NBA Season 2022-23

[tazzmaniac]

Thanks Spurs!

Jokic a monster offensively, but you can literally take advantage of him every time down the court defensively. Cost several big buckets down the stretch because he couldn’t stay in front of his man.

Another day, another Jpotter post trashing Jokic's defence incorrectly

Incorrectly? The guy is a wet paper bag defensively. He makes Kornet look serviceable.

Yes, incorrectly. As in provably false. You're equating of his slow perimeter defence with being a negative on that end is, simply, wrong.

It's *hardly* just his slow perimeter defense. The vast majority of the time I watch him he hardly gives any effort even in the post, outside of grabbing rebounds. Like, this is literally just from one game, and it's not an aberration:

https://twitter.com/aidanlaporta69/status/1633978624805158914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

You can post as many flawed advanced defensive metrics that you want that are misleading and biased due to defensive rebounding weightiness, subpar backups, other team contextual factors, etc., but nobody can sit there with a straight face and argue that Jokic is even an average level defender when you actually lay eyes on him. This is especially true given that his position is traditionally - and probably still is - the most important defensive position in basketball.

LOL!

Here's a very simple metric - Jokic is in the 96th percentile for defensive points/possession, and he was in the 95th for that last season. For the majority of his career, he has been in the top 16 percent for that metric.

How does his team's defence perform so much better with him on the floor, if he's not even an average level defender? Please, explain that to me.

The fact that you're touting an on/off statistic as "simple" is part of the problem. Sure, it's not super complicated to actually compute, but as with all on/off stats, it's very context-laden and can be very biased and misleading due to the contextual factors.

In the case of Jokic, lineups and Malone's rotation patterns seem to explain a lot of this contradiction with the eye test. Jokic plays a heavy, heavy proportion of his minutes with the primary starting group or four starters with one bench player. Even with a cumulative 54 games missed by the starters, Jokic has played nearly 27% (!) of his total minutes with the starting group, and when you also consider lineups with four starters plus one bench player, that jumps up to nearly 59% (!) of his total minutes.

Compare that to someone like JT. Even combining our two main starting lineups in JT, JB, Smart, Al, and White/Rob (which itself isn't completely fair, as the White lineup is a regular first sub lineup in games when fully healthy), JT has only played approximately 17% of his total minutes with those two main starting lineups. And while the injuries to the starters have made it virtually impossible to also accurately calculate combination starting/bench lineups given the nightly variance, looking at the lineup data highlights that JT's lineup distribution minutes are much more equitably distributed between primary starting and primary/mixed bench units (see https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/tatumja01/lineups/2023).

So the fact that Denver plays Jokic with the starting five and primary starter units so frequently *absolutely* impacts the on/off stats in a misleading way, as of course there's going to be that kind of major distinction between Jokic on/off the court given the quality of the lineups, even defensively. These and other advance stats' issues are also compounded by the fact that Denver's backup big/center position has been a joke all season (hello DJ and Cancar); I mean, the fact that Thomas Bryant was seen as such a great move for them to shore up their backup big depth is telling.

A truer "simpler" stat (though still with contextual factors - like % of switches leading to mismatches which isn't as much of a concern with Jokic given that Denver rightly tries to avoid this with their scheming) would be to look at Jokic's defensive field goal percentage, which are pretty scary for a center and appear to be right at the worst in the league for starting centers close to Vucevic and Valuncinas. Overall, opponents shoot .4% better against Jokic than their average: 1.7% better on 3pfg%; 1.6% better on >15 feet shots; -1.1% better on <10 feet; .5% better on <6 feet. (Note that Jokic's primary backup Bryant is now at +4.2% DFG%, too, furthering the argument above.)

For comparison, Timelord forces opponents to shoot -6.3% lower than average: -2.9% on 3pfg%; -2.2% on >15 feet shots; -7.3% on <10 feet; -9.9% on <6 feet.

And this is much more consistent with what we see from Jokic when actually watching him with your eyes. Jokic is simply not a good defender or rim protector at all, which I think is mostly explained by lack of mobility and some lack of effort due to high workload offensively. But it's also about his overall game. He prioritizes rebounding positioning over actual shot  defense and alterations, which gives him great rebounding percentages (that also highly skews the other advanced defensive metrics in his favor) but comes at the cost of not impacting and altering shots in a way that most centers do, which is depicted in numerous plays in the video shared above.

So, again, no - Jokic is in no way an average defender, let alone some good to great defender like you're arguing. Relying solely on the advanced defensive metrics that do not matchup with the eye test is simply fallacious, as there are so many caveats and contextualities with the advanced metrics that they're useless without also observational correlation.

This is some of the biggest reaching I have ever seen. The defences Jokic takes part in perform massively better than those Denver ones he does not, but that is irrelevant because direct opponents shoot 0.4% better against Jokic than average? What a ridiculous notion, bordering on statistical illiteracy.

That’s what you got out of all of that? Or are you just purposefully making a strawman to avoid the obvious error in your argument - relying exclusively on noisy advanced stats that support your conclusion and ignoring the more individual-based stats and the eyeball test? Either way, it’s pretty ridiculous, man haha

It doesn’t matter if it’s .4% or 44%; it’s relative to your peers and the state of NBA defense. Jokic has consistently been at or near the bottom of the league this year (and I believe many other years) in DFG% for centers, which is ultimately what matters when determining his effectiveness as a defender based on this stat. And it fits the actual observational data - he simply doesn’t really challenge or pressure the ball or shot. That’s not good defense, especially for the primary rim protector.

