Good lord see it spelled out like that is rough

Agreed, it’s about what have you done for me lately

Exactly why Giannis and Embiid aren’t talked about much in the top tier anymore because they haven’t been healthy or in the post season long

Zero relevant playoff moments for four of Giannis’ prime, 28-31 age seasons is pretty crazy. Has to be a little concerning if you’re one of the teams getting ready to sell the farm for him, his best seasons are almost certainly behind him. B

I want to add that OP saying they have nearly identical resumes but Jokic having one more MVP is a very big deal. And a lot of people think Jokic should have won in 22-23 but voters always are loathe to give somebody 3 MVPs. Jokic finished top two in MVP vote 5 years in row, thats domination.

That MVP resume puts him a step further then Giannis and most other greats

Over that same period, Jokic has played 52 playoff games and won a championship.

And had large stretches of being the most dominant impactful player in the league. I don’t think we can say the same of Giannis recently.

We also spent all of the time that Giannis “wasted”, expecting Jokic to do even more. So it’s disingenuous to suggest after we just watched Jokic lose in the first round, and feelings about the Nuggets future are at an all time low and be like … What’s the deal?

Giannis could get a championship next season on some other squad, Jokic could miss the playoffs, and we might get a post saying how unbelievable it is that people have Jokic rated higher than Giannis. Or that could all be flipped.

Point is, OPs post is just as reactionary as all of the sentiments these past few years and you’re right, end of the day most people probably do have them similarly ranked all time.

lol wow thats wild. i hadn’t realized that

Really solid write up, man

Having watched Jokic dismantle the Heat live in the NBA finals, there’s a “that’s ridiculous” feeling you get when someone does something you’ve never seen before and subverts your expectations

That feeling sticks around and stings years later long after you’ve forgotten the stat line LOL

All good points, though I do disagree that it’s stupid that some players get bonus points for “changing the game” - it takes a truly unique talent and (if I can be a bit dramatic) a lot of courage to play in a way that completely changes the way the sport is played. It’s one thing to be great at basketball, it’s another to reinvent it.

All good points

I will say, I think that Jokic did already exist in a slightly different version: Bill Walton was an extremely good center passer (for the era) but basically nobody under 60 ever saw him play so he doesn’t get any love.

It really is as simple as: Jokic is arguably the best anyone has ever been at his thing (playmaking, or at least playmaking as a center).
Shaq would generally be considered better than Giannis, and they fill similar roles/archetypes.

That gives a perceived bump to Jokic in the same way Steph being the clear best shooter give him a bump, and hurts any other 3 point specialist in all time rankings.

Yes. All this, yes.

Giannis is the most dominant finisher at the rim since Shaq. He is modern day shaq. In a world of shooters he plays one of the most unique styles in the league. 

I mean I would believe that a bit more if it wasn’t for the fact that Kobe is still rated very highly despite being Jordan, but worse. Like nobody is elevating Dirk extremely highly over his peers relative to their accomplishments.

One of my biggest what ifs revolves around Arvydas coming here in the 80’s in his prime.

You covered it really well but one additional thought - answering “why do the Simmons and Lowe types love joker so much” - Joker is something of a basketball savant - which enables his playmaking but also endures him to guys who “think the game” on podcasts in ways that Giannis doesn’t exhibit as well. Maybe giannis is more “brute force” less basketball genius to those guys?

No mention of Bill Walton for Jokic comps?

I think you bring up good points but I think you’re also underselling Jokic’s skills. It’s not JUST that Joker’s arguably the first full time point center- it’s also that he IS a full time point center who’s one of the best passers ever. Being that tall gives him an advantage in terms of scoring and passing because it makes it far harder to block/contest his shots or obscure his passing vision. He’s one of the hardest players to guard. Also having a point center means you can functionally run 2 bigger backcourt where instead of a smaller PG you can do more of a 3&D type (although this also applies to point forwards). Also because he (most of the time) is a good shooter it gives you flexibility to run another non-scorer (like hypothetically, a Thompson twin) elsewhere.

Also Joker is a 3-level scorer where Giannis is more limited. If he can’t get to the rim he’s more limited.

The rebounds are fairly equal and Joker gets more steals.

Giannis is better on defense but, despite the current sentiment, Jokic isn’t a terrible defender (although he struggles or is below average at times) so that gap in defense isn’t enough to make up for the offensive gap.

TL;DR Joker has a more valuable skill set and can do far more offensively (I.e. passing and scoring).

I don’t agree with this. Giannis is just as unique in his own right

Giannis has no 1:1 comparison either. People cite Shaq, but the only thing they have in common is paint scoring.

The way Giannis gets his points, the way he handles the ball, his ability to guard 1-5, are all unique to him.

“Changed the game,” Jokic has not done that anywhere near the capacity as Curry lol. Curry literally shifted the meta, Jokic has not done that. What Jokic has done is inspire a new crop of skilled big men, but Giannis has done the same. There’s already a share of yong guys in the league who list Giannis as their inspiration.

Wemby’s current form probably doesn’t even exist without Giannis changing the view of what an athletic big man could be. How quickly people forget Giannis Point Forward early in his career. The same could be said about Jokic with skilled big men.

