2021-22 NBA Season Discussion

[Doctor MJ]

Jokic has tremendous gravity in the post, where he’s probably the best paint scorer in the league. But he also has extremely valuable gravity on the perimeter with a Dirk-like ability to pull bigs away from the rim. His gravity was the biggest reason why Murray was able to go off in the bubble.

Obviously Curry’s gravity is unique but Jokic’s is as well in its ability to compromise defenses.

So I think what's being circled around here is that to the extent "gravity" is an appropriate metaphor based on measurable warping of defensive spacing based on where players stand in any particular moment, Curry's latent impact goes beyond gravity.

When a guy is running around, it takes a lot more out of you as a player to remain only X distance away from him, to say nothing of the triggering his arrival in another player's proximity does to his attention.

i wanted to ask you somethingh doc

i know boston is not a 1-1 to bucks, but there is enough sinilarities down to how boston has taken a "dont sell out to stop curry at the 3-point line, paint first" approach

some of the thinghs i predicted would favor bucks in a series vs golden state have happened

-draymond lack of shooting threat being exploited
-warriors lack of size being a issue defensively inside
- most of the warriors players being significatively slowed down in offense

but on the other end, not selling out to stop curry (what bud likely would have gambled on) hss definetely hurt them as curry has gone off with the chance to get in rythim

how has this series, if at all, changed what you would expect from a bucks vs warriors series?

I think has a lot in common with how I was thinking about that series, and I'd say you make good parallels.

[jalengreen]

Read on Twitter

this is why i'm rather concerned for the celtics at this point

[LukaTheGOAT]

Net ratings after 4 games:
Looney +17.0
Rob +8.2
Wiggins +5.2
Curry +4.5
OPJ +4.5
Brown +4.3
GP2 +3.2
Green +1.1
Klay -1.5
Tatum -3.0
Smart -4.5
Horford -5.7
White -9.2
Poole -10.8
Grant -14.1

[falcolombardi]

Read on Twitter

this is why i'm rather concerned for the celtics at this point

as always with these kind of stats, they are way too relative

warriors wont always shot badly, but in the small sample left of a series already 2-2 is perfectly possinle that warriors keep struggling with 3's ans boston overperforming with 3's before a "return to the mean"has time to happen

maybe tatum will catch fire, maybe curry shooting will go cold, maybe green will remember how to shoot, maybe klay will go for 50 or 2-25

over a 80 games season you would expect early outlier trends to return to the mean over the bigger sample

but in a 6-7 game sample it doesnt apply

[jalengreen]

Read on Twitter

this is why i'm rather concerned for the celtics at this point

as always with these kind of stats, they are way too relative

warriors wont always shot badly, but in the small sample left of a series already 2-2 is perfectly possinle that warriors keep struggling with 3's ans boston overperforming with 3's before a "return to the mean"has time to happen

maybe tatum will catch fire, maybe curry shooting will go cold, maybe green will remember how to shoot, maybe klay will go for 50 or 2-25

over a 80 games season you would expect early outlier trends to return to the mean over the bigger sample

but in a 6-7 game sample it doesnt apply

it's not that i'm *expecting* the regression to the mean to happen

it's that in a game where the celtics were clearly more successful shooting 3s than the warriors, the warriors were still able to pull out the win. which is a good sign and shows that they're able to withstand that shooting and *may* not need steph to do this every game

it's a matter of what we saw in the game and how the warriors were able to win a game where they shot 3-17 on uncontested 3s while their opponents shot 10-13 on those shots

[MyUniBroDavis]

Well I mean klay at his best negs Curry and bron combined lol

On offense Curry teams have more of a tendency to go cold at times I feel, whereas with some of the those bron teams there’s a much bigger sense of, brons gonna get the ball and calm things down

On the flip side those Warriors teams could absolutely catch fire at times, some of that of course comes from how curry can go supernova

I think a safety net is more important than a blowtorch in the playoffs if that makes sense, and I don’t really think those Warriors teams are worse offensively with bron instead of Curry either

that cavs team in 2016 had similar offensive success to the Warriors team that year when bron turned it up post all star break, as well as during their entire ECF run, although obviously they were hot shooting wise.

I think the idea that Curry is a high ceiling raiser while lebron is a high floor raiser is a bit oversimplified

Curry is a high floor raiser but the Warriors offense kind of relies on decent decision makers, but when we look at the year where he shot decently but the team offense was only league average (with a cast that was probably bottom in the nba tier offensively) you have to look at the why vs what Curry is in control of.

