What year's team had the greatest BENCH of all time?

[falcolombardi]

I provided playoff numbers and was countered with Finals numbers. But it's all sss, yes. The part that was missed in the orginal counter by owly was that all those bench guys I listed had massively positive ON court +/- in the regular season, which they tried to bury in the net on/offs.

I'm not accusing Spo of anything. I'm suggesting that perhaps those independently famous bench players deserve credit for playing well as appose to just being lucky to be Lebron's teammate in 2013.

Yes you are. You said this:

The only reason those line ups were trotted out was to prop up Lebron in order to give credit in lieu of his (bench) teammates.

No. You thought I was talking about Spo. I meant homecourtloss. You guys are presenting the strawman that it is Lebron vs. Wade. It's not. Heat bench was good independent of their sss line up #s in that series.

that makes sense, but honestly your wording was not that clear

gotta admit it was easy for us to be confused and think you were talking about spo

[Colbinii]

I provided playoff numbers and was countered with Finals numbers. But it's all sss, yes. The part that was missed in the orginal counter by owly was that all those bench guys I listed had massively positive ON court +/- in the regular season, which they tried to bury in the net on/offs.

I'm not accusing Spo of anything. I'm suggesting that perhaps those independently famous bench players deserve credit for playing well as appose to just being lucky to be Lebron's teammate in 2013.

Yes you are. You said this:

The only reason those line ups were trotted out was to prop up Lebron in order to give credit in lieu of his (bench) teammates.

No. You thought I was talking about Spo. I meant homecourtloss. You guys are presenting the strawman that it is Lebron vs. Wade. It's not. Heat bench was good independent of their sss line up #s in that series.

1) I am not presenting anything, so don't lump me into you guys.

2) The wording was extremely confusing for someone who has read every post in this thread. Thanks for clarifying.

[VanWest82]

gotta admit it was easy for us to be confused and think you were talking about spo

2) The wording was extremely confusing for someone who has read every post in this thread. Thanks for clarifying.

It's a weird ass point to try and make if it's about Spo.

[Owly]

do you think spoelstra was playing lebron with the bench, theorically running him with worse players than the starters to.... make him look better?

dont you think spo was trying to win a championship instead (and the plus/minus splits support lebron + bench being the best path to it)?

also it was you who brought up single playoffs plus/minus to show bench was good (it was) you cannot now switch it and say wade +/- was noise

I provided playoff numbers and was countered with Finals numbers. But it's all sss, yes. The part that was missed in the orginal counter by owly was that all those bench guys I listed had massively positive ON court +/- in the regular season, which they tried to bury in the net on/offs.

If you genuinely want to engage on something it would be polite to quote the person on it.

Heat net +8.6
LeBron On +13.2 (LeBron off -2.1 fwiw)
Allen with James +10.9 (worse than LeBron average) over 1234:23, round that to 1234.
Allen on overall is +5 over 2035 minutes.
801 minutes (less than 40% of his time to drag that average down) without LeBron is going to be squarely in the negative. And if LeBron's off that's likely against bench units.

Just citing the on without context is like pegging Tommy Heinsohn as top 20 all-time because he's got rings.
The 2004 Timberwolves bench has a bunch of positive Ons, not because they were good but because they didn't rigidly platoon and Garnett was incredible (and Cassell really good too).

Which doesn't mean Allen wasn't useful. I've stated he was.

Miller: ... +3.6 on over 900 minutes. He's at 7.8 with LeBron (again clearly below LeBron's norms) for 441 minutes - nearly exactly half his minutes. That places the Heat as likely a very small negative when not with LeBron.

Again if you've got a great team and you play a good chunk of your time with an elite teammate around their apex ... your on number should be positive. That's not a sign you have a great bench.

But if one were infatuated for some reason with "On" we've seen 1994 Seattle bench players go 1,2,3, mixed bench/starter at 4 in in the league in terms of "On" (of the 230 players playing enough for consideration (Nate McMillan, 16.4; Ricky Pierce, 15; Vincent Askew, 12.2; Sam Perkins, 11.3.). If that were the scale ... this is a bench that playing together, not mostly with LeBron James, was really good. By this (bad) tool the Heat still aren't in the conversation.

I'd also note that you've latterly pushed Cole.
+2.1 on for 1590 minutes.
+7.5 over 634 with LeBron.
Shockingly enough it's clearly significantly into the negative without LeBron. Noticing a trend here?

The bar to be in the broad conversation for greatest bench of all times shouldn't be can individuals retain a positive "On" when they play (say on average) circa half their minutes with a prime and peak-adajcent LeBron James type.

