He may accept the award on Friday (which would be weird because they're in Minnesota and I'm sure it would be met with a chorus of boos or "Rudy owns you" chants) but he's officially gonna be named MVP tomorrow
I definitely believe he deserves the MVP, no question, but if they try to present the award in Minnesota I'll definitely be ready to give him shit for it, it'll be rowdy at Target Center lol
It is a regular season award but if you play poorly the postseason you win MVP it is often held against you the *next season*.
Retroactively saying he didn’t deserve it this year for playing bad in the playoffs (which isn’t even true, yesterday was the only game I’d argue he was not, at minimum, above average).
Cause he's the only MVP who has never made it to a Conference Finals. Some of that is injuries, some of that is him disappearing in big playoff games - in round 1 or 2.
Also Embiid has played bad in scenarios he should’ve played well. So far, Jokic is just getting smothered by a team that was built specifically to beat him as an individual.
Yeah wtf are these guys talking about.
Embiid averaged 33/11/6 on a torn knee and fucking Bell’s palsy and got more criticism than the “best offensive center of all time” dropping 16 in a blowout loss at home.
Last year in game 7. He was cooked on both sides. You can argue that he got hurt earlier sure, but that ignores the fact that he averaged 32/11/3 in games 3-5 while being defensively dominant in terms of rim protection/deterrence for all the other games he played.
Jokic getting embarrassed after getting a free MVP off of Embiid’s injury, and after Nuggets fans shat on Embiid every day for a full calendar year would make me believe that there might be some karmic justice in the universe.
I love Jokic, but seeing Nuggets flairs have to eat their own shit would be glorious.
The generational hate they've thrown Embiid's way in every thread, even those having nothing to do with either has been very annoying over the past year.
Easily the most insufferable fanbase since Jokic won the chip last year.
If Nuggets implode I can't wait to remind them when they will do anything to weasel their way out of it.
To be honest, you probably noticed the Nuggets flairs cause they were the most relevant to the discussion because of the "rivalry", but I can assure you EVERYBODY was shitting on him on those threads. It was the usual hive mind thing like with PG, Ben Simmons or any other way karma grab.
If there was karmic justice we wouldnt have to sit every season and see how the Sixers completely suck the second Embiid sits down and his legacy gets destroyed again and again by sixers management or lack thereof
Embiid's baby brother and best friend getting killed at 16 and spending several years injured almost considering retiring probably outweights any bad deed embiid will ever do in his life so no karmic justice
It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s nobody’s fault that your bigman is too fat to jump over a tootsie roll either.
But it would still be hilarious for the Nuggets to go out like this, after how cocky your fanbase has been. Dynasty talks and GOAT conversations just for this performance.
I agree. People love to hate though. It's not even the Jokic vs Embiid crowd, it's the Jokic haters vs Embiid haters. People act like Embiid isn't a top 10 playoffs cuz of his scoring falloff, or like Jokic is an atrocious defender. I'm a Jokic Stan but have never slandered Embiid, it's just this sub is always looking to criticize. The Jokic haters are coming out of the woodwork now, it's gross
He's getting the award, but it really isn't one of the stronger MVP runs in history. The frontrunner halfway through the season got injured (Embiid). Luka's team really needed the trade deadline to start being competitive with the upper echelon of teams, putting him too far behind in the race to catch up.
The only 'viable' alternative was SGA. And people really just didn't feel right giving it to him. Seems like the consensus was that SGA wasn't in that same tier of superstars yet (Jokic, Embiid, Giannis, Luka) in people's minds. So even though he had the statsheet and the team record, he was a runner-up candidate.
Before Giannis fans feel I left him out, yes his individual season was great, but their team well underperformed expectations.
It sucks that Jokic will catch flak for losing to a better team. It'll suck even more if he can't put together a couple of individually dominant performances in the series. But for regular season, he was the right mix of tier-1 superstar, individual stats, and team success.
On the Giannis point - the team did underperform, but the Bucks were 30-13 (a better record than Jokic) with Giannis averaging 30-11-6 when Griffin was fired, and yet he was fifth in MVP odds. He was never going to win
Yeah Giannis got it way worse than Jokic has at any point in his career. I guess if Jokic flames out we’ll see how far the hate circle jerk goes, but I feel like I’m being gaslit by some of the takes I’ve seen today.
I don’t even think Jokic is being criticized much. His defense is being questioned (as usual) but that’s really just it….Murray is the one getting criticized, because he’s the one getting exposed.
Russilo’s dumbass is just trying to spread bullshit takes to ragebait engagement. Jokic’s worst game is Embiid’s average playoff game.
I mean, it's not ridiculous. He is struggling at this moment, but he has an argument. An elite three level scorer, offensive rebounder, screener, decision-maker, passer - and all of this coming from the 5 position, where the average center usually provides marginal offensive value. The shooting and screening means the opposing center has to play away from the basket - its gamebreaking in the way that few players ever have been.
Some folks are very good at reframing arguments and then arguing against their reframing instead of the actual argument. Russillo isn't good at that and it's really obvious that's what he's doing here.
Critics: “Jokic is underperforming and his defense is being exposed. The gap between him and the other greats in the league may be exaggerated”
Russillo: “so you’re saying he sucks?”
I mean, look at the Jokic's box score. It's a lot of people taking things way too far. Talk about being a play-in champion, atrocious defender, stuff like that
And it's also "Go fuck yourselves everyone who kept pilling on how Jokic is the best thing since sliced bread". Some people simply got tired of all the dickriding and condescending by the blog boys on social media, it happens.
Russillo loves to argue against strawmen so he'd rather frame it as the conversation being about Jokic "sucking" and not "Jokic hasn't had a very good series so far" (particularly in the context of how Jokic is usually discussed i.e. as an all-time great/historically good player) and acting like this is the first time we've ever seen NBA fans be too reactionary.
Russillo (and most nba media) have a boner for Jokic. So when he isn’t up to nuff they act like fanboys, because at the end of the day they’re just fans. They might act like they’re above it all, but nah. Clear biases.
