RealGM Top 25 Player Poll-#14 2018-19 TIEBREAKER

[Filthadelphia]

Tiebreaker to settle Poll 14. On this you will not be able to change votes once you do.

Link to poll 14: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1743704

[clyde21]

Gobert -- best defensive player in the league deserves to be ranked already.

[LoveTheNBA23]

Gobert

[bwgood77]

Gobert has way more impact.

[iggymcfrack]

#1 exciting tiebreaker vote! I voted Draymond in the regular vote, but I have to go with Gobert here. If you just look at last season, it’s pretty clear that Gobert being in the lineup was way more impactful for the Jazz than Kyrie being in the lineup was for Boston. Plus Gobert’s younger and coming off an injury so is much more likely to improve from 2018 to 2019. This is Rudy all the way.

[iggymcfrack]

Wow, overtime’s all Gobert so far, 18-3! What an exciting turn of events.

[Tai]

To repost from last topic:

I understand the questions about his defense as we all know he is not a good defender. It is the same argument that gets thrown against Devin Booker on the weekly Devin Booker is overrated thread that seems like never ends. In the current state of the NBA, offense is more valuable than defense because offense has been deemed more valuable by the refs and the league itself in some of the rule changes. The best offensive player will be able to beat the best defensive player more often in one v one scenarios, which leads to elite offensive skills being more valuable than elite defensive skills and weak defensive skills being seen as less of a weakness than weak offensive skills.

Take Andre Roberson as an example. He is one of the best defensive players in the league without a doubt, but yet, you would have to expand the conversation to the best 100 players to get him in the conversation. This is because of his lack of offensive talent shooting the ball. Defense just isn't as valuable in this three-ball era.

I was having a tough time in this poll choosing between Kyrie, Gobert, and Draymond as I see these three players a good ways above the rest who are currently in the poll. Gobert and Draymond are two of the best defensive players in the game right now, while Kyrie is an elite offensive player. I understand the advanced statistics do not say Kyrie is in the top 15 as you said and his defense brings him down to the 30 range. But, when watching Kyrie play on a night-to-night basis (not saying I did, although I did watch a good bit of Celtics), you cannot deny his offensive impact and I just think some of these statistics that have him around 30 overcompensate for defense in this high scoring, fast paced era.

All of those things you mentioned are already being taken into account in these formulas though. It’s not like they rank the players offensively and then rank the players defensively and then take an average. They look at “on average how many points better does Kyrie make the offense” and “on average how many points worse does Kyrie make the defense” and then come to a cumulative number. They’re literally just looking at how much he affects the actual score of both teams. Once the points are on the board, a point you keep the other team from getting is just as valuable as a point you gain yourself.

And again, even with all his points, the 2016 Cavs were 37-16 with him, 20-9 without him. The 2018 Celtics were 41-19 with him, 14-8 without him. If he was really having this elite impact because his offense was so incredibly valuable relative to how harmful his defense was, we’d see it in the results. Jazz going 37-19 with Gobert compared to 11-15 without him, that’s an impact. It shows up on the scoreboard and it shows up in the win/loss record. Warriors being +10.9 with Draymond on the floor and -2.6 with him on the bench over the last 6 years of playoff games, that’s a real impact too. This impact that Kyrie’s having on the games is strictly hypothetical, it just doesn’t show up in the scores and results of the games.

The one thing I'll say is that part of the reason the Celtics have been able to win without Kyrie is that they were able to defend well without him, and thus win games that were in the 80s or 90s. They were 11-2 without him when they allowed less than 100 points, but 3-6 without him when they were allowed more than 100 points. Even though in those 9 games they scored 100 points 7 times, it does suggest they were unable to keep up the needed scoring for one reason or another without Kyrie (and Hayward). Yet in the playoffs, they allowed 100+ points in 11 of 19 games, and were 4-7 in those games. Obviously, the Celtics brought Kyrie and to a degree Hayward in for their offense, so it's a stretch to say Kyrie being out didn't show up on the scoreboard/W-L in the regular season or the playoffs.

