Post#2955 » by lessthanjake » Mon May 13, 2024 6:55 pm
The bar for Jokic really is incredibly high. He’s caught flak here and elsewhere, but the guy is averaging 28/14/9 on 63% TS in the playoffs. In these playoffs, Jokic currently has the 17th highest single-playoff BPM in history, and it’s 11th if you take out guys who didn’t get past the first round (and one of the remaining 10 above him was Jokic himself last year). Most of the single-playoffs in which someone who went past the first round had a higher BPM than Jokic currently has this playoffs were playoffs authored by Michael Jordan (4x) or LeBron James (2x), and even those guys usually fell below this BPM. Of course, BPM doesn’t account much for defense, but Jokic’s team has had a -3.5 rDRTG in one series and a -2.0 rDRTG so far in the other series, so they’re really not struggling defensively. To the extent one might say that that obscures Jokic’s own defense being bad, I’ll note that he’s done a lot of great things defensively in the playoffs (forced a lot of turnovers, has a 31% DRB% with the most contested defensive rebounds per game of any player in the playoffs, etc.), and the FG% within 6 feet of the basket on shots Jokic has contested is a good bit lower than it was in the regular season and is 6.3% below expected, despite playing against incredible rim finishers. I’d also note that a good deal of why the Nuggets have had good rDRTG’s in both series is that their opponents aren’t getting to the line nearly as much against the Nuggets as they’re used to, nor are they getting as many offensive rebounds—both areas where Jokic’s style of defense is a significant positive factor. And to the extent we want to look at impact more generally, Jokic has easily the best on-off of any Nuggets starter in these playoffs (+10.1, with KCP being the closest starter at +4.2)—of course, that’s in a meaninglessly small sample, but I note this because people like to use tiny playoff samples to suggest Jokic isn’t a highly impactful playoff player.
Of course, all that said, I actually get the criticism to some degree. As incredible as Jokic has been, he actually *has* been disappointing in a sense, because he’s probably capable of being even better! But that’s a reflection of how incredible he is, where the sky is basically the limit. I’d also note that the idea that perhaps ANT has been even better in the playoffs so far doesn’t lead to some conclusion that Jokic hasn’t been amazing. There’s an argument that Anthony Edwards *has* been better. But ANT has been absolutely incredible in these playoffs so far! For reference, to use similar data to the above, Anthony Edwards currently has the 28th best single-playoffs BPM in history, which is, again, above most playoffs authored by Jordan or LeBron! Edwards has been incredible too! ANT will probably come back down to earth, since this is not his normal level (whereas for Jokic it basically is—though obviously it’s quite possible Jokic will do worse in subsequent playoff games), but who knows! If this is what Edwards is as a playoff player (or, perhaps, if he improves on this with time), then we’re looking at an incredibly special generational player.
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
