The 'Jokic has no help' narrative sure came and went

[kivancb]

This board is completely delusional about Jokic. The guy won an MVP as a freakin' 6 seed. He's flamed out of the playoffs every year except for one run when Murray played like an all-star. He's been to the WCF less than Luka has and he has MPJ and Murray as teammates. He's a great offensive engine that is a black hole on defense. He's Harden, but better on offense. Probably even worse on defense since he plays the most important defensive position in the game. He's can't compete without Murray putting up all-star numbers, and you see the result whenever Murray is injured or under-performing. The team tanks, but Jokic still gets his numbers. He doesn't have a killer mentality, he can't carry a team unless he's surrounded by talent, and he's one of the most boring players to ever watch. Can't wait until this guy retires so the real stars can finally get their due. He isn't winning another ring ever again. He's been lucky that the guy that's been competing against him in Embiid was one of the biggest superstar busts in history. Jokic looks good next to him.

How can I report this to the mods by stating "dude is clueless about basketball"? How is that not possible?

How come trolling at that low a level is allowed?

This is ugly bug ball for sure, I'll give him that.

[Chuck Everett]

As to the point of this thread, I give the Kroenke's a lot of credit for not succumbing to Malone's bull. And also, I give credit to Malone for actually playing the young guys once he saw it wasn't going to happen to trade them all for more seasoned vets. The Nuggets young players have talent. They aren't total scrubs. The coaching was letting them down because Malone was too busy being a Jokic merchant. However, as we've been finding out over the last two months, the front office (led by Booth) has actually made several good draft picks and these guys are long, athletic and can play.

Christian Braun is flat out better than KCP (at this stage in his career) and Bruce Brown. Peyton Watson is a better defender than both. Strawther, who I didn't even like coming out of Gonzaga, is absolutely a flame thrower from 3. Even Jalen Pickett, has done a 180 since his disastrous rookie year. Westbrook coming in, whether we want to also throw some credit to him as well, was a net positive. And it probably shows up more in the locker room and practice. The players on the team love him.

[Special_Puppy]

As to the point of this thread, I give the Kroenke's a lot of credit for not succumbing to Malone's bull. And also, I give credit to Malone for actually playing the young guys once he saw it wasn't going to happen to trade them all for more seasoned vets. The Nuggets young players have talent. They aren't total scrubs. The coaching was letting them down because Malone was too busy being a Jokic merchant. However, as we've been finding out over the last two months, the front office (led by Booth) has actually made several good draft picks and these guys are long, athletic and can play.

Christian Braun is flat out better than KCP (at this stage in his career) and Bruce Brown. Peyton Watson is a better defender than both. Strawther, who I didn't even like coming out of Gonzaga, is absolutely a flame thrower from 3. Even Jalen Pickett, has done a 180 since his disastrous rookie year. Westbrook coming in, whether we want to also throw some credit to him as well, was a net positive. And it probably shows up more in the locker room and practice. The players on the team love him.

Braun was a big suprise and has clearly taken a huge leap. None of the other young guys are likely playable in the playoffs though

[Chuck Everett]

As to the point of this thread, I give the Kroenke's a lot of credit for not succumbing to Malone's bull. And also, I give credit to Malone for actually playing the young guys once he saw it wasn't going to happen to trade them all for more seasoned vets. The Nuggets young players have talent. They aren't total scrubs. The coaching was letting them down because Malone was too busy being a Jokic merchant. However, as we've been finding out over the last two months, the front office (led by Booth) has actually made several good draft picks and these guys are long, athletic and can play.

Christian Braun is flat out better than KCP (at this stage in his career) and Bruce Brown. Peyton Watson is a better defender than both. Strawther, who I didn't even like coming out of Gonzaga, is absolutely a flame thrower from 3. Even Jalen Pickett, has done a 180 since his disastrous rookie year. Westbrook coming in, whether we want to also throw some credit to him as well, was a net positive. And it probably shows up more in the locker room and practice. The players on the team love him.

