Doctor MJ wrote:Rapcity_11 wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:
So I'm avoiding making a list right now - I'll make one after all 2nd round series are complete. I do this in part to keep from overreacting. Regardless, what that means is that on my last list Giannis was way ahead of AD, and I'm answering right now still from that perspective:
I see Giannis as a FAAAAR worse fit next to LeBron than AD. Basically Giannis is a guy who turned from "guy with potential" to MVP based on doing a LeBron impression with lower IQ but greater physical gifts (in transition at least). The concern always was how badly things would drop off if he had to move over to some other role, and right now, those concerns are proving well-founded.
AD by contrast is remarkably well-suited to playing the co-star to a LeBron-like alpha. Great off-ball feel, can get that alley oop, or score from distance, and he's an excellent defender in his own right.
So yeah, I think the Lakers are worse with Giannis than AD, and that's the case even if Giannis and the Bucks somehow come back, beat the Heat, and win the finals.
From POY perspective, if the Bucks do pull off that miracle, he's a clear cut #1 POY. But if they lose like this and the Lakers win the title with AD playing great, it will also be an easy choice to put AD over Giannis.
It will really only likely get tricky if the Lakers lose early too, in which case, while I prefer AD's fit, I don't think I'll be able to put to elevate him over Giannis given that Giannis was absolutely the MVP of the league in the regular season.
Things I'm struggling with:
1. The LeBron bump. AD gets a massive bump in team result and shots crated for him due to playing with LeBron.
2. Lakers performance with AD on and LeBron off (and the opposite).
3. We've seen AD as the batman and the results are far, far worse than Giannis.
4. The Bucks were basically a coin-toss away from likely winning a title last year.
5. AD essentially force the Lakers to build a roster with too many C's.
Understandable. Responses by point:
1. Remember how much crap got thrown at Bosh and Love when they joined LeBron's team though. LeBron doesn't actually have a track record for making other stars look like superstars, only at times making starer level guys look like all-stars. AD is proving to be in an entirely different category than the Boshs and Loves of the world. (I do understand that AD is supposed to be better than those guys, but I'm talking about the effect of playing with LeBron. Basically with LeBron & AD you have two guys with tremendous synergy, and while LeBron can lead a great team without star synergy, that doesn't mean the synergy isn't a really good thing.
Also I should be up front that ElGee has influenced me on this, both in what he's put out and in conversation. He's been blown away by what Davis has done and rebutted me quite effectively when I've mentioned my skepticism that's similar to yours. At this point I'm basically sold that Davis is an exceptionally rare off-ball big man talent.
2. On-off. That's a thing I factor and it's part of what's going to make it hard for me to put AD above LeBron. But AD still looks pretty strong by more advanced metrics here, and as you allude to in point 5, the construction of the roster actually skews +/- impact away from him. I'm not defending AD for that, just saying that I don't have much reason at all to doubt that AD is quite elite.
3. Agreed that Giannis is the better alpha primacy guy. That will always be a thing in favor of Giannis, but it's not the only factor, and if Giannis as alpha has a glaring kryptonite, it really isn't much of a deciding factor.
4. Bucks almost won title last year. Yup, and I voted for Giannis as POY last year. But I did so recognizing that there was a lot I didn't know about Giannis' kryptonite status. Watching the Miami series, it just seems like the book is out on Giannis at this point and that all the truly great coaches in the league are going to be able to make Giannis struggle.
This notion of "then the league figured him out" is a very real thing that has to be at least considered with new players arriving on the seen in any sport. In baseball it's rather notorious for a young slugger to go from the next Babe Ruth to a long-standing slump after a pitcher finds a pitch he can't hit and the rest of the league copies it. This is less a thing in basketball traditionally because young superstars have tended to slot into traditional roles based on their skills. If you're a classic 3 and your team plays you as a classic 3, opposing defense probably can't do that much to you.
But Giannis is specifically playing a role that basically didn't exist until recently, and so if teams find a counter to it that he can't adapt to, it will absolutely change everything. I'm not saying Giannis can't continue to learn and figure it out, just that it's probably more important that he does figure it out that it would be for most young stars.
