LeBron James wins fourth MVP

Comparing 34-year-old Kobe on defense to 34-year-old Jordan on defense:

Jordan was 1st team all-D in '97-'98 with a 100 overall defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) and a 5.4 DWS (# of wins based on a player's defense)

All-D hasn't been announced this season.

Kobe has a 107 overall defensive rating (7 points worse than Jordan) but has an 8.4 DWS -- so he gave the Lakers 3 more wins as a defensive 34-year-old than Jordan gave '97-'98 Bulls.

Those stats mean squat, of course, but you can see where numbers start to cloud every argument.

Stats like this: Defensive Win Shares

1. Tim Duncan-SAS 95.0
2. Roy Hibbert-IND 96.9
3. Paul George-IND 97.1
4. Tony Allen-MEM 98.4
5. Marc Gasol-MEM 98.5
6. Larry Sanders-MIL 98.5
7. Joakim Noah-CHI 98.6
8. David West-IND 98.6
9. Kevin Garnett-BOS 98.9
10. Lamar Odom-LAC 99.0
11. Emeka Okafor-WAS 99.4
12. Kawhi Leonard-SAS 99.4
13. Zach Randolph-MEM 99.5
14. Reggie Evans-BRK 99.6
15. Tiago Splitter-SAS 100.0
16. Dwight Howard-LAL 100.1
17. Mike Conley-MEM 100.2
18. Kevin Durant-OKC 100.5
19. Carlos Boozer-CHI 100.5
20. Josh Smith-ATL 100.6

Shouldn't you be somewhere in the top 20 in that stat to be easily voted D-POY?

*****

Totally different stat: James Harden went to the line 792 times this season.

 

Wow, four Memphis players in the top 20, that explains a lot.

 

The people who just want to find excuses for believing whatever they wanted about sports would just find a way to torture the meaning of the word "outstanding," much like they have "valuable."

 

I don't like DWS -- at all -- but you've also got your numbers wrong -- 2.6 DWS for Kobe this year.

Defensive impact simply cannot be determined through a box score. There's so much that goes in with playing defense that can't be quantified in the traditional box score. Kobe is a lazy off-ball defender and his transition defense was a joke all year long. He would routinely lose his man in transition and simply jog to the nearest guy, regardless of whether he was a threat on the ply.

This piece by Zach Lowe sums up a lot of Kobe's problems defensively.

http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/55877/an-open-letter-to-kobe-bryant-about-his-defense

Carlos Boozer is on that list. Carlos. Boozer.

Players on good defensive teams will find their way on that list, regardless of whether they are good defensive players or not. That's an inherent weakness in the stat. Most of the top 10 is good, but guys like Lamar Odom, Reggie Evans, Tiago Splitter and Carlos Boozer are simply not top-20 NBA defenders.

 

Here's the actual defensive win shares list:

Defensive Win Shares
1. Paul George-IND 6.3
2. Marc Gasol-MEM 5.4
3. Kevin Durant-OKC 5.3
4. Tim Duncan-SAS 4.9
5. Roy Hibbert-IND 4.9
6. Mike Conley-MEM 4.8
7. Dwight Howard-LAL 4.8
8. Zach Randolph-MEM 4.7
9. David West-IND 4.7
10. LeBron James-MIA 4.7
11. Joakim Noah-CHI 4.7
12. Josh Smith-ATL 4.5
13. Carlos Boozer-CHI 4.3
14. Al Horford-ATL 4.1
15. Tony Allen-MEM 4.1
16. Serge Ibaka-OKC 4.1
17. Rudy Gay-TOT 4.0
18. Russell Westbrook-OKC 3.9
19. Blake Griffin-LAC 3.9
20. Kevin Garnett-BOS 3.8

Songbird copied Defensive rating, which is something of a plus-minus index not nearly as tied to individual play.

 

You're right, I got 8.4 from the OWS. My bad.

For one of the few times we're in agreement about those kinds of stats. I don't care for them.

And that top 20 list was Defensive Rating not DWS, so Versatile's list is correct.

 

Bit of a threadjack, but the point was brought up, so it must be mentioned that the very first year the BBWAA created and voted for the Cy Young, the winner, Don Newcombe, was also named National League MVP. This strongly suggests that the argument pitchers shouldn't be MVPs is complete bullshit.

 

Perhaps I was biased by the book I just read -- "Relentless" by Tim Grover who was Jordan's trainer and is now trainer for Kobe and Wade.

It's a pretty thought provoking book into what differentiates players like Jordan / Bryant/ Wade from the rest. He uses the term "cleaner " to describe players like Jordan who he terms "the ultimate cleaner".

 

The whole LeBron/unanimous controversy is not much, but NBA voting has been weird for a while. Once Jordan started winning MVPs in 1988, he never should have stopped, as there was no full season he played that he was not the best and most valuable. Yet Magic (twice), Barkley and Malone all snuck in there just because people were bored, I guess.

 

Color me unimpressed. Same sort of convoluted reasoning that resulted in Jordan winning only 5 MVPs, instead of the 7 or 8 he should've won. Always some voters trying to get cute and concoct some rationale for choosing someone different. And, imo, that's all Washburn's parsing of words to distinguish between "best" and "most valuable to team" is, he's rationalizing an excuse to stray from the obvious choice. I don't care who had the better supporting cast, this choice required no debate this season.

Also wonder if voters like Washburn give any thought to the defensive end of the court--you know, the part of the game that consumes one half their time out there--where Lebron happens to be utterly magnificent, but Carmelo barely mediocre. There's a lot more to the game than just scoring and, when you factor in all that other stuff, Melo does not even sniff Lebron.

 

In the 4 years before Lebron arrived, Wade's Heat teams got bounced in the first round 3 times and didn't make the playoffs the other time. He's a heck of a ballplayer, but the Heat only really took off when he got hurt near the end of last year and Lebron was the undisputed alpha dog.

On the larger issue, I really don't remember anyone having as good of a year as Lebron did this year. Arguably, Durant had one of the best seasons of all time and you couldn't even make the case for him being the MVP. The Melo vote is a bad joke.

 

I think the years Barkley and Malone won were years where voters were looking for any excuse to vote for someone other than Jordan.