2019-20 NBA Season Discussion

[limbo]

That's not true because Moses could shoot fairly well. He didn't shoot threes, but he wasn't a bad shooter relative to the rest of the league, quite the contrary in fact. He could also create his midrange shots fairly well.

Besides, Moses played usually with stretch 4s in Houston - Rudy Tomjanovic could shoot as well as any guard.

Using 'relative' to the league is all there needs to be emphasized here. Most of the league was trash shooting from outside at the time, but because Moses could hit an occasional mid-range jumper, he's suddenly a 'stretch' 4... Asinine. What's next? Tommy Heinsohn wasn't a bad finisher.. You got to realize that the average FG% in the 60's was 38% and Tommy was shooting 40%... Converting 40% of your 2P FG's and you don't even make the league today. That's how much the standard of game has risen. Which is what we are comparing here, no? I'm not asking how Moses did shooting-wise compared to his peers, but how his shooting compares to now.

That's not true - Gobert is top 15 player in the league and he doesn't do any of these things particulary well.

Which is exactly why Gobert has failed to make an elite defensive impact in the last FOUR Playoff series he has played in... Golden State, Houston twice and Denver this year have all taken advantage of the fact that he is not a great defender when he has to switch & cover players on the perimeter and abused the Jazz severely because of it.

He has the capacity to have larger impact in the regular season because the teams are generally worse and not prepared to exploit him in a way an elite team you'd face in the PS typically would over a 7-game series.

So you're saying that you should play up to your strengths and more talented teams usually win? Who would have thought about it before...

You were the one that came to this thread trying to make some sort of a point about how Lakers are winning the title because of their big lineups...No. They're winning mostly because of AD and LeBron and a good supporting cast... Not because of 'big lineups'. Howard and McGee didn't even play against Houston and it was still a 4-1 series for the Lakers.. Nobody is saying Howard or McGee can not be useful players on a championship team given the right circumstance... The claim was their usefulness is far more situational and exploitable than it has been in the past decades of NBA basketball... That's the entire crux of the argument... You still haven't done anything to disprove that.

You somehow translated that to 'bigs can't be a part of championship lineups anymore'... Bro. Iman Shumpert and Matthew Delavedova can be a part of championship lineups if they play with a guy like LeBron... LeBron is a once in a generation anomaly that allows lineups that should be getting absolutely exploited on both ends to become passable enough to compete against elite teams... Then you add AD to the mix as well, who is an anomaly himself, combining Durant's fluidity in a Center's frame... and you could basically put Joel Anthony in there and teams wouldn't be able to exploit the Lakers.

[70sFan]

Using 'relative' to the league is all there needs to be emphasized here. Most of the league was trash shooting from outside at the time, but because Moses could hit an occasional mid-range jumper, he's suddenly a 'stretch' 4... Asinine.

They weren't trash from outside, they just didn't shoot threes because (guess what?) the three point line didn't exist back then. Trex has been doing a large play by play project for 1960s and 1970s games and players didn't shoot poorly from midrange back then.

Also, when did I say that Moses was a stretch 4? Can you read my post properly?

What's next? Tommy Heinsohn wasn't a bad finisher.. You got to realize that the average FG% in the 60's was 38% and Tommy was shooting 40%... Converting 40% of your 2P FG's and you don't even make the league today. That's how much the standard of game has risen. Which is what we are comparing here, no? I'm not asking how Moses did shooting-wise compared to his peers, but how his shooting compares to now.

Tommy Heinsohn was a player who had terrible shooting selection and that was his concern - he wasn't poor finisher. Of course you need to adjust everything for relatives - why anyone should expect Moses to shoot threes when even the best shooters in the league didn't do it? Why would you expect Heinsohn to finish at 70% inside when teams didn't play the way to optimalize efficiency and the standards were different?

Which is exactly why Gobert has failed to make an elite defensive impact in the last FOUR Playoff series he has played in... Golden State, Houston twice and Denver this year have all taken advantage of the fact that he is not a great defender when he has to switch & cover players on the perimeter and abused the Jazz severely because of it.

