2021-22 NBA Season Discussion

Post #6161 » by **Texas Chuck** » Sat Jun 4, 2022 3:28 pm

max salaries weren't to break the union, they were to protect small markets. Those teams could never pay a true superstar a fair value contract and field a competitive team so it would just drive all the stars to the wealthiest franchises.

I understand the desire to remove them, but in a league with an anti-trust exemption and a desire to keep all 30 teams viable, you simply can't undo it.

dontcalltimeout · Post #6162 » by **dontcalltimeout** » Sat Jun 4, 2022 4:13 pm

Does anyone else think the Heat and Warriors are being too aggressive with Tatum whenever he touches the ball? I'm not sure how much of it is skepticism that the Celtics role players could consistently hit shots or if they're just scared that he's going to tear them up. Milwaukee didn't send nearly as much help, but they were much more focused on closing off the paint.

I mean... Tatum's a good PNR and Isolation scorer but he's not peak Harden or anything. Sending help every time Tatum has the ball automatically puts your defense in rotation and makes it hard to recover. Per Synergy, Miami sent help to Tatum 67% of the time and in Game 1 GSW sent help 78% of the time!

Sure the Heat and Warriors are great at making rotations off the ball, but I think they are overdoing it for not that much payoff. Sending that much help does improve your odds of forcing turnovers, but at some point shouldn't they make Tatum prove he can elevate a defense just with his scoring? Miami tested his ability to make the skip pass and look, he's no savant or anything, but I think by now he's proven he will make the basic pass quickly.

sp6r=underrated · Post #6163 » by **sp6r=underrated** » Sat Jun 4, 2022 4:36 pm

Texas Chuck wrote:max salaries weren't to break the union,

Max individual salaries were a successful attempt to break the union. The owners in the 90s CBA battles proposed the players get a lower share of basketball related income. Naturally the players hated this. So the owners proposed

1. Owners get a greater share of the money: their true and only motive.
2. top 25 players and rookies have severely capped salaries. Michael Jordan's 1998 salary in 2022 dollars, with an NBA that had far lower revenues is $58,531,269.
3. Median salary for players go up because the owners will give the average player a share of the money that is capped from superstars/rookies.

This broke the 1999 union. The average vet was losing money during the lockout and now the owners were offering them a higher salary. They voted on self-interest to take money out of Shaq's pocket.

they were to protect small markets.

Protecting small markets is a talking point for the fans. Owners don't care that much. As example, small market owners would demand an end to territorial rights that make it easy for owners to block moves into their territory. A big reason the Knicks and Lakers have revenue stream advantages is that they are able to hog a massive market with only one neighbor. This is never discussed because the owners don't care that much about it,

Those teams could never pay a true superstar a fair value contract and field a competitive team so it would just drive all the stars to the wealthiest franchises.

The NBA has a soft cap and luxury tax. This is true with maximum salaries and without maximum salaries

Example 1: No max salaries (100 M cap to make it easy)
Player 1: 70 M
Player 2: 13 M
Player 3: 5 M
Players 4-15: 1 M each
Total Salary: 100 M

Example 2: Max Salaries (100 M Cap)
Player 1: 20 M
Player 2: 20 M
Player 3: 20 M
Players 4-9: 30 M (5 M each
Players 10-15: 10 M divided equally
Total Salary: 100 M

Either way the cost is the same 100 M. All maximum salaries do is change the allocation.

Maximum individual salaries actually makes it much harder for small market teams to compete. Maximum individual salaries increase the importance of superstars by making them underpaid relative to productivity.

Since NBA teams can't offer players more money directly they offer them better amenities:
1. Business opportunities: big cities have more.
2. Play with your friends: where would you and your friend rather live on 5 Million a year: NYC or Salt Lake. I know my friends would prefer NYC. I'm guessing most NBA players are the same.

If there are no max salaries, OKC could say to a superstar will give you 65% of our cap. LA and NY would be quickly capped out of the free agent market and if the choice is 60 M for OKC or 5 M for LA, I'm going to love Oklahoma.

As I explained above, this doesn't have anything to do with franchise viability. It was about breaking the union so the owners could get more money.

I understand the desire to remove them, but in a league with an anti-trust exemption and a desire to keep all 30 teams viable, you simply can't undo it.

