RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #3

[THKNKG]

There have been some great posts, but I'm not sure there has been some great discussion, if at all.

It feels more like everyone saying "here's my argument", "oh great, sure, here's my argument" - and while I agree with Doctor MJ that the value isn't necessarily in changing your mind now... I'd love to see more challenges on the following:
- Is your criteria logical? Is it internally consistent? Why/why not?
- Science progresses when hypotheses are challenged and then proved/disproved. So to this end: what kind of evidence would make you change your mind on the selection of your criteria, and the ranking of your players?
- Acknowledge your biases! Arguably the ATG insight/impact per post poster on this board, fpliii, acknowledges his bias towards two-way bigs and longevity in nearly every other post. SSB always clearly states his agenda with every thread. This is not as a way for people to suddenly attack you - but for people to recognize that these biases might form part of the explanation for why you are further apart on a criteria set/player than you ought to be.

Biases: Favorite players are Duncan, Hakeem, MJ, Bird, and Bron. I tend to over-compensate for this and might end up arguing sub-optimally however.

Criteria: For me, the "no accounting for era" assumption is always in flux: there's no post summarizing the pros/cons, so I seem to be swayed by whatever strongest post is recent. Currently it seems arbitrary to say that Russell should be punished because his era might not translate... While LeBron and company at the very least, because they played in the more modern, more difficult era. I guess it comes down to: does changing the era significantly affect the way they're able to deliver impact? LeBron to the 60s would lose some value because he doesn't create more points via kick-outs, but he also shorten the court more vs. his less athletic, badly spaced competition. Russell though - would still be a great asset today (like an uber Gobert on D + more), but the impact would be severely diminished. He deserves massive credit for being a pioneer, however, which I suppose you can argue is a component of greatness. For now though - cutting him off of this tier.

Vote: Who deserves the #3 spot? My contenders:

Duncan: Again - the L5 leader stuff sounds... kooky, but if it holds true, that would mean his expected championship count continues to accumulate even after he's done playing. On top of his already ridiculous longevity and great peak, what else is there? Maybe the GOAT career value, even if not the GOAT player.

Garnett: Tons of high-impact, superstar years, great skill-set, highly portable... What else needs to be said? Like Nash, the impact cuts across different team contexts - his smoking gun will always be "well, we thought his impact wouldn't hold-up on superior teams, but lo and behold - on a team that everyone thought would succeed due to O, he brought by far the most impact on D, which became their calling card". Later years still had ton of per-minute impact, and I could envision him playing a similar role to Duncan on the '14 Spurs, for example. Incredible peak as well - Voulgaris even says it's the best single-season peak ever - and that guy knows hoops better than anyone.

I don't buy the "his skill-set is scarcer therefore more valuable!", and if you're reading this and you do, just know that this is the same logic that enables "top-tier shot-making/volume scoring is what wins games in the playoffs! Just look at the empirical evidence of past champions!" - both of which are not really sound methods of comparatively evaluating player value. Even if his staunchest supporters are starting to annoy me as much as Kobe stans (which I recognize might bias me against him), owing to their idealization of the Garnett skill-set as one that all big men must have to have an impact as big as him (not accounting for stuff like: availability bias, actual player goodness+situation, etc.), I still can't argue in the face of the overwhelming evidence that Garnett has presented us all with. A top-tier all-timer.

If it could somehow be proven that volume scoring efficiently (post-ups, FT rate, etc.) is a statistically significant driver of success (not just playoffs), even at the expense of say, better perimeter D, then sure, you can then convince me that Garnett is a tier below the other 2 guys here.

LeBron: His case is based on his amazing impact across vastly different team contexts, and the recent run has smoked any "why does he marginalize Love like he did with Bosh" talks. So I would have to believe his impact at peak level isn't good enough, he doesn't have enough high level minutes (He's at ~55k... but how much of his pre-2008 minutes were impactful?)

Vote: Duncan
Alt: LeBron

Probably a bit biased now - since my null hypothesis is "LeBron's pre-2007 years weren't worth that much - not useless, but not that much". If someone can prove that he was a ~+4 player these years, then he takes the spot over Duncan (because then his longevity would be similar, with those early years being similar to post-prime years for Duncan.

You must have missed the book I wrote in thread 1 haha.

[THKNKG]

I'm pretty confident that Duncan is my #1 vote for reasons already stated.

For #2, I'm stuck. LBJ, Russell, KG, and Wilt all have cases, though I currently feel LBJ and Russell have the best cases.

I have a few thoughts I would like others to chime in on:

1) Wilt scores similarly to Russell in many of the advanced/impact stats that we have available for that time period. I used to casually say that Russell had massive team defensive impact to an outlier level (and he does), but now I wonder how much of his peak (62-65ish) is benefitted by playing with excellent defensive players - Hondo, KC Jones, and Sam Jones? Is the difference between levels of success due to circumstances, similar to KG and Duncan? I would probably still give Russell the edge due to a few various reasons, but I wonder how close it truly is.

2) I'm not sure whether peak Lebron or peak Russell had more total impact, or who had the highest cumulative impact thus far.

3) Has Lebron passed players like Duncan/KG, who exhibited comparable/semi-comparable talent/"lift" for so many years?

4) I'm still stuck on Wilt period, so any help you can give would be nice.

5) Shaq doesn't have the same level of durability/intangibles/longevity as these guys, so he's a half tier or so below.

6) Wilt showed ability to lead championship caliber teams in a variety of roles, but I don't see that discussed too often. Thoughts?

[eminence]

Spoiler:

I'm pretty confident that Duncan is my #1 vote for reasons already stated.

For #2, I'm stuck. LBJ, Russell, KG, and Wilt all have cases, though I currently feel LBJ and Russell have the best cases.

I have a few thoughts I would like others to chime in on:

1) Wilt scores similarly to Russell in many of the advanced/impact stats that we have available for that time period. I used to casually say that Russell had massive team defensive impact to an outlier level (and he does), but now I wonder how much of his peak (62-65ish) is benefitted by playing with excellent defensive players - Hondo, KC Jones, and Sam Jones? Is the difference between levels of success due to circumstances, similar to KG and Duncan? I would probably still give Russell the edge due to a few various reasons, but I wonder how close it truly is.

2) I'm not sure whether peak Lebron or peak Russell had more total impact, or who had the highest cumulative impact thus far.

3) Has Lebron passed players like Duncan/KG, who exhibited comparable/semi-comparable talent/"lift" for so many years?

4) I'm still stuck on Wilt period, so any help you can give would be nice.

