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

[falcolombardi]

kinda suprised lebron and shaq's playoff teams had comparable on-differential with the players on. I would have expected the playoff bulls to be significantly ahead of everyone but the warriors

That's exactly what I was thinking! It's not shocking to me at all that LeBron/Shaq have a higher on/off. They're absolutely top Tier in on/off. What is surprising is that their team's performance with them on was as good as the GOAT-level Jordan Bulls, or that Jordan doesn't get more separation when looking at his on-court differential. He doesn't get this, inspire of his teams being clearly the best of the non-Curry bunch over a 5-year average... like the video suggests, the team's success does indeed seem more tied with teammates and less with Jordan than his Legend would suggest.

By my count, Jordan has one 5-year stretch that's top 15 in on/off ever and both stretches are top 15 ever in on-court differential. Considering we're using unadjusted plus-minus, one of the noisiest stats around, Thinking Basketball's point that this doesn't preclude Jordan from being the GOAT is a good one.

The fact that he doesn't dominate in this first ever comprehensive plus-minus study does raise some questions.

First, if we're saying the noise of unadjusted plus minus shouldn't make us that lower (yet) for Jordan, should this data make us higher for peak Shaq/LeBron