theonlyclutch wrote:dygaction wrote:Roy The Natural wrote:
Sure... that was what 25 games ago. Jokic has been working with an "elite" supporting cast. People like to say that they suck, but they don't.
The Nuggets with Jokic have a +5.3 NRtg, without they have a +2.5 NRtg. He takes a solid team and makes them really good.
The Blazers with Lillard have a +1.4 NRtg, without him they have a -6.3 NRtg.... He's taking a team that would be in contention for a top 3-5 pick and leading them to the same record Jokic is.
Jokic's counting stats are fantastic. He's a legitimate MVP cantidate. But at this point, his only real edge over Lillard is in counting stats in a couple of bigman categories like rebounds/blocks. Everything else is in the general vicinity between the 2. Their teams have the same record. Their RPM is about the same. Lillard makes a bigger impact to NRtg.
I'm not arguing against Jokic here. I just don't see the separation between the 2 that others seem to. They're neck and neck at wherever you place them in the rankings. That's what the peripherals support at this point.
Depending on how you view it. Besides what you mentioned edges on big man categories, like more than doubling in rebounds (11.1 vs. 4.0), I can also point out that Joker as a center has more assist, steals and less turnovers than Dame as a PG. Also, while Dame is known to be an elite shooter, Joker is actually shooting at a better 2p%, 3p%, and TS%. There are big differences in adv stats like WS,
BPM, and PER.
I agree with Embiid out, Dame should be in top 5, but his case over Joker to me is similar to CP3 over Dame - You can find an angle, but only from that angle.
If you actually dig through how BPM is calculated, it adjusts each player's contribution such that they more-or-less sum up to the team's net rating. So the Nuggets having a +5.1 net rating and the Blazers having a -0.5 rating means Jokic's box score faces more favorable adjustments than Lillard's.
Now that makes sense if net rating maps out to team record perfectly... But it doesn't. POR and DEN have the same team record, so Lillard is being unfairly penalized in BPM (and VORP) because it's team adjustments believe POR is a below .500 team, when in actuality DEN and POR have the same team records, with POR outperforming projections due to Lillard destroying teams in the clutch.
This is a very good point and makes me reconsider Lillard’s ranking for sure. The whole point of providing value is to achieve wins in order to holster your playoff standing. And while SRS might be the better measure of a team’s true ability, especially when it concerns how it translates to the playoffs, the fact that Portland is overachieving so much in the win column compared to their differential
because Lillard is the one winning them most of their games in the clutch definitely holds importance. If later on that actual W/L regresses to the mean of expected W/L then that hurts his case, but until that happens, he deserves credit for why that positive disparity exists.
Similarly in 2018 the Cavs were able to win a ton of games they had no business winning because of LeBron’s great clutch stats, which led to 50 wins instead of the expected 43.
The vast talent around Jokic. Everyone on his team has played like ass all year. Lillard should definitely be in the conversation (would love him to win tbh), but early season CJ looked like MJ compared to Jokic’ supporting cast..let’s be real.
