RGM GOAT Debate Thread

[One_and_Done]

If all we care about are stats then Wilt is the goat. Glad we finally got that figured out thanks to your superior analysis.

Nah, not if you have a basic understanding of pace and adjusting statistics per possession. Multiple players have had seasons where they score more points per possession or points per 100 possessions than Wilt did during his 61-62 season (50 PPG season).

Of course, you aren't willing to look that deep or apply any context because it doesn't fit your agenda.

Pace and adjusting statistics huh? Interesting Taj

I know San Antonio had 17 consecutive 50 win seasons with Tim Duncan

I know Bill Russell won 11 championships with Boston

I know Boston improved by 32 games Birds for year in Boston

And you are the last person who should be calling someone out on here for having an agenda. You are the biggest James stan on here.

No, the Spurs had 19 consecutive 50+ win seasons with Duncan once you pace adjust the 99 season. For Duncan's 19 year career the Spurs played at a 58+ win pace.

[GeorgeMarcus]

How in God's name is Wilt not an option? Kobe has no argument over MJ so he's the easiest answer to remove

Anyway Wilt is my answer

[ninjamilk23]

LeBron's carry jobs for the Cavs during his first stint we're incredible. It's simple - looks at the Cavs' record the year before he left than the year after. And their record was looking even WORSE before they traded pieces off on 2010-2011.

Compare that to the Bulls in 92-93 and 93-94... only a 2 game difference. Nobody can carry a team like LeBron could. Not even close.

He in all likelihood is the GOAT floor raiser. GOAT ceiling raiser I am not so sure about.

LeBron has shown that he can raise the ceiling of a team as good as anybody. He carried sorry ass Cavs teams to the finals multiple times. He took down the 73-9 Warriors with a concussed Kevin Love who was just awful. I don't think any other player wins that series. That's the ultimate example of raising a ceiling.

GSW 2016 lost to a better team because the roster was unbalanced. The next year when that was addressed they won easily. One_and_Done will be the first one to tell you that GSW had no business of winning in 2016. The fact that they pushed that series to 7 game series is impressive as hell.

Internet exist. Show them 2011 Finals.

Pace adjusted Lebron's 2011 finals stats compare favourably to Magic Johnson's 1980 finals MVP campaign. They lost to a better team because the roster was unbalanced. The next year when that was addressed they won easily. If Jordan had played on that Heat team they wouldn't have made the finals to begin with.

[One_and_Done]

He in all likelihood is the GOAT floor raiser. GOAT ceiling raiser I am not so sure about.

LeBron has shown that he can raise the ceiling of a team as good as anybody. He carried sorry ass Cavs teams to the finals multiple times. He took down the 73-9 Warriors with a concussed Kevin Love who was just awful. I don't think any other player wins that series. That's the ultimate example of raising a ceiling.

GSW 2016 lost to a better team because the roster was unbalanced. The next year when that was addressed they won easily. One_and_Done will be the first one to tell you that GSW had no business of winning in 2016. The fact that they pushed that series to 7 game series is impressive as hell.

Internet exist. Show them 2011 Finals.

Pace adjusted Lebron's 2011 finals stats compare favourably to Magic Johnson's 1980 finals MVP campaign. They lost to a better team because the roster was unbalanced. The next year when that was addressed they won easily. If Jordan had played on that Heat team they wouldn't have made the finals to begin with.

The 2016 Warriors were near perfectly balanced, and if Draymond isn't suspended they very likely win.

[The4thHorseman]

Nobody is arguing the betting odds are always right.

2004 Finals had the Lakers -700 and Pistons +500. Detroit won in 5gms and is probably the biggest upset in Finals history. Most thought LA would win pretty easily.

[The4thHorseman]

How in God's name is Wilt not an option? Kobe has no argument over MJ so he's the easiest answer to remove

Anyway Wilt is my answer

The OP had him on there originally, then thought it would be best to remove Wilt and replace with Curry. Try not to laugh too hard.

