2021-22 RealGM All-Season Awards - Discussion Thread

[The-Power]

Some candidates for me based on the regular season thus far.

Player of the Year
– It's a good race this year with multiple deserving candidates. I have Jokic first going into the playoffs, with Giannis and Embiid next up. Add Tatum, Luka and Curry to the list of players with the best chances to reach the top spot with a dominant playoff run. Maybe Durant, too, but he'd need an almost historic run to overcome the regular season gap. I don't really see a realistic path for a player of Phoenix or Memphis to end up at the top but top 5 finishes are certainly possible with long and strong postseason runs.

Offensive Player of the Year
– For now, it's Jokic and his lead is bigger than for the PotY award. Shout out to Trae Young as someone not mentioned above (too bad he's such a sieve defensively). Other players still have a chance but it's going to be an uphill battle.

Defensive Player of the Year
– Tough one. I'm somewhat hesitant to project Gobert as the deserving winner, to be honest. Draymond started out as a legitimate candidate but missed too many games and hasn't been as dominant defensively since he came back. He'd need a long postseason run on the back of a great Warriors defense to have a shot. Giannis is always a candidate but will similarly have to prove his anchoring ability in the postseason. I see Bam Adebayo as someone who should potentially win it on the back of a strong Miami postseason run based on their defense. Too bad Robert Williams got injured and is out for some more time, I'd have loved to see him as a postseason anchor. Overall, the field seems still fairly open to me.

Rookie of the Year
– Similarly, tough choice. If we're projecting for the future, I'd still say Cunningham has shown me the most to bet on him going forward. But in terms of actual impact and contribution to winning? I'd say Barnes is my frontrunner, and he can add to his resume in the playoffs. Mobley and Wagner would be next, and shout-out to Herbert Jones and his impact on the Pelicans. Strong Rookie class overall.

Most Improved Player
– I'll disregard 2nd year players (otherwise I'd seriously contemplate Bane or Maxey) and evaluate 3rd year players more cautiously. Poole from my Warriors is certainly in the mix with the late-season run he had but not necessarily my frontrunner. Cam Johnson is a solid pick, as is Morant. Miles Bridges is certainly in the mix. I think for now I'll go with Garland, though. The leap he made was both difficult (and highly impactful) and very noticeable. I actually also like the idea of Caleb Martin but the jump to ‘very solid role player’ is just a bit less impressive, even if perhaps more unexpected (akin perhaps to Gary Payton II). edit: Forgot about Murray. He's up there for sure.

6th Man of the Year
– What are the qualification criteria? Herro is the front runner, it is his award to lose. Bogdan Bogdanovic is another option, as is PJ Washington. Jordan Clarkson? Not really feeling him. Maybe one of the two Memphis Guards (Jones and Melton) could enter the race with a good playoff run. Guys like Poole and Brunson probably played too many games as starters to qualify. But Herro clearly enters the playoffs as the favorite.

Coach of the Year
– I like to reward winning, and consider it relative to expectations (i.e. high win totals alone are not sufficient, but I find it also hard to give it to a coach whose team played above expectations but still were not more than an afterthought this season). Monty Williams and Taylor Jenkins are the two prime candidates. Memphis performed well above expectations and did so as a well-playing unit, and the Suns already went into the season with high expectations but still exceeded them and demonstrated continued excellence (not easy to do). Nick Nurse and J.B. Bickerstaff coached teams that exceeded my expectations and did so on the back of top-10 defenses. I was also impressed by Tyronn Lue's Clippers this season, but I think they'll need at least a first-round upset for me to consider him seriously for the top spot.

Executive of the Year
– I think Masai deserves credit for drafting Barnes (unpopular choice) and keeping Siakam looks like a reasonable choice now. I think Kevin Pritchard did a really nice job of taking Indiana from a treadmill team to one of the more exciting upcoming teams with the Haliburton-Sabonis trade, a solid draft, good positioning for the upcoming draft and yet still maintaining the ability to get back into the playoff hunt as soon as next year if desired (Haliburton, Turner, Brogdon and cap space with salary fillers work as a great foundation). This is on top of the Carlisle hire that I still like a lot. But I want to give credit to the Pelicans management for trying everything in their power to get Zion to stay (even if it doesn't work out). Losing Lonzo hurt (but the ongoing injury issues make it look like it might have been the right choice after all), but acquiring Valanciunas made a lot of sense as a fit next to Zion, they drafted very well with Murphy and Jones, and to then get McCollum as your third star plus an underrated player in Nance? If that doesn't convince Zion, then they never stood a chance to begin with. But I'll admit that I haven't thought enough about this award, and I'll have to take a closer look at last summer for a more confident opinion.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Pretty much none of my choices are cemented except Ja Morant for MIP.

