2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread

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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#981 » by freethedevil » Tue Jun 25, 2019 7:51 pm

E-Balla wrote:
MyUniBroDavis wrote:Also, how do we seperate a teams playoff failures vs a players impact when a large part of it was a coaching failure? Esp for giannis when while it was because of a weakness he had, there were adjustments that could have been made but werent made

Also not voting but I want to speak to this. Personally I think you shouldn't ignore it if a player has an exploited weakness that could easily be fixed with good coaching, so personally I think a player should take a hit for having great coaching and teammates if they cover for you often. I've said for years Curry benefits so much from Kerr's offensive system, his teammates, and being able to hide on D. As such I'd always took a bit off how I felt about his seasons.

Curry won 50 games with one shooter before he became the goat three point chucker. Curry is the least system dependent offensive star in the leagueso the assertion he is dependent on coaching here is asinine.
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#982 » by E-Balla » Wed Jun 26, 2019 12:32 am

freethedevil wrote:
E-Balla wrote:
MyUniBroDavis wrote:Also, how do we seperate a teams playoff failures vs a players impact when a large part of it was a coaching failure? Esp for giannis when while it was because of a weakness he had, there were adjustments that could have been made but werent made

Also not voting but I want to speak to this. Personally I think you shouldn't ignore it if a player has an exploited weakness that could easily be fixed with good coaching, so personally I think a player should take a hit for having great coaching and teammates if they cover for you often. I've said for years Curry benefits so much from Kerr's offensive system, his teammates, and being able to hide on D. As such I'd always took a bit off how I felt about his seasons.

Curry won 50 games with one shooter before he became the goat three point chucker. Curry is the least system dependent offensive star in the leagueso the assertion he is dependent on coaching here is asinine.

They won 50 games behind the 4th ranked defense. They only had a +0.8 offense even though they had 2 other 18+ ppg scorers outside of Steph. Why are we pretending Kerr didn't completely change how Steph was utilized skyrocketing his on/off numbers?
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#983 » by eminence » Wed Jun 26, 2019 2:14 am

I'm sure Kerr helped some, but it's not some huge spike, he was already a top 5 player entering his age 26 season.
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#984 » by freethedevil » Wed Jun 26, 2019 4:15 am

E-Balla wrote:
freethedevil wrote:
E-Balla wrote:Also not voting but I want to speak to this. Personally I think you shouldn't ignore it if a player has an exploited weakness that could easily be fixed with good coaching, so personally I think a player should take a hit for having great coaching and teammates if they cover for you often. I've said for years Curry benefits so much from Kerr's offensive system, his teammates, and being able to hide on D. As such I'd always took a bit off how I felt about his seasons.

Curry won 50 games with one shooter before he became the goat three point chucker. Curry is the least system dependent offensive star in the leagueso the assertion he is dependent on coaching here is asinine.

They won 50 games behind the 4th ranked defense. They only had a +0.8 offense even though they had 2 other 18+ ppg scorers outside of Steph. Why are we pretending Kerr didn't completely change how Steph was utilized skyrocketing his on/off numbers?

Ah yes, because kerr's system is why he's the goat 3 point shooter. And obviously without said system his playmaking and scoring would dissapear...

Except it didn't. Warriors with one consistent shooter in klay posted a o rating of 107 vs an atg defence. The warriors in the playoffs score one point more point with the hampton's 5 per 100 poss than they do with green+steph+role players. Curry is the offensive system. Penalizing curry when his skill set is vastly more versatile than the likes of durant, harden, or kawhi. What "weakness" exactly, is curry being shielded from? How did curry score as well as kd did in 2017 over double teams if he's "easier to exploit"?

Curry's "teammates cover for him", but his teammates are vastly more dependent on him then he is on them.

How does someone look at someone who
-> can shoot from anywhere
-> score comparably to the best scorers despite farmore defensive attention
-> succeeds with any collection of offensive teammates
-> score with or without the ball
-> pass at an elite level
-> supercharge average teammates' offence
and decide he should be dinged compared to his peers who
-> can't pass as well
-> can't dribble as well
-> haven't ever scored as well on their own
-> need the ball more than he does
-> don't space the floor as well
-> haven't ever contended without some of the playmaking in the league.

