Luka is allowing just 0.84 points per possession in 109 isolations this season, just below Amen Thompson and above McDaniels and OG Anunoby
Other defensive stats this season:
The Lakers have the #2 ranked defense in the last 10 games as well
Source: https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/is-luka-doncics-defense-improving-how-the-lakers-star-is-elevating-his-game–and-las-outlook-151841912.html
According to NBA.com’s stats, he’s allowing 0.93 points per possession on 95 ISO possessions, which is slightly worse than league average (49th percentile).
These types of stats are nearly worthless, though, as they’re a tiny fraction of defensive possessions (less than 2 per game) and are a selective sample (they don’t include all the times his team sent help because he was overmatched).
Yea, defensive data is finicky.
But all this to still say according to literally all of the data we have, he’s not a cone, he’s not the worst defender on the Lakers (he’s one of the best actually) and the media has no idea what they’re talking about, and anybody saying Luka plays no defense can’t be taken seriously bc they don’t know ball.
His defensive stats were always average to decent. People see the lowlights though, and those are REALLY low.
It’s not even the lowlights tbh. It’s the no-lights where he’s complaining to the ref about a foul after a miss while the other team gets a man advantage running the other way and he’s yelling.
As Luka’s # 1 fan it’s honestly so infuriating at this point.
Ive had this theory for a while- Luka uses the ref yelling as a way to take a break
He isnt the fittest player ever, and he does a ton of work on offense. He gets double and triple teamed, is the central node for ball distribution, and has to put up 30-40 points on a regular basis. He is also an important rebounder for the Lakers.
All that adds up to needing breaks. But it looks bad to just stand around with your arms on your hips.
So instead he complains at the refs instead of having to sprint back on defense right away. At this point, people are annoyed by that tactic too so he might be overusing it.
The old heel stall tactics
I seem to recall Brian Windhorst implying LeBron did something like that.
Nah man watch him at half, he goes and whines to every ref every time. He does that shit for the sheer love of the game.
That wouldn’t explain him complaining to refs during dead ball times or even timeouts. The guy just simply thinks he should get every single call on the court.
Yeah I feel like the big problem with luka is him just zoning out and being a lazy defender
Luka studied under Dirk. I’m sure he was not only shown, but encouraged to learn the art of the 00’s “NBA Superstar” defensive formula - and at a very young age. With the success he’s had, and respect hes given amongst his peers- Id imagine it’s not something that’s going to be easily “coached out” of his game, either.
It’s a formula that says basically, if I’m not only responsible for providing, but also creating 100% of our offense…..the best I can afford to give is 30% defensively – as I need to save my legs to ensure we can close this thing out when the ball is in my hands late in the 4th.
Whether y’all agree that mindset “works” in a 2025 NBA, or not maybe debatable….but from years of enjoying watching him play (at least on one side of the ball) - its apparent to me that’s what he’s doing.
100% still works, just need a good defensive team around him, not what the lakers have tho
I think they’re really low because he doesn’t continue to contest when he’s beaten, he literally stops and just waits for the inbounds.
And that’s probably not a terrible strategy. There’s no good reason for him to foul anyway.
Used to do that but not really anymore. He does have a tendency to ball watch so he gets lost on cutters and late contests on 3s.
Reminds me of Harden back in the day. The stats said he wasn’t that bad but the tape was horrendous.
Whatever metrics are saying he is an average to decent defender are not good as measuring individual defensive impact.
Basically all of them
RAPM has him around 200th in the league right now
I was thinking about this the other day and his lowlights are like the anti-Lebron chase down blocks. Luka’s ref complaining enables a 4v5 and throws the defense in disarray.
Also a lot of the low lights on the Mavs were out of context. Our defensive scheme had Luka purposefully slowing people down then handing them off the gafford and lively. If they then scored that’s not on Luka
No. No coach designs the defense to have the perimeter defender just let people past them.
Dallas’s defensive scheme recognized that Luka was a cone and helped accordingly.
He’s a decent defender when he tries. The issue is that when he doesn’t try, it’s atrocious, and people remember that. Between percentile 15 &85 or something, the average fan honestly can’t tell the difference. They latch onto high or lowlights and let that feed their judgement, because most of the defence is rotating on time, getting through a screen before it’s fully set etc, things you shouldn’t see.
