elmerjfudd wrote: ↑Tue Apr 30, 2024 5:05 pm
Bird fits in this era more than most but Rob is crazy if he thinks he puts up those stats. No player is putting up better numbers from an era 30 let alone 40 years ago.
Jokic has always been Big Bird to me, while being more skilled. It's fair to say he's the Bird of this era. It's a shame 6ers ownership and Embiid's health has hurt any chance of this being a east/west rivalry.
To me, the big differences between them are rebounding and the fact that Joker's bulk allows him to get easier shots than Bird, which really manifests itself during the playoffs in terms of efficiency (basically swapping at-rim shots for Joker with midrange shots from Bird).
FG/TS/3s/2s/1s (Playoffs)
Bird: 47/55/32/49/89
Joker: 53/62/41/57/83
Bird is my all-time favorite player, but he made his bones in terms of playoff reputation on a handful of peak performances, not consistent dominance. The playoffs associated with the middle of his career were indeed great, but they were topped and bottomed by a fair amount of mediocrity by the standards of top 5-10 turbo legends, at least in terms of shooting and scoring. The rest of his game generally held form (which is important), but he doesn't really hold those advantages over Joker anyway (rebounding+passing+defense).
Edit: I think if Bird had held his early career defensive form it would be a bit nicer for him. Joker has never played borderline all-NBA defense for a single season let alone a few. But when Bird's offense picked up...his defense dropped in terms of year over year value.