[Iwasawitness]

He in all likelihood is the GOAT floor raiser. GOAT ceiling raiser I am not so sure about.

LeBron has shown that he can raise the ceiling of a team as good as anybody. He carried sorry ass Cavs teams to the finals multiple times. He took down the 73-9 Warriors with a concussed Kevin Love who was just awful. I don't think any other player wins that series. That's the ultimate example of raising a ceiling.

GSW 2016 lost to a better team because the roster was unbalanced. The next year when that was addressed they won easily. One_and_Done will be the first one to tell you that GSW had no business of winning in 2016. The fact that they pushed that series to 7 game series is impressive as hell.

Internet exist. Show them 2011 Finals.

Pace adjusted Lebron's 2011 finals stats compare favourably to Magic Johnson's 1980 finals MVP campaign. They lost to a better team because the roster was unbalanced. The next year when that was addressed they won easily. If Jordan had played on that Heat team they wouldn't have made the finals to begin with.

Are you really going to compare the 2016 Warriors to the 2011 Heat?

[bledredwine]

How in God's name is Wilt not an option? Kobe has no argument over MJ so he's the easiest answer to remove

Anyway Wilt is my answer

Wilt and KAJ are the only answers that I take seriously. He very well could have been.

[ninjamilk23]

LeBron has shown that he can raise the ceiling of a team as good as anybody. He carried sorry ass Cavs teams to the finals multiple times. He took down the 73-9 Warriors with a concussed Kevin Love who was just awful. I don't think any other player wins that series. That's the ultimate example of raising a ceiling.

GSW 2016 lost to a better team because the roster was unbalanced. The next year when that was addressed they won easily. One_and_Done will be the first one to tell you that GSW had no business of winning in 2016. The fact that they pushed that series to 7 game series is impressive as hell.

Pace adjusted Lebron's 2011 finals stats compare favourably to Magic Johnson's 1980 finals MVP campaign. They lost to a better team because the roster was unbalanced. The next year when that was addressed they won easily. If Jordan had played on that Heat team they wouldn't have made the finals to begin with.

Are you really going to compare the 2016 Warriors to the 2011 Heat?

It's hard to convey sarcasm/jokes on forums. Ofcourse I don't actually believe that 2011 Heat is comparable to 2016 GSW. I'm just imitating his other post when he was defending Miami losing to Mavs in 2011 and not wanting to place the blame on LeBron. He claims it's not LeBron's fault and that Mavs were just the better team even though Miami were the favorite to win the series. My point is, Majority of the blame should fall on LeBron for how he performed in 2011 Finals. But now, it seems like we're trying to change the narrative that it's not his fault and we're even using "Pace adjustment" to excuse LeBron's poor performance that he was on par with Magic Johnson's FMVP in 1980? Dirk, Wade, Bosh, and Terry all played better than LeBron during that series. I bet if we "Pace Adjust" those 4 guys, they'd be the 4 Greatest finals performance of all time.

If we're going to give LeBron an excuse for 2011, why stop there? Why not give the 2016 GSW an excuse as well?

[Iwasawitness]

GSW 2016 lost to a better team because the roster was unbalanced. The next year when that was addressed they won easily. One_and_Done will be the first one to tell you that GSW had no business of winning in 2016. The fact that they pushed that series to 7 game series is impressive as hell.

Are you really going to compare the 2016 Warriors to the 2011 Heat?

It's hard to convey sarcasm/jokes on forums. Ofcourse I don't actually believe that 2011 Heat is comparable to 2016 GSW. I'm just imitating his other post when he was defending Miami losing to Mavs in 2011 and not wanting to place the blame on LeBron. He claims it's not LeBron's fault and that Mavs were just the better team even though Miami were the favorite to win the series. My point is, Majority of the blame should fall on LeBron for how he performed in 2011 Finals. But now, it seems like we're trying to change the narrative that it's not his fault and we're even using "Pace adjustment" to excuse LeBron's poor performance that he was on par with Magic Johnson's FMVP in 1980? Dirk, Wade, Bosh, and Terry all played better than LeBron during that series. I bet if we "Pace Adjust" those 4 guys, they'd be the 4 Greatest finals performance of all time.

