2020-21 NBA Season Discussion

[Clyde Frazier]

Exactly, I had to do a double take when I first looked at it. Unreal.

True, but I'd note:

1. This has always been Paul's competitive advantage. He's not someone who makes his teammates better in their individual stats - he's not getting them amazing shots the way a Magic or Nash would - he's someone who reduces turnovers.

2. He reduces turnovers by slowing things down and micromanaging everything. This is why the putative "Lob City" in LA never materialized despite his two best teammates being young, fast, super-jumpy guys who could have destroyed opponents in transition. And this is why he's now joined a team full of young super-athletes and they're playing slow now.

I don't want to imply that Paul is anything other than an all-time great, but I think that the optimal way to play offense in both places would be to take better advantage of transition.

Good points. My main gripes with paul have always been durability, his questionable use of gamesmanship and falling out with teammates. For all the talk about how he improves each team he goes to, he didn’t leave on good terms with the clippers or rockets. Not saying that’s all on him, but you can see where relationships start to fizzle. You could make the argument that didn’t happen in OKC because he was only there for a season, or maybe he’s turned a corner on that.

You mention micromanaging everything, and that could also point to teammates not enjoying playing with him in past years. Not saying that’s the case with the suns right now. Players who’ve never made the playoffs in the NBA tend to enjoy winning lol… Lowe made the point on his most recent podcast that micromanaging could limit the suns’ ceiling in the playoffs. I really haven’t watched many suns games this season. Will have to catch a few soon.

[HeartBreakKid]

Safe to say that no one has left on good terms with the Rockets recently.

[MartinToVaught]

Safe to say that no one has left on good terms with the Rockets recently.

That's true, but it doesn't explain the same thing happening with the Clippers. Ballmer is a much better owner than Fertitta. The Clippers bent over backwards to keep CP3 happy (unlike the Rockets, who were all about saving money and catering to Harden's ego). Our reward for that was CP3 doing an ESPN documentary where he trashed the Clippers and blamed all his playoff failures on the franchise "not wanting to win enough." The players all hated each other by the end of the Lob City era. IDK, I'd say there's some truth to the idea of CP3 wearing out his welcome with his micromanagement and overall personality.

[Doctor MJ]

As far as your second point, HeartBreakKid covered most of my thoughts but I will reiterate. Just because a team is viewed as young and athletic doesn't mean they should play fast. Intuitively this might be true, but that's not what the data says when we're talking about Chris Paul. When Paul has been on the court since joining the Clippers he has been top (5-10) of the league in on court offensive rating for like 8 straight years. So the results have been amazing and yet the criticisms I read make it sound like he is holding his team back. It speaks more to a preference in style than actual results.

I understand why you see my perspective here as confusing style for impact, but I think that's the wrong way to look at it.

What you're calling "style", I'm calling "approach", and while those words could be argued to at times serve as synonyms, the former implies aesthetics where the latter implies strategy and process.

What I'm saying is that over and over again with Paul what we've seen is a tendency to slow things down and optimize through error reduction with a visible tendency not to go for the types of risky passing that some other elite point guards thrived on.

And also to be clear, I'm not assuming definitionally that this approach must be inferior to the more aggressive approach. If you want to try to argue from data that the value of Paul's conservative approach is better than what more aggressive guys did, that's an argument that deserves to be made.

But I think it also needs to be simply acknowledged that when you've got guys who can be physically devastating on the Break, you shouldn't be thinking "Paul's the perfect guy to run that Break!"

[Doctor MJ]

Oh yeah, the Clippers in 2018 also played faster than in 2017...it didn't matter. Who cares about pace.

This is on the same point I just addressed in another post so let me keep on point:

I don't "care about pace" in the sense that I think there's some function of Goodness(ORtg, Pace) and that the pace directly says something good or bad about offenses in general. All of that would be a kind of backwards-thinking where you're just starting from the results and trying to quantify it in some way.

What I'm talking about is attempting to analyze these players with "forward-thinking", in the sense of as that player goes forward from moment to moment during play, what are his tools and tendencies? How does he make decisions? What attributes can we attribute to him?

What we can say pretty clearly about Paul is that he's an error-reduction-oriented floor general. He is cautious. He is conservative. He is controlling.

