What does Jokic have to do to be considered GOAT of all time?

[metalinguss]

3 more rings and he surpasses Curry/Kobe/Duncan/Shaq imo.

[Basileus777]

He's only won 1 title, he's not going to be in the discussion without a bunch more.

[hardenASG13]

He's only won 1 title, he's not going to be in the discussion without a bunch more.

And that title was the weakest path to a title I've ever seen. I don't think it's even arguable. He's never beat a good teams in the playoffs! (I don't count the bubble clippers, who openly didn't want to be there, even if you do.....thats one quality opponent, ever, and he's 30. Shaq beat MJ/Pippen Bulls in year 3 for reference).

[Ruma85]

He's only won 1 title, he's not going to be in the discussion without a bunch more.

And that title was the weakest path to a title I've ever seen. I don't think it's even arguable. He's never beat a good teams in the playoffs! (I don't count the bubble clippers, who openly didn't want to be there, even if you do.....thats one quality opponent, ever, and he's 30. Shaq beat MJ/Pippen Bulls in year 3 for reference).

Not his fault, you can only play who's Infront of you, also didn't Lebron & MJ win titles after 30?

[hardenASG13]

He's only won 1 title, he's not going to be in the discussion without a bunch more.

And that title was the weakest path to a title I've ever seen. I don't think it's even arguable. He's never beat a good teams in the playoffs! (I don't count the bubble clippers, who openly didn't want to be there, even if you do.....thats one quality opponent, ever, and he's 30. Shaq beat MJ/Pippen Bulls in year 3 for reference).

Not his fault, you can only play who's Infront of you, also didn't Lebron & MJ win titles after 30?

How often does/has a superstar (which he is) play a path like that, though? There are so many teams that didn't win titles historically that could've taken down 2 8 seeds, a 7 seed, and a 4 seed in Minnesota (42-40), Phoenix (45-37), LA (43-39) and Miami (44-38). If that wasn't a fluke, can anyone name a comparable path? That doesn't happen, and has to be taken with a grain of salt. Usually NBA champions have had to beat 1 or 2 really good teams (the types of teams Jokic hasn't beat). Post bubble, they've all been kind of weak, and this one is the weakest even in that period.

[TheCage4]

Not be white.

[TheGeneral99]

He's only won 1 title, he's not going to be in the discussion without a bunch more.

And that title was the weakest path to a title I've ever seen. I don't think it's even arguable. He's never beat a good teams in the playoffs! (I don't count the bubble clippers, who openly didn't want to be there, even if you do.....thats one quality opponent, ever, and he's 30. Shaq beat MJ/Pippen Bulls in year 3 for reference).

Not sure why his path was weak, lol.

1st round they beat an up and coming Wolves team with Edwards, Towns, Gobert, and Conley.

2nd round they beat a Suns team with Booker, Durant, Ayton, CP3.

3rd round they beat a Lakers team with with a healthy Lebron and AD.

4th round they beat a Heat team with prime Jimmy, Bam, Lowry, Herro etc.

And not only that but they won in dominant form, 4-1, 4-2, 4-0, 4-1.

[hardenASG13]

He's only won 1 title, he's not going to be in the discussion without a bunch more.

And that title was the weakest path to a title I've ever seen. I don't think it's even arguable. He's never beat a good teams in the playoffs! (I don't count the bubble clippers, who openly didn't want to be there, even if you do.....thats one quality opponent, ever, and he's 30. Shaq beat MJ/Pippen Bulls in year 3 for reference).

Not sure why his path was weak, lol.

1st round they beat an up and coming Wolves team with Edwards, Towns, Gobert, and Conley.

2nd round they beat a Suns team with Booker, Durant, Ayton, CP3.

3rd round they beat a Lakers team with with a healthy Lebron and AD.

4th round they beat a Heat team with prime Jimmy, Bam, Lowry, Herro etc.

