Something seems amiss in the PBP of the Dallas-Detroit game:

Sort of a delayed Ball Don’t Lie for the Hawks

Folks that hate on Jokic get caught up in the notion that his MVPs have been driven by stat nerds and media wanting a white savior. But I would say more than any player in the league, Jokic is a player where the eye test beats his stats, despite him being an analytics BEAST!

In a well-designed metric this dynamic would be more likely to make him look WORSE in the second half of the season than better as the credit for improvement would be given to the new introductions, most likely Gafford.

Yay Points!

It’s not definitive, but there have been a number of studies suggesting that for example first 20 games are at least as if not more playoff predictive than last 20. Which makes sense considering the…esoteric lineups one might face over the last few weeks of the season.

I’m probably about 2-1 offense to defense on an individual level, though since I generally think in playoff/championship terms, horrible/targetably bad defense is a pretty sizable negative

For my “best players” I invite you to peruse today’s The Athletic NBA. For “what would my hypothetical MVP ballot be”

1. Jokic
2. SGA
3. Luka
4. Giannis
5. Brunson

He wasn’t *as* good at the start of the season as he’s been the back half shouldn’t be a controversial opinion.

It’s more that Luka’s top line numbers - like those of most heliocentric players - have generally surpassed the underlying impact. Not by an enormous amount in Luka’s case, especially post Gafford acquisition.

If there was a “post trade deadline MVP” award Luka would be running away with it with Brunson in second probably.

I mean if you think these are the metrics I’m looking at to form my opinions…

The season started in October not February. Luka has been completely magnificent the second half of the season, but SGA still leads by a non-trivial margin in season-long impact stats which I think reflects the reality of the season and is equally reflected in the standings gap.

Stay for Anchorage Man trying to talk about tailgate meats and me pivoting to regional Pennsylvania dessert talk

First time appearing on a podcast and it was a lot of fun

I would have Shai over Luka but otherwise this would be my ballot order

Discussed Wemby, which types of players are the hardest to assess and which players have the most to gain or lose this postseason.

The box score says he has 23 but that can’t be true since he has about 29 this quarter or so it seems.

How mad do you think defensive line coaches get when they watch Zion Williamson play basketball?

Zion has been irresistible in the 3rd