Jokic vs Olajuwon one on one, who will win?

[Old_Blue]

This question doesn't even make sense. In a one on one matchup, Jokic's passing skills become a non-factor. At which point, Olajuwon's All-World defensive skills take over. Not long into the matchup, Jokic would get frustrated, wait for Olajuwon to turn his back and then run up and viciously attack him like he did to Markieff Morris.

Watch on YouTube

[og15]

This question doesn't even make sense. In a one on one matchup, Jokic's passing skills become a non-factor. At which point, Olajuwon's All-World defensive skills take over. Not long into the matchup, Jokic would get frustrated, wait for Olajuwon to turn his back and then run up and viciously attack him like he did to Markieff Morris.

Watch on YouTube

In 1v1, defense is different from 5v5 individual defense, as when you get to a certain level, with a guy having the whole half court to score, if he's elite, its going to be tough to defend them. Then it's also about size and physical attributes too. You might be a great defender, but if there's some physical mismatch in 1v1, there's no crowding of the court or help defense, the guy will still get his.

In 5v5 this is the reality too, these guys are rarely shutting others down if it's just 1v1 on an island and his team doesn't help at all.

Now, one of the realities of 1v1 is that you can't hide, everyone has to play both ends, but 1v1 defense doesn't mean that an elite defender is going to just shut elite offensive guys down.

[DimesandKnicks]

Embiid was able to get the better of Jokic in quite a few of their pure 1v1 matchups in the 2020s so I don’t understand everyone just blindly picking Jokic

It’s a cult. Jokic died resurrected and appeared to 500 people

[Old_Blue]

In 1v1, defense is different from 5v5 individual defense, as when you get to a certain level, with a guy having the whole half court to score, if he's elite, its going to be tough to defend them. Then it's also about size and physical attributes too. You might be a great defender, but if there's some physical mismatch in 1v1, there's no crowding of the court or help defense, the guy will still get his.

In 5v5 this is the reality too, these guys are rarely shutting others down if it's just 1v1 on an island and his team doesn't help at all.

Now, one of the realities of 1v1 is that you can't hide, everyone has to play both ends, but 1v1 defense doesn't mean that an elite defender is going to just shut elite offensive guys down.

Don't beat around the bush. If you think Jokic would have been able to consistently break down Olajuwon's defense one on one, just say it. Go ahead. I could use a good laugh this morning.

[NZB2323]

If you're a tall guy but have "normal" human proportions. Meaning you're not all legs and I'm sure it's more nuanced than this. You can have both. Or you're a bit shorter with freaky long arms.

The problem many of these lighter and quicker guys had was they are high waisted and as a result they just can't get low. Power in the post is both leverage and strength.

This is more powerlifting focused but it's a good breakdown on just how the size of different bones in your body relative to your height can drastically change how "strong" you'll be in certain lifts. The same is true with basketball. Things as simple as your femur length relative to height and tibia can DRASTICALLY change how you're able to function in the post.

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Interesting.
I definitely see this with some players. Giannis comes to mind. Everyone sees how incredible he can be reacting and covering ground, and assume he can guard anyone. Then you look at his defensive stance, with those long legs spread out like a moose on ice so he can get low, and he just can't move as well from that position.

KG looked pretty natural guarding the perimeter, but he also had much more flexible hips than Giannis. Neither of them were quite elite guarding the post, since neither has particuarly good lower body strength.

Marc Gasol is the confusing one for me. Maybe he had sneaky shorter leg proportions in a way that makes sense with your video. The guy was clearly strong enough to guard anyone, but also seemed like he barely bended his body and yet could cover ground as well as almost anyone.

I'm no expert but look at Giannis a bit more closely.



He's knees are "low", in other words it's not just he has long legs. But his femur is super long. So now go back to the video talking about squatting and showing Lebron vs someone more natural. Now Lebron isn't THAT wildly off vs Giannis who seems way more odd. But if you want to get low, into that squat stance, you need not short legs but shorter femurs.



Now Marc a few things. First, he looks to be in terms of legs about 50:50...give or take. Similarly he's about 50% upper and 50% lower...maybe 45:55 with a leg bias. Giannis above is at least 60% legs if not more. So it's not just the legs but the bones in the legs.

Anyone better with this stuff, I'd love to see chime in. But to me Marc looks very "balanced" and "normal" which is odd for guys over 6'6.

Europeans tend to have longer trunks and Africans tend to have longer limbs.

