RealGM

How many years of Jordan would you take over ’23 Jokic?

I don’t think anyone has had a season that is clearly above 2023 Jokic. Jordan’s got a few on a similar level, but not any definitely better IMO, even 1990-1991.

I think arguments could be made for 88-93. I'd probably lean towards 90-93. Part of this is the level of competition MJ went against.

88-93

* 88 is arguable I guess “PPGz” aside due to MJ being such a iso scorer and his playmaking , and overall court vision still needed to improve

So Jokic is probably a bit better than 88 MJ offensively

* Jokic looks statistically superior to 92 and 93MJ but I’d lean MJ still

I think 88-91 for sure, given he was nearly peaking on both offense and defense those years and his motor was still top notch. 92 and 93 are debatable, but of less confidence for me.

Agree with No-more-rings. Definitely 88-91. And given Jokic's defensive limitations I'd probably take 92 and 93 Jordan over 23 Jokic as well.

Recency bias is propping up 23 Jokic because "rangz" but in 3 years when we realize Jokic had a playoff run where the strongest team he beat had a 2 SRS, we'll recalibrate.

A difficult question to answer because from a team construction perspective they are such radically different options

uberhikari wrote:Agree with No-more-rings. Definitely 88-91. And given Jokic's defensive limitations I'd probably take 92 and 93 Jordan over 23 Jokic as well.

Recency bias is propping up 23 Jokic because "rangz" but in 3 years when we realize Jokic had a playoff run where the strongest team he beat had a 2 SRS, we'll recalibrate.

Maybe, but don’t you think that SRS is a bit misleading here? What was the Lakers’ SRS after they remade their roster? I’m pretty sure it was about 5 (and more like 6 if you add the first two playoff series’ into the mix). Is the Suns’ SRS relevant when they had added one of the top several players in the league near the very end of the season? In their tiny sample size of games with Durant, they had like a 11.5 SRS (and more like 9.5 if you add in the Clippers series into the mix).

And let’s also remember that the Nuggets themselves were only a 3 SRS team (largely on the back of the fact that they had a -10.0 net rating with Jokic off the court, so this was not reflective of Jokic not doing well). And their playoff SRS was about 9. And if you instead count the Lakers’ and Suns’ as actually being what they were only after their major roster changes, then the Nuggets playoff SRS looks more like 12.3. It’s strong stuff!

lessthanjake wrote:Maybe, but don’t you think that SRS is a bit misleading here? What was the Lakers’ SRS after they remade their roster? I’m pretty sure it was about 5 (and more like 6 if you add the first two playoff series’ into the mix).

First, I'm not really sure what this SRS data apropos the Lakers is worth because, after all, they only played ~20 games together before the PS started. I would be more impressed if that sample size was larger. Saying the Nuggets beat a team that played like a 6 SRS for 20 games doesn't exactly raise my estimation of them.

Second, LeBron played with a partially torn tendon in his foot. Even with LeBron being firmly in the twilight of his prime and having a serious foot injury we saw what he was capable of in game 4. What I'd really like to see is that series with a healthy LeBron.

Third, I'm, of course, taking nothing away from Jokic. But Murray basically went supernova. Murray averaged 33-6-5 on 65% TS. I still think Jokic was the better player in that series but it's at least debatable.

And despite all of this the Nuggets only had an average margin of victory of 4.3 points in games 1, 2, and 4 combined. Moreover, it was Murray who was taking over the 4th quarters of games 1 and 2. In the 4th quarter of games 1 and 2, Jokic had zero made field goals and 2 points. Meanwhile, Murray had 8 points in the 4th quarter of game 1 and 23 points in the 4th quarter of game 2.

Is the Suns’ SRS relevant when they had added one of the top several players in the league near the very end of the season? In their tiny sample size of games with Durant, they had like a 11.5 SRS (and more like 9.5 if you add in the Clippers series into the mix).

First, it's the same thing with the Lakers. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from a tiny sample size SRS.

