2024 NBA General Offseason Thread

[PedroKsBambino]

Re the bolded I know I don’t feel this way as most recognized that the Celtics has the potential to be a nightmare matchup for Luka and the Mavs….so to me no, it doesn’t ding anything at all. It’s the ole “LeBron can’t win the big one look at his Finals record!”….as he’s taking the Finals floor with Larry Hughes and Drew Gooden. Hello…he just dragged them there so being swept by the Spurs shouldn’t be a ding on LeBron if people are evaluating without bias.

Edit: And apparently my phone won’t turn off the bold lol

Lebron was, as a rookie, a more versatile and more complete player than Luka has ever been. And odds are, than Luka will ever be. I think Luka's offensive skills is underrated around here---he is a historically great offensive player. But it's within a very specific approach only, and that is the problem he will continue to have. The comp for him is Harden and Jordan, not LBJ imo. He needs everyone else to interact a certain way, and that's a real constraint.

Maybe, like Jordan eventually did, he'll figure out how to make it work offensively in a team concept in the biggest situations.. Maybe he won't as Harden hasn't quite (though that is also not to underrrate what Harden did as a player). But I think you're underplaying the limitations a bit.

 

[Euclis20]

I'll defend heliocentric players in that I think that LeBron, Steph, and present day JT are also extremely heliocentric players, they're just also versatile. I always used to say about AI back in the day that I loved watching Iverson play... for the 76ers. I'd've hated him if he played for Boston or Houston. And Iverson at least tried defensively.

As for Luka, I'll say that as much as I dislike Irving for being a noxious weirdo he's a lot more versatile than Luka. And ultimately I agree with your larger point, winning with guys like Luka is tough because there's really no margin for error. You need to surround them with 3&D guys that can convert their windows of opportunity while covering for their star on D (which the Sixers didn't have to worry as much about as Iverson was a perfectly capable PG defender).

It's a sliding scale, and if we're looking for a stat to measure it, I'd have to go with usage. Since his 2nd season, Luka has had an average usage rate of 36.7. He's led the league 3 of the last 4 years. He's been over 40% a couple of times in the playoffs. Compare that to Lebron (career usage of 31.5 in the regular season, 31.7 in the playoffs) or Steph (31.2 during GS' dynasty run in the regular season and just 30.6 in the playoffs) or Tatum (31.0 since 2020 in the regular season and just 29.4 in the playoffs), and it seems pretty clear that Luka is on an entirely different level. Harden was always the comp. From 2015-2020, his usage was 35.0 in the regular season and 33.8 in the playoffs, which obviously still falls solidly short of Luka.

If he had enough minutes to qualify, Luka would have by far the highest career usage rate of all time (35.7 for his career, Jordan is 2nd at 33.26, Kobe was 3rd at 31.85). No surprise that Luka is 1st all-time in playoff usage rate. Again Jordan is 2nd, so maybe that style can work, but I don't see a comparison (even just offensively) between how he plays vs Lebron/Steph/Tatum.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

I'm oddly bullish on Luka, while still believing that the Mavs are gonna have a much harder time getting back to the finals (and they faced about as difficult a path this year as they possibly could have, other than avoiding Denver).

Your point about Luka's numbers in the Finals is a good one - the Cs entire game plan was to let Luka get what he could get and see how far that would take DAL (not far enough). Contrast that to every game plan against JT which is to throw as many guys at him as humanly possible and see if his teammates can win the game.

But I'm curious - what do you mean that you are bullish on Luka? From an offensive standpoint, I guess he could improve his FT shooting (maybe that's partly conditioning related) but he's so gifted already, not sure how much growth he has there. From a defensive perspective, it all depends if Luka is going to get in shape and dedicate himself to that end of the court. Maybe he will and maybe he won't but none of us have any idea on this.

And in terms of team success - yes Luka is young and yes DAL keeps re-arranging the deck chairs around him and they found a good combo this year (though it couldn't keep the band together). But the most important thing - as you allude to - is that if Luka is going to win it all with DAL, he better do so soon - it's likely SAS or OKC will be kings of the hill when BOS is forced to break up its team and if DAL keeps throwing future assets away on trying to find the perfect mix of players around Luka and Kyrie, they aren't going to have the ability to keep up with them.

 

[Euclis20]

Your point about Luka's numbers in the Finals is a good one - the Cs entire game plan was to let Luka get what he could get and see how far that would take DAL (not far enough). Contrast that to every game plan against JT which is to throw as many guys at him as humanly possible and see if his teammates can win the game.

But I'm curious - what do you mean that you are bullish on Luka? From an offensive standpoint, I guess he could improve his FT shooting (maybe that's partly conditioning related) but he's so gifted already, not sure how much growth he has there. From a defensive perspective, it all depends if Luka is going to get in shape and dedicate himself to that end of the court. Maybe he will and maybe he won't but none of us have any idea on this.

