2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[yoyoboy]

I'm interested to see where Lowry's going to rank end of the season for people. I feel like there's an argument to be made that he's ahead of Lillard.

[GSP]

I'm interested to see where Lowry's going to rank end of the season for people. I feel like there's an argument to be made that he's ahead of Lillard.

Ahead of Lillard? These overreactions have to end

[yoyoboy]

I'm interested to see where Lowry's going to rank end of the season for people. I feel like there's an argument to be made that he's ahead of Lillard.

Ahead of Lillard? These overreactions have to end

I'm not saying I'd make the argument but why is it so ridiculous? Sure Lillard is clearly better by the box score but there aren't many players in the league more undervalued by box score stats than Kyle Lowry.

Kyle Lowry:

2.83 PIPM / 5.00 RPM / 4.15 RAPTOR / +6.5 On-Court

Damian Lillard:

2.99 PIPM / 2.90 RPM / 5.94 RAPTOR / +1.7 On-Court

Lowry brings much more to the table in terms of intangibles and leadership in my opinion and there's something to be said about being the sole common denominator of a team that's won 48+ games 7 straight years amid massive roster change and coaching change, and in fact the only guy remaining outside of Norman Powell since 2016 in a stretch where the Raptors have won between 51-59 games, posted between a 3.7 and a 7.3 SRS, made it out of the 1st round every time, advanced to the ECF twice (and maybe three this year), and won a championship. It points to a guy who probably has value that extends far beyond the stat sheet which isn't surprising when you watch him on the court taking charges left and right and being a coach on the floor in a way Lillard just isn't.

And this season, I think Lowry has been very clearly better in the playoffs, not to mention Lillard gets slightly docked for missing the last ~1.5 games of his season due to injury. I realize the comeback wasn't at all likely but availability is important and we've seen Toronto come back from 0-2 to force a Game 7 and Denver win the series down 3-1. Giannis is gonna get docked a bit similarly for me. Finally, generally I appreciate guys that do what they do on better teams and Portland was a 35 win, -0.61 SRS team while Toronto finished 2nd in wins and 4th in SRS. Again, I think there's something to be said about Lowry's locker room impact and on-court leadership.

The more I talk about this, the more convinced I honestly am that I'll be placing Lowry ahead in my POY list.

[PaulieWal]

I'm interested to see where Lowry's going to rank end of the season for people. I feel like there's an argument to be made that he's ahead of Lillard.

Ahead of Lillard? These overreactions have to end

Why not? Usually people can say guard defense doesn't matter, Lowry is one of those guards where his defense matters a lot and Lillard would give the Raptors a boost on the offensive end but the Raptors would lose so much defensively. I am not sure if the net result would be any different.

[GSP]

Seems clear Lebron is Poy.

Only challenge he has is Kawhi and he isnt getting past both playoff Lebron/Ad

[freethedevil]

He might've been a little bit better, but overall any Giannis 19>20 improvements felt pretty marginal to me. Hard to nail down as real improvement vs noise (say his raised 3pt% vs his dropped ft%).

biggest granula thing i saw was his passer rating went frrom 5.2 to 6.1 irrc. correlating with hgher box creation and ect.

Theoretically giannis improving his passing would be the thing that breaks the back of defences. Don't know if that transalted to the playoffs though.

[GSP]

He might've been a little bit better, but overall any Giannis 19>20 improvements felt pretty marginal to me. Hard to nail down as real improvement vs noise (say his raised 3pt% vs his dropped ft%).

biggest granula thing i saw was his passer rating went frrom 5.2 to 6.1 irrc. correlating with hgher box creation and ect.

Theoretically giannis improving his passing would be the thing that breaks the back of defences. Don't know if that transalted to the playoffs though.

Still think Jokic over Kawhi?

They werent remotely on the same stratosphere this game

[inDe_eD]

He might've been a little bit better, but overall any Giannis 19>20 improvements felt pretty marginal to me. Hard to nail down as real improvement vs noise (say his raised 3pt% vs his dropped ft%).

biggest granula thing i saw was his passer rating went frrom 5.2 to 6.1 irrc. correlating with hgher box creation and ect.

Theoretically giannis improving his passing would be the thing that breaks the back of defences. Don't know if that transalted to the playoffs though.

Still think Jokic over Kawhi?

They werent remotely on the same stratosphere this game

Kawhi was really impressive tonight. He has a real good sense of when to go Kawhi vs the world, shades of the Raptor/Philly series last year.

