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

[DimesandKnicks]

Jokic is not a neutral or above average defender in any sense. He’s a poor defender who is easily exposed by running a simple high ball pick and roll. If he’s forced to switch out on the perimeter he’s cooked every time. Calling his teammates traffic cones while pretending he is any better than them on that end is a complete double standard.

Ah the old "just run the Pickle Role against Jokic" line. Opponents are scoring 0.78 Points on every pick and roll they run against Jokic this year which is pretty low. https://www.nba.com/stats/players/ball-handler?TypeGrouping=defensive&dir=D&sort=POSS

That’s just a blanket stat with zero context. Watch when teams actually target him in the pick & roll. GS did it in 2022, and Edward’s did it in the playoffs last year.

Kat being only slightly bette than Wemby demonstates that stats like these aer trash. KAT is the worst pick and roll defender I've ever seen

[Woodsanity]

Keep note even after a 55 point game these are 50m/yr Murray's numbers for the season....

PER: 17.4
BPM: .4

[Special_Puppy]

Anyone can be part of a good team defense if every one around them is a good defender. The problem with Jokic being a bad defender is that it is much easier to build a good team defense around a center who can defend than everywhere else.

The evidence that Jokic is a “bad” defender is pretty weak.

All you have to do is watch the games. It's pretty clear to anyone being objective

Kind of weird for a "bad" defender to be defensive positive in long term RAPM

https://xrapm.com/table_pages/RAPM_29y.html

[Special_Puppy]

Jokic is not a neutral or above average defender in any sense. He’s a poor defender who is easily exposed by running a simple high ball pick and roll. If he’s forced to switch out on the perimeter he’s cooked every time. Calling his teammates traffic cones while pretending he is any better than them on that end is a complete double standard.

Ah the old "just run the Pickle Role against Jokic" line. Opponents are scoring 0.78 Points on every pick and roll they run against Jokic this year which is pretty low. https://www.nba.com/stats/players/ball-handler?TypeGrouping=defensive&dir=D&sort=POSS

That’s just a blanket stat with zero context. Watch when teams actually target him in the pick & roll. GS did it in 2022, and Edward’s did it in the playoffs last year.

This stat looks at every time a team targets him in the pick and roll and finds that they find its not effective offense,

[dhsilv2]

Ah the old "just run the Pickle Role against Jokic" line. Opponents are scoring 0.78 Points on every pick and roll they run against Jokic this year which is pretty low. https://www.nba.com/stats/players/ball-handler?TypeGrouping=defensive&dir=D&sort=POSS

That’s just a blanket stat with zero context. Watch when teams actually target him in the pick & roll. GS did it in 2022, and Edward’s did it in the playoffs last year.

Kat being only slightly bette than Wemby demonstates that stats like these aer trash. KAT is the worst pick and roll defender I've ever seen

I mean...it's a stat like points per game. It just is what it is. We all know there's more context to points per game, such as TS%, turnovers, teams, offensive system, pace. But points per game is what it is. It's a fact. Just like these are...with some minor issues, just what they are.

[dhsilv2]

The evidence that Jokic is a “bad” defender is pretty weak.

All you have to do is watch the games. It's pretty clear to anyone being objective

Kind of weird for a "bad" defender to be defensive positive in long term RAPM

https://xrapm.com/table_pages/RAPM_29y.html

This all reminds me of Taylor's recent video talking about are their too many 3's or has the NBA just gotten too complex for the average fan to understand what they're seeing. And of course ESPN, TNT, and all the clowns perpetuate this by showing highlights that mislead the fans as to what's happening. It's not the fans fault, they are literally being spoon fed misleading highlights.

[zero rings]

Keep note even after a 55 point game these are 50m/yr Murray's numbers for the season....

PER: 17.4
BPM: .4

Yeah, he has a few scoring outbursts like this every season, mixed in with some good games, some mediocre games, and a whole bunch of stinkers.

