Your top 5 in 2017?

[eminence]

The Thunder would’ve missed the playoffs with Paul instead of Westbrook. I’m not saying Paul’s cast was excellent or anything, but it’s really no comparison between having Griffin, Jordan and Reddick compared to...uh Steven Adams and a younger Oladipo.

Unlikely they miss the playoffs, 7 games up on 9th, 'younger' Oladipo was 1 season from being an All-NBA player and Roberson/Adams vs Redick/Jordan is very much a discussion.

The Jazz were kinda sucky with Gobert hobbled though (knee-sprain in game 1, missed the first 3 and slowed for the rest of the playoffs), I really enjoyed the series, but CP3 getting outplayed by 35 year old Joe Johnson down the stretch of game 4 is not a good look.

And that's the thing. Joe Johnson only needs to have a game here or there - because he was a bench player for the Jazz (albeit he is a very good playoff player). The Clippers do not have any type of relief. Clippers and Jazz are polar opposites on the depth spectrum, on top of the Jazz having a crushing defense.

So I'm not sure if you're being intentionally obtuse or not, but the big thing was that the Jazz were missing some guy named Gobert for the majority of that series.

[HeartBreakKid]

Unlikely they miss the playoffs, 7 games up on 9th, 'younger' Oladipo was 1 season from being an All-NBA player and Roberson/Adams vs Redick/Jordan is very much a discussion.

The Jazz were kinda sucky with Gobert hobbled though (knee-sprain in game 1, missed the first 3 and slowed for the rest of the playoffs), I really enjoyed the series, but CP3 getting outplayed by 35 year old Joe Johnson down the stretch of game 4 is not a good look.

And that's the thing. Joe Johnson only needs to have a game here or there - because he was a bench player for the Jazz (albeit he is a very good playoff player). The Clippers do not have any type of relief. Clippers and Jazz are polar opposites on the depth spectrum, on top of the Jazz having a crushing defense.

So I'm not sure if you're being intentionally obtuse or not, but the big thing was that the Jazz were missing some guy named Gobert for the majority of that series.

Uh...well thanks for calling me obtuse - but on top of that, that doesn't actually contradict that the Jazz have a crushing defense and depth advantage over the Clippers. Even with hurt Rudy Gobert that statement is not contradictory.

Rudy Gobert was much more impactful on that series than a counter part in Blake Griffin. Regardless with both of them gone, I don't get how my statement makes me obtuse (where did I even mention Rudy Gobert?)

[No-more-rings]

Again Paul supporters continue to downplay and underrate Griffin as a player. Getting called comparable now to Steven Adams and pre peak Oladipo. The guy has like been in serious conversation for top 5 and has at least a few years where he was easily top 10. But nah he wasn’t that good.

And nor was Deandre with his super elite rebounding and his highest ts% average in league history.

[No-more-rings]

I mean Clippers vs Jazz was winnable because Chris Paul carried the team to 7 games. The Jazz were the deepest team in the playoffs and arguably the best defense - the Clippers without Blake Griffin were bad, even more so when JJ Reddick (their third best player) couldn't hit any shots.

Westbrook carried his team to the playoffs - yes, this is true - as did Chris Paul, despite missing 1/4th of the season. The Clippers were 7-14 - so Chris Paul made a gigantic difference between whether they were a possible second round team in the West and being a .250 team. It's as if you are painting that the Clippers were a decent team without Chris Paul.

The Jazz didn't have homecourt against the Clippers because the Jazz had many injuries during the regular season - as they regularly do during the Gobert era. (three of their starters played less than 56 games, and Hayward lost about 10 on top of that)


Anyway, it's not like the Thunder only ran into the wall called the Rockets. The Thunder wouldn't have beaten the Jazz either.

The Thunder would’ve missed the playoffs with Paul instead of Westbrook. I’m not saying Paul’s cast was excellent or anything, but it’s really no comparison between having Griffin, Jordan and Reddick compared to...uh Steven Adams and a younger Oladipo.

