If We Are Done, Are We Finished?

[DanSchwartzgan]

Anyway I think this thread is kind of confusing the symptoms with the cause- I don't think teams win titles because they have over 15 VORP, I think teams have 15 VORP because they have 2 or 3 GREAT players plus good role players. Luka is doing too much heavy lifting to be sustainable in the playoffs, he needs a legitimate sidekick.

Maybe.  But in basketball, your success is often determined by your weaknesses.  In the playoffs, teams hunt your worst defender.  Sometimes you can't even play your best guys.  Two of the Laker's highest rated players were Harrell and Gasol and neither couldn't get any burn in the playoffs.

We probably need to define what a GREAT player is.  In VORP, a 3.0 is the 22nd ranked player in the league.  2.5 is the 32nd ranked player.  It is probably hard to be GREAT if you aren't in the top 32, right?  And what is a "good" rotation player.  There are 106 players with a rating of 1.0 or better (about 3.5 per team).  There are 172 players with a 0.5 or better (about 6 per team).  Which is good enough to be good?  

Let's look at four teams:

Team A's best players are rated 3.2 and 2.8
Team B's best players are rated 3.6 and 2.5
Team C's best players are 4.2 and 3.1
Team D's best players are 3.7 and 3.0

Only three teams have a second best player at 3.0 and I've listed two of them here.  One of these teams was 34-38.  One of these teams made the finals.  Another had the best record in the league and another lost in the first round.  I would propose that these teams are indistinguishable by the differences between their GREAT players, yet two were highly successful and two weren't.

The difference was depth.  The team with the best record in the league had seven guys rated 1.0 or better.  The finalist had six.  The sub-500 team and the first round flame out had two.  There were five teams with five or more players rated 1.0 or higher.  Utah, Portland, Phoenix, Philly and Milwaukee.  Only the champs had a player ranked more highly than Luka.

I don't disagree that it would be nice for Luka to have a buddy who is also in the top 30.  Hell, even the top 50.  But if there isn't a clear path, then shoring up weaknesses is a valuable exercise.