Post#91 » by runtmc » Sun Apr 28, 2024 12:47 am
I know people like to get carried away in the hype of recent performances, but this is getting out of hand. Superior Wade/Kobe, mentioned with Jordan? Potential MVP? That's... insane talk. Ant is a good player, but he's almost certainly not the best player on his team (Gobert), and I think reasonable arguments could be made for Conley/Towns being better this season, though Id personally lean towards Ant edging the other two out, but not by much. He's much, much closer to something like a prime Bradley Beal than the Wade/Kobe tier, let alone Jordan tier. And there's nothing wrong with that -- prime Beal was a good player, but he would never be confused with Wade/Kobe.
1. 25.6/5/5.5, TS+ 104, DRtg 114, PER 20.8, WS/48 .120, BPM 2.9, VORP 3.7, Beal Age 25, 7th season
2. 25.9/5.4/5.1, TS+ 99, DRtg 110, PER 19.7, WS/48 .130, BPM 3.3, VORP 3.7, Edwards Age 22, 4th season
You can compare other seasons, but these are the seasons that most closely align, and they are extremely similar. Yes, Beal is a bit older here, but rarely do players make a jump from borderline all-star territory to MVP territory in their 5th+ year. Before this season, Edwards looked good by counting stats, but less than stellar by his advanced stats. His seasonal WS/48 up to now has been .017, .084, .064, .130. Even if we look at other advanced metrics (sadly, a lot of them have been taken offline), he's 22nd in the league in EPM, 52nd in LEBRON, etc. That's somewhere between All-star reserve and above average starter level.
And just as a reminder:
1. 28.5/5.9/5, TS+ 107, DRtg 105, PER 24.5, WS/48 .196, BPM 4.8, VORP 4.7, Kobe Age 22, 5th season
2. 24.1/5.2/6.8, TS+ 106, DRtg 103, PER 23.1, WS/48 .177, BPM 4.6, VORP 4.9, Wade Age 23, 2nd season
The biggest difference is that Kobe/Wade were phenomenal defenders in their prime, Kobe was a career 105 DRtg with a peak of 98, Wade was a career 104 with a 99 peak -- both of them were all-nba/DPOY caliber defenders. Ant is *at best* a slightly above average defender right now (his career DRtg is 113), and that's with being on the best defensive team in the NBA. Also, Ant's TS+ needs to be underlined -- he's got a career TS+ worse than Allen Iverson -- that's not good. When you're a volume shooter, having a below average efficiency is a death sentence. But aside from all that, you can see from the advanced stats that there's a pretty huge gap between the Kobe/Wades of the world and Ant (I wont even bother posting Jordan's numbers, but they make Kobe/Wade look bad).
I like Ant -- I do -- but let's just pump the brakes a bit on "superior Wade/Kobe" etc. Hes just not at that level, and thats not just a disrespect to Kobe/Wade but a disservice to Ant.