Best offensive peak: Jokic vs kareem vs shaq

[Peregrine01]

Props to 70s Fan for all the footage and context. It's kinda stunning how Kareem reached such scoring volume and efficiency by sky hooking everyone into submission. I don't think Jokic is up there as a scorer but his playmaking is so good that I think he'll be in Kareem's tier as an offensive player when it's all said and done.

[LukaTheGOAT]

As a scorer, Jokic is substantially more efficient than either KAJ or Shaq, and he's doing it in an era where defenses can double him before he catches the ball. As a playmaker...

The crazy thing is we might not have even seen Jokic's peak yet. He just turned 27yo last month

Jokic is less efficient than Kareem when you factor era differences and Kareem was doubled before he catched the ball, as he played before illegal defense era.

I was referring to zone defense which wasn't permitted when Kareem played. In my opinion that offsets (to some degree) the presumption that there was less spacing and the fact that league average TS% was lower in Kareem's era

And I'm not totally sold on using something like TS+ as a definitive statement on efficiency when comparing across eras. In 1977 the average FT% was 75% compared to 78% in 2021. That alone will boost Kareem's relative efficiency vs Jokic's and yet other players shooting better or worse from the FT line really has nothing to do with the scoring efficiency of Kareem or Jokic. There also wasn't a 3pt line in 1977, which obviously meant less spacing for Kareem while at the same time resulting in a deflated league average TS% for Kareem

So it's really hard to say who was more efficient by just looking at TS% or TS+ because there's other forces at play that go into those numbers. So I think of it like this: Jokic these past two seasons -- while dealing with zone defense -- has been making 63% of his 2pt attempts and 84% of his FTs. Both of those %s are significantly higher than any version of Kareem. Now add to this the fact that Jokic shoots 3s -- and at an efficient clip -- and it's hard for me to conclude that Jokic isn't a more efficient scorer than Kareem

EDIT: but with all that said, and to your original post itt, we need more seasons from peak Jokic (if he's even reached his peak yet) to really make this comparison

Even then Kareem has multiple RS that are arguably better than Jokic's best season as a scorer at face value, before we even account for Kareem's volume scoring being more outlier for the era.

For example,

70-71 Kareem- Inflation Adjusted 28.6 pts per 75 (rTS% of 10.6%)
71-72 Kareem- Inflation Adjusted 29.1 pts per 75 (rTS% of 9.9%)
77 Kareem-Inflation Adjusted 27.2 pts per 75 (rTS% of 9.7%)

21-22 Jokic- Inflation Adjusted 29.3 pts per 75 (rTS% of 9.9%)

Keep in mind Kareem played more minutes per game, so keeping up these high scoring rates are also really impressive when you look at things from that context.

Also I am not sure what you would make of this, but Jokic is 6th in the league in scoring rate right now, so his scoring volume isn't as outlier as some of Kareem's seasons. If we are talking dominance relative to competition, that might matter.

[70sFan]

Props to 70s Fan for all the footage and context. It's kinda stunning how Kareem reached such scoring volume and efficiency by sky hooking everyone into submission. I don't think Jokic is up there as a scorer but his playmaking is so good that I think he'll be in Kareem's tier as an offensive player when it's all said and done.

Thanks and I agree - Jokic is marvelous, I already have him inside my top 10 centers peaks (by far the deepest position ever) even with uncertainty about his defensive progress. I already entertain his case over David Robinson or Bill Walton to be honest, he's that good.

[McBubbles]

Bump. I thought this thread was oddly premature as Jokic hadn't even won a championship. But now that he (probably) peaked in 2023, what do y'all think of this comparison now?

[MyUniBroDavis]

shaq