Retro Player of the Year Project

[Doctor MJ]

For those don't know the history, this is a project we did going backwards from 2010 all the way to the start of the shot clock era, and we've since continued going forward at the end of every playoffs. The language you see below is kept in the original wording as much as possible. ~Doc

Alright, new project: We go back through the years and vote for who we think had the 5 best seasons each year. This will work like an MVP voting, but will cover both regular and post seasons.

Anyone who would like to be part of the project, just say so in this thread over the next few days. I'm hoping to officially kick this off next Monday. 2 requirements though:

1) This project's going to take a while. Please don't sign up without planning to be in it for the long haul. It'll be okay if stuff comes up and you have to pull out, or if you miss a few votes, but if you don't have an interest in really going back into NBA history to do this, please don't sign up.

2) Every year you vote, you've got to spend some time on research. I'll put a structure in place to make it easier for people - but you'll still have to put some time in. It's not cool to just vote based on the fact that a certain player was in his prime.

Once we get started, the voting membership will be officially closed, but if you PM me with your interest, and convince me you're serious, I'll let you in.

On the other hand, I'll boot people out if I don't think they're being serious.

Some other details, feel free to ask questions or voice objections while we're getting this set up:

-Planning to start with 08-09 season, and go backward all the way until basketball-reference doesn't have sufficient info. When the 09-10 post-season ends, we'll take a break from history and vote on that.

-The criteria of "best season" is meant to emulate MVP thinking. Obviously different people think about MVP differently, so it's okay that the same holds for our POY. That said, this is a proof-in-pudding award. If a player got injured, got disgruntled, etc one season, that has to be factored in.

-Voting weights will be just like the MVP: 10-7-5-3-1. This will be used note only to determine POYs, but we'll also track POY shares over players' careers.

-Each voting will take 3 days. I'll add them up at the end. You can change your voting after you post it up until I do the final count, but please do it by editing your original post to make it easier for me.

-Votings will overlap since they aren't dependent on each other, so sometimes we'll have more than one voting "live" at once.

-This will be an NBA-centric project, but will include leagues that became incorporated into the NBA. So for example in 1976, NBA & ABA will both be considered. Not planning to consider international ball, though I'll listen to arguments for that - I'm just not convinced there's enough data to do it well.

Original voting members:

Spoiler:

1. Doctor MJ (Lakers)
2. tkb (Lakers)
3. penbeast0 (Wizards)
4. TrueLAfan (Clippers)
5. Silver Bullet (Raptors)
6. Sedale Threatt (Lakers)
7. ElGee
8. Gongxi (Bulls)
9. Mysticbb (Bulls)
10. Bastillon
11. JordansBulls
12. Dr Mufasa (Raptors)
13. Shawngoat23
14. Drza (76ers)
15. Optimism Prime (Rockets)
16. Ronnymac2 (Lakers)
17. Baller24 (Rockets)
18. TMACFORMVP
19. the_rock220
20. DavidStern
21. An Unbiased Fan (Lakers)
22. Manuel Calavera (Trail Blazers)
23. CellarDoor
24. semi-sentient (Lakers)
25. Tesla (Lakers)
26. sp6r=underrated (Knicks)
27. ItsMillerTime (Pacers)
28. NO-KG-AI (Hornets)
29. kaima
30. Mean_Streets
31. ThaRegul8r
32. fatal9

Years (Winner - Share))
'21-22 (Nikola Jokic - .944)
'20-21 (Giannis Antetokounmpo - .887)
'19-20 (LeBron James - 0.979)
'18-19 (Kawhi Leonard - 0.736)
'17-18 (LeBron James - 0.870)
'16-17 (LeBron James - 0.864)
'15-16 (LeBron James - 0.964)
'14-15 (Steph Curry - 0.983)
'13-14 (LeBron James - 0.960)
'12-13 (LeBron James - 1.000)
'11-12 (LeBron James - 1.000)
'10-11 (Dirk Nowitzki - 0.939)
'09-10 (LeBron James - 0.816)
'08-09 (LeBron James - 0.967)
'07-08 (Kevin Garnett - 0.692)
'06-07 (Tim Duncan - 0.918)
'05-06 (Dwyane Wade - 0.891)
'04-05 (Tim Duncan - 0.868)
'03-04 (Kevin Garnett - 1.000)
'02-03 (Tim Duncan - 0.964)
'01-02 (Shaquille O'Neal - 0.884)
'00-01 (Shaquille O'Neal - 1.000)
'99-00 (Shaquille O'Neal - 1.000)
'98-99 (Tim Duncan - 0.932)
'97-98 (Michael Jordan - 0.952)
'96-97 (Michael Jordan - 0.986)
'95-96 (Michael Jordan - 1.000)
'94-95 (Hakeem Olajuwon - 0.922)
'93-94 (Hakeem Olajuwon - 0.988)
'92-93 (Michael Jordan - 0.978)
'91-92 (Michael Jordan - 1.000)
'90-91 (Michael Jordan - 1.000)
'89-90 (Michael Jordan - 0.918)
'88-89 (Michael Jordan - 1.000)
'87-88 (Michael Jordan - 0.886)
'86-87 (Magic Johnson - 0.974)
'85-86 (Larry Bird - 1.000)
'84-85 (Larry Bird - 0.900)
'83-84 (Larry Bird - 1.000)
'82-83 (Moses Malone - 1.000)
'81-82 (Moses Malone - 0.971)
'80-81 (Larry Bird - 0.850)
'79-80 (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 1.000)
'78-79 (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 0.914)
'77-78 (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 0.738)
'76-77 (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 0.872)
'75-76 (Julius Erving - 0.950)
'74-75 (Rick Barry - 0.890)
'73-74 (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 0.981)
'72-73 (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 0.871)
'71-72 (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 0.981)
'70-71 (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 1.000)
'69-70 (Jerry West - 0.968)
'68-69 (Bill Russell - 0.844)
'67-68 (Wilt Chamberlain - 0.856)
'66-67 (Wilt Chamberlain - 1.000)
'65-66 (Wilt Chamberlain - 0.857)
'64-65 (Bill Russell - 1.000)
'63-64 (Wilt Chamberlain - 0.865)
'62-63 (Bill Russell - 0.975)
'61-62 (Bill Russell - 0.925)
'60-61 (Bill Russell - 1.000)
'59-60 (Bill Russell - 0.914)
'58-59 (Bill Russell - 1.000)
'57-58 (Bob Pettit - 0.864)
'56-57 (Bob Pettit - 0.938)
'55-56 (Paul Arizin - 0.933)
'54-55 (Dolph Schayes - 0.925)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As y'all undoubtedly noticed, we just ran a really damn long project. The idea was that we'd go back in NBA history and name the Player of the Year for each year. In the end we decided to go back through the beginning of the shot clock era. Our definition for the Player of the Year was the player who had the best season, including both regular season and playoffs. Kind of like an all-season MVP, but I felt using that same term would be too constraining.

