It may not be her right, given how amazing Nikola Jokić was, how lethal Jamal Murray looked, and how often their two-man game seemed unstoppable… but the Denver Nuggets actually didn’t score very well in the NBA Finals 2023.
After burning opponents to the tune of 121.7 points per non-garbage time possession in the first three rounds of the playoffs, Denver’s offensive efficiency has dropped more than six of 100 points in the championship round, down to a level that would have ranked just around the league average during the regular season. In the Game 5 win that brought the franchise’s first NBA championship, in fact, it was downright disgusting — just 98.9 points per 100, Denver’s fifth-worst outing all season.
“I don’t know how long it would take me to do the autopsy of this last game, but I would say it will probably be our toughest, most competitive and most active defensive game of the season,” said the manager. Heat head coach Erik. Spoelstra said after the loss. “And it failed again.”
That’s because Miami’s biggest problem in the final — well, outside of the 6-foot-11, 284-pound Serbian equestrian aficionado — was that he just couldn’t score.
According to Cleaning the Glass, the Heat scored just 106.2 points per 100 non-garbage possessions in the Finals, an offensive efficiency rating that would have ranked dead last in the league during the regular season. The frustrating futility peaked in that decisive Game 5: Miami shot just 89 points on 34.4% shooting, mustering its lowest offensive rating all season.
So: what do you do when you lack the firepower to take on the best offensive player in the NBA? Well, “go get maybe the second-best offensive player in the NBA” seems like an elegant solution.
Don’t get me wrong: that’s what you see in Damian Lillard, who decided a few days ago that after 11 seasons he no longer wanted to ply his trade for the Portland Trail Blazers. Because — at the risk of repeating my structure — it might not be her right, given the Blazers stumble to a 33-49 record…but take a look under the hood, and you’ll see Lillard had a terribly strong case as arguably the strongest point-producing force of the league.
It’s been like that for a while. Lillard has led a Portland offense that has ranked seventh or better in points scored per possession in six of the past 10 seasons, including four top-four finishes, and has scored as the best offense in the NBA with Lillard on the court in four of the last five campaigns. That includes last season, when a Blazers team that was mediocre on the offensive end produced a whopping 120.3 points for 100 during Dame Time.
After struggling with his shooting during a 2021-22 campaign in which he was plagued with an abdominal injury, Dame returned to health and form last season, finishing third in the NBA with 32 .2 points per game and 10th in the table with 7.3 assists a night. He had a career-best 63.3 percent from the restricted area and 57.4 percent from inside the arc overall, while smashing his way to 9.6 free throw attempts and 11.3 3-point lifts per night – both also career highs.
Lillard remains one of the league’s leading operators in the two-man game, producing 1.13 points per completed possession as a ball handler in the pick-and-roll, according to Synergy’s play chart – tied with Kyrie Irving and Donovan Mitchell for fourth in the NBA out of 138 players to record at least 100 of those games. (Right below Dame on this list, coincidentally? Jimmy Butler.) He’s also perfectly capable of cooking without a screen, averaging 1.17 points per game completed in isolation – fifth of 101 players to go. solo at least 50 times.
Dame has the rebounding brilliance to beat defenders at the paint and the strength and touch to finish once he gets there, finishing seventh in the NBA last season in points scored per game on trips to the basket , according to the Second Spectrum follow-up. Even so, you obviously can’t play a step on him, or hide under screens to try and cut his driveways: Lillard led the NBA in 3-point pull-ups made last season, forcing them to a 37.2% clip despite the ridiculous volume, degree of difficulty, and smothering coverage that tends to be attached to its launches. (While primarily a creator on the ball, Lillard has also proven perfectly equipped to threaten defenses when spotting the weak side in the face of initial action, knocking down 39.4% of his 3 wrestling points. -and-shoot since 2013-14 – a healthy sample of nearly 2,000 attempts.)
While carrying a greater offensive burden than ever before, setting new career highs in both usage rate and on-field touches per game, Lillard Also managed to set new high seas marks in true shot percentage and assist rate. Only two other players have ever combined the level of shooting efficiency and assist generation Dame did last season with such a heavy workload: Jokić, in 2021-22, and LeBron James, in 2012-13 – a pair of MVP seasons.
