Current Jokic or Prime Steph Curry? Who was the more impactful player?

[tsherkin]

Well yeah pre and post matrix (but we already went over my memory today seems to be trash) was my thought.

Well that and Nash got worse as he aged, and Amare was a sieve, and they acquired Shaq who had a little revival but was nothing like the defensive presence of Marion. And then they were running like Channing Frye and Jared Dudley in the frontcourt and so forth.

[therealbig3]

The advantage that Curry got with his roster that Nash didn’t have was that his best offensive help was also his best defensive help. His teams didn’t sacrifice offense for defense or vice versa.

Because purely as an offensive player, I don’t really see a great case for Curry over Nash. Nash was actually the more consistent playoff performer between the two, just didn’t have the same level of help on the defensive side of the ball.

[tsherkin]

The advantage that Curry got with his roster that Nash didn’t have was that his best offensive help was also his best defensive help. His teams didn’t sacrifice offense for defense or vice versa.

Because purely as an offensive player, I don’t really see a great case for Curry over Nash. Nash was actually the more consistent playoff performer between the two, just didn’t have the same level of help on the defensive side of the ball.

It's certainly a thought.

Marion was only good in transition or when he was cutting around some on-ball action, or off an ORB. He had no creation ability, an ugly-ass post game and no off-the-bounce game. And of course Amare was a disaster on defense and an underwhelming rebounder. Amare was a much larger issue defensively than Nash ever was. But, such is life. They were close anyway. Were it not for those BS suspensions, we MIGHT be speaking of them as a one-ring team. We'll never know.

[dhsilv2]

Staggering how fast people forget how Curry completely warped the court without even touching the ball. Some of these posts are just staggeringly awful.

[lessthanjake]

Yeah, but I don’t think anyone is saying Jokic *couldn’t* hold up the offense of a very defensively-slanted roster, if he were on a team like that. It’s more just an issue relating to assessing how impactful we think peak Steph was—which is something we have to determine before we can compare his impact to Jokic’s.

But again, ITT, specific impact is dictated by circumstance. Arguing Steph has more impact because he has the superior roster pieces doesn't make sense, which is why I'm arguing against that specific notion.

Rather, I’m just noting that this defensive-slanted-roster thing should affect our assessment of how impactful Steph was on the actual team Steph was on,

And I'm saying it shouldn't, because it isn't reflective of the player, but of the rest of the roster.

If the Warriors defense was so good in significant part because they cannibalized Steph’s offense in order to bolster their defense, then I think the Warriors’ defense being good is a pro-Steph argument, because his effect on that should improve our conception of how impactful he was.

I don't agree. I think that if you put talent out there around him which doesn't enable the team to take advantage of the impact, it's still there, it just isn't being capitalized on. I think that's essentially the same thing I'm saying of Jokic, right? I don't want either player penalized for the differences in their rosters.

The same could be true of Jokic if he had a different roster. But, at the same time, if he had a more defensively-slanted roster, then maybe conventional wisdom would be lower on his offense than it is

A contention with which I disagree, because he basically has 3pt shooters around him apart from Murray. If you replace them with defensive players, then the primary skillset on O you see from a lot of defensive roleplayers is... 3pt shooting. If those guys had been hitting their shots at the end of the Minny series, he'd be in the WCFs. You can find defensive guys who can hit the 3, so I don't really think there's any reason to consider him dropping off in impact on O with a more defensively-slanted roster.

Ultimately, the rosters aren't the same. Comparing impact is going to be specifically affected by such. Looking at defensive impact and then not one person who has responded to me acknowledging the DPOY on Steph's team while discussing the team defense is something of a problem. The contexts in which these two players play is sufficiently different than you can't just compare impact straight-up. We're already accounting for era when we speak of "Prime Steph" instead of Steph after 2016 (though maybe 2021...), so we are already accommodating multiple variables. Why are we then not looking at the difference in roster construction when discussing defense?

You can't just dismiss it as "oh, Steph's so good on O, it permits defensive-slanted rosters," because that isn't unique in this specific conversation. There also isn't a good reason to suggest that Jokic's team would be worse with more defense on it, because of the style of players he has around him to begin with.

