Bob8 wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:Bob8 wrote:Tell me, if Luka wins Nba ring with those pedestrian +/- data, would you reconsider what you're talking about or you will say that Dwight Powell with a lot better +/- and 4/4 counting stats is the reason for Mavs winning?
I've literally said repeatedly in this conversation that I think Luka's scoring resilience in the playoffs has the potential to allow him to become the most effective playoff performer in the league even if he can never show great 82-game impact, and that if this occurs the regular season +/- will simply be an interesting quirk that tells us something about the nature of RS vs PS in the NBA, and not anything that will meaningfully knock his legacy. So, I literally wouldn't necessarily need to reconsider anything.
I have to say I think it's telling that I've you haven't noticed me say these things previously. You're clearly trying to categorize me as a biased hater rather than understand me as someone who evaluates impact through analytical tools even when they take me places that can lead me to ridicule.
Also to be clear: When I look to discuss a player holistically, there's more going on than impact, and more going on that neatly fits in statistical tools. But when we judge a player's actual value-add over the course of a season, once we get past small sample size, I believe it's up to us to figure out why what we expect to have happened with the player's team isn't what actually happened without resorting simply to excuses.
After Luka's 2nd year, I was right there with everyone else thinking it likely that Luka would be a strong MVP candidate in his 3rd year. I was not remotely skeptical of him. But time went on, and the data told the story it told, so now it's not so much a question for me of how Luka's getting unlucky, but why his style of play doesn't seem to translate to regular season impact very well despite the fact that he's an exceptionally talented basketball player. And since I like being in conversations about regular season awards, and most folks still like to judge these awards using big production numbers, it puts me in the position of devil's advocate in a thread like this.
I'm not saying that Luka is unlucky, I'm saying that your tool, which might be accurate in most cases, isn't accurate in this specific case.
The differenced between Luka and others candidates I see, because I have watched majority of his games and I know all his teammates very well, is clear and it's about team construction.
To have great +/- you need very good lineup, you play with and to have great on/off, your replacement should be a lot worse than you, because he will play more time against second units than star player and he won't be defended as a star player is.
So what is specifics of all Luka's teams.
- very average/bad starters and second best player playing in his position. Coach always try to have at least 1 of Luka/Brunson/Kyrie on the court. So Brunson/Kyrie are his replacement. Who's replacing Jokic, who's replacing Embiid, who's replacing Giannis, who's replacing SGA? Nobodies.
Average/bad starting unit makes Luka's +/- average no matter how good he plays, which we could easily see in his 73/10/7, TS 90% game and being replaced with second best player, who plays against second unit means he can't have those atmospheric on/off like Jokic, who in reality doesn't have a replacement because there simply isn't any C in Denver, who can do anything similar like him.
And then we came to the most important part, you don't know much about, because you don't watch him playing, D on him.
Luka is far the most doubled and trapped player in the league, best defender basically coming and going out same like him and playing every possible D on him. So when his replacement comes in, he's not defended anything similar to him. I don't even remember Brunson being doubled, the same goes with Kyrie. They are still great players, but defended totally differently and playing against lesser competition.
I'm absolutely sure that Luka's numbers would have been totally different, if Mavs instead of Brunson/Kyrie would have second best player as a true/defensive big and few good wings, because those players would complement Luka much better in O and D than basically similar players like Brunson/Kyrie. His +/- would skyrocketed because Mavs would have won more and easily and his on/off numbers would go up, because he wouldn't be replaced by second best player of the team. More or less the same story how SGA suddenly became +/- monster by getting great big to play with him.
My problem with you is on the other level too. You're acting like only +/- should matter, when deciding about who's MVP. It can matter for you, but maybe someone else can have a little more broad picture, especially if he watches vast majority of Mavs games. In the end +/- should result in what is going on the court. I would say that watching games should give you a lot of informations about a player. So if someone is watching 80 games and other only few, who should you trust more? I guess your answer is, the one who's checking +/-.
And there's another problem. If you're sure that +/- works accurately, and everything is in those numbers. Why even bring counting numbers and efficiency? Just rank players by +/-. Numbers are supposedly right and telling everything aren't they? Or you're saying that you need first to identify, who star is by counting stats and then run +/- analysis, to not have problems with players like Dwight Powell, who basically destroys any kind of credibility of those stats? If you really believe in +/- you should put Powell as far more important player for Mavs than Luka. So is he more impactful player?
My 5 cents on the future. Someone will put right players around Luka and this debate about his +/- will look stupid, like many things in life, when you look at them back in time.
Hmm.
I believe I already mentioned the concern that if a power forward-sized player can largely be replaced by B-list guard-sized players, that he's just not being that much of an outlier, but if not, there it is.
