Is Jokic on a Wilt type of career trajectory?

[Laimbeer]

Video game numbers, hailed as the league's greatest talent for years, take one title. Of course, if the Nuggets get it together and he wins more, it's different. But I think there a less than 50/50 chance of that.

[tsherkin]

Video game numbers, hailed as the league's greatest talent for years, take one title. Of course, if the Nuggets get it together and he wins more, it's different. But I think there a less than 50/50 chance of that.

It's certainly possible. We'll have to see what happens over the remainder of his prime and what happens in his waning years. Wilt snuck in a second title figuring out how to be a pretty nasty defensive roleplayer who was crushing it in his limited offensive role, as well. "Role player" isn't quite the correct word, but he wasn't a featured volume scorer when they won, is mainly what I mean. I don't expect Jokic to do the exact same thing, but the tools he has offensively will leave him quite useful until he decides to hang them up, so a lesser role on a team which doesn't fail to acquire contention-level talent could be a thing.

He's pretty portable and works well with perimeter guys, he just has to actually leave Denver. It's always sad watching anything like that level of talent languishing due to insufficient roster support.

[sp6r=underrated]

Video game numbers, hailed as the league's greatest talent for years, take one title. Of course, if the Nuggets get it together and he wins more, it's different. But I think there a less than 50/50 chance of that.

The player with an air of Wilt is Kevin Durant. Jokic in Denver is beginning to feel like KG in Minnesota.

[AEnigma]

I think Wilt shifted roles too much to really equate the two. Same to an extent for Garnett even when he won a title for the Celtics. Jokic cannot really take on a defensive specialist role; his offensive usage could go down on a better team, as is often the case, but that is about it.

[Doctor MJ]

Video game numbers, hailed as the league's greatest talent for years, take one title. Of course, if the Nuggets get it together and he wins more, it's different. But I think there a less than 50/50 chance of that.

The player with an air of Wilt is Kevin Durant. Jokic in Denver is beginning to feel like KG in Minnesota.

These are good comparisons.

If Durant ends up with a happy ending to his NBA career playing amazing in a new way with dominant champion, the parallels will be eerie. I don't expect that happens though.

The Jokic/KG analogy makes sense though of course, KG never won a chip in Minny. Maybe a bit of Peyton Manning on the Colts?

[jalengreen]

Video game numbers, hailed as the league's greatest talent for years, take one title. Of course, if the Nuggets get it together and he wins more, it's different. But I think there a less than 50/50 chance of that.

The player with an air of Wilt is Kevin Durant. Jokic in Denver is beginning to feel like KG in Minnesota.

These are good comparisons.

If Durant ends up with a happy ending to his NBA career playing amazing in a new way with dominant champion, the parallels will be eerie. I don't expect that happens though.

The Jokic/KG analogy makes sense though of course, KG never won a chip in Minny. Maybe a bit of Peyton Manning on the Colts?

Similar vibe to having a transcendent player on a special individual run and feeling disappointment over only managing one title out of it, yeah. Main difference being that Peyton personally carries a lot more blame for those postseason exits.

Could invert the cities and have Jokic win one with the Pacers and then it’s a *really* nice comp

[Cavsfansince84]

Video game numbers, hailed as the league's greatest talent for years, take one title. Of course, if the Nuggets get it together and he wins more, it's different. But I think there a less than 50/50 chance of that.

The player with an air of Wilt is Kevin Durant. Jokic in Denver is beginning to feel like KG in Minnesota.

I don't see much of a KG comp. 1 title, 1 wcf, 3 2nd rd losses and this year could be anything from a 1st rd loss to a title and I wouldn't be that surprised. That's way more success than KG had and I don't think the team is close what Minny was from 05-07.

[tsherkin]

These are good comparisons.

If Durant ends up with a happy ending to his NBA career playing amazing in a new way with dominant champion, the parallels will be eerie. I don't expect that happens though.

The Wilt one is interesting to me because they're both studies in high-volume, efficient scoring which doesn't have quite the same impact as one would hope, in the main because of playmaking. Wilt eventually altered his game, but it wasn't quite intuitive with him and his best performance in that regard was basically a single season before he started to take it a little too far.

KD's also like that in the sense that he isn't super advanced in his reads or passing execution. He doesn't have the capacity to turn himself into a defensive roleplayer the way Wilt did, but in the sense of being a volume guy who struggled to get it done (and didn't, really, as the focal guy, unlike Wilt), it lines up nicely.

[70sFan]

Wilt eventually altered his game, but it wasn't quite intuitive with him and his best performance in that regard was basically a single season before he started to take it a little too far.

Just want to point out that if bolded references to 1967/68 season, then it's probably a myth. At least, if we take a look at all data we have, they don't show us anything like that at all.

[tsherkin]

Wilt eventually altered his game, but it wasn't quite intuitive with him and his best performance in that regard was basically a single season before he started to take it a little too far.

Just want to point out that if bolded references to 1967/68 season, then it's probably a myth. At least, if we take a look at all data we have, they don't show us anything like that at all.

Possible. But regardless, Wilt wasn't a stunning playmaker. It was about volume of possessions and minutes with him. He made okay reads, but every time I watch him, he looks very different from the upper-tier playmakers at his position, so the concept is the same even independent on whether the stat counting stuff is true or not.

[70sFan]

Wilt eventually altered his game, but it wasn't quite intuitive with him and his best performance in that regard was basically a single season before he started to take it a little too far.

