Jokic is not the best in the world, and has been heavily overrated (NOW YOU CAN CHANGE VOTES)

[kveble]

All of the Embiid fans since Denver went down 0-2.

Haha, this is true and so funny. I guess when you fail every year, your only joy is seeing other people fail too.

[DimesandKnicks]

There’s more top end talent at C than ever before. The old school bully bigs can’t stay on the floor because they need to be able to hedge and recover to the perimeter.

It just goes to show how much more talented Jokic is than the current generation of Cs. He’s nimble enough to stay on a modern spaced out, bulky enough to work in the post, skilled enough to shoot 3s, and otherworldly as a playmaker. MJ got to regularly posterize stiffs like Greg Ostertag and Shawn Bradley.

I was always find it hilarious how some people think that basketball is the only endeavor in the world that is immune to constant evolution. Somehow, everything and everybody got worse since MJ retired.

Name them

Really? Isn't it obvious to everyone that 90% of centers in MJ's day, would be "at best" backup centers in today's NBA.

Simple example: Zach Edey would be the unanimous #1 pick, if he was coming out of college during MJ's day. Now GM's aren't convinced if he's even an NBA player. At best, a situational big, like Boban.

Jokic and other superstars are facing a much larger talent pool and vastly more skilled talent pool, than ever before, which makes it much harder to dominate like MJ did back in the day.

I said top end talent, and that doesn’t even account for players who were defenders. You said the top end talent at C was better than ever. I’m asking you to name them…

[DimesandKnicks]

There’s more top end talent at C than ever before. The old school bully bigs can’t stay on the floor because they need to be able to hedge and recover to the perimeter.

It just goes to show how much more talented Jokic is than the current generation of Cs. He’s nimble enough to stay on a modern spaced out, bulky enough to work in the post, skilled enough to shoot 3s, and otherworldly as a playmaker. MJ got to regularly posterize stiffs like Greg Ostertag and Shawn Bradley.

I was always find it hilarious how some people think that basketball is the only endeavor in the world that is immune to constant evolution. Somehow, everything and everybody got worse since MJ retired.

You mentione Ostertag and Bradley lol? Do you want me to reply with some other centers who player basketball in the 80s/90s?? There were a few that were better lol…ill wait for your rebuttal

lol. You have to span 30+ years to find like 7 HoF or all-star centers who could give Jokic trouble? And not all of those guys peaks were at the same time, so that's kind of a cherry pick.

But you're also missing one important point: Jokic can operate above the break and shoot 3s and make plays. He would draw those centers out of the paint, which makes part of their effectiveness much less, while opening up lanes for his teammates to drive & cut. I definitely can't envision Shaq, Smits, Mutombo and all the other guys you mentioned later in their career, flashing out to the perimeter to guard Jokic.

The 90s to the 2000s is sufficient

[JayMKE]

You can argue he's overrated since we've had a year of people comparing him favorably to the GOAT players, Jokic is great but not MJ or Wilt at this point.

[TOStateofMind]

One is sitting at home again and the other just got outplayed by his co-star but yes please tell us more about how Luka and Embiid are comfortably ahead of him, despite both combined still not having seen the success at Jokics level

[mcmurphy]

We’ve been spoiled by Lebron. A decade plus of him being the clear cut best player in the league and you could expect an awesome performance from him every single night, no matter who his teammates were or who his opponent was.

There is no next version of that guy in the league right now, there might not be one again for a long time. Jokic is very good but unlike peak Lebron he has limitations. I just think the expectation for the best player in the league is unrealistically high because we used to have a guy who could dominate 100 times per season without ever wearing down and that’s just a level that only 2 players in nba history have ever reached.

... and in the first 75 playoff career games of Lebron (not the old Lebron) there are more worst performances compared to Jokic

Jokic
2 of 75 GameScore <10
8 of 75 GameScore <15
17 of 75 GameScore <20

Lebron
6 of 75 GameScore <10
13 of 75 GameScore <15
25 of 75 GameScore <20

it's incredible how 2 games below his standard for a whole series of comments to flourish that say he's overrated

The point wasn't to compare Lebron's box scores with Jokic's box scores, I don't think you can accurately do that across two very different eras of basketball anyway. It was just to say that Lebron left us with an expectation of how the best player in the league should perform every night that's maybe too high of a standard for other guys to realistically reach.

It's simple not true.
It's the fallacy of memory, we tend to only remember the great games and we tend to forget the bad.

It seems incredible but Lebron:

2008 - Game1 of a EC SemiF vs Boston
12 pt (2/18), 9reb, 9 ast, 10 to

2014 - Game5 of a EC F vs Indiana
7 pt (2/10), 2reb, 4 ast, 3 to

2017 - Game3 of a EC F vs Boston
11 pt (4/13), 6reb, 6 ast, 6 to

2011 - Game4 of Finals vs Dallas
8 pt (3/11), 9reb, 7 ast, 4 to


... and there are many others but only the wins and the great plays are remembered.
Jokic's 2 bad games are fresh in the memory.