5. AD not wanting to play 5. Yeah, absolutely drives me nuts and it's part of the reason why it's going to be hard for me to rate AD too hard if the team doesn't win the title. Pretty much a guarantee that if the Lakers lose to someone, we're going to say "if only they had better guard-play and shooting", and while there's plenty of blame to go around for that situation, when you're a 5 who doesn't want to play 5, you're first in line for the blame if that ends up costing the team.
Similarly I'll really never get over Melo being pushing against playing the 4 even after a year at the position saw him be an MVP contender for the first time in his career. Like, does he really not understand that the team winning 50+ games has everything to do with the fact that he's playing a different position?
There's no doubt that playing a bigger slot is tough on your body so I get an approach where you play more 4 in the RS with the intent to play the 5 in the playoffs, but only if keeping the shape of the team roughly in balance is a priority. If it ends up skewing the team into weakness, it's on you.
But if the Lakers win the chip, and AD looks like the best player all throughout the playoffs, it's going to be hard for me to be bothered about stuff like that.
Id like to add points, to what you said, i dont neccessarily think davis is better than giannis as an overall player, but i do think important context is needed
1) The lebron effect:
I dont think bosh or love would be good examples to say lebron isnt boosting AD, but i do agree with your overall conclusion. While i do think lebron does help AD in the sense that he is a good playmaker, i think to say AD is gonna have his impact boosted because lebron isnt really fair.
When it comes to a primarily off-ball scorer like AD, the main things you need are playmaking, spacing, and a good offensive system.
Sure, Lebron might be the best playmaker in the league overall, but hes still just one person. The lakers as a whole, outside of lebron, might be the worst playmaking team in the league. They dont actually have anyone other than lebron who can even run the pick and roll, sure rondo and caruso can run it but they cant do it better than the average nba reserve, not only because they arent good scoring threats, arent good shooters, and arent good at making decisions off the pick and roll in the first place (if i recall AD and rondo actually have one of the worst synergies compared to their respective talents of any duo in the league according to bball index)
The spacing of the team isnt mind boggglingly bad but it isnt great either, and vogel is a defensive coach, and his staff arent exactly world beaters outside of being big names that havent had much modern success.
Lebron will have an effect when they are on the court together, but it will make davis look worse than he actually is when lebrons not on the court and it might offset it even. You dont really need a worldbeating playmaker to make davis effective, you need a competent pick and roll ball handler, that the lakers only have one of then in their entire roster is pretty insane since most starting calibre nba guards, and even a bunch of bench guards can do it.
This ties in to point 2. The reason why the numbers look so bad with lebron off and davis on, is because offensively, you are taking a guys greatest strength and giving him a roster almost built against it. Rondo is the type of guy that passes alot but not well in terms of how he gets his assists, at least throughout the RS. Hes not gonna help AD more than any mediocre p and r playmaker would, but more importantly hes such a non threat in that situation as well that theyll just pay extra attention to AD
Caruso, even though hes the best player in nba history, can barely even run it and often just doesnt give it up, along with also not being a huge threat offensively. Hes not really a ball handler at all imo, which means inder these lineups davis will end up playing mostly in the post, facing up, and not to his strengths.
Defensively those lineups go from top 10 in the league, with AD on and rondo off, to worst in the nba.
Rondos effects on lebron lineups are incredibly interesting though, because the defense gets better in lineups with bron + rondo than bron without rondo, with a decent amount of minutues for on off samples, and its a significant jump, as in its the same as giannis's on off on D essentially
Originally i thought it was cuz maybe in those super small ball lineups they play more zone, but dwights in alot of those lineups so im not really sure (they are better when its rondo + bron no dwight but its like barely a game and a quarter, theyre even better when its mcgee for dwight but thats literally 18 minutes). Rondos decent in zone and theyre good at switching up zone and man mid possessions and catching defenses off guard, though this isnt sustainable in long runs
Im not sure if its noise or something else, but i feel thatd be something that would explain impact stats fir Davis on D being a bit wonky (and all the big men on the lakers really).