5) Shaq doesn't have the same level of durability/intangibles/longevity as these guys, so he's a half tier or so below.

6) Wilt showed ability to lead championship caliber teams in a variety of roles, but I don't see that discussed too often. Thoughts?

You could really just count Micah's vote twice and I could just sleep in, lol.

[penbeast0]

Although there are some statistical indicators, I never heard of Sam Jones being referred to by contemporaries as a true defensive star like KC and Havlicek.

[ThaRegul8r]

I never heard of Sam Jones being referred to by contemporaries as a true defensive star like KC and Havlicek.

He wasn't.

KC, Havlicek and Sanders were the "excellent defenders."

I've seen a few other posters on the internet talk about Sam Jones in that vein, but I'm not sure where that came from.

As I've said before, the internet makes it easy for misinformation to spread, since most people just copy/repeat what they saw somewhere. And when it's repeated often enough, it's assumed to be true.

[Doctor MJ]

I never heard of Sam Jones being referred to by contemporaries as a true defensive star like KC and Havlicek.

He wasn't.

KC, Havlicek and Sanders were the "excellent defenders."

I've seen a few other posters on the internet talk about Sam Jones in that vein, but I'm not sure where that came from.

As I've said before, the internet makes it easy for misinformation to spread, since most people just copy/repeat what they saw somewhere. And when it's repeated often enough, it's assumed to be true.

Pretty sure the issue is that there are 2 guys named Jones on the Russell Celtics. They get confused and thus likely get conflated.

[ThaRegul8r]

I never heard of Sam Jones being referred to by contemporaries as a true defensive star like KC and Havlicek.

He wasn't.

KC, Havlicek and Sanders were the "excellent defenders."

I've seen a few other posters on the internet talk about Sam Jones in that vein, but I'm not sure where that came from.

As I've said before, the internet makes it easy for misinformation to spread, since most people just copy/repeat what they saw somewhere. And when it's repeated often enough, it's assumed to be true.

Pretty sure the issue is that there are 2 guys named Jones on the Russell Celtics. They get confused and thus likely get conflated.

The post penbeast0 replied to named both Jones. There was no confusion since both were explicitly separately named.

[wojoaderge]

I'm going with the UK's first Stuart monarch's namesake in the three hole. The entire league has more or less revolved around him for more than a decade now. Any team he plays for is automatically considered a championship contender regardless of who's on the roster. That's enough for me.

1 - King James
2 - The Big Dipper

[Doctor MJ]

He wasn't.

KC, Havlicek and Sanders were the "excellent defenders."

I've seen a few other posters on the internet talk about Sam Jones in that vein, but I'm not sure where that came from.

As I've said before, the internet makes it easy for misinformation to spread, since most people just copy/repeat what they saw somewhere. And when it's repeated often enough, it's assumed to be true.

Pretty sure the issue is that there are 2 guys named Jones on the Russell Celtics. They get confused and thus likely get conflated.

The post penbeast0 replied to named both Jones. There was no confusion since both were explicitly separately named.

But it is entirely possible that his mistaken belief comes from prior confusions on the part of himself or others.

[Doctor MJ]

Question to any/all:

Does Lebron, in your opinion, bear any of the blame for the fact that his team (even a presumably "good" cast) falls off a cliff any time he's not on the court? And if so, why?

I mean some of those old casts in Cleveland 1.0 it's obvious: those were just crummy casts.

But in Cleveland 2.0, where he has K.Love and Kyrie, and reasonable depth (though lacking in interior presence, especially defensively), they still seem to utterly drown without him.
Is it somehow [even partially, perhaps?] his fault? Or is this squarely on the the supporting cast? I mean, these are grown men, they're professionals (and almost exclusively veterans, too), should they be considered responsible for themselves?

Thoughts on this?

I certainly believe so. I don't really think it's that damning given the level of success he has, but LeBron has chosen to make himself effectively less portable.

[ThaRegul8r]

Where did the assumption that they ran a fast pace to maximize their defense come from?

I ask this because I was the one who posted the excerpt people reference about the Celtics running a fast pace on this board to begin with. It was new to the posters here when I posted it. So as I know what it said due to having exposed everyone here to it in the first place, I'm wondering where in the explanation was there any mention of doing it to help their defense.

Just from my own observation that the Celtics defense in the 60s showed a negative correlation to the relative pace that they played at.

So... where does "I observed the Celtics' defense in the '60s showed a negative correlation to the relative pace they played" warrant a jump to "the Celtics deliberately ran a fast pace to maximize their defense?"

This 70sFan's post from a week ago also pointed out Boston's use of faster pace to help defense:

Auerbach created system to play for Bill strengths. Celtics played as fast as possible on offense to play defense longer than opponents. They sacrified offensive production to beat opponents defensively. While we have to give credit Jones and Havlicek (and Cousy/Sharman) for scoring points, it wasn't really a factor for Celtics. It's defense and defensive rebounding.

Then I'll ask him about this then.

I couldn't care less about rankings, but the reason I'm pressing this point is because during the Retro Player of the Year Project and the first Peaks Project I believe it was, there were posters who repeated something they saw a respected poster on this board post, and since I keep track, I pointed out that there was absolutely not a shred of evidence to support that claim, and no one else could find any evidence of that claim either when responding to me. Yet even conceding the lack of evidence, they said that since a respected poster posted it, they had no reason to doubt it. That's why I'm not interested in a poster's name or reputation, but the accuracy of any information a post contains. Anyone can err, which is why over 90% of the time I post something, I make sure to have the pertinent information right in front of me.

But are we using Russell's defense to show why he won championships or are we using his championships to validate his defensive impact? Most of the Russell voters in round 2 didn't vote for him just because of his 11 rings so while it is true that nothing else matters for a team which has won the championship, it is not particularly useful here. Nash has the best relative team ORtg in both regular season and playoffs but is not generally regarded as the offensive GOAT because those numbers aren't taken at face value due to the Suns sacrificing defense for more offense and would most likely have a less impressive offense if they played more defense (see first half of 2006 season). This same criteria is not applied to the Celtics who arguably sacrificed offense for more defense to a greater degree.

But see, there's the assumption again that the Celtics "sacrificed offense for more defense." Which I challenged to begin with. I'd like to see some sort of evidence provided from someone who played on the Cetics, saying this is what they were doing.

We had a very simple objective at the start of every game: We were going to take more shots than the other team, as many more as we could. So the less time we wasted bringing the ball upcourt, the more shots we’d get, and the easier those shots would probably be because the defense would be caught unprepared.

