Take the most optimistic view of Jokic's offense and the most pessimistic view of his defense. Where does his peak land?

[letskissbro]

If Jokic is truly a tier 1 offensive player alongside or even surpassing the likes of LeBron, MJ, Nash, and Magic, but his defense is detrimental to the point that he's a giant liability in the playoffs, how high can we reasonably view his peak?

When I say liability I mean potentially tier(s) worse than Nash or Barkley. His on/off numbers the last three postseasons have been pretty ugly.

The latest peaks project ranked him 16th, which I think would require a relatively optimistic view of his defense.

[LukaTheGOAT]

I mean if I am taking the most optimistic view of his offense as well, I feel like it would be a top 15/20 (probably top 15) peak ever.

The most optimistic view of his offense, to me, means I evaluate him as a top 10 scorer ever (fringe top 5 even), the best passer ever, and along with Curry maybe the most portable player ever.

[Dutchball97]

I'm pretty optimistic about his defense. He's an average to above average defender and wouldn't have gotten nearly as "exposed" in the play-offs if anyone on his team knew the concept of perimeter defense. I think this is the year we will truely see whether or not he can reach the mountain top.

[SeattleJazzFan]

he will be top 10. he'll finish his career possibly as the greatest offensive player of all time and likely with at least 4-6 MVPs - not sure how you keep that dude out of the top 10 regardless of how many titles he wins.

[eminence]

Tricky one, in the most pessimistic view of his defense he might just be too cookable on the perimeter by small guards.

And I’m not talking Steph or even Don here, if players of Pooles level can consistently get going like that I think it could be virtually impossible to build a champ in the modern era.

[OhayoKD]

I'm pretty optimistic about his defense. He's an average to above average defender and wouldn't have gotten nearly as "exposed" in the play-offs if anyone on his team knew the concept of perimeter defense. I think this is the year we will truely see whether or not he can reach the mountain top.

average or above average is still kind of bad for a big-man

[Dutchball97]

I'm pretty optimistic about his defense. He's an average to above average defender and wouldn't have gotten nearly as "exposed" in the play-offs if anyone on his team knew the concept of perimeter defense. I think this is the year we will truely see whether or not he can reach the mountain top.

average or above average is still kind of bad for a big-man

Not ideal maybe but not the biggest problem on earth. Shaq and Moses won rings, while not being close to elite defenders either. It's not like having an elite defensive big man is the only way to success even if some people here think like that at times.

[threethehardway]

average or above average is still kind of bad for a big-man

No it's not, lol.

RealGM is the only place where basketball fans are so eager to tear all time greats apart over something as minor as defense.

As if their teammates shouldn't be responsible for anything.

Jokic looks bad on defense because of how he looks. Jokic isn't as bad as Shaq on defense. Jokic at least knows where to be and he is there most of the time.

Shaq didn't even try for most of his career and today would get absolutely destroyed by the amount of pick and roll. He's too slow laterally and doesn't care about playing defense at all.

Only difference between Shaq winning titles and Jokic Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade.

[homecourtloss]

average or above average is still kind of bad for a big-man

RealGM is the only place where basketball fans are so eager to tear all time greats apart over something as minor as defense.

As if their teammates shouldn't be responsible for anything.

Jokic looks bad on defense because of how he looks. Jokic isn't as bad as Shaq on defense. Jokic at least knows where to be and he is there most of the time.

Shaq didn't even try for most of his career and today would get absolutely destroyed by the amount of pick and roll. He's too slow laterally and doesn't care about playing defense at all.

Only difference between Shaq winning titles and Jokic Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade.

What? “Something as minor as defense.”

[OhayoKD]

average or above average is still kind of bad for a big-man

RealGM is the only place where basketball fans are so eager to tear all time greats apart over something as minor as defense.

As if their teammates shouldn't be responsible for anything.

Jokic looks bad on defense because of how he looks. Jokic isn't as bad as Shaq on defense. Jokic at least knows where to be and he is there most of the time.

