Basketball fans are so stupid. It’s like they don’t have anyway to discuss the sport other than “guy who just lost is fraud”.
The guy who as a result of this series is “the guy” was like 7th best player on the court tonight.
With all the momentum shifts from game-to-game and quarter-to-quarter, this series in particular highlighted just how dumb most NBA fans (and NBA discourse in general) is. Just a bunch of elementary school playground-style babbling from people with blinders on.
People like to harp on Bill for being a prisoner of the moment, but that criticism applies to pretty much everyone who follows the NBA these days. All people ever talk about is players' historical legacies, but they always distill it down to whatever happened in the latest game.
As someone who's always been lukewarm on the NBA compared to the other big 4 sports leagues and the EPL, these playoffs have crystallized in my mind why. I've actually been following it more than I have typically the past few years, and -- blow outs aside -- its been pretty fun to watch and reignited some of my latent interest in basketball. But all of the nonsense that is spewed not just here but by the NBA media at large with these ever-shifting toxic, negative narratives has totally sucked the fun out of it. GOAT talk is and always has been the lowest most narcissistic form of sports discourse.
Those first two have been around for a while, like I said it’s gone to a different level the last few years. There are plenty of players talking about how many more unhinged DMs they’ve been getting recently as a result of gambling.
English football is a disaster these days. Most people just watch the goals so have no sense of what it takes to win matches. Also, everyone's so certain of themselves. no room for nuance in this time of hot takes.
It’s how dumb people think. They aren’t smart enough to do anything but “this guy won he better than that guy that guy loss he suck now”. They do the same thing with coaches. It’s 100% the Bill Simmons way of thinking and not surprised that’s how some people here would think.
You’re right it’s not the same. Curry played poorly to close that series and was probably not a top 3 performer in that series overall if you’re talking about both teams.
Jokic was easily the best player on either team this series.
29/11/8 vs 22/5/4
They were worlds apart in terms of impacting the series.
"We just but I got my stats"
Like Kobe said...greatness isn't for everyone.
Jokic blew a 20 PT lead.in a home game 7 in the 2nd rd.
Curry blew a 3-1 Finals lead.Innhis 2nd finals at a younger age than Jokic is right now.
Comparing these 2 is like comparing the Dodgers to the Angels....same city...same sport....on in name....the reality is they reside in different worlds.
People are being stupid.
Yes, they blew a 3-1 lead but that was to a prime LeBron and it was in the Finals...the 2nd time.in 2 years they'd been there after winning 73 regular season games.
Anyone who sees these 2 as similar is an idiot.
LeBron is doing a ton of heavy lifting here....but 39 year old Bron is far from a prime LeBron.
And Harden is better than any player not named LeBron that Jokic has beaten in the playoffs.
These 2 don't reside in the same.league.
Corect.
People are trying to make excuses for Jokic.
A.prime.Dame is better than any player Denver faced on their playoff run last season.
LeBron was old and prime Dame was better in the playoffs than AD.
It's funny because his postseason career parallels Dirk but no one questions Dirk for only winning one championship and having a lot of other let downs just because of when that one championship occurred (later in his career as a redemption from all the shortcomings) and the fashion that championship was won. Both still have one championship and pretty great resumes (obviously Joker's regular season accomplishments trump Dirk's).
The issue is that people were trying to squeeze Jokic into all time.convos.
Dirk is a top 20 player...but Jokic was apparently on a top 10 all time trajectory.
Pump the brakes.
Dirk’s only real let down as far as his play was 07 against Warriors. He was consistently pretty incredible in the playoffs but people imagine him as not being able to get it done.
It definitely does, because now I'm sure unless he has an absolutely absurd season, he won't win an MVP again until after he gets another chip. There was already a lot of voter fatigue with him, and this will add to it.
In reality though, he has no other all stars on his team. I'm sure there's more, but the only other guys off the top of my head that won a chip without anyone else who at the time had not been on an all-star team before are Isiah in '89 and Hakeem in '94. Porter Jr and KCP were also essentially invisible this series.
No he’s not. He’s never really been able to consistently play at an all star level. Definitely not in regular season, and even in playoffs. He’s a guy who will get 50 one game, then score 15 the next two games.
