Have we been underrating Luka?

[BeiBeau]

Yeah, those 80 games difference is like a missed season from one player that is on average like 6th best player in the rotation. That doesn't move the needle

What kind of stupid logic is this? 2-3 starters concurrently injured in no way equates to a 6th man. Preposterous, but what is even more laughable is your claim that Jokic's supporting cast is below average too

And its 6 wins difference.

Which 2-3 starters were concurrently injured?

It's 8 wins difference in games Luka and Jokic played.

Kyrie, Lively, and Exum all missed multiple weeks in late January early February.

Kyrie, Josh Green, and Kleber all essentially missed the entire month of December.

If you don’t know what you’re talking about me guy you should just admit that.

[dygaction]

What kind of stupid logic is this? 2-3 starters concurrently injured in no way equates to a 6th man. Preposterous, but what is even more laughable is your claim that Jokic's supporting cast is below average too

And its 6 wins difference.

Which 2-3 starters were concurrently injured?

It's 8 wins difference in games Luka and Jokic played.

Kyrie, Lively, and Exum all missed multiple weeks in late January early February.

Kyrie, Josh Green, and Kleber all essentially missed the entire month of December.

If you don’t know what you’re talking about me guy you should just admit that.

Yes, if Luka was more healthy and not missing those 6 games so Mavs have two more wins, Mavs would be ahead of Clippers by 1 games and #4 in WC and 5 in the entire league. Big difference narratively.

Still, in terms of over achieving.

Read on Twitter

[zero rings]

I like Luka but his fans can be pretty annoying. Year after year his team manages to hold their own without him on the floor, and they don’t play that much better with him on the floor. And yet all we hear is how terrible his teammates are. It doesn’t bear out in the data at all.

Jokic’s supporting cast has been worse for most of their respective careers, and yet the Nuggets are consistently better. It’s because Jokic is a better 5x5 basketball player, flat out. Give him a player like Kyrie and they’d be running away with the best record in the West.

[Lalouie]

i am surprised

like,,,,can you not believe your eyes? like way back when he was a "rookie"

LUKA WAS ALWAYS THIS GREAT. I dont need no consensus opinion

smarts and talent has a higher ceiling than athleticism

[picc]

Great player. Hovering around peak Duncan level IMO, right below Jokic and Shaq.

[BeiBeau]

I like Luka but his fans can be pretty annoying. Year after year his team manages to hold their own without him on the floor, and they don’t play that much better with him on the floor. And yet all we hear is how terrible his teammates are. It doesn’t bear out in the data at all.

Jokic’s supporting cast has been worse for most of their respective careers, and yet the Nuggets are consistently better. It’s because Jokic is a better 5x5 basketball player, flat out. Give him a player like Kyrie and they’d be running away with the best record in the West.

In the last 4 years Dallas without Luka is roughly a 29 wins per season team. 17-29 with out Luka.

Dallas finally has a team around Luka and you all want to change the narrative to “Jokic supporting cast sucks”.

Go back to the beginning of this season,
Kyrie > Murray sure
Gordon >>> Lively
MPJ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Grant Williams
0 inteligente arguments that Luka has had the better team this season.

Go back to the year before that, Luka’s supporting cast to start last season was THJ, Dorian Finney Smith, and Christian Wood. Laughable if you think that’s better then Murray, Gordon, MPJ, and Bruce Brown.

[losmi]

Which 2-3 starters were concurrently injured?

It's 8 wins difference in games Luka and Jokic played.

Kyrie, Lively, and Exum all missed multiple weeks in late January early February.

Kyrie, Josh Green, and Kleber all essentially missed the entire month of December.

If you don’t know what you’re talking about me guy you should just admit that.

Yes, if Luka was more healthy and not missing those 6 games so Mavs have two more wins, Mavs would be ahead of Clippers by 1 games and #4 in WC and 5 in the entire league. Big difference narratively.

Still, in terms of over achieving.

Read on Twitter

Those projections were based on the fact that they missed the playin last year. When you underachieve, it's easier to overachive relative to the new expectations.

[losmi]

What kind of stupid logic is this? 2-3 starters concurrently injured in no way equates to a 6th man. Preposterous, but what is even more laughable is your claim that Jokic's supporting cast is below average too

And its 6 wins difference.

Which 2-3 starters were concurrently injured?

It's 8 wins difference in games Luka and Jokic played.

Kyrie, Lively, and Exum all missed multiple weeks in late January early February.

Kyrie, Josh Green, and Kleber all essentially missed the entire month of December.

If you don’t know what you’re talking about me guy you should just admit that.

Murray missed as many games as Kyrie, so that's a wash.

Kleber is a starter? How many starters they have, 15? Looks like you're including anyone who had at least one start to make your story better.

[BeiBeau]

Which 2-3 starters were concurrently injured?

It's 8 wins difference in games Luka and Jokic played.

Kyrie, Lively, and Exum all missed multiple weeks in late January early February.

Kyrie, Josh Green, and Kleber all essentially missed the entire month of December.

If you don’t know what you’re talking about me guy you should just admit that.

Murray missed as many games as Kyrie, so that's a wash.

Kleber is a starter? How many starters they have, 15? Looks like you're including anyone who had at least one start to make your story better.

I’m just including major rotation pieces. You’re right that Murray has missed as many games as Kyrie. How many has MPJ missed? How many has Gordon missed? How many has KCP missed? Jackson, Braun, Watson?

Look bud, if you can’t admit Dallas having 3 times the injuries that the Nuggets have had doesn’t easily make up a 8 game difference then you’re not only disingenuous you also know nothing about this sport. Glad you’re on here to learn though, you need it.

