2021-22 NBA Season Discussion

[falcolombardi]

so how seriously are we taking the Grizzlies as a finals threat

they are arguably the most in form team coming into the playoffs since boston injuries, and that is while missing players

[Texas Chuck]

so how seriously are we taking the Grizzlies as a finals threat

they are arguably the most in form team coming into the playoffs since boston injuries, and that is while missing players

I struggle to see any team in the West save Phoenix as a serious Finals threat. But I also think the Grizzlies are really good and other than Dallas, they've pretty much had their way with the other playoff teams, right?

I think what's potentially scary is with the money coming off their books and potentially moving on from Adams, they could clear max space. Or just use that flexibility and picks and trade for another real difference maker without losing anything they don't want to lose. They could add their version of Chris Paul this summer and be the dominant team in the West as soon as next season.

[falcolombardi]

so how seriously are we taking the Grizzlies as a finals threat

they are arguably the most in form team coming into the playoffs since boston injuries, and that is while missing players

I struggle to see any team in the West save Phoenix as a serious Finals threat. But I also think the Grizzlies are really good and other than Dallas, they've pretty much had their way with the other playoff teams, right?

I think what's potentially scary is with the money coming off their books and potentially moving on from Adams, they could clear max space. Or just use that flexibility and picks and trade for another real difference maker without losing anything they don't want to lose. They could add their version of Chris Paul this summer and be the dominant team in the West as soon as next season.

they have a potential issue as a team with deep talent that a lot of their guys are gonna deserve big contracts and they literally wont be able to retain them all even if they want to pay luxury tax

[SeniorWalker]

The thing that confuses me about advanced statistics is the conclusions people seem to draw from them. And Jokic this year is a good example.

He's an Uber talent, clearly. The nuggets this year and last year were missing two of their three best players and thus Jokic was relied upon to carry the load offensively. He's talented enough that he can essentially carry the major responsibility of the offense alone and that has to be respected greatly. I think when one tries to evaluate how good an individual player is, it's definitely a good place to start in dissecting their individual contributions to a team.

But this can't really be the end of it. Basketball is a 5 on 5 game and ultimately the goal is to produce the most dominant team, not find out which player can best carry the burden of an entire system unto himself. As we've seen over and over again in history, those teams do not achieve great success. Even the players who formerly drove those one-man show teams, if they finally achieve success it's usually by dialing back their contributions and letting the roster fill out with other contributors. Doing less as an individual to achieve more as a group.


What am I trying to say? I'm saying an expression I heard a member say here a few years ago. I believe the best players are the ones that take a team from being a typical team to an unbeatable one. And we have to recognize that guys who do literally everything in a broken situation on a mediocre team, the numbers effectively describe the fatal reliance their teams have on them and thats not something to necessarily glorify in NBA basketball, tempting as it may be.

To analogize, an NBA team is like a ship. There are powerful warships, and then there are weak, sinking ships. Players like Jokic to me, are talented enough to try and fill as many holes as possible to keep the weaker ship staying afloat. But ultimately the ship is still weak and relatively easy to sink by stronger opposing vessels. I think we automatically assume that players like Jokic who do everything for a team are going to look even better on a stronger vessel and this is a reasonable assumption. But we have to consider their function and the potential for this function to operate on a stronger vessel, how this function can be utilized to make a ship unsinkable.

A guy who is used to doing everything on a bad team, and is suddenly switched roles and put on a good team, is going to see his contributions suppressed. And then he's going to have to learn to push his strengths to maximize the group to its ultimate potential. So when I look at Jokic absurd numbers, I see a guy that has a very unique set of skills in a system that is singularly, critically reliant on his skillset to stay afloat. A part of me looks at it as a clear tell of Jokic uniqueness but the other part looks at it as the forced maximization of an untenable situation to stay afloat. I mean, the nuggets are going to get massacred in the playoffs at some point before the WCF, there's no doubt about it. As soon as they run into a team with a decent front court, Jokic is going to be somewhat neutered (good but not superb) to the point where people are then going to backpedal and wonder if he's as great as he showed in the regular season.

And let me just say: Jokic IS that great player. But right now what we're seeing from him is not the ultimate litmus test of him. It's going to be when Murray and MPJ return, or when Jokic gets a little more complete roster and we find out how far they can really go. Then, when he has other capable guys around him will we see how much he drives his team towards meaningful play.

I want to say this: as mediocre as Steph Curry has seemed this year, he may be the perfect example.of what I'm talking about in terms of making a good team unbeatable. Curry I think does less overall in terms of job duties aboard his ship than Jokic, but with his presence and a full healthy roster, if he's playing at his normal dominant pace and everyone else is doing their jobs, the warriors play like a championship team, a very well oiled, hard to stop machine. And their success over the past decade is reflective of how great he is, how much he transforms the franchise into a winner.

[falcolombardi]

The thing that confuses me about advanced statistics is the conclusions people seem to draw from them. And Jokic this year is a good example.

