Is Jokic better than Lebron ever was ? Has he already peaked higher ? How long before he surpasses him all time?

[ScrantonBulls]

Post deleted - not going to retype it all.

That old excuse, eh?

[No-more-rings]

I still don’t see it as a given that Jokic is even better offensively, let alone overall given Lebron holds a clear defensive advantage. With that said, I find it pretty unlikely that Jokic winds up with a better career than Lebron. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re talking about him as an arguable top 5 goat here in about 5-6 years though. He has the talent, and he’s very likely to end up with more rings.

[No-more-rings]

What's up with these Jokic threads?

Y'all trying to make this dude the GOAT overnight with just 1 championship is crazy. Just relax and let it play out.

Stop comparing him to LeBron it's just not the right time to have that discussion. People tried to do the same with Giannis and look how they turned out.

I personally never thought Giannis was anywhere close to Lebron peak wise. Lebron is in a different stratosphere offensively.

[Handlez]

Jokic is better, IMO.

Did it without superstar help and special treatment.

LeBron’s physical peak is generally acknowledged during the first stint with Cleveland in 2009. What superstar did he play with?

Heck...did it without a single all star.

Murray is chopped liver—Murray/KCP/AG/MPJ aren't slouches—as a matter of fact, those 4 are the primary reasons Denver comfortably separates themselves from the rest of the league. Jokic himself would admit that.

Jokic is the better player and teammate.

Totally subjective and can't be proven.

These are all opinions, bud.

If I were given a choice in a draft of LeBron or Jokic, I take Jokic. Jokic has proven he can win without superstar help. Jokic doesn't have to stack teams in a putrid conference. Jokic is loyal. And of course Jokic's style of play absolutely maximizes his teams and he doesn't play for stats; the stats he produces are organic.

No need to get upset over opinions.

[NoStatsGuy]

people forget lebron went vs 2 of the best dynasties we ever had 7 out of 10 times in the finals. Im not taking anything away from jokic titels.

but beating the spurs and warrios means something if you ask me. Jokic played the warriors in 22 and lost in 5 and he beat the LMA/Derozan/Murray spurs 2019. . The nuggest have been an amazing team and jokic has been out of this world. but i dont exactly love the type of competition compared to lebrons.

[falcolombardi]

No

[Lockdown504090]

people forget lebron went vs 2 of the best dynasties we ever had 7 out of 10 times in the finals. Im not taking anything away from jokic titels.

but beating the spurs and warrios means something if you ask me. Jokic played the warriors in 22 and lost in 5 and he beat the LMA/Derozan/Murray spurs 2019. . The nuggest have been an amazing team and jokic has been out of this world. but i dont exactly love the type of competition compared to lebrons.

It’s interesting. I’m going to add the caveat, that perhaps nobody is going to face the competition lebron did against the warriors and spurs due to the new salary cap rules. The spurs couldn’t have Boris diaw in 2024 and the warriors couldn’t get Durant due to cap smoothing, and they couldn’t run up a wildly expensive roster how they have for a sustained period of time.

The league will probably not see this iteration of Boston while Tatum is at his apex. Denver is facing financial issues after next season, the wolves are in for trouble when Edwards supermax kicks in. These weren’t restraints before. All of these changes allow one really good player like jokic to be more impactful relative to the teams he plays. You can’t stack 3 stars and have a good supporting cast to whoop his ass. Your guys have to fit together like glue if you are going to pay big money.

[sikma42]

don't mention defense to these people, it doesn't actually mean anything apparently

No, we can acknowledge Jokic is merely an average to above-average defender.

However, we should also acknowledge that while Jokic's numbers don't "pop out" of the screen the man is the greatest orchestrator and offensive force the league has ever seen. He's able to take a G-league roster (21-22 Denver roster) to the playoffs with 46 wins and when given an average cast like this year's he becomes a perpetual championship contender.

There's a difference between being a high PPG scorer which a bunch of guys can do (Embiid, Doncic, SGA) versus being The System where success/failure of each individual role player (Murray/AG/MPJ) rests firmly on the shoulders of how well Jokic can spoon feed them easy buckets. Again, all these other guys in the playoffs have 1-2 all-star teammates and Jokic is a 1-man crew as evidenced by having zero all-star teammates in his entire career.

Most dudes should donate 30% of their paychecks to him for making them appear to be better than they are.

No, not just Jokics defense but Lebron’s. Lebron was DPOY level for a bit. He is a game changing defender.


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[art_tatum]

Well Lebron couldn't win without Allstars / with 1 all star in Cleveland. Joker did.

Yes Lebron has faced tougher competition but the times he's won his teams were stacked as well. Joker didn't have the 2nd and 4th best players according to advanced stats the year before. Sure Bosh's numbers went down in Miami but that's because he sacrificed to play defense for the super team.

Imo every finals he's been to the only time he wasn't supposed to be there was in 2007. Otherwise it's the heatles super team. Cavs stacked team with love ( who was an all star 26/11 player in minny) kyrie Lebron, and with AD and the lakers. That's why I don't see his number of finals trips as that impressive.

Lebrons wins - 2012 heatles superteam vs a young okc team. Okc had no experience, harden choked as usual. Not very impressive win.

