What makes Joker better than Giannis?

[LukaTheGOAT]

You don't need the numbers. Jokic is in a different tier of impact. It's harder to dampen what he does than what Giannis does.

With Giannis, besides him offense being not quite uo to snuff, I think his defensive impact can be diminished a bit in certain matchups (as can all bigs) by the game being more perimeter oriented than it has in the past.

[Ambrose]

I think that one thing missing in this analysis is the fact that Jokic contests a lot of shots. He’s consistently near the very top of the league in number of contested FG’s within 6 feet per game. He’s a very active defender. Some of the high FG% against him is reflective of the fact that he’s contesting attempts that other people just wouldn’t contest.

Jokic fans will try anything to twist a clear negative into a positive with convoluted logic.

This is patently false. Jokic faces a high number of FGAs on defense simply because the opposition repeatedly go at him because he is a poor shot defender, and has been for years. This season's defensive FGM/FGA allowed data is no outlier - look at the data at stats.nba.com for Jokic for previous seasons.

Furthermore, Jokic is great in other ways on defense. His defensive rebounding is fantastic, and that is a really big deal.

Defensive rebounding is after the fact, and in no way constitutes good defense when your shot defense is poor.

Jonas Valanciunas, Jusuf Nurkic, even Kevin Love are all similar defensive rebounders to Jokic on a per minute basis this and the past few seasons. You advocating for them too being good defenders because of their defensive rebounding? Or is it just Jokic because you are a fan of his?

He has really good hands, especially for his position, causing a lot of turnovers.

"A lot" of turnovers? What evidence do you have for this? Cs like Andre Drummond and Paul Reed have much higher per minute steal rates than Jokic does, I don't hear anyone beating their drums for them to be recognized as top defenders.

And Jokic on defense does not draw many offensive fouls from the opposition.

So what turnovers are you talking about?

And he’s a smart defender who pays attention and is active, leading to him being positioned well.

Maybe if he was even smarter he would stop more shots from going in.

Players like Rudy Gobert completely deter a player from shooting in the first place, which is why his shot contest numbers are lower.

Exactly - Gobert, Porzingis, Walker Kessler, these are your best shot defenders <10' of the basket. Jokic is one of the worst among Cs, whether Jokic fans want to admit it or not.

Jokic DBPM since 2022: 4.5, 4.5, 4.4 Giannis DBPM in his three best years: 4.1, 4.1, 3.5

Which clearly tells you how useless some of these calculated metrics are.

Read how DBPM is calculated:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/bpm2.html

And let us know if any individual player shot defense data is used (Hint: No).

Jokic, right now, doesn't really have any weaknesses.

Defense is half the game, whether Jokic fans want to admit it or not.

And defense is a very big weakness for Jokic.

Few things here:

Defensive rebounding is in fact, extremely important to defense. Not allowing second chance opportunities is highly impactful. Plus, Jokic is routinely near the top of the league in contested rebounds (2nd, 5th, 1st last 3 years), meaning he's coming up with the most important ones.

Jokic leads the league every year in deflections amongst bigs (3 straight years as #1, top 5 the year before). Those are the turnovers he's talking about.

Plus, he's simply a basketball genius. He's often in the right place or makes the right read, and he has a great motor, which makes him a strong help defender. Every advanced stat paints him as an impactful defensive player.

[OhayoKD]

You don't need the numbers. Jokic is in a different tier of impact. It's harder to dampen what he does than what Giannis does.

With Giannis, besides him offense being not quite uo to snuff, I think his defensive impact can be diminished a bit in certain matchups (as can all bigs) by the game being more perimeter oriented than it has in the past.

Not without specifc box-score inputs...

Plus, he's simply a basketball genius. He's often in the right place or makes the right read, and he has a great motor, which makes him a strong help defender. Every advanced stat paints him as an impactful defensive player.

