Why I think the Kobe-Pau Lakers would be just as good today

[Real Men Wear Green]

Not sure this is the flex that you might think it is? Bam led the Heat in scoring with 23 PPG on near 50% shooting in the series against Boston. So what's Tatum doing against Pau, really?

You are applying adebayo's overall numbers when the subject is just the defense of Tatum. That's a mistake.

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/bam...y-jayson-tatum

Tatum's defense in Adebayo stays with adebayo's average. And that was clearly good enough. I did not say that Tatum shut him down. Tatum especially did a good job when you consider the fact that after porzingis got hurt he and Derrick White were the best run protectors on the Celtics. So of Tatum got beat it meant an uncontested lay-up.

In addition, Bam this season shot 52% on 2P attempts whereas the league shot 55%.

That's not particularly important unless you want to say that Adebayo isn't a good shooter? You can have that opinion but I don't agree.

2009 Pau shot almost 57% with the league shooting something like 48.5% in 2P attempts. In the playoffs, Pau put up 58% while the league shot 48%.

I don't think anyone is saying Gasol couldn't score.

I have to agree with tpols on this one. The two, at least in terms of offensive skillsets, are completely different. Sure, the Lakers are at a disadvantage with Gasol guarding Tatum on the perimeter, but I think the C's would actually try to go with a bigger lineup which would probably result in him not even having to guard Tatum at that point.

The Celtics would go with whatever worked best and the two big lineup had been dying out for a reason. Tatum had far more experience guarding bigs than Gasol had playing in the perimeter. Do you really believe that Kobe Bryant is going to give Gasol 20+ posts? Who's more likely to take 25+ shots between Tatum and Gasol? If anyone assists first is going to be the Lakers with Lamar Odom.

[Im Still Ballin]

How 2009-10 LA did against the proto-modern 1st-ranked offense Phoenix Suns:

3-1 in the regular season

https://www.basketball-reference.com...911120LAL.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com...912060LAL.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com...912280PHO.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com...003120PHO.html

4-2 in the WCF

https://www.basketball-reference.com...vs-lakers.html

LA had a 114.6 ORtg and 106.7 DRtg in those four regular season games. 124.2 ORtg and 119.6 DRtg in the six playoff games. Combined, that's 120.3 ORtg and 114.3 DRtg.

*stats slightly vary depending on how possessions are calculated. NBA.com vs. Basketball Reference.

So, 2009-10 LA actually held Phoenix's #1 offense/+7.7 rORtg below average across the ten games they played that season.

[tontoz]

The suns were ranked 19th in defense. The Celtics were 3rd.

[Im Still Ballin]

You'd think a futuristic offense would've cooked the big-and-slow Lakers defense but that's not what happened. The same was true for Orlando from 2007-08 to 2011-12:

- 14 games played
- 7-7 W/L
- 107.4 ORtg; 105.4 DRtg

LA held Orlando's proto-modern offense 3.7 points per 100 below average.

I think any defensive concerns are exaggerated.

[tontoz]

You'd think a futuristic offense would've cooked the big-and-slow Lakers defense but that's not what happened. The same was true for Orlando from 2007-08 to 2011-12:

- 14 games played
- 7-7 W/L
- 107.4 ORtg; 105.4 DRtg

LA held Orlando's proto-modern offense 3.7 points per 100 below average.

I think any defensive concerns are exaggerated.

The Suns offensive efficiency of 112.7 would rank
18th this past season.

[RRR3]

You'd think a futuristic offense would've cooked the big-and-slow Lakers defense but that's not what happened. The same was true for Orlando from 2007-08 to 2011-12:

- 14 games played
- 7-7 W/L
- 107.4 ORtg; 105.4 DRtg

LA held Orlando's proto-modern offense 3.7 points per 100 below average.

I think any defensive concerns are exaggerated.

The Magic in 2009 took 5 less 3s per game than the 30th ranked team last year.

[Im Still Ballin]

You'd think offenses "ahead of the curve" would've cooked LA's defense back then. But they didn't.