[lessthanjake]

But it’s worth noting that Jokic has 4 seasons with as higher or higher D-EPM than LeBron had in 2006-2007. Jokic’s average D-RAPTOR in his peak years (starting 2020-2021) is higher than LeBron’s D-RAPTOR in any season of his entire career (including 2006-2007). LeBron’s career DRAPM is quite similar to Jokic’s career DRAPM (2.8 vs. 2.2). LeBron’s average D-LEBRON just in the years in the data set that he was top 10 in DPOY voting (so, 2009-2010 through 2013-2014) is lower than Jokic’s career average D-LEBRON and lower than Jokic’s D-LEBRON in each of the last three seasons. Jokic’s average DRPM in his peak years (again, starting 2020-2021) is higher than LeBron’s DRPM in 2006-2007 as well as every year of LeBron’s defensive peak. The data definitely doesn’t suggest that Jokic is a particularly inferior defender to LeBron. So yeah, I think you could create an elite defense with Jokic similar to how the 2006-2007 Cavs created an elite defense with LeBron, though the personnel to do it with him wouldn’t be the same as with LeBron since they do not play the same position.

The eye test certainly doesn’t. That’s why I’m inquiring how that metric is formulated. Jokic isn’t a good defender, at his peak Lebron was a great defender yet these advance metrics have them in the same tier. I’d assume that defensive rebounding is heavily weight in the formula.

We’re talking about impact stats here, not box stats. They’re about what happens on and off the court (while adjusting for who else is on the court at any given time), not about tallying box-score stats. Some (but not all) of them use box score and/or tracking data as a prior, but it’s just a prior (and is weighed in a way that correlates with impact). The primary thing driving these numbers is simply that if you isolate the impact on defense of having LeBron and Jokic on the court, it doesn’t look very different. Some of that is driven by the impact of things like Jokic’s great defensive rebounding, but it’s not because the stats are just weighing box score data—rather, it’d be because great defensive rebounding is impactful. Anyways, I gather that you’re not familiar with impact data. You should look them up. They’re the best we have in terms of measuring defense.

I don’t think that’s correct at all—these are players who were praised for defense. As was Larry Hughes, as another example.

They had solid defenders. Good at best. No one was elite. Hughes wasn’t the same defender after breaking his foot.

If “no one was elite” but the entire defense as a whole was elite (which it undeniably was), then what’s your point? They had an elite defense. And that elite defense is what carried them. Whether they were elite because they had elite individual defenders or they were elite because they played incredibly well together as a defensive unit (or, more likely, a combination of the two) is largely beside the point. The fact is that LeBron’s supporting cast played amazing defense, and it was the team’s defense that carried them.

The bottom line is that that team was absolutely completely carried by its defense. They had a below-average offense in the regular season, and an awful offense in the playoffs. But they had an elite defense in the regular season, and an historically great defense in the playoffs. Their defense is very obviously what led them to the Finals. And defense is an inherently team effort and LeBron wasn’t even really a noted defender at all individually at the time. So the idea that LeBron carried that team is *extremely* dubious. He carried the load on a side of the ball that the team was genuinely bad at, while just being another cog in the wheel on the side of the ball that actually carried the team to success. There’s really a much better argument that Mike Brown carried that team, with his coaching on the defensive side of the ball.

He brought a team that would otherwise be one of the worst teams in the league without him. Fair?

No, I don’t think that’s fair. That team’s defense was so good that there’s essentially no way they would’ve been even close to one of the worst teams in the league without him. Put it this way: Even if they had had the worst offense in the league, they’d still have been an above-average team (i.e. a net rating above 0) because their defense was so good.

[Calvin Klein]

So I guess other all time greats never lost.

[JustBuzzin]

Jokic is old news.

This is Ant and SGA league now.


Jokic is great, but yes he was overrated mainly by this board. Yesterday he was getting GOAT comparisons with the likes of MJ and LeBron and people were calling Denver the next dynasty.

Now I'm seeing threads about Denver blowing it up and Jokic needs more help. It's stuff like that proves he's overrated.

When he lose its his teammates fault. Any of the GOAT just got blamed when they loss. Jokic doesn't command that kind of respect. He's a loveable guy. Guys like MJ/LeBron got blamed every year win or lose. They got no excuses.

[kveble]

Jokic is old news.

This is Ant and SGA league now.


Jokic is great, but yes he was overrated mainly by this board. Yesterday he was getting GOAT comparisons with the likes of MJ and LeBron and people were calling Denver the next dynasty.

Now I'm seeing threads about Denver blowing it up and Jokic needs more help. It's stuff like that proves he's overrated.

When he lose its his teammates fault. Any of the GOAT just got blamed when they loss. Jokic doesn't command that kind of respect. He's a loveable guy. Guys like MJ/LeBron got blamed every year win or lose. They got no excuses.

If Lebron is blamed, then why do they always blow up the roster and fire the coach when he loses?

