Oh yeah, there’s some talent, but not enough talent. Gordon is a bit like KP in that, while yes, he’s having a good season overall, a lot of it was based on unsustainable superstar play early in the season. He’s fallen dramatically since then. And after that, Vuj is okay, but who else on that team is even an average player right now? Kind of Payton, but if so, just baaaarely. Everyone else is either mediocre or bad.

The Knicks have O’Quinn having a great season, Kanter having a good season, KP having a pretty good season and Lee having a slightly above average season (as was THJ when he was healthy). That’s why they’re doing a lot better than the Magic (of course, the annoying thing is that of the current healthy players who are having good seasons for the Knicks, they’re almost entirely players who won’t be part of the next good Knicks team).

Woohoo, Kyle O’Quinn, good job making sure the Knicks are just good enough to not get a good draft pick before you leave to go play somewhere else!

How do the Magic lose EVERY game? They’re 4-25 since an 8-4 start. Got smacked by an awful Mavs team today.

So many of their players just hit development walls. Fournier looked like he was putting it all together a couple of years back but he fell hard back last season and now this year, as well.

Either way, even if Jokic is as bad on defense as advertised, he’s worlds better than KP from a total productivity standpoint and anyone who even takes a cursory look at their statistical profiles can see that.

Don’t worry, next November, KP will start strong again and people will say, “I’d rather have KP than Towns or Jokic.”

Jokic’s rim protection struggles are very much actual, but in some respect I think the critique of his overall defense is overstated. He is, in fact, the worst rim protector in the league. But defensive rebounding is also a very important aspect of defense, and Jokic excels at it. He excels at it so much, in fact, that he rates very positively on DBPM and DRPM. This might be a flaw with a metric (both stats seem to heavily weight in favor of DRBs), or it may be the case that defensive rebounding is a really solid box score proxy for certain kinds of defensive contributions. The jury is out, I think.

Moreover, his on/off stats suggest that he’s a net plus despite the awful rim protection numbers. Opposing teams post a 1.048 PPP when he’s in the starting lineup versus a 1.117 when he’s out of the starting 5 lineup in exchange for Mason Plumlee. With raw one-man on/off stats, opposing teams have a 1.156 PPP when Jokic is off the floor versus a 1.069 PPP when he’s on the floor. Yes, he is slow footed, and yes, that does pose an issue, especially when you hit the playoffs. But his defensive ability is underrated. Or, maybe, rim protection is overrated as a proxy for individual defensive impact (how many times has elite rim protector KP successfully closed out on a 3pt shooter? Not many.) The true value of rim protection is hard to quantify, though, since it seems as if elite rim protectors tend to reduce the amount of 2pa in their zone of influence, which may result in a lower quality shot off the kick. But it’s hard to quantify just how significant that “reverse gravity” effect is, or it appears like it would to a layperson like myself.

Either way, even if Jokic is as bad on defense as advertised, he’s worlds better than KP from a total productivity standpoint and anyone who even takes a cursory look at their statistical profiles can see that.

Guess who is the worst rim protector at the center position in the NBA. Yeah, that’s right, 40-year-old Dirk is better than him:

http://stats.nba.com/players/defense-dash-lt6/?CF=GP*G*30:FGA_LT_06*G*3&Season=2017-18&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&sort=PLUSMINUS&dir=1&PlayerPosition=C