[Bill Simmons] Part of his reason for voting for Jokic “unlike Luka’s season last year—Jokic only dominates the ball out of necessity”

33 comments

1. He just loves Jokic & knows controversial takes like this drives engagement.

2. The MVP debate is so confusing to me. There is a guy with 68 wins while having an MJ-esque season.

   Jokic voters will point towards stats. Yet Giannis has near comparable stats and is nowhere near the discussion. As well as Luka last season

   Last playoffs, Denver lost game 6 by 45, and lost game 7 at home with a 20 point lead. Denver fired their coach mid-season. Any other star gets roasted for this, Jokic gets excused. Just pointing out the facts

3. Cult of Jokic is so insane and makes me start to dislike the guy despite him not doing much of anything to deserve it lmao

4. Sigh. Flirting, harassment, etc.

5. Interesting logic

6. I’m kind of rooting for SGA at this point because it’s nauseating how much the narrative keeps changing for MVP.

   It’s always been a balanced combination of team success + stats. SGA has that, Jokic does not. Same as Luka last year. Same as Giannis last few years.

7. At this point certain people will vote for Jokic every year no matter what it seems

8. “The difference is I like Jokic”

9. I’m a huge Jokic stan but sometimes comments just make me cringe.

   While it may be true more often than some folks care to admit… we dont ALWAYS need a “yeah but its just, like, *different* when Jokic does it”

10. Look Jokic is great, but he might actually have the most insufferable fanboys of the last decade

11. If the best player in the world gets the MVP shouldn’t LeBron have won the MVP from 2008-2019

12. What a clown, basketball historian my ass. Basketball revisionist.

13. He is saying Jokic win a round 1 playoff series with home court will be a defining moment of his career. What the fuck. 

14. Luka insists upon himself.

15. As a massive Jokic fan, this shit is so annoying. What else does Shai have to do? I mean seriously? This isn’t like a Malone over MJ situation, Shai is having an MVP season and winning a shit ton of games.

    Yes, Jokic is the best player in the world, but Shai deserves it this year for team success and having an MVP winning season that would be no question if Jokic wasn’t in the league.

16. Ok but have you considered that Defense Wins Championships?

17. This reminds me of the “Hardens assists are too urban” jokes

18. What the actual fuck kind of argument? It’s like how Jokic averaged a triple double and it’s so great but Russ does it and he’s just stat padding

19. Feels like it’s just a stylistic preference. Luka is no doubt ball dominant. He’s the most effective as a ball dominant handler. But sometimes it *looks* too ball dominant. Earlier in the last season, their offense did look like my turn your turn ball a lot, and that probably turned off people like this guy, Chandler Parsons or Chuck.

    It’s also true that *some* players don’t like to to join a team where offense is centered around a single player. In reality, like Grimes said, Luka often lets other guys make plays and hit some big shots. He dont just make them sit in the corners if he trusts them.

    Looking at the data, their isn’t much correlation between team performance and his ball dominance, but his passing and assist numbers got better after the trade dead line.

    |2023-24 RS Luka Doncic|November|January|February|March|
    |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
    |+/- per 100|-0.2|-4.3|+13.0|+8.4|
    |Touches|84.8|91.9|90.5|89.8|
    |Time of Poss|7.6|8.5|8.4|7.5|
    |Avg Sec Per Touch|5.41|5.56|5.57|5.01|
    |Avg Drib Per Touch|4.88|5.08|4.84|4.28|
    |Passes|51.7|53.3|56.8|54.5|
    |Potential Assists|14.1|15.1|17.1|17.0|

20. Look, I guarantee you Bill wasn’t fawning all over Kobe’s post-Shaq, pre-Gasol seasons, but was it a *necessity* for him to do what he did if he wanted to win games? Yes, absolutely. It’s a complete bullshit argument that you use to just glaze whoever you like and shit on whoever you don’t

21. Bill Simmons denied LeBron James was the MVP when LeBron carried a worse team to a better record. The hate is unreal.

22. Every MVP candidate will have a high usage rate because you want your best player to be involved all the time.

23. Luka averaged a 37 point triple double for two entire straight months last season because he had to when Kyrie and Lively were out meaning it was basically just Luka, Dwight Powell, Grant Williams and friends.

