RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #51 (Draymond Green)

[Doctor MJ]

For me Davis’s only real weakness is he can’t guard uber dominant post players like Jokic or Embiid at all, but outside of obesity for those stretches he’s locked in, he’s insane

I thought last year, even with the injury, he was a DPOY level guy after a slow start (which was enough for why I think he probably wouldn’t have deserved it to be clear), then he played one of the best defensive series I’ve ever seen vs the Grizzlies and kind of shut down the entire steph offense, with us top locking off their cuts and playing a high drop since AD can legitimately contest those. Even vs the Nuggets once they put him off Jokic and more roaming and helping they were able to hold him in the post below 50% inside the arc, most of his play and assists came off of transition + handoffs + incredible reads rather than beating post overhelp.

Iirc they were a bottom 2 defense during ADs injury last year and top 5-10 ish in the games he played coming back, even ore trades


The way I view it is Dray is someone that can figure out and read the opposing gameplan, but at the end of the day sometimes knowing something is gonna happen isn’t enough (although most of the time it is), whereas AD is one of the few guys ever that can be a checkmate on defense if you put the right pieces around him and use them correctly

For the decade, Dray for sure I think, but I think AD peaked a bit higher

Feel 2020 and 2021 Giannis probably have a very strong argument just from what I’ve seen but I’d need to see a lot more film to be sure

Yup, there's no one without weaknesses. To be strong enough to handle Jokic is generally to be massive enough to lack the agility that top help defenders have. The question of who is best is really about what skills are most important given the opposition you face.

The existence of a Jokic has the potential to shift what is most important for contenders, but frankly to this point I'm not sure if there's ever been an era where something along the lines of the Davis build isn't the most valuable thing you can be as a defender. (Davis' injuries hold him back in way some others aren't, and while I'd consider Davis a pretty high BBIQ guy, there are higher.)

I'll say I'm glad you point out that Davis was still quite effective in the Denver series as a help defender. While an ideal defender would of course be able to defend Jokic as well as possible, you don't want your all-world help defender to be stuck on man defense, so it's possible to overstate the importance of man defense when evaluating Davis.

I think ADs iq went way up in LA, I don’t wanna do the “zomg he learned from bron” thing but going from the pels with gentry to vogel/bron (and it has to be said ham too lol) is a huge jump, I’d say he’s all time in that regard now when he’s locked in

With AD specifically it’s tough because I do think at his best he’d be 235, the weight he was in 2015 before they buffed him up a bit too much

I don’t think Jokic changes things that much, maybe you have a Shaq situation there but unless the Nuggets because this overwhelming dynasty I don’t really see it, in general smart help is how you guard those unstoppable one on one forces now rather than other stuff, and then it’s a thing about countering help countering the counter and all that BS

I do think that being with LeBron helped some, but I also think he was always pretty strong.

I remember back when Davis & Drummond were prospects out of high school and then watching them in college. It was a shocking difference. In Drummond you had someone who had been a massive prospect as a big man for years already and had been coached specifically to play that role. In Davis you had a guy who had been a guard, then saw his body completely change on him, and now he was getting used to play the game very differently than he ever had before. What did we see from them as college freshman? Davis looked like the guy who had been trained for years, and Drummond looked like a guy who had just started playing basketball for the first time.

I think we who focus so much on the best of the best tend to focus on the fact that a guy like Davis isn't as smart out there as a Green or LeBron and take that to mean he's poor on that front, but the reality is that poor BBIQ leads to prospects busting. Drummond isn't considered a bust because of the misguided way Detroit insisted on seeing him as their franchise player for years, but a) he's lucky, b) he's super physically talented, and c) BBIQ can get lower than Drummond.

Re: Jokic, "Shaq situation". It'll be interesting to see what happens. In Shaq's day, teams really thought they needed giants to battle Shaq, but what's clear in retrospect is that what you really wanted to do was flop. Sometimes you don't want to meet strength with strength, especially when optimizing for that strength means accepting other weaknesses.

[OhayoKD]

Yup, that's the thing.

If you were simply making an argument of the "postseason defender of the decade", I don't know why you'd even consider Gobert. In a sport where the regular season and postseason work so differently, and the postseason determines legacy, that's a hard thing to get past.

Gobert is interesting because people have pushed back hard on the “liability on defense in the playoffs” narrative really hard to the point that sometimes guys try to brush it off, but while the idea he’s a legitimate liability on that end in the playoffs is BS, I’d also say that given the nature of his impact a lot of teams can play around it better now.

Doesn’t mean he isn’t a good defender in the playoffs he’s still great and he’s not particularly weak in areas like switching or hedging relative to most shot blocking bigs, but I don’t see how you can argue him over Dray with how good Drays been in the playoffs at times.

I don’t even think Dray has the best or second best defensive playoff peak of the past 10 or so years despite his great impact data in that regard, but still

I'm willing to listen to argument that Gobert is the more capable playoff defender, but they have to come with a component talking about the fact that mostly Gobert's played on teams that get destroyed in the playoffs. Fine to argue it's not his fault, but you have to really reckon with what happened.

Re: best defensive peak of the past 10 years. I think Davis has a good argument there, and I think Ben's made a good case that Davis really is a super-outlier when he's on his game regardless of the fact that he can't keep it up all season long. Other than Davis, I'm not sure I'd really debate over Green. I feel like if you're not talking about Davis, Green or Gobert you're probably talking Giannis or Bam, but in both cases I see them as easier to mitigate for than Davis or Green.

An interesting claim given that thus far the only real succesful mitigation I've seen for Giannis-led playoff defenses is to hope he's hurt.

Otherwise the Bucks defense has improved in the postseason(enough to outscore the offensive drop-off) repeatedly peaking higher than any draymond-anchored playoff defense with Giannis lineups being the standout in the playoffs.

Really, the "era-best" defender thing is partially a result of having the good fortune not to have his prime overlap too much with Attentekumpo's.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Gobert is interesting because people have pushed back hard on the “liability on defense in the playoffs” narrative really hard to the point that sometimes guys try to brush it off, but while the idea he’s a legitimate liability on that end in the playoffs is BS, I’d also say that given the nature of his impact a lot of teams can play around it better now.

