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

[DimesandKnicks]

How is telling you how many shots he contest a game versus how many FGA against him a game not quantifying it? That does not in any way shape or form show Jokic is a plus impact defender. It's like you're just ingoring every metric that puts him as a bottom feeder defensively. I'm not telling you my feelings, I'm giving yout the actual data...and asking how is that effort? How is having 20 FGA attempts on you but only contesting five effort?

You saying his three steals a game than Gobert's level of impact on shots defended is just bull, especially when getting a deflection doesn't end the defensive position and the team can just score within the next shot clock.

Gobert's actually defends the rim, and in turn...actually imtimitades players even attempting while opposing players get excited at seeing Jokic under the rim because they know per him being in place to defend 20 shots but only contesting 5, he isn't going to show any effort. So I'll ask again...because you side stepped my only question in the above post...how is having 20 opportunities to defend but only defending on 5 effort? or can we agree that he lacks effort when defending shots?

I haven't ignored any data you've provided. I've explained why contesting isn't important. I've explained why the 20 shots a game is a huge plus. I didn't say Jokic is having the same impact as Gobert. I was hoping to encourage you to ask questions about why his steals offsetting the defensive impact of Gobert could be real when we agree Gobert is a much better defender. But instead you made stuff up that I didn't say.

Again for the 20th time. It's better to be in a play than to be out of the play. There is no other aspect of defense more important than this. This is 90% of defense. Most plays a player isn't the one guarding the final shot attempt. And all that work is just as important as when you are the one guarding the shot. The key to playing good defense is to be in the right place, stay in the play, and to not screw up. And you to this point have still failed to even start to listen to this.

So you can keep repeating your shot attempts and contested shots till you're blue in the face. Most plays don't end in the shot even being taken against any one player. And yet Jokic being in the drop has a key role to play on every single defensive play. I've tried 1000x to explain this and you've yet to even once acknowledge this.

Contesting, for a center who is your helpside guy, is very important though. It's clear to anyone with eyes that most times guys drive against Denver Jokic doesn't even jump. No stats needed, and denying that is absurd.

Right? Like how are you giving credit for someone being in the right position to help but not helping, that’s bad defense

[AleksandarN]

I haven't ignored any data you've provided. I've explained why contesting isn't important. I've explained why the 20 shots a game is a huge plus. I didn't say Jokic is having the same impact as Gobert. I was hoping to encourage you to ask questions about why his steals offsetting the defensive impact of Gobert could be real when we agree Gobert is a much better defender. But instead you made stuff up that I didn't say.

Again for the 20th time. It's better to be in a play than to be out of the play. There is no other aspect of defense more important than this. This is 90% of defense. Most plays a player isn't the one guarding the final shot attempt. And all that work is just as important as when you are the one guarding the shot. The key to playing good defense is to be in the right place, stay in the play, and to not screw up. And you to this point have still failed to even start to listen to this.

So you can keep repeating your shot attempts and contested shots till you're blue in the face. Most plays don't end in the shot even being taken against any one player. And yet Jokic being in the drop has a key role to play on every single defensive play. I've tried 1000x to explain this and you've yet to even once acknowledge this.

Contesting, for a center who is your helpside guy, is very important though. It's clear to anyone with eyes that most times guys drive against Denver Jokic doesn't even jump. No stats needed, and denying that is absurd.

Right? Like how are you giving credit for someone being in the right position to help but not helping, that’s bad defense

JoKiC Is a PoOr DeFeNdEr

"Obviously, Nikola is not a guy in the league that you would say is an elite defender, but he's one of the highest IQ guys in the league," Haliburton said. "And I thought he did a great job in the pick-and-roll making me have to make different reads."

[AmIWrongDude]

I’m a stat guy over eye test usually but I’m not sure there’s one that could ever convince me Jokic is a decent defender. There’s no way my eyes could lie that much.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

That makes no sense but whatever *shrug*, good luck with that team defense

Gobert holds opponents to about 3% under their normal shooting. Jokic 0.5%. Do the math on what that means over a game. It's not as many points as you're wanting it to be.