Curry would excel in any offensive system. I can't say the same for his peers.
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#985 » by E-Balla » Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:53 am

freethedevil wrote:
E-Balla wrote:
freethedevil wrote:Curry won 50 games with one shooter before he became the goat three point chucker. Curry is the least system dependent offensive star in the leagueso the assertion he is dependent on coaching here is asinine.

They won 50 games behind the 4th ranked defense. They only had a +0.8 offense even though they had 2 other 18+ ppg scorers outside of Steph. Why are we pretending Kerr didn't completely change how Steph was utilized skyrocketing his on/off numbers?

Ah yes, because kerr's system is why he's the goat 3 point shooter. And obviously without said system his playmaking and scoring would dissapear...

Strawman arguments aren't a good idea especially when you're the one that decided to bring up Steph's offensive performances prior to Kerr. Steph already had the 3 point record before Kerr. He still never led anything close to a +6 offense anyway.

Except it didn't. Warriors with one consistent shooter in klay posted a o rating of 107 vs an atg defence. The warriors in the playoffs score one point more point with the hampton's 5 per 100 poss than they do with green+steph+role players. Curry is the offensive system. Penalizing curry when his skill set is vastly more versatile than the likes of durant, harden, or kawhi. What "weakness" exactly, is curry being shielded from? How did curry score as well as kd did in 2017 over double teams if he's "easier to exploit"?

Curry's "teammates cover for him", but his teammates are vastly more dependent on him then he is on them.

How does someone look at someone who
-> can shoot from anywhere
-> score comparably to the best scorers despite farmore defensive attention
-> succeeds with any collection of offensive teammates
-> score with or without the ball
-> pass at an elite level
-> supercharge average teammates' offence
and decide he should be dinged compared to his peers who
-> can't pass as well
-> can't dribble as well
-> haven't ever scored as well on their own
-> need the ball more than he does
-> don't space the floor as well
-> haven't ever contended without some of the playmaking in the league.

Curry would excel in any offensive system. I can't say the same for his peers.

You're right Curry is obviously the perfect player with no weaknesses thanks for this key analysis...

I'm not getting deep into this, anyone with a half a brain could see Curry was already Curry prior to Kerr and it didn't lead to anything offensively without that system. He clearly benefitted from Kerr's coaching.
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#986 » by ardee » Wed Jun 26, 2019 12:38 pm

Can we get a voting thread? Who's in charge of that? Doc?
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#987 » by euroleague » Wed Jun 26, 2019 12:39 pm

I would vote for Giannis this year. Far superior defensively to Kawhi (whose help defense sucks, and man-defense wasn’t consistent) and superior offensively
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#988 » by euroleague » Wed Jun 26, 2019 12:40 pm

Put Giannis on the raptors and they would’ve dominated. Lowry/Green/Siakam/Giannis/Gasol... so long and switchy.
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#989 » by freethedevil » Wed Jun 26, 2019 1:33 pm

euroleague wrote:I would vote for Giannis this year. Far superior defensively to Kawhi (whose help defense sucks, and man-defense wasn’t consistent) and superior offensively

:o
I don't know about that...
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#990 » by euroleague » Wed Jun 26, 2019 1:42 pm

freethedevil wrote:
euroleague wrote:I would vote for Giannis this year. Far superior defensively to Kawhi (whose help defense sucks, and man-defense wasn’t consistent) and superior offensively

:o
I don't know about that...


GIannis was demanding double teams from Gasol/Kawhi. Kawhi is a terrible playmaker compared to Giannis.

