2021-22 NBA Season Discussion

[falcolombardi]

i dont t know if "giannis is not trying as hard" or "his virtually idéntical stats are somehow much less valuable now" is my conclusión

Whoa. Okay, your phrasing right here shows a point where we strongly diverge in perspective.

I think one of the most important conclusions I've ever drawn is that there's a tendency to assume that production has a consistent proportionality to impact for a given player causes us to put the cart before the horse.

You mention in your post that if Lopez were there the defense would be better, and if he was fully himself, we certainly agree on this...but if the difference between this defensive level (110.4 DRtg with Giannis on the floor) and the '19-20 level (99.6 DRtg with Giannis on the floor) is just about Lopez, then that's attributing way more defensive value to Lopez than to Giannis.

I think that undersells the value Giannis provided to that team, to put it mildly. I think he was incredibly deserving of that DPOY he won.

the most plausible explanation is defense (where bucks are mediocre this regular season) is giannis coasting in defense? honestly is almost the opposite to me

he was asked for most of the season to play out og his position to cover for brook López absence, if anythingh it seems like he was asked to carry a bigger defensive load than usual because bucks lack of a secondary center

if tatum lost Robert Williams for most of the season and was asked to defendw out of his natural position/role and without a strong rim protector to help behind i have a hard time imagining hr would look as good as he has in defensive impact numbers

and i have almost zero doubts that giannis with brook López wouldnt have better defense numbers

So, the whole "out of his natural position" argument is an interesting one to use here.

If I take a DPOY-level center, and make him play point guard, and as a result show less signs of defensive impact, it would certainly be unfair to criticize his effort, or to impugn what he's capable of. To the extent I've done this, I should walk it back. I really don't mean to come off as all that critical of Giannis.

However, from an impact perspective, that center probably shouldn't be getting the DPOY award that year, right?

by numbers i meant the offensive end or boxscore giannis offensive boxscore is roughly the same and bucks offense is actually a fair bit better as his mvp seasons (of course with better offensive talent

so i dont see any clue that says his numbers (offensively speaking) as less impactful than in 19/20

defense is where i can agree he is making less of a impact but impact is a player ability in a specific environment and bucks environment is not so ideal for giannis defense this season

in his mvp seasons he was a free safety/roamer, the guy who could be all over the court and be a second line of defense after López

remove brook and he is the only line of defense now so he cannot take the same risks, cannot play the same way

he is a solid 5 (which is why bucks used him there in a hurry during brook injury) but a incredible 4 and the absence of López made him play the former more and the latter less

[Doctor MJ]

I'd say the biggest reason for Bucks decline is health and depth. Giannis/Middleton/Holiday numbers together are pretty good.

I'm not positive the Bucks supporting cast should be rated above the Celtics when health is considered. The Bucks have the 3rd all star name, but it seems like Celtics role players delivered more than the Bucks this year especially on the defensive end.

I typed a longer response but honestly you're just higher on raw +/- than me, my take on its issues are largely covered in my response to Colbinii. As I said the key factor to me is that Giannis +/- and single season RAPM is still very good this year and typical for a superstar season.

A decline in depth would imply that what was happening was that the team was falling apart without Giannis - like what we see in Denver with Jokic - but we don't see that. I'm not saying there isn't a loss of depth, but it's not affecting the Bucks in the way we'd typically expect depth to affect a team with an MVP level player.

Re: health. There's certainly something to that. I expect the Bucks would look a lot better if they had their best version of Brook Lopez.

Re: 3 all-star names doesn't mean a better supporting cast. That's true, on the other hand those other two stars led the team to victory in the 2nd round of the playoffs without Giannis, and there's evidence this season as well that they can lead the offense pretty dang well without Giannis.

Re: Celtics role players delivery more this year especially on defense. Can't disagree with that, but I'd again emphasize that the Celtics +/- trends don't look like a team that's winning based on depth instead of stars. This isn't a situation where like, say, the Melo Nuggets where the team seemed to do okay without him until he left...and then they looked even better. For all the performance of the other players, Tatum's numbers stand out head and shoulders above everyone else - and frankly the same as been true for years now.

For perspective, here are the raw +/- totals of the Celtics over the past 4 years all together:

Tatum +1681
Smart +983
Brown +753

This is a just plain a huge lead. I don't know if you'll find any lead like from any other team among a core that's been together the whole time.

Re: just higher than you on +/-. Yup, and I should probably let you be.

I’m on mobile now, but could you check the Jazz for me? I could see Gobert with a similar lead

Gobert +1755
Ingles +1304
O'Neale +1106
Mitchell +1105

[eminence]

All hail King Ingles

[Doctor MJ]

i dont t know if "giannis is not trying as hard" or "his virtually idéntical stats are somehow much less valuable now" is my conclusión

Whoa. Okay, your phrasing right here shows a point where we strongly diverge in perspective.

I think one of the most important conclusions I've ever drawn is that there's a tendency to assume that production has a consistent proportionality to impact for a given player causes us to put the cart before the horse.

You mention in your post that if Lopez were there the defense would be better, and if he was fully himself, we certainly agree on this...but if the difference between this defensive level (110.4 DRtg with Giannis on the floor) and the '19-20 level (99.6 DRtg with Giannis on the floor) is just about Lopez, then that's attributing way more defensive value to Lopez than to Giannis.

I think that undersells the value Giannis provided to that team, to put it mildly. I think he was incredibly deserving of that DPOY he won.

the most plausible explanation is defense (where bucks are mediocre this regular season) is giannis coasting in defense? honestly is almost the opposite to me

he was asked for most of the season to play out og his position to cover for brook López absence, if anythingh it seems like he was asked to carry a bigger defensive load than usual because bucks lack of a secondary center

if tatum lost Robert Williams for most of the season and was asked to defendw out of his natural position/role and without a strong rim protector to help behind i have a hard time imagining hr would look as good as he has in defensive impact numbers

and i have almost zero doubts that giannis with brook López wouldnt have better defense numbers

So, the whole "out of his natural position" argument is an interesting one to use here.

