ElGee wrote: Wanted to take a crack at this as we haven't done it in the past. Pop is sort of the Michael Jordan here, and I see nothing suggesting he wasn't downright amazing as usual. (..) But I went with Kerr, in a Coach K kind of vote. I'm not overly impressed with his in-game adjustments,
You are not impressed with Kerr's ingame adjustments, but at the same time you see nothing suggesting Pop wasn't amazing?! Did you miss series vs OKC, when Pop did almost nothing through most games and started to do panic moves in G6 when it was too late? Kerr at least tried different things, while Pop's approach was "I can talk **** to reporters and do no ingame adjustments, because I'm so cool and we will win anyway". Besides if you are not judging a player on 3 or 4 games, nor judging him against 1 opponent, so why you are doing that when you evaluate coach? (I'm assuming Kerr's lack of adjustments refers to the finals.)
ElGee wrote:1. Steph Curry (~ 0.24 expected titles) -- Had a legit shot at the GOAT peak before the playoffs. Otherworldly offensive season that has been sufficiently documented in his thread and the POY thread. However, in the PS he missed a bunch of time and he also played slightly below his RS level when back IMO. I do not think there was a huge drop-off in his game as the losing bias narrative is now claiming. One of the more portable offensive players in NBA history, as he has incredible gravity, ridiculously insane off-ball and good on-ball as well.
2. Kevin Durant (~0.20) -- Durant had arguably his best season ever. Disruptive defense (29.1% field goal against on 460 outside shots taken against him) and showed a legit ability to protect the rim and play a valuable defensive 4 position. Posted a 5.1 RAPM and elite numbers in spot-up situations (1.13 ppp), post-up plays (1.23 ppp), isolation (0.99 ppp) and even on-ball with the PnR. Also an incredibly portable player who fits into multiple situations. He posted one of the greatest small-sampled WOWY scores ever: OKC was -6 SRS in 7 games without Durant. With him, They were nearly a 10 SRS team, posting a 115 ORtg. His combined WOWY runs in the last 2 years against 3 different controlled lineups: 102 games in the lineup at 9.4 SRS. 18 games out of the lineup, OKC was -0.39.
3. LeBron James (~0.19) -- A tough year to rank James for me. His post-up and isolation games were a little disappointing. As was his shot. His defense came back to a good level, although not the complete anchor he was a few years back -- he looked great physically in the Finals, which was a function of pacing and an easier path IMO. HIs passing / creation were fantastic. Still, as great as he was in the Finals, I think he was a better offensive from '12-'14 in Miami, and perhaps even slightly better his last 2 years in Cleveland. I'll emphasize the obvious here: He played some amazing games in the Finals, but I'm not judging a player on 3 or 4 games, nor am I judging him against 1 opponent.
With regards to portability -- never been a huge fan of James here. He's an interesting player, in that he can take lineups so high without great synergy.
Yeah, nothing says "bad portability" quite like leading the league in impact stats and consistently overachieving with multiple, completely different low-synergy casts. It obviously follows that he would do very badly on a team with great synergy.
For instance if LeBron had ever been on a team that could wipe early PS opponents off the floor without him and had perfect synergy with him like Curry had this season he probably would have lost to a guy leading a borderline-lottery team by a waaaaay larger margin than Curry did.
And Durant higher than LeBron? When LeBron shot 28% on 3s at some point in the RS it was time to ridicule him all over the internet even though shooting 3s is a tiny fraction of what LeBron does. But when Durant shoots just as badly in the playoffs and 9% lower 3pt% against the Warriors (together with more TOs than assists, way lower impact stats all season and advanced playoffs stats that would be the worst of LeBron's life by a gigantic margin) that apparently leads to 0.01 (btw, are you sure it's not 0.02?) more expected titles than LeBron. And that's in a season where LeBron did the following in the only 3 games he really had to show up for: 2nd best finals game of all time (at the time, by gmscore), followed by the best finals game of all time and a meh 27/11/11 game 7, all with spectacular defense.
And great for Durant he looks good in a few select obscure defensive stats while LeBron is only way ahead and closer to Kawhi in overall defensive impact stats. Speaking of which, not sure how mentioning Durant's RAPM of 5.1 is a great argument for putting him above LeBron, who had a RAPM of 7.6 in the same RAPM variety (or above anyone you have behind him, really)
are you guys really that impressed by what he has done? I think he has upgraded the situation in Detroit but to me it seems like more of a "I don't want to coach a bunch of losers so I'll settle in making my team treadmill" situation than "man does Detroit's future look nice".
He has essentially maxed out the Pistons cap and they won't get high enough picks to truly improve. They need one of their guys to either make an unrealistic jump or for them to get a Kawhi in the draft. I think a decent amount of GMs can do what Stan did if their ambitions were lower.
