2021-22 NBA Season Discussion

[Fadeaway_J]

His scoring really took off once he started playing center and had 4 guards around him. The downside was that him playing center led to a massive sacrifice in defense that made the Lakers even worse than they were before. Given that, I don't find Lebron's 2022 scoring season particularly impressive.

Defensively it wasn't good, but it was also one of the rare "smallball" teams that gained almost none of the benefits you would typically expect from playing small. Guys like Westbrook and Stanley Johnson might as well have been bigs for all the spacing they provided in those lineups.

Elgee had a video out showing just how much Lebron's scoring benefited from playing C. Yeah, having Westbrook was not ideal for spacing but it was certainly a lot better than Dwight Howard camping the lane.

I'm not saying it didn't benefit relative to having Dwight or DAJ starting. That however was a very low starting point to begin with in terms of a favourable offensive environment in 2022.

[falcolombardi]

His scoring really took off once he started playing center and had 4 guards around him. The downside was that him playing center led to a massive sacrifice in defense that made the Lakers even worse than they were before. Given that, I don't find Lebron's 2022 scoring season particularly impressive.

Defensively it wasn't good, but it was also one of the rare "smallball" teams that gained almost none of the benefits you would typically expect from playing small. Guys like Westbrook and Stanley Johnson might as well have been bigs for all the spacing they provided in those lineups.

Elgee had a video out showing just how much Lebron's scoring benefited from playing C. Yeah, having Westbrook was not ideal for spacing but it was certainly a lot better than Dwight Howard camping the lane.

even elgee video says somethingh like "this helps lebron have more spacing...theorically" (video zooms on westbrook being ignored in the perimeter)

having non shooters in the perimeter being totally ignored ruins spacing more than lane clogging bigs, the latter dont allow a extra defender to leave his man and the defense has to stay close to them for offensive rebounds or passes inside for a dunk

Howard in the lane is a bigger threat the defense has to keep track of than westbrook spotting up

lebron small ball lineups with him at centers have less spacing that other teams lineups with traditional bigs, so all the downsides and almost none of the advantages

regardless most other teams put 4 shooters around their best players, 3 minimum

lakers with lebron at center rarely had that and even less when they played big so lebron had weak spacing even when playing center compared to almost everyone else

[Fadeaway_J]

Defensively it wasn't good, but it was also one of the rare "smallball" teams that gained almost none of the benefits you would typically expect from playing small. Guys like Westbrook and Stanley Johnson might as well have been bigs for all the spacing they provided in those lineups.

Elgee had a video out showing just how much Lebron's scoring benefited from playing C. Yeah, having Westbrook was not ideal for spacing but it was certainly a lot better than Dwight Howard camping the lane.

even elgee video says somethingh like "this helps lebron have more spacing...theorically" (video zooms on westbrook being ignored in the perimeter)

having non shooters in the perimeter being totally ignored ruins spacing more than lane clogging bigs, the latter dont allow a extra defender to leave his man and the defense has to stay close to them for offensive rebounds or passes inside for a dunk

Howard in the lane is a bigger threat the defense has to keep track of than westbrook spotting up

lebron small ball lineups with him at centers have less spacing that other teams lineups with traditional bigs, so all the downsides and almost none of the advantages

regardless most other teams put 4 shooters around their best players, 3 minimum

lakers with lebron at center rarely had that and even less when they played big so lebron had weak spacing even when playing center compared to almost everyone else

Where I do think he benefited was that he was more likely to face a mismatch with a big man guarding him, and in general could play as more of a finisher which was a revelation to me in terms of how devastating he was as a roll man and cutter.

[sp6r=underrated]

It is 2050.

What are the odds the Clippers are the preeminent team in Los Angeles?
What are the odds the Nets are the preeminent team in New York?

When I was a kid the idea either franchise could surpass big brother was laughable but now not so sure. Dolan is a permanent albatross around the Knicks. And the albatross that was Sterling is gone from the Clippers.