Braun was a big suprise and has clearly taken a huge leap. None of the other young guys are likely playable in the playoffs though

They may not be (as of now), but how do they become playable without the reps? These are the times when they should be getting as much minutes as they can handle. Maybe they're not good enough yet for true playoff minutes, but we've seen young guys come in and swing a playoff game over the years, who didn't get big minutes for years. Braun did it his rookie year in the Finals. Corey Joseph did it for San Antonio in 2014 against the Thunder. I'm sure for some team this coming playoffs, an unexpected player is going to be asked to do something they haven't really shown beforehand to help the team secure a win or two.

[TheFire]

This board is completely delusional about Jokic. The guy won an MVP as a freakin' 6 seed. He's flamed out of the playoffs every year except for one run when Murray played like an all-star. He's been to the WCF less than Luka has and he has MPJ and Murray as teammates. He's a great offensive engine that is a black hole on defense. He's Harden, but better on offense. Probably even worse on defense since he plays the most important defensive position in the game. He's can't compete without Murray putting up all-star numbers, and you see the result whenever Murray is injured or under-performing. The team tanks, but Jokic still gets his numbers. He doesn't have a killer mentality, he can't carry a team unless he's surrounded by talent, and he's one of the most boring players to ever watch. Can't wait until this guy retires so the real stars can finally get their due. He isn't winning another ring ever again. He's been lucky that the guy that's been competing against him in Embiid was one of the biggest superstar busts in history. Jokic looks good next to him.

5/10 troll attempt. Not great, but I've seen worse on this board.

[lessthanjake]

This board is completely delusional about Jokic. The guy won an MVP as a freakin' 6 seed. He's flamed out of the playoffs every year except for one run when Murray played like an all-star. He's been to the WCF less than Luka has and he has MPJ and Murray as teammates. He's a great offensive engine that is a black hole on defense. He's Harden, but better on offense. Probably even worse on defense since he plays the most important defensive position in the game. He's can't compete without Murray putting up all-star numbers, and you see the result whenever Murray is injured or under-performing. The team tanks, but Jokic still gets his numbers. He doesn't have a killer mentality, he can't carry a team unless he's surrounded by talent, and he's one of the most boring players to ever watch. Can't wait until this guy retires so the real stars can finally get their due. He isn't winning another ring ever again. He's been lucky that the guy that's been competing against him in Embiid was one of the biggest superstar busts in history. Jokic looks good next to him.

I know this is a troll post, but the bolded statement is objectively false.

[aliasxn]

This board is completely delusional about Jokic. The guy won an MVP as a freakin' 6 seed. He's flamed out of the playoffs every year except for one run when Murray played like an all-star.

I mean, the one year when the guy getting paid like an all-star actually played like an all-star, they won it all. The other years when he didn't have help, they didn't win. So, maybe Joker really has no help?

[Exp0sed]

Championship teams need more than one dominant player to win championships? Riveting insights bud.

The real MVP's in the past either carried their teams to a near top seed or didn't get awarded MVP. Jokic has been getting awards for absolute empty stat team mediocrity in the regular season.

real MVPs played with other star and even superstars. that's in, two or three all time greats and hall of famers playing together.
Jokic has never played alongside another all-star and he's the only MVP in history to have never played with another all-star, 10 years into his career - that's still the case

and ur right, the one time Murray played liked an all-star in the playoffs, he won a chip. go figure...

[KyRo23]

Some of these too good not to post on here. The best part about this site is watching people just expose themselves.

"With Nikola Jokić off the floor, the Denver Nuggets' offensive rating is 86.3 - the worst in NBA history.
With Jokić on the floor, their offensive rating is 125.8 - the best in NBA history."

BS stat this early in the season. This guy gets way too much credit from all the casual Stans. He's a great player but he's been elevated due to injury luck - the guys better than him like Luka, Giannis and Embiid deal with injuries to themselves and their teams while jokic gets to keep running up the stats thanks to iron man genetics.

