joesha1698 wrote:Apparently the posters here know more than Shaq, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkely, Tim Hardway Sr, Grant Williams, and now add Chandler Parsons to that list:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/chandler-parsons-says-it-s-exhausting-being-luka-doncic-s-teammate/ar-BB1jzUESLook guys, there's more to basketball than stats. If you ever played basketball and one guy dominates the ball as much as Luka does( he's gonna have great stats) but its gonna hurt your rhythm as a player unless your strictly a catch and shoot 3 point shooter, lock down defender who doesnt care about shots, or a big man who catches lobs and set picks all game long. Which is why I say, if were gonna play Luka Ball - trade for another allstar at SF or PF - surround Luka with the best 3-D guys u can get - and go for it. If not, the ball has to move and more guys got to touch it.
Luka played his best with a 3 guard lineup - why is that? Could it be that with 3 guys with passing ability - help facilitate more ball movement instead of just letting one guy make all the decisions? I think its the latter.
I'd like to make two points here:
1. Statement: Heliocentric systems can't win championships. Can't they really? How many were there? Durant/Westbrook OKC? They were 3:1 up on one of the best teams in NBA history (GSW) and should've won, but crumbled and lost the series. Westbrook had Durant, a two way star that could play defense and played a different position. Harden's Rockets? Harden notoriously shrank in the playoffs and still took the same historically great team to seven games and lost more due to luck than getting dismantled by the Warriors. If these two teams peaked before or after GSW, they could've easily won a championship. No other team really comes to mind when talking about heliocentric systems. So I'd say it's possible to win with a heliocentric team, it just hasn't happened yet. I agree though it's generally better to have a more rounded roster where the ball moves around. And that brings me to the next point:
2. Both of those teams had better rosters than Luka has. I agree that the key to 2022 WCF run was having three players capable of creating something, but you can't really expect the likes of DFS, THJ, Maxi or Bullock to be able to do something, except shoot open threes. None of them can reliably attack a closeout or make more than the simplest of passes. And then they lost Brunson in the next offseason and traded away Dinwiddie to get Irving. That is why Exum is imo so important to the mavs, he is at least capable of creating something. This is now the best roster Luka has ever had, but the only player of the Doncic/Irving/Exum/PJ/Lively lineup that's been with the team before the current season is Irving, and he's been with the team for barely a year. Lively is a rookie, PJ's been with the team for a month and Irving and Exum missed significant chunks of the season due to injuries. The mavs are in a playoff hunt and if they start going away from Luka ball now, with 20 games left, it could mean missing out again, which could lead to Doncic wanting out. Plus they have Kidd as the head coach and that doesn't really inspire confidence in the mavs being capable of running any sort of complex actions without Doncic or at least Irving initiating everything.
Overall I'd say the greatest fault of Doncic's tenure was that the mavs traded for KP in his first season, then carried themselves as a true contender. What they should've been doing for the past six years is gathering assets and trying to figure a way to get Luka to play in a system instead of being the system, regardless of the win/loss column. They could've build a great team by now. Instead they embraced Luka ball and got into the playoffs and WCF early, but never had enough talent to seriously compete. Now they're stuck with Luka ball, because going away from it at this point probably means the mavs taking a step or two back for a couple of years and thus losing Doncic and having to go into another, longer, rebuild with virtually no assets...
So in conclusion I don't think we can reliably label Doncic as a black hole type player yet, considering the rosters he's had so far. If they keep the team together and add a piece or two, then in a year or more likely two, if Doncic's usage remains the same, we can start talking about needing to take the ball away from Doncic and that being the greatest Dallas' problem. Right now, Luka ball is the only thing keeping the mavs afloat.
. His 3pt shot has looked very dubious... but other than that, he has looked okay and I kind of felt bad for him moving to a winning team and then soon after going through a losing run where it felt he actually did his job.
