FanPost

The REAL MVP of the 2014 NBA Finals is...


...still Kawhi Leonard, according to Game Score.

For those of you unfamiliar with Game Score, it's another stat developed by John Hollinger, designed to "...give a rough measure of a player's productivity for a single game.", says basketball-reference.com. And because I've had a long-lingering question in my head that I thought Game Score could answer, I decided to research the Game Scores of every single Spurs player in their six Finals appearances. Did I find anything of interest? You be the judge.

Make of this what you will - I'm certain Hollinger didn't develop Game Score to settle awards questions - but in the five championship series won by the Spurs, the Finals MVP had the highest aggregate Game Score on the team. Every single time. Let's start with 1999:

1999 Finals
Tim Duncan 113.2 (22.6 per game), Finals MVP
David Robinson 78.5 (15.7 per game)
Mario Elie 45.3 (9.1 per game)


Years ago, a non-Spurs basketball fan friend of mine derided the 1999 team by saying, in reference to Tim and Dave, "That's their whole team, right there." I was a little annoyed with him, but it's actually a hard point to argue. The scale of Game Score is intended to be read as points scored: 10 is average, 40 is outstanding. The third-best Spur in the 1999 Finals, Mario Elie, had a below-average per-game Game Score.

This was far and away the most starter heavy Spurs team among the title winners: Robinson, Duncan, Elliott, Elie, and Avery garnered 92.3% of the aggregate Game Score points. No other Spurs championship team had even 80% by their starters.

Before you read on - keeping in mind how excellent MVP Tim Duncan was, which Spur do you suppose finished #2 in aggregate Game Score in 2003? Take a guess.

2003 Finals
Tim Duncan 144.7 (24.1 per game) Finals MVP
David Robinson 71.3 (11.9 per game)
Tony Parker 47.2 (7.9 per game)

Even at the end, with the busted up knees and aching back, David Robinson was still the number two Spur at almost 38. Of course, by Game Score, he was slightly above average during the 2003 Finals and Tony Parker played a below-average series. On the other hand, the 2003 Spurs were significantly deeper than the 1999 edition; the starters garnered 72.6% of Game Score points - almost 20 percentage points fewer than in 1999. Tony and Manu weren't yet what they'd become, and David wasn't his old self anymore. I defy any other all-time great to take Duncan's place on that team and win a championship.

2005 Finals
Tim Duncan 111.6 (15.9 per game) Finals MVP
Manu Ginobili 98.5 (14.1 per game)
Robert Horry 66.6 (9.5 per game)

This was the series I had in mind when I went into this. I've always thought that Manu and Tim should have been co-MVPs of the Finals in 2005, and many thought that Manu should have won the award outright. The aggregate Game Score shows that if you're going to award only one player, Tim was the better choice, albeit by a slim margin. But think about this: suppose you confine the Spurs Game Scores to the four games they won - how do the Game Scores look in that case?

2005 Finals Games 1, 2, 5, and 7
Manu Ginobili 78.6 (19.7 per game)
Tim Duncan 68.5 (17.1 per game)
Robert Horry 50.7 (12.7 per game)

In my retroactive, non-binding vote for the 2005 NBA Finals MVP, I cast my vote for Tim and Manu. What say you?

Also: Thanks to the play of Manu Ginobili and Robert Horry, the starters garnered only 56.9% of the total Game Score points in the 2005 Finals. The 05 Spurs are on one end of this spectrum, the 99 Spurs are on the other end.

2007 Finals
Tony Parker 64.7 (16.2 per game) Finals MVP
Tim Duncan 61.3 (15.3 per game)
Manu Ginobili 46.2 (11.6 per game)

I hope I'm wrong, but it appears that the 2007 NBA Finals represented Manu Ginobili's last realistic chance at an NBA Finals MVP award. (He didn't finish in the top three in Game Score 2013 or 2014) What killed his chances in 2007 was game three. Let's look at the slash lines of our Big Three first:

PARKER
39 min, 7-17 FG, 1-3 3FG, 2-4 FT, 17 PTS, 3 AST, 5 RBS, 3 TO
DUNCAN
34 min, 6-17 FG, 0-0 3FG, 2-2 FT, 14 PTS, 3 AST, 9 RBS, 2 BLK, 1 STL, 2 TO
GINOBILI
27 min, 0-7 FG, 0-3 3FG, 3-4 FT, 3 PTS, 5 AST, 4 RBS, 3 TO

Here's the Game Scores for each player:

PARKER
8.1
DUNCAN
8.9
GINOBILI
-1.4

Had Ginobili simply split the difference between the two players and managed an 8.5, his aggregate Game Score would be near Tim's at 56.1; if Ginobili had played game three at the level he played games one, two, and four, Manu would have an aggregate Game Score of 63.5 - just 1.3 points behind Parker, a negligible difference.

