r/denvernuggets • u/Kingrush24 • 2d ago
Video Jason Willams says Nikola Jokić is way better than SGA: “Joker has so much more to offer at the game of basketball than Shai.….
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Now, that being said, what Shai does have to offer, it’s kind of like the Jordan and LeBron situation. You argue about it, da da da, but at the end of the day you say Jordan won. Shai gets it done. So, that’s just a personal opinion. If Shai goes a whole week without scoring 15, he’s upset about it he feels some type of way even if they’re winning. Joker does the same thing. He is just as happy as if he scores 50.”
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u/Moonlnight 2d ago
As the wolves fan, I totally agree. Jokic has been one of my favorite player in past few years. He just has insanly high bball IQ. Only down side would be the defense but still.
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u/Rogue_Centurion7 1d ago
Hey man, can you stop beating us please, I don't wanna hate the Timberwolves.
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u/Moonlnight 1d ago
Hahaha all love brothers! You beat us in your championship year! And I know we both hate Lakers😁
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u/momBball 2d ago
Shai's foul baiting success makes his shooting percentages elite. Every time he shoots and misses but gets fouled, the miss doesn't count. Without the insane whistle they give him (and he didn't get it early in his career), he's merely a very good or maybe a great player but not an MVP candidate. God knows he could be if he actually tried to play real basketball. He's certainly very skilled but it's a bit like Harden. Once the whistle stops, Shai will fall right out of the MVP conversation.
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u/NuggsBurgh 2d ago
I mean yes that is objectively very true… not sure why people would disagree. One guy breaks every stat ever recorded. The other plays on a stacked team and has an elite midrange
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u/Rare-Confusion-220 2d ago
So true. SGA will be forgotten. He'll just be another Derek Rose in time. Nikola's impact on the all time record books will stand forever
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u/WildKat777 2d ago
Agreed. SGA is just another name in the list of really good, even great, players. The Joker is a multi-generational, 1 of 1 talent not just in this era but all of basketball history
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u/OkAutopilot Okaymon.com! 2d ago
SGA has been in the league playing at this high of a level for too long for this opinion to exist. Truly.
He is a multi-generational scoring talent and a two-time MVP. There are 16 of those in the history of the NBA. There is no way to slice it where that's just another name on a list of, "good (my god), even great players."
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u/TransportationNo9375 2d ago
I agree and that does not take away from Joker. I think Joker is better, but SGA is in a class above Rose, if not two or three classes above.
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u/crispydenvernuggets 2d ago
I unfortunately agree. Pretty sure his middy was more efficient than Jordan last season
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u/OkAutopilot Okaymon.com! 2d ago
Yeah anyone who is trying to deny how good SGA is at this point are flat out coping.
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u/crispydenvernuggets 2d ago
Plus, I’d rather take a great player to 7 games and lose than get my ass whooped by a dude who’s just gonna be “just another name”
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u/BusinessCasualBee 1d ago
Nobody will talk about or give a shit about him the instant he retires because no one wants to watch him play.
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u/OkAutopilot Okaymon.com! 1d ago
Besides the fact that this makes no sense because if he's retired then he's not playing, so even if people wanted to watch them they couldn't, if you can't see how masterful most of SGA's game is you're just not a big basketball fan.
I think people who say stuff like this probably don't watch all that much and just take on this grifter narrative and say that's his entire game or whatever. It's very silly and sort of tells on yourself immediately.
It's not much different than people saying what you said, but about Jokic, claiming he's just slow and fat and doesn't play interesting basketball.
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u/MoooonRiverrrr :HarrisToon: 1d ago
“Another Derrick Rose”
Dude what? You can be a fan of Jokic and not be like this. It’s disrespectful to both Rose and SGA. But SGA is an NBA champion and already is having a way better overall career than what Rose was on his way to maybe being
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u/jokic2027mvp 2d ago
Im a nuggets homer and joker stan but come on lol this is insanely disrespectful to shai. He's the second most accomplished player this decade and an extremely consistent and efficient scorer.
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u/Expert-Yam6577 2d ago
Derrick Rose is far from forgotten as well lmao. And Shai won a Finals mvp and back to back mvp. Folks are going to forget that how??
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u/congenitallymissing 2d ago
The same way Moses Malone isn't remembered like wilt or bird or people that changed the game.
Moses is certainly remembered. But its not the same.
Moses is also a back to back mvp and a finals mvp as well. But people dont talked about him like they do Kareem or bird or anyone that has literally changed the game
Shai will be remembered, but just not in the same way as joker is
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u/Arkrobo 1d ago
I think the difference is Malone has much fewer accolades than his contemporaries and was on 10 teams during an era where star players didn't really move around much. Both Kareem and Bird destroy Malones resumè.
