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

[One_and_Done]

Well, none of those support casts are worse than what Jokic has, because that’s the wrong half of the equation. My point was the higher peaks I was looking at fit into one of 2 categories;

They had less talent, that they carried to equal or better results, or
They had more talent, but the team was much better


The names you mention of Curry, Kawhi, KD, etc, all fall into category number 2. Sure, they had more talent, but they were leading said teams to better results. Where is the 53 win, 3 SRS team among those examples? Curry and Durant on the warriors were posting all-time seasons, and even Kawhi on the Raptors were a 58 win team with a 5.5 SRS, which they achieved with considerable resting/coasting by their players. OG didn’t even play in the playoffs that year, and to win they had to take out the 76ers with Embiid & Butler, the Bucks and the Warriors (though admittedly they would likely have lost if the Warriors had been healthy). Denver is a much weaker team, who has lucked into much weaker opponents; an injured Suns team who would have beaten them, a mismatched Lakers with 38 yr old Lebron, and now an overachieving Heat team who has caught lightning in a bottle (but who, let’s be real, would have lost to a healthy Bucks team). Denver matches up great with Miami. I think it’s fair to say they’ve been very fortunate.



The 2003 Spurs had a terribly mediocre cast of players around Duncan, and were a 5.65 SRS, 60 win team who took out the threepeat Lakers. The Hakeem Rockets were a 58 win team who beat a murderers row of playoff teams despite an average support cast. It’s not comparable to Jokic’s situation at all.

[HeartBreakKid]

Well, none of those support casts are worse than what Jokic has, because that’s the wrong half of the equation. My point was the higher peaks I was looking at fit into one of 2 categories;

They had less talent, that they carried to equal or better results, or
They had more talent, but the team was much better


The names you mention of Curry, Kawhi, KD, etc, all fall into category number 2. Sure, they had more talent, but they were leading said teams to better results. Where is the 53 win, 3 SRS team among those examples? Curry and Durant on the warriors were posting all-time seasons, and even Kawhi on the Raptors were a 58 win team with a 5.5 SRS, which they achieved with considerable resting/coasting by their players. OG didn’t even play in the playoffs that year, and to win they had to take out the 76ers with Embiid & Butler, the Bucks and the Warriors (though admittedly they would likely have lost if the Warriors had been healthy). Denver is a much weaker team, who has lucked into much weaker opponents; an injured Suns team who would have beaten them, a mismatched Lakers with 38 yr old Lebron, and now an overachieving Heat team who has caught lightning in a bottle (but who, let’s be real, would have lost to a healthy Bucks team). Denver matches up great with Miami. I think it’s fair to say they’ve been very fortunate.



The 2003 Spurs had a terribly mediocre cast of players around Duncan, and were a 5.65 SRS, 60 win team who took out the threepeat Lakers. The Hakeem Rockets were a 58 win team who beat a murderers row of playoff teams despite an average support cast. It’s not comparable to Jokic’s situation at all.

Eh...you can poke holes in a lot of championship runs and you're kind of just going by seeding in a season where seeding did not matter much. The Heat and especially the Lakers are obviously legitimate teams. They faced teams whose main players were relatively healthy.

Them sweeping the Lakers would be evidence that they are a good team...the Lakers beat the Warriors legitimately just the series before that. Lebron James is 38 years old...and is also really good, and isn't even the best player on the Lakers regardless.

The Heat legitimately beat the Celtics who were the #1 seed and 2nd in SRS.


I don't get how you can say they don't count or are good circumstance. Who are the good teams in the NBA then? Just a hypothetical healthy Bucks?

The Nuggets did not run into any super teams but they're not some stacked team by championship standards.

