results.

It's important to understand though that everything we've talked about so far is focused on an individual, and this is a team game. And when talking about a team, there are diminishing returns in having every individual simply crash the boards on defense. A predictable short bounce will often end up with multiple teammates arriving at the ball at the same time, which is typically fine...except that it means that had the bounce been less predictable there's now less total space dominated by the defense, increasing the odds of an offensive rebound.

Additionally: If the team diligently boxes out and does so as a unit, then they will at times in effect create a wall which makes individual box out more likely to be successful in its job. Combine that with the previous factor and it's telling you that in a team game the ones that box out the best together are likely going to have the best success.

And so with all this in mind, certain types of issues are recurring and are well known by experienced coaches: An inexperienced player who is physically superior to competition will often see an immediate impact to offensive rebounding because, as mentioned, there's really only 1 way to do it. There's still a way to do it really badly, but doing it badly doesn't typically mean you fail to get offensive rebounds in good numbers, it means that you're in horrible position to get back on defense when you inevitably fail to get the rebound on most possessions. So whether what you're doing is overall good or bad, what you're doing is probably good for offense and bad for defense.

It's much uglier on the defensive rebounding side of the ball. The impatient young player will half-ass his box out assignment and chase the rebound. He'll often succeed in getting the defensive rebound which gives the impression he did something right, but he's often taking rebounds away from his teammates. Once again, the success being not as valuable as you think isn't the real problem, the real problem is that with this approach he's made it so that his team dominates less space and so with a less predictable bounce there are now gaps where offensive rebounders are more likely to be able to slip in and steal the board.

And that, my friend, is how a player can rack up defensive rebounds while hurting his team's defensive rebounding.

How do I know this applies to point guards like Westbrook? Well, realistically how likely is it that perimeter defender is going to get a ton of defensive rebounds if he doesn't abandon his man and just crash the boards?

How do I know this applies to DeAndre? Truthfully, even with the Westbrooks of the world, I didn't feel comfortable saying this stuff about individuals until I had the data for it. I had suspicions, but that's all.

But when the first Four Factor APM came out (I believe it was Evan Z who did it) I started seeing confirmation of suspicions and then some. Correlation between box score tallies and regression-based impact correlated much higher on offensive rebounding than on defensive rebounding, and some mysteries were solved: Why was it that Nene consistently rated so well by defensive RAPM when he's not a shot blocker or a world class man defender? Because in no small part he was phenomenal at helping his team get defensive rebounds even though he himself didn't rack up big box score tallies.

Now the best data for this is on Got Buckets, and so all one has to do is look it up there:

http://www.gotbuckets.com/statistics/ffapm/

Here's Deandre's numbers for rebounding on the two sides of the ball, keep in mind there's a percentile (or percentile-like) scheme here, so think of 50 as average, 100 as best in the game, 0 as worst in the game.

Offense - 92
Defense - 42

A rather extreme example of how a young & not-so-shrewd big guy can see his impact on defense neutralized or worse.

Westbrook?

Offense - 89
Defense - 12

A jaw dropping example of how incredibly problematic a point guard crashing the boards on defense can be.

Compare that to someone like Nene:

Offense - 76
Defense - 99

A great example of what a big man with limited physical talents can achieve if he does things wisely.

[Mutnt]

I'll just say you didn't address a lot of the points I made but ok, we will try again, for now I'll roll with what I got, I guess.

As hyperbolic as "unprecedented" sounds, we likely exist in the jurassic period of NBA space manipulation due to the rise of the 3. If a player in this era were to come into the league and have an off-the-charts 3-point shooting on-ball with solid playmaking ability, it would seem to me to be a pretty clear cut thing that he'd possibly have a gravitational impact unlike any we've seen before. Not saying Curry's the GOAT player obviously, but the doubting of Curry's ability to impact the game when he seems to me to be the player tailor made for this era like none other just seems weird.

Again, Curry's GOAT shooting ability and the impact his team can garner from it is not something I take for granted, but even in an era where the basketball meta has shifted to exploiting the 3-pt shot, that by itself doesn't necessarily mean that all-time great shooters should or will automatically yield greater impact than guys who have all-time playmaking or scoring ability. Does that mean that guys like prime MJ/Kobe/Wade could not eclipse Curry as far as leading more efficient offenses (or at least when it comes to the ceiling of said offenses) in the current era because perimeter shooting and spacing is not their forte? Lemme know.

If I recall correctly, you are big on Magic, and although you have been quoted praising Nash as a GOAT-type offensive player, I think you also mentioned once that it's very likely for you that Magic surpasses him if he played in this era because Magic's biggest strength (passing & playmaking) obtains more value concurrently because of all the shooters the teams are fielding. With that said, Magic was someone that wasn't really synonymous with being a shooting threat or having great ''shooting-based gravity'' so doesn't that also mean his weakness (maybe I use the term weakness loosely here, because he wasn't putrid, but factually, Magic wasn't and wouldn't really be punishing anyone from the perimeter with his shot) also get more exposed nowadays, at least compared to other elite PG's with all-time great playmaking ability who on top of that are also better shooters i.e. Nash, CP3...

Anyway, I just think that a lot of your dots get lost and the lines don't connect logically sometimes at least for me when I read your arguments.

Take any earlier era, good chance Paul has more impact than Curry, but in this one, if the data tells us Curry seems to have the edge, I don't understand what's so hard to believe about it.

But, why? Here's my quibble. Kinda expounding on what I've talked about and referenced above, you said that, and I rephrase - because we live in an era where shooting ability is becoming more and more of a prominent factor for team's offenses AND Curry is most likely the best shooter ever, ERGO Curry has to have more impact, right? Shooting era. check. Better shooter. check. Solid playmaker. bonus check. But doesn't the importance of an all-time great playmaker also become more valuable now? I mean, you yourself certainly alluded to thinking so by saying Magic's offensive impact would've probably supersede someone like Nash in this era, and what is Magic known for? That's right, being the GOAT playmaker.

So why does that now work with Paul for you? Paul is certainly up there with Magic, Nash and Stockton in NBA history when it comes to impacting the game through making plays for others and he's more efficient with the ball too. Paul SHOULD benefit in this era too IF his team can find and field enough shooting threats to complement Paul's biggest strength which is getting them the ball. Sadly, the Clippers have notoriously failed to do. The only elite shooter on their team besides Paul is Redick and that's it. Ok, Barnes is decent but nothing to write home about. If you're thinking about Crawford right now please stop. Iguodala is a better shooter than Crawford and that's saying a lot because I cringe every time I have to watch Iggy shoot it from downtown. The Clippers spacing and ability to be threatening from the outside is laughably bad, yet that did not stop Paul from leading the best offense in the league two years in a row. It's almost surreal to me. Well at least Griffin developed something of a respectable mid-range shot this year, for what it's worth, the situation still remains pretty grim. I mean, just imagine if Paul played with Klay, Barnes, Barbosa, Iggy/Green and Speights/Lee from mid-range. Then there's also Livingston and Bogut... Come on man.

With all this ''shooting-based gravity'' talk, Paul is still a 40% 3PT shooter. He demands his fair share of respect from the perimeter. Besides, Curry's sucking of defense can be overstated at times because from what I've seen 1. the Warriors ball-movement and screening is soo good that the defense is scrambled way before Curry gets the ball for a shot and 2. you shouldn't chase or double-team Curry on the perimeter because that leaves your whole defense screwed and 1v1 he's gonna get his shot up anyway, there's very little you can do but I rather have Curry beat me by making 15 threes than the Warriors just carve me apart because I'm too busy focusing on Curry. That's why I'm keeping my eyes open on how the good defensive teams will defend Curry in the postseason. Should be interesting.

Re: Paul also unprecedented playmaker while still low turnovers, etc. I don't view Paul like that. That's just my opinion of course, but the more important point is: I don't really see what makes you think he's such an unprecedented player. With Curry we all agree we've never seen his equal as a shooter. I don't know where that comes from with Paul unless you're fixated on a PER-like stats, and there it's his low TO% that gives him such a boost.

Unprecedented to me, by definition, means something I've never seen before. I've never seen a player like Paul before. Same for Curry of course. Nash comes close to Paul in terms of style of play but there are still noticeable differences like CP3 being a better scorer, and a better rebounder, and a better defender, and less turnover prone while opting to play at a slower pace. I never seen a player like Paul, ever. Never mind PER. Yes, it's a stat that glorifies one of Paul's biggest strengths, which is his low TO rate but if seen plenty of evidence outside of boxscore formulae stats that I'm convinced Paul is just godly on offense and the eye test supports that, so we can drop any fixated PER-like notions.

I'll note that when it's come to regression analysis of the 4 factors, Paul's always lagged a bit behind on impact on eFG% compared to someone like Nash, as well as non-all-world playmakers like Shaq, LeBron, and Wade (and now Curry).

Cool, definitely something to be taken into account but regression data isn't the end all be all of basketball. It has it's flaws.

Why wouldn't I have confidence that Paul was better? The numbers side with Curry, and Curry has a particular far-better-than-anyone-else attribute in his shooting that has an impact that is very difficult to put a ceiling on. Honestly dude, when you talk like this to me you sound like a homer. Find to side with Paul, but to brush Curry away so swiftly, I just don't get it. They are two different players

What numbers? Boxscore? APM? What numbers.

Curry doesn't have ''far-better-than-anyone-else shooting ability'' especially if we're viewing this from an impact standpoint. I've literary cited the guy with similar impact in my previous post. It's Klay, a teammate of Curry. Klay is pulling more than his fair share of attention from the perimeter. It's quite insane actually that the Warriors have 2 players with that type of magnitude with both being also awesome scorers, great off-ball and Curry being a solid playmaker and a pretty strong offensive supporting cast. Really insane. But at the end of the day it's CP3 who leads the better offense. Funny, right? At least I'm impressed with that, but yeah, let's brush that off as me being a Paul homer for some reason.

Curry has an advantage that happens to right at this moment in history be defining the entire league on most teams - how can you confidently say you know the limits to that impact?

Ah yes. Good question. I don't claim to know anything, I'm just thinking with my head. I already stated that I think you're too hyped imo about Curry being the perfect player for this basketball meta but as far as how much impact he can have with his ''shooting-based gravity'' there's absolutely a ceiling to this (as it is with most things). There comes a point where the defense has to concede a certain amount of space to the shooter because it would be unhealthy for the defense to overextend too far outside the perimeter and leave the area inside the 3pt line exposed for straight line drives off picks. That sounds logical to me. The reason why Curry (and also Klay to a bit lesser degree) is able to be so effective with the 3pt shot is because they just need themselves or someone else to create a shrivel of daylight and that's enough for them to knock it down with how quickly they shoot it. It's not because the defense is treating them any differently than they do other elite shooters in the league. What separates Curry/Klay for me from everyone else is the ability to create their own shot and the quick release on top of having seemlessly flawless balance on jump shots and a pitch-perfect release.

Re: Doing more with more. The bottom line is that if two guys are achieving equal lift for their teams, and one is doing it in a healthier context that seem more likely to lead to a championship, then that's the guy I'll typically be more impressed with. Taking the extreme route: If there were an Ultra-Abdur-Rahim who could take any collection of YMCA players and make them win 30 games, but couldn't add more value with better teammates, then despite the fact he can in theory give 30 games of list (which is insane), he wouldn't simply fail to be my MVP, I wouldn't even want him on my team and I'd advise no team to even give him a minimum contract.

Ok. The guy I'm impressed with more is the guy that's actually doing more lifting. To me, that guy is more productive and more responsible for his team success than the other guy. Of course context is important and it should be treated as such.

Hypothetically (note: the numbers are purely made up for clarity sake), if we had a scale of 1-10 for rating purposes and the Clippers without Paul were somewhere around 3 on offense but with Paul they sky-rocket to 8 and then we have the Warriors who are 5 without Curry but like 9/10 with Curry, I don't see Curry as ''the guy i'm more impressed with''. Why would I? Paul is this case is basically elevating a bad team into being great while Curry is taking an average team and turning them elite.