Bledsoe
Malcolm Brogdon
Khris Middleton
Nikola Mirotic
Brook Lopez

Vs

Kyle Lowry
Danny Green
Paskal Siakam
Serge Ibaka
Marc Gasol

In a best of 7, I’d take raptors in 5. Although the Bucks did win without Gasol or FVV, I also think Raptors wouldn’t have beaten the 76ers without Gasol.
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#991 » by Joey Wheeler » Wed Jun 26, 2019 8:55 pm

Can't believe some people are still holding on the "Curry scoring over double teams" while "Durant gets wide open dunks" narrative myths for the 2017 Finals. This is not matter of opinion, it's simply demonstrably false, stats showed Durant took more contested shots than Curry... by a considerable margin.
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#992 » by Outside » Wed Jun 26, 2019 9:58 pm

Joey Wheeler wrote:Can't believe some people are still holding on the "Curry scoring over double teams" while "Durant gets wide open dunks" narrative myths for the 2017 Finals. This is not matter of opinion, it's simply demonstrably false, stats showed Durant took more contested shots than Curry... by a considerable margin.


But that's not the narrative. The actual narrative is that opposing defenses double Curry or otherwise put their primary defensive focus on Curry, thereby allowing others, including Durant to shoot open shots or against single coverage.

You see, when faced with a double team, Curry doesn't shoot over it as your version of the narrative implies. Instead, he passes out of it.

But then, that's only half of it. The other half is when Curry doesn't have the ball. When off ball, Curry demands far more attention from the defense than Durant does when he is off ball, again opening opportunities for teammates, including Durant.

It's easy to shoot down a Curry myth when you set up a false Curry myth. His actual non-box score impact, however, is not a myth.
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#993 » by Joey Wheeler » Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:21 pm

Outside wrote:
Joey Wheeler wrote:Can't believe some people are still holding on the "Curry scoring over double teams" while "Durant gets wide open dunks" narrative myths for the 2017 Finals. This is not matter of opinion, it's simply demonstrably false, stats showed Durant took more contested shots than Curry... by a considerable margin.


But that's not the narrative. The actual narrative is that opposing defenses double Curry or otherwise put their primary defensive focus on Curry, thereby allowing others, including Durant to shoot open shots or against single coverage.

You see, when faced with a double team, Curry doesn't shoot over it as your version of the narrative implies. Instead, he passes out of it.

But then, that's only half of it. The other half is when Curry doesn't have the ball. When off ball, Curry demands far more attention from the defense than Durant does when he is off ball, again opening opportunities for teammates, including Durant.

It's easy to shoot down a Curry myth when you set up a false Curry myth. His actual non-box score impact, however, is not a myth.


2017 Finals - 26,2% of Durant's shots were open or wide open; 57,3% of Curry's shots were open or wide open. But yeah, let's credit Curry 'getting him open' for Durant scoring 35 on 70% TS while the majority of his shots were contested.

Curry's non-box score impact is real, but it is exaggerated to the extreme around here by people not wanting to admit they were fooled when Curry seemed to be walking on water in the 2016 RS. The 2017 Finals were the peak of this with a narrative that just goes against every fact/stat. People just ran with a couple clips of Durant getting open dunks off defensive breakdowns and built a narrative that he's just scoring because Curry is getting him open, even though if anything the trend was the exact opposite with Durant scoring mostly on tough contested shots and Curry getting open behind the 3 point line. You could just as easily post a few clips of Curry shooting with no defender within 4 feet of him - actually more easily since that happened in 57% of his shots throughout the series - and claim he's just benefiting from the stacked team allowing him to be open.
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#994 » by Outside » Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:26 pm

Joey Wheeler wrote:
Outside wrote:
Joey Wheeler wrote:Can't believe some people are still holding on the "Curry scoring over double teams" while "Durant gets wide open dunks" narrative myths for the 2017 Finals. This is not matter of opinion, it's simply demonstrably false, stats showed Durant took more contested shots than Curry... by a considerable margin.


But that's not the narrative. The actual narrative is that opposing defenses double Curry or otherwise put their primary defensive focus on Curry, thereby allowing others, including Durant to shoot open shots or against single coverage.

You see, when faced with a double team, Curry doesn't shoot over it as your version of the narrative implies. Instead, he passes out of it.

