[NBA] Jokic is on pace to be the first player in NBA History to finish top 3 in points, rebounds, and assists since they began tracking leaders in per game stats in 1969
And he is 4th in steals too cause why the fuck not
This was what blew my mind when checking the leaderboards the other night. Like duhfuq tied for 4th in the entire league?! Next we’re going to find out he’ll be top 5 in blocks too
second in 3pt% is even funnier
Behind Sabonis is more funniest
Dude I laughed when I heard that he lead the league lmao Good to see Saboner still kicking ass!
He was first for a good while
He was hitting like 52% from 3 for a bit. Unreal.
Steals is an unfortunate mix of crazy and lazy defenders. Alot of gamblers who aren’t defending are high on that list.
Not suggesting he’s a defensive player of the year but a stunning stat to describe his game. Like how he was leading the league in 3 point percentage at nearly 50% until only recently
I know what you’re saying, but he legit is just disrupting offensive plays and punching out the ball or blocking passing lanes.
But he also is legitimately well out of place on a lot of defensive plays. Sort of comes with territory.
lol
I mean he also just blocks on the gather instead of trying to jump up for the block, which gets counted as steals instead.
Might as well
The MVP race this year is Jokic vs Voter Fatigue
Voter fatigue in full swing currently, but the Nuggets are rounding into shape too. 2 Seed looks possible for the team after the improvement in their defense and bench in the last 10 games or so. They’re winning a lot of games by >10.
Get that #2! Both the seed and the ring!
I like you!
Russ winning one would be a great cap on the season.
ykb!
<3
If it ain’t us I want it to be y’all
I just want you guys not to blow up your young roster for like Jimmy Butler or Bradley Beal. You guys are awesome to watch
😞 same here. In Stone we trust but I’m nervous as hell
If SGA wins, he’s playing well enough that he would have earned it.
Ya, I don’t think I could be mad. Jokic is the best player in the league, but with OKC running away in the standings with SGA being incredible he is a very deserving candidate. Of course I want my guy to win, and would prefer it, but I certainly wouldn’t be calling it a pity MVP or anything like that.
it’s how i feel about embiids one. jokic should’ve won IMO but i can’t say embiid didn’t deserve it
I think that Nuggets coasting at that last stretch of games was the decisive factor.
This is a healthy mindset. It’s probably more common now that we’re removed from the heat of the moment. It got ugly
I guess but if you switched their stats no one on earth would be saying Jokic deserves MVP
SGA is leading the league in more advanced metrics than Jokic. Those he doesn’t lead in he is number two. He’s averaging 32/5/6 on 64% TS. If that combination of raw and advanced stats was achieved by Jordan it would be a top five season of his career. In what universe is that not MVP worthy? A universe inhabited solely by clueless nephews perhaps?
SGA is leading the league in more advanced metrics than Jokic.
What metrics are you referring to? There was a post 2 months ago like this and at the time it was valid, but Jokic is leading in OWS, PER, TS%, OBPM, BPM, WS/48 and VORP. SGA is obviously the better defender and leading in DBPM and DWS, but when that original post came out SGA had Jokic in like 3 more than he does now (ws/48 by 1% and VORP by 0.1… Lol)
Your post starts of with a straight up incorrect statement.
Well in modern society anything can be true even if you don’t try to back it up with facts and evidence.
Thank you Reddit is so biased the voter fatigue talk is crazy lool
if jokic is playing better he should still win though
That’s not always true. Record plays a part
Except it doesn’t, as we learned in 2023 when Bucks finished with best record in the NBA and Giannis wasn’t even 2nd lmao
Sure. That’s why I said it’s not always true. Record plays a part. It all plays a part. The best player doesn’t always win, and the best record doesn’t always win.
There’s also some nuance with seeding and record imo. The #1 seed with 58 wins vs. #1 seed in the West with 53 wins and #3 seed with 54 wins. The records were close, and I think you could say Jokic and Embiid had better stats. Also, voters/fans thought the Nuggets and Sixers had weaker rosters/Jokic and Embiid had less help.
It was still a fairly close race. Giannis had almost as many first place votes as Jokic and almost as many points.
