The 'Jokic has no help' narrative sure came and went

[dhsilv2]

Well, you do make a good point on the minutes played. Of course that makes the first point, that teams actively are looking to shoot against him weaker. So if we take the one we need to take into account the other. But I'll leave it that I think teams do want to target shooting against Jokic. They however get into a world of hurt with his hands.

I'd say the fact that players shoot really high percentages against him still makes a strong argument that players are happy to score against him. It really just discards your argument that Jokic is such a great defender because he's "present" to defend the most shots, despite seemingly not grasping the absurdity that despite being present to defend over 20 shots he's only actually defending 5....while playing significantly more minutes then all of his cohorts. This is measurably the bottom of the barrell.

Now to the activity and you can do your minutes thing and just this if you want. But Jokic is 3rd among anyone listed at center in terms of distance traveled on defense and first in defensive field goals against.

According to the data:

Distance in miles on defense ranked:

Sabonis, Gobert, Towns, Poetl, Wemby, Bam, Markkanen, then Jokic, MPJ travels more. None of these players have anything in common. I'm not sure where your getting your data from. And again when you consider that he's averaging three to four minutes more than all these players, this doesn't mean anything. It's like your assigning value to metrics that don't mean what you think they do while undermining the importance of very clear metrics illustrating his lack of effort defensively. He is 7th out of the 14th players I looked up, and If i looked up more he'd likely be in the lower twenties in FGA relative to minutes...but as those FGA per minute drop show do those contested shots..i.e it might look like defending 18 shots and only contest 3. I'm sure we can both agree this reflects really poorly on his defensive effort more than the distance he travels.

The two are important together because on most plays, teams dont take a shot against Jokic. But they are hunting the paint. Jokic does a great job of NOT being a matador in that his big wide body stays between the basket and the driver and teams have to pass out vs risking offensive fouls and despite Jokic being who he is, teams still often choose to kick back out.

Jokic hasn't drawn a single charge this season. And how can you say a player is good at keeping himself between the basket and drivers when last year he was second to last in defending drives and among the worst at actually contesting, which is still a part at staying between a drive and the basket. This is the part when he becomes an absolute matador, from drive to layup...and its measurable.

And again Gobert is a DPOY, a defensive god, but he looks like a poor defender in highlight packages when his teammates fail to do their jobs so lets not run these highlights of jokic without seeing the defensive breakdown.

Gobert looks like a bad defender when he has to defend on the perimeter. He's elite at doing what you want your C to do. Jokic is bad at defending on the perimeter and bad at defending the rim, and these highlight packages (the one I sent was one game against the wors offense in the league) highlight the latter.

But Jokic doesn't just keep between the rim and the player but he has those active hands and he's great at disrupting passes as players pass by and over him. Even if he doesn't get a hand on it, he makes it a harder pass. When you pass over someone, sometimes it takes long to get there, giving teammates more time to recover for example. And back to being active

Again, according to the metrics he does not to a good job of keeping between the rim and the player. He has great hands no argument here, but that doesn't make up for showing embarrsinly low effort at actually contesting shots. You whole argument seems to be, he's great at being position, mine is maybe but once he's in position he's god awful at actually defending...which in my opinion makes him not a plus or average defender but a bad one.

...while consistently staying in defensive position, he's (or he was when I looked it up) 3rd in the league in steals AND deflections. Again, Jokic isn't a guy gambling to high levels.

I'd would say swiping down on drives instead of putting two hands up or going vertical is gambling. But agree to disagree

I don't have this year numbers he but he gets like 50-75 kicked balls a year, which while kinda shady and iffy imo...
that's resetting the shot clock to 16 and that's like 1 a game. It's a LOT. There's no reasonable person who could take the above and not give Jokic credit for hustling on defense and being in the top 25% of big men in hustle. If maybe you want to use that verse effort...ok. Just trying to get us on the same page with this.

So once a game he resets the shot clock and the other team can just score on the next possession? Playing defense with your hands and feet has always been considered lazy. And kick balls, deflections and steals don't impact and intimidate offenses the way that actual rim protection and man to man defense does. Sure, its great that he does it and i'll give him all the credit in the world for it...but how can you say with a straight face that this makes him in the top 25 percent in big man hustle, when he's also only actually defending 25 percent of FGA against him. At most, these things have to cancel eachother out, but in earnest defending more shots - i hope we can both agree - would be more impactful than a deflection a game.

