RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #1 — 2013 LeBron James

[One_and_Done]

If 91 Jordan played today, people wouldn't think he was the GOAT. They'd call him a worse version of prime Lebron.

[Elpolo_14]

You think LeBron's 2016 defense is comparable to Prime Draymond, Prime Duncan, Prime Garnett etc?

No. I think he is a GOAT lvl non-big defender in 2015-16.

I think GOAT level is a bit too far as guys like Kawhi was a clear rung above him defensively that year. I think 2016 LeBron is comparable to Chris Paul, Kyle Lowry, and Paul George in terms of defensive impact that year (which is very good to be clear but not quite GOAT level)

I would say it a conversation

Contested Shot-
REGULAR SEASON:
- LEBRON : 12.1 D-FGA ( -6.3 FG Diff %)
- KAWHI : 14.7 D-FGA ( -6.4 FG Diff %)
PLAYOFF
- LEBRON : 13.9 D-FGA ( -13.5 FG Diff %)
- KAWHI : 15.8 D-FGA ( 0.0 FG Diff % )

Team Impact -
REG ( Filtered Garbage time out )
- LEBRON RS : 103.3 rDRTG ( -3.6 better than off ) / 52.8 D-TS% ( -1.9 better than off ) / 14.6 D-TOV% ( +0.8 better than off ). With 0.1 Estimation help by D-DPM adj. Line up.

- KAWH U RS : 96.8 rDRTG ( -2.7 better than off ) / 50.3 D-TS% ( -1.7 better than off ) / 15.8 D-TOV% ( 1.0 Worse than off ). with 7.5 Estimation help by D-DPM adj. Line up.

PLAYOFF
- LEBRON ON Court : Anchor -5.5 rDRTG adj
Against Detroit ( -0.3 offense ): anchor -1.6 D
Against Atlanta ( -1.3 offense ): anchor -1.4 D
Against Raptor ( +3.6 Offense ): anchor -7.6 D
Against GSW ( +8.1 Offense ) : anchor -9.4 D

- Kawhi One court : Anchor -7.6 rDRTG adj
Against Memphis ( -1.1 offense ): anchor -14.7 D
Against OKC ( +6.7 offense ): anchor -3.6 D

WOWY ( 2016 )
- Lebron : affect his team defense by 9.2 Point better.
Kawhi : affect his team defense by 6.9 Point better
WOWY ( 2015-17 )
LeBron : affect his team defense by 5.4 Point better
Kawhi : affect his team defense by 3.1 Point better

All the stat I provided isn't to say one is better than the other but to say that the conversation between those 2 can be made. And it not a wash by one or the other.

Lebron : Is a better Interior defender both as primary or secondary role. He have great off ball value with his roaming and clean up for his team. Still has good Prerimeter skills with elite switchability and Signal. Great Help on the weak side.
Kawhi : is better Prerimeter defender as he put more pressure on the ball handler or the POA of offense with his quick hand and elite Screen Navigation. Lesser role in term of interior protection and off-ball aspect. Also great Help in general

For me personally in 2016 only DRAYMOND is better than Lebron on defense with Kawhi as third best ( as none big )

[falcolombardi]

If 91 Jordan played today, people wouldn't think he was the GOAT. They'd call him a worse version of prime Lebron.

I dont think he would get compared specifically to lebron as they play very differently, maybe more to kobe

I could see a world where jordan is doing 33/6/5 on +7 efficiency and sub 10% turnovers at just 34 minutes per game leading a modernized 91 bulls-like roster to another 68/69~ win season

In that world ironically lots of people probably believe his scoring stats are inflated compared to someone like kobe because era

or that he is nowhere close to jokic who averages a triple double and dismiss jordan absurd on/off and advanced metrics

[OhayoKD]

Depending on the day, I have magic 4th or 5th on my all time list. And given that RAPM is noisy on a good day and even noisier given that Squared isn't a robot who can track an infinite number of 80s games, if Jordan is neck and neck with magic then it would certainly place his error bars well into GOAT territory and given that the actual tracked on/off is now literally #1 in the playoffs, that seems good enough.

-> Worried about Noise
-> Uses on/off to argue Jordan has parity with a player repeatedly seeing teams improve by 30-40 wins over actual **** games

Compelling as always.

sure, RAPM and on/off should be equally noisy. but in this particular case, for RAPM we're talking a tiny sample of games tracked by Squared so we can be reasonably sure the error bars are probably fairly large and for on/off, we're talking about jordan's entire career so it's the maximum sample we can possibly have.

