Jokic and the Bill Simmons Pyramid

[NZB2323]

I'd be fine with Jokic at 15.

I'd certainly have Dwayne Wade over Isiah Thomas.

Championships
Wade 3
Thomas 2

All-NBA teams
Wade 7
Thomas 5

All defensive teams
Wade 3
Thomas 0

PER
Wade 23.5
Thomas 18.1

VORP
Wade 62.8
Thomas 41.59

WS
Wade 120.7
Thomas 80.7

Playoff PER
Wade 22.4
Thomas 19.8

Playoff VORP
Wade 12.3
Thomas 8.5

Playoff WS
Wade 21.6
Thomas 12.5

And if we compare playoff runs when they won Finals MVP it isn't very close
Wade 28, 6, and 6, 59.3 TS%, 26.9 PER
Thomas 21, 8, and 6, 56 TS%, 21 PER

Wade was considered the best player in the world after the 2006 Finals. Thomas was never considered the best player in the world. Wade finished top 3 in MVP voting in 2009, something Thomas never did. Wade was top 10 in MVP voting 7 times; Isiah Thomas was top 10 in MVP voting 4 times.

I'd also have Hakeem and Shaq ahead of West and Oscar. And I'd have Ewing over Pippen.

I know Pippen has more championships, but Pippen got to play with Jordan(And Rodman or Horace Grant), and Ewing got to play with John Starks. And we saw what happened when they met and Pippen didn't have Jordan.

GmSc isn't a perfect stat, but it shows that Ewing was clearly better than Pippen in the 1994 series, and he got less help.

Ewing: 18.7
Pippen: 15.6
Grant: 16.2
Armstrong: 12.7
Oakley: 12.1
Starks: 9.8

And that doesn't even take into account Kukoc hitting the game-winning shot while Pippen refused to go into the game.

And I'd have Kareem over Russell.

Excellent write up and I am with you on everything.

Wade > Isaiah
Hakeem, Shaq > Oscar, West
Kareem > Russell
Ewing > Pippen


Isaiah was a bad dude but yeah Wade is better.

I know that the pyramid may be more about careers than talent, but talent matters.

Simmons is a Boston homer so that explains Russell. Even though Bill is of course a great player. But Kareem was a great two way player, at least early in his career.

I didn't see West or Oscar play and I have huge respect for them. But Peak Hakeem and MDE Shaq were two of the most dominant two way forces in league history. If Simmons wants to argue careers there, ok. Maybe.

Ewing without a doubt was a better player than Pippen. Sure one could argue for Pippen 's career but he played with MJ and Ewing didn't.

How on earth is Wade better than Isiah Thomas? What planet you on?

Thomas was the best player on a back-to-back title team and had to play against Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan in his prime.

In fact, Thomas owned Jordan until 1991.

Wade was never the best player on a title team.


Think like this. Who was the last team to beat the Jordan Bulls in a playoff series?

Pistons tortured them in 88,89,90.

Jordan won 91, 92, 93 took 1 3/4 years off and lost when he came back.

But once Jordan reconstituted the Bulls again, they went and won 3 straight after.

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I don’t understand why Isiah Thomas gets credit for beating Bird, Magic, and Jordan when it was a team effort and he never outplayed those guys in a playoff series, but then Chauncey Billups doesn’t get credit for beating LeBron, Kobe, Shaq, and Dirk.

I think Isiah Thomas is closer to Chauncey Billups than he is to Dwayne Wade.

1989 playoff stats
Thomas: 18, 8, and 4, 48.1 TS%, 18.6 PER
Magic: 18, 12, and 6, 60.9 TS%, 23.4 PER
Jordan: 35, 8, and 7, 60.2 TS%, 29.9 PER

[brutalitops]

I only want to bring up the all star argument, because I think that one has some flaws

Why is this the be all end all of help? If you have a great team, but technically not an all star, are you playing with bums? Mo Williams was an injury replacement all star

Yeah but never seen Jamal Murray score 52 in a game unlike Mo Williams

Checkmate atheists.


But your correct. Mo Williams crawled in on the back of Lebron dominating. I think Murray has always been injured at the wrong times and I think KCP has been a little unlucky not to pick up an all defense selection, same as Aaron Gordon, and was mighty close to an all star pick as well.

No slight on Jokic however. He earned Bruce Brown about 10m extra per year on his latest contract, plus I don't think MPJ and even Aaron Gordon are 75% of the players they are without Jokic being such an amazing player from the high post

[TravisScott55]

Tell Denver to put a better team around him.

[HotRocks34]

Tell Denver to put a better team around him.

Big wakeup call for Booth.