    It’s clear that his 73 point game did not get the respect and admiration it deserves. He was on pace to break Kobe’s record headed into the fourth but kept on making the right play over and over and over again. Not once in that entire game did I feel like he was chucking or forcing the issue. He did it because he had to. Thats probably why it was on 25/33 shots and 91% TS. The official statline was 73/10/7 and it would have been a triple double if bums like THJ could make open layups.

    Is Luka’s usage rate high? Yea, the last few seasons in Dallas you could argue it about of necessity though. The way the teams were constructed, even the 2024 Finals team, nobody outside of Luka and Kyrie could consistently handle the ball or generate offense without finishing lobs or three pointers spoonfed to them. So if Kyrie ever got hurt or shit his pants like in the Finals he would go back to having to do everything. His usage rate and time of possession were also plummeting this season in Dallas after they finally addressed that getting guys like Naji and Quentin Grimes and he was still winning a lot (21-10 or something at some point early on) while putting up MVP numbers… but whatever lol.

24. I think what’s so especially funny about this MVP talk is that you don’t have to be this disingenuous to stump for Jokic’s mvp case. Like clearly Simmons is doing this for clicks bc he could easily formulate a reasonable opinion around Jokic as his mvp pick but he chooses to say this bs instead of

25. This was his most full of shit pod in a while. The Luka/Jokic stuff was obvious but he also talked about how dirty/physical the rockets would be for poor Curry, despite having Draymond on the warriors who will elbow in the throat, set 38 moving screens a game, and has actually tried to hurt people.

    He was also proud that he didn’t open with the Lakers like other NBA media so instead opened with…the warriors who are mentioned as much as the Lakers.

    The framing of guys he likes (Curry/Jokic) vs. other players is insane. And that’s not even getting into the Celtics stuff.

26. The consistent moving of the goalposts by the Jokic cult is insane. They cannot fathom any other player winning and will undermine other excellent players to further his MVP agenda. Shame bc jokic himself is an all time great atp and seems to be a good dude by all accounts

27. It is bullshit. It’s just a regurgitated opinion not based in fact. Kyrie took 4 less shots a game and averaged 25. They didn’t win a game for a 5 week stretch when Luka had less than 40. Simmons is a hack. Has been for a while.

28. Luka is the only player to have voter fatigue for an award he’s never won

29. Luka got robbed last year

30. Jokic has the most pseudo intellectual stan base it’s absurdly the no of mental hops they make to make their opinion seem nuanced.

31. https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask?q=luka+don%C4%8Di%C4%87+stats+by+month+2024

    2 months in a row Luka put 37 ppg and for those who didnt follow it was necessity since Kyrie was injuried, there were no Gafford/Pj trade etc. Luka was playing next to rookie Dlive (in his first 2-3 months), Exum, Grant Williams, thj. He put two 50 points games in close matches against tanking teams (Rockets and Spurs iirc) If Luka didnt had insane two months Mavs would fall in play-in area and probably no Finals for Mavs.

    This is why i dont really care about mvp votings. Like i dont have problem with Jokic winning at all and i didnt follow Jokic’s entire season last year but there were never talks about Luka’s heroics when team where injuried and he carried them hard. Now im a normal nba/mavs (fuck nico) follower but these are suppose to be these peoples job.

    Edit: Btw i wrote 37 ppg but he also had 9+ rebounds and 10+ assists for those who didnt check the site lol.

    Edit 2: Im stupid and i guess its typical reddit behaviour lol. Op already wrote this (way better than my broken English) :p I just read the title and annoyed about it lol

    Edit 3: Fuck it im gonna put some videos lol

    [30-0 run against Okc with Aj Lawson-Seth Curry-Omax and 2 month rookie Dlive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzccGfFfZQ8)

    [Destroying Suns on christmas with no Kyrie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMWcqpLVc10)

    [73 points on close match with 91 TS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRblNTXolvo)

    For that Spurs/Houston thing i was mistaken. It was like he didnt play against Houston and they destroyed Mavs (bad Houston team) then drop 39 and 50 to Spurs and Suns (christmas match)

    Also he put 36-15-18 on that Thunder comeback L game (still sad that we lost that historic match :/ )

    Anyway anyone with eyes know that Luka put those numbers because it was necessity not other way around.

32. Do people take things that Bill Simmons says seriously? I understand finding him entertaining, but he’s no more insightful than the guy that you bumped into at a sports bar.

33. The way he trys to act unbiased while being super biased is the funniest thing about Simmons