RealGM Top 25 Player Poll-#15 2018-19

[Asif16]

Went with Damian Lillard.

Add Boogie Cousins

[clyde21]

I dont even like Kyrie and would never have him lower than Oladipo and Gobert.. heck even Embiid and Jokic are below him as well.

The stupid thing is Kyrie has been the runner up in 4 or 5 consecutive polls now, which makes zero logical sense. If he was the runner up at #11 it seems reasonable to say people thought he was the 12th best player in that poll, but he still hasn't been picked at #15. Only explanation I can think of is there's a group of people here who just aren't going to let him ever win until all 400 other NBA players have been chosen. Which, whatever floats people's boats, I guess lol.

Or maybe because there has been a large contingency of Celtics fans that have been trying to get him on the board since 11. That's also an explanation.

Also...at what point are we gonna out Cousins on the poll? Come on.

[Asif16]

What else is Kyrie better at than Kyle Lowry, other than ball-handling?

He hit a shot over Curry in the finals? Put lowry besides Lebron and see what he would do too

[iggymcfrack]

I just don't see it between Kyrie, Lillard, and Towns. They're all a similar type of player - offense first, not a defender, not exactly an ideal creator (for their position). I think, despite the efficiency %s, that Kyrie is the most talented scorer of the three, and that puts him ahead.

As for Kyrie vs. Dray, I get the value that Dray adds to the Dubs, but we've never seen him as the centerpiece of the team or being outside that system. It's just hard to judge a super roleplayer in comparison to a more traditional star player.

“Roleplayer” implies he only does one thing. That couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s been the best all-around defender in the league and arguably the most versatile too doing everything from staying with guards to jumping passing lanes to amazing help to rim protection. He leads the team in both assists AND rebounds, getting the team going offensively and still making it to the rim. And when the scorers have gone down and he’s been called upon, he’s been able to take a more active role scoring the basketball as well. He’s really one of the most well-rounded players in the NBA.

The only thing he’s not is a lead scorer. Well, that’s fine, that’s the one role on the entire team that he’s not required to fill. Just because he’s not a lead scorer doesn’t mean he’s not valuable though. We don’t do this in other sports. If you have the best all-around midfielder in the world in soccer who wins balls, creates for others, and does everything asked out of him as well as possible, but doesn’t score a lot of goals, people don’t say, “well yeah, but what if he was a striker, would he be good at that”. People don’t look at Lawrence Taylor or Luke Donald and say “well yeah, but they probably wouldn’t be as good as the quarterback”.

For a team to win a championship, they need somebody to score a bunch of points and they also need someone who can impact the game without taking a bunch of shots. Both have value. Why would you want the guy who’s the 15th best at doing the one thing over the guy who’s best in the world at the other thing? Every postseason impact stat has shown that Draymond is just as valuable to the Warriors’ championship runs as KD or Curry.

Theoretically he has the best chance imaginable to be the best player on a championship team in Boston. Best coach in NBA history, three other superstars of near equal talent, elite defensive team. It’s almost like one of these teams people builds on a forum question for “how do you build a winner around X player”. And what’s the result? He’s actually not even one of their 3 most impactful players because his defense is such a target that it drags down the team, and the team still isn’t one of the Top 3 teams in the league. Basically, it’s impossible to build a champion with Kyrie as “the guy”. So what’s the next best thing if you can’t be the champion as “the guy”? Just being the absolute best #2 you can be doing everything else on the floor. That’s Draymond. He’s the best possible sidekick that a superstar’s ever had since Scottie Pippen.

[bisme37]

I dont even like Kyrie and would never have him lower than Oladipo and Gobert.. heck even Embiid and Jokic are below him as well.

The stupid thing is Kyrie has been the runner up in 4 or 5 consecutive polls now, which makes zero logical sense. If he was the runner up at #11 it seems reasonable to say people thought he was the 12th best player in that poll, but he still hasn't been picked at #15. Only explanation I can think of is there's a group of people here who just aren't going to let him ever win until all 400 other NBA players have been chosen. Which, whatever floats people's boats, I guess lol.