If he’s such a “good defender” in your eyes, why does he consistently measure among the worst defensive centers in one of the most basic, individual-based defensive statistics that is regularly utilized to highlight individual defensive effectiveness?

And as further recent evidence of this, the Spurs cooked him last night shooting 19/32 against him 🤯: https://twitter.com/thenbacentral/status/1634568492660948993?s=46&t=lGU0TGXtwjkuVuoin6WTNw

Your fixation on individual stats when basketball is a team sport is confusing. You also talk about relativity to peers for some stats, but apparently those don't matter for "noisy" advanced ones - curious.

How are these advanced stats noisy? How is the fact that his team concedes massively less points per possession with him on the floor vs him off it noisy? You still haven't actually explained that.

Next time you're screaming about our team being unable to secure a defensive rebound down the stretch I'll make sure to bring that up. At least they hold their individual matchup to good field goal %s relative to their peers

Bro, read my posts above, or NBA stats explainer literature. I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve explained in great detail the problems with this kind of extrapolation and pointing to Jokic as a great individual defender solely by relying on these advanced on/off and team stats that are notoriously noisy and difficult to parse out individual contributions. Not sure how you don’t understand that, but I’m done explaining it.

I do find it funny, though, that you’ve yet to engage with any of the videos showing Jokic’s “defense” the last two games, but we both know why that is, i.e. no serious person can watch those games and claim he’s a consistently average to above average defender.

Ah yes, well, clips from two relatively meaningless games are the only way to draw conclusions, you're right.

You repeatedly insist he is not even close to average because he is a poor defender in space and weak rim protector. I say you're wrong, because of his elite positioning, hands, and rebounding. Continue your righteous crusade against the soon-to-be back-to-back-to-back MVP

Eh, he very well may win MVP. Though I think enough voters have some discomfort with both (a) his defensive deficiencies, and (b) the historical significance of crowning him a three-time MVP with his minimal postseason success that one of Giannis or Embiid will likely beat him out, depending upon seeding.

But we'll revisit this thread when Jokic is getting "Gobert'ed" and being repeatedly targeted in the playoffs due to his defensive deficiencies. 

I have little confidence in the MVP voters.  They are just going to look at the advanced stats and hand it to Jokic.  The thought of Jokic matching Bird as a back-to-back-to-back MVP is rather disturbing and there is no reason to think it will stop this year.  There's a good chance Jokic ends up with 4, 5 or even 6 straight MVPs. 

[gouki88]

Thanks Spurs!

Jokic a monster offensively, but you can literally take advantage of him every time down the court defensively. Cost several big buckets down the stretch because he couldn’t stay in front of his man.

Another day, another Jpotter post trashing Jokic's defence incorrectly

Incorrectly? The guy is a wet paper bag defensively. He makes Kornet look serviceable.

Yes, incorrectly. As in provably false. You're equating of his slow perimeter defence with being a negative on that end is, simply, wrong.

It's *hardly* just his slow perimeter defense. The vast majority of the time I watch him he hardly gives any effort even in the post, outside of grabbing rebounds. Like, this is literally just from one game, and it's not an aberration:

https://twitter.com/aidanlaporta69/status/1633978624805158914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

You can post as many flawed advanced defensive metrics that you want that are misleading and biased due to defensive rebounding weightiness, subpar backups, other team contextual factors, etc., but nobody can sit there with a straight face and argue that Jokic is even an average level defender when you actually lay eyes on him. This is especially true given that his position is traditionally - and probably still is - the most important defensive position in basketball.

LOL!

Here's a very simple metric - Jokic is in the 96th percentile for defensive points/possession, and he was in the 95th for that last season. For the majority of his career, he has been in the top 16 percent for that metric.

How does his team's defence perform so much better with him on the floor, if he's not even an average level defender? Please, explain that to me.

The fact that you're touting an on/off statistic as "simple" is part of the problem. Sure, it's not super complicated to actually compute, but as with all on/off stats, it's very context-laden and can be very biased and misleading due to the contextual factors.

In the case of Jokic, lineups and Malone's rotation patterns seem to explain a lot of this contradiction with the eye test. Jokic plays a heavy, heavy proportion of his minutes with the primary starting group or four starters with one bench player. Even with a cumulative 54 games missed by the starters, Jokic has played nearly 27% (!) of his total minutes with the starting group, and when you also consider lineups with four starters plus one bench player, that jumps up to nearly 59% (!) of his total minutes.

Compare that to someone like JT. Even combining our two main starting lineups in JT, JB, Smart, Al, and White/Rob (which itself isn't completely fair, as the White lineup is a regular first sub lineup in games when fully healthy), JT has only played approximately 17% of his total minutes with those two main starting lineups. And while the injuries to the starters have made it virtually impossible to also accurately calculate combination starting/bench lineups given the nightly variance, looking at the lineup data highlights that JT's lineup distribution minutes are much more equitably distributed between primary starting and primary/mixed bench units (see https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/tatumja01/lineups/2023).

