Current Jokic or Prime Steph Curry? Who was the more impactful player?

[dhsilv2]

People forget that Curry is only good when his 3 is falling.

People aren't going to remember completely false things. Curry's value comes from how defenses guard him and his off ball movement. He can, has, and still will dominate games without his shot falling.

[dhsilv2]

I think you might be looking at it a little askew.

Not really, just noting that the defensive quality is often overlooked in those teams.

In the 2022 finals for example, they started with wiggins-looney-draymond-Klay-Steph for 3 of 6 games, and Otto Porter Jr instead of Looney the remaining 3. Thats not offensively slanted lineups. Next men up was Gary payton jr, a defensive specialist, and Jordan Poole - the only other player capable of creating his own shot.

Yeah but immediately, you're talking about 2022. They weren't a dominant offense that year. They were 17th in the league during the RS. Sure, they turned it up in the playoffs and were 4th of 16, but that team was winning a lot with defense... and talent attrition and Klay's offensive backslide were relevant.

You're reaching a little trying to play up Steph's involvement. Basically any team with two quality guys shouldering the O have roleplayers around them. Draymond's excellence on D, and Klay's sometime excellence there in 2022, coupled to good roleplayer selection were the thing. This isn't unique to Steph at all.

You're also somewhat dismissing the value of great offenses just wearing out teams and that those makes seem to snow ball, forcing the office to often panic and under preform. Defense can lead to offense and offense can lead to defense. The two aren't completely separate despite how we often talk about them.

That said your point is valid. The warriors defense was great and while Curry didn't cripple it, he wasn't the reason.

[dhsilv2]

Jokic could only dream of playing with a team that features Draymond, Klay, and KD.

You could have stopped after any one of those 3...if he keeps Murray

[tsherkin]

But I think the idea is that you have to be an outlandishly impactful offensive player to make that approach actually work really well.

Yes, but in the context of this conversation, it is irrelevant, because the other player is Jokic. And for it to have worked in Golden State required Draymond.

Either way, I think it’s a valid point regarding Steph.

In a vacuum, yes. ITT, not at all.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Steph’s ability to generate offense has concurrently often seemed lower in later stages of the playoffs. The team is consciously making it *even harder* for him on that end, as part of trying to make sure the defense stays rock solid. This was less true in the KD years, but those also aren’t really the years people are talking about when they talk about him dropping in the playoffs.

Indeed.

[tsherkin]

You're also somewhat dismissing the value of great offenses just wearing out teams and that those makes seem to snow ball, forcing the office to often panic and under preform.

I don't think that's relevant given the particulars of Golden State's roster, and it only matters if the roster can play good defense. We didn't see that effect a lot with Nash's Suns, for example.

[lessthanjake]

But I think the idea is that you have to be an outlandishly impactful offensive player to make that approach actually work really well.

Yes, but in the context of this conversation, it is irrelevant, because the other player is Jokic. And for it to have worked in Golden State required Draymond.

Either way, I think it’s a valid point regarding Steph.

In a vacuum, yes. ITT, not at all.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Steph’s ability to generate offense has concurrently often seemed lower in later stages of the playoffs. The team is consciously making it *even harder* for him on that end, as part of trying to make sure the defense stays rock solid. This was less true in the KD years, but those also aren’t really the years people are talking about when they talk about him dropping in the playoffs.

Indeed.

I think it is relevant to this thread, because a comparison of their respective impact requires us to first assess how impactful each of them is. And if this defensive-slanting thing makes us think more highly of Steph’s overall impact than we otherwise would, then that affects the comparison.

And, more specifically than that, Jokic doesn’t really have a defensively-slanted roster. I wouldn’t say it’s offensively-slanted either, but it’s somewhere in the middle, because I think half the other starters are defense-slanted guys (Gordon & KCP) and half are offense-slanted guys (Murray & MPJ). Meanwhile, I’d say the bench is a mix as well, though more on the defensive side. So I wouldn’t exactly say this is something that applies equally to Steph and Jokic. I don’t really think Jokic has as much of his offensive impact masquerading as the defensive fruits of defensive-slanted roster construction.

Which isn’t to say I have peak Steph as more impactful than current Jokic. My view is that peak Steph probably was more impactful but it was in significant part because he was significantly ahead of the curve strategically, and if you took away the strategic advantage then Jokic is probably more impactful. So my answer to this thread largely just depends on whether we include being ahead of the strategic curve as being an inherent part of Steph’s impact or not (and I think it’d be a reasonable approach either way on that).