Second, one of the drawbacks of the KD trade was that PHO lost a considerable chunk of its depth. That was exacerbated when CP3 got injured. After game 3, PHO barely even had enough competent NBA players to put on the floor in a playoff game.

uberhikari wrote:

lessthanjake wrote:Maybe, but don’t you think that SRS is a bit misleading here? What was the Lakers’ SRS after they remade their roster? I’m pretty sure it was about 5 (and more like 6 if you add the first two playoff series’ into the mix).

First, I'm not really sure what this SRS data apropos the Lakers is worth because, after all, they only played ~20 games together before the PS started. I would be more impressed if that sample size was larger. Saying the Nuggets beat a team that played like a 6 SRS for 20 games doesn't exactly raise my estimation of them.

Second, LeBron played with a partially torn tendon in his foot. Even with LeBron being firmly in the twilight of his prime and having a serious foot injury we saw what he was capable of in game 4. What I'd really like to see is that series with a healthy LeBron.

Third, I'm, of course, taking nothing away from Jokic. But Murray basically went supernova. Murray averaged 33-6-5 on 65% TS. I still think Jokic was the better player in that series but it's at least debatable.

And despite all of this the Nuggets only had an average margin of victory of 4.3 points in games 1, 2, and 4 combined. Moreover, it was Murray who was taking over the 4th quarters of games 1 and 2. In the 4th quarter of games 1 and 2, Jokic had zero made field goals and 2 points. Meanwhile, Murray had 8 points in the 4th quarter of game 1 and 23 points in the 4th quarter of game 2.

Is the Suns’ SRS relevant when they had added one of the top several players in the league near the very end of the season? In their tiny sample size of games with Durant, they had like a 11.5 SRS (and more like 9.5 if you add in the Clippers series into the mix).

First, it's the same thing with the Lakers. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from a tiny sample size SRS.

Second, one of the drawbacks of the KD trade was that PHO lost a considerable chunk of its depth. That was exacerbated when CP3 got injured. After game 3, PHO barely even had enough competent NBA players to put on the floor in a playoff game.

The answer may well be that there’s not much that can concretely be taken away from the Lakers and Suns SRS numbers after they made their major roster changes, due to the low sample sizes. But, at the same time, I don’t think there’s much that can be taken away from looking at those two teams’ full-season SRS, since they made changes to their teams that radically changed their makeup as teams. So I don’t think we can take the Lakers’ and Suns’ full-season SRS and act like that’s the quality of team the Nuggets played. We can probably get a better sense of the quality of team they faced by looking at the post-roster-change SRS data I provided, but it’s such low sample sizes that it’s just a super loose indicator. At the very least, I think we do know that those teams were better than the season-long SRS.

lessthanjake wrote:

uberhikari wrote:

lessthanjake wrote:Maybe, but don’t you think that SRS is a bit misleading here? What was the Lakers’ SRS after they remade their roster? I’m pretty sure it was about 5 (and more like 6 if you add the first two playoff series’ into the mix).

First, I'm not really sure what this SRS data apropos the Lakers is worth because, after all, they only played ~20 games together before the PS started. I would be more impressed if that sample size was larger. Saying the Nuggets beat a team that played like a 6 SRS for 20 games doesn't exactly raise my estimation of them.

Second, LeBron played with a partially torn tendon in his foot. Even with LeBron being firmly in the twilight of his prime and having a serious foot injury we saw what he was capable of in game 4. What I'd really like to see is that series with a healthy LeBron.

Third, I'm, of course, taking nothing away from Jokic. But Murray basically went supernova. Murray averaged 33-6-5 on 65% TS. I still think Jokic was the better player in that series but it's at least debatable.

And despite all of this the Nuggets only had an average margin of victory of 4.3 points in games 1, 2, and 4 combined. Moreover, it was Murray who was taking over the 4th quarters of games 1 and 2. In the 4th quarter of games 1 and 2, Jokic had zero made field goals and 2 points. Meanwhile, Murray had 8 points in the 4th quarter of game 1 and 23 points in the 4th quarter of game 2.