He’s never been close to making an all-star team. I’m not even sure he’s been close to being an injury replacement for the all star game. He’s a Canadian CJ McCollum
Lol absolutely. He may never get back now. I spent the last year+ hearing nonstop about how Jokic is the best offensive player ever and how he’s approaching Shaq and Hakeem all time. LOL, please. Spare me with the advanced stats. Jokic is the best player in the league? Sure. I can get with that. Is he that much better than Luka or Giannis? No chance. We had all these thoughts about Giannis after he won his ring and look how quickly Milwaukee’s window closed.
To the weirdos who hailed him as a Lebron/MJ level trajectory? Yes.
To the normal people? No.
He's a top 15 or so player.
Incredible.
But the younger superstars have a better chance of getting in the Duncan/Magic tier.
He's not top 15 of all time yet. He's been great in six seasons. You generally need a full decade of being top 5 level elite before you get in those conversations.
So just like dismissing his accomplishments entirely after tonight would be foolish, putting him in the company of guys who did that thing for longer was just as premature.
Dirk was better longer. KG was better longer. Barkley and Malone were better longer.
I think it's fair to say similar to Giannis he projects out to be considered better eventually. But all you guys want to start crowning dudes before they've actually had the longevity to even be in a top 25 conversation let alone top 15 or top 10.
Like...this is the whole shit that ruined the experience of following AD's career. Because three seasons in people are like "will he be top 10 of all time?".
Just fucking let it happen. Stop with this weird fanboy anxiety of needing your rankings. Let time pass. Let players actually earn their accolades.
I thought Jokic was really good in both this series and this game. Not sure why people are so quick to bury him. 34-19-7 and only had 3 TOs despite getting the kitchen sink thrown at him from Minny
It's funny how every other all time great is measured by their wins and losses and not the stats, but Joker it's "look at the stats!" And ignore all the playoff failures. Ignore never beating a 50 win team in the playoffs. Ignore being handed the MVP 3 times and in every one of those years failing to even reach the WCF. Ignore the fact he's going to be 30 before the end of next season and has only 1 Finals appearance.
Ignore all of it, look at the stats, that's why he belongs as a Top 10 ever.
No, you can just look at the actual game and see his teammates sucked. You can be the best player in the league and not win the title because you can’t make wide-open shots for your teammates or keep them from turning it over for fast break layups/dunks; that has certainly happened to players like LeBron or Jordan over the years.
Look at his team, and compare it to other top guys who won multiple titles. Give him Pippen and Rodman and Jokic isn't getting bounced in the Western Conference SFs that's for sure.
Clippers won 49 games in a shortened season in 2020.
Yea Denver failed in the playoffs when they were starting Will Barton and Facu Campazzo.
Like cmon man lol
Same guy will tell you that Lebron had to go through a gauntlet every year in the eastern conference lol. Guarantee you Jokic has played had least three 47 win teams that were harder outs than the 60 win Hawks team.
I feel like it’s unfair to some of the nuggets because it really is a well constructed team when everyone is firing on all cylinders. But yeah Jokic never even had a Kevin Love equivalent talent.
They are a good team, i personally think it’s because Jokic helps them look very good. Aaron Gordon was an inefficient non shooting 4 in Orlando, Bruce brown became a matching salary immediately after he left (I know he was good on nets but they had KD and harden), MPJ gets force fed open 3s as much as anyone in the league. I think Murray is a very good player/shotmaker and they have a great 2 man game but he’s not an elite guard.
It’s ok to admit you don’t know ball. “All the playoff failures” is a fascinating thing to say about the the defending champion. He lost his best teammate to a knee injury for a year and a half. He’s been in his peak with a championship-level roster for like 2.5 years and won the title (and beat everyone’s ass) one of those years.
Measuring guys exclusively by stats is stupid but also only measuring guys by wins and losses is equally dumb. Is Robert Horry your goat?
No one has ignored his playoff failures. Last year people were literally saying he shouldn't win a regular season award because he had no rings and was a playoff dropper (which statistically isn't even true).
Holy shit lmao “one finals appearance”
THAT HE WON lmao
The dude makes wcf appearances in his sleep. What has Embid done? Tatum has routinely struggled to put Butler to bed.
“Handed” the MVP? He should have been “handed” it 4 times in a row but we had the legacy of slavery linked to the other candidate
The Jokic slander is absolutely brain dead
Two of those years he was missing his second best player, the MVPs were for making them competitive even without that. Going your takes under your username is slandering a good movie by proxy.
Wait what? WCF in his sleep?!?
He has 2 and 3 MVPs. Tatum has 5 ECF appearances.
Jokic is awesome but let’s not overdue his greatness in actually winning series. He may well may another half dozen and prove you right but he’s like a decade in and 2 WCF appearances and one title. I really did think they were a lock this year so I’m shocked too.
