2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[Krodis]

I watched the Harden part of that video, and simply citing the relative ORtg for the Rockets in the playoffs seems unfair, considering almost half of their games were against the Jazz.

[cpower]

I have to say I genuinely don't understand the Curry picks at all. Are people giving him a ton of credit for stomping Portland or something?

for beating the rockets most likely. It's understandable, if you think about it. Curry had the better RS and better PS than Kawhi. Only Giannis/Harden has a better case.

He averaged 24 on 54% TS in that series vs the Rockets, shot 28% from 3.

Yeah, I can totally see how this series proves he's the best player.

you did not watch the series , did you? his role was completely different when KD was healthy and when KD was down.

[dontcalltimeout]

ElGee's list

1. Curry
2. Giannis
3. Durant
4. Davis
5. Kawhi
6. LeBron
7. Harden
8. Embiid
9. George
10. Jokic

thoughts?

Idk if follks have actually watched the video. The list above is his list of best players in the league. When adjusted for injury / season circumstance his list is

1. Curry
2. Giannis
3. AD
4. Kawhi
5. Harden
6. LeBron
7. Jokic
8. Embiid
9. PG
10. Lillard

Durant falls off because of the season-ending injury.

[Basileus777]

ElGee's list

1. Curry
2. Giannis
3. Durant
4. Davis
5. Kawhi
6. LeBron
7. Harden
8. Embiid
9. George
10. Jokic

thoughts?

Some of this seems well beyond justification. 56 games of Davis puts him ahead of Kawhi? Harden all the way down at #7 behind Durant (who played the same number of playoff games) and LeBron who missed a month and a half?

That's his "if everyone had been healthy" list. His list that accounts for health is:

1. Curry
2. Giannis
3. Davis
4. Kawhi
5. Harden
6. LeBron
7. Jokic
8. Embiid
9. George
10. LIllard

I still don't get how Davis can be so high. He also specifically calls out Kyrie for his antics affecting his team, but doesn't apply that logic to AD.

[Krodis]

for beating the rockets most likely. It's understandable, if you think about it. Curry had the better RS and better PS than Kawhi. Only Giannis/Harden has a better case.

He averaged 24 on 54% TS in that series vs the Rockets, shot 28% from 3.

Yeah, I can totally see how this series proves he's the best player.

you did not watch the series , did you? his role was completely different when KD was healthy and when KD was down.

I mean, the games where KD was healthy still happened and made up the vast majority of the series. He had like 3 good halves all series. His game 3 was catastrophically terrible (in a game that went to overtime at that).

[Jim Naismith]

Kawhi
Curry
Jokic
Durant
Giannis
Harden

[MapleJordan79]

ElGee's list

1. Curry
2. Giannis
3. Durant
4. Davis
5. Kawhi
6. LeBron
7. Harden
8. Embiid
9. George
10. Jokic

thoughts?

Some of this seems well beyond justification. 56 games of Davis puts him ahead of Kawhi? Harden all the way down at #7 behind Durant (who played the same number of playoff games) and LeBron who missed a month and a half?

That's his "if everyone had been healthy" list. His list that accounts for health is:

1. Curry
2. Giannis
3. Davis
4. Kawhi
5. Harden
6. LeBron
7. Jokic
8. Embiid
9. George
10. LIllard

I still don't get how Davis can be so high. He also specifically calls out Kyrie for his antics affecting his team, but doesn't apply that logic to AD.

He specifically said that for AD he was only taking into account his season before all the bs

[Outside]

Extremely overrated season by curry and I'm feeling like his fans came here to save him after this FAILURE in game 6.
He was balling in the first part of the season, then he went down and missed 13 games, he had a months long bad stretch and played bad until 2/3 of the rockets series, extremely bad against them. He stomped the not so good blazers, and then he had an odd series against the rockets, great average numbers but bad in the most important games, put up an historic 47 when the game was impossible to win (without kd and klay), played bad in game 4 when, with klay, the had the chance to tie the series, played bad in game 6, with 6/17 (3 hail mary shots, but still 6/14), bad defense etc. played pretty bad in game 2. I don't understand the appreciation for this season, I have this as the worst or second worst season of him since 2015. Leonard didn't play a great final and coasted in the regular season but he was absolutely historic against phila and played a great series against milwaukee, and still played better than steph in the finals.
Antetokounmpo failed in the playoffs (didn't even dominate as he was supposed to against boston if not for one game) but he had a huge rs, harden was better than steph in both rs and playoffs.
Jokic wasn't far, too.

1) Leonard
2) Harden
3) Curry
4) Durant (played a full standard mvp level rs and he was pretty much sensational for 11 games and 11 minutes in the playoffs)
5) Giannis
6) Jokic

Durant shouldn't sniff anyone's list. He was hurt for the playoffs end of story. I'd have Durant 3 probably if he was healthy but this isn't a hypothetical endeavor. It's picking the players who gave their teams the best chance to win a chip. You can't do that missing the last 2 and a half rounds.