He's an Uber talent, clearly. The nuggets this year and last year were missing two of their three best players and thus Jokic was relied upon to carry the load offensively. He's talented enough that he can essentially carry the major responsibility of the offense alone and that has to be respected greatly. I think when one tries to evaluate how good an individual player is, it's definitely a good place to start in dissecting their individual contributions to a team.

But this can't really be the end of it. Basketball is a 5 on 5 game and ultimately the goal is to produce the most dominant team, not find out which player can best carry the burden of an entire system unto himself. As we've seen over and over again in history, those teams do not achieve great success. Even the players who formerly drove those one-man show teams, if they finally achieve success it's usually by dialing back their contributions and letting the roster fill out with other contributors. Doing less as an individual to achieve more as a group.


What am I trying to say? I'm saying an expression I heard a member say here a few years ago. I believe the best players are the ones that take a team from being a typical team to an unbeatable one. And we have to recognize that guys who do literally everything in a broken situation on a mediocre team, the numbers effectively describe the fatal reliance their teams have on them and thats not something to necessarily glorify in NBA basketball, tempting as it may be.

To analogize, an NBA team is like a ship. There are powerful warships, and then there are weak, sinking ships. Players like Jokic to me, are talented enough to try and fill as many holes as possible to keep the weaker ship staying afloat. But ultimately the ship is still weak and relatively easy to sink by stronger opposing vessels. I think we automatically assume that players like Jokic who do everything for a team are going to look even better on a stronger vessel and this is a reasonable assumption. But we have to consider their function and the potential for this function to operate on a stronger vessel, how this function can be utilized to make a ship unsinkable.

A guy who is used to doing everything on a bad team, and is suddenly switched roles and put on a good team, is going to see his contributions suppressed. And then he's going to have to learn to push his strengths to maximize the group to its ultimate potential. So when I look at Jokic absurd numbers, I see a guy that has a very unique set of skills in a system that is singularly, critically reliant on his skillset to stay afloat. A part of me looks at it as a clear tell of Jokic uniqueness but the other part looks at it as the forced maximization of an untenable situation to stay afloat. I mean, the nuggets are going to get massacred in the playoffs at some point before the WCF, there's no doubt about it. As soon as they run into a team with a decent front court, Jokic is going to be somewhat neutered (good but not superb) to the point where people are then going to backpedal and wonder if he's as great as he showed in the regular season.

And let me just say: Jokic IS that great player. But right now what we're seeing from him is not the ultimate litmus test of him. It's going to be when Murray and MPJ return, or when Jokic gets a little more complete roster and we find out how far they can really go. Then, when he has other capable guys around him will we see how much he drives his team towards meaningful play.

I want to say this: as mediocre as Steph Curry has seemed this year, he may be the perfect example.of what I'm talking about in terms of making a good team unbeatable. Curry I think does less overall in terms of job duties aboard his ship than Jokic, but with his presence and a full healthy roster, if he's playing at his normal dominant pace and everyone else is doing their jobs, the warriors play like a championship team, a very well oiled, hard to stop machine. And their success over the past decade is reflective of how great he is, how much he transforms the franchise into a winner.

i get your analogy but it seems overly focused on the offensive end of the board or at least it seems to read that way like most ceiling raising vs floor raising arguments go

jokic can do his thingh and take a team of defensive specialists into a strong offense and it could be a juggernaut by combining great defense with a strong offense

historically, offense floor raisers make incredible teams of you put good defenders amd specialists around them even if their offense dont become truly great the overall result may as well be

hell, a lot of curry teams fit that premise, the 2015 warriors won as a team of great defenders with curry making the offense solid

[eminence]

Is it possible to (realistically) build a great defense with Jokic at the 5 is still a valid question imo.

[SeniorWalker]

The thing that confuses me about advanced statistics is the conclusions people seem to draw from them. And Jokic this year is a good example.

He's an Uber talent, clearly. The nuggets this year and last year were missing two of their three best players and thus Jokic was relied upon to carry the load offensively. He's talented enough that he can essentially carry the major responsibility of the offense alone and that has to be respected greatly. I think when one tries to evaluate how good an individual player is, it's definitely a good place to start in dissecting their individual contributions to a team.

But this can't really be the end of it. Basketball is a 5 on 5 game and ultimately the goal is to produce the most dominant team, not find out which player can best carry the burden of an entire system unto himself. As we've seen over and over again in history, those teams do not achieve great success. Even the players who formerly drove those one-man show teams, if they finally achieve success it's usually by dialing back their contributions and letting the roster fill out with other contributors. Doing less as an individual to achieve more as a group.


What am I trying to say? I'm saying an expression I heard a member say here a few years ago. I believe the best players are the ones that take a team from being a typical team to an unbeatable one. And we have to recognize that guys who do literally everything in a broken situation on a mediocre team, the numbers effectively describe the fatal reliance their teams have on them and thats not something to necessarily glorify in NBA basketball, tempting as it may be.

