2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread

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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1081 » by Baski » Tue Oct 13, 2020 5:37 pm

DatAsh wrote:.

Bosh was a great defender in the same way Kyrie Irving is a great passer. Mad respect for what he tried to do with his limitations but let's not overrate him based on his secondary role in a defense that was driven by Lebron and Wade.
Love sucked ass though yeah. I lost respect for his offense after 2016 as well.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1082 » by kayess » Tue Oct 13, 2020 6:19 pm

Baski wrote:
DatAsh wrote:.

Bosh was a great defender in the same way Kyrie Irving is a great passer. Mad respect for what he tried to do with his limitations but let's not overrate him based on his secondary role in a defense that was driven by Lebron and Wade.
Love sucked ass though yeah. I lost respect for his offense after 2016 as well.


Wait what? No, Bosh's defense and Irving's passing are on completely different levels.

Bosh was co-anchor of that defense. He couldn't defend Hibbert posting up, but he was literally probably the only guy who could do that then (or young AD), AND the league as a whole was moving away from posting up (and to pace-and-space, spread PNRs, etc.) anyway, because it just generates less efficient offenses. His thing was blowing up PNRs on the perimeter even after he'd switched onto guards, and helping contest at the rim if there was any dribble drives. That is IMMENSELY valuable and you saw a AD do that repeatedly in the playoffs (albeit ofc at a higher level). When you couple that with his shooting ability and decent enough post scoring, you have one of the exemplars of the modern 4/5 (others in this category, with varying strengths across these dimensions: Ibaka, AD, Jokic, Porzingis, Embiid)

Kyrie meanwhile has far more weaknesses when it comes to passing. Just the number of times he missed the roll man 100% disqualifies his passing from being the same level as Bosh's defense. Not to mention his tendency to be tunnel visioned into scoring.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1083 » by LukaTheGOAT » Tue Oct 13, 2020 6:31 pm

I honestly believe Bam Adebayo had been the Heat's best player until the finals. Impact metrics back this up too. Butler would have a couple outlier moments every now and then, but for the most part his scoring was far from anything out of the ordinary. I feel like Butler benefitted from a bit of a hot streak in the Finals, but I don't think he would make my top 5. There was a poll before the Finals, and a lot of people had him in the 12-15 range (more than any other range). Top 10 is fair though.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1084 » by freethedevil » Tue Oct 13, 2020 6:46 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:Just jumping in on a few things:

eminence wrote:For the next paragraph "a team that played like Miami did during the bulk of the season wouldn't normally be able to improve this much" is exactly what I'm trying to say (coupled a bit with a team like the Bucks potentially not falling off so much - which seemed to happen in the Bubble RS as well). Going forward I'd be very excited if I were a Heat fan, but that's different from evaluating who they were this season.


So this points to a difference in perspective here.

If you weigh early parts of the season enough then this would hurt a team like Miami that improved over the course of the season. But of course with league emphasis on the playoffs and the championship, the fact a team started slow isn't going to mean very much as time moves on.

While I'm good with giving some weight to, say, Giannis this year for a great regular season, or the '15-16 Warriors for the 73-9 record, the idea of penalizing teams for being weak early in the year doesn't resonate with me in basketball.

To be clear: It would in baseball where the playoffs are much more like flipping a coin, but in basketball we like to think the best team wins in the playoffs. While that's of course a bit naive, in a 7 game series, the team that finds the best match up edge can typically win 4 games before the other team does, and I suppose I see it as the primary job for teams to prepare themselves to do as well as possible within those series once they've made it into the echelon that actually gets to play playoff basketball.

Of course, as I say that, interesting both the Lakers and Heat went from no playoffs last year straight to the finals this year.

eminence wrote:Kinda yes, but also no for me. The Bucks were losing because of reasons folks had speculated about. Giannis missing almost half the series buries them from there (remember he initially injures himself early in Game 3 and spends the rest of that game clearly limited to my eye). Prior to the initial injury he had just outplayed Jimmy down the stretch of Game 2, despite the Heat pulling it out.


