Better FIBA Player: Jokic vs Luka

[BelgradeNugget]

Jokic won Olympic silver, and bronze, Luka won European championship gold. Hard to value, 2 lower medals on bigger tournaments or one gold on lower tournament

[KGtabake]

Jokic is my current favorite NBA player. He's head and shoulders above Luka and Giannis in the NBA.

But FIBA Luka >> FIBA Jokic

No he's not head and shoulders above Giannis.
Giannis has 5 defensive teams and a DPOY aside the MVPs in everything (regular season, finals, all star games, NBA cup).
His list of accolades can't be compared with any current NBA player.

[LuDux1]

Zurab Sakandelidze

Not a fan of Otar Korkia?

[Mirotic12]

Not a fan of Otar Korkia?

He's probably the Georgian GOAT. But not in the FIBA GOAT mix.

[BadWolf]

Sabonis?
Kukoc?

[Mirotic12]

Jokic won Olympic silver, and bronze, Luka won European championship gold. Hard to value, 2 lower medals on bigger tournaments or one gold on lower tournament

And let's be totally objective. Luka's gold was an asterisk gold, because Slovenia hired a free agent to help them win the tournament.

They wouldn't have gotten the gold if they didn't naturalize Anthony Randolph.

[hagredionis]

Luka by a country mile. The difference is evident in the current championship Jokic had a much better team than Luka but still got knocked out while Luka managed to score drag his team into the quarter finals.

[1993Playoffs]

Luka obviously

[jk31]

Jokic plays for one of European Basketball mastodonts — Serbia. Serbia just like Spain, France, Germany, Lithuania and Latvia belongs to European BBall elite and among favorites in Eurobasket and every other FIBA competitions excluding USA (of course).

Luka plays for Slovenia, a country not known as a basketball powerhouse even by European standards, whom got lucky in 2017 to win Eurobasket with prime Dragic and 18 y.o. Luka.

Jokic has good players around him including decent NBA players, while Luka has plumbers as his teammates.

Spain and Latvia are most definitely not among the elite European national teams, and that's not debatable.

current spain definitely not, but spain over the history?! they dominated european and world basketball for a very very long time

[BaDaBo]

I'm biased as a Slovenian therefore I won't pronunce one better than the other.

But.

The strenght the teams around the two players has to be considered if you want to have a meaningful conversation with context. It's a team sport after all.

[Mirotic12]

Jokic plays for one of European Basketball mastodonts — Serbia. Serbia just like Spain, France, Germany, Lithuania and Latvia belongs to European BBall elite and among favorites in Eurobasket and every other FIBA competitions excluding USA (of course).

Luka plays for Slovenia, a country not known as a basketball powerhouse even by European standards, whom got lucky in 2017 to win Eurobasket with prime Dragic and 18 y.o. Luka.

Jokic has good players around him including decent NBA players, while Luka has plumbers as his teammates.

Spain and Latvia are most definitely not among the elite European national teams, and that's not debatable.

current spain definitely not, but spain over the history?! they dominated european and world basketball for a very very long time

Yeah, but using the past as the criteria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Russia, Hungary, Uruguay, Italy, Argentina, Brazil, and so forth, are all current elite national teams.

So, it doesn't make sense to count it that way.

[peZt]

To FIBA fans - does Luka have a GOAT FIBA case yet? Is he en route?

Depends on how high you value team success. If you do, then not (yet) but mostly because its impossible for Luka to do with Slovenia what Pau did with Spain or Divac with Yugoslavia. And it would be completely unfair to hold that against him. I think its ridiculious to put that much more value on team success over individual performance in national team play where you have 0 influence on who your teammates are. You gonna punish Doncic for not having Marc Gasol, Navarro, Llull, Fernandez, Rubio and Rodriguez as his supporting class?

Individually and performance wise? I dont think it would be close at the end. Nobody is doing what Luka does at Fiba play and he only is 26. AND he already has had success, so its not like its empty performances. He won Euroleague MVP, carried Slovenia to Eurobasket, carried them almost to olympia medal while becoming MVP at age 20. That is honestly more impressive than whatever team accomplishments Pau had with a golden generation in Spain.

You can not say to a guy who averages 35 points on great efficiency in Europe, which is equivalent to like 45ppg in the NBA, who constantly breaks all kinds of records in Fiba play, that he does not have a case for GOAT when guys like Pau, Parker or Nowitzki have averaged less than 20 ppg at Eurobaskets.Even Galis has an average of 30ppg over his Eurobasket career. In a much weaker era. Its ridiculious to hold team success against such a guy, especially since he already has had success. Doncic is clearly, and I mean clearly the most dominant FIBA player of the modern era, and to just say that doesnt count as much as team success in national team play is stupid af

[Mirotic12]

Depends on how high you value team success. If you do, then not (yet) but mostly because its impossible for Luka to do with Slovenia what Pau did with Spain or Divac with Yugoslavia. And it would be completely unfair to hold that against him. I think its ridiculious to put that much more value on team success over individual performance in national team play where you have 0 influence on who your teammates are. You gonna punish Doncic for not having Marc Gasol, Navarro, Llull, Fernandez, Rubio and Rodriguez as his supporting class?