None of that necessarily means he's better or worse, but it matters when trying to understand what was actually going on out there...and well, on a "Player Comparison" board it's basically inevitable we're going to want to note where his tendencies were particularly harmonious with the talent around him, as well as any disharmony.

[Doctor MJ]

By contrast, Kidd just plain wasn't anywhere near as good in the half court. A lot of that has to do with his lack of shooting ability, but it's wrong to characterize Kidd as someone who was finding amazing half court passes instantly all the time. Kidd's teams won largely with defense and transition offense, and they lost because they weren't great at actually playing traditional offense. Not saying that's fundamentally about Kidd being weak on passing in the half court, but it is what it is.
.

I think you undersell Kidd a bit offensively, but no big deal because that's not the point I was trying to make and clearly Nash is the superior offensive PG by a significant distance so not trying to argue a case for Kidd's being better. He clearly was not.

I was simply trying to address the stylistic point as I thought referencing the other sports was really interesting particularly soccer and hockey where you typically are having to make decisions very very quickly particularly as attacking players and I just think that fits Kidd much more than it does Nash. Kidd moved the ball much quicker than Nash with lots of touch passing. Nash rarely did that.

So I loved the reference to those other games and Nash's experience with them influencing his play, but that despite Kidd not having that same experience I actually think he just naturally incorporated that into his game because he clearly processed what was happening on the court as fast as anyone probably ever has and knew where everyone was going to be and was clearly a firm believer that the ball can move faster than people. Because in addition to the speedy ball movement in half court sets, he loved advancing the ball on the break via the pass more than any other PG.

The Ball brothers both have some of those characteristics too, just obviously nowhere near the level of Kidd, to-date anyway.

I think Kidd is more of a classic super-smart streetball kinda guy. Not that Kidd didn't have formal training too (he's a "best of both worlds" kinda guy), but I think serious streetball players tend to get amazing at particular types of improvisation. Some guys do it with amazing one-on-one game, but the older tradition is rapid-fire passing. Kidd's lack of confidence as a scorer likely pushed him all the more into finding chemistry with his teammates.

I think the connection with the Ball brothers makes a lot of sense here because their dad essentially forced them to approach the game absent some of the fundamentals that modern youth basketball coaching would instill. It means the brothers got/had to do more experimentation, and while it probably hurt the middle brother finding a niche with his lesser talent, it may be essential to Lonzo's (presumed eventual) success, and LaMelo looks like perhaps the most unique American player in generations.

[Texas Chuck]

Good points. My main gripes with paul have always been durability, his questionable use of gamesmanship and falling out with teammates. For all the talk about how he improves each team he goes to, he didn’t leave on good terms with the clippers or rockets. Not saying that’s all on him, but you can see where relationships start to fizzle. You could make the argument that didn’t happen in OKC because he was only there for a season, or maybe he’s turned a corner on that.

Durability definitely.

I love his gamesmanship. He knows every rule, every trick, and is shameless enough to employ them all if it means gaining a slight edge. I definitely understand how that is a turn off to many, but I appreciate it in Paul.

The teammates thing has often been used against him, but I'm not sure I'm buying that Paul is the problem. Or maybe he is the problem, but shouldn't be.

We now know enough about Jordan and Blake that siding with them and their selfishness over Paul just doesn't make sense to me. Was he a jerk to them? Almost certainly and probably frequently. But was he right and them wrong? Yeah almost certainly and probably every single time.

Was Harden just a difficult, me-centric guy and did the Rockets organization cater to him? Of course. Not sure I can find a ton of fault with Paul for saying hey we could be even better if we did X, Y, and Z and oh yeah I'm the point guard of a generation so it's okay to put James off-ball at least a bit, but hey he's got to do something besides just rest in those moments.

IDK, I get Paul is a difficult guy, but in the specific situations I'm pretty sure I'm siding with him.

[Doctor MJ]

Safe to say that no one has left on good terms with the Rockets recently.

That's true, but it doesn't explain the same thing happening with the Clippers. Ballmer is a much better owner than Fertitta. The Clippers bent over backwards to keep CP3 happy (unlike the Rockets, who were all about saving money and catering to Harden's ego). Our reward for that was CP3 doing an ESPN documentary where he trashed the Clippers and blamed all his playoff failures on the franchise "not wanting to win enough." The players all hated each other by the end of the Lob City era. IDK, I'd say there's some truth to the idea of CP3 wearing out his welcome with his micromanagement and overall personality.

