5 year plus-minus of various all-time nba peaks(Feat. Shaq, Lebron, Jordan, Robinson and Curry)

[Onus]

literally every star benefits offensively from having more shooting around him. This is not unique in any way to Lebron. Even Steph, the GOAT shooter benefits from more shooters around him. Nash benefited from shooting around him. Jokic, Giannis, Luka, you name the great offensive player--shooting really helps.

The whole reasoning for why warriors offense struggle in 2021 was that they didnt have the passers and spacing needed to run their system and same thingh about blaming harrison barnes bad shooting for their offense struggles at the end of 16 finals

Beneffiting from shooters is not a lebron thinfh but a basketball thingh

The warriors struggled in 2021 because they thought it was a developmental year. They started wiseman the first game with no training camp, summer league and minimal practice. Then played Oubre a crazy amount of minutes even though he was actively tanking every lineup. Kerr said multiple times that year that winning was not the primary objective. They were legit running isolation plays for wiseman as if he was the mvp and not Curry. It's probably the worst thing that the warriors have done since getting Steph, legit wasting a prime year of Curry to not win as many games as possible. Add in that if we got higher than a 6th seed we lose our draft pick and they tried to thread the needle as much as possible to not win too many games while still making the playoffs, which they failed at.

Harrison Barnes shooting 5 of whatever on wide open shots, but no one actually blames him even though this allowed the cavs to double steph with impunity since they weren't guarding draymond, bogut, festus, varejao, livingston, barnes and iguodala. Damn that's a whole lot of non-shooters getting playing time. But yea the warriors were the super team in 2016.

[Onus]

There is so much focus on how LeBron needs good shooters MORE than other players do (eg. Curry, Nash, etc.) but absolutely no mention of how guys like Curry and Nash need good defenders, playmakers, rebounders, to name a few basketball necessities that lead to winning, MORE than LeBron, for example. That is not to say that those two (for example, not picking on them specifically) don't depend on good shooting around them as well to help them be more successful when it comes to WINNING, but perhaps the importance of your supporting cast's shooting specifically helps LeBron more than, say, Curry. What about the rest of the basketball necessities? Do we simply ignore those?

Defense is more easily obtainable than shooting and offense. You see it in the salaries all the time. GPII couldn't make a roster. Thybulle gets benched. Tony Allen vet min player. There are ample defensive players that can't get on the court because they can't score or shoot.

[Doctor MJ]

The limitations on Wade & Davis' outside shooting is part of what I'm talking about.

Miami was different from the two Cavs stints in no small part because Wade lacked the ability to shoot from outside. This resulted in them pushing Bosh to the 5 so they could get better spacing.

So Wade's lack of shooting forced Bosh to the 5 but also...

Is standing outside the arc the best use of Bosh or Love in all contexts? Absolutely not, but it was what was needed with LeBron.

We're right back to Lebron forces his bigs to be spot up shooters. Which leads us to...

What would Draymond Green do if he were on LeBron's team? Stand outside the arc and shoot 3's, and if he couldn't do it well enough, you'd bench him.

Yep. For example it was benching Tristan Thompson in the Finals that got Cleveland over the hump. Oh wait, that was Golden State benching their non-shooting center Bogut in 2015. Do I need to pull up those Anderson Varejão on-off numbers from back in the day? This is just another attempt by Team Gravity to bend reality. Yeah, Green would be bench playing next to Lebron because no defensive 1st-non shooting big man has ever played a large role on any of his teams

Dont forget warriors loss in 2016 is still blamed to this day by a lot of people on, you guessed, harrison bad jumpshooting leading to warriors not having enough spacing

And their struggles in 2021 were blamed on, you guessed it, their roster not having enough passers to make the system work around curry. Which for some reason is totally different to lebron "needing" shooters to make "lebron ball" work

At the end of the day every player benefits more from good rosters that provide help with scoring, passing, spacing, etc.

The ideal fit for each player varies but nobody is perfectly portable to have 100% of their possible impact in every situation with any kind of talent

When you talk like this you imply that nothing has changed.

"Shooting, passing, rebounding, defending - all are important, as they always have been."

But teams are shooting way more 3's than they did before, so obviously shooting 3's is more important than it used to be, right?

I find myself thinking about strategic evolution of warfare where a particular force goes into battle with an army optimized for the previous war only to find that what won the last war won't work any more.

As a 6'9" dude whose grandfather who came from Sweden, and who was named a derivative of "Thor", I've certainly thought about how I'd look back in the days of vikings. I'm sure I could be trained to be very effective with an axe against other men with similar weapons...but it wouldn't do me much good against a machine gun. Nowadays, the big weapons are often containers you need to get inside of - tanks, planes, ships, submarines - and what they all have in common is that I couldn't fit in any of them rendering me effectively useless in much of modern combat, to say nothing of when we (hopefully) colonize space.

Times change, and different skills rise and fall in their value.

[Onus]

The limitations on Wade & Davis' outside shooting is part of what I'm talking about.

Miami was different from the two Cavs stints in no small part because Wade lacked the ability to shoot from outside. This resulted in them pushing Bosh to the 5 so they could get better spacing.

So Wade's lack of shooting forced Bosh to the 5 but also...

Is standing outside the arc the best use of Bosh or Love in all contexts? Absolutely not, but it was what was needed with LeBron.

We're right back to Lebron forces his bigs to be spot up shooters. Which leads us to...

What would Draymond Green do if he were on LeBron's team? Stand outside the arc and shoot 3's, and if he couldn't do it well enough, you'd bench him.

Yep. For example it was benching Tristan Thompson in the Finals that got Cleveland over the hump. Oh wait, that was Golden State benching their non-shooting center Bogut in 2015. Do I need to pull up those Anderson Varejão on-off numbers from back in the day? This is just another attempt by Team Gravity to bend reality. Yeah, Green would be bench playing next to Lebron because no defensive 1st-non shooting big man has ever played a large role on any of his teams

Bogut still played after getting moved to the bench. Having 2 players you don't have to guard in the modern nba has been a death sentence for everyone except steph.

[falcolombardi]

literally every star benefits offensively from having more shooting around him. This is not unique in any way to Lebron. Even Steph, the GOAT shooter benefits from more shooters around him. Nash benefited from shooting around him. Jokic, Giannis, Luka, you name the great offensive player--shooting really helps.

The whole reasoning for why warriors offense struggle in 2021 was that they didnt have the passers and spacing needed to run their system and same thingh about blaming harrison barnes bad shooting for their offense struggles at the end of 16 finals

Beneffiting from shooters is not a lebron thinfh but a basketball thingh

The warriors struggled in 2021 because they thought it was a developmental year. They started wiseman the first game with no training camp, summer league and minimal practice. Then played Oubre a crazy amount of minutes even though he was actively tanking every lineup. Kerr said multiple times that year that winning was not the primary objective. They were legit running isolation plays for wiseman as if he was the mvp and not Curry. It's probably the worst thing that the warriors have done since getting Steph, legit wasting a prime year of Curry to not win as many games as possible. Add in that if we got higher than a 6th seed we lose our draft pick and they tried to thread the needle as much as possible to not win too many games while still making the playoffs, which they failed at.

Harrison Barnes shooting 5 of whatever on wide open shots, but no one actually blames him even though this allowed the cavs to double steph with impunity since they weren't guarding draymond, bogut, festus, varejao, livingston, barnes and iguodala. Damn that's a whole lot of non-shooters getting playing time. But yea the warriors were the super team in 2016.

Varejao averaged less than 6 minutes per game for the full series and mostly garbage minutes. Festus ezeli and andrew bogut averaged under 9.