So the fact that Denver plays Jokic with the starting five and primary starter units so frequently *absolutely* impacts the on/off stats in a misleading way, as of course there's going to be that kind of major distinction between Jokic on/off the court given the quality of the lineups, even defensively. These and other advance stats' issues are also compounded by the fact that Denver's backup big/center position has been a joke all season (hello DJ and Cancar); I mean, the fact that Thomas Bryant was seen as such a great move for them to shore up their backup big depth is telling.

A truer "simpler" stat (though still with contextual factors - like % of switches leading to mismatches which isn't as much of a concern with Jokic given that Denver rightly tries to avoid this with their scheming) would be to look at Jokic's defensive field goal percentage, which are pretty scary for a center and appear to be right at the worst in the league for starting centers close to Vucevic and Valuncinas. Overall, opponents shoot .4% better against Jokic than their average: 1.7% better on 3pfg%; 1.6% better on >15 feet shots; -1.1% better on <10 feet; .5% better on <6 feet. (Note that Jokic's primary backup Bryant is now at +4.2% DFG%, too, furthering the argument above.)

For comparison, Timelord forces opponents to shoot -6.3% lower than average: -2.9% on 3pfg%; -2.2% on >15 feet shots; -7.3% on <10 feet; -9.9% on <6 feet.

And this is much more consistent with what we see from Jokic when actually watching him with your eyes. Jokic is simply not a good defender or rim protector at all, which I think is mostly explained by lack of mobility and some lack of effort due to high workload offensively. But it's also about his overall game. He prioritizes rebounding positioning over actual shot  defense and alterations, which gives him great rebounding percentages (that also highly skews the other advanced defensive metrics in his favor) but comes at the cost of not impacting and altering shots in a way that most centers do, which is depicted in numerous plays in the video shared above.

So, again, no - Jokic is in no way an average defender, let alone some good to great defender like you're arguing. Relying solely on the advanced defensive metrics that do not matchup with the eye test is simply fallacious, as there are so many caveats and contextualities with the advanced metrics that they're useless without also observational correlation.

This is some of the biggest reaching I have ever seen. The defences Jokic takes part in perform massively better than those Denver ones he does not, but that is irrelevant because direct opponents shoot 0.4% better against Jokic than average? What a ridiculous notion, bordering on statistical illiteracy.

That’s what you got out of all of that? Or are you just purposefully making a strawman to avoid the obvious error in your argument - relying exclusively on noisy advanced stats that support your conclusion and ignoring the more individual-based stats and the eyeball test? Either way, it’s pretty ridiculous, man haha

It doesn’t matter if it’s .4% or 44%; it’s relative to your peers and the state of NBA defense. Jokic has consistently been at or near the bottom of the league this year (and I believe many other years) in DFG% for centers, which is ultimately what matters when determining his effectiveness as a defender based on this stat. And it fits the actual observational data - he simply doesn’t really challenge or pressure the ball or shot. That’s not good defense, especially for the primary rim protector.

If he’s such a “good defender” in your eyes, why does he consistently measure among the worst defensive centers in one of the most basic, individual-based defensive statistics that is regularly utilized to highlight individual defensive effectiveness?

And as further recent evidence of this, the Spurs cooked him last night shooting 19/32 against him 🤯: https://twitter.com/thenbacentral/status/1634568492660948993?s=46&t=lGU0TGXtwjkuVuoin6WTNw

Your fixation on individual stats when basketball is a team sport is confusing. You also talk about relativity to peers for some stats, but apparently those don't matter for "noisy" advanced ones - curious.

How are these advanced stats noisy? How is the fact that his team concedes massively less points per possession with him on the floor vs him off it noisy? You still haven't actually explained that.

Next time you're screaming about our team being unable to secure a defensive rebound down the stretch I'll make sure to bring that up. At least they hold their individual matchup to good field goal %s relative to their peers

Bro, read my posts above, or NBA stats explainer literature. I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve explained in great detail the problems with this kind of extrapolation and pointing to Jokic as a great individual defender solely by relying on these advanced on/off and team stats that are notoriously noisy and difficult to parse out individual contributions. Not sure how you don’t understand that, but I’m done explaining it.

I do find it funny, though, that you’ve yet to engage with any of the videos showing Jokic’s “defense” the last two games, but we both know why that is, i.e. no serious person can watch those games and claim he’s a consistently average to above average defender.

Ah yes, well, clips from two relatively meaningless games are the only way to draw conclusions, you're right.

You repeatedly insist he is not even close to average because he is a poor defender in space and weak rim protector. I say you're wrong, because of his elite positioning, hands, and rebounding. Continue your righteous crusade against the soon-to-be back-to-back-to-back MVP

Jokic is going to be the soon-to-be back-to-back-to-back MVP because voters ignore defense.  They can just be wowed by his advanced offensive metrics.  That's easy to do since the defensive metrics available are mediocre at best.  However, a 2-way player is inherently more valuable than a 1-way player.  Whatever advantage Jokic might have offensively over Giannis, Embiid or Tatum is much more than offset by their defensive advantage that they have over Jokic. 

If you're a poor defender in space and a weak rim protector as a center, you just aren't a good defender.  Giving much value for defensive rebounding is silly.  Something like 75% of defensive rebounds are uncontested.  Furthermore if you put more effort into actual defense especially on the perimeter you're going to hurt your defensive rebounding.  What does elite positioning mean when you aren't a good defender in space or at the rim?

I do chuckle that this is your reaction to witnessing perhaps the best offensive player of all time.

[jpotter33]

Thanks Spurs!

