2021-22 NBA Season Discussion

[feyki]

I disagree on this. With both Lebron and AD on the court, LA are with -2,3(better) defence than league average.

Btw, despite the 11-11 record, LA have +4,6 SRS when both Lebron and AD on the court. That's 54W team.

Edit: Lebron also has the best shot defence numbers since his great defensive 2016 year. Definitely it's his best season in the LA.

First, I don't know where you pulled those numbers from:

https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced/?Season=2021-22&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&GroupQuantity=2&CF=TEAM_ABBREVIATION*E*LAL:GROUP_NAME*E*L.%20James&sort=NET_RATING&dir=1

LeBron and AD were a -2.5 oncourt together this season, no chance they had a +4.6 SRS.

And even if they were correct, do they stop needing to play defense when AD isn't on the court?

Statmuse hacked my mind right now. I'll check it later. Sorry for the error.

Edit: But they're still above average defence, I guess with both AD and Lebron. Check it points differentials later.

LA w/LBJ&AD in 17G(both 30+minG) - 110,3 DRTG(-1,6), +0,3 SRS(42W).

Lebron's always was neutral to positive post his last mvp year, defensively, in the seasons. Expecting Westbrook,Melo,Howard,Jordan kind of guys carrying good defence without AD all by Lebron in the season not a realistic take, to me. As the individual, I'd see good defensive line compared to his last 8-9 years.


One more player ranking this time from me, but only 2022 regular season:
Tier 1 ; MVP/POY level - Yannis,Jokic,Embiid,Doncic,Durant,
Tier 2 ; Top 5/Weak MVP level - Curry,Lebron,Butler,Derozan,Harden?
Tier 3 ; Superstar/Top 10 level - Harden?,Tatum,Morant,Booker,Mitchell,Towns,Davis
. Based on played games only, in terms of impacts.

[parsnips33]

Back to back 30 pt games for Klay

Averaging 41% from 3 on 12 attempts a game in his last 10

There's been some ugly moments, but really impressed with how Klay looks after so much time away

[falcolombardi]

I'm not sure what the point of bringing in cTOV% here, neither LeBron or MJ are the sort to have their TOV% change significantly from their basic tov%. LBJ was at 9% cTOV% in a 12.3% TOV% league, MJ at 8% in a 13.6% TOV% league (also, MJ>CP3 for ball protection through their careers, 7.3% vs 7.7% for career I believe based on a quick calc, in a generally higher turnover league). Neither stat is that good at pinpointing players effects on team tov% though. In this case it'd give about half a possession back to the Lakers over the Wiz in this comparison if we decided to use cTOV% over the teams actual turnover %s (this seems unwise to me, but do you), turning the possession gap (including rebounding rate effects still) back down to around 2/3 of the individual scoring efficiency gap.

And by my calcs MJ was closer to 6 box creation in '02, unless Ben changed his formula in the last few years (which I suppose is possible). If it was closer to 8 that'd push his cTOV% a couple of tenths of a % lower.

i am a bit confused here, you mention thst since lebron(2022) tov% is 12.5 and jordan (2002) was 10% then thst is a 2.5 possesion advantage?

that is how the stat works? jordan or lebron dont play 48 mins a game nor use 100% of the possesions on court while they are there so the real extra possesions would be more like 0.75-1.0~ possesions (roughly equivalent to 0.75-1.0 points) based on their actual minutes and usage?

i am wrong here ?

for comparision jordan had a -150 ts add in 2002 over 60 games , thst would mean jordan bad efficiency shooting was making the Wizards 2.5 points worse thsn league average each game

while lebron is around 150 ts add for 56 games, aka close to 2.5 points better than league average efficiency would have provide

i may be making a mistake here but it seems like lebron scoring was 5 points~ a game more valuable while jordan ball swcurity was only around .75-1.0 points in the comparision

Nah, I did the comparison based off the team turnover%s, not individual #s. Wiz 12.9% with MJ, 16.7% without, LA 14.3% with LBJ, 14.5% without. League numbers for comparison (13.6% vs 12.3%). Trying to apply it to the cTOV% like I did is probably not a completely legit operation.