Yup, and I think it's important to look at this as something other than "hating on the guy".

I'm someone who has had the good fortunate to be around a lot of super-capable people, and I make a point to analyze their strengths and weaknesses. And everybody has'em. The most astoundingly productive people still have weaknesses, and that person ya think you're so much smarter than is savvy in ways you're not.

One of the things that's so awesome about the NBA is that it gives us a chance to study the harmony/disharmony when outlier talents who grew up being catered to are forced to work together. And yeah, some guys seem to build stronger bonds with their teammates over time, while others see strain grow over time, and of course all sorts of variations and combinations along these lines. First and foremost, this is interesting!

[Texas Chuck]

Kidd's lack of confidence as a scorer

This is the fatal flaw imo. Not the lack of shooting which I don't think was that big of a problem when he was younger and much more capable in some other areas and of course became a strength down the stretch of his career.

But he definitely didn't believe in himself as a scorer and it definitely capped what he could have been. Though I think he pretty much maxed himself out in the other areas.

And while Nash was a more confident scorer, he himself has said if he could go back he would be much more aggressive looking for his own offense because he was such a good scorer and it could have opened things up more. Ironically this might be his fatal flaw as much as his disinterest/inability to defend.


I loved Kidd as a Maverick and it really helped me gain a new appreciation for all the smart little things he was constantly doing through the course of a game. I was against the trade when they made it but it didn't take long for me to realize oh Kidd is way better than Devin Harris despite the mediocre statistical numbers.

But nothing was more frustrating than him getting into the lane and turning away wide open layups to kick it our for a 3. Like just take the layup Jason. Or knowing that on a 3 on 2 or 2 on 1 that defenses always played him for the pass because he never ever took the shot.

And when he was starting over Paul and Williams on the national team, he literally went entire games without shooting which was a positive for chemistry but would have been a negative if any of the European team at the time were more competitive.

It was wild how except for the set shot 3, he was so hesitant in that area while so exceedingly decisive in all others.

[Lost92Bricks]

This is on the same point I just addressed in another post so let me keep on point:

I don't "care about pace" in the sense that I think there's some function of Goodness(ORtg, Pace) and that the pace directly says something good or bad about offenses in general. All of that would be a kind of backwards-thinking where you're just starting from the results and trying to quantify it in some way.

What I'm talking about is attempting to analyze these players with "forward-thinking", in the sense of as that player goes forward from moment to moment during play, what are his tools and tendencies? How does he make decisions? What attributes can we attribute to him?

What we can say pretty clearly about Paul is that he's an error-reduction-oriented floor general. He is cautious. He is conservative. He is controlling.

None of that necessarily means he's better or worse, but it matters when trying to understand what was actually going on out there...and well, on a "Player Comparison" board it's basically inevitable we're going to want to note where his tendencies were particularly harmonious with the talent around him, as well as any disharmony.

You're not realizing the benefit and the upside of reducing errors though. Look at how insane the Clippers were when CP3 was on the floor. I've posted it a million times.

[Doctor MJ]

Kidd's lack of confidence as a scorer

This is the fatal flaw imo. Not the lack of shooting which I don't think was that big of a problem when he was younger and much more capable in some other areas and of course became a strength down the stretch of his career.

But he definitely didn't believe in himself as a scorer and it definitely capped what he could have been. Though I think he pretty much maxed himself out in the other areas.

And while Nash was a more confident scorer, he himself has said if he could go back he would be much more aggressive looking for his own offense because he was such a good scorer and it could have opened things up more. Ironically this might be his fatal flaw as much as his disinterest/inability to defend.


I loved Kidd as a Maverick and it really helped me gain a new appreciation for all the smart little things he was constantly doing through the course of a game. I was against the trade when they made it but it didn't take long for me to realize oh Kidd is way better than Devin Harris despite the mediocre statistical numbers.

But nothing was more frustrating than him getting into the lane and turning away wide open layups to kick it our for a 3. Like just take the layup Jason. Or knowing that on a 3 on 2 or 2 on 1 that defenses always played him for the pass because he never ever took the shot.

And when he was starting over Paul and Williams on the national team, he literally went entire games without shooting which was a positive for chemistry but would have been a negative if any of the European team at the time were more competitive.

