Nikola Jokic thinks the low post will go extinct in five to ten years: “In today’s NBA, there is no size advantage”
Not sure why that reporter decided to interrupt him. He was clearly processing his thoughts and in the middle of giving an in depth answer. You could tell he was really trying to answer that question, and that interruption caused him to say he’s bad at English when all that matters is he’s trying.
There are many reasons why someone, native English speaker or not, may hesitate before speaking. Such as possibility of getting fined because he’s essentially saying everyone can just foul low post players and get away with it.
probably just trying to get his question out in the limited time, not malicious. was just probably focusing on his own stuff there.
If not malicious, its rude at the very least. Jokic is in the middle of answering a question, gathering his thoughts in English, and the guy doesnt care and want to move on?
I like to give the benefit of the doubt that he tuned out and lost the plot of the conversation
Jokic def used his size advantage today ! But yeah i see what hes talking about , smaller guys can guard him super physical and not be called for fouls , we saw that few times vs Raptors as well when Barnes was swiping arms left and right at Jokic , sometimes getting the ball but most often hitting Jokic on arms and no calls.
If he tried to guard someone like Shai/Brunson like that he would have gotten tons of fouls
Right, I mean, look at Caruso in the playoffs a couple of years ago. He was doing great against Jokic, but he could also just kind of do whatever he wanted. Refs would let him bearhug Jok if he wanted. It’s pretty annoying, because the moment bigs actually use any of their size, they get called a lot offensively.
Yeah that’s one of my biggest annoyances with the decline of the Nuggets. Basketball is all about adjustments and it feels like the adjustment to beat the Nuggets wasn’t really X’s and O’s, it was to normalize fouling so aggressively that refs don’t call it.
I think he did actually. Might not have been Caruso, but someone bearhugged Jokic and the call was a jumpball lol
Toumani Camara wrapped him around the back and it was a jump ball
Case in point- the fucking raptor claw (no pun intended) gouges all over his arms over his entire career
100%. Edey gets the sh*t hacked out of him every game and no call and they call everything on him. It’s really strange.
I think the big men of every era would say this was the case - should have seen what lil dudes would do to Shaq
Big dudes too…. shaq was from another planet
Shaq was so physical that if you fouled him, he’d get angry and put that little dude through the rim.
Shaq also put on a ton of weight that ground his feet to dust to keep up with the abuse he was taking.
It’s not like he went through swallowed whistles without his own issues. Ref’s just treat you differently when dudes bounce off you.
He also bruised the fuck outta people too.
shaq would put big dudes through the rim too lol
Sure, but that was somewhat compensated by the fact guys on the perimeter were getting mauled as well… And nowadays they are getting touchy fouls there.
That’s how it is to be the big man everyone gets to crack you but you can’t hit back because you’ll kill someone lol.
I mean yeah when guys like Caruso get to mug Wemby and Jokic with no reprecussions in game there’s almost no reason to just play bigger than everyone else. Just throw yourself to the ground if a bigger guy muscles you and get a foul or hold onto them for dear life and get free defense
The refs made him look like the best defender ever by calling only around 20% could he committed that series
I was saying it then and everyone said it was cope. Even Wemby doesn’t seem to want to play in the post.
Wemby doesn’t have the build for the low post… Jokic on the other hand
Oh yeah, that 7’4 frame really isn’t built for, I dunno, reliable mid range over the top floaters and hooks. I mean, he looks like Kareem! And that guy never had a good post game either.
that’s just a stupid comment.. in today’s NBA wemby has the most low post build
Reggie was glazing him up too on the broadcasts, just silly
There was a post yesterday about players being injured so frequently and I really do think this right here is an example of why. Because bigs cant properly post up the game just never slows down for even a second. In an effort to make the game more “exciting” by simultaneously allowing incredibly physical off and on the ball defense where a small guy can just wrap up a big but also discouraging on ball defense arou8nd the perimeter and calling tick tack contact you get these guys running back and forth thousands of more times in a season than player used to. It services the big numbers and fast play but its damaging the players in a way I dont think they foresaw.