[falcolombardi]

It is 2050.

What are the odds the Clippers are the preeminent team in Los Angeles?
What are the odds the Nets are the preeminent team in New York?

When I was a kid the idea either franchise could surpass big brother was laughable but now not so sure. Dolan is a permanent albatross around the Knicks. And the albatross that was Sterling is gone from the Clippers.

very hard, it would requiere continuined success from clippers/nets and continued mediocrity from lakers/knicks, and as of now, lakers have a ring in the Ballmer era to clippers zero still

it will require memorable team runs and superstars winning rings for nets and clippers and lakers/knicks not to match

i actually consider new York and los Ángeles very loyal to lakers and knicks so it would take a long time and a fair amount of rings

[falcolombardi]

Elgee had a video out showing just how much Lebron's scoring benefited from playing C. Yeah, having Westbrook was not ideal for spacing but it was certainly a lot better than Dwight Howard camping the lane.

even elgee video says somethingh like "this helps lebron have more spacing...theorically" (video zooms on westbrook being ignored in the perimeter)

having non shooters in the perimeter being totally ignored ruins spacing more than lane clogging bigs, the latter dont allow a extra defender to leave his man and the defense has to stay close to them for offensive rebounds or passes inside for a dunk

Howard in the lane is a bigger threat the defense has to keep track of than westbrook spotting up

lebron small ball lineups with him at centers have less spacing that other teams lineups with traditional bigs, so all the downsides and almost none of the advantages

regardless most other teams put 4 shooters around their best players, 3 minimum

lakers with lebron at center rarely had that and even less when they played big so lebron had weak spacing even when playing center compared to almost everyone else

Where I do think he benefited was that he was more likely to face a mismatch with a big man guarding him, and in general could play as more of a finisher which was a revelation to me in terms of how devastating he was as a roll man and cutter.

agree there, good point

and yes i have been impressed by how effective off ball lebron actually was with cuts and rim running

[MartinToVaught]

What are the odds the Clippers are the preeminent team in Los Angeles?

If by preeminent, you mean the most popular team: zero. But if we've won a few rings by then, we'll be the Auburn to the Lakers' Alabama, which isn't all that bad in the grand scheme of things.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Elgee had a video out showing just how much Lebron's scoring benefited from playing C. Yeah, having Westbrook was not ideal for spacing but it was certainly a lot better than Dwight Howard camping the lane.

even elgee video says somethingh like "this helps lebron have more spacing...theorically" (video zooms on westbrook being ignored in the perimeter)

having non shooters in the perimeter being totally ignored ruins spacing more than lane clogging bigs, the latter dont allow a extra defender to leave his man and the defense has to stay close to them for offensive rebounds or passes inside for a dunk

Howard in the lane is a bigger threat the defense has to keep track of than westbrook spotting up

lebron small ball lineups with him at centers have less spacing that other teams lineups with traditional bigs, so all the downsides and almost none of the advantages

regardless most other teams put 4 shooters around their best players, 3 minimum

lakers with lebron at center rarely had that and even less when they played big so lebron had weak spacing even when playing center compared to almost everyone else

Where I do think he benefited was that he was more likely to face a mismatch with a big man guarding him, and in general could play as more of a finisher which was a revelation to me in terms of how devastating he was as a roll man and cutter.

According to Bball Index, the idea that Lebron played with little spacing is backed by how they calculate spacing. For example this is from Feb. 1 but the point still stands,

Read on Twitter

This means the spacing around him is estimated to be higher than only 28% of players in the NBA, based on the players who have been around him this year.

This trend of Lebron having lesser spacing than other stars, is just a continuation from 2021

Read on Twitter

Also, I don't know if this is against what anyone was saying, but Elgee in his top offensive players podcast, had Lebron at #6 in the league, in a tier with Trae and Luka, so he still seems him as someone who can be a #1 offensive engine on a championship caliber team.

