Race to the MVP pt. III

[kamelion4291]

Do you know why this dynamic is never mentioned for LeBron? It's because he's already the elite playmaker so he isn't ever in a position where he needs someone else to get him the ball. If Durant were capable of running an offense, this wouldn't be a problem.

I don't think there's any doubt that LeBron's playmaking allowed him to more quickly become super-dominant, and likely will forever make his peak something that could do more with weak supporting talent than Durant.

The thing is though is that he's not really an elite playmaker. He's elite compared to typical volume scorer standards, but those standards are horrendous. Your typical volume scorer suffers from extreme basketball narcissism where they simply can't gauge their own likelihood of success accurately compared to their teammates, and they round up themselves while rounding everyone else down. LeBron stands out first and foremost as a scorer-playmaker because he makes the pass the other guys should make but don't.

This is not the same as someone truly seeing the game on such an obscene level that they seem as if they magically finding every open man and even more magically making defenders abandon the guy who is about hit that corner trey.

LeBron's game relies on the fact that he's such a devastating scoring threat that his sheer gravity will leave other players open. It does and it works, however when your teammates are good enough at scoring this isn't enough to prevent them from being completely underutilized.

Durant's game represents significantly less opportunity cost. The other players have to do more around him, but his game doesn't really push them out of the way. There's a sense of autonomy to it. Is that enough to make it easier to build a truly GOAT level team around him than LeBron? I'm not saying "Yes", I'm saying it's not crazy to think that it might be true.

When you watch both teams play each other, what is blatantly obvious is that even if you consider that Durant's game doesn't "push his teammates out of the way", whatever that is supposed to mean, his game doesn't make it easier for his teammates to succeed anywhere near what LeBron's does.

You watch the Finals and you see Durant's shooting percentage and his shots per game and people thought, "Well heck, why didn't he shoot more often if he was that good?" Those people didn't pay attention to Durant calling for the ball while trying to post up and getting bullied back out to the 3 point line. They didn't watch Miami front him and then collapse on the pass and force turnovers because Durant isn't the ball handler that LeBron is. They didn't watch the consistent ball denial. Durant's only impact was scoring, and he couldn't get the amount of shots he wanted because his frame didn't allow it against somebody like LeBron.

OKC tried every trick in the book on defense to stop LeBron, but there wasn't any answer. They couldn't pressure the ball like Miami could do to Durant because he's too good of a passer. They couldn't double team him in the post because as you saw in Game 5, he found the open man time after time after time and Miami rained 3's on them for even trying it. Brooks said after the series that there was literally nothing they could do to even slow down LeBron, and we're talking about a LeBron who had a broken jumper after Game 6 in Boston to the clincher in Miami. If Durant wasn't hitting jumpshots, do you think he even comes close to the impact that LeBron had? The OKC roleplayers did absolutely nothing that entire series because Miami smothered them at their spots and Durant couldn't peel that pressure off.

And I don't really care if you don't think LeBron is an elite playmaker. His peers consider him to be which means far more than you could ever try to argue. He has great vision, is a willing passer, is very accurate and hits his shooters in rhythm right in their hands time after time, and he has the basketball IQ to know when to pass and when to score at all times. If he wanted to be Rondo or Paul and score in the mid teens to average double digit assists, he could, but he's too good to do that.

[rcontador]

LeBron's game relies on the fact that he's such a devastating scoring threat that his sheer gravity will leave other players open. It does and it works, however when your teammates are good enough at scoring this isn't enough to prevent them from being completely underutilized.

And off the top of your head, how many of LeBron's Heat teammates outside of Wade/Bosh do you truly believe are "good enough at scoring"? (Related to the 2nd point in my previous post).

But the point is that Lebron makes Wade and Bosh worse. If the Heat could have somehow landed 2013 Durant in 2010 rather than Lebron, they probably would have had more success over the last 2.5 years.

If a team already has really good players, Durant is more valuable than Lebron.

[rcontador]

OKC tried every trick in the book on defense to stop LeBron, but there wasn't any answer.

That's not true. The problem was that OKC kept trying to guard Lebron with a 2 (either Harden or Sefolosha). This presented a serious mismatch in Lebron's favor.