I think the way Caruso was allowed to guard Jokic really opened the door for these lengthy/strong 6’5 guys to dominate and make up so many roster spots. 10+ years ago if you were 6’8” and could shoot you were the ideal player. I’ve felt for a year or 2 the ideal player to a lot of teams is 6’5 and has a quicker drive (and kick) game. Plus their length means they aren’t even that short. Most top teams have 1 or several of these players. Castle and Harper are both 6’5”-6’6”. Shai & Jdub, Ant & Lamelo.
Teams like the nuggets are so atypical of today’s game because Jokic is a much rarer player type and then even Jamal is like 6’3” and not lengthy. This is why when nuggets were at their best we had KCP & Bruce Brown who could do so much on defence and even have nights of being the 2nd option.
I swear some players get a ton of leeway and for some reason Caruso is one of them. Wemby had 23 FTA today……..
I think last night, Reaves ran into Precious and fell down because weight room, and they called a loose ball foul on Precious.
not saying you’re wrong, but post scoring efficiency is the highest its ever been today
as in scoring off post ups or scoring in the post?
as in shots from the post. accuracy has gone from 44% to 52%, w/ points per post-up possession up by about 16%
the frequency, mind you, has roughly halved.
also worth noting turnovers from the post have remained largely the same over the last 20 years, from 12.4% in 2012 to 12.1% today
This is like the mid range efficiency going up with volume plummeting, it’s cause now only the elite players do these shots/actions since otherwise it’s never worth it
Which basically because only the people who are really good at it are allowed to do it now. The difference in shot charts over the last 20 years is wild.
makes sense thanks
We gonna pretend that Shaq didn’t get mugged constantly too? And just like Shaq, Jokic commits a shit ton of offensive fouls that go uncalled as well. That’s been the nature of being a big in the NBA for basically forever, modern bigs aren’t getting uniquely shafted.
Shaq got fouled a lot so it was actually a good thing when the refs let Alex Caruso drape all over Jokic in the playoffs?
I don’t really get what your point is. Shaq hasn’t played in 15 years and he’s a massive outlier. It’s more important to look at how the game is played in the modern era and how it could improve.
The point is that Jokic is better off having the refs swallow the whistle on both sides of the ball than call it tight. Getting fouled by little dudes hurts his game less than constantly playing in foul trouble would, and he would be in constant foul trouble with how frequently he commits offensive fouls.
I don’t really get what your point is. Shaq hasn’t played in 15 years and he’s a massive outlier.
It’s not just Shaq, he’s just among the most obvious and most egregious examples. Smaller players have always had a ton of leeway when defending bigger, stronger players who can and will finish through contact. It’s true even for non centers, LeBron would get fouled basically every time he went to the basket, and it would never get called because he would actually try to finish rather than just dive immediately when contact was made.
It’s more important to look at how the game is played in the modern era and how it could improve.
Yet most of the complaints only seem to want to fix the non-calls that go against their favorite players, not the non-calls their favorite player benefits from.
To be honest I can’t even figure out if you disagree or agree with Jokic.
How does jokic commit lots of offensive fouls?
This is not true at all.
Shaq was getting foul calls and it was actually not sth positive for him due to his bad FT rate.
In that era when big was against small guy they’d call fouls on small guys on many instances and there’d be so few offensive foul calls
He was getting foul calls when they were straight up fouling him intentionally, there was still a massive difference between the overall number of fouls that were committed against him compared to the number of fouls called. You’d often see Shaq getting barely any calls in the first half, and then get a shit ton in the second half (particularly in Q4) when the other team started fouling him intentionally to take advantage of his poor FT shooting.
Dude that’s just not true. Small players could get away with absolute fucking murder and end up with hardly any fouls called against them. See: Stockton, Zeke, etc.
The thing is comparatively back then even small slashers like Iverson would get hammered in the lane and not always get a call. So while it did exist by comparison there were way more aspects of the game that also had whistle swallowing going on to keep the game flow.
Now when defenders are punished so hard for having a hand out on a desperation three or tapping someone who extends their arms while they drive, by comparison it feels silly how much contact they can get away with when position is set for both guys and they are just swiping or holding to try and prevent something.
Shaq was such a dominant player, every team who wanted to contend in the western conference had to waste roster spots on big tall white guys to take fouls on him, wasn’t just in hack a shack time in the 4th Q
I watched Shaq and disagree. Strawman
Cool. The rest of us who watched him (and watched the NBA before him) disagree.