To analogize, an NBA team is like a ship. There are powerful warships, and then there are weak, sinking ships. Players like Jokic to me, are talented enough to try and fill as many holes as possible to keep the weaker ship staying afloat. But ultimately the ship is still weak and relatively easy to sink by stronger opposing vessels. I think we automatically assume that players like Jokic who do everything for a team are going to look even better on a stronger vessel and this is a reasonable assumption. But we have to consider their function and the potential for this function to operate on a stronger vessel, how this function can be utilized to make a ship unsinkable.

A guy who is used to doing everything on a bad team, and is suddenly switched roles and put on a good team, is going to see his contributions suppressed. And then he's going to have to learn to push his strengths to maximize the group to its ultimate potential. So when I look at Jokic absurd numbers, I see a guy that has a very unique set of skills in a system that is singularly, critically reliant on his skillset to stay afloat. A part of me looks at it as a clear tell of Jokic uniqueness but the other part looks at it as the forced maximization of an untenable situation to stay afloat. I mean, the nuggets are going to get massacred in the playoffs at some point before the WCF, there's no doubt about it. As soon as they run into a team with a decent front court, Jokic is going to be somewhat neutered (good but not superb) to the point where people are then going to backpedal and wonder if he's as great as he showed in the regular season.

And let me just say: Jokic IS that great player. But right now what we're seeing from him is not the ultimate litmus test of him. It's going to be when Murray and MPJ return, or when Jokic gets a little more complete roster and we find out how far they can really go. Then, when he has other capable guys around him will we see how much he drives his team towards meaningful play.

I want to say this: as mediocre as Steph Curry has seemed this year, he may be the perfect example.of what I'm talking about in terms of making a good team unbeatable. Curry I think does less overall in terms of job duties aboard his ship than Jokic, but with his presence and a full healthy roster, if he's playing at his normal dominant pace and everyone else is doing their jobs, the warriors play like a championship team, a very well oiled, hard to stop machine. And their success over the past decade is reflective of how great he is, how much he transforms the franchise into a winner.

i get your analogy but it seems overly focused on the offensive end of the board or at least it seems to read that way like most ceiling raising vs floor raising arguments go

jokic can do his thingh and take a team of defensive specialists into a strong offense and it could be a juggernaut by combining great defense with a strong offense

historically, offense floor raisers make incredible teams of you put good defenders amd specialists around them even if their offense dont become truly great the overall result may as well be

hell, a lot of curry teams fit that premise, the 2015 warriors won as a team of great defenders with curry making the offense solid

That actually isn't what I'm saying. I'm not focusing on offense, it was just an example. You can apply the essence of what I'm saying to any set of skills. Whoever has a skill, whatever that may be, and it lifts a team from being a typical team to an unbeatable team, that to me is the mark of a truly great player.
This could be a dominant defensive skill, or an offensive one, I'm not biased toward either. And I'm not putting a mark on Jokic either, I'm literally just waiting to see not IF, but WHEN his skills are applied to a more successful situation and to analyze the effect it has within a more balanced group and how successful they can be.

In any case, a dominant skill set that fits within a more complete team structure, and this team is hard to beat and always relevant in the championship picture...I look at that player more highly than I do others.

I don't think it's floor raising vs ceiling raising either. Steph Curry for example, has shown that the warriors are really not good without him and when he's on, they're a title contender. You can argue for floor raising or ceiling raising in that case but it just confuses the underlying issue. The goal is to build the strongest vessel and Steph allows for that construction as well as anyone I've seen in generations. His presence is such a dominant effect that the team is amplified greatly both when the talent is mediocre and when it's well balanced. He's such a rare, clear example of that in my opinion because of how unique his presence is in the game.

[Peregrine01]

The thing that confuses me about advanced statistics is the conclusions people seem to draw from them. And Jokic this year is a good example.

He's an Uber talent, clearly. The nuggets this year and last year were missing two of their three best players and thus Jokic was relied upon to carry the load offensively. He's talented enough that he can essentially carry the major responsibility of the offense alone and that has to be respected greatly. I think when one tries to evaluate how good an individual player is, it's definitely a good place to start in dissecting their individual contributions to a team.

But this can't really be the end of it. Basketball is a 5 on 5 game and ultimately the goal is to produce the most dominant team, not find out which player can best carry the burden of an entire system unto himself. As we've seen over and over again in history, those teams do not achieve great success. Even the players who formerly drove those one-man show teams, if they finally achieve success it's usually by dialing back their contributions and letting the roster fill out with other contributors. Doing less as an individual to achieve more as a group.


What am I trying to say? I'm saying an expression I heard a member say here a few years ago. I believe the best players are the ones that take a team from being a typical team to an unbeatable one. And we have to recognize that guys who do literally everything in a broken situation on a mediocre team, the numbers effectively describe the fatal reliance their teams have on them and thats not something to necessarily glorify in NBA basketball, tempting as it may be.