Unlikely they miss the playoffs, 7 games up on 9th, 'younger' Oladipo was 1 season from being an All-NBA player and Roberson/Adams vs Redick/Jordan is very much a discussion.

The Jazz were kinda sucky with Gobert hobbled though (knee-sprain in game 1, missed the first 3 and slowed for the rest of the playoffs), I really enjoyed the series, but CP3 getting outplayed by 35 year old Joe Johnson down the stretch of game 4 is not a good look.

So I’ll repeat again here that Paul missed 21 games. How many out of those 21 games do you honestly think they could win with Paul out? The only sample we have is a 2 point scrape by win against a bad T Wolves team. It’s entirely possible they win only like 5 or 6 out of those 21. Even if anyone thinks Paul wad better on a per game basis, the difference would have to be either really big or you think that cast without Westbrook is going to stay afloat in his missed time.

I’m certainly not going to entertain any further that Griffin-Deandre and Reddick is comparable to what Westbrook had, and Oladipo outbreaking the next year doesn’t change what he was the year before. Not to mention the outlier that year turned out to be anyway.

[No-more-rings]

I mean Clippers vs Jazz was winnable because Chris Paul carried the team to 7 games. The Jazz were the deepest team in the playoffs and arguably the best defense - the Clippers without Blake Griffin were bad, even more so when JJ Reddick (their third best player) couldn't hit any shots.

Westbrook carried his team to the playoffs - yes, this is true - as did Chris Paul, despite missing 1/4th of the season. The Clippers were 7-14 - so Chris Paul made a gigantic difference between whether they were a possible second round team in the West and being a .250 team. It's as if you are painting that the Clippers were a decent team without Chris Paul.

The Jazz didn't have homecourt against the Clippers because the Jazz had many injuries during the regular season - as they regularly do during the Gobert era. (three of their starters played less than 56 games, and Hayward lost about 10 on top of that)


Anyway, it's not like the Thunder only ran into the wall called the Rockets. The Thunder wouldn't have beaten the Jazz either.

The Thunder would’ve missed the playoffs with Paul instead of Westbrook. I’m not saying Paul’s cast was excellent or anything, but it’s really no comparison between having Griffin, Jordan and Reddick compared to...uh Steven Adams and a younger Oladipo.

DeAndre Jordan and JJ Reddick NO COMPARISON to Steve Adams and Victor Oladipo? They are very much comparable.


Blake Griffin only played two games in the post season and one of them the Clippers lost. He was not a factor at all...obviously if Blake Griffin was never injured the Clippers would have been much better. That's been the story of the Clippers and Blake Griffin's career.

The Clippers may have been better than the Thunder, but they were still an incredibly shallow team and weren't top heavy either.

Anyway - saying prime CP3 is better than prime Westbrook hardly seems like a strange thing to say.

It's not like the 2018 Thunder lit it up either. They did even worse against the Jazz in 2018 and Westbrook had Paul George in that series (which he didn't play nearly as poorly as people did, he had a poor elimination game). We literally saw how the Thunder did against the Jazz the next season - and while there were changes the core of their teams were either the same or just swapped (Don Mitchell for Hayward, Oladipo for George - which are two swaps in the Thunder's favor).

I think you’re focusing way too much on my comment about the playoffs. I’m not saying OKC wouldve won the series either, though Westbrook in 2018 fell off a good bit from 2017 anway.

The fact is both only played one series and both did well so that shouldn’t move the needle much. Westbrook played 20 more games than Paul, if you think Paul’s value was so much higher that it erases the extra availability, then ok but i’d say that’s really dubious. If you don’t, we can’t continue to live in this fantasy land where Paul’s missed games don’t matter in comparisons.

[Whopper_Sr]

My POY vote was this:

1. Steph
2. LeBron
3. Draymond
4. Westbrook
5. Durant

More of a best players list:

1. Steph
2. LeBron
3. Kawhi - playoff injury tanked him in POY voting
4. Draymond
5. CP3
6. KD
7. Westbrook
8. Harden

How do you view Curry and LeBron's offense that year?

