NBA MVP Discussion Thread 2023-24 (continued)

[Doctor MJ]

Plus minus - the ultimate correlation over causation stat of all time.

Inferring causation from correlation is pretty much what human beings do when they draw conclusions.

Yeah, and its pretty much the reason why some of the conclusions we draw are dumb ones.

For example, does plus minus take into account what a team needs to expend to stop a player? Does it take into account that he makes it easier for a bench unit to take over because he has exhausted the best players of the opposition that have to sit when he sits because their sole focus is to try and contain him?

Does it take into account whether a player is playing with the best players on his team or whether he is allowing other players to take a break whilst he plays with the bench?

Does it take into account how good/bad the rest of the squad is?

You talk as if there's some other approach we use that leads to perfect epistemology. There isn't.

I'm not saying +/- is never used poorly, nor am I saying it captures all of the information we'd want about the basketball. I simply mentioned the connection between "without him they'd..." reasoning and +/- stats.

Re: does +/- take into account...? On a base level the answer is clearly no. You know what the stat is, and that's all there is to it.

However, in the context of an MVP discussion, you're talking about a bunch of guys taking similar tolls on their opponents starters, and so the onus is really on the person wanting to suggest something like "Sure he's less impactful when he's on the court, but he the strain he puts on the opponent's capacity to tread water is greater".

Re: does it take into account whether a player is playing with the best players on his team or how good the rest of the squad is? Well, yes, actually. Not the raw stuff, but those that use regression, that's precisely what they're doing.

[VanWest82]

That right there should tell you how irrelevant plus minus is. A DPOY doesn't make the Bucks better defensively. Right...

AD should've won DPOY that year but I digress. Giannis was incredible defensively in 2020 though. But do yourself a favour, go look at the tracking stats each year since then and see which teammate of Giannis's regularly appears on the leaderboard. Then go look at on court DRTG vs. off court DRTG of that teammate and compare with Giannis. You'll start to see it isn't so obvious who's really responsible or how to divide that responsibility/recognition.

Cool, whilst I do that, do yourself a favour and watch some Bucks games, and it kinda becomes obvious.

I've definitely watched my fair share of Bucks games. In the playoffs, and when the chips are down, I take Giannis. But the stats don't lie. I ran the numbers for every regular season possession since the beginning of 19/20.

With Giannis, without Brook: 4959 possessions, 110.96 DRTG
With Brook, without Giannis: 3090 possessions, 110.97 DRTG

That's easily enough of a sample to say that Bucks are mostly fine defensively without Giannis because they have Brook.

[Doctor MJ]

That’s the same stat family that claimed that Grizzlies would be fine without Morant. Some of you clearly don’t know how sports work at all. You have an absolutely pitiful defensive team who would be lead by an injury prone inconsistent all star player and you don’t think that isn’t a recipe for disaster? It’s literally common sense. The team would resemble Beal Wizards. Just flat out not good

Eh...Bucks have played over 500 mins minus Giannis this year and they're essentially the same team defensively without him (114.2) as with him (113.9). The much bigger gap is on offense (121.2 vs. 111.6).

That right there should tell you how irrelevant plus minus is. A DPOY doesn't make the Bucks better defensively. Right...

I would want to emphasize that the data is not telling us that Giannis isn't making the defense better, only that we're not seeing glaring differences in defensive effectiveness against respective opposing talent that we might expect in this situation, and we do see in other situations.

And from there, the rigorous thing to do is to ask why.

To be clear, saying "The sample size is small, this is likely noise" is absolutely a valid thing to do depending on the situation.

But if it keeps up, it warrants study - not to impugn Giannis, but to figure out what's going within the Milwaukee Bucks and their rotations to result in this data.

[WhatTheBuck]

Eh...Bucks have played over 500 mins minus Giannis this year and they're essentially the same team defensively without him (114.2) as with him (113.9). The much bigger gap is on offense (121.2 vs. 111.6).

That right there should tell you how irrelevant plus minus is. A DPOY doesn't make the Bucks better defensively. Right...

I would want to emphasize that the data is not telling us that Giannis isn't making the defense better, only that we're not seeing glaring differences in defensive effectiveness against respective opposing talent that we might expect in this situation, and we do see in other situations.

And from there, the rigorous thing to do is to ask why.

To be clear, saying "The sample size is small, this is likely noise" is absolutely a valid thing to do depending on the situation.

