OldSchoolNoBull wrote:OhayoKD wrote:As long as the knowledge is applied to a comparison between a team and its contemporaries, the timing of when that knowledge is acquired really doesn't matter to era-relativity or not era-relativity. Era-relativity is how something compares relative to other things in that era. Heej's claim, that Jordan's resiliency was partially a situational product of a "ahead of it's time" schematic edge implemented by his coach, fits. That is another matter from it being solid or shaky.
Man, he said things like "...was playing against caveman defenses in a decidedly non-caveman offense, while LeBron faced modern defenses (multiple elite ones at that) playing in a modern offense". That's essentially dinging MJ for playing against "caveman defenses" while LeBron played "modern defenses". That seems to me like the opposite of era-relativity. It's still using the modern game as barometer for evaluation.
It is, but it's using it as a barometer to evaluate, offenses in the same era. Ultimately it boils down to "this offense was much better than the other offenses of the same time period". By comparing Jordan offenses to the offenses of the 80's/90's and juxtaposing it against Lebron offenses and 2000/2010's offenses, he's ultimately making a claim about how good those offenses are schematically... relative to their era.
On that note, I'll reiterate that even with strict era-relativity, expansion inflates the SRS of teams relative to their strength, relative to the talent pool, regardless of how good that pool is. If you add a bunch of bottom-feeders(with minimal redistribution of what is already there), a team of equal quality will likely see their point differentials improve without actually altering the quality of the talent pool.
This effect is generally lowered with models that weigh the playoffs more as the aforementioned bottom-feeders play a lesser role. Incidentally that OKC team Heej is commenting on score higher than any team Jordan has beat by playoff rating.
I know he was talking about the quality of opposing teams, but I really wasn't making any point about that.
Fair enough.
1. Yes, the offense gets alot worse without Jordan. He is a great player. But even if we took the best offense you list(7.6?) and the 94 Bulls(worst rating with the triangle), that is a smaller delta than the best splits we see from Lebron or Magic(with the gap expanding relative to the former if we go by overall numbers)
Fair enough about LeBron(I assume you're referring to when he arrived and departed Cleveland both times, as that's where the biggest jumps are), but I don't see a bigger delta for Magic. The Lakers went up +1.9 on Magic's arrival in 79-80, and down -4.7 upon his retirement in 1991; the Bulls went down -5.1 in 94 and up +6.4 in 96.[/quote]
Was actually referring to the games he misses in his second cleveland stint in 15-17 ontop of that first depature(though if we apply the same flexibility that lets us use 96/97 MJ, you can get alot of different bits). 2018 would apply too, but there is context as you allude to later. For the second stint, there's also the playoff component where those offenses improve in a way Chicago's didn't(coinciding with a greater overall team elevation)
Will also add the first depature can be corraborated by...21 games played with a similar lineup to start 2011 pre-trade and 18 games without Lebron from 08-10.
For Magic, I was specifically thinking of 88 and 89 where he saw near +7 jumps, but admittedly that still doesn't actually hold up if you use the "pick a jordan year multiple years removed to maximise his signal" approach.
Looking at the general comparisons(and including some overall deltas):
Konr0167 wrote:lebron 09-21
656-263 with lebron 0.714% win rate
37-73 without lebron 0.336% win rate
net rating with lebron +6.49 (59 win pace level)
net rating without lebron -5.50 (25 win pace level)
+8.6 ortg difference
-3.68 drtg difference
+12 total swing
magic 84-91
454-149 75.3% win rate with
29-24 54.7% win rate
+7.4 net rating with (61 win pace level)
+0.2 net rating without (42 win pace level)
+4.9 ortg difference
-2.3 drtg difference
+7.2 overall diffrence
jordan 88-98
bulls with MJ 490-176 (73.6% win rate)
bulls without MJ 90-64 (58.4% win rate)
net rating with MJ +7.7 (62 win pace level)
net rating without MJ +3.6 (52 win pace level)
+5.1 ortg difference
+1.1 drtg difference
+4 total swing
...
Magic Johnson(3x MVP) 1980-1991
Lakers are +0.8 without, +7.5 with
Micheal Jordan(5x MVP) 1985-1998
Bulls are +1.3 without, +6.1 with
Hakeem(1x MVP) 1985-1999
Rockets are -2.8 without. +2.5 with
...
Hakeem takes 33-win teams to 48 wins, 15 win lift
Jordan takes 38-win teams to 53.5 wins, 15 win lift
Magic takes 44-win teams to 59
The distribution in the first bit is wierd(you would expect magic to have a bigger offensive swing and jordan a bigger defensive swing), but in general Magic is able to compete or edge Jordan in terms of overall improvement despite being a worse defender (in the regular season at least).
For Lebron, it's pretty straight forward, unless you go out of your way to look for his worst signals, he just wins things on both ends, even when the poster in question, for whatever reason, uses a significantly longer stretch for Lebron.
Nash actually generates an even higher 1-year offensive swing if you use 2005 vs 2004(14!) and/or the games he misses 2007(8!) which, paired with leading the best era-relative offenses ever again and again will always give him a pretty solid statistical argument.
Oscar played in a league where srs and o-rating were pretty suppressed, but in a z-score/standard deviation sense, he probably has a good one too(turned worst offense into best offense as a rookie)
2. Health. Pippen and Grant barely missed games with Jordan in the other years. Both missed 10 games in 94. With Pippen, the Bulls were a +2 offense, better than any pre-triangle MJ offense(55-win pace by srs, and 58-win pace by record overall). In 95 Grant was not there.
Sure, but you can also say that Kevin Love only played 21 games in 2018-19 after LeBron left; that the 2010-11 Cavs roster was significantly changed(and they got a new coach) from the 2009-10 roster; that when LeBron returned to Cleveland in 2014, Love also arrived, etc.
Indeed. This is why I generally avoid using the second cleveland arrival or depature or will use the cavs with kyrie and love and no lebron(which, to be clear, produced significantly worse offense than the Bulls with Pippen and grant in 94 and with just Pippen in 95) which I think speaks at least partially to the triangle's ability to elevate role-players assuming a capable primary ball-handler.
Not sure how much credit Jackson should get for the defense, but the Bulls treading water when Pippen was out also is suggestive of Jackson being able to get the most out of spare parts(and perhaps says something about Grant too).
But my point was more simply that the team need Jordan just as much, if not more, than the triangle. Which brings me to:
You are correct there.
Jordan was great and essential for the triangle to produce all-time offense, but the triangle and phil jackson's ability to bolster teams were, imo, something that would have remained with or without Jordan, and in the context of this comparison, I don't know this really shows that much.
I'm not trying to take away from the triangle, and its success later in LA with Shaq and Kobe would prove it's not singularly dependent on one player, but like any other offensive system, it is dependent on having elite offensive players.
...and actually, upon looking, four of the six Bulls championship teams posted higher rel ORtgs than any team Phil coached in LA.
They did in the regular season though for whatever reason, the Lakers were the only Lakers team to produce goat-level playoff offense(the reason may be a combination of shaq being reselient offensively and the opposite defensively). I will also highlight the triangle functions differently without illegal defense as defenses now have a much easier time putting extra bodies on whoeveris on the weak side(will not commit to it being more or less effective on a team-level but Kobe's efficiency and impact was hurt by this significantly imo).
In general, I would argue it's ability to yield great results is dependent on elite offensive players, but I think for it to simply "get more than the sum of it's parts" in the 80's/90's, you really just needed a good ball-handler, connective passers, and shooters.
