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r/nba•
Solar24

[Serious] All-NBA teams voting process and decisions.

I had this question after Zach Lowe's recently released predictions for All-NBA teams.

With All-NBA teams approaching I would like to get your guys opinions on the attributes sought out by voters in their decision making process.

Is it right to just look at a player on their own and award based off individual talent alone? Should it depend on how well their team performed as well? A balance of both?

I traditionally think of All-NBA teams as a recognition of skill regardless of team record. All-NBA can truly show you which players were the greatest during that NBA season.

However, I feel like some voting has become more in-line with how the team performs and gives the awards to players who might be worse but play on a better team.

For example: I think Boogie and Harden are two players who outperformed peers, but might placed in lower teams or not at all due to their teams performance. On the other hand I think KAT might get placed on to an all-NBA team due to his individual talent rather then team success.

I have no issues or qualms with the voters themselves, and certainly anyone selected will be deserving. However I just want to see what you guys think on the matter.

Tl;dr: Do you think the All-NBA teams selections are given out based off talent alone or do you think voters might pick other players who might have a lesser case, but play on a better team?

Posted Apr 18, 2016, 5:30 PM UTC · edited

723
waswereual[TOR] Norman Powell•

I think it should be independent of record.

Harden should be 2nd team, Cousins 1st team.

12
TheGangstaTheKillaClippers•

I was at the game and it was fucking terrible. The violin kid sucked.

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waswereual[TOR] Norman Powell•

Wrong thread buddy

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TheGangstaTheKillaClippers•

shit

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ken_u_diggit[MIA] Hassan Whiteside•

i think the violin kid has a shot at the third team

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swaggyp_Thunder Bandwagon•

Team record should matter. It's a team game, and the best players elevate their teammates play. Boogie and Harden put up great stats but their teams were both an absolute mess this season. Individual stats are important but so is team chemistry and playing winning basketball. Boogie should be 2nd team (in favor of DeAndre) and Harden 2nd team (in favor of Curry/CP3/Westbrook).

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ReallyPonderousRockets•

Team success has influenced individual accomplishments since forever. That's just how it is. Harden put up nearly identical stats as last season, but he probably won't make an all NBA team this year because the Rockets were the most underachieving and disappointing team in the league.

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ken_u_diggit[MIA] Hassan Whiteside•

he'll definitely make a team, probably second with cp3/wb

4
theunstoppable3Heat•

Agreed

He put monster numbers and carried the rockets for the playoffs

5
ReallyPonderousRockets•

Based on the results from a few voters, I doubt it. Just about everybody is going to have Curry/Westbrook as the first team and CP3/Klay as 2nd team. Lillard is definitely getting third team after the Blazers blew away everybody's preseason expectations. That leaves Harden competing with Butler, Derozan, Lowry, and McCollum for the final spot.

Harden not only has his team's under performance going against him, but there's still the stigma that he got McHale fired this season. It seems everybody in the media is against him this season, and it's going to hurt him in all NBA voting, unfortunately.

2
steve496Warriors•

I think the argument is: while basketball is a team sport, the impact of one player can be enormous - at minimum, you're 20% of the team, and in practice the superstars have a bigger impact than that - see also, Lebron singlehandedly carrying a mediocre roster to (and through) the playoffs.

Hence: team success is, at some level, a measure of player success. Its not the only factor, certainly, but if a guy is putting up huge numbers but his team is still terrible, you have to ask why his personal success isn't elevating the team. Is it just that his team is too awful for him to elevate to a playoff level? Is he actually just piling up empty stats without significantly improving the team? Is he so much of a liability in other ways (on or off the court) that it offsets the things he does well?

Given this, I think its reasonable that team success factors somewhat into all-NBA voting. It shouldn't be the primary factor, and in those cases where the player just doesn't have any sort of supporting cast it may not count at all; but often, when you have a good player on a bad team, there's a reason, and that reason is often as good a tiebreaker as any when it comes to all-NBA voting.

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c-11Warriors Bandwagon•

I think it should be based on how much you contribute to your team winning, since that's the point of the game.

But it's just really difficult to know how individual performance contributes to wins. Every team scores some points, so one player putting up a lot of points is not necessarily correlated with maximizing contribution to your team.

Harden's team performed well below expectations, even though by stats/advanced stats Harden had a great year. The narrative is that he came in unprepared and lazy (and stayed lazy on defense), which set the tone for the team; even though he picked up his own play, the tone he set is why the Rockets aren't as good this year. In that narrative, Harden's great stats (which give the team a bunch of wins) are offset by his laziness/tone which take a bunch of wins away.

Lillard's team performed well above expectations. A lot of people credit some of that to him.

So even though by essentially all stats Harden's better than Lillard, people credit Lillard with more contribution to his team winning.

Should things like personality/tone be taken into account? I think ideally yes, since ultimately the point is to win, not to put up stats.

Is that narrative about Harden overblown? I think so. How overblown? I don't know.

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ken_u_diggit[MIA] Hassan Whiteside•

i think it should be based on purely the individuals performance, if i wanted to know how good their team did id look at the standings

good question

edit: team success plays a role in voting currently but it shouldn't

1
bzsports4•

If an individual performance was good enough then his team should do well, otherwise it is just empty stats.

0
ken_u_diggit[MIA] Hassan Whiteside•

players like lebron and kobe might be able to do stuff like that but most arent at that all-time great level of singlehandedly elevating their team to the playoffs

0
bzsports4•

More than half of the teams in the league makes the playoffs. Great players with reasonable supporting casts usually make the playoffs.

0
ken_u_diggit[MIA] Hassan Whiteside•

the kings have like 5 or 6 worthwhile players and a net-negative coach

0
joeypeepy•

It must be based on a balance of team success AND individual numbers. If not, you'd have people like Cousins being perennial All-NBA 1st Teamers (he might be anyway b/c the center position is so awful) when their great #s are moot because their team stinks every year. If your performance doesn't translate to wins, it's not a truly elite performance. Go look through all the 1st and 2nd team All-NBA picks and count how many played on lottery teams vs. playoff teams. While Harden and Boogie had really good individual seasons, they were also part of the reason why their teams underperformed.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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theunstoppable3Heat•

I traditionally think of All-NBA teams as a recognition of skill regardless of team record.

I think the allstar game is made for it

0
waswereual[TOR] Norman Powell•

That's fan voting. And team success matters a lot in that. Atlanta had 4 all stars one year

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theunstoppable3Heat•

What about coach selections? All the hawks players are coach selections

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waswereual[TOR] Norman Powell•

Are you going to argue that team success doesn't matter for the coaches vote?

They chose aldridge over Lilliard this year.

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Solar24OPRockets•

I thought that was the popularity contest.

1