Smaller players ALWAYS get a ton of leeway when it comes to playing physically. Case in point: John Stockton. He was one of the dirtiest players in the NBA and fouled all the time, yet his called foul rate was remarkably low per possession (like somewhere in the #120-150 range for fouls per possession).
This is nonsense. Back then, only primetime games aired. What games are you talking about? Which centers would Stockton guard.
I agree smaller players have always gotten more leeway, but it’s worse today
Damn Caruso still living rent free in Nuggets fans heads?
Same bullshit comment repeated so many times in this thread.
You think Shaq, Duncan, Robinson etc were being treated with baby gloves?
Crying about a 6 foot guard ‘mugging’ your 7 foot center makes the centre look soft more than it makes the defender look dirty.
How many offensive fouls did Jokic get called for in that game 7? ZERO!.
If Caruso was Jokic’s primary defender, Jokic should have been pummelling through him.
It’s not like the refs allowed caruso to do whatever and didn’t let Jokic fight back.
Jokic didn’t use his physicality, imo because he was gassed after b2b game 7s.
Jokic had 6 offensive fouls in the first 2 games of that series, I’m not sure why you fixated on the last game
Because he performed pretty well in those first 2 games? And in game 7, he shit the bed?
Didn’t he average like 30 across those games?
Also I thought the big Caruso stuff happened in Game 7. All the big screenshot I remember seeing is from that game.
I mean I’m just using Caruso as the most common example, but the Thunder just abuse this with all their guard/wings on bigger guys. There’s other teams/players that do it too. Marcus Smart, Gary Payton, Lu Dort, Davion Mitchell, the list goes on and on.
Some of this is just the inherent problem of switch everything defense and things like that, though
Shaq and Duncan can actually go to the free throw line when fouled at the post. Today no longer.
You obviously know nothing about the Shaq era if you think this. Sending him to the free throw line was what helped everyone else when they were playing Shaq. He was an absolute monster
Ya the fouls on shaq were done blatantly because they wanted him to shoot free throws. They weren’t trying to be sneaky.
What are you even talking about?
The whole point of the ‘hack a shaq’ thing was that Shaq DIDN’T want to go to the free throw line.
I think Shaq would prefer if he doesn’t go to the free throw line when he gets fouled while at the post.
He’s not wrong, if the refs allow the shorter players to just hack the taller ones to mitigate the height mismatch (like Caruso did to him in the OKC series a couple years back), the only advantage is the higher release point of the taller player.
And if that’s your only advantage, you might as well start pulling up in your opponent’s face without bothering to back him down, like KD and Wemby do.
Yea I remember some player mentioning they had a lot of arm bruises and shoulder and arm pain from little guys being able to get away with fouling them so much.
Tell Shaq that there is no size advantage in this times nba.
Shaq would foul out by the halfway point of the 2nd quarter
Nah, Shaq would be unplayable except for last 2 minutes of every quarter when hack a Shaq doesn’t give them a freethrow and side out. I can math it out with pace, points per possession, and offensive rebounding rate, it comes out to about 54% and lower you should get hacked in today’s nba by a top half offensive team.
Anytime Jokic does anything aggressive in the post to a smaller player it’s an offensive foul. Shaq would be getting flagrants playing like he used to be allowed to.
it’s an offensive foul
You being serious right now? Jokic commits offensive fouls all the time and is outside the top 125 in fouls per possession.
Can you give us an example?
I didn’t realize Shaq has been playing in this times NBA. My bad.
Okay, what’s his contact info? It’s literally one sentence, this will be easy
Congrats on waking up from your coma. Happy for you
shaq retired after the 2011 season and was last an All Star in 2009.
Yeah, tell that to Larry Bird.
Well the Lowe Post already went extinct so idk what he’s talking about, it’s called The Zach Lowe Show now
It’s back as a substack
$70/year for intermittent posts in this economy, may as well be extinct.
I think he’s definitely right about the size advantage. There’s just not many small guards on the court anymore and refs are way too lenient towards the smaller player when there is some sort of size advantage. Every team is looking for guys 6’4” or taller that are long, athletic, and strong. Team defense in the league is probably the best it’s ever been with guys constantly flying around and rotating.
Low post scorers also died out due to making illegal defense legal. Guys can’t just go one on one without defenders constantly shading and digging to get the ball out like they could before illegal defense became legal. Guys don’t know where the double is going to come from now, where before illegal defense became legal they usually did and there also wasn’t off ball switching or players in help positions so that made doubles easier to attack.