Gobert dominated against Houston in 2019 and he was highly impactful against Nuggets. Maybe you just look at boxscores and don't watch games, but it happened not too long ago and I remember it well.

Nobody ever defended KD Warriors well, so I don't see how it proves anything.

He has the capacity to have larger impact in the regular season because the teams are generally worse and not prepared to exploit him in a way an elite team you'd face in the PS typically would over a 7-game series.

Yeah and he mantained this impact in playoffs. I mean, Jazz were -2.5 in 2016, -3.8 in 2017 and -7.0 in 2019 defensively in playoffs. The reason why they couldn't beat quality teams is because before 2020 Utah team sucked offensively in all playoffs runs during Gobert.

You were the one that came to this thread trying to make some sort of a point about how Lakers are winning the title because of their big lineups...No. They're winning mostly because of AD and LeBron and a good supporting cast... Not because of 'big lineups'. Howard and McGee didn't even play against Houston and it was still a 4-1 series for the Lakers.. Nobody is saying Howard or McGee can not be useful players on a championship team given the right circumstance... The claim was their usefulness is far more situational and exploitable than it has been in the past decades of NBA basketball... That's the entire crux of the argument... You still haven't done anything to disprove that.

Then you don't argue with anything I said, because I never said that Lakers won because they are big. Don't play a fool, plenty of people has been saying that you can't play two bigs anymore. Lakers disproved it, that's all I said. I didn't say that now every team should play as big as possible. You're trying to make me look more stupid than I really am.

You somehow translated that to 'bigs can't be a part of championship lineups anymore'... Bro. Iman Shumpert and Matthew Delavedova can be a part of championship lineups if they play with a guy like LeBron... LeBron is a once in a generation anomaly that allows lineups that should be getting absolutely exploited on both ends to become passable enough to compete against elite teams... Then you add AD to the mix as well, who is an anomaly himself, combining Durant's fluidity in a Center's frame... and you could basically put Joel Anthony in there and teams wouldn't be able to exploit the Lakers.

Suddenly, only James could have such an impact right? It's not possible that we'll get another all-time bigman in future who'd reach comparable greatness right? Or that some of bigs from the past already reached that level? No, because you always say "but James is an outlier", "but Giannis is an outlier", "but Jokic is an outlier". Guess what? There was no bigman superstar in the league that was a true superstar and wasn't an outlier in one way or another. You can't say that someone like Wilt, Kareem or Shaq wouldn't be good today because we don't have anyone like them. It would be exactly as stupid as saying that LeBron wouldn't be great in the 1970s because we didn't have anyone like him then.

Superstars are so good that usual laws don't touch them. I'm physics student, so you can call it a singularity. General gravity works perfectly fine in typical environments but when you find a black hole (which is a singularity), you can't use it anymore because general laws break down at this point. Similar thing happens with all-time great players - nobody played like Shaq before Shaq, because it worked only for him. Nobody ever dominated in Kareem's style because nobody was as good as Kareem at that. We never saw 6'8 PG before Magic and it's not like we've seen anyone close to him since. Nobody ever dominated the league to such a degree through offensive rebounding and iso scoring like Moses - not because the league was bad then but because nobody was good enough to replicate that. We didn't have any 6'8 260 lbs point forward who worked that well before James, because nobody before LeBron was even close at that to him.

[therealbig3]

But I think the Lakers are the exception to the two big “rule”, because they have AD.

To be clear, their best lineup is with AD at the 5 and LeBron at the 4, with 3 other shooters, and that’s their “small” lineup. I put that in quotes because AD has legit center size, and LeBron is built like K. Malone. They’re not actually small lol.

But Davis and Howard together, for example, works because Davis is such a unique talent as a big, he can essentially play more on the perimeter next to Howard, and he sacrifices nothing on defense.