And in terms of team success - yes Luka is young and yes DAL keeps re-arranging the deck chairs around him and they found a good combo this year (though it couldn't keep the band together). But the most important thing - as you allude to - is that if Luka is going to win it all with DAL, he better do so soon - it's likely SAS or OKC will be kings of the hill when BOS is forced to break up its team and if DAL keeps throwing future assets away on trying to find the perfect mix of players around Luka and Kyrie, they aren't going to have the ability to keep up with them.

I think he has a clearer (and more likely) path to improve than anyone else at the top of the league. I think there's a very clear top 6 heading into next season, with only Edwards and Wemby (dear god) possibly breaking into the top group. Here they are, with what I think are their main weaknesses, in no particular order:

Jokic (perimeter defense)
Giannis (outside shooting)
Embiid (durability)
Tatum (scoring efficiency)
SGA (experience)
Luka (perimeter defense, or defense in general)

Jokic's feet aren't getting any faster. Giannis isn't going to suddenly start shooting 80% from the line and requiring a closeout when he shoots from 3. Maybe Embiid gets lucky and is healthy through an entire stretch run, but smart money says at 30, it's not something to bet on. Tatum has some marginal shooting improvements and maybe better shot selection addresses this, but at this point we're looking at incremental improvements. SGA has very little in the way of weaknesses, other than that he's got 0 time in the spotlight so far and has been able to operate under the radar for almost his entire career. Then there's Luka, who is a total defensive liability. I can see him going from awful to acceptable, in a way that just isn't possible for other stars with similar defensive problems (Young, Haliburton, Lillard) because unlike those guys, he's got physical size and already can't really be pushed around. So much of his problem is just effort, physical and mental. I mentioned Hauser earlier, but he can be as effective defensively as Curry or Jokic, albeit in different ways. If he's able to do that (and I think it's more likely than the other superstars fixing their main issues), he can take a solid step forward in overall play in a way that just isn't available to anyone else on this list.

Maybe it's still not likely to happen, but of anyone in the above group, he's got the most obvious upside, if that makes sense.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

I think he has a clearer (and more likely) path to improve than anyone else at the top of the league. I think there's a very clear top 6 heading into next season, with only Edwards and Wemby (dear god) possibly breaking into the top group. Here they are, with what I think are their main weaknesses, in no particular order:

Jokic (perimeter defense)
Giannis (outside shooting)
Embiid (durability)
Tatum (scoring efficiency)
SGA (experience)
Luka (perimeter defense, or defense in general)

Jokic's feet aren't getting any faster. Giannis isn't going to suddenly start shooting 80% from the line and requiring a closeout when he shoots from 3. Maybe Embiid gets lucky and is healthy through an entire stretch run, but smart money says at 30, it's not something to bet on. Tatum has some marginal shooting improvements and maybe better shot selection addresses this, but at this point we're looking at incremental improvements. SGA has very little in the way of weaknesses, other than that he's got 0 time in the spotlight so far and has been able to operate under the radar for almost his entire career. Then there's Luka, who is a total defensive liability. I can see him going from awful to acceptable, in a way that just isn't possible for other stars with similar defensive problems (Young, Haliburton, Lillard) because unlike those guys, he's got physical size and already can't really be pushed around. So much of his problem is just effort, physical and mental. I mentioned Hauser earlier, but he can be as effective defensively as Curry or Jokic, albeit in different ways. If he's able to do that (and I think it's more likely than the other superstars fixing their main issues), he can take a solid step forward in overall play in a way that just isn't available to anyone else on this list.

Maybe it's still not likely to happen, but of anyone in the above group, he's got the most obvious upside, if that makes sense.

Thanks. Makes some sense.

But I'll just repeat what we talked about before the Finals. For Luka to get better defensively, it's not just about the conditioning. He's never going to be JB or JT like that. Having the offense revolve around him like takes a huge amount of effort. Luka could incrementally be better conditioned but to play defense at an average level on an ongoing basis I think means that he's going to have to give up some of his offensive responsibilities. But Luka loves his offense.

 

[Euclis20]

Thanks. Makes some sense.

But I'll just repeat what we talked about before the Finals. For Luka to get better defensively, it's not just about the conditioning. He's never going to be JB or JT like that. Having the offense revolve around him like takes a huge amount of effort. Luka could incrementally be better conditioned but to play defense at an average level on an ongoing basis I think means that he's going to have to give up some of his offensive responsibilities. But Luka loves his offense.