The whole trio played under 24 of each 240 available minutes which is a lot less than tristan thompson alone (32 mins per game of each 240), another non shooter played for the cavs

You also stretch thw definition of "non shooter" here by including iggy and to a lesser degree barnes and even draymond

Draymond shot 40% from 3 in over 5 3's a game that series (this was the short era he could shot the 3). He literally took 50% more 3's per game than love in the finals and shot them 4% better

Non curry/klay warriors shot 41/112 from 3 (36.5%)

Non lebron/kyrie cabaliers shot 28/92 from 3 (30.5%)

Curry "non" shooters took more 3's than lebron team and shot them bettwr

But even if it was the opposite it wouldnt make cavs the "super team" here cause 3 point shooting is not the only thingh that matters in basketball

Warriors had the league best defensive big and multiple strong defenders like iguodala, klay and some bogut minutes

Cavs best non lebron defenders were old richard jefferson and tristan thompson

And where warriors had essentially another 3 point guards on top of steph (dray, iggy, livingston) lebron probably only had love as am above average basketball IQ teammate (and maybe jefferson)

[tone wone]

Lebron won a ring in a team that played howard/mcgee heavy minutes and had below average volume and efficiency 3 point shooting

another one with tristan thompson as a starter who couldnt shoot the ball. And won with outright goat level offense

and another with haslem as a starter in 2012 back when bosh still didnt really take 3's (and also had ultra elite offense)

He doesnt need a 4-out offense and green is so good defensively he would never get benched for not shooting, come on doc

you and me both now that is a common troll argument against lebron ("if lebron played with hakeem they would make him just a corner shooter!" Kind of stuff)

You have even said before that if green was not asked to be a lead decision maker he could become a quality shooter (a reasoning i disagree with but that is whay you have argued) so what would be the issue ?

Re: offensive teammates

Wade was as not ideal of star teammate for lebron as it gets and they still had a elite offense when wade was healthy that matched/beat warriors best offenses outside of 2017

Kyrie is not exactly an all time great offensive player but he had his best impact metrics alongside lebron and got to be the second star in a goat level offense

Davis got to be the main scorer of a championship team with lebron

So first, the 2020 title is really worth analyzing. I'll be the first in line to say "That championship counts!" as I had the Bubble asterisk folks, but we should consider how they did what they did.

You talk about Howard & McGee playing major minutes, but that really depended on the series.

Against Portland, they played a combined 31 MPG...but that was also a series where LeBron & AD each only played about 32. Remember that AD likes to play as little time at center as possible, so in a series where things are not pushed to the limit, they're going to try to get away with as much time with other 5's as possible.

Against Houston, they played a combined 9 MPG. So, out of the rotation.

Against Denver, they played a combined 27 MPG. Here part of the deal was that they were trying to beat up Jokic. They averaged 7.8 fouls per 36 minutes.

Against Miami, Howard played 12 MPG and McGee didn't play.

I would suggest that the best you could say about these guys is that they were useful in the right match up, not that you could get away with playing them big minutes as a part of your core.

Further, when you talk about "not needing 4-out", let's keep in mind that AD was hitting 3's like no other point in his career, so he functioned as a guy who could be a part of that X-out approach.

If you look at the main 5 guys in their series lineups, you'll see that all of them were shooting 3's and - at least at times - hitting them. I'll acknowledge that guys like Rondo & Caruso aren't great shooters, but I'd note that in the one series were both were part of the 5-man core, they shot a combined 13-37, which is pretty damn solid for your #4 & 5 options - to say nothing of the fact that guys 6-8 in their 8 man rotation also shot 3's (Green, Kuzma, Morris).

All this to say, while those Lakers were not a great 3-point shooting team by modern standards, they were still able to regularly surround LeBron with shooters who could space the floor and if they hadn't been able to do that, I don't think they win the title.

I'd note that the next year in the payoffs with what was largely the same core, when LeBron's teammates dropped from a 35.1 3P% to a 27.5%, and they lost in the first round. I don't want to make out like 3-point shooting was all that mattered, but if the LeBron's teammates shoot 27.5% in the 2020 playoffs, I don't think they win the title.

Lebron James is 6'9 250lbs. Part of his greatness is the positional versatility he adds to your team. He and Anthony Davis formed an insane frontcourt defensive duo in the 2020 playoffs. You dont need heavy minute traditional 5s when you have those guys. So what point are you trying to make with regards to Howard and McGee's minutes? They should've played more?

Also, in terms of volume and shot difficulty, James and Davis were arguably LA's 2 best shooters that postseason. I've never seen ANYONE champion the '20 Lakers 3pt shooting. Its the last damn thing anyone should praise about that team.

Next you go back to the Cavs and Tristan Thompson. Here I'll just acknowledge: The Cavs were able to get away with having 4 3-point shooters instead of 5. To the extent that I've implied that absolutely everyone of LeBron's core teammates needs to shoot 3's, that's hyperbole, but I'd say that whenever you find any player in the modern league who isn't shooting 3's, you should probably see them as worthy of study in how they're staying on the court, and consider whether their time with such stature is likely to be short-lived.

After Kyrie left Cleveland, Thompson never played starter minutes again on a serious team. His career as a serious player thus ended at age 25, after being seeing as a major prospect out of both high school and college. By all means we can credit LeBron (& Kyrie) for getting by with him, but we're not talking about a rando scrub here. We're talking about a guy seen as having a great deal of talent by traditional basketball scouting standards who needed just the right situation to really get anywhere in the modern NBA.

I'd also note that Thompson was getting by on offense with his offensive rebounding, similar to what Kevon Looney does in GS, and I think the fact that GS can get away with a guy like that along with another guy like that, is telling.

Tristan fell off once injuries hit. A slightly undersized hustle player with bad touch burning out quickly shouldn't be surprising. His motor stopped reviving and that was that.

Re: Miami. First let's acknowledge that the brunt of the 3-point shooting revolution really happened after the Heatles era, and that there's no reason to assume that they could win a title today playing as they did in 2012.

Next, let's note who the Heat actually used as their core 5 in the 2012 playoffs:

LeBron, Wade, Bosh, Battier, Chalmers

They were getting by with Wade & Bosh not shooting 3's at that time yes - no chance of that today - but they were playing 3 3-point threats on the court, and more specifically: Since the stars lacked shooting, shooting was prioritized among the role players...which they doubled down on the next year with the acquisition of Ray Allen, who led the team in +/- in the playoffs iirc.

So even back then, Haslem was getting played off the court when it mattered, and things would be far more stark today.

Im pretty sure Birdman had the highest +/- in the '13 postseason. But Im not understanding what point you're trying to make here. That Miami was both not good enough from 3 to compete today but also had good shooters and utilized them really well. Were they not supposed to do this?

Re: Kyrie. Definitely worth studying his playing relationship to LeBron. I'd note though that he's an excellent shooter and I think that was essential to why it worked as it did.

Re: Davis. I think it's pretty clear that Davis at his best is the perfect teammate for LeBron. He had the D, at his best he had the 3, and he was also an incredible lob finisher - which is a thing I didn't mention before but is also something that LeBron really benefits from his teammates doing.

Ahh, thats what happening here. I see it now. He can only benefit from them they don't benefit from him. His teammates 'give him space' he doesn't 'generate open 3s'. His teammates 'catch lobs' he doesn't 'find them for easy baskets'.

[OhayoKD]

All this to say, while those Lakers were not a great 3-point shooting team by modern standards, they were still able to regularly surround LeBron with shooters who could space the floor and if they hadn't been able to do that, I don't think they win the title.

I'd note that the next year in the payoffs with what was largely the same core, when LeBron's teammates dropped from a 35.1 3P% to a 27.5%, and they lost in the first round. I don't want to make out like 3-point shooting was all that mattered, but if the LeBron's teammates shoot 27.5% in the 2020 playoffs, I don't think they win the title.

Using 2021 here as proof is kinda wierd tbh

1. They lost in 6 to the eventual finalist. Even if there was nothing else at play that's not as bad as "lost in the first round" might indicate.
2. The two best players both were hampered by injuries and many people seem to think they could have won if healthy anyway
3. When lebron was healthy that season, the lakers had the best record in the league with ad missing time

Volume is also kind of important when talking about shooting. Lebron is usually top 3 in his volume of three point attempts on his team and I believe he attempted the most threes in 2021 on his team per game. Think you could reasonably extrapolate "lebron isn't that dependent on shooters" as a conclusion from 2021 depending on how you look at it. Was lebron's play at the start of the season more indicative of what prime lebron looks like without shooting than lebron on an injury vs the suns?