Is the Suns’ SRS relevant when they had added one of the top several players in the league near the very end of the season? In their tiny sample size of games with Durant, they had like a 11.5 SRS (and more like 9.5 if you add in the Clippers series into the mix).

First, it's the same thing with the Lakers. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from a tiny sample size SRS.

Second, one of the drawbacks of the KD trade was that PHO lost a considerable chunk of its depth. That was exacerbated when CP3 got injured. After game 3, PHO barely even had enough competent NBA players to put on the floor in a playoff game.

The answer may well be that there’s not much that can concretely be taken away from the Lakers and Suns SRS numbers after they made their major roster changes, due to the low sample sizes. But, at the same time, I don’t think there’s much that can be taken away from looking at those two teams’ full-season SRS, since they made changes to their teams that radically changed their makeup as teams. So I don’t think we can take the Lakers’ and Suns’ full-season SRS and act like that’s the quality of team the Nuggets played. We can probably get a better sense of the quality of team they faced by looking at the post-roster-change SRS data I provided, but it’s such low sample sizes that it’s just a super loose indicator. At the very least, I think we do know that those teams were better than the season-long SRS.

Nuggets PS run may/may not have had the strongest competition depending on the lense you look at things from. However, they were especially dominant when against the competition they faced. I certainly don't think of them as a weak title team.

https://apbr.org/metrics/viewtopic.php?f=2&s=09

uberhikari wrote:Agree with No-more-rings. Definitely 88-91. And given Jokic's defensive limitations I'd probably take 92 and 93 Jordan over 23 Jokic as well.

Recency bias is propping up 23 Jokic because "rangz" but in 3 years when we realize Jokic had a playoff run where the strongest team he beat had a 2 SRS, we'll recalibrate.

I think LAL and Phoenix are decently better than the raw regular season SRS indicates

rk2023 wrote:

uberhikari wrote:Agree with No-more-rings. Definitely 88-91. And given Jokic's defensive limitations I'd probably take 92 and 93 Jordan over 23 Jokic as well.

Recency bias is propping up 23 Jokic because "rangz" but in 3 years when we realize Jokic had a playoff run where the strongest team he beat had a 2 SRS, we'll recalibrate.

I think LAL and Phoenix are decently better than the raw regular season SRS indicates

Same with Minnesota considering Towns missed 51 games in the regular season.

I'm most confident in '91/'92 MJ, think '88-'90, '93, '96, '97 all have arguments.

lessthanjake wrote:And let’s also remember that the Nuggets themselves were only a 3 SRS team (largely on the back of the fact that they had a -10.0 net rating with Jokic off the court, so this was not reflective of Jokic not doing well).

Uh huh. I do not know, are you sure that is not actually Jokic’s fault for not keeping his bench players in proper “rhythm” to create offence without him on the court? This seems to be a recurring issue for Jokic, and seeing how he has never led even a 5 SRS team despite playing with talented players like Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter, Jr., that gives me very serious and sincere concern about his ability to lead good teams.

Colbinii wrote:

rk2023 wrote:

uberhikari wrote:Agree with No-more-rings. Definitely 88-91. And given Jokic's defensive limitations I'd probably take 92 and 93 Jordan over 23 Jokic as well.

Recency bias is propping up 23 Jokic because "rangz" but in 3 years when we realize Jokic had a playoff run where the strongest team he beat had a 2 SRS, we'll recalibrate.

I think LAL and Phoenix are decently better than the raw regular season SRS indicates

Unironically - MN posed the best challenge for Denver this playoffs in a vacuum (at the least, alongside with LAL in this department).

(Messed up the quotes, my bad for cropping your message Colbinii)

AEnigma wrote:

lessthanjake wrote:And let’s also remember that the Nuggets themselves were only a 3 SRS team (largely on the back of the fact that they had a -10.0 net rating with Jokic off the court, so this was not reflective of Jokic not doing well).

