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Doesn't he have a capable #2 now? Will he get an excuse if he doesn't win this season?

He's averaging 33/9/8 leading the league in scoring. Pretty much in his prime already.

Ein Sof wrote:Doesn't he have a capable #2 now? Will he get an excuse if he doesn't win this season?

He's averaging 33/9/8 leading the league in scoring. Pretty much in his prime already.

Jokic’s thing is because his RS is genuinely all time top 10 ever level, but his playoff impact has a lot of question marks with his defence. Now his team is the 1 seed.

Luka is on his 5th year still and the team still has a lot of issues. His defence is bad but it’s about the same level of bad in the playoffs I think.


With luka it’s much more of a what we see is what we see, with Jokic his placement depends pretty heavily on your thoughts on his playoff D. I’ve said it before, I don’t think it’s wrong for guys to be thinking he’ll be fine or that give Him the benifit of the doubt, but it’s also valid to consider it a pretty big issue until proven otherwise

If Jokic plays amazing and looks fine on defence and loses to the bucks or Celtics I don’t think anyone is gonna say anything

Luka has already had iconic and epic playoffs runs despite having bad teams that shouldn’t have gone as far as they did.

If he or Jokic ever played with the amount of help LeBron or Durant have had they’d rack up rings like nobody’s business as well.

rim213221 wrote:
If he ever played with the amount of help LeBron or Durant have had

Like for example Kyrie Irving?

What about Luka?

rim213221 wrote:Luka has already had iconic and epic playoffs runs despite having bad teams that shouldn’t have gone as far as they did.

If he or Jokic ever played with the amount of help LeBron or Durant have had they’d rack up rings like nobody’s business as well.

Or Curry or Giannis.

Jokic is 28 years old, about to get his third MVP, and is on a team with the best record in the West.

Luka is 24 years old, has no MVPs, and is on a team with a middling record.

Those are just some of the factors that generate different expectations.

Ein Sof wrote:

rim213221 wrote:
If he ever played with the amount of help LeBron or Durant have had

Like for example Kyrie Irving?

Not to mention current Kyrie is for superior to what Kyrie was in 2016 (during the RS at least). Neither Kyrie or Love was voted an all-star in 2016. Ignoring media awards, Kyrie is just a lot better as a scorer, playmaker, and even defender than he was in 16.

LukaTheGOAT wrote:

Ein Sof wrote:

rim213221 wrote:
If he ever played with the amount of help LeBron or Durant have had

Like for example Kyrie Irving?

Not to mention current Kyrie is for superior to what Kyrie was in 2016 (during the RS at least). Neither Kyrie or Love was voted an all-star in 2016. Ignoring media awards, Kyrie is just a lot better as a scorer, playmaker, and even defender than he was in 16.

Luka isn't winning in 2015, 2016, 2017 or 2018 in place of LeBron. Weird comment by the Rim Lord himself, Rim 213221.

Luka hasn't won an mvp yet and is still only 24. The whole 'still doesn't have a ring' stuff usually starts to mount at around age 27-28 unless you are LeBron.

Yeah I think it's some combination of age/MVPs

I think it's good the best players are being held to a championship standard again, seems that kinda went out of style, somewhat understandably, during the KD Dubs era

LukaTheGOAT wrote:

Ein Sof wrote:

rim213221 wrote:
If he ever played with the amount of help LeBron or Durant have had

Like for example Kyrie Irving?

Not to mention current Kyrie is for superior to what Kyrie was in 2016 (during the RS at least). Neither Kyrie or Love was voted an all-star in 2016. Ignoring media awards, Kyrie is just a lot better as a scorer, playmaker, and even defender than he was in 16.

Yeah I agree with this . He just seems a more complete player and somehow even more deadly at his strengths . Maybe slightly worse as a POA guard defender ? Overall numbers seem to think he’s better tho on D even . Feel like people rarely mention this ; they assume kyrie peaked in 2016. His last season was insane but albeit maybe he got a boost playing 1/2 games lol.

Ein Sof wrote:

rim213221 wrote:
If he ever played with the amount of help LeBron or Durant have had

Like for example Kyrie Irving?

It’s Wade/Bosh, Kyrie/Love, Anthony Davis, Westbrook/Harden, Curry/Klay/Green/73 win near b2b champion, Harden/Kyrie, Booker/Paul/Ayton/former Finals and 64 win team etc….. compared to zero all stars (outside of this stretch of like 6 games post all star break).

