Retro POY '08-09

[Silver Bullet]

btw, I just noticed. Dwyane Wade did not make an All NBA team in 08-09. Can somebody explain that ?

I guess you mean 07/08 and not 08/09. He didn't make it, because he was injured and only played 51 games.

nevermind, I was on the wrong page.

[Silver Bullet]

Surprisingly, no one's mentioned Paul Pierce yet, despite him taking his team to 62 wins in the absence of KG, getting past the first round and taking the Magic to 7 games.

[Optimism Prime]

Totally totally disagree. The way people have been voting so far, it seems like they don't watch the NBA at all. You guys have been focusing on Statistics wayyy too much.

For example, sure the Rockets were without T-Mac and Yao towards the end, but they played impeccable defense. Nothing anyone in the East put up comes even in the same stratosphere. Why should we expect Kobe not to struggle against Battier and Artest - I mean, that is a ridiculous expectation. Battier plays Kobe better than any other guy in the World, better than Bowen or Artest ever did. And then you're getting help from Artest. I mean what is with the dig at Brooks and Scola ? sure they're not big names, but if Aaron Brooks hits a clutch 3, it's still a clutch 3.

So yeah, I think perfect angry faces and clutch 3's should count a lot more, because your focus has been solely on Statistics. If you went by statistics alone, then Nash, Barkley, Malone, Hakeem, Iverson et. all would have zero MVPS and you'd think Deron Williams was closer to Jose Caledron than he's to Chris Paul.

First of all, to say the defense of the Eastern teams isn't in the same stratosphere as the Rockets is a bit difficult for me to stomach. The Magic, Celtics and Cavs had the best defensive ratings last season. The Rockets were a very good defensive team and played excellent defense in that series, but it's not as extreme as you're making it out to be. LA still scored 111 and 118 points in games in that series. Chuck Hayes was very active on pick and roll defense and rotations and made a number of nice plays, but I think the crux of your point is with regards to Bryant, and Hayes had little to do with that (I recall two or three nice switches in LA, but Kobe probably played 500 offensive possessions in that series).

I'm not slighting those 3 players, just pointing out Bastillon's double standard of making extreme statements denigrating LeBron for his competition, but calling Kobe "dominant" when struggled against a team with a core that simply isn't very good (unless you think that core is a 50+ win). Without Yao, Houston was too small inside, yet the series went 7.

In general, great offense beats great defense. Basketball is a scoring-heavy game. But great defense (individually, team) can slow down good offense. We should see those offensive numbers drop slightly. When there is an extreme drop, I think it's fair to say the offensive player/team had a bad performance. Yes, it may have been influenced heavily by the increased quality of defense, but I want players who can separate themselves and still play well against the best competition. In other words, if you can simply maintain you're averages and efficiency against the 93 Knicks, you're doing something well.

Are you being serious about angry faces?

For starters, the Rockets are a much better defensive team without Yao and Mcgrady than they are without them. With Yao, the Rockets allowed the Lakers to score 103ppg in the 3 games, without Yao, without Yao, they allowed 93.5 ppg. And that is fairly easy to see, when you see Yao's ability to guard the pick and roll vs someone like Chuck Hayes. I remember last year claiming that the Rockets without Yao and Mcgrady were just as good a team as they were with both, because they were substantially better on defense, had significantly better ball movement, and had a better offensive distribution when they were out. You'd recall that this Rockets team won 22 games in a row without Yao and with Mcgrady playing a prephiral role. Of course, I was laughed at for saying this. But then we saw the Rockets this season, and they were right there in the playoff hunt most of the year, despite losing Landry and replacing Artest with Ariza (Ariza took a lot more shots at even lower efficiency).

And then, you've said this more than a couple of times in various threads, but great offense does not beat great defense. The Celtics won the title in 08 despite being horrible offensively. The Pistons in 04 were not an offensive juggernaut. None of the Spurs title teams have been anything other than pedestrian offensively. And we've seen great offensive teams like the Suns and Mavericks bow out to great defensive teams, time and time again. Maybe I misconstrued what you meant, because I don't see any evidence to support your assertion.

Lastly, if Houston was too small, and the Lakers were still unable to take advantage of it - that just reflects poorly on Gasol, Bynum, Odom - I don't see how it involves Kobe, other than the fact that his supporting cast is bigger on name recognition than it is in playing.

