Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
No, Stephen Curry is the greatest offensive player of all time. Why? Because he is the most gifted player of all time at putting the ball into the basket. There is
no weakness to his offensive game and he is able to make ANY team a contender. Look at the different rosters Steph has won a ring with. Also his style on offense doesn’t pad the box score. He’s setting screens, pulling defenses, repositioning. He’s singlehandedly responsible for a dynasty off his offense.
no weakness to his offensive game and he is able to make ANY team a contender. Look at the different rosters Steph has won a ring with. Also his style on offense doesn’t pad the box score. He’s setting screens, pulling defenses, repositioning. He’s singlehandedly responsible for a dynasty off his offense.
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
Godymas wrote:He’s singlehandedly responsible for a dynasty off his offense.
"Singlehandedly". Just with insignificant help from the 2 times finals MVP Kevin Durant or from Iguodala, 1 time final MVP, or KT, or Green...
He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
Andri wrote:Godymas wrote:He’s singlehandedly responsible for a dynasty off his offense.
'Singlehandedly'. Just with insignificant help from the 2 times finals MVP Kevin Durant or from Iguodala, 1 time final MVP, or KT, or Green...
He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
Sweet Serenity wrote:TravisScott55 wrote:Sweet Serenity wrote:
You realise that means nothing in the context of this question ?
Well thats you and you never won anything
Your response makes absolutely no sense.
You're welcome
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
TravisScott55 wrote:Sweet Serenity wrote:TravisScott55 wrote:
Well thats you and you never won anything
Your response makes absolutely no sense.
You're welcome
I really don’t understand why the need to troll ?
You brought up Wilt’s numbers one year which included rebounds to which I replied that it means nothing in the context of this question for you to just reply with ‘Well that’s you and you never won anything’.
You’re either trolling or just really bad at trying to form a coherent response.
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
Have ya'll heard about Michael Jordan
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
AleksandarN wrote:falcolombardi wrote:I want him to lead one elite offense team at least once before that assertion?
I want to have an allstar teammate too. Sometimes we don’t get what we want
I would like jokic to show himself to floor raise a offense better than other atg guys then, also has not shown that
Surely the greatest offense player of all time has better offense floor raising results than dirk nowitsky
Cannot have always what we want

Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
Godymas wrote:No, Stephen Curry is the greatest offensive player of all time. Why? Because he is the most gifted player of all time at putting the ball into the basket. There is
no weakness to his offensive game and he is able to make ANY team a contender. Look at the different rosters Steph has won a ring with. Also his style on offense doesn’t pad the box score. He’s setting screens, pulling defenses, repositioning. He’s singlehandedly responsible for a dynasty off his offense.
The most gifted at shooting it, that doesnt account for the most important area (the rim) or for passing the ball, areas where he is good but fairly below others
Surely he is the only player who sets screens or attracts defense attention....
Singlehandedly led a dinasty that won off their defense more often that off their offense.....
Did it so singlehandedly that their only atg offense playoffs were with kevin durant
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
.BloodNinja wrote:Have ya'll heard about Michael Jordan
Incredible scorer. Not always the best of the best with playmaking. Teams were better offensively in regular season than in the playoffs
Up there with anyone, lacks proof of concept with truly atg offense teams
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
falcolombardi wrote:Godymas wrote:No, Stephen Curry is the greatest offensive player of all time. Why? Because he is the most gifted player of all time at putting the ball into the basket. There is
no weakness to his offensive game and he is able to make ANY team a contender. Look at the different rosters Steph has won a ring with. Also his style on offense doesn’t pad the box score. He’s setting screens, pulling defenses, repositioning. He’s singlehandedly responsible for a dynasty off his offense.
The most gifted at shooting it, that doesnt account for the most important area (the rim) or for passing the ball, areas where he is good but fairly below others
Surely he is the only player who sets screens or attracts defense attention....
Singlehandedly led a dinasty that won off their defense more often that off their offense.....
Did it so singlehandedly that their only atg offense playoffs were with kevin durant
Steph Curry (a long with James Harden) are responsible for the way offense is played today. Jokic will never change anything, because Jokic is a unicorn and most centers won't have his skillset.
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
Godymas wrote:falcolombardi wrote:Godymas wrote:No, Stephen Curry is the greatest offensive player of all time. Why? Because he is the most gifted player of all time at putting the ball into the basket. There is
no weakness to his offensive game and he is able to make ANY team a contender. Look at the different rosters Steph has won a ring with. Also his style on offense doesn’t pad the box score. He’s setting screens, pulling defenses, repositioning. He’s singlehandedly responsible for a dynasty off his offense.
The most gifted at shooting it, that doesnt account for the most important area (the rim) or for passing the ball, areas where he is good but fairly below others
Surely he is the only player who sets screens or attracts defense attention....
Singlehandedly led a dinasty that won off their defense more often that off their offense.....
Did it so singlehandedly that their only atg offense playoffs were with kevin durant
Steph Curry (a long with James Harden) are responsible for the way offense is played today. Jokic will never change anything, because Jokic is a unicorn and most centers won't have his skillset.
