Jokic is not the best in the world, and has been heavily overrated (NOW YOU CAN CHANGE VOTES)

[1993Playoffs]

Jokic isn’t one of the “GOATS” he’s not even in the discussion. He’s in the best player in the league discussion though.

[Woodsanity]

This playoff run has proven to me Jokic is becoming underrated.

Ant had 16 points and still wins due to his teammates. Jokic and Murray were decent but his other teammates couldn't do anything offensively.

I already had huge concerns about this joke of a supporting cast when they lose Brown (who isn't even that good but Nuggets have so few role players he is useful) and got nothing to replace him.

[tsherkin]

I will end this conversation with 1 question.

Show me a GOAT in any sport with 1 championship?

You're welcome to the thought. My position has never been that people must accept Jokic as the GOAT now.

The problem has been all the people who aren't willing to acknowledge his level of play, and are being quick to shut down the conversation, even though historically the discourse in the NBA fanbase has been just fine with talking about people as potential GOATs well before they have the resume. Jordan himself, for example, and Lebron and Kareem, etc.

Literally the only guy who had the full deal fairly early on was Russell. So the pushback against Jokic here is somewhat suspicious, particularly with all the other flavors of negativity thrown in his direction when any kind of positive commentary shows up. It's very contemporary and restrictive to conversation, which is foolishness. Agreement is one thing, but attempting to shut down the conversation in this sort of situation doesn't make any sense and is inconsistent.

[Wallace_Wallace]

Spurs won 63 and Mavs won 60, but Josh Howard played only 59 games and the Mavs had other injuries. They were basically even RS teams when healthy, but the flaws of Duncan's supporting cast came out in the playoffs, and Manu blew the series with a foul on the last play. He doesn't foul they win.

Spurs were a bit flawed outside Duncan. Pop ended up starting 4 guard type players next to Duncan for most of the series, and dropping to basically a 7 man rotation. In the final game the Spurs starters played between 42 and 50 minutes each. The Mavs had a comparable 2nd and 3rd option, but the Mavs went much deeper while also having a strong support cast to 10 men. That depth was the difference. And Duncan still had them 1 Manu foul away. I'd say he met expectations that year.

The good ole "make excuses for one team but ignore excuses for another team" reasoning.

This is why I can't take a poster like you serious when there is clear bias.

But enjoy tearing down Denver.

It's called context.

I honestly don’t understand the context you’re referring to. Duncan/Parker/Ginobili/Finley/Bowen/Oberto/Horry won the title the very next year (controversial with the Suns series but I’ll ignore it). They swapped Nazr Mohammed with Francisco Nelson in 2006-2007, but I can assure you he’s not that big of a deal; the Mohammed/Oberto/Duncan rotation was enough to beat the Pistons who had Rasheed Wallace/Ben Wallace/Antonio McDyess the year prior, credit to Horry and Ginobili who went bonkers in crucial moments.

It’s okay, players failed expectations all the time. Nowitzki failed throughout the 2000’s because never really had a real #2 post Steve Nash just like Nikola Jokic (Jamal Murray and Jason Terry just aren’t at that level). I’m sure Dirk would love have Parker/Ginobili instead of Terry/Howard, but that’s what made his title run in 2011 that much better.

By the way, you said when Duncan and the Spurs lost to Dirk and the Mavs in 2009, Duncan was no longer in his prime. Duncan was 32 at the time, the same age Dirk Nowitzki went on the title in 2011. Does that mean Nikola Jokic’s prime is over in less than 3 years? The Spurs were one of the premier franchises who preserved their players at a very conservative pace; Duncan aged very gracefully.

[JustBuzzin]

I will end this conversation with 1 question.

Show me a GOAT in any sport with 1 championship?

You're welcome to the thought. My position has never been that people must accept Jokic as the GOAT now.

The problem has been all the people who aren't willing to acknowledge his level of play, and are being quick to shut down the conversation, even though historically the discourse in the NBA fanbase has been just fine with talking about people as potential GOATs well before they have the resume. Jordan himself, for example, and Lebron and Kareem, etc.

