2021 NBA Off and Regular season

[17 Seconds]

Funny to talk about not getting blown out at home in Game 7 and then looking at the DAL/PHX score

 

the bucks are champions, the suns are paper tigers

[Old Style]

https://twitter.com/kofie/status/1526023360769138690?s=21&t=3Ml7cBAdgFg10-15GBkAMg

[Derwood]

https://twitter.com/kofie/status/1526023360769138690?s=21&t=3Ml7cBAdgFg10-15GBkAMg

 

Whatever this was, it's gone

[gflore34]

The Celtics managed to do what the Bulls couldn't - make Giannis beat them. For the most part, they shutdown the Bucks supporting players and let Giannis get his, he's great and all but, there's no way he wins 5 on 1. Series, were it not for a miraculous 4th quarter, should been done in 6 games.

 

Questions- Is just me or does Giannis, via "incidental" contact, hit defenders in the face quite a bit? Perhaps, more, than usually occurs over the course of a game and series?

[Old Style]

https://twitter.com/kofie/status/1526023360769138690?s=21&t=3Ml7cBAdgFg10-15GBkAMg

 

Whatever this was, it's gone

Damn. It was a picture of an old, gray JFK with a caption of "JFK today if Devin Booker was the shooter."

[raw]

The Celtics managed to do what the Bulls couldn't - make Giannis beat them. For the most part, they shutdown the Bucks supporting players and let Giannis get his, he's great and all but, there's no way he wins 5 on 1. Series, were it not for a miraculous 4th quarter, should been done in 6 games.

 

Questions- Is just me or does Giannis, via "incidental" contact, hit defenders in the face quite a bit? Perhaps, more, than usually occurs over the course of a game and series?

 

He is freakishly long, is my best explanation. And you can tell it's been drilled in his head to keep the ball high in traffic so smaller guys don't steal the ball. So, the contact I do believe is incidental, but for sure it happens a bunch.

[gflore34]

The Celtics managed to do what the Bulls couldn't - make Giannis beat them. For the most part, they shutdown the Bucks supporting players and let Giannis get his, he's great and all but, there's no way he wins 5 on 1. Series, were it not for a miraculous 4th quarter, should been done in 6 games.

 

Questions- Is just me or does Giannis, via "incidental" contact, hit defenders in the face quite a bit? Perhaps, more, than usually occurs over the course of a game and series?

 

He is freakishly long, is my best explanation. And you can tell it's been drilled in his head to keep the ball high in traffic so smaller guys don't steal the ball. So, the contact I do believe is incidental, but for sure it happens a bunch.

 

That sounds reasonable, don't think there's any intent however, in a playoff series I could see their opponents really getting aggravated and tired of it. Another thing about Giannis why in the hell does he keep shooting 3's? If he was a Bull that would drive me nuts, his 3 attempts are basically a TO.

[Tim]

The Celtics managed to do what the Bulls couldn't - make Giannis beat them. For the most part, they shutdown the Bucks supporting players and let Giannis get his, he's great and all but, there's no way he wins 5 on 1. Series, were it not for a miraculous 4th quarter, should been done in 6 games.

 

Questions- Is just me or does Giannis, via "incidental" contact, hit defenders in the face quite a bit? Perhaps, more, than usually occurs over the course of a game and series?

 

He is freakishly long, is my best explanation. And you can tell it's been drilled in his head to keep the ball high in traffic so smaller guys don't steal the ball. So, the contact I do believe is incidental, but for sure it happens a bunch.

 

That sounds reasonable, don't think there's any intent however, in a playoff series I could see their opponents really getting aggravated and tired of it. Another thing about Giannis why in the hell does he keep shooting 3's? If he was a Bull that would drive me nuts, his 3 attempts are basically a TO.

Part of that is that you have to be willing to shoot it from the outside once in a while if you want people to go for ball fakes so that you can drive past them. If you never shoot from the outside, it makes defending you easier.

[NOLA]

 

He is freakishly long, is my best explanation. And you can tell it's been drilled in his head to keep the ball high in traffic so smaller guys don't steal the ball. So, the contact I do believe is incidental, but for sure it happens a bunch.

 

That sounds reasonable, don't think there's any intent however, in a playoff series I could see their opponents really getting aggravated and tired of it. Another thing about Giannis why in the hell does he keep shooting 3's? If he was a Bull that would drive me nuts, his 3 attempts are basically a TO.

Part of that is that you have to be willing to shoot it from the outside once in a while if you want people to go for ball fakes so that you can drive past them. If you never shoot from the outside, it makes defending you easier.