RE: Ultra-Abdul-Rahim

I think you're taking this concept too far at this point, although I'll concede that this is a very complex notion at least for me to properly evaluate because I find myself alternating from which angle to approach it. Generally I agree with you, we should strive for creating the most optimal offense possible and the guys who can't contribute much outside of them dominating the ball need to be called out. That's why we have these debates of preferring MJ/LeBron offensively or Nash/Magic. But what shouldn't be ignored is the fact that guys like MJ/LeBron can take a bad team and turn them into a contender. They might not reach the ceiling of a Nash/Magic led team offensively but MJ/LeBron on my roster I know my team is good enough offensively to at least compete for a title and from there anything can happen. With Nash/Magic on my roster, I know that if I do not complement them with sufficient scoring threats/shooters I'm basically fckd and my team is gonna look worse offensively than the MJ/LeBron team. You can argue about the difficulty of obtaining such players and what not but the point still stands. I believe the other side of the coin shouldn't be neglected.

Besides, in our case we aren't talking about Shaq vs. Nash type of offensive discrepancy. I don't think Paul and Curry are that dissimilar, one is a better playmaker with solid scoring/shooting, the other is a better scorer/shooter with solid playmaking. Paul needs the ball in his hands more to be effective, sure, but I don't necessarily view that as a bad thing otherwise Magic and Nash enter the fray yet again.

I personally think quite highly of Paul so I don't mean to knock him here, but to me it's completely within the realm of debate to think that perhaps Curry's super-gravity game is easier to built around than Paul's control-freak game.

Fine and dandy, definitely nothing wrong with that type of rationale, but I expect that logic to carry out and be applied to your boys Magic and Nash as well.

Re: Unless I think Paul would've done worse in Curry's shoes. I think that's pretty clear cut actually. The Warriors' entire set up is based around having one guy who is both on-ball and an insanely scary shooter who will be the lead scorer most games. I see no reason at all to think that replacing such a monstrously successful first scoring option with a pass-first player is a move anyone would want to make, and I don't even see that as a knock on Paul.

I don't think it's clear cut and I disagree about the Warriors set up. Doesn't matter who the Warriors are based around and who leads them in scoring, what matters is how much Steph is contributing individually compared to the rest of his team offensively and the answer could very possibly be less than Paul (while leading a worse offensive team mind you). There's definitely a trade-off when switching Curry with Paul and vice-versa but what you're implying is that there's no reason to do so because Curry is simply and generally a more impactul player and I disagree. Because if I follow your logic here, and I'm not sure I do, but in any case, if that's how you roll you wouldn't even replace Curry with your boy GOAT offensive player Nash, which basically means Curry should be your new GOAT offensive player. There, we've cracked it ladies and gents, today we've learned that Curry is the GOAT offensive player . Have a nice weekend everyone, drink responsibly. Toodles.

Here's another question tho'. Did you have Paul higher than Curry on your list last year? If yes, then I'd like to know what has changed in Curry (and your view of him) so dramatically this season outside of the Warriors improving as a team and consequently boosting Curry's plus/minus numbers up that you now see him as a totally different monster with untouchable impact basically playing the same way he always has. Acutally, he didn't even need to play more than 33 minutes and he leveraged some of his production onto his teammates yet, in doing so, he has made the ultimate step in basketball and become a God. Playing less, doing less by himself, playing the same way, yet a totally transformed and improved player. That's what I'm getting from you.

Note that what I said was speaking to the tone I sense from you. It's your vehemence that I'm responding to when I say this, and this is something I've seen again in this post I'm responding to. That can be a red herring and a product of rhetorical tendencies of course, and if it is, then perhaps no biggie.

That's just the way I always debated, it helps me vent my points and argue, if it comes out as arrogant in any sense then I apologize, I guess? Personally, I've never seen a reason to get offended by 'tone' or the way someone phrases themselves but the sensitivity lengths some people go to never ceases to astound me (I'm not referring to you, just talking in generalities).

I've said nothing negative about Thompson, let alone his gravity. Let's note though that the mere fact that Thompson is also a "gravitational" player doesn't mean it particularly sucks credit away from Curry. Thompson being a great player is something that is bound to get factored in in that way

You're right, you haven't, but the problem is more that you also haven't said anything positive about Thompson in relation to the impact he's having for the Warriors and he personally improved as a player much more than Curry has compared to last year.

You're approaching this from a wrong angle, imo. It's not that Thompson being a ''gravitational'' (God, I'm starting to hate this word so much) player sucks away from what Curry is contributing, but ratherThompson being that type of player is adding to why the Warriors are as good as they are. It's an affair of credit distribution, where I sense you're not giving Thompson his due simply because Curry is significantly better but that doesn't suck credit away from Thompson (if I use the 'ol spineroo on ya)

but the fact that he does it by shooting from the perimeter is not more damning to Curry than it would be if he had a Griffin-like player of quality similar to Thompson.

Hmm, that's an interesting assertion. Care to expound? Because I'm not sure why this would be the case?

Re: Paul needs the ball because of bad spacing. Nah, this is just how Paul has always been. He's a control freak who given his druthers would slow things down and make the entire possession's success be based on who him thinking his way past the defense. Put him in a scheme where the ball is really in his hands a lot less, and you're literally diminishing his best attribute. You probably know I'm a Nash guy - it'd be the exact same thing for him. Not that spacing isn't a good thing everywhere, but the ball is in these guys hands all the time because that's where it needs to be to max out their value.

And that style of play has time and time again, in different but far from entirely rosey situations nonetheless, proven to be highly effective way of putting points on the board, so where's the problem, Doc?

But why would put him in a scheme where the ball is less in his hands? That doesn't make sense to do in 99% of scenarios. Even Curry needs the ball in his hands a lot, otherwise he's simply a smaller Kyle Korver out there. Yeah, that's still more than what Paul would be with less on-ball time but still, are we sure we aren't just splitting hairs? So Curry can be something between Kyle Korver and Reggie Miller when he's not dominating the ball for your team. Definitely a valuable quality, but 1.) I don't think Paul would've been a slouch in a similar situation and 2.) the other team will just pick up Paul, hand him over the keys to the offense and try to put quality players that can benefit from his best attribute and probably end up with the a better offense than the team Curry plays for, unless the Curry team gets someone who has similar impact to Paul on-ball to set up the offense or they can construct a Spurs-type offense with a great on-ball threat PG and versatile lineup filled with shooters and some solid post presence etc. In both cases however that's not a Curry-led team in any imaginable stretch and even if he ends up being the best player on that team his offensive impact still doesn't touch Paul's, he do enables his team to potentially play better though.

I guess you and me are hitting some sort of wall where we cannot really allocate proper values for someone leading a team and someone enabling their team playing better while remaining the best player for that team. And how to decide which to glorify. Is this where the problem lies?

Re: Curry is a whole different animal now, why? Well first let's say it's for no reason other than he's a scheme that better makes use of his talents. So what? I've said it for years: It never makes sense to look to split credit between player and coach. If the nature of the scheme makes a player look more valuable than he actually is that's one thing, but if the coach finds a way to make the player more valuable, that's two separate lines of credit.

Ok, so finally, after all these text walls, I've finally reached the bold part which was one of the answers I was looking for. HOWEVER, I disagree.

Credit should definitely be given where it's due. It's not that Kerr designed a scheme that made Curry shine, it's that Kerr designed a scheme where other players around Curry can make better use of what Curry brings to the table, which by the way, is the same things he brought last year. In turn, that means most of the changes the Warriors made this year on offense didn't even have anything to do with Curry as a player but had everything to do with how Kerr used the guys around Curry and if anything, actually stripped some of Steph's responsibilities. So I'm asking, why are we crediting Curry for something that Kerr designed, something the rest of the team bought into, and for the improvements his teammates made around him. It makes no sense.

But in addition to that Curry's a young guy whose game isn't based on being a superior physical specimen than everyone else. We should be expecting him to improve from year to year by trimming the fat on the little moments he now recognizes won't pan out, no? I just don't see where the skepticism comes from that a player like him wouldn't get better even if his box score didn't indicate improvement...which of course it does.

The improvements in boxs core aren't anything massive by themselves, let alone when you realize that it's more a byproduct of the overall improvements the Warriors as a team have made collectively this year that allowed mostly everyone to get boosted numbers. I'm talking invididually. For example, I can see where Klay has improved individually as a player this year compared to last year. Sorry but Curry's the same player, just playing in a much healthier and better team environment.

As I said to Dr. Spaceman:

The Warriors have a PF and a C who are noteworthy for their defense. Give Curry two bigs who are similarly noteworthy for their offense and we'd expect the team's offense to be better. There's nothing controversial about that. It's just an obvious statement.

And as I also said: Trying to use Barnes against Curry? Seriously? Forget about what the intent was - I'd say it's much more about trying to make the most of Barnes with a side of the given reason (to let Iguodala lead the second unit) than it is about offense, but say it was only about adding offense, he's still just Harrison Barnes. He's not noteworthy.

Again, you're using the fact that Bogut/Green are primarily players who impact the defensive side of the floor as some sort of slight to their offensive ability. Why? No, neither Bogut or Green is better than Griffin on offense but Bogut/Green/Speights/Lee is a respectable frontcourt assembly and add guys like Iggy/Barnes/Klay/Barbosa/Livingston. I mean, the Warriors are just deep on both sides of the court that's why they are top 3 in both offense and defense. Griffin and Redick don't necessarily tip the scale in Paul's favor, sorry.

I won't go into detail because the Warriors have made a lot of subtle changes that made them a better offensive team (some of these decisions were also referenced by you and Dr.Spaceman) but I'll say this, again, you're underrating what they did outside of Curry and if you are so quick to dismiss Harrison Barnes I don't really wanna know your opinion on Crawford, Austin Rivers, Big Baby Davis, Spencer Hawes etc.

It makes little sense to cry boo hoo for Paul on offense for his teammates when the results are clearly better than what he's had elsewhere and his new teammates are offense-oriented. You may not think much of these guys, but clearly he could do plenty worse.

What does their orientation matter if they suck? It doesn't help Paul that Crawford, Hawes, Rivers, Baby Davis, Hedo are guys known for their offensive contribution because they suck on offense and they suck on defense. It's basically a lose-lose situation for Paul.

Perhaps you'll say Paul is just that much better now, but I suppose I'm skeptical.

No, but neither is Curry much better now. (See what I did there)

Re: horrible offensive player, Jordan. I'm literally quoting you dude. And yeah, clearly it came off as bizarre to me as it does to you, and shaped how I responded to you.

yeah, t'was a hyperbole. my bad, carry on.

Re: "you called him an offensive star". Right and I've owned up somewhere recently to say I have no problem with someone saying I'm exaggerating. It was a statement made without a bunch of thought based on the fact that Jordan is indeed seen as a star, and his game is actually offense-oriented contrary to popular opinion. I take no issue with someone saying he's no star at all, but he's definitely a plus on offense not "horrible".

Who sees Jordan as a star? That's new to me. Ok, I see, you're actually referring to the ''less-knowledgable'' basketball fans, like the ones who vote for the DPOY. Jordan is a plus on offense strictly because of Paul (and his own rebounding, sure). But as soon as you start diminishing the Paul factor (that is you substitute Paul out with players that are less and less of a playmaking threat) Jordan's threat as a scorer plummets. This also refers to our debate of Paul vs. Curry. I believe that if Curry plays for the Clippers, DeAndre Jordan's offensive impact is reduced.

Re: cons outright the pros. On the whole I disagree. I'll grant that Hack-a-Dre is something that could tip the scales. Other than that, a guy who can get offensive rebounds extremely well and function in a pick & roll at that size & athleticism is to me a clear positive. I think it's also worth noting that when you're on Chris Paul's team, the passing of everyone else is going to get underutilized. Again not a knock on Paul, just an acknowledgement that if you have Paul, passing ability in your other guys is your last priority.

Definitely a positive, but that's not the issue. The issue is DeAndre is a guy that heavily benefits from someone like Paul to optimize his offensive impact. I won't say he needs him to be useful on offense but definitely the better the passing on your team the more use you're gonna get from DeAndre on offense. That's why I believe if Curry played on the Clippers he'd gets less out of Jordan than what Paul is getting out of him. I'll say I could definitely be wrong and it wouldn't surprise me, but that's how I think right now.

Re: are we really going to argue he's better on offense than defense? His signature stat on defense is the defensive rebounds, and regression data indicates he actually makes defensive rebounding worse. That's a huge freaking problem and importantly: Not remotely hard to believe. As I've said, it's a common issue with young bigs, although granted it's more than a bit extreme for someone who is a 7th year player and just finished 3rd in DPOY voting.

