Hollinger: Votes for Tony Parker are "Story" Votes

[timvp]

Hollinger wrote an article detailing his All-NBA and awards votes. For Spurs fans, the most interesting part of the article is how he scoffs other media members who are voting for Parker. (Personally, I think his main target for criticism is David Aldridge, who is giving a Parker an All-NBA First Team vote (http://www.nba.com/2012/news/features/david_aldridge/04/23/morning-tip-david-aldridge-award-picks/index.html).)

Here's what Hollinger says about giving the nod to Chris Paul on the All-NBA First Team:
Point guard is more interesting. There's been a surge of interest in Tony Parker, largely because the basketball media just can't handle the idea of an ensemble cast winning a ton of games. San Antonio has three stars and a bunch of good players around them; I'm not sure why it shocks people that they could win this way. But somehow everybody thinks it could only happen if Parker became a superduperstar. Alas, San Antonio's success doesn't make Parker better than Chris Paul, who has both galvanized the Clippers under his leadership and ranks second in the NBA in PER (player efficiency rating, my rating of a player's per-minute effectiveness).

Here's Hollinger's explanation about going with Russell Westbrook on the Second Team:
Again, the sympathies for Tony Parker and Steve Nash are mostly "story" votes; Westbrook outranks both in PER and has been a total ironman, playing every game and for nearly 36 minutes a contest. Derrick Rose is the other contender here, and would be an easy call if he'd been healthy all season. Alas, he simply hasn't played enough games -- his 8.2 EWA, for instance, only ranks 37th in the league even though he has a top-10 PER.

And, finally, Hollinger on giving Parker a Third Team vote:
And now we get to Parker at the point. While he falls short of Westbrook and CP, he's pretty easily been the league's third-best point guard this season -- again, once we account for Rose missing half the season. He was one of only three point guards to have a double-digit EWA (I suppose you can guess the other two), and the Spurs' record obviously speaks well for his contributions. Additionally, Parker had strong plus-minus numbers despite his team having a very strong bench.


First of all, I don't really care about awards. Secondly, I think that Chris Paul is the best PG in basketball, so honoring him over Parker isn't that big of a deal.

That said, I think Hollinger's logic is pretty flawed. Currently, the Spurs are a true ensemble cast but that wasn't the case for the entire season. After Ginobili went down, the Spurs basically had Parker, a creaky Tim Duncan and a bunch of unproven and/or underwhelming parts. There was a stretch of games where Parker was as valuable to the Spurs as CP3 is to the Clippers and certainly as valuable as Westbrook is to the Thunder.

For the six-week stretch of games that ended at the All-Star break and included the Rodeo Road Trip, the Spurs were 17-5 with Parker doing as much heavy lifting as any player in the league. For the last two months, it's somewhat fair to say Parker has just been a part of an ensemble cast but to be condescending about his entire season is just wrong, IMO.

And Westbrook over Parker partly because he "outranks him in PER" is a weak argument considering that Westbrook's PER is less than one point higher (22.6 to 22.1). Does Hollinger really thing PER is so perfect that it is accurate down to the decimal point?

On top of that, Parker annihilated Westbrook in one-on-one matchups. Westbrook's assists dropped from 8.2 per game last year to 5.4 this season ... yet he remained one of the most turnover prone players in basketball. He scores more than Parker but he also uses a ton more possessions. Westbrook is a really good player but, especially after you factor in the Spurs passing the Thunder in the standings, I don't see how you give him the nod over Parker since it's not like Westbrook doesn't have a lot of talent around him as well.

IMO, if you are going to give Parker the Third Team, it has to be CP3 and Derrick Rose ahead of him. I just don't see the case for Westbrook over him. Tbh, I see more of a case for Steve Nash than Westbrook.

[Spurtacus]

Westbrook over Parker is laughable. Rose over Parker, for this year, is also laughable. Rose shouldn't be considered for anything after missing so many games and the Bulls record in those games.

[Horse]

Fuck hollinger

[letmk]

All he talks now is that how "natural" that the Spurs with big 3 and young good players would win.

If I get a chance to meet him, I would only ask one question to shut him up: How many games do so-called experts and his formulas think the Spurs would win?

If you project Spurs to barely make playoff or even miss it, you sort of trash the Spurs then. That's perfectly fine, since it's all one's opinion. BUT you have to give out the credit at the end of season like now.

Instead, what he (and other experts) do is trash the Spurs then because the Spurs is not good anymore (in their opinions), and still trash the players like Parker now since the Spurs is always good.

It's all BS. You can't just get two ways.

