Higher peak to date: Nikola Jokic vs Giannis

[OhayoKD]

Easy to say now that he has Damian Lillard on his team and you can conveniently label Khris Middleton (by nature of playing with Giannis) as a multi-time All-Star, but there sure seems to be a lot of revisionism with the idea that Giannis has had more talent around him.

I think it speaks volumes that you're now seeing a guy like Jrue Holiday all of a sudden become the Celtics 4th or 5th option, whereas just last season he was basically forced into a miscast role of Giannis' offensive sidekick/#2. Should probably make people appreciate just how impressive it was for those Bucks teams to win a championship through Giannis anchoring historic playoff defenses while still being this helio-offensive engine. I think anyone looking at it objectively would have to admit it's been about equal in terms of supporting cast over their primes, even with the similarity that you can use injury luck as a reason why each guy hasn't won more than one championship (yet).

And yet Jrue was so miscast last year that his impact and numbers were terrific. He led the team in On/Off and +/-, posted his best high-usage season in 5 years and put up 19/5/7.

I think we all know and appreciate the Bucks winning a championship. Injuries to Brooklyn. Injuries to the Clippers. Injuries to LeBron and AD.

On/off when we can use it to overrate Giannis's teammates:

On/off when it says Jokic is a playoff bum:

[Colbinii]

Easy to say now that he has Damian Lillard on his team and you can conveniently label Khris Middleton (by nature of playing with Giannis) as a multi-time All-Star, but there sure seems to be a lot of revisionism with the idea that Giannis has had more talent around him.

I think it speaks volumes that you're now seeing a guy like Jrue Holiday all of a sudden become the Celtics 4th or 5th option, whereas just last season he was basically forced into a miscast role of Giannis' offensive sidekick/#2. Should probably make people appreciate just how impressive it was for those Bucks teams to win a championship through Giannis anchoring historic playoff defenses while still being this helio-offensive engine. I think anyone looking at it objectively would have to admit it's been about equal in terms of supporting cast over their primes, even with the similarity that you can use injury luck as a reason why each guy hasn't won more than one championship (yet).

And yet Jrue was so miscast last year that his impact and numbers were terrific. He led the team in On/Off and +/-, posted his best high-usage season in 5 years and put up 19/5/7.

I think we all know and appreciate the Bucks winning a championship. Injuries to Brooklyn. Injuries to the Clippers. Injuries to LeBron and AD.

On/off when we can use it to overrate Giannis's teammates:

On/off when it says Jokic is a playoff bum:

It's one data point, yes

[sashaturiaf]

Jokic. Giannis and the Bucks won the title that year because the Nets and Clippers were hurt, simple as that. It's an * title

[OhayoKD]

And yet Jrue was so miscast last year that his impact and numbers were terrific. He led the team in On/Off and +/-, posted his best high-usage season in 5 years and put up 19/5/7.

I think we all know and appreciate the Bucks winning a championship. Injuries to Brooklyn. Injuries to the Clippers. Injuries to LeBron and AD.

On/off when we can use it to overrate Giannis's teammates:

On/off when it says Jokic is a playoff bum:

It's one data point, yes

Here's another data point: Did the Bucks defense get better or worse when Jrue joined?

Related data point: did giannis no jrue or jrue no giannis look better in the playoffs?

Jokic has arguably the worst rapm of the big 3(embid has the best), his WOWY is matched by Giannis, and he has the worst playoff on/off by a landslide. His team also was easily the worst performing when his star teammates went missing/left, and he's by far the worst defender here in pretty much any correlative granular measure.

All but 1 of the teams he faced last year had starters missing large chunks of the series and the team which didn't had it's best two players on bum knees with 3 of 4 games coming down to a possession or two.

The constant, unrelenting, selective application of numbers and context is a testament to how unserious "Jokic in his own tier" is.

Jokic. Giannis and the Bucks won the title that year because the Nets and Clippers were hurt, simple as that. It's an * title

Case in point.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Easy to say now that he has Damian Lillard on his team and you can conveniently label Khris Middleton (by nature of playing with Giannis) as a multi-time All-Star, but there sure seems to be a lot of revisionism with the idea that Giannis has had more talent around him.

I think it speaks volumes that you're now seeing a guy like Jrue Holiday all of a sudden become the Celtics 4th or 5th option, whereas just last season he was basically forced into a miscast role of Giannis' offensive sidekick/#2. Should probably make people appreciate just how impressive it was for those Bucks teams to win a championship through Giannis anchoring historic playoff defenses while still being this helio-offensive engine. I think anyone looking at it objectively would have to admit it's been about equal in terms of supporting cast over their primes, even with the similarity that you can use injury luck as a reason why each guy hasn't won more than one championship (yet).

And yet Jrue was so miscast last year that his impact and numbers were terrific. He led the team in On/Off and +/-, posted his best high-usage season in 5 years and put up 19/5/7.

I think we all know and appreciate the Bucks winning a championship. Injuries to Brooklyn. Injuries to the Clippers. Injuries to LeBron and AD.

Can't use this "he had an easy championship run" excuse for Jokic at all. Nope.

There are two differences:
1) the Nuggets totally cruised through the postseason while the Bucks journey was much bumpier
2) there have been tons of injuries in 21 that took away the toughest contenders, while 23 was much cleaner

[AdagioPace]

On/off when we can use it to overrate Giannis's teammates:

On/off when it says Jokic is a playoff bum:

It's one data point, yes

Here's another data point: Did the Bucks defense get better or worse when Jrue joined?

Related data point: did giannis no jrue or jrue no giannis look better in the playoffs?

Jokic has arguably the worst rapm of the big 3(embid has the best), his WOWY is matched by Giannis, and he has the worst playoff on/off by a landslide. His team also was easily the worst performing when his star teammates went missing/left, and he's by far the worst defender here in pretty much any relevant category.

All but 1 of the teams he faced last year had starters missing large chunks of the series and the team which didn't had it's best two players on bum knees with 3 of 4 games coming down to a possession or two.

The constant, unrelenting, selective application of numbers and context is a testament to how unserious "Jokic in his own tier" is.

Jokic. Giannis and the Bucks won the title that year because the Nets and Clippers were hurt, simple as that. It's an * title

Case in point.

the idea that Jokic is basically an infallible player against whom every countermeasure is doomed to fail, has made the PC board a bit more lenient when reading these hardcore impact metrics. This is my impression at least. I'm not saying we're adjusting them uncounsciously to our idea of Jokic, but I think there's definitely less nitpicking with him (compared for example to direct rivals like Giannis and Embiid, who have more identifiable glaring weaknesses)