giorgi asks: do you think a play style where 1 player has 35%+ usage rate is a decent winning strategy even for players like luka and harden? obviously you'd prefer to have 3 superstars on a team, but i mean from the perspective of let's say dallas right now.
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off the top of my head, my answer is "yes".
before i get into why i think so, let me give a quick shoutout to sideline sprint:
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in general, having the ball in your best player's hands on offense a lot isn't a problem. just look at the list of guys with a a 35%+ usage rate from the 2020-21 season (john hollinger):
note: there's a difference between hollinger's usage rate stat and basketball reference's; hollinger's is based on possessions used per 40 minutes, bref uses possessions used per possessions the player is on the floor. i haven't dug into the numbers so i'm not sure if 35%+ usage under the bref definition of the stat is a number that's so absurdly high that it becomes blatantly counter-productive, but i'm going to assume it's not considering james harden had a 40.5% usage rate in the 2018-19 season and the houston rockets won 53 games.
of course, you're asking about the extreme cases, like how the rockets played with harden and how the dallas mavericks currently play with luka doncic.
i'm still pretty sure the answer is "yes", considering both teams proved to have very good, efficient offenses and were competitive in the playoffs. it was almost always their inability to defend certain types of lineups that led to their downfall (i say "almost always" because you could argue the rockets team were just unlucky in that they ran into the juggernaut golden state warriors).
so yeah, as long as your team can defend and is versatile on that side of the floor, i think it's certainly possible a team could win the championship playing the harden/luka way on offense.
if you really think about it, virtually all great teams eventually morph into a version of it during "winning time". lebron james controls basically every single offensive possession for his team down the stretch (spread pick-and-rolls, post ups), as does chris paul (spread pick-and-roll), as does nikola jokic (post ups).
the only exceptions are when your team is absolutely stacked with multiple elite playmakers (e.g. the 2017-18 warriors) - which would obviously be ideal as you noted in your question - but that's rare. assuming you have a more "typical" roster, where 3-4 of your starters aren't great scorers + creators, the harden/luka-surrounded-by-3-point-shooters method probably maximizes your production and your chances of winning (high volume of 3s increases variance, which is +EV if you're the underdog against a better team that is stacked).
it’s admittedly a big responsibility for any single player to carry, but if he’s good enough and has the mental and physical stamina for it, i think it’s a solid strategy.
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