First Step wrote:How good do you think this kid will be? Does he have MVP potential? Is he just going to be an all star that can't lead his team past the 2nd round? Just how good is this kid?
I'm incredibly excited by him for reasons distinct from simply winning games.
A "pure" point center, in the sense that he can pass like this, is incredibly rare. Rare enough not simply that they are hard for a franchise to acquire, but that typically none exist at all for so long people forget they can exist. Jokic is such a player.
A lot of people tend to view passing as little more than the story of the APG stat, but the reality is that this isn't a situation where assist opportunities are simply present and the passer either completes the pass or doesn't. At least not when we're talking about the great ones. The great ones create opportunity, and do so in every way they can imagine to influence the game.
Watching Jokic is fantastic on 3 levels:
1) He has so many different throws. It's like he's been practicing all the "fundamentals" you learn in passing school, except that the things he makes look like just another tool in the arsenal basically don't exist.
2) His use of these quasi-fundamental moves makes him look like he's got old man game refined over years and years of play, but he's just a kid. This isn't him mastering a set of skills, this is him reacting to the moment and doing so with the fluidity of someone who practiced that move over and over again.
3) He galvanizes his teammates into motion. One teammates knew that if they simply cut to where they'd like to shoot the ball, Jokic would get it to them, the Nuggets became an astonishingly active team. This is such a blessing. For many top talents the size of their talent renders their teammates hesitant, and they have to actively work to coax confidence into them. To have someone like Jokic instantly jolt his teammates into enthusiasm is really cool.
Now, will he lead his team past the 2nd round? I don't know man. It's very hard to know exactly how much impact he can have with this, and whether it's enough to make up for his meh ability on the defensive end. As fans though, there's more to the game than just who is the best overall player.
Tell me more about how im autistic and simply cant comprehend advanced stats! I comprehend them fine, have looked at how they are calculated, and determined most of them to be awful.
