RealGM Top 25 Player Poll-#12 2018-19

[Luigi]

If postseason performances mean anything then it’s Kyrie by a mile followed by Draymond and Paul George. Granted Kyrie didn’t play in last years postseason but his playoff resume is well established and his game rising on the grandest stage is well established. There are a select few men in the NBA that can go straight inferno in a postseason game and steal it for you and Kyrie is one of them. That’s what separates him from the pack here

I mostly agree. Especially for Irving.

But Gobert and the Jazz defense just got done punking Paul George in the playoffs. George was a better player before the injury. Hmmm, I might have just convinced myself to wait until I see Kyrie play this season...

Difference is Gobert has never gotten out of the second round and has put together back to back abysmal performances against golden state and Houston. Honestly I’d take Mitchell over him RIGHT NOW but that’s for a different thread. Paul George’s performances in a losing effort vs Lebrons Cavs while still on the Pacers trump anything Gobert has ever done IMO

You missed my point about George's injury.

His most recent sample is losing to Gobert in the first round, being totally blocked out of the paint. Post injury Paul George is the guy we're voting on here.

[Asif16]

Poll going down to the wire

[ElectricMayhem]

If Jokic had been on the Cavs and Kyrie on the Nuggets, we'd be talking about how Jokic had proven himself in the playoffs and Kyrie can't even lead a team to the playoffs. Having being given the opportunity to perform on the big stage doesn't make one better.

And if Jokic had proven himself, he'd get the nod.

Having actually performed when tested matters. It matters more than potential. Potential means you haven't done anything yet. There's the opportunity, then there's the performance.

You should be responding to this one, ElectricMayhem.

You're not the boss of me!

Ok, I will. It's just a difference in outlooks. I don't think the fact that a player having played with a superstar and proving himself on the big stage means he is a better player now or in the upcoming year. People have already detailed in this thread how Jokic has proven himself over the course of multiple seasons and has shown to be more valuable to his teams. That holds more weight with me then a handful of games. This is a top 25 poll of the best players in 2018-19, which includes the entire season.

[Homerclease]

I mostly agree. Especially for Irving.

But Gobert and the Jazz defense just got done punking Paul George in the playoffs. George was a better player before the injury. Hmmm, I might have just convinced myself to wait until I see Kyrie play this season...

Difference is Gobert has never gotten out of the second round and has put together back to back abysmal performances against golden state and Houston. Honestly I’d take Mitchell over him RIGHT NOW but that’s for a different thread. Paul George’s performances in a losing effort vs Lebrons Cavs while still on the Pacers trump anything Gobert has ever done IMO

You missed my point about George's injury. His most recent sample is losing to Gobert in the first round, being totally blocked out of the paint. Post injury Paul George is the guy we're voting on here.

If this poll solely included just last season then Kawhi Leonard should’ve never been on it. Have to take into account some of the past body of work too. Unless you’re saying that Paul George is past his prime already which may be so. I think it’s more a byproduct of playing with Westbrook but I digress. Irving should win here and honestly I don’t even think Gobert should be on the list yet

[Asif16]

Surprised to see Irving get so many votes, and Damian Lilliard so few.

Lilliard and Irving are identical imo. Both elite offensive PG's, who are trash on defense.

[bondom34]

Surprised to see Irving get so many votes, and Damian Lilliard so few.

Lilliard and Irving are identical imo. Both elite offensive PG's, who are trash on defense.

http://bkref.com/tiny/kdQ5Q

Dame was better. Better in RPM and RAPM too. And he wasn't trash on defense last year honestly

[iggymcfrack]

If postseason performances mean anything then it’s Kyrie by a mile followed by Draymond and Paul George. Granted Kyrie didn’t play in last years postseason but his playoff resume is well established and his game rising on the grandest stage is well established. There are a select few men in the NBA that can go straight inferno in a postseason game and steal it for you and Kyrie is one of them. That’s what separates him from the pack here

If you’re looking at playoff performance, then it should be Draymond (NBA playoff leader in RAPM the last 5 years) and Oladipo (nearly outdueled LeBron with an inferior supporting cast, led Pacers to a +10.4 NetRtg when he was on the floor). Then maybe Horford and Gobert. Kyrie still not close to being selected.