Also, not that a 65 game cutoff is a true gold standard but Giannis played 63 games, Jokic played 69. That stuff matters too
Ah yes, one anomalous example is enough to rewrite all of NBA history. Literally over 90% of MVP winners have come from the #1 conference seed in the three point era. So yes, despite your very poor, uneducated opinion, seeding does matter. A lot.
“Better” is subjective. Right this second, you could argue Jokic is playing better just as easily as you could argue for SGA.
you can argue anything. if shai and jokic just switched numbers there would be literally no one arguing jokic should be mvp
What about when Luka averaged better numbers than Jokic last year?
You mavs fans saying this are the people that think ppg > everything. Jokic averaged 1 turnover per game less, was better in nearly every advanced metric (TS%, PER, VORP, WS, BPM, OWS) and Luka had less wins. Luka averaged 7 ppg more than Jokic on 6 more shots per game and 3 more FT per game lol.
This year Jokic is taking 3 shots per game more and averaging 31 ppg. There’s context to scoring and there’s a reason all the numbers show why Jokic is more valuable when on the court vs Luka
he didnt
I think it’s mostly Jokic vs the gap in wins between him and OKC that will decide it. And then sprinkle in some voter fatigue
MVP is and has always been (Stats X team success X narrative) and it changes every year what gets valued more
Like the year Westbrook won it he had the stats and the narrative and was only the 6th seed and people hated it. Jokic won his second as a 6th seed and people loved it
It’s a subjective award and depends on a lot of factors, voter fatigue being one of them
The 6th seed MVP was really not even a debatable one. Embiid played in 46 wins of teams 51 (51-31 record and 3rd seed). Jokic played in 46 of his teams 48 wins, 6th seed because the west is that much tougher.
I understand the whole seeding argument, but that was a rare year where the 2nd most likely candidate didn’t get a top 2 seed, played in the same amount of wins as Jokic and was in the easier conference.
Of course but the difference between the teams of the top 2 mvp candidates is unusually large
I bet you even if nuggets end up the 2 seed it’ll still come down to 1 vote and SGA might take it.
No, Jokic is a monster but SGA is actually competitive with him, unlike last year when Jokic was simply plainly the best player
Really I think it’s more Jokic vs. the nuggets record. Voter fatigue doesn’t help but the nuggets had a slump at the start of the year. If they continue rounding into shape, he should get it. If not, SGA is dominant enough that he deserves it
Its an Ethical points total as well, non of this foul baiting bs. Considering his usage and paint game Jokic has a terrible whistle.
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Not exactly. Smart went from no votes for DPOY one year, to DPOY, and then back to no votes the following year.
Shai was second in MVP last season, was fifth the season prior, and is currently the favourite (based on NBA.com’s articles) to win it this year.
What does that mean ?
Nobody knows what it means it’s provocative.
Might be SGA over him because of this. Then again the league decided to do it this way a long time ago. James didn’t win every MVP when he was undoubtedly the most valuable Player during many of his prime years. If someone comes in the ballpark of what is undoubtedly an all time great I guess they can get a reward for that. It’s just the way the award is considered.
Why? SGA has the stats and EPM prefers SGA to Jokic (EPM has SGA at +9.2 over Jokic at +8.3). On top of comparable statistical output, SGA is leading a team to 35-7 even without Chet while the Nuggets are 26-16. OKC’s team is obviously still better even without Chet but it’s hardly this insane gap that y’all are jerking it to be.
Nah, it isn’t. SGA is probably the first guy to top Jokic in any advanced metric in a minute. He’s having an outstanding year and is 100% deserving of the award if he were to get it.
I know there will be some voter fatigue people, but I’m not one of them. SGA is just having a sensational year.
What I hope doesn’t happen is that it becomes toxic again. We can all give our opinion about who should win it without making 7,000 videos on how Jokic can’t play D, some jack ass in a studio talking about stat padding or saying the only reason he wins is because of his race.
I have zero issue with people voting for SGA or for Jokic. They just need to tone is the hell down when they talk about the other player. Some of the “voting fatigue” comments are coming off as very dismissive of SGA and that shouldn’t be happening.
