2022-23 RealGM All-Season Awards - Discussion Thread

[AEnigma]

I get that the Heat went bonkers against the Bucks, but is there any specific reason why nobody considers Lopez for DPOY? Not saying he should win it (he wouldn't be my choice, Davis and JJJ are better choices), but when I watched the Heat series, I have never thought "wow, Miami exposed Lopez badly". He usually played very well in my opinion.

I would rather have Bam in the postseason. I would probably rather have Mobley too, tiny sample all the same.

[70sFan]

I get that the Heat went bonkers against the Bucks, but is there any specific reason why nobody considers Lopez for DPOY? Not saying he should win it (he wouldn't be my choice, Davis and JJJ are better choices), but when I watched the Heat series, I have never thought "wow, Miami exposed Lopez badly". He usually played very well in my opinion.

I would rather have Bam in the postseason. I would probably rather have Mobley too, tiny sample all the same.

Bam is an interesting choice, but I wouldn't prefer this version of Mobley - not yet.

[eminence]

I don't do awards other than POY, but I would not be putting Green on a DPOY ballot. The Kings series as his crowning jewel looks terrible with the Warriors having their best defensive game with him suspended.

One game literally means nothing though. We've seen other teams rise up without a star for a game. Not sure how a game he didn't play in says anything about his defense one way or the other. Just means his team got the job done without him for a night.

Unless you somehow believe Draymond Green is a detriment to the Warriors defense at this point, but I don't see any justification for that position at all.

-One game doesn't mean literally nothing, Warriors likely lose that series without other folks stepping up in game 3.
-It doesn't say a thing about his quality of defense (which is still quite high, including in the playoffs and this series). It does say you can't give him the credit for a game he didn't play.
-Nobody believes Dray is a detriment to anyones defense. But he doesn't get credit that others (namely Looney) deserve just because he was the Warriors best defender the rest of the season.
-The only Warrior who should be significantly elevated from his defensive RS position based off that series is Looney, it was easily the best series of his career.

[eminence]

Put simply:

Nobody should've come into the POs with Mobley ahead of Green, seen those two first rounds and flipped them. It's rewarding Draymond for Looney playing his ass off.

If one had Draymond ahead prior and kept him there that's fine, though I didn't personally.

[Texas Chuck]

I don't do awards other than POY, but I would not be putting Green on a DPOY ballot. The Kings series as his crowning jewel looks terrible with the Warriors having their best defensive game with him suspended.

One game literally means nothing though. We've seen other teams rise up without a star for a game. Not sure how a game he didn't play in says anything about his defense one way or the other. Just means his team got the job done without him for a night.

Unless you somehow believe Draymond Green is a detriment to the Warriors defense at this point, but I don't see any justification for that position at all.

-One game doesn't mean literally nothing, Warriors likely lose that series without other folks stepping up in game 3.
-It doesn't say a thing about his quality of defense (which is still quite high, including in the playoffs and this series). It does say you can't give him the credit for a game he didn't play.
-Nobody believes Dray is a detriment to anyones defense. But he doesn't get credit that others (namely Looney) deserve just because he was the Warriors best defender the rest of the season.
-The only Warrior who should be significantly elevated from his defensive RS position based off that series is Looney, it was easily the best series of his career.

Not sure I get this response.

You posted that the Kings series looked terrible with the Warriors having their best game without him. I rightfully responded we can't assign any weight to Draymond's defensive impact based on one game without him.

None of that stuff you are posting now relates to that. I mean I understand one playoff game out of a potential 7 is important. But its not important to analyzing Draymond's defensive impact.

Nobody was giving him credit for a game he didn't play.
Nobody was saying he deserves all the credit or that other players don't deserve some. Looney specifically has been getting his flowers and rightfully so.

I just don't get saying well the team held up well for one game so lets say Draymond's series was terrible. Makes no sense.

[eminence]

One game literally means nothing though. We've seen other teams rise up without a star for a game. Not sure how a game he didn't play in says anything about his defense one way or the other. Just means his team got the job done without him for a night.

Unless you somehow believe Draymond Green is a detriment to the Warriors defense at this point, but I don't see any justification for that position at all.

