Jokić vs Hakeem

[tsherkin]

The 1990 and 1991 first rounds are reminders of why you're taking Jokic over Hakeem. Or something.

Imagine being completely nullified offensively by a team with zero bigs except for rookie Vlade Divac. Ivica Zubac would've locked that bum to 10 ppg.

Hakeem's peak was 93-95. I agree that 90 or 91 Hakeem isn't moving the needle vs the Clippers.

What exactly did Hakeem magically gain in 2 years that he'd suddenly start to move the needle?

Spacing at the 4, increased shooting volume and minutes played. Actually declined a bit at the FT line and on the offensive glass. One could argue he was pushing it a little too much in 94 and 95 as a volume scorer as he reached his max volume.

A lot of his approach looked pretty similar to me. He had the moves and the chains thereof. He had the range, the handle. He was still pretty athletic. Didn't look radically different, apart from just shooting more. Rudy took over for what, the last 30 games of 92? And that's when things started to change in terms of Olajuwon's PPG.

[eminence]

If you're playing on the court with an offensive great like Jokic (Steph/LeBron/etc), your points are always a bit Jokic created.

Murray has pretty consistently led poor results with Jokic off the floor. 2019 to now:

Jokic+Murray: 11695 minutes, +9.0 Net, +9.1 Offense
Jokic Only: 8638 minutes, +6.0 Net, +5.0 Offense
Neither: 6612 minutes, -6.4 Net, -7.5 Offense
Murray Only: 3506 minutes, -4.0 Net, -2.9 Offense

Seems a little bench focused, no? I am not sure whether you are using pbpstats, because the numbers they give are slightly different (+5.47 Jokic only, -3.83 Jamal only), but going by their values, if you look at the 600 minutes that Murray has played over that stretch without Jokic in the game at all (so disproportionately playing without starters), he has a +4.2 on-court rating. I would not marry myself to that as an accurate representation of what Jamal would do in a larger Jokic-less sample, but it does feel worth noting given how Malone had handled team rotations throughout all those years.

And then in terms of production, while Jokic obviously helps Jamal’s scoring… I would not characterise it as a particularly dramatic scoring boost. Same timeframe, pbpstats has Jamal going from 29.76 points per 100 possessions (57.1% true shooting) with Jokic to 31.14 points per 100 possessions (54.4% true shooting) without Jokic. As a point of comparison, you can find a significantly more substantial effect from Draymond on Steph.

We should be able to acknowledge Jamal’s playoff scoring without trying ascribe brilliant shotmaking as a case of passive gravity from Jokic — especially when the specific playoff sample across that stretch paints a different picture from what you see in the regular season.

My broad point was that Murray's scoring =/= impact. Murray is absolutely a much better scorer than who Hakeem had as running mates for his prime. Better player? Probably by a small margin, but he's not lapping the Thorpes of the world. In that fringe allstar, 30th in the league range (Gordon not far behind and arguable as #2 Nugget since he's arrived).

I'll use pbpstats for further discussions to keep things uniform (not that the differences are meaningful).

How are you weighing team rotations here? I see it as more of an issue when comparing guys from different teams, any particular reason you think Malones rotations were causing Murray and crew to lose the non-Jokic minutes so convincingly? Any reasonable size sample of Nuggets without Jokic has failed is my notable takeaway from the above.

'Playoff Murray' is overrated to no end. Vs the Jazz in '20 and the Lakers in '23 he was great and stand out as clearly his two best series, laud those if you want - but they are 2 series totaling 11 games. On the opposite end is '24 vs Minnesota where he looked like prime DLo. The rest are about what you'd expect from a fringe allstar.

[AEnigma]

If you're playing on the court with an offensive great like Jokic (Steph/LeBron/etc), your points are always a bit Jokic created.