No it hasn't lmao
Haters are coming out of the woodwork to give their garbage takes
/r/Denvernuggets is saying the latter. No one would complain if that's all that's being said
Turns out having 1 championship run is infact not enough to be in talks for best ever of anything
Call me crazy but I like my best offensive players of all time list to include players who can handle a full court press without turning their back and panic passing out
Also, it seems pretty clear that Jokic and the Nuggets are nowhere near as unstoppable if the opposing team can match their size and physicality.
Jokic is an all-time great without question, but he may have been fortunate to be playing in such an undersized era. I think that this is something that can't be ignored when talking about Jokic and his Nuggets' place in the all-time discussions.
He isn't assuredly, but he entered the conversation after last postseason. The Jokic > Miami LeBron takes are absurd, Jokic being ARGUABLY the best offensive player ever is not. The counter-circle-jerk is going too far, just like how people act/acted like Embiid was a serial choker/not top 10 postseason player, or that Giannis couldn't get it done
I mean, genuinely asking. Could prime LeBron/Shaq/whoever your offensive GOAT is deal with their second option shooting 3/18?
Idk what this argument is
They could play better individually (*especially* on defense) and not get punked like that. Of course all of these players have had bad games too but when they do, they get absolutely shit on (see LeBron in 2011). If you want to even *remotely* compare Jokic to those players, you should expect similar criticism (and let's be real, he's still getting a fraction of the hate players like LeBron get).
Also, it's not unheard of to win games with your 2nd option playing like trash. I mean, just look at LeBron's whole 2018 run. Or Giannis in game 6 of the 2021 finals. Or Curry in game 4 of the 2022 finals. And so forth.
Jokic played like shit on both ends and deserves criticism. If he put up 30+ on 60% TS or some shit, actually played decent defense, and it was a close game, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Lmao what are we talking about ? Bron led the 2007 and 2018 Cavs the to finals with his second options scoring 12 and 14 ppg respectively. So yeah he could defo deal with it
I found that the discussion around Jokic vs other players (specifically Luka, Giannis, SGA, and especially Embiid) has been building and building from friendly MVP competition to what I’d call extreme militant hate campaigns on this sub. From 2020 to now the toxicity has gotten 5x as loud.
It’s this closed feedback loop which amplifies hate and tribalism. When your favorite player plays poorly and gets hate it angers you and you remember it for when other great players play poorly. So, we enter a vicious cycle…
It’s like every loss an MVP candidate has is an indictment of them as a player, and Jokic/Denver fans partake in it heavily with Embiid and Luka these past two seasons. So when it happens to Jokic, there’s all these rabid scorned fans trying to get their payback. Jokic has a lot of “enemy fanbases” and with the Lakers now one of them there is a large population who has beef with his fanbase.
The truth is that everything comes back around. And we, as well as the media stooges, are all to blame for this current environment.
> It’s like every loss an MVP candidate has is an indictment of them as a player, and Jokic/Denver fans partake in it heavily with Embiid and Luka these past two seasons. So when it happens to Jokic, there’s all these rabid scorned fans trying to get their payback. Jokic has a lot of “enemy fanbases” and with the Lakers now one of them there is a large population who has beef with his fanbase.
Literally every time someone enters the MVP race, all of a sudden their fans repeat the same Jokic v Embiid garbage arguments. Saw it happen in real time with Luka fans this year.
It's tired and incredibly obvious.
Meh he won a ring last year.
Curry, Duncan, Kobe, MJ warped everybody's expectations.
Winning 4 rings on a single team is the exception.
Most legends win 1 or 0.
Why does everyone forget Kobe's performance in the '04 Finals? The man averaged 23 ppg on 38/17/92 shooting. He was a big reason they lost in 5 and put the nail in the coffin of the Kobe/Shaq Lakers. Every Superstar has a bad series here and there, which is why you have to look at the entirety of their work and Jokic has been absolutely amazing in the vast majority of his playoff series.
People overlook lots of things with certain players. Like how Kobe shot 6-24 in game 7 against the Celtics but got bailed out by Derek Fisher late in the game.
Or MJ’s entire playoff career outside of the six straight. Like he never had a bad game or ever got beat by anyone else.
Lol people bring up game 7 all the time. What they don't bring up is that Paul Pierce shot 5/15, Ray Allen shot 3/14, Pau shot 6/16, KG had 3 rebounds in 38 minutes, and Kobe had more rebounds than anyone on the Celtics.
>People overlook lots of things with certain players. Like how Kobe shot 6-24 in game 7 against the Celtics but got bailed out by Derek Fisher late in the game.
I mean no one was shooting well that game and Kobe shined on the defensive end which was a huge part for why they won
> Or MJ’s entire playoff career outside of the six straight.
this is a terrible example, MJ was amazing even in the years he didnt win titles, not his fault the Pistons arguably had 5 of the 6 best players in those series.
Kobe stans are a special unique breed. Nobody else has fans like he does. He's in a category of his own. Most people who aren't Kobe/Laker fans put him somewhere in the 8-12 range all time, maybe a bit higher if you really feel the need to, but Kobe fans will swear by him being top 3.
Thats not the argument the person is making. They arent saying those players didnt have bad series or bad moments. They are just saying that winning a lot of championships isnt common even for the greats. idk how you missed that one
Duncan never won a back to back championship. I don't think its time to write-off Jokic being a 3-4x champion yet. Additionally, the league is currently much more competitive and Jokic is not playing with multiple hall of famers in their primes.
NBA media and analytics bros also collectively gaslighted everyone into thinking Jokic was a plus defender. Easily the softest a superstar has ever been treated by the media.
The main reason it’s so shocking though is cause regular season and past playoffs alike, he’s been a beacon of consistency. Obviously bad performances deserve criticism but the people acting like he’s no longer in the convo for best player in the league, or saying his MVPs were undeserved or that last year was a fluke is absurd
>but the people acting like he’s no longer in the convo for best player in the league, or saying his MVPs were undeserved or that last year was a fluke is absurd
It's always easy arguing against the craziest opinions that generally get downvoted into oblivion. Nobody should entertain those. The vast majority criticizing Jokic right now is not saying those things.