[eminence]

My POY vote was this:

1. Steph
2. LeBron
3. Draymond
4. Westbrook
5. Durant

More of a best players list:

1. Steph
2. LeBron
3. Kawhi - playoff injury tanked him in POY voting
4. Draymond
5. CP3
6. KD
7. Westbrook
8. Harden

How do you view Curry and LeBron's offense that year?

Both took great offensive casts to all-time level results (probably slight edge to Curry for both cast/results). Cavs/LeBron always gave me a bit of a trade-off vibe though, like the +++ offense was only really a ++ offense but they gave it up on defense to get to that +++ level. Between that and tending to give ties to the guy on the better team I've got Curry by a small bit.

[LukaTheGOAT]

1. Lebron
2. Kawhi (Shocker, I know, but I think 2017 Kawhi is an all-time season)
3. Stephen Curry
4./5. CP3/Kevin Durant (Impact metrics seem to like Paul more, but idk, KD's scoring barrage and ability to gel with GSW was something)

I feel really good about this top 5. I believe that CP3 played better in the playoffs then Westbrook and Harden, and based off his past body of work, believe he was a better player than those two at the time.

A few questions/comments here.

Considering 2017 has a good case for being Curry’s peak, do you consider Kawhi the better peak player?

How do you reconcile Kawhi’s injury in the playoffs? Do you see it as a fluke thing and don’t hold it against him? Regardless he ruined any chance of his team advancing and that has to be considered.

Cp3 over Westbrook that year for me is kinda ehh. Missing 21 games is no small deal, and while he had a pretty good series against Jazz, it still felt like a “probably winnable” series that they lost with homecourt. Westbrook completely carried that team to 47-48 wins and his team fell apart with him on the bench in the playoffs.

I do consider Kawhi's peak as better than Curry's. I don't know how to measure Curry in 2016, but when healthy I would consider Curry in 2016 a better player than Kawhi at any point. Also since we were talking about them as players, I kind of just assumed if we have everyone at full strength, then this would be my list, but you make a good point about Kawhi's injury. Kawhi felt like he could come back however at the time, so considering he was capable of playing, I feel like maybe I shouldn't be too harsh (it was a coach's decision if I am remembering correctly).

My reason for having Kawhi higher is that I really buy his playoff sample and what he has consistently done. I think he was a better scorer than Curry considering he had less spacing and talent to help him. Kawhi's 2017 PS, is #4 all-time in BPM (#3 all-time behind LBJ and MJ if you exclude Hakeem who only played a few games in the first round). His 2017 PS run I believe is #2 since 2001, with only 2017 Lebron being higher. I think his defense really ramped up in the PS, as his RS on that end was lackluster for his standards. I think his 2017 playoff run as a scorer is probably better than anything Steph has done in the PS, but I could very well be wrong.

Read on Twitter

With CP3 he did miss his fair share of games, but honestly going with the full strength ideology I said before, I think CP3 was better and since he had been better in past years, I rolled with CP3. Impact metrics seem to paint CP3 as clearly superior to Westbrook, whether you look at PIPM or RAPM, and I feel like CP3 can gell better with more talent in a hypothetical scenario, while having good efficiency. On the other hand, I think we saw Westbrook in the perfect situation for his game and I believe he was less impactful and further more I think CP3 with his defense provides more if both their shots are off. In the end Westbrook was less impactful in a perfect situation for him and I think he would have trouble doing what he did in OKC on other contender teams.

[Whopper_Sr]

My POY vote was this:

1. Steph
2. LeBron
3. Draymond
4. Westbrook
5. Durant

More of a best players list:

1. Steph
2. LeBron
3. Kawhi - playoff injury tanked him in POY voting
4. Draymond
5. CP3
6. KD
7. Westbrook
8. Harden

How do you view Curry and LeBron's offense that year?

Both took great offensive casts to all-time level results (probably slight edge to Curry for both cast/results). Cavs/LeBron always gave me a bit of a trade-off vibe though, like the +++ offense was only really a ++ offense but they gave it up on defense to get to that +++ level. Between that and tending to give ties to the guy on the better team I've got Curry by a small bit.