Because this sub is an insane hivemind that copycats opinions but can’t defend them. I think the discussion is already toxic in that people aren’t open to actually reviewing evidence. They have an opinion and they’re going to force it.
?? A guy leading the league in scoring and leading his team to a 70 win pace and matching joker in pretty much all advanced stats is voter fatigue??
OKC is loaded and deep. You cant say that about the Nuggets which is a clearly flawed team.
SGA has literally better. Stop
It’s not voter fatigue you genuinely can’t just give it to the same guy every year even if you believe Jokic is the best player it never went off that logic . If that’s the case Lebron should probably have at least 6-7
You just described voter fatigue.
Lol
Kind of but it’s slight different , but yeah whatever you want to call it we can’t give him mvp every year because we never did that with other players that were the best at the time . Other factors like record , narrative , and more contribute too.
I think you’re just explaining why people have voter fatigue. There’s this feeling that “we can’t just keep giving it to this guy”, but if his season is so good, so historic, and so dominant that enough voters just can’t bring themselves to vote for anyone else, then that’s that player vs voter fatigue.
You might be right , but I still pushback because in my opinion I think it would be voter fatigue if he was the clear cut Mvp , but in my opinion he isn’t .
Sure you can, if they are the mvp. It’s not the most valuable player other than this other guy who’s the most valuable player. Mvpottogwtmvp.
I’m not disagreeing with the logic I think most years it should be the best player but historically that isn’t how it goes so we can’t change that for Jokic and give him mvp every year when we didn’t use that logic for Jordan, Kobe , Bron etc.
Ya. So historically we dealnwoth voter fatigue.
Just want to point out that just because something was done historically does not mean it should always be done that way.
We are halfway through the season and its clear Jokic would have to be head and shoulders and pits ahead to win it this year.
That’s literally voter fatigue? Imagine a hypothetical player exists that is by far the best player in the league offensively and defensively, and consistently carries his team to a top seed and outperforms everyone annually. That player should be winning every year as long as everything mentioned is true and not winning would be voter fatigue.
I would say it’s voter fatigue if he was the clear cut mvp but in my opinion he isn’t he doesn’t have the top seed in his conference Shai does , he isn’t the highest scorer Giannis is . I haven’t made my pick for mvp I like to wait until the end of season but I don’t think he is runaway mvp . Just like last year I felt Shai should’ve won .
Voter fatigue to me would be if Jokic was the only mvp candidate and there was no competition for the award but this year that isn’t true voter fatigue would’ve been a better argument to me the year Embid won .
LeBron could have won but he didn’t the same overwhelming statistical advantage that Jokic has. LeBron was beatable against voter fatigue. Not saying Jokic is unbeatable against voter fatigue but Jokic’s chances are better.
Voters have been changing the narrative constantly for Jokic to win, it’s getting tiresome. Makes years like the 2 Nash MVPs and the year Bill Russel won over Wilt averaging 50 look very suspect now.
I think the conversation has become too stat driven Jokic is going to lead many advanced and traditional categories especially over guards every year not only because he’s a big but he’s the best in the league . I think Shai should’ve won last year now this year isn’t over idk but the narratives are annoying .
For context, Wilt finished top 4 in each in 1967-68 with 24.3ppg(4th), 23.8rpg(1st) and 8.6apg(2nd) and won MVP that year.
23.8
absurd lol.
He absolutely dominated. But the pace really was absurd back then and i guess people just werent that good of a shooters back then cause multiple teams had 3 guys with 10+ rpg. And there were very few teams.
Also, Wilt, Bill and Walt were all with ludicrous rebounding numbers. None of those guys would be averaging anything close to 20 rebounds a game today.
Wemby is not even at 11 rpg in todays games and he 100% is a default 20 rpg per game back in Wilt’s time. Hell, he could have snatched 30 rpg back then.
Less long shots meant less long rebounds too.
This is not a knock, Wilt would have been the leading rebounder in any era, but the numbers would change.
i dont think he wouldve been the leading rebounder in the 90’s, havent looked up other eras but the stats may back it up too. its not that hard to look at rebounding %
Forget about Wemby, we have generational rebounder like Drummond not getting close to 20 rpg.
lower rebound percentage than Rodman, but on a faster pace and more minutes
Rodman had some freakish rebounding percentages.