Doesn’t mean he isn’t a good defender in the playoffs he’s still great and he’s not particularly weak in areas like switching or hedging relative to most shot blocking bigs, but I don’t see how you can argue him over Dray with how good Drays been in the playoffs at times.

I don’t even think Dray has the best or second best defensive playoff peak of the past 10 or so years despite his great impact data in that regard, but still

I'm willing to listen to argument that Gobert is the more capable playoff defender, but they have to come with a component talking about the fact that mostly Gobert's played on teams that get destroyed in the playoffs. Fine to argue it's not his fault, but you have to really reckon with what happened.

Re: best defensive peak of the past 10 years. I think Davis has a good argument there, and I think Ben's made a good case that Davis really is a super-outlier when he's on his game regardless of the fact that he can't keep it up all season long. Other than Davis, I'm not sure I'd really debate over Green. I feel like if you're not talking about Davis, Green or Gobert you're probably talking Giannis or Bam, but in both cases I see them as easier to mitigate for than Davis or Green.

An interesting claim given that thus far the only real succesful mitigation I've seen for Giannis-led playoff defenses is to hope he's hurt.

Otherwise the Bucks defense has improved in the postseason(enough to outscore the offensive drop-off) repeatedly peaking higher than any draymond-anchored playoff defense with Giannis lineups being the standout in the playoffs.

Really, the "era-best" defender thing is partially a result of having the good fortune not to have his prime overlap too much with Attentekumpo's.

I mean I love Giannis and do think that he’s got an argument peak wise, but 2019 the raps figured them out midway through the series, and 2020 he got hurt at the end, 2022 the Celtics series doesn’t move me much with how poor they (Celtics) were offensively in some of those series, and the only reason the average off rtg is that low is game 1, and also Giannis just didnt look that defensively dominant that series

[AEnigma]

I'd give Gobert '23.

I do not think Gobert had an overall more effective first round at all, and to whatever extent you want to point to Game 3 of the Kings series, it is just as easy to point to the Lakers play-in game for Gobert.

We'll have to disagree on that one, I had Rudy as significantly more impressive against the Nuggets than Dray was against anyone.

I had Looney pretty cleanly outplaying Dray in round 1 last season.

Fair statement for Looney in that Kings matchup, but it being so matchup specific limits the degree to which I care. Which is part of the point with both these players (and more broadly Draymond versus anyone in Gobert’s archetype): Draymond is not always the most impactful against every opponent, but he maintains better across a wider array.

[Doctor MJ]

Gobert is interesting because people have pushed back hard on the “liability on defense in the playoffs” narrative really hard to the point that sometimes guys try to brush it off, but while the idea he’s a legitimate liability on that end in the playoffs is BS, I’d also say that given the nature of his impact a lot of teams can play around it better now.

Doesn’t mean he isn’t a good defender in the playoffs he’s still great and he’s not particularly weak in areas like switching or hedging relative to most shot blocking bigs, but I don’t see how you can argue him over Dray with how good Drays been in the playoffs at times.

I don’t even think Dray has the best or second best defensive playoff peak of the past 10 or so years despite his great impact data in that regard, but still

I'm willing to listen to argument that Gobert is the more capable playoff defender, but they have to come with a component talking about the fact that mostly Gobert's played on teams that get destroyed in the playoffs. Fine to argue it's not his fault, but you have to really reckon with what happened.

Re: best defensive peak of the past 10 years. I think Davis has a good argument there, and I think Ben's made a good case that Davis really is a super-outlier when he's on his game regardless of the fact that he can't keep it up all season long. Other than Davis, I'm not sure I'd really debate over Green. I feel like if you're not talking about Davis, Green or Gobert you're probably talking Giannis or Bam, but in both cases I see them as easier to mitigate for than Davis or Green.

An interesting claim given that thus far the only real succesful mitigation I've seen for Giannis-led playoff defenses is to hope he's hurt.

Otherwise the Bucks defense has improved in the postseason(enough to outscore the offensive drop-off) repeatedly peaking higher than any draymond-anchored playoff defense with Giannis lineups being the standout in the playoffs.

Really, the "era-best" defender thing is partially a result of having the good fortune not to have his prime overlap too much with Attentekumpo's.

Eh, I'll put it like this:

Milwaukee has had the best record in the league 3 times. In all 3 years they've been upset, with their average place of upset being in the 2nd round - 3 rounds early. I'm really not sure if you'll find another team with a worse track record of maintaining their regular season performance than Giannis' Bucks.

Now, they did win the one title and that matters a great deal, but from the perspective of blaming injuries, when the norm is to be upset way early, if injuries are to blame, then that means that injuries are the norm not some fluke that others are lucky to have benefitted from.

[eminence]

I'm willing to listen to argument that Gobert is the more capable playoff defender, but they have to come with a component talking about the fact that mostly Gobert's played on teams that get destroyed in the playoffs. Fine to argue it's not his fault, but you have to really reckon with what happened.

Re: best defensive peak of the past 10 years. I think Davis has a good argument there, and I think Ben's made a good case that Davis really is a super-outlier when he's on his game regardless of the fact that he can't keep it up all season long. Other than Davis, I'm not sure I'd really debate over Green. I feel like if you're not talking about Davis, Green or Gobert you're probably talking Giannis or Bam, but in both cases I see them as easier to mitigate for than Davis or Green.

An interesting claim given that thus far the only real succesful mitigation I've seen for Giannis-led playoff defenses is to hope he's hurt.

Otherwise the Bucks defense has improved in the postseason(enough to outscore the offensive drop-off) repeatedly peaking higher than any draymond-anchored playoff defense with Giannis lineups being the standout in the playoffs.

Really, the "era-best" defender thing is partially a result of having the good fortune not to have his prime overlap too much with Attentekumpo's.

