Rank playoffs versions (runs) of Jordan and Lebron

[The Master]

...

MJs '92 too high, it was one of his worst postseasons stats-wise before 1st retirement, and if we exclude 1st round against Heat (-4 SRS team, lol) he averaged ~25 PER and ~9 BPM against -2.7 relDRTG defenses. Not saying he played poorly, because Knicks/Cavs/Blazers were all pretty decent teams, and that's still elite production for anyone but Jordan and James, but I'd say it was more like 5-6th best postseason he had if we exclude winning-factor. Bulls played 7 games against Knicks, 6 games against Cavs and 6 games against Blazers despite being clearly superior team on paper, so it supports my claim even further.

Jordan played against defenses that were suited the most to defend him in the East (Knicks, Cavs during that period), while in the finals he found more favorable matchups, series against Knicks '92 in some way was an equivalent to LeBron's 2013 Finals against Spurs.

[70sFan]

...

MJs '92 too high, it was one of his worst postseasons stats-wise before 1st retirement, and if we exclude 1st round against Heat (-4 SRS team, lol) he averaged ~25 PER and ~9 BPM against -2.7 relDRTG defenses. Not saying he played poorly, because Knicks/Cavs/Blazers were all pretty decent teams, and that's still elite production for anyone but Jordan and James, but I'd say it was more like 5-6th best postseason he had if we exclude winning-factor. Bulls played 7 games against Knicks, 6 games against Cavs and 6 games against Blazers despite being clearly superior team on paper, so it supports my claim even further.

Jordan played against defenses that were suited the most to defend him in the East (Knicks, Cavs during that period), while in the finals he found more favorable matchups, series against Knicks '92 in some way was an equivalent to LeBron's 2013 Finals against Spurs.

I wouldn't include finals series, Jordan struggled a bit against Knicks and Cavs, but he dominated Blazers with arguably his best finals series.

I agree that 1992 has too many question marks to have it at the top though.

[freethedevil]

I think winning the title is very important in terms of judging play-off runs. That's why I'm a bit lower on 09 LeBron and 90 Jordan. I don't think it's fair to give the same criticism of LeBron's 2017 and 2018 seasons. The Cavs beat everyone in front of them and were then beaten by probably the best team ever. It's not like LeBron's performance was the reason they lost, since no player could've gotten that Cavs team past the Warriors.

I have MJ's 91 run as the best ever though.

09 lebron played vastly better in the first three rounds than jordan did in the first three rounds.

Are we really going to use jordan's teammates getting him through half of the ecf as proof 91 MJ played better?

[freethedevil]

91 Jordan
90 Jordan
12 Lebron
09 Lebron
92 Jordan
17 Lebron
16 Lebron
89 Jordan
93 Jordan
18 Lebron

I'd probably go with something like that off the cuff. If we were talking total seasons, my list would be a bit different. I was going to put 09 Lebron higher, but honestly it's too much of an outlier statistically for me to really take it at face value.

I think having to resort to "thing that happened doesn't real!" proves that it was the best

Also, curious what sort of rationale has a playoff run where jordan was worse against a worse defense in the second round, and then far worse for half of the ecf has jordan being ranked above 09 lebron, 90 mj, ect, ect.

I mean if you're going to just blatantly act like what happened in the playoffs doesn't matter for playoff runs, why not just put 2013 lebron second or third?

[Jordan Syndrome]

It would be nice to see this with SRS relative to the teams own rating. Beat 3 5-SRS level teams as a 10-SRS team is less impressive than beating 3 4-SRS teams as a 5-SRS team.

I'm going to have to disagree with that. This would only be relevant if we knew the SRS without said players. We don't. You can't punish a player for making their team better.

I'm not punishing anyone. Neither your analysis nor the analysis I recommended is perfect. Getting more data out helps us paint a more accurate picture of what we want to see.

[Dutchball97]

I think winning the title is very important in terms of judging play-off runs. That's why I'm a bit lower on 09 LeBron and 90 Jordan. I don't think it's fair to give the same criticism of LeBron's 2017 and 2018 seasons. The Cavs beat everyone in front of them and were then beaten by probably the best team ever. It's not like LeBron's performance was the reason they lost, since no player could've gotten that Cavs team past the Warriors.

I have MJ's 91 run as the best ever though.

09 lebron played vastly better in the first three rounds than jordan did in the first three rounds.

Are we really going to use jordan's teammates getting him through half of the ecf as proof 91 MJ played better?

Donovan Mitchell played vastly better than LeBron James in the first round of the 2020 play-offs.

Are we really going to use AD carrying the Lakers for the first three rounds as proof that LeBron is better than Mitchell?

