2008 NBA Awards Revisited

I still disagree with the defensive part of your ranking... so with the whole ranking. I will not talk again about Ginobili. He is a great player even if on defense he is not as good as your numbers tell. I have nothing against Perkins, but I don't think he improved much since last year... except that now, he plays next to KG... this is a great help for both his offensive defensive efficiency. Actually, this is a reason why I think you can't rank player through statistics only. Tim Duncan for example, does rank well but not great on offensive efficiency, but he still commands double team... and that makes a huge difference for his team efficiency. I agree on Durant, he was probably not ready for the NBA and would not have been ROY if Seattle did not chose to force feed him with the ball. That said, it is easier to be efficient on offense when you don't have to create. Jamario had a great season, but was in an easier situation. So, I would probably keep Durant as ROY, because he concluded the season with a greatly improved efficiency (at least on the offensive end). I will not debate the rest of your post, most of the players you talk about are very good and your ranking does not sounds too bad.

Listen, I do appreciate statistical evidence as much as anyone, but I also tend to watch basketball and see what players do to their teams. In the case of your "composite player rankings", I feel the system is incredibly flawed, hence the reason that most of your "real" award winners, are for lack of a better word, ridiculous. I do not want to knock you, if the system works for you, than by all means follow it, but I just feel that your rankings seemed to leave out quite a bit, and really mocked what I believed to be, quite uncommon might I add, some good picks for award winners. Let me state my case: MVP: It is ludicrous that Kobe Bryant has gone this long without winning an MVP award. That being said, this was not a "make-up" MVP, as many of the past few have tended to be. While I agree that Kevin Garnett was the key to the Celtics success and that if you took him out the equation, the Celtics more or less are a mediocre team, this probably applies ten fold for Kobe in accordance to the Lakers. I feel Kobe should have easily won the MVP two years ago (where he finished in 4th place!!), and this year I felt he was just as deserving. Leading his team to the best record in the Western Conference, which was absolutely stacked, was as great if not a greater feat than Boston's trumping of the east (and yes, I know they had a great record against the west, but, they are in the east and that is where they win the bulk of their games). I feel the media has made the MVP into a joke, but Kobe winning finally provides some hope that someone can break the media formula. With the past few MVP's, I could give Nash the MVP in 2005, but 2006 clearly belonged to Kobe, and 2007 easily could have been Nash again or LeBron James, rather than one of the worst votes in NBA history giving it to Dirk Nowitzki. At the beginning of this season, I did believe that KG might bring home the MVP, but once the Gasol trade went down, and Kobe got some needed help, I believe that Kobe finally got his just due as MVP. The Celtics badly outplayed the Lakers in the Finals, but if you look at that team, it was Paul Pierce who was clearly the leader and played the most consistently. Not taking anything away from KG, who I still consider to be a top 5 player in the league, but I ask why take something away from Kobe Bryant when he is clearly playing basketball at a higher level than anyone has ever played. I could go on, but I feel like I am probably losing people here, but I could continue across both of their entire teams to prove my point, but I believe many will agree with me that the ranking system that places Kobe at any position below #1 (or at the very least 2), is leaving A LOT out of the equation. Rookie of the Year: I was born and raised in Toronto, though I currently reside in Portland. But, that being said, I remain a Raptors fan, and was definitely shocked when Sabonis got as many votes for rookie of the year when Damon Stoudamire took it home in 96. With that being said, their is no way in hell Jamario Moon should have been considered for Rookie of the Year, even with his said "divine" efficiency. Moon was a great addition to the Raps, plays fantastic defense, and can jump as high as pretty much anyone in the NBA. But lets just try and put him in Kevin Durant's shoes. I mean, really? For the total deconstruction of the Super Sonics franchise, I thought 23 wins was actually a fairly impressive feat. Durant was not very efficient, but when you are thrust into a position of trying to carry a young and even less efficient team, than no rookie would be. I would be surprised if any player on that Super Sonics team was in your defensive top 100, and if they are, than that is further proof that their could be a major kink in the system. Kevin Durant had to create his own shots, handle the ball and be the center piece on a team. Whenever Moon got the ball, if he kept it for more than 3 seconds, you wanted to cringe. I do know that I can not switch player for player, as both are stuck in their respective situations, but I still have a hard time saying that because of Moon's supposed efficiency in your system he is more deserving of ROY. The Raptors lost 6 more games than the year before, though with the balance of the East went from a 3 seed to a 6. Nonetheless, even with KD barely scraping 40% shooting (probably much worse from 3), I think he winning ROY was more than justified. His only comp was Al Horford, who while being effective, for a "play-off" team, was still not impressive enough to me to merit winning ROY over what Kevin Durant accomplished last season. Most Improved Player: Hedo deserved the hell out of this award. When he got drafted in 2000, I immediately exclaimed "WHO THE HELL IS THIS GUY?" About a year or two later, I said "the Kings got a complete steal." Hedo had never lived up to what I thought he might be, which was another golden days Peja Stojakovic, until this year. Granted, he is not the stone cold assassin that was Peja, but he does so much more of the little things that Peja never would do, and probably has more of a skill set than Peja ever did. Hedo went from a classic underachiever to an All-Star caliber player, and to me, that was definitely deserving of MIP. As far as the other candidates are concerned, Bynum would have definitely been a good candidate, but to be a legitimate one it is usually more efficient I would think to play more than 35 (or so) games. With Kendrick and Rajon, they both showed tremendous improvement, which I think in large part was due to the acquisition of (drum roll) Kevin Garnett, and to a lesser extent Ray Allen. Garnet gave the team an identity on the defensive end, and it should be noted that his presence is probably why both of these players efficiency went berserk. Dunleavy did in fact have a good season, but I do not think his transition was even close to that of Hedo's as a complete player. I do not even think your composite archives could convince me of that one. Now, I understand that you are going by your formula, I understand you have put a lot of work into it, and you may indeed have gained a different way, which you deem more effective, to look at basketball. Yes, you did say that these awards were given on productivity, but in that case, you might want to think about what being a productive basketball player really means and for me it goes beyond these composite scores.