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/812/3/covariation-in-limb-limb-and-limb-trunk-proportions-in-whites-and-blacks-and-males-in-females-using-the-hamann-todd-collection-cleveland-museum-of-natural-history

But with a country like Spain that borders Africa, it’s not surprising that Marc is 50/50.

[Old_Blue]

Europeans tend to have longer trunks and Africans tend to have longer limbs.

Wow. It's been a long time since I read or heard a nonsensical eugenics based argument such as yours.

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Campanis would go on to say "Roger mentioned the fact that about a third of the players are black. That might be a pretty good number, and deservedly so, because they are outstanding athletes. They are gifted with great musculature and various other things, they're fleet of foot, and this is why there are a lot of black major league ballplayers."

https://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/7751398/how-al-campanis-controversial-racial-remarks-cost-career-highlighted-mlb-hiring-practices

I will say this as politely as I can...When you speak of human beings using racial generalities such as this, you have crossed the border into crazy town. Other people might use another word to describe it.

[JimmyFromNz]

Jokic is amazing, he's reinvigorated many parts of basketball for me.

But how could we go past Hakeem in a 1 v 1 comparison? If we understand who Hakeem was as a player, what would be the possible logic?

One of the greatest defenders to step on the court, with the strength, foot speed and versatility to cover Nikola in a 1-1 where his greatest skill is made 100% redundant - which goes hand in hand with the options available to score the ball. If we want to consider size advantages, they are purely numerical... Shaquille Oneal, David Robinson, Ewing can attest.

Turning to the other side of the court just magnifies the advantages.

This poll needs to come right down to 80/20 split for me to regain faith that we aren't completely overthinking this in favour of modernity.

[dhsilv2]

Interesting.
I definitely see this with some players. Giannis comes to mind. Everyone sees how incredible he can be reacting and covering ground, and assume he can guard anyone. Then you look at his defensive stance, with those long legs spread out like a moose on ice so he can get low, and he just can't move as well from that position.

KG looked pretty natural guarding the perimeter, but he also had much more flexible hips than Giannis. Neither of them were quite elite guarding the post, since neither has particuarly good lower body strength.

Marc Gasol is the confusing one for me. Maybe he had sneaky shorter leg proportions in a way that makes sense with your video. The guy was clearly strong enough to guard anyone, but also seemed like he barely bended his body and yet could cover ground as well as almost anyone.

I'm no expert but look at Giannis a bit more closely.



He's knees are "low", in other words it's not just he has long legs. But his femur is super long. So now go back to the video talking about squatting and showing Lebron vs someone more natural. Now Lebron isn't THAT wildly off vs Giannis who seems way more odd. But if you want to get low, into that squat stance, you need not short legs but shorter femurs.



Now Marc a few things. First, he looks to be in terms of legs about 50:50...give or take. Similarly he's about 50% upper and 50% lower...maybe 45:55 with a leg bias. Giannis above is at least 60% legs if not more. So it's not just the legs but the bones in the legs.

Anyone better with this stuff, I'd love to see chime in. But to me Marc looks very "balanced" and "normal" which is odd for guys over 6'6.

Europeans tend to have longer trunks and Africans tend to have longer limbs.

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/812/3/covariation-in-limb-limb-and-limb-trunk-proportions-in-whites-and-blacks-and-males-in-females-using-the-hamann-todd-collection-cleveland-museum-of-natural-history

But with a country like Spain that borders Africa, it’s not surprising that Marc is 50/50.

Well, this is obviously true. Way more black guys look like a spider (short torso long limbs). But when you get into really tall people, longer legs seems pretty common. There's huge diversity in any population.

[NZB2323]

Europeans tend to have longer trunks and Africans tend to have longer limbs.

Wow. It's been a long time since I read or heard a nonsensical eugenics based argument such as yours.

Watch on YouTube

Campanis would go on to say "Roger mentioned the fact that about a third of the players are black. That might be a pretty good number, and deservedly so, because they are outstanding athletes. They are gifted with great musculature and various other things, they're fleet of foot, and this is why there are a lot of black major league ballplayers."

https://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/7751398/how-al-campanis-controversial-racial-remarks-cost-career-highlighted-mlb-hiring-practices

I will say this as politely as I can...When you speak of human beings using racial generalities such as this, you have crossed the border into crazy town. Other people might use another word to describe it.

I’m sorry if I offended anyone, but when you look it up this is what comes up. Not really sure how it’s crazy, or racist, which you seem to be hinting at.

[Old_Blue]

Europeans tend to have longer trunks and Africans tend to have longer limbs.

