'15-16 RealGM Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[SideshowBob]

Repost from Sat

Spoiler:

Cavaliers Postseason Adjusted Offense (ORTG minus opp DRTG):

05 PHO +17.0
56 MNL +14.0
01 LAL +13.6
03 POR +13.4
10 PHO +13.4
16 CLE +13.1

Cavaliers Postseason Adjusted Net Rating (Relative Offense + Defense, basically SRS per 100):

01 LAL +20.7
96 CHI +16.9
91 CHI +15.8
16 CLE +15.4

I can't tell you how awesome it is that you're compiling and sharing stuff like this SSB.

I honestly haven't been thinking about the Cavs as an all-time great performer, but clearly I need to start serious consideration on it.

I actually had some open follow up questions on those lines regarding GS and the Cavs but am holding out till after the game. Might as well go for it.

To all:

1. Regardless of tomorrow's outcome, what odds would you put on GS vs the past champions (say back to 00)?

2. Assuming Cleveland pulls this out:

If we replayed this series, how often would you expect Cleveland to win? Is this just variance - timely hot shooting from Lebron w/good defensive effort? Or is Cleveland/Lebron just really that good and chose to dial it up when necessary? Or do they just match up well? Or is GS just that hampered by injury across the board?

What odds would you give them vs past champs?

What does it say about the league and our evaluations if in a season with 2 teams that won 140G and put up >10 SRS, the Cavs were able to scale up to such a degree that they played like a 14-15 SRS team and won the whole thing?

[Doctor MJ]

Steve Kerr made some pretty questionable decisions these playoffs, if we're talking a coach that could have done better than him then I think Rick Carlisle and Brad Stevens would have done the job pretty well.

I think Carlisle is a HOF couch, so there to me it becomes a question of how you see COY. Pop to me is the GOAT coach, so I get those who say they vote for him every year, and Carlisle is arguably the next most GOAT-y coach out there right now.

Pop's issue to me when thinking of him along these lines is that in the end this season he went all in acquiring Aldrdige and making major changes to his team's play which in the end left them getting as far as I think they'd have gone if they had no Aldridge and Pop had retired last year.

Carlisle's issue is that his focus right now is essentially keeping Dallas on the treadmill. It's impressive work, but not really what strikes me as COY work.

Brad Stevens is of course the freshest young coaching prodigy we see, but like Carlisle, everything he's doing involves helping a team on to the treadmill right now. We've yet to see him do great things with great player talent, which means there's much yet we just don't know.

[JLei]

To all:

1. Regardless of tomorrow's outcome, what odds would you put on GS vs the past champions (say back to 00)?

2. Assuming Cleveland pulls this out:

If we replayed this series, how often would you expect Cleveland to win? Is this just variance - timely hot shooting from Lebron w/good defensive effort? Or is Cleveland/Lebron just really that good and chose to dial it up when necessary? Or do they just match up well? Or is GS just that hampered by injury across the board?

What odds would you give them vs past champs?

What does it say about the league and our evaluations if in a season with 2 teams that won 140G and put up >10 SRS, the Cavs were able to scale up to such a degree that they played like a 14-15 SRS team and won the whole thing?

[/quote][/quote]

Replay from scratch? Or replay the series right now with both teams having learned from the adjustments.

7/10 or 8/10 Warriors in the first case.
5-5 split (which means I favor Cleveland on a neutral court).

[Nbafanatic]

Steve Kerr made some pretty questionable decisions these playoffs, if we're talking a coach that could have done better than him then I think Rick Carlisle and Brad Stevens would have done the job pretty well.

I think Carlisle is a HOF couch, so there to me it becomes a question of how you see COY. Pop to me is the GOAT coach, so I get those who say they vote for him every year, and Carlisle is arguably the next most GOAT-y coach out there right now.

Pop's issue to me when thinking of him along these lines is that in the end this season he went all in acquiring Aldrdige and making major changes to his team's play which in the end left them getting as far as I think they'd have gone if they had no Aldridge and Pop had retired last year.

Carlisle's issue is that his focus right now is essentially keeping Dallas on the treadmill. It's impressive work, but not really what strikes me as COY work.

Brad Stevens is of course the freshest young coaching prodigy we see, but like Carlisle, everything he's doing involves helping a team on to the treadmill right now. We've yet to see him do great things with great player talent, which means there's much yet we just don't know.

What about Terry Stots, and the amazing work he did with the limited Blazers?

[PaulieWal]

JLei, can you remove the spoiler tag from your post. You broke the page lol.

[ceiling raiser]

Or is GS just that hampered by injury across the board?

