Vote for All-NBA teams

[Mike G]

Noticing that 50 options can be in a poll, and a poll can be set to receive any number of votes per voter -- here's a very clunky way to vote for all-league teams. There are 25 players listed, twice each. One way to vote is to vote twice for a player who should be 1st team, and once for a 2nd-team player. You have 15 votes.
Of course a 3rd team, and even a 4th team, could happen with diverse voting.
You may change your votes at any time.
Suggest any player who is not among the options.

EDIT: Late replacements are out of alphabetical order:
Tyson Chandler
Brook Lopez

[PD123]

Is the NBA adopting a similar approach to the ALL-NBA teams as they've started to take with the All-Star (i.e. voting for two guards and three forwards/centers), or are they still the traditional rules (and if so, should we follow them when we vote)?

[jbrocato23]

I'd like to write in Chandler for my second team center.

[Bobbofitos]

I'd like to write in Chandler for my second team center.

Yeah, I would have voted for Chandler, if allowed.

[Mike G]

Alright, Dwight is out, and Chandler is in.
Something tells me if I'd put him in alphabetical order, the votes would be scrambled.

You may change your votes at any time. Yay!

[Mike G]

Is the NBA adopting a similar approach to the ALL-NBA teams as they've started to take with the All-Star (i.e. voting for two guards and three forwards/centers), or are they still the traditional rules (and if so, should we follow them when we vote)?

At the moment, I don't care how you do it. This isn't a team that actually plays a game, and even if it were you shouldn't have to include a weaker player just because he's a center.

Traditional forwards have been playing mostly at center this year -- Garnett, Bosh, Duncan.
LeBron could be a PG or a PF. But he's still listed as SF.
Right now the totals look like this:

Code: Select all

14   Durant,Kevin     SF
14   James,Lebron     SF
12   Paul,Chris       PG
11   Duncan,Tim       PF
9    Harden,James     SG

7    Parker,Tony      PG
6    Bryant,Kobe      SG
6    Westbrook,Russel PG
4    Curry,Stephen    PG
4    Griffin,Blake    PF
4    Wade,Dwyane      SG

3    Anthony,Carmelo  SF
3    Gasol,Marc       C
3    George,Paul      SG
2    Chandler,Tyson   C
2    Jefferson,Al     C
1    Horford,Al       C

That 2nd team looks a bit small! -- esp. if Griffin is the odd man out.
I gave Chandler 2 votes but didn't remove anyone else's.

[v-zero]

Would've taken Noah if he was available - there is a lack of real Cs in the league/on the list that's for sure.

[Mike G]

With 25 players as candidates, a reasonable breakdown would be 10 G, 10 F, and 5 C
With Duncan, M Gasol, Chandler, Horford, Jefferson, Monroe, and Garnett showing -- Center may actually be over-represented.
Duncan's the one closest to having an all-NBA type season, so yeah -- a bunch of possible #2's.

Forwards dominate the list of players with no votes -- Lee, West, LA, Zach, Pierce, Smith.
Votes now total 26 for C, 46 for F, and 63 for G.
We're going small!

[v-zero]

I meant more in the sense of style of play than the position they are credited with playing. Duncan is a great player, but he's a PF, not a C. It wasn't a critique of your list, rather another nod towards the small-ball movement in the NBA.

[Mike G]

Tyson Chandler leads all centers and pseudo-centers in Win Shares and WS/minute. He also leads the league in FG%, eFG%, and TS%.
He's only about 9th in PER among C's, perhaps because he doesn't score much.
Not sure of the significance, but here are some centers with their fraction of FG assisted, and of FG "at the rim" (<3 ft)
Ranked by current WS.

Code: Select all

.centers  Ast'd  at rim
Chandler   .75    .86
Gasol      .74    .26
Horford    .76    .37
Bosh       .75    .30
Duncan     .69    .28
Noah       .62    .56
B Lopez    .64    .38
Howard     .57    .58
Monroe     .52    .57

I took the liberty of using their "road" assist fractions.

[bbstats]

Someone didn't include Chris Paul on either team?

[Mike G]

That's right, I'm going by current eWins projected to the full season. Paul's got about the same eWin/minute rate that Westbrook and Parker have, but in a lot less minutes.

