lessthanjake wrote:To answer the question of this thread, I think there’s a distinction between Jokic’s ranking in overall greatness and his ranking in peak greatness. In terms of peak, he’s already very arguably the #1 center of all time, and another championship would just further cement that. But I think this thread is aiming at overall greatness. That’s a more difficult question, since Jokic is in the middle of his career still, and we can’t give Jokic credit for things he hasn’t yet done. It’s a huge disadvantage to be ranked in overall greatness in the middle of your career against guys whose careers are over, since players accumulate more and more greatness as their careers go on.
What I’ll say is this:
The following centers placed above Jokic in the PC Board top 100 prior to this season: Kareem, Russell, Hakeem, Wilt, Shaq, Mikan, Robinson, and Moses Malone. Let’s assume that Jokic is already above everyone else, and then talk about each of these.
- I think it will be almost impossible for Jokic to reach Kareem in overall greatness. Kareem just played at a high level for so long. I don’t see Jokic bothering to play for long enough, and he got a later start as a totally elite player, so there’s just going to be a massive longevity gap there. Another championship this year definitely wouldn’t get Jokic there. He’d need to have things go immaculately for him the rest of his career to catch Kareem, and I just don’t see it.
- Russell is a more difficult comparison, and really just depends on how much someone discounts Russell’s era. For someone that discounts Russell’s era a lot, then Jokic can finish above Russell, and actually may already be above him. But if one takes Russell’s era at face value or almost face value, it’s going to be almost impossible to catch Russell, because of just how much Russell won. So I see this as similar to Kareem, where Jokic would need things to go immaculately for the rest of his career to catch him, but with the added caveat that that’s not the case if you discount Russell for his era.
- Relatedly, Mikan is partly a question of whether you discount his era—which was an even more nascent era than Russell’s. To me, though, Jokic is already above Mikan. Mikan had very little longevity, so Jokic winning another title this year would pretty clearly be enough to have him above Mikan IMO.
- I think Jokic is already above Moses and Robinson at this point. Moses is an interesting comparison, because he too was the NBA’s best player for half a decade. But Jokic is better and with another title would have more titles than Moses. Moses had a long career, so he’d have an advantage there, but he wasn’t really in the conversation for best player except for that five-year span, and Jokic has already had 2 or 3 really-good-but-not-the-best years like that before his peak, so I don’t think that that can overcome peak Jokic just being better. Meanwhile, with two titles as his team’s undisputed best player and a multi-year span as the league’s clear best player (which Robinson never had), I think Jokic passes Robinson, who doesn’t have a huge longevity advantage to make up for it.
- Hakeem, Wilt, and Shaq are the toughest zone. To me, Jokic is on the path to end up above those guys, but he’s not quite there yet and I don’t know that a title this year would get him above them. To me, Hakeem is the smallest lift to get over, so maybe I’d have Jokic above Hakeem already if he won a title this year. But overall, these are the guys that Jokic hasn’t passed but realistically could.
Very well stated. I agree with everything.
I think if he wins a championship this year, he surely passes Hakeem. He'll have 2 titles without All-Star teammates to Hakeem's 1 title without all-star teammates plus one with Clyde. He'll have 3 MVP's to Hakeems' 1. (And Hakeem was MVP runner up for only 1 other year, so he would have only had 2 even if Michael Jordan didn't exist.) But most importantly, I think Jokic is playing in a much more competitive era - particularly this season. The league is absolutely loaded with talent this year. Hakeem's Rockets had pretty lousy competition outside of the Bulls.
I think a good case can be made that he passes Shaq too. Shaq was an incredibly dominant force, but he still required an All-Star caliber wing to win. He couldn't do it on his own like Jokic can because he can't be both a PG and a C like Jokic.
Comparing him to Wilt, just like Russell and Mikan, is a complicated endeavor which has no real resolution. It just depends on how you compare eras. My stance is that the competition is better now with the whole world feeding into the NBA, and there's more money, technology and training to develop and incentivize great players. So I tend to default to favoring post 1970's players over earlier eras. But that's just me.