[naico]

It's one thing to personally glorify a player and give your reasons why to vote for him, it's another thing to try and convince other people (media?) to not vote for a specific player. It didn't even remotely look like he was justifying it. That's just straight up pathetic. And that's not even considering his bullshit reasoning.

[Man In Black]

I'm just pissed that I didn't bet at 30-1 :bang

[EJFischer]

I agree with the general notion that an MVP vote for Parker is a story vote. But the All-NBA team selection rationale is nonsense. You have to put CP3 and Nash ahead of Parker (I think Rose is overrated), but Westbrook is clearly a lesser player. PER rewards inefficient volume shooting, so it's hardly surprising that Westbrook's is higher.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

It's one thing to personally glorify a player and give your reasons why to vote for him, it's another thing to try and convince other people (media?) to not vote for a specific player. It didn't even remotely look like he was justifying it. That's just straight up pathetic. And that's not even considering his bullshit reasoning.

:toast

[Bruno]

Speaking of Hollinger and Tony Parker:

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188820

:rollin

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Speaking of Hollinger and Tony Parker:

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188820

:rollin

Thats just shitty analysis meets hubris. "My model doesn't explain these variants so I am going to just blame the variant instead of review the model."

[DesignatedT]

Fuck Chris Paul. biggest bitch in basketball.

Can't stand watching him "play" basketball. All he does is go out there and constantly play the refs looking for calls. It could b all tied up in game 7 of the playoffs and cp3 is still falling up and down the court looking for fucking foul calls. Just play the game.

[timvp]

Speaking of Hollinger and Tony Parker:

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188820

:rollin

:lol Good memory. How could Hollinger look at Parker's career and think last year was the fluke season?







And did Hollinger predict Manu would come crashing down to earth again or did he stop doing that a few years ago?

[GSH]

Secondly, I think that Chris Paul is the best PG in basketball, so honoring him over Parker isn't that big of a deal.

For the six-week stretch of games that ended at the All-Star break and included the Rodeo Road Trip, the Spurs were 17-5 with Parker doing as much heavy lifting as any player in the league.



I would usually agree with you straigt-up about CP being the best PG in the league. But I have to wonder how even he would have handled that stretch, especially with all those road games. They're two different players, with two different styles. And I think it may be a little easy to give a slight discount towards Tony's vs CP's - even for us. Maybe I'd still give Paul the edge, but it's a much closer thing in my mind than it might have been in years past.



Speaking of Hollinger and Tony Parker:

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=188820

:rollin


If you look closely, Hollinger says that Tony might be the "glaring exception" to the rule. In other words, he admits that Parker could have another exceptional year (which he has), while all the others wouldn't.

[Arc]

parker deserves MVP. without him this year the spurs wouldn't even be in the playoffs. instead, we're #1 in the west, and we could potentially become #1 in the entire league.

if that isn't worthy of MVP, i don't know what is. if you're just gonna give it to the guy who has the best stats, then it shouldn't be called the MVP award.

parker first.
second on my list would be CP3.

[EJFischer]

The truth is, any MVP vote that isn't for LeBron is a story vote. Either because you like the other player's story better, or because you have so much distaste for Lebron's story. (And to be fair, he hasn't really tried to win people over, narratively speaking.) But statistically, there is really only one choice this season.

[Robz4000]

:lol putting Westbrook above TP; dude's not even a true PG. Westbrook has cost that team more games than he's won for them. Kevin Durant is the best player on that team, and he needs to come to terms with that. Then again, Lollinger is a numbers guy, and he can't help but ejaculate over his PER. Westbrook may put up better numbers, but he uses a good chunk more of the game to do so.

That said, I think his analysis is fairly spot on for CP3. He is the best PG in the league, and he's won the Clippers a lot of games. When you look at that roster and take into account how underwhelming their veteran additions (Butler, Billups (even though he was good before he got hurt)) have been, he's really taken over and led that team somewhere. On top of that his stats are better than TP.

[coyotes_geek]

Westbrook is pretty overrated IMO. Incredible talent, but easily baited into personal grudge matches against the opposing point guard and his shooting really declines against good teams.

Westbrook FG% vs. lottery teams: .505 (Parker for comparison: .484)
Westbrook FG% vs. playoff teams: .411 (Parker: .476)

[Cant_Be_Faded]

I hope this article is taped on Parker's locker.

[cheguevara]

not a big deal IMO

If westbrook was a spur we'd all be happy with Hollinger's decision.

[Blake]

:lol putting Westbrook above TP; dude's not even a true PG.


lol oh goody

[mathbzh]

IMHO there is a major problem looking at Parker average PER.
It has been obvious this season that Parker takeover when the team needs it and that he is happy to take a back seat when he can.
Moreover, considering the Spurs have the best offense in the league, I am not sure where who Parker should take the missing PER points from.
Obviously, the Spurs offense can't get much better.

