Retro POY '04-05 (Voting Complete)

[Doctor MJ]

In this thread we'll discuss and vote on the top 5 best player seasons of '04-05. Some pointers:

-I will tally up the votes 3 days from now. I encourage people to wait to actually cast their votes until there's been some discussion - Ideally waiting until the 3rd day. However, I know everyone's schedule is busy - I'm not going NOT count votes just because they come in relatively early.

-The voting panel is not officially closed. However, if you'd like to be a part of it, contact me - more dedicated, knowledgeable voters will always be wanted.

-This includes both regular and post-season. You should be weighing both in to some degree, and should not be ranking one star over another just because of how far each got in the playoffs.

-Vote sincerely. Do not move a player down in your voting to give another player an advantage. I would encourage every voter to give some explanations while they do their voting - but particularly if you have a top 5 that deviates strongly with the norm and you haven't expressed your thoughts on it earlier in the thread. If I'm not satisfied, I may ask you for more of an explanation - and it may come to actually booting people out of the project.

Some things to start us off:

Season Summary http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... _2005.html
Playoff Summary http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... _2005.html
Award Voting http://www.basketball-reference.com/awa ... _2005.html

Regular Season Raw +/- http://82games.com/teams04.htm
Post-Season Raw +/- http://www.82games.com/playoffs/playoffs.htm
Regular Season Adjusted +/- http://www.82games.com/lewin3.htm

Questions for '04-05:

-The Phoenix turnaround?
-The Miami turnaround?
-How good was Ginobili?

[sp6r=underrated]

My general questions and thoughts for this season:

1. What do people think about KG this year? Box score stats were basically as good as 2004 led them to a record that in most seasons gets you in the PS, but his plus/minus fell off, also the Wolves were a disappointment from pre-season projections.
2. How are people weighing Duncan this year? He had an amazing start to the season but sufferred a terrible ankle injury that limited his effectiveness throughout the games he played in the RS after the injury and in the PS.
3. The final year when Nash is really relevant, so this debate will continue.
4. How do people feel about Shaq's season?
5. What about Kobe and Dirk?

[Baller 24]

I've been thinking about this season for awhile now, and I've narrowed my overall top 5 down to O'neal, Nash, Duncan, Dirk, T-Mac, Allen, and Wade. I think this is the season LeBron took a big step in his establishment as a player, but didn't necessarily correlate the team impact and success among the factors. KG had yet another HUGE season throughout the regular season, but again in the sense that his team was out of the playoffs, I don't really consider his season in the top 5 category, he didn't make the playoffs despite having a cast that IMO is definitely good enough to get to the playoffs with.

[Tim_Hardawayy]

I'll be fascinated to see where Shaq ranks from here on out. He's got a legitimate argument to be in the top 5 all the way back to his rookie season, which is just incredible longevity, for a player so often criticized for not being as good as he could be.

[JordansBulls]

Another tough year to decide. KG had a great season statistically, but didn't make the playoffs. Nash was MVP, but Amare was the best player on the team statistically.



Top 5 in MVP voting were Nash, Shaq, Dirk, Duncan, Iverson. Wade was 8th and Amare 9th.


2005 -
Best Stats - Garnett (Led in WS and PER)
Winning - Duncan (including finals mvp)


My voting would be:
1. Duncan
2. Garnett
3. Amare (the man averaged 37 ppg in the WCF against Duncan)
4. Dirk
5. Shaq/Wade/Nash



I think if you have the best numbers in a year you are no worse than 3rd on a list. You just may not be first though.

[Doctor MJ]

My general questions and thoughts for this season:

1. What do people think about KG this year? Box score stats were basically as good as 2004 led them to a record that in most seasons gets you in the PS, but his plus/minus fell off, also the Wolves were a disappointment from pre-season projections.
2. How are people weighing Duncan this year? He had an amazing start to the season but sufferred a terrible ankle injury that limited his effectiveness throughout the games he played in the RS after the injury and in the PS.
3. The final year when Nash is really relevant, so this debate will continue.
4. How do people feel about Shaq's season?
5. What about Kobe and Dirk?

1. Been looking more at KG. He still has a quite strong APM to go with his stats being better than they were later on. I consider him stronger in this year than in '06 or '07. That said, still a significant drop off from previously. KG was the reason +/- stats first came to the public's attention because he totally dominated the league by that metric in '02, '03, and '04 while leading pretty dang successful teams. In the end, he's probably in my top 5 this year.

2. That's what I was getting to with my Ginobili question. Thing is it's actually not that easy to justify that Duncan was more valuable to the Spurs than Ginobili - which is not simply a statement about Duncan and his injuries.