Players like Davis aren’t common. The closest is Bam, and he’s someone that you could put next to Howard and play well on both sides of the court, and I wouldn’t take that as proof that small ball is overrated or wrong, or that the 2 big lineup is unfairly maligned. Bam can defend pretty much anyone and has enough perimeter skills on offense to find a useful role with Howard occupying the paint.

The two big lineup can work, but one of your bigs at least needs to have perimeter skills on both ends of the court in order to pull it off. That’s not a viable option for most teams.

[therealbig3]

Going through playoff defenses over the years, need some help sorting some stuff out: who was the best defensive player on the 02 Celtics? Who was the best defensive player on the 02 Nets? And for a team like Nash’s Suns...even though I know Amare was a bad defender, should he be the one that the Suns playoff defense is tested for in terms of on/off since he still had the biggest effect on their defense, or should it be for their best overall defender, which is probably Marion? What about the 07 Cavs?

[70sFan]

But I think the Lakers are the exception to the two big “rule”, because they have AD.

To be clear, their best lineup is with AD at the 5 and LeBron at the 4, with 3 other shooters, and that’s their “small” lineup. I put that in quotes because AD has legit center size, and LeBron is built like K. Malone. They’re not actually small lol.

But Davis and Howard together, for example, works because Davis is such a unique talent as a big, he can essentially play more on the perimeter next to Howard, and he sacrifices nothing on defense.

Players like Davis aren’t common. The closest is Bam, and he’s someone that you could put next to Howard and play well on both sides of the court, and I wouldn’t take that as proof that small ball is overrated or wrong, or that the 2 big lineup is unfairly maligned. Bam can defend pretty much anyone and has enough perimeter skills on offense to find a useful role with Howard occupying the paint.

The two big lineup can work, but one of your bigs at least needs to have perimeter skills on both ends of the court in order to pull it off. That’s not a viable option for most teams.

I don't think anyone disagree with that - you need skilled bigs to use them both on the court. Nobody is asking to make DeAndre Jordan + Clint Capela lineups.

Would you disagree that Duncan+Admiral duo would work perfectly fine in the 2020?

[limbo]

Per possession Tony Battie was probably the best defensive player on '02 Celtics, though he played like 24-28 mpg. Other than that it was probably Pierce and Eric Williams. On the Nets it was Kidd, followed by Martin probably.

[therealbig3]

But I think the Lakers are the exception to the two big “rule”, because they have AD.

To be clear, their best lineup is with AD at the 5 and LeBron at the 4, with 3 other shooters, and that’s their “small” lineup. I put that in quotes because AD has legit center size, and LeBron is built like K. Malone. They’re not actually small lol.

But Davis and Howard together, for example, works because Davis is such a unique talent as a big, he can essentially play more on the perimeter next to Howard, and he sacrifices nothing on defense.

Players like Davis aren’t common. The closest is Bam, and he’s someone that you could put next to Howard and play well on both sides of the court, and I wouldn’t take that as proof that small ball is overrated or wrong, or that the 2 big lineup is unfairly maligned. Bam can defend pretty much anyone and has enough perimeter skills on offense to find a useful role with Howard occupying the paint.

The two big lineup can work, but one of your bigs at least needs to have perimeter skills on both ends of the court in order to pull it off. That’s not a viable option for most teams.

I don't think anyone disagree with that - you need skilled bigs to use them both on the court. Nobody is asking to make DeAndre Jordan + Clint Capela lineups.

Would you disagree that Duncan+Admiral duo would work perfectly fine in the 2020?

I think it works perfectly fine, but their lack of elite shooting may cause spacing issues, I think the 90s/early 00s was the perfect era for them. That’s the only thing that may cause an issue, but it’s kind of minor since they were still decent mid range shooters. But younger Duncan and older Admiral were still two of the most mobile bigs in the league and would still wreak havoc defensively. They’d still anchor the best defensive team in the league imo.

But that’s the thing, they can both shoot, pass, and defend wings if they had to. A very unique situation. Most teams don’t have one big that can do all of that, let alone two.

