OhayoKD wrote:lessthanjake wrote:70sFan wrote:Jamal Murray a low all-star level player? In the playoffs? I don't buy that at all
He’s a low-level all-star player who, due to peoples’ form being variable over time, happens to have played a bit better than that in the low sample size of the playoffs. I thought it was clear from the context of my post that the part about “low-level all-star level” was referring to how good he is in general, rather than referring to what his form happens to have been in the playoffs.
The nuggets were not the best regular season team in 2023(or really all that close) with "not all-star" Murray so this doesn't really say anything about Jokic's championship prospects without an all-star. As is, Murray's 2020 run was a much better performance than his 2023 run and much better than what the vast majority of all-stars have ever pulled off in the postseason.
IOW, Murray has played well above "all-star" in the parts of the season that Jokic's teams have ever had notable success in. Given that Jokic's assists and ast% went down while his tov and tov% rate went up, I'm skeptical it was Jokic "getting the best out of his teamamtes" jumping that turned Murray from a 20-point scorer into a 26-point scorer(note: both versions played next to Jokic).
Regarding “Jokic’s championship prospects without an all-star,” I’m not sure what point you think you’re responding to from me. In my first post on this thread, I specifically said that I’d take Kobe + Pau if we assume Jokic doesn’t happen to get someone on his team that’s at least a borderline all-star type of player, but that I’d probably instead go with Jokic if we are assuming the rest of the squads are randomly distributed such that we’d expect Jokic to have a solid chance of still getting a teammate like that. In my second post on this thread, I then specifically said I consider Jamal Murray to be a “an all-star level player.” So, the clear takeaway from my two posts is that I consider Jamal Murray to be all-star level and would take Jokic if we think he’d still get someone of that sort of level on his team but would take Kobe + Pau if we are actually talking about Jokic’s title chances “without an all-star.” You then made this reply to me with a straw man seemingly arguing Jokic hasn’t shown he’d have good championship prospects without an all-star. Given my posts in this thread, why is that directed as a reply to me?
Similarly, I don’t know why you are responding to me with quotes about Murray as “not all-star.” I very clearly argued that I consider Jamal Murray an all-star level player, so this just seems completely misplaced. If you’re going to make replies to things I clearly didn’t argue but that others did, then reply to them with it, not me.
As for the only thing here that seems to not be a straw man that should be directed elsewhere (i.e. your last paragraph), teams scheme against superstars more in the playoffs than in the regular season, because, unlike in the regular season, there’s actually time to come up with detailed gameplans. When that superstar is as great at decision-making as Jokic, it’s not a particular surprise that this would result in the second-best player on his team having his production go up in the playoffs, as the team smartly exploits the opposing gameplan (and that exploitation really doesn’t necessarily have to result in more assists from Jokic). So I just don’t think the analysis in your last paragraph is remotely nuanced enough to really get anywhere. That said, it’s also surely true that Jamal Murray has also simply played better in the playoffs than his typical level is. Maybe it’s just randomness from a relatively low sample size of games, or maybe he’s a systematic playoff riser. We’ll get more data on that as his career goes on. If it ultimately proves to be the latter, then I think it’d make sense to retroactively adopt a better view of what he is. Right now, though, I’m comfortable with the low-level all-star assessment.
As for a related question that you tangentially touch on, would Jokic win a title with Jamal Murray only being borderline all-star level in the playoffs instead of the higher level he happens to have played at in the playoffs? Perhaps not—though it’s worth mentioning that the Nuggets easily won the title last year, so there was actually a good deal of room for Murray to have played worse in the playoffs and the Nuggets to still win. So there’s a decent chance they could win the title with Murray only at borderline all-star level IMO. But also, the point of my first post was that on a team making a good playoff run, at least one guy is usually going to play much better than normal in the playoffs, because form varies over time. If you’ve got a guy who is normally a low-level all star, maybe that manifests with that guy playing like an all-NBA player in the playoffs, but maybe it manifests with a role player playing like a borderline all-star. My point with the first post in this thread was basically that I would only pick Jokic here if we were thinking he was likely going to have another guy on his team who is normally at least borderline all-star level. There will be variation in players’ form either way, but Jokic isn’t in much of a position to succeed compared to a Kobe + Pau team IMO if the baseline level of Jokic’s team doesn’t at least have that.