2023-24 NBA Season Discussion

[Texas Chuck]

Evsn if Jokic is kinda getting 95 Robinson'd.

The Jokic standards are approaching Lebron levels. Where you have to make every shot and win every game or you are trash. What are we even doing?

Has he played the best two games of his career? No. Has he been terrible like everyone wants to hot take? Not even close. Sometimes the other team is just really good and plays really well too.

Much like Robinson actually got the best of Dream over their careers but this board used to insist otherwise based on one series before I actually did the research and it showed how clear the advantage was to Robinson. But narratives take hold and very few people are willing to change their mind.

We have posters on this board calling into question his MVP's because of 2 games. I know that's not you, but this burying of Jokic isn't for me. Still the best player in the world.

[Ron Swanson]

Way too many people using this series as an excuse to dump on Jokic and not enough people appreciating what Ant Man is doing. This is 2001 Kobe/2007 Lebron stuff we're witnessing from him. Absolute all-time Age-22 playoff run in the making.

[Special_Puppy]

Way too many people using this series as an excuse to dump on Jokic and not enough people appreciating what Ant Man is doing. This is 2001 Kobe/2007 Lebron stuff we're witnessing from him. Absolute all-time Age-22 playoff run in the making.

He's literally been playing at a BITW caliber the past 6 games. Unreal

[AEnigma]

Evsn if Jokic is kinda getting 95 Robinson'd.

The Jokic standards are approaching Lebron levels. Where you have to make every shot and win every game or you are trash. What are we even doing?

Are we describing what has been happening as Jokic merely failing to win and failing to make every shot? Or is the observation more to do with bad and exploitable defence and a potential tendency to offensive passivity, both of which have been discussed long before this exact moment?

Has he played the best two games of his career? No. Has he been terrible like everyone wants to hot take? Not even close. Sometimes the other team is just really good and plays really well too.

Much like Robinson actually got the best of Dream over their careers but this board used to insist otherwise based on one series before I actually did the research and it showed how clear the advantage was to Robinson. But narratives take hold and very few people are willing to change their mind.

So back to gesturing at a perceived regular season advantage being more meaningful than what happens in the postseason?

Jokic’s regular season impact has rarely translated to the postseason. That gets hidden behind small samples and extenuating circumstances, but the more that sample increases, and the more people want to argue that the strong performances of support players like Jamal Murray actually do not matter, then the more valid it becomes for us to look at a player who had been an on-court negative (in a literal plus/minus sense) for nearly half of his career series (6-8).

We have posters on this board calling into question his MVP's because of 2 games. I know that's not you, but this burying of Jokic isn't for me. Still the best player in the world.

He might be, but in the playoffs it is a substantially smaller gap than has been portrayed, and much of the advantage is built around Jokic being a durable player — which is good, to be clear, but is the same sort of approach that will get people to grumble when you call Tatum a better postseason player than Kawhi because the latter can almost never hold up through two rounds.

[Special_Puppy]

Evsn if Jokic is kinda getting 95 Robinson'd.

The Jokic standards are approaching Lebron levels. Where you have to make every shot and win every game or you are trash. What are we even doing?

Are we describing what has been happening as Jokic merely failing to win and failing to make every shot? Or is the observation more to do with bad and exploitable defence and a potential tendency to offensive passivity, both of which have been discussed long before this exact moment?

Has he played the best two games of his career? No. Has he been terrible like everyone wants to hot take? Not even close. Sometimes the other team is just really good and plays really well too.

Much like Robinson actually got the best of Dream over their careers but this board used to insist otherwise based on one series before I actually did the research and it showed how clear the advantage was to Robinson. But narratives take hold and very few people are willing to change their mind.

So back to gesturing at a perceived regular season advantage being more meaningful than what happens in the postseason?

Jokic’s regular season impact has rarely translated to the postseason. That gets hidden behind small samples and extenuating circumstances, but the more that sample increases, and the more people want to argue that the strong performance of support players like Jamal Murray actually do not matter, then the more valid it becomes for us to look at a player who had been an on-court negative (in a literal plus/minus sense) for nearly half of his career series (6-8).

We have posters on this board calling into question his MVP's because of 2 games. I know that's not you, but this burying of Jokic isn't for me. Still the best player in the world.