[Luigi]

Difference is Gobert has never gotten out of the second round and has put together back to back abysmal performances against golden state and Houston. Honestly I’d take Mitchell over him RIGHT NOW but that’s for a different thread. Paul George’s performances in a losing effort vs Lebrons Cavs while still on the Pacers trump anything Gobert has ever done IMO

You missed my point about George's injury. His most recent sample is losing to Gobert in the first round, being totally blocked out of the paint. Post injury Paul George is the guy we're voting on here.

If this poll solely included just last season then Kawhi Leonard should’ve never been on it. Have to take into account some of the past body of work too. Unless you’re saying that Paul George is past his prime already which may be so. I think it’s more a byproduct of playing with Westbrook but I digress. Irving should win here and honestly I don’t even think Gobert should be on the list yet

I think the poll is about where players are for the season opener, with a reasonable prediction about health for players that have been out (Leonard, Irving, etc...). I think we all know Leonard was healthy all along . Irving, I might be talking myself out of my Irving vote here, but I bet he's back to normal, he'd done it before. Paul George was healthy last playoffs, and will be the same player at the opener.

Gobert almost single handedly won that round 1 series. When he sat, the Thunder looked crazy dangerous, rampaging through the paint. Did you watch that series? Did you see the stats on the time Gobert was sitting with foul trouble, and the effect he had on Westbrook and George's penetration game? It was nothing short of massive. And the numbers looked about the same for wins and losses during the regular season when Gobert came back.

[ITYSL]

Kyrie’s actually tied with Jokic now? This is absurd. RPM isn’t perfect but it’s the best publicly available metric we have. Here’s Jokic vs. Kyrie by year:

2017/18: Jokic +5.97 (5th), Kyrie +2.39 (45th)
2016/17: Jokic +6.73 (6th), Kyrie +2.05 (53rd)
2015/16: Jokic +6.03 (9th), Kyrie -0.60 (186th)

That’s a really consistent tale that RPM’s telling, and the impact of the 2 players is not remotely close. It’s not like you’re comparing some low minute bit player to a superstar. Jokic was carrying pretty much the exact same scoring load as Kyrie in the second half of the season last year. They’ve played similar roles as the lead scorer/playmaker on their respective teams and over a large sample, Jokic is just much better. No matter how large you think the margin of error is for RPM, it’s not large enough for results that far apart to be ordered incorrectly in terms of who’s actually the better player. I feel a lot of people don’t give RPM credit because they don’t understand it so that’s why sometimes I like to show just simple plus/minus which is the primary input into RPM’s development:

Jokic: +9.8, +11.9, +9.5
Kyrie: +3.1, +7.2, -0.2

Jokic’s teams were on average 10.4 points better with him on the floor than the bench. Kyrie’s teams were on average 3.9 points better with him on the floor than the bench. That’s a massive difference. That’s like the difference between the Warriors and the Pistons. And 3 years is not a small sample. These are extremely significant results.

No offense but you're diving to deep into things. If an argument doesnt work in your favor when it comes to these stats how exactly are you going to counter?

Unlike a lot of people, I don’t decide which side of the argument that I like and then try to find stats to fit it. I use the information out there to shape my opinions and then defend them on the solid ground they’re founded from. If there are 2 players in a similar role and one improves his team 6+ points more than the other I’m always gonna have him as the better player unless there’s some other major factor like of he’d just torn his ACL or something.

RPM shouldnt be ignored, but that is all you are using. When many, many other stats point to Kyrie being a fringe top 10 player (including BBR's own advanced plus-minus stat), it's unwise imo to use just one stat to dismiss them. Otherwise you end up being too reliant on a stat that had Robert Covington, Otto Porter and Tyus Jones in the top 15 of its ranking for last season. RPM, in my experience, more often has outliers that just don't pass the smell test. ESPN's QBR in the NFL is similar in this regard.

I can totally understand why someone would choose Jokic over Kyrie. But your posts leaning on RPM to discredit Kyrie show that you're way too reliant on one advanced stat that is a vast outlier compared to a large volume of traditional and advanced stats that see Kyrie much more favorably.

[ITYSL]

Surprised to see Irving get so many votes, and Damian Lilliard so few.

Lilliard and Irving are identical imo. Both elite offensive PG's, who are trash on defense.

Yes, I agree for the most part. I'm surprised Jokic and Kyrie have so many while Dame and Oladipo have so few.

[Tai]

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?

Oh I don't know, let's look at the offensive RPM rankings since that's clearly king nowadays.