3 percent versus a half a percentage is a huge diffence

I am not sure anyone's suggesting that Jokic is close to Rudy in terms of defensive impact. Had he been that there would have been no point to even start Goat debates.
The point you're making is that he's bad, not that he's not an all time great.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Very strange list

How is that calculated?

Basically just an evolution of looking what happens when a player switches teams or misses games

Watch on YouTube

;t=497s

I'm asking you. This is the metric you use to come to the conclusion that Jokic is plus defender, over tracking data that has him among the worst defenders in the leaugue. How is it calculated?

tracking data are not saying that, they are focusing on single data points and don't provide and overall evaluation of a player's defense, on their own.
your interpretation of those numbers is.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

I've been avoiding basketball chat for a bit because that was a total spanking. PBut rops to the Lakers for having designed a great game plan. Malone was thoroughly outcoached and they deserved the win. MPJ was a particular disappoinment and Strawther was a disaster.

But it's one game. The Lakers came out like it was the playoffs and the Nuggets came out like they were playing Charlotte. This is either a wake-up call or evidence that the Nuggets don't have it this year. We'll see in the next 5 games to come. I fear they don't have it and will have to trade MPJ. But let's see.

I'm just glad I've learned to not take these things personally. Basketball is fun, but it's just basketball.

To beat the Nuggets, you have to get the ball out of Jokic's hands or at least be able to make things difficult for him.

Minny and OKC know that, and now LAL is figuring it out, also.

If you can make it where the other Nuggets have to make the right reads and perform well to beat you, they're beatable.

Yes it's a one game sample but the principle is the correct one.

I am not totally convinced, that was too much of a sellout strategy to me.
I have a feeling it works if the team is not prepared, if they keep trying to force feed a swarmed Jokic generating tons of turnover.
Start moving the ball around, a few split screens and you're going to get an open 3 for Murray or Porter all the time.
We'll see, I am very curious.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

I’m a stat guy over eye test usually but I’m not sure there’s one that could ever convince me Jokic is a decent defender. There’s no way my eyes could lie that much.

if there's this much of a disconnect between my eyes and the numbers I normally pause and try to understand where's it's coming from. there might be an issue in the metric used, but then I must know what it is (like the importance of assists in DBPM). or maybe there something wrong in my beliefs about what makes someone a good defender, I am overrating the value loss with one's deficiencies while underrating the impact of his strengths.

[Optms]

I’m a stat guy over eye test usually but I’m not sure there’s one that could ever convince me Jokic is a decent defender. There’s no way my eyes could lie that much.

If they are trying to convince you, there lies the problem. Imagine someone trying to convince you Draymond is a good offensive player. Or that Bradley Beal doesn't have a terrible contract. Same application here. Only those guys don't have the rabid fanbase. So no one makes the argument for them.

[DimesandKnicks]

Gobert holds opponents to about 3% under their normal shooting. Jokic 0.5%. Do the math on what that means over a game. It's not as many points as you're wanting it to be.

3 percent versus a half a percentage is a huge diffence

I am not sure anyone's suggesting that Jokic is close to Rudy in terms of defensive impact. Had he been that there would have been no point to even start Goat debates.
The point you're making is that he's bad, not that he's not an all time great.

I know

[DimesandKnicks]

Basically just an evolution of looking what happens when a player switches teams or misses games

Watch on YouTube

;t=497s

I'm asking you. This is the metric you use to come to the conclusion that Jokic is plus defender, over tracking data that has him among the worst defenders in the leaugue. How is it calculated?

tracking data are not saying that, they are focusing on single data points and don't provide and overall evaluation of a player's defense, on their own.
your interpretation of those numbers is.

I can pretty much just watch him play. I'm providing metrics for the people who see them as their holy grail. And tracking data absolutely makes a case that Jokic is one of the worst defensive players in the league.