If we're going to give LeBron an excuse for 2011, why stop there? Why not give the 2016 GSW an excuse as well?

Well, there’s a few things to keep in mind here. For one, Dallas was the better team. They won both regular season meetings and were 6-2 against Miami that season overall. They were also a lot deeper, better coached and had a better starting five overall. Yeah Miami was favored, but the Lakers were favored to win it all going into the playoffs and they got swept in the second round. The Mavericks were horribly underrated and people weren’t giving them the respect they deserved.

Second, while the pace argument is silly, it is worth noting that LeBron struggled in both of those regular season matchups against Dallas. They matched up really well with Miami and had the capabilities to guard LeBron effectively. I’m not going to say this excuses LeBron’s performance, but it does put into perspective the fact that his struggles had a lot more to do with who he was facing rather than him choking or whatever nonsense narrative people like to come up with.

I think the overall sentiment people should be taking from this is that while LeBron was an amazing player at this point, he still had exploitable flaws and Dallas used that to their advantage. For some reason though, people like to use this time where he wasn’t a finished product and use it to define an entire 20 year career, which is just silly.

[lessthanjake]

Are you really going to compare the 2016 Warriors to the 2011 Heat?

It's hard to convey sarcasm/jokes on forums. Ofcourse I don't actually believe that 2011 Heat is comparable to 2016 GSW. I'm just imitating his other post when he was defending Miami losing to Mavs in 2011 and not wanting to place the blame on LeBron. He claims it's not LeBron's fault and that Mavs were just the better team even though Miami were the favorite to win the series. My point is, Majority of the blame should fall on LeBron for how he performed in 2011 Finals. But now, it seems like we're trying to change the narrative that it's not his fault and we're even using "Pace adjustment" to excuse LeBron's poor performance that he was on par with Magic Johnson's FMVP in 1980? Dirk, Wade, Bosh, and Terry all played better than LeBron during that series. I bet if we "Pace Adjust" those 4 guys, they'd be the 4 Greatest finals performance of all time.

If we're going to give LeBron an excuse for 2011, why stop there? Why not give the 2016 GSW an excuse as well?

Well, there’s a few things to keep in mind here. For one, Dallas was the better team. They won both regular season meetings and were 6-2 against Miami that season overall. They were also a lot deeper, better coached and had a better starting five overall. Yeah Miami was favored, but the Lakers were favored to win it all going into the playoffs and they got swept in the second round. The Mavericks were horribly underrated and people weren’t giving them the respect they deserved.

Second, while the pace argument is silly, it is worth noting that LeBron struggled in both of those regular season matchups against Dallas. They matched up really well with Miami and had the capabilities to guard LeBron effectively. I’m not going to say this excuses LeBron’s performance, but it does put into perspective the fact that his struggles had a lot more to do with who he was facing rather than him choking or whatever nonsense narrative people like to come up with.

I think the overall sentiment people should be taking from this is that while LeBron was an amazing player at this point, he still had exploitable flaws and Dallas used that to their advantage. For some reason though, people like to use this time where he wasn’t a finished product and use it to define an entire 20 year career, which is just silly.

I think there’s some truth to the idea that LeBron had weaknesses that the Mavs exploited, rather than the explanation just being LeBron “choking” or feeling the pressure or whatever. I think both are probably part of it. LeBron was under a lot of pressure after being on the title favorite and losing early the prior couple years and then teaming up to create such a talented Heat team, so I find it difficult to believe his subpar performance in the finals had nothing to do with nerves or overthinking things due to that pressure. But I also think you’re right that he simply had weaknesses that were exploited. Both of those things fed into each other IMO—a player feels the pressure more when they know a weakness of theirs is being pressed on.

