In sports, there are always jobbers. (Sorry for basically repeating the title).
We always discuss how competitive the league is nowadays and how there’s no way any player is going to win up to 4 or 5 championships. Then, 6 years pass by and one player already has 2 or 3, while the other competition that we thought would challenge them is still stuck at zero, or only 1 at best. The fact of the matter is, in league with many great players, there’s still always a few players (and teams, to be fair) who are above the rest. There is still a gap between the very top 3, and the rest of the top 10.
Now, this sounds mean. To clarify, a jobber – the way I am using the term – is still a great player. Don’t get it twisted. All the players here are still great players. And it’s upsetting, because many of them deserved to win a ring. It’s just that, as mentioned above, there’s still always a gap between greats, and the greatest. And it’s not really luck either.
This article will mostly focus on the NBA, since it applies there more (as an individual superstar has such a large impact). The reality is that there always players/teams that have hoarded rings. And there are players that are unfortunately blocked from winning. They are the jobbers. And often times, it comes down to 3 factors:
- Some Jobbers just don’t perform as great in the playoffs as they do in the regular season. This could be due to them having a playstyle that doesn’t hold up against a few top-tier playoff teams (as after all, most of the teams you play in the regular season are going be bad or mediocre. And of the good teams you play, they may not be bothering to form a specific gameplan against you since they might only play you like 3 teams all year. That’s not assuming games where a player of there’s is injured). A.K.A They get exposed in the playoffs.
- Other jobbers did perform well… they just ran into players that are the best of the best and better than them. Capable of more than them, and thus their rosters can be more versatile as well sometimes. A.K.A Great but not great enough.
- Some jobbers are great, but their playstyle makes it challenging for their front office to build a really good roster around them. A.K.A hard to build around.
- A few jobbers were great, but just didn’t have teams that were good enough. (People overrate how much this happens though; there are only a few players this applies to.) A.K.A The rare scenario of truly not having enough help.
- Injuries.
There are players in the first category. Some of them include:
James Harden – James Harden has the most playoff games shooting under 30%, 25%, and 20% of any player in NBA history. Not only does he add a few of these games to his repertoire every year – who also makes it worse by also turning the ball over and checking out mentally in those games. Harden is one of those players whose game doesn’t translate to the playoffs. A tighter whistle and better defenders test his conditioning, mental resiliency, and toolset much more.
Joel Embiid is spicy. It looks like he could be in that 1st group. In game 6 of the 2023 ECSF against Boston, Embiid did… not so much in the final 6 minutes to say the least. And in game 7, he scored 15 points on terrible efficiency. But we’ll continue this below, later in the article.
Chris Paul falls into the 2nd category. Chris Paul is unique in that much of his playoff losses did not see him outright play bad or “choke”. But for many of those losses – especially the later ones – he did have good enough teams. Often times, what has happened has just been that the opposing team just had a player that was capable of impacting the game much more than he was. In the 2022 WCF, Luka Doncic did not have an amazing Mavericks team. But Luka at his best can quite literally drop 60/10/10. (Literally, he actually did this once.) In game 7 of the 2022 WCF series, in the first half, Luka scored as many points as the whole Suns team did – 27. Luka at his best can score a ton of points all over the court, while passing and directing the offense. It’s just much harder for CP3 to reach those heights. The same thing happened in the 2021 Finals; aside from Game 4, Chris Paul mostly played fine. But at the end of the day, the Bucks had Giannis – who, we can all acknowledge, is much more capable of taking over game than Chris Paul is. Giannis is a force of nature that can impact the game more so than CP3. Giannis in that series was blocking shots and protecting the rim, while scoring 30+ points, and rebounding shots. And still being able to use his gravity to kick the ball out to open shooters. Simply put, Chris Paul is one of those players that we all thought would win rings in the early 2010s, but at the end of the day, did not.
A good example of the last category could be Kevin Garnett. Minnesota just never really put together a consistent group of decent players around KG. He often was not bad in his playoffs – and a good sign that it was not his fault, was that when he went to Boston in 08, they did not underachieve – they won a title in their first year together, he was the DPOY that season and helped Boston win 66 games – won of the best win totals in league history. (Yes, this matters, as other players like Chris Paul and Charles Barkley still failed to win even when they moved to better situations.) This is why KG is one of the few players whose greatness is not really reflected by their ring count.
