RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #85 (Damian Lillard)

[trex_8063]

I agree with having Lillard above George, but the comparison of their peak years interested me, especially when comparing George's team's rORTG vs Lillard's.
I think Westbrook that year was not necessarily a positive for the Thunder's offense. At the time George's narrative was one where he hard carried the Thunder's offense while Westbrook dragged it down. there a way to factor this into that comparison? Maybe show George with/without WB? If it's not too much work that is.

On the other hand 2020 Lillard suffered from a boatload of injuries to teammates so its not like he was any luckier than 2019 George. Besides his level of play was just visibly higher than George's.

Well, imo the bolded part is just what you say: a narrative. Its aim is to bolster George [and denigrating Westbrook "helps" toward that aim].

And he was an easy guy to take pot-shots at among us stat-heads: why is he shooting so bloody much while shooting more than 5% below league avg?
It's a VERY valid criticism, and in truth [or my interpretation of it, at least] his shooting so much at such poor shooting efficiency DID hurt their offense [relatively to how it might have been had he backed off by 2-3 semi-forced attempts per game].

Does that hurt enough to off-set the other things he does really WELL on offense, though [making him a legit liability]? imo, no, not that much.

What he did do well offensively [imo] was:
a) Facilitate. I think Westbrook is actually a pretty excellent play-maker (more so than he gets credit for by most). He doesn't just pound the ball and wait for other guys to "get open" and then make the opportune assist (at least not often); he makes things happen. And where guys like Chris Paul or John Stockton were relatively cautious about the high risk/high reward type of passes, Westbrook strikes me as being closer toward the Steve Nash/Magic Johnson end of the spectrum in that he's willing to pounce on those opportunities. DISCLAIMER: he does NOT do it as well as Magic or Nash [before someone does the knee-jerk "he is NOT as good a passer as Nash/Magic" thing]......that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying he's willing to gamble on those plays; it's part of why he's a bit turnover prone.
Obviously the *turnovers are a negative here; on the flip-side, the odd high leverage pass that gets thru is a positive. It's a give and take, and I can't say for sure if he'd be better served in all-around passing effectiveness if he were to [like he should in shooting] back off a little. I'm just saying that overall, he's a good play-maker.

*Ironically [given both Westbrook and George are a bit turnover-prone], TOV% is one of the offensive FF's that the Thunder were actually decent at that year [ranked 6th in the league]. That's because between Westbrook, PG13, and Schroeder, basically NO ONE else had to do anything elaborate with the ball. Schroeder was decent in terms of turnover economy, and the rest of the cast [with such limited responsibilities] collectively were really solid in terms of ball-control.


b) Getting to the rim. >36% of his considerable attempt totals came at the rim that season. He finished reasonably well [65%]; but so many coming at the rim that means he's generating more than the usual number of "Iverson assists" (that is: draw the interior help, get a missed shot up on the rim where your own big-man teammate is now standing there with no one boxing him out [because they came to meet Westbrook at the rim]).
I know this sounds like I'm trying to pat him on the back for missing shots, but that's not quite what I mean.
Just as we say not all assists are created equally.......not all missed shots are equal either. The kind that come at the rim after having drawn the interior help to you have a MUCH higher chance of being retained thru offensive rebounding.

And indeed OREB% was their single-best offensive FF, ranked 3rd in the league.
fwiw, they'd been #1 in the league in OREB% in '18.

In '20 (after Westbrook [and George] leave)? They dropped to dead-last in the league in OREB%. Both Adams and Nerlens Noel missed a little time in '20, but still played >60 games each. Steven Adams' OREB% holds fairly steady [minimal drop], but Noel's plummets from a career-best 12.1% in '19 [his one year playing alongside Westbrook; he's otherwise never managed better than 10.9%] to 9.1% in '20.


Anyway, we can also just look at the impact indicators.....
Yes, Westbrook's offensive on/off is lower than George's [and Adams's], but not by much (George is +10.6, Adams +9.7, Westbrook is +8.8). And no one else on the roster is remotely close.
And Westbrook's single-season ORAPM for that rs is +1.65 (not great, but a clear positive).

