The Athletic NBA tiers are being released - Dallas-Mavs.com Forums

MFFL · 10-19-2020, 10:57 PM

Mavs have 3 Tier 5 players (above average rotation guys)

Maxi, Curry, & Hardaway

Thespiralgoeson · 10-20-2020, 12:30 AM

I'm curious to see where they have KP ranked.

MFFL · 10-20-2020, 06:22 AM

The Mavs have no Tier 4 players

In practical terms, these are generally very good players, some of whom might grab an All-Star slot or two, but are not (or in the case of some are no longer) in the “perennial All-Star” conversation.

DevinHarriswillstart · 10-20-2020, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MFFL

The Mavs have no Tier 4 players

In practical terms, these are generally very good players, some of whom might grab an All-Star slot or two, but are not (or in the case of some are no longer) in the “perennial All-Star” conversation.

Yup. Just one of those could make us a contender. A third best player that the team can rely on is goal number 1 for the offseason IMO.

NeedlesKane · 10-20-2020, 11:51 AM

I wonder how many Tier 3 and above players we have.

EricaLubarsky · 10-20-2020, 01:53 PM

WE should add some more Tier 1 and 2 players. Maybe a few.

MFFL · 10-21-2020, 08:38 AM

Tier 3 for the Unicorn - at a C

Klay Thompson and Kristaps Porzingis were challenges to place for similar reasons, largely not knowing what to expect from them physically, with both coming off of knee surgeries. They diverge sharply in terms of how top-line metrics view them: Porzingis rating highly across the board while Thompson’s impact stats are more muted.

Meanwhile, Porzingis has been very effective virtually whenever he has been on the court. There were some growing pains adjusting to a more secondary offensive role alongside Luka Doncic as well as completing his recovery from his own ACL injury suffered in early 2018. But that was a minor blip, as he finished 18th in RAPM for the 2019-20 season. His impact was felt on both ends of the floor as well, with both RAPM and PIPM suggesting he has helped his teams defensively almost as much as at the other end. I’m not sure I buy that totally, but it is a strong indicator that he does have a defensive presence.

+++

Tier 3 consists of players who perform at a level worthy of getting “in the conversation” for an All-Star slot, but are probably just short of being All-NBA Third Team level contributors. From a statistical standpoint, this is the group that starts to produce at a level deserving of the 25 percent “rookie max” available to players coming off of their initial NBA deals, and should be worth somewhere in the region of seven to nine wins per season, assuming health and normal starter minutes.

This tier is subdivided into three tranches, A, B and C, with eight, six and seven players, respectively. Each step up from C to B and then from B to A represents a small but distinct upgrade in ability. As discussed in the intro to this series, as we get higher up the value scale across the league, small differences start to have a big impact in terms of value toward winning a championship. Thus, the desire is to make as fine-grained distinctions as possible. Some of the contrasts and comparisons drawn might seem like nitpicking. But this group reaches into the top 20 players in the league, making a hard-eyed look all the more important because those small deficiencies on one hand or unheralded attributes on the other can often make the difference between advancing in the postseason or not.

The questions for Porzingis are not really of ability but more about availability. He has had a habit of picking up injuries here and there, and even if these nicks and scrapes don’t chip away at some of the mobility that makes him such a unique player at his size, they do tend to keep him off the court. Safe to say Dallas could have used him in its attempt to upset the Clippers in the first round this year. But if he can stay on the floor, Porzingis has demonstrated the ability to be an All-NBA level talent worthy of a higher tier than his current location.

MFFL · 10-21-2020, 08:42 AM

Since we won’t discuss each player in Tier 5 in turn as we will for Tiers 1-4, it’s worth identifying what this level of players includes in broad strokes. While at any given time there are around 250-275 regular rotation players in the NBA, half or more are somewhat fungible. The term “just a guy” has been used at times. Discussing a team’s seventh man in possible trade discussions, an evaluator might say, “I like him as a player, but he’s just a guy.” Meaning he’ll give competent minutes, but won’t move the needle much, especially in a playoff setting.

By contrast, Tier 5 is where guys start to matter a little more. They won’t affect every matchup, and will be more useful in some situations than others, but this first group of above average rotation players can be the little something extra that pushes a team over the top in an otherwise close matchup.

MFFL · 10-21-2020, 08:48 AM

At the risk of being (even more) overly reductive, this analysis allows for a very quick and extremely dirty method for assessing if a team’s roster is “championship level” or not. The median championship team from 2010 to 2019 (I’m ignoring 2019-20 for now because of the weirdness inherent in both the bubble and the unbalanced regular-season schedules that resulted from the shutdown and restart) had players who summed to just over 15 “Championship Value Over Replacement.” It’s best not to worry what a “point” of CVORP means in the grand scheme, other than that it can be compared across teams and players. But each Tier of player can be assigned a CVORP value based on the approximate median value assigned by the model:

Tier 1: 7 points
Tier 2: 4.25 points
Tier 3: 2.25 points
Tier 4: 1.25 points
Tier 5: 0.25 points

Looking at end of season rosters, the top 5 most likely teams to win a title based just on this rating scale would have been

LA Clippers: 15.25
Los Angeles Lakers: 12.75
Houston Rockets: 12.25
Milwaukee Bucks: 12.0
Boston Celtics: 11.5

Thespiralgoeson · 10-21-2020, 04:20 PM

I really hope the meniscus surgery doesn't affect his mobility or take anything away from his game. Even if he misses the beginning of the season, I don't care, as long as he's at 100%. Because the dude was awesome from February onward last year. If the all-star teams were only based on the second half of the season, he easily would have been all-star. If he plays like that through a whole season, even with the inevitable 15-20 games he'll probably miss, I think the Mavs can could get 3-5 seed depending on how much the rest of the West rises or falls, and could definitely make some noise in the playoffs.

MFFL · 10-22-2020, 08:45 AM

Luka is Tier 2 - A

Tier 2 represents 10 of the top 16 players in the league. Everyone in this group is, (or in the case of the two youngest players) or soon will be, playing at a perennial All-Star level. But this strata of greatness is where it becomes even more vital to tease out the smallest of distinctions. We see it year after year in the playoffs that the small edge in the performance of one superstar over another is frequently the difference between moving on and going home.

This tier is also the point at which a team can start to feel it has a real chance at contention if one of these guys is its best player.