Insidehoops made a top 13 list. How did they do?

[Wooderson]

Lebron was beaten TWICE by Duncan.

Lebron is barely top 10.

Last ring, he had a sidekick average 27ppg and hit the clinching game winner in game 7 after Lebron DID NOT SCORE in the last 3 minutes going 0-4.

I like how LeBron gets downgraded for having a teammate perform well yet the argument gets reduced to "LeBron was beaten twice by Duncan" depsite Duncan not even winning FMVP those years. Try keeping your reasoning consistent in the future.

[90sgoat]

Don't be useless.

[Quotatious]

http://www.bostonsbigfour.com/?p=10732

Bird's team played on higher pace. Besides, LeBron played way better defense than 1988 Bird (which doesn't up in a boxscore, but Bird was a below average defender in '88, and so were the Celtics as a team - they were good because of their great offense, but they were poor defensively that year), and Larry had a major fail in the playoffs against Detroit.

Why are players penalized for pace? You play according to your era and your strengths.

You can call it "penalizing", but I would rather describe it as "providing proper context" - I mean it's obvious that someone averaging, for example, 30/5/5 on 120 pace isn't equal to someone putting up 30/5/5 on 90 pace. Which is why people arguing Oscar's triple double season or Wilt's 50/26 season as some kind of unmatched achievements, have almost no idea what they are talking about (and there's a lot people like that among casual fans). Adjusted per 100 possessions, Wilt's 50/26 season translates to 38 points/19.4 rebounds/1.8 assists - for the sake of comparison, 2000 Shaq per 100 possessions averaged 38.1 points/17.5 rebounds/4.9 assists, so very close to Wilt. Oscar's triple double season makes him look like a better scoring, worse playmaking version of '03 Kidd, with better rebounding and probably worse defense. More minutes played (which is mostly due to poor understanding of conditioning back in the day) have something to do with that, too. Those are still great players, all-timers, but the game has changed so much since the 60s that it's virtually impossible to put up 40 ppg (let alone 50), or average 20 rpg (let alone 25) today. It doesn't mean that today's players are worse, actually it's mostly the opposite. The style of play and the competition level in today's game just doesn't allow players to put up those kinds of huge numbers anymore. On the other hand, today's players are generally more effective and efficient per-possession, have a better understanding of how to play, what is a good shot etc.

To some extent, it also applies to the 80s. Obviously the 80s were far more similar to today's game than the 60s, but it's hard not to see a major difference in terms of how defenses played in the 80s and today - for example the understanding of spacing was still really poor 25-30 years ago compared to 2016, and the way teams failed to see the benefits of the 3-pt line for the first 7-8 years of its existence in the NBA, is still baffling to me.

If you're going to use pace against Bird, then use time of possesion against Lebron, who has the ball more in his hand than any other player not a point guard. Lebron dominates the ball as much as the point guards of the NBA. That certainly takes something away from his already pedestrian assist numbers. And Lebron is a 6'8'' behemoth power forward who has never in his career averaged 10 rebounds. Weak.

LeBron's is mostly a small forward. It has always been his primary position.

LeBron's AST% is FAR higher than Bird's, which is why their assist per game numbers are misleading. LeBron's career average AST% is 34.6, Larry's is only 24.7 (and 33.7 to 23.7 in the playoffs). That's basically a 10% difference. It's more than the difference between Bird and Dr J or Bird and Durant in this regard. Bird's AST% is very similar to Kobe's (the guy who is considered a "ball-hog", by many people). Both Bird and Kobe are very good playmakers, but LeBron is the best non-PG playmaker in NBA history. In terms of passing ability, Bird and James are very close, maybe even Larry has a slight edge, but LeBron's athleticism and ball-handling COMBINED with his passing ability, makes him a much more dynamic playmaker than Larry. Passing ability isn't nearly as valuable as playmaking ability, and LeBron is clearly better at the latter.