This is a tough question to answer because I don't think of Jordan highly in any of those two areas. I think his impact defensively is overrated but still not entirely useless and his offensive impact is overrated but still not entirely useless I guess we can flip a coin.

[fuzzy_dunlop]

1st isn't even over and I'm just about ready to give up my Kawhi agnosticism.

Should I give it another quarter?

[ardee]

Ok, I think Kawhi is definitely top 10 when healthy. He's been spectacular so far.

Still not ready to consider him over the big 6 by any means though.

[HeartBreakKid]

So after what Kawhi did to the Clippers and his general play, he is sky rocketing up my rankings. He was about #10 early in the playoffs, as of now he is in my top 6. I would take him over Harden and Westbrook.

He's been out playing CP3, but CP3 was better during the RS overall - so Kawhi can surpass him if he plays more PS games (likely meaning he has to go through LAC).


Leonard's post game and spot up shooting is just magnificent. He's a breath of fresh air to the traditional franchise player.

[ardee]

Oh my god I should not have made that post.

Jesus Christ. Kawhi over Harden? CP3?

What is life?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[SideshowBob]

A suggestion. But I think it would be good if everyone gave their personal POY criteria before submitting a ballot. I think a lot of the debate will boil down to differences in approach rather than differences in opinions on players, so perhaps outlining criteria beforehand will clear up philosophical divides so we can focus the discussion on the players instead.

Just a thought.

[ThaRegul8r]

A suggestion. But I think it would be good if everyone gave their personal POY criteria before submitting a ballot. I think a lot of the debate will boil down to differences in approach rather than differences in opinions on players, so perhaps outlining criteria beforehand will clear up philosophical divides so we can focus the discussion on the players instead.

Just a thought.

That really should be standard practice, since, in anything involving rankings, usually people are talking past each other because they all have different criteria they're going by.

[ceiling raiser]

A suggestion. But I think it would be good if everyone gave their personal POY criteria before submitting a ballot. I think a lot of the debate will boil down to differences in approach rather than differences in opinions on players, so perhaps outlining criteria beforehand will clear up philosophical divides so we can focus the discussion on the players instead.

Just a thought.

Roughly in order for me:

• Demonstrable ability to impact scoring margin, end of the season/playoffs weighted more heavily
• Lack of hard evidence in the playoffs against elite defenses that an individual's particular playstyle can't succeed
• Health/number of games played isn't a huge deal, unless the gap is massive (though missing all or part of the playoffs because of health, suspension, etc. is a big problem)

[Doctor MJ]

I'll just say you didn't address a lot of the points I made but ok, we will try again, for now I'll roll with what I got, I guess.

If there's a part of your previous post I didn't put in quotes, quote yourself and point me to it. I don't think I chopped anything out, but sometimes I do. Either way the core reason why you don't feel like I address everything of yours is that same: You wrote a ton, and then I wrote a ton. Once the conversation gets dense enough, we all walk balances trying to focus on what we think is most important.

Speaking more generally:

What I see us both saying is essentially: "If it seems like my opinion is extreme and close-minded due to the vehemence I post with, then I apologize for that confusion, but please don't bother addressing the vehemence, focus on the general thought behind it." That's what I'll aim to do here, but first acknowledging that part of the reason I responded as I did in the first place is that vehemence. Certain of these things that come down to "How can you actually be so extreme?" don't make sense to keep batting back & forth.

Again, Curry's GOAT shooting ability and the impact his team can garner from it is not something I take for granted, but even in an era where the basketball meta has shifted to exploiting the 3-pt shot, that by itself doesn't necessarily mean that all-time great shooters should or will automatically yield greater impact than guys who have all-time playmaking or scoring ability. Does that mean that guys like prime MJ/Kobe/Wade could not eclipse Curry as far as leading more efficient offenses (or at least when it comes to the ceiling of said offenses) in the current era because perimeter shooting and spacing is not their forte? Lemme know.

If I recall correctly, you are big on Magic, and although you have been quoted praising Nash as a GOAT-type offensive player, I think you also mentioned once that it's very likely for you that Magic surpasses him if he played in this era because Magic's biggest strength (passing & playmaking) obtains more value concurrently because of all the shooters the teams are fielding. With that said, Magic was someone that wasn't really synonymous with being a shooting threat or having great ''shooting-based gravity'' so doesn't that also mean his weakness (maybe I use the term weakness loosely here, because he wasn't putrid, but factually, Magic wasn't and wouldn't really be punishing anyone from the perimeter with his shot) also get more exposed nowadays, at least compared to other elite PG's with all-time great playmaking ability who on top of that are also better shooters i.e. Nash, CP3...

Anyway, I just think that a lot of your dots get lost and the lines don't connect logically sometimes at least for me when I read your arguments.

So yeah, some of this here is you just taking a more extreme perspective out of my statements that I had any intention of giving. I certainly don't assume Curry will be more impactful than everyone else because of his shooting, I just think his shooting makes it very difficult to put a ceiling on what his impact truly is.

Re: Magic; era. The general conclusion I've reached is that playmaking is more valuable than it used to be, and thus your typical volume scorer is less valuable than in the past.

Take any earlier era, good chance Paul has more impact than Curry, but in this one, if the data tells us Curry seems to have the edge, I don't understand what's so hard to believe about it.

But, why? Here's my quibble. Kinda expounding on what I've talked about and referenced above, you said that, and I rephrase - because we live in an era where shooting ability is becoming more and more of a prominent factor for team's offenses AND Curry is most likely the best shooter ever, ERGO Curry has to have more impact, right? Shooting era. check. Better shooter. check. Solid playmaker. bonus check. But doesn't the importance of an all-time great playmaker also become more valuable now? I mean, you yourself certainly alluded to thinking so by saying Magic's offensive impact would've probably supersede someone like Nash in this era, and what is Magic known for? That's right, being the GOAT playmaker.

So why does that now work with Paul for you? Paul is certainly up there with Magic, Nash and Stockton in NBA history when it comes to impacting the game through making plays for others and he's more efficient with the ball too. Paul SHOULD benefit in this era too IF his team can find and field enough shooting threats to complement Paul's biggest strength which is getting them the ball. Sadly, the Clippers have notoriously failed to do. The only elite shooter on their team besides Paul is Redick and that's it. Ok, Barnes is decent but nothing to write home about. If you're thinking about Crawford right now please stop. Iguodala is a better shooter than Crawford and that's saying a lot because I cringe every time I have to watch Iggy shoot it from downtown. The Clippers spacing and ability to be threatening from the outside is laughably bad, yet that did not stop Paul from leading the best offense in the league two years in a row. It's almost surreal to me. Well at least Griffin developed something of a respectable mid-range shot this year, for what it's worth, the situation still remains pretty grim. I mean, just imagine if Paul played with Klay, Barnes, Barbosa, Iggy/Green and Speights/Lee from mid-range. Then there's also Livingston and Bogut... Come on man.

With all this ''shooting-based gravity'' talk, Paul is still a 40% 3PT shooter. He demands his fair share of respect from the perimeter. Besides, Curry's sucking of defense can be overstated at times because from what I've seen 1. the Warriors ball-movement and screening is soo good that the defense is scrambled way before Curry gets the ball for a shot and 2. you shouldn't chase or double-team Curry on the perimeter because that leaves your whole defense screwed and 1v1 he's gonna get his shot up anyway, there's very little you can do but I rather have Curry beat me by making 15 threes than the Warriors just carve me apart because I'm too busy focusing on Curry. That's why I'm keeping my eyes open on how the good defensive teams will defend Curry in the postseason. Should be interesting.

Big thing here: Paul is already in this era where we can see his impact stats. If they were above everyone else, then I'd be saying as much. They aren't. They are fantastic, but they aren't clearly ahead of Curry's. And so that's where I came in: Why the assumption of Paul in your mind? As I've stated, if I've attributed to extreme a stance from you fine, but I myself am not showing an extreme stance. All I'm doing is following what all I see, but quantitatively and qualitatively, and I'm giving qualitative points that seem relevant to your assertions.

So yeah, Paul I'm sure benefits quite a bit from being in this era, but that isn't really relevant in a Magic/Nash sense to the discussion.

Why is Curry's benefit relevant then? Because I'm not using to argue that Curry is better, I'm using it to essentially saying, "What's so hard to believe about the numbers given how well suited Curry is to the era?".

On that note: While I call this the "treys are for 'kicks" era, which is meant to describe the fact that modern offenses will be based on getting the ball to the open man to take a 3 rather than relying on a star to take contested shots, I've also said that Curry is the exception that proves the rule. As Zach Lowe says: He is the glitch in the matrix. The entire reason for this paradigm shift is that superstars in Curry's position can't hit shots contested 3's, but Curry can. This changes everything, and gives us every reason to think that his impact may balloon even more than great playmakers.

Re: "ability to be threatening from the outside is laughably bad". I don't know what to say about this. If you take Curry & Paul's 3's out of the totals, here's what the rest of the team did:

Warriors: 597 3's, shooting 38.0%.
Clippers: 688 3's, shooting 37.1%.

Forget about arguing which is better for a moment: They are both phenomenal. The Clippers sans Paul would have the best % in the league other than the Hawks and the Warriors while still shooting more 3's than an average NBA team. How can you look at that and talk about the Clippers as being laughably bad from the outside? I'm happy to give Paul a lot of credit for making it happen, but the Clippers have been very successful from the outside.

I realize as I say that that one can then move the goal posts and say something like "All those guys suck and Paul just makes them good.", but fundamentally here you're insisting on calling those guys a problem for team spacing, and the reality is they are functioning well.

Re: Paul's 40% 3 point shooting. Let me get to that when I talk about Thompson down below.

Re: good teams will guard Curry this post-season. People keep saying stuff like this and it's weird. This isn't Harden here - a guy who has struggled in the playoffs. Curry first became a superstar BECAUSE of the playoffs. If you've been watching Curry these past two years in the post-season, what you've seen is that even intense playoff defenses really struggle against Curry because of the fact that pressuring his shot doesn't help as much as it does for normal stars and he's an able and willing passer.

Re: Paul also unprecedented playmaker while still low turnovers, etc. I don't view Paul like that. That's just my opinion of course, but the more important point is: I don't really see what makes you think he's such an unprecedented player. With Curry we all agree we've never seen his equal as a shooter. I don't know where that comes from with Paul unless you're fixated on a PER-like stats, and there it's his low TO% that gives him such a boost.

Unprecedented to me, by definition, means something I've never seen before. I've never seen a player like Paul before. Same for Curry of course. Nash comes close to Paul in terms of style of play but there are still noticeable differences like CP3 being a better scorer, and a better rebounder, and a better defender, and less turnover prone while opting to play at a slower pace. I never seen a player like Paul, ever. Never mind PER. Yes, it's a stat that glorifies one of Paul's biggest strengths, which is his low TO rate but if seen plenty of evidence outside of boxscore formulae stats that I'm convinced Paul is just godly on offense and the eye test supports that, so we can drop any fixated PER-like notions.

Well to be clear when I'm talking about something "unprecedented" here, I'm talking about a specific attribute that teams have to respond to. It's certainly possible for a player to become the best point guard in history by combining all sorts of good attributes without being the best at any, and in that sense he'd be unprecedented, but that doesn't mean he's bringing something fundamentally new into the mix. From my perspective if there's one thing Paul's really bringing, it's the incredible conservation of possession, effective with low turnovers. That's a big deal, but it's also something that's pretty easily quantified. "How valuable is it?", well answer how costly a turnover is and you've got your answer.

The whole reason I bring this stuff up for Curry is that he has an impact that until recently we simply couldn't quantify, and even now is iffy despite the fact we know it can be quite big.

I'll note that when it's come to regression analysis of the 4 factors, Paul's always lagged a bit behind on impact on eFG% compared to someone like Nash, as well as non-all-world playmakers like Shaq, LeBron, and Wade (and now Curry).

Cool, definitely something to be taken into account but regression data isn't the end all be all of basketball. It has it's flaws.

