He’s quiet and not arrogant at all too, people are just like ‘damn… I don’t even know…’

I always think of that rainbow 3 he hit over AD and AD just turned and shook his head. Not many guys could make AD look like that on defense

Like Timmy D, but flashier. I hated Timmy D so much in college, and then even more in the pros.

He’s just so big and throws up some bs looking shot and they just go in with the sweetest touch. Not to mention having some of the best court vision ever.

He’s pretty much solved basketball to a level offensively that maybe no one else has.

Or double off ball, shade him heavily, and then triple team him as soon as he touches the paint and hope his teammates can’t make open 3s (OKC series summarized)

The Caruso method

Have the arena play neighing sounds to distract him when he has the ball

yep the method is a combination of getting under Jokic skin with physicality and the refs not calling it. majority of Jokic’s flopping is out of frustration and trying to prove a point to the refs, and it eventually becomes a distraction.

I’ve seen him be stopped on individual possessions. For example this play by Draymond. But never consistently locked down without uncalled fouls or multiple guys focusing in on him.

He never has an off night really. His “off nights” are when refs allow players to hack him all game long and he still is very impactful because god maxed him the fuck out in everything but jumping basically.

Problem is he doesn’t have off nights much

Hold on, why don’t we just make him score? Surely that’s gone well in the past.

True, Jokic only averages 37 in 29 mpg against Wemby 

Yup, instead of going for a layup Wemby forces Jokic to dunk it

We should’ve gone after Steven Adams.

I came to the realization a couple weeks backs that since he’s still improving we might not even have seen his peak yet. 

That’s mind boggling that a 3 time MVP and FMVP might still have a higher ceiling coming

I don’t even know if he has peaked besides the case for winning the chip that one year. Hes consistently reaching new heights and abilities. His game is so different to where other players peak and fall off, he just stays, peaking.

Every year I think “okay, Jokic has truly peaked, this is one of the best peaks of all time” and then the next year he is always even better. Peaking in his first two MVP years would have been a very good and unprecedented peak but he is somehow making those years look pedestrian. Feels like this year has to finally be his peak because I struggle to see how he can improve even further but he’ll probably come out next year averaging 35/15/12 on 75% TS or something ridiculous.

He’s having his best season ever right now. I’m on my 3rd year in a row that I started thinking he couldn’t possibly be better than he was last year.

Hell, all the fan discourse coming into this season was that having a better team around him would mean Jokic’s scoring would go down because he’d have less usage, but the spacing has just made him even more efficient.

He’s top 10 for me. He’s elevated teams that have 0 hofers outside of him. He and Steph are gonna fuck up the all time list bc if I’m starting a team from scratch they’re 2 of the 10 I’m picking.

His playoff resumé:

• 1st round exit: 1 time
• 2nd round exit: 4 times
• WCF: 2 times
• Title: 1 time

Not shouting “Top 10” to me in terms of playoff success. All of these guys you list have gone to Finals multiple times winning multiple titles. I’d pump the brakes a bit and wait for him to finish his career first before crowning him Top 10.

Personally I care about playoff resume, so I’d have Steph + Hakeem + Wilt + Russell + probably a few others above him, but Jokic has certainly already cemented his all-time status

It’s wild that you have Jokic ahead of Kobe as a Lakers fan. Ahead of Wilt, Bill Russell, and Hakeem? I can understand even though I don’t agree. But I’d expect your take from a Nuggets fan that started watching basketball during 2020, not a Lakers fan.

It’s my list. And I think rings can be overrated. Kobe/KD winning 2 rings while not the primary star is far less valuable than 1 Giannis/Dirk /Jokic ring to me.

Without a fellow HoF legend (Wade, Dray, Shaq, Gasol), it’s exceptionally hard to win a ring. We’ve seen this with Jokic Dirk KG Giannis.

Really dunno.

I’m comfortably leaning Steph tbh.

Steph had a crazier early peak, crazy playoff runs. The league adapted to shut down steph over a literal decade and he’s still just as unstoppable.

If Jokic can keep this up for 5+ years, I’ll take Jokic regular season over steph.

Playoffs Jokic I just don’t have enough sample size given his lack of deep runs (more on his teammates than him though)

They’re both very very close to me, regardless.

Except this stretch 5 can pass like Chris Paul lol

Actual stretch 5s barely exist. Nobody is giving up the paint for a guy like horford who has a slow release and won’t shoot it always

You still need certain personnel to do what the Wolves do. Outside the Spurs and Thunder most teams cannot defend Jokic the way the Wolves do.

I appreciated watching Chris Finch (a man nuggets fans know as the brain that unlocked early jokic offensive schemes) come in alongside tim connely who both knew the nuggets were a team you need to overcome and watching them construct a team built to address jokic, specifically. Lots of athletic length defensively and front court players who were comfortable on the perimeter. Adding gobert in as the ultimate rim defender they could hide off ball has been successful in mitigating some of jokic ball. As much as I dont enjoy Ants ego and antics, the wolves have been a fun team to watch. I do love watching jokic calmly dismantling gobert given so much nuggets/jazz and now nuggets/wolves history.

Clippers tried it and turns out, you also have to outscore him too. Not an easy task, but the Wolves are one of few who can do it lol.

Smalls are allowed to hack the shit out of bigs in today’s nba

That’s pretty much the exact same description for luka bar the zero effort he puts in half the time.

Hear me out, KAT and Mitchell Robinson is about as close as you can get to replicating that unless you’re coming up with made up scenarios like putting Wemby in the Gobert spot

don’t forget naz reid coming off the bench too. whenever he was on the floor they had two 7 foot players ready to harass them.

that was probably the hardest coverage jokic has faced in a series other than alex caruso apparently

Well, it only really works if Rudy can help off a non-shooter. It wouldn’t really work today with how much better Gordon is shooting. Maybe you could still try it with Braun but that would lead to some crazy cross-matches.

Running 2-3 bigs (KAT, Naz Reid, Gobert) to have backup against Jokic’s post play and prevent cuts to the rim and forcing the Nuggets perimeter players to hit shots is basically how you beat Jokic which is what the Wolves did that year since their perimeter play was god awful.

KAT definitely did still hack the hell out of jokic. It’s actually kinda funny because KAT would (and still does) get such a bad whistle for good defensive plays but that series vs jokic he was allowed to be more physical than he ever is otherwise.

The lack of the whistle on Caruso was ridiculous. Jokic versus OKC and the refs is hard to overcome

Dray in the first 2 games of the 22 series was good too

The centers are good defensively in this fast pace era. But they don’t have the bulk to deal with efficient hall of fame level post players like the Joker. Gobert, Wemby, Chet, etc are all light in the ass if you get what I mean. You need a real thiqqq center to bang with the Joker.