The funny thing is that during the season, people were saying they couldn't rely on only winning games 90-89 come playoff time, and sadly I think that got proven right. I'm sorry RPM can't address something like that, but that doesn't prove the Celtics are somehow better off without Kyrie. And leave it to a Laker fan to point out that after lauding the Celtics for their playoff run last year, that somehow they're "significantly worse" than the Raptors WITH Kyrie and Hayward. Based off what? Surely you can't have the Celtics being worse with Kyrie.

And by the way, if RPM is so great why is there nothing for playoffs? 2017 playoff RAPM has Kyrie 13th overall (5th in offense), and 2016 28th overall (2nd in offense). Obviously better in 2017 than 2016, but Rozier in 2018 had a playoff RAPM ranking him 65th, and Tatum being 36th. If difference in sample sizes for some players really renders RPM that useless that playoff numbers weren't run, then that's interesting. Either way, as far as RAPM, interesting that it seems to serve Kyrie a little more in the playoffs when he's supposed to be much more of a liability than the regular season, with your point of switching him 75 times in a possession...

[rcc8884]

I will do the same to try to keep this conversation in one topic

I understand the questions about his defense as we all know he is not a good defender. It is the same argument that gets thrown against Devin Booker on the weekly Devin Booker is overrated thread that seems like never ends. In the current state of the NBA, offense is more valuable than defense because offense has been deemed more valuable by the refs and the league itself in some of the rule changes. The best offensive player will be able to beat the best defensive player more often in one v one scenarios, which leads to elite offensive skills being more valuable than elite defensive skills and weak defensive skills being seen as less of a weakness than weak offensive skills.

Take Andre Roberson as an example. He is one of the best defensive players in the league without a doubt, but yet, you would have to expand the conversation to the best 100 players to get him in the conversation. This is because of his lack of offensive talent shooting the ball. Defense just isn't as valuable in this three-ball era.

I was having a tough time in this poll choosing between Kyrie, Gobert, and Draymond as I see these three players a good ways above the rest who are currently in the poll. Gobert and Draymond are two of the best defensive players in the game right now, while Kyrie is an elite offensive player. I understand the advanced statistics do not say Kyrie is in the top 15 as you said and his defense brings him down to the 30 range. But, when watching Kyrie play on a night-to-night basis (not saying I did, although I did watch a good bit of Celtics), you cannot deny his offensive impact and I just think some of these statistics that have him around 30 overcompensate for defense in this high scoring, fast paced era.

All of those things you mentioned are already being taken into account in these formulas though. It’s not like they rank the players offensively and then rank the players defensively and then take an average. They look at “on average how many points better does Kyrie make the offense” and “on average how many points worse does Kyrie make the defense” and then come to a cumulative number. They’re literally just looking at how much he affects the actual score of both teams. Once the points are on the board, a point you keep the other team from getting is just as valuable as a point you gain yourself.

And again, even with all his points, the 2016 Cavs were 37-16 with him, 20-9 without him. The 2018 Celtics were 41-19 with him, 14-8 without him. If he was really having this elite impact because his offense was so incredibly valuable relative to how harmful his defense was, we’d see it in the results. Jazz going 37-19 with Gobert compared to 11-15 without him, that’s an impact. It shows up on the scoreboard and it shows up in the win/loss record. Warriors being +10.9 with Draymond on the floor and -2.6 with him on the bench over the last 6 years of playoff games, that’s a real impact too. This impact that Kyrie’s having on the games is strictly hypothetical, it just doesn’t show up in the scores and results of the games.

Sorry for making you wait, I had to be somewhere. I like you and your thoughts.

I don't think using records for a comparison with Irving will give the best results. Those Cavs teams had Lebron and when Kyrie was out, Lebron knew he had to do it all and took the game upon himself leaving the records with and without Irving as having the (almost) exact same ratio of wins compared to losses. The Cavs with Lebron are still going to be able to beat my Suns with or without Kyrie.

With the Celtics, that ratio is positive in Kyrie's favor for him helping the team but I also do not think this is a fair representation for him. This Celtics team was very very good without Kyrie as they help very solid players everywhere and terrific depth due to the great executive decisions that had been made in the previous years. When you have a Swiss Army Knife in Horford, one of the most polished rookies in recent memory in Tatum, solid sophomore in Brown, and depth down to your 10th or 11th man that could be 6th or 7th men on other teams, I am not surprised the Celtics still succeded without Irving. But again, that team would still beat most teams with or without Irving due to the all-around quality of that team.