Very true, but then we get into a chicken or the egg situation - is Luka like this because he loves to play this way, and Dallas operates accordingly? Or is Luka like this because Dallas is incapable of putting supporting weapons around him, and the only way they win is if he controls everything? I don't blame him for not playing well with KP (listening to interviews with Porzingis, that was a team failure between him, Luka, and Carlisle), and it's worth noting that the only time he's had decent secondary creators (Brunson and Kyrie), he made deep playoff runs. Things don't really get better going forward either. Even if Kyrie keeps his shit together, he's an injury prone small guard that will be 33 by next year's playoffs. How much longer will he be available and play at an all-star level? They got some shiny new pieces, but no one noteworthy when it comes to shot creation.

I think there's a real possibility that Luka's offensive mindset is due in large part to his age and situation(s). Does it matter that his usage during these playoffs was 33.4, by far the lowest playoff run of his career? Harden is always the obvious comp, but his offensive game didn't turn into the heliocentric machine we remember until well into his prime (his usage didn't break 33 until his 8th season at age 27, compared with Luka in year 2 at age 20). What we see now isn't necessarily what we'll see from Luka for the rest of his career, but a lot of this depends on Dallas getting better offensive playmakers.

 

[Devizier]

Since we’ve been skirting the subject this offseason, I think Wemby busts into the top ten this season and maybe even the top five.

 

[Euclis20]

Since we’ve been skirting the subject this offseason, I think Wemby busts into the top ten this season and maybe even the top five.

The only ceiling I'm willing to place on him for the 24/25 season is that I don't think any reasonable people will think he's the best player in the league. Everything else is on the table for me. He received 7 all-nba votes this past year, and the ringer has him 17th in their year end player ranking. Top 10 is not at all hard to visualize.

 

[HomeRunBaker]

Lebron was, as a rookie, a more versatile and more complete player than Luka has ever been. And odds are, than Luka will ever be. I think Luka's offensive skills is underrated around here---he is a historically great offensive player. But it's within a very specific approach only, and that is the problem he will continue to have. The comp for him is Harden and Jordan, not LBJ imo. He needs everyone else to interact a certain way, and that's a real constraint.

Maybe, like Jordan eventually did, he'll figure out how to make it work offensively in a team concept in the biggest situations.. Maybe he won't as Harden hasn't quite (though that is also not to underrrate what Harden did as a player). But I think you're underplaying the limitations a bit.

Of course I’m not using LeBron as a comp in the skillset sense…..only in how each being “exposed” in The Finals when they had no business being there in the first place and losing as big underdogs in terrible matchups should have no bearing on their resume. But it will for some. I thought it was pretty clear he was #2 this season behind Jokic with Tatum at 3 with large enough gaps to where I personally don’t have an internal debate. Nothing that happened in the finals against a freight train changes that from my viewpoint.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

Since we’ve been skirting the subject this offseason, I think Wemby busts into the top ten this season and maybe even the top five.

Wow, you're down on Wemby.

With his new teammates, if he stays healthy, he will be 1st team all-NBA (since it's positionless) and if I were a betting man, I would bet that SAS makes the playoffs.

 

[Auger34]

Of course I’m not using LeBron as a comp in the skillset sense…..only in how each being “exposed” in The Finals when they had no business being there in the first place and losing as big underdogs in terrible matchups should have no bearing on their resume. But it will for some. I thought it was pretty clear he was #2 this season behind Jokic with Tatum at 3 with large enough gaps to where I personally don’t have an internal debate. Nothing that happened in the finals against a freight train changes that from my viewpoint.

Did anyone predict the LeBron Cavs team to beat the Spurs?

comparing those two teams is a very big leap.

 

[benhogan]

Did anyone predict the LeBron Cavs team to beat the Spurs?

comparing those two teams is a very big leap.

A lot of Journalists who picked the MAVs have an anti-Boston sports bias. I'm not a PATs fan, but it's laughable how much the national sports media hates the region after 2 decades of Patriot dominance.

FWIW I'm enjoying all the posts in here dissecting Luka's offense/defense. Don't have much to add other than Luka's attitude towards adv. metrics, conditioning & defense doesn't scream TOP5 player (I've been saying similar things about Embiid's conditioning/health for years). By G5, Jaylen Brown was just physically denying him the ball and controlling Luka's offensive approach.

 

[Auger34]

A lot of Journalists who picked the MAVs have an anti-Boston sports bias. I'm not a PATs fan, but it's laughable how much the national sports media hates the region after 2 decades of Patriot dominance.

FWIW I'm enjoying all the posts in here dissecting Luka's offense/defense. Don't have much to add other than Luka's attitude towards adv. metrics, conditioning & defense doesn't scream TOP5 player (I've been saying similar things about Embiid's conditioning/health for years). By G5, Jaylen Brown was just physically denying him the ball and controlling Luka's offensive approach.