My thoughts here (fonted differently, but matching up with the above):

That was the year before, 07-08.
Yao was in for 16 of those games, and McGrady averaged a 22-5-6. Hardly a peripheral role.
Can't dispute the efficiency, but the numbers are wrong--Ariza averaged 13.9, Artest 15.0 (999 and 1037 respectively).
Here's what Kobe should've done: turned into a playmaker for the big guys. This is my big problem with Kobe the player: he's too me-first for my tastes. Gasol and Bynum should have DESTROYED the Rockets without Yao. I like Chuck and Scola as much as anyone, but the Lakers bigs clearly outclassed the Rockets front line that series once Yao went down. Aside from the "No one believes in us" and "Guys, I can't play; win this for ME" factors... This just shouldn't have gone to seven. Period.

[Doctor MJ]

Surprisingly, no one's mentioned Paul Pierce yet, despite him taking his team to 62 wins in the absence of KG, getting past the first round and taking the Magic to 7 games.

I think distributing credit amongst Celtics these past few years is one of the most interesting questions about. It will undoubtedly come to the forefront when we do '07-08.

A big part of my opinion though is that it's not really Pierce's team in the sense that the other players mentioned have "teams". I mean, Allen led the team in WS and APM in the regular season, Rondo led them in WS and APM in the post-season. I'm inclined to call Pierce the team's star, but it's actually within the realm of debate even before bringing Garnett into the picture.

[semi-sentient]

These are my in-progress rankings, without being swayed by any arguments.

Regular Season:

1. LeBron James
2. Dwyane Wade
3. Kobe Bryant
4. Dwight Howard
5. Chris Paul

Playoffs:

1. Kobe Bryant
2. LeBron James
3. Dwight Howard
4. Dirk Nowitzki
5. Tim Duncan

Final Ranking:

1. LeBron James
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Dwight Howard
4. Dwyane Wade
5. Tim Duncan

Interesting as those are almost identical to mine, except I'd have to put Billups in my top 5 playoff performers which knocks Duncan off. Kind of hard to put Duncan up there when he only played 5 games and a couple of those were pretty below par for anyone's standards. That results in Dirk sneaking into the top 5 overall, barely beating out CP3.

[Dr Positivity]

Alright here's my write-up.

First a clarification of how I judge. I am taking the player's performance/ability/etc. alone. Ultimately while I value titles/etc. when making my historical all-time rankings, in this I'm voting on who's the BEST PLAYER. Winning a title has a lot of variables that go outside the individual's play... I'm going to discount those variables.

My #1 is Lebron James. He easily had the best individual regular season. Offensively he is responsible for the Cavs top 3 efficiency due to their high level of shots at the rim (thanks to Lebron himself) and from the 3 point line (they ranked 3rd overall in 3PM) due to his ability to collapse and pass. With the offense run through him the Cavs also had the 6th best TOV% in the league. He was one of the best rebounders in the league marginal to his position. He was one of the league's best perimeter defenders. His offensive ability allowed the Cavs to get away with their bigs just focusing on d and rebounding. He also had a great chemistry/leadership/etc. effect galvanizing his teammates. The Cavs overall had by far the best regular season and statistically one of the best regular seasons of all time. Now the playoffs. Lebron IMO performed as well as you could expect as they cruised through rounds 1 and 2 and then ran into the Magic wall. The reason they lost was the inability to guard the Dwight pick and roll or keep up with his footspeed. The Magic also had a height shooting advantage. The only thing I can say is Lebron should've guarded Hedo but that was Mike Brown's decision... overall I'd say Lebron led his team to being the best in the league, but the matchup just killed them. I still give Lebron the credit for making that team that good

My #2 is Kobe Bryant. I think this was the best season of his career. He truly found the mix between scoring on/off the ball, passing, and taking over or letting his teammates go off. The Lakers won 65 games thanks to ranking top 3 in offense with him as the guy. He fit very well with Gasol and Odom with his ability to play without the ball. Obviously in the playoffs he never let his finger off the trigger. To me the clutch spin pass to Gasol in Game 4 was probably the best play of his career. One qualm though, I think the 09 Lakers had a relatively easy road to the title. The Magic were very very good, but statistically they were significantly below the 08 Celtics or 07 Spurs

My #3 is Dwight Howard. Howard's impact comes in two places. First obviously his DPOY d. Secondly though he opens a ton of 3 point shots when rolling to the rim. He doesn't get credited for the assists like Lebron, but you can argue he creates almost as many 3s. Dwight has a few flaws though. For one thing the Magic turned the ball over a lot more than Cleveland and LA. He can't control the ball like wing players, and whenever a non playmaker averages 3 TOs a game because as all playmakers turn it over, the Magic had Dwight TOs + playmaker TOs whereas with a guy like Lebron he's the only one who turns it over. Secondly the Lewis/Howard lineup led to godawful offensive rebounding. Not only does Lewis grab nothing, but every time Howard shoots this compounds the problem because he's then also out of position for one. The Magic were also bad at forcing TOs which tells me Dwight blocks it into the stand too much.