Eh, I'll put it like this:

Milwaukee has had the best record in the league 3 times. In all 3 years they've been upset, with their average place of upset being in the 2nd round - 3 rounds early. I'm really not sure if you'll find another team with a worse track record of maintaining their regular season performance than Giannis' Bucks.

Now, they did win the one title and that matters a great deal, but from the perspective of blaming injuries, when the norm is to be upset way early, if injuries are to blame, then that means that injuries are the norm not some fluke that others are lucky to have benefitted from.

I basically agree with both of y'all, Giannis has been great when he's played (mostly on D, less so on O), but he's got a pretty serious injury issue building, with significant injuries in 3 of the last 4 playoff runs. The two upsets by Miami, and then the CFs vs the Hawks that the Bucks finished without him.

[OhayoKD]

I'm willing to listen to argument that Gobert is the more capable playoff defender, but they have to come with a component talking about the fact that mostly Gobert's played on teams that get destroyed in the playoffs. Fine to argue it's not his fault, but you have to really reckon with what happened.

Re: best defensive peak of the past 10 years. I think Davis has a good argument there, and I think Ben's made a good case that Davis really is a super-outlier when he's on his game regardless of the fact that he can't keep it up all season long. Other than Davis, I'm not sure I'd really debate over Green. I feel like if you're not talking about Davis, Green or Gobert you're probably talking Giannis or Bam, but in both cases I see them as easier to mitigate for than Davis or Green.

An interesting claim given that thus far the only real succesful mitigation I've seen for Giannis-led playoff defenses is to hope he's hurt.

Otherwise the Bucks defense has improved in the postseason(enough to outscore the offensive drop-off) repeatedly peaking higher than any draymond-anchored playoff defense with Giannis lineups being the standout in the playoffs.

Really, the "era-best" defender thing is partially a result of having the good fortune not to have his prime overlap too much with Attentekumpo's.

Eh, I'll put it like this:

Milwaukee has had the best record in the league 3 times. In all 3 years they've been upset, with their average place of upset being in the 2nd round - 3 rounds early. I'm really not sure if you'll find another team with a worse track record of maintaining their regular season performance than Giannis' Bucks.

Now, they did win the one title and that matters a great deal, but from the perspective of blaming injuries, when the norm is to be upset way early, if injuries are to blame, then that means that injuries are the norm not some fluke that others are lucky to have benefitted from.

This isn't really a meaningful comment. Those three upsets came to
-> an eventual champion that added kawhi leonard, gasol, and nick nurse(in exchange for demar derozan) to a 58-win base
-> an eventual finalist that took the champs to 6(2nd lowest m.o.v.) despite big injury issues
-> an eventual finalist that lost by the lowest m.o.v to the nuggets

So the Bucks have lost to the arguable best or 2nd best team in the playoffs.

Not sure what "average 2nd round" really means here.

In terms of raw performance the Bucks improved 5 of 7 times with Giannis including said injuries, with the year which flips being 2019 where they...played a very close series to a 60-win team + clutch durant.

[Doctor MJ]

An interesting claim given that thus far the only real succesful mitigation I've seen for Giannis-led playoff defenses is to hope he's hurt.

Otherwise the Bucks defense has improved in the postseason(enough to outscore the offensive drop-off) repeatedly peaking higher than any draymond-anchored playoff defense with Giannis lineups being the standout in the playoffs.

Really, the "era-best" defender thing is partially a result of having the good fortune not to have his prime overlap too much with Attentekumpo's.

Eh, I'll put it like this:

Milwaukee has had the best record in the league 3 times. In all 3 years they've been upset, with their average place of upset being in the 2nd round - 3 rounds early. I'm really not sure if you'll find another team with a worse track record of maintaining their regular season performance than Giannis' Bucks.

Now, they did win the one title and that matters a great deal, but from the perspective of blaming injuries, when the norm is to be upset way early, if injuries are to blame, then that means that injuries are the norm not some fluke that others are lucky to have benefitted from.

This isn't really a meaningful comment. Those three upsets came to
-> an eventual champion that added kawhi leonard, gasol, and nick nurse(in exchange for demar derozan) to a 58-win base
-> an eventual finalist that took the champs to 6(2nd lowest m.o.v.) despite big injury issues
-> an eventual finalist that lost by the lowest m.o.v to the nuggets

So the Bucks have lost to the arguable best or 2nd best team in the playoffs.

Not sure what "average 2nd round" really means here.

In terms of raw performance the Bucks improved 5 of 7 times with Giannis including said injuries, with the year which flips being 2019 where they...played a very close series to a 60-win team + clutch durant.

Well let's first remember that you were calling others lucky not to have to face a healthy Giannis, and I was pointing out that that's kind of a weird thing to say when the Bucks have a track record of losing to teams they aren't supposed to. One can of course argue that losing to the Raptors/Heat/Heat wasn't that big of a collapse because those teams were really good, but it's still weird to say that the league was lucky to miss Giannis because teams in the league kept eliminating Giannis' team.

Beyond that, I really don't think either of the Heat teams were good enough to make the Bucks' losses look like something other than a massive disappointment. The Raptors are a bit different, but even there, I think the Warriors win that title if they're healthy, and the Bucks were certainly coming into that post-season looking to beat all comers, so them losing to a team I don't think actually was the best team hurts in my assessment.

Re: "average 2nd round". I mean, it's literally an objective statement. I understand you're saying "but the opponents were better than that!", but we're still talking about a team that based on regular season record would have expected to win 12 playoff series in those 3 post-seasons, and instead they won 3. I think any team falling short to that scale over a number of seasons would have a rep for being softer in the playoffs than in the regular season, and yeah, I think that's precisely how the Bucks are seen now. Giannis himself still has some protection on that for now, but if his Bucks never really amount to much in the playoffs from here on out, it's going to dog him - not as bad as it would if he'd never won the title, but still a non-zero aount.

Re: Bucks improved 5 of 7 times with Giannis. I'm not sure what you mean.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Eh, I'll put it like this:

Milwaukee has had the best record in the league 3 times. In all 3 years they've been upset, with their average place of upset being in the 2nd round - 3 rounds early. I'm really not sure if you'll find another team with a worse track record of maintaining their regular season performance than Giannis' Bucks.