Most influential =/= best
Is what i am going for
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
reddyplayerone wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:
To your last:
I would say it's unlikely Jokic would be anything like Jokic as we know him if he grew up in the US, and that is a huge problem for American basketball.
Mind you, I'm not saying he couldn't possibly be in the NBA with American training, but he would not have been taught to play the same way.
Right so I think this is a different statement than what I'm referring to and honestly it's a better and more thoughtful one lol
Like it's one thing to say that other countries are doing things to develop players to have more success in the NBA and another thing entirely to suggest that a player is inherently better simply because they're non American.
Idk I guess I want to avoid any sort of insinuations of any sort of inherent superiority for obvious reasons lol
I'm so glad you're interested in thinking further about this stuff reddy!
I respect skepticism toward assertions of competitive value assessment (superiority/inferiority), and in fact would encourage everybody to try to always ground that assessment atop a foundation of "What were they trying to do out there? and What was that player's role in it?" This necessitates having basketball models in your brain and running through them, and honestly this is what some basketball greats (Bill Russell specifically comes to mind) actually talk doing as they were coming up, so I think it's just a great way to train yourself to learn things.
That said, we do have to keep in mind that everything the players do out there on the court is about winning, and thus hard not to end up talking about the better and the worse.
reddyplayerone wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:The type of player I would consider Jokic is a traditional pivot. "Pivot" has become synonymous with center, because what it specifically referred to was a style of play where the great passer (ideally tall) could stay stationary with the ball as his teammates cut to openings. This style emerged in the 1920s, and soon dominated all-levels basically until the arrival of George Mikan as more of a scorer than passer.
Post-Mikan, we still had some use of the pivot approach with Bill Walton in the '70s being the peak of it until Jokic arrived - and I do often wonder how things might have been different if Walton had had better health.
But what's interesting is that the pivot style of play didn't die there. It lived on in two main places:
1) The Harlem Globetrotters
2) Europe
Now, I think it's fine to say that I'm stretching things a bit when I use the same label ("pivot") for Jokic as someone a century before - I don't think we've ever seen someone like Jokic before - but what is pretty clear is that the style Jokic plays is something that has its roots in New York City with Dutch Dehnert and the Original Celtics, and yet if you're grew up in NYC in the same generation as Jokic, you probably wouldn't even learn about it, let alone be taught to play it by a coach with that particular expertise.
Yeah see this is way more interesting to me than who the best is or what era is the best or any of that. Like now I'm interested about whether Europe may have picked up on that "Pivot" style of play from the Globetrotters touring all over the place and things like that.
Cause while I would guess Jokic wouldn't know the name Dutch Dehnert either, I think it's cool that the roots of his development can be even indirectly traced all the way back to the game's very early days
Idk I'm a history girly because I feel like it gives me a better understanding of whatever is happening today and this is a good example so ty ^^
Awesome! So yeah, we're on the same page.
Re: Globetrotter influence globally. It definitely happened to some degree, but I'd say the style got there before the Trotters, and developed its own way for competitive success, whereas the Globetrotters would end up becoming pure entertainment.
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
falcolombardi wrote:I want him to lead one elite offense team at least once before that assertion?
I feel like I'm with you in principle here, but to me it's less about the team's cume ORtg and more about what's done with that player on the floor.
Last year the Nuggets had a 122.4 ORtg (according to nba.com) with Jokic on the floor. Doing a search based on min 30 MPG, that puts him 2nd behind Haliburton who also comes out at 122.4, who of course played less and had a far smaller on/off in the stat.
So yeah, just on that, to me he gets past the "lead elite offense team" hoop.
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
Doctor MJ wrote:
The type of player I would consider Jokic is a traditional pivot. "Pivot" has become synonymous with center, because what it specifically referred to was a style of play where the great passer (ideally tall) could stay stationary with the ball as his teammates cut to openings. This style emerged in the 1920s, and soon dominated all-levels basically until the arrival of George Mikan as more of a scorer than passer.
Post-Mikan, we still had some use of the pivot approach with Bill Walton in the '70s being the peak of it until Jokic arrived - and I do often wonder how things might have been different if Walton had had better health.
But what's interesting is that the pivot style of play didn't die there. It lived on in two main places:
1) The Harlem Globetrotters
2) Europe
Now, I think it's fine to say that I'm stretching things a bit when I use the same label ("pivot") for Jokic as someone a century before - I don't think we've ever seen someone like Jokic before - but what is pretty clear is that the style Jokic plays is something that has its roots in New York City with Dutch Dehnert and the Original Celtics, and yet if you're grew up in NYC in the same generation as Jokic, you probably wouldn't even learn about it, let alone be taught to play it by a coach with that particular expertise.
This is a fascinating way to look at him.
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
The problem with this question is that it is far too vague and ill-defined to be answered in any sort of objective way -- though maybe that's the point. That is to say, context matters -- a lot. Basketball is a team game, it's not chess or golf where its just you vs an opponent or you vs a course.