[freethedevil]

He might've been a little bit better, but overall any Giannis 19>20 improvements felt pretty marginal to me. Hard to nail down as real improvement vs noise (say his raised 3pt% vs his dropped ft%).

biggest granula thing i saw was his passer rating went frrom 5.2 to 6.1 irrc. correlating with hgher box creation and ect.

Theoretically giannis improving his passing would be the thing that breaks the back of defences. Don't know if that transalted to the playoffs though.

Still think Jokic over Kawhi?

They werent remotely on the same stratosphere this game

for the series? yeah.

biggest granula thing i saw was his passer rating went frrom 5.2 to 6.1 irrc. correlating with hgher box creation and ect.

Theoretically giannis improving his passing would be the thing that breaks the back of defences. Don't know if that transalted to the playoffs though.

Still think Jokic over Kawhi?

They werent remotely on the same stratosphere this game

He has a real good sense of when to go Kawhi vs the world, shades of the Raptor/Philly series last year.

Nah, that's just called having a better team

[70sFan]

Clippers weren't that great, I don't get this consistent praise of Kawhi's teammates. Leonard is clearly the best player on his team and in some games he carried them on offense.

I know that a lot of people are still harsh on him due to overblown reactions from last season, but Kawhi proved that he's a legit superstar and a candidate for the best player in the league.

[E-Balla]

He might've been a little bit better, but overall any Giannis 19>20 improvements felt pretty marginal to me. Hard to nail down as real improvement vs noise (say his raised 3pt% vs his dropped ft%).

biggest granula thing i saw was his passer rating went frrom 5.2 to 6.1 irrc. correlating with hgher box creation and ect.

Theoretically giannis improving his passing would be the thing that breaks the back of defences. Don't know if that transalted to the playoffs though.

Giannis went from shooting 25% on 3 attempts a game to 30% on 5. I think that was a clear improvement, the issue is he improved from terrible to bad. Would've been better served improving literally any other part of his game.

[inDe_eD]

Still think Jokic over Kawhi?

They werent remotely on the same stratosphere this game

He has a real good sense of when to go Kawhi vs the world, shades of the Raptor/Philly series last year.

Nah, that's just called having a better team

Did you watch the game? Kawhi was the offense last night. He really just out-muscled everyone on both ends. That steal/fast break palm pass sequence where he just casually bowled over the dude in front of him was something else

[freethedevil]

He might've been a little bit better, but overall any Giannis 19>20 improvements felt pretty marginal to me. Hard to nail down as real improvement vs noise (say his raised 3pt% vs his dropped ft%).

biggest granula thing i saw was his passer rating went frrom 5.2 to 6.1 irrc. correlating with hgher box creation and ect.

Theoretically giannis improving his passing would be the thing that breaks the back of defences. Don't know if that transalted to the playoffs though.

Giannis went from shooting 25% on 3 attempts a game to 30% on 5. I think that was a clear improvement, the issue is he improved from terrible to bad. Would've been better served improving literally any other part of his game.

Well during the rs i saw him pull up an improved turnaround. His passing and defense also improved.

But giannis deciding to shoot a million threes in the playoffs helped negate all that. His three point shooting wasn't why the raps shut him down , it was his playmaking/lack of midrange counters.

Playoff defenses will treat him like he can shoot threes anyway to stop him from driving. Punishing help with increased interior passing is what would break that.

If giannis can become like a "7" in passing, all these schemes fail barring the most goaty of personell.


All that said, I don't know how much to take from this sample. His game 1 and 3 sucked, but he looked like himself in game 2 and he looked like he was on the pace to do some goat **** in game 4. Bam might be the best induvidual matchup for giannis in the league, but I see the heat defense as more simialr to the 19 celtics than the 19 raptors. Depending on how you group it you could see this as a continuation of the raptors series woes, or three bad games out of 9 against "good" defenses.

[freethedevil]

Nah, that's just called having a better team

Did you watch the game? Kawhi was the offense last night.e

Have you watched the series? Kawhi was able to afford to be inferior for three teams and go 2-1 up because he had a better team. Kawhi is "picking when to go all-wrold" because he has the lucury of a team that can go ahead in a series when he gets outplayed.

Any to player can "pick and choose" when to play good, not everyone has the luxuty to make that choice. Like say, Jokic, Harden, Luka.

[inDe_eD]

Nah, that's just called having a better team

Did you watch the game? Kawhi was the offense last night.e

Have you watched the series? Kawhi was able to afford to be inferior for three teams and go 2-1 up because he had a better team. Kawhi is "picking when to go all-wrold" because he has the lucury of a team that can go ahead in a series when he gets outplayed.