Murray is a terrific tough shot maker, but that’s pretty much all he is, and it’s hard to be consistent when all you do is take tough shots.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Lebron has like almost a decade and a half of teams with more than Jokic has ever had lmao.

Well as fair as this is, LeBron has played for 12 more years than Jokic and Jokic has more help than LeBron did in his first Cleveland stint.

This isn’t that good of a comparison until Jokic’s career is over and we know who he had as a teammate for the entirety of it

By age 30 (Jokic's age right now), LeBron had already played with Wade, Bosh, Kyrie, and Love. That is 39x All-Star appearances and 14x All-NBA selections between these four. Jokic's teammates up to this point have been named to 0x All-Star teams and 0x All-NBA teams.

There is absolutely no comparison between the help LeBron had in his career (early or late) versus what Jokic has.

DeAndre was a 1st team all nba. Hibbert, Thomas and Millsap has been All Stars/All NBA as well.

[michaelm]

The only good player on the Nuggets beside Jokic is Braun. The rest of the bunch are overrated, overpaid, injury prone chuckers that are trafic cones on defense.
Ten games against bottom feeders doesnt change that. On any other team Murray would be a 6th man, MPJ would be a spot up shooter of the bench, AG would be a journeyman roleplayer and WB would be in China.

I'd love to see the catastrophe, Nuggets would be without Jokic.

If you consider his teammates traffic cones on defense, then how would you describe Jokic himself on defense? Because to me he looks like the biggest 7’1 traffic cone on the entire team.

Jokic is an athletically limited defender in the sense that he cant protect the rim and is cooked in space like almost every big is, but he is great in other aspects of defense, such as rebounding, post defense, deflections, disrupting passing lanes, defensive awareness and coordination, etc. So if you surround him with good defenders he becomes a very good defender. How ever you rank him, be it neutral, above average or below average, he is a much better defender than either Murray or MPJ and probably better that the overrated defensive stopper AG.

The season where they had KCP to help him defend the PnR with Braun and Brown helping on the wing Denver had a very good playoff defense and they won a championship. If Denver FO wasnt a godforsaken center for the mentally challenged, they could have surrounded Jokic with a few defensive pieces and ONE CONSISTENT shot creator and they would have been a dynasty.

But why would they do that when they can max out two decrepit chukers and trade everything they got for a bunch of failed project players nobody else wanted anyway.

If he is a transcendent offensive talent and a team containing him can be good defensively then he doesn’t need to be a traditional defensive center. The year they won he seemed to have enough good defenders around him, and my impression from afar is what you are saying, that Denver haven’t done a great job putting players around him.

[ScrantonBulls]

If you consider his teammates traffic cones on defense, then how would you describe Jokic himself on defense? Because to me he looks like the biggest 7’1 traffic cone on the entire team.

Jokic is an athletically limited defender in the sense that he cant protect the rim and is cooked in space like almost every big is, but he is great in other aspects of defense, such as rebounding, post defense, deflections, disrupting passing lanes, defensive awareness and coordination, etc. So if you surround him with good defenders he becomes a very good defender. How ever you rank him, be it neutral, above average or below average, he is a much better defender than either Murray or MPJ and probably better that the overrated defensive stopper AG.

The season where they had KCP to help him defend the PnR with Braun and Brown helping on the wing Denver had a very good playoff defense and they won a championship. If Denver FO wasnt a godforsaken center for the mentally challenged, they could have surrounded Jokic with a few defensive pieces and ONE CONSISTENT shot creator and they would have been a dynasty.

But why would they do that when they can max out two decrepit chukers and trade everything they got for a bunch of failed project players nobody else wanted anyway.

If he is a transcendent offensive talent and a team containing him can be good defensively then he doesn’t need to be a traditional defensive center. The year they won he seemed to have enough good defenders around him, and my impression from afar is what you are saying, that Denver haven’t done a great job putting players around him.