Looking at a few more examples, from the past:
Patrick Ewing is one that some feel could also fall into the 4th category. He just quite frankly didn’t have a consistently good scorer as a 2nd option around him. John Starks had some real stinkers in big games, a lot more than once… Ewing was a great defender and anchored the Knicks defense, while also being a very good scorer. I’ll let you guys decide in the comments.
Reggie Miller could be a an category 2 jobber – he was great, but never an MVP-caliber player. But it’s tough, because Miller did have a penchant for turning it on in the playoffs. He frequently hit big shots in the postseason. One could point at how impactful he was as a playmaker or defender. Miller’s scoring was great – but was he versatile enough? Again, dispute this in comments if you which.
Allen Iverson is awesome – but by default he is a category 2. It’s just hard for a 6’0 player to dominate. It’s why very few players below 6’5 have led teams to titles, let alone multiple. Iverson was an awesome iso scorer, but limited defensively. And his scoring was on very high volume – he wasn’t the most efficient. Once his athleticism waned, and his crossover was less effective, so was he. His 2001 title run is still incredible, and him taking game 1 off the Lakers is still to this day one of the best Finals performances ever. Much respect to AI.
Back to the current NBA. Jimmy Butler is a unique case. His teams weren’t very great – so you would think he would fall into the 3rd category – but he actually doesn’t. He’s actually a fusion of 1 and 2. Butler has some flaws in his game (lack of consistent, good shooting, and reliance on driving to the paint and drawing fouls with up-fakes). So Miami has to give him a lot of shooters that can cut off-ball all game long (who aren’t all always going to be strong defenders), and big-men that are mobile (like Adebayo) but won’t always have the size and strength to handle real big men. So as a result, the team relies on Butler to have to play amazing (which he has, a lot!) in order to make deep playoff runs. But naturally, they’ll end up being outmatched in the Finals against a Finals-worthy opponent. And Butler himself – if he’s not playing amazingly… will end up not being the best player on the court.
Going forward, who will be the jobbers?
Well, we have to look at players that could fit 1, 2, and 3.
Many will say Luka does not have a great team. That is true, but some critics will point out his playstyle and flaws (being heliocentric, ball-dominant, slow in transition, bad defense, out of shape) will make it difficult to ever put a great team around him (#3). We’ll see which one is more true.
The Celtics with Tatum and Brown? Tatum could be category #2 – Tatum is skilled, but he doesn’t have the monster explosiveness, mass, and raw athleticism. This can hurt him when his shot is not falling, as he can’t just effortlessly score in the paint (and unfortunately, the refs don’t give him a good whistle.) Brown also needs to work on his handle. We’ll see!
Many right now would put Trae in both category #2 and #3, and also even category #1. Trae’s size limits his defense and ability to handle physicality. He also actually isn’t that great of a shooter – his reputation as a scorer does not actually match the reality. He also relies a lot on the p’n’r, which then limits the roster flexibility around them. It also then means that the wrong matchup in the postseason can really stifle Trae Young, as we saw in the 2022 playoffs against Miami, and 2023 1st round against Boston (for most of that series at least; Trae did adjust towards the end).
Back to Embiid. Joel Embiid is tricky. The 76ers’ drafting and player acquisitions have been very inadequate. Drafting Ben Simmons – a 6’10 guard who literally does not even attempt jump shooting because he isn’t good at it – is possibly the worst player to put next to a center. Not resigning Jimmy Butler – who has gone on to make 2 Finals appearances with the Heat – in favor of extending Tobias Harris and keeping Simmons is another all-time bad move that people to this day still discuss.
Injuries play a role in this too – Embiid always seems to enter the postseason with an injury or some sort of conditioning problem. So you would think Embiid’s struggles are a combination of category 4 and 5.
But beyond that, Embiid’s passing and playmaking leaves a bit to be desired. He can take time to figure out the correct read, and this along with his loose handle can leave him prone to turning the ball over a lot in the playoffs. Additionally, Embiid’s scoring has dropped off in the postseason, and you have to wonder if injuries are the sole reason for this. In 2019, Gasol defended Embiid remarkably. So Embiid is difficult to analyze!
It’s too early to tell with the Rockets, Thunder, Pistons, and Magic, as many of their players are too young.
What do you guys think? Which players past or present do you think was a jobber? Or will be a jobber? Which type of jobber?