"Advanced" is doing alot of work here. There are plenty of granular stats where Jokic does not look good(hint, defensive tracking) and there is no limit to the possibly formulas you could conjure up with those stats or anything else someone decided to count from the game,

However, him playing in the games correlates with marginal defensive improvement, and both sides coming into play do not suggest significant seperation from a giannis and(at least for the regular season) an embid who are much worse attackers.

[kcktiny]

Defensive rebounding is in fact, extremely important to defense.

Extremely? Care to explain how defensive rebounding supersedes shot defense?

According to stats.nba.com today on FGAs <10' Jokic is allowing a 59.5% FG% (503/845), Gobert a 47.5% (346/729). That's a huge 12%-13% difference. Are you not acknowledging that that is poor shot defense by Jokic?

Not allowing second chance opportunities is highly impactful.

Highly? More impactful that good shot defense?

Jokic leads the league every year in deflections amongst bigs (3 straight years as #1, top 5 the year before). Those are the turnovers he's talking about.

Deflections in and of themselves are not turnovers. Not sure what you mean here.

Plus, he's simply a basketball genius.

Not on defense. Not even close.

He's often in the right place or makes the right read, and he has a great motor, which makes him a strong help defender.

Care to explain how a C allowing a high/poor FG% is a basketball genius on defense?

Every advanced stat paints him as an impactful defensive player.

Is that so. Any of them consider shot defense?

[Ambrose]

Defensive rebounding is in fact, extremely important to defense.

Extremely? Care to explain how defensive rebounding supersedes shot defense?

According to stats.nba.com today on FGAs <10' Jokic is allowing a 59.5% FG% (503/845), Gobert a 47.5% (346/729). That's a huge 12%-13% difference. Are you not acknowledging that that is poor shot defense by Jokic?

Not allowing second chance opportunities is highly impactful.

Highly? More impactful that good shot defense?

Jokic leads the league every year in deflections amongst bigs (3 straight years as #1, top 5 the year before). Those are the turnovers he's talking about.

Deflections in and of themselves are not turnovers. Not sure what you mean here.

Plus, he's simply a basketball genius.

Not on defense. Not even close.

He's often in the right place or makes the right read, and he has a great motor, which makes him a strong help defender.

Care to explain how a C allowing a high/poor FG% is a basketball genius on defense?

Every advanced stat paints him as an impactful defensive player.

Is that so. Any of them consider shot defense?

Let's go through this silly response point by point.

I said elite defensive rebounding is extremely valuable defensively. Which it is. But you framed it as a comparison to shot defense. I didn't compare it to shot defense at all. Let alone compare him to the best defensive big in the NBA, Gobert. Try to respond without twisting the argument completely.

Again, didn't compare to shot defense. Stop twisting my words.

Deflections often lead to turnovers. Or disrupt easy baskets. Or allow your teammates to get into more advantageous positions. Again, highly impactful. It's completely within the realm of possibility that being the best deflecting big in the NBA causes a high amount of turnovers.

Sure, he is. Try to put forth an actual argument next time. "Shot defense" > isn't a real argument.

Sure, his on court impact paints him as a positive defensively. So if it's not coming from shot deterrence it has to come from somewhere right? It does. Positioning. Defensive rebounding. Deflections. Motor. Literally everything I said last post.

Despite that shot defense, Denver a top 10 defensive team. Why is that if his shot contest defense is such a liability? Why wasn't anyone able to exploit that in the postseason last year? Denver isn't loaded with elite defenders. They have two starters who aren't even good at it, and won last year with an all time small playoff rotation. The numbers show they are better defensively with him vs. without him.You wanted to know how shot defense was superseded, correct? If shot defense matters as much as you say, and yet all the data suggests Denver is good at defense, and better defensively with him, logically he must be doing things that are more important than it, right? Right.

This is an example of someone cherry picking one stat, extrapolating it to mean far more than it does, then ignoring all of the vast indicators that plainly state the guy is a plus defensively. No, he's not an ATG defensive player like Rudy Gobert. No, he's not a Giannis-level rim protector. He'll never be those guys, he's not elite on that end. But is he a good defender? Does he bring value and impact on that end? Yes, because he's smart, his motor is great, he positions well, he's an elite defensive rebounder, and he has great instincts. If shot defense says he's bad, and everything else says he's good, then it must not be as important as you think.