It’s always bummed me out that the longer a sport goes on the closer it gets to “solved”. As time goes on there’s less “viable” ways to play at the pro level anyway, we zero in on the ideal players and their body type etc.
It happened in MMA very quickly too. Used to be that you’d get true clashes of styles. Now everyone is a well-rounded practitioner. You can’tbhave any holes.
Used to be guys like Dirk were the unicorn. Now we expect everyone to be serviceable from deep. Everyone has to be long. I question if a guy like Iverson gets to be Iverson anymore. Even point guards are expected to be 6’3 at least.
as much as Iverson was peak 2000s ball, he’d also be incredible in today’s game. Sort of a forebearer to heliocentric 2018-ball, and he played with an unbelievably cramped floor. I think if you transported him to today’s game he’d be a sort of mega brunson
Wasn’t iverson pretty long for his height?
Completely tangentially I 100% agree. Also in my own life too, not just watching sports. I live for novelty and unique things happening and one of the big roadblocks whenever I have started playing a game or sport and gotten better is reaching the point of optimization and having to switch to basically doing the same things over and over again. I have quit SO MANY things because it became boring for me. Like B&Bs in fighting games for instance. The idea of perfecting one thing and using it over and over because it wins is ANATHEMA to my brain.
Lots of people enjoy competition for winning and that wouldn’t even come up as an issue in their minds, but winning to me is far less important than seeing novel stuff and that…is not how you win lol. I will perpetually never get good at ANYTHING because the first main step you always need is mastering at least one “thing” through practice, doing it 10000 times until you can no longer fail doing it, and that just…is a shit goal to my brain. I’d rather be mediocre at 10000 things instead of master of one, so I will always be mediocre.
No actual sport is close to solved. Tactics change to beat the norm, them teams copy and then it repeats with teams changing tactics to beat that new adopted one. It’s just the evolution of the game. It might be more fun to see more novel players from the past beat less than mediocre players compared to today’s game but with everyone getting better it’s shows better and more real skill.
The more skilled players get, the closer it gets to solved. No one is accusing it of being solved already. It’s not a binary, it’s a gradual reduction in the amount of viable strategies. Tactics do not change on an infinite plane of options, the longer the sport has been played the closer it becomes to rock, paper, scissors where there are few strategies that have carefully cultivated strengths and weaknesses that counter other strategies. Yes, they change, but within an increasingly smaller subset of possibilities as time goes on.
The whole point of what I was saying is that as everyone gets better and “shows better and more real skill” it gets more boring to me. No one is denying that they get better over time, I am denying that getting better over time produces the most entertaining result (to me).
I mean I think you can’t disagree that basketball is much closer to being solved than not when you watch the modern game vs anywhere from the 80s-00s. Even just shot distribution charts / heat maps show the shots teams are taking are basically identical now compared to other eras. When the beautiful game Spurs made basketball look easy by pump faking on the perimeter, driving, dishing then finding the open man repeatedly, a lot of teams realised hey they’re scoring consistently and easily with Duncan, Ginobili and Parker 5 years past their prime and their best player might be a 3rd year player who is nowhere near polished.
Pick up chess, there’s not much spammy optimization in there.
I don’t mean to be disrespectful in any way, but have you ever thought about ADHD diagnosis, cuz you sound exactly like I did for a good chunk of my life.
I also have to disagree with the point of “optimization”. You don’t optimize because you want to spam one play and win, you optimize, cuz the margings in competition get smaller, as ppl make less obvious mistakes, thus the windows to exploit them become smaller as well and being able to react “instinctively” in these situations is a huge advantage.
Yes, I very much have ADHD.
I also never said that was the point of optimization, I said that was part of reaching the stage where you are optimizing instead of learning new techniques and strategy. Yes, the point of optimization is to be able to react appropriately without thought because the margins reduce as your opponents become better, but the process of doing that is repeating the same actions over and over and over again. That’s how you reach high levels of competence, you practice.
That’s just not true you’re just coping for being bad at everything
Yeah I can understand that.