But then, that's only half of it. The other half is when Curry doesn't have the ball. When off ball, Curry demands far more attention from the defense than Durant does when he is off ball, again opening opportunities for teammates, including Durant.

It's easy to shoot down a Curry myth when you set up a false Curry myth. His actual non-box score impact, however, is not a myth.


2017 Finals - 26,2% of Durant's shots were open or wide open; 57,3% of Curry's shots were open or wide open. But yeah, let's credit Curry 'getting him open' for Durant scoring 35 on 70% TS while the majority of his shots were contested.

Curry's non-box score impact is real, but it is exaggerated to the extreme around here by people not wanting to admit they were fooled when Curry seemed to be walking on water in the 2016 RS. The 2017 Finals were the peak of this with a narrative that just goes against every fact/stat. People just ran with a couple clips of Durant getting open dunks off defensive breakdowns and built a narrative that he's just scoring because Curry is getting him open, even though if anything the trend was the exact opposite with Durant scoring mostly on tough contested shots and Curry getting open behind the 3 point line. You could just as easily post a few clips of Curry shooting with no defender within 4 feet of him - actually more easily since that happened in 57% of his shots throughout the series - and claim he's just benefiting from the stacked team allowing him to be open.


Before I continue, where are you getting your data for the 2017 finals?
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#995 » by Joey Wheeler » Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:44 pm

Outside wrote:
Joey Wheeler wrote:
Outside wrote:
But that's not the narrative. The actual narrative is that opposing defenses double Curry or otherwise put their primary defensive focus on Curry, thereby allowing others, including Durant to shoot open shots or against single coverage.

You see, when faced with a double team, Curry doesn't shoot over it as your version of the narrative implies. Instead, he passes out of it.

But then, that's only half of it. The other half is when Curry doesn't have the ball. When off ball, Curry demands far more attention from the defense than Durant does when he is off ball, again opening opportunities for teammates, including Durant.

It's easy to shoot down a Curry myth when you set up a false Curry myth. His actual non-box score impact, however, is not a myth.


2017 Finals - 26,2% of Durant's shots were open or wide open; 57,3% of Curry's shots were open or wide open. But yeah, let's credit Curry 'getting him open' for Durant scoring 35 on 70% TS while the majority of his shots were contested.

Curry's non-box score impact is real, but it is exaggerated to the extreme around here by people not wanting to admit they were fooled when Curry seemed to be walking on water in the 2016 RS. The 2017 Finals were the peak of this with a narrative that just goes against every fact/stat. People just ran with a couple clips of Durant getting open dunks off defensive breakdowns and built a narrative that he's just scoring because Curry is getting him open, even though if anything the trend was the exact opposite with Durant scoring mostly on tough contested shots and Curry getting open behind the 3 point line. You could just as easily post a few clips of Curry shooting with no defender within 4 feet of him - actually more easily since that happened in 57% of his shots throughout the series - and claim he's just benefiting from the stacked team allowing him to be open.


Before I continue, where are you getting your data for the 2017 finals?


nba.com is the only site with this kind of data as far as I know. Direct link: https://stats.nba.com/players/shots-closest-defender/?sort=FGA_FREQUENCY&dir=1&Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Playoffs&PORound=4&CloseDefDistRange=2-4%20Feet%20-%20Tight
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#996 » by clyde21 » Wed Jun 26, 2019 10:57 pm

^ that's a bad faith argument, KD's gets 'less open shots' because he's does more ISO, while Curry is getting is shots off the dribble AND off-screens/off-ball, not because Cleveland was sending more defense at Durant (was actually the opposite).

Durant was essentially getting single covered by guys like Richard Jefferson and Jeff Green (not really surprising his TS% shot up once he joined the Warriors, huh?) the entire series because the defensive attention Steph was garnering.
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#997 » by Joey Wheeler » Thu Jun 27, 2019 4:47 am

clyde21 wrote:^ that's a bad faith argument, KD's gets 'less open shots' because he's does more ISO, while Curry is getting is shots off the dribble AND off-screens/off-ball, not because Cleveland was sending more defense at Durant (was actually the opposite).