It was wild how except for the set shot 3, he was so hesitant in that area while so exceedingly decisive in all others.

I really think confidence is one of the most interesting things to be aware of and study. Something I've come to realize about myself is that I really present as a different person depending on my confidence level which is heavily influenced by context and can be shaped by events.

And I think with players, so much of it is about it is about the makes and misses and what effect that has on a player.

Where I think each player needs to strive to get is to get a realistic understanding of what types of shots they need to take so that there's no room for hesitation caused by self-judgment, but it's hard because shooting is not some type of video game-like pre-set value but rather something that you need to work at to get good. So how do you know what's worth getting good at?

I think it's telling that when it got to the point where Kidd simply needed to be an off-ball 3-point shooter, he was able to practice to the point of gaining comfort from range. Doesn't mean he could have necessarily been a great "threat from 3" while he was running the offense because that's obviously another level of defensive attention, but clearly when he knew that's what he had to do, he was able to improve on it.

[Doctor MJ]

This is on the same point I just addressed in another post so let me keep on point:

I don't "care about pace" in the sense that I think there's some function of Goodness(ORtg, Pace) and that the pace directly says something good or bad about offenses in general. All of that would be a kind of backwards-thinking where you're just starting from the results and trying to quantify it in some way.

What I'm talking about is attempting to analyze these players with "forward-thinking", in the sense of as that player goes forward from moment to moment during play, what are his tools and tendencies? How does he make decisions? What attributes can we attribute to him?

What we can say pretty clearly about Paul is that he's an error-reduction-oriented floor general. He is cautious. He is conservative. He is controlling.

None of that necessarily means he's better or worse, but it matters when trying to understand what was actually going on out there...and well, on a "Player Comparison" board it's basically inevitable we're going to want to note where his tendencies were particularly harmonious with the talent around him, as well as any disharmony.

You're not realizing the benefit and the upside of reducing errors though. Look at how insane the Clippers were when CP3 was on the floor. I've posted it a million times.

I thought it went without saying that reducing errors was a good thing.

[Lost92Bricks]

I thought it went without saying that reducing errors was a good thing.

I think another thing is you're only focusing on passing. He was just as much of a scorer as a passer. His scoring game with the isolation, screen and roll and pull up midrange jumpers is something nobody in the league was better at.

People have a tendency to compare him with Nash and Stockton because they are all pass first point guards. CP3 is a level above them when it comes to volume scoring and being aggressive in that way. He does more than them.

[Doctor MJ]

I thought it went without saying that reducing errors was a good thing.

I think another thing is you're only focusing on passing. He was just as much of a scorer as a passer. His scoring game with the isolation, screen and roll and pull up midrange jumpers is something nobody in the league was better at.

People have a tendency to compare him with Nash and Stockton because they are all pass first point guards. CP3 is a level above them when it comes to volume scoring and being aggressive in that way. He does more than them.

I'm talking about his approach to being a floor general leading the team's offensive attack.

On "aggression", let me clarify because this is something frequently confused:

Many tend to assume "aggression" here is highly correlated with how much the floor general shoots, but it really isn't.

What I'm talking about is actively putting pressure on the defense. Pace tends to correlate with this well, but even that doesn't really encompass what I mean because you can shoot the ball from anywhere, and I'm talking also about probing/cutting/penetrating the defense's shell.

And to be clear: I'm not saying this aggression is inherently a positive thing. An equilibrium must be found between aggression and risk avoidance. Different guys find a valuable equilibrium in different places with different approaches.

[Lost92Bricks]

I'm talking about his approach to being a floor general leading the team's offensive attack.

On "aggression", let me clarify because this is something frequently confused:

Many tend to assume "aggression" here is highly correlated with how much the floor general shoots, but it really isn't.

What I'm talking about is actively putting pressure on the defense. Pace tends to correlate with this well, but even that doesn't really encompass what I mean because you can shoot the ball from anywhere, and I'm talking also about probing/cutting/penetrating the defense's shell.

And to be clear: I'm not saying this aggression is inherently a positive thing. An equilibrium must be found between aggression and risk avoidance. Different guys find a valuable equilibrium in different places with different approaches.

That actually kinda sounds like Westbrook. He did shoot alot but I can't think of another player that puts more pressure on the defense than him.