When teams keep missing, sure. It was in the ‘60s.
Now compare it to Wilt’s playoff average.
Sure, in 1968 Wilt averaged 23.7⁄24.7⁄6.5, truly a massive drop off of 2 assists.
Yeah Wilt normally lived up to that name in the playoffs but on the sixers he was about the same.
Relax brother
60 year hater, what a good use of time
My problem with MVP voting is that if he had never won before this wouldn’t even be a debate, he would be the runaway favorite.
Alas he’s already won 3 so the best year of his career is somehow the year he doesn’t win it.
That’s why he got screwed in the 22-23 Champ season. First Perkins pushed that racist narrative which was insane. But folks weren’t debating if he was MVP but unfairly debating “is Jokic the same kind of guy that OTHER players that have won 3 MVPs in a row are, is he like them and deserving” so all that lead to Embiid winning when he should have won.
Then funnily enough last season Embiid actually was having a true MVP season and would have properly beat Jokic if he never got hurt, sadly he did and Jokic won it but those two guys should have swapped the years they won MVP for it to be right.
Reminds me of Harden vs Antetokounmpo MVP years. Except Embiid ducks matchups like a bitch and the Perks sleep apnea mouth breathing is the only thing that comes out of that dumb fucks mouth
It’s also that SGA is having an amazing year too, and he’s also not unlikable.
SGA is incredibly unlikable, what are you talking about?
Please expand
his nickname is FTA
only morons call him that, though
Flopper and foul baiter. High ego from a person with no playoff success. New gen fanbase who seem to like him for non basketball reasons. It’s pretty easy to see why people would find him unlikable
I don’t agree with any of those statements. Wild to see how much vitriol people have. ‘people like him, therefore I dislike him’ man some people love to hate
I mean, yeah that’s sports bro. If you’re a good player on a really good team people are probably gonna dislike you. You don’t agree because you’re a fan. That kinda makes sports more enjoyable
Late to comment but damn, yeah he draws a ton of fouls. But what is this ego talk? He seems pretty down to earth for a superstar
Not to self-congratulate, but I think I was onto something when I said that people love to hate. Like you said, a pretty likeable guy, but people turn on stars - Dirk did nothing but play hard for 20 years and still had plenty of detractors
Ppl dont really like OKC and SGA by extension because
OKC fans are incredibly cocky when their team hasnt achieved anything
Ppl jealous because they have a great team and have lots of picks. Ppl wonder how the fk the OKC front office keeps fleecing other front offices
SGA, Lu Dort, and others have a flopping/foul baiting reputation
What’s unlikable about Jokic?
Nothing. Pretty sure they meant neither is unlikeable.
If so thats on me, I read as “and he’s not unlikeable” compared to jokic, and they easily could have meant, as is jokic.
not unlikable compared to embiid, luka…
No flashy dunks or trash talking.
I guess for me it’s more about the basketball itself, rather than the soap opera of it all, but sure.
the two share this trait
People don’t like that he’s not a rim protector or dunker. A lot of people are stupid
Yeah I don’t think anyone is trying to disrespect SGA but who has had a better season than this in the last 15+ years? Its not just Jokic’s best year lol this would probably take MVP from pretty much everyone that I can think of. Its putting that media narrative/voter fatigue bias on full blast and showing they’re full of shit. This is like when Russ won MVP except Jokic isn’t coming way out of his lane to take the rebounds to pad some stats and he’s the real deal with playoff success and everything
This version of Jokic is the best offensive center of all time
Jokic is my guy but Shai and Jokic are very close in the MVP race.
Everybody needs to take their bias out of their ass.
Shai is having a disgusting season too. He has played five more games than Jokic. OKC is destroying every single team in the league. They literally only win games by 15+ it seems.
In complete honesty, it’s a testament to how disturbingly good Jokic is that this is even a race. Shai should be running away with the MVP.
And in all honesty, i think they are both MVP atm. Nobody will complain if either wins at the current moment but half the season remains. Who knows what happens. I saw some comment here that OKC and Denver play each other 2 times in february or march. Those games are gonna weigh heavy on the narrative.