How are we constructing the roster around the player? Are we assuming the person is playing with a bunch of other great players, with a bunch of scrubs, or maybe league average or replacement level players? What era are we playing in? Who's the opponent? Are we talking one-year peaks, three-year peaks, five year peaks, careers? All of these have different answers depending.
Its sortof like asking if a screwdriver or a hammer is a better tool. Picking the right tool for the job matters far more than other factors usually.
To that point, say for example you take a player who gets a lot of their value from a high usage rate -- that sort of player is going to have their value greatly diminished unless theyre playing alongside low usage roleplaying/defensive types. There's only so many possessions after all. But should you dock a player for that?
Take Jordan for example, its hard to pick exactly which season is offensively his best, but arguably its 89. He averaged 33.6p/7r/6a with a 113 TS+ and a 33.7% usage rate. The next highest usage rate is Pippen at 21% usage, and then Stacey King at 18.4%. Given that 20% usage is average, it was Jordan, a couple guys that were about average, and then a bunch of low usage players. In fact, across his entire career, Pippen and Kukoc were the only other players that had above average usage rates -- Pippen topped out around 24%, while Kukoc was just barely above average at 21-22%. You could definitely argue that the roster was nearly ideally constructed for Jordan to shine offensively. If he had ever been saddled with another really good scorer/high usage player, it would have certainly cut into his own usage and thus offensive value. Should we take that into account? What about other players that never had the same opportunities Jordan had?
Look for example at 2015 Curry vs 2016 Curry once Durant joined -- he went from arguably the greatest offensive season ever, to "only" top ~5 in the league that season. But that's a huge difference in a GOAT debate. If Curry never has that 2015 season, he's definitely looked at much, much differently. Or even consider Durant himself -- he's literally never played on a team that *didnt* have another high usage player alongside him. And for how good he is offensively, his usage rate is actually a bit low compared to some other all-time great scorers. Could he have shone more offensively if the rosters around him had been constructed differently? Almost certainly. Imagine replacing Jordan with Durant on those Bulls rosters -- we'd probably look at Durant a lot differently.
Or consider Bird, since a lot of people have talked about Bird in this thread. He played when coaching/offensive strategy simply didnt allow for players to take 10+ 3s a game. And given he shot 40%+ from 3 during his peak, there's 0 doubt he would have raised his TS%, and thus his overall numbers/offensive value, if he had taken more 3s. Is it his fault the league/coaches/players hadnt realized the value of 3s yet? Should we knock Curry's value because he benefited from it?
Or what about centers that can't create for themselves? Part of Jordan's value was that he got to dictate if/when the ball was going to be in his hands, especially in crunch/clutch moments. Jokic cant really do that, for example, simply by virtue of his position -- centers arent really "allowed" to bring the ball up the court.
How do we account for these things? Its impossible. Is Jokic in the conversation? Absolutely. For a particular opponent, with a particular roster/teammates, in a particular era, Jokic would be the best possible addition to the team in a lot of cases. But I think I could make that argument for a good half dozen or so players.
To my mind, Wilt, Kareem, Jordan, Lebron, Curry, Durant, Shaq, Bird, Magic and Jokic are all in the running. There's probably a few others you could throw in there: West, Erving, Kobe, Nash, Robertson etc. though they're probably just on the next tier for me. I think you can absolutely make an argument for any of them, if you get to select the opponent, teammates, era, etc. though.
With all that said, for my money, since Im a bit biased as a GS fan, Id take Curry. Those 2015 Warriors/Curry had an aura about them that Ive never seen with another team in all the time Ive watched (since '90, give or take). If they were ahead, it was over, if it was close to even, they were favorites, and if they were really behind it felt even. No lead ever felt safe -- it was just a matter of when, not if, they would make a run and take the lead. Miss a couple shots and a 20 point lead could evaporate almost in the blink of an eye. Teams could never let their guard down. Only maybe Jordan had a similar aura, but his was really more at the end of games than anything. Curry at his peak was something else -- an ever present threat from literally anywhere on the court.
And on that note, Ill leave you with this stat. TS added (I really wish bball ref would add it as a sortable stat, you have to manually look the players up), which is one of the most overlooked/underappreciated stats out there. It measures how many points a player's scoring added to their team over what a league average player would have scored with the same number of shots/possessions. Its basically usage rate mixed with TS+. Effectively, if you take the TS added and divide by the number of minutes or games played, you get how many points that player's *scoring* (and only scoring) added to their team's season differential, per minute and per game. Its a much better proxy for a player's value from scoring than say ppg, because it takes into account efficiency.
