If Ant plays like this, the Wolves is going to beat Nuggets

[tsherkin]

He just isn't as impactful. I don't care much for advanced stats, so you can forget invoking them, I'm about observable impact on winning.

Ah, unqualified observation. Very good. I'll leave you to it then.

[Texas Chuck]

He just isn't as impactful. I don't care much for advanced stats, so you can forget invoking them, I'm about observable impact on winning.

Ah, unqualified observation. Very good. I'll leave you to it then.

Yep no point when a guy literally tells you I refuse to consider any actual evidence that doesn't support my hypothesis. And of course when you've pre-determined Mike(could be someone else, but usually with these guys its Mike) is the GOAT and so your evaluation is how much is this guy like Mike(or player X) and not how good is this player at basketball.

That's without getting into the hubris of believing oneself capable of isolating individual impact on winning and putting it into context with totally different players in totally different eras and having watched enough of all those players to be able to make such a categorical statement. And the irony is those best equipped to do such a thing would never do such a thing.

It's like all the internet doctors we have here. The actual doctors say things like it could be X, but I would never diagnose a patient from a video, but the internet doctors know for sure exactly the injury and exactly why this player isn't as tough as those players who played with bones sticking out all the time.

Best to just nod and move on.

[swyftdahoe]

Well, the Suns kinda suck (Beal had no chance guarding Ant) so it's hard to say if Ant can keep this up. But who knows. Good, young player with this much confidence. He very well could be making a jump right now.

[AbeVigodaLive]

Ant was amazing but the suns are AWFUL

The Suns sure did look awful at times vs. Minnesota. But did the Wolves do anything to make that more obvious?

How quickly the narrative has changed. Less than two weeks ago, Phoenix was favored to win the series.

Fast forward... and the Timberwolves sweep. We could give them credit for surpassing the expectations of most. But that's not how social media (and the world in 2024 works). Even though the Wolves beat (upset) the Suns by 25, 12, 17 and 6 points... it's easier to rip the Suns and act like we all knew it all along.

Personally, I saw a very good defensive team slowly wear down the Suns (shorthanded without Allen) and force them into enough tough shots to win games and pull away in the 2nd half.




[Note: The Suns weren't guarding Edwards with only one guy. In the regular season, having multiple people blitz or spy on Edwards worked well because he didn't make the simple pass often (or fast) enough. Edwards handled it infinitely better over the past four games. Kudos to the Wolves' game planning... and his willingness to follow it.]

[TheFire]

This team easily beats the Nuggets if Murray is hobbled. I could even see a sweep.

Ant destroys KCP every time they play. Simply bullies him. The Wolves perimeter defense is going to make Murray’s life hell. You saw what they did to Booker in 3/4 games who’s a better player? The Nuggets bench is the worst of any playoff team and they’re really going to miss Brown against a team like wolves who have amazing depth. Yes, Jokic is incredible but Wolves are the only team that can throw 3 7 footers at him. They will wore him out if Murray is not himself. In my opinion, the Wolves are the best team in the league.

[srhcan]

I hope so. I am sick of the Jokic overrating.

yeah getting tired of thread saying Jokic is best basketball player ever (past, present and future)

[tundraknight]

Read on Twitter

[BlacJacMac]

First Denver should beat Lakers for one last time which is most probably will happen in 24 hours.

Suns' awful defense helps Ant's performance, it won't be that easy for him this time but still he has the potential. Wolves with their size will be a big problem for Nuggets it will be a hard fought at least 6 game series. This is not the year for them yet, they should build the rage after the loss next year.

Suns were the 13th ranked defense this year.

Lakers 16th...

[One_and_Done]

He just isn't as impactful. I don't care much for advanced stats, so you can forget invoking them, I'm about observable impact on winning.

Ah, unqualified observation. Very good. I'll leave you to it then.

Yep no point when a guy literally tells you I refuse to consider any actual evidence that doesn't support my hypothesis. And of course when you've pre-determined Mike(could be someone else, but usually with these guys its Mike) is the GOAT and so your evaluation is how much is this guy like Mike(or player X) and not how good is this player at basketball.

That's without getting into the hubris of believing oneself capable of isolating individual impact on winning and putting it into context with totally different players in totally different eras and having watched enough of all those players to be able to make such a categorical statement. And the irony is those best equipped to do such a thing would never do such a thing.

It's like all the internet doctors we have here. The actual doctors say things like it could be X, but I would never diagnose a patient from a video, but the internet doctors know for sure exactly the injury and exactly why this player isn't as tough as those players who played with bones sticking out all the time.

Best to just nod and move on.