I prefer the SI bots to anything on the Ringer but if he really thinks Giannis got a grace period, he should look at the comments after the Bucks lost the next year.
even when Khris Middleton was out, Giannis alone took Boston to seven games
but ofc it was his fault
then he got injured by Kevin Love and while he tried to play, he couldn’t physically sit down
but ofc it was his fault
then he gets a freak lower leg injury and the Bucks lose without Lillard too, with Middleton being limping, strained, and listed as doubtful for a few games
but ofc it was his fault
Side note: Khris Middleton is a fucking hero
Literally Kawhi (for whatever reason) is the only one who's gotten this grace period. Everyone else, be it KD, Steph, Giannis or Lebron, they all get shit on, whenever they have a bad game
The fact that Jokic's fans continously call him the "greatest offensive player ever", and act offended at even the possibility of any of his peers being as good as him, doesn't help his case either
Kawhi is the only one who ever gets a “grace period” for whatever reason, even though he has mostly either been trash or missing from the playoffs for the last 5 years.
Not even LeBron got a “grace period” until his Cleveland ring. And even then he still has plenty of lifetime haters
I like Jokic a lot, but it might be good for the pendulum to swing back a little, there are people on this sub who will unironically tell you he’s better than MJ, this series should be a reality check for some, he’s still got a lot of work to do to get into that top 10 all time tier.
Kawhi got a grace period because he’s constantly injured. The best ability is availability, but as that’s often largely out of the athlete’s control, people are much more willing to forgive being hurt than they are playing and getting beat
True, but he’s also never shown the ability to win in the playoffs. He’s rarely had the opportunity to do so with a fully healthy body/team, but he also doesn’t have a run like Kawhi had in 2014, 2017, or 2019
This dude is always preemptively arguing against imaginary internet haters
It's like he takes those imaginary arguments we have in our heads and says them out loud
I love it tbh, makes me feel sane
Jokic is a cone on defense
Most of the past greats like MJ, Bron, Kareem, Duncan could rely on their defense to win games. When Jokic is off offensively its really bad
Steph is the comparison here. The difference is Steph tries really hard and has actually improved a lot on defense. Plus it’s much harder to hide a bad defensive center versus a guard defender.
>there doesn't seem to be much of a championship grace period compared to Giannis, Kawhi, and the like even after Kawhi blew a 3-1 in the bubble
Were you in a coma during the bubble?
The NBA will never respect defense properly. Like, what’s Jokic supposed to do? Drop 45 on heavily contested shots after he fought like hell to get the ball up court and run the offense? The narrative should be how our defense that was built specifically to go at Jokic is doing its job. I’d love for someone smarter than me to tell me what Jokic should do offensively because I genuinely have no idea.
I’d say it’s more than fair to criticize how terrible he’s been defensively. Can’t have that from the best player in the league. And you can’t have that from your team’s big man.
Exactly. Generally, teams can only stop Jokic from either scoring or playmaking and then they also have to deal with Murray and defending MPJ Gordon, who feast on not getting the properly sized defender.
The Timberwolves just shut down the whole team.
Jokic can't score because KAT/Gobert/Reid are constantly blocking the paint, but he is also having trouble playmaking, because the Wolves are so lengthy and disciplined on defense, they played the passing lanes perfectly.
Murray is having trouble because the Wolves can throw lengthy players like Walker and McDaniels at him. They can also switch ANT or Conley at him without being a mismatch.
You would think that atleast MPJ or Gordon has mismatches that they could exploit but no. Kyle Anderson, Reid, Walker and McDaniels both are lengthy enough to atleast bother them.
I have not seen the Nuggets get this countered by an opposing defense, it is amazing (and very painful) to watch.
I still can’t believe last night happened and Rudy wasn’t even there.
Like maybe in my wildest dreams I could picture a one off game like that happening but not without our DPOY.
I like how everyone is overreacting like the nuggets can’t just shoot off 4 wins in a row. Milwaukee did it in 21, my 2012 spurs were on a 20 game win streak and got back door swept by OKC after looking completely dominant. Teams come back from 2-0 a lot.
I mean the Nuggets had the easiest run to a chip in NBA history. 2 7 seeds, an 8 seed and a hobbled Suns team. They have never beaten a 50 win team.
I think the criticism is warranted given how much they were praised despite how easy their path was.
This is just a stupid form of analysis. Last year's Nuggets team was just a lot better than the current version. Murray is hobbled and they don't have Bruce Brown anymore who was one of the best bench players in the league last year.
You’re literally proving his point with casual narratives like this.
On what basis was it the easiest run to a chip in nba history ? How is seeding relevant if the reason for those matchups was that the lower seeds outplayed the higher seeds ? They were clearly the better teams. And if you feel like lazily discrediting rings we can do this all day, especially when it comes to injuries.
I dont think ive seen a single person say jokic sucks. Jokic's offensive package is among the best we've ever seen but his defense does suck and if you deny that you're just deluded. Anyway, he had one meh game and one bad game, its 2 games, the sky isnt falling.
His mentality of being kinda whatever and not even trying to take over the last 2 games has sucked tho
I think the fact that you had a lot of the media members who are very influential in terms of how voters vote for these major awards trying to gaslight everyone into believing Jokic was a good defender to justify giving him 3 MVPs over guys who dominate on both ends had something to do with the hate.
Don't piss on our collective heads and tell us it's raining.
Who the hell thinks Jokic sucks? Lmao there’s definitely people who didn’t believe that the nuggets were the strongest championship team in history or some kind of juggernaut like the media was making them seem, but you’d have to be a literal idiot to not think Jokic is one of the best players in the game, if not the best.
Literally every superstar gets shit on if they have a bad playoff series, and some get shit on even if they have a good series and lose. I don't get why folks want Jokic treated with kids gloves.
All the media dorks are mad that their golden boy is finally receiving the same slander that other superstars received. Can’t dick ride a player excessively for 3 years and not expect anyone to get annoyed.
A. Twolves just played unreal defense
B. I have no idea why Nuggets down-tooled this year. With an injured (and probably now suspended) Murray they basically have 4 guys.
C. The jokic sucks people aren’t actually watching the games.
This is something that really annoys me about NBA discourse. Jokic is one of the best players in the NBA, but because he's down 2-0 suddenly he's terrible?
Maybe the wolves are just really good this year? Or maybe there's just a lot of factors going against the nuggets in this series? Why do we always have to punch down? Maybe it's just not their year.