Just want to point out that if bolded references to 1967/68 season, then it's probably a myth. At least, if we take a look at all data we have, they don't show us anything like that at all.

Possible. But regardless, Wilt wasn't a stunning playmaker. It was about volume of possessions and minutes with him. He made okay reads, but every time I watch him, he looks very different from the upper-tier playmakers at his position, so the concept is the same even independent on whether the stat counting stuff is true or not.

Yeah, he certainly wasn't Jokic or even Walton, although I think he was very good playmaker at his peak among centers. Don't think he was substantially worse than the other ATG offensive centers like Shaq, Kareem or especially Hakeem or Moses.

[tsherkin]

Yeah, he certainly wasn't Jokic or even Walton, although I think he was very good playmaker at his peak among centers. Don't think he was substantially worse than the other ATG offensive centers like Shaq, Kareem or especially Hakeem or Moses.

Sure. Simple isn't always bad, and with the way offenses worked at the time, he was able to draw a lot of attention and then move the ball to his guys well enough. I don't think he was worse than Shaq at all, except in maybe some of his carelessness about ball protection. He brought the ball too low very often and he waved the ball around one-handed a lot, which wasn't a hot idea either, and it sometimes caused him some turnover problems. But he was certainly a better passer than Moses. And I don't think Moses or Shaq were considerably advanced as passers over Wilt. I think Wilt's raw numbers overrate him as a passer, but it's not like Shaq was throwing tons of wild "DID YOU SEE THAT" passes either. He'd drop the occasional behind the back bounce, but usually it was pretty basic kickouts and shuffle passes and the like, much like Chamberlain, for sure. Just with better spacing.

[70sFan]

Yeah, he certainly wasn't Jokic or even Walton, although I think he was very good playmaker at his peak among centers. Don't think he was substantially worse than the other ATG offensive centers like Shaq, Kareem or especially Hakeem or Moses.

Sure. Simple isn't always bad, and with the way offenses worked at the time, he was able to draw a lot of attention and then move the ball to his guys well enough. I don't think he was worse than Shaq at all, except in maybe some of his carelessness about ball protection. He brought the ball too low very often and he waved the ball around one-handed a lot, which wasn't a hot idea either, and it sometimes caused him some turnover problems. But he was certainly a better passer than Moses. And I don't think Moses or Shaq were considerably advanced as passers over Wilt. I think Wilt's raw numbers overrate him as a passer, but it's not like Shaq was throwing tons of wild "DID YOU SEE THAT" passes either. He'd drop the occasional behind the back bounce, but usually it was pretty basic kickouts and shuffle passes and the like, much like Chamberlain, for sure. Just with better spacing.

Yeah, bringing the ball too low was the concern for Wilt indeed. I don't think him waving the ball with one hand was that bad, at least I haven't seen many turnovers caused by this. It was unnecessary often, but that's just his style.

I think that Wilt has technical advantages over Shaq in passing (more velocity, better at throwing the ball at odd angles), but it's not something that would put them in different tiers. Especially hard to rank that given how bad the spacing around Wilt usually was.

[tsherkin]

Yeah, bringing the ball too low was the concern for Wilt indeed. I don't think him waving the ball with one hand was that bad, at least I haven't seen many turnovers caused by this. It was unnecessary often, but that's just his style.

It's possible that the turnovers I saw from it stood out a little more than they represented in the grand scheme of things. I just thought he was often careless with the ball and it stood out to me, you know?

I think that Wilt has technical advantages over Shaq in passing (more velocity, better at throwing the ball at odd angles), but it's not something that would put them in different tiers. Especially hard to rank that given how bad the spacing around Wilt usually was.

Wilt's passes were fine, and I never got the impression that Shaq suffered for not putting enough English on his passes either. He wasn't Jokic, but he also didn't have the tools to operate out of the high post or the PnR, so that reduced his opportunities to hitting cutters, playing post/re-post and kicking it to the corners most of the time. So you didn't get to see a huge ton of variety. But he had scoop/shuffle passes and he could throw those behind-the-back bounces and so forth well enough.

[One_and_Done]

They're very different players. Jokic is a huge star today for instance, whereas Wilt would not be.

[70sFan]

They're very different players. Jokic is a huge star today for instance, whereas Wilt would not be.

Why do you think your era evaluation takes are relevant to this topic? It has nothing to do with the OP.

[Ron Swanson]

'67 Wilt specifically may have been the most impactful player ever when factoring in all of offense/defense/play-making. Now, we can get into the weeds of how it's probably impossible for any defender nowadays to have the kind of impact that Wilt/Russell guys had premerger/pre-3PT line, but the point stands and Jokic simply doesn't have the physical capability to have that same kind of "all around" impact. If anything, Giannis is the modern Wilt parallel, whereas Jokic is rich-man's Barkley as a hyper-efficient offensive/rebounding hub.

[OhayoKD]

'67 Wilt specifically may have been the most impactful player ever when factoring in all of offense/defense/play-making

There's no argument for Wilt being as impactful as Russell

[70sFan]

'67 Wilt specifically may have been the most impactful player ever when factoring in all of offense/defense/play-making

There's no argument for Wilt being as impactful as Russell

That's not true actually.

[OhayoKD]

'67 Wilt specifically may have been the most impactful player ever when factoring in all of offense/defense/play-making

There's no argument for Wilt being as impactful as Russell

That's not true actually.

Then make the argument.