He might be, but in the playoffs it is a substantially smaller gap than has been portrayed, and much of the advantage is built around Jokic being a durable player — which is good, to be clear, but is the same sort of approach that will get people to grumble when you call Tatum a better postseason player than Kawhi because the latter can almost never hold up through two rounds.

First off, the bad and exploitable defense is not true. The Long and medium term RAPM data pretty conclusively rules that out. Second off I don’t why everyone know that single season RAPM is extremely noisy and essentially useless, but then goes around citing playoff on/off data that might not even the size of a full season (and in which the time a player sits is way smaller than a typical season).

Long Term RAPM: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WMfP-GVHXCjPfp2sMnBjWB301OtO3LO7n-EKoBSl-iQ/edit

Medium Term RAPM: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mhwOLqPu2F9026EQiVxFPIN1t9RGafGpl-dokaIsm9c/edit

[AEnigma]

The Jokic standards are approaching Lebron levels. Where you have to make every shot and win every game or you are trash. What are we even doing?

Are we describing what has been happening as Jokic merely failing to win and failing to make every shot? Or is the observation more to do with bad and exploitable defence and a potential tendency to offensive passivity, both of which have been discussed long before this exact moment?

Has he played the best two games of his career? No. Has he been terrible like everyone wants to hot take? Not even close. Sometimes the other team is just really good and plays really well too.

Much like Robinson actually got the best of Dream over their careers but this board used to insist otherwise based on one series before I actually did the research and it showed how clear the advantage was to Robinson. But narratives take hold and very few people are willing to change their mind.

So back to gesturing at a perceived regular season advantage being more meaningful than what happens in the postseason?

Jokic’s regular season impact has rarely translated to the postseason. That gets hidden behind small samples and extenuating circumstances, but the more that sample increases, and the more people want to argue that the strong performance of support players like Jamal Murray actually do not matter, then the more valid it becomes for us to look at a player who had been an on-court negative (in a literal plus/minus sense) for nearly half of his career series (6-8).

We have posters on this board calling into question his MVP's because of 2 games. I know that's not you, but this burying of Jokic isn't for me. Still the best player in the world.

He might be, but in the playoffs it is a substantially smaller gap than has been portrayed, and much of the advantage is built around Jokic being a durable player — which is good, to be clear, but is the same sort of approach that will get people to grumble when you call Tatum a better postseason player than Kawhi because the latter can almost never hold up through two rounds.

First off, the bad and exploitable defense is not true. The Long and medium term RAPM data pretty conclusively rules that out. Second off I don’t why everyone know that single season RAPM is extremely noisy and essentially useless, but then goes around citing playoff on/off data that might not even the size of a full season (and in which the time a player sits is way smaller than a typical season).

Long Term RAPM: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WMfP-GVHXCjPfp2sMnBjWB301OtO3LO7n-EKoBSl-iQ/edit

Medium Term RAPM: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mhwOLqPu2F9026EQiVxFPIN1t9RGafGpl-dokaIsm9c/edit

Please watch these games and tell me the Lakers and Wolves have not been aggressively, and more importantly, successfully going at him. Basketball is not played on a regular season spreadsheet.

That long-term spreadsheet gives him the same DRAPM value as Anthony Davis. Does that track with what you see? Please be serious.

[EmpireFalls]

Way too many people using this series as an excuse to dump on Jokic and not enough people appreciating what Ant Man is doing. This is 2001 Kobe/2007 Lebron stuff we're witnessing from him. Absolute all-time Age-22 playoff run in the making.

Meanwhile, I’m over here in absolute awe of KAT’s play and thinking back to 2015 and 2016 when I thought he’d be new age Dirk and eventually dominate the league…

4.8 (5th in playoffs) playoff EPM, 21-8-2 on 70% TS, yes 70%, scorching 53% from 3, elite man defense on Jokic in only 29.8 minutes

What he’s doing when he’s locked in on court is like if you mixed Rasheed Wallace with Lauri Markkanen, it’s unbelievable. He is opening up everything for Minnesota offensively too with his shooting threat and gravity. Their offense is a cheat code when he’s in.

y’all can carry on with the Jokic and Ant stuff, I think KAT is clearly bringing more value to the table than any non Jokic big man in the playoffs.