Durant was essentially getting single covered by guys like Richard Jefferson and Jeff Green (not really surprising his TS% shot up once he joined the Warriors, huh?) the entire series because the defensive attention Steph was garnering.


Curry was being trapped as the ball handler yes, but this is not something exclusive to Curry, it's how most teams defend these days when there are non shooting threats on the court (Draymond, Igoudala...). When Durant is the one initiating the offense he also often gets trapped, though that rarely happens when both are on the court.

It wasn't just Durant's TS% that shot up, Curry also became far more efficient in the playoffs after Durant joined. Nothing surprising, the more talent a team has the easier it will be for everyone on the court to do their thing. And actually Durant's shots might be 'easy' for him but in general terms they're of a very high degree of difficulty, which makes the whole "Curry made it easy for Durant" narrative even sillier when we're seeing Durant make tough contested shots at a rate probably no one else has ever been capable of.

One thing most people don't want to admit is that trapping Curry works. I don't know why people act like this shows Curry's greatness when the traps severely hinder both his own production and the team's offense. Without Durant, the Warriors have been nothing special offensively in the playoffs during this run and it becomes too easy to take the ball out of Curry's hands and really put a wrench in their offense. They won in 2015 mostly on the back of their great defense, in 2016 their offense completely broke down down the stretch in the Finals and this year it cratered after Durant went down.

Quite a few people in this site like to pretend the Warriors historic offense is all about Curry and his 'GOAT offensive impact', but there seems to be no evidence to back it up. The only times where the Warriors were historic offensively in the PS were when Curry was playing with a guy who's a GOAT tier scorer and just overwhelmed every other team talent-wise. Aside from that, their offense is/was really no better than OKC's during the KD years there.
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#998 » by clyde21 » Thu Jun 27, 2019 5:56 am

Joey Wheeler wrote:
clyde21 wrote:^ that's a bad faith argument, KD's gets 'less open shots' because he's does more ISO, while Curry is getting is shots off the dribble AND off-screens/off-ball, not because Cleveland was sending more defense at Durant (was actually the opposite).

Durant was essentially getting single covered by guys like Richard Jefferson and Jeff Green (not really surprising his TS% shot up once he joined the Warriors, huh?) the entire series because the defensive attention Steph was garnering.


Curry was being trapped as the ball handler yes, but this is not something exclusive to Curry, it's how most teams defend these days when there are non shooting threats on the court (Draymond, Igoudala...). When Durant is the one initiating the offense he also often gets trapped, though that rarely happens when both are on the court.

It wasn't just Durant's TS% that shot up, Curry also became far more efficient in the playoffs after Durant joined. Nothing surprising, the more talent a team has the easier it will be for everyone on the court to do their thing. And actually Durant's shots might be 'easy' for him but in general terms they're of a very high degree of difficulty, which makes the whole "Curry made it easy for Durant" narrative even sillier when we're seeing Durant make tough contested shots at a rate probably no one else has ever been capable of.

One thing most people don't want to admit is that trapping Curry works. I don't know why people act like this shows Curry's greatness when the traps severely hinder both his own production and the team's offense. Without Durant, the Warriors have been nothing special offensively in the playoffs during this run and it becomes too easy to take the ball out of Curry's hands and really put a wrench in their offense. They won in 2015 mostly on the back of their great defense, in 2016 their offense completely broke down down the stretch in the Finals and this year it cratered after Durant went down.

Quite a few people in this site like to pretend the Warriors historic offense is all about Curry and his 'GOAT offensive impact', but there seems to be no evidence to back it up. The only times where the Warriors were historic offensively in the PS were when Curry was playing with a guy who's a GOAT tier scorer and just overwhelmed every other team talent-wise. Aside from that, their offense is/was really no better than OKC's during the KD years there.


no one is saying it's exclusive to Curry, but to pretend other players get the same amount of defensive attention both on and off-ball as Steph is nonsense. no one gets the attention in that capacity as much as Steph. even when Durant is initiating offense, he really rarely gets trapped when Steph is on the court, and when it's Curry with the ball, he's the one that gets trapped regardless of who's on the court with him. again, there's a reason why Durant went from having a 56 TS% in the POs with OKC all the way up to 64 TS% in the POs with GS, it's not a coincidence.

