2019-2020 Player of the Year Discussion Thread

[Colbinii]

LMAO WHAT!


Perimiter defenders are auto disqualified from being anything more than complimentary pieces defensively.

Not even engaging with this...

Then why did you quote me?

I understand the desire to reach into E-Balla's mind but over the past week it has been diluting this board.

[E-Balla]

Not even engaging with this...

Then why did you quote me?

I understand the desire to reach into E-Balla's mind but over the past week it has been diluting this board.

Watch on YouTube

[Krodis]

I think Kawhi is getting way too much credit.

[ardee]

Is the case against Davis really just plus-minus? He's at 27/9/3 with 4 combined blocks/steals and people in this thread are admitting he's at worst 2nd in the DPoY race. He's missed only 7 out of 53 games for a 41-12 team.

People give '05 KG the benefit of the doubt with his negative plus-minus so I just don't get it. Do people think Davis really isn't helping the team? I'm trying to keep an open mind so I'd like someone to break it down for me.

Out of the top 5 I can understand... but out of the top 10?

[70sFan]

Is the case against Davis really just plus-minus? He's at 27/9/3 with 4 combined blocks/steals and people in this thread are admitting he's at worst 2nd in the DPoY race. He's missed only 7 out of 53 games for a 41-12 team.

People give '05 KG the benefit of the doubt with his negative plus-minus so I just don't get it. Do people think Davis really isn't helping the team? I'm trying to keep an open mind so I'd like someone to break it down for me.

Out of the top 5 I can understand... but out of the top 10?

I don't see any case against him in top 10. He's been playing well, maybe a bit underwhelming to already too high expectations, while being in second best team in the league.

[ardee]

Is the case against Davis really just plus-minus? He's at 27/9/3 with 4 combined blocks/steals and people in this thread are admitting he's at worst 2nd in the DPoY race. He's missed only 7 out of 53 games for a 41-12 team.

People give '05 KG the benefit of the doubt with his negative plus-minus so I just don't get it. Do people think Davis really isn't helping the team? I'm trying to keep an open mind so I'd like someone to break it down for me.

Out of the top 5 I can understand... but out of the top 10?

I don't see any case against him in top 10. He's been playing well, maybe a bit underwhelming to already too high expectations, while being in second best team in the league.

Yet there's multiple people who don't have him there... hell some barely in the top 15. Crazy.

Clearly he's behind Giannis and LeBron. I'd probably take Kawhi over him, he's only played 4 less games and he's putting up silly numbers.

After that you've got Jokic, Lillard, Harden and Doncic whom I think you can argue with him. Personally I'd only take Jokic over him for sure. So that puts AD in the 5-8 range.

I see absolutely no reason to have him under Butler, Gobert, Westbrook, Siakam, Tatum or Paul.

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[E-Balla]

Is the case against Davis really just plus-minus? He's at 27/9/3 with 4 combined blocks/steals and people in this thread are admitting he's at worst 2nd in the DPoY race. He's missed only 7 out of 53 games for a 41-12 team.

People give '05 KG the benefit of the doubt with his negative plus-minus so I just don't get it. Do people think Davis really isn't helping the team? I'm trying to keep an open mind so I'd like someone to break it down for me.

Just want to butt in here and say I hate this form of analysis. The off court part isn't that relevant but the on court part totally is. The Lakers are a +5.9 team with Davis on the floor, and I'll give him credit for that, but not for the Lakers being a 41-12 team due to playing at a +8.9 level when he's on the bench. Not saying the team is better without him totally, but they're a +5.9 team with him on the floor so I'm not giving him any boost for doing what he's doing on a team winning more than (for example because he has a similar net rating) Miami who is playing at a +5.6 level with Jimmy on the floor. Both guys' teams play at the same level with them on the floor so I'm not going to say Davis is leading his team to more success than Jimmy. They're leading their teams to the same level of success.

Now if you think he's the second best defender in the league your perspective makes sense. I don't see him as the best defender on the team though with throwback LeBron showing up and playing more defense than he has since probably 2013.

Yet there's multiple people who don't have him there... hell some barely in the top 15. Crazy.

Clearly he's behind Giannis and LeBron. I'd probably take Kawhi over him, he's only played 4 less games and he's putting up silly numbers.