I don't care about the fact that LeBron is so ball-dominant, to be honest. If you take the ball away from LBJ's hands, you basically sabotage your own team. He has the ball in his hands so much because he can beat almost any defender 1 on 1 off the dribble, something Bird really couldn't do. LeBron has been de facto the point guard of almost every team he played on, during his NBA career, but it never prevented other great guards to be successful while playing alongside him, even ball-dominant guards - see Wade in 2011 and 2012, or Kyrie this year.

Besides, Lebron has never faced a defense like the Bad Boys are you kidding me, the guys who shut down MJ. Need I remind you how Lebron did against several playoff opponents, not named Bad Boys Pistons? 18ppg finals. That's the worst finals of a top 10 player ever,

Pistons didn't really shut down MJ, that's a myth. He was still scoring about 30 ppg on well above average efficiency. It was worse than his average against most of the other NBA teams, but it was still great, especially considering he didn't have a really good second scorer on his team (Pippen was mostly in his formative years when Chicago faced Detroit in the playoffs, and he was very inconsistent as a scorer - the only time the Bulls faced the Pistons in the playoffs with prime Pippen was in 1991, and they swept them...).

As far as LeBron, he usually did very well in the playoffs, and that 2011 finals series is clearly out-of-character for him. Other than 2007 and 2011, he's been a great finals performer basically every time he made the finals, since 2012. He had a rough start to the 2013 finals, but turned it around and had a great finish, overall it was a very good series. You can take LeBron's overall numbers from his 7 finals appearances and compare them to anybody's finals numbers, and it wouldn't be easy to find 5 players better than him.

Anytime someone keeps pointing to the 2011 finals in an effort to discredit LeBron, I know that he's not willing to have a constructive debate. Even the biggest of LeBron's fans (I'm not a part of that group, by the way) admit that he had a terrible series, but the fact that his detractors (like you) have to cling to one or two poor series in order to be able to criticize him for anything, proves that he's a really great player. One could listen to a guy like you talking about 2011 LeBron and he would definitely start thinking that his entire season was a disaster, while the truth is that he was a fantastic player in the regular season and first three playoff rounds (where he faced pretty tough opponents every time, even the Sixers in the first round were a pretty solid, well-coached team).

And yes, James faced defenses comparable to the Bad Boys pretty often, see kabstah's post. Even when the East was really weak overall, many Eastern teams were good defensively, they were often just poor offensively and poor overall as a result.

If you don't like to deal with stats and objective evidence, and prefer to have narrative-driven barber shop type casual banter, then yeah, this place isn't for you. Nobody forced you to keep posting here, right?

Oh, and keep acting like you have any idea about the advanced stats that people are using... If you did, you wouldn't dismiss or ignore them like you actually do. You ignore/dismiss them because they don't fit your agenda. That's the truth. Deal with it.

Anyway, we can't really expect someone with "90sgoat" username to be objective when comparing players from different eras.

[Witzig-Okashi]

LeBron has played a defense as good or better than the Bad Boy Pistons literally every year he's been in the playoffs.

2006 Pistons
2007 Pistons, Spurs
2008 Celtics
2009 Magic
2010 Celtics
2011 Bulls
2012 Celtics
2013 Pacers, Spurs
2014 Pacers, Spurs
2015 GSW
2016 Hawks

I don't believe you've adjusted for pace and time period for those numbers. If you look at the defensive ratings plainly for each team w/o consideration of context, you'd end up with a list like this. I think you would have to look at defensive ratings relative for league average during those seasons.

During the era of the Bad Boy Pistons, the pace was in the high nineties and low hundreds:
99.6 in 87-88, 100.6 in 88-89, 98.3 in 89-90, 98.7 in 90-91.
Ergo, the PPG were higher (roughly 108, 109, 107, and 106 PPG in those respective four seasons).

When LeBron first entered the playoffs, the league had recently implemented (or reinforced) the rule changes regarding hand-checking and the 3 second lane violations. The league was still recovering for it with its officiating (hinted at with those high scoring PPG seasons), but the pace was still extremely low, at a 90.9 in 05-06. It has upticked to a 95.8 (the highest since those rule changes in 04) this past season, but obviously nowhere near the levels that it was some odd 25-30 years ago.

