All-Season Player of the Year Discussion thread

[ceiling raiser]

EvanZ shared his final NPI numbers:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15MC363clKjI6CmarLcSBV92xu45nrWG7BxkjBlTR4SE/htmlview?pli=1

I asked J.E. if he could update his multi-year set in the APBR thread, so maybe he'll link it as well.

[SideshowBob]

EvanZ shared his final NPI numbers:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15MC363clKjI6CmarLcSBV92xu45nrWG7BxkjBlTR4SE/htmlview?pli=1

I asked J.E. if he could update his multi-year set in the APBR thread, so maybe he'll link it as well.

Awesome.

Just a note to all, the multi-year from last year and the one that will be posted for this year are not the same as JE's old PI sets or the gotbuckets PI sets. They are straight up 2-year RAPM sets with more weight given to the current year, and thus the scales are a bit different from the PI sets (so no room for a 1:1 comparison). However JE claims that they should roughly align with the PI sets in terms of predictive power.

[JLei]

EvanZ shared his final NPI numbers:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15MC363clKjI6CmarLcSBV92xu45nrWG7BxkjBlTR4SE/htmlview?pli=1

I asked J.E. if he could update his multi-year set in the APBR thread, so maybe he'll link it as well.

Awesome.

Just a note to all, the multi-year from last year and the one that will be posted for this year are not the same as JE's old PI sets or the gotbuckets PI sets. They are straight up 2-year RAPM sets with more weight given to the current year, and thus the scales are a bit different from the PI sets (so no room for a 1:1 comparison). However JE claims that they should roughly align with the PI sets in terms of predictive power.

Post Finals any changes on what you think of Currys O/D split?

Is his offensive peak still above the Kobe, Dirk, Durant level for you and did you change anything with regards to his defense?

Also Bron's given what you saw? It's hard to reconcile what this Finals was just because of how strange the circumstances were other than I do know that Lebron is definitely a superior player while still admiring Curry's ridiculous offensive impact in terms of bending the defense.

[SideshowBob]

Post Finals any changes on what you think of Currys O/D split?

Nope. Same with Lebron.

Is his offensive peak still above the Kobe, Dirk, Durant level for you and did you change anything with regards to his defense?

Yeah I think so, maybe I'm bullish but I'm not going to strictly argue against anyone who disagrees, there's closeness amongst those guys. But Love-less Cleveland looked like a really strong defensive team, and the degree to which that defense had to contort to try and deter him was pretty dramatic, and even that wasn't entirely effective over the 6 games (Lebron got gassed by game 6 though) GSW managed a ~109 ORTG anyway. I'm definitely still high on the dude; that he can be stopped in a particular manner isn't really a significant relative knock, everyone can be stopped somehow or another and I'm not convinced that there's some aspect of Curry's game that makes this easier than other offensive greats.

Also Bron's given what you saw? It's hard to reconcile what this Finals was just because of how strange the circumstances were other than I do know that Lebron is definitely a superior player while still admiring Curry's ridiculous offensive impact in terms of bending the defense.

Yeah not much difference on Lebron either. Offensively the biggest decline was the jumpshot (and that's pretty major coming off a season like 2014, ability to space the floor via pullup/spotup, punish defenses on load-up/drop/going under, weak/no counter in the post). Handle in traffic is a bit weaker, but that might just look worse circumstantially - I've thought this has been a problem since 2011, not just now. Overall his offensive dropoff is substantial, but not as big as 2010->2011 IMO. We've discussed his defense extensively though, and by the late postseason he looked like a DPOY caliber wing (not last night though) and sustaining that at his MPG is quite different than doing it for low 30s. Overall O+D I don't think there's a big dropoff from 14.

[Doctor MJ]

But the reality is that it wasn't a blow out. I agree the Warriors were and should have been overwhelming favorites. But in the NBA if you can keep it close and you have a great player you are still in the game.

Warriors are very much worthy champions and a great great team. But the Cavs did my hook and by crook manage to make it a tough series. And considering that through 3 games the only time the Warriors closed out a period ahead was the end of OT in game 1, its hard for me to call it a blow out. Cavs held the lead a lot in this series.

