2021-22 RealGM All-Season Awards - Discussion Thread

[The-Power]

What are your thoughts (if any) on the following splits?

Luka in the 7 wins:

54.6 TS%, 8.4 TO Ratio, 39.8 USG%, 125.2 ORTG

Luka in the 7 (edit: 8) losses:

60.4 TS%, 12.0 TO Ratio, 39.4 USG%, 105.1 ORTG

So Luka scores a lot less efficiently in the wins on similar usage, but the on-court ORTG dramatically craters as Luka's efficiency skyrockets. Is this just Luka seeing his teammates struggling and he finds another scoring gear – but to little avail at the team level? But how come Luka has similar usage in wins, where he posts poor efficiency numbers but his team's ORTG climbs up to elite levels?

Most likely it's just the small sample because previously, Luka's individual scoring efficiency consistently correlated positively with Dallas wins (both RS and PS). But @eminence's post showed pretty clearly that a lot of Dallas wins came in games in which Luka struggled to score efficiently at the individual level. I thought that was pretty curious to see.

[eminence]

Does that not include the last game against GS? I'd like to see teammate 3pt% and volume included.

But anywho, I wouldn't read any further than that Dallas is a swingy shooting team.

Luka on offense is a bit both teammate and defense blind, he plays similarly regardless of how they change it seems, the teams warp around him (which is reasonable for a player of his talent). Provides a strong floor for his teams offense and doesn't limit the ceiling either as far as I can tell. I would appreciate if they got him more passing opportunities towards the rim to cutters or roll guys (don't have a ton of the 2nd one, first just takes a more creative offensive system), might have a bit lower ceiling than the 5 out, but I think it'd provide them with more consistency and a higher baseline. Could be worth looking at game to game Ortg deviation vs shot distribution for teams around the league again and seeing where the Mavs fit.

[The-Power]

Does that not include the last game against GS? I'd like to see teammate 3pt% and volume included.

It does, the loss total was just my typo (should have been ‘8’). I don't have the exact data for only games with Luka but it seems that volume is comparable but efficiency on 3's is up (unsurprisingly, or else the huge gap in ORTG could not be explained for a team like Dallas that lives and dies by the 3).

I was just interested in what might have caused Luka to score this much more efficiently in losses as compared to wins, especially as his volume remained essentially the same. But perhaps it's really just a combination of small sample size outlier and Luka's individual game being fairly unaffected by what is going on around him (positively or negatively).

[Doctor MJ]

What are your thoughts (if any) on the following splits?

Luka in the 7 wins:

54.6 TS%, 8.4 TO Ratio, 39.8 USG%, 125.2 ORTG

Luka in the 7 (edit: 8) losses:

60.4 TS%, 12.0 TO Ratio, 39.4 USG%, 105.1 ORTG

So Luka scores a lot less efficiently in the wins on similar usage, but the on-court ORTG dramatically craters as Luka's efficiency skyrockets. Is this just Luka seeing his teammates struggling and he finds another scoring gear – but to little avail at the team level? But how come Luka has similar usage in wins, where he posts poor efficiency numbers but his team's ORTG climbs up to elite levels?

Most likely it's just the small sample because previously, Luka's individual scoring efficiency consistently correlated positively with Dallas wins (both RS and PS). But @eminence's post showed pretty clearly that a lot of Dallas wins came in games in which Luka struggled to score efficiently at the individual level. I thought that was pretty curious to see.

Pretty interesting. A clear cut case I think of why it makes sense to "not let the star's teammates get going", which has become all the more true in the 3-point era.

In terms of why Luka is appears stronger both by volume and efficiency in losing efforts, one factor I think has to be that if a defense plays to stop his teammates, then Luka is probably literally getting more, easier shots.

But I think it's possible that something else that's going on is that when Luka has in mind from the jump that he'll be the one scoring, he probably plans it out better than when he ends up shooting because the attempted team attack fails and he just ends up with the hot potato.

I wouldn't claim to know for sure exactly why this is happening, but wouldn't be inclined to say it's specifically damning of Luka's approach.

[Doctor MJ]

If the Celtics close out tonight it's very likely my top 4 will be Jokic/Giannis/Curry/Tatum in some order. Thinking about Embiid in this post, Luka/Butler will be his competition for the 5th spot.

I'm thinking similarly. Right now my inclination would be to keep Embiid in the 5th spot.

The door for Butler to bust into my Top 5 is open, but based on how the Boston series has evolved, I really don't expect him to, and that will make it pretty easy to pick Embiid over him.