Followup post on the Durant > LeBron thing: If we check for postseasons with at least LeBron's PER/BPM in NBA history we get this: http://bkref.com/tiny/FmSY9 (spoiler: only peak Jordan, Kareem and LeBron)
But Durant was more likely to carry a team to a title, even though noone in the history of humankind has done that with those stats, while guys with LeBron's PS stats had a 40% success rate? And that's underselling LeBron because he got better and better throughout the playoffs as needed with increasing resistance: gmscore: RS------1st----2nd----ECF----finals--3eliminationgames 20.7---18.3--20.7---25.0----26.5-----34.9
Meanwhile Durant was on average worse against Dallas than LeBron in 2011 (I know, mostly due to one horrendous game) and had a gamescore of 20.6 in the GSW elimation games while shooting 15% worse than "no jumper LeBron" on 3s when it actually mattered. Not really sure how that gives your team a better chance of winning a title.
parapooper wrote:Followup post on the Durant > LeBron thing: If we check for postseasons with at least LeBron's PER/BPM in NBA history we get this: http://bkref.com/tiny/FmSY9 (spoiler: only peak Jordan, Kareem and LeBron)
But Durant was more likely to carry a team to a title, even though noone in the history of humankind has done that with those stats, while guys with LeBron's PS stats had a 40% success rate? And that's underselling LeBron because he got better and better throughout the playoffs as needed with increasing resistance: gmscore: RS------1st----2nd----ECF----finals--3eliminationgames 20.7---18.3--20.7---25.0----26.5-----34.9
Meanwhile Durant was on average worse against Dallas than LeBron in 2011 (I know, mostly due to one horrendous game) and had a gamescore of 20.6 in the GSW elimation games while shooting 15% worse than "no jumper LeBron" on 3s when it actually mattered. Not really sure how that gives your team a better chance of winning a title.
To follow it up - defense in playoffs vs GSW:
Durant 38.4 DFG% (-9.8) LeBron 31.6 DFG% (-16.3)
LJ was better in regular season too, so I'm not sure from where does "29.1 DFG" come from. And as you mentioned RAPM (both O and D) - which Elgee uses as pro KD argument - also favors James...
Crossing off Lowry, Millsap, Harden for top five spots is easy. I care about playoff injuries so that combined with being fringe top 5 in reg season anyways, is enough to knock out Paul. That brings it down to 6 players in Curry, Lebron, Westbrook, Kawhi, Durant, Draymond.
Curry's injury affects his stock a lot as from a championship value perspective he both missed enough games to knock his team out in the first 2 rounds in various seasons (Think about a team like the 2012 Bulls and how they went down in 5 games to an 8th seed without Derrick Rose - depending on the make-up when they don't have their star, a team can be done). On top of that he went on to not be fully himself when he came back. The value of "Well he may miss the first two rounds, but since he gives you a GOAT level player in WCF and Finals instead of just a Kawhi or Westbrook, it's worth it" is wiped out when he not only failed to play that level up than the other guys playoff stats by then, but actually played worse
Durant posting that low a BPM in the playoffs is shocking. It's not just that stat either. He went from .270 WS/48 to .130, from 28.2 PER to 20.3. These are big drops. Yes from an eye test perspective it didn't seem that bad as he's providing value as a spacer, smallball 4 and defender, but I'm going to trust the numbers a little bit here. Also the Thunder badly needed him to step up at the end of GSW series and he takes some blame for that.
That leaves a division between the top 3 as Lebron, Westbrook and Kawhi in some order, followed by Durant, Curry and Green in consideration for the last two spots.
I'm voting Lebron first. The stats back it up well enough as only trailing Westbrook in regular season BPM but Lebron could coast in the regular season anyways, and being 1st in playoffs. He helped a Cavs team I don't consider perfect to a title including two of the best Finals games ever, a triple double in the close-out game and he fantastic in the other Cavs win too. One of the greatest Finals of all time.
Subjectively I feel Westbrook is less portable than Kawhi, but with him finishing with a good margin ahead in reg season BPM and then ahead in playoffs, I am going to side with the numbers telling a better story than my feelings. Westbrook had some stunning moments in the playoffs and they almost made the Finals with an off his game Durant.
For Curry vs Durant vs Green. Well with Curry vs Green, Green missing a single Finals game should take a lot of the value he gets in compared to him by playing more the first two rounds. Curry helped his team make the WCF not just in the games he played against Houston and Portland but by helping them get such a good playoff seed. On the other hand, this analysis doesn't take into account RAPM where Green looks amazing. It is close but because of the latter I'll side with Green. As for Durant, his regular season value was clearly below Curry. In the playoffs his numbers were down, but at least he was playing in the first two rounds. Yet statistically it's fair to suggest in the games he did play, Curry rates as better. So I'm going with Curry. Likewise for Durant and Green, Durant is ahead in BPM in the regular season but RAPM would be nicer to Green, and Green is easily ahead in playoffs BPM. Green. If you really trust the numbers here Durant's playoffs and the end of it looks like a black mark the size of some of Karl Malone and David Robinson's lowest moments.
