What is the most impressive carry job by a star?

[Effigy]

For a single game, nothing tops Magic checking in in game 6 of the NBA Finals at CENTER to replace the injured Kareem, and putting up 42 points, 15 rebounds and 7 assists in the closeout game to win the title.

[Waider]

Allen Iverson, 2001

Agreed.

[One_and_Done]

Iverson is a horribly overrated player.

The one contender he was on, in 01, won thanks to their D... and he was a weak defensive player. Meanwhile the team had tonnes of great defensive guys, including the DPOY and an all-nba teamer.

Most importantly, the league in 01 was weak, especially the East. It was common in the early 00s for East pretenders to have 500 records vs the West, and make deep EC runs. The 76ers were no exception. They were 16-12 vs the West that year, and 40-14 against the East. Ppl got overexcited about game 1, but the Lakers just came in on cruise control and got sloppy.

[MavsDirk41]

Dirk in 2011 for sure

Jordan in 98 should be an option as well

[Quattro]

Kawhi joined a 59-win-team within a 5-year 50+ win span that was on a 63-win pace while he was sitting out >1/4 of the season (vs. a 56-win pace when he was playing).

This is a guy who went from the stacked Spurs, to stacked Raptors to stacked Clippers while averaging around 50 games per season for his career in which he averaged around 32 minutes/game. Hard to think of any star in NBA history who has done less carrying in his career.

He won DPOY when he played 32min/game for 64 games and had less defensive win shares than his own teammate.
He won a finals MVP playing 33min/game putting up 18-6-2 where his team was also winning when he was on the bench, supposedly for holding his direct opponent to 28-8-4 on 68% TS (and >2x the game score of any other guy on the opposing team).

Hard to think of someone who got handed more accolades for doing less than Kawhi, but calling winning with a 60-win supporting cast the most impressive carry job in NBA history takes it a bit too far.
His playoff stats were great that year though - pretty much exactly what LeBron averaged over his entire career.

Easy to just look at numbers and miss context. Does the word Lebronto mean anything to you? The Raptors choked in the playoffs every single year before he came. Go back and watch that sixers series again particularly game 7. Everyone not named Leonard (or Ibaka) looked like a deer in the headlights in the offensive zone. No way they get through Philly that year without Leonard

Sure he had a lot of talent around him but make no mistake he dragged that team to the finals on his back.

No finals team would have made the finals without their best player.
A lot of talent around him = not the most impressive carry job.

And speaking of Lebronto:

2019 Kawhi, with a cast that's on a 63-win-pace without him (won 17 of 22):
beats 42, 51, 60 and 57-win teams
-> on average beats a 53-win opponent with a 63-win supporting cast (support was 10 wins better than opponents)
--> greatest carry job of all time!!!!!

2015-18 Lebron, with a cast that's on a 12-win-pace without him (won 4 of 27):
beats 40, 50, 60-win teams - loses to 67-win team
beats 44, 48, 56, 73-win teams
beats 42, 51, 53-win teams - loses to 67-win team
beats 48, 59, 55-win teams - loses to 58-win team
-> on average beats a 53-win opponent with a 12-win supporting cast = (support was 40 wins worse than opponents)
on average loses to 64-win opponent with a 12-win supporting cast = (support was 52 wins worse than opponents)
--> what a failure to only make all 4 finals and win one ring with such a stacked team!!!!

I never mentioned Lebron and I never claimed Kawhi was the "greatest carry job of all time". I just responded to your argument with the perspective of someone who watched that team.

[CumberlandPosey]

Late Russell when he also coached.very impressive in the Playoffs,ofc he had hondo but he put the celtics on his back all the way to titles.underrated for me...

[Special_Puppy]

Iverson is a horribly overrated player.

The one contender he was on, in 01, won thanks to their D... and he was a weak defensive player. Meanwhile the team had tonnes of great defensive guys, including the DPOY and an all-nba teamer.