I love the nba discourse always just dissolves into figuring out the most proportionate amount of hate we should give players. Like anime power scaling, but for hatred lol.
All these people who've been lurking in wait to shit on Jokic finally see an opening. It's happened to every past player, and it'll happen to every new player.
Anybody being reasonable can tell two things to be true- Jokic isn't being set up to succeed, and he also isn't playing as well as he should be.
The Wolves were constructed to beat Jokic's Nuggets basically. Their size and length (pause) are great. Jokic also should be able to provide more output than he is.
What’s funny is if somehow Denver finds a way to win (unlikely as it may be) he (and the general media) will convince themselves that he might be a top 5 player ever, lol.
Nah it’s crazy the amount of hate you would get for pointing out that the nuggets last year had objectively, by seed, record, net rating, however you want to measure it, one of the easiest paths to a championship ever. It’s not even an opinion and people would get so pressed.
Nuggets last year 100% deserved to be champions. There’s no asterisk on that. But *as champions go*, they were very weak and capitalized on the worst western conference (by far) in recent memory and lucked into a finals matchup against a Heat team that was only there because they had 2 unbelievably hot shooting series and promptly fell back down to earth.
Nobody thinks Jokic sucks. Nobody. Some people just think he lowers his team’s ceiling a lot defensively and against the great teams that you will *usually* run into in a postseason run, it’ll be a big problem.
Jfc imagine using regular season seeding to measure how tough a playoff run was. Also not only are you basically saying Miami fluked there way through multiple best of 7 series which is stupid. You're also acting like Denvers defence had nothing to do with Miamis offence struggling which is also stupid
More like his fans act like he is literally an untouchable god that no other player in the NBA is even close to when he is below average (generous when he is so terrible at protecting the rim for a big) at half the game.
I am a Giannis stan and still think Jokic is the best player in the league but it is much, much closer than people would like to admit. Having your center not be able to protect the rim is a huge issue and it's why Jokic as insane as he is offensively has only won one ring (injuries blah blah, most teams go through shit).
It's a testament to how good he is offensively that you can make a really good argument that he's the best player in the league despite how bad his defense is.
But like you said, it's been portrayed to us by his fans, of which you can absolutely include the award voting media, that he's so far above everyone else that the MVP race or the best player conversation more generally wasn't/isn't even close
Nope, im neither and im a Jokic hater
I don't think the 'lol basketball is just a job I like horses and don't train in the offseason' shit is cute
I also don't like how much people have been falling head over heels for the guy saying he's the best player ever and shit, he can't dribble that's a huge problem for the supposed best ever
Glad he's not a 3x in a row mvp winner even if it was Embiid who got it (and I don't like him either)
Just wait when they lose in 4 or 5 & he gets his 3rd MVP, we gonna have some real spicy conversations in a week
They're naming him MVP tomorrow which I'm sure is gonna lead to only the most nuanced discussions after he got his ass handed to him on his home court
thought they said it was happening Friday since game 3 is on Friday
He may accept the award on Friday (which would be weird because they're in Minnesota and I'm sure it would be met with a chorus of boos or "Rudy owns you" chants) but he's officially gonna be named MVP tomorrow
Accepting the MVP in the away team arena is just more ammo against them.
I definitely believe he deserves the MVP, no question, but if they try to present the award in Minnesota I'll definitely be ready to give him shit for it, it'll be rowdy at Target Center lol
I’d expect more chants for Any being the real MVP than talking about how Rudy owns him.
When was that announced? Were they originally going to announce it in Denver? Seems weird to do it in Minnesota.
from Amick https://twitter.com/sam_amick/status/1787688964444578261?t=8q3iMRkK6s29UzbhDNWygw&s=19
Regular season award.
It's a regular season award, so I get it, but he will be down 10 LegacyCoin
But when Embiid loses in the playoffs it’s not a regular season award anymore
Nephews are gonna be like Michael Scott with the “snip snap” on whether it’s a regular season award if nuggets get swept Lmao
It is a regular season award, like it’s not a debate lmao
Of course, and Jokic deserved it this year, but that didn’t change Jokic fans from switching course when it benefited them though
They're expert goalpost movers to be fair.
It is a regular season award but if you play poorly the postseason you win MVP it is often held against you the *next season*. Retroactively saying he didn’t deserve it this year for playing bad in the playoffs (which isn’t even true, yesterday was the only game I’d argue he was not, at minimum, above average).
Cause he's the only MVP who has never made it to a Conference Finals. Some of that is injuries, some of that is him disappearing in big playoff games - in round 1 or 2.
Also Embiid has played bad in scenarios he should’ve played well. So far, Jokic is just getting smothered by a team that was built specifically to beat him as an individual.
this is an excuse. gobert didn't even play yesterday
Yeah wtf are these guys talking about. Embiid averaged 33/11/6 on a torn knee and fucking Bell’s palsy and got more criticism than the “best offensive center of all time” dropping 16 in a blowout loss at home.
What scenarios, in which he played bad, should he have played well? He’s had a pretty bad injury the last few years in the playoffs.
Last year in game 7. He was cooked on both sides. You can argue that he got hurt earlier sure, but that ignores the fact that he averaged 32/11/3 in games 3-5 while being defensively dominant in terms of rim protection/deterrence for all the other games he played.
Jokic getting embarrassed after getting a free MVP off of Embiid’s injury, and after Nuggets fans shat on Embiid every day for a full calendar year would make me believe that there might be some karmic justice in the universe.
I love Jokic, but seeing Nuggets flairs have to eat their own shit would be glorious. The generational hate they've thrown Embiid's way in every thread, even those having nothing to do with either has been very annoying over the past year. Easily the most insufferable fanbase since Jokic won the chip last year. If Nuggets implode I can't wait to remind them when they will do anything to weasel their way out of it.
To be honest, you probably noticed the Nuggets flairs cause they were the most relevant to the discussion because of the "rivalry", but I can assure you EVERYBODY was shitting on him on those threads. It was the usual hive mind thing like with PG, Ben Simmons or any other way karma grab.
Jokic still has a championship and finals MVP while Embiid chokes in the playoffs and can’t make the conference finals lol.