We were trained to play at a pace other teams didn’t like, to extend ourselves 100 percent every minute we were out there. Other coaches preferred to slow the pace so that their players would still be strong at the end of the game if they had to go the full forty-eight minutes. Red’s approach was just the opposite: Turn the contest into a physical test of wills!

Even if other teams were able to match us shot for shot, they weren’t getting as many good shots as the game wore on because they were being forced to think quicker, shoot quicker, and make decisions quicker, invariably leading to more turnovers than they were accustomed to committing.

We didn’t waste a lot of time looking for the perfect shots, the way other teams did. Our idea was to overwhelm the opposition by the number of shots we took; the emphasis was clearly on quantity.

The mathematics of that approach were obvious. If we took 100 shots and made only 40 percent, we’d still have as many points as a team that took 80 shots and made 50 percent. The meant if the other team was trying to limit its number of shots by playing a slower game, it was going to have to shoot a much higher percentage than we did in order to beat us.

We weren’t worried about percentages. People look back at those Celtics today and say, “Hey, Cousy shot only 38 percent,” but that’s a misunderstanding of the way we played.

The constant battle was to find ways to upbeat the tempo and to never allow the other team to slow us down; more important, to never allow them time to catch their breath or to think. […] With Cousy and Russell perfecting what they knew at opposite ends of the floor, allowing us to become more and more assertive all the time, we were simply too much for most teams to withstand. We were the marines, baby! Charge! That was us: the leathernecks of the NBA, charging up Pork Chop Hill every night.

Like this. A first hand account from someone actually on the team, providing insight that a spectator couldn't get from simply watching the game. Which is the quote RealGM posters started referring to when talking about the Celtics' pace after I initially posted it here seven years ago. He said the Celtics' game plan was to overwhelm opponents, and even if teams managed to match them, they would make mistakes due to not being accustomed to playing that fast. (Basically, you couldn't expect to beat the Celtics at their own game.) But there's nothing there about "sacrificing offense for defense." In fact, everyone speaking on it says Russell's defense enabled them to develop "offensive pressure."

I always keep track of things at the time, so when I talk about something beyond the period that most people began watching basketball, I always post evidence from that time (which has been my whole shtick here), rather than giving any kind of opinion. Particularly from a period that most people didn't see, because I've seen people who didn't have first-hand knowledge of a period of time make erroneous assumptions.

[kayess]

I'm pretty confident that Duncan is my #1 vote for reasons already stated.

For #2, I'm stuck. LBJ, Russell, KG, and Wilt all have cases, though I currently feel LBJ and Russell have the best cases.

I have a few thoughts I would like others to chime in on:

1) Wilt scores similarly to Russell in many of the advanced/impact stats that we have available for that time period. I used to casually say that Russell had massive team defensive impact to an outlier level (and he does), but now I wonder how much of his peak (62-65ish) is benefitted by playing with excellent defensive players - Hondo, KC Jones, and Sam Jones? Is the difference between levels of success due to circumstances, similar to KG and Duncan? I would probably still give Russell the edge due to a few various reasons, but I wonder how close it truly is.

2) I'm not sure whether peak Lebron or peak Russell had more total impact, or who had the highest cumulative impact thus far.

3) Has Lebron passed players like Duncan/KG, who exhibited comparable/semi-comparable talent/"lift" for so many years?

4) I'm still stuck on Wilt period, so any help you can give would be nice.

5) Shaq doesn't have the same level of durability/intangibles/longevity as these guys, so he's a half tier or so below.

6) Wilt showed ability to lead championship caliber teams in a variety of roles, but I don't see that discussed too often. Thoughts?

1) We'll have to like at WOWY (and more than likely, true On/Off), but the current thinking is that the Celtics' D fell off a cliff when Russell wasn't there. If that isn't the case well, we'll probably have to re-think Russell's case entirely then.

2) Very difficult to say - obviously if everything holds, Russell had more raw impact than anyone, but depends if you want to adjust for era.

3) Very likely - I have Duncan above for now due to Regulator's massive post that posits that the Spur's superior culture is due to Duncan, and likely would not have been that way if not for him. That's an extremely compelling case for GOAT, honestly.

4) TLAF posts on Wilt are great, but yeah, if you account for his mental **** it's really difficult to say. I would say this: he had a GOAT-tier peak, was extremely portable if you could tell him what to do constantly, and had great longevity. He was extremely unlucky, but how much of his failures could have been changed if he had his head screwed on correctly? Not that many - but even more than one is pretty damning when you're in this company.

5) Sure - but you could argue his peak is the greatest, and his general level of impact was higher than most guys'. I had him just below the GOAT tier candidates/Duncan, but a couple have moved up a bit.

6) Yeah - as TLAF puts it, he was the best scorer, rebounder, defender, passing big man, but never any of those simultaneously. I guess the question you have to ask here is: How much of that is due to him, and how much of that is due to team circumstances?

[Doctor MJ]

Some quick thoughts on KG this high.

I dont want to offend anyones opinion here, but I just dont see it, its borderline absurd. This is not a peak ranking (which even then I disagree with, but sure I can see a legit argument for) As a ranking of greatest of all time, at this high where there is a handful of resumes, his argument revolves around his +/- and value over replacement on ridiculous bad teams... so the arguement I suppose is if he had a great team around him we can infer from those numbers that he would have Tim Duncan-like sucess? OK maybe, but Tim Duncan ACTUALLY happened. Its insane to me to give that much credit on a career level to someone over others that actually lived it, did it, proved it, got the results and did it inn extraordinary fashion.
I get it, its unfortunate that he played a majority of his prime with some garbage teams... but that is what we are calling one of the handful greatest of all time careers? I use Duncan just because its a contemporary that he is clearly inferior to in terms of a GOAT ranking, but even if we look at their careers at 31 years old and onward (when KG got a great team), Duncan still outshines and does so clearly. /end rant.

I'm glad you're posting on this. My opinion on KG has changed quite a bit over the years and in 2014 I started advocating for him at the #4 spot with Duncan as my #5. I went into this one in 2017 basically looking to pull back from being a major advocate really at all, but in particular from KG. I just don't want to be like that all the time. But since you're talking about this Tesla, I feel I should address it some.

First, I don't see it as "Duncan actually did it, whereas KG just might have done it". Players don't "do" championships, they do things that can lead to championships. The mere fact that sometimes the same thing can succeed or fail in actually leading to a championship means that we need to be able address the things in and of themselves.