[DCasey91]

Number of reasons:

1. Durability. Pretty much self explanatory

2. Skill set. See above

3. Resiliency. This is a big one as you can plan and adapt for Giannis or the “Wall” methodology along with poorer than expected FT conversion can throw up some less than stellar results. Jokic is Jokic, can’t double, goat level playmaker not just for a big, scores from anywhere with the best of all time, he’s just too sharp everywhere.

Maybe looking at the shot profile, force him right or left? Who the f knows.

4. Offensive potency vs two way viability. Now that offensive prowess among the top is slanted whereas before its was pretty much 50/50 at the top that in itself becomes some type of inherit value within a vacuum but must look at more specifics at detail and it’s definelty not a an all in one thing.

It’s contextual but I do find the 2021 Bucks as pretty much the best sort of construction you are going to get alongside within reason. POA defender/ball handler , Tall shot creator, backup stretch paint big and it was won by crushing small ball and Giannis going full I’m big let me smash inside we grab rebounds (not that it should be any other way imho).

With the change of pace close to the finals that is an advantage to Jokic but. Preferably I do want Giannis to play more like a big instead of a wing initiator. This is the same for Durant/Kawhi/Davis/PG/Biid as all of them I find unders if the ball is going’s through them the whole time. Don’t consider them to be in be ATG creators for a teams perspective or for the other 4. Individually great but I do think you lose something if there’s predominant overshare on the ball.

2 things that will be interesting is. How will Giannis and Dame work in the real thing. My guess not too well and wouldn’t surprise to be underperforming relative to expectation. Replacing one of the best defenders in the comp (relative to size and positional versatility) for one of the worst (pretty much the worst besides Trae if you account for the same things) and a lot smaller

For Jokic there’s a handful of teams in the West with direct offensive threats but they themselves have their own flaws

So yeah interesting to see how the numbers shape out especially on defensive acumen.

[kcktiny]

Let's go through this silly response point by point.

Yes - lets.

I said elite defensive rebounding is extremely valuable defensively. Which it is. But you framed it as a comparison to shot defense. I didn't compare it to shot defense at all.

Correct. You did not. Because shot defense is by far the most important aspect of team defense, followed by forcing turnovers and defensive rebounding. The most important factors for decreasing a team's points per possession allowed on defense are allowing a low eFG% and a high rate of turnovers forced. You increase a team's rate of defensive rebounds by having more shots missed.

Try to respond without twisting the argument completely.

You mean like you saying a player that allows a high FG% is a good defender?

Again, didn't compare to shot defense. Stop twisting my words.

Correct, you did not. Because you won't. Because shot defense is more important that defensive rebounding.

Deflections often lead to turnovers.

This is not what you said. You said deflections are turnovers:

Jokic leads the league every year in deflections amongst bigs (3 straight years as #1, top 5 the year before). Those are the turnovers he's talking about.

And - do you even know what percentage of deflections result in turnovers?

Again, highly impactful.

Steals and offensive fouls drawn are both turnovers by the opponent. How is a deflection that does not result in a turnover impactful?

It's completely within the realm of possibility that being the best deflecting big in the NBA causes a high amount of turnovers.

You don't even know. You are now trying to claim Jokic is a good defender based solely on a hunch. You could say this about any player that causes deflections. Now how about looking at the turnovers they force. You don't need to make a hunch about those.

"Shot defense" > isn't a real argument.

Of course it is. Good defenders are for the most part the ones that allow the lowest FG% or eFG% on defense, and also that force the most turnovers. Defenders that do both are your best defenders.

Just out of curiosity, are there any other Cs that allow a high FG% on defense like Jokic does that you think are good defenders? Or is it just Jokic your favorite player? How about Jonas Valanciunas - similar defensive rebounding, similar high FG% allowed, is also a better shot blocker than Jokic. Is he a good defender just like Jokic according to you?

