2023-24 RealGM All-Season Awards Discussion Thread

[Texas Chuck]

-By far the best defensive wing group in the NBA with McDaniels/NAW/ANT which helps Gobert defensively

Not sure I agree they are by far the best. And we can't ignore how playing with Gobert allows you to defend differently because you aren't toast if you get beat. How much better is that trio than Tatum/Brown/White? Or the Pels wings?

No doubt they are very good wings. But Herb Jones and co know if they get beat, its a layup or wide open corner 3 because there is no Rudy to clean up. Boston guys have KP/Horford so in the middle of those two.

I think its tough to parse that out accurately. Gobert just makes such a huge difference in how you can play.

[Colbinii]

-By far the best defensive wing group in the NBA with McDaniels/NAW/ANT which helps Gobert defensively

Not sure I agree they are by far the best. And we can't ignore how playing with Gobert allows you to defend differently because you aren't toast if you get beat. How much better is that trio than Tatum/Brown/White? Or the Pels wings?

I think McDaniels is head and shoulder's above Tatum/Brown/White as a 6' 9" wing who can navigate screens better than anyone on the planet.

Herb is definitely right there with McDaniels, but who else is good there? Ingram sucks, Murphy III is mediocre, Daniels can't play because of his offense.

Gobert just makes such a huge difference in how you can play.

It's important to remember what has happened the past 3 seasons with the Timberwolves.

Finch rolled out an exciting defense in 2022, where the perimeter was being blitzed with McDaniels/Edwards/Beverley/Vanderbilt and the team managed to be a Top 15 defense with Towns as the back line. What was unique here is Finch rolled out a philosophy which covered for Towns inability to defend successfully in the Drop while taking advantage of Towns lateral movement at his size.

Come 2023 and the defense sort of struggled. Rudy wasn't 100% healthy and the team tried to rely too much on Drop, they lost some of their aggressiveness and the team as a whole wasn't really on the same page.

This year, everyone is back to hounding the ball-handler and sticking as close to possible on screens/DHO's/ect because they trust Rudy Gobert in the back. Finch took principles from the 2022 defense but combined it with Rudy's drop skill-set and it's essentially an unbreakable defense. We will see if a team is able to break the defense, but so far they have held Phoenix to -6 rOrtg [6 points below their RS offense] and held Denver to just 99 points on -11 rOrtg [11 points below their RS offense].

We could be looking at a near-GOAT level defense here, which they were in the Regular Season at -6.3 Rel Lg Avg.

[trex_8063]

If you'd like to geek out about award shares, you can find the total tallies for POY, OPOY & DPOY here.

Hey Doc. I was taking a drive through this spreadsheet, and I'm pretty sure I've found a couple errors:

In the shares list for 2019 POY things are a bit of a mess [I think]..........
Paul George is placed 4th, though has the same entries as Joel Embiid [which amounts to just 0.021 shares, and would tie for 6th]. Meanwhile, Nikola Jokic is listed as 8th, yet his entries add up to .214 [which would place him 5th]. And finally Steph Curry is listed as 5th, however the entries he has add up to .271 shares [which would be 4th].

For Paul George, it's showing that only 1 voter [out of 14] gave him a single [4th-place] vote in what was his peak season. idk, maybe that is how the voting went, but I'm really darn skeptical that he didn't score higher in that particular year (especially given he's listed as 4th).

I speculated that maybe the entries for Curry actually belong to George (so he'd be the one with .271 shares), maybe Curry has the .214, and Jokic is the one with .021 shares???? idk, but have a peek at that.


And then for '01......
The exact same nine players as '02 are listed in the exact same order, with the exact same vote distribution and share total as '02. And I note that the actual MVP [Iverson] is not listed at all (which even on this forum that is [imo] overly harsh/critical of Iverson, I find that unlikely). I also noted that PEAK Ray Allen and PEAK Vince Carter (who both arguably had BETTER years than MVP Iverson) are also not on the list (needless to say this is also dubious).
I'm guessing the '02 results were somehow entered (copy/pasted??) into the slots for '01.

[Texas Chuck]

-By far the best defensive wing group in the NBA with McDaniels/NAW/ANT which helps Gobert defensively

Not sure I agree they are by far the best. And we can't ignore how playing with Gobert allows you to defend differently because you aren't toast if you get beat. How much better is that trio than Tatum/Brown/White? Or the Pels wings?