[No-more-rings]

91 Jordan
90 Jordan
12 Lebron
09 Lebron
92 Jordan
17 Lebron
16 Lebron
89 Jordan
93 Jordan
18 Lebron

I'd probably go with something like that off the cuff. If we were talking total seasons, my list would be a bit different. I was going to put 09 Lebron higher, but honestly it's too much of an outlier statistically for me to really take it at face value.

I think having to resort to "thing that happened doesn't real!" proves that it was the best

Also, curious what sort of rationale has a playoff run where jordan was worse against a worse defense in the second round, and then far worse for half of the ecf has jordan being ranked above 09 lebron, 90 mj, ect, ect.

I mean if you're going to just blatantly act like what happened in the playoffs doesn't matter for playoff runs, why not just put 2013 lebron second or third?

So I'm not sure how I'm really supposed to respond to this, because it seems you're just trying to get a rise out of me in which case I'm not going there.

I have 09 4th between two goat players which is pretty damn great, just because i don't have it first means I'm saying it wasn't real?

Like it said it was a bit of an outlier for even Lebron, and given his struggles the next 2 years it seems fair to have doubts. Also it's not uncommon for people to not weigh those kind of samples that heavily. I mean no one's saying that Donovan Mitchell was better than MJ or Wade in the playoffs this year, because with his numbers someone could argue that if they wanted. They'd look pretty stupid, but they still could.

[RCM88x]

2018
1991
1993
2017
2009
1992
2012
1990
2016
1997

etc..

[freethedevil]

I think winning the title is very important in terms of judging play-off runs. That's why I'm a bit lower on 09 LeBron and 90 Jordan. I don't think it's fair to give the same criticism of LeBron's 2017 and 2018 seasons. The Cavs beat everyone in front of them and were then beaten by probably the best team ever. It's not like LeBron's performance was the reason they lost, since no player could've gotten that Cavs team past the Warriors.

I have MJ's 91 run as the best ever though.

09 lebron played vastly better in the first three rounds than jordan did in the first three rounds.

Are we really going to use jordan's teammates getting him through half of the ecf as proof 91 MJ played better?

Donovan Mitchell played vastly better than LeBron James in the first round of the 2020 play-offs.

Are we really going to use AD carrying the Lakers for the first three rounds as proof that LeBron is better than Mitchell?

Given Lebron created far more and defended far better....That's doubtful?

Not really anaglous to the 09-91 mj comparison where Lebron scored better, defender better, and created as much more effeciently?

[MyUniBroDavis]

09 lebron played vastly better in the first three rounds than jordan did in the first three rounds.

Are we really going to use jordan's teammates getting him through half of the ecf as proof 91 MJ played better?

Donovan Mitchell played vastly better than LeBron James in the first round of the 2020 play-offs.

Are we really going to use AD carrying the Lakers for the first three rounds as proof that LeBron is better than Mitchell?

Given Lebron created far more and defended far better....That's doubtful?

Not really anaglous to the 09-91 mj comparison where Lebron scored better, defender better, and created as much more effeciently?

Dude mitchell literally was making heat checks of his heat checks chill

[freethedevil]

91 Jordan
90 Jordan
12 Lebron
09 Lebron
92 Jordan
17 Lebron
16 Lebron
89 Jordan
93 Jordan
18 Lebron

I'd probably go with something like that off the cuff. If we were talking total seasons, my list would be a bit different. I was going to put 09 Lebron higher, but honestly it's too much of an outlier statistically for me to really take it at face value.

I think having to resort to "thing that happened doesn't real!" proves that it was the best

Also, curious what sort of rationale has a playoff run where jordan was worse against a worse defense in the second round, and then far worse for half of the ecf has jordan being ranked above 09 lebron, 90 mj, ect, ect.

I mean if you're going to just blatantly act like what happened in the playoffs doesn't matter for playoff runs, why not just put 2013 lebron second or third?

So I'm not sure how I'm really supposed to respond to this, because it seems you're just trying to get a rise out of me in which case I'm not going there.

I have 09 4th between two goat players which is pretty damn great, just because i don't have it first means I'm saying it wasn't real?
Because presently the only justification you've given for having it 4th is that its an outlier which literally is "it doesn't real". You have not actually identified any sort of conext that would somehow make what it appears at "face value" misleading regarding what actually happened. So presently "it doesn't real" is your working rationale for a run where the performance by all of the evidence you've presently ackonwledged indicates it was better than the three runs above it is lower.

You keep throwing the word "statistical" but you haven't actually pointed any "surface level" thing that somehow makes the stats a lie. And as we've already seen, if there is a "surface level" problem it would probably be with your number 1 run where we know average games were made to look stastically amazing simply as a byproduct of the quality of jordan's supporting cast(game 2 ecf) and we know the conditions that allowed for that were present throughout the playoff.


