Why can't people admit the lesser chemistry/winning/inferiority of ball-dominators

[3ba11]

Specifically, high-scoring primary ball-handler skillsets (ball-dominators) impose weaker chemistry/spot-up roles, so they need more help and win less, aka inferior.

This is the historical record..

Ball-dominators like Luka, Lebron, Westbrook, Harden, Trae, Lillard and many more have horrible records of teammate development - it took collusions of big 3 super-teams to win anything, yet they still mostly lost and had lottery records against Finals teams.

SGA is the first ball-dominator to win with a "normal" roster of 1 franchise player... However, he's also a scoring champ with great midrange, so he's normally the bailout guy, while higher-assist guys like Lebron use teammates as bailout options.

Btw, 4 of 4 dynasties in the play-by-play era had leading scorers that were off-ball players like Jordan, Shaq, Duncan, and Curry... Meanwhile, 8 of 8 the dominant title runs (4 losses max) had leading scorers that were off-ball guys (97' Jordan, 99' Duncan, 01' Shaq, 02' Shaq, 07' Duncan, 17' Durant, 23' Jokic, 24' Tatum)

[iamgine]

Jokic is still playing and not winning. He won like one time.

[3ba11]

Jokic is still playing and not winning. He won like one time.


But he won with weak help - this is characteristic of off-ball guys like Curry winning with Wiggins or Klay, and other examples of winning with weak help ("normal " rosters of 1 franchise player) like Jokic, Dirk, Jordan,, or Duncan

Otoh, ball-dominators need super-teams and generally can't win with "normal" rosters, unless they pull off the rare scoring title + championship feat (so basically never)..

By turning everyone into spot-up shooter, ball-dominators have weaker chemistry, thereby needing more talent.. They're bad at moving and scoring off screens, which is a MAJOR weakness - it requires superior instinct, fundamentals and touch

[Overdrive]

SGA is the first ball-dominator to win with a "normal" roster of 1 franchise player... However, he's also a scoring champ with great midrange, so he's normally the bailout guy, while higher-assist guys like Lebron use teammates as bailout options.


As predicted. The moment he wins he'll be touted as an expert jumpshooter by you.

[Chick Stern]

Specifically, high-scoring primary ball-handler skillsets (ball-dominators) impose weaker chemistry/spot-up roles, so they need more help and win less, aka inferior.

This is the historical record..

Ball-dominators like Luka, Lebron, Westbrook, Harden, Trae, Lillard and many more have horrible records of teammate development - it took collusions of big 3 super-teams to win anything, yet they still mostly lost and had lottery records against Finals teams.

SGA is the first ball-dominator to win with a "normal" roster of 1 franchise player... However, he's also a scoring champ with great midrange, so he's normally the bailout guy, while higher-assist guys like Lebron use teammates as bailout options.

Btw, 4 of 4 dynasties in the play-by-play era had leading scorers that were off-ball players like Jordan, Shaq, Duncan, and Curry... Meanwhile, 8 of 8 the dominant title runs (4 losses max) had leading scorers that were off-ball guys (97' Jordan, 99' Duncan, 01' Shaq, 02' Shaq, 07' Duncan, 17' Durant, 23' Jokic, 24' Tatum)

did you really type that Jordan wasn’t ball dominant?

[sdot_thadon]

did you really type that Jordan wasn’t ball dominant?

:oldlol:

[sdot_thadon]

Its just another stupid narrative from a biased pov. You couldn't win as the scoring champion.....until someone did.

I think the biggest message you want us to get out of this is: ball dominance is the hardest, highest degree of difficulty to win a chip. And unbelievably Lebron has won 4 with this most difficult formula while those other guys you mentioned played the game on easy mode? Thanks 3ball. Great analysis. :applause:

[SouBeachTalents]

Imagine praising 2024 Tatum as some notable title run, OP a ho :lol

[j3lademaster]

What can Lebron do to get this ‘ball dominator’ tag off of his back? We actually record touches and time of possession now.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/touches?SeasonType=Regular%20Season&dir=D&sort=TOUCHES

The ball dominators are all in that 5 seconds per touch range, with Brunson at an astounding 6 seconds per touch, and Jokic at a glaringly low 2.6 per touch. Lebron is 3.87 while offball god Steph Curry is 4.2 btw, which is very low for guys who score 20+ and get assists.

[3ba11]

.
Jordan has always been a goat mid-range shooter from early in his career:


PLAYOFFS


https://i.makeagif.com/media/12-19-2024/kNNzRD.gif


https://i.makeagif.com/media/3-11-2025/8YO1OS.gif


https://i.makeagif.com/media/11-10-2024/bGhvNG.gif




did you really type that Jordan wasn’t ball dominant?