That's a good thing.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

Hijacking the thread a bit, but in regards to the Murray discussion….. would you rather have Murray or any of Giannis teammates at the time? Feel Jrue and Midds were only all star due to 2nd best player on a 1-seed. I don’t know how to feel about last year version of Dame.

The Bucks went 2-0 in the ECF without Giannis. Can you imagine the Nuggets going 2-0 in 2 playoff games without Jokic?

It was against the hawks and trae was out 1 game and injured with 4/17 the next.

[NZB2323]

Hijacking the thread a bit, but in regards to the Murray discussion….. would you rather have Murray or any of Giannis teammates at the time? Feel Jrue and Midds were only all star due to 2nd best player on a 1-seed. I don’t know how to feel about last year version of Dame.

The Bucks went 2-0 in the ECF without Giannis. Can you imagine the Nuggets going 2-0 in 2 playoff games without Jokic?

It was against the hawks and trae was out 1 game and injured with 4/17 the next.

A big reason why he went 4-17 in that game is because of Jrue Holiday’s defense. Murray isn’t anywhere close to the defensive player Jrue is.

[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

The Bucks went 2-0 in the ECF without Giannis. Can you imagine the Nuggets going 2-0 in 2 playoff games without Jokic?

It was against the hawks and trae was out 1 game and injured with 4/17 the next.

A big reason why he went 4-17 in that game is because of Jrue Holiday’s defense. Murray isn’t anywhere close to the defensive player Jrue is.

Cool, Jrue isn't anywhere close to the offensive player Murray is....I think it's close but I would rather have Murray. But I may be biased by some god awful shooting performances by Jrue when we needed him most.

[hardenASG13]

I thought this was an interesting piece, regarding how many series wins some all time greats have against 50 and 60 win teams. It's what I've been trying to say about Jokic/last year when I see threads saying he's having a GOAT peak or on some of these guys levels. I know guys on this list generally had better teammates, but if Jokic were to come back and win this series vs. Minnesota it'd be his first series win vs. a 50 win team. He's 29 years old.

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

[Bergmaniac]

Excellent write up and I am with you on everything.

Wade > Isaiah
Hakeem, Shaq > Oscar, West
Kareem > Russell
Ewing > Pippen


Isaiah was a bad dude but yeah Wade is better.

I know that the pyramid may be more about careers than talent, but talent matters.

Simmons is a Boston homer so that explains Russell. Even though Bill is of course a great player. But Kareem was a great two way player, at least early in his career.

I didn't see West or Oscar play and I have huge respect for them. But Peak Hakeem and MDE Shaq were two of the most dominant two way forces in league history. If Simmons wants to argue careers there, ok. Maybe.

Ewing without a doubt was a better player than Pippen. Sure one could argue for Pippen 's career but he played with MJ and Ewing didn't.

How on earth is Wade better than Isiah Thomas? What planet you on?

Thomas was the best player on a back-to-back title team and had to play against Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan in his prime.

In fact, Thomas owned Jordan until 1991.

Wade was never the best player on a title team.


Think like this. Who was the last team to beat the Jordan Bulls in a playoff series?

Pistons tortured them in 88,89,90.

Jordan won 91, 92, 93 took 1 3/4 years off and lost when he came back.

But once Jordan reconstituted the Bulls again, they went and won 3 straight after.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I don’t understand why Isiah Thomas gets credit for beating Bird, Magic, and Jordan when it was a team effort and he never outplayed those guys in a playoff series, but then Chauncey Billups doesn’t get credit for beating LeBron, Kobe, Shaq, and Dirk.

I think Isiah Thomas is closer to Chauncey Billups than he is to Dwayne Wade.

1989 playoff stats
Thomas: 18, 8, and 4, 48.1 TS%, 18.6 PER
Magic: 18, 12, and 6, 60.9 TS%, 23.4 PER
Jordan: 35, 8, and 7, 60.2 TS%, 29.9 PER

Exactly.

Also, the only time Isiah's Pistons beat the Lakers in the playoffs Magic missed most of the series due to an injury. So saying that Isiah beat Magic is pretty misleading.

Isiah didn't own Jordan, he just had a much better supporting cast. In the first three Pistons wins of the 1990 series against the Bulls Isiah ended up with 8, 10 and 7 points respectively and shot a combined 8/31 from the field with only 8 FT attempts in total (in 2 of the games he shot 0 FTs). And it's not like he was racking a huge number of assists - he had 6,7 and 10 respectively with a lot of turnovers (5,3 and 4 respectively). The Pistons still won by 9+ points in each of these games. Yes, Isiah played a lot better in the other games of the series, but what other star of a title team had the luxury of 3 awful games in one series against their toughest opponents that season and still winning all of them comfortably?

[HotRocks34]

With MVP 3 it'll be interesting to hear Simmons' thoughts.