RealGM Top 25 Player Poll-#12 2018-19

[alessandrux]

I am a bit undecied here, for me it is between Gobert, Jokic and (probably due to homerism) George.

Also, I'm not a big fan of the mechanism to add a new player to the poll by spamming a name and by doing so hindering the discussion.
I propose something easier and more condensed like naming the first player that comes to mind ( something along the lines: ''I'm proposing player XYZ to be added next to the poll'') and 'and1'ing said post if you agree, after that just counting the and1s and adding the player whose name received the most.

[illuminati666]

Bruh.... Kyrie is falling too much. What're y'all doing??

[THE J0KER]

After a kind of rough first month, Kyrie averaged

26/4/5 on 51/43/89 shooting (63 TS%)

After ASG Jokic averaged 22-11-7 on 54/47/85 shooting (65 TS%)

That is more relevant numbers what to expect from him this season than his 2017-18 overall 19-11-6 stats

[illuminati666]

Also - I've seen Kyrie rank highly for like the past 5 polls with no one commenting on why. I think there's an argument to be made for him at this point but I'd like to see someone make it otherwise I'm gonna assume there's just a disproportionate amount of C's fans here.

This....its alot of quiet celtics fans here

I've been voting for Kyrie. Just bc he wasn't on the Celtics playoffs run a lot of ppl have begun to think of him as an afterthought. Kyrie is still an unbelievably great scorer who could get his shot off whenever. He's clutch af as well. It's mind blowing to me how CP3 is rated higher than him when just before last season ppl were saying he's the second best PG in the league.

I think its; Curry, WB, Kyrie, CP3, Lillard

[mademan]

Also - I've seen Kyrie rank highly for like the past 5 polls with no one commenting on why. I think there's an argument to be made for him at this point but I'd like to see someone make it otherwise I'm gonna assume there's just a disproportionate amount of C's fans here.

This....its alot of quiet celtics fans here

I've been voting for Kyrie. Just bc he wasn't on the Celtics playoffs run a lot of ppl have begun to think of him as an afterthought. Kyrie is still an unbelievably great scorer who could get his shot off whenever. He's clutch af as well. It's mind blowing to me how CP3 is rated higher than him when just before last season ppl were saying he's the second best PG in the league.

I think its; Curry, WB, Kyrie, CP3, Lillard

No they werent. Paul is worlds better than Kyrie, and, to me, it's not even arguable. Both have their injury concerns so you cant even give Kyrie a leg up on that front. Kyrie is on the same tier as Lillard/Wall/Lowry and even Kemba. Not in that first tier with Curry/Paul

[Duke4life831]

After a kind of rough first month, Kyrie averaged

26/4/5 on 51/43/89 shooting (63 TS%)

After ASG Jokic averaged 22-11-7 on 54/47/85 shooting (65 TS%)

That is more relevant numbers what to expect from him this season than his 2017-18 overall 19-11-6 stats

You will get no argument from me on Jokic. Like I said on the first page on this, it was a true toss up between Jokic and Kyrie.

[yoyoboy]

I would vote Dryamond here and then Oladipo next but seeing that neither of those guys have any shot in this poll, I'm going to vote Jokic since this race is clearly going to come down to Kyrie and Joker, and Jokic is definitely the more impactful player.

And for those of you saying that Kyrie can't be that bad defensively if Boston was able to finish with the #1 defense in spite of him on that end, then can we also ask the question, why did Boston manage just an 18th ranked offense - below average - if Kyrie is such a juggernaut on offense, especially being that he played in Stevens' continuously praised system?

Kyrie's an absolutely lethal scorer and probably the best isolationist in the league outside of Harden in my opinion. He also rarely turns it over with a 10.4% TOV. Those no doubt have value and are reflected in his 6.9 OBPM. But that box score metric doesn't do a great job of evaluating his ability to elevate his teammates, which is something Kyrie has really struggled with in his career. Both in terms of being a great decision maker and feeding his teammates at the right times, as well as using his shooting to be more of an off ball threat than he is. Kyrie doesn't move off the ball all that much and he rarely ever sets screens (which guys like Curry and Korver have shown are useful not only for helping others get open but also for setting yourself up for scoring opportunities). Those are what have prevented him from reaching the level of elite offensive impact. While his 27 points per 36 on 61% TS is phenomenal..