I'm not sure. What did you (and others) think about Iggy in game 7? I'm not 100% positive, but I think he looked pretty spry and active. Though, there were a lot of possessions where he wasn't covering LeBron, not sure if that was intentional because of his health, a conscious decision based on matchups from Kerr, or if LeBron was just more successful getting switches more often.

Bogut is interesting. Wasn't a factor last year in the second half of the series, but games 5 and 6 were weird. Game 5, Green suspended, Bogut knocked out. Game 6, Iggy hurts his back and was limited. Meaning, for the bulk of those three games, these perimeter-interior combos vs Bron were not possible:

Iggy-Green
Iggy-Bogut
Green-Bogut

I think that's a big deal, since in the absence of one of those combos, LeBron can get to the rim at will. But, I do think Iguodala was healthy enough in game 7, that the result wouldn't have changed a ton, even if Bogut had Varejao's minutes. Still though, early in the game, the Iggy-Green combo made things difficult for LeBron driving, enough that had the lane been taken away in games 5 and 6 by enabling one of those three combos, we wouldn't have gotten to game 7. Then again, even given perfect health, LeBron was hitting his jumpers those two games, so that defense can't really shut him down. Definitely an interesting question

Curry, I don't know what to make of his injury. It played a part for sure (for a pretty basic litmus test, look at how much more effective TT was switched onto him this year as opposed to the Finals last season), but there were some aspects of his game that weren't a product of the injury (seemingly missing open shots more often than usual, maybe someone has some data on this; some careless mistakes/poor decision making when handling the ball/passing).

(BTW saw your post on APBRmetrics after mine. We are indeed shameless lol.)

[PaulieWal]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/744956779319046145[/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/744958750910353408[/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/744959624856506368[/tweet]

Especially that 2nd tweet. It will turn the NBA on its head and perhaps bring back the need to have guys who can ISO. Which funny enough the Cavs have the answer too. Keep working until Curry gets switched onto James/ Irving and then manhandle him to force a collapse.

Warriors don't have a guy who can ISO like that. Against a switching defense you just find the mismatch.

Question...I am a little unclear on those tweets. Wasn't Miami in 12, 13 doing the whole switching thing already? It wasn't on every possession but it certainly did happen a lot when they put out their small-ball lineup with Battier/Bosh/LeBron as the bigs.

I do agree in general to beat GSW you need to be able to switch everything and your big has to be able to guard Curry which is what Love did last night and TT did much better than last year.

I also do wonder how much of that was because of Curry's bad knee supposedly. If he's healthy next year does the switching defense become irrelevant again?

[JLei]

JLei, can you remove the spoiler tag from your post. You broke the page lol.

Dunno how. I just quoted lol.

[MisterHibachi]

I'll leave these tweets here from harlabob. So much to dissect. We've praised GS for being ahead of the game (oh and they weren't afraid to pat themselves on the back too). When teams finally caught up in strategy to Spurs/GSW (switching)/ manipulating the rules (illegal screening/ mugging off ball) their advantage was bound to go down.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/744956779319046145[/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/744958750910353408[/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/744959624856506368[/tweet]

Especially that 2nd tweet. It will turn the NBA on its head and perhaps bring back the need to have guys who can ISO. Which funny enough the Cavs have the answer too. Keep working until Curry gets switched onto James/ Irving and then manhandle him to force a collapse.

Warriors don't have a guy who can ISO like that. Against a switching defense you just find the mismatch.

He's really laying into Curry right now. And yeah, he seems to be predicting a league wide move to a switching defense. Would be interesting, because for the past few years the standard bearer on pick and roll defense has been the Thibs style defense, which Curry destroys. A switching defense, if used league wide, really puts into question how effective the pick and roll will be going forward and will be all due to Curry.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/NateDuncanNBA/status/744964774706831360[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/744985304868610048[/tweet]

[PaulieWal]

JLei, can you remove the spoiler tag from your post. You broke the page lol.

Dunno how. I just quoted lol.

Yeah, remove that post and it will be fixed.

[MyUniBroDavis]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/744956779319046145[/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/744958750910353408[/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/744959624856506368[/tweet]

Especially that 2nd tweet. It will turn the NBA on its head and perhaps bring back the need to have guys who can ISO. Which funny enough the Cavs have the answer too. Keep working until Curry gets switched onto James/ Irving and then manhandle him to force a collapse.

Warriors don't have a guy who can ISO like that. Against a switching defense you just find the mismatch.

Question...I am a little unclear on those tweets. Wasn't Miami in 12, 13 doing the whole switching thing already? It wasn't on every possession but it certainly did happen a lot when they put out their small-ball lineup with Battier/Bosh/LeBron as the bigs.

I do agree in general to beat GSW you need to be able to switch everything and your big has to be able to guard Curry which is what Love did last night and TT did much better than last year.