In the RS it makes a lot of sense to look at the season as a whole. Or even at the end to look at a team's PS as a whole. But in a series you really have to look at each game individually imo. And only once did Cleveland not have a reasonable shot of winning. I just don't see how you can call it a blowout when that is the case.

And yeah we look at it differently--obviously. I look at what actually happened. You look at a statistical summery and talk about what is expected to happen. I understand that, but can't personally look it at that way when these 2 teams will only meet this one time. It's why winning championships is such a big deal. You only get one shot(said in Eminem voice --sorry but as I type it that's all I hear).

I think it's helpful if we step away from verbal descriptions here, and focus on the numbers.

A typical finals sees one team outscore the other by well under 5 points per 100 possessions.
The Warriors outscored the Cavaliers by FAR more than that, and notably: The Cavs were a bizarre team that the Warriors had to get used to, once they did, they won the rest of the games quite decisively.

Is this a blowout? I don't know. What I do know is that there's really no reason to look at the Cavs in the end as being considerably more impressive than the rest of the Warriors' opponents. Similarly outscored overall, and the only reason for an edge at all is because of what happened early on in the Finals.

I look at that and tend to call that "respectable, but not truly close".

As to a narrative that says it was closer than the final score, I mean, the reason why you felt it was close in any given game is that the Warriors destroyed the Cavs once crunch time hit. I'm not one of these guys who only focuses on crunch time, but to me calling double digits wins "close" in this scenario is to essentially call the 4th quarter somehow unimportant compared to earlier quarter. I don't get that.

[Doctor MJ]

In terms of thoughts on my Top 5, I'm pretty dead set on Curry as my #1, but 2-4 I'm not sure of. In the RS that was Harden, Paul, LeBron. I have a definite urge to move LeBron up to #2, but I'm not sure if it's warranted.

Davis is my #5, and he's amazing, but I think it's premature to elevate him further.

[Doctor MJ]

EvanZ shared his final NPI numbers:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15MC363clKjI6CmarLcSBV92xu45nrWG7BxkjBlTR4SE/htmlview?pli=1

I asked J.E. if he could update his multi-year set in the APBR thread, so maybe he'll link it as well.

So the obvious thing to ponder there: Curry looks great...but Draymond Green looks even better.

I've never seriously considered Green for a spot in my voting this year. I intend to give him a Top 10 spot when I include my Honorable Mention, but the Top 5 is just too strong...

but I think it's worth asking whether that's just cognitive dissonance in me talking.

Oddly, I felt a little bit more compelled to focus on Green's RAPM case when he didn't have such a giant lead. Now that he actually rates ahead of Curry by ORAPM, I basically feel forced to chalk up the situation to some kind of bias because I can't wrap my head around it. But again, that's me telling you what I intend to do, not justifying why it's the right thing to do. I'd like to see others' thoughts on this.

[Doctor MJ]

As for the voting. Here's what I'm thinking:

Voting thread posted on Friday, and voting will be open for 1 week.

Open to suggestions on this.

[fuzzy_dunlop]

^
just multicollinearity IMO, I want JE 2 post his stabilized numbers, this NPI is just not good enough 2 make me seriously reconsider any player evaluations.

[Texas Chuck]

Spoiler:

But the reality is that it wasn't a blow out. I agree the Warriors were and should have been overwhelming favorites. But in the NBA if you can keep it close and you have a great player you are still in the game.

Warriors are very much worthy champions and a great great team. But the Cavs did my hook and by crook manage to make it a tough series. And considering that through 3 games the only time the Warriors closed out a period ahead was the end of OT in game 1, its hard for me to call it a blow out. Cavs held the lead a lot in this series.

In the RS it makes a lot of sense to look at the season as a whole. Or even at the end to look at a team's PS as a whole. But in a series you really have to look at each game individually imo. And only once did Cleveland not have a reasonable shot of winning. I just don't see how you can call it a blowout when that is the case.

