2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[freethedevil]

Seeing people put wilt and hakeem's offense as somethign jokic dorsn't touch is odd.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Jokic pops up to 3 for sure lol

[Krodis]

I don't think Kawhi should be Top 5.

[freethedevil]

Jokic pops up to 3 for sure lol

man how low does kahwhi drop after this lmao.

Can't even see a case for him being placed over harden, and honestly, i dont think this eas enough to justify ignoring giannis's way better rs

[Krodis]

Like, if you're going to miss 25% of regular season games for rest, you have to do better than... whatever that was. At least Giannis had a monster regular season and gave his team the 1 seed.

1. LeBron
2. Harden
3. Jokic
4. Giannis
5. AD

[freethedevil]

Like, if you're going to miss 25% of regular season games for rest, you have to do better than... whatever that was. At least Giannis had a monster regular season and gave his team the 1 seed.

1. LeBron
2. Harden
3. Jokic
4. Giannis
5. AD

why is ad so low.

[therealbig3]

Yeah man, I gotta really reconsider my rankings right now. I definitely underrated Jokic and overrated Kawhi. When you miss so many RS games and then you do THAT in a game 7 after your team blows a 3-1 series lead...that’s just wow.

I never expected Kawhi to play that badly in a game 7, I’ll be honest.

[yoyoboy]

They were neck and neck, but I think Kawhi is definitely finishing behind Harden for me now.

[HeartBreakKid]

James Harden had an awful game 7 also - are we just forgetting that?

Come on y'all...judging a player on one game? Kawhi was one of the most consistent playoff players this season, he was overdue for a bad game.

[eminence]

Yeah man, I gotta really reconsider my rankings right now. I definitely underrated Jokic and overrated Kawhi. When you miss so many RS games and then you do THAT in a game 7 after your team blows a 3-1 series lead...that’s just wow.

I never expected Kawhi to play that badly in a game 7, I’ll be honest.

I dunno if it's overrating. Kawhi played great when he did play this season until this collapse, if it had been enough to win a title again (or at least give Bron a decent series) nobody would be questioning it. Jokic for sure rising though.

8 contenders for me. The east guys pretty fringe, but if they walk away with a title it'll be impossible to tell the story of the season without them and I imagine they'd get in.

Out
Giannis
Harden
Kawhi

Still Playing
LeBron
AD
Jokic
Butler
Tatum

I do have a tough time putting Harden or Kawhi over Giannis as of now. Maybe if I heavily weighted Giannis's injury.

[therealbig3]

James Harden had an awful game 7 also - are we just forgetting that?

Come on y'all...judging a player on one game? Kawhi was one of the most consistent playoff players this season, he was overdue for a bad game.

Harden was overall great in these playoffs as well, and he had a clearly superior RS, just based on durability. Kawhi was catching up based on being a better playoff performer, but with their collapse in this series with not just his stinker in game 7, but his non existence in game 6 as well, can you honestly say he clearly outperformed Harden in the playoffs? Even if he did, it’s really not by much, certainly not enough to ignore the fact that Harden was much better in the RS.

[yoyoboy]

James Harden had an awful game 7 also - are we just forgetting that?

Come on y'all...judging a player on one game? Kawhi was one of the most consistent playoff players this season, he was overdue for a bad game.

I had Harden ahead in the regular season (especially with the extra games played) and to me he had a better postseason too. After today's it's just definitive for me. I was always so confused why people acted like it was a consensus that Kawhi was clearly ahead of the non-Giannis and LeBron guys in the RS and having arguably the best postseason as well. This was never the case from my perspective.

[MyUniBroDavis]

James Harden had an awful game 7 also - are we just forgetting that?

Come on y'all...judging a player on one game? Kawhi was one of the most consistent playoff players this season, he was overdue for a bad game.

I had Harden ahead in the regular season (especially with the extra games played) and to me he had a better postseason too. After today's it's just definitive for me. I was always so confused why people acted like it was a consensus that Kawhi was clearly ahead of the non-Giannis and LeBron guys in the RS and having arguably the best postseason as well. This was never the case from my perspective.

I mean theres something to be said about leading the top offense vs other contenders when on the court (clippers with kawhi were>mavs with luka on offense), while veing a top 3 perimeter defender in the league

Hes who he was last year wihh th a good pick and roll game, and thats kknd of insane

Still choked tho lulz

[Homer38]

They were neck and neck, but I think Kawhi is definitely finishing behind Harden for me now.

And Giannis too.

[NinjaSheppard]

Harden and Kawhi should both be punished because of their abysmal GM skills. When you have the power to make franchise altering decisions you bare the burden of the consequences.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Harden and Kawhi should both be punished because of their abysmal GM skills. When you have the power to make franchise altering decisions you bare the burden of the consequences.

