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Luka ended the MIA game a team worst -13. That is 4 of the first 7 games that Luka has been one of the two worst in +/- on the whole team.

This is a MASSIVE issue.


So for perspective:

In Dirk's first 19 seasons he NEVER had a negative +/- and almost always led the team in +/-. When Dirk played, the Mavs outscored their opponents, almost without fail.

Luka was negative in his first season, positive the last two (but not by a whole lot), and now in his fourth season is a team worst -25.7. I am super concerned that Luka is not the true superstar that I was hoping he would be. True superstars impact winning, PERIOD.

And before you blame the talent around Luka, don't. Worse talent around you actually makes being positive in +/- easier because the players who replace you suck.

This is genuinely the most alarming thing surrounding this team right now. The Mavs cannot outscore their opponents with Luka playing and are being outscored by 13.3 pts when he does. Seven games is a small sample size, sure, but these numbers are hugely alarming.

These kinds of hot takes are exactly why people give you grief for your obsession with raw +/- numbers.

(11-02-2021, 10:31 PM)Branduil Wrote: [ -> ]These kinds of hot takes are exactly why people give you grief for your obsession with raw +/- numbers.

Please elaborate. What was wrong in my post? Did I get facts wrong? Am I not allowed to be concerned about the lack of team success when Luka plays?

maybe we're tanking and Luka is helping us meet that objective

(11-02-2021, 10:35 PM)Kammrath Wrote: [ -> ]Am I not allowed to be concerned about the lack of team success when Luka plays?

Because Luka isn't the problem, by a long shot. +/- be damned. 

Take Luka off the team and replace him with whoever you want in the league and I bet save maybe Jokic no one has a better record.

(11-02-2021, 10:35 PM)Kammrath Wrote: [ -> ]Please elaborate. What was wrong in my post? Did I get facts wrong? Am I not allowed to be concerned about the lack of team success when Luka plays?

If a stat is telling you that Luka is the biggest problem with this team then that stat might not be worth that much.

(11-02-2021, 10:56 PM)Branduil Wrote: [ -> ]If a stat is telling you that Luka is the biggest problem with this team then that stat might not be worth that much.

 

That is NOT what the stat says, not even close. And it is NOT even close to what I said. 

Luka is the team's best and most talented player, without question. But it is incredibly alarming how it does NOT translate to on-court success. It is especially alarming that the team is doing a better job of outscoring its opponents when Luka sits. Why? 

1) Some is Luka's team D has been really lazy this year. 
2) Some of it is Luka's own poor shooting. 
3) Some of it is the team missing SO MANY open shots that Luka generates. 

But I am not sure that explains all of it.

My whole concern? I thought Luka was going to be a top 5 ALL TIME kind of player....but so far he has really struggled to elevate his team in a NBA setting. He has done it internationally, so I am not giving up hope by any means, but I wonder if there will be a NBA ceiling for him as far as winning.

I mean it's hard to elevate G-League talent

(11-02-2021, 11:00 PM)Kammrath Wrote: [ -> ]wonder if there will be a NBA ceiling for him as far as winning

If you need any evidence to this, Luka has won at every level before he came to the Mavs. Literally this summer he took Slovenia's basketball team to it's first ever Olympics and singlehandedly catapulted them through to a near podium finish, with a good shot at silver if not for a Batum block in the last second. 

Think about that.

Given the enormous and steady track record of Luka's success, I'll reckon to say that its the Mavs holding him back. If there is anything Luka has done he's proven he's a winner. 

I give you a challenge. Go to every single NBA team, and count how many players in their starting 5 are better than our starting 5. 

Miami for instance. They are better in almost every single position talent wise save our superstars. In Luka's rookie year they missed the playoffs. 3 years later they have a finals appearance and are gearing for another deep playoff run. 

Want to know how many players are still on the Heat to day from that 2018-19 Heat roster? 3. Duncan Robinson, Bam Adebayo, and Udonis Haslem. THATS building a team. 

