Who has peaked higher: Nikola Jokić or Steph Curry

[homecourtloss]

With the new peaks project starting off with 2001 to 2025 time period, I thought that this would be highly relevant. There are some regular posters who are really high on one or both of these players' peaks and would love to hear their thoughts.

[falcolombardi]

I think curry has been a slighlty better playoffs player, jokic a bit better in regular season overall

[Peregrine01]

If by peak you mean the season-long inferno that Curry was in 2016, it’s hard to find a more impactful player. But Curry also has lower lows which hurts during playoff games when every game matters. I like Jokic’s more resilient impact so I go with him.

[iggymcfrack]

I think curry has been a slighlty better playoffs player, jokic a bit better in regular season overall

Jokic has better box score numbers in 5/7 playoff runs than Curry does in his peak playoffs.

[falcolombardi]

I think curry has been a slighlty better playoffs player, jokic a bit better in regular season overall

Jokic has better box score numbers in 5/7 playoff runs than Curry does in his peak playoffs.

Sure, i dont think that is the end be all or even particularly important on its own

[1993Playoffs]

Curry for regular season. But Jokic is probably better in the PO due his size and passing ability

[ShotCreator]

Nikola Jokić has never played as well as Curry did in the 2017 playoffs. And prime Curry has never played as poorly as Jokić did in the 2025 playoffs.

It really comes down to the lack of an elite handle and elite foot speed for Jokić even though he has physical advantages over curry that allows him to score easier one on one, his style of attacking is still very easy to see coming for high-level defenses, we saw this blatantly with Alex Caruso this past playoff run.

Now where it gets tricky is, Curry has his own playoff resilience issues. I would be comfortable saying Nikola Jokic is a better offensive player than Curry without 2017 Curry’s playoff highs. But the lows bother me.

Alex Caruso anticipating him so well off the ball in the beginning of the series, and defending him so well pm the ball at the end of the series, bothers me.

I think Jokic offensive floor and ceiling are clearly lower. I can’t go with a guy who loses on both.


Now, I have past posts going over my POV on this, I’m not basing this purely on this past playoffs, but the past playoffs happened to give a good extreme example for everyone to see. Because saying this after the 2024 playoffs, where Jokic played really well but the offense was stagnant under his style at times, doesn't get across to people as easily.

[lessthanjake]

Not sure even Jokic has ever played as well as Curry played in the 2016 regular season specifically, but if we’re talking about a one-year peak (i.e. including regular season + playoffs), then I think Jokic has a higher peak, for reasons discussed in the current peaks project thread.