[Colbinii]

Well, none of those support casts are worse than what Jokic has, because that’s the wrong half of the equation. My point was the higher peaks I was looking at fit into one of 2 categories;

They had less talent, that they carried to equal or better results, or
They had more talent, but the team was much better


The names you mention of Curry, Kawhi, KD, etc, all fall into category number 2. Sure, they had more talent, but they were leading said teams to better results. Where is the 53 win, 3 SRS team among those examples? Curry and Durant on the warriors were posting all-time seasons, and even Kawhi on the Raptors were a 58 win team with a 5.5 SRS, which they achieved with considerable resting/coasting by their players. OG didn’t even play in the playoffs that year, and to win they had to take out the 76ers with Embiid & Butler, the Bucks and the Warriors (though admittedly they would likely have lost if the Warriors had been healthy). Denver is a much weaker team, who has lucked into much weaker opponents; an injured Suns team who would have beaten them, a mismatched Lakers with 38 yr old Lebron, and now an overachieving Heat team who has caught lightning in a bottle (but who, let’s be real, would have lost to a healthy Bucks team). Denver matches up great with Miami. I think it’s fair to say they’ve been very fortunate.



The 2003 Spurs had a terribly mediocre cast of players around Duncan, and were a 5.65 SRS, 60 win team who took out the threepeat Lakers. The Hakeem Rockets were a 58 win team who beat a murderers row of playoff teams despite an average support cast. It’s not comparable to Jokic’s situation at all.

Eh...you can poke holes in a lot of championship runs and you're kind of just going by seeding in a season where seeding did not matter much. The Heat and especially the Lakers are obviously legitimate teams. They faced teams whose main players were relatively healthy.

Them sweeping the Lakers would be evidence that they are a good team...the Lakers beat the Warriors legitimately just the series before that. Lebron James is 38 years old...and is also really good, and isn't even the best player on the Lakers regardless.

The Heat legitimately beat the Celtics who were the #1 seed and 2nd in SRS.


I don't get how you can say they don't count or are good circumstance. Who are the good teams in the NBA then? Just a hypothetical healthy Bucks?

The Nuggets did not run into any super teams but they're not some stacked team by championship standards.

I have both the Heat and Lakers as clearly better teams than the 2003 Nets.

I dont consider the 1994 Rockets as facing Murderous Row. Thats a bit absurd to describe those teams as that.

[HeartBreakKid]

Well, none of those support casts are worse than what Jokic has, because that’s the wrong half of the equation. My point was the higher peaks I was looking at fit into one of 2 categories;

They had less talent, that they carried to equal or better results, or
They had more talent, but the team was much better


The names you mention of Curry, Kawhi, KD, etc, all fall into category number 2. Sure, they had more talent, but they were leading said teams to better results. Where is the 53 win, 3 SRS team among those examples? Curry and Durant on the warriors were posting all-time seasons, and even Kawhi on the Raptors were a 58 win team with a 5.5 SRS, which they achieved with considerable resting/coasting by their players. OG didn’t even play in the playoffs that year, and to win they had to take out the 76ers with Embiid & Butler, the Bucks and the Warriors (though admittedly they would likely have lost if the Warriors had been healthy). Denver is a much weaker team, who has lucked into much weaker opponents; an injured Suns team who would have beaten them, a mismatched Lakers with 38 yr old Lebron, and now an overachieving Heat team who has caught lightning in a bottle (but who, let’s be real, would have lost to a healthy Bucks team). Denver matches up great with Miami. I think it’s fair to say they’ve been very fortunate.



The 2003 Spurs had a terribly mediocre cast of players around Duncan, and were a 5.65 SRS, 60 win team who took out the threepeat Lakers. The Hakeem Rockets were a 58 win team who beat a murderers row of playoff teams despite an average support cast. It’s not comparable to Jokic’s situation at all.

Eh...you can poke holes in a lot of championship runs and you're kind of just going by seeding in a season where seeding did not matter much. The Heat and especially the Lakers are obviously legitimate teams. They faced teams whose main players were relatively healthy.

Them sweeping the Lakers would be evidence that they are a good team...the Lakers beat the Warriors legitimately just the series before that. Lebron James is 38 years old...and is also really good, and isn't even the best player on the Lakers regardless.

The Heat legitimately beat the Celtics who were the #1 seed and 2nd in SRS.


I don't get how you can say they don't count or are good circumstance. Who are the good teams in the NBA then? Just a hypothetical healthy Bucks?