If they had just put Durant on him the whole series they would have done much better. I honestly have no idea why they didn't. The common wisdom on this board is that Lebron kept putting Durant into foul trouble, which is obviously false if you look at where Durant's fouls came from.

I assume that the real reason was a combination of (1) fears that defending Lebron would reduce Durant's ability to score, and (2) outright incompetence from Scott Brooks.

[ShowTimeERA]

I forget which analyst mentioned this, but CLE basically expected its role players to stand in the corners for 82 games during the regular season waiting until Lebron gave them the ball. Then come playoff time, those same role players who were told do 1 thing all season long were expected to do more.

Actually, they were expected to do the same things they did from before: convert on the same shots that they made all season and play the same Mike Brown defense that they played all season. They did neither.

By the way, since you value rings so much, the better player between James and Durant shouldn't even be a question for you.

Wait, can you not distinguish the difference between regular season and post season basketball? Do we expect the same looks or intensity? Playoff basketball is all about adjustments...

Lebron is a better all-around player than Durant, there's no discussion. But make no mistake about, its not because of the stats that his apologist worship. Lebron is able to do more because he's given that opportunity.

Durant is a much easier superstar to play with than Lebron is. He fits in perfectly and his game is tailored for any offensive system. Other star players can still thrive while playing with Lebron is the complete opposite...

[Dupp]

Do you know why this dynamic is never mentioned for LeBron? It's because he's already the elite playmaker so he isn't ever in a position where he needs someone else to get him the ball. If Durant were capable of running an offense, this wouldn't be a problem.

I don't think there's any doubt that LeBron's playmaking allowed him to more quickly become super-dominant, and likely will forever make his peak something that could do more with weak supporting talent than Durant.

The thing is though is that he's not really an elite playmaker. He's elite compared to typical volume scorer standards, but those standards are horrendous. Your typical volume scorer suffers from extreme basketball narcissism where they simply can't gauge their own likelihood of success accurately compared to their teammates, and they round up themselves while rounding everyone else down. LeBron stands out first and foremost as a scorer-playmaker because he makes the pass the other guys should make but don't.

This is not the same as someone truly seeing the game on such an obscene level that they seem as if they magically finding every open man and even more magically making defenders abandon the guy who is about hit that corner trey.

LeBron's game relies on the fact that he's such a devastating scoring threat that his sheer gravity will leave other players open. It does and it works, however when your teammates are good enough at scoring this isn't enough to prevent them from being completely underutilized.

Durant's game represents significantly less opportunity cost. The other players have to do more around him, but his game doesn't really push them out of the way. There's a sense of autonomy to it. Is that enough to make it easier to build a truly GOAT level team around him than LeBron? I'm not saying "Yes", I'm saying it's not crazy to think that it might be true.

This is a great post. Especially the part i underlined, which seems pretty simple but you put it very well.

[kamelion4291]

LeBron's game relies on the fact that he's such a devastating scoring threat that his sheer gravity will leave other players open. It does and it works, however when your teammates are good enough at scoring this isn't enough to prevent them from being completely underutilized.

And off the top of your head, how many of LeBron's Heat teammates outside of Wade/Bosh do you truly believe are "good enough at scoring"? (Related to the 2nd point in my previous post).

But the point is that Lebron makes Wade and Bosh worse. If the Heat could have somehow landed 2013 Durant in 2010 rather than Lebron, they probably would have had more success over the last 2.5 years.

If a team already has really good players, Durant is more valuable than Lebron.

Wade and Bosh are both shooting career highs, and Bosh is 5% higher than his career average.

There goes that ridiculous argument that you should be suspended for even making.

[kamelion4291]

I forget which analyst mentioned this, but CLE basically expected its role players to stand in the corners for 82 games during the regular season waiting until Lebron gave them the ball. Then come playoff time, those same role players who were told do 1 thing all season long were expected to do more.

Actually, they were expected to do the same things they did from before: convert on the same shots that they made all season and play the same Mike Brown defense that they played all season. They did neither.

By the way, since you value rings so much, the better player between James and Durant shouldn't even be a question for you.