Individually and performance wise? I dont think it would be close at the end. Nobody is doing what Luka does at Fiba play and he only is 26. AND he already has had success, so its not like its empty performances. He won Euroleague MVP, carried Slovenia to Eurobasket, carried them almost to olympia medal while becoming MVP at age 20. That is honestly more impressive than whatever team accomplishments Pau had with a golden generation in Spain.

You can not say to a guy who averages 35 points on great efficiency in Europe, which is equivalent to like 45ppg in the NBA, who constantly breaks all kinds of records in Fiba play, that he does not have a case for GOAT when guys like Pau, Parker or Nowitzki have averaged less than 20 ppg at Eurobaskets.Even Galis has an average of 30ppg over his Eurobasket career. In a much weaker era. Its ridiculious to hold team success against such a guy, especially since he already has had success. Doncic is clearly, and I mean clearly the most dominant FIBA player of the modern era, and to just say that doesnt count as much as team success in national team play is stupid af

This is true. But we have to also factor in that Luka being on a worse team than some other players that are on great teams, also greatly pads his stats and makes him much more individually dominant by comparison.

If Luka was playing on USA, France, previous era Spain, previous era Argentina, previous era FR Yugoslavia, etc., there is no way in hell he could average these same numbers he does on Slovenia now. Not even a 1% chance.

In great, very deep, and very well balanced national teams, 15 to 20 points a game, for one player, is basically the equivalent of 30 to 35 points a game for one player, in a national team with mostly terrible support players, like Slovenia currently has.

The ability to actually get that many points like Luka does is super impressive. And like you said, this isn't like when Nikos Galis or Oscar Schmidt were doing that in the '80s, when it was way easier to do, because of the stye of play and defense in that time.

But, we still have to factor in that a lot of other players could have also averaged way more points, if they played on bad national teams.

Look at Sasha Vezenkov or Jordan Loyd. Vezenkov is just a role player, if he is on a great national team, but he's like a 25 to 30 points a game player, on a bad one.

Jordan Loyd is at over 20 points a game on Poland, at this tournament, on a mid level team. He wouldn't even make the roster of the best national teams.

So yes, we can put into context the players individually, and not what they have to work with as teammates. But if we do that, we also have to put into context that Luka's stats would be way lower in a great team that is winning multiple medals at major tournaments.

On elite national teams, ones with like 3 or more medals won at the big four major FIBA tournaments (Olympics, OQT, World Cup, EuroBasket), in like one FIBA cycle (4 years) - on national teams like that, Luka would never have anywhere remotely close to these same stats, or the seemingly individual dominance that then gets associated to those numbers.

So the context for FIBA national team competitions is not just about comparing teammates for medals won. It's also about comparing context for stats and individual importance, based on the team around you as well.

[Mirotic12]

Continuing from the previous post, that is why we should never ever rate and rank player's all time standings, based on FIBA national team play.

Players should be rated and ranked on NBA and EuroLeague play. Because in those competitions, everything is equalized out. All of those factors are worked through the system, and that's how we know the real level of the players.

We just simply cannot draw concrete conclusions about players, based on the national team tournaments, which are based on what country they were born in, and now also what country does the best player naturalization. Like, how Slovenia bought a gold medal, that Luka would not now otherwise have, without Anthony Randolph being signed by them like a free agent, for the 2017 EuroBasket.

NBA fans in general, fortunately just rate and rank players based on NBA play and not FIBA national team play. But unfortunately, a lot of European fans have a very bad habit of using FIBA national team play, instead of the NBA and the EuroLeague, to rate and rank players.

High level European coaches for example, almost exclusively use the NBA and the EuroLeague, as the way to judge, rate, and rank players, and not FIBA national team play.

There are just way too many uncontrolled and widely ranging variables involved in FIBA national team tournaments, to use them as any accurate measurement of individual players, in terms of things like all time rankings, GOAT lists, individual dominance, per game scoring stats, etc.

Professional club play (NBA / EuroLeague) is the only way to accurately measure and judge any of this stuff.

[Capn'O]

To FIBA fans - does Luka have a GOAT FIBA case yet? Is he en route?

Depends on how high you value team success. If you do, then not (yet) but mostly because its impossible for Luka to do with Slovenia what Pau did with Spain or Divac with Yugoslavia. And it would be completely unfair to hold that against him. I think its ridiculious to put that much more value on team success over individual performance in national team play where you have 0 influence on who your teammates are. You gonna punish Doncic for not having Marc Gasol, Navarro, Llull, Fernandez, Rubio and Rodriguez as his supporting class?