Feel like there's a misconception where we just rate shooters based on their effiency and lebron is therefore a below average shooter because his effiency is below average. But shooting is also about volume. Lebron's pretty high volime on three point attempts in his post heat days and most of these are pull-ups where he isn't being assisted. If we apply context Lebron's actually probably a solid three point shooter(at least as of his second cavs stint/lakers one)

Also i've mentioned this before, but i feel the 2015 playoffs calls into question whether "lebron needs shooting more than x" is really a thing. Lebron was the second best shooter on the cavs(at least with kyrie/love hurt) whose spacing was pretty bad when you isolate them from lebron. He was arguably the cavs best three point shooter during the finals. Yet he sweeps a 60 win team and then is beating the 67 win warriors before kerr pulls a major tactical adjustment(so major it paves the way for a 73 win season the next year). Was he less valuable than curry those playoffs? Think if you use adjusted plus-minus stuff lebron had a comprable rate of impact on signifcantly higher volume. And if you take a simpler impact approach(which gets you past issues of colinerarity), lebron is taking a team that played at a 25 win pace(with kyrie and love) to 60 win heights without either costar.

There's a distinction that should be drawn between being "less scalable" and "needing more or cieling riasing". The latter is ultimately about the final product.

Is curry more scalable than lebron? Probably.

Is lebron without shooting surrounding him less valuable than steph curry without shooting surrounding him? Idk. Conceptually it seems possible lebron's able to compensate for lost offensive value next to non-shooters by upping his defensive impact/playmaking. In 2017 the cavs were a goat-level offense with meh defense. In 2015 the cavs were a meh offense with atg level defense with lebron upping his paint protection a ton.

And i think impact stuff supports this. 2015 Lebron is either comprably valuable per possession on signifcantly more minuites with worse spacing or straight up an order of magnitude more valuable in that setting depending on whether you go with the plus-minus approach or you go with the raw/wowy appraoch(there are pro/cons to both).

In 2020 iirc lebron's adjusted plus minus metrics in the playoffs beat out any of curry's.(can't really apply the second approach here because ad turned into an atg in the playoffs).

Are we even sure Curry or MJ or whoever is more valuable than lebron on teams with below average spacing? Because if not, then which one "fits better" with shooters is kind of moot isn't it?

[falcolombardi]

All this to say, while those Lakers were not a great 3-point shooting team by modern standards, they were still able to regularly surround LeBron with shooters who could space the floor and if they hadn't been able to do that, I don't think they win the title.

I'd note that the next year in the payoffs with what was largely the same core, when LeBron's teammates dropped from a 35.1 3P% to a 27.5%, and they lost in the first round. I don't want to make out like 3-point shooting was all that mattered, but if the LeBron's teammates shoot 27.5% in the 2020 playoffs, I don't think they win the title.

Using 2021 here as proof is kinda wierd tbh

1. They lost in 6 to the eventual finalist. Even if there was nothing else at play that's not as bad as "lost in the first round" might indicate.
2. The two best players both were hampered by injuries and many people seem to think they could have won if healthy anyway
3. When lebron was healthy that season, the lakers had the best record in the league with ad missing time

Volume is also kind of important when talking about shooting. Lebron is usually top 3 in his volume of three point attempts on his team and I believe he attempted the most threes in 2021 on his team per game. Think you could reasonably extrapolate "lebron isn't that dependent on shooters" as a conclusion from 2021 depending on how you look at it. Was lebron's play at the start of the season more indicative of what prime lebron looks like without shooting than lebron on an injury vs the suns?

Feel like there's a misconception where we just rate shooters based on their effiency and lebron is therefore a below average shooter because his effiency is below average. But shooting is also about volume. Lebron's pretty high volime on three point attempts in his post heat days and most of these are pull-ups where he isn't being assisted. If we apply context Lebron's actually probably a solid three point shooter(at least as of his second cavs stint/lakers one)

Also i've mentioned this before, but i feel the 2015 playoffs calls into question whether "lebron needs shooting more than x" is really a thing. Lebron was the second best shooter on the cavs(at least with kyrie/love hurt) whose spacing was pretty bad when you isolate them from lebron. He was arguably the cavs best three point shooter during the finals. Yet he sweeps a 60 win team and then is beating the 67 win warriors before kerr pulls a major tactical adjustment(so major it paves the way for a 73 win season the next year). Was he less valuable than curry those playoffs? Think if you use adjusted plus-minus stuff lebron had a comprable rate of impact on signifcantly higher volume. And if you take a simpler impact approach(which gets you past issues of colinerarity), lebron is taking a team that played at a 25 win pace(with kyrie and love) to 60 win heights without either costar.

There's a distinction that should be drawn between being "less scalable" and "needing more or cieling riasing". The latter is ultimately about the final product.

Is curry more scalable than lebron? Probably.

Is lebron without shooting surrounding him less valuable than steph curry without shooting surrounding him? Idk. Conceptually it seems possible lebron's able to compensate for lost offensive value next to non-shooters by upping his defensive impact/playmaking. In 2017 the cavs were a goat-level offense with meh defense. In 2015 the cavs were a meh offense with atg level defense with lebron upping his paint protection a ton.

And i think impact stuff supports this. 2015 Lebron is either comprably valuable per possession on signifcantly more minuites with worse spacing or straight up an order of magnitude more valuable in that setting depending on whether you go with the plus-minus approach or you go with the raw/wowy appraoch(there are pro/cons to both).

In 2020 iirc lebron's adjusted plus minus metrics in the playoffs beat out any of curry's.(can't really apply the second approach here because ad turned into an atg in the playoffs).

Are we even sure Curry or MJ or whoever is more valuable than lebron on teams with below average spacing? Because if not, then which one "fits better" with shooters is kind of moot isn't it?

Doc, are you suggesting warriors could have won a ring while shooting 27% from 3 against their toughest rivals ?

If not then why does it matter than lebron couldnt beat a elite team under that circunstance? (Before even getting into lebron physical issues or davis injury)

This argument is kinda like saying "yes, lebron won a ring in the 3 point era with bottom quartile 3-point shooting around him. But he lost when he had 1% percentile 3-point shooting so obviously he needs 3 point shooters more than other players"

[OhayoKD]

Using 2021 here as proof is kinda wierd tbh

1. They lost in 6 to the eventual finalist. Even if there was nothing else at play that's not as bad as "lost in the first round" might indicate.
2. The two best players both were hampered by injuries and many people seem to think they could have won if healthy anyway
3. When lebron was healthy that season, the lakers had the best record in the league with ad missing time

Volume is also kind of important when talking about shooting. Lebron is usually top 3 in his volume of three point attempts on his team and I believe he attempted the most threes in 2021 on his team per game. Think you could reasonably extrapolate "lebron isn't that dependent on shooters" as a conclusion from 2021 depending on how you look at it. Was lebron's play at the start of the season more indicative of what prime lebron looks like without shooting than lebron on an injury vs the suns?

Feel like there's a misconception where we just rate shooters based on their effiency and lebron is therefore a below average shooter because his effiency is below average. But shooting is also about volume. Lebron's pretty high volime on three point attempts in his post heat days and most of these are pull-ups where he isn't being assisted. If we apply context Lebron's actually probably a solid three point shooter(at least as of his second cavs stint/lakers one)

Also i've mentioned this before, but i feel the 2015 playoffs calls into question whether "lebron needs shooting more than x" is really a thing. Lebron was the second best shooter on the cavs(at least with kyrie/love hurt) whose spacing was pretty bad when you isolate them from lebron. He was arguably the cavs best three point shooter during the finals. Yet he sweeps a 60 win team and then is beating the 67 win warriors before kerr pulls a major tactical adjustment(so major it paves the way for a 73 win season the next year). Was he less valuable than curry those playoffs? Think if you use adjusted plus-minus stuff lebron had a comprable rate of impact on signifcantly higher volume. And if you take a simpler impact approach(which gets you past issues of colinerarity), lebron is taking a team that played at a 25 win pace(with kyrie and love) to 60 win heights without either costar.