So, everybody take a shot, I'm going to bring up +/-.

Consider this, here's Morant's raw +/- the last two years:

'20-21 +108
'21-22 +189

Now teammate JJJ:

'20-21 -64 (granted he missed most the season)
'21-22 +361

And Bane:

'20-21 +12
'21-22 +361

Is it really that clear that Morant's the MIP of his own team?

And some other guys to consider:

Darius Garland:

'20-21 -237
'21-22 +338

Miles Bridges:

'20-21 -9
'21-22 +142

Mikal Bridges:

'20-21 +337
'21-22 +584

I think Morant is the most exciting young player to watch in the league right now, and of anyone here, I see him as by far the most likely to win an MVP...but in terms of "his team is doing a lot better because he's a lot better", I don't know if he's even in the conversation.

Garland will probably be my pick, though there's a part of me that wants to push Mikal. Beyond that, I'd probably lean to either JJJ or Bane.

In terms of boxscore production you could make a good case as well with him going from 0.23 WS/48 and -2.1 BPM to .125 WS/48 and 2.5 BPM. Historical EPM isn't available for free but his LEBRON improved from -1.04 to +2.47 and his RAPTOR went from -1.3 to +4.3.

Desmond Bane and Ja Morant also had big statistical leaps though. Mikal and JJJ look pretty similar to last year, to me that makes it pretty hard to have them as MIP candidates. Miles Bridges did make a noticeably statistical leap but less so than Garland, Bane and Morant. I'd also like to add Dejounte Murray to the list as someone who made a big statistical jump. His +- isn't that great though but I do think he at least should be in the conversation.

It's not that I don't believe that by the plus-minus that Darius Garland made the biggest jump. But in terms of championships odds, and overall goodness, I think Ja Morant has seen more improvement.

Darius Garland by DARKO and LEBRON has seen the biggest jump

Darko

Read on Twitter

LEBRON

Read on Twitter

However, the way I think of it is that Darius Garland started from a much lower point and then crafted his path to being around maybe an all-star level guy. It does not mean as much in terms of championships make huge leaps when you are not even a starting level guy to all-star, than a starter to all-nba level performer (imo).

Garland was at a point last year, where I don't know if he could have been much more help than a Bryn Forbes last year on a championship contender. Ja Morant last year could have been a useful 6th man off the bench. The former adds basically no championship value, while the latter is someone you look to for consistent impact game after game. Furthermore, I don't deny that Garland has gained more valuable in his specific situation compared to Morant. Cleveland has almost no secondary ball-handling with Ricky gone and Caris Levert isn't excatly exciting. The whole offense is dependent on him while Morant as you can see by the team's 20-3 record without him is much more capable. But if you actually placed them on a variety of teams, I think you would get more added value by how much better Morant has gotten compared to a Garland.

The rate at which Morant has bolstered his scoring to me is too much to pass up on, as he legitimately might be a top 10 scorer in the world at this point.

A stat which isn't as sensitive to pure plus-minus but attempts to pick up on overall improvements in shooting and passing, Backpicks BPM better illustrates my point.

Darius Garland went from a -4.0 in 2021 to a 2.9 in 2022.

Ja Morant went from a -2 in 2021 to a 4.4 in 2022.

While Garland still see a greater decimal jump (6.9 as opposed to a 6.4 for Morant), it is much closer. But the echelon Morant elevated himself to put him from a negatively good player with the offensive load he had, into a about a top 15 guy (all-nba). The gap in all-nba good and all-star good is enough for me in contending for championships that I think Morant's jump is more outlier.

[Doctor MJ]

Pretty much none of my choices are cemented except Ja Morant for MIP.

So, everybody take a shot, I'm going to bring up +/-.

Consider this, here's Morant's raw +/- the last two years:

'20-21 +108
'21-22 +189

Now teammate JJJ:

'20-21 -64 (granted he missed most the season)
'21-22 +361

And Bane:

'20-21 +12
'21-22 +361

Is it really that clear that Morant's the MIP of his own team?

And some other guys to consider:

Darius Garland:

'20-21 -237
'21-22 +338

Miles Bridges:

'20-21 -9
'21-22 +142

Mikal Bridges:

'20-21 +337
'21-22 +584

I think Morant is the most exciting young player to watch in the league right now, and of anyone here, I see him as by far the most likely to win an MVP...but in terms of "his team is doing a lot better because he's a lot better", I don't know if he's even in the conversation.