Murray has pretty consistently led poor results with Jokic off the floor. 2019 to now:

Jokic+Murray: 11695 minutes, +9.0 Net, +9.1 Offense
Jokic Only: 8638 minutes, +6.0 Net, +5.0 Offense
Neither: 6612 minutes, -6.4 Net, -7.5 Offense
Murray Only: 3506 minutes, -4.0 Net, -2.9 Offense

Seems a little bench focused, no? I am not sure whether you are using pbpstats, because the numbers they give are slightly different (+5.47 Jokic only, -3.83 Jamal only), but going by their values, if you look at the 600 minutes that Murray has played over that stretch without Jokic in the game at all (so disproportionately playing without starters), he has a +4.2 on-court rating. I would not marry myself to that as an accurate representation of what Jamal would do in a larger Jokic-less sample, but it does feel worth noting given how Malone had handled team rotations throughout all those years.

And then in terms of production, while Jokic obviously helps Jamal’s scoring… I would not characterise it as a particularly dramatic scoring boost. Same timeframe, pbpstats has Jamal going from 29.76 points per 100 possessions (57.1% true shooting) with Jokic to 31.14 points per 100 possessions (54.4% true shooting) without Jokic. As a point of comparison, you can find a significantly more substantial effect from Draymond on Steph.

We should be able to acknowledge Jamal’s playoff scoring without trying ascribe brilliant shotmaking as a case of passive gravity from Jokic — especially when the specific playoff sample across that stretch paints a different picture from what you see in the regular season.

My broad point was that Murray's scoring =/= impact. Murray is absolutely a much better scorer than who Hakeem had as running mates for his prime. Better player? Probably by a small margin, but he's not lapping the Thorpes of the world. In that fringe allstar, 30th in the league range (Gordon not far behind and arguable as #2 Nugget since he's arrived).

I understand your point, but you could have said that without going into how Jamal does not lead good lineups without Jokic.

How are you weighing team rotations here? I see it as more of an issue when comparing guys from different teams, any particular reason you think Malones rotations were causing Murray and crew to lose the non-Jokic minutes so convincingly?

The team is completely built around Jokic, so I do not find it too surprising that removing him craters their effectiveness, but we should not penalise Jamal for being the most commonly staggered starter. The amount of time Gordon plays without Jokic is roughly on par with the amount of time Jamal plays without either Gordon or Jokic; when you look at the frontcourt depth past those two, I am not sure I can think of any small who would succeed with those lineups, let alone a “fringe all-star” one.

Any reasonable size sample of Nuggets without Jokic has failed is my notable takeaway from the above.

That is true of basically all these players over extended stretches — but with Jokic, the teams’s results when he misses games notably outpaces the team’s “off” when he goes to the bench, and it is odd how often that is overlooked or glossed over.

[Cavsfansince84]

I have Hakeem 6th all time. I don't think I have Jokic as top 15 quite yet. I'm sure he will probably get there but he's only 30. Him reaching Hakeem isn't some kind of certainty by the time he is done though.

[trex_8063]

That is true of basically all these players over extended stretches — but with Jokic, the teams’s results when he misses games notably outpaces the team’s “off” when he goes to the bench, and it is odd how often that is overlooked or glossed over.

A fair point. What is at play there, do you think? Like, why should the difference be so notable? It's not like the NBA's schedule really allows for them to get a ton of time to game-plan and practice without Jokic when he misses a game here or there (which is basically all he's really missed; been fairly durable).
Just allows them a little more time to find their rhythm without him??

[One_and_Done]

The 1990 and 1991 first rounds are reminders of why you're taking Jokic over Hakeem. Or something.

Imagine being completely nullified offensively by a team with zero bigs except for rookie Vlade Divac. Ivica Zubac would've locked that bum to 10 ppg.

Hakeem's peak was 93-95. I agree that 90 or 91 Hakeem isn't moving the needle vs the Clippers.

What exactly did Hakeem magically gain in 2 years that he'd suddenly start to move the needle?

It's impossible to know why a player just started playing better. We can all speculate on reasons, e.g. 'Hakeem finally got his head on right', or 'the coach reached him', or maybe 'everything just clicked for them'. The reasons don't matter though, all that matters is he started playing much better for some reason.