I get your point that ultimately the value of slanting defensively depends on how good the defensive-slanted players are and Steph had really good teammates defensively. He could’ve had a worse team that was equally defensively-slanted, and the offense may have been similar but just with a worse defense. And that wouldn’t mean Steph was a less impactful player. It would just mean he had a worse team. And I think this is the type of thing you’re getting at. Which is why I prefer conceptualizing this defensive-slant thing as boosting my view of his offensive impact, rather than giving him credit for the defensive impact.

Anyways, though, I think you’re making a more sophisticated point than the type of point that this defensive-slanted-roster thing is aimed at. A lot of people anchor their assessment of a star player’s offensive impact on how good his *team’s* offense was overall. And when that star player isn’t a noted defender, they also conclude that offense is the only major impact the player had. That’s a line of thinking that is very biased against great offensive players who are on defensively-slanted rosters, because these people look at the offense and say that the player’s offenses weren’t very top-tier all time and so the guy can’t be very top-tier in individual offensive impact, and then they simultaneously say the guy isn’t a noted defender so his defensive impact is surely roughly neutral. It’s an approach that systematically downplays a player in this sort of situation, and arguments pointing out the defensive slant are aimed at people making those sorts of arguments. They’re arguments that people make about Steph quite a lot—I very often see here and elsewhere people saying that Steph’s offenses weren’t as consistently good as those of other great offensive players, so he’s not at their level offensively, and he wasn’t a real positive individual defender so he’s clearly below certain other greats in terms of overall impact. That’s the sort of thing this is aimed at. I think your approach and your points are almost presupposing a higher level of sophistication than what this point is aimed at.

I will also note, though, that assessing a star player’s offensive impact based on how good his team’s offense was isn’t just biased against guys with defensive-slanted rosters. It is also biased against players whose rosters simply aren’t as good offensively as other guys’ rosters were. And I think that actually comes into play for Jokic. Jokic doesn’t really have a defensively slanted roster. But he also doesn’t have a roster that’s particularly great offensively—they’re just not a top-tier supporting cast IMO, certainly as compared to what a lot of all-time greats have had. We often see that spawn these same sorts of arguments IMO. I see people here often make arguments rooted in the idea that Jokic can’t be a GOAT-level offensive player because his teams’ offenses have never ranked near the top of the league. As an initial matter, that ignores that no team in NBA history has scored as efficiently with their star on the floor as the 2022-2023 Nuggets did with Jokic on the floor (they were not ranked all that highly as an overall offense simply because they were awful with Jokic off the court). But more generally, this is a biased approach against Jokic, because it’s drawing conclusions about an individual player’s offense based on comparing his team offensive results to the team offensive results of other guys with more talented teams offensively. That’s an equally flawed argument as trying to draw similar inferences about Steph while ignoring the defensive slant of his team. (Of course, I think your point is that trying to give Steph credit for just how good the Warriors defense was when slanted defensively would be biased *in his favor* because his roster was so good defensively. And I agree, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take the defensive slant into account when assessing Steph’s offensive impact).

Basically, indexing one’s view of how impactful a player is on one side of the ball on how well his team does on that side of the ball misses way too much context (am talking generally here, not saying that’s how you’re approaching things). And I think that that context is relevant to assessments of both players’ impact. We should think about these players’ offensive impact based on how much offensive talent they had around them. And for both of these guys, I think that that assessment leads to them being considered GOAT-tier offensive players, even though their teams weren’t really the best offenses ever. For Jokic, this is because his supporting cast just isn’t *that* good, and for Steph, it’s because while his supporting cast was often really good, it wasn’t actually that good *offensively* (minus the Durant years).

[therealbig3]

Staggering how fast people forget how Curry completely warped the court without even touching the ball. Some of these posts are just staggeringly awful.

It’s true, he had plenty of gravity, but it’s also fair to point out that all that gravity still led to underwhelming offensive performance by the pre-KD Warriors in the 15 and 16 playoffs, and that was in large part because of Curry’s individual struggles.

