2024-25 NBA Season Discussion

[CKRT]

So not to Game 1 overreact and pretend like OKC has the the title wrapped up, especially with how vulnerable they can be in the half court but I am half jokingly theory crafting a bit and can't find any rules about excessive shot clock violations resulting in any penalty beyond the 'turnover'. Is it viable to just go all in on not letting OKC have transition baskets by intentionally taking shot clock violations if you can't get the shot you want? Players would probably hate it but feels like you could take the transition prevention to the extreme at the cost of some chance points you might otherwise get.

[Doctor MJ]

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.

In both cases there's an assertion that these guys are injury/tiredness prone, but I frankly think this is mostly just a rationalization without any proof.

On the other hand, players who play hard per minute will tend to get tired more quickly and tend to be fairly reckless with their body, so it does make sense that their could be a niche for something like that.

Caruso obviously plays far less minutes than Manu did, and I think there's an argument to be made that he plays that much harder than Ginobili...but I also think it's important to recognize that Ginobili was the best offensive player on his team and Caruso is among the worst. If Caruso became a knock down shooter, I'd be very surprised if he didn't play more.

[sp6r=underrated]

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

Fully agree with everything you said but really want to emphasize this is central. Basketball teams have figured out how to guard the post. It isn't dead but it matters way less primarily due to improvements in defensive strategy and shooting, secondarily to rulebook changes.

[eminence]

On Caruso, something I can't tell on film (maybe in how annoyed the guy he's guarding gets?), but see when up close - in post up battles Caruso pinches/finger jabs the guy he's guarding more than any player I've ever seen. Sides/thighs/ass, it's all on the menu for Alex.

[Peregrine01]

On Caruso, something I can't tell on film (maybe in how annoyed the guy he's guarding gets?), but see when up close - in post up battles Caruso pinches/finger jabs the guy he's guarding more than any player I've ever seen. Sides/thighs/ass, it's all on the menu for Alex.

He has a rep as a good guy so it seems like the refs think he's always on the up and up.

[Fadeaway_J]

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.

I actually think it's the same issue as Manu. He's had a lot of niggling injuries that would be more frequent if he were playing starter's minutes, IMO.

[frica]

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.

This does make me wonder which bigs were the least dependent on their guards to generate an offence.
Who can do the most, with a really bad supporting cast at getting them the ball?

Maybe a garbage man like Moses?
Hakeem?
Does a young Dirk become the GOAT big?

[parsnips33]

This does make me wonder which bigs were the least dependent on their guards to generate an offence.
Who can do the most, with a really bad supporting cast at getting them the ball?

Maybe a garbage man like Moses?
Hakeem?
Does a young Dirk become the GOAT big?

Giannis has to be up there

[therealbig3]

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

Ok so let's compare them, but I really like how the current league is full of inflated offensive stats and therefore the players aren't that good, but now because these inflated offensive stats make Jokic's supporting cast look better than Shaq's, they should be taken at face value. Like, Murray putting up the same stats as 00 Kobe means something...but the fact that Jokic smashes Shaq's offensive output is because of the current league environment.

What?

Anyway, Murray isn't close to 00 Kobe, who was also a really good defender, which Murray is not. Aaron Gordon played great...and then got hurt. MPJ was hurt throughout. And then you have a bunch of meh throughout the lineup.

Shaq's 00 team had Kobe, who was still an All-Star, a really good perimeter defender on a team that had strong defensive players throughout the lineup, a 15 ppg scorer in Glen Rice, and a bunch of proven championship-level role players, most of whom won multiple titles before and/or after Shaq (Fisher, Horry, Harper, Green, and Fox).

But again, you're going to pull up PPG and say they weren't that good, and again, you're trying to compare the NBA at its absolute offensive nadir (late 90s/early 00s) to the NBA at its offensive apex, when teams have figured out how to maximize the 3pt shot and maximize the offensive efficiency and production out of everyone, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Jokic's teammates are giving him better help relative to his era than Shaq's teammates were relative to his era.

[Doctor MJ]

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.

This does make me wonder which bigs were the least dependent on their guards to generate an offence.
Who can do the most, with a really bad supporting cast at getting them the ball?

Maybe a garbage man like Moses?
Hakeem?
Does a young Dirk become the GOAT big?

Generally I'd say the key to a big being independent is their ability to function outside of the paint, but the garbage man part of things is a bit of a wrinkle. Moses got his numbers in a very independent way...but he was also never a guy who you could give the ball and let him go to work.