The Nuggets did not run into any super teams but they're not some stacked team by championship standards.

I have both the Heat and Lakers as clearly better teams than the 2003 Nets.

I dont consider the 1994 Rockets as facing Murderous Row. Thats a bit absurd to describe those teams as that.

Absolutely.

[One_and_Done]

The answer is this is a down year where there are fewer top heavy teams and more parity. Compare the top 4 this year to 2016 to 2018. I'm not sure any healthy teams this yr would be better than the top 4 those years.

[70sFan]

Its a bit worse than Toronto.

Murray >= Lowry
Porter > Siakam
Gordon <= Gasol
KCP = Green
Brown = FVV
Braun < Powell
Green < Ibaka

That's quite a hot take in my opinion.

I don't think you can argue that Gordon is equal to Gasol either.

[One_and_Done]

Yeh Gasol is better than Gordon and it's not terribly close IMO.

[iggymcfrack]

Its a bit worse than Toronto.

Murray >= Lowry
Porter > Siakam
Gordon <= Gasol
KCP = Green
Brown = FVV
Braun < Powell
Green < Ibaka

That's quite a hot take in my opinion.

I don't think you can argue that Gordon is equal to Gasol either.

Porter > Siakam is absolutely absurd. Even as an offensive player, Siakam was better and the defensive gap is huge. Murray > Lowry is wrong too. I was the biggest Murray defender on this forum and he’s a great clutch scorer, but prime Lowry is the perfect complement to a superstar. Does all the little things. Distributes well. Plays amazing defense. He’s just a so much more complete player. The impact stats would even suggest he was better than Kawhi during the regular season.

[70sFan]

Its a bit worse than Toronto.

Murray >= Lowry
Porter > Siakam
Gordon <= Gasol
KCP = Green
Brown = FVV
Braun < Powell
Green < Ibaka

That's quite a hot take in my opinion.

I don't think you can argue that Gordon is equal to Gasol either.

Porter > Siakam is absolutely absurd. Even as an offensive player, Siakam was better and the defensive gap is huge. Murray > Lowry is wrong too. I was the biggest Murray defender on this forum and he’s a great clutch scorer, but prime Lowry is the perfect complement to a superstar. Does all the little things. Distributes well. Plays amazing defense. He’s just a so much more complete player. The impact stats would even suggest he was better than Kawhi during the regular season.

Don't agree with your take on Lowry.

[OhayoKD]

Its a bit worse than Toronto.

Murray >= Lowry
Porter > Siakam
Gordon <= Gasol
KCP = Green
Brown = FVV
Braun < Powell
Green < Ibaka

That's quite a hot take in my opinion.

I don't think you can argue that Gordon is equal to Gasol either.

Raptors defense literally went from atg to average when Gasol left. Could probably argue gasol vs murray honestly

[AEnigma]

That's quite a hot take in my opinion.

I don't think you can argue that Gordon is equal to Gasol either.

Porter > Siakam is absolutely absurd. Even as an offensive player, Siakam was better and the defensive gap is huge. Murray > Lowry is wrong too. I was the biggest Murray defender on this forum and he’s a great clutch scorer, but prime Lowry is the perfect complement to a superstar. Does all the little things. Distributes well. Plays amazing defense. He’s just a so much more complete player. The impact stats would even suggest he was better than Kawhi during the regular season.

Don't agree with your take on Lowry.

Everything he said is correct. Murray has a scoring advantage, or at least does in the sense that Murray on a hot streak is a much better scorer than Lowry on a hot streak, but Lowry has the advantage everywhere else. Better leader too, although that comparison is a bit unfair because of the experience gap.

[OhayoKD]

Porter > Siakam is absolutely absurd. Even as an offensive player, Siakam was better and the defensive gap is huge. Murray > Lowry is wrong too. I was the biggest Murray defender on this forum and he’s a great clutch scorer, but prime Lowry is the perfect complement to a superstar. Does all the little things. Distributes well. Plays amazing defense. He’s just a so much more complete player. The impact stats would even suggest he was better than Kawhi during the regular season.