Now, they did win the one title and that matters a great deal, but from the perspective of blaming injuries, when the norm is to be upset way early, if injuries are to blame, then that means that injuries are the norm not some fluke that others are lucky to have benefitted from.

This isn't really a meaningful comment. Those three upsets came to
-> an eventual champion that added kawhi leonard, gasol, and nick nurse(in exchange for demar derozan) to a 58-win base
-> an eventual finalist that took the champs to 6(2nd lowest m.o.v.) despite big injury issues
-> an eventual finalist that lost by the lowest m.o.v to the nuggets

So the Bucks have lost to the arguable best or 2nd best team in the playoffs.

Not sure what "average 2nd round" really means here.

In terms of raw performance the Bucks improved 5 of 7 times with Giannis including said injuries, with the year which flips being 2019 where they...played a very close series to a 60-win team + clutch durant.

Well let's first remember that you were calling others lucky not to have to face a healthy Giannis, and I was pointing out that that's kind of a weird thing to say when the Bucks have a track record of losing to teams they aren't supposed to. One can of course argue that losing to the Raptors/Heat/Heat wasn't that big of a collapse because those teams were really good, but it's still weird to say that the league was lucky to miss Giannis because teams in the league kept eliminating Giannis' team.

Beyond that, I really don't think either of the Heat teams were good enough to make the Bucks' losses look like something other than a massive disappointment. The Raptors are a bit different, but even there, I think the Warriors win that title if they're healthy, and the Bucks were certainly coming into that post-season looking to beat all comers, so them losing to a team I don't think actually was the best team hurts in my assessment.

Re: "average 2nd round". I mean, it's literally an objective statement. I understand you're saying "but the opponents were better than that!", but we're still talking about a team that based on regular season record would have expected to win 12 playoff series in those 3 post-seasons, and instead they won 3. I think any team falling short to that scale over a number of seasons would have a rep for being softer in the playoffs than in the regular season, and yeah, I think that's precisely how the Bucks are seen now. Giannis himself still has some protection on that for now, but if his Bucks never really amount to much in the playoffs from here on out, it's going to dog him - not as bad as it would if he'd never won the title, but still a non-zero aount.

Re: Bucks improved 5 of 7 times with Giannis. I'm not sure what you mean.

I wouldn’t say they were or should have been favored over the Celtics without Middleton, and if Jimmy was on that mode he was round one/pre ankle injury + their hot shooting the heat probably win the whole thing lmao

[WintaSoldier1]

This isn't really a meaningful comment. Those three upsets came to
-> an eventual champion that added kawhi leonard, gasol, and nick nurse(in exchange for demar derozan) to a 58-win base
-> an eventual finalist that took the champs to 6(2nd lowest m.o.v.) despite big injury issues
-> an eventual finalist that lost by the lowest m.o.v to the nuggets

So the Bucks have lost to the arguable best or 2nd best team in the playoffs.

Not sure what "average 2nd round" really means here.

In terms of raw performance the Bucks improved 5 of 7 times with Giannis including said injuries, with the year which flips being 2019 where they...played a very close series to a 60-win team + clutch durant.

Well let's first remember that you were calling others lucky not to have to face a healthy Giannis, and I was pointing out that that's kind of a weird thing to say when the Bucks have a track record of losing to teams they aren't supposed to. One can of course argue that losing to the Raptors/Heat/Heat wasn't that big of a collapse because those teams were really good, but it's still weird to say that the league was lucky to miss Giannis because teams in the league kept eliminating Giannis' team.

Beyond that, I really don't think either of the Heat teams were good enough to make the Bucks' losses look like something other than a massive disappointment. The Raptors are a bit different, but even there, I think the Warriors win that title if they're healthy, and the Bucks were certainly coming into that post-season looking to beat all comers, so them losing to a team I don't think actually was the best team hurts in my assessment.

Re: "average 2nd round". I mean, it's literally an objective statement. I understand you're saying "but the opponents were better than that!", but we're still talking about a team that based on regular season record would have expected to win 12 playoff series in those 3 post-seasons, and instead they won 3. I think any team falling short to that scale over a number of seasons would have a rep for being softer in the playoffs than in the regular season, and yeah, I think that's precisely how the Bucks are seen now. Giannis himself still has some protection on that for now, but if his Bucks never really amount to much in the playoffs from here on out, it's going to dog him - not as bad as it would if he'd never won the title, but still a non-zero aount.

Re: Bucks improved 5 of 7 times with Giannis. I'm not sure what you mean.

I wouldn’t say they were or should have been favored over the Celtics without Middleton, and if Jimmy was on that mode he was round one/pre ankle injury + their hot shooting the heat probably win the whole thing lmao

Has nothing to do with the conversation, you should be apart of the top 100 project! I see you on, often enough what’s stopping you?

Shoutout food-wars( S1-4)

[MyUniBroDavis]

Well let's first remember that you were calling others lucky not to have to face a healthy Giannis, and I was pointing out that that's kind of a weird thing to say when the Bucks have a track record of losing to teams they aren't supposed to. One can of course argue that losing to the Raptors/Heat/Heat wasn't that big of a collapse because those teams were really good, but it's still weird to say that the league was lucky to miss Giannis because teams in the league kept eliminating Giannis' team.

Beyond that, I really don't think either of the Heat teams were good enough to make the Bucks' losses look like something other than a massive disappointment. The Raptors are a bit different, but even there, I think the Warriors win that title if they're healthy, and the Bucks were certainly coming into that post-season looking to beat all comers, so them losing to a team I don't think actually was the best team hurts in my assessment.