But he also doesn’t try enough. Its been much better lately, so the narrative will eventually die down, and good riddance.
But you cant act like the average fan is an idiot for listening to what their eyes tell them. Any serious basketball analyst will tell you the same thing. Hes targeted on defense because its an easy way to tire him out, and hes not conditioned enough to combat that.
It’s weird that he simply didn’t try in an NBA Finals.
Injured and with 95% of the offensive load on him? Yes that tracks. I’m also not a luka glazer and think he has limitations, but he’s better than fucking Cade Cunningham or something.
Fundamentally, he’s just a big mf for his position. It’s pretty damn hard to be a bad defender when you’re just in the way.
Luka isn’t guarding guards though? On defense he’s matched up with SF’s of PF’s
he’s just a big mf for his position
Not really. Your position is determined by who you defend, not what you do on offense. Luka is a SF/PF, not a guard.
It’s pretty damn hard to be a bad defender when you’re just in the way
He struggles to even be in the way.
Your position is determined by who you defend, not what you do on offense.
No, its not. Defensive roles are completely different and aren’t based on who you guard, but what your job is on defense. Most players don’t even defend a single guy on defense anymore because of all the switching offenses do now.
Almost all the metrics are close to useless. DEPM is one of the better ones, and it would tell you Luka is a solidly better defender than Ant, which everyone knows is nonsense.
I’m sorry I watched them match up a week ago and luka got to wherever he wanted against ant and ant was getting boxed
I think this season, lukas been a better defender and I don’t think it’s debatable
Metrics deal with averages, not potentials. Ant can clearly be a lockdown defender, while Luka can be an average one at best. But both carry a big offensive load, so they have to limit their defensive efforts, and that’s a scenario where Luka can have better metrics than Ant.
In a playoff scenario though, teams will hunt Luka down way more than they’ll do to Ant, and that will arguably be the biggest challenge Luka and the coaching staff will need to face.
Why not ? Better or worse Ant def dont play defence entire game and stats literally shows that. This is what i hate talks about Luka’s defence etc. Like saying Wemby better because he is insane defender sure i get it but Ant, Cade etc. they arent some insane defenders. They are better but their defence isnt that important or doesnt cover offensive gap between Luka vs them. People overrate these guys defensive impact a lot.
Luka overall good on 1on1s, become lazy when balls moves around the court. Against Indiana for example he always looked bad but idk against Toronto he looks good (can defend all those forwards)
He already showed you can make deep runs with him so idk why media keep act like the way they do. Mavs had pretty good defensive stats last idk 30 games after adding PJ-Gafford duo and they made finals beating 3 good teams (he was clearly injuried too btw)
Hopefully fucking Pelinka gonna add athletic players in this summer and Doncic gonna shut down idiot media members again.
People also don’t understand that (a.) PG defense is generally the least impactful on defense, which is why many teams can run great defenses with bad defensive guards and (b.) the fact Luke is a point guard in a 3⁄4 body that is a good rebounder gives him a bit of defensive value that other PGs do not give, and make it a bit easier to hide his weaknesses.
Hot but Luka definitely been better than Ant this year on D
I’m pretty sure Wolves fans would agree Ant has been pretty garbage on defense this year, missing rotations offball and generally being pretty pedestrian 1v1 (due to either nagging injuries or laziness).
You should have at least brought up Brown who you probably watch more often who is a worse defender than Luka by DEPM as well
Tell this to dummy Michael Wilbon
You still have to take it with a grain of salt. There are a lot of possible explanations.
It’s possible he’s better man-to-man when he’s actively guarding and there’s a little ego involved, but much worse off-ball for example.
Or if he’s really bad at PnR defense, so teams spam that more against him rather than just pure ISO (which is becoming much more rare).
I need to look at the data but I wouldn’t be surprised if the worst people on there are simply players who are prone to mismatches like bigs and smaller unathletic players
“Defensive data is finicky”
“Look at these stats!!! This is why luka is actually a great defender despite what your eyes have been telling you all season”
Probably more to the point is his offense far outpaces any deficiencies in his defense especially when you include team help.
Where is the “ref complaining instead of defending per 36” stat?
Iso defense remains very overrated.