While the Cavs did go all-in on offense at the expense of defense, I'd argue that it was purely due to circumstance (having to account for Durant on top of Curry and Klay for closeouts with some of the best ball movement in league history; a tall order for any team). They were definitely worse defensively than the year before but against any other team, they would've been able to maintain that level of offense while not giving up nearly as much on defense.

I understand your thought process here and can get on board with your POY ranking but not the "best players" list. I guess this comes down to the ceiling raiser vs. floor raise debate. I can certainly see Curry being more impactful on a team like the 17 Warriors due to his superior off-ball game and shooting prowess. LeBron is definitely more impactful in a wider variety of casts.

[eminence]

How do you view Curry and LeBron's offense that year?

Both took great offensive casts to all-time level results (probably slight edge to Curry for both cast/results). Cavs/LeBron always gave me a bit of a trade-off vibe though, like the +++ offense was only really a ++ offense but they gave it up on defense to get to that +++ level. Between that and tending to give ties to the guy on the better team I've got Curry by a small bit.

While the Cavs did go all-in on offense at the expense of defense, I'd argue that it was purely due to circumstance (having to account for Durant on top of Curry and Klay for closeouts with some of the best ball movement in league history; a tall order for any team). They were definitely worse defensively than the year before but against any other team, they would've been able to maintain that level of offense while not giving up nearly as much on defense.

I understand your thought process here and can get on board with your POY ranking but not the "best players" list. I guess this comes down to the ceiling raiser vs. floor raise debate. I can certainly see Curry being more impactful on a team like the 17 Warriors due to his superior off-ball game and shooting prowess. LeBron is definitely more impactful in a wider variety of casts.

I wasn't really trying to limit it to the Finals (which was one of the most shoot-out vibe series I've ever seen and both D's mailed it in), but I felt they were below average through the regular season and slightly above average through the Eastern Conference. Maybe I'm too harsh there and that was just their real defensive level with an offense focused LeBron + Kyrie/Love.

I don't really agree with the ceiling/floor bit, just the season before we watched Curry lead another all-timer of an offense with a more comparable offensive cast to LeBron (I'd side Cavs crew when healthy actually - Kyrie/Love admittedly have more health issues than Klay/Dray). Maybe on truly mediocre teams LeBron pulls ahead offensively, but on most teams resembling contenders I side with Curry offensively, it doesn't take the '17 Warriors imo for his off-ball prowess to pull ahead.

[Whopper_Sr]

Both took great offensive casts to all-time level results (probably slight edge to Curry for both cast/results). Cavs/LeBron always gave me a bit of a trade-off vibe though, like the +++ offense was only really a ++ offense but they gave it up on defense to get to that +++ level. Between that and tending to give ties to the guy on the better team I've got Curry by a small bit.

While the Cavs did go all-in on offense at the expense of defense, I'd argue that it was purely due to circumstance (having to account for Durant on top of Curry and Klay for closeouts with some of the best ball movement in league history; a tall order for any team). They were definitely worse defensively than the year before but against any other team, they would've been able to maintain that level of offense while not giving up nearly as much on defense.

I understand your thought process here and can get on board with your POY ranking but not the "best players" list. I guess this comes down to the ceiling raiser vs. floor raise debate. I can certainly see Curry being more impactful on a team like the 17 Warriors due to his superior off-ball game and shooting prowess. LeBron is definitely more impactful in a wider variety of casts.

I wasn't really trying to limit it to the Finals (which was one of the most shoot-out vibe series I've ever seen and both D's mailed it in), but I felt they were below average through the regular season and slightly above average through the Eastern Conference. Maybe I'm too harsh there and that was just their real defensive level with an offense focused LeBron + Kyrie/Love.

I don't really agree with the ceiling/floor bit, just the season before we watched Curry lead another all-timer of an offense with a more comparable offensive cast to LeBron (I'd side Cavs crew when healthy actually - Kyrie/Love admittedly have more health issues than Klay/Dray). Maybe on truly mediocre teams LeBron pulls ahead offensively, but on most teams resembling contenders I side with Curry offensively, it doesn't take the '17 Warriors imo for his off-ball prowess to pull ahead.