The maximum sample we can possibly have....if you ignore an entire playoff run, 2 full seasons, and 2 additional near-full seasons...


Wonder why you're doing that.

A Final Note About Process

I do want to just make a general note about strategic voting. I see a lot of ballboys and recently-not-ballboys voting in ways that do not include their favorite player’s top competitor in their top 3. It’s possible that’s genuine. In certain cases, it probably is! But I suspect in many cases it isn’t, especially when my understanding is that there’s a Discord trying to organize together and compile votes to ensure Jordan does not win this vote.

You are aware this vote here uses the concordat process? Leaving the "top competitor" off your ballot makes no difference towards the final tally vs simply having the competitor rated below.

Rest assured, the historic beat down you're currently witnessing is 100% legal

[Elpolo_14]

If 91 Jordan played today, people wouldn't think he was the GOAT. They'd call him a worse version of prime Lebron.

In this HYPOTHETICAL situation ( like MJ never existed in the 90s but got darft and Play in this era but KEEP EXACTLY THE SAME play style with no adjustment at all )I don't think they gonna compare him to lebron because both play different brand of basketball. The comparison would be like Current SGA or a similar player in the 2000s as Kobe or Peak TMac.

[f4p]

Ngl this feels really desperate

why does it matter what other voters think?

I agree

[OhayoKD]

Ngl this feels really desperate

why does it matter what other voters think?

I agree

Huh

if it's so obvious, why are the majority of the lebron votes not even taking 2009 lebron over some other year that wasn't a) the best floor raising regular season and b) the best playoff numbers ever? it seems even people picking lebron #1 trust other versions of lebron more and don't necessarily buy that 2009 lebron would necessarily pull off what 2016 lebron did in the finals or 2013 lebron did against the spurs or 2012 lebron did in the playoffs. my logic would essentially be their logic.

But like many other votes in the project show, people don't necessarily have full trust in this Lebron over even other versions of Lebron.

You do not agree. And as I quite enjoy seeing you waffle I kindly request you address their query properly. Why are you assuming it is more likely than not that Lebron's performance statistically drops more than "2 tiers" if he plays different defenses?

[homecourtloss]

My Rankings

1. 1991 Michael Jordan (>1993, >1990, >1989, >1988)

2. 2023 Nikola Jokic

3. 2012 LeBron James

You’ve posted in the the relative ORTG thread about Jordan making a case for Jordan as the GOAT offensive engine in large part due to his on court relative ORtg in the playoffs.

Doesn’t that same data about Jokic give you pause to vote his peak this high especially since he’s had maybe one playoff series in which he created great playoff offense without Murray on court. In the 2023 playoffs, peak Jokic was +7.5 rORtg on. LeBron from 2007–2020 is +8 over a million series. 2016 LeBron was over +13 rORtg with an total on-off approaching +20

vs. SAS, -1.1 rORtg while on court, -2.3 without Murray
vs. POR, +3.1, -8.0
vs. UTA, +11.1, -21.2
vs. LAC, +5.1, +12.2
vs. LAL, +3.7, -15.8
vs. POR, +6.3, +6.3
vs. PHO, -7.2, -7.2
vs. GSW, +3.4, +3.4
vs. MIN, +7.8, +18.5
vs. PHO, +11.5, +2.0
vs. LAL, +11.4, +7.6
vs. MIA, -1.2, -19.5
vs. LAL, +1.3, -2.6
vs. MIN, +2.4, -4.6
vs. LAC, +9.5, -26.2
vs. OKC, -2.3, -19.6

Relative to GOAT peak standards, these numbers are rather middling.

[OhayoKD]

[...]

3. On the question of defense, people on this sub-forum have way overcorrected in terms of talking about “rim protection.” I’ve repeatedly seen people here looking at massive defensive impact from guards and trying to non-sensically act like that impact must be a result of rim protection. Other things matter quite a lot in terms of defense. And, as I’ve explained in detail, highly disruptive guards/wings that are also good POA defenders very commonly have DRAPM amongst the top players in the league: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=116529430#p116529430. Of course, this may not really matter much for purposes of a Jordan vs. LeBron comparison, because we know from NBArapm data that LeBron consistently had very few rim contests per 100 possessions.

[...]