And yet, none of those teams were good during the season. Those KD/Booker suns have sure worked out great lol. Name a comparable path to a title

[TheGeneral99]

And that title was the weakest path to a title I've ever seen. I don't think it's even arguable. He's never beat a good teams in the playoffs! (I don't count the bubble clippers, who openly didn't want to be there, even if you do.....thats one quality opponent, ever, and he's 30. Shaq beat MJ/Pippen Bulls in year 3 for reference).

Not sure why his path was weak, lol.

1st round they beat an up and coming Wolves team with Edwards, Towns, Gobert, and Conley.

2nd round they beat a Suns team with Booker, Durant, Ayton, CP3.

3rd round they beat a Lakers team with with a healthy Lebron and AD.

4th round they beat a Heat team with prime Jimmy, Bam, Lowry, Herro etc.

And yet, none of those teams were good during the season. Those KD/Booker suns have sure worked out great lol. Name a comparable path to a title

Those teams had struggles during the season because of injuries but were healthy in the playoffs.

Lebron and AD both missed 30 games.

Booker missed 30 games and Paul missed 23 games.

Both the Lakers and Suns had superstars and were dangerous teams when fully healthy. The Suns had already made the finals in 2021 with CP3 and Booker leading the helm. While CP3 had declined somewhat they added Durant, a top 5 player.

What do you mean name a comparable path to a title? The East has been significantly easier than the West for the last 20 years in the playoffs and Jokic plays in the West. According to your logic most of Lebron's finals runs should be dismissed because he was playing against weaker competition in the East.

[bledredwine]

Be better than Michael Jordan





Spoilers (he isn’t)

That still wouldn't put him above Russell.

I would be more on the Russell bandwagon but after seeing his awful offensive stats and how much his teammates carried on that end, I’m convinced that he can’t be the GOAT.

I had made a post on the PC forum a while back with those stats and it was intentionally ignored until it sank into oblivion. I’m also convinced that Wilt could have done the same thing with those teammates, given how dominant he was on both ends.

[hardenASG13]

Not sure why his path was weak, lol.

1st round they beat an up and coming Wolves team with Edwards, Towns, Gobert, and Conley.

2nd round they beat a Suns team with Booker, Durant, Ayton, CP3.

3rd round they beat a Lakers team with with a healthy Lebron and AD.

4th round they beat a Heat team with prime Jimmy, Bam, Lowry, Herro etc.

And yet, none of those teams were good during the season. Those KD/Booker suns have sure worked out great lol. Name a comparable path to a title

Those teams had struggles during the season because of injuries but were healthy in the playoffs.

Lebron and AD both missed 30 games.

Booker missed 30 games and Paul missed 23 games.

Both the Lakers and Suns had superstars and were dangerous teams when fully healthy. The Suns had already made the finals in 2021 with CP3 and Booker leading the helm. While CP3 had declined somewhat they added Durant, a top 5 player.

What do you mean name a comparable path to a title? The East has been significantly easier than the West for the last 20 years in the playoffs and Jokic plays in the West. According to your logic most of Lebron's finals runs should be dismissed because he was playing against weaker competition in the East.

But LeBron finals opponents were not weak....they were great teams (outside of the bubble when he came out of the west). The LeBron/AD Lakers were a 7 seed in 23 and 24, and were headed nowhere this season. Meanwhile, the 23 Heat, with how banged up they were by the time they reached the finals (combined with their role players coming back to earth compared to their outlier play in earlier rounds) were the worst finals team i can remember. Can you name a worse one? Lebrons finals loses came to the 07 spurs, 11 Mavs, 14 Spurs, 15 warriors (his team was badly injured in that finals) and 17/18 warriors! I'm quite confident any of those teams LeBron lost with would've rolled the 23 Heat, but they didn't play teams like that in finals....because teams like that don't typically make the finals.

The 23 suns did add Durant. He played 8 games with them in the regular season. That matters in terms of familiarity, as teams often take a while to figure things out after adding a star player. They had barely played together. They struggled each game vs the Westbrook led clippers in round 1. Cp3 had more than "somewhat declined", and he got injured in game 2. They were starting Josh Okogie, and then cam payne after game 2. By game 6 they started Payne, Landale and Landry Shamet alongside KD/Booker. Their bench for the series consisted of Shamet, Ross, Landale, TJ Warren, Damion Lee and Torrey Craig. They were massively flawed and not a good team at all, nor were they healthy.