[JustBuzzin]

Jokic is old news.

This is Ant and SGA league now.


Jokic is great, but yes he was overrated mainly by this board. Yesterday he was getting GOAT comparisons with the likes of MJ and LeBron and people were calling Denver the next dynasty.

Now I'm seeing threads about Denver blowing it up and Jokic needs more help. It's stuff like that proves he's overrated.

When he lose its his teammates fault. Any of the GOAT just got blamed when they loss. Jokic doesn't command that kind of respect. He's a loveable guy. Guys like MJ/LeBron got blamed every year win or lose. They got no excuses.

If Lebron is blamed, then why do they always blow up the roster and fire the coach when he loses?

What does the GM have to do with the fans hating LeBron?

Are you telling me LeBron doesn't receive hate win or lose?

[Mavrelous]

The man hasn't even lost the series and y'all are dancing on his grave...

[kveble]

Jokic is old news.

This is Ant and SGA league now.


Jokic is great, but yes he was overrated mainly by this board. Yesterday he was getting GOAT comparisons with the likes of MJ and LeBron and people were calling Denver the next dynasty.

Now I'm seeing threads about Denver blowing it up and Jokic needs more help. It's stuff like that proves he's overrated.

When he lose its his teammates fault. Any of the GOAT just got blamed when they loss. Jokic doesn't command that kind of respect. He's a loveable guy. Guys like MJ/LeBron got blamed every year win or lose. They got no excuses.

If Lebron is blamed, then why do they always blow up the roster and fire the coach when he loses?

What does the GM have to do with the fans hating LeBron?

Are you telling me LeBron doesn't receive hate win or lose?

Of course he does. He has a lot of fanboys and haters, just like any other superstar

[JustBuzzin]

If Lebron is blamed, then why do they always blow up the roster and fire the coach when he loses?

What does the GM have to do with the fans hating LeBron?

Are you telling me LeBron doesn't receive hate win or lose?

Of course he does. He has a lot of fanboys and haters, just like any other superstar

Jokic doesn't have the same haters as LeBron cmon bro. Jokic is a loveable guy.

[kveble]

What does the GM have to do with the fans hating LeBron?

Are you telling me LeBron doesn't receive hate win or lose?

Of course he does. He has a lot of fanboys and haters, just like any other superstar

Jokic doesn't have the same haters as LeBron cmon bro. Jokic is a loveable guy.

He doesn’t have as many because he’s humble and has not yet changed teams to get more help just like Curry. But they all have haters. He also hasn’t been on the top enough time to gather more haters.

[JustBuzzin]

Of course he does. He has a lot of fanboys and haters, just like any other superstar

Jokic doesn't have the same haters as LeBron cmon bro. Jokic is a loveable guy.

He doesn’t have as many because he’s humble and has not yet changed teams to get more help just like Curry. But they all have haters. He also hasn’t been on the top enough time to gather more haters.

Plenty players get hate true. Not all hate is created equal. LeBron is a icon and one of the most recognizable faces in sports. He gets more hate just based on his following alone. Not many people know Jokic outside of the NBA.

[web123888]

May or may not still be the best player in the game but if they go out in the 2nd round he’s been overrated by a lot of people on the forum who talk about “GOAT peak”, “best 4 year prime stretch ever”, comparisons to Jordan etc.

These people will confidently sound like they know what they’re talking about using a bunch of random obscure stats that nobody actually cares about in real life. And as great of a player as he is, nobody seriously talks about him & GOAT peak in the real world.

[AleksandarN]

You can argue he's overrated since we've had a year of people comparing him favorably to the GOAT players, Jokic is great but not MJ or Wilt at this point.

He is in the top 20 all time right now. He is only 29 years old. Who knows what will happen. But yeah way too early for anything else. He might retire early with only one ring or might win several.

[AleksandarN]

Jokic is old news.

This is Ant and SGA league now.


Jokic is great, but yes he was overrated mainly by this board. Yesterday he was getting GOAT comparisons with the likes of MJ and LeBron and people were calling Denver the next dynasty.

Now I'm seeing threads about Denver blowing it up and Jokic needs more help. It's stuff like that proves he's overrated.

When he lose its his teammates fault. Any of the GOAT just got blamed when they loss. Jokic doesn't command that kind of respect. He's a loveable guy. Guys like MJ/LeBron got blamed every year win or lose. They got no excuses.

If Lebron is blamed, then why do they always blow up the roster and fire the coach when he loses?

Or take his talents to Miami.

[hardenASG13]

So I guess other all time greats never lost.

They did, and Denver hasn't lost yet. But he has won 0 series vs. a 50 win team. Here's a list (it could be expanded) of some other all time greats and how many times they won series against 50 win teams. Their teammates were largely better, but it just leaves something to be desired for a guy who's been talked about like Jokic has on here.

https://fadeawayworld.net/10-nba-stars-who-have-beaten-the-most-50-win-teams-in-playoffs-history