Rough calc - the Wiz get roughly 3.8 more possession with him on the court than they otherwise would've had (roughly, adjusted to pace slightly less, we'll say 3.5). Meanwhile LeBron is basically not changing his team tov #s. For Oreb MJ is more neutral while LeBron is a negative effect for the team.

An easier way to present this may have been to look at team total stats:

The Wiz got +1.9% TSA (FGA+0.44*FTA) vs their competition.

The Lakers got -2.0TS% vs their competition.

I feel we have strong reasons/statistics to believe that a lot of that is due to differences in MJ/LeBrons play. Edit: Using the team numbers throws the numbers off a bit, as they clearly win the possession battle by more when he's on the court than in total. I feel it generally balances with what % of the credit MJ deserves for the team winning the possession battle like that (gotta give some love to Popeye as well).

Approximately a 4 pt swing in any scenario, my suspicion would be slightly higher due to the nature of these possessions (turnovers and offensive rebounds). In the 4.5-5.0 pt range.

ok i understand your logic now, cannot say i agree tho

Wizards improving in turnovers percentages when jordan plays doesnt mean he is driving all of that improvement, it means that the lineups jordan was part of lost the ball less than the lineups jordan was not part of, jordan himself wouldnt be all of it

in fact is really hard to imagine what was jordan doing without the ball that would make other Wizards players lose the ball so much less just by virtue of jordan being on the court if he really was the whole cause (why would jordan spotting up help Richard Hamilton to not lose his handle or not make bad passes to not jordan players?)





is not like rebounding where a player can improve team defensive rebounding without grabbing the board himself by boxing out

compared to def rebounding which is a full team effort, ball security is much more individual (the ball handler handling the ball safely, the passer not doing a bad or risky pass, the receiver being able to catch the pass safely, avoiding commiting offensive fouls)

[Texas Chuck]

is not like rebounding where a player can improve team defensive rebounding without grabbing the board himself by boxing out

I think off-ball players can play some part in this. Being where they are supposed to be(baseline drift on drives for instance preventing a pass to the corner with nobody there), not faking backdoor cuts, making sure they are spacing the floor making it harder to trap ball-handler's, the quality of hands on your big men in particular, etc...

Now I have zero idea how one would quantify that, but I think there is something to it. We see historically some of the same franchises excel in not turning the ball over even as their primary ballhandlers change in and out. I know the Mavs the best, but they were long a low turnover team--part of that of course is Dirk being a low turnover star, but it goes beyond that because they have still excelled in the days of Luka, a higher turnover ball-handler. So coaching must be playing a role as well?

Anyway food for thought.

[RCM88x]

is not like rebounding where a player can improve team defensive rebounding without grabbing the board himself by boxing out

I think off-ball players can play some part in this. Being where they are supposed to be(baseline drift on drives for instance preventing a pass to the corner with nobody there), not faking backdoor cuts, making sure they are spacing the floor making it harder to trap ball-handler's, the quality of hands on your big men in particular, etc...

Now I have zero idea how one would quantify that, but I think there is something to it. We see historically some of the same franchises excel in not turning the ball over even as their primary ballhandlers change in and out. I know the Mavs the best, but they were long a low turnover team--part of that of course is Dirk being a low turnover star, but it goes beyond that because they have still excelled in the days of Luka, a higher turnover ball-handler. So coaching must be playing a role as well?

Anyway food for thought.

Perhaps, depending on the actual numbers, it could be down to stat-logging and whom the turnovers are attributed to by the stat keepers at the arena and whether it is the passer or the catcher.

[Texas Chuck]

is not like rebounding where a player can improve team defensive rebounding without grabbing the board himself by boxing out

I think off-ball players can play some part in this. Being where they are supposed to be(baseline drift on drives for instance preventing a pass to the corner with nobody there), not faking backdoor cuts, making sure they are spacing the floor making it harder to trap ball-handler's, the quality of hands on your big men in particular, etc...

