70sFan wrote:OhayoKD wrote:AD is arguably better(offensively) than the guy who outscored him, out created him, handles the ball way more, and tells everyone where to go(sometimes literally taking ham's clipboard)?
Yes.
Now comes the part where you explain how
Not really sure why it matters how lebron compares to lebron here, nothing aside from noisy postseason on-court ratings would support him and davis being similar offensive players(and rest assured i can reach equally asinine extrapolations regarding the defensive end with that approach).
It's quite interesting how you pick when playoff on/off data is noisy and when isn't.
Feel free to quote when i've ever pretended it isn't noisy. And while you're at it, explain why Lebron wasn't "arguably the best defender" on the Lakers during the 2020 playoffs when he had a lower d-rating than Davis
Virtually any holistic emperical approach sees Lebron as the better regular season player(comparable despite much more significant injury issues and a worse context over the last 3 years) and then Steph's team unperformed while Lebron's overperformed
That's a manipulation, because we all know that Lakers played way above their RS level at the end of the season with a completely different roster and both Davis and James missed a lot of time.
As did the Warriors? As is, The Lakers in minutes with davis and without Lebron were marginally ahead of the warriors without curry offensively(pbp)
Their numbers in the Warriors-Lakers series? Lebron averaged 2 less points on 5 points better true-shooting, was at a slight box-creation disadvantage with 24ast%:to 9 vs 33%:11(despite the warriors shooting better from open looks), and significantly higher rebounding percentage to go with dramatically better defense.
Have you made a similar adjustment for Steph putting up numbers in game 6 with the Laker's starters out? What happens if I take out Steph's two 30-pointers? Why are you being selective here
Lakers won the Warriors series with their defense, which was mostly AD effort.
And the Warriors competed mostly on the basis of
their defense which was mostly a dray effort. As is, not being the best player on your own team does not make you worse than the best player on another team.
Yeah, use the same logic for 2009 playoffs now.
So Dwight was a better regular season player? Was his team not significantly better without him than the cavs without Lebron? Did Lebron not comically out-produce him? Did Lebron not go take things up a notch down the stretch?(+50 4th quarter +/-) Did Lebron not run his team's offense and defense like Draymond does? Did he not post a +2.6 D-RAPM while holding his matchups way below their rs efficiency
Where do you think 2009 lebron and 2023 steph are analogous beyond both being favored and having home court?
Tell me when I said that.
You are saying Lebron doesn't belong in the top-5 discussion while the likes of Curry and Murray do...
I don't compare LeBron to himself, I compare him to other, better players. Also, James plays at 4 half of his career, so stop this bullsh*t.
You're literally doing it right now. What does it matter that Lebron, now 38, played as a 4 for half his career(and accordingly saw his impact suppressed)? How does that compare to Steph whose always played at his most valuable position. Playing 4 with rui as the 5 and then playing the 5 for significant stretches in the postseason is comically sub-optimal for a wing. If Steph was forced to play as a 3 or as a 2/1 with KAT playing PG or SG, what exactly do you think happens?
1. No, Murray has more advantages than just ppg. I'd love to see you arguing for James being better off-ball player than Murray for example.
Account for what. Are you arguing Murray's off-ball creation offsets Lebron's big on-ball advantage, Lebron coordinating his teammates on both ends, Lebron being a much better man defender(defending jokic and murray on an island), a better rim protector, and a much better rebounder? Being better off-ball doesn't mean anything inofitself.
Murray is easily better offensively than James these playoffs.
Maybe if you focus on slashlines. Lebron created more, created higher quality looks on average and runs his own offense. Lebron does not need to play like his usual self to be better on both ends, nor does he need to drop 30 points a game.
He wasn't.
/
When we consider factors besides ppg, yes, he very clearly was.
In one game...
That is how play-ins work yeah
AD was better offensively in arguably 2 rounds.
Then make the argument
No, you shouldn't. I only said without counting 1st round exits. I mentioned it in my first post.
Convenient
It would be better to focus on how Kareem played rather than just looking at results, you know?
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27 points on 52% true-shooting, a 1:1 ast:tov rate on 14% ast percentage while his matchup saw his averages skyrocket?(more than they did against anyone else). How Kareem played is baked into the result and frankly im skeptical you can make a compelling case that Kareem was let down by his teamamtes beyond just shouting "defense!" in a series where the opposing center had one of his best offensive series ever(while Lebron significantly limited nikola?).
While we're at it, were you ever planning to factor in that Kareem ran into much weaker opponents than Lebron did?(-2 srs first round, .59 srs second round, finalist who lost decisively)? How about Lebron averaging 4 more mpg in the playoffs? Seens to me you're just filtering things to reach a desired outcome.