Whether this is noise or something else i dont know.
But regardless of whatever the reason for the D is, i think that davis's offensive impact is only really usable in thise lebron lineups because otherwise your just putting a player in a situation that horribly fits his talents. This would boost lebrons impact more in advanced lineup metrics because it would see davis isnt as impactful on offense without bron, and bron isnt effected as much as davis, but in reality its because of a flaw in roster construction. When davis is off rhe floor and bron is id assume they run a regular offense instead of a pick and roll offense with without a good pick and roll ball handler (which is key but not hard to find).
3) i feel the idea that giannis's kryptonite is teams building a wall against him is a bit oversimplified, because the bucks could totally do things to prevent that through their offense right? Im not an Xs and Os guy altho i want to be at some point, but they were doing more things like that when giannis was going off in game 4 at the start, if i recall, like lopez cutting to the opposite corner drawing bamd attention and giannis driving at the same time, middleton fading to the wing ss he was gonna drive, itd just be timing those thjngs but the bucks werent doing at as much, according to a film Xs and Os guy i follow at least lol. (He didnt go into specifics but i def trust him, hes been mentioned here a few times act)
4)
AD as a batman is weird because we havent seen him in a good situation. AD kind of improved alot in 2018 vs 2017
2016 and 2017 had alot of issues with the roster being injured all the time, so they couldnt build continuity, AD still growing in his different role, etc etc.
2018 rolls along and Davis in the second half of the year was completely insane.
Plus minus metrics were weird for the pelicans, because of that cousins injury. Weird in the sense that as the season rolled along, cousins and davis rpms kind of switched post injury. I dont remember the exact numbers but it should be on archive
Cousins ended the season ranked 250th in rpm, davis 12th, holiday 9th
At the time of cousins injury, davis was 15th, cousins was 4th, holiday 34th
I think some of this is probably a synergy thing, although since wowy doesnt go back there this is headcanon (in their defensive impact). Jrue and rondo lineups will fare better relative to talent compared to rondo and davis lineups because what makes the jrue and davis defense so potent is the pick and roll defense is utterly broken. However, rondo and davis pick and roll defense isnt great because rondo is a weakness to attack, whereas jrue will be primarily guarding p and r possessions with rondo so rondos negative effects wont be felt as much.
Regardless davis's overall impact in that stretch post mirotic trade on offense was fully elite. I consider 2018 davis to be the second best version of davis (2020 above) as a player, his passing wasnt as good as it is now. While his on court offensive rtg of 110.1 isnt crazy, keep in mind alot of this has to do with a loss against philly where they had an 79 offensive rtg. A 32 game stretch is enough that i would call it repeatable and consistent, but not enough where Outliers wont heavily effect it. They had one 130 offensice rtg game but other than that nothing above 125 (1 124.9 though) so the outliers dont really go both ways (and a 79 game, would be -40 vs avg, vs +20 for a 130 game)
From that game on, hes a +12 on offense, 111.9 offensive rtg on the court (28 games)
For comparisons sake lebrons 113.2, +11, hardens 116.2 +8(in 2018 for both)
Sure hes not as high as the other two but in context its still fairly impressive. The pelicans had better playmaking than the lakers overall but werent anything special, they had a good playmaker in jrue, and meh ish ones everywhere else. In fact, the rondo effect there still stands, and esp consideirng he plays so many of his minutes with AD him being a net neutral on offense in this stretch is impressive
So they had adequate playmaking, a good system, but their spacing was awful.
As a whole, the team didnt shoot too badly from three, they were about league average. When you dig into why tho its pretry damning
Etwuan moore and darius miller, post mirotic trade, were the only rotation guys who shot above 35% from three
Outside of that, no one else who shot above 35% from three played 10 minutes or more (and only 1 of then played more than 8 games, liggins who played 27) outside of that, and jrue and davis who are the people running the action (hopefully, although neither were great threats beyind the arc either) the best three point shooters were mirotic at 33.3% (although he did fill that stretch 4 role) and... rondo!