And yeah we look at it differently--obviously. I look at what actually happened. You look at a statistical summery and talk about what is expected to happen. I understand that, but can't personally look it at that way when these 2 teams will only meet this one time. It's why winning championships is such a big deal. You only get one shot(said in Eminem voice --sorry but as I type it that's all I hear).

I think it's helpful if we step away from verbal descriptions here, and focus on the numbers.

A typical finals sees one team outscore the other by well under 5 points per 100 possessions.
The Warriors outscored the Cavaliers by FAR more than that, and notably: The Cavs were a bizarre team that the Warriors had to get used to, once they did, they won the rest of the games quite decisively.

Is this a blowout? I don't know. What I do know is that there's really no reason to look at the Cavs in the end as being considerably more impressive than the rest of the Warriors' opponents. Similarly outscored overall, and the only reason for an edge at all is because of what happened early on in the Finals.

I look at that and tend to call that "respectable, but not truly close".

As to a narrative that says it was closer than the final score, I mean, the reason why you felt it was close in any given game is that the Warriors destroyed the Cavs once crunch time hit. I'm not one of these guys who only focuses on crunch time, but to me calling double digits wins "close" in this scenario is to essentially call the 4th quarter somehow unimportant compared to earlier quarter. I don't get that

.

yeah as I told Dr. S, the point is to win each game. So I don't add any extra credit in other games due to a blowout in one. So with the first 3 games all being played very closely--to the point the Warriors weren't leading at any quarter break and with every game save one close--I'm just not comfortable with calling it a blowout.

Again, I understand you and Dr. S look at things way differently. But once we get to the Finals my primary concern is getting 4 out of 7 by whatever means possible. If I win 4 games by 1 point and you win 3 by 25 I'm still the champ. It's not golf where you play 4 rounds and best cummulative total wins.

And those games are close. Games always end with the 4th quarter. There is nothing arbitrary about saying games that are close after 3/4 have been played are rarely blowouts. Especially since those games were all close with well under 12 minutes to go. I think its odd that you think singling out the 4th quarter is a mistake but are willing to take just a couple minutes in a couple of games and then average out those points over 6 games and label it a blowout.

I won't belabor this because this is another one of those issues where my perspective is far different from most here.

[Onus]

The FMVP to me is the same as the Rose MVP debate. The Ws won the series on the back of the defense, which was anchored by fantastic play from Iggy. The offense, which was meh for most of the 6 games, was run by Curry. If you're giving it to Curry you're just saying the exact same thing so many rail against on D. Rose's 2011 MVP. Curry had a wonderful season, but Iguodala deserved this award.

To add, net ratings:

Curry: +2
Iggy: +17

He played similar minutes and outshot Curry from 3. Yes, I get that Curry got him some looks, but he was still the one who hit them.

Can’t agree with that analogy at all. For one thing, the Warriors 108 ORTG is still very good. And secondly, with the Cavs personnel I don’t think the Warriors defense is some kind of outlier.

Curry’s case for MVP here is the same as it always was: him being on the floor changes everything about what the defense does. There’s really no precedence for a guy being trapped and doubled on the PNR every single possession. The Cavs put every ounce of energy into stopping Curry and dared someone else to beat them. That Iggy did is awesome, but the Warriors can replace his role much more easily than they could Curry.

This isn't getting enough recognition.

The Cavs essentially played Iguodala like he was Tony Allen, except that he's not Tony Allen and the only reason they did that was because they were willingly doubling Curry out to the half court. Curry would draw the double take a few back up dribbles and release it to the open player allowing the Warriors to play 4v3 essentially every time down. When a defense is willing to send 2 defenders damn near to the half court line to stop someone from getting up a shot, you are an offensive force unlike any other. That's just unheard of.

Sure the Warriors win because of their swarming defense, but we're allowed to play those defenders because Curry draws so much attention on offense that these defensive players become viable offensive threats with these 4v3 opportunities.