[TheGeneral99]

And yet, none of those teams were good during the season. Those KD/Booker suns have sure worked out great lol. Name a comparable path to a title

Those teams had struggles during the season because of injuries but were healthy in the playoffs.

Lebron and AD both missed 30 games.

Booker missed 30 games and Paul missed 23 games.

Both the Lakers and Suns had superstars and were dangerous teams when fully healthy. The Suns had already made the finals in 2021 with CP3 and Booker leading the helm. While CP3 had declined somewhat they added Durant, a top 5 player.

What do you mean name a comparable path to a title? The East has been significantly easier than the West for the last 20 years in the playoffs and Jokic plays in the West. According to your logic most of Lebron's finals runs should be dismissed because he was playing against weaker competition in the East.

But LeBron finals opponents were not weak....they were great teams (outside of the bubble when he came out of the west). The LeBron/AD Lakers were a 7 seed in 23 and 24, and were headed nowhere this season. Meanwhile, the 23 Heat, with how banged up they were by the time they reached the finals (combined with their role players coming back to earth compared to their outlier play in earlier rounds) were the worst finals team i can remember. Can you name a worse one? Lebrons finals loses came to the 07 spurs, 11 Mavs, 14 Spurs, 15 warriors (his team was badly injured in that finals) and 17/18 warriors! I'm quite confident any of those teams LeBron lost with would've rolled the 23 Heat, but they didn't play teams like that in finals....because teams like that don't typically make the finals.

The 23 suns did add Durant. He played 8 games with them in the regular season. That matters in terms of familiarity, as teams often take a while to figure things out after adding a star player. They had barely played together. They struggled each game vs the Westbrook led clippers in round 1. Cp3 had more than "somewhat declined", and he got injured in game 2. They were starting Josh Okogie, and then cam payne after game 2. By game 6 they started Payne, Landale and Landry Shamet alongside KD/Booker. Their bench for the series consisted of Shamet, Ross, Landale, TJ Warren, Damion Lee and Torrey Craig. They were massively flawed and not a good team at all, nor were they healthy.

Okay here are some easy ones:

Lebron in the 2020 bubble faced the Heat in the playoffs with Bam and Dragic missing games due to injury in the finals.

Lebron teamed up with other superstar players and had a much easier road to the finals than Jokic has ever had playing in the East.

The mental gymnastics you are going through to justify this crap is amazing.

If you want me to go through all the **** teams Lebron played in the East playoffs and the injuries he benefitted from I'm happy to do so.

The Bucks 2021 title, for example, we saw injuries to Kyrie and Harden in the Nets series.

The Warriors in 2015 benefitted from injuries to Memphis players and to Kyrie and Love in the finals.

The Raptors in 2019 benefitted from injuries to Durant/Klay.

The Spurs in 2003 benefitted from injuries to Dirk in the WCF.

The Mavs in 2006 benefitted from Amare being out for the Suns.

What about Isiah Thomas getting injured in the 1988 finals?

What about Ewing getting hurt in the ECF in 1999 and missing the finals?

What about Rose getting hurt in the 2012 playoffs making the Heat run way easier?

Did we forget Westbrook tearing his MCL in 2013 and Durant missing most of the 2015 season and the playoffs?

We can play this game forever, do you really want to get into it? There are a ton of teams that benefitted from injuries and weaker playoff opponents.

[hardenASG13]

Those teams had struggles during the season because of injuries but were healthy in the playoffs.

Lebron and AD both missed 30 games.

Booker missed 30 games and Paul missed 23 games.

Both the Lakers and Suns had superstars and were dangerous teams when fully healthy. The Suns had already made the finals in 2021 with CP3 and Booker leading the helm. While CP3 had declined somewhat they added Durant, a top 5 player.