Now I have zero idea how one would quantify that, but I think there is something to it. We see historically some of the same franchises excel in not turning the ball over even as their primary ballhandlers change in and out. I know the Mavs the best, but they were long a low turnover team--part of that of course is Dirk being a low turnover star, but it goes beyond that because they have still excelled in the days of Luka, a higher turnover ball-handler. So coaching must be playing a role as well?

Anyway food for thought.

Perhaps, depending on the actual numbers, it could be down to stat-logging and whom the turnovers are attributed to by the stat keepers at the arena and whether it is the passer or the catcher.

This is possible, but the Dallas numbers at least are consistent home and road so this isn't a home scorekeeper trying to keep turnover numbers down. Dallas also plays slow which helps now, but they played fast in the Nash days and were low turnover then as well.

[Doctor MJ]

Just feel a need to jump in here: I don't.

Not taking a hard stance here, and I freaking love watching how Morant moves and am not betting against him going forward, but to me the basketball world is being absurd the way they are brushing aside the fact that the Grizzlies' regular season success is clearly about an ensemble cast playing well together, and not about Morant. If Morant ends up not making my All-NBA list, I won't feel at all weird about that.

The Grizzlies are very much like the 2015 Atlanta Hawks.

I think a player playing only 60 games is a mark against the All-NBA, though I will say my All-NBA criteria is currently about capturing the season as a whole and not necessarily the same as MVP or POY.

They're way better than the 2015 Hawks. That team didn't have anyone on Ja's level to put them over the top.

Personally, as a Clippers fan, Memphis is the team I'm most scared of in the West. I can't remember the last time the Clippers won a game against them or even kept it close. Our guys really tend to struggle against all that youth and athleticism. I'm just hoping that if we do get them in the first round, their playoff inexperience will kick in. In contrast, I wouldn't be scared at all of the 2015 Hawks. They had an impressive run, but their ceiling was just so low with that roster.

I do have to agree with all of this, but I see Colbinii's perspective, echoing what I said about an ensemble cast.

What we have here is a situation where the W-L record is Hawk-like (better than the Hawks yes, but still ensemble), but the eye-popping presence of Ja's talent gives us reason to think this is nothing like the Hawks.

I'm really not skeptical of Ja's potential - I'm giddy about him! - but I think it's important not to pick n' choose when I consider data based on my gut about the player. So I'm considerably lower on the entirety of the accomplishment of Ja than most, even if I don't think I'm low on the excitement scale about him as a phenomenon.

[The High Cyde]

Memphis being a fantastically coached team with young, hungry players out to prove themselves resulting in them over achieving in the regular season despite the “need” of a star like Ja, and feeling like Memphis will only go so far in the playoffs without him are not two mutually exclusive things.

It’s painfully obvious you need at least a star to seriously contend for a championship, and that means being in the Conference Finals, and they’re just not getting there without Ja. Having a great ensemble means jack if you don’t have a leader to get you to the promised land.

Honestly, don’t even want to see Memphis in the playoffs without Ja, he’s too exciting a player to not see him earn his stripes in the postseason. We’re gonna see some crazy stuff from him in the playoffs.

That Hawks team was an embarrassment due to how they flamed out, they should’ve never gotten that far in the playoffs if the conference were just a little stronger.

[eminence]

The Grizzlies are very much like the 2015 Atlanta Hawks.

I think a player playing only 60 games is a mark against the All-NBA, though I will say my All-NBA criteria is currently about capturing the season as a whole and not necessarily the same as MVP or POY.

They're way better than the 2015 Hawks. That team didn't have anyone on Ja's level to put them over the top.

Personally, as a Clippers fan, Memphis is the team I'm most scared of in the West. I can't remember the last time the Clippers won a game against them or even kept it close. Our guys really tend to struggle against all that youth and athleticism. I'm just hoping that if we do get them in the first round, their playoff inexperience will kick in. In contrast, I wouldn't be scared at all of the 2015 Hawks. They had an impressive run, but their ceiling was just so low with that roster.

I do have to agree with all of this, but I see Colbinii's perspective, echoing what I said about an ensemble cast.