I really struggle with this "Giannis was turning the corner" narrative. I mean, he might have been sure, but you're focusing on a game where he scored 29 points sandwiched between two games where Butler scored 30+ when all 3 of the games ended up with Giannis' team losing. I'll concede that perhaps Giannis outplays Butler in 9 out of 10 universes, but in this one Butler had the edge before Giannis got hurt, and regardless of Giannis Butler gave the Heat two heroic performances in the first 3 games of the series, by which point we knew the series was over.

eminence wrote:I think this comes back to how close I felt the Celtics series was (very). I feel like if Spo/Jimmy thought they had something clearly better in the bag (heliocentric Jimmy) they would've whipped it out in that series. That they didn't to me points towards them not believing it was much/if any better at all. To me, yes the Heat did need something better offensively from Jimmy that series to cleanly win it and he didn't have it.

Tatum held Butler to 9 pts/75 @ 40% TS when he was on him - which he was the plurality of the time (109 possessions - approximately 2x as much as Smart). Absolutely smothered him.


Re: if Spo/Jimmy though they had something better... I never said they thought they had something better. I'm quite sure that Butler's handful of electrifying performances in these playoffs blew away everyone's expectations. That's why we need to recalibrate how we think of him.

Re: Tatum held Butler. Those are some eye-popping stats and I honestly wasn't aware of them. It may well be that Tatum was a better defender against Butler than anyone then.

I would point out though that Miami's offense had its way with Boston's defense. For perspective:

Philly against the Celtics: 106.0 ORtg
Toronto against the Celtics: 100.7 ORtg
Miami against the the Celtics: 114.4 ORtg

To me this combined with Butler's stats make me see this as a case of plucking the lower hanging fruit.

Just wanted to comment on some point you made regarding butler scoring 30+ against the bucks. We have to remember here, that going off impact metrics, scoring isn't even half of what giannis does. And that really ties into my main point of contention with your evaluation of the series, the story of the series was giannis having three games where his defense was effectively nuetralized and that was 90% Bam adebayo. Bam is why giannis wasn't switching over to butler in game 1, and Bam is for my money the biggest reason the bucks atg defense from the 19 playoffs and the 2020 rs utterly collapsed for the first three games in the series.

Bam was obviously the mvp of the heat's defense, so when you did in that his presence probablu had the most destructive effect on the ability of the bucks defense to function WHILE scoring as effeciently as butler, I dont see a good argument that butler was the mvp of the bucks series. The bucks offense was actually okay with giannis on the floor, it was their defense in the first three game that put them on the brink with giannis's injury selaing the deal. Once the bucks figured out their defense in game 4 and 5, suddenly it looks compeitive despite their offense cratering.

As far as I'm concerned in the second round, Bam was the curry to butler's kd on offense as well as being the giannis stopper on defense which successfulyl stifled gianns in two games.

So for me Bam was clearly the best heat player in two of their series against contenders. Given butler's finals performance and bam's injury i'd say bytler was better on aggregate, but being the second fiddle in 2 of 3 meaningful series should honestly dq butler from top 3 talk.

Esepcially since harden was as good against the lakers with worse circumstanbces.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1085 » by Baski » Tue Oct 13, 2020 7:30 pm

kayess wrote:
Baski wrote:
DatAsh wrote:.

Bosh was a great defender in the same way Kyrie Irving is a great passer. Mad respect for what he tried to do with his limitations but let's not overrate him based on his secondary role in a defense that was driven by Lebron and Wade.
Love sucked ass though yeah. I lost respect for his offense after 2016 as well.


Wait what? No, Bosh's defense and Irving's passing are on completely different levels.