Honestly, the idea that you look at a 6'2" Brunson and see him as a similar player to Luka is pretty telling. At Luka's size and intelligence, he could probably do a fair emulation of Jokic which would allow him to fit in with Brunson considerably better, but Luka chooses to play the style he does at his size, and since he's not an outlier physical specimen like LeBron, this comes with consequences.
The reason why no one can do anything similar to Jokic in Denver is that no one can do anything similar to him anywhere. While Luka is largely just another heliocentric guy following in LeBron's wake having way less impact than LeBron, Jokic is Jokic, and you have to go back to before Jokic was born to really see anyone much like him. Again, that's not me talking about what Doncic might emerge as in the future, just that in practice right now, he's of a particular type and not so amazing at it over the course of his minutes that you need someone with all of his strengths to largely give you what he gives.
Re: I don't know about Doncic being doubled. I don't think it's a secret that ball dominant players who like to call their own number even doubled are going to get doubled. I'm not saying it isn't impressive that Doncic can do what he can do despite all defensive eyes on him either, but I don't see any reason why it would lead to him having mediocre +/-, On/Off, RAPM numbers.
And this gets into the thing where you're saying that these numbers might be good in most settings but they're wrong here...but nothing you're saying is anything that really breaks the rules. I think you need to consider that if you think these things are wrong with your guy, your bias might be showing.
Re: his replacements aren't doubled like him. And if the team doesn't do much worse in those circumstances, that tells us something. If these guys don't need to dominate the ball so, so much that they get doubled in this way, why does Luka? I think we have to acknowledge that Luka is making a choice to play the way he does, and there are pros and cons to it.
Re: SGA great +/- when he has a great big to play with him. Again, if SGA only was racking up great +/- when he had Holmgren on the court with him, then he wouldn't be a guy I'd be talking about getting great +/-.
RE: act like only +/- should matter for MVP. Not any one particular stat, but the team scoreboard IS what matters because this is a team sport. The team scoreboard DEFINES what value actually is, and so if year after year after year after year after year you're not showing an ability to separate yourself form your teammates, then you're just not adding value like an MVP candidate should.
As I've said, all this is moot to legacy if Luka's playoff resiliency makes it so, but that wouldn't retroactively make Luka a regular season MVP. It would just make his legacy the most extreme example of not-that-valuable-in-the-regular-season-but-amazingly-so-in-the-playoffs in the history of the NBA. Which frankly would be pretty cool imho.
For Luka to be a regular season MVP level player, he either needs to change something and display an ability to separate himself from his teammates in impact no matter who they are...or he at least needs to be the clear star of a top tier regular season team.
Re: if I believe in +/- so much, why bring up "counting numbers and efficiency". I'm honestly not sure what you believe I've brought up.
For the record, in trying to understand what's going on with a player and team I want all the data not just +/-. There's more to the situation than simply the impact a given player is having. But you can't be the MVP without adding massive value...which is what impact is.
If we lower the levels of accolades we're looking at, it gets different. I have no problem with Luka as an all-star or All-NBA player. But the MVP candidates are gods of impact, and we're still waiting for Luka to show that - and all of us who recognize this are surprised by this fact. This isn't us being born Luka-haters. We were all super-excited about him a few years ago, but he and his team have stagnated, and it is what it is.
Re: Teammate X who plays a lot less more impactful than Doncic because of +/-? This gets into some vocabulary choices.
To the extent we literally take +/- indicators to mean "impactful" then there's no reason to say that Doncic has to be as impactful as these limited minute guys per minute of play. But aside from noise concerns, there's also the matter of why a given player is playing limited minutes. Does he have stamina issues? Can he only thrive with certain teammates and opponents?
A guy with great +/- numbers in a limited minutes situation is someone the coach should certainly consider if he should play in a bigger role, but there are often good reasons why he needs to be played in a lesser role. And so actually arguing that such a player is best player on his team is not what I'd generally say is a reasonable argument to make.
There's an additional factor relating to who the opposition is focused on. If Opponent focus on Player A creates a situation where Player B can have sneaky-huge impact, but in a playoff series setting the Opponent would adjust after getting burned once or twice, then it hardly makes sense to champion Player B as if he's the fulcrum the team functions around.
Re: eventually Luka will have the right teammates and the +/- will look dumb. Perhaps, but I think it's important to keep in mind that Luka's already in his 6th year, and this is a sport where, say, a 12 year career isn't considered particularly short. While the heady nature of Luka's game bodes well for longevity, we're no longer a situation where Luka's anything like wet-behind-the-ears.
He broke through as an all-NBA level guy in his 2nd year, and we're a half-decade on now waiting to see him really make another leap. This might be what Luka is.
