Better peak: Kevin Garnett vs Nikola Jokic

[Colbinii]

Did you even read his post?

I think it is one of the least abrasive posts in this thread that does an excellent job at picking apart a statement(s) [In this case yours] and asks for more clarity as to how you actually came to the conclusion you did [And how you have hinted at arriving at your conclusion appears faulty based on the data we have].

It is probably better for you to ignore him though since you don't have anything positive to contribute.

Please enlighten me. What was the statement that you think I said?

I think it's interesting that KG's bad Wolves teammates are used as a crutch for him (which I agree with) but by the same token, his on/off and impact stats, which would benefit from him playing on a dysfunctional team, is also used to propel him.

I don’t hold the ringz argument against KG. And I know that stats like RAPM try to isolate individual impact while taking into account teammate quality. I’m just more skeptical about using these stats as the be all and end all.

A lot of the arguments highlighting KG's impact in those Minny years were using on/off, which would for sure would be impacted by the quality of his back-up and other teammates. As for RAPM, I'm skeptical of using it as a catch-all number to evaluate individual impact.

You are essentially saying you are skeptical of everything to do with Impact data, yet KG is an Impact GOD with a multitude of casts [Poor casts like 2001-2002, 2005-2007 and then Strong casts like 2004 and 2008-2011].

[ShaqAttac]

u did say kg impact high coz dysfunction tho

No way you responded with a different account lol

anything is possiiiible!!!!!!!!!!

[Peregrine01]

Did you even read his post?

I think it is one of the least abrasive posts in this thread that does an excellent job at picking apart a statement(s) [In this case yours] and asks for more clarity as to how you actually came to the conclusion you did [And how you have hinted at arriving at your conclusion appears faulty based on the data we have].

It is probably better for you to ignore him though since you don't have anything positive to contribute.

Please enlighten me. What was the statement that you think I said?

I think it's interesting that KG's bad Wolves teammates are used as a crutch for him (which I agree with) but by the same token, his on/off and impact stats, which would benefit from him playing on a dysfunctional team, is also used to propel him.

I don’t hold the ringz argument against KG. And I know that stats like RAPM try to isolate individual impact while taking into account teammate quality. I’m just more skeptical about using these stats as the be all and end all.

A lot of the arguments highlighting KG's impact in those Minny years were using on/off, which would for sure would be impacted by the quality of his back-up and other teammates. As for RAPM, I'm skeptical of using it as a catch-all number to evaluate individual impact.

You are essentially saying you are skeptical of everything to do with Impact data, yet KG is an Impact GOD with a multitude of casts [Poor casts like 2001-2002, 2005-2007 and then Strong casts like 2004 and 2008-2011].

Please highlight what issue you have with any of my statements that you just quoted. Remember, you are saying that I am skeptical of anything to do with impact stats, when I said that I'm skeptical of using it as a catch-all.

[Jaivl]

I think it's interesting that KG's bad Wolves teammates are used as a crutch for him (which I agree with) but by the same token, his on/off and impact stats, which would benefit from him playing on a dysfunctional team, is also used to propel him.

Where is the contradiction, exactly? His impact stats don't benefit from dysfunctional teams, in fact they are at or near their worst in the "dysfunctional" 05-07 period. And it's not like he didn't replicate them in perfectly functional teams later in his career.

We that have been discussing this **** for decades now have to be constantly, tirelessly, reeeeally carefully explaining how BAD some of his teams were, and contextualizing absolutely everything regarding his environment in Minnesota, cause some of you guys just don't know how to assess quality outside the all-star realm and RINGZ, lol. It's you guys who just can't mount a coherent, cogent argument without drawing from old, outdated clichés.

I don’t hold the ringz argument against KG. And I know that stats like RAPM try to isolate individual impact while taking into account teammate quality. I’m just more skeptical about using these stats as the be all and end all.

Watching him in his prime, I just don’t view him as a top 10 player like many here do and I don’t think his defensive impact is as great as many think it is. No need to resort to insults and finger pointing. Let’s just agree to disagree.

I mean, it's not like there are no arguments for KG not being top 10, there are many I'm sure*, it's just that you guys use some terrible ones. His impact signals are pretty much unassailable and your claims about his on/off and dysfunctional teams are just... false. Constantly been proven false, too.

Given we're on yet another LeBron vs Jordan thread somehow now (oh surprise), it feels like making a case against MJ via claiming his scoring is situational and just not that good, lol.

Spoiler:

* for example, KG's assist profile being less valuable (more midrange-heavy) than other elite offensive big men, thus his offensive value not being all that much when coupled with his not-elite scoring, is an interesting argument and one I don't see much talk about. How much of that is Minny's scheme I don't know (and I've already noticed some possible counterarguments), but it's an starting point.

[LukaTheGOAT]

I think it's interesting that KG's bad Wolves teammates are used as a crutch for him (which I agree with) but by the same token, his on/off and impact stats, which would benefit from him playing on a dysfunctional team, is also used to propel him.

Where is the contradiction, exactly? His impact stats don't benefit from dysfunctional teams, in fact they are at or near their worst in the "dysfunctional" 05-07 period. And it's not like he didn't replicate them in perfectly functional teams later in his career.

We that have been discussing this **** for decades now have to be constantly, tirelessly, reeeeally carefully explaining how BAD some of his teams were, and contextualizing absolutely everything regarding his environment in Minnesota, cause some of you guys just don't know how to assess quality outside the all-star realm and RINGZ, lol. It's you guys who just can't mount a coherent, cogent argument without drawing from old, outdated clichés.

Case in point:

It's cool that KG can play the PG for you in a pinch, but with more ideal team construction, he is handling the ball less. What is he doing to make up the offensive impact? In the end, him playing PG has almost so much value.

Gee, I wonder...



How could one of the best defenders ever make up the offensive gap?