[hardenASG13]

Contesting, for a center who is your helpside guy, is very important though. It's clear to anyone with eyes that most times guys drive against Denver Jokic doesn't even jump. No stats needed, and denying that is absurd.

Right? Like how are you giving credit for someone being in the right position to help but not helping, that’s bad defense

JoKiC Is a PoOr DeFeNdEr

"Obviously, Nikola is not a guy in the league that you would say is an elite defender, but he's one of the highest IQ guys in the league," Haliburton said. "And I thought he did a great job in the pick-and-roll making me have to make different reads."

Obviously, he is a high IQ guy. Do you think he consistently does a great job in the pick and roll or would you say he's consistently targeted in it? Which is the most accurate overall statement? If it's the latter, what point are you making citing this singular quote, from Tyrese Haliburton, from one regular season game? Haven't you learned not to make points about Jokic based on one game, like your "Jokic is not him" thread, or your "Jokic needs more help" thread, when they were tied 2-2 vs. a clearly overmatched suns team in 2023, on their way to easily winning the title and his teammates playing great?

[Ryoga Hibiki]

I'm asking you. This is the metric you use to come to the conclusion that Jokic is plus defender, over tracking data that has him among the worst defenders in the leaugue. How is it calculated?

tracking data are not saying that, they are focusing on single data points and don't provide and overall evaluation of a player's defense, on their own.
your interpretation of those numbers is.

I can pretty much just watch him play. I'm providing metrics for the people who see them as their holy grail. And tracking data absolutely makes a case that Jokic is one of the worst defensive players in the league.

What I think you're missing is that nobody is contesting the single observations you are making, about the defense.
The issue here is how to put together his strengths and weaknesses to have an evaluation of his defense in the aggregate.
That's a much deeper discussion and just "watching games" without critically testing your views just leads to following your biases. "Defensive value" is an extremely complex and elusive concept, don't assume you have everything figured out because, most likely, you didn't.
What I have learnt over the years is that, whenever RAPM is giving me signals completely opposite to my eye test, there's a good chance that I am missing something on why that particular player is creating value, in that situation.

[dhsilv2]

I'm asking you. This is the metric you use to come to the conclusion that Jokic is plus defender, over tracking data that has him among the worst defenders in the leaugue. How is it calculated?

tracking data are not saying that, they are focusing on single data points and don't provide and overall evaluation of a player's defense, on their own.
your interpretation of those numbers is.

I can pretty much just watch him play. I'm providing metrics for the people who see them as their holy grail. And tracking data absolutely makes a case that Jokic is one of the worst defensive players in the league.

no it doesn't...

What you've shown is he's one of the worst at contesting shots. That's a TINY part of defense. Most defense is done without a contest by each individual player. There's only 1 ball.

[dhsilv2]

Right? Like how are you giving credit for someone being in the right position to help but not helping, that’s bad defense

JoKiC Is a PoOr DeFeNdEr

"Obviously, Nikola is not a guy in the league that you would say is an elite defender, but he's one of the highest IQ guys in the league," Haliburton said. "And I thought he did a great job in the pick-and-roll making me have to make different reads."

Obviously, he is a high IQ guy. Do you think he consistently does a great job in the pick and roll or would you say he's consistently targeted in it? Which is the most accurate overall statement? If it's the latter, what point are you making citing this singular quote, from Tyrese Haliburton, from one regular season game? Haven't you learned not to make points about Jokic based on one game, like your "Jokic is not him" thread, or your "Jokic needs more help" thread, when they were tied 2-2 vs. a clearly overmatched suns team in 2023, on their way to easily winning the title and his teammates playing great?

Teams are scoring less than 0.8 ppp when he's involved in pick and role. That's great defense.

[dhsilv2]

tracking data are not saying that, they are focusing on single data points and don't provide and overall evaluation of a player's defense, on their own.
your interpretation of those numbers is.