On off stuff is noisy. And I've noted teammates could affect it. But after a great start Miller trended negative impact (particularly due to defense) with limited availability from 2006 on. And more to the general point we've noted teams that were good with good on-off (and great Ons, for those super into that) such as Seattle '94.

Good recruitment with cap exceptions and minimums (after a hideously low baseline) is valuable, it isn't the stuff of an all time bench.

[VanWest82]

If you genuinely want to engage on something it would be polite to quote the person on it.

I did quote you...multiple times on page 2. I was addressing a point made by falcolombardi. I don't see any reason, politeness or otherwise, why anyone should have to curtesy quote other posters while referencing prior conversations with them to another poster. I've been on this site a long time and don't recall that happening much ever.

Heat net +8.6...

Spoiler:

LeBron On +13.2 (LeBron off -2.1 fwiw)
Allen with James +10.9 (worse than LeBron average) over 1234:23, round that to 1234.
Allen on overall is +5 over 2035 minutes.
801 minutes (less than 40% of his time to drag that average down) without LeBron is going to be squarely in the negative. And if LeBron's off that's likely against bench units.

Just citing the on without context is like pegging Tommy Heinsohn as top 20 all-time because he's got rings.
The 2004 Timberwolves bench has a bunch of positive Ons, not because they were good but because they didn't rigidly platoon and Garnett was incredible (and Cassell really good too).

Which doesn't mean Allen wasn't useful. I've stated he was.

Miller: ... +3.6 on over 900 minutes. He's at 7.8 with LeBron (again clearly below LeBron's norms) for 441 minutes - nearly exactly half his minutes. That places the Heat as likely a very small negative when not with LeBron.

Again if you've got a great team and you play a good chunk of your time with an elite teammate around their apex ... your on number should be positive. That's not a sign you have a great bench.

But if one were infatuated for some reason with "On" we've seen 1994 Seattle bench players go 1,2,3, mixed bench/starter at 4 in in the league in terms of "On" (of the 230 players playing enough for consideration (Nate McMillan, 16.4; Ricky Pierce, 15; Vincent Askew, 12.2; Sam Perkins, 11.3.). If that were the scale ... this is a bench that playing together, not mostly with LeBron James, was really good. By this (bad) tool the Heat still aren't in the conversation.

I'd also note that you've latterly pushed Cole.
+2.1 on for 1590 minutes.
+7.5 over 634 with LeBron.
Shockingly enough it's clearly significantly into the negative without LeBron. Noticing a trend here?

The bar to be in the broad conversation for greatest bench of all times shouldn't be can individuals retain a positive "On" when they play (say on average) circa half their minutes with a prime and peak-adajcent LeBron James type.

On off stuff is noisy. And I've noted teammates could affect it. But after a great start Miller trended negative impact (particularly due to defense) with limited availability from 2006 on. And more to the general point we've noted teams that were good with good on-off (and great Ons, for those super into that) such as Seattle '94.

Good recruitment with cap exceptions and minimums (after a hideously low baseline) is valuable, it isn't the stuff of an all time bench.

While I acknowledge the basic premise that Lebron was great, especially in 2013 which I consider to be his apex, and that there is plenty of evidence to be found of his greatness in his teammate line up data, I generally reject the singular use of his teammate on/offs and wowy as any kind of barometer for their level of play (despite my prior use of it to counter).

Lebron has played with a lot of good players over the years, many of which were HOF level players. Don't you think it's odd that virtually all of these good players and HOFers could barely float line up data sans Lebron while on his teams?

I think it's really tough playing with a maestro on the level of a Lebron or Nash or Magic who are in many ways themselves "the system" on offense. The team relies on them to create so much in a manner that isn't reproduceable and so when they hit the bench the team has nothing to fall back on. This is what people mean when they say his teams play Lebron-ball.

I would also add to help show that my submission was honorable that from a sheer volume production standpoint the 2013 Heat bench is likely lacking against some of the other notable submissions. To me, this is a better argument to make than Lebron's play style induced, skewed teammate on/offs and wowy.

[Owly]

If you genuinely want to engage on something it would be polite to quote the person on it.

I did quote you...multiple times on page 2. I was addressing a point made by falcolombardi. I don't see any reason, politeness or otherwise, why anyone should have to curtesy quote other posters while referencing prior conversations with them to another poster. I've been on this site a long time and don't recall that happening much ever.