Vote
POY
1. Lebron James 2. Russell Westbrook 3. Kawhi Leonard 4. Draymond Green 5. Stephen Curry
OPOY
1. Lebron James 2. Russell Westbrook 3. Stephen Curry
DPOY
1. Kawhi Leonard 2. Draymond Green 3. Lebron James
ROY
1. Karl Anthony-Towns 2. Nikola Jokic 3. Willie Cauley-Stein
ElGee wrote: Wanted to take a crack at this as we haven't done it in the past. Pop is sort of the Michael Jordan here, and I see nothing suggesting he wasn't downright amazing as usual. (..) But I went with Kerr, in a Coach K kind of vote. I'm not overly impressed with his in-game adjustments,
You are not impressed with Kerr's ingame adjustments, but at the same time you see nothing suggesting Pop wasn't amazing?! Did you miss series vs OKC, when Pop did almost nothing through most games and started to do panic moves in G6 when it was too late? Kerr at least tried different things, while Pop's approach was "I can talk **** to reporters and do no ingame adjustments, because I'm so cool and we will win anyway". Besides if you are not judging a player on 3 or 4 games, nor judging him against 1 opponent, so why you are doing that when you evaluate coach? (I'm assuming Kerr's lack of adjustments refers to the finals.)
I agree with this sentiment in regards to adjustments. I dont know understand the reasoning for criticizing Kerrs ingame adjustments but not Pop who just seems to be put on a pedestal. We already know he can develop Goat level systems, culture an regular season success, we know he can maximize role players given they fit his standards/style of play. Pop has been given too many passes in playoffs tho. His ingame adjustments in last years Clippers and this years Okc series are rarely talked about for whatever reason.
When Kanter was on the floor Spurs barely ran pickandrolls. We saw how useless Kanter was against Okc for the most part because of that play.
Playing Kyle Anderson. Spurs got outscored badly with him on the court. Obviously Kawhi needs rest and hes no Lebron in terms of ability to play 45+ minutes but Pop had lineups where neither Tony, Lamarcus OR Kawhi were on the court. Just inexcusable.
After Kd torched Kawhi in the 4th of game 4, for like 17-0 then Pop was more tentative with putting Kawhi on him/Russ like before and we saw him "guarding" Roberson more with not taking advantages of their defensive matchups since Kawhi free safety wasnt working.
Giving West minutes Timmy shouldve got. West was bad on defense, got torched on pickandrolls and couldnt protect the paint at all.
Spurs offense from the post wasnt effective and he refused to play small with Kawhi/Lamarcus with which pickandrolls there wouldve taken Kanter out. Kanter defended that play at league worst levels and Golden State showed it. But spurs rarely ran it.
Boban shouldve gotten minutes when it was clear Okcs big lineup was too much but he didnt adjust at all. He tried both those things very late in game 6 as a "**** it lets go with this" but it was too late and his timing was bad. His confidence was low and the pressure high and he became 2-11 in road elimination games.
Then theres the game 6 meltdown where he was coaching like he was ragequitting in Nba 2k. He made more mistakes than a rookie coach in this series, made more mistakes than Doc last series and Scott Brooks also was coaching when his team got eliminated.
Danny Green was talking about them not adjusting to:
"They know what plays are coming," Green said after Game 5 on Tuesday night. "You can hear them yelling from the bench and communicating."
Green contended the Spurs are doing a decent job despite the fact the Thunder knows their sets and their tendencies.
"We just need to have better counters."
Rarely has that been so for the Spurs under Gregg Popovich. The legendary coach always seems to be one or two or 19 steps ahead of the competition, always seems to have the better prepared team.
ElGee wrote: Wanted to take a crack at this as we haven't done it in the past. Pop is sort of the Michael Jordan here, and I see nothing suggesting he wasn't downright amazing as usual. (..) But I went with Kerr, in a Coach K kind of vote. I'm not overly impressed with his in-game adjustments,
You are not impressed with Kerr's ingame adjustments, but at the same time you see nothing suggesting Pop wasn't amazing?! Did you miss series vs OKC, when Pop did almost nothing through most games and started to do panic moves in G6 when it was too late? Kerr at least tried different things, while Pop's approach was "I can talk **** to reporters and do no ingame adjustments, because I'm so cool and we will win anyway". Besides if you are not judging a player on 3 or 4 games, nor judging him against 1 opponent, so why you are doing that when you evaluate coach? (I'm assuming Kerr's lack of adjustments refers to the finals.)
I agree with this sentiment in regards to adjustments. I dont know understand the reasoning for criticizing Kerrs ingame adjustments but not Pop who just seems to be put on a pedestal. We already know he can develop Goat level systems, culture an regular season success, we know he can maximize role players given they fit his standards/style of play. Pop has been given too many passes in playoffs tho. His ingame adjustments in last years Clippers and this years Okc series are rarely talked about for whatever reason.
When Kanter was on the floor Spurs barely ran pickandrolls. We saw how useless Kanter was against Okc for the most part because of that play.
Playing Kyle Anderson. Spurs got outscored badly with him on the court. Obviously Kawhi needs rest and hes no Lebron in terms of ability to play 45+ minutes but Pop had lineups where neither Tony, Lamarcus OR Kawhi were on the court. Just inexcusable.