Voting was patterned after MVP voting, which means that we vote for the top 5 players in the league, and hence if there existed a player everyone agreed was 6th best, he wouldn't show up at all here. For this and a few other reasons, don't get too fixated on the data in the project as being a definitive ranking of best players or best careers. If you are really interested in analyzing our decision making, or simply interested in learning about history, I'd really recommend that you go to the first post of the project's main thread, and click on the links we have for every year we did.

Here is an updated spreadsheet through 2021 tallying up total POY shares:

RealGM POY Voting through 2020

Beginning in 2014-15 we began voting for OPOY, DPOY, ROY, MIP, 6MOY, COY & EOY. A spreadsheet with all award winners can be found here:

RealGM All-Season Award Winners

Without further ado:

[Silver Bullet]

Oh I'm in - if you have no objections...

Can I also add a suggestion, How about not having any voting the first two days, so that people can have a chance to make their cases (like a jury deciding on a case), I know you said people can change their votes later on, but in practice, most people won't.

Either way, with or without the suggestions, I'd like to be in.
The other thing, how about the voting teams disclose what their home team is, just for transparency, there might be some potential for bias if we have for example, 4 Heat fans on the panel and no Trailblazers fans.

[Sedale Threatt]

I'd like to vote. Lakers.

[ElGee]

I did something like this a few years back for the 3-point era, so I'd be interested. I have the same question as SB though - would it be a true vote, or would there be discussion/presentation before voting? Also, does someone have access to older games - my video collection only goes so far back...after that it becomes an exercise in box score analysis and trusting the *gasp* word of beat writers.

[Gongxi]

I'm new but can I play? Promise I'm not a (Please Use More Appropriate Word).

[mysticbb]

I would be interested in being a part of the voting.

[bastillon]

great idea. I'm in if you don't mind.

[JordansBulls]

I'd participate as well.

[arkhimal]

I want to participate too, count me in

[Dr Positivity]

I'd be in

[Doctor MJ]

Welcome to the project gentlemen!

Responding to specific points:

-I'll make the home team thing optional for now, I've added mine, give yours if you'd like. If we get almost everyone's I'll try to chase down the last few. I will say though that I don't think it's realistic to achieve balance with this so I'm not going to recruit from all the team boards.

-The goal here is absolutely discussion followed by votes, hard to see enforcing no votes until the last day, but I'll try to make it clear as we go forward that the discussion is the point. What I was specifically looking to address was whether to allow vote changes. When I was running one of the Top 100 projects, we didn't allow vote changes for various reasons. Here it seems silly to insist that people can't change their mind.

-Re: video. Pretty cool someone mentioned that. I intend to start off threads by linking to relevant data - but if others want to bring videos into this, that's fine by me. ElGee, if you have instructions/proposals for those who want to get into old game videos and aren't familiar with what's out there, go ahead at post them.

[Dr Positivity]

Home team: Raptors

[Silver Bullet]

My home team is the Raptors too - luckily that's as unbiased as you can get, as we've never had a player who'd qualify for a top 5 spot.

[kasino]

count me in

[mysticbb]

Bulls fan here, but don't worry I will not vote for Eddy Curry or Ron Mercer, but probably for Cliff Levingston. ;)

[Roger Murdock]

Cavs fan, sign me up.

[shawngoat23]

I'd like to get in, but I may not be able to commit to voting every time.

[drza]

I'd love to be part of this. My schedule is so crazy, though, that I can't guarantee that I'll be a good member. If it's okay with you I'll try and see how it works, and if I'm not working out you can always boot me later.

No real home team to speak of. At various times in my life the 76ers, Cavs, Magic, and Timberwolves have been my favorite teams.

[bastillon]

I'd love to be part of this. My schedule is so crazy, though, that I can't guarantee that I'll be a good member. If it's okay with you I'll try and see how it works, and if I'm not working out you can always boot me later.

No real home team to speak of. At various times in my life the 76ers, Cavs, Magic, and Timberwolves have been my favorite teams.

Dr J, KG, Penny and ... Larry Nance ? (would fit well with other players)

[Optimism Prime]

I'm in if you'll have me. Home team... I'm a fan of the game as a whole, but most of my posts are on the Rockets board.