To be clear though, the impact profile for Jordan does not point to that level of defensive value within his era, no? Across 391 games played in the 1985-96 Squared2020 RAPM study, he has a DRAPM of +0.12 - pretty middling. Raw data isn't really any better; according to Djoker, Jordan's career playoff on-off rDRTG is +0.4. His 1991 playoff on-off DRTG is +3.2 (small sample here so asterisk ofc).

Or is your view that the high impact of strong POA defenders in the data ball era suggests that he'd be putting up that impact today, even if he didn't in his era?

Better question is why a list dominated by wings and/or players with the size of wings being used to champion a shooting guard who was struggling to not get instantly overpowered by anthony mason

[lessthanjake]

A Final Note About Process

I do want to just make a general note about strategic voting. I see a lot of ballboys and recently-not-ballboys voting in ways that do not include their favorite player’s top competitor in their top 3. It’s possible that’s genuine. In certain cases, it probably is! But I suspect in many cases it isn’t, especially when my understanding is that there’s a Discord trying to organize together and compile votes to ensure Jordan does not win this vote.

You are aware this vote here uses the concordat process? Leaving the "top competitor" off your ballot makes no difference towards the final tally vs simply having the competitor rated below.

It actually does matter, because the Condorcet method yields results based on how each candidate does against every other candidate. Player A can lose the head-to-head tally with Player B but still be ranked ahead of Player B if Player A wins more of the other head to heads. Which means there’s still reason to strategic vote the biggest competitor to your favorite player off one’s ballot, in order to make their other head to heads worse.

Rest assured, the historic beat down you're currently witnessing is 100% legal

Lol at “historic beat down” in a RealGM PC board vote. You take these votes *way* too seriously. They’re really just an opportunity to focus discussion amongst a small community of people.

[capfan33]

1. 2013 LeBron James
The most complete version of LeBron overall imo although I see strong arguments for other seasons. Ultimately going with the safe pick that I’ve had as lebrons (and by extension the overall) greatest peak ever for a while now.

Incredible regular season where he put it all together on offense and defense. Even though I don’t think it’s the best offensive or defensive version of Bron, holistically I think it’s best. If Wade doesn’t get hurt I’m quite confident they coast through the playoffs and win a title in dominant fashion, which would make this much more clear cut.

2. 1993 Hakeem Olajuwon
Maybe a bit unconventional but I’m evaluating players in a vacuum with a tilt to the modern game. As such, I’m going with Hakeem, who I believe would translate very well modernly while also being a monster in his own era. 2nd best defender ever while also improving his passing significantly this season, with Hakeem you’re getting incredibly resilient offense with goat defense. And especially with modern spacing, I don’t think you need much to be a title contender with him.

3. 1974 Kareem
Somewhat surprised I’m putting this version of Kareem as my pick, but thinking about it more, for the modern game I think I’d want the more mobile version of Kareem as opposed to 77. And realistically, I don’t see many guys slowing down the 74 version of Kareem on offense even compared to the 77 version, as by 74 he had gained some pounds and had more or less perfected the god hook. Think him and Hakeem are a toss up, but ultimately like Hakeem’s defensive versatility and motor more titled towards the current era.

[Special_Puppy]

No. I think he is a GOAT lvl non-big defender in 2015-16.

I think GOAT level is a bit too far as guys like Kawhi was a clear rung above him defensively that year. I think 2016 LeBron is comparable to Chris Paul, Kyle Lowry, and Paul George in terms of defensive impact that year (which is very good to be clear but not quite GOAT level)

I would say it a conversation

Contested Shot-
REGULAR SEASON:
- LEBRON : 12.1 D-FGA ( -6.3 FG Diff %)
- KAWHI : 14.7 D-FGA ( -6.4 FG Diff %)
PLAYOFF
- LEBRON : 13.9 D-FGA ( -13.5 FG Diff %)
- KAWHI : 15.8 D-FGA ( 0.0 FG Diff % )

Team Impact -
REG ( Filtered Garbage time out )
- LEBRON RS : 103.3 rDRTG ( -3.6 better than off ) / 52.8 D-TS% ( -1.9 better than off ) / 14.6 D-TOV% ( +0.8 better than off ). With 0.1 Estimation help by D-DPM adj. Line up.

- KAWH U RS : 96.8 rDRTG ( -2.7 better than off ) / 50.3 D-TS% ( -1.7 better than off ) / 15.8 D-TOV% ( 1.0 Worse than off ). with 7.5 Estimation help by D-DPM adj. Line up.

