05-27-2022, 04:07 PM
(05-27-2022, 02:46 PM)Not an evil robot Wrote: I may not have made the caveat clear enough when I called it "theory craft". Completely recognize in reality a S&T is highly unlikely and hard to make profitable for the Mavs. We're locked into signing him, assuming he's interested, because any other outcome is much, much worse from a talent perspective. Agreed!
Looking at RAPTOR for the full season, DFS is #89 by net and Brunson is #62. WAR ranking is a bit higher for both, although still in Brunson's favor. IIRC that's a counting stat that tilts the direction of players who are available (and both played the higher end of average minutes in the league). Brunson is the #18 playoff scorer by average; he's probably much higher in total points but again, counting stats tilt towards those with more appearances. Fair point though, I probably should have both Brunson and DFS in the same category - likely both starter-ish for me.
More generally, I think he's not the ideal fit to maximize Luka in the playoffs. He plays a very similar iso-heavy game (which I think limits both his additive qualities and the diversity of our offense, meaning schemes that shut down one are likely effective against the other) and he's a slight negative on the defensive end (where I think we need more length and athleticism because Luka will probably top out at neutral on that end).
We're likely going to see Brunson for the next few years so I'm rooting for him, but again in "theory craft" land - I want someone who's more like a +1 OFF, +1 DEF player next to Luka than a +2.5 OFF, -.5 DEF Brunson. That's not to say Brunson isn't talented, but wherever possible I'm solving for synergy with our superstar when it comes to playoffs. That's about the only way to make a Luka + "role players" work at a championship level.
I prefer EPM to Raptor, but the numbers are similar. Net needs to be taken with a grain of salt because there are some specialty guys in there that play less than 20 minutes a game. There are also some folks that played a very small part of the season. Also, playing high minutes in a game is a very important skill and should be part of the equation. Being able to play most games is also a very important skill, a lesson we learned with the KP debacle. Overall they are both easily top 75 players and probably closer to 50. That is not "start-ish", that is legit playoff starter without any qualification.
As to long term, I totally agree that a two way player would be a better fit with Luka, and eventually it may make the most sense to leverage Brunson to get that player. But there are three other players on the court. I think you can get away with Luka and Brunson with 3 plus defenders on the court. It does make other things more difficult. I think the defense suffers significantly if you put another minus defender with them (like Timmy). That means you have to focus on defensive players, which is what tends to lead to having too many players on the court that can only shoot open 3s.
In the short term, it doesn't really matter as we will be way better off asset wise to sign him then let him walk or get forced into a crappy S&T.