Where does Jokic’s 2023 season rank among all time peaks?

[ShotCreator]

It would be nice if there was standardized tracking of stuff like # of defenders taken out so we could grade creation qualitatively and not just in terms of volume. Jokic's assists total overstates his actual value as a playmaker. If we are going to devalue "rondo" and "stockton" assists, we have to be fair and devalue when Jokic makes those types of assists too.

Every lead playmaker has those vanilla with no effort given assists, but you'd be shocked at how much it disrupts an offense to not even have a guy willing to just pass to people for those seemingly low quality assists. Making the right play isn't actually all that easy and fundamental for a lot of the league. And being good enough to warrant having the ball enough to get those assists is not regular, which is why every top playmaker has those.

Jokic has a lot of gravity off screens, and gravity in general off-ball. Probably the most of it I've seen for someone with his passing load. Denver gets a lot of advantages off seemingly basic play actions like a DHO because of this. The #1 assist rate team in the NBA the past 4 seasons. And 1 and a half of those seasons they didn't have Jamal Murray.

Jokic has the most free flowing play style of any lead playmaker I've ever seen other than Larry Bird. So while there's vanilla actions, he's also empowering guys to be able to play as unpredictably as you can possibly play on and off ball.

Denver gets advantages off the DHO because Jokic is a fat man that can set a screen, jamal Murray is good at basketball and doesn’t force it in DHO situations, and Aaron Gordan should have two dunk contest titles.

This is like saying Draymond has incredible gravity, some incredibly vague and indirect statements here that read as volume without substance

Whoa there new guy whose greatest thought yet in his 5 minutes of being here is losing game 7 at home is bad and also impossible for other humans to allow.

Read it again. The only statement you've made here implies Draymond and Jokic are pretty much indistinguishable in pressure and hypothetical danger with the ball in their hands. If that is where your uppity little comment leads you I'd reconsider how you got there if were you.

And also don't get arrogant and dismissive when you think you have point to make. Just make the point.

[OhayoKD]

Every lead playmaker has those vanilla with no effort given assists, but you'd be shocked at how much it disrupts an offense to not even have a guy willing to just pass to people for those seemingly low quality assists. Making the right play isn't actually all that easy and fundamental for a lot of the league. And being good enough to warrant having the ball enough to get those assists is not regular, which is why every top playmaker has those.

Jokic has a lot of gravity off screens, and gravity in general off-ball. Probably the most of it I've seen for someone with his passing load. Denver gets a lot of advantages off seemingly basic play actions like a DHO because of this. The #1 assist rate team in the NBA the past 4 seasons. And 1 and a half of those seasons they didn't have Jamal Murray.

Jokic has the most free flowing play style of any lead playmaker I've ever seen other than Larry Bird. So while there's vanilla actions, he's also empowering guys to be able to play as unpredictably as you can possibly play on and off ball.

Denver gets advantages off the DHO because Jokic is a fat man that can set a screen, jamal Murray is good at basketball and doesn’t force it in DHO situations, and Aaron Gordan should have two dunk contest titles.

This is like saying Draymond has incredible gravity, some incredibly vague and indirect statements here that read as volume without substance

Whoa there new guy whose greatest thought yet in his 5 minutes of being here is losing game 7 at home is bad and also impossible for other humans to allow.

Read it again. The only statement you've made here implies Draymond and Jokic are pretty much indistinguishable in pressure and hypothetical danger with the ball in their hands. If that is where your uppity little comment leads you I'd reconsider how you got there if were you.

And also don't get arrogant and dismissive when you think you have point to make. Just make the point.

It does not. "Like" implies a similarity of kind, not necessarily a similarity of extent. If they had said "exactly like", then that inference would be fair, but as is, you're reaching.

[BroKamina]

Every lead playmaker has those vanilla with no effort given assists, but you'd be shocked at how much it disrupts an offense to not even have a guy willing to just pass to people for those seemingly low quality assists. Making the right play isn't actually all that easy and fundamental for a lot of the league. And being good enough to warrant having the ball enough to get those assists is not regular, which is why every top playmaker has those.

Jokic has a lot of gravity off screens, and gravity in general off-ball. Probably the most of it I've seen for someone with his passing load. Denver gets a lot of advantages off seemingly basic play actions like a DHO because of this. The #1 assist rate team in the NBA the past 4 seasons. And 1 and a half of those seasons they didn't have Jamal Murray.

Jokic has the most free flowing play style of any lead playmaker I've ever seen other than Larry Bird. So while there's vanilla actions, he's also empowering guys to be able to play as unpredictably as you can possibly play on and off ball.

