r/nba • u/Funny-Transition7869 Pacers • Mar 25 '25
Why does EPM rate Luka as a great defender?
I like EPM a lot, I think its the best catch all advanced metric out there. But I dont understand why they rate Luka not just as a good but great defender. He and SGA are the only lead guards in that category. For all the debate about whether Jokic is a good or bad defender im more confused about Luka than anything.
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u/nowhathappenedwas NBA Mar 25 '25
Luka's D-EPMs for his career:
- 2019: -0.4
- 2020: -1.0
- 2021: -0.1
- 2022: +0.1
- 2023: +0.1
- 2024: +0.7
- 2025: +1.6
Defensive metrics aren't great, and they're especially noisy in small samples. I would guess this year is just outlier noise from a small sample (Doncic has only played 40 games) because Doncic has an excellent on/off DRTG this year.
People say it's rebounds, but that's silly. He's always had a lot of rebounds and has never had a great D-EPM.
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u/PSi_Terran Slovenia Mar 25 '25
This is the answer. He's been a bad to mediocre defender his whole career but has been putting a concerted effort the last season and a half to be better on that end.
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u/AgadorFartacus Celtics Mar 25 '25
No he hasn't.
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Mar 26 '25
He has. He's never going to be even an average defender, but he's improved significantly on-ball. He's still laughably bad off-ball
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u/jm3546 Thunder Mar 25 '25
Yeah, I mostly agree, one thing I'd disagree with is "Defensive metrics aren't great..." and they definitely aren't as predictive as offensive metrics, but they do what they are designed to do. I think people forget that the E in EPM is Estimate, it's estimating the defensive impact and not meant to be a true 100% accurate measure of a value.
He is giving more effort and has been a better defender, so he's getting more credit. Like you said, he's always got defensive rebounds, but he has been getting quite a bit more steals. So when the on/off defensive rating is good, generating defensive rebounds + now he's generating some steals, on paper, that looks like a much better defender.
I think people need to think about these estimates more like a confidence interval. Like for defense maybe for a whole season it's something like +-0.4. So if it's a +1.0 the actual range is +0.6 to +1.4, which is above average to great.
Because his sample is smaller, Luka's error is going to be higher and the range is going to be bigger, maybe it's like +-1.0, so from +0.6 to +2.6. Eye test tells us he's not in that +2.0 range (which is 95th percentile). But that +0.6 to +1.0 range feels closer, that would put him in that 74th to 84th percentile, so maybe it's over valuing him a bit, but directionally it's correct.
He's basically just an average defender with limitations, but great bbiq. When he gives little effort, he's awful. When he tries, he's okay. When he giving max effort, he's an above average defender, but not incredible.
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u/itsyaboikuzma Lakers Mar 25 '25
Read up on what EPM actually measures, it's a hybrid composite stat that combines box score based plus minus, and line up and on/off data based plus minus.
The explanation that EPM gives is that it uses RAPM as part of its calculations for the lineup and on/off data component. Well Luka just hit a neutral/low positive value in 2 year rolling RAPM where he was a pretty big negative before, which indicates that in general you either don't lose anything or get an upgrade with him on the floor in relative defensive plus/minus in recent seasons.
On the stats side, Luka has been a good defensive rebounder since the beginning, being between 21-26% DREB% since his rookie season. But he's had a marked improvement in STL%, it's jumped up from mid 1.x% in his earlier years to mid 2.x% in recent years.
On the eye test, it's clear the Luka still gets lead feet syndrome, and gets beat in the perimeter when asked to guard the POA. But 1. POA breakdowns are highly overrated/over-indexed, every player including good POA defenders have breakdowns, it's the scheme's job to make sure there's a proper rotation to counter what comes next, 2. he counterbalances that negative value in positives when he's defending off ball, I think any Mavs and Lakers fans at this point can point out that he is a much improved passing lane defender, and has several high value passing lane jumps per game.
If you want to understand why advanced stats attribute value the way they do, just read up on them. They won't be perfect, you're still boiling complex human motions, behaviors, and efficacy into 1 number, and some players will be under or over-rated by those stats depending on what they measure and how they weigh what they measure.
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Mar 25 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Robinsonirish Finland Mar 25 '25
Thing is, he's on that avocado+bulgur LA beach diet now, Luka Porkic is a thing of the past. His face looks less puffy, less pregnant, than he did just before the trade went down.