[falcolombardi]

has not westbrook perenially had better advanced stats that his reputation as a player/shooting efficiency would make us expect?

i think in like 2016-2017 at least his impact stats suggested a superstar level player

i remember comparisions that westbrook was the anti durant cause his reputation and efficiency were lower but his impact stats great while durant had the efficiency and top 2 reputation but with lower impact stats or that westbrook was a "floor raiser" and durant a "ceiling riser"

also fwiw, thunder big 2 offemses with kd/wb amd role players were elite, close on average with spurs or lebron teams

[Clyde Frazier]

Vote 1 - Carmelo Anthony
Vote 2 - Chris Bosh
Vote 3 - Billy Cunningham

The Rest: King > Tiny > DeBusschere > Terry Porter > Jerry Lucas > Gus Williams > Hornacek > Horace Grant > Dennis Johnson > Lillard > Hawkins > Jokic > Walton

Peak carmelo developed into one of the best offensive players in the league. The “iso melo” stigma really became an outdated narrative as you saw all he really needed was a decent PG rotation to keep the ball moving (a little different, but billups certainly got the best out of him in denver). He became one of the better off the ball players in 12-13, actually shooting more efficiently and on higher volume than durant in catch and shoot situations. His transition to a great 3 pt shooter also opened up his game, and he stepped into transition 3s about as well as anyone in the league.

He’s obviously known for his great post up and face up game, but not acknowledged as much for being a great offensive rebounder for his position. He had a deceptively quick second jump and soft touch around the rim for put backs. He also possessed a unique rolling spin move to the hoop i’m not sure anyone else in the league has. The one thing he was really average at is finishing at the rim, and i’d say that partially has to do with him not being able to take advantage of the way the game is called these days. He wasn’t a freak show athlete like lebron, and he doesn’t have those long strides like durant / harden where they know the angles and draw fouls as easily as they do.

I then look at someone like dominique, who was voted in at #73, and I don't think carmelo should fall too far behind. Let's look at their first 11 seasons. You can change the years, but my point remains the same.

https://stathead.com/tiny/Vr6aD

They’re very comparable in most areas, and carmelo actually comes out as the better postseason performer, something wilkins was well criticized for, but still managed to get voted in much earlier. Melo also has a clear edge in relative scoring efficiency. I noted trex's argument in past threads about nique consistently carrying offenses with not much support. It's a valid point, although a good portion of melo's prime was wasted on poor PG play, which was the key to unlocking his best performance.

I'd also point out that while melo's transition to a role player was a bit rocky, he didn't call it quits like iverson when asked to come off the bench. You could make the argument that he was scapegoated in houston (to be clear, no conspiracy theories here about him getting blackballed -- that was just dumb). There's some revisionist history there as he literally came off the bench for HOU, so he did what they asked. Then last year in portland he did exactly what you'd want from a role player in year 17: 38.5% from 3 on 3.9 attempts per game, posting a positive net rating and on/off along with being a great teammate.

[sansterre]

Curious about if archetypes playing a role.

There is Damian Lillard who has been a clear cut #1 player on his team for several seasons, it did not translate into great team success, if it did, he'd already be on the list.
Then there's the ones like Horace Grant and Jeff Hornacek, never a superstar but always a high impact player.
Then there's also hybrids such as Gus Williams, Billy Cunningham and Chris Bosh. They were borderline superstars, but they were also high impact players in a winning setup.

Do you consider one archetype over the other? Or just make direct, 1v1 comparisons between the players and then you have your list?

I think that this is a really interesting question.

For me, I ignore this, or try to. If a player with metrics that rate their career as worth X is considered as good regardless of whether they were a #1 option, a #3 option or a defensive/rebounding specialist.

From a purely objective non-narrative approach I only see one reason to consider roles, and that's if you're trying to figure out the player's value on completely random team configurations.