[therealbig3]

I think guys like Hakeem, Jokic, Giannis, KG, Duncan to an extent, Embiid, Barkley, Dirk, etc. Guys that are threats from the perimeter, could handle the ball at least a bit to the point where they can take a slower less mobile defender off the dribble and collapse a defense, with good reads and passing. Typically as far as “big men”, these would be more PF types.

[jalengreen]

7th consecutive year with an international MVP and who knows when that streak will end

[jalengreen]

^ Suppose Ant's probably the best bet to be the one to do it - good team and still very young and capable of a leap

[eminence]

A very well deserved MVP for Shai.

Wish they'd announced it earlier.

[sp6r=underrated]

7th consecutive year with an international MVP and who knows when that streak will end

The MVPs came from three different continents. Basketball is a fully an international game.

[Peregrine01]

I for one am glad that the viewing public is calling out Shai feeling the slightest bit of contact and falling to the floor in game 1. With the tenor of these playoffs being physical, let-em-play basketball rewarding those kind of plays really stuck out like a sore thumb. I thought the refs basically stopped calling that in the playoffs but here we are again.

[parsnips33]

7th consecutive year with an international MVP and who knows when that streak will end

Will also be the 7th new champion in as many seasons. Pretty cool

[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

Ok so let's compare them, but I really like how the current league is full of inflated offensive stats and therefore the players aren't that good, but now because these inflated offensive stats make Jokic's supporting cast look better than Shaq's, they should be taken at face value. Like, Murray putting up the same stats as 00 Kobe means something...but the fact that Jokic smashes Shaq's offensive output is because of the current league environment.

What?

Anyway, Murray isn't close to 00 Kobe, who was also a really good defender, which Murray is not. Aaron Gordon played great...and then got hurt. MPJ was hurt throughout. And then you have a bunch of meh throughout the lineup.

Shaq's 00 team had Kobe, who was still an All-Star, a really good perimeter defender on a team that had strong defensive players throughout the lineup, a 15 ppg scorer in Glen Rice, and a bunch of proven championship-level role players, most of whom won multiple titles before and/or after Shaq (Fisher, Horry, Harper, Green, and Fox).

But again, you're going to pull up PPG and say they weren't that good, and again, you're trying to compare the NBA at its absolute offensive nadir (late 90s/early 00s) to the NBA at its offensive apex, when teams have figured out how to maximize the 3pt shot and maximize the offensive efficiency and production out of everyone, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Jokic's teammates are giving him better help relative to his era than Shaq's teammates were relative to his era.

This is nonsense and shows you have 0 argument. Kobe was a much better defender than Murray but he quite literally put up virtually the same stats offensively. You’re the one tailoring the argument to suit your needs when you can. And like I said, even before 99-00 team, Shaq lead his team to multiple 60 win seasons. So the argument doesn’t stand at all.

Glen Rice was shooting 43% from the field. Ron Harper was the 4th option shooting under 40% only scoring 7 points. Shaq’s supporting cast wasn’t even close to Jokic’s lmao. That battle tested championship role players argument doesn’t work at all either.

And again, you didn’t even answer the question. How is Jokic who has NEVER received any defensive accolades a better defensive player than someone that was second in DPOY voting and has multiple defensive accolades? Educate us

[bigboi]

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.

That interior passing argument doesn’t work at all. If you watched Pels you’d know that Zion’s early career was primarily as a post player and even then, we aren’t that. Far removed from Howard or Cousins era. Howard moreso than Cousins who both relied on entry passes. The argument doesn’t make any sense considering literally lead his team to upper 50 to 60 win seasons multiple times no matter who the guards were.

Jokic wasn’t good this series regardless of Caruso. Like are we kidding rn? He had 3 games shooting under 40% and then a bad game 7. He was bad 4 out of the 7 games. And no Shaq doesn’t get shut down by OKC because of his sheer size and athleticism advantage, he’d be the most athletic player on the floor at all times. Jokic was flat out stopped this series, idk why people like you are acting like he had a good series when he didn’t. Shai thoroughly outplayed Jokic this series and if it were any other player, they would be getting way more slander.

[Jaivl]

This does make me wonder which bigs were the least dependent on their guards to generate an offence.
Who can do the most, with a really bad supporting cast at getting them the ball?

Maybe a garbage man like Moses?
Hakeem?
Does a young Dirk become the GOAT big?

Moses for sure. I'd also mention stars whose "sweet spot" is basically anywhere (Dirk), drivers (Giannis) or bigs with superior handles (Embiid, Garnett... Holmgren ).