Most importantly, the league in 01 was weak, especially the East. It was common in the early 00s for East pretenders to have 500 records vs the West, and make deep EC runs. The 76ers were no exception. They were 16-12 vs the West that year, and 40-14 against the East. Ppl got overexcited about game 1, but the Lakers just came in on cruise control and got sloppy.

6 Teams in the West were better than literally any team in the East that year lol

[Jabroni Lames]

Steph 2022 has to be in the top 10.

[One_and_Done]

Steph 2022 has to be in the top 10.

Everyone says "such and such must be top 9", but those top 9 spots are competetive. Alot of great carry jobs happened in NBA history. Curry had Draymond, a reduced Klay, and Wiggins having the season of his career. Look at what Dunan had in 03. It's not even close as to whose support cast was worse.

[Black Jack]

Hakeem's first 94 title in my book, it was a really thin roster https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/HOU/1994.html

I like the Dirk run but he had some guys like Kidd, Marion that were pretty good still.

Let's put it this way if the 2011 Mavs without Dirk played the 94 Rockets without Hakeem, my money is on the Mavs.

[Jabroni Lames]

Kawhi 2019 not being here feels criminal.

The way he willed his team against Embiid-Butler Sixers and Giannis Bucks were exceptional, and then going up 3-1 against the Warriors core trio with Cousins.

Lmao @ Kawhi 2019. It's the complete opposite. Kawhi ONLY plays on Super-Stacked teams.

In hindsight, that Raptors team was ridiculously loaded. Almost all of Kawhi's Raptor teammates in the playoff rotation had either received, or was about to achieve some type of league wide award:

Lowry: current & future multi All-Star
Siakam: MIP, future multi all-star, future multi all-NBA
FVV: future all-star
Gasol: DPOY, multi-all-star
Green: all-defense
Ibaka: all-defense
OG: future all-defense

Heck, the only guy without a league-wide accolade is Norman Powell... and even he won Player of the Week.

I don't think there's another championship team that can boast that type of roster-wide pedigree.

[One_and_Done]

Dirk. LeBron never had to carry his teams through more than half of the All NBA team selection without having even an allstar himself as help

Leaving aside the 07 finals run, the 09 and 10 Cavs won over 60 games with a support cast so bad they were the among the worst teams in the league the next year. Yeh, Gilbert eventually tanked, but only after his team tried to win games and was putrid.

The players who were 9th and 10th in MPG on the 2010 Cavs team led the team in minutes the next year. The Miami Heat team actually had more carry over minutes from the prior season even though they added Bron and Bosh and traded half their roster.

That ‘11 Cavs team wasn’t even close to ‘10 or ‘09 teams which lacked star power but had lots of talent overall. Those teams were top of the league in shooting, passing, rebounding, and defense.

This misunderstands the situation. The Cavs went into the season with almost the same team and tried desperately to win, in line with Gilbert's declaration that the Cavs would win before the false King. They just sucked anyway. They sucked so much that Gilbert gave in and blew the team up.

The Cavs were 10-46 before Gilbert finally traded Mo Williams, and 8-32 before he was shut down. Varejao was effectively shut down when the Cavs were 8-24.

The minutes were only different because the team was blown up, but even when the non-Lebron rotation was near identical... they still sucked. However 30+ games into the season thr Cavs were still starting Mo, Gibson, A.Parker, Varejao & Jamison, with Hickson, Sessions and Moon first in off the bench... which was basically their 2010 rotation minus James, an elderly Shaq/Z-Ill off the bench in limited games, and... um, D.West I guess?

[Swish1906]

Iverson '01 taking that team to the Finals.
2nd highest scorer on his team was Theo Ratliff, 12 ppg.
Starting guard/wings had TS% below .500 (Eric Snow 9 ppg on 48% TS, Lynch 9 ppg on 49% TS).
His best 3P floor spacer was Aaron McKie who shot 31%.
Mutombo was a great defender in his career but he was 34 that season.