There's a distinction that should be drawn between being "less scalable" and "needing more or cieling riasing". The latter is ultimately about the final product.

Is curry more scalable than lebron? Probably.

Is lebron without shooting surrounding him less valuable than steph curry without shooting surrounding him? Idk. Conceptually it seems possible lebron's able to compensate for lost offensive value next to non-shooters by upping his defensive impact/playmaking. In 2017 the cavs were a goat-level offense with meh defense. In 2015 the cavs were a meh offense with atg level defense with lebron upping his paint protection a ton.

And i think impact stuff supports this. 2015 Lebron is either comprably valuable per possession on signifcantly more minuites with worse spacing or straight up an order of magnitude more valuable in that setting depending on whether you go with the plus-minus approach or you go with the raw/wowy appraoch(there are pro/cons to both).

In 2020 iirc lebron's adjusted plus minus metrics in the playoffs beat out any of curry's.(can't really apply the second approach here because ad turned into an atg in the playoffs).

Are we even sure Curry or MJ or whoever is more valuable than lebron on teams with below average spacing? Because if not, then which one "fits better" with shooters is kind of moot isn't it?

Doc, are you suggesting warriors could have won a ring while shooting 27% from 3 against their toughest rivals ?

If not then why does it matter than lebron couldnt beat a elite team under that circunstance? (Before even getting into lebron physical issues or davis injury)

tbf, it would be pretty hard to shoot 27% from three with steph curry on your team

[falcolombardi]

Using 2021 here as proof is kinda wierd tbh

1. They lost in 6 to the eventual finalist. Even if there was nothing else at play that's not as bad as "lost in the first round" might indicate.
2. The two best players both were hampered by injuries and many people seem to think they could have won if healthy anyway
3. When lebron was healthy that season, the lakers had the best record in the league with ad missing time

Volume is also kind of important when talking about shooting. Lebron is usually top 3 in his volume of three point attempts on his team and I believe he attempted the most threes in 2021 on his team per game. Think you could reasonably extrapolate "lebron isn't that dependent on shooters" as a conclusion from 2021 depending on how you look at it. Was lebron's play at the start of the season more indicative of what prime lebron looks like without shooting than lebron on an injury vs the suns?

Feel like there's a misconception where we just rate shooters based on their effiency and lebron is therefore a below average shooter because his effiency is below average. But shooting is also about volume. Lebron's pretty high volime on three point attempts in his post heat days and most of these are pull-ups where he isn't being assisted. If we apply context Lebron's actually probably a solid three point shooter(at least as of his second cavs stint/lakers one)

Also i've mentioned this before, but i feel the 2015 playoffs calls into question whether "lebron needs shooting more than x" is really a thing. Lebron was the second best shooter on the cavs(at least with kyrie/love hurt) whose spacing was pretty bad when you isolate them from lebron. He was arguably the cavs best three point shooter during the finals. Yet he sweeps a 60 win team and then is beating the 67 win warriors before kerr pulls a major tactical adjustment(so major it paves the way for a 73 win season the next year). Was he less valuable than curry those playoffs? Think if you use adjusted plus-minus stuff lebron had a comprable rate of impact on signifcantly higher volume. And if you take a simpler impact approach(which gets you past issues of colinerarity), lebron is taking a team that played at a 25 win pace(with kyrie and love) to 60 win heights without either costar.

There's a distinction that should be drawn between being "less scalable" and "needing more or cieling riasing". The latter is ultimately about the final product.

Is curry more scalable than lebron? Probably.

Is lebron without shooting surrounding him less valuable than steph curry without shooting surrounding him? Idk. Conceptually it seems possible lebron's able to compensate for lost offensive value next to non-shooters by upping his defensive impact/playmaking. In 2017 the cavs were a goat-level offense with meh defense. In 2015 the cavs were a meh offense with atg level defense with lebron upping his paint protection a ton.

And i think impact stuff supports this. 2015 Lebron is either comprably valuable per possession on signifcantly more minuites with worse spacing or straight up an order of magnitude more valuable in that setting depending on whether you go with the plus-minus approach or you go with the raw/wowy appraoch(there are pro/cons to both).

In 2020 iirc lebron's adjusted plus minus metrics in the playoffs beat out any of curry's.(can't really apply the second approach here because ad turned into an atg in the playoffs).

Are we even sure Curry or MJ or whoever is more valuable than lebron on teams with below average spacing? Because if not, then which one "fits better" with shooters is kind of moot isn't it?

Doc, are you suggesting warriors could have won a ring while shooting 27% from 3 against their toughest rivals ?

If not then why does it matter than lebron couldnt beat a elite team under that circunstance? (Before even getting into lebron physical issues or davis injury)

tbf, it would be pretty hard to shoot 27% from three with steph curry on your team

Let me change th3 question

If all of curry teammates shot 27% against one of their toughest rivals would warriors have won any of thwir rings

[falcolombardi]

Lebron won a ring in a team that played howard/mcgee heavy minutes and had below average volume and efficiency 3 point shooting

another one with tristan thompson as a starter who couldnt shoot the ball. And won with outright goat level offense

and another with haslem as a starter in 2012 back when bosh still didnt really take 3's (and also had ultra elite offense)

He doesnt need a 4-out offense and green is so good defensively he would never get benched for not shooting, come on doc

you and me both now that is a common troll argument against lebron ("if lebron played with hakeem they would make him just a corner shooter!" Kind of stuff)

You have even said before that if green was not asked to be a lead decision maker he could become a quality shooter (a reasoning i disagree with but that is whay you have argued) so what would be the issue ?

Re: offensive teammates

Wade was as not ideal of star teammate for lebron as it gets and they still had a elite offense when wade was healthy that matched/beat warriors best offenses outside of 2017

Kyrie is not exactly an all time great offensive player but he had his best impact metrics alongside lebron and got to be the second star in a goat level offense

Davis got to be the main scorer of a championship team with lebron

So first, the 2020 title is really worth analyzing. I'll be the first in line to say "That championship counts!" as I had the Bubble asterisk folks, but we should consider how they did what they did.

You talk about Howard & McGee playing major minutes, but that really depended on the series.

Against Portland, they played a combined 31 MPG...but that was also a series where LeBron & AD each only played about 32. Remember that AD likes to play as little time at center as possible, so in a series where things are not pushed to the limit, they're going to try to get away with as much time with other 5's as possible.

Against Houston, they played a combined 9 MPG. So, out of the rotation.

Against Denver, they played a combined 27 MPG. Here part of the deal was that they were trying to beat up Jokic. They averaged 7.8 fouls per 36 minutes.

Against Miami, Howard played 12 MPG and McGee didn't play.

I would suggest that the best you could say about these guys is that they were useful in the right match up, not that you could get away with playing them big minutes as a part of your core.

Further, when you talk about "not needing 4-out", let's keep in mind that AD was hitting 3's like no other point in his career, so he functioned as a guy who could be a part of that X-out approach.

If you look at the main 5 guys in their series lineups, you'll see that all of them were shooting 3's and - at least at times - hitting them. I'll acknowledge that guys like Rondo & Caruso aren't great shooters, but I'd note that in the one series were both were part of the 5-man core, they shot a combined 13-37, which is pretty damn solid for your #4 & 5 options - to say nothing of the fact that guys 6-8 in their 8 man rotation also shot 3's (Green, Kuzma, Morris).

All this to say, while those Lakers were not a great 3-point shooting team by modern standards, they were still able to regularly surround LeBron with shooters who could space the floor and if they hadn't been able to do that, I don't think they win the title.