Denver gets advantages off the DHO because Jokic is a fat man that can set a screen, jamal Murray is good at basketball and doesn’t force it in DHO situations, and Aaron Gordan should have two dunk contest titles.

This is like saying Draymond has incredible gravity, some incredibly vague and indirect statements here that read as volume without substance

Whoa there new guy whose greatest thought yet in his 5 minutes of being here is losing game 7 at home is bad and also impossible for other humans to allow.

Read it again. The only statement you've made here implies Draymond and Jokic are pretty much indistinguishable in pressure and hypothetical danger with the ball in their hands. If that is where your uppity little comment leads you I'd reconsider how you got there if were you.

And also don't get arrogant and dismissive when you think you have point to make. Just make the point.

Losing a 20 point lead while having the most ludicrous home court advantage at home is bad!

Not being dismissive here! Just being honest, nothing what you said was concrete and reads more as throwing darts and hitting key words on a resume so you pass the first stage of a internship or job application!

I seemingly have gotten someone else to take up this conversation so I shall bounce! Catch you on a bit, and stay hydrated my friend! No need to take things so personally we are just talking about basketing some balls after all!

[McBubbles]

Even though I'm upset Jokic lost (wanted Nuggies to repeat), I'm happy that his exposed offensive limitations back up my intuitive understanding of basketball lol. That and the fact that people can hit the breaks on the ridiculous GOAT talk after one of the easiest title runs in history.

We've recently talked a lot about portability as a board and many us noted that the Taylorian definition of portability is useless because "not taking away from your teammates" is mostly irrelevant to the optimization of a team.

Expanding on this, it annoyed me when people would act like Jokic has no offensive flaws just because of his minimal time of possession, team friendly style. Curry got the same benefit of the doubt back in the day and it pissed me off then too lol.

Jokic relying on the high volume of play actions and off-ball activity of his teammates to an extent a Magic, Nash or Lebron type don't need to on account of their superior ball handling was somehow being turned into a positive. As if maintaining a live dribble and being able to penetrate a defence was some sort of outdated skill in the face of screen setting and DHO's. As if NEEDING to pass the ball more often due to you being unable to dribble it yourself is a stylistic choice and not a limitation. People often brought this up as a limitation that Bird had relative to Magic but somehow Jokic escaped from it.

Pass heavy offences aren't inherently superior to heliocentric ones but anytime one arises people jizz their pants and go crazy talking about the next evolution of B-Ball.

[uberhikari]

In the 8-11 range.

[uberhikari]

How is GOAT Jokic looking now?

Like an all-time great player facing extremely good defensive team with his best teammate having a horrible series?

His best teammate had like 2 bad games in a 7 game series and Jokic did his part being the most exploitable high-volume defender of the playoffs, having 2 games where his scoring and playmaking was shut down, and relying on dho's(hint: requires your teammates to do alot more work) to generate assists because his ball-handling is outright bad for a lead playmaker.

He was still good player considered, but this was not an all-time or even "best-in-the-world" level playoff performance which is the standard Jokic should be held to if is an all-time or best in the world level player.

I don't think people understand how important this is. There's a difference between being an elite passer/playmaker and an elite passer/playmaker who can initiate the offense as a lead ball handler. If you cannot run an offense as the lead ball handler your passing/playmaking impact will always be capped because you cannot fully exploit the geometry of the court.

The difference in passing impact between Jokic and Luka against the same defense is night and day. No matter what the Wolves try they cannot defend Luka out of the P&R.

[Cavsfansince84]

I don't think people understand how important this is. There's a difference between being an elite passer/playmaker and an elite passer/playmaker who can initiate the offense as a lead ball handler. If you cannot run an offense as the lead ball handler your passing/playmaking impact will always be capped because you cannot fully exploit the geometry of the court.

The difference in passing impact between Jokic and Luka against the same defense is night and day. No matter what the Wolves try they cannot defend Luka out of the P&R.

I think what is being talked about here is why peaks sometimes have to be looked at more after a player's prime is about over for the simple reason that sometimes we get a better sense of what a player's weaknesses actually are over that whole period. Not just based on what they saw and played against in one post season or one regular season. I think its relevant though I know some people don't do it that way. I think we get a better idea of how good and how resilient a player's skills are over a longer period which then also gives you a better idea of how good they were at their peak.

[Special_Puppy]

As an aside, I really prefer using multi-year stretches when defining someone's peak as opposed to just using a single year. For a lot of players, their peak years are virtually inextinguishable from each other in terms of individual value so it really makes more sense to just group them together.

