Post#60 » by dice » Sun Jun 6, 2021 2:11 am
as for lavine, it's pretty clear to the rational mind that he's simply not an all-star caliber player. here are his player impact +/- numbers for the last 3 seasons:
+1.15 offense, -1.32 defense 2019
+1.82 offense, -1.45 defense 2020
+2.66 offense, -1.53 defense 2021
now, a single season sample is to be taken with a large grain of salt. a 2 season sample is pretty good for a guy who plays big minutes and stays healthy over 82 game seasons. which is not the case over the last 2 seasons, obviously, so we need a 3 season sample to inspire confidence. lavine's defense is pretty undeniably poor. the results are very consistent on that one. i do have a quibble with the offensive results. clearly he improved a lot more this season than he did the year before, but the results show a more steady improvement. clearly single season sample size issues. should his number for this season be larger? maybe a bit (particularly if clutch ability was factored in, which it's obviously not). but i think it's more that last season's number should have been a bit lower, putting it more in line with 2019. here are the top 25 offensively this season:
6.22 jokic
5.93 curry
5.46 lillard
4.76 doncic
4.58 young
4.49 harden
4.21 beal
4.06 kyrie
4.02 embiid
3.97 butler
3.88 lebron
3.88 zion
3.62 kawhi
3.59 giannis
3.36 tatum
3.24 durant
3.19 mitchell
3.04 KAT
2.98 mccollum
2.76 booker
2.71 derozan
2.66 george
2.66 lavine
2.57 kanter
2.54 cp3
an eminently reasonable outcome! there are inevitably a few outliers, however. i'd go with beal, tatum, mitchell and kanter as sample size beneficiaries. but even if lavine leapfrops those guys he's the #20 OFFENSIVE player in the league. wanna put him in the top 15? knock yourself out. but please, PLEASE don't pretend that that makes him a top 15 or even top 30 player overall. because that's just nonsense. defense matters. not as much as offense, obviously, but it matters. a lot
so where does lavine rank in the overall player impact +/- rankings (1500 minute minimum)? 56th. i'd bump him up a bit for aforementioned reasons, but is zach lavine a top 30 NBA player right now? it's pretty clear to me that he is not. top 10 scorer based on this season? yes. top 20 offensively based on this season? yes. but it requires willful ignorance of the importance of defense to put him in the top 30 as an all-around player. that's reality
and before the usual "but his teammates suck" crowd pipes up, this statistic controls for teammates. which is why his defense from an impact perspective continues to snort bath salts even though his team's defense has been pretty good the past 2 seasons (particularly when you consider that they've had to cover for lavine). if you claim that his offensive numbers would be better with an average offensive supporting cast, you also then have to acknowledge that his defensive numbers would be WORSE with an average defensive supporting cast. basically, you have no leg to stand on with that line of thinking
zach lavine, DESPITE his now elite scoring (which i have no reason to believe won't mostly hold up going forward) and DESPITE his impressive ability to deliver in the clutch, is merely a very good player. no amount of indignant homer wishful thinking changes that. and he's about to get maxed out, relegating the bulls to pretender status for the foreseeable future unless there's serious, inexplicable improvement in his defense/intangibles. or unless a minor miracle occurs and a genuine superstar decides to hitch his wagon to this mess. so if you're a die hard bulls fan, don't kill the messenger. instead, learn to cope with the reality
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