KG gave his team more lift than Duncan did, and by "lift" I mean that from my analysis of +/- style stats, Garnett has a general edge there over Duncan. This was always true but it didn't mean as much to me when KG was in Minnesota because of what you say: It was in a lesser team setting than Duncan so take it with a grain of salt and grade on a curve.

But then KG went to Boston and things changed. There KG has tremendous defensive impact on a team that was defined by that defensive impact and they won the championship, and could have easily been a dynasty if the players in question had gotten together just a little sooner. This could be said to have re-legitimized KG in my eyes (alone with the help of some great posters here). Basically, the only thing that kept me from seeing KG as on a tier with Duncan before was the fact I hadn't seen him in the most triumphant setting. Once I knew better what he could be, it just seemed silly to act as if it couldn't have been like that from the start of his prime.

Now, the reality is at this point I'm actually totally fine with Duncan over KG. I can see good arguments both ways. I tended to focus on the Duncan comparison though because of the unique relationship:

They are contemporary rivals seen by many as being in different tiers, but the analytics just don't support this, and my qualitative distinctions holding KG back just became, as you say, absurd, the more I looked at it.

[MisterHibachi]

Spoiler:

My method of ranking players might be simple, and obviously subjective, but I think it works for me: prime x peak x longevity. I group players by prime, tie breaker with peak, then a further tie breaker with longevity. I think wing players are more valuable on offense than big men, and for most of NBA history, big men are more valuable than wings on defense. I think the latter might be changing in the current NBA. For players who were considered superstars in their league, I consider their years as a championship caliber anchor to be their prime seasons, and longevity outside of that only counts if it was a positive for their teams.

I think Shaq/LeBron/MJ/Hakeem/Wilt/Kareem all have a similar peak level, so I'll go with Kareem for the top spot as he has the best longevity. I'll be honest, I try to imagine how they would play in the 2010 era, so it does color how I view them, but I try not to let it affect my rankings too much.

I don't have exact criteria. But I take a cursory look at the stats, but I don't usually quote them in player comparisons. My scouting skills aren't the best, but that's what I rely on for the most part. I try to watch the player a bunch before making a judgment on him. I look mainly at decision making and skill set. I think if I have a handle on those two things then I can comfortably talk about a player.

I was debating between Shaq and LeBron for this spot as I think they have the best two primes in the remaining candidates. I'm gonna go with LeBron. As stated in the spoiler, I try to gauge a player's decision making ability to really see how good of a player they are, and I think LeBron is probably the GOAT at that, certainly better than Shaq. Shaq had a very simple game, which of course worked, but LeBron makes better decisions in tougher spots than basically anyone ever. He's been his team's primary playmaker and scorer for basically his entire career. The level of responsibility, the per possession load he has had to carry and still make close to perfect decisions possession after possession on such volume is incredible to me. I think he had a better peak than Shaq simply because he can think the game better. That also has its drawbacks in that he can think a bit too much and take too long to do stuff, but I think that can be attributed to the more complex defenses of the modern game.

In terms of longevity: Shaq was championship-caliber from 94-05, but the average value of his seasons is much lower than LeBron's from 09-17, both because he's a worse player in non-peak seasons and because of his missed games. Seriously, outside of 2000 and maybe 2001, do any of his seasons compare to LeBron's 09/10/13/14/16/17 campaigns? My answer: no.

There's also this thread which I made in April. LeBron's in his 14th season now and arguably had his best year ever. And the consensus seems to be that not only is it the best 14th year ever, but also has an argument as the best 32 year old season ever. It's absolutely insane the kind of quality longevity LeBron is stacking up now.

I also want to note that LeBron is building a case as a greater Finals performer than basically anyone ever. He's faced tougher teams than either Shaq or MJ and gotten better as the opponents have gotten tougher.

With the Finals matchup set, here's what he's faced in his 8 trips by SRS.

07 Spurs +8.35
11 Mavs +4.41
12 Thunder +6.44
13 Spurs +6.67
14 Spurs +8.00
15 Warriors +10.01
16 Warriors +10.38
17 Warriors +11.35

Assuming the Warriors sweep the Cavs (4G this year), the weighted average SRS for his Finals opponents is +8.11 (+8.32 if it goes to 7). Since 2012. Last 4 years is +9.91.

Jordan's opponents:

Spoiler:

91 Lakers +6.73
92 Blazers +6.94
93 Suns +6.27
96 Sonics +7.40
97 Jazz +7.97
98 Jazz +5.73

Weighted average +6.84

Shaq's opponents:

95 Rockets +2.32
00 Pacers +4.15
01 Sixers +3.64
02 Nets +3.67
04 Pistons +4.93
06 Mavs +5.96

The best of them is the Mavs and the Pistons, both of whom around the level of the 11 Mavs, which were the weakest team LeBron faced. Although the Pistons' SRS doesn't reflect their true ceiling after the Wallace trade, but the 11 Mavs had a bunch of games without Dirk as well. LeBron's faced a progressively tougher opponent in the finals each year after 2011, yet his performances have gotten better year after year. It's insane.

Then there's this:

From RCF:

30+ PER Playoff runs played through the finals:

George Mikan, 1954 (33.6 PER, played only 10 games, won title)

Jordan, 1991 (32 PER, won title)
Jordan, 1993 (30.1 PER won title)

Shaq, 2000 (30.5 PER, won title)

LeBron, 2012 (30.3 PER, won title)
LeBron, 2014 (31.1 PER, lost Finals)
LeBron, 2016 (30 PER, won title)
LeBron, 2017 (30.1 PER, lost Finals)

Having the best player doesn't mean as much when the league is this deep in talent.

Last but not least (I'm not even addressing the +/- stuff in this post, where LeBron is king), to address the weak eastern conference critique, I want to share a classic post by mopper8 from 2014, which was probably LeBron's weakest run in terms of conference opponents faced:

No, it's not anywhere close to true. Where to start?

Before 1967, the NBA playoffs were only two rounds and the the division winners got a 1st round bye. That meant a team only had to win one series to make the Finals. So, for example, the 1963 Celtics had to beat the 42-38 Cincy Royals to get to the finals. That's it. 1 team barely over .500. Their Finals opponent that season, the Lakers, had to beat only one team as well, the moderately more challenging 48-win St. Louis Hawks. Both teams graded out at about ~1 point better than league average per game. Is Miami's road to the Finals easier than that? The suggestion is ludicrous. In fact, there is barely a team before 1967 who could claim a harder road to the Finals than what Miami has this season.