Sure, his on court impact paints him as a positive defensively.

What impact measurement might this be? Does this measure of impact include shot defense? If it does not then it is useless as a measure of defense.

So if it's not coming from shot deterrence it has to come from somewhere right?

Wrong. If your metric that supposedly measures defense claims Jokic is a good defender and does not include shot defense then it clearly does not measure actual defense.

Positioning. Defensive rebounding. Deflections. Motor. Literally everything I said last post.

Wow! So your defensive metric that measures a player's defense measures his positioning, and deflections, and motor? Really?

What impact measurement does this?

Despite that shot defense, Denver a top 10 defensive team. Why is that if his shot contest defense is such a liability?

Go to stats.nba.com and look at Denver's players' shot defense. Jokic's FG% allowed is the highest/worst on Denver for all players having faced 100+ FGAs on defense.

This is the camera data the league takes. If you don't want to believe it take that up with the league.

If shot defense matters as much as you say, and yet all the data suggests Denver is good at defense

Again, look at the Denver's players' shot defense data at stats.nba.com. Jokic's FG% allowed is the highest/worst on the team.

logically he must be doing things that are more important than it, right? Right.

Logically he is allowing the highest/worst FG% on Denver right now, right? Right? He is a poor shot defender.

This is an example of someone cherry picking one stat, extrapolating it to mean far more than it does, then ignoring all of the vast indicators that plainly state the guy is a plus defensively.

Just another Jokic fanboy who refuses to accept the reality of their favorite player. His shot defense is poor, and shot defense is the most important factor in a team's overall defense.

But is he a good defender?

Good? No.

If shot defense says he's bad, and everything else says he's good, then it must not be as important as you think.

Everything else? What everything else? Funny how you refuse to mention this metric you keep alluding to.

Is this DBPM again, or some convoluted plus/minus on/off noisy-in-a-one-year-sampling metric that does not measure shot defense?

[Peregrine01]

If defended shot FG% is all you're fixated on, then Jokic is pretty average despite being second in total field goal attempts defended (according to Synergy). His defended FG% differential versus actual FG% of the players he's defended is 0. Now obviously, this doesn't compare to top guys like Gobert (who makes guys shoot 6% worse) or Porzingis (also 6% worse) but it's in line with guys like Jarrett Allen.

Importantly, Nuggets are top 5 in total DFG% allowed and 6th in DFG% allowed inside 6 feet so it's not like they're allowing a layup line at the rim - if anything, they've been pretty good at protecting the rim. Even more importantly, the Nuggets are a top 10 defense this year and rank 2nd in clutch time defense behind the Knicks, allowing a DRTG of just 93 (behind the Knicks at 92).

The clutch time defense stats are most interesting - Nuggets allow just 39% FG (3rd best in the league), 24% from 3 (3rd best) and allow just 9 offensive rebounds per 100 (3rd best). So they allow a poor FG% from inside and outside the 3, completely seal off the boards and then rock a 124 ORTG on the other end while posting a 60% eFG%. When they have to lock in, they've been elite not just on offense but also defense.

[frica]

Jokic' efficient offense directly leads to better defense.
You don't need super atheletic Shawn Kamp chasedown blocks when your team makes less stupid turnovers due to better passing and more space.

There are situations Jokic can't deal with like a Giannis can, but when your team makes less turnovers when you're on the field, does he need to?

Nuggets are also pretty good at "NBA Team Opponent Fastbreak Points per Game" joint 8-9th place.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Jokic... is also a severely underrated defender. The advanced stats show this, and now the eye test too

Whose eyes?

Go to stats.nba.com and look at the defensive FGM/FGA allowed data under player defensive dashboards.

You will see that for FGAs <6' Jokic allows a high 64.2% FG% (400/623), highest/worst among starting Cs. The best Cs allow just a 48.4% FG% (Gobert 271/560). Antetokounmpo <6' allows a 54.2% FG% (193/356).

