Luka, Harden, Beal

[StrongLurk]

I guess the only stats that count are 1994-2005?

[DMAVS41]

It will always be difficult to compare Dirk to Luka.

One of Dirks greatest contribution to his teams was that by being such a tall and deadly shooter from outside, he warped defenses by pulling bigs out from under the basket. He provided spacing which guys like Jason Terry, JJ Barea etc used. That spacing didn't show up in the stat sheet, though, which is one of the reasons why Dirk was underrated for a big part of his career.

Today's game is much different, and Luka's contributions translate better into stats, so he will always look better on paper than Dirk.

Nevertheless, judging by how his play translates to winning, if he can keep this it up, Luka seems to already be at the level of Dirk's better years, as far as regular season play is concerned.

Playoff play can't be compared until we have seen enough samples of playoff Luka, which we haven't.

I love Luka, but what you are saying above isn't really how it should be viewed in my opinion.

For example, when Luka leaves the court, the Mavs are outscoring the opponents to the tune of 12.1 points per 100 possessions. This is absolutely insane.

In comparison, nearly every year of Dirk's career...the team crumbled when he left the floor. For his entire prime, the Mavs only had a positive scoring differential with him off the court...one time. The 2006 season in which they were +.2 points per 100 without him.

So while Luka is amazing and his production is clearly translating to benefits on the court...if you gave, for example...05 Dirk a bench with a +12 net rating...they probably win 75 games.

I mean, they won 58 and the bench had a -4.1 net rating.

Lets not forget that Dirk led this franchise to 10 straight 50 win seasons, made the finals twice, and won a title.

I'm going to tap the brakes before I start agreeing that Luka is about as good as Dirk was...even just talking about the regular season.

[Sharmer]

Stats are inflated these days, nonathletic players can put up 30, this wasn't normal back in earlier generations.

[ImKobe]

Ortg is a measure of efficiency though, so pace doesn't factor into it. The Wizards actually have an elite offense. The problem is, we got that offense by playing really undersized at pretty much every position. The defense is horrible because with IT on the court we play a zone, without a lot of guys who cover tons of space on D.

Beal is probably top-10 right now, with Durant/Curry/Klay all out.

Pace factors in because teams are pushing the ball up the court and creating more fastbreak opportunities, it leads to horrible defense but they're chucking up a high volume of 3s, which helps boost ORTG.

[NBAGOAT]

Pace factors in because teams are pushing the ball up the court and creating more fastbreak opportunities, it leads to horrible defense but they're chucking up a high volume of 3s, which helps boost ORTG.

ortg does correlate positively with pace but it's not huge. There are some decent studies out there.