I just hope Denver is gonna be fully healthy for those games to make it more fair cause OKC are way deeper.
The difference for me is that without Shai, I think an otherwise healthy OKC would easily make the playoffs. They are very deep, have great shooters, and play great defense. Without Jokic, Nuggets would suck.
I do agree with you, but like you said “an entirely healthy Okc team”
This team has missed significant play time from Chet, Ihart, Jaylen Williams (the center), Caruso, Mitchel, and a few games from other players too.
Of those Chet is our 2nd or 3rd best player, Ihart our starting center, Williams our backup center, and Caruso an important bench piece. I’m pretty sure we have had more games with JDub playing center than an actual center playing center at this point lol.
No, I feel like SGA is also having an absurd season
I love Jokic but no one would be a runaway favourite over someone leading the league in scoring and leading a team to a 70 win pace without his second best player. On top of that is currently winning his minutes at the highest rate of any superstar in nba history? But sure voter fatigue lol
Voter fatigue has applied to everyone who’s ever won an mvp. It would be unfair if it didn’t apply to Jokic too.
MVP, he is literally 0.1 assists from a triple double on 65% TS, and the Nuggets are starting to look real good now that Murray isnt playing like hes 50 years old
Basketball Reference MVP tracker is almost never wrong and it gives him a 62% chance of winning it again
https://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/mvp.html
BBRef MVP tracker was usually always wrong up until they started giving out MVPs based on advanced stats which is how that tracker works.
It has been right the past several years; it got Westbrook wrong but that was because it weights team record
It got Embiid wrong too. He was 2nd behind Jokic on the tracker.
The only ones who were wrong were the voters. BBRef doesn’t take into account one loudmouths persuasiveness in turning the MVP award to racial bait.
Yup.
Jokic was always gonna be robbed at some point. When you dominate for so many years, people get tired. It’s just really sad that Perk brought racebait into it and it worked so well. This is why you never vote liberal. You don’t want people running things on their racist emotions.
Yeah, and right around then, after Westbrook broke advanced stats, is when media started hyper focusing on “VORP”, “BPM”, “WS/48” and so on. It only got Giannis and Harden right because they put up great numbers and had #1 seeds. Originally, the main attributes of the design were ppg, rpg, apg and team wins with some other stuff happening under the hood, including how it values the previous year results. So, as media members continue to ignore traditional MVP metrics and just harp on advanced stats, the model will become more biased towards advanced stats.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/index59b6.html?p=3898
However, I think I might be wrong on the accuracy pre-Joker. I tried to look it up but I can’t find anything pre-westbrook. Either way, the model has become extremely flawed and we don’t even know the actual details of how it’s tracked. Just like those advanced stats, it’s become biased towards a certain type of player and it doesn’t tell the whole story (as far as voting goes).
What year is it that you think magically started this “analytics are the only thing that matters?” Because if you look at historical MVPs, there is a strong correlation with a lot of the catch all analytics (BPM, WS/48, PER, though notably PER is slightly flawed and a little biased towards bigs).
There are definitely some outlier years, but for the most part it lines up. And that’s part of what the bball reference model uses alongside things like historical voter trends, records, etc.
It’s a pretty reliable tracker for at least getting the final 2. Sometimes narrative pushes cause it to be wrong (Westbrook over harden, Embiid over Jokic etc) but most seasons it’s pretty spot on.
What year is it that you think magically started this “analytics are the only thing that matters?”
When Joker started winning. No joke. The common advanced stats that we see today started popping up around 2005-ish but no one paid any attention them.
Because if you look at historical MVPs, there is a strong correlation with a lot of the catch all analytics (BPM, WS/48, PER, though notably PER is slightly flawed and a little biased towards bigs). There are definitely some outlier years, but for the most part it lines up. And that’s part of what the bball reference model uses alongside things like historical voter trends, records, etc.
Because if you look at historical MVPs, there is a strong correlation with a lot of the catch all analytics (BPM, WS/48, PER, though notably PER is slightly flawed and a little biased towards bigs).