To analogize, an NBA team is like a ship. There are powerful warships, and then there are weak, sinking ships. Players like Jokic to me, are talented enough to try and fill as many holes as possible to keep the weaker ship staying afloat. But ultimately the ship is still weak and relatively easy to sink by stronger opposing vessels. I think we automatically assume that players like Jokic who do everything for a team are going to look even better on a stronger vessel and this is a reasonable assumption. But we have to consider their function and the potential for this function to operate on a stronger vessel, how this function can be utilized to make a ship unsinkable.

A guy who is used to doing everything on a bad team, and is suddenly switched roles and put on a good team, is going to see his contributions suppressed. And then he's going to have to learn to push his strengths to maximize the group to its ultimate potential. So when I look at Jokic absurd numbers, I see a guy that has a very unique set of skills in a system that is singularly, critically reliant on his skillset to stay afloat. A part of me looks at it as a clear tell of Jokic uniqueness but the other part looks at it as the forced maximization of an untenable situation to stay afloat. I mean, the nuggets are going to get massacred in the playoffs at some point before the WCF, there's no doubt about it. As soon as they run into a team with a decent front court, Jokic is going to be somewhat neutered (good but not superb) to the point where people are then going to backpedal and wonder if he's as great as he showed in the regular season.

And let me just say: Jokic IS that great player. But right now what we're seeing from him is not the ultimate litmus test of him. It's going to be when Murray and MPJ return, or when Jokic gets a little more complete roster and we find out how far they can really go. Then, when he has other capable guys around him will we see how much he drives his team towards meaningful play.

I want to say this: as mediocre as Steph Curry has seemed this year, he may be the perfect example.of what I'm talking about in terms of making a good team unbeatable. Curry I think does less overall in terms of job duties aboard his ship than Jokic, but with his presence and a full healthy roster, if he's playing at his normal dominant pace and everyone else is doing their jobs, the warriors play like a championship team, a very well oiled, hard to stop machine. And their success over the past decade is reflective of how great he is, how much he transforms the franchise into a winner.

On offense, Jokic is very clearly both an incredible floor and ceiling raiser. Consider that he's managing this production on a 31% usage rate, which ranks 11th in the league - despite having no other teammate providing reliable offensive creation. While on the court, the Nuggets are posting a ridiculous 118 ORTG, which would rank highest in the league. Overall, they're 6th in ORTG, right behind the Bucks, which is just an insane accomplishment given how much they fall off without him. So Jokic plays in a way that very clearly lifts the value of everyone around him and produces upper-echelon offenses whenever he's on the court all while doing it in a way that's not taking the air out of the room the way a super-heliocentric star would. I think he's one of the most portable offensive superstars ever and he's very similar to Curry in this respect.

The bigger question with Jokic is defense. He's made big improvements here this year which is especially impressive given his massive offensive load but there's also clear holes that teams can attack. The Nuggets have not yet had a supporting big to help plug these holes (ala Tyson Chandler with Dirk), which is a shame. But I don't see this weakness as an intractable obstacle to the Nuggets building a championship-level team.

[Peregrine01]

That actually isn't what I'm saying. I'm not focusing on offense, it was just an example. You can apply the essence of what I'm saying to any set of skills. Whoever has a skill, whatever that may be, and it lifts a team from being a typical team to an unbeatable team, that to me is the mark of a truly great player.
This could be a dominant defensive skill, or an offensive one, I'm not biased toward either. And I'm not putting a mark on Jokic either, I'm literally just waiting to see not IF, but WHEN his skills are applied to a more successful situation and to analyze the effect it has within a more balanced group and how successful they can be.

In any case, a dominant skill set that fits within a more complete team structure, and this team is hard to beat and always relevant in the championship picture...I look at that player more highly than I do others.

I don't think it's floor raising vs ceiling raising either. Steph Curry for example, has shown that the warriors are really not good without him and when he's on, they're a title contender. You can argue for floor raising or ceiling raising in that case but it just confuses the underlying issue. The goal is to build the strongest vessel and Steph allows for that construction as well as anyone I've seen in generations. His presence is such a dominant effect that the team is amplified greatly both when the talent is mediocre and when it's well balanced. He's such a rare, clear example of that in my opinion because of how unique his presence is in the game.

Curry is a once in a generation offensive talent who can take a moribund offensive team and make it elite. But the Warriors are still an excellent defensive team without him. The Nuggets without Jokic are not only an awful offensive team but also an awful defensive team.

In your ship analogy, the Nuggets ship sans Jokic just has A LOT more holes than the Warriors ship sans Curry.