[70sFan]

But I think the Lakers are the exception to the two big “rule”, because they have AD.

To be clear, their best lineup is with AD at the 5 and LeBron at the 4, with 3 other shooters, and that’s their “small” lineup. I put that in quotes because AD has legit center size, and LeBron is built like K. Malone. They’re not actually small lol.

But Davis and Howard together, for example, works because Davis is such a unique talent as a big, he can essentially play more on the perimeter next to Howard, and he sacrifices nothing on defense.

Players like Davis aren’t common. The closest is Bam, and he’s someone that you could put next to Howard and play well on both sides of the court, and I wouldn’t take that as proof that small ball is overrated or wrong, or that the 2 big lineup is unfairly maligned. Bam can defend pretty much anyone and has enough perimeter skills on offense to find a useful role with Howard occupying the paint.

The two big lineup can work, but one of your bigs at least needs to have perimeter skills on both ends of the court in order to pull it off. That’s not a viable option for most teams.

I don't think anyone disagree with that - you need skilled bigs to use them both on the court. Nobody is asking to make DeAndre Jordan + Clint Capela lineups.

Would you disagree that Duncan+Admiral duo would work perfectly fine in the 2020?

I think it works perfectly fine, but their lack of elite shooting may cause spacing issues, I think the 90s/early 00s was the perfect era for them. That’s the only thing that may cause an issue, but it’s kind of minor since they were still decent mid range shooters. But younger Duncan and older Admiral were still two of the most mobile bigs in the league and would still wreak havoc defensively. They’d still anchor the best defensive team in the league imo.

But that’s the thing, they can both shoot, pass, and defend wings if they had to. A very unique situation. Most teams don’t have one big that can do all of that, let alone two.

Again - twin towers were always a rare thing in the league and not many succeed. It's nothing new to "modern" basketball, you always needed skilled players on the court.

[Dr Positivity]

Going through playoff defenses over the years, need some help sorting some stuff out: who was the best defensive player on the 02 Celtics? Who was the best defensive player on the 02 Nets? And for a team like Nash’s Suns...even though I know Amare was a bad defender, should he be the one that the Suns playoff defense is tested for in terms of on/off since he still had the biggest effect on their defense, or should it be for their best overall defender, which is probably Marion? What about the 07 Cavs?

2007 Cavs best defender was Lebron in my opinion, and not sure if Amare had bigger impact than Marion on Suns D

[E-Balla]

07 Cavs best defender is easily Varejao. He was a beast on that end. Eric Snow and Larry Hughes did their part too.

[Dupp]

It’s a shame butlers been thrown around the league the last few years. Dudes way too good for that.

[limbo]

It’s a shame butlers been thrown around the league the last few years. Dudes way too good for that.

Lol, dude literally 'wasted' one season trying to build something in Minnesota... I wouldn't even call his Philly stint a waste, he had a good cast and was able to be competitive in the Playoffs...

Those 2014-2017 Bulls seasons in his mid 20s were a far bigger waste of his career than throwing a season and change away in Minnesota, unless you want to argue the Bulls gave him a chance most teams didn't to be 'the guy' on a team and develop his game/pedigree, which i think were crucial for getting him where he at now.

Other than that, Butler was not like a high level prospect that was obviously gonna be a star in his early 20s. He was more like a nice piece the Bulls found to add to their early 10's core of Rose/Noah/Gibson etc. Then Butler took advantage of Rose being out with injuries and kind of developed into an allstar. The Bulls thought they could bring Rose back in form and have a Rose/Butler backcourt, but Rose was just awful when he came back, and the fit was terrible.

[kayess]

Epic game from Butler, punctuated by him pushing Bron's smack talk back in his face. You absolutely love to see it.

[70sFan]

I'm afraid that's the end of the series. A shame, Heat are such a likeable team.

[Blackmill]

KCP had an excellent defensive game. Maybe I missed it but I feel like the commentating crew never gives him enough credit. In one of the previous games Mark Jackson was saying how Rondo was the Lakers third best player. No, that's definitely KCP, though Rondo did prove a lot of people wrong (including myself) this postseason. Anyways, great to see him on the podium after the game. Also it won't happen but I really hope this series goes to 7.

