Have we been underrating Luka?

[deb]

I'm a Luka fan. He'll be first team all NBA for the fifth time straight. Meaning he's pretty much a consensus top 5 player in the NBA. How can that be underrated? Sure, there's a couple of bozos out there that have ridiculous opinions. Every great player has both stans and haters, but they are in the minority.

As for this years MVP - no way. Nikola Jokić has worse counting stats - true, but better advanced stats and better team record. There's just no reasonable argument for Dončić over Jokić.

I'd actually go 1. Jokić, 2. Tatum (best player on the best team), 3.Dončić, 4. Giannis, 5. SGA...

[NoStatsGuy]

hasnt he been in the mvp conversation and all NBA teams to some extend for multiple years now? How is he underrated?

so being in the MVP conversations and in all NBA teams automatically means that he can't be underrated? That's a very flawed logic.

Imagine if MJ had been in MVP conversations and all NBA teams for 5/6 straight years without even getting one MVP, would you have dare saying that he was not underrated?

yea imo you cant be underrated when the whole world considers you the best player in the best league.

who is now #1 or #5 doesnt matter because these guys are so close you can make an argument for all of them. luka is at the top of the top. its not going higher than that.

[BeiBeau]

You know your argument isn't strong when you try to use one game samples

You know you don’t have a counter point if the only thing you can do is cry sample size.

And I’m more just highlighting the flaws of people who view efficiency as everything with tonight as an example. Volume matters just as much in many situations. If Jokic is the best player in the world then he should’ve taken over tonight to keep the 1 seed. Keeping his field goal percentage high certainly looks good when people are checking stats at the end of the season, but in a game like tonight only taking 13 shots is unacceptable.

There is an enormous sample size that suggests Jokic is one of the most efficient players ever, possibly the most efficient. There is also a fairly large sample size that suggests he's one of the most clutch ever, particularly in playoff situations. Taking any conclusions from a single game is not all that compelling, whether they are for or against Jokic.

He's dominated Wemby twice in the last month, and he didn't tonight. He certainly won't be the only player Wemby gets the better of throughout the next few years.

A few Mavs fans have really had their brains broken by this MVP race, which tbh isn't really a race by this point.

Did you read what I wrote? We know Jokic is efficient. But last night highlights the problem with hyper efficient mid volume play, some times you need your start to just do … more. But all of these efficiency supremacists out there don’t understand that volume is just as important.

Luka putting up 34 on 61.9% true shooting is sígnica fly harder and more impressive than Jokic putting up 26.5 on 65% true shooting.

[JustBuzzin]

Luka/Kyrie is probably the best duo in the NBA. Say what you want about Kyrie but he plays perfectly off Luka. The Mavs struck gold with this pairing and now they have a legit chance to win a title.

In fact I'm changing my prediction of the Clippers winning the West to the Mavs winning the West.


Luka Da Don!

[BeiBeau]

I'm a Luka fan. He'll be first team all NBA for the fifth time straight. Meaning he's pretty much a consensus top 5 player in the NBA. How can that be underrated? Sure, there's a couple of bozos out there that have ridiculous opinions. Every great player has both stans and haters, but they are in the minority.

As for this years MVP - no way. Nikola Jokić has worse counting stats - true, but better advanced stats and better team record. There's just no reasonable argument for Dončić over Jokić.

I'd actually go 1. Jokić, 2. Tatum (best player on the best team), 3.Dončić, 4. Giannis, 5. SGA...

If I ranked Lebron James as the 9th greatest player of all time(cough* idiot Skip Bayless) he would be massively underrated even though 9th all time is incredible so how could he be underrated?

Luka, Jokic are 1a - 1b in the league right now and who you have as number 1 is fine. But most people do not recognize that, so therefore he is underrated.

You literally underrated him in your post. Luka is better than Tatum and always has been, he has done more to help a worse team this season so therefore he’s more valuable. But you put Tatum as number 2. Shai has been above Luka in the MVP poll for a large chunk of this season as well.

Anyone who does not have Luka as 1st or 2nd with it being close is underrating him.

[deb]

I'm a Luka fan. He'll be first team all NBA for the fifth time straight. Meaning he's pretty much a consensus top 5 player in the NBA. How can that be underrated? Sure, there's a couple of bozos out there that have ridiculous opinions. Every great player has both stans and haters, but they are in the minority.

As for this years MVP - no way. Nikola Jokić has worse counting stats - true, but better advanced stats and better team record. There's just no reasonable argument for Dončić over Jokić.

I'd actually go 1. Jokić, 2. Tatum (best player on the best team), 3.Dončić, 4. Giannis, 5. SGA...