After Kd torched Kawhi in the 4th of game 4, for like 17-0 then Pop was more tentative with putting Kawhi on him/Russ like before and we saw him "guarding" Roberson more with not taking advantages of their defensive matchups since Kawhi free safety wasnt working.
Giving West minutes Timmy shouldve got. West was bad on defense, got torched on pickandrolls and couldnt protect the paint at all.
Spurs offense from the post wasnt effective and he refused to play small with Kawhi/Lamarcus with which pickandrolls there wouldve taken Kanter out. Kanter defended that play at league worst levels and Golden State showed it. But spurs rarely ran it.
Boban shouldve gotten minutes when it was clear Okcs big lineup was too much but he didnt adjust at all. He tried both those things very late in game 6 as a "**** it lets go with this" but it was too late and his timing was bad. His confidence was low and the pressure high and he became 2-11 in road elimination games.
Then theres the game 6 meltdown where he was coaching like he was ragequitting in Nba 2k. He made more mistakes than a rookie coach in this series, made more mistakes than Doc last series and Scott Brooks also was coaching when his team got eliminated.
Danny Green was talking about them not adjusting to:
"They know what plays are coming," Green said after Game 5 on Tuesday night. "You can hear them yelling from the bench and communicating."
Green contended the Spurs are doing a decent job despite the fact the Thunder knows their sets and their tendencies.
"We just need to have better counters."
Rarely has that been so for the Spurs under Gregg Popovich. The legendary coach always seems to be one or two or 19 steps ahead of the competition, always seems to have the better prepared team.
Not this series.
I think the more isolation heavy offense and less ball movement in general actually doomed the Spurs this year. However, it was a change to be expected considering the need for Kawhi to be more assertive, the adding of Aldridge and the Boris Diaw decline. The team just didn't really found a good enough balance of offensive styles to be really effective against the better defenses - As we noted in other threads, the Thunder defense really stepped up its intensity starting on game 2 of the Spurs series. I expect next year the Spurs to be able to balance things out more smoothly. I was sure that they would not stand a chance against a healthy Warriors team coming playoff time with the more 90's style offense they presented, their defense could only take them so far, this season.
b]POY[/b] Criteria: Player who helps a random team win the title the most, based on his given play during the season.
1. Steph Curry (~ 0.24 expected titles) -- Had a legit shot at the GOAT peak before the playoffs. Otherworldly offensive season that has been sufficiently documented in his thread and the POY thread. However, in the PS he missed a bunch of time and he also played slightly below his RS level when back IMO. I do not think there was a huge drop-off in his game as the losing bias narrative is now claiming. One of the more portable offensive players in NBA history, as he has incredible gravity, ridiculously insane off-ball and good on-ball as well.
2. Kevin Durant (~0.20) -- Durant had arguably his best season ever. Disruptive defense (29.1% field goal against on 460 outside shots taken against him) and showed a legit ability to protect the rim and play a valuable defensive 4 position. Posted a 5.1 RAPM and elite numbers in spot-up situations (1.13 ppp), post-up plays (1.23 ppp), isolation (0.99 ppp) and even on-ball with the PnR. Also an incredibly portable player who fits into multiple situations. He posted one of the greatest small-sampled WOWY scores ever: OKC was -6 SRS in 7 games without Durant. With him, They were nearly a 10 SRS team, posting a 115 ORtg. His combined WOWY runs in the last 2 years against 3 different controlled lineups: 102 games in the lineup at 9.4 SRS. 18 games out of the lineup, OKC was -0.39.
3. LeBron James (~0.19) -- A tough year to rank James for me. His post-up and isolation games were a little disappointing. As was his shot. His defense came back to a good level, although not the complete anchor he was a few years back -- he looked great physically in the Finals, which was a function of pacing and an easier path IMO. HIs passing / creation were fantastic. Still, as great as he was in the Finals, I think he was a better offensive from '12-'14 in Miami, and perhaps even slightly better his last 2 years in Cleveland. I'll emphasize the obvious here: He played some amazing games in the Finals, but I'm not judging a player on 3 or 4 games, nor am I judging him against 1 opponent.
With regards to portability -- never been a huge fan of James here. He's an interesting player, in that he can take lineups so high without great synergy.
4. Kawhi Leonard (~0.16) -- Elite wing defender in the ballpark of Pippen. Amazing shooter who has a borderline elite self-creation game (isolation and post-up). His weakness to me is passing and creating, which are fairly important.
5. Draymond Green (~0.14) -- Slight nod to him over Westbrook. He's the best defender in the league. I think the lack of big men does allow him to be more impressive, but even with more giants in the league this guy would be a phenomenal defender. He's completely in the KG quarterbacking mold when it comes to rotations / roaming the back line. Great hands and very long for his size (much like Ben Wallace). Offensively, I find his stretch shooting and passing to be uber-portable assets on a less-than-dangerous offensive player. Meaning, he could probably have a sexier stat line if he played on a weak team, but he's more effective on a better team because his passing and shooting cash in on opportunities others have created.