[Frank Dux]

Jokic by a comfortable margin.

Imagine Jokic with Kevin Durant for two years, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson in their primes. He’d win like 5 straight titles.

[JJ_PR]

Prime Curry was a monster. He revolutionized the game and is by far the best shooter the league has even seen.

It's pretty close between him and Jokic, but I'd go with Curry.

[tsherkin]

I think it is relevant to this thread, because a comparison of their respective impact requires us to first assess how impactful each of them is. And if this defensive-slanting thing makes us think more highly of Steph’s overall impact, then that affects the comparison.

Well no, it's still not relevant to this thread. Jokic's offense has the ability to support more roleplayers, he just doesn't have versatile DPOY candidate like Draymond. What they have versus what would work best isn't necessarily the same thing, as has been discussed for some time now.

And, more specifically than that, Jokic doesn’t really have a defensively-slanted roster.

No, he does not.

I wouldn’t say it’s offensively-slanted either, but it’s somewhere in the middle, because I think half the other starters are defense-slanted guys (Gordon & KCP) and half are offense-slanted guys (Murray & MPJ). Meanwhile, I’d say the bench is a mix as well, though more on the defensive side. So I wouldn’t exactly say this is something that applies equally to Steph and Jokic.

That doesn't follow. Conflating their actual roster with how they could leverage their roster is a mistake. You COULD build that Denver team with more defensive talent. They just haven't, and their offensive talent beyond Jokic isn't staggering either, though obviously Murray is quite good when his shot is falling/he is healthy.

Which isn’t to say I have peak Steph as more impactful than current Jokic. My view is that peak Steph probably was more impactful but it was in significant part because he was significantly ahead of the curve strategically, and if you took away the strategic advantage then Jokic is probably more impactful. So my answer to this thread largely just depends on whether we include being ahead of the strategic curve as being an inherent part of Steph’s impact or not (and I think it’d be a reasonable approach either way on that).

I wondered about that element earlier, so I can't fault the thought process, heh. It's a valid point to consider. My main contention here is that the defense of the Warriors isn't a pro-Steph argument here. He was talent Denver doesn't, and it's not talent Denver COULDN'T have due to differences in the two players.

[MrBigShot]

Jokic could only dream of playing with a team that features Draymond, Klay, and KD.

He could also only dream of playing against the caliber of opponent the Warriors faced. OKC was basically this years Minnesota on steroids, with two players better than the best player on Minny. And the cavs were as close to a superteam as you could get in 2016.
I do think Jamal historically is a better playoffperformer than Klay, even though i prefer Klays whole package in his prime. The pre-durant team had Draymond though, so thats where the divide lies.

2015-2016 Westbrook was not better than Ant right now, and this Minny squad is much more balanced and deep than that OKC squad. Putting Ant and KAT aside, they have the literal DPOY and the 6th man of the year.

Jokic is just as prolific a scorer as Steph while being leaps and bounds better as a playmaker. If you want to talk about a weak opponent, the 2014 Cavs with Love and Kyrie injured were as big of a freebie as it gets for a finals opponent.

[lessthanjake]

A lot of my responses below ended up saying the same sorts of things over and over, so apologies for the lack of brevity:

I think it is relevant to this thread, because a comparison of their respective impact requires us to first assess how impactful each of them is. And if this defensive-slanting thing makes us think more highly of Steph’s overall impact, then that affects the comparison.

Well no, it's still not relevant to this thread. Jokic's offense has the ability to support more roleplayers, he just doesn't have versatile DPOY candidate like Draymond. What they have versus what would work best isn't necessarily the same thing, as has been discussed for some time now.

Yeah, but I don’t think anyone is saying Jokic *couldn’t* hold up the offense of a very defensively-slanted roster, if he were on a team like that. It’s more just an issue relating to assessing how impactful we think peak Steph was—which is something we have to determine before we can compare his impact to Jokic’s.

And, more specifically than that, Jokic doesn’t really have a defensively-slanted roster.

No, he does not.