No one dominated the ball in the 90's (no high scoring primary ball-handlers)

The reason that point guards didn't score a ton back then is because it was common knowledge that ball-domination was BAD.. It wasn't considered good for Tim Hardaway or Penny to average 30 ppg.

And if you think Jordan dominated the ball, then you literally haven't watched the goat off-guard.. Jordan didn't bring the ball up and started every possession off-ball - no one in history moved better off screens, and no one scored better off screens..

FYI - the reason that Phil Jackson was wrong about Jordan and erroneously claimed that he wouldn't be scoring champ in the triangle is that the "assisted rare" stat didn't exist back then - Phil assumed that 37 ppg meant that Jordan had the ball in his hands too much - he didn't realize that the majority of Jordan's buckets were assisted by teammates, and therefore his game already fit the triangle - there was little or no adjustment period - Jordan had the offense mastered from Day 1.. There was no struggle to take the ball out of his hands - MJ's game of moving off screens and taking mostly jumpers seamlessly fit the triangle

Btw, see the tables above for dribble information on Jordan's 88' playoffs - he averaged 43 ppg while more than half his shots were 1 dribble or less.. I highly recommend that you take 5 minutes out of your day and watch highlights of Jordan in the 88' Playoffs - he scored while barely dribbling... The only playoffs where he was ball-dominant was 1986 when Stan Albeck made him the defacto PG, and also 89' when Collins did the same

[3ba11]

As predicted. The moment he wins he'll be touted as an expert jumpshooter by you.


I never said he was an expert jumpshooter, since that requires scoring off-screens, which SGA doesn't do.

I merely offered an explanation for why SGA was able to win with a normal roster of 1 franchise player, while other ball-dominators needed super-teams of many franchise players.. Again, SGA did it by pulling off the rare feat of scoring title + title... He was also a great mid-range shooter and therefore was the bailout guy instead of using teammates as bailout options like higher assist guys do (Lebron, Luka, Harden, etc)... These things might explain how SGA overcame the suboptimal chemistry of ball-domination

[3ba11]

.
Lebron as an "off-ball" player:


https://i.makeagif.com/media/4-09-2025/m6H5wT.gif




What can Lebron do to get this ‘ball dominator’ tag off of his back? We actually record touches and time of possession now.

https://www.nba.com/stats/players/touches?SeasonType=Regular%20Season&dir=D&sort=TOUCHES

The ball dominators are all in that 5 seconds per touch range, with Brunson at an astounding 6 seconds per touch, and Jokic at a glaringly low 2.6 per touch. Lebron is 3.87 while offball god Steph Curry is 4.2 btw, which is very low for guys who score 20+ and get assists.



Lebron played off-ball once Luka arrived but he was really bad at it by being a massive negative and the only negative on the team, while getting massively upset in the 1st Round - so he's horrible off-ball.. The reason that he's so bad is because he doesn't move off-screens - he just stands on the wing and then "looks to go downhill upon the catch" according to the Twolves coach.. He's literally the worst off-ball player of any all-timer (outside of new guys like Luka), and his horrible off-ball play precludes him from ever having a dynasty, since they require ALL-TIME off-ball players like Curry, MJ, Duncan or Shaq

[3ba11]

Its just another stupid narrative from a biased pov. You couldn't win as the scoring champion.....until someone did.

I think the biggest message you want us to get out of this is: ball dominance is the hardest, highest degree of difficulty to win a chip. And unbelievably Lebron has won 4 with this most difficult formula while those other guys you mentioned played the game on easy mode? Thanks 3ball. Great analysis. :applause:


Every dynasty required ball movement systems and all-time off-ball players (Curry, Duncan, MJ, Shaq), so ball-dominators like Lebron or Luka can't produce dynasties/the best teams

So that's the issue.. Infact, every series loss of Lebron's playoff career shows deficits in team assists, so inferior ball movement caused all his losses - ball movement is his Achilles heel

[3ba11]

Imagine praising 2024 Tatum as some notable title run, OP a ho :lol


That's why I always use a big sample - in this case, all the dynasties or dominant title runs in the play-by-play era had 1st options that were either jumpshooters or bigs (off-ball players).. That's 4 dynasties and 8 dominant title runs, aka 12 of 12 required bigs or jumpshooters as 1st option, while 0 of 12 required a ball-dominator

That's the historical record - I'm simply informing you of the documented inferiority of a popular skillset (ball-domination, aka live dribbling)

[SouBeachTalents]

That's why I always use a big sample - in this case, all the dynasties or dominant title runs in the play-by-play era had 1st options that were either jumpshooters or bigs (off-ball players).. That's 4 dynasties and 8 dominant title runs, aka 12 of 12 required bigs or jumpshooters as 1st option, while 0 of 12 required a ball-dominator

That's the historical record - I'm simply informing you of the documented inferiority of a popular skillset (ball-domination, aka live dribbling)
Tatum during the playoffs shot 42% from midrange and 28% from 3, attributing his jumpshooting as the biggest reason for the Celtics winning is genuinely so retarded it's frankly embarrassing. It establishes you have no idea what you're talking about and clearly didn't watch the Celtics during those playoffs.