There is really a strong correlation between all those advanced stats until Joker starts winning. Some years, a player might be #1 in VORP, BPM, W/S, but mom other years it’s split between several players. And it makes sense seeing as how Joker is the first player of his type and BPM/VORP, and I think WS are literally built for his play style – a playmaking big who can grab rebounds. Look it up if you don’t believe me. He gets extra “points” for assists and rebounds just because of his position. As far as those advanced stats go, no other position gets positional bonuses. Point Guards even get positional penalties for rebounding too much.
Also, those stats are retroactively built so they’re designed to fit NBA history as best as possible. And when it “breaks” history in ways the media analysts don’t like, they change them.
The tracker has been reliable for the past few years because the voters have made it pretty clear that advanced stats matter more than anything else. Like, I said, it bases its predictions on the voting trends. If you paused the tracker in 2024, intentionally modified the MVP metrics to be more traditional for a few a few years and started a new one, the 2024 version would not match the 2027+ version because all it is a trend tracker.
You’re still on this crusade lol?
Who are you? And what crusade? Everything I said up there is facts. You Nuggets fanboys hate when anyone points this stuff out because it bring Joker back down to earth. You gonna tell me he’s a good defender too?
EDIT:
And if you’re another Nuggets fanboy stalking me just because I’m not fellating Joker, I’ll just block again. You guys are fuckin pyscho lol
Shai is leading in LeBron And Epm impact metrics. Which have also got mvp right pretty much every year since they have been tracked
To add onto this, someone here mentioned VORP and WS/48…well Jokic and Shai literally overtake each other after each game played. Shai is first one day, Jokic is first another. About BPM, it’s extremely flawed. DBPM is very flawed in the way it’s calculated and it is why Jokic has such a high DBPM.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/bpm2.html
It states the following at various points of the article:
“Assists are a significant indicator of defensive skill for bigs”
“In addition, post players that pass well are typically better defenders.”
“Assists are worth far more for a post player than for a point guard. Point guards handle the ball a lot and usually generate lower value assists. A center’s assists are usually very high value. In addition, post players that pass well are typically better defenders.”
“Box Plus/Minus is good at measuring offense and solid overall, but the defensive numbers in particular should not be considered definitive. Look at the defensive values as a guide, but don’t hesitate to discount them when a player is well known as a good or bad defender.”
Got this from a comment on a post about records for BPM on r/NBATalk.
Yeah, box score based analysis is not really great at handling a playmaking machine big who isn’t defensively elite. Play-by-play advanced stats argue that SGA is better per minute (9.2 vs 8.3 EPM) and has played more (16% more EPM wins).
The BPM argument here is missing some context:
The DBPM numbers are basically total BPM - OBPM. So you can argue that DBPM is flawed, but that just means a higher share of his BPM is related to his OBPM.
I’d also push back on the narrative of “this metric is obviously flawed because we all know Jokic is a terrible defender.” The extrapolation of “passing bigs have higher IQ and thus are likely to be better defenders” may not be ironclad, but it’s far from the worst assumption. Jokic might not be a great rim defender but he is still a plus defender. The nuggets defense is always better with him than without him.
The last thing I’ll state about BPM as a “flawed” metric is that if you look at the all time list of elite BPM seasons or look at BPM by career it’s filled with the best players in NBA history. The metric can only be so bad if its priors are that sterling. It may give Jokic a slight bump for being a passing big man (and you can argue that EPM - which I believe does not - is more accurate), but it’s definitely not just “let’s chuck this entire thing out as a bad and flawed stat.”
At some point we have to reckon with the fact that Jokic is in the middle of an elite 5 year peak that rivals peak Jordan and peak LeBron.
I’m not entirely disregarding BPM, I’d use it but not as a sole factor to determine who should be MVP. Tari Eason has a 5.3 BPM, Sengun has a 5.4 BPM, both are higher than AD’s BPM. And you’re highly underplaying that “slight” bump it gives Jokic when the man has 3 of the 10 highest DBPM seasons of all time and his defensive impact over the last few years is supposedly higher than Prime Hakeem, Gobert, Ben Wallace, KG, Duncan, Dray and so on.
With Jokic this season, the Nuggets have a 114.7 DRTG. Without Jokic, they have a 113.8 DRTG.