Re: "average 2nd round". I mean, it's literally an objective statement. I understand you're saying "but the opponents were better than that!", but we're still talking about a team that based on regular season record would have expected to win 12 playoff series in those 3 post-seasons, and instead they won 3. I think any team falling short to that scale over a number of seasons would have a rep for being softer in the playoffs than in the regular season, and yeah, I think that's precisely how the Bucks are seen now. Giannis himself still has some protection on that for now, but if his Bucks never really amount to much in the playoffs from here on out, it's going to dog him - not as bad as it would if he'd never won the title, but still a non-zero aount.

Re: Bucks improved 5 of 7 times with Giannis. I'm not sure what you mean.

I wouldn’t say they were or should have been favored over the Celtics without Middleton, and if Jimmy was on that mode he was round one/pre ankle injury + their hot shooting the heat probably win the whole thing lmao

Has nothing to do with the conversation, you should be apart of the top 100 project! I see you on, often enough what’s stopping you?

Shoutout food-wars( S1-4)

Appreciate it lol

1. I’m lazy
2. The guys I have aren’t really aligned with the list in general so never felt there was a point lol

I’ll post like my arguments sometimes or joke around but that’s about it

[OhayoKD]

Eh, I'll put it like this:

Milwaukee has had the best record in the league 3 times. In all 3 years they've been upset, with their average place of upset being in the 2nd round - 3 rounds early. I'm really not sure if you'll find another team with a worse track record of maintaining their regular season performance than Giannis' Bucks.

Now, they did win the one title and that matters a great deal, but from the perspective of blaming injuries, when the norm is to be upset way early, if injuries are to blame, then that means that injuries are the norm not some fluke that others are lucky to have benefitted from.

This isn't really a meaningful comment. Those three upsets came to
-> an eventual champion that added kawhi leonard, gasol, and nick nurse(in exchange for demar derozan) to a 58-win base
-> an eventual finalist that took the champs to 6(2nd lowest m.o.v.) despite big injury issues
-> an eventual finalist that lost by the lowest m.o.v to the nuggets

So the Bucks have lost to the arguable best or 2nd best team in the playoffs.

Not sure what "average 2nd round" really means here.

In terms of raw performance the Bucks improved 5 of 7 times with Giannis including said injuries, with the year which flips being 2019 where they...played a very close series to a 60-win team + clutch durant.

Well let's first remember that you were calling others lucky not to have to face a healthy Giannis, and I was pointing out that that's kind of a weird thing to say when the Bucks have a track record of losing to teams they aren't supposed to. One can of course argue that losing to the Raptors/Heat/Heat wasn't that big of a collapse because those teams were really good, but it's still weird to say that the league was lucky to miss Giannis because teams in the league kept eliminating Giannis' team.

The Raotirs loss is much different than losing to Miami I think(as in I don't really think it's an undperformance). Moreover, the original claim you were making was about defense, and the Bucks defense was excellent vs Toronto. I'd say you're basically putting all your eggs on those two miami series where Giannis was not covering ground like he typically does. Giannis played significantly better offensively in the first Miami loss but the defensive collapse doomed them.

Re: "average 2nd round". I mean, it's literally an objective statement.

An objective statement, yes. A meaningful one? When we can just look at how good they are? I don't think so. The Bucks happened to run into the best team in the east earlier than they otherwise may have. If anything, given how injuries unfolded(including one to butler in 2023 that significantly impaired his performance), the order they played worked to hinder the Bucks.

Re: Bucks improved 5 of 7 times with Giannis. I'm not sure what you mean.

It means since 2017 when you take mov and opposing srs the Bucks playoff performance was better than the rs performance 5 of 7 times with those 2 times being the Miami losses where Giannis's health played a factor.

That includes middleton-less 2022 and the 2019 series vs an obviously coasting toronto side who saw their defense spike mid-season with a trade for a key defensive anchor and saw Kawhi's production skyrocket in the offs.

[Doctor MJ]

This isn't really a meaningful comment. Those three upsets came to
-> an eventual champion that added kawhi leonard, gasol, and nick nurse(in exchange for demar derozan) to a 58-win base
-> an eventual finalist that took the champs to 6(2nd lowest m.o.v.) despite big injury issues
-> an eventual finalist that lost by the lowest m.o.v to the nuggets

So the Bucks have lost to the arguable best or 2nd best team in the playoffs.

Not sure what "average 2nd round" really means here.

In terms of raw performance the Bucks improved 5 of 7 times with Giannis including said injuries, with the year which flips being 2019 where they...played a very close series to a 60-win team + clutch durant.

Well let's first remember that you were calling others lucky not to have to face a healthy Giannis, and I was pointing out that that's kind of a weird thing to say when the Bucks have a track record of losing to teams they aren't supposed to. One can of course argue that losing to the Raptors/Heat/Heat wasn't that big of a collapse because those teams were really good, but it's still weird to say that the league was lucky to miss Giannis because teams in the league kept eliminating Giannis' team.

The Raotirs loss is much different than losing to Miami I think(as in I don't really think it's an undperformance). Moreover, the original claim you were making was about defense, and the Bucks defense was excellent vs Toronto. I'd say you're basically putting all your eggs on those two miami series where Giannis was not covering ground like he typically does. Giannis played significantly better offensively in the first Miami loss but the defensive collapse doomed them.

I think you should look again at the game by game stats if you think the Bucks' only problems in the final 4 games was their offense. If memory serves, if you split the first 2 games from the final 4, the Buck DRtg goes up by about as much as their ORtg goes down.

Re: "average 2nd round". I mean, it's literally an objective statement.

An objective statement, yes. A meaningful one? When we can just look at how good they are? I don't think so. The Bucks happened to run into the best team in the east earlier than they otherwise may have. If anything, given how injuries unfolded(including one to butler in 2023 that significantly impaired his performance), the order they played worked to hinder the Bucks.

Re: "just look at how good they are". By what measure?

Re: "happened to run into the best team in the east earlier than they otherwise may have". Okay, but I can't help but note that THEY were supposed to be that team, which is really my point. I think you can argue that a healthy Raptors team was better than that, but the Heat really weren't close.

