Would there be any interest in redoing the Retro POY project at some point?

[ardee]

Top 100 has been done I believe 4 times, GOAT peaks has been done thrice. RPOY has only been done once, 12 years ago.

RPOY is a big one obviously but I don't see it as bigger than top 100, if you're doing the shot clock era that's 68 threads after this season, whereas top 100 is obviously... 100 threads.

Thoughts?

[Amares]

Top 100 or GOAT peaks are projects that are impacted by every season. Every 10 years we will have many new players or seasons that need to be added to the pool. RPOY is not the same case, you just add every next season to the pool as it's over. And this works as expected, so personally I don't see a reason to repeat the whole project.

[trex_8063]

Top 100 or GOAT peaks are projects that are impacted by every season. Every 10 years we will have many new players or seasons that need to be added to the pool. RPOY is not the same case, you just add every next season to the pool as it's over. And this works as expected, so personally I don't see a reason to repeat the whole project.

I think the reason OP has in mind is that perspectives on players/seasons change over time, not to mention the voting panel will have changed........so that may just produce a different list on an updated [or re-done] RPOY project.

[ardee]

Top 100 or GOAT peaks are projects that are impacted by every season. Every 10 years we will have many new players or seasons that need to be added to the pool. RPOY is not the same case, you just add every next season to the pool as it's over. And this works as expected, so personally I don't see a reason to repeat the whole project.

I think the reason OP has in mind is that perspectives on players/seasons change over time, not to mention the voting panel will have changed........so that may just produce a different list on an updated [or re-done] RPOY project.

Yeah that is the point. Our understanding of the game has evolved a fair bit and I am pretty certain only like 3-4 posters from back then are still regulars now... that was a year after I joined and I'VE been here a decade+.

Even if the results are not drastically different, which I don't imagine they would be anyway, it would generate some great discussion.

I understand that it's not something that can be repeated as frequently as Top 100 or Peaks but I think 12 years is a long enough wait...

[Dr Positivity]

I'd find it unnecessary personally.

I'd rather do something like best peak again, last one was in 2019 and it had some rankings that trouble me. Recent seasons for players like Giannis and Jokic would be interesting to place.

[Dutchball97]

I'd like it honestly. There is still so much discussion around which players were the best in certain years and it'd be nice to see the posters who joined 2011 or later to also have a voice in such a big and substantial project like RPOY.

[Jaivl]

Yeah I'd probably be for it, but P L E A S E take it slowly. Every time we run a project we end up rushing past it at a devilish speed with nearly no time for discussion.

[LA Bird]

I'd rather do something like best peak again, last one was in 2019 and it had some rankings that trouble me. Recent seasons for players like Giannis and Jokic would be interesting to place.

I will start the peaks project after the Finals are over unless anyone else wants to run it. Just need to finish writing up the rules and then I will post the signup thread in a day or two.

[DQuinn1575]

I'd be up for participating in this, it would allow me to rank each year, which I've never really done.

[Doctor MJ]

Top 100 has been done I believe 4 times, GOAT peaks has been done thrice. RPOY has only been done once, 12 years ago.

RPOY is a big one obviously but I don't see it as bigger than top 100, if you're doing the shot clock era that's 68 threads after this season, whereas top 100 is obviously... 100 threads.

Thoughts?

So, I want y'all to know that I am following the thread, and I could indeed see doing something like this at some point.

I will say that I think doing Retro POY is tougher to do well than other projects. The Top 100 may be 100 threads, but on the whole you're not talking about getting your head around much more than 100 players, and at any given time maybe only thinking about a handful of guys. For Retro POY, every year you're having to get your head around the entire league. That requires a lot of commitment on the part of the voters, particularly if they've never spent any time analyzing specific years in deeper history in detail previously.

My gut at the moment is that that's not where a lot of people are at, but if I'm wrong, cool.

What I should also say is that I'm in the process of going through another forward-pass (beginning in the '40s and going forward to the present) of this myself and am looking to write stuff up. If I'm able to do that in a way I think will make sense to others, I will be looking to share, so that might be able to start such a process organically.

[tsherkin]

[quote="For Retro POY, every year you're having to get your head around the entire league. .

I see what you're saying, but it isnt quite that bad. It's more like 5-10 players per year, realistically. There are immense chunks of the league which can be immediately discarded each season. A quick pass will filter things down to a manageable level. No one is gonna look at the Bruce Bowens lr Shane Battiers lf the league in this context. Or the Mark Aguirre's, or Donn Nelsons, you know?

[Doctor MJ]

[quote="For Retro POY, every year you're having to get your head around the entire league. .