Jokic a monster offensively, but you can literally take advantage of him every time down the court defensively. Cost several big buckets down the stretch because he couldn’t stay in front of his man.

Another day, another Jpotter post trashing Jokic's defence incorrectly

Incorrectly? The guy is a wet paper bag defensively. He makes Kornet look serviceable.

Yes, incorrectly. As in provably false. You're equating of his slow perimeter defence with being a negative on that end is, simply, wrong.

It's *hardly* just his slow perimeter defense. The vast majority of the time I watch him he hardly gives any effort even in the post, outside of grabbing rebounds. Like, this is literally just from one game, and it's not an aberration:

https://twitter.com/aidanlaporta69/status/1633978624805158914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

You can post as many flawed advanced defensive metrics that you want that are misleading and biased due to defensive rebounding weightiness, subpar backups, other team contextual factors, etc., but nobody can sit there with a straight face and argue that Jokic is even an average level defender when you actually lay eyes on him. This is especially true given that his position is traditionally - and probably still is - the most important defensive position in basketball.

LOL!

Here's a very simple metric - Jokic is in the 96th percentile for defensive points/possession, and he was in the 95th for that last season. For the majority of his career, he has been in the top 16 percent for that metric.

How does his team's defence perform so much better with him on the floor, if he's not even an average level defender? Please, explain that to me.

The fact that you're touting an on/off statistic as "simple" is part of the problem. Sure, it's not super complicated to actually compute, but as with all on/off stats, it's very context-laden and can be very biased and misleading due to the contextual factors.

In the case of Jokic, lineups and Malone's rotation patterns seem to explain a lot of this contradiction with the eye test. Jokic plays a heavy, heavy proportion of his minutes with the primary starting group or four starters with one bench player. Even with a cumulative 54 games missed by the starters, Jokic has played nearly 27% (!) of his total minutes with the starting group, and when you also consider lineups with four starters plus one bench player, that jumps up to nearly 59% (!) of his total minutes.

Compare that to someone like JT. Even combining our two main starting lineups in JT, JB, Smart, Al, and White/Rob (which itself isn't completely fair, as the White lineup is a regular first sub lineup in games when fully healthy), JT has only played approximately 17% of his total minutes with those two main starting lineups. And while the injuries to the starters have made it virtually impossible to also accurately calculate combination starting/bench lineups given the nightly variance, looking at the lineup data highlights that JT's lineup distribution minutes are much more equitably distributed between primary starting and primary/mixed bench units (see https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/tatumja01/lineups/2023).

So the fact that Denver plays Jokic with the starting five and primary starter units so frequently *absolutely* impacts the on/off stats in a misleading way, as of course there's going to be that kind of major distinction between Jokic on/off the court given the quality of the lineups, even defensively. These and other advance stats' issues are also compounded by the fact that Denver's backup big/center position has been a joke all season (hello DJ and Cancar); I mean, the fact that Thomas Bryant was seen as such a great move for them to shore up their backup big depth is telling.

A truer "simpler" stat (though still with contextual factors - like % of switches leading to mismatches which isn't as much of a concern with Jokic given that Denver rightly tries to avoid this with their scheming) would be to look at Jokic's defensive field goal percentage, which are pretty scary for a center and appear to be right at the worst in the league for starting centers close to Vucevic and Valuncinas. Overall, opponents shoot .4% better against Jokic than their average: 1.7% better on 3pfg%; 1.6% better on >15 feet shots; -1.1% better on <10 feet; .5% better on <6 feet. (Note that Jokic's primary backup Bryant is now at +4.2% DFG%, too, furthering the argument above.)

For comparison, Timelord forces opponents to shoot -6.3% lower than average: -2.9% on 3pfg%; -2.2% on >15 feet shots; -7.3% on <10 feet; -9.9% on <6 feet.

And this is much more consistent with what we see from Jokic when actually watching him with your eyes. Jokic is simply not a good defender or rim protector at all, which I think is mostly explained by lack of mobility and some lack of effort due to high workload offensively. But it's also about his overall game. He prioritizes rebounding positioning over actual shot  defense and alterations, which gives him great rebounding percentages (that also highly skews the other advanced defensive metrics in his favor) but comes at the cost of not impacting and altering shots in a way that most centers do, which is depicted in numerous plays in the video shared above.

So, again, no - Jokic is in no way an average defender, let alone some good to great defender like you're arguing. Relying solely on the advanced defensive metrics that do not matchup with the eye test is simply fallacious, as there are so many caveats and contextualities with the advanced metrics that they're useless without also observational correlation.

This is some of the biggest reaching I have ever seen. The defences Jokic takes part in perform massively better than those Denver ones he does not, but that is irrelevant because direct opponents shoot 0.4% better against Jokic than average? What a ridiculous notion, bordering on statistical illiteracy.

That’s what you got out of all of that? Or are you just purposefully making a strawman to avoid the obvious error in your argument - relying exclusively on noisy advanced stats that support your conclusion and ignoring the more individual-based stats and the eyeball test? Either way, it’s pretty ridiculous, man haha

It doesn’t matter if it’s .4% or 44%; it’s relative to your peers and the state of NBA defense. Jokic has consistently been at or near the bottom of the league this year (and I believe many other years) in DFG% for centers, which is ultimately what matters when determining his effectiveness as a defender based on this stat. And it fits the actual observational data - he simply doesn’t really challenge or pressure the ball or shot. That’s not good defense, especially for the primary rim protector.