My #4 is Dwyane Wade. This was also a career regular season for him. He was one of the hardest perimeter covers in the league with his penetration ability, leading to a 30/7/5 season. He also blocked and stole the crap out of the ball. On one hand according to my original judgment plan it may seem wrong to 'punish' him for leading a very mediocore team as his own court ability was not far off from Lebron's this year. But it's harder to give credit when the results aren't there, particularly in the eFG stat where the Cavs were one of the best and Miami was mediocore. Now this may seem unfair because the main reason for that is Miami had less 3 point shooters than Cleveland. But one of the reasons for that is Wade is a SG and Lebron is a SF. Almost all SGs hit 3s whereas this is not true with SFs. Lebron's playmaking at SF is more effective for offense than Wade's at SG as he fits more with guards than Wade fits with SFs, if that makes sense. Lebron and Delonte was a more effective offensive pairing than Wade and Marion despite the latter appearing to have more talent for this reason. They also rebounded just as well. That's another (big) advantage Lebron had last year. Finally I can't ignore durability. Wade didn't get injured, but his GAME is more prone to injury.

My #5 is Chris Paul. Statistically he had one of the best PG seasons ever as a 23/11/5/3 .60 TS% guy. The Hornets had a disappointing season but that team had other issues. The Hornets had just ok eFG because of their lack of inside offense and more mediocore than you'd expect 3 point shooting. I do think David West is an overrated player because the value of midrange pick and pop guys just isn't that high. If there's one thing I'd ask of Paul from this season it's better leadership perhaps, ability to raise his teammate's effort. The gap between Paul and the next guy on the list (Dirk? Duncan?) is pretty high to me. I like Paul here.

[Dr Positivity]

I didn't realize we were splitting up playoffs and regular season. My in progress rankings would be 1. Lebron 2. Dwight 3. Wade 4. Kobe 5. Paul for the regular season, then 1. Kobe 2. Lebron 3. Dwight 4. Wade 5. Dirk for the playoffs

[Doctor MJ]

Also, a disclaimer: Right now, I live in Iowa, and don't have cable. My game-viewing has been limited to say the least, so I've got a bias toward stats.

On that note... can someone direct me to a link explaining what the eff Win Shares are, how they're calculated, and what they mean?

ETA: Found this, now just need to make sure I can understand it all... http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ws.html

k, so the fundamentals are based on Oliver. What Oliver did was basically quantify good things and bad things, and break it down to say per how often a guy "uses" up a team's possession, how do the good things & bad things stack up. You can see the results of this in an individual's ORtg - which gets dominated by highly efficient players independent of their "usage". Oliver didn't think this was how good a player was, just one important aspect which you'd at least want to pair with his Usage.

The first thing's b-r's doing with Win Shares has nothing to do with "shares of wins". It's basically something that looks too multiple an ORtg-type stat with a Usage-type stat. There are various factors involved, and I don't believe there's any great assertion that they aren't arbitrary, but the end result is that it plays a lot like PER with a tad more emphasis on efficiency.

What he then does is actually make Win Shares by taking all the efficiency-usage scores of the guys on the winning team and distributing a win share between them. So if all team's had similar distributions, the star players would be ranked based on how many games each star's team won. In practice, whether this is right or wrong, this probably simulates MVP voting more than any other single advanced stat - not that it has that prediction nailed, but a big PER typically isn't enough to make you a strong MVP candidate if your team sucks.

It should be noted that the "win sharing" step is something that could also be done with PER or any other stat, so it's not the case that WS does something "right" where others do something "wrong".

[Doctor MJ]

I didn't realize we were splitting up playoffs and regular season. My in progress rankings would be 1. Lebron 2. Dwight 3. Wade 4. Kobe 5. Paul for the regular season, then 1. Kobe 2. Lebron 3. Dwight 4. Wade 5. Dirk for the playoffs

We're not officially doing that. Everyone's welcome to include such splits in their analysis, but I'm just going to be tallying up the all-season analysis.

[semi-sentient]

[b][i]Here's what Kobe should've done: turned into a playmaker for the big guys. This is my big problem with Kobe the player: he's too me-first for my tastes. Gasol and Bynum should have DESTROYED the Rockets without Yao.

