2021-2022 ROSTER TALK: [ARCHIVED]

[Kammrath]

And yet in much bigger samples

2020:  Luka+THJ  Off 116  Def 112  Net +4  1231 minutes
2019:  Luka+THJ  Off 117  Def 108  Net +9  1207 minutes

What does this tell us?  That there is way too much noise in 2 man lineups to get much of anything, especially in a 3rd of a season.

I don't think anybody on here disputes that THJ and Luka are poor defenders, and a questionable fit as starters because of it (seems like there was thread going over this just yesterday).

The controversial comment Sefant made was suggesting that Brunson is a good defender and that if only Luka played defense like him we would be top 5-10.  Looking at raw two man data without a ton of context is not going to be very helpful in validating that claim.  If you want to look at on/off data to make some conclusions, there are some very good advanced stats (Lebron, EPM, Darko) that do a much better job of integrating all of the information.  They all come to the same conclusion.  All three guys are poor defenders.

But those samples have nothing to do with the current defensive schemes or the current health/conditioning of Luka. 

JB is a much better defender than Luka in Kidd's scheme. Luka has been terrible in it as has THJ, but especially together. THJ and Luka can both play one on one D, but they are terrible at rotations and help D. Kidd's scheme asks for more of that than RC's (and I think RC purposefully kept the D scheme less aggressive for THIS very reason). 

JB doesn't have the physical tools but his BBDIQ (within a scheme) is much better than both Luka and THJ.