70sFan wrote:OhayoKD wrote:Then there is also an eye-test here. Jordan was far quicker in 1996, he already had developed post game and he was sturdy enough to play down low against bigger guys. He had significantly bigger playmaking load at that point as well. His shooting was better, he was overall more active while 1998 version was more specialized... Honestly, I am surprised you find it controversial at all.
Fair enough. Got wrapped up in 98's narrative I guess.
The 1996 finals are the arguable lowlight of that stretch.
It's bring up very often in Jordan's discussions, but the reality is that he had a number of not-so-amazing series during that stretch. He faced a top tier defensive team that was very well equipped to stop him and he basically crushed them in the first three games, but he struggled to finish them off. I don't think it's worse than his truly bad series like 1997 vs Hawks or Heat for example.
That's fair. Was fixating on narrative implications I guess. 1996 game 6 represents a much larger legacy swing.
Tbh, at least postseason for postseason, I don't see much of a case for the 1996 playoffs over Kobe's 2009. Kobe was in a significantly more difficult context and his performance was a lot more consistent(did super well vs the magic too). I also thought Kobe was a legit MVP in the rs so not really seeing why 1996 Jordan would be "in a different ball park".
About RS - I disagree, just because Kobe was a legit MVP level player doesn't mean Jordan can't be clearly better than that - and he was in my opinion.
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Well, I'm sorta scaling MJ down from the first-three-peat(signal is relatively dissapointing but less so if you use 1991 as your on as opposed to the 1992 rs+93 po) but maybe I shouldn't be doing that. 96 RAPM is close to 88 fwiw(and on/off swings back in the playoffs, aupm is better than kobe's).
About PS - I don't know, what makes Kobe situation significantly more difficult? He didn't face better defenses, he didn't have a poor supporting cast,
Significantly worse supporting cast(53-wins without best or third best for mj, and then i see offensive rebounding making rodman an upgrade over grant(can kinda back that up with kdish 15/season wowy sample as well as well as the bulls turning into a massive o-rebounding outlier)), team basically changed multiple times in a short-span the prior year, and Kobe mantained elite box-production and lineup-adjusted impact throughout iirc. Also as a general comment, I buy into unibro's argument that playing in the triangle without illegal d signifcantly hurt his impact numbers, and Kobe on a more granular basis looks like historically great at basically every type of offensive play(synergy).
Jordan basically walked into the same infrastructure he had been playing with and it was never really fair. Magic also lose grant(and just choke away every game somehow), and Sonics probably makes things easier than they should have been by not putting gp on him earlier. Though now thinking about this, I've also argued we shouldn't be so quick to assume a big gap between first three-peat jordan and second-three peat jordan so maybe I should rethink this. That said, I have Kobe as a step below offensive GOATs in-era and I don't think much of the difference between a "good" and "elite" guard defender, so "post-prime MJ is out of Kobe's ballpark" feels like a stretch. Holistic data does not support me though(well unless you put stock in a one-off raw signal), though said data also doesn't really support second three-peat mj being a clearly worse than first-three peat mj so make of that what you will.
To be fair, he faced top tier defenders to deal with him, but still - this Houston team without Tracy and Yao was quite limited offensively.
I actually forgot about that series, so fair. He was so good in the finals vs dwight and co though. Maybe I'm letting the final performances bias my analysis?
And if we're fine with smaller samples, 2001 playoff Kobe's performance was very much MJ-esque
Sure, but context matters here as well. That's why we shouldn't just look at the production, but other things as well.
I mean if the comparison is second-three peat is the context significantly more favorable? I just thought of it as a stretch of outlier performance for Kobe. Performace-wise, 88-90 MJ is clearly ahead to me and I shrug at the rest of it. Outlier stretch so it doesn't massively move my evaluation of Kobe(i like it as a tiebreaker against the dirk's and wade's though).
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2015 is nigh-unrivalled from an impact standpoint(lineup-adjusted or raw), is one of the best non-big d seasons, and features GOAT-lvl creation/playmaking production(55% AST: 8%tov against the Warriors is patently absurd) and crazy team playoff elevation. If you were focused on box-production I guess I could see the case, but I think 2015 vs "best kd season" has a much stronger case for being "out of the ball-park" than 1996 vs 2009.
Yes, 2015 LeBron's WOWY numbers look nothing short of incredible but again - we have to think how much of it is noise and how much of it is actual LeBron impact.
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Sure, but like I said,
lineup-adjustment backs Lebron up here. 2015 is one of the highest-scoring years in RAPM(8.7! in circle's set which is uh...higher than any apm data we have for MJ(1 year peak is at +7.47 from 1988)), think it was also that in PIPM(don't have the score off the top of my hand) and the only stuff that really disagrees is box-dominated **** which, again won't account for defense. And again, it's the defensive component that props lebron up here. Surrounding years are also really really good(i can take an 8-year average and any other stretch and uh, that aforementioned 1-year high is lower0
Out of 10 games Cavs lost without James, Kyrie didn't play in 3 of them and I think Love also missed some time as well.
