Jokić vs Hakeem

[atlantabbq99]

An older Dwight did give prime Jokic big problems, holding him to 20/7 on average shooting numbers in a 5 game series. Think if Jokic had to go up against Shaq, Robinson, Ewing, Smits, Mourning, Mutombo a dozen or two dozen times a year.....

Wemby has only been in the league for a year so the only real competition Jokic has is Sabonis

[capfan33]

Hakeem by a clear margin but Hakeem is on the short list of goat candidates for me so it’s no slight to Jokic.

[LeBronSpaghetti]

An older Dwight did give prime Jokic big problems, holding him to 20/7 on average shooting numbers in a 5 game series. Think if Jokic had to go up against Shaq, Robinson, Ewing, Smits, Mourning, Mutombo a dozen or two dozen times a year.....

Wemby has only been in the league for a year so the only real competition Jokic has is Sabonis

He averaged 22 in that series not 20. And during the regular season Jokic averaged 19 that year. Jokic averaging 19 a game is his prime now, apparently? Jokic actually upped his field goal percentage AND points per game averages in that series against the Lakers.

So the only remaining question is are you lying or just stupid?

[penbeast0]

Poster warned for name calling. Please don't respond to the inappropriate part of the post.

[1993Playoffs]

Gonna be tough for Jokic to be over Hakeem with ZERO defensive accolades as a center.

He is clearly better on offense though.

[70sFan]

I think it’s safe to say that the majority of people *on the PC Board* disagree with me on this (after all, the PC Board put Hakeem #6 all time). But I would not be at all sure that the majority of basketball fans more generally do.

Now the question is - are basketball fans in general more knowledgeable about basketball history than PC Board posters?

Anyway, to me there is very little evidences that Jokic is clearly better at his peak than Hakeem. You'd have to assume that his defense wasn't really that important or believe that he wasn't star-level offensive player even at his peak. Or you have to believe that Jokic is the clear GOAT offensively with nobody else coming even close to him, because it's not like Hakeem's peak was consistently put below one-way players like Magic or Curry.

[Jaivl]

Leaning with the bland, consensus opinion on this.

Right now Hakeem is clearly better in terms of career due to longevity; peak and average prime years are close. Huge offensive advantage vs huge defensive advantage. Not sure such obvious things even deserve a post, lol.

[migya]

For three and five year peak is a very good and close comparison between the two.

[penbeast0]

For three and five year peak is a very good and close comparison between the two.

It's a stronger case for Jokic, anyway. It does depend on how highly you rate offense v. defense and what you think of Hakeem's ability to pass out of the post and create for his teammates (which he greatly improved at over the course of his career).

[One_and_Done]

The one big advantage Jokic has here is that Hakeem's 3 yr peak from 93-95 is considerably better than most of his prime, so if this was for say a 6 year window then Jokic has more of an argument.

[70sFan]

The one big advantage Jokic has here is that Hakeem's 3 yr peak from 93-95 is considerably better than most of his prime, so if this was for say a 6 year window then Jokic has more of an argument.

I don't think there is a reasonable argument that 2020 Jokic was closer to his 2025 level than 1990 vs 1995 Hakeem.

[tsherkin]

So there's no question that Jokic is the superior offensive player. The real question is how much does Olajuwon's defense match that off, because that is also a very, very large gap. It's an interesting thing to consider, for sure.

[migya]

For three and five year peak is a very good and close comparison between the two.

It's a stronger case for Jokic, anyway. It does depend on how highly you rate offense v. defense and what you think of Hakeem's ability to pass out of the post and create for his teammates (which he greatly improved at over the course of his career).

Rockets did make alot of threes in Olajuwon's career AND that happened because of the double teams on Olajuwon and he passed to those shooters more often than not. I never understood the talk of Olajuwon not passing well.

[tsherkin]

For three and five year peak is a very good and close comparison between the two.

It's a stronger case for Jokic, anyway. It does depend on how highly you rate offense v. defense and what you think of Hakeem's ability to pass out of the post and create for his teammates (which he greatly improved at over the course of his career).

Rockets did make alot of threes in Olajuwon's career AND that happened because of the double teams on Olajuwon and he passed to those shooters more often than not. I never understood the talk of Olajuwon not passing well.

He was pretty simplistic in his reads and it took a while, and a new coach who made life simpler for him, in order for his efficacy to be there. It isn't surprising, given how late he came to the game. The amount he DID improve over time is quite impressive overall, including his shooting ability. Olajuwon was very, very fond of doing what people grill Kobe for, though: attacking double- and triple-teams and taking heavily-contested fadeaways. It's part of why his offensive efficiency was resilient into the playoffs but frequently not THAT stunning: he was getting the same kinds of shots because those were what the defense wanted to give him anyway.

[lessthanjake]

I think it’s safe to say that the majority of people *on the PC Board* disagree with me on this (after all, the PC Board put Hakeem #6 all time). But I would not be at all sure that the majority of basketball fans more generally do.

Now the question is - are basketball fans in general more knowledgeable about basketball history than PC Board posters?