If he’s such a “good defender” in your eyes, why does he consistently measure among the worst defensive centers in one of the most basic, individual-based defensive statistics that is regularly utilized to highlight individual defensive effectiveness?

And as further recent evidence of this, the Spurs cooked him last night shooting 19/32 against him 🤯: https://twitter.com/thenbacentral/status/1634568492660948993?s=46&t=lGU0TGXtwjkuVuoin6WTNw

Your fixation on individual stats when basketball is a team sport is confusing. You also talk about relativity to peers for some stats, but apparently those don't matter for "noisy" advanced ones - curious.

How are these advanced stats noisy? How is the fact that his team concedes massively less points per possession with him on the floor vs him off it noisy? You still haven't actually explained that.

Next time you're screaming about our team being unable to secure a defensive rebound down the stretch I'll make sure to bring that up. At least they hold their individual matchup to good field goal %s relative to their peers

Bro, read my posts above, or NBA stats explainer literature. I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve explained in great detail the problems with this kind of extrapolation and pointing to Jokic as a great individual defender solely by relying on these advanced on/off and team stats that are notoriously noisy and difficult to parse out individual contributions. Not sure how you don’t understand that, but I’m done explaining it.

I do find it funny, though, that you’ve yet to engage with any of the videos showing Jokic’s “defense” the last two games, but we both know why that is, i.e. no serious person can watch those games and claim he’s a consistently average to above average defender.

Ah yes, well, clips from two relatively meaningless games are the only way to draw conclusions, you're right.

You repeatedly insist he is not even close to average because he is a poor defender in space and weak rim protector. I say you're wrong, because of his elite positioning, hands, and rebounding. Continue your righteous crusade against the soon-to-be back-to-back-to-back MVP

Jokic is going to be the soon-to-be back-to-back-to-back MVP because voters ignore defense.  They can just be wowed by his advanced offensive metrics.  That's easy to do since the defensive metrics available are mediocre at best.  However, a 2-way player is inherently more valuable than a 1-way player.  Whatever advantage Jokic might have offensively over Giannis, Embiid or Tatum is much more than offset by their defensive advantage that they have over Jokic. 

If you're a poor defender in space and a weak rim protector as a center, you just aren't a good defender.  Giving much value for defensive rebounding is silly.  Something like 75% of defensive rebounds are uncontested.  Furthermore if you put more effort into actual defense especially on the perimeter you're going to hurt your defensive rebounding.  What does elite positioning mean when you aren't a good defender in space or at the rim?

TP. Exactly this. And I don't necessarily think it's about stat padding, per se, but he definitely doesn't put out the effort to contest more shots like that due to the higher emphasis on rebounding positioning. And that, by definition seemingly, makes him a poor defender.

And to be honest, I consider rebounding - both offensive and defensive - in its own category not connected to one's offensive or defensive skills. With defensive rebounds in particular, I think that's especially the right mindset given your point about the vast majority of them not being contested or particularly difficult, unlike offensive rebounds.

[gouki88]

Thanks Spurs!

Jokic a monster offensively, but you can literally take advantage of him every time down the court defensively. Cost several big buckets down the stretch because he couldn’t stay in front of his man.

Another day, another Jpotter post trashing Jokic's defence incorrectly

Incorrectly? The guy is a wet paper bag defensively. He makes Kornet look serviceable.

Yes, incorrectly. As in provably false. You're equating of his slow perimeter defence with being a negative on that end is, simply, wrong.

It's *hardly* just his slow perimeter defense. The vast majority of the time I watch him he hardly gives any effort even in the post, outside of grabbing rebounds. Like, this is literally just from one game, and it's not an aberration:

https://twitter.com/aidanlaporta69/status/1633978624805158914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

You can post as many flawed advanced defensive metrics that you want that are misleading and biased due to defensive rebounding weightiness, subpar backups, other team contextual factors, etc., but nobody can sit there with a straight face and argue that Jokic is even an average level defender when you actually lay eyes on him. This is especially true given that his position is traditionally - and probably still is - the most important defensive position in basketball.

LOL!

Here's a very simple metric - Jokic is in the 96th percentile for defensive points/possession, and he was in the 95th for that last season. For the majority of his career, he has been in the top 16 percent for that metric.

How does his team's defence perform so much better with him on the floor, if he's not even an average level defender? Please, explain that to me.

The fact that you're touting an on/off statistic as "simple" is part of the problem. Sure, it's not super complicated to actually compute, but as with all on/off stats, it's very context-laden and can be very biased and misleading due to the contextual factors.

In the case of Jokic, lineups and Malone's rotation patterns seem to explain a lot of this contradiction with the eye test. Jokic plays a heavy, heavy proportion of his minutes with the primary starting group or four starters with one bench player. Even with a cumulative 54 games missed by the starters, Jokic has played nearly 27% (!) of his total minutes with the starting group, and when you also consider lineups with four starters plus one bench player, that jumps up to nearly 59% (!) of his total minutes.

Compare that to someone like JT. Even combining our two main starting lineups in JT, JB, Smart, Al, and White/Rob (which itself isn't completely fair, as the White lineup is a regular first sub lineup in games when fully healthy), JT has only played approximately 17% of his total minutes with those two main starting lineups. And while the injuries to the starters have made it virtually impossible to also accurately calculate combination starting/bench lineups given the nightly variance, looking at the lineup data highlights that JT's lineup distribution minutes are much more equitably distributed between primary starting and primary/mixed bench units (see https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/tatumja01/lineups/2023).