If I take a DPOY-level center, and make him play point guard, and as a result show less signs of defensive impact, it would certainly be unfair to criticize his effort, or to impugn what he's capable of. To the extent I've done this, I should walk it back. I really don't mean to come off as all that critical of Giannis.

However, from an impact perspective, that center probably shouldn't be getting the DPOY award that year, right?

by numbers i meant the offensive end or boxscore giannis offensive boxscore is roughly the same and bucks offense is actually a fair bit better as his mvp seasons (of course with better offensive talent

so i dont see any clue that says his numbers (offensively speaking) as less impactful than in 19/20

defense is where i can agree he is making less of a impact but impact is a player ability in a specific environment and bucks environment is not so ideal for giannis defense this season

in his mvp seasons he was a free safety/roamer, the guy who could be all over the court and be a second line of defense after López

remove brook and he is the only line of defense now so he cannot take the same risks, cannot play the same way

he is a solid 5 (which is why bucks used him there in a hurry during brook injury) but a incredible 4 and the absence of López made him play the former more and the latter less

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your combination of posts seems to have just said that value and impact are two separate things while expressing skepticism that value deviated too much from production.

From my perspective, value is based on impact not production.

[falcolombardi]

Whoa. Okay, your phrasing right here shows a point where we strongly diverge in perspective.

I think one of the most important conclusions I've ever drawn is that there's a tendency to assume that production has a consistent proportionality to impact for a given player causes us to put the cart before the horse.

You mention in your post that if Lopez were there the defense would be better, and if he was fully himself, we certainly agree on this...but if the difference between this defensive level (110.4 DRtg with Giannis on the floor) and the '19-20 level (99.6 DRtg with Giannis on the floor) is just about Lopez, then that's attributing way more defensive value to Lopez than to Giannis.

I think that undersells the value Giannis provided to that team, to put it mildly. I think he was incredibly deserving of that DPOY he won.



So, the whole "out of his natural position" argument is an interesting one to use here.

If I take a DPOY-level center, and make him play point guard, and as a result show less signs of defensive impact, it would certainly be unfair to criticize his effort, or to impugn what he's capable of. To the extent I've done this, I should walk it back. I really don't mean to come off as all that critical of Giannis.

However, from an impact perspective, that center probably shouldn't be getting the DPOY award that year, right?

by numbers i meant the offensive end or boxscore giannis offensive boxscore is roughly the same and bucks offense is actually a fair bit better as his mvp seasons (of course with better offensive talent

so i dont see any clue that says his numbers (offensively speaking) as less impactful than in 19/20

defense is where i can agree he is making less of a impact but impact is a player ability in a specific environment and bucks environment is not so ideal for giannis defense this season

in his mvp seasons he was a free safety/roamer, the guy who could be all over the court and be a second line of defense after López

remove brook and he is the only line of defense now so he cannot take the same risks, cannot play the same way

he is a solid 5 (which is why bucks used him there in a hurry during brook injury) but a incredible 4 and the absence of López made him play the former more and the latter less

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your combination of posts seems to have just said that value and impact are two separate things while expressing skepticism that value deviated too much from production.

From my perspective, value is based on impact not production.

i mean that i dont thinl giannis has less -offensive- impact than his mvp days,aka if i switched 2022 and 2020 giannis i dont thinl the 2020 bucks offense would become worse at all

i agree he has less overall impact than he did in those regular seasons

but i think the main cause is him playing out of his ideal role rather than being a much worse defender or not putting in effort, i have not felt lack of effort from giannis at all in the defensive end

value to me is the sum of all a player can offer, versátility, portability, strenghts, weaknesses, what can he offer in each possible scenario

impact is how close to 100% of that value he can have in a specific situation

[70sFan]

Giannis with a monster night in Philly, including game saving block at the end of the game. This matchup will be extremely tough for Philly in potential series, Milwaukee have all the tools to slow down Embiid/Harden duo, while Giannis should dominate them.

[Doctor MJ]

by numbers i meant the offensive end or boxscore giannis offensive boxscore is roughly the same and bucks offense is actually a fair bit better as his mvp seasons (of course with better offensive talent

so i dont see any clue that says his numbers (offensively speaking) as less impactful than in 19/20

defense is where i can agree he is making less of a impact but impact is a player ability in a specific environment and bucks environment is not so ideal for giannis defense this season

in his mvp seasons he was a free safety/roamer, the guy who could be all over the court and be a second line of defense after López

remove brook and he is the only line of defense now so he cannot take the same risks, cannot play the same way

he is a solid 5 (which is why bucks used him there in a hurry during brook injury) but a incredible 4 and the absence of López made him play the former more and the latter less

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your combination of posts seems to have just said that value and impact are two separate things while expressing skepticism that value deviated too much from production.

From my perspective, value is based on impact not production.

i mean that i dont thinl giannis has less -offensive- impact than his mvp days,aka if i switched 2022 and 2020 giannis i dont thinl the 2020 bucks offense would become worse at all

i agree he has less overall impact than he did in those regular seasons

but i think the main cause is him playing out of his ideal role rather than being a much worse defender or not putting in effort, i have not felt lack of effort from giannis at all in the defensive end

value to me is the sum of all a player can offer, versátility, portability, strenghts, weaknesses, what can he offer in each possible scenario

impact is how close to 100% of that value he can have in a specific situation

Okay, if you're main point is that you agree Giannis is having less impact, but not because he's lost capacity or refusing to do what others want him to do, I think that's quite fair.