[70sFan]

Hakeem's peak was 93-95. I agree that 90 or 91 Hakeem isn't moving the needle vs the Clippers.

What exactly did Hakeem magically gain in 2 years that he'd suddenly start to move the needle?

It's impossible to know why a player just started playing better. We can all speculate on reasons, e.g. 'Hakeem finally got his head on right', or 'the coach reached him', or maybe 'everything just clicked for them'. The reasons don't matter though, all that matters is he started playing much better for some reason.

I'm not asking for the reason, I am asking what changed in Hakeem's skillset that made him another tier player. Just break down his skillset before and after Rudy T addition.

[AEnigma]

That is true of basically all these players over extended stretches — but with Jokic, the teams’s results when he misses games notably outpaces the team’s “off” when he goes to the bench, and it is odd how often that is overlooked or glossed over.

A fair point. What is at play there, do you think? Like, why should the difference be so notable? It's not like the NBA's schedule really allows for them to get a ton of time to game-plan and practice without Jokic when he misses a game here or there (which is basically all he's really missed; been fairly durable).
Just allows them a little more time to find their rhythm without him??

I think it is just a change in lineup approach. Take Aaron Gordon: since he has arrived in Denver, when he and Jokic both play, 90% of Gordon’s minutes are with Jokic. So inherently every “off” sample involves lineups with minimal contribution from Gordon. For MPJ, it is around 85%, so there is another starter down. Add on that the Nuggets bench has generally been thin and/or bad, and you are going to see a lot of dismal lineups. That is why I was so irked when I saw narratives extrapolating Jokic’s “off” rating into a full season: yeah, if you lose Jokic, and 90% of Gordon, and 85% of MPJ, and ~70-75% of Murray, and you do not have much in the way of bench support, we should expect the ensuing result to look awful, but instead people were pretending like those “off” results were with the rest of the core playing usual minute shares.

By contrast, when Jokic is out of the game entirely, guys like Gordon and MPJ are still going to be playing the majority of the game, and although their Jokic-less results are nothing impressive, they are a lot better than “historically terrible”. A part of me would like to see more extended runs with Jokic + bench lineups, a little like what was common with Kyle Lowry on the Raptors before VanVleet came into his own, but I can believe that the synergy among the starters is worth more than staggering them to better prop up the bench.

[One_and_Done]

What exactly did Hakeem magically gain in 2 years that he'd suddenly start to move the needle?

It's impossible to know why a player just started playing better. We can all speculate on reasons, e.g. 'Hakeem finally got his head on right', or 'the coach reached him', or maybe 'everything just clicked for them'. The reasons don't matter though, all that matters is he started playing much better for some reason.

I'm not asking for the reason, I am asking what changed in Hakeem's skillset that made him another tier player. Just break down his skillset before and after Rudy T addition.

He certainly started passing better. That's probably a good place for you to start. He started playing better and smarter on offense in general in fact. Less sulking, and being a better example to his team mates too, though that part is less quantifiable. Hos floor game just seemed better too. Alot of little things got better, and cumulatively those added up. Before that period Hakeem was playing much more like the equal of other great centers in the NBA, after he was clearly outplaying guys like D.Rob and Ewing by a large degree. For whatever reason, everything just seemed to click for him.

[Ol Roy]

What exactly did Hakeem magically gain in 2 years that he'd suddenly start to move the needle?

I enjoy watching younger Hakeem more. Abounding energy and mobility. He just needed a proper system to channel it. I think 1990 is probably his natural peak.

[OhayoKD]

That is true of basically all these players over extended stretches — but with Jokic, the teams’s results when he misses games notably outpaces the team’s “off” when he goes to the bench, and it is odd how often that is overlooked or glossed over.

A fair point. What is at play there, do you think? Like, why should the difference be so notable? It's not like the NBA's schedule really allows for them to get a ton of time to game-plan and practice without Jokic when he misses a game here or there (which is basically all he's really missed; been fairly durable).
Just allows them a little more time to find their rhythm without him??