[falcolombardi]

That actually isn't what I'm saying. I'm not focusing on offense, it was just an example. You can apply the essence of what I'm saying to any set of skills. Whoever has a skill, whatever that may be, and it lifts a team from being a typical team to an unbeatable team, that to me is the mark of a truly great player.
This could be a dominant defensive skill, or an offensive one, I'm not biased toward either. And I'm not putting a mark on Jokic either, I'm literally just waiting to see not IF, but WHEN his skills are applied to a more successful situation and to analyze the effect it has within a more balanced group and how successful they can be.

In any case, a dominant skill set that fits within a more complete team structure, and this team is hard to beat and always relevant in the championship picture...I look at that player more highly than I do others.

I don't think it's floor raising vs ceiling raising either. Steph Curry for example, has shown that the warriors are really not good without him and when he's on, they're a title contender. You can argue for floor raising or ceiling raising in that case but it just confuses the underlying issue. The goal is to build the strongest vessel and Steph allows for that construction as well as anyone I've seen in generations. His presence is such a dominant effect that the team is amplified greatly both when the talent is mediocre and when it's well balanced. He's such a rare, clear example of that in my opinion because of how unique his presence is in the game.

Curry is a once in a generation offensive talent who can take a moribund offensive team and make it elite. But the Warriors are still an excellent defensive team without him. The Nuggets without Jokic are not only an awful offensive team but also an awful defensive team.

In your ship analogy, the Nuggets ship sans Jokic just has A LOT more holes than the Warriors ship sans Curry.

taking a moribund offense into elite may be an overatatement

not to diminish curry but i dont think last 2 years warriors were elite offensively

in general i dont think there exists such a thingh as a player who take a trash offense into eliteness alone

[Peregrine01]

That actually isn't what I'm saying. I'm not focusing on offense, it was just an example. You can apply the essence of what I'm saying to any set of skills. Whoever has a skill, whatever that may be, and it lifts a team from being a typical team to an unbeatable team, that to me is the mark of a truly great player.
This could be a dominant defensive skill, or an offensive one, I'm not biased toward either. And I'm not putting a mark on Jokic either, I'm literally just waiting to see not IF, but WHEN his skills are applied to a more successful situation and to analyze the effect it has within a more balanced group and how successful they can be.

In any case, a dominant skill set that fits within a more complete team structure, and this team is hard to beat and always relevant in the championship picture...I look at that player more highly than I do others.

I don't think it's floor raising vs ceiling raising either. Steph Curry for example, has shown that the warriors are really not good without him and when he's on, they're a title contender. You can argue for floor raising or ceiling raising in that case but it just confuses the underlying issue. The goal is to build the strongest vessel and Steph allows for that construction as well as anyone I've seen in generations. His presence is such a dominant effect that the team is amplified greatly both when the talent is mediocre and when it's well balanced. He's such a rare, clear example of that in my opinion because of how unique his presence is in the game.

Curry is a once in a generation offensive talent who can take a moribund offensive team and make it elite. But the Warriors are still an excellent defensive team without him. The Nuggets without Jokic are not only an awful offensive team but also an awful defensive team.

In your ship analogy, the Nuggets ship sans Jokic just has A LOT more holes than the Warriors ship sans Curry.

taking a moribund offense into elite may be an overatatement

not to diminish curry but i dont think last 2 years warriors were elite offensively

in general i dont think there exists such a thingh as a player who take a trash offense into eliteness alone

Elite whenever he's on the floor. I think last year's Curry and this year's Jokic have shown that it's possible for a singular offensive superstar to transform a bottom level offensive team into an elite offensive team whenever he's on the floor. The impact these guys have are just immense and can't be underestimated.

[SeniorWalker]

That actually isn't what I'm saying. I'm not focusing on offense, it was just an example. You can apply the essence of what I'm saying to any set of skills. Whoever has a skill, whatever that may be, and it lifts a team from being a typical team to an unbeatable team, that to me is the mark of a truly great player.
This could be a dominant defensive skill, or an offensive one, I'm not biased toward either. And I'm not putting a mark on Jokic either, I'm literally just waiting to see not IF, but WHEN his skills are applied to a more successful situation and to analyze the effect it has within a more balanced group and how successful they can be.

In any case, a dominant skill set that fits within a more complete team structure, and this team is hard to beat and always relevant in the championship picture...I look at that player more highly than I do others.

I don't think it's floor raising vs ceiling raising either. Steph Curry for example, has shown that the warriors are really not good without him and when he's on, they're a title contender. You can argue for floor raising or ceiling raising in that case but it just confuses the underlying issue. The goal is to build the strongest vessel and Steph allows for that construction as well as anyone I've seen in generations. His presence is such a dominant effect that the team is amplified greatly both when the talent is mediocre and when it's well balanced. He's such a rare, clear example of that in my opinion because of how unique his presence is in the game.

Curry is a once in a generation offensive talent who can take a moribund offensive team and make it elite. But the Warriors are still an excellent defensive team without him. The Nuggets without Jokic are not only an awful offensive team but also an awful defensive team.

In your ship analogy, the Nuggets ship sans Jokic just has A LOT more holes than the Warriors ship sans Curry.