Well here I'm extrapolating a base level for the second stint cavs on an extendes sample. Using net-rating the cavs without lebron and with kyrie/love were -2(30ish wins), if you wowy it its like 20ish wins(theoretical advantage being team has time to adapt). The other indicator im using is the cavs skyrocketing after Lebron came back from his Miami break. Starting playing like an atg team, defense became top 10, ect ect. Solid indicator to me that the cavs basically went with Lebron, a notion the postseason only helped.
So "adjusted" looks amazing. "raw" looks amazing. Playmaking also looks great, I'd say it's one of his best defensive years, so it's really about the scoring-drop and it's not hard for me to imagine reasons that was swallowed(insert heej ranting about how lebron ochrestrates both ends like a on-court coach). Defensive impact is probably inflated relative to PF lebron since he was moved back to sf, but that's not really an unfair advantage vs everyone else.(if anything Miami Bron is suppressed by both having to stagger with a very similar player and playing as a pf defensively which generally hurts non-bigs).
His PS run is quite interesting, as he remained very impactful throughout the playoffs but at the same time I don't think he was hyper impactful in all series he played. I have no criticism for his finals performance, but he was quite inconsistent throughout the playoffs. To his credit, I like his defense for the whole season - that's very underrated aspect of that version of LeBron.
His scoring was inconsistent, but I would say his playmaking was great throughout. Keep in mind the team was basically as good on d and o in the postseason, so that defensive aspect was rather important. Lebron posted the best playmaking-box stuff of his career(45% ast:11tov%) and that ramps up in the postseason to pair with that crazy(for a non-big) looking defensive impact and that just ramped up as the playoffs progressed. Lebron's efficacy also probably undersells the "value" he offered a team that, for large stretches didn't have real-spacing or alternative options to score with, via that volume "chucking". There's probably an offensive cieling set with that version of Lebron, but if you're going to anchor a -5 defense(sansteere iirc) I'm not sure it matters that much. +10 PSRS(per sansterre) is title-worthy and that was what they were without kyrie or love. Small sample, but it tracks with raw and adjusted impact stuff that puts it at near the very top of post-russell stuff. Also I put alot of value on scaling up against the best, and the finals vs the warriors is firmly Lebron's best offensive and defensiive performance from like every aspect of analysis. Can't really argue with that personally.
Mind you that I'd likely pick 2015 James over any version of Durant, but I don't think you can't even entertain such discussion - and again, James has more high quality years than Jordan, so it's natural that his 10th best season comes out a little better.
I feel you'd have to ignore defense and playmaking. Even if we put all the imapct as noise. In the postseason, Lebron is putting up numbers on par with goat-level playmaking runs, and you have the pippen-anchored bulls-level defense, along with what was probably still positive value scoring when you account for teammates. We've seen westbrook look more impactful with just the playmaking aspect(adjusted or raw), so I'm not really seeing much reason to question if what is basically westbrook+
historic non-big d with less help in a worse context is really worth more than what kd offers here. IIRC KD+Westbrook was actually +10(2014-2016 I think?), so Lebron replicating that without kyrie or love is just too much for me to ignore.
Still though, I don't really see 2000-02 Kobe (peak Kobe never played with Shaq) as closer to prime MJ than peak Durant to prime LeBron - that's the main point of this discussion.
Well part of that is probably just me being signifcantly lower on prime MJ but, I also have kobe higher than you I think.
I guess you think that top tier sports is made up of atheletes who would all rather get a participation trophy than actually do whatever it takes to be on top and win. So with that you have to take some of the crunchy with the smooth. Shaq was a bit of a diva, for sure, but he was also the last of the true centers where he played like one. By the time he was drafted, everyone wanted to be like Mike, just like now, everyone wants to shoot like Steph. Aside from the obvious, most covered beef, Shaq was seen as a great teammate and there are countless articles and claims made about it. Again, his beef, give me the ball. Pretty much it. He came in and wanted to be most dominant, par for the course when dealing with a talent as great as him while being an extreme extrovert. All I care about is how they perform, that's it. MJ had nothing when he was drafted. The organization couldn't even draw a crowd into attendance and you have the most competitive player ever trying to reach the PS, each and every season. You play hero ball until you don't need to. Some get it, some don't. The greats are all wired differently but there have been enough of them that we can group them in classess together now. You don't get more competitve than MJ, period.
Just because LBJ has great stats, doesn't mean every other player would thrive under him as many may think. Every player so far in history has had to pullback their game and it's understandable as to why. That's just how basketball works!