Bosh was co-anchor of that defense. He couldn't defend Hibbert posting up, but he was literally probably the only guy who could do that then (or young AD), AND the league as a whole was moving away from posting up (and to pace-and-space, spread PNRs, etc.) anyway, because it just generates less efficient offenses. His thing was blowing up PNRs on the perimeter even after he'd switched onto guards, and helping contest at the rim if there was any dribble drives. That is IMMENSELY valuable and you saw a AD do that repeatedly in the playoffs (albeit ofc at a higher level). When you couple that with his shooting ability and decent enough post scoring, you have one of the exemplars of the modern 4/5 (others in this category, with varying strengths across these dimensions: Ibaka, AD, Jokic, Porzingis, Embiid)

Kyrie meanwhile has far more weaknesses when it comes to passing. Just the number of times he missed the roll man 100% disqualifies his passing from being the same level as Bosh's defense. Not to mention his tendency to be tunnel visioned into scoring.

Yeah I avoided using "playmaking" and went with "passing" to avoid highlighting Kyrie's weaknesses there. I think he's a significantly better passer than he is a playmaker, which is sad, but anyway scratch that example. I was going for "kinda good but obviously not elite".

Still mad respect for Bosh but I'm gonna go meh on the co-anchor call. He did his job, but I don't think it was a coincidence that the year Lebron's D started to fall off was the same year the Heat's as a whole dropped heavily.
I think the thing that separated him from Love was his ability/willingness to contribute on defense that prevented him from being totally useless when he couldn't do anything on O. That's great and all but Bam or Gobert would've made the Heat unstoppable.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1086 » by Ballerhogger » Tue Oct 13, 2020 9:39 pm

My player of the year is Lebron James , not exciting pick but an obvious one. Shooting 59% in the finals almost averaged triple double in the playoffs. Had amazing game 5 . My next pick is Giannis i know hey got hurt and early playoff exit but overall performance was great season. Last pick will be Anthony Davis , amazing game winning shot vs the nuggets overall very good season.

Westbrook, Harden have definitely had the worst time this year.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1087 » by HeartBreakKid » Tue Oct 13, 2020 11:42 pm

Jimmy might be the face and has the great moments, but I still think game to game Bam is probably more impactful. Anyway, Bam wasn't at his best in these finals, and finals aren't everything for judging a player.

Not sure if I have either guy in my top 5 still.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1088 » by kayess » Wed Oct 14, 2020 2:43 am

Baski wrote:
kayess wrote:
Baski wrote:Bosh was a great defender in the same way Kyrie Irving is a great passer. Mad respect for what he tried to do with his limitations but let's not overrate him based on his secondary role in a defense that was driven by Lebron and Wade.
Love sucked ass though yeah. I lost respect for his offense after 2016 as well.


Wait what? No, Bosh's defense and Irving's passing are on completely different levels.

Bosh was co-anchor of that defense. He couldn't defend Hibbert posting up, but he was literally probably the only guy who could do that then (or young AD), AND the league as a whole was moving away from posting up (and to pace-and-space, spread PNRs, etc.) anyway, because it just generates less efficient offenses. His thing was blowing up PNRs on the perimeter even after he'd switched onto guards, and helping contest at the rim if there was any dribble drives. That is IMMENSELY valuable and you saw a AD do that repeatedly in the playoffs (albeit ofc at a higher level). When you couple that with his shooting ability and decent enough post scoring, you have one of the exemplars of the modern 4/5 (others in this category, with varying strengths across these dimensions: Ibaka, AD, Jokic, Porzingis, Embiid)

Kyrie meanwhile has far more weaknesses when it comes to passing. Just the number of times he missed the roll man 100% disqualifies his passing from being the same level as Bosh's defense. Not to mention his tendency to be tunnel visioned into scoring.

Yeah I avoided using "playmaking" and went with "passing" to avoid highlighting Kyrie's weaknesses there. I think he's a significantly better passer than he is a playmaker, which is sad, but anyway scratch that example. I was going for "kinda good but obviously not elite".