Individually and performance wise? I dont think it would be close at the end. Nobody is doing what Luka does at Fiba play and he only is 26. AND he already has had success, so its not like its empty performances. He won Euroleague MVP, carried Slovenia to Eurobasket, carried them almost to olympia medal while becoming MVP at age 20. That is honestly more impressive than whatever team accomplishments Pau had with a golden generation in Spain.

You can not say to a guy who averages 35 points on great efficiency in Europe, which is equivalent to like 45ppg in the NBA, who constantly breaks all kinds of records in Fiba play, that he does not have a case for GOAT when guys like Pau, Parker or Nowitzki have averaged less than 20 ppg at Eurobaskets.Even Galis has an average of 30ppg over his Eurobasket career. In a much weaker era. Its ridiculious to hold team success against such a guy, especially since he already has had success. Doncic is clearly, and I mean clearly the most dominant FIBA player of the modern era, and to just say that doesnt count as much as team success in national team play is stupid af

Thank you and that's what I was getting at. From an outsider's perspective, it feels like he's putting up unique performances and what he did at such a young age also feels unique to me. He's basically a one man wrecking crew, which you don't typically see in FIBA ball, and Slovenia's also winning games where on paper his team is overmatched.

[Archx]

Look at Sasha Vezenkov or Jordan Loyd. Vezenkov is just a role player, if he is on a great national team, but he's like a 25 to 30 points a game player, on a bad one.

Jordan Loyd is at over 20 points a game on Poland, at this tournament, on a mid level team. He wouldn't even make the roster of the best national teams.

Your ridiculous opinions never cease to make me laugh. How the hell do you know what he would or would not average? No one knows. But the fact is, dude is entire system on his own. You build entire offense around a guy like him.. Maybe his numbers would be even higher because you then can't focus 5 guys on defense to simply try and stop 1. You need to spread your defense to defend all 5. Maybe he wouldn't average 34ppg but he would still average crazy amount of points along with assists. Just putting Loyd and Vezenkov as an example is terrible on it's own. Not even remotely in the same stratosphere as Luka.

Like how Slovenia bought a gold medal, that Luka would not now otherwise have, without Anthony Randolph being signef by them like a free agenr for the 2017 EuroBasket.

Can you stop freaking trolling and embarrassing yourself? You doing this intentionally now or what? Every single nation since 2000 would have to be looked at and put an asterisk on their wins. Not only trophies but simple game wins in general. And that goes for ANY sport not just basketball.

[LuDux1]

Spain is clearly the most decorated team in post-Era Of Empires basketball:
Gold-Silver-Bronze
4-3-3 Spain
3-2-1 Serbia+
1-3-1 Lithuania
1-2-2 France
1-1-2 Russia
1-1-1 Germany
1-1-1 Italy
1-0-1 Greece
1-0-0 Slovenia
0-1-0 Turkey
0-0-2 Croatia

Comparing teams across eras is impossible, unless..

[Mirotic12]

Your ridiculous opinions never cease to make me laugh. How the hell do you know what he would or would not average? No one knows. But the fact is, dude is entire system on his own. You build entire offense around a guy like him.. Maybe his numbers would be even higher because you then can't focus 5 guys on defense to simply try and stop 1. You need to spread your defense to defend all 5. Maybe he wouldn't average 34ppg but he would still average crazy amount of points along with assists. Just putting Loyd and Vezenkov as an example is terrible on it's own. Not even remotely in the same stratosphere as Luka.

Can you stop freaking trolling and embarrassing yourself? You doing this intentionally now or what? Every single nation since 2000 would have to be looked at and put an asterisk on their wins. Not only trophies but simple game wins in general. And that goes for ANY sport not just basketball.

OK bro. Whatever you say.

[Mirotic12]

Spain is clearly the most decorated team in post-Era Of Empires basketball:
Gold-Silver-Bronze
4-3-3 Spain
3-2-1 Serbia+
1-3-1 Lithuania
1-2-2 France
1-1-2 Russia
1-1-1 Germany
1-1-1 Italy
1-0-1 Greece
1-0-0 Slovenia
0-1-0 Turkey
0-0-2 Croatia

Comparing teams across eras is impossible, unless..

Most of Serbia's claimed success was under FR Yugoslavia.

Serbia itself has not even won the EuroBasket.

[LuDux1]

Spain is clearly the most decorated team in post-Era Of Empires basketball:
Gold-Silver-Bronze
4-3-3 Spain
3-2-1 Serbia+
1-3-1 Lithuania
1-2-2 France
1-1-2 Russia
1-1-1 Germany
1-1-1 Italy
1-0-1 Greece
1-0-0 Slovenia
0-1-0 Turkey
0-0-2 Croatia

Comparing teams across eras is impossible, unless..

Most of Serbia's claimed success was under FR Yugoslavia.

Serbia itself has not even won the EuroBasket.

Hence Serbia+