Literally the only guy who had the full deal fairly early on was Russell. So the pushback against Jokic here is somewhat suspicious, particularly with all the other flavors of negativity thrown in his direction when any kind of positive commentary shows up. It's very contemporary and restrictive to conversation, which is foolishness. Agreement is one thing, but attempting to shut down the conversation in this sort of situation doesn't make any sense and is inconsistent.

Bro literally everyone has said he's the best player in the world. If that's not enough praise then I don't know what else you want.

But to put him in the GOAT conversation with 1 championship is cray cray. Sorry but nobody is disrespecting him, he's just not deserving of being in the same conversation as MJ and LeBron. Give him another 5 more years then we can realistically debate GOAT.

[hardenASG13]

If Murray plays any were close to a real 2nd option they're beating the Wolves so I don't buy the "he only won because he had an easy run" narrative. Your Crushing him today because of your bias. Still trying to diminish the quality of the wolves in your comment.

"You see Jokic is so flawed that when he plays against the best D in the league and his 2nd option disappears he only puts up 29/11/8. So what if he was the best scorer, rebounder and creator all series"

"GOATs" donts do that is such a lazy argument. GOATs fail in all sorts of manners, sometimes spectacularly. Lebron collapsed in 2011, MJ leading a 0.500 won team to back to back first round sweeps, Magics 84 finals that earned him the nickname 'tragic Johnson' etc....

Murray had 35 last night.....does he need to put up 45 like in the bubble? Their losses in the series weren't particularly close. If this loss doesn't show you how easy it was last year, maybe I'm not the one clouded by bias? I'm not diminishing Minnesota, and have said since mid season they were better than anyone Denver beat last season. They showed it. Don't act like they're some historical Juggernaut though. They are a quality contender, unlike anyone Denver beat last season. GOATs have to beat quality contenders, repeatedly. Jokic has done so once if you want to say the much accomplished clippers were that.

He put up good numbers, as expected, yes. And I've said he's one of if not the best player currently in the NBA. But this era from 2021-present has lacked proven stars or teams. Last year's playoffs were extremely weak, and posting a bunch of his numbers doesn't erase what the eye test has told me, that ive been slammed for saying all season, in that he has some flaws that happened to get exposed against the first quality opponent he faced in the past two seasons. Not exposed in the sense that he's not great, but in that he isn't playing like one of or the best player ever as many here have pounded about all season.

You reference a few Finals losses by Lebron and Magic, and some early career losses by MJ. Finals losses are one thing. How many times did those guys lose in the second round with home court against a team making it's second round debut? As far as MJ, those were early in his career. Jokic turns 30 next season.

One game does not make a series. Murray averaged 16 points on 45TS% the other 6 games. For a #2 that doesn't provide much on defense that is absolutely brutal.

But yeah, his flaws were exposed when he has still looked like the best player in the post season by a fairly large margin against the best defense in the league.

How many times of those guys have supporting casts like this? What's the best team Magic beat without prime Kareem or Worthy? How many quality teams did Lebron beat without a superteam by the age of 30?

But, again, his supporting cast was more than good enough last season. They lost Bruce Brown. It speaks to how weak it was last year, I don't see any way around that. You don't have to buy the "narrative" that it was an easy path, the results speak for themselves when they faced a quality opponent, better than any they faced last season, they lost in embarrassing fashion.

Maybe Murray/the supporting cast didn't play as well because......they were playing against an actual good team. I don't know that Murray playing a little better has them winning, either, the losses weren't particularly close. They lost 3 games on their homecourt, in the second round. They never played a team that was capable of pushing them last year.

Lebron beat the 07 pistons. It's not a long list, I'll give you that, but it's still better than anything Jokic has done, and Lebron had a worse supporting cast. He was then on superteams, yes. And was facing teams like Boston, OKC, Dallas, San Antonio, Golden State who were miles better than any teams currently in the NBA, especially the past few years when Jokic has emerged.

