He can't create a thing for himself on offense. The game is about buckets.
Now this is a discussion I’m willing to entertain.
The number 1 most important skill in basketball is getting a bucket. Everything else is secondary.
You could argue rebounding, rim protection, passing, three point shooting….whatever. The most important thing is if everyone in the building knows player x is going to be shooting… and they can still get their shot off or get their team a good attempt. They can’t be gameplanned against. You can’t gameplan to stop Jokic, you fasho can with AD.
I think elite Rim Protection is the 2nd most valuable skill & I don’t think anybody is better than AD. And he gives you 20/10 while basically being one of the best “cleanup” men of all time. Yeah he isn’t an offensive engine like Jokic but he can still eat for you if you build the team the right way. And all that with Elite defense? Come on man. We slander this dude way too much when in reality there’s like what 2-3 big men in his category tops. I hate it for bruh. That’s why I try to big him up, he basically gets ****ted on by everybody.
If the Lakers don’t run into a center like Jokic, they prolly win the championship honestly. I love Bam but he doesn’t have weight on AD like Jokic does. He bossed AD around all series, but let’s give credit to Murray for outplaying Lebron as well. Denver had a good team built around him. The Lakers were running on fumes (like I touched on earlier)
I do have to give Jokic more props for his defense though. Initially I thought the Lakers defense was going to be better than the Nuggets defense, but I was wrong. AG & KCP being better two way players than any of the Laker players (other than maybe Bron but it was usually Only 1 side of the court… if he turned up on defense he wasn’t playing much offense and vice versa) mattered more than AD being elite defensively. Vando couldn’t help either because you have to be able to play both ways in the conference finals; every half he started we basically got killed. Other than AD & the occasional Lebron stint, the Lakers were pretty weak on defense since Vando got played off the court.
I thought it would be:
Jokic >>>> AD on offense & AD >>>>>>>>> Jokic on defense but it was basically
Jokic >>>>>>>>>>>>>> AD on offense & AD >>> Jokic on defense.
I was wrong as hell. Salute Jokic. But I’m the wrong one to come at with Jokic slander. That’s my dawg. He plays basketball the exact way I love.