I wouldn’t say it’s offensively-slanted either, but it’s somewhere in the middle, because I think half the other starters are defense-slanted guys (Gordon & KCP) and half are offense-slanted guys (Murray & MPJ). Meanwhile, I’d say the bench is a mix as well, though more on the defensive side. So I wouldn’t exactly say this is something that applies equally to Steph and Jokic.

That doesn't follow. Conflating their actual roster with how they could leverage their roster is a mistake. You COULD build that Denver team with more defensive talent. They just haven't, and their offensive talent beyond Jokic isn't staggering either, though obviously Murray is quite good when his shot is falling/he is healthy.

Right, but I think the comparison here is about who was the more impactful player on the teams they were actually on. I’m not making an assertion about what each guy could or couldn’t do with a different roster. Rather, I’m just noting that this defensive-slanted-roster thing should affect our assessment of how impactful Steph was on the actual team Steph was on, and that that factor doesn’t affect our assessment of how impactful Jokic is on the actual team Jokic is on nearly as much. If you flipped the teams they were on, it’d almost certainly flip which one of them this concept applied to more!

Which isn’t to say I have peak Steph as more impactful than current Jokic. My view is that peak Steph probably was more impactful but it was in significant part because he was significantly ahead of the curve strategically, and if you took away the strategic advantage then Jokic is probably more impactful. So my answer to this thread largely just depends on whether we include being ahead of the strategic curve as being an inherent part of Steph’s impact or not (and I think it’d be a reasonable approach either way on that).

I wondered about that element earlier, so I can't fault the thought process, heh. It's a valid point to consider. My main contention here is that the defense of the Warriors isn't a pro-Steph argument here. He was talent Denver doesn't, and it's not talent Denver COULDN'T have due to differences in the two players.

If the Warriors defense was so good in significant part because they cannibalized Steph’s offense in order to bolster their defense, then I think the Warriors’ defense being good is a pro-Steph argument, because his effect on that should improve our conception of how impactful he was. The same could be true of Jokic if he had a different roster. But, at the same time, if he had a more defensively-slanted roster, then maybe conventional wisdom would be lower on his offense than it is (such that this factor would merely be something that’d make up for that).

I guess the overarching point here is just that great offensive players tend to get more credit for their offensive impact the better their team’s offense is. And they tend to not get credit for how good their team’s defense is when they’re not known as a great defensive player (which neither Steph nor Jokic are). But if their team cannibalized their offensive impact by loading up with defensive-slanted players, then that offensive player might not be getting enough credit for how much offensive impact they had, because the offense isn’t as good as it would be with a more balanced roster. In other words, the team is shifting the guy’s offensive impact over to defense, and then people often aren’t giving him credit for the impact that’s shifted over because he’s not a great individual defender. Jokic’s team isn’t really defensively-slanted so I don’t think that conception of his offensive impact is skewed downwards as much as it is for Steph. Which makes this a bigger factor in assessing Steph’s impact than Jokic’s, even if the opposite probably would be true if you flipped which one of them had the more defensive roster.

[FluLikeSymptoms]

Steph has been great but Jokic for sure.

[tsherkin]

Yeah, but I don’t think anyone is saying Jokic *couldn’t* hold up the offense of a very defensively-slanted roster, if he were on a team like that. It’s more just an issue relating to assessing how impactful we think peak Steph was—which is something we have to determine before we can compare his impact to Jokic’s.

But again, ITT, specific impact is dictated by circumstance. Arguing Steph has more impact because he has the superior roster pieces doesn't make sense, which is why I'm arguing against that specific notion.

Rather, I’m just noting that this defensive-slanted-roster thing should affect our assessment of how impactful Steph was on the actual team Steph was on,

And I'm saying it shouldn't, because it isn't reflective of the player, but of the rest of the roster.

If the Warriors defense was so good in significant part because they cannibalized Steph’s offense in order to bolster their defense, then I think the Warriors’ defense being good is a pro-Steph argument, because his effect on that should improve our conception of how impactful he was.

I don't agree. I think that if you put talent out there around him which doesn't enable the team to take advantage of the impact, it's still there, it just isn't being capitalized on. I think that's essentially the same thing I'm saying of Jokic, right? I don't want either player penalized for the differences in their rosters.