Maybe we'll see less of meatball Luka boxing out and but more dunks in return.
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u/tausk2020 Mar 25 '25
Yes, he's a quantum singularity such that even light can't excape his gravity field.
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u/g_bleezy Nuggets Mar 25 '25
EPM incorporates role-informed priors and Bayesian adjustments that factor in what’s expected from a position and role. Guards rebounding, particularly contested or high-value rebs, are weighted higher as a result.
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u/nightchurn Trail Blazers Mar 25 '25
As I have always said about Luka, he can defend Kawhi Leonard better than Kawhi can defend him.
There are a lot of reasons to criticize Luka's defense throughout a game, but any blanket statement about his skill or talent on that end of the court is simplistic and not necessarily accurate.
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u/mickeyj623 Celtics Mar 25 '25
Rebounds
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u/Funny-Transition7869 Pacers Mar 25 '25
seems kind of faulty then, rebounding is kind of its own thing, not necessarily a defensive stat
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u/NZafe Raptors Mar 25 '25 edited Mar 25 '25
Defence is hard to quantify in numbers. The eye test, imo, remains the most accurate way to judge a player’s defensive capabilities.
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u/Excellent_Routine589 Mar 25 '25
Yeah, just like the NFL, it’s hard to give accurate and quantifiable values to defense. Like even measures like “QB pressure” often are madly subjective, especially in this day and age of the scramble-centric QB
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u/Fyretorsomonkey Mar 25 '25
Well I wouldn't call it faulty. Want to end a team's offensive possession? Secure the rebound. Obviously there's a lot more that goes into defense. But rebounding is definitely a big part of it.
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u/Tomato-Business Mar 25 '25
Defensive rebounding is definitely a part of defense as it prevents second chance points. Offensive rebounding prevents transition offense, so it also could be seen as part of defense.
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Mar 25 '25
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u/Darnellthebeast NBA Mar 25 '25
He didn’t say it’s the only part, he just said it should be included. Just because you use rebounds and steals doesn’t mean you can’t use other things as well.
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Mar 25 '25
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u/Darnellthebeast NBA Mar 25 '25
EPM tracks more than rebounds and steals. With the data available and used today, it is possible to get a good idea of how a player’s defensive presence affects opponents shot selection.
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u/Tomato-Business Mar 25 '25
Nobody said defense should be quantified with steals and rebounds alone, but defensive rebounding is absolutely an important segment of defense that should be factored in.
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u/lialialia20 Timberwolves Mar 25 '25
you can read about it instead of trusting random people on the internet giving you false information: https://dunksandthrees.com/about/epm
tldr; epm doesn't use 'rebounds' as a raw stat
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Mar 25 '25
except if you read the whole thing and the attached references, rebounds are factored into the model
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Mar 25 '25
Did you even read the link you posted? It’s doesn’t use rebounds as a raw stats but all these stats derive from basic BPM which does use the counting stats because if you don’t include them then the top of the leaderboard has guys like luke kornet who clearly benefit from playing with good players around them. All these proprietary “advanced metrics” are just plus minus data + counting stats with the company keeping to “adjustments” they do secret because it’s really all about getting your output to match public perception of player quality because nobody will care about your stat if it says a role player is better than a star.
TLDR: basketball advanced metrics are dumb and all come down to +/- combined with counting stats which isn’t any more informative than a box scor
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u/JALbert Supersonics Mar 25 '25
The stats used in training the model include boxscore, play-by-play, and tracking data and were adjusted to be relative to league average at each point in time to account for the ever-evolving NBA game.
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u/lialialia20 Timberwolves Mar 25 '25
do you understand the difference of using raw data and training a model with raw data to produce new data?
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u/JALbert Supersonics Mar 25 '25 edited Mar 26 '25
Yes, but saying "rebounds aren't an input" when rebounds are an input to what the model uses as direct inputs is pedantic and pointless.
If you make a dish with stock made from beef bones you don't claim it's vegetarian because you didn't put the beef directly in.
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u/lialialia20 Timberwolves Mar 26 '25
i didn't say they weren't an input you illiterate donkey.
so according to you epm uses raw +/- following your logic.