I'll add the idea teams would fold left and right if the NBA was like an open market (no salary cap, no draft) just isn't borne out when you look at other sports leagues. European soccer leagues have no competitive balance and are insanely popular. College football is extremely popular in the US and the talent differential between the Alabamas and a top 50 program is enormous yet top 50 programs sell out their games and get solid tv ratings.

70sFan · Post #6164 » by **70sFan** » Sat Jun 4, 2022 5:09 pm

dontcalltimeout wrote:Does anyone else think the Heat and Warriors are being too aggressive with Tatum whenever he touches the ball? I'm not sure how much of it is skepticism that the Celtics role players could consistently hit shots or if they're just scared that he's going to tear them up. Milwaukee didn't send nearly as much help, but they were much more focused on closing off the paint.

I mean... Tatum's a good PNR and Isolation scorer but he's not peak Harden or anything. Sending help every time Tatum has the ball automatically puts your defense in rotation and makes it hard to recover. Per Synergy, Miami sent help to Tatum 67% of the time and in Game 1 GSW sent help 78% of the time!

Sure the Heat and Warriors are great at making rotations off the ball, but I think they are overdoing it for not that much payoff. Sending that much help does improve your odds of forcing turnovers, but at some point shouldn't they make Tatum prove he can elevate a defense just with his scoring? Miami tested his ability to make the skip pass and look, he's no savant or anything, but I think by now he's proven he will make the basic pass quickly.

I agree, Tatum isn't good enough as an iso scorer to focus on him so much. His passing is more important than individual scoring

Post #6165 » by **Doctor MJ** » Sat Jun 4, 2022 6:09 pm

dontcalltimeout wrote:Does anyone else think the Heat and Warriors are being too aggressive with Tatum whenever he touches the ball? I'm not sure how much of it is skepticism that the Celtics role players could consistently hit shots or if they're just scared that he's going to tear them up. Milwaukee didn't send nearly as much help, but they were much more focused on closing off the paint.

I mean... Tatum's a good PNR and Isolation scorer but he's not peak Harden or anything. Sending help every time Tatum has the ball automatically puts your defense in rotation and makes it hard to recover. Per Synergy, Miami sent help to Tatum 67% of the time and in Game 1 GSW sent help 78% of the time!

Sure the Heat and Warriors are great at making rotations off the ball, but I think they are overdoing it for not that much payoff. Sending that much help does improve your odds of forcing turnovers, but at some point shouldn't they make Tatum prove he can elevate a defense just with his scoring? Miami tested his ability to make the skip pass and look, he's no savant or anything, but I think by now he's proven he will make the basic pass quickly.

I definitely think it's important for teams to question how much to tilt their defense toward Tatum. Warriors in a tough place now because I think the rational thing to do is to bet that the Celtics can't keep shooting like that, but if you do make that bet and it happens again, now you've lost both your first two home games in the series and that's a hell of a whole to climb out of.

sp6r=underrated · Post #6166 » by **sp6r=underrated** » Sat Jun 4, 2022 6:16 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:
dontcalltimeout wrote:Does anyone else think the Heat and Warriors are being too aggressive with Tatum whenever he touches the ball? I'm not sure how much of it is skepticism that the Celtics role players could consistently hit shots or if they're just scared that he's going to tear them up. Milwaukee didn't send nearly as much help, but they were much more focused on closing off the paint.

I mean... Tatum's a good PNR and Isolation scorer but he's not peak Harden or anything. Sending help every time Tatum has the ball automatically puts your defense in rotation and makes it hard to recover. Per Synergy, Miami sent help to Tatum 67% of the time and in Game 1 GSW sent help 78% of the time!

Sure the Heat and Warriors are great at making rotations off the ball, but I think they are overdoing it for not that much payoff. Sending that much help does improve your odds of forcing turnovers, but at some point shouldn't they make Tatum prove he can elevate a defense just with his scoring? Miami tested his ability to make the skip pass and look, he's no savant or anything, but I think by now he's proven he will make the basic pass quickly.

I definitely think it's important for teams to question how much to tilt their defense toward Tatum. Warriors in a tough place now because I think the rational thing to do is to bet that the Celtics can't keep shooting like that, but if you do make that bet and it happens again, now you've lost both your first two home games in the series and that's a hell of a whole to climb out of.

They should do the rational thing and play the percentages. And just accept if they're going to hit at rates like that you lose. But if they have an outlier bad shooting game and you'll crush Boston's offense.

