MAVS NEWS: Luka Wins Player Of the Week

[F Gump]

On the lack of bodies to play PF, it will be interesting to see how they play it if their top 3 are all out.

I can't imagine they would go ultra large, with Lively sliding to PF (alongside Gafford).

Could we see Luka truly playing PF? If so, and without Naji playing any SF, what would the PG-SG-SF rotations end up being?

[RGP1981]

On the lack of bodies to play PF, it will be interesting to see how they play it if their top 3 are all out.

I can't imagine they would go ultra large, with Lively sliding to PF (alongside Gafford).

Could we see Luka truly playing PF? If so, and without Naji playing any SF, what would the PG-SG-SF rotations end up being?

Luka and O-Max at PF.

I also see this as a good opportunity to give Gortman and Kessler some burn.

G: Kyrie/Gortman
G: Grimes/Dinwiddie
F: Klay/Kessler
F: Luka/O-Max
C: Lively/Gafford

[Dundalis]

It's ok that you're not sure. People can disagree, and I am sure. Both players are effective shot deterrents in the paint (Lively's better at that, too, but that's not the different part), but good ball movement really exploits Gafford quite easily, and it's drastically more easy for the opponent to generate open 3's when he's in the game (which is what they're all trying to do in the first place).

Do we disagree though? My comment isn't that Gafford is as good as Lively defensively, it's that there isn't a 15 point differential in defensive rating (and subsequent gap in their overall defensive ability). A 15 point differential isn't indicating Lively is better, it's indicating the type of gap between a great defender, and a really bad one. I'm saying I don't think Gafford is a really bad defender like the stat indicates, that he's very much a positive one.

Not sure if its really an apples to oranges comparison of Lively to Gafford net and defensive rating last year.  Most of Lively minutes were prior to the trade when the Mavs were struggling with a lot of injuries, and a lot of Gafford's minutes were when Lively was out and the team was otherwise healthy.  There were few games in that sample when both were playing.

In the playoffs (where Gafford's limitations are more exploited) Lively had a significantly better net rating and defensive rating as he does this season.  Given that Lively was rookie last year with a very steep learning curve, I think the playoff and current season data is probably more indicative of what those two are.

The only relevance to my comparison was that Gafford is clearly a good overall defender though, despite his weaknesses. Nothing to do with trying to prove in any way that he's better or even as good as Lively. And yeah, even good defenders can get exploited by elite teams in the playoffs, we've seen plenty of proven good defenders get torched in that environment.

[mvossman]

On the lack of bodies to play PF, it will be interesting to see how they play it if their top 3 are all out.

I can't imagine they would go ultra large, with Lively sliding to PF (alongside Gafford).

Could we see Luka truly playing PF? If so, and without Naji playing any SF, what would the PG-SG-SF rotations end up being?

I'm guessing they would start Lively/Luka/Klay/Grimes/Kyrie.  That's not crazy undersized.  We would see a lot of Din off the bench (and obviously Gafford).  Backup forward is going to be rough.  Hoping Omax survives.  Otherwise its going to be Morris or Powell.

EDIT: just realized JamesConway said the same thing above.

[michaeltex]

Does tonight's game mean we will play OKC 5 times during the season?

[RoyTarpleysGhost]

I think we all agree Lively is better than Gafford defensively.

But that "stat" seems dumb considering Gafford was in the starting unit early in the year when Luka was a disaster and the Mavs were struggling because of it. Now Lively is in the starting unit with an in shape Luka.

[mvossman]

Do we disagree though? My comment isn't that Gafford is as good as Lively defensively, it's that there isn't a 15 point differential in defensive rating (and subsequent gap in their overall defensive ability). A 15 point differential isn't indicating Lively is better, it's indicating the type of gap between a great defender, and a really bad one. I'm saying I don't think Gafford is a really bad defender like the stat indicates, that he's very much a positive one.


The only relevance to my comparison was that Gafford is clearly a good overall defender though, despite his weaknesses. Nothing to do with trying to prove in any way that he's better or even as good as Lively. And yeah, even good defenders can get exploited by elite teams in the playoffs, we've seen plenty of proven good defenders get torched in that environment.

I'm not calling Gafford a bad defender, but I don't think I would call him a good one either.  He is a good rim protector, but really struggles in space.  This will be an unpopular opinion around here, but if we are going up against an offense that is going to put our center in space, we would probably be better off with Maxi or even Powell defensively.

[StrandedOnBeauboisHill]

Rank these Mavs rosters:

2025 (this season)
2011
2007
2006
2005
2003
1987

And let me know if you think that isn't the definitive list of best Mavs rosters.

[mvossman]

I think we all agree Lively is better than Gafford defensively.

But that "stat" seems dumb considering Gafford was in the starting unit early in the year when Luka was a disaster and the Mavs were struggling because of it.  Now Lively is in the starting unit with an in shape Luka.

There is definitely a lot of noise in single player net/defensive rating.  That's why I like looking at stuff like EPM that takes more context into account (which has Gafford at -.3 and Lively at +1.8 defensively).  I will say that when Gafford was starting those games, Lively was generally finishing them, so I don't know that Gafford was playing that much more with Luka than Lively in the early games.

[Ghost of Podkolzin]

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/most-30...ba-history

Luka is 3rd all time. Insane for a player with more basketball ahead of him than behind him.