In general, an individual PC board poster will be more knowledgeable than the average basketball fan, but there’s wisdom in crowds and the PC board is a very small group of people. Moreover, these are ultimately pretty subjective questions, so there’s a judgment aspect to it that goes beyond simple knowledge of facts. I definitely would be really hesitant to assume that the conclusions of people on the PC board must always be superior to those elsewhere.

Anyway, to me there is very little evidences that Jokic is clearly better at his peak than Hakeem. You'd have to assume that his defense wasn't really that important or believe that he wasn't star-level offensive player even at his peak. Or you have to believe that Jokic is the clear GOAT offensively with nobody else coming even close to him, because it's not like Hakeem's peak was consistently put below one-way players like Magic or Curry.

So, I think a few things:

- Jokic is in the GOAT-tier in terms of offense, and that is a very large difference with Hakeem, even though Hakeem was a good offensive player. It’s akin to comparing Jokic’s offense to someone like Giannis—who is simultaneously a very good offensive player but also far off from Jokic, such that Jokic is better overall despite a significant gap defensively. (Not that Giannis and Hakeem are comparable in terms of how they play or anything, but it’s just a very general analogy of the type of situation this is IMO).

- I think Jokic is actually a pretty solid defender. Definitely not at Hakeem’s level, but the other things he does beyond rim protection—particularly his GOAT-level impact on defensive rebounding—make a big difference. When combined with the fact that individual impact at the highest end is generally notably higher for offense than for defense (at least when we move past earlier decades of the NBA that aren’t relevant to this discussion), I don’t find it difficult to conclude that Jokic is a superior player despite not being as good defensively.

- In my opinion, this conclusion is buttressed by Hakeem’s pretty middling impact numbers. I don’t have a super high degree of confidence in this because the data we have from back then (i.e. things like Squared’s RAPM, Engelmann’s quarter-by-quarter RAPM-proxy, the early play-by-play data, etc.) is far from complete, but Hakeem’s data doesn’t look particularly great. His WOWYR looks a bit better than the RAPM snippets, but not good enough to bolster a case against prime Jokic. I tend to think that if Hakeem’s combination of offense and defense were really as good as people here often like to suggest, then that data would very likely look better.

- In most comparison with Hakeem, the response to this sort of stuff is mostly to say “Yeah, but Hakeem was an amazing playoff performer.” And in a lot of comparisons, that actually would be enough to sway me! There’s plenty of players I’d put below Hakeem, despite thinking they were more impactful regular-season players, because I think Hakeem performed notably better in the playoffs than they did. However, as I’ve mentioned, I don’t think that can rescue Hakeem in a comparison with Jokic—who is also an amazing playoff performer.

[f4p]

jokic is one of 6 box score giants from nba history.

mikan (what stats were available)
wilt
kareem
jordan
lebron
jokic

3 are #1/#2/#3 on most lists, wilt is very close to hakeem and mikan is the most era dominant player ever. when it's all said and done, i will probably have to begrudgingly put jokic over hakeem. you just don't dominate an era like this statistically without being way up the all time list.
even if i have hakeem #6, i can see jokic eventually being top 5 if he keeps it up for a few more years. i'd like to hold his playoff on/off against him (because it's generally not great) but it's so out of line with his spectacular regular season on/off that it's hard to believe the playoffs are really that different. and he had a dominant championship run with murray as his best teammate so he obviously doesn't need to play with top 50 type greatness to win.

[penbeast0]

For three and five year peak is a very good and close comparison between the two.

It's a stronger case for Jokic, anyway. It does depend on how highly you rate offense v. defense and what you think of Hakeem's ability to pass out of the post and create for his teammates (which he greatly improved at over the course of his career).

Rockets did make alot of threes in Olajuwon's career AND that happened because of the double teams on Olajuwon and he passed to those shooters more often than not. I never understood the talk of Olajuwon not passing well.

There's also a difference between "not passing well," not passing well compared to someone like Russell or Shaq (both very good passers), and of course not passing well compared to Jokic (a truly great passer).

[Beethoven]

Give me Hakeem any day of the week over jok

[70sFan]

In general, an individual PC board poster will be more knowledgeable than the average basketball fan, but there’s wisdom in crowds and the PC board is a very small group of people.

True, the thing is that despite what you say the crowd doesn't really tell us that Jokic is clearly better than Hakeem.

Moreover, these are ultimately pretty subjective questions, so there’s a judgment aspect to it that goes beyond simple knowledge of facts.

Well, it's not me saying that one player peaked clearly ahead of the other...

I definitely would be really hesitant to assume that the conclusions of people on the PC board must always be superior to those elsewhere.

Thankfully nobody tries to sell such idea here.

So, I think a few things:

- Jokic is in the GOAT-tier in terms of offense, and that is a very large difference with Hakeem, even though Hakeem was a good offensive player. It’s akin to comparing Jokic’s offense to someone like Giannis—who is simultaneously a very good offensive player but also far off from Jokic, such that Jokic is better overall despite a significant gap defensively. (Not that Giannis and Hakeem are comparable in terms of how they play or anything, but it’s just a very general analogy of the type of situation this is IMO).