[ShotCreator]

As an aside, I really prefer using multi-year stretches when defining someone's peak as opposed to just using a single year. For a lot of players, their peak years are virtually inextinguishable from each other in terms of individual value so it really makes more sense to just group them together.

I used to think this but humans are so malleable physically and mentally. It's just not realistic. Just look at the large swings role players can make year to year. Health, schemes, contract years, and certainly tons of off-court stuff we would never know about. It's the same for superstars but superstars are just professional box score stuffers so it's more subtle when they fluctuate.

[wafflzgod]

Like an all-time great player facing extremely good defensive team with his best teammate having a horrible series?

His best teammate had like 2 bad games in a 7 game series and Jokic did his part being the most exploitable high-volume defender of the playoffs, having 2 games where his scoring and playmaking was shut down, and relying on dho's(hint: requires your teammates to do alot more work) to generate assists because his ball-handling is outright bad for a lead playmaker.

He was still good player considered, but this was not an all-time or even "best-in-the-world" level playoff performance which is the standard Jokic should be held to if is an all-time or best in the world level player.

I don't think people understand how important this is. There's a difference between being an elite passer/playmaker and an elite passer/playmaker who can initiate the offense as a lead ball handler. If you cannot run an offense as the lead ball handler your passing/playmaking impact will always be capped because you cannot fully exploit the geometry of the court.

The difference in passing impact between Jokic and Luka against the same defense is night and day. No matter what the Wolves try they cannot defend Luka out of the P&R.

The Wolves as a defense is specifically constructed to defend Jokic/Denver. Starting 2 bigs with another good one off the bench, and tons of length everywhere is what is needed for this. But that is part of what came back to hurt them vs Dallas -- they are not super quick and have been bad on closing out. I think it is very important to consider opponent matchups.

Also, we saw Jokic's playmaking shred the best playoff defense in the league last year in LA in the conference finals as well.

[uberhikari]

His best teammate had like 2 bad games in a 7 game series and Jokic did his part being the most exploitable high-volume defender of the playoffs, having 2 games where his scoring and playmaking was shut down, and relying on dho's(hint: requires your teammates to do alot more work) to generate assists because his ball-handling is outright bad for a lead playmaker.

He was still good player considered, but this was not an all-time or even "best-in-the-world" level playoff performance which is the standard Jokic should be held to if is an all-time or best in the world level player.

I don't think people understand how important this is. There's a difference between being an elite passer/playmaker and an elite passer/playmaker who can initiate the offense as a lead ball handler. If you cannot run an offense as the lead ball handler your passing/playmaking impact will always be capped because you cannot fully exploit the geometry of the court.

The difference in passing impact between Jokic and Luka against the same defense is night and day. No matter what the Wolves try they cannot defend Luka out of the P&R.

The Wolves as a defense is specifically constructed to defend Jokic/Denver. Starting 2 bigs with another good one off the bench, and tons of length everywhere is what is needed for this. But that is part of what came back to hurt them vs Dallas -- they are not super quick and have been bad on closing out. I think it is very important to consider opponent matchups.

Also, we saw Jokic's playmaking shred the best playoff defense in the league last year in LA in the conference finals as well.

Quickness isn't needed to stop Doncic. Doncic's game is not built on quickness or athleticism, it's the opposite.

Jokic didn't shred LA's defense last year. What shredded LA's defense was Murray who averaged 33 ppg on 65 TS% and Denver's super hot shooting from 3. Murray, Jokic, KCP, and MPJ combined shot 43% from 3.

[STTGLDRILL]

I don't think people understand how important this is. There's a difference between being an elite passer/playmaker and an elite passer/playmaker who can initiate the offense as a lead ball handler. If you cannot run an offense as the lead ball handler your passing/playmaking impact will always be capped because you cannot fully exploit the geometry of the court.

The difference in passing impact between Jokic and Luka against the same defense is night and day. No matter what the Wolves try they cannot defend Luka out of the P&R.

The Wolves as a defense is specifically constructed to defend Jokic/Denver. Starting 2 bigs with another good one off the bench, and tons of length everywhere is what is needed for this. But that is part of what came back to hurt them vs Dallas -- they are not super quick and have been bad on closing out. I think it is very important to consider opponent matchups.

Also, we saw Jokic's playmaking shred the best playoff defense in the league last year in LA in the conference finals as well.

Quickness isn't needed to stop Doncic. Doncic's game is not built on quickness or athleticism, it's the opposite.

Jokic didn't shred LA's defense last year. What shredded LA's defense was Murray who averaged 33 ppg on 65 TS% and Denver's super hot shooting from 3. Murray, Jokic, KCP, and MPJ combined shot 43% from 3.

