2024-25 NBA Season Discussion

[bigboi]

Shaq would have ditched this Nuggets team 3 years ago at the very minimum.

Him getting on a stacked Lakers squad had a lot to do with the Magic blundering by not trading him and letting him become a FA.

Stacked lakers team lmao. You do realize that the supporting cast for Shaq in 99-00 was worse than Jokic’s in damn near every way, right? And the years before that, even worse. Like are we serious right now? We can easily pull up the stats too

[bigboi]

What a horrific (and random) post.

LOL at "most dominant performances came against weak Eastern Conference teams in the Finals." First off, not true on many levels. The Lakers western conference competition through the time period was essentially dominant frontcourts anchored by all-time great PFs who were flanked by all-star level centers. Shaq destroyed them. And in one of those Finals, LA faced a highly-ranked defense anchored by...a DPOY in Dikembe Mutombo. Grab a clue.

Double LOL at "I'm not a Jokic is a GOAT peak guy. I actually think LeBron and Jordan clearly peaked higher" as if saying one rational, obvious, correct statement automatically gives credence to what you'll say next. "I'm not one of these fellows who believes that you should just assault all people outa nowhere, but if a guy cuts in line at Starbucks, beat him w/ a wrench."

at "bailouts by HOF guards." Literally every NBA champion, and quite frankly every contender that lost competitively, has had great players and/or performances by multiple players. Going tit-for-tat with "if this guy hadn't done this, or if this guy hadn't played well in this crucial game, or if...." is a fruitless argument on both sides. Try again.

In that Lakers 3-Peat, it was definitely the case that Shaq's best performances were in the finals. The 2001 Sixers and 2002 Nets were relatively weak finals opponents (but they had good defenses so his offensive output was impressive none the less). The 2000 Pacers were a legitimately great team though

Watching the 2001 finals reminds me of how far team defenses have come. Shaq would just park himself on the low block with no one really impeding him and then Shaq would just pummel 230 lbs Dikembe into the basket and dunk on him again and again. Sixers would have had way better success putting Ratliff on him and having Dikembe roam on the weakside. There was illegal defense back then that prohibited zones but it's still eye-opening how easily Shaq received the ball.

Compare this with how difficult it was for the Nuggets to make even a high post entry to Jokic with how he was surrounded by 3 guys even when he didn't have the ball. IMO, the way the game is officiated now has made post offense basically a fool's errand to run.

Defenses aren’t even close to as complicated as you’re making it seem. Offenses aren’t even that complicated. Celtics don’t even run plays and they completely dominated the league last year just by chucking 3s and iso ball with the 2 best players. Again this is getting extremely silly. Shaq would dominate today’s game even more based on sheer size and athleticism. Dwight Howard era wasn’t that long ago, Cousins era wasn’t that long ago, etc. Howard especially who dominated while having a terrible offensive toolset

[bigboi]

I am personally kind of at a loss for those that think Jokic isn’t as good as Shaq. I’m actually struggling in my head to make a case for Shaq on either side of the ball compared to Jokic. I think people are forgetting just how many stinkers Shaq had in the playoffs tbh, and that he had a lot of bailouts by the HOF guards he got to play with, and that his most dominant performances came against weak Eastern Conference teams in the Finals.

And I’m not a Jokic is a GOAT peak guy. I actually think LeBron and Jordan clearly peaked higher. But I don’t have Shaq at that level either (because of clear limitations on both sides of the ball).

Well my perspective is that the pro-Shaq point of view is literally only reasonable if you're judging guys by their contemporary competition - the talent, the rules, the strategy. All of those things would make Shaq way less valuable today, and those who can't acknowledge that just aren't willing to judge Shaq in this way.

And as you say, that doesn't even factor in how dependent on great guards Shaq was, or how lose-in-a-sweep prone Shaq was generally.

But when they were letting Shaq physically assault Mutombo without getting whistled, nobody was going to stop him, and if you weren't looking to stretch the floor, you were letting Shaq off the hook on defense.