But if it keeps up, it warrants study - not to impugn Giannis, but to figure out what's going within the Milwaukee Bucks and their rotations to result in this data.

To take a stab in the dark at this enduring enigma, I'd probably suggest that Giannis tends to surround himself with shooters and those said shooters happen to be azz defensively.

[losmi]

I think philly has 8 b2b’s left on the year. Embiid really may not make the games played cutoff for mvp. Will be tight.

Let’s be real, Embiid is the type of person to suit up for 10 minutes and call it a day if he ever got in trouble of making the cut of playing 65 games.

I think it has to be at least 20 minutes for a game to count towards the 65 games requirement.

Either way, it would be best for everyone if he becomes ineligible for regular season awards sooner rather than later. He wasn't going to get another MVP anyway.

1. Embiid himself (and his fans) will focus on the playoffs, as he should, because that's where his legacy will be judged. It's incredible that a guy who has never done anything in the playoffs is still so obsessed with stat padding in regular seasons.
2. We'll all be spared of his annual whining and polluting the media space.

[VanWest82]

To take a stab in the dark at this enduring enigma, I'd probably suggest that Giannis tends to surround himself with shooters and those said shooters happen to be azz defensively.

This seems to be missing some nuance.

The reason Bucks have been successful defensively minus Giannis for the last five years is because they’ve built their primary defensive coverage around funneling ball handlers to Brook. This is why Brook is often either leading the league or near the league leaders in DFAs. And he’s excellent at it, routinely holding guys way below their normal shooting averages. Giannis is also excellent at providing help from the baseline when required.

The issue is in order for this drop scheme to work, you need a tenacious point of attack defender who’s willing to fight over screens so ball handlers can’t just pull up every time in lieu of driving. It’s not an accident that Bucks ranked #1, #1, and #3 in DRTG with Bledsoe and then Jrue, respectively.

So yeah, Brook and Giannis being surrounded with a bunch of shooters who don’t play defense isn’t going to work, but it would only take one good POA defender that refuses to get switched off to improve that defense by a lot.

[celtxman]

I think philly has 8 b2b’s left on the year. Embiid really may not make the games played cutoff for mvp. Will be tight.

Let’s be real, Embiid is the type of person to suit up for 10 minutes and call it a day if he ever got in trouble of making the cut of playing 65 games.

I think it has to be at least 20 minutes for a game to count towards the 65 games requirement.

Either way, it would be best for everyone if he becomes ineligible for regular season awards sooner rather than later. He wasn't going to get another MVP anyway.

1. Embiid himself (and his fans) will focus on the playoffs, as he should, because that's where his legacy will be judged. It's incredible that a guy who has never done anything in the playoffs is still so obsessed with stat padding in regular seasons.
2. We'll all be spared of his annual whining and polluting the media space.

As we speak it's interesting the major odds makers have Embiid and Jokic neck and neck (as per Vegas Insider.) Pretty remarkable that the odds makers don't really consider health into this. The voters certainly would consider sneaking in 20minute games as a way to get to 65.

[losmi]

He could sneak in for 20 minutes, but that would hurt his per-game stats. Or he could force his counting stats in those 20 minutes but that would probably hurt his rate stats. Or he could play more minutes but then he'll have nothing left for the playoffs (though, it doesn't seem like he cares about the playoffs at all).

His stat padding put him in a lose-lose situation. He put his hand in the jar to steal few cookies but now he can't get it out unless he drops them all.

[Doctor MJ]

That right there should tell you how irrelevant plus minus is. A DPOY doesn't make the Bucks better defensively. Right...

I would want to emphasize that the data is not telling us that Giannis isn't making the defense better, only that we're not seeing glaring differences in defensive effectiveness against respective opposing talent that we might expect in this situation, and we do see in other situations.

And from there, the rigorous thing to do is to ask why.

To be clear, saying "The sample size is small, this is likely noise" is absolutely a valid thing to do depending on the situation.

But if it keeps up, it warrants study - not to impugn Giannis, but to figure out what's going within the Milwaukee Bucks and their rotations to result in this data.

To take a stab in the dark at this enduring enigma, I'd probably suggest that Giannis tends to surround himself with shooters and those said shooters happen to be azz defensively.

And there we go: Basketball insight! Indeed, even when we use regression it's still possible for a player's distribution of offensive and defensive impact to get distorted when using +/- based stats. This is why I always say to focus first on the overall effect the stats indicate, and then consider if there might distortion in the sub-components.

