basketballRob wrote:pepe1991 wrote:PennytoShaq wrote:
You probably had similar doubts about Aaron Gordon. Hows that working out for you?
Gordon showed massive improvments. His development went into some unpredictable highs but let's not act it's "normal" , more like complete outliners. I was cought by suprise how good he become, but in this case i love to be wrong.
Since i noticed that he is not only player with massive PPG jump (Harris, Oladipo, D'angello, Schroder , Evans, Tj Warren and few others ) i decided to to some research to see what's going on. So i decided to compare 2012-13 to 2017-18 season and what i figured was shocking to me. If you are not big numbers guy, it's ok ,it's still interesting data . Why i picked 12-13 season? Because it gives me nice 5 years period to see what was outliner and what was reality.
So, in 2012-13 only 18 players averaged over 18 ppg. Among 18 of them, only 3 of them were not star level players ( Rudy Gay, Ellise and JR ), also they were only players among 18 of them who were not allstars.
In 2017-17 freaking 40 of them are averaging 18 or more points and it's not onliner, last year 41 of them did it.
What's more shocking is how many of them are viewed as just ok players. Matter of fact over 15 ( if i counted right ) were never allstars in their lifes.
So what a hell did create this huge loop of instant scoring machines in a league over just 3-4 years?
And answer is simple. Pace and 3 ball. This year average pace is 99 and teams shoot 28,6 threes per game. 5 years ago pace was 91 and teams were shooting 20 threes a game . Teams turn a ball over the most since 1994, assist numbers didn't go up at all, rebounds stayed the same but 3 ball and pace inflates PPG of "ok" players a to kind a unrealistic numbers.
And that gives you some perspective and why Magic with Harris, GOrdon, Oladipo,Vučević and Evan were "meh" at most, now ,year or two later 5 of them are combining for 120 points per game, yet nobody plays on contender.
So you can view this from two angles: a) we have lot of new stars . Or b) gap between superstars and "stars" has never been bigger. Every better GM would trade at least 3 of Magic new ( or former ) "stars" just to get his hands on Davis, Porzingis, Durant or Giannis.
This is not me trying to take a credit away from Gordon,Evan ,Evans, Tj Warren or anybody but you really ask yourself how much 15 ppg is worth now compared how much it was worth few years ago. Jeremy Lamb,Evans and Robin Lopez were marginal nba players just 2 years ago, now they all sit over 14,5 ppg. Did they really got that much better or they simply got lot of FGA on medicore teams.
Lauri Markannen is averaging 14,5 ppg on awful team ,but shoots really nice percentages, in any other year in past he would be number one contender for ROY, but this year top ROY candidate will be allstar in rookie year ,averaging 17ppg despite shooting a ball like Shaq. To show how much inflated all PPG really are, 6 nba rookies are averaging around 14 ppg, in all other years at MOST two or three guys were having that type of numers. So by numbers this should be best rookie class in history of nba draft , and in reality it's Ben Simmons and bunch of guys who have more FGA than they should.
Looking from "who will win a title" this might be most boring season since Bulls championship in 2001 and 1997-8 Bull ( 69 wins team ). Warriors went 16-1 last year and only reason why they lost tha one game was because Cavs made most threes in nba history for one finals game. Didn't help them by a long shot.
You could say Isaac is just as good as Giannis at 20 and Gordon is just as good or better at 22.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.fcgi?request=1&sum=1&player_id1_hint=Giannis+Antetokounmpo&player_id1_select=Giannis+Antetokounmpo&player_id1=antetgi01&y1=2015&player_id2_hint=Jonathan+Isaac&player_id2_select=Jonathan+Isaac&player_id2=isaacjo01&idx=players
https://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.fcgi?request=1&sum=1&player_id1_hint=Giannis+Antetokounmpo&player_id1_select=Giannis+Antetokounmpo&player_id1=antetgi01&y1=2017&player_id2_hint=Aaron+Gordon&player_id2_select=Aaron+Gordon&player_id2=gordoaa01&idx=players
Dude, Giannis is 22 now lol. He is probably most athletic, freakish super-uber- athlete in nba history. It's just not fair what he can do. Did you see footage of him running 90 feet floor with like 4 dribbles ?
. So yea, i like this Gordon a lot, but Giannis is on whole new ballpark right now. Most GMs picked him as a guy who they would start their team with for a good reason. 31,7 ppg,10,4 rpg ,5 apg, 59% FG ,6'11 combo forward . If he keeps this he will be first player since Jordan and Hakeem to win DPOY and MVP award in same year. His defensive and offensive metrics this year are already out of his world.