Garland will probably be my pick, though there's a part of me that wants to push Mikal. Beyond that, I'd probably lean to either JJJ or Bane.

In terms of boxscore production you could make a good case as well with him going from 0.23 WS/48 and -2.1 BPM to .125 WS/48 and 2.5 BPM. Historical EPM isn't available for free but his LEBRON improved from -1.04 to +2.47 and his RAPTOR went from -1.3 to +4.3.

Desmond Bane and Ja Morant also had big statistical leaps though. Mikal and JJJ look pretty similar to last year, to me that makes it pretty hard to have them as MIP candidates. Miles Bridges did make a noticeably statistical leap but less so than Garland, Bane and Morant. I'd also like to add Dejounte Murray to the list as someone who made a big statistical jump. His +- isn't that great though but I do think he at least should be in the conversation.

So, it absolutely makes sense to look for production improvements when judging MIP candidates, but keep in mind that this isn't the only way improvement shows up.

Jackson has gone from a raw player who realistically a contender couldn't expect to keep on the court against serious competition to being the leading-shotblocker in the league and a DPOY candidate. For a defense-oriented player - which is how he's always been seen as a prospect, and certainly how the team is focusing on using him on a team that now has Morant, Bane & Brooks ready to lead the offense - to me this is more what I'm looking to see rather than more impressive offensive-star type numbers. (Granted, it'd be nice to see stronger rebounding numbers from h im.)

But going back to Morant here: I just think it's important to remember when considering his candidacy and how good the Grizzlies have been this year, that their improvement basically has nothing to do with his scoring bump. You can argue that none of the Grizzlies should really be in contention because the improvement is more about a cohesive whole than any of them specifically improving, but I find it to be pretty weird the idea the MIP is a guy on a much improved team where that improvement is most clear whenever he's playing bench.

Re: Murray. Thing for me here is just that I don't see a guy getting huge primacy on a mediocre team being all that meaningful in and of itself. At any point you can decide to just hand the ball to one guy and let him rack up FGAs, assist opportunities, and defensive rebounds, and make him look like he's the next Oscar Robertson, but if this isn't yielding anything all that effective, I'm going to remain cautious.

[Doctor MJ]

So, everybody take a shot, I'm going to bring up +/-.

Consider this, here's Morant's raw +/- the last two years:

'20-21 +108
'21-22 +189

Now teammate JJJ:

'20-21 -64 (granted he missed most the season)
'21-22 +361

And Bane:

'20-21 +12
'21-22 +361

Is it really that clear that Morant's the MIP of his own team?

And some other guys to consider:

Darius Garland:

'20-21 -237
'21-22 +338

Miles Bridges:

'20-21 -9
'21-22 +142

Mikal Bridges:

'20-21 +337
'21-22 +584

I think Morant is the most exciting young player to watch in the league right now, and of anyone here, I see him as by far the most likely to win an MVP...but in terms of "his team is doing a lot better because he's a lot better", I don't know if he's even in the conversation.

Garland will probably be my pick, though there's a part of me that wants to push Mikal. Beyond that, I'd probably lean to either JJJ or Bane.

In terms of boxscore production you could make a good case as well with him going from 0.23 WS/48 and -2.1 BPM to .125 WS/48 and 2.5 BPM. Historical EPM isn't available for free but his LEBRON improved from -1.04 to +2.47 and his RAPTOR went from -1.3 to +4.3.

Desmond Bane and Ja Morant also had big statistical leaps though. Mikal and JJJ look pretty similar to last year, to me that makes it pretty hard to have them as MIP candidates. Miles Bridges did make a noticeably statistical leap but less so than Garland, Bane and Morant. I'd also like to add Dejounte Murray to the list as someone who made a big statistical jump. His +- isn't that great though but I do think he at least should be in the conversation.

It's not that I don't believe that by the plus-minus that Darius Garland made the biggest jump. But in terms of championships odds, and overall goodness, I think Ja Morant has seen more improvement.

Darius Garland by DARKO and LEBRON has seen the biggest jump

Darko

Read on Twitter

LEBRON

Read on Twitter

However, the way I think of it is that Darius Garland started from a much lower point and then crafted his path to being around maybe an all-star level guy. It does not mean as much in terms of championships make huge leaps when you are not even a starting level guy to all-star, than a starter to all-nba level performer (imo).

