Gravity: Top 5 of All-Time?

[penbeast0]

Dame and Luka are extremely underrated candidates. Absolutely absurd on-ball gravity

By absurd, do you mean better than:
Jordan
LeBron
Curry
Oscar
West

Remember, it's top 5 of all time and that's not even including bigs who I tend to have at the top.

[Texas Chuck]

Dame and Luka are extremely underrated candidates. Absolutely absurd on-ball gravity

By absurd, do you mean better than:
Jordan
LeBron
Curry
Oscar
West

Remember, it's top 5 of all time and that's not even including bigs who I tend to have at the top.

I would think Luka is definitely ahead of West and probably Oscar, no? Far and away the most blitzed player in the league. He's creating Curry level 4 on 3's by simply accepting the double, backing up and hitting the top of the key. And that's without the attention he draws in a PNR or when he gets into the paint which is all the time. But Luka has led the league I believe 4 years running in percentage of chances(and quantity obviously) created for teammates that are considered open or wide open. And by pretty significant margins. He's sucking so much defense to him.

It's certainly too soon to talk about him in a top 5 of all-time, but there probably haven't been many singular seasons where a player had as much gravity as Luka did this year. He's a logical mention.

Harder for me to see Dame as a serious player in the conversation.

[Special_Puppy]

Dame and Luka are extremely underrated candidates. Absolutely absurd on-ball gravity

By absurd, do you mean better than:
Jordan
LeBron
Curry
Oscar
West

Remember, it's top 5 of all time and that's not even including bigs who I tend to have at the top.

I would think Luka is definitely ahead of West and probably Oscar, no? Far and away the most blitzed player in the league. He's creating Curry level 4 on 3's by simply accepting the double, backing up and hitting the top of the key. And that's without the attention he draws in a PNR or when he gets into the paint which is all the time. But Luka has led the league I believe 4 years running in percentage of chances(and quantity obviously) created for teammates that are considered open or wide open. And by pretty significant margins. He's sucking so much defense to him.

It's certainly too soon to talk about him in a top 5 of all-time, but there probably haven't been many singular seasons where a player had as much gravity as Luka did this year. He's a logical mention.

Harder for me to see Dame as a serious player in the conversation.

In BB Index's overall Gravity measure that goes back to 2014, Luka has 3 seasons in the top 10. Dame has 4 in the top 10

[Djoker]

In terms of how far opposing players are being drawn away from their normal defensive assignment, the answer is probably Shaq. But the thing with a shooter’s gravity (most prominently Steph) is that they’re drawing defenders *away* from the basket, and that’s more valuable than drawing them towards the basket. The best shot in basketball is at the basket, so if your gravity draws opponents away from the basket, then it’s better than gravity that draws more defenders towards the basket, because the gravity is creating space for teammates in a more valuable area.

In theory, I would agree with your take but space at the basket is sometimes more difficult to exploit. Shaq's gravity was super simple to exploit. Shaq catches ball, Shaq sees double team, Shaq passes to open shooter, shooter takes shot. Rinse and repeat.

[lessthanjake]

In terms of how far opposing players are being drawn away from their normal defensive assignment, the answer is probably Shaq. But the thing with a shooter’s gravity (most prominently Steph) is that they’re drawing defenders *away* from the basket, and that’s more valuable than drawing them towards the basket. The best shot in basketball is at the basket, so if your gravity draws opponents away from the basket, then it’s better than gravity that draws more defenders towards the basket, because the gravity is creating space for teammates in a more valuable area.

In theory, I would agree with your take but space at the basket is sometimes more difficult to exploit. Shaq's gravity was super simple to exploit. Shaq catches ball, Shaq sees double team, Shaq passes to open shooter, shooter takes shot. Rinse and repeat.

Yeah, there’s perhaps an argument that the space opened up by a shooter’s gravity is in a more valuable area of the court but also an area that’s still harder to get the ball to. That’s probably part of why having Draymond has been such a great fit for Steph.