Don't agree with your take on Lowry.

Everything he said is correct. Murray has a scoring advantage, or at least does in the sense that Murray on a hot streak is a much better scorer than Lowry on a hot streak, but Lowry has the advantage everywhere else. Better leader too, although that comparison is a bit unfair because of the experience gap.

Lowry vs orlando best 0-pointer ever

[OhayoKD]

Well, none of those support casts are worse than what Jokic has, because that’s the wrong half of the equation. My point was the higher peaks I was looking at fit into one of 2 categories;

They had less talent, that they carried to equal or better results, or
They had more talent, but the team was much better

The problem is the latter doesn't actually logically lead to player b being "better" than player "a". How in the world are you comparing what Kawhi did with a 50-60 win team(2018, 2020, small sample in 2019)+gasol(raps d was atg with, average without) and nurse to what Jokic is doing?(nuggets are 30ish wins without this year, 20ish over the last 3). Are you under the impression the nuggets uniquely fit jokic in a way the raptors(a team with an excess of playmaking, agile perimiter defenders and paint-protection, and relatively limited scoring) did not fit Kawhi? Frankly that he got "better results" is itself probably up for debate.

Where is the 53 win, 3 SRS team among those examples?

That would be the full-strength(all starters) srs of the 95 Bulls, having recently lost their best and 3rd best players with their second best player actively demanding a trade. Realistically, the Bulls were a 50-something cast by the 90 playoffs and the fit could not be more optimal. In 94 they were a +4.7 srs regular season team at full-strength(pippen and grant missed games) that went +8 in the postseason. Of course the Bulls actually lost in 1990 before the competition got significantly weaker in the 90's(the 91 bulls posted the same playoff ratings as the 90 bulls up until they ran into the broken-down pistons).

Curry and Durant on the warriors were posting all-time seasons

Maybe if you fixate on their box-score playing with each other, draymond, and klay thompson. In terms of impact, the only-time KD has ever been close to "all-time" was the 2014 regular season which was followed up by...him arguably being outplayed by westbrook in back to back postseasons. Frankly I'm not sure why people are so glowing about Durant's warrior stint. His-non box stuff looks no better than it was in okc rs or playoffs, and his team was on pace to lose to the less talented houston rockets and was at a dead-heat vs a weaker version of that same opponent with durant on the court.

Curry did post all-time regular seasons, but pre-kd his teams fell off in the postseason. As is, Curry's 3-year regular season impact looks outright better than the best looking single-seasons of Jordan(88), Kawhi(21), or KD(14) yet I suspect your actual ranking of Steph does not reflect that. Jokic also can be argued as more impactful empirically depending on what you use(3-year rapm is harsher) with 2023-only looking better than everyone listed.

, and even Kawhi on the Raptors were a 58 win team with a 5.5 SRS, which they achieved with considerable resting/coasting by their players.

They were a 60-win team without kawhi the following year, a 58-win team with Demar Derozan in his place(and no gasol) the previous year and 17-5 without Kawhi in 2019 itself. Kawhi doesn't look anywhere near as good as 2023 Jokic by anything really. He wasn't even a strong defender that season.

Denver is a much weaker team, who has lucked into much weaker opponents; an injured Suns team who would have beaten them

Baseless. Suns with chris paul were much worse. Assumign that they win game 2 does not get you to it being they're likely victors

, a mismatched Lakers with 38 yr old Lebron

Who beat the defending champs and the 2nd seed decisively to get there...

, and now an overachieving Heat team who has caught lightning in a bottle (but who, let’s be real, would have lost to a healthy Bucks team).

I guess you forgot about them beating the best(by srs) or second best(by record) Celtics, or them being within a game of the finals last year, or them being the only team to take 2 games off the 2020 Lakers without their leading scorer?

The 2003 Spurs had a terribly mediocre cast of players around Duncan, and were a 5.65 SRS, 60 win team who took out the threepeat Lakers.