What we have here is a situation where the W-L record is Hawk-like (better than the Hawks yes, but still ensemble), but the eye-popping presence of Ja's talent gives us reason to think this is nothing like the Hawks.

I'm really not skeptical of Ja's potential - I'm giddy about him! - but I think it's important not to pick n' choose when I consider data based on my gut about the player. So I'm considerably lower on the entirety of the accomplishment of Ja than most, even if I don't think I'm low on the excitement scale about him as a phenomenon.

Just to note - actually slightly worse than the Hawks record wise (60-22). Unless you meant strictly the Ja-less games.

[RCM88x]

Crazy how different the narratives are regarding KD's and Lebron's seasons despite both missing tons of games and both teams being well below expectations. Wonder if people will sour if the Nets somehow get knocked out of the play-in.

[Doctor MJ]

They're way better than the 2015 Hawks. That team didn't have anyone on Ja's level to put them over the top.

Personally, as a Clippers fan, Memphis is the team I'm most scared of in the West. I can't remember the last time the Clippers won a game against them or even kept it close. Our guys really tend to struggle against all that youth and athleticism. I'm just hoping that if we do get them in the first round, their playoff inexperience will kick in. In contrast, I wouldn't be scared at all of the 2015 Hawks. They had an impressive run, but their ceiling was just so low with that roster.

I do have to agree with all of this, but I see Colbinii's perspective, echoing what I said about an ensemble cast.

What we have here is a situation where the W-L record is Hawk-like (better than the Hawks yes, but still ensemble), but the eye-popping presence of Ja's talent gives us reason to think this is nothing like the Hawks.

I'm really not skeptical of Ja's potential - I'm giddy about him! - but I think it's important not to pick n' choose when I consider data based on my gut about the player. So I'm considerably lower on the entirety of the accomplishment of Ja than most, even if I don't think I'm low on the excitement scale about him as a phenomenon.

Just to note - actually slightly worse than the Hawks record wise (60-22). Unless you meant strictly the Ja-less games.

I just mean how dominant they became as the season went on. 3 out of the past 4 months they've averaged a >10 point per game margin, and in the other month they still went 12-4. The Hawks were impressive, but my feeling - and some stats at least - tell me this Grizzlies are playing now on a level beyond what the Hawks were then... at least in terms of regular season standards. I think there's hope that the gap will get bigger in the playoffs, but nothing has been proven yet.

[tone wone]

Crazy how different the narratives are regarding KD's and Lebron's seasons despite both missing tons of games and both teams being well below expectations. Wonder if people will sour if the Nets somehow get knocked out of the play-in.

Ehh, its not that crazy considering the Nets were good (but hardly great) before Durants knee injury while LA spent the entire season bad to awful. They never got more than 3 games over .500 and have been underwater since January.

Now what is interesting is how blah BKN been since he and Kyrie's return and how that hasn't swayed the perception of his season at all. Losing in the play-in won't sour his season unless he plays poorly in defeat.

[MartinToVaught]

Read on Twitter

After all the nonsense Harden spewed about how he has skills and Giannis can only run and dunk, it's interesting how losing his first step with age has suddenly made him look like Kendall Marshall in Michael Sweetney's body.

[sp6r=underrated]

The 76ers are going to be an in interesting situation if Harden disappoints this post-season. Do they resign him? Do they let him walk? Sign and Trade to a team willing to take him on?

On the flip side, it would be hilarious if Philadelphia decides to move on from Harden. Who would be the best suitors for Harden? Who would want him at this point?

I'm not up on who has money this offseason, but it feels to me more like he'd wind up as a max on a mediocre team than a contender finding a way to squeeze him into the budget.

The teams currently with money are as follows:

Orlando: $30 Million
Detroit: $27 Million
Indiana and San Antonio: $24 Million
Portland: $20 Million

Obviously things can change and a Sign and Trade is doable with many other teams in the league, but I have a hard time seeing any of these teams interested in James Harden.