Things to take into consideration here...

[Witzig-Okashi]

As for the OP, I do not have a problem with the list. I'd have Duncan over Shaq, and maybe Kobe and Oscar could interchange (Oscar-West-KG at #14 maybe?), but this list isn't detestable by any means.

[90sgoat]

The joke is not understanding when a stat says something meaningfull or not, which team DRtg most certainly does not across different time periods, the formula is:

Team_Defensive_Rating = 100 * (Opponent_PTS / Team_Possessions)

Which does not say anything meaningful when we factor in the many hypotheticals (real) which change from year to year, such as if the league suddenly began shooting worse from midrange the Drtg would look better or if refs began calling more fouls or any of the myriad other instances and more importantly completely discounting PACE.

It is completely ridiculous to think Team Drtg can be used for anything across widly different eras, give me a break. This is exactly why you have that 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'.

[kabstah]

LeBron has played a defense as good or better than the Bad Boy Pistons literally every year he's been in the playoffs.

2006 Pistons
2007 Pistons, Spurs
2008 Celtics
2009 Magic
2010 Celtics
2011 Bulls
2012 Celtics
2013 Pacers, Spurs
2014 Pacers, Spurs
2015 GSW
2016 Hawks

I think you would have to look at defensive ratings relative for league average during those seasons.

That's exactly what I did. The Bad Boy Pistons were only -3, -4 dRTG to league average. All those teams I listed were roughly at that mark or better (and I forgot to include the 2011 Celtics in my original list too).

[90sgoat]

Lol people trying to be clever with stats and not even knowing that they're not pace adjusted. Hilarious.

[90sgoat]

LeBron has played a defense as good or better than the Bad Boy Pistons literally every year he's been in the playoffs.

2006 Pistons
2007 Pistons, Spurs
2008 Celtics
2009 Magic
2010 Celtics
2011 Bulls
2012 Celtics
2013 Pacers, Spurs
2014 Pacers, Spurs
2015 GSW
2016 Hawks

I think you would have to look at defensive ratings relative for league average during those seasons.

That's exactly what I did. The Bad Boy Pistons were only -3, -4 dRTG to league average. All those teams I listed were roughly at that mark or better (and I forgot to include the 2011 Celtics in my original list too).

You're not doing yourself any favors, now using relative stats, which does not account for any macro shifts in quality, tactics or rules.

Or the fact that post expansion teams have more bad teams with worse stats.

Again, context matters. Advanced stats should be used to back up or disprove a hypothesis based on observation.

[Witzig-Okashi]

LeBron has played a defense as good or better than the Bad Boy Pistons literally every year he's been in the playoffs.

2006 Pistons
2007 Pistons, Spurs
2008 Celtics
2009 Magic
2010 Celtics
2011 Bulls
2012 Celtics
2013 Pacers, Spurs
2014 Pacers, Spurs
2015 GSW
2016 Hawks

I think you would have to look at defensive ratings relative for league average during those seasons.

That's exactly what I did. The Bad Boy Pistons were only -3, -4 dRTG to league average. All those teams I listed were roughly at that mark or better (and I forgot to include the 2011 Celtics in my original list too).

Seriously? Interesting...I certainly feel that those late 00s-early 10s C's were better defensively (and probably that 07 Spurs team, too), but I am curious about the others...I may very will type corrected...I'll try to find the defensive ratings for some of those other teams on that list now...

[PCProductions]

The joke is not understanding when a stat says something meaningfull or not, which team DRtg most certainly does not across different time periods, the formula is:

Team_Defensive_Rating = 100 * (Opponent_PTS / Team_Possessions)

Which does not say anything meaningful when we factor in the many hypotheticals (real) which change from year to year, such as if the league suddenly began shooting worse from midrange the Drtg would look better or if refs began calling more fouls or any of the myriad other instances and more importantly completely discounting PACE.