I think it is just a change in lineup approach. Take Aaron Gordon: since he has arrived in Denver, when he and Jokic both play, 90% of Gordon’s minutes are with Jokic. So inherently every “off” sample involves lineups with minimal contribution from Gordon. For MPJ, it is around 85%, so there is another starter down. Add on that the Nuggets bench has generally been thin and/or bad, and you are going to see a lot of dismal lineups. That is why I was so irked when I saw narratives extrapolating Jokic’s “off” rating into a full season: yeah, if you lose Jokic, and 90% of Gordon, and 85% of MPJ, and ~70-75% of Murray, and you do not have much in the way of bench support, we should expect the ensuing result to look awful, but instead people were pretending like those “off” results were with the rest of the core playing usual minute shares.

By contrast, when Jokic is out of the game entirely, guys like Gordon and MPJ are still going to be playing the majority of the game, and although their Jokic-less results are nothing impressive, they are a lot better than “historically terrible”. A part of me would like to see more extended runs with Jokic + bench lineups, a little like what was common with Kyle Lowry on the Raptors before VanVleet came into his own, but I can believe that the synergy among the starters is worth more than staggering them to better prop up the bench.

Jokic Magic MJ

sitting in a tree

P-l- (fast) a-t double-o (slow down) i-n-g

[AEnigma]

Missing a letter there.

[trex_8063]

That is true of basically all these players over extended stretches — but with Jokic, the teams’s results when he misses games notably outpaces the team’s “off” when he goes to the bench, and it is odd how often that is overlooked or glossed over.

A fair point. What is at play there, do you think? Like, why should the difference be so notable? It's not like the NBA's schedule really allows for them to get a ton of time to game-plan and practice without Jokic when he misses a game here or there (which is basically all he's really missed; been fairly durable).
Just allows them a little more time to find their rhythm without him??

I think it is just a change in lineup approach. Take Aaron Gordon: since he has arrived in Denver, when he and Jokic both play, 90% of Gordon’s minutes are with Jokic. So inherently every “off” sample involves lineups with minimal contribution from Gordon. For MPJ, it is around 85%, so there is another starter down. Add on that the Nuggets bench has generally been thin and/or bad, and you are going to see a lot of dismal lineups. That is why I was so irked when I saw narratives extrapolating Jokic’s “off” rating into a full season: yeah, if you lose Jokic, and 90% of Gordon, and 85% of MPJ, and ~70-75% of Murray, and you do not have much in the way of bench support, we should expect the ensuing result to look awful, but instead people were pretending like those “off” results were with the rest of the core playing usual minute shares.

That would explain a lot (certainly at least in the playoffs).

He doesn't get quite the amount of time with with the other starters as you indicate in the rs, though (where he's still +19.0). Your figures are close enough for the playoffs, when all the starters are playing more.
e.g. 94.4% with Christian Braun in playoffs so far, 88.3% with Murray, 84.0% with Gordon, though only 64.6% with MPJ (and 41.8% with Westbrook); apparently hasn't played with anyone else in ps, though they do only go a 7-man rotation in ps (except garbage time).

In the rs, however, there's only one guy >80% (no where near 90), and only three >60%.......
With Aaron Gordon this year, given it was an injury year for him (his minutes down a bit in general, too): only 43.5% of Jokic's minutes were on the court with Gordon.

The guy he plays the most with in the rs this year is again Christian Braun, at 81.4%.
With MPJ it's 71.9%.
With Jamal Murray it's only 63.0%.
52.2% with Westbrook.
(again, Gordon is next at 43.5%)
35.0% with Peyton Watson.
25.5% with Julian Strawther (that one is definitely no prize).
12.9% with Jalen Pickett.
No one else as high as 10%.


fwiw, last year also wasn't 70-90% with each starter; in fact he didn't have as much as 80% with anyone (and the highest was a role-player [a good one, but role player nonetheless]).....