I mean this same argument was made for LeBron with a lot of backlash. It was always “well yeah, his team is catered to play around him, of course they’re bad when he’s off the court”. You could make the same argument that they put certain players around him to cater to his strengths.

I just don’t think Jokic is some kind of victim like a lot of his fans do. You’d think his best teammate in his Nuggets stint was Mo Williams or something

That’s a joke on that last part, but the point can be made both ways I guess. This is my biased take

[KyRo23]

Championship teams need more than one dominant player to win championships? Riveting insights bud.

The real MVP's in the past either carried their teams to a near top seed or didn't get awarded MVP. Jokic has been getting awards for absolute empty stat team mediocrity in the regular season.

real MVPs played with other star and even superstars. that's in, two or three all time greats and hall of famers playing together.
Jokic has never played alongside another all-star and he's the only MVP in history to have never played with another all-star, 10 years into his career - that's still the case

and ur right, the one time Murray played liked an all-star in the playoffs, he won a chip. go figure...

This isn’t true. Murray played like an all star in the playoffs in the 2019-2020 season in which they didn’t win. You could argue he played better this season than their championship run

[MarcusBrody]

As to the point of this thread, I give the Kroenke's a lot of credit for not succumbing to Malone's bull. And also, I give credit to Malone for actually playing the young guys once he saw it wasn't going to happen to trade them all for more seasoned vets. The Nuggets young players have talent. They aren't total scrubs. The coaching was letting them down because Malone was too busy being a Jokic merchant. However, as we've been finding out over the last two months, the front office (led by Booth) has actually made several good draft picks and these guys are long, athletic and can play.

Christian Braun is flat out better than KCP (at this stage in his career) and Bruce Brown. Peyton Watson is a better defender than both. Strawther, who I didn't even like coming out of Gonzaga, is absolutely a flame thrower from 3. Even Jalen Pickett, has done a 180 since his disastrous rookie year. Westbrook coming in, whether we want to also throw some credit to him as well, was a net positive. And it probably shows up more in the locker room and practice. The players on the team love him.

Braun was a big suprise and has clearly taken a huge leap. None of the other young guys are likely playable in the playoffs though

They may not be (as of now), but how do they become playable without the reps? These are the times when they should be getting as much minutes they can handle. Maybe they're not good enough yet for true playoff minutes, but we've seen young guys come in and swing a playoff game over the years, who didn't get big minutes for years. Braun did it his rookie year in the Finals. Corey Joseph did it for San Antonio in 2014 against the Thunder. I'm sure for some team this coming playoffs, an unexpected player is going to be asked to do something they haven't really shown beforehand to help the team secure a win or two.

I think that Watson will be playing in the post season. He's been their 7th man this year, and unless they want to try to go 6 deep, he almost has to. He's improving in the Aaron Gordon role on offense. The wildcard is that Zeke Nnaji has reentered the rotation with all the injuries and has played pretty well at power forward (where Malone keeps trying to stick Watson).

I'm less sure that Strawther will be in the playoff rotation if everyone is healthy. I would not call him "an absolute flame thrower from 3". He's shooting 36%, which is 7th on the team and only 2% better than Watson. He's also a notably worse defender and one of the more questionable decision makers on the team at times. Malone seems to like him though and has given him pretty good minutes, so hopefully he keeps improving. I could see him not playing as much in the post season though.

One of the big issues with all these guys (Watson and Nnaji especially, but also Strawther) is that they look pretty good when playing with Jokic, but aren't as effective without him. That limits the ways the rotation can be set up to maximize everyone's talent (as a lot of the starters also look better with Jokic).