Shaq didn't even try for most of his career and today would get absolutely destroyed by the amount of pick and roll. He's too slow laterally and doesn't care about playing defense at all.

Only difference between Shaq winning titles and Jokic Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade.

What? “Something as minor as defense.”

So many takes here boil down to, "i forgot defense was a thing"

[SeattleJazzFan]

average or above average is still kind of bad for a big-man

No it's not, lol.

RealGM is the only place where basketball fans are so eager to tear all time greats apart over something as minor as defense.

As if their teammates shouldn't be responsible for anything.

Jokic looks bad on defense because of how he looks. Jokic isn't as bad as Shaq on defense. Jokic at least knows where to be and he is there most of the time.

Shaq didn't even try for most of his career and today would get absolutely destroyed by the amount of pick and roll. He's too slow laterally and doesn't care about playing defense at all.

Only difference between Shaq winning titles and Jokic Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade.

defense is half the game, brother.

[OhayoKD]

I'm pretty optimistic about his defense. He's an average to above average defender and wouldn't have gotten nearly as "exposed" in the play-offs if anyone on his team knew the concept of perimeter defense. I think this is the year we will truely see whether or not he can reach the mountain top.

average or above average is still kind of bad for a big-man

Not ideal maybe but not the biggest problem on earth. Shaq and Moses won rings, while not being close to elite defenders either. It's not like having an elite defensive big man is the only way to success even if some people here think like that at times.

okay, but Shaq could actually jump and protect the rim so he was arguably a significant positive on that end.(playoff drop-off tho)

A center who can't protect the paint(unless you're the clippers and your best interior threat is kawhi leonard) is hard to build around. He also may be a nuetral/positive in the regular season, but he is absolutely not that in the post-season. Save for 2019(when he faced the portland trailblazers, a team lacking elite driving threats), his on/off drops to negative every year as teams hunt him on d. That includes 2020 when he actually had a squad.

If Jokic was shaq, that would be fine, but he isn't.

[threethehardway]

defense is half the game, brother.

No, it's not. The game is creating an overwhelming advantage by securing a player that is a generational Hall of Fame caliber player.

Individual defense is overrated by basketball fans because they can't fathom how godly offensive players like Steve Nash, Dirk, James Harden, Yoke and Stephen Curry are.

They can't understand it or conceptualize it, but everyone can understand defense because defense requires an obvious effort.

Offense can look easy and effortless but defense, no.

Jokic is one of the few players that productivity and efficiency increases the more volume he gets. The more you make him do stuff, the better he gets, which goes against all conventional wisdom, but we talking about defense.

Lol when Magic and Larry Bird couldn't guard anybody. When Shaq flat out didn't care. When Kobe stopped playing defense after the first 3 peat.

If an organization can't put together a competent defense while having a guy as godly on offense on as Jokic, that's organizational failure. That isn't the player's fault.

Jokic isn't even a bad defender. He makes his rotations. He gets to the spot.

No he isn't Bill Russell but most players aren't.

[threethehardway]

okay, but Shaq could actually jump and protect the rim so he was arguably a significant positive on that end.(playoff drop-off tho)

A center who can't protect the paint(unless you're the clippers and your best interior threat is kawhi leonard) is hard to build around. He also may be a nuetral/positive in the regular season, but he is absolutely not that in the post-season. Save for 2019(when he faced the portland trailblazers, a team lacking elite driving threats), his on/off drops to negative every year as teams hunt him on d. That includes 2020 when he actually had a squad.

If Jokic was shaq, that would be fine, but he isn't.

Shaq wasn't even a good rim deterrent. Shaq sucked on defense.

He basically just stood in the paint and gave hard fouls He benefitted from the fact that guys like Joel Embiid and Damian Lillard didn't exist.

He sucked. When he went against a team that resembled a modern team like Kings, he got torched.