If he can stay in the lineup, he may catch Wade as well as the idle Parker, and he'll be on my 2nd team.

Al Jefferson leads all centers in eWins, so he's got my 2 votes there.
Chandler averages 11 pts, 11 reb, and 1.2 blocks.
The last time an All-Star center (less exclusive than all-NBA) averaged fewer points was Mutombo in 2001, and he got 4.5 blocks per game. Deke was all-league 2nd team.
Before that, go back to Mark Eaton in 1989 -- 3.8 Blk/G

Just 8 all-star centers in NBA history have averaged fewer points than Chandler this year.
Just two of these have also averaged fewer blocks -- Kareem in his final year and Unseld in '75.
Neither was all-NBA. Wes got almost 15 reb/game. And 4 times as many assists, and twice as many steals as Ty.

I'm updating the eWins file today, and I look forward to swapping stars on the rise or fall.
(After I mentioned the surplus of guards getting votes, someone changed a vote from a F to a G.)

[Mike G]

The order hasn't changed much of late. Including some summary stats:

Code: Select all

votes  player          tm    WS    ws48    PER    e82   e484
24   James,Lebron     Mia   14.8   .312   31.3   18.6   2.85
24   Durant,Kevin     Okl   14.7   .297   28.6   16.9   2.56
22   Paul,Chris       LAC   10.1   .284   26.0   10.0   2.21
20   Duncan,Tim       SAS    6.5   .203   24.2   10.0   2.38
15   Harden,James     Hou   10.2   .213   23.7   11.8   1.87

11   Bryant,Kobe      LAL    8.8   .178   23.5   12.7   1.96
10  Westbrook,Russell Okl    8.7   .192   23.8   14.2   2.34
10   Parker,Tony      SAS    9.0   .234   24.3   11.3   2.24
8   Wade,Dwyane       Mia    7.8   .197   24.6   11.4   2.09
6   Curry,Stephen     GSW    7.4   .161   20.5    9.4   1.56
6   Chandler,Tyson    NYK    8.9   .218   19.8    8.2   1.46

5   Griffin,Blake     LAC    9.1   .218   23.8   11.9   2.24
5   Garnett,Kevin     Bos    5.1   .137   19.0    8.6   1.71
4   Anthony,Carmelo   NYK    6.7   .170   23.2   11.1   2.05
4   Gasol,Marc        Mem    8.6   .201   19.4    9.7   1.65
4   George,Paul       Ind    7.2   .152   17.0   10.0   1.58

1   Jefferson,Al      Uta    5.8   .148   20.9    9.9   1.89
1   Aldridge,Lamarcus Por    5.5   .121   19.6   10.1   1.63

.100 WS/48 is about equivalent to 1.00 eW/484

[Mike G]

The voting seems to have leveled off, after 12 participants.
With 180 votes cast, 86 went to guards, 63 to forwards, and 31 to centers.
(Counting Duncan as C, Garnett as F)

Per 5 players, you'd have 2.39 G, 1.75 F, and 0.86 C
James Harden doesn't seem to be any "better" than Griffin or Carmelo, but he gets 3-4 times as many votes. Kobe gets 2-3 times as many.

[Mike G]

Russell Westbrook is 2nd-team according to us here; unless we limit it to 2 guards, in which case he may be 3rd team.
He's averaging 23.3 Pts, 5.2 Reb, and 7.7 Ast.

Players in NBA history who have averaged 22 points, 5 rebounds, and 7.5 assists for a season:
LeBron in 2010, Paul in 2009, Payton in 2000 (his career year), Jordan in '89, Magic in '87, '89, and '90; Bird in '87; Wilkens in 1969 (his career year, expansion era); Wilt in '67 and '68 (playing the passer); and Oscar Robertson a bunch of times in a high paced era.

Normally such a rack of numbers wins the MVP or gets you into the Hall of Fame. I don't see how he ranks behind Harden and Kobe this year.

Westbrook's TS%, .533 at present, ranks near the bottom of the 22 player-seasons with the averages listed.
His TO% is only better than those 3 Magic Johnson seasons' (of the 9 which are known).
His Ast% is better than all but the 3 Magics, the Paul, and the LeBron (of 18 known)
Stl% behind only those of Paul and Jordan.