2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[Dupp]

Oh and Jokers definitely above Kawhi for me now, maybe Giannis too.

Tatum and butler are surging and Murray needs some love somewhere, maybe a honourable mention.

[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.

This is an excellent point and I've made decisions in the past based on similar arguments so I'll chew on it more here.

But so we're clear, Kawhi was 5th in the league in +/- way far beyond his teammates, ahead of LeBron, and also way ahead of someone like Harden. It wasn't like last year, to me Kawhi was a pretty easy pick for 3rd for MVP behind Giannis and LeBron and so while I expect him to drop, he's dropping from relatively rare air.

5th is cool, but giannis was literally posting goat level impact stats.

[Jim Naismith]

People really going HAM after a couple of games and throwing everything out the window, lmao

At this point, if the Lakers lose to the Heat in the Finals, i expect Goran Dragic in some of these Top 5's...

Best Slovenian player in the Nba

Slovenian? Why stop there? Best European player in the NBA, and he proved it in 2017... And if he wins the NBA title this season he will also be the best player on the planet

Do you consider Giannis European?

[Basileus777]

I think the flipside of the player empowerment era, is that it's reasonable to hold team flaws against a player when they were a huge driver behind team composition. Kawhi picked his team and forced the Clippers to trade a king's ransom for Paul George. The end result being an underachiever should impact Kawhi's ranking.

[limbo]

Best Slovenian player in the Nba

Slovenian? Why stop there? Best European player in the NBA, and he proved it in 2017... And if he wins the NBA title this season he will also be the best player on the planet

Do you consider Giannis European?

Do you consider Jeremy Lin American?

[Jim Naismith]

Slovenian? Why stop there? Best European player in the NBA, and he proved it in 2017... And if he wins the NBA title this season he will also be the best player on the planet

Do you consider Giannis European?

Do you consider Jeremy Lin American?

Yes.

So why are you claiming Luka was the best European player in the NBA in 2017?

[No-more-rings]

It's sort of crazy how much one or 2 games are swinging rankings for people. Jokic outperformed Kawhi in the series, but saying he should rank higher on the whole season is going too far imo. Up until that the last game which was a poor showing for sure, he was averaging 26/9/6 on 59 ts%. It wasn't his best series, but he still has such a strong playoff track record I'm not willing to just wash his season away like that.

[70sFan]

It's sort of crazy how much one or 2 games are swinging rankings for people. Jokic outperformed Kawhi in the series, but saying he should rank higher on the whole season is going too far imo. Up until that the last game which was a poor showing for sure, he was averaging 26/9/6 on 59 ts%. It wasn't his best series, but he still has such a strong playoff track record I'm not willing to just wash his season away like that.

I agree, Jokic'd have to prove himself in another series against the toughest team he ever faced in playoffs to consider him over Kawhi.

[Homer38]

For me,the way that you perform in crucial moment in a season is very important in the rankings...Not the only thing which is important but it matter a lot for me.

[limbo]

Do you consider Giannis European?

Do you consider Jeremy Lin American?

Yes.

So why are you claiming Luka was the best European player in the NBA in 2017?

I'm not. Dragic was.

[No-more-rings]

And btw, I'm going to wait until the playoffs are completely over until i make a final top 5 list. It's too easy to overreact and make constant changes to it so i don't see the point.

[freethedevil]

It's sort of crazy how much one or 2 games are swinging rankings for people. Jokic outperformed Kawhi in the series, but saying he should rank higher on the whole season is going too far imo. Up until that the last game which was a poor showing for sure, he was averaging 26/9/6 on 59 ts%. It wasn't his best series, but he still has such a strong playoff track record I'm not willing to just wash his season away like that.

I agree, Jokic'd have to prove himself in another series against the toughest team he ever faced in playoffs to consider him over Kawhi.

why are you holding kawhi to lower standards than jokic? Who did kawhi play these playoffs, the mavs without their best rim protector? the nuggets?

Like we need to see the forest for the trees at some point.

wsf-> team underperforms
first round -> team underperforms
last finals -> team underperforms

WHen is the last time a kawhi led team overperformed based on where you would rank his supporting cast beforehand in the playoffs?

This feels like box stat watching. Kawhi's impact is dubious. I see no reason to give him a benefit of the doubt that wasn't afforded to jokic last postseason when jokic was stasticlaly having the best playoffs by far.

Jokic was literally the best defensive player on the floor by a landslide yesterday. You can't keep ignoring what actually happens.

[E-Balla]

It's sort of crazy how much one or 2 games are swinging rankings for people. Jokic outperformed Kawhi in the series, but saying he should rank higher on the whole season is going too far imo. Up until that the last game which was a poor showing for sure, he was averaging 26/9/6 on 59 ts%. It wasn't his best series, but he still has such a strong playoff track record I'm not willing to just wash his season away like that.

I agree, Jokic'd have to prove himself in another series against the toughest team he ever faced in playoffs to consider him over Kawhi.

why are you holding kawhi to lower standards than jokic? Who did kawhi play these playoffs, the mavs without their best rim protector?

Can we stop acting like KP didn't play because he missed the 2nd half of the series? KP wasn't doing much to stop Kawhi in games 1-3 and he was still averaging 33 ppg on 63 TS% even though he couldn't hit a 3 pointer to save his life.

[No-more-rings]

why are you holding kawhi to lower standards than jokic? Who did kawhi play these playoffs, the mavs without their best rim protector? the nuggets?

Oh come on, Kawhi has played well against strong teams and individual matchups before. Stop acting like he's some unproven player or something.

WHen is the last time a kawhi led team overperformed based on where you would rank his supporting cast beforehand in the playoffs?

