Jokic is not the best in the world, and has been heavily overrated

[dhsilv2]

MPJ and Murray are elite shooters, Bosh and Wade are not...

Murray is a career 38% 3 point shooter who's known for how streaky he can be...And he's shooting 28.6% in these playoffs. And Wade was a great defender...

Murray is a 40% guy from 3 the past three seasons. MPJ?

He's only played 2 of the last 3 seasons and barely played over half the games in the 2 seasons he's played...

And I didn't reference MPJ because yes, he's an elite shooter. It's nearly his only NBA skill behind height.

[dhsilv2]

Wouldn't say its terrible, but there are easily 10+ supporting casts in the league that are better. They have no bench. Nobody else who has ever made an All-Star, All-NBA, or All-Defense team. The common retort is that Murray plays like an All-NBA level player in the playoffs but he's been absolutely horrific so far.

Can you name the 10 better supporting casts?

off the top I have:

Boston
Minny
OKC


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

Clippers - Kawhi
Cavs - Mitchell
Pacers - Haliburton
Suns - Durant
Pelicans - Zion
Bucks - Giannis
Grizzlies - Ja

Suns? WHAT? You get booker...great. But that team can't guard anyone and you're stuck with Beal...

[Ito]

No Murray has

[dhsilv2]

- Murray and Porter are extremely streaky shooter
- Wade and Bosh were both better defensive players in comparison to Murray and Porter
- even though Murray and Porter are better 3 point shooters in comparison to Bosh and Wade, Bosh and Wade were much better two way players

LeBron won with Kyrie and Kevin Love, he can certainly win a CHIP with Murray and MPJ especially when you look at how LeBron has performed in the playoffs WITHOUT HELP!

Denver has a great starting 5 but their bench is horrendous. The bench for the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers was much much better in comparison this years Denver Nuggers bench. If you want to compare them im all for it….it takes at least a 9 or 10 man rotation to make it through an 82 game season with playoffs

There are very few fans, even here, who can understand the difference in a good reserve, bad reserve, and horrendous one...and actually contextualize how much that can help or hurt a team. The reality that there are reserves that per minute hurt their teams as much as an allstar can help is simply beyond a lot of people's capacity because they feel games are won and lost by the star players exclusively because that's how ESPN discusses it.

[dhsilv2]

Scrubs that played defense*

That’s a really enormous caveat that really makes them not be reasonably classified as scrubs.

disagree. They were scrubs offensively and none of them were elite defenders. While Lebron wasn’t at the peak of his defensive abilities, his peak was a few votes away from being DPOY. You replace James, a two way player, with Jokic, a defensive liability, and that team defense suffers accordingly.

This is such a horribly dishonest take. You don't build the same team around Lebron as you do Jokic or vice versa. That said Side Show Bob and Jokic would be an awesome defensive combo.

[dhsilv2]

disagree. They were scrubs offensively and none of them were elite defenders. While Lebron wasn’t at the peak of his defensive abilities, his peak was a few votes away from being DPOY. You replace James, a two way player, with Jokic, a defensive liability, and that team defense suffers accordingly.

This is silly. If the team had an historically elite defense (which they did), then they were not scrubs. You can say they didn’t have elite defenders (though they actually did, including having the player who was 7th in DRAPM that year, and it wasn’t LeBron), but defense is a team effort and the team as a whole defended masterfully that year. A team of players that defends masterfully are not scrubs.

Meanwhile, it is true that LeBron was close to winning DPOY in his defensive peak years, but in the 2006-2007 season that we are actually talking about, LeBron didn’t get a single vote whatsoever for all-defensive teams and was 51st in DRAPM (behind multiple Cleveland teammates). He was also 49th in D-EPM that year. He was a good defender, but nothing super special. And, of course, that 2006-2007 Cavaliers team had the best regular season defense and best playoff defense of any team LeBron ever played for, including teams he was on in years when he was a much better defender. And this is because the team around him was incredible defensively. And it was that incredible defense that carried the team.

How is DRAPM and D-EPM calculated?

Why do people keep asking this? It's a fairly simple formula that you can get off a quick google. It can't be calculated...by any reasonable measure....by hand because it's literally look at every play and all 10 players and looking to see the impact of those 10 players and find the best fit for the individual contributions...