But one question I have about this for people is how this point maps onto the very common view I see that 2009 was LeBron’s peak. It is genuinely true that both in terms of box stats and impact data, 2009 and 2010 were LeBron’s peak. Does that mean that LeBron peaked while being an exploitable player and then became less exploitable but also less good? I think that’s a pretty commonly held set of views, and I get where it comes from, because we can look at the data and think 2009 and 2010 LeBron looks the best, but then we look at the playoff success and it feels like some later version of LeBron didn’t have the same weaknesses that could be exploited. But it does end up seeming a bit contradictory. A meaningfully more exploitable player is probably not actually better—especially when that exploitation can result in something like the 2011 Finals performance. Do we think LeBron was exploitable in those late-first-stint Cavs years and therefore maybe wasn’t quite as good in those years as some people think? Or do we think LeBron was *still* exploitable in later years but just ended up having teams and opponents that couldn’t exploit his weaknesses as well? To give an example, if you plop 2013 LeBron or 2016 LeBron onto the 2011 Heat, do you think he does substantially better against the 2011 Mavs?

[Special_Puppy]

Are you really going to compare the 2016 Warriors to the 2011 Heat?

It's hard to convey sarcasm/jokes on forums. Ofcourse I don't actually believe that 2011 Heat is comparable to 2016 GSW. I'm just imitating his other post when he was defending Miami losing to Mavs in 2011 and not wanting to place the blame on LeBron. He claims it's not LeBron's fault and that Mavs were just the better team even though Miami were the favorite to win the series. My point is, Majority of the blame should fall on LeBron for how he performed in 2011 Finals. But now, it seems like we're trying to change the narrative that it's not his fault and we're even using "Pace adjustment" to excuse LeBron's poor performance that he was on par with Magic Johnson's FMVP in 1980? Dirk, Wade, Bosh, and Terry all played better than LeBron during that series. I bet if we "Pace Adjust" those 4 guys, they'd be the 4 Greatest finals performance of all time.

If we're going to give LeBron an excuse for 2011, why stop there? Why not give the 2016 GSW an excuse as well?

Well, there’s a few things to keep in mind here. For one, Dallas was the better team. They won both regular season meetings and were 6-2 against Miami that season overall. They were also a lot deeper, better coached and had a better starting five overall. Yeah Miami was favored, but the Lakers were favored to win it all going into the playoffs and they got swept in the second round. The Mavericks were horribly underrated and people weren’t giving them the respect they deserved.

Second, while the pace argument is silly, it is worth noting that LeBron struggled in both of those regular season matchups against Dallas. They matched up really well with Miami and had the capabilities to guard LeBron effectively. I’m not going to say this excuses LeBron’s performance, but it does put into perspective the fact that his struggles had a lot more to do with who he was facing rather than him choking or whatever nonsense narrative people like to come up with.

I think the overall sentiment people should be taking from this is that while LeBron was an amazing player at this point, he still had exploitable flaws and Dallas used that to their advantage. For some reason though, people like to use this time where he wasn’t a finished product and use it to define an entire 20 year career, which is just silly.

2011 Finals shouldn't define him given his insanely good playoff resume overall. That being said LeBron was 26 at this point, had already won 2 MVPs, and was the best player on the planet. I find the "he wasn't a finished product yet" line hard to swallow

[One_and_Done]

It's a little ridiculous to blame a guy for playing sub-par in the finals, when it's in a comparison to guys who if they had been in his place would never have made it to the Finals to begin with. Jordan wouldn't have made the finals on that 2011 Heat team. Kobe wouldn't have made it to the ECFs. That's the first point.

The second is his subpar play is being exaggerated, as though these guys he's being compared to never had bad series. Lebron was 18-7-7 that series on 541 TS%. While that's obvious below Lebron's normal standard, you can understand a little bit why that was. He was trying to play the Magic Johnson facilitator role because Wade couldn't. That's why it's interesting to compare the above stats, at a pace of 86.5, to Magic in 1980 who was lauded for putting up 21-11-9, while playing at a much faster 102.4 pace (not that pace = speed). A simple pace adjustment would give Lebron 21-8-8, and he's obviously the better defender than Magic. Stats aren't everything, but if those were Lebron's numbers nobody would have cared as much that he lost.