I also do wonder how much of that was because of Curry's bad knee supposedly. If he's healthy next year does the switching defense become irrelevant again?

Not irrelevant, but if curry was indeed injured, I think that if he was healthy he"d be able to get past TT more times than not.

[JLei]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/744956779319046145[/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/744958750910353408[/tweet]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/haralabob/status/744959624856506368[/tweet]

Especially that 2nd tweet. It will turn the NBA on its head and perhaps bring back the need to have guys who can ISO. Which funny enough the Cavs have the answer too. Keep working until Curry gets switched onto James/ Irving and then manhandle him to force a collapse.

Warriors don't have a guy who can ISO like that. Against a switching defense you just find the mismatch.

Question...I am a little unclear on those tweets. Wasn't Miami in 12, 13 doing the whole switching thing already? It wasn't on every possession but it certainly did happen a lot when they put out their small-ball lineup with Battier/Bosh/LeBron as the bigs.

I do agree in general to beat GSW you need to be able to switch everything and your big has to be able to guard Curry which is what Love did last night and TT did much better than last year.

I also do wonder how much of that was because of Curry's bad knee supposedly. If he's healthy next year does the switching defense become irrelevant again?

They did switch a lot but were more just aggressive in pick and roll coverage vs. switching a lot. Blitzing and hard showing and recovering vs. switching. It requires much of the same personnel but each has it's pros and cons. Blitzing is more disruptive and prevents a permanent mismatch unlike a switch as you eventually recover to your man but in between the blitz and the recovery you become vulnerable.

Switching obviously shuts down the pick and roll entirely but can get the defense in a tricky position if you get mismatched with a big on a guard and vice versa.

[GSP]

Ppl were trying the switching thing against Gs a lot near the end of the season which explained why their performance got worse as the season progressed. But not every team has the personnel/Iq/length to successfully do it for a full season. Minny played at even levels with them and beat them at home using it. Okc, Boston, Spurs and Bucks are prolly the only other teams who have the coaching/Iq and/or talent/athleticism/length to use that strat for enough of a season and be effective with it in the postseason.

We (Boston) still do the best job of defending the Warriors tho. Stevens has such diverse defensive schemes against them even tho he likes switches as well.

[Pillendreher]

Re: 4th Quarter

That's what happened in games 5 and 6 as well. According to NBA.com, their (GSW) 4th quarter offense in games 5-7 was an 85.9 ORTG (so probably 88-89 by BBR's possessions) and that's WITH their garbage time points in Game 6 after James left the floor. So they must have functioned right around 80.0 with Lebron on the floor for 3 straight games in the 4th, and this was occurring at the same time I observed James playing his best defense (all over the floor, near-perfect execution, secondary rim coverage, blowing up any attempt to move towards the basket, transition hustle obviously, covering Dray + switching onto Curry, the works basically).

Over the last 3 games, the Warriors had an ORtG of 67.6 in the 4th quarter with James on the floor according to stats.nba.com

[Doctor MJ]

Steve Kerr made some pretty questionable decisions these playoffs, if we're talking a coach that could have done better than him then I think Rick Carlisle and Brad Stevens would have done the job pretty well.

I think Carlisle is a HOF couch, so there to me it becomes a question of how you see COY. Pop to me is the GOAT coach, so I get those who say they vote for him every year, and Carlisle is arguably the next most GOAT-y coach out there right now.

Pop's issue to me when thinking of him along these lines is that in the end this season he went all in acquiring Aldrdige and making major changes to his team's play which in the end left them getting as far as I think they'd have gone if they had no Aldridge and Pop had retired last year.

Carlisle's issue is that his focus right now is essentially keeping Dallas on the treadmill. It's impressive work, but not really what strikes me as COY work.

Brad Stevens is of course the freshest young coaching prodigy we see, but like Carlisle, everything he's doing involves helping a team on to the treadmill right now. We've yet to see him do great things with great player talent, which means there's much yet we just don't know.

What about Terry Stots, and the amazing work he did with the limited Blazers?

Yup, similar.

If you look in any given year there's always a few coaches that led their teams to do better than expected, and what they typically have in common is that 5 years from now none of them will be in the same job. As such, meaning no disrespect for those coaches, I've just learned not to get too excited over overachievement that still didn't lead to true relevancy among contenders.

[SideshowBob]

Re: 4th Quarter

That's what happened in games 5 and 6 as well. According to NBA.com, their (GSW) 4th quarter offense in games 5-7 was an 85.9 ORTG (so probably 88-89 by BBR's possessions) and that's WITH their garbage time points in Game 6 after James left the floor. So they must have functioned right around 80.0 with Lebron on the floor for 3 straight games in the 4th, and this was occurring at the same time I observed James playing his best defense (all over the floor, near-perfect execution, secondary rim coverage, blowing up any attempt to move towards the basket, transition hustle obviously, covering Dray + switching onto Curry, the works basically).