But Giannis does shoot from outside, probably too much. Boston had to be relieved every time he put one up from 3.

 

To the point of him hitting opponents in the face all the time, both explanations are correct, IMO. Giannis will naturally do that because of his freakish size, but this series was testy, and I have to think there was a lot of intent there. The Celtics seem to take pride in getting into people’s heads.

[gflore34]

 

He is freakishly long, is my best explanation. And you can tell it's been drilled in his head to keep the ball high in traffic so smaller guys don't steal the ball. So, the contact I do believe is incidental, but for sure it happens a bunch.

 

That sounds reasonable, don't think there's any intent however, in a playoff series I could see their opponents really getting aggravated and tired of it. Another thing about Giannis why in the hell does he keep shooting 3's? If he was a Bull that would drive me nuts, his 3 attempts are basically a TO.

Part of that is that you have to be willing to shoot it from the outside once in a while if you want people to go for ball fakes so that you can drive past them. If you never shoot from the outside, it makes defending you easier.

 

He does shoot, mid range, that I could live with it, maybe, it's he shoots too many three's, he's a career 29% 3-pt shooter so, its safe to say he's not very good from the beyond the arc. Nevertheless, he is amazing and fun to watch, heard Boston fans yelling - "..Giannis it's not football.." - last night, thought that was funny.

[raw]

 

That sounds reasonable, don't think there's any intent however, in a playoff series I could see their opponents really getting aggravated and tired of it. Another thing about Giannis why in the hell does he keep shooting 3's? If he was a Bull that would drive me nuts, his 3 attempts are basically a TO.

Part of that is that you have to be willing to shoot it from the outside once in a while if you want people to go for ball fakes so that you can drive past them. If you never shoot from the outside, it makes defending you easier.

 

He does shoot, mid range, that I could live with it, maybe, it's he shoots too many three's, he's a career 29% 3-pt shooter so, its safe to say he's not very good from the beyond the arc. Nevertheless, he is amazing and fun to watch, heard Boston fans yelling - "..Giannis it's not football.." - last night, thought that was funny.

 

3.6 attempts from 3 per game, same 2 years in a row. So, I think he's shooting just enough to keep teams honest and not enough to make his 29% kill his team. He's probably not getting any better at it at this point in his career, so as long as his numbers stay in that range, he should be fine until his athleticism starts to go and he either needs to shoot better or just become a pure low post guy.

[gflore34]

It's probably a bit irrational on my part however, Miami just might be one of the weakest number one seeds I've ever seen. Nothing impressive about them, I don't get it, I must be missing something.

[NOLA]

I’m not trying to say that Vegas has rigged these playoff games, but if they did, I feel like these wild series would be what that looked like.

[Old Style]

 

God bless Steve Kerr.

[Regular Show]

Steve Kerr is awesome and I hope he inspires more coaches and athletes to speak out on this problem and other important social issues.

 

----

 

 

I wonder if the huge number of blowouts and lack of close games this NBA postseason is due to the increasing % of 3s and just the game-to-game variance in 3-pt shooting between teams. It's not a good trend, and I've ranted about this plenty before -- the NBA needs to move the 3-pt line back and widen the court.

 

Centers are completely losing their viability/utility in today's game and it's not aesthetically pleasing to watch when NBA teams are bricking shots from long range and are down by 20 at halftime.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

 

Centers are completely losing their viability/utility in today's game and it's not aesthetically pleasing to watch when NBA teams are bricking shots from long range and are down by 20 at halftime.

In 2022, centers accounted for first, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh in win share. In win share per min played, centers literally make up 3/4ths of the top 20.

[Regular Show]

 

Centers are completely losing their viability/utility in today's game and it's not aesthetically pleasing to watch when NBA teams are bricking shots from long range and are down by 20 at halftime.

In 2022, centers accounted for first, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh in win share. In win share per min played, centers literally make up 3/4ths of the top 20.

 

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2022_advanced.html#advanced_stats::ws.

 

I see 9 Centers listed in the top 20 on basketball-reference for win shares for 21'-22'. Sure, you can look at this stat, but no one thinks Mitchell Robinson and Clint Capela are better than Luka Doncic or Steph Curry lol. Like not even close in value honestly.

 

This isn't MLB where you look at WAR to compare players btw (and I actually hate when people do this, and people who work inside MLB hate when people do this also). You actually do this way too much, but that's a whole other separate thing.

 

In basketball, you can't simply measure a player's worth/impact based on a stat like Win Share because defense is so damn hard to quantify in this sport. Simply looking at steals + blocks to compare players on defense is stupid, and the Second Spectrum tracking system has revolutionized how they view NBA players (especially on defense with switching, showing, closest defender to another player, total distance covered, etc.) I can explain this in more detail if you would like...