Milwaukee lost the Boston series on the offensive end. Their defense held up.

falcolombardi · Post #6167 » by **falcolombardi** » Sat Jun 4, 2022 6:23 pm

Doctor MJ wrote:
dontcalltimeout wrote:Does anyone else think the Heat and Warriors are being too aggressive with Tatum whenever he touches the ball? I'm not sure how much of it is skepticism that the Celtics role players could consistently hit shots or if they're just scared that he's going to tear them up. Milwaukee didn't send nearly as much help, but they were much more focused on closing off the paint.

I mean... Tatum's a good PNR and Isolation scorer but he's not peak Harden or anything. Sending help every time Tatum has the ball automatically puts your defense in rotation and makes it hard to recover. Per Synergy, Miami sent help to Tatum 67% of the time and in Game 1 GSW sent help 78% of the time!

Sure the Heat and Warriors are great at making rotations off the ball, but I think they are overdoing it for not that much payoff. Sending that much help does improve your odds of forcing turnovers, but at some point shouldn't they make Tatum prove he can elevate a defense just with his scoring? Miami tested his ability to make the skip pass and look, he's no savant or anything, but I think by now he's proven he will make the basic pass quickly.

I definitely think it's important for teams to question how much to tilt their defense toward Tatum. Warriors in a tough place now because I think the rational thing to do is to bet that the Celtics can't keep shooting like that, but if you do make that bet and it happens again, now you've lost both your first two home games in the series and that's a hell of a whole to climb out of.

tatum is not a good enough offensive player to kill you for a full series....but he is good enough to grt hot go for a efficient 45 one or even two times a series (ask milwaukee)

if warriors gamble in daring tatum to beat them with his own scoring it doesnt need to work for boston im all games, if it works in game 2 that is all boston may need

falcolombardi · Post #6168 » by **falcolombardi** » Sat Jun 4, 2022 6:31 pm

off topic but the odds thingh doc mentions reminds me of the 3 doors game that people use to explain probability odds

where there are 3 doors and one has a prize behind, the player picks one of the 3 doors, and the host of the game opens one of the other two (one without the prize)

most people assume they have 50/50 odds in their second try but in reality they have 33% odds if they stick with the first door and 66% ones if they change their pick

that is because they had a 66% chance of being wrong with their first pick, so the odds say they should aleays change their pick in the second try

the dillema of warriors is a bit like it, traditional basketball dogmas say role players are less likely to destroy you than star players, so if you bet on role players to be the biggest threat over star players twice in a row, traditional dogma says you are picking the wrong door

the chance than role players all go hot again twice in a row is in theory less likely than the odds tatum and brown will struggle with their jumpshots twice in a row

CommonerCoffee · Post #6169 » by **CommonerCoffee** » Sat Jun 4, 2022 10:20 pm

I don't think the Monty Hall problem has any relation to the decision to adapt strategies here. Namely, the core logic behind the 3 door problem has a Bayesian aspect to it as your conditional probabilities are updated given the additional information gained from the host opening a door after the initial choice.

The information update here that the role players ended up hitting a high range on their 3PT%, which have been studied to be a
rather inelastic stat that defenses seem to be minimal effects on; that is traditional dogma would suggest that you treat the events as independent and not update your prior estimates on role player shooting performance too much; that is hot role player shooting in game 1 should have limited to no bearing on the defensive strategy.

falcolombardi · Post #6170 » by **falcolombardi** » Sun Jun 5, 2022 1:03 am

Doctor MJ wrote:
falcolombardi wrote:i am unsure why does it matter what the reason for draymond bad shooting is?

at the end of the day the thingh is he cannot shot/score

is like when people say that a player is only a bad defender cause he spends a ton of effort on offense, it still means he cannot be a good offensive and defensive player simultaneously

That's not the dichotomy. What we're talking about is two different offensive roles: shooting vs playmaking.

To be clear: I'm not taking any kind of hard stance here that Green has to be better than Horford, only emphasizing that their offensive roles are not the same.

Last note: I saw your earlier post about you and I going back and forth on the issues with Green's offense in a playoff series. I do feel compelled to emphasize that I didn't say it definitively wouldn't be a problem, but I'm happy to credit you with zooming in on the issue many months in advance.

for the record it was probably you who was right the most this season by questioning suns and being so high on boston and warriors

my only gripe is that the hypothetical bucks vs warriors matchup i was so curious about wont happen so we wont know who was "right" about that one

it will be left to theorycrafting

Homer38 · Post #6171 » by **Homer38** » Sun Jun 5, 2022 3:36 pm

Read on Twitter

falcolombardi · Post #6172 » by **falcolombardi** » Sun Jun 5, 2022 3:40 pm

any predictions for tonight game tactically speaking?