Luka gets blown by Defense rotates Luka skips his rotation to hang out in the paint and hunt cheap rebounds Opponent scores on teammate scrambling to cover for Luka
Luka gets blown by
Defense rotates
Luka skips his rotation to hang out in the paint and hunt cheap rebounds
Opponent scores on teammate scrambling to cover for Luka
Lakers fans: “The numbers say he’s good.”
It’s the Jokic shit all over again.
your obsession with him is becoming unhealthy young king. seek help before its too late.
You attack me personally because you can’t attack my point.
Celtics fans can’t seem to get over the fact that Luka is better than the Jay’s.
Bro when luka was playing that matador defense, lakers fans were flaming the fuck outta him, if they are happy now it probably means hes gotten better.
I remember when Zach LaVine was a 95th percentile ISO defender lol
I don’t put any stock into defensive stats. Game moves too quick and there’s too much nuance in terms of assignments and responsibilities to say it’s all on one person in any given possession
On tape, he’s aight on a good day. Not a liability. But I’ve watched him in the playoffs… And he gets hunted and burned a lot. If the team can find a way to support him, he should be okay
Which playoffs, cause the Mavs run he was injured and the the last Lakers run he was out of shape
Many many newfangled stats that people like to parrot as correlation to good or not good are flawed
95 possessions doesn’t sound like a lot.
Does it include the times he should’ve been on defense but was whining to the ref?
every defensive stats I saw ppl mentioning put luka at around league’s average, why does ppl acting like he’s the worst defender ever?
Anyone with eyes knows Luka isn’t playing great defense. But God damn he is playing fantastic offense and great ball right now.
Can we filter this by point guards considering its the most stacked position in the league offensively as for ppg? I tried but I don’t know how to handle the site, much less in mobile.
But I’m interested on how he compares to other star point guards.
and are a selective sample (they don’t include all the times his team sent help because he was overmatched).
even if the conversation you want to have is man defense, if you don’t watch the game you might miss which offensive player the defensive one is actually matched up against, which is the most crucial bit of info missing from defended-FG%
The problem is that if the number was bad, it would be all over the media
Yeah, the correct stat for this is on-off adjusted for teammates (enhanced by some boxscore stats)
Unfortunately for the haters, those also show Luka as decent on defense.
If your stats say Luka is a comparable defender to Amen Thompson, get new stats.
If someone was out here saying that advanced stats show that Amen is as valuable as Luka on offense you would tell them to get out of here because you have two working eyes.
Yep same difference
It also doesn’t show the quality of player they’re guarding.
Amen is holding them to that while guarding Luka.
Luka is holding them to that while guarding Amen.
Luka is doing this in a zone defense where he’s being hidden a large portion of the time.
Advanced stats (in any sport really) should never be taken seriously. It requires a ton of context.
Every stat requires context. That’s not unique to advanced stats.
There is a massive difference between 1) needing context and 2) never should be taken seriously.
Luka’s defense is obviously not on the level of Amen Thompson, but if you watched him this year, he’s been more than solid on that end. His defensive reputation hasn’t caught up to his level of play yet.
the context in this is amen and mcdaniels r on the other teams number 1 iso threats each and every game and im assuming luka is not anywhere close to taking the best iso player for the lakers
I mean, sure there is some truth to this, but a lot of teams switch hunt Luka to make him more tired. The best way to stop Luka offensively is to work him defensively so he gets tired and is less efficient.
Luka is not a great defender, nor is he a terrible defender. He’s probably in the 40-50% in the league which I think is fine. He has his problems, sure. But he’s locked in 90% of the time and if you only watch highlights, then you’ll get confused thinking that his defensive lapses are the 90% instead of the 10%
i dont mean to throw that out there to bash luka lol. the couple games ive watched lately hes honestly been better than ive seen in years from him on defense
its just that these types of posts with advanced stats ignoring context always irk me so i wanted to give some context. the amount of ppl that would use this post to say “actually luka is an elite defender” is probably stupidly high
But when he does get switched like that, the Lakers usually don’t leave him in isolation. I’d be willing to bet a large portion of these isolation attempts are against a low tier offensive player that mistakenly thinks they have a mismatch.
Like you said, Luka isn’t Trae Young horrible on defense but he’s also not good like they’re trying these stats to portray.