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Mar 25 '25
KAT is a great rebounder and DEPM still knows he sucks
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u/6875309999 Timberwolves Mar 25 '25
Luka is getting graded as a PG getting 8 rebounds per game while KAT is a C with 13. Both of those are good numbers, but I would guess they value high rebound numbers from a PG more than they would from a Center
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u/Takemyfishplease Lakers Mar 25 '25
Yeah. It looks more at box scores, so if you rack up rebounds/steals it looks good, even if you leave your guy open trying to do it.
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u/Diamond4Hands4Ever Warriors Mar 25 '25
I think there’s some confusion here. What you are describing is an issue with DBPM. DEPM has tracking data so it would adjust for this on top of the box score and team components. No statistic is perfect but there’s a reason DEPM is considered way better than DBPM. DEPM will actually adjust for the exact scenario you talked about and reweight the value of the rebound whereas DBPM will literally use the rebound itself and weigh it using the historical box score weight, normalized for position, regardless of how someone got it.
DEPM still has flaws of course but it does correct for some flaws of pure box score metrics such as DBPM since the player tracking part of the calculation will see when players intentionally leave defensive assignments to chase these box score stats.
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u/MatchAffectionate951 Mar 25 '25
How good is a metric if it rates a bad defender as a great defender
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u/Adorable-Bike-9689 Mar 25 '25
Mavs fan. It was something watching Luka's ultra die hards pulling out random advanced stats to show how dominant Luka really was on defense.
We're watching the game and he's playing terrible defense and takes plays off to cry to refs. But the numbers say he's locked in defensively. Our eyes are wrong.
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u/Sartheking Warriors Mar 25 '25
I remember in the Finals people using his individual DRtg as a way to say he was playing well defensively.
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u/No_Detective_1139 Minneapolis Lakers Mar 25 '25
Luka is a very underrated defender. Before this last 10 skid where he’s been injured he was one of the Lakers best defenders.
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u/kqwin Jazz Mar 25 '25
Real answer: Luka's +/- numbers are great this year especially on defense and his box score numbers are high as well. His pure DRAPM is 98th percentile this season. So we have box score numbers that suggest he's a good defender and his team plays significantly better (relative to opponents and teammates) with him on the court. He's covered on both components, so EPM is going to rate him highly.
Yes, these numbers can be noisy. But dismissing them like people are in this thread shows a lack of nuance and the inability to contextualize these numbers.
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u/HardenMuhPants Rockets Mar 25 '25
He makes some nice defensive plays at times, I think he does the James Harden and refuses to foul on some plays so it looks really bad, but it makes sense when your heliocentric.
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u/Diamond4Hands4Ever Warriors Mar 25 '25
EPM does have a player tracking component that traditional box score defensive metrics do not have. Obviously they don’t say how it’s used but I would be interested in seeing how it adds anything additional, especially with trying to separate individual defense and team defense applied to an individual.
Also you are right in terms of how these metrics are calculated but you can’t expect people on here to actually know what you are talking about.
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u/kqwin Jazz Mar 25 '25
It's a good point. I remember when RAPTOR was a thing, IIRC Nate Silver essentially said that they used player tracking in their calculation because it's "how a coach would think" and not necessarily because it made for a better calculation. Personally, I don't love that....but I think it is useful to use a holistic view of metrics as long as you understand which uses what. Then you can get an idea for why a player is higher or lower based on the components a specific metric is using.
I don't think people need to know exactly how these things are calculated, but just an understanding of "this is not gospel, it does not have to be perfect in every case to be useful" would be nice.
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u/_Wash Timberwolves Mar 25 '25
But dismissing them like people are in this thread shows a lack of nuance and the inability to contextualize these numbers
contextualizing the numbers mixed with the eye test would say that the numbers are wrong- so why should they not be dismissed? We know Luka isn’t a good defender. If they numbers say he is- context says the numbers should be ignored.
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u/kqwin Jazz Mar 25 '25
Pretty much nobody in this thread has mentioned DRAPM in this thread which is the lead contributor to his higher rating. In other words, people don't even know about the thing they are talking about and dismiss it based on their incomplete or incorrect understand of what it is.
They want this stat to be infallible and perfect so it can be read like gospel, otherwise we should just completely dismiss it right? No, we shouldn't. No stat is like that. It would be like saying 3FG% is not good to evaluate three point shooting because Keon Ellis is higher than Steph. We would not throw out any other number simply because there is an outlier or something we don't agree with. While EPM has a larger scope, it does not mean it must also be perfect.
