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Ps now that black history month is over it’s safe to put Doncic and Jokic in the rightful place as the two best players in the world.
1. Doncic
2. Jokic
3. Durant
4. Giannis
5. LeBron
6. Embiid
7. Steph
8. Morant
9. Harden
10. Trae
Kawhi is number 1 when healthy imo, arguably has been the best player in the league since 2016-2017 season when healthy.
Discuss…
Ps now that black history month is over it’s safe to put Doncic and Jokic in the rightful place as the two best players in the world.
I can’t put Luka at the top until he at least gets out of the first round. I know his team is trash but part of being the best is playoff success imo.
1. Durant
2. Giannis
3. Jokic
4. Doncic
5. Embiid
6. LeBron
7. Morant
8. Booker
9. Curry
10. Harden
Durant is washed now. He can't stay healthy to save his life. yeah he's great for 50 games a year. If I were Brooklyn I would shut him down until playoffs.
Giannis is clearly the best and there's almost zero debate about it. Dude is an iron man, plays great defense, rebounds, scores at ahigh and efficient rate, and passes well too.
Jokic is a hard player to judge. He's so amazing on offense but he will never lead his team anywhere bc of how horrible he is on defense and big men defense still matters in the postseason. He's like a make-a-wish kid when it comes to defense.
Luka could really easily be the best but he just gives zero s during the off-season. Like how do you show up fat and out of shape every single start to a season at age 22. Players need to be taking Chuck's advice more seriously. Find a nutritionist Luka and stay away from mc Donalds
Embiid is clearly a great player but something is just missing dawg wise with him. There was zero reason for him not to dominate ATL last year, but he just didn't. When things go great then he is an unstoppable force, but when he is met with any adversity or hard times then he shrinks and plays too soft.
Lebron isn't top 10 anymore. He's the new Russ Westbrick. he stat pads in blow out games and stays out there to get his numbers. He looks good on paper and his fans will say, what do you want he is averaging x amount of points. But he is just jacking up 3s now, playing zero defense, he doesn't set up teammates the same and he takes quarters off. There's no shame in it. he's old af in NBA years. But he isn't top 10. The only reason people have him there is bc he's lucky enough to play with Russ. Even if Russ was traded the issues on the team would be the same. They can't guard anybody and can't play hard for 48 minutes.
Morant is probably the MVP if we are being honest. The dude has Memphis as the 3 seed and they are about to be the 2 seed. He doesn't really have a weakness as a guard. He is just an unstoppable player.
Booker is having an underrated season and he will never get the love he deserves bc of Chris Paul. But Phoenix is still winning without CP3 and nobody is saying about it.
Curry has hit a wall. The dude has become so one dimensional as a player. He needs to go back to creating for others and getting to the paint instead of jacking up 35 footers. Yeah we know he can make them, but if you dribble drive more and set up teammates more than you wouldn't have to shoot those 35 footers. Draymond really is important to the team though bc he is the main creator of the offense since Steph gets so much attention
Harden played great for 3 games. him and his outta shape raggedy bearded ass. You can't quit on multiple teams in a row, have 3 good games and then be top 10 in the NBA
1 Jokic
tbh its hard to make absolute rankings, especially with no clear cut #1 player anymore
tier 1 - giannis, jokic, durant
tier 2 - luka, lebron, embiid, steph, kawhi
tier 3 - morant, harden, pg, trae, book, cp3, ad
fringe - kat, dame, butler, tatum, mitc , gobert
Jokic's defense has improved by leaps and bounds this season. He will never be an elite athlete with highlight reel blocks. But he's a great position defender, great team defender. And unlike some big centers, he actually plays up on guards and wings out to the perimeter when he's switched onto them, instead of just sitting back in the paint. He's a better defender than Embiid and people don't say about Embiid's defense. Jokic has even won games at the defensive end this season.
Jokic is the best player in the league. And I think it's by a good margin personally.
I know it's only been this season he's really taken it to another level, but I'd be very tempted to rank Ja Morant in the top 5.
Tiers are the way to go. Since the start of last season . . .
Tier 1: Jokic, Antetokounmpo, Embiid
Tier 2: Durant, James, Doncic
Tier 3: Curry, Harden
Tier 4: Butler, Paul
Agree on the tiers being a good way to rank.
Tiers are the way to go. Since the start of last season . . .
Tier 1: Jokic, Antetokounmpo, Embiid
Tier 2: Durant, James, Doncic
Tier 3: Curry, Harden
Tier 4: Butler, Paul
Spurs fans will always be butt hurt about Kawhi and can’t rank him honestly and subjectively 😉
how the do some of you not have Luka in tier one. Are u ing blind or something. Even a fat Luka managed to keep that team that is dog in the playoffs.
And they are other spur fans like you that overrate him based off of the '19 run. He's not the best player in the league but is a top 5 player when healthy. He's had 2 straight playoff blemishes on his record since '19 that keeps him from being number 1.
Agree its hard to rank players in the same tier, often they are interchangeable. Either way imo Kawhi is in tier 1 with Doncic, Jokic, Giannis and Durant. I'd take a healthy Kawhi in a playoff series over all of them by a hair. To me LeBron looks like he has lost another step this year. Embiid hasn't done enough in the playoffs.
About Kawhi, his 2017 playoff run was almost as dominant as 2019 until he got Zaza'd. 2019 run was arguably top 10 all time in terms of dominance.