Maybe basketball is a little more complicated than these reductive, simplistic narratives and notions casual fans like to throw out there about "the modern game."

[tontoz]

You'd think offenses "ahead of the curve" would've cooked LA's defense back then. But they didn't.

Maybe basketball is a little more complicated than these reductive, simplistic narratives and notions casual fans like to throw out there about "the modern game."

Did you even know that the Suns offense is below average relative to today's teams?

[RRR3]

Did you even know that the Suns offense is below average relative to today's teams?

He’s trolling. He intentionally finds unpopular arguments and spends a lot of time pretending to be serious to bait people into this. Like that month when he kept implying Dwight Howard was some GOAT level scorer.

[warriorfan]

This basically boils down to the 3’s vs 2’s argument. 3’s are more efficient obviously but have more variance. If you ran both teams up against eachother in a bunch of different series you would have winners on both sides.

[RRR3]

You cannot play two non shooting bigs who can only guard the paint against the Celtics. The Celtics would win literally every time in a 7 game series.

Btw I know Odom could guard the perimeter but he was a poor shooter so even if you completely bench Bynum that’s still very poor spacing. Celtics are baiting the Lakers into taking 3s.

[Im Still Ballin]

Generally not a good idea to compare ORtg and DRtg across years, especially many. How do you divorce and untangle rule changes, personnel, schemes, strategic trade-offs, and league-wide stylistic trends from one another?

You're trying to paint a clear and concise narrative that doesn't reflect the multifactorial reality of how the game has changed. How it always has changed in the past and will continue to change in the future. It ebbs and flows as different types of talent enter the league and is assembled on teams differently.

They were saying offensive rebounds and size were archaic in the 2010s and now they're back in a big way in the 2020s. Dual-big lineups and second-chance points en vogue once more. High-volume mid-range and post-up teams leading to elite half-court and playoff offenses. Elite defenses with two bigs! Elite offenses based around possession efficiency (ORB% and TOV%).

Poor man's Kobe and Pau (DeMar + LMA) = 3rd-best half-court offense in 2019. Their offense was still 9th overall in 2020 despite injuries to LMA, getting worse on defense, and their shot-making declining. Probably had a top 5 half-court offense still!
LMA + Old Pau/David Lee/Dedmon = #1 defense in 2017. 3rd-best defense in 2018 with LMA + even older Pau Gasol and an undersized PF literally called Slow-Mo.

Oh, but let me guess. The modern game started AFTER these years, right? Like Before Christ and After his Death? Or was it the freedom of movement rule in 2018? Or the shortening of the shot-clock after offensive rebounds from 24 seconds to 14 to speed up the pace of the game even more?

The lesson here is simple: don't (CLAP EMOJI!) speak (CLAP EMOJI!) in (CLAP EMOJI!) absolutes (CLAP EMOJI!) about (CLAP EMOJI!) basketball!

[RRR3]

Two big lineups are fine, but not two big lineups in which neither could shoot (Pau/Bynum, Pau/Odom) or neither can guard the perimeter (Pau/Bynum). If you’re playing a traditional big, you need to pair them with a Karl-Anthony Towns or a Jaren Jackson.

[Proctor]

Generally not a good idea to compare ORtg and DRtg across years, especially many. How do you divorce and untangle rule changes, personnel, schemes, strategic trade-offs, and league-wide stylistic trends from one another?

You're trying to paint a clear and concise narrative that doesn't reflect the multifactorial reality of how the game has changed. How it always has changed in the past and will continue to change in the future. It ebbs and flows as different types of talent enter the league and is assembled on teams differently.

They were saying offensive rebounds and size were archaic in the 2010s and now they're back in a big way in the 2020s. Dual-big lineups and second-chance points en vogue once more. High-volume mid-range and post-up teams leading to elite half-court and playoff offenses. Elite defenses with two bigs! Elite offenses based around possession efficiency (ORB% and TOV%).

