2024-25 NBA Season Discussion

[jalengreen]

Shai’s reputation will obviously be extremely damaged if they lose Game 7 and he plays poorly again. Doesn’t mean his legacy would be irreparably cooked permanently, he’d obviously have time for redemption, but until then? Yeah it’d be bad! That’s okay to acknowledge. He can’t go out playing like he did yesterday. The games matter and these moments matter.

With that said, I had OKC in 6 so IND in 7 would be unexpected to me, but certainly not the biggest surprise ever. I think people should come to terms with the fact that this team probably just isn’t quite as good as SRS told them it was.

(With that said they’re winning G7 and the ‘Shai plays badly again’ hypothetical isn’t going to happen so it’s okay)

[Texas Chuck]

So to recap, wins MVP leading a dominant regular season team, leads them to the Finals, to the 7th game, but if his team loses we all should agree his reputation is extremely damaged?

Yeah not for me. You want to kneejerk and ignore his entire season over one game, do you. But don't ask all of us to "acknowledge it" lol.

[Doctor MJ]

This desperate need to define a career on one game has always been weird to me. And you would have to be not paying attention to the series to think that would be one of the worst Finals losses of all time.

Too many of you decide games on paper and disrespect the guys actually in the arena. If the Pacers pull the upset on Sunday they will 100% be a worthy champion. And no SGA doesn't need to retire in shame nor does OKC need to hang their heads.

Co-signed.

While I don't deny the reality that whether OKC wins the title with SGA looking like MVP will effect what is said about him, I chafe at the idea that the guy who was clearly the best player in a series gets criticized relative to above of other guys who were not as good.

Like, if we're on the blacktop and choosing teams form these players right now, we're all taking SGA, right? So if we bash SGA, we bash all the players in the finals, which to me is antithetical to the knowledge that these are the two best teams in the league.

Incidentally, I think SGA will likely be the most reasonable choice for Finals MVP even if they lose in Game 7. Given how modern media works, I don't expect a guy on the losing finalist to win the award, but seriously, has there been a Pacer more impressive in the series? I don't think so.

[lessthanjake]

So to recap, wins MVP leading a dominant regular season team, leads them to the Finals, to the 7th game, but if his team loses we all should agree his reputation is extremely damaged?

Yeah not for me. You want to kneejerk and ignore his entire season over one game, do you. But don't ask all of us to "acknowledge it" lol.

I think it’s about the opportunity cost. There is no future world where SGA is just held in stasis with the achievements he currently has, sitting at 3-3 in the Finals. The Thunder will either win Game 7 or they will lose it. The difference for SGA’s legacy between winning Game 7 and losing it is massive, primarily because winning it would make him a title-winner. The fact that losing it would cap probably the biggest Finals upset ever is relevant to how it’ll be remembered, but the bigger thing is just that the difference between winning a title and losing in Game 7 is huge for a player.

[Doctor MJ]

The key for the Pacers has been TJ McConnell all along

I understand thinking this, but here are the list of Pacers with positive +/- in the series:

Haliburton
Nesmith
Bradley
Nembhard
Turner

This then to say, McConnell is a backup (7th man by minutes in the series) who in some games gives you little and thrives as the defense focuses on other players, and we shouldn't overstate him as the key player on the team.

However:

1. He's been the most spectacular player when he's on in this series.

2. The Pacers having this curveball has absolutely messed with the vaunted OKC defense.

There's a strength-in-numbers thing going with the Pacers that seems to be able to find seams in any defense. Whatever you build your defense against, they can choose an attack you're not optimized for.

Honestly, it's wonderful! I love this Pacer team even as if completely showcases what's oversimplistic about the way we (myself certainly included) fixate on which individuals deserve to be singled out.

[eminence]

Holy strawman batman.

[Ron Swanson]

I don't understand why saying it's a legacy defining game for Shai is off-base. He just had a really bad performance in a potential closeout Finals game. If he has another bad (or even mediocre) performance and loses a Game 7 in a pretty big series upset, how can you ignore that? He's a future HoF player right in his prime (turns 27 next month) and these are the kinds of opportunities that define your career. At what point does performance and actual results in the biggest moments matter to some of you?

[jalengreen]

So to recap, wins MVP leading a dominant regular season team, leads them to the Finals, to the 7th game, but if his team loses we all should agree his reputation is extremely damaged?

Yeah not for me. You want to kneejerk and ignore his entire season over one game, do you. But don't ask all of us to "acknowledge it" lol.

If his team loses [and he plays as poorly as he did in Game 6, a condition I added], then yes, his reputation will be extremely damaged.