-> KG has great defensive value but jokic has more offensive value
-> jokic looks better on offense
-> jokic looked better on offense while his team did way worse than KG's did
-> KG can't match Jokic offensively

does not get you to

-> jokic can translate better across contexts

speaking of

Jordan forgot teamwork in Washington? When he was 38 and retired for three years?

Yep:

Spoiler:

According to one official, Hughes was explicitly told by Jordan to get him the ball if he wanted to play. When Hughes began passing it to Stackhouse as much as to Jordan, he was soon benched. Point guard Tyronn Lue, the official said, obliged and began finding Jordan every time he played. ''He was scared to death of what would happen to him in his career if he didn't,'' the player said of Lue. ''He was always looking at the bench at Michael.''

Late last fall, Richard Hamilton and Jordan got into an ugly shouting match. The two officials said it began when Hamilton told Jordan he was tired of being a ''Jordannaire,'' the term used for Jordan's role players in Chicago. ''Rip was a young, brash guy who threatened the idea of Michael being the guy here,'' the official said. ''He was promptly gotten rid of for Stackhouse.'' A person close to Jordan denied Hamilton was traded because of a personality conflict. He insisted contractual issues led to the Stackhouse deal.

In the season's final weeks, players openly complained about the double standards for Jordan. Promptly dressed and ready to speak with reporters after games, they were forced to wait in the locker room for 15 or 20 minutes while Jordan showered and dressed in a private room.

Sadly the magic "trust teammates buff" he acquired at 26 and maintained through 35 was mysteriously gone by 38. Because you know, jordan was why those not top 5 offenses suddenly became #1 offenses. Not the context around him. Aren't fairytales fun?

Though I guess that's not quite as silly as thinking KG was a better defender at 31, after a career altering injury that specifically coincided with a drop in defensive value, because he was only showing crazy good defensive signals on a top 6 defense rather than a top 5 one.

My point is simple, he is a great, but not top ten defensive player of all time.

And to support this point you

-> cited teams that were not as bad as the Timberwolves before Garnett joined as examples where players took "the same or lesser casts" to top 5
-> argued KG was not a top 10 player on one side of the court because he did not lead top 5 defenses pre-thibs(only top 6!) and then backflipped a bunch to avoid applying that logic to jordan on the other(only top 8!)

As you say, "you thought you had an argument, but you don't"

(not to mention that even the regular season data by itself plainly disproves your original “regression” claim).

The original claim

Spoiler:

4th year in the league and quite possibly the most valuable he had ever been in the regular-season(top or near top in terms of non-box, box, and rep). His playmaking impact would peak in 1989 when the team regressed. He would get jumper's knee in 90 and his defensive activity was lesser in a system designed to help Jordan avoid extra defensive attention rather than exploit it to create for his teammates.

lessthanjake's SRS calculation proving that claim correct

Spoiler:

Maybe check who they were playing in those games. It was an abnormally high strength of schedule portion of the season, so their SRS during that timeframe was actually 2.74, which was

One small piece of content free argumentative content removed.

And the impact numbers we have for KG in 08, don't touch Jokic. Yeah, his defense is optimized with a smaller offensive role, but it is a huge jump to consider Peak KG equal to Peak Jokic in a PS setting because you wind back the clock a bit.

Plus 08 KG, is a better shooter and passer than his 04 iterations, and considering he wasn't creating super efficient shots off the dribble nor a great rim-finisher, I'm not convinced 08 isn't closer to his offensive peak than people think. His skills were better in 08 and the loss of athleticism didn't hurt him in the areas where he was best on offense. His RS numbers in 03 and 04 are better on offense due to a higher motor allowing him to pick up easier points in transition when a defense was not set-up. This doesn't translate great to the PS aka Jerry Sloan offenses.

[lessthanjake]

By the way, I do actually think there’s an element to which being on a bad team can help your RAPM.

RAPM does aim to control for who was on and off the court at the same time as you. So it is at least theoretically able to control for rotational differences (i.e. if a player plays with bench units more or less, for instance). Which is great! But it is ultimately still trying to get at the question of how much, in absolute terms, a player affected the team’s net rating when he was on the court. And this is important, because it is harder to have a huge effect in absolute terms on your team’s net rating when the team is good, due to diminishing marginal returns as a team gets better. So, even if you control for rotation, a guy on a bad team should find it easier to have a large effect on the team’s net rating, because the baseline for the team is so low.

Think about it this way: Let’s say there’s Team A and Team B. Team A is filled with players who are borderline G-League players, while Team B is made up of all superstar-level players. You put Player A—who is a superstar-level player—on these teams. Regardless of rotation (let’s just assume all the teammates are equal to each other), Player A is going to make a big positive difference to Team A when he’s on the court. As a result, he will have a high RAPM, because the model will see that, controlling for everyone else, Player A is having a huge impact on the team’s net rating. But if you put Player A on Team B, he’s not really going to make nearly as much of a positive difference. His RAPM will not be super high, because the model will see that, controlling for everyone else, he’s not having a huge impact on the net rating. The model will basically see that Team B does incredibly well and see that no one on the team is really sticking out in terms of relative impact (we’re positing that they’re all superstar-level players) and assign essentially equal credit to each player, including Player A. So Player A will have a positive RAPM. But because of diminishing returns as a team gets better, there’s essentially no way that that can shake out as looking like as much impact on the net rating as Player A would have on Team A.

Basically, RAPM doesn’t account for diminishing marginal returns on net rating as a team gets better. It simply is trying to isolate how much a guy increased or decreased his team’s net rating when he was on the floor, regardless of how high or low the relevant net ratings are. If it’s easier to increase your team’s net rating if your team is bad, then it should be easier to get a high RAPM on a bad team.

Of course, Garnett’s impact numbers were good in Boston too (i.e. on a good team), so there’s not much reason to think his Minnesota impact numbers are just a total mirage. He was definitely a very impactful player. But I do think there’s reason to think his RAPM numbers with Minnesota were inflated to some degree.