as for Curry's TS% with and without Durant, sure it went up by a % point, but the jump in efficiency pales in comparison to the jump Durant has playing with Curry. from a shooting and efficiency standpoint, it's pretty obvious Durant benefits from Steph A LOT more than the other way around.

and yea, trapping Curry 'works' I guess...to what capacity? he just dropped 30/6/6 in these finals, 28/6/7 the year before, and 27/8/9 before that. what do you mean by works? it makes him less efficient? well of course...it makes everyone less efficient. we trapped LeBron in 2016 for example all series long and shot a whopping 39% from the field. Durant, as good as he is, has NEVER received that kind of defensive attention while he's been on the Warriors. Again, dude was getting single covered by relics like R Jeff and Jeff Green in the finals...Durant is gonna eat those dudes alive in his sleep.

and I'm not sure what you mean by 'no evidence Curry is behind the Warriors' historic offense'...you can't be serious here? :-?
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#999 » by Outside » Thu Jun 27, 2019 5:01 pm

Joey Wheeler wrote:
Outside wrote:
Joey Wheeler wrote:
2017 Finals - 26,2% of Durant's shots were open or wide open; 57,3% of Curry's shots were open or wide open. But yeah, let's credit Curry 'getting him open' for Durant scoring 35 on 70% TS while the majority of his shots were contested.

Curry's non-box score impact is real, but it is exaggerated to the extreme around here by people not wanting to admit they were fooled when Curry seemed to be walking on water in the 2016 RS. The 2017 Finals were the peak of this with a narrative that just goes against every fact/stat. People just ran with a couple clips of Durant getting open dunks off defensive breakdowns and built a narrative that he's just scoring because Curry is getting him open, even though if anything the trend was the exact opposite with Durant scoring mostly on tough contested shots and Curry getting open behind the 3 point line. You could just as easily post a few clips of Curry shooting with no defender within 4 feet of him - actually more easily since that happened in 57% of his shots throughout the series - and claim he's just benefiting from the stacked team allowing him to be open.


Before I continue, where are you getting your data for the 2017 finals?


nba.com is the only site with this kind of data as far as I know. Direct link: https://stats.nba.com/players/shots-closest-defender/?sort=FGA_FREQUENCY&dir=1&Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Playoffs&PORound=4&CloseDefDistRange=2-4%20Feet%20-%20Tight


You're looking just at Curry and Durant and basing your entire argument on those two. There's several problems with that.

Here's what I said:

The actual narrative is that opposing defenses double Curry or otherwise put their primary defensive focus on Curry, thereby allowing others, including Durant to shoot open shots or against single coverage.

Doubling Curry doesn't mean Durant is wide open. The defense doesn't leave Durant, they still cover him, but with only single coverage. Durant against single coverage is a huge advantage for the Warriors.

The other guys are the ones who get left wide open, and that's borne out by the data. When you display the info for wide open shots (closest defender 6+ feet), Durant has one of the lowest Freq percentages, which makes perfect sense because Durant operates as an iso scorer much of the time -- they dump it to him, clear out, and let him work against single coverage. It's other guys who get left wide open, not Durant.

Curry has a relatively high percentage of his shots in the 4-6 or 6+ categories because a) he shoots in transition or before the defense sets up; and b) he uses screens off-ball to get open. Just because he took a higher percentage of his shots with no defender near him compared to Durant doesn't mean Curry wasn't doubled or that the Cavs weren't making him the top defensive priority. It's no secret that Curry isn't big or long, and while his quick release allows him to shoot in narrow windows, he doesn't rely on that all the time and instead does a and b that I mentioned above. With the defense rushing at him, he doesn't force shots but instead waits for a defensive breakdown to get open shots.