[One_and_Done]

Glad to see Jokic losing has given people perspective. The answer is indeed Curry.

[Letsgokings]

Gonna go with the guy who literally changed the game and actually has a relatable human body type then the big dumb oaf who just lumbers around the court that a normal human being couldn't possibly ever relate too.

Is this trolling or do you actually believe this? Jokic might be the most intelligent player in the history of the game. He's a coach on the floor who organizes both the offense and defense for his teammates and beats the other team with his mind more than his body. Calling Jokic dumb is like calling Steph bad at shooting.

BIG DUMB OAF.

[lessthanjake]

Staggering how fast people forget how Curry completely warped the court without even touching the ball. Some of these posts are just staggeringly awful.

It’s true, he had plenty of gravity, but it’s also fair to point out that all that gravity still led to underwhelming offensive performance by the pre-KD Warriors in the 15 and 16 playoffs, and that was in large part because of Curry’s individual struggles.

Okay, so this goes to something I’ve been discussing with tsherkin.

You say the pre-KD Warriors had “underwhelming offensive performance[s]” in the 2015 and 2016 playoffs. In a sense, perhaps that’s true. The 2015 Warriors and 2016 Warriors had +4.1 and +4.2 rORTGs in the playoffs. That’s good but not ultra elite.

But then let’s think about what rosters those Warriors were playing. They were largely running with Draymond and Bogut—two bigs that were not particularly talented offensively. They were there for their defense. And in the playoffs especially, the Warriors leaned a lot on Iguodala, who was not a good shooter and was there for his defense. Meanwhile, while not being a particularly noted defender either, Harrison Barnes wasn’t a very good offensive player, and was genuinely awful offensively in the playoffs. Klay is a good offensive player, but also is a very limited one in terms of what he is capable of and very inconsistent. That is a genuinely bad supporting cast offensively. And it was essentially by design, because the team was loading up on defense—which, not coincidentally, they did quite well in those playoffs. Having +4.1 and +4.2 playoff rORTGs with that team is actually really impressive!

[tsherkin]

A lot of people anchor their assessment of a star player’s offensive impact on how good his *team’s* offense was overall.

Which is typically a mistake.

—I very often see here and elsewhere people saying that Steph’s offenses weren’t as consistently good as those of other great offensive players, so he’s not at their level offensively, and he wasn’t a real positive individual defender so he’s clearly below certain other greats in terms of overall impact. That’s the sort of thing this is aimed at.

Yeah, I mean, you have to look at what other guys are doing when you're looking at team offense. Klay, for example, dropped off notably as his FTr and his shot beneath the arc diminished, right? Post-2018, he's very been very much less valuable on O and quite inconsistent in the playoffs, that aside. But that affects team offense. And of course, he had a single-year peak in 2016 and never touched that ever again. And then they had and lost Durant, and haven't really replaced any of that offense at any point. And Steph's impact isn't the same in 2024 as it was even in 2021, and certainly not in 2016. They haven't been the same after 2019 for obvious reasons, and he hasn't had the pieces to do it. You need talent to get to such places, and the roster has not been there for him in that time frame, even though his impact has been significant, and that is a point you touch on later in your post than what I have quoted, for sure. We agree there.

I see people here often make arguments rooted in the idea that Jokic can’t be a GOAT-level offensive player because his teams’ offenses have never ranked near the top of the league.

Which is dumb, honestly. Lots of GOAT-level offensive players wouldn't be able to do that with lesser-talented rosters than they had, for sure.

[dhsilv2]

Staggering how fast people forget how Curry completely warped the court without even touching the ball. Some of these posts are just staggeringly awful.

It’s true, he had plenty of gravity, but it’s also fair to point out that all that gravity still led to underwhelming offensive performance by the pre-KD Warriors in the 15 and 16 playoffs, and that was in large part because of Curry’s individual struggles.

What do you consider underwhelming to be? Cause you know...scoring generally goes down in the playoffs. Now if you wanted to say as many have Curry struggled to stay fresh and healthy...ok fine. Just like Jokic this year struggled when they asked him to play 47 minutes. Also fine.