I'd note that the next year in the payoffs with what was largely the same core, when LeBron's teammates dropped from a 35.1 3P% to a 27.5%, and they lost in the first round. I don't want to make out like 3-point shooting was all that mattered, but if the LeBron's teammates shoot 27.5% in the 2020 playoffs, I don't think they win the title.

Lebron James is 6'9 250lbs. Part of his greatness is the positional versatility he adds to your team. He and Anthony Davis formed an insane frontcourt defensive duo in the 2020 playoffs. You dont need heavy minute traditional 5s when you have those guys. So what point are you trying to make with regards to Howard and McGee's minutes? They should've played more?

Also, in terms of volume and shot difficulty, James and Davis were arguably LA's 2 best shooters that postseason. I've never seen ANYONE champion the '20 Lakers 3pt shooting. Its the last damn thing anyone should praise about that team.

Next you go back to the Cavs and Tristan Thompson. Here I'll just acknowledge: The Cavs were able to get away with having 4 3-point shooters instead of 5. To the extent that I've implied that absolutely everyone of LeBron's core teammates needs to shoot 3's, that's hyperbole, but I'd say that whenever you find any player in the modern league who isn't shooting 3's, you should probably see them as worthy of study in how they're staying on the court, and consider whether their time with such stature is likely to be short-lived.

After Kyrie left Cleveland, Thompson never played starter minutes again on a serious team. His career as a serious player thus ended at age 25, after being seeing as a major prospect out of both high school and college. By all means we can credit LeBron (& Kyrie) for getting by with him, but we're not talking about a rando scrub here. We're talking about a guy seen as having a great deal of talent by traditional basketball scouting standards who needed just the right situation to really get anywhere in the modern NBA.

I'd also note that Thompson was getting by on offense with his offensive rebounding, similar to what Kevon Looney does in GS, and I think the fact that GS can get away with a guy like that along with another guy like that, is telling.

Tristan fell off once injuries hit. A slightly undersized hustle player with bad touch burning out quickly shouldn't be surprising. His motor stopped reviving and that was that.

Re: Miami. First let's acknowledge that the brunt of the 3-point shooting revolution really happened after the Heatles era, and that there's no reason to assume that they could win a title today playing as they did in 2012.

Next, let's note who the Heat actually used as their core 5 in the 2012 playoffs:

LeBron, Wade, Bosh, Battier, Chalmers

They were getting by with Wade & Bosh not shooting 3's at that time yes - no chance of that today - but they were playing 3 3-point threats on the court, and more specifically: Since the stars lacked shooting, shooting was prioritized among the role players...which they doubled down on the next year with the acquisition of Ray Allen, who led the team in +/- in the playoffs iirc.

So even back then, Haslem was getting played off the court when it mattered, and things would be far more stark today.

Im pretty sure Birdman had the highest +/- in the '13 postseason. But Im not understanding what point you're trying to make here. That Miami was both not good enough from 3 to compete today but also had good shooters and utilized them really well. Were they not supposed to do this?

Re: Kyrie. Definitely worth studying his playing relationship to LeBron. I'd note though that he's an excellent shooter and I think that was essential to why it worked as it did.

Re: Davis. I think it's pretty clear that Davis at his best is the perfect teammate for LeBron. He had the D, at his best he had the 3, and he was also an incredible lob finisher - which is a thing I didn't mention before but is also something that LeBron really benefits from his teammates doing.

Ahh, thats what happening here. I see it now. He can only benefit from them they don't benefit from him. His teammates 'give him space' he doesn't 'generate open 3s'. His teammates 'catch lobs' he doesn't 'find them for easy baskets'.

Later prime lebron is a rim protecting power forward for mpdern game standards who shots league average percentages in jumpers in high volume and with a lot of them being toigher than average self generated 3's

For all intents and purposes he is an above average spacing big in the modern game who also lets you play big in the perimeter as he can replace the guard role offensively

The value of that goes a long way towards diminishin the "weakness" (heavy quotation marks) of "needing" shooters in the first place

And allows big tactical advantages in both ends

Where curry allows to play lighter shooting defenders more easily, lebron allows to play defensive specialists in the perimeter without too many worries about their on-ball skills

We see this on 2020 and 2021 with a 35-36 years old version of bron

When davis was injured or on the bench lakers were able to deploy a very past their peak but once great former dpoy (marc gasol or howard) and a perimeter full of below average spacing and jumpshot making (two different thinghs* that usually correlate) and weaker creators and scorers

And still have a elite defense with strong offense that had fantastic point differentials, particularly for a top heavy big 2 team missing half of its big 2

[falcolombardi]

All this to say, while those Lakers were not a great 3-point shooting team by modern standards, they were still able to regularly surround LeBron with shooters who could space the floor and if they hadn't been able to do that, I don't think they win the title.

I'd note that the next year in the payoffs with what was largely the same core, when LeBron's teammates dropped from a 35.1 3P% to a 27.5%, and they lost in the first round. I don't want to make out like 3-point shooting was all that mattered, but if the LeBron's teammates shoot 27.5% in the 2020 playoffs, I don't think they win the title.

Using 2021 here as proof is kinda wierd tbh

1. They lost in 6 to the eventual finalist. Even if there was nothing else at play that's not as bad as "lost in the first round" might indicate.
2. The two best players both were hampered by injuries and many people seem to think they could have won if healthy anyway
3. When lebron was healthy that season, the lakers had the best record in the league with ad missing time

Volume is also kind of important when talking about shooting. Lebron is usually top 3 in his volume of three point attempts on his team and I believe he attempted the most threes in 2021 on his team per game. Think you could reasonably extrapolate "lebron isn't that dependent on shooters" as a conclusion from 2021 depending on how you look at it. Was lebron's play at the start of the season more indicative of what prime lebron looks like without shooting than lebron on an injury vs the suns?

Feel like there's a misconception where we just rate shooters based on their effiency and lebron is therefore a below average shooter because his effiency is below average. But shooting is also about volume. Lebron's pretty high volime on three point attempts in his post heat days and most of these are pull-ups where he isn't being assisted. If we apply context Lebron's actually probably a solid three point shooter(at least as of his second cavs stint/lakers one)

Also i've mentioned this before, but i feel the 2015 playoffs calls into question whether "lebron needs shooting more than x" is really a thing. Lebron was the second best shooter on the cavs(at least with kyrie/love hurt) whose spacing was pretty bad when you isolate them from lebron. He was arguably the cavs best three point shooter during the finals. Yet he sweeps a 60 win team and then is beating the 67 win warriors before kerr pulls a major tactical adjustment(so major it paves the way for a 73 win season the next year). Was he less valuable than curry those playoffs? Think if you use adjusted plus-minus stuff lebron had a comprable rate of impact on signifcantly higher volume. And if you take a simpler impact approach(which gets you past issues of colinerarity), lebron is taking a team that played at a 25 win pace(with kyrie and love) to 60 win heights without either costar.

There's a distinction that should be drawn between being "less scalable" and "needing more or cieling riasing". The latter is ultimately about the final product.

Is curry more scalable than lebron? Probably.

Is lebron without shooting surrounding him less valuable than steph curry without shooting surrounding him? Idk. Conceptually it seems possible lebron's able to compensate for lost offensive value next to non-shooters by upping his defensive impact/playmaking. In 2017 the cavs were a goat-level offense with meh defense. In 2015 the cavs were a meh offense with atg level defense with lebron upping his paint protection a ton.

And i think impact stuff supports this. 2015 Lebron is either comprably valuable per possession on signifcantly more minuites with worse spacing or straight up an order of magnitude more valuable in that setting depending on whether you go with the plus-minus approach or you go with the raw/wowy appraoch(there are pro/cons to both).

In 2020 iirc lebron's adjusted plus minus metrics in the playoffs beat out any of curry's.(can't really apply the second approach here because ad turned into an atg in the playoffs).

Are we even sure Curry or MJ or whoever is more valuable than lebron on teams with below average spacing? Because if not, then which one "fits better" with shooters is kind of moot isn't it?