I don't think Jokic looked like the best player in the post season by a fairly large margin. AD went toe to toe with him, and he had 2 MVP level games out of 7 vs. Minnesota. It wasn't like, say Lebron in 2009 when he lost to Orlando. Jokic lacked as a leader in these playoffs, his lack of rim protection and stamina was a legitimate problem. They lost 3 home games vs. a lower seed. I've been told repeatedly that Jokic has another gear and can carry his team when needed (something I've routinely questioned) and I didn't really see that, outside those two games. His game is great, but I didn't see this mythical level he's capable of getting to when his teammates struggle. What'd he do to inspire confidence in the second half last night? He basically plays his same game, where he'd rather pass than shoot. He doesn't face up his defender much at all, and I've seen plenty of historical greats be able to control and break down a defense more effectively, because their games were more diverse. This is nitpicking, of course, but he's had some extremely lofty comparisons on here due to last years easy run. I didn't see it.

[tsherkin]

Bro literally everyone has said he's the best player in the world. If that's not enough praise then I don't know what else you want.

Yep, that's mostly enough. It's the tone of conversation in some threads which is problematic.

But to put him in the GOAT conversation with 1 championship is cray cray.

No it isn't, that's short-sighted nonsense. They were having the conversation about Jordan before he won even the one title. Same with Lebron.

Sorry but nobody is disrespecting him, he's just not deserving of being in the same conversation as MJ and LeBron. Give him another 5 more years then we can realistically debate GOAT.

No, sorry, but that's non-sensical. The conversation can begin any time. The quality of a player's ability is evident before context-sensitive achievements happen.

[rapstarter]

Murray had 35 last night.....does he need to put up 45 like in the bubble? Their losses in the series weren't particularly close. If this loss doesn't show you how easy it was last year, maybe I'm not the one clouded by bias? I'm not diminishing Minnesota, and have said since mid season they were better than anyone Denver beat last season. They showed it. Don't act like they're some historical Juggernaut though. They are a quality contender, unlike anyone Denver beat last season. GOATs have to beat quality contenders, repeatedly. Jokic has done so once if you want to say the much accomplished clippers were that.

He put up good numbers, as expected, yes. And I've said he's one of if not the best player currently in the NBA. But this era from 2021-present has lacked proven stars or teams. Last year's playoffs were extremely weak, and posting a bunch of his numbers doesn't erase what the eye test has told me, that ive been slammed for saying all season, in that he has some flaws that happened to get exposed against the first quality opponent he faced in the past two seasons. Not exposed in the sense that he's not great, but in that he isn't playing like one of or the best player ever as many here have pounded about all season.

You reference a few Finals losses by Lebron and Magic, and some early career losses by MJ. Finals losses are one thing. How many times did those guys lose in the second round with home court against a team making it's second round debut? As far as MJ, those were early in his career. Jokic turns 30 next season.

One game does not make a series. Murray averaged 16 points on 45TS% the other 6 games. For a #2 that doesn't provide much on defense that is absolutely brutal.

But yeah, his flaws were exposed when he has still looked like the best player in the post season by a fairly large margin against the best defense in the league.

How many times of those guys have supporting casts like this? What's the best team Magic beat without prime Kareem or Worthy? How many quality teams did Lebron beat without a superteam by the age of 30?

But, again, his supporting cast was more than good enough last season. They lost Bruce Brown. It speaks to how weak it was last year, I don't see any way around that. You don't have to buy the "narrative" that it was an easy path, the results speak for themselves when they faced a quality opponent, better than any they faced last season, they lost in embarrassing fashion.

Maybe Murray/the supporting cast didn't play as well because......they were playing against an actual good team. I don't know that Murray playing a little better has them winning, either, the losses weren't particularly close. They lost 3 games on their homecourt, in the second round. They never played a team that was capable of pushing them last year.

Lebron beat the 07 pistons. It's not a long list, I'll give you that, but it's still better than anything Jokic has done, and Lebron had a worse supporting cast. He was then on superteams, yes. And was facing teams like Boston, OKC, Dallas, San Antonio, Golden State who were miles better than any teams currently in the NBA, especially the past few years when Jokic has emerged.