The Rockets even said that was a big reason they traded CP3 for him. To change their style and play faster.

[Doctor MJ]

I'm talking about his approach to being a floor general leading the team's offensive attack.

On "aggression", let me clarify because this is something frequently confused:

Many tend to assume "aggression" here is highly correlated with how much the floor general shoots, but it really isn't.

What I'm talking about is actively putting pressure on the defense. Pace tends to correlate with this well, but even that doesn't really encompass what I mean because you can shoot the ball from anywhere, and I'm talking also about probing/cutting/penetrating the defense's shell.

And to be clear: I'm not saying this aggression is inherently a positive thing. An equilibrium must be found between aggression and risk avoidance. Different guys find a valuable equilibrium in different places with different approaches.

That actually kinda sounds like Westbrook. He did shoot alot but I can't think of another player that puts more pressure on the defense than him.

The Rockets even said that was a big reason they traded CP3 for him. To change their style and play faster.

Yup, Westbrook along with Jordan are possibly the two most aggressive players in history.

[MO12msu]

I understand why you see my perspective here as confusing style for impact, but I think that's the wrong way to look at it.

What you're calling "style", I'm calling "approach", and while those words could be argued to at times serve as synonyms, the former implies aesthetics where the latter implies strategy and process.

What I'm saying is that over and over again with Paul what we've seen is a tendency to slow things down and optimize through error reduction with a visible tendency not to go for the types of risky passing that some other elite point guards thrived on.

And also to be clear, I'm not assuming definitionally that this approach must be inferior to the more aggressive approach. If you want to try to argue from data that the value of Paul's conservative approach is better than what more aggressive guys did, that's an argument that deserves to be made.

But I think it also needs to be simply acknowledged that when you've got guys who can be physically devastating on the Break, you shouldn't be thinking "Paul's the perfect guy to run that Break!"

I think I am following what you're saying, I just don't really find this discussion about approach to be all that meaningful. Especially when my initial comment was in reply to someone implying that Paul wasn't maximizing efficiency.

I mean okay, we can say that Paul wasn't emphasizing the break(I'm paraphrasing). Now what? Now we go into what this actually means for output/results, which is what I care about. And I want to be clear here that I think my disconnect with others comes from the fact that it seems as if people wanted DJ and Blake to put up bigger numbers and hold that they didn't against Paul. My immediate reaction is "does that actually help the team win more games?" and the data seems to point to no.

[penbeast0]

Yup, Westbrook along with Jordan are possibly the two most aggressive players in history.

You think Jordan put more pressure on a defense than Harden or even prime Kobe -- players with higher usage numbers? I think he was a better player than either but not at all sure he attacked more, particularly Harden.

[Goudelock]

So I'm not saying that Ben McLemore is going to be Ray Allen or anything, but am I crazy for believing that he can stand be an asset for the Lakers even once LeBron and AD come back? Maybe play 10 MPG in the playoffs as a guy who defends and shoots 38% from the corners?

Because I imagine the Lakers playoff rotation goes something like:

PG: Schroeder
SG: KCP
SF: LeBron
PF: Davis
C: Drummond

Bench:
Caruso
Morris
Kuzma
McLemore

I'm also going to guess that Gasol will be HIGHLY situational now that Drummond is in the mix, since AD will just play the 5 whenever Drummond isn't in the game. Although now that I think about it, they'll probably trust Wes Matthews more (if they want to a backup SG instead of just having an eight-man rotation) so scratch everything I just wrote.

[Homer38]

So I'm not saying that Ben McLemore is going to be Ray Allen or anything, but am I crazy for believing that he can stand be an asset for the Lakers even once LeBron and AD come back? Maybe play 10 MPG in the playoffs as a guy who defends and shoots 38% from the corners?

Because I imagine the Lakers playoff rotation goes something like:

PG: Schroeder
SG: KCP
SF: LeBron
PF: Davis
C: Drummond

Bench:
Caruso
Morris
Kuzma
McLemore

I'm also going to guess that Gasol will be HIGHLY situational now that Drummond is in the mix, since AD will just play the 5 whenever Drummond isn't in the game. Although now that I think about it, they'll probably trust Wes Matthews more (if they want to a backup SG instead of just having an eight-man rotation) so scratch everything I just wrote.

Don't forget Harrell too!