Zooming back out to the overall for Giannis, it's very possible that his impact is actually more defense-oriented than these stats would seem to indicate.

[mediocrityrules]

So i read this tweet as saying that these are the guards that take the toughest/'most contested' 3pt shots?

Read on Twitter

Or is it saying that they take stupider shots more often than others?

With Vassell you'd say that he takes stupid shots, but with Luka it's more like 'Wow he just made the most ridiculous shot'. I think the tweet is missing the context of % of shots made to make more sense of it. Unless I'm reading too much into it.

[Doctor MJ]

To take a stab in the dark at this enduring enigma, I'd probably suggest that Giannis tends to surround himself with shooters and those said shooters happen to be azz defensively.

This seems to be missing some nuance.

The reason Bucks have been successful defensively minus Giannis for the last five years is because they’ve built their primary defensive coverage around funneling ball handlers to Brook. This is why Brook is often either leading the league or near the league leaders in DFAs. And he’s excellent at it, routinely holding guys way below their normal shooting averages. Giannis is also excellent at providing help from the baseline when required.

The issue is in order for this drop scheme to work, you need a tenacious point of attack defender who’s willing to fight over screens so ball handlers can’t just pull up every time in lieu of driving. It’s not an accident that Bucks ranked #1, #1, and #3 in DRTG with Bledsoe and then Jrue, respectively.

So yeah, Brook and Giannis being surrounded with a bunch of shooters who don’t play defense isn’t going to work, but it would only take one good POA defender that refuses to get switched off to improve that defense by a lot.

Great observations, and yes, the choice to optimize the defense around Giannis by playing him with goalie at 5 could lead to him being literally less impactful (statistically) within the context he's in. This is a thing for us to watch out for in our evaluations because a player who reduces his statistical impact in the name of the team's greater good is literally doing something valuable for his team.

[Doctor MJ]

So i read this tweet as saying that these are the guards that take the toughest/'most contested' 3pt shots?

Read on Twitter

Or is it saying that they take stupider shots more often than others?

With Vassell you'd say that he takes stupid shots, but with Luka it's more like 'Wow he just made the most ridiculous shot'. I think the tweet is missing the context of % of shots made to make more sense of it. Unless I'm reading too much into it.

Well I don't think there's any way to objectively decide what kind of shot is "stupid", so I'd say it's literally doing what it says.

We should certainly ask whether taking these shots was the optimal play for the possession, and if it isn't, why is this happening?

With a guy as high primacy as Doncic, one of my questions would be is if he's more likely to take these shots as the game goes along as that would indicate he was tired. If he were more likely to take them earlier in the game, that might indicate he's looking to force the defense to cover him more closely from the outside and thus open up more spacing for his teammates later in the game.

[RB34]

Such a stark difference between how Joker and Embiid operate.

[Cubbies2120]

Such a stark difference between how Joker and Embiid operate.

Yep. One takes 3 shots vs. the Pistons, putting up a 4 pt 17 ast 6 reb 5 block night. The other comes in off the bench to rack up 2 points, while hobbled, to maintain a streak.

They are not the same.

This is the same Jokic that shot his first shot with a minute left in 2nd quarter against another bottom feeder (Hornets). Tonight he shot 3 shots.

Embiid actually ups his FGA against these bottom feeders, even in blowouts.

One cares about their numbers, the other cares about winning.

[Cubbies2120]

So i read this tweet as saying that these are the guards that take the toughest/'most contested' 3pt shots?

Read on Twitter

Or is it saying that they take stupider shots more often than others?

With Vassell you'd say that he takes stupid shots, but with Luka it's more like 'Wow he just made the most ridiculous shot'. I think the tweet is missing the context of % of shots made to make more sense of it. Unless I'm reading too much into it.

Well I don't think there's any way to objectively decide what kind of shot is "stupid", so I'd say it's literally doing what it says.

We should certainly ask whether taking these shots was the optimal play for the possession, and if it isn't, why is this happening?

With a guy as high primacy as Doncic, one of my questions would be is if he's more likely to take these shots as the game goes along as that would indicate he was tired. If he were more likely to take them earlier in the game, that might indicate he's looking to force the defense to cover him more closely from the outside and thus open up more spacing for his teammates later in the game.

Could be the result of 'grenade shots'.

Fun fact: 'Grenade shots' are statistically the worst quality shots (% wise, over hundreds of thousands of shots).

