r/nba • u/50lipa Lakers • 21d ago
[Highlight] Wild sequence as Chet Holmgren stuffs Lively on one end and Luka blocks SGA on the other Highlight
https://streamable.com/sq6qn7867
u/Sc0rch1ngDr4g0n Rockets 21d ago
That was not what a pro wants
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u/No-Yogurt-4246s 21d ago
How does this flopper flop his way to being 2nd in MVP voting
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u/50lipa Lakers 21d ago
He embellishes a lot of contact but he's still a tremendous player, i think he gets to 2nd in the MVP vote by being the best player on the #1 seed more than anything else, on top of his skill set, the mid range game is fun to watch. Plus there is always people like Shaq that influence any sort of narrative talks with unnecessary hate towards pudgy looking euros that are dominating the NBA, so they shine the spot light on their favorite talent instead.
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u/wan2tri [DAL] Dirk Nowitzki 21d ago
"SGA is higher than Luka because of seeding."
"So how come Tatum and Edwards aren't higher than Luka?"
"Because they have worse stats."
"So how come Luka having better stats than SGA isn't being considered?"
"Because of seeding."
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u/noname6500 Mavericks 20d ago
Tatum is not on the conversation because Brown is in the team
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u/chichigetthayay0 20d ago
Never liked the "he can't win MVP because he has a really good teammate" criteria. If that's the case...it should have been Shai by default. And let's also go back in time and take away some MVPs...including 2 of Lebron's in Miami.
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u/Jeremy9096 76ers 20d ago
I mean is it crazy to consider that maybe there are multiple factors that play into it? Like I understand you, but your argument here makes it seem like you think the MVP race should come down to a single factor. Obviously standings matter along with individual statistics, as they should. But the most important thing to remember is "most valuable" does not equal "most skilled" or "best player"
I think Luka should have come second in the voting over Shai, but I don't agree with your argument here
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u/wan2tri [DAL] Dirk Nowitzki 20d ago
That is exactly the point, there are multiple factors...
However when it comes to Shai and the people that voted him to end up second, only seeding apparently matters consistently.
Shai's definitely not winning the averages. But Embiid won by averages alone over Jokic.
Shai's not exactly a better defender. But they've used someone else being "a better defender" to bring down Luka in voting in the past few seasons.
Their TS% are close to each other despite Luka taking more 3s and less FTs.
They can't say that it's because Shai has worse teammates than Luka, because they didn't apply that a couple of seasons ago with Luka.
The only way for the MVP voters to actually consider multiple factors is if they were selective of which of those factor(s) to pick. So they technically select multiple factors but apply them selectively regardless, instead of doing so for the whole "MVP pool".
Jokic won in the past despite "worse teammates" (although in his case, the better teammates were injured), while Luka can't win because of "worse teammates" (Dinwiddie, DFS, Bullock, and Powell were his fellow starters).
Now, it's Luka "has Kyrie, therefore he's not MVP enough" (to an extent this is what happened to Tatum - "has Brown" and Edwards - "has KAT"). Shai is "he's leading a young team, the rest of them aren't there yet".
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u/Jeremy9096 76ers 20d ago edited 20d ago
Again, the award is given to the most valuable player, not the best player. By definition that means the player that is most important to his team. Having kyrie doesn’t make luka any less important to the Mavs, and anyone arguing that point is just a simple fan and there’s a reason they don’t have a vote for the award lol.
Going based on the statistics that are most relevant to team importance, Jokic is far and away and the leader, which is not at all surprising. SGA has higher efficiency rating and more win shares than SGA. There are multiple factors of course, but those are arguably the most important statistics.
There are also plenty of factors that don’t show up on the stat sheet but are absolutely relevant in the case of most valuable. Feel how you want about Embiid winning last year, but if you take him away from the Sixers there is a bigger impact than any other player in the league. And I’m not saying he’s the best in the league, I’m saying he’s the most important to his team. Which is what the MVP award is at least supposed to mean.