But everyone should look closely at Duncan this year and not just hand him the award because his team won. One example, the playoffs, where scoring efficiency dropped off the map, the Spurs did better when he was on the bench. Meanwhile, the Ginobili's team net +/- was around +20 for the playoffs after it had already been sky high in the regular season, and he'd been a dominant scorer in crunch time (82games named him the #1 clutch player in the league).

Of course there's always the matter of Ginobili's relatively light playing time, but do recognize that Duncan hardly played more than Ginobili this year.

3. I'll put up a pro-Nash post later. He's my #1 this year, and as you said, it's the last chance to sway anyone's opinion on the guy.

4. Undecided about Shaq, and specifically Shaq vs Wade. I've got zero doubt that by playoff time, Wade was the superior player. (Go look at playoff minutes, after being a solid 40+ MPG guy in the playoffs his whole career, he falls to 33 for this year and future years) On the other hand, I think Wade was improving so rapidly that he really wasn't the same player all year long.

One other thing should be noted in the Miami turnaround, the previous year the team may have end up around .500 overall, but they started terribly and so that record was not representative of what the team was capable of. This team played at a 50+ win pace for the second half of the season.

5. Kobe, imho, deserves no mention this year. The Lakers were a team poised to make the playoffs, then they totally fell apart (2-19 down the stretch). I don't know how you can look at that and say Kobe had a season worthy of POY consideration.

Dirk's in the mix. Clearly not as good as he would later become, but he probably makes my top 5.

[mysticbb]

I'll be fascinated to see where Shaq ranks from here on out. He's got a legitimate argument to be in the top 5 all the way back to his rookie season, which is just incredible longevity, for a player so often criticized for not being as good as he could be.

Well, O'Neal's impact wasn't really that big as you can see on his +/- numbers. Wade had also a great year, which helped the Heat to win many games. In the playoffs O'Neal also wasn't really effective at all. In my head he is battling with Ginobili right now for that 5th spot.

1. Tim Duncan
2. Steve Nash
3. Dirk Nowitzki
4. Kevin Garnett
5. Manu Ginobili

HM: Shaquille O'Neal, Dwyane Wade

Ginobili played freaking awesome throughout the year, his adjusted +/- numbers are a proof for that. He was a major factor for the Spurs in the playoffs, coming up with huge plays. Just an incredible player in that year. Dwyane Wade isn't far behind, but Ginobili delivered.

Garnett had a great season, if we are just looking at the boxscore numbers, but the +/- numbers for Nowitzki are better and he isn't that far off behind Garnett. Garnett was the better player in that year, but Nowitzki came up with the team success, which has to count for something. No playoffs for Garnett, bad playoffs series against the Rockets for Nowitzki besides the fact that he played rather good defensively. Solid series against the Suns, but they still lost. Final decision about that will come in two days or so.

Steve Nash had an incredible year, his impact was beyond his numbers. That team needed a leader, a direction and that is what Nash gave them. He also had great playoffs series against the Mavs, 30/7/12, that makes up for the loss to the Spurs. And for everyone who is saying the Suns had HCA: The Spurs had the better SRS and were the better overall team thanks to Duncan and Ginobili. (I personally don't care what Stoudemire puts up for empty stats, the guy is a much weaker scorer in games in which he didn't play with Nash and his +/- aren't good at all).

I leave off Bryant, because he was injured, played in only 66 games and wasn't that impressive overall. His +/- numbers are looking bad, his team had a very similar win% with him and without him.

Oh, Duncan as the #1. Even though his regular season wasn't that strong, he still beats out all candidates in +/- numbers. And at the end of the day Duncan won it all, which has to count for something.

[semi-sentient]

1. Tim Duncan - Missed 16 games in the regular season, but played 23 in the post-season. He played well enough overall for me to put him at #1, particularly when you consider that he anchored the #1 defense in the league which ultimately won them the championship.
   
2. Kevin Garnett - Strong two-way player during the regular season, probably the best all things considered, but missed the playoffs entirely. I give him the nod for having an all-around great game, but I'm not going to knock him too much for having a relatively poor supporting cast. Still, his inability to lead his team anywhere is baffling.
   
3. Steve Nash - Led the Suns to the best record in the league and had a strong regular/post season. Not the best scoring season, but he ran the best offense in the league so scoring was not really needed. Still a major liability on defense, as always.
   
4. Shaquille O'Neal - For some reason I initially thought he was injured a lot this season, but looking at it closer and digging back into my own memory I seem to recall him having the biggest impact on the Heat in the RS. In the playoffs, it was Wade who became the man as Shaq's numbers dropped, but his importance to the team is still greater overall so he gets the slight edge.
   