Everyone thought three true outcomes was the solution to baseball. And yet here we are.
we thought that ~10 years ago with the rise of heliocentric ball, and now that’s become very out of vogue. As every team stacked themselves with low usage 3&D players, we then saw the value of deeper more versatile teams where every player has the ability to dribble and create. Things will keep shifting, I don’t think we’re at the final meta or anything. Every new emphasis has limitations and creates the conditions for a counter
It’s Richard Sutton’s bitter lesson, but for sports
6‘6-6’10 with length, strength, and speed
Yes that’s for sure the prototype size teams are looking for in role players and star players. I was more meaning that teams don’t really draft guys under 6’4” unless they have potential to be a star.
That’s the size advantage though isn’t it. You don’t make the league if you’re small
this illegal defense talk is always just silly…. guys did all of the things you said they didn’t and couldn’t do lol, the paint was WAY more packed than it ever is today. it was also almost never called, it is so obnoxious how this mythical stance on that era has become gospel without having really anything to do with how the games were actually played
also don’t agree with you about team defense, flying around more means best?? why? blow-bys are at an alltime high and so is scoring and efficiency, the logic to twist into defense being the best too is just goofy (more difficult or more effort at least has an argument, but best? what does that even mean?)
I’m so confused by this comment. Don’t you mean before illegal defense was eliminated, not before it was introduced?
I’m confused by your confusion lol. I edited it to put before illegal defense became legal so hopefully that helps.
Edit: shit you’re right I see what you mean. I was just thinking people would understand I meant after the introduction of the illegal zone defense rule but I changed it to hopefully make it easier to understand.
You said “illegal defense” like 50 times in your response
The only thing wrong about your comment is you said 6’4”. A 6’4” player needs to be absolutely dynamic on one end of the court at minimum to make up for lack of size.
Yes they do but that’s like the bare minimum teams seem to accept in role players today. Unless a guy is a star offensive player then it’s hard to have a role in the nba for a guy under 6’4”.
He’s right. Just watch how guys like Caruso are allowed to defend Jokic in the playoffs
Tbf Lu Dort and Jalen Williams did that a lot too in 2025. Just swipe down continuously and aggressively body the defender. Doesn’t matter if the swipe downs miss entirely, the refs won’t call all of the fouls
It’s wild how much that one example is the only one people care about. This has been a thing for years.
Random ex: We all clowned Gobert for doing nothing about the Clippers’ small ball lineup back in that one postseason series. But even with an unskilled big like Gobert, the refs let whoever was guarding Gobert to foul incessantly so that he couldn’t use the size advantage.
It’s legit just how defense has worked for a while; smalls are allowed to do what they want against bigs in the playoffs especially.
But the OKC-DEN series was the first time people noticed? Idk.
It has been around for a long time but like the bigger storyline in that series was Kawhi going out injured and yet the Clippers still won 4 straight, with 3 games being blowouts.
The reason why it’s a bigger deal now with Jokic is because he’s one of the few high-volume post-up bigs in the league and probably the only one that ever makes deep runs, so during that OKC series we saw 7 straight games of Jokic getting mauled in the post by smaller guys. Also weirdly I guess, because he’s white you could easily see all the bruises and scratches he had all over his arms after every game in that series, it genuinely looked like he had just mauled by a bunch of animals, it’s harder to see that on darker skin
Maybe just maybe it is because the quote is from Jokic.
Such a dumb take lol. He clearly gets mauled by smaller guys a lot more. Less bigs like to post up there because the NBA allows it, so he’s one of the only few who does it these days.
Both are true. Somebody made a point that it happened to Rudy years ago, and considering how Rudy is generally joked about, I’d assume they didn’t take it seriously because of who said it. Jokic is a lot more respected than Rudy, but still, Jokic is much better, so it happens more often and is the main defensive strategy against him now. With unskilled bigs, people don’t care and they get clowned for it.
The difference is Gobert doesn’t operate as a back-to-the rim post up center.
He tried to exploit the small ball lineup in that series (and force them to put a big in) by playing in the post but could not due to both his limitations but also because the refs allowed the Clippers to maul him.
Gobert also misses open layups and has the touch of a grandmother with parkinsons so they dont give him the same grace as Jokic who may have the best touch of any big man in history
I think it’s mostly just Jokic stans being upset. They need an excuse for his playoff failures and they’ll cling to this as if every other big man hasn’t had to deal with it
OKC was the most hated team in the NBA and there was a trend of discrediting our defense on the basis that officials rigged every game for us. Combine that with facing Jokic (the most beloved player on r/NBA) in a grueling series and it becomes the perfect storm. Funnily enough, Caruso was literally one of the most uncontroversial players in the NBA until that game 7.