Another fun fact: Jokic was 2nd in the league over the course of the 10 years referenced in the article (after Marcus Morris) in 'grenade shot FGA's. So the efficiency merchant is as efficient as he was despite being amongst the league leaders in these traditionally horrible FG% shots (Gobert leads league in FG% in this category at only 45%).

Source: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/35645800/inside-nba-unwritten-rule-passing-ball-seconds-left-clock

[Jaqua92]

Such a stark difference between how Joker and Embiid operate.

Yep. One takes 3 shots vs. the Pistons, putting up a 4 pt 17 ast 6 reb 5 block night. The other comes in off the bench to rack up 2 points, while hobbled, to maintain a streak.

They are not the same.

This is the same Jokic that shot his first shot with a minute left in 2nd quarter against another bottom feeder (Hornets). Tonight he shot 3 shots.

Embiid actually ups his FGA against these bottom feeders, even in blowouts.

One cares about their numbers, the other cares about winning.

Honestly, as a person, Embiid seems like an awesome, fun and chill dude. As a man, and as a person, love the guy.

But as a competitor? I, without exaggeration, wholeheartedly believe that amongst superstars/MVP caliber players he is the biggest joke of a competitor this game has ever seen. Which is a shame. He's a total joke of a competitor, it's borderline pitiful.

[Cubbies2120]

Serious question: is Jokic the only guy in NBA history who could catapult a G-league team into the NBA playoffs? He basically did exactly that 3 years ago.

[Infinite Llamas]

Such a stark difference between how Joker and Embiid operate.

Yep. One takes 3 shots vs. the Pistons, putting up a 4 pt 17 ast 6 reb 5 block night. The other comes in off the bench to rack up 2 points, while hobbled, to maintain a streak.

They are not the same.

This is the same Jokic that shot his first shot with a minute left in 2nd quarter against another bottom feeder (Hornets). Tonight he shot 3 shots.

Embiid actually ups his FGA against these bottom feeders, even in blowouts.

One cares about their numbers, the other cares about winning.

It’s all about the approach.
I really think Jokic wanted tonight to be a chance to maybe elevate Murray’s chance at an all star spot and the Charlotte game was the same way. That was my first thought watching these games.

Bottom line is that he gets guys PAID. Barton, Morris, Murray, Gordon, MPJ, Bruce Brown…

I’m shocked guys aren’t bending over backwards to come play alongside Jokic.

[bigboi]

AD should've won DPOY that year but I digress. Giannis was incredible defensively in 2020 though. But do yourself a favour, go look at the tracking stats each year since then and see which teammate of Giannis's regularly appears on the leaderboard. Then go look at on court DRTG vs. off court DRTG of that teammate and compare with Giannis. You'll start to see it isn't so obvious who's really responsible or how to divide that responsibility/recognition.

Cool, whilst I do that, do yourself a favour and watch some Bucks games, and it kinda becomes obvious.

I've definitely watched my fair share of Bucks games. In the playoffs, and when the chips are down, I take Giannis. But the stats don't lie. I ran the numbers for every regular season possession since the beginning of 19/20.

With Giannis, without Brook: 4959 possessions, 110.96 DRTG
With Brook, without Giannis: 3090 possessions, 110.97 DRTG

That's easily enough of a sample to say that Bucks are mostly fine defensively without Giannis because they have Brook.

You clearly don’t watch the games because Brook isn’t good defensively this year. Riddle me this, Brook has been a POOR defender all his career until he came to the bucks. How in the hell do you think he magically became better? Hint: he didn’t

[bigboi]

Uh, do consider that the last time LeBron won an MVP was 2013. If you think the cumulative weight of stuff like this isn't something that drags guys other than Giannis down, zoom out a bit.

Re: Take Giannis off this team and they're probably at the bottom of the East. Y'know, there's a whole stat family we used to see evidence for this sort of thing called "plus minus".

That’s the same stat family that claimed that Grizzlies would be fine without Morant. Some of you clearly don’t know how sports work at all. You have an absolutely pitiful defensive team who would be lead by an injury prone inconsistent all star player and you don’t think that isn’t a recipe for disaster? It’s literally common sense. The team would resemble Beal Wizards. Just flat out not good

Eh...Bucks have played over 500 mins minus Giannis this year and they're essentially the same team defensively without him (114.2) as with him (113.9). The much bigger gap is on offense (121.2 vs. 111.6).

Have you watched the games? Yes or no. Team struggles all around without him on the floor.