freethedevil wrote:liamliam1234 wrote:Curry is already in, Giannis faltered head-to-head
Giannis faltered and was still as good as kawhi which should tell you all you need to know about who should be getting picked here.
Desperately trying to make the gap look as small as possible does not mean they were equal, nor does it change the fact that Kawhi elevated and Giannis did not.
Durant never had a run as good as Kawhi’s without Curry,
Kawhi has never had a run as good as many of durant's okc ones without a +9 defense.
Oh, yes, poor Durant, languishing on those untalented Thunder rosters.
And for per game production I would take 2017 Kawhi over most Durant ones anyway.
Durant has led better playoff offenses though, even without curry.
All by himself. No other in-his-prime, regular all-NBA, likely first-ballot hall-of-fame, MVP level point guard contributing.
Again, always says a lot when you need to hide all contrary context.
Harden never had a run as good as Kawhi’s,
By your logic? His 2019 run where he outplayed durant and curry head to head was better.
Yeah, sure seemed like Harden was outperforming them in those final couple of games, huh.
and Embiid both showcased major offensive limitations and has never led his team anywhere the way Kawhi did.
Kawhi has shown major offensive and defensive limitations. The second line is basically kawhi won, embid didn't which isn't something you're willing to apply consistently.
Oh, yes, I have been so inconsistent voting for championship winners, a game 7 Finals loser (Jerry West), two semifinals losers with historic production (Garnett and Robertson), and, now that we are basically done with the most deserving title-winners, Tracy McGrady (who had impact statistics on Giannis’s level in the regular season and
maintained against a more talented and defensively dominant team in the playoffs). Maybe compared to someone who votes blindly based on what PIPM says, that might seem “inconsistent”, but for the rest of us, I think my standards have been pretty clear. Especially given that my last several votes have generally had extremely similar profiles, between Wade and West and Kobe and McGrady.
Kawhi had the most efficient high-volume scoring championship run ever,
Come back to me when you adjust for league-wide effiency.
If you think that radically changes anything, you do it.
Also lol @cherrypicking scoring.
Hahahaha, yes, points per game and true shooting, how cherrypicked. I sure twisted the data to show that result!
His defense? No stat marks him as more than the slightest of positives.
And defensive metrics are famously perfect.
His playmaking? Going by playoff assist to to ratio, passer rating, box creation, or basically anything, he's among the bottom of current superstars.
True, but his potential rivals in scoring are hardly maestros themselves.
I might care if you could show me his scoring outweighed everything else but that's hard to do when the raptors were merely a +2 offense in the playoffs and a +9 defense.
Kawhi effectively matched the scoring output of the team’s next two lead scorers combined; against Philadelphia, that was even more severe, as he had a 34.4% point share (not that I expect you to be honest about the actual level of Philadelphia’s defence in that series). Maybe if he had better playoff scorers around him, those team offensive numbers would be more palatable for you.
Harden was clearly wearing down towards the end of the rs. Hard to see that being a problem for him if he was playing on the raps instead of the rockets, but again, context is difficult to consider when you're trying to equate winning a championship with a player being the best in the league.
A. Regular season wear is a known effect. It was not a mystery to Harden. It was not a necessity that he battle for a four-seed so they could face the Warriors a round later. There are no bonus points for playoff diminishment by way of fatigue.
B. Seemed to still be a problem even on his 65-win team last year.
C. History of the league strongly suggests otherwise, as does the general result of this project. The best playoff performers tend to win. And sure, Kawhi is one of the worst of that bunch, but hey, the rest are generally accounted for.
And if fifty wins were “more than sufficient”, you would not need to continually parrot that profoundly dishonest “63-wins without Kawhi” extrapolation.
I'm doing you a favor and assuming weakened scheduling could strip that down by 13. It honestly probably doesn't and, assuming everyone stays as good as they were this season, I'd expect something similar to their 2017-2018 season which is way more than i would expect from if i took curry off the warriors, giannis off the bucks and more than what i'd expect from the rockets without harden or the 6ers without embid. Kawhi made a very good team great by moderately upgrading their offense. That's basically the bare minumim for being a superstar.
Cool, never said Kawhi matched their value in the regular season, nor do I particularly care if he does. Simply put, if Kawhi had been replaced in the playoffs with any of them, I do not believe they do as well. Especially with the acknowledgment Curry is already in. Giannis is the most interesting case, and his 2020 iteration might be a different story, but again, unlike Kawhi he caved when faced with unexpected pressure. And that matters.