I am not delusional enough to push for Luka DPOY discourse, but Luka has always been a good defensive playmaker, even in his down year last season. I am excited to see how a fit, more athletic version of Luka further elevates his defensive playmaking.

Also, BBall Index doesn't seem to take into account Luka's defensive rebounding in their index. In Luka's case specifically, I think defensive rebounds count as defensive playmaking because they enable stuff like outlet passes for instant advantage creation. What do y'all think about Luka's defensive rebounding as a trait of his defensive playmaking?

14 comments

  1. Yeah it’s just selective bias because a lot of people saw him when he was super injured in the final against Celtics. Plus most of last season where he was really injured. If you were to put Jokic clips like they selectively pick bad Luka clips Jokic would look like the worst defender in the league.

  2. Yeah he’s always been a plus side off ball if his onball defense is even half as good as it is off ball that’s a major plus

  4. And people will still blame him in the mavs vs celtics finals. He is an average defender but not that bad! It was really tarnish in the last 2024 finals. Dude was already injured and still people blamed him, but they forgot that Kyrie and his teammates where nowhere to be found (i love ky but damn he was one of the reasons why they lost) and the celtics players kept tormenting luka cuz kyrie was already shut down by the fans. Hope Luka this season will finally shut down those who said he is a defensive liability

  5. I can’t with these analytics he is blown by constantly and just doesn’t really give good effort we have eyes. Hopeful this season with the weight loss tho

  6. The thing with defense is that it’s way harder to evaluate than offense. 

    And that’s why a guy like Jokic, despite being seen as a poor defender by your average NBA fan, always has really really good advanced defensive stats. Because some parts of defense are hard to read for me and for your average NBA fan. 

    Doncic’s mistakes on defense are loud. He is not that athletic, so he gets blown by quite often and that’s probably one of the loudest mistake on defense. That mistake jump at you and you can’t see anything else when it happens. 

    But what we rarely see, are the little things, like reading the plays before it happens, guiding your teammates, playing the passing lane perfectly to get the steal, preventing someone from getting the ball to disrupt the play and much more. 

    To be it’s mind-blowing that most people would rather dismiss all the advanced defensive stats and call them unreliable rather than asking themselves ”If this guy is ranked so highly, maybe I’m not evaluating and judging his defense properly? ”

    Now I’m not saying that Doncic and Jokic are Pippen and Wembanyama, but I think they both are underrated defenders. 

  7. But all the basketball experts in r/nba downvoted me and told me in wrong at him being a slightly above average defender at worst…

    People love to hate especially when it comes to Luka,

  8. So, defensive playmaking doesn’t actually mean you’re a good defender.

    It just means that you generate TOs as a defender. They even make that distinction in the post by providing the simplified formula. What’s left out is that this is a possession adjusted stat, too.

  9. hes a solid off ball defender. he’s awful on ball though. average+awful does not equal good/average at défense.

  10. I would like to see him again a part of a very good defense like he was in Dallas when PJ an Gafford came. In that case Luka could be very good on defense too. Not DPOY good, but maybe even 2nd Al-NBA defensive team good. That is his ceiling in defense.

  12. I always preached he was a good defender, but the narrative is already in place, which I don’t think he will ever get rid of, because that’s not how the mainstream media functions. I’m happy to see the stats backing my belief.

  13. We only need to replace lebron and we’re instantly contenders. LukA needs complete freedom to be himself and lead, so everyone else will follow him and play their roles. Really hope we can get a trade done ASAP.

    For some reason, people seem to have forgot that LukA came over here with a calf injury… so he wasn’t able to do anything to heal besides wait. He couldn’t train much, and was still able to do what he did the last quarter of the season… He’s going to be on a whole other level come October and by far the best player we’ve had since Kobe.

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