I don't think Jokic looked like the best player in the post season by a fairly large margin. AD went toe to toe with him, and he had 2 MVP level games out of 7 vs. Minnesota. It wasn't like, say Lebron in 2009 when he lost to Orlando. Jokic lacked as a leader in these playoffs, his lack of rim protection and stamina was a legitimate problem. They lost 3 home games vs. a lower seed. I've been told repeatedly that Jokic has another gear and can carry his team when needed (something I've routinely questioned) and I didn't really see that, outside those two games. His game is great, but I didn't see this mythical level he's capable of getting to when his teammates struggle. What'd he do to inspire confidence in the second half last night? He basically plays his same game, where he'd rather pass than shoot. He doesn't face up his defender much at all, and I've seen plenty of historical greats be able to control and break down a defense more effectively, because their games were more diverse. This is nitpicking, of course, but he's had some extremely lofty comparisons on here due to last years easy run. I didn't see it.

Losing in 7 against this TWolves team is no more embarrassing than LeBron's 2011. Sometimes, great players lose to great teams. There's no player who won every single year. Speaking of 2007, the Cavs got seriously embarrassed by the Spurs but no one holds that against LeBron because at the end of the day, it's a team game and there's only so much a single person could do. In Jokic's case, Murray and MPJ really **** the bed this series. Hard to fault Jokic for MPJ not making his shots or Murray doing whatever the hell he was trying to do this playoffs. If he had Wade and Bosh instead of Murray and MPJ, I don't think they lose this.,

[JustBuzzin]

Bro literally everyone has said he's the best player in the world. If that's not enough praise then I don't know what else you want.

Yep, that's mostly enough. It's the tone of conversation in some threads which is problematic.

But to put him in the GOAT conversation with 1 championship is cray cray.

No it isn't, that's short-sighted nonsense. They were having the conversation about Jordan before he won even the one title. Same with Lebron.

Sorry but nobody is disrespecting him, he's just not deserving of being in the same conversation as MJ and LeBron. Give him another 5 more years then we can realistically debate GOAT.

No, sorry, but that's non-sensical. The conversation can begin any time. The quality of a player's ability is evident before context-sensitive achievements happen.

You don't seem to understand the true meaning of GOAT.

You act like it's just earned overnight. Jokic needs to put in more years at a high level and add a few more championships on the way.

New generation is something else. You can't be the best to ever do it without showing it over a 10+ year span.

[rapstarter]

New generation is something else. You can't be the best to ever do it without showing it over a 10+ year span.

I don't think Jokic is the GOAT, but like he said, the conversation usually starts way before 10 years into a player's career because guess what? People like to project based on current ability (or peak). MJ was already getting his shouts in early 90s. This isn't a "new generation" thing.

[JustBuzzin]

New generation is something else. You can't be the best to ever do it without showing it over a 10+ year span.

I don't think Jokic is the GOAT, but like he said, the conversation usually starts way before 10 years into a player's career because guess what? People like to project based on current ability (or peak). MJ was already getting his shouts in early 90s. This isn't a "new generation" thing.

Let it play out.

[tsherkin]

You don't seem to understand the true meaning of GOAT.

No, it's mostly just that you don't seem to acknowledge what I'm actually saying.

You act like it's just earned overnight.

No, I don't. You haven't the first clue as to my actual position at all if that's your thought.

Jokic needs to put in more years at a high level and add a few more championships on the way.

Yes, I agree. But there's a difference between "he's the GOAT now" and "he's playing at a GOAT level," and your fixation on shooting him down is forcing you to miss the distinction

[garrick]

Swap the useless MPJ with an average contributor and the Nuggets probably win game 7.

You swap Jokic with any of the other stars like Luka, SGA, Tatum and this Nuggets team is not taking the Wolves to 7 games.

Jokic is really underrated by most fans because his game isn't very attractive.

[JustBuzzin]

You don't seem to understand the true meaning of GOAT.

No, it's mostly just that you don't seem to acknowledge what I'm actually saying.

You act like it's just earned overnight.

No, I don't. You haven't the first clue as to my actual position at all if that's your thought.

Jokic needs to put in more years at a high level and add a few more championships on the way.

Yes, I agree. But there's a difference between "he's the GOAT now" and "he's playing at a GOAT level," and your fixation on shooting him down is forcing you to miss the distinction

I didn't know there is GOAT for right now. I thought GOAT was the Greatest Of All Time!