It has its flaws but there's no substitute for using it, and it shouldn't seem bizarre when someone says "We know Player X has impact that can't be quantified by conventional means, and when we look at the regression data this guy looks huge precisely where we would predict he might be." Find to say "I get it, but given the noise I'm still reluctant to give him the nod here.", but our exchange started with you writing a very long post on the subject without touching on this stuff at all. And while I can't fault you for not mentioning every counterpoint to your own argument, I would hope that when this stuff is pointed out you'd indicate where your own uncertainties are due to what these numbers indicate.

Why wouldn't I have confidence that Paul was better? The numbers side with Curry, and Curry has a particular far-better-than-anyone-else attribute in his shooting that has an impact that is very difficult to put a ceiling on. Honestly dude, when you talk like this to me you sound like a homer. Find to side with Paul, but to brush Curry away so swiftly, I just don't get it. They are two different players

What numbers? Boxscore? APM? What numbers.

Curry doesn't have ''far-better-than-anyone-else shooting ability'' especially if we're viewing this from an impact standpoint. I've literary cited the guy with similar impact in my previous post. It's Klay, a teammate of Curry. Klay is pulling more than his fair share of attention from the perimeter. It's quite insane actually that the Warriors have 2 players with that type of magnitude with both being also awesome scorers, great off-ball and Curry being a solid playmaker and a pretty strong offensive supporting cast. Really insane. But at the end of the day it's CP3 who leads the better offense. Funny, right? At least I'm impressed with that, but yeah, let's brush that off as me being a Paul homer for some reason.

Curry ranks better by RAPM and RPM yet. He also looks better by PER, WS/48, and BPM. And these are basically the sum total of the major all-in-one stats used commonly right now, so frankly I'm confused when you're like "Numbers? What numbers?". All of them. If you're using numbers to try to directly assess which guy is doing better right now, Curry beats Paul on everything.

This is why it's hard for me to mount an argument for Paul. I can craft a narrative where he's the true MVP, but I can't point to anything objective that backs it up. On all fronts I'd have to say, "and yeah Curry looks better statistically, but it's close enough that you can't just go by that".

Re: Shooting of other guys like Klay, and getting into Paul's shooting. I don't consider what Thompson's doing to be on the same planet as Curry. Emphasizing what I've said before: This is the era for off-ball shooting. What we've found is that if you're in position to shoot the 3, and someone gives you a good pass, it's vastly easier to hit it than to do so off the dribble.

So if we look at b-r's leaders list (the top 20 guys) for 3, here are the guys who are actually on-ball, along with 3's, an %'s:
Curry 286 .443
Harden 208 .375
Lillard 196 .343
Irving 157 .415

So the whole list is completely dominated by off-ball guys, and the only on-ball guys to score 40%+ are Curry, and coming in at barely half the makes with far weaker efficiency, the guy who plays with LeBron James who shot nowhere near that well before LeBron got there. Paul is not on the list, though admittedly he didn't miss it by much. His shooting is quite impressive, but he's definitely "just another great shooter" on this front.

There's Curry and there's everyone else. If you get nothing else from this conversation, that's the thing. Any thought you have that what Thompson is doing is somehow comparably hard forget it. And just to contrast their roles a bit further:

Total unassisted 3's this year:
Curry 119
Thompson 22

Curry has over 5 times the number of actual ultra-tough 3's as Thompson and shoots at a higher percentage while orchestrating the team offense. And the only reason it's not even worse is because of the smart offense Kerr and Gentry have implemented. Last year Curry made 142 unassisted 3's.

Curry has an advantage that happens to right at this moment in history be defining the entire league on most teams - how can you confidently say you know the limits to that impact?

Ah yes. Good question. I don't claim to know anything, I'm just thinking with my head. I already stated that I think you're too hyped imo about Curry being the perfect player for this basketball meta but as far as how much impact he can have with his ''shooting-based gravity'' there's absolutely a ceiling to this (as it is with most things). There comes a point where the defense has to concede a certain amount of space to the shooter because it would be unhealthy for the defense to overextend too far outside the perimeter and leave the area inside the 3pt line exposed for straight line drives off picks. That sounds logical to me. The reason why Curry (and also Klay to a bit lesser degree) is able to be so effective with the 3pt shot is because they just need themselves or someone else to create a shrivel of daylight and that's enough for them to knock it down with how quickly they shoot it. It's not because the defense is treating them any differently than they do other elite shooters in the league. What separates Curry/Klay for me from everyone else is the ability to create their own shot and the quick release on top of having seemlessly flawless balance on jump shots and a pitch-perfect release.

See the Unassisted numbers above. To use related number: 90.8% of Thompson's 3's are assisted. For guys who shoot a lot of 3's, this is only possible if you're basically a catch & shoot guy most of the time. He's not creating his own 3's to anywhere near the extent of Curry or even Paul.

Re: Doing more with more. The bottom line is that if two guys are achieving equal lift for their teams, and one is doing it in a healthier context that seem more likely to lead to a championship, then that's the guy I'll typically be more impressed with. Taking the extreme route: If there were an Ultra-Abdur-Rahim who could take any collection of YMCA players and make them win 30 games, but couldn't add more value with better teammates, then despite the fact he can in theory give 30 games of list (which is insane), he wouldn't simply fail to be my MVP, I wouldn't even want him on my team and I'd advise no team to even give him a minimum contract.

Ok. The guy I'm impressed with more is the guy that's actually doing more lifting. To me, that guy is more productive and more responsible for his team success than the other guy. Of course context is important and it should be treated as such.

Hypothetically (note: the numbers are purely made up for clarity sake), if we had a scale of 1-10 for rating purposes and the Clippers without Paul were somewhere around 3 on offense but with Paul they sky-rocket to 8 and then we have the Warriors who are 5 without Curry but like 9/10 with Curry, I don't see Curry as ''the guy i'm more impressed with''. Why would I? Paul is this case is basically elevating a bad team into being great while Curry is taking an average team and turning them elite.

Everybody is impressed when a guy lifts more, my point here is that you also want to figure which guy is lifting in a way that scales best to actually winning championships. But that said, the numbers point to Curry both giving more lift and doing it in a more championship-making way. Choosing Curry isn't a choice between two factors, he owns them all according to the numbers.

Re: Why would it? Well that's why I gave the example below to make it really clear...

RE: Ultra-Abdul-Rahim

I think you're taking this concept too far at this point, although I'll concede that this is a very complex notion at least for me to properly evaluate because I find myself alternating from which angle to approach it. Generally I agree with you, we should strive for creating the most optimal offense possible and the guys who can't contribute much outside of them dominating the ball need to be called out. That's why we have these debates of preferring MJ/LeBron offensively or Nash/Magic. But what shouldn't be ignored is the fact that guys like MJ/LeBron can take a bad team and turn them into a contender. They might not reach the ceiling of a Nash/Magic led team offensively but MJ/LeBron on my roster I know my team is good enough offensively to at least compete for a title and from there anything can happen. With Nash/Magic on my roster, I know that if I do not complement them with sufficient scoring threats/shooters I'm basically fckd and my team is gonna look worse offensively than the MJ/LeBron team. You can argue about the difficulty of obtaining such players and what not but the point still stands. I believe the other side of the coin shouldn't be neglected.

Besides, in our case we aren't talking about Shaq vs. Nash type of offensive discrepancy. I don't think Paul and Curry are that dissimilar, one is a better playmaker with solid scoring/shooting, the other is a better scorer/shooter with solid playmaking. Paul needs the ball in his hands more to be effective, sure, but I don't necessarily view that as a bad thing otherwise Magic and Nash enter the fray yet again.

...and when I do you tell me I take it "too far". You do understand I'm only taking it this far so you'll understand the fundamental principle, right? I think you do actually and you're just getting stuck in the details so I'll just keep responding to your thoughts, but you've got me a little worried.

Re: can't be ignored taking a bad team to a contender. It's not ignored. Lift is factored in, and so is the scalability of that lift. The latter is something that will be informed by how healthy the context is, but I'm fine with everyone using their own holistic judgment here. The key point though isn't so much that I think there's something fundamentally un-scalable about Paul as it is that it is really, really difficult for a team to click as well as the Warriors have this year. We haven't seen it happen since Jordan. And while there's luck involved, when we ask ourselves "How did the Warriors do it?", the big thing we coming back to is stuff enabled by Curry's unique skill set.

I personally think quite highly of Paul so I don't mean to knock him here, but to me it's completely within the realm of debate to think that perhaps Curry's super-gravity game is easier to built around than Paul's control-freak game.

Fine and dandy, definitely nothing wrong with that type of rationale, but I expect that logic to carry out and be applied to your boys Magic and Nash as well.

Well sure, but a couple things:

1. You said before than Nash & Paul were pretty similar and I didn't respond, but the reality is they are very different. Paul is a control-freak not simply in the sense that he's ball-dominant, but that his game is predicated on turnover-prevention more than it is attack-maximization. While I don't really feel strongly about Nash over Paul overall - could easily make the argument Paul is better - I've always been more concerned about Paul's offensive ceiling on this front than Nash's. As such while I definitely will be applying what I'm saying about Curry to Nash comparisons, it's not quite relevant to what my point was there.

Curry may indeed scale better than Nash, but scaling better than Paul is not the same thing as scaling better than Nash.

2. I wouldn't get to caught up into what I'm saying about Magic. Certainly I try to be fair and objective, but he played in a very different era. As such when I say "Yeah, Magic could probably do more today.", it's much more of a guess than it is to make statements between guys who've played in the current era.

Re: Unless I think Paul would've done worse in Curry's shoes. I think that's pretty clear cut actually. The Warriors' entire set up is based around having one guy who is both on-ball and an insanely scary shooter who will be the lead scorer most games. I see no reason at all to think that replacing such a monstrously successful first scoring option with a pass-first player is a move anyone would want to make, and I don't even see that as a knock on Paul.

I don't think it's clear cut and I disagree about the Warriors set up. Doesn't matter who the Warriors are based around and who leads them in scoring, what matters is how much Steph is contributing individually compared to the rest of his team offensively and the answer could very possibly be less than Paul (while leading a worse offensive team mind you). There's definitely a trade-off when switching Curry with Paul and vice-versa but what you're implying is that there's no reason to do so because Curry is simply and generally a more impactul player and I disagree. Because if I follow your logic here, and I'm not sure I do, but in any case, if that's how you roll you wouldn't even replace Curry with your boy GOAT offensive player Nash, which basically means Curry should be your new GOAT offensive player. There, we've cracked it ladies and gents, today we've learned that Curry is the GOAT offensive player . Have a nice weekend everyone, drink responsibly. Toodles.

Here's another question tho'. Did you have Paul higher than Curry on your list last year? If yes, then I'd like to know what has changed in Curry (and your view of him) so dramatically this season outside of the Warriors improving as a team and consequently boosting Curry's plus/minus numbers up that you now see him as a totally different monster with untouchable impact basically playing the same way he always has. Acutally, he didn't even need to play more than 33 minutes and he leveraged some of his production onto his teammates yet, in doing so, he has made the ultimate step in basketball and become a God. Playing less, doing less by himself, playing the same way, yet a totally transformed and improved player. That's what I'm getting from you.

No I wouldn't replace Curry with Nash on the Warriors. That doesn't make Curry the offensive GOAT though - not that it's clear that Nash is the offensive GOAT either, but in general, if you've got good coaches, then any 2 superstars on opposing teams should do worse if you switch them. If GS isn't relying on Curry's shooting to the point that they are better with him than a considerably worse shooter but better playmaker of similar qualities otherwise, then they are coaching wrong. Simple as that. I don't believe they are doing it wrong though.

Curry is more effective than Paul or Nash if you play him like he's currently playing.
Paul is better effective than Curry or Nash if you play him like he's currently playing.
Nash was more effective doing his thing than either Curry or Paul would have been.

Re: Paul higher last year? What changesd?

Last year I ranked Curry 3rd and Paul 4th.
Year before Paul 3rd and Curry 4th.

So, probably with that you're thinking "Whoa, dude was wacko out there before, but at least he's consistently wacko.".

But I will say: I have no problem stating that I rate Curry considerably strong than last year. So what has changed?

Well, Curry isn't playing as he always has. He's playing in a different scheme this year, obviously. He's still shooting a lot of 3's etc, because of course he is, but the actions he's taking on average are considerably more effective than they were before, because primarily his options have gotten better.