Notice how I didn't mention Duncan? Though bringing up competition here is still hilarious. Are we just going to ignore the Lakers and the Mavs were crippled by injury? Jokic's cast is also "mediocre" by the numbers(both the spurs and the nuggets qualify as "bad" actually), but I'm sure you have a very compelling reason for the Nuggets being good fit and the

The Hakeem Rockets were a 58 win team who beat a murderers row of playoff teams despite an average support cast. It’s not comparable to Jokic’s situation at all.

Also did not mention Hakeem but uh, they beat a Knicks team that was outscored, with home-court, by a jordan-less bulls team. Then they aquired Drexler. Both teams were bad without their superstars, so again you'll need to explain why what was at that point the best-3-point shooting team in playoff history, was a worse fit than Jokic's nuggets.

[One_and_Done]

The problem is the sample you are relying on, whatever it is, is too small to tell us how good the Nuggets are this year without Jokic. I could as easily use the small sample this year to assert Jamal Murray is a big star. He must be, because the Nuggets are a 43-22 team with him, and a 10-7 team without him. Maybe he is the engine of the team. Obviously I don’t believe that, I am just illustrating that there is a lot of noise in such stats in the small samples available this year.

Put aside the advanced stats for a moment. I think we can all agree Jamal Murray is a borderline all-nba player. Similarly, I think we can agree Porter, Gordon and KCP are above average starters, and that B.Brown and J.Green are good bench players. We can debate the exact degree to which that’s true, and that’s fine, but the end point is the same; Jokic had an objectively good support cast. It doesn’t compare to the 1 man carry jobs I listed as examples like Duncan in 03 or Hakeem in 94. Some people think Porter and Gordon are borderline all-stars, which I don’t buy, but I’d certainly have both as likely to get big pay days if they were free agents right now; because they are just very valuable players. I’d also add that I do indeed believe the Nuggets are a great fit around Jokic; their front office has done a good job finding guys who help minimise Jokic weaknesses. That’s not unique to Jokic though, and the Kawhi Raptors and Curry Warriors tend to be optimised to those players strengths also. The thing is that those teams aren’t generally producing 3 SRS, 53 win seasons in a down year for NBA contenders. The results just aren’t the same at all.

If we look at certain years we can find teams who were coasting or injured in the regular season, then hit the switch in the playoffs, usually after an exhausting title run the year before. I don’t think the Jokic Nuggets are such a team though. They tried to win games this year, and their results are broadly reflective of their talent.

You also touch on issues like the 94 Bulls, and the 73 win Warriors adding KD, but that’s just an example of the law of diminishing returns. A team is only going to win so much in a year, no matter how much talent you put on it. Talent additions aren’t linear. You can’t just add 3 players who are hypothetically worth 25 wins each, then expect to win 75 games that year. That’s not how the grind of a regular season works. Teams have off nights, other teams have hot nights, etc. The same applies to guys like Kawhi, who did indeed have a great support cast, but who were nonetheless on a different level with him which showed itself in the playoffs. It didn’t show itself as much in the regular season because Kawhi rested a bunch and he had enough help that he wasn’t even needed that much during the regular season. In the playoffs when the game changed he stepped up as expected. At any rate, I consider Kawhi’s best season to be 2017.

[eminence]

.

I thought about replies for a minute, but I don't think we have a productive conversation here. You wrote a ~2,000 word post, with one of the main drives being showing KAJs trade from Milwaukee to LA being impressive evidence for his impact. And you not once managed to mention his first season in LA. It's incomprehensible to me.

[dygaction]

I would feel comfortable putting him above Larry Bird 86 based on the previous all-time peaks project. Maybe he can be top 3 by finishing Heat in 5 or 6 with another few ATG performance.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1909659&p=79708590#p79708590

1) Michael Jordan 1990-91
2) LeBron James 2012-13
3) Wilt Chamberlain 1966-67
4) Shaquille O'Neal 1999-00
5) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1976-77
6) Tim Duncan 2002-03
7) Larry Bird 1985-86
8) Bill Russell 1963-64
9) Hakeem Olajuwon 1993-94
10) Magic Johnson 1986-87

[OhayoKD]

.