I just learned something new. We now have 2 versions of GOAT.

[tsherkin]

You don't seem to understand the true meaning of GOAT.

No, it's mostly just that you don't seem to acknowledge what I'm actually saying.

You act like it's just earned overnight.

No, I don't. You haven't the first clue as to my actual position at all if that's your thought.

Jokic needs to put in more years at a high level and add a few more championships on the way.

Yes, I agree. But there's a difference between "he's the GOAT now" and "he's playing at a GOAT level," and your fixation on shooting him down is forcing you to miss the distinction

I didn't know there is GOAT for right now. I thought GOAT was the Greatest Of All Time!

I just learned something new. We now have 2 versions of GOAT.

All right, you're wasting my time. Have a good one.

[Infinite Llamas]

You don't seem to understand the true meaning of GOAT.

No, it's mostly just that you don't seem to acknowledge what I'm actually saying.

You act like it's just earned overnight.

No, I don't. You haven't the first clue as to my actual position at all if that's your thought.

Jokic needs to put in more years at a high level and add a few more championships on the way.

Yes, I agree. But there's a difference between "he's the GOAT now" and "he's playing at a GOAT level," and your fixation on shooting him down is forcing you to miss the distinction

I didn't know there is GOAT for right now. I thought GOAT was the Greatest Of All Time!

I just learned something new. We now have 2 versions of GOAT.

There is no “GOAT”. It’s something emotionally driven without any factual basis. It’s bandied about regularly, but it’s just a glorified term of endearment, because not everybody will have the same GOAT.

It’s why the term GOATS is more accurate and it creates a pantheon of players who have a similar case to their names.

Saying that Jokic is playing at a GOAT level is not calling him the best ever. It’s simply stating that he is playing at a level reserved for the all time greats, and that he is knocking at the door.

You can’t seem to separate the two though.

[JustBuzzin]

No, it's mostly just that you don't seem to acknowledge what I'm actually saying.



No, I don't. You haven't the first clue as to my actual position at all if that's your thought.



Yes, I agree. But there's a difference between "he's the GOAT now" and "he's playing at a GOAT level," and your fixation on shooting him down is forcing you to miss the distinction

I didn't know there is GOAT for right now. I thought GOAT was the Greatest Of All Time!

I just learned something new. We now have 2 versions of GOAT.

There is no “GOAT”. It’s something emotionally driven without any factual basis. It’s bandied about regularly, but it’s just a glorified term of endearment, because not everybody will have the same GOAT.

It’s why the term GOATS is more accurate and it creates a pantheon of players who have a similar case to their names.

Saying that Jokic is playing at a GOAT level is not calling him the best ever. It’s simply stating that he is playing at a level reserved for the all time greats, and that he is knocking at the door.

You can’t seem to separate the two though.

Every sport has a GOAT.

I already said Jokic is the best basketball player in the world currently.


Is that not enough praise?

[Infinite Llamas]

I didn't know there is GOAT for right now. I thought GOAT was the Greatest Of All Time!

I just learned something new. We now have 2 versions of GOAT.

There is no “GOAT”. It’s something emotionally driven without any factual basis. It’s bandied about regularly, but it’s just a glorified term of endearment, because not everybody will have the same GOAT.

It’s why the term GOATS is more accurate and it creates a pantheon of players who have a similar case to their names.

Saying that Jokic is playing at a GOAT level is not calling him the best ever. It’s simply stating that he is playing at a level reserved for the all time greats, and that he is knocking at the door.

You can’t seem to separate the two though.

Every sport has a GOAT.

I already said Jokic is the best basketball player in the world currently.


Is that not enough praise?

Nobody. Is. Calling. Jokic. The. GOAT.

Saying he is playing at the level of one isn’t calling him the greatest ever. It just means he has the potential to get there someday.

NFL and Baseball don’t have consensus goats either

[Wallace_Wallace]

I've been saying this since his first mvp. He's an incredible system player, but he lacks competitive fire and toughness to be an ATG player. His MVP as a 6 seed will be locked at as THE worst mvp season in history. It'll make the Rose and Nash wins seem unanimous.