So, set aside the "NBA history" hyperbole for a moment. What about post-1st round byes? Well, from 67 until 75 the playoffs stayed at 2 rounds, so even without a 1st round bye, teams often had rather easy paths to the Finals. The 74 Celtics, for example, only had to beat the 42-40 Buffalo Braves and the 49-33 Knicks en route to the Finals, hardly tougher or even as tough as Miami's 3 teams this year, no matter what you think of how Indiana is playing right now. In 1970, the Lakers only had to beat the 39 win Suns and 48-win Hawks.

Ok ok, so maybe when you said "NBA history" you didn't mean "NBA history," you meant post-merger NBA history, right?

Post-merger, though, they reinstated the 1st round bye for top seeds, so even though there were 3 rounds, some teams only had to win 2 series, not always against top flight competition either. In 77, the Sixers had to beat the 44-win Celtics (-1.9 SRS) and the 49-win Rockets (1.44 SRS). That's an easier two teams than Nets/Pacers and you don't even have a first round to worry about.

Ok ok, so maybe when you said "NBA history," what you really meant was NBA history since every team had to play all 3 rounds.

But then, of course, you have the Lakers in the 80s. In 84, for example, LA had the 38-44 KC Kings (negative SRS), followed by the 43-win Mavs (0.15 SRS), and then the 41-41 Phoenix Suns (0.65 SRS). There is no possible way anyone could honestly consider this a harder road to the Finals then what Miami has now. In 87, LA had the 37-win Nuggets, then the 42-win Warriors, and then 39 win Supersonics. That's right, LA's competition was collectively below .500 prior to the Finals. Again, no way you could possibly think that's anywhere near as difficult as what Miami has to go through now.

Ok, ok, so maybe when you said "NBA history," what you really meant was modern NBA history, because they weren't even playing defense in the early/mid 80's, right?

Well, the 91 Bulls had the 39-win Knicks, 44-win Sixers, and the 50-win Pistons. That's roughly comparable to what Miami had to face this season, by team metrics (SRS, win%), maybe even easier. But there was some star power there, so let's just set that aside and go more modern.

In 2000, the Pacers had to beat the 42-win Bucks (0 SRS), the 49 win Sixers (1 SRS), and the 50 win Knicks (1.3 SRS). Easier road that Miami has now.

In 2001, the Sixers beat the 41-win Pacers, the 47-win Raptors, and the 52 win Bucks (3.13 SRS). Easier road than Miami, pretty clearly.

In 2002, the Nets beat the 42 win Pacers, the 44-win Hornets, and the 49-win Celtics. Not much different from Miami's path to the Finals, definitely easier if Indy shows up.

In 2003, the Nets beat the 42 win Bucks, the 44 win Celtics, and the 50 win Pistons (3 SRS). Equal to or easier than Miami's run this year.

So even modern NBA history is out. So I guess when you say "NBA history" I don't know what you're talking about. Or more accurately, you don't know what you're talking about.

tl;dr LeBron has been better for longer than anyone remaining and that's why he has my vote.

Vote:

1. LeBron
2. Shaq

[THKNKG]

He wasn't.

KC, Havlicek and Sanders were the "excellent defenders."

I've seen a few other posters on the internet talk about Sam Jones in that vein, but I'm not sure where that came from.

As I've said before, the internet makes it easy for misinformation to spread, since most people just copy/repeat what they saw somewhere. And when it's repeated often enough, it's assumed to be true.

Pretty sure the issue is that there are 2 guys named Jones on the Russell Celtics. They get confused and thus likely get conflated.

The post penbeast0 replied to named both Jones. There was no confusion since both were explicitly separately named.

Yet, I don't just copy information without checking it, so it's a different matter entirely - I just goofed.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

[Tesla]

Some quick thoughts on KG this high.

I dont want to offend anyones opinion here, but I just dont see it, its borderline absurd. This is not a peak ranking (which even then I disagree with, but sure I can see a legit argument for) As a ranking of greatest of all time, at this high where there is a handful of resumes, his argument revolves around his +/- and value over replacement on ridiculous bad teams... so the arguement I suppose is if he had a great team around him we can infer from those numbers that he would have Tim Duncan-like sucess? OK maybe, but Tim Duncan ACTUALLY happened. Its insane to me to give that much credit on a career level to someone over others that actually lived it, did it, proved it, got the results and did it inn extraordinary fashion.
I get it, its unfortunate that he played a majority of his prime with some garbage teams... but that is what we are calling one of the handful greatest of all time careers? I use Duncan just because its a contemporary that he is clearly inferior to in terms of a GOAT ranking, but even if we look at their careers at 31 years old and onward (when KG got a great team), Duncan still outshines and does so clearly. /end rant.

I'm glad you're posting on this. My opinion on KG has changed quite a bit over the years and in 2014 I started advocating for him at the #4 spot with Duncan as my #5. I went into this one in 2017 basically looking to pull back from being a major advocate really at all, but in particular from KG. I just don't want to be like that all the time. But since you're talking about this Tesla, I feel I should address it some.

First, I don't see it as "Duncan actually did it, whereas KG just might have done it". Players don't "do" championships, they do things that can lead to championships. The mere fact that sometimes the same thing can succeed or fail in actually leading to a championship means that we need to be able address the things in and of themselves.

KG gave his team more lift than Duncan did, and by "lift" I mean that from my analysis of +/- style stats, Garnett has a general edge there over Duncan. This was always true but it didn't mean as much to me when KG was in Minnesota because of what you say: It was in a lesser team setting than Duncan so take it with a grain of salt and grade on a curve.

But then KG went to Boston and things changed. There KG has tremendous defensive impact on a team that was defined by that defensive impact and they won the championship, and could have easily been a dynasty if the players in question had gotten together just a little sooner. This could be said to have re-legitimized KG in my eyes (alone with the help of some great posters here). Basically, the only thing that kept me from seeing KG as on a tier with Duncan before was the fact I hadn't seen him in the most triumphant setting. Once I knew better what he could be, it just seemed silly to act as if it couldn't have been like that from the start of his prime.

Now, the reality is at this point I'm actually totally fine with Duncan over KG. I can see good arguments both ways. I tended to focus on the Duncan comparison though because of the unique relationship:

They are contemporary rivals seen by many as being in different tiers, but the analytics just don't support this, and my qualitative distinctions holding KG back just became, as you say, absurd, the more I looked at it.

The problem I have here is Tim Duncan actually was the driving force to a dynasty. You are implyng KG couldve been... he couldve, but Duncan was.