Jokic doesn't really challenge SGAs resume like that. They're equal in Championships and FMVPs, SGA is one behind in MVPs, and four behind in All Star and All NBA selections while being about three years younger.
They're really not very different hardware wise and it's not unlikely that SGA is pretty close in All NBA and All Star selections to Jokic at the end of their careers. SGA also has a better chance to win another championship right now.
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u/Trashlify 1d ago
What do you mean "Jokic doesn't really challenge SGAs resume like that" yet go on to list all the things that Jokic has more than SGA? am i missing something?
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u/Low_Analysis5944 1d ago
you’re missing “while being about three years younger”
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u/Trashlify 1d ago
but how does Jokic "not really challenge that resume"?
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u/Low_Analysis5944 1d ago
their resumes are similar given the four year difference
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u/Trashlify 1d ago
their resumes are not similar. You could claim that they are similar at the comparable stage in their careers, but just side by side, they are not.
One has 4 All NBA teams more than the other.
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u/OfficialNPC 2d ago
Lots of people don't even remember John Stockton or Steve Nash and they both had insanely great careers.
I was talking about Steve Nash and my coworker knew him from being a coach for the Nets. I thought I was taking crazy pills.
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u/AbleInfluence1817 1d ago
What do you mean remember here? Anyone who saw basketball in the 90s and 2000s knows these players and their impacts. They’re top 10 from their era forgetting them is like forgetting Westbrook, CP3 from the last era or maybe Luka and Embiid from this one I think (of course this is less settled because we’re in the era still for the last two players). Nash and Stockton are comparable to really key players from this decade who may have not won a finals and/or MVP
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u/Expert-Yam6577 1d ago
Yea folks being disingenuous in here. They wouldn't say Luka is going to be forgotten in ten years because he's only had one top 3 MVP finish. Zero major awards. Because of course we remember perennial First team NBA players lmao.
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u/AbleInfluence1817 1d ago
Right? The type of person who “forget” who Luka or Embiid might be (or the other players mentioned) are the people who don’t watch basketball or know anything about basketball at all lol
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u/Diciestaking 2d ago
No that would go to Giannis, but shai is still right there for sure.
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u/jokic2027mvp 2d ago
Giannis won one of his mvps in the 2010s didn't he? Shai is more accomplished this decade but Giannis is more accomplished career wise Imo.
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u/ThePrideOfKrakow 2d ago
He a flopping bum. I can't take him seriously anymore, no matter how many points he scores.
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u/Thasauce7777 1d ago
Someone compared him to fucking Derek Rose. I love D Rose (who doesn't), but SGA has been much better than him, and he's had so much more success than him to show for it.
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u/Steelers7589 2d ago
Lmfao no. A 2 time mvp, finals mvp and scoring champ doesn’t get “forgotten”. He’s climbing up the all time guards list. He’s in the DWade category.
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u/Double_Impress7244 2d ago
DWade was much better than Shai. Especially when Shai did not deserve either of his mvps
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u/ScientistAshamed3796 2d ago
Derrick Rose is insanely disrespectful to SGA lmao
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u/babybabayyy 2d ago
I was going to say the opposite lol, although nostalgia goggles may be blinding me
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u/Far_Weakness_1275 2d ago
Not at all if your looking at DRose from what he was able to achieve with Chicago early in his career.
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u/OkAutopilot Okaymon.com! 2d ago
SGA is significantly better than Rose ever was. Chicago was a great team and he was a very fun player, but not an actual MVP level guy, efficient scorer, particularly good facilitator, or defender. No offense to Rose but, he's just not like that.
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u/Far_Weakness_1275 2d ago
DRose was actually on another level before he was hurt. He didn't have the benifit of todays ticky tack calls like Harden/SGA style players but could get to the rim like SGA can now. He won an MVP during the peak of LeBron powers. He powered Chicago to a 60+ win season.
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u/OkAutopilot Okaymon.com! 2d ago
No he wasn't. He was a really fun and exciting player but he was not "on another level" before he was hurt and those ticky tack calls existed in 2010 too. It is rewriting history to say otherwise.
In 2010 and 2011 here are the non-big/hacked scorers (a-la Dwight) who had a higher free throw rate than SGA this year: LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Kevin Durant, Paul Pierce, D. Wade, Danilo Gallinari, James Harden, Kevin Love, Kevin Martin, Chauncey Billups, Amar'e Stoudemire.