This shouldn't bother me so much, except I know that when future generations review the records of this era, they will get the idea that Tony Parker was the better player of the two because Tony has the FMVP and Manu doesn't, and that Tony went to six All-Star games and Manu went to two. They'll play down the Olympics because the US wasn't taking team selection very serious at the time and, besides, FIBA sucks. They'll play down Manu's Italian League MVPs because it's not the NBA, etc. It bothers me. Tim is the man, and Tony and Manu are 2A and 2B. Or vice versa. That's not how people are going to remember it though.

Bruce Bowen had the best Game Score in game three of the 2007 Finals at 12.2. Tim was second, Tony third. Bowen's line: 44 min, 4-6 FG, 4-5 3FG, 1-4 FT, 13 PTS, 1 AST, 9 RBS, 1 STL, 1 TO

2013 Finals
Tim Duncan 111.3 (15.9 per game)
Kawhi Leonard 99.1 (14.2 per game)
Tony Parker 78.3 (11.2 per game)


Don't want to say too much about this series, for all reasons obvious. If the Spurs had corralled that last rebound in game six and finished it, here's what the aggregate Game Scores would have looked like (or close - I know the game stats would have been a little different because of no OT and such):

2013 Finals, games 1-6
Tim Duncan 90.0 (15.0 per game)
Kawhi Leonard 84.3 (14.1 per game)
Danny Green 73.3 (12.2 per game)

Danny Green would have taken the bronze despite a miserable 0.3 Game Score in game six. He was even worse in game seven, posting a -1.6 Game Score. In traditional stats, it looked like this:

36 min, 1-12 FG, 1-6 3FG, 2-2 FT, 5 PTS, 5 REB, 2 STL, 1 BLK, 2 TO

2014 Finals
Kawhi Leonard 78.9 (15.8 per game) Finals MVP
Tim Duncan 64.5 (12.9 per game)
Tony Parker 58.0 (11.6 per game)

I offer without comment, as we are still basking in the afterglow of the Great Redemption. To say anything more would be a bit gauche at this point.

BITS OF TRIVIA

- The Spurs have played 34 NBA Finals games. Tim Duncan was the best player in 18 of them, the second-best in 7, and the third best in 3 of them. Only six Spurs Finals games occurred in which Duncan wasn't one of the team's three best players.

- David Robinson (1x), Bruce Bowen (1x), Manu Ginobili (x6), Tony Parker (x3), Danny Green (2x), and Kawhi Leonard (3x) are the other Spurs to earn the team's best Game Score in a Finals game.

- Duncan, Robinson, Ginobili, Parker, and Leonard are the only Spurs to have earned best, second-best, or third-best Game Score in team Finals history. Of the 44 different Spurs to play in the NBA Finals, 14 have been at least the third-best player on the team in one game.

- (Not related to Game Score) How many Spurs have played in the NBA Finals without winning a ring? And name them.

ONE LAST THING

Here's a look at two centers who played in the NBA Finals very near their 34th birthday and were considered the second-best player on their team at that point in their careers:

PLAYER A: 15.7 average Game Score
PLAYER B: 9.6 average Game Score

Player A was soft, overrated, owned-by-Hakeem David Robinson in 1999. Player B was the MOST DOMINANT EVAR, Shaquille O' Neal in 2006. Even if I cherry-picked Shaq's best four games, his average Game Score is 13.2 - so why is Shaq...never mind. I know why. Because sports fans and sports writers are 95% idiot.

And finally, two Spurs legends near the age of 38:

Tim Duncan, 2014 Finals: 12.9 average Game Score
David Robinson, 2003 Finals: 11.9 average Game Score

Gervin, Robinson, Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, Leonard, Pop...yeah, we've had it good for a while.

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