After that you've got Jokic, Lillard, Harden and Doncic whom I think you can argue with him. Personally I'd only take Jokic over him for sure. So that puts AD in the 5-8 range.

I see absolutely no reason to have him under Butler,

About Butler I'm at the point where I've admitted I'm way higher on him than anyone else and that's fine. I've been arguing Butler as a legit superstar since 2017 when he was still in Chicago and I felt he combined his defense from his per star career with his star level offense. Butler, in my opinion, is superior defensively and on the same level as Davis has been offensively this season. I've been really disappointed in AD as a playmaker this year and I don't see him bringing much value outside of his buckets. Meanwhile Jimmy's shot has been MIA in MIA but he's running the point and doing a great job at it leading Miami to a 112.9 ORTG while he's on the court. AD has a 112.3 ORTG while out there, a 113.5 with LeBron on the court and an abysmal 103.5 without LeBron on the court (I've been complaining about his playmaking but before looking those numbers up just now I didn't realize how serious of an issue it was, sheesh).

Gobert,

I don't think AD would be worse if he was playing Gobert's role but he's grown out of that and is a first option now. If he's failing at being a first option when LeBron hits the bench, and that's a major part of his role it's a negative against him in comparison to Gobert who keeps his same role no matter what and abuses teams for 3-4 easy momentum changing dunks a game. So I'd say he's BETTER than Gobert but he's not having a better season.

Westbrook,

Agreed here. AD is still 13th on my personal list with my top 10 being posted earlier, Gobert being the 1st out, Luka being 2nd, and AD being 3rd. After them I don't think anyone is in contention for top 10, unless Westbrook can undo the first quarter of the season.

Siakam,

I explained this earlier and think it was a valid argument. If you don't see the logic how do you analyze these two so far this year?

Tatum

Tune in last night? Tatum is a **** monster on defense. He's just as important to their +3 offensive success as Kemba (Kemba - Tatum has a 110 ORTG and Tatum - Kemba has a 109) and he's also anchoring their -4 defense at the same time. Boston is +12 with Tatum on the floor without Kemba, +13 when he's out there without JB, +14 when he's out there without Smart, and +8 when he's out there without Hayward. Basically the only reason they're the 3rd best team in the league by SRS is because of Tatum and the team comes and goes with him. Terence Davis is the only non Milwaukee player that's "winning" more than Tatum per possession. Right under him is Kawhi who he just schooled last night.

Now I understand you might think I'm relying on net rating too much but I'm just using net rating to get it across that when Tatum is out there Boston looks better than any team in the league not named Milwaukee.

or Paul.

Another one that showed why he should be highly regarded just last night. He missed a bunch of open looks from midrange he usually drains (he's 52% from every area of the floor outside of the restricted area and inside the 3 point line) and only had 14/12 which is good but not great production but (and I haven't looked at the boxscore since I watched the game so his +/- might've been nothing special and I'd look like an **** ) it seemed like every time he was on the floor he controlled the pace completely taking the Pelicans insanely fast playstyle completely out of the game (they have a 107 pace with Zion) by limiting team turnovers (IIRC they had 5 turnovers through the halfway point of the 3rd) and gave his team easy opportunities to convert buckets offensively while playing very good defense (even doing his best to guard Zion on a few postups lol). They just look like a well oiled machine when he's out there and if they had a better bench I could see OKC contending because their top lineups led by Paul are killer. Their 3 guard lineup (Dennis, Paul, SGA) might be the best in the league it seems like they're a damn cheat code.

EDIT: I looked it up. Guess what the top 3 man lineup over 300 minutes is? CP3+Schroder+SGA at a whopping +29.4. The next best lineup not featuring CP3+Schroder is Matthews+Bledsoe+Giannis at +19.8. Remember OKC opened the season 8-12 but since then they've been closer to the contenders than the pack. I'd probably take them in a series over a team like Denver. Curry+Iggy+Klay in 2016 (their best high minute/over 500 minute 3 man lineup) was +29.0. That 3 PG lineup is going to cause trouble for any team overlooking them going forward.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Then why did you quote me?

I understand the desire to reach into E-Balla's mind but over the past week it has been diluting this board.

