What are the statistical chances of two athletes from a country of 7 million people (0.1% of the world's population) dominating two different sports? Novak Djokovic is the GOAT of tennis and won the French Open on Sunday; Nikola Jokic won the NBA Finals and MVP the following day. Resilience and mental strength are forged in difficult childhoods: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/novak-djokovic-servetowin-devotion
The various peoples of the Dinaric Alps of the Balkans are among the tallest in the world on average and they tend to be more ruggedly built than, say, the more spindly Dutch or Dinka.
Those are games of skill, but not sports that require physical athleticism. Norway does have many of the world's top skiers and the highest per capita winter olympics medals, as well as 2 of the world's top soccer players in Erling Haaland and Martin Odegaard. Not to mention tennis player Casper Ruud, who had the misfortune of playing Djokovic, Nadal, and Alcaraz in his first 3 Grand Slam finals.
How incredible that Jokic is so peerless, by your measure. Not knowing how you calculate these similarity scores, could that partially explain his excellence. None of the other players know how to deal with him. Like the first knuckleballer in baseball? Or like the first MMA fighter to come in with a new fighting style? Have you come across similarly unsimilar outperformers in your calcuations in other sports or domains?
"Black players get a slight boost from fans of every racial group.... Roughly speaking, I estimate that a white player would have to score 10 more points per game to have as big a fan base on Facebook as he would have if he were black."
Great post, the Murray Jokic pairing is truly awesome. So happy that Murray bounced back from his knee injury. Small fact check: his knee injury occurred in a regular season game against the Warriors in 2021. As a Warriors fan, I remember watching that game, and being scared of the Murray + Jokic + recently acquired at that time Aaron Gordon in Denver.
Great post and good insight, glad to see you still at it, I'm still a fan of fivethirtyeight but what a poor decision on the leaderships part to let you go! Please keep cranking great analysis like this!!! Auto-Subscribe from me on the substack :D
As you mention, key to the 2015 warriors and the 2023 nuggets was their unexpectedness (curry the 3 point god, jokic the passing center, etc) but in a way that worked (there have been plenty of unusual players/teams that have not become champions). I'm curious whether by looking at players with the lowest RAPTOR similarity scores to others as well as some measure of unexpected impact (say, positive deviance from DPM predictions), it could be possible to predict the next game-changing superstar like Curry or Jokic. Even more generally, such a system could also be applied to teams as a whole to figure out who everyone is sleeping on/overlooking.
An older friend of mine who knows basketball really well compared Jokic to Bill Walton during the latter's brief peak. He said Walton and Jokic were about equal as passers. Walton didn't have Jokic's outside shot but was much better on defense.
Warriors arguably only won the first chip because both Kyrie and Love were injured, then they won w/ KD, which isn't nearly so impressive. So I think it still makes sense to be skeptical of the KD-less core! Last year, Warriors basically stole one from Boston, which probably makes up for losing one to Toronto based almost exclusively on . . . warriors injuries! Somewhat sad injuries drive who wins what in NBA, though makes sense given how few players (relatively) you need to compete.
I played around in RAPTOR a lot and I can’t remember seeing anything like Jokic’s similarity scores. I wonder if anyone else in the database has such a lack of comps
I do wonder how Arvydas Sabonis might have compared if he had a full NBA career. Big man with passing skills and a good outside range. But the NBA wasn't nearly as 3-reliant then, which may skew things.
Part of the lack of decent comps for Jokic is likely that the NBA game has changed so much since, say, the bad-boy Pistons and the Jordan era.
What are the statistical chances of two athletes from a country of 7 million people (0.1% of the world's population) dominating two different sports? Novak Djokovic is the GOAT of tennis and won the French Open on Sunday; Nikola Jokic won the NBA Finals and MVP the following day. Resilience and mental strength are forged in difficult childhoods: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/novak-djokovic-servetowin-devotion
Of this specific thing happening? Astronomical. Of anything this unlikely happening (any small country, any two sports, etc.)? Much, much, much higher
Or the fact that some of the tallest genes in the world are found there despite the limited diet....https://phys.org/news/2017-04-tallness-herzegovinian-men-linked-gene.html
The various peoples of the Dinaric Alps of the Balkans are among the tallest in the world on average and they tend to be more ruggedly built than, say, the more spindly Dutch or Dinka.