79.5% with KCP
77.4% with MPJ
72.7% with Gordon
51.4% with Murray
37.6% with Reggie Jackson
28.5% with Braun
23.3% with Peyton Watson
15.5% with the last legs of Justin Holiday

Still +20.


In '23 rs......
81.8% with KCP
72.7% with Gordon
65.5% with Murray
60.0% with MPJ
53.0% with Bruce Brown [6th man]
15.2% with Braun (who I believe was a rookie that year)
14.9% with Vlatko Cancar
12.3% with the near last legs of Jeff Green
12.0% with Bones Hyland

Still +21.9.


None of this disproves or nullifies your concept, mind you; merely pointing out he's not quite as married to the other four starters as you've implied, while he puts out these ~+20 or better on/off's year after year.

And I also note that if most of his minutes are with teammates X, Y, and Z......then most of the minutes for X, Y, and Z must also be with Jokic. Yet we only ever see one or maybe two teammates whose on/off is even remotely close to Jokic's (the highest ALWAYS being the guy Jokic has the highest proportion of his minutes with [e.g. KCP, KCP, Braun for the last three years].

By contrast, when Jokic is out of the game entirely, guys like Gordon and MPJ are still going to be playing the majority of the game, and although their Jokic-less results are nothing impressive, they are a lot better than “historically terrible”. A part of me would like to see more extended runs with Jokic + bench lineups, a little like what was common with Kyle Lowry on the Raptors before VanVleet came into his own, but I can believe that the synergy among the starters is worth more than staggering them to better prop up the bench.

Or Stockton with the Jazz. All through the late 90s, anyway, he was the one tasked with playing with the 2nd unit (which was often pretty thin on talent). His on/off frequently looks unremarkable as a result (though his RAPM still fantastic).
I've kinda lost track of where Jokic has ranked league-wide in RAPM the last few years. I assume it's very high, though I don't know if it's like top 5-6 high or best-in-the-league high.

[trex_8063]

.

As per above, Jokic in the rs has averaged about 70% of his minutes with each co-starter in recent years (except down to avg of 65% with each this year---with Gordon's injuries---and his on/off fell to 'only' +19.0).

Out of curiosity, I wanted to see how that 'starter-centric' minute distribution compares to other superstars in recent years.

In '23 [rs], Luka Doncic (note it's a bit harder because they had a MUCH less consistent starting line-up, with mid-season trades; have tried to adjust for this) played......
65.3% of his minutes with another starting guard: 46.2% with Dinwiddie + 19.1% with Kyrie Irving (Dinwiddie part of trade to obtain Irving before deadline; both starters)
64.2% with a starting or high-minute PF: 40.0% with Dorian Finney-Smith (starter before trade) + 24.2% with Maxi Kleber (injury year, though about half his games and all 5 starts came after trade deadline)
61.0% with Reggie Bullock*
58.4% with T.Hardaway Jr* (*both Hardaway and Bullock were only sometime starters, though both >30 mpg players)
41.6% with Dwight Powell (usually a starter, though only 19.2 mpg)

Definitely more muddy than with Jokic's line-ups, but it looks like Doncic enjoyed an average of about 58% of his minutes with each starter, or thereabouts.
He was a +4.9 on/off on the year.


In '24....
61.7% of his minutes with the starting PF: 34.4% with Grant Williams + 27.3% with PJ Washington (mid-season trade, one for the other, basically)
50.9% of his minutes with Derrick Jones, Jr
49.5% with Kyrie Irving (he missed about a third of the year)
41.0% with Dereck Lively (he too missed about a third of the year)

Also 48.5% with Tim Hardaway (an occasional starter [12 times] who averaged nearly 27 mpg that year), 36.4% with Josh Green [started 33 games and avg >26 mpg that year], and 23.6% with Maxi Kleber (who played mostly C this year, avg >20 mpg and started 7 games).