I thought about replies for a minute, but I don't think we have a productive conversation here.

I wonder why...

You wrote a ~2,000 word post

Which directly addressed about every single point you made, offered an explanation for your main point of contention with my previous post, while also providing all the "real data" you asked for...

, with one of the main drives being showing KAJs trade from Milwaukee to LA being impressive evidence for his impact. And you not once managed to mention his first season in LA. It's incomprehensible to me.

You: I don't care much about prime or surrounding years when discussing peaks
Also you: Why didn't you mention this surrounding year when discussing peaks?

But sure, in 76, potentially the weakest signals of Kareem's prime, in a season marred by off-court drama and injury, the Lakers lost 3 of their 5 minute leaders, improved by 4 points of srs, posted a similar full-strength rating as the 86 and 87 Bulls(with a >20-min of Jordan filter boosting 86), and Kareem was accordingly recognized as the MVP despite missing the playoffs. The following 2-years he led better teams than any Jordan has led without a second superstar and a 50+ win-cast(in case you forgot, the Bulls posted a 53-win srs without Jordan and Horace Grant), and as 70's covered(and you evidently ignored) Kareem has consistently out-impacted Jordan(at least in terms of what we can actually discern) over the course of his prime/career

If you recall you noted 86 Jordan as being impressive in a season where he played less, had better-help, and his team performed no better. But from every one of Kareem's first 4-laker years saw a bigger delta in terms of performance with and without with Kareem's worst signal coming in 1979(50-win with, 35-win without) which still looks better than taking a 30-win team to .500.

Never mind mentioning the year Shaq replaced washed Magic and the Lakers barely improved, or when CP3 got obliterated by a non-finalist.

It's incomprehensible to me.

It is incomprehensible to me you've spent the first part of this discussion trying to draw a distinction between peak and prime, yet are attributing this discussion "not being productive" to me narrowing in on "peak". I took the best team Jordan led without a super-squad, gave him a completely unreasonable amount of credit, and with all that peak Kareem still ends up leading the better team. Just like another arguable version of "peak" kareem(72) saw his team do better in the playoffs(with his co-star banged up) vs a better opponent than Peak Jordan(90) with a super-squad, after leading a dramatically regular season team with and without his co-star.

Why does it matter what Kareem did in 76? Either surrounding years matter or they don't. Kareem benefits more than anyone in nba-history from "extending the sample". You shouldn't just cherry-pick what you consider relevant based on what is convenient for your position.

Never mind the "what russell did isn't that impressive because the competition, btw here's a bunch of players who have never replicated what russell did as a reitree player-coach facing really tough competition"

[TheGOATRises007]

Firmly top 10. Not sure yet about top 5.

[eminence]

.

I thought about replies for a minute, but I don't think we have a productive conversation here.

I wonder why...

You wrote a ~2,000 word post

Which directly addressed about every single point you made, offered an explanation for your main point of contention with my previous post, while also providing all the "real data" you asked for...

, with one of the main drives being showing KAJs trade from Milwaukee to LA being impressive evidence for his impact. And you not once managed to mention his first season in LA. It's incomprehensible to me.

You: I don't care much about prime or surrounding years when discussing peaks
Also you: Why didn't you mention this surrounding year when discussing peaks?

But sure, in 76, potentially the weakest signals of Kareem's prime, in a season marred by off-court drama and injury, the Lakers lost 3 of their 5 minute leaders, improved by 4 points of srs, posted a similar full-strength rating as the 86 and 87 Bulls(with a >20-min of Jordan filter boosting 86), and Kareem was accordingly recognized as the MVP despite missing the playoffs. The following 2-years he led better teams than any Jordan has led without a second superstar and a 50+ win-cast(in case you forgot, the Bulls posted a 53-win srs without Jordan and Horace Grant), and as 70's covered(and you evidently ignored) Kareem has consistently out-impacted Jordan(at least in terms of what we can actually discern) over the course of his prime/career

If you recall you noted 86 Jordan as being impressive in a season where he played less, had better-help, and his team performed no better. But from every one of Kareem's first 4-laker years saw a bigger delta in terms of performance with and without with Kareem's worst signal coming in 1979(50-win with, 35-win without) which still looks better than taking a 30-win team to .500.