Watch on YouTube

Bro i f*cking love u lmao

[MyUniBroDavis]

On Davis, not gonna get hella into that but while it doesnt explain everything some of it is probably noise related, and iirc PIPM is the only plus minus stat that does luck adjustment

According to nbawowy, opponents ft% with davis on the court is 80.4% and 74.1% with him off of it. Asjusting for that alone makes him a net positive on defense in plus minus, and then we can get into lineups

Id say noise is a big thing here tbh. Out of 465 minutes with AD on and Lebron off, cook or rondo Take 378/465 of the minutes.

But the samples are so small in pretty much every example that that a single run from three that exist on one side and not on the other could heavily skew the results, and theres a huge amount of variance overall

Example, (nbawowy is wonky rn so im just gonna do Rough numbers)

Davis in, Rondo and Bron out is at around 109 ish offensive rtg, 108.5 ish once you do ft adjustments.

The counterpoint would be bron and rondo play alot of their minutes together too, but lebron and rondo togher davis out has a defensive rtg of 102, while lebron with davis and rondo out have a rtg of 110

Theres a good deal more to it but the lakers themselves have just been inconsistent from D from a player perspective as well (kuz can go from great one game to trash the next, rondo randomly plays hella good D, green lowkey has been overall good but had some horrible games defensively, KCP is either a world beater or a Middle schooler on defense, etc) that lineup data is just kind of hard in this case imo, not to mention raw on-off
Is difficult and sample sizes are small, but there does seem to be evidence of "luck" here at least to some extent.

RAPM and RPM dont do luck adjustments, only PIPM does iirc but it also includes more of a box score component iirc but im not sure. More than that though, i dont think they could measure player variance game to game and player fit all too well, altho i dont know them on a deep enough level to tell (like a player being inconsistent in some lineups). Also, the lakers pretty much always play with either Mcgee, Davis, or Howard on the floor.

Granted in the 36 minutes without them they did pretty well on defense but again its such a small sample to take any convincing data from imo.

I feel thats important since all three have been incredible rim protectors this year (even mcgee after a slow start) so itd be hard to capture their impact individually just cuz i feel there would be a bit of sharing or whatever if that makes sense (like if for example howard or mcgee were replaced with average joes the defense would come crashing down with davis off the court for an extended period of time)

In terms of AD and being a first option, its just hard because the lakers probably have straight up the worst playmaking in the league when lebron sits lol. Rondo overthinks stuff but hes pretty much the only perimeter guy with any vision or ability to pass, the others are really bad playmakers and for a primarily off ball guy like AD it just doesnt work well. Granted, he hasnt absolutely sucked in the role or anything but the spacing just sucks with him off the floor

Defensively while i agree his impact throughout a game isnt the same level as the likes of gobert or giannis, he does have an extra gear he goes to in close games, and in blowouts he does tend to just pack it in at some points in either direction which i dont think is a huge deal but definately wont help his plus minus data

In terms of setup this team is pretty much built in a way that they can survive without AD but cant without Lebron. I dont really think knocking AD for that is fair because its a roster construction thing. (Example, if alternativey the team was a team with an abundance of playmaking but a lack of a rim protector or had only slow unathletic big men AD would have hella impact, while lebrons probably would be diminished a great deal).


An extra thing, clearly AD isn't willing to hit a level of physicality untill the playoffs. Considering theyve had first seed on lockdown since basically the beginning and the only team thats a Big threat to them is an auto homecourt advantage anywa, Id weight playoffs for him more than anything else, more so than most other players. Outside of Lebron and Giannis The 3-10 spots are just really close lol, i dont know criteria for player of the season voting really well but I could definately see an srgument for him being the third best player in the league, although i dont think hes had the third best season lol

[bondom34]

FYI:

http://nbashotcharts.com/rapm?id=-538967205

LA-RAPM, Davis does get a bump.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Wait whats the difference between luck adjusted rapm and pipm?

[bondom34]

Wait whats the difference between luck adjusted rapm and pipm?

Pretty sure PIPM has some box score stuff in it too, and player tracking. I'm not a fan of the tracking data in anything (I don't like the new RPM or RAPTOR much at all, definitely defensively). LA-RAPM is RAPM with these changes from Ryan Davis's twitter (and hes a good follow too):

Read on Twitter

[MyUniBroDavis]

Wait whats the difference between luck adjusted rapm and pipm?

