Lexie Brown jumped back into the long-running debate over the women’s game, and this time she used Nikola Jokic to make her case.
Brown was responding to Michael Porter Jr.’s past criticism of the WNBA and pushed back on the idea that entertainment is only about above-the-rim play. Her point was that elite basketball comes in plenty of forms, not just through dunks. She pointed to Jokic as the example, arguing that a player can dominate without living in the air.
“You literally played with Jokic,” Brown said. “Like, I wouldn’t say he’s not exciting, but he’s a below the rim player. Like, he’s not very fundamental.”
Brown made the comments during an appearance with Porter Jr. on the Curious Mike YouTube channel. In the discussion, she stressed that athleticism is bigger than vertical explosiveness. Strength, balance, coordination and basketball IQ all matter too.
Porter Jr. had previously questioned the WNBA’s entertainment value and even floated the idea of lowering the rim to create more dunks. Those remarks were met with heavy pushback from players and fans alike, and Brown’s response was aimed at that same line of criticism.
But once Brown brought up Jokic, the conversation quickly locked onto that comparison. Fans were not interested in the broader point. They zeroed in on the idea that Jokic somehow lacks fundamentals or excitement, and many fired back hard.
“Joker would be the most athletic player in the WNBA. She missing it 😂,” one fan wrote.
“It’s the skill gap not the athleticism lol nobody wants to see wide open layups missed it’s getting better tho,” another added.
“I ain’t gone say all that now but she wilding when them hoes miss 20 lay ups a game the skill gap between them and jokic is a massive gap,” someone else said.
“She don’t get it.. We’ll see jokic do some slow s-t then lob it up to Aaron Gordon behind the back.. WNBA not doing ts cuh,” a fourth commented.
One fan laid out the pro-Jokic case in more detail: “Watching players jack up threes all game isn’t exciting. Jokic is fun to watch because he has great footwork, is an elite scorer at all 3 levels and makes the highest percentage of difficult shots in the league.
And then there’s his no look, behind the back, thru the leg passes that are fun to watch. He plays the game the way it was meant to be played and people call it boring.”
The numbers back up Jokic’s production, too. He averaged 27.7 points, 12.9 rebounds and 10.7 assists last season while shooting over 56 percent from the field. He also led the NBA in rebounds and assists.
Brown has consistently defended the league against similar criticism, and this latest exchange keeps the same conversation alive. The bigger issue, as her comments and the reaction around them show, is how people define athleticism in the first place. In Brown’s view, dunks are only one piece of the puzzle.
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