Thinghs like this are why i dislike the "goat floor raiser, not ceiling raiser" label for lebron when he can be arguably both

[OhayoKD]

this is a leap in logic

firstly, the point of scalability is you mantain value on better teams. The 16/17 cavs were on the same level in the playoffs as mj's bulls. the 15 cavs were on the same level as the 89/90 bulls. Jordan getting to the same spot with better teammates isn't a point in his favor.

Here are the top teams by composite (regular-season/playoff) SRS:
1. 1996 Jordan
2. 1991 Jordan
3. 1992 Jordan
4. 1997 Jordan
5. 2016 LeBron
6. 2012 LeBron
7. 1998 Jordan
8. 2013 LeBron
9. 2009 LeBron
10. 2020 LeBron
11. 2017 LeBron
12. 1993 Jordan
13. 2011 Miami Heat
14. 2015 LeBron

So by Overall SRS, Jordan has played on 4 better teams than LeBron, and the top 2 are better by a wide margin. This is a list that weights playoffs highly. Taking playoffs only, the 91 Bulls and 96 Bulls also gain separation from any of LeBron’s teams (including the 16/17 Cavs), and playoff-only SRS is the kind of stat that could overrate the 16 Cavs slightly as it wouldn’t account for opponent injury. You mention the 12 Heat were as good in the playoffs as the 91 Bulls, but unfortunately that’s flat out not true and the margin isn’t insignificant per SRS.

In sum: I’m not sure LeBron has played on as good teams as MJ.

Now you may argue: they’re as good when LeBron’s on the court. They just fall apart when LeBron’s off! But first, it’s worth noting that 89-93 Jordan has a better on-rating than LeBron’s best sample in his second cavs stint.
Second… that’s exactly my point!

Let me introduce a slight change in phrasing for your definition for scalability. I’m not married to this different definition, but it may more clearly indicate the point I’m making. Rather than saying “scalability is how well you perform on better teams” (like resilience is how well you perform against better teams), let’s change the phrasing to: “how well you perform with better teammates.”

Well, when we look at these cases, per above, LeBron faces diminishing returns with better teammates, as shown in having generally worse differential in his on minutes. [I can also link to a more in-depth analysis of how LeBron’s scoring specifically declined with better teammates, and this is a bigger decline than players who are usually seen as more scalable like Curry].

Why does this matter? Well, you’re probably going to need to play with better teammates to improve your chances of winning a championship. If you face less diminishing returns with these teammates, your on-minutes will be far more dominant. If you play with better teammates, your off minutes won’t be as bad. These will help your teams win championships. So if there’s scalability concerns, that would limit LeBron’s ability to play on better teams / with better teammates, which would slightly hurt his championship odds.

I will note that Thinking Basketball has made this direct comparison of how Jordan and LeBron would perform on better teams / with better teammates, and he’s argued that Jordan would perform better. He used available data and film analysis to make the case that Jordan’s more scalable than LeBron. It’s an interesting argument, and perhaps one that would be fun to discuss if we have time (not sure personally), but I just want to say this is a different argument from whether LeBron has scalability concerns at all.

Keep in mind that it's only really close between the two using box-score heavy stuff. In aupm, rapm, pipm, ect, Lebron has a signifcant advantage. And if you go with raw impact stuff the gap only widens. This is true on multiple different rosters in multiple different situations(second stint cavs, heatles, first stint cavs, spacing/no spacing, ect.)

. This one’s interesting. It’s possible box stats have a bias for Jordan.

But I’m not sure it’s true that LeBron has the significant pure plus-minus advantage, at least not at his peak (though maybe over the course of his prime). Jordan’s 3 year playoff AuPM is better than any of LeBron’s runs. Jordan’s 3 year playoff PIPM estimate is better than LeBron’s Miami years (haven’t checked his other years). And Jordan’s partial RAPM sample in 91 is better than LeBron’s RAPM in 13.

1. It goes both ways. The warriors are going to be underrated based on not going all-out in the regular season, especially in 2017. Even in 2016 their starters played way less minuites during the regular season. The cavs and the warriros both weren't really going all-out save for one or two matchups in the playoffs. Ultimately even with the injury to curry, the warriors beat an okc team that played 67 win basketball when healthy and decisively beat down the 70 win srs spurs. And in the final the series was pretty close to a tie. Then the cavs seem to have improved the following postseason. Probably fair to have the cavs as a 66-70 ish level playoff team even if you take their srs at face value.

Overall probably does increase the gap for the bulls but if we're talking the championshp probability, gaps in regular season score for a top seed probably don't make a signifcant difference. Like, what situation are you imagining where 67+ win playoff basketball isn't good enough for the title? Is cieling raising defined as your value on a team capable of beating the 17 warriors?

Like really the cavs were probably coasting for the first three rounds(their relative defensive rating increasing dramatically as they played stronger offenses supports this) and they were blowing teams of comparable srs to the first three point bulls by similar point differentials. Then they push a 67 win team without co-stars in 2015 and beat a 70 win team the next year. Then they get even better in 2017.


2. When bosh wade and lebron were in the lineup the 12 heatles went 8-1 winning by a margin of 15 points vs the 48 srs celtics and by a margin of 9 points over the 58 win pace thunder. That seems 91-level to me. Now consider that the co-stars aren't supposed to be good fits, their spacing was pretty bad, and that they were dealing with constant injury thoughout. Don't think 2012 really supports your theory that well. They had lots of issues/fit stuff to work out and yet when it came to time to win they crushed everyone when they shared the court. Notably they were much more dominant than the 13 heat in the playoffs vs comparably strong opponents. Despite the 13 heat having alot more spacing and lebron supposedly being alot more portable.

In 2011 lebron had one of the worst series of his career in the final for a close loss to a team that had smoked three 55+ win teams before them. Before that they were operating at a pretty similar level to the first three peat bulls. From reporting that was when their system was completely improvised and the spacing was pretty bad. Idrk if it makes sense to extrapolate that lebron at his best gets worse team results with better teammates. The 2012 heat with wade/bosh/lebron sharing the court were way more dominant than the 2013 heat despite
a. The 2013 heat having much better spacing
b. lebron allegedly being much easier to build around due to his shooting improvement
The 2011 heat were on pace for a better postseason than the 2013 heat until a lesser lebron had an outlier bad performance.

The 2020 Lakers were waaay more dominant than the 2013 heat in the playoffs. Was that because lebron was way better?

Is "lebron's teams get worse when the teammates get better" really the right conclusion here? Idk.

3. I'm specifically arguing that being "more scalable" does not mean "better cieling raiser". To be a better cieling raiser you have to be (generally) more valuable on a certain treshold of team. A player can be less scalable AND a better cieling raiser if his value is still higher than whoever you're comparing him to.

4. I think looking at how the individual years in general instead of trying to force a comparison between specific years makes this clearer:

Lebron's 09, 10, 12, 13, 16 and 17 are at +10, +8, +7.5, +7, +7.5, and +7.7 respectively.

You get 5 different seasons which would all boost the average of MJ's 89-91 peak.

[/quote]
Mj's average aupm for that three year stretch is +7 his average bpm is +7.9. The average between the two(what ben uses for lebron's years) would be +7.35. In the quoted section you get 6 years in a 9 year span that beat that. Two which beat any mj year outright.

Mj's "parital" rapm samples peak at +7, lebron has three different seasons that go at +10 and one that goes at +9.

And then just using the sample without mregulization(which tends to overdistribute value to role players), one player is taking a 27 win team to 48-50 wins while the other has a 5-25 team winning 60+ in his first cleveland stint, a 40 win team to 60 in his miami stint, and a 25-30 win team to 50-60 in his second cleveland stint.

Unless I'm missing something the only measures their best years lineup favorably or comparably for mj is box-score aggregates(jordan generally gets an rs edge, lebron gets a playoff edge, though per has them even in the rs and favors ps lebron) and ben's bpm where jordan has better individual years but lebron has the best one year peak.