Wait, can you not distinguish the difference between regular season and post season basketball? Do we expect the same looks or intensity? Playoff basketball is all about adjustments...

Lebron is a better all-around player than Durant, there's no discussion. But make no mistake about, its not because of the stats that his apologist worship. Lebron is able to do more because he's given that opportunity.

Durant is a much easier superstar to play with than Lebron is. He fits in perfectly and his game is tailored for any offensive system. Other star players can still thrive while playing with Lebron is the complete opposite...

That's because LeBron IS the system. Durant's the equivalent to a wide receiver in football. Sure you can add him to any team, but his impact isn't equivalent to LeBron who is a quarterback. I don't even know what the point of this is anyway.

[MisterWestside]

But the point is that Lebron makes Wade and Bosh worse.

Please don't make me show you Wade's or Bosh's +/- splits when LeBron isn't on the floor with either player.

[ShowTimeERA]

Wade and Bosh are both shooting career highs, and Bosh is 5% higher than his career average.

There goes that ridiculous argument that you should be suspended for even making.

Both Dwight and Nash are shooting at excellent percentages above their career average. Does that mean playing with Kobe is more beneficial or easier than lets say if they were playing with Chris Paul? Which of the two players stunt Dwight's ability on the court? Its simple, Durant can tailor his game to play with any player in the league. Whereas Lebron needs to be ball-dominant to be effective...

[SideshowBob]

But the point is that Lebron makes Wade and Bosh worse.

No he doesn't. The point is that Durant's off-ball skills make it easier for them to play their best offensively than Lebron's on-ball skills do.

If the Heat could have somehow landed 2013 Durant in 2010 rather than Lebron, they probably would have had more success over the last 2.5 years.

If a team already has really good players, Durant is more valuable than Lebron.

No they would not have, and no he isn't. I think this season (and this season only), its certainly arguable that he may be more valuable offensively than James is ONLY on a team with strong offensive talent. But that extent does not outweigh the defensive advantage that James brings to the table, where James' skillset functions in a similar manner to Durant's offensive skillset. With a lack of defensive talent around him he can take on large responsibilities in terms of floor coverage and compensating for the faults of others (push a bad defensive team to average or above average levels), and with strong defensive talent around him, he can fill in the little holes and allow the team to play relatively mistake free defensive basketball (pushing an average or above-average defensive team to top 5 levels). He's a quasi-anchor from the wing position, in that he can clearly impact the game more than any other star wing can, but not quite at the levels of the elite bigs.

[kamelion4291]

Wade and Bosh are both shooting career highs, and Bosh is 5% higher than his career average.

There goes that ridiculous argument that you should be suspended for even making.

Both Dwight and Nash are shooting at excellent percentages above their career average. Does that mean playing with Kobe is more beneficial or easier than lets say if they were playing with Chris Paul? Which of the two players stunt Dwight's ability on the court? Its simple, Durant can tailor his game to play with any player in the league. Whereas Lebron needs to be ball-dominant to be effective...

A) How do you even know that Durant can tailor his game to play with any player in the league? He's only been in the league a couple of years and he's played with largely the same roster. So, there's that.

B) Where's the proof of LeBron playing a role that isn't ball dominant where he was failing to even make that statement?

Both players are ball dominant so I don't know what you're talking about.

[Doctor MJ]

Re: Nash on team's with good fit. I think I've been pretty clear about it being not all that clear how to make a team offense that's up there with Nash's best using LeBron and a realistic supporting cast. Before he came to Miami it was perfectly reasonable to assume that given his Cavs success he could go much further if he just had some special players around him. That's not what in Miami though. The data we have available thus tells us of some limitations LeBron has.

Are you so sure about that? I think you keep overlooking some key things while looking at the data:

1. The seven seasons he played in Cleveland and despite being arguably the best overall playoff performer since he entered the league, LeBron played in the Finals once. He has played in the Finals twice since joining the Heat, and when at 100% the Heat have thoroughly dispatched some worthy title-caliber teams. A hot Mavs team and a slumping LeBron are the main reasons he doesn't currently have two rings. Those Cavs teams simply lacked the talent outside of LeBron to hang with teams that could trot playoff-performing stars at multiple positions.