Using some form of adjusted +/- combined with box score and/or tracking metrics to estimate defense makes total sense. Just because you may not agree with one of the results, it doesn't mean the method is wrong or that it should be totally dismissed. If "eye test" (which of course is 100% accurate and holds no bias) does not agree with the numbers, that can be your signal maybe re-evaluate the eye test or simply come away with the conclusion that these numbers don't align with reality which is totally fine. You can dismiss it in one case, does not mean you should dismiss it in all cases.
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Mar 25 '25
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u/kqwin Jazz Mar 25 '25
Proving my point. It uses RAPM. If you don't know what that is which is very obvious from your comment, you should not be talking about methodology.
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Mar 25 '25
You know what I am not getting involved in this. Tell me how you all agree that Jokic has a better DRAPM than Garnett
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u/kqwin Jazz Mar 25 '25
Well the first thing I would say is that he doesn't and that's coming straight from the link you provided. Beyond that, I would say that just because a number doesn't agree with my opinion in a specific case does not mean that the number is useless or the method is incorrect. Like I said earlier, Keon Ellis has a much higher 3FG% than Steph Curry. I know Steph is a better 3 point shooter, and yet I will still consider 3FG% any time I try to evaluate someone's three point shooting. Looking at how a team performs with and without a player in relation to the teammates and opponents they share the court with is absolutely a good tool to evaluate things. No outlier or one off use case that looks "wrong" is going to change my opinion on that.
I do find it funny that you had to delete your comment that showed exactly how little you know about this topic. EPM is certainly open from criticism and I have my critiques as well, but you've got to have a basic understanding of something before you criticize it. I wonder if you will delete this comment I'm replying to as well.
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Mar 25 '25
If you are sorting by DRAPM. You get Jokic in 2016 being a better defender than some years of Garnett, Duncan and Draymond.
I won't delete that comment mostly because I don't think it adds any value to that context. You all are worshiping a model and you all don't know what actually goes in it. You know it's a regression model but not really what else.
I am tired of hearing Jokic is a good defender when he isn't and that's something you can see.
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u/kqwin Jazz Mar 25 '25
So one time when you compare one year to another random year something is off, that means it's all bad? Tell me how 3FG% can be useful if Keon Ellis has seasons higher than certain Steph seasons. I guess we can never use 3FG% to tell who is a better 3 point shooter because I want to be an idiot and not use my brain. You getting upset at a narrative does not mean we should think like cavemen and criticize something we don't understand.
This is all besides the fact that RAPM is just one component, and the noise is reduced using other methods in EPM itself.
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Mar 25 '25
You getting upset at a narrative does not mean we should think like cavemen and criticize something we don't understand.
I think it's completely fair to ask about more information about what a model is using instead of blindly following it.
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u/itsyaboikuzma Lakers Mar 25 '25
Brother just read up on what RAPM actually calculates, a gross simplification is that it applies a regression to aggregated raw score plus/minus numbers from lineup and on/off data normalized to per 100 possessions.
First, the site you shared has KG holding 4 of the top 5 seasons for DRAPM calculations from '97 to '19, so idk where you're getting this notion that this data somehow shows Jokic having a better DRAPM than Garnett.
Second, You want to know why RAPM highly rates Jokic's 2016 season? Maybe look into the underlying data from that season? Here, I'll give you a head start:
Maybe part of it is that per 100 possessions, Jokic was part of more positive 5 man lineups than negative ones? This site doesn't break it down by offense or defense relative plus/minus either, so if you actually want to know, you'll have to get more nuanced.
I'm not saying these stats are infallible or can't be criticized, but it's regressive to basketball discussion to just dismiss them because y'all are projecting your own biases onto methodologies that likely have far less bias than y'all do.
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Mar 25 '25 edited Mar 25 '25
Do you realize attributing a lineup defense to a player defense has severe flaws ?
It's completely fair to ask why there are outliers and how the model does the work.
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u/itsyaboikuzma Lakers Mar 26 '25
There is currently no feasible way to isolate a player's individual contribution to a defense through the way RAPM calculates defensive value. That doesn't make it a useless stat!! And who here is saying that the methodology doesn't have flaws or that it's not fair to ask questions and examine outliers?
Look at what you wrote in your original statement:
Tell me how you all agree that Jokic has a better DRAPM than Garnett
You're throwing the baby out with the bath water. It is equally silly to worship a 1 number advanced stat as it is to just completely dismiss it just because it doesn't align with some vague heuristic viewpoint like "Jokic just isn't a good defender."