What a shame for his legacy. Apparently he can't build a team organically like Jordan and Kobe.

[Ambrose]

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.

The irony of this post

[DimesandKnicks]

All you have to do is watch the games. It's pretty clear to anyone being objective

Kind of weird for a "bad" defender to be defensive positive in long term RAPM

https://xrapm.com/table_pages/RAPM_29y.html

This all reminds me of Taylor's recent video talking about are their too many 3's or has the NBA just gotten too complex for the average fan to understand what they're seeing. And of course ESPN, TNT, and all the clowns perpetuate this by showing highlights that mislead the fans as to what's happening. It's not the fans fault, they are literally being spoon fed misleading highlights.

Do you think Jokic will have similiar RAPM as Tyson Chandler, a former DPOY at the conclusion of his career? When his rebounds go down and he becomes and even worse rim defender. Yall put value into an advance metric that you can’t even find across any NBA owned channels and allow it to convince you that what? Jokic is only a little bit worse of a defender than Tyson Chandler, even the metric is an amalgamation of a players entire career? And again how much more does his metric decrease from -2.1 by the end of his career?

We have eyes. What will your excuse be at the end of his career when this metric no longer has as a comparable defender to Chandler and better than Kidd and JJJ? C’mon man

[shi-woo]

Well it's always been about health with this team. If Murray is healthy this team could have stolen 1 or 2 more rings, and there was a lot of injury concerns about MPJ as well. It's actually crazy how healthy Porter has been in DEN considering that's the reason he fell in the draft.

These guys fit Jokic perfectly, but in a league where LeBron James is a 2nd option, and Kristaps Porzingus a 3rd/4th, that just doesn't cut it. The statement still holds true, most teams in contention have an All-NBA player as their #2, and Jokic doesn't even have another All-Star guy.That hasn't changed.

A lot of the No Help came from the fact that they went the developmental rout, but none of those dudes played last year when it mattered. Strawther, Watson, and Braun have all make the rotation, and are becoming solid parts to the team. They didn't get much out of Zeke which seems like their biggest miss that might cost them given they still don't have a competent backup big.

This team is still 100% dependent on Jokic, similar to the pre-KD Warriors. OP pointing out his team mates stats, but this guy is the biggest player in the league, best passer, and is averaging 30 a night with 45% from 3. He warps the offense in ways we've never seen, and it's absolutely wild that we might never get to see his talent play with another All-NBA guy. Comparing that to Jimmy who has played with Rondo/Wade/Rose, Towns, Embiib/Simmons, Bam/Herro, and now Steph/Green That man gets heralded for carrying his teams less than Jokic with significantly more talent...

Like seriously, is this roster really that much better than the Utah Jazz or Trailblazers roster minus Joker?

[dhsilv2]

Kind of weird for a "bad" defender to be defensive positive in long term RAPM

https://xrapm.com/table_pages/RAPM_29y.html

This all reminds me of Taylor's recent video talking about are their too many 3's or has the NBA just gotten too complex for the average fan to understand what they're seeing. And of course ESPN, TNT, and all the clowns perpetuate this by showing highlights that mislead the fans as to what's happening. It's not the fans fault, they are literally being spoon fed misleading highlights.

Do you think Jokic will have similiar RAPM as Tyson Chandler, a former DPOY at the conclusion of his career? When his rebounds go down and he becomes and even worse rim defender. Yall put value into an advance metric that you can’t even find across any NBA owned channels and allow it to convince you that what? Jokic is only a little bit worse of a defender than Tyson Chandler, even the metric is an amalgamation of a players entire career? And again how much more does his metric decrease from -2.1 by the end of his career?

We have eyes. What will your excuse be at the end of his career when this metric no longer has as a comparable defender to Chandler and better than Kidd and JJJ? C’mon man

I'm not sure I follow the question.

Why are we comparing him in the first place? That doesn't make any sense to me.