So there's nothing here in this data to support your original argument, that Curry shoots over double-teams and Curry's gravity gives Durant mostly open looks. The exact opposite is true -- Curry rarely shoots when doubled because he knows they can get better shots if he passes out of it, and Durant largely operates against single coverage -- but that in no way invalidates the narrative that defenses double or otherwise put extra emphasis on Curry, which allows teammates to get open shots or shots against single coverage.
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Re: 2018-19 Player of the Year Discussion Thread 

Post#1000 » by Joey Wheeler » Fri Jun 28, 2019 3:17 am

clyde21 wrote:
Joey Wheeler wrote:
clyde21 wrote:^ that's a bad faith argument, KD's gets 'less open shots' because he's does more ISO, while Curry is getting is shots off the dribble AND off-screens/off-ball, not because Cleveland was sending more defense at Durant (was actually the opposite).

Durant was essentially getting single covered by guys like Richard Jefferson and Jeff Green (not really surprising his TS% shot up once he joined the Warriors, huh?) the entire series because the defensive attention Steph was garnering.


Curry was being trapped as the ball handler yes, but this is not something exclusive to Curry, it's how most teams defend these days when there are non shooting threats on the court (Draymond, Igoudala...). When Durant is the one initiating the offense he also often gets trapped, though that rarely happens when both are on the court.

It wasn't just Durant's TS% that shot up, Curry also became far more efficient in the playoffs after Durant joined. Nothing surprising, the more talent a team has the easier it will be for everyone on the court to do their thing. And actually Durant's shots might be 'easy' for him but in general terms they're of a very high degree of difficulty, which makes the whole "Curry made it easy for Durant" narrative even sillier when we're seeing Durant make tough contested shots at a rate probably no one else has ever been capable of.

One thing most people don't want to admit is that trapping Curry works. I don't know why people act like this shows Curry's greatness when the traps severely hinder both his own production and the team's offense. Without Durant, the Warriors have been nothing special offensively in the playoffs during this run and it becomes too easy to take the ball out of Curry's hands and really put a wrench in their offense. They won in 2015 mostly on the back of their great defense, in 2016 their offense completely broke down down the stretch in the Finals and this year it cratered after Durant went down.

Quite a few people in this site like to pretend the Warriors historic offense is all about Curry and his 'GOAT offensive impact', but there seems to be no evidence to back it up. The only times where the Warriors were historic offensively in the PS were when Curry was playing with a guy who's a GOAT tier scorer and just overwhelmed every other team talent-wise. Aside from that, their offense is/was really no better than OKC's during the KD years there.


no one is saying it's exclusive to Curry, but to pretend other players get the same amount of defensive attention both on and off-ball as Steph is nonsense. no one gets the attention in that capacity as much as Steph. even when Durant is initiating offense, he really rarely gets trapped when Steph is on the court, and when it's Curry with the ball, he's the one that gets trapped regardless of who's on the court with him. again, there's a reason why Durant went from having a 56 TS% in the POs with OKC all the way up to 64 TS% in the POs with GS, it's not a coincidence.

as for Curry's TS% with and without Durant, sure it went up by a % point, but the jump in efficiency pales in comparison to the jump Durant has playing with Curry. from a shooting and efficiency standpoint, it's pretty obvious Durant benefits from Steph A LOT more than the other way around.

and yea, trapping Curry 'works' I guess...to what capacity? he just dropped 30/6/6 in these finals, 28/6/7 the year before, and 27/8/9 before that. what do you mean by works? it makes him less efficient? well of course...it makes everyone less efficient. we trapped LeBron in 2016 for example all series long and shot a whopping 39% from the field. Durant, as good as he is, has NEVER received that kind of defensive attention while he's been on the Warriors. Again, dude was getting single covered by relics like R Jeff and Jeff Green in the finals...Durant is gonna eat those dudes alive in his sleep.

and I'm not sure what you mean by 'no evidence Curry is behind the Warriors' historic offense'...you can't be serious here? :-?


Curry's TS % went up from 60% in 2015 and 2016 to 66% in 2017 in the playoffs. It was around that this year too before Durant got injured and it went down. The jump is pretty much the same or very similar anyway. And when they were in different teams, Durant had a 63% run with OKC in 2012, while Curry never went over 60.