2. Despite joining forces with Wade and Bosh, the Heat roster outside of the Big 3 has been quite subpar. There's no debating this. This affects the effectiveness 5-man lineups you can employ and the versatility of your squad, especially when two player share similar skills. For the grueling 82-game regular season, this is relevant. Not so much in the playoffs when talent, strategy and rest comes to the forefront.

3. LeBron went to JOIN the Heat, with a superstar and roster already in place. Durant was drafted by the Sonics and his roster was carefully crafted around him. That team is also younger and less injury prone, and with more financial flexibility they are able to insert more capable players to work with Durant (Martin and Ibaka gets no credit here. They have easily been better overall than the Heat's best non-big 3 player Ray Allen, who has been good but is a defensive liability who is neither as effective as Martin or valuable on defense while still providing offense s Ibaka).

LeBron's limitations? Not at all. More like that even in the era of super teams like the Lakers and Heat, you're still better off building a proper roster with talent and fit. Not just throwing names together

Re: Nash. You play the injury and team context card to "explain" the lower "lift", and I'm simply asking you to do the LeBron. In addition to all of the things I stated above, Wade is 31 and has been injured on and off since '11.

1. Why are you talking about "overall" when I so painfully made clear I was talking about offense? LeBron is a better overall player than Nash ever was by a good margin, but all those offenses you're talking about are well below what Nash regularly achieved in his career.

2. Right so the theory goes that LeBron played with horribly flawed supporting casts in both cities then. Obviously I'm skeptical. I can point out the flaws in the Heat too, but the whole thing with truly great offenses is that there's a tremendous synergy involved and I have my doubts as to LeBron's ability to synergize when he's not the absolute center of gravity of a team.

I can't say you're absolutely wrong because we don't get to have every kind of basketball experiment we want implemented, what I can say though is that the Heatles were the grandest experiment I've probably ever seen. "At last we'll get to see what LeBron can do when he has serious talent to work with!". Expectations were super-high among everybody, and offensively they've been a huge disappointment to anyone really familiar with the numbers. For me to say "Oh but if we just did X everything would get better with LeBron" to me feels like the EXACT same thing that was said about LeBron before he arrived in South Beach. Short of more evidence then, I'm going to take the results of the experiment as if they are meaningful.

3. What you're saying here is basically just that OKC has a better fit. That's a perfectly valid point of view, and as I've said before, I feel like whether you factor in fit in an MVP debate is a matter of philosophy.

I can't help be struck though by how flawed the primary build-around piece is for Durant. There are a TON of things I'd like to change about Westbrook. What the heck kind of a point guard can't manage to shoot efficiently even when he has a volume scorer of Durant's quality next to him? Despite this, despite the fact the Thunder basically just gave up on the most talented teammate Durant will ever have in favor of Westbrook, despite the fact we see all these flaws with what the team does offensively...the offense is still considerably better than anything the Heatles have done.

I want to really dwell on that for a second: How can a guy get knocked significantly for being lucky about the team fit when the offense doesn't even look like it fits well together? The allegation exists simply because mathematically it's proven successful, not because it runs like a well-oiled machine.

I look at all this and I say with some confidence: You can very clearly design a better offense around Durant. They are nowhere near a ceiling of what can be done with him. They may never move beyond what they are doing right now - might not ever be quite a GOAT kind of offense - but I ask you who COULD get to a GOAT kind of offense when you have a player of James Harden's quality, never come close to fully exploiting him, and then give him away when he asks to be paid market value?

Re: not just throwing names together. If you compare Miami throwing names together with an average team, or really anything Miami was going to be able to get with the patient approach you advocate, Miami comes out looking great.

Even the Lakers remain quite good on offense despite being nowhere near as good as they could do with health and time.

Advocating for OKC's organic team building in the end smacks of being much like trying to build through the draft like OKC: Every once in a while it really works, but it's nothing like a given. When you talk about building around LeBron, it feels like you think it's inevitable to get it all right if you're patient, but that didn't happen in Cleveland, and we've yet to see any next-level transformation of Miami, so at the very least it's not inevitable. I would argue it's harder than you think.