The problem is that when we use these stats out of context and compare players that have no business being compared it creates unnecessary noise and people blindly dismiss what the overall point.
I often find myself on social media defending Luka’s defense but I usually avoid context dependent stats like this one because it’s obvious that Amen and OG have a different role on defense. It’s like comparing the efficiency of a high usage guard to lop threat.
The better argument is how he fits in a team defense concept and how he performs went hunted. (Which is what you were saying)
not a great defender, nor is he a terrible defender
Thanks Comrade Dyatlov
He does get hunted from time to time after forcing a switch but I can’t say it’s at the same rate as the others
yeah but when he is hunted, he is usually supported with a help defender. that’s why this stat is useless.
Yeah no sane individual is actively hunting for a matchup with amen Thompson or OG but Luka is free eats in iso for the good scorers so he usually has to switch or get outside help
Someone posted how often he’s hunted and it’s like the 8th most defended field goals which includes centers lmao
Man have yall noticed the sheer amount of Luka PR work on this sub lately? Jesus, it’s like propaganda city here. Lakers fan doing overtime.
This sub is r/Lakers2
mcdaniels also hasn’t been all that good of a defender lately.
U still put him on the other teams best player tho right?
If he’s such a bad defender why don’t everybody just switch to him for free barbecue chicken
im not saying hes such a bad defender but lakers also tend to send help when luka gets forced to switch vs the elite defenders being left on an island cuz their teams trust them
take the rockets game for example, doubling KD was the blame but they did it to not leave luka on an island with KD
I watched the game yesterday. When they double KD, Luka WAS the help defender. KD would iso Smart and either Luka or AR goes up to help.
they doubled as the rockets were trying to get Luka switched onto KD so yes the lakers said fk that we’ll just hard double instead of letting them switch onto luka
KD getting an iso against anyone was the problem, KD doest need luka infront of him to score. Lakers switched to double teaming KD because the rest of the rockets are pretty poor offensively, considering a third of their points came from crashing the offensive glass rather than any kind of quality offense.
because the lakers do a lot to try and prevent Luka from getting iso’d
they just throw help at him if the other team gets the switch
The lakers fight over screes at one of the lowest rates in the league, if you want to iso luka, you can, it really isn’t difficult. But it’s funny you bring that up considering Can’t man got clamped by him
do you think fighting over the screen is the only way to prevent an ISO?
kinda outing yourself here lol
Love how the evolution of luka slander has evolved from saying hes a terrible to defender to now saying “hes not even defending the best players”
Can u not tell the difference between slander and give context or do u actually think Luka is the same lvl of 1on1 defender those guys r like those numbers suggest
DPOY OBVIOUSLY
DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!
As a former mavericks fan and still Luka fan, the problem isn’t necessarily his iso defense. It’s his off ball/help defense that hurts him. He ball watches a lot (maybe less this year since I’m not really watching games anymore) and is late on rotations. Kidd had found a pretty good system for him which was to have him sort of middle linebacker the defense but stay away from the action as much as possible. I think he’s generally better at defense than most give him credit for and when he’s locked in, he’s actually a really good defender but the problem as others have stated is he’s asked to do so much on offense that he’s rarely locked in for an entire game. It hurts more when you face a team like the Celtics that beat him where basically everyone on the floor can hurt you on offense.
His upside is far greater than his downside though because he makes everyone better on offense, even if they aren’t capable.
Ex Mavs fan here as well and I totally agree with your take. Luka holds 5 of the top 25 all time usage spots. As you pointed out he is not going to be fully locked in with his production on the offensive side. Let’s not be too crazy crucial on him.
I don’t ever think I’ve seen an iso defensive lowlight from him, they’re always unfocused transition defense or lazy rotating.
Here you go
Yep it happened in that game against Denver when he gave up a skip pass to THJ 3 pointer leading to the Reaves free throw drama.
Jxmmy Highroller is that you? Reupload the LeBron steroid video man
he should run for nba president, he has my vote
Who’s he guarding though
Royce O’Neale, Harrison Barnes, and Brandon Podziemieki
The “contested” could be a bit of a sneaky stat in the fact he is in so many contests because the offensive player is targeting him as a weak defender?
Exactly, playing with Luka on the floor is 5 on 4 so target him directly since he’s gonna give up on the play anyway.