The same could be true of Jokic if he had a different roster. But, at the same time, if he had a more defensively-slanted roster, then maybe conventional wisdom would be lower on his offense than it is

A contention with which I disagree, because he basically has 3pt shooters around him apart from Murray. If you replace them with defensive players, then the primary skillset on O you see from a lot of defensive roleplayers is... 3pt shooting. If those guys had been hitting their shots at the end of the Minny series, he'd be in the WCFs. You can find defensive guys who can hit the 3, so I don't really think there's any reason to consider him dropping off in impact on O with a more defensively-slanted roster.

Ultimately, the rosters aren't the same. Comparing impact is going to be specifically affected by such. Looking at defensive impact and then not one person who has responded to me acknowledging the DPOY on Steph's team while discussing the team defense is something of a problem. The contexts in which these two players play is sufficiently different than you can't just compare impact straight-up. We're already accounting for era when we speak of "Prime Steph" instead of Steph after 2016 (though maybe 2021...), so we are already accommodating multiple variables. Why are we then not looking at the difference in roster construction when discussing defense?

You can't just dismiss it as "oh, Steph's so good on O, it permits defensive-slanted rosters," because that isn't unique in this specific conversation. There also isn't a good reason to suggest that Jokic's team would be worse with more defense on it, because of the style of players he has around him to begin with.

[Letsgokings]

Gonna go with the guy who literally changed the game and actually has a relatable human body type then the big dumb oaf who just lumbers around the court that a normal human being couldn't possibly ever relate too.

[Admiral-Kizaru]

Jokic could only dream of playing with a team that features Draymond, Klay, and KD.

He could also only dream of playing against the caliber of opponent the Warriors faced. OKC was basically this years Minnesota on steroids, with two players better than the best player on Minny. And the cavs were as close to a superteam as you could get in 2016.
I do think Jamal historically is a better playoffperformer than Klay, even though i prefer Klays whole package in his prime. The pre-durant team had Draymond though, so thats where the divide lies.

2015-2016 Westbrook was not better than Ant right now, and this Minny squad is much more balanced and deep than that OKC squad. Putting Ant and KAT aside, they have the literal DPOY and the 6th man of the year.

Jokic is just as prolific a scorer as Steph while being leaps and bounds better as a playmaker. If you want to talk about a weak opponent, the 2014 Cavs with Love and Kyrie injured were as big of a freebie as it gets for a finals opponent.

Racking up DHO assists is not the be all of playmaking. Steph led 60 win teams and top 5 offenses while fielding at all times at least a single player if not 2 that are subpar if not outright inept offensively.

[dhsilv2]

You're also somewhat dismissing the value of great offenses just wearing out teams and that those makes seem to snow ball, forcing the office to often panic and under preform.

I don't think that's relevant given the particulars of Golden State's roster, and it only matters if the roster can play good defense. We didn't see that effect a lot with Nash's Suns, for example.

Or the sun's defense was that bad? But yeah I don't think the impact is huge and it requires the defense to be good first.

[tsherkin]

Or the sun's defense was that bad? But yeah I don't think the impact is huge and it requires the defense to be good first.

The Suns defense was average to mediocre, depending on the specific year. But yes, if your defense has the capacity to take advantage of it, there may be a small impact.

[iggymcfrack]

Curry might have been Joker's equal in the regular season, but it was about 50/50 whether he'd show up in the playoffs. The one time he faced LeBron in the Finals without overwhelming help he **** the bed. Has Jokic had a bad playoff series in his entire career? I can't remember one.

Sure, Curry had Dray and Klay and 2.5 years of KD while Jokic has Gordon and Porter and 2.5 postseasons of healthy Murray so of course Curry's gonna win more, but I don't think their actual postseason performance is close at all. It's clearly Jokic.

[iggymcfrack]

Gonna go with the guy who literally changed the game and actually has a relatable human body type then the big dumb oaf who just lumbers around the court that a normal human being couldn't possibly ever relate too.

Is this trolling or do you actually believe this? Jokic might be the most intelligent player in the history of the game. He's a coach on the floor who organizes both the offense and defense for his teammates and beats the other team with his mind more than his body. Calling Jokic dumb is like calling Steph bad at shooting.

[dhsilv2]

Or the sun's defense was that bad? But yeah I don't think the impact is huge and it requires the defense to be good first.

The Suns defense was average to mediocre, depending on the specific year. But yes, if your defense has the capacity to take advantage of it, there may be a small impact.

Well yeah pre and post matrix (but we already went over my memory today seems to be trash) was my thought.