All of these little things add up. Now, I've tried to get you to offer ANY even acknowledgement that there's something other than contested shots. As we both agree that in a perfect world, a contested shot without a foul is better. Where I think we're not seeing eye to eye is that, I don't think Jokic is very good at contesting most shots. So I don't see the big deal with him not contesting. He isn't someone like say Wiggins who actually was built for defense who not contesting is terrible. Jokic is tall but he doesn't seem to have enough value in his vertical defense. I'd much rather he uses his hands, stay as best he can between the ball and the rim, and not foul.

Kentucky, you don't think the bold is a weird statement. Honest question. It's a huge deal that he isn't good at contesting shots, and an even bigger deal that he isn't even trying. While giving him credit for swiping at the ball. Look at the highlight reel, most of these layups are after Jokic swipes down and when he fails it leads to an easy layup. How many of these does he do versus how many he actually gets? How much more valuable would it be if he remained between the player and the basket instead of taking himself out of the play by swiping down - which is not staying between the ball and the rim? If he isn't good at contesting, than that's a point against how good he is defensively. We can't just throw copium on it.

Also and just because I just thought of it. But Jokic even seems to get back on defense better than about half of centers. And we both know he's not the fastest guy out there. For the love of god give this big dude some love there! I've seen AD who's way faster have games where he's the last man back way too much. And heaven forbid we talk about some of the guys you listed as better than Jokic....still not letting you get away with Drummond![/quote]

This is nothing but an opinion.[/quote]

I don't know how people respond to posts like this. I can't deal with something cut up where I can't see what you said vs what I said...

[dhsilv2]

You gave us a 15 minute video to explain a very complex metric and now you acting like its simple. I don't understand how these questions are confusing.

Lilliard and Conley play the same position. According to RAPM Conley ads 4.7 points of offense to his team while reducing -0.4 points on defense, this makes his "total" 5.1 one correct (This would be what I'd expect to be the sort of answer to the question that your confused by)?

Lilliard adds 6.0 points of offense to his team while giving up 0.9 points on defense making his number 5.1 just as Conley. How does the role that these two players play contribute to these numbers? Conley isn't as offensively aggressive and is more of a floor general so it impact X, Lilliard is more aggressive offensively, changing his role so it impact X?

As far as my research, how I broke this down is what this final number reflects, but your telling me no, it also considers there role...

I think you're confusing the role stuff.

The stat doesn't know or care what your role is. Positions don't matter or factor in. It's just looking at your impact. But that impact has the context of a role and what you're doing on the court. I can't just have 5 Lilliards or 5 Conley's on the court at once.

The READER of the stat has to interpret the metric with an understanding of roles. Now if a floor general role more important than a primary scorer role? Again as I keep telling you, this isn't a metric that you use to rank players. What it's doing is very simple. It's solving for your impact on the floor based on play by play data. That's it. The complex part is all the matrix stuff that people always ask about because people want some simple "Points * rebounds / assists = RAPM" type thing. And this isn't that. What makes RAPM a really great metric is that it doesn't use ANY of that crap. It only looks at the lineup and the results of each play. Score 0-4 points and if you're on offense or defense for that play.

But then you're trying to look at this 29 year example someone gave which is just more confusing because it's what you did over your career that falls in that 29 years. IMO that example is beyond **** for ranking stuff. But it's telling if a guy is a career plus defender...it means their team is 100% for SURE better with them on defense doing whatever the coaches are having them do. You just can't deny that once the sample is 5+ years. But I don't know how much else you can get. And if a guy had a peak and a valley....again kinda noisy and useless. Which is why i keep saying it's not a good way to compare or rank people. 1 and 3 year RAPM is better for that purpose.

Also I think you're looking at xRAPM...which requires another piece to explain...but I don't think really helps this conversation.

So yes, that metric is saying that Liliard and Conley have a similar impact on the court over whatever time frame you data set is looking at. Which imo sounds reasonable if it's career. Mind you, I think Conley is a better player on most teams as I think Lilliard is overrated as a scorer. But for another thread.