Over the last 3 games, the Warriors had an ORtG of 67.6 in the 4th quarter with James on the floor according to stats.nba.com

Well there you go then. Crazy defensive effort.

Also put up 11/3/2 on 58% TS w/1.3 blocks in the 4th of those 3 games. Even shot 90% from the line. Cavs outscored GS by 26 during this time.

[Pillendreher]

@SideshowBob

Do you have the Postseason numbers for the Thunder like the ones you posted for the Cavs?

[SideshowBob]

Yes but not ATM, give me an hour or so.

[Texas Chuck]

I think Carlisle is a HOF couch, so there to me it becomes a question of how you see COY. Pop to me is the GOAT coach, so I get those who say they vote for him every year, and Carlisle is arguably the next most GOAT-y coach out there right now.

Pop's issue to me when thinking of him along these lines is that in the end this season he went all in acquiring Aldrdige and making major changes to his team's play which in the end left them getting as far as I think they'd have gone if they had no Aldridge and Pop had retired last year.

Carlisle's issue is that his focus right now is essentially keeping Dallas on the treadmill. It's impressive work, but not really what strikes me as COY work.

Brad Stevens is of course the freshest young coaching prodigy we see, but like Carlisle, everything he's doing involves helping a team on to the treadmill right now. We've yet to see him do great things with great player talent, which means there's much yet we just don't know.

What about Terry Stots, and the amazing work he did with the limited Blazers?

Yup, similar.

If you look in any given year there's always a few coaches that led their teams to do better than expected, and what they typically have in common is that 5 years from now none of them will be in the same job. As such, meaning no disrespect for those coaches, I've just learned not to get too excited over overachievement that still didn't lead to true relevancy among contenders.

Given how often NBA teams change coaches, you are essentially saying that unless you are fortunate enough to coach a top 5 player that your coaching job isn't relevant. I'm not sure I buy that. If we shouldn't evaluate star players on the basis of how their teammates performed(Excepting of course the obvious impact they have on those teammates) then why should only coaches of elite talent deserve recognition?

Avery Johnson coached these teams in b2b years:

60-22, 5.96 SRS(3rd) Western Conference Champs
67-15 7.28 SRS (2nd)

and he wasn't remotely as good of a coach as guys like Carlisle, Stevens, Stotts were this year. He made huge tactical errors in big moments. He had almost no X's and O's and refused to listen to his assistants. He just had physically peak Dirk and they didn't. Or take Tyronn Lue this year. His coaching wasn't better than theirs.

I agree that too often the COY award goes to coach whose team surprisingly wins a lot more games than writers predicted--they don't want to be wrong about their predictions so they salve their egos by saying it was an amazing coaching job. But by the same token, the best teams don't always have the best head coaches. Often they do, but I hate dismissing candidates for not having one of the 3 or 4 players that can carry a team to a title.

[Doctor MJ]

Given how often NBA teams change coaches, you are essentially saying that unless you are fortunate enough to coach a top 5 player that your coaching job isn't relevant. I'm not sure I buy that. If we shouldn't evaluate star players on the basis of how their teammates performed(Excepting of course the obvious impact they have on those teammates) then why should only coaches of elite talent deserve recognition?

Avery Johnson coached these teams in b2b years:

60-22, 5.96 SRS(3rd) Western Conference Champs
67-15 7.28 SRS (2nd)

and he wasn't remotely as good of a coach as guys like Carlisle, Stevens, Stotts were this year. He made huge tactical errors in big moments. He had almost no X's and O's and refused to listen to his assistants. He just had physically peak Dirk and they didn't. Or take Tyronn Lue this year. His coaching wasn't better than theirs.

I agree that too often the COY award goes to coach whose team surprisingly wins a lot more games than writers predicted--they don't want to be wrong about their predictions so they salve their egos by saying it was an amazing coaching job. But by the same token, the best teams don't always have the best head coaches. Often they do, but I hate dismissing candidates for not having one of the 3 or 4 players that can carry a team to a title.

Well here's where I think you just gotta take it as a given that we're not going to do a great job assessing coaching greatness on a year-by-year basis. We do the best we can, but it's hard.

That said, c'mon, you know what I mean here. In '14-15 Kidd was a coaching prodigy. In '15-16 he was terrible, until he tried a desperate move, and now things are looking up again. Bottom line is that his coaching legacy is drastically in flux and so it's just impossible to really peg him properly.

If others want to give their COY vote to a guy who surprisingly got his guys to win 40 games that's cool, but I'm wary.