Gobert is much more valuable to his team than Irving is as without Gobert, they were lacking their defensive presence as well as the around-the-rim threat and there was not someone else on the team who could step up and take his place (Would Ekpe Udoh, who wasn't in the league the past two years, start in his place?). This causes such a significant drop off over Gobert that the team is unable to win games without him.

What I think you view what I'm saying as proving your point. Gobert seems to be more crucial to his team therefore he is the better player. But for these stats, I would say this wouldn't show the true effect as the Celtics had such a well-rounded team where the backups played like low-end starters so the drop off from all-star to your below average starter isn't as significant as the drop off from all-star to European player which would result in the team not winning as much.

You could also view what I'm saying and compare records of the teams and say how the Celtics weren't even that much better than the Jazz (55 wins to 48). Therefore, Irving really isn't that much better than your average replacement level player while Gobert is. I may be thinking too highly of the Celtics and think their team and system under Stevens is better than it actually is as I would say they even underperformed this past year. These are all fair arguments that just depend on how you overall see the Jazz and the Celtics. I would argue that even though Gobert was more important to his team, Irving is the better player but it isn't seen clearly as the drop-off to his backup isn't that steep compared to most and especially Gobert.

I would go into Draymond but this post is long enough and I want to stop typing right now. I can later if you want me to.

And yes, I literally did not use a single statistic in this whole post which is kinda shocking now thinking back

[iggymcfrack]

To repost from last topic:

I understand the questions about his defense as we all know he is not a good defender. It is the same argument that gets thrown against Devin Booker on the weekly Devin Booker is overrated thread that seems like never ends. In the current state of the NBA, offense is more valuable than defense because offense has been deemed more valuable by the refs and the league itself in some of the rule changes. The best offensive player will be able to beat the best defensive player more often in one v one scenarios, which leads to elite offensive skills being more valuable than elite defensive skills and weak defensive skills being seen as less of a weakness than weak offensive skills.

Take Andre Roberson as an example. He is one of the best defensive players in the league without a doubt, but yet, you would have to expand the conversation to the best 100 players to get him in the conversation. This is because of his lack of offensive talent shooting the ball. Defense just isn't as valuable in this three-ball era.

I was having a tough time in this poll choosing between Kyrie, Gobert, and Draymond as I see these three players a good ways above the rest who are currently in the poll. Gobert and Draymond are two of the best defensive players in the game right now, while Kyrie is an elite offensive player. I understand the advanced statistics do not say Kyrie is in the top 15 as you said and his defense brings him down to the 30 range. But, when watching Kyrie play on a night-to-night basis (not saying I did, although I did watch a good bit of Celtics), you cannot deny his offensive impact and I just think some of these statistics that have him around 30 overcompensate for defense in this high scoring, fast paced era.

All of those things you mentioned are already being taken into account in these formulas though. It’s not like they rank the players offensively and then rank the players defensively and then take an average. They look at “on average how many points better does Kyrie make the offense” and “on average how many points worse does Kyrie make the defense” and then come to a cumulative number. They’re literally just looking at how much he affects the actual score of both teams. Once the points are on the board, a point you keep the other team from getting is just as valuable as a point you gain yourself.

And again, even with all his points, the 2016 Cavs were 37-16 with him, 20-9 without him. The 2018 Celtics were 41-19 with him, 14-8 without him. If he was really having this elite impact because his offense was so incredibly valuable relative to how harmful his defense was, we’d see it in the results. Jazz going 37-19 with Gobert compared to 11-15 without him, that’s an impact. It shows up on the scoreboard and it shows up in the win/loss record. Warriors being +10.9 with Draymond on the floor and -2.6 with him on the bench over the last 6 years of playoff games, that’s a real impact too. This impact that Kyrie’s having on the games is strictly hypothetical, it just doesn’t show up in the scores and results of the games.

