Love the detail here. I think another tiebreaker for SGA is that SGA’s defensive competence and supreme offensive reliability are the star foundation for what may end up being the greatest team by record and point differential ever. Shai doesn’t have an obvious weakness you have to compensate for in team building, whereas Jokic for all his offensive greatness needs a defensive infrastructure to insulate him defensively which caps Denver’s regular season ceiling.
Also, for MIP, Maxey winning a second time is just so much fun, juts like he plays so that’s what I’m rooting for.
Yeah, Shai's well-roundedness is an easy sell. Even though I agree with you generally, I do want to quibble with the idea that the Nuggets have had to compromise their teambuilding to account for Jokic's shortcomings. I hear that all the time, and while it might be what the Nuggets SHOULD have done, it's not what they've actually done. I wouldn't consider Jamal Murray or Michael Porter Jr. some defensive stoppers; even Braun, while good, isn't some All-Defensive monster. And they won a championship that way!
That's just a pet peeve of mine ha. Jokic is so good offensively you can just build a normal team and hope that an average-ish defense is good enough to pair with what will be an unstoppable playoff offense. It would be fun to see him surrounded by guys like Ron Holland and Ausar Thompson, just to see exactly how high he can lift subpar offensive talent on a team like that, but the Nuggets HAVEN'T done that and it's worked out, if not great, at least okay for them in the grand scheme of things!
The one thing about Denver is that with and MPJ they never gave up any positional size and they were getting supplemental rim protection from Gordon and MPJ too (I think). Murray might not be a stalwart on D but at least he’s not small and KCP was a more defensive oriented 2 (he could shoot but he didn’t get it up that much for a 2 if memory serves). I guess the question is whether a Joker group with a small guard that really leaned into offense would expose Denver - Dame and Jokic is quite the pipe dream. But Jokic teams blitz teams whenever he’s on the court anyway so maybe if Denver had an amazing bench they’d win seventy games too.
Yes, he air balls free throws, clangs any attempt at a jumper, gets cooked one on one, and gets benched for entire fourth quarters. Oh, maybe that’s why.
Lol. It's actually two reasons. One, I'm frankly just tired of writing about him. There are only so many ways to write about rim protectors, and I've cycled through them all over the last half-decade.
I try not to judge celebrities off of one isolated event -- you never know the real details. But when patterns emerge, I also don't feel obligated to root for them.
Here’s how I settle the MVP debate. If you were building a team for just this season who would be your first pick? Obviously it would be Luka…oh wait, I mean Jokic…hold on, SGA for sure…hmmm. Nevermind!
What's fun is that all of them play so differently. You would take a different roster-building direction if you were starting from scratch with any of them!
Love the detail here. I think another tiebreaker for SGA is that SGA’s defensive competence and supreme offensive reliability are the star foundation for what may end up being the greatest team by record and point differential ever. Shai doesn’t have an obvious weakness you have to compensate for in team building, whereas Jokic for all his offensive greatness needs a defensive infrastructure to insulate him defensively which caps Denver’s regular season ceiling.
Also, for MIP, Maxey winning a second time is just so much fun, juts like he plays so that’s what I’m rooting for.
Yeah, Shai's well-roundedness is an easy sell. Even though I agree with you generally, I do want to quibble with the idea that the Nuggets have had to compromise their teambuilding to account for Jokic's shortcomings. I hear that all the time, and while it might be what the Nuggets SHOULD have done, it's not what they've actually done. I wouldn't consider Jamal Murray or Michael Porter Jr. some defensive stoppers; even Braun, while good, isn't some All-Defensive monster. And they won a championship that way!
That's just a pet peeve of mine ha. Jokic is so good offensively you can just build a normal team and hope that an average-ish defense is good enough to pair with what will be an unstoppable playoff offense. It would be fun to see him surrounded by guys like Ron Holland and Ausar Thompson, just to see exactly how high he can lift subpar offensive talent on a team like that, but the Nuggets HAVEN'T done that and it's worked out, if not great, at least okay for them in the grand scheme of things!
The one thing about Denver is that with and MPJ they never gave up any positional size and they were getting supplemental rim protection from Gordon and MPJ too (I think). Murray might not be a stalwart on D but at least he’s not small and KCP was a more defensive oriented 2 (he could shoot but he didn’t get it up that much for a 2 if memory serves). I guess the question is whether a Joker group with a small guard that really leaned into offense would expose Denver - Dame and Jokic is quite the pipe dream. But Jokic teams blitz teams whenever he’s on the court anyway so maybe if Denver had an amazing bench they’d win seventy games too.
Yeah, it would be a fascinating counterfactual to explore, and you're right that the size does matter. But doesn't seem like we'll ever see it.
Why the reluctance to pick Gobert?
Yes, he air balls free throws, clangs any attempt at a jumper, gets cooked one on one, and gets benched for entire fourth quarters. Oh, maybe that’s why.
Lol. It's actually two reasons. One, I'm frankly just tired of writing about him. There are only so many ways to write about rim protectors, and I've cycled through them all over the last half-decade.
Two, he doesn't seem like the, uh, warmest human around. I've lost count of how many things he's done that I find personally irritating or repulsive, most recently: https://sports.yahoo.com/article/rudy-gobert-addresses-concerning-details-021335191.html
I try not to judge celebrities off of one isolated event -- you never know the real details. But when patterns emerge, I also don't feel obligated to root for them.
Oof don’t love that :/
Here’s how I settle the MVP debate. If you were building a team for just this season who would be your first pick? Obviously it would be Luka…oh wait, I mean Jokic…hold on, SGA for sure…hmmm. Nevermind!
What's fun is that all of them play so differently. You would take a different roster-building direction if you were starting from scratch with any of them!