Re: injuries! I'd just note that a) we're not talking about situations where Giannis wasn't able to play at all, b) we're not talking about Miami teams that were supposed to be in the same league as the Bucks, and c) we're not talking about series where the Bucks made it a close series. The idea that the Bucks shouldn't have been disappointed with these performances because of injuries is very clearly not how the Bucks' organization saw things, and while you can argue they were wrong to see things as they did, I'd just emphasize that this isn't really about me having a fringe opinion.

Re: Bucks improved 5 of 7 times with Giannis. I'm not sure what you mean.

It means since 2017 when you take mov and opposing srs the Bucks playoff performance was better than the rs performance 5 of 7 times with those 2 times being the Miami losses where Giannis's health played a factor.

That includes middleton-less 2022 and the 2019 series vs an obviously coasting toronto side who saw their defense spike mid-season with a trade for a key defensive anchor and saw Kawhi's production skyrocket in the offs.

I see, so you're choosing a frame of reference where the Bucks blowing out their first round opponent makes it possible to look like the playoffs were an improvement even when they experience an upset loss to a team that finished the series winning 4 games in a row.

Yeah, that doesn't resonate with me much, but to each their own.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Well let's first remember that you were calling others lucky not to have to face a healthy Giannis, and I was pointing out that that's kind of a weird thing to say when the Bucks have a track record of losing to teams they aren't supposed to. One can of course argue that losing to the Raptors/Heat/Heat wasn't that big of a collapse because those teams were really good, but it's still weird to say that the league was lucky to miss Giannis because teams in the league kept eliminating Giannis' team.

The Raotirs loss is much different than losing to Miami I think(as in I don't really think it's an undperformance). Moreover, the original claim you were making was about defense, and the Bucks defense was excellent vs Toronto. I'd say you're basically putting all your eggs on those two miami series where Giannis was not covering ground like he typically does. Giannis played significantly better offensively in the first Miami loss but the defensive collapse doomed them.

I think you should look again at the game by game stats if you think the Bucks' only problems in the final 4 games was their offense. If memory serves, if you split the first 2 games from the final 4, the Buck DRtg goes up by about as much as their ORtg goes down.

Re: "average 2nd round". I mean, it's literally an objective statement.

An objective statement, yes. A meaningful one? When we can just look at how good they are? I don't think so. The Bucks happened to run into the best team in the east earlier than they otherwise may have. If anything, given how injuries unfolded(including one to butler in 2023 that significantly impaired his performance), the order they played worked to hinder the Bucks.

Re: "just look at how good they are". By what measure?

Re: "happened to run into the best team in the east earlier than they otherwise may have". Okay, but I can't help but note that THEY were supposed to be that team, which is really my point. I think you can argue that a healthy Raptors team was better than that, but the Heat really weren't close.

Re: injuries! I'd just note that a) we're not talking about situations where Giannis wasn't able to play at all, b) we're not talking about Miami teams that were supposed to be in the same league as the Bucks, and c) we're not talking about series where the Bucks made it a close series. The idea that the Bucks shouldn't have been disappointed with these performances because of injuries is very clearly not how the Bucks' organization saw things, and while you can argue they were wrong to see things as they did, I'd just emphasize that this isn't really about me having a fringe opinion.

Re: Bucks improved 5 of 7 times with Giannis. I'm not sure what you mean.

It means since 2017 when you take mov and opposing srs the Bucks playoff performance was better than the rs performance 5 of 7 times with those 2 times being the Miami losses where Giannis's health played a factor.

That includes middleton-less 2022 and the 2019 series vs an obviously coasting toronto side who saw their defense spike mid-season with a trade for a key defensive anchor and saw Kawhi's production skyrocket in the offs.

I see, so you're choosing a frame of reference where the Bucks blowing out their first round opponent makes it possible to look like the playoffs were an improvement even when they experience an upset loss to a team that finished the series winning 4 games in a row.

Yeah, that doesn't resonate with me much, but to each their own.

2019
Raptors vs the bucks
Raptors offensive rtg first three games
99.4
Raptors offensive rtg last three games
118.5

[oaktownwarriors87]

Earlier in the 2022 playoffs, Draymond was the only one who could slow down Jokić in a little bit, shooting 67% against everybody else:

Jokic owned Draymond. These cherry picked stats here don't tell the whole story.

For starters, Jokic finished the season shooting 19% from behind the arc over the last 20 games of the season. The Warriors went in with the strategy of letting him shoot from outside. Draymonds gets credited with the majority of the misses from beyond the arc even though Jokic was shooting poorly and they were allowing him to shoot. Not exactly fair in such a small sample size.

Inside the arc he shot 61.3% against Draymond, 65.2% against Looney, 62.5% against Wiggins, and 50% against Bjelica. Considering the volume of the shots they are all within the margin of error.

That's also just FG%. Per 100 possessions Jokic scored 48.5 against Draymond and 43.6 against Looney. Wiggins held him to 36.5. On top of that the Nuggets as a team averaged 113.14 when Green was defending Jokic and 104.58 when Looney was defending Jokic. Again, per 100 possessions Jokic was getting over 40 FGA against Draymond per 100 and just 27 FGA per 100 against Looney.

I'll say what I said at the time of the series, Draymond did a great job FOR HIS SIZE. It was impressive. He still got owned and Looney did a better job.

[OhayoKD]

I think you should look again at the game by game stats if you think the Bucks' only problems in the final 4 games was their offense. If memory serves, if you split the first 2 games from the final 4, the Buck DRtg goes up by about as much as their ORtg goes down.

I haven't checked bisected the series the series like that, but sure, I'll take your word for it. Though I'm pretty sure it's the first 3(where the bucks almost went 3-0) vs the last 3 games for defense. I'd say the main defensive issue was Kawhi being left in single coverage(like butler and kd would be after) too much but on the whole they held the raptors 5-points below and were an over-time(with giannig fouling out) away from going 3 games up on contender-level cast(2020) + kawhi.

I see, so you're choosing a frame of reference where the Bucks blowing out their first round opponent makes it possible to look like
the playoffs were an improvement even when they experience an upset loss to a team that finished the series winning 4 games in a row.