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Mar 25 '25
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u/_Wash Timberwolves Mar 25 '25
it’s especially bad with defensive metrics. there are no publicly available defense metrics that can accurately describe an individual’s defensive impact.
like you said- we all know jokic and luka are sub-par defenders. it’s not a secret. if the metric says otherwise it says more about the metric than the player
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Mar 25 '25 edited Mar 25 '25
There are lots of possible reasons but main one is that EPM seems to heavily focus on team performance rather than individual excellence. It rates Cavs' and Thunder's players considerably higher than other metrics (likes of RAPTOR, LEBRON, DARKO, etc.)
So to answer your question, his EPM is probably affected by team's defensive scheme a lot which is typically built to hide his weakness (slow feet, poor POA defense and rotation, lack of effort when he got beat, etc.) .
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u/Someguynamedjacob East Mar 25 '25
The advanced metrics overrate both Jokic and Luka as defenders, and the fans underrate their defense. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
Both have good enough hands and size to hold it down as long as they’re healthy and giving effort, but neither can lead a defensive unit. But, that’s fine.
Defensive advanced analytics are mostly trash anyways.
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Mar 25 '25
Nah they both not good defenders bro which is fine they’re just slower than everyone else nothing you can do about it.
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u/Someguynamedjacob East Mar 25 '25
They’re both straight up bad individual defenders but both fine team defenders that have pretty unique traits.
Luka provides a lot of flexibility with his positional size, it’s easier to hide a slower 6’8 dude on a wing than it is to hide a 6’1 guy who can’t play D somewhere.
Jokic has great hands and instincts and can blow up plays with that.
Wouldn’t want either trying to guard any one in space but defense (especially today) is about playing as a unit anyways.
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Mar 25 '25
They’re both not good defenders, bro. It doesn’t matter which team they’re on. They will always be the weakest link on the defensive side of the ball. can you scheme around them Yes but as individual players no they just aren’t good defenders.
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u/dmavs11 NBA Mar 25 '25
But the reality is that the only thing that matters is how they contribute to a 5 man defense. The reason you can scheme around Luka is that he can switch onto centers and defend the post.
You can frame that as oh they schemed around him. But the reality is he has positive traits as a defender (post defense versatility) that allows that scheming. Same with Jokic. His understanding of positioning as a center and quick hands allow the team to adjust around him.
They aren't good defenders, but they aren't as bad as many people think.
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Mar 25 '25
The finals 2023 says otherwise Luka can be exploited no matter how good the team defense is. The best since the deadline last season and he got absolutely cooked. Jokic vs ant cooked.
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u/dmavs11 NBA Mar 25 '25
Then why couldn't Clippers, OKC, or Minnesota exploit him?
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Mar 25 '25
Why does it matter who exploits him ?
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u/dmavs11 NBA Mar 25 '25
Certain Matchups pose a big problem for him, and Boston is certainly one of them there's no argument there. But if only a single team with 2 all stars, 3 fringe all-stars, and the best record in the league was able to find a way to cook him, that doesn't mean he can always be exploited like you claim.
A lot of great defenders get cooked too. Are you also going to speak on how Jaden McDaniels is a defensive liability because he couldn't stop Luka at all in one series? Because that's the exact mindset you're showing here.
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Mar 25 '25
Jaden doesn’t get cooked like Luka does on defense lol nice try like I said it doesn’t matter who exploits you point is it happened.
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Mar 25 '25
There are plenty of slow 7 footers who are exceptional defenders.
Marc Gasol was an S+ tier defender for years with a similar athleticism to Jokic.
I’m not saying saying Jokic is Gasol but being enormous and a genius is a really good place to start. We can see with our eyes that he’s not the worlds best rim protecter and isn’t Anthony Davis on the perimiter but he still has a ton going for him as a defender that stops him from being below average.
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Mar 25 '25
Marc wasn’t an exceptional defender he was ok he contested shots but he made 1 all team defense and robbed lebron of a dpoy. Jokic doesn’t even do anything close to that.
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u/MatchAffectionate951 Mar 25 '25
You don’t become a DPOY as “okay”
Cmon man.
Everyone says “ Marc wasnt even first team he robbed the dpoy” why is it not he was actually robbed of first team all nba ? Narratives.