Wow. It's been a long time since I read or heard a nonsensical eugenics based argument such as yours.

Watch on YouTube

Campanis would go on to say "Roger mentioned the fact that about a third of the players are black. That might be a pretty good number, and deservedly so, because they are outstanding athletes. They are gifted with great musculature and various other things, they're fleet of foot, and this is why there are a lot of black major league ballplayers."

https://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/7751398/how-al-campanis-controversial-racial-remarks-cost-career-highlighted-mlb-hiring-practices

I will say this as politely as I can...When you speak of human beings using racial generalities such as this, you have crossed the border into crazy town. Other people might use another word to describe it.

I’m sorry if I offended anyone, but when you look it up this is what comes up. Not really sure how it’s crazy, or racist, which you seem to be hinting at.

Fine. But, you should understand that eugenics based arguments attempt to draw sweeping conclusions about human beings' physical or mental abilities based on their genetic makeup. It is the "study" of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. It has been discredited as unscientific and racially biased - most notably after the adoption of its doctrines by the Nazis in order to justify their treatment of Jews, disabled people, and other minority groups. Eugenics based arguments have reared their ugly head from time to time over the decades, notably in the mid 1990s with the publication of the book "The Bell Curve." It is crap, certainly not worthy of being referred to as "science." Perhaps yet another area where AI is going to lead the entire world down dark passages.

[SlimShady83]

Can't you all just stick to basketball SMH

[CIN-C-STAR]

Half court, Jokic.
Full court, Hakeem.

[donato]

Jokic is great, but one on one it's Hakeem and it's probably not very close.

[Mirotic12]

I don't think this one is even close. It's very obviously Hakeem.

[KGtabake]

The best two way player always wins a one on one.

[Kiss of Death]

Olajuwon.

[Mirotic12]

Just glad to see the poll going in the right direction, started off a little shady last night.

The poll results as of the time I'm making this post (62% to 38% in favor of Olajuwon), still don't really make sense to me.

For me this one isn't even really debatable. The results should be overwhelmingly in favor of Olajuwon.

I really love Jokic's skills and his approach to basketball, but he's massively overrated in these forums if 38% of posters think he's winning a one to one against peak Olajuwon.

[Doctor MJ]

Just glad to see the poll going in the right direction, started off a little shady last night.

The poll results as of the time I'm making this post (62% to 38% in favor of Olajuwon), still don't really make sense to me.

For me this one isn't even really debatable. The results should be overwhelmingly in favor of Olajuwon.

I really love Jokic's skills and his approach to basketball, but he's massively overrated in these forums if 38% of posters think he's winning a one to one against peak Olajuwon.

Forgive me if I just missed it, but did you respond to any of the conversations actually getting into the questions of how it would work?

I think people have a tendency to think that when Hakeem has the ball he'll just be too fast for Jokic and thus be able to score at ease, meanwhile when Jokic has the ball Olajuwon's athletic advantage would shut Jokic down.

But the thing is, it's not like we should be expecting 100% or 0% success rate in stuff like this. Hakeem was a marvel but the 56% TS he averaged when he played isn't actually any kind of true "unstoppable" thing. Doesn't mean Jokic would win, but there's nothing magical that's going to keep the opposing player below X%.

[Old_Blue]

Just glad to see the poll going in the right direction, started off a little shady last night.

The poll results as of the time I'm making this post (62% to 38% in favor of Olajuwon), still don't really make sense to me.

For me this one isn't even really debatable. The results should be overwhelmingly in favor of Olajuwon.

I really love Jokic's skills and his approach to basketball, but he's massively overrated in these forums if 38% of posters think he's winning a one to one against peak Olajuwon.

Recency bias along with younger folks who simply weren't alive to watch Olajuwon in real time. In reality, no matter how much time goes by, that 1984 NBA draft - with MJ, Olajuwon, Stockton, Barkley - remains unequaled.

[SlimShady83]

Just glad to see the poll going in the right direction, started off a little shady last night.

The poll results as of the time I'm making this post (62% to 38% in favor of Olajuwon), still don't really make sense to me.

For me this one isn't even really debatable. The results should be overwhelmingly in favor of Olajuwon.

I really love Jokic's skills and his approach to basketball, but he's massively overrated in these forums if 38% of posters think he's winning a one to one against peak Olajuwon.

Forgive me if I just missed it, but did you respond to any of the conversations actually getting into the questions of how it would work?

Not sure why he quoted me on that but I have posted my thoughts on the matter all good.