Kyrie - 13th
Horford - 67th
Rozier - 69th
Tatum - 75th
Brown - 97th
Morris - 194th
Baynes - 76th...outta 79 centers. I didn't even bother finding his overall ranking, just know it's not even top 200.

Hayward his last year with the Jazz? 21st.

I didn't think this was hard, even without the numbers. Jaylen was a 2nd year guy, Tatum was a rookie, and Baynes obviously wasn't brought in for his offense. That honestly just left Horford as the 2nd option offensively. Not to mention Kyrie's 1st season in the system.

If you like Jokic over Kyrie, fine. But considering the individual season Kyrie had plus who he was working with while trying to figure out Stevens' system, I found your way of downplaying Kyrie's offense strange.

[GQ Hot Dog]

This is embarrassing. How many burner accounts does the average Celtics fan have?

[yoyoboy]

Kyrie is the right answer here, rooting for him to pull ahead.

He's proven a lot in NBA playoff games.

Draymond has honestly proven more in playoff situations if we’re going that route.

Not in the same way. Green is a very important player for a very good team, but I think that's a different thing we're looking at.

Irving has hit game winners in the NBA finals and gone toe to toe with a top 3 player. Jokic hasn't proven that kind of thing yet.

It doesn't have to be in the same way. In Draymond Green's "way" he's contributed more to winning basketball games than Kyrie has in his "way" of primarily isolation scoring and efficient shooting. And that's really all that matters when talking about the better player.

RAPM 2015:
Kyrie Irving: +0.05
Draymond Green: +5.98

RAPM 2016:
Kyrie Irving: -0.46
Draymond Green: +8.1

RAPM 2017:
Kyrie Irving: +2.15
Draymond Green: +5.33

RAPM 2018:
Kyrie Irving: +0.36
Draymond Green: +1.99

PIPM 2015:
Kyrie Irving: +3.1
Draymond Green: +6.6

PIPM 2016:
Kyrie Irving: +1.4
Draymond Green: +9.0

PIPM 2017:
Kyrie Irving: +2.9
Draymond Green: +6.3

PIPM 2018:
Kyrie Irving: +2.7
Draymond Green: +3.3

Playoff-Only RAPM 2014-2018:
Kyrie Irving: +2.30
Draymond Green: +7.29


Draymond Green has led the Warriors in APG for three years in a row, essentially filling the role of the "point" from the PF spot as Steph spends a lot of time off the ball. He's been the defensive anchor of a Warriors team that's ranked 1st, 5th, 2nd, and 11th (last year the Warriors slacked in the regular season on defense before becoming a defensive juggernaut once again in the playoffs ranking 1st in DRTG) on the defensive end the past four years. He rebounds well. He's the emotional leader. And his ability to play the small ball big spot is what really transformed the Warriors from a good team in 2014 to an all-time great one in the Kerr era, with him being what unlocks a lot of versatile lineups that are so effective. But because he's not a 20 ppg scorer, people see him as a "role player" and don't even rank him in the top 20. I mean it's absurd. How many guys honestly contribute more value on the floor than Green? The answer is much closer to 5 than it is to 20, but because people refuse to acknowledge that you can be a top 10 player without being a volume scorer, he'll never get his just due. He's been the second most valuable player of a team that's won 66.5 games a year on average the past 4 seasons, along with 3 championships. In fact, he was the most valuable player during 2 of the 4 playoff runs - 2016 and 2018. People want to attribute all of his success to having the luxury of playing alongside Steph and KD. Well, let's take a look at Draymond's numbers and the Warriors' performance in the playoffs with both off the floor over the past 4 seasons:

Averages Per 36: 15.2 points / 10.3 rebounds / 7.0 assists / 53% TS
Minutes Played: 522 (Good Sample Size)
Warriors ORTG: 110.5
Warriors DRTG: 99.8
Warriors Net Rating: +10.7

So he's able to perform well statistically while running the offense at a level equivalent to this past year's Thunder and being the driving force of a defense that performed at a level 4 points per 100 better than the league best Celtics. And for lineups that played over 100 minutes this past regular season, that playoff lineup with Draymond and no Curry nor Durant in 500 total minutes fared better in DRTG than 80% of lineups over 100 min this past year did. Not too bad for a mere role player...

[Luigi]

Draymond has honestly proven more in playoff situations if we’re going that route.