Joel vs Luka is something I'm more actively debating, and will curious to see arguments people make in this particular comparison.

Incidentally, I'm leaning at this point toward Luka grabbing the #3 spot on my OPOY ballot (with Jokic & Curry having the other spots on the ballot).

[falcolombardi]

are we sure we may not be understing butler regular season a bit? he was still the leader of a very good team that made first in its conference

embiid had the more impressive regular seasom but the missed games (regular season and playoffs) and butler impressive play most of the playoffs make me think thete is a good case for butler

butler vs luka i dont know if there is a gap with luka in either rs or ps, butler has been really good in playoffs and while butler has struggled post injury in the boston series luka missed games amd has struggled with defense a bit too much at times

[eminence]

Jimmy missed significantly more RS time than Embiid did, so not much ground made up there.

[eminence]

Does that not include the last game against GS? I'd like to see teammate 3pt% and volume included.

It does, the loss total was just my typo (should have been ‘8’). I don't have the exact data for only games with Luka but it seems that volume is comparable but efficiency on 3's is up (unsurprisingly, or else the huge gap in ORTG could not be explained for a team like Dallas that lives and dies by the 3).

I was just interested in what might have caused Luka to score this much more efficiently in losses as compared to wins, especially as his volume remained essentially the same. But perhaps it's really just a combination of small sample size outlier and Luka's individual game being fairly unaffected by what is going on around him (positively or negatively).

Looked into it a bit. Non-Luka players from 3 in those 15 Luka games:

Wins with Luka: 7 games, 31.9 attempts/game, 43.0%

Losses with Luka: 8 games, 8 games, 31.9 attemps/game, 34.5%

Great shooting in wins, not as poor shooting in losses as I anticipated, volume similar in each.

[GSP]

Jokic, Giannis

Jimmy, Steph, Luka

feels clear to me........Joel, Tatum, Bron, Kd all were good but def no case for top 5

[MyUniBroDavis]

Jokic, Giannis

Jimmy, Steph, Luka

feels clear to me........Joel, Tatum, Bron, Kd all were good but def no case for top 5

What if heat win and butler lebrons the finals

[GSP]

Jokic, Giannis

Jimmy, Steph, Luka

feels clear to me........Joel, Tatum, Bron, Kd all were good but def no case for top 5

What if heat win and butler lebrons the finals

Hed be in his own tier below Jokic and Giannis and above everyone else

i just cant see how anyone is as good as Jokic/Giannis tho...........as incredible as that playoff run would be..........

[eminence]

Nikola Jokic
Nuggets 48-34, 46-28 w/Jokic, 2-6 without, #6 Offense, #15 Defense, 6 seed, +2.15 SRS
74 games played, 2476 minutes
27.1 pts/g, 13.8 reb/g, 7.9 ast/g, 1.5 stl/g, 0.9 blk/g, 3.8 tov/g
117 TS+
118.8 Ortg, 110.4 Drtg, +8.4 Net
+16.4 on/off

The best RS player, no real question about it. Missed less time than the 2 already written up (Embiid/Luka). Took a worse team to a comparable RS result. Spectacular production/efficiency combo. Defensively had probably his best season, though did seem to wear down a bit as the season wore on. Plays like pretty much nobody else and is a pleasure to watch for me every time.

Round 1 vs the 3 seed +5.52 Warriors
Game 1 - 25/10/6 on poor efficiency, Nuggets offense overall was fine, blitzed by the Warriors on the other end in the 2nd/3rd quarters.
Game 2 - 26/11/4 on middling efficiency, offense still fine, lit up even worse on the other end.
Game 3 - 37/18/5 on great efficiency, Nuggets fight back in the 3rd this time, but can't close out in the 4th. The 3rd is pretty much their only good defensive quarter through 3 games.
Game 4 - 37/8/6 on great efficiency, preventing the sweep. Get ahead early and hold the Warriors off in the 2nd half. Did the scoring early and turned more to playmaking in the 2nd half. 1st quarter another solid defensive quarter (kinda on Steph jacking shots and missing them).
Game 5 - 30/19/8 on good efficiency, defense really shows up for the first time all series as Steph returns to the starting lineup. Cousins the only other Nugget who scores efficiently though and so ends the MVP.