I think McDaniels is head and shoulder's above Tatum/Brown/White as a 6' 9" wing who can navigate screens better than anyone on the planet.

Well I can't believe I left off the Celtics very best wing defender in Jrue. But when I think about how navigates screens better than anyone on the planet I think of Jrue and maybe Suggs.

Add Jrue in who defends wings and now I'm really not convinced Minny has by far the best wings.

[Doctor MJ]

If you'd like to geek out about award shares, you can find the total tallies for POY, OPOY & DPOY here.

Hey Doc. I was taking a drive through this spreadsheet, and I'm pretty sure I've found a couple errors:

In the shares list for 2019 POY things are a bit of a mess [I think]..........
Paul George is placed 4th, though has the same entries as Joel Embiid [which amounts to just 0.021 shares, and would tie for 6th]. Meanwhile, Nikola Jokic is listed as 8th, yet his entries add up to .214 [which would place him 5th]. And finally Steph Curry is listed as 5th, however the entries he has add up to .271 shares [which would be 4th].

For Paul George, it's showing that only 1 voter [out of 14] gave him a single [4th-place] vote in what was his peak season. idk, maybe that is how the voting went, but I'm really darn skeptical that he didn't score higher in that particular year (especially given he's listed as 4th).

I speculated that maybe the entries for Curry actually belong to George (so he'd be the one with .271 shares), maybe Curry has the .214, and Jokic is the one with .021 shares???? idk, but have a peek at that.


And then for '01......
The exact same nine players as '02 are listed in the exact same order, with the exact same vote distribution and share total as '02. And I note that the actual MVP [Iverson] is not listed at all (which even on this forum that is [imo] overly harsh/critical of Iverson, I find that unlikely). I also noted that PEAK Ray Allen and PEAK Vince Carter (who both arguably had BETTER years than MVP Iverson) are also not on the list (needless to say this is also dubious).
I'm guessing the '02 results were somehow entered (copy/pasted??) into the slots for '01.

I appreciate your analysis here. Let me take a look.

[Colbinii]

Not sure I agree they are by far the best. And we can't ignore how playing with Gobert allows you to defend differently because you aren't toast if you get beat. How much better is that trio than Tatum/Brown/White? Or the Pels wings?

I think McDaniels is head and shoulder's above Tatum/Brown/White as a 6' 9" wing who can navigate screens better than anyone on the planet.

Well I can't believe I left off the Celtics very best wing defender in Jrue. But when I think about how navigates screens better than anyone on the planet I think of Jrue and maybe Suggs.

Add Jrue in who defends wings and now I'm really not convinced Minny has by far the best wings.

I wasn't impressed by Jrue this year. I'm excited to see how they defend Mitchell.

[Doctor MJ]

If you'd like to geek out about award shares, you can find the total tallies for POY, OPOY & DPOY here.

Hey Doc. I was taking a drive through this spreadsheet, and I'm pretty sure I've found a couple errors:

In the shares list for 2019 POY things are a bit of a mess [I think]..........
Paul George is placed 4th, though has the same entries as Joel Embiid [which amounts to just 0.021 shares, and would tie for 6th]. Meanwhile, Nikola Jokic is listed as 8th, yet his entries add up to .214 [which would place him 5th]. And finally Steph Curry is listed as 5th, however the entries he has add up to .271 shares [which would be 4th].

For Paul George, it's showing that only 1 voter [out of 14] gave him a single [4th-place] vote in what was his peak season. idk, maybe that is how the voting went, but I'm really darn skeptical that he didn't score higher in that particular year (especially given he's listed as 4th).

I speculated that maybe the entries for Curry actually belong to George (so he'd be the one with .271 shares), maybe Curry has the .214, and Jokic is the one with .021 shares???? idk, but have a peek at that.


And then for '01......
The exact same nine players as '02 are listed in the exact same order, with the exact same vote distribution and share total as '02. And I note that the actual MVP [Iverson] is not listed at all (which even on this forum that is [imo] overly harsh/critical of Iverson, I find that unlikely). I also noted that PEAK Ray Allen and PEAK Vince Carter (who both arguably had BETTER years than MVP Iverson) are also not on the list (needless to say this is also dubious).
I'm guessing the '02 results were somehow entered (copy/pasted??) into the slots for '01.

I appreciate your analysis here. Let me take a look.