5. It's probably worth noting jordan's own indivudal impact stuff drops as of 91 and he's less effecient at basically everything in 91 relative to 90. I'll let you decide if that's jordan getting worse, if that's a scalability thing,, or a bit of both

[OhayoKD]

Doc, are you suggesting warriors could have won a ring while shooting 27% from 3 against their toughest rivals ?

If not then why does it matter than lebron couldnt beat a elite team under that circunstance? (Before even getting into lebron physical issues or davis injury)

tbf, it would be pretty hard to shoot 27% from three with steph curry on your team

Let me change th3 question

If all of curry teammates shot 27% against one of their toughest rivals would warriors have won any of thwir rings

17 dubs still win maybe tbh. But i get the point

[falcolombardi]

Here are the top teams by composite (regular-season/playoff) SRS:

Here are the top teams by composite (regular-season/playoff) SRS:

Those higher SRS's advantages are strongly correlated to jordan bench minutes vs lebron bench minutes. The playoffs ON-OFF suggests lebron could take worse teams (OFF) to roughly the same heights (ON)

The idea that lebron is at fault for his teams being weaker without him goes against the much simpler occam razor that they were not as well built as jordan teams

Remember this is 16-21 sample vs jordan 88-93 sample. Jordan cast was already fairly good by 90 and lebron cast includes 19 lakers, 18 cavs and davis-less 21 lakers who were not that great rosters

Add to it pippen being a clearly better player than kyrie. And horace grant being honestly a comparable player to love and lebron only having 1 and a half year of davis in this 6-year sample and it doesnt seem outlandish at all that jordan teams were just better and that was why they had better results without their respective Goat contender

With any other comparision when we see guys have similar ON but one has a worse OFF we find it more impressive the guy who takes a worse roster to similar heights. See: jokic vs other mvp contenders this season by on/off

Why do we change the whole framework to reason ourselves backwards here?

It honestly feels like reasoning backwards why jordam having the slightly worse impact metrics at peak is not actually worse. And we use a comtrived reasoning that is only applied this one time (the worse your team is without you tje less impressive it is how much you raise them)

Would we argue this logic if the results were reversed?

Honest question. If jordsn had the same ON and worse OFF than lebron would anyone be arguing lebron as actually more impressive and more of a ceiling raiser or saying jordan makes his teams worse without him?

Did anyone argue giannis over jokic last regular season cause both had similar ON but nuggets had much worsr off

Even the common arguments against lebron ceiling raising always focus on offense (as making a case that curry or bird or magic are better defenders is really hard and even making the case jordan is a significatively enough better defender to explain the srs gap is also hard)

Offense being an area where lebron teams arguably reached higher heights than the bulls or warriors

The argument aleays goes curry warriors or jordan bulls > lebron heat/cavs because they fit better with better offensive talent

The answer always is "lebron teams actually peaked as high or higher on offense"

and since arguing curry>lebron or bird>lebron or whoever offensive star>lebron as ceiling raisers based on defense doesnt usually pass the sniff test

it just goes into very vague and overcomplicated (imo) reasonings about why is actually lebron fault he makes his teammates bad ar basketball and stuff like that

[falcolombardi]

tbf, it would be pretty hard to shoot 27% from three with steph curry on your team

Let me change th3 question

If all of curry teammates shot 27% against one of their toughest rivals would warriors have won any of thwir rings

17 dubs still win maybe tbh. But i get the point

I Dunno about even that one.

Change the close result in game 3 with weaker shooting and have them go 2-2 with warriors shooting like ass for the rest of the series and cleveland has a great puncher chance to win a best of 3 if warriors shooters suddendly forget how to shot

[Doctor MJ]

Lebron won a ring in a team that played howard/mcgee heavy minutes and had below average volume and efficiency 3 point shooting

another one with tristan thompson as a starter who couldnt shoot the ball. And won with outright goat level offense

and another with haslem as a starter in 2012 back when bosh still didnt really take 3's (and also had ultra elite offense)

He doesnt need a 4-out offense and green is so good defensively he would never get benched for not shooting, come on doc

you and me both now that is a common troll argument against lebron ("if lebron played with hakeem they would make him just a corner shooter!" Kind of stuff)

You have even said before that if green was not asked to be a lead decision maker he could become a quality shooter (a reasoning i disagree with but that is whay you have argued) so what would be the issue ?

Re: offensive teammates

Wade was as not ideal of star teammate for lebron as it gets and they still had a elite offense when wade was healthy that matched/beat warriors best offenses outside of 2017

Kyrie is not exactly an all time great offensive player but he had his best impact metrics alongside lebron and got to be the second star in a goat level offense

Davis got to be the main scorer of a championship team with lebron

So first, the 2020 title is really worth analyzing. I'll be the first in line to say "That championship counts!" as I had the Bubble asterisk folks, but we should consider how they did what they did.

You talk about Howard & McGee playing major minutes, but that really depended on the series.

Against Portland, they played a combined 31 MPG...but that was also a series where LeBron & AD each only played about 32. Remember that AD likes to play as little time at center as possible, so in a series where things are not pushed to the limit, they're going to try to get away with as much time with other 5's as possible.

Against Houston, they played a combined 9 MPG. So, out of the rotation.

Against Denver, they played a combined 27 MPG. Here part of the deal was that they were trying to beat up Jokic. They averaged 7.8 fouls per 36 minutes.

Against Miami, Howard played 12 MPG and McGee didn't play.

I would suggest that the best you could say about these guys is that they were useful in the right match up, not that you could get away with playing them big minutes as a part of your core.

Further, when you talk about "not needing 4-out", let's keep in mind that AD was hitting 3's like no other point in his career, so he functioned as a guy who could be a part of that X-out approach.

If you look at the main 5 guys in their series lineups, you'll see that all of them were shooting 3's and - at least at times - hitting them. I'll acknowledge that guys like Rondo & Caruso aren't great shooters, but I'd note that in the one series were both were part of the 5-man core, they shot a combined 13-37, which is pretty damn solid for your #4 & 5 options - to say nothing of the fact that guys 6-8 in their 8 man rotation also shot 3's (Green, Kuzma, Morris).

All this to say, while those Lakers were not a great 3-point shooting team by modern standards, they were still able to regularly surround LeBron with shooters who could space the floor and if they hadn't been able to do that, I don't think they win the title.

I'd note that the next year in the payoffs with what was largely the same core, when LeBron's teammates dropped from a 35.1 3P% to a 27.5%, and they lost in the first round. I don't want to make out like 3-point shooting was all that mattered, but if the LeBron's teammates shoot 27.5% in the 2020 playoffs, I don't think they win the title.

Lebron James is 6'9 250lbs. Part of his greatness is the positional versatility he adds to your team. He and Anthony Davis formed an insane frontcourt defensive duo in the 2020 playoffs. You dont need heavy minute traditional 5s when you have those guys. So what point are you trying to make with regards to Howard and McGee's minutes? They should've played more?

Also, in terms of volume and shot difficulty, James and Davis were arguably LA's 2 best shooters that postseason. I've never seen ANYONE champion the '20 Lakers 3pt shooting. Its the last damn thing anyone should praise about that team.

- I'm not the one who brought up Howard & McGee. Read back to see the context.

- I'm not saying that 3-point shooting was their best feature. I'm saying that the notion they were winning without a great deal of 3-point skill out there is off the mark.

Next you go back to the Cavs and Tristan Thompson. Here I'll just acknowledge: The Cavs were able to get away with having 4 3-point shooters instead of 5. To the extent that I've implied that absolutely everyone of LeBron's core teammates needs to shoot 3's, that's hyperbole, but I'd say that whenever you find any player in the modern league who isn't shooting 3's, you should probably see them as worthy of study in how they're staying on the court, and consider whether their time with such stature is likely to be short-lived.

After Kyrie left Cleveland, Thompson never played starter minutes again on a serious team. His career as a serious player thus ended at age 25, after being seeing as a major prospect out of both high school and college. By all means we can credit LeBron (& Kyrie) for getting by with him, but we're not talking about a rando scrub here. We're talking about a guy seen as having a great deal of talent by traditional basketball scouting standards who needed just the right situation to really get anywhere in the modern NBA.

