Great article. I'm curious what you think of the argument about MVP made on Dunc'd-On that, Jokic is a better player, but SGA may be more valuable because, essentially, there's more opportunity cost in playing Jokic.
Because Center is such an important position defensively, it's hard to construct a Jokic team that's great on both ends whereas SGA is both great individually and takes less away from the roster-building puzzle.
I guess the obvious counter-argument is that the Nuggets _just_ won the title in '23.
I have a ton of respect for the Dunc'd On folks, and I listen all the time, but I was shocked by their opinion. In my opinion, they put a little too much weight in the advanced metrics.
I think that specific argument is interesting, but I'm not convinced it's true. Don't forget it was Nate who swore up and down that the Nuggets could never win a championship with Jokic at center because of his perceived defensive liabilities; he was wrong then, as he's admitted. It turns out that true-blue superstars can't easily be put in a box. Giannis couldn't win a championship without a jumper, until he could. Steph Curry couldn't win a championship as an undersized shooting guard who only shot jumpers (narrative, not my belief), until he did.
I think we've proved that proper (and lucky) teambuilding can create anything around a good enough superstar. If Jokic was on the Thunder right now instead of Hartenstein and had the exact same cast around him, with Holmgren playing power forward, don't you think that team would still be an incredible defense? I do.
It might be harder with Jokic than SGA, but not that much so.
Thanks for the reply, and I asked the question because I don't have a strong opinion about it (and I think they were pretty clear that they were only discussing opportunity cost because they felt the race was extremely close, and that they didn't see a clear-cut favorite based on stats alone).
All of that said, let's take a step back, in all of the examples that you give, it's worth thinking about, "what do we learn from seeing a player or team succeed in ways that we were skeptical of."
For Steph the answer is, "outlier 3-point shooting is extremely valuable, and far outweighs any other concerns you might have about his game."
For Giannis my takeaway was, "Giannis is extremely good, and and it took things going his way to win a championship, which is normal. He's not one of the extremely small group of players who would put a team in championship contention with almost any supporting cast."
For Jokic I'm not sure if the correct response is (a) "Jokic IS one of the small group of superstars who can elevate an average team to championship contention" or (b) "Denver had pieces that fit together perfectly in '23, and it may be harder to sustain than you would guess."
I lean towards (a), but I'm not as confident in making that judgement as I am with Steph.
It’s impossible to BE confident if someone only has one championship these days, but for me, the proof of concept is enough. This Denver team is demonstrably worse than the one that won the ship, and I still think they are the one West team besides OKC that everyone else fears.
The Nuggets supporting cast is abysmal this year, and people still feel that way. I don’t think they’re remotely close to average with Jokic. That proves A) as much as anything can, to me.
I think teams should fear HOU (not to win the championship, but as a threat in any given series).
The unanswerable question for me about Denver's championship is how much it depended upon peak Aaron Gordon -- if that turns out to be hard to replace it would put a little more weight on the question of whether it's harder than it looks to find the right supporting cast for Jokic.
But that's unanswerable because there are so many other ways in which the team this year is worse, so it's hard to isolate one in particular.
I'm riding the weaselly wagon on this MVP vote. Split it. Both Jokich and Shai are doing amazing things night in and night out against teams determined to stop them. In terms of value and impact both are deserving.
I agree strongly with your Defensive PoY and MVP picks, and your reasoning is something I'll just parrot to everyone else who is wrong. RoY is weirder because we all know Buzelis is the best in the rookie class, or we all WILL know next year. But this year's numbers say it's Castle, and he is very good.
Castle will win, and he has shown a lot of fun flashes. But he hasn't yet shown most of the things that contribute to winning besides on-ball defense. Buzelis I think I may have underrated in my All-Rookie teams; that's the one selection from all of my awards I think I may have made a mistake on. That said, he's just so raw it's hard for me to know what he ends up being.
Castle 19-6-6 over his last 14 starts is pretty good for a 20 year old, but those percentages give pause. We'll see. Buzelis is 48-80% over his last 30 -- is any other rookie close to that? -- with more than a block and almost 2 threes a game in less than 28 minutes. I like what that might become when he's 21! But not disagreeing at all with Castle as the award winner this year.
