05-28-2022, 09:44 AM
(05-27-2022, 04:07 PM)mvossman Wrote: 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.
No dog here in the EPM vs RAPTOR vs LEBRON fight. I just went with the one with the easiest interface to slice and dice. 538 is great. Their site defaults to a 1k minutes and some change filter so those numbers above are only for players playing rotation minutes (depending how you define it). For comparison Brunson played about 2k more minutes than that, which looked to be 3-500ish higher than most. That availability is awesome after we experienced the Great Disappearing KP act, but the playoffs are a different animal where it’s less grind and more about what you can do after teams take away your primary.
Want to go down a rabbit hole thought experiment? No? I’m going to do it anyway. Let’s assume both Brunson and DFS are top 75 players in the NBA. Does that make them solid-caliber (playoff) starters? That “playoff” may have gotten lost in the nested quotes but is important here. 16 playoff teams * 5 starters = 80. So yes! But wait - I’d posit that if we went team by team, we’d quickly agree that at least 1-2 players on each starting lineup aren’t really playoff starter level and are more a function of roster construction and necessity (looking at you Dwight Powell).
But, we’d also agree that there are players on non-playoff teams that ARE that playoff starter level. Maybe 1-2ish per non-playoff team? That would be roughly a wash. So trying to construct a definition on the fly that roughly fits my low-effort initial heuristic - above #70 net (RAPTOR) and meeting a reasonable minutes threshold means you’re a clear playoff starter caliber player. #70-100 you’re in the conversation, more -ish for me but reasonably debatable (tool flaws, sample size, past performance, etc.).
I think that puts both DFS and Brunson in the range where you could make an argument they’re “clear” or not. YMMV. 95% agree with your comments on fit but this has already become a novel. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.