Furthermore, at no point am I disregarding how insane Jokic’s peak is. You will hear it from me now, I believe the peak Jokic is currently going through makes him one of the best offensive players this league has ever seen.
I just believe his DBPM is hilariously inflated.
EDIT: For the record, I think Shai’s DBPM is also inflated.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/dbpm_career.html
Based off of this, Jokic is one of the best defenders of all time.
Again, youre focusing solely on DBPM. I’m talking about total BPM.
You can argue that DBPM is flawed because it takes BPM and removes OBPM. But if that’s the case, a larger share of his total BPM is tied into his offensive impact. And doesn’t undercut his total BPM impact.
Regardless of how flawed DBPM might be, that argument does not mean total BPM is flawed. Because DBPM is directly calculated from total BPM.
Vegas odds are a better predictor and they have Shai pretty favored at 70% to win and Jokic at 25% chance.
With the team playing better now and Murray making shots Jokic probably gonna go back down to 23ppg
Yeah, his PPG has only been so high because it’s what the team needed for the first half of the season. Now his assists will go up while his PPG goes down. I almost wish he’d stat pad a little bit just to show that he can maintain 30+ ppg if he felt like it.
I was telling people the reason Jokic is having an insane start with over 30PPG is because he was the whole team and they refused to recognize it lol like until recently where they added Russ to the starting lineup and with Jamal FINALLY playing better after being MIA since last playoffs/olympics, it’s been Jokic backpacking this whole team hardcore and THAT is why he’s numbers are up so high. It’s why most teams if they have a guy averaging well over 30+ a game, they don’t have enough pieces contributing at least offensively lol I mean look at the game we saw where SGA had to sit and miss for OKC… VERY telling performance.
That’s why it’s harder for a guy like Fox to make All NBA purely off insane scoring because we do have a lot of guys contributing. Were the only team that have 3 players averaging over 20PPG in the league and since Monk has become a starter, he’s been working hard to make himself #4 with I think around 18 at the moment.
It’s why we were able to beat a fully healthy Boston Celtics team while our best player/scorer, Fox, sat out that game and others. We’re more well rounded as a whole unit so it’s hard to have a guy stand out as much. While Jokic was basically like “well if I don’t do it, nobody will and we are gonna lose a lot of games” which is impressive as fuck as a one man band for so much of this season.
This was what I was about to say. I don’t see him finishing in the top 3 in scoring. That’s just not his preferred playstyle. This is still a cool stat tho
Clear MVP
What TF was the NBA doing prior lol. Why was no one tracking the most basic stats like PPG until 1969. Seriously…
Prior to 1969 most games were broadcast live but not recorded. So someone had to record every rebound, assist, and point scored live during the game. That’s a whole job for someone - probably a couple of people. They just didn’t do that necessarily.
Per game stats were tracked in the 50’s and 60’s just like today (other than steals, blocks and turnovers), what the title means is that they used to judge league leaders using totals instead of per game stats. So the scoring champion would go to the player with the most totals points instead of the highest PPG for example. This happened in 1968 when Oscar Robertson led the league in PPG and APG playing 65 games, enough to win the scoring and assist title’s under modern rules, but lost them to Dave Bing and Wilt respectively who played more games.
This is what changed in 1969, it’s not that they weren’t counting per game stats before then. The relevance to this post is that officially in 1968 Wilt was top 3 in all those categories like Jokic currently is, but by the modern per game criteria he wouldn’t have been.
Math was hard
Happy cake day!
Yeah but Embiid is going to skip the final matchup between them so Embiid gets the MVP no question. Wait what year is it?
Actually rent free
Jokic is essentially modern day Wilt
closest thing to it. jokic is allowed to dunk and bully more, but even then he tries to utilize other skills like wilt had to. dunking was considered poor form and boo’d in the 50s and 60s. i heard it was even called for fouls sometimes because it was considered taunting. “oh he’s just tall, that’s not fair”. we’ve come a long way.
anyway, this is a great analogy.
except that wilt was an absolute athletic specimen. the only thing jokic has an advantage of over his peers is, surprisingly, cardio.