If you're using this approach here are some completely spitballed thoughts (because this isn't a line of reasoning I normally follow):

#1 Option: These are the easiest to project to other teams, because a #1 option can be the #1 option on most teams. There are weird exceptions, but you can see Curry/Jordan/Gervin/English/Wilkins as being the #1 on any team they're on. Which makes them easier to project. And they're generally considered less dependent on supporting cast. It's pretty rare to characterize a #1 option as benefiting from their teammates (though it happens), usually the flow happens in the other direction. There, of course, are the opposite kinds of situations where a #1 option suffers from lack of support (as we infer that Allen Iverson and Sam Jones did). The only real time I'd be cautious about a #1's value in another setting is if he's not actually a great #1. Guys like Iverson or Westbrook seem to quietly put a cap on their offenses' efficiency with their limitations. So a Jordan or whatever is awesome no matter where, but an Iverson doesn't necessarily translate his skills effectively to other teams. But I'd ballpark these as a pretty easily transferrable skillset. If you value floor-raising over ceiling-raising then these guys need a serious bump from most metrics.

Non-Scoring: This is a category for the Ben Wallaces, Horace Grants and Draymond Greens, all of whom are usually below their team's #3 option. On one hand, I'd argue that these players are the most transferrable no matter what. Ben Wallace would have been a monster rebounder/defender no matter what his team situation. So, in a way, I like these players better than most. But there are two asterisks. The first is if the player is a low-usage high-efficiency scorer (like Grant or Gobert) you could argue that his efficiency is somewhat dependent on other players drawing attention. I don't necessarily buy this a lot, but it's an argument. The second is if you value floor-raising over ceiling-raising. Guys like Wallace, Grant and Draymond are amazing ceiling-raisers, but they're not as good as floor raisers. Or rather, they are but their value doesn't increase with a worse team. Westbrook may be worth 25 wins to a garbage team and 10 wins to a great team, while Wallace may be worth 15 to both. So if you're about win-increases instead of CORP increases, you probably slant against this type.

#2 / #3 Options: These are by far the most fit dependent. A offensive second fiddle can look really good in an optimal environment (Klay Thompson) or pretty rough in the wrong environment (KG/DRob). So it's really a question of trying to figure out how their scoring would transfer to a variety of team offenses. With players like KG or DRob it's less of a question because so much of their value comes from non-scoring areas. But for others . . . let's take Jeff Hornacek. His impact metrics (and box metrics though a little less) agree that he was a big difference-maker for his teams. I maintain that if a #1 option had Hornacek's metrics he'd have been in by now. But Hornacek wasn't a #1 option, in fact he was a #3 option on most of his teams (behind KJ/Chambers or Stockton/Malone). And we know that when teams tried to use him as something like a primary ball handler his value dropped hard. But, of course, Hornacek's primary impact came from off-ball offense (and secondary passing). The question is whether or not Hornacek would still have similar impact working off-ball on teams without other strong scorers (you have to admit that KJ/Chambers and Stockton/Malone are pretty ideal #1/#2 options historically). It's hard to know. If you have a player that was misused as a #1 option then you probably ought to bump them *some*, because some teams (certainly not all) wouldn't have put them in that bad situation. And if a player was ideally suited as a #2 or #3, you probably ought to drop them some if their supporting cast would be difficult to replicate. I still like Hornacek as a weird scoring ceiling-raiser, but if I was thinking about archetypes I'd basically try and ballpark how ideally their teams fit their skills and adjust that somewhat.

Again, totally spitballing, but it was an interesting question.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #24:

Damian Lillard - 2 (Doctor MJ, penbeast0)
Nikola Jokic - 1 (Dutchball97)
Bill Walton - 1 (HeartBreakKid)
Jeff Hornacek - 1 (sansterre)
Dave DeBusschere - 1 (Cavsfansince84)
Chris Bosh - 1 (trex_8063)
Dennis Johnson - 1 (Hal14)
Carmelo Anthony - 1 (Clyde Frazier)
Billy Cunningham - 1 (Odinn21)


Again 10 votes spread over 9 candidates, making Lillard a default winner [which will need to be validated] again. Don't have all the info, but we luckily have enough......

Lillard ties Bosh 5-5 in Condorcet [which is insufficient to overturn a default victory].
He leads DeBusschere and Cunningham 5-4, with 1 unknown for each (Hal14).
He leads Melo 5-3, with 2 unknowns (Hal14, Odinn21).

^^^The best any of those three can do is tie, which again is insufficient to force a runoff.

Lillard leads Jokic and Walton by 7-3 each, and DJ and Hornacek by a commanding 8-2 margin each.

So Damian Lillard is #85.

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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