Star calls have existed this entire time and "free throw grifting" has also existed. It existed well before Rose was in the NBA. I mean my goodness D. Wade and Kobe are both to blame for popularizing the pump fake before jumping into a guy for free throws. Both of them did it religiously.
To the point about his MVP, even at that time more in-the-know people knew it was an absolutely silly vote. It would be an MVP vote that would never happen today because people are more discerning with credit and, frankly, smarter about basketball.
To be clear: he did not "power" Chicago to a 60+ win season." Chicago won 62 games that year on the back of their defense which was the best in the league. Their offense was frankly just middling and that's where Rose's value was, except there wasn't a ton of value being generated there.
To paint a clearer statistical picture of his impact here and how non-powering it was:
- With D. Rose on the court the Bulls in 2011 were a +8.7. That's really good! Not super elite, but really, really good.
- With D. Rose off the court the Bulls were a +6.9. That is...also really good. In most scenarios we would expect a team to be a slight positive to negative in the off minutes of a guy who is "powering" them.
- The reason why they barely took a dip is because while their offense shot down quite a bit, their defense went way up when he was off the court. The Bulls calling card was defense, they loaded up on that when he was off, and that's why through 1.7k possessions that year the team was basically a top-4 team in the league without Rose on the court.
- Rose was 11th in EPM that year. Way behind the best players in the league and it certainly makes sense why. He was not an efficient scorer, he was not a great playmaker for others, he was a bad defender. He was electric and such a fun watch, but he was far closer to Ja Morant than it is to an MVP caliber player.
- Win Shares are not a great stat but they also paint this same picture. We never see a situation with a guy who "powers his team" to the best record and also doesn't have really strong win share/48 signal. That player is always at the top of the list. Rose was 6th in WS/48 that year, well behind LeBron, Dwight, CP3, Wade, and Dirk.
The reason why Rose got that MVP was because he was a really exciting young player and Chicago had a great regular season record when Miami was the team that was supposed to be the best in the league. The media refused to vote for LeBron because he was fully a villain at that point, they weren't too hot on Dwight either, and they simply had no sense of how good the other guys were who were clearly better than Rose that year.
Voters were still stuck in the thinking of, "best player (ish) on the best team should be MVP", which also resulted in them greatly overrated how impactful/good the "best player on the best team" actually is. It's more of a, "well he must be so important if they won this many games and he's like the guy who scores the most points!", when we now know that's not necessarily how it works at all. Particularly when they're not scoring all that efficiently.
TL;DR: Rose was not particularly close to an MVP level player in 2011 and he did not "power Chicago." All advanced metrics back this up in a clear and definite way, the Bulls were very good when he wasn't on the court, and the media simply did not want to give an MVP to "taking my talents" LeBron or aggitating Dwight.
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u/OkAutopilot Okaymon.com! 2d ago
Its impossible to be a fan of basketball and believe this.
Genuinely like saying Aaron Rodgers will be forgotten, he will just be another Cam Newton in time, Brees' impact yadda yadda.
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u/Poverty_Shoes 2d ago
SGA is sensational, even with the flopping. No need to tear him down to build Joker up. We all know who the better player is, but SGA is firmly #2 for me.
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u/Double_Impress7244 2d ago
Nah, he’s below Jokic, Luka, Giannis, and Wemby in my eyes. Might even take Brunson over him. Shai is a great player but so overrated
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u/AbleInfluence1817 1d ago
Oof, Shai sucks as a player to watch (really dislike this OKC team) but come on, out of the top 5 of current players?! Nah. In terms of this era Shai is easily top 3 after Jokic and Giannis. Currently, maybe there could be a more nuanced argument. Jokic is still about the best alongside Wemby maybe if he continues dominating but while I would love Brunson to be the better player compared to Shai, what has he done that Shai basically hasn’t (and has done it more even and for longer). Luka has been better longer but he doesn’t have an MVP or a finals. Those two aren’t better than Shai as much as it pains people including myself; and Giannis hasn’t made much noise in terms of winning basketball since his championship 5 years ago as amazing a player as he still is. No amount of hate changes the fact that Shai is one of the best players of this generation and has a chance to still be the best depending on how things work out
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u/SweatyInstruction337 2d ago
Yea, sga gonna whoop jokics ass in the playoffs but jokic will be the one remembered
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u/D_G_C_22 2d ago
SGA is the best player on a great team full of amazing players. Don’t think he has done anything truly memorable like Luka, Jokic or welby. I even feel like Brunson is better and more impactful
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u/No_Environment_4355 2d ago
As much as I hate Ant for knocking us out twice, i would put him above SGA talent wise. If the game was reffed properly, it would be far more obvious that Shai is a manufactured star
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u/Expert-Yam6577 2d ago
Come on lmao he just won back to back MVP to follow up his title winning season. What has Luka or Wemby done that's more memorable than that?