- I think Jokic is actually a pretty solid defender. Definitely not at Hakeem’s level, but the other things he does beyond rim protection—particularly his GOAT-level impact on defensive rebounding—make a big difference. When combined with the fact that individual impact at the highest end is generally notably higher for offense than for defense (at least when we move past earlier decades of the NBA that aren’t relevant to this discussion), I don’t find it difficult to conclude that Jokic is a superior player despite not being as good defensively.

You see, that's the problem we have in basketball discussion. You have two absolutely elite offensive players and you (rightfully) differentiate between them, but when it comes to defense you basically say that being "solid" is enough. I have seen this many times - defense doesn't matter as long as you are not a huge liability. No, that's not how basketball works - there is a lot of room between "solid" and "GOAT-level" defender and it's just not true that offensive gap is all that matters as long as you are solid on D.

Even if we assume that individual impact on defense is typically lower than on offense (which isn't a given, especially in cross-era comparisons), that doesn't mean that the difference between GOAT-level offensive player and all-nba level offensive player is more important than between GOAT-level defensive player and "solid" defender with very clearly exploitable weaknesses.

- In my opinion, this conclusion is buttressed by Hakeem’s pretty middling impact numbers. I don’t have a super high degree of confidence in this because the data we have from back then (i.e. things like Squared’s RAPM, Engelmann’s quarter-by-quarter RAPM-proxy, the early play-by-play data, etc.) is far from complete, but Hakeem’s data doesn’t look particularly great. His WOWYR looks a bit better than the RAPM snippets, but not good enough to bolster a case against prime Jokic. I tend to think that if Hakeem’s combination of offense and defense were really as good as people here often like to suggest, then that data would very likely look better.

I can see that, although I don't think we have anything that has enough sample to make a clear conclusion from these data points.

- In most comparison with Hakeem, the response to this sort of stuff is mostly to say “Yeah, but Hakeem was an amazing playoff performer.” And in a lot of comparisons, that actually would be enough to sway me! There’s plenty of players I’d put below Hakeem, despite thinking they were more impactful regular-season players, because I think Hakeem performed notably better in the playoffs than they did. However, as I’ve mentioned, I don’t think that can rescue Hakeem in a comparison with Jokic—who is also an amazing playoff performer.

I'm not going to try to poke holes in Jokic's postseason performance because he's certainly great there, but again - just because both players play well in postseason doesn't mean we can't differentiate between their greatness.

I also want to point out that since you used impact metrics before, Jokic's postseason profile doesn't look really that good.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

You see, that's the problem we have in basketball discussion. You have two absolutely elite offensive players and you (rightfully) differentiate between them, but when it comes to defense you basically say that being "solid" is enough. I have seen this many times - defense doesn't matter as long as you are not a huge liability. No, that's not how basketball works - there is a lot of room between "solid" and "GOAT-level" defender and it's just not true that offensive gap is all that matters as long as you are solid on D.

Even if we assume that individual impact on defense is typically lower than on offense (which isn't a given, especially in cross-era comparisons), that doesn't mean that the difference between GOAT-level offensive player and all-nba level offensive player is more important than between GOAT-level defensive player and "solid" defender with very clearly exploitable weaknesses.

If I may jump in here...the underlined is, I think, where the disconnect is. You are framing them as equal, or at least on the same tier, as offensive players. I don't think they are. I think it's a pretty huge offensive gap between them, by the numbers.

Jokic, for the last five years at least, has been a much more efficient scorer than Hakeem ever was, and I'm just talking relative to league. Jokic's TS Adds for the last five seasons:

221.1
286.9
289.6
224.7
250.1

Hakeem only ever broke 100 TS Add twice, in 1993 and 1994.

In terms of volume, Jokic has marginal PER 100 edge there too...33.7pp100 RS and 37.2pp100 PO, to Hakeem's 30.3pp100 RS and 33.7pp100 PO. But efficiency is where Jokic blows Hakeem out of the water.

I grew up in the 90s with all the hype of Hakeem's offense, his footwork, the Dream Shake, all of it, but during the last Top 100 project, I realized for the first time that his numbers as a scorer, in terms of efficiency, are closer to Duncan and Garnett than they are to the Tier 1 offensive centers like Wilt or Kareem, and Jokic belongs in the second list. Even DRob - in the RS anyway - was much more efficient than Hakeem as a scorer.

And all of that is just scoring. Jokic might go down as the greatest playmaking center ever when all is said and done. For his career, he is at 11.2ap100(with 4.5 turnovers) RS and 10.1ap100(with 4.3 turnovers) PO, to Hakeem's 3.4ap100(with 4.1 turnovers) RS and 4.1ap100(with 3.8 turnovers) PO.

With all due respect, I think minimizing the gap offensively does a disservice to the debate.

All that said, the ultimate objective of the game is to win and, so far, Hakeem has accomplished more as a #1 option - two rings(94 and 95), one additional Finals appearance(86), and one additional WCF appearance(97), where Jokic has one ring(23) and one additional WCF appearance(20).