Luka is no 3 but according to you his team is worse than the Rockets. James Harden no 7 but Clippers are one of the worst teams in the league. DMitch no 4 but Cavs just got blown out by the team with 0 players in the top 15. How is that even possible? If the Rockets dont even have 1 star they shouldnt be beating all these teams with top 10 players. You cant tell me the Rockets team are superior but then all their best players are inferior how does that even make any sense. Either these rankings underrate the Rockets players or the gap between these rankings arent that significant. Cuz based on your logic not having a player in the top 10 makes the Rockets non contenders and they should be worse than the Lakers who have Luka no 3 and Reeves 14.
If I say "my dogs are at the park" that does not mean "all the dogs at the park are mine". This is not complicated logic. I'll repeat myself again, my initial claim that I believe - to be a contender, you must have a bonafide star. This DOES NOT MEAN that every team with a bonafide star is automatically a contender. You can have a star on a bad team and still not be a contender, like Milwaukee for example. I also don't fully agree with everything on this list, it has it's own problems, I don't think Harden is still in that top tier anymore. And lastly, you're referencing single games where anything can happen. Any team can beat any team, OKC lost to the blazers, obviously you don't think the blazers are better than OKC. So I don't get your point of bringing up results of single games.
But if having a star doesnt make your team better than teams with non stars whats the point of having stars? You make it sound critical but if a team with non stars can be better than a team with stars how is it such s debilitating loss? Of course there are exceptions like Giannis on a bad team but if Sengun is the only one in the 20 and nobody else is even close there should be at least 10 teams considered better than Houston. Like all these stars all playing on bad teams? Lakers have a top 3 and top 14 they should be so much better than the Rockets then whose best are 17 and 24. In fact you should argue no 3 alone should be better than 17, 24 and the two 40s combined.
Are you genuinely asking this question or being obtuse because it's an argument? Do you even watch basketball? Stars play on bad teams all the time, very VERY rarely does a star-less team win a championship, even if they do well in the regular season. Like almost never.
Are you the one being obtuse? I'm just following the other dude's logic. He is saying the Rockets dont have any stars thats why they arent contenders. How many times have teams with non stars been better than teams with multiple stars? My contention is the Rockets DO have stars otherwise they wouldnt be better than all these teams with stars. At worst the only teams you can say that are better than the Rockets this year are OKC, Nuggets, SAS. So besides these 3 all the other stars are playing on bad teams?
stars get extra nut hugging by the league including the officiating steering them to the desired narrative ending. shai would be mid if he wasn't allowed to push off or get free thows when breathed upon...
Nah you're twisting the logic until it's illogical, it's bizarre to witness. That's why I asked if you were genuinely asking the question or not, it's a nonsensical, piss-poor "argument" you're trying to make.
How am I twisting the logic? Just think about it some more you will get it eventually. When I think of non star teams I think of the Clippers who were the 8th seed or Rockets post Yao Mac. Those teams werent regularly beating teams with multiple stars, in fact they beat up the garbage teams consistently and then lose to good teams while the opposite happens to the current day Rockets.
this is just not right, @harold bingo. Our top two guys don’t carry the load to be top 10 in these rankings, and that’s a good thing. It’s a deep and intelligent team that puts Ws, not a top-heavy, individual-numbers team. When we get in a playoff battle we’ll lean on KD and Alperen, for sure, and we’ll figure if they can carry us. But regular season we have the depth to spread the wealth, coach encourages spreading the wealth and is mostly working, regardless of the few OT glitches that were a bit random. I mean look at the depth, look at our #4-#7. We have the League leader in 3pt% (Eason), League leader in OReb % (Adams), major net-positive in Sheppard, and whoever said that Jabari is better than Ariza, heck yeah, much better, much better skill and length, etc… So these guys are obviously stealing some of the statistical burden from KD and Alperen (and Thompson, as the #3) If you look at team advanced stats we’re quite OK. so to square fact that we we don’t have top 10 players individually, but rank high in team metrics, tells you just that. Stats are spread over more capable players. Now, if you want to doubt that we are ‘ship caliber, you start with Team Turnover%. That’s obviously the Achilles heel of this team, it’s not the lack of top performers. Roster is ‘ship level, if we need to ride KD/Alp we will, and their stats will go up substantially. But the rotation top-to-bottom has a ball security problem and without Fred I don’t see how we can figure it out.
You can look back 50 years in the NBA and teams constructed like the current rockets don't win championships, it's happened one time in the past 50 years. So in 49 of the past 50 years, the championship winning team had a superstar, which is a top 8ish player on their team. We don't have that. And for that reason, I think we are not contenders. And until we get that guy, I don't think we will be contenders.
What's your issue with it? The only major issue I have with it is that it is weighted with your minutes played (its basically impact per game multiplied by games played, if you want to think of it like that). So there are a lot of guys who missed a lot of games that are too low on the list as a result. And with that in mind I don't think it's a bad list. Why do you think it's dumb?
Yeah I'm legitimately surprised at the amount of pushback I'm getting on the premise. I thought the premise was established and agreed upon. If you wanna say "I think Sengun is top 8" or "I think KD is top 8" then fine, I think any fan can believe that. But to dispute the "you need a superstar to win" thing is really surprising to me.
so, 14. Austin Reaves (18.9) 15. Anthony Edwards (19.7) 16. Jalen Johnson (21.3) 17. Alperen Şengün (22.1) 18. Jaylen Brown (23.0) 19. Karl-Anthony Towns (25.5) 20. Mikal Bridges (26.2) 21. Jalen Duren (26.9) 22. Julius Randle (27.6) 23. Kawhi Leonard (28.6) 24. Kevin Durant (28.8) 25. Deni Avdija (29.6) 26. Derrick White (30.9) 27. Franz Wagner (34.1) 28. Scottie Barnes (36.1) 29. Chet Holmgren (36.2) 30. Michael Porter Jr. (36.9) 31. Ajay Mitchell (43.5) 32. Lauri Markkanen (43.9) 33. Norman Powell (45.2) 34. De'Aaron Fox (46.3) 35. Isaiah Hartenstein (47.2) 36. Devin Booker (48.7) 37. Josh Giddey (49.6) 38. Mark Williams (49.9) 39. Evan Mobley (50.1) 40. Stephon Castle (52.3) 41. Neemias Queta (55.3) 42. Jalen Suggs (55.4) 43. Rudy Gobert (56.4) 44. Collin Gillespie (57.0) 45. Payton Pritchard (59.7) 46. Reed Sheppard (60.1) 47. Keldon Johnson (60.5) 48. Amen Thompson (60.6) are all better than amen? dumb list means diddly
Sounds like you have a really high opinion of Amen. I don't think it's unreasonable, I don't think Amen has been very good this year. He's been playing out of position and it hasn't been pretty. He's shooting 18% from 3, he's finishing worse at the rim, and he's shooting like 30% from midrange. Another thing to note is that this list is only looking at on-court impact for the current season. Amen was much higher in almost every existing metric last year, and by a considerable margin. These types of stats don't measure "how good could you be if you were being used correctly", they only measure what's being put on the court. And through 29 games Amen has not been great, he's certainly been worse than last year.
Even the one team that did it had 5 starters who were basically borderline allstar to allstar level, all 5 were easily top 50 players and far better then guys like jabari/tari/whoever starts at the 2
and I’m saying KD/Alp are as good "superstars", as many others, but their stats are impacted by the depth we have