Eh?

Kobe averaged 28.7 FGA before Yao got injured and 18.8 FGA for the rest of the series -- although it has to be mentioned that his minutes dropped. For the same periods, Gasol's FGA went from 12.7 to 15.0.

Bynum was in Phil's doghouse last post-season so he just wasn't getting many minutes. Don't underestimate the job that Hayes did on defense either. Neither of our guys were able to back him down or get good position consistently.

The Rockets were noticeably better on defense after Yao went down. They were able to slow the pace and became far more physical as a team, perhaps out of necessity. With exception to Game 5 where we went bananas, the Rox held us under 90 points in the other 3 contests.

[Optimism Prime]

[b][i]Here's what Kobe should've done: turned into a playmaker for the big guys. This is my big problem with Kobe the player: he's too me-first for my tastes. Gasol and Bynum should have DESTROYED the Rockets without Yao.

Eh?

Kobe averaged 28.7 FGA before Yao got injured and 18.8 FGA for the rest of the series -- although it has to be mentioned that his minutes dropped. For the same periods, Gasol's FGA went from 12.7 to 15.0.

Bynum was in Phil's doghouse last post-season so he just wasn't getting many minutes. Don't underestimate the job that Hayes did on defense either. Neither of our guys were able to back him down or get good position consistently.

The Rockets were noticeably better on defense after Yao went down. They were able to slow the pace and became far more physical as a team, perhaps out of necessity. With exception to Game 5 where we went bananas, the Rox held us under 90 points in the other 3 contests.

Sorry, snap judgment based on my memories for that part--was running out the door as I finished my post; just about to look at the Yao injury. Apologies.

[mysticbb]

The first thing's b-r's doing with Win Shares has nothing to do with "shares of wins". It's basically something that looks too multiple an ORtg-type stat with a Usage-type stat. There are various factors involved, and I don't believe there's any great assertion that they aren't arbitrary, but the end result is that it plays a lot like PER with a tad more emphasis on efficiency.

Actually that is not true.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ws.html

It works competely different than PER. Justin is using individual ORtg and DRtg to calculate offensive (OWS) and defensive (DWS) Win Shares (WS) respectively. WS is just the sum of OWS and DWS.

What he then does is actually make Win Shares by taking all the efficiency-usage scores of the guys on the winning team and distributing a win share between them.

That was his first version. Right now the WS aren't connected to the team wins in that way anymore. In fact a player from a bad team could possible even get more Win Shares than the overall team has wins. Negative values for players are possible.

It should be noted that the "win sharing" step is something that could also be done with PER or any other stat, so it's not the case that WS does something "right" where others do something "wrong".

Actually he is doing more right with that than any other metric is doing. He doesn't need to adjust for position or has to add a magical team factor to get a really high correlation to the real amount of wins a team had.

[Doctor MJ]

Actually that is not true.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ws.html

It works competely different than PER. Justin is using individual ORtg and DRtg to calculate offensive (OWS) and defensive (DWS) Win Shares (WS) respectively. WS is just the sum of OWS and DWS.

Hmm, I said it "played" a lot like PER - so not talking about how it's calculated, but the result.

That was his first version. Right now the WS aren't connected to the team wins in that way anymore. In fact a player from a bad team could possible even get more Win Shares than the overall team has wins. Negative values for players are possible.

Huh. Interesting. Obviously I haven't kept up.

I would note that there's no reasons why negative values wouldn't be possible when tying directly to wins - but if he's not actually tying results directly to team wins, that is definitely interesting.

[ElGee]

OK, It's about to get very nerdy. I've broken down the film for game 1 of the 09 ECF. Here is the results. I will include the running game analysis below. I might do 1 or 2 more of these during this project but this is certainly a rarity (too time-consuming). I thought it necessary because at some fundamental level, IF everyone truthfully watched the games, there has to be some common understand of what is positive and what is negative on a basketball court.

Possessions where LeBron holds ball excessively: 7
Points on those possessions: 8 (1.14 ORtg -- above team's average)

Box Score Offense
LeBron: 49 points 6 rebounds, 6-10 FT, 20-30 FG. 2 Turnovers.
Howard: 30 points 13 rebounds 2-2 FT, 13-20 FG. 3 Turnovers.