Among those 10 players I listed earlier, the best seasons are:
15 Curry, 454 TS added, 0.168 per minute/5.74 per game
71 Kareem, 460 TS added, 0.128 per minute/5.68 per game
66 Wilt, 441 TS added, 0.120 per minute/5.44 per game
12 Durant, 394 TS added, 0.126 per minute/4.86 per game
13 Lebron, 347 TS added, 0.120 per minute/4.51 per game
22 Jokic 289 TS added, 0.124 per minute/4.19 per game
88 Jordan, 330 TS added, 0.101 per minute/4.07 per game
93 Shaq, 302 TS added, 0.094 per minute/3.73 per game
87 Bird 261 TS added, 0.088 per minute/3.43 per game
89 Magic 242 TS added, 0.082 per minute/3.06 per game
Now, its worth pointing out that Kareem and Wilt have relatively high per game numbers compared to their per minute averages because they played *so many* minutes, but you could also argue that hurt their per minute rates due to fatigue and so on. With all that said, what is notable I think is just how far ahead Curry is compared to everyone else on a per minute basis. He's about a third higher than the next best season in NBA history, which is insane. Kareem just barely has the single highest season total at 460, but Curry only played 2700 minutes to Kareem's 3500+. In fact, if you project Curry out to the same number of minutes played, 2015 Curry would have ended up at 602 TS added. Obviously, that comes with a lot of caveats, like fatigue, injury, keeping that pace up for 40+ minutes a night etc., but I point that out just to mention how big the gap is between Curry and everyone else on a per minute basis. And these are the best individual scoring seasons for the best offensive players of all time, and 2015 Curry crushes them all.
To put it another way, at 5.74 points added per game, Curry's *scoring* -- just his scoring -- was worth about 18-19 extra wins for GS in 2015. That doesnt take into account how much his gravity helped his teammates, or his passing, or anything else -- just his scoring. Now, obviously for guys like Jokic, or Bird, Magic, etc. a big part of their offensive value comes from their passing, making their teammates better etc. See all the caveats above.
But like I said before, for my money, I'll take 2015 Curry over any other single season. Its a bit absurd just how good he was that season.
How are we constructing the roster around the player? Are we assuming the person is playing with a bunch of other great players, with a bunch of scrubs, or maybe league average or replacement level players? What era are we playing in? Who's the opponent? Are we talking one-year peaks, three-year peaks, five year peaks, careers? All of these have different answers depending.
Its sortof like asking if a screwdriver or a hammer is a better tool. Picking the right tool for the job matters far more than other factors usually.
To that point, say for example you take a player who gets a lot of their value from a high usage rate -- that sort of player is going to have their value greatly diminished unless theyre playing alongside low usage roleplaying/defensive types. There's only so many possessions after all. But should you dock a player for that?
Take Jordan for example, its hard to pick exactly which season is offensively his best, but arguably its 89. He averaged 33.6p/7r/6a with a 113 TS+ and a 33.7% usage rate. The next highest usage rate is Pippen at 21% usage, and then Stacey King at 18.4%. Given that 20% usage is average, it was Jordan, a couple guys that were about average, and then a bunch of low usage players. In fact, across his entire career, Pippen and Kukoc were the only other players that had above average usage rates -- Pippen topped out around 24%, while Kukoc was just barely above average at 21-22%. You could definitely argue that the roster was nearly ideally constructed for Jordan to shine offensively. If he had ever been saddled with another really good scorer/high usage player, it would have certainly cut into his own usage and thus offensive value. Should we take that into account? What about other players that never had the same opportunities Jordan had?
Look for example at 2015 Curry vs 2016 Curry once Durant joined -- he went from arguably the greatest offensive season ever, to "only" top ~5 in the league that season. But that's a huge difference in a GOAT debate. If Curry never has that 2015 season, he's definitely looked at much, much differently. Or even consider Durant himself -- he's literally never played on a team that *didnt* have another high usage player alongside him. And for how good he is offensively, his usage rate is actually a bit low compared to some other all-time great scorers. Could he have shone more offensively if the rosters around him had been constructed differently? Almost certainly. Imagine replacing Jordan with Durant on those Bulls rosters -- we'd probably look at Durant a lot differently.
Or consider Bird, since a lot of people have talked about Bird in this thread. He played when coaching/offensive strategy simply didnt allow for players to take 10+ 3s a game. And given he shot 40%+ from 3 during his peak, there's 0 doubt he would have raised his TS%, and thus his overall numbers/offensive value, if he had taken more 3s. Is it his fault the league/coaches/players hadnt realized the value of 3s yet? Should we knock Curry's value because he benefited from it?
Or what about centers that can't create for themselves? Part of Jordan's value was that he got to dictate if/when the ball was going to be in his hands, especially in crunch/clutch moments. Jokic cant really do that, for example, simply by virtue of his position -- centers arent really "allowed" to bring the ball up the court.
How do we account for these things? Its impossible. Is Jokic in the conversation? Absolutely. For a particular opponent, with a particular roster/teammates, in a particular era, Jokic would be the best possible addition to the team in a lot of cases. But I think I could make that argument for a good half dozen or so players.
To my mind, Wilt, Kareem, Jordan, Lebron, Curry, Durant, Shaq, Bird, Magic and Jokic are all in the running. There's probably a few others you could throw in there: West, Erving, Kobe, Nash, Robertson etc. though they're probably just on the next tier for me. I think you can absolutely make an argument for any of them, if you get to select the opponent, teammates, era, etc. though.