PLAYOFF
- LEBRON ON Court : Anchor -5.5 rDRTG adj
Against Detroit ( -0.3 offense ): anchor -1.6 D
Against Atlanta ( -1.3 offense ): anchor -1.4 D
Against Raptor ( +3.6 Offense ): anchor -7.6 D
Against GSW ( +8.1 Offense ) : anchor -9.4 D

- Kawhi One court : Anchor -7.6 rDRTG adj
Against Memphis ( -1.1 offense ): anchor -14.7 D
Against OKC ( +6.7 offense ): anchor -3.6 D

WOWY ( 2016 )
- Lebron : affect his team defense by 9.2 Point better.
Kawhi : affect his team defense by 6.9 Point better
WOWY ( 2015-17 )
LeBron : affect his team defense by 5.4 Point better
Kawhi : affect his team defense by 3.1 Point better

All the stat I provided isn't to say one is better than the other but to say that the conversation between those 2 can be made. And it not a wash by one or the other.

Lebron : Is a better Interior defender both as primary or secondary role. He have great off ball value with his roaming and clean up for his team. Still has good Prerimeter skills with elite switchability and Signal. Great Help on the weak side.
Kawhi : is better Prerimeter defender as he put more pressure on the ball handler or the POA of offense with his quick hand and elite Screen Navigation. Lesser role in term of interior protection and off-ball aspect. Also great Help in general

For me personally in 2016 only DRAYMOND is better than Lebron on defense with Kawhi as third best ( as none big )

LeBron and Kawhi in a variety of metrics:

LeBron:
D-DPM: +1.7
D-EPM: +1.9
D-LEBRON: +1.5
D-RAPTOR: +2.2
3-Year Luck Adjusted D-RAPM: +1.8
D-BPM: +2

Kawhi:
D-DPM: +2.4
D-EPM: +3.4
D-LEBRON: +3.3
D-RAPTOR: +4.7
3-Year Luck Adjusted D-RAPM: +3.5
D-BPM: +3

Overall I'm pretty comfortable saying that Kawhi was a rung above LeBron defensively in 2016.

[capfan33]

Also, I absolutely hate that people are using the 80s rapm data for this project. It’s just completely illegitimate as a meaningful piece of evidence in the first place.

While I love the idea of doing it and applaud the amount of effort that’s been put into it, anyone who’s done even a cursory amount of reading on how any sort of adjusted plus minus works would know it’s essentially a meaningless sample size.

And no one really stands out relative to what we already know about the players in the sample, so its strange to me why people are so hellbent on pushing it.

For the purposes of these votes, all the rapm data shows is that mj and magic are comparable, which many of us have been saying for years. And that Kareem aged gracefully, which is even more obvious (collinearity caveat applies as per usual).

[f4p]

Or more topical to the discussion at hand, we dont have evidence of jordan doing the very efficient scoring he did in 91 against actually great defenses either, as his efficiency fell off against high end defenses (see 88-90 pistons, 92-93 knicks, 96 seattle)

hmm, this is the second time you've referenced jordan's very efficient scoring in 91. what metric am i missing? his TS% is basically exactly the same in the 88, 89, 90, and 91 playoffs and in 91 his PP100 is actually the worst of the 86-93 stretch. he was scoring more and scoring basically as efficiently in years where he played those great defenses.

which is why i dont get why you sort of "penalize" 2009 lebron -who actually had a monster scoring series against a league best defense- for the possibility another team like 2011 would have made him struggle in 2009, but dont keep the same reasoning for the possibility that the 92 knicks, 93 knicks, 88 detroit, 89 detroit, 96 seattle would make 91 jordan suffer too

so first, jordan's declines against those teams don't really seem catastrophic, right? i mean it's a bunch of 54-56 TS% series on generally massive volume and a 52 TS% series thrown in against the 1993 knicks. i mean at some point that's going to happen right? and 32/6/7 on 52 TS% with 2.3 TOPG against a -8 defense in that 1993 series is what we're essentially arguing as like a "bad" series from jordan? that doesn't seem particularly bad on the scale of bad series. i mean if we throw in one of those series for 5 games in 1991, his 60 TS% goes to 59% and his volume numbers basically don't change? so maybe his overall numbers end up right around his already amazing 1990 season. give or take?

in the 2007 finals, lebron got held to 22 ppg on 42.8 TS% on 5.8 TO/G. that's a catastrophic offensive performance. in 2008 it was good volume at 26.7 ppg but down to 48 TS% and 5.3 TO/G. and in 2011 he held the TS% to bad but non-catastrophic levels at 51.6 TS% but his volume collapsed to 17 ppg and there was still 4 TO/G.

none of those jordan series compare to those declines. they just seem like what you would expect if you go from playing a bad defense to playing a great defense. yes it's nice that lebron was largely immune to this later in his career, but it doesn't seem to be true before 2012. early career lebron appears to have a much lower floor against great defenses, agreed?