I don't think you know as much about this metric your championing as you think you do but after making statements like the bold I makes it hard to take you seriously. Advance stats are to supplement what we already know about basketball or explainthings that we might be missing, not to completely rely on them independent of human intervention.

https://www.nbarapm.com/

Current Metrics
These impact metrics attempt to measure how a player impacts the game in points per 100 relative to an average player.

Again, I assume that that total value means exactly the above, how many points per 100 a player impacts. I don't think Conley and Lilliard impacts the game at identical levels. Idt that if you traded prime Conley and sent him to the Blazers with Mccolumn post Aldridge and sent Lilliard to play with ground and pound that they'd impact their teams similiarly and I'm not going to champion a data set that says they do.

What does me thinking Conley is more impactful to more teams have to do with RAPM? I'm just offering my general view that Conly is a better player.

[DimesandKnicks]

I think you're confusing the role stuff.

The stat doesn't know or care what your role is. Positions don't matter or factor in. It's just looking at your impact. But that impact has the context of a role and what you're doing on the court. I can't just have 5 Lilliards or 5 Conley's on the court at once.

The READER of the stat has to interpret the metric with an understanding of roles. Now if a floor general role more important than a primary scorer role? Again as I keep telling you, this isn't a metric that you use to rank players. What it's doing is very simple. It's solving for your impact on the floor based on play by play data. That's it. The complex part is all the matrix stuff that people always ask about because people want some simple "Points * rebounds / assists = RAPM" type thing. And this isn't that. What makes RAPM a really great metric is that it doesn't use ANY of that crap. It only looks at the lineup and the results of each play. Score 0-4 points and if you're on offense or defense for that play.

But then you're trying to look at this 29 year example someone gave which is just more confusing because it's what you did over your career that falls in that 29 years. IMO that example is beyond **** for ranking stuff. But it's telling if a guy is a career plus defender...it means their team is 100% for SURE better with them on defense doing whatever the coaches are having them do. You just can't deny that once the sample is 5+ years. But I don't know how much else you can get. And if a guy had a peak and a valley....again kinda noisy and useless. Which is why i keep saying it's not a good way to compare or rank people. 1 and 3 year RAPM is better for that purpose.

Also I think you're looking at xRAPM...which requires another piece to explain...but I don't think really helps this conversation.

So yes, that metric is saying that Liliard and Conley have a similar impact on the court over whatever time frame you data set is looking at. Which imo sounds reasonable if it's career. Mind you, I think Conley is a better player on most teams as I think Lilliard is overrated as a scorer. But for another thread.

I don't think you know as much about this metric your championing as you think you do but after making statements like the bold I makes it hard to take you seriously. Advance stats are to supplement what we already know about basketball or explainthings that we might be missing, not to completely rely on them independent of human intervention.

https://www.nbarapm.com/

Current Metrics
These impact metrics attempt to measure how a player impacts the game in points per 100 relative to an average player.

Again, I assume that that total value means exactly the above, how many points per 100 a player impacts. I don't think Conley and Lilliard impacts the game at identical levels. Idt that if you traded prime Conley and sent him to the Blazers with Mccolumn post Aldridge and sent Lilliard to play with ground and pound that they'd impact their teams similiarly and I'm not going to champion a data set that says they do.

You seem to be trying very hard to justify ignoring RAPM, because it doesn’t say what you think it should. But here’s the thing. DRAPM says Jokic is a good (but not great) defender. But it doesn’t say that by disagreeing with what your eye test is telling you. It says Jokic is a good defender despite not actually saying Jokic is good at limiting opponents’ scoring efficiency. There’s RAPM measures (including at the website you linked above) that break down where the impact is coming from. And that shows Jokic being neutral at best in terms of affecting opponents’ eFG% (and worse than neutral compared to other bigs).

So how does he still look like a good defender in terms of RAPM? Well, a player’s effect on opponents’ eFG% is far from the entirety of that player’s defensive impact! RAPM tells us that Jokic also has a GOAT-level impact on his team’s defensive rebounding—which comes from him being both a fantastic rebounder himself, but also very good at sealing off his man. Defensive rebounds are a really big deal and Jokic derives a massive impact from this defensively. Another factor we see from RAPM is that he has great impact in terms of how much the other team gets to the FT line. This is presumably because Jokic is good at not fouling. Free throws are incredibly efficient offense, so not fouling is really good. And while his effect on opponents’ turnover rate isn’t good compared to all players as a whole, it’s better than most bigs—especially those that are major rim protectors.