These playoffs tickled all of the rigidity in my rubric -- namely handling injuries / missed time in such a black-and-white way. Is Green a ticking time bomb? If he is, and similar to someone like Rodman we would expect him to miss a game or two, then why are injuries treated differently? Why is someone penalized for the timing of a fluke injury coming in April and not in November? (Wear-and-tear injuries would be different.) I've never been comfortable with how I handled this. In this case, like Curry, I'm just going to penalize Green for the one game.
OPOY 1. Curry -- see above. 2. Durant 3. James
DPOY 1. Green 2. Leonard 3. Rudy Gobert
COY 1. Popovich 2. Stevens 3. Kerr
Wanted to take a crack at this as we haven't done it in the past. Pop is sort of the Michael Jordan here, and I see nothing suggesting he wasn't downright amazing as usual. After that, it gets trickier -- I tend to think of Stevens as the Celtics best player. A brilliant all-around coach, great defensively, solid efficiently as well. I also happen to know these teams are leveraging data to drive their decisions and I'm giving coaches credit for that since they can make smarter, contextual decisions about strategy on the floor.
Carlisle could be there. Budenholzer too. But I went with Kerr, in a Coach K kind of vote. I'm not overly impressed with his in-game adjustments, but the combination of the rhythm n flow offense and the defensive intelligence the team plays with astounding when the tape is slowed down. There's clearly a teaching of principles to me that is advanced, and self-perpetuating on the court.Iggy would be my SMOY probably, but I wouldn't be sure who to fill out after that...
Did you update your SRS -> Title Odds conversion? I'm still using the data you posted in Fall 2014
But in his home dwelling...the hi-top faded warrior is revered. *Smack!* The sound of his palm blocking the basketball... the sound of thousands rising, roaring... the sound of "get that sugar honey iced tea outta here!"
I will dive deeper if I have time (I have half a write-up written already), but just to get in a ballot for now (only doing POY/OPOY/DPOY).
POY
1. James 2. Curry 3. Russ 4. Durant 5. Green
OPOY
1. Curry 2. Russ 3. James (HM Durant)
DPOY
1. Green 2. Leonard 3. Millsap (HM Gobert, James)
POY Discussion
Leonard barely misses the cut.
Curry falls to #2 only due to missed PS games. I agree with Elgee w/regards to the losing bias narrative - but I seem to hold Lebron in slightly higher regard. If Curry plays all his 1st/2nd round games and then the WCF/Finals results are exactly the same, I would have voted Curry #1 just barely ahead of Lebron. Don't think Curry was GOAT level at any point, but definitely think his offense was GOAT level on par with or ahead of 87 Magic with clearly superior portability.
James I thought played better than Curry in the last few months of the RS and then outplayed him in the playoffs, so IMO he was making this competitive anyway. Some regressions from last year (finishing/leaping, lack of willingness to shoot marginalizes iso/P&R game and makes him easier to defend on the wing), but some improvements as well (better shot IMO, quicker, healthier, better motor, better defensive focus/intensity). Overall I think he's slightly better than 2015 James.
Durant is great and has shown improvements in his ability to be a positive defensively at the 4. But I also think his iso and P&R handling are weaker - I def. think he has a harder time shaking his man to get to the basket off the dribble and this tips his balance of slashing/mid-range in the favor of mid-range, which isn't necessarily bad, but I think before was better. At best I think he's on par with 13 & 14, at worst slightly regressed (w/better D, slightly weaker O)
Russ is great but not portable. I'm not sure he's better than last year - it's evident that he struck a better creating/slashing/playmaking balance this year and his physical passing ability straight up looked improved, but I also thought his jumper regressed (maybe this is just me?) and that hampered his scoring game a bit. He was as explosive as ever getting to the rack but the weaker shot makes him slightly easier to defend. His game's not portable, but the impression I've had since he came back from injury in 2014 is that he's been OKC's best player and I feel comfortable sticking to that.
Green I've spoken about before aplenty. Think him and Leonard are on a similar tier, but Green's offensive game is more portable and his defense is slightly better given his help coverage. 1 game penalty doesn't hurt him enough to drop him below Leonard.
Paul would have been next between competed for the top spot between him Green/Leonard but missing the PS killed his season.
But in his home dwelling...the hi-top faded warrior is revered. *Smack!* The sound of his palm blocking the basketball... the sound of thousands rising, roaring... the sound of "get that sugar honey iced tea outta here!"
KD35Brah wrote:I don't see how people can still see Kawhi as a better defender than Green....
Care to elaborate?
First of all what evidence there is that Leonard is better defensively? Because major defensive metrics clearly show that Green is much better:
sportVU defensive FG
playoffs Green 18.3 DFGA (1st in playoffs), 38.8% (-8.4) Kawhi 9.9 DFG, 44.4% (-1.2)
regular Green 16.4 DFG (2nd in RS), 39.4% (-6.1) Kawhi 9.4 DFG, 39.2% (-5.6)
NPI DRAM Green 3.9 (1st) Kawhi 2.9 (4th)
multiyear DRAM Green 4.6 (1st) Kawhi 3.8 (2nd)
Look at the amount of DFGA. It's like comparing 30 and 20 ppg scores, when 30 is doing it on better efficiency, but you would say that 20 is still better scorer. In RAPM it's not close either, because Green separated himself from rest of the league so much, that even 2nd place is way below him in terms of defensive impact.