2009 lebron got through 3 rounds of the playoffs and, against the teams he played, probably played the best basketball ever. but if, say, KG stayed healthy in 2009 and lebron had had to face the celtics in the ECF, are you sure he doesn't have a 2007 finals, 2008 ECSF, or 2011 finals in him? he just weirdly had this issue up to 2009, vanquished it for 6 weeks in the 2009 playoffs, and then it returned again for 2 more years before going away? even in 2010 he was only at 55.6 TS% and still had 4.5 TO/G against the celtics (yes, the elbow).

if 2009 was 2011 and the prelude to lebron's 2012-2020 run, it would look like a coming out party for a decade of ridiculous dominance. as it is, it stands as a stark outlier to surrounding seasons and look more like the most freakishly athletic/highest motor version of lebron managed to not run into a problem he hadn't quite solved, a claim back up by the fact it would pop up again in subsequent seasons.

[OhayoKD]

A Final Note About Process

I do want to just make a general note about strategic voting. I see a lot of ballboys and recently-not-ballboys voting in ways that do not include their favorite player’s top competitor in their top 3. It’s possible that’s genuine. In certain cases, it probably is! But I suspect in many cases it isn’t, especially when my understanding is that there’s a Discord trying to organize together and compile votes to ensure Jordan does not win this vote.

You are aware this vote here uses the concordat process? Leaving the "top competitor" off your ballot makes no difference towards the final tally vs simply having the competitor rated below.

It actually does matter, because the Condorcet method yields results based on how each candidate does against every other candidate. Player A can lose the head-to-head tally with Player B but still be ranked ahead of Player B if Player A wins more of the other head to heads. Which means there’s still reason to strategic vote the biggest competitor to your favorite player off one’s ballot, in order to make their other head to heads worse.

True. Lebron, currently up 20-something to 4 (?) really needed insurance in case people actually decided Kareem or Bill Russell was the primary vote-getter.

Rest assured, the historic beat down you're currently witnessing is 100% legal

Lol at “historic beat down” in a RealGM PC board vote. You take these votes *way* too seriously. They’re really just an opportunity to focus discussion amongst a small community of people.

True. It isn't that serious. So I really hope no one is asking to join private discord servers under the pretense of being "a long time lurker" just to spy on them.

[Special_Puppy]

I'm pretty stunned to see *multiple* people leave Jordan off their top 3. The box and non-box case for Jordan being top 3 is just incredibly strong. The people not putting Jordan top 3 are mostly not even bothering to state their reasoning as to why they are leaving the guy who easily won this spot 3 years ago off their ballot.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2468308#p119288894

[OhayoKD]

I think GOAT level is a bit too far as guys like Kawhi was a clear rung above him defensively that year. I think 2016 LeBron is comparable to Chris Paul, Kyle Lowry, and Paul George in terms of defensive impact that year (which is very good to be clear but not quite GOAT level)

I would say it a conversation

Contested Shot-
REGULAR SEASON:
- LEBRON : 12.1 D-FGA ( -6.3 FG Diff %)
- KAWHI : 14.7 D-FGA ( -6.4 FG Diff %)
PLAYOFF
- LEBRON : 13.9 D-FGA ( -13.5 FG Diff %)
- KAWHI : 15.8 D-FGA ( 0.0 FG Diff % )

Team Impact -
REG ( Filtered Garbage time out )
- LEBRON RS : 103.3 rDRTG ( -3.6 better than off ) / 52.8 D-TS% ( -1.9 better than off ) / 14.6 D-TOV% ( +0.8 better than off ). With 0.1 Estimation help by D-DPM adj. Line up.

- KAWH U RS : 96.8 rDRTG ( -2.7 better than off ) / 50.3 D-TS% ( -1.7 better than off ) / 15.8 D-TOV% ( 1.0 Worse than off ). with 7.5 Estimation help by D-DPM adj. Line up.

