Jokic, NBA, Gobert discussed on Open Floor: SI's NBA Show
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
I want to talk about embiid because when I first thought about this list, however many weeks or months ago now, I thought I was going to put in bead over jokic. And I talked about this with what I talked about with the text in you guys. And pina was making fun of me for it, even though I think peanuts and methodology is equally stupid. And he was like so and so made all NBA last year, I said, I don't care, man. I just was thinking if I, if I want to win a basketball game right now, or if I want to win a championship game next season, and I have the entire pool of NBA players in front of me and what order would I pick them? That was genuinely how I decided I wanted to make my list this year. And I was thinking about embiid versus yo kitch. And again, you said permanent production like a jokic average three less points than be last year, but I think four more assists. I mean, unquestionably, I think carried, you know, it might not bear out in usage, but the burden he carried considering the injuries on his team, what he was able to get out of that Denver roster was remarkable, and I wrote about this. I think he has complete mastery of offensive basketball right now. He's a true quarterback on the floor. I'm talking about yo kitchen. At the same time, you think about what embiid is has a paint protector, he's kind of like an automatic top ten defense. He doesn't get talked about in the way that like Gobert does, but I'd rather have him bead. Even on the defensive end of the floor, and I was like, how am I not tipping the scales in his favor? And I came back to jokic just 'cause the guys went back to back MVPs for a reason. You know, all those offensive reasons I listed was, was it, again, was that an easy thing for you to separate and be it in jokic? Because I think that's a debate that's going to continue for the rest of their careers. And depending on who wins MVPs, et cetera, the defense is going to come into play that's obviously a big talking point. How did you separate those guys? Because I eventually came back to jokic just because of, you know, the durability is a big one as well. I mean, he's never played. I was looking it up. You know, jokic has never played less than 72 games in a season, and the only time he played 72, that was the max number of games. That was the COVID shortened year in 21. So how did you separate those guys? What were some of the reasoning for you? So for me, it wasn't, it wasn't that big of a debate for me. I think just on a base level where I do agree with Michael from the standpoint of it not being that closed is that if you had MVP the last two years, like I did and I think a lot of us did. And you're not putting him in your top two. At worst top three, it's kind of like, well, how much do you or do you not value the regular season? And the idea of health, which if you're weighing that in, I have the last couple of years.