This series is a tricky one for me. The Nuggets were never going to win this series if the Warriors were healthy. But the way the Warriors specifically won the series with a dominant offense targeting Jokic in particular does give me pause on how high to put Jokic in the alltime lists (Luka has this issue as well). Not a problem that will go away just by scaling up players around him, he'll still be a big slow guy relatively speaking. Also not a problem in comparison to most guys this season, as most have far bigger issues with their candidacy. Probably slightly prefer his performance against the Warriors to Lukas. Absolute lowest I can see him finishing on my ballot is 3rd, if I decide to put Giannis over him (I don't think I will) and if Steph finishes strongly. Probably the highest odds to get my #1 vote as of this moment.

[Texas Chuck]

. Probably the highest odds to get my #1 vote as of this moment.

Joker now has my vote locked down. I thought going into the playoffs Giannis had the only realistic chance to catch him and no matter what happens from here none of Steph, Tatum, or Butler can do enough to catch him. And going with one of them simply because they won the title makes a mockery of the regular season because none of them approached his play there.

So its church for POY. And OPOY. He's locked them both down.

Now Curry and Tatum and Butler are definitely making their cases for podium(top 5 in this case) finishes. Embiid likely isn't keeping his spot for me. The Mavs had a great run, but Luka wasn't a truly dominant force in that. The Suns guards are out of the running, etc...

And I'm not sure anyone is even going to catch Giannis for #2 though I suppose with a legendary Finals performance maybe someone can convince me.

But Jokic was just absurdly good and the fact that his two max teammates were completely MIA means holding a first round loss against the West(and maybe eventually league) champion isn't something I can do.

[Dutchball97]

I think it's going to be really hard for Embiid to stay on my ballot. His post-season performance was simply below par and I'm still more post-season oriented than most in these evaluations. I'm also honestly not entirely sold on Tatum here. He has an advantage due to playing a lot but in terms of per game impact I don't think he was top 5 for either the regular season or the post-season, if the Heat manage to win game 7 I seriously doubt whether Tatum has done enough to secure that top 5 spot.

[eminence]

PO slash lines for the 7 that seem to be receiving some consideration.

Player - pts/reb/ast/stl/blk/tov @ ts%

Jokic - 31.0/13.2/5.8/1.6/1.0/4.8 @ 64.3%
Embiid - 23.6/10.7/2.1/0.4/0.8 @ 59.0%
Giannis - 31.7/14.2/6.8/0.7/1.3/4.5 @ 55.2%
Luka - 31.7/9.8/6.4/1.8/0.6 @ 57.7%
Butler - 26.9/7.3/4.8/2.1/0.7 @ 60.3%
Tatum - 27.1/6.5/5.9/1.2/0.9 @ 59.0%
Curry - 25.9/4.9/6.2/1.1/0.4 @ 59.7%

Defensive considerations added I don't see any real standouts positive or negative, Embiid probably at the bottom, but not a huge margin.

[eminence]

Giannis Antetokounmpo
Milwaukee Bucks 51-31, 45-22 w/Giannis, 6-9 without, #3 Offense, #14 Defense, 3 seed, +3.22 SRS
67 games played, 2204 minutes
29.9 pts/g, 11.6 reb/g, 5.8 ast/g, 1.1 stl/g, 1.4 blk/g, 3.3 tov/g
112 TS+
118.7 Ortg, 110.8 Drtg, +7.9 Net
+11.0 on/off

Not his top RS by any means, missed some games, either needs Brook more than I thought or didn't bring 100% on D over the RS. But still great, easy top 5 player through the RS, and as reigning champ who has won his MVPs in the past I don't have him with a ton to prove in the RS. Easily in reach of the POY award through the RS.

Round 1 vs the 6 seed -0.38 Bulls
Game 1 - 27/16/3 on middling efficiency, real grind of a game, Jrue carries the Bucks offense in the 4th. Not a dominant start.
Game 2 - 33/18/9 on good efficiency, much better statline, but in this one DeRozan and Vucevic get going and the Bulls even it up.
Game 3 - 18/7/9 on good efficiency, Middleton out, Bucks remind the Bulls who the defending champs are and dominate on both ends. Allen on a heater from the bench.
Game 4 - 32/17/7 on good efficiency, after a middling opening to the series the Bucks are fully in control now.
Game 5 - 33/9/3 on great efficiency, finishing on a strong note. Bucks offense never really got fully rolling in the series, but the defense absolutely throttled CHI.