Shaq was a terrible defensive player that benefitted from going against subpar, sub-optmized offenses of his era that did not prioritize spacing, pace and shooting.

And name one All NBA defensive player Jokic played with outside of an old Paul Millsap. Jamal Murray isn't stopping anyone. MPJ definitely isn't stopping anyone. Aaron Gordon is average.

He's played with average crappy defensive players his whole career and the Nuggets have an average to crappy defense.

Jokic is superstar and MVP for his offense and he'll never be a spectacular defensive player and he really shouldn't have to be.

Nuggets need to acquire better defenders.


And it's not hard to build around a non-rim protecting center, all you gotta do is get a four that can rim protect and wings that can stay in front of people, which is how you build a defense in the first place lol.

Lol, building a competent basketball team isn't that hard once you get a generational talent.

It's not building a rocket.

[OhayoKD]

defense is half the game, brother.

No, it's not. The game is creating an overwhelming advantage by securing a player that is a generational Hall of Fame caliber player.

Individual defense is overrated by basketball fans because they can't fathom how godly offensive players like Steve Nash, Dirk, James Harden, Yoke and Stephen Curry are.

No. You underrate the potential of "big-men" on defense because you're operating on the baseless assumption that what applies to players generally also must specifically apply to bigs. All-time two way bigs tend to exert similar influence on both ends of the floor. And bigs can roughly emulate a star's influence on offense defensively because paint protection influences every other defender on the court in a variety of ways. There's also the matter of being able to operate as a secondary coach/playcaller(Lebron/Chris Paul/Garnett) and have teammates doing x, y, and z.

A big like Giannis can have his offense get shutdown and still go toe to toe with playoff juggernauts(60 wins+top 3 player) on the basis of making the other team shoot 8 points worse when he's on, and seeing the other team's superstar's offense plummet when they share the court together. Good playoff defenses are almost impossible without strong paint-protection, and the center is generally the guy you want protecting the rim. You don't just need a "paint-protecting" 4, you need someone who can cover for Jokic and protect the paint. Gobert doesn't cut it(see what's happening with Towns). Embid doesn't cut it. The type of player you're looking for isn't very common. Dray, Giannis, AD, JJJ and Bam are the only examples in the league right now.

Maybe you can just out-offense the other team anyway, but building a good playoff defense with this is just hard, and putting so much pressure on your offense can be problematic if teams figure out potential counters(which they tend to do)

[Owly]

If Jokic is truly a tier 1 offensive player alongside or even surpassing the likes of LeBron, MJ, Nash, and Magic, but his defense is detrimental to the point that he's a giant liability in the playoffs, how high can we reasonably view his peak?

When I say liability I mean potentially tier(s) worse than Nash or Barkley. His on/off numbers the last three postseasons have been pretty ugly.

The latest peaks project ranked him 16th, which I think would require a relatively optimistic view of his defense.

I would tend towards cautioning against drawing a lot from the bolded because

1) His career on-off is positive, fiww. The cutoff is arbitrary. (and of course if the three are pretty ugly, imagine how good the one, cut-out sample has to be to more than make up for that and swing it to positive).
2) Playoff on-off is noisy and fluctuates a lot year to year, even more so than production can, with small samples, potential unevenness of opponent quality in on and off samples etc.
3a) I suspect the off samples are pretty small here.
3b) Each year it's not like they're good with him off. It could be as simple as: the Nuggets starter like units end up getting beaten and then it's possible 2nd units defending leads against the Nuggets (and this does happen with teams defending lead in general as I understand) don't play to maximize points margin (conservation of effort, low risky strategies [e.g. eating clock] can be factors). I don't know on this one.
4) I don't think the Nuggets have been a contending level team and especially not a contending level cast. So it wouldn't be a surprise that the Nuggets top units are outscored by '20 Lakers or '22 Warriors top units.

Especially 2.