[lessthanjake]

It's a little ridiculous to blame a guy for playing sub-par in the finals, when it's in a comparison to guys who if they had been in his place would never have made it to the Finals to begin with. Jordan wouldn't have made the finals on that 2011 Heat team. Kobe wouldn't have made it to the ECFs. That's the first point.

That’s just a baseless statement. How can an argument be “ridiculous” because you speculate that you think some hypothetical thing would be the case? There’s no actual basis for the idea that Jordan (or even Kobe) wouldn’t make the Finals on the 2011 Heat. Is it possible you’re right? I suppose so. But you’re just basing an argument on acting like your own pure speculation is fact.

The second is his subpar play is being exaggerated, as though these guys he's being compared to never had bad series. Lebron was 18-7-7 that series on 541 TS%. While that's obvious below Lebron's normal standard, you can understand a little bit why that was. He was trying to play the Magic Johnson facilitator role because Wade couldn't. That's why it's interesting to compare the above stats, at a pace of 86.5, to Magic in 1980 who was lauded for putting up 21-11-9, while playing at a much faster 102.4 pace (not that pace = speed). A simple pace adjustment would give Lebron 21-8-8, and he's obviously the better defender than Magic. Stats aren't everything, but if those were Lebron's numbers nobody would have cared as much that he lost.

I think this is a silly argument. Even if we accept for argument’s purposes that LeBron was playing “the Magic Johnson facilitator role,” playing the Magic Johnson role and having 6.8 assists a game and 4.0 turnovers per game is bad! Especially when it is combined with mediocre scoring efficiency (Magic usually combined his playmaking with efficient scoring). You can do a pace adjustment on these numbers, but you’d have to adjust up the turnovers too. There’s not a series from Magic Johnson that is comparably bad.

If you want to say it is similar to a Magic Johnson series, the closest comparison would actually be the 1982 Finals, where Magic put up 8.0 assists per game and 4.3 turnovers per game. Even that series was meaningfully better than LeBron’s 2011 Finals, because not only was that assist-to-turnover ratio meaningfully better but Magic actually scored way more efficiently in that series (against a team with a virtually identical regular season TS% against as the 2011 Mavs) albeit with a little lower pace-adjusted volume. And guess what? Magic got criticized for that 1982 Finals! But yeah, he doesn’t get criticized for it as much as LeBron in 2011. And that’s because he wasn’t actually quite a top-tier superstar yet. That 1982 year was the first time he made an all-NBA team and it was all-NBA second team. He wasn’t at the peak of his powers yet. Meanwhile, LeBron had won two MVPs and was in the middle of his peak years. Peak Magic Johnson playing “the Magic Johnson role” did not have a series that you could in any way meaningfully compare to LeBron’s 2011 Finals.

You might also be able to compare LeBron’s 2011 Finals to Magic’s 1980 Finals if we just cut out the last game Magic played in that series. Without that last game—which is the sole reason he won the Finals MVP and the only reason the series is celebrated—Magic had 9.0 assists a game and 5.0 turnovers per game. His pace-adjusted scoring volume was lower but his opponent-adjusted scoring efficiency was *massively* superior. Overall, Magic still looks a little better IMO. And that’s looking at 20-year-old rookie Magic Johnson and taking an all-time-great performance out, and comparing it to peak LeBron. The fact that LeBron still comes out looking a little worse says it all. You can’t put lipstick on this pig, man.

And that’s not even getting into the fact that this whole “he was trying to play the Magic Johnson facilitator role because Wade couldn't” argument is really silly in the first place, because LeBron had played an entire season and three rounds of the playoffs with Wade and didn’t do that. He didn’t suddenly play differently because of some perceived weakness of Dwyane Wade that he magically only noticed in time for the NBA Finals. He played differently as a result of his own weaknesses being exploited by the Mavs.