ElGee wrote: Wanted to take a crack at this as we haven't done it in the past. Pop is sort of the Michael Jordan here, and I see nothing suggesting he wasn't downright amazing as usual. (..) But I went with Kerr, in a Coach K kind of vote. I'm not overly impressed with his in-game adjustments,
You are not impressed with Kerr's ingame adjustments, but at the same time you see nothing suggesting Pop wasn't amazing?! Did you miss series vs OKC, when Pop did almost nothing through most games and started to do panic moves in G6 when it was too late? Kerr at least tried different things, while Pop's approach was "I can talk **** to reporters and do no ingame adjustments, because I'm so cool and we will win anyway". Besides if you are not judging a player on 3 or 4 games, nor judging him against 1 opponent, so why you are doing that when you evaluate coach? (I'm assuming Kerr's lack of adjustments refers to the finals.)
Not at all. Not being impressed with adjustments is not the same as thinking adjustments are bad. And not a correct assumption about the Finals.
parapooper wrote:Yeah, nothing says "bad portability" quite like leading the league in impact stats and consistently overachieving with multiple, completely different low-synergy casts.
Not sure how you got "bad portability" from my post.
Speaking of which, not sure how mentioning Durant's RAPM of 5.1 is a great argument for putting him above LeBron, who had a RAPM of 7.6 in the same RAPM variety (or above anyone you have behind him, really)
I'm obviously not using it as an argument for Durant > LeBron. I'm using it to describe a player, one who I've asserted has become underrated, thus providing different focal points in the description for different players. If no one had Kawhi in their top-10, he'd probably get about 3-4 paragraphs from me explaining it.
SideshowBob wrote:
ElGee wrote:[
Spoiler:
b]POY[/b] Criteria: Player who helps a random team win the title the most, based on his given play during the season.
1. Steph Curry (~ 0.24 expected titles) -- Had a legit shot at the GOAT peak before the playoffs. Otherworldly offensive season that has been sufficiently documented in his thread and the POY thread. However, in the PS he missed a bunch of time and he also played slightly below his RS level when back IMO. I do not think there was a huge drop-off in his game as the losing bias narrative is now claiming. One of the more portable offensive players in NBA history, as he has incredible gravity, ridiculously insane off-ball and good on-ball as well.
2. Kevin Durant (~0.20) -- Durant had arguably his best season ever. Disruptive defense (29.1% field goal against on 460 outside shots taken against him) and showed a legit ability to protect the rim and play a valuable defensive 4 position. Posted a 5.1 RAPM and elite numbers in spot-up situations (1.13 ppp), post-up plays (1.23 ppp), isolation (0.99 ppp) and even on-ball with the PnR. Also an incredibly portable player who fits into multiple situations. He posted one of the greatest small-sampled WOWY scores ever: OKC was -6 SRS in 7 games without Durant. With him, They were nearly a 10 SRS team, posting a 115 ORtg. His combined WOWY runs in the last 2 years against 3 different controlled lineups: 102 games in the lineup at 9.4 SRS. 18 games out of the lineup, OKC was -0.39.
3. LeBron James (~0.19) -- A tough year to rank James for me. His post-up and isolation games were a little disappointing. As was his shot. His defense came back to a good level, although not the complete anchor he was a few years back -- he looked great physically in the Finals, which was a function of pacing and an easier path IMO. HIs passing / creation were fantastic. Still, as great as he was in the Finals, I think he was a better offensive from '12-'14 in Miami, and perhaps even slightly better his last 2 years in Cleveland. I'll emphasize the obvious here: He played some amazing games in the Finals, but I'm not judging a player on 3 or 4 games, nor am I judging him against 1 opponent.
With regards to portability -- never been a huge fan of James here. He's an interesting player, in that he can take lineups so high without great synergy.
4. Kawhi Leonard (~0.16) -- Elite wing defender in the ballpark of Pippen. Amazing shooter who has a borderline elite self-creation game (isolation and post-up). His weakness to me is passing and creating, which are fairly important.
5. Draymond Green (~0.14) -- Slight nod to him over Westbrook. He's the best defender in the league. I think the lack of big men does allow him to be more impressive, but even with more giants in the league this guy would be a phenomenal defender. He's completely in the KG quarterbacking mold when it comes to rotations / roaming the back line. Great hands and very long for his size (much like Ben Wallace). Offensively, I find his stretch shooting and passing to be uber-portable assets on a less-than-dangerous offensive player. Meaning, he could probably have a sexier stat line if he played on a weak team, but he's more effective on a better team because his passing and shooting cash in on opportunities others have created.