 

Anyway, back to the concept of centers losing their significance. I didn't just come up with this spur of the moment. John Hollinger, Kevin O'Connor and plenty of other experts who are FAR more knowledgeable than either of us have been saying this for months now. You can see it in the postseason very clearly...

 

With centers in particular, we run into issues of diminishing returns. You can play one center, but never more; meanwhile, you can play as many 6-7 guys as you want in today’s NBA, provided at least one of them can dribble.

 

Despite that, teams continue to overvalue taking big centers at the top of the draft. We’ve had 18 centers drafted in the top six picks since 2002; only three of them have played in an All-Star Game, and in the case of Chris Kaman, we’re defining this term extremely broadly. Should Mobley and Deandre Ayton eventually make it, we’ll be at five. Woohoo...

 

John Hollinger wrote that in an article breaking down his top 20 prospects for the NBA Draft. Teams are definitely devaluing that position and realizing small-ball lineups with talented guards/wings who can dribble, penetrate, create for teammates and hit shots from the perimeter are better. I'm not saying the elite Centers (Jokic, Embiid, KAT, Gobert) are bad and they totally deserve their MVP bonafides. If you want to add Giannis to that group (okay) that makes the group a little larger, but it's still a select few players. I can find a few more articles and videos explaining how centers are losing their significance in today's NBA, but I feel like it won't matter. Not when you use win shares as the crux of your argument lmao

[Regular Show]

I could probably put this in the Bulls threads, but I'll leave this here to better illustrate my point:

 

Look how much detail Alex Caruso goes into in this video on defense, and this is why analysts/execs/coaches watch so much film in the NBA. To properly evaluate defensive contributions you have to watch film and see how the defense might have broke down and where the blame resides, or where the credit goes for a defensive stop.

 

NBA Court Optix does have some cool metrics and analysts for NBA teams are using Second Spectrum to better quantify NBA defense for individual players, but they don't use one catch-all stat like UZR or OAA in baseball.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

 

I see 9 Centers listed in the top 20 on basketball-reference for win shares for 21'-22'. Sure, you can look at this stat, but no one thinks Mitchell Robinson and Clint Capela are better than Luka Doncic or Steph Curry lol. Like not even close in value honestly.

 

This isn't MLB where you look at WAR to compare players btw (and I actually hate when people do this, and people who work inside MLB hate when people do this also). You actually do this way too much, but that's a whole other separate thing.

True. No one thinks Robinson and Capela are better than Luka or Steph. They aren't. But they grade out higher on win shares because centers have a horsefeathers ton of utility. A more useful stat for an individual's value might be win-shares equalized for the position they play. But that's not what we're talking about.

 

No idea what you mean about me posting WAR comparisons. I don't think that's something I do often, since I don't remember it. I just read what you said and thought "hmm, Jokic and Embiid were totally dominant this year, and most stat nerds seemed to agree" so I looked up how centers fared this year. I'm going to default tangible stats over internet take from internet guy (who claims to know the minds of insider NBA stat guys) and some dudes I've never heard of waiving their hands. I'll conceed that maybe win-shares isn't a great stat, as basketball is a much more difficult sport to quantify than baseball, but it's what I trust, given my options.

[Regular Show]

 

I see 9 Centers listed in the top 20 on basketball-reference for win shares for 21'-22'. Sure, you can look at this stat, but no one thinks Mitchell Robinson and Clint Capela are better than Luka Doncic or Steph Curry lol. Like not even close in value honestly.

 

This isn't MLB where you look at WAR to compare players btw (and I actually hate when people do this, and people who work inside MLB hate when people do this also). You actually do this way too much, but that's a whole other separate thing.

True. No one thinks Robinson and Capela are better than Luka or Steph. They aren't. But they grade out higher on win shares because centers have a horsefeathers ton of utility. A more useful stat for an individual's value might be win-shares equalized for the position they play. But that's not what we're talking about.

 

No idea what you mean about me posting WAR comparisons. I don't think that's something I do often, since I don't remember it. I just read what you said and thought "hmm, Jokic and Embiid were totally dominant this year, and most stat nerds seemed to agree" so I looked up how centers fared this year. I'm going to default tangible stats over internet take from internet guy (who claims to know the minds of insider NBA stat guys) and some dudes I've never heard of waiving their hands. I'll conceed that maybe win-shares isn't a great stat, as basketball is a much more difficult sport to quantify than baseball, but it's what I trust, given my options.