Re: value is sum of... So, are you saying that if a guy is being less effective due to team circumstances we should still consider him just as valuable as he would be in an optimal circumstance? If so, I object to this, with the DPOY-center as point guard example still being central to my issue.

But I'll also say this:

In my example, I'm having the hypothetical coach do something unreasonable, but I doubt you see Giannis-at-center as being unreasonable given the Bucks' present circumstances. And I think it's important to recognize that when a player has to make up for other players who are missing, this is often a case where his impact increases rather than decreases.

The fact that Giannis' impact has decreased in present circumstances thus leaves us searching for explanations. Some possibilities include:

1. Giannis isn't trying as hard.
2. Giannis isn't as physically able as he used to be...possibly because his body is tired out.
3. Giannis is doing a poor enough job relative to his teammates that the team is actually less dependent on him than they were when they had more depth, and thus the coach should really consider changing Giannis' current role because it's really not working.

[Texas Chuck]

falco raising some good points. Look at KG to maybe illustrate this? He was not in an ideal defensive environment for much of his time in Minnesota. Move him to Boston with a smart coach who knew how to use him and teammates who could better hold up their end of the deal, and suddenly he was right back to being arguably the best defender in the league again even as he was exiting his prime.

I look at Giannis and can't imagine trying to formulate an argument that he's a worse player than he was 2 years ago. At either end. So looking for explanations for why the plus/minus stats are suggesting his impact is greatly reduced feels like something we should absolutely be doing.

Now, if one wants to say Giannis shouldn't be MVP because he isn't able to have the impact of previous years, I'm totally onboard with that and would reach the same position fwiw. But I'd suggest its more likely he's actually a better player and not a worse one. Bucks have definitely suffered attrition particularly on the defensive end--and it goes beyond just BroLo though obviously BroLo was a huge loss for them for most of the season. This is a guy who has been in DPOY conversations himself.

[Doctor MJ]

falco raising some good points. Look at KG to maybe illustrate this? He was not in an ideal defensive environment for much of his time in Minnesota. Move him to Boston with a smart coach who knew how to use him and teammates who could better hold up their end of the deal, and suddenly he was right back to being arguably the best defender in the league again even as he was exiting his prime.

I look at Giannis and can't imagine trying to formulate an argument that he's a worse player than he was 2 years ago. At either end. So looking for explanations for why the plus/minus stats are suggesting his impact is greatly reduced feels like something we should absolutely be doing.

Now, if one wants to say Giannis shouldn't be MVP because he isn't able to have the impact of previous years, I'm totally onboard with that and would reach the same position fwiw. But I'd suggest its more likely he's actually a better player and not a worse one. Bucks have definitely suffered attrition particularly on the defensive end--and it goes beyond just BroLo though obviously BroLo was a huge loss for them for most of the season. This is a guy who has been in DPOY conversations himself.

Good you bring up the KG example, but when you say "back to being arguably the best defender in the league again", let's note that he never won a DPOY before Boston. If we flip the timeline so that he does the Boston years first, and wins the DPOY early in his career, what you appear to be advocating for is then to give him DPOY in his hypothetically-later Minnesota years on the basis of what was known from his Boston years.

And let's note then the impossibility of applying this logic forwards for KG. There is no way to retroactively take DPOY awards away from the Ron Artests of the world, so KG's just stuck with the lesser accolades he got in Minnesota forever.

(We can of course do an RPOY type project for this, and I'm actually in the middle of doing something like this individually I'll eventually share, but even there, I haven't been going through and giving KG a slew of Retro DPOYs in those years because to me he's not having the same impact he had in Boston even though I think he was physically capable of it.)

In terms of how I handle all of this in my lists/rankings:

I try to keep my season analysis focused on the value contributed in that season, but when I do a career GOAT list, I can be somewhat more flexible. In the case of KG this really helps him on my list because to me he proved his capacities were there early in his prime and that the main things holding him back had to do with stuff that can be described as flawed context.

In the case of a guy like Nash, it's still harder for me. I'm dead convinced that Nash should have been handed an offense to own from day one and he could have been leading elite offenses years before he did, but I don't feel comfortable treating years where he's a backup as if he was carrying teams on his back.

[RCM88x]

Maybe I missed something here but I don't see the evidence/stats to suggest that Giannis is somehow less impactful than he was in his MVP years, I think the Bucks are just not as healthy this year and have sort of re-adjusted their focuses to the playoffs now that they've proven themselves.

I'm not big on rating guys candidacy for these type of stats relative to their historical selves. They should be judged relative to their peers/competitors.

To me that means Giannis is right next to Jokic at the top of this race and made a big statement yesterday. With all their supposed struggles this season they're only 1/2 a game back of 1st place (something I think could be very valuable this year to avoid BKN in rd1 who I think will be 7th). It's hard to knock teams for not living up to expectations when practically they do everything they needed to do (getting 1st in the conference).

That being said I'd vote for Jokic if the season ended today.

[Doctor MJ]

Maybe I missed something here but I don't see the evidence/stats to suggest that Giannis is somehow less impactful than he was in his MVP years, I think the Bucks are just not as healthy this year and have sort of re-adjusted their focuses to the playoffs now that they've proven themselves.

I'm not big on rating guys candidacy for these type of stats relative to their historical selves. They should be judged relative to their peers/competitors.

To me that means Giannis is right next to Jokic at the top of this race and made a big statement yesterday. With all their supposed struggles this season they're only 1/2 a game back of 1st place (something I think could be very valuable this year to avoid BKN in rd1 who I think will be 7th). It's hard to knock teams for not living up to expectations when practically they do everything they needed to do (getting 1st in the conference).

That being said I'd vote for Jokic if the season ended today.

The +/- data - which is what we talk about when we talk about "impact" generally - for him is noticeably weaker than it was in his MVP years.