Garland was at a point last year, where I don't know if he could have been much more help than a Bryn Forbes last year on a championship contender. Ja Morant last year could have been a useful 6th man off the bench. The former adds basically no championship value, while the latter is someone you look to for consistent impact game after game. Furthermore, I don't deny that Garland has gained more valuable in his specific situation compared to Morant. Cleveland has almost no secondary ball-handling with Ricky gone and Caris Levert isn't excatly exciting. The whole offense is dependent on him while Morant as you can see by the team's 20-3 record without him is much more capable. But if you actually placed them on a variety of teams, I think you would get more added value by how much better Morant has gotten compared to a Garland.

The rate at which Morant has bolstered his scoring to me is too much to pass up on, as he legitimately might be a top 10 scorer in the world at this point.

A stat which isn't as sensitive to pure plus-minus but attempts to pick up on overall improvements in shooting and passing, Backpicks BPM better illustrates my point.

Darius Garland went from a -4.0 in 2021 to a 2.9 in 2022.

Ja Morant went from a -2 in 2021 to a 4.4 in 2022.

While Garland still see a greater decimal jump (6.9 as opposed to a 6.4 for Morant), it is much closer. But the echelon Morant elevated himself to put him from a negatively good player with the offensive load he had, into a about a top 15 guy (all-nba). The gap in all-nba good and all-star good is enough for me in contending for championships that I think Morant's jump is more outlier.

Understandable perspective in general but this is where I go back to the fact that the Cavs with Garland have actually been better than the Grizz with Morant despite the fact that Garland's been having to play with different teammates all season while it's Morant's teammates who have had to deal without him. And NONE of this is yet factoring in actual MP - which people might not want to consider, but I'd note that without the injuries, Morant was getting hyped to be an all-star last year while Garland was not even being noticed.

I think Garland probably deserves All-NBA over Morant, and then you consider Morant's massive lead in expectation prior to this season, it's hard to see it as close if you're actually going by what was achieved purely in this regular season.

Of course, for our awards, we do explicitly factor in the playoffs, so we'll see what comes. All of my "wait, not so fast" about Morant's candidacy could easily disappear if he ends up being the Trae Young of this year's playoffs.

Also: Good mention with Poole. Yes, he certainly needs consideration. He's been quite impressive.

[Doctor MJ]

I think Brunson and DFS both have very strong arguments for top 50 players.

Very strong surprises me I must say. Essentially this is saying that only the worst 10 teams in the league don't have 2 better players than Dorian and Jalen while also none of the good teams have 3 or more. And we know there are definitely teams with at least 3 players better than both, and some with clearly 4.

But I agree they are good players.

As to the on/off stuff I'll have to try and find the tweet because its a local Mavs twitter guy I don't follow but someone had re-tweeted. But they had the numbers on just how good Dallas with the starters and how much worse they are the latter minutes of the 1st and 3rd. Spurred some real discussion around town about whether or not Kidd should change his rotations.

Goes to Doc's point about what does it tell us about Luka if you can put 5 man units out there with him that are bad. Or it says something about a guy who has fitness questions playing 12 straight minutes and is that the issue, Luka fatigue?

IDK, but I do not its not as simple as the Mavs play well when he sits, because that's simply punishing Luka for Brunson being good which of course makes no sense at all.

To me you're disconnecting here.

You're saying it's unfair to knock Doncic when things go fine with Doncic is out because Brunson is good...but also say that most other teams have better sidekicks than Brunson. To me this would only make sense if NBA basketball were a place where we found it difficult to identify superstar impact...but this really, really isn't the case. Those other superstars, with those better sidekicks, are generally much more clear in their impact relative to the sidekicks than Doncic has demonstrated.

When I emphasize Doncic's lack of clear regular season +/- impact, I'm not doing it to be a jerk, I'm literally saying it's one of the most dramatic absence of evidences I've ever seen. Typically when I see something like this I say "Yeah, this guy really isn't that good", but we're not talking about Carmelo Anthony here. I'm emphasizing what I am here because I actually do believe that Doncic can be "the best player in the world" in the sense of beating all comers in a tournament, and I don't think I've ever seen a player I can say that about who has showed so little evidence of regular season impact 3 years into his entry into the ranks of accepted superstars.

It's weird, and I'm past the point of chalking it up to noise.

[eminence]

My initial instinct on MIP was towards Garland. But I may have to stop and think about Bane/Mikal some more.

What are the official GS requirements to qualify for 6th man?

[Texas Chuck]

[

It's weird, and I'm past the point of chalking it up to noise.

I guess I don't think its weird. I think Luka just isn't as good of a player as his box score totals and highlights have led some to perceive. He's still got some clear holes in his game. And he's still quite young. I think Rose was the only guy to be MVP this young and I think basically none of us believe he was actually the best player that season. Now were there guys at 23 who were MVP caliber? Yes I think there were a few.