It works as far as hurting the Warriors offense is concerned. Teams don't trap Curry to stop him from getting his stats, they do to contain the Warriors offense. And the reality is the Warriors offense has never been that special in the playoffs without Durant. I didn't say Curry isn't behind the Warriors historic offense, there's a lot of middle ground between "It's all thanks to Curry" and "Curry has no role in it at all". But the reality is the Warriors offense is only really historic when you combine both Curry and Durant and their importance to that historic offense is similar enough that it can't be attributed to one individual.

Outside wrote:
Joey Wheeler wrote:
Outside wrote:
Before I continue, where are you getting your data for the 2017 finals?


nba.com is the only site with this kind of data as far as I know. Direct link: https://stats.nba.com/players/shots-closest-defender/?sort=FGA_FREQUENCY&dir=1&Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Playoffs&PORound=4&CloseDefDistRange=2-4%20Feet%20-%20Tight


You're looking just at Curry and Durant and basing your entire argument on those two. There's several problems with that.

Here's what I said:

The actual narrative is that opposing defenses double Curry or otherwise put their primary defensive focus on Curry, thereby allowing others, including Durant to shoot open shots or against single coverage.

Doubling Curry doesn't mean Durant is wide open. The defense doesn't leave Durant, they still cover him, but with only single coverage. Durant against single coverage is a huge advantage for the Warriors.

The other guys are the ones who get left wide open, and that's borne out by the data. When you display the info for wide open shots (closest defender 6+ feet), Durant has one of the lowest Freq percentages, which makes perfect sense because Durant operates as an iso scorer much of the time -- they dump it to him, clear out, and let him work against single coverage. It's other guys who get left wide open, not Durant.

Curry has a relatively high percentage of his shots in the 4-6 or 6+ categories because a) he shoots in transition or before the defense sets up; and b) he uses screens off-ball to get open. Just because he took a higher percentage of his shots with no defender near him compared to Durant doesn't mean Curry wasn't doubled or that the Cavs weren't making him the top defensive priority. It's no secret that Curry isn't big or long, and while his quick release allows him to shoot in narrow windows, he doesn't rely on that all the time and instead does a and b that I mentioned above. With the defense rushing at him, he doesn't force shots but instead waits for a defensive breakdown to get open shots.

So there's nothing here in this data to support your original argument, that Curry shoots over double-teams and Curry's gravity gives Durant mostly open looks. The exact opposite is true -- Curry rarely shoots when doubled because he knows they can get better shots if he passes out of it, and Durant largely operates against single coverage -- but that in no way invalidates the narrative that defenses double or otherwise put extra emphasis on Curry, which allows teammates to get open shots or shots against single coverage.


I mean non-shooters like Green and Igoudala get left wide open, but why is this such a big deal? It's basically how every team in the NBA is defended these days when they have non-shooters on the floor.

To be clear, I wasn't implying those contested shot numbers meant that the defense was ignoring Curry in favor of Durant, just that the oft-repeated opposite claim on here had no grounds.

You're right that Curry's off ball movement and the threat of his long distance shot causes a lot of defensive breakdowns that generate easy shots the defense doesn't want to concede (I'm not talking about Green or Igoudala shooting 3s, the defense wants that), but this simply doesn't happen frequently enough to put Curry in the GOAT offense tier some people claim he belongs to.

One point no one has addressed yet in these discussions is that without Durant the Curry-led Warriors offenses just aren't that special in the playoffs; they've never been even close to all-time great. By trapping him, teams end up having some defensive breakdowns that, taken in isolation, make Curry look like a cheat code, but over the long haul Curry's inability to physically impose his will on the game is a detriment to the team offense.

There's a clear pattern here; if Curry is playing with the most gifted scorer in NBA history, the Warriors offense is the best ever; if he's not, then it's nowhere near that. In fact it's never been quite as good as some of the playoff offenses Durant led (along with Westbrook of course) in OKC.

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