I will note however that the single greatest offensive turnaround in all NBA history, roughly 50% bigger than all others, happened on the back of simply acquiring one free agent and letting him loose with an existing core. That of course, was Nash in Phoenix. Clearly there are cases then when the "inorganic" approach does wonders. It just didn't happen with LeBron here.

Re: do the same for LeBron as Nash. I don't have to imagine Nash theoretically being able to lead a GOAT level offense. He did it. To even start doubting he could do something similar in LA if he was in his prime and everyone healthy you either have to accuse Kobe of sabotage or get into the type of analysis that's so damn sophisticated it's hard to take seriously. So when there are an incredible amount of injuries, coaching changes, etc, this is not some elaborate excuse. It's completely unreasonable to expect some kind of dramatic success given what we're seeing go on over there right now.

I recognize that me throwing in Nash's age IS something that could legit be griped as a convenient excuse, but it's not like we haven't all wondered how that particular factor would play out.

For LeBron I'll readily admit that I really don't know. I don't know what LeBron's ceiling for team offense is. It's all speculation. We did expect more though. To the extent we were concerned about something ahead of time on offense, it absolutely was ball sharing, so it's not like it's even that out there of an issue. And when we look at the historical offenses best at making buckets, it typically has not happened with one player being as much of a focus as LeBron is.

[SideshowBob]

Just going to bump this

Let me put the question slightly differently:

How many championship teams have had a primary scorer who is not a on-ball dominant player? TONS. Doesn't mean that Durant has proven himself to be perfectly without concern. He still has a lot to do but focusing on the fact that those scorers didn't look like Durant misses the point.

Forget about 3rd in ORtg. The team is a 110 ORtg team in an sporting league where 115 ORtg is well established as a gold standard for the RS, and where teams go beyond that in the PS at times because their stars play more minutes. Heck, LeBron's CAVS reached greater heights without anyone anywhere near as good as Wade or Bosh. The entire point of going to Miami was that he felt like he didn't have good enough teammates, and he chose a place with two stars known for their offense.

Any analysis now that says what they are doing is plenty good is forgiving legit issues simply because the team actually won a title. They weren't supposed to win a title, they were supposed to be GOAT level. They were supposed to make it look easy. They were supposed to win not 6, not 7...titles.

Now, I understand the perspective where one says "That was unrealistic. That LeBron didn't understand this says nothing about how good he actually is.", but the fact is it's just not that hard to come up with teams that would dwarf the offensive production of the Heat...and yet at this point it's kind of hard to think about LeBron-based teams that would do it that at all easy to assemble. I call that a "ceiling".

But Doc last year, in the postseason at least, they were GOAT level, if we're willing to make adjustments for the league environment rather than just looking at the raw ORTG (which inherently makes sense, if we're trying to compare the quality of individual offenses across seasons). Furthermore they played like a 11 SRS team throughout the playoffs, and if we only include the games played WITH Bosh (injured and healthy) they played like a 13 SRS team.

Overall, for the playoffs, they put up a 109.6 ORTG, which is +5.0 against the league average defense, but they didn't play against league average defenses, they played against an average expected DRTG of 101.2. That 109.6 is +8.4 above expected offensive performance level, and that looks close to GOAT level to me. From there, if we remove the games Bosh missed, its a 112.3 ORTG against an average DRTG of 101.3, which is +11.0.

We could even break it down series by series:

NYK: 113.2 ORTG against 101.0 (#5) expected DRTG (+12.2)
IND: 106.3 ORTG against 103.1 (#9) expected DRTG (+3.2)
BOS: 109.1 ORTG against 98.2 (#1) expected DRTG (+10.9)
OKC: 114.9 ORTG against 103.2 (#10) expected DRTG (+11.7)

Overall: 109.6 ORTG against 101.2 expected DRTG (+8.4)
With Bosh: 112.3 ORTG against 101.3 expected DRTG (+11.0)

So, outside of the Indiana series (Bosh missing, Wade struggling in the first 3 games) they were playing close to a +12 level on JUST offense, and that's considering the fact that all 4 of the teams they faced were top 10 defensively. Against the weakest defensive team they played (OKC) they exploded for a 115 ORTG (115.8 with Lebron on the floor).