Want to know how many players we still have from Luka's rookie year? 9. That right there is the issue. So no. There should be no question on Luka's ability to win. The only question is will Mark Cuban's ineptitude get out of the way and actually let Luka shine before Luka realizes he's a loser and jumps ship?

(11-03-2021, 12:13 AM)SleepingHero Wrote: [ -> ]There should be no question on Luka's ability to win. The only question is will Mark Cuban's ineptitude get out of the way and actually let Luka shine before Luka realizes he's a loser and jumps ship?

Nope.  2011 was a blessing and a curse.  Dirk got his ring.  Cuban affirmed his belief that he's the smartest owner in the league.  Most every move made since then has been a disaster, save for the draft featuring Luka and Jalen.  Luka isn't going to have Dirk's patience and winning one chip isn't going to satisfy him either.  I'm glad you mentioned Miami's rebuild as it is what came to mind when thinking about organizations that understand team building.

(11-02-2021, 11:00 PM)Kammrath Wrote: [ -> ]My whole concern? I thought Luka was going to be a top 5 ALL TIME kind of player....but so far he has really struggled to elevate his team in a NBA setting. He has done it internationally, so I am not giving up hope by any means, but I wonder if there will be a NBA ceiling for him as far as winning.

My entire concern is condition/shape/body. You probaby have trouble listing 5-10 guys in the entire NBA who are in worst body shape out of the summer. Its being reflected by his ability to blow by people.

Last year was an excuse to not being in proper shape, this year the excuse is the Olympics? Next 4 years is packed with international tournaments everywhere ...


On/Off so far:

Luka -25.5
Tim -10.9
DFS -9.2
Powell -18.6
KP -17.3

Brunson +18.7
S. Brown +3.8
Bullock -16.4
Kleber +20.3
WCS +34.9

Kleber out going to hurt for a while.

(11-03-2021, 12:13 AM)SleepingHero Wrote: [ -> ]If you need any evidence to this, Luka has won at every level before he came to the Mavs. Literally this summer he took Slovenia's basketball team to it's first ever Olympics and singlehandedly catapulted them through to a near podium finish, with a good shot at silver if not for a Batum block in the last second. 

Think about that.

Given the enormous and steady track record of Luka's success, I'll reckon to say that its the Mavs holding him back. If there is anything Luka has done he's proven he's a winner. 

I give you a challenge. Go to every single NBA team, and count how many players in their starting 5 are better than our starting 5. 

Miami for instance. They are better in almost every single position talent wise save our superstars. In Luka's rookie year they missed the playoffs. 3 years later they have a finals appearance and are gearing for another deep playoff run. 

Want to know how many players are still on the Heat to day from that 2018-19 Heat roster? 3. Duncan Robinson, Bam Adebayo, and Udonis Haslem. THATS building a team. 

Want to know how many players we still have from Luka's rookie year? 9. That right there is the issue. So no. There should be no question on Luka's ability to win. The only question is will Mark Cuban's ineptitude get out of the way and actually let Luka shine before Luka realizes he's a loser and jumps ship?

What superstars are your talking about. Even healthy Porzingis is not even a star right now. Add his broken down body to the equation and I´d take Lowry, Butler, Herro, Adebayo and Robinson over him any day of the week.

And Haslem is the team mascot, so it´s really only two players.

No analytics expert would make any sort of conclusions at all based on a 7-game sample size and one statistic -- on-off +/-, which is well known to be one of the sport's noisiest stats. 

Much less sweeping, counterintuitive assessments that are hysterical on their face. 

Mavs most alarming problems:

Luka sucks. 
Luka is lazy. 
Luka is a terrible shooter. 
Luka is killing the team. 
Luka's body is bottom-10 in the league. 
Luka is nothing special after all. Just a disappointing flash-in-the-pan who brings his teams down. 

A professional statistician submitting this data to support these conclusions would be laughed out of the room. 

