What would be Jokic's career without Murray?

[SelfishPlayer]

Is like Tim Duncan without Manu or Parker…
Or Tom Brady without Bill Belichick

Tim Duncan won a championship without Manu and Parker. Brady won a championship without Belichek.

[Lalouie]

same as lebron sans bosh, wade, allen, love, kyrie, davis, battier, jr, korver,

or just

allen, davis, kyrie

[theFireBlanket]

Giannis without Khris.

[Wallace_Wallace]

You already saw what Jokic looked like without Murray. Back to back years of getting swept.

Murray would also be a homeless man’s Dame Lilliard without Jokic.

They need each other.

Jokic would still be successful with many other players who could replace Murray. You could replace Murray with Kyrie, Brunson, Lillard, Ja, Fox, Hali, Curry, Harden, Garland, Shai, Luka, Dejounte, Trae, Holiday, Lamelo, etc. Hell it doesn't even have to be a PG, but other players like CJ Mccolum, Herro, could fill that gap when you have a player like Jokic.

Murray would have zero chance of being successful without Jokic unless he was on a completely loaded roster.

This is a ridiculous thread.

For me, Donovan Mitchell is the closest comparison I have for Murray, though Mitchell’s offense is more consistent (this is no insult to either players). We can imagine scenarios where Jokic plays with any other capable perimeter player and that player will thrive with Jokic, but if Murray only got to play with an all star big men, instead of a legendary one, such as Bam or Gobert or KAT or Porzingis, that hypothetical team would be in a play in spot at best

[strokerace]

Basically the same question is, is Murray really that great? I don't think he's any better than your average Max guard. Replace him with Fox and you get the same results. Maybe Fox would be better because his defense is better.

[lessthanjake]

It just depends on the hypo. If you just take Murray out of the rosters and don’t replace him with anyone, then Jokic could not really contend for a title with the roster that would remain, unless he had some supreme luck happen. No one could. But if you replaced Murray with a player that is on a similar contract (a more realistic hypothetical), then Jokic would very likely be contending. The Nuggets would use that cap space on something. For reference, De’Aaron Fox is making slightly less money than Murray this year. Of course, in the absence of Murray, the Nuggets might’ve used that cap space badly and not improved the team. In that case, Jokic would very likely not contend. On the flip side, though, perhaps they use that cap space pretty well and get a comparable player who wouldn’t have been injured in 2021 and 2022, and in that case Jokic might already have an extra title (though I’m a little skeptical given the roster as a whole in those years). In general, in light of the fact that Murray is on a max contract and has missed half the playoffs in Jokic’s peak years, I don’t think anyone could really say Jokic has been lucky with his second-option.

[Capn'O]

What if the Nuggets removed a $35 million dollar player and didn’t replace him? Would Jokic still win? If not, he’s a fraud!

What if any other all time great was playing with a bunch of random dudes off the street? Would they still have the clutch gene?

So many great questions to think about.

What if prime Fennis Dembo was Jokic's best teammate?
What if instead of middle fingers Jokic had cooked hot dogs that wouldn't break?
How long could LeBron play if he were allowed to used robotic prosthetics?
What if Rui Hachimura could make himself invisible for three seconds at a time but would lose all ability to jump for three minutes afterwards?

And last but not least, what if instead of Jamal Murray, Jokic played with a distributing point guard who could have threaded the needle to give him a wide open dunk at the end?

[Godymas]

Jamal Murray continues to be underrated

Jokic would never win a ring without Jamal Murray and the only guy that I would call a clear upgrade to play with Jokic ahead of Murray would be Steph Curry

HOWEVER, a player at Dame or Kyrie's level could be a serviceable replacement, but they would NOT be an upgrade.

[Up-And-Coming]

Jokic is great.

Jamal Murray is underrated.

Michael Porter Jr also just had an underrated series in the midst of outside distractions/hardships.