Poor man's Kobe and Pau (DeMar + LMA) = 3rd-best half-court offense in 2019. Their offense was still 9th overall in 2020 despite injuries to LMA, getting worse on defense, and their shot-making declining. Probably had a top 5 half-court offense still!
LMA + Old Pau/David Lee/Dedmon = #1 defense in 2017. 3rd-best defense in 2018 with LMA + even older Pau Gasol and an undersized PF literally called Slow-Mo.

Oh, but let me guess. The modern game started AFTER these years, right? Like Before Christ and After his Death? Or was it the freedom of movement rule in 2018? Or the shortening of the shot-clock after offensive rebounds from 24 seconds to 14 to speed up the pace of the game even more?

The lesson here is simple: don't (CLAP EMOJI!) speak (CLAP EMOJI!) in (CLAP EMOJI!) absolutes (CLAP EMOJI!) about (CLAP EMOJI!) basketball!

Preach

And also, (not directed at ISB) it's braindead analysis to pretend like Gasol/Bynum/Odom "couldn't shoot." Odom was mediocre at it but "couldn't shoot" is Andre Roberson. Gasol evolved with the game and its new emphasis on 3s and even Bynum before he went haywire was stepping out further and further and hitting in a decent way. They would have been able to adapt to the current NBA's emphases comfortably. No basketball reference regurgitated stat grab gotcha garbage shit arguments will change this. I don't usually participate in these threads because I find no joy in arguing with basketball reference obsessed brick walls but you are on fire in this thread.

[Im Still Ballin]

Got some more data on the 2018-19 Spurs.

According to Cleaning the Glass, they had the 5th-best overall offense (113.5 ORtg/+3.1 rORtg) and fourth-best half-court offense (100.0 points per play; +5.3 points above league average). They were a measly 0.2 points per play behind 2nd-ranked Houston jacking up a record-breaking amount of threes.

Half-court points per play
1. GSW (102.2)
2. HOU (100.5)
3. MIL (100.3)
4. SAS (100.0)
5. POR (97.6)

This was despite being the worst half-court offensive-rebounding team in the league at 22.7% ORB. The league average was 26.3% ORB. Simply adjusting for league average offensive rebounding would put their half-court offense comfortably above Houston and Milwaukee and have them right there with GSW.

Cleaning the Glass removes heaves and garbage time from its statistics. Garbage time and heaves are defined as follows:

By default, all stats on this site exclude garbage time and possessions at the end of quarters that are highly likely to end up in a heave. When we use stats to evaluate players and teams, we are trying to do so in the context of a normal game. Garbage time and projected heave possessions are not reflective of a normal game, and so these stats are filtered out.

Garbage Time
Cleaning the Glass uses a definition of garbage time that is as objective as possible and generally matches up with most people's perception of when garbage time starts: when the game is out of hand, both teams have subbed out most of their starters, and the game never gets close again.

The Gritty Details
The exact definition CTG uses is: the game has to be in the 4th quarter, the score differential has to be >= 25 for minutes 12-9, >= 20 for minutes 9-6, and >= 10 for the remainder of the quarter. Additionally, there have to be two or fewer starters on the floor combined between the two teams.

Importantly, the game can never go back to being non-garbage time, or this clock resets. For example, if it's a 30 point game to start the 4th quarter, but one team comes back and pulls the game within 8, that comeback is not counted as garbage time. If the leading team regains control and expands the lead back out, garbage time would start when the score went back above 10.

This might not capture all of what we'd call garbage time, but it seeems important to err on the side of caution and not mistakenly filter out any game time that we would not consider garbage time.

Projected Heave Possessions
At the end of a quarter, teams will sometimes get a possession where the clock is so low when it starts that they don't have time to run a normal play. They generally rush the ball up the court and fling a shot up, or otherwise might not even get a shot off. These are possessions by the definition, but they are qualitatitively different than a normal possession and thus can skew stats. They are possessions where, at the start, it seems highly likely the team will end up with a heave shot. Cleaning the Glass filters these out by default as well, so as not to penalize players and teams for a low percentage shot during this type of possession.

The Gritty Details
CTG defines these possessions as those that start with 4 or fewer seconds on the game clock at the end of one of the first three quarters.