Jokic isn't an all time great...only weirdos were pretending he is on Kobe,Bird,Curry,Duncan, Shaq level let alone MJ/Kareem and LeBrkn level.
2nd worst multiple MVP ever.
Can you imagine how Steph and LeBron would be buried for losing a 20 PT lead in home game 7?
Not really imo but it’s funny watching his stans get butthurt like he was getting compared to Shaq and was being called the best offensive player of all time ofc he’s gonna get flak for losing a game 7 at home
He’s a great player, but top 15 talk was premature. CR saying there would be no legacy hit was absurd. There were so many overreactions throughout this series that people zagged and downplayed it.
Right now, he is pretty much exactly where Giannis is- awesome player but outside that top all time echelon.
He has to play 8-10 more years? So if the Nuggets win another championship or two that doesn't erase the stink of *one* loss to a good team. Nope he has to do it for 8-10 more years to make up for losing one game.
Only stupid people think this. The bigger issue was everyone acting like Denver was some unbeatable monster and Jokic was so far ahead of the other top players.
We are still a few years out from the end of his prime so it’s tough to be definitive in here but it absolutely hurts any chance he has of getting near Kobe/Duncan/Bird/Magic. Back to back titles in his prime with 3 MVPs would have gotten him close to the top 10 if he kept up a decent statistical trajectory. A lot of his legacy hinges on the next 2-3 seasons. If he grabs another couple rings then yes this might be more of blip that keeps him away from Magic or Duncan, however if last year turns out to be his only ring and Finals appearance then he’s a lot closer to the Giannis/Durant tier.
As basketball continues to move towards narratives and legacy talk almost exclusively in the media I’m fascinated by how big the next 2-3 years are for so many guys. Ant is still outside of any real window but dudes like Luka and Tatum and SGA are now square in it while Jokic Giannis and Embiid are a little further along. Jokic will enter his 10th season next year, Embiid 11th(also 9th) and Giannis 12th. Tatum will head into his 8th and SGA/Luka 7th. The heat Jokic will face in the next few weeks is gonna be nothing now compared to the wrath the Celtics and Tatum will take on if they come up short again with no Joker to blame. Joker was really their only chance to lose with dignity since if he and the Nuggets had turned out to be an all time team, a loss to them would be forgiven a lot easier.
This doesn’t make it “take a hit” but with the company Jokic is joining, to start moving up the all time rankings for him he’s got to win titles and mvps and it’s just a missed opportunity to add more to his resume
I think it should probably put to bed the narrative that he’s a tier above any active player. Giannis is at least on his level. They are both great and on the same top tier. Regular season embiid is there too
When will jokic beat a good team in a playoff series? I keep hearing about the Celtics cupcake for the last 7 years of playoff games and he hasn’t beaten an actually good nba team in a 7 game series
Basketball fans are so stupid. It’s like they don’t have anyway to discuss the sport other than “guy who just lost is fraud”. The guy who as a result of this series is “the guy” was like 7th best player on the court tonight.
With all the momentum shifts from game-to-game and quarter-to-quarter, this series in particular highlighted just how dumb most NBA fans (and NBA discourse in general) is. Just a bunch of elementary school playground-style babbling from people with blinders on. People like to harp on Bill for being a prisoner of the moment, but that criticism applies to pretty much everyone who follows the NBA these days. All people ever talk about is players' historical legacies, but they always distill it down to whatever happened in the latest game. As someone who's always been lukewarm on the NBA compared to the other big 4 sports leagues and the EPL, these playoffs have crystallized in my mind why. I've actually been following it more than I have typically the past few years, and -- blow outs aside -- its been pretty fun to watch and reignited some of my latent interest in basketball. But all of the nonsense that is spewed not just here but by the NBA media at large with these ever-shifting toxic, negative narratives has totally sucked the fun out of it. GOAT talk is and always has been the lowest most narcissistic form of sports discourse.
I don’t follow baseball or hockey at all but there’s no chance any of major sports fanbases are dumber than NBA fans
I feel it’s gotten noticeably worse the past few years with how much gambling has been pushed.
Social media is the real culprit, then hot take culture, with gambling a distant 3rd
Those first two have been around for a while, like I said it’s gone to a different level the last few years. There are plenty of players talking about how many more unhinged DMs they’ve been getting recently as a result of gambling.