[One_and_Done]

I said it was subpar. I just think the degree to which it is bad is being overplayed.

[lessthanjake]

I said it was subpar. I just think the degree to which it is bad is being overplayed.

It is probably the worst Finals series we have ever seen from a top-tier all-time great in his peak years. To find someone who has arguably done worse in a Finals during his peak years, we’d have to go down to Kobe Bryant, who is not really in the GOAT discussion and who I know you personally have pretty far down your all-time list (presumably in part because of things like the 2004 Finals). LeBron’s 2011 Finals wouldn’t have been all that bad if it came from a random player, but in the context of a discussion on a “GOAT Debate Thread,” it was absolutely awful.

[One_and_Done]

I said it was subpar. I just think the degree to which it is bad is being overplayed.

It is probably the worst Finals series we have ever seen from a top-tier all-time great in his peak years. To find someone who has arguably done worse in a Finals during his peak years, we’d have to go down to Kobe Bryant, who is not really in the GOAT discussion and who I know you personally have pretty far down your all-time list (presumably in part because of things like the 2004 Finals). LeBron’s 2011 Finals wouldn’t have been all that bad if it came from a random player, but in the context of a discussion on a “GOAT Debate Thread,” it was absolutely awful.

Nah. The Heat took it to 6 and almost went up 3-0 against a team they should in hindsight have been a significant underdog to. There are definitely worse showings by all-timers.

[lessthanjake]

I said it was subpar. I just think the degree to which it is bad is being overplayed.

It is probably the worst Finals series we have ever seen from a top-tier all-time great in his peak years. To find someone who has arguably done worse in a Finals during his peak years, we’d have to go down to Kobe Bryant, who is not really in the GOAT discussion and who I know you personally have pretty far down your all-time list (presumably in part because of things like the 2004 Finals). LeBron’s 2011 Finals wouldn’t have been all that bad if it came from a random player, but in the context of a discussion on a “GOAT Debate Thread,” it was absolutely awful.

Nah. The Heat took it to 6 and almost went up 3-0 against a team they should in hindsight have been a significant underdog to. There are definitely worse showings by all-timers.

They didn’t go up 3-0, nor did they ever have the opportunity to do so, since the series started out 1-1. They did have an opportunity to go up 3-1, though, and LeBron put up 8 points on 27.3% TS% in Game 4, in a game the Heat nevertheless barely lost. More generally, the main reason the series was relatively close was because Dwyane Wade had a great series. You’re basically trying to use the results of Dwyane Wade playing great as a reason why LeBron wasn’t awful. LeBron was awful. There’s no way around it. And there’s not much of a comparison to it amongst performances by genuine GOAT candidates. Again, there’s no way to put lipstick on this pig.

[Iwasawitness]

It's hard to convey sarcasm/jokes on forums. Ofcourse I don't actually believe that 2011 Heat is comparable to 2016 GSW. I'm just imitating his other post when he was defending Miami losing to Mavs in 2011 and not wanting to place the blame on LeBron. He claims it's not LeBron's fault and that Mavs were just the better team even though Miami were the favorite to win the series. My point is, Majority of the blame should fall on LeBron for how he performed in 2011 Finals. But now, it seems like we're trying to change the narrative that it's not his fault and we're even using "Pace adjustment" to excuse LeBron's poor performance that he was on par with Magic Johnson's FMVP in 1980? Dirk, Wade, Bosh, and Terry all played better than LeBron during that series. I bet if we "Pace Adjust" those 4 guys, they'd be the 4 Greatest finals performance of all time.

If we're going to give LeBron an excuse for 2011, why stop there? Why not give the 2016 GSW an excuse as well?

Well, there’s a few things to keep in mind here. For one, Dallas was the better team. They won both regular season meetings and were 6-2 against Miami that season overall. They were also a lot deeper, better coached and had a better starting five overall. Yeah Miami was favored, but the Lakers were favored to win it all going into the playoffs and they got swept in the second round. The Mavericks were horribly underrated and people weren’t giving them the respect they deserved.