Slightly above average sounds about right which is what you would expect from a team whose best defensive lineup consists of LeBron/Shump/JR/RJ/TT. Switchable, athletic, and savvy enough but would have to go all out (at the expense of offense) to maintain a high level defense.

I can agree with this. 17 Warriors are overkill and while Durant added another dimension to their offense with his iso-scoring, Curry still managed to post huge impact numbers. Maybe it didn't manifest until the 2018 season but Durant was prone to killing ball movement in favor of his iso-tendencies. I'm not sure how to evaluate that since I'm high on skill sets that are resilient and more difficult to stop in a playoff setting but if it comes at that cost, it's tough to assess.

As for 16 Curry, it's a shame he got injured in the playoffs. It surely would've been a top 5 season ever if he kept up his RS production in the PS.

[Drygon]

Playoff Kawhi was easily NBA's best player, saying anything else is revisionist history.

2017 playoffs



Box Scores:

- Kawhi Leonard: 27.7/7.8/4.6 on shooting splits 52/45/93 with 16.8 FGA
- LeBron James: 32.8/9.1/7.8 on shooting splits 56.5/41.1/69.8 with 21.3 FGA
- Steph Curry: 28.1/6.2/6.7 on shooting splits 48.4/41.9/90.4 with 18.4 FGA
- Kevin Durant: 28.5/7.9/4.3 on shooting splits 55.6/44.2/89.3 with 17.9 FGA


Advanced Stats:

- Kawhi Leonard: 67.2% TS, 0.314 WS/48, 10.5 OBPM, 3.7 DBPM, 14.2 BPM
- LeBron James: 64.9% TS, 0.275 WS/48, 7.7 OBPM, 2.1 DBPM, 9.8 BPM
- Steph Curry: 65.9% TS, 0.272 WS/48, 8.3 OBPM, 1.4 DBPM, 9.7 BPM
- Kevin Durant: 68.3% TS, 0.280 WS/48, 8.2 OBPM, 1.7 DBPM, 9.9 BPM

[Homer38]

Playoff Kawhi was easily NBA's best player, saying anything else is revisionist history.

2017 playoffs



Box Scores:

- Kawhi Leonard: 27.7/7.8/4.6 on shooting splits 52/45/93 with 16.8 FGA
- LeBron James: 32.8/9.1/7.8 on shooting splits 56.5/41.1/69.8 with 21.3 FGA
- Steph Curry: 28.1/6.2/6.7 on shooting splits 48.4/41.9/90.4 with 18.4 FGA
- Kevin Durant: 28.5/7.9/4.3 on shooting splits 55.6/44.2/89.3 with 17.9 FGA


Advanced Stats:

- Kawhi Leonard: 67.2% TS, 0.314 WS/48, 10.5 OBPM, 3.7 DBPM, 14.2 BPM
- LeBron James: 64.9% TS, 0.275 WS/48, 7.7 OBPM, 2.1 DBPM, 9.8 BPM
- Steph Curry: 65.9% TS, 0.272 WS/48, 8.3 OBPM, 1.4 DBPM, 9.7 BPM
- Kevin Durant: 68.3% TS, 0.280 WS/48, 8.2 OBPM, 1.7 DBPM, 9.9 BPM

Kawhi had a case, but to say easily is ridiculous once again

Kawhi had a great series against Memphis but after that LBJ had at least 3 series (Pacers, Toronto and Warriors) better than Kawhi's series against Houston, although it was still great.

Also, LeBron had to play almost every minute in the games which was not a blowout since the cavs were awful when LBJ was on the bench,so when you have less rest, more difficult to keep your efficiency, but LBJ was great in that

[Bidofo]

Playoff Kawhi was easily NBA's best player, saying anything else is revisionist history.

Do you know what revisionist history means lol? People were pretty divided at the time as to who the best player was, but I think most people had LeBron. Fwiw, the Cavs with LeBron on played better than the Spurs with Kawhi on, and the Cavs without LeBron on played worse than the Spurs without Kawhi, in the playoffs.