2013 - superteam versus a old spurs team, Duncan no longer a superstar, and the klaw was too young. Still a good team, so mildly impressive win even if heat was favored.

2016- formed a cavs mini superteam : Lebron, kyrie and kevin love ( a 26/11 player in minny who took the bosh 3rd wheel role) vs the 73 win warriors : curry, klay, draymond. That was a coin flip win very close series, a classic. His most impressive win even if it's tainted with the draymond suspension which turned the flow of the series. Could've easily been over in 5.

2020- Disney finals, teamed up with top player AD who was the best player in the playoffs imo. Versus an injury depleted heat team. this or okc is the least impressive of his rings imo. Not bc of Disney but because of the injured heat.

Looking at his career I think Lebron won all the finals he's supposed to win except 2011 and maybe 2014.

Lost all the finals he's supposed to lose except maybe 2016.

So he had his choke series and his beating a slightly better team series.
Joker so far won the one he's supposed to win so we will see about this year. But he's doing it without any allstars again.

[infinite11285]

Jokic is better, IMO.

Did it without superstar help and special treatment.

LeBron’s physical peak is generally acknowledged during the first stint with Cleveland in 2009. What superstar did he play with?

Heck...did it without a single all star.

Murray is chopped liver—Murray/KCP/AG/MPJ aren't slouches—as a matter of fact, those 4 are the primary reasons Denver comfortably separates themselves from the rest of the league. Jokic himself would admit that.

Jokic is the better player and teammate.

Totally subjective and can't be proven.

These are all opinions, bud.

If I were given a choice in a draft of LeBron or Jokic, I take Jokic. Jokic has proven he can win without superstar help. Jokic doesn't have to stack teams in a putrid conference. Jokic is loyal. And of course Jokic's style of play absolutely maximizes his teams and he doesn't play for stats; the stats he produces are organic.

No need to get upset over opinions.

It's not a problem for me. Just like you, I gave my opinion.

[MacGill]

Post deleted - not going to retype it all.

That old excuse, eh?

No reason for me to lie. When I originally posted it only had the last paragraph in my response so I just deleted it. I'll rewrite it again now that you've joined the convo.

[DOT]

Any excuse to post this series:

Watch on YouTube

[infinite11285]

If Lebron gets held to a 6 championship MJ standard then Jokic should be held to a 4.

But he is not by large crowd so jokic needs even less accolades to pass LeBron as far as I am concerned.

I'm confused. Is your standard dependent on the amount of chatter/hype a player receives?

[BodieB]

Probably the biggest benefit of his eventual retirement is folks will finally recontextualize his career once his been gone a few years and threads like this will look premature at the very least.

[dhsilv2]

Carmelo was one of the best scorers of all time but nobody cares because he has no rings.

If Melo would've won 6-0 Championships in his career
He would be seen in a while different perspective like Jordan or KB24

Smh

Melo wasn't a great player. If he won rings we'd be trying to figure out who on his team carried him there because he wasn't capable of it.

[Johnny Firpo]

people forget lebron went vs 2 of the best dynasties we ever had 7 out of 10 times in the finals. Im not taking anything away from jokic titels.

but beating the spurs and warrios means something if you ask me. Jokic played the warriors in 22 and lost in 5 and he beat the LMA/Derozan/Murray spurs 2019. . The nuggest have been an amazing team and jokic has been out of this world. but i dont exactly love the type of competition compared to lebrons.

I'm sure you agree that level of competition shouldn't just mean finals, but conference strength as well. If anything, it should mean that first.

[dhsilv2]

17-18 LeBron is better than any version of Jokic so far in my opinion.

Then why didn't he stand out statistically in the season like Jokic has?

[dhsilv2]

There it is again: the same brain dead take that many others have made because they don’t know any better.

“Err Tatum was only 19, Brown was young, they were inexperienced, they overachieved”. Absolute utter nonsense this statement is.

They were a 55 win team who were better without Irving. They had the best ranked defense in the league. They did not overachieve by any stretch of the imagination.

Quick check...55 wins, expected win loss 51. Yeah...they absolutely over achieved by about 4 games which is a lot.

[dhsilv2]

I still don’t see it as a given that Jokic is even better offensively, let alone overall given Lebron holds a clear defensive advantage. With that said, I find it pretty unlikely that Jokic winds up with a better career than Lebron. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re talking about him as an arguable top 5 goat here in about 5-6 years though. He has the talent, and he’s very likely to end up with more rings.

3 more rings is a HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEEE ask. It's nearly impossible to expect any player to ever do that again. It'll happen, but it'll take a combination of luck, talent, and help.

[dhsilv2]

Probably the biggest benefit of his eventual retirement is folks will finally recontextualize his career once his been gone a few years and threads like this will look premature at the very least.

If you don't see threads like this on Jokic, or Giannis when he won back to back MVP's, or even Harden when he was blowing up. It would be a sign that we are a basketball community were idiots. It's ok to enjoy these kinds of moments in sports, when we are seeing a true all time great in action. Or when we see an all time great talent come up short and talk about it, like we did with Harden in the playoffs.