Are Jokic and Embiid already at their peaks?

[Kblaze8855]

Sounds odd im sure but its not unheard of to peak at 24ish. Duncan was FMVP at 22 and had his best scoring season and first MVP at 25. Its not impossible that they just play at this level 4-5 years and this is their prime.


Take Jokic....if he improves....what do you feel will get appreciably better? Hes pretty polished as is. Defense im guessing is your pick....but by how much? You imagine peak Jokic will in retrospect be much different than he is now?


Embiid already plays defense but can afford to improve his shooting if hes gonna insist on shooting so many threes.


Production wise neither of them are likely to get that much better....which isnt rare. Guys like Shaq, Kareem, Karl Malone, Duncan, Moses, Dwight, Barkley, and plenty of other bigs pretty much are who they are by 24. At least as far as production. None of them ever got much more productive.

You assume they will get more polished and skilled....and as usual that comes on as athletic ability fades a bit so you stay on essentially the same level.

And thats fine. Jokic coming off a 20/11/7 or whatever it was season. Embiid 28/14 I think. If this basic level is what we can expect till they are 29-30 we will have plenty to be amazed by....but it feels like a lot of people have them as young guys still rounding into form.

And by their ages that makes sense. But it would have made sense for a dozen HOF bigs. Didnt mean it happened.

Lots of guys just are what they are by now.

You see that being the case with them or in 3 years will we see the version we just saw of them as just the beginning?

[Shogon]

Embiid isn't because he continues to get smarter on the court aside from three point shooting, that's pretty obvious.

I also suspect that the sting of losing to the Raptors to the point that he broke down in tears is going to grow him up a bit and we might see a bit less trolling and a little more taking it seriously.

If he gets his diet right and stays in shape, he is still quite a ways from his ceiling.

[Real14]

Jokic might be.

[imdaman99]

Embiid put up some crazy numbers but it's strange to see that he can get better with improved conditioning and shot selection. Jokic can get slightly better if he improves his stamina, but he's already prob like Sabonis was in his prime. Embiid has to get more mature as well, he wastes a lot of time and feelings on trolling dudes. I feel like Jokic will be averaging a triple double soon because as the young team around him improves, his passing will only get better (and it's already legit great).

[ZMonkey11]

The stats may not change drastically, but their intelligence due to experience will greatly increase from year-to-year.

Add in new coaches into the mix, these players are going to add wrinkles into the game.

And with Embiid, his health/conditioning is major. He has a huge amount of room to improve there. Because he was on my fantasy team, I watched a lot of sixers games. His first half and second halfs of the game felt like night and day. Each game, he looked like he was going to go for 40-50 points, then fell flat in the second half. Embiid can easily average 30+, 15+ rebounds if he really works at his endurance.

Jokic also has endurance problems. His numbers can markedly increase with an improvement there.

It's scary to think that the numbers we see from these two guys could be close to their prime floor.

[NugzFan]

Embiid pretty much is but jokic still has room to improve

[superduper]

Embiid pretty much is but jokic still has room to improve

Imagine saying Embiid's at his peak :oldlol:

The dude has SO MUCH room to improve it's ridiculous and will be ridiculous if he manages to do it. As imdaman mentioned, Embiid needs to mature big time and stop trying to troll dudes. Making constant winning plays for the team instead of simply focusing on his 1v1 matchup needs to be his priority.

Jokic is amazing, no question. Has a lot of the qualities I wish Embiid had. I think Jokic will soon master controlling the pace of a game but he NEEDS to be more aggressive in terms of looking to score more. I think he also needs a playmaker who can get it to him at his spots so he's not wasting his energy banging with guys more than he needs to.

[Mask the Embiid]

Jokic already peaked last season.His peak still wasn't good enough to beat the mighty Enes Kanter and 1-year pro, Zach "the photographer" Collins.

Big Wiggle has never played healthy or without Ben Simmons no spacing ass.Imagine if he had the spacing Chokic has

[Akeem34TheDream]

I'd LOVE to see a Philly Denver final. That would that be great. But it might be unlikely. Is it too early for that?

[Prometheus]

Embiid is obviously nowhere near his peak. He is still super raw.

[90sgoat]

Jokic will get much better in that he will learn exactly when to take over scoring and when to step back.

He is still not all that comfortable taking over. Once he learns when to just go ahead and score, he will be much better. He needs to learn to score 25+ every game for his team to be the best. Too much of a team player right now.

[DoctorP]

I will say yes. ALthough young, they don't have much more of a ceiling and will only slow down / get complacent.

[MrFonzworth]

Jokic is yea but I think Embiid has another growth spurt in him. Can see him finishing his career at 7'4 or 7'5.

[Carbine]

How is Joel Embiid super raw?

Hes out there euro stepping at 7'2 300, shooting pull up 3's, scores on nice footwork and touch post moves.

He just needs to improve the body and basketball IQ whole fine tuning his current skill set

[NuggetsFan]

Jokic isn't simply because of his mentality. He's a insanely unique NBA superstar. He asked to come off the bench if that's what was best for the team when Nurkic was on the roster. He eventually won the starting job back. Millsap had to tell him he was the guy because he kept deferring. On Richard Jefferson's podcast it was mentioned he sat with the coaches on the bus and nobody had ever seen that before :oldlol:

It's almost a negative. He's unselfish to a fault. He comes out of his shell more and more every year. He just averaged 25 points in the playoffs on 50/39/84 shooting splits averaging 39 minutes a night. I don't think Jokic's peak in the regular season is going to be 20 points.

I think his stamina/defense/mentality and just adjusting to being an NBA superstar all have lots of room to improve. You've seen him play good defense in stretches, log big minutes in the playoffs, and take over so the potential is there.

[NuggetsFan]

I'm not saying it's going to happen by the way. It's possible he never adjusts mentally and he's a 20/11/7 player in the regular season, who hits another gear in the playoffs which would be fine by me. He finished what like 4th in MVP voting? IMO he should have been 3rd.

Just saying most Nuggets fans didn't even think he had the mentality to average 20 points in the regular season and he did. He took 9 shots his first ever playoff game, and Nuggets fans were worried. He attempted like 26 shots in game 7. I've been pumping his tires since he was a rookie on here, and even I didn't see him as a guy that would average 25 in the playoffs his first year. Just didn't think he could be that consistently aggressive.

It's entirely possible Jokic continues to get more and more comfortable looking to dominate. He's a 2nd round pick who had to win his starting job. I don't think those guys peak at 24 years old after 2 seasons of being a legitimate starter, and 1 season of being the focal point for a full 82 games. Even last year the Nuggets went away from Jokic for stretches.

[90sgoat]

I'm not saying it's going to happen by the way. It's possible he never adjusts mentally and he's a 20/11/7 player in the regular season, who hits another gear in the playoffs which would be fine by me. He finished what like 4th in MVP voting? IMO he should have been 3rd.

Just saying most Nuggets fans didn't even think he had the mentality to average 20 points in the regular season and he did. He took 9 shots his first ever playoff game, and Nuggets fans were worried. He attempted like 26 shots in game 7. I've been pumping his tires since he was a rookie on here, and even I didn't see him as a guy that would average 25 in the playoffs his first year. Just didn't think he could be that consistently aggressive.

It's entirely possible Jokic continues to get more and more comfortable looking to dominate. He's a 2nd round pick who had to win his starting job. I don't think those guys peak at 24 years old after 2 seasons of being a legitimate starter, and 1 season of being the focal point for a full 82 games. Even last year the Nuggets went away from Jokic for stretches.

I'd like for him to get a "Giannis summer work out" as well, cough cough.

A little more athleticism would make him unstoppable.