Any to player can "pick and choose" when to play good, not everyone has the luxuty to make that choice. Like say, Jokic, Harden, Luka.

I'm genuinely not trying to be a jerk here, but I really don't understand what you're trying to say, nor the point you're making.

[freethedevil]

Did you watch the game? Kawhi was the offense last night.e

Have you watched the series? Kawhi was able to afford to be inferior for three teams and go 2-1 up because he had a better team. Kawhi is "picking when to go all-wrold" because he has the lucury of a team that can go ahead in a series when he gets outplayed.

Any to player can "pick and choose" when to play good, not everyone has the luxuty to make that choice. Like say, Jokic, Harden, Luka.

I'm genuinely not trying to be a jerk here, but I really don't understand what you're trying to say, nor the point you're making.

That says more about you then me yeah, my point's pretty clear.

[70sFan]

Nah, that's just called having a better team

Did you watch the game? Kawhi was the offense last night.e

Have you watched the series? Kawhi was able to afford to be inferior for three teams and go 2-1 up because he had a better team. Kawhi is "picking when to go all-wrold" because he has the lucury of a team that can go ahead in a series when he gets outplayed.

Any to player can "pick and choose" when to play good, not everyone has the luxuty to make that choice. Like say, Jokic, Harden, Luka.

Kawhi is the best player in that series, with all respect to Jokic. He had one bad game, other than that he's as good as ever. Clippers team isn't that stacked, given how poorly PG has been playing recently.

[freethedevil]

Did you watch the game? Kawhi was the offense last night.e

Have you watched the series? Kawhi was able to afford to be inferior for three teams and go 2-1 up because he had a better team. Kawhi is "picking when to go all-wrold" because he has the lucury of a team that can go ahead in a series when he gets outplayed.

Any to player can "pick and choose" when to play good, not everyone has the luxuty to make that choice. Like say, Jokic, Harden, Luka.

Kawhi is the best player in that series, with all respect to Jokic. He had one bad game, other than that he's as good as ever. Clippers team isn't that stacked, given how poorly PG has been playing recently.

JJokic's been excellent every game and amazing in two, not really sure how you conclude kahwi's been better aside from reputation.

He's scored better, and he created more. Kawhi's defense has been legitmately good this year, but that hardly makes up for it.

Also pg playing poorly? Paul George was steraight up excellent this series. Bad take.

[70sFan]

Have you watched the series? Kawhi was able to afford to be inferior for three teams and go 2-1 up because he had a better team. Kawhi is "picking when to go all-wrold" because he has the lucury of a team that can go ahead in a series when he gets outplayed.

Any to player can "pick and choose" when to play good, not everyone has the luxuty to make that choice. Like say, Jokic, Harden, Luka.

Kawhi is the best player in that series, with all respect to Jokic. He had one bad game, other than that he's as good as ever. Clippers team isn't that stacked, given how poorly PG has been playing recently.

JJokic's been excellent every game and amazing in two, not really sure how you conclude kahwi's been better aside from reputation.

He's scored better, and he created more. Kawhi's defense has been legitmately good this year, but that hardly makes up for it.

Jokic has been bad defensively though, which also matters. Jokic also has been turning the ball over quite a lot, which is unusual for him. Even if you believe that Jokic is better overall, the gap is small and the difference between supporting casts is way smaller than you make it out to be.

One thing is sure - there will be no more Murray>Jokic after this series. When Jamal faces real perimeter defense, he's not close to Jokic. Which shouldn't be surprising for anyone, but some people went way too far with Murray's hot streak from the first round.

[inDe_eD]

Have you watched the series? Kawhi was able to afford to be inferior for three teams and go 2-1 up because he had a better team. Kawhi is "picking when to go all-wrold" because he has the lucury of a team that can go ahead in a series when he gets outplayed.

Any to player can "pick and choose" when to play good, not everyone has the luxuty to make that choice. Like say, Jokic, Harden, Luka.

I'm genuinely not trying to be a jerk here, but I really don't understand what you're trying to say, nor the point you're making.

That says more about you then me yeah, my point's pretty clear.

You said Kawhi has been inferior for three teams, his team is better, and he has the luxury of picking his spots, but still gets outplayed. I really don't understand that sequence of thoughts.

My point is that Kawhi doesn't monopolize the offense (i.e. takeover) unless he sees his team struggling, similar to game 7 last year against Philly. I think it's really valuable that a guy can read the room like that, and it has nothing to do with picking and choosing when to be good, because he's been consistently awesome this entire playoffs, minus a single game. Are you really trying to make the claim that he's been bad or underperforming?