But Jokic in no way has had an impact on the league like Curry or Lebron lol, that is insane

I agree. Recency bias is a big factor, the Bucks had significant injuries in the playoffs in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. But even at his peak in 19-21, Giannis was never ranked above top 10 all time by media or fans. I’m discussing how both are perceived and ranked relative to their basketball resumes.

Giannis and Jokic are even in terms of what they’ve accomplished, and their careers actually mirror each other to a shocking degree. Both have:

- multiple MVPs in the same era

- only 2x making it past the second round: one championship run (2021, 2023) and a WCF loss to the eventual champ (2019, 2020)

- multiple runs where they lost due to injuries that shouldn’t be used to criticize them (2022-25 for Giannis, ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ for Jokic)

- flawed supporting casts headlined by a homegrown scorer/shot creator (Murray/Middleton) and a defensive anchor (AG/Jrue)

- glaring weaknesses that shape team building but didn’t stop them from being all time great MVP level players (Giannis 3pt shooting, Jokic defense)

- both were underrated prospects who developed over time and blossomed into superstars by the end of the 2010s

They’re equal in my eyes, and I have no issue if fans prefer one over the other as it’s mostly a preference of offense vs. defense. My issue is with a large portion of fans declaring Jokic to be in a completely separate tier higher than Giannis all time when that’s not reasonable given their accomplishments

His team also chose to hire doc indicating they have zero intention of trying for a ring.

I want to see Giannis in Denver

On awful teams? One team… that he brought a championship to.

Also Jokic has 3 MVPs, which imo is slightly better than Giannis’s 2 MVPs and 1 DPOY.

Right or wrong? Are people still pretending the east is as good or better? Much better now than the 2nd half of the 2010s but still far off.

to add to the recency bias, the bucks last two series losing to the pacers and the 8 seed heat were pretty embarrassing as well

True but we didn’t have any analysts putting Giannis top 5 all time even back then. Or top 10 all time

Huh I was going to say because defense is generally under appreciated. Jokic has a full offensive bag, while Giannis has a much more limited (though still elite) offensive bag, but also adds elite D at the other end ( vs Jokics very pedestrian D).

Dominated with one ring in 6 years? Yall kill me man. He played terrible in back to back game 7s two post seasons in a row and just let a hospital Wolves team bounce him 1st round while shitting the bed 3 games in a row that series. He’s also ¹⁄₂ multi time MVPs in NBA History to never scrape a 60 win season but he’s been dominating lmao

And recency bias, if you switched the years their peaks happened then people would be saying this about Giannis

Hard to run PR for Giannis these days

Clearly not working in this thread. The answer is pretty simple: Jokic 3 mvps and Giannis 2. Who is more likely to win or place top 3 in mvps in the future? Jokic.

Jokic could very easily end up 4th in mvp win shares by the end of his career and possibly 3rd. If you’re looking at their careers, Jokic is the obvious answer.

Best 1 year peak? It’s pretty close. But anything beyond that is Jokic.

Yeah man Jokic’s PR dogwalked the Lakers all those years

Pre chip he wasn’t great either. his two previous years those were title contending teams and he was arguably the best player in the league with the back to back mvps and the dpoy.  But he didn’t perform mvp level at all those playoffs. The 21 run was goated though 

This is the biggest reason IMO. It’s been a while since the Bucks/Giannis had a deep run in the playoffs, which is when fans pay the most attention.

2022-23 playoffs: Played 3 games then got injured and missed the rest. Bucks lose in the first round.

2023-24 playoffs: Missed it entirely. Bucks lose in the first round.

2024-25 playoffs: Played an excellent series averaging 33/15/7 on 66 TS% but got bounced by the Pacers in 5. Giannis’ play probably wasn’t remembered much because the story was more focused on Dame tearing his achilles in Game 4 and the Pacers quickly becoming the favourite underdog team of the playoffs. Bucks lose in the first round.

2025-26 playoffs: Injured and Bucks miss the playoffs.

This is it. Defense is just harder to quantify as well.

It’s 50% of the game, but not 50% of the impact. Over a 6 game series that the Nuggets fucked, Jokic really got shut down arguably once by Gobert, one of the 3 best defensive players of this generation. A really good defensive player guarding a really good offensive player might have major effects (Kawhi on LeBron, Ben Wallace on Shaw), but it won’t be as big a decision maker as the mere existence of an insanely dominant offensive force

Team defense is determined by your weakest links, and team offense is determined by your best offensive player, so individual defense is just a lot less valuable

They’re pretty similar in MVP shares, actually

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/nba_mvp_shares.html

That and you cant give giannis the ball in crunch time because he doesnt want to get fouled.

lol consensus by media and Reddit before the playoffs was that Jokic was top 5 all time lmao and top 10 at worst.

Bring Jamal Murray(2020-2026) in the east and he would have multiple all star appearances.

It’s especially funny because Murray and Gordon were much better in 2023 than Middleton and Holiday were in 2021

I’m sorry but Murray is better than anyone a Giannis has played with lol Giannis never had a guy score 30+ppv in a playoff series.