Re: all they need is 1st in conference. I definitely get this perspective, and I'll say that if the Bucks end up with a high seed, it's going to be hard for me to place anyone from the East ahead of Giannis.

We shouldn't forget though that none of the team's in the East actually have an impressive record, and given what we can see from Phoenix & Memphis, there's absolutely no reason to think the NBA has changed to the point where teams hoping to get to 50 wins should be seen as "max team success".

(And yes, it's certainly been brought up the health issues of the Bucks, but I would not be talking as I am if the deeper analysis didn't still point out these issues. As I've alluded to - generally injury issues for your teammates provide an opportunity to be even more impactful/essential to your team, and this is not what we've seen from Giannis this year.)

[RCM88x]

Maybe I missed something here but I don't see the evidence/stats to suggest that Giannis is somehow less impactful than he was in his MVP years, I think the Bucks are just not as healthy this year and have sort of re-adjusted their focuses to the playoffs now that they've proven themselves.

I'm not big on rating guys candidacy for these type of stats relative to their historical selves. They should be judged relative to their peers/competitors.

To me that means Giannis is right next to Jokic at the top of this race and made a big statement yesterday. With all their supposed struggles this season they're only 1/2 a game back of 1st place (something I think could be very valuable this year to avoid BKN in rd1 who I think will be 7th). It's hard to knock teams for not living up to expectations when practically they do everything they needed to do (getting 1st in the conference).

That being said I'd vote for Jokic if the season ended today.

The +/- data - which is what we talk about when we talk about "impact" generally - for him is noticeably weaker than it was in his MVP years.

Re: all they need is 1st in conference. I definitely get this perspective, and I'll say that if the Bucks end up with a high seed, it's going to be hard for me to place anyone from the East ahead of Giannis.

We shouldn't forget though that none of the team's in the East actually have an impressive record, and given what we can see from Phoenix & Memphis, there's absolutely no reason to think the NBA has changed to the point where teams hoping to get to 50 wins should be seen as "max team success".

(And yes, it's certainly been brought up the health issues of the Bucks, but I would not be talking as I am if the deeper analysis didn't still point out these issues. As I've alluded to - generally injury issues for your teammates provide an opportunity to be even more impactful/essential to your team, and this is not what we've seen from Giannis this year.)

To me all of his "impact" seems to have been lost on the defensive end relative to those two seasons. He's still really good though for someone with his offensive load (and playing out of position this year which I think has sort of been mentioned already).

Maybe one would have to dive into film more to understand why the Bucks have been weaker on this end the last two years but I have a pretty strong feeling it's because in 19 and 20 they sort of put Giannis into the Gobert situation and just funneled everything at him (and also BroLo to a lesser extent). Which allowed him to have this GOAT level two way impact and for him to stand out in the +/-... because when he wasn't on the court suddenly their defensive scheme wasn't effective and/or they had to play differently. Turned out adjusting that last year (a la Jrue Holiday) actually helped them in the results column (I'd argue that there were many more factors involved in why they broke through specifically last year rather than 19 or 20), but the fact still exists that it worked. Heck, their defense in the playoffs last year with Giannis on the court was insanely good. Not quite 2020 RS levels but you can't expect it to be by any fair expectations, playing much better teams in an even more hyper charged offensive league.

Maybe its a bit of confirmation bias but I actually think what they've done the last two seasons is far more sustainable and repeatable from a team perspective, that is not relying on Giannis to completely cover their defense while also being the primary offensive engine. We know that style of defense just doesn't work in the playoffs as proven their performance along with other teams like UTA who have tried similar schemes.

I still think he's fully capable of playing this sort of heliocentric defensive anchor extremely effectively, we've seen it for spirts this season and at the end of games (where they have been much better at than in years past with Bud). But it just doesn't make sense for him to do that for long stretches anymore now that they have tools to play in other ways.

Now after all that, does this mean he's suddenly not as worthy of MVP because he's no longer schemed to carry both ends of the court for his team? Personally I don't think that's the right question. The question should be is he more valuable (aka impactful) than anyone else overall this year.

EDIT: Added a few more things to this like 10 minutes after posting

[Doctor MJ]

Maybe I missed something here but I don't see the evidence/stats to suggest that Giannis is somehow less impactful than he was in his MVP years, I think the Bucks are just not as healthy this year and have sort of re-adjusted their focuses to the playoffs now that they've proven themselves.

I'm not big on rating guys candidacy for these type of stats relative to their historical selves. They should be judged relative to their peers/competitors.

To me that means Giannis is right next to Jokic at the top of this race and made a big statement yesterday. With all their supposed struggles this season they're only 1/2 a game back of 1st place (something I think could be very valuable this year to avoid BKN in rd1 who I think will be 7th). It's hard to knock teams for not living up to expectations when practically they do everything they needed to do (getting 1st in the conference).

That being said I'd vote for Jokic if the season ended today.

The +/- data - which is what we talk about when we talk about "impact" generally - for him is noticeably weaker than it was in his MVP years.

Re: all they need is 1st in conference. I definitely get this perspective, and I'll say that if the Bucks end up with a high seed, it's going to be hard for me to place anyone from the East ahead of Giannis.

We shouldn't forget though that none of the team's in the East actually have an impressive record, and given what we can see from Phoenix & Memphis, there's absolutely no reason to think the NBA has changed to the point where teams hoping to get to 50 wins should be seen as "max team success".

(And yes, it's certainly been brought up the health issues of the Bucks, but I would not be talking as I am if the deeper analysis didn't still point out these issues. As I've alluded to - generally injury issues for your teammates provide an opportunity to be even more impactful/essential to your team, and this is not what we've seen from Giannis this year.)

To me all of his "impact" seems to have been lost on the defensive end relative to those two seasons. He's still really good though for someone with his offensive load (and playing out of position this year which I think has sort of been mentioned already).