It is completely ridiculous to think Team Drtg can be used for anything across widly different eras, give me a break. This is exactly why you have that 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'.

How does that formula discount pace when it has team possessions right in the calculation?

[Witzig-Okashi]

The joke is not understanding when a stat says something meaningfull or not, which team DRtg most certainly does not across different time periods, the formula is:

Team_Defensive_Rating = 100 * (Opponent_PTS / Team_Possessions)

Which does not say anything meaningful when we factor in the many hypotheticals (real) which change from year to year, such as if the league suddenly began shooting worse from midrange the Drtg would look better or if refs began calling more fouls or any of the myriad other instances and more importantly completely discounting PACE.

It is completely ridiculous to think Team Drtg can be used for anything across widly different eras, give me a break. This is exactly why you have that 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'.

How does that formula discount pace when it has team possessions right in the calculation?

I'm thinking that 90sgoat might be making a different argument here. Sorry if you feel that is directed to you PCP, but I was under the impression that kabstah was plainly looking at the numbers w/o comparing it to their average. And from what I've seen, kabstah's not lying. I misinterpreted how he got about his information, and for that I apologize.

The defenses back in the late 80s were not as complex in large part due to the illegal zone defense rules (though the larger use of the 3-point shot plays a role, too) in contrast to the 80s play but I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt to that maybe this involved more, but it doesn't seem so...

[PCProductions]

The joke is not understanding when a stat says something meaningfull or not, which team DRtg most certainly does not across different time periods, the formula is:

Team_Defensive_Rating = 100 * (Opponent_PTS / Team_Possessions)

Which does not say anything meaningful when we factor in the many hypotheticals (real) which change from year to year, such as if the league suddenly began shooting worse from midrange the Drtg would look better or if refs began calling more fouls or any of the myriad other instances and more importantly completely discounting PACE.

It is completely ridiculous to think Team Drtg can be used for anything across widly different eras, give me a break. This is exactly why you have that 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'.

How does that formula discount pace when it has team possessions right in the calculation?

I'm thinking that 90sgoat might be making a different argument here. Sorry if you feel that is directed to you PCP, but I was under the impression that kabstah was plainly looking at the numbers w/o comparing it to their average. And from what I've seen, kabstah's not lying. I misinterpreted how he got about his information, and for that I apologize.

The defenses back in the late 80s were not as complex in large part due to the illegal zone defense rules (though the larger use of the 3-point shot plays a role, too) in contrast to the 80s play but I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt to that maybe this involved more, but it doesn't seem so...

The guy posted a formula that had team possessions as a independent variable and said:

and more importantly completely discounting PACE

That should be enough to close the door on his credibility of what statistics are valid/invalid for any basketball related argument if you ask me.

[90sgoat]

Possesions is not pace, possesions in Drtg is calculated using stuff like offensive rebound rate too, which is another highly variable factor, feel free to prove me wrong though?

Lets try to break it down a bit:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_1990.html

Go to Opponent Stats:

Pistons allow fewest in league: 98.3, league average 107 - diff 9

Piston hold opponents to .447 FG%, .457 2FG%

http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2011.html

Boston allow fewest, 91.1, league average 99.6 - diff 8

Boston hold opponents to .434FG%, .459 2FG%

Generally, while these stats do show something, such as Pistons holding opponents to a lower 2FG% than Celtics, in a time with better mid range shooters, we can't really say that much unless we can filter the data from fastbreaks, which were prominent in 80s and far less common in 00s.

[mademan]

Possesions is not pace.

Then what is pace?

[90sgoat]

That should be enough to close the door on his credibility of what statistics are valid/invalid for any basketball related argument if you ask me.

It seems you deliberately misunderstand. There is a significant difference in what kind of shots are taken in low pace and high pace games.

High pace games have a lot more semi-open twos on the secondary break, which in a league of efficient mid range shooters turn up in Drtg as poor defense.

[PCProductions]

That should be enough to close the door on his credibility of what statistics are valid/invalid for any basketball related argument if you ask me.