Do you and /u/Traditional_Emu3598 have a Luka club or are you both just posting the same yahoo article?
Who do you think you are? I am!
It’s funny because they deleted yours but left this one up eventhough you posted yours first
Smh! Life is hard for the white male
Sometimes they try too hard for the mismatch. I think James Harden was getting roughly a point per possession isolating on Curry back in their primes.
I’d love to know who he was defending in these isolations.
Not only that, a lot of players when they get into iso situations bail out defenders.
Lmfao!!!!!
If you ever need proof as to why most advanced stats are complete bullshit lol I’m saving this post
OG Anunoby typically follows the other team’s best scorer around. What about Luka?
Luka guards the ref, gets about 5 bitching statistics per half
They hunt him in switches
We have eyes dude
You could tell He’s starting to pick up more on the defensive end as the season winds down.
Playoffs coming soon, the coasting/bullshiting on the defensive end stops now
There are literally highlight reels of Luka getting blown by in the FINALS
If you’re not motivated to move your feet there, as someone with zero rings, there’s no hope for you
“Lucy is gonna let Charlie Brown kick the football this time. I just know it.”
Lmao here we go with the defensive Luka narratives
What you don’t think he’s secretly an elite defender?
Lmao
It’s time for the annual “desperation time for this MVP” narrative.
Yeah unfortunately people have eyes and can watch the games and see for themselves that Luka fucking sucks at defense and that won’t change no matter how many lakers fans try to spew pro luka defense propaganda
Laker fans desperate for that positive affirmation
This cycle happens every season with Luka. These same folks saying he’s good at defense will be hiding when he gets out in the spin cycle in the playoffs.
Cherry picked stats by a Lakers dickrider.
What about per possession when he’s behind half court talking to the ref? Probably saves some gas for isos that way.
The agenda is cool but these stats don’t matter for comparison when 90% of the time he’s gonna be stuck on the worst player on the opposing team in the corner vs someone like Amen or McDaniels who are likely gonna be on the best player the whole game.
Luka is completely competent in terms of being strong enough to guard in the post, being smart about steals and deflections, his issue is stuff like off ball navigation, getting put through screens and dealing with speedy players who can blow past him.
The reality is he’s just mid as fuck. He’s not nearly as bad as some people think and he’s not good either
that’s because he’s not guarding anybody half the time
Luka has always had great metrics in defending isos via that specific stat
In other also very specific def stats not so much
Exactly this. He is a fine iso defender and a bad team defender. He’s allowing like 70% shooting at the rim when he’s the low man.
Luka being as op as Amen defensively does not pass the eye test. Would you say that some statistics are misleading?
Clearly your eyes are deceiving you and Luka is DPOY
We shall find out if he’s turned a corner in a 7 game series, when teams are game planning for specific match ups.
I only listen to Windy rants from the conference finals or later.
Because Luka is a notoriously bad playoffs performer…
His defense has always been overblown, if he’s dropping 33/9/9 I’m fine with the effort he’s been giving
Because he doesn’t chase on the switch and others are forced to ‘defend’ in recovery. So points go on the help defender, but it’s really on Luca.
I don’t need any more stats…jxmyhighroller already mogged everybody
How many fast breaks per whine does he give up
Yes.
Do post ups count as isolations? I also wonder how many times Luka has been blown past in iso and it lead to an open shot somewhere else.
Not to say Luka has been bad but that it may lack context
He’s guarding the guys whose names you don’t know.
Love the goalposts moving and the hate in these comments
Same people spamming last year he was a worse defender than Trae Young and the absolute worst defender in the league
Because we play lockdown defense
And this is why stats dont come close to telling the whole story in basketball most of the time
none of this matters when he’s averaging like fucking 33/8/8
you take that 101 times out of 100
What 15 techs do to a mfer
Perimeter defensive stats are useless. This says nothing.
You can just see the night and day difference in effort on defense in his games recently
Grasping at stats to drowned out the parking cone narrative.
Oh look, yet another post made by someone who desperately searches for advanced stats to mislead people from reality
At this point, Luka’s defensive rep is well documented and well-earned. The bare minimum he needs to do is make sure he doesn’t create another highlight reel of getting blown by this post-season
And that’s just a start
The Luka MVP propaganda machine doing its best rn lol
Who is he defending?