A lot of this reflects a trade off. Jokic isn’t a good rim protector at all. He often doesn’t even really make an attempt to get a block in the paint. That definitely makes him easier to score on in the paint. But playing that way also means he’s typically in a better position to get a rebound or seal off his man, is less likely to foul, and is more often in a position to deflect or steal the ball. So the way Jokic plays defense has very clear positives and very clear negatives. And what we see from RAPM is that this trade off works out to have him be a good but not great defender.

I’m not justifying ignoring it, I’m literally asking questions about what it is

[nomansland]

He didn't have a lot of help last night. Besides him, the whole team was flat. Reminded me of October/November.

[Tor_Raps]

So Jokic has found a way to stay with Denver and keep a great/positive attitude while putting up historic numbers. This is how you do it and not run away to the next team because they have a new shiny star/superstar to help with your legacy.

Exactly. If you take the logical conclusion of people who constantly advocate for "X great player needs to go here to win", then all the top players in the league should be teaming up and creating super teams. We'd all love that, right?

I don't know about love....but the NBA is certainly more popular when there are super teams

The might be more popular for nationally televised games involving those teams but there's no way they're more popular if you take the average across the league.

[Big J]

The others sure looked pretty damn good tonight.

[TunaFish]

The others sure looked pretty damn good tonight.

And without Gordon.

[AleksandarN]

The others sure looked pretty damn good tonight.

Where were you yesterday. Amazing when they don’t blow wide open layups last night. And actually make wide open shots

[Big J]

The others sure looked pretty damn good tonight.

Where were you yesterday. Amazing when they don’t blow wide open layups last night. And actually make wide open shots

[x]

Read on Twitter

[/x]

You mean this game?

[AleksandarN]

The others sure looked pretty damn good tonight.

Where were you yesterday. Amazing when they don’t blow wide open layups last night. And actually make wide open shots

[x]

Read on Twitter

[/x]

You mean this game?

Oh so Lopez scored on drive against Jokic. Wow. You sure got me there. Lopez and Giannis gave up 68 paint points last night. Highest total of the season for the Bucks. Denver only gave up 42. So where was the interior defense of the Bucks? Maybe watch the game instead. The Bucks interior defense couldn’t stop Denver in the paint. Isn’t Lopez and Giannis way better defenders than Jokic. How come they gave up so many points in the paint?? You are easy work.

[Ugly0598]

He’s #1 in offense, but sorta average on defense, he doesn’t do enough rotations sometimes, and gets blown by the defender, his team is approximately 14-15 against teams above .500 & consistently loses on national TV. That’s not MVP type stuff.

I’m sure that’s hating, but that’s my opinion right now, ironically Zeke Nnaji seems to be bringing energy, but I haven’t had time to watch.

When you got a team like OKC who is 48-11 or something, that’s that.

[DimesandKnicks]

Well, you do make a good point on the minutes played. Of course that makes the first point, that teams actively are looking to shoot against him weaker. So if we take the one we need to take into account the other. But I'll leave it that I think teams do want to target shooting against Jokic. They however get into a world of hurt with his hands.

I'd say the fact that players shoot really high percentages against him still makes a strong argument that players are happy to score against him. It really just discards your argument that Jokic is such a great defender because he's "present" to defend the most shots, despite seemingly not grasping the absurdity that despite being present to defend over 20 shots he's only actually defending 5....while playing significantly more minutes then all of his cohorts. This is measurably the bottom of the barrell.

Now to the activity and you can do your minutes thing and just this if you want. But Jokic is 3rd among anyone listed at center in terms of distance traveled on defense and first in defensive field goals against.

According to the data:

Distance in miles on defense ranked:

Sabonis, Gobert, Towns, Poetl, Wemby, Bam, Markkanen, then Jokic, MPJ travels more. None of these players have anything in common. I'm not sure where your getting your data from. And again when you consider that he's averaging three to four minutes more than all these players, this doesn't mean anything. It's like your assigning value to metrics that don't mean what you think they do while undermining the importance of very clear metrics illustrating his lack of effort defensively. He is 7th out of the 14th players I looked up, and If i looked up more he'd likely be in the lower twenties in FGA relative to minutes...but as those FGA per minute drop show do those contested shots..i.e it might look like defending 18 shots and only contest 3. I'm sure we can both agree this reflects really poorly on his defensive effort more than the distance he travels.

