Where does Doncic rank in a list of best halfcourt offensive players ever

[dygaction]

No. You are incorrect.

2020 Dallas: 18th in Pace
2021 Dallas: 24th in Pace
2022 Dallas: 30th in Pace
2023 Dallas: 29th in Pace

1987 76ers: 22/23 in Pace
1988 76ers: 22/23 in Pace
1989 76ers: 18/25 in Pace

By the looks of it, multiple seasons of Chuckster included the 2nd to last team in terms of Pace, similar to Luka in 2022 and 2023.

The difference is actually Barkleys teams in this 2 year stretch were -3.5 and -3.6 in terms of Pace while Dallas slowest year was only -3.0.




Once again, you are wrong. CP3 with the Hornets in 2008 and 2009 led teams with a pace of -2.5 and -3.9 [remember Luka never led a pace under -3.0] while CP3s 2011 season clocks in at -3.4.

The Rockets and Clippers were fast [though both had a season -2.0 Pace] but those weren't all CP3 teams [co-star or #2] while we can clearly see when CP3 is the lone-star a la Luka, he plays real slow.



Sure, still better than Luka for me.

notice how you have to include Luka four years but need to hand select Barkley’s 3 and CP3’s 2 year span to make a point as if they were younger than Luka..

No, I did that because I showed you that both Luka and CP3/Barkley had 2-3 seasons where they were in the running for slowest teams in the league. I also did that to show that Luka and CP3/Barkley had seasons where they weren't the slowest teams in the league.

If Luka continues in 2024, 2025 and 2026 to have bottom 2-3 pace teams, then I have the ability to change my opinion on just how much Luka plays slow compared to Barkley/CP3. However, until then, I will use the facts we currently have about the 3 players, which are nearly identical in terms of pace

I think we are done here though. Until next time!

ok, let's pretend 3 weakest seasons out 16 years of Barkley's (2 first round exits and 1 missing playoffs) to best represent his career. During his prime, he had four seasons not passing first round, you gave three consecutive years of them, which shows exactly slow pace did not work for him, lol. When and where he thrived? 93-95 Suns, and the three years they made deep run, Suns were #3, #6, and #2 fastest paced team .

[Colbinii]

ok, let's pretend 3 weakest seasons out 16 years of Barkley's (2 first round exits and 1 missing playoffs) to best represent his career. During his prime, he had four seasons not passing first round, you gave three consecutive years of them, which shows exactly slow pace did not work for him, lol. When and where he thrived? 93-95 Suns, and the three years they made deep run, Suns were #3, #6, and #2 fastest paced team .

You do realize I am comparing their first few seasons in the NBA, right?

[dygaction]

ok, let's pretend 3 weakest seasons out 16 years of Barkley's (2 first round exits and 1 missing playoffs) to best represent his career. During his prime, he had four seasons not passing first round, you gave three consecutive years of them, which shows exactly slow pace did not work for him, lol. When and where he thrived? 93-95 Suns, and the three years they made deep run, Suns were #3, #6, and #2 fastest paced team .

You do realize I am comparing their first few seasons in the NBA, right?

Sure let go back to the threads and read. I was saying Barkley's value is going to be discounted playing in slow pace, and you argued "Barkley's 76ers team were slow teams with just about every season below league average in pace." If that's the case, you gave three years that did not work well (2 first round exits and 1 missing playoffs), and when the pace going fast to #3 he won MVP and went to finals, should not you agree that faster pace works for him better? We don't have to argue for the sake of argue, there needs to be a point.

[MyUniBroDavis]

[tweet][/tweet]

I usually average across series (eg the ‘97 Jazz above would be a +7.9 by that method), but it shouldn’t hugely effect things as opposed to by game.

Oh I meant when comparing to the average team

So the comparison would be the median instead of the mean

Ahh, do you mean specifically in the playoffs? I don't think I've ever done it quite like that. With my method I think median/mean would only change the '20 bubble season (unbalanced # of games).

My calculation for PO Relative Off rating:

Series Offensive Rating - Opponent RS Defensive Rating = Series Relative Offensive Rating (then average across 3 or 4 series for 'run' rating)

I have them tossed together for '97-'21 for all conference finalists, and will add '22 when I get home tonight, so that'll be the last 104 conference finalists.

Oh I haven’t done it that way or anything I was just wondering

The interesting thing for me is that I feel sometimes it’s probably tough to account for a defence that steps it up or is outcoached when we take that into account, but at the same time the quality has to be taken into account as well

[AEnigma]

ok, let's pretend 3 weakest seasons out 16 years of Barkley's (2 first round exits and 1 missing playoffs) to best represent his career. During his prime, he had four seasons not passing first round, you gave three consecutive years of them, which shows exactly slow pace did not work for him, lol. When and where he thrived? 93-95 Suns, and the three years they made deep run, Suns were #3, #6, and #2 fastest paced team .

You do realize I am comparing their first few seasons in the NBA, right?

Sure let go back to the threads and read. I was saying Barkley's value is going to be discounted playing in slow pace, and you argued "Barkley's 76ers team were slow teams with just about every season below league average in pace." If that's the case, you gave three years that did not work well (2 first round exits and 1 missing playoffs), and when the pace going fast to #3 he won MVP and went to finals, should not you agree that faster pace works for him better? We don't have to argue for the sake of argue, there needs to be a point.