What this multi year RAPM shows (as used by the other poster) is that Jokic has a positive impact on the defensive end. That's been the point that people keep trying to hammer home. Comparing a full career to a partial doesn't make a lot of sense. The value of the multi year RAPM is that it removes a lot of potential noise that single year RAPM will have. I wouldn't look at anyone else here other than to grasp perhaps what the "scale" is with this version of the metric.

[DimesandKnicks]

That’s just a blanket stat with zero context. Watch when teams actually target him in the pick & roll. GS did it in 2022, and Edward’s did it in the playoffs last year.

Kat being only slightly bette than Wemby demonstates that stats like these aer trash. KAT is the worst pick and roll defender I've ever seen

I mean...it's a stat like points per game. It just is what it is. We all know there's more context to points per game, such as TS%, turnovers, teams, offensive system, pace. But points per game is what it is. It's a fact. Just like these are...with some minor issues, just what they are.

No. It’s not. Ppg is a stat reflecting how many points that player scored. He’s FG reflects how many shots he made versus took. You combine this with the context with how good or bad his team is to measure how good of an offensive player he actually is. With a defensive stat like this, the context is soo much more important. A pick and roll is a play defensively where the entire defense has to be on a string. So that metric could reflect how good a PNT defender he is, or it can reflect how good his team is at defending the pick and roll.

[NZB2323]

The thing I hate the most about these sorts of threads is the "he's never played with an All-Star!" Does being an all-star really matter?

The whole selection process is imperfect and full of biases, and players can not be all-stars and still be really good when it counts. They can also not be standouts but still fit together very well as a team.

Being an all-star doesn't matter. At all.

He’s also never played with an all-NBA player. And Murray didn’t play in the 21 or 22 playoffs and MPJ didn’t play in the 22 playoffs and he didn’t have Aaron Gordon until 21. And then the Nuggets didn’t keep Bruce Brown, so it’s hard to even say that Jokic has can a bunch of players who fit together very well as a team for a long time. Especially last year when Murray had his 47.4 TS% in the playoffs.

The 2021 Bucks went 2-0 without Giannis in the ECF.

Magic and Kareem played with each other, and James Worthy. Kareem also played with Oscar Robertson.

Bird played with McHale, Parish, DJ, Ainge, and Bill Walton.

Shaq and Kobe played with each other, and Shaq played with Penny, Horace Grant, and Wade. Kobe also played with Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom.

Lebron played with Wade, Bosh, Kyrie, Love, Anthony Davis, and now Luka.

Jordan played with Pippen, Grant, and Rodman.

Hakeem played with Sampson, Drexler, Barkley, and Pippen.

Duncan played with David Robinson, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, and Kawhi.

Bill Russell played with Cousy, Havlicek, Sharman, and Sam Jones.

Wilt played with Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, Nate Thurmond, Billy Cunningham, Hal Greer, and Chet Walker.

Curry played with Klay, Dray, Durant, Wiggins, and now Butler.

Jokic is the only player in NBA history to lead all players in the playoffs in total points, rebounds, and assists. His supporting cast isn’t like that of other all time greats.

[Special_Puppy]

Kind of weird for a "bad" defender to be defensive positive in long term RAPM

https://xrapm.com/table_pages/RAPM_29y.html

This all reminds me of Taylor's recent video talking about are their too many 3's or has the NBA just gotten too complex for the average fan to understand what they're seeing. And of course ESPN, TNT, and all the clowns perpetuate this by showing highlights that mislead the fans as to what's happening. It's not the fans fault, they are literally being spoon fed misleading highlights.

Do you think Jokic will have similiar RAPM as Tyson Chandler, a former DPOY at the conclusion of his career? When his rebounds go down and he becomes and even worse rim defender. Yall put value into an advance metric that you can’t even find across any NBA owned channels and allow it to convince you that what? Jokic is only a little bit worse of a defender than Tyson Chandler, even the metric is an amalgamation of a players entire career? And again how much more does his metric decrease from -2.1 by the end of his career?