Even the Indiana series is a tale of two halves. In the first three games (with Bosh playing only 16 minutes in the first, and Wade struggling from the field in games 1-3) they managed a 93.6 ORTG. Wade gets his knee drained before Game 4 and him and James go off in tandem in the last 3 games and Miami maintains a 119 ORTG in the last 3.

Now, for comparisons sake, let's take a look at some of the best playoff offenses of the 3-point era.

91 Bulls:

NYK: 115.6 ORTG against 107.3 expected DRTG (+8.3)
PHI: 119.1 ORTG against 108.1 expected DRTG (+11.0)
DET: 121.4 ORTG against 104.6 expected DRTG (+16.8)
LAL: 115.9 ORTG against 105.0 expected DRTG (+10.9)

Overall: 117.2 ORTG against 106.2 expected DRTG (+11.9)

87 Lakers:

DEN: 125.1 ORTG against 110.2 expected DRTG (+14.9)
GSW: 121.9 ORTG against 111.2 expected DRTG (+10.7)
SEA: 116.8 ORTG against 110.0 expected DRTG (+6.8)
BOS: 118.0 ORTG against 106.8 expected DRTG (+11.2)

Overall: 119.9 ORTG against expected 109.3 DRTG (+10.6)

86 Celtics

CHI: 121.6 ORTG against expected 112.4 DRTG (+9.2)
ATL: 114.1 ORTG against expected 105.6 DRTG (+9.4)
MIL: 116.0 ORTG against expected 102.7 DRTG (+13.3)
HOU: 112.2 ORTG against expected 107.6 DRTG (+4.6)

Overall: 115.0 ORTG against expected 106.8 DRTG (+8.4)

2010 Suns

POR: 120.1 ORTG against expected 107.1 DRTG (+13.0)
SAS: 116.0 ORTG against expected 104.5 DRTG (+11.5)
LAL: 119.8 ORTG against expected 103.7 DRTG (+16.1)

Overall: 117.8 ORTG against expected 105.2 DRTG (+13.8)

So, Miami last year was in the same realm as some of the best we've seen, and that's with both Wade and Bosh playing below their capabilities for extended stretches (or not playing at all). I'd wager we're going to see something similar (only to an even greater effect) in this year's playoffs, considering the roster improvements they've made on the offensive end, as well as Lebron's personal improvements.

Now sure, the inability to sustain this kind of production in the regular season (or so it seems) can be used to argue against them, but Elgee made points against this reasoning in the peaks project. Championship odds are just not highly affected by regular season performance, so it doesn't seem productive to hold it against Miami that they "only" played like a +6 offensive team in the regular season if they're able to jump up to +10, +11, +12 levels against selectively much tighter defenses in the postseason.

[rcontador]

Wade and Bosh are both shooting career highs, and Bosh is 5% higher than his career average.

There goes that ridiculous argument that you should be suspended for even making.

Are you claiming that FG% is the only measure of a player's form?

Are you seriously flaming me for saying that Bosh and Wade are less valuable than they were on the Raptors and the pre-2011 Heat, respectively?

[Doctor MJ]

But the point is that Lebron makes Wade and Bosh worse.

Please don't make me show you Wade's or Bosh's +/- splits when LeBron isn't on the floor with either player.

I wouldn't agree with the other guy saying LeBron "makes" the other guys worse, but when you bring up +/-, it has to be noted what's happened to these guys since coming to Miami. RAPM studies, normalized for seasonal distribution:

LeBron '10 (Cle): 4.62
LeBron '11 (Mia): 2.88
LeBron '12 (Mia): 2.77

Wade '10 (Mia): 3.96
Wade '11 (Mia): 2.38
Wade '11 (Mia): 2.13

Bosh '10 (Tor): 2.08
Bosh '11 (Mia): 1.89
Bosh '12 (Mia): 1.66

Advanced +/- analysis says all 3 guys are having their impact diminished by the move. This wouldn't concern me if the team was so damn good they were coasting to titles, but that clearly isn't the case. There are severe diminishing returns going on here.

[kamelion4291]

1. Why are you talking about "overall" when I so painfully made clear I was talking about offense? LeBron is a better overall player than Nash ever was by a good margin, but all those offenses you're talking about are well below what Nash regularly achieved in his career.