Until the 2nd half of this season his teams have merely been good. That 2nd year team did have that absurd offense that showed us what is possible with a team constructed with Luka at its driving force, but then the Mavs haven't sustained that and this year clearly they have been a better defensive team than an offensive one--coaching a major factor here almost certainly.

Again, my issue isn't that Luka deserves MVP consideration. He doesn't. I think he's played his way into a 1st team all-NBA guard spot by this point, but I don't really have an issue if some put him on the 2nd team. My issue is taking one metric and saying that eliminates anyone.

My issue is with the reliance on the metric not the evaluation of Luka's current impact which I don't think has been MVP level for an entire season through his 4 first years. And I'm not surprised by that. Giannis wasn't. Jokic wasn't. Steph wasn't. KD wasn't. Embiid wasn't. Harden wasn't. And so on.

[Doctor MJ]

[

It's weird, and I'm past the point of chalking it up to noise.

I guess I don't think its weird. I think Luka just isn't as good of a player as his box score totals and highlights have led some to perceive. He's still got some clear holes in his game. And he's still quite young. I think Rose was the only guy to be MVP this young and I think basically none of us believe he was actually the best player that season. Now were there guys at 23 who were MVP caliber? Yes I think there were a few.

Until the 2nd half of this season his teams have merely been good. That 2nd year team did have that absurd offense that showed us what is possible with a team constructed with Luka at its driving force, but then the Mavs haven't sustained that and this year clearly they have been a better defensive team than an offensive one--coaching a major factor here almost certainly.

Again, my issue isn't that Luka deserves MVP consideration. He doesn't. I think he's played his way into a 1st team all-NBA guard spot by this point, but I don't really have an issue if some put him on the 2nd team. My issue is taking one metric and saying that eliminates anyone.

My issue is with the reliance on the metric not the evaluation of Luka's current impact which I don't think has been MVP level for an entire season through his 4 first years. And I'm not surprised by that. Giannis wasn't. Jokic wasn't. Steph wasn't. KD wasn't. Embiid wasn't. Harden wasn't. And so on.

Fair enough, and I want to avoid being too much of a pest, but to be clear on one point:

I'm not saying "This metric is everything!" I'm pointing out something that cries out for explanation because it is so discrepant with perception. And by "so discrepant", I'm not saying "slightly below MVP levels". It's way worse than that. It's at a level that I can guarantee none would have predicted before they saw it. So what's the explanation?

In fairness to you, you've mentioned some things - including fatigue from Doncic, which we know if a real thing with him from previous years - so I don't want to make out like you specifically are ignoring the point.

But I do see a general tendency of people to essentially say "There could be things that distort that stat, and it doesn't fit with my prior belief, so I'm going to assume the stat is distorted (It's probably just because of X!), and not treat it as valid evidence going forward."

Now as I say all of this, if you or anyone else says "I hear ya Doc and I'm not going to forget this data, but I need to see a longer trend before I take it too seriously", I totally respect that.

[Texas Chuck]

But I do see a general tendency of people to essentially say "There could be things that distort that stat, and it doesn't fit with my prior belief, so I'm going to assume the stat is distorted (It's probably just because of X!), and not treat it as valid evidence going forward."

I think you are familiar with me, but I don't want to presume how much you've paid attention to me on this subject, but I've universally been dismissive of all of the all-in-one-metrics and before that very skeptical of the RPM/RAPM stats. With all due respect to the creators of those metrics, I don't believe its possible to capture the impact of one of 10 players on the court which only gets worse when you include all the off the court time as well which tells us how well the team plays without them but that doesn't actually tell us anything about how they play. I don't ding Ja because the Grizzles have played really well without him for instance.

And I hate the idea of using any single metric no matter what it is to say a player is great or mediocre or anything in between. I think we have access to too much information to allow any one metric to be the driving force of our position. And yes, in full disclosure, I would say if a number says something that doesn't match what so many other things tell us, my default isn't to say well this number is the truth and everything else is a lie.

So this isn't me saying I think Luka is awesome so I don't want to hear Doc's stat saying he isn't. I promise. I paid attention to the number. And tried to explore some reasons why it may say what it does, without using that number to say Luka isn't a great player. Because I believe wholeheartedly Luka is a great player already. Even as I see areas in his game that need work if he's going to be in the mix with Giannis and Jokic and Embiid.