Jokic is a guy that needs a superstar like Murray to make his game work. He can't take over without that second punch on the perimeter the way other ATGs could. Now that Murray has been exposed, so has Jokic. What's funny is that those really watching told you this year's ago when he only got the sixth seed without him.

To me he is the third best player in the NBA - Luka and Embiid are comfortably ahead of him. Last year he took advantage of an injured field, and a weakened conference in a transition year. He had Murray playing like a superstar and to his credit got it done. But his awards don't match his greatness and in a few years everyone will come around to what I'm saying here right now.

I have a trade proposal!

I would like to offer Denver’s superstar, Jamal Murray, for the Sixers’ Tyrese Maxey. Maybe I’ll get more yes from this than the poll you’ve put up…..wish me luck!

[DimesandKnicks]

A lot of those are really not unbelievable at all, especially when we take into account that we are talking about a *career* measure. For instance, you mention Kobe, but Kobe was an awful defender for a lot his career.

And Nash was an awful defender for his entire career, he belongs no where near Wade and Kobe in terms of defensive impact. Again, unless somehow bringing a great facilitator factors into defensive impact.

The bottom line is that career RAPM is very large sample, so there’s not a lot of noise there. There’s still a confidence interval, of course, but the main two things that would make things depart from your expectation are (1) conventional wisdom and your eye test can often be totally wrong about actual defensive impact, because players can be good or bad at things on defense that people don’t notice or give much credence to (for instance, someone who is really good or really bad at communicating with teammates defensively); and (2) it is a career-wide measure, so someone who is a better defender than another player in their primes can also be worse over his career if he was worse in non-prime years. Anyways, another potential issue is that career RAPM is controlling for players based on their *career-wide* level. So this can help or hurt some players if they were playing alongside a player at a time when they were much better or much worse than their career-wide level. For instance, let’s say I’m a player who played with Kobe in his best defensive years, when he was actually a really good defender. Since Kobe was actually a bad defender on average in his career, RAPM will think that I was playing alongside a bad defensive player. So then, when my team did well defensively, I’d get more of the credit in RAPM than I should, because the model doesn’t account for the fact that Kobe was better defensively in those years. So that’s definitely an issue with *career* RAPM—i.e. that it glosses over changes in how good players were over the course of their career, and so the teammate and opponent adjustments it does can be off. We’d generally expect those sorts of issues to cancel out (i.e. some of those things will help you and some will hurt you), but it can definitely be an issue on the margins with long-time-horizon RAPM.

All that said, I also gave you other measures that are not raw career DRAPM, including year-by-year metrics that use tons of defensive tracking data. It all shows the same general story for Jokic. While you keep focusing on it, your position isn’t just that career DRAPM is wrong. It’s that *everything* is wrong. In fact, DRAPM was one of the measures where LeBron actually does look better defensively than Jokic. Other measures that utilize RAPM as a base but layer on granular box and tracking data to improve accuracy actually are generally *more favorable* for Jokic than raw DRAPM is, as you could see if you go back to the post where I listed what we see from tons of different defensive impact metrics.

I feel like this was a long winded way to say DRAPM can be ****. And again, the creators of these metrics will tell you that they’re meant to supplement the eye test, not replace or usurp it.

If you don’t understand that teams go at the other team’s best offensive player in order to tire them out and make them less effective on the other end, then you just have an overly simplistic view of basketball. But you asked for an example, so I’ll give you one: The Cavs always “hunted” Steph in those Finals against the Warriors, even though they literally shot worse when guarded by Steph than when guarded by anyone else on the entire Warriors team! See the spoiler text below for data on this from a prior post I’ve made in another thread. It wasn’t a strategy the Cavs did in order to maximize how many points they scored. It was a strategy the Cavs did in order to try to optimize how well they did *overall*. Basically, attacking Steph on offense was a way to help their defense by making Steph tired and therefore limiting how much he could do on offense.

No it wasn’t. This might make sense if they weren’t hunting him down in the final minutes of close games.

Teams target Embiid in the playoffs a lot too, for the same reason—putting him in tons of actions to tire him out. This is just smart basketball.