2. Right so the theory goes that LeBron played with horribly flawed supporting casts in both cities then. Obviously I'm skeptical. I can point out the flaws in the Heat too, but the whole thing with truly great offenses is that there's a tremendous synergy involved and I have my doubts as to LeBron's ability to synergize when he's not the absolute center of gravity of a team.

I can't say you're absolutely wrong because we don't get to have every kind of basketball experiment we want implemented, what I can say though is that the Heatles were the grandest experiment I've probably ever seen. "At last we'll get to see what LeBron can do when he has serious talent to work with!". Expectations were super-high among everybody, and offensively they've been a huge disappointment to anyone really familiar with the numbers. For me to say "Oh but if we just did X everything would get better with LeBron" to me feels like the EXACT same thing that was said about LeBron before he arrived in South Beach. Short of more evidence then, I'm going to take the results of the experiment as if they are meaningful.

3. What you're saying here is basically just that OKC has a better fit. That's a perfectly valid point of view, and as I've said before, I feel like whether you factor in fit in an MVP debate is a matter of philosophy.

I can't help be struck though by how flawed the primary build-around piece is for Durant. There are a TON of things I'd like to change about Westbrook. What the heck kind of a point guard can't manage to shoot efficiently even when he has a volume scorer of Durant's quality next to him? Despite this, despite the fact the Thunder basically just gave up on the most talented teammate Durant will ever have in favor of Westbrook, despite the fact we see all these flaws with what the team does offensively...the offense is still considerably better than anything the Heatles have done.

I want to really dwell on that for a second: How can a guy get knocked significantly for being lucky about the team fit when the offense doesn't even look like it fits well together? The allegation exists simply because mathematically it's proven successful, not because it runs like a well-oiled machine.

I look at all this and I say with some confidence: You can very clearly design a better offense around Durant. They are nowhere near a ceiling of what can be done with him. They may never move beyond what they are doing right now - might not ever be quite a GOAT kind of offense - but I ask you who COULD get to a GOAT kind of offense when you have a player of James Harden's quality, never come close to fully exploiting him, and then give him away when he asks to be paid market value?

Re: not just throwing names together. If you compare Miami throwing names together with an average team, or really anything Miami was going to be able to get with the patient approach you advocate, Miami comes out looking great.

Even the Lakers remain quite good on offense despite being nowhere near as good as they could do with health and time.

Advocating for OKC's organic team building in the end smacks of being much like trying to build through the draft like OKC: Every once in a while it really works, but it's nothing like a given. When you talk about building around LeBron, it feels like you think it's inevitable to get it all right if you're patient, but that didn't happen in Cleveland, and we've yet to see any next-level transformation of Miami, so at the very least it's not inevitable. I would argue it's harder than you think.

I will note however that the single greatest offensive turnaround in all NBA history, roughly 50% bigger than all others, happened on the back of simply acquiring one free agent and letting him loose with an existing core. That of course, was Nash in Phoenix. Clearly there are cases then when the "inorganic" approach does wonders. It just didn't happen with LeBron here.

Re: do the same for LeBron as Nash. I don't have to imagine Nash theoretically being able to lead a GOAT level offense. He did it. To even start doubting he could do something similar in LA if he was in his prime and everyone healthy you either have to accuse Kobe of sabotage or get into the type of analysis that's so damn sophisticated it's hard to take seriously. So when there are an incredible amount of injuries, coaching changes, etc, this is not some elaborate excuse. It's completely unreasonable to expect some kind of dramatic success given what we're seeing go on over there right now.

I recognize that me throwing in Nash's age IS something that could legit be griped as a convenient excuse, but it's not like we haven't all wondered how that particular factor would play out.

For LeBron I'll readily admit that I really don't know. I don't know what LeBron's ceiling for team offense is. It's all speculation. We did expect more though. To the extent we were concerned about something ahead of time on offense, it absolutely was ball sharing, so it's not like it's even that out there of an issue. And when we look at the historical offenses best at making buckets, it typically has not happened with one player being as much of a focus as LeBron is.