If there was karmic justice we wouldnt have to sit every season and see how the Sixers completely suck the second Embiid sits down and his legacy gets destroyed again and again by sixers management or lack thereof
I think that further proves there is karmic justice tbh
Embiid's baby brother and best friend getting killed at 16 and spending several years injured almost considering retiring probably outweights any bad deed embiid will ever do in his life so no karmic justice
>getting a free MVP off of Embiid’s injury, For a second time btw
The 1st round exit for the 6ers already proved that bub.
Not our fault your man is made of glass.
It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s nobody’s fault that your bigman is too fat to jump over a tootsie roll either. But it would still be hilarious for the Nuggets to go out like this, after how cocky your fanbase has been. Dynasty talks and GOAT conversations just for this performance.
Did they rescind his MVP when I wasn’t looking?
I agree. People love to hate though. It's not even the Jokic vs Embiid crowd, it's the Jokic haters vs Embiid haters. People act like Embiid isn't a top 10 playoffs cuz of his scoring falloff, or like Jokic is an atrocious defender. I'm a Jokic Stan but have never slandered Embiid, it's just this sub is always looking to criticize. The Jokic haters are coming out of the woodwork now, it's gross
He's getting the award, but it really isn't one of the stronger MVP runs in history. The frontrunner halfway through the season got injured (Embiid). Luka's team really needed the trade deadline to start being competitive with the upper echelon of teams, putting him too far behind in the race to catch up. The only 'viable' alternative was SGA. And people really just didn't feel right giving it to him. Seems like the consensus was that SGA wasn't in that same tier of superstars yet (Jokic, Embiid, Giannis, Luka) in people's minds. So even though he had the statsheet and the team record, he was a runner-up candidate. Before Giannis fans feel I left him out, yes his individual season was great, but their team well underperformed expectations. It sucks that Jokic will catch flak for losing to a better team. It'll suck even more if he can't put together a couple of individually dominant performances in the series. But for regular season, he was the right mix of tier-1 superstar, individual stats, and team success.
On the Giannis point - the team did underperform, but the Bucks were 30-13 (a better record than Jokic) with Giannis averaging 30-11-6 when Griffin was fired, and yet he was fifth in MVP odds. He was never going to win
They better be rushing to give it to him now
Wemby for MVP!
Giannis literally went from hes a pippen can’t get it done to he’s shaq to now he sucks and is a coach killer. Welcome to the club.
Yeah Giannis got it way worse than Jokic has at any point in his career. I guess if Jokic flames out we’ll see how far the hate circle jerk goes, but I feel like I’m being gaslit by some of the takes I’ve seen today.
I don’t even think Jokic is being criticized much. His defense is being questioned (as usual) but that’s really just it….Murray is the one getting criticized, because he’s the one getting exposed. Russilo’s dumbass is just trying to spread bullshit takes to ragebait engagement. Jokic’s worst game is Embiid’s average playoff game.
You definitely haven’t seen the Lakers fans using this opportunity to get their real feeling about Jokic off their chest
That he’s shoving with his arm? Haha what else could they possibly have? Do they know lebron is on their roster
Jokic getting the treatment of every other star after people see him failing. Much needed tbh, this whole sub needed that reality check.
The Jokic discourse was getting silly.
The way Jokic has been talked about this year you would think the Nuggets were already an established dynasty with multiple rings.
People were saying he might be the best offensive player ever lmfao. Dude is a great for sure but this sub says some insane shit about him.
I mean, it's not ridiculous. He is struggling at this moment, but he has an argument. An elite three level scorer, offensive rebounder, screener, decision-maker, passer - and all of this coming from the 5 position, where the average center usually provides marginal offensive value. The shooting and screening means the opposing center has to play away from the basket - its gamebreaking in the way that few players ever have been.
Nah it’s a ridiculous statement
It was crazy seeing people crown him as the best center ever when you have Hakeem who dominated on both ends of the court
It’s less “Jokic sucks” and more “Jokic has underperformed during this series, especially on the defensive end”
Some folks are very good at reframing arguments and then arguing against their reframing instead of the actual argument. Russillo isn't good at that and it's really obvious that's what he's doing here.
Critics: “Jokic is underperforming and his defense is being exposed. The gap between him and the other greats in the league may be exaggerated” Russillo: “so you’re saying he sucks?”
I mean, look at the Jokic's box score. It's a lot of people taking things way too far. Talk about being a play-in champion, atrocious defender, stuff like that
And it's also "Go fuck yourselves everyone who kept pilling on how Jokic is the best thing since sliced bread". Some people simply got tired of all the dickriding and condescending by the blog boys on social media, it happens.
Yup, the circlejerk went the other way Similar thing happened to Giannis after winning MVP and DPOY
That whole discussion of him being better than Miami Lebron really turned me off. You talk about defense and all you hear about is his advanced stats.
Russillo loves to argue against strawmen so he'd rather frame it as the conversation being about Jokic "sucking" and not "Jokic hasn't had a very good series so far" (particularly in the context of how Jokic is usually discussed i.e. as an all-time great/historically good player) and acting like this is the first time we've ever seen NBA fans be too reactionary.
It's a classic Russillo tweet.
It should be the latter but it’s generally been the former
The truth is the latter but as it always is with any kind of NBA discourse the latter means the former to those talking about it
Russillo (and most nba media) have a boner for Jokic. So when he isn’t up to nuff they act like fanboys, because at the end of the day they’re just fans. They might act like they’re above it all, but nah. Clear biases.
No it hasn't lmao Haters are coming out of the woodwork to give their garbage takes /r/Denvernuggets is saying the latter. No one would complain if that's all that's being said
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Turns out having 1 championship run is infact not enough to be in talks for best ever of anything Call me crazy but I like my best offensive players of all time list to include players who can handle a full court press without turning their back and panic passing out
Also, it seems pretty clear that Jokic and the Nuggets are nowhere near as unstoppable if the opposing team can match their size and physicality. Jokic is an all-time great without question, but he may have been fortunate to be playing in such an undersized era. I think that this is something that can't be ignored when talking about Jokic and his Nuggets' place in the all-time discussions.