Pretty sure PIPM has some box score stuff in it too, and player tracking. I'm not a fan of the tracking data in anything (I don't like the new RPM or RAPTOR much at all, definitely defensively). LA-RAPM is RAPM with these changes from Ryan Davis's twitter (and hes a good follow too):

Read on Twitter

Idt theres tracking data in it but there does look like theres a box score component

https://fansided.com/2018/01/11/nylon-calculus-introducing-player-impact-plus-minus/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Would it just be some box score and luck adjustment then?

Edit: wait does pipm even use lineup data

[bondom34]

Wait whats the difference between luck adjusted rapm and pipm?

Pretty sure PIPM has some box score stuff in it too, and player tracking. I'm not a fan of the tracking data in anything (I don't like the new RPM or RAPTOR much at all, definitely defensively). LA-RAPM is RAPM with these changes from Ryan Davis's twitter (and hes a good follow too):

Read on Twitter

Idt theres tracking data in it but there does look like theres a box score component

https://fansided.com/2018/01/11/nylon-calculus-introducing-player-impact-plus-minus/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Would it just be some box score and luck adjustment then?

Edit: wait does pipm even use lineup data

I don't think so, think it's just luck adjusted on/off w/ a box prior.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Pretty sure PIPM has some box score stuff in it too, and player tracking. I'm not a fan of the tracking data in anything (I don't like the new RPM or RAPTOR much at all, definitely defensively). LA-RAPM is RAPM with these changes from Ryan Davis's twitter (and hes a good follow too):

Read on Twitter

Idt theres tracking data in it but there does look like theres a box score component

https://fansided.com/2018/01/11/nylon-calculus-introducing-player-impact-plus-minus/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Would it just be some box score and luck adjustment then?

Edit: wait does pipm even use lineup data

I don't think so, think it's just luck adjusted on/off w/ a box prior.

Wow well screw that lmao

On the luck adjusted rapm, is it the same data as others? Kobes 2013 wasnt third in offensive rapm in the other one I found

Also one thing about luck adjustments that bother me, it assumes that a player cant effect team three point percentage and idk if I agree with that, idk if it adjusts for openness but even in terms of delivering it to the shot pocket and stuff like that, ditto on defense in terms of a teams defensive scheme possibly changing with certain players being on or off the court

If it doesnt adjust for openness (and idt it using any tracking data, altho tracking data itself is flawed, also qrong) then idk about that part of luck adjustment (i totally like the ft portion of it though).

Like giannis for example i feel isnt the best at kicking it to that shot pocket, and in terms of mvp giannis luck adjustment boosts him an insane amount

[E-Balla]

This whole 3 point defense is luck crap is annoying. Are defensive midrange shooting percentages luck? Do we need to adjust for that?

[MyUniBroDavis]

This whole 3 point defense is luck crap is annoying. Are defensive midrange shooting percentages luck? Do we need to adjust for that?

It’s apparently not even more accurate than no luck adjustment either. Since fts are fine, that means the three point defense is prolly BS

I get what it’s trying to do but it does it in a pretty dumb way lol

[bondom34]

Idt theres tracking data in it but there does look like theres a box score component

https://fansided.com/2018/01/11/nylon-calculus-introducing-player-impact-plus-minus/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Would it just be some box score and luck adjustment then?

Edit: wait does pipm even use lineup data

I don't think so, think it's just luck adjusted on/off w/ a box prior.

Wow well screw that lmao

On the luck adjusted rapm, is it the same data as others? Kobes 2013 wasnt third in offensive rapm in the other one I found

Also one thing about luck adjustments that bother me, it assumes that a player cant effect team three point percentage and idk if I agree with that, idk if it adjusts for openness but even in terms of delivering it to the shot pocket and stuff like that, ditto on defense in terms of a teams defensive scheme possibly changing with certain players being on or off the court

If it doesnt adjust for openness (and idt it using any tracking data, altho tracking data itself is flawed, also qrong) then idk about that part of luck adjustment (i totally like the ft portion of it though).