What do you mean name a comparable path to a title? The East has been significantly easier than the West for the last 20 years in the playoffs and Jokic plays in the West. According to your logic most of Lebron's finals runs should be dismissed because he was playing against weaker competition in the East.

But LeBron finals opponents were not weak....they were great teams (outside of the bubble when he came out of the west). The LeBron/AD Lakers were a 7 seed in 23 and 24, and were headed nowhere this season. Meanwhile, the 23 Heat, with how banged up they were by the time they reached the finals (combined with their role players coming back to earth compared to their outlier play in earlier rounds) were the worst finals team i can remember. Can you name a worse one? Lebrons finals loses came to the 07 spurs, 11 Mavs, 14 Spurs, 15 warriors (his team was badly injured in that finals) and 17/18 warriors! I'm quite confident any of those teams LeBron lost with would've rolled the 23 Heat, but they didn't play teams like that in finals....because teams like that don't typically make the finals.

The 23 suns did add Durant. He played 8 games with them in the regular season. That matters in terms of familiarity, as teams often take a while to figure things out after adding a star player. They had barely played together. They struggled each game vs the Westbrook led clippers in round 1. Cp3 had more than "somewhat declined", and he got injured in game 2. They were starting Josh Okogie, and then cam payne after game 2. By game 6 they started Payne, Landale and Landry Shamet alongside KD/Booker. Their bench for the series consisted of Shamet, Ross, Landale, TJ Warren, Damion Lee and Torrey Craig. They were massively flawed and not a good team at all, nor were they healthy.

Okay here are some easy ones:

Lebron in the 2020 bubble faced the Heat in the playoffs with Bam and Dragic missing games due to injury in the finals.

Lebron teamed up with other superstar players and had a much easier road to the finals than Jokic has ever had playing in the East.

The mental gymnastics you are going through to justify this crap is amazing.

If you want me to go through all the **** teams Lebron played in the East playoffs and the injuries he benefitted from I'm happy to do so.

The Bucks 2021 title, for example, we saw injuries to Kyrie and Harden in the Nets series.

The Warriors in 2015 benefitted from injuries to Memphis players and to Kyrie and Love in the finals.

The Raptors in 2019 benefitted from injuries to Durant/Klay.

The Spurs in 2003 benefitted from injuries to Dirk in the WCF.

The Mavs in 2006 benefitted from Amare being out for the Suns.

What about Isiah Thomas getting injured in the 1988 finals?

What about Ewing getting hurt in the ECF in 1999 and missing the finals?

What about Rose getting hurt in the 2012 playoffs making the Heat run way easier?

Did we forget Westbrook tearing his MCL in 2013 and Durant missing most of the 2015 season and the playoffs?

We can play this game forever, do you really want to get into it? There are a ton of teams that benefitted from injuries and weaker playoff opponents.

Of course there are. But no champion faced an easier overall path that I can remember. As in, not having to beat a single contender caliber team. No gymnastics, that's what happened.

[TheGeneral99]

But LeBron finals opponents were not weak....they were great teams (outside of the bubble when he came out of the west). The LeBron/AD Lakers were a 7 seed in 23 and 24, and were headed nowhere this season. Meanwhile, the 23 Heat, with how banged up they were by the time they reached the finals (combined with their role players coming back to earth compared to their outlier play in earlier rounds) were the worst finals team i can remember. Can you name a worse one? Lebrons finals loses came to the 07 spurs, 11 Mavs, 14 Spurs, 15 warriors (his team was badly injured in that finals) and 17/18 warriors! I'm quite confident any of those teams LeBron lost with would've rolled the 23 Heat, but they didn't play teams like that in finals....because teams like that don't typically make the finals.

The 23 suns did add Durant. He played 8 games with them in the regular season. That matters in terms of familiarity, as teams often take a while to figure things out after adding a star player. They had barely played together. They struggled each game vs the Westbrook led clippers in round 1. Cp3 had more than "somewhat declined", and he got injured in game 2. They were starting Josh Okogie, and then cam payne after game 2. By game 6 they started Payne, Landale and Landry Shamet alongside KD/Booker. Their bench for the series consisted of Shamet, Ross, Landale, TJ Warren, Damion Lee and Torrey Craig. They were massively flawed and not a good team at all, nor were they healthy.