Or maybe because there has been a large contingency of Celtics fans that have been trying to get him on the board since 11. That's also an explanation.

I still don't get how that explains it though. I'm not trying to complain about which players people want to rank where, I'm just saying (for example) if Kyrie was just tied with Gobert in the poll for #14, how is he now losing to Lillard at #15? If people thought Lillard was better than Kyrie it seems like he would have finished ahead of him in previous polls as well. And if C's fans were flooding the polls with votes, he would have been picked by now as other players fell out of the options.

So it's just the inconsistency that's kind of confusing me and giving me a headache. I wasn't trying to start a flame war or even argue that Kyrie should be picked. It's just a strange result, is all, and my brain likes things to be more logical so it caught my attention. Sheesh.

[clyde21]

The stupid thing is Kyrie has been the runner up in 4 or 5 consecutive polls now, which makes zero logical sense. If he was the runner up at #11 it seems reasonable to say people thought he was the 12th best player in that poll, but he still hasn't been picked at #15. Only explanation I can think of is there's a group of people here who just aren't going to let him ever win until all 400 other NBA players have been chosen. Which, whatever floats people's boats, I guess lol.

Or maybe because there has been a large contingency of Celtics fans that have been trying to get him on the board since 11. That's also an explanation.

I still don't get how that explains it though. I'm not trying to complain about which players people want to rank where, I'm just saying (for example) if Kyrie was just tied with Gobert in the poll for #14, how is he now losing to Lillard at #15? If people thought Lillard was better then Kyrie it seems like he would have finished ahead of him in previous polls as well. And if C's fans were flooding the polls with votes, he would have been picked by now as other players fell out of the options. So it's just the inconsistency that's kind of confusing me and giving me a headache. I wasn't trying to start a flame war or even argue that Kyrie should be picked. It's just a strange result, is all, and my brain likes things to be more logical so it caught my attention. Sheesh.

That's what we're explaining to you. There are a lot of Celtics fans on this board, which have obviously been voting for Irving. Just because he was runner up at 14 doesn't mean he's going to win 15 because the votes will be redistributed accordingly, while the same people have been voting for Kyrie for the last 5 slots.

[Tai]

That's not the only explanation. The other is that Kyrie has a core group of fans who hold him in much higher esteem than the majority on this forum. Strange your mind went to the hate explanation.

Huh? I didn't say anything about hate. I'm talking about basic logic. If he was the runner up at #10, and #11, and #12, and #13, how is he not picked yet? How can you be the runner up to the 10th best player but not even be the 14th best player? The results make no sense regardless of who is voting for whom.

So basically you don't understand how voting works?

If you don't agree with what he says then at least say so, but I do want to note that Kyrie didn't really get votes until #9. IronChain mentioned a "core group of fans" as if the other 9 guys don't also have that, so I can only assume you're really talking about Celtics fans. On the other hand, as mentioned last topic, there's clearly a couple of people who are arguing AGAINST Kyrie as opposed to necessarily FOR anyone else. If so many people truly feel the same outside this "core group of fans" for Kyrie, then I don't think it's unreasonable to wonder if people look at the polls, and are voting to see Kyrie lose everytime.

[pingpongrac]

The stupid thing is Kyrie has been the runner up in 4 or 5 consecutive polls now, which makes zero logical sense. If he was the runner up at #11 it seems reasonable to say people thought he was the 12th best player in that poll, but he still hasn't been picked at #15. Only explanation I can think of is there's a group of people here who just aren't going to let him ever win until all 400 other NBA players have been chosen. Which, whatever floats people's boats, I guess lol.

That's not the only explanation. The other is that Kyrie has a core group of fans who hold him in much higher esteem than the majority on this forum. Strange your mind went to the hate explanation.

Huh? I didn't say anything about hate. I'm talking about basic logic. If he was the runner up at #10, and #11, and #12, and #13, how is he not picked yet? How can you be the runner up to the 10th best player but not even be the 14th best player? The results make no sense regardless of who is voting for whom.