Still mad respect for Bosh but I'm gonna go meh on the co-anchor call. He did his job, but I don't think it was a coincidence that the year Lebron's D started to fall off was the same year the Heat's as a whole dropped heavily.
I think the thing that separated him from Love was his ability/willingness to contribute on defense that prevented him from being totally useless when he couldn't do anything on O. That's great and all but Bam or Gobert would've made the Heat unstoppable.


Well yeah - if the co-anchor doesn't do his job, defense will be bad. LeBron and Bosh had to both be super elite to make up for the rest of the Heat (as good as they were flying around the perimeter).

Bam/Gobert can't shoot, he absolutely would not have been better for those Heat teams than Bosh.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1089 » by ardee » Wed Oct 14, 2020 7:46 pm

Still not 100% sure on my top 5.

1. LeBron James
2. Anthony Davis
3. Kawhi Leonard

Is the top 3 for sure.

Jokic, Harden, Doncic and Giannis will vie for the next two spots. Atm hesitantly I would say Jokic 4 and Giannis 5 but I'll probably not decide my final vote until I actually vote.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1090 » by ardee » Wed Oct 14, 2020 7:51 pm

GSP wrote:Bron
Ad
Harden
Jokic
Giannis

Hm: Kawhi, Luka


Can you explain Harden and Giannis over Kawhi?
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1091 » by limbo » Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:32 pm

1.LeBron
2.AD
3.Giannis
4.Kawhi
5.Harden
6.Jokic
7.Luka
8.Butler
9.Tatum
10.CP3

eff it, i'll roll with this
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1092 » by GSP » Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:14 am

ardee wrote:
GSP wrote:Bron
Ad
Harden
Jokic
Giannis

Hm: Kawhi, Luka


Can you explain Harden and Giannis over Kawhi?


Harden and Giannis were better in the Rs and I feel like Harden was even better in the playoffs TBH. At the least its very comparable and Harden did much better facing elimination than Kawhi

Giannis i can see the case for Kawhi for sure but I think Giannis was just too dominant in the Rs. Miami might be the best equipped team to defend and he looked really bad that series. Id understand dropping him off but he still seems like a top 5 player to me. If Kawhi didnt load manage to the extent he did Id have him in there instead
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1093 » by Joey Wheeler » Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:27 am

After some thought, top 5 will be:

1-Anthony Davis
2-Lebron James

Extremely close all things considered, but imo Davis was clearly better in the Finals, which clinches #1. Big gap to #3.

3-James Harden
4-Nikola Jokic
5-Jimmy Butler

Other guys who could reasonably slot in 3-5: Giannis, Lillard, Kawhi, Doncic.

OPOY:

1-Lebron
2-Harden
3-Jokic

I feel like Harden has a great case over Lebron here, but just can't pick him in good faith since if I was picking for my team I'd go Lebron without hesitation.

DPOY:

1-Davis
(big gap)
2-Gobert
3-Giannis
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1094 » by PaulieWal » Thu Oct 15, 2020 1:28 am

ardee wrote:Still not 100% sure on my top 5.

1. LeBron James
2. Anthony Davis
3. Kawhi Leonard

Is the top 3 for sure.

Jokic, Harden, Doncic and Giannis will vie for the next two spots. Atm hesitantly I would say Jokic 4 and Giannis 5 but I'll probably not decide my final vote until I actually vote.


Can you explain Leonard at 3? No way I can put him ahead of LeBron, AD, Jokic and Harden. If you want to coast during the RS you better deliver during the PS and he didn't deliver.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1095 » by The High Cyde » Thu Oct 15, 2020 4:47 am

PaulieWal wrote:
ardee wrote:Still not 100% sure on my top 5.

1. LeBron James
2. Anthony Davis
3. Kawhi Leonard

Is the top 3 for sure.

Jokic, Harden, Doncic and Giannis will vie for the next two spots. Atm hesitantly I would say Jokic 4 and Giannis 5 but I'll probably not decide my final vote until I actually vote.