That team shot well, in games Curry played their TS% for those games was the same as the nuggets that year (2021), but the two issues they had were their turnover percentage being pretty bad, but more so their offensive rebound percentage being an outlier in terms of how bad it is. It’s similar to the lebron lineups with year without Westbrook, their effeciency was fine but they couldn’t get offensive boards.

To an extent smaller lineups sacrifice offense rebounding, but the Warriors were more league average to a bit below league average in that regard, whereas in 2021 they were like, a very low outlier. This wouldn’t push them to top of the league or anything but it would have prolly put them top 10 if they were average in this regard. It’s not as if currys play was the reason for this, because this applied even more in non Curry lineups

I think peak Curry is probably a fantastic floor raiser, he’s a ceiling raiser in the way that he can fit into ANY team and have incredible impact, but I don’t think the best hypothetical Curry team has better offense than the best hypothetical Lebron team.

Lebron not being a ceiling raiser when 3 of the past 4 deep postseason runs of his have him leading an ATG offense, and the other one was probably the most obscene offensive carry job ever, also doesn’t make much sense to me

[Gooner]

I'm sorry but some of these posts are out there. When LeBron is on his game with his offense and just controlling the pace of the game he's still easily better than Steph, just on offense alone. Some of you are way too enamored with 3 point shooting IMO.

Should add its not as simple as 3>2 when LeBron is just getting to the FT line relentlessly, shooting, generating offense from the post, finding corner shooters etc.

That's your opinion, but LeBron never raised his team's level to what Steph has been able to accomplish with Golden State. LeBron is not really a post player. He is good at finding shooters, but it's static offense.

[Homer38]

I'm sorry but some of these posts are out there. When LeBron is on his game with his offense and just controlling the pace of the game he's still easily better than Steph, just on offense alone. Some of you are way too enamored with 3 point shooting IMO.

Should add its not as simple as 3>2 when LeBron is just getting to the FT line relentlessly, shooting, generating offense from the post, finding corner shooters etc.

That's your opinion, but LeBron never raised his team's level to what Steph has been able to accomplish with Golden State. LeBron is not really a post player. He is good at finding shooters, but it's static offense.

When he was younger,the cavs had won 66 games(and 61 games the year after)with Mo Williams as the second best player.If you talk just about offense,the cavs in 2017 had similar number that the warriors with KD in the playoffs.....Your opinion is false

[eminence]

Way off topic, but when do folks feel Gobert first hit fringe Allstar level?

[Texas Chuck]

Way off topic, but when do folks feel Gobert first hit fringe Allstar level?

I think his first year as a full-time starter, so 15-16. By the next year he was well past fringe all-star though obviously he wasn't an actual all-star for several years to come.

[MartinToVaught]

That's your opinion, but LeBron never raised his team's level to what Steph has been able to accomplish with Golden State.

I agree. Steph could never drag Ira Newble and Boobie Gibson to the Finals by himself. Winning on a stacked team is the level Steph tops out at.

[eminence]

That's your opinion, but LeBron never raised his team's level to what Steph has been able to accomplish with Golden State.

I agree. Steph could never drag Ira Newble and Boobie Gibson to the Finals by himself. Winning on a stacked team is the level Steph tops out at.

The '07 Cavs were bad, but you gotta stop using end of rotation guys. Chiozza played more minutes for the current Warriors than Newble did for the Cavs.

[falcolombardi]

That's your opinion, but LeBron never raised his team's level to what Steph has been able to accomplish with Golden State.

I agree. Steph could never drag Ira Newble and Boobie Gibson to the Finals by himself. Winning on a stacked team is the level Steph tops out at.

The '07 Cavs were bad, but you gotta stop using end of rotation guys. Chiozza played more minutes for the current Warriors than Newble did for the Cavs.

i would agree the 2007 cavs were ok, although not a champhionship supporting cast, lebron himself was far from his best in 2007

[parsnips33]

Rewatched the game this morning.