Does that make him suspect? "The old Curry impact was the real Curry impact!" Nah, basketball doesn't work like that. When coaches come in and craft a smart scheme for a player, THAT is when you can truly judge the player. A dumb coach insisting Shaq should play point guard doesn't make Shaq a worse player, just a less effective one in that context. It will cost Shaq the MVP, but it won't change what Shaq actually is.

I've said nothing negative about Thompson, let alone his gravity. Let's note though that the mere fact that Thompson is also a "gravitational" player doesn't mean it particularly sucks credit away from Curry. Thompson being a great player is something that is bound to get factored in in that way

You're right, you haven't, but the problem is more that you also haven't said anything positive about Thompson in relation to the impact he's having for the Warriors and he personally improved as a player much more than Curry has compared to last year.

You're approaching this from a wrong angle, imo. It's not that Thompson being a ''gravitational'' (God, I'm starting to hate this word so much) player sucks away from what Curry is contributing, but ratherThompson being that type of player is adding to why the Warriors are as good as they are. It's an affair of credit distribution, where I sense you're not giving Thompson his due simply because Curry is significantly better but that doesn't suck credit away from Thompson (if I use the 'ol spineroo on ya)

Well so at this point I have gone negative on Thompson so responding here is a little awkward. Here's the thing though:

You can't very well say I'm being unreasonable for not praising Thompson more when you're not going on and on about Blake Griffin. And please: Don't go on and on about Griffin. We both already know he's awesome. You skipping the obvious is a courtesy I appreciate.

I get that you want me to demonstrate that I appreciate how good Thompson is. Okay, well he's a great player. And y'know what? I like Draymond Green even more. He was my pick for DPOY. Were it up to me the Warriors would have had 3 all-star and not 2...and even further: If Bogut played more minutes, I'd give them 4 all-stars. I'd also be totally fine with Kerr as COY (although Bud was more than fine himself) and Iggy was my 6MOY choice.

So yeah: There is literally nothing about my arguments that's based on Curry having to face some horrible hardship. He's got great help. It's just that even with all that, what the Warriors did this year is insane.

but the fact that he does it by shooting from the perimeter is not more damning to Curry than it would be if he had a Griffin-like player of quality similar to Thompson.

Hmm, that's an interesting assertion. Care to expound? Because I'm not sure why this would be the case?

To put it (over)simply: If I have a teammate whose overall contribution is X, and so do you, then it just doesn't make any sense to me that either of us should whine about it. We're both similarly blessed at least with that one teammate.

Now, fit is a thing of course. It's not about asserting that you can add a player who is Y good regardless of the situation and expect similar results. But while fit is a thing, and a player blessed with better fitting teammates will be more effective, I don't see why it makes sense to try to normalize that away. Partly because I think it's impossible to do so, but also partly because fit is something a star should be working to improve on over time, and typically the best fitting teams we have are based around smart, hard-working, nice superstars like Duncan or Nowitzki. We're not going to take those guys championship away, so why would we talk as if they are less valuable to their team simply because they now have good fit?

To be clear: When I do a GOAT list, I do try to an extent for "curve" for fit. If a player had weaker fit on his roster because management was idiotic, I'm reluctant to call them a worse player in an absolute sense. But there's never going to be a time where I say "That guy should win the MVP, because he would have been the most valuable player if his teammates fit better with him."

I'll also say as the guy running these votes: People should be very careful about voting with a different perspective. I don't mean that as a threat, but by being in this voting panel you're agreeing to answer a particular question. The most extreme example:

In the RPOY, I rejected a voter's '68-69 vote. He voted for Wilt at #1, which I thought was strange given that Wilt had a devil of a time actually contributing value to the Lakers that year. I asked him to clarify. He said he was voting for Wilt #1 because he thought on an average team Wilt would have done the most for them. I told him he couldn't simply ignore what Wilt actually did that year because that meant he was answering an entirely different question than the one asked of him. I re-explained what the criteria were, and told him to vote based on that. He ended up leaving the project instead.

Anyone reading this who wants clarification feel free to ask. People here have a lot of leeway, but in the end the voting is based on how the player in question actually played not because asking more generally "Who do you think had the greatest ability that year?" isn't a great question, but because they are different questions, and only the former question actually pushes us to talk about what happened in the year in question, which results in us learning far more.

Re: Paul needs the ball because of bad spacing. Nah, this is just how Paul has always been. He's a control freak who given his druthers would slow things down and make the entire possession's success be based on who him thinking his way past the defense. Put him in a scheme where the ball is really in his hands a lot less, and you're literally diminishing his best attribute. You probably know I'm a Nash guy - it'd be the exact same thing for him. Not that spacing isn't a good thing everywhere, but the ball is in these guys hands all the time because that's where it needs to be to max out their value.

And that style of play has time and time again, in different but far from entirely rosey situations nonetheless, proven to be highly effective way of putting points on the board, so where's the problem, Doc?

But why would put him in a scheme where the ball is less in his hands? That doesn't make sense to do in 99% of scenarios. Even Curry needs the ball in his hands a lot, otherwise he's simply a smaller Kyle Korver out there. Yeah, that's still more than what Paul would be with less on-ball time but still, are we sure we aren't just splitting hairs? So Curry can be something between Kyle Korver and Reggie Miller when he's not dominating the ball for your team. Definitely a valuable quality, but 1.) I don't think Paul would've been a slouch in a similar situation and 2.) the other team will just pick up Paul, hand him over the keys to the offense and try to put quality players that can benefit from his best attribute and probably end up with the a better offense than the team Curry plays for, unless the Curry team gets someone who has similar impact to Paul on-ball to set up the offense or they can construct a Spurs-type offense with a great on-ball threat PG and versatile lineup filled with shooters and some solid post presence etc. In both cases however that's not a Curry-led team in any imaginable stretch and even if he ends up being the best player on that team his offensive impact still doesn't touch Paul's, he do enables his team to potentially play better though.

I guess you and me are hitting some sort of wall where we cannot really allocate proper values for someone leading a team and someone enabling their team playing better while remaining the best player for that team. And how to decide which to glorify. Is this where the problem lies?

There is no problem, that's the point. You're insisting on their being some huge handicap Paul's dealing with. I'm telling you that the big stylistic difference you see is simply due to optimizing around the two stars in question who have different strengths.

And that doesn't mean Paul would be terrible in Curry's position or vice versa, just that we should be reluctant to give a guy the nod based on perceived handicap.

Re: bolded part. Actually that's not what I'm hitting you with, but it's a great point. And it's not a point that says Curry > Paul by any means, just a great point. It's actually something that in other contexts is a much bigger issue. If a coach leaves and the team falls apart, does that make him a better coach than the guy whose protege carries on the legacy? It shouldn't, but in the latter situation it's typically not clear whether the team is still good because the protege has been well groomed, or because the players are just that good, or something else.

Re: Curry is a whole different animal now, why? Well first let's say it's for no reason other than he's a scheme that better makes use of his talents. So what? I've said it for years: It never makes sense to look to split credit between player and coach. If the nature of the scheme makes a player look more valuable than he actually is that's one thing, but if the coach finds a way to make the player more valuable, that's two separate lines of credit.

Ok, so finally, after all these text walls, I've finally reached the bold part which was one of the answers I was looking for. HOWEVER, I disagree.

Credit should definitely be given where it's due. It's not that Kerr designed a scheme that made Curry shine, it's that Kerr designed a scheme where other players around Curry can make better use of what Curry brings to the table, which by the way, is the same things he brought last year. In turn, that means most of the changes the Warriors made this year on offense didn't even have anything to do with Curry as a player but had everything to do with how Kerr used the guys around Curry and if anything, actually stripped some of Steph's responsibilities. So I'm asking, why are we crediting Curry for something that Kerr designed, something the rest of the team bought into, and for the improvements his teammates made around him. It makes no sense.

Flip it around: Curry was less valuable before because a coach was telling him to do things wrong. Why are we punishing Curry because he had a coach who wasn't doing his job as good as he could have been?

And as I say this: Note that by no means does that mean that I think Curry should have won the MVP last year. That's my point about contextual value vs absolute goodness. Curry is more valuable than last year at least partly because he's in a better context. He's probably better period too, but even if he wasn't, he is more valuable now than before, and should be seen as a strong MVP candidate.

To try to take any other perspective here is untenable, because there's no reason to talk about either the Kerr year or the Jackson year as the "right" one. But even beyond that, as I mentioned above: You should judge a player based on what he can do in a healthy context, not based on some problematic one.

As I say this though, let me draw a distinction: The idea of a "system player" is based on production, not impact. It's problematic to judge a guy based on the context that maxes out his production, because he may be in a situation that allows for easy production for relatively replaceable players. But if you can provide impact within a context - actually lift a team up - that's real. There is no taking that away.

That also doesn't mean though that you simply rate whoever had the higher peak impact as the better player, because the other guy may have just been unfortunate in his contexts. You need to try to see the player outside of his contexts to truly judge who the better player is.

Also in terms of credit allocation: In general to me it just never makes sense to a manager and a worker against each other. If a guy manages a bunch of programmers and the department does great, no one thinks "Yeah but those guys can only code well because they have the right boss." A bad manager could screw them all up, but that's mostly on the manager. Bottom line is that if the manager can't code himself, then there's nothing good he can do that should make people think less of the people actually doing the coding.

But in addition to that Curry's a young guy whose game isn't based on being a superior physical specimen than everyone else. We should be expecting him to improve from year to year by trimming the fat on the little moments he now recognizes won't pan out, no? I just don't see where the skepticism comes from that a player like him wouldn't get better even if his box score didn't indicate improvement...which of course it does.

The improvements in boxs core aren't anything massive by themselves, let alone when you realize that it's more a byproduct of the overall improvements the Warriors as a team have made collectively this year that allowed mostly everyone to get boosted numbers. I'm talking invididually. For example, I can see where Klay has improved individually as a player this year compared to last year. Sorry but Curry's the same player, just playing in a much healthier and better team environment.

Curry's PER and BPM are considerably stronger than they were the year before. If when you look at the box score you don't see improvements, that only indicates that you're not seeing the box score the way metrics see it.

Re: Byproduct. Well it's covered above, but again: Mark Jackson has no freaking right to set the bar for what Steph Curry is as a player, and your thinking does just that. Consider how you'd see Curry if Jackson had actually known how offense works in the modern NBA.

Okay, sorry, that's all I have time for. Cheers mate!

[cpower]

Curry still No.1

[TRNBA12]

Anyone except me is seriously considering CP instead of Curry as no 1 player this season?

I mean, we're certain that Paul is the better individual defensive player, aren't we? I believe I've spotted some articles during the season arguing Paul's defensive impact and Dr.Spaceman has also dedicated several paragraphs in which he spoke quite highly of Paul on the defensive end. I'm not sure how Paul and Curry compare to each other in that regard, because in the grand scope of things, both really do not represent a major element in their team's respective defensive schemes, it's more what the other guys are doing individually, collectively and systematically.

On the other hand, we can agree upon the claim that both Paul and Curry are the centerpieces and the most important members of their team's offense. In that case, why do I get a feeling that there's a consensus that Curry is the best offensive player in the league? There's the argument that Curry has lead his team to more wins, more success and that the Warriors play incredible with Curry on the court, so much so that he doesn't even have to engage in 4th quarter action very often due to the Warriors cruising over almost every team pre-4th quarter.

From what I've gathered from Sideshow Bob's posts in this thread, where he analyzed how the best teams have performed with various lineups over the course of the year, the numbers have shown us that the Clippers with Paul on the court actually performed better than the Warriors with Curry offensively, both teams with their standard/best lineups. The Clippers were on average already the best offensive team in the league this year with the #1 ORtg (112.5) and it was 1 point higher when Paul, Griffin and Reddick were all playing together. Moreoever, when Blake returned from injuries at the end of the season the Clippers played even better and peaked at 115 ORtg.