I dont see an issue with thinking KG may have accomplished similar team success and playoff appearances, games, production, etc had he been given the right cast at the right time. My issue is giving him equal or above those that actually did. There are many factors that go into playing deep post season after post season that cant be merely a given, such as durability. Duncan has over a season of playoff games over him, that is incredible. Given KG was an ironman until Boston, Id say he would probably be fine... but we cant just give him it over those that did it, and im not talking barely...its a huge disparity.

You have to be picky here, there are small differences that rank players ahead of others. I dont think in their primes they are different tier players, they are close (just Duncan did it for a longer period) They are all great at this level, but you dont even have to be picky to see that Duncan has done so much more than KG in terms of having a ATG career... its very clear.

[JordansBulls]

Spoiler:

My method of ranking players might be simple, and obviously subjective, but I think it works for me: prime x peak x longevity. I group players by prime, tie breaker with peak, then a further tie breaker with longevity. I think wing players are more valuable on offense than big men, and for most of NBA history, big men are more valuable than wings on defense. I think the latter might be changing in the current NBA. For players who were considered superstars in their league, I consider their years as a championship caliber anchor to be their prime seasons, and longevity outside of that only counts if it was a positive for their teams.

I think Shaq/LeBron/MJ/Hakeem/Wilt/Kareem all have a similar peak level, so I'll go with Kareem for the top spot as he has the best longevity. I'll be honest, I try to imagine how they would play in the 2010 era, so it does color how I view them, but I try not to let it affect my rankings too much.

I don't have exact criteria. But I take a cursory look at the stats, but I don't usually quote them in player comparisons. My scouting skills aren't the best, but that's what I rely on for the most part. I try to watch the player a bunch before making a judgment on him. I look mainly at decision making and skill set. I think if I have a handle on those two things then I can comfortably talk about a player.

I was debating between Shaq and LeBron for this spot as I think they have the best two primes in the remaining candidates. I'm gonna go with LeBron. As stated in the spoiler, I try to gauge a player's decision making ability to really see how good of a player they are, and I think LeBron is probably the GOAT at that, certainly better than Shaq. Shaq had a very simple game, which of course worked, but LeBron makes better decisions in tougher spots than basically anyone ever. He's been his team's primary playmaker and scorer for basically his entire career. The level of responsibility, the per possession load he has had to carry and still make close to perfect decisions possession after possession on such volume is incredible to me. I think he had a better peak than Shaq simply because he can think the game better. That also has its drawbacks in that he can think a bit too much and take too long to do stuff, but I think that can be attributed to the more complex defenses of the modern game.

In terms of longevity: Shaq was championship-caliber from 94-05, but the average value of his seasons is much lower than LeBron's from 09-17, both because he's a worse player in non-peak seasons and because of his missed games. Seriously, outside of 2000 and maybe 2001, do any of his seasons compare to LeBron's 09/10/13/14/16/17 campaigns? My answer: no.

There's also this thread which I made in April. LeBron's in his 14th season now and arguably had his best year ever. And the consensus seems to be that not only is it the best 14th year ever, but also has an argument as the best 32 year old season ever. It's absolutely insane the kind of quality longevity LeBron is stacking up now.

I also want to note that LeBron is building a case as a greater Finals performer than basically anyone ever. He's faced tougher teams than either Shaq or MJ and gotten better as the opponents have gotten tougher.

With the Finals matchup set, here's what he's faced in his 8 trips by SRS.

07 Spurs +8.35
11 Mavs +4.41
12 Thunder +6.44
13 Spurs +6.67
14 Spurs +8.00
15 Warriors +10.01
16 Warriors +10.38
17 Warriors +11.35

Assuming the Warriors sweep the Cavs (4G this year), the weighted average SRS for his Finals opponents is +8.11 (+8.32 if it goes to 7). Since 2012. Last 4 years is +9.91.

Jordan's opponents:

Spoiler:

91 Lakers +6.73
92 Blazers +6.94
93 Suns +6.27
96 Sonics +7.40
97 Jazz +7.97
98 Jazz +5.73

Weighted average +6.84

Shaq's opponents:

95 Rockets +2.32
00 Pacers +4.15
01 Sixers +3.64
02 Nets +3.67
04 Pistons +4.93
06 Mavs +5.96

The best of them is the Mavs and the Pistons, both of whom around the level of the 11 Mavs, which were the weakest team LeBron faced. Although the Pistons' SRS doesn't reflect their true ceiling after the Wallace trade, but the 11 Mavs had a bunch of games without Dirk as well. LeBron's faced a progressively tougher opponent in the finals each year after 2011, yet his performances have gotten better year after year. It's insane.

Then there's this:

From RCF:

30+ PER Playoff runs played through the finals:

George Mikan, 1954 (33.6 PER, played only 10 games, won title)

Jordan, 1991 (32 PER, won title)
Jordan, 1993 (30.1 PER won title)

Shaq, 2000 (30.5 PER, won title)

LeBron, 2012 (30.3 PER, won title)
LeBron, 2014 (31.1 PER, lost Finals)
LeBron, 2016 (30 PER, won title)
LeBron, 2017 (30.1 PER, lost Finals)

Having the best player doesn't mean as much when the league is this deep in talent.

Last but not least (I'm not even addressing the +/- stuff in this post, where LeBron is king), to address the weak eastern conference critique, I want to share a classic post by mopper8 from 2014, which was probably LeBron's weakest run in terms of conference opponents faced:

No, it's not anywhere close to true. Where to start?

Before 1967, the NBA playoffs were only two rounds and the the division winners got a 1st round bye. That meant a team only had to win one series to make the Finals. So, for example, the 1963 Celtics had to beat the 42-38 Cincy Royals to get to the finals. That's it. 1 team barely over .500. Their Finals opponent that season, the Lakers, had to beat only one team as well, the moderately more challenging 48-win St. Louis Hawks. Both teams graded out at about ~1 point better than league average per game. Is Miami's road to the Finals easier than that? The suggestion is ludicrous. In fact, there is barely a team before 1967 who could claim a harder road to the Finals than what Miami has this season.

So, set aside the "NBA history" hyperbole for a moment. What about post-1st round byes? Well, from 67 until 75 the playoffs stayed at 2 rounds, so even without a 1st round bye, teams often had rather easy paths to the Finals. The 74 Celtics, for example, only had to beat the 42-40 Buffalo Braves and the 49-33 Knicks en route to the Finals, hardly tougher or even as tough as Miami's 3 teams this year, no matter what you think of how Indiana is playing right now. In 1970, the Lakers only had to beat the 39 win Suns and 48-win Hawks.