Okay here are some easy ones:

Lebron in the 2020 bubble faced the Heat in the playoffs with Bam and Dragic missing games due to injury in the finals.

Lebron teamed up with other superstar players and had a much easier road to the finals than Jokic has ever had playing in the East.

The mental gymnastics you are going through to justify this crap is amazing.

If you want me to go through all the **** teams Lebron played in the East playoffs and the injuries he benefitted from I'm happy to do so.

The Bucks 2021 title, for example, we saw injuries to Kyrie and Harden in the Nets series.

The Warriors in 2015 benefitted from injuries to Memphis players and to Kyrie and Love in the finals.

The Raptors in 2019 benefitted from injuries to Durant/Klay.

The Spurs in 2003 benefitted from injuries to Dirk in the WCF.

The Mavs in 2006 benefitted from Amare being out for the Suns.

What about Isiah Thomas getting injured in the 1988 finals?

What about Ewing getting hurt in the ECF in 1999 and missing the finals?

What about Rose getting hurt in the 2012 playoffs making the Heat run way easier?

Did we forget Westbrook tearing his MCL in 2013 and Durant missing most of the 2015 season and the playoffs?

We can play this game forever, do you really want to get into it? There are a ton of teams that benefitted from injuries and weaker playoff opponents.

Of course there are. But no champion faced an easier overall path that I can remember. As in, not having to beat a single contender caliber team. No gymnastics, that's what happened.

"Single contender caliber team."

The Heat made the finals, they beat the Bucks and the Celtics fair and square, how is that not a title caliber team? They had prime Butler, they had prime Bam, they had a very effective Lowry, they had Herro, had an effective Love and some nice role players. That was still a dangerous team that had reached the ECF the year before and took the Celtics to 7. Again, the reason the Heat didn't have an incredible season record was because Lowry missed nearly 30 games due to personal issues, Jimmy missed 18 games due to injury, and Herro missed 15 games due to injury.

The Lakers had a healthy Lebron and AD who are always a contending threat if healthy.

The Suns had a healthy Durant, Booker, Ayton and CP3, who when healthy are contenders.

You can't just change the facts. Jokic, without another all-star next to him, beat Lebron, he beat Booker, he beat Durant and he beat Jimmy Butler.

[70sFan]

Be better than Michael Jordan





Spoilers (he isn’t)

That still wouldn't put him above Russell.

I would be more on the Russell bandwagon but after seeing his awful offensive stats and how much his teammates carried on that end, I’m convinced that he can’t be the GOAT.

I had made a post on the PC forum a while back with those stats and it was intentionally ignored until it sank into oblivion. I’m also convinced that Wilt could have done the same thing with those teammates, given how dominant he was on both ends.

So you don't care how good someone is at basketball, but you care about scoring numbers? Feel free to do that, it doesn't make Jordan better than Russell though.

[HMFFL]

The majority of people considering a big man a Goat is laughable to me. Not many people take them serious now so why would they take Jokic seriously as a Goat?

Sent from my SM-S928U1 using RealGM mobile app

[hardenASG13]

Okay here are some easy ones:

Lebron in the 2020 bubble faced the Heat in the playoffs with Bam and Dragic missing games due to injury in the finals.

Lebron teamed up with other superstar players and had a much easier road to the finals than Jokic has ever had playing in the East.

The mental gymnastics you are going through to justify this crap is amazing.

If you want me to go through all the **** teams Lebron played in the East playoffs and the injuries he benefitted from I'm happy to do so.

The Bucks 2021 title, for example, we saw injuries to Kyrie and Harden in the Nets series.

The Warriors in 2015 benefitted from injuries to Memphis players and to Kyrie and Love in the finals.

The Raptors in 2019 benefitted from injuries to Durant/Klay.

The Spurs in 2003 benefitted from injuries to Dirk in the WCF.