[bondom34]

^^

To Chuck's point, there are different schools of thought on the margin of victory, and in the RS it may help predict some things, but in the postseason, its really not as big a deal. As well, most games being close late and falling apart in the final minutes to a quarter is entirely different than a blowout that seems to be getting portrayed. The series was pretty competetive in most people's eyes from what I've seen, as well as the fact that after game 1 when Irving went out, everyone game the Cavs at best a game. They took 2, and kept all except 1 of the losses pretty close.

[Dr Spaceman]

Quoting myself from a thread I just made. It's relevant here.

Hey there.

So because I'm interested in this stuff, I went back through basketball-reference and took the ORTG-DRTG differential (Margin of Victory per 100 possessions) of every NBA Champion back to 2000 and every Jordan champ. I also sorted some of the most impressive individual series for your viewing pleasure.

Team Rankings

Spoiler:

1. 2001 LAL +57.9
2. 1996 CHI +46.9
3. 1991 CHI +44.4
4. 2014 SAS +43.1
5. 2013 MIA +35.7
6. 1998 CHI +34.8
7. 1992 CHI +34.1
8. 2012 MIA +33.6
9. 1993 CHI +33.4
10. 2015 GSW +32.7
11. 2009 LAL +32.4
12. 2004 DET +31.6
13. 2011 DAL +29.5
14. 1997 CHI +27.2
15. 2003 SAS +24.4
16. 2008 BOS +24.2
17. 2005 SAS +21.3
18. 2007 SAS +21.0
19. 2002 LAL +20.6
20. 2006 MIA +17.4
21. 2000 LAL +12.7
22. 2010 LAL +8.3

Some quick takes:
-Pretty clearly 2001 Lakers are in a class all by themselves. Followed by 2 Bulls teams and the 14 Spurs, and then the peloton.
- The Lakers obliterated the Spurs so badly I thought I had to be making a mistake. I knew it wasn't a close series, but they were +24.7 in that CF series. Bump it down to a more reasonable +16.0 (the Spurs MOV against the Heat) and they trail both Bulls teams and the Spurs
- Teams are clearly trending upward.
-Golden State looks worse than I thought they would.
-2010 Lakers are by far the worst champ. Not even close. The Celtics and Suns might have objectively been better teams those years, strange as it is to say.

10 Largest MOV in CF and Finals series

Spoiler:

1. 2001 LAL>SAS +24.7
2. 1996 CHI>ORL +19.6
3. 2014 SAS>MIA +16.0
4. 1991 CHI>DET +13.1
5. 1991 CHI>LAL +11.2
6. 2014 SAS>OKC +11.1
7. 2004 DET>LAL +10.6
8. 2009 LAL>ORL +10.3
9. 2002 LAL>NJN +10.1
10. 1998 CHI>UTA +9.4

-91 Bulls were a team possessed. They got better against elite competition.
-Jordan's Bulls were mostly bumslayers, racking up huge deficits against weak teams but then not looking much stronger than a typical title winner in the later rounds. Exceptions for the orlando and Utah series, of course.
-LeBron's Miami teams were bumslayers, with no qualifications. They obliterated every 1st and second round matchup but barely squeaked by the latter rounds (they "lost" the 2013 Finals)
-That Lakers/Spurs series. I don't even know what to say.

[HeartBreakKid]

He was short on every one of those jumpers. It was clear throughout the entire game that he just didn't have anything left. No other reason to be calling J.R. isos in the 4th.
.

What about the other games? His shot sucked through out the series, and even prior to the playoffs. His legs not being underneath him isn't why he shot so poorly from down town.

[Dr Spaceman]

He was short on every one of those jumpers. It was clear throughout the entire game that he just didn't have anything left. No other reason to be calling J.R. isos in the 4th.
.

What about the other games? His shot sucked through out the series, and even prior to the playoffs. His legs not being underneath him isn't why he shot so poorly from down town.

Yeah, his jumper was broken all playoffs. It's a fair thing to bring up.