As already mentioned, there's a good chance it's actually that Kyrie has repeatedly been getting votes from fans who think more of him than other people may. In particular, I've seen a lot of posts from Celtics fans clamouring for Kyrie to be the winner of each of these polls the past few days. People that voted for Kyrie at #10 are more than likely still voting for him from 11-14, but if people voted for someone else at #10 and are still waiting for them to be placed, they'll keep voting for whoever that may be. For example, I voted for Draymond at #10 and I haven't switched my vote aside from the tiebreaker in which he wasn't included. If Draymond was the runner-up from 11-14, I would just assume that a lot of people see Draymond in the same light as I do but there are more people that think otherwise. It's not like the voting is being sabotaged by people trying to spite Celtics/Kyrie fans by not voting for Irving.

[canguy20m]

towns for sure. close behind are lillard and lowry.

[bisme37]

Or maybe because there has been a large contingency of Celtics fans that have been trying to get him on the board since 11. That's also an explanation.

I still don't get how that explains it though. I'm not trying to complain about which players people want to rank where, I'm just saying (for example) if Kyrie was just tied with Gobert in the poll for #14, how is he now losing to Lillard at #15? If people thought Lillard was better then Kyrie it seems like he would have finished ahead of him in previous polls as well. And if C's fans were flooding the polls with votes, he would have been picked by now as other players fell out of the options. So it's just the inconsistency that's kind of confusing me and giving me a headache. I wasn't trying to start a flame war or even argue that Kyrie should be picked. It's just a strange result, is all, and my brain likes things to be more logical so it caught my attention. Sheesh.

That's what we're explaining to you. There are a lot of Celtics fans on this board, which have obviously been voting for Irving. Just because he was runner up at 14 doesn't mean he's going to win 15 because the votes will be redistributed accordingly, while the same people have been voting for Kyrie for the last 5 slots.

But if the same people are voting for Kyrie in every poll he would have been chosen by now because that is a larger and more consistent block of votes as compared to people who are "redistributing" their votes to assorted other players in each poll. I feel like I'm in bizarro world here, where people are explaining something to me like an enormous idiot but what is being explained makes absolutely no logical sense.

[GeorgeMarcus]

The stupid thing is Kyrie has been the runner up in 4 or 5 consecutive polls now, which makes zero logical sense. If he was the runner up at #11 it seems reasonable to say people thought he was the 12th best player in that poll, but he still hasn't been picked at #15. Only explanation I can think of is there's a group of people here who just aren't going to let him ever win until all 400 other NBA players have been chosen. Which, whatever floats people's boats, I guess lol.

Or maybe because there has been a large contingency of Celtics fans that have been trying to get him on the board since 11. That's also an explanation.

I still don't get how that explains it though. I'm not trying to complain about which players people want to rank where, I'm just saying (for example) if Kyrie was just tied with Gobert in the poll for #14, how is he now losing to Lillard at #15? If people thought Lillard was better then Kyrie it seems like he would have finished ahead of him in previous polls as well. And if C's fans were flooding the polls with votes, he would have been picked by now as other players fell out of the options.

So it's just the inconsistency that's kind of confusing me and giving me a headache. I wasn't trying to start a flame war or even argue that Kyrie should be picked. It's just a strange result, is all, and my brain likes things to be more logical so it caught my attention. Sheesh.

The votes that went to Jokic/Oladipo/Gobert are now going to other non-Kyrie players like Dame. It’s not inconsistency, it’s just indicative of a divisive player which he is.

[clyde21]

I still don't get how that explains it though. I'm not trying to complain about which players people want to rank where, I'm just saying (for example) if Kyrie was just tied with Gobert in the poll for #14, how is he now losing to Lillard at #15? If people thought Lillard was better then Kyrie it seems like he would have finished ahead of him in previous polls as well. And if C's fans were flooding the polls with votes, he would have been picked by now as other players fell out of the options. So it's just the inconsistency that's kind of confusing me and giving me a headache. I wasn't trying to start a flame war or even argue that Kyrie should be picked. It's just a strange result, is all, and my brain likes things to be more logical so it caught my attention. Sheesh.