If I ranked Lebron James as the 9th greatest player of all time(cough* idiot Skip Bayless) he would be massively underrated even though 9th all time is incredible so how could he be underrated?

Luka, Jokic are 1a - 1b in the league right now and who you have as number 1 is fine. But most people do not recognize that, so therefore he is underrated.

You literally underrated him in your post. Luka is better than Tatum and always has been, he has done more to help a worse team this season so therefore he’s more valuable. But you put Tatum as number 2. Shai has been above Luka in the MVP poll for a large chunk of this season as well.

Anyone who does not have Luka as 1st or 2nd with it being close is underrating him.

I'd make a distinction here: MVP versus best player. In my opinion the best players in the NBA right now are Jokić, Dončić, Giannis, Embiid.

MVP's a different beast imo. To me it should be the best player of the best team, exception only if the best player of the 2nd or 3rd best regular season team is clearly a class better than the best player of 1st team.

I looked at data for the past 30 years and the only MVPs to not come from one of the top 3 regular season teams are:

LeBron James 2012 (Heat were 4th in regular season)
Russel Westbrook 2017 (OKC was 10th)
Nikola Jokić 2021 (Nuggets were 5th)
Nikola Jokić 2022 (Nuggets were 11th)

All other MVPs were from top 3 teams, 15/30 were from the best teams, 7/30 were from the second best teams, 4/30 were from the third best regular season teams. 4/30 were from 4th or worse teams as stated above.

That's why I'd consider Tatum as MVP definitely over SGA, Dončić, maybe even over Jokić, considering the Nuggets are likely to finish 4th in the league overall.

I believe Dončić is better than Tatum, just not as worthy of the MVP award this season imo. Now if Dallas was a top 3 team in the league, then sure, but it's 6th.

As for 1a 1b, there's a clear distinction in my opinion. They are very close yes, but Jokić is clearly better. Both in terms of MVP worthiness and overall.

[QPR]

You know you don’t have a counter point if the only thing you can do is cry sample size.

And I’m more just highlighting the flaws of people who view efficiency as everything with tonight as an example. Volume matters just as much in many situations. If Jokic is the best player in the world then he should’ve taken over tonight to keep the 1 seed. Keeping his field goal percentage high certainly looks good when people are checking stats at the end of the season, but in a game like tonight only taking 13 shots is unacceptable.

There is an enormous sample size that suggests Jokic is one of the most efficient players ever, possibly the most efficient. There is also a fairly large sample size that suggests he's one of the most clutch ever, particularly in playoff situations. Taking any conclusions from a single game is not all that compelling, whether they are for or against Jokic.

He's dominated Wemby twice in the last month, and he didn't tonight. He certainly won't be the only player Wemby gets the better of throughout the next few years.

A few Mavs fans have really had their brains broken by this MVP race, which tbh isn't really a race by this point.

Did you read what I wrote? We know Jokic is efficient. But last night highlights the problem with hyper efficient mid volume play, some times you need your start to just do … more. But all of these efficiency supremacists out there don’t understand that volume is just as important.

Luka putting up 34 on 61.9% true shooting is sígnica fly harder and more impressive than Jokic putting up 26.5 on 65% true shooting.

I did read what you wrote. You are using a single game to try and prove a hypothesis that Jokic's efficiency is only because he doesn't shoot as much, and therefore it is less impressive - almost certainly because Luka takes a lot more shots.

There is no problem with Jokic's style of play at all, and it demonstrably leads to success. Not to mention his FGA goes up considerably during the playoffs anyway.

[Wagonband]

I'm a Luka fan. He'll be first team all NBA for the fifth time straight. Meaning he's pretty much a consensus top 5 player in the NBA. How can that be underrated? Sure, there's a couple of bozos out there that have ridiculous opinions. Every great player has both stans and haters, but they are in the minority.

As for this years MVP - no way. Nikola Jokić has worse counting stats - true, but better advanced stats and better team record. There's just no reasonable argument for Dončić over Jokić.

I'd actually go 1. Jokić, 2. Tatum (best player on the best team), 3.Dončić, 4. Giannis, 5. SGA...

Placing Tatum as 2nd place is laughable. It's a worse take than Doncic out of the first team. MVP means Most Valuable Player. There is no universe where Tatum is the 2nd Most Valuable player in the league. Replace Tatum with a solid NBA started wing on a mediocre team like Wiggins, and the Celtics are still the first seed in the East. So he is clearly not one of the top 5 most valuable players in the league. And i like Tatum, i do think he is a top 10 player in the NBA, but he is not the 2nd most valuable one come on.

