Lebrons peak impact: 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013?

[sp6r=underrated]

No, you're missing the point. . . .Also, because certain teams have a strategy of getting back on defense early to snuff out transition plays, their offensive rebounding will drag down their ORtg. But that doesn't mean they have a bad offense; they just concede offensive rebounds to stop fast breaks (think the Doc Rivers-era Celtics.)

I understand his point. I want to know where he is putting rebounding in his analysis.

Ah, okay.

Well to some degree, what we're talking about is devaluing rebounds period.

I'm not so much interested in Lebron but how we evaluate team. I'm disregarding the section on Lebron.

Teams are very easy to evaluate. The goal is to beat the opposition. The higher the PD the better the team. This has been conclusively established. Scheduling matters so you should factor in the strength of schedule.

To state the obvious one team's points scored is the opponent's points allowed. All points scored on the court must be included in either the offensive or defensive umbrella. There is no other category under which points occur and you cannot exclude any points scored.

That means if you are shifting activity traditionally under the offensive umbrella you must shift it towards the defensive umbrella unless you can prove it has no impact on overall point scored. If you don't make that shift or establish no impact you are excluding information that impacts who wins games.

Now, I will address the Heat. You are alleging the Heat have a GOAT level offense and a top 7 defense in the league. If that is true they should be putting up near-GOAT seasons. As an example, if you gave the 05 Suns, a GOAT offense under traditional ORTG, a top 7 defense they have an SRS well above 10.

Obviously Miami hasn't come close to that level.

We are in year 4 and they've only crossed a +7 SRS once. They've had relatively good health during these years. Their best player by far has never been injured. He has only missed about 4 games a year. In their two title runs they ended up playing 5 elimination games. Quite simply they never come close to GOAT level status.

Obviously that means the Heat have a weakness. That weakness is rebounding. You have to include that in your analysis. You can shift those offensive rebounds missed to the category of defense and depress their DRTG but you have to account for it either under offense or defense.

Unless you're able to put forth a convincing explanation for why point differential no longer matters I'm going to have to say your approach is flawed.

[Doctor MJ]

I don't think this is an old school vs new school thing. Had he come up to at least 54-55% during his playoff run, I'd give it a bit more weight. He's a really efficient player, but I don't see how having more access to stats has anything to do with him being conscious of a 60% streak or having competitions with Wade for 50+% games. I want players taking good shots, but not caring what their percentage ends up being. That's one thing I really don't like about this efficiency generation, that the players, including premier names like Lebron, Durant and Wade all care about the percentage. It's obvious that Lebron can't be quite as selective in the playoffs either which is why he hasn't yet come close to 56-57% in a playoff run. Until he does, I'm not going to care much.

I look at what MJ did with Phil as coach. No question in my mind he could have put up better numbers or shot an even better % had he looked for HIS ideal shot more at the basket and by dribbling more, but he took the shots in the offense, a lot of jumpers at that, took over when he had to ect.

I understand why it raises red flags that he's conscious of his stats, but what I really want is for you to concretize your fears in something that's actually a problem.

If LeBron's passing up shots he should take, then it's a problem. If he's not, then it's not, right?

LeBron's scoring 26.1 points per 36 minutes right now.
The most he's ever scored was 27.4.

This would be a negligible difference even if we didn't remember that he's since moved from a unipolar offense to a superteam.

So what's the problem?

Re: Jordan taking the shots "ha had to".

1) Jordan played in an offense who's greatest strength by ORtg factors was it's rebounding. Their actual 1st attack wasn't in this Heat's league. Think about what that means. If your teammates are rebounding specialists, then it doesn't make sense to work so hard to pass to the right teammate.

And of course, who came first? Jordan. The Bulls built the rebounding around him, so he wouldn't have to. That Bulls team was one form of an ideal in basketball strategy, and everyone involved should get a ton of credit. Jordan of course deserves more credit than anyone else, but it's worth remembering what infrastructure was required in order to pull that off.

Of course there is the irony involved that I'm here talking about the move away from rebounding in the NBA with the Heat being extreme on that front, while Jordan's team was literally the exact opposite on that front. One more time to emphasize that we should be careful about saying any particular thing is a weakness. Were I to hold up the Heat's 1st attack as being a reason why LeBron was clearly better than Jordan, it would not be appropriate.

2) Let's not forget that it's not like LeBron shies away from extreme volume scoring in the clutch.

LeBron's averaging over 50 points per 48 minutes of crunch time basketball this year, as he's done many times before. Again, there's just not evidence that LeBron is typically not taking shots he should take in order to max out efficiency stats.

[ShaqAttack3234]

I understand why it raises red flags that he's conscious of his stats, but what I really want is for you to concretize your fears in something that's actually a problem.