You need to not act like advanced stats are indisputable evidence that people must be forced to accept. Things are more nuanced than that.

Advanced stats are one data point to consider, but they’re often wrong for a host of reasons I’m sure you’re familiar with. If all the advanced stats are saying a guy is very good or very bad, we should definitely note that as interesting and worthy of consideration… but all the guys Jokic is being compared to in this discussion like Duncan, Shaq, Lebron, etc, have great advanced stats in one form or another. It’s not useful enough to differentiate them, given all the noise on these stats and the margins for error. There are so many instances where we can see a guy is having a huge impact, but the advanced stats say otherwise. D.Rob is an advanced stats killer even in his final seasons, but having watched the games it was clear he was very washed. In his case, we even have evidence that pretty loudly refutes the advanced stats. In 2003 the Spurs went something like 15-3 in games without D.Rob, and in 02 Duncan outplayed Shaq largely without D.Rob and defending him man to man largely.

There are other things we can look at to gauge impact, and I cited some of them in my previous post. These things include; is his team performing above expectations, and is he the reason for it? Does he have holes in his game that teams can exploit? How does his game translate against the best teams in the playoffs? When he doesn’t win, how did other teams beat his? Sure, let’s look at the stats he’s putting up too, which are great, but stats aren’t everything. Jokic has a lot more to prove before I’m going to consider him in the same breath as Duncan, Shaq, or Lebron. Right now he’s a guy who was seen on par with Giannis and Luka a year ago, then led a 53 win team to a title in a relatively down year against favourable match-ups, and somehow people lost their minds. This year he’s led a non-outlier 57 win team which may or may not win a title. If it doesn’t I hope people will come to their senses a little bit more.

[Sealab2024]

Ant shot 44% from 3 and had his way with the Sun's all series. While I certainly think he'll play well I don't think it will be quite that easy against Denver.

The much more important variables are, in no particular order:
Can Jaden continue to be aggressive offensively?
Can Rudy continue to be somewhat switchable?
Can KAT finally thrive in the playoffs in a 1B role and play within himself and the gam?
Can Naz continue to play decent defense when the opponent is running a system instead of straight Iso?
Can the bench continue to be collectively positive?

Ant will be Ant, but a bunch of other things need to continue to work. However as a Wolves fan I don't go into this series feeling like we're overmatched at all. We've seen Denver plenty. 5 playoff games last year, 4 more regular season games this year. We're not at all "intimidated" by this Denver squad

[AleksandarN]

If Murray is healthy, like, 44/38/88 healthy, Wolves are getting smoked.

Otherwise they'll lose. Suns are god awful and I think people are overrating the **** out of the Wolves.

Minnesota lost in five to Denver (with multiple close games), despite Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid being out, Kyle Anderson going down half way through the series, and Denver having a much deeper bench. It should be a competitive series.

You could also say if Jokic didn't miss that three throw last year The Nuggets would have swept. I do agree with you I think this series goes 6 or 7. It will be hell of series if Murray is healthy. If he is not...

[Ice Man]

This is a strange time to be claiming that Jokic isn't that good, when he's averaging 29/15/10 for the series with great shooting efficiency, while carrying his team to a 3-1 lead when the opposition has the next two best players on the court.

Then again, I had people telling me all the time during the Eighties that Mike wasn't as good as Larry or Magic. I mean, what had Mike done?

[AleksandarN]

He just isn't as impactful. I don't care much for advanced stats, so you can forget invoking them, I'm about observable impact on winning.

Ah, unqualified observation. Very good. I'll leave you to it then.

You challenge him. His go to I don’t care for evidence, or his other come back is I disagree. He has nothing to back up anything he says. Pretty much trolling. Then after a while he disappears in the threads like last thread. It is sad.

[AleksandarN]

He just isn't as impactful. I don't care much for advanced stats, so you can forget invoking them, I'm about observable impact on winning.

Ah, unqualified observation. Very good. I'll leave you to it then.

Yep no point when a guy literally tells you I refuse to consider any actual evidence that doesn't support my hypothesis. And of course when you've pre-determined Mike(could be someone else, but usually with these guys its Mike) is the GOAT and so your evaluation is how much is this guy like Mike(or player X) and not how good is this player at basketball.

That's without getting into the hubris of believing oneself capable of isolating individual impact on winning and putting it into context with totally different players in totally different eras and having watched enough of all those players to be able to make such a categorical statement. And the irony is those best equipped to do such a thing would never do such a thing.

It's like all the internet doctors we have here. The actual doctors say things like it could be X, but I would never diagnose a patient from a video, but the internet doctors know for sure exactly the injury and exactly why this player isn't as tough as those players who played with bones sticking out all the time.