The Warriors were never as good as the Clippers on offense, not on average and not peak-wise. So Paul carried a better offense than Curry and this can not even be disputed through contextualizing supporting casts because all indicators point to Curry also having more help on offense. Yes, (67 games of) Griffin is most likely the 3rd best offensive player on both teams (although Klay shouldn't be taken lightly here, 22 ppg on 59%TS with all-time great floor spacing is no joke) but after that it gets pretty gloom for CP3. Clippers simply don't have the depth, the shooting/spacing, the passing, the ball-handling the overall versatility on offense that Golden State have. Outside of their top two offensive threats, Bogut (solid low post threat/great big man passer), Barnes & Barbosa (great shooters), Iguodala (his versatility and ability to play the Point Forward is well documented), Green (another swiss knife type player, underrated passer), Speights/whatever minutes Lee played this year (stretch 4's) and Livingston (a big guard who can play in the post, an underreted passer as well). CP3 had Reddick and Crawford (who scored on below league average efficiency), outside of that there were guys like DeAndre Jordan, Matt Barnes, Austin Rivers, Spencer Hawes, Big Baby Davis etc. All horrible offensive players who do nothing without Paul's virtuoso play on offense.

Sum-up:

- Both Curry and CP3 don't really have monumental impact on defense from the guard position but most evidence point to CP3 being better individually. Dr. Spaceman would even argue Paul being one of the best defensive guards in the league, I honestly haven't done enough research to co-sing to that but alas, advantage Paul.

- Both Curry and CP3 are their team's best offensive players with monumental impact on that side of the court. CP3 led a better offense on average and peak-wise throughout the year with arguably a weaker supporting cast. Personally, I can see how Curry's superiority as a scoring threat (both on-ball and off-ball) and the pressure he creates with his GOAT shooting ability can trump the advantage Paul has in terms of playmaking but really the numbers don't support that, advantage Paul.

So if we concluded that Paul allegedly has an advantage over Curry on both sides of the court individually, the question to ask ourselves now is whether we've given too much credit to Curry for the amazing season the Warriors have put up this year and not enough credit to his team. Offensively there's the Kerr factor + the massive improvements of Klay and especially on defense (which is clearly anchored by Bogut + Dray & several good, athletic, versatile defenders) which was already outstanding last year.

Good post but I feel Redick's offensive impact should get more play in this discussion, to me he's one of the best offensive SGs in the league. 16.4 pts (19.1 per 36) on elite efficiency (.622 TS%, 118 ORTG) and commands elite floor stretch respect on his jumper. Redick's 16.4ppg ranks 9th on Hollinger's scoring leaders for SG behind Harden, Klay, Wade, Derozan, Butler (probably should be listed at SF), Ellis, Oladipo, Evans so it's not like his volume scoring rates that badly, certainly I would take Redick offensively over players like Derozan, Oladipo, Ellis, Evans who score more but have their numbers marred by efficiency and spacing problems. If counting Butler and Korver as SFs personally I would say Redick had a top 5 offensive season at SG in the league this year and when added to having Blake, an ultra efficient lob target in Deandre and another solid 3pt shooter in Barnes, the Clippers supporting cast is deadly on the offensive end and the combination of choosing between 3pt shooting or high efficiency scores at the rim makes them a machine. To me the argument in favor of the Clippers starting lineup offensively would be taking JJ and Deandre over Draymond and Bogut on that end, if Curry/Klay/Barnes and Paul/Griffin/Barnes is considered close to a wash. I agree that part of the Warriors success is ball movement and Kerr doing more interesting things offensively than the overrated Doc, but Curry's style of play compared to cerebral ball dominating Paul, may also help in that department

[E-Balla]

With the series done I can say Curry is still at the top (34/5/7 on 61 TS!) and Davis moved up to third for now (32/11/2 on 61 TS).

Honestly Davis might've just had the best first series ever.

[HeartBreakKid]

Who do you guys think was better, Curry or Davis in their playoff series?

[ardee]

Not that he's in this discussion, but since this is basically a Playoff thread, how about Draymond... He's averaging 16/13/6 with 3 steals. So unbelievably versatile.

[ardee]

I am warming up to ranking Paul no. 2. No disrespect to Harden, who was fantastic. Paul is just ethereal in the Playoffs so far.

[Reservoirdawgs]

I am warming up to ranking Paul no. 2. No disrespect to Harden, who was fantastic. Paul is just ethereal in the Playoffs so far.

Granted, it's only been four games, but in the playoffs Harden is averaging a 65 TS%, 34 AST%, 28.5/4.3/7.8. Paul also has a fantastic 65 TS%, 29 AST%, 23.5/5.3/6. As great of a year that Paul had, I think that Harden's better RS and comparable PS would still push the dial in his favor.

[The-Power]

Who do you guys think was better, Curry or Davis in their playoff series?

It's a pretty interesting question and I'm a little bit disappointed that nobody gave an opinion so far. In my opinion, it's worth its own thread and I would encourage you to make a separate thread for this question - or I'll do it myself, if you don't mind.

Both were extremely (and equally) efficient while scoring more than 30 PPG. Curry scored more per 100 possessions (44.3 vs. 38.2) although it's not like Davis couldn't have scored more if his teammates gave him the ball more often - he could create a good shot whenever he had the ball in his hands. Davis had much more impact on the defensive end of course, while Curry is obviously the superior playmaker. The Pelicans ran a lot of plays through Davis, but for the Warriors almost every play involved some action of Curry.

Where Curry has the edge in my opinion is defensive attention. Don't get me wrong, the Warriors focused on stopping Davis but not the whole game plan was predicated on it. The main reason was Green, who managed to bother AD in one-on-one situations at least enough to not completely focus on somehow getting the ball out of AD's hands as soon as he touches it. Sure, there was also a lot of team effort but, as I stated, we didn't need to solely focus on stopping Davis. The Pelicans' approach, however, was apparently entirely based on not letting Curry get any (decent) shots (especially from the perimeter). He not only had the most influence on their game plan, he basically was the only one who had an influence - to say it a little exaggerated, but still essentially true. He still managed to play at a ridiculously high level while also, due to his presence alone, making life much easier for his teammates. Of course Davis' presence helped his teammates as well, but I don't think to the same extent.

That's why I value Curry's bigger impact on his team's offense higher than the clear edge Davis' had on defense. I feel pretty comfortable in choosing Steph here, but it's not completely unreasonable to pick Davis. I'm looking forward to read more opinions on this topic.

[Mutnt]

So yeah, some of this here is you just taking a more extreme perspective out of my statements that I had any intention of giving. I certainly don't assume Curry will be more impactful than everyone else because of his shooting, I just think his shooting makes it very difficult to put a ceiling on what his impact truly is.

Obviously, but doesn't that apply to the concept of playmaking as well? I mean, assist-derived stats and metrics aren't even close to accurately represent the impact of an all-time great playmaker such as Paul. For example, especially with volume playmakers, there are numerous instances throughout games where Paul will do his job but the possession will be statistically credited as 'a fail' because the recipient of the pass will not convert on the assist, even though Paul did most of the work and got the open man a good look in what should be his comfort zone which is what offenses should strive for anyway.

Point being that we can argue which impact is more measurable ''shooting-based gravity'' or ''scrambling defenses/making plays'' but I think we should both agree that it's definitely difficult to put a precise ceiling on both of those qualities, not only the shooting one.

Re: Magic; era. The general conclusion I've reached is that playmaking is more valuable than it used to be, and thus your typical volume scorer is less valuable than in the past.

Yes. So that confirms what I've said - a player of Paul's qualities also benefits in this era. Does he benefit more than Curry? I don't know, I'm not confident enough to make that claim because Curry is godlike player but looking at what Paul did with really not that stacked of an offensive assembly makes me wonder what his (and also players like Nash, Magic; ok Nash not so much, he was already part of an extremely potent offensive assembly) ceiling really is in a context that would benefit more from his skills.

Big thing here: Paul is already in this era where we can see his impact stats. If they were above everyone else, then I'd be saying as much. They aren't. They are fantastic, but they aren't clearly ahead of Curry's. And so that's where I came in: Why the assumption of Paul in your mind? As I've stated, if I've attributed to extreme a stance from you fine, but I myself am not showing an extreme stance. All I'm doing is following what all I see, but quantitatively and qualitatively, and I'm giving qualitative points that seem relevant to your assertions.

Uhm, ok. But just being in an era and actually playing on a team that reflects the current meta successfully are two different things, are they not? The Clippers are far away from playing as a meta team. For me, the only clear cut meta teams (these are; teams that utilize ball-movement, spacing and shooting at it's highest level) in the NBA right now are the Warriors, the Hawks and the Spurs. Curry plays for one of those teams, Paul does not. Therefore, even though we know what Paul's impact is, we only know what his impact is in the context of how the Clippers plays (which is not, and I repeat NOT anywhere close to the way the above three teams play - and this is also the meta way, which has in the last couple of years proven to be the most successful) and his impact is phenomenal in that respect.

I don't like playing hypotheticals but I can't help but wonder the offensive ceiling of a team that has Paul playing in a meta-type basketball environment... And we are already talking about a guy that is leading the best offensive team in the league which is a non-meta team. Take what the Hawks are doing, they are a Top 5 offensive team in the league with Teague as their catalyst. Picture CP3 there instead of Teague and imagine what that team would look like.

Now before you go all ''But CP3 would have to relinquish his 'control-freak' style of basketball for the Hawks to successfully run their system and I'm not sure if he can blabla''. Really? Not putting words in your mouth but I'm just flinging this out as a possibility of something you might bring up and I see no reason why a player of Paul's skills couldn't thrive in a system that turns Jeff Teague into an all-star.

Point being: Until I see CP3 in a meta-like system and/or with at least a better offensive cast I will refrain from calling Curry the better offensive player. The way the Warriors are set up now I think they're already getting close to the maximum of what they can from benefiting off Curry's abilites. From here on out it's only a matter of how Steph plays individually. Right now his scoring has been mighty impressive in the post-season so far and if he can improve upon as a scorer while remaining similarly efficient I will definitely stand firmer on the Curry bandwagon. I'll wait until this year is over. As far as CP3 goes, I don't think the Clippers are set up to maximize what he can bring offensively, yet they still manage to be the best offensive team in the league. That's impressive to me and that's why I'm kinda arguing for Paul here.

Why is Curry's benefit relevant then? Because I'm not using to argue that Curry is better, I'm using it to essentially saying, "What's so hard to believe about the numbers given how well suited Curry is to the era?".

That's not hard to believe. What's hard to believe is Paul doesn't do better than what he's doing right now playing for the Warriors or any of the meta teams given that this meta also suits Paul as a player not only Curry. Even if you might disagree.

And you might say ''Well, he's not doing better, so why so hypothetical?''. Because you are using metrics that are highly dependent on a separate deal of contexts which vary from player to player and while they do capture impact that impact is not represented as true value; that is the impact of the player within his context in relation to what and how much his teammates are or aren't doing.

You know what I can't wrap my head around honestly. If Curry was clearly ahead of Paul as you are alluding to in pretty much every single metric then why don't the Warriors have the best offense in the league? It should be easy for them in that case. And don't tell me because they sacrifice offense or they are, outside their point-guards, worse offensively then the Clippers. You'd have to sell some incredible stuff for me to buy that. Also note that good defense translates into offense (more possessions, easy transition/half-transition points, opponent defense is forced to pick up bad matchups etc.) so there's another advantage for the Warriors.

As Zach Lowe says: He is the glitch in the matrix. The entire reason for this paradigm shift is that superstars in Curry's position can't hit shots contested 3's, but Curry can. This changes everything, and gives us every reason to think that his impact may balloon even more than great playmakers.

The meta shifted way before Curry though. And while I agree Curry just may be the right mold of skill to take offensive impact to the next level he's not having that type of impact now.

Re: "ability to be threatening from the outside is laughably bad". I don't know what to say about this. If you take Curry & Paul's 3's out of the totals, here's what the rest of the team did:

Warriors: 597 3's, shooting 38.0%.
Clippers: 688 3's, shooting 37.1%.

Forget about arguing which is better for a moment: They are both phenomenal. The Clippers sans Paul would have the best % in the league other than the Hawks and the Warriors while still shooting more 3's than an average NBA team. How can you look at that and talk about the Clippers as being laughably bad from the outside? I'm happy to give Paul a lot of credit for making it happen, but the Clippers have been very successful from the outside.

LMAO, come on Doc, you trying to pull a fast one on me? you know that can't be right.