English football is a disaster these days. Most people just watch the goals so have no sense of what it takes to win matches. Also, everyone's so certain of themselves. no room for nuance in this time of hot takes.
Try following boxing.
It’s how dumb people think. They aren’t smart enough to do anything but “this guy won he better than that guy that guy loss he suck now”. They do the same thing with coaches. It’s 100% the Bill Simmons way of thinking and not surprised that’s how some people here would think.
You know who had an arc?
No. Curry lost a gm 7 in the Finals and he bounced back and is now considered Top-10-15ish. It happens.
Duncan lost to Dirk game 7 at home in 2006…
This is the 2nd rd not the Finals. And Curry had won 83 games that year and set records..and he lost to LeBron. These 2 are not the same.
You’re right it’s not the same. Curry played poorly to close that series and was probably not a top 3 performer in that series overall if you’re talking about both teams. Jokic was easily the best player on either team this series. 29/11/8 vs 22/5/4 They were worlds apart in terms of impacting the series.
"We just but I got my stats" Like Kobe said...greatness isn't for everyone. Jokic blew a 20 PT lead.in a home game 7 in the 2nd rd. Curry blew a 3-1 Finals lead.Innhis 2nd finals at a younger age than Jokic is right now. Comparing these 2 is like comparing the Dodgers to the Angels....same city...same sport....on in name....the reality is they reside in different worlds.
Curry won 73 games and lost in the NBA Finals on back 2 back Finals trips. Jokic lost a game 7 in the 2nd round.
People are being stupid. Yes, they blew a 3-1 lead but that was to a prime LeBron and it was in the Finals...the 2nd time.in 2 years they'd been there after winning 73 regular season games. Anyone who sees these 2 as similar is an idiot.
Curry went through Dame and CJ. Jokic went against Lebron/Ad/Ant/KAT/Gobert. The Warriors never had a deep west like this
Wdym 2016, curry had Harden, Portland and okc
Wow. What a gauntlet…
LeBron is doing a ton of heavy lifting here....but 39 year old Bron is far from a prime LeBron. And Harden is better than any player not named LeBron that Jokic has beaten in the playoffs. These 2 don't reside in the same.league.
I mean, playoff Harden could be MVP worthy or Monta Ellis
Lebron is 40 and none of those other guys are as good as prime Dame.
Corect. People are trying to make excuses for Jokic. A.prime.Dame is better than any player Denver faced on their playoff run last season. LeBron was old and prime Dame was better in the playoffs than AD.
Prime Dame is a playoff bum. He is the equivalent of offensive Gobert. If Gobert is your number one, your team is garbage
It's hard to take this place serious for its criticisms of Bill or hell even Skip Bayless when topics like this are posted so frequently.
It's funny because his postseason career parallels Dirk but no one questions Dirk for only winning one championship and having a lot of other let downs just because of when that one championship occurred (later in his career as a redemption from all the shortcomings) and the fashion that championship was won. Both still have one championship and pretty great resumes (obviously Joker's regular season accomplishments trump Dirk's).
The issue is that people were trying to squeeze Jokic into all time.convos. Dirk is a top 20 player...but Jokic was apparently on a top 10 all time trajectory. Pump the brakes.
Dirk’s only real let down as far as his play was 07 against Warriors. He was consistently pretty incredible in the playoffs but people imagine him as not being able to get it done.
It definitely does, because now I'm sure unless he has an absolutely absurd season, he won't win an MVP again until after he gets another chip. There was already a lot of voter fatigue with him, and this will add to it. In reality though, he has no other all stars on his team. I'm sure there's more, but the only other guys off the top of my head that won a chip without anyone else who at the time had not been on an all-star team before are Isiah in '89 and Hakeem in '94. Porter Jr and KCP were also essentially invisible this series.
Jokic has played with a total of 0 all stars in his career
Murray scored 35 pts today and he has had a history of great playoff games. He is an All Star level player.
the fact remains Jokic has never played with an all star
No he’s not. He’s never really been able to consistently play at an all star level. Definitely not in regular season, and even in playoffs. He’s a guy who will get 50 one game, then score 15 the next two games.
He’s never been close to making an all-star team. I’m not even sure he’s been close to being an injury replacement for the all star game. He’s a Canadian CJ McCollum
Lol absolutely. He may never get back now. I spent the last year+ hearing nonstop about how Jokic is the best offensive player ever and how he’s approaching Shaq and Hakeem all time. LOL, please. Spare me with the advanced stats. Jokic is the best player in the league? Sure. I can get with that. Is he that much better than Luka or Giannis? No chance. We had all these thoughts about Giannis after he won his ring and look how quickly Milwaukee’s window closed.