Jokic and Embiid missed the last two rounds. Should they get moved down the list, too?

Would Durant look better to you if the Warriors had lost to Houston after he was injured and he'd missed only one game? To me, it should make no difference -- Durant's performance was his performance and shouldn't be raised or lowered based on what his team did after he was injured.

[Jaivl]

ElGee's list

1. Curry
2. Giannis
3. Durant
4. Davis
5. Kawhi
6. LeBron
7. Harden
8. Embiid
9. George
10. Jokic

thoughts?

Some of this seems well beyond justification. 56 games of Davis puts him ahead of Kawhi? Harden all the way down at #7 behind Durant (who played the same number of playoff games) and LeBron who missed a month and a half?

It's not a PotY list. The "healthy" one is not a PotY list either.

[MapleJordan79]

Extremely overrated season by curry and I'm feeling like his fans came here to save him after this FAILURE in game 6.
He was balling in the first part of the season, then he went down and missed 13 games, he had a months long bad stretch and played bad until 2/3 of the rockets series, extremely bad against them. He stomped the not so good blazers, and then he had an odd series against the rockets, great average numbers but bad in the most important games, put up an historic 47 when the game was impossible to win (without kd and klay), played bad in game 4 when, with klay, the had the chance to tie the series, played bad in game 6, with 6/17 (3 hail mary shots, but still 6/14), bad defense etc. played pretty bad in game 2. I don't understand the appreciation for this season, I have this as the worst or second worst season of him since 2015. Leonard didn't play a great final and coasted in the regular season but he was absolutely historic against phila and played a great series against milwaukee, and still played better than steph in the finals.
Antetokounmpo failed in the playoffs (didn't even dominate as he was supposed to against boston if not for one game) but he had a huge rs, harden was better than steph in both rs and playoffs.
Jokic wasn't far, too.

1) Leonard
2) Harden
3) Curry
4) Durant (played a full standard mvp level rs and he was pretty much sensational for 11 games and 11 minutes in the playoffs)
5) Giannis
6) Jokic

Durant shouldn't sniff anyone's list. He was hurt for the playoffs end of story. I'd have Durant 3 probably if he was healthy but this isn't a hypothetical endeavor. It's picking the players who gave their teams the best chance to win a chip. You can't do that missing the last 2 and a half rounds.

Jokic and Embiid missed the last two rounds. Should they get moved down the list, too?

Would Durant look better to you if the Warriors had lost to Houston after he was injured and he'd missed only one game? To me, it should make no difference -- Durant's performance was his performance and shouldn't be raised or lowered based on what his team did after he was injured.

I agree. I think you are misunderstanding my point. I think it severely limits your value towards competing for a championship if you miss the last two and a half rounds. It's almost impossible to lose a top 3 player in the league and win the championship anyway. He just happens to be on a stacked team so they got close.

[LKN]

I have to say I genuinely don't understand the Curry picks at all. Are people giving him a ton of credit for stomping Portland or something?

Curry is just insanely overrated on this board. I'm pretty sure if GSW had won the title he'd win this POY vote. He somehow finished #2 in 2017, which is just mind-boggling.

You have people claiming he's better than Jordan and Lebron offensively although you can contain him and disrupt his entire team's offense (except when he has Durant next to him of course) with simple traps.

It's interesting how most people here thought the Raps were going to get routined by the Bucks and then lose to GSW even with Durant out, while GSW were touted as likely champions and even though Kawhi is the main reason those expectations were completely subverted Curry somehow still seems to have got more credit out of this situation than him.

Curry is a really good player... but anyone still thinking he's as good as MJ or Lebron on offense is off the reservation.

He's never shown the ability to consistently put the volume of efficient offense in the postseason that MJ and Lebron have.

[iggymcfrack]

Final list:

1. Kawhi- Did everything you could want in the playoffs. Even having a “bad series” in the Finals compared to his other playoff rounds, he still put up 29/10/4/2 on .606 TS%. Hit the iconic shot to beat Philly and had a playoff on/off of +15.9 when next best on the team was +11.9 for Lowry and then +5.7 for Ibaka.

2. Giannis- Best player in the regular season and still had a very good playoffs, but wasn’t quite the same against Toronto.

3. Harden- Had a historic regular season and followed it up with a pretty damn good playoffs against very tough defenses. In the Warriors series, he averaged 35/7/6/2 on .594 TS%. No choke there.

4. Paul George- Think he’s kinda getting lost in the shuffle since we haven’t seen him in a while, but he made the regular season MVP a legit 3-man race when that seemed impossible, led the league in RPM, and had a playoff on/off of +41.9. He should definitely be above Steph IMO.

5. Stephen Curry- Weird season from Steph. Seemed to clearly take a backseat to KD before the injury and wasn’t even shooting that great, then takes over once KD goes down and looks like 2016 Steph, but ultimately dropped back down a bit during the biggest, most competitive Finals games. Still solid impact stats though and deserving of a Top 5 slot.

