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Offense only isn't a debate, it's clearly Jokic. What would the argument for Hakeem be?

No-more-rings wrote:Offense only isn't a debate, it's clearly Jokic. What would the argument for Hakeem be?

He played in an era with less spacing and less freedom of movement, ignoring the actual skill-set and abilities of each player.

Has to be Jokic. He can up his scoring to match with Hakeem's. His shooting is really good for a center, he can pretty much hit off anywhere.

Then there is the whole playmaking thing that makes it an easy wash. He does so many things well in this department it's kind of silly to even mention them, in contrast Hakeem was a very basic passer and was relatively one dimensional.

Olajuwon's defense vs Jokic's offense would be a more interesting question.

Colbinii wrote:

No-more-rings wrote:Offense only isn't a debate, it's clearly Jokic. What would the argument for Hakeem be?

He played in an era with less spacing and less freedom of movement, ignoring the actual skill-set and abilities of each player.

That's not a pro-Hakeem argument. That's more an argument for why the numbers overstate the difference. The gap is still clear which i think you know.

Offense only it's closer, but going the other way. I think Jokic is the more versatile pick in some hypothetical offense only basketball game though Dream remains the comfortably better rebounder even on offense. In terms of scoring it's about a wash though they get there by different methods but Jokic's passing is the big story here, even the ultimate form of Olajuwon pales in comparison

Jokic has been a (sub) 20ppg points his whole career. Yes this year he is higher but i am not sure how much of it is real. A lot of star players have improved their scoring volume and efficiency this year for whatever reason. We will see how the rest of the seasons as well as the next couple of seasons go to determine how sustainable his current stats are.

VDT wrote:Jokic has been a (sub) 20ppg points his whole career. Yes this year he is higher but i am not sure how much of it is real. A lot of star players have improved their scoring volume and efficiency this year for whatever reason. We will see how the rest of the seasons as well as the next couple of seasons go to determine how sustainable his current stats are.

He averages 7 assist per game and on elite offenses every season - he averages 20 points per game because he doesn't need to score more. people say things like Nash and Stockton don't score a lot - if someone has 14 assist they don't exactly need 25 PPG.


Hakeem has a long history of scoring a lot of points, but the Rockets also have a long history of not being a very good offensive team. Not saying it's Hakeem's fault, but just because someone scores more points during the RS doesn't mean they are a better scorer.


But the big thing that makes Jokic's scoring convincing is that we have two playoff runs with good sample sizes - and he averages 25 PPG on great efficiency. Like someone like Reggie Miller who often didn't average 20 points per game, he can scale his PPG up at will essentially.


His PPG went up by like 7 points this season - I don't think the difference in offense between the 2020 and 2021 season is enough that a player is going to average that many more points (while also putting up 5+ better TS%). Jokic simply got better this season. (he is 25 years old, why would you assume he did not improve?)

No-more-rings wrote:

Colbinii wrote:

No-more-rings wrote:Offense only isn't a debate, it's clearly Jokic. What would the argument for Hakeem be?

He played in an era with less spacing and less freedom of movement, ignoring the actual skill-set and abilities of each player.

That's not a pro-Hakeem argument. That's more an argument for why the numbers overstate the difference. The gap is still clear which i think you know.

You asked what the argument for Hakeem is and I gave you the answer.

You come off very dense.

Colbinii wrote:

No-more-rings wrote:Offense only isn't a debate, it's clearly Jokic. What would the argument for Hakeem be?

He played in an era with less spacing and less freedom of movement, ignoring the actual skill-set and abilities of each player.

Even taking that into account, Jokic, relative to his peers is far ahead of Olajuwon offensively.

homecourtloss wrote:

Colbinii wrote:

No-more-rings wrote:Offense only isn't a debate, it's clearly Jokic. What would the argument for Hakeem be?

He played in an era with less spacing and less freedom of movement, ignoring the actual skill-set and abilities of each player.

Even taking that into account, Jokic, relative to his peers is far ahead of Olajuwon offensively.

He asked for an argument--dont shoot the messenger

No-more-rings wrote:Offense only isn't a debate, it's clearly Jokic. What would the argument for Hakeem be?

Yeah I assumed when I clicked on the thread that this was going to be a question of whether Jokic's superior offense was enough to make up for Hakeem's superior defense (which I'd be inclined to say "No" on, I'll take Dream overall).

The scale of what Jokic is doing offensively is something that frankly boggles the mind.

Starting from a raw perspective - which I want to emphasize is just the starting point:

If we rank players in NBA +/- history by ORtg when on the court who played at least 1500 minutes in a season, there's only one season that ranks above Jokic this year: Curry in '17-18.

What that means is that if we look purely at offensive effectiveness, without normalizing by league, Jokic is in the argument for most effective players we've ever seen.

This is another way of saying: Jokic is putting himself in the conversation not only for being the Offensive GOAT among big men, but Offensive GOAT among anyone to ever lace'em up.