And I think we mostly agree on Luka anyway. He's really good. But he's not as good as the best players. I may think he's closer to them than you, maybe not. But I don't have him a top 5 POY candidate atm. And like you, I do agree I could see a scenario where he is clearly the best player on the court in 4 straight playoff series. I don't think that will happen, but it wouldn't be that unbelievable. After all the past 2 years when all of Luka, PG, and Kawhi were on the court the past two playoffs the Mavs actually outscored the Clippers. And Kawhi had arguably the best series of his life last year. Luka can be transcendent.

But he was a rookie, a good one as rookies go, but a rookie. Then he took that absurd leap to stardom in year 2 with the ridiculous offense. Last year again very good, but still some flaws that keep him well below the best players in the league. And this year he was really poor by his standards for 2 months. Got in better shape and has been brilliant the last 3, but I can't ignore 40% of the season. It's why I'm lower on Curry than some as well.

[RCM88x]

My initial instinct on MIP was towards Garland. But I may have to stop and think about Bane/Mikal some more.

What are the official GS requirements to qualify for 6th man?

This is a good question, probably the award I struggle with the most in terms of methodology.

Garland seems like a easy choice but he's also a super young high pick and got pushed into a new role this year with much better teammates, so some improvement was expected.

Bane just feels like a guy whos role was expanded and who's team is just better, same can maybe be said for Ja. Mikal I struggle to really find hard evidence of improvement but perhaps I need to keep looking.

Really tough to find a guy I feel good about voting for here. But maybe this award is just for these kind of guys and we should leave it at that.

[eminence]

I often like to go through and list guys as they're eliminated from the hunt for the title - noting this year that to me there are no contenders who missed the playins and nobody who could survive a play-in loss either (Steph snuck in at #5 for me last season in spite of the play-in loss). Jokic the only guy I think would have good odds to still make my ballot with a 1st round exit.

[Doctor MJ]

But I do see a general tendency of people to essentially say "There could be things that distort that stat, and it doesn't fit with my prior belief, so I'm going to assume the stat is distorted (It's probably just because of X!), and not treat it as valid evidence going forward."

I think you are familiar with me, but I don't want to presume how much you've paid attention to me on this subject, but I've universally been dismissive of all of the all-in-one-metrics and before that very skeptical of the RPM/RAPM stats. With all due respect to the creators of those metrics, I don't believe its possible to capture the impact of one of 10 players on the court which only gets worse when you include all the off the court time as well which tells us how well the team plays without them but that doesn't actually tell us anything about how they play. I don't ding Ja because the Grizzles have played really well without him for instance.

And I hate the idea of using any single metric no matter what it is to say a player is great or mediocre or anything in between. I think we have access to too much information to allow any one metric to be the driving force of our position. And yes, in full disclosure, I would say if a number says something that doesn't match what so many other things tell us, my default isn't to say well this number is the truth and everything else is a lie.

So this isn't me saying I think Luka is awesome so I don't want to hear Doc's stat saying he isn't. I promise. I paid attention to the number. And tried to explore some reasons why it may say what it does, without using that number to say Luka isn't a great player. Because I believe wholeheartedly Luka is a great player already. Even as I see areas in his game that need work if he's going to be in the mix with Giannis and Jokic and Embiid.

And I think we mostly agree on Luka anyway. He's really good. But he's not as good as the best players. I may think he's closer to them than you, maybe not. But I don't have him a top 5 POY candidate atm. And like you, I do agree I could see a scenario where he is clearly the best player on the court in 4 straight playoff series. I don't think that will happen, but it wouldn't be that unbelievable. After all the past 2 years when all of Luka, PG, and Kawhi were on the court the past two playoffs the Mavs actually outscored the Clippers. And Kawhi had arguably the best series of his life last year. Luka can be transcendent.

But he was a rookie, a good one as rookies go, but a rookie. Then he took that absurd leap to stardom in year 2 with the ridiculous offense. Last year again very good, but still some flaws that keep him well below the best players in the league. And this year he was really poor by his standards for 2 months. Got in better shape and has been brilliant the last 3, but I can't ignore 40% of the season. It's why I'm lower on Curry than some as well.

Just wanted to say I know you and respect you but don't claim to know all of your preferences or tendencies. Cheers Chuck!

[Doctor MJ]

What are the official GS requirements to qualify for 6th man?

More games coming off the bench than starting.

From an All-Season perspective, I'd be inclined to keep someone eligible even if they end up starting in the playoffs, with the caveat that they have to have excelled in their bench role to the point they were already seen as a reasonable candidate. If someone just breaks out as a star once they become a starter, then they weren't the best 6th Man even if they are more impressive overall than the best 6th Man.

[Doctor MJ]

My initial instinct on MIP was towards Garland. But I may have to stop and think about Bane/Mikal some more.

What are the official GS requirements to qualify for 6th man?