It depends on what evidence you weight most heavily. My impression is he was seen as seen as testing the edge of some metrics, if you buy that, consider RS as broadly the same game as playoffs but a larger sample, and see playoff productivity as support you could probably go really high and if he ends up with a title (or especially if more) then such a view might be widespread and seen as prescient), if you think the playoffs are substantially different at a player level; that Jokic, not the Nuggets, is the problem; that the playoff on/off points to a huge gaping weakness that nukes his playoff value, maybe you believe he's not a relevant peak. I'm more inclined towards the former, but if the playoff on-off is big to you then that would be a basis for a more negative outlook.

[threethehardway]

No. You underrate the potential of "big-men" on defense because you're operating on the baseless assumption that what applies to players generally also must specifically apply to bigs. All-time two way bigs tend to exert similar influence on both ends of the floor. And bigs can roughly emulate a star's influence on offense defensively because paint protection influences every other defender on the court in a variety of ways. There's also the matter of being able to operate as a secondary coach/playcaller(Lebron/Chris Paul/Garnett) and have teammates doing x, y, and z.

A big like Giannis can have his offense get shutdown and still go toe to toe with playoff juggernauts(60 wins+top 3 player) on the basis of making the other team shoot 8 points worse when he's on, and seeing the other team's superstar's offense plummet when they share the court together. Good playoff defenses are almost impossible without strong paint-protection, and the center is generally the guy you want protecting the rim. You don't just need a "paint-protecting" 4, you need someone who can cover for Jokic and protect the paint. Gobert doesn't cut it(see what's happening with Towns). Embid doesn't cut it. The type of player you're looking for isn't very common. Dray, Giannis, AD, JJJ and Bam are the only examples in the league rght now.

Maybe you can just out-offense the other team anyway, but building a good playoff defense with this is just hard, and putting so much pressure on your offense can be problematic if teams figure out potential counters(which they tend to do)

No, I just value raw talent, efficiency and production over everything.

I don't care about positions. I don't care about offense ability or defensive ability.

I care about if the player is a MVP HOF generational talent.

Jokic has proven that. And he's proven to be a top 10 player of all time in terms of ability.

All this stuff about offense and defense and can a player do this and can player do that applies to the scrubs that have to fit in.

You don't make a top 5 offensive player try to fit his game to scrubs. That's stupid.

Like you really think a coach is gonna tell Magic Johnson he needs to work on his defense so he can guard Jordan or he just gonna tell his GM to get someone that can guard Michael Jordan lol?

What makes more sense?

Jokic is averaging a triple double on 70 percent TD, who cares that he can't guard the rim like Bill Russell. Lol.

Jokic's defensive issues is simple, get a rim protecting 4 and big wings that can switch. They don't have to be Draymond level. That player archetype is very common lol, they just don't play because they tend to suck on offense. The Raptors got a bunch of 6'8 to 6'9 guys that are long and provide rim protection and can swarm.

The Nuggets had a guy in Jarred Vanderbilt that was drafted in the second round that protected KAT fine. The Nuggets raded him away and got Aaron Gordon, because the Nuggets are dumb like that.

Basketball isn't that damn complicated and it's not that deep.

[LukaTheGOAT]

No. You underrate the potential of "big-men" on defense because you're operating on the baseless assumption that what applies to players generally also must specifically apply to bigs. All-time two way bigs tend to exert similar influence on both ends of the floor. And bigs can roughly emulate a star's influence on offense defensively because paint protection influences every other defender on the court in a variety of ways. There's also the matter of being able to operate as a secondary coach/playcaller(Lebron/Chris Paul/Garnett) and have teammates doing x, y, and z.

A big like Giannis can have his offense get shutdown and still go toe to toe with playoff juggernauts(60 wins+top 3 player) on the basis of making the other team shoot 8 points worse when he's on, and seeing the other team's superstar's offense plummet when they share the court together. Good playoff defenses are almost impossible without strong paint-protection, and the center is generally the guy you want protecting the rim. You don't just need a "paint-protecting" 4, you need someone who can cover for Jokic and protect the paint. Gobert doesn't cut it(see what's happening with Towns). Embid doesn't cut it. The type of player you're looking for isn't very common. Dray, Giannis, AD, JJJ and Bam are the only examples in the league rght now.