And one last note on Braun: He has absolutely played better than KCP did on offense this year, but he's still slow on getting through screens (as are many guys on the Nuggets). It's one reason that Jokic's defense has looked worse this year in the drop coverage of the pick and roll. He's having to hold the ball handler longer, which means that both the ball handler and the roll man can move a bit further from each other and make that pocket pass a bit easier. You can see evidence of this in how Jokic's kicked balls are notably down from the last few years. He basically blocks the pocket pass with his foot and forces a reset more than anyone in the league. This year, he's only managed 9 kicked balls so far, after totaling 27 last year and 47 the year before.

[MyTake_1]

To all the trolls on this treed:
It has been my privilege to watch basketball since Magic and Bird came to the NBA, Magic was always my favorite until Jokic came around.
Jokic is an oddity, none of us have ever seen a player like this, enjoy it if you can, and tell your grandkids about it, it will not last forever.
Like I watched Magic and Bird, you are truly watching greatness, and then Mike comes and redefines what is possible.

[Exp0sed]

The real MVP's in the past either carried their teams to a near top seed or didn't get awarded MVP. Jokic has been getting awards for absolute empty stat team mediocrity in the regular season.

real MVPs played with other star and even superstars. that's in, two or three all time greats and hall of famers playing together.
Jokic has never played alongside another all-star and he's the only MVP in history to have never played with another all-star, 10 years into his career - that's still the case

and ur right, the one time Murray played liked an all-star in the playoffs, he won a chip. go figure...

This isn’t true. Murray played like an all star in the playoffs in the 2019-2020 season in which they didn’t win. You could argue he played better this season than their championship run

fair enough, he def played like an all-star in the bubble run as well so let's call it 50% of the times he played alongside an all-star in the playoffs he won a chip. the first one in 47 years of existance for the Nuggets, ain't no thing

it's worth noting that in the bubble, Jokic was 24 years old, MPJ was 21 and the Nuggets starters vs. the Lakers were: Jokic,Murray,21 year old MPJ, Garry Harris and the corpse of Paul Milsap and they were going up against LBJ, AD, KCP, Danny Green, Javele\Dwight with Kuzma, Rondo and Caruso waiting in the wings. big shocker they lost, that Jokic is soo bad...

[Raps in 4]

Still the only NBA champion to have never played with another All-Star/All-NBA player.

Murray goes on a hot streak every now and then. But he also goes on cold streaks more often than not. That's why he's not an All-Star/All-NBA player.

Anyone arguing that Jokic has a strong supporting cast is being purposely disingenuous.

[MarcusBrody]

The real MVP's in the past either carried their teams to a near top seed or didn't get awarded MVP. Jokic has been getting awards for absolute empty stat team mediocrity in the regular season.

real MVPs played with other star and even superstars. that's in, two or three all time greats and hall of famers playing together.
Jokic has never played alongside another all-star and he's the only MVP in history to have never played with another all-star, 10 years into his career - that's still the case

and ur right, the one time Murray played liked an all-star in the playoffs, he won a chip. go figure...

This isn’t true. Murray played like an all star in the playoffs in the 2019-2020 season in which they didn’t win. You could argue he played better this season than their championship run

Murray played great in those runs, but there is still a reason why he's talked about as a guy who can "play like an all star" rather than being an All Star. The 2020 run was 19 games. The 2023 title run was 20. Between them, Murray failed to score 20 points 14 times (7 times a year). To put that in perspective, SGA had 6 sub 20 point games all last season. And those low scoring games weren't due to Murray not taking shots as others were scoring. They generally were mid to high teens in attempts and 40s, 30s, 20% range for FG%. 7 of those games he had less points than field goal attempts.

So basically in a bit more than 1/3 of the two playoff runs that people hold up as All Star Murray, he wasn't very good. But in another 1/3 he scored 30 or more and in 5 of those games he scored 40 or more (though 3 of those 5 were in the first series of 2020 against Utah, he's only had 2 since, both exactly 40).