Right and I understand and have acknowledged that Jokic fills more holes than Curry
(that's what she said)
But ultimately what I'm questioning, what we have not seen yet and do not know, is what happens when Jokic does have a more balanced group. How successful can this team be, how much does Jokic impact drive that success? How much does he fit, or how well do others fit around him on a team that has real title aspirations? Can he lead a powerful ship? I predict we will see it, to me he is the modern day Larry bird, just two inches taller and if he gets a decently balanced team it is inevitable he will be in contention a few times. I want analyze the ship when that happens. Right now, I'm not taking anything away from him whatsoever, he actually blows me away with his intuitive play. But when I look at his advanced metrics, I have two conclusions: 1)he can do a heck of a lot on a basketball court and 2)the nuggets are playoff fodder. I think with most people 2 compounds the positives of the 1, I just have some caution with that. We need more, "different" data with Jokic. Different situations, not more of this singular carrying to mediocrity.

[falcolombardi]

Curry is a once in a generation offensive talent who can take a moribund offensive team and make it elite. But the Warriors are still an excellent defensive team without him. The Nuggets without Jokic are not only an awful offensive team but also an awful defensive team.

In your ship analogy, the Nuggets ship sans Jokic just has A LOT more holes than the Warriors ship sans Curry.

taking a moribund offense into elite may be an overatatement

not to diminish curry but i dont think last 2 years warriors were elite offensively

in general i dont think there exists such a thingh as a player who take a trash offense into eliteness alone

Elite whenever he's on the floor. I think last year's Curry and this year's Jokic have shown that it's possible for a singular offensive superstar to transform a bottom level offensive team into an elite offensive team whenever he's on the floor. The impact these guys have are just immense and can't be underestimated.

that seems more correct, not looking into individual ortg of all time greats i can see it being true

[Peregrine01]

That actually isn't what I'm saying. I'm not focusing on offense, it was just an example. You can apply the essence of what I'm saying to any set of skills. Whoever has a skill, whatever that may be, and it lifts a team from being a typical team to an unbeatable team, that to me is the mark of a truly great player.
This could be a dominant defensive skill, or an offensive one, I'm not biased toward either. And I'm not putting a mark on Jokic either, I'm literally just waiting to see not IF, but WHEN his skills are applied to a more successful situation and to analyze the effect it has within a more balanced group and how successful they can be.

In any case, a dominant skill set that fits within a more complete team structure, and this team is hard to beat and always relevant in the championship picture...I look at that player more highly than I do others.

I don't think it's floor raising vs ceiling raising either. Steph Curry for example, has shown that the warriors are really not good without him and when he's on, they're a title contender. You can argue for floor raising or ceiling raising in that case but it just confuses the underlying issue. The goal is to build the strongest vessel and Steph allows for that construction as well as anyone I've seen in generations. His presence is such a dominant effect that the team is amplified greatly both when the talent is mediocre and when it's well balanced. He's such a rare, clear example of that in my opinion because of how unique his presence is in the game.

Curry is a once in a generation offensive talent who can take a moribund offensive team and make it elite. But the Warriors are still an excellent defensive team without him. The Nuggets without Jokic are not only an awful offensive team but also an awful defensive team.

In your ship analogy, the Nuggets ship sans Jokic just has A LOT more holes than the Warriors ship sans Curry.

Right and I understand and have acknowledged that Jokic fills more holes than Curry
(that's what she said)
But ultimately what I'm questioning, what we have not seen yet and do not know, is what happens when Jokic does have a more balanced group. How successful can this team be, how much does Jokic impact drive that success? How much does he fit, or how well do others fit around him on a team that has real title aspirations? I predict we will see it, to me he is the modern day Larry bird, just two inches taller and if he gets a decently balanced team it is inevitable he will be in contention a few times. I want analyze the ship when that happens. Right now, I'm not taking anything away from him whatsoever, he actually blows me away with his intuitive play. But when I look at his advanced metrics, I have two conclusions: 1)he can do a heck of a lot on a basketball court and 2)the nuggets are playoff fodder. I think with most people 2 compounds the positives of the 1, I just have some caution with that. We need more, "different" data with Jokic. Different situations, not more of this singular carrying to mediocrity.

That's fair. My biggest fear with Jokic is that he'll never get an opportunity to have that kind of team. Murray and MPJ do not cover the most glaring holes that the Nuggets have, which is on defense. I actually feel that just Jokic and a bunch of offensively-limited but defensively-minded players can be strong contenders in today's NBA.

[falcolombardi]

dursnt is going for 70 in a gane nets are losing lol

what the hell are the nets doing

[Fadeaway_J]

dursnt is going for 70 in a gane nets are losing lol

what the hell are the nets doing

Fouling like crazy for one thing

[LukaTheGOAT]

so how seriously are we taking the Grizzlies as a finals threat

they are arguably the most in form team coming into the playoffs since boston injuries, and that is while missing players

I struggle to see any team in the West save Phoenix as a serious Finals threat. But I also think the Grizzlies are really good and other than Dallas, they've pretty much had their way with the other playoff teams, right?