For FGAs <10' Jokic allows a 59.3% FG% (492/829), one of the highest/worst among starting Cs. Gobert 47.0% (332/706). Antetokounmpo 52.7% (227/431).

That means for this 2023-24 season Jokic is one of the worst shot defenders among Cs in the league.

What "advanced" stats are telling you Jokic is a "severely underrated defender"? If they do not take into consideration shot defense then they are clearly flawed and of no use for evaluating defense.

why you ask "whose eyes?" and then you go by the stats?
I think there a few elements here:
- Jokic impacts defense differently compared to other big men (not fouling, quick hands, securing the defensive rebound, reading the play) something that is not necessarily captured by the numbers you are showing (I notice people overrate guys contesting everything while fouling and giving up the offensive rebound, for instance JJJ. I think also Timmeh is sometimes underrated historically because of this)
- Jokic, as are the Nuggets, is absolutely coasting in the RS hence I am not expecting to strong of a defensive signal. As he's not a traditional rim protector it's not easy to build a "safe" RS defense around him, that you can go 80% and still be good. If you start giving up on rotations and closeouts it's an immediate breakdown, and this will affect he def rat. I don't think this will be what Jokic and the Nuggets will show in the playoffs, and it was the same last year during the RS.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Defensive rebounding is in fact, extremely important to defense.

Extremely? Care to explain how defensive rebounding supersedes shot defense?

According to stats.nba.com today on FGAs <10' Jokic is allowing a 59.5% FG% (503/845), Gobert a 47.5% (346/729). That's a huge 12%-13% difference. Are you not acknowledging that that is poor shot defense by Jokic?

You convinced me, Gobert is a better defender than Jokic. I finally saw the light

[Ambrose]

Let's go through this silly response point by point.

Yes - lets.

I said elite defensive rebounding is extremely valuable defensively. Which it is. But you framed it as a comparison to shot defense. I didn't compare it to shot defense at all.

Correct. You did not. Because shot defense is by far the most important aspect of team defense, followed by forcing turnovers and defensive rebounding. The most important factors for decreasing a team's points per possession allowed on defense are allowing a low eFG% and a high rate of turnovers forced. You increase a team's rate of defensive rebounds by having more shots missed.

Try to respond without twisting the argument completely.

You mean like you saying a player that allows a high FG% is a good defender?

Again, didn't compare to shot defense. Stop twisting my words.

Correct, you did not. Because you won't. Because shot defense is more important that defensive rebounding.

Deflections often lead to turnovers.

This is not what you said. You said deflections are turnovers:

Jokic leads the league every year in deflections amongst bigs (3 straight years as #1, top 5 the year before). Those are the turnovers he's talking about.

And - do you even know what percentage of deflections result in turnovers?

Again, highly impactful.

Steals and offensive fouls drawn are both turnovers by the opponent. How is a deflection that does not result in a turnover impactful?

It's completely within the realm of possibility that being the best deflecting big in the NBA causes a high amount of turnovers.

You don't even know. You are now trying to claim Jokic is a good defender based solely on a hunch. You could say this about any player that causes deflections. Now how about looking at the turnovers they force. You don't need to make a hunch about those.

"Shot defense" > isn't a real argument.

Of course it is. Good defenders are for the most part the ones that allow the lowest FG% or eFG% on defense, and also that force the most turnovers. Defenders that do both are your best defenders.

Just out of curiosity, are there any other Cs that allow a high FG% on defense like Jokic does that you think are good defenders? Or is it just Jokic your favorite player? How about Jonas Valanciunas - similar defensive rebounding, similar high FG% allowed, is also a better shot blocker than Jokic. Is he a good defender just like Jokic according to you?

Sure, his on court impact paints him as a positive defensively.

What impact measurement might this be? Does this measure of impact include shot defense? If it does not then it is useless as a measure of defense.

So if it's not coming from shot deterrence it has to come from somewhere right?

Wrong. If your metric that supposedly measures defense claims Jokic is a good defender and does not include shot defense then it clearly does not measure actual defense.

