'17-'18 POY discussion

[dontcalltimeout]

Interesting thoughts on the genius of how Steve Kerr runs the Warriors (when they're working properly) from Dylan Murphy, former D-League Scout / Assistant Coach.

[Lost92Bricks]

My annual case for Chris Paul...

He went to a completely different team/system and made the same huge impact.

All the talk was about him "not making it work" and the exact opposite happened. He adjusted his game and became a near perfect fit.

What were the Rockets known for? Shooting a ton of threes. Chris only added to that, and actually became their best three point shooter (38% on 6.5 attempts).

He added a midrange game that was non-existent (big part of them beating Utah with Gobert sitting at the rim).

He was one of their best defenders and one of the reasons they became one of the best defensive teams in the league.

He added another ballhandler/playmaker to take pressure off of Harden who is known to wear down at times.

To give an example of his impact, up to this point, he has the #1 record in the regular season and the playoffs. The Rockets were a ridiculous 50-8 with him in the lineup and 11-4 in the playoffs. They were a 70 win championship-level team with him playing.

Maybe he's not top 5, but he and the Rockets in general deserve alot of credit for making the season interesting when it looked like the Warriors would run through everybody again.

[mischievous]

My annual case for Chris Paul...

He went to a completely different team/system and made the same huge impact.

All the talk was about him "not making it work" and the exact opposite happened. He adjusted his game and became a near perfect fit.

What were the Rockets known for? Shooting a ton of threes. Chris only added to that, and actually became their best three point shooter (38% on 6.5 attempts).

He added a midrange game that was non-existent (big part of them beating Utah with Gobert sitting at the rim).

He was one of their best defenders and one of the reasons they became one of the best defensive teams in the league.

He added another ballhandler/playmaker to take pressure off of Harden who is known to wear down at times.

To give an example of his impact, up to this point, he has the #1 record in the regular season and in the playoffs. The Rockets were a ridiculous 50-8 with him in the lineup and 11-4 in the playoffs. They were a 70 win championship-level team with him playing.

Maybe he's not top 5, but he and the Rockets in general deserve alot of credit for making the season interesting when it looked like the Warriors would run through everybody again.

If his durability wasn’t poop he’d definitely have been in my top 5.

[bondom34]

RPM updated. Curry over Harden, LeBron jumps up a bit. If not for time missed paul would be in my 5 too.
I'm still at
1. LeBron
2. Harden
3-5 in some order Davis, Giannis, and I think Oladipo. Maybe Embiid or someone else if I hear a better case.

[GSP]

I think we all have the same 4, in whatever order after Lebron. I really think Victor deserves #5. He carried that team all year. They were a disaster without him and he somehow brought them to an inch within a top 10 offense along with being the best perimeter defender in the league that isnt Roberson. They outscored the Cavs with him on the court and outscored them by 40 throughout the series but got murked when he had to sit

Giannis and Victor had very similar carryjob seasons and pushed the Ecf team to 7. Victor even has a case over Giannis so ppl should consider him IMO

[Doctor MJ]

So does anyone have Curry with a potential top 5 slot? I think it's pretty clear he's the 2nd best player in the NBA but he missed a huge amount of games. I'm leaning towards Giannis at 4, and was leaning Durant/Oladipo at 5 but I'm really struggling with it now. Thoughts? I knew there were a lot but injuries really took a toll this year.

Most likely Curry makes my top 5 and I could see him as high as 3. Still very much in the air though for the simple fact that I tend not to focus on injuries if they didn't in the end destroy the season. A lot of people object to this approach and understandably so. I don't really intend to justify it here, but I will say I rank Curry ahead of Harden as a player but Harden's still going to be ahead of him in my POY this year, so injuries and variance in play aren't nothing to me either.

[eminence]

Giannis/Oladipo are contenders for me, but it's a tight battle vs Curry/Dray, KD still a small outside chance as well.

[mtron929]

Given that it seems like most people have Lebron as the #1 player, I guess the question is how badly would have had his regular season be such that you would put Harden over Lebron? I think this is an interesting question, and I have a very low baseline. For myself, if Lebron played so badly such that the Cavs did not make the playoffs, that is the point in which Lebron would not deserve to be on the list (and yes, for this argument, I am putting some level of high correlation between Lebron's individual performance and the Cav's team performance). However, let's say Lebron played good enough (like top 15-20 level) that put the Cavs in the 7th/8th seed of the Eastern conference. I think with someone like Lebron who can have a "switch", that would be sufficient enough to jump him over Harden as #1 given his current playoff performance. Because the way I see it for certain superstars, it is really championship or bust. And playoffs is all it matters and if you can especially beat other teams without homecourt (see Toronto/Celtics series), then the regular season is just an exercise to get into the playoffs. So anything that someone like Lebron does would pretty much wipe away any of the regular season misgivings.

[SideshowBob]

Hope you get a chance to chime in on this rollercoaster of a season.

[Mystical Apples]

LeBron about to go scorched earth.

Read on Twitter

[laika]

The Power’s point is the right one in principle - but also:

(1) don’t come in all holier-than-thou, and
(2) don’t pretend like people aren’t making legitimate points behind the emotional (as you correctly pointed out) posts. The point about legacies isn’t just armchair psychology - it’s an attempt by people (most of whom - big3, bondom, etc - have relatively consistent criterias) to figure out what people value, and how they do it.