Harden: 31 points per 36 on 62% TS
Curry: 30 points per 36 on 67.5% TS
Davis: 28 points per 36 on 61% TS
Durant: 28 points per 36 on 64% TS
LeBron: 27 points per 36 on 62% TS
Lillard: 26.5 points per 36 on 59% TS
Giannis: 26 points per 36 on 60% TS
Towns: 22 points per 36 on 64.5% TS

So you've got some very stiff competition there even just looking at scoring ability. So once you observe that the high volume, high efficiency guys like Harden, Curry, and LeBron have also shown far superior ability to make things easier for their teammates, as well, while worse scorers like CP3 and Jokic are still efficient on decent volume (20+ pp36 and 60%+ TS) and better at setting up teammates than Kyrie, and then you have players like Durant, Giannis, and Davis who are equally good/better scorers and might not be any better as playmakers compared to Irving but give you good to great defensive impact, as well, while Kyrie hurts you on that end...it's not hard to imagine that Kyrie's could be in the ~8-13 range in terms of offensive impact (RPM pegged him at 12th in ORPM while RAPM had him at 39th for the record this past season on offense). I think the impact metrics underrate Kyrie's a bit (playing with LeBron and then for Stevens allows the offense to stay afloat more than it might in other situations with a guy like Kyrie going out) while the box-score metrics - OBPM had Kyrie at 5th, PER had him at 9th, and WS/48 had him at 8th - probably overvalue him a bit, so his true offensive impact is most likely somewhere in between the two sides.

And so even if he's the 7th-8th best offensive player in the league, with every advanced metric, tracking data, and especially the eye test all pointing to well below average defense from Kyrie, how can he be the 12th best player in the league and ahead of guys like Oladipo and Draymond who are two-way monsters (yes Green is a good offensive player despite his lack of scoring because he's a phenomenal playmaker) and Jokic who's better than Kyrie on defense, a little worse as a scorer, and much better as a facilitator. And then you have guys who are potentially better or at the very least in the discussion with him like Gobert (DPOY quality and at least neutral on offense due to his screens and lob action), George, Lowry, Towns, Klay, Horford, Lillard - who's virtually the same player as Kyrie in terms of strengths and weaknesses yet never seems to get the same credit as Kyrie who oddly a ton of people see as a top 10 player while Lillard's an afterthought.

[Duke4life831]

There are a lot of pretty elite offensive players in the league (who would look even more elite if you threw out their worst stretch of games), and if he's closer to a top 10 rather than a top 5 offensive player while being a negative on defense, there are still a few players better than him overall.

That's over half a season. He was 8th in WS/48 last year. He wasn't that negative defensively since Boston still had an elite and #1 defense in the league. I think that he is close if not a top 5 offensive player, which by itself puts him in that top 10-15 range, that is how important elite offense is.

Appreciate the sound reasoning.

My issue with Kyrie is that his highest finish in RPM is 38th in the league back in 2015. I know RPM isn't the end-all-be-all, but not even sniffing the top 25 is a pretty big red flag for me in terms of the impact he's actually bringing to a team, and it bore out last year when Boston almost reached the finals without him. Kyrie is clearly one of the most talented individual scorers in the league (and that does have value in the postseason) but I think with his playmaking and off-ball limitations he falls short of having the elite offensive impact of a Curry/Harden/Paul, while being a clear negative defensively. He's also not a horrible rebounder for a point guard, but that's still an area where he doesn't provide the value of a Jokic/Green/Towns.

Yup RPM has never been great for Kyrie, that is a totally legit argument against him. While BPM and WS/48 tends to favor him (mainly cause I think it favors offense a lot more than RPM does). His accolades and resume for his age is pretty damn impressive, even last year with Boston when Hayward went down, no one had Boston competing for the #1 seed, many didnt even think they were a playoff team. I know the success they had without him, but its not like they were dominant in the playoffs, it took them 7 games to get out of the first round. I think Kyrie's really good year played a huge part in Boston staying as a top tier team in the East after Hayward going down.

But again you can make the argument for Dame playing unbelievable and getting Portland to the 3rd seed in the West. The crazy impact offensively Jokic has, Gobert's ridiculous impact defensively and a few more guys in this area. Again I think roughly 10-15 is truly a toss up and I could understand arguments for any of those guys over the other.

[iggymcfrack]

Still on Oladipo, but I’d have Jokic no worse than 11th, he’s very deserving. Kyrie really shouldn’t be under consideration for a while yet. I’d look at it like this:

Irving: Scoring elite, playmaking good, defense poor

Jokic: Scoring very good, playmaking elite, defense average (including rebounding)

Oladipo: Scoring very good, playmaking good, defense elite

Kyrie only has an edge in scoring and even that edge isn’t that great. Kyrie only averaged 1.3 more points per game last year than Oladipo while taking the same number of shots. You really think that Oladipo’s not worth more than 1.3 more points than Kyrie’s worth on the defensive end? I’d say he’s probably worth more like 4 or 5.