PLAYOFF
- LEBRON ON Court : Anchor -5.5 rDRTG adj
Against Detroit ( -0.3 offense ): anchor -1.6 D
Against Atlanta ( -1.3 offense ): anchor -1.4 D
Against Raptor ( +3.6 Offense ): anchor -7.6 D
Against GSW ( +8.1 Offense ) : anchor -9.4 D

- Kawhi One court : Anchor -7.6 rDRTG adj
Against Memphis ( -1.1 offense ): anchor -14.7 D
Against OKC ( +6.7 offense ): anchor -3.6 D

WOWY ( 2016 )
- Lebron : affect his team defense by 9.2 Point better.
Kawhi : affect his team defense by 6.9 Point better
WOWY ( 2015-17 )
LeBron : affect his team defense by 5.4 Point better
Kawhi : affect his team defense by 3.1 Point better

All the stat I provided isn't to say one is better than the other but to say that the conversation between those 2 can be made. And it not a wash by one or the other.

Lebron : Is a better Interior defender both as primary or secondary role. He have great off ball value with his roaming and clean up for his team. Still has good Prerimeter skills with elite switchability and Signal. Great Help on the weak side.
Kawhi : is better Prerimeter defender as he put more pressure on the ball handler or the POA of offense with his quick hand and elite Screen Navigation. Lesser role in term of interior protection and off-ball aspect. Also great Help in general

For me personally in 2016 only DRAYMOND is better than Lebron on defense with Kawhi as third best ( as none big )

LeBron and Kawhi in a variety of metrics:

LeBron:
D-DPM: +1.7
D-EPM: +1.9
D-LEBRON: +1.5
D-RAPTOR: +2.2
3-Year Luck Adjusted D-RAPM: +1.8
D-BPM: +2

Kawhi:
D-DPM: +2.4
D-EPM: +3.4
D-LEBRON: +3.3
D-RAPTOR: +4.7
3-Year Luck Adjusted D-RAPM: +3.5
D-BPM: +3

Overall I'm pretty comfortable saying that Kawhi was a rung above LeBron defensively in 2016.

Nobody cares about your arbitrary formula spam pal

I'm pretty stunned to see *multiple* people leave Jordan off their top 3. The box and non-box case for Jordan being top 3 is just incredibly strong. The people not putting Jordan top 3 are mostly not even bothering to state their reasoning as to why they are leaving the guy who easily won this spot 3 years ago off their ballot.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2468308#p119288894

Having a weaker empirical portfolio than Magic Johnson in optimal conditions does not strike me as an "incredibly strong" case for top 3

[homecourtloss]

1. LeBron James, 2016 (2009 > 2013 > 2012)

You can argue many different seasons as LeBron’s peak and the overall goat peak. I have gone back forth between 2009, 2013, and 2016. In 2009 he is a force of nature and in just about every game the Cavs played he would come out of the gate in the first quarter and physically impose his will on the game on both sides of the ball. +15 on court with THAT roster is absurd. Had the greatest box score run in playoffs history. I think had Ben Wallace not gotten injured, 2009 would be remembered differently. In 2013 he plays a different role and without an injured Wade in the playoffs posts an absurd +30 rORtg. But 2016 does it for me. He posts an absurd +13.5 or +14 rORtg on court (depending on various methods of calculation) while shouldering massive defensive responsibilities, a +20 on/off, lifts a defense by more than +7 per 100 possessions (the territory of ATG defensive bigs) and then defeats a 73 win team posting a nearly +30 on/off in the finals.

2. Kareem, 1977 (1974 > 1972)

Kareem is the only other player who has wide of a stretch of possible GOAT years. In 1977 he hits his offensive peak with inelastic efficiency and still a very good defender. Probably only Kareem and Wilt (maybe Duncan) can say they were the best offensive and defe dive player during a playoff run.

3. Duncan, 2003

Who was on this team creating this type of team? Duncan’s plus offense and GOAT level defense lifted a team to immense heights. I cannot think of very many scenarios in which this player wouldn't have the same results. Immense lift on both sides of the ball especially the playoffs.

HM 1: Jordan 1991. His best playoff + regular season run which was clear a great run!
HM 2: Shaq 2000

[lessthanjake]

My Rankings

1. 1991 Michael Jordan (>1993, >1990, >1989, >1988)

2. 2023 Nikola Jokic

3. 2012 LeBron James

You’ve posted in the the relative ORTG thread about Jordan making a case for Jordan as the GOAT offensive engine in large part due to his on court relative ORtg in the playoffs.

