LeBron > Jordan GOAT Super AIDS Containment, solved #22999 post by Matt R. (addendum #23174)

Correct - maybe this nonsense copy paste worked back in 2010 on people before we had advanced shot tracking.

Tatum shoots 2.6 catch/shoot attempts per game, Luka shoots 2.1.

Out of 188 catch/shoot attempts for Tatum, 165 were 3PA.

Luka has superior shooting stats across the board by a large margin. It’s objectively false to state that Tatum is an “expert jump shooter”. He isn’t, not even relative to the NBA, let alone Luka.

at least fraudguy can acknowledge injuries likely costed labron the 2015 championship

Tatum is superior at catch-and-shoots but it isn't just that - he's better a certain types of jumpers like post and triple-threat and one-dribble pull-ups - these quicker scores upon the catch allow superior ball movement and high assist team, while Luka's ball-dominant jumpers hurts ball movement and yields low assist teams

Yeah Tatum's style is just so great for team assists, Boston ranked an incredible 14th in assists in the regular season. That's not all though, they were an unbelievable 24th in passes made per game. Such elite ball movement.

For transparency, Dallas were slightly lower in both categories (17th and 29th) but that's not really the point. The point is that fallguy's narrative about Tatum is pure fantasy that he's making up in its entirety to try to squeeze it to fit his talking points.

Boston was 7th last year in assists, which is about the average for championship teams, while Luka is always at the bottom of the league such as 25th or 28th in the last 3 seasons before this year (19th this year)

But team assists is just one indication - the Mavs have a predictable "down-hill" style that isn't 5-man basketball, while the Celtics are more diverse offensively, so they can have better fits and chemistry.. It takes skill to develop great organic chemistry over time.

2023 Boston (7th in assists) loses to a pedestrian Miami team (25th in assists) in ECF. Trades away and for some players.

Go from 57 wins and a +6.5 net rating 2 seed to an all time regular season team with 64 wins and a +11.6 net rating 1 seed. 14th in assists, beats Indiana in ECF who was 1st in assists.

Perhaps rethink your “indicators”?

D lively > kristpas

Prove me wrong

It’s all based on LeBron hate really.

This version of Kyrie is the Jamal Murray to Luka’s Joker but people want to make it seem like he’s an all-time elite guy to diminish LeBron’s accomplishments.

If Luka wins, he will all of a sudden be a great jump shooter.

When the Mavs lose, will I get flowers for PROVING that ball-dominance is inferior??

Lebron's lottery record on the championship level already proved it, but Luka losing would be the nail in the coffin.

who will step up and give me flowers for SOLVING a major aspect of basketball when Luka loses? What will you guys say about ball-domination then??

Will I get an APOLOGY for getting crapped on for preaching the truth all these years??

Luka can't be a great jump shooter if he can't play off-ball and live off-screens and jumpers that aren't preceded by a lengthy live dribble (ball-domination).

Unfortunately, the ball-domination and "down-hill" skillset imposes spot-up roles and isn't 5-man basketball, so it can't develop the great chemistry required for a great-performing cast, aka great team.

All the ball-dominators fell in these playoffs - SGA, Ant and now Luka.

And everyone thinks Luka will win this series, so how correct will I be when his team gets throttled.. You guys will come with the same sad story, aka "needs more help" (the career story of a ball-dominator).

Remember that Magic/Lebron are 9-10 on the Finals level, so I wouldn't bank on victory for Luka... If Magic and Bron can't be winners on the championship level, than no one can with that brand of ball.

You live in a different world.

Celtics are big favs to win. Not many think Mavs will win. You don't get flowers for picking a favourite. i think the Celtics will win as well.

Luka was a 5th seed, winning as underdog in 3 straight series. Are you giving flowers to him for those 3 series, or the time he beat a 60+ win team a couple of years back. No, none of them count, only the next series. That's of course unless he wins, then it won't count for some other reason.

Fun fact. If Luka and Tatum swapped places Boston would be -600 or something.

This is the only place that you'll hear the stuff that I say about ball-domination - this forum and another one that I post on..

But if the stuff I say was common knowledge, then the Celtics' odds would crater after replacing Tatum with Luka, since they would be busting up the long-developed chemistry that the team had developed since 2018 and replacing it with a completely difference offense and inferior brand of ball.

I'm pretty sure that Boston is favored already, but if you swapped them, both teams would have to start over and learn new team offense.. These are not substitutable players like say, prime Beal and Booker...

It's the same reason that Lebron's teams fall off a cliff in the short term when he's injured - the team has to start all over offensively and most of the time they DON'T start over - they just run the same ball-dominator offense but with a crappier ball-dominator in Lebron's absence... So no wonder the team stinks without Lebron - his offensive style handcuffs a team, even when he isn't there.

It isn't that I'm "picking" that Celtics - I'm just pointing out how current events continue to provide further evidence of what I've been saying (about certain skillsets yielding better brands of ball that win more).

For example, when Tatum wins this title, expert jumpshooters will be 21-7 on the championship level (MJ, Curry, Kobe, Bird, Kawhi, Dirk), versus 10-15 for ball-dominators (Magic, Lebron, Luka, Oscar, Westbrook, CP3, Harden)..

That's a pretty big gap over a large sample size.. Overall, expert jumpshooters and fundamental bigs have nearly all the titles as the best player (MJ, Kobe, Curry, Bird, Kawhi, Dirk, Kareem, Jokic, Duncan, AD) , while ball-dominators only have a few titles as the best player and mostly lost on the championship level (Lebron, Magic)... Isiah and Parker weren't really "ball-dominators", but that's only 1 or 2 more titles anyway as the best player.