The part that was missed in the orginal counter by owly was that all those bench guys I listed had massively positive ON court +/- in the regular season, which they tried to bury in the net on/offs.

This was an entirely new point not raised in our discussion, naming me specifically, claiming I had "missed" something and "tried to bury" it. If you don't see why that might be seen discourteous doing this without alerting them too it ...

Nor can I see how your comment about me not focussing on "On" samples relates to responding to Falco's misunderstanding of your response regarding' HCL's use of finals data, though perhaps I'm missing something.

Heat net +8.6...

Spoiler:

LeBron On +13.2 (LeBron off -2.1 fwiw)
Allen with James +10.9 (worse than LeBron average) over 1234:23, round that to 1234.
Allen on overall is +5 over 2035 minutes.
801 minutes (less than 40% of his time to drag that average down) without LeBron is going to be squarely in the negative. And if LeBron's off that's likely against bench units.

Just citing the on without context is like pegging Tommy Heinsohn as top 20 all-time because he's got rings.
The 2004 Timberwolves bench has a bunch of positive Ons, not because they were good but because they didn't rigidly platoon and Garnett was incredible (and Cassell really good too).

Which doesn't mean Allen wasn't useful. I've stated he was.

Miller: ... +3.6 on over 900 minutes. He's at 7.8 with LeBron (again clearly below LeBron's norms) for 441 minutes - nearly exactly half his minutes. That places the Heat as likely a very small negative when not with LeBron.

Again if you've got a great team and you play a good chunk of your time with an elite teammate around their apex ... your on number should be positive. That's not a sign you have a great bench.

But if one were infatuated for some reason with "On" we've seen 1994 Seattle bench players go 1,2,3, mixed bench/starter at 4 in in the league in terms of "On" (of the 230 players playing enough for consideration (Nate McMillan, 16.4; Ricky Pierce, 15; Vincent Askew, 12.2; Sam Perkins, 11.3.). If that were the scale ... this is a bench that playing together, not mostly with LeBron James, was really good. By this (bad) tool the Heat still aren't in the conversation.

I'd also note that you've latterly pushed Cole.
+2.1 on for 1590 minutes.
+7.5 over 634 with LeBron.
Shockingly enough it's clearly significantly into the negative without LeBron. Noticing a trend here?

The bar to be in the broad conversation for greatest bench of all times shouldn't be can individuals retain a positive "On" when they play (say on average) circa half their minutes with a prime and peak-adajcent LeBron James type.

On off stuff is noisy. And I've noted teammates could affect it. But after a great start Miller trended negative impact (particularly due to defense) with limited availability from 2006 on. And more to the general point we've noted teams that were good with good on-off (and great Ons, for those super into that) such as Seattle '94.

Good recruitment with cap exceptions and minimums (after a hideously low baseline) is valuable, it isn't the stuff of an all time bench.

While I acknowledge the basic premise that Lebron was great, especially in 2013 which I consider to be his apex, and that there is plenty of evidence to be found of his greatness in his teammate line up data, I reject the singular use of his teammate on/offs as any kind of barometer for their level of play.

Lebron has played with a lot of good players over the years, many of which were HOF level players. Don't you think it's odd that virtually all of these good players and HOFers could barely float line up data sans Lebron while on his teams?

I think it's really tough playing with a maestro on the level of a Lebron or Nash or Magic who are in many ways themselves "the system" on offense. The team relies on them to create so much in a manner that isn't reproduceable and so when they hit the bench the team has nothing to fall back on. This is what people mean when they say his teams play Lebron-ball.

I would also add to help show that my submission was honorable that from a sheer volume production standpoint the 2013 Heat bench is lacking against some of the other notable submissions. To me, this is a better argument to make than Lebron's artificially skewed teammate on/offs.

If a bench is, on the whole, neither that productive nor signalling impact what's left?

To the extent that you aren't going to prioritize a high quality backup in the role of your elite superstar you could argue all elite superstars who take on huge rules will be particularly hard to replace and have inflated impact stats at the margins, perhaps more so the more specialized they are.
That said if you can't play well without that star then that's an indictment of both those players and the coach.

[VanWest82]

This was an entirely new point not raised in our discussion...

If it makes you feel better, I'm sorry I didn't think to raise it at the time.

If a bench is, on the whole, neither that productive nor signalling impact what's left?

They did signal impact, you're just choosing to only credit Lebron for it. And again, it's not like we don't have entire careers worth of data to suggest those players were good completely independent of Lebron. Ray Allen and Shane Battier and Mike Miller aren't Boobie Gibson.