That's all fine and dandy, but offenses are not predicated and judged by the impact of 1 individual. Team offense requires a fully functional starting 5, as well as depth and talent on the bench to take over. Durant is a large piece of OKC's offense, but he isn't the whole thing. LeBron gets far more credit for the fact that Miami is the 3rd best offense in the league than Durant does for OKC's being the best, because he does far more for the offense to actually function.

In the case of Nash, let's not pretend like he didn't walk on to a team that didn't have a lot of offensive talent. Amare was already really good before Nash showed up, Joe Johnson made All-Star teams when he left Phoenix etc. It was basically a wealth of talent that lacked an engine to drive it. Nash ran that offense, but glorifying him while ignoring the players who actually were the ones putting the ball into the basket is unfair. The team didn't collapse when Nash went to the bench showing that he wasn't some magical maestro that brought life to a terrible team on his lonesome. He came to a team full of finishers and shooters which was the perfect combination. LeBron came to a team where the best offensive talent was already self sufficient. Throwing an ally-oop to Dwyane Wade is not exactly the same thing as throwing one to a pre-injury Amare or a prime Marion.

[MisterWestside]

I wouldn't agree with the other guy saying LeBron "makes" the other guys worse, but when you bring up +/-, it has to be noted what's happened to these guys since coming to Miami...<snip>

Okay, why did you feel the need to post that? Not only are you posting something that I already know, it's 100% irrelevant to what the other guy posted.

You'll get your turn shortly.

[rcontador]

I wouldn't agree with the other guy saying LeBron "makes" the other guys worse

I should clarify what I mean. Obviously Lebron does make Wade and Bosh worse, in the sense that their positive impact goes down when they play with him — but that's not saying much, because any superstar is likely to make another superstar worse in this sense.

What I should have said is that Lebron reduces Wade and Bosh's positive impact more than I would expect Kevin Durant to; and for any set of randomly-chosen superstars, I would expect Lebron to reduce their positive impact more than KD, in hypothetical team-up situations. (Although for specific superstars this may not be the case.)

That is exactly what you've been arguing, right? Or am I misinterpreting you?

[SideshowBob]

I think the crux of the argument against Lebron and his stint in Miami is being missed here. If we set the goal of the season as the NBA title, we'd go about this goal by trying to maximize the performance of our team's offense or defense at a macro level, and therefore, evaluation of a player should be done with the same standard. Therefore, a player who lifts strong teams by a little bit can be considered as much more "good" than one who can lift poor talent by a lot.

When this Miami team came together, the expectation was that we'd see championships pile up BECAUSE the offensive talent level was unprecedented. We didn't want to see results that matched the best in history, we expected to see results that SURPASSED the best in history. This is clearly not what has happened, which leads us to believe that while Lebron may be able to provide more RAW lift than anyone else in history, his offensive skillset isn't tailored to create enough marginal lift that would take a strong offense and turn it into a GOAT level one.

That's nothing to be ashamed of obviously, as most star volume scorers have had this very issue (to varying extents). But when a different breed of a generational offensive player comes along (a Durant or a Bird), comparisons, often unfavorable, are going to be made.

[rcontador]

That's all fine and dandy, but offenses are not predicated and judged by the impact of 1 individual. Team offense requires a fully functional starting 5, as well as depth and talent on the bench to take over. Durant is a large piece of OKC's offense, but he isn't the whole thing. LeBron gets far more credit for the fact that Miami is the 3rd best offense in the league than Durant does for OKC's being the best, because he does far more for the offense to actually function.

If that were true it would probably show up in offensive on/off, right?

Lebron on: 113.6 team ortg
Lebron off: 102.6 team ortg

Durant on: 115.5 team ortg
Durant off: 101.7 team ortg

Now, obviously on/off is not the final word on offensive impact, since (among other things) it depends substantially on what lineups a player is used in. But it is the first stat I would reach for when trying to verify your claim, and it flatly contradicts what you are saying.

What statistics do you have that suggest that Lebron really adds more to his team offense than Durant? (I'm assuming that when you say that Lebron "does more" you mean that he "adds more," and not just that a greater number of plays run through him.)

P.S. I agree with what SideshowBob is saying.