Okay so:

-The count for 2019 looks right, it's just the sorting that was off. Fixed that.

- You were right that 2001 was mistakenly using 2002's votes. Fixed that.

[OhayoKD]

-By far the best defensive wing group in the NBA with McDaniels/NAW/ANT which helps Gobert defensively

Not sure I agree they are by far the best. And we can't ignore how playing with Gobert allows you to defend differently because you aren't toast if you get beat. How much better is that trio than Tatum/Brown/White? Or the Pels wings?

I think McDaniels is head and shoulder's above Tatum/Brown/White as a 6' 9" wing who can navigate screens better than anyone on the planet.

Herb is definitely right there with McDaniels, but who else is good there? Ingram sucks, Murphy III is mediocre, Daniels can't play because of his offense.

Gobert just makes such a huge difference in how you can play.

It's important to remember what has happened the past 3 seasons with the Timberwolves.

Finch rolled out an exciting defense in 2022, where the perimeter was being blitzed with McDaniels/Edwards/Beverley/Vanderbilt and the team managed to be a Top 15 defense with Towns as the back line. What was unique here is Finch rolled out a philosophy which covered for Towns inability to defend successfully in the Drop while taking advantage of Towns lateral movement at his size.

Come 2023 and the defense sort of struggled. Rudy wasn't 100% healthy and the team tried to rely too much on Drop, they lost some of their aggressiveness and the team as a whole wasn't really on the same page.

This year, everyone is back to hounding the ball-handler and sticking as close to possible on screens/DHO's/ect because they trust Rudy Gobert in the back. Finch took principles from the 2022 defense but combined it with Rudy's drop skill-set and it's essentially an unbreakable defense. We will see if a team is able to break the defense, but so far they have held Phoenix to -6 rOrtg [6 points below their RS offense] and held Denver to just 99 points on -11 rOrtg [11 points below their RS offense].

We could be looking at a near-GOAT level defense here, which they were in the Regular Season at -6.3 Rel Lg Avg.

Why not just compare 2022 with 2024 then:

[The-Power]

Herb is definitely right there with McDaniels, but who else is good there? Ingram sucks, Murphy III is mediocre, Daniels can't play because of his offense.

I think that's too harsh. The Pelicans had the 7th best defense with Valančiūnas as their Center and McCollum as their PG, and very little size at those positions on the bench. Zion is flawed also. So who are the drivers here? Obviously there's Herb but I also don't agree with Murphy being mediocre – I think he's clearly a good defensive player. Ingram is up and down but I'm not sure he sucks (certainly not when he tries). Naji Marshall might also be underrated, and then there's Nance Jr. (where it's unclear if he should count, I'll admit).

I like Minnesota's trio more but the Pelicans are clearly a team with a bunch of valuable perimeter defenders. I also think the Celtics are up there with anyone especially if we count Jrue. And then there's the Magic who are an interesting case. Suggs and Wagner is a pretty good defensive combo and then they have a bunch of solid options (Black could make it a big 3 of wing defenders but isn't good enough offensively to play enough minutes) plus however you want to characterize Isaac (if he counts as a wing defender due to his versatility then the Magic are up there with anyone).

[Colbinii]

Not sure I agree they are by far the best. And we can't ignore how playing with Gobert allows you to defend differently because you aren't toast if you get beat. How much better is that trio than Tatum/Brown/White? Or the Pels wings?

I think McDaniels is head and shoulder's above Tatum/Brown/White as a 6' 9" wing who can navigate screens better than anyone on the planet.

Herb is definitely right there with McDaniels, but who else is good there? Ingram sucks, Murphy III is mediocre, Daniels can't play because of his offense.

Gobert just makes such a huge difference in how you can play.

It's important to remember what has happened the past 3 seasons with the Timberwolves.

Finch rolled out an exciting defense in 2022, where the perimeter was being blitzed with McDaniels/Edwards/Beverley/Vanderbilt and the team managed to be a Top 15 defense with Towns as the back line. What was unique here is Finch rolled out a philosophy which covered for Towns inability to defend successfully in the Drop while taking advantage of Towns lateral movement at his size.

Come 2023 and the defense sort of struggled. Rudy wasn't 100% healthy and the team tried to rely too much on Drop, they lost some of their aggressiveness and the team as a whole wasn't really on the same page.