[parsnips33]

Way too many people using this series as an excuse to dump on Jokic and not enough people appreciating what Ant Man is doing. This is 2001 Kobe/2007 Lebron stuff we're witnessing from him. Absolute all-time Age-22 playoff run in the making.

Meanwhile, I’m over here in absolute awe of KAT’s play and thinking back to 2015 and 2016 when I thought he’d be new age Dirk and eventually dominate the league…

4.8 (5th in playoffs) playoff EPM, 21-8-2 on 70% TS, yes 70%, scorching 53% from 3, elite man defense on Jokic in only 29.8 minutes

What he’s doing when he’s locked in on court is like if you mixed Rasheed Wallace with Lauri Markkanen, it’s unbelievable. He is opening up everything for Minnesota offensively too with his shooting threat and gravity. Their offense is a cheat code when he’s in.

y’all can carry on with the Jokic and Ant stuff, I think KAT is clearly bringing more value to the table than any non Jokic big man in the playoffs.

It's not just the shooting for me - he's been very effective putting the ball on the floor from what I've seen. Kind of herky-jerky, not as smooth looking as a KD or Markkanen, but getting the job done

[Ron Swanson]

I'll defend Jokic but at the same time this "he's not an exploitable defender" stuff needs to stop. Anyone who's watched him every playoffs can see plain as day that it's still a consistent issue. Denver has done a great job of surrounding him with enough defensive supporting guys to where it's less of a liability, but you can't just keep ignoring his physical limitations and the postseason defensive impact signals. When your team is consistently -3 to -10 points per-100 worse defensively with you on the court over a continuous 5-year sample, sorry, you're an exploitable playoff defender. We don't need to push back every time someone correctly points this out. He's not a perfect basketball player with zero weaknesses.

[Special_Puppy]

Are we describing what has been happening as Jokic merely failing to win and failing to make every shot? Or is the observation more to do with bad and exploitable defence and a potential tendency to offensive passivity, both of which have been discussed long before this exact moment?


So back to gesturing at a perceived regular season advantage being more meaningful than what happens in the postseason?

Jokic’s regular season impact has rarely translated to the postseason. That gets hidden behind small samples and extenuating circumstances, but the more that sample increases, and the more people want to argue that the strong performance of support players like Jamal Murray actually do not matter, then the more valid it becomes for us to look at a player who had been an on-court negative (in a literal plus/minus sense) for nearly half of his career series (6-8).


He might be, but in the playoffs it is a substantially smaller gap than has been portrayed, and much of the advantage is built around Jokic being a durable player — which is good, to be clear, but is the same sort of approach that will get people to grumble when you call Tatum a better postseason player than Kawhi because the latter can almost never hold up through two rounds.

First off, the bad and exploitable defense is not true. The Long and medium term RAPM data pretty conclusively rules that out. Second off I don’t why everyone know that single season RAPM is extremely noisy and essentially useless, but then goes around citing playoff on/off data that might not even the size of a full season (and in which the time a player sits is way smaller than a typical season).

Long Term RAPM: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WMfP-GVHXCjPfp2sMnBjWB301OtO3LO7n-EKoBSl-iQ/edit

Medium Term RAPM: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mhwOLqPu2F9026EQiVxFPIN1t9RGafGpl-dokaIsm9c/edit

Please watch these games and tell me the Lakers and Wolves have not been aggressively, and more importantly, successfully going at him. Basketball is not played on a regular season spreadsheet.

That long-term spreadsheet gives him the same DRAPM value as Anthony Davis. Does that track with what you see? Please be serious.

Long Term RAPM can be weird, but the medium term RAPM says the exact same thing (except it gives much more sensible values for AD). As for these past 6 games, we know the Nuggets have had a relatively poor defense but we need to break down how much of that was due to Jokic vs his supporting cast. This is very hard to do in the playoffs because you can't use RAPM so you have to either use the eye test (which you need a highly trained and unbiased eye for) and or advanced stats (which are almost entirely relying on their tracking data and box score prior due to the tiny sample size). And even if he was a poor defender for these particular 6 games, its not clear how much you should update your priors about how much defensive value Jokic provides given the past 300+ games which seem to indicate that he provides decent defensive value overall.