I can pretty much just watch him play. I'm providing metrics for the people who see them as their holy grail. And tracking data absolutely makes a case that Jokic is one of the worst defensive players in the league.

What I think you're missing is that nobody is contesting the single observations you are making, about the defense.
The issue here is how to put together his strengths and weaknesses to have an evaluation of his defense in the aggregate.
That's a much deeper discussion and just "watching games" without critically testing your views just leads to following your biases. "Defensive value" is an extremely complex and elusive concept, don't assume you have everything figured out because, most likely, you didn't.
What I have learnt over the years is that, whenever RAPM is giving me signals completely opposite to my eye test, there's a good chance that I am missing something on why that particular player is creating value, in that situation.

One of the biggest thing that RAPM has done for me is to force me to watch what happens away from the ball. Consistently the guys who have the biggest impact who we don't already think about are elite at making reads away from the ball. And that makes perfect sense, most of defense is played away from the ball. Same reason Klay kept getting all this defensive hype (on ball defense) while RAPM was like "meh", because off ball he would just fall asleep.

[scrabbarista]

I’m a stat guy over eye test usually but I’m not sure there’s one that could ever convince me Jokic is a decent defender. There’s no way my eyes could lie that much.

if there's this much of a disconnect between my eyes and the numbers I normally pause and try to understand where's it's coming from. there might be an issue in the metric used, but then I must know what it is (like the importance of assists in DBPM). or maybe there something wrong in believes about what makes someone a good defender, I am overrating the value loss with once deficiencies while underrating the impact of his strengths.

While we're on the subject, teams with Jokic on the floor always shoot extremely high field goal percentages. This puts his team in a position to play half court defense a lot, and half court defense is far more effective than transition defense. For some reason, I rarely see this mentioned, even though Jokic's "good" defensive numbers are mentioned all the time.

[scrabbarista]

tracking data are not saying that, they are focusing on single data points and don't provide and overall evaluation of a player's defense, on their own.
your interpretation of those numbers is.

I can pretty much just watch him play. I'm providing metrics for the people who see them as their holy grail. And tracking data absolutely makes a case that Jokic is one of the worst defensive players in the league.

no it doesn't...

What you've shown is he's one of the worst at contesting shots. That's a TINY part of defense. Most defense is done without a contest by each individual player. There's only 1 ball.

For example, OKC shoots close to 40% of its shots in the paint, while their opponents shoot close to 20%. (I can't remember if this is paint or rim, so I'm assuming paint.) [EDIT: It was at the rim! Source is the Dunc'd On Podcast.] Most of that is probably because of their perimeter defenders and team strategy.

You were talking about all contests, but I was speaking to contests within a specific area. It's more effective, for example, to not even allow a shot than it is to give a good contest.

[dhsilv2]

How is telling you how many shots he contest a game versus how many FGA against him a game not quantifying it? That does not in any way shape or form show Jokic is a plus impact defender. It's like you're just ingoring every metric that puts him as a bottom feeder defensively. I'm not telling you my feelings, I'm giving yout the actual data...and asking how is that effort? How is having 20 FGA attempts on you but only contesting five effort?

You saying his three steals a game than Gobert's level of impact on shots defended is just bull, especially when getting a deflection doesn't end the defensive position and the team can just score within the next shot clock.

Gobert's actually defends the rim, and in turn...actually imtimitades players even attempting while opposing players get excited at seeing Jokic under the rim because they know per him being in place to defend 20 shots but only contesting 5, he isn't going to show any effort. So I'll ask again...because you side stepped my only question in the above post...how is having 20 opportunities to defend but only defending on 5 effort? or can we agree that he lacks effort when defending shots?

I haven't ignored any data you've provided. I've explained why contesting isn't important. I've explained why the 20 shots a game is a huge plus. I didn't say Jokic is having the same impact as Gobert. I was hoping to encourage you to ask questions about why his steals offsetting the defensive impact of Gobert could be real when we agree Gobert is a much better defender. But instead you made stuff up that I didn't say.