It's also just not a big deal as I'm concerned. It didn't stop him from getting literally anywhere he wanted on the court with his post/iso game, and for the role he took on he had more than enough to be spectacular at it. Maybe this makes him a worse offensive player than his 2014 self, although I don't remember his post game being quite this effective (SSB?), and the advanced jumper would've certainly been a boon if he had a healthy team. But in the POY thread we're concerned with what actually happened here, and if a flaw isn't big enough that it makes a guy legitimately stoppable, it's just not worth bringing up to me.

[Dr Spaceman]

EvanZ shared his final NPI numbers:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15MC363clKjI6CmarLcSBV92xu45nrWG7BxkjBlTR4SE/htmlview?pli=1

I asked J.E. if he could update his multi-year set in the APBR thread, so maybe he'll link it as well.

So the obvious thing to ponder there: Curry looks great...but Draymond Green looks even better.

I've never seriously considered Green for a spot in my voting this year. I intend to give him a Top 10 spot when I include my Honorable Mention, but the Top 5 is just too strong...

but I think it's worth asking whether that's just cognitive dissonance in me talking.

Oddly, I felt a little bit more compelled to focus on Green's RAPM case when he didn't have such a giant lead. Now that he actually rates ahead of Curry by ORAPM, I basically feel forced to chalk up the situation to some kind of bias because I can't wrap my head around it. But again, that's me telling you what I intend to do, not justifying why it's the right thing to do. I'd like to see others' thoughts on this.

This is too far for me. Draymond's impact is huge, actually during the playoffs was huger than any other single player in the league, with a startling +12.3 net rating.

But there has to be a line drawn between "impact" and "goodness". GSW is a team with very clear role delineation, and Draymond with his severely limited offensive skill set is just not as capable a player as Curry. GSW needs people to actually make shots, and Curry's isolation game proved to be the difference in a lot of those fourth quarters. I'll also just come back to what I say all the time: GSW has a ton of smart guys who make great uses of those 4 on 3s, but they really only have 1 guy capable of attacking a set defense, and those 4 on 3s still need to be set up by someone. Curry's game has a far higher degree of resiliency, and that stuff matters when playoff defenses get tighter and smarter.

Draymond's superlative impact as a #2 guy is enough for me to seriously consider him over #1 guys on teams that aren't super impressive, and frankly top 6 or 7 is in play. But when I was arguing for guys like Kawhi and Korver based on their extreme impact, the unstated premise was that both of these guys were #1 guys, and more importantly in the case of Kawhi that he had a skill set that clearly looked like it could translate to being the focal point of a traditional team. Draymond currently has neither.

Dray is having old-KG like impact on this Warriors team, but in comparison to a guy like Davis I think it's a huge overreaction, because we're literally seeing Dray in the perfect situation for him and he doesn't have much offensive responsibility and can instead focus on what he's great at.

[HeartBreakKid]

I can't shake the feeling that Blake Griffin seems like a top 5 player this year.

He didn't have much momentum from fans during the RS, a lot of people even said he wasn't playing well, but I honestly thought the opposite. He was shooting a lot of jumpers, but he was making them at a very good rate - and in the end it drastically improved him as a player. He averaged 22 points and 5 assist; the lead scorer on the league with the highest rated offense. He really is an offensive juggernaut, and it's not just because of Chris Paul, he has everything you would need from a power forward. His offensive game really has close to no weaknesses. His impact is easily above his boxscore stats, and even if people did think he was coasting - so what? He showed up in the playoffs 100%, and typically you get a pass for coasting if you do your work in the post season.


This guy had an insane post season. He averaged 25.5/12.7/6 assist. This has been his best post season (and last year he was universally regarded as a top 5 player). His biggest slight on him was his rebounding, which I think is just due to him playing with DeAndre Jordan and further away from the rim, but come playoff time he nearly puts up 13 assists. He was a triple double machine, and nearly went 2-0 against Houston when Chris Paul wasn't there, with him being the anchor and running everything. To top it off, he's become a solid defender, he cannot anchor a defense, but in terms of man to man he is actually pretty good. Just about everyone who went up against Blake had a tough time with him. Tim Duncan vs the overrated DeAndre Jordan was BBQ chicken every time in Duncan's favor, when he was up against the much shorter Griffin, it wasn't an automatic basket like it was against Jordan. Not to mention this was over the course of a 14 game sample size which is quite large for a post season, and he wasn't up against swiss cheese defenses either (very competitive back to back series).