Positioning. Defensive rebounding. Deflections. Motor. Literally everything I said last post.

Wow! So your defensive metric that measures a player's defense measures his positioning, and deflections, and motor? Really?

What impact measurement does this?

Despite that shot defense, Denver a top 10 defensive team. Why is that if his shot contest defense is such a liability?

Go to stats.nba.com and look at Denver's players' shot defense. Jokic's FG% allowed is the highest/worst on Denver for all players having faced 100+ FGAs on defense.

This is the camera data the league takes. If you don't want to believe it take that up with the league.

If shot defense matters as much as you say, and yet all the data suggests Denver is good at defense

Again, look at the Denver's players' shot defense data at stats.nba.com. Jokic's FG% allowed is the highest/worst on the team.

logically he must be doing things that are more important than it, right? Right.

Logically he is allowing the highest/worst FG% on Denver right now, right? Right? He is a poor shot defender.

This is an example of someone cherry picking one stat, extrapolating it to mean far more than it does, then ignoring all of the vast indicators that plainly state the guy is a plus defensively.

Just another Jokic fanboy who refuses to accept the reality of their favorite player. His shot defense is poor, and shot defense is the most important factor in a team's overall defense.

But is he a good defender?

Good? No.

If shot defense says he's bad, and everything else says he's good, then it must not be as important as you think.

Everything else? What everything else? Funny how you refuse to mention this metric you keep alluding to.

Is this DBPM again, or some convoluted plus/minus on/off noisy-in-a-one-year-sampling metric that does not measure shot defense?

Twisting my words again? Check.

Placing sole defensive value on shot defense at the expense of everything else (a metric that actually paints him average instead of bad)? Check.

Thanks for proving my last post to be correct.

Feel free to check out WOWY, RAPM, Net rating, or past examples like LEBRON/RAPTOR, RPM, etc. for metrics that correlate with impactful defense. Or you can check out cleaningtheglass here: https://cleaningtheglass.com/stats/player/1883/onoff#tab-team_efficiency

Until then there isn't a point in arguing with someone whose mind is incorrectly made up that Jokic is a weak defender, and can only cite one metric (incorrectly) to show it. I'm glad someone who isn't as lazy as I am broke it down above.

[Mickey8]

Giannis is the brick layer, take out his driving lane and he's nothing special.

[lessthanjake]

.

These have to be troll posts. But just a couple quick things:

1. Any impact metric is going to be based on what happens when a player is on the court versus off the court. Which means that it inherently takes shot defense into account, because that affects what happens on the court. In fact, if you think shot defense is the most important thing a player does defensively, then shot defense will be the most important part of the equation in an impact metric as well. Jokic is not great at shot defense, but yet he ends up pretty consistently looking genuinely good defensively in impact metrics. Which very clearly suggests that the impact of his non-shot-defense strengths outweigh his shot-defense weakness. And that makes a lot of sense, because he has a bunch of very significant defensive strengths. It’s really not hard to imagine them outweighing his lack of rim protection ability.

2. This is a very minor point, but deflections that do not result in turnovers are actually quite often impactful. For instance, let’s say someone cuts to the basket or is running on the fast break and their teammate passes to them. If that pass reaches them, they’ll get a layup. If an opponent deflects that pass out of bounds, it is not a turnover but it saves a layup and forces the team to instead try to score in normal half-court offense (which is obviously much more difficult than a layup). That is very impactful. Or maybe we take a similar scenario but the pass is instead going out to an open three-point shooter. Deflecting away what would otherwise be an open three is impactful, even if not a turnover! Furthermore, a deflection that gets recovered by the offense before going out of bounds (as it often must be, in order to stop the defense from recovering it) often more generally blows up the offensive play and forces the offense to reset with not much time left on the clock—which will usually end up forcing a bad shot. Again, that’s impactful! I feel like these are all things that people who watch the game instinctively understand, so I’m wondering if you really watch basketball much or are trolling.