You know, you can go and look at the pace yourself. Every year the 76ers with Barkley were well below average pace. In 1990 he was MVP runner-up with the most first-place votes. A substantial portion — arguably the majority — of people here mark 1990 as his peak. And for as much as you want to talk about his MVP campaign in 1993, his overall production does not really seem better.

Cast aside that the Suns were a much more talented roster than those 76ers rosters. Is you argument instead that the best teams are faster paced? We know that is not true in any meaningful sense post-Russell.
https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/2209761-does-pace-matter-in-the-nba.amp.html

What about offences specifically? Are the best offences faster? Perhaps as a general trend (although I would not assume), but teams like the 2009 Blazers have led the league in offensive rating despite being at the bottom in pace. The 1993 Bulls which beat those Suns were the slowest paced team in the league while being the second best offensive team, and their other championship teams were slow and offensively excellent too. Same for the 1990/91 Lakers. Lebron’s teams were below average pace every year 2009-17, and consistently among the top offences (and then became even more potent in the postseason). Chris Paul did not play on an above average pace team until 2014 (and I would attribute that largely to Griffin being the team leader that year with Paul’s injury).

Which brings us to: what are you arguing here?

[eminence]

Mmkay, back with playoff #s for the earlier calculation. Numbers from Bbref.

Keep in mind, #s not on the same scale as RS numbers (for example, I believe 1 team has ever hit the +9 mark in the RS - the '04 Mavs, 20 conference finalists since '97 have surpassed that mark in the playoffs). Smaller/more specific sample size allows for notably more extreme results.

Those 20 9+ teams since '97 (champs bolded):
'05 Suns +17.30
'16 Cavs +13.75
'17 Cavs +13.53
'10 Suns +13.10
'01 Lakers +12.78
'17 Warriors +11.70
'09 Nuggets +11.70
'97 Rockets +10.97
'21 Clippers +10.63 (somewhat notable for being on a much higher pace prior to the Kawhi injury, though just a note, as I'm not willing/able to do injury adjustments for all)
'14 Heat +10.53
'03 Mavs +10.37
'16 Thunder +10.00
'12 Thunder +9.83
'00 Lakers +9.58
'98 Lakers +9.50
'12 Heat +9.50
'10 Magic +9.47
'06 Suns +9.40
'01 Bucks +9.20
'99 Pacers +9.17

If there's any teams in particular you'd like as well, just ask.

An attempt at an 'all-season' metric, due to scale differences I don't believe an arithmetic average of the two is a legit operation if you're going for approximately equal weight between RS/PO. So here's a geometric mean (doesn't work for teams below average, but I think we can feel alright about them not being the top offenses) of the top 20 conference finalists since '97, champs once again bolded.

'05 Suns +12.05
'10 Suns +10.04
'17 Warriors +8.92
'03 Mavs +8.58
'01 Lakers +8.31
'16 Thunder 8.19
'98 Lakers +8.10
'17 Cavs +8.06
'16 Cavs +7.87
'99 Pacers +7.72
'13 Heat +7.56
'21 Clippers +7.51
'97 Jazz +7.38
'01 Bucks +7.30
'97 Bulls +7.28
'12 Thunder +7.15
'06 Suns +7.06
'06 Mavs +6.85
'14 Heat +6.65
'08 Lakers +6.41

Note - not willing to make any forward predictions, but generally in the past playoff defense has been slightly more predictive of overall success (net rating, wins, etc) than offense has.

[dygaction]

You do realize I am comparing their first few seasons in the NBA, right?

Sure let go back to the threads and read. I was saying Barkley's value is going to be discounted playing in slow pace, and you argued "Barkley's 76ers team were slow teams with just about every season below league average in pace." If that's the case, you gave three years that did not work well (2 first round exits and 1 missing playoffs), and when the pace going fast to #3 he won MVP and went to finals, should not you agree that faster pace works for him better? We don't have to argue for the sake of argue, there needs to be a point.

You know, you can go and look at the pace yourself. Every year the 76ers with Barkley were well below average pace. In 1990 he was MVP runner-up with the most first-place votes. A substantial portion — arguably the majority — of people here mark 1990 as his peak. And for as much as you want to talk about his MVP campaign in 1993, his overall production does not really seem better.

Cast aside that the Suns were a much more talented roster than those 76ers rosters. Is you argument instead that the best teams are faster paced? We know that is not true in any meaningful sense post-Russell.
https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/2209761-does-pace-matter-in-the-nba.amp.html

What about offences specifically? Are the best offences faster? Perhaps as a general trend (although I would not assume), but teams like the 2009 Blazers have led the league in offensive rating despite being at the bottom in pace. The 1993 Bulls which beat those Suns were the slowest paced team in the league while being the second best offensive team, and their other championship teams were slow and offensively excellent too. Same for the 1990/91 Lakers. Lebron’s teams were below average pace every year 2009-17, and consistently among the top offences (and then became even more potent in the postseason). Chris Paul did not play on an above average pace team until 2014 (and I would attribute that largely to Griffin being the team leader that year with Paul’s injury).

Which brings us to: what are you arguing here?

wow, you certainly typed a lot before asking the last question

The background is, Luka has been playing the league's slowest pace, and I am not even sure he can keep up with faster pace. I have less doubt in Barkley in running the floor in a fast pace. So, in a half court slow pace, the comparison would be slightly favored to Luka from this perspective. Barkley had shown he could play and even thrive in fast pace, Luka has not.

[Texas Chuck]

Luka is clearly a very effective half court offensive player. But its simply far too premature to be talking about him in terms of best ever. He's not even the best right now. We can check back on Luka in 8 years or so.