Heej wrote:lessthanjake wrote:homecourtloss wrote:
Wrong. Portability = ability to come off curls and hit 19 ft jumpers.
It’s always funny to note how and why the most portable of things, i.e., team defense, never entered into the original discussion of portability though perhaps it was because team defense’s inherent portability was seen as a given.
Durant’s overall impact provides information about the limited ceiling even the most efficacious volume scoring can provide.
I think this is a valid point, but the reason it’s not seen the same way is that the concept of “portability” is most interesting where it isn’t just essentially completely synonymous with being good. Like, a really good defender probably adds about as much to a bad team as to a good team. It’s similarly additive either way. So that’s definitely “portable” in the sense that a good defender can get value from that on a really good team. That doesn’t seem like a very interesting fact, though, because it’s completely intuitive—it’s just saying that the thing that makes a player good also makes them “portable.” What is more interesting—and therefore discussed more—are the areas where being “portable” and being good aren’t exactly intuitively synonymous. For instance, the fact that a player doesn’t need the ball that much on offense doesn’t inherently make them good in the same way that being a good defender does. But it might make them more “portable.”
In the end, “portability” as a concept is only really useful to think about to the extent that it is identifying skill sets and player types that tend to have different levels of value depending on their team’s quality. Otherwise, it’s just a redundant concept. So I think it makes sense for the focus regarding “portability” to be more on things where the value of it might be expected to be higher or lower in different quality teams, as opposed to things that hold similar value no matter what.
Basketball is a game about mitigating weaknesses. A guy who doesn't need the ball much is presumably a guy who can't handle the rock and absorb playmaking responsibilities. We've seen teams with shooters and not enough ballhandlers absolutely get their water shut off when dialed in defenses scheme to stuff the main guy and force him to give it to the ones that can be run off the line into record scratches.
That may be “presumably” the case, but it certainly isn’t always the case. No one is talking about catch-and-shoot role players, when it comes to portability and ceiling raising. We are talking about star players. So, for instance, Steph Curry sure can handle the ball, but he’s also a gamebreaking force off the ball, and the latter is a big factor in making him “portable.”
And yes, I agree with you that teams with shooters and no ball-handlers are in trouble and not in need of an off-ball-focused player. If you notice, that’s exactly why I said just a few posts ago: “note that this is more a probabilistic exercise than anything—a player who is generally “portable” might actually step on peoples’ toes a lot on certain teams.” If your team has a bunch of good players that aren’t good ball handlers, then the most “portable” player for that particular team actually probably would be a ball-dominant player! However, the assumption behind “portability” as a concept is generally that that’s not the most likely scenario for a player to be on in an actually good team, because a good team will have good players and the most common skill set for good players will involve being effective with the ball. But, as I said, it is a probabilistic exercise, because one could hypothetically conceive of a good team where that’s not the case.
It's called pick your poison for a reason. The game in the playoffs is about being able to shore up your ancillary skills enough that you can generate plus extend advantages on the floor so that your primary skills can be used to capitalize. Think Steph needing to get good enough at his patented hook pass against blitzes and at off-ball moving so that he can finally use his gamebreaking shooting that the defense originally schemed away in the first place. If his development stopped where someone like Dame's has in terms of off-ball movement and passing out of doubles he could have become someone that can get schemed out by traps the way Dame became.
Yes, that’s all true, but at a broader level, for purposes of this discussion, that’s all just part of having the skill sets we’re talking about as “portable.” Regardless of shooting ability, Dame is not as good an off-ball player as Steph, because his off-ball movement is nowhere near as good. That makes his off-ball game a lot easier to scheme against, which makes it less effective. And with a less effective off-ball game he is likely to be less “portable” than Steph, because he needs the ball more to get his impact. Of course, we may *also* think he’s less good on the ball too, but I think that gets outside the confines of talking about “portability” and more is just about Steph being a better player. As I said, to me, “portability” is only really a useful and non-redundant concept when it comes to having skill sets that are generally going to be more valuable the better the team you’re on. And I think that that often (but not necessarily always, as I mentioned above) comes in the form of being effective off the ball. It’s not a perfect dividing line, because it’s possible to imagine a good team that actually is lacking in ball-handling and would be most improved by getting a ball-dominant player that can fill that gap, but I think that it’s usually going to be harder to form a genuinely good team where that’s the gap that needs filling.
I think you’re wanting to get into the weeds of scheming and counter-scheming, but I don’t think that is particularly important to the concept of “portability,” at least as I conceptualize it. Again, I’m talking about skill sets and player types that generally are *more valuable the better the team.* I don’t think you’re really getting at that concept. Which is fine, if you define “portability” differently than I do. After all, it’s a squishy concept. But when I talk about it, that’s what I’m thinking of.