Prez wrote:German Athens wrote:Prez wrote:I don't think Luka's done anything to warrant him being in a separate tier entirely from SGA. Frankly to me Luka needs to get his fat ass in shape and prove he's still a top 4 player.
Oh, I think Luka’s proven a hell of a lot, and I think that should be abundantly clear.
He’s carried his team to a gold in euros and absolutely ripped a part FIBA.
He went toe to toe with the Kawhi+PG clippers, and he was probably the best player on the court as a 21 and 22 year old.
He averaged:
31/10/9 on 59.6% in 6 as a 21 year old
36/8/10 on 57.2% in 7 as a 22 year old
Both of those series were against the team with probably the best perimeter/wing defensive talent in the league.
Those are absurd.
Then as 23 year old, he made the conference finals averaging 32/10/6 on 57.7%
Then he dragged his team to the finals as a 25 year old averaging 28/10/8 on 55.6%.
He did all of that with significantly less talent around him.
I mean I don't even disagree with any of this but the point is Luka straight up isn't that player right now and hasn't been for a while. Like you referenced his age 21 and 22 Clippers series..just go back and watch the tape of him then and compare it to the way he looks athletically right now. We're talking two totally different dudes. Luka at the absolute peak of his powers, maybe, but he needs to put in the work to prove he's still that dude because I saw nothing this entire season to suggest he's a tier above SGA.
And frankly even in the playoffs last year I wasn't convinced he outplayed SGA in their H2H series even though Dallas beat OKC. And he got roasted defensively in the finals. If you want to make the case he was playing through an injury by that point, sure, but I still need to see him prove he's still on the top 2-3 BITW contender level. Because we haven't seen it in a while.
Yeah, that’s perfectly fair. The idea that Luka will decline really early might not be crazy. His body is completely different.
Also, for the record, I think Shai is a very worthwhile MVP candidate, and clearly a top 5 player. I have him at 4 in the pecking order, and I’d have him higher than that for the actual MVP. This isn’t the Rose situation.
As for best player in the world discussions I think they have to get theoretical which makes it murky. I think a lot of times people conflate impact stats with ability.
Lets take the example of our guy since we’ve watched him closest, his EPM was highest in 2019 and 2020, and yet I feel insanely confident that he’s a better player today than he was then. He was also a better player in 2021 and 2022 than his MVP years, and yet, most advanced stats would say differently. Maybe he worked harder during the regular season, and he certainly played with deeper, more talented teams, but I think that starts to illustrate the issues of relying really heavily on it when we’re talking about best player in the world. I don’t have the answers, but I can point to things that certainly don’t pass the smell test.
Edit: I do want to note that I think EPM is a very valuable tool for determining regular season MVP. If someone outworks everyone else, good for them, if their stats got boosted some by playing on a really deep team, that’s fine, they probably have the best record in the league. That stuff matches with what an MVP probably should be. I just don’t think it’s super insightful for who we actually think the best player is.