Low post went extinct from 2014ish till 2019ish. It will likely come and go in cycles.
Al Jefferson will go down as the last good primarily post up player in league history I think
Rodman defended Shaq literally 30 years ago when the Bulls swept the Magic in the conference finals. By that logic the low post has been dead for 30 years.
In the NBA ten years from now Wemby will be the shortest player
1000% Agreed. Excuse my tangent I’m about to go off on but I’ve been saying for the last few years the biggest issue with the NBA is simply enforcement of it’s own rules. Some rules are just guidelines, some rules are blatantly ignored, and many rules are inconsistently enforced from player to player and even team to team. So when Silver in the off-season said flopping/foul baiting is not an issue, that was basically my last straw in defending him. The problem simply grows. This season has only been a few weeks and multiple coaches have already complained. I’m a huge NBA fan, have had league pass for years, I watch minimum 1 game per night, sometimes 2 simultaneously or back to back, and I’ll catch up with some condensed games the next day, and throughout the day I’m on message boards commenting on NBA and watching NBA podcasts like hoops tonight, 520, All NBA podcast, I bet on NBA on robinhood, I’m a huge consumer and I am pretty fed up with this issue.
Seems super interesting. I beg you for paragraphs tho lol
You can sports bet on Robinhood?
you can sports bet on duolingo these days. you can probably gamble directly through your television while watching PBS Kids.
Yup, prediction market
Don’t worry Jokic, guys like Sengun will keep it alive.
Hey Jok we’re good
Sengun is here, you can stay if you want to tho
Tell that to the raptors. If size wasn’t an issue it wouldn’t be so glaringly obvious we need a centre
Yeah we are dying without a C, funny to see the comments. Mfs with a big dont know how good they have it
Size doesnt matter when guarding the post. Because smaller guys dont get whistled the same way as a center does. That is not the same as size doesnt natter at all for all things.
Also cause bigmen today dont have the skills in the post.
Wtf are you even talking about. This is about Jokic, who is one of the most skilled post scorers of all time, who is playing in the modern NBA, is effectively guarded better by smaller guys because they can hack his arms and forearm his back.
With the way the NBA calls fouls in the post, there is no incentive for players to even learn the post game. They are legislating that set of skills out of the game.
Jokic plays in the post like a small player posting up. He’s not dropping hook shots and drop step.
You mean to tell me Tim Duncan will post up and not dominate todays game?
Theres no incentive to post up cause guards can now travel 5 steps to drive in the paint and is allowed to carry the ball thats the issue.
I thought he was talking about Zach lowe’s podcast lol
All it takes is another Shaq type player to change everything again.
Why don’t the teams needing rim protection just draft a Hakeem type player? Are they stupid?
Oh yeah pretty easy then, if all you need is just another Shaq then we probably just have to wait another 25 years or so.
Caruso with literally bend down and push Shaq’s knees to cause him off balance and the officials will cal it great defense.
Shaq’s defining trait is that he is a behemoth with ballerina feet. He is dunking repeatedly on caruso.
These 12 year olds don’t know Shaq look at these responses
I actually think most people don’t rememeber what Shaq really was, thinking he was qas dunking all the time, and how to project his game in the modern game against a modern defense.
Cant believe what Im seeing in this thread.
i mean the opposite is also true with oldheads glorifying the shit out of him
OK, but not much he can do when Lu Dort hits him with a calf slicer.
To be fair, being Canadian is the best base for mma.
When they are grabbing your legs and knees, your balance is gonna buckle.
When a guy is bangin you
No matter how hard the wind hallows the Mountain can not bow
Do you have any pictures of Caruso grabbing players’ knees? Or videos? Or anything at all
I can’t believe we are entertaining a hypothetical Caruso’s defense on prime Shaq. Caruso can show up with a shotgun and Shaq is still scoring 60 on his head
I hate these type of comments usually but come on, Caruso on Shaq smh
With the current standard of reffing caruso would fall down every time shaq tries to be physical and shaq would be fouled out for offensive fouls immediately
Shaq doesn’t need to commit 50⁄50 foul calls to get to his spot against someone like Caruso. Be serious. It would look like the most obvious flop of all time. Shaq can literally walk right under the basket against smaller guys. Bigs nowadays don’t have the footwork and lower body strength of old school post players so they overcompensate when backing defenders down and give an opportunity for defenders to get those offensive foul calls.
