Luka has an argument in my mind as best playoff offensive player ever.

[Carbine]

He’s an unusually good passer at his size but there are too many point guards to have him as all time great without stretching the list to such an extent it loses all significance.

People always do that with big guys who pass well and ignore that what they do wouldn’t be terrible celebrated from a small guard.

People might argue Magic, Kidd, and Nash types….ok.

But there’s still Stockton, Paul, Mark Jackson, Isiah Thomas….

People might not even get to Rondo…Cousy gets a token mention.

And people still wanna throw Lebron in there and of course Jokic.

Luka is a great passer but he’s not some all time short list guy.

Hes on the short list of wings and big points like Lebron and Penny. As in really really nice. But you gotta stretch the goat list more than usual to fit everyone.

A big wing passes like Rod Strickland he gets goat passer talk. Rod Strickland doesn’t come up because he’s a point guard it’s expected from.

I'm looking at it from the perspective of effectiveness over flashy elbow passes. Was White Chocolate a better highlight worthy passer? Of course. He isn't a better passer of the basketball in the sense of effective offensive basketball. His height plays a part in his effectiveness as a passer, he can see and pass over defenders in traffic or on blitzes that other smaller guards cannot do as consistenly.

He absolutely is an ATG passer.

[Manny98]

He's incredible but he's still got work to do to be put up there with the LeBron and MJs of the world

[Kblaze8855]

I'm looking at it from the perspective of effectiveness over flashy elbow passes. Was White Chocolate a better highlight worthy passer? Of course. He isn't a better passer of the basketball in the sense of effective offensive basketball. His height plays a part in his effectiveness as a passer, he can see and pass over defenders in traffic or on blitzes that other smaller guards cannot do as consistenly.

He absolutely is an ATG passer.

Did I list anyone there for ineffective flash? Did you see Jason Williams or Pistol Pete? The people I listed won 20+ rings and ran several all time elite offenses built on their playmaking. Sure a lot today are statistically more efficient but I don’t need to tell you that isn’t a function of smarter point guard play.

Luka is a really good passer. And his effectiveness is aided tremendously by his scoring and this being a pick your poison, spacing, cutting, dunker position, heliocentric offense watching to see how to react to the dribbler league.

But he and Harden are closer to the top wing playmakers than the best ever. Any big wing who passes like Mark Price gets all time status. But Mark Price doesn’t because it’s expected.

Luka is a great passer. I think that’s enough.

[Carbine]

Ask yourself this, who's a more impactful passer than Luka right now?

Jokic? Ok

Haliburton? I don't see that

Lebron I could say is very very similar. I've heard a million times over the last 20 years that Lebron is an ATG passer.

CP3 in his prime? Ok, maybe.

So he's at worst 5th since players drafted from 2000 onwards. That requires me to put you in the ATG category based off that alone.

[FultzNationRISE]

He's incredible but he's still got work to do to be put up there with the LeBron and MJs of the world

Well I can give him the nod over MJ, he's made a playoff career of scoring on the likes of Kawhi, Toody, Lu Dort, McDaniels, all sorts of celebrated defensive players.

I shudder to think what he would have done to Craig Ehlo and John Starks.

Unfortunately the best defensive wing when MJ played was also MJ's own teammate.

Further, Luka has had to shoot from the men's three point line over the course of his whole career. MJ got a little bit of a break in that regard.

Passing LeKING on the other hand... pretty doubtful.

[SATAN]

The stat padding is working. Well done, Luka.

[FultzNationRISE]

Remember, Michael NEEDED Scottie.

Lebron only needs a ball....

[Kblaze8855]

Some things you simply can’t remove from the league being played in. I suspect Luka has slashing numbers to rival any number of all time elite slashers. Removing lane clogging bigs and keeping help D focused on shooters for the half a breath that makes all the difference changes the whole equation. Similar thing with passing.

Hes not being asked to run anything reminiscent of a traditional playmakers offense.

They give guys like he and Harden a few years ago the ball to do the same thing over and over and over in a loose structure designed to let them score or find whoever is left open when you help.

It’s certainly effective. But it requires elite scoring ability to make the defense over compensate. It’s attacking based playmaking. Definitely effective and impressive. But the key to it working is being a deadly scoring option.

Hes not making something from nothing against defenses that know he’s gonna pass. Hes like a QB with a great run game and play action success off of that. Or more fairly like a great running QB who gets the D looking at him for a half second every snap.

The efficient passing that can result shouldn’t be discredited because it comes from playing football well. But the key is something other than the actual pass. Kind of like when Lamar Jackson starts dotting teams up. The passes are good, but he’s not necessarily as accurate as those games suggest.

Its a total package.

Luka is a total offensive package but that package is built off his scoring. Hes a scorer who can make plays not a Nash type running the show getting people looks while the other team is trying to prevent it.

The other team is trying to keep him from scoring 50 and the only way to do it involves ample open shooters and opportunities for cuts.