[Ron Swanson]

FWIW, (and to at least try to steer away from this Jordan obsession/contrarianism dynamic here) if we're taking raw on/off at face value, I've always erred on generally disregarding off-samples (exponentially smaller with superstar players) in favor of on-samples, which has always been my biggest gripe with certain lineup-based metrics in general.

Essentially, I don't care whether or not the bench lineups fall apart with you off the court. I care about how good the team is when you're on the court providing lift. There's an intangible aspect to things like roster fit, offensive/defensive schemes etc. for sure, but if we can at least acknowledge a baseline level of supporting cast/roster quality (I'm not gonna type an essay on whether or not Aaron Gordon or MPJ is a better tertiary option than Latrell Sprewell, sorry), I think it's a much more sensible comparative method than the alternative. As I really don't think that the roster quality between KG's best 3-year stretch (2002-2004) is that different than Jokic's (2021-2023), especially when accounting for injuries.

3-year stretch On-court net-RTG (in descending, not chronological order)

'23 Jokic: +12.0 (+8.4, +6.6)
'04 Garnett: +9.8 (+6.1, +5.8)

*for additional reference*

'20 Giannis: +15.8 (2019: +12.1)
'09 Lebron: +15.0 (2010: +11.5)

I guess for me, Jokic was doing a hefty amount of lifting (especially 2021-22) with a similarly subpar cast and achieving pretty comparable results, then coincidentally had the 2023 Nuggets playing as a borderline historically dominant juggernaut once they finally got healthy. The more I've seen of Jokic, the less I confident I am that KG has an edge peak-wise. Single season RPM? At least not what the data says, though debatable (note: I'm extremely skeptical of his 2022 season based on how absurdly high Jokic's DRPM boosts his overall. And I have similar issues with RAPTOR).

Hell, I'm struggling to see KG's peak/prime above both Jokic and Giannis based on recent trends, both in "impact" data/signals and other box metrics (FYI, I believe Giannis' most recent 5-year RAPM stacks up as well with any 5-year KG sample unless I'm misinterpreting the data, along with posting the second highest single season RAPM in 2020, and highest 2-year luck adjusted stretch from 2018-2020 *couldn't find the most recent 3-year stretches*).

http://nbashotcharts.com/rapm5?id=-2063477284

All in all, I'm just not comfortable with KG having this projected GOAT-level peak based on (entirely?) RAPM, and that's even considering I much prefer multi-year RAPM (3 and 5-year stretches) to single season peaks or any other lineup-based or "catch-all" metric in general. I'm both skeptical that his statistical footprint is exaggerated (Jokic isn't immune to this either, see: previous gripes on DRPM and RAPTOR), and that he truly couldn't win more based on lack of top-tier supporting talent when we have many examples of his peers doing just that (at least in the RS). And of course, this will all sound silly when I tell you that I ultimately have them in the same range (15-20, although obviously Jokic still has ample time to improve his ranking).

Edit: I'm dumb, the 3-year samples are in the spreadsheet

[Ryoga Hibiki]

This is meant to break the PC board

[Jaivl]

And the impact numbers we have for KG in 08, don't touch Jokic.

Pure impact numbers? I don't think that's true.

Plus 08 KG, is a better shooter (...) than his 04 iterations

That's certainly not true.

His skills were better in 08 and the loss of athleticism didn't hurt him in the areas where he was best on offense.

Not sure about that either. His offensive rebounding drops off a cliff (Regularized Adjusted Offensive Rebounding from Boston is abysmal), so does his transition game.

His RS numbers in 03 and 04 are better on offense due to a higher motor allowing him to pick up easier points in transition when a defense was not set-up. This doesn't translate great to the PS aka Jerry Sloan offenses.

Is this conjecture or based on something? Cause his efficiency and usage off steals (closest approximation of "transition scoring" I could quickly scrape) are identical in the playoffs and in Boston (if anything he gets *better* in Boston, especially in the playoffs), and his shot profile is also very similar.

[lessthanjake]

Meh, I’ve actually contributed a lot of fully on-topic posts in this thread. The problem is that materially false stuff gets thrown around over and over again in threads where it’d sidetrack the thread to point it out, but at a certain point it seems necessary to correct the record so that incorrect info doesn’t keep getting propagated over and over. I’ve made my point, though, and have little interest in continuing to discuss it, since my point is just obviously correct but I’m fairly sure that that won’t be admitted.

I think the best way is simply not engage if the thread isn't about Jordan. It can be hard at times, but it's much healthier for you and our community.

I don’t think you’ll win a title with Garnett as your offensive focal point, because he is too limited in breaking down the defense and generating easy buckets for himself. I also don’t think you’ll win a title with Jokic as your defensive focal point, since he’d get exploited. Perhaps you’re more likely to do it with Garnett as an offensive focal point than Jokic as a defensive focal point, but I don’t really think you’d win a title either way so I’m not sure that that makes a big difference to me. So then the better and more relevant question for both players IMO is what value they provide in that phase of play when they’re not the focal point.

I mean, I understand the criticism of Garnett's offense but he literally won the title as the main option. He wasn't a classic offensive anchor in Jokic mold of course, but he scored the most points in the playoffs in 2008. You may argue that he was co-anchor with Pierce, but it's hard to argue he didn't lead Celtics team on that end.

So even without going to hypothetical scenarios, we know that your argument isn't 100% fair to Garnett.

We saw that for Garnett on the Celtics—where he was not the offensive focal point.

How was he not?