Non Box Offense
LeBron created 3 layups and a fouled layup (2 FT's) for his teammates, along with 8 open shots (teammates went 2-8, both 3s). Drew 5 fouls.
Howard created 1 layup for his teammates, along with 1 open 3 (a miss). Drew 5 fouls

Defense
LeBron: 3 blocks. 2 steals. 0 missed rotations. Took 1 charge. Helped twice on Howard misses. Alston missed only shot against him. 0 FT's against. Beat off dribble once.

Howard: 0 blocks. 2 steals. ½ of a missed rotation (he and Lewis), Z went 1-1 against, Williams 1-2 against, Varejao 1-2 against, LeBron 1-1 against, LeBron was 1-2 against his doubles (“0.5-1” FG's against Howard, if you will). Never beat off dribble. 6 FT's against.

1st Quarter. The game starts with a nice pass from LeBron. Howard/Lewis are standing in the paint and miss a cutting Varejao, who ends up with a layup. On the next possession, they double James and he hits Varejao underneath again, where he's fouled to save the score. 2 Fts. Howard then breaks the shot clock – Big Z just misses the box out. LBJ drives and sets up Varejao for an open J, he misses, but LeBron keeps the rebound alive against Howard. Doubled again, LeBron hits Varejao but Howard changes the shot at the rim. At 7:50 LeBron drives on Lee and Howard slides over with nice help to force the miss. At 7:08 LeBron holds the ball for a while, faking against Hedo, then misses a jumper against him from the wing. Howard scores one-on-one versus Z. At 6:18 James is beat by Alston off the dribble – he was cheating over near Hedo and Alston used the angle when the ball came his way. Rafer goes into Varejao but misses. Howard goaltends at 6:08 on a difficult spinning shot by Mo Williams. With 2:20 left, Howard hits a running hook on Z-- this will be a theme. West doesn't get back on Pietrus leakout after LeBron misses a deep jumper – layup for Pietrus . Delonte West is actually holding the ball on a number of possessions running clock, not James.

2nd Quarter. James starts on the bench (33-19 Cle). At 9:56 Williams hits a jumper over Dwight on a switch. Next time, Mo missed over Howard. West then dribbles out about 12 seconds of clock – combatted by good Anthony Johnson defense. James comes back at 41-30 (-2 while out). His 1st play sets up Smith underneath, who is fouled for 2 FT's. At 6:35 Alston goes PnR, ball swung to open Hedo, LBJ goes to close, back to Rafer for drive and easy laypu for Gortat. 5:30 Hedo runs Pick n Roll (PnR) and forces help. Alston is open, but LeBron covers Gortat in the paint, then closes on Rafer and ends the advantage. Lewis blows by Varejao for a layup. On the next two Orlando possessions, they go PnR, and LBJ has to show on Gortat in the lane again, then close on Rafer. Again, he does so successfully. The next play is awkward: LBJ helps on Pietrus who clocks Varejao in the throat, leaving him prostrated in the lane. Pietrus gets by LBJ and Z and (and Varejao) and misses a layup. At 3:48 LeBron backdoors Pietrus – Howard rotates but doesn't contest the dunk. At 3:25 Dwight is doubled and hits a cutting Pietrus for a layup - William takes a wild angle on the rotation, leaving Pietrus for the layup. James spins and scores at the other end and Howard comes over and fouls for an and-1. At 1:30 LeBron dribbles for a few seconds too long, shoots over Lewis and scores anyway. With 0:47 left, Hedo runs a PnR, James helps on Gortat, then closes out on Alston, who misses a 3. On the last Cavs trip of the half, James runs clock out (a low percentage play, yet every NBA does this) and hits a jumper over Hedo. Alston then runs PnR, Gortat slips behind Z - who stopped - for a layup (no help came).

3rd Quarter. Begins with a Hedo PnR, again LeBron rotates into the paint onto Howard, then closes on Rafer at the 3-point line, stopping the advantage. Lewis drives on Varejao, Z helps, which leaves Howard unchecked for a tip-in. At 11:11 James ends up on Hedo in semi-transition: he closes to take away the shot, then knocks the ball out of bounds. At 10:55 Howard kills Z with another running hook. At 10:20 Alston gets behind a Howard screen and hits the jumper. James is right there on the recovery/close, but Rafer just converts. At 10:00 James ends up with the ball on the wing v Hedo – his teammates literally don't move for a while, but James doesn't want an iso. He finally just shoots and scores over Trukoglu. A LeBron TO leads to a Lee dunk at 9:25 (James can't save it on the rundown). At 9:10 yet another Cavs possession where everyone is standing around. LeBron hits the jumper over Hedo again. At 8:20 Hedo runs PnR again, James rotates to Howard, but this time they feed him, and turns and dunks over James.