Its effective. But it isn’t based on his passing talent first.

Of course he has passing talent, but his scoring is what makes his passing so devastating.

As a wing, he’s up there around the area of Penny, Manu, and LeBron. But I wouldn’t say either one of them is Steve Nash or Magic Johnson either.

Granted…people are happy to act like Lebron is doing something point guards don’t do all the time as well.

[ImKobe]

He's never played in the Finals and I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any ppg, total point, or points in a game records so it's fair to say that this topic is insane.

I mean it's not that insane if we're talking consistency in the POs in general. He's on pace to have his 7th series with at least 29 ppg, 7 rpg and 5 apg. He's currently on his 8th Playoff series. He's only had one series where he didn't average at least 29 a game and that was the OKC one where he still averaged 25/11/9 on 56.6%TS, and that's arguably the worst Playoff series of his career.

So if we're talking consistency as far as production goes, he's up there with the best.

[John8204]

I mean it's not that insane if we're talking consistency in the POs in general. He's on pace to have his 7th series with at least 29 ppg, 7 rpg and 5 apg. He's currently on his 8th Playoff series. He's only had one series where he didn't average at least 29 a game and that was the OKC one where he still averaged 25/11/9 on 56.6%TS, and that's arguably the worst Playoff series of his career.

So if we're talking consistency as far as production goes, he's up there with the best.

Yeah he's up there but he's not at the same level as Jordan, West, and Barry those guys averaged 40PPG. Luka could be the best of his generation but all-time...I would give it to Jerry West who had a run basically every year he played and he did it without a 3 point line.

[Real Men Wear Green]

I mean it's not that insane if we're talking consistency in the POs in general. He's on pace to have his 7th series with at least 29 ppg, 7 rpg and 5 apg. He's currently on his 8th Playoff series. He's only had one series where he didn't average at least 29 a game and that was the OKC one where he still averaged 25/11/9 on 56.6%TS, and that's arguably the worst Playoff series of his career.

So if we're talking consistency as far as production goes, he's up there with the best.

I'm not going to engage in this argument until someone points out what records he's set.

[ImKobe]

I'm not going to engage in this argument until someone points out what records he's set.

It's not about what he's achieved thus far at 25 years old, but what his trajectory is. He had the most points ever in a Playoff debut (42), he's already top 10 in triple-doubles in the POs and could finish as high as 4th all-time after this run. Some of the Lebron stuff is unattainable because of Lebron's unique circumstance (playing in the worst Conference ever for 15 years), but in terms of his averages he's going to be up there with the best.


It's safe to say a guy who's averaging 31/9/8 for his Playoffs career is going to be on the short list of greatest Playoff performers ever. He's not even at his peak yet.

[Real Men Wear Green]

It's not about what he's achieved thus far at 25 years old.

I'm not going to say a guy is better than Jordan who has done nothing to show it. That's stupid. The end.

[RRR3]

Some things you simply can’t remove from the league being played in. I suspect Luka has slashing numbers to rival any number of all time elite slashers. Removing lane clogging bigs and keeping help D focused on shooters for the half a breath that makes all the difference changes the whole equation. Similar thing with passing.

Hes not being asked to run anything reminiscent of a traditional playmakers offense.

They give guys like he and Harden a few years ago the ball to do the same thing over and over and over in a loose structure designed to let them score or find whoever is left open when you help.

It’s certainly effective. But it requires elite scoring ability to make the defense over compensate. It’s attacking based playmaking. Definitely effective and impressive. But the key to it working is being a deadly scoring option.

Hes not making something from nothing against defenses that know he’s gonna pass. Hes like a QB with a great run game and play action success off of that. Or more fairly like a great running QB who gets the D looking at him for a half second every snap.

The efficient passing that can result shouldn’t be discredited because it comes from playing football well. But the key is something other than the actual pass. Kind of like when Lamar Jackson starts dotting teams up. The passes are good, but he’s not necessarily as accurate as those games suggest.

Its a total package.

Luka is a total offensive package but that package is built off his scoring. Hes a scorer who can make plays not a Nash type running the show getting people looks while the other team is trying to prevent it.

The other team is trying to keep him from scoring 50 and the only way to do it involves ample open shooters and opportunities for cuts.

Its effective. But it isn’t based on his passing talent first.

Of course he has passing talent, but his scoring is what makes his passing so devastating.

As a wing, he’s up there around the area of Penny, Manu, and LeBron. But I wouldn’t say either one of them is Steve Nash or Magic Johnson either.

Granted…people are happy to act like Lebron is doing something point guards don’t do all the time as well.

Why are you listing Penny as a wing he was a point.

[Kblaze8855]

Because I watched him play with Scott Skiles, Darrell Armstrong and Jason Kidd. He had the skills of a point guard, but he didn’t always play point guard. Much like Magic Johnson actually. He was a basketball player capable of being a full time pure point…but he wasn’t always tasked with it. Simpler to just call him a wing the way we do now.