I Want to Talk about Jokic

It's been a while since the last DeAnd'rankings for a few reasons, but none of them matter now. What does matter is that Deandre Ayton has run away with the title of best NBA player named Deandre (or some variation thereof) and it's not close. DeAndre Jordan stinks, DeAndre' Bembry has fallen out of the rotation altogether again (though this time it's in Milwaukee and not Brooklyn, who should've kept him so they had at least 1 capable defender besides Bruce Brown), and De'Andre Hunter is oft-injured but totally fine. He's just not as good as Ayton.

Round up done? Great. I want to talk about Nikola Jokic.

Over the last few months it's been apparent that the MVP race is down to Jokic, Embiid, and Giannis. I've felt like the answer has been Jokic all along, but I understand the arguments for the other two (namely that they're excellent offensive players and great defensive players - if Giannis wins Defensive Player of the Year and is one of the 5 best offensive players too? Yeesh). What I don't understand is the level of play that Nikola Jokic is maintaining, considering he looks roughly as athletic as my 68 year old father.

"But wait!" you might be saying, "Jokic is good, but can we really give back to back MVPs to a guy who is basically having the same season as last year?"

YES. HE WAS THAT GOOD LAST YEAR AND HE'S EVERY BIT AS GOOD THIS YEAR WITH LESS HELP AROUND HIM.

Every so often I come across stats that are just mind-boggling, so here are the ones that I want to share right now.

STATISTICAL EXAMPLE NUMBER 1:

538 has a complex rating system called RAPTOR that essentially takes the team's performance while any player is on the court and weighs it against when they're off the court. It also factors in how all the teammates play with each other (not just the player in question), among other things. It's complicated, but that's the general idea. 

The outcome is staggering. You can see the results here: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/nba-player-ratings/

I will also add a screenshot here:

Basically, Jokic is miles ahead of anyone else. Below the cutoff is their Defensive RAPTOR ratings and Jokic comes in 2nd behind 3-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert. Does that mean Jokic is almost as good as Rudy on defense? No. But it does mean that his teams is an absolute nightmare without him on the court.

STATISTICAL EXAMPLE NUMBER 2:

Basically all the rest of the all-in-one advanced stats. 

- NBA.com uses something called Player Impact Estimate (PIE). This has Jokic 1st at 22.9, Giannis 2nd at 21.2, and Embiid 3rd at 21.1.

- ESPN.com uses PER: Jokic is 1st at 32.88, Giannis 2nd at 32.56, Embiid 3rd at 31.06.

- ESPN also uses Value Added and Estimated Wins added, both of which have Jokic in 1st place by about 10%

- Basketball-Reference has Win Shares (offense, defense, and total), Win Shares per 48 minutes, Box Plus/Minus (offense/defense/total), and Value Over Replacement Player. Jokic is 1st in all of these except defensive win shares. He's 2nd in that one.

- ESPN has a separate stat called Real Plus/Minus. Guess where Jokic falls in that one.

STATISTICAL EXAMPLE NUMBER 3:

He's basically Shaq with a jumper on offense.

That's a comparison of stats between Jokic's 7th season and Shaq's 7th season, broken down by their production per 36 minutes. It was a lockout-shortened season, hence Shaq only playing 49 games, but just look at this. Shaq is widely considered the most dominant big man of all time, but when you break it down, Jokic is scoring more, assisting waaaayyyyy more, rebounding more, shooting better, shooting from 3 better, and maybe most miraculously, he's scoring on 2-pointers a lot more efficiently than Shaq, who literally never took shots from more than 8 feet out.

Yes, there are outside circumstances here based on rule changes and defensive strategies, but oh my goodness. Look at that comparison again.

Maybe we should look at the following year, when Shaq won MVP.

How bout that one? Jokic still leads in everything except offensive rebounding, blocked shots, and turnovers. 

The only counter-argument is that the advanced stats are a bit less lopsided, as seen below:

Jokic has played fewer games, so that's a factor in overall win shares, but the right side of that chart shows total values and has Jokic comfortably ahead of one of the best big-man seasons in the last 50 years. 

LAST THING

The rest of the Nuggets are not the 2000 Lakers. Jokic's two best teammates have played a combined 9 games, all by Michael Porter, Jr., who was dealing with a back injury and played like garbage before deciding to undergo surgery to fix that injury. There is no Kobe to Jokic's Shaq. There's Aaron Gordon, who has been pretty good. There's Will Barton, Facu Campazzo, Jeff Green...not exactly the 67-win Lakers, I'd say. 

That's all. I can't stop thinking about how good this guy is and how he's actually shooting worse from 3-point than last season, which somehow makes this more impressive to me. The offensive burden is higher, so his shot quality is probably down a little - if you don't have to guard Jamal Murray and Michael Porter it becomes easier to defend Jokic on the arc.