Williams/LeBron run PnR, Dwight helps on James who slips it to Varejao for another easylayup. At 7:49 they trap Hedo, James slides over for Howard, but Hedo kicks to Rafer this time who hits an open 3. At 6:00 West runs PnP with Z into Howard – Z misses the shot as Howard recovers nicely. At 5:48 Rafer crosses over and briefly by James, but he recovers for a block. At 4:53 Howard and Hedo collapse on James after a screen, and then LeBron makes some sort of Magic Johnson jump-lookaway pass to Varejao for a layup (Varejaoslipped behind a sleepy Rashard Lewis). James is guarding Pietrus now. At 3:00 LeBron does hold the ball for a while, then regroups and misses contested 3, but he gets his own rebound. James then hits a deep 2 at end of clock on the next trip. James goes at Howard in another PnR situation and draws a shooting foul on Dwight. At 28.2 LeBron takes a charge on Pietrus. On the final possession, they again run the clock down and LeBron misses crazy shot.

4th Quarter. James on bench with a 82-78 lead. Dwight out too. The Hedo/Lewis PnP is really killing the Cavs on the last few possessions. James comes back at 85-84 Orl (-5, -7 without James total). James guards Hedo now. Howard comes back at 86-85 Cle. Hedo gets a Howard screen and misses a jumper – James there on the recovery. At 8:46 there is a really ugly Cavs trip. Mo holds the ball for a while, then James gets it at ~9 seconds on the clock and holds it, only to take a contested 3 and miss. At 7:30 Z hits a jumper over Howard, who had recovered well from PnP. Hedo/Howard go PnR again, James switches to Dwight and Hedo misses a jumper over Z. At 6:20 James holds the ball for a while and is then stripped. At 6:00, LeBron runs PnR and slips it to Varejao. Howard rotates under, but Varejao scores at the rim anyway on Howard (Dwight doesn't want to foul). At 5:10 Hedo drops behind a good Howard screen and drills a 3. James recovers well, but Hedo uses the space and hits it. Next time, Hedo runs PnR and Z switches onto him. Hedo drives around Z for an easy 2.

At 3:25 we have another possession of James dribbling a lot (working around many screens) before he drives and scores on Howard/Pietrus. At 1:40 Howard helps Pietrus on another LeBron drive and commits his 5th foul. At 1:12 LeBron forces help, lays it down to Z – Lewis goes to him leaving Varejao- - and Z taps it over to Varejao for an open layup. At 0:19 James drives and scores ON Howard, plus Dwight's 6th foul. On the last Magic possession, Lewis forces help, James recovers on Hedo AND shuts off Hedo's drive. They swing back to Lewis who cans a 3 in Varejeo's face. On the lastt Cavs trip, LeBron drives, forces a collapse, kicks it to Mo who slides it to an open West, who misses the 3. LeBron forces a jump on the rebound, WINS the jump to Williams who misses a decent look at the buzzer.

[ElGee]

Totally totally disagree. The way people have been voting so far, it seems like they don't watch the NBA at all. You guys have been focusing on Statistics wayyy too much.

For example, sure the Rockets were without T-Mac and Yao towards the end, but they played impeccable defense. Nothing anyone in the East put up comes even in the same stratosphere. Why should we expect Kobe not to struggle against Battier and Artest - I mean, that is a ridiculous expectation. Battier plays Kobe better than any other guy in the World, better than Bowen or Artest ever did. And then you're getting help from Artest. I mean what is with the dig at Brooks and Scola ? sure they're not big names, but if Aaron Brooks hits a clutch 3, it's still a clutch 3.

So yeah, I think perfect angry faces and clutch 3's should count a lot more, because your focus has been solely on Statistics. If you went by statistics alone, then Nash, Barkley, Malone, Hakeem, Iverson et. all would have zero MVPS and you'd think Deron Williams was closer to Jose Caledron than he's to Chris Paul.

First of all, to say the defense of the Eastern teams isn't in the same stratosphere as the Rockets is a bit difficult for me to stomach. The Magic, Celtics and Cavs had the best defensive ratings last season. The Rockets were a very good defensive team and played excellent defense in that series, but it's not as extreme as you're making it out to be. LA still scored 111 and 118 points in games in that series. Chuck Hayes was very active on pick and roll defense and rotations and made a number of nice plays, but I think the crux of your point is with regards to Bryant, and Hayes had little to do with that (I recall two or three nice switches in LA, but Kobe probably played 500 offensive possessions in that series).