I think what's potentially scary is with the money coming off their books and potentially moving on from Adams, they could clear max space. Or just use that flexibility and picks and trade for another real difference maker without losing anything they don't want to lose. They could add their version of Chris Paul this summer and be the dominant team in the West as soon as next season.

They could add Rudy Gobert because rumors are, the Jazz might not be together much longer.

[GSP]

I think Nash might really be the worst coach in the Nba. Everything that made Scott Brooks bad is Nash except even more.

What a horrific signing from Brooklyn. IIRC they passed on Ty Lue too BIG yikes

[falcolombardi]

so how seriously are we taking the Grizzlies as a finals threat

they are arguably the most in form team coming into the playoffs since boston injuries, and that is while missing players

I struggle to see any team in the West save Phoenix as a serious Finals threat. But I also think the Grizzlies are really good and other than Dallas, they've pretty much had their way with the other playoff teams, right?

I think what's potentially scary is with the money coming off their books and potentially moving on from Adams, they could clear max space. Or just use that flexibility and picks and trade for another real difference maker without losing anything they don't want to lose. They could add their version of Chris Paul this summer and be the dominant team in the West as soon as next season.

They could add Rudy Gobert because rumors are, the Jazz might not be together much longer.

jaren jackson and gobert in the Grizzlies may be game over for the league tbh

[Doctor MJ]

The thing that confuses me about advanced statistics is the conclusions people seem to draw from them. And Jokic this year is a good example.

He's an Uber talent, clearly. The nuggets this year and last year were missing two of their three best players and thus Jokic was relied upon to carry the load offensively. He's talented enough that he can essentially carry the major responsibility of the offense alone and that has to be respected greatly. I think when one tries to evaluate how good an individual player is, it's definitely a good place to start in dissecting their individual contributions to a team.

But this can't really be the end of it. Basketball is a 5 on 5 game and ultimately the goal is to produce the most dominant team, not find out which player can best carry the burden of an entire system unto himself. As we've seen over and over again in history, those teams do not achieve great success. Even the players who formerly drove those one-man show teams, if they finally achieve success it's usually by dialing back their contributions and letting the roster fill out with other contributors. Doing less as an individual to achieve more as a group.


What am I trying to say? I'm saying an expression I heard a member say here a few years ago. I believe the best players are the ones that take a team from being a typical team to an unbeatable one. And we have to recognize that guys who do literally everything in a broken situation on a mediocre team, the numbers effectively describe the fatal reliance their teams have on them and thats not something to necessarily glorify in NBA basketball, tempting as it may be.

To analogize, an NBA team is like a ship. There are powerful warships, and then there are weak, sinking ships. Players like Jokic to me, are talented enough to try and fill as many holes as possible to keep the weaker ship staying afloat. But ultimately the ship is still weak and relatively easy to sink by stronger opposing vessels. I think we automatically assume that players like Jokic who do everything for a team are going to look even better on a stronger vessel and this is a reasonable assumption. But we have to consider their function and the potential for this function to operate on a stronger vessel, how this function can be utilized to make a ship unsinkable.

A guy who is used to doing everything on a bad team, and is suddenly switched roles and put on a good team, is going to see his contributions suppressed. And then he's going to have to learn to push his strengths to maximize the group to its ultimate potential. So when I look at Jokic absurd numbers, I see a guy that has a very unique set of skills in a system that is singularly, critically reliant on his skillset to stay afloat. A part of me looks at it as a clear tell of Jokic uniqueness but the other part looks at it as the forced maximization of an untenable situation to stay afloat. I mean, the nuggets are going to get massacred in the playoffs at some point before the WCF, there's no doubt about it. As soon as they run into a team with a decent front court, Jokic is going to be somewhat neutered (good but not superb) to the point where people are then going to backpedal and wonder if he's as great as he showed in the regular season.

And let me just say: Jokic IS that great player. But right now what we're seeing from him is not the ultimate litmus test of him. It's going to be when Murray and MPJ return, or when Jokic gets a little more complete roster and we find out how far they can really go. Then, when he has other capable guys around him will we see how much he drives his team towards meaningful play.

I want to say this: as mediocre as Steph Curry has seemed this year, he may be the perfect example.of what I'm talking about in terms of making a good team unbeatable. Curry I think does less overall in terms of job duties aboard his ship than Jokic, but with his presence and a full healthy roster, if he's playing at his normal dominant pace and everyone else is doing their jobs, the warriors play like a championship team, a very well oiled, hard to stop machine. And their success over the past decade is reflective of how great he is, how much he transforms the franchise into a winner.