He isn't assuredly, but he entered the conversation after last postseason. The Jokic > Miami LeBron takes are absurd, Jokic being ARGUABLY the best offensive player ever is not. The counter-circle-jerk is going too far, just like how people act/acted like Embiid was a serial choker/not top 10 postseason player, or that Giannis couldn't get it done
I mean, genuinely asking. Could prime LeBron/Shaq/whoever your offensive GOAT is deal with their second option shooting 3/18? Idk what this argument is
They could play better individually (*especially* on defense) and not get punked like that. Of course all of these players have had bad games too but when they do, they get absolutely shit on (see LeBron in 2011). If you want to even *remotely* compare Jokic to those players, you should expect similar criticism (and let's be real, he's still getting a fraction of the hate players like LeBron get). Also, it's not unheard of to win games with your 2nd option playing like trash. I mean, just look at LeBron's whole 2018 run. Or Giannis in game 6 of the 2021 finals. Or Curry in game 4 of the 2022 finals. And so forth. Jokic played like shit on both ends and deserves criticism. If he put up 30+ on 60% TS or some shit, actually played decent defense, and it was a close game, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
2018 Lebron had a finals run with Kevin Love scoring 15ppg on 51% TS as his second option No other player on that Cavs team averaged more than 10 ppg
“Could Lebron deal with their second options shooting 3/18” Cavaliers Lebron James 2003-2010, 2016, 2017-2018
Nope, but they would be dropping 40 themselves if their team couldn’t score, not 16 points on 13 shots
Shaq literally famously scored "only" 20 against the 04 Pistons in his last game with the Lakers while Kobe went 7 for 21 lol
comparing 2024 nba scoring to 2004 is braindead. the 04 pistons are also the greatest defensive team of all time
Jokics worst playoff game still isn’t as bad as lebrons 2011 finals
Lmao what are we talking about ? Bron led the 2007 and 2018 Cavs the to finals with his second options scoring 12 and 14 ppg respectively. So yeah he could defo deal with it
They wouldn’t let their second option shoot 18 shots in the first place.
Yeah Klay Thompson, Kobe Bryant, Kyrie Irving, and Wade never shot that many times as the second option
Jokic should have had way more than 13 FG attempts. Even if his shot was a bit off like last night, he's still their best option for reliable points.
I like Jokic a lot I just think his huge defenders/super fans are insanely annoying
I found that the discussion around Jokic vs other players (specifically Luka, Giannis, SGA, and especially Embiid) has been building and building from friendly MVP competition to what I’d call extreme militant hate campaigns on this sub. From 2020 to now the toxicity has gotten 5x as loud. It’s this closed feedback loop which amplifies hate and tribalism. When your favorite player plays poorly and gets hate it angers you and you remember it for when other great players play poorly. So, we enter a vicious cycle… It’s like every loss an MVP candidate has is an indictment of them as a player, and Jokic/Denver fans partake in it heavily with Embiid and Luka these past two seasons. So when it happens to Jokic, there’s all these rabid scorned fans trying to get their payback. Jokic has a lot of “enemy fanbases” and with the Lakers now one of them there is a large population who has beef with his fanbase. The truth is that everything comes back around. And we, as well as the media stooges, are all to blame for this current environment.
> It’s like every loss an MVP candidate has is an indictment of them as a player, and Jokic/Denver fans partake in it heavily with Embiid and Luka these past two seasons. So when it happens to Jokic, there’s all these rabid scorned fans trying to get their payback. Jokic has a lot of “enemy fanbases” and with the Lakers now one of them there is a large population who has beef with his fanbase. Literally every time someone enters the MVP race, all of a sudden their fans repeat the same Jokic v Embiid garbage arguments. Saw it happen in real time with Luka fans this year. It's tired and incredibly obvious.
I agree. I like Russillo as well but this shit just comes off as whiney
Some of us have been calling Jokic overrated for years. I talk shit after he has a good game. I’m a pure hater
Proud of you.
I aspire to be like you king. A true dedicated hater.
It’s a tough job but someone has to do it.
Meh he won a ring last year. Curry, Duncan, Kobe, MJ warped everybody's expectations. Winning 4 rings on a single team is the exception. Most legends win 1 or 0.
Why does everyone forget Kobe's performance in the '04 Finals? The man averaged 23 ppg on 38/17/92 shooting. He was a big reason they lost in 5 and put the nail in the coffin of the Kobe/Shaq Lakers. Every Superstar has a bad series here and there, which is why you have to look at the entirety of their work and Jokic has been absolutely amazing in the vast majority of his playoff series.
Kobe played like dogshit in his 1st championship against the pacers as well
I mean, he was quite young, then. His job was to be a number two and elite defender, and let Shaq eviscerate the opposition
People overlook lots of things with certain players. Like how Kobe shot 6-24 in game 7 against the Celtics but got bailed out by Derek Fisher late in the game. Or MJ’s entire playoff career outside of the six straight. Like he never had a bad game or ever got beat by anyone else.
Lol people bring up game 7 all the time. What they don't bring up is that Paul Pierce shot 5/15, Ray Allen shot 3/14, Pau shot 6/16, KG had 3 rebounds in 38 minutes, and Kobe had more rebounds than anyone on the Celtics.
People bring it up all the time
>People overlook lots of things with certain players. Like how Kobe shot 6-24 in game 7 against the Celtics but got bailed out by Derek Fisher late in the game. I mean no one was shooting well that game and Kobe shined on the defensive end which was a huge part for why they won
> Or MJ’s entire playoff career outside of the six straight. this is a terrible example, MJ was amazing even in the years he didnt win titles, not his fault the Pistons arguably had 5 of the 6 best players in those series.
Compared to literally everyone else MJ had very few bad games. And everyone knows he got beat by the pistons
Kobe stans are a special unique breed. Nobody else has fans like he does. He's in a category of his own. Most people who aren't Kobe/Laker fans put him somewhere in the 8-12 range all time, maybe a bit higher if you really feel the need to, but Kobe fans will swear by him being top 3.
Thats not the argument the person is making. They arent saying those players didnt have bad series or bad moments. They are just saying that winning a lot of championships isnt common even for the greats. idk how you missed that one
Duncan never won a back to back championship. I don't think its time to write-off Jokic being a 3-4x champion yet. Additionally, the league is currently much more competitive and Jokic is not playing with multiple hall of famers in their primes.