A team that jumps out to me for Harden: Los Angeles Lakers

GIven the way he nuked things in Houston and Brooklyn I can't see any small market or rebuilding club signing Harden. The risk he'll dog it and won't be tradeable is extremely high. He doesn't seem to have any shame about the way he forced his way out nor does he seem like a guy who will find it depressing to dogg it.

That leaves LA Lakers as a team that should be interested given their dire circumstances. Miami could be a dark horse but as a Knicks fan I'm terrified he'll wear the orange and blue in his mid-30s.

[Colbinii]

I'm not up on who has money this offseason, but it feels to me more like he'd wind up as a max on a mediocre team than a contender finding a way to squeeze him into the budget.

The teams currently with money are as follows:

Orlando: $30 Million
Detroit: $27 Million
Indiana and San Antonio: $24 Million
Portland: $20 Million

Obviously things can change and a Sign and Trade is doable with many other teams in the league, but I have a hard time seeing any of these teams interested in James Harden.

A team that jumps out to me for Harden: Los Angeles Lakers

GIven the way he nuked things in Houston and Brooklyn I can't see any small market or rebuilding club signing Harden. The risk he'll dog it and won't be tradeable is extremely high. He doesn't seem to have any shame about the way he forced his way out nor does he seem like a guy who will find it depressing to dogg it.

That leaves LA Lakers as a team that should be interested given their dire circumstances. Miami could be a dark horse but as a Knicks fan I'm terrified he'll wear the orange and blue in his mid-30s.

I agree and its why I keep thinking more and more about how he may end up in LA.

It's actually rather interesting comparing the career arcs of Westbrook/Harden at this point.

[falcolombardi]

I'm not up on who has money this offseason, but it feels to me more like he'd wind up as a max on a mediocre team than a contender finding a way to squeeze him into the budget.

The teams currently with money are as follows:

Orlando: $30 Million
Detroit: $27 Million
Indiana and San Antonio: $24 Million
Portland: $20 Million

Obviously things can change and a Sign and Trade is doable with many other teams in the league, but I have a hard time seeing any of these teams interested in James Harden.

A team that jumps out to me for Harden: Los Angeles Lakers

GIven the way he nuked things in Houston and Brooklyn I can't see any small market or rebuilding club signing Harden. The risk he'll dog it and won't be tradeable is extremely high. He doesn't seem to have any shame about the way he forced his way out nor does he seem like a guy who will find it depressing to dogg it.

That leaves LA Lakers as a team that should be interested given their dire circumstances. Miami could be a dark horse but as a Knicks fan I'm terrified he'll wear the orange and blue in his mid-30s.

the prodigal son back to okc!!!

(somehow still more likely than the other prodigal son)

[sp6r=underrated]

I don't think the Heat can win the title but they are such an admirable group.

[sp6r=underrated]

And if the HEat are admirable OKC is an ethical abomination.

The draft shouldn't exist and the Thunder like Hinkie before them are taking the draft to their logical conclusion. They've been de facto trying to forfeit games for months.

Just a disgusting disgrace

[falcolombardi]

And if the HEat are admirable OKC is an ethical abomination.

The draft shouldn't exist and the Thunder like Hinkie before them are taking the draft to their logical conclusion. They've been de facto trying to forfeit games for months.

Just a disgusting disgrace

okc are doing what any super small market who has some aspiration to eventually compete should do tbh

is ugly but pretty much everyone has been there and done that before

[sp6r=underrated]

And if the HEat are admirable OKC is an ethical abomination.

The draft shouldn't exist and the Thunder like Hinkie before them are taking the draft to their logical conclusion. They've been de facto trying to forfeit games for months.

Just a disgusting disgrace

okc are doing what any super small market who has some aspiration to eventually compete should do tbh

is ugly but pretty much everyone has been there and done that before

If the behavior is rational the system needs to be reformed. Keep the luxury tax/soft cap but eliminate rookie scale contracts/max contracts/draft and having everyone enter the league in as a free agent.

You should never have teams rewarded for trying to lose for multiple seasons. OKC gives the impression if they could hit a button at the beginning of the year and guarantee an 0-82 season they would. Why the hell should they get revenue sharing if that is their attitude?