Ok ok, so maybe when you said "NBA history" you didn't mean "NBA history," you meant post-merger NBA history, right?

Post-merger, though, they reinstated the 1st round bye for top seeds, so even though there were 3 rounds, some teams only had to win 2 series, not always against top flight competition either. In 77, the Sixers had to beat the 44-win Celtics (-1.9 SRS) and the 49-win Rockets (1.44 SRS). That's an easier two teams than Nets/Pacers and you don't even have a first round to worry about.

Ok ok, so maybe when you said "NBA history," what you really meant was NBA history since every team had to play all 3 rounds.

But then, of course, you have the Lakers in the 80s. In 84, for example, LA had the 38-44 KC Kings (negative SRS), followed by the 43-win Mavs (0.15 SRS), and then the 41-41 Phoenix Suns (0.65 SRS). There is no possible way anyone could honestly consider this a harder road to the Finals then what Miami has now. In 87, LA had the 37-win Nuggets, then the 42-win Warriors, and then 39 win Supersonics. That's right, LA's competition was collectively below .500 prior to the Finals. Again, no way you could possibly think that's anywhere near as difficult as what Miami has to go through now.

Ok, ok, so maybe when you said "NBA history," what you really meant was modern NBA history, because they weren't even playing defense in the early/mid 80's, right?

Well, the 91 Bulls had the 39-win Knicks, 44-win Sixers, and the 50-win Pistons. That's roughly comparable to what Miami had to face this season, by team metrics (SRS, win%), maybe even easier. But there was some star power there, so let's just set that aside and go more modern.

In 2000, the Pacers had to beat the 42-win Bucks (0 SRS), the 49 win Sixers (1 SRS), and the 50 win Knicks (1.3 SRS). Easier road that Miami has now.

In 2001, the Sixers beat the 41-win Pacers, the 47-win Raptors, and the 52 win Bucks (3.13 SRS). Easier road than Miami, pretty clearly.

In 2002, the Nets beat the 42 win Pacers, the 44-win Hornets, and the 49-win Celtics. Not much different from Miami's path to the Finals, definitely easier if Indy shows up.

In 2003, the Nets beat the 42 win Bucks, the 44 win Celtics, and the 50 win Pistons (3 SRS). Equal to or easier than Miami's run this year.

So even modern NBA history is out. So I guess when you say "NBA history" I don't know what you're talking about. Or more accurately, you don't know what you're talking about.

tl;dr LeBron has been better for longer than anyone remaining and that's why he has my vote.

Vote:

1. LeBron
2. Shaq

What do you mean this deep in talent? There aren't even any dominant bigs and we just saw a 5'9" dude lead a team to the best record in the conference with no other stars on the squad.

[Doctor MJ]

Some quick thoughts on KG this high.

I dont want to offend anyones opinion here, but I just dont see it, its borderline absurd. This is not a peak ranking (which even then I disagree with, but sure I can see a legit argument for) As a ranking of greatest of all time, at this high where there is a handful of resumes, his argument revolves around his +/- and value over replacement on ridiculous bad teams... so the arguement I suppose is if he had a great team around him we can infer from those numbers that he would have Tim Duncan-like sucess? OK maybe, but Tim Duncan ACTUALLY happened. Its insane to me to give that much credit on a career level to someone over others that actually lived it, did it, proved it, got the results and did it inn extraordinary fashion.
I get it, its unfortunate that he played a majority of his prime with some garbage teams... but that is what we are calling one of the handful greatest of all time careers? I use Duncan just because its a contemporary that he is clearly inferior to in terms of a GOAT ranking, but even if we look at their careers at 31 years old and onward (when KG got a great team), Duncan still outshines and does so clearly. /end rant.

I'm glad you're posting on this. My opinion on KG has changed quite a bit over the years and in 2014 I started advocating for him at the #4 spot with Duncan as my #5. I went into this one in 2017 basically looking to pull back from being a major advocate really at all, but in particular from KG. I just don't want to be like that all the time. But since you're talking about this Tesla, I feel I should address it some.

First, I don't see it as "Duncan actually did it, whereas KG just might have done it". Players don't "do" championships, they do things that can lead to championships. The mere fact that sometimes the same thing can succeed or fail in actually leading to a championship means that we need to be able address the things in and of themselves.

KG gave his team more lift than Duncan did, and by "lift" I mean that from my analysis of +/- style stats, Garnett has a general edge there over Duncan. This was always true but it didn't mean as much to me when KG was in Minnesota because of what you say: It was in a lesser team setting than Duncan so take it with a grain of salt and grade on a curve.

But then KG went to Boston and things changed. There KG has tremendous defensive impact on a team that was defined by that defensive impact and they won the championship, and could have easily been a dynasty if the players in question had gotten together just a little sooner. This could be said to have re-legitimized KG in my eyes (alone with the help of some great posters here). Basically, the only thing that kept me from seeing KG as on a tier with Duncan before was the fact I hadn't seen him in the most triumphant setting. Once I knew better what he could be, it just seemed silly to act as if it couldn't have been like that from the start of his prime.

Now, the reality is at this point I'm actually totally fine with Duncan over KG. I can see good arguments both ways. I tended to focus on the Duncan comparison though because of the unique relationship:

They are contemporary rivals seen by many as being in different tiers, but the analytics just don't support this, and my qualitative distinctions holding KG back just became, as you say, absurd, the more I looked at it.

The problem I have here is Tim Duncan actually was the driving force to a dynasty. You are implyng KG couldve been... he couldve, but Duncan was.

I dont see an issue with thinking KG may have accomplished similar team success and playoff appearances, games, production, etc had he been given the right cast at the right time. My issue is giving him equal or above those that actually did. There are many factors that go into playing deep post season after post season that cant be merely a given, such as durability. Duncan has over a season of playoff games over him, that is incredible. Given KG was an ironman until Boston, Id say he would probably be fine... but we cant just give him it over those that did it, and im not talking barely...its a huge disparity.

You have to be picky here, there are small differences that rank players ahead of others. I dont think in their primes they are different tier players, they are close (just Duncan did it for a longer period) They are all great at this level, but you dont even have to be picky to see that Duncan has done so much more than KG in terms of having a ATG career... its very clear.

You're entitled to think along these lines but do you understand why others don't believe in driving a tier-sized wedge between players on the basis of "X may have done it, but Y actually did it"?