I am choosing an inclusive flame which factors in pretty much everything including the regular-seasons from teams that were much better in the playoffs and performances with the best players injured.

You are not using any frame thus allowing you to arbitrarily decide what is relevant or not relevant. Should we retroactively boost the Bucks for winning their last 4 games vs the suns and their last 4 vs boston?

The Bucks generally overperform in the playoffs statistically whether you go flat or rolling. If you are going to gerrymander whatever series(or in this case, the portions of series.....), then I think it makes plenty of sense to point out the larger picture.

There is no shortage of caveats and nuances i can push to excuse Giannis or make his good stuff look more impressive, but I don't start with that because ultimately there's no real way to get a nuetral assessment of a player if you're going to start by disregarding the forest so you can paint a narrative on convenient-looking trees.

[homecourtloss]

Earlier in the 2022 playoffs, Draymond was the only one who could slow down Jokić in a little bit, shooting 67% against everybody else:

Jokic owned Draymond. These cherry picked stats here don't tell the whole story.

For starters, Jokic finished the season shooting 19% from behind the arc over the last 20 games of the season. The Warriors went in with the strategy of letting him shoot from outside. Draymonds gets credited with the majority of the misses from beyond the arc even though Jokic was shooting poorly and they were allowing him to shoot. Not exactly fair in such a small sample size.

Inside the arc he shot 61.3% against Draymond, 65.2% against Looney, 62.5% against Wiggins, and 50% against Bjelica. Considering the volume of the shots they are all within the margin of error.

That's also just FG%. Per 100 possessions Jokic scored 48.5 against Draymond and 43.6 against Looney. Wiggins held him to 36.5. On top of that the Nuggets as a team averaged 113.14 when Green was defending Jokic and 104.58 when Looney was defending Jokic. Again, per 100 possessions Jokic was getting over 40 FGA against Draymond per 100 and just 27 FGA per 100 against Looney.

I'll say what I said at the time of the series, Draymond did a great job FOR HIS SIZE. It was impressive. He still got owned and Looney did a better job.

Cherry picked? Those are all the stats. BTW:

DRtg with Draymond: 107.8 in 164 minutes
DRtg without Draymond: 123.2 in 76 minutes

[oaktownwarriors87]

Earlier in the 2022 playoffs, Draymond was the only one who could slow down Jokić in a little bit, shooting 67% against everybody else:

Jokic owned Draymond. These cherry picked stats here don't tell the whole story.

For starters, Jokic finished the season shooting 19% from behind the arc over the last 20 games of the season. The Warriors went in with the strategy of letting him shoot from outside. Draymonds gets credited with the majority of the misses from beyond the arc even though Jokic was shooting poorly and they were allowing him to shoot. Not exactly fair in such a small sample size.

Inside the arc he shot 61.3% against Draymond, 65.2% against Looney, 62.5% against Wiggins, and 50% against Bjelica. Considering the volume of the shots they are all within the margin of error.

That's also just FG%. Per 100 possessions Jokic scored 48.5 against Draymond and 43.6 against Looney. Wiggins held him to 36.5. On top of that the Nuggets as a team averaged 113.14 when Green was defending Jokic and 104.58 when Looney was defending Jokic. Again, per 100 possessions Jokic was getting over 40 FGA against Draymond per 100 and just 27 FGA per 100 against Looney.

I'll say what I said at the time of the series, Draymond did a great job FOR HIS SIZE. It was impressive. He still got owned and Looney did a better job.

Cherry picked? Those are all the stats. BTW:

DRtg with Draymond: 107.8 in 164 minutes
DRtg without Draymond: 123.2 in 76 minutes

I'm not talking about with Draymond and without Draymond. I'm talking about when Draymond guards Jokic vs when Looney guard Jokic.

When Looney guards Jokic: 104.58
When Draymond guards Jokic: 113.14

Dray held him to a slightly lower FG% inside the arc, but Jokic scored at a higher rate and the Nuggets offense was overall better.

Where Draymond excelled that series was against Aaron Gordon.

Also, those Boston series stats seem weird. Yes, Jalen Brown was 1 of 15 against Draymond from behind the arc; however Tatum, Horford, White and Pritchard were a combined 10 of 13 against Draymond from behind the arc.

10 of 13 makes Draymond look terrible and 1 of 15 makes him look like a god.

[Doctor MJ]

I think you should look again at the game by game stats if you think the Bucks' only problems in the final 4 games was their offense. If memory serves, if you split the first 2 games from the final 4, the Buck DRtg goes up by about as much as their ORtg goes down.

I haven't checked bisected the series the series like that, but sure, I'll take your word for it. Though I'm pretty sure it's the first 3(where the bucks almost went 3-0) vs the last 3 games for defense. I'd say the main defensive issue was Kawhi being left in single coverage(like butler and kd would be after) too much but on the whole they held the raptors 5-points below and were an over-time(with giannig fouling out) away from going 3 games up on contender-level cast(2020) + kawhi.

I see, so you're choosing a frame of reference where the Bucks blowing out their first round opponent makes it possible to look like
the playoffs were an improvement even when they experience an upset loss to a team that finished the series winning 4 games in a row.

I am choosing an inclusive flame which factors in pretty much everything including the regular-seasons from teams that were much better in the playoffs and performances with the best players injured.

You are not using any frame thus allowing you to arbitrarily decide what is relevant or not relevant. Should we retroactively boost the Bucks for winning their last 4 games vs the suns and their last 4 vs boston?

The Bucks generally overperform in the playoffs statistically whether you go flat or rolling. If you are going to gerrymander whatever series(or in this case, the portions of series.....), then I think it makes plenty of sense to point out the larger picture.

There is no shortage of caveats and nuances i can push to excuse Giannis or make his good stuff look more impressive, but I don't start with that because ultimately there's no real way to get a nuetral assessment of a player if you're going to start by disregarding the forest so you can paint a narrative on convenient-looking trees.

Looks like the first part we're reaching a natural conclusion.

On the second, well key thing here:

Zooming out to include all information doesn't mean you're going to reach a better conclusion.