Eye test.
Lol
He’s not bad but he makes really bad plays on defense every now and then that look terrible. It makes it easy to paint him as a terrible defender.
Defensive player of the year and mvp coming sooooooon
He’s always been an average defender.
His problem is, he has lowlights which are amplified given he is a superstar. He’ll do the right thing for 7 possessions, one possession he takes off, instant highlight.
And very salty Thunder fans that are eager to post them highlights.
DPOY!
Maybe, but he’s not good at rotate and cover. I watched the end of the Den game, and in about 5 min, Den probably did this 3 or 4 times straight where the top guy was doubled and Luka was left to cover the opposite corner, and Den just swung the ball the to corner for a 3, and Luka was always late to cover/contest.
Who he guarding tho
Can’t be true it doesn’t fit the narrative 🤷🏿♂️
All that means is you can throw that stat away
so what. you’re saying he’s a great defender or something? lol
Luka is guarding the 5th option every play
Yeah but the highly selective 30 second clip I saw of 3 elite athletes blowing by him off the dribble actually tells me he is the worst defender of all time
Goofy stat. Duncan Robinson was like 5th on that list a week ago.
Does they include blow byes they score on the guy at the hoop or
Luka “lock down” doncic
Well he is wayyyy behind Sam Hauser in this cherrypicked stat… So make of that what you will. I will say Sam Hauser is a better defender though.
When will people realize that you cannot judge a players defensive ability/contribution by stats no matter how much they want to?
Stop it lol casuals gonne use this dumb stat now lol
Lmfao. Watch the games man. All 4Q. What are we doing here.
According to NBA the Lakers have the #8 defense in the last 10 games - https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/advanced?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=-1&LastNGames=10
It’s just narratives lol
Highlight tape in the playoffs*
It might be an overrated take today, but that wolves series where he displayed his top shelf Olé, it happened.
He’s a very over hated defender he is better than people think. He has a few plays throughout the games that he gets lazy on but overall he’s an average defender and in some categories an above average defender
Hes an overrated defender at this point
If u look into the nerdy stats he’s actually like average not saying hes good by any means but not the worst ever
At best, average. And nerdy stats require even more context than box scores. He’s not as bad as the seasonal narrative, but he certainly isnt as good as OP’s cherrypicked stats make it seem
I agree, fun player to watch tho all things considered
I saw one game where he had 13 defensive rebounds and 4 steals, but people were bitching because he blew a defensive play. He has lapses that look bad, but I think his defense is a net positive.
Luka was actually out of the Top 5 MVP race (and presumably all-nba 1st team) up until these past few days where his late season campaign has kicked off and he’s moved into that 5th slot. The odd man out is now Jaylen Brown. I had a feeling Brown shot his shot a little early. I also expected a late season campaign push from Edwards, but he’s now injured so that throws a wrinkle in that.
He’s definitely stepped it up.
If you watch full games and not a few highlights, you soon realise that luka isn’t bad on the defensive end. The only thing that lets him down is when he takes a few possessions off per game arguing with refs. Also too many missed FT’s apart from that you can’t critique him.
The narrative that Luka doesn’t play defense needs to die, top 10 in steals, top 7 in charges drawn, 95th percentile in shots contested, and the Lakers have the #2 defense over the last 10 games, this is a completely different player on that end than what we saw in Dallas.
He was the top 10 in iso defense on the mavericks 1 year too. The year they traded him I think. Not saying he’s a lockdown defender. But the narrative of him not trying on defense is overblown.
That idiotic idea that Luka is one of the worst defenders in the league really exploded during the Finals season b/c ESPN decided to solely focus on his defense during the Finals acting like he alone was why Dallas was losing games. Never mind that Luka, while playing on one good leg, was the only guy who could even score consistently, that the Mavs role players suddenly all went ice cold from 3, or that Kyrie played like total shit for 95% of the series. Nope. It was the guy who was the only reason they were still in games fault b/c he’s not a the perfect create a player from 2k. In reality he’s an average to decent defender who is solid as a team defender, fairly good in the post, and sometimes struggles w/fast guards on the perimeter (just like everyone else) if they have space and he doesn’t have a shot blocker behind him to try and funnel them towards.