Best to just nod and move on.

He trolled in the last thread and disappeared when he was called out yet again. I personally wont stop challenging him though. He will disappear in this thread too only for him to start up again in another thread

[AleksandarN]

Ah, unqualified observation. Very good. I'll leave you to it then.

Yep no point when a guy literally tells you I refuse to consider any actual evidence that doesn't support my hypothesis. And of course when you've pre-determined Mike(could be someone else, but usually with these guys its Mike) is the GOAT and so your evaluation is how much is this guy like Mike(or player X) and not how good is this player at basketball.

That's without getting into the hubris of believing oneself capable of isolating individual impact on winning and putting it into context with totally different players in totally different eras and having watched enough of all those players to be able to make such a categorical statement. And the irony is those best equipped to do such a thing would never do such a thing.

It's like all the internet doctors we have here. The actual doctors say things like it could be X, but I would never diagnose a patient from a video, but the internet doctors know for sure exactly the injury and exactly why this player isn't as tough as those players who played with bones sticking out all the time.

Best to just nod and move on.

You need to not act like advanced stats are indisputable evidence that people must be forced to accept. Things are more nuanced than that.

Advanced stats are one data point to consider, but they’re often wrong for a host of reasons I’m sure you’re familiar with. If all the advanced stats are saying a guy is very good or very bad, we should definitely note that as interesting and worthy of consideration… but all the guys Jokic is being compared to in this discussion like Duncan, Shaq, Lebron, etc, have great advanced stats in one form or another. It’s not useful enough to differentiate them, given all the noise on these stats and the margins for error. There are so many instances where we can see a guy is having a huge impact, but the advanced stats say otherwise. D.Rob is an advanced stats killer even in his final seasons, but having watched the games it was clear he was very washed. In his case, we even have evidence that pretty loudly refutes the advanced stats. In 2003 the Spurs went something like 15-3 in games without D.Rob, and in 02 Duncan outplayed Shaq largely without D.Rob and defending him man to man largely.

There are other things we can look at to gauge impact, and I cited some of them in my previous post. These things include; is his team performing above expectations, and is he the reason for it? Does he have holes in his game that teams can exploit? How does his game translate against the best teams in the playoffs? When he doesn’t win, how did other teams beat his? Sure, let’s look at the stats he’s putting up too, which are great, but stats aren’t everything. Jokic has a lot more to prove before I’m going to consider him in the same breath as Duncan, Shaq, or Lebron. Right now he’s a guy who was seen on par with Giannis and Luka a year ago, then led a 53 win team to a title in a relatively down year against favourable match-ups, and somehow people lost their minds. This year he’s led a non-outlier 57 win team which may or may not win a title. If it doesn’t I hope people will come to their senses a little bit more.

See this is where I cook you again. I like how you say “Things are more nuanced than that” and then ignore all context when you brought up in the past Jokic losing in the playoffs the two playoffs prior. You know when he missed Murray and MPJ. You see when you try so hard to troll and hate on a guy you get twisted so much you might as well be called a pretzel.

[AleksandarN]

Btw if I was Denver I could see them having AG on Ant at times. With Jokic on Rudy and MPJ on Kat with KCP switched onto Daniels.

[One_and_Done]

Yep no point when a guy literally tells you I refuse to consider any actual evidence that doesn't support my hypothesis. And of course when you've pre-determined Mike(could be someone else, but usually with these guys its Mike) is the GOAT and so your evaluation is how much is this guy like Mike(or player X) and not how good is this player at basketball.

That's without getting into the hubris of believing oneself capable of isolating individual impact on winning and putting it into context with totally different players in totally different eras and having watched enough of all those players to be able to make such a categorical statement. And the irony is those best equipped to do such a thing would never do such a thing.

It's like all the internet doctors we have here. The actual doctors say things like it could be X, but I would never diagnose a patient from a video, but the internet doctors know for sure exactly the injury and exactly why this player isn't as tough as those players who played with bones sticking out all the time.

Best to just nod and move on.

You need to not act like advanced stats are indisputable evidence that people must be forced to accept. Things are more nuanced than that.

Advanced stats are one data point to consider, but they’re often wrong for a host of reasons I’m sure you’re familiar with. If all the advanced stats are saying a guy is very good or very bad, we should definitely note that as interesting and worthy of consideration… but all the guys Jokic is being compared to in this discussion like Duncan, Shaq, Lebron, etc, have great advanced stats in one form or another. It’s not useful enough to differentiate them, given all the noise on these stats and the margins for error. There are so many instances where we can see a guy is having a huge impact, but the advanced stats say otherwise. D.Rob is an advanced stats killer even in his final seasons, but having watched the games it was clear he was very washed. In his case, we even have evidence that pretty loudly refutes the advanced stats. In 2003 the Spurs went something like 15-3 in games without D.Rob, and in 02 Duncan outplayed Shaq largely without D.Rob and defending him man to man largely.