5. Dwyane Wade - Had a very good RS and solid post-season, but fell short against Detroit which was one of the better defensive teams in the league. I thought he made major improvements defensively (especially as a help defender), which is probably to be expected since he "finally" got someone to protect the paint (Shaq).

Edit: Slight revisions, and removing my HM list as that seems pointless anyway. Removed Dirk and added Shaq to the top 5 as I'd overlooked/forgotten how big of an impact he truly had. Wade deserves some love for having a strong RS/PO.

[sp6r=underrated]

1. Very good points about KG. I also think it should be considered that the Wolves would have made the PO in a normal conference.
2. OT: The thing about the Spurs, is I don't think people realize how good that 05 squad was. This was there record going into the Detroit game and point differential. 50-15 +10.24. They were good enough to win a title with a hobbled TD. There is 0 doubt in my mind that they would have went 16-2/3 in the PO if he was healthy in the PS.
3. I don't understand how JB is still making the argument for Amare over Nash.
4. I'm up in the air on Shaq/Wade that year.
5. I agree about Kobe, but I'm curious is there a case for Bryant that I'm overlooking.

[JordansBulls]

1. Very good points about KG. I also think it should be considered that the Wolves would have made the PO in a normal conference.
2. OT: The thing about the Spurs, is I don't think people realize how good that 05 squad was. This was there record going into the Detroit game and point differential. 50-15 +10.24. They were good enough to win a title with a hobbled TD. There is 0 doubt in my mind that they would have went 16-2/3 in the PO if he was healthy in the PS.
3. I don't understand how JB is still making the argument for Amare over Nash.
4. I'm up in the air on Shaq/Wade that year.
5. I agree about Kobe, but I'm curious is there a case for Bryant that I'm overlooking.

Amare produced more for the team than Nash did. Why should I rank Nash higher?

[semi-sentient]

5. Kobe, imho, deserves no mention this year. The Lakers were a team poised to make the playoffs, then they totally fell apart (2-19 down the stretch). I don't know how you can look at that and say Kobe had a season worthy of POY consideration.

While true, I don't think you can pin that collapse on Kobe. The Lakers were on track to make the playoffs before Rudy T. quit and Odom went down with injury. Those things do factor in. The Lakers had no size whatsoever (Divac was out, and Mihm was not a good 5). That left Kobe and Butler as the only options in the midst of a coaching/system change, with no interior defense or rebounding to speak of (hence being dead last in defense).

Still, it's impressive enough, IMO, that the Lakers had the 7th ranked offense with such a stitched together team dealing with that many personnel issues. Just not impressive enough to give him consideration as you stated.

[mysticbb]

Amare produced more for the team than Nash did. Why should I rank Nash higher?

Because the game is not just about putting up some boxscore stats. Stoudemire in games without Nash is as efficient as David Lee. Would you put David Lee from this season into the Top5 for the POY 2010? Look up the impact of a player, not just his boxscore stats. Build a team around Stoudemire without a great leader and a great pick&roll guard and the team is bound to be a lottery team (just like the Knicks in this season).

[sp6r=underrated]

OT: I can't remember and haven't been able to find out why Rudy T quit. Does anyone here remember?

[semi-sentient]

OT: I can't remember and haven't been able to find out why Rudy T quit. Does anyone here remember?

He cited health reasons, probably stress related. I don't know if that's the real reason, but that's what I seem to remember.

I think there was pressure from Kobe to go back to the triangle offense as well, which may have played some part. That's just speculation on my part though. I think he was completely stressed out and just couldn't handle it, personally.

[Doctor MJ]

Amare produced more for the team than Nash did. Why should I rank Nash higher?

Because the game is not just about putting up some boxscore stats. Stoudemire in games without Nash is as efficient as David Lee. Would you put David Lee from this season into the Top5 for the POY 2010? Look up the impact of a player, not just his boxscore stats. Build a team around Stoudemire without a great leader and a great pick&roll guard and the team is bound to be a lottery team (just like the Knicks in this season).

This is all true, and the best answer to the question.

I do want to also add that the notion of "producing more" when comparing players with very different roles is not something that has a lot of meaning. It's Nash's job to get Amare's PPG high, so why would you necessarily use Amare's PPG against Nash? The obvious thing to determine is who the team is reliant on to do their thing successfully. Certainly in some circumstances, the volume scorer is more key than the distributor. It's just that in this case every single metric and eye ball test says Nash is more important.

[Silver Bullet]

There is an amazing post on Nash and his impact floating around here somewhere. It pops up from time to time as reference - Anyone know what I'm talking about ?