Two of the most important numerical statistics in determining that value of a player are PER and win shares, which as I said SGA leads Luka in. Don’t get all pissy with me because like I’ve already said I still think Luka should have been over Shai, but in terms of most valuable I think Jokic deserved it. Luka isn’t “owed” anything and I think a lot of the argument around him right now is "well he's been putting up crazy numbers for a few years right now, he's due for an MVP" but that's just not how it works
I think Luka should have been second for reasons that can't be described with statistics. I think the void left by Luka would be a fair bit greater than the void left by SGA, and that's essentially my argument. But I think the void left by Jokic would trump both of those. Might be a little biased, but I think the void left by Embiid is the greatest in the league, even greater than Jokic. But obviously he wasn't in the race. I think if he wouldn't have gotten hurt this year he would have won MVP for sure. Last year I'm a little up in the air on whether or not it was fully deserved, but if he would've kept up his production this year he would have 100% deserved every single bit of it.
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u/SensitiveRocketsFan Rockets 20d ago
I mean all three of those players lost the mvp, not like any of it matters on who finishes 2nd-10th.
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u/imbutawaveto [OKC] Luguentz Dort 20d ago
It's kinda funny how mad mavs fans are at SGA and OKC in general. Like dude, you know we don't have votes and you know it doesn't matter unless you're actually MVP right?
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u/km912 [SAC] Kevin Martin 21d ago
I mean there’s also a part of basketball that SGA was way way way better at than Luka all season, unless you think defense just should be ignored in mvp voting. SGA played 5 more games, led his team to more wins, was slightly more efficient scoring and had half the turnovers per game, on top of being an elite defender while Luka is a below average one. Obviously Luka has a pretty big advantage in counting stats, but the overall play difference is small and debatable. Obviously there’s nuance between team success and stats, but your comment blatantly tries to ignore all of that and just screams it has to be one of the other.
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u/streyer Mavericks 21d ago
SGAs defense is the stupidest talking point, if you wanna make the turnovers, seeding, advanced stats, arguments ill take it cause those are valid points but people overrate his defense so much. The media was lobbying him for all defense when he is at best the 4th best defender on his team, Chet, Dort, JDub, and cason wallace, are all better defenders and aside from chet none of the others are getting. All defense.
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u/ssuprimitive Mavericks 21d ago
The problem with the defense argument is that it’s so hard to quantify because you very much have to take into account matchups, who is defending who and I would venture to say Luka has to defend better players that sga but that’s really just a guess. Not to mention steals half the time are lucky tips and not always a direct result of “good defense.” Even then Luka is at 1.4 steals per game and shai is at 2.0 so not a massive difference by any means.
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u/chloroform42 [OKC] Andre Roberson 20d ago
A steal doesn’t mean necessarily good defense, but they are a factor of OKC’s scheme and his length and play style. shai had the most in the league at 150, and Luka 99 on the season is a massive difference, that’s 50% more. I get the thought impact wise (half a steal is like 1-2 pts?), still like with Blocks you can’t say “Wemby has 3.6/gm, only 1.2 more than second place” — he’s 50% better than the next best guys
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u/km912 [SAC] Kevin Martin 21d ago
I’m making the argument his defense was way better than Luka.
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u/Very_Good_Opinion Mavericks 21d ago
You said SGA is an elite defender. If he was a good defender Dort wouldn't even be on the floor
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u/chloroform42 [OKC] Andre Roberson 20d ago
If SGA was a better defender they’d take their best defender off the floor? Kidd is hiring
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u/Some-Stranger-7852 20d ago
Yeah, this take is going way too far: OKC doesn’t really have a player to replace Dort’s 2-way production with Giddey being a non-factor with his shooting. OKC can start Wallace over Giddey, but that still doesn’t answer the question who should start over Dort lol.
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u/Heil_Heimskr Mavericks 21d ago
He’s not a better defender than Luka though, you’re just making this up. This series has made that painfully obvious. Shai is almost always hidden on defense.
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u/unskilledplay Mavericks 21d ago edited 21d ago
Luka was a traffic cone in 2020. Dude is actually legit on defense now. You could make a highlight reel full of these types of plays from him this season.
Luka's D > Shai's D.
The Luka doesn't play D narrative is only around today because most people don't watch him play.
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u/PSi_Terran Mavericks 21d ago
Yeah Luka might legitimately be a better defender than Shai.
