07-05-2021, 09:34 AM
(07-05-2021, 09:03 AM)HoosierDaddyKid Wrote: I find it very hard to believe, Jae Crowder puts the Mavs over the top. Analytics be damned. Can't do it.. He's a nice vet presence for Phoenix, but he's not the sole reason for their success, just as he wasn't for Miami. He's going to BTB finals though, must be living right.
No one said he was the "sole reason". What he may be is the marginal reason.
Pretend you can plot talent on a 100 point scale. Clearly Paul and Booker take up most of the points achieved by Phoenix (as did Butler and Bam last season). In the West, there are a lot of teams bunched together (say between 87 and 90). If you can replace a 3 with an 8, it makes a huge marginal difference. Since Crowder was the last one in, his marginal difference is the one I'm focused on. It was an addition to what they had (and could have been the marginal spread here had we offered him three years instead of the reported one).
Put another way, how do you feel about Phoenix if Saric is averaging 27 minutes a game instead of 17 this season and Jalen Smith is soaking up the 17 minutes Saric was getting. Crowder doesn't have to be a star to be a difference maker. He just has to provide tangibly more than Saric and Smith...which he does.