With all that said, for my money, since Im a bit biased as a GS fan, Id take Curry. Those 2015 Warriors/Curry had an aura about them that Ive never seen with another team in all the time Ive watched (since '90, give or take). If they were ahead, it was over, if it was close to even, they were favorites, and if they were really behind it felt even. No lead ever felt safe -- it was just a matter of when, not if, they would make a run and take the lead. Miss a couple shots and a 20 point lead could evaporate almost in the blink of an eye. Teams could never let their guard down. Only maybe Jordan had a similar aura, but his was really more at the end of games than anything. Curry at his peak was something else -- an ever present threat from literally anywhere on the court.
And on that note, Ill leave you with this stat. TS added (I really wish bball ref would add it as a sortable stat, you have to manually look the players up), which is one of the most overlooked/underappreciated stats out there. It measures how many points a player's scoring added to their team over what a league average player would have scored with the same number of shots/possessions. Its basically usage rate mixed with TS+. Effectively, if you take the TS added and divide by the number of minutes or games played, you get how many points that player's *scoring* (and only scoring) added to their team's season differential, per minute and per game. Its a much better proxy for a player's value from scoring than say ppg, because it takes into account efficiency.
Among those 10 players I listed earlier, the best seasons are:
15 Curry, 454 TS added, 0.168 per minute/5.74 per game
71 Kareem, 460 TS added, 0.128 per minute/5.68 per game
66 Wilt, 441 TS added, 0.120 per minute/5.44 per game
12 Durant, 394 TS added, 0.126 per minute/4.86 per game
13 Lebron, 347 TS added, 0.120 per minute/4.51 per game
22 Jokic 289 TS added, 0.124 per minute/4.19 per game
88 Jordan, 330 TS added, 0.101 per minute/4.07 per game
93 Shaq, 302 TS added, 0.094 per minute/3.73 per game
87 Bird 261 TS added, 0.088 per minute/3.43 per game
89 Magic 242 TS added, 0.082 per minute/3.06 per game
Now, its worth pointing out that Kareem and Wilt have relatively high per game numbers compared to their per minute averages because they played *so many* minutes, but you could also argue that hurt their per minute rates due to fatigue and so on. With all that said, what is notable I think is just how far ahead Curry is compared to everyone else on a per minute basis. He's about a third higher than the next best season in NBA history, which is insane. Kareem just barely has the single highest season total at 460, but Curry only played 2700 minutes to Kareem's 3500+. In fact, if you project Curry out to the same number of minutes played, 2015 Curry would have ended up at 602 TS added. Obviously, that comes with a lot of caveats, like fatigue, injury, keeping that pace up for 40+ minutes a night etc., but I point that out just to mention how big the gap is between Curry and everyone else on a per minute basis. And these are the best individual scoring seasons for the best offensive players of all time, and 2015 Curry crushes them all.
To put it another way, at 5.74 points added per game, Curry's *scoring* -- just his scoring -- was worth about 18-19 extra wins for GS in 2015. That doesnt take into account how much his gravity helped his teammates, or his passing, or anything else -- just his scoring. Now, obviously for guys like Jokic, or Bird, Magic, etc. a big part of their offensive value comes from their passing, making their teammates better etc. See all the caveats above.
But like I said before, for my money, I'll take 2015 Curry over any other single season. Its a bit absurd just how good he was that season.
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
MavsDirk41 wrote:ScrantonBulls wrote:MavsDirk41 wrote:
In no way is Giannis a better offensive player than Larry Bird but im not going to argue with you over it.
I never said players from 30 years ago were better than players today. The league is better overall because of the amount of international talent that we have in the nba today. But are most players more skilled today? At shooting 3s but thats about it. Dribbling, post moves, passing, pick and pop/roll, and the basic fundamentals? No, i dont think so. It also seems like the league has a problem keeping players healthy although they seem to have less back to backs and extended time off during the all star break. Thanks for the yelling at clouds comment, i should just shut up and listen to whatever you guys say on here right?
I, for one, am utterly shocked that you aren't willing to defend your viewpoint.
Ok TajFTW you want advanced statistics?
Bird top 4 seasons Offensive Win Shares
11.2
10.5
10.4
9.6
Bird top 4 seasons OBPM
7.8
7.3
6.8
6.6
Giannis top 4 seasons Offensive Win Shares
9.5
9.2
8.9
8.3
Giannis top 4 seasons OBPM
7.6
7.4
6.7
6.3
Bird is a better 3 point shooter
Bird is a better mid range shooter
Bird is a better post player
Bird is a better free throw shooter
Bird is a better passer
So how many games have you watched Bird play on Youtube?
Giannis's pts per 100 possessions is 35.1 for his career. He has 6 seasons (including this season) with a pts per 100 of 40 or greater.
Bird's pts per 100 possessions is 30.3 for his career. He has 0 seasons with a pts per 100 of 40 or greater.
Bird's TS%+ for his career is 105. Giannis's TS%+ for his career is 108.