Going to advanced numbers only fortifies the case. Lillard led the NBA in the offensive components of estimated plus-minus, actual plus-minus, the BBall Index’s LEBRON metric, and Kostya Medvedovsky’s DARKO projections. He ranked second in FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR offensive side and plus-minus box, fifth in regularized offensive adjusted plus-minus, and sixth in offensive win shares.
Even being a terrible defender in a terrible team, Lillard always profiled as one of the top 10 players last season by a host of metrics. It is how amazing of an attacking engine he is – still a few weeks short of the age of 33. That’s why the Heat – and a number of other teams that would have reported to the Blazers, although Lillard has made it very clear, according to Yahoo Sports, senior NBA reporter Vincent Goodwill, that he wants being in Miami – put it high on their wish list as they look to bolster their roster in hopes of finally getting over the hump after a pair of finals.
Butler would be the best two-way player Lillard has ever played with. Bam Adebayo would be the kind of short-rolling relief valve and complementary playmaker he never had. Flank him with ground-spacing threats, and the Heat offense that ranked 25th in the NBA during the regular season and floundered against Denver would suddenly look not only much more powerful but potentially championship-caliber.
As persuasive as this argument for going all-in for Queen might be, there are reasons not to. Like, say, $216.2 million of them, capped by a jaw-dropping $63.2 million player option for 2026-27. Committing that kind of play to a small playmaker throughout his 36-year-old season must give even the most winning-focused front-office executives now the start of a headache – especially in a now financial environment. governed by a new collective bargaining agreement specifically designed to be the most punitive for teams that spend deep in the luxury tax to hoard top talent.
Even if you’re willing to pay that bounty down the line, you need to make a deal the Blazers deem worthwhile now … and, so far, Portland general manager Joe Cronin hasn’t found one. to his taste.
The Heat, who have avoided pursuing Bradley Beal to stay prepared for the possibility of Dame jumping ship, are ‘ready to offer a Tyler Herro-centric package, with maybe Duncan Robinson and picks’, but ‘would prefer to keep Caleb Martin out of every business scenario,” according to Chris Haynes of Bleacher Report. That package doesn’t seem to have given Portland much of a boost, though — perhaps because, as Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix reported last week, the Blazers are “lukewarm” on Herro.
Yahoo Sports NBA senior reporter Jake Fischer reported on Monday that to pursue this type of deal construction, “Portland would aim to move Herro to a third team,” preferring to spend playing time, touches and playing opportunities in the backcourt to the young trio of $100 million man Anfernee Simons, 2022 lottery pick Shaedon Sharpe and 2023 No. 3 overall pick Scoot Henderson. This search for a third team led to Brooklyn. According to SNY’s Ian Begley, the teams had discussed a framework in which Herro would land with the Nets, joining Mikal Bridges, the just-extended Cam Johnson and center Nic Claxton – although he is only at a year of unrestricted free agency himself — as the young core of a roster that general manager Sean Marks is rebuilding from the ashes of his never quite realized superteam.
With Herro set to begin a new four-year, $120 million contract extension, there are rumors that Brooklyn would be ask for at least some kind of token-deal compensation to absorb his nine-figure contract – perhaps along the lines of 2030 first-round pick of top-20 proteges the Golden State Warriors sent the Washington Wizards ahead of the 2023 NBA Draft to terminate Jordan Poole’s contract. That could complicate a structure in which you’d imagine the Blazers insisting on all future board assets — and that’s not the only potential complication.
The Blazers would like to use the Lillard deal to move the remaining three years and $54.4 million of Jusuf Nurkić’s contract off their books, according to HoopsHype’s Michael Scotto, envisioning a position where the only significant scale deals not rookie on their pay sheet belongs to Simons and the newly renewed Jerami Grant. Combine that with the possibility that the Nets might consider shipping the last two years and $78.2 million owed to Ben Simmons — a deal that there don’t seem to be any takers for, according to Greg Sylvander of Five Reasons Sports – and the process becomes very complicated, very quickly.
Where there is a will, however, there is a way; When a team wants a player enough to do whatever it takes to get him, the convoluted can become extremely simple. Compiling a business package compelling enough to get Lillard won’t be easy for Pat Riley, Andy Elisburg and the rest of that Miami front office. But when have the Heat ever been afraid of a little hard work?