I see what you're saying, but it isnt quite that bad. It's more like 5-10 players per year, realistically. There are immense chunks of the league which can be immediately discarded each season. A quick pass will filter things down to a manageable level. No one is gonna look at the Bruce Bowens lr Shane Battiers lf the league in this context. Or the Mark Aguirre's, or Donn Nelsons, you know?

Ah, well I suppose my perspective is that to do it really well, you want to understand the team play of the season first and foremost just like we do when we evaluate play live during the season.

Let me go with something from the ‘45-46 NBL.

You can see by looking at the main bkref page for that season that the two-time defending champ Zollner Pistons had the best regular season record and that their star player Bobby McDermott won another MVP as a big scorer that year.

You’ll also see that the Pistons got upset in the playoffs and that McDermott had very low scoring numbers in that series.

Can you come up with a ranked list just based on that information? Sure.

Might it matter though why it was McDermott had low scoring numbers in that series?

What about the team that upset the Pistons and win the title (Rochester Royals), might it matter if one of their players was primarily responsible for McDermott’s performance?

I think it does, and that the deeper into history you want to be able to go, the more your ability to have a meaningful list is dependent on understanding context.

I don’t mean to be super-elitist here and say people can’t do what I think they need to do, but I do think people need to be expecting to really try to get all this context in their head if they want the project to be done well.

The reason why it’s not natural for this project to get re-done frequently compared to something like a Top 100 list is because there’s nothing new about these old years except possibly new information.

Hence, if it can’t be done better than was done before, why would we want to try replace the original?

Now, in practice, there’s nothing objective about which list will be “better”, and I wouldn’t want people to feel they can’t do this simply because they are insecure about their knowledge. But for anyone in that boat, I’d hope that they’d really be looking to learn all they can.

I ask the forbearance of folks here pertaining to my persnickety perspective here. The reason why I came up with the RPOY way back when was to create a project that allowed us to iteratively walk through the entirety of the history of the NBA in a way that GOAT lists and all-time projects did not, so I’m rather attached to it being a series of season deep dives.


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[tsherkin]

[quote="For Retro POY, every year you're having to get your head around the entire league. .

I see what you're saying, but it isnt quite that bad. It's more like 5-10 players per year, realistically. There are immense chunks of the league which can be immediately discarded each season. A quick pass will filter things down to a manageable level. No one is gonna look at the Bruce Bowens lr Shane Battiers lf the league in this context. Or the Mark Aguirre's, or Donn Nelsons, you know?

Ah, well I suppose my perspective is that to do it really well, you want to understand the team play of the season first and foremost just like we do when we evaluate play live during the season.

Let me go with something from the ‘45-46 NBL.

You can see by looking at the main bkref page for that season that the two-time defending champ Zollner Pistons had the best regular season record and that their star player Bobby McDermott won another MVP as a big scorer that year.

You’ll also see that the Pistons got upset in the playoffs and that McDermott had very low scoring numbers in that series.

Can you come up with a ranked list just based on that information? Sure.

Might it matter though why it was McDermott had low scoring numbers in that series?

What about the team that upset the Pistons and win the title (Rochester Royals), might it matter if one of their players was primarily responsible for McDermott’s performance?

I think it does, and that the deeper into history you want to be able to go, the more your ability to have a meaningful list is dependent on understanding context.

I don’t mean to be super-elitist here and say people can’t do what I think they need to do, but I do think people need to be expecting to really try to get all this context in their head if they want the project to be done well.

The reason why it’s not natural for this project to get re-done frequently compared to something like a Top 100 list is because there’s nothing new about these old years except possibly new information.

Hence, if it can’t be done better than was done before, why would we want to try replace the original?

Now, in practice, there’s nothing objective about which list will be “better”, and I wouldn’t want people to feel they can’t do this simply because they are insecure about their knowledge. But for anyone in that boat, I’d hope that they’d really be looking to learn all they can.

I ask the forbearance of folks here pertaining to my persnickety perspective here. The reason why I came up with the RPOY way back when was to create a project that allowed us to iteratively walk through the entirety of the history of the NBA in a way that GOAT lists and all-time projects did not, so I’m rather attached to it being a series of season deep dives.


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Yeah, again, I see what you mean. I guess I meant we already have the short list. It isnt subtle in most years, right? So you dive into a specific postseason series for some extra details here and there, sure, but at least to me, that's far more targeted than understanding the whole league. You look for description/explanation of substantial deviation from norm and you're good.

As you say, though, there are diminishing returns to redoing the project, particularly kn the absence of new information.