Including this season, they have both played 12 seasons. Giannis has scored more per possession while doing it more efficiently. Spare me this "it isn't close" garbage just because you watched Larry Bird play when you were 10 years old, lmao. That's the funniest rationale ive ever heard for defending a player.
bledredwine wrote:There were 3 times Jordan won and was considered the underdog
1989 Eastern Conference Finals against the Detroit Pistons, the 1991 NBA Finals against the Magic Johnson-led Los Angeles Lakers, and the 1995 Eastern Conference Finals against the NY Knicks
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
Doctor MJ wrote:falcolombardi wrote:I want him to lead one elite offense team at least once before that assertion?
I feel like I'm with you in principle here, but to me it's less about the team's cume ORtg and more about what's done with that player on the floor.
Last year the Nuggets had a 122.4 ORtg (according to nba.com) with Jokic on the floor. Doing a search based on min 30 MPG, that puts him 2nd behind Haliburton who also comes out at 122.4, who of course played less and had a far smaller on/off in the stat.
So yeah, just on that, to me he gets past the "lead elite offense team" hoop.
First of all thanks for looking into that, had not considered to look into every (post 97 at least) on court off ratings too, admittedly for time or simplicity sake
we dont usually filter out seasons as much as we probably should (on court ratings, luck adjusted data when available, filter garbage time, maybe even filter out low leverage games like the random game 4 loss in 4-1 near sweep) all of which combined probably paint a significatively different picture than "raw" team offense rating
Also is probably my mistake if my comment came across as too flipant since i kind of get annoyed by the hyperbolic statements on the style of "is this player so much better than everyone else ever!" Statements people sometimes do
Thingh is, while i dont doubt that jokic ON is better than his team result... i also expect that to be the case for everyone else too. I would of course need to confirm it case by case but i would be shocked if the curry warriors or lebron cavs or the etc, etc were not also even better in their ON minutes too
Jokic disparity may potentially be more extreme, maybe enough to close that gap in team offense results a fair bit (would need to dwdicate some time to look into it if i get the free time to do so)
but it would also lead to another thingh i perceive with jokic, who throught no fault of his own, seems to be often played in a hockey like structure where the starting unit is almost amways together and the backups are often kind of fending for thenselves without a murray (let alone a jokic) staggered with them.
This is again not jokic fault, and is as valid a tactic as any for mike malone who doesnt exactly have the deepest team and may think that winning through strenghtening the main lineups as much as possible is better, but it (alongside denver backups being pretty cheeks last few years, mainly in the big department) helps explain some of the more extreme results like denver starters/jokic wild on/off disparity with their bench to a more extreme degree than what happens with other offensive engines
Someone who has had a similar situation is embiid, who has had some monster on/off (even in playoffs) and great ON results in par due to having a strong starting unit (and being good himself) but a weak bench and big backup.
Or 2024 warriors when curry ON-OFF kind of tanked just by virtue of chris paul being such a good floor general for their bench units. We wouldnt have used the small ON/OFF disparity to say curry impact was small just because paul and co were doing a great job without him
So while i am open to jokic as a goat tier offensive player (i have him comfortably in the top 10 level) i just want to have some of the same results scrutiny we do for (almost) everyone else first
There is some other nitpicks i have on jokic on a team construction and playoffs resilience sense
Not because his own scoring and passing is not resilient, but because i feel all bigs have a shared issue of not being able to be the main ballhandlers themselves (we saw minny great defense exploit this with good doubles and recovering to minimize the advantages jokic could create and force him to rely a lot on murray) that kind of "caps" them a bit compared to smaller and more mobile players with the ball in the offensive end
I feel like bigs are almost forced to be more of a reactive problem solver to the challenge the defense presents, in a way a nash or curry or magic kind of make defense be the ones trying to solve them. And even a guy like jokic who is active off ball and relocates well to advantageous positions is not inmune to this
I also wonder about his own portability, as subpar rim protection from a big limits a bit what kind of players you need to run him with. As you are allocating your most valuable defensive position to a offensive player
All considered i have a bit more pause to put jokic in "best offense ever" talk yet despite being comfortably with him as the upper of upper offense tiers
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
falcolombardi wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:falcolombardi wrote:I want him to lead one elite offense team at least once before that assertion?
I feel like I'm with you in principle here, but to me it's less about the team's cume ORtg and more about what's done with that player on the floor.
Last year the Nuggets had a 122.4 ORtg (according to nba.com) with Jokic on the floor. Doing a search based on min 30 MPG, that puts him 2nd behind Haliburton who also comes out at 122.4, who of course played less and had a far smaller on/off in the stat.
So yeah, just on that, to me he gets past the "lead elite offense team" hoop.