Never mind mentioning the year Shaq replaced washed Magic and the Lakers barely improved, or when CP3 got obliterated by a non-finalist.

It's incomprehensible to me.

It is incomprehensible to me you've spent the first part of this discussion trying to draw a distinction between peak and prime, yet are attributing this discussion "not being productive" to me narrowing in on "peak". I took the best team Jordan led without a super-squad, gave him a completely unreasonable amount of credit, and with all that peak Kareem still ends up leading the better team. Just like another arguable version of "peak" kareem(72) saw his team do better in the playoffs(with his co-star banged up) vs a better opponent than Peak Jordan(90) with a super-squad, after leading a dramatically regular season team with and without his co-star.

Why does it matter what Kareem did in 76? Either surrounding years matter or they don't. Kareem benefits more than anyone in nba-history from "extending the sample". You shouldn't just cherry-pick what you consider relevant based on what is convenient for your position.

Never mind the "what russell did isn't that impressive because the competition, btw here's a bunch of players who have never replicated what russell did as a reitree player-coach facing really tough competition"

'76 matters to me because I'm trying to figure out what the hell your criteria are, and I can't tell. Seems cherry picked to hell to support your dudes. A JB for Russell/KAJ.

I tried to go with your approach of all those guys arriving in their new destinations and doing comparably or better than '76-'79 KAJ did with LA as the clear lead of their teams (some are certainly more and less arguable), but no, then you immediately go back to 1 season difference (other than for your dude for ??? reasons?).

Nothing seems at all consistent and makes discussion very difficult, the bar is moving very very fast with you.

[OhayoKD]

The problem is the sample you are relying on, whatever it is, is too small to tell us how good the Nuggets are this year without Jokic. I could as easily use the small sample this year to assert

13 whole games over a season is a pretty healthy sample of "off". Never mind all the drop-off with all the non-jokic lineups(an even larger sample) being even more drastic. Of course "whatever it is" suggests you'd consider any sample too small...unless it supported your prior. Naturally state-of-the-art lineup adjustment(lebron, epm) also sees 2023 Jokic as one of the best seasons on record. Things look worse if you take certain 3-year signals, but that is also true of Jordan, Kawhi, and KD. Curry is a regular season exception, but he drops substantially in the playoffs.

Jamal Murray is a big star. He must be, because the Nuggets are a 43-22 team with him, and a 10-7 team without him. Maybe he is the engine of the team. Obviously I don’t believe that, I am just illustrating that there is a lot of noise in such stats in the small samples available this year.

Taking a 48-win team to 53-wins is well short of "big star", never mind "being the engine of the team". As covered the Nuggets with Jokic are better than the Nuggets with Jamal and the Nuggets without Jokic are worse than the Nuggets without Jamal. If anything, Jokic's best-teammate being worth 7-wins would suggest the Nuggets aren't as good as you assume they are.

We can also "adjust using lineup-ratings where...the nuggets with jokic and no murray are excellent and the Nuggets without Jokic and with murray are very bad. Now maybe that's all noise, but in lieu of a half-decent counter-point..

ut aside the advanced stats for a moment. I think we can all agree Jamal Murray is a borderline all-nba player. Similarly, I think we can agree Porter, Gordon and KCP are above average starters, and that B.Brown and J.Green are good bench players. We can debate the exact degree to which that’s true, and that’s fine, but the end point is the same; Jokic had an objectively good support cast. It doesn’t compare to the 1 man carry jobs I listed as examples like Duncan in 03 or Hakeem in 94. Some people think Porter and Gordon are borderline all-stars, which I don’t buy, but I’d certainly have both as likely to get big pay days if they were free agents right now; because they are just very valuable players.

