The On-Off debate about Luka
Posted: Thu May 9, 2024 5:54 pm
https://www.theringer.com/2024/5/8/24151888/luka-doncic-stats-dallas-mavericks-oklahoma-city-thunder
Across Doncic’s first five seasons, the Mavs were only marginally better with him on the court than on the bench, according to advanced stats.
The math, as they say, wasn’t mathing.
Luka Doncic’s Year-by-Year On/Off Stats
Year On/Off
2018-19 -3.7
2019-20 1.2
2020-21 3
2021-22 0.2
2022-23 4.9
2023-24 9.4
The raw stats have always been robust. Doncic averaged a league-leading 33.9 points this season, with 9.2 rebounds and 9.8 assists. For his career, he’s averaged 28.7 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 8.3 assists. And he’s always been an efficient scorer, not just a volume shooter. And yet his “on/off” stats—the difference in the Mavs’ success with Doncic on the court vs. off the court, a generally reliable indicator of a player’s true impact—did not reflect his elite play.
This all confounded and fascinated Ilardi—a clinical psychologist, neuroscientist, and basketball enthusiast with an analytics background, who has worked with the Phoenix Suns and the Houston Rockets and helped develop ESPN’s “real plus-minus” model with Jeremias Engelmann, back in 2014. Ilardi was also one of the pioneers in developing adjusted plus-minus models. (Raw plus-minus measures a player’s impact by tracking his team’s net scoring advantage—points scored minus points allowed—while he’s on the court. Advanced models like RPM adjust for the impact of the other nine players on the court.)
Ilardi had been periodically checking Doncic’s “on/off” stats. And the numbers were, well, weirdly lackluster.
“Over 6 seasons the Mavs have been nearly as good when he’s on the bench as they are when he’s on the court,” Ilardi tweeted on January 26. And this season, Ilardi noted then, Dallas was actually worse when Doncic played—posting an on/off net rating of minus-1.2 points per 100 possessions. “No other superstar shows this pattern,” Ilardi tweeted, punctuating his observations with a googly-eyes emoji.
Even as Luka’s on/off rating began to rise, he lagged far behind other MVP candidates, as Ilardi would note two weeks later, with a graphic showing Nikola Jokic (plus-18.1), Kawhi Leonard (plus-13.4), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (plus-12.8), Giannis Antetokounmpo (plus-12.6), and Doncic (plus-3.4).
And then came the real kicker: a 20-year comparison, compiled by Ilardi, of every player who’s finished in the top five in MVP voting, listed by their career on/off ratings. At the top: Jokic (plus-11.8), Kevin Garnett (plus-11.3), LeBron James (plus-10.8), Joel Embiid (plus-10.5), and Stephen Curry (plus-10.4). And at the bottom of the 35-player list? Derrick Rose (plus-0.1), who was just below Doncic (plus-1.0), who was just below Joakim Noah and Jermaine O’Neal (both plus-1.1) and Carmelo Anthony (plus-1.7).
“Shockingly low,” Ilardi said of Doncic.
On/Off Leaders for Top-5 MVP Finishers From 2003-2023
Rank Player Career Net Rating
1 Nikola Jokic 11.8
2 Kevin Garnett 11.3
3 LeBron James 10.8
4 Joel Embiid 10.5
5 Steph Curry 10.4
6 Chris Paul 9.3
7 Dirk Nowitzki 9
8 Shaquille O'Neal 8.5
9 Tim Duncan 8
Damian Lillard 8
11 Paul George 7.6
12 Steve Nash 7
13 Kawhi Leonard 6.9
14 Jayson Tatum 6.8
15 Giannis Antetokounmpo 6.7
16 Blake Griffin 6.4
17 Kevin Durant 5.8
18 Dwyane Wade 5.1
19 Anthony Davis 5
20 James Harden 4.8
21 Kobe Bryant 4.6
22 Dwight Howard 3.9
23 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 3.6
Isaiah Thomas 3.6
25 Russell Westbrook 3.5
26 Devin Booker 3.4
27 Allen Iverson 3.2
28 Peja Stojakovic 2.9
29 Luka Doncic (as of April 14) 2.7
30 Chauncey Billups 2.5
31 Tony Parker 2.1
32 Carmelo Anthony 1.7
33 Jermaine O'Neal 1.1
Joakim Noah 1.1
35 Luka Doncic (as of Dec. 23) 1
36 Derrick Rose 0.1
Steve Ilardi
Everyone on that list, of course, is a star by definition—but there are different tiers of star in this league. And Doncic, by any measure—eye test, box score test, Rorschach test—has to be a considerably better, more impactful player than, say, Peja Stojakovic (plus-2.9) and Isaiah Thomas (plus-3.6) … right?
“Yeah, it’s a compelling illusion!” Ilardi said via text, as part of our season-long discussion.
The thing is, Doncic isn’t merely a great player, but possibly one of the greatest. He’s a generational talent, an all-timer—“the best offensive player I have ever seen in the NBA,” Stan Van Gundy, the veteran coach and TNT analyst, told me. So none of this made much sense.