Maybe you can just out-offense the other team anyway, but building a good playoff defense with this is just hard, and putting so much pressure on your offense can be problematic if teams figure out potential counters(which they tend to do)

No, I just value raw talent, efficiency and production over everything.

I don't care about positions. I don't care about offense ability or defensive ability.

I care about if the player is a MVP HOF generational talent.

Jokic has proven that. And he's proven to be a top 10 player of all time in terms of ability.

All this stuff about offense and defense and can a player do this and can player do that applies to the scrubs that have to fit in.

You don't make a top 5 offensive player try to fit his game to scrubs. That's stupid.

Like you really think a coach is gonna tell Magic Johnson he needs to work on his defense so he can guard Jordan or he just gonna tell his GM to get someone that can guard Michael Jordan lol?

What makes more sense?

Jokic is averaging a triple double on 70 percent TD, who cares that he can't guard the rim like Bill Russell. Lol.

Jokic's defensive issues is simple, get a rim protecting 4 and big wings that can switch. They don't have to be Draymond level. That player archetype is very common lol, they just don't play because they tend to suck on offense. The Raptors got a bunch of 6'8 to 6'9 guys that are long and provide rim protection and can swarm.

The Nuggets had a guy in Jarred Vanderbilt that was drafted in the second round that protected KAT fine. The Nuggets raded him away and got Aaron Gordon, because the Nuggets are dumb like that.

Basketball isn't that damn complicated and it's not that deep.

Part of talent is defense though. Bill Russell and the Celtics are so regarded because of their defense.

And sure Magic is still a great player being whatever level of defender you consider him. However, if Magic becomes a Jordan-level defender, you don't think that would skyrocket his value?

[capfan33]

defense is half the game, brother.

No, it's not. The game is creating an overwhelming advantage by securing a player that is a generational Hall of Fame caliber player.

Individual defense is overrated by basketball fans because they can't fathom how godly offensive players like Steve Nash, Dirk, James Harden, Yoke and Stephen Curry are.

They can't understand it or conceptualize it, but everyone can understand defense because defense requires an obvious effort.

Offense can look easy and effortless but defense, no.

Jokic is one of the few players that productivity and efficiency increases the more volume he gets. The more you make him do stuff, the better he gets, which goes against all conventional wisdom, but we talking about defense.

Lol when Magic and Larry Bird couldn't guard anybody. When Shaq flat out didn't care. When Kobe stopped playing defense after the first 3 peat.

If an organization can't put together a competent defense while having a guy as godly on offense on as Jokic, that's organizational failure. That isn't the player's fault.

Jokic isn't even a bad defender. He makes his rotations. He gets to the spot.

No he isn't Bill Russell but most players aren't.

I'm not sure what the first part is about but I don't think fans think that offense is "effortless" lol, at least not people here. And we can conceptualize the offense of these "Godly" players because all of them have been taken down a couple of notches at their best in the postseason at points (Yes even MJ).

Moreover, the argument in the case of Jokic isn't that he's subpar, it's that his defense is potentially so damaging that he could be completely played off the floor in the playoffs. That's fundamentally much different that just being below average. And no, Magic, Bird, Kobe, and Shaq were never close to that bad.

And there are lots of things that are not the fault of players like organization ineptitude, doesn't make their weaknesses as players any less real, and in Jokic's case his defense is a very real concern.

[70sFan]

For those who disagree with me seeing so many issues about defense evaluations on this board, check this thread. It's hard for me to understand that some people may even have such opinions and accusing others that they "can't understand it or conceptualize it". At this point, I don't even have the patience to discuss about it anymore.