Meanwhile Jokic averaged more points than Kyrie over the last month and a half of the season and he’s a 23 year old that’s getting better and better every day.

[iggymcfrack]

Next choice to add to the poll should be Ben Simmons. He had a better RPM as a rookie last year than Kyrie’s had in any of the last 3 seasons. If we’re looking at the 2018-19 season, I don’t see how you wouldn’t expect him to improve significantly going from Year 1 to Year 2.

[Filthadelphia]

I am a bit undecied here, for me it is between Gobert, Jokic and (probably due to homerism) George.

Also, I'm not a big fan of the mechanism to add a new player to the poll by spamming a name and by doing so hindering the discussion.
I propose something easier and more condensed like naming the first player that comes to mind ( something along the lines: ''I'm proposing player XYZ to be added next to the poll'') and 'and1'ing said post if you agree, after that just counting the and1s and adding the player whose name received the most.

The reason I want people to post is so that the thread stays at or near the top and thus ensures the most people see it and then vote.

The thread isnt really clogged at all.
We're averaging 400+ views in less than a day and almost 200 people voting yet no thread has gone over 3 pages.

[zimpy27]

The fact that Simmons and Cousins aren't on the poll is pretty terrible.

If it's how they've been then Cousins must be on , if it's how good they will be this season then Simmons must be on. Either could be chosen by now.

[ProcessDoctor]

Add Simmons

[deneem4]

I would vote Dryamond here and then Oladipo next but seeing that neither of those guys have any shot in this poll, I'm going to vote Jokic since this race is clearly going to come down to Kyrie and Joker, and Jokic is definitely the more impactful player.

And for those of you saying that Kyrie can't be that bad defensively if Boston was able to finish with the #1 defense in spite of him on that end, then can we also ask the question, why did Boston manage just an 18th ranked offense - below average - if Kyrie is such a juggernaut on offense, especially being that he played in Stevens' continuously praised system?

Kyrie's an absolutely lethal scorer and probably the best isolationist in the league outside of Harden in my opinion. He also rarely turns it over with a 10.4% TOV. Those no doubt have value and are reflected in his 6.9 OBPM. But that box score metric doesn't do a great job of evaluating his ability to elevate his teammates, which is something Kyrie has really struggled with in his career. Both in terms of being a great decision maker and feeding his teammates at the right times, as well as using his shooting to be more of an off ball threat than he is. Kyrie doesn't move off the ball all that much and he rarely ever sets screens (which guys like Curry and Korver have shown are useful not only for helping others get open but also for setting yourself up for scoring opportunities). Those are what have prevented him from reaching the level of elite offensive impact. While his 27 points per 36 on 61% TS is phenomenal..

Harden: 31 points per 36 on 62% TS
Curry: 30 points per 36 on 67.5% TS
Davis: 28 points per 36 on 61% TS
Durant: 28 points per 36 on 64% TS
LeBron: 27 points per 36 on 62% TS
Lillard: 26.5 points per 36 on 59% TS
Giannis: 26 points per 36 on 60% TS
Towns: 22 points per 36 on 64.5% TS

So you've got some very stiff competition there even just looking at scoring ability. So once you observe that the high volume, high efficiency guys like Harden, Curry, and LeBron have also shown far superior ability to make things easier for their teammates, as well, while worse scorers like CP3 and Jokic are still efficient on decent volume (20+ pp36 and 60%+ TS) and better at setting up teammates than Kyrie, and then you have players like Durant, Giannis, and Davis who are equally good/better scorers and might not be any better as playmakers compared to Irving but give you good to great defensive impact, as well, while Kyrie hurts you on that end...it's not hard to imagine that Kyrie's could be in the ~8-13 range in terms of offensive impact (RPM pegged him at 12th in ORPM while RAPM had him at 39th for the record this past season on offense). I think the impact metrics underrate Kyrie's a bit (playing with LeBron and then for Stevens allows the offense to stay afloat more than it might in other situations with a guy like Kyrie going out) while the box-score metrics - OBPM had Kyrie at 5th, PER had him at 9th, and WS/48 had him at 8th - probably overvalue him a bit, so his true offensive impact is most likely somewhere in between the two sides.