I mean the clippers roster is fire lol

[Doctor MJ]

My gosh, so much to think about with the Game 7 tonight.

Big picture, something I've noted is that Kawhi's chip last year (along with LeBron & KD's Finals MVP runs) really further cemented a type of thinking of "In the end, nothing really matters but the best scorer when the defensive pressure is on". It's acknowledged that not all volume scorers can do this, and that a more sophisticated offense would work better than a volume scorer you can't truly count on, but the thought is that that offensive complexity gets gum in its gears against great defense and you have to rely on your alpha.

And while Kawhi had a bad game tonight in part because theirs luck involved and sometimes you hit less of your shots, I think that Denver really showed that you can have a more sophisticated offense that can't really be taken away with more pressure if you've got passing and weapons. Sure the Nuggets don't win without being remarkably effective on defense too, but when I watched the Nuggets offense I just kept thinking that the "pick your poison" assessment was undeniably true. All you can hope to do against Denver is blunt the edge a bit. You can't truly stop the flow.

The Nuggets' scheme just seemed to scale better than the Kawhi scheme. And I call it the "Kawhi scheme" here rather than the Doc scheme, because this is how Kawhi rolls offensively. Blame Doc for the defense all you want, he wasn't supposed to have to worry about offense. That's what the 2 time Finals MVP was for.

Moving toward actual ranking consideration, I'm always glad we have time to cool off before we do our actual votes, but sitting here right now, it's hard to have Kawhi ahead of Jokic. I had been fully prepared to come back here and say something like "Denver had 2 of the 3 best players in this series and George not living up to expectations in the end made the difference, so I still think Kawhi ranks ahead of...", but in the end the series didn't even seem close. That's crazy for a full 7 game series where the winning team had to come back from large deficits again and again, but that's how it feels.

I'm still going to refrain from making a full on list right now as I just think so much depends on what we see when winners play winners. If AD and the Lakers just seem to erase Jokic in a blow out of a series, that's going to matter. Similarly, I think we'll all feel weird about dropping Giannis too far if the Eastern champ ends up winning the whole shebang.

But I do find myself thinking that Jokic is a lock for Top 5 and with the possibility for going considerably higher.

Over in the East, watching Miami I find the tricky part here is that Jimmy Butler seems like the guy who has to be the candidate from the Heat, but I find myself paying more attention to Dragic and Bam than Jimmy. You could argue that Jokic has the same thing going with Murray, and Murray has certainly set himself up for future POY conversation, but the way everything radiates out from Jokic makes it feel different. Sometimes I watch Miami and Butler just seems like another guy on the team. Love the team, want to praise them all, but not sure if I'll feel I can single any one guy there out.

[Doctor MJ]

Harden and Kawhi should both be punished because of their abysmal GM skills. When you have the power to make franchise altering decisions you bare the burden of the consequences.

I'll certainly stand with you here. Now, how to actually quantify the reasonable punishment is probably impossible to come to a consensus on, but particularly with Kawhi, it's hard not to think about how bright their future would look if they had Kawhi, Gallo, SGA, and all those draft picks. Even if they lost in the 2nd round, you could use that to say "Imagine if they had a second star!" with exuberance instead despair.

Re: Harden. Not wanting to let him off the hook here at all, and I'm on record for saying how problematic it is that he insisted on the Paul-Westbrook swap, but the one thing I'll say there is that the Harden-Paul Rockets had clearly already taken their big shot and were getting frustrated because they knew their best days were behind them. The wisest move if you valued winning was to roll it back anyway, but the days of that core were number no matter what. If they'd kept Paul I still think they're out in the 2nd round, so the big consequence here is really about how they sacrificed their future, not about the damage done now. Whereas with the Clippers, it was actually both.

As I say all of that, pretty sure I'll still have Kawhi on my list before I have Harden. I had Kawhi ahead of Harden before this series, and I don't think I'll be able to elevate Harden based on the gentleman's sweep the Lakers put the Rockets through. I'm glad Harden was still able to produce his numbers, but putting up numbers in a series where in the end the other team never seemed seriously threatened isn't something I feel terribly comfortable lionizing.

[Doctor MJ]

They were neck and neck, but I think Kawhi is definitely finishing behind Harden for me now.

And Giannis too.

The Giannis vs Kawhi discussion is certainly back on.

[eminence]

Yeah, that's why future series matter even for guys who are out. If the Lakers roll to a title Harden looks pretty decent (or what the hell, say the Heat roll and Giannis looks better), if they get pushed seriously his effort looks a lot less impressive.