I suppose this is a decent point. Garnett and Pierce were essentially equal in scoring and usage and whatnot in the regular season and playoffs. My recollection is that the offense ran through Pierce more though. And, of course, they also ran tons of actions for Allen. So I mean I guess we could argue whether anyone was the clear focal point (or whether it was more like a three-headed-monster), but I don’t really think it’d be fair to classify Garnett as being a clear offensive focal point of the Celtics. I think of that as Pierce, but at the very least it was focal-point-by-committee amongst multiple guys. Which itself isn’t that different from Jokic’s defense, where this past year he was in some significant ways their most active defender (particularly with dominant defensive rebounding, for instance, as well as just manning the middle of the court).

We know that Garnett averaged negative ORPM with the Celtics. That wasn’t prime Garnett of course, so I think it’d be harsh to conclude that that’s what prime Garnett would be like as a secondary offensive option, but I do think it’s indicative of him not being a hugely valuable offensive player as a secondary option (which makes sense, since his best offensive attribute is passing, which is mitigated a good deal if he’s not the focal point).

I don't think I responded to this argument before, but I think it's not a good way to estimate prime Garnett's offensive impact as a secondary/co-leading option. Garnett has a prime-ending injury in 2009 season, it's not just a matter of him getting older but he was visibly different player when he came back.

When we take a look at 2008, he still looks like one of the best offensive players in the league by RAPM, though not among very best of course:

https://web.archive.org/web/20201024055608/https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2008-rapm

Using 2010-13 sample to conclude that Garnett is ineffective as a second option is very faulty in my opinion.

Yes, and I did acknowledge that the Celtics sample I’m referring to is mostly post-prime. But we can even just take 2008, where he was definitely still in his prime (albeit maybe not at his very best). Garnett rocked a +1.40 ORPM for the Celtics in 2007-2008. Jokic has averaged +3.62 DRPM the last three seasons (and I’ll note that RAPTOR is even higher on Jokic’s defense). You can point to raw RAPM that might look better for Garnett’s offense than ORPM does, but then we’re just at a point where we’re citing different impact metrics at each other that say different things, and I think that would actually just go to my point that the answer here isn’t exactly clear cut (I even said if I had to make a choice, I’d take Garnett’s offense over Jokic’s defense—I’m just saying it’s not a clear cut choice).

[Peregrine01]

Where is the contradiction, exactly? His impact stats don't benefit from dysfunctional teams, in fact they are at or near their worst in the "dysfunctional" 05-07 period. And it's not like he didn't replicate them in perfectly functional teams later in his career.

We that have been discussing this **** for decades now have to be constantly, tirelessly, reeeeally carefully explaining how BAD some of his teams were, and contextualizing absolutely everything regarding his environment in Minnesota, cause some of you guys just don't know how to assess quality outside the all-star realm and RINGZ, lol. It's you guys who just can't mount a coherent, cogent argument without drawing from old, outdated clichés.

I don’t hold the ringz argument against KG. And I know that stats like RAPM try to isolate individual impact while taking into account teammate quality. I’m just more skeptical about using these stats as the be all and end all.

Watching him in his prime, I just don’t view him as a top 10 player like many here do and I don’t think his defensive impact is as great as many think it is. No need to resort to insults and finger pointing. Let’s just agree to disagree.

I mean, it's not like there are no arguments for KG not being top 10, there are many I'm sure*, it's just that you guys use some terrible ones. His impact signals are pretty much unassailable and your claims about his on/off and dysfunctional teams are just... false. Constantly been proven false, too.

Please tell me what I said that's been proven false.

Is it not true that you can have an elevated on/off if the rest of your team is terrible? Is it also not true that you can have an elevated on/off when you're on a really good team but you share the majority of your minutes with starters?

[ShaqAttac]

Where is the contradiction, exactly? His impact stats don't benefit from dysfunctional teams, in fact they are at or near their worst in the "dysfunctional" 05-07 period. And it's not like he didn't replicate them in perfectly functional teams later in his career.

We that have been discussing this **** for decades now have to be constantly, tirelessly, reeeeally carefully explaining how BAD some of his teams were, and contextualizing absolutely everything regarding his environment in Minnesota, cause some of you guys just don't know how to assess quality outside the all-star realm and RINGZ, lol. It's you guys who just can't mount a coherent, cogent argument without drawing from old, outdated clichés.

I don’t hold the ringz argument against KG. And I know that stats like RAPM try to isolate individual impact while taking into account teammate quality. I’m just more skeptical about using these stats as the be all and end all.

Watching him in his prime, I just don’t view him as a top 10 player like many here do and I don’t think his defensive impact is as great as many think it is. No need to resort to insults and finger pointing. Let’s just agree to disagree.

I mean, it's not like there are no arguments for KG not being top 10, there are many I'm sure*, it's just that you guys use some terrible ones. His impact signals are pretty much unassailable and your claims about his on/off and dysfunctional teams are just... false. Constantly been proven false, too.

Given we're on yet another LeBron vs Jordan thread somehow now (oh surprise), it feels like making a case against MJ via claiming his scoring is situational and just not that good, lol.

Spoiler:

* for example, KG's assist profile being less valuable (more midrange-heavy) than other elite offensive big men, thus his offensive value not being all that much when coupled with his not-elite scoring, is an interesting argument and one I don't see much talk about. How much of that is Minny's scheme I don't know (and I've already noticed some possible counterarguments), but it's an starting point.

u the first person to bring up bron tho

[ShaqAttac]

This is meant to break the PC board

lool

[LukaTheGOAT]

And the impact numbers we have for KG in 08, don't touch Jokic.

Pure impact numbers? I don't think that's true.

Plus 08 KG, is a better shooter (...) than his 04 iterations

That's certainly not true.

His skills were better in 08 and the loss of athleticism didn't hurt him in the areas where he was best on offense.

Not sure about that either. His offensive rebounding drops off a cliff (Regularized Adjusted Offensive Rebounding from Boston is abysmal), so does his transition game.

His RS numbers in 03 and 04 are better on offense due to a higher motor allowing him to pick up easier points in transition when a defense was not set-up. This doesn't translate great to the PS aka Jerry Sloan offenses.