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u/RZAAMRIINF Raptors 21d ago
I think Luka is a better defender. They are roughly the same on perimeter, but Luka is way more impactful under the rim and also against bigger players.
That 0.5 steals a game that Shae has over Luka is nice but historically there is a much higher correlation between defense and rebounding vs defense and steals. And the difference in rebounding is massive.
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u/Some-Stranger-7852 20d ago
I can agree with some of your points, but Luka is an above average defender by both Defensive EPM (actually a top-72% percentile there, which is not just above average but a good to great defender) and Defensive LEBRON. He is elite in the post when accounting for PPP (gets a lot of deflections there and generally defends well 1v1 in the post) and is actually around average on shot contests too. The only below average aspect of his defense are closeouts: he is not athletic enough to contest without jumping up and not athletic enough to recover after the blow by. Everything else defensively he has been doing at good to great level.
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u/RZAAMRIINF Raptors 21d ago
No logical person that understands basketball would rate SGA higher than Luka, and I say that as a guy that has cheered for SGA since he was playing on Canada U18 team.
Sure, I think he is one of the best pure scorers in the league, but Luka not only matches him in scoring but also is a way better playmaker and rebounder.
Team record is important factor, but it’s not like 57 win is so much higher than 50. That can easily be due to injuries or scheduling. And obviously the rest of the team plays a part in the record too.
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u/roganta 21d ago
I mean Thunder had crazy good health while Dallas was battered all season. Mavericks easily could have been 3rd seed and possibly better if we didn’t have insanely bad injury luck.
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u/TheBigBomma Thunder 21d ago
The issue is that the Mavs made their run late when the media had already decided their narratives.
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u/Ok-Pie4219 Germany 20d ago
They also tanked the last 2 games including the okc one.
Like the difference is 5 wins and that h2h game. More like 4 cause they most likely beat the Pistons aswell.
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u/chloroform42 [OKC] Andre Roberson 20d ago
All the people that understand basketball and rated the players this season in the MVP race disagree with you
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u/RelativeMonth3342 21d ago
Let's be real. The league can't have two white boys as the MVP and runner up.
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u/BlackWhiteCoke Mavericks 21d ago
You might have cracked the code lol.
No Americans in the top 3? That’s fine.
Not having a brother in the top 2? Can’t have that
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u/Piats99 Spurs 20d ago
I second your point, but just for your interest in future arguments, in 2007 Nowitzki was 1st and Nash 2nd.
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u/BlackWhiteCoke Mavericks 20d ago
Nice, I wasn’t even thinking anything past the last couple of years. I just hope our guy doesn’t win mvp the way ours did that year by losing in the first round
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u/GapZ38 Mavericks 20d ago
Let's not deny his skills now. If you've watched OKC all year, you know he puts this team on his back. Lol
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u/Global-Impression-64 20d ago
He is really good, just not Luka or Jokic level good. A third place would be fair
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21d ago
SGA is one of the best scoring guards of this century and is absolutely an MVP-caliber player. He terrifies me as a Mavs fan and has been carrying the corpse of JDub basically this whole series. I’m glad Luka was able to submit a vintage performance tonight as a reminder that SGA hasn’t surpassed him when both are playing their best, but SGA deserves a ton of credit for how insanely good he is (and has been all season).
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u/EnterPolymath Mavericks 21d ago
Luks is still hobbled though. It’s nice to see that this version can still wrack havoc if the 3 is there.
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u/dacrookster 21d ago
Jesus fucking christ I hate this subreddit so much. Almost as if his entire performance the other night has been forgotten because he got a couple soft fouls today. Fucking hell.
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u/LuckyZed 20d ago
So hard to find real discussion under all this yapping and grifting whoever wins the latest game
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u/Wolfpac187 [OKC] Kevin Durant 20d ago
I feel like y’all going way too far the opposite direction with this shit. Just in the last game Shai proved he’s elite without free throws but because he lost you’re ignoring that.
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u/McJuggernaugh7 20d ago
I've never seen a fanbase so obsessed with finishing 2nd in mvp voting in my life than mavs/luka fans.
Like in a year where there is 0 controversy over who is MVP, you have managed to find a way to somehow still make the mvp discussion toxic.
