Finding the Most Similar Player to Nikola Jokic
I know, this is the second straight article about Nikola Jokic. But I am absolutely fascinated by him, so cut me some slack. There’s never been a player like Jokic—an unathletic big man who has so much gravitational pull on defenses that he can choose to get the easiest 5-foot shot you can imagine or can kick it out to a wide open shooter, and can shoot the three-ball at a good enough rate to make him virtually unguardable. RAPTOR WAR is a stat created by mathematicians at FiveThirtyEight that compiles every single nugget of stats and game data that you can fathom, with the output being a single number.
Jokic finished 1st, 1st, 1st, and 4th (strangely, Boston’s exact categorical rankings in my city sports series) last season in the four types of RAPTOR. If there was a way for everybody to play like Jokic, they would, because he’s a cheat code, but it’s easier said than done. That’s why I decided to use numbers to find the player with the closet play-style to the reigning Finals MVP.
This article is inspired by Jxmy Highroller’s video where he found the most similar players to Michael Jordan. I loved his idea, but wanted to make my mine different, so I used entirely different stats, and only focused on play-style instead of career accolades. I selected the following players’ 2023 seasons to test.
The closer a player finishes to Jokic in a specific category, the more points they get. Each player that finishes in the top-10 of each category will receive a point total correlating with their ranking. Height and weight don’t qualify as play-style, but are still important, so I gave five points to the winners of those categories. The most points at the end wins. I’ll let you figure the rest out for yourself.
The numbers have been crunched. Now, who is the winner? Who is the player that most closely resembles the two-time MVP?
No player was more similar to Jokic than Anthony Davis. This surprised me, but when you look at where their similarities lie, most of them are in places that are hard to see on court. Davis being first is scary for the rest of the league because he is the very man who Jokic swept out of the conference finals while putting up 28 PPG, 15 RPG, and 12 APG on 51/47/78 shooting splits. Alien-like numbers. To me, Davis, a great player, being first shows how much farther ahead of the rest of the league Jokic is.
Domantas Sabonis was the player I predicted would be first on this list because of his stat-line, his shooting splits, and his frequent post-play. In the end, Davis’ rebounding and defensive prowess pushed him over the top, but on offense, no player is more like Jokic than the Kings’ center.
Jusuf Nurkic rounds out the top-3. In 2014, Nurkic was drafted 16th overall to the Denver Nuggets. 35 picks later, they selected Nikola Jokic. Obviously, Nurkic hasn’t adapted to become the three-point shooter and the passer that Jokic is, but everything else resembles the Serbian. Can you imagine if they still played together. When Michael Malone subs out his MVP center, the opposing defenses would still have to deal with a lesser, but solid version of him.
What am I surprised by?
Three players I thought would be a lot higher: Giannis Antetokounmpo (19th), Jaren Jackson Jr. (21st), and Julius Randle (25th). The reason I made this article is because Giannis’ and Jokic’s careers have been so similar. I thought that their offensive and defensive efficiency would play a larger role than it did, but the way they go about \ scoring is very different, so I can understand why Giannis is 19th as opposed to top-10. Jackson Jr.’s shooting and the amount of offense he creates for himself made me think he’d be higher, but he’s much more active in the box score on defense, as well as being more versatile. And Randle’s post-up game and passing gave me the illusion that he was a lot like Jokic, but I didn’t take into account the fact that Jokic doesn’t brick a three-pointer every two minutes.
I didn’t think Ben Simmons would land at 8th place. Simmons can’t shoot, and can play and guard almost every position. Jokic is a great shooter, but only plays and guards the center position. However, Simmons and Jokic are similar in other ways on offense, as well as in the steals and blocks department.
What am I not surprised by?
Alperen Sengun is a player that I believe has tons of success coming his way. I think that in a few years, he will not only be an All-NBA player and a MVP candidate, but will be Jokic’s best comparison. Sengun’s 6th place finish is not surprising at all to me.
Finally, how is Steven Adams not first in OREB%? He led the league by a mile in offensive rebounds per game last season, and was extremely efficient in doing so. I am shocked that a player like Nikola Vucevic has a higher OREB% than Adams.
Thanks for reading.