Actually took a game from the Kobe/Shaq Lakers, in a game where Shaq had 44 & 20. AI had 48 in a game that only went up to 107.

I watched it…the team defense carried Iverson, not the other way around. their defense (even with Iverson killing some of it) was the MVP. not Iverson.

[IG2]

People saying 2007 for LeBron and not 2018 is wild. He was much better in 2018 and faced better teams + actually played much better on the road to the finals. His 2007 run is extremely overrated.

It's testament to how blinding perception can be. Everybody remembers that game against Detroit and it colors their entire view of that playoff run. They look at that Cleveland roster and assume LeBron must've been going nuts nightly ala that Detroit game for them to make it that far.

2007 was a solid run, no doubt, but this was still a 22 year old, pre-prime LeBron with some glaring holes in his game. Way more prone to have an off night and it shows in the massive gap in numbers between the 2007 and 2018 runs. 2018 LeBron was just a much better player and he did it against better competition with an equally inept cast.

[phanman]

I went back and found out that Hakeem won the MVP, DPOY, FVMP and was named 1st team All NBA and All Defense in that 1994 season. His second leading scorer in the RS was Otis Thorpe @ 14pts in the RS and Maxwell @ 13.8pts in the playoffs. Hakeem nearly doubled Thorpe in the RS @ 27.3pts and more than doubled Maxwell in the playoffs @ 28.9pts. The 11reb, 4.3ast, 1.7stl and 4blk were pretty damn good too. It's also worth noting that Hakeem played in 2x Game 7's to win his first chip, including in the Finals against Ewing.

A lot is made about the amount of talent Dirk had to go through in 2011, but those Rockets team had a helluva gauntlet too:
1) Clyde's Blazers only 2 years removed from the NBA finals
2) Chuck's Suns only 1 year after they made the Finals
3) Stockton/Malone's Jazz
4) Ewing's Knicks who had gradually improved to the next round in each of those 3 years with Riley.

I voted for Dirk, but damn Hakeem must have been a treat to watch.

[EmpireFalls]

Hakeem and easily at that.

There’s literally zero argument for Dirk 2011 over Hakeem unless you just ignore the defensive aspect of the basketball game completely.

[RoteSchroder]

With that said, I still have Dirk's run as the #1 run in my book. It wasnt just the fact he was the only all star on the team, but that dude went up against some real stiff competition. Dallas went through the back 2 back champion Lakers who still won 57 games that year. Then you had the OKC team with KD/Russ/Hardon who really started to put things together (made the finals the next year). And then they faced the Heatles.

Then you toss on the narrative that Dirk had gotten in his career by then, that he was just some finesse player who couldnt get it done in the playoffs. Ya Dirk is my choice.

Definitely the #1 most overrated performance in league history due to the entire set up and circumstances. Dirk was amazing, but he had been a great scorer and playoff performer nearly every year in his prime (aside from the year he lost to a bunch of 6'6 Warriors).

It's not like he suddenly became a Jokic level passer or turned into Ben Wallace on defense that year. In the 2011 run, Dirk performed as he always did, but the stars aligned for his teammates. In most years (minus the Nash/Finley years), Dirk's rosters were filled with high level role players that tanked in the playoffs. In the 2011 run, he had numerous teammates taking turns stepping up on O to compliment his all-star level scoring and Kidd/Marion/Chandler anchoring the defense. LBJ was tearing it up in the East, including against Boston, but got stifled by Dallas. Was it Dirk shutting down LBJ? No. So it's not like Dirk teammates sucked and he was doing everything for them (which would be the definition of a carry job).

Second point is that he faced a Miami team that were struggling from 3. And we know how important 3 point shooting is for your team's offense. It certainly wasn't Dirk shutting down Miami's offense. In the two games Miami won, they were lights out from 3 and outperformed Dallas from there. In the 4 losses, Dallas outperformed Miami from the 3. Does Dirk get credit for his teammates hitting 3's? Of course he does, considering his gravity and that he was attracting double teams, but that holds true for nearly every offensive all-star in the NBA. You need teammates to step up and Dirk's did.