It's okay if it's not for you, but to the vast majority of people, Game 7 of the NBA Finals matters more than anything else. It's the most important possible game in the sport. It is more likely than not that it will go down as the biggest game that these guys ever play in their life.

Between this and the "championships don't actually matter" take that I saw here the other day, I can't tell if people on here are just contrarians or that there really is just a huge disconnect between how fans treat .. you know, championships.

Nobody is saying we 'ignore his entire season'. In fact, astute observers might notice that the exact opposite is happening here. The season builds the expectations. We know how amazing of a player he is (see: his entire season, which is not being ignored), and that is why him folding at the pinnacle of the season would be a massive disappointment and worthy of the criticism.

Are we seriously going to act as if Steph Curry didn't damage his reputation and legacy by putting up 17 points on 19 shots in Game 7 of the 2016 Finals? Of course he did. Would we be ignoring his regular season for saying that? No, because his historic regular season made his choke all the more disappointing.

Championships matter, Game 7s matter, these moments matter. And it's a good thing that they matter. I simply cannot understand the desire of a sports fan to try and downplay the coolest **** thing in our sport. It's awesome BECAUSE of how much it matters.

Anyway, I'll again emphasize that I don't actually believe that he will disappoint in Game 7. This is realistically just a hypothetical that gets at the difference in how some people value the most important games.

[eminence]

I don't understand why saying it's a legacy defining game for Shai is off-base. He just had a really bad performance in a potential closeout Finals game. If he has another bad performance and loses a Game 7 in a pretty big series upset, how can you ignore that? He's a future HoF player right in his prime (turns 27 next month) and these are the kinds of opportunities that define your career. At what point does performance and actual results in the biggest moments matter to some of you?

It strikes of folks wanting to be argumentative/contrarian.

'Legacy game' doesn't and has never meant anything similar to 'I will judge this players entire career based on this game'.

This is a top two biggest game of his career to date for Shai (game 7 with Denver the other contender), and odds are with how Finals get lionized its the forward looking #1.

Good chance it ends as one of the handful of most memorable games of Shais career - good, bad or middling.

[Doctor MJ]

I don't understand why saying it's a legacy defining game for Shai is off-base. He just had a really bad performance in a potential closeout Finals game. If he has another bad (or even mediocre) performance and loses a Game 7 in a pretty big series upset, how can you ignore that? He's a future HoF player right in his prime (turns 27 next month) and these are the kinds of opportunities that define your career. At what point does performance and actual results in the biggest moments matter to some of you?

Listen, people are going to hold it against Shai if they don't win the series or if somehow JDub scores 50 and gets the Finals MVP, that's not in doubt.

But:

1. When people focus on what individual games mean for "legacy" for young players, it generally doesn't age well. I remember in 2011 that people said LeBron could never be GOAT now, but circa 2025, that's not the conversation around LeBron's career.

2. If the goal is to understand the basketball, focus on legacy is often a distraction that tends to lean troll. The GB's littered with threads talking about players getting exposed, and what these threads basically all have in common is that the OP isn't someone any of us think should quit their day job to build their own YouTube channel. If we want to understand the game, we shouldn't blow legacy out of proportion.

As I say that:

I'm absolutely guilty of legacy focus, and guilty of helping steering conversation on this board toward player rankings rather than team specifics. I don't want to get all sanctimonious bashing others as if I'm the gold standard, but I do recognize my own weaknesses and would encourage folks to look to avoid being like I've been.

[frica]

If Pacers win, what does that say about the quality of a star that's required to win a title?

[Dr Positivity]

OKC has the benefit of the most useable non rotation guys in the league, I think Daigneault's adjustments have been meh. Like where's the other JWill been, and they are terrified to play the best shooter on the team Isaiah Joe.

[Doctor MJ]

If Pacers win, what does that say about the quality of a star that's required to win a title?

I would say that what it says is that trusting all your players to make decisions on the floor leads to a more robust approach than relying on one or two if you do enough preparation to build them up.

Playoff leaderboard if most time per touch (seconds) of big minute guys in the two teams:

Shai 6.19
Dub 4.00
Hali 3.93
Nemb 3.34

And for reference:

Jokic 3.13

If Indy wins, it will make sense to grapple with the ceiling of offenses that just let one guy cook compared to those looking to keep the ball moving.

Of course, Indy wouldn’t have a prayer in this series if their defense hadn’t stepped up a lot so credit there too.


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[eminence]

Is the above for full court or half court?

[Doctor MJ]

Is the above for full court or half court?