That may be true but there was still a decent amount of people that picked the Mavs. Literally no one picked the Cavs

 

[Brand Name]

The IST now has a sponsor and a new name, the Emirates NBA Cup. For an in-season tournament format modeled after association football, this couldn't be a better fit. Groups are out too. Seems like the Celtics got the best possible draw here, even aside from how good they are.

View: https://twitter.com/NBA/status/1811907099854594419

 

[ALiveH]

Since we’ve been skirting the subject this offseason, I think Wemby busts into the top ten this season and maybe even the top five.

This is where I'm at with Wemby. Too soon to anoint him. If he stays healthy, perennial DPOY starting next year. 2nd Team All NBA. Some MVP consideration, will be a top-10 player but not top-5.

I'm looking at Lebron's trajectory. It took him until his age 24 to fully become LEBRON!

 

[lovegtm]

Why can’t both be true? Some of us had been saying since midseason that this Celtics team had the potential to go down as one of the greatest ever. That doesn’t take anything away from what this Dallas team accomplished over the second half of the regular season and the playoffs until running into the buzzsaw who had the recipe to expose Doncic and the Mavs defensively like nobody else had.

I think I'm saying the same thing as you?

Boston was really, really good.

Dallas was also a good team (the consensus opinion before Boston wrecked them).

My point is that, because Dallas is now seen as a weak team (due to said wrecking), people are giving Doncic credit for dragging a weak team to the Finals, when that's just not what happened. He took a pretty decent team to the Finals. It's not a 2007 LeBron situation by any means.

Obviously Dallas doesn't sniff the Finals without Luka, but that's true for every team with a superstar player (Boston probably loses to Cleveland without Tatum, for example).

 

[lovegtm]

I agree that he was exposed (on both sides), but anyone suggesting that he was exposed offensively is going to get laughed at because his basic counting stats didn't suffer (he averaged 29.2 ppg in the finals, after averaging 28.8 over the first 3 series). He didn't fail, his supporting cast failed him. It doesn't matter that they failed in large part because Boston could single cover Luka without letting him go off (in any sort of efficient way, at least), anyone glancing at the box score numbers will see that Luka's scoring was unchanged while Kyrie (22.8 to 19.8), Washington (13.6 to 10.8), Jones (9.8 to 6.6), Gafford (9.2 to 8.0) and Lively (8.6 to 5.6) all experienced real drops from the WC playoffs to the finals. Those guys (other than Kyrie) rely on Luka creating for them, and he couldn't do it.

Looking at how role-players performed as a way of evaluating whether a start was creating advantages is mildly counterintuitive, and definitely better than looking at the star's points.

Honestly, the series in some ways was as simple as Tatum/Brown being able to consistently create significant advantages against a good defense, and Luka not being able to do that against a slightly better defense.

(The offensive ratings for Boston were meh, but that was mostly shot variance and prevent offense. They went really cold from 3 all series, and were up big in the 4th quarter (sometimes 3rd) of all four wins, triggering inefficient prevent offense.)

 

[lovegtm]

I'll take a break from Luka Ranking stuff for awhile now. I've mostly been interested in it as a way of examining where offensive value (and weakness) comes from, since I think the consensus is somewhat wrong.

(The consensus is best summed up as "you rank offensive players by looking at volume+efficiency+assists")

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

The IST now has a sponsor and a new name, the Emirates NBA Cup. For an in-season tournament format modeled after association football, this couldn't be a better fit. Groups are out too. Seems like the Celtics got the best possible draw here, even aside from how good they are.

View: https://twitter.com/NBA/status/1811907099854594419

Lol. Yeah, I'd say "three lottery teams and the Cavs" is a pretty good draw. Seems like someone wants the Cs in Vegas this year for sure.

 

[Devizier]

Lol. Yeah, I'd say "three lottery teams and the Cavs" is a pretty good draw. Seems like someone wants the Cs in Vegas this year for sure.

Depending on how you feel about the Magic, the Knicks got a good draw, too.

 

[lovegtm]

Depending on how you feel about the Magic, the Knicks got a good draw, too.

The Magic are going to be good. That's a tough group.

 

[snowmanny]

West C (Mavs, Nuggets, Warriors, Pels, Grizzlies) no easy outs.

 

[PedroKsBambino]

Denver loses first-round pick (and alleged 'draft promise' recipient) Daron Holmes for the season with a torn achilles.

View: https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1811987179834683887


A thin roster stays thin.

 

[HomeRunBaker]

Did anyone predict the LeBron Cavs team to beat the Spurs?

comparing those two teams is a very big leap.

Both teams were similarly sized underdogs with similarly skilled supporting casts who ran into the best team in the league in a bad matchup.

 

[HomeRunBaker]

Denver loses first-round pick (and alleged 'draft promise' recipient) Daron Holmes for the season with a torn achilles.

That's two 1st rounders down and we aren't even on Day 2 of Summer League. Yikes.