So the fact that Denver plays Jokic with the starting five and primary starter units so frequently *absolutely* impacts the on/off stats in a misleading way, as of course there's going to be that kind of major distinction between Jokic on/off the court given the quality of the lineups, even defensively. These and other advance stats' issues are also compounded by the fact that Denver's backup big/center position has been a joke all season (hello DJ and Cancar); I mean, the fact that Thomas Bryant was seen as such a great move for them to shore up their backup big depth is telling.

A truer "simpler" stat (though still with contextual factors - like % of switches leading to mismatches which isn't as much of a concern with Jokic given that Denver rightly tries to avoid this with their scheming) would be to look at Jokic's defensive field goal percentage, which are pretty scary for a center and appear to be right at the worst in the league for starting centers close to Vucevic and Valuncinas. Overall, opponents shoot .4% better against Jokic than their average: 1.7% better on 3pfg%; 1.6% better on >15 feet shots; -1.1% better on <10 feet; .5% better on <6 feet. (Note that Jokic's primary backup Bryant is now at +4.2% DFG%, too, furthering the argument above.)

For comparison, Timelord forces opponents to shoot -6.3% lower than average: -2.9% on 3pfg%; -2.2% on >15 feet shots; -7.3% on <10 feet; -9.9% on <6 feet.

And this is much more consistent with what we see from Jokic when actually watching him with your eyes. Jokic is simply not a good defender or rim protector at all, which I think is mostly explained by lack of mobility and some lack of effort due to high workload offensively. But it's also about his overall game. He prioritizes rebounding positioning over actual shot  defense and alterations, which gives him great rebounding percentages (that also highly skews the other advanced defensive metrics in his favor) but comes at the cost of not impacting and altering shots in a way that most centers do, which is depicted in numerous plays in the video shared above.

So, again, no - Jokic is in no way an average defender, let alone some good to great defender like you're arguing. Relying solely on the advanced defensive metrics that do not matchup with the eye test is simply fallacious, as there are so many caveats and contextualities with the advanced metrics that they're useless without also observational correlation.

This is some of the biggest reaching I have ever seen. The defences Jokic takes part in perform massively better than those Denver ones he does not, but that is irrelevant because direct opponents shoot 0.4% better against Jokic than average? What a ridiculous notion, bordering on statistical illiteracy.

That’s what you got out of all of that? Or are you just purposefully making a strawman to avoid the obvious error in your argument - relying exclusively on noisy advanced stats that support your conclusion and ignoring the more individual-based stats and the eyeball test? Either way, it’s pretty ridiculous, man haha

It doesn’t matter if it’s .4% or 44%; it’s relative to your peers and the state of NBA defense. Jokic has consistently been at or near the bottom of the league this year (and I believe many other years) in DFG% for centers, which is ultimately what matters when determining his effectiveness as a defender based on this stat. And it fits the actual observational data - he simply doesn’t really challenge or pressure the ball or shot. That’s not good defense, especially for the primary rim protector.

If he’s such a “good defender” in your eyes, why does he consistently measure among the worst defensive centers in one of the most basic, individual-based defensive statistics that is regularly utilized to highlight individual defensive effectiveness?

And as further recent evidence of this, the Spurs cooked him last night shooting 19/32 against him 🤯: https://twitter.com/thenbacentral/status/1634568492660948993?s=46&t=lGU0TGXtwjkuVuoin6WTNw

Your fixation on individual stats when basketball is a team sport is confusing. You also talk about relativity to peers for some stats, but apparently those don't matter for "noisy" advanced ones - curious.

How are these advanced stats noisy? How is the fact that his team concedes massively less points per possession with him on the floor vs him off it noisy? You still haven't actually explained that.

Next time you're screaming about our team being unable to secure a defensive rebound down the stretch I'll make sure to bring that up. At least they hold their individual matchup to good field goal %s relative to their peers

Bro, read my posts above, or NBA stats explainer literature. I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve explained in great detail the problems with this kind of extrapolation and pointing to Jokic as a great individual defender solely by relying on these advanced on/off and team stats that are notoriously noisy and difficult to parse out individual contributions. Not sure how you don’t understand that, but I’m done explaining it.

I do find it funny, though, that you’ve yet to engage with any of the videos showing Jokic’s “defense” the last two games, but we both know why that is, i.e. no serious person can watch those games and claim he’s a consistently average to above average defender.

Ah yes, well, clips from two relatively meaningless games are the only way to draw conclusions, you're right.

You repeatedly insist he is not even close to average because he is a poor defender in space and weak rim protector. I say you're wrong, because of his elite positioning, hands, and rebounding. Continue your righteous crusade against the soon-to-be back-to-back-to-back MVP

Jokic is going to be the soon-to-be back-to-back-to-back MVP because voters ignore defense.  They can just be wowed by his advanced offensive metrics.  That's easy to do since the defensive metrics available are mediocre at best.  However, a 2-way player is inherently more valuable than a 1-way player.  Whatever advantage Jokic might have offensively over Giannis, Embiid or Tatum is much more than offset by their defensive advantage that they have over Jokic. 