[Texas Chuck]

It is 2050.

What are the odds the Clippers are the preeminent team in Los Angeles?
What are the odds the Nets are the preeminent team in New York?

When I was a kid the idea either franchise could surpass big brother was laughable but now not so sure. Dolan is a permanent albatross around the Knicks. And the albatross that was Sterling is gone from the Clippers.

very hard, it would requiere continuined success from clippers/nets and continued mediocrity from lakers/knicks, and as of now, lakers have a ring in the Ballmer era to clippers zero still

it will require memorable team runs and superstars winning rings for nets and clippers and lakers/knicks not to match

i actually consider new York and los Ángeles very loyal to lakers and knicks so it would take a long time and a fair amount of rings

Nets very likely to be the preeminent team in NY.
Clippers very unlikely to be so in LA.

Both Nets and Clippers have vastly superior governors than their counterparts and this is always badly overlooked when we evaluate teams. But the Lakers brand is the Yankees or the Cowboys. That isn't going away in less than a decade. Just no chance. Cowboys have won like 3 total playoff games since their last super bowl and never won 2 playoff games in any single year since then. The Patriots in the meantime won their division a million times and half a dozen super bowls and the Cowboys are still the biggest deal in the biggest league. Same thing with the Lakers. This is their league.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Isaiah Jackson recently passed Myles Turner for the best blk% in the NBA this season...future stud and maybe DPOY candidate/winner?

[HeartBreakKid]

This is with a long assumption that the Nets are going to be good for 20 years while the Knicks stay bad. The Nets hit it big in free agency, this era, but no telling what will happen post Durant.

As of now the Nets even with Durant and Irving, are nowhere near as popular as the Knicks. If the Nets have a dynasty while the Knicks are doo-doo in the next 20 years it will become more even, but at the rate it's going at now, no way will the Nets be the team in NYC.

[MartinToVaught]

It is 2050.

What are the odds the Clippers are the preeminent team in Los Angeles?
What are the odds the Nets are the preeminent team in New York?

When I was a kid the idea either franchise could surpass big brother was laughable but now not so sure. Dolan is a permanent albatross around the Knicks. And the albatross that was Sterling is gone from the Clippers.

very hard, it would requiere continuined success from clippers/nets and continued mediocrity from lakers/knicks, and as of now, lakers have a ring in the Ballmer era to clippers zero still

it will require memorable team runs and superstars winning rings for nets and clippers and lakers/knicks not to match

i actually consider new York and los Ángeles very loyal to lakers and knicks so it would take a long time and a fair amount of rings

Nets very likely to be the preeminent team in NY.
Clippers very unlikely to be so in LA.

Both Nets and Clippers have vastly superior governors than their counterparts and this is always badly overlooked when we evaluate teams. But the Lakers brand is the Yankees or the Cowboys. That isn't going away in less than a decade. Just no chance. Cowboys have won like 3 total playoff games since their last super bowl and never won 2 playoff games in any single year since then. The Patriots in the meantime won their division a million times and half a dozen super bowls and the Cowboys are still the biggest deal in the biggest league. Same thing with the Lakers. This is their league.

To be fair, probably the biggest reason why the Cowboys are still so valuable has nothing to do with football, winning or history. It's because they're the only franchise that can enter into its own licensing agreements for merchandise instead of having the NFL Trust do it for them. They are not the Yankees or Lakers. They're the Knicks if Dolan was a genius savant at making money.

Speaking of the Knicks, I am far lower on the Nets' chances of overtaking them in NY than you are. I just don't see it happening. The Nets have consistently had one of the smallest fanbases in the league. They couldn't even sell out home games when they were in the Finals. People used to blame this on New Jersey (even though the Devils didn't have this problem) but Barclays is no better. In contrast, the Knicks have far more passionate fan support than Dolan deserves. If the Knicks ever get sold to a competent owner, the gap is just going to grow even wider.

