See also: Lamelo Ball

I think SGA & Derrick White are fantastic players but I don’t just don’t think that total plus-minus should be the statistic you use to prove that point.

Looking at this post made me go look up year-by-year league leaders for total plus-minus on the regular season, and maybe eight out of 10 years, the league leader in total plus-minus would always have 2-4 of his teammates also included in the top 15. For a three year span where Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson were one to three on the leaderboard, there would always be a random teammate that you don’t think is “top 15” good lagging not far behind like Harrison Barnes (11th) or Zaza Pachulia (14th). And it was for many different teams too, not just the Warriors dominating for eight years straight or something like that, no. Jazz, Nuggets, Bucks, Rockets, if you were the player leading the league in total plus-minus, your teammates would always be in close proximity.

To me, that implies that if you have good teammates, you naturally just rack up lots of plus-minus over the duration of a regular season just in the course of winning normally. I think the way the statistic is framed in this post makes it sound like you can use it to infer individual contribution that is unique to you and you alone as a player, when total plus-minus seems more like a “a rising tide raises all boats” of statistic. Yes, I think SGA is a transcendent two-way player who clearly bears a huge load of his team’s performance. But I just don’t think this specific stat should be your evidence for that. Total plus-minus is a tangled, codependent statistic that relies a lot on the quality of your teammates in addition to you that can’t really be used for super specific individual inferences.

I think if you wanted a more specific statistic to isolate individual contribution and maybe if we keep in line with this “how much does the lineup with you in it outscore the other team” feeling that total plus-minus gives you, you would have to make some sort of impractical and impossible statistic like “how much plus-minus do your teammates rack up 48 minutes or per 100 possessions when you are in the lineup versus when they substitute a different player into the lineup?” statistic. If Cason-JalenWilliams-Chet-Dort has +12.³⁄₁₀₀ possessions with SGA but only 10.²⁄₁₀₀ with Jokic, then yeah you could use plus-minus as a stat. But obviously, you would never be able to do that for all of the top players in the league.

Please tell Tatum haters this 

hes one of the least efficient players in the league while contrivuting to winning more than anyone apart from like 3 other guys according to advanced stats its ridiculous.

No, their best player is Brown. However, Mazz/Brad and their FO is the most important part of the C’s.

I would give up 2 firsts for him, but you guys have no reason to accept that.

He reminds me of Brunson in Dallas though, he’s going to take off in the future when he’s got his own situation.

Ajay is the player I visualized in the first playoff run when SGA got doubled and no one else could take over the game. He was built for that exact situation, he’s fearless.

Idk if he’s like “the next big thing” kind of player but I agree. From what I’ve seen so far he seems like the type of player that every team with contention in mind looks for

it doesn’t mean almost nothing

the dude contributes heavily to any lineup he’s in

gun to my head, if you made me pick between him and caso, I think I’d pick Ajay, and im extremely high on caso (though his offensive development has stalled a bit this year)

With his playmaking now I think theyd be a play in team.

typical? how many of those won rings/mvps/fmvps?

the roster doesn’t make him one of the most efficient 30 ppg scorers of all time. his teammates don’t put his shots in the basket. taking into account his historically low turnover rate (do his teammates help his handles?), he might be the most efficient lead guard of all time.

you’re claiming homerism, but you’re a hater lol

24-25, low leverage removed, Shai lineups without those two and iHart had a +28.78 net rating in 615 minutes

25-26, +16.07 net rating in 562 minutes. Exclude Ajay and its +10.35 net in 300 minutes

He had 3 possessions in a row against the Celtics where he foul baited was fouled.

lmao. i’ve watched over 200 OKC games the last few years since shai’s been dominating. how about you?

in your mind, do you think shai only gets foul calls because he’s mostly deceiving the refs and not because he’s an all-time offensive player who gets fouled more often because of that?

caruso is one of the best defenders in the league. do you think that’s because the refs just allow him to be more physical? for what reason? your argument supposes that every player that defends shai is as good as caruso, it’s just the whistle that is different. interesting take.

i’ve probably watched like 100 OKC games the last year and the number of times i’ve seen shai complain about a non-call can be counted on one hand.

if you think shai is completely fabricating contact to manipulate the refs then you’re just not watching the games or delusional. coaches are free to challenge as well.

Fair point. But I think that Shae’s efficiency is off the charts this season and that is primordial. But as a Laker fan I would not trade Luka for anybody in the NBA. I see Luka vs Shae as a similar discussion to Shaq vs Duncan.

You know defense is part of being a basketball player? Anyone who says Luka isn’t obviously behind SGA does not appreciate basketball, only sick scoring plays/stats. 

Shai has better efficiency and beats Luka in 90% of advanced stats while playing better defense. All Luka really has as an argument is counting stats and Shais gap in efficiency and advanced stats are far more impressive than Luka’s gap in PPG/RPG/APG

Did not say anything about win shares. Weird how Thunder fans will downvote literal facts and go off on tangents about completely unrelated things.

Where do you find win shares I always have trouble finding season win share stats.

Champagnie has played 350ish more minutes than Wemby. Chet has played 200 fewer minutes than SGA. Why don’t you post the standardized version of this stat (net rating)? SGA isn’t even the first on his team in that.

He’ll surpass lebron and curry soon. Jordan not out of the realm if he does this for 6 more seasons, hes still young. Unanimous MVP and back to back champion this year

I mean it’s such a useless stat. Might as well make a post saying how many 30 point games he has in games they won by double digits on Tuesdays.

I didn’t say it had to do any of that. I was just wondering what the point of the post is? He’s the MVP on the best team in the league and everyone in this subreddit knows that. Should we just make a new post everyday about how the Thunder win a lot?

To hopefully stop seeing useless cover my Reddit feed?

The point of my comment is to try and get guys like OP to stop cluttering the sub with useless posts.

He has a smaller gap between him and his teammates than the other MVP caliber guys on the list. It’s smaller than the gap between Derrick white and Payton Pritchard. The gap isn’t impressive at all. The gap is only large between him and the rest of the list because his team is far and away the best team in the league.

Yeah but this isn’t baseball using per game numbers is way better information.

suck harder Shai can’t feel you.

Nobody else in the league gets the offensive whistle that SGA gets. It’s not just the free throws. 

Seriously watch this shit. It’s egregious. https://youtu.be/8T5Dryy98Ic?si=60YGgcFmLUiVQqp3

Would be too much power in a sub as big as this