[Texas Chuck]

Meanwhile, I’m over here in absolute awe of KAT’s play

While KAT is getting flowers, he's won the Kareem award for social justice. Good on him.

[Special_Puppy]

I'll defend Jokic but at the same time this "he's not an exploitable defender" stuff needs to stop. Anyone who's watched him every playoffs can see plain as day that it's still a consistent issue. Denver has done a great job of surrounding him with enough defensive supporting guys to where it's less of a liability, but you can't just keep ignoring his physical limitations and the postseason defensive impact signals. When your team is consistently -3 to -10 points per-100 worse defensively with you on the court over a continuous 5-year sample, sorry, you're an exploitable playoff defender. We don't need to push back every time someone correctly points this out. He's not a perfect basketball player with zero weaknesses.

I don't know where you are getting those numbers? Again you really need 200+ games to get a big enough on/off sample, but even in the smaller sample his team's defense doesn't budge when he's on the court and off in the small playoff sample.

https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos/nba?TeamId=1610612743&Season=2023-24,2022-23,2021-22,2020-21,2019-20,2018-19&SeasonType=Playoffs&PlayerIds=203999&Leverage=Medium,High,VeryHigh

[sp6r=underrated]

I'll defend Jokic but at the same time this "he's not an exploitable defender" stuff needs to stop. Anyone who's watched him every playoffs can see plain as day that it's still a consistent issue. Denver has done a great job of surrounding him with enough defensive supporting guys to where it's less of a liability, but you can't just keep ignoring his physical limitations and the postseason defensive impact signals. When your team is consistently -3 to -10 points per-100 worse defensively with you on the court over a continuous 5-year sample, sorry, you're an exploitable playoff defender. We don't need to push back every time someone correctly points this out. He's not a perfect basketball player with zero weaknesses.

61 games is not a large enough sample size for evaluations primarily off of on/off data. The bitter truth is on/off data required hundreds of games to be useful and almost no players play enough games to generate enough data to rely on.

[AEnigma]

He said five-year sample. I agree there is no real point in filtering out 2019, but I also would not filter out “low leverage” possessions out of some idea that it is not an issue for Jokic to be attacked when there is a notable deficit.

I do not know at what point a large chunk of this forum became more interested in plus/minus variances than in watching the games, but it makes conversation difficult. I have never felt it requires a particularly advanced eye test to watch Jokic in the postseason and see how he has been a problem, and while there is a possibility I need to scale back my standards in general, “do postseason offences specifically target Jokic” should not be the reason why.

If everything in the postseason can be dismissed as sample noise, why even bother with them. Jokic’s postseason DRAPM is +1? Hm, we need at least ten more postseasons before we can confidently say whether he is an issue. Then retroactively we may be able to confirm that, oh yes, teams were in fact exploiting him. Good for future us. Glad no one rushed to conclusions that there may be a disparity between scattered regular season approaches and a dedicated elimination series against a singular opponent.

[sp6r=underrated]

I'll defend Jokic but at the same time this "he's not an exploitable defender" stuff needs to stop. Anyone who's watched him every playoffs can see plain as day that it's still a consistent issue. Denver has done a great job of surrounding him with enough defensive supporting guys to where it's less of a liability, but you can't just keep ignoring his physical limitations and the postseason defensive impact signals. When your team is consistently -3 to -10 points per-100 worse defensively with you on the court over a continuous 5-year sample, sorry, you're an exploitable playoff defender. We don't need to push back every time someone correctly points this out. He's not a perfect basketball player with zero weaknesses.

I don't know where you are getting those numbers? Again you really need 200+ games to get a big enough on/off sample, but even in the smaller sample his team's defense doesn't budge when he's on the court and off in the small playoff sample.

https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos/nba?TeamId=1610612743&Season=2023-24,2022-23,2021-22,2020-21,2019-20,2018-19&SeasonType=Playoffs&PlayerIds=203999&Leverage=Medium,High,VeryHigh

Yup, one of the hills I'll die on is that the post-season on/off data is unreliable. You need hundreds of games as you said. Very, very few players play hundreds of playoff games and the few that do have them stetched out over such a long time span that it isn't useful. It sucks because basketball on/off is super useful and required for RS player analysis but it can't be relied on for the PS due to the sample size. And the PS due to the NBA's culture is what we care bout.