I'd say the right types of big picture things are bothering you. To respond on specifics:

Looks at the raw +/- of Jokic compared to the other two consensus candidates this year:

Jokic +411
Giannis +376
Embiid +313

Now compare this to the classic floor-raiser MVP from '16-17, Russell Westbrook, relative to the 2nd & 3rd place finishers:

Westbrook +249
Harden +424
Kawhi +434

This is to illustrate that Jokic really isn't in a floor-raiser candidate despite the fact that he's perceived to be do to his team's low seed.

Now, you mention Curry, and I'm glad for that. Let's note how Curry did in each of these two years by the same metric.

Curry '16-17 +1015
Curry '21-22 +509

I'll say flat out that as I've gone back through the years with greater distance, I feel that I unjustifiably penalized Curry/Durant when they joined together. It's not that I'm in favor of just giving the award to the guy whose team does best on the court regardless of supporting cast, but it is also critical to have a sense of how much "yeah but he has more help" should allow you to boost others ahead of the bunch. I'd say I did it too much as a prisoner of the moment, and as I look back I don't really see a good reason to rate the '16-17 campaigns of Westbrook/Harden/Kawhi ahead of Curry when all is said and done.

But of course, in '21-22, there is no outlier like this.

For Jokic this year, these are the only teams with players with a higher raw +/- than him (with no one in the league to this point breaking 600, and realistically none will break 700 when all is said an done):

Boston - Jayson Tatum (1st)
Phoenix - Mikal Bridges (2nd), David Booker (4th), Chris Paul (5th)
Golden State - Steph Curry (3rd)

So to me, if you're picking against Jokic by looking for ceiling raisers, those are your options. My thoughts on each:

I've actually commented in this thread and elsewhere that I think people need to take Tatum very seriously as an MVP, but I've also said that I really need him to lead Boston past Milwaukee & Philadelphia to get him past Giannis & Embiid. One issue with raw +/- is that in the end, it just matters that you win, not whether you blow the other team out. Tatum's numbers are so high because of the blowout factor, but if it's not enough to lead Boston to an elite seed due to Tatum and the team's sluggish start, I don't feel like it makes a lot of sense to elevate him over more established superstars who have had more of an eye toward the post-season and yet still ended up with a higher seed.

Over in Phoenix, it has to be understood how massive Bridges edge is over the two anointed MVP candidates by his side. It should also be understood that if you're looking for the precise moment when Phoenix stopped sucking, and started winning like crazy, it was the Bubble when Mikal Bridges established himself as a clear part of the core.

If we go by a stat I call OnWins - the number of games you played where you had a positive +/- - Bridges leads the league this year, and actually leads the league over the past 3 years ('19-20 to '21-22) post-season included while no one else from the Suns is in the Top 5.

I'm not ready to say he's a better player than Paul & Booker - we can discuss this further if people want, I'm not someone who "always ranks the scoring stars first" and it's important to me to consider whether a perceived sidekick is actually the team MVP, but there are reasons why I think it's wise to be cautious about this - but he has been drastically underrated and is the case in point why Phoenix' phoenix-like resurrection needs to be seen as an ensemble's achievement rather than trying to pin it all on a superstar ("It's all Paul", "Paul's hurt, must have been Booker all along!").

On Curry, I think that probably the most important thing we saw clearly this year is the scale of Curry's gravitational impact on a well-trained supporting cast in the regular season. I'm still skeptical that you could have that kind of success in a playoff series with Curry not being his best - I think when you start losing a series, you try other strategies, and if you give Curry a chance to beat you and he doesn't catch fire, the Warriors will lose. But the scale of what we saw should leave every observer's jaw on the floor.

So yeah, there is good reason to ask whether Curry remains the most valuable per-game player in the league this season even playing through a slump, and very good reason to think that Curry at his best has the most capacity for value of any player in the entire league (in RS or PS)...but to me his missed time really makes him a non-starter in a conversation against Jokic.

As I say all that, as has been pointed out to me, Curry hasn't missed that much time compared to other players mentioned in this thread. For comparison:

Bridges 77
Tatum 73
Jokic 71
Booker 66
Curry 64
Embiid 64
Giannis 63
Paul 62

I think it pretty reasonable to argue that only the guys in the 70s have a meaningful edge here over Curry.

To finish up here in terms of my MVP thoughts at the moment:

Jokic has a pretty clear lead for me at the moment, and has clinched his position over Curry.

Over in the East, I'm watching closely how things end up with the expectation that Giannis, Embiid & Tatum are the clear cut Top 3 Eastern guys in some order.

I'll still be chewing on how the Eastern trio ranks against Western players frankly through the playoffs as I my POY consideration, so at regular season's end, we'll see where I am. But as stated, at the moment, I have Jokic on top.

I'll end by merely mentioning Mikal Bridges. I'm not comfortable championing him as an MVP candidate, but if you're looking to consider a Sun. I might suggest the guy who plays the most MPG, has played by far the most games of any starter, and has the best RAPM along with a massive lead in total +/-.