Is this conjecture or based on something? Cause his efficiency and usage off steals (closest approximation of "transition scoring" I could quickly scrape) are identical in the playoffs and in Boston (if anything he gets *better* in Boston, especially in the playoffs), and his shot profile is also very similar.

In terms of what you consider "pure-impact," I mean Jokic has better on/off, although he probably plays with the starters a bit. more. I believe in the X-RAPM variants, where Jokic is definitely ahead of 08 KG.

Shooting in 03, 04, and 08

Read on Twitter

Good point about KG's offensive rebounding. That relates back in part to having a better motor, and one of the reason whys 03 and 04 KG could be better than 08. I did mention the transition game in my piece.


My final point is conjecture.

[ShotCreator]

And Booker wasn’t even cooking Jokic like that

It doesn’t even make sense Booker isn’t a slasher and Jokic’s issue is pretty much only athletic slashers where not being a block threat is a big deal, at this point if the bar is must be able to lock down on switches there are a ton of guys people rank historically high that you gotta drop down a ton

I’m not a Jokic fan or anything but I think it’s pretty clear what he did this year is more impressive than anything garnett has done

There are probably teams I’d rather have KG in, but the idea that there is no team that Jokic improves more than KG does is ridiculous lol, and most of the offensice schematic stuff was kind of pure nonsense lol

...I don't understand your motivation to even try to be involved in this discussion if you: 1.) don't even fully understand what I'm trying to convey or what I actually believe from your very first response to me, and 2.) are just this....pitifully wrong about even the little you tried to contribute the discussion here.

Slashers? What are you on about? How many slashers has Jokic ever even faced? It's a league of guys who design their entire games on pull-up shooting and everything the comes before and after a pull-up jumper, or a hesitation to look to pull up.

Booker, Paul -- you know the series where a 36 year old Paul did 25/10 to the tune of 74 TS%, Lillard, Curry, Edwards all primarily pull up shooters with just different approaches to getting the shots and leveraging defensive attention.

You know who weren't pull up shooters on this caliber and would prefer to slash? Butler and LeBron, the least impressive outputs of anyone Jokic faced.

I never would've implied something as dumb as Jokic struggles with slashers, I never thought that. He struggles in space where he has to pick up a ballhandler on the level of Lillard or Edwards 30 feet out. Any scheme trying to hide him from that scenario will allow the absolute ridiculous onslaught that his team has faced in a very outlierish fashion. I just remembered the insanity of Donovan Mitchell's series against him too. Probably the strongest slasher but still relied on over a dozen 3p attempts a game against Denver in the playoffs.

I'm not into this dumb idea of everything being a 1 on 1 scenario. It's the schemes.

Let's just stop here, I don't want to see another disgusting interpretation of what you think is a an opportunity to make a point. I know you don't agree with the rest of my post but it's funny how that goes hand in hand with your inability to understand it as well.

Lmfao I hate it when people talk about things they don’t know about. I appreciate you at least try to watch games but don’t speak on stuff you don’t know

First of all, I think it’s fair to say Jokic was genuinely an awful defender in 2021, and over the past 2 years is where the question is how that’s improved or not.

Let’s be clear, you don’t understand basketball scheme lol.

Any scheme that attempts to hide him? Are you talking about literally EVERYTHING THAT ISNT A SWITCH!?

You’re literally talking about screen coverages lol. This is what I hate about people on here some times. Using buzz words they don’t understand. Aggressive screen coverages and if they pretotate or not lmao. Those are the relevant actions here, don’t hide under a general term if you don’t know what you’re talking about

Now if you wanna say every aggressive screen coverage is doomed to fail no matter what, well, that’s really stupid lol. If you wanna say something along the lines of Jokic cant execute aggressive screen coverages well because of his lateral quickness, while that technically goes against data where he ranks very well in that regard. Also, you know how you beat aggressive screen coverages, as a ball handlers? You turn the corner or split the D lol. So you slash.

There are ways to attack them as a team but if you are genuinely saying that aggressive screen coverages are basically inherently bad (hopefully you don’t think this is only trapping but you might unfortunately) then you really don’t know what you’re talking about.

Went through the Booker games real quick, so maybe I missed some but I think I counted 2 possessions where Jokic was involved in a Booker three lol.

I went through the ant games, a few more but still not nearly as much as you make it out to be… also they were fully in drop for a few of the ganes, because, you know, ITS ANTHONY EDWARDS!??? Jokic was not constantly picking up ant 30 feet out.

How many times they drove through aggressive screen coverages or even just past him in drop? Ant, it was pretty noticeable, Booker, it wasn’t really Jokic’s fault at all honestly, happened a few times but nothing really crazy at all.

Also, you’re talking about, Lebron who has one partially torn foot and another bad one that couldn’t score on anyone this past postseason, and Jimmy with a bum ankle who struggled against jokic’s size? Who drove 2 more times per game than Ant?

Lebron who went from averaging 23-10-5, in the first two rounds, to 28-10-10 vs the Nuggets, and who had 31 at the half of game 4 before his foot gave out?


If you genuinely think it’s impossible to guard guys with strong pullup games without switching you know nothing about how basketball works. Jokic was not constantly picking up ANT and Booker 30 feet out, and we’re talking about this run now that he has actual human beings around him on defense instead of an assortment of traffick cones


Jokic isn’t as good at aggressive screen coverages as the data probably says. He’s good positionally and has good hands, but some of the more athletic guys can turn the corner.

Lillard is absolutely an athletic slasher lol. Yes, he’s one of the greatest shooters of all time, but an athletic slasher. Wasn’t he literally in the dunk contest lmfao. He’s gotten incredibly good at attacking aggressive screen coverages after the bubble where he got messed up by that and nurkic being poor on the short roll

Anthony edwards is like one of the most athletic players in the nba



What Jokic is good at, is he has good hands, has great positioning especially when prerotating, and is big as hell

Against a guy like Jimmy, especially a Jimmy with no lift, that works pretty well since he’s not finishing over you or blitzing past you.