 

[HowBoutDemSox]

Both teams were similarly sized underdogs with similarly skilled supporting casts who ran into the best team in the league in a bad matchup.

Who on that Cavs team was remotely close to Kyrie in terms of being a second banana?

 

[HomeRunBaker]

Who on that Cavs team was remotely close to Kyrie in terms of being a second banana?

As a whole I agree as that Cavs team without LeBron is probably a 15-win team.....but Kyrie was god awful in 3 of the Mavs finals losses. It wasn't like Luka was getting anymore help from him than LeBron got from say Larry Hughes. Young LeBron was worlds better than Doncic, noboby is saying otherwise only that the paths and the end had many similarities.

 

[snowmanny]

I am going to jump in and say the disconnect in this conversation is that HRB thought the Mavs were good enough to make it the Finals but were going to get waxed by the Celtics.

The national media was surprised that the Mavs made it to the Finals, but once Dallas was there lots of talking-heads acted like the Mavs were going to win because of two dazzling scorers who had just had a good week and a few role players whose names they just learned.

So HRB probably not the best advocate to defend the blather of the SASs of the world.

 

[benhogan]

That may be true but there was still a decent amount of people that picked the Mavs.

A lot of that was driven by "the team with the BEST player wins the Championship" narrative.

Luka is the #1 on-ball scorer in the NBA & it's not really all that close. This is the most important trait (& sometimes the only trait) for the consensus/NBA Media when ranking NBA players.

Unfortunately for the MAVs, he does other things on the basketball court very poorly which hurts their Net Rtg differential.

These are Luka's bad skills/traits:
1. Terrible transition defender due to athletic speed, effort, & Ref baiting
2. Terrible defender in the half-court against upper-echelon teams that can exploit/hunt him on the perimeter.
3. Rigid style of play, ball-dominant & sometimes doesn't get the most out of his teammates.
4. Apathetic on offense (light on screening, movement) when off-ball.
5. His conditioning is awful for his age. This gets exposed when he goes high USG on offense (his desired outcome).

After 6 seasons & 14,000 mins played this is all reflected in his On-Off numbers, which shockingly don't even come close to a TOP20 NBA player. That's hard to do when being such an efficient scorer. It emphasizes the points above. We had the Thinking Basketball guys ask this very question.

In a tie game, high leverage situation, needing a basket there is no other NBA player you want to go 1 on 1. IMO he's a TOP10 player based on that skill alone. BUT calling him the best or even TOP3 based on pointZ blatantly ignores the rest of his game.

If Luka spends a summer working out & putting more effort into the defense the Net Rtg On-Off will drastically change.

 

[slamminsammya]

A lot of that was driven by "the team with the BEST player wins the Championship" narrative.

Luka is the #1 on-ball scorer in the NBA & it's not really all that close. This is the most important trait (& sometimes the only trait) for the consensus/NBA Media when ranking NBA players.

Unfortunately for the MAVs, he does other things on the basketball court very poorly which hurts their Net Rtg differential.

These are Luka's bad skills/traits:
1. Terrible transition defender due to athletic speed, effort, & Ref baiting
2. Terrible defender in the half-court against upper-echelon teams that can exploit/hunt him on the perimeter.
3. Rigid style of play, ball-dominant & sometimes doesn't get the most out of his teammates.
4. Apathetic on offense (light on screening, movement) when off-ball.
5. His conditioning is awful for his age. This gets exposed when he goes high USG on offense (his desired outcome).

After 6 seasons & 14,000 mins played this is all reflected in his On-Off numbers, which shockingly don't even come close to a TOP20 NBA player. That's hard to do when being such an efficient scorer. It emphasizes the points above. We had the Thinking Basketball guys ask this very question.

In a tie game, high leverage situation, needing a basket there is no other NBA player you want to go 1 on 1. IMO he's a TOP10 player based on that skill alone. BUT calling him the best or even TOP3 based on pointZ blatantly ignores the rest of his game.

If Luka spends a summer working out & putting more effort into the defense the Net Rtg On-Off will drastically change.

His on off aren’t top 20? Which on off are we talking about? that sounds unbelievable.

 

[PedroKsBambino]

On-Off is a messy stat; however, the basic trend in particular before this past year was that Luka's on/off was far inferior to other 'top' players.

Discussion and some analysis here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/18mgcea/whats_the_deal_with_lukas_onoff/

One thing noted there, which we now have some additional data on (given his performance this past year) is that a piece of Luka's on/off numbers is that when he left the court Brunson would take over offense and he as very, very good as the primary. In theory, DARKO and other advanced stats are trying to reflect on-off type inputs. The challenge is that the samples are small and highly variable for a guy like Luka who plays 35+ minutes a game with a variable cast of replacements. You can speak to the sample size methodological issues better than I....