Would it be good for the team if Parker started dominating all games as he did with Manu out? I don't think so. So what the point looking if he has a 22 or 25 PER? Any extra basket he would score is an open 3 not made.

[ffadicted]

Hollinger is way too obsessed with stats to judge a player's true value to a team imo

[mercos]

I can understand CP3 over Parker, but putting Westbrook above him is a slap in the face. First of all he is not a point guard. Regardless of how his coach lists him in the lineup, he simply is not. We might as well throw Lebron into the discussion as he is a much better facilitator than Westbrook. Second of all, Parker annihilated him in their head to head match ups.

To me Parker and CP3 should be the top two MVP candidates in the league, and I would probably give the nod to CP3 at this point. He took a non-playoff team and led them to a 4 seed this year. He transformed that team similar to how Nash did when he arrived in Phoenix in the middle of the past decade. You can not say he was not extremely valuable to that franchise. Take Lebron off the Heat or Durant off the Thunder and those teams still might make the playoffs. Take away Tony Parker or CP3 from their teams this year and they are both in the lottery.

[tmtcsc]

I'm looking forward to Parker vs Westbrook in the playoffs. I thought Tony outplays the guy in head to head matchups. It's been cool to watch those two guys compete against each other.

[Spurminator]

There are a lot of reasons Westbrook shouldn't be listed above Parker but "he's not a point guard" ain't one of them. That's the kind of thing people said about Parker not too long ago. It was wrong then and it's wrong now.

[jestersmash]

And did Hollinger predict Manu would come crashing down to earth again or did he stop doing that a few years ago?

Nah, Hollinger's consistently been on the "Ginobili is vastly underrated" bandwagon. He had the infamous "Ginobili > Kobe" article in '07, and generally speaking he's been a strong proponent for Ginobili getting All-NBA 3rd team and/or making the All-star team in years that he didn't.

As far as PER is concerned, he's only given Ginobili the "usual" expected decline in PER that he gives all aging players. 23 --> 22.1 or 22.5 --> 21.2. He's never called any of his years fluke years.

[ginobili fan]

I agree with Hollinger in most of his says,
Paul is franchise and is ahead of Parker, spurs are a team, clippers are a bunch of scrubs winning only thanks to Paul.
Now saying westbrook 's better than tony just insane.
Despite the fact i can't bear a piece of this dickhead westbrook, I think he's far far away from Tony who's just the third best PG in the league.
Tony deserves at least second team.

[Paranoid Pop]

3 quick remarks :

- realistically that was probably the year TP had the best shot at the mvp and passed on it knowingly, he didn't ask for extra minutes or anything, didn't argue with the nights off except for the lakers game, he didn't put his (low) mvp chances before the team (higher) PO's chances. It is known that both Durant and Lebron like to statpad, they made multiple declarations showing that, Durant even played 37 minutes in the All-Star game.

- Chris Paul is, like a lot of people in this thread, my mvp, nothing to do with numbers but just from watching games, he has a frontline that needs to be assisted on everything, Billups who was probably as valuable to them as Manu was for us went down. But TP this year clearly belongs right at the top with CP3.

- Hollinger relies too heavily on numbers, numbers told him that Diaw was strictly a good insurance at the end of the bench. He comes up with some great stuff like his article on high potential bargains but he also comes up with a lot of facepalm-worthy stuff that just shows he's not watching the games.

[timvp]

Nah, Hollinger's consistently been on the "Ginobili is vastly underrated" bandwagon. He had the infamous "Ginobili > Kobe" article in '07, and generally speaking he's been a strong proponent for Ginobili getting All-NBA 3rd team and/or making the All-star team in years that he didn't.

As far as PER is concerned, he's only given Ginobili the "usual" expected decline in PER that he gives all aging players. 23 --> 22.1 or 22.5 --> 21.2. He's never called any of his years fluke years.

Hollinger put Ginobili on his All-Decline team at least once ... maybe twice. IIRC, he predicted a pretty huge drop in play right before Ginobili had his career year in 2008.

It's funny that Ginobili was on his All-Decline team a half decade ago and could conceivably post his career-high in PER this season.

[Paranoid Pop]

Also Hollinger doesn't mind taking the story side of things into account himself :


Whether you chose Andrew Bynum or Dwight Howard as your second big man largely depends on which brand of immaturity rankled you more. Bynum's errors, however, were largely borne out of competitiveness; Howard's at times seemed to come from a place of sheer apathy. I freely admit that on sheer per-minute productivity Howard was the superior player, but it's hard for me to give a first-team All-NBA nod to a guy who was clearly uncommitted to his team and trying to backstab the coach.

