1986 Larry Bird vs 2022 Nikola Jokic

No-more-rings · Post #1 » by **No-more-rings** » Mon May 23, 2022 1:46 pm

Who had the better season? Figured this should be a legit comparison since most seem to think Jokic surpassed the peaks of guys like Dirk and Kobe.

70sFan · Post #2 » by **70sFan** » Mon May 23, 2022 1:57 pm

That's tough, because they are in such a different team contexts...

I think that Jokic proved himself to be top tier floor raiser and I don't see any reason to question his value in better circumstances. His defense is still a concern, but to be honest Warriors so far seems to be extremely hard to defend period.

Bird's 1986 postseason was quite special though. Not because of stats (which were quite high anyway), but in terms of how amazing his combination of off-ball play, on-ball creation and system execution was. On top of that, he was still relatively good defender at that point of his career.

It is very close, Bird has a lot of non-boxscore value in similar way to Curry. With that in mind, I might go with Jokic due to his extremely resiliant offensive game. Warriors defense has been phenomenal in the playoffs and he just dominated them after two games of adjustment. One thing I don't like is his high turnover numbers, but he was forced to do so much that I can't blame him.

Bird has unreal series against very strong Bucks team himself, but Milwaukee played with Squid struggling with injuries. Without him at 100%, they were outmatched.

Stan · Post #3 » by **Stan** » Mon May 23, 2022 4:45 pm

No chance in hell is a guy who got bounced in the first round going to win a poll over a top 10 all time player who won the title & FMVP.

No-more-rings · Post #4 » by **No-more-rings** » Mon May 23, 2022 11:56 pm

Stan wrote:No chance in hell is a guy who got bounced in the first round going to win a poll over a top 10 all time player who won the title & FMVP.

From a winning standpoint that’s understood, but I don’t understand docking a guy who just averaged 31/13/6 on super high efficiency against the league’s best defense and possible champion. What should he have averaged instead, 40/15/9?

mdonnelly1989 · Post #5 » by **mdonnelly1989** » Tue May 24, 2022 12:23 am

No-more-rings wrote:
Stan wrote:No chance in hell is a guy who got bounced in the first round going to win a poll over a top 10 all time player who won the title & FMVP.

From a winning standpoint that’s understood, but I don’t understand docking a guy who just averaged 31/13/6 on super high efficiency against the league’s best defense and possible champion. What should he have averaged instead, 40/15/9?

You think they have a better defense then either the Heat or Celtics?

MyUniBroDavis · Post #6 » by **MyUniBroDavis** » Tue May 24, 2022 12:37 am

mdonnelly1989 wrote:
No-more-rings wrote:
Stan wrote:No chance in hell is a guy who got bounced in the first round going to win a poll over a top 10 all time player who won the title & FMVP.

From a winning standpoint that’s understood, but I don’t understand docking a guy who just averaged 31/13/6 on super high efficiency against the league’s best defense and possible champion. What should he have averaged instead, 40/15/9?

You think they have a better defense then either the Heat or Celtics?

They were the leagues best D in terms of def rtg, I do think in general they weren’t a hard team for Jokic to score on though, dray was just a bit too small and looney isn’t the greatest post defender because he’s not that strong, but Jokic played amazing either way

I do think the bucks/Celtics D would have been a good deal more difficult for Jokic to dominate like that, maybe not the heat though

ShotCreator · Post #7 » by **ShotCreator** » Tue May 24, 2022 12:46 am

This is basically a question of how to take Jokic’s statistical output. Because its obviously better.

So it becomes a question of what about Jokic’s game isn’t being accurately captured by the box score? And I guess you could ask the same for Bird.

No-more-rings · Post #8 » by **No-more-rings** » Tue May 24, 2022 1:12 am

MyUniBroDavis wrote:
mdonnelly1989 wrote:
No-more-rings wrote:From a winning standpoint that’s understood, but I don’t understand docking a guy who just averaged 31/13/6 on super high efficiency against the league’s best defense and possible champion. What should he have averaged instead, 40/15/9?

You think they have a better defense then either the Heat or Celtics?

They were the leagues best D in terms of def rtg, I do think in general they weren’t a hard team for Jokic to score on though, dray was just a bit too small and looney isn’t the greatest post defender because he’s not that strong, but Jokic played amazing either way

I do think the bucks/Celtics D would have been a good deal more difficult for Jokic to dominate like that, maybe not the heat though

He may have done worse against a few other teams, sure you can argue that. I just don’t get why Bird is better for simply winning the title and Jokic lost early. Bird wasn’t dropping 35 every series either. Bird’s probably a little better, but it seems like a fair convo to be had at this point.

Stan · Post #9 » by **Stan** » Tue May 24, 2022 1:34 am

No-more-rings wrote:
Stan wrote:No chance in hell is a guy who got bounced in the first round going to win a poll over a top 10 all time player who won the title & FMVP.

From a winning standpoint that’s understood, but I don’t understand docking a guy who just averaged 31/13/6 on super high efficiency against the league’s best defense and possible champion. What should he have averaged instead, 40/15/9?

I'm not saying I necessarily feel that way, but just on general principle, there's no way what I described doesn't turn out to be true. The poll results are indicative of that so far.

No-more-rings · Post #10 » by **No-more-rings** » Tue May 24, 2022 1:45 am

Stan wrote:
No-more-rings wrote:
Stan wrote:No chance in hell is a guy who got bounced in the first round going to win a poll over a top 10 all time player who won the title & FMVP.

From a winning standpoint that’s understood, but I don’t understand docking a guy who just averaged 31/13/6 on super high efficiency against the league’s best defense and possible champion. What should he have averaged instead, 40/15/9?

I'm not saying I necessarily feel that way, but just on general principle, there's no way what I described doesn't turn out to be true. The poll results are indicative of that so far.

I don’t really care what the poll results are, I was interested more in analysis/discussion.

falcolombardi · Post #11 » by **falcolombardi** » Tue May 24, 2022 1:50 am

MyUniBroDavis wrote:
mdonnelly1989 wrote:
No-more-rings wrote:From a winning standpoint that’s understood, but I don’t understand docking a guy who just averaged 31/13/6 on super high efficiency against the league’s best defense and possible champion. What should he have averaged instead, 40/15/9?

You think they have a better defense then either the Heat or Celtics?

They were the leagues best D in terms of def rtg, I do think in general they weren’t a hard team for Jokic to score on though, dray was just a bit too small and looney isn’t the greatest post defender because he’s not that strong, but Jokic played amazing either way

I do think the bucks/Celtics D would have been a good deal more difficult for Jokic to dominate like that, maybe not the heat though

the best defense was boston, but draymond missed a ton of games

i think bucks are probably the best defense in the league come playoffs time, specially if they could have had middleton in those hill/allen minutes

but after them healtht warriors and boston probably the best