 

[slamminsammya]

On-Off is a messy stat; however, the basic trend in particular before this past year was that Luka's on/off was far inferior to other 'top' players.

Discussion and some analysis here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/18mgcea/whats_the_deal_with_lukas_onoff/

One thing noted there, which we now have some additional data on (given his performance this past year) is that a piece of Luka's on/off numbers is that when he left the court Brunson would take over offense and he as very, very good as the primary. In theory, DARKO and other advanced stats are trying to reflect on-off type inputs. The challenge is that the samples are small and highly variable for a guy like Luka who plays 35+ minutes a game with a variable cast of replacements. You can speak to the sample size methodological issues better than I....

that discussion is from 7 months ago. he finished the season at a +9.4 which is top tier. his playoff on off was excellent as well. but anyways why use raw on off when we have readily available metrics that correct for teammates and opponent?

 

[DavidTai]

Mike Muscala retiring.

https://www.oklahoman.com/story/sports/nba/thunder/2024/07/13/mike-muscala-to-retire-from-nba-okc-thunder/74391557007/

 

[PedroKsBambino]

that discussion is from 7 months ago. he finished the season at a +9.4 which is top tier. his playoff on off was excellent as well. but anyways why use raw on off when we have readily available metrics that correct for teammates and opponent?

that’s why I said “before this past year” obviously.

 

[benhogan]

On-Off is a messy stat; however, the basic trend in particular before this past year was that Luka's on/off was far inferior to other 'top' players.

Discussion and some analysis here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/18mgcea/whats_the_deal_with_lukas_onoff/

One thing noted there, which we now have some additional data on (given his performance this past year) is that a piece of Luka's on/off numbers is that when he left the court Brunson would take over offense and he as very, very good as the primary. In theory, DARKO and other advanced stats are trying to reflect on-off type inputs. The challenge is that the samples are small and highly variable for a guy like Luka who plays 35+ minutes a game with a variable cast of replacements. You can speak to the sample size methodological issues better than I....

Agreed. On-Off is really messy over a short period (anything less than a season is meh).
BUT over a longer period it tells us a lot IMO. Luka's career On-Off +/- isn't all that great (although its been trending better). 4X time First Team All-NBA leads me to believe that the media has overrated him for a while due to his PPG, which was my overall point.

Jalen Brunson wasn't BRUNSON! quite yet when he played for the MAVs, but credit to the Knicks for noticing his impact.

His on off aren’t top 20? Which on off are we talking about? that sounds unbelievable.

Look at the guys Luka has been compared with: Giannis, Jokic, Tatum, KD, Bron, Steph over their careers, they blow Luka out of the water (22 playoff games are messy).

He's by far the best scorer in the NBA, but there is more to hoops than points.

I've posted this before but here you go. There are plenty of stats/video that I'm sure will send many into a tizzy

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZfufGaRhHg

 

[slamminsammya]

Agreed. On-Off is really messy over a short period (anything less than a season is meh).
BUT over a longer period it tells us a lot IMO. Luka's career On-Off +/- isn't all that great (although its been trending better). 4X time First Team All-NBA leads me to believe that the media has overrated him for a while due to his PPG, which was my overall point.

Jalen Brunson wasn't BRUNSON! quite yet when he played for the MAVs, but credit to the Knicks for noticing his impact.


Look at the guys Luka has been compared with: Giannis, Jokic, Tatum, KD, Bron, Steph over their careers, they blow Luka out of the water (22 playoff games are messy). Funny enough James Harden has a similar problem in regard to On-Off +/- as Luka.

He's by far the best scorer in the NBA, but there is more to hoops than points.

I've posted this before but here you go. There are plenty of stats/video that I'm sure will send many into a tizzy

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZfufGaRhHg

yeah, Ive seen that video. again, raw on/off is not great even over several seasons because teammate quality is a thing. the thinking basketball plus minus model had doncic 3rd in the playoffs in plus / minus at 6.9 (ahead of Tatum, o no!) and 2nd in the regular season. in 22-23 doncic was 2nd in the NBA in this plus minus based metric in the regular season.

any particular reason you quote raw plus / minus rather than any of the metrics that do a better job accounting for teammate quality?

 

[Jimbodandy]

Yet despite all this, he just lead a relatively mediocre team to the NBA finals. You all are way too down on Luka.

I love the idea that we're all way too down on Luka, because we don't agree with the hoop twitterverse group think.

The man was the single primary reason why the Celtics scored at fucking will in the finals. We all watched this. Some folks simply do not care about how many points Luka gave the Celtics, only how many he gave Dallas.

Luka is clearly a top 10 player, and I think that we'd all enjoy a debate on where in that top 10 he belongs. But some of us are disappointed when ESPN this year and next year's MVP voters anoint this guy the best player on earth or MVP or whatever when he can't stop the ball boy from scoring.

