Jokic alone was by far the most unlikely top 1, shai is the cherry on top.

SGA was a lottery pick, he’s only “surprising” because the draft class is so stacked no one at the time could’ve predicted that the 11th pick would be the best player

Yes, but only because of Jokic. Having an 11th pick become the best player in the world is surprising but not crazy.

Jokic going from a deep 2nd round pick and bench player to best in the world is insane.

Jokic alone makes it the most unlikely top whatever number. Being a 2nd round pick and becoming the BITW is insane.

Depends on how you rate Giannis vs SGA, because there were years Giannis and Jokic were the 2 best players in the league, other then that it’s mostly been guys who we were “expecting” at that level

This feels like saying the highest scoring father son duo is LeBron and Bronny. Jokic is doing a massive amount of lifting in regards to exceeding expectations here. SGA literally was a lottery pick bro

I feel like Jokic is crazier. LeBron just finished his last season with the Heat when he got drafted. Think of how different your life was when LeBron was on the heat. Jokic was not remotely relevant or on most people’s radars during the Warriors ascension in the 2010s or during those Cavs/Warriors years. Dude was in the league for a while before becoming a Superstar and then a Megastar (people outside the sport know who you are).

Most dudes that achieve megastar status achieve it early in their life and are relevant quick.

SGA being Canadian and coming in just before Covid reduced the attention he and really most players in his age range got. Lots of people didn’t pay attention to sports, in general, during those Covid years. SGA really hit everyone’s radar 3 years ago and became a Superstar last year.

Jokic is widely considered the greatest steal in NBA draft history, so he’s for sure 1.

Jokic is significantly more unlikely due to his draft position and the fact that he was the 3rd center on his team before his rookie year. SGA is less unlikely because he was a lottery pick from Kentucky and was a starter on a decent clippers team before getting traded to OKC and being the leading scorer on a surprise OKC team before getting to be the number 1 option.

Cases like sga are rare, but they’ve happened before.

Kobe-mvp (13th) K. Malone-mvp (13th) Giannis-mvp (15th)

Jokic is the first of his kind.

Props to the Nuggets for recognizing that trading their first rounder (Nurkic) to create playing time for their second rounder (Jokic) was the move. Many teams would’ve screwed that up.

Kawhi and Giannis?

The further the you go back, drafting teams would have much more college footage of the top prospects. And they would have been older and more fully developed when drafted. There would not have been many international players at all.

I didn’t even think about Jokic when he was drafted since we took Nurkic and Harris first. It was pretty clear after his rookie year that he was going to be good though. He was the second best rookie behind KAT and made massive improvements every year. Still didn’t think it was an MVP trajectory but I do think the national media misses on some smaller market guys when the teams haven’t seen massive success yet. 

Jokic is definitely the craziest part of this by far but why am I not surprised by people downplaying Shai’s superstar leap lol.

To answer your question though it’s probably Jokic/Giannis followed by Jokic/SGA.

It’s the most unlikely since the late 1970s.

2019 was also a little weird because LeBron was injured and the top 2 in the league kept shifting between Kawhi, Giannis, and Harden throughout the season.

Jokic/Giannis was more unlikely.

It’s not totally unheard of, I mean, SGA was an 11th pick, which is rare but not crazy. Dirk was picked 9th, Dr. J was a 12th pick, Kobe was a 13th pick, Nash and Giannis were 15th picks.

The thing with modern basketball is that a lot of guys are one and done before the NBA. There simply isn’t a ton of information to determine who the actual best players are before they’re drafted. That’s why there were relatively few busts in decades past when players usually played 3 or 4 years of college ball. You’re judging guys based on 30-40 games of NCAA ball nowadays. A good streak here or a slump there can affect a lot with such a small sample size.

But yeah, Jokic not even being a first round pick and becoming arguably the greatest offensive player ever is wild.

Jokic being a 2nd round pick ends the discussion about unlikeliest #1 player.

As for SGA, I certainly didn’t think he was going to be all-nba level let alone a multiple x MVP after his playoff showing in 2020.

Jokic is the most unlikely best player in the world by a long mile. SGA was also not really that guy, but he was still a lotto pick and showed great promise his rookie season.

If I was the GSW manager in 2016, I’d have traded some of our pieces for Joker asap. Even trading Iggy would’ve been on the table at some point.

NBA has been seeing some wild narratives over the past few years. Nobody could have seen:

Jokic being a perennial mvp candidate, Bam scoring 80, a little white boy g leaguer winning 3 dunk contests, or Luka getting traded to the lakers. 

Shai didn’t really come from nowhere? He went to Kentucky, a blue-blood school, and he started most of his college career. He was projected to be a lottery pick in virtually every mock leading up to the draft. Unlikely that he would be the best in the world sure. But coming from nowhere is a huge stretch. The other members of the top 5 for the MVP ladder this year were all lottery picks; Jokic is the only true surprise tbh. He’s the greatest draft steal of all time.

Taco Bell commercial. That’s all I’m gonna say

I don’t really think so for Shai. If you watch that NCAA tournament before he went pro, I remember numerous commentators saying wow this guy is really putting it together and his patience on offense is very rare. He doesn’t rush, he’s highly skilled, etc. I’m not going to say that it was easy to see that he would be the best player in the league or right there, but I think if you watched that tournament and projected, it was easy to see a future All-Star in the league. The dude was so fucking smooth and even dating back to college he had a knack for getting to the free-throw line when he needed to and he was absolute money from mid range.

Even after seeing Jokić for the first year or two, I’m still bewildered at how he is at worst going to go down as a top 10 player of all time. He gets better and better every time you think he can’t possibly get better. That’s mind-boggling to me.

If you mean the combination of top 2, probably. But are they the most unlikely top player in the league? Jokic yes. SGA no. Nash was drafted 15 and moved team twice before winning back to back MVP.

I randomly drafted Jokic to my fantasy team heading into the year where he had his breakout season. He was leftover at the end of the draft

I barely knew who he was - no one knew who he was

Dude started doing Jokic things and I was like holy shit like the 10th guy I drafted is actually winning me all my games lol

I mean giannis came out of nowhere too. 15th in a stinky draft and went from gumby’s baby deer brother to Megatron with ball skills.

Definitely has to be. They’re putting up historically strong MVP seasons, and both were perceived as lower ceiling players. I think you could lump Kawhii in with Shai though in terms of unlikeliness. Just a couple guys you didn’t think could rival the LeBron/Giannis/Steph’s of the world without having otherworldly athleticism or a superability. But Jokic is in his own stratosphere of unlikeliness.

The almost ended up on the same team twice. That would have been crazy

It’s mainly Jokic for the unexpectedness. Shai is undoubtedly in that same tier of player, he’s slicing his way into my top 20 All-Time.

He’s also a John Calipari point guard. I know he has transcended anything that was ever remotely expected of him, and I would never ever mean to undercut how insane his trajectory as a player was, but still. If you asked me the crop of prospects that kind of guy is likely to come from, a Calipari era Kentucky point guard is pretty top of the fucking list lmao.

Again, not undercutting his achievement. He’s about to win his second MVP when he was supposed to be a fringe all star at most coming into the league.

I think so because I think SGA is arguably #1 along with Kawhi where, even after a couple of seasons in the league, I had no idea how high their ceiling was going to be.

Jokic is the surprise. Just incredible skill.

SGA is just a product of the modern game degenerating. In the 90s or even 2000s he wouldn’t be a top 4 guy.

They were top 2 last year but IMO it’s Shai/Wemby right now

Jokic ain’t in the top 2 no more Wemby took his spot

Neither can guard like Jaylen Brown so I don’t have them top 2