I'm not sure how to reconcile all that with avg time with other starters.......something close to 60% with each other starter, all things considered.
He was a +9.5 on/off that year.



idk, do with that info what you will.....I was just curious.

[penbeast0]

It's impossible to know why a player just started playing better. We can all speculate on reasons, e.g. 'Hakeem finally got his head on right', or 'the coach reached him', or maybe 'everything just clicked for them'. The reasons don't matter though, all that matters is he started playing much better for some reason.

I'm not asking for the reason, I am asking what changed in Hakeem's skillset that made him another tier player. Just break down his skillset before and after Rudy T addition.

He certainly started passing better. That's probably a good place for you to start. He started playing better and smarter on offense in general in fact. Less sulking, and being a better example to his team mates too, though that part is less quantifiable. Hos floor game just seemed better too. Alot of little things got better, and cumulatively those added up. Before that period Hakeem was playing much more like the equal of other great centers in the NBA, after he was clearly outplaying guys like D.Rob and Ewing by a large degree. For whatever reason, everything just seemed to click for him.

His strength is his being a playoff riser. Regular season, Hakeem was probably still a shade behind pre-injury David Robinson and not clearly better than Ewing. The Admiral owned him head to head too (individual close but SA won the games consistently) . . . right up until that one iconic playoff series in Robinson's regular season MVP year. Playoff Hakeem, just kept it up or even dialed it up while the other two slipped back significantly.

[70sFan]

It's impossible to know why a player just started playing better. We can all speculate on reasons, e.g. 'Hakeem finally got his head on right', or 'the coach reached him', or maybe 'everything just clicked for them'. The reasons don't matter though, all that matters is he started playing much better for some reason.

I'm not asking for the reason, I am asking what changed in Hakeem's skillset that made him another tier player. Just break down his skillset before and after Rudy T addition.

He certainly started passing better. That's probably a good place for you to start. He started playing better and smarter on offense in general in fact. Less sulking, and being a better example to his team mates too, though that part is less quantifiable. Hos floor game just seemed better too. Alot of little things got better, and cumulatively those added up. Before that period Hakeem was playing much more like the equal of other great centers in the NBA, after he was clearly outplaying guys like D.Rob and Ewing by a large degree. For whatever reason, everything just seemed to click for him.

What exactly did he improve in his passing skills? How did he start playing smarter offense? What do you mean by "floor game"?

I want specifics, you keep mentioning fuzzy concepts. It almost looks like you don't know the difference between 1990 and 1993.

[AEnigma]

Interesting material to look over. Did want to clarify something that seems to have been missed in translation though.

None of this disproves or nullifies your concept, mind you; merely pointing out he's not quite as married to the other four starters as you've implied, while he puts out these ~+20 or better on/off's year after year.

And I also note that if most of his minutes are with teammates X, Y, and Z......then most of the minutes for X, Y, and Z must also be with Jokic. Yet we only ever see one or maybe two teammates whose on/off is even remotely close to Jokic's (the highest ALWAYS being the guy Jokic has the highest proportion of his minutes with [e.g. KCP, KCP, Braun for the last three years].

I specifically framed it as “Gordon spends this percentage of his minutes with Jokic” for a deliberate reason. And as I alluded to by bringing up Lowry, I understand that Jokic produces good results (at least in the regular season) across a wide array of different lineup combinations. He plays more than the other guys on the team, so it follows that his minutes with every other player on the roster make up a comparatively lower percentage of his total. And I also gestured at this platooning strategy conceivably being the best route for the team, because even if Jokic can do well with deeper bench players, if staggering him more with the starters does not improve the team’s net success, then there is no immediate benefit.

But you asked why his “off” results do not line up with his “without” results, and my explanation is that his “off” lineups are drawing from worse talent than other stars’ “off” lineups because of how the team’s rotations are set. And if Jokic were staggered with the other starters, we would see better “off” lineups and worse “on” lineups… but the results when he is out of a game entirely should stay relatively stable and unchanged (barring the hypothetical development byproducts from those new rotations).