[kayess]

KCP had an excellent defensive game. Maybe I missed it but I feel like the commentating crew never gives him enough credit. In one of the previous games Mark Jackson was saying how Rondo was the Lakers third best player. No, that's definitely KCP, though Rondo did prove a lot of people wrong (including myself) this postseason. Anyways, great to see him on the podium after the game. Also it won't happen but I really hope this series goes to 7.

They heap praise on him actually and dig into the details: how he fights over screens, recovers and rotates well, contests pretty much everything, etc.

[Heej]

RIP to the nonsensical "Heat have the best players 3-8" hot take, we hardly even knew ye. I'll take KCP and Rondo over every Heat player outside of their Big 3

[HeartBreakKid]

RIP to the nonsensical "Heat have the best players 3-8" hot take, we hardly even knew ye. I'll take KCP and Rondo over every Heat player outside of their Big 3

You think KCP and Rondo are better than Herro and Duncan-Robinson? Herro pretty much owns KCP in every way, this finals series is like the only series where KCP was better than Herro.

Actually, I don't even get how KCP vs Herro is an argument. Herro is flat out better, on top of doing way more for his team. KCP's job is just to stand there and take open jumpers lol, and his numbers aren't even better despite having an easy job.

Herro moves more without the ball, creates his own shot from the perimeter, crashes the glass, can spot up, can shoot off the bounce, good defender - not even a contest really. KCP was not good before this series.

[MyUniBroDavis]

RIP to the nonsensical "Heat have the best players 3-8" hot take, we hardly even knew ye. I'll take KCP and Rondo over every Heat player outside of their Big 3

You think KCP and Rondo are better than Herro and Duncan-Robinson? Herro pretty much owns KCP in every way, this finals series is like the only series where KCP was better than Herro.

Actually, I don't even get how KCP vs Herro is an argument. Herro is flat out better, on top of doing way more for his team. KCP's job is just to stand there and take open jumpers lol, and his numbers aren't even better despite having an easy job.

Is rather have herro but kcp is prolly better atm because herro takes some dumb shots and is a bad defender. Herro is more talented for sure but kcp is smarter at doing his job atm

I like herro more though so id have him

[HeartBreakKid]

RIP to the nonsensical "Heat have the best players 3-8" hot take, we hardly even knew ye. I'll take KCP and Rondo over every Heat player outside of their Big 3

You think KCP and Rondo are better than Herro and Duncan-Robinson? Herro pretty much owns KCP in every way, this finals series is like the only series where KCP was better than Herro.

Actually, I don't even get how KCP vs Herro is an argument. Herro is flat out better, on top of doing way more for his team. KCP's job is just to stand there and take open jumpers lol, and his numbers aren't even better despite having an easy job.

Is rather have herro but kcp is prolly better atm because herro takes some dumb shots and is a bad defender. Herro is more talented for sure but kcp is smarter at doing his job atm

I like herro more though so id have him

Smarter at doing his job? KCP has an easy job, Herro is asked to create a lot of his shots. Their responsibilities on offense are not comparable because Herro and KCP on offense are not really comparable.

Tyler Herro isn't a bad defender. Neither is Duncan-Robinson. White shooter does not equate to bad defender.

Herro has a higher basketball IQ than KCP, taking more difficult shots doesn't mean he has lower IQ. If KCP is so smart, why do they have the same TS%? Herro does more for his team. Scores more points, same efficiency, more assist, more rebounds.

The Heat have a team where everyone has to do a lot of different things to contribute, KCP is on a team where two guys do a lot of things and everyone else is highly specialized.

KCP is a 3 and D guy, who a lot of the time doesn't bother to play good D anymore. I think you guys are drawing way too much from a 5 game series. No one in their right mind was taking KCP before this series, he was not making shots and if he can't make shots he's not good.