[therealbig3]

Staggering how fast people forget how Curry completely warped the court without even touching the ball. Some of these posts are just staggeringly awful.

It’s true, he had plenty of gravity, but it’s also fair to point out that all that gravity still led to underwhelming offensive performance by the pre-KD Warriors in the 15 and 16 playoffs, and that was in large part because of Curry’s individual struggles.

What do you consider underwhelming to be? Cause you know...scoring generally goes down in the playoffs. Now if you wanted to say as many have Curry struggled to stay fresh and healthy...ok fine. Just like Jokic this year struggled when they asked him to play 47 minutes. Also fine.

As a whole, the team playoff offense with Curry on the court was below average relative to all conference finalists/finalists with their best player on the court we have on/off data for. So underwhelming as in they were literally a below average offense with Curry on the court.

And it basically correlates with obvious individual struggles that Curry had. He got hurt in 2016, but didn’t have any significant injury (at least that was discussed in real time) in 2015. I also disagree with the assertion that it was a bad offensive supporting cast. Bogut’s role was limited, he had Klay Thompson and Iguodala, and Draymond Green was a much better offensive player at the time than he became later. And Harrison Barnes, as much as he struggled in the 2016 Finals, was an overall capable 3 and D player. These are the best offensive AND defensive players for the Warriors, there was no sacrificing anything.

Anyway, it’s not really to disparage Curry, it’s to point out that he had struggles just like Jokic had his struggles. To me, they are great, all time offensive anchors…but there are some I’d take over them (LeBron, Jordan, Magic, Nash, with guys like Kobe/Dirk/Shaq firmly in the conversation).

[therealbig3]

I’d probably take Jokic overall, but it’s closer than I thought…I think he’s probably a little more consistent than Curry though.

[iggymcfrack]

Staggering how fast people forget how Curry completely warped the court without even touching the ball. Some of these posts are just staggeringly awful.

It’s true, he had plenty of gravity, but it’s also fair to point out that all that gravity still led to underwhelming offensive performance by the pre-KD Warriors in the 15 and 16 playoffs, and that was in large part because of Curry’s individual struggles.

What do you consider underwhelming to be? Cause you know...scoring generally goes down in the playoffs. Now if you wanted to say as many have Curry struggled to stay fresh and healthy...ok fine. Just like Jokic this year struggled when they asked him to play 47 minutes. Also fine.

When Jokić “struggles due to fatigue” after playing a huge minute load, he still puts up 34/19/7. His Game Score of 29.1 in Game 7 against Minnesota was better than Curry had in 12 of 13 Finals games before KD joined the team. Curry’s peak Game Score over that stretch? 29.2 in Game 4 in 2016.

Curry had 3 stinkers with a Game Score under 6 in the ‘15 and ‘16 Finals:

-Game 2 in 2015: 19/6/5 on .358 TS% with 6 turnovers for a 2.2 Game Score

-Game 1 in 2016: 11/5/6 on .367 TS% with 6 turnovers for a 2.4 Game Score

-Game 7 in 2016: 17/5/2 on .437 TS% with 4 turnovers for a 5.1 Game Score

In 80 career playoff games, Jokic has never once recorded a Game Score below 7. 3 of the biggest games of Curry’s life including the biggest, he had worse games than Jokic has EVER had in the playoffs. He’s a great player and I have him in my top 10 all-time, but he has nowhere near the consistency of Jokic when it matters most.

[art_tatum]

Staggering how fast people forget how Curry completely warped the court without even touching the ball. Some of these posts are just staggeringly awful.

It’s true, he had plenty of gravity, but it’s also fair to point out that all that gravity still led to underwhelming offensive performance by the pre-KD Warriors in the 15 and 16 playoffs, and that was in large part because of Curry’s individual struggles.

The 15 curry playoff struggles is some sort of myth that lasted so long bc of the fmvp in a horrid decision going to iggy.