Can you explain Leonard at 3? No way I can put him ahead of LeBron, AD, Jokic and Harden. If you want to coast during the RS you better deliver during the PS and he didn't deliver.


QFT

Kawhi disappointed this season and he had to come through for us, by any means necessary kind of like Bron scratching Blatt’s end of game play in that Bulls series. He had to take the reigns here and he failed to do so.

Off topic for sure but man that loss had me questioning why I’m even a fan of the Clips, there’s just so much disappointment and failure, all things considered. Like you I’m becoming more of a fan of the game and players instead of teams.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1096 » by HeartBreakKid » Thu Oct 15, 2020 5:34 am

But Kawhi didn't play poorly in the playoffs - he was actually the most consistent guy on the Clippers. He did have a poor game 7, but before that he was the only guy really doing what he was supposed to.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1097 » by The High Cyde » Thu Oct 15, 2020 6:10 am

HeartBreakKid wrote:But Kawhi didn't play poorly in the playoffs - he was actually the most consistent guy on the Clippers. He did have a poor game 7, but before that he was the only guy really doing what he was supposed to.

We needed better leadership, that’s on him as the supposed leader. You can’t have people like Lou and Trezz doing whatever they wanted when the season was suspended and then come back like scrubs with no rhythm. He was complacent in the Clips downfall this season by setting the example that it’s easy to relax and then turn it on during the playoffs, he can do that because he’s one of the best players on the planet, the others not so much. I’d even put part of the blame on him of the walking disaster that was PG this post season, he needed to bring his spirits up somehow, dude checked out for a series completely and then never found a groove. Kawhi wanted PG here well he’ll have to take the credit for the good and the bad, unfair as it might be.

I expected more from him than just being the Terminator, his leadership off the court was sorely lacking.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1098 » by Dutchball97 » Thu Oct 15, 2020 6:20 am

The High Cyde wrote:
HeartBreakKid wrote:But Kawhi didn't play poorly in the playoffs - he was actually the most consistent guy on the Clippers. He did have a poor game 7, but before that he was the only guy really doing what he was supposed to.

We needed better leadership, that’s on him as the supposed leader. You can’t have people like Lou and Trezz doing whatever they wanted when the season was suspended and then come back like scrubs with no rhythm. He was complacent in the Clips downfall this season by setting the example that it’s easy to relax and then turn it on during the playoffs, he can do that because he’s one of the best players on the planet, the others not so much. I’d even put part of the blame on him of the walking disaster that was PG this post season, he needed to bring his spirits up somehow, dude checked out for a series completely and then never found a groove. Kawhi wanted PG here well he’ll have to take the credit for the good and the bad, unfair as it might be.

I expected more from him than just being the Terminator, his leadership off the court was sorely lacking.


If leadership is such a big criteria then Butler should be ahead of AD. Butler's leadership led a 5 seed to the finals, while LeBron was showing AD how to shake hands in the lockerroom.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1099 » by PaulieWal » Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:04 pm

HeartBreakKid wrote:But Kawhi didn't play poorly in the playoffs - he was actually the most consistent guy on the Clippers. He did have a poor game 7, but before that he was the only guy really doing what he was supposed to.


I don't think Kawhi played poorly but also don't think he was good enough to justify a 3rd spot with his missed RS games and coasting.
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Re: 2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1100 » by HeartBreakKid » Thu Oct 15, 2020 12:12 pm

PaulieWal wrote:
HeartBreakKid wrote:But Kawhi didn't play poorly in the playoffs - he was actually the most consistent guy on the Clippers. He did have a poor game 7, but before that he was the only guy really doing what he was supposed to.


I don't think Kawhi played poorly but also don't think he was good enough to justify a 3rd spot with his missed RS games and coasting.

Where did you rank him last year? He actually was on pace to play more games this season (only 3 games less but shorten season) and his stats are slightly higher despite playing 2 less minutes per game. Playoff stats are pretty comparable.

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