At the same note, replace Jokic or Luka with mediocre players for mid teams like say Capella for Denver and Caris Lavert for Dallas, and you have both teams in the play-in. So it's clearly a 2 man race imho.

And i think the PPG aspect is important. If Luka was satisfied with 26ppg his efficiency would skyrocket. But of course, you can't really compete in terms of efficiency vs centers. It can't be held against a guard that he is less efficient than the center.

If you wanted to really go deep about it, you should check how much more efficient Jokic is compared to other centers, and Luka compared to other guards in the league. Then you can do the comparison.

[BeiBeau]

There is an enormous sample size that suggests Jokic is one of the most efficient players ever, possibly the most efficient. There is also a fairly large sample size that suggests he's one of the most clutch ever, particularly in playoff situations. Taking any conclusions from a single game is not all that compelling, whether they are for or against Jokic.

He's dominated Wemby twice in the last month, and he didn't tonight. He certainly won't be the only player Wemby gets the better of throughout the next few years.

A few Mavs fans have really had their brains broken by this MVP race, which tbh isn't really a race by this point.

Did you read what I wrote? We know Jokic is efficient. But last night highlights the problem with hyper efficient mid volume play, some times you need your start to just do … more. But all of these efficiency supremacists out there don’t understand that volume is just as important.

Luka putting up 34 on 61.9% true shooting is sígnica fly harder and more impressive than Jokic putting up 26.5 on 65% true shooting.

I did read what you wrote. You are using a single game to try and prove a hypothesis that Jokic's efficiency is only because he doesn't shoot as much, and therefore it is less impressive - almost certainly because Luka takes a lot more shots.

There is no problem with Jokic's style of play at all, and it demonstrably leads to success. Not to mention his FGA goes up considerably during the playoffs anyway.

Yeah you clearly can’t read. I pointed out that last night is the type of game where Jokic’s hyper efficient but relatively low volume fails his team. That is not the same as using 1 game as a sample size. Jokic’s team lose games while he attempts under 20 shots all quite a lot. Volume is just as important. Luka putting up 28% more scoring on a 5% decrease in shooting efficiency makes him the significantly more impressive scorer.

[HotRocks34]

Perhaps Luka should have been MVP after all.

Historic season and got his team further than Jokic or SGA.

He should be in good position for the award next year given his current run.

[Yuri36]

Perhaps Luka should have been MVP after all.

Historic season and got his team further than Jokic or SGA.

He should be in good position for the award next year given his current run.

Not really.
If the guy couldn't get it this year after the absolutely insane season he had, there is virtually no chance he will get it next year or in the future, especially with the competition he'll face (Joker, SGA, Antman, Giannis, Embiid and probably Wemby soon).

NBA really missed a trick not giving it to him this season.

[HotRocks34]

Perhaps Luka should have been MVP after all.

Historic season and got his team further than Jokic or SGA.

He should be in good position for the award next year given his current run.

Not really.
If the guy couldn't get it this year after the absolutely insane season he had, there is virtually no chance he will get it next year or in the future, especially with the competition he'll face (Joker, SGA, Antman, Giannis, Embiid and probably Wemby soon).

NBA really missed a trick not giving it to him this season.

Don't agree.

With the roster having a training camp together and the full season together next year, they should rack wins if reasonably healthy.

I'm not saying Luka should not have won this year, but I think next year sets up well for him.

[Lalouie]

NOT MOI

[Yuri36]

Perhaps Luka should have been MVP after all.

Historic season and got his team further than Jokic or SGA.

He should be in good position for the award next year given his current run.

Not really.
If the guy couldn't get it this year after the absolutely insane season he had, there is virtually no chance he will get it next year or in the future, especially with the competition he'll face (Joker, SGA, Antman, Giannis, Embiid and probably Wemby soon).

NBA really missed a trick not giving it to him this season.

Don't agree.

With the roster having a training camp together and the full season together next year, they should rack wins if reasonably healthy.

I'm not saying Luka should not have won this year, but I think next year sets up well for him.

And I think you're widely underestimating how unpopular Luka is among the US medias and voters.
The guy wasn't even 2nd in the votes despite the historical individual season he had (and his team were arguably the best in the NBA since the Gafford/PJ trade), which kind of means that he would almost need his team to win 65+ games and him to average over a triple double with one 80 pts game among them to get the MVP.....which is almost impossible, let's be honest.

[bledredwine]

Luka has been overlooked for years and every year, he's been one of the top three playoff performers.

This playoffs, he was clearly recovering from injury, but you've still got to fear his game.

[Handlez]

Most importantly, Luka is now defending.