long time guy wrote:
Hope Caller Bob is checking this shit out. No Great Shakes is selling snake oil again.
Mavs Luka Doncic vs Trae Young: An objective look at the numbers
by Dalton Trigg
First off, since a lot of people want to talk about Young's recent play instead of his play throughout the entire season (the ‘what have you done for me lately’ mentality), let's start our comparison there. Over the last 20 games, Young is averaging 24.7 points (44.9 FG%, 35.0 3P%), 4.9 rebounds and 9.1 assists in nearly 33 minutes per game. Doncic, over that same span, is averaging 22.6 points (41.7 FG%, 27.8 3P%), 9.6 rebounds and 6.8 assists in 32 minutes per game. When it comes to shooting efficiency, Young has been better than Doncic during that span of 20 games, with the assist totals sticking out more than anything else. However, over the course of the entire season, Doncic has still been the more efficient player, shooting 42.7 percent from the field to Young's 41.9 percent (both players are shooting exactly 32.6 percent from deep). Doncic, despite being in a shooting slump since the All-Star break, still has a higher effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage than Young as well. As good of a surge as Young has had, he still hasn't been able to catch Doncic, nor will he, in any of the following categories this season: points per game, rebounds per game, blocks per game, overall field goal percentage, effective field goal percentage, true shooting percentage, net rating, defensive rating, usage rate and PIE (Player Impact Estimate).
When it comes to offensive rating, Young has slight advantage over Doncic (107.2 to 106.7), but Young's defensive rating is nearly four points worse that Doncic, giving Doncic the better overall net rating. According to ESPN's real plus-minus rankings (which helps determine which players are more valuable to their teams), Doncic ranks 88th in the league, while Young ranks 421st out of 513 players. When you look at the DRPM rankings (which estimates a player's on-court impact on team defense), Doncic ranks 411th, which is obviously not great, yet Young is even worse on the defensive end. In fact, Young is 'the' worst player in the league in this category, ranking dead last out of 513 players. If team performance is going to have any kind of weight in the voting process, Doncic's team is now guaranteed to finish with a better record than Young's team. And if you look at RPM wins, which estimates the number of wins each player contributes to his team's win total during a season, Doncic ranks 59th in the league (6.33 wins), while Young ranks 260th (0.70 wins).
As mentioned earlier, Young has Doncic beat when it comes to assists (2.1 more per game), but you have to imagine how much much that gap would be closed if Doncic was surrounded by better shooters. The Mavs currently have two players on their roster who shoot 36 percent or better from three: Ryan Broekhoff (42.0%) and Salah Mejri (36.7%). And Mejri has a really small sample size, only attempting 30 threes on the season. By comparison, the Hawks have five real season-long contributors who shoot above 36 percent from deep: Vince Carter (39.3%), Taurean Prince (38.4%), Dewayne Dedmon (38.2%), Kevin Huerter (37.8%) and Alex Len (36.4%). All of that might not have translated to more wins for Atlanta, but I believe it's translated to more assists for Young, regardless.
When it comes to an all encompassing stat, Real Plus Minus is the shit.