Celtics' running contrary to the heliocentric offense.

[Sophomore]

I wonder how they define heliocentric? Is it a usage rate north of 40? Something more than that?

My guess is that heliocentric teams can play very well but mostly won’t win championships. Individual greatness dominates average and even good NBA teams, but it’s too often vulnerable against the best competition or the wrong matchup.

If you look at finals teams or the conference finalists over the last few years, how many are heliocentric? If I use my admittedly simplistic usage-rate definition, you don’t find any over the past several years. Even Harden, the two years he got to the conference Finals was at 31.3 and 36.1. So maybe one year he made it to heliocentric, if you give him the year at 36, but now we’re bending the definition.

There may be better definitions of heliocentric; I’d be interested if anybody’s got one. Maybe heliocentrism is the best way to maximize a team like Dallas as its currently constructed, but I bet adding a second or third star who can play alongside Doncic - and take some of his possessions - raises that team’s ceiling.

For fun I went back and looked at the Cs’ two championships in the 1980s; Bird’s usage rate was 26.7 and 27.6 - below Kemba’s 28.8 with the Cs this year. Magic’s usage rate through the 80s never went above 25.

[Who]

The new version of 1990s/2000s one star iso-centric offenses.

[tstorey_97]

If you have James Harden, I suppose, you literally have to give him the ball on every play.

With Bob Cousy, in that era the "point" carried the offense, with this case being, Cousy was a brilliant passer and top shooter. Red wasn't stupid, Cousy had the ball.

As 5m pointed out, Walker steps aside allowing his team mates to succeed and it leads us to something I still try to communicate with words.

There are 5 guys on the court. They are committed to play their best at both ends. Our discussion here, is "offensive centric", but, an NBA game is not.

This year's Celtics keep posting three guys with 20 points each (simplified to make the point). I suggest a team, to be effective at both ends night in and night out, is best with maximum "involvement" on the part of all players.

People aren't that complicated, they want to "be a part" of what is going on and if they are? They will play better.

[KGs Knee]

I always find it interesting how people like to attach new, fancy sounding words to old concepts and pretend like they just re-invented the wheel.  'Give the ball to your best player and get out of the way' is a concept that has existed for as long as basketball has existed.

Personally, I'm not picky, whatever system works best for the players you have that leads to wins is fine by me. If you have a Harden, or LeBron, or Kyrie, or whoever, your best chance at winning is usually going to be to put the ball in their hands as often as possible and surrounding them with players that both understand and embrace that. When you have lesser talent, it makes sense that you have to try to win a different way.

[Somebody]

I wonder how they define heliocentric? Is it a usage rate north of 40? Something more than that?

My guess is that heliocentric teams can play very well but mostly won’t win championships. Individual greatness dominates average and even good NBA teams, but it’s too often vulnerable against the best competition or the wrong matchup.

If you look at finals teams or the conference finalists over the last few years, how many are heliocentric? If I use my admittedly simplistic usage-rate definition, you don’t find any over the past several years. Even Harden, the two years he got to the conference Finals was at 31.3 and 36.1. So maybe one year he made it to heliocentric, if you give him the year at 36, but now we’re bending the definition.

There may be better definitions of heliocentric; I’d be interested if anybody’s got one. Maybe heliocentrism is the best way to maximize a team like Dallas as its currently constructed, but I bet adding a second or third star who can play alongside Doncic - and take some of his possessions - raises that team’s ceiling.

For fun I went back and looked at the Cs’ two championships in the 1980s; Bird’s usage rate was 26.7 and 27.6 - below Kemba’s 28.8 with the Cs this year. Magic’s usage rate through the 80s never went above 25.

Ben Taylor (the guy making Thinking Basketball content) uses offensive load instead of usage. Much better stat, it dispells the false notion from gawking at usage rate that quarterbacks like Nash and Magic weren't ball dominant.

https://backpicks.com/2017/10/16/offensive-load-and-adjusted-tov/

[Somebody]

TP for watching/reading Thinking Basketball's stuff! Not many posters here like it because it doesn't fit regular narratives in basketball, I'm pleasantly surprised that you have an open mind towards this stuff.

And as for us not following the heliocentric models in the NBA, I think it's because we don't have that elite on ball engine that can generate high quality looks consistently by himself instead of us actually opting to go with a more balanced approach - as good as IT and Kyrie were for us they couldn't quarterback our offences to elite enough levels to make us a serious title contender. After getting Kemba we made the right decision to shift towards Global Offence (a concept also discussed by Thinking Basketball), getting the centrepiece to shift away from an insanely heavy offensive load to unlock the offensive potential of his very good teammates (eg. Brown, Tatum, Smart, Hayward), which gave us more threats to score/pass/create in the offence and upped the amount of quality looks we get to score.

I disagree. Didn't mmmmm just point out that Kemba was playing this role in Charlotte? No, rather than playing this offense because we dont have a focal point for a heliocentric offense, I agree with 5m that the reason they never ran this before was because of the lack of personnel. Like he said, they clearly had this idea by getting Hayward.

And what came out of running that sort of model with second rate offensive centrepieces (ntm that Kemba playing whetever role in Charlotte has no bearing on what role he'd play in Boston, emulating Charlotte's system would've been disastrous for both Kemba and us)? Pseudo-contenders that were fun to watch but were never really in that category of elite title contenders. We never had that elite centrepiece that we could run that system with and get a title winning offence.

I think the Celtics realised that getting a centrepiece who can quarterback an offence to elite enough levels that can contend for a title was insanely difficult after trading away Pierce and KG, so they laid the groundwork to assemble a squad with a more balanced offence by hiring a coach who likes to play multiple offensive threats on the floor, as well as maximising flexibility for years to get those B grade stars who can't carry an immensely heavy offensive load but can be part of an excellent offence alongside other similarly talented teammates.

This was my thought as well. If don’t have a true MVP type to take on that usage and still be a true contender, a good team still has to find another way to be competitive and what the Celtics have done is a legit counter to the heliocentric offense.

I think the Q is, if we did have an MVP-type player, would we be more like the Bucks or Rockets, or maintain what we’re doing now?  Cuz I think we’re developing JT and hoping he peaks as one of those guys.

I think we would go for the Golden State model - the "optimal offence" where you have MVP guys taking up a big but not ridiculous offensive load while his teammates get expanded roles to form a more universal attack.

[mmmmm]

I wonder how they define heliocentric? Is it a usage rate north of 40? Something more than that?

It's not strictly USG rate.  It is a combination of USG% and AST% such that the player is scoring or assisting the creation of 50% of the team's points.