And with the current standard of physics Caruso would take exactly one charge before deciding that he loves his family too much do take a second.
Idk man I watched Caruso literally piggy back riding a guy who had like 50 pounds on him last night right in front of a ref and the ref was cool w it
Shaq put Mutumbo in the air backing him down. He faced constant double teams from multiple 7 foot 250+ pound guys. You have no idea how much bigger and stronger he was than any guy in the NBA and it was an era where guys were optimized for post defense against guys who actually knew how to play in the post. Caruso would not be able to stop Shaq from sealing him right under the basket in every possession.
Yes, Shaq had to deal with constant physicality without fouls called against the defender. No, Shaq doesn’t need to commit 50⁄50 fouls to get to his spot against Caruso lmao.
Just checked to have the exact figures: Shaq at his peak playing weight (not at his heaviest) had 141 pounds over Caruso. He’d honestly dunk wearing Caruso like a backpack
Refs calling it would make a difference
Bro theres some big dudes in the NBA. Jokic a big dude..but shaq literally twice as big as him lol
Shaq was at his best as a target under the basket to finish. As an iso low post scorer, what I think Jokic means, he would not adjust as well as you think.
This is not even close to being true. Lakers offense before 2001 was put Shaq on the block, give him the ball, and have him score or pass over the double team
This is because before then it was illegal to play defense like it’s played today. You couldn’t double unless you fully committed to it. The way Jokic is guarded with a smaller guy and a roaming big was illegal.
You couldn’t guard Shaq 1 on 1 anyway. Pistons got away with it because they had arguably the best defender of all time in addition to great defenders everywhere and Kobe was mad at Shaq and wouldn’t pass him the ball
Shaq would be groped by Caruso and either be forced to shoot free throws or try to make a post move while giving him a piggy back ride every play
Shaq had guys a lot bigger and stronger than Caruso hacking him every play
He’d just shit on him, literally.
Kids today think Shaq was just strong. He was a truck with footwork.
Even then, they seem to not understand how strong he was either. I guess they’re used to seeing Jokic being the biggest guy on the court and that’s all they can fathom, but peak Shaq was in another tier of strength. He weighed 30-50lbs more despite having a similar bf%
Except that Shaq literally whined at the end of one season to get the rules changed because learning to shoot free throws was beneath him.
Both sides are kinda right here. Caruso would ball deny and hack the shit out of him and Shaq would get way less calls than he should due to size difference. A fully in shape prime Shaq would also just power through all that nonsense when he gets the ball. But prime Shaq is also literally a generational athlete
More like both sides are wrong. You can’t actually literally hack and get away with it forever. They do call fouls and they definitely do allow Jokic and other bigs to fight back against contact within reason in the post. But, to be clear, Shaq is not just dunking on a forward/guard if they are calling offensive fouls for any contact initiated by him but allowing holding/grabbing by the defense. Especially if a double is coming soon immediately once he puts the ball on the floor. It is physically impossible if the guard is allowed to hold his arm while fronting him to make the catch difficult, hacking him immediately on the catch, and then pushing him and holding his leg to not let him jump.
In the basketball of Shaq’s day for sure, but today’s game the paint has a distinct guard bias. If they don’t foul him out before he gets to the basket once due to the way they call charging fouls (rip the post backdown), they’re going to let him get hacked the fuck up with no call. It’s not even a skill thing, it’s just the refs call more against bigs while not calling fouls to them. No strength can save you from your whole arm getting smacked while you shoot/dunk it.
This is how you know people didn’t watch Shaq, he literally dunked with AI on his back 😂. Caruso would be a fly to Shaq. No way he’s going to stop Shaq from getting to his spot and doing whatever he wants.
Y’all glaze Shaq like this because all you remember is the highlights. Dude would just get repeatedly doubled like every other post big, and that’s death for any player who can’t pass well enough to beat a good perimeter defense.
