VanWest82 wrote:falcolombardi wrote:VanWest82 wrote:
I find the ongoing discrediting of award winners to be somewhat distasteful. Maybe MJ shouldn't have won and maybe Hakeem or Mark Eaton should've. Maybe Michael Cooper should've won again. The work done by squared2020 certainly suggests Cooper had a good case: https://squared2020.com/1987-88-nba-rapm/
I don't believe in the idea that only big men can win DPOY and everyone else should just be effectively disqualified. You're generalizing to a degree that's leaving you open for significant bias. At the very least, all these winners were terrific defenders in the years they won and deserved to be in the discussion.
i am not saying jordan was not an elite defender in 88, but if we are being real about dpoy being the most valuable defender it should have been hakeem or eaton
before him
is why i dont see the argument thst jordan won a dpoy so he is a better defender than lebron too convincing, lebron has 2 second places, he probably didnt deserve them over Marc gasol and howard but neither did Jordan over eaton or hakeem
Did you look at the website I linked? That guy took the time to go through 80s game film to calculate stint data for 88 and has 1100 defensive possessions for Hakeem and 1300 defensive possessions for Eaton which yielded negative DRAPM for both guys. I'm the first guy to say take that with a big grain of salt but we can at least say that the sss line up data doesn't support either of those guys. And again, I'm not saying they shouldn't have won (I didn't watch enough games and we don't have enough data for that) but it seems premature to say they should've won just because they're bigs who blocked a lot of shots.
Also, I don't think Jordan was a better defender than Lebron because he won DPOY. I think he was better because he had a higher defensive usage and was more consistent throughout the year.
i dont have a issue with people preffering Jordan defensively, but rather with using the dpoy as a indisputable argument for it
specially because lebron got 2nd twice so is not like he was not a player who was not considered dpoy worthy by voters if that is the reasoning
there is also the era to consider, jordan dpoy came in the time when guards and wings dominated dpoy voting more than bigs, while after the 90's thw trend reversed
almost all the eye test or plus minus data we have simce the 50's support's that bigs are the most important defensive position and in the 21th century this is reflected by dpoy voting, but it was almost the inverse in the 80's with so many perimeter players winning it
i find it hard to imagine perimeter players at the time were that much better than before or after, or the game was so different that perimeter defense was as valuable or more than center defense
which is what makes me think it was easier for a guard or wing to win the award in that era because of voters bias