Lebron played better defense and the best defenses he played were in games where it was either a close win or a loss and his worst quarter was ver specifically the one quarter the game wasn't close.

You keep saying "surface level", but you're not following up that skepticism with any sort of analysis of how lebron second round, first round, and third round all of which look much better than your present no. 1, two of which came against better or comparable defenses with far worse supporting casts.


Despite a lack of positive evidence backing up your skepticism, you've essentially taken the viewpoint that other seasons somehow retoractively render what happened in 2009 invalid because "outlier." That's just about as close to "this doesn't real" as it gets barring you explicitly saying so.



And again, you can keep using the word 'stastical' but we know that a much worse statsical outlook resulted in a 40 win lift on one of the best regular season teams ever.


What actually happened in 91, that somehow jordan's stats are more legit than lebron's?
Like it said it was a bit of an outlier for even Lebron, and given his struggles the next 2 years it seems fair to have doubts. Also it's not uncommon for people to not weigh those kind of samples that heavily.
The question literally asks, "rank these playoff runs" What are you weighing aside from the playoff runs?

I mean no one's saying that Donovan Mitchell was better than MJ or Wade in the playoffs this year, because with his numbers someone could argue that if they wanted. They'd look pretty stupid, but they still could.
You keep saying "numbers", again, what non "number edge" do the seasons you placed above have? It's not impac on winning, it's not quality of opponent, its not supporting cast, do you think lebron was a worse defender? That seems rather dubious(frankly arguing your no.1 playoff run was better defensively than 09 lebron's quite asisine imo)



Where do you think the discrepancy in apparent performance was justified by outlying context?


How do you have doubts about 2009, but not doubts about 91, where jordan was getting lots and lots of free throws in blowouts and we've already seen that this has resulted in a massive stat spike?[/b]

[freethedevil]

2018
1991
1993
2017
2009
1992
2012
1990
2016
1997

etc..

Can I get some explanation on how 2018 got up there?

In terms of team success, basically everyone your ranked it above was better both in the regular season and the playoffs, and in terms of supporting cast 2009 was similar/comparable.

As far as maximizing impact via fit, 2018 is only really below 2017 and 2016 probably


2018 both represents the weakest team led both in the rs and th eplayoffs(getting outscored by the pacers and the kyrie-less celtics lol), is one of the best fits on the list, and it isn't the most imapctful or biggest lift. So how did 2018 get no.1?

And if 2018 is no.1 aren'y you inconsistent keeping 2009 and 1990 so low?

[Brooklyn_Ball33]

Are we really going to use jordan's teammates getting him through half of the ecf as proof 91 MJ played better?

Half the ECF? Jordan had one subpar game in that series (game 1). The other 3 games he averaged 31 pts/6 reb/7 ast/2 TO/57% FG. Try again.

[MyUniBroDavis]

2018
1991
1993
2017
2009
1992
2012
1990
2016
1997

etc..

Can I get some explanation on how 2018 got up there?

In terms of team success, basically everyone your ranked it above was better both in the regular season and the playoffs, and in terms of supporting cast 2009 was similar/comparable.

As far as maximizing impact via fit, 2018 is only really below 2017 and 2016 probably


2018 both represents the weakest team led both in the rs and th eplayoffs(getting outscored by the pacers and the kyrie-less celtics lol), is one of the best fits on the list, and it isn't the most imapctful or biggest lift. So how did 2018 get no.1?

And if 2018 is no.1 aren'y you inconsistent keeping 2009 and 1990 so low?

I think in terms of overall level of play like almost everyone has that run above every other except 2016 lol, its not an unpopular opinion at all for that to be his best run

2017 was great fit wise but 2018 not really, teams werent respecting shots so he was forced into mid paint or out of paints shots alot. Shots in the restricted are were at his career avg roughly.

Like that run was the dominant run, I dont think his d was bad overall in the playoffs despite the on-off numbers either. Offensively its his goated run. People treat series like a set of 7 independent games rather than a series of 7 consecutive games, theres value in he fact that lebron at that point was figuring out teams as he went, he wasnt doing that pre second stint cleveland

Like that ECF run was the definition of lebron wouldnt let his team lose, at the time people though he was gonna lose every single series he was in. I dont really care that they got outscored by the pacers and the cletics when they won both series lol.

From a process based standpoint that was the most dominant brons been, im not gonna dock him because his teammates were bricking open looks.

Impact is strongly correlated with level of play but its not
A perfect way to gauge it, but its pretty clear no guy has had the practical impact on his team bron had during that run

[colts18]

2018
1991
1993
2017
2009
1992
2012
1990
2016
1997

etc..

Can I get some explanation on how 2018 got up there?

In terms of team success, basically everyone your ranked it above was better both in the regular season and the playoffs, and in terms of supporting cast 2009 was similar/comparable.