I’m getting 2011 MVP vibes if SGA or anyone else wins it this year.
SGA is a lot closer to Jokic than Drose was to LeBron though, just in terms of quality of player.
Yeah. SGA is having an incredible year and is a great player on both ends on a top 2 team in the league. That plus voter fatigue makes him the mvp and I don’t think Jokic cares he just wants to win.
bUt He’S nOt MvP bEcAuSe Of TeAm ReCorD
or whatever lol dude out here going full Wilt Chamberlain and the media acting like they’ve seen that at any point in the last 60 years
Shai and okc have been truly amazing but Jokic is still the best and most important player and should win mvp if he keeps this up. This legit one of the best seasons in nba history so far for a player. So I think if he keeps up this pace he should definitely win but SGA has been amazing too so it wouldn’t be like some crazy robbery or anything
Milk Chamberlain
This is why… Listen, I love SGA and he is having an MBP-Caliber season, but Joker is actually generationally fucking monstrous. People just want to move on to the new thing, but Jokic is too good to move on from.
Can Shai have ONE MVP award, please???
(Also none of Russ’ prime seasons did this? damn)
Russ was never top 3 in rebounds
Which makes stats like this kind of unfair Like Luka averaged a damn near 30 point triple double last year but didn’t get this distinction because he couldn’t get 15 rebounds a game
In what way is it unfair? It’s just a statistical measure. No one is saying Luka wasn’t impressive for what he did last year (or in any of his other years). It’s just a different kind of statistical output to what Jokic is doing, which is also impressive.
i have a feeling that as soon as jokic stops being a contender, shai probably will have to deal with someone like wemby for the rest of his career instead. would love to see him win it though, when the time comes.
Shai is so good he 1,000% deserves to win MVP during his career. IDK how long Jokic can keep having these “never in NBA history” type seasons, and the moment he does, I’d bet Shai wins it because he hasn’t even peaked yet.
A lot of guys deserve it, Luka did last year.
Unfortunately narratives matter more than anything else in MVP race
IDK about “anything” else, but yeah. I agree that Luka should’ve gotten it last year.
Russ finished 10th in rebounds in the triple Double seasons.
That’s what’s surprised me, I wonder how close he’s gotten.
Kind of a strange stat no guard is going to average enough rebounds to get there, simply not tall enough
Russell Westbrook averaged double digit rebounds 4 times.
But also, before Jokic you’d have said that of course no guard is going to average enough assists to get there. Jokic is 8 of the top 10 highest assists per game by a center, and the other 2 are Wilt.
and assists weren’t given if the player made a move after the pass back then. more like catch and shoot only, versus all the moves you can make now after the pass and still have an assist counted.
weird rule changes i know. sorry, i felt like sharing because it used to be a thing. also why old playmakers don’t appear much in all time assist lists. having like 7 or 8 assists a game back then like wilt did, was like magic averaging 13 a game in the “modern era” because they are much more flexible in giving them now.
When did they make the rule change?
No big ever averaged enough assists before to get there either so…
Only takes one outlier
Yea but bigs can get assists they just never played that way
Guards just aren’t tall enough
So is this dude top 10 all time already? Gotta be close
bruh, this is just a 9-5 job to the joker, he has a hobby in horse racing.
Tbh I thought one of his other seasons he would have hit this stat
This season is his career high PPG.
Westbrook doesn’t have it? Surprising
MVP over Shai
He’s quietly building a case as one of the GOATS.
This Joker’s season would break 99% of any other player MVP season including his own.
Wilt Chamberlain in shambles. comes back to say he did it first.
Insane
And somehow people are still trying to give the mvp (most valuable PLAYER) to shai. I know i know, team success (27 wins for denver btw.. how the fuck does that team have 27 wins? Because jokic is the best player in the world), media narrative, voter fatigue etc. But wtf man. This dude is incredible. Not a nuggets fan btw.
And some people think shai is the mvp
He shouldn’t win MVP. No way he has the same amount as LeBron.
You’re tripping. The number of “not since Wilt” or “never in NBA history” accomplishments Jokic has puts him at that level. I could list some of them, but you don’t care about facts because your position is fully based on nostalgia.