You’re really just stuck in a very simplistic view of things, where a player’s defensive ability is virtually entirely described by what the FG% is on shots they contest, and where other things don’t really matter at all. And to the extent you might somewhat acknowledge that other things matter, you are refusing to look at it in a remotely fulsome way. The bottom line is that the available evidence tells us that Jokic is not a good rim protector but is still a good overall defender (albeit not at the level of elite defensive bigs).

[Ron Swanson]

There's a very easy argument for why Jokic has been a better player than Giannis since 2021 or 2022 (RS impact metrics, durability, offensive consistency/resiliency), but some of you guys are embarrassing yourselves with this "the defensive gap isn't that huge" narrative. Rebounding? D-BPM? Just stop.

[Statlanta]

I don't think kctiny is trolling but his back and forth with Ambrose illuminates the fact that the NBA has no stats on good rotations and thus is hard to track or evaluate good defense without the eye test(which is subjective).

There is no stat that tells you Giannis can make the 2021 Finals block on Ayton while Jokic can't.

There's also no stat that tells you how mitigating Jokic's rebounding and scoring efficiency is on all the easy inside scores he lets offensive players make

[OhayoKD]

I don't think kctiny is trolling but his back and forth with Ambrose illuminates the fact that the NBA has no stats on good rotations and thus is hard to track or evaluate good defense without the eye test(which is subjective).

There is no stat that tells you Giannis can make the 2021 Finals block on Ayton while Jokic can't.

There's also no stat that tells you how mitigating Jokic's rebounding and scoring efficiency is on all the easy inside scores he lets offensive players make

There are stats with bake in both, and those stats do not support jokic as being on a different level than Giannis as much as people want to have him as goat candidate

[OhayoKD]

How big is the defensive gap nowadays really?

Bucks are ranked 20th on defense. If Giannis was still a super elite defender that would not be the case.

Nuggets are ranked 9th on defense despite people constantly saying Jokic isn't a good defender (not the case anymore btw).

I'm quite surprised how bad the Bucks' defense has gotten. I think this whole forum should re-evaluate the "big man defense is a lot more important than guard defense" idea. We've seen the Bucks defense fall from 4th to 20th when the only major roster change is going from Jrue to Dame. Perhaps we've been underestimating just how important point-of-attack defense is.

NGL mate I've been on this train for a few years now and it makes sense because most actions in the NBA are pick and roll or off-ball screens at heart so with how homogenized the game gets as the years go on due to positionless basketball it only makes sense that POA defenders increase in value with modern offenses.

I don't think the skew is that great though when you consider how much more important and difficult defensive rebounding has become due to bigs being stretched out of the paint more and forwards getting bigger and more mobile.

Love how everyone sidestepped this not being remotely reflected in the example used as evidence:



Are we going to acknowledge the Bucks suggest the exact opposite of what is being argued or...

[rk2023]

I prefer Jokic in this conversation , but there is no advanced stat that underrates him on defense. What are we doing?

[LukaTheGOAT]

You don't need the numbers. Jokic is in a different tier of impact. It's harder to dampen what he does than what Giannis does.

With Giannis, besides him offense being not quite uo to snuff, I think his defensive impact can be diminished a bit in certain matchups (as can all bigs) by the game being more perimeter oriented than it has in the past.

Not without specifc box-score inputs...

Plus, he's simply a basketball genius. He's often in the right place or makes the right read, and he has a great motor, which makes him a strong help defender. Every advanced stat paints him as an impactful defensive player.

"Advanced" is doing alot of work here. There are plenty of granular stats where Jokic does not look good(hint, defensive tracking) and there is no limit to the possibly formulas you could conjure up with those stats or anything else someone decided to count from the game,

However, him playing in the games correlates with marginal defensive improvement, and both sides coming into play do not suggest significant seperation from a giannis and(at least for the regular season) an embid who are much worse attackers.

Raw on/off over the past 4 years or various multi-year RAPM variants would tell you Jokic is ahead of Giannis. Oh well, this discussion will be put further to bed as time moves on. This season will be just another big step in showing how Jokic is just a different level of guy.