[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

[JackZZ]

Jokic is a facilitator in the team. What do people expect when he is going up against 3 healthy very good defensive big men, in which one them is an elite 4xDPOY?
When Jokic is neutralized, the rest of his teammate collapse like a house of cards.
Murray is more of a scoring PG than true playmaker tbh and clearly carrying injury.
To top that Ant-Man, the rising superstar, is tearing Nuggets up.

This Twolves is a bad matchup for Nuggets ... it happens in basketball. And no, Jokic is not overrated.

[LordCovington33]

Jokic is a facilitator in the team. What do people expect when he is going up against 3 healthy very good defensive big men, in which one them is an elite 4xDPOY?

That must have been the reason for their loss in Game 2.

[JackZZ]

Jokic is a facilitator in the team. What do people expect when he is going up against 3 healthy very good defensive big men, in which one them is an elite 4xDPOY?

That must have been the reason for their loss in Game 2.

Yah, i know he wasn't there but ... cmon, the other 2 still did great job. I think people is having some sort of unreasonable expectation from Jokic. Dude is no Shaq, physique wise. TWolves have bodies to throw at him ... n they are clearly prepared for this.

[SelfishPlayer]

Yea that move getting Westbrook made him the goat of player GMs…..funny cause when that move was made nobody outside of James, Davis, and Westbrook thought it would work lol - nice job pal

I think of the Bosh, AD, and Love moves the most...

Oh yea, when he teamed up with other all star players? So courageous i mean having the strength and fortitude to do that is truly amazing….its so much more efficient to just pick your all star teammates like your playing a pick up game lol

He graduated to GM.

[SelfishPlayer]

- Murray and Porter are extremely streaky shooter
- Wade and Bosh were both better defensive players in comparison to Murray and Porter
- even though Murray and Porter are better 3 point shooters in comparison to Bosh and Wade, Bosh and Wade were much better two way players

LeBron won with Kyrie and Kevin Love, he can certainly win a CHIP with Murray and MPJ especially when you look at how LeBron has performed in the playoffs WITHOUT HELP!

Wait, let get me this straight just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding you. You're comparing Murray and MPJ to Kyrie and Love? In what realm should Murray or MPJ be mentioned in the same breath as Love or Irving? I understand neither Love or Irving's teams did much when they were the best player but Murray and MPJ aren't close to their talent in my opinion.

LeBron went to the Finals WITHOUT those guys.

[Johnny Firpo]

The truth is that they are fouling the crap out of Joker. He was fouled on at least 40% of his misses this series. Just look at the clips, it's the Dwight "defense" all over again. Now, with that said, Denver's complete inability to adjust to this and their mental fortitude has been undeniably crap, but let's not pretend that the mid-season change how they ref the games which was initiated by Dumars, and then the referees taking that directive to another level in the playoffs have nothing to do with what we see. The Wolves are built for this type of refereeing, and tell you something OKC and Celtics fans, if you are not on board with this opinion yet, just wait until the T-Wolves annihilates your team too. Because if this is a constant for the remainder of the playoffs, ain't nobody beating that team.

Teams, other than theirs, literally weren't build for that. It's not as easy as "oh, they are allowing both teams to be extremely physical, meaning, fouling at every turn". The Wolves are perfectly built for this, other teams are NOT. I personally don't mind it that much, because a new winner is always good for the game, and the parity is great, but it's all about what they are allowed to do. I also want to say one thing, if the refereeing changes for the finals for example, against the Celtics, then it's going to be the Wolves fans who will be extremely disappointed, and I would hate to see it happen. If the refs allow this, then they might as well allow it all the way until the last buzzer this year.

[Johnny Firpo]

LeBron won with Kyrie and Kevin Love, he can certainly win a CHIP with Murray and MPJ especially when you look at how LeBron has performed in the playoffs WITHOUT HELP!

Wait, let get me this straight just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding you. You're comparing Murray and MPJ to Kyrie and Love? In what realm should Murray or MPJ be mentioned in the same breath as Love or Irving? I understand neither Love or Irving's teams did much when they were the best player but Murray and MPJ aren't close to their talent in my opinion.

LeBron went to the Finals WITHOUT those guys.

In what East? Do you think the Nuggets wouldn't make the finals against those opponents? Come on now.

[mcmurphy]

LeBron won with Kyrie and Kevin Love, he can certainly win a CHIP with Murray and MPJ especially when you look at how LeBron has performed in the playoffs WITHOUT HELP!