This is a good question, probably the award I struggle with the most in terms of methodology.

Garland seems like a easy choice but he's also a super young high pick and got pushed into a new role this year with much better teammates, so some improvement was expected.

Bane just feels like a guy whos role was expanded and who's team is just better, same can maybe be said for Ja. Mikal I struggle to really find hard evidence of improvement but perhaps I need to keep looking.

Really tough to find a guy I feel good about voting for here. But maybe this award is just for these kind of guys and we should leave it at that.

Good philosophical concerns to consider. I'm going to give my perspective which I hope feels liberating rather than constraining:

To me these non-best-in-world awards (ROY, 6MOY, MIP), are traditionally intended to shine the spotlight on guys who haven't already had a brighter spotlight on them.

In the case of ROY & MIP, these are typically about young players who are being presented as a kind of amuse-bouche, letting basketball fans know that big things await this guy.

In the case of 6MOY, that could also be the case, but it's also there to just give love for a guy who is sacrificing for his team.

For MIP specifically, what this means is that I'm 100% fine with giving the award to a 2nd year player as long as he wasn't already seen as a legit all-star type the previous year. Though as I say this, I absolutely see the argument for not considering an MVP-candidate for MIP, and a player on that level probably doesn't care that much about minor awards.

All this to say that while I'm okay with voters not voting for 2nd or 3rd year players - you have that freedom - to me it's both simpler and more in-line with tradition to just try to give the award to any non-rookie who improves a lot and it makes sense to hype to the public.

Re: role was just expanded. Completely fine if you try to normalize for role expansion, but I'll say I don't think it's all that easy to separate between actual improvement and added opportunity, in part because the added opportunity literally means we have no true ability to definitively compare a player's skill in that domain in the preceding year.

This to say that if you personally feel a guy just had his role expanded and didn't get any more proficient at playing that role, then it makes sense not to vote for him for MIP...but I often find it hard to be confident that this is the case, and tend to focus more on the attention the player in question seems to now deserve compared to what he deserved a year ago.

Re: evidence for Mikal improving, I think it's tricky. From a traditional box score perspective, he's just not a guy that the Suns are looking to have improve through his production. Maybe we can find something in the player tracking, but otherwise, when you're just a guy who is out there playing a valuable off-ball role, oftentimes this shows up more in the +/- than anything else...but if you're not comfortable attributing that to an individual's improvement, then you're at a dead end.

ftr, I fully recognize that a guy's +/- data has year-to-year noise and don't like the idea of giving the award to someone who might have fluky numbers. At the same time, I recognize that sometimes non-production-oriented guys do have massively valuable savviness-based improvements, and I don't like ignoring that possibility.

[yoyoboy]

Garland went from 416th in RAPM last year to 5th this year. His improvement is the primary reason the team doubled its win total from last year, going from 22 wins to 44 wins and he’s the clear best player on the team now. Unlike some of the other candidates whose improvement is to a great degree a product of more opportunities, DG genuinely looks like a completely different player this year. His playmaking has become elite, he’s far more threatening of a scorer and gets defended totally differently now, and he’s become a much more passable defender. Maybe I’m biased but I just don’t see how he’s not the MIP. Basically every other serious candidate was a better player than him last year and yet you could argue he’s had a better season than all but Morant (who was much better than him last year). And even with Ja, is it really that clear Morant had the better season than Garland when the Cavs w/ Garland performed better in terms of point differential than the Grizzlies with Morant? Yet the Grizzlies without Morant in a sizable sample were miles better than the Cavs w/o Garland. Looking at the calibers of player each of the candidates were last year and then where they are now, I just have a hard time seeing the case for anyone else improving a greater amount than Garland did.

[Doctor MJ]

Garland went from 416th in RAPM last year to 5th this year. His improvement is the primary reason the team doubled its win total from last year, going from 22 wins to 44 wins and he’s the clear best player on the team now. Unlike some of the other candidates whose improvement is to a great degree a product of more opportunities, DG genuinely looks like a completely different player this year. His playmaking has become elite, he’s far more threatening of a scorer and gets defended totally differently now, and he’s become a much more passable defender. Maybe I’m biased but I just don’t see how he’s not the MIP. Basically every other serious candidate was a better player than him last year and yet you could argue he’s had a better season than all but Morant (who was much better than him last year). And even with Ja, is it really that clear Morant had the better season than Garland when the Cavs w/ Garland performed better in terms of point differential than the Grizzlies with Morant? Yet the Grizzlies without Morant in a sizable sample were miles better than the Cavs w/o Garland. Looking at the calibers of player each of the candidates were last year and then where they are now, I just have a hard time seeing the case for anyone else improving a greater amount than Garland did.