That's the duality of Murray. He's an amazing shot maker when he's on, but isn't great at drawing fouls or getting easy buckets, so when he's off, he's really off and will sometimes shoot you out of the game. He's an OK passer, but better as a secondary passer with Jokic than as the offensive originator, so the Nuggets have never been quite as successful staggering star minutes as they'd like. He's pretty strong for his size and will fight on defense, especially against bigger guys, but isn't a particularly good defender (and looked bad earlier this year, but has improved).

So basically, Murray is a good to very good player who is awesome to watch when he's on. And on those "on" days, he can score with anyone in the league, but who has more off days and less broad excellence than the tier of guards above him. I'm a fan of Murray, but there wasn't a year where I ever thought that he was robbed of an All Star birth, though in any single game, he can go head to head with almost any of those guys.

[durden_tyler]

Still one of the teams that can beat the top teams in the West with good match-up, roster-wise and style-wise against the Thunder, Grizzlies and the likes.

And will still dominate the Lakers in a seven-game series. They will be fine.

[KyRo23]

real MVPs played with other star and even superstars. that's in, two or three all time greats and hall of famers playing together.
Jokic has never played alongside another all-star and he's the only MVP in history to have never played with another all-star, 10 years into his career - that's still the case

and ur right, the one time Murray played liked an all-star in the playoffs, he won a chip. go figure...

This isn’t true. Murray played like an all star in the playoffs in the 2019-2020 season in which they didn’t win. You could argue he played better this season than their championship run

Murray played great in those runs, but there is still a reason why he's talked about as a guy who can "play like an all star" rather than being an All Star. The 2020 run was 19 games. The 2023 title run was 20. Between them, Murray failed to score 20 points 14 times (7 times a year). To put that in perspective, SGA had 6 sub 20 point games all last season. And those low scoring games weren't due to Murray not taking shots as others were scoring. They generally were mid to high teens in attempts and 40s, 30s, 20% range for FG%. 7 of those games he had less points than field goal attempts.

So basically in a bit more than 1/3 of the two playoff runs that people hold up as All Star Murray, he wasn't very good. But in another 1/3 he scored 30 or more and in 5 of those games he scored 40 or more (though 3 of those 5 were in the first series of 2020 against Utah, he's only had 2 since, both exactly 40).

That's the duality of Murray. He's an amazing shot maker when he's on, but isn't great at drawing fouls or getting easy buckets, so when he's off, he's really off and will sometimes shoot you out of the game. He's an OK passer, but better as a secondary passer with Jokic than as the offensive originator, so the Nuggets have never been quite as successful staggering star minutes as they'd like. He's pretty strong for his size and will fight on defense, especially against bigger guys, but isn't a particularly good defender (and looked bad earlier this year, but has improved).

So basically, Murray is a good to very good player who is awesome to watch when he's on. And on those "on" days, he can score with anyone in the league, but who has more off days and less broad excellence than the tier of guards above him. I'm a fan of Murray, but there wasn't a year where I ever thought that he was robbed of an All Star birth, though in any single game, he can go head to head with almost any of those guys.

I’m not disagreeing with you that he’s streaky. Definitely seems to be the case, but saying he scored under 20 points a certain amount of times is just odd to say. Looking at his game logs in the playoffs from 2020 he did some things that most guards would dream of

2 50 point games
2 40+ point games
50/45/90 through those measly 19 games

I think we’re basically saying the same thing. I just don’t think people give him enough respect. And I think a lot of that is used to prop up Jokic, which I don’t think he needs that

[JustBuzzin]

Jokic fanboys trying to pump up his MVP case and glaze him until their throats give out. Many, many, many such cases.

Jokic fanboys be like Jokic is the best player so that must mean we have the best team in basketball.

[Godymas]

to me, Jokic is like the Dirk Nowitzki of Michael Jordan’s. He means more to the city of Denver and Serbia than he does to the culture and players

[RoyceDa59]

It’s a good cast but not a great one.

The front office surely could have loaded Denver with another true allstar to pair with the best player of this generation. That would have made them a likely dynasty.

It’s still not too late either, would love for Denver to be aggressive adding an all star.