I suppose it sounds strange that 2 top 5 players can be on the same team and not make it to the 3rd round, but it pretty much happened that way last year. More competition for POY this year, but Griffin stepped his game up. This guy is now a threat from every relevant spot on the court for a power forward AND he can play point forward (he is probably the best passing forward the league has seen). Any match up he has, he adapts to it because he has so many means of hurting a team.

[Doctor MJ]

Re-quoting myself again here because I want y'all to see this, and I want to be able to find it again later.

Worst champion in a decade.

Not sure if I'd go that far, but definitely in the lower half.

I'm finding the reactions like this absolutely fascinating.

The Warriors had one of the most dominant regular seasons of all-time.
The Warriors only lost 2 games in a series twice, and immediately after the 2nd loss, they proceeded to sweep the remaining games of the series handily.

In short, quite literally, we haven't seen the Warriors truly tested to their full capabilities...and yet people are confident the team is weak. How the hell does this happen?

I'm going to guess it's a few things:

1) They didn't play any teams that were seen as amazing going in to the series - and to be clear, that's a legit reason for caution in calling the Warriors historically great.

2) They fit every stereotype of a team where "you can't win that way".

3) Perhaps most tellingly: I think when people watch the Warriors play, the way the Warriors play, it tends to make them feel like the team is just getting lucky. The game is close, the game is going back & forth, and the BAM, the Warriors make a 15 point run. In a box score we call that a blowout, but watching it game by game, it doesn't feel like a blowout. It feels like a close battle where the Warriors just got hot, and y'know, live by the 3, die by the 3.

But the sun also rises. A team doesn't either hit their 3's or miss them, it hits them at a certain rate. And if a team currently isn't hitting them like normal, well what has defined "normal" for them is that it's only a matter of time when they start hitting them.

And then they bury you.

It's not so simply as to just say "this is normal", but while watching a couple games and dismissing the trend as fluky makes sense, again, over the course of the entire season the Warriors dominated on a historical level. I mean, Curry this year just had the single best all-season raw +/- since Michael Jordan. Take any player playing right now, none of them have ever had a year where their team consistently destroys opponents when he's on the floor like Curry experienced this year...

How can this be, and it also be true that his team was glaringly weak for a champion?

I won't say it's impossible, but I think folks are not able to see what the Warriors have done in a truly even handed light if they are confident this is so.

[fuzzy_dunlop]

^
this is kinda OT but his insane ball skills are part of why I dislike the Lance trade 4 them (and I mean this on a pure bball level, even setting aside the character concerns): unless they pull off another move (Pierce 4 the min?), they're presumably gonna be starting a ball dominant wing at the 3 in lieu of Barnes. I think that's a shame- Griffin should be handling the ball more going forward, not less.

[Doctor MJ]

EvanZ shared his final NPI numbers:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15MC363clKjI6CmarLcSBV92xu45nrWG7BxkjBlTR4SE/htmlview?pli=1

I asked J.E. if he could update his multi-year set in the APBR thread, so maybe he'll link it as well.

So the obvious thing to ponder there: Curry looks great...but Draymond Green looks even better.

I've never seriously considered Green for a spot in my voting this year. I intend to give him a Top 10 spot when I include my Honorable Mention, but the Top 5 is just too strong...

but I think it's worth asking whether that's just cognitive dissonance in me talking.

Oddly, I felt a little bit more compelled to focus on Green's RAPM case when he didn't have such a giant lead. Now that he actually rates ahead of Curry by ORAPM, I basically feel forced to chalk up the situation to some kind of bias because I can't wrap my head around it. But again, that's me telling you what I intend to do, not justifying why it's the right thing to do. I'd like to see others' thoughts on this.