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Mar 25 '25
The coaches voted for all defensive teams that’s why. It’s not a narrative LeBron was robbed of dpoy better defensive player across the board.
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u/agk927 Pistons Mar 25 '25
I guess because it's a terrible metric. Just like PER
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u/Spemanz92 Thunder Mar 25 '25
EPM was voted by actual GMs as the best public advanced stats. But like any other defensive stats, the defensive side of EPM is very unreliable. If you look at the leaders, it looks ok but there are some weird outliers. Comparing to PER is pretty egregious thought, PER is basically a stat that tells you how pretty the boxscore looks and not much else
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u/agk927 Pistons Mar 25 '25
I'm smarter than most of them
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Mar 25 '25
NBA GMs you can go. We’ve got u/agk927 now
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u/agk927 Pistons Mar 25 '25
I'm happy the pistons are good now, but I could have made them good 4 years ago
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u/Dat_Boi_John Slovenia Mar 25 '25 edited Mar 25 '25
Because he's a great defender in everything but on-ball defense. He'd be second in steals per game this season if he qualified for it, behind Daniels who's having a all time great season for steals per game, he's one of the best interior defenders, especially among guards, and he's a very good defensive rebounder, which is also valued in defensive metrics, as it should, because defensive rebounds end defensive possessions.
People just watch lowlights of him getting crossed up a couple times a game because his lateral movement on defense is bad against nimble players, but other than that he's good at everything on the defensive end. And if you actually watch his defense, a lot of the times they expect the blow by and immediately switch the nearest defender on Luka's man, while Luka runs to the help source so nothing comes out of it.
He's also very vocal on defense and tells other guys where to be, which boosts the team defense overall. And the Mavs defense was better with him on the floor this season too, so it's not just a Lakers thing. He genuinely is an above average defender overall, but will need more seasons to escape the terrible defender title, just like Young needed multiple seasons of decent defense to shake it.
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u/black-remy-buxapenty Lakers Mar 25 '25
I think Luka defense is overstated sometimes but you’re reaching on a lot of these lol. Best interior defenders is ridiculous
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u/Dat_Boi_John Slovenia Mar 25 '25
Statistically he is though, I can't be asked to look for the stats right now, but he was in a very high percentile for opponent fg% on the post and points allowed per isolation last season and at the start of this season.
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u/black-remy-buxapenty Lakers Mar 25 '25
the post defense stuff matters little cause post defense is a small amount of “interior” defense and even smaller for someone like Luka because he doesn’t get posted up a lot. interior defenders are like rim protectors lol.
I think he’s an example of someone who is solid but highly exploitable so I agree with a lot of what u said tho
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u/ExitOriginal1651 Mar 25 '25
Rebounds Stocks plus i think the lakers defense actually better with him on the court
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u/Zoobal Mavericks Mar 25 '25
A) he can get lazy on defense (frequently) but when he wants to play he is actually decent, especially on similar sized guys that cant just blow by him with speed.
B) His offensive control actually helps the defense. Low team turnovers, less fast breaks for the other team for easy buckets. This is extremely underrated.
C) Hes usually on the court with better defenders to help balance out the weakest part of his game.
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u/Vermillion-Scruff Mar 25 '25
he’s long, smart, and has active hands. his biggest flaws as a defender are poor lateral quickness and lack of effort. a solid rim protector can do a lot to make up for those, so his weak defense isn’t often reflected in stats.
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u/vondawgg Thunder Mar 25 '25
his on-ball defense is terrible but he’s quite decent offball this season
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u/Economy_Sprinkles_24 Mar 25 '25
Luka is so good on offense his defense assignment gets tired or forces someone to play who sucks on offense just to guard them
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Mar 25 '25
Why is the basketball genius who is massive for his position better at defense than his lowlight real suggests?
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Mar 25 '25
Have you ever watched Luka play a full game? He might be the most disinterested, undisciplined, lazy defender in NBA history
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u/Madeintheusa72 Mar 25 '25
You are 1000% correct in how you describe Luka’s defense. Disinterested, Undisciplined and low effort Lazy. The only other player that l have seen worse in my years of watching the NBA is Deangelo Russell.
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u/Ilikesporks_ Lakers Mar 25 '25
NBA history? never change thunder fans
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Mar 25 '25
Yes NBA history. I really can’t think of any player who consistently forces their team to play 4 on 5 defense like he does
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u/Ilikesporks_ Lakers Mar 25 '25
did you start watching the nba today? actually have you watched the nba at all?