Like giannis for example i feel isnt the best at kicking it to that shot pocket, and in terms of mvp giannis luck adjustment boosts him an insane amount

I'd disagree, there have been a few studies on it and its been a lot more luck effected than anything else. I don't think Nikola Vucevic is making an opponent shoot 10% worse on 3s some seasons for example. I also know offhand this year Kanter is benefiting a ton from it, and Schroder's DRAPM is really inflated. Last I checked he's been well ahead of CP3 in some metrics on defense because there's about a 10% gap in 3 point shooting (and a big FT% difference) depending on who's on court.

Also tracking data on 3s has been.....very spotty? at best. Partnow's already said basically the data on players being "guarded by" someone has been off. Something akin to if you're being guarded by Robert Covington but drive past him and PJ Tucker contests the shot, NBA.com classifies it as being guarded by Tucker, even though he wasn't at fault. The only real spot that data works is maybe for rim protection, but:

https://fansided.com/2018/01/29/nylon-calculus-3-point-team-defense-closure/

Let’s get into the meat of the issue. The core problem is that most 3-pointers are open shots, and open shots inherently can’t be influenced by the defense. They’re open. It’s the same reason why we shouldn’t use individual defensive field goal percentage — the open shot data tells you nothing. Likewise, rim protection stats are actually useful because most of those shots are not open and, thus, can be influenced by the defender. It’s a basic law of shot defense: the closer you are, the more you can influence the shot.

And the original idea was from Pomeroy (college ball, but the point holds), which I'd generally agree w/ too:

https://theathletic.com/720048/2018/12/18/kenpom-shooting-and-defending-the-3-is-random-business-i-e-relax-its-early/

We can get a little more complex by constructing a regression model to predict a team’s 3-point defense the rest of the season based on its first nine games. Taking the last three seasons collectively, the result is that early season 3-point defense is not completely inconsequential, but nearly so. For every 1 percent that a team’s early season 3-point defense improves, its defense the rest of the season improves by 0.10 percent. Do not read that as 10 percent, but one-10th of a percent. Not nothing, but close to it. To illustrate, here’s a plot of a team’s 3-point defense over the first nine games and then the remainder of the season. It’s not a completely random scattering of data, but it’s close. There’s just very little predictive value in a team’s early 3-point defense numbers.

Spoiler:

This isn’t to say that 3-point defense doesn’t exist. If a team made its only priority defending the rim, say, by keeping all five defenders in the paint on every possession, opponents would shoot an impressive percentage from beyond the arc. But assuming a realistic defensive approach, shooters are going to avoid taking 3s with somebody draped all over them. Thus, defenses have much more influence on whether a 3 will be taken at all than whether a shot goes in once it’s airborne.The results are very similar. In fact, there’s slightly more utility to the 2-point defense data. Play a team with a very good 2-point defense and you are liable to struggle on 3-point shooting as well. Likewise, if a team plays an opponent that has allowed a high 2-point percentage, its 3-point shooting is also likely to improve. In order to get an idea of how a team might shoot from 3 on a particular night, its opponent’s 2-point defense is a slightly more useful indicator than its opponent’s 3-point defense. In part, that’s because 3-point defense is subjected to more randomness.

Basically it's not all luck, but there's a fair amount at times, and going off of no luck is assuming that contesting a 3 really has that big an effect. Know I've gone back and forth w/ a few at times on this a while back, but basically I think its a lot more luck than some do, and don't at all trust or believe most of the tracking defense other than maybe for "wide open" 3s or rim protection, other than that it's basically useless because these guys can shoot if you're still somewhat close to them.

[70sFan]

Defense is so hard to evaluate that I stopped searching for one stat to measure it. The only way to rate defense is to watch tons of footage with paying attention to everything and trying to find good and bad tendencies. It's still very flawed because everyone has subjective feeling on what is positive and what not, but I think that you can't do that any better with defense in basketball.

[bondom34]

Defense is so hard to evaluate that I stopped searching for one stat to measure it. The only way to rate defense is to watch tons of footage with paying attention to everything and trying to find good and bad tendencies. It's still very flawed because everyone has subjective feeling on what is positive and what not, but I think that you can't do that any better with defense in basketball.

Mostly agree here too but think you need some of both. Like, I don't totally buy into eye test for everything (I'm no professional at it, and even pros don't know everything when watching), but just looking at a single metric and using it to judge isn't really a great idea either. If in looking I'd generally use a mix of metrics along with trying to watch a guy, but just speaking to the luck adjustment here.