Second, while the pace argument is silly, it is worth noting that LeBron struggled in both of those regular season matchups against Dallas. They matched up really well with Miami and had the capabilities to guard LeBron effectively. I’m not going to say this excuses LeBron’s performance, but it does put into perspective the fact that his struggles had a lot more to do with who he was facing rather than him choking or whatever nonsense narrative people like to come up with.

I think the overall sentiment people should be taking from this is that while LeBron was an amazing player at this point, he still had exploitable flaws and Dallas used that to their advantage. For some reason though, people like to use this time where he wasn’t a finished product and use it to define an entire 20 year career, which is just silly.

I think there’s some truth to the idea that LeBron had weaknesses that the Mavs exploited, rather than the explanation just being LeBron “choking” or feeling the pressure or whatever. I think both are probably part of it. LeBron was under a lot of pressure after being on the title favorite and losing early the prior couple years and then teaming up to create such a talented Heat team, so I find it difficult to believe his subpar performance in the finals had nothing to do with nerves or overthinking things due to that pressure. But I also think you’re right that he simply had weaknesses that were exploited. Both of those things fed into each other IMO—a player feels the pressure more when they know a weakness of theirs is being pressed on.

But one question I have about this for people is how this point maps onto the very common view I see that 2009 was LeBron’s peak. It is genuinely true that both in terms of box stats and impact data, 2009 and 2010 were LeBron’s peak. Does that mean that LeBron peaked while being an exploitable player and then became less exploitable but also less good? I think that’s a pretty commonly held set of views, and I get where it comes from, because we can look at the data and think 2009 and 2010 LeBron looks the best, but then we look at the playoff success and it feels like some later version of LeBron didn’t have the same weaknesses that could be exploited. But it does end up seeming a bit contradictory. A meaningfully more exploitable player is probably not actually better—especially when that exploitation can result in something like the 2011 Finals performance. Do we think LeBron was exploitable in those late-first-stint Cavs years and therefore maybe wasn’t quite as good in those years as some people think? Or do we think LeBron was *still* exploitable in later years but just ended up having teams and opponents that couldn’t exploit his weaknesses as well? To give an example, if you plop 2013 LeBron or 2016 LeBron onto the 2011 Heat, do you think he does substantially better against the 2011 Mavs?

So if we’re talking 2009-2010 LeBron, we have to keep a few things in mind. In regards to outright dominance, 2009 LeBron was up there among the most dominant, which is usually what people are referring to. 2010 LeBron played on a team however that didn’t have the same kind of spacing 2009 Cavs had. Shaq and Varejao clogged up the paint more than big Z traditionally would. Their thought process was to fix this by trading for Jamison, but he ended up not panning out the way they had hoped. More importantly, those weaknesses we spoke of were exploited a little by the Celtics in 2010, albeit on a lesser scale.

The problem with the 2011 finals isn’t just what LeBron was playing against: it’s what he was playing with. The 2011 Heat starting five lacked spacing, and Dallas committed their entire scheme to slowing down LeBron. And on top of it, Dallas had a lot more length and defensive versatility than Boston did. It was just a very poor matchup for LeBron.

With that in mind… yes, I do think if 2013 or 2016 LeBron played in 2011, the result would be different. I do understand that LeBron at that point was already 26, but it’s also the point in his career where he had a brutal wake up call and realized it wasn’t just the scenery that needed to change: he needed to as well. That’s where he started focusing on the fundamental aspects of the game more and learning to adapt a more skill oriented style of play. Hell, we saw what that did for him in just the following season.

[Djoker]

Since we are talking about the 2011 Finals, it's worth pointing out that Lebron was horrible defensively in that series as well. According to Ben Taylor's tracking (from Thinking Basketball), Lebron was the worst defensive performer among the major minute getters on either team.



But but his per 75 numbers in the Finals are only a little bit worse than rookie Magic..