First of all thanks for looking into that, had not considered to look into every (post 97 at least) on court off ratings too, admittedly for time or simplicity sake
we dont usually filter out seasons as much as we probably should (on court ratings, luck adjusted data when available, filter garbage time, maybe even filter out low leverage games like the random game 4 loss in 4-1 near sweep) all of which combined probably paint a significatively different picture than "raw" team offense rating
Also is probably my mistake if my comment came across as too flipant since i kind of get annoyed by the hyperbolic statements on the style of "is this player so much better than everyone else ever!" Statements people sometimes do
Thingh is, while i dont doubt that jokic ON is better than his team result... i also expect that to be the case for everyone else too. I would of course need to confirm it case by case but i would be shocked if the curry warriors or lebron cavs or the etc, etc were not also even better in their ON minutes too
Jokic disparity may potentially be more extreme, maybe enough to close that gap in team offense results a fair bit (would need to dwdicate some time to look into it if i get the free time to do so)
Lots of good thoughts here!
Re: LeBron, Curry, even better ON minute ratings. Well, I'll look some stuff up in a second, but my main thought here is not that Jokic has necessarily surpassed these guys, but that he's cleared the bar of "leading elite offense". Is it as elite as all others? Maybe, maybe not, but it's not a question as to whether Jokic has shown he can lead a lineup to elite offense at this point.
Okay some numbers. I'm going to put a floor of 5000 possessions played, which will put Jokic at the top spot for '23-24 - I don't do that to gift Jokic a title so much as to put things a bit more apples to apples in terms of who Jokic is competing with over a full season of big minutes. Here are the league leaders in On court ORtg based on that:
(Noting that Jokic is at 126.0 this season so far)
'23-24: Nikola Jokic (DEN) 122.4
'22-23: Domantas Sabonis (SAC) 120.7
'21-22: Nikola Jokic (DEN) 117.3
'20-21: Nikola Jokic (DEN) 120.2 (short season)
'19-20: Damian Lillard (POR) 115.7 (short season)
'18-19: Steph Curry (GSW) 119.5
'17-18: James Harden (HOU) 116.2
'16-17: Steph Curry (GSW) 120.1
'15-16: Steph Curry (GSW) 117.5
'14-15: Chris Paul (LAC) 116.7
'13-14: DeAndre Jordan (LAC) 113.0
'12-13: LeBron James (MIA) 114.2
'11-12: Kevin Durant (OKC) 109.1 (short season)
'10-11: Dwyane Wade (MIA) 112.8
'09-10: Steve Nash (PHX) 116.1
'08-09: Steve Nash (PHX) 114.9
'07-08: Steve Nash (PHX) 116.3
'06-07: Steve Nash (PHX) 116.7
'05-06: Steve Nash (PHX) 112.3
'04-05: Steve Nash (PHX) 118.6
'03-04: Dirk Nowitzki (DAL) 112.1
'02-03: Dirk Nowitzki (DAL) 112.2
'01-02: Dirk Nowitzki (DAL) 112.8
'00-01: Shaquille O'Neal (LAL) 111.0
'99-00: Karl Malone (UTA) 109.4
'98-99: (season too short)
'97-98: Karl Malone (UTA) 113.0
'96-97: Jeff Hornacek (UTA) 115.9
So yeah, this metric isn't everything, but to the extent you really need to show up here to be in the Offensive GOAT conversation of the present era, Jokic is pretty well established.
ftr, I think the argument for LeBron being more impressive than this comes from his playoff performance and I don't mean to diminish what he's done there.
falcolombardi wrote:but it would also lead to another thingh i perceive with jokic, who throught no fault of his own, seems to be often played in a hockey like structure where the starting unit is almost amways together and the backups are often kind of fending for thenselves without a murray (let alone a jokic) staggered with them.
This is again not jokic fault, and is as valid a tactic as any for mike malone who doesnt exactly have the deepest team and may think that winning through strenghtening the main lineups as much as possible is better, but it (alongside denver backups being pretty cheeks last few years, mainly in the big department) helps explain some of the more extreme results like denver starters/jokic wild on/off disparity with their bench to a more extreme degree than what happens with other offensive engines
Someone who has had a similar situation is embiid, who has had some monster on/off (even in playoffs) and great ON results in par due to having a strong starting unit (and being good himself) but a weak bench and big backup.
Or 2024 warriors when curry ON-OFF kind of tanked just by virtue of chris paul being such a good floor general for their bench units. We wouldnt have used the small ON/OFF disparity to say curry impact was small just because paul and co were doing a great job without him
So while i am open to jokic as a goat tier offensive player (i have him comfortably in the top 10 level) i just want to have some of the same results scrutiny we do for (almost) everyone else first
So, team fit and redundancy is an important thing and I don't want to dismiss it. +/- stats are certainly going to be most impressed with a guy who has a) great fit around him, and b) not much redundancy.
That said, I have to say that the argument that Jokic has the advantage of playing mostly with the starting lineup has never really resonated with me precisely because we've seen Jokic play with many different lineups. So yeah, if you can find a better Jokic-backup his On-Off will go down, but I don't actually think Jokic's effectiveness on offense is that vulnerable to fit shift.
