OrlMagic05 wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:So, I realize that this is a thread comparing two guys, but I really want to speak to a point about Paulo being the first option.
While it's certainly harder to score efficiently at volume, that doesn't mean that the guy scoring at volume for a pretty-good team is carrying them.
The Magic are losing when Paolo is on the court, and doing a lot better when he's off of it. If the team wasn't so good with Paolo playing bench, literally no one would be even thinking about Paolo as an all-star candidate.
I don't hate Paolo. I'm not saying he sucks as a future foundation. But fundamentally we're talking about a guy who has the primacy he has because the Magic expect him to one day be a franchise player, not because them putting him in that position makes them a playoff team.
Let me also be clear: I'm not saying you could take a random bench guy on the Magic, give him Paolo's role and he'd do better. From an all-star perspective, it's simply a question of whether the team's record should lead us to overlook the fact that Paolo isn't actually producing eye-popping stats when you factor everything in the box score in on the grounds that he's having more impact than the box score says. And instead the indicators are that he's having less impact than his solid-but-not-amazing box score indicates.
Zooming out to the comparison: I do think it's hard to judge them confidently against each other right now because they are in different roles, and that at this point I don't think either of them lines up as a guy to get an all-star nod. There's no doubt that the presence of Shai is making Chet's life easier whereas Paolo's having to be the actual focal point of opposing defenses, and that's something I think about with Chet regardless of who he's being compared against.
But I'll also say that if I'm OKC I'm more confident about Chet's place in my future than I am if I'm Orlando with Paolo. Chet doesn't have to be my offensive alpha to fit with what I have, and his defense is just obviously nice.
For the Magic, were I them, I'd be thrilled at the improvement I see this year on the whole and expect I'd keep going with the plan I have...but I wouldn't delude myself into thinking I already have contender-level stars on my roster. Paolo & co needs to get better, and while that might seem like a "duh" statement, what I'm trying to convey is that the Magic record and seeding is making people look to give more credit to the anointed future star when really I think the story of the Magic this year is about the collective team lead by their coach.
This might sound like a skeptical take, but it potentially makes the team even more exciting. If they're this good while losing the Paolo minutes, imagine how good they'll be if he starts impacting like star.
So because of Cole, AB, Goga, Suggs the magic are the 4th best team in the east? I get everyone wanting to use Advanced stats, but watch the game and you'd see how ridiculous that sounds. Paolo has carried the team through a crazy amount of injuries over the past two months and we are still the 4th best team in the east.
When we say a team is winning with depth, we aren't saying that the backups are better than the starters, only that the team has a better rotation/bench than you'd expect given their overall quality - and yes that also means that starters/core is weaker than you'd expect given the overall quality. And this really isn't something that should seem crazy to anyone. It's literally true to an extent for just about half the teams in the league, there are top-heavy teams and there are deep teams. The Magic are the latter.
Let me put it to you like this. If we take the top 4 teams from both the East and West and look at their generally agreed upon stars for raw +/- - which speaks to how successful the team has been when they are on the court. Here's how it looks:
Jokic +328
Tatum +313
Shai +295
Kawhi +249
Embiid +247
Edwards +205
Giannis +187
Paolo -17
Clearly one of these things is not like the others. Maybe it seems unfair to compare Paolo to these other guys given their stature, but these guys do represent what you expect from the star of a Top 4 seed in the league at this time, and you can see that Paolo just doesn't fit.
I'm sorry man. I know you're excited about your young team and star, and I'm not saying you shouldn't be, but the fact is that this isn't a team having success by virtue of their alpha carrying them to this point in the season.