The Mavs in 2006 benefitted from Amare being out for the Suns.

What about Isiah Thomas getting injured in the 1988 finals?

What about Ewing getting hurt in the ECF in 1999 and missing the finals?

What about Rose getting hurt in the 2012 playoffs making the Heat run way easier?

Did we forget Westbrook tearing his MCL in 2013 and Durant missing most of the 2015 season and the playoffs?

We can play this game forever, do you really want to get into it? There are a ton of teams that benefitted from injuries and weaker playoff opponents.

Of course there are. But no champion faced an easier overall path that I can remember. As in, not having to beat a single contender caliber team. No gymnastics, that's what happened.

"Single contender caliber team."

The Heat made the finals, they beat the Bucks and the Celtics fair and square, how is that not a title caliber team? They had prime Butler, they had prime Bam, they had a very effective Lowry, they had Herro, had an effective Love and some nice role players. That was still a dangerous team that had reached the ECF the year before and took the Celtics to 7. Again, the reason the Heat didn't have an incredible season record was because Lowry missed nearly 30 games due to personal issues, Jimmy missed 18 games due to injury, and Herro missed 15 games due to injury.

The Lakers had a healthy Lebron and AD who are always a contending threat if healthy.

The Suns had a healthy Durant, Booker, Ayton and CP3, who when healthy are contenders.

You can't just change the facts. Jokic, without another all-star next to him, beat Lebron, he beat Booker, he beat Durant and he beat Jimmy Butler.

Giannis was injured for the Bucks, and, no, the Heat didn't have Herro. Lowry wasnt highly effective. Their role players caught fire for a few series, came crashing down in the Boston series and were about to blow a 3-0 lead but Tatum got hurt in the first minute of that game 7. The suns didn't have a healthy CP3 or Ayton, and is I've mentioned, KD played 8 regular season games with them. If you don't understand the impact of that i cant help you. Their bench wasn't NBA worthy, let alone contender worthy. Healthy Lebron/AD weren't always a contending team, quite clearly. I'm not changing facts, that's you. None of those teams were any good that year, and there hasn't been a weaker overall path to a title. Many teams who didn't win a title since 2000 would've also rolled through that path. Those are facts.

[CodeBreaker]

He's the best basketball player ever in my eyes.

[Alatan]

Jokic is a special offensive player, not the 1 thing holding back Denver from being the favorites to win it all is Jokic defense

The thing holding Denver back from being the favorites is that Jokic has never played with another superstar. Sure, Murray plays like an all-star at times but he's inconsistent, routinely injured and never even made an all-star team.

Is Murray at the level of any of the guys below?

Jordan had prime Pippen and also Rodman for a brief period.

Lebron played with prime Wade, prime Bosh, prime Kyrie and Love, and prime AD.

Magic played with Kareem.

Bird played with McHale and Parish.

What would happen if Jokic played with a prime Kobe or a prime Steph, or a prime Lillard, or a prime Kyrie or a prime Tatum or a prime Shai etc.?

Some of you people need to get off of Jokic's pants. Jokic plays with 3 other stars (not super) in Murray, Porter, Gordon.... Plus Westbrook and Braun are starring in their roles (as they've had in the past with KCP, etc.). Plus Murray for multiple postseasons, not just the title year was amongst the very best playoff performers in the league with superstar play.

Plus theit offense is actively elite in no small part due to Jokic, but I want to be very specific when I say this. Fans and media and even the league offices don't value defense and even if they had a defensive stud added on here, you wouldn't consider him a superstar...sooooo a superstar for superstar sake wouldn't make them the favorites. They're a strength in numbers team.

They are a strength in numbers team that collapses the second Jokic leaves the floor. Great analysis! I hope Jokic leaves the Nuggets so we can see this strength in numbers team truly shine.

[Sgt Major]

Turn back the time and stop MJ from being born.


It's impossible, MJ is the GOAT of all sports all time and these discussions are pointless.

Jordan isn't close to clear basketball GOAT, let alone this bullsh*t you just made up.

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