[Texas Chuck]

very hard, it would requiere continuined success from clippers/nets and continued mediocrity from lakers/knicks, and as of now, lakers have a ring in the Ballmer era to clippers zero still

it will require memorable team runs and superstars winning rings for nets and clippers and lakers/knicks not to match

i actually consider new York and los Ángeles very loyal to lakers and knicks so it would take a long time and a fair amount of rings

Nets very likely to be the preeminent team in NY.
Clippers very unlikely to be so in LA.

Both Nets and Clippers have vastly superior governors than their counterparts and this is always badly overlooked when we evaluate teams. But the Lakers brand is the Yankees or the Cowboys. That isn't going away in less than a decade. Just no chance. Cowboys have won like 3 total playoff games since their last super bowl and never won 2 playoff games in any single year since then. The Patriots in the meantime won their division a million times and half a dozen super bowls and the Cowboys are still the biggest deal in the biggest league. Same thing with the Lakers. This is their league.

To be fair, probably the biggest reason why the Cowboys are still so valuable has nothing to do with football, winning or history. It's because they're the only franchise that can enter into its own licensing agreements for merchandise instead of having the NFL Trust do it for them. They are not the Yankees or Lakers. They're the Knicks if Dolan was a genius savant at making money.

You are ignoring that Cowboys games always dominate ratings, that they get the most national TV games regardless of record, that they lead every one of those terrible talking head shows over and over again etc...

Yes, Tex Shramm and then Jerry Jones are money-making geniuses. But the Cowboys are the dominant team brand in American sports. Lakers, the dominant in the NBA, the Yankees in baseball. And this isn't changing in less than a decade.

[HeartBreakKid]

2050 is not less than a decade, and the Cowboys might be the most popular franchise but they are not the Lakers or Yankees of the NFL. The NFL does not have a Lakers or Yankees equivalent, that is like saying Australia is the USA of Oceania.

The Cowboys are not particularly popular among younger men outside of their region. Their brand has already started to suffer due to lack of success. Not to mention NFL teams have way more regional loyalty than the NBA and to an extent the MLB.

[Doctor MJ]

It is 2050.

What are the odds the Clippers are the preeminent team in Los Angeles?
What are the odds the Nets are the preeminent team in New York?

When I was a kid the idea either franchise could surpass big brother was laughable but now not so sure. Dolan is a permanent albatross around the Knicks. And the albatross that was Sterling is gone from the Clippers.

I can't give any meaningful numbers, but it's worth talking about.

As an Angeleno, LA is where I have the strongest sense of this.

The reality is that if the Lakers never do anything great in the next 20+ years, and the Clipper win a bunch of chips, young people are going to be Clipper fans.

I wouldn't be on this...BUT:

The way the Lakers are run in the post-Jerry Buss era is incredibly bad. I've heard analytics people say that there are basically 29 teams in the league where you can have a career in analytics...and then there are the Lakers who are dead convinced that "they just know basketball" when they clearly don't.

LeBron choosing to come to the Lakers made it look like everything was hunky dory, but we now have to seriously consider whether the whimper with which this era may well end, and it feels naive to think that another mega-star is going to choose the Lakers out of the blue again - if they get new momentum that's different, but they'll probably have to generate that momentum.

I find what I see in this "late stage Buss administration" to be incredibly insightful. Why is it the first generation guy was so good despite not having a basketball background while his kids are not despite being groomed their entire lives for this purpose?

I don't think the main answer is "Jerry was just much smarter than his kids".

I think the first thing to understand is how underrated previous owner Jack Kent Cooke is. Remember that it's Cooke that brought Wilt & Kareem to the Lakers, and it's Cooke that brought Jerry West in to be the brains of the Lakers going forward.

The Buss family has successfully painted Cooke as if he didn't matter, and over time they've increasingly looked to besmirch he-was-here-before-us West's reputation.