[Doctor MJ]

While true, I don't think you can pin that collapse on Kobe. The Lakers were on track to make the playoffs before Rudy T. quit and Odom went down with injury. Those things do factor in. The Lakers had no size whatsoever (Divac was out, and Mihm was not a good 5). That left Kobe and Butler as the only options in the midst of a coaching/system change, with no interior defense or rebounding to speak of (hence being dead last in defense).

Still, it's impressive enough, IMO, that the Lakers had the 7th ranked offense with such a stitched together team dealing with that many personnel issues. Just not impressive enough to give him consideration as you stated.

Pin it on Kobe? As in it's his fault and no one else's? Certainly not. Consider it relevant in a conversation such as this? Definitely.

Let's also remember that the team did okay when Rudy quite. Hamblen stepped in and they were still play .500 ball for about 20 games. The team collapsed when Odom went down. And while you can say, "No Odom, who did Kobe have to work with?", it's kind of crazy to think Odom was the difference between a team playing .500 ball, and a 2-19 team.

Let's also remember that Kobe only played 66 games this year, and that when he went down, the team playing nothing like a 2-19 team.

I don't bring this up to damn Kobe generally. Clearly we know what his capabilities are (way better than Odom for example), and I don't really care in the long wrong that his head wasn't in the game toward the end of a season where the team wasn't going to go anywhere in the playoffs. But in evaluating this one year, people need to take the Kobe-goggles off and recognize that this was not a year worthy of accolades.

[semi-sentient]

I didn't have him in my top 5, so he's not being recognized for any awards. He did still put up solid numbers (career high assists, solid rebounding -- but not-so-good efficiency, although better than Wade and LeBron), although not as impressive as later years. You are right that he didn't quite have his head in the game towards the end of the season. I forget who it was against, but I remember a play where Kobe was so out of control that he threw it off the backboard (ala McGrady in the AS game) and tried to dunk in traffic -- failing miserably. That, to me, summed up Kobe's 2nd half of the season. He played with desperation, but not with a whole lot of control.

PS: Do I also have Garnett-goggles for ranking him #2 after leading a team to the lottery?

[drza]

Re: the 2005 Wolves

I've seen several in this thread reference the Wolves as a poor supporting cast, but a couple have mentioned the preseason expectations or that essentially the names don't look so bad when you read them. The '05 Wolves were doomed by several factors that built upon each other, but the biggest one was simply health.

Many in the fall of '04 had the Wolves as favorites (me included) because we underestimated how bad Cassell's hip was. A mid-30s players having major offseason surgery doesn't just heal overnight (as the '10 Celtics learned in the regular season of this year). Cassell's hip, Spree's age (he was obviously just done by this year, the last of his career), Hudson's ankle, Hoiberg's heart, and Wally/Hassell's feelings conspired to make all of those players much worse than their names might suggest.

Ironically, you can see it on Lewin's APM rankings from that year ( http://www.82games.com/lewin3b.htm ) that many have referenced as suggesting a more down year for Garnett. Garnett still led the team with an APM of +9.48, but if you look at the APMs of the next 4 Wolves who played the most time, this is what you see:

Wally -6.81
Spree -1.29
Hassell -6.74
Hudson 0.90

If you want to keep it position-consistent, replace Hassell with starting Center Olowokandi's -3.94. To put it baldly, the reason behind the mystery of how KG could have almost the same year by most advanced metrics but the team play so much worse is that injuries in particular revealed the lack of talent that was actually there that season.

I'll just end this with one of my favorite quotes from Dan Rosenbaum, where he discussed how bad Troy Hudson (who got the most minutes at PG that season) actually was that year:

Troy Hudson probably gets the award for the being the worst defender in the league. He is dead last among point guards in both the statistical and adjusted plus/minus ratings and his adjusted plus/minus ratings are consistently horrible. He is playing a game on the defensive end that is not remotely like anyone else’s in the league.

[drza]

On-topic, some of my thoughts:

*How much love does Nash get for the Suns turnaround?

*How much love does KG get for having the best statistical/individual season in the league but leading a team that missed the playoffs? He led the league in PER, Win Shares and Wins Produced (the first clean-sweep that I've seen in any year since we started this project), and as others have pointed out he led the Wolves to a record that normally makes the postseason.

*I think Ginobili might work his way into my top-5. I always tend to feel that he is underrated, and if he'd stayed healthy in 2008 he might have gotten a vote from me that year as well. His postseason performance in '05 was spectacular.

*I thought Shaq had a better MVP case than Nash at the time. I'm interested to see how that thought process holds up for me 5 years later.

*This was the last year that Duncan and Garnett were both still hitting 101 with their fastball over the course of a full season. To me, they were clearly the 2 best players in the league.