Uh huh. I do not know, are you sure that is not actually Jokic’s fault for not keeping his bench players in proper “rhythm” to create offence without him on the court? This seems to be a recurring issue for Jokic, and seeing how he has never led even a 5 SRS team despite playing with talented players like Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter, Jr., that gives me very serious and sincere concern about his ability to lead good teams.

Maybe it is. It’s less plausible, since he isn’t as ball-dominant, so other guys do get touches on the ball a good deal. Notably, you don’t hear NBA players talking about how it is an issue to get in rhythm playing alongside him, like you do regarding the really heliocentric ball-dominant guys. In fact, players talk the exact opposite about playing with Jokic. So it seems much less plausible. But it is possible that the style they play when he’s on the court is so unique that it’s not easy for them to switch to other stuff when he’s off the court. But the better explanation is probably just that they’re not at all deep at the center position, so they’re often trotting out some pretty bad players when he’s off the court (something they obviously saw and tried to avoid in the playoffs by basically just not playing any of their other centers—which was a gamble but actually worked pretty well, as they actually did well in the playoffs with him off the court, albeit in a tiny sample size).

lessthanjake wrote:

AEnigma wrote:

lessthanjake wrote:And let’s also remember that the Nuggets themselves were only a 3 SRS team (largely on the back of the fact that they had a -10.0 net rating with Jokic off the court, so this was not reflective of Jokic not doing well).

Uh huh. I do not know, are you sure that is not actually Jokic’s fault for not keeping his bench players in proper “rhythm” to create offence without him on the court? This seems to be a recurring issue for Jokic, and seeing how he has never led even a 5 SRS team despite playing with talented players like Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter, Jr., that gives me very serious and sincere concern about his ability to lead good teams.

Maybe it is. It’s less plausible, since he isn’t as ball-dominant, so other guys do get touches on the ball a good deal. Notably, you don’t hear NBA players talking about how it is an issue to get in rhythm playing alongside him, like you do regarding the really heliocentric ball-dominant guys. In fact, players talk the exact opposite about playing with Jokic. So it seems much less plausible.

Yet somehow his exit to the bench dwarfs the bench effects we see from “the really heliocentric ball-dominant guys” like Harden, Luka, Wall, Morant, Parker, DWill, Rose… Even Chris Paul and Steve Nash and peak helio Westbrook (which does need to be specified because for whatever mysterious reason the team survived his absences much better outside of that 2016-18 period…) see less of a drop-off than Steph Curry. Very strange, given this very real and very legitimate theory about how “helio” stars routinely ruin their benches.

But the better explanation is probably just that they’re not at all deep at the center position, so they’re often trotting out some pretty bad players when he’s off the court

Fascinating. I wonder if you might be onto something there: not being easily replaced means your team struggles more without you??? Going to need to double-check the numbers on that, because I was under the impression stars controlled their replacements and that having replacements incapable of recreating their effect was in fact a failing on them.

AEnigma wrote:

lessthanjake wrote:

AEnigma wrote:Uh huh. I do not know, are you sure that is not actually Jokic’s fault for not keeping his bench players in proper “rhythm” to create offence without him on the court? This seems to be a recurring issue for Jokic, and seeing how he has never led even a 5 SRS team despite playing with talented players like Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter, Jr., that gives me very serious and sincere concern about his ability to lead good teams.

Maybe it is. It’s less plausible, since he isn’t as ball-dominant, so other guys do get touches on the ball a good deal. Notably, you don’t hear NBA players talking about how it is an issue to get in rhythm playing alongside him, like you do regarding the really heliocentric ball-dominant guys. In fact, players talk the exact opposite about playing with Jokic. So it seems much less plausible.