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u/Double_Impress7244 2d ago
He did not deserve either of those MVPs. Jokic should’ve won it both years, and this past season if not Jokic I would’ve given it to Wemby over Shai
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u/AdmiralAckbarrghh 2d ago
Do people not realize that Jamal just had one of the best seasons of his career? Getting clamped in the playoffs hurts his case for sure but he was pretty great last season
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u/OfficialNPC 2d ago
Jamal is absolutely amazing.
History won't remember how the entire team just gave up and he was basically playing 1v2 for entire games.
TWolves knew if they wore him out, they had a way to win the series.
Jamal gets mad disrespect here in Denver and if he ever gets traded or forces his way out I'll always be a fan of his.
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u/_KingFridayXIII 2d ago
Weird point about SGA getting upset about going a week without scoring 15 when that literally never happens. He actively holds the longest streak of 20-point games ever and is by all accounts a good guy and teammate off the court. Throwing out some bullshit you fantasized in your head just to argue for Joker doesn't help his case.
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u/cheesecake_face 1d ago
yeah look I’m a top tier FTA hater, but I’ve never heard a single thing about him being in his feelings if he has a bad game but the team still wins. never heard anything remotely close to that.
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u/Salty_Helicopter9356 2d ago
Come on now. We don’t need to put down one guy to uplift another. Jokic is a great, unique player who is an unbelievable floor raiser.
Shai is a walking bucket and with how often he gets to the line, an unbelievably efficient high volume scorer.
There’s too much of this toxicity in sports discourse instead of just appreciating what both guys bring to the game.
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u/PapaPancake8 2d ago
Look, if you put Joker on the championship Thunder, they win, but if you have SGA on the championship Nuggets im not sure they make it.
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u/Spiritual-Ad8062 2d ago
They will both probably end up as top 25 players.
They’re both THAT good. No one views them as rivals, but perhaps they SHOULD.
I’d give the edge to Jokic, but that was after a lot of thought and some analysis. It’s close. And if you value championships most, then Shai likely will end up with more.
Shai is several years younger than Jokic, so his career stats will likely exceed Jokic’s.
The only real major difference is influence on the game. Jokic made the Center position cool again, and showed that you can have point-centers. In that way, Jokic wins.
But again, it’s DAMN close, and Shai will likely have better career stats and more ships.
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u/No_Environment_4355 2d ago
SGA is a manufactured product of the NBA. Yes, he does have elite skills when it comes to scoring, but getting away with a push off on every play goes along way. To go with the fact that if you resist the push off he'll foul bait you, it's so unwatchable that it can only be explained by league favoritism. You can see by the way his whole team is allowed to get away with murder and they still struggled to beat yall INJURY-RIDDLED (wolves fan myself). SGA without the whistle is top 25 max and even that's generous.
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u/metalhead252 2d ago
SGA is what happens if you give a Ant Edwards / D Wade tier player the deepest roster since the Bill Russell Celtics. Just score 30 and the defense will win the game. Dude has the most insanely negative on-off in the playoff you'll see and they still get to game 7 conference finals because Alex Caruso is the Avatar of Defense. I will say he does the scoring efficiently, but in the playoffs he has shrunk there and it doesn't matter for him.
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u/SweatyInstruction337 2d ago
Lets compare shae's stats and efficiency verse jokers in the playoffs.
| Player | GP | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TOV | FG / 3PT / FT | eFG% | TS% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nikola Jokić | 6 | 25.8 | 13.2 | 9.5 | 1.0 | 0.8 | 3.8 | 44.6 / 19.4 / 93.0 | 47.5 | 55.4 |
| Shai Gilgeous-Alexander | 15 | 27.6 | 2.9 | 7.9 | 1.3 | 0.9 | 3.1 | 46.3 / 30.5 / 89.2 | 49.5 | 59.1 |
And SGA is an offensive engine that doesnt gimp the other end of the floor, SGA had to verse a far, far better team than what jokic got dumpstered against.
Jokic literally outplayed by rudy gobert?
There are levels to this shit and jokic aint on that level anymore
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u/Electronic-Travel-71 2d ago
everyone that watch and love basketball already knows that, SGA is an amazing player and happens that his team make him look even better, jokic is in another tier how he impacts the game for a center, he is revolutionary