The two are important together because on most plays, teams dont take a shot against Jokic. But they are hunting the paint. Jokic does a great job of NOT being a matador in that his big wide body stays between the basket and the driver and teams have to pass out vs risking offensive fouls and despite Jokic being who he is, teams still often choose to kick back out.

Jokic hasn't drawn a single charge this season. And how can you say a player is good at keeping himself between the basket and drivers when last year he was second to last in defending drives and among the worst at actually contesting, which is still a part at staying between a drive and the basket. This is the part when he becomes an absolute matador, from drive to layup...and its measurable.

And again Gobert is a DPOY, a defensive god, but he looks like a poor defender in highlight packages when his teammates fail to do their jobs so lets not run these highlights of jokic without seeing the defensive breakdown.

Gobert looks like a bad defender when he has to defend on the perimeter. He's elite at doing what you want your C to do. Jokic is bad at defending on the perimeter and bad at defending the rim, and these highlight packages (the one I sent was one game against the wors offense in the league) highlight the latter.

But Jokic doesn't just keep between the rim and the player but he has those active hands and he's great at disrupting passes as players pass by and over him. Even if he doesn't get a hand on it, he makes it a harder pass. When you pass over someone, sometimes it takes long to get there, giving teammates more time to recover for example. And back to being active

Again, according to the metrics he does not to a good job of keeping between the rim and the player. He has great hands no argument here, but that doesn't make up for showing embarrsinly low effort at actually contesting shots. You whole argument seems to be, he's great at being position, mine is maybe but once he's in position he's god awful at actually defending...which in my opinion makes him not a plus or average defender but a bad one.

...while consistently staying in defensive position, he's (or he was when I looked it up) 3rd in the league in steals AND deflections. Again, Jokic isn't a guy gambling to high levels.

I'd would say swiping down on drives instead of putting two hands up or going vertical is gambling. But agree to disagree

I don't have this year numbers he but he gets like 50-75 kicked balls a year, which while kinda shady and iffy imo...
that's resetting the shot clock to 16 and that's like 1 a game. It's a LOT. There's no reasonable person who could take the above and not give Jokic credit for hustling on defense and being in the top 25% of big men in hustle. If maybe you want to use that verse effort...ok. Just trying to get us on the same page with this.

So once a game he resets the shot clock and the other team can just score on the next possession? Playing defense with your hands and feet has always been considered lazy. And kick balls, deflections and steals don't impact and intimidate offenses the way that actual rim protection and man to man defense does. Sure, its great that he does it and i'll give him all the credit in the world for it...but how can you say with a straight face that this makes him in the top 25 percent in big man hustle, when he's also only actually defending 25 percent of FGA against him. At most, these things have to cancel eachother out, but in earnest defending more shots - i hope we can both agree - would be more impactful than a deflection a game.

All of these little things add up. Now, I've tried to get you to offer ANY even acknowledgement that there's something other than contested shots. As we both agree that in a perfect world, a contested shot without a foul is better. Where I think we're not seeing eye to eye is that, I don't think Jokic is very good at contesting most shots. So I don't see the big deal with him not contesting. He isn't someone like say Wiggins who actually was built for defense who not contesting is terrible. Jokic is tall but he doesn't seem to have enough value in his vertical defense. I'd much rather he uses his hands, stay as best he can between the ball and the rim, and not foul.

Kentucky, you don't think the bold is a weird statement. Honest question. It's a huge deal that he isn't good at contesting shots, and an even bigger deal that he isn't even trying. While giving him credit for swiping at the ball. Look at the highlight reel, most of these layups are after Jokic swipes down and when he fails it leads to an easy layup. How many of these does he do versus how many he actually gets? How much more valuable would it be if he remained between the player and the basket instead of taking himself out of the play by swiping down - which is not staying between the ball and the rim? If he isn't good at contesting, than that's a point against how good he is defensively. We can't just throw copium on it.

Also and just because I just thought of it. But Jokic even seems to get back on defense better than about half of centers. And we both know he's not the fastest guy out there. For the love of god give this big dude some love there! I've seen AD who's way faster have games where he's the last man back way too much. And heaven forbid we talk about some of the guys you listed as better than Jokic....still not letting you get away with Drummond!