Curry is like 3rd all time in 4th quarter finals scoring in that series and has the highest TS at 75% vs like wilt at 69 or something.
Just bc the cavs grabbed him off ball and kept him from getting the ball the first 3 games and iggy hitting the open 3 shots he kept getting.
People forget if they rewatch the series, after curry public ally demanded the ball more in his hands ( less kerr motion offense) it was curry who put the games out of reach in the 4th quarters games 4-6


2016 he was trash tho, partly too bc he somehow was the only star in finals history to get into foul trouble every game after up 3-1, so he sat most 2nd quarters

[art_tatum]

Curry more impact in the regular season and more success in the post season. Their "system" is pretty much him. We saw what green was without curry in 2020.

Joker will have better stats and per bc he's a center with the ball in his hands = way more rebounds and. Assists. But curry's asymmetrical offense is a backbreaker against teams. That's why he sat all those 4th quarters in 2016. IMO they would've been almost just as successful if KD never came and they used that money on someone better than a Harrison Barnes who bricked all his open corner 3s vs the cavs.

How does Jokic having the ball in his hands lead to him getting more rebounds?

I would say rebounding is the biggest difference between the two and Jokic has a substantial edge there.

He gets more assists. He gets more rebounds bc he's a huge center. Which is what he's supposed to do, that's his physical edge. Which shows up way more in stats like per etc.

Curry's an underrated rebounder tho, think he's always avged around 5

[GSP]

Jokic has been better than Steph ever was for a few seasons now. He is just a far more consistent and dominant playoff performer. He was even the best player on the floor by far when they played 2 years ago but Steph just had the far superior roster like he usually does. Ppl wanna talk about Jokic defense being hidden with great supporting pieces prolly no star has ever been more protected by having stacked defensive rosters top to bottom than Steph. He's had the best help defender and versatile defender of his era in Draymond and a bunch of other good to elite defenders to hide him on offensive liabilities and non factors his whole career..... Klay whod guard opposing star Pgs, Iggy, Bogut, Kd, Wiggins, Gp2, Looney.

[GusFring]

Curry won a ring with a washed klay, draymond was having a terrible series against the celtics and wiggins as his second option, he's almost getting underrated around here.

[nazario]

Jokic could only dream of playing with a team that features Draymond, Klay, and KD.

He could also only dream of playing against the caliber of opponent the Warriors faced. OKC was basically this years Minnesota on steroids, with two players better than the best player on Minny. And the cavs were as close to a superteam as you could get in 2016.
I do think Jamal historically is a better playoffperformer than Klay, even though i prefer Klays whole package in his prime. The pre-durant team had Draymond though, so thats where the divide lies.

2015-2016 Westbrook was not better than Ant right now, and this Minny squad is much more balanced and deep than that OKC squad. Putting Ant and KAT aside, they have the literal DPOY and the 6th man of the year.

Jokic is just as prolific a scorer as Steph while being leaps and bounds better as a playmaker. If you want to talk about a weak opponent, the 2014 Cavs with Love and Kyrie injured were as big of a freebie as it gets for a finals opponent.

Yes, westbrook was. By far. You're jumping the gun on Ant. He might be him, but he's young and only showing it in spurts. Talk about recency bias. That OKC team was to GSW what this Minny team was to Denver. Prototype to beat them. Long, athletic, defensive monsters when they wanted. Difference is, they had two stars that were miles better than Minnys stars. They knocked out a 67 win-spurs, while this era of "stars" have seen nothing but good but not great teams

[nazario]

The advantage that Curry got with his roster that Nash didn’t have was that his best offensive help was also his best defensive help. His teams didn’t sacrifice offense for defense or vice versa.

Because purely as an offensive player, I don’t really see a great case for Curry over Nash. Nash was actually the more consistent playoff performer between the two, just didn’t have the same level of help on the defensive side of the ball.

Which is a short-sighted way to look at it. Draymond is certainly a good passer, but he has never been a playmaker. He needs other players to open up those opportunities for him. Currys best offensive help was always him with the ball in his hands with a capable roller. He never had that, outside of Durant. Durant is an outlier, but still - Curry with any sort of finisher in the roll was fantastic. Problem is, they never had a roller who was able to do that outside of Durant.

The best defensive help Curry had was never his best offensive help. Can you imagine his offball-game with an actual dribble-penetration threat? Neither can i, because it never happened.