Btw, I give Luka credit for upsetting every opponent in these playoffs thus far - very impressive - it reminds me of the 89' Playoffs when MJ did the same thing.. He beat the #1 SRS team in the 1st Round, while also upsetting Ewing's Knicks and probably would've beaten the Bad Boys too but Pippen missed game 6 of the ECF (Bulls lost in 6)..

Ultimately, the Mavs should lose this series in 5, even though Luka has a sidekick that outplayed 80's MJ (Ant) and peak Curry... So Kyrie > Pippen, which means MJ would easily 3-peat with these Mavs.. People laud the chemistry and "improved defense" of Luka/Kyrie, so imagine MJ/Kyrie - 3-peat incoming.

Luka is so much more skilled than MJ
...

Arguing against ball dominance and for Jordan at the same time is just amazing cognitive dissonance

under the gun, kristaps can do most of what lively does if not all, but not vice versa.

but sure, when kristaps is flirting with that line doing too much, his impact can absolutely appear or even be less than lively, whose role is always pretty defined so he can just knock that out of the park every time

MJ can do everything Luka can do but with 24 inches more on the vertical, such as Luka's patented between-the-legs move:

Here's a couple between-the-legs on Rodman - notice the real defense and hand-checking that Luka probably can't handle:

Patented Luka step-back and swagger to close out the famous "Van Gundy" game:

And let's see if Luka can average 11 assists in his first Finals like MJ did?.. MJ did that without dominating the ball - he's the only player in history to average 10 assists in a series without playing the point guard role or bringing the ball up court most of the time.

MJ averaged more assists than Lebron for the first 9 years of their playoff careers until Curry's spacing era made offense easier for everyone from 2015 onwards - only then did Lebron start to average more playoff assists than Jordan.

And when MJ dominated the ball the same amount as Luka, he averaged more assists in 25 games at point guard in 1989 (30/9/11) - everyone said that MJ was already the best PG in the league after just a few games and it was his first time playing the position at 26 years old - that's goat talent for the game of basketball.. And there were no high-scoring ball-dominators back then, so MJ averaged 30/10/10 about 30 years before the 30/10/10 era

Why take a bunch of dribbles to hit game-winners when you have the talent and touch to do this:







And why need a live dribble to do anything - look at the GOAT hop-step that MJ takes here - ONLY MJ had moves this efficient:

MJ makes it look so easy that a lot of new fans think it isn't ****, but literally no one can do that off a post spin except MJ, because MJ is the only guy that uses that specific hop-step - literally the only guy... Go out to the playground and practice that move and you'll practically break your neck trying to do that exact footwork in 1 dribble... and STILL have enough strength to finish super-easy over the HOF 7-footer - par for the course for the GOAT

MJ shot a lot (usage), but he didn't dominate the ball (excessive live-dribbling) because he was an OFF-guard that started possessions off-ball:

.
KAT's 2024 Playoffs was equal or better than 4 of Pippen's title runs:

24' KAT..................... 19.1 PER.... 0.155 WS/48.... 19/9/3 on 58.1 TS

93' Pippen'............... 16.9 PER.... 0.083 WS/48.... 20/8/5 on 50.4 TS
97' Pippen'............... 18.1 PER.... 0.145 WS/48.... 19/8/4 on 52.6 TS
98' Pippen'............... 19.5 PER.... 0.166 WS/48.... 17/8/5 on 50.0 TS
96' Pippen'............... 19.4 PER.... 0.195 WS/48.... 17/9/6 on 47.3 TS

Ant also has the 4x DPOY and another 2nd Team All-Defensive player (McDaniels), so Ant has a lot of "pippen's" but simply needs to learn how to carry them... 24.6 on 43% isn't enough to carry them and it amounts to wetting the bed since he lost as a massive favorite with these numbers.

People say KAT is weak mentally and inconsistent, but what the heck was Pippen?... That's exactly what Pippen was - look at Pippen's numbers - they're trash in MANY series - he wet the bed all the time... He averaged 19.0 on 42% for his Finals career, which includes 2 series of 15.7 on 40% - this is the definition of inconsistent.. He also wet the bed in countless other series like the 98' ECF, 97' ECF, 92' ECSF, 90' ECF and many more.

Mental illness.

So is classifying Jayson Tatum as an “expert jump shooter”

In a thread full of absurd statement it's honestly one of the most ridiculous. It could quite easily be argued that he's not even a top 3 shooter on his own team but because the offense runs through him and twog has deigned it a suitable offensive system for winning championships that means he must be an expert jump shooter in twog's mind. It's a perfect example of twog distorting reality to make it fit his narrative rather than making arguments based on reality.

He's elite at creating his own jumpshot off the dribble but also elite at other kinds of jumpshots, such as catch-and-shoot, post turnarounds, jumpshots out of the triple-threat - these types of jumpshots allow great ball movement, so the team can develop the great chemistry required for a great-performing cast, aka great team

Luka is an expert jumpshooter too tbh because unlike Lebron who lacks the actual jumpshooting touch and skill to play off-ball, Luka simply chooses not to.. Since he plays off-ball in international play, I think he chooses not to play off-ball in the NBA primarily because of the spaced-out, hands-off, no-impede (no defense allowed), beginner format - it's just too easy to pass up employing this easy-stat style and trying to win that way than take years to learn the best 5-man basketball like Tatum did, Curry, MJ, Kobe, and Kawhi did.