Not in the same way. Green is a very important player for a very good team, but I think that's a different thing we're looking at.

Irving has hit game winners in the NBA finals and gone toe to toe with a top 3 player. Jokic hasn't proven that kind of thing yet.

It doesn't have to be in the same way. In Draymond Green's "way" he's contributed more to winning basketball games than Kyrie has in his "way" of primarily isolation scoring and efficient shooting. And that's really all that matters when talking about the better player.

Of course I agree it doesn't have to be the same way. But it doesn't follow that the way is irrelevant. It depends on what exactly we are ranking. Who to build a team around, who contributes the most, who is the most valuable, there are a lot of different metrics and dimensions to consider. I don't think Green's contributions rise to top 20 in what this poll is measuring. Same for Dennis Rodman, who did some very special things for a very special team.

[iggymcfrack]

No offense but you're diving to deep into things. If an argument doesnt work in your favor when it comes to these stats how exactly are you going to counter?

Unlike a lot of people, I don’t decide which side of the argument that I like and then try to find stats to fit it. I use the information out there to shape my opinions and then defend them on the solid ground they’re founded from. If there are 2 players in a similar role and one improves his team 6+ points more than the other I’m always gonna have him as the better player unless there’s some other major factor like of he’d just torn his ACL or something.

RPM shouldnt be ignored, but that is all you are using. When many, many other stats point to Kyrie being a fringe top 10 player (including BBR's own advanced plus-minus stat), it's unwise imo to use just one stat to dismiss them. Otherwise you end up being too reliant on a stat that had Robert Covington, Otto Porter and Tyus Jones in the top 15 of its ranking for last season. RPM, in my experience, more often has outliers that just don't pass the smell test. ESPN's QBR in the NFL is similar in this regard.

I can totally understand why someone would choose Jokic over Kyrie. But your posts leaning on RPM to discredit Kyrie show that you're way too reliant on one advanced stat that is a vast outlier compared to a large volume of traditional and advanced stats that see Kyrie much more favorably.

Every stat that has a way to include individual defense is low on Kyrie because he makes the defense much worse on every team he plays for. RPM thinks he’s super overrated, so does RAPM. I’m not aware of any advanced plus-minus system on B-Ref (that’s what you mean by BBR, right?) Youre not taking about BPM, are you? Plus-minus actually isn’t an input in BPM. They call it BPM because it’s a way to try to guess plus-minus from box scores. It doesn’t actually look at whether the defense plays way worse whenever they’re on the floor.

It’s not just the advanced stats that make me think Kyrie’s low impact either. It’s the fact that he didn’t elevate the Celtics at all. They actually played better after he got hurt. If he was such a huge impact player and all the advanced stats were wrong about him, the Celtics wouldn’t be the 2nd best team in the conference with or without him, and the Cavs wouldn’t be the conference champions and no threat to the Durant Warriors in the Finals with or without him.

If advanced stats are too much for you, how about simple NetRtg. Just how much your team outscores the other team by when you’re on the floor. Simple, right? The last 2 years, the Nuggets are better when Jokic is on the floor than the Cavs/Celtics are with Kyrie on the floor. That means that just being on the floor, Jokic is able to do more with a lottery team than Kyrie is with a team that can go to the conference finals without him. That’s insane. Same for Oladipo and last year’s Pacers who went 0-7 when he doesn’t play. Does that not sway you at all? That the Pacers and Nuggets were better with their superstars than the Celtics were with Kyrie even though the supporting casts are worlds apart.

[Homerclease]

If postseason performances mean anything then it’s Kyrie by a mile followed by Draymond and Paul George. Granted Kyrie didn’t play in last years postseason but his playoff resume is well established and his game rising on the grandest stage is well established. There are a select few men in the NBA that can go straight inferno in a postseason game and steal it for you and Kyrie is one of them. That’s what separates him from the pack here

If you’re looking at playoff performance, then it should be Draymond (NBA playoff leader in RAPM the last 5 years) and Oladipo (nearly outdueled LeBron with an inferior supporting cast, led Pacers to a +10.4 NetRtg when he was on the floor). Then maybe Horford and Gobert. Kyrie still not close to being selected.

Utter nonsense

[Asif16]

Surprised to see Irving get so many votes, and Damian Lilliard so few.