It is very funny that people look at Jamal take the most absurd contested shots and assume it’s because of Jokic’s “gravity”

Gravity is supposed to get teammates easier looks not harder ones. If the idea is that they didn’t double of Jokic to guard jamal, I mean sure, but neither did they do the latter.

Gobert, Kat, and Naz being a perfect defensive front court is very strange when you think about two of them being considered average ish or below average defenders before this year, and the best defender of the bunch having issues specifically against Jokic because he’s not great versus strength, it’s a strange narrative when their perimeter defense is arguable more impressive with NAW,ANT, McDaniels

[uberhikari]

The Wolves as a defense is specifically constructed to defend Jokic/Denver. Starting 2 bigs with another good one off the bench, and tons of length everywhere is what is needed for this. But that is part of what came back to hurt them vs Dallas -- they are not super quick and have been bad on closing out. I think it is very important to consider opponent matchups.

Also, we saw Jokic's playmaking shred the best playoff defense in the league last year in LA in the conference finals as well.

Quickness isn't needed to stop Doncic. Doncic's game is not built on quickness or athleticism, it's the opposite.

Jokic didn't shred LA's defense last year. What shredded LA's defense was Murray who averaged 33 ppg on 65 TS% and Denver's super hot shooting from 3. Murray, Jokic, KCP, and MPJ combined shot 43% from 3.

It is very funny that people look at Jamal take the most absurd contested shots and assume it’s because of Jokic’s “gravity”

Gravity is supposed to get teammates easier looks not harder ones. If the idea is that they didn’t double of Jokic to guard jamal, I mean sure, but neither did they do the latter.

Gobert, Kat, and Naz being a perfect defensive front court is very strange when you think about two of them being considered average ish or below average defenders before this year, and the best defender of the bunch having issues specifically against Jokic because he’s not great versus strength, it’s a strange narrative when their perimeter defense is arguable more impressive with NAW,ANT, McDaniels

One of the Wolves' best defensive game in the entire series happened when Gobert didn't even play.

[STTGLDRILL]

Quickness isn't needed to stop Doncic. Doncic's game is not built on quickness or athleticism, it's the opposite.

Jokic didn't shred LA's defense last year. What shredded LA's defense was Murray who averaged 33 ppg on 65 TS% and Denver's super hot shooting from 3. Murray, Jokic, KCP, and MPJ combined shot 43% from 3.

It is very funny that people look at Jamal take the most absurd contested shots and assume it’s because of Jokic’s “gravity”

Gravity is supposed to get teammates easier looks not harder ones. If the idea is that they didn’t double of Jokic to guard jamal, I mean sure, but neither did they do the latter.

Gobert, Kat, and Naz being a perfect defensive front court is very strange when you think about two of them being considered average ish or below average defenders before this year, and the best defender of the bunch having issues specifically against Jokic because he’s not great versus strength, it’s a strange narrative when their perimeter defense is arguable more impressive with NAW,ANT, McDaniels

One of the Wolves' best defensive game in the entire series happened when Gobert didn't even play.

It was a pretty horrific series honestly from a game by game perspective for a offensive player with the lofty standards based on who he gets compared to, but that’s more from watching each game rather than watching each box score…

The narrative over the wolves having an all time great defensive frontcourt is pretty strange, their perimeter defense stands out far more as a whole when you think about it.

[wafflzgod]

I don't think people understand how important this is. There's a difference between being an elite passer/playmaker and an elite passer/playmaker who can initiate the offense as a lead ball handler. If you cannot run an offense as the lead ball handler your passing/playmaking impact will always be capped because you cannot fully exploit the geometry of the court.

The difference in passing impact between Jokic and Luka against the same defense is night and day. No matter what the Wolves try they cannot defend Luka out of the P&R.

The Wolves as a defense is specifically constructed to defend Jokic/Denver. Starting 2 bigs with another good one off the bench, and tons of length everywhere is what is needed for this. But that is part of what came back to hurt them vs Dallas -- they are not super quick and have been bad on closing out. I think it is very important to consider opponent matchups.

Also, we saw Jokic's playmaking shred the best playoff defense in the league last year in LA in the conference finals as well.

Quickness isn't needed to stop Doncic. Doncic's game is not built on quickness or athleticism, it's the opposite.

Jokic didn't shred LA's defense last year. What shredded LA's defense was Murray who averaged 33 ppg on 65 TS% and Denver's super hot shooting from 3. Murray, Jokic, KCP, and MPJ combined shot 43% from 3.

I think Jokic's passing absolutely picked apart LA last year