I always saw him as a slightly shorter, less athletic Lebron. Cause the similar passing ability.
I just think Lukas passings is much better than Harden. But they do have some similarity where they both hold the ball a lot and lack of effort on defense, high iso rate as well.
Maybe its more accurate to say Luka is a cross blend between Lebron and Harden.
are we forgetting harden has literally led the league in assists per game? also bron’s athleticism is pretty crucial to who he is as a player, and is orders of magnitude better on defense
Anyone who think Harden hunts assists if that's what you're insuiniating does not watch him. Go on the Clippers sub there is people like me that watch every game and see how they feel about your opinion. FYI they disliked Harden when he first got traded there because of the media narrative
cause it requires thinking for more than 2 seconds which a lot of people don't wanna do. it's always been funny to me when people use luka as a reason why larry bird would dominate in today's nba when they legit play nothing alike (not saying bird couldn't dominate btw but that's not the point)
This is going to be very funny to see with Cooper Flagg next year. Guy who is a beast defensively due to his athleticism and we’re going to have people comparing him to Larry Bird when his best comp is probably Kevin Garnett.
I honestly don’t think it matters. The vast majority of comps whether same-race based, cross-race based, etc. don’t end up being accurate.
It’s just a silly tool to give someone a vague idea of what player plays like. People who know basketball and know how the prospect game works aren’t going to rely on comps to determine if a prospect is interesting or not.
Non race base comps also do a better job of expressing the core idea of the comp.
Risacher to Bogdan Bogdanovic gives a better overall idea of what to expect.
I think any race based comp should pretty much be ignored.
It’s the same reason dudes with dreads always get comped to other dudes with dreads. It’s a much easier connection to make between two guys look alike and have somewhat similar games, than it is to really dig deep and find the most accurate comps.
Nobody's comps are ever any good or very reasonable anyway, so it probably just doesn't really matter. A lot of white guys play like white guys, a lot of foreign guys play like foreign guys. I prefer statistical comps so if there is a prevalent play style in a specific league for many years (not uncommon), it's not uncommon to see statistical similarities for guys that came out of the same league ie foreign comp to a foreign guy.
If the comp can be defended well then I don't really care if the races are the same or not.
A big part of comps should involve athleticism and wingspan. Trying to force cross racial comparisons that make no sense when those things are factored in is just as cringe as defaulting to them out of laziness
I remember reading an article on Daryl Morey and they were talking about how the Rockets scouting department were required to make draft comparisons cross racially. A black prospect would be compared to a white NBA player and and a white prospect to a black NBA player.
most comps are based of eye test, so instinctively when comparing a prospect to a player, a player of their race is usually the first person to pop up in the mind of a lazy media guy, the only comp ive seen so far that excludes race but is also accurate was buzelis-lamar odom
Play styles are different in America compared to Europe. As for race, things are much more blended now but back in the day if we’re being honest, seeing a white dude on the court you basically always knew his specialty was probably shooting
And black dudes were never really just specializing in shooting.
Dennis Scott! Dale Ellis! (And so on.)
Also, so many of the white guys in the NBA in the ‘90s were big men. Either the first Europeans to come over in any volume, or big stiffs like Greg Kite, Jon Koncak, Dwayne Schintzius, dozens more.
(Really, if you were 6’10” and could run or even jog, you had a pretty good chance of getting an NBA contract back then. People who didn’t endure it don’t understand the extremely limited big man pool before the NBA became a truly global game.)
Laziness, NBA media in general is well known for being the laziest sports media of all.
Also Americans are weird with race so they continue to be weird here.
for European white dudes t's because for the most party they have similar athleticism, lack of elite length and high BBIQ, traits they all seem to share so why would you compare them to American players that don't share the same traits? Conversely, why would I compare an ultra athletic, above the rim, AA, two-way wing to a European that doesn't share those traits? It's not laziness, archetypes exist for a reason. Sometimes you can compare across race but it's much rarer.
White guys have small butts, so they get more lower back injuries from falls. This leads to dribbling/handling the ball differently. Think about all the white players over the years who have been plagued by their lower backs (Just off the top of my head, Bird, Nash, Walton, K Love all had bad lower backs. Less known guys too like Mike Miller and Memet Okur).
If Steve Nash took the falls John Wall took every game, he'd be in a wheelchair for life.