Send Luka's fat ass back to Slovenia! Put the guys who normally play with him on the pine! Put the guys who have been playing when Luka sits out there for 48 minutes! Mavs problems solved! Seven-game on-off +/- proves it!

Get a grip.

Leery and pissed Mark Folowill, I like it!

The real concern for Luka is that he just hasn’t improved like you would expect for a young player.  He took a jump in his second year, but not really his third.  And this year, he’s playing at about his rookie year level. I thought he might be a pantheon level player, based on the idea that he would improve his shooting to ~40% from the three and 80+% from the stripe, in addition to all the stuff he could already do. He shot 80% from the line in Europe, and it looks like the same shot to me, so the NBA ft % has been baffling. Improvement isn’t a straight line, so hopefully this will get worked out. For now, I’ll chalk it up to too much basketball and not enough training and conditioning over the last year.  Plus, he looks a little slow and hesitant in the “new” offense, whatever it is (this offense does not have an identity).

(11-03-2021, 07:11 AM)mavsluvr Wrote: [ -> ]Mavs most alarming problems:

Luka sucks. 
Luka is lazy. 
Luka is a terrible shooter. 
Luka is killing the team. 
Luka's body is bottom-10 in the league. 
Luka is nothing special after all. Just a disappointing flash-in-the-pan who brings his teams down. 

A professional statistician submitting this data to support these conclusions would be laughed out of the room. 

Send Luka's fat ass back to Slovenia! Put the guys who normally play with him on the pine! Put the guys who have been playing when Luka sits out there for 48 minutes! Mavs problems solved! Seven-game on-off +/- proves it!

Get a grip.

Please get a grip yourself, the ONLY thing in your whole list that someone ACTUALLY said is the bolded one above (which I personally didn't even say). The others? Incredibly poor reading comprehension/bad interpretation of stats. Stop misrepresenting what others say.

I clearly said Luka is the most talented and best player on the team.

I clearly said I thought he was top-5 ALL TIME kind of player, and I am facing the reality that he probably isn't, a level below that which is a disappointment to me with all his talent and ability.

I clearly said I have concerns about Luka's conditioning/diet and have said so for ALL of his last three seasons.

Etc. Etc.


If you really think it is an overreaction to be concerned about the team not having success with Luka on the court this season then please give me an example of ONE player of his approximate talent that is absolute last (or close to) on his team in on/off +/-?

Trae is middle of the pack.
Brown & Tatum are at the top.
KD & Harden are middle of the pack.
LaMelo is at the top.
DeRozan is at the top (!), Vuc and LaVine middle of the pack.
Sexton is near the bottom.
Jokic is at the top.
Curry is at the top.
PG is is in the middle.
Lebron is at the top, AD in the middle, RW at the bottom.
Ja is near the bottom.
Lowry/Herro near the top, Butler in the middle.
Giannis/Jrue at the top.
DR, ANT, KAT near the top.
Embiid in the middle.
Ayton near the top, CP3/Book in the middle.
Dame in the middle.
Fox in the middle.
DM at the top, Gobert near the bottom.
Beal in the middle.

The only true comp is Russell Westbrook. Ja and Sexton are the next closest along with Gobert. 

Yes, it is only seven games (I said multiple times that is a SMALL sample size), but the numbers IN that sample are really, really bad.

(11-02-2021, 11:00 PM)Kammrath Wrote: [ -> ]1) Some is Luka's team D has been really lazy this year.

I agree with this, but I don't think this is new. I think he has been relatively unaware and distracted (by foul calls he didn't get seconds before, most often) as an off-ball defender since entering the NBA. I haven't seen enough of his play in Europe to know if it was an issue there. 

Having said that, he has had moments of brilliant on-ball defense in most games this season, too. 

Is it possible that part of why Carlisle's defense seemed a little safer and less aggressive at times was an effort to prevent possessions from developing to the point where success/failure depends on great help defense from Luka? It feels that way to me.