Totally with you and will likely vote for Garland, but on the "improvement or opportunity front?", I think the reality is that he finally got the opportunity to play his game instead of being forced into a sidekick role next to someone who isn't good at team basketball. Even in cases that feel about as clear cut "massive improvement" as we'll ever see - such as Garland this year - the nature of basketball allows us to identify that there are new opportunities facilitating this rise in a way that, say, it doesn't make sense in baseball. In baseball, when a guy's average and home runs go way up, you know it's because of steroids he improved.

[RCM88x]

All fair point here. I am fine with trying to stick with the historical spirit of the awards even if I don't necessarily agree with them. Not including MVP level prospects is probably for the best as well, as it doesn't really feel in-spirit with the award, perhaps a fine line here but there are bigger awards for these guys.

With these 3 awards specifically I sorta feel like three separate Cavs players have top 2-3 arguments for all of them, so I kind of want to refrain from voting for all of them haha. Been a funky season.

[HeartBreakKid]

Add my name to the voting list as well.

[Doctor MJ]

All fair point here. I am fine with trying to stick with the historical spirit of the awards even if I don't necessarily agree with them. Not including MVP level prospects is probably for the best as well, as it doesn't really feel in-spirit with the award, perhaps a fine line here but there are bigger awards for these guys.

With these 3 awards specifically I sorta feel like three separate Cavs players have top 2-3 arguments for all of them, so I kind of want to refrain from voting for all of them haha. Been a funky season.

So, I'll just say, I don't think you should feel any need to approximate the thinking of people in the past when deciding your vote. I think it's great you want to understand them, but if you disagree with them, I hope you do you.

[LukaTheGOAT]

I have already spoken about how I don't take the plus-minus changes as directly the end-all-be-all for MIP. While, I have mentioned Garland's value has changed perhaps more, I also did not mention why Ja' plus-minus might not pop as much. There have already been people who mentioned Desmond Bane or Jaren Jackson Jr. as potential candidates for MIP, and to me that is explicitly part of the reason why he might not pop as much-Ja's teammates around him improved a lot which overshadows some of his overall value change. In terms of MIP, I am looking for the guy who increases championship odds on average fro all 30 NBA teams. And to me, plus-minus can be partially deceptive here. As someone mentioned earlier, by the box-score, Ja Morant seems to have made the largest leap, and while the box-score is greatly flawed, I don't think such leaps are solely due to increased primacy from Morant (which is what could lead to him being overrated by the box-score) as his offensive load went from a 48.1 to over a 55 in one season-that's only about a 7% increase in dedicated possessions to him (which is a good amount), but practically nothing considering just how much better a scorer he became.

Ja Morant went from an Inflation Adjusted 20.1 pts per 75 (rTS% of -1.1%) to 29.9 pts per 75 (rTS% of 0.9%)

Darius Garland went from an Inflation Adjusted 19 pts per 75 (rTS% of -2.7%) to an Inflation Adjusted 22.8 pts per 75 (rTS% of 0.4%).

If we look at some old work by Elgee35 https://elgee35.wordpress.com/2011/01/page/2/

on average we could expect 1.0 point change in offensive efficiency for Ja Morant's teams, and a 1.15 point change in offensive efficiency for Garland's teams in terms of just their pure shooting efficiency. However, when you then consider that Morant's scoring jump resulted in 9.8 more pts per 75 compared to Garland's 3.8 pts per 75 (and assuming the rate of change stays linear and they play more than 75 possessions big games in the PS, this difference is bigger), Morant on the basis of his scoring improvement is helping teams out to a much greater extent than Garland on the basis of scoring that is hard to makeup for.

If we go by PlayVal, Ja Morant improved from a 0.15 points per 75 possessions in terms of playmaking impact to 1.05 change-a 0.9 change.

Darius Garland improved from a 0.3 to 1.35. A 1.05 change.

It would seem Garland improved a bit more as a playmaker, but still not close to the overall change in the scoring gap. We shouldn't expect a 1 to 1 change because situations can dictate change in scoring rate and playmaking impact, but I imagine if you are using them for championship contention, it would be comparable to how they are used now.

Therefore, assuming things like their offensive rebounding, and other portions of their game improved by just about the same amount, for Garland to close the gap on Morant,his defense roughly would have to have improved in saving about 5 points per 75 possessions MORE than Morant this year. And quite frankly, I don't see any argument how he has improved that dramatically on that end through ability of his own, more so rather flanking him with 3 7-footers is likely helping his plus-minus quite a bit.