1976 Dr.J vs 2015 Lebron

[RebelWithACause]

LeBron quite handily here.

Better offense and better on defense.
Dr J continues to live off his myth, fame and amzing playing style.
His shot was inconsistent most of the time, he did not have range past 17 ft, he was a below average to average defender for the most part, his passing was nothing special and did not add much offensive value and he was a rather average ball-handler.

Now granted, I think LeBron had a major weakness this year, incredible mediocre shooting, he is still better than Erving, by a solid margin.

For Erving supporters, how come he often gets applauded for his defense, when both the eye test and +/- for his NBA years paint him as a rather below average to neutral defender?
Now there are excuses why his offense did not translate that well, but how about that mediocre defense?

[Quotatious]

Because he went to a team that was not built around his strengths, and he didn't go in there all Lebron like making demands and dominating the ball. Once the team jettisoned some of the dead weight and played around Erving he won the MVP....he also took the Sixers to four finals in seven years. This is also going up against Larry Bird and the Celtics, you know real competition. In comparison to the current mess of the Eastern conference......

Not to mention that Erving was doing everything he could to keep his team competitive in the '77 playoffs, when most of that team (aside from Dr. J and Doug Collins) really struggled. The worse his team played, the more Doc elevated his own game.

I think Erving had a lot in common with Duncan - both guys had superstar talent and could have demanded a much bigger offensive role, but they understood when to let their teammates do the work, and when to step up themselves.

was duncan really more capable of a "much bigger load", as you say? At his peak he was still a worse scorer than any prime Shaq season, and that was on a team that needed every point Timmy could get.

What I mean is that Duncan could have averaged about 25 ppg and have most of his team's plays ran through him like it was the case in the 2003 playoffs, if his team needed that more often from him. 24.7 ppg on 57.7% TS (with 51.9% league average), especially with 5.3 assists, is pretty awesome offensive production. Pretty underrated. He was probably a superstar based on his offense alone, that year.

[magicmerl]

The 50s and 60s get a lot of criticism because they are diluted leagues compared to the modern NBA. I think that the same criticism can be levelled at the ABA. Even if we generously concede that the ABA was the equivalent of the NBA talent wise, that still means that it was a very low talent league (in the same way that we can say that adding overseas players increased the talent level of the league. Prior to players lie Dirk, the NBA had less overall talent).

In this comparison, I think it's clear that there was more separation between Dr J and his peers, than between LeBron and his.

I suspect that if you put LeBron in a time machine and sent him back to play DrJs career that he would have won more.

[Mutnt]

I voted Erving but on second glance it's much more closer than I initially thought. Briefly, Erving's competition was much easier for one and he was less deterred by stuff beyond his control. Also, I believe LeBron to have had greater defensive impact.

LeBron kinda got screwed by himself/circumstances too much this season. Coming in banged up, skipping games, broken jump shot, missing an absurd amount of around-the-rim shots, teammates getting injured etc. If just some of the stars aligned differently I could definitely see myself taking LeBron but it just so happened to be one of the least fortunate years in his career.

[The High Cyde]

I voted Erving but on second glance it's much more closer than I initially thought. Briefly, Erving's competition was much easier for one and he was less deterred by stuff beyond his control. Also, I believe LeBron to have had greater defensive impact.

LeBron kinda got screwed by himself/circumstances too much this season. Coming in banged up, skipping games, broken jump shot, missing an absurd amount of around-the-rim shots, teammates getting injured etc. If just some of the stars aligned differently I could definitely see myself taking LeBron but it just so happened to be one of the least fortunate years in his career.

Yet still came two wins away from a title. Crazy stuff. I wonder how history will judge this past Finals. I'm of the belief that the Cavs could have won it all if either of Love or Irving were healthy, but that's neither here nor there.

[Mutnt]

Cavs were clearly over-matched tho, despite somehow pulling out two victories. But yeah, anyone thinking Kyrie + Love, both healthy, wouldn't make a mammoth difference is kidding themselves. I'd give it like 50/50 odds.

[jkokkotos]

Overall,it is obviously 1976 Erving.In traditional stats it is very close,but in advanced analytics Erving is clearly ahead here.This result was obvious from the beginning since you took the peak-season of Dr.J and a below-average year of Lebron(for his standards).Also,it helps in Dr.J's case that he played in a 10-deep league where their objective was to perform in a spectacular way to attract fans and expand the league's rep.

Eh...I don't think direct comparisons of advanced stats across eras (especially when one era is vastly superior to another) are a good idea. Dr. J played in a relatively weak ABA with only 10 teams. His advanced stats (and thus his impact) are obviously going to look better than LeBron's considering the extreme disparity in competition. I think if you put Erving on the 2015 Cavs without Kyrie and Love, they wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as they did (carrying the team in all facets and taking the Warriors to 6 games in the Finals). On the reverse side, I think LeBron would've been even more impactful and dominant in 1976, considering how much weaker the competition was.

That is exactly what i meant to say.You can't compare cross-era examples when the conditions-context is SO different for each case.I said as much myself in that initial post:

This is a relatively bad comparison in terms of basketball.You want us to compare:
Dr.J playing in a league with 10 teams at 25 yeards old....with
Lebron playing in a league with 30 teams at 30 yeards old.

Actually,let me be more precise with my words here....you ''can'' compare players like that BUT it is very unfair to the modern player(Lebron) and also this comparison is so flawed that you can't get any useful conclusions.I mean if we did the exact same comparison but in reverse fashion,then the results would end up too Lebron-sided everywhere.And i mean it.Everywhere from traditional stats to advanced ones.Lebron's peak is clearly on another level than a below-average season of Erving.