I'd also note that Thompson was getting by on offense with his offensive rebounding, similar to what Kevon Looney does in GS, and I think the fact that GS can get away with a guy like that along with another guy like that, is telling.

Tristan fell off once injuries hit. A slightly undersized hustle player with bad touch burning out quickly shouldn't be surprising. His motor stopped reviving and that was that.

True.

Re: Miami. First let's acknowledge that the brunt of the 3-point shooting revolution really happened after the Heatles era, and that there's no reason to assume that they could win a title today playing as they did in 2012.

Next, let's note who the Heat actually used as their core 5 in the 2012 playoffs:

LeBron, Wade, Bosh, Battier, Chalmers

They were getting by with Wade & Bosh not shooting 3's at that time yes - no chance of that today - but they were playing 3 3-point threats on the court, and more specifically: Since the stars lacked shooting, shooting was prioritized among the role players...which they doubled down on the next year with the acquisition of Ray Allen, who led the team in +/- in the playoffs iirc.

So even back then, Haslem was getting played off the court when it mattered, and things would be far more stark today.

Im pretty sure Birdman had the highest +/- in the '13 postseason. But Im not understanding what point you're trying to make here. That Miami was both not good enough from 3 to compete today but also had good shooters and utilized them really well. Were they not supposed to do this?

- You're thinking per minute, I'm talking about total. Andersen played less.

- I really think you need to read more of the thread if you're this confused. It would not make any sense from my posts to think I was arguing against the use of 3-point shooters. I'm clearly for them being used to optimality.

Re: Kyrie. Definitely worth studying his playing relationship to LeBron. I'd note though that he's an excellent shooter and I think that was essential to why it worked as it did.

Re: Davis. I think it's pretty clear that Davis at his best is the perfect teammate for LeBron. He had the D, at his best he had the 3, and he was also an incredible lob finisher - which is a thing I didn't mention before but is also something that LeBron really benefits from his teammates doing.

Ahh, thats what happening here. I see it now. He can only benefit from them they don't benefit from him. His teammates 'give him space' he doesn't 'generate open 3s'. His teammates 'catch lobs' he doesn't 'find them for easy baskets'.

You're reading a tone in what I was saying that I didn't intend.

I was acknowledging a 3rd major wing of LeBron teammate synergy - outside shooting, defense, and lob finishing capacity.

[OhayoKD]

Here are the top teams by composite (regular-season/playoff) SRS:
\

Here are the top teams by composite (regular-season/playoff) SRS:

Those higher SRS's advantages are strongly correlated to jordan bench minutes vs lebron bench minutes. The playoffs ON-OFF suggests lebron could take worse teams (OFF) to roughly the same heights (ON)

The idea that lebron is at fault for his teams being weaker without him goes against the much simpler occam razor that they were not as well built as jordan teams

Remember this is 16-21 sample vs jordan 88-93 sample. Jordan cast was already fairly good by 90 and lebron cast includes 19 lakers, 18 cavs and davis-less 21 lakers who were not that great rosters

Actually it wouldn't include the 19 lakers since they didn't make the playoffs.

(as making a case that curry or bird or magic are better defenders is really hard and even making the case jordan is a significatively enough better defender to explain the srs gap is also hard)

How do you even argue jordan is a better defender besides dpoy voting?

[homecourtloss]

The limitations on Wade & Davis' outside shooting is part of what I'm talking about.

Miami was different from the two Cavs stints in no small part because Wade lacked the ability to shoot from outside. This resulted in them pushing Bosh to the 5 so they could get better spacing.

So Wade's lack of shooting forced Bosh to the 5 but also...

Is standing outside the arc the best use of Bosh or Love in all contexts? Absolutely not, but it was what was needed with LeBron.

We're right back to Lebron forces his bigs to be spot up shooters. Which leads us to...

What would Draymond Green do if he were on LeBron's team? Stand outside the arc and shoot 3's, and if he couldn't do it well enough, you'd bench him.

Yep. For example it was benching Tristan Thompson in the Finals that got Cleveland over the hump. Oh wait, that was Golden State benching their non-shooting center Bogut in 2015. Do I need to pull up those Anderson Varejão on-off numbers from back in the day? This is just another attempt by Team Gravity to bend reality. Yeah, Green would be bench playing next to Lebron because no defensive 1st-non shooting big man has ever played a large role on any of his teams

Would playing offense through Love or Bosh create better offenses? Almost zero chance though I suppose in certain contexts it might be worth it. But overall?

BTW, the whole “Love became a spot up shooter” thing is overblown, and I’m surprised a poster such as Doctor MJ is using this. Besides the fact that Love as a spot up shooter created the best playoff offense ever (and actually wasn’t really a “spot up shooter” as he was in many motion sets, getting sprung with screens, etc.), he DID get the ball in the post but was terrible at producing points.

Going to tag Onus here since he used the trite “turned Love into a spot up shooter” as well.

.

2019: Love, 23 games played, 3 post up possessions per game (22nd most of 195 players with 10+ post up possessions during the season), .83 points per possession (PPP), BOTTOM 28%, 25th out of 27 players with 3+ post up possessions per game. https://stats.nba.com/players/playtype-post-up/?sort=PERCENTILE&dir=1&CF=POSS*GE*3&SeasonType=Regular%20Season

Now, in 2018 he was in the top 21% in post up PPP, but in the playoffs, he was bottom 30% on 4.2 post up possessions per game (6th most in the playoffs). It’s always funny to me when people say “He was turned into a spot up shooter” when his spot up shooting is infinitely better than what ANY player could provide from the post AND he was getting plenty of post up opportunities but wasn’t scoring. The Cavs created two top 5 playoffs offenses ever using him to space the floor and shoot.

2018 post up points per possession: .98 (top 21%), 4.2 possessions per game
2018 playoffs post up points per possession: .80 (bottom 31%), 4.2 possessions per game [6th most in the playoffs]
2018 spot up points per possession: 1.27 (top 4%), 3.7 possessions per game. Cavs should have had him spot up more, not less.
2018 playoffs spot up points per possession: 1.00 (bottom 38%), 4.0 possessions per game [missed wide open shots all playoffs]

2017 post up points per possession: .87 (bottom 45%), 4.3 possessions per game
2017 playoffs post up points per possession: .98 (top 33%), 3.1 possessions per game [7th most in the playoffs]
2017 spot up points per possession: 1.19 (top 10%), 4.3 possessions per game
2017 playoffs spot up points per possession: 1.15 (top 33%), 4.5possessions per game

Notice that in 2017, a top 33% post up PPP would be a BOTTOM 40% spot up PPP.

2016 post up points per possession: .98 (top 17%), 4 possessions per game
2016 playoffs post up points per possession: .81 (bottom 44%), 4.3 possessions per game [7th most in the NBA]
2016 spot up points per possession: 1.06 (top 23%), 4.3 possessions per game
2016 playoffs spot up points per possession: 1.18 (top 23%), 4.7 possessions per game

[falcolombardi]

- I'm not saying that 3-point shooting was their best feature. I'm saying that the notion they were winning without a great deal of 3-point skill out there is off the mark.

Ok i am a bit confused now

This discussion kind of started about lebron "needing" a team full of shooters to thrive as a weaknes. The implicit argument being that other all time grear players need some degree of "less" shooting around them than him

So i pointed out he won a ring in the modern era with what was essentially a bottom quartile 3-point shooting roster around him

You answered back that when lebron teammates shot percentile 1 instead of percentile 25 shooting (the 27% vs suns) against a elite team like phoenix they lost instead

Are we saying that needing tons of shooters is a unique lebron weakness compared to other stars and the proof is that he won with a bad shooting team but NOT with a ultra awful one?

Are we going to hold everyone else to that standard to prove they dont "need" shooting as much as lebron does?

Does curry get past memphis if his teammates shot 27% from 3 instead of the 34% they actually shot for example?