But some guys he’s just not physically capable of contesting at the rim effectively even he’s at the right spot

The idea that Jokic is some absurd liability because he cannot check the premier guards in the nba 30 feet out is idiotic because literally even the goddamn Lakers with AD ran a high drop vs Curry lol.

I think there are issues with him defensively but the can’t defend in space issue is applicable with aggressive screen coverages against guys who can slash from that lol. There’s a reason he’s generally one of the higher ranked bigs in mobile coverages this year, he has attributed to do so but lacks the quickness against specific matchups



notice how you took out “athletic”, you’ve never seen Ant do anything in your life you just saw his pullup frequency without realizing this dude is one of the most athletic guys in the nba, and with Booker you clearly didn’t see the game if you’re creating a narrative that Booker was getting picked up from 30 feet out. If you wanna argue the aggressive screen coverages didn’t work, although for the most part their defense with Jokic on the floor was fine iirc, that’s fine, but that’s not on him and thinking aggressive screen coverages don’t work mean you don’t know how basketball works

You’re just spewing narrative pretending to have watched the games lmao. A quick look through on YouTube shows it pretty definitively. Anyone who reads through this, check those games out and see how utterly ridiculous the idea that Jokic was constantly picking up Booker 30 feet out is

Or even more so, that he was doing that to edwards even though bro was literally in drop for the first few games. Did Edwards even hit a 30 footer this year? (Edit yes! He hit 1).




I don’t mind when people are ignorant about the schematic aspects about basketball, I don’t claim to know everything about it, and I respect the people who try to watch and understand it, but the people who talk about just literally always know absolutely nothing while acting like they know something lol. It’s absurd


Don’t say scheme, not use random buzzwords because you don’t know the specifics of what a defensive scheme is, obviously it’s deeper than the type of help and the type of coverages but that absolutely does entail what you’re talking about for the most part. Be specific if you want to be taken seriously.



If the argument was, Jokic struggles against some ball handlers when partaking in aggressive screen coverages because lacking lateral quickness means he is more susceptible to turning the corner or splitting the screen, that’s fine, I agree that’s his biggest weakness, and you would have a point


But,
1. this doesn’t apply to all ball handlers
2. These players are still good at lashing
3. Jokic is not picking these people up 30 feet out, Booker and Ant, the relevant examples this year
4. Aggressive screen coverages aren’t inherently bad it’s about your personell
5. Absolutely is not what you were saying


It’s absurd how many people act high and mighty and just spout absolute nonsense lol, most people are nice about it but you acting all condescending doesnt work if you don’t know what you’re talking about

He struggles in space where he has to pick up a ballhandler on the level of Lillard or Edwards 30 feet out Any scheme trying to hide him from that scenario will allow the absolute ridiculous onslaught that his team has faced in a very outlierish fashion..

You know how ridiculous of a quote this is?

It’s not that the conclusion is wrong, Jokic does have limitations and was really bad defensively in those series. I also do think that Ant did kind of kill him, and there are certain really tough matchups for him.

HOWEVER, the implication here is Jokic is bad because he can’t pick guys up 30 feet out… you know how absurd that is? What kind of baseline for a defensive big is “can guard Anthony edwards 30 feet from the basket” lmfao. AD couldn’t guard Ant 30 feet from the basket lol. Hell I don’t think jrue could either. Not to mention this isn’t even a thing because bigs don’t step up to guard Ant 30 feet from the basket and if they do it’s dumb lol.

Genuinely, anyone watch film of Ant and Booker and say “darn! Jokic really couldn’t stop these guys from taking threes!” It’s ridiculous.

“Your inability to understand it well” FOH with that condescending nonsense when ur out here saying Jokic HAD TO pick up Ant 30 feet out lmfao. Nearly as dead of a take as the mike conley one lol

Again, not understand what I’m saying or why I’m saying it.

This is really pitiful and exhausting.

I find myself not wanting to even explain myself for the first time ever on this forum. And i’m definitely not about to explain what you think is my opinion on things I really don’t even care to talk about with you and never even specifically mentioned yet you harp on these weird points constantly.

I definitely don’t want to talk about what you say you believe here because it’s obvious neither of us actually care.

I will say, I specifically said Jokic was a decent defender. Even from an NBA guard’s perspective. You saying I’m implying he’s awful is essentially trolling.

Other than that…Apparently Damian Lillard’s an athletic slasher and that’s why he had the best offensive series in maybe 14 years. Not shooting a preposterous 13 three-pointers per game to the tune of 45%…Okay.

And scheme had nothing to do with the career best series of a guy like Booker…And Edwards and Paul and Lillard and Mitchell and Jordan Poole. Okay… Got. It.

[MyUniBroDavis]

...I don't understand your motivation to even try to be involved in this discussion if you: 1.) don't even fully understand what I'm trying to convey or what I actually believe from your very first response to me, and 2.) are just this....pitifully wrong about even the little you tried to contribute the discussion here.

Slashers? What are you on about? How many slashers has Jokic ever even faced? It's a league of guys who design their entire games on pull-up shooting and everything the comes before and after a pull-up jumper, or a hesitation to look to pull up.

Booker, Paul -- you know the series where a 36 year old Paul did 25/10 to the tune of 74 TS%, Lillard, Curry, Edwards all primarily pull up shooters with just different approaches to getting the shots and leveraging defensive attention.

You know who weren't pull up shooters on this caliber and would prefer to slash? Butler and LeBron, the least impressive outputs of anyone Jokic faced.