Kobe during the 99-00 run averaged pretty much th same stats as Murray this year. What are we doing here? There’s literally 0 big men that could handle Shaq today. We have Zion go left every play and score, Shaq would even more dominant and today’s era. Isn’t particularly close. Plus Shaq was getting triple teamed, mauled, etc. and he still couldn’t be stopped. If Jokic and Luka can survive by being literal cones on defense then Shaq could easily survive on defense in this era as he wouldn’t be worse than either of them by any standpoint

[The-Power]

OKC really reminds me of the early-dynasty Warriors in the sense that while half court offense and spacing could be a little bit of an adventure at times and the opponent is well in the game, you just know that at some point the defensive intensity truly kicks in, the transition offense kicks in, and the team goes on a quick run to firmly take over control of the game.

This OKC team is definitely not unbeatable because their half court offense has some clear limitations but it is going to be incredibly tough to beat them four times in a series because of how seamlessly they can turn up the defense and turn around games with it (of course it helps that they do have offensive talent that will have their moments regardless, even as that talent is not as great as one might think).

[Special_Puppy]

You would never guess from the commentary that OKC had the 2nd WORST Free Throw Rate Differential (Team Free Throw Rate-Opponent Free Throw Rate) in the entire league this year. Also probably can't guess which two teams had the best Free Throw Rate Differentials this season.

Spoiler:

Denver and Milwaukee

[sp6r=underrated]

You would never guess from the commentary that OKC had the 2nd WORST Free Throw Rate Differential (Team Free Throw Rate-Opponent Free Throw Rate) in the entire league this year. Also probably can't guess which two teams had the best Free Throw Rate Differentials this season.

Spoiler:

Denver and Milwaukee

This is fair. OKC having a bad free throw disparity is evidence that they don't get a favorable whistle.

But it isn't conclusive evidence. I emphasize this all the time in game threads when there is a large free throw disparity: some teams foul more than other teams.

[jalengreen]

The Shai/OKC officiating discourse is nauseating. Reminds me of the Chiefs hysteria last season. Insane to me that this is how the average fan chooses to consume sports.


It’s especially bad in the NBA where large swaths of fans truly discuss the game as if free throws are a resource that are supposed to be equally allocated to all players and teams.

[Doctor MJ]

I am personally kind of at a loss for those that think Jokic isn’t as good as Shaq. I’m actually struggling in my head to make a case for Shaq on either side of the ball compared to Jokic. I think people are forgetting just how many stinkers Shaq had in the playoffs tbh, and that he had a lot of bailouts by the HOF guards he got to play with, and that his most dominant performances came against weak Eastern Conference teams in the Finals.

And I’m not a Jokic is a GOAT peak guy. I actually think LeBron and Jordan clearly peaked higher. But I don’t have Shaq at that level either (because of clear limitations on both sides of the ball).

Well my perspective is that the pro-Shaq point of view is literally only reasonable if you're judging guys by their contemporary competition - the talent, the rules, the strategy. All of those things would make Shaq way less valuable today, and those who can't acknowledge that just aren't willing to judge Shaq in this way.

And as you say, that doesn't even factor in how dependent on great guards Shaq was, or how lose-in-a-sweep prone Shaq was generally.

But when they were letting Shaq physically assault Mutombo without getting whistled, nobody was going to stop him, and if you weren't looking to stretch the floor, you were letting Shaq off the hook on defense.

Kobe during the 99-00 run averaged pretty much th same stats as Murray this year. What are we doing here? There’s literally 0 big men that could handle Shaq today. We have Zion go left every play and score, Shaq would even more dominant and today’s era. Isn’t particularly close. Plus Shaq was getting triple teamed, mauled, etc. and he still couldn’t be stopped. If Jokic and Luka can survive by being literal cones on defense then Shaq could easily survive on defense in this era as he wouldn’t be worse than either of them by any standpoint

Re: Kobe during '99-00 same stats as Murray. You're saying this in response to me saying Shaq was dependent on his guards, but we're talking past each other. I'm not saying Shaq was dependent on guard scoring, I'm saying he's dependent on guards getting him the ball, because he needed the ball deep in the interior, and couldn't dribble his way there. And of course this would be worse today because there aren't illegal defense constraints.

Re: 0 big men that could handle Shaq today. This is you again imagining Shaq already has the ball deep in the interior without thinking about how hard it would be for Shaq's teammates to make that happen consistently enough to generate an overall offense comparable to the best of today.