I do think things were still in better shape even in Jerry's last days than now, and that speaks to some of the tried & true wisdom he had as an old man who had had success as an executive in multiple domains...but let's just say that the Lakers being behind the curve on analytics isn't something that began in the era of his kids. Chances are, this gradual decay was inevitable so long as Jerry and his family insisted on seeking glamour and admiration for themselves instead of staying in the background and hiring new blood from other organizations that were successfully innovating.

The Laker brand still gives them a big advantage going forward in a lot of ways, but there's no fundamental reason why they can't go the way of the Knicks, and as much as they are THE pro franchise of Los Angeles, there exists no major metropolis with more fair weather fans than the ones in the city with the fairest weather.

[Texas Chuck]

so looking towards the playoffs. The East to me is fascinating because I think there are a legit 5 teams that if they emerged from the East, I'd go okay I see how this happened. I still expect the Bucks to emerge, but Boston, Miami, Philly, and even Brooklyn have paths I can see.

The West might be even more interesting to me on the theory side, because we have one dominant team with no real holes, an elite closer, the kind of wing defender you need to get through the best teams, and Ayton as kind of a wild card. Then we have Memphis who is winning in a way that rarely culminates in a title. Spurs managed it. Pistons managed it a few times. Just we have a whole bunch of good players who all play the right way at both ends, very well coached, but they don't have that superstar you could see just winning 2 or 3 series for you(all apologies to Ja, but I don't think he's that guy, at least not yet.)

Then there seems to be no real threats behind them. Which is odd because Jokic has been the best player the past 2 seasons(apologies to Giannis), Luka has been playing as well as anyone for 3 months as has his team and he's outplayed Kawhi/PG the past two playoffs even though his team didn't advance, and Utah still has basically all the pieces that have made them an offensive juggernaut for years. Cippers have maybe the best in-game playoff coach, an absurd payroll, and got a star back.

Too many words to say I think we have a re-match coming and got to say, I don't mind that idea at all. I think that would be the best two teams playing for it all.

[sp6r=underrated]

Thanks to everyone who responded to my hypo. I appreciated all your feedback. My two cents.

I grew up in the tri-state area but move away 15 years ago. Except for a 1 year spell during the Great Recession I haven't spent much time there.

For fairly obvious reason, cold weather cities have a more committed sports culture than warm weather cities. People have to spend a lot more time indoors and that makes forming committed fandom easy. They're hasn't been any decline in support for the Knicks despite two decades of ineptitude. Since 2001, the Knicks have won 1 playoff series, missed the playoffs sixteen out of twenty-two times and have the worst winning percentage of NBA franchise. Knicks fans are very loyal.

There is a pretty clear ceiling on Nets support because of this. The smartest marketing move the Nets made when they moved to Brooklyn was adopting the Brooklyn label. It closes them off from widespread support but it gives them a real opportunity to become the team for people in Brooklyn or people who have deep Brooklyn ties. They'll need a period of success similar to what the Pistons had during the aughts. It doesn't need to be a dynasty but it does need to result in a title for the Nets to really break through. This is why the last few years have been so disappointing for Brooklyn. The talent is there but it hasn't come close together.

If they do I think they could become similar to the Jets and Giants. MartintoVoight shoutout of Alabama-Auburn is a really great callout for where I think the Knicks-Nets will end up. There are more Alabama/Giants fans than Auburn/Jets fans but they aren't an anomaly. And I think they will, Nets have been a well run franchise and put together several good cores through shrewd moves. It seems inevitable to me. As a Knicks fan, I'm hoping they do because it may light a fire under Dolan.

I know way less about LA culture. I've lived in the Bay Area for a decade but I almost never set foot in LA outside of a brief time when I dated SoCal lady. The loyalty of LA fans isn't something I'll comment on but to say the image of LA fans as fair weather is a fairly common stereotype in the Bay Area.

