bigboi wrote:therealbig3 wrote:bigboi wrote:
Stacked lakers team lmao. You do realize that the supporting cast for Shaq in 99-00 was worse than Jokic’s in damn near every way, right? And the years before that, even worse. Like are we serious right now? We can easily pull up the stats too
Ok so let's compare them, but I really like how the current league is full of inflated offensive stats and therefore the players aren't that good, but now because these inflated offensive stats make Jokic's supporting cast look better than Shaq's, they should be taken at face value. Like, Murray putting up the same stats as 00 Kobe means something...but the fact that Jokic smashes Shaq's offensive output is because of the current league environment.
What?
Anyway, Murray isn't close to 00 Kobe, who was also a really good defender, which Murray is not. Aaron Gordon played great...and then got hurt. MPJ was hurt throughout. And then you have a bunch of meh throughout the lineup.
Shaq's 00 team had Kobe, who was still an All-Star, a really good perimeter defender on a team that had strong defensive players throughout the lineup, a 15 ppg scorer in Glen Rice, and a bunch of proven championship-level role players, most of whom won multiple titles before and/or after Shaq (Fisher, Horry, Harper, Green, and Fox).
But again, you're going to pull up PPG and say they weren't that good, and again, you're trying to compare the NBA at its absolute offensive nadir (late 90s/early 00s) to the NBA at its offensive apex, when teams have figured out how to maximize the 3pt shot and maximize the offensive efficiency and production out of everyone, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Jokic's teammates are giving him better help relative to his era than Shaq's teammates were relative to his era.
That argument literally goes against you. The only reason why folks even mention Jokic’s name with the likes of Shaq is due to offensive stats. So if Jokic’s teammates stats are inflated then Jokic’s stats are inflated as well meaning he isn’t better than Shaq no matter which way you slice it.
Jokic is literally the worst defender on his team lmao. And even if you consider Kobe much better than Murray, the rest of Shaq’s roster is much worse than Jokic’s. Derek fisher? Lmao are you serious right now? Silliness. Shaq’s lead multiple 60 win teams regardless of roster lmao. He’s simply BETTER. It doesn’t matter who Shaq’s second options were, he would win games and many of his losses in the playoffs came to ATG like losing to Hakeem, Malone, Jordan. Jokic is losing to Karl anthony towns and Rudy gobert, be fr lmao who Shaq would’ve completely dominated in every way both offensively and defensively
Here’s the ranking of the DRAPM for the Nuggets rotation players, over the four full years that Aaron Gordon has been on the team, according to the NBArapm site:
1. Gordon: +1.9
2. Jokic: +1.7
3. Watson: +0.4
4. Braun: +0.2
5. Porter Jr.: -0.5
6. Westbrook: -1.0
7. Murray: -2.8
8. Strawther: -2.9
The NBArapm website has another RAPM version, labeled 6–factor RAPM. This version ends at 2024, so we’ll do three-year RAPM instead of four-year RAPM. This is how the Nuggets players rank in 3-year RAPM in that measure:
1. Gordon: +2.9
2. Jokic: +2.3
3. Porter Jr.: +1.3
4. Braun: +0.7
5. Murray: -1.2
6. Watson: -0.6
7. Strawther: -1.9
8. Westbrook: -2.4
If we look instead at TheBasketballDatabase’s RAPM (which ends at 2024), we see something similar. In five-year RAPM, Gordon is ranked highest on the team in DRAPM and Jokic is ranked 2nd. In three-year RAPM, Jokic is actually ranked 1st on the team, ahead of Gordon.
The RAPM data is actually pretty consistent that Jokic not only isn’t the worst defender on the Nuggets but actually is the 2nd best one.