Re: We have Zion! Zion doesn't sit there in the interior waiting for a perfect pass so he can leisurely back down his man. Zion, like Giannis, is going to the interior primarily when he already has the rock, and then when the physical contact happens, the referees cut way more slack to the offensive player. You don't get that same whistle by slowly bullying guys.

Further, this conversation is happening in the wake of OKC realizing it's better to guard Jokic with Caruso than with a big, which had everything to do with the stuff that refs will let a short guy like Caruso get away with. It's clear a lot of folks here are imagining Shaq just trucking Caruso because he's stronger and thinking it's something lacking about Jokic that he couldn't, but realistically there's physically no reason why any big couldn't knock Caruso to Tulsa, and so the only reason it doesn't happen is out of fear of the refs.

To be clear: Obviously the refs can change their officiating approach and completely shift this dynamic. It's possible at any point that we'll see a big smash right through a guy like Caruso with the refs swallowing their whistle, but it was clear that Jokic's understanding from experience was that he wouldn't be allowed to get away with it. Maybe he was wrong, but we certainly don't know that.

Re: Shaq was getting triple teamed. So, this was the illegal defense era so what you're implying is that opposing teams did a hard triple team as a matter of course and allowed his teammates to play 4-on-2 the whole way, and that's just not how it was. Certainly defense would do what they can to stop passes from reaching Shaq from any side, and certainly there were times where Shaq got swarmed once he had the ball and was about to try to score, but this is not the same as "triple teaming" the guy.

Re: Shaq was mauled. To some degree he was falling victim to the same type of ref bias to let smaller players get away with more. We shouldn't forget though that Shaq didn't WANT the refs to call the fouls because he sucked at shooting free throws.

One might say that regardless of that Shaq fighting through the mauling is a feather in his cap compared to Jokic, but we should also keep in mind that it's not like Shaq was giving way more box score production than Jokic generally. To the degree Shaq wasn't stopped, Jokic isn't being stopped either. People are bashing Jokic for only scoring 20 in an elimination game, but stuff like that absolutely happened to Shaq too.

[Ice Man]

Re: 0 big men that could handle Shaq today. This is you again imagining Shaq already has the ball deep in the interior without thinking about how hard it would be for Shaq's teammates to make that happen consistently enough to generate an overall offense comparable to the best of today.

This brings us to the Hakeem/Embiid beef, where Hakeem criticized Joel for not playing enough in the post and Embiid responding that the game has changed -- what worked in the Nineties doesn't work today.

https://www.libertyballers.com/2023/1/20/23563649/joel-embiid-appears-clap-back-hard-at-recent-hakeem-olajuwon-three-point-criticism-nikola-jokic-mvp

[CKRT]

Caruso is a dog. Just insane timing and body control when he sees Naz coming to set the screen to not let Naz take him out of the play

[parsnips33]

Caruso is a dog. Just insane timing and body control when he sees Naz coming to set the screen to not let Naz take him out of the play

This sounds crazy but he's like the Kyrie of defense. Like if defense was treated like offense, he'd have such a nuts highlight tape

[Special_Puppy]

Caruso is a dog. Just insane timing and body control when he sees Naz coming to set the screen to not let Naz take him out of the play

He's a genuine unicorn. Crazy that they got him for "Giddey"

[Peregrine01]

Re: 0 big men that could handle Shaq today. This is you again imagining Shaq already has the ball deep in the interior without thinking about how hard it would be for Shaq's teammates to make that happen consistently enough to generate an overall offense comparable to the best of today.

This brings us to the Hakeem/Embiid beef, where Hakeem criticized Joel for not playing enough in the post and Embiid responding that the game has changed -- what worked in the Nineties doesn't work today.

https://www.libertyballers.com/2023/1/20/23563649/joel-embiid-appears-clap-back-hard-at-recent-hakeem-olajuwon-three-point-criticism-nikola-jokic-mvp

It's exhausting hearing retired players keep saying "you gotta play in the post and be a big man!" without realizing how the elimination of illegal defense and the wide discrepancy in physicality allowed between post play and face-up play has rendered post play completely ineffective. Every time I hear these comments I'm reminded of the fact that just because a player was great at playing the game doesn't mean that he understands it all that well.