It seems you deliberately misunderstand. There is a significant difference in what kind of shots are taken in low pace and high pace games.

High pace games have a lot more semi-open twos on the secondary break, which in a league of efficient mid range shooters turn up in Drtg as poor defense.

It's a pace adjusted formula. It's an elegant formula that states how many points a team allowed per possession. If it was scored on a three, a layup or a jumper, it's still points on the board and that's what defenses try to prevent, no matter where it came from. If you're saying that the formula cannot tell us how good a team is at defending the rim or covering the three point line, then you're absolutely right. However, playing defense just means stop the other team from scoring, so those things aren't supposed to be considered in an aggregate formula like DRtg.

It tells us exactly what it aims to tell us.

[PCProductions]

Possesions is not pace, possesions in Drtg is calculated using stuff like offensive rebound rate too, which is another highly variable factor, feel free to prove me wrong though?

Lets try to break it down a bit:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_1990.html

Go to Opponent Stats:

Pistons allow fewest in league: 98.3, league average 107 - diff 9

Piston hold opponents to .447 FG%, .457 2FG%

http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2011.html

Boston allow fewest, 91.1, league average 99.6 - diff 8

Boston hold opponents to .434FG%, .459 2FG%

Generally, while these stats do show something, such as Pistons holding opponents to a lower 2FG% than Celtics, in a time with better mid range shooters, we can't really say that much unless we can filter the data from fastbreaks, which were prominent in 80s and far less common in 00s.

You're right that it's possible a team's DRtg looks worse when the other team is shooting hot despite how well contested they are. But variance like that goes away with a season-long sample size, so I don't buy the "better mid-range shooters" argument unless you have some player tracking data to back it up, which we will unfortunately never have prior to the last few years. It's just a cop out excuse to neglect the data that disproved your initial assertion.

[90sgoat]

That should be enough to close the door on his credibility of what statistics are valid/invalid for any basketball related argument if you ask me.

It seems you deliberately misunderstand. There is a significant difference in what kind of shots are taken in low pace and high pace games.

High pace games have a lot more semi-open twos on the secondary break, which in a league of efficient mid range shooters turn up in Drtg as poor defense.

It's a pace adjusted formula. It's an elegant formula that states how many points a team allowed per possession. If it was scored on a three, a layup or a jumper, it's still points on the board and that's what defenses try to prevent, no matter where it came from. If you're saying that the formula cannot tell us how good a team is at defending the rim or covering the three point line, then you're absolutely right. However, playing defense just means stop the other team from scoring, so those things aren't supposed to be considered in an aggregate formula like DRtg.

It tells us exactly what it aims to tell us.

It does not.

Because as this excellent articles (https://doubledribble.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/pace-vs-possessions-used-one-mans-stat-debate/) tells us, the game is not the same at low pace and high pace.

[90sgoat]

Possesions is not pace, possesions in Drtg is calculated using stuff like offensive rebound rate too, which is another highly variable factor, feel free to prove me wrong though?

Lets try to break it down a bit:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_1990.html

Go to Opponent Stats:

Pistons allow fewest in league: 98.3, league average 107 - diff 9

Piston hold opponents to .447 FG%, .457 2FG%

http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2011.html

Boston allow fewest, 91.1, league average 99.6 - diff 8

Boston hold opponents to .434FG%, .459 2FG%

Generally, while these stats do show something, such as Pistons holding opponents to a lower 2FG% than Celtics, in a time with better mid range shooters, we can't really say that much unless we can filter the data from fastbreaks, which were prominent in 80s and far less common in 00s.

You're right that it's possible a team's DRtg looks worse when the other team is shooting hot despite how well contested they are. But variance like that goes away with a season-long sample size, so I don't buy the "better mid-range shooters" argument unless you have some player tracking data to back it up, which we will unfortunately never have prior to the last few years. It's just a cop out excuse to neglect the data that disproved your initial assertion.

My point is, that using absolute Drtg in comparison between teams 20 years apart is fruitless. It has little practical use.