Trade & FA 2024-25:

[mvossman]

Getting more touches is exactly why he is more efficient. The more you do something at practice the better you get at it. The more you do it in game situations the better you get at it under game pressure.

I'm not saying you can't win with one of those guys starting. I'm saying that Dallas team isn't winning with one of those guys starting. They were worn out. I don't like the idea of thinking "surely Boston can't sustain that". I'd rather build a team that can win no matter who they face.

If you go back and look at advanced stats you will see that Luka had a usage rate of 40% during that series. You can't have that from one player and expect to win unless that player is a workout beast. Harden had usage rates close to what Luka averages during the runs to the WCF they had. The only time that has ever been successful is with Michael Jordan. Because MJ had the stamina to be an offensive scoring title/All Offense and a DPOY/All Defense.

Even LeBron has never had usage rates that high. LeBron in his prime on title runs would hit usage of 30-33% after the all star break through the playoffs. Luka is averaging 33% and higher during the season and hitting 40% in the playoffs. That's not sustainable. It's also not winning basketball outside of anyone named MJ.

So, unless Dallas added more playmaking and scoring to get Luka playing off ball and lower usage that wasn't going to happen.

In general, when a player takes more shots their efficiency goes down because the difficulty of shots goes up.

Trading DJJ defense for Klay shooting might be a better matchup for Boston, but might be a worse matchup for OKC.

Reducing Luka usage is a reasonable goal, but Klay is not an offensive creator.  He is a finisher.  I would argue the biggest issue was the lack of an offensive creator coming off the bench (with Kidd not trusting Exum).  

None of this matters now.  We have to start from scratch to see what works and what doesn't, and with all of the injuries there will be even less sample.  I hope they manage to sneak into at least one playoff series because we can learn a lot from that.  Of course that won't really matter if Nico pulls the next big trigger in the offseason.