Great article. I'm curious what you think of the argument about MVP made on Dunc'd-On that, Jokic is a better player, but SGA may be more valuable because, essentially, there's more opportunity cost in playing Jokic.
Because Center is such an important position defensively, it's hard to construct a Jokic team that's great on both ends whereas SGA is both great individually and takes less away from the roster-building puzzle.
I guess the obvious counter-argument is that the Nuggets _just_ won the title in '23.
I have a ton of respect for the Dunc'd On folks, and I listen all the time, but I was shocked by their opinion. In my opinion, they put a little too much weight in the advanced metrics.
I think that specific argument is interesting, but I'm not convinced it's true. Don't forget it was Nate who swore up and down that the Nuggets could never win a championship with Jokic at center because of his perceived defensive liabilities; he was wrong then, as he's admitted. It turns out that true-blue superstars can't easily be put in a box. Giannis couldn't win a championship without a jumper, until he could. Steph Curry couldn't win a championship as an undersized shooting guard who only shot jumpers (narrative, not my belief), until he did.
I think we've proved that proper (and lucky) teambuilding can create anything around a good enough superstar. If Jokic was on the Thunder right now instead of Hartenstein and had the exact same cast around him, with Holmgren playing power forward, don't you think that team would still be an incredible defense? I do.
It might be harder with Jokic than SGA, but not that much so.
Thanks for the reply, and I asked the question because I don't have a strong opinion about it (and I think they were pretty clear that they were only discussing opportunity cost because they felt the race was extremely close, and that they didn't see a clear-cut favorite based on stats alone).
All of that said, let's take a step back, in all of the examples that you give, it's worth thinking about, "what do we learn from seeing a player or team succeed in ways that we were skeptical of."
For Steph the answer is, "outlier 3-point shooting is extremely valuable, and far outweighs any other concerns you might have about his game."
For Giannis my takeaway was, "Giannis is extremely good, and and it took things going his way to win a championship, which is normal. He's not one of the extremely small group of players who would put a team in championship contention with almost any supporting cast."
For Jokic I'm not sure if the correct response is (a) "Jokic IS one of the small group of superstars who can elevate an average team to championship contention" or (b) "Denver had pieces that fit together perfectly in '23, and it may be harder to sustain than you would guess."
I lean towards (a), but I'm not as confident in making that judgement as I am with Steph.
It’s impossible to BE confident if someone only has one championship these days, but for me, the proof of concept is enough. This Denver team is demonstrably worse than the one that won the ship, and I still think they are the one West team besides OKC that everyone else fears.
The Nuggets supporting cast is abysmal this year, and people still feel that way. I don’t think they’re remotely close to average with Jokic. That proves A) as much as anything can, to me.
I think teams should fear HOU (not to win the championship, but as a threat in any given series).
The unanswerable question for me about Denver's championship is how much it depended upon peak Aaron Gordon -- if that turns out to be hard to replace it would put a little more weight on the question of whether it's harder than it looks to find the right supporting cast for Jokic.
But that's unanswerable because there are so many other ways in which the team this year is worse, so it's hard to isolate one in particular.
I'm riding the weaselly wagon on this MVP vote. Split it. Both Jokich and Shai are doing amazing things night in and night out against teams determined to stop them. In terms of value and impact both are deserving.
A stunning DPOY pick! Well-explained.
Thanks! I aim for shock and awe.
I agree strongly with your Defensive PoY and MVP picks, and your reasoning is something I'll just parrot to everyone else who is wrong. RoY is weirder because we all know Buzelis is the best in the rookie class, or we all WILL know next year. But this year's numbers say it's Castle, and he is very good.
Glad you like DPOY and MVP picks!
Castle will win, and he has shown a lot of fun flashes. But he hasn't yet shown most of the things that contribute to winning besides on-ball defense. Buzelis I think I may have underrated in my All-Rookie teams; that's the one selection from all of my awards I think I may have made a mistake on. That said, he's just so raw it's hard for me to know what he ends up being.
Castle 19-6-6 over his last 14 starts is pretty good for a 20 year old, but those percentages give pause. We'll see. Buzelis is 48-80% over his last 30 -- is any other rookie close to that? -- with more than a block and almost 2 threes a game in less than 28 minutes. I like what that might become when he's 21! But not disagreeing at all with Castle as the award winner this year.