Maybe one would have to dive into film more to understand why the Bucks have been weaker on this end the last two years but I have a pretty strong feeling it's because in 19 and 20 they sort of put Giannis into the Gobert situation and just funneled everything into him (and also BroLo). Which allowed him to have this GOAT level two way impact and for him to stand out in the +/-... because when he wasn't on the court suddenly their defensive scheme wasn't effective and they had to play differently. Turned out adjusting that last year actually helped them in the results column (I'd argue that there were many more factors involved in why they broke through specifically last year rather than 19 or 20), but the fact still exists that it worked.

Maybe its a bit of confirmation bias but I actually think what they've done the last two seasons is far more sustainable and repeatable from a team perspective, that is not relying on Giannis to completely cover their defense while also being the primary offensive engine. We know that doesn't work in the playoffs as we've seen from their performance along with other teams like UTA etc.

Now does this mean he's suddenly not as worthy of MVP because he's no longer schemed to carry both ends of the court for his team? Personally I don't think that's the right question. The question should be is he more valuable (aka impactful) than anyone else overall this year.

To be clear: I responded to you because you asked for evidence that Giannis was less impactful than previous years.

If you want to talk about relative to other guys, we can do that too. I've been elaborating on the case for Tatum all over this thread recently, and Jokic of course looms as a giant in the background.

But look, I'm getting good thoughts from you, but thoughts that resemble others that seem to say:

Yeah, but he's still doing great stuff, so what's the problem?

No problem really except that people aren't going around saying "Giannis was inflated in his MVP years, and this more represents his sustainable impact". They are instead using his MVP status as a baseline - when he was having ultra-ultra high regular season impact - and then finding reasons why they should keep talking about him as an MVP candidate like he was back then that have nothing to do with his actual impact.

As I keep saying - nothing I'm talking about is meant as a severe criticism of Giannis ability to lead a team to a title as an alpha superstar, I'm just talking about the impact I see this year, which is what a season's MVP award is supposed to be about.

Incidentally, over in the MVP thread, I say something similar but even stronger about Luka, whose regular season impact capacity has never been all that impressive in practice and has looked particularly blah this year. Luka is nowhere near my MVP ballot...and yet I still won't be too surprised if he's the best player in the playoffs where all you do is beat the team in front of your.

To put things another way:

Something I've seen repeatedly now is that many young guys peak in their regular season impact on a team that isn't resilient enough to win a championship in the playoffs. As they get older, the teammates tend to get stronger, the strategies tend to get less about optimizing for the regular season, and the players tend to conserve some energy in the regular season. All of this leads to a distinct possibility of better playoff success and a greater long-term legacy when all is said and done...but it's also why they don't keep winning the MVP every single year while they remain a contender for Finals MVP.

I'd say what's different about Giannis this year is largely that his team still has a chance at the 1 seed in the East because the competition for the 1 seed in the East is weak. Had the Bucks been a 50-ish win team in '18-19, Giannis probably doesn't get all that much consideration.

To be fair, you can say something similar about all the MVP candidates this year, but I single Giannis out because I'm having a series of interactions with folks right now where they don't even seem to realize that there's real, tangible evidence that Giannis isn't having anything like the level of regular season impact he had in his MVP years.

(Last note: Doncic is interesting because he seems to be completely skipping the point in his career where he has MVP level impact in any regular season. This could lead to a situation where, if he starts leading his team to titles through playoff upsets, people largely stop paying attention to the details of the regular season at all when naming their MVP, which I would argue would represent the late-stage damage of picking the big award based on the regular season in a sport where legacy is determined in the playoffs. And of course those issues are why I started having us do POY votes after the playoffs, where none of these contradictions remain.)

[Texas Chuck]

falco raising some good points. Look at KG to maybe illustrate this? He was not in an ideal defensive environment for much of his time in Minnesota. Move him to Boston with a smart coach who knew how to use him and teammates who could better hold up their end of the deal, and suddenly he was right back to being arguably the best defender in the league again even as he was exiting his prime.

I look at Giannis and can't imagine trying to formulate an argument that he's a worse player than he was 2 years ago. At either end. So looking for explanations for why the plus/minus stats are suggesting his impact is greatly reduced feels like something we should absolutely be doing.

Now, if one wants to say Giannis shouldn't be MVP because he isn't able to have the impact of previous years, I'm totally onboard with that and would reach the same position fwiw. But I'd suggest its more likely he's actually a better player and not a worse one. Bucks have definitely suffered attrition particularly on the defensive end--and it goes beyond just BroLo though obviously BroLo was a huge loss for them for most of the season. This is a guy who has been in DPOY conversations himself.

Good you bring up the KG example, but when you say "back to being arguably the best defender in the league again", let's note that he never won a DPOY before Boston. If we flip the timeline so that he does the Boston years first, and wins the DPOY early in his career, what you appear to be advocating for is then to give him DPOY in his hypothetically-later Minnesota years on the basis of what was known from his Boston years.

And let's note then the impossibility of applying this logic forwards for KG. There is no way to retroactively take DPOY awards away from the Ron Artests of the world, so KG's just stuck with the lesser accolades he got in Minnesota forever.
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I'm not trying to retroactively award anything. What I'm trying to point out is that KG wasn't winning DPOY because despite clearly being a brilliant individual defender in Minnesota, the team defenses were always run of the mill. But we know he was an elite defender in those years despite the team defensive numbers.

Well the same can be true of Giannis today, no? We can watch him play and see all the things he is doing at a high level defensively and we have the prior seasons of great team defenses that prove the concept.

For me its like when a known great shooter goes through a slump and you see all the threads on other boards on RealGM writing him off. And I'm like why are we doing this? We know they are almost certainly going to revert back to their mean because we have a hundreds of game sample size that tells us this is a knockdown shooter.