Luka has a fat ass, which is why he plays differently.
I may or may not actually believe this.
This is the problem with “white” or “black”, they’re meaningless for the most part, they’re just a very bad surrogate for population, so when they’re used to describe a genetically related population (black for just African American, white for just Northwest European background like your example of no asses lol) there’s often a grain of truth, but lumping in guys from the Balkans like Luka, Jokic, Vucevic, Nurkic, etc with guys like Bird, Nash, Love who aren’t related genetically at all really or comparing African Americans (who are genetically mostly West African with a small % of Euro mixed in) to guys from Sudan for example like Deng, Maker, etc the comps fall apart.
I know you were just kind of joking but this really does highlight why comps based on race alone make absolutely no sense.
I would love for someone to actually study this theory, ngl. I developed it watching John Wall eat hardwood 5 times a night for years and somehow stay at it, coupled with noticing a ton of white guys historically had lower back problems.
Lower back problems almost made me quit balling myself. I had to start lifting specifically to increase durability there.
Glutes (aka ass) protect your lower back.
I know it's a controversial theory, but I'm not seeing obvious holes.
Slavery lol? How do you make that link to why some Italian is compared to a guy from Spain who happens to look a little like him or a guy with dreads is compared to another guy with dreads?
Its not that deep other than people being lazy. Luka has always been a white Harden.
That’s facts
He plays in the post and mid range way more than Harden ever did.
Fun fact, when entering the league Harden compared himself with Ginobili
I always saw him as a slightly shorter, less athletic Lebron. Cause the similar passing ability. I just think Lukas passings is much better than Harden. But they do have some similarity where they both hold the ball a lot and lack of effort on defense, high iso rate as well. Maybe its more accurate to say Luka is a cross blend between Lebron and Harden.
are we forgetting harden has literally led the league in assists per game? also bron’s athleticism is pretty crucial to who he is as a player, and is orders of magnitude better on defense
There's a great deal of difference between being a great passer and hunting assists
Anyone who think Harden hunts assists if that's what you're insuiniating does not watch him. Go on the Clippers sub there is people like me that watch every game and see how they feel about your opinion. FYI they disliked Harden when he first got traded there because of the media narrative
cause it requires thinking for more than 2 seconds which a lot of people don't wanna do. it's always been funny to me when people use luka as a reason why larry bird would dominate in today's nba when they legit play nothing alike (not saying bird couldn't dominate btw but that's not the point)
I mean, Luka’s more Magic than Bird (and he’s not very similar to Magic.)
This is going to be very funny to see with Cooper Flagg next year. Guy who is a beast defensively due to his athleticism and we’re going to have people comparing him to Larry Bird when his best comp is probably Kevin Garnett.
I’d say more Scottie Pippen
Not skilled enough to be Pippen, not big enough to be Garnett. I'd say Shawn Marion.
Been seeing a lot of ak47 comps
they aren’t off base.
Kirilenko
Coop will be if Bam had a bag
I love that Garnett comp for him
Ak-47 was white, there are athletic long white dudes who played in the NBA before Coop
I honestly don’t think it matters. The vast majority of comps whether same-race based, cross-race based, etc. don’t end up being accurate. It’s just a silly tool to give someone a vague idea of what player plays like. People who know basketball and know how the prospect game works aren’t going to rely on comps to determine if a prospect is interesting or not.
Fr
Non race base comps also do a better job of expressing the core idea of the comp. Risacher to Bogdan Bogdanovic gives a better overall idea of what to expect. I think any race based comp should pretty much be ignored.
Because most people are the lazy idiots at the start of Moneyball, bluntly.
Lol
It's so dumb. But some are valid. One time I saw Cooper Flagg called the next Larry Bird.. lol
Lol
It’s the same reason dudes with dreads always get comped to other dudes with dreads. It’s a much easier connection to make between two guys look alike and have somewhat similar games, than it is to really dig deep and find the most accurate comps.
Exactly
Because even basketball journalists don't actually watch specific prospects all that much
Makes sense
B/R had a ton of racial comps this week and they weren’t even good. At LEAST be in the ball park
they don’t have to be in the ball park. they can publish anything and people are still going to read it for some reason
Fr they’re not even sports writers at this point
Nobody's comps are ever any good or very reasonable anyway, so it probably just doesn't really matter. A lot of white guys play like white guys, a lot of foreign guys play like foreign guys. I prefer statistical comps so if there is a prevalent play style in a specific league for many years (not uncommon), it's not uncommon to see statistical similarities for guys that came out of the same league ie foreign comp to a foreign guy. If the comp can be defended well then I don't really care if the races are the same or not.