Define good. This is not a comparison. A non-superstar #2 is not "good" by the standards of most title-winners. I also do not think Porter, Gorden, or KCP are an especially strong 3-5, and that bears out in both how they perform withotu Jokic, and the "goodness" they've demonstrated before playing along-side Nikola. I specifically excluded Duncan and Hakeem because I didn't think much of their support either, but you need to offer an actual comparison. Nothing about this is "objective". You've just mentioned what you think of one set of players without doing that for the other two. How exactly did you come to the conclusion that David-Robinson's +/- destroying defense falls short of Murray's not +/- destroying offense? What led you to conclude Jokic is experiencing special "fit" relative to a(at-the time) unprecedented playoff-spacing outlier in Hakeem's Rockets?

How about making a comparison. Jordan and Curry got co-stars who covered all their relative weaknesses on both sides of the floor, made their best strength significantly easier(Jordan faced significantly less doubles from 90-onward with Pippen as the primary-ball handler) while also generating-superstar + impact despite not cutting into the bit their leads did best(scoring/exploiting their scoring gravity). The Raptors were strong to very strong in all of Kawhi's relative weaknesses(defensive mobility, paint-protection, playmaking, ball-handling) and specifically weak in the one thing Kawhi was exceptional at(scoring, especially in isolation). Durant who suffers greatly facing extra-defensive attention joined a team where it was nearly impossible to double him. With all that, Durant, Curry, and Kawhi all struggled mightily vs the right opponents(bucks, okc, cavs, sixers, rockets). The Bulls still couldn't get over-the-hump till their competition broke down in 91.

Murray is a pretty good fit with Jokic and the Nuggets have good defenders, but they do not have a strong rim-protector, nor do they have an elite-rim runner. The fit is good, but that doesn't mean it's optimal. The Nuggets are succeeding primarily do to Jokic and I don't think there's much to suggest Jokic isn't as big or bigger for the Nuggets success as KD, Curry, Kawhi, or Jordan were for their teams.

The thing is that those teams aren’t generally producing 3 SRS, 53 win seasons in a down year for NBA contenders. The results just aren’t the same at all.

Setting aside that modern teams do not take the regular-season as seriously as their historic counterparts...If we use games with Nikola, the Nuggets posted a net-rating of +4.7 with(-2.5 without) to go with a record of 48/21(57-win pace). That is right in line with the full-strengh ratings(only using games where all the starters played) of title-contenders historically, and the Nuggets look like title-winners if we isolate for lineups with Jokic on the court(+12 in jokic lineups, -13 in non-jokic lineups). Never mind the fact they obviously got a lot better in the postseason...

If we look at certain years we can find teams who were coasting or injured in the regular season, then hit the switch in the playoffs, usually after an exhausting title run the year before. I don’t think the Jokic Nuggets are such a team though. They tried to win games this year, and their results are broadly reflective of their talent.

Why do you bring up the Nuggets regular season srs but then ignore they've gone 14-4 in a field where 5 teams posted higher regular-season ratings?

The nuggets very clearly took their foot-off the gas to end the regular season having secured the 1-seed weeks in advance. Do you think they posted a +4.8 SRS with a half-season of Jamal in 21 because they were more talented? The regular season is no more "reflective" for Denver than it was for the teams you're giving a pass, and even then...

You also touch on issues like the 94 Bulls, and the 73 win Warriors adding KD, but that’s just an example of the law of diminishing returns. A team is only going to win so much in a year, no matter how much talent you put on it.

Okay, then why don't we look at what those players were doing in similar circumstances to Jokic. When Jordan had a team that was bad without him, the Bulls with all their starters tapped out at +3.5. Steph tapped out at +5 with .500ish help. Durant and Kawhi have basically never played on bad teams in their prime, and both have failed to win on a plethora of squads that are "stacked" relative to the team Jokic is on pace to secure a dominant championship run with.

The issue here isn't that people are going crazy over Jokic. It's that you "went crazy" with these other guys and inflated what they actually achieved. Jokic has major advantages over all of them. Maybe, just maybe, those advantages are worth more than you initially assumed.