Giannis not having as gaudy of plus/minus stats despite having the production/efficiency he always has on offense and we can see him still doing all the same things he always does defensively mean I'm personally not comfortable just saying well the numbers are teh numbers and throwing my hands up.

I'd rather explore why the numbers are what they are. What are the rotations? Is Giannis being asked to carry 2nd units while Jrue/Middleton are on the bench? Is there a guy who always plays when Giannis sits(Portis?) having a really good year making the team tread water better? I don't know these answers without digging into it, but sure seems like we should know those answers before suggesting Giannis is having a down year, no?

[falcolombardi]

The +/- data - which is what we talk about when we talk about "impact" generally - for him is noticeably weaker than it was in his MVP years.

Re: all they need is 1st in conference. I definitely get this perspective, and I'll say that if the Bucks end up with a high seed, it's going to be hard for me to place anyone from the East ahead of Giannis.

We shouldn't forget though that none of the team's in the East actually have an impressive record, and given what we can see from Phoenix & Memphis, there's absolutely no reason to think the NBA has changed to the point where teams hoping to get to 50 wins should be seen as "max team success".

(And yes, it's certainly been brought up the health issues of the Bucks, but I would not be talking as I am if the deeper analysis didn't still point out these issues. As I've alluded to - generally injury issues for your teammates provide an opportunity to be even more impactful/essential to your team, and this is not what we've seen from Giannis this year.)

To me all of his "impact" seems to have been lost on the defensive end relative to those two seasons. He's still really good though for someone with his offensive load (and playing out of position this year which I think has sort of been mentioned already).

Maybe one would have to dive into film more to understand why the Bucks have been weaker on this end the last two years but I have a pretty strong feeling it's because in 19 and 20 they sort of put Giannis into the Gobert situation and just funneled everything into him (and also BroLo). Which allowed him to have this GOAT level two way impact and for him to stand out in the +/-... because when he wasn't on the court suddenly their defensive scheme wasn't effective and they had to play differently. Turned out adjusting that last year actually helped them in the results column (I'd argue that there were many more factors involved in why they broke through specifically last year rather than 19 or 20), but the fact still exists that it worked.

Maybe its a bit of confirmation bias but I actually think what they've done the last two seasons is far more sustainable and repeatable from a team perspective, that is not relying on Giannis to completely cover their defense while also being the primary offensive engine. We know that doesn't work in the playoffs as we've seen from their performance along with other teams like UTA etc.

Now does this mean he's suddenly not as worthy of MVP because he's no longer schemed to carry both ends of the court for his team? Personally I don't think that's the right question. The question should be is he more valuable (aka impactful) than anyone else overall this year.

To be clear: I responded to you because you asked for evidence that Giannis was less impactful than previous years.

If you want to talk about relative to other guys, we can do that too. I've been elaborating on the case for Tatum all over this thread recently, and Jokic of course looms as a giant in the background.

But look, I'm getting good thoughts from you, but thoughts that resemble others that seem to say:

Yeah, but he's still doing great stuff, so what's the problem?

No problem really except that people aren't going around saying "Giannis was inflated in his MVP years, and this more represents his sustainable impact". They are instead using his MVP status as a baseline - when he was having ultra-ultra high regular season impact - and then finding reasons why they should keep talking about him as an MVP candidate like he was back then that have nothing to do with his actual impact.

As I keep saying - nothing I'm talking about is meant as a severe criticism of Giannis ability to lead a team to a title as an alpha superstar, I'm just talking about the impact I see this year, which is what a season's MVP award is supposed to be about.

Incidentally, over in the MVP thread, I say something similar but even stronger about Luka, whose regular season impact capacity has never been all that impressive in practice and has looked particularly blah this year. Luka is nowhere near my MVP ballot...and yet I still won't be too surprised if he's the best player in the playoffs where all you do is beat the team in front of your.

To put things another way:

Something I've seen repeatedly now is that many young guys peak in their regular season impact on a team that isn't resilient enough to win a championship in the playoffs. As they get older, the teammates tend to get stronger, the strategies tend to get less about optimizing for the regular season, and the players tend to conserve some energy in the regular season. All of this leads to a distinct possibility of better playoff success and a greater long-term legacy when all is said and done...but it's also why they don't keep winning the MVP every single year while they remain a contender for Finals MVP.

I'd say what's different about Giannis this year is largely that his team still has a chance at the 1 seed in the East because the competition for the 1 seed in the East is weak. Had the Bucks been a 50-ish win team in '18-19, Giannis probably doesn't get all that much consideration.

To be fair, you can say something similar about all the MVP candidates this year, but I single Giannis out because I'm having a series of interactions with folks right now where they don't even seem to realize that there's real, tangible evidence that Giannis isn't having anything like the level of regular season impact he had in his MVP years.

(Last note: Doncic is interesting because he seems to be completely skipping the point in his career where he has MVP level impact in any regular season. This could lead to a situation where, if he starts leading his team to titles through playoff upsets, people largely stop paying attention to the details of the regular season at all when naming their MVP, which I would argue would represent the late-stage damage of picking the big award based on the regular season in a sport where legacy is determined in the playoffs. And of course those issues are why I started having us do POY votes after the playoffs, where none of these contradictions remain.)

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i doubt that is gonna happen, nba season is long enough, and sports such a "what have you done to me lately" environment

by the time you gotta vote for a new mvp it has been 9 months since the finals and people recency bias doesnt extend that far

[Doctor MJ]

falco raising some good points. Look at KG to maybe illustrate this? He was not in an ideal defensive environment for much of his time in Minnesota. Move him to Boston with a smart coach who knew how to use him and teammates who could better hold up their end of the deal, and suddenly he was right back to being arguably the best defender in the league again even as he was exiting his prime.