Thinking Basketball had a great video on how the old Jazz teams used to destroy defenses by putting 3 guys on one side and allowing Stockton and Malone to play 2 on 2 while the other 3 defenders stood helplessly on the weakside. Pippen was able to break it all up because he was able to be in two different places at the same time but he was clearly toeing a line and it annoyed Sloan so much it nearly gave him an aneurysm lol.

Watch on YouTube

[Ice Man]

He's a genuine unicorn. Crazy that they got him for "Giddey"

Every other contender had a chance to offer something more than Giddey, but (understandably to me) nobody was willing to give up either a high lottery pick or established young star for a 30 year 6th man. So instead the Bulls got offers like the #13 pick in the 2024 draft, from the Kings. Yuck.

[parsnips33]

He's a genuine unicorn. Crazy that they got him for "Giddey"

Every other contender had a chance to offer something more than Giddey, but (understandably to me) nobody was willing to give up either a high lottery pick or established young star for a 30 year 6th man. So instead the Bulls got offers like the #13 pick in the 2024 draft, from the Kings. Yuck.

Pretty sure we could have got him for Kuminga

[sp6r=underrated]

Insane to me that this is how the average fan chooses to consume sports.

I agree that it is insane fans choose to consume sports through the prism of focusing on the refs. It reminds me of the response I regularly make to people who believe the NBA forces trades and fixes the draft lottery. If you really believe the refs are that incompetent or corrupt you shouldn't follow the NBA just as you shouldn't follow the NBA if you think the NBA forces teams to make trades or fixes the lottery.

With that said, sports leagues carry a lot of blame for fans excessive focus on the referees. There are several changes the NBA could make that would result in fans focusing more on the games than the referees:
________________________________________________________________________________________________

I. Technical Fouls

The NBA doesn’t want referees to eject players from games or suspend players for committing an excessive number of technical fouls. Many players excessively scream at the referees all game due to the NBA reluctance on this point. The poster boy for this Draymond Green who berates referees multiples times per game for an excessive period of time. Draymond and players like Draymond berate referees because they understand referees will mostly let them not because they lack self-control.

The NBA should adjust the technical foul rule such that referees are enabled to call technical fouls.

1. The NBA should amend the automatic ejection rule for technical fouls such that technical fouls for complaining to the referee are not counted for the automatic ejection.
2. Referees must call a technical foul anytime a player complains or make a demonstrative gesture to a referee.

This rule change would be initially unpopular. Those who think players should be ejected for complaining to the referees will dislike the change as they think the current rule is the correct one and the referees should be allowed to eject players. People who think players should be allowed to complain will hate this change for obvious reasons.

To the former I say, a penalty must be changed if it is so excessive that people in charge of enforcing it don’t want it enforced. To the latter I say, watching multi-millionaires berate referees is like watching a wealthy diner berate a waiter. It is unpleasant. It also undermines confidence in the product.

II. Television Broadcasts

All stages of NBA programming from the pre-game show to the post-game show focus too much on referees.

The excessive focus on the referees is at its worst during the game broadcast.

I loved Jeff Van Gundy as a coach and then as an announcer but he was horrible on this front and regularly turned NBA broadcasts into State of the Union addresses on the shortcomings of the NBA rulebook and the failures of NBA referees.

The pre-game show and post-game shows regularly have discussions about referees more than how much referees matter for game outcomes.
These speeches undermined fans’ confidence in the NBA and make fans more inclined to focus on referees rather than the actual game.

The NBA has limited influence on their business partners non-NBA specific programming but it has a great deal of influence on the pre-game, post-game and in-game coverage. They should use this influence and instruct announcers that focus on the referees should be extremely limited relative to coverage of the actual game, athletes and coaches.

III. Challenges

The NBA challenge system has a lot of problems and is poorly thought out. I would do away with challenges candidly if I could.

Basketball is a flow sport similar to hockey and soccer not a stop/start sport such as baseball or football. Challenges aren't a large problem in stop/start sports because game flow doesn't matter much. Fans expect a pitch or a play and then a delay for the next pitch or play. That isn't true for sports like basketball, hockey and soccer. Fans are attracted to these sports because of the continuous action which is broken up by challenges.