This year, everyone is back to hounding the ball-handler and sticking as close to possible on screens/DHO's/ect because they trust Rudy Gobert in the back. Finch took principles from the 2022 defense but combined it with Rudy's drop skill-set and it's essentially an unbreakable defense. We will see if a team is able to break the defense, but so far they have held Phoenix to -6 rOrtg [6 points below their RS offense] and held Denver to just 99 points on -11 rOrtg [11 points below their RS offense].

We could be looking at a near-GOAT level defense here, which they were in the Regular Season at -6.3 Rel Lg Avg.

Why not just compare 2022 with 2024 then:

Because Edwards wasn't a good defender in 2022. He would get lost during possessions and would ball-watch. The team also didn't have NAW, Reid was slow and still more of a Center and the team didn't have Kyle Anderson either.

Also, Mike Conley competes much more on that end than D'lo ever did.

It's not as easy as just looking at 2022 and 2024 and saying "It's all Gobert". The players have improved as well.

[Special_Puppy]

Who on earth is the leading contender for POTY now? Jokic is going to lose in the second round after mediocre play this series. Giannis is out. Embiid is out. Ant didn't play well enough in the regular season. Is it between Luka and SGA?

[Colbinii]

Who on earth is the leading contender for POTY now? Jokic is going to lose in the second round after mediocre play this series. Giannis is out. Embiid is out. Ant didn't play well enough in the regular season. Is it between Luka and SGA?

Why wasn't ANT good enough? Because BPM failed to capture his impact like +/- did?

One of Luka/SGA are losing in the 2nd round, like Jokic. If whoever wins the series between SGA/Luka get's clobbered by Minnesota, why would either of them be ahead of Jokic, who was excellent in round 1?

Tatum is still in the running along with Brunson, Haliburton, Kyrie [he has already won a game and he could be the X-factor in beating a very good OKC team].

Siakam and OG are likely on the outside looking in, along with Towns and [Jaylen] Brown.

[Dutchball97]

Probably will get some people mad but the biggest loser of last night in my eyes was Gobert. He's pretty much got DPOY locked up in a very weak field but with Minnesota holding Denver to 80 without him it becomes even more clear Gobert isn't their most important player. I really doubt he'll make my POY ballot.

[Special_Puppy]

Who on earth is the leading contender for POTY now? Jokic is going to lose in the second round after mediocre play this series. Giannis is out. Embiid is out. Ant didn't play well enough in the regular season. Is it between Luka and SGA?

Why wasn't ANT good enough? Because BPM failed to capture his impact like +/- did?

One of Luka/SGA are losing in the 2nd round, like Jokic. If whoever wins the series between SGA/Luka get's clobbered by Minnesota, why would either of them be ahead of Jokic, who was excellent in round 1?

Tatum is still in the running along with Brunson, Haliburton, Kyrie [he has already won a game and he could be the X-factor in beating a very good OKC team].

Siakam and OG are likely on the outside looking in, along with Towns and [Jaylen] Brown.

Every advanced stat had Ant as a fringe All-NBA level player at best in the regular season.

[Ambrose]

Probably will get some people mad but the biggest loser of last night in my eyes was Gobert. He's pretty much got DPOY locked up in a very weak field but with Minnesota holding Denver to 80 without him it becomes even more clear Gobert isn't their most important player.

It's a one game sample. Gobert was incredible defensively this year. Don't let one game diminish what he's done this season.

The Wolves went:
2-1 w/o Edwards
14-6 w/o Towns
3-3 w/o Gobert

Maybe they are simply real damn good.

[Colbinii]

Probably will get some people mad but the biggest loser of last night in my eyes was Gobert. He's pretty much got DPOY locked up in a very weak field but with Minnesota holding Denver to 80 without him it becomes even more clear Gobert isn't their most important player.

It's a one game sample. Gobert was incredible defensively this year. Don't let one game diminish what he's done this season.

The Wolves went:
2-1 w/o Edwards
14-6 w/o Towns
3-3 w/o Gobert

Maybe they are simply real damn good.

The amount of energy a team needs to play defense like Minnesota did yesterday is essentially impossible to do night-in, night-out.

Rudy is the most impactful Timberwolves defender on and off the court. He is the main reason the team, coming into the season, took on a defensive identity vs offensive identity, and that is paying dividends.

[Ambrose]

Probably will get some people mad but the biggest loser of last night in my eyes was Gobert. He's pretty much got DPOY locked up in a very weak field but with Minnesota holding Denver to 80 without him it becomes even more clear Gobert isn't their most important player.