I agree with derekmorris. The only flaw in the stats is that good teams have inflated stats. Good teams have better players, so it makes sense that they'd be a bit higher. However, this is far too inflated. In particular, the defensive stats look inaccurate. Think of a mediocre defender on a good team. ok, Ray Allen. Think of a great defensive player on a bad team. ok, Josh Smith. Now lets compare their Defensive score. Does Ray Allens 28 mean he's a comparable defender to Josh Smith at 29? Perhaps we need to consider the impact of a good team factoring in multiple times? For example, if a team like the Celtics has a high margin of victory, this should lead to good +/- for both offensive and defense. If we simply add them together, it would be double counting. (note: I don’t know all the technical details behind the stats, so it's just a suggestion) It would be interesting to know what the standard deviation is for each score. Lets look at this again, adjusting for team effects: MVP: It's shocking that Kobe is only ranked 8th when you consider how good the lakers were this year. Statistically, there is no support here for him as mvp. Paul clearly has the best offensive rating, and if this is the biggest impact on mvp voting, he is arguably the mvp. I think the winner here is KG. Although the Celtics have the most inflation because the Celtics had the best margin of victory, it’s clear that he had a major impact on the team defense. Thus, you can argue that he is responsible for the inflation of his own stats. Defensive: It’s KG for the reasons above. However, there is some competition here. Josh Smith’s defensive rating is high at 29, despite the rest of the team dragging him down significantly. Other players with remarkably high ratings: Jamario Moon, Artest, Jermaine O’neal, Kaman, Joel Przybilla. ROY: Jamario’s stats are truly amazing. I’m from Toronto, and I know that the raptors D is one of the worst in the league. (I pray that Jermaine's knees can change that). Jamario’s ability to still get a 40 in this system is crazy. However, he cleary gets a boost on offense. Though he deserves credit for good shot selection, his offensive score of 35 is clearly too high. On the other hand, Durant has awful stats. But he was the only option on an awful team. Not only was he forced to shoot, but he was playing out of position for much of the year. I think Durant won the actual award by default, as no other player had so much responsibility. However, Jamario wins the statistical awards by default too, as he was fortunate to be on a good team, with a reasonable role. MIP: Turkoglu, Rondo, Perkins, all play for good teams, which inflated their stats. For this reason, the pick is Mike Dunleavy. His stats are comparable to Turkoglu, except he's on a much worse team. Look at how awful his teammates ratings are. He basically carried them on his back the whole year (even on D!). As much as I criticize the stats, I truly admire Jon’s work. I think this is already an incredibly useful stat and will only get better from here. If I was a GM I’d definitely be looking at this. -thparadox@hotmail