[ardee]

[quote="For Retro POY, every year you're having to get your head around the entire league. .

I see what you're saying, but it isnt quite that bad. It's more like 5-10 players per year, realistically. There are immense chunks of the league which can be immediately discarded each season. A quick pass will filter things down to a manageable level. No one is gonna look at the Bruce Bowens lr Shane Battiers lf the league in this context. Or the Mark Aguirre's, or Donn Nelsons, you know?

Ah, well I suppose my perspective is that to do it really well, you want to understand the team play of the season first and foremost just like we do when we evaluate play live during the season.

Let me go with something from the ‘45-46 NBL.

You can see by looking at the main bkref page for that season that the two-time defending champ Zollner Pistons had the best regular season record and that their star player Bobby McDermott won another MVP as a big scorer that year.

You’ll also see that the Pistons got upset in the playoffs and that McDermott had very low scoring numbers in that series.

Can you come up with a ranked list just based on that information? Sure.

Might it matter though why it was McDermott had low scoring numbers in that series?

What about the team that upset the Pistons and win the title (Rochester Royals), might it matter if one of their players was primarily responsible for McDermott’s performance?

I think it does, and that the deeper into history you want to be able to go, the more your ability to have a meaningful list is dependent on understanding context.

I don’t mean to be super-elitist here and say people can’t do what I think they need to do, but I do think people need to be expecting to really try to get all this context in their head if they want the project to be done well.

The reason why it’s not natural for this project to get re-done frequently compared to something like a Top 100 list is because there’s nothing new about these old years except possibly new information.

Hence, if it can’t be done better than was done before, why would we want to try replace the original?

Now, in practice, there’s nothing objective about which list will be “better”, and I wouldn’t want people to feel they can’t do this simply because they are insecure about their knowledge. But for anyone in that boat, I’d hope that they’d really be looking to learn all they can.

I ask the forbearance of folks here pertaining to my persnickety perspective here. The reason why I came up with the RPOY way back when was to create a project that allowed us to iteratively walk through the entirety of the history of the NBA in a way that GOAT lists and all-time projects did not, so I’m rather attached to it being a series of season deep dives.


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1. It's not being redone frequently though: it's been 12 YEARS (Good God I can't believe I've been on this board over a decade already). That's 400% longer than the wait between top 100 projects.

2. There's new information and a whole bunch of new perspectives from all the new posters. For example, someone like 70sFan: he seems to know a lot about that particular decade, which is considered the forgotten part of the shot-clock era. Surely having someone like him around would enrich the deep dives you're talking about.

Also, with regards to the top 100, besides the active players adding to their careers, isn't it basically the same thing? Just new info and new stats offered by different players?

[Doctor MJ]

I see what you're saying, but it isnt quite that bad. It's more like 5-10 players per year, realistically. There are immense chunks of the league which can be immediately discarded each season. A quick pass will filter things down to a manageable level. No one is gonna look at the Bruce Bowens lr Shane Battiers lf the league in this context. Or the Mark Aguirre's, or Donn Nelsons, you know?

Ah, well I suppose my perspective is that to do it really well, you want to understand the team play of the season first and foremost just like we do when we evaluate play live during the season.

Let me go with something from the ‘45-46 NBL.

You can see by looking at the main bkref page for that season that the two-time defending champ Zollner Pistons had the best regular season record and that their star player Bobby McDermott won another MVP as a big scorer that year.

You’ll also see that the Pistons got upset in the playoffs and that McDermott had very low scoring numbers in that series.

Can you come up with a ranked list just based on that information? Sure.

Might it matter though why it was McDermott had low scoring numbers in that series?

What about the team that upset the Pistons and win the title (Rochester Royals), might it matter if one of their players was primarily responsible for McDermott’s performance?

I think it does, and that the deeper into history you want to be able to go, the more your ability to have a meaningful list is dependent on understanding context.

I don’t mean to be super-elitist here and say people can’t do what I think they need to do, but I do think people need to be expecting to really try to get all this context in their head if they want the project to be done well.

The reason why it’s not natural for this project to get re-done frequently compared to something like a Top 100 list is because there’s nothing new about these old years except possibly new information.

Hence, if it can’t be done better than was done before, why would we want to try replace the original?

Now, in practice, there’s nothing objective about which list will be “better”, and I wouldn’t want people to feel they can’t do this simply because they are insecure about their knowledge. But for anyone in that boat, I’d hope that they’d really be looking to learn all they can.