 

I should have clarified what you do too much of I guess. I've noticed you don't believe or trust things you can't quantify in baseball (much of scouting) and want error bars and confidence intervals and the like... I mean, sure, it would be nice if we had all those things but we don't. Scouting is still very important, even if it is subjective and occasionally very off.

 

You've never heard of John Hollinger? He invented the stat PER and worked at ESPN for many years, and then worked in the FO for the Memphis Grizzlies. He's an analyst who actually really cares about stats and trying to quantify the sport. Ah, I think the dude is pretty damn credible.

 

You've never heard of the Second Spectrum tracking system and how it is transforming the game? I mean, I guess not everyone knows about it, but that's not my problem. You're the one who brought up win shares in this argument. A better stat or framework for evaluating a sport/hobby will always come along, so I usually like to keep it simple but I couldn't do that here obviously.

 

I get the point you were trying to make, but experts and former players and many observers all echo what I'm saying about centers in the NBA. Jokic and Embiid are freaks, but they're also just 2 players with exceptional skill sets. Most centers can't do what they do, and most centers are terrible shooters away from the hoop.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

 

I see 9 Centers listed in the top 20 on basketball-reference for win shares for 21'-22'. Sure, you can look at this stat, but no one thinks Mitchell Robinson and Clint Capela are better than Luka Doncic or Steph Curry lol. Like not even close in value honestly.

 

This isn't MLB where you look at WAR to compare players btw (and I actually hate when people do this, and people who work inside MLB hate when people do this also). You actually do this way too much, but that's a whole other separate thing.

True. No one thinks Robinson and Capela are better than Luka or Steph. They aren't. But they grade out higher on win shares because centers have a horsefeathers ton of utility. A more useful stat for an individual's value might be win-shares equalized for the position they play. But that's not what we're talking about.

 

No idea what you mean about me posting WAR comparisons. I don't think that's something I do often, since I don't remember it. I just read what you said and thought "hmm, Jokic and Embiid were totally dominant this year, and most stat nerds seemed to agree" so I looked up how centers fared this year. I'm going to default tangible stats over internet take from internet guy (who claims to know the minds of insider NBA stat guys) and some dudes I've never heard of waiving their hands. I'll conceed that maybe win-shares isn't a great stat, as basketball is a much more difficult sport to quantify than baseball, but it's what I trust, given my options.

 

I should have clarified what you do too much of I guess. I've noticed you don't believe or trust things you can't quantify in baseball (much of scouting) and want error bars and confidence intervals and the like... I mean, sure, it would be nice if we had all those things but we don't. Scouting is still very important, even if it is subjective and occasionally very off.

 

You've never heard of John Hollinger? He invented the stat PER and worked at ESPN for many years, and then worked in the FO for the Memphis Grizzlies. He's an analyst who actually really cares about stats and trying to quantify the sport. Ah, I think the dude is pretty damn credible.

 

You've never heard of the Second Spectrum tracking system and how it is transforming the game? I mean, I guess not everyone knows about it, but that's not my problem. You're the one who brought up win shares in this argument. A better stat or framework for evaluating a sport/hobby will always come along, so I usually like to keep it simple but I couldn't do that here obviously.

 

I get the point you were trying to make, but experts and former players and many observers all echo what I'm saying about centers in the NBA. Jokic and Embiid are freaks, but they're also just 2 players with exceptional skill sets. Most centers can't do what they do, and most centers are terrible shooters away from the hoop.

I don't especially follow the NBA. I don't know guys. The experts you're quoting are saying that centers are being drafted too high, and that's probably true. The difference in the outcome of a game between good and so-so centers is probably minimal, and the skill positions might have more differentiation, but that doesn't mean the position itself lacks utility. The fact that very tall unathletic bums keep playing in the NBA speaks to that. It's similar to the NFL figuring out that using lots of draft capital on RBs was silly. ...but it doesn't mean that RB isn't a vital position in the NFL.

 

Disregarding Jokic and Embiid as freaks or outliers is ok...but then pointing to a few freakish outliers like Steph and Luka isn't really helping your argument. And I'd be thrilled to see how Second Spectrum and the like ranks out stuff. I went to their site. They provide no stats that I can see.

[Old Style]

[Splendid Splinter]

Of course those 3 would be in his list of preferred destinations. I imagine it's all good teams. Good luck with that! :good: :lol:

[NOLA]

Golden State is going to thrash whoever wins the East (the Celtics). There’s no way either of these teams have anything left for the Finals.

[NewUserName]

 

My guess is none of those 3 teams would even consider taking him on