Good point. I don't see the data for that, but if we go by front court touches per game:

Hali 37.7
Pascal 35.9
Nemb 33.3
Myles 29.6
Dub 28.8
Shai 23.6 (not on first page because it's so low)

[sp6r=underrated]

Incidentally, I think SGA will likely be the most reasonable choice for Finals MVP even if they lose in Game 7.

After 2015, I felt the NBA should have stated players on the losing team should not be considered for the award or must be considered for the award. The 2015 decision was farcical and needed addressing.

[Doctor MJ]

Incidentally, I think SGA will likely be the most reasonable choice for Finals MVP even if they lose in Game 7.

After 2015, I felt the NBA should have stated players on the losing team should not be considered for the award or must be considered for the award. The 2015 decision was farcical and needed addressing.

I mean, the official precedent was set in 1969. It’s quite clear how voters should proceed.

I do understand the idea of a reminder, but mostly this is just a bunch of non-serious basketball thinkers who happen to have the stature that gets them in the room , similar to their 75 list of historically ignorant celebrities.


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[Dr Positivity]

I think if SGA was at 35ppg it could’ve happened, but it wasn’t quite dominant enough, or separated enough from JDub.

[Doctor MJ]

I think if SGA was at 35ppg it could’ve happened, but it wasn’t quite dominant enough, or separated enough from JDub.

So, while I do think that the more statistically dominant the best player is, the more likely it is he'll get the nod even if his team loses...but the gap between SGA & JDub is huge. He has way higher PPG, TS%, better all-in-ones, better +/-, all while quite clearly being the main focus of the opposing defense at all time and being known to be tiers ahead of JDub as a player in generally.

If voters want to vote for the best player in the series, aka, do their job, they know who it should be already.

But they also knew it in 2015 when they chose a non-top 2 player (Iggy) over the obvious top 2 (LeBron & Steph), and over in the WNBA in 2024, they knew it when they chose another secondary player (Jonquel Jones) over the team's star & opponent focus (Breanna Stewart), and over easily the best player in the series and playoffs (Napheesa Collier).

Somehow over time, media members have convinced themselves it's literally their job to have a weird kind of winning bias so strong that they'll punish not just the star of the losing team, but the star of the winning team if they are inferior to the star of the winning team. There's just no way these folks would have given Jerry West the Finals MVP in 1969 the way the original voters did.

[LukaTheGOAT]

I don't understand why saying it's a legacy defining game for Shai is off-base. He just had a really bad performance in a potential closeout Finals game. If he has another bad (or even mediocre) performance and loses a Game 7 in a pretty big series upset, how can you ignore that? He's a future HoF player right in his prime (turns 27 next month) and these are the kinds of opportunities that define your career. At what point does performance and actual results in the biggest moments matter to some of you?

Listen, people are going to hold it against Shai if they don't win the series or if somehow JDub scores 50 and gets the Finals MVP, that's not in doubt.

But:

1. When people focus on what individual games mean for "legacy" for young players, it generally doesn't age well. I remember in 2011 that people said LeBron could never be GOAT now, but circa 2025, that's not the conversation around LeBron's career.

2. If the goal is to understand the basketball, focus on legacy is often a distraction that tends to lean troll. The GB's littered with threads talking about players getting exposed, and what these threads basically all have in common is that the OP isn't someone any of us think should quit their day job to build their own YouTube channel. If we want to understand the game, we shouldn't blow legacy out of proportion.

As I say that:

I'm absolutely guilty of legacy focus, and guilty of helping steering conversation on this board toward player rankings rather than team specifics. I don't want to get all sanctimonious bashing others as if I'm the gold standard, but I do recognize my own weaknesses and would encourage folks to look to avoid being like I've been.

People still very much heavily hold 2011 against Lebron in thr casual everyday conversation. The whole narrative that Lebron hate "learn how to win," as if he wasnt good enough to be the best player on a title team years before, is still often used.

Yes, players can largely change opinions of how they are viewed through future performance, but for guys who are aiming for the highest of highs, such moments do get nitpicked at.

Most recently for Steph, I hear people sayinf losing the 2016 Finals set him back, despite all the great stuff he did after.

Some say 2016 Steph would have been the best season ever if he wins the championship in 2016. Now similar persons are throwing around Shai having the beat guard season since MJ, skipping over Steph in the process.

The move after for KD brought championships, but dimmed his light without the Finals MVP and less gaudy box-score stats in the RS. He missed out on some first team All-NBAs, and I feel as if he could maybe snag a extra MVP without it.

Overall, Shai will be fine, but I wouldn't underbelly how cruel the public can be regarding results, even if there is not much that has to happen to make you lose instead of a winner.