This is nothing but an opinion.[/quote]

I don't know how people respond to posts like this. I can't deal with something cut up where I can't see what you said vs what I said...[/quote]

Right

[Peregrine01]

Murray again a complete ghost against a good team. The idea that he’s a big game player is a complete joke.

[dhsilv2]

I'd say the fact that players shoot really high percentages against him still makes a strong argument that players are happy to score against him. It really just discards your argument that Jokic is such a great defender because he's "present" to defend the most shots, despite seemingly not grasping the absurdity that despite being present to defend over 20 shots he's only actually defending 5....while playing significantly more minutes then all of his cohorts. This is measurably the bottom of the barrell.



According to the data:

Distance in miles on defense ranked:

Sabonis, Gobert, Towns, Poetl, Wemby, Bam, Markkanen, then Jokic, MPJ travels more. None of these players have anything in common. I'm not sure where your getting your data from. And again when you consider that he's averaging three to four minutes more than all these players, this doesn't mean anything. It's like your assigning value to metrics that don't mean what you think they do while undermining the importance of very clear metrics illustrating his lack of effort defensively. He is 7th out of the 14th players I looked up, and If i looked up more he'd likely be in the lower twenties in FGA relative to minutes...but as those FGA per minute drop show do those contested shots..i.e it might look like defending 18 shots and only contest 3. I'm sure we can both agree this reflects really poorly on his defensive effort more than the distance he travels.




Jokic hasn't drawn a single charge this season. And how can you say a player is good at keeping himself between the basket and drivers when last year he was second to last in defending drives and among the worst at actually contesting, which is still a part at staying between a drive and the basket. This is the part when he becomes an absolute matador, from drive to layup...and its measurable.



Gobert looks like a bad defender when he has to defend on the perimeter. He's elite at doing what you want your C to do. Jokic is bad at defending on the perimeter and bad at defending the rim, and these highlight packages (the one I sent was one game against the wors offense in the league) highlight the latter.



Again, according to the metrics he does not to a good job of keeping between the rim and the player. He has great hands no argument here, but that doesn't make up for showing embarrsinly low effort at actually contesting shots. You whole argument seems to be, he's great at being position, mine is maybe but once he's in position he's god awful at actually defending...which in my opinion makes him not a plus or average defender but a bad one.




I'd would say swiping down on drives instead of putting two hands up or going vertical is gambling. But agree to disagree



So once a game he resets the shot clock and the other team can just score on the next possession? Playing defense with your hands and feet has always been considered lazy. And kick balls, deflections and steals don't impact and intimidate offenses the way that actual rim protection and man to man defense does. Sure, its great that he does it and i'll give him all the credit in the world for it...but how can you say with a straight face that this makes him in the top 25 percent in big man hustle, when he's also only actually defending 25 percent of FGA against him. At most, these things have to cancel eachother out, but in earnest defending more shots - i hope we can both agree - would be more impactful than a deflection a game.




Kentucky, you don't think the bold is a weird statement. Honest question. It's a huge deal that he isn't good at contesting shots, and an even bigger deal that he isn't even trying. While giving him credit for swiping at the ball. Look at the highlight reel, most of these layups are after Jokic swipes down and when he fails it leads to an easy layup. How many of these does he do versus how many he actually gets? How much more valuable would it be if he remained between the player and the basket instead of taking himself out of the play by swiping down - which is not staying between the ball and the rim? If he isn't good at contesting, than that's a point against how good he is defensively. We can't just throw copium on it.

Also and just because I just thought of it. But Jokic even seems to get back on defense better than about half of centers. And we both know he's not the fastest guy out there. For the love of god give this big dude some love there! I've seen AD who's way faster have games where he's the last man back way too much. And heaven forbid we talk about some of the guys you listed as better than Jokic....still not letting you get away with Drummond!

This is nothing but an opinion.

I don't know how people respond to posts like this. I can't deal with something cut up where I can't see what you said vs what I said...[/quote]

Right [/quote]

is there a trick to reading these things? I'd have to put all this word and spend an hour playing with the < and > stuff...Once you hit reply it's insane to read. It looks nice for people reading as they come by but to respond, it's just impossible.

[Special_Puppy]

Murray again a complete ghost against a good team. The idea that he’s a big game player is a complete joke.