Doesn’t that same data about Jokic give you pause to vote his peak this high especially since he’s had maybe one playoff series in which he created great playoff offense without Murray on court. In the 2023 playoffs, peak Jokic was +7.5 rORtg on. LeBron from 2007–2020 is +8 over a million series. 2016 LeBron was over +13 rORtg with an total on-off approaching +20

vs. SAS, -1.1 rORtg while on court, -2.3 without Murray
vs. POR, +3.1, -8.0
vs. UTA, +11.1, -21.2
vs. LAC, +5.1, +12.2
vs. LAL, +3.7, -15.8
vs. POR, +6.3, +6.3
vs. PHO, -7.2, -7.2
vs. GSW, +3.4, +3.4
vs. MIN, +7.8, +18.5
vs. PHO, +11.5, +2.0
vs. LAL, +11.4, +7.6
vs. MIA, -1.2, -19.5
vs. LAL, +1.3, -2.6
vs. MIN, +2.4, -4.6
vs. LAC, +9.5, -26.2
vs. OKC, -2.3, -19.6

Relative to GOAT peak standards, these numbers are rather middling.

Yup, those numbers *are* concerning for Jokic. And it’s part of why I didn’t list any other Jokic years as alternates on my ballot. 2023 is still not amazing in that regard either, but it’s still pretty good and (1) there’s a whole lot of other data that looks amazing for Jokic (which is data that matters to me too for Jordan, but, as mentioned in my post, others had covered much of that stuff so I didn’t retread), and (2) I think the 2023 Nuggets get pretty uniquely hard-done by relative ratings, since their playoff opponents were pretty uniquely stronger in the playoffs than they’d been in the regular season.

As for playoff numbers without Murray, I also think we should be very careful about cutting up playoff samples. They’re already small, and if you cut them up to samples without another star on the court, it often starts to just be small-sample-size theater. And, of course, with Jokic we should think about who was on the court with him in those minutes. There’s a lot of very weak players on the court with Jokic in those minutes.

[...]

3. On the question of defense, people on this sub-forum have way overcorrected in terms of talking about “rim protection.” I’ve repeatedly seen people here looking at massive defensive impact from guards and trying to non-sensically act like that impact must be a result of rim protection. Other things matter quite a lot in terms of defense. And, as I’ve explained in detail, highly disruptive guards/wings that are also good POA defenders very commonly have DRAPM amongst the top players in the league: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=116529430#p116529430. Of course, this may not really matter much for purposes of a Jordan vs. LeBron comparison, because we know from NBArapm data that LeBron consistently had very few rim contests per 100 possessions.

[...]

To be clear though, the impact profile for Jordan does not point to that level of defensive value within his era, no? Across 391 games played in the 1985-96 Squared2020 RAPM study, he has a DRAPM of +0.12 - pretty middling. Raw data isn't really any better; according to Djoker, Jordan's career playoff on-off rDRTG is +0.4. His 1991 playoff on-off DRTG is +3.2 (small sample here so asterisk ofc).

Or is your view that the high impact of strong POA defenders in the data ball era suggests that he'd be putting up that impact today, even if he didn't in his era?

Better question is why a list dominated by wings and/or players with the size of wings being used to champion a shooting guard who was struggling to not get instantly overpowered by anthony mason

Lol at saying a list is “dominated by wings and/or players with the size of wings” rather than “a shooting guard,” when the best performing guys on the list were Tony Allen and Alex Caruso.

I do think Jalengreen’s point is well taken that Squared’s RAPM doesn’t have Jordan’s defensive impact looking super high. But we also know that the Bulls defense didn’t miss a beat with Pippen, Rodman, or Grant out for long periods of time or leaving, and that Pippen’s and Rodman’s DRAPM on the Bulls was not very good (indeed, Pippen is one of the few exceptions in my post, where his DRAPM didn’t fit expectations for someone who is a disruptive defender who is a great POA defender). There was actually a good bit of redundancy in the disruptive capabilities of the Bulls defensive talent, which made the team very steady defensively, but obviously was not helpful for DRAPM purposes. The fact that the Bulls were an incredible defense for many years, without having any elite big-man rim protector—indeed, the second-three-peat Bulls ultimately ended up being the best playoff defense ever amongst teams without an amazing rim protector (and amongst the best defenses even compared to teams that did have one)—definitely strongly suggests that the huge value of perimeter disruption and POA defense I was talking about was strongly at play with the Bulls. And I think it’s fairly obvious who the primary protagonists of that were, even if there was enough overlap that the Bulls defense could still function well without any individual player.