Shaq was a good passer
If you watched Shaq he was swarmed by the entire defense and often just ran into and the defenders would just bounce of him or he would dance around them because his footwork and athleticism was 1 of 1. Defense as a whole is better but Shaq was similar to Lebron who dominated this Era in that his combination of physical dominance and skill was so unique that there is no real way to stop it.
You think a small ball 4 doubling Shaq stops the dunk?
I like how your first instinct after getting mad about defending Shaq’s honor is to call people mentally disabled 😂emotional maturity of a 12 year old
Think you heavily underestimate how strong players are nowadays, even the small guys
Caruso would not stop Shaq like he didn’t stop Jokic. But a modern defense, using Caruso for all high post catches, can very strongly limit him.
Would love to see him guard threes
Shaq? Dude was more athletic than jokic is. He’d be fine
i’m afraid those are out of stock. can i interest you in a desagana diop?
Except Jokic was supposed to be that player, so hearing this coming from him is especially discouraging. After he won multiple MVPs and a championship I really hoped he’d lead a post play renaissance, but maybe I was wrong.
They’ll put Shaq in the pick and roll and destroy him from 3. It’s what they did then and it worked.
Also Shaq is one of the top 15ish greatest players ever. So rare to get another Shaq.
Math doesn’t work like that sir
Marcis ponder
post-up possessions per team per game have declined from 8.1 ten years ago to about 3.9 today
Assuming that trend continues, that number would be about 2.7 by 2031, or 5⁄6 combined per game
And frankly Jokic is boosting those numbers tremendously. Without him I don’t doubt that modern post ups per game would be under 3.
If you watch the rotations teams make these days, even if a small guard is switched onto a big, they are doubled immediately
I can agree with his point here
Getting doubled is an advantage created
Not as much as you’d like. The big needs to be a strong enough passer to get the advantage over a perimeter rotation, and then you’ve still got two players in the paint able to help onto any attempt to beat the rotation off the line.
I’d say Jokic is a respectable passer lol
Jokic is an amazing passer, which is why he’s still able to get away with post play to some extent. Even then, we’ve already started to see it lose some efficiency, especially in recent post seasons. It’s simply too easy for teams to abuse any weakpoint in the offensive supporting cast, especially a lack of shooting or driving ability, to just load up on the post player with zero counterplay. OKC in particular loved to just throw players at Jokic and was fine dealing with the consequences.
It still requires skill and a high IQ to be an advantage. Some bigs panic when doubled, which leads to wasted advantages or turnovers.
Well no shit, you still have to be good at basketball bro.
turnovers from the post have actually stayed largely the same over the last decade
I never said it wasn’t? I’m saying that the height no longer is the advantage but the open 3 on the wing after the kick out is
Yeah but that open 3 comes from the height advantage and needing to double
A normal big isn’t finding the advantage consistently
Smartest lakers fan
Yes one guy fouls immediately, then the guy who comes over fould later.
Imagine if the reverse was true. For example, if Curry or Kyrie got a mismatch on the perimeter with someone like Gobert defeding and then Curry or Kyrie getting called for offensive foul for crossing up the bigger defender.
That would be fuckin stupid right?
So why do bigger offensive players get punished for taking advantage of the size mismatch in the post
Its incredibly tiring to play post game. You bang with the strongest guy they have and destroy your body for a measly two points.
10 years is too long. It will be long gone in 5.
Or if they’re not the strongest player, you already know a wing is coming at you with a crowbar to keep you from getting position
Hey we are the future!
Nah dawg we still need a big 😭 Jokic is just talking about low post ups from bigs going extinct not big men. I can see it. 10 years from now, us still getting bodied on the glass giving free dunks
He’s not wrong. Everyone talks about how bigs need to be switchable but never guards
Jerry West was right again
Jokic looks sick of the nba and the American media. They’ve broken his spirit
As an OG “back to the basket” big man I am hurting inside with this news. Also hurting are my knees and back.
In the NBA maybe, but not in any level below the NBA, size advantage is HUGE
There’s no size Advantage because you big guys don’t want to get in there and put your shoulder in someone’s Chest. Yeah you may take a Charging call or 2 but Eventually that Defender stops want to take that Shoulder from someone 6 inches taller and 70lbs heavier.
There’s no size advantage cause the big man has to play basketball while the guard is allowed to fuck him the ass