First off, the Warriors w/o Curry consist of:

Klay - 77 G, 32 MPG, 3.1/7.1 - 44% 3PT
Barnes - 82 G, 28 MPG, 1.1/2.6 - 40% 3PT
Barbosa - 66 G, 15 MPG, 0.7/1.7 - 38% 3PT
Iguodala - 77 G, 27 MPG, 1.0/2.8 - 35% 3PT
Green - 79 G, 32 MPG, 1.4/4.2 - 34% 3PT
Holiday - 59 G, 11 MPG, 0.6/1.8 - 32% 3PT

This are literary all the guys that shot threes for the Warriors this season in efficiency order.Outside of Holiday all key, major rotation players. Now let's take a look at the Clippers.

Hudson - 5 G, 11 MPG, 0.6/1.2 - 50% 3PT (who the f?)
Hamilton - 14 G, 9 MPG, 0.7/1.5 - 48% 3PT (who the f again?)
Redick - 78 G, 31 MPG, 2.6/5.9 - 44% 3PT (ok, first key player)
Turkoglu - 62 G, 11 MPG, 1.0/2.2 - 43% 3PT (fringe rotation Holiday-esque player)
Griffin - 67 G, 35 MPG, 0.1/0.4 - 40% 3PT (the mighty stealth bomber Griffin with his 0.4 attempts per game boosting dat average)
Bullock - 25 G, 10 MPG, 0.6/1.6 - 39% 3PT (who the f, part 3)
Wilcox - 21 G, 5 MPG, 0.3/0.9 - 37% 3PT (who the f, part 4, seriously never heard of the guy until now)
Barnes - 76 G, 30 MPG, 1.8/4.9 - 36% 3PT (oh look, we've come to another key player, lucky us)
Farmar - 36 G, 15 MPG, 1.0/2.7 - 36% 3PT (playing for Darüşşafaka Doğuş in Turkey as we speak)
Robinson - 9 G, 14 MPG, 0.8/2.2 - 35% 3PT (even lil' Nate decided to join this party, how nice)
Crawford - 64 G, 27 MPG, 1.9/5.7 - 33% 3PT (3rd key player, yay)
Hawes - 73 G, 18 MPG, 0.8/2.4 - 31% 3PT
Rivers - 41 G, 19 MPG, 0.6/2.0 - 31% 3PT

So out of all these wonderful shooters the Clippers had this season, we've got guys like Hudson, Hamilton, Bullock, Wilcox who barely get minutes. Farmar and Robinson are off the team. A fringe rotational player in Turkoglu filling the Justin Holiday role. And Griffin who's posing as an efficient three-point shooter but really isn't even an option out there.

Once we take out the trash. Out of the guys actually playing heavy or at least meaningful minutes out there that are shooting threes we have:

Redick - 78 G, 31 MPG, 2.6/5.9 - 44% 3PT
Barnes - 76 G, 30 MPG, 1.8/4.9 - 36% 3PT
Crawford - 64 G, 27 MPG, 1.9/5.7 - 33% 3PT
Hawes - 73 G, 18 MPG, 0.8/2.4 - 31% 3PT
Rivers - 41 G, 19 MPG, 0.6/2.0 - 31% 3PT

Now to quote you quoting me: ''How can you look at that and talk about the Clippers as being laughably bad from the outside?'' Well, Doc, how can you?

I realize as I say that that one can then move the goal posts and say something like "All those guys suck and Paul just makes them good.", but fundamentally here you're insisting on calling those guys a problem for team spacing, and the reality is they are functioning well.

No, fundamentally they suck. The reality is they aren't functioning well. There's Redick who's elite and there's Barnes who's solid. Everyone else outside of Paul is either not playing, off the roster or plain sucks at taking threes. Hawes and Griffin stretch the floor to some degree but Hawes is a bad three point shooter and Griffin doesn't shoot threes, Blake stretches up to mid-range and even there the defense is okay with him shooting it. Crawford shooting 33% on 6 attempts is definitely not ''functioning well'' and Rivers is one of the last guys you want to have open on the three point line.

Re: good teams will guard Curry this post-season. People keep saying stuff like this and it's weird. This isn't Harden here - a guy who has struggled in the playoffs. Curry first became a superstar BECAUSE of the playoffs. If you've been watching Curry these past two years in the post-season, what you've seen is that even intense playoff defenses really struggle against Curry because of the fact that pressuring his shot doesn't help as much as it does for normal stars and he's an able and willing passer.

I'm not suggesting Curry is gonna struggle, I was more alluding to being interested in how the better defenses will play Curry. How much are they gonna chase/switch/double, how much are they gonna allow him to shoot in contrast to making plays for others etc.

It has its flaws but there's no substitute for using it, and it shouldn't seem bizarre when someone says "We know Player X has impact that can't be quantified by conventional means, and when we look at the regression data this guy looks huge precisely where we would predict he might be." Find to say "I get it, but given the noise I'm still reluctant to give him the nod here.", but our exchange started with you writing a very long post on the subject without touching on this stuff at all. And while I can't fault you for not mentioning every counterpoint to your own argument, I would hope that when this stuff is pointed out you'd indicate where your own uncertainties are due to what these numbers indicate.

It's not that I'm skeptical about the ability of RAPM and similar +/- stats to measure what they're design to measure but rather that what it measures is not completely translated into ''Player X looks better in RAPM than Player Y; ERGO no reason to believe Player X less impactful than Player Y''. There are several factors outside the individual impact of a player that have an effect the outcome of RAPM that need to be taken into account.

Curry ranks better by RAPM and RPM yet. He also looks better by PER, WS/48, and BPM. And these are basically the sum total of the major all-in-one stats used commonly right now, so frankly I'm confused when you're like "Numbers? What numbers?". All of them. If you're using numbers to try to directly assess which guy is doing better right now, Curry beats Paul on everything.

Except leading a better offense

This is why it's hard for me to mount an argument for Paul. I can craft a narrative where he's the true MVP, but I can't point to anything objective that backs it up. On all fronts I'd have to say, "and yeah Curry looks better statistically, but it's close enough that you can't just go by that".

How about leading the best offense in the league with not the greatest of casts or healthiest of contexts, overrated three point shooting and close-to-last offensive rebounding. Having to play behind a mediocre defense instead of the best defense in the league like Curry does?

Look, in reality, I'm not trying to push some sort of agenda for Paul over Curry this year, because I honestly couldn't care less, but something about the Clippers puzzles me in the sense that they shouldn't really be this good on offense. I look at that team and see them having major flaws, I see lack of reliable shooting, I see lack of versatility and depth, I see the defense not really aiding their offense, I see several changes were made to the team during the year, I see several injuries the team has sustained during the year, yet they somehow come on top. So I wonder how are they doing it and everything naturally starts and ends with Paul being quietly amazing like he has his whole career.

Re: Shooting of other guys like Klay, and getting into Paul's shooting. I don't consider what Thompson's doing to be on the same planet as Curry. Emphasizing what I've said before: This is the era for off-ball shooting. What we've found is that if you're in position to shoot the 3, and someone gives you a good pass, it's vastly easier to hit it than to do so off the dribble.

Okay, point-taken, Curry is in a whole different universe, but having another shooter on the roster that can stroke them down like Klay is invaluable. Obviously, since you have Curry on-ball, you don't need a Jamal Crawford/Dion Waiters type of guy who's gonna pound the ball and pass up catch-and-shoot situations. You need a guy like Klay, Klay perfectly compliments Curry since he doesn't need the ball and he's an elite catch and shoot player. And Klay is much more than a shooter too, he's like a copy of Ray Allen in his early days out there.

Point being: Curry's historical prowess in being unprecedentedly good at shooting and hitting shots without any assistance doesn't take away from the impact of a strong off-ball threat with elite shooting capabilities like Klay.

I don't consider anyone doing what Curry is doing but Klay should be acknowledged properly for his massive contributions as a shooter and off-ball option. Pairing those two together is just bonkers.

See the Unassisted numbers above. To use related number: 90.8% of Thompson's 3's are assisted. For guys who shoot a lot of 3's, this is only possible if you're basically a catch & shoot guy most of the time. He's not creating his own 3's to anywhere near the extent of Curry or even Paul.

He doesn't need to. Being an off-ball catch n' shoot threat is a whole different dynamic. It's one that Curry excels in as well, no one is denying that, but we're arguing about the application of defensive attention here and Klay sucks more than his fair share. You definitely can't leave him open all the same if he's playing the ''catch and shoot/off-ball'' role or if he's having the ball on top of the key. It's just that when he IS covered by the defense it's less likely that he'll hit them compared to Curry.

Re: can't be ignored taking a bad team to a contender. It's not ignored. Lift is factored in, and so is the scalability of that lift. The latter is something that will be informed by how healthy the context is, but I'm fine with everyone using their own holistic judgment here. The key point though isn't so much that I think there's something fundamentally un-scalable about Paul as it is that it is really, really difficult for a team to click as well as the Warriors have this year. We haven't seen it happen since Jordan. And while there's luck involved, when we ask ourselves "How did the Warriors do it?", the big thing we coming back to is stuff enabled by Curry's unique skill set.

Right, but that doesn't mean that a guy like Paul doesn't have a different but all the same unique skill set that would enable his team to produce similar results, we just have not seen it yet in its full blossom because teams have repeteadly failed to fully maximize his skillset. And if you think it's easier to optimize a team's offensive output with a player like Curry than with a player like Paul then cool, it's definitely something I'm thinking about too but I'm not so quick to pull the trigger on either side so far.

Well sure, but a couple things:

1. You said before than Nash & Paul were pretty similar and I didn't respond, but the reality is they are very different. Paul is a control-freak not simply in the sense that he's ball-dominant, but that his game is predicated on turnover-prevention more than it is attack-maximization. While I don't really feel strongly about Nash over Paul overall - could easily make the argument Paul is better - I've always been more concerned about Paul's offensive ceiling on this front than Nash's. As such while I definitely will be applying what I'm saying about Curry to Nash comparisons, it's not quite relevant to what my point was there.

Okay. Fair enough, bu I'm sensing that you're talking about attack-maximization as necessarily a good thing. Why is that? I wouldn't call Paul's game turnover-prevention, he's just attack-efficient. Maybe call him some sort of perfectionista. He will push when he feels like it's good to push, he'll slow down when he feels the team is doing better in half-court, he won't waste silly possessions trying risky things like Nash and Magic did, he will try to get the best possible shot within the shot-clock, find the miss-match or open guy and not just the first one available like Nash and Magic often did. I guess, in that sense, Paul isn't maximizing the offense as much as he could, but is that a bad thing? Maybe the overall offensive ceiling of the team will look worse but how does Paul's style of play impacts the game as a whole? The opposing team has to adjust their defense constantly, they get less opportunities themselves to push and control the tempo etc. Every action has an equal or opposite reaction type thing.

2. I wouldn't get to caught up into what I'm saying about Magic. Certainly I try to be fair and objective, but he played in a very different era. As such when I say "Yeah, Magic could probably do more today.", it's much more of a guess than it is to make statements between guys who've played in the current era.

Ok, but seeing Curry now, does it kinda make you reevaluate how you look at maximizing or building optimal offenses in a sense that you favor scoring/spacing/shooting over volume playmaking? In that case Magic would be affected if we are debating all-time great offensive players even though Magic played in a different era, many people still claim that he would undoubtedly remain the best offensive player in any case.

Last year I ranked Curry 3rd and Paul 4th.
Year before Paul 3rd and Curry 4th.

So, probably with that you're thinking "Whoa, dude was wacko out there before, but at least he's consistently wacko.".

But I will say: I have no problem stating that I rate Curry considerably strong than last year. So what has changed?

Well, Curry isn't playing as he always has. He's playing in a different scheme this year, obviously. He's still shooting a lot of 3's etc, because of course he is, but the actions he's taking on average are considerably more effective than they were before, because primarily his options have gotten better.

Does that make him suspect? "The old Curry impact was the real Curry impact!" Nah, basketball doesn't work like that. When coaches come in and craft a smart scheme for a player, THAT is when you can truly judge the player. A dumb coach insisting Shaq should play point guard doesn't make Shaq a worse player, just a less effective one in that context. It will cost Shaq the MVP, but it won't change what Shaq actually is.