Same goes for Jokic. Never had even 1/2 the amount of help LeBron or Durant has had. Can’t expect to win a title if the other 2 are on star-studded superteams to even win a single title and Jokic / Doncic have never even played with a true all-star.

magicman1978 wrote:Jokic is 28 years old, about to get his third MVP, and is on a team with the best record in the West.

Luka is 24 years old, has no MVPs, and is on a team with a middling record.

Those are just some of the factors that generate different expectations.

That's the reason.

Fans and analysts give players a certain amount of time to succeed and then if they haven't they tend to turn on them.

rim213221 wrote:

Ein Sof wrote:

rim213221 wrote:If he ever played with the amount of help LeBron or Durant have had

Like for example Kyrie Irving?

It’s Wade/Bosh, Kyrie/Love, Anthony Davis, Westbrook/Harden, Curry/Klay/Green/73 win near b2b champion, Harden/Kyrie, Booker/Paul/Ayton/former Finals and 64 win team etc….. compared to zero all stars (outside of this stretch of like 6 games post all star break).

Same goes for Jokic. Never had even 1/2 the amount of help LeBron or Durant has had. Can’t expect to win a title if the other 2 are on star-studded superteams to even win a single title and Jokic / Doncic have never even played with a true all-star.

Yeah, Lebron was drowning in help when he won 66-games.

Luka has no expectations because he does not win enough to build any, and nothing suggests his teams are so bad that better players would not be producing more out of them than tepid +3-5 on-court ratings.

Have fun with that crusade though.

Also, I think there are a lot of people that didn't "buy" that Jokic was good way back when.

People hate being wrong and there are probably a decent amount of people who called it wrong with Jokic a few years ago. They are always going to look for reasons to bring him down.

Ein Sof wrote:Doesn't he have a capable #2 now? Will he get an excuse if he doesn't win this season?

He's averaging 33/9/8 leading the league in scoring. Pretty much in his prime already.

Why should we, as a assumably smarter basketball community, demand a championship from either? I would be damned if either of them doesn't have a goal of doing all they can to help their team(s) win - respectively.

Ein Sof wrote:

rim213221 wrote:
If he ever played with the amount of help LeBron or Durant have had

Like for example Kyrie Irving?

Now, if Luka is as good as LeBron, we only need Mavs to trade some players of Love's caliber, maybe KAT or Lauri? We already got Tristan Thompson in Powell, and JR Smith in THJ.

rim213221 wrote:

Ein Sof wrote:

rim213221 wrote:
If he ever played with the amount of help LeBron or Durant have had

Like for example Kyrie Irving?

It’s Wade/Bosh, Kyrie/Love, Anthony Davis, Westbrook/Harden, Curry/Klay/Green/73 win near b2b champion, Harden/Kyrie, Booker/Paul/Ayton/former Finals and 64 win team etc….. compared to zero all stars (outside of this stretch of like 6 games post all star break).

Same goes for Jokic. Never had even 1/2 the amount of help LeBron or Durant has had. Can’t expect to win a title if the other 2 are on star-studded superteams to even win a single title and Jokic / Doncic have never even played with a true all-star.

I actually think Kyrie peaked around 19-21 (obviously 20 was a write off for him).

I think his stats have been juiced the past 2 seasons due to the abnormal amount of rest he's gotten, I saw someone post that theory on Twitter semi recently and I think it makes a lot of sense.

AEnigma wrote:

rim213221 wrote:

Ein Sof wrote:Like for example Kyrie Irving?

It’s Wade/Bosh, Kyrie/Love, Anthony Davis, Westbrook/Harden, Curry/Klay/Green/73 win near b2b champion, Harden/Kyrie, Booker/Paul/Ayton/former Finals and 64 win team etc….. compared to zero all stars (outside of this stretch of like 6 games post all star break).

Same goes for Jokic. Never had even 1/2 the amount of help LeBron or Durant has had. Can’t expect to win a title if the other 2 are on star-studded superteams to even win a single title and Jokic / Doncic have never even played with a true all-star.

Yeah, Lebron was drowning in help when he won 66-games.

Luka has no expectations because he does not win enough to build any, and nothing suggests his teams are so bad that better players would not be producing more out of them than tepid +3-5 on-court ratings.

Have fun with that crusade though.

He was drowning with help when he won barely over 50 games with multiple superteams and was getting blown out of the Finals regularly. 66 games in a consistently weak conference isn’t that impressive and they ultimately got bounced in the second round by an aging and old past prime team that nobody expected to win. Luka has already dragged a terrible roster to the WCF and upset the former WC champion. Nothing suggests Luka has had anything resembling reasonable help when he hasn’t played with a single all star and LeBron has played on superteams for a decade. Keep the apologist crusade going..