[falcolombardi]

If you genuinely want to engage on something it would be polite to quote the person on it.

I did quote you...multiple times on page 2. I was addressing a point made by falcolombardi. I don't see any reason, politeness or otherwise, why anyone should have to curtesy quote other posters while referencing prior conversations with them to another poster. I've been on this site a long time and don't recall that happening much ever.

Heat net +8.6...

Spoiler:

LeBron On +13.2 (LeBron off -2.1 fwiw)
Allen with James +10.9 (worse than LeBron average) over 1234:23, round that to 1234.
Allen on overall is +5 over 2035 minutes.
801 minutes (less than 40% of his time to drag that average down) without LeBron is going to be squarely in the negative. And if LeBron's off that's likely against bench units.

Just citing the on without context is like pegging Tommy Heinsohn as top 20 all-time because he's got rings.
The 2004 Timberwolves bench has a bunch of positive Ons, not because they were good but because they didn't rigidly platoon and Garnett was incredible (and Cassell really good too).

Which doesn't mean Allen wasn't useful. I've stated he was.

Miller: ... +3.6 on over 900 minutes. He's at 7.8 with LeBron (again clearly below LeBron's norms) for 441 minutes - nearly exactly half his minutes. That places the Heat as likely a very small negative when not with LeBron.

Again if you've got a great team and you play a good chunk of your time with an elite teammate around their apex ... your on number should be positive. That's not a sign you have a great bench.

But if one were infatuated for some reason with "On" we've seen 1994 Seattle bench players go 1,2,3, mixed bench/starter at 4 in in the league in terms of "On" (of the 230 players playing enough for consideration (Nate McMillan, 16.4; Ricky Pierce, 15; Vincent Askew, 12.2; Sam Perkins, 11.3.). If that were the scale ... this is a bench that playing together, not mostly with LeBron James, was really good. By this (bad) tool the Heat still aren't in the conversation.

I'd also note that you've latterly pushed Cole.
+2.1 on for 1590 minutes.
+7.5 over 634 with LeBron.
Shockingly enough it's clearly significantly into the negative without LeBron. Noticing a trend here?

The bar to be in the broad conversation for greatest bench of all times shouldn't be can individuals retain a positive "On" when they play (say on average) circa half their minutes with a prime and peak-adajcent LeBron James type.

On off stuff is noisy. And I've noted teammates could affect it. But after a great start Miller trended negative impact (particularly due to defense) with limited availability from 2006 on. And more to the general point we've noted teams that were good with good on-off (and great Ons, for those super into that) such as Seattle '94.

Good recruitment with cap exceptions and minimums (after a hideously low baseline) is valuable, it isn't the stuff of an all time bench.

While I acknowledge the basic premise that Lebron was great, especially in 2013 which I consider to be his apex, and that there is plenty of evidence to be found of his greatness in his teammate line up data, I generally reject the singular use of his teammate on/offs as any kind of barometer for their level of play (despite my prior use of it to counter).

Lebron has played with a lot of good players over the years, many of which were HOF level players. Don't you think it's odd that virtually all of these good players and HOFers could barely float line up data sans Lebron while on his teams?

I think it's really tough playing with a maestro on the level of a Lebron or Nash or Magic who are in many ways themselves "the system" on offense. The team relies on them to create so much in a manner that isn't reproduceable and so when they hit the bench the team has nothing to fall back on. This is what people mean when they say his teams play Lebron-ball.

I would also add to help show that my submission was honorable that from a sheer volume production standpoint the 2013 Heat bench is likely lacking against some of the other notable submissions. To me, this is a better argument to make than Lebron's play style induced, skewed teammate on/offs.

if the bench is only good with a lebron level distributor on court that is not exactly a endorsement of them, that they needed a creator to be effective and didnt have any half decent creator in the bench is a point against them

imagine a bench unit who was good in offense but historically bad in defense so you play prime russel or hakeem with them to make the bench viable

"they are a great bench, you only need prime bill russel with them for them to be good" wouldnt exactly be a ringing endorsement

and i think they were a good bench mind you, but needing a goat tier player on court to be effective is not exactly a good argument to make for them

is like if i said that denver bench is excelent, is just they need a jokic level player om the court to be effective

[Owly]

This was an entirely new point not raised in our discussion...

If it makes you feel better, I'm sorry I didn't think to raise it at the time.