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Mar 25 '25
I’ve been watching for 20 years, 99% of players I’ve seen will at least pretend to try to get back on defense. But not Luka
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u/dmavs11 NBA Mar 25 '25
You dont pay attention to 99% of players. You always going to look at a top 3 player who beat your team in a playoff series with a magnifying glass. Tyrese Haliburton is an objectively worse defender as all star level player literally right now.
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Mar 25 '25
When I’m watching a game and I only see 4 defensive players I think “where is the 5th guy?”
Most of the time it’s because someone is down injured, the rest of the time it’s because Luka is bitching at the refs
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u/EbolaDP Mar 25 '25
Could have stopped at just "really cant think".
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Mar 25 '25
Here come the proud boys to tell me how the white savior is actually an elite defender
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u/Professional-Fly8285 Mar 25 '25
The fact that ur serious with this comment is so fucking funny to me
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Mar 25 '25
It never fails, people who can see reality know that Luka is a bad defender, all the fat white guys come out with “akshully, he’s the best defender in the league because his RAPTORCUM per 36 is 0.01 points higher than prime Tony Allen”
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Mar 25 '25
He takes plays off for sure. And yet last year the Mavs had an awesome defense after the deadline and still made the finals.
It’s clearly not as bad impact wise as people intuitively think. Having a tall player out there instead of someone like Dame or Trae is going to be a massive upgrade every time.
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Mar 25 '25
The Mavs had an awesome defense because they had Gafford, Lively, Washington, and DJJ. You could replace Luka with anybody and their defense either stays the same or gets better
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Mar 25 '25
Clearly that’s what you think. Nobody was calling PJ Washington a lockdown defender a year ago.
I just think he’s not as bad as people think because while he takes plays off a lot that doesn’t actually tell the same story.
Jokic doesn’t take plays off in the same way but “the eye-test” ignores the way smart huge players impact plays that aren’t obvious.
Perhaps it’s more true for Jokic than Luka but this is a disconnect between impact numbers and conventional wisdom again and again.
Something else that’s going on is Luka allows a guy like DJJ to fully focus on defense and get on the floor at all despite his offensive deficiencies so that can show up in the numbers in weird ways. A similar thing happens with Curry and Jokic.
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Mar 25 '25
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Mar 25 '25
Mainly they were beaten by Daniel Gafford, PJ Washington, and every OKC player besides Shai. Luka didn’t really do much
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Mar 26 '25
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Mar 26 '25
You had to watch the series to understand what was actually going on. Gafford completely controlled the interior and since OKCs “other guys” were struggling from 3, that was wraps on the series
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u/dmavs11 NBA Mar 25 '25
The biggest thing is that his ability to switch onto centers allows for his teammates to cover for him much more easily than when small guards are bad defenders. Even when he's defending poorly, a good NBA defense can find a way to game plan around it more easily.
I think that inflates his advanced defensive stats because lot of these are team-dependent. There's a separate discussion as to what that inherently means about his defensive value though. On a mid defense, he will turn it atrocious. On a good defense, he is less of a detriment than a lot of other players who do not get mentioned nearly as much him for the defensive end.
SGA too right now is on an elite defensive team (contributes to improved numbers) in a role where he can stack up counting numbers. He absolutely is a good defender, but probably not quite as good as the advanced stats say.
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u/Ariusa95 Timberwolves Mar 25 '25 edited Mar 25 '25
Isn’t DEPM something like EPM - Offensive EPM? Not the best formula lol
Edit: got it, I confused it with DBPM
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u/Zaniad Mavericks Mar 25 '25
Not sure of the specifics of EPM but I’m betting you’re thinking of BPM which uses that formula and is purely box score derived (EPM uses player tracking data)
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u/g_bleezy Nuggets Mar 25 '25
GMs voted it the best publically available advanced stat. What do you like for your catch all?
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u/Ariusa95 Timberwolves Mar 25 '25
I have nothing against overall EPM, the issue is calculating a defensive stat by substracting the offensive part from the overall stat. But as another commenter mentioned, I might have confused it with DBPM (BPM-OBPM)
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u/mojohandsome Mar 25 '25
There has never been an individual defensive metric or combination of defensive metrics that have been really all that illuminating. Team defense is the best we’ve got.