Round 2 vs the 2 seed +7.02 Celtics
Game 1 - 24/13/12 on poor efficiency, efficiency aside, this one was a bit of a statement, going into Boston and grabbing a strong game 1 win, Bucks defense still looking spectacular.
Game 2 - 28/9/7 on poor efficiency, Boston strikes back, lighting the Bucks up from deep, while the Bucks go only 3/18 from deep, not a strategy that'll work. Giannis 5 pts on 12 FGA in the first half one. A rough one.
Game 3 - 42/12/8 on good efficiency, big big game from Giannis back home to go up 2-1. Boston almost comes all the way back, but Milwaukee pulls it out.
Game 4 - 34/18/5 on poor efficiency, the Al Horford closeout game, Bucks D gets lit up in the 4th quarter. Bucks D 2/4 on elite performances so far.
Game 5 - 40/11/3 on good efficiency, another big win with a big finish in Boston. Milwaukees strongest offensive performance in the series.
Game 6 - 44/20/6 on good efficiency, Giannis with a big game, but the Bucks really can't get anything going on offense outside of him. Other Bucks 5/26 from deep.
Game 7 - 25/20/9 on poor efficiency, Bucks come out strong, but fade quickly as their offense gets suffocated.

Tricky playoff run to evaluate for me. Defense strong throughout shoring up any questions there about RS effort, Giannis arguably still the best on the planet on that end, 2 elite performances against Boston to get the 2-1 lead. Offensively though... not so hot. Milwaukee has looked worse on that end than either BKN did or MIA have against Boston so far. Boston successfully bottled up both Giannis/Jrue and the role players. Middleton certainly would've helped, but it's hard to call it anything but a weak offensive performance from Giannis, comparably contained to KD the round prior, and KD got absolutely dragged for that performance (obviously Giannis brings a lot more on the other end). Looking at it game by game, yeah, I've 100% locked in on Jokic over Giannis. More vulnerable to passing from those still playing due to a weaker RS than Jokic.

[eminence]

Think I've flipped again on Luka vs Embiid to favoring Luka by the slimmest margin. The easiest result for me tonight would be a Celtics win, which would likely lock in Embiid/Butler as my HMs and Luka at 5. Curry/Tatum fighting for a chance to pass Giannis and maybe Jokic.

[GSP]

Think I've flipped again on Luka vs Embiid to favoring Luka by the slimmest margin. The easiest result for me tonight would be a Celtics win, which would likely lock in Embiid/Butler as my HMs and Luka at 5. Curry/Tatum fighting for a chance to pass Giannis and maybe Jokic.

Whats the rationale for them having any chance of passing Giannis or Jokic? Just seems like winning bias TBH theyre clearly not as good as either......they werent even the best player in the series playing against them.......

[eminence]

Think I've flipped again on Luka vs Embiid to favoring Luka by the slimmest margin. The easiest result for me tonight would be a Celtics win, which would likely lock in Embiid/Butler as my HMs and Luka at 5. Curry/Tatum fighting for a chance to pass Giannis and maybe Jokic.

Whats the rationale for them having any chance of passing Giannis or Jokic? Just seems like winning bias TBH theyre clearly not as good as either......they werent even the best player in the series playing against them.......

We obviously evaluate Curry very very differently. I thought he was the best player in the league over the course of the season prior to his injury. Time missed allowed others to pass him (Jokic, who was close prior and then Giannis/Tatum in my estimation), but since he's came back he's looked good. I don't think Jokic outplayed him by any meaningful margin even with him just coming back.

Tatum, less likely, but still within the realm of possible to get by Giannis, who I thought he had an approximately even RS with. Would probably take something unexpected.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Think I've flipped again on Luka vs Embiid to favoring Luka by the slimmest margin. The easiest result for me tonight would be a Celtics win, which would likely lock in Embiid/Butler as my HMs and Luka at 5. Curry/Tatum fighting for a chance to pass Giannis and maybe Jokic.

Whats the rationale for them having any chance of passing Giannis or Jokic? Just seems like winning bias TBH theyre clearly not as good as either......they werent even the best player in the series playing against them.......

We obviously evaluate Curry very very differently. I thought he was the best player in the league over the course of the season prior to his injury. Time missed allowed others to pass him (Jokic, who was close prior and then Giannis/Tatum in my estimation), but since he's came back he's looked good. I don't think Jokic outplayed him by any meaningful margin even with him just coming back.

Tatum, less likely, but still within the realm of possible to get by Giannis, who I thought he had an approximately even RS with. Would probably take something unexpected.

You had curry over Jokic before his injury?