So i feel its premature to say davis cant lead an offense when an inferior one led pretty well that still wasnt built around him competently.
as for davis at center, i dont see why thats a big deal if hes ok to do it in playoffs though. Hes fine doing it RS if he has to as well
I dont really have davis above giannis yet though, i still have him slotted at 5th. His llayoff run has been crazy though, and most of his shots are from self creation this run
Davis's PI rapm numbers are always gonna be weird because, circumstances wise he hasnt actually put in two good consecutive seasons from 2015 to 2020. 2018 was only good for half of it in terms of impact because of his fit with cousins (based off how his rpm changed so drastically so fast). 2016 and 2017 he was meh. 2019 he was good on offense, but theres very much the, he literally asked to leave and didnt give a damn in general which would mean the team chemistry with him on the court is just gonna fall. Cranjis said the 2019 pelicans had the worst spacing in the league in terms of tracking data before the start of the season, right below he 2019 lakers
(Edit: extra thing, in terms of the lebron effect, in 2020 57.8% of his shots are assistsed, in 2018 it was 70.1)
I think its fair to say his offensive impact in many years of his career isnt as high as it is made out to be, but I think that speaks more about his situations rather than his limitations as the main offensive player. Purely offensivey speaking, weve yet to say davis in a team that fills all three checkmarks of a good offensive team built upon an off ball star. I think it is fair to say davis cant perform as well with teams not built around him well as other superstars can, but i think that applies for almost every star in certain ways. Lillard
on ball might be a curry level guy, making up the difference in decision making with his slashing threat, which while not more effecient is probably more "gravity pulling" that currys, and his ability to attack non mismatches a bit better more consistently. However, his team lacked a roll man that could playmake or create for himself on the short roll, which is why the lakers defensive gameplan absolutely destroyed hjm. They trapped/blitzed him and he threw it to nurkic for the missed layup. Then he got frustrated, tried to force it and got bad shots or turned it over. Curry wouldnt really have been able to do more (on ball, his off ball prowess would still be useful forsure) in terms of in pick and roll situations. Its probably why draymonds offensive impact was so high in 2016 as well, since he was that short roll guy. He was a good playmaker as a roll man but realistically there are guys you pick over him in those 4v3 rollman situations because how non threatebing he is as a scoring threat. Id honestly say his overall playmaking game outside of short rolls and transition which he is genuinly great in is incrediblt overhyped (at least in 2016) but because he synergized well with curry, because his strengths fit a role that it needed to in the offense (and i guess the others didnt or sometuing idk. I was suprised when i found out nurkic couldnt do anything on the short roll all things considered)
I probably would say giannis over davis as a player though, but i think POY and best player are different things. I think people underestimate the impact role and fit and coaching has on offensive players. Think aboutu matchups (like how the lakers should sweep this rockets team but are going 17 iq mode sometimes and might lose in 6 lmfao) matchup problems from coaching staffs that we blame coaches rather than players for can be present the entire season. 2019 bron comes to mind, even pre groin injury you out a team with no spacing with him, tried to get him to play off ball, but then had the worse offensive coordinator in the league. His impact wasnt as great as years past on offense even pre injury, and that team wasnt really as bad as people say, in terms of how good they COULD have been
. Did not know that, Still, a middling defense is a looot better than the healthy mavs, let alone the walking corpse kawhi was feasting on. That does take my opinion of jokic down from 1 to 3 though. That said, I dont raally see much reason to rate kawhi's first round, much like with kd's clippers battering, it's kinda meaningless, though his defense was impressive at times,(thugh the clippers got absolutely bulldozed at others). Giannis, and AD had more impressive first rounds for me(though maybe i'm overrating okc :shrug:) mostly due to their defense. I think giannis's injuries and game 1 and 3 drop him out though. Lebron was kinda as good as kawhi fo rme against equally weak opposition.
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