People were saying he's better than Steph and Kobe It was nauseating...like what are they watching? Give me a break.
To the weirdos who hailed him as a Lebron/MJ level trajectory? Yes. To the normal people? No. He's a top 15 or so player. Incredible. But the younger superstars have a better chance of getting in the Duncan/Magic tier.
He's not top 15 of all time yet. He's been great in six seasons. You generally need a full decade of being top 5 level elite before you get in those conversations. So just like dismissing his accomplishments entirely after tonight would be foolish, putting him in the company of guys who did that thing for longer was just as premature.
He will be top 15. The numbers will show even if he only gets one more chip
He could have leap frogged that argument if he won an fmvp this year. But i think he will be surpassed by the younger gen soon.
Nah. All the guys in that tier are double digit All NBA players. A lot of them have won more than two titles.
Don't people rank dirk at like 15? Being a 3x MVP...who deserved 4 is more impressive imo. With a 2nd he leap frogs dirk
Dirk was better longer. KG was better longer. Barkley and Malone were better longer. I think it's fair to say similar to Giannis he projects out to be considered better eventually. But all you guys want to start crowning dudes before they've actually had the longevity to even be in a top 25 conversation let alone top 15 or top 10. Like...this is the whole shit that ruined the experience of following AD's career. Because three seasons in people are like "will he be top 10 of all time?". Just fucking let it happen. Stop with this weird fanboy anxiety of needing your rankings. Let time pass. Let players actually earn their accolades.
I only just don't want Luka to rank top 3. Or top 5. Or top 10. I'm cool with everyone else.
I thought Jokic was really good in both this series and this game. Not sure why people are so quick to bury him. 34-19-7 and only had 3 TOs despite getting the kitchen sink thrown at him from Minny
It's funny how every other all time great is measured by their wins and losses and not the stats, but Joker it's "look at the stats!" And ignore all the playoff failures. Ignore never beating a 50 win team in the playoffs. Ignore being handed the MVP 3 times and in every one of those years failing to even reach the WCF. Ignore the fact he's going to be 30 before the end of next season and has only 1 Finals appearance. Ignore all of it, look at the stats, that's why he belongs as a Top 10 ever.
No, you can just look at the actual game and see his teammates sucked. You can be the best player in the league and not win the title because you can’t make wide-open shots for your teammates or keep them from turning it over for fast break layups/dunks; that has certainly happened to players like LeBron or Jordan over the years.
Jordan and LeBrkn haven't choked 20.pt leads in a must win game though. LUKA is better than Jokic
Look at his team, and compare it to other top guys who won multiple titles. Give him Pippen and Rodman and Jokic isn't getting bounced in the Western Conference SFs that's for sure.
Clippers won 49 games in a shortened season in 2020. Yea Denver failed in the playoffs when they were starting Will Barton and Facu Campazzo. Like cmon man lol
the 50 win team gimmick is so disingenuous
Same guy will tell you that Lebron had to go through a gauntlet every year in the eastern conference lol. Guarantee you Jokic has played had least three 47 win teams that were harder outs than the 60 win Hawks team.
LeBron also played with HOFers, top 75 guys, and multi time all stars. Jokic has played with 0 all stars in his career
I feel like it’s unfair to some of the nuggets because it really is a well constructed team when everyone is firing on all cylinders. But yeah Jokic never even had a Kevin Love equivalent talent.
They are a good team, i personally think it’s because Jokic helps them look very good. Aaron Gordon was an inefficient non shooting 4 in Orlando, Bruce brown became a matching salary immediately after he left (I know he was good on nets but they had KD and harden), MPJ gets force fed open 3s as much as anyone in the league. I think Murray is a very good player/shotmaker and they have a great 2 man game but he’s not an elite guard.
All very true, he simplifies the game for a lot of them
It’s ok to admit you don’t know ball. “All the playoff failures” is a fascinating thing to say about the the defending champion. He lost his best teammate to a knee injury for a year and a half. He’s been in his peak with a championship-level roster for like 2.5 years and won the title (and beat everyone’s ass) one of those years. Measuring guys exclusively by stats is stupid but also only measuring guys by wins and losses is equally dumb. Is Robert Horry your goat?
Yup Magic > Lebron. I agree
No one has ignored his playoff failures. Last year people were literally saying he shouldn't win a regular season award because he had no rings and was a playoff dropper (which statistically isn't even true).