It doesn't because (besides the fact the my feelings aren't in question).
1) Serious apologies generally aren't prefaced "If it makes you feel better"
2) You just argued that it was fine.
3) The timing wasn't the issue, the placing of a discussion of my "trying to bury" something in a response not quoting me, whilst naming me was.

If a bench is, on the whole, neither that productive nor signalling impact what's left?

They did signal impact, you're just choosing to only credit Lebron for it. And again, it's not like we don't have entire careers worth of data to suggest those players were good completely independent of Lebron. Ray Allen and Shane Battier and Mike Miller aren't Boobie Gibson.

Again with the strawmen. Nobody's calling them Boobie Gibson. Nobody's been criticizing Battier at all (nor really Allen in the pejorative sense, though was far from what he had been, so his impact at this point has seen some discussion).
But if you don't like on-off because "On" is better with no context and then on-off, and then you don't like On without LeBron then ... anyone who plays with good players is impactful.
As noted above Miller's impact trends had been negative since 2006 (driven primarily by defense).

[VanWest82]

This was an entirely new point not raised in our discussion...

If it makes you feel better, I'm sorry I didn't think to raise it at the time.

It doesn't because (besides the fact the my feelings aren't in question).
1) Serious apologies generally aren't prefaced "If it makes you feel better"
2) You just argued that it was fine.
3) The timing wasn't the issue, the placing of a discussion of my "trying to bury" something in a response not quoting me, whilst naming me was.

For someone who says their feelings aren't in question, you do seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time on this.

The fact is that you did bury the ON data while choosing to only share the RS on/offs. Like, Birdman was +9 and was a terrific defensive presence for them off the bench but looks like a chump as a -0.2 in on/off. You did what I said you did. So what? There was no personal attack or anything of the like. If you want a legitimate, heartfelt apology for it, I suggest you develop some thicker skin.

If a bench is, on the whole, neither that productive nor signalling impact what's left?

They did signal impact, you're just choosing to only credit Lebron for it. And again, it's not like we don't have entire careers worth of data to suggest those players were good completely independent of Lebron. Ray Allen and Shane Battier and Mike Miller aren't Boobie Gibson.

Again with the strawmen. Nobody's calling them Boobie Gibson. Nobody's been criticizing Battier at all (nor really Allen in the pejorative sense, though was far from what he had been, so his impact at this point has seen some discussion).
But if you don't like on-off because "On" is better with no context and then on-off, and then you don't like On without LeBron then ... anyone who plays with good players is impactful.
As noted above Miller's impact trends had been negative since 2006 (driven primarily by defense).

Again, I don't like using Lebron's teammate on/offs and wowy because it's clear to me that they aren't representative of teammate quality. There's something funny going on there that's consistent season to season regardless of the teammates. He could be playing with Bill Russell, MJ, and Larry and they'd have bad wowy with him. Some of it is structural due to play-style; some of it is practical (i.e. when Lebron dominates the ball and plays 40 mins in the playoffs it doesn't make sense to focus resources on the type of back up with enough quality to float line ups sans basic, organizing offensive structure, nor is it likely that a player of that caliber would agree to that kind of role, hence why his teams have typically lacked that presence).

Also, as much as I do think track record for these HOF teammates and support players is notable in providing context to their performance, the thing that matters most is the actual performance. In other words, all that really matters is Mike Miller shot 61% from three in the Finals. You can try and discredit that by claiming he hadn't been impactful in whatever role since 06 but ultimately he was impactful in that series. His stats show that and the team stats show that. And if you really want proof that it was the teammates go look at the 2014 Finals where Lebron was arguably just as good but Heat got trounced because for the most part the same collection of guys didn't show up the same.

[falcolombardi]

i would say this is getting too personal for my liking

just discuss basketball without passive agressive attacks

[Owly]

In the HM category 93 Trail Blazers give you three quality players who give you a lot of minutes: all playing less than half their games played (and therefore of course less than half total games) started.
Clifford Robinson (6MoY)
Rod Strickland
Mario Elie

[sp6r=underrated]

00 Blazers

Greg
Bonzi
Schrempf
Grant
Jo

Overall tho its b/w 12-14 Spurs and 88-90 Pistons IMO and then everyone else

2000 Blazers is a great pick.

[Owly]

98-2000 Pacers tend to have solid production off the bench. 98 and 99 on-off points to the starters as the impact players. In 2000, however, Best, Croshere, Mullin, Perkins, McKey are the positive on-off guys too.

[Lou Fan]

Definitely not the best ever but the 18 Raptors with FVV, Siakam, Poeltl, Miles, Powell, and Delon Wright off the bench were super deep.