Re: Paul erasing Curry's on-off. I don't want to deny the possibility of the broader phenomenon, but I do think it's important to recognize that the Warriors are actually about as good with Curry off the floor this year so far as they were last year. What's changed is the On. Curry's On last year was a +2.5, and now it's +12.3, an improvement of nearly +10. Now that improvement may come back down to earth, but I think the key thing is that Curry's reputation is built on the many years in a row where he had an On > +10. Yes he had a couple seasons pre-Kerr where he had a double digit On-Off without a double digit On, but mostly his On-Off is built on the back of amazing On numbers rather than horrific numbers.
falcolombardi wrote:There is some other nitpicks i have on jokic on a team construction and playoffs resilience sense
Not because his own scoring and passing is not resilient, but because i feel all bigs have a shared issue of not being able to be the main ballhandlers themselves (we saw minny great defense exploit this with good doubles and recovering to minimize the advantages jokic could create and force him to rely a lot on murray) that kind of "caps" them a bit compared to smaller and more mobile players with the ball in the offensive end
I feel like bigs are almost forced to be more of a reactive problem solver to the challenge the defense presents, in a way a nash or curry or magic kind of make defense be the ones trying to solve them. And even a guy like jokic who is active off ball and relocates well to advantageous positions is not inmune to this
I also wonder about his own portability, as subpar rim protection from a big limits a bit what kind of players you need to run him with. As you are allocating your most valuable defensive position to a offensive player
All considered i have a bit more pause to put jokic in "best offense ever" talk yet despite being comfortably with him as the upper of upper offense tiers
So first thing I'll say is that playoff resilience is the key thing I'll be evaluating going forward for Jokic, or really anyone entering this echelon, and while Jokic has proven quite a lot in the playoffs...I'm going to want to see more.
Re: bigs limited offensive primacy. I do agree as a typical thing, but I'd emphasize the need to zero in on why that is:
Guys who are only dangerous when they are close to the basket who can't dribble their way to the basket are dependent on teammates making difficult passes through the teeth of a prepared defense.
But if you're a great passer you're dangerous everywhere.
If you're a great shooter you're dangerous everywhere.
And if your teammates are trained to cut and be involved with everything from a DHO to a Hail Mary...
I'd also point to the success that Jokic's nuggets have tended to have with crunch time offense as a thing that differs from what we typically see from offenses built around interior scorers.
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
falcolombardi wrote:.BloodNinja wrote:Have ya'll heard about Michael Jordan
Incredible scorer. Not always the best of the best with playmaking. Teams were better offensively in regular season than in the playoffs
Up there with anyone, lacks proof of concept with truly atg offense teams
You don't have the be the best playmaker to generate the best offense. It's whatever that gets the results. Curry isn't the best play maker either, yet how he scored will generate one of the best offenses ever.
MJ has lead his team to be the best offensive team in the league multiple times in both regular season and playoffs. While having one of the best plus/minus stats ever. And I feel like you shouldn't compare across eras for it otherwise you'll get wonker results. Like even the Bulls 91 had a better Ortg than the 85 Lakers. But Hawks of 22 have better Ortg than both of them.
The reason why Jokic is special imo, is that with Curry you could slow down the shooting. It's Curry gravity that generates the best offense. With Jokic, he's the best passer in the league and one of the most efficient scorers.
With Magic, although he was a efficient scorer, he wasn't a volume scorer. That wasn't his play style even though he score more often.
And with Jokic, he doesn't hold on the ball that much like your traditional point guard. This makes it more difficult to stop. So you could take away his scoring, but he'll set up his teammates. You could stop his teammates, and he'll drop an efficient 30. And still probably get close to a triple double. And he can score almost anywhere on the floor.
Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
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Re: Can we safely say Jokic is the best offensive player ever?
Snake3 wrote:falcolombardi wrote:.BloodNinja wrote:Have ya'll heard about Michael Jordan
Incredible scorer. Not always the best of the best with playmaking. Teams were better offensively in regular season than in the playoffs
Up there with anyone, lacks proof of concept with truly atg offense teams
You don't have the be the best playmaker to generate the best offense. It's whatever that gets the results. Curry isn't the best play maker either, yet how he scored will generate one of the best offenses ever.
MJ has lead his team to be the best offensive team in the league multiple times in both regular season and playoffs. While having one of the best plus/minus stats ever. And I feel like you shouldn't compare across eras for it otherwise you'll get wonker results. Like even the Bulls 91 had a better Ortg than the 85 Lakers. But Hawks of 22 have better Ortg than both of them.
The reason why Jokic is special imo, is that with Curry you could slow down the shooting. It's Curry gravity that generates the best offense. With Jokic, he's the best passer in the league and one of the most efficient scorers.
With Magic, although he was a efficient scorer, he wasn't a volume scorer. That wasn't his play style even though he score more often.
And with Jokic, he doesn't hold on the ball that much like your traditional point guard. This makes it more difficult to stop. So you could take away his scoring, but he'll set up his teammates. You could stop his teammates, and he'll drop an efficient 30. And still probably get close to a triple double. And he can score almost anywhere on the floor.
I am talking about offensw relative to league here. And it depends how we define atg offense, jordan has truly elite offenses, as does curry. But they fall a notch behind others (namely lebron, magic amd nash teams) in playoffs