I ask the forbearance of folks here pertaining to my persnickety perspective here. The reason why I came up with the RPOY way back when was to create a project that allowed us to iteratively walk through the entirety of the history of the NBA in a way that GOAT lists and all-time projects did not, so I’m rather attached to it being a series of season deep dives.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

1. It's not being redone frequently though: it's been 12 YEARS (Good God I can't believe I've been on this board over a decade already). That's 400% longer than the wait between top 100 projects.

2. There's new information and a whole bunch of new perspectives from all the new posters. For example, someone like 70sFan: he seems to know a lot about that particular decade, which is considered the forgotten part of the shot-clock era. Surely having someone like him around would enrich the deep dives you're talking about.

Also, with regards to the top 100, besides the active players adding to their careers, isn't it basically the same thing? Just new info and new stats offered by different players?

Y'know, if there's enough passion to do this and do it well, then we should do it.

I'm open to suggestion about gauging that interest and getting folks ready.

A few things:

1. I definitely don't want this project started until after the '21-22 POY voting happens.

2. I'd want to do this going forward in time, rather than backward. I ran it backwards last time because I thought it likely that the project would run out of steam at some point - which it did - and I wanted to make sure we addressed the years we knew the most about. However, I think you get a much better picture of what actually happens in a given year when you go forward.

3. I'd recommend starting from '45-46 - the first season after World War II when talent flooded back in to domestic basketball leagues - with consideration for the NBA's two tributary leagues, the NBL and the BAA (though note the BAA starts in '46-47). We can have a general discussion about preferences, but to me us ending it "at the birth of the shot clock" way back when was always a bit of a cop out for the fact that the will of the voting base really seemed expended as we moved earlier than Russell. In reality, the shot clock was a pretty minor rule change that certainly wasn't implemented to adjust for Mikan, and so what we essentially did previously was ignore the Mikan era, which I see as a gaping hole.

4. I would recommend that we add the other awards for outlier performers (OPOY, DPOY, COY & EOY) as well. I don't actually think it takes much more work to think them through the same time as POY. (I would advise against including awards for minor players - ROY, MIP & 6MOY. I don't think these awards matter all that much when you aren't voting "for the present", and they're actually quite challenging to do well.)

[Dr Positivity]

I'd rather do something like best peak again, last one was in 2019 and it had some rankings that trouble me. Recent seasons for players like Giannis and Jokic would be interesting to place.

I will start the peaks project after the Finals are over unless anyone else wants to run it. Just need to finish writing up the rules and then I will post the signup thread in a day or two.

What are your thoughts on doing "Top seasons of all time" instead of peak, as in you can vote for multiple seasons for each player? Don't think that has been done on RealGM. Would be best to vote for 10 seasons at a time or something, could also be top 150 or 200 in that case instead of 100.

[70sFan]

I'd rather do something like best peak again, last one was in 2019 and it had some rankings that trouble me. Recent seasons for players like Giannis and Jokic would be interesting to place.

I will start the peaks project after the Finals are over unless anyone else wants to run it. Just need to finish writing up the rules and then I will post the signup thread in a day or two.

What are your thoughts on doing "Top seasons of all time" instead of peak, as in you can vote for multiple seasons for each player? Don't think that has been done on RealGM. Would be best to vote for 10 seasons at a time or something, could also be top 150 or 200 in that case instead of 100.

Not directed to me, but personally I prefer peaks version of the project. I am afraid this will turn into MJ vs LeBron debate very quckly and other players won't get any space for discussion.

[capfan33]

I'm interested even though we'll see how much of a time commitment I'm willing to make.

[Dr Positivity]

I will start the peaks project after the Finals are over unless anyone else wants to run it. Just need to finish writing up the rules and then I will post the signup thread in a day or two.

What are your thoughts on doing "Top seasons of all time" instead of peak, as in you can vote for multiple seasons for each player? Don't think that has been done on RealGM. Would be best to vote for 10 seasons at a time or something, could also be top 150 or 200 in that case instead of 100.

Not directed to me, but personally I prefer peaks version of the project. I am afraid this will turn into MJ vs LeBron debate very quckly and other players won't get any space for discussion.

If we do 10 per thread Lebron v MJ is over nearly fast as in the peaks project, though.

[JordansBulls]

Top 100 or GOAT peaks are projects that are impacted by every season. Every 10 years we will have many new players or seasons that need to be added to the pool. RPOY is not the same case, you just add every next season to the pool as it's over. And this works as expected, so personally I don't see a reason to repeat the whole project.

This! It would be one thing if most of the stats we didn't have at the time but we had most of the stats at the time and results. What would you actually be redoing? What do we have now that would change 2005 results for example?