 

[benhogan]

yeah, Ive seen that video. again, raw on/off is not great even over several seasons because teammate quality is a thing. the thinking basketball plus minus model had doncic 3rd in the playoffs in plus / minus at 6.9 (ahead of Tatum, o no!) and 2nd in the regular season. in 22-23 doncic was 2nd in the NBA in this plus minus based metric in the regular season.

any particular reason you quote raw plus / minus rather than any of the metrics that do a better job accounting for teammate quality?

If he has good teammates his On-Off should be low (OnCourt should be high)
If he has bad teammates his On-Off should be high (OnCourt should be low)

Truly exceptional (best players in the NBA) are high in both categories over the long term.

I'm fine using the eye test & long-dated +/-/100 over as an overall guide. YMMV

More importantly, I listed 5 reasons why I think Luca isn't the BEST player in the NBA (ESPN's & most of the NBA Media's opinion). i just feel On-Off +/- does a good job measuring those things out over several seasons.
Feel free to push back on any of those 5.

These are Luka's bad skills/traits:
1. Terrible transition defender due to athletic speed, effort, & Ref baiting
2. Terrible defender in the half-court against upper-echelon teams that can exploit/hunt him on the perimeter.
3. Rigid style of play, ball-dominant & sometimes doesn't get the most out of his teammates.
4. Apathetic on offense (light on screening, movement) when off-ball.
5. His conditioning is awful for his age. This gets exposed when he goes high USG on offense (his desired outcome).

 

[HomeRunBaker]

I love the idea that we're all way too down on Luka, because we don't agree with the hoop twitterverse group think.

The man was the single primary reason why the Celtics scored at fucking will in the finals. We all watched this. Some folks simply do not care about how many points Luka gave the Celtics, only how many he gave Dallas.

Luka is clearly a top 10 player, and I think that we'd all enjoy a debate on where in that top 10 he belongs. But some of us are disappointed when ESPN this year and next year's MVP voters anoint this guy the best player on earth or MVP or whatever when he can't stop the ball boy from scoring.

We all know how awful a Jaylen/Jayson off the dribble matchup if for Luka. This isn’t surprising anyone. What about against every other team? How were the Mavs one of the best defensive teams in the league with him and Kyrie at the point of the defense? How is that possible is both players are as horrific as SoSH says they are when their defense all begins with them? Now if people only see Celtics games then yeah that would be the opinion for sure when Dallas struggled defending penetration and the corner 3 threat.

 

[benhogan]

We all know how awful a Jaylen/Jayson off the dribble matchup if for Luka. This isn’t surprising anyone. What about against every other team? How were the Mavs one of the best defensive teams in the league with him and Kyrie at the point of the defense? How is that possible is both players are as horrific as SoSH says they are when their defense all begins with them? Now if people only see Celtics games then yeah that would be the opinion for sure when Dallas struggled defending penetration and the corner 3 threat.

Dallas had the 18th-rated defense (115.4 Def Rtg) in the NBA last year.

Dallas defense was MUCH improved by the end of the season due to a
1. SSS
2. drop in SOS
3. After they acquired Gafford/PJ
4. Lively was more mature

I doubt it had anything to do with Luka floating around and resting on D like he did against the Wolves guarding non-shooters like Gobert & Slo Mo.

 

[the moops]

The man was the single primary reason why the Celtics scored at fucking will in the finals. We all watched this.

Boston put up an offensive rating of 112 in the finals. That is bottom 5 offense numbers in the regular season. We didn’t all watch Boston score at will

 

[slamminsammya]

If he has good teammates his On-Off should be low (OnCourt should be high)
If he has bad teammates his On-Off should be high (OnCourt should be low)

Truly exceptional (best players in the NBA) are high in both categories over the long term.

I'm fine using the eye test & long-dated +/-/100 over as an overall guide. YMMV

More importantly, I listed 5 reasons why I think Luca isn't the BEST player in the NBA (ESPN's & most of the NBA Media's opinion). i just feel On-Off +/- does a good job measuring those things out over several seasons.
Feel free to push back on any of those 5.

yeah, i don’t disagree with any of those points. i just don’t think raw plus minus says much. i mean, you lay out the right logic in how teammates should impact that number. so why not just systematically apply that same logic… and end up re creating an adjusted plus minus metric?

it’s a little like making a baseball argument using rbis. we have ways to correct for context so why not just use them? anyways, i agree he’s overrated by the media.

 

[slamminsammya]

Boston put up an offensive rating of 112 in the finals. That is bottom 5 offense numbers in the regular season. We didn’t all watch Boston score at will

they got open shots at will and just got unlucky they shot at or below their season average shooting numbers every game in the finals.