In addition, basketball is a low variance sport unlike many other flow sports due to several factors. A blown call doesn’t matter much when a sport has a high number of possessions because:

1. it is unlikely the blown calls will favor one team significantly over the full sample size of a game.
2. basketball games have many possessions and scoring is relatively easy. Points scored in the 1st quarter matter just as much as 4th quarter points.

Sadly the challenge system isn’t going away but it can be limited to only allowing coaches to challenge brightline rule violations such as whether a player was out of bounds or in the restricted circle. Coaches should not be allowed to challenge subjective calls such as the block/charge call. Referees on court decisions should be allowed to stand.

[sp6r=underrated]

Caruso is a dog. Just insane timing and body control when he sees Naz coming to set the screen to not let Naz take him out of the play

This sounds crazy but he's like the Kyrie of defense. Like if defense was treated like offense, he'd have such a nuts highlight tape

Manu used to have a very high impact in limited minutes. I always wanted him to play more but I understand why his minutes were limited: his body was prone to breaking down.

I'll confess I flatly don't understand why Caruso's time on the court has been so limited.

I don't think his body is prone to breaking down and I'm very unconvinced that his team wouldn't benefit from his playing more even if his per possession impact was slightly reduced. If I am wrong about the former please correct me.

[sp6r=underrated]

Further, this conversation is happening in the wake of OKC realizing it's better to guard Jokic with Caruso than with a big, which had everything to do with the stuff that refs will let a short guy like Caruso get away with.

I'm tabling the Shaq-Jokic debate and just focusing on little man guarding a big man officiating. It would be fascinating to see what happens if a big just decided to use the same amount of force on a small that they use on a big.

I'm certain the first time they did it it would result in an offensive foul on the big. I'm not certain that it would continuously result in an offensive foul if a big really committed to it due to the NBA reluctance to foul out top players, especially when everyone knows the little guy is fouling all the time.

I could be wrong on this and the fact bigs don't do it is significant evidence that the players, who know far more than I do, think I'm wrong. But I would love to see a big commit to it to see it.

Admittedly, this is because I've never accepted the legitimacy of the idea smaller players should be allowed to foul bigger players. To me that is analogous to allowing slower players to grab fast players. Tough **** if you're too slow to guard the guy you're assigned to. Your coach should bring in someone else. Same thing here, tough **** if you're too small to guard the guy you are assigned to.

I don't fault referees for this BTW. IMO anytime a tendency is pronounced among different referee crews you're primarily dealing with rulebook issues rather than a bad referee.

[eminence]

Further, this conversation is happening in the wake of OKC realizing it's better to guard Jokic with Caruso than with a big, which had everything to do with the stuff that refs will let a short guy like Caruso get away with.

I'm tabling the Shaq-Jokic debate and just focusing on little man guarding a big man officiating. It would be fascinating to see what happens if a big just decided to use the same amount of force on a small that they use on a big.

Little guy leaves in a body bag if we see Shaq on Dikembe force. Spin moves are outright dangerous for little guys in this scenario, which is part of why I wish they discouraged it by calling more fouls on the smalls.

I agree that if a big star (Jokic/Giannis/Embiid) just really took it to the smalls the league would limit calling offensive fouls to a level similar to how they call the defensive fouls (at least in the POs) and the small on big defense would probably wash out pretty quickly.

Post offense still much tougher than the past due to more help.

[Doctor MJ]

The Shai/OKC officiating discourse is nauseating. Reminds me of the Chiefs hysteria last season. Insane to me that this is how the average fan chooses to consume sports.


It’s especially bad in the NBA where large swaths of fans truly discuss the game as if free throws are a resource that are supposed to be equally allocated to all players and teams.

I think about this stuff a lot, and I think it's not just a sports thing. It's a tendency toward reducing perceived complexity of a situation to make yourself feel like you have control and understanding. By offering a putative explanation based on what you do see, you can justify continuing to ignore that which you can't make sense of, and in doing so, you can save face.

Now, this doesn't explain a focus on negatives rather than positives - that's a different phenomenon - but simply focusing on things like 3's and FT's means being able to point to stuff that's concrete and easy to visualize, so it makes sense people would focus there. From there if people are used to feeding their sad/mad/bad wolves, that's probably what they'll use the 3's/FT's for in their arguments, and yeah, I think that's sort of stuff has over time conquered the internet.