Loved the game from Poole, he can have success attacking closeouts and he gave great effort defensively

Draymond was fantastic defensively. 4 steals (and more deflections) against a team that needs to limit turnovers to win is huge. Also we all know his best role defensively is as the free safety being able to help all over. The fact that he's still making a large impact on that end while guarding one of the other teams best perimeter scorers just speaks to his versatility. Also it's interesting that Boston's defense has taken away Dray's bread and butter short roll passing, while instead conceding open (or open for Steph) 3s to Steph. Boston presents a really unique challenge to Draymond the way they are playing

Bjelica Porter and GPII all making an impact, gotta give credit to Bob Myers

[MyUniBroDavis]

Rewatched the game this morning.

Loved the game from Poole, he can have success attacking closeouts and he gave great effort defensively

Draymond was fantastic defensively. 4 steals (and more deflections) against a team that needs to limit turnovers to win is huge. Also we all know his best role defensively is as the free safety being able to help all over. The fact that he's still making a large impact on that end while guarding one of the other teams best perimeter scorers just speaks to his versatility. Also it's interesting that Boston's defense has taken away Dray's bread and butter short roll passing, while instead conceding open (or open for Steph) 3s to Steph. Boston presents a really unique challenge to Draymond the way they are playing

Bjelica Porter and GPII all making an impact, gotta give credit to Bob Myers

They’re dropping against steph, I’m pretty sure he’s absolutely destroyed them in those possessions right?

[falcolombardi]

i know this is being mr obvious here but i dont see the losing team tonight being able to win the series

i get the feeling whoever wins tonight finishes the series in 6

[Texas Chuck]

i know this is being mr obvious here but i dont see the losing team tonight being able to win the series

i get the feeling whoever wins tonight finishes the series in 6

Funny as I feel the opposite. Now obviously whoever wins is a sizable favorite to win the series, but I feel like either team could win 2 elimination games to seize the title. I have more confidence in Golden State doing so, but I think Boston has it in them as well.

[falcolombardi]

i know this is being mr obvious here but i dont see the losing team tonight being able to win the series

i get the feeling whoever wins tonight finishes the series in 6

Funny as I feel the opposite. Now obviously whoever wins is a sizable favorite to win the series, but I feel like either team could win 2 elimination games to seize the title. I have more confidence in Golden State doing so, but I think Boston has it in them as well.

is just a random feeling that is obviously 0% reliable so dont quote me on that, i just thought that the way this series has been so close and back and forth i see it hard for the losing team to win back to bacl under pressure

in other news, if curry keeps scoring 40 a game but boston wins the series may he become the first fmvp to in the losing team since west?

there has been so much talk about fmvps to the losing team since like 2015, and so much talk about curry first fmvp and obvipusly his play has been good enough and boston has not had anythingh close to a comparable performance

i feel like the stars may be aligning (if warriors lose) for it to happen

[Texas Chuck]

I think its funny how NBA twitter is obsessed right now with giving Steph a Finals MVP. They are even wasting all kinds of time re-litigating the Iggy one. Of course their conclusion hasn't been it should have gone to Lebron, but instead Steph. Yet they want to give it to Curry no matter what happens here.

He's clearly the best, most valuable player in the series. So I have zero issues with him getting it. But I hate that the idea isn't let's give it to the best player. The idea is we love Steph and he doesn't have one so we are going to give it to him and go right back next year to giving it to the best player on the winning team again next year. That sucks. If we are only giving it players on winning teams don't carve it out for Steph.

Now if this starts them re-envisioning the award, great. But they aren't. They just want Steph to have a FMVP which is frankly just weird. We didn't try and go back and give Tim Duncan a DPOY even though his case for like 4 or 5 of those is stronger than Steph's for FMVP.

[jalengreen]

If Curry continue playing like this and forces a 6 or 7 game series, I think he'd be the most deserving losing FMVP so I wouldn't be mad at him getting it. *Especially* if JB slows down and Tatum picks it up (i.e. both would be lacking a completely impressive series and voters would likely be split between them. Otherwise I'd go with JB for sure).

However, there are two other factors unique to these Finals:

(a) Conference Finals MVP. I remember it being mentioned at the time that it would be a way to commemorate the Finals loser because they would at least (presumably) be receiving the CF MVP award. In this case, Steph already got WCF MVP so in that sense, there might be less of a push to reward him with Finals MVP.

(b) The elephant in the room: Curry's lack of a FMVP. I could totally see them saying "okay this dude somehow still doesn't have one... c'mon." Which I think might end up being viewed as a "correction" for 2015 (although 2018 also would've been a chance for voters to do that).

I don't know, it'll be interesting.