I look at Giannis and can't imagine trying to formulate an argument that he's a worse player than he was 2 years ago. At either end. So looking for explanations for why the plus/minus stats are suggesting his impact is greatly reduced feels like something we should absolutely be doing.

Now, if one wants to say Giannis shouldn't be MVP because he isn't able to have the impact of previous years, I'm totally onboard with that and would reach the same position fwiw. But I'd suggest its more likely he's actually a better player and not a worse one. Bucks have definitely suffered attrition particularly on the defensive end--and it goes beyond just BroLo though obviously BroLo was a huge loss for them for most of the season. This is a guy who has been in DPOY conversations himself.

Good you bring up the KG example, but when you say "back to being arguably the best defender in the league again", let's note that he never won a DPOY before Boston. If we flip the timeline so that he does the Boston years first, and wins the DPOY early in his career, what you appear to be advocating for is then to give him DPOY in his hypothetically-later Minnesota years on the basis of what was known from his Boston years.

And let's note then the impossibility of applying this logic forwards for KG. There is no way to retroactively take DPOY awards away from the Ron Artests of the world, so KG's just stuck with the lesser accolades he got in Minnesota forever.
.

I'm not trying to retroactively award anything. What I'm trying to point out is that KG wasn't winning DPOY because despite clearly being a brilliant individual defender in Minnesota, the team defenses were always run of the mill. But we know he was an elite defender in those years despite the team defensive numbers.

Well the same can be true of Giannis today, no? We can watch him play and see all the things he is doing at a high level defensively and we have the prior seasons of great team defenses that prove the concept.

For me its like when a known great shooter goes through a slump and you see all the threads on other boards on RealGM writing him off. And I'm like why are we doing this? We know they are almost certainly going to revert back to their mean because we have a hundreds of game sample size that tells us this is a knockdown shooter.

Giannis not having as gaudy of plus/minus stats despite having the production/efficiency he always has on offense and we can see him still doing all the same things he always does defensively mean I'm personally not comfortable just saying well the numbers are teh numbers and throwing my hands up.

I'd rather explore why the numbers are what they are. What are the rotations? Is Giannis being asked to carry 2nd units while Jrue/Middleton are on the bench? Is there a guy who always plays when Giannis sits(Portis?) having a really good year making the team tread water better? I don't know these answers without digging into it, but sure seems like we should know those answers before suggesting Giannis is having a down year, no?

So if you want to just focus on what's happening on the court, and not talk about holistic results or accolades, that's frankly probably wise, and so I'll try to go more in that direction.

So, key symptom I see:

The Bucks' big defensive fall off happened last year. It was specifically a major rise in opponent FG% largely from all distances, without any glaring injury issues. And of course this was followed up with a great defensive performance leading to a playoff run to the championship.

Now, that's of course not proof that they weren't playing to potential in the regular season - and I'd be unreasonable not to mention the late season acquisition of PJ Tucker who the Bucks then decided to let go in the off-season - but one way or the other, we have a 2-season regular season trend where the Bucks are no longer an elite defense after being ultra-elite the previous year.

[Doctor MJ]

To me all of his "impact" seems to have been lost on the defensive end relative to those two seasons. He's still really good though for someone with his offensive load (and playing out of position this year which I think has sort of been mentioned already).

Maybe one would have to dive into film more to understand why the Bucks have been weaker on this end the last two years but I have a pretty strong feeling it's because in 19 and 20 they sort of put Giannis into the Gobert situation and just funneled everything into him (and also BroLo). Which allowed him to have this GOAT level two way impact and for him to stand out in the +/-... because when he wasn't on the court suddenly their defensive scheme wasn't effective and they had to play differently. Turned out adjusting that last year actually helped them in the results column (I'd argue that there were many more factors involved in why they broke through specifically last year rather than 19 or 20), but the fact still exists that it worked.

Maybe its a bit of confirmation bias but I actually think what they've done the last two seasons is far more sustainable and repeatable from a team perspective, that is not relying on Giannis to completely cover their defense while also being the primary offensive engine. We know that doesn't work in the playoffs as we've seen from their performance along with other teams like UTA etc.

Now does this mean he's suddenly not as worthy of MVP because he's no longer schemed to carry both ends of the court for his team? Personally I don't think that's the right question. The question should be is he more valuable (aka impactful) than anyone else overall this year.

To be clear: I responded to you because you asked for evidence that Giannis was less impactful than previous years.

If you want to talk about relative to other guys, we can do that too. I've been elaborating on the case for Tatum all over this thread recently, and Jokic of course looms as a giant in the background.

But look, I'm getting good thoughts from you, but thoughts that resemble others that seem to say:

Yeah, but he's still doing great stuff, so what's the problem?

No problem really except that people aren't going around saying "Giannis was inflated in his MVP years, and this more represents his sustainable impact". They are instead using his MVP status as a baseline - when he was having ultra-ultra high regular season impact - and then finding reasons why they should keep talking about him as an MVP candidate like he was back then that have nothing to do with his actual impact.

As I keep saying - nothing I'm talking about is meant as a severe criticism of Giannis ability to lead a team to a title as an alpha superstar, I'm just talking about the impact I see this year, which is what a season's MVP award is supposed to be about.

Incidentally, over in the MVP thread, I say something similar but even stronger about Luka, whose regular season impact capacity has never been all that impressive in practice and has looked particularly blah this year. Luka is nowhere near my MVP ballot...and yet I still won't be too surprised if he's the best player in the playoffs where all you do is beat the team in front of your.

To put things another way:

Something I've seen repeatedly now is that many young guys peak in their regular season impact on a team that isn't resilient enough to win a championship in the playoffs. As they get older, the teammates tend to get stronger, the strategies tend to get less about optimizing for the regular season, and the players tend to conserve some energy in the regular season. All of this leads to a distinct possibility of better playoff success and a greater long-term legacy when all is said and done...but it's also why they don't keep winning the MVP every single year while they remain a contender for Finals MVP.