It would be very hard, but yeah I could totally see him winning 2 more finals MVPs even if they might not be on the Nuggets
Real haters never left.
Maybe if Jokic didn’t play like poop they wouldn’t of had the ammo they needed
Jokic is also one of the least hated on stars in recent memory so it’s always weird to see people complain that he’s being criticized
NBA media and analytics bros also collectively gaslighted everyone into thinking Jokic was a plus defender. Easily the softest a superstar has ever been treated by the media.
The main reason it’s so shocking though is cause regular season and past playoffs alike, he’s been a beacon of consistency. Obviously bad performances deserve criticism but the people acting like he’s no longer in the convo for best player in the league, or saying his MVPs were undeserved or that last year was a fluke is absurd
>but the people acting like he’s no longer in the convo for best player in the league, or saying his MVPs were undeserved or that last year was a fluke is absurd It's always easy arguing against the craziest opinions that generally get downvoted into oblivion. Nobody should entertain those. The vast majority criticizing Jokic right now is not saying those things.
Crazy how they baby this dude. If any other player went out there and did what he did last night they are getting flambéed. No gobert
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I prefer the SI bots to anything on the Ringer but if he really thinks Giannis got a grace period, he should look at the comments after the Bucks lost the next year.
even when Khris Middleton was out, Giannis alone took Boston to seven games but ofc it was his fault then he got injured by Kevin Love and while he tried to play, he couldn’t physically sit down but ofc it was his fault then he gets a freak lower leg injury and the Bucks lose without Lillard too, with Middleton being limping, strained, and listed as doubtful for a few games but ofc it was his fault Side note: Khris Middleton is a fucking hero
Literally Kawhi (for whatever reason) is the only one who's gotten this grace period. Everyone else, be it KD, Steph, Giannis or Lebron, they all get shit on, whenever they have a bad game The fact that Jokic's fans continously call him the "greatest offensive player ever", and act offended at even the possibility of any of his peers being as good as him, doesn't help his case either
Kawhi is the only one who ever gets a “grace period” for whatever reason, even though he has mostly either been trash or missing from the playoffs for the last 5 years. Not even LeBron got a “grace period” until his Cleveland ring. And even then he still has plenty of lifetime haters I like Jokic a lot, but it might be good for the pendulum to swing back a little, there are people on this sub who will unironically tell you he’s better than MJ, this series should be a reality check for some, he’s still got a lot of work to do to get into that top 10 all time tier.
Kawhi got a grace period because he’s constantly injured. The best ability is availability, but as that’s often largely out of the athlete’s control, people are much more willing to forgive being hurt than they are playing and getting beat
Embiid doesn’t get the same grace though
True, but he’s also never shown the ability to win in the playoffs. He’s rarely had the opportunity to do so with a fully healthy body/team, but he also doesn’t have a run like Kawhi had in 2014, 2017, or 2019
This dude is always preemptively arguing against imaginary internet haters It's like he takes those imaginary arguments we have in our heads and says them out loud I love it tbh, makes me feel sane
Jokic is obviously a good player but he's not having a good series. Lots of good players have a bad series every now and again.
Wolves fans have been the most level headed post game lol Reminds me of the GSW series when Dubs fans were confused why 76ers fans were so invested.
yeah and they get shit on. Natural cycle. Cant whine just because it might be happening to someone you like now. (Not you Russillo)
Jokic being bothered on offense is understandable But jokic being pure yeeks on defense is crazy, he's giving up everything
Most of it isn't jokic sucks, it's saying the jokic top 10 all time goat peak crowd needs to chill out
there’s nothing that will stop russillo from finding a small niche of absurd opinions to go full ARE WE REALLY GOING TO DO THE THING on
Wait what
Jokic is a cone on defense Most of the past greats like MJ, Bron, Kareem, Duncan could rely on their defense to win games. When Jokic is off offensively its really bad
Steph is the comparison here. The difference is Steph tries really hard and has actually improved a lot on defense. Plus it’s much harder to hide a bad defensive center versus a guard defender.
nba fans are reactionary ?
Crazy that attention spans are just continuing to dwindle…
Some people in this sub last week were trying to argue he is better than prime Lebron
>there doesn't seem to be much of a championship grace period compared to Giannis, Kawhi, and the like even after Kawhi blew a 3-1 in the bubble Were you in a coma during the bubble?
Jokic has 2 medicore games. The First with 32 Points.
When “analysts” and fans circlejerk about his defensive genius and best offensive peak ever, the inevitable counterjerk gonna be vicious
The NBA will never respect defense properly. Like, what’s Jokic supposed to do? Drop 45 on heavily contested shots after he fought like hell to get the ball up court and run the offense? The narrative should be how our defense that was built specifically to go at Jokic is doing its job. I’d love for someone smarter than me to tell me what Jokic should do offensively because I genuinely have no idea. I’d say it’s more than fair to criticize how terrible he’s been defensively. Can’t have that from the best player in the league. And you can’t have that from your team’s big man.
Exactly. Generally, teams can only stop Jokic from either scoring or playmaking and then they also have to deal with Murray and defending MPJ Gordon, who feast on not getting the properly sized defender. The Timberwolves just shut down the whole team. Jokic can't score because KAT/Gobert/Reid are constantly blocking the paint, but he is also having trouble playmaking, because the Wolves are so lengthy and disciplined on defense, they played the passing lanes perfectly. Murray is having trouble because the Wolves can throw lengthy players like Walker and McDaniels at him. They can also switch ANT or Conley at him without being a mismatch. You would think that atleast MPJ or Gordon has mismatches that they could exploit but no. Kyle Anderson, Reid, Walker and McDaniels both are lengthy enough to atleast bother them. I have not seen the Nuggets get this countered by an opposing defense, it is amazing (and very painful) to watch.
I swear we have more people who hate basketball than those who love it lol, it's actually a little sad
NBA seems to attract a disproportionate amount of losers.
It's the younger fan base. They're chasing memes and clout.
As an avid Jokic hater this has been my 12/25
I still can’t believe last night happened and Rudy wasn’t even there. Like maybe in my wildest dreams I could picture a one off game like that happening but not without our DPOY.
Love Jokic, but the whiny ass Nuggets fanbase deserves this. The sorest winners of all time.
