Best player in the world: Giannis or Jokic?

After this year’s playoffs, Nikola Jokic has clearly cemented himself in the highest tier of NBA players alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo(who has been in this tier by himself for the past 2 years).

The 3 different criteria’s I am going to be evaluating both of them on are Offense, Defense and leadership.

Leadership

Both Giannis and Jokic are great leaders in different ways. Giannis is more vocally inclined whereas Jokic is more laid back for the most part.

Both of them have obviously achieved a lot of team success but I feel that Giannis’ more outgoing leadership has more profound effect on the Bucks than Jokic’s passive style.

I think this makes Giannis a more inspiring leader and allows for impressive responses when the team is down(Bucks vs Suns and Nets in 2021).

Winner: Giannis

Offensive

Offensively, there is no doubt in my mind that Nikola Jokic is the best in the world.

His playmaking is otherworldly and I am ready to accept him as the best passer of all time.

Giannis is. also considered quite a good playmaker at his size but it nothing compared to Jokic.

Furthermore, Jokic’s ability to be a 3-level scorer is unorthodox and unprecedented. Even though Giannis is a much more visually dominant scorer in the paint. Jokic’s efficiency exceed Giannis’.

Although both of them are unguardable on their night(most nights), Jokic is considerably clear of Giannis due to his playmaking and variety in scoring.

Winner: Jokic

Defensive

Once again, this one is quite obvious. Giannis is a much more effective defender than Nikola Jokic.

He not only has a defensive player of the year award, but he also has been the player with the lowest field goal percentage shooting against him for the past couple of years.

Just a glance at their physiques will tell you Giannis is the much more dominant rim protector due to his remarkable athleticism at his size.

Winner: Giannis

Overall

I believe Giannis is the better overall player than Jokic because his defense far outweighs the latter.

Even though Jokic is much more offensively potent, he can only make one move at once(pass or shoot from one of the 3 levels) and even though Giannis is only elite at 1 of these 4(while Jokic is elite at all 4).

My point is that Giannis can almost always access the paint due to his athleticism so his lack of offensive variety does not show how much better Jokic is offensively.

Thus, Giannis is not that much worse at offense. On the other hand, Giannis is much better at defense and a better leader so that’s why I believe he is the best player in the world.