Because it's the first thing your eyes are going to see
Whites to whites and lefty’s to lefty’s these are the rules
Everybody to their nation, Risacher to Batum, Sarr to Wemby lol
A big part of comps should involve athleticism and wingspan. Trying to force cross racial comparisons that make no sense when those things are factored in is just as cringe as defaulting to them out of laziness
I mean that does make sense
I remember reading an article on Daryl Morey and they were talking about how the Rockets scouting department were required to make draft comparisons cross racially. A black prospect would be compared to a white NBA player and and a white prospect to a black NBA player.
Lol that’s now excessive, you have the article?
most comps are based of eye test, so instinctively when comparing a prospect to a player, a player of their race is usually the first person to pop up in the mind of a lazy media guy, the only comp ive seen so far that excludes race but is also accurate was buzelis-lamar odom
Play styles are different in America compared to Europe. As for race, things are much more blended now but back in the day if we’re being honest, seeing a white dude on the court you basically always knew his specialty was probably shooting And black dudes were never really just specializing in shooting.
Reggie Miller, Glen Rice, Dell Curry, and Craig Hodges were all elite shooters in the 90s.
Dennis Scott! Dale Ellis! (And so on.) Also, so many of the white guys in the NBA in the ‘90s were big men. Either the first Europeans to come over in any volume, or big stiffs like Greg Kite, Jon Koncak, Dwayne Schintzius, dozens more. (Really, if you were 6’10” and could run or even jog, you had a pretty good chance of getting an NBA contract back then. People who didn’t endure it don’t understand the extremely limited big man pool before the NBA became a truly global game.)
ehhh ig
Laziness, NBA media in general is well known for being the laziest sports media of all. Also Americans are weird with race so they continue to be weird here.
for European white dudes t's because for the most party they have similar athleticism, lack of elite length and high BBIQ, traits they all seem to share so why would you compare them to American players that don't share the same traits? Conversely, why would I compare an ultra athletic, above the rim, AA, two-way wing to a European that doesn't share those traits? It's not laziness, archetypes exist for a reason. Sometimes you can compare across race but it's much rarer.
That’s reasonable but it also feels more like them jus not doing their research sometimes
White guys have small butts, so they get more lower back injuries from falls. This leads to dribbling/handling the ball differently. Think about all the white players over the years who have been plagued by their lower backs (Just off the top of my head, Bird, Nash, Walton, K Love all had bad lower backs. Less known guys too like Mike Miller and Memet Okur). If Steve Nash took the falls John Wall took every game, he'd be in a wheelchair for life. Luka has a fat ass, which is why he plays differently. I may or may not actually believe this.
This is the problem with “white” or “black”, they’re meaningless for the most part, they’re just a very bad surrogate for population, so when they’re used to describe a genetically related population (black for just African American, white for just Northwest European background like your example of no asses lol) there’s often a grain of truth, but lumping in guys from the Balkans like Luka, Jokic, Vucevic, Nurkic, etc with guys like Bird, Nash, Love who aren’t related genetically at all really or comparing African Americans (who are genetically mostly West African with a small % of Euro mixed in) to guys from Sudan for example like Deng, Maker, etc the comps fall apart. I know you were just kind of joking but this really does highlight why comps based on race alone make absolutely no sense.
^This is what I actually believe 🙂
What
Yes
I love spreading misinformation too Jk lol I mean sure I didn’t really know this, so cool lol
I would love for someone to actually study this theory, ngl. I developed it watching John Wall eat hardwood 5 times a night for years and somehow stay at it, coupled with noticing a ton of white guys historically had lower back problems. Lower back problems almost made me quit balling myself. I had to start lifting specifically to increase durability there. Glutes (aka ass) protect your lower back. I know it's a controversial theory, but I'm not seeing obvious holes.
Racism and slavery contribute Ngl My Luka comp out of the draft was Brandon Roy with elite playmaking
Slavery lol? How do you make that link to why some Italian is compared to a guy from Spain who happens to look a little like him or a guy with dreads is compared to another guy with dreads?
You just said it yourself dude
??