We have eyes. What will your excuse be at the end of his career when this metric no longer has as a comparable defender to Chandler and better than Kidd and JJJ? C’mon man

I don't know what Jokic's post-prime defense has anything to do with his defense so far in his career

[DimesandKnicks]

This all reminds me of Taylor's recent video talking about are their too many 3's or has the NBA just gotten too complex for the average fan to understand what they're seeing. And of course ESPN, TNT, and all the clowns perpetuate this by showing highlights that mislead the fans as to what's happening. It's not the fans fault, they are literally being spoon fed misleading highlights.

Do you think Jokic will have similiar RAPM as Tyson Chandler, a former DPOY at the conclusion of his career? When his rebounds go down and he becomes and even worse rim defender. Yall put value into an advance metric that you can’t even find across any NBA owned channels and allow it to convince you that what? Jokic is only a little bit worse of a defender than Tyson Chandler, even the metric is an amalgamation of a players entire career? And again how much more does his metric decrease from -2.1 by the end of his career?

We have eyes. What will your excuse be at the end of his career when this metric no longer has as a comparable defender to Chandler and better than Kidd and JJJ? C’mon man

I'm not sure I follow the question.

Why are we comparing him in the first place? That doesn't make any sense to me.

What this multi year RAPM shows (as used by the other poster) is that Jokic has a positive impact on the defensive end. That's been the point that people keep trying to hammer home. Comparing a full career to a partial doesn't make a lot of sense. The value of the multi year RAPM is that it removes a lot of potential noise that single year RAPM will have. I wouldn't look at anyone else here other than to grasp perhaps what the "scale" is with this version of the metric.

Mike Conley has the same a RAPM as Damian Lilliard, a top 75 player. Draymond Greem is better than Giannis and Dirk and Rasheed Wallace is a top 20 player in the modern game. If these metrics are your king than I can see why your convinced Jokic is a plus defender.

[Special_Puppy]

Kat being only slightly bette than Wemby demonstates that stats like these aer trash. KAT is the worst pick and roll defender I've ever seen

I mean...it's a stat like points per game. It just is what it is. We all know there's more context to points per game, such as TS%, turnovers, teams, offensive system, pace. But points per game is what it is. It's a fact. Just like these are...with some minor issues, just what they are.

No. It’s not. Ppg is a stat reflecting how many points that player scored. He’s FG reflects how many shots he made versus took. You combine this with the context with how good or bad his team is to measure how good of an offensive player he actually is. With a defensive stat like this, the context is soo much more important. A pick and roll is a play defensively where the entire defense has to be on a string. So that metric could reflect how good a PNT defender he is, or it can reflect how good his team is at defending the pick and roll.

It calls into question OP's statement that Jokic is "easily" exposed in the pick and roll especially since its not like he has a good defensive supporting cast.

[dhsilv2]

Kat being only slightly bette than Wemby demonstates that stats like these aer trash. KAT is the worst pick and roll defender I've ever seen

I mean...it's a stat like points per game. It just is what it is. We all know there's more context to points per game, such as TS%, turnovers, teams, offensive system, pace. But points per game is what it is. It's a fact. Just like these are...with some minor issues, just what they are.

No. It’s not. Ppg is a stat reflecting how many points that player scored. He’s FG reflects how many shots he made versus took. You combine this with the context with how good or bad his team is to measure how good of an offensive player he actually is. With a defensive stat like this, the context is soo much more important. A pick and roll is a play defensively where the entire defense has to be on a string. So that metric could reflect how good a PNT defender he is, or it can reflect how good his team is at defending the pick and roll.

You're just confirming what I already said. There's context but the stat is what it is. When teams run pick and roll on jokic, which they do about 10 times a game. They generate 78 points per 100. It doesn't tell you more or less than that.