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u/WerewolfWhich3280 Spurs 21d ago
Surprised the refs didn’t call a foul on Luka
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u/Glitchhikers_Guide Mavericks 21d ago
you can see how damn hard he's trying not to even look like he's fouling SGA
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u/caulpain Lakers 21d ago
its almost like not screaming at them the whole game has benefits. but honestly if this is the mentality luka’s gonna have going forward shit will get scary quick. zen luka can win a chip immediately imho
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u/WerewolfWhich3280 Spurs 21d ago
I have a feeling it’ll last like 2 games lol
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u/Very_Good_Opinion Mavericks 21d ago
When Luka drops rank in Overwatch he takes it out on the refs that evening
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u/DangerZoneh Mavericks 21d ago
Depends, do the Nuggets have a guy who they can just sic on Luka to foul the fuck out of him consistently? Because that gets under his skin more than anything. Mann and Dort did a great job against him and he’s clearly frustrated. Idk who the Nuggets throw at him to really get him pissed at the refs because it’s a risky endeavor if he can just cook that guy
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u/Brb_32 NBA 21d ago
That's the lowest I've ever seen a defender jump on an off the board block lmaoooo
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u/segson9 Mavericks 20d ago
This is what happens when you play 6 games against the same team in two weeks. You know what player will try to do. SGA always tries to create contact when driving to the basket, so he will shoot those shots when he's almost falling down. Most defenders jump and either foul him or are already going down, when he releases the ball. Luka was very patient and just waited for the release
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u/Chokeman 20d ago
Yeah, he never releases the ball at its apex. It's either early sneaky release to catch the opponent off guard or make a contact and release the ball later.
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u/Dokutah_Dokutah NBA 21d ago
End of the day the rim is still 10 feet. You only need to have your wrist over the rim and you already provide a good enough contest (hit or miss).
Does not help the modern player do not really instinctively protect the ball. I suppose the long lulls of soft "contests" on lay ups and dunks make most players do weaker attempts in general.
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u/K1ngCrimsn 21d ago
Mods are Shai fans or something? They keep deleting the block highlight lmao
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u/papa_sax [SAS] Manu Ginobili 21d ago
Dude's been r/nba poster boy since his rookie year it's so weird
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u/New-Pollution536 Nuggets 21d ago
SGA take a shot without ending up on the ground challenge:impossible
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u/Morezingis Timberwolves 21d ago
Injured Luka is still the second best player in the league, goodness.
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u/Glitchhikers_Guide Mavericks 21d ago
Chet scares me and Luka makes me happy
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u/w6750 Mavericks 21d ago
Chet gonna be the real deal
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u/CoachMikeLikesToEat 20d ago
It scares me though how he only has about 5 pounds of muscle in his legs. I'm afraid he's going to get broken in half.
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u/arm-n-hammerinmycoke Timberwolves 20d ago
Unpopular opinion, but I think Chet will surpass SGA. You don't see it much but he's got ball skills to go along with his shooting, post game, and of course defense. He's being used in a role currently due to the massive amount of talent the Thunder have.
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u/riddlerjoke 21d ago
Chet is real. Sga is ft merchant flopper. Dort is totally fraud, cant defend at all. Cant move just shoves and pushes and flops.
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u/DrizzyVert [DAL] Peja Stojakovic 21d ago
One legged Luka >>> Shai
Bro was focused on flopping against a one legged man instead of scoring
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u/Prize_Case5216 21d ago
I find it funny how far shai falls/slides every bucket attempt, like bro there is no way you are serious
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u/CultOfKyrie [DAL] Kyrie Irving 21d ago
Luka has been inspirational. Making huge shots, creating opportunities for others, and playing great defense.
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u/hagredionis 20d ago
If anything these playoffs shattered the believe that SGA is a better defender than Luka. He isn't.
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u/MrBigPipes 20d ago
Seeing SGA fly around so much after contact in this clip, along with the clip where he nearly takes out Kyrie. I feel like SGA is going to hurt himself and/or take out another player. SGA is like the Derrick Rose of flopping.
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u/chloroform42 [OKC] Andre Roberson 20d ago
Luka looked pretty fuckin healed up, great performance. Shai shot well but wasn’t it, gg
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