Post #6173 » by **Texas Chuck** » Sun Jun 5, 2022 4:56 pm

interesting that game 1 had terrible ratings after our argument earlier itt about how attractive these teams were.

Ballerhogger · Post #6174 » by **Ballerhogger** » Sun Jun 5, 2022 4:58 pm

Texas Chuck wrote:interesting that game 1 had terrible ratings after our argument earlier itt about how attractive these teams were.

May have more to do with whole playoffs as whole . Lot people lots interest ?

RCM88x · Post #6175 » by **RCM88x** » Sun Jun 5, 2022 5:13 pm

NBA needs a hard cap. Rich teams like GS paying $450M in salary while small market teams can't afford to even go above the cap.

I don't think the union and league anticipated teams actually paying this much to retain their talent.

falcolombardi · Post #6176 » by **falcolombardi** » Sun Jun 5, 2022 5:26 pm

Spoiler:

Texas Chuck wrote:interesting that game 1 had terrible ratings after our argument earlier itt about how attractive these teams were.

i think people (aka us in realgm) need to finally understand that ratings are not a referendum of the quality of the basketball played (starting with the subjectiveness of basketball quality)

there is a ton of factors such as timing, narratives, fanbases size, star players involved

Post #6177 » by **PaulieWal** » Sun Jun 5, 2022 5:49 pm

The whole ratings thing is funny to me always. Fans get so invested in ratings, the sport is still in a healthy place, the TV deal will only get bigger, players and owners will continue to make money. The NBA will never catch-up to the NFL, at least not in our lifetimes probably and will be playing for 2nd with MLB among the big 4 leagues (NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA). What the NBA should really be focusing on is cleaning up some of the in-game stuff with the reviews, stoppages, and some of these 4th quarter endings taking 30 mins+ for 2 minutes of game time. That's just unacceptable.

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Onto tonight.....I would be shocked if GSW doesn't come out and try to blowout Celtics off the floor. Going down 0-2 to a team of comparable talent with 3 games on the road is a recipe for losing the series, so it's almost a must-win in my books for the Warriors.

Post #6178 » by **PaulieWal** » Sun Jun 5, 2022 5:50 pm

RCM88x wrote:NBA needs a hard cap. Rich teams like GS paying $450M in salary while small market teams can't afford to even go above the cap.

I don't think the union and league anticipated teams actually paying this much to retain their talent.

Teams in the past have had paid huge luxury tax bills for one season, but then they almost trim and bring it down. Let's see how much appetite GSW really has to pay that much in salary for 2,3 years in a row. I will believe it when i see it.

Even your team paid the most in luxury tax around that 2016, 2017 season no? Nets paid a lot in 2014 but then trimmed.

falcolombardi · Post #6179 » by **falcolombardi** » Sun Jun 5, 2022 6:04 pm

some noise about robert williams being hurt and not playing tonight

sucks if true

jalengreen · Post #6180 » by **jalengreen** » Sun Jun 5, 2022 6:51 pm

PaulieWal wrote:The whole ratings thing is funny to me always. Fans get so invested in ratings, the sport is still in a healthy place, the TV deal will only get bigger, players and owners will continue to make money. The NBA will never catch-up to the NFL, at least not in our lifetimes probably and will be playing for 2nd with MLB among the big 4 leagues (NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA). What the NBA should really be focusing on is cleaning up some of the in-game stuff with the reviews, stoppages, and some of these 4th quarter endings taking 30 mins+ for 2 minutes of game time. That's just unacceptable.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Onto tonight.....I would be shocked if GSW doesn't come out and try to blowout Celtics off the floor. Going down 0-2 to a team of comparable talent with 3 games on the road is a recipe for losing the series, so it's almost a must-win in my books for the Warriors.

i think ratings discussion makes more sense for the NFL, but not really for the NBA given how global the game is and how many viewers they have outside of america

like you said the NBA has no chance at catching up to the NFL domestically. that's why most of their efforts have been in terms of growing in china, india, etc while the NFL's popularity is way more exclusive to the states