liamliam1234 wrote:Well, again, I do not think he deserved MVP, and leading the team offensively is not exactly the same as leading the team.
It's not but D. Rose undeniably led the team. He was by far their best player on the court and with his injuries in the years following we saw exactly how much that team needed Rose to play at a high level. They were a 60+ win team with Rose in both 2011 and 2012 and a 45-50 win team without him in 2012-14 mainly because their offense went from being above average to being among the worst in the league without him.
Notice how no one lost their minds over the 2015 Hawks? Oh, wait, Millsap and Horford both received max contracts, so maybe I just value maximums more than most.
If there are sixty maximum contracts in the league, I agree Russell probably deserves one.
We're talking about the rookie max. DLo is still only the 29th highest paid player in the league and next year he'll be 34th. He's basically going to hover around the contracts of vets like Al Horford during the length of his contract.
And the market is set by what people are getting paid so when I hear max contract I'm thinking of his value relative that of similar players in his price range and by that standard he was 100% always going to get the max.
Good rebuttal, but why is superior off-ball passing an advantage over on-ball passing?
I didn't say it was? DLo is great passing both on and off ball (if anything his PNR playmaking is what he's best at and he's arguably best in the league at). I'd rank that over a player (Ja and Trae) only good passing on ball. The more ways you can make great passes the better.
My point was that other players who deserved it more were already on teams with all-stars, and selections seem to consider that as a factor.
In terms of “leading” a team to the playoffs, again, a.) good team overall, b.) eastern conference, and c.) so have other whelming players at the bottom of the eastern playoff picture. 2016 Celtics come to mind. Judging by all-star, he was perceived as, what, the fifteenth best player in a weak conference?
A) Again what's he being compared to because I can't think of any PG his age that led a bad team to the playoffs in the modern era.
B) Does that really matter much? They were the 6th seed in the East and would've been the 9th seed in the West, they were still a top 16 team in the league no matter which conference they were in. Remove the Bulls, Cavs, Suns, and Knicks and the East and West were .500 against each other. The gap between the conferences isn't that wide anymore and the NBA champion was an EC team. Of the 4 best teams last year 3 (Toronto, Milwaukee, and Philly) were in the EC.
C) The 2016 Celtics were led by Isaiah Thomas who I'd say proved he was a great player prior to the injury and who made an All Pro team in 2017. Not sure if comparing DLo at 22 to Isaiah at 25 gets the point that DLo isn't special across...
And that ignores other rapidly ascending players like Turner, Young, the unjustly robbed Siakam... But whatever, top twenty player in a weak conference is still like top fifty overall, so if that is your point, taken. Again, I (and presumably others) probably overvalue the scarcity of maximum contracts.
Well again the EC and WC aren't that different in terms of strength once you remove the obvious tanking teams and with that the best players aren't all in the WC. That's a bunk narrative people just haven't updated. IDK who won thread #25 but 11 of the top 24 players headed into the 2020 season according to the GB played in the EC last year.
And how can you say those guys are rapidly ascending but DLo isn't? He averaged 15.5/3.9/5.2 his first year in BK on 50.9 TS% with a 98 ORTG, 17.9/3.8/6.1 on 50.9 TS% with a 102 ORTG prior to New Years in the 2019 season, and 23.8/4.0/7.7 on 54.8 TS% with a 109 ORTG after New Years in 2019. That looks like rapid ascension to me.
Good counter, with the specification that I think most of those trailing players have far more room for growth than Russell. But I track your point better now. Good enough for it to be weakly deserved in isolation, and young enough for it to be worth for sheer speculative potential.
I think they have more room for growth, but they're also worse players than Russell currently and outside of Simmons they were worse prospects coming into the NBA. Lonzo and Rose are the only freshman PGs I've seen have a better season than Russell did at OSU. I think too many people that don't pay attention to prospects before they hit the NBA just judge guys off their numbers and Russell played SG at OSU so he didn't look like an amazing passer but I've been comparing him to Ginobili more than anyone else since back then and I still see that creativity when he has the ball.
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