There are other things we can look at to gauge impact, and I cited some of them in my previous post. These things include; is his team performing above expectations, and is he the reason for it? Does he have holes in his game that teams can exploit? How does his game translate against the best teams in the playoffs? When he doesn’t win, how did other teams beat his? Sure, let’s look at the stats he’s putting up too, which are great, but stats aren’t everything. Jokic has a lot more to prove before I’m going to consider him in the same breath as Duncan, Shaq, or Lebron. Right now he’s a guy who was seen on par with Giannis and Luka a year ago, then led a 53 win team to a title in a relatively down year against favourable match-ups, and somehow people lost their minds. This year he’s led a non-outlier 57 win team which may or may not win a title. If it doesn’t I hope people will come to their senses a little bit more.

See this is where I cook you again. I like how you say “Things are more nuanced than that” and then ignore all context when you brought up in the past Jokic losing in the playoffs the two playoffs prior. You know when he missed Murray and MPJ. You see when you try so hard to troll and hate on a guy you get twisted so much you might as well be called a pretzel.

Please, go and touch some grass. You are way too caught up in the fantasy that you are my interweb antagonist. I promise, I don't think about you at all. If you're going to reply focus on actual arguments.

[QPR]

If Murray is healthy, like, 44/38/88 healthy, Wolves are getting smoked.

Otherwise they'll lose. Suns are god awful and I think people are overrating the **** out of the Wolves.

Minnesota lost in five to Denver (with multiple close games), despite Jaden McDaniels and Naz Reid being out, Kyle Anderson going down half way through the series, and Denver having a much deeper bench. It should be a competitive series.

Why is it that the losing team is the only one that can play better in these sorts of examples?

[AleksandarN]

You need to not act like advanced stats are indisputable evidence that people must be forced to accept. Things are more nuanced than that.

Advanced stats are one data point to consider, but they’re often wrong for a host of reasons I’m sure you’re familiar with. If all the advanced stats are saying a guy is very good or very bad, we should definitely note that as interesting and worthy of consideration… but all the guys Jokic is being compared to in this discussion like Duncan, Shaq, Lebron, etc, have great advanced stats in one form or another. It’s not useful enough to differentiate them, given all the noise on these stats and the margins for error. There are so many instances where we can see a guy is having a huge impact, but the advanced stats say otherwise. D.Rob is an advanced stats killer even in his final seasons, but having watched the games it was clear he was very washed. In his case, we even have evidence that pretty loudly refutes the advanced stats. In 2003 the Spurs went something like 15-3 in games without D.Rob, and in 02 Duncan outplayed Shaq largely without D.Rob and defending him man to man largely.

There are other things we can look at to gauge impact, and I cited some of them in my previous post. These things include; is his team performing above expectations, and is he the reason for it? Does he have holes in his game that teams can exploit? How does his game translate against the best teams in the playoffs? When he doesn’t win, how did other teams beat his? Sure, let’s look at the stats he’s putting up too, which are great, but stats aren’t everything. Jokic has a lot more to prove before I’m going to consider him in the same breath as Duncan, Shaq, or Lebron. Right now he’s a guy who was seen on par with Giannis and Luka a year ago, then led a 53 win team to a title in a relatively down year against favourable match-ups, and somehow people lost their minds. This year he’s led a non-outlier 57 win team which may or may not win a title. If it doesn’t I hope people will come to their senses a little bit more.

See this is where I cook you again. I like how you say “Things are more nuanced than that” and then ignore all context when you brought up in the past Jokic losing in the playoffs the two playoffs prior. You know when he missed Murray and MPJ. You see when you try so hard to troll and hate on a guy you get twisted so much you might as well be called a pretzel.

Please, go and touch some grass. You are way too caught up in the fantasy that you are my interweb antagonist. I promise, I don't think about you at all. If you're going to reply focus on actual arguments.

I expected this response. Cant reply on merit or refute what I wrote. Do better my guy.

[dhsilv2]

People are calling him the GOAT peak, and saying he's better than the likes of Shaq, Lebron and Duncan. I like Jokic, but he's definitely getting overrated.

Jokic may not have the collective career achievements yet but his play in the past couple years is absolutely up there with those guys

No. It's really not.

And this is why he's massively underrated. There's no way anyone can seriously think that if they're being honest. You might take some of those guys over him, but without a doubt he's up there.