Stepped up in the 2nd half tbf. Braun was also decent. Everyone else was a disaster. TBF I thought Jokic was merely good not great this game

[guynumber45]

Murray again a complete ghost against a good team. The idea that he’s a big game player is a complete joke.

Stepped up in the 2nd half tbf. Braun was also decent. Everyone else was a disaster. TBF I thought Jokic was merely good not great this game

Bigger issue with Murray is he doesn't boost his teammates in any way. He likes to dribble in place for half the shot clock and shoot a contested jumper. That helps him get his numbers, but it doesn't put any pressure on the defense that would lead to rotations and create openings his other teammates can take advantage of. That's why the non-Jokic lineups suck. A Murray lead offense is incredibly stagnant.

[DimesandKnicks]

Also and just because I just thought of it. But Jokic even seems to get back on defense better than about half of centers. And we both know he's not the fastest guy out there. For the love of god give this big dude some love there! I've seen AD who's way faster have games where he's the last man back way too much. And heaven forbid we talk about some of the guys you listed as better than Jokic....still not letting you get away with Drummond!

This is nothing but an opinion.

I don't know how people respond to posts like this. I can't deal with something cut up where I can't see what you said vs what I said...

Right [/quote]

is there a trick to reading these things? I'd have to put all this word and spend an hour playing with the < and > stuff...Once you hit reply it's insane to read. It looks nice for people reading as they come by but to respond, it's just impossible.[/quote]

U could just respond

[dhsilv2]

This is nothing but an opinion.

I don't know how people respond to posts like this. I can't deal with something cut up where I can't see what you said vs what I said...

Right

is there a trick to reading these things? I'd have to put all this word and spend an hour playing with the < and > stuff...Once you hit reply it's insane to read. It looks nice for people reading as they come by but to respond, it's just impossible.[/quote]

U could just respond[/quote]

it would take hours to find what you said...you basically hid everything.

[Ssj16]

It's wild to me that some people are advocating for the Joker to leave Denver, especially some fans who are rooting for small market teams.

I don't think Denver management is so bad that they can't build another winner around Joker.

Imo, if Joker decided he wanted to leave Denver at this juncture, I would lose some respect for him. He's still in his prime and as the best player he has enough to be a contender.

All these players jumping ship and instead of trying to build something sustainable especially when they leave a small market to join a bigger market or a super teams take the easy way out, imo.

[dhsilv2]

U could just respond

I'll leave you with this as frankly reading that block, I have already covered basically anything and everything you asked.

RAPM based metrics for Jokic's full career show he's a plus defender. The data set here is too large to be wrong. We cannot argue with this and I believe I've provided enough explanation and links to cover this topic. RAPM with that much data is directionally a fact. So now if we are to continue we need to explain why it's a fact. You can argue he's still a bad defender despite there being a clear positive impact to his team with him on the court, but you'd have to build the argument from there.

I have provided the following.

Jokic is slow and a poor shot blocker. These traits make him among the bottom 25% of defenders in a conventional sense. However he also is an elite defensive rebounder which would improve him here. We've already covered the math on his plus impact on limiting extra possessions vs his impact on challenge shots.

Jokic is a high IQ player who reads plays to interrupt them, prevent them, or calls out to teams. I can't really show this outside of film which again as been provided from multiple sources. Both thinking basketball and basketball breakdown.

Jokic is elite in terms of steals and deflections. He's also a unicorn in terms of kicked balls to reset the clock when plays are lost. We've attempted to cover roughly what this impact could be.

Jokic is high energy, stays in plays (this benefits altering shots, reducing some shots attempts, and of course improves his rebounding), and remains active. Again we've covered smart reads. We've covered how this results in a weakness like his mobility, not changing that he's an elite pick and roll defender, and the 0.78 ppp against shows this. And of course he doesn't foul.

Given RAPM data I believe the totality of the above is why he's a neutral to slight plus defender. The rest of the RAPM showing him a plus comes down to his offense is so good it makes the defense better.

If there's an aspect of defense I'm missing by all means bring it up. But I've more or less broken down per 100 what most of this does. We know what per 100 his impact on the court does. I can't easily quantify everything, but we can reasonable get close.

You've basically just said he doesn't challenge shots and thus he's a bad defender without try once to explain what impact EVERYTHING else has.