I never would've implied something as dumb as Jokic struggles with slashers, I never thought that. He struggles in space where he has to pick up a ballhandler on the level of Lillard or Edwards 30 feet out. Any scheme trying to hide him from that scenario will allow the absolute ridiculous onslaught that his team has faced in a very outlierish fashion. I just remembered the insanity of Donovan Mitchell's series against him too. Probably the strongest slasher but still relied on over a dozen 3p attempts a game against Denver in the playoffs.

I'm not into this dumb idea of everything being a 1 on 1 scenario. It's the schemes.

Let's just stop here, I don't want to see another disgusting interpretation of what you think is a an opportunity to make a point. I know you don't agree with the rest of my post but it's funny how that goes hand in hand with your inability to understand it as well.

Lmfao I hate it when people talk about things they don’t know about. I appreciate you at least try to watch games but don’t speak on stuff you don’t know

First of all, I think it’s fair to say Jokic was genuinely an awful defender in 2021, and over the past 2 years is where the question is how that’s improved or not.

Let’s be clear, you don’t understand basketball scheme lol.

Any scheme that attempts to hide him? Are you talking about literally EVERYTHING THAT ISNT A SWITCH!?

You’re literally talking about screen coverages lol. This is what I hate about people on here some times. Using buzz words they don’t understand. Aggressive screen coverages and if they pretotate or not lmao. Those are the relevant actions here, don’t hide under a general term if you don’t know what you’re talking about

Now if you wanna say every aggressive screen coverage is doomed to fail no matter what, well, that’s really stupid lol. If you wanna say something along the lines of Jokic cant execute aggressive screen coverages well because of his lateral quickness, while that technically goes against data where he ranks very well in that regard. Also, you know how you beat aggressive screen coverages, as a ball handlers? You turn the corner or split the D lol. So you slash.

There are ways to attack them as a team but if you are genuinely saying that aggressive screen coverages are basically inherently bad (hopefully you don’t think this is only trapping but you might unfortunately) then you really don’t know what you’re talking about.

Went through the Booker games real quick, so maybe I missed some but I think I counted 2 possessions where Jokic was involved in a Booker three lol.

I went through the ant games, a few more but still not nearly as much as you make it out to be… also they were fully in drop for a few of the ganes, because, you know, ITS ANTHONY EDWARDS!??? Jokic was not constantly picking up ant 30 feet out.

How many times they drove through aggressive screen coverages or even just past him in drop? Ant, it was pretty noticeable, Booker, it wasn’t really Jokic’s fault at all honestly, happened a few times but nothing really crazy at all.

Also, you’re talking about, Lebron who has one partially torn foot and another bad one that couldn’t score on anyone this past postseason, and Jimmy with a bum ankle who struggled against jokic’s size? Who drove 2 more times per game than Ant?

Lebron who went from averaging 23-10-5, in the first two rounds, to 28-10-10 vs the Nuggets, and who had 31 at the half of game 4 before his foot gave out?


If you genuinely think it’s impossible to guard guys with strong pullup games without switching you know nothing about how basketball works. Jokic was not constantly picking up ANT and Booker 30 feet out, and we’re talking about this run now that he has actual human beings around him on defense instead of an assortment of traffick cones


Jokic isn’t as good at aggressive screen coverages as the data probably says. He’s good positionally and has good hands, but some of the more athletic guys can turn the corner.

Lillard is absolutely an athletic slasher lol. Yes, he’s one of the greatest shooters of all time, but an athletic slasher. Wasn’t he literally in the dunk contest lmfao. He’s gotten incredibly good at attacking aggressive screen coverages after the bubble where he got messed up by that and nurkic being poor on the short roll

Anthony edwards is like one of the most athletic players in the nba



What Jokic is good at, is he has good hands, has great positioning especially when prerotating, and is big as hell

Against a guy like Jimmy, especially a Jimmy with no lift, that works pretty well since he’s not finishing over you or blitzing past you.

But some guys he’s just not physically capable of contesting at the rim effectively even he’s at the right spot

The idea that Jokic is some absurd liability because he cannot check the premier guards in the nba 30 feet out is idiotic because literally even the goddamn Lakers with AD ran a high drop vs Curry lol.

I think there are issues with him defensively but the can’t defend in space issue is applicable with aggressive screen coverages against guys who can slash from that lol. There’s a reason he’s generally one of the higher ranked bigs in mobile coverages this year, he has attributed to do so but lacks the quickness against specific matchups



notice how you took out “athletic”, you’ve never seen Ant do anything in your life you just saw his pullup frequency without realizing this dude is one of the most athletic guys in the nba, and with Booker you clearly didn’t see the game if you’re creating a narrative that Booker was getting picked up from 30 feet out. If you wanna argue the aggressive screen coverages didn’t work, although for the most part their defense with Jokic on the floor was fine iirc, that’s fine, but that’s not on him and thinking aggressive screen coverages don’t work mean you don’t know how basketball works

You’re just spewing narrative pretending to have watched the games lmao. A quick look through on YouTube shows it pretty definitively. Anyone who reads through this, check those games out and see how utterly ridiculous the idea that Jokic was constantly picking up Booker 30 feet out is

Or even more so, that he was doing that to edwards even though bro was literally in drop for the first few games. Did Edwards even hit a 30 footer this year? (Edit yes! He hit 1).




I don’t mind when people are ignorant about the schematic aspects about basketball, I don’t claim to know everything about it, and I respect the people who try to watch and understand it, but the people who talk about just literally always know absolutely nothing while acting like they know something lol. It’s absurd


Don’t say scheme, not use random buzzwords because you don’t know the specifics of what a defensive scheme is, obviously it’s deeper than the type of help and the type of coverages but that absolutely does entail what you’re talking about for the most part. Be specific if you want to be taken seriously.