Yet somehow his exit to the bench dwarfs the bench effects we see from “the really heliocentric ball-dominant guys” like Harden, Luka, Wall, Morant, Parker, DWill, Rose… Even Chris Paul and Steve Nash and peak helio Westbrook (which does need to be specified because for whatever mysterious reason the team survived his absences much better outside of that 2016-18 period…) see less of a drop-off than Steph Curry. Very strange, given this very real and very legitimate theory about how “helio” stars routinely ruin their benches.

But the better explanation is probably just that they’re not at all deep at the center position, so they’re often trotting out some pretty bad players when he’s off the court

Fascinating. I wonder if you might be onto something there: not being easily replaced means your team struggles more without you??? Going to need to double-check the numbers on that, because I was under the impression stars controlled their replacements and that having replacements incapable of recreating their effect was in fact a failing on them.

There’s so many other factors that can have huge effects on on-off that it doesn’t really tell us much to just look at comparable examples and declare that the off was better for those players so the theory is wrong. As an example, I demonstrated in another thread how Harden and Luka were substantially more staggered with their best teammates than LeBron was, which obviously helps the team in their off minutes. And there’s a ton of other factors that exist. For instance, maybe one team’s garbage-time guys are more or less checked out than the others’. You can be dismissive of this theory, but I’m not so quick to dismiss something that I’ve heard actual NBA players talk about as being a significant thing. It’s not some theory I workshopped to try to get to a conclusion I want, but rather is something I came to based on things I’ve heard NBA players say.

lessthanjake wrote:

AEnigma wrote:

lessthanjake wrote:Maybe it is. It’s less plausible, since he isn’t as ball-dominant, so other guys do get touches on the ball a good deal. Notably, you don’t hear NBA players talking about how it is an issue to get in rhythm playing alongside him, like you do regarding the really heliocentric ball-dominant guys. In fact, players talk the exact opposite about playing with Jokic. So it seems much less plausible.

Yet somehow his exit to the bench dwarfs the bench effects we see from “the really heliocentric ball-dominant guys” like Harden, Luka, Wall, Morant, Parker, DWill, Rose… Even Chris Paul and Steve Nash and peak helio Westbrook (which does need to be specified because for whatever mysterious reason the team survived his absences much better outside of that 2016-18 period…) see less of a drop-off than Steph Curry. Very strange, given this very real and very legitimate theory about how “helio” stars routinely ruin their benches.

But the better explanation is probably just that they’re not at all deep at the center position, so they’re often trotting out some pretty bad players when he’s off the court

Fascinating. I wonder if you might be onto something there: not being easily replaced means your team struggles more without you??? Going to need to double-check the numbers on that, because I was under the impression stars controlled their replacements and that having replacements incapable of recreating their effect was in fact a failing on them.

There’s so many other factors that can have huge effects on on-off that it doesn’t really tell us much to just look at comparable examples and declare that the off was better for those players so the theory is wrong. As an example, I demonstrated in another thread how Harden and Luka were substantially more staggered with their best teammates than LeBron was, which obviously helps the team in their off minutes.

I am so glad you brought up staggering. After all, Lebron spent 82% of his regular season minutes from 2015-17 with at least one of Kyrie or Love on the court and 78% of his regular season minutes from 2012-14 with at least one of Wade or Bosh ok the court, so of course that would have an effect. And it would be similarly irresponsible to not observe how 2023 Jokic spent 85% of his minutes with at least one of Gordon or Jamal on the court, or how 2015-19 Steph spent 79% of his minutes with Draymond (and only looking at Draymond here) on the court, or how 1997 Jordan spent 83% of his minutes with Pippen (and only looking at Pippen here) on the court.

You know, stuff like that, very important to highlight.

And there’s a ton of other factors that exist. For instance, maybe one team’s garbage-time guys are more or less checked out than the others’.

Oh that is a fun one. I will go a step further: maybe in heavy garbage time, players are less serious. So a team that is constantly blowing out opponents (or otherwise constantly getting blown out) might look better than raw numbers might indicate… which was the exact circumstance for the 2020 Lakers.