 

[DeJesus Built My Hotrod]

I love the idea that we're all way too down on Luka, because we don't agree with the hoop twitterverse group think.

The man was the single primary reason why the Celtics scored at fucking will in the finals. We all watched this. Some folks simply do not care about how many points Luka gave the Celtics, only how many he gave Dallas.

Luka is clearly a top 10 player, and I think that we'd all enjoy a debate on where in that top 10 he belongs. But some of us are disappointed when ESPN this year and next year's MVP voters anoint this guy the best player on earth or MVP or whatever when he can't stop the ball boy from scoring.

"We" aren't anything on Luka. There are some folks here grasping at straws to say "eh, he ain't that good" and is overrated by NBA pundits etc (I don't know what ratings by these guys even mean except that they are to be ignored) and I don't follow anyone on Twitter or in groups who are influencing my opinion.

The data, on the other hand strongly suggests Luka is one of the best players in all of the NBA as does the eye test. I am ok with the idea that he may even be better than any single player on the Celtics - and we all know who won the finals. I will not tell you my opinion is more right than yours but you are expressing a view, not a fact and it does feel colored by your rooting interests.

 

[PedroKsBambino]

yeah, i don’t disagree with any of those points. i just don’t think raw plus minus says much. i mean, you lay out the right logic in how teammates should impact that number. so why not just systematically apply that same logic… and end up re creating an adjusted plus minus metric?

it’s a little like making a baseball argument using rbis. we have ways to correct for context so why not just use them? anyways, i agree he’s overrated by the media.

So which adjusted numbers do you look to, and what do they say about this question?

 

[benhogan]

"We" aren't anything on Luka. There are some folks here grasping at straws to say "eh, he ain't that good" and is overrated by NBA pundits etc (I don't know what ratings by these guys even mean except that they are to be ignored) and I don't follow anyone on Twitter or in groups who are influencing my opinion.

The data, on the other hand strongly suggests Luka is one of the best players in all of the NBA as does the eye test. I am ok with the idea that he may even be better than any single player on the Celtics - and we all know who won the finals. I will not tell you my opinion is more right than yours but you are expressing a view, not a fact and it does feel colored by your rooting interests.

who is saying "eh, he ain't that good"?

Everybody on here has said he is at worst a TOP10 NBA player. I said Luka is "the #1 on-ball scorer in the NBA & it's not really all that close"

I only care about the NBA Media saying "Luka is the best NBA player!" because @Auger34 was questioning why so many pundits picked the MAVs to beat the Celtics in the FINALS.

That may be true but there was still a decent amount of people that picked the Mavs.

 

[HomeRunBaker]

Dallas had the 18th-rated defense (115.4 Def Rtg) in the NBA last year.

Dallas defense was MUCH improved by the end of the season due to a
1. SSS
2. drop in SOS
3. After they acquired Gafford/PJ
4. Lively was more mature

I doubt it had anything to do with Luka floating around and resting on D like he did against the Wolves guarding non-shooters like Gobert & Slo Mo.

No no no no no. The team from the start of the season was not the team post-deadline. Now, if you feel that Gafford and PJ Washington can turn the Luka/Kyrie turnstiles into the league best (in my rating) or one of the best defensively then we need to begin talking about them for DPOY in '24-'25. I was given all of these reasons why the Mavs defense was so good, the SSS, the SOS, yada yada yada....then it continued against playoff teams throughout the playoffs so there goes the SOS and the SSS was answered by them still locking down focused playoff teams on the way to The Finals. The "resting on D" is complete garbage as I pointed out back then. When you are off the ball and you are positionally responsible for a certain area you don't need to do Pat Bev jumping jacks to be fulfilling his off the ball responsbilities....even if it looks like "resting" to some. Again, you can't be among the best defensive teams over the 2nd half of the year playing 4 on 5 from a key point defender in the NBA.

 

[the moops]

they got open shots at will and just got unlucky they shot at or below their season average shooting numbers every game in the finals.

That may be true but the post I was replying to specifically said score at will, not get open shots at will.

 

[slamminsammya]

So which adjusted numbers do you look to, and what do they say about this question?

there’s so many options. i already posted thinking basketballs numbers which have him 2nd in the nba the past 2 years as well as for this years playoffs

 

[DeJesus Built My Hotrod]

With the caveat that DARKO is not the end-all/be-all, once again here is Luka and Tatum. Tatum's line is above Lukas so Darko has him rated better. Some of the posts here are suggesting the gulf is much bigger than it actually is though.

That said, if you look at their career trajectories, I would argue there are scenarios where Luka can level up above Tatum and I believe Tatum still has a fair bit of upside. For example, what if a Luka decides to train extra hard and comes into camp in the "proverbial best shape of his life" and means it? Maybe he cannot improve his defense but I think he can/will. Its actually a bit crazy that he is this good while being D optional.