I just watched a 7 game series against the 76ers and this wasn’t a thing. Even on a surgically repaired knee the Knicks weren’t attacking Embiid in PNR and late in the game they would bring one of their guards to screen. Should also be mentioned that there’s a difference between running pnr to hunt the other teams worse defender ala Steph and having your big set a screen just to initiate the pnr action.

Yep, Jokic’s shot defense isn’t good. But the vast majority of the rest of his defense is really good, and so the overall package is good. And you seem to be arguing with that premise. Or maybe you’re not? If your only position is that Jokic’s shot defense isn’t good but he’s still a good (but not elite) defender, then I don’t think we disagree.

How tf can you be a good defender and be bad at “shot defense” (and I’m not using this term anymore because it isn’t a term, it’s called defense). What is the rest of this defense? Him “being where he’s suppose to be”? Oh my big pat on the back for making your rotation (which is really a product of good coaching, everyone on that team makes good rotations) but when you get there you’re still can’t defend. Him having good hands and feet doesn’t make up for him being a **** rim protector, being a **** post defender, not being able to defend on an island.

If your teams “defense” is scheming to protect your deficiencies, he isn’t a good defender. Jokic has major flaws in his game and it’s on the other side of the ball.

I’m not going to go down a rabbit hole about Steph’s defense, because that’s a whole can of worms, but what I’ll say is that it certainly was an example of teams “hunting” Steph even though it demonstrably did not work very well for their offense. It doesn’t really matter if you think that it didn’t work because of Steph’s man defense or something else. The reality is that it wasn’t successful for the teams that did it. Why would they keep bashing their head against a wall on offense doing something that didn’t work well? It was clearly because the strategy was less about their offense and more about helping their defense, because their defense needed a tired Steph.

Speaking with so much authority on why the Lebron was hunting a 6’3 pg in the final minutes of the playoffs is just strange. Clearly ?! Stephen Curry isn’t some lumpy seven foot oof. He’s a lean 6”3 guard whose game evolves around running around on offense all game. This is just a stupid take.

So your position is that the 2007 Cavs were filled with “scrubs” because, even though they played historically elite defense such that it is clearly ridiculous to call them “scrubs,” they didn’t play as good of defense in 2006 and therefore they must’ve been “scrubs” in 2007? How does that make any sense whatsoever? The 2007 Cavs and 2006 Cavs were not the same team. Players play better or worse year to year. For instance, Varejao was by all accounts one of the best defenders in the NBA in 2007. But he was early in his career and didn’t play very much in 2006. He was a better player and played more in 2007. That was a big deal. Furthermore, supporting casts gel together more or less year to year—which is particularly important on defense, which is so dependent on how the team plays as a unit. Basketball is a team game, not a game where you just sum up the parts to get how good the whole is. The supporting cast as a whole gelled together a lot better defensively in 2007 than they did in 2006. How does that somehow mean that they were “scrubs” in 2007? It’s just totally non-sensical.

The bottom line is that LeBron had one of the best supporting casts in history defensively in 2007. Whether you think that they lacked “talent” by your definition and/or if you think their ability to play great defense was caused as much by Mike Brown as by their individual talent is essentially irrelevant. They played historically elite defense. And a set of players that plays historically elite defense is essentially definitionally not a supporting cast of “scrubs.” Scrubs are players that do not play well. And that is simply not an accurate way of describing the 2007 Cavs.

If you have some different definition of the word “scrub” that somehow doesn’t preclude it from including supporting casts that play well, then I guess you can call the 2007 Cavs supporting cast “scrubs,” but at that point you’ve defined the term in a way that makes your conclusion meaningless.

I’m aware that someone can be a talented defender. Where were the talented defenders in this team? Pre-retired Eric Snow? The overrated Larry Hughes who gambled on passing lanes during a contract year to boost his stats resulting in the only year here ever got all Defensive consideration while not elevating his teams actual defense? Not to mention he was so bad of an offensive player that fans made a website for him begging him not to shoot. And regardless. If the word scrubs bothers you than he carried a group of role players to the finals. And the year prior he took last years Easter champions to seven games with the same roster.

Replace Lebron with Paul Piece/vice versa and the Celtics are getting to the second round of playoffs while the Celtics are making it to the lottery.