I do think Doc's observation that the Lakers have been slowly burning down the organizational capital accumulated by West and Cooke seems correct. I must admit I didn't know much about Cooke but he also seems to have had success as an NFL owners with the Hogs. The real big risk I see for the Lakers is Ballmer buying the Clippers. He has the pockets to try to make the Clippers LA's team. He can spend the Busses into the ground. And if Doc is right that LA fans are fairweather overspending for a couple of years is wise.

As an aside, Ballmer being one of the richest men in the world shows how much luck is involved in extreme fortunes.

He's extremely intelligent, insightful and industrious compared to the average person. he's one of the richest men in the world because when he was in business school he decided to join Microsoft, along with the stock options, instead of the many other small companies of the 1980s that no one has ever heard of. There is no evidence he was some brilliant businessman.

During Gates tenure. Microsoft looked like an unstoppable monster that the government had to break up. Under his successor it has had rapid growth. But when Ballmer ran the company Microsoft looked like a pitiful helpless giant headed the way of Sears. His stock became much more valuable when people not named Ballmer ran the company. His tenure with the Clippers has been successful. This is due to how much easier it is to run a sports team than a normal company.

[sp6r=underrated]

To be fair, probably the biggest reason why the Cowboys are still so valuable has nothing to do with football, winning or history. It's because they're the only franchise that can enter into its own licensing agreements for merchandise instead of having the NFL Trust do it for them. They are not the Yankees or Lakers. They're the Knicks if Dolan was a genius savant at making money.

I side with Texas on this one. I've always found the popularity of the cowboys inexplicable but it is real. People love watching the boys despite them being mediocre for decades.

[MartinToVaught]

To be fair, probably the biggest reason why the Cowboys are still so valuable has nothing to do with football, winning or history. It's because they're the only franchise that can enter into its own licensing agreements for merchandise instead of having the NFL Trust do it for them. They are not the Yankees or Lakers. They're the Knicks if Dolan was a genius savant at making money.

I side with Texas on this one. I've always found the popularity of the cowboys inexplicable but it is real. People love watching the boys despite them being mediocre for decades.

Not denying that the Cowboys are popular, they very obviously are. Just saying that the Lakers/Yankees comparisons don't really work because they've been nowhere near as successful or dominant over their sport.

The NFL is weird in that their closest analogue to the Lakers/Celtics/Yankees/Habs is located in tiny Green Bay and is community-owned, so Jeff Bezos can't really wake up one morning and decide to buy the Packers and move them to San Diego. I'd imagine this all puts a hard cap on their value compared to the other sports' historic dynasties (Forbes only ranks them 13th), which amplifies the effects of other factors like the Cowboys' merchandise deal or the Patriots' recent success.

[MartinToVaught]

I find what I see in this "late stage Buss administration" to be incredibly insightful. Why is it the first generation guy was so good despite not having a basketball background while his kids are not despite being groomed their entire lives for this purpose?

I don't think the main answer is "Jerry was just much smarter than his kids".

I think there's two clear differences between the Jerry era and the post-Jerry era:

1. When Jerry was still alive, there was no question that he was in charge. Now that his kids have inherited the Lakers, there's already been some dysfunction and drama involved in who runs the team. Jim kept screwing up, so Jeanie decided it was her turn to run the Lakers. If Jeanie keeps screwing up even worse, you just know at least one of the other kids is waiting in the wings to take their turn as owner. You can't run a successful organization when the people who are supposed to be leaders aren't on the same page with each other and are more interested in playing politics than improving or even maintaining the company. Unfortunately for Laker fans, it seems the one thing that the Buss kids can agree on is keeping the franchise within the family rather than selling it to a wealthier and more competent owner.

2. Jerry surrounded himself with great basketball minds like Jerry West, Pat Riley, and Phil Jackson. Jim hired Chaz the bartender. Jeanie asks her friends from spin class what to do with the roster.

It's not that Jerry was necessarily smarter than his kids. He was just normal. He operated the way that normal sports owners do. The freakshow that has followed his era has been anything but normal.