I'm not slighting those 3 players, just pointing out Bastillon's double standard of making extreme statements denigrating LeBron for his competition, but calling Kobe "dominant" when struggled against a team with a core that simply isn't very good (unless you think that core is a 50+ win). Without Yao, Houston was too small inside, yet the series went 7.

In general, great offense beats great defense. Basketball is a scoring-heavy game. But great defense (individually, team) can slow down good offense. We should see those offensive numbers drop slightly. When there is an extreme drop, I think it's fair to say the offensive player/team had a bad performance. Yes, it may have been influenced heavily by the increased quality of defense, but I want players who can separate themselves and still play well against the best competition. In other words, if you can simply maintain you're averages and efficiency against the 93 Knicks, you're doing something well.

Are you being serious about angry faces?

For starters, the Rockets are a much better defensive team without Yao and Mcgrady than they are without them.

And then, you've said this more than a couple of times in various threads, but great offense does not beat great defense. The Celtics won the title in 08 despite being horrible offensively. The Pistons in 04 were not an offensive juggernaut. None of the Spurs title teams have been anything other than pedestrian offensively. And we've seen great offensive teams like the Suns and Mavericks bow out to great defensive teams, time and time again. Maybe I misconstrued what you meant, because I don't see any evidence to support your assertion.

Are you sure they're "much better" defensively? What are the differences in DRtg w and w/out? The on/off numbers?

You're warping the other point I think. I'm someone who has championed the idea that Phoenix was a championship team in 2007. In general, defense is the best way to build for championships (it's a more consistent model). The 08 Celtics were not horrible on offensive - c'mon, you can't keep reducing everything to extremes. They were 10th in ORtg, featured 3 all-stars, moved the ball like a champion (ball-movement is a key element in 99% of champions), and brought instant offense in House off the bench. The Spurs were even better -- 4th in ORtg in 07. Their ball movement in 05 and 07 was ridiculously good.

Great offense without any defense does not beat great defense with good offense. My point here is about individuals in general -- we must look at context and judge them according to defensive quality, but we must dock them if the performance dips too much. Unless you think it's OK for great offensive players to suddenly shoot 10-25 just because they're playing against great D.

[Sedale Threatt]

OK, It's about to get very nerdy.

Which is nerdier, though? That you took the time to do that, or that we're all going to treat it like a thesis paper?

Good job, BTW.

[Doctor MJ]

OK, It's about to get very nerdy. I've broken down the film for game 1 of the 09 ECF.

Very cool.

[Wile E. Coyote]

My final voting...

1. LeBron James
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Dwight Howard
4. Dwyane Wade
5. Dirk Nowitzki

I would have put Kobe in the #1 slot if he had a PER near 30 in the regular season, or LeBron had a subpar postseason. Neither happened. Even though Kobe took home the championship on 30/5/5 averages, and was my #1 postseason performer, it wasn't enough to overtake LeBron.

Dwight was good/great in both the regular season and postseason, so he deserves the 3rd spot.

Dwayne had a fantastic regular season, but not much of a postseason. Still better than Dirk, who takes the 5th spot.

Honorable mention: Tim Duncan

[semi-sentient]

Welp, haven't seen much to change my mind, so here's my overall rankings.

1) LeBron James
2) Kobe Bryant
3) Dwight Howard
4) Dwyane Wade
5) Dirk Nowitzki

Kobe's post-season success wasn't enough to overcome LeBron's entire body of work, and it'll be interesting when it comes to analyzing the 05-06 season where the same logic will apply to the Kobe vs. Wade debate.

[Silver Bullet]

Elgee, I just did the first 6 minutes of the 1rst quarter and I already found more missed rotations than you did the whole game. I know nobody would go through and read through the whole game, but read through these first 6 minutes, there's some interesting stuff.

Some Thoughts:

- Varejao is clearly the MVP of this team based on this sample of 6 minutes. I am in no way implying that he's anywhere close to as important as Lebron for the Cavaliers, just that he is for these 6 mins. I am not implying that you can extrapolate these 6 mins to the whole season. But that you can extrapolate the fact that Varejao has no box score impact. Nearly 90% of his game is not measured by the traditional box score. And some of it is not even measured by advanced metrics. For example, at one point he sets the perfect trap, exceptional rotation, Hedo has to throw a wild pass, that somehow finds it's mark. That play could've resulted in a layup, but that doesn't make Varejao's play any less important.