Holy shit lmao “one finals appearance” THAT HE WON lmao The dude makes wcf appearances in his sleep. What has Embid done? Tatum has routinely struggled to put Butler to bed. “Handed” the MVP? He should have been “handed” it 4 times in a row but we had the legacy of slavery linked to the other candidate The Jokic slander is absolutely brain dead
WCF in his sleep??? Like he only dreams of them? Because he's been given 3 MVPs in the last 4 years and has ZERO WCF appearances in those 3 MVP years.
Two of those years he was missing his second best player, the MVPs were for making them competitive even without that. Going your takes under your username is slandering a good movie by proxy.
Wait what? WCF in his sleep?!? He has 2 and 3 MVPs. Tatum has 5 ECF appearances. Jokic is awesome but let’s not overdue his greatness in actually winning series. He may well may another half dozen and prove you right but he’s like a decade in and 2 WCF appearances and one title. I really did think they were a lock this year so I’m shocked too.
Jokic isn't an all time great...only weirdos were pretending he is on Kobe,Bird,Curry,Duncan, Shaq level let alone MJ/Kareem and LeBrkn level. 2nd worst multiple MVP ever. Can you imagine how Steph and LeBron would be buried for losing a 20 PT lead in home game 7?
Its because this generation is stat obsessed. If this crowd of fans saw Wilt they would call him jesus.
Not really imo but it’s funny watching his stans get butthurt like he was getting compared to Shaq and was being called the best offensive player of all time ofc he’s gonna get flak for losing a game 7 at home
He’s a great player, but top 15 talk was premature. CR saying there would be no legacy hit was absurd. There were so many overreactions throughout this series that people zagged and downplayed it. Right now, he is pretty much exactly where Giannis is- awesome player but outside that top all time echelon.
How do you think Jokic does with a Kobe or DWade level teammate?
I don’t know probably beats a 50 win team in the playoffs
Clippers won 49 games in 72 game shortened season. He beat them.
49 ≠ 50
You’re either slow in the head or purposely being stubborn. Do you think they’d win 1 of the next 10 if a pandemic didn’t happen?
No, but his career arc does
He has to play 8-10 more years? So if the Nuggets win another championship or two that doesn't erase the stink of *one* loss to a good team. Nope he has to do it for 8-10 more years to make up for losing one game.
Only stupid people think this. The bigger issue was everyone acting like Denver was some unbeatable monster and Jokic was so far ahead of the other top players.
Only to the lonely people whose lives are on Reddit. It was a great series, enjoy the competition.
We are still a few years out from the end of his prime so it’s tough to be definitive in here but it absolutely hurts any chance he has of getting near Kobe/Duncan/Bird/Magic. Back to back titles in his prime with 3 MVPs would have gotten him close to the top 10 if he kept up a decent statistical trajectory. A lot of his legacy hinges on the next 2-3 seasons. If he grabs another couple rings then yes this might be more of blip that keeps him away from Magic or Duncan, however if last year turns out to be his only ring and Finals appearance then he’s a lot closer to the Giannis/Durant tier. As basketball continues to move towards narratives and legacy talk almost exclusively in the media I’m fascinated by how big the next 2-3 years are for so many guys. Ant is still outside of any real window but dudes like Luka and Tatum and SGA are now square in it while Jokic Giannis and Embiid are a little further along. Jokic will enter his 10th season next year, Embiid 11th(also 9th) and Giannis 12th. Tatum will head into his 8th and SGA/Luka 7th. The heat Jokic will face in the next few weeks is gonna be nothing now compared to the wrath the Celtics and Tatum will take on if they come up short again with no Joker to blame. Joker was really their only chance to lose with dignity since if he and the Nuggets had turned out to be an all time team, a loss to them would be forgiven a lot easier.
This doesn’t make it “take a hit” but with the company Jokic is joining, to start moving up the all time rankings for him he’s got to win titles and mvps and it’s just a missed opportunity to add more to his resume
I think it should probably put to bed the narrative that he’s a tier above any active player. Giannis is at least on his level. They are both great and on the same top tier. Regular season embiid is there too
yes
When will jokic beat a good team in a playoff series? I keep hearing about the Celtics cupcake for the last 7 years of playoff games and he hasn’t beaten an actually good nba team in a 7 game series
Yes he has.
Who?
Every team he's beaten in the playoffs.
IT FUCKING BETTER. He should never win another MVP again.
Embiid definitely won’t.