I'm trying to remove luck from the conversation and in team sports, there's always luck as a factor for the team results of individuals.

[ThaRegul8r]

Pretty sure the issue is that there are 2 guys named Jones on the Russell Celtics. They get confused and thus likely get conflated.

The post penbeast0 replied to named both Jones. There was no confusion since both were explicitly separately named.

Yet, I don't just copy information without checking it, so it's a different matter entirely - I just goofed.

"Most" =/= "all," if you take offense to that. What is generally true of a population as a whole isn't true of every individual member of said population. If it isn't true of you individually, then it doesn't apply to you. I was speaking to what I've observed. As I said you weren't the first/only one to have done so, so I wasn't singling you out.

[Senior]

So Lebron has perhaps had the FO backing to essentially choose his own roster (within certain reality constraints, of course), and has constructed a cast and style of play that is reliant on his talents (thus maximizing his impact). So from that standpoint, it's "his fault" that the Cavs are what they are.

I think this is a good point. The Cavs offense was lighting the world on fire, but they were average to mediocre defensively. They got torched in the Finals with GSW going +6 over their RS ORTG. Do we think the Cavs loading up on defensively-challenged guys like Korver, Frye, Deron should count against Lebron? If their defensive faults were accepted to placate Lebron's vision of a team construction, then he should accept some blame when they get torched, no?

RCM88x made the point that it's sort of disappointing that Kyrie and Love (two star-level players in their own right) haven't developed some more synergy between the two of them to keep the boat afloat. Part of that may be the frequent intermittent injuries, but he appears to be suggesting their failure to do so isn't Lebron's fault.

otoh, Doctor MJ and Outside have [probably correctly, to some degree] speculated that they're trained (in practice, and game-to-game) how to play alongside Lebron, and thus haven't sufficient time/practice in learning how to co-exist without him.
But then someone else (forget who) implied maybe a pinch of blame should be laid at Lue's doorstep, in that he's not a brilliant enough coach to come up with some manner of offensive scheme that can work for the [NOT insubstantial] offensive talent that they have OUTSIDE OF Lebron. Instead, the mostly just let Kyrie do his iso thing (which the circa-2000 NBA has taught us that you basically CANNOT run a "good" offense----by today's standards----playing iso ball). It's very unsophisticated, and rather like watching a pick-up game at the gym (except the players are REALLY good).

I kind of agree with MJ/Outside. The Cavs clearly have offensive talent outside of Lebron with Kyrie and Love + their shooters - even Deron showed flashes. Why were these guys so god-awful offensively when Lebron sat? Lue probably could've done a better job, but talented players just don't forget how to play without their star (and if we're going to blame Lue, then does that also fall on Lebron for contributing to Blatt's axing?). Is something else going on?

So what have I concluded wrt how much of the blame is Lebron's? idk; to put not too fine a point on it, I would say "some" of it rests with him, but not all.

To me there is such a thing as too much dependence. If your team literally cannot play without you, if you have somehow pushed your team into playing in this manner, then yes, I would lay some blame at the star's feet.

However, if we are to say that it's "Lebron's fault" that the Cavs dynamic is playing out in this way, Joao Saraiva made [albeit somewhat sarcastically] a really good point that all the success this cast has had is likewise "Lebron's fault".
I mean, his recipe worked, no? Three consecutive finals appearances----(we can talk about the relatively weak strength of the EC, but let's be honest: the EC could have been substantially stronger, and the Cavs were still the very likely team to come out on top; they've pretty well steam-rolled the rest of the conference in each of the last three seasons, and were pretty much a foregone conclusion to be in the finals before each season even started)----winning one, which had to ripped from the grasp of a 73-win team. And who knows?: Maybe could have won TWO of them if both Love and Kyrie hadn't been injured in '15 (somewhat remarkable to take two games of the Warriors---losing game 1 by inches in overtime, too---given the circumstance).
[/quote]
Hard to evaluate the 7 finals in a row thing. GS really should've threepeated but they threw away 2016. If they closed out CLE in 5 like they should've we'd be looking at this in a totally different way.

You can't take away 2016, but they didn't beat a single top 5 team on the way to the Finals in all 3 years. You can count Atlanta, but I thought GS/LAC/SAS were all better and HOU was about on their level. Their conference runs weren't impressive at all. It really depends on what you consider "success" for a team like this - I think Lebron himself would tell you it's title or bust.

And wrt his apparent impact on these casts.....It's been implied that his impact is shall we say accentuated again, because his team is constructed to maximize what he brings to the table, and also rendering the cast impotent when he sits.

This is actually something I've been thinking with Lebron (and Harden fwiw). Over this year I got the impression that posters wanted to credit Lebron/Harden as the carriers of their offenses. They were finding people and killing teams with their passing, threes rained down on lesser beings' heads, and they looked fantastic. Then the playoffs rolled around and when they were eliminated, the blame was on the shooters who inevitably saw a shooting decline against better defenses.

This felt inconsistent to me. Lebron and Harden received the lion's share of credit for their team's offense and then the shooters took the lion's share of blame...even though the shooters were actually doing the harder portion of the interaction.

"How is a wide open shot harder than the pass/court vision"? you might ask. Well, think about it like this - the three point shot has a low success rate. If you can succeed 40% of the time, that's considered amazing. It doesn't matter if there's no one within 8 miles of you, attempting a shot from >22 feet is expected to succeed less than half the time. The best shooters don't even make non-layup 2s as much as half the time.

In my mind, either the shooters/supporting cast around Lebron/Harden should've received more credit for contributing to their team's offense, or the entire team's offensive metrics should've been taken with a grain of salt because of their reliance on an inconsistent shot like the 3. The Cavs were wiping the floor with the East defenses but it didn't hold up against GS (1-2 great games, 1-2 bad, 1 okay) and obviously the Rockets had their own problems against SA - but over their entire series their ORTG looks fine. You could say "but over the long run their percentages would've evened out!" and you'd probably be right...except you don't get a long run, you get 4 losses.

So overall - it's true that the Cavs sucked without Lebron and their offense was murdering teams - but the shooter army should've gotten more praise for making those shots and that offense can/probably will crash and burn if they lose.

To be fair, though, we've seen him do similar (impact-wise) with more impromptu (and frequently poor) casts (see '08-'10 in first Cleveland stint), as well as decent casts that he didn't have as much of a hand in constructing (see '12-'13).

But they've all been fairly similar casts. Shooters everywhere, kinda iffy defenders, jump shooting big man.