What was his blemish in 2021? Tearing his ACL? He was the most dominant player in the NBA playoffs until that point. He averaged 32-8-5 on 61% FG and 43% 3PT with 2 STL and 1 BLK against Doncic and the Mavs in the 1st round, then 27-7.5-4 on 50% FG in 3.5 games against the Jazz.
2020 against the Nuggets was definitely a blemish. Even with that he still put up 33-10-5 on 54% FG in the first round win against the Mavs. Against the Nuggets he still put up 24-9-6 on 44% FG and they were a quarter away from beating the Nuggets 4-1. The bubble was a gimmick season but nonetheless it happened, it was an epic meltdown by the entire Clippers squad.
And his defensive impact is greater than anyone else in the discussion for the best player in the world, other than Giannis who is his equal on that end imo.
still not fully sold on ja being some top 5 player yet. he looks fantastic of course, but clearly has a very good squad around him too. his team went 12-2 without him this year so far, beating some good teams in the process. that's not his fault, but I just wonder how much of it is him carrying his team, as opposed to being the most dynamic player on a very good team. I'd like to see how he performs in the playoffs.
he should be, but also deserves to be knocked a bit for constantly showing up to camp out of shape, and letting refs and trash talk get into his head way too easily. but if he can win a playoff series and continue his impressive playoff performances, and show up to camp next year in shape, then he will definitely have earned that tier 1 status, maybe even being the best player in the league.
idk, despite the injuries, before the KP trade he still arguably had a better supporting cast than an out of shape and unfocused luka, yet managed to be several games behind in the standings for most of the season
I won't argue with someone who thinks joker is the best player in the league, but to say by a good margin seems a bit of a stretch to me
plus everyone objective knows the 19 run would have ended in 5 games in the finals had golden state been healthy. maybe a sweep
Stop it that warriors team was bearable. James Harden and Chris Paul almost did it. That Raptors team in 2019 was deep and talented as . That warriors series goes 6 or 7 if they are fully healthy.
Plus that warriors team had the karma coming, for Zaza in 2017, they benefited from injuries more than any championship team in history.
lol that same raptors team was taken to 7 by Ben Simmons
yes they were very good but had weaknesses still, and simply weren't on par with a healthy warriors squad.
that literally has nothing to do with what happened in 2019
Idk. Kind of difficult to compare supporting casts sometimes. Mind you, all season no Jamal Murray and only 9 games with Michael Porter. But just as you mentioned how the Grizz are 12-2 without Ja Morant this season, Dallas is 6-9 without Luka while Denver is 1-5 without Joker. So there is that. Team records help paint a picture, give some context. But ultimately, team record is more about the team collectively than the team’s franchise player. That’s why we don’t argue how Chris Paul or Devin Booker are better individual players than Jokic or Luka or Freak. Or even if he’s a legit MVP candidate, we don’t claim DeRozan is a top 5 or even top 10 player in the league.
Fair enough. “Good margin” might be overstating my opinion. What I was trying to express was that I feel Jokic is the best player and it’s not a toss-up with him and other players, like Embiid, Freak, Luka or whoever. I just meant it’s clear for me that Jokic is the best player. “Good margin” might be too much. That’s fine. I’ll relent on the language.I won't argue with someone who thinks joker is the best player in the league, but to say by a good margin seems a bit of a stretch to me
I just feel that if you can agree that Jokic has improved enough defensively to be at least average or even just above average, then I’d argue he has no weakness. Offensively, we already know how unbelievably well-rounded and effective he is. He can beat you in pretty much every way possible offensively. With his scoring, outside jumper, post-up, backdowns, midrange game, his passing, offensive rebounding, in PNR, setting screens, in transition or in half court. He’s a savant offensively. You can say similar things about a few other guys too. But Jokic does it better, in totality anyway. And another thing is that even though he’s the focal point of everything for the Nuggz, he doesn’t necessarily need to dominate the ball the way other do-it-all players do, like LeBron or Harden or Freak. And he still puts up historic numbers.
I think he’s better than Embiid. I think he’s better than Freak. I think he’s probably like the stories they say about a young Arvydas Sabonis in Europe. I think Jokic is god-mode in this video game.
I never disagreed he improved defensively
Nah, I'm just not a Stockholm syndrome Spurs fan when it comes to him and saying he's been arguably the best player in the league for 5+ seasons is absurd.
If he can regain previous form, I'd put him in tier 3.
Last edited by TD 21; 03-05-2022 at 11:49 AM.
also im not fully sold on booker being a true superstar either. his advanced stats are pretty lousy. i know individually they dont tell the whole story, but when basically all of them paint an underwhelming picture (bad ORTG DRTG differential, low WS/48, low BPM, low VORP, all of them being even worse in the playoffs), and your team is winning like crazy (because winning often drives a lot of those stats up), usually theres something wrong here.
i think the suns are just an incredibly well built team. they got a ton of guys with varying skillsets, but none have elite scoring skills (except CP3 at times, until he hits a tough playoff series). otoh, book has elite scoring skills and is pretty lousy at every other aspect of basketball. therefore everyone just covers each other up well and they have great chemistry. the more i think about it, i feel book may not be a tier 3 player.
Doncic voting for Freak.
Luka Doncic Boldly Predicts Giannis Antetokounmpo Will Win 5 More MVPs (sportscasting.com)
Dejounte Murray.
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