I strongly disagree.
1 is literally impossible when dealing with heavily biased people. No matter how rational, your point will be emotionally dismissed.
2.They definitely are not making legitimate points. All the talk about things being rigged for the Warriors is an embarrassment to this forum. The evidence was extremely weak before Friday. Then last night the league was extremely favorable to Cleveland in not suspending Love or Thompson.

As for legacies, the series is not over. The Vegas line of 12 is just crazy. Cavs are slight favorites in game 2.

-Iguodala will likely miss the game again. Andre is a Cavs killer to an extent that few people realize.
The last 3 years in the finals-

--------Oncourt-----Offcourt------On/Off
2017-----20.4-------neg 12.6------33.0
2016------3.8-------neg 11.4------15.2
2015-----13.9--------neg 8.2------22.1

-Without Iguodala playing the Warriors have no one to defend Lebron. Looney has been a great defender this year but the Looney experiment failed in game 1. Looney and Green are stuck near the basket too much. Durant is an extremely overrated defender. Curry's defense is underrated, but he can't reasonably be expected to guard Lebron when Lebron is allowed to push off.
-Neither Lebron nor Durant play defense any more. But Durant not being able to score in game 1 is a big disappointment for the Warriors. They can't rely on last year's model to work. It will be up to Curry to save them if the Warriors win this series.
-After the suspension ruling by the league, you would also expect that Cleveland might get some really favorable calls tomorrow.

[Jaivl]

Then last night the league was extremely favorable to Cleveland in not suspending Love or Thompson.

How is not suspending a guy that did nothing "extremely favorable"?

[laika]

Then last night the league was extremely favorable to Cleveland in not suspending Love or Thompson.

How is not suspending a guy that did nothing "extremely favorable"?

I'll pretend for a second that this is a serious question.

The bench rule is unpopular, but there have been other players suspended for what Love did. There was no explanation of why Love gets an exemption.
The Thompson non-punishment is just unbelievable. The NBA has a zero tolerance policy for hitting your opponent when the game is stopped. Until now, when they made an indefensible exception for Thompson. Has there been any other player that hit their opponent in the face when play was stopped and not gotten suspended?

[microfib4thewin]

If the Cavs are being favored they wouldn't call a Flagrant 2 in the first place. At the very least they should have reviewed the play, and there was no way that slight brush on Livingston constitute a flagrant.

[Ambrose]

So does anyone have Curry with a potential top 5 slot? I think it's pretty clear he's the 2nd best player in the NBA but he missed a huge amount of games. I'm leaning towards Giannis at 4, and was leaning Durant/Oladipo at 5 but I'm really struggling with it now. Thoughts? I knew there were a lot but injuries really took a toll this year.

Most likely Curry makes my top 5 and I could see him as high as 3. Still very much in the air though for the simple fact that I tend not to focus on injuries if they didn't in the end destroy the season. A lot of people object to this approach and understandably so. I don't really intend to justify it here, but I will say I rank Curry ahead of Harden as a player but Harden's still going to be ahead of him in my POY this year, so injuries and variance in play aren't nothing to me either.

That's the harder thing for me to factor in. Just how much of a knock are games missed worth when you know one player is better than another. Trying to find that balance is extremely difficult.

[Ambrose]

Then last night the league was extremely favorable to Cleveland in not suspending Love or Thompson.

How is not suspending a guy that did nothing "extremely favorable"?

I'll pretend for a second that this is a serious question.

The bench rule is unpopular, but there have been other players suspended for what Love did. There was no explanation of why Love gets an exemption.
The Thompson non-punishment is just unbelievable. The NBA has a zero tolerance policy for hitting your opponent when the game is stopped. Until now, when they made an indefensible exception for Thompson. Has there been any other player that hit their opponent in the face when play was stopped and not gotten suspended?

I don't know the intricacies of the rule but Kevin Love was on the court before Thompson was tossed or anything happened. Maybe that changes things, idk.

[laika]

If the Cavs are being favored they wouldn't call a Flagrant 2 in the first place. At the very least they should have reviewed the play, and there was no way that slight brush on Livingston constitute a flagrant.

False. If you throw an intentional elbow at someone's face there is a very good chance you'll get a flagrant 2. They did review the play.

I like how you conveniently ignore that Thompson then hit Green in the face. Then you ignore that Thompson escaping suspension could be unprecedented for this type of incident.

[dhsilv2]

Wow absolutely shocked TT wasn't suspended. It'll be good for game 2, but he flat out punched green in the face.

[Jaivl]

Then last night the league was extremely favorable to Cleveland in not suspending Love or Thompson.

How is not suspending a guy that did nothing "extremely favorable"?

I'll pretend for a second that this is a serious question.

The bench rule is unpopular, but there have been other players suspended for what Love did. There was no explanation of why Love gets an exemption.
The Thompson non-punishment is just unbelievable. The NBA has a zero tolerance policy for hitting your opponent when the game is stopped. Until now, when they made an indefensible exception for Thompson. Has there been any other player that hit their opponent in the face when play was stopped and not gotten suspended?

Westbrook didn't get suspended for the same reason, in this same playoffs. Anyway I wasn't referring to him.

I was referring to Thompson. It's a good thing he didn't hit anybody.

[INKtastic]

Wow absolutely shocked TT wasn't suspended. It'll be good for game 2, but he flat out punched green in the face.

No he didn’t. The ball hit green.