And so even if he's the 7th-8th best offensive player in the league, with every advanced metric, tracking data, and especially the eye test all pointing to well below average defense from Kyrie, how can he be the 12th best player in the league and ahead of guys like Oladipo and Draymond who are two-way monsters (yes Green is a good offensive player despite his lack of scoring because he's a phenomenal playmaker) and Jokic who's better than Kyrie on defense, a little worse as a scorer, and much better as a facilitator. And then you have guys who are potentially better or at the very least in the discussion with him like Gobert (DPOY quality and at least neutral on offense due to his screens and lob action), George, Lowry, Towns, Klay, Horford, Lillard - who's virtually the same player as Kyrie in terms of strengths and weaknesses yet never seems to get the same credit as Kyrie who oddly a ton of people see as a top 10 player while Lillard's an afterthought.

Dont forget isiah thomas who put up 28.9 points on 62% ts...

Kyrie shouldnt be an option yet

[-G-]

Wow @ the Jokic love. Ok.

[DCRYsing89]

Nikola Jokic for me, maybe Gobert or Towns. But definitely one of these three.

Also...where the heck is DeMarcus Cousins?

Boogie/Wall/Porzingis/Hayward are feeling the wrath of injuries/recency bias. In Boogie's case I guess there's a concern he'll never be as good as he was.

Yeah but to not even be an option? Crazy talk. Dude's coming off a year where he was averaging 25/13/5.5...these are historic numbers.

Lowry before wall
Thats crazy talk to.
Wall averaged 30-12 in the playoffs off memory.
Lowry averaged like 19-7...
Both solid defenders.

Wall needs to be added.

[TravisScott55]

Wow you Jokic lovers are outrageous.

[Funcrusher]

Wow you Jokic lovers are outrageous.

How is Jokic at #12 outrageous?

[yoyoboy]

Wow you Jokic lovers are outrageous.

I think it's crazier that Kyrie has as many votes as Oladipo, Draymond, Lillard, and Gobert combined when all four posted higher RPM values just last season than Kyrie ever has in his career. The fact that the only actual argument I've seen for Kyrie in this thread has been by Duke yet Kyrie might win the poll tells me this is starting to turn into a bit of a popularity contest. And Kyrie is no doubt popular finishing 5th in All Star voting in 2017 and 5th in 2018, 4th in jersey sales this past season, and 2nd in signature shoe sales only behind LeBron.

But the top tier impact in comparison to the wide perception of him has never really been there in his career, and when you refrain from using arguments like "clutchness," "Mamba mentality," "the shot in Game 7," and "he gets buckets," it becomes very difficult to construct an argument that he's the 12th best player in the league, but I'm more than open to hearing evidence- based arguments for why he is. I just haven't seen convincing arguments here. As an offensive player, he's fantastic due to his elite efficiency, top tier isolation creation, and low turnover rate, but he lacks the off ball play and great playmaking that separates the top 5 offensive players from the next 10 or so. And then when you factor in that he's a clear negative defender by any measure (and I don't think even Kyrie's biggest supporters would argue against this), it's hard to see how he's the 12th best guy here.

Here’s a rudimentary comparison:

Draymond Green:
1-on-1 Offense/Scoring: D
Off Ball Offense/Spacing: B
Playmaking: A
1-on-1 Defense: B
Help Defense: A
Rebounding: B

Kyrie Irving:
1-on-1 Offense/Scoring: A
Off Ball Offense/Spacing: B
Playmaking: B
1-on-1 Defense: D
Help Defense: D
Rebounding: D

Victor Oladipo:
1-on-1 Offense/Scoring: B
Off Ball Offense/Spacing: B
Playmaking: B
1-on-1 Defense: B
Help Defense: B
Rebounding: C

Nikola Jokic:
1-on-1 Offense/Scoring: B
Off Ball Offense/Spacing: B
Playmaking: A
1-on-1 Defense: C
Help Defense: D
Rebounding: A

Rudy Gobert:
1-on-1 Offense/Scoring: D
Off Ball Offense/Spacing: B
Playmaking: F
1-on-1 Defense: B
Help Defense: A
Rebounding: A

Obviously not every category would be weighed the same, but I’m just trying to point out there are so many facets to the game that lead to value on the court and while Kyrie is a scoring maestro, his entire package leaves some to be desired, and I don’t see the evidence for him being a better, more impactful player than those other four guys.

[Prez]

It’s between Jokic/Oladipo for me and I went with Jokic by a hair. I’m not surprised that Kyrie is going to go either here or the next pick given how popular a player he is, but I do strongly disagree with it. Honestly based on last season he might not even be the #1 Celtic for me, though if we're projecting into next season (if healthy) he would be. Add Ben Simmons.