[losmi]

The nuggets lost 40 games from their rotation pieces (not including Jokic) to injury this season. Dallas lost 117 games from rotation pieces(not including Luka) yo injury. They’re not the same and you dumpling have no clue what you’re talking about.

Yeah, those 80 games difference is like a missed season from one player that is on average like 6th best player in the rotation. That doesn't move the needle considering that Jokic has 8 wins more with a below average supporting cast (average starters and an abysmal bench). And Jokic is the best player in the world and is having statistically best individual season in the league this year.

Zero arguments for Luka aside from a nonsense from social media that is based on a false premise that Luka is statistically better and that Jokic plays on a superteam.

Luka is an all-time great who will have his share of MVPs in the following years, but this season Jokic has been better by all means.

Jokic only had one guy who plays at least 20 mpg missing significant number of games but Luka had 5, that does make a huge a difference. Adjusted for injuries the Mavs would probably be the first seed. Considering the amazing season Luka is having first in PPG, second in APG and first among all guards in RPG, a season which includes breaking all times records like for example consecutive +30 points triple doubles, highest PPG+APG+RBG since 50 years etc etc the MVP is much closer than you think.

No, it's not much closer than I think, because I think it's much closer than you think I think.

There's simply no decisive argument for anyone to put Luka at 1st place over Jokic, who is the best player in the world with statistically best season and on a 1st seed team. Thus, there will be like 90 1st place votes for Jokic over just a few for Luka, which seems to be causing a rage among Luka's fans. Had the voting forms be different, so they can give Jokic A+++ and Luka A++ for this season, I believe the results would be less annoying for Luka's fans.

[jpengland]

Yes.

He has GOAT potential and I'd put him 1b to Jokic's 1a in terms of best player in the league.

I also think he might win a Championship as soon as this year

[Oscar9992]

Yes.

He has GOAT potential and I'd put him 1b to Jokic's 1a in terms of best player in the league.

I also think he might win a Championship as soon as this year

Luka is in my opinion the most talented player coming out from Europe. More gifted/talented than Jokic & Giannis... Just doesn't have their work ethic.

Giannis came from bench/role player to become 2x times MVP by working his butt off. But he isn't gifted as Luka naturally.

[Statlanta]

No we've seen players and teams underperform in the POs after burning the league down in the RS.

[monopoman]

Regular season wins are nice and all but most don't fans don't care what a player has done until he has proven it in the playoffs, plenty to this day give Carmelo Anthony crap for having a pretty damn pathetic playoff portion of his career.

Crap, you see this stuff even in the NFL where one player has a lot less ability to control how a team plays Dak Prescott is one of the best QB's to Dallas fans but outside of Dallas he has a lot more doubters due to his pathetic playoff games.

[NoStatsGuy]

hasnt he been in the mvp conversation and all NBA teams to some extend for multiple years now? How is he underrated?

[losmi]

Kyrie, Lively, and Exum all missed multiple weeks in late January early February.

Kyrie, Josh Green, and Kleber all essentially missed the entire month of December.

If you don’t know what you’re talking about me guy you should just admit that.

Murray missed as many games as Kyrie, so that's a wash.

Kleber is a starter? How many starters they have, 15? Looks like you're including anyone who had at least one start to make your story better.

I’m just including major rotation pieces. You’re right that Murray has missed as many games as Kyrie. How many has MPJ missed? How many has Gordon missed? How many has KCP missed? Jackson, Braun, Watson?

Look bud, if you can’t admit Dallas having 3 times the injuries that the Nuggets have had doesn’t easily make up a 8 game difference then you’re not only disingenuous you also know nothing about this sport. Glad you’re on here to learn though, you need it.

Okay, let's say that makes up for the huge 8 game difference, so their win totals can be considered equal due to the different circumctances. Than, what gives an edge to Luka? Jokic still leads in nearly all boxscore-derived and impact metrics.

[QPR]

Why does Jokic's supporting cast get held against him in these sorts of discussions when they're a great supporting cast BECAUSE of him?

[losmi]

Why does Jokic's supporting cast get held against him in these sorts of discussions when they're a great supporting cast BECAUSE of him?

Because of his all-time great combination of consistency + availabilty. We rarely get to see the Nuggets playing without Jokic and we rarely get to see Jokic having a bad game (and almost never Nuggets winning when Jokic has a bad game). That level of sustained greatness seems impossible to people, so they start thinking that Jokic plays on some kind of a superteam.

[WarriorGM]

Ok we get it, this spate of Luka and MVP threads are part of the Luka campaign for MVP.

The MVP has become so watered down that I guess it may as well be spread around. Make it the superstar participation trophy.

[losmi]

Mavs would be second in the East. If nuggets finish in 3rd place with maybe 5 more wins is that really enough to give Jokic a 3rd MVP over this guy, when seeding is really the only argument against Luka?

No, seeding is not an argument against Luka. The argument is that Jokic has had statistically better season and 8 wins more. There's actually no argument for Luka over Jokic other than some made up nonsense from social media.

It’s funny how people just choose to ignore 8 points and 1 assist per game difference in favor of the advanced stats. Just because they are so “advanced”.

8 points difference it’s HUGE at the level these two are playing.

Jokic is averaging 26.6 ppg on 18.0 FGA and 5.6 FTA.

Luka is averaging 33.9 ppg on 23.6 FGA and 8.7 FTA.

So Luka is producing +7.3 ppg on +5.6 FGA and +3.1 FTA = +7.3 ppg on +7.15 possessions, which would be around 51 TS%.

I don't think those +7.3 ppg added on a way below average efficiency is that "HUGE" of a difference.