-One game doesn't mean literally nothing, Warriors likely lose that series without other folks stepping up in game 3.
-It doesn't say a thing about his quality of defense (which is still quite high, including in the playoffs and this series). It does say you can't give him the credit for a game he didn't play.
-Nobody believes Dray is a detriment to anyones defense. But he doesn't get credit that others (namely Looney) deserve just because he was the Warriors best defender the rest of the season.
-The only Warrior who should be significantly elevated from his defensive RS position based off that series is Looney, it was easily the best series of his career.

Not sure I get this response.

You posted that the Kings series looked terrible with the Warriors having their best game without him. I rightfully responded we can't assign any weight to Draymond's defensive impact based on one game without him.

None of that stuff you are posting now relates to that. I mean I understand one playoff game out of a potential 7 is important. But its not important to analyzing Draymond's defensive impact.

Nobody was giving him credit for a game he didn't play.
Nobody was saying he deserves all the credit or that other players don't deserve some. Looney specifically has been getting his flowers and rightfully so.

I just don't get saying well the team held up well for one game so lets say Draymond's series was terrible. Makes no sense.

If you crop out key parts of phrases of course it won't make sense.

Draymond's series was terrible

vs.

The Kings series as his crowning jewel looks terrible...

'crowning jewel' has meaning in that sentence. I don't feel that series should be seen as crown jewel at all, it wasn't any more or less special than the rest of his season, which is my entire point here.

You've responded a whole bunch to something I didn't say.

[AEnigma]

Interesting how “crown jewel” was apparently derived from “may have had the better performance in aggregate for the PS however, when considering he led the force (sans the game he was suspended) in thwarting a potent Kings offense and making their life miserable in the half-court.”

If the specific contention were that it seems weird to move Draymond above Mobley primarily because of a disparity in postseason defensive impact against a top offence, I can think of many far more productive approaches to making that argument than disconnectedly stating “Not on the ballot, terrible ‘crown jewel’ performance, team performed better without him,” and then getting upset when those comments are challenged on their face.

[Doctor MJ]

I get that the Heat went bonkers against the Bucks, but is there any specific reason why nobody considers Lopez for DPOY? Not saying he should win it (he wouldn't be my choice, Davis and JJJ are better choices), but when I watched the Heat series, I have never thought "wow, Miami exposed Lopez badly". He usually played very well in my opinion.

Well, I had Brook #1 on my DPOY ballot and Jrue & Giannis on my POY ballot after the regular season. After the first round, I basically pretended that Wisconsin had not basketball team at all, and so while that hurt Brook, it didn't specifically hurt Brook.

With Milwaukee we're talking about a team that has 3 extremely respected defenders and wins with defense. They went up against a bottom-third NBA offense, and that offense torched them. Hard for that not to hurt them.

I'm curious when you say Brook played well:

Are you saying it was just unavoidable luck that caused the Bucks to get upset?

or

Are you saying it was the fault of everybody but Brook?

[70sFan]

I get that the Heat went bonkers against the Bucks, but is there any specific reason why nobody considers Lopez for DPOY? Not saying he should win it (he wouldn't be my choice, Davis and JJJ are better choices), but when I watched the Heat series, I have never thought "wow, Miami exposed Lopez badly". He usually played very well in my opinion.

Well, I had Brook #1 on my DPOY ballot and Jrue & Giannis on my POY ballot after the regular season. After the first round, I basically pretended that Wisconsin had not basketball team at all, and so while that hurt Brook, it didn't specifically hurt Brook.

With Milwaukee we're talking about a team that has 3 extremely respected defenders and wins with defense. They went up against a bottom-third NBA offense, and that offense torched them. Hard for that not to hurt them.

I'm curious when you say Brook played well:

Are you saying it was just unavoidable luck that caused the Bucks to get upset?

or

Are you saying it was the fault of everybody but Brook?

Not "everybody but Brook", certainly not but the Heat shot at unbelievable efficiency from three point range (while not creating a lot of open looks) and Butler had the best series of his career that didn't rely on slashing through Lopez. Yeah, Bucks underperformed but it's very, very easy to buy that the luck was involved in that series.