That's easy. Against the Bucks last year, where he was probably the most important guy in the scheme that shut Giannis down, the same player you prop up despite losing in embarrassing fashion every year in the playoffs.

This feels like box stat watching.

Ironic considering how much you prop of Giannis' box scores.

Kawhi's impact is dubious.

Giannis' offensive impact is way more dubious if we're being serious.

Jokic was literally the best defensive player on the floor by a landslide yesterday. You can't keep ignoring what actually happens.

I didn't ignore it. But it's also clear to me Jokic's supporting cast was better and the team was simply better coached in the series. Like people really need to start giving Murray more credit, he's a legitimately bad dude. Jokic was the best player on the floor yesterday but Murray drops 40 and no one gives a damn.

[Yuri36]

I especially like the point earlier about how letting these series play out is important, because I was so hard on Giannis earlier and wanted to drop him out of my top 5...but then you see how Harden and Kawhi went out, and it's hard to justify right now that they should be ahead of Giannis. They did perform better than he did in the playoffs...but by how much? They certainly weren't untouchable themselves, they looked quite bad in their elimination games. Giannis was actually playing very well in game 4 before he got hurt. And he obviously blew them away in terms of his RS.

Only thing I'm really sold on is LeBron is 1, and AD and Jokic are top 5.

Also don't think we should be forgetting Doncic so quickly, although I don't see a good argument for him right now over Kawhi/Harden, who are battling for that #5 spot most likely.

Lol for his first NBA POs, Luka already performed better than Harden has ever had in POs.

[limbo]

Anyway

Curious to see those guys that dropped Giannis out of their Top 5 and had Kawhi as high as #1 with Bron just last week try to justify ranking Kawhi over Giannis right now...

Both underperformed and got eliminated in the 2nd round by a lower seeded team.

Both preformed ar a similar level in the Playoffs.

Giannis clearly had the better RS tho, and was more available to boot.

If Giannis is out of your Top 5, Kawhi needs to as well. Not only that, but he needs to be ranked behind Giannis as well, as he didn't really perform better than him at any point of the season, and actually performed worse for the majority of it.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I especially like the point earlier about how letting these series play out is important, because I was so hard on Giannis earlier and wanted to drop him out of my top 5...but then you see how Harden and Kawhi went out, and it's hard to justify right now that they should be ahead of Giannis. They did perform better than he did in the playoffs...but by how much? They certainly weren't untouchable themselves, they looked quite bad in their elimination games. Giannis was actually playing very well in game 4 before he got hurt. And he obviously blew them away in terms of his RS.

Only thing I'm really sold on is LeBron is 1, and AD and Jokic are top 5.

Also don't think we should be forgetting Doncic so quickly, although I don't see a good argument for him right now over Kawhi/Harden, who are battling for that #5 spot most likely.

Lol for his first NBA POs, Luka already performed better than Harden has ever had in POs.

I mean i get the hype and his first series was hella fun and the highs he hit were crazy

But if we r being honest he had 2 fantastic games (4 and 6), 1 solid luka game (2) , 1 disaster (3), 1 bad game (5) and 1 mixed bag (1, yeah he scored 42 but like 11 turnovers is wild. I get its him getting used to playoffs but doesnt change it)

[MyUniBroDavis]

Anyway

Curious to see those guys that dropped Giannis out of their Top 5 and had Kawhi as high as #1 with Bron just last week try to justify ranking Kawhi over Giannis right now...

Both underperformed and got eliminated in the 2nd round by a lower seeded team.

Both preformed ar a similar level in the Playoffs.

Giannis clearly had the better RS tho, and was more available to boot.

If Giannis is out of your Top 5, Kawhi needs to as well. Not only that, but he needs to be ranked behind Giannis as well, as he didn't really perform better than him at any point of the season, and actually performed worse for the majority of it.

Who has giannis out of their top 5 lol?

I usually dont vote although i will this year, aside from bron 1 davis 2 its REALLY HARD this year from 3-6

I think jokic having a stinker now would drop him out of top 5 but hes probablt at 3 for me right now

[Yuri36]

I especially like the point earlier about how letting these series play out is important, because I was so hard on Giannis earlier and wanted to drop him out of my top 5...but then you see how Harden and Kawhi went out, and it's hard to justify right now that they should be ahead of Giannis. They did perform better than he did in the playoffs...but by how much? They certainly weren't untouchable themselves, they looked quite bad in their elimination games. Giannis was actually playing very well in game 4 before he got hurt. And he obviously blew them away in terms of his RS.

Only thing I'm really sold on is LeBron is 1, and AD and Jokic are top 5.

Also don't think we should be forgetting Doncic so quickly, although I don't see a good argument for him right now over Kawhi/Harden, who are battling for that #5 spot most likely.

Lol for his first NBA POs, Luka already performed better than Harden has ever had in POs.

I mean i get the hype and his first series was hella fun and the highs he hit were crazy

But if we r being honest he had 2 fantastic games (4 and 6), 1 solid luka game (2) , 1 disaster (3), 1 bad game (5) and 1 mixed bag (1, yeah he scored 42 but like 11 turnovers is wild. I get its him getting used to playoffs but doesnt change it)

You know what happened in the one disaster game you mentioned?

[MyUniBroDavis]

Lol for his first NBA POs, Luka already performed better than Harden has ever had in POs.

I mean i get the hype and his first series was hella fun and the highs he hit were crazy

But if we r being honest he had 2 fantastic games (4 and 6), 1 solid luka game (2) , 1 disaster (3), 1 bad game (5) and 1 mixed bag (1, yeah he scored 42 but like 11 turnovers is wild. I get its him getting used to playoffs but doesnt change it)

You know what happened in the one disaster game you mentioned?

Didnt the ankle happen at the end of the third tho lol, he wasnt doing well before that