These playoffs tickled all of the rigidity in my rubric -- namely handling injuries / missed time in such a black-and-white way. Is Green a ticking time bomb? If he is, and similar to someone like Rodman we would expect him to miss a game or two, then why are injuries treated differently? Why is someone penalized for the timing of a fluke injury coming in April and not in November? (Wear-and-tear injuries would be different.) I've never been comfortable with how I handled this. In this case, like Curry, I'm just going to penalize Green for the one game.
OPOY 1. Curry -- see above. 2. Durant 3. James
DPOY 1. Green 2. Leonard 3. Rudy Gobert
COY 1. Popovich 2. Stevens 3. Kerr
Wanted to take a crack at this as we haven't done it in the past. Pop is sort of the Michael Jordan here, and I see nothing suggesting he wasn't downright amazing as usual. After that, it gets trickier -- I tend to think of Stevens as the Celtics best player. A brilliant all-around coach, great defensively, solid efficiently as well. I also happen to know these teams are leveraging data to drive their decisions and I'm giving coaches credit for that since they can make smarter, contextual decisions about strategy on the floor.
Carlisle could be there. Budenholzer too. But I went with Kerr, in a Coach K kind of vote. I'm not overly impressed with his in-game adjustments, but the combination of the rhythm n flow offense and the defensive intelligence the team plays with astounding when the tape is slowed down. There's clearly a teaching of principles to me that is advanced, and self-perpetuating on the court.Iggy would be my SMOY probably, but I wouldn't be sure who to fill out after that...
Did you update your SRS -> Title Odds conversion? I'm still using the data you posted in Fall 2014
No, I don't think so. That post you linked to was my attempt to incorporate salary into the calculation...but I personally don't use that for multi-season estimations. Which brings up a larger point, which you know, but others may not: The precision of this tool is nearly irrelevant. What's important is trying to create a guide that accurately captures the value of a given valuation. Since no human could ever evaluate a player by doing that math, I've typically simplified and said "player A is a +5 with good portability" (meaning his value scales well), reducing the valuation to the (still complex) estimation of how a player impacts different teams.
However, this year, given all of the injuries and missed games and varying types of players, I thought it was clearer to show the distance between players in my rankings using percentages.
I agree with Elgee w/regards to the losing bias narrative - but I seem to hold Lebron in slightly higher regard.
Yeah I think you were actually one of the few who did before Game 5 of the Finals. Of course, if LeBron played like he did in the last few games of the Finals all season then he'd win this in a runaway. I go into detail in the book about the cognitive process Winning Bias has on people...so unless I see a bevy of evidence that LeBron's actually a DPOY level player, that his value off-ball is better than it appears, that his outside shooting numbers are a fluke function of him taking contested shots against the shot clock (qSC anyone?) then I'm viewing all votes (but yours) for him in that light.
Are people asserting that LeBron's defensive value makes him No. 1? Are they saying his offense is back to peak form? I think this is worth a less myopic discussion than the last few Finals games:
> LeBron's shooting from '12-'14 was between 75-78% at the line. It was 73% this year. > LeBron's shooting from '12-14 from 3-point range was 36%, 41% and 38%. This year it was 31%. > LeBron's shooting from mid-range was down this year compared to his peak years > LeBron's finishing ability at the rim is down compared to his peak years
If people de facto believe that James is still in peak form, then logically his previous years must have been better, and it looks like a level better. His FT-rate is down as well, so the natural counter is "well, he's a better playmaker/passer." Really? I could see looking at the way Cleveland was structured this year and think LeBron is like 2% better at passing, but he's been at this level of passing/playmaking for years, the team around him wasn't always as well constructed nor were the opponents a bunny-slope on the way to the Finals.
ElGee wrote: Wanted to take a crack at this as we haven't done it in the past. Pop is sort of the Michael Jordan here, and I see nothing suggesting he wasn't downright amazing as usual. (..) But I went with Kerr, in a Coach K kind of vote. I'm not overly impressed with his in-game adjustments,
You are not impressed with Kerr's ingame adjustments, but at the same time you see nothing suggesting Pop wasn't amazing?! Did you miss series vs OKC, when Pop did almost nothing through most games and started to do panic moves in G6 when it was too late? Kerr at least tried different things, while Pop's approach was "I can talk **** to reporters and do no ingame adjustments, because I'm so cool and we will win anyway". Besides if you are not judging a player on 3 or 4 games, nor judging him against 1 opponent, so why you are doing that when you evaluate coach? (I'm assuming Kerr's lack of adjustments refers to the finals.)
Not at all. Not being impressed with adjustments is not the same as thinking adjustments are bad. And not a correct assumption about the Finals.
So which Kerr's adjustments weren't so impressive and how he look in comparison with Pop, especially with what he did (or rather didn't) vs OKC?
Also, what exactly puts KD over LeBron? Because full seasons stats like RAPM value James more, including his defense, so I don't see from where does your synergy stats argument comes from.
