oaktownwarriors87 wrote:Cavsfansince84 wrote:oaktownwarriors87 wrote:Jokic is 1-3 (soon to be 1-4?) against teams with an SRS of 5.0 or higher. His only win came in the bubble against the Clippers.
These types of arbitrary playoff record things people bring up are pretty meaningless imo. Jokic has only played on one team with an srs above 5 himself(this year's team). Even if Denver loses to Minn they still have 3-4 years to retool and win more. Maybe even longer.
There's an average of 4 teams with an SRS of 5.0+ every year and pretty much every champion has an SRS of 5.0+. Not being able to beat a top 4 team when you are in talks for GOAT status is pretty damning.
5.0 is a prefect cutoff line. There is a huge sample size of how GOAT level players perform against teams with an SRS above and below 5.0, and there is a drastic difference between the two. Jokic is 8-1 against teams with an SRS below 5.0. Jordan is 16-0. Curry is 17-1. Kobe is 20-1. LeBron is 37-3. Thats a combined 98-6 (94.23%). We shouldn't be shocked when these GOAT level players beat non contenders in the playoffs (SRS below 5.0). They aren't challenged at that level. Those same 5 players are 38-33 (soon to be 38-34?) against teams with an SRS of 5.0+.
Former MVP's and their playoffs record against teams with an SRS of 5+
Russell: 3-1 (75.00%)
Jordan: 14-7 (66.66%)
Curry: 6-4 (60.00%)
Kobe: 13-9 (59.09%)
Magic: 7-5 (58.33%)
Shaq: 11-8 (57.89%)
Duncan: 7-8 (46.66%)
Hakeem: 6-7 (46.15%)
Kareem: 5-6 (45.45%)
Garnett: 5-6 (45.45%)
Bird: 3-4 (42.86%)
Nowitzki: 6-10 (37.50%)
Chamberlain: 4-7 (36.36%)
Durant: 4-7 (36.36%)
Malone: 6-11 (35.29%)
Westbrook: 3-6 (33.33%)
Giannis: 1-2 (33.33%)
LeBron: 4-10 (28.57%)
Nash: 4-10 (28.57%)
Moses: 2-5 (28.57%)
Barkley: 3-8 (27.27%)
Harden: 3-9 (25.00%)
Robinson: 2-6 (25.00%)
Jokic: 1-4? (20.00%)
Iverson: 0-2 (00.00%)
Obviously Jokic still has a lot of time, though. Jordan started 1-6 and followed that up with 14-1 to finish 15-7.
This is a good point. And it is indeed an area where Jokic is lacking, at least at the moment.
That said, context is of course important here. These players haven’t had the same teammates or faced the same opponents. For instance, if we went through these, I think we’d find that the vast majority of wins against 5+ SRS teams that these guys have had were with a substantially better sidekick than Jamal Murray. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that 2 of Jokic’s losses to 5+ SRS teams were with Murray out.
In general, I think the way I’d put it is this: A guy who is roughly around the top 10 all time generally will almost always beat teams that are below 5 SRS. Once you get to 5+ SRS opponents, it gets a lot tougher, and even players who are that good usually need a seriously good sidekick (like, roughly all-NBA level, or at least solid all star) to win, though they may be able to occasionally do it without that (with the chances dwindling down towards essentially zero the worse you make the rest of the team). Even assuming the Nuggets lose to the Wolves (a pretty reasonable assumption at this point), I don’t think Jokic is actually particularly inconsistent with that. As you point out, he has been quite consistent at beating opponents that are below 5 SRS, so that part is checked off. Once we get above that, he’ll have gone 1-2 against 5+ SRS opponents with Murray, and 0-2 without him. Murray is not an all-NBA level player (or even a solid all-star), so I think, even with Murray, Jokic’s situation falls in the “may be able to occasionally do it” category, and then without Murray things fall in the “chances dwindling down towards essentially zero” category. Which makes the results make sense IMO.
Personally, I’ve always said that the Nuggets need Murray to play at an all-NBA level in the playoffs for me to have much confidence in them. And that’s not a criticism of Jokic, but rather an acknowledgment of the reality regarding how difficult winning a title is. Last year, they got the double-whammy of Murray playing great and the opponents not being overly strong (though I think they were clearly better than their SRS). This year, they seem to have the opposite—with Murray being genuinely bad and the opponents being quite good (even if they manage to beat the Timberwolves, there’s just going to be other heavyweights in the way).