Lilliard and Irving are identical imo. Both elite offensive PG's, who are trash on defense.

http://bkref.com/tiny/kdQ5Q

Dame was better. Better in RPM and RAPM too. And he wasn't trash on defense last year honestly

Honestly, I'm convinced the reason Irving gets rated so highly by casual fans is that of his flash/handles and that shot he hit over Curry in the finals.

He's not a elite player people make him out be. He's only elite in scoring, but medicore in every other area

[Secret Lover14]

Add Klay thompson next

[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?

Oh I don't know, let's look at the offensive RPM rankings since that's clearly king nowadays.

Kyrie - 13th
Horford - 67th
Rozier - 69th
Tatum - 75th
Brown - 97th
Morris - 194th
Baynes - 76th...outta 79 centers. I didn't even bother finding his overall ranking, just know it's not even top 200.

Hayward his last year with the Jazz? 21st.

I didn't think this was hard, even without the numbers. Jaylen was a 2nd year guy, Tatum was a rookie, and Baynes obviously wasn't brought in for his offense. That honestly just left Horford as the 2nd option offensively. Not to mention Kyrie's 1st season in the system.

If you like Jokic over Kyrie, fine. But considering the individual season Kyrie had plus who he was working with while trying to figure out Stevens' system, I found your way of downplaying Kyrie's offense strange.

I'm not downplaying it. I would take Kyrie the offensive player behind only Curry, LeBron, Harden, Durant, Paul, Kawhi, and Westbrook on that side of the ball, and then I would have to think about Jokic and Lillard but for right now I'm putting Ky ahead.

But his defense is legitimately awful as he doesn't make the effort or have the feel to rotate well, he dies on screens, and he's not a factor on the boards, and I think a big issue in these comparisons is people really don't acknowledge that individual defense is pretty much just as important as individual offense. Yet an elite defender who's a below average offensive player (like Roberson) will never be seen in the same light as even a good offensive player who's a horrible defensive player (not saying Kyrie). If you look at the top RPM values on both sides of the ball from the past year:

ORPM:
+6.69
+6.59
+5.64
+5.36
+5.28
+4.36
+4.26
+4.25
+4.15
+4.02
Avg. of Top 10: +5.06

DRPM:
+5.06
+4.34
+4.24
+4.08
+3.81
+3.70
+3.66
+3.63
+3.60
+3.59
Avg. of Top 10: +3.97

So the average defensive impact of the top defensive "stars" was about 78.5% of the average offensive impact of the top offensive "stars." I would definitely agree that elite individual offense is more valuable than elite individual defense; however, whereas most of the public seems to view that combined value as something like a 75/25 offense/defense split, it's more like 60/40 offense/defense. And so when taking the entirety of his value into account, I think that while Kyrie is something like the 8th-9th best offensive player, his below average defense (by every objective measure and eye test) drops him down to the the late teens in the overall rankings for me, behind the already ranked guys, as well as Draymond, Oladipo, Jokic, and Gobert for sure. And then Lowry, Lillard, KAT, and George have compelling arguments against him. Now you can argue why does Harden manage to be a top 5ish player despite his poor defense. But Harden in addition to sharing Kyrie's insane isolation creation ability and efficient scoring also has the elite playmaking trait that allows him to raise the level of his teammates and lead the #1 offense in the league the past 2 years in a row. And also, he's managed to be a better defender than Kyrie because he's a superior rebounder and while he gives up penetration just as badly as Kyrie, he actually fares decently against bigger players who switch onto him. So for Kyrie to leap into that category of the top 6-7 players, he either needs to make a huge improvement in his overall offense by becoming an elite distributor/offensive initiator to offset the defense that's holding him back. Or he needs to become a neutral to above-average level defender.

[GQ Hot Dog]

Surprised to see Irving get so many votes, and Damian Lilliard so few.

Lilliard and Irving are identical imo. Both elite offensive PG's, who are trash on defense.

http://bkref.com/tiny/kdQ5Q

Dame was better. Better in RPM and RAPM too. And he wasn't trash on defense last year honestly

Honestly, I'm convinced the reason Irving gets rated so highly by casual fans is that of his flash/handles and that shot he hit over Curry in the finals.

He's not a elite player people make him out be. He's only elite in scoring, but medicore in every other area

Everyone who takes the time to analyze the game knows Irving is not the 12th best player in the league. But the Uncle Drew effect is probably garnering him at least a dozen votes more than the Celtics fans on realgm are capable of so...