This is too far for me. Draymond's impact is huge, actually during the playoffs was huger than any other single player in the league, with a startling +12.3 net rating.

But there has to be a line drawn between "impact" and "goodness". GSW is a team with very clear role delineation, and Draymond with his severely limited offensive skill set is just not as capable a player as Curry. GSW needs people to actually make shots, and Curry's isolation game proved to be the difference in a lot of those fourth quarters. I'll also just come back to what I say all the time: GSW has a ton of smart guys who make great uses of those 4 on 3s, but they really only have 1 guy capable of attacking a set defense, and those 4 on 3s still need to be set up by someone. Curry's game has a far higher degree of resiliency, and that stuff matters when playoff defenses get tighter and smarter.

Draymond's superlative impact as a #2 guy is enough for me to seriously consider him over #1 guys on teams that aren't super impressive, and frankly top 6 or 7 is in play. But when I was arguing for guys like Kawhi and Korver based on their extreme impact, the unstated premise was that both of these guys were #1 guys, and more importantly in the case of Kawhi that he had a skill set that clearly looked like it could translate to being the focal point of a traditional team. Draymond currently has neither.

Dray is having old-KG like impact on this Warriors team, but in comparison to a guy like Davis I think it's a huge overreaction, because we're literally seeing Dray in the perfect situation for him and he doesn't have much offensive responsibility and can instead focus on what he's great at.

I think the distinction between "impact" and "goodness" is absolutely huge when we talk about the epistemology of basketball, but to me it's pretty clear that you can't in practice use "goodness" for debates such as these. But then we may have different semantics in play.

To me:

Impact or lift - raw form of value, how much you're actually helping your team
Goodness - your general capability to add value to NBA teams

So first, if you're thinking of different definitions, please share them.

Your take seems to fit with my definitions though if it's essentially, "Green may be able to have more impact on the Warriors, but it's context-specific impact. In a more average situation, Curry would be more valuable."

If this is the case, I don't necessarily disagree - though I'm not ready to even accept Green was more impactful to the Warriors, only that the data makes us consider this - but something that's been asserted a lot this year by smart people that I don't necessarily accept is that guys like Green are a new category of "context-specific superstars" which should be praised like crazy but still kept in a ghetto compared to more traditional superstars.

I'll put it like this: I think it's pretty easy to imagine players as puzzle pieces. A guy like Curry has a relatively simple shape that covers a lot of "space", aka impact or contribution, because he had outlier abilities in skills a team needs at its foundation. I would think then that a guy like Green would be seen as one of those weird spidery pieces that fits in the gaps between Curry and other simple shaped players.

To me the assumption about Green being "context-specific" is that you can't put that spidery piece in any other puzzle and expect it not to overlap with other players, and hence he'd be less valuable. But that falls apart if the spidery shape Green is currently taking isn't something he has to do, but rather is simply something he was able to take because he's a shape-shifter far more flexible than most the simple shape guys are.

Now, I don't think there's any doubt that Green only has the impact he does because of how Golden State has decided to build and use him. I'm not literally suggesting you could put him in anywhere and he'd have this impact. I think it's pretty clear actually that in practice Curry would contribute more impact to other teams than Green. But the reason why I think it's clear, is because at this point I'm convinced even the stupidest coach would know how to use Curry, and I'm not convinced of that with Green.

And this gets us to something I've long said: I don't think it makes sense to say that a player is worse in an absolute goodness sense of the word simply because he's played with coaches who didn't understand how to use him. Interestingly I've long said this with Nash, and Curry is essentially the New Nash (they aren't identical of course, but the connection has become pretty clear). Likely not that long ago Curry never has this zenith because teams don't realize how devastating of an effect he can have given his fragile physique and the basic fact that no one built around 3's like this.

So, a possibly delicious irony: What if the "context-specific" ghetto of Green is basically the same type of ghetto that guys like Nash or Curry would have had in earlier eras, and the certainty we have that Curry is the superior player is based on us being in a transitory period where one group of players is now understood but another group of player is only beginning to be understood?