[Texas Chuck]

He said five-year sample. I agree there is no real point in filtering out 2019, but I also would not filter out “low leverage” possessions out of some idea that it is not an issue for Jokic to be attacked when there is a notable deficit.

I do not know at what point a large chunk of this forum became more interested in plus/minus variances than in watching the games, but it makes conversation difficult. I have never felt it requires a particularly advanced eye test to watch Jokic in the postseason and see how he has been a problem, and while there is a possibility I need to scale back my standards in general, “do postseason offences specifically target Jokic” should not be the reason why.

If everything in the postseason can be dismissed as sample noise, why even bother with them. Jokic’s postseason DRAPM is +1? Hm, we need at least ten more postseasons before we can confidently say whether he is an issue. Then retroactively we may be able to confirm that, oh yes, teams were in fact exploiting him. Good for future us.

You are dead on with the overreliance on +/-. But then you turn around and take the reality that teams are going to try and attack him defensively in the playoffs and imply he's just a regular season player. That's not accurate evaluation either.

It's almost like a player can be contributing so much overall that even if they get attacked(exploited if you prefer) defensively at times they can still be very much a net positive. Even if their +/- in individual games or series isn't outstanding because the overall team gets outplayed.

This forum champions KG as this +/- darling, but that's RS. In the playoffs in Minnesota(the vast majority of his prime), he's not a plus/minus darling but we are able to look at his level of play and still realize he was a great player in the playoffs. Oh his scoring didn't hold up as well as it did in the RS but we know he contributes far beyond that.

Same with Jokic and some PNR attacks. This doesn't make him just a RS guy because of on/off stuff.

[sp6r=underrated]

He said five-year sample. I agree there is no real point in filtering out 2019, but I also would not filter out “low leverage” possessions out of some idea that it is not an issue for Jokic to be attacked when there is a notable deficit.

I do not know at what point a large chunk of this forum became more interested in plus/minus variances than in watching the games, but it makes conversation difficult. I have never felt it requires a particularly advanced eye test to watch Jokic in the postseason and see how he has been a problem, and while there is a possibility I need to scale back my standards in general, “do postseason offences specifically target Jokic” should not be the reason why.

If everything in the postseason can be dismissed as sample noise, why even bother with them. Jokic’s postseason DRAPM is +1? Hm, we need at least ten more postseasons before we can confidently say whether he is an issue. Then retroactively we may be able to confirm that, oh yes, teams were in fact exploiting him. Good for future us.

I'm perfectly fine with qualitative arguments about Jokic's defense in an extended series. But I've always had issues with over-reliance on on/off data in small sample sizes. It drives me up the wall when I'm watching a game and someone talks about on/off for one game. It just tells you nothing.

[sp6r=underrated]

He said five-year sample. I agree there is no real point in filtering out 2019, but I also would not filter out “low leverage” possessions out of some idea that it is not an issue for Jokic to be attacked when there is a notable deficit.

I do not know at what point a large chunk of this forum became more interested in plus/minus variances than in watching the games, but it makes conversation difficult. I have never felt it requires a particularly advanced eye test to watch Jokic in the postseason and see how he has been a problem, and while there is a possibility I need to scale back my standards in general, “do postseason offences specifically target Jokic” should not be the reason why.

If everything in the postseason can be dismissed as sample noise, why even bother with them. Jokic’s postseason DRAPM is +1? Hm, we need at least ten more postseasons before we can confidently say whether he is an issue. Then retroactively we may be able to confirm that, oh yes, teams were in fact exploiting him. Good for future us.

You are dead on with the overreliance on +/-. But then you turn around and take the reality that teams are going to try and attack him defensively in the playoffs and imply he's just a regular season player. That's not accurate evaluation either.

It's almost like a player can be contributing so much overall that even if they get attacked(exploited if you prefer) defensively at times they can still be very much a net positive. Even if their +/- in individual games or series isn't outstanding because the overall team gets outplayed.

This forum champions KG as this +/- darling, but that's RS. In the playoffs in Minnesota(the vast majority of his prime), he's not a plus/minus darling but we are able to look at his level of play and still realize he was a great player in the playoffs. Oh his scoring didn't hold up as well as it did in the RS but we know he contributes far beyond that.