If I want to evaluate how the Bucks will fair against contenders, then why would I care about how they did in a series against a team whose big minute players were Luke Kennard & Wayne Ellington? There's nothing arbitrary about saying that the Kennard/Ellington team wasn't a contender. They just obviously weren't, so why would we choose a lens that treats that matchup as if it's just as relevant as later rounds?

Re: arbitrary last 4 games. When you lose the last 4 games in a series where the first team to win 4 games wins the series, this is called a "backdoor sweep", and in general means that you got figured out and were the worse team by a clear margin. There are exceptions to this - injuries in all sports, luck in luck-dominated sports like baseball or hockey - but short of that, the idea of looking at all 4-2 series as equally close is just wrong. In a 7 game series, a team's job is not to make sure they don't lose a game, but to make sure they find the best approach so they can close out the other team. And that's precisely what happened in the Bucks-Raptors series.

Now to be clear, I don't want to imply that losing the first game and then winning the rest is necessarily more dominant than winning the first 3, then dropping one before closing the series, because often in that case the dominant team simply lacked the urgency needed to secure the sweep. But in general, the closest series are the ones with the shortest winning streaks, and when you lose a series having lost 3 games in a row, you know they had your number. 4 in a row? Even more so.

Re: gerrymander/narrative-paint/etc. Look man, if you think that my starting point on all this was being biased against Giannis, you're starting with the wrong information, as is almost always the case when you presume that starting from someone's "bias" is the right way to understand their thought process.

Do you really think I "hated" Giannis as he rose to prominence?
Presuming you sanely answer "no", what is it exactly you think led me to be biased against Giannis?
Don't you think it's maybe a bit more likely that when I tell you that his team getting upset quite early 3 times in 5 years concerns me, that it actually concerns me?

As always: I can be wrong and pointing out a different lens of duration might help me see how I'm making a molehill into a mountain, but no, I'm not arguing that beating the Pistons doesn't matter because I hate Giannis. I'm arguing it because beating Kennard/Ellington obviously does not tell us anything about how adept you are at beating contenders.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I think you should look again at the game by game stats if you think the Bucks' only problems in the final 4 games was their offense. If memory serves, if you split the first 2 games from the final 4, the Buck DRtg goes up by about as much as their ORtg goes down.

I haven't checked bisected the series the series like that, but sure, I'll take your word for it. Though I'm pretty sure it's the first 3(where the bucks almost went 3-0) vs the last 3 games for defense. I'd say the main defensive issue was Kawhi being left in single coverage(like butler and kd would be after) too much but on the whole they held the raptors 5-points below and were an over-time(with giannig fouling out) away from going 3 games up on contender-level cast(2020) + kawhi.

I see, so you're choosing a frame of reference where the Bucks blowing out their first round opponent makes it possible to look like
the playoffs were an improvement even when they experience an upset loss to a team that finished the series winning 4 games in a row.

I am choosing an inclusive flame which factors in pretty much everything including the regular-seasons from teams that were much better in the playoffs and performances with the best players injured.

You are not using any frame thus allowing you to arbitrarily decide what is relevant or not relevant. Should we retroactively boost the Bucks for winning their last 4 games vs the suns and their last 4 vs boston?

The Bucks generally overperform in the playoffs statistically whether you go flat or rolling. If you are going to gerrymander whatever series(or in this case, the portions of series.....), then I think it makes plenty of sense to point out the larger picture.

There is no shortage of caveats and nuances i can push to excuse Giannis or make his good stuff look more impressive, but I don't start with that because ultimately there's no real way to get a nuetral assessment of a player if you're going to start by disregarding the forest so you can paint a narrative on convenient-looking trees.

Looks like the first part we're reaching a natural conclusion.

On the second, well key thing here:

Zooming out to include all information doesn't mean you're going to reach a better conclusion.

If I want to evaluate how the Bucks will fair against contenders, then why would I care about how they did in a series against a team whose big minute players were Luke Kennard & Wayne Ellington? There's nothing arbitrary about saying that the Kennard/Ellington team wasn't a contender. They just obviously weren't, so why would we choose a lens that treats that matchup as if it's just as relevant as later rounds?

Re: arbitrary last 4 games. When you lose the last 4 games in a series where the first team to win 4 games wins the series, this is called a "backdoor sweep", and in general means that you got figured out and were the worse team by a clear margin. There are exceptions to this - injuries in all sports, luck in luck-dominated sports like baseball or hockey - but short of that, the idea of looking at all 4-2 series as equally close is just wrong. In a 7 game series, a team's job is not to make sure they don't lose a game, but to make sure they find the best approach so they can close out the other team. And that's precisely what happened in the Bucks-Raptors series.

Now to be clear, I don't want to imply that losing the first game and then winning the rest is necessarily more dominant than winning the first 3, then dropping one before closing the series, because often in that case the dominant team simply lacked the urgency needed to secure the sweep. But in general, the closest series are the ones with the shortest winning streaks, and when you lose a series having lost 3 games in a row, you know they had your number. 4 in a row? Even more so.

Re: gerrymander/narrative-paint/etc. Look man, if you think that my starting point on all this was being biased against Giannis, you're starting with the wrong information, as is almost always the case when you presume that starting from someone's "bias" is the right way to understand their thought process.

Do you really think I "hated" Giannis as he rose to prominence?
Presuming you sanely answer "no", what is it exactly you think led me to be biased against Giannis?
Don't you think it's maybe a bit more likely that when I tell you that his team getting upset quite early 3 times in 5 years concerns me, that it actually concerns me?

As always: I can be wrong and pointing out a different lens of duration might help me see how I'm making a molehill into a mountain, but no, I'm not arguing that beating the Pistons doesn't matter because I hate Giannis. I'm arguing it because beating Kennard/Ellington obviously does not tell us anything about how adept you are at beating contenders.

There is probably an argument out there for it being Bud not being able to adjust well for a hot minute Tbf

Nowadays playoffs is tough because if u can’t adjust well on defense ur finished lol