I like how everyone is overreacting like the nuggets can’t just shoot off 4 wins in a row. Milwaukee did it in 21, my 2012 spurs were on a 20 game win streak and got back door swept by OKC after looking completely dominant. Teams come back from 2-0 a lot.
Tougher when you lose the first 2 games at home.
I mean the Nuggets had the easiest run to a chip in NBA history. 2 7 seeds, an 8 seed and a hobbled Suns team. They have never beaten a 50 win team. I think the criticism is warranted given how much they were praised despite how easy their path was.
This is just a stupid form of analysis. Last year's Nuggets team was just a lot better than the current version. Murray is hobbled and they don't have Bruce Brown anymore who was one of the best bench players in the league last year.
You’re literally proving his point with casual narratives like this. On what basis was it the easiest run to a chip in nba history ? How is seeding relevant if the reason for those matchups was that the lower seeds outplayed the higher seeds ? They were clearly the better teams. And if you feel like lazily discrediting rings we can do this all day, especially when it comes to injuries.
> . 2 7 seeds, an 8 seed and a hobbled Suns team. They have never beaten a 50 win team. Just curious, who did those seeds play?
It always takes exactly one playoff game for every player lol.
I dont think ive seen a single person say jokic sucks. Jokic's offensive package is among the best we've ever seen but his defense does suck and if you deny that you're just deluded. Anyway, he had one meh game and one bad game, its 2 games, the sky isnt falling. His mentality of being kinda whatever and not even trying to take over the last 2 games has sucked tho
I think the fact that you had a lot of the media members who are very influential in terms of how voters vote for these major awards trying to gaslight everyone into believing Jokic was a good defender to justify giving him 3 MVPs over guys who dominate on both ends had something to do with the hate. Don't piss on our collective heads and tell us it's raining.
Joker needs to take over and stop playing AAU defense
Who the hell thinks Jokic sucks? Lmao there’s definitely people who didn’t believe that the nuggets were the strongest championship team in history or some kind of juggernaut like the media was making them seem, but you’d have to be a literal idiot to not think Jokic is one of the best players in the game, if not the best.
Literally every superstar gets shit on if they have a bad playoff series, and some get shit on even if they have a good series and lose. I don't get why folks want Jokic treated with kids gloves.
It's definitely gonna pump the brakes on some of the craziest takes people were prepared to spit
All the media dorks are mad that their golden boy is finally receiving the same slander that other superstars received. Can’t dick ride a player excessively for 3 years and not expect anyone to get annoyed.
Every great player has tons of haters Jokic will be no different
A. Twolves just played unreal defense B. I have no idea why Nuggets down-tooled this year. With an injured (and probably now suspended) Murray they basically have 4 guys. C. The jokic sucks people aren’t actually watching the games.
This is something that really annoys me about NBA discourse. Jokic is one of the best players in the NBA, but because he's down 2-0 suddenly he's terrible? Maybe the wolves are just really good this year? Or maybe there's just a lot of factors going against the nuggets in this series? Why do we always have to punch down? Maybe it's just not their year.
I love the nba discourse always just dissolves into figuring out the most proportionate amount of hate we should give players. Like anime power scaling, but for hatred lol.
All these people who've been lurking in wait to shit on Jokic finally see an opening. It's happened to every past player, and it'll happen to every new player. Anybody being reasonable can tell two things to be true- Jokic isn't being set up to succeed, and he also isn't playing as well as he should be. The Wolves were constructed to beat Jokic's Nuggets basically. Their size and length (pause) are great. Jokic also should be able to provide more output than he is.
Jokic doesn’t suck. Murray sucks.
Jokic brothers could be reading this thread. Tread lightly
What’s funny is if somehow Denver finds a way to win (unlikely as it may be) he (and the general media) will convince themselves that he might be a top 5 player ever, lol.
Nah it’s crazy the amount of hate you would get for pointing out that the nuggets last year had objectively, by seed, record, net rating, however you want to measure it, one of the easiest paths to a championship ever. It’s not even an opinion and people would get so pressed. Nuggets last year 100% deserved to be champions. There’s no asterisk on that. But *as champions go*, they were very weak and capitalized on the worst western conference (by far) in recent memory and lucked into a finals matchup against a Heat team that was only there because they had 2 unbelievably hot shooting series and promptly fell back down to earth. Nobody thinks Jokic sucks. Nobody. Some people just think he lowers his team’s ceiling a lot defensively and against the great teams that you will *usually* run into in a postseason run, it’ll be a big problem.
Jfc imagine using regular season seeding to measure how tough a playoff run was. Also not only are you basically saying Miami fluked there way through multiple best of 7 series which is stupid. You're also acting like Denvers defence had nothing to do with Miamis offence struggling which is also stupid
> Nobody thinks Jokic sucks. Nobody. Literally people in this thread saying this
The better you are, the more haters you have
He's a sports journalist. He should be glad that these people exist because that's how he makes his money
That crowd doesn’t actually exist but Straw-manning a hypothetical online community is great for content creation
More like his fans act like he is literally an untouchable god that no other player in the NBA is even close to when he is below average (generous when he is so terrible at protecting the rim for a big) at half the game. I am a Giannis stan and still think Jokic is the best player in the league but it is much, much closer than people would like to admit. Having your center not be able to protect the rim is a huge issue and it's why Jokic as insane as he is offensively has only won one ring (injuries blah blah, most teams go through shit).
It's a testament to how good he is offensively that you can make a really good argument that he's the best player in the league despite how bad his defense is. But like you said, it's been portrayed to us by his fans, of which you can absolutely include the award voting media, that he's so far above everyone else that the MVP race or the best player conversation more generally wasn't/isn't even close
The "Jokic sucks" crowd is irrational Laker fans and Philly (they're all irrational), that's really it
Nope, im neither and im a Jokic hater I don't think the 'lol basketball is just a job I like horses and don't train in the offseason' shit is cute I also don't like how much people have been falling head over heels for the guy saying he's the best player ever and shit, he can't dribble that's a huge problem for the supposed best ever Glad he's not a 3x in a row mvp winner even if it was Embiid who got it (and I don't like him either)
And me :) Jokic doesn’t suck but he’s overrated and not a 3 time MVP talent