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He was 26 on last summer's top 100 project and is adding an enormous chunk of value with this season. His next 4-5 seasons will all likely be similar in value.

I imagine after 2026 it'll be pretty difficult to not have Jokic at least in the top 10 conversation? At that point he has 6 seasons on par with absolute prime LeBron in addition to some very good years in 2018 and 2019.

Probably 5 more seasons like the past 4. Also not sure if they will be similar to the last 4 as Jokic will be approaching the age where players typically decline in about ~2 years.

For top fifteen purposes, my marker seems to be at least ten postseasons (Oscar Robertson), and I do not have Jokic at that prime Lebron level where I could start debating much earlier; even going that high would reflect well on Jokic, because pretty much everyone needs ten just to get in the top thirty! So (assuming this year), that means at least four more at current pace before I start seriously considering it. He could exceed that pace, but top ten should be a high bar, and for longevity purposes he is basically going to be starting with Magic. In four years at current pace I would be comfortable with that debate, and I might side with Jokic, but I am not going to rush it.

3-5

Prime LeBron on offense?

Or are you saying prime LeBron on defense and offense?

I think 3 more seasons of this level and you can definitely argue him against the likes of Bird and Curry.

He has all the markings of a guy who will have an extended prime and a long career. He's also an ironman who never gets hurt. And his defense, historically the big knock on him, has kept getting better (especially in the playoffs). He's already being recognized as an offensive GOAT. So I think he just needs a few more years to prove that out and he'll be knocking on that door.

ardee wrote:He was 26 on last summer's top 100 project and is adding an enormous chunk of value with this season. His next 4-5 seasons will all likely be similar in value.

I imagine after 2026 it'll be pretty difficult to not have Jokic at least in the top 10 conversation? At that point he has 6 seasons on par with absolute prime LeBron in addition to some very good years in 2018 and 2019.

I'll speak to it in terms of my simplistic POY Shares:

Right now - through last season when they broke through and won the chip - Jokic ranks 22nd by that number.

If he takes the top spot this year, he'll go up to 16th.
Does it again in '24-25, up to 11th.
Does it again in '25-26, up to 7th.

Frankly, if he does all this looking like an utterly unstoppable dominator leading his team to the title each year, I'd say it's basically a given I'd have him in my holistic career Top 10 by 2025.

But if there are stumbles and vulnerabilities found in the next couple years, he still might never get there. It will be an informative couple of years.

Jokic is starting to cement himself as the best player of a decade, which deserves Top 10 considerations.

2-3 seasons

If we're talking fun hypotheticals impacting potential Top Ten contention, how about if Giannis and the Bucks were to knock off one of the more dominant recent RS juggernauts in Boston in the ECF, then took down Jokic and the Nuggets in their first H2H Finals match up?

To me, he’s already a top-tier contender in the conversation for GOAT peak. However, an all-time greatness ranking is conceptually different. To me it’s not just a question of number of additional years at this sort of level (though that’s definitely important), but it is also a question of team success. I know some here reject this kind of reasoning, but if we are talking about a player’s “greatness” in a sport, I think it is very important how much team success they had, because “greatness” is in part about significance in the sport, and winning more titles makes someone more significant to the story of the sport and therefore “greater.” So that affects the answer to the question a lot for me. Of course, he’s likely to rack up more titles the longer he stays at this level. But that’s not definite. If Jokic continues like this for 6 more years but doesn’t win another title, then he might not actually make my top 10 greatest of all time. But if he continues like this for just 2 more years but wins the title every one of those years, then he almost certainly would be well into my top 10. For me, given how good a player Jokic is, the line for Jokic to be top 10 is probably having won three titles. And he could possibly sneak into the top 10 with two total titles if he had a ton of longevity.

Depends on how the ~second half of his career plays out. If you had asked after the 2018 season, I would have said Kevin Durant is on his way to challenging the top 10. But now look at him (respectfully.)

SHAQ32 wrote:Depends on how the ~second half of his career plays out. If you had asked after the 2018 season, I would have said Kevin Durant is on his way to challenging the top 10. But now look at him (respectfully.)

Respectfully, that would have been a very strange assertion because even then we were debating whether the Warriors could have won those titles without Durant (and now we know they could have), so I don't know what we saw from Durant then that would've qualified him for top 10 talk.

That's a million miles from Jokic, who is probably more valuable to the Nuggets than almost any player has ever been.

ardee wrote:

SHAQ32 wrote:Depends on how the ~second half of his career plays out. If you had asked after the 2018 season, I would have said Kevin Durant is on his way to challenging the top 10. But now look at him (respectfully.)

Respectfully, that would have been a very strange assertion because even then we were debating whether the Warriors could have won those titles without Durant (and now we know they could have), so I don't know what we saw from Durant then that would've qualified him for top 10 talk.

That's a million miles from Jokic, who is probably more valuable to the Nuggets than almost any player has ever been.

Oh but a lot of people were super-high on KD seeing as him being "the man" on the GOAT Warriors and outplaying LeBron. Wasn't my take, but it was common.

One more ring he would pass Hakeem and Durant, right around the top 10 gate keeper

I'd say like 3-4 seasons. Not even necessarily at the level of 21-24 because most players start to let up on rs success as they get into their late 20's and aren't pushing for mvps. More just a matter of having more seasons under his belt and hopefully more playoff success to go with it. Maybe only two more seasons if he gets 1-2 more rings.

ardee wrote:

SHAQ32 wrote:Depends on how the ~second half of his career plays out. If you had asked after the 2018 season, I would have said Kevin Durant is on his way to challenging the top 10. But now look at him (respectfully.)

Respectfully, that would have been a very strange assertion because even then we were debating whether the Warriors could have won those titles without Durant (and now we know they could have), so I don't know what we saw from Durant then that would've qualified him for top 10 talk.

That's a million miles from Jokic, who is probably more valuable to the Nuggets than almost any player has ever been.

How do we know the warriors survive the 2018 rockets and the 2017 cavs?

ardee wrote:He was 26 on last summer's top 100 project and is adding an enormous chunk of value with this season. His next 4-5 seasons will all likely be similar in value.

I imagine after 2026 it'll be pretty difficult to not have Jokic at least in the top 10 conversation? At that point he has 6 seasons on par with absolute prime LeBron in addition to some very good years in 2018 and 2019.

Yup, he's one of two that I have as a current generational player who will be in the top 10 shortly and I am not as high on LBJ as most in the PC board are. Jokic's PS run last year was better in my eyes than any of LBJ's prime runs, and he did everything while missing a second superstar along side of him. You have no help excuses with Jokic, no coaching excuses, compliments any system, and he is simply no BS, who, now in prime, can go toe to toe statistically with the best of them already. I don't need decades of longevity to claim how great he is, but if he maintains this level of play for another 3-4 years, that's all I'll need to see.

I think he still needs 2 more long dominant playoff runs to be in that conversation. Currently he really only has one elite run (maybe one of the 10-15 best ever granted), I think everyone in that top 10 range has at least a handful of them.