ElGee wrote: No, I don't think so. That post you linked to was my attempt to incorporate salary into the calculation...but I personally don't use that for multi-season estimations. Which brings up a larger point, which you know, but others may not: The precision of this tool is nearly irrelevant. What's important is trying to create a guide that accurately captures the value of a given valuation. Since no human could ever evaluate a player by doing that math, I've typically simplified and said "player A is a +5 with good portability" (meaning his value scales well), reducing the valuation to the (still complex) estimation of how a player impacts different teams.
Indeed, but I've often found that I have a hard time getting this point across.
However, this year, given all of the injuries and missed games and varying types of players, I thought it was clearer to show the distance between players in my rankings using percentages.
Makes sense.
I agree with Elgee w/regards to the losing bias narrative - but I seem to hold Lebron in slightly higher regard.
Yeah I think you were actually one of the few who did before Game 5 of the Finals. Of course, if LeBron played like he did in the last few games of the Finals all season then he'd win this in a runaway. I go into detail in the book about the cognitive process Winning Bias has on people...so unless I see a bevy of evidence that LeBron's actually a DPOY level player, that his value off-ball is better than it appears, that his outside shooting numbers are a fluke function of him taking contested shots against the shot clock (qSC anyone?) then I'm viewing all votes (but yours) for him in that light.
Are people asserting that LeBron's defensive value makes him No. 1? Are they saying his offense is back to peak form? I think this is worth a less myopic discussion than the last few Finals games:
> LeBron's shooting from '12-'14 was between 75-78% at the line. It was 73% this year. > LeBron's shooting from '12-14 from 3-point range was 36%, 41% and 38%. This year it was 31%. > LeBron's shooting from mid-range was down this year compared to his peak years > LeBron's finishing ability at the rim is down compared to his peak years
If people de facto believe that James is still in peak form, then logically his previous years must have been better, and it looks like a level better. His FT-rate is down as well, so the natural counter is "well, he's a better playmaker/passer." Really? I could see looking at the way Cleveland was structured this year and think LeBron is like 2% better at passing, but he's been at this level of passing/playmaking for years, the team around him wasn't always as well constructed nor were the opponents a bunny-slope on the way to the Finals.
It's very clearly winning bias. I won't generalize but there were absolutely clamors along the lines of "Is Lebron even top 5??" after game 4. The narrative swing as a result of three games is remarkable.
W/regard to my own evaluation - I've found I tend to refine my thoughts better once given time to put some distance from the season (and postseason in particular) and take a broader look at the player in question. I think another season of "this version" of Lebron will absolutely influence my thought process on 15/16, especially if he addresses some of the glaring weaknesses of his game to the tune of improvement.
But in his home dwelling...the hi-top faded warrior is revered. *Smack!* The sound of his palm blocking the basketball... the sound of thousands rising, roaring... the sound of "get that sugar honey iced tea outta here!"
lorak wrote: You are not impressed with Kerr's ingame adjustments, but at the same time you see nothing suggesting Pop wasn't amazing?! Did you miss series vs OKC, when Pop did almost nothing through most games and started to do panic moves in G6 when it was too late? Kerr at least tried different things, while Pop's approach was "I can talk **** to reporters and do no ingame adjustments, because I'm so cool and we will win anyway". Besides if you are not judging a player on 3 or 4 games, nor judging him against 1 opponent, so why you are doing that when you evaluate coach? (I'm assuming Kerr's lack of adjustments refers to the finals.)
Not at all. Not being impressed with adjustments is not the same as thinking adjustments are bad. And not a correct assumption about the Finals.
So which Kerr's adjustments weren't so impressive and how he look in comparison with Pop, especially with what he did (or rather didn't) vs OKC?
Also, what exactly puts KD over LeBron? Because full seasons stats like RAPM value James more, including his defense, so I don't see from where does your synergy stats argument comes from.
Maybe I'm not being clear -- I'm not putting Kerr there because I think he's an in-game strategist. I point this out because (a) he's been credited in the past with stuff like "Kerr put Iggy in the starting lineup!" and (b) been criticized in these playoffs for not reacting. I don't see the argument for Pop's horrible OKC series -- you'll have to show me something significantly more compelling.
With regards to KD -- I'm not saying he would do better with every mid-level team than LJ. I think he fits better offensively with more top-tier teams because he's not going to reduce the value of any ball-dominant players he paired with, he's going to enhance it. And yes, I know the ORtg stats for Cleveland, but (a) they're playing offensive-centric lineups to sacrifice defense at times and (b) ball-dominance can have a high ceiling and not scale.
KD has demonstrated that he can be part of an elite defensive team and could be a ridiculous 4-man in certain lineups. He is better in situational isolation (where isolation tends to sustain value) and at providing synergistic, off-ball value. I've never liked the criticisms of Westbrook because his ball-dominance helps get KD looks -- you don't want Durant dominating the ball all the time. I believe Durant has become underrated in the basketball zeitgeist and is close to being this generation's lite version of the KG narrative. (That's my way of saying that if he signs with Boston -- and I think he'll go 1+1 in OKC -- that he can shake the NBA landscape. Seriously, go sign with Boston.)