Again for the 20th time. It's better to be in a play than to be out of the play. There is no other aspect of defense more important than this. This is 90% of defense. Most plays a player isn't the one guarding the final shot attempt. And all that work is just as important as when you are the one guarding the shot. The key to playing good defense is to be in the right place, stay in the play, and to not screw up. And you to this point have still failed to even start to listen to this.

So you can keep repeating your shot attempts and contested shots till you're blue in the face. Most plays don't end in the shot even being taken against any one player. And yet Jokic being in the drop has a key role to play on every single defensive play. I've tried 1000x to explain this and you've yet to even once acknowledge this.

Contesting, for a center who is your helpside guy, is very important though. It's clear to anyone with eyes that most times guys drive against Denver Jokic doesn't even jump. No stats needed, and denying that is absurd.

Nobody is questioning this. Jokic chooses to avoid fouls by not taking those risks because even when he does challenge the return is minimal. Meanwhile fouling a shooter is so far and away the worst outcome possible, that it can negate a dozen well contested shots. That isn't to say there aren't times it's worth it to risk it. But in the long term, challenging shots when you're not great at it, is going to have a negative return.

But just to hammer this home. Among big men, Jokic is in the bottom 25% in shot blocking. If this were a question on that, we'd all agree he's bad at it. But defense is MUCH more complicated than that. If defense were this easy to quantify and explain, we'd know who's a good defender or not. But we struggle with this time and time again.

[dhsilv2]

I can pretty much just watch him play. I'm providing metrics for the people who see them as their holy grail. And tracking data absolutely makes a case that Jokic is one of the worst defensive players in the league.

no it doesn't...

What you've shown is he's one of the worst at contesting shots. That's a TINY part of defense. Most defense is done without a contest by each individual player. There's only 1 ball.

For example, OKC shoots close to 40% of its shots in the paint, while their opponents shoot close to 20%. (I can't remember if this is paint or rim, so I'm assuming paint.) Most of that is probably because of their perimeter defenders and team strategy.

EDIT: You were talking about all contests, but I was speaking to contests within a specific area. It's more effective, for example, to not even allow a shot than it is to give a good contest.

This is why a steal is so valuable. A team scoring 110 per 100, that's an instant 1.1 points saved on average per steal. Now, if you're getting those while gambling, you can give it all back. But guys getting steals while in good defense? Well that's a HUGE benefit that will offset some other weak areas, a lot of them.

Or we could look at all the pick and roll used again Jokic, that's one of the areas he gets so many deflections on. So while he might be a bit slow...if you're having 1-3 of those a game broken up. It gets really difficult to get your return off those plays even if if you get some great looks on plays he doesn't break up.

So yeah, the goal is the prevent the easy looks. Same reason contested defensive rebounds are such a big deal. If you lose those, it's normally an easy score for the offense.

[dhsilv2]

I’m a stat guy over eye test usually but I’m not sure there’s one that could ever convince me Jokic is a decent defender. There’s no way my eyes could lie that much.

if there's this much of a disconnect between my eyes and the numbers I normally pause and try to understand where's it's coming from. there might be an issue in the metric used, but then I must know what it is (like the importance of assists in DBPM). or maybe there something wrong in believes about what makes someone a good defender, I am overrating the value loss with once deficiencies while underrating the impact of his strengths.

While we're on the subject, teams with Jokic on the floor always shoot extremely high field goal percentages. This puts his team in a position to play half court defense a lot, and half court defense is far more effective than transition defense. For some reason, I rarely see this mentioned, even though Jokic's "good" defensive numbers are mentioned all the time.

This is one of the reasons I tend to say Jokic is average to a small plus despite RAPM giving some indications that he might be a bit better. Though...I guess the best defense is good offense isn't completely false. But I tend to not want to assign that value to Jokic in this context.