Originally Posted by
SilkyJ
Perhaps it should be irrelevant as you say, but I don't think it is. Voters take that stuff into consideration. Last year Durant was a runaway but you still had people talking about what it would mean to give the wooden/naismith award to a freshman and all that. (same deal in football, even moreso, actually. voters hate to give the heisman to an underclassman)
His overall #'s do overlook that, but if you look at his numbers over that stretch and its pretty indicative of how he stepped up his play. I don't know if people have/would really take the time to do that, though its not difficult...
All that stuff is great and I may even agree, but what counts the most for winning POY are the "Big 3" stats: Pts, asts, rebs. When you are guard its Pts and asts, and when you are a big man its pts and rebs. Tyler scores more points, by a significant amount. Voters don't really consider pace of play (if at all) or stuff like stls/blocks unless you are SUCH a good defender that you are getting upwards of 3 stls or blcks per game. And even then, that takes a serious backseat to the Big 3.
I guess I should rephrase my original comment that the argument was "silly." His breakdown of the #'s is well and good, but if we are considering who should win POY I have to go off of what I "know" to be the criteria that voters use, and it basically goes like this: "who's putting up the best numbers and how is their team doing." Then add-in extra stuff like special circumstances (i.e. carrying your team while a player is injured or perhaps are you playing on a top team like memphis playing in C-USA or are you a top team like UCLA/UNC playing in a top conference)