If the argument was, Jokic struggles against some ball handlers when partaking in aggressive screen coverages because lacking lateral quickness means he is more susceptible to turning the corner or splitting the screen, that’s fine, I agree that’s his biggest weakness, and you would have a point


But,
1. this doesn’t apply to all ball handlers
2. These players are still good at lashing
3. Jokic is not picking these people up 30 feet out, Booker and Ant, the relevant examples this year
4. Aggressive screen coverages aren’t inherently bad it’s about your personell
5. Absolutely is not what you were saying


It’s absurd how many people act high and mighty and just spout absolute nonsense lol, most people are nice about it but you acting all condescending doesnt work if you don’t know what you’re talking about

He struggles in space where he has to pick up a ballhandler on the level of Lillard or Edwards 30 feet out Any scheme trying to hide him from that scenario will allow the absolute ridiculous onslaught that his team has faced in a very outlierish fashion..

You know how ridiculous of a quote this is?

It’s not that the conclusion is wrong, Jokic does have limitations and was really bad defensively in those series. I also do think that Ant did kind of kill him, and there are certain really tough matchups for him.

HOWEVER, the implication here is Jokic is bad because he can’t pick guys up 30 feet out… you know how absurd that is? What kind of baseline for a defensive big is “can guard Anthony edwards 30 feet from the basket” lmfao. AD couldn’t guard Ant 30 feet from the basket lol. Hell I don’t think jrue could either. Not to mention this isn’t even a thing because bigs don’t step up to guard Ant 30 feet from the basket and if they do it’s dumb lol.

Genuinely, anyone watch film of Ant and Booker and say “darn! Jokic really couldn’t stop these guys from taking threes!” It’s ridiculous.

“Your inability to understand it well” FOH with that condescending nonsense when ur out here saying Jokic HAD TO pick up Ant 30 feet out lmfao. Nearly as dead of a take as the mike conley one lol

Again, not understand what I’m saying or why I’m saying it.

This is really pitiful and exhausting.

I find myself not wanting to even explain myself for the first time ever on this forum. And i’m definitely not about to explain what you think is my opinion on things I really don’t even care to talk about with you and never even specifically mentioned yet you harp on these weird points constantly.

I definitely don’t want to talk about what you say you believe here because it’s obvious neither of us actually care.

I will say, I specifically said Jokic was a decent defender. Even from an NBA guard’s perspective. You saying I’m implying he’s awful is essentially trolling.

Other than that…Apparently Damian Lillard’s an athletic slasher and that’s why he had the best offensive series in maybe 14 years. Not shooting a preposterous 13 three-pointers per game to the tune of 45%…Okay.

And scheme had nothing to do with the career best series of a guy like Booker…And Edwards and Paul and Lillard and Mitchell and Jordan Poole. Okay… Got. It.

Lmao “pitiful” FOH, you typed that up and couldn’t address a single point that’s crazy. You Didn’t even read it, since you bring up things already addressed anyways.


Not a single human being on the planet said scheme had nothing to do with anything, but you’re talking about screen coverages, call them screen coverages, the more you don’t the more it becomes clear you don’t know what you’re talking about.


No way you said edwards again. People should bring up edwards tape vs the Nuggets and explain how Jokic was the reason edwards was making threes and that, that was the issue, more than other things. Jokic being expected to pick up edwards from 30 feet is still one of the absolute stupidest things I’ve ever seen on this forum, and that’s saying something.


This is nasty lol

[MyUniBroDavis]

Did you even read his post?

I think it is one of the least abrasive posts in this thread that does an excellent job at picking apart a statement(s) [In this case yours] and asks for more clarity as to how you actually came to the conclusion you did [And how you have hinted at arriving at your conclusion appears faulty based on the data we have].

It is probably better for you to ignore him though since you don't have anything positive to contribute.

Please enlighten me. What was the statement that you think I said?

I think it's interesting that KG's bad Wolves teammates are used as a crutch for him (which I agree with) but by the same token, his on/off and impact stats, which would benefit from him playing on a dysfunctional team, is also used to propel him.

I don’t hold the ringz argument against KG. And I know that stats like RAPM try to isolate individual impact while taking into account teammate quality. I’m just more skeptical about using these stats as the be all and end all.

A lot of the arguments highlighting KG's impact in those Minny years were using on/off, which would for sure would be impacted by the quality of his back-up and other teammates. As for RAPM, I'm skeptical of using it as a catch-all number to evaluate individual impact.

You are essentially saying you are skeptical of everything to do with Impact data, yet KG is an Impact GOD with a multitude of casts [Poor casts like 2001-2002, 2005-2007 and then Strong casts like 2004 and 2008-2011].

You know I recognize I’m a dick but saying he has nothing to contribute because he thinks bad teammates can increase RAPM and impact isn’t really fair lol

Don’t know how much I agree it’s as relevant for KG in particular, or more relevant than with Jokic in some regards, but still, even though I’d take Jokic here pretty comfortably.

[Peregrine01]

I too can be belligerent at times like I was with 70sFan earlier in this thread arguing about what I thought were inconsistent arguments in favor of KG's defense but used to summarily dismiss Jokic's. I think we can all agree that analyzing players is difficult and should require an array of different approaches. Discussions like these go into the shithole when each side retreats into their own "intellectual" tribes and talks past what others have to say.

[70sFan]

I too can be belligerent at times like I was with 70sFan earlier in this thread arguing about what I thought were inconsistent arguments in favor of KG's defense but used to summarily dismiss Jokic's. I think we can all agree that analyzing players is difficult and should require an array of different approaches. Discussions like these go into the shithole when each side retreats into their own "intellectual" tribes and talks past what others have to say.

I hope I will sharpen a lot of these fuzzy arguments in my Jokic video I hope to make at some point. I won't make Garnett one, but it will be in context of the 10 best centers peaks ever.

[Ben AN]

Is this conjecture or based on something? Cause his efficiency and usage off steals (closest approximation of "transition scoring" I could quickly scrape) are identical in the playoffs and in Boston (if anything he gets *better* in Boston, especially in the playoffs), and his shot profile is also very similar.

What website shows this stat?