That's what we're explaining to you. There are a lot of Celtics fans on this board, which have obviously been voting for Irving. Just because he was runner up at 14 doesn't mean he's going to win 15 because the votes will be redistributed accordingly, while the same people have been voting for Kyrie for the last 5 slots.

But if the same people are voting for Kyrie in every poll he would have been chosen by now because that is a larger and more consistent block of votes as compared to people who are "redistributing" their votes to assorted other players in each poll. I feel like I'm in bizarro world here, where people are explaining something to me like an enormous idiot but what is being explained makes absolutely no logical sense.

Yes, and the only thing that tells us is that "large and consistent block of votes" has probably been almost exclusively Celtics fans who have been trying to get Kyrie ranked the last 3 or 4 slots.

[bisme37]

Or maybe because there has been a large contingency of Celtics fans that have been trying to get him on the board since 11. That's also an explanation.

I still don't get how that explains it though. I'm not trying to complain about which players people want to rank where, I'm just saying (for example) if Kyrie was just tied with Gobert in the poll for #14, how is he now losing to Lillard at #15? If people thought Lillard was better then Kyrie it seems like he would have finished ahead of him in previous polls as well. And if C's fans were flooding the polls with votes, he would have been picked by now as other players fell out of the options.

So it's just the inconsistency that's kind of confusing me and giving me a headache. I wasn't trying to start a flame war or even argue that Kyrie should be picked. It's just a strange result, is all, and my brain likes things to be more logical so it caught my attention. Sheesh.

The votes that went to Jokic/Oladipo/Gobert are now going to other non-Kyrie players like Dame. It’s not inconsistency, it’s just indicative of a divisive player which he is.

Thanks man, that's the best-worded explanation I've gotten, and you weren't unnecessarily rude about it. Cheers.

[Funcrusher]

I still don't get how that explains it though. I'm not trying to complain about which players people want to rank where, I'm just saying (for example) if Kyrie was just tied with Gobert in the poll for #14, how is he now losing to Lillard at #15? If people thought Lillard was better then Kyrie it seems like he would have finished ahead of him in previous polls as well. And if C's fans were flooding the polls with votes, he would have been picked by now as other players fell out of the options. So it's just the inconsistency that's kind of confusing me and giving me a headache. I wasn't trying to start a flame war or even argue that Kyrie should be picked. It's just a strange result, is all, and my brain likes things to be more logical so it caught my attention. Sheesh.

That's what we're explaining to you. There are a lot of Celtics fans on this board, which have obviously been voting for Irving. Just because he was runner up at 14 doesn't mean he's going to win 15 because the votes will be redistributed accordingly, while the same people have been voting for Kyrie for the last 5 slots.

But if the same people are voting for Kyrie in every poll he would have been chosen by now because that is a larger and more consistent block of votes as compared to people who are "redistributing" their votes to assorted other players in each poll. I feel like I'm in bizarro world here, where people are explaining something to me like an enormous idiot but what is being explained makes absolutely no logical sense.

What are you even talking about? Just because "the same people," are voting for Kyrie in every poll doesn't automatically make him the next selection. Saying that they are a larger more consistent contingent of people voting for him in each poll is just pure speculation, if he doesn't get enough votes he doesn't get enough votes, period. You're talking about "logic," but it makes no logical sense to argue that just because he keeps getting the second most votes in every poll, he deserves to win. What is difficult to understand about that?

[illuminati666]

I dont even like Kyrie and would never have him lower than Oladipo and Gobert.. heck even Embiid and Jokic are below him as well.

The stupid thing is Kyrie has been the runner up in 4 or 5 consecutive polls now, which makes zero logical sense. If he was the runner up at #11 it seems reasonable to say people thought he was the 12th best player in that poll, but he still hasn't been picked at #15. Only explanation I can think of is there's a group of people here who just aren't going to let him ever win until all 400 other NBA players have been chosen. Which, whatever floats people's boats, I guess lol.

For some reason there's so much Kyrie hate that's been developed that everyone has just been voting for the next best player to keep him dropping.