- Dwight Howard is pathetic on defense in this quarter. Which brings me to a more general point, a few months ago I was trying to run some regressions to figure out a correlation between box score stats and wins, and I kept getting a negative coefficient for blocks. It didn't make any sense to me. But not it's something I might look deeper into. In general, for every contest or blocked shot, he's missing about 10 rotations. And it's not because of something he's doing particularly wrong. Roaming in general introduces a whole lot of confusion.

- Lebron - I mean, it's fairly clear to me that Lebron guarding Alston is a horrible horrible strategy. It leaves them with a lot less size in the paint. Quite a few offensive rebounds could've been prevented, had Lebron been on Tukogulu. At the same time, he's doing a horrible job on Alston. Most of the time, he doesn't even know where Alston is. The problem is, I'm not sure I can blame Lebron for this. The defensive scheme is clearly designed for him to roam, and for the Cavaliers to gamble on Alston missing a lot of shots and making bad decisions. So I can't really penalize Lebron for his coach's shortcomings.

On to the play by play:

11:40 1st – Dwight Howard – Missed Rotation
First play of the game, Howard is roaming around, causes Z to get open, Rashard scrambles to cover Z, leaving Varejao wide open for the lay up. Howard should’ve picked up Varejao, but he was too busy concentrating on Lebron.
11:15 – Dwight Howard – Missed Rotation.
Second, possession of the game, Dwight again leaves his man Z to roam around. Lewis leaves Varejao just for a millisecond to shadow Z. Wide layup for Varejao, gets fouled, missed the layup.
10:25 – Dwight Howard – ½ a missed rotation
Third Posession - Dwight rotates over to Mo Williams on a dribble penetration, leaves his man Varejao open for a layup.
10:07 – Lebron James – ½ a missed rotation
Lebron leaves Alston to cover Lewis, leaves Alston open for a wide open 3. Lebron recovers late, but Alston misses.
9:49 – Lebron James/ Anderson Varejao – Basketball IQ
Lebron is doubled in the right corner, is trapped has nowhere to go. Varejao screens Turkogulu giving James an opening, Magic scramble to recover leaving Delonte West with a wide open 3.
Lebron gets an assist, Delonte gets a 3, but this play was all Varejao from start to finish. Unfortunately the box score impact of the play is nothing, as far as Varejao is concerned.
9.49 – Dwight Howard – missed rotation
Same play as above - Howard is roaming once again, doubles Lebron then recovers to no one in particular, Varejao ends up on Alston, Howard on no one, Alstons guy West has eons to get 3 off.
9.19 – Dwight Howard – ½ missed rotation
Howard again leaves Varejao wide open for the layup. Recovers just in time, to alter the shot. Z gets the rebound. Dunk. Again, this play was all Varejao, but the box score impact ? A missed field goal attempt, and 2 points and an offensive rebound for Z.
8.55 – Anderson Varejao – excellent rotation
Traps Turkogulu on a surprise double under the basket – Turnover. Again, no boxscore impact.
8.36 – Anderson Varejao – Basketball IQ
Excellent screen to trap Turkogulu. His man West has eons to launch of a 3. Box Score impact: none
8:36 – Dwight Howard – missed rotation
So far, Dwight has been responsible for the Cavaliers scoring every single time. This time, he leaves Varejao, to just protect the lane (no dribble penetration). Varejao is free to screen Hedo, and there’s no one to switch to Delonte because Howard is all the way under the basket.
7.28 – Lebron James – 2 missed rotations
Lebron is nowhere on this play, his man is Alston, but there is no one on him. Mo Williams hustles to cover Alston on the pass out and then hustles to cover his man, Lee on the pass. All the while, Lebron is not guarding any one on the floor.
7:28 – Anderson Varejao – Excellent rotation
Traps Turkogulu under the bucket. Turkogulu has to make a wild pass to get to Alston. No box score impact.
7:18 – Lebron James – Excessive dribbling
That description is not quite accurate, because Lebron was not dribbling. He just held on to the ball from 7:18 to 7:07 without doing anything – Missed Jumper.
6:39 – Anderson Varejao – Exceptional Screen.
Frees up Mo Williams for what should be an open jumper.
6:39 –Dwight Howard – Good rotation
Dwight Howard recovers in time to contest the jumper.
6:14 – Lebron James – Missed Rotation
Lebron is playing about 8 feet off Alston. When Alston gets the pass, he has to rush towards Alston, which makes it impossible to change direction. Alston blows by him. Excellent rotation and contest by Varejao.