Well, can't fault the consistency

I don't think the Shaq example is a good one in this case though. Playing Shaq at the PG spot would mean you're basically taking all his qualities and throwing them out the window to put him in a role he simply can't play effectively. It's an extreme. With Curry, it's not like the Warriors played him at Center last season and then Kerr came through the door and said: ''Ohh, you dummies, why is Steph playing in the post? He should be outside running around, causing havoc, shooting threes, you guys are so dumb... Now watch me totally remold this player's role and we'll become a Godly team.'' - It wasn't even close to that. It's was more along the lines of: ''Ok Steph, you keep doing what you've always been doing, I'll just switch the starting lineup a bit, get these guys to play together because they synergize better, give you more shooters, better off-ball action, more options to pass to. What? Mark Jackson didn't run any plays on offense, OK, we will practice some more plays in there on offense. Iguodala will move to the bench because we don't need worse shooting and our secondary playmaker playing with our primary one, hey, have you heard Klay Thompson is much improved coming in this year, we'll give you a better Klay Thompson too, how about more depth on the bench?

So again, why is Curry getting credit for what people around him are doing? There's where most of the impact is coming in terms of Warriors being a better team.

To be clear: When I do a GOAT list, I do try to an extent for "curve" for fit. If a player had weaker fit on his roster because management was idiotic, I'm reluctant to call them a worse player in an absolute sense. But there's never going to be a time where I say "That guy should win the MVP, because he would have been the most valuable player if his teammates fit better with him."

In relation to the MVP award; me neither. But when I see a guy who might be having more individual impact and isn't because his team is incompetent and can't put the proper pieces or run the proper system around him, or injuries screw them up or whatever, I don't proclaim said guy as worse than Korver because Korver is God in Atlanta if you catch what I'm saying. We become trapped in a Boogie Cousins vs. Korver paradigm. Who's the better player? Who's more impactful? Who's more valuable for their team?(disclaimer: pls don't take it as me saying Cousins is a prefect player without fault held back by his team)

You feel me? On one hand we have Cousins, massive production, very good in several areas of basketball, first option on his team all that jazz, but ultimately he's put on his own team with inept managment, coaching changes and a bunch of mediocre players and he's expected to carry them somewhere. On the other hand we have Korver, a role player throughout practically his whole career, he comes to Atlanta where they already have some decent pieces in place and an uprising team and the coach develops a system that makes emphasizes what everyone on that team does best and Korver happens to be a main cog in that system that allows others to do what they do more effectively. How do we judge players on the basis of these two extremely different contexts?

Flip it around: Curry was less valuable before because a coach was telling him to do things wrong. Why are we punishing Curry because he had a coach who wasn't doing his job as good as he could have been?

No, he was equally valuable because he brought the same things Everyone else around him got a better understanding how to play off what he's doing more effectively and raised their own impact around him and here we are.
today.

To try to take any other perspective here is untenable, because there's no reason to talk about either the Kerr year or the Jackson year as the "right" one. But even beyond that, as I mentioned above: You should judge a player based on what he can do in a healthy context, not based on some problematic one.

Ok, but the problem is we don't know what most players ''healthy'' context is because 90% of the players don't ever achieve said optimal context. It may be a very good context for them, sure, but also a lot of times their extreme talent allows them to make up for several weaknesses of the team. This is why so many people prefer Duncan over Garnett. if Garnett stayed to rot in Minnesota,and we would have never seen how he can be optimized in Boston (where he was past his prime mind you), would Garnett have been a worse player in your eyes? I mean, you clearly couldn't tell if he was capable of doing what he did in Boston if he never went to that situation, so how could you judge him in comparison to Duncan, you couldn't... Ok, you had the RAPM numbers telling you he had massive impact in Minnesota, but outside of that, you couldn't really point to many metrics that would confirm him having outter-wordly impact on defense. He was leading mediocre to bad defenses in Minny.

So I'd be definitely careful when looking at contexts. In terms of optimization, there can certainly be huge difference between a problematic context, an okay healthy context and a godlike context depending on how different players react to different contexts. Some better, some worse.

As I say this though, let me draw a distinction: The idea of a "system player" is based on production, not impact. It's problematic to judge a guy based on the context that maxes out his production, because he may be in a situation that allows for easy production for relatively replaceable players. But if you can provide impact within a context - actually lift a team up - that's real. There is no taking that away.

That also doesn't mean though that you simply rate whoever had the higher peak impact as the better player, because the other guy may have just been unfortunate in his contexts. You need to try to see the player outside of his contexts to truly judge who the better player is.

Curry's PER and BPM are considerably stronger than they were the year before. If when you look at the box score you don't see improvements, that only indicates that you're not seeing the box score the way metrics see it.

I definitely see improvements, never claimed I didn't, I just don't think that they are fundamentally so massive that they would transform Curry from Top 5 player last year into contender for GOAT offensive player or something.

Re: Byproduct. Well it's covered above, but again: Mark Jackson has no freaking right to set the bar for what Steph Curry is as a player, and your thinking does just that. Consider how you'd see Curry if Jackson had actually known how offense works in the modern NBA.

[/quote][/quote]

But Jackson didn't set the bar, Curry set the bar. He always sets his own bar. Other Warrior players (with the help of Kerr & coaching taff) just got over said bar better than they did under Mark Jackson. The bar is still pretty much where it was last year.

[Doctor MJ]

Mutnt, I just don't have time to respond to everything you say right now. Much will have to go unanswered. It's cool you have so much thought on the subject though.

I am going to take the time to highlight one thing in particular because it's not about opinion, it's about there being a confusion of facts - either by me or by you.

Re: "ability to be threatening from the outside is laughably bad". I don't know what to say about this. If you take Curry & Paul's 3's out of the totals, here's what the rest of the team did:

Warriors: 597 3's, shooting 38.0%.
Clippers: 688 3's, shooting 37.1%.

Forget about arguing which is better for a moment: They are both phenomenal. The Clippers sans Paul would have the best % in the league other than the Hawks and the Warriors while still shooting more 3's than an average NBA team. How can you look at that and talk about the Clippers as being laughably bad from the outside? I'm happy to give Paul a lot of credit for making it happen, but the Clippers have been very successful from the outside.

LMAO, come on Doc, you trying to pull a fast one on me? you know that can't be right.

First off, the Warriors w/o Curry consist of:

Klay - 77 G, 32 MPG, 3.1/7.1 - 44% 3PT
Barnes - 82 G, 28 MPG, 1.1/2.6 - 40% 3PT
Barbosa - 66 G, 15 MPG, 0.7/1.7 - 38% 3PT
Iguodala - 77 G, 27 MPG, 1.0/2.8 - 35% 3PT
Green - 79 G, 32 MPG, 1.4/4.2 - 34% 3PT
Holiday - 59 G, 11 MPG, 0.6/1.8 - 32% 3PT

This are literary all the guys that shot threes for the Warriors this season in efficiency order.Outside of Holiday all key, major rotation players. Now let's take a look at the Clippers.

Hudson - 5 G, 11 MPG, 0.6/1.2 - 50% 3PT (who the f?)
Hamilton - 14 G, 9 MPG, 0.7/1.5 - 48% 3PT (who the f again?)
Redick - 78 G, 31 MPG, 2.6/5.9 - 44% 3PT (ok, first key player)
Turkoglu - 62 G, 11 MPG, 1.0/2.2 - 43% 3PT (fringe rotation Holiday-esque player)
Griffin - 67 G, 35 MPG, 0.1/0.4 - 40% 3PT (the mighty stealth bomber Griffin with his 0.4 attempts per game boosting dat average)
Bullock - 25 G, 10 MPG, 0.6/1.6 - 39% 3PT (who the f, part 3)
Wilcox - 21 G, 5 MPG, 0.3/0.9 - 37% 3PT (who the f, part 4, seriously never heard of the guy until now)
Barnes - 76 G, 30 MPG, 1.8/4.9 - 36% 3PT (oh look, we've come to another key player, lucky us)
Farmar - 36 G, 15 MPG, 1.0/2.7 - 36% 3PT (playing for Darüşşafaka Doğuş in Turkey as we speak)
Robinson - 9 G, 14 MPG, 0.8/2.2 - 35% 3PT (even lil' Nate decided to join this party, how nice)
Crawford - 64 G, 27 MPG, 1.9/5.7 - 33% 3PT (3rd key player, yay)
Hawes - 73 G, 18 MPG, 0.8/2.4 - 31% 3PT
Rivers - 41 G, 19 MPG, 0.6/2.0 - 31% 3PT

So out of all these wonderful shooters the Clippers had this season, we've got guys like Hudson, Hamilton, Bullock, Wilcox who barely get minutes. Farmar and Robinson are off the team. A fringe rotational player in Turkoglu filling the Justin Holiday role. And Griffin who's posing as an efficient three-point shooter but really isn't even an option out there.

Once we take out the trash. Out of the guys actually playing heavy or at least meaningful minutes out there that are shooting threes we have:

Redick - 78 G, 31 MPG, 2.6/5.9 - 44% 3PT
Barnes - 76 G, 30 MPG, 1.8/4.9 - 36% 3PT
Crawford - 64 G, 27 MPG, 1.9/5.7 - 33% 3PT
Hawes - 73 G, 18 MPG, 0.8/2.4 - 31% 3PT
Rivers - 41 G, 19 MPG, 0.6/2.0 - 31% 3PT

Now to quote you quoting me: ''How can you look at that and talk about the Clippers as being laughably bad from the outside?'' Well, Doc, how can you?

I realize as I say that that one can then move the goal posts and say something like "All those guys suck and Paul just makes them good.", but fundamentally here you're insisting on calling those guys a problem for team spacing, and the reality is they are functioning well.

No, fundamentally they suck. The reality is they aren't functioning well. There's Redick who's elite and there's Barnes who's solid. Everyone else outside of Paul is either not playing, off the roster or plain sucks at taking threes. Hawes and Griffin stretch the floor to some degree but Hawes is a bad three point shooter and Griffin doesn't shoot threes, Blake stretches up to mid-range and even there the defense is okay with him shooting it. Crawford shooting 33% on 6 attempts is definitely not ''functioning well'' and Rivers is one of the last guys you want to have open on the three point line.

I'm looking at b-r now. Here are the first things I see for the team:

Clippers are 3rd in made 3's this year.
Clippers are 3rd in 3P% this year.

If those numbers are correct, then the Clippers are doing great from the outside. An elite 3-point shooting team.Simple as that.

I now look at the team details page to see if the numbers add up. They do.

I check on nba.com, just in case b-r.com went insane to see if everything agrees. It does.

I double check my math subtracting Paul's numbers. Yup, they are still elite in 3P% efficiency, and still shooting at volume that surpasses the average NBA team.

WTF dude? I honestly don't know what to say. Your disagreement seems so off from reality that I'm reluctant to even make further arguments. Respond to this stuff in earnest with the thought that you might have had a completely wrong picture about, well, everything. Not saying I'm flawless myself - maybe I'm just going crazy here, and if that's the case, please show me where exactly I've gotten confused.

I'll just say a few things that I'll try not to make to be arguments. Just statements.

1. I suppose the logical explanation for your confusion comes from you looking at each player's numbers individually as if they warrant equal weight. So first thing you should do is think on that specifically: The Clippers appear to have shot fantastically from 3 as a whole, even when you don't count Paul. The fact that they have many on their roster who don't shoot 3's as well as you'd like should not give you the impression the team sucks at shooting 3's.

2. By these same numbers, the Clippers skyrocketed in taking & making 3's this year. Again it's one of these weird things I have to ask: Have you actually updated your opinions on the Clippers from last year on this front?

3. I also have to note given your insistence that Paul is not playing on a "meta" team (btw, I don't know that expression. I assume you're using it as a slang of the prefix meta- and connecting that to some way mean "state of the art"): I think you're looking at what Paul's version of that actually looks like. Lots of 3's just like the Warriors, but with much more reliance on Paul's controlled playmaking brilliance, and thus less ball movement. As has been noted elsewhere: Ball movement is not the goal of an offense and teams are still succeeding with both a lot and very little of it compared to league norms. There are times when it's absolutely the right thing to do, and times when it's not so clear.

4. And last it occurs to me that in this talk of Curry getting to benefit from Kerr, what we really mean is benefit from Gentry who was the architect of the current Warrior offense...and who was in the same role last year for the Clippers.