[GeorgeMarcus]

I still don't get how that explains it though. I'm not trying to complain about which players people want to rank where, I'm just saying (for example) if Kyrie was just tied with Gobert in the poll for #14, how is he now losing to Lillard at #15? If people thought Lillard was better then Kyrie it seems like he would have finished ahead of him in previous polls as well. And if C's fans were flooding the polls with votes, he would have been picked by now as other players fell out of the options.

So it's just the inconsistency that's kind of confusing me and giving me a headache. I wasn't trying to start a flame war or even argue that Kyrie should be picked. It's just a strange result, is all, and my brain likes things to be more logical so it caught my attention. Sheesh.

The votes that went to Jokic/Oladipo/Gobert are now going to other non-Kyrie players like Dame. It’s not inconsistency, it’s just indicative of a divisive player which he is.

Thanks man, that's the best-worded explanation I've gotten, and you weren't unnecessarily rude about it. Cheers.

Don’t mention it, glad I could help

[illuminati666]

Aldridge has gotta be added soon

[wolves_89]

Karl-Anthony Towns. A 22/12 Center than drops 42% from 3, has a +20 Net Rating, 25 PER, 65 TS%, +13.5 On/Off and a 4.25 RPM.

A few more Towns 2017-18 stats: 3rd in WS, 6th in VORP, and 10th in RPM WINS

[Tai]

Or maybe because there has been a large contingency of Celtics fans that have been trying to get him on the board since 11. That's also an explanation.

I still don't get how that explains it though. I'm not trying to complain about which players people want to rank where, I'm just saying (for example) if Kyrie was just tied with Gobert in the poll for #14, how is he now losing to Lillard at #15? If people thought Lillard was better then Kyrie it seems like he would have finished ahead of him in previous polls as well. And if C's fans were flooding the polls with votes, he would have been picked by now as other players fell out of the options. So it's just the inconsistency that's kind of confusing me and giving me a headache. I wasn't trying to start a flame war or even argue that Kyrie should be picked. It's just a strange result, is all, and my brain likes things to be more logical so it caught my attention. Sheesh.

That's what we're explaining to you. There are a lot of Celtics fans on this board, which have obviously been voting for Irving. Just because he was runner up at 14 doesn't mean he's going to win 15 because the votes will be redistributed accordingly, while the same people have been voting for Kyrie for the last 5 slots.

There are a lot of Raptors fans on this board too, yet Lowry since being added has virtually been invisible in the polling. Why do you think that is? Are you claiming Celtics fans are that less objective than Raptors fans?

EDIT: If anything, I think SuperDario put it best, but I argue taking that viewpoint concedes that something is brewing in the underbelly of these polls, and it's not just Celtics fans seeing things.

[clyde21]

I still don't get how that explains it though. I'm not trying to complain about which players people want to rank where, I'm just saying (for example) if Kyrie was just tied with Gobert in the poll for #14, how is he now losing to Lillard at #15? If people thought Lillard was better then Kyrie it seems like he would have finished ahead of him in previous polls as well. And if C's fans were flooding the polls with votes, he would have been picked by now as other players fell out of the options. So it's just the inconsistency that's kind of confusing me and giving me a headache. I wasn't trying to start a flame war or even argue that Kyrie should be picked. It's just a strange result, is all, and my brain likes things to be more logical so it caught my attention. Sheesh.

That's what we're explaining to you. There are a lot of Celtics fans on this board, which have obviously been voting for Irving. Just because he was runner up at 14 doesn't mean he's going to win 15 because the votes will be redistributed accordingly, while the same people have been voting for Kyrie for the last 5 slots.

There are a lot of Raptors fans on this board too, yet Lowry since being added has virtually been invisible in the polling. Why do you think that is? Are you claiming Celtics fans are that less objective than Raptors fans?

EDIT: If anything, I think SuperDario put it best, but I argue taking that viewpoint concedes that something is brewing in the underbelly of these polls, and it's not just Celtics fans seeing things.

Maybe Raptors fans are a bit more realistic when it comes to Lowry than Celtics fans are with Irving?

Also I'm not sure what you mean by "something is brewing". You think people are purposely voting against Irving? Why? Who do you think Kyrie should replace on the poll?