If you're a poor defender in space and a weak rim protector as a center, you just aren't a good defender.  Giving much value for defensive rebounding is silly.  Something like 75% of defensive rebounds are uncontested.  Furthermore if you put more effort into actual defense especially on the perimeter you're going to hurt your defensive rebounding. What does elite positioning mean when you aren't a good defender in space or at the rim?

Top 10 in the entire league in deflections, 2nd in the league in contested defensive rebounding, 2nd in overall defensive rebounds. You realise there are ways to look at contested defensive rebounding alone, right?

[tazzmaniac]

Thanks Spurs!

Jokic a monster offensively, but you can literally take advantage of him every time down the court defensively. Cost several big buckets down the stretch because he couldn’t stay in front of his man.

Another day, another Jpotter post trashing Jokic's defence incorrectly

Incorrectly? The guy is a wet paper bag defensively. He makes Kornet look serviceable.

Yes, incorrectly. As in provably false. You're equating of his slow perimeter defence with being a negative on that end is, simply, wrong.

It's *hardly* just his slow perimeter defense. The vast majority of the time I watch him he hardly gives any effort even in the post, outside of grabbing rebounds. Like, this is literally just from one game, and it's not an aberration:

https://twitter.com/aidanlaporta69/status/1633978624805158914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

You can post as many flawed advanced defensive metrics that you want that are misleading and biased due to defensive rebounding weightiness, subpar backups, other team contextual factors, etc., but nobody can sit there with a straight face and argue that Jokic is even an average level defender when you actually lay eyes on him. This is especially true given that his position is traditionally - and probably still is - the most important defensive position in basketball.

LOL!

Here's a very simple metric - Jokic is in the 96th percentile for defensive points/possession, and he was in the 95th for that last season. For the majority of his career, he has been in the top 16 percent for that metric.

How does his team's defence perform so much better with him on the floor, if he's not even an average level defender? Please, explain that to me.

The fact that you're touting an on/off statistic as "simple" is part of the problem. Sure, it's not super complicated to actually compute, but as with all on/off stats, it's very context-laden and can be very biased and misleading due to the contextual factors.

In the case of Jokic, lineups and Malone's rotation patterns seem to explain a lot of this contradiction with the eye test. Jokic plays a heavy, heavy proportion of his minutes with the primary starting group or four starters with one bench player. Even with a cumulative 54 games missed by the starters, Jokic has played nearly 27% (!) of his total minutes with the starting group, and when you also consider lineups with four starters plus one bench player, that jumps up to nearly 59% (!) of his total minutes.

Compare that to someone like JT. Even combining our two main starting lineups in JT, JB, Smart, Al, and White/Rob (which itself isn't completely fair, as the White lineup is a regular first sub lineup in games when fully healthy), JT has only played approximately 17% of his total minutes with those two main starting lineups. And while the injuries to the starters have made it virtually impossible to also accurately calculate combination starting/bench lineups given the nightly variance, looking at the lineup data highlights that JT's lineup distribution minutes are much more equitably distributed between primary starting and primary/mixed bench units (see https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/tatumja01/lineups/2023).

So the fact that Denver plays Jokic with the starting five and primary starter units so frequently *absolutely* impacts the on/off stats in a misleading way, as of course there's going to be that kind of major distinction between Jokic on/off the court given the quality of the lineups, even defensively. These and other advance stats' issues are also compounded by the fact that Denver's backup big/center position has been a joke all season (hello DJ and Cancar); I mean, the fact that Thomas Bryant was seen as such a great move for them to shore up their backup big depth is telling.

A truer "simpler" stat (though still with contextual factors - like % of switches leading to mismatches which isn't as much of a concern with Jokic given that Denver rightly tries to avoid this with their scheming) would be to look at Jokic's defensive field goal percentage, which are pretty scary for a center and appear to be right at the worst in the league for starting centers close to Vucevic and Valuncinas. Overall, opponents shoot .4% better against Jokic than their average: 1.7% better on 3pfg%; 1.6% better on >15 feet shots; -1.1% better on <10 feet; .5% better on <6 feet. (Note that Jokic's primary backup Bryant is now at +4.2% DFG%, too, furthering the argument above.)

For comparison, Timelord forces opponents to shoot -6.3% lower than average: -2.9% on 3pfg%; -2.2% on >15 feet shots; -7.3% on <10 feet; -9.9% on <6 feet.

And this is much more consistent with what we see from Jokic when actually watching him with your eyes. Jokic is simply not a good defender or rim protector at all, which I think is mostly explained by lack of mobility and some lack of effort due to high workload offensively. But it's also about his overall game. He prioritizes rebounding positioning over actual shot  defense and alterations, which gives him great rebounding percentages (that also highly skews the other advanced defensive metrics in his favor) but comes at the cost of not impacting and altering shots in a way that most centers do, which is depicted in numerous plays in the video shared above.

So, again, no - Jokic is in no way an average defender, let alone some good to great defender like you're arguing. Relying solely on the advanced defensive metrics that do not matchup with the eye test is simply fallacious, as there are so many caveats and contextualities with the advanced metrics that they're useless without also observational correlation.

This is some of the biggest reaching I have ever seen. The defences Jokic takes part in perform massively better than those Denver ones he does not, but that is irrelevant because direct opponents shoot 0.4% better against Jokic than average? What a ridiculous notion, bordering on statistical illiteracy.