Same with Jokic and some PNR attacks. This doesn't make him just a RS guy because of on/off stuff.

The real on/off contradiction is the love of on/off and Steve Nash, who looks quite for on/off but nothing like his backers allege.

[Ron Swanson]

I'll defend Jokic but at the same time this "he's not an exploitable defender" stuff needs to stop. Anyone who's watched him every playoffs can see plain as day that it's still a consistent issue. Denver has done a great job of surrounding him with enough defensive supporting guys to where it's less of a liability, but you can't just keep ignoring his physical limitations and the postseason defensive impact signals. When your team is consistently -3 to -10 points per-100 worse defensively with you on the court over a continuous 5-year sample, sorry, you're an exploitable playoff defender. We don't need to push back every time someone correctly points this out. He's not a perfect basketball player with zero weaknesses.

I don't know where you are getting those numbers? Again you really need 200+ games to get a big enough on/off sample, but even in the smaller sample his team's defense doesn't budge when he's on the court and off in the small playoff sample.

https://www.pbpstats.com/wowy-combos/nba?TeamId=1610612743&Season=2023-24,2022-23,2021-22,2020-21,2019-20,2018-19&SeasonType=Playoffs&PlayerIds=203999&Leverage=Medium,High,VeryHigh

I mean, no? Playoffs is inherently small sample size, but you shouldn't need a "Lebron's career" sample of playoff games to gauge this.

2019: 108.8 ON, 126.0 OFF (+17.2)
2020: 119.0 ON, 107.9 OFF (-11.1)
2021: 124.7 ON, 121.4 OFF (-3.3)
2022: 125.4 ON, 120.3 OFF (-5.1)
2023: 112.0 ON, 106.3 OFF (-5.7)
2024: 115.0 ON, 105.0 OFF (-10.0)

I mean, you tell me what the outlier is here and how that would logically skew the data towards misleading conclusions. Because the numbers you're using also paint prime and post-prime Harden as a clear plus playoff defender (+1.9) from 2019 onwards. A claim that I would imagine most people find dubious.

[AEnigma]

He said five-year sample. I agree there is no real point in filtering out 2019, but I also would not filter out “low leverage” possessions out of some idea that it is not an issue for Jokic to be attacked when there is a notable deficit.

I do not know at what point a large chunk of this forum became more interested in plus/minus variances than in watching the games, but it makes conversation difficult. I have never felt it requires a particularly advanced eye test to watch Jokic in the postseason and see how he has been a problem, and while there is a possibility I need to scale back my standards in general, “do postseason offences specifically target Jokic” should not be the reason why.

If everything in the postseason can be dismissed as sample noise, why even bother with them. Jokic’s postseason DRAPM is +1? Hm, we need at least ten more postseasons before we can confidently say whether he is an issue. Then retroactively we may be able to confirm that, oh yes, teams were in fact exploiting him. Good for future us.

You are dead on with the overreliance on +/-. But then you turn around and take the reality that teams are going to try and attack him defensively in the playoffs and imply he's just a regular season player. That's not accurate evaluation either.

It's almost like a player can be contributing so much overall that even if they get attacked(exploited if you prefer) defensively at times they can still be very much a net positive. Even if their +/- in individual games or series isn't outstanding because the overall team gets outplayed.

This forum champions KG as this +/- darling, but that's RS. In the playoffs in Minnesota(the vast majority of his prime), he's not a plus/minus darling but we are able to look at his level of play and still realize he was a great player in the playoffs. Oh his scoring didn't hold up as well as it did in the RS but we know he contributes far beyond that.

Same with Jokic and some PNR attacks. This doesn't make him just a RS guy because of on/off stuff.

I have no idea what you are arguing against. What does “regular season player” mean to you? Does it mean someone who is literally unplayable in the postseason? Or does it mean someone who is more effective in the regular season than in the postseason? When someone gets called a “postseason player”, does that mean they are a regular season negative?

Jokic can still be the world’s best player in the postseason — he was last year at minimum — while also qualifying as the type of player who is notably more vulnerable in the postseason to such an extent that his regular season advantage over everyone no longer holds true.