Spot on, Steve. Big fan of your work.
Norway has about 5.5 million people and recently has had the best chess player and the best bridge player.
Those are games of skill, but not sports that require physical athleticism. Norway does have many of the world's top skiers and the highest per capita winter olympics medals, as well as 2 of the world's top soccer players in Erling Haaland and Martin Odegaard. Not to mention tennis player Casper Ruud, who had the misfortune of playing Djokovic, Nadal, and Alcaraz in his first 3 Grand Slam finals.
It's like the quality of the Croatian team too
How incredible that Jokic is so peerless, by your measure. Not knowing how you calculate these similarity scores, could that partially explain his excellence. None of the other players know how to deal with him. Like the first knuckleballer in baseball? Or like the first MMA fighter to come in with a new fighting style? Have you come across similarly unsimilar outperformers in your calcuations in other sports or domains?
Of course race makes a difference.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/opinion/sunday/the-color-of-fandom.html
"Black players get a slight boost from fans of every racial group.... Roughly speaking, I estimate that a white player would have to score 10 more points per game to have as big a fan base on Facebook as he would have if he were black."
Great post, the Murray Jokic pairing is truly awesome. So happy that Murray bounced back from his knee injury. Small fact check: his knee injury occurred in a regular season game against the Warriors in 2021. As a Warriors fan, I remember watching that game, and being scared of the Murray + Jokic + recently acquired at that time Aaron Gordon in Denver.
Barely any comps for Rudy Gobert either— just three above zero at 20, 16, and 1.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2023-nba-player-projections/rudy-gobert/
Great post and good insight, glad to see you still at it, I'm still a fan of fivethirtyeight but what a poor decision on the leaderships part to let you go! Please keep cranking great analysis like this!!! Auto-Subscribe from me on the substack :D
Small note: Nuggets were 16-4 in the playoffs, not 16-5.
As you mention, key to the 2015 warriors and the 2023 nuggets was their unexpectedness (curry the 3 point god, jokic the passing center, etc) but in a way that worked (there have been plenty of unusual players/teams that have not become champions). I'm curious whether by looking at players with the lowest RAPTOR similarity scores to others as well as some measure of unexpected impact (say, positive deviance from DPM predictions), it could be possible to predict the next game-changing superstar like Curry or Jokic. Even more generally, such a system could also be applied to teams as a whole to figure out who everyone is sleeping on/overlooking.
An older friend of mine who knows basketball really well compared Jokic to Bill Walton during the latter's brief peak. He said Walton and Jokic were about equal as passers. Walton didn't have Jokic's outside shot but was much better on defense.
How often do you bet based on RAPTOR?
Warriors arguably only won the first chip because both Kyrie and Love were injured, then they won w/ KD, which isn't nearly so impressive. So I think it still makes sense to be skeptical of the KD-less core! Last year, Warriors basically stole one from Boston, which probably makes up for losing one to Toronto based almost exclusively on . . . warriors injuries! Somewhat sad injuries drive who wins what in NBA, though makes sense given how few players (relatively) you need to compete.
I played around in RAPTOR a lot and I can’t remember seeing anything like Jokic’s similarity scores. I wonder if anyone else in the database has such a lack of comps
This is a great post. One minor comment is that I believe Jokic is 28.
There was a Jokić and Lebron predecessor in the 1970's-the center who could play. His name was Krešimir Ćosić.
I do wonder how Arvydas Sabonis might have compared if he had a full NBA career. Big man with passing skills and a good outside range. But the NBA wasn't nearly as 3-reliant then, which may skew things.
Part of the lack of decent comps for Jokic is likely that the NBA game has changed so much since, say, the bad-boy Pistons and the Jordan era.
Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kre%C5%A1imir_%C4%86osi%C4%87