I'd say what's different about Giannis this year is largely that his team still has a chance at the 1 seed in the East because the competition for the 1 seed in the East is weak. Had the Bucks been a 50-ish win team in '18-19, Giannis probably doesn't get all that much consideration.

To be fair, you can say something similar about all the MVP candidates this year, but I single Giannis out because I'm having a series of interactions with folks right now where they don't even seem to realize that there's real, tangible evidence that Giannis isn't having anything like the level of regular season impact he had in his MVP years.

(Last note: Doncic is interesting because he seems to be completely skipping the point in his career where he has MVP level impact in any regular season. This could lead to a situation where, if he starts leading his team to titles through playoff upsets, people largely stop paying attention to the details of the regular season at all when naming their MVP, which I would argue would represent the late-stage damage of picking the big award based on the regular season in a sport where legacy is determined in the playoffs. And of course those issues are why I started having us do POY votes after the playoffs, where none of these contradictions remain.)

.
i doubt that is gonna happen, nba season is long enough, and sports such a "what have you done to me lately" environment

by the time you gotta vote for a new mvp it has been 9 months since the finals and people recency bias doesnt extend that far

I might argue it's a question of degree.

I think Rudy Gobert would have been a strong MVP candidate last year if people didn't have a bitter taste in their mouth from the previous season's playoffs.

[itsxtray]

Maybe I missed something here but I don't see the evidence/stats to suggest that Giannis is somehow less impactful than he was in his MVP years, I think the Bucks are just not as healthy this year and have sort of re-adjusted their focuses to the playoffs now that they've proven themselves.

I'm not big on rating guys candidacy for these type of stats relative to their historical selves. They should be judged relative to their peers/competitors.

To me that means Giannis is right next to Jokic at the top of this race and made a big statement yesterday. With all their supposed struggles this season they're only 1/2 a game back of 1st place (something I think could be very valuable this year to avoid BKN in rd1 who I think will be 7th). It's hard to knock teams for not living up to expectations when practically they do everything they needed to do (getting 1st in the conference).

That being said I'd vote for Jokic if the season ended today.

The +/- data - which is what we talk about when we talk about "impact" generally - for him is noticeably weaker than it was in his MVP years.

Re: all they need is 1st in conference. I definitely get this perspective, and I'll say that if the Bucks end up with a high seed, it's going to be hard for me to place anyone from the East ahead of Giannis.

We shouldn't forget though that none of the team's in the East actually have an impressive record, and given what we can see from Phoenix & Memphis, there's absolutely no reason to think the NBA has changed to the point where teams hoping to get to 50 wins should be seen as "max team success".

(And yes, it's certainly been brought up the health issues of the Bucks, but I would not be talking as I am if the deeper analysis didn't still point out these issues. As I've alluded to - generally injury issues for your teammates provide an opportunity to be even more impactful/essential to your team, and this is not what we've seen from Giannis this year.)

To me all of his "impact" seems to have been lost on the defensive end relative to those two seasons. He's still really good though for someone with his offensive load (and playing out of position this year which I think has sort of been mentioned already).

Maybe one would have to dive into film more to understand why the Bucks have been weaker on this end the last two years but I have a pretty strong feeling it's because in 19 and 20 they sort of put Giannis into the Gobert situation and just funneled everything at him (and also BroLo to a lesser extent). Which allowed him to have this GOAT level two way impact and for him to stand out in the +/-... because when he wasn't on the court suddenly their defensive scheme wasn't effective and/or they had to play differently. Turned out adjusting that last year (a la Jrue Holiday) actually helped them in the results column (I'd argue that there were many more factors involved in why they broke through specifically last year rather than 19 or 20), but the fact still exists that it worked. Heck, their defense in the playoffs last year with Giannis on the court was insanely good. Not quite 2020 RS levels but you can't expect it to be by any fair expectations, playing much better teams in an even more hyper charged offensive league.

Maybe its a bit of confirmation bias but I actually think what they've done the last two seasons is far more sustainable and repeatable from a team perspective, that is not relying on Giannis to completely cover their defense while also being the primary offensive engine. We know that style of defense just doesn't work in the playoffs as proven their performance along with other teams like UTA who have tried similar schemes.

I still think he's fully capable of playing this sort of heliocentric defensive anchor extremely effectively, we've seen it for spirts this season and at the end of games (where they have been much better at than in years past with Bud). But it just doesn't make sense for him to do that for long stretches anymore now that they have tools to play in other ways.

Now after all that, does this mean he's suddenly not as worthy of MVP because he's no longer schemed to carry both ends of the court for his team? Personally I don't think that's the right question. The question should be is he more valuable (aka impactful) than anyone else overall this year.

EDIT: Added a few more things to this like 10 minutes after posting

Thats not primarily how they played, Elgee made a video on it at the time. Giannis was primarily a roamer, the funneling was to Lopez in the deep drop:

Watch on YouTube

Tldr: They packed the paint giving up the most 3's in the league by playing drop with Lopez while Giannis roamed/lurked around the paint. Because they didn't switch they gave up above the break 3's but the tradeoff worked b/c they held teams to -11 in the paint with Giannis and Lopez on the court and -7.5 with just Giannis on with no Lopez brother with him performing the drop instead of roaming.

Which theoretically he'd have been able to hold that -7.5 number this season without Lopez, i haven't looked at the numbers but imma guess that he hasn't and that's probably why his impact is down.

[The High Cyde]

Portis is one of the worst drop coverage bigs in the league, the defense was porous enough to cause lower numbers seemingly across the board. Difference between having Lopez and Portis as a back line is significant.

[feyki]

Yannis take the lead over Embiid now. What about Jokic?