It's a one game sample. Gobert was incredible defensively this year. Don't let one game diminish what he's done this season.

The Wolves went:
2-1 w/o Edwards
14-6 w/o Towns
3-3 w/o Gobert

Maybe they are simply real damn good.

The amount of energy a team needs to play defense like Minnesota did yesterday is essentially impossible to do night-in, night-out.

Rudy is the most impactful Timberwolves defender on and off the court. He is the main reason the team, coming into the season, took on a defensive identity vs offensive identity, and that is paying dividends.

100%.

That play on the short roll the other night was one of the best defensive plays I've ever seen. Let's not negate how amazing he's been this year because of one game.

[Dutchball97]

It's a one game sample. Gobert was incredible defensively this year. Don't let one game diminish what he's done this season.

The Wolves went:
2-1 w/o Edwards
14-6 w/o Towns
3-3 w/o Gobert

Maybe they are simply real damn good.

The amount of energy a team needs to play defense like Minnesota did yesterday is essentially impossible to do night-in, night-out.

Rudy is the most impactful Timberwolves defender on and off the court. He is the main reason the team, coming into the season, took on a defensive identity vs offensive identity, and that is paying dividends.

100%.

That play on the short roll the other night was one of the best defensive plays I've ever seen. Let's not negate how amazing he's been this year because of one game.

It's one game that confirms my suspsicions I've had the entire play-offs. I mean even in the comment you quoted of me I say Gobert is the DPOY so of course he's been great defensively but the people pushing him for POY are on something. It's proven time and time again team defense > team offense but individuals are always going to be able to swing games much more on offense than on defense. This "one game" shows Gobert isn't just making this Timberwolves team into a defensive juggernaut on his own and it's not just a decent supporting cast, this team is stacked defensively from top to bottom.

[Texas Chuck]

It's one game that confirms my suspsicions I've had the entire play-offs. I mean even in the comment you quoted of me I say Gobert is the DPOY so of course he's been great defensively but the people pushing him for POY are on something. It's proven time and time again team defense > team offense but individuals are always going to be able to swing games much more on offense than on defense. This "one game" shows Gobert isn't just making this Timberwolves team into a defensive juggernaut on his own and it's not just a decent supporting cast, this team is stacked defensively from top to bottom.

Not unreasonable.

but what if they all defend like this in large part due to Rudy Gobert making all that defensive effort super worthwhile? Imagine being the same guys and defending like crazy and then you get screened and Towns continually gets beat? Its human nature to think why I am working so hard just to have it undone.

Players can create culture. Edwards has clearly given them some needed swag and belief offensively. Gobert gives them the ability to be the best defense in the league. And so when he misses a game and for a reason like the birth of his kid, guys are going to want to step up and not let him down.

We saw the Mavs 2 years ago play good offense against Gobert and the Jazz without Luka. Brunson had his coming out party. Didn't mean Luka wasn't the driving force of the offense or that they didn't need him.

One game samples are just that.

[iggymcfrack]

Who on earth is the leading contender for POTY now? Jokic is going to lose in the second round after mediocre play this series. Giannis is out. Embiid is out. Ant didn't play well enough in the regular season. Is it between Luka and SGA?

Right now I’ve got:

1. Jokic
2. SGA
3. Luka
4. Brunson
5. Ant

Jokic has had 2 really bad games, but he still leads the playoffs in BPM. The only player who has really been better in the postseason is Ant and he wasn’t top 10 in the regular season. Obviously the door’s wide open for SGA if he can make the Finals, but I think Jokic is still the favorite at this point. I mean, these are the playoff stats for the top 3 regular season players:

Jokic: 29.3 PER on .634 TS%, .251 WS/48, 11.7 BPM
SGA: 21.7 PER on .553 TS%, .215 WS/48, 4.9 BPM
Luka: 21.8 PER on .515 TS%, .153 WS/48, 4.8 BPM

You really gonna say that Luka and SGA are passing the Joker with numbers like that? I’d say any of the top 5 has a chance to win it at this point, but Jokic is still the favorite until someone steps up to take it. SGA likely has to make the Finals to win POY while Luka, SGA, and Ant would all need a ring for serious consideration. If the Celtics beat the Wolves in the Finals, I really can’t see Jokic losing.