You can see a similar thing with the 2025 Thunder—where they clearly derived most of their dominance from this exact type of defensive archetype, but they were chock full of very impactful guys in this regard such that the defense still functioned well in the absence of any individual guy.

[Special_Puppy]

I would say it a conversation

Contested Shot-
REGULAR SEASON:
- LEBRON : 12.1 D-FGA ( -6.3 FG Diff %)
- KAWHI : 14.7 D-FGA ( -6.4 FG Diff %)
PLAYOFF
- LEBRON : 13.9 D-FGA ( -13.5 FG Diff %)
- KAWHI : 15.8 D-FGA ( 0.0 FG Diff % )

Team Impact -
REG ( Filtered Garbage time out )
- LEBRON RS : 103.3 rDRTG ( -3.6 better than off ) / 52.8 D-TS% ( -1.9 better than off ) / 14.6 D-TOV% ( +0.8 better than off ). With 0.1 Estimation help by D-DPM adj. Line up.

- KAWH U RS : 96.8 rDRTG ( -2.7 better than off ) / 50.3 D-TS% ( -1.7 better than off ) / 15.8 D-TOV% ( 1.0 Worse than off ). with 7.5 Estimation help by D-DPM adj. Line up.

PLAYOFF
- LEBRON ON Court : Anchor -5.5 rDRTG adj
Against Detroit ( -0.3 offense ): anchor -1.6 D
Against Atlanta ( -1.3 offense ): anchor -1.4 D
Against Raptor ( +3.6 Offense ): anchor -7.6 D
Against GSW ( +8.1 Offense ) : anchor -9.4 D

- Kawhi One court : Anchor -7.6 rDRTG adj
Against Memphis ( -1.1 offense ): anchor -14.7 D
Against OKC ( +6.7 offense ): anchor -3.6 D

WOWY ( 2016 )
- Lebron : affect his team defense by 9.2 Point better.
Kawhi : affect his team defense by 6.9 Point better
WOWY ( 2015-17 )
LeBron : affect his team defense by 5.4 Point better
Kawhi : affect his team defense by 3.1 Point better

All the stat I provided isn't to say one is better than the other but to say that the conversation between those 2 can be made. And it not a wash by one or the other.

Lebron : Is a better Interior defender both as primary or secondary role. He have great off ball value with his roaming and clean up for his team. Still has good Prerimeter skills with elite switchability and Signal. Great Help on the weak side.
Kawhi : is better Prerimeter defender as he put more pressure on the ball handler or the POA of offense with his quick hand and elite Screen Navigation. Lesser role in term of interior protection and off-ball aspect. Also great Help in general

For me personally in 2016 only DRAYMOND is better than Lebron on defense with Kawhi as third best ( as none big )

LeBron and Kawhi in a variety of metrics:

LeBron:
D-DPM: +1.7
D-EPM: +1.9
D-LEBRON: +1.5
D-RAPTOR: +2.2
3-Year Luck Adjusted D-RAPM: +1.8
D-BPM: +2

Kawhi:
D-DPM: +2.4
D-EPM: +3.4
D-LEBRON: +3.3
D-RAPTOR: +4.7
3-Year Luck Adjusted D-RAPM: +3.5
D-BPM: +3

Overall I'm pretty comfortable saying that Kawhi was a rung above LeBron defensively in 2016.

Nobody cares about your arbitrary formula spam pal

I'm pretty stunned to see *multiple* people leave Jordan off their top 3. The box and non-box case for Jordan being top 3 is just incredibly strong. The people not putting Jordan top 3 are mostly not even bothering to state their reasoning as to why they are leaving the guy who easily won this spot 3 years ago off their ballot.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2468308#p119288894

Having a weaker empirical portfolio than Magic Johnson in optimal conditions does not strike me as an "incredibly strong" case for top 3

These metrics are looking at the same things elpolo_14 is looking at just in a more structured way with more context. Not sure why'd you dismiss them out of hand. Advanced stats since 2014-15 are very useful.

I also don't agree that Magic has a stronger empirical case than Jordan (and if you did I expect you to vote Magic top 2-3)