Wait, let get me this straight just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding you. You're comparing Murray and MPJ to Kyrie and Love? In what realm should Murray or MPJ be mentioned in the same breath as Love or Irving? I understand neither Love or Irving's teams did much when they were the best player but Murray and MPJ aren't close to their talent in my opinion.

LeBron went to the Finals WITHOUT those guys.

c'mon it must be a joke... are you talking about the 2007 Finals?
When Lebron finish second in the East Conference with 50 wins?

When if he had been in the West Conference he would have certainly won fewer games and would have finished at least behind

Dallas 67
Phoenix 61
SAS 58
Houston 52
Utah 51

as #6 should have faced SAS in the first round and we know the sweep in the Finals.

[SelfishPlayer]

Wait, let get me this straight just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding you. You're comparing Murray and MPJ to Kyrie and Love? In what realm should Murray or MPJ be mentioned in the same breath as Love or Irving? I understand neither Love or Irving's teams did much when they were the best player but Murray and MPJ aren't close to their talent in my opinion.

LeBron went to the Finals WITHOUT those guys.

In what East? Do you think the Nuggets wouldn't make the finals against those opponents? Come on now.

LeBron vs Nuggets, not the same thing. LeBron at one point was an entire organization. Adding two snipers in Murray and MPJ would be a CHIP. No Gordon, no KCP...

[SelfishPlayer]

Wait, let get me this straight just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding you. You're comparing Murray and MPJ to Kyrie and Love? In what realm should Murray or MPJ be mentioned in the same breath as Love or Irving? I understand neither Love or Irving's teams did much when they were the best player but Murray and MPJ aren't close to their talent in my opinion.

LeBron went to the Finals WITHOUT those guys.

c'mon it must be a joke... are you talking about the 2007 Finals?
When Lebron finish second in the East Conference with 50 wins?

When if he had been in the West Conference he would have certainly won fewer games and would have finished at least behind

Dallas 67
Phoenix 61
SAS 58
Houston 52
Utah 51

as #6 should have faced SAS in the first round and we know the sweep in the Finals.

He went to the Finals by himself, facts. He almost won Finals MVP by himself in a loss to the Warriors.

[mcmurphy]

LeBron went to the Finals WITHOUT those guys.

c'mon it must be a joke... are you talking about the 2007 Finals?
When Lebron finish second in the East Conference with 50 wins?

When if he had been in the West Conference he would have certainly won fewer games and would have finished at least behind

Dallas 67
Phoenix 61
SAS 58
Houston 52
Utah 51

as #6 should have faced SAS in the first round and we know the sweep in the Finals.

He went to the Finals by himself, facts. He almost won Finals MVP by himself in a loss to the Warriors.

Facts are that in 6 seasons in the West:

#2 playoff missed
#2 losses 1st round
#1 loss WCF
#1 bubble gum

[Roger Murdock]

Can you name the 10 better supporting casts?

off the top I have:

Boston
Minny
OKC


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

Clippers - Kawhi
Cavs - Mitchell
Pacers - Haliburton
Suns - Durant
Pelicans - Zion
Bucks - Giannis
Grizzlies - Ja

Suns? WHAT? You get booker...great. But that team can't guard anyone and you're stuck with Beal...

Booker is considerably better than Murray. Yes Beals contract is absurd and I wouldn’t want him in my team because of it but he’s a good player, closer to Murray in talent than Murray is to Booker certainly. After that both rosters fallout hard, I’d value Allen and KCP about equal. Both bench’s suck. It comes down to how much you value Gordon’s advantage as the third best support piece to Bookers as the best overall player

[dhsilv2]

Clippers - Kawhi
Cavs - Mitchell
Pacers - Haliburton
Suns - Durant
Pelicans - Zion
Bucks - Giannis
Grizzlies - Ja

Suns? WHAT? You get booker...great. But that team can't guard anyone and you're stuck with Beal...

Booker is considerably better than Murray. Yes Beals contract is absurd and I wouldn’t want him in my team because of it but he’s a good player, closer to Murray in talent than Murray is to Booker certainly. After that both rosters fallout hard, I’d value Allen and KCP about equal. Both bench’s suck. It comes down to how much you value Gordon’s advantage as the third best support piece to Bookers as the best overall player

I'll take Porter and Gordon over Beal. The problem with Beal is his best skill isn't useful for a 3rd or 4th best player on a roster and he isn't really even good enough to run a second unit in such as way he's a net plus. And while Murray's defense is poor, Beal's just flat out bad. Beal isn't a bad contract. He's a bad player.