Comparatively to those KG Minny teams, KG needed to be the best defensive player on the team AND the best scorer AND the best playmaker who ran the offense. Same thing with the LBJ teams prior to teaming up with Wade. I would consider those bigger carry jobs.

[CodeBreaker]

Kawhi 2019 not being here feels criminal.

The way he willed his team against Embiid-Butler Sixers and Giannis Bucks were exceptional, and then going up 3-1 against the Warriors core trio with Cousins.

Lmao @ Kawhi 2019. It's the complete opposite. Kawhi ONLY plays on Super-Stacked teams.

In hindsight, that Raptors team was ridiculously loaded. Almost all of Kawhi's Raptor teammates in the playoff rotation had either received, or was about to achieve some type of league wide award:

Lowry: current & future multi All-Star
Siakam: MIP, future multi all-star, future multi all-NBA
FVV: future all-star
Gasol: DPOY, multi-all-star
Green: all-defense
Ibaka: all-defense
OG: future all-defense

Heck, the only guy without a league-wide accolade is Norman Powell... and even he won Player of the Week.

I don't think there's another championship team that can boast that type of roster-wide pedigree.

Yea, it's so easy to change the narrative in hindsight.

[One_and_Done]

If the narrative is wrong who cares what it was?

[MavsDirk41]

With that said, I still have Dirk's run as the #1 run in my book. It wasnt just the fact he was the only all star on the team, but that dude went up against some real stiff competition. Dallas went through the back 2 back champion Lakers who still won 57 games that year. Then you had the OKC team with KD/Russ/Hardon who really started to put things together (made the finals the next year). And then they faced the Heatles.

Then you toss on the narrative that Dirk had gotten in his career by then, that he was just some finesse player who couldnt get it done in the playoffs. Ya Dirk is my choice.

Definitely the #1 most overrated performance in league history due to the entire set up and circumstances. Dirk was amazing, but he had been a great scorer and playoff performer nearly every year in his prime (aside from the year he lost to a bunch of 6'6 Warriors).

It's not like he suddenly became a Jokic level passer or turned into Ben Wallace on defense that year. In the 2011 run, Dirk performed as he always did, but the stars aligned for his teammates. In most years (minus the Nash/Finley years), Dirk's rosters were filled with high level role players that tanked in the playoffs. In the 2011 run, he had numerous teammates taking turns stepping up on O to compliment his all-star level scoring and Kidd/Marion/Chandler anchoring the defense. LBJ was tearing it up in the East, including against Boston, but got stifled by Dallas. Was it Dirk shutting down LBJ? No. So it's not like Dirk teammates sucked and he was doing everything for them (which would be the definition of a carry job).

Second point is that he faced a Miami team that were struggling from 3. And we know how important 3 point shooting is for your team's offense. It certainly wasn't Dirk shutting down Miami's offense. In the two games Miami won, they were lights out from 3 and outperformed Dallas from there. In the 4 losses, Dallas outperformed Miami from the 3. Does Dirk get credit for his teammates hitting 3's? Of course he does, considering his gravity and that he was attracting double teams, but that holds true for nearly every offensive all-star in the NBA. You need teammates to step up and Dirk's did.

Comparatively to those KG Minny teams, KG needed to be the best defensive player on the team AND the best scorer AND the best playmaker who ran the offense. Same thing with the LBJ teams prior to teaming up with Wade. I would consider those bigger carry jobs.

Dirk won a championship with no other all star on his team. Yea, the team was deep with veterans who filled a role, but he stayed in Dallas, didnt complain, didnt recruit other star players to the team, and didnt act as a backdoor general manager….Garnett (not digging on him) teamed up with Pierce and Allen to win one and we know about the other guy you mentioned.