The one thing I'll say is that part of the reason the Celtics have been able to win without Kyrie is that they were able to defend well without him, and thus win games that were in the 80s or 90s. They were 11-2 without him when they allowed less than 100 points, but 3-6 without him when they were allowed more than 100 points. Even though in those 9 games they scored 100 points 7 times, it does suggest they were unable to keep up the needed scoring for one reason or another without Kyrie (and Hayward). Yet in the playoffs, they allowed 100+ points in 11 of 19 games, and were 4-7 in those games. Obviously, the Celtics brought Kyrie and to a degree Hayward in for their offense, so it's a stretch to say Kyrie being out didn't show up on the scoreboard/W-L in the regular season or the playoffs.

The funny thing is that during the season, people were saying they couldn't rely on only winning games 90-89 come playoff time, and sadly I think that got proven right. I'm sorry RPM can't address something like that, but that doesn't prove the Celtics are somehow better off without Kyrie. And leave it to a Laker fan to point out that after lauding the Celtics for their playoff run last year, that somehow they're "significantly worse" than the Raptors WITH Kyrie and Hayward. Based off what? Surely you can't have the Celtics being worse with Kyrie.

And by the way, if RPM is so great why is there nothing for playoffs? 2017 playoff RAPM has Kyrie 13th overall (5th in offense), and 2016 28th overall (2nd in offense). Obviously better in 2017 than 2016, but Rozier in 2018 had a playoff RAPM ranking him 65th, and Tatum being 36th. If difference in sample sizes for some players really renders RPM that useless that playoff numbers weren't run, then that's interesting. Either way, as far as RAPM, interesting that it seems to serve Kyrie a little more in the playoffs when he's supposed to be much more of a liability than the regular season, with your point of switching him 75 times in a possession...

RPM combines regular season and postseason together. I think they don't separate them out because the postseason is short enough that it would be tough to get meaningful results from one postseason. As for Kyrie, I didn't mean he doesn't impact the score at all. I mentioned earlier that he would impact the total points scored a lot if you were betting over/unders. I just was referring to the supposed superior impact his offense has relative to his defense being invisible.

[HeartBreakKid]

Rudy baby

[Harry Garris]

Gobert easily. He's a foundational player.

[h4rrison]

Gobert

[Soulcatcher33]

Rudy Gobert, obviously. Kyrie probably isn't even top 20.

[GoGreen]

Wtf. Some of the Kyrie hate is unreal. Guys been getting it his whole career. I think he's become a victim of media hype, and so now people are going overboard the other way.

[clyde21]

Wtf. Some of the Kyrie hate is unreal. Guys been getting it his whole career. I think he's become a victim of media hype, and so now people are going overboard the other way.

What's the argument for Kyrie over Gobert? Almost all advanced metrics paint Gobert as the more impactful player.

[ElectricMayhem]

I wasn't around to vote in the original poll. I guess if I had been, we wouldn't have had this exciting tiebreaker round. Same result either way, just with more intensity.

[ITYSL]

Wtf. Some of the Kyrie hate is unreal. Guys been getting it his whole career. I think he's become a victim of media hype, and so now people are going overboard the other way.

What's the argument for Kyrie over Gobert? Almost all advanced metrics paint Gobert as the more impactful player.

Kyrie was better in WS/48, BPM, PIE and PIPM. Gobert was better in On/Off NetRtg and RAPM.

And besides, advanced metrics are only used on this board when convenient. For example, Gobert received 50 votes in the most recent poll compared to KAT getting 5, despite KAT leading Gobert across the board in advanced metrics: WS/48, BPM, PIE, PIPM, On/Off NetRtg and RAPM (and even in RPM for those who like to cite that). And that comparison is more sound than Gobert vs. Irving because Gobert and KAT play the same position. Pretty much the same goes for Lillard and Irving - Lillard leads in most advanced stats, but Irving received many more votes.

:shrug:

[sikma42]

Rudy Gobert, obviously. Kyrie probably isn't even top 20.

But put him opposite Steph Curry and nobody bats an eye when he plays him to a standstill or outplayed him. Regular season is overrated. Butler is way too high too

[Atmanne]

You can probably close this before 2:49

[kobyz]

lol gobert over draymond, it doesn't make any sense