[jestersmash]

Hollinger put Ginobili on his All-Decline team at least once ... maybe twice. IIRC, he predicted a pretty huge drop in play right before Ginobili had his career year in 2008.

It's funny that Ginobili was on his All-Decline team a half decade ago and could conceivably post his career-high in PER this season.

Ah, you're right. I remember the All-decline article. Here's Manu's portion -


Manu Ginobili, Spurs (last season 24.18, projected 21.7)
Don't take this too far -- the guy is still an All-Star caliber performer who remains one of the league's most underrated players because the restrictions on his minutes hurt his per-game averages (believe it or not, he had the league's ninth-best PER last season).

But Manu was so good last season that it would be very difficult for him to repeat it -- he put up his best numbers since coming to the NBA in pretty much every category. As a 30-year-old slasher, we'd expect his numbers to go down anyway, and I think it's a relatively safe bet that he won't finish in the top 10 in PER this season [07-08] despite his strong start so far.


Manu turned around and increased his PER from 24.1 (06-07) to 24.3 (07-08) :lol

Since 07-08, he's posted PERs of 22.9, 22.5, 21.7, and 24.2 (current)

Can anyone with insider access post Manu's projected PER since 07-08?

[SpursIndonesia]

There are a lot of reasons Westbrook shouldn't be listed above Parker but "he's not a point guard" ain't one of them. That's the kind of thing people said about Parker not too long ago. It was wrong then and it's wrong now.

Yeah, agreed. Westbrick is a scoring point guard who hasn't get IT, that personal glory is nothing compared to team achievement.

[jestersmash]

Ah, here we go. I found Manu's projected PER for this year at least -

2011-12 Current PER: 24.22
League Average Comparison: +9.22
Projected PER ('11-'12): 20.55
2010-11 PER: 21.78

[jimo2305]

yes i saw that article earlier.. wasn't surprised tho.. i mean it's pretty rare someone who's got some MVP buzz would be on the all nba 3rd team.. unless it's a spur of course

[Richie]

Westbrook is the most overrated player in basketball. Durant won't win anything in OKC with him running the point

[wut]

Hollinger is way too obsessed with stats to judge a player's true value to a team imo

I agree with this point. We'd not have championships if we judged players only on their stats. Guys like Bowen or Manu don't impress you with stat lines, but they win you games. Also, find it interesting now that a Spur is in the talks for MVP race, media are making up excuses like "story points", as if MVP for years hasn't been about story points. LAME

[jestersmash]

I agree with this point. We'd not have championships if we judged players only on their stats. Guys like Bowen or Manu don't impress you with stat lines, but they win you games. Also, find it interesting now that a Spur is in the talks for MVP race, media are making up excuses like "story points", as if MVP for years hasn't been about story points. LAME

Which stat lines?

Manu has consistently impressed Hollinger with his advanced stat lines (though as we just found out even Hollinger underrated Manu after '06-'07). If you're talking about the stat lines that give "blue collar" casual fans hard-ons (PPG, APG, RPG, FG%, probably in that order), then yeah, I'd agree.

[Dr. John R. Brinkley]

Hollinger just might like to go against the grain because he feels it makes him smarter. As for Westbrook I can't say I've watched him much this year, but in that recent meltdown game against the Lakers, Westbrook was pulling the same routine that got him ridiculed in the playoffs. He hasn't learned anything. He's like an uber-talented...I don't know, Antonio Daniels? Athletic, talented, but not great instincts. After that Lakers meltdown I felt convinced that OKC will never get over the next hump. Assuming Harden can recover to his previous play, I'd consider trading Westbrook to give more room for Durant.

[ElNono]

I'm with Hollinger on this one... :hat

[Spursfanfromafar]

And Westbrook over Parker partly because he "outranks him in PER" is a weak argument considering that Westbrook's PER is less than one point higher (22.6 to 22.1). Does Hollinger really thing PER is so perfect that it is accurate down to the decimal point?

It comes down to that, LJ.

Hollinger's PER is a nice stat that can be used to compare players when you haven't seen them play just as a referencing tool. But it is no accurate comparison metric. It omits defense, overrates volume of shots over shoot accuracy, and also overrates usage rate. Plus it is based on weights arbitrarily defined and drawn not from actual empirical data, but from subjective insight.

If Hollinger was truly being objective, he would have made his awards based on the fact that his PER was flawed and adjusting for that. Unfortunately he is in love with himself and that narcissism refuses to give Parker his due over Westbrook.

Anyone who saw Parker annihilate Westbrook whenever the Spurs met Thunder would know that the former is quite better than the latter.. Not Hollinger though.