As far as maximizing impact via fit, 2018 is only really below 2017 and 2016 probably


2018 both represents the weakest team led both in the rs and th eplayoffs(getting outscored by the pacers and the kyrie-less celtics lol), is one of the best fits on the list, and it isn't the most imapctful or biggest lift. So how did 2018 get no.1?

And if 2018 is no.1 aren'y you inconsistent keeping 2009 and 1990 so low?

2018 was by far LeBron's most impressive playoff run. You don't realize just how bad that Cavs roster was. So bad that they won 19 games in the next season. LeBron was willing that roster

Just to show bad the roster was, I'll go over Games 6 and 7 of the Celtics ECF series. The Cavs were down 3-2 heading into Game 6. LeBron needed to win 2 elimination games just to make the finals. He responded by having his best 2 game stretch ever.

In Game 6, Kevin Love went down with an Injury after just 5 minutes of game action. He did not play in Game 7 either. That meant LeBron was without his 2nd best player for the crucial 2 game stretch.

LeBron averaged 41/13/9, on 51/53/68 shooting. He played every minute of those two games except for 1:54. In that short 1:54 span, the Cavs were outscored by 5 points.

The Cavs won those 2 games solely on LeBron. The rest of the team was garbage.

Here is the Cavs "supporting" cast for those 2 games:
J.R. Smith
Jeff Green
George Hill
Tristan Thompson
Kyle Korver
Larry Nance
Jordan Clarkson
Cedi Osman

In Games 6 and 7:
The rest of the Cavs outside of LeBron averaged:
57.5 PPG on 43.8 FG%, 23 3P%, 7 Offensive Rebounds, 6.5 Assists-5 Turnovers, only 3.5 steals

That's horrible production. Game 7 was the worst offender as LeBron scored 35 of the Cavs 87 points and his team shot 6-25 from 3 and only grabbed 2 offensive rebounds for him, got him 2 steals and 2 blocks. Name me another player in history who won a game 7 when his cast gave him only 57 points on terrible shooting, didn't grab rebounds, didn't block shots, didn't force turnovers? It's never happened before. What LeBron accomplished was literally unprecedented.

You can look at the 3rd most important game of the Cavs run (Game 7 vs Ind) and see the same story. LeBron scored 45 of his teams 105 points. The rest of the squad shot just 33 FG%, 31 3P%

[70sFan]

2009 was much better supporting cast than 2018. I don't understand why people keep underrating these 2007-10 rosters defensively, they were very strong on that end.

[Gregoire]

Its interesting that year ago in peaks project here nobody support 2018 as Lebron peak (2012, 2013, 2016 voted),
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1862214
but magically after 2020 a lot of people vote here for 2018 post-prime Lebron... How 2020 year affect opinion about 2018 being BETTER than 2013, 2009, 2012 IDK....

[70sFan]

Its interesting that year ago in peaks project here nobody support 2018 as Lebron peak (2012, 2013, 2016 voted),
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1862214
but magically after 2020 a lot of people vote here for 2018 post-prime Lebron... How 2020 year affect opinion about 2018 being BETTER than 2013, 2009, 2012 IDK....

Well, postseason run is not the whole peak and James was underwhelming in 2018 RS. Nobody ever denied his excellence in 2018 playoffs though.

[Gregoire]

Its interesting that year ago in peaks project here nobody support 2018 as Lebron peak (2012, 2013, 2016 voted),
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1862214
but magically after 2020 a lot of people vote here for 2018 post-prime Lebron... How 2020 year affect opinion about 2018 being BETTER than 2013, 2009, 2012 IDK....

Well, postseason run is not the whole peak and James was underwhelming in 2018 RS. Nobody ever denied his excellence in 2018 playoffs though.

Yes, I know, but they didnt even mention a lot about PO in this topic... If he was really in best form in PO (and PO is matter the most), so its his best version, best peak...

[70sFan]

Its interesting that year ago in peaks project here nobody support 2018 as Lebron peak (2012, 2013, 2016 voted),
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1862214
but magically after 2020 a lot of people vote here for 2018 post-prime Lebron... How 2020 year affect opinion about 2018 being BETTER than 2013, 2009, 2012 IDK....

Well, postseason run is not the whole peak and James was underwhelming in 2018 RS. Nobody ever denied his excellence in 2018 playoffs though.

Yes, I know, but they didnt even mention a lot about PO in this topic... If he was really in best form in PO (and PO is matter the most), so its his best version, best peak...

I think that James has a few comparable playoff runs - 2009, 2012 and 2016-18. 2018 isn't cleary the best, but has the case.

That's why it's better to pick Miami or other Cavs year - because he had comparable playoff run but far better RS. I have 2012 James as his peak personally, with solid case for 2013 and 2016.