Narrow misses:

Nikola Jokic- Fantastic playoffs that could have propelled him into the top 5 if he’d faced tougher competition. Portland probably had the worst defensive center rotation ever for a playoff team.

Anthony Davis- Top 4 regular season. Was maybe playing even better than that before a bad situation came up that wasn’t really his fault. Didn’t have strong enough impact data to get in only playing 56 games though.

Joel Embiid- Really hard to leave off with a Top 5 finish in RPM and a ridiculous playoff on/off of +41.3 over 11 games. If he’d had a little better numbers in the playoffs so you could say he was really dominating on both ends as much as the numbers represented, he’d be Top 5.

Kevin Durant- Like Kawhi, had a little bit of a sleepy regular season which he looked to be mending in the playoffs, putting up a ridiculous 32.3 PPG on .661 TS%. Still if you wanna build a Top 5 case in a very competitive year on stepping it up in the playoffs, you have to be healthy for more than half of the meaningful games.

Extremely, extremely competitive year overall. I think the difference between #1 and #9 is much less than in any other year I can remember.

[cpower]

He averaged 24 on 54% TS in that series vs the Rockets, shot 28% from 3.

Yeah, I can totally see how this series proves he's the best player.

you did not watch the series , did you? his role was completely different when KD was healthy and when KD was down.

I mean, the games where KD was healthy still happened and made up the vast majority of the series. He had like 3 good halves all series. His game 3 was catastrophically terrible (in a game that went to overtime at that).

so you are basically blaming him for taking a back seat for KD. However, upsetting the rockets is a massive achievement for Curry which should not be overlooked.

[Krodis]

you did not watch the series , did you? his role was completely different when KD was healthy and when KD was down.

I mean, the games where KD was healthy still happened and made up the vast majority of the series. He had like 3 good halves all series. His game 3 was catastrophically terrible (in a game that went to overtime at that).

so you are basically blaming him for taking a back seat for KD. However, upsetting the rockets is a massive achievement for Curry which should not be overlooked.

I'm not blaming him for taking a backseat to KD, I'm blaming him for missing open layups and generally playing terribly for several games.

[cpower]

I mean, the games where KD was healthy still happened and made up the vast majority of the series. He had like 3 good halves all series. His game 3 was catastrophically terrible (in a game that went to overtime at that).

so you are basically blaming him for taking a back seat for KD. However, upsetting the rockets is a massive achievement for Curry which should not be overlooked.

I'm not blaming him for taking a backseat to KD, I'm blaming him for missing open layups and generally playing terribly for several games.

playing horrible for a few games is better than giving 50% on all the RS games..

[Doctor MJ]

So, I'm inclined to agree with ElGee's assessment of Curry as the best in the game right now, and yet it also feels weird to think of him as my POY this year. Giannis feels more like he earned it for the season. Interested in others takes on this.

Also definitely interested on thoughts relating to Kawhi. How do you see his impact on defense now?

[clyde21]

So, I'm inclined to agree with ElGee's assessment of Curry as the best in the game right now, and yet it also feels weird to think of him as my POY this year. Giannis feels more like he earned it for the season. Interested in others takes on this.

Also definitely interested on thoughts relating to Kawhi. How do you see his impact on defense now?

i mean he's still solid defensively, but he's quite a ways at this point from what he was on that end a few years ago (makes sense considering he's been more and more involved offensively since).

i think people that still consider him an elite defender are overrating him on that side

[iggymcfrack]

So, I'm inclined to agree with ElGee's assessment of Curry as the best in the game right now, and yet it also feels weird to think of him as my POY this year. Giannis feels more like he earned it for the season. Interested in others takes on this.

Also definitely interested on thoughts relating to Kawhi. How do you see his impact on defense now?

He’s obviously nowhere near the level he was defensively a few years ago, but I think he’s still a legitimate impact guy on that end in the postseason. Better than say Kevin Durant, but not up there with the bottom of the elite guys like Iguodala or Ingles, let alone George or Covington.

[HeartBreakKid]

ElGee's list

1. Curry
2. Giannis
3. Durant
4. Davis
5. Kawhi
6. LeBron
7. Harden
8. Embiid
9. George
10. Jokic

thoughts?

His list will piss a lot of people off, but it makes sense to me.

[The High Cyde]

Teams used to avoid throwing the ball to whatever side of the court Leonard was present; it's obvious his reputation of being a ball hawk and an iron curtain by himself is still scarying teams...or at least the individual players. They know he's Shut-Down.

However, the media will not acknowledge his slippage as a defender until he's well on the tail end of his prime.

He was okay defensively this series; the Raptors are a really good team because of their weaknesses were damn near nonexistent to golden state...or they they just didn't have the personnel to exploit any that they saw. Perspective would be key in this series is think, in terms of evaluating it.

To be honest, I don't know what to make of this series yet in an all time sense, still need to digest it a little more. Injuries...