If LeBron's passing up shots he should take, then it's a problem. If he's not, then it's not, right?

LeBron's scoring 26.1 points per 36 minutes right now.
The most he's ever scored was 27.4.

This would be a negligible difference even if we didn't remember that he's since moved from a unipolar offense to a superteam.

So what's the problem?

Re: Jordan taking the shots "ha had to".

1) Jordan played in an offense who's greatest strength by ORtg factors was it's rebounding. Their actual 1st attack wasn't in this Heat's league. Think about what that means. If your teammates are rebounding specialists, then it doesn't make sense to work so hard to pass to the right teammate.

And of course, who came first? Jordan. The Bulls built the rebounding around him, so he wouldn't have to. That Bulls team was one form of an ideal in basketball strategy, and everyone involved should get a ton of credit. Jordan of course deserves more credit than anyone else, but it's worth remembering what infrastructure was required in order to pull that off.

Of course there is the irony involved that I'm here talking about the move away from rebounding in the NBA with the Heat being extreme on that front, while Jordan's team was literally the exact opposite on that front. One more time to emphasize that we should be careful about saying any particular thing is a weakness. Were I to hold up the Heat's 1st attack as being a reason why LeBron was clearly better than Jordan, it would not be appropriate.

2) Let's not forget that it's not like LeBron shies away from extreme volume scoring in the clutch.

LeBron's averaging over 50 points per 48 minutes of crunch time basketball this year, as he's done many times before. Again, there's just not evidence that LeBron is typically not taking shots he should take in order to max out efficiency stats.

I didn't say it was a problem in the regular season. The regular season isn't much of a question for them anyway. I'm saying it's sort of smoke and mirrors, and come playoff time, picking your ideal shot, going for 60% goes out the window. Then it's time to just play, and he wasn't remotely close to 56-57% at 49%. That's why I'm not overly impressed with it. If he even did the playoff equivalent of his '13 regular season %, I'd be more impressed with the regular season %.

Same reason I don't give too much thought to Robinson or Malone's regular season numbers, they simply weren't able to sustain them in the playoffs. Robinson's lack of a back to the basket game and tendency to play soft, and Malone's scoring off the system and Stockton weren't problems in the regular season either. Of course, Lebron is a much better player and much better playoff performer than they were, but I think the analogy I'm making is clear.

[Doctor MJ]

Ah, okay.

Well to some degree, what we're talking about is devaluing rebounds period.

I'm not so much interested in Lebron but how we evaluate team. I'm disregarding the section on Lebron.

Teams are very easy to evaluate. The goal is to beat the opposition. The higher the PD the better the team. This has been conclusively established. Scheduling matters so you should factor in the strength of schedule.

To state the obvious one team's points scored is the opponent's points allowed. All points scored on the court must be included in either the offensive or defensive umbrella. There is no other category under which points occur and you cannot exclude any points scored.

That means if you are shifting activity traditionally under the offensive umbrella you must shift it towards the defensive umbrella unless you can prove it has no impact on overall point scored. If you don't make that shift or establish no impact you are excluding information that impacts who wins games.

Now, I will address the Heat. You are alleging the Heat have a GOAT level offense and a top 7 defense in the league. If that is true they should be putting up near-GOAT seasons. As an example, if you gave the 05 Suns, a GOAT offense under traditional ORTG, a top 7 defense they have an SRS well above 10.

Obviously Miami hasn't come close to that level.

We are in year 4 and they've only crossed a +7 SRS once. They've had relatively good health during these years. Their best player by far has never been injured. He has only missed about 4 games a year. In their two title runs they ended up playing 5 elimination games. Quite simply they never come close to GOAT level status.

Obviously that means the Heat have a weakness. That weakness is rebounding. You have to include that in your analysis. You can shift those offensive rebounds missed to the category of defense and depress their DRTG but you have to account for it either under offense or defense.

Unless you're able to put forth a convincing explanation for why point differential no longer matters I'm going to have to say your approach is flawed.

Good post, but keep in mind that the team does much better on defensive rebounding than offensive rebounding. Miami's not a great rebounding team, but offensive rebounding numbers make it look like a huge weakness when it's clearly a strategic choice to some degree.

And yes, to the extent that the rebounding effort is just shifted, what it means is "inflating" how good the defense looks while the offense gets "deflated". My defense of their offense then can be taken partially as a criticism of their defense...but it seems to go without saying that the criticism is a mild one.

Miami doesn't have a guy like Hibbert, and that's always going to be a disadvantage to their defense.

[Gregoire]

Right now I learn towards 2012 Lebron because of peak playoffs perfomance and O+D best combination.