That’s what you got out of all of that? Or are you just purposefully making a strawman to avoid the obvious error in your argument - relying exclusively on noisy advanced stats that support your conclusion and ignoring the more individual-based stats and the eyeball test? Either way, it’s pretty ridiculous, man haha

It doesn’t matter if it’s .4% or 44%; it’s relative to your peers and the state of NBA defense. Jokic has consistently been at or near the bottom of the league this year (and I believe many other years) in DFG% for centers, which is ultimately what matters when determining his effectiveness as a defender based on this stat. And it fits the actual observational data - he simply doesn’t really challenge or pressure the ball or shot. That’s not good defense, especially for the primary rim protector.

If he’s such a “good defender” in your eyes, why does he consistently measure among the worst defensive centers in one of the most basic, individual-based defensive statistics that is regularly utilized to highlight individual defensive effectiveness?

And as further recent evidence of this, the Spurs cooked him last night shooting 19/32 against him 🤯: https://twitter.com/thenbacentral/status/1634568492660948993?s=46&t=lGU0TGXtwjkuVuoin6WTNw

Your fixation on individual stats when basketball is a team sport is confusing. You also talk about relativity to peers for some stats, but apparently those don't matter for "noisy" advanced ones - curious.

How are these advanced stats noisy? How is the fact that his team concedes massively less points per possession with him on the floor vs him off it noisy? You still haven't actually explained that.

Next time you're screaming about our team being unable to secure a defensive rebound down the stretch I'll make sure to bring that up. At least they hold their individual matchup to good field goal %s relative to their peers

Bro, read my posts above, or NBA stats explainer literature. I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve explained in great detail the problems with this kind of extrapolation and pointing to Jokic as a great individual defender solely by relying on these advanced on/off and team stats that are notoriously noisy and difficult to parse out individual contributions. Not sure how you don’t understand that, but I’m done explaining it.

I do find it funny, though, that you’ve yet to engage with any of the videos showing Jokic’s “defense” the last two games, but we both know why that is, i.e. no serious person can watch those games and claim he’s a consistently average to above average defender.

Ah yes, well, clips from two relatively meaningless games are the only way to draw conclusions, you're right.

You repeatedly insist he is not even close to average because he is a poor defender in space and weak rim protector. I say you're wrong, because of his elite positioning, hands, and rebounding. Continue your righteous crusade against the soon-to-be back-to-back-to-back MVP

Jokic is going to be the soon-to-be back-to-back-to-back MVP because voters ignore defense.  They can just be wowed by his advanced offensive metrics.  That's easy to do since the defensive metrics available are mediocre at best.  However, a 2-way player is inherently more valuable than a 1-way player.  Whatever advantage Jokic might have offensively over Giannis, Embiid or Tatum is much more than offset by their defensive advantage that they have over Jokic. 

If you're a poor defender in space and a weak rim protector as a center, you just aren't a good defender.  Giving much value for defensive rebounding is silly.  Something like 75% of defensive rebounds are uncontested.  Furthermore if you put more effort into actual defense especially on the perimeter you're going to hurt your defensive rebounding.  What does elite positioning mean when you aren't a good defender in space or at the rim?

I do chuckle that this is your reaction to witnessing perhaps the best offensive player of all time.

Jokic isn't the best offensive player of all time.  He's got the benefit of playing in a very offensive focused era.  Bird would dominate this era.  Jordan would dominate this era. 

[jpotter33]

Don't tell me you're going to blow this, Golden State. Come on.

[Phantom255x]

Funny. The one time I'm rooting for Golden State is when they decide to go relatively ice cold 

[jpotter33]

Well, even despite how bad GS has been this year on the whole, they've been a great home team.

If Milwaukee isn't going to lose these kinds of games without Giannis while at GS on the road, then they may not give us the opportunity to get back the one seed.

What's funny is that the primary argument against Tatum for MVP has always been "he's on a good team with another star that allows him to excel"; yet, you don't hear the same stuff about Giannis, even when Jrue has been a bonafide All-NBA level guard this year and they've been excellent without Giannis all year long.

EDIT: Jinxed it. Didn't account for Curry's greatness sinking three straight threes to get them back in the game. Now just have to avoid another  Jrue dagger to get it to OT.

[Phantom255x]

CURRY! What a game this is, Bucks-Warriors going to OT now

[Goldstar88]

Wild game between the Warriors and Bucks on ABC.  Going to OT.

[CelticSooner]

Jrue Holiday is [dang] good but I’ve seen this dude hit way too many clutch shots this year. The horseshoe will fall out of his pocket eventually.

[Phantom255x]

Jrue Holiday is [dang] good but I’ve seen this dude hit way too many clutch shots this year. The horseshoe will fall out of his pocket eventually.

AIRBALL!

Then CURRY from deep again! 7-point lead

[jpotter33]

Man, Curry is really something else.

Even as bad as they've played this year, they could seriously upset anyone in the West as wide open as it is. Wouldn't surprise me to see them come out of the West at all, particularly with KD's ankle injury.

[MarcusSmartFanClub]

People will sleep on GS again this year. I still like their squad more than Denver and PHoenix.

[jpotter33]

Jrue Holiday is [dang] good but I’ve seen this dude hit way too many clutch shots this year. The horseshoe will fall out of his pocket eventually.

Yeah, he's been amazing this year, particularly in clutch situations it seems.

Really likable player, too. Sucks that he's on the Bucks.