Okay now: ORtg this year is going up in general, and if I drop that minutes threshold other guys, including Jokic's teammate Porter, are ahead of him. I wouldn't want to try to say that these raw ratings are everything when evaluating the impressiveness of an offensive player, but when you're watching Jokic right now, it's absolutely correct and appropriate to remind yourself "I've never seen anyone be more effective on offense than Jokic", and that's no small thing.

Colbinii wrote:

No-more-rings wrote:

Colbinii wrote:
He played in an era with less spacing and less freedom of movement, ignoring the actual skill-set and abilities of each player.

That's not a pro-Hakeem argument. That's more an argument for why the numbers overstate the difference. The gap is still clear which i think you know.

You asked what the argument for Hakeem is and I gave you the answer.

You come off very dense.

And I'm telling you that's not an argument for being better. You can literally say that about any player.

No-more-rings wrote:

Colbinii wrote:

No-more-rings wrote:That's not a pro-Hakeem argument. That's more an argument for why the numbers overstate the difference. The gap is still clear which i think you know.

You asked what the argument for Hakeem is and I gave you the answer.

You come off very dense.

And I'm telling you that's not an argument for being better. You can literally say that about any player.

Thats the point--being an unobjective 90s fan living in the past is the only argument for Hakeem on the offensive end.

Context is everything. Olajuwon was a great scorer in a lower scoring, defensive minded era. He was scoring with a team that was among the least talented among playoff teams. Jokic is playing against few great bigs, nothing compared to the shotblockers and great bigs Olajuwon faced. Olajuwon is rightfully known as the most skilled Centre ever. He had so many moves.

migya wrote:Context is everything. Olajuwon was a great scorer in a lower scoring, defensive minded era. He was scoring with a team that was among the least talented among playoff teams. Jokic is playing against few great bigs, nothing compared to the shotblockers and great bigs Olajuwon faced. Olajuwon is rightfully known as the most skilled Centre ever. He had so many moves.

Wasn’t Olajuwon’s teams built quite well, e.g. in 93-84, to maximize his scoring with the rather modern spacing that they surrounded him with?


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Peak Shaq compare would be fair, but this..

But still if we have to compare them; Hakeem's offensive rebounding was better(it's ironic it was his worst aspect comparing to D-Rob,Ewing,Shaq) and that's it. Jokic has the huge gap on both efficiency and playmaking. I don't think Jokic's volume is better, they're similar on the volume, to me.

Max123 wrote:

migya wrote:Context is everything. Olajuwon was a great scorer in a lower scoring, defensive minded era. He was scoring with a team that was among the least talented among playoff teams. Jokic is playing against few great bigs, nothing compared to the shotblockers and great bigs Olajuwon faced. Olajuwon is rightfully known as the most skilled Centre ever. He had so many moves.

Wasn’t Olajuwon’s teams built quite well, e.g. in 93-84, to maximize his scoring with the rather modern spacing that they surrounded him with?


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Houston in 1993-94 - 429 threes at 33.4 3P%, 15th out of 27 teams. Kenny Smith was the only player above 37 3P% and made the second most threes at 1.1 3P at 40.5 3P%. Maxwell made 1.6 3P art 30 3P%..

Denver so far this season - 672 threes inn 41 games at 38.7 3P%, 5th of all teams. Denver has three players that shoot better than Kenny, excluding Jokic, and five that shoot over 37 3P%.

Houston wasn't well built and had little talent around Olajuwon. Murray is far better than anyone Olajuwon had.

migya wrote:

Max123 wrote:

migya wrote:Context is everything. Olajuwon was a great scorer in a lower scoring, defensive minded era. He was scoring with a team that was among the least talented among playoff teams. Jokic is playing against few great bigs, nothing compared to the shotblockers and great bigs Olajuwon faced. Olajuwon is rightfully known as the most skilled Centre ever. He had so many moves.

Wasn’t Olajuwon’s teams built quite well, e.g. in 93-84, to maximize his scoring with the rather modern spacing that they surrounded him with?


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Houston in 1993-94 - 429 threes at 33.4 3P%, 15th out of 27 teams. Kenny Smith was the only player above 37 3P% and made the second most threes at 1.1 3P at 40.5 3P%. Maxwell made 1.6 3P art 30 3P%..

Denver so far this season - 672 threes inn 41 games at 38.7 3P%, 5th of all teams. Denver has three players that shoot better than Kenny, excluding Jokic, and five that shoot over 37 3P%.

Houston wasn't well built and had little talent around Olajuwon. Murray is far better than anyone Olajuwon had.

I won’t contest this too much as I really haven’t researched enough. Though I will say that I meant relative to era, they gave quite a lot of space for Hakeem to work with; ofcourse not on the level of any team today but great for his time. And without looking too much into it, you are right that Murray was probably a better offensive player than any single player Olajuwon had with him. There is also an argument to be made, which I probably find quite fair also, that Olajuwon wouldn’t be able to maximise a team’s offense with co-stars like Jokic is able to due to his noted scoring blindness and not great passing from the post.


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Not even a debate. Jokic is an elite playmaker and Hakeems scoring advantage (I’m not even sure if there is one) does not make up for that. I thought this was overall peak value.