I also love how your fabled "defeating maximum attention" criteria goes completely out the window including title runs like Shaq, Duncan, KD as most dominant.

And I just caught you said Jokic won with weak help when Murray averaged 26 ppg in the playoffs.

Never change 3ball :lol

[ShawkFactory]

Tatum during the playoffs shot 42% from midrange and 28% from 3, attributing his jumpshooting as the biggest reason for the Celtics winning is genuinely so retarded it's frankly embarrassing. It establishes you have no idea what you're talking about and clearly didn't watch the Celtics during those playoffs.

I also love how your fabled "defeating maximum attention" criteria goes completely out the window including title runs like Shaq, Duncan, KD as most dominant.

And I just caught you said Jokic won with weak help when Murray averaged 26 ppg in the playoffs.

Never change 3ball :lol

Not really. It continues with what he has already established: that everything simply has to go nicely in this perfectly curated and fragile box that he and he alone has created, even if it doesn't fit.

[3ba11]

Tatum during the playoffs shot 42% from midrange and 28% from 3, attributing his jumpshooting as the biggest reason for the Celtics winning is genuinely so retarded it's frankly embarrassing. It establishes you have no idea what you're talking about and clearly didn't watch the Celtics during those playoffs.

I also love how your fabled "defeating maximum attention" criteria goes completely out the window including title runs like Shaq, Duncan, KD as most dominant.

And I just caught you said Jokic won with weak help when Murray averaged 26 ppg in the playoffs.

Never change 3ball :lol


You made 1 good point at the end about Jamal Murray, but that doesn't cover up all the sophistry and bs that came before it.

No one said that Tatum's jumpshooting was the biggest reason for the Celtics' title...I said that the majority of Tatum's shots were jumpshots, which makes him a jumpshooter (off-ball player)... This matters, since 12 of 12 dynasties or dominant runs required off-ball players as 1st option (jumpshooters or bigs).. So even though he played weakly in spots, his style of play is what allows a superior brand of ball and chemistry to be run and developed... This superior brand and chemistry allows the team to play to capacity and teammates to play well (great chemistry).

And I've always given credit to 2000 Shaq and 03' Duncan for carrying the scoring load and therefore defeating max defensive attention... A few guys have done it in this one-off fashion, but only MJ or Kobe did it multiple times (and Curry too actually).

[3ba11]

Keep in mind that by increasing everyone's assisted buckets and spot-up role, Lebron's ball-domination craters everyone's assists.. This matters because every series loss of Lebron's playoff career shows deficits in team assists, so Lebron's lowering of everyone's assists and the resulting low assist teams (inferior ball movement) are the common thread in every loss (and therefore his Achilles heel).

Carry on

[Overdrive]

I never said he was an expert jumpshooter, since that requires scoring off-screens, which SGA doesn't do.

I merely offered an explanation for why SGA was able to win with a normal roster of 1 franchise player, while other ball-dominators needed super-teams of many franchise players.. Again, SGA did it by pulling off the rare feat of scoring title + title... He was also a great mid-range shooter and therefore was the bailout guy instead of using teammates as bailout options like higher assist guys do (Lebron, Luka, Harden, etc)... These things might explain how SGA overcame the suboptimal chemistry of ball-domination

I'll offer another explanation: You're just wrong.

[sdot_thadon]

Every dynasty required ball movement systems and all-time off-ball players (Curry, Duncan, MJ, Shaq), so ball-dominators like Lebron or Luka can't produce dynasties/the best teams

So that's the issue.. Infact, every series loss of Lebron's playoff career shows deficits in team assists, so inferior ball movement caused all his losses - ball movement is his Achilles heel

And this is where you shit the bed everytime. You just said in the other thread Lebron has the most playmaking help. Lol you cant even make up your mind what your argument is.

[3ba11]

And this is where you shit the bed everytime. You just said in the other thread Lebron has the most playmaking help. Lol you cant even make up your mind what your argument is.


Lebron enjoyed better passers than Pippen that averaged more APG for their careers (Wade, Kyrie, Westbrook, Rondo, Luka) - they're all better playmakers than Pippen.

Meanwhile, Lebron's imposition of spot-up roles lower all his teammates' assists - that's why he has low assist teams and assist deficits in every playoff loss...

Any playmaker that lebron got saw their APG crater alongside him, with no exception... Actually, the only exception is Delonte - for some reason, he's the only guard that was caring and sharing and saw assist increase alongside Lebron