[Jadoogar]

what is the point of this hypothetical? If Murray didn't exist or if it was a clear he was a bust early in his career, i'm assuming the Nuggets make some move acquire a second star. Does it work? is the new player as good as murray? who knows but i highly doubt that Murray just disappears and the Nuggets do nothing to address that.

These hypothetical questions are really stupid because there is no way make a rational argument either way.

[p0peye]

Removing Murray means that you need someone else under that max contract and most probably - that is an All Star, no? I will go out on a limb and assume that player also does not miss 2 consecutive years for injury, it is not a ridiculous expectation. If so, than Jokić probably already would have multiple championships.

[Special_Puppy]

Depends on what they do with the cap space. Unlike someone like Pippen, Murray is way more replaceable as a number 2.

[MarcusBrody]

I love Murray, but don't really think he's underrated. I think people acknowledge that he's a very good player who seems to put up his best performances when it matters most. That's really valuable.

But he also isn't a driving force of a guaranteed offense. He blows hot and cold. He isn't at the level of the very top guards at running an offense (he's not bad, just not absolute top level), which is why the Nuggets have never been quite as successful staggering Jokic/Murray as you'd expect.

Murray had two great shots to cap off strong spurts and win games. That was awesome and as a Nuggets fan, I was appreciative. But I'm a bit amused by these threads popping up now as he wasn't even good for most of this series. He shot 40% from the field and 29% from 3 while taking a 24 shots a game. He scored less points per game than he took shots. People will remember the heroics (and they should), but as someone mentioned earlier in the thread, if Murray had played even at solid starter level for a couple of the first parts of these games, they wouldn't have needed the heroics.

To me, Michael Porter Jr. is the underrated one from this series. He was the one hitting shots when everyone else (save Jokic) was cold. A lot of those shots were in clutch situations - either late or just to stop runs and the game getting out of hand. He also rebounded very well. Just a solid series from the guy and it has been acknowledged, but it seems a distant third after Murray's heroics and Jokic's general greatness.

[Ice Man]

What a strange thread. Nobody would win a title with a team that consisted of MPJ, Aaron Gordon, and role players. Jokic would be great, but his team would lose in the playoffs. End of story.

[p0peye]

What a strange thread. Nobody would win a title with a team that consisted of MPJ, Aaron Gordon, and role players. Jokic would be great, but his team would lose in the playoffs. End of story.

I don't think is possible for Nuggets to remove Murray and his contract without bringing another max guy in his place. There is salary floor, no?

[Tor_Raps]

Dear God... jokic has already never played with an allstar, all nba, all defensive player and you sickos want to take off the best player on their team?

Might as well name the thread "Is Jokic good enough to win with players from RealGM?"

[TwitterFingers]

This trade seeks to say jokic has had a exorbitant amount talent to play with, when in reality Jokic hasn’t had a great supporting cast. This dude does more with less.

[kazyv]

You already saw what Jokic looked like without Murray. Back to back years of getting swept.

Murray would also be a homeless man’s Dame Lilliard without Jokic.

They need each other.

they do need each other, but last i checked, while he did get swept in 2021 with a bunch of hobos on his team that were never again seen in the nba, in 2022 nuggets lost 1-4 to the eventual champions golden state warriors. not exactly getting swept by some random team

[Zeno]

Dear God... jokic has already never played with an allstar, all nba, all defensive player and you sickos want to take the best player on their team?

Might as well name the thread "Is Jokic good enough to win with players from RealGM?"

If they held an open try-out of realgmers...maybe a few played organized ball in college...I think they make the play-in...in the east.

[Tor_Raps]

Dear God... jokic has already never played with an allstar, all nba, all defensive player and you sickos want to take the best player on their team?

Might as well name the thread "Is Jokic good enough to win with players from RealGM?"

If they held an open try-out of realgmers...maybe a few played organized ball in college...I think they make the play-in...in the east.

If that's all it takes then I'd be qualified... I'm guessing there could be some guys who played pro somewhere in Europe lol.

I just mentioned this to show how ridiculous the topic is. Lebrons got AD and people want him to "get more help" while Jokic has Murray and that's too much loll.