tsherkin wrote:Bob8 wrote:Who is efficient by your standards?
Players who rise above league-average efficiency by a margin similar to those of efficient scorers from the past.
Luka is the best with 58% TS in playoffs. Maybe your standards for TS% is a bit too high.
It's worked for every era so far and for the high-end guys today. I'd have more tolerance for a somewhat-lower TS% if he was shooting less, but he isn't. When you're taking 20+ FGA/g, your efficiency matters significantly to team offensive production in a game-swinging kind of way.
(Sidebar: he was at 57.7% TS in the playoffs, not 58%; dealing with this stat, the decimal actually matters, so it's good to avoiding rounding up to a whole number). rTS for the top 15 scorers by PPG in the league in 2022:
Embiid: 109
Giannis: 112
Luka: 101
Trae: 107
Demar: 104
Jokic: 117
Tatum: 102
Booker: 102
Donovan Mitchell: 101
Steph: 106 (a notable down year for him)
Towns: 113
LaVine: 107
Jaylen Brown: 101
De'Aaron Fox: 97
Siakam: 100
Sneaking in some other thoughts:
Jimmy Butler was "only" a 21.4 ppg player during the regular season, but 27.4 during the postseason. His regular-season rTS was at 105 and he posted 59.2% raw. In the playoffs, he was a 60.4% TS guy. That's an efficient player. Yeah, during the LA three-peat at the turn of the century, that was Shaq-like efficiency. But that's where the league is at right now.
(EDIT to add:
Jaylen Brown was at 57.4% TS in the RS and 58.2% during the postseason
Jayson Tatum was at 57.8% in the RS and PS both.)
Speaking to your point, yeah, league-average TS% has risen pretty high, which makes deviation harder than it used to be. But team offenses have gone up with it, which means that a guy cracking away at league average is still as much a problem as it has ever been... remember, even one dude banging away at 110-113 like Wilt can be a problem. Now, Luka is a very good playmaker as well, and of course the Mavs haven't had a ton of options around him for distributing the shooting volume differently, so we'll see what happens. But it's going to continue to be a problem for them come the playoffs if they don't figure out how to reconfigure their roster to have him shoot less, unless he's able to start scoring more efficiently.
I'll address FT% below, so I won't speak to it right now, but also, you and I both agree that Luka COULD clean up his 3pt shot selection and help himself be a little more efficient. He takes some properly dumb-ass, "Kobe on a bad night" kind of 3s at times. Step-backs wicked early in the shot clock kind of things that he doesn't really need to be doing.
DroseReturnChi wrote:
thats a ridiculous statement when hes played yrs professionally in europe and has a good track record of 80% ft shooting was never a issue for him even in RM i mainly criticized for being manu ginobili which would be a bust off the bench. taking 2000 ft means nothing out of his future 20 yr career sample size. Luka isnt afraid like Lebron where his ft implodes hes just fatigued would my guess. His mechanics is fine to end up as 80% shooter not curry level but not a liability like your trying to paint. I too was concerned he shot 50% post season last yr but he shot close to 80% theres no reason to beat up a dead horse.
The irony of you calling something "ridiculous" amuses me beyond the capacity for words to express. You are the unadulterated master of non-sensical posting and ridiculous hot takes.
Luka has taken 550 FTAs in FIBA from '15 forward, and shot 79.5%. He's taken around 4x that many FTAs in the NBA and roughly matches his entire FIBA output on a seasonal basis in the NBA. The NBA sample is far more reliable. Having shot particularly well in 2016 and 2017 EuroLeague is influencing his overall FT% from FIBA. Yeah, he's not Shaq at the line. And yes, he'll probably have some 80%+ seasons in his career. But it is an extent issue with his game and ignoring that is foolishness. It isn't a critical failing at the moment, but it is something that erodes his overall efficacy and leaves points on the board.
nikster wrote:I do think eFG% is more important when discussing his shot selection. If his FT% improves, his TS% could go way up without any change to his shot selection. Plus drawing freethrows is almost always a net positive, even if not the most efficient at the line. That said, if just talking about efficiency in general TS% much more important
Sure, if you're only talking about shot selection, then eFG% is perhaps a little more relevant. Better still, FG% by zone with percentage usage, even. But we were talking about broad efficiency, not playing style. If his FT% improves, it would help, yes. Of course, if Luka had shot 80.2% (closest to 80% we can get with a whole number in total points), he'd be at 57.9% TS, which is +1.3% over league average (as opposed to +0.5%). Better, but still not really good, even by today's standards. We'd have to see him improve to more of a Kobe/Jordan 84%-ish range instead of that Vince/T-Mac 79% to start pushing it. At 84.1%, he reaches 58.5% TS, which is +1.9%. That starts to move into "solidly efficient" territory. If he smartens up with his 3pt shot selection as discussed previously, and there's some extra room. I'm not saying he can't do these things, I've been pointing out where his present issues are and was taking issue with Bob categorizing him as "efficient," when he isn't. That's all. As Bob said earlier, and with which I've already agreed, he's young and quite early still into his career, so the chance for change is certainly there.
Your entire argument is "Believe me because i said so". 