Do you think there was any reason to blame Lopez specifically for the outcome? I think you can argue he was the most consistent Bucks player for the series.

[Doctor MJ]

I get that the Heat went bonkers against the Bucks, but is there any specific reason why nobody considers Lopez for DPOY? Not saying he should win it (he wouldn't be my choice, Davis and JJJ are better choices), but when I watched the Heat series, I have never thought "wow, Miami exposed Lopez badly". He usually played very well in my opinion.

Well, I had Brook #1 on my DPOY ballot and Jrue & Giannis on my POY ballot after the regular season. After the first round, I basically pretended that Wisconsin had not basketball team at all, and so while that hurt Brook, it didn't specifically hurt Brook.

With Milwaukee we're talking about a team that has 3 extremely respected defenders and wins with defense. They went up against a bottom-third NBA offense, and that offense torched them. Hard for that not to hurt them.

I'm curious when you say Brook played well:

Are you saying it was just unavoidable luck that caused the Bucks to get upset?

or

Are you saying it was the fault of everybody but Brook?

Not "everybody but Brook", certainly not but the Heat shot at unbelievable efficiency from three point range (while not creating a lot of open looks) and Butler had the best series of his career that didn't rely on slashing through Lopez. Yeah, Bucks underperformed but it's very, very easy to buy that the luck was involved in that series.

Do you think there was any reason to blame Lopez specifically for the outcome? I think you can argue he was the most consistent Bucks player for the series.

I can understand an argument that it was just all about luck, but struggle to reconcile that with season player achievement. This then to say that it's possible that someone with a better basketball eye than myself could dismiss what happened as pure luck, but I don't think I can.

I will say: It would be easier for me to chalk this up as pure luck if the Bucks didn't have a tendency to get upset, and upset decisively, like no other contender in recent times I can think of. Quite literally, it's what the Bucks do whenever they have a #1 seed, and if it weren't for that 2021 title run, they'd currently have the reputation as one of the most RS-only teams we've ever seen. That 2021 run does exist and I don't want to talk as if I don't give them credit for it, but to be perfectly honest, I'd kinda hoped they'd figured out how to avoid this happening to them yet again, and instead this was the most egregious upset loss they ever had.

I'll also say: While I appreciate that there's luck in 3's, and that the Bucks have tried to make strides defending against 3's, their focus on the interior has always made vulnerability to 3's one of their signatures, and the player face of that vulnerability is Brook. It's a choice to play Giannis with a 5 who is intended to really focus on the interior. If the Bucks were primarily focused on creating great perimeter defense, Brook would be a back-up at best, right?

Now, I don't want to be ridiculously harsh on Brook, who I've been very impressed by in his Buck incarnation. There's no doubt that he can be very valuable. But it's just one of those things, when a defense gets dominated by perimeter scoring, I don't think it makes sense to say "Yeah, but they didn't lose because of the interior, so that big, slow guy on the interior isn't part of the problem."

[70sFan]

I can understand an argument that it was just all about luck, but struggle to reconcile that with season player achievement. This then to say that it's possible that someone with a better basketball eye than myself could dismiss what happened as pure luck, but I don't think I can.

"Pure luck" is not something I said. The Heat played extremely well and I don't want to take anything away from them. I just want to point out that the Heat shooting 45% from 3P line vs 36% for the rest of the playoffs (while not creating more open threes) is a bit, well... noisy.

I will say: It would be easier for me to chalk this up as pure luck if the Bucks didn't have a tendency to get upset, and upset decisively, like no other contender in recent times I can think of. Quite literally, it's what the Bucks do whenever they have a #1 seed, and if it weren't for that 2021 title run, they'd currently have the reputation as one of the most RS-only teams we've ever seen. That 2021 run does exist and I don't want to talk as if I don't give them credit for it, but to be perfectly honest, I'd kinda hoped they'd figured out how to avoid this happening to them yet again, and instead this was the most egregious upset loss they ever had.

I understand that, but the point is that Bucks defense never really disappointed in the playoffs. They were consistently amazing in postseason on that end and their offense usually didn't reach their potential.

I'll also say: While I appreciate that there's luck in 3's, and that the Bucks have tried to make strides defending against 3's, their focus on the interior has always made vulnerability to 3's one of their signatures, and the player face of that vulnerability is Brook. It's a choice to play Giannis with a 5 who is intended to really focus on the interior. If the Bucks were primarily focused on creating great perimeter defense, Brook would be a back-up at best, right?

Now, I don't want to be ridiculously harsh on Brook, who I've been very impressed by in his Buck incarnation. There's no doubt that he can be very valuable. But it's just one of those things, when a defense gets dominated by perimeter scoring, I don't think it makes sense to say "Yeah, but they didn't lose because of the interior, so that big, slow guy on the interior isn't part of the problem."

I don't say he's not the part of the problem, I want specifics. I have watched all of the games from this series and I don't remember the Heat torching Lopez or creating open looks because of him.

[Doctor MJ]

I can understand an argument that it was just all about luck, but struggle to reconcile that with season player achievement. This then to say that it's possible that someone with a better basketball eye than myself could dismiss what happened as pure luck, but I don't think I can.

"Pure luck" is not something I said. The Heat played extremely well and I don't want to take anything away from them. I just want to point out that the Heat shooting 45% from 3P line vs 36% for the rest of the playoffs (while not creating more open threes) is a bit, well... noisy.

Not trying to put words in your mouth, that's just the phrasing I'd put on things. "Pure luck" to me says that there's nothing to be learned about what we saw.

I will say: It would be easier for me to chalk this up as pure luck if the Bucks didn't have a tendency to get upset, and upset decisively, like no other contender in recent times I can think of. Quite literally, it's what the Bucks do whenever they have a #1 seed, and if it weren't for that 2021 title run, they'd currently have the reputation as one of the most RS-only teams we've ever seen. That 2021 run does exist and I don't want to talk as if I don't give them credit for it, but to be perfectly honest, I'd kinda hoped they'd figured out how to avoid this happening to them yet again, and instead this was the most egregious upset loss they ever had.

I understand that, but the point is that Bucks defense never really disappointed in the playoffs. They were consistently amazing in postseason on that end and their offense usually didn't reach their potential.

That's just not true. Go back and look at this year's series against the Heat and look at the ORtg/DRtgs. I'd argue something similar happened when the Heat upset them last time, and that in general whenever you see them lose, it seems like their opponents are getting "lucky" from 3. It's a recurring theme.

I'll also say: While I appreciate that there's luck in 3's, and that the Bucks have tried to make strides defending against 3's, their focus on the interior has always made vulnerability to 3's one of their signatures, and the player face of that vulnerability is Brook. It's a choice to play Giannis with a 5 who is intended to really focus on the interior. If the Bucks were primarily focused on creating great perimeter defense, Brook would be a back-up at best, right?

Now, I don't want to be ridiculously harsh on Brook, who I've been very impressed by in his Buck incarnation. There's no doubt that he can be very valuable. But it's just one of those things, when a defense gets dominated by perimeter scoring, I don't think it makes sense to say "Yeah, but they didn't lose because of the interior, so that big, slow guy on the interior isn't part of the problem."

I don't say he's not the part of the problem, I want specifics. I have watched all of the games from this series and I don't remember the Heat torching Lopez or creating open looks because of him.

Reasonable for you to want specific examples, but aside from the fact that I'm not really the guy to give video clips, I also think this is a situation where there's a disconnect.

If it's not a guy's job to be out on the perimeter disrupting 3-point shooting, what would we be expecting to point to show him making a play that gave a guy an open 3? I mean sure there's stuff that can happen off of offensive rebounds that might directly connect back to him, but in general, it's not his job to cover those shots, so we wouldn't be expecting the concern here to be about his specific actions on specific plays.

I feel like an analogy makes sense here:

Let's say you've got a company that's doing great work with software engineering but has no sales force and thus isn't earning enough revenue.

Does that mean the software engineers are doing something wrong? No.
Might the company be better off letting go some software engineers and bringing in a sales force? Yes.

[70sFan]

That's just not true. Go back and look at this year's series against the Heat and look at the ORtg/DRtgs. I'd argue something similar happened when the Heat upset them last time, and that in general whenever you see them lose, it seems like their opponents are getting "lucky" from 3. It's a recurring theme.

I know they disappointed this year, but that wasn't the case in 2019, 2021 and 2022. You can argue that for 2020 (against Miami again), but it wasn't that extreme. The only time Bucks defense got destroyed was when the Heat shot threes better than 2017 Warriors...

[Doctor MJ]

That's just not true. Go back and look at this year's series against the Heat and look at the ORtg/DRtgs. I'd argue something similar happened when the Heat upset them last time, and that in general whenever you see them lose, it seems like their opponents are getting "lucky" from 3. It's a recurring theme.

I know they disappointed this year, but that wasn't the case in 2019, 2021 and 2022. You can argue that for 2020 (against Miami again), but it wasn't that extreme. The only time Bucks defense got destroyed was when the Heat shot threes better than 2017 Warriors...

Okay so bottom line, you're looking to chalk this up to shooting luck, and I'm reluctant to do that. We may not be able to come together on this, but I can understand why a knowledgeable basketball observer would conclude what - I believe - you have.

I'm curious how you see the fact that Miami did this in 2 of their 4 series in these 2023 playoffs though. If something like this truly seem like, oh I don't know, a "one in a thousand" situation, it would be easier for me to chalk it up to luck. Having 2 "one in a thousand" events in 4 tries though? That's tough.

I don't want to come off as if I'm saying there isn't any randomness in play here. Run the Boston-Miami series in 10 universes, maybe Boston wins in 9 of them. The better team doesn't always win, and quite literally if we re-ran these playoffs, I wouldn't favor Miami to get through the Eastern Conference.

But that's different from me treating what happened as a meaningless event. What happened didn't just happen, it's something teams knew could happen, and they plan accordingly, and look to build a team balancing the risks. If teams expected opponents could shoot like this all the time, well then they'd build their own teams looking to take 3-point defense all the more seriously. And this I think leads us to an important general question that's also central to what we're specifically talking about in our example:

Were the Bucks looking to take 3-point defense more seriously than they do, how do we think that would effect Brook's role in their grand scheme?

Perhaps the true answer is something that doesn't reflect negatively on Brook, but I think it's clear why I would be concerned.

[70sFan]

That's just not true. Go back and look at this year's series against the Heat and look at the ORtg/DRtgs. I'd argue something similar happened when the Heat upset them last time, and that in general whenever you see them lose, it seems like their opponents are getting "lucky" from 3. It's a recurring theme.

I know they disappointed this year, but that wasn't the case in 2019, 2021 and 2022. You can argue that for 2020 (against Miami again), but it wasn't that extreme. The only time Bucks defense got destroyed was when the Heat shot threes better than 2017 Warriors...

Okay so bottom line, you're looking to chalk this up to shooting luck, and I'm reluctant to do that. We may not be able to come together on this, but I can understand why a knowledgeable basketball observer would conclude what - I believe - you have.

I'm curious how you see the fact that Miami did this in 2 of their 4 series in these 2023 playoffs though. If something like this truly seem like, oh I don't know, a "one in a thousand" situation, it would be easier for me to chalk it up to luck. Having 2 "one in a thousand" events in 4 tries though? That's tough.

I don't want to come off as if I'm saying there isn't any randomness in play here. Run the Boston-Miami series in 10 universes, maybe Boston wins in 9 of them. The better team doesn't always win, and quite literally if we re-ran these playoffs, I wouldn't favor Miami to get through the Eastern Conference.

But that's different from me treating what happened as a meaningless event. What happened didn't just happen, it's something teams knew could happen, and they plan accordingly, and look to build a team balancing the risks. If teams expected opponents could shoot like this all the time, well then they'd build their own teams looking to take 3-point defense all the more seriously. And this I think leads us to an important general question that's also central to what we're specifically talking about in our example:

Were the Bucks looking to take 3-point defense more seriously than they do, how do we think that would effect Brook's role in their grand scheme?

Perhaps the true answer is something that doesn't reflect negatively on Brook, but I think it's clear why I would be concerned.

The problem is that you can't really stop a team that shoots 45% from three point line on 35 attempts. Not when your offense disappoints. As I said - it wasn't the matter of Heat creating a lot of open threes - they had below average volume in that series and whole playoffs in that regard. No, it was the case of the Heat getting incredibly hot on tough shots and when it happens, you can't do much to stop such offense.

I get that it's tough to pick Brook after such an underwhelming team performance from statistical perspective, but I just don't have any impression that Brook disappointed in the series. I'd argue it was Bud who did the worst job from schematic perspective, but I think we can agree to disagree at this point.

[RSCD3_]

Thoughts on Evan Mobley as DPOY candidate? I do think AD & JJJ are better at their best, but how far behind do you think Mobley is? Do you have major concerns about him compared to the established elite?

AD at his best was substantially better than anyone else this year I think, the Lakers offense wasn’t particularly great or effective and he was a part of that, but defense basically got them to the WCF in the first place and it’s not as if the Lakers have a defensive monster squad or anything (it must be said, Vando was extremely overrated based off one game and was a negative defensive player this playoffs with his deployment and limitations, Dennis and bron were good, Rui in R1 was good, and Reaves was solid) and while his defense on Jokic in one on one situations was bad he was a pretty key part of a gameplan that was pretty successful slowing him down relative to other series, although his rim protection in general wasn’t as good in the WCF against some other guys, where the defense failed was defending jamal

It’s partially because more contact is allowed and AD is pretty good in that situation

Good post though I wouldn’t call Vando negative, I would call him limited. He was a positive defensive player when he wasn’t being forced to play outside his role.

[Texas Chuck]

The Heat won the conference. Also beating a very good Boston team. Not sure I'd call that series a terrible upset especially considering Giannis was missing or hurt for the series and Middleton was clearly less than 100%.

Sometimes we need to give credit to the team who wins instead of looking to justify our former positions on a player/team we don't love.

[Tim Lehrbach]

Sometimes we need to give credit to the team who wins instead of looking to justify our former positions on a player/team we don't love.

This, and it's also OK for a lone playoff series to not tell us much.

A playoff series will always be a flawed test of team quality, no matter how much meaning we assign to each one and especially to a string of several series wins or annual losses. This isn't meant to take away anything from the winners, who completed the task in front of them, but only to say that because of the nature of the competition, results will be prone to luck, flukes, streaks, upsets, and other surprises. We can be OK with that and not have to assign deeper meaning than may be justified, even when trends seem to be revealing themselves.

Put another way, to jump into Doctor MJ's Bucks critique, there are at least two ways to look at the Bucks' apparent unfitness for the playoff test: it's their fault, or it's the playoffs' fault. I think it takes a lot of evidence to confidently conclude they are at fault as a matter of characteristic flaw, and I just don't believe one or even several playoff series suffice, especially when we have another sample during which they did solve the test. And, when we're talking about just one season's achievements, I especially have a hard time weighing a few games of stupidly hot shooting over the remainder of the body of work.

I know that I'll always be lower on playoff results than basically everybody else here, and that this is a growing problem for my appreciation of the sport, since it is a strong consensus that the playoffs are what REALLY matter. But I can still hope for honesty about the pluses and minuses of the NBA's format for determining the best team and the drawbacks to forming conclusions about events, even recurring ones, that may not rise to the level of being a meaningful pattern.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Thoughts on Evan Mobley as DPOY candidate? I do think AD & JJJ are better at their best, but how far behind do you think Mobley is? Do you have major concerns about him compared to the established elite?

AD at his best was substantially better than anyone else this year I think, the Lakers offense wasn’t particularly great or effective and he was a part of that, but defense basically got them to the WCF in the first place and it’s not as if the Lakers have a defensive monster squad or anything (it must be said, Vando was extremely overrated based off one game and was a negative defensive player this playoffs with his deployment and limitations, Dennis and bron were good, Rui in R1 was good, and Reaves was solid) and while his defense on Jokic in one on one situations was bad he was a pretty key part of a gameplan that was pretty successful slowing him down relative to other series, although his rim protection in general wasn’t as good in the WCF against some other guys, where the defense failed was defending jamal

It’s partially because more contact is allowed and AD is pretty good in that situation

Good post though I wouldn’t call Vando negative, I would call him limited. He was a positive defensive player when he wasn’t being forced to play outside his role.

This is fair, but when ur main selling point is on ball defense but you can’t handle ball screens at all whatsoever I think that’s an issue if ur gonna get consistent minutes personally

[Doctor MJ]

I know they disappointed this year, but that wasn't the case in 2019, 2021 and 2022. You can argue that for 2020 (against Miami again), but it wasn't that extreme. The only time Bucks defense got destroyed was when the Heat shot threes better than 2017 Warriors...

Okay so bottom line, you're looking to chalk this up to shooting luck, and I'm reluctant to do that. We may not be able to come together on this, but I can understand why a knowledgeable basketball observer would conclude what - I believe - you have.

I'm curious how you see the fact that Miami did this in 2 of their 4 series in these 2023 playoffs though. If something like this truly seem like, oh I don't know, a "one in a thousand" situation, it would be easier for me to chalk it up to luck. Having 2 "one in a thousand" events in 4 tries though? That's tough.

I don't want to come off as if I'm saying there isn't any randomness in play here. Run the Boston-Miami series in 10 universes, maybe Boston wins in 9 of them. The better team doesn't always win, and quite literally if we re-ran these playoffs, I wouldn't favor Miami to get through the Eastern Conference.

But that's different from me treating what happened as a meaningless event. What happened didn't just happen, it's something teams knew could happen, and they plan accordingly, and look to build a team balancing the risks. If teams expected opponents could shoot like this all the time, well then they'd build their own teams looking to take 3-point defense all the more seriously. And this I think leads us to an important general question that's also central to what we're specifically talking about in our example:

Were the Bucks looking to take 3-point defense more seriously than they do, how do we think that would effect Brook's role in their grand scheme?

Perhaps the true answer is something that doesn't reflect negatively on Brook, but I think it's clear why I would be concerned.

The problem is that you can't really stop a team that shoots 45% from three point line on 35 attempts. Not when your offense disappoints. As I said - it wasn't the matter of Heat creating a lot of open threes - they had below average volume in that series and whole playoffs in that regard. No, it was the case of the Heat getting incredibly hot on tough shots and when it happens, you can't do much to stop such offense.

I get that it's tough to pick Brook after such an underwhelming team performance from statistical perspective, but I just don't have any impression that Brook disappointed in the series. I'd argue it was Bud who did the worst job from schematic perspective, but I think we can agree to disagree at this point.

Agree that we can agree to disagree, but I will say that that first line of yours I bolded gets to the heart of the matter.

When you say "can't really stop a team that shoots 45% from three...", I would say that by definition, if they're shooting 45% from three, then you failed to stop them, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't have been made more likely to be stopped.

The question then becomes whether it's complete luck as to whether something like this happens or not.

If I do a search based on your numbers - of the teams who have had the most games allowing 45% from 3 on 35+ 3PA from '18-19 to '22-23 (the Bucks' Bud years) across those regular seasons, here's the leaderboard:

1. Portland 33
(tie) Milwaukee 33
3. Charlotte 32
4. Orlando 31
(tie) New Orleans 31

(If I include the playoffs the Bucks grab the lead completely to themselves, but of course that's not really fair given that Portland, Charlotte, Orlando & New Orleans haven't been good enough to play all that much in the playoffs.)

It's been a known thing for forever that the Bucks' defensive strategy involved them prioritizing the interior over the perimeter, and yeah, there's data that shows the consequence of this. I'll acknowledge that the Bucks looked better on this front this season, and maybe you can argue that makes all of this no longer relevant, but all of this gets into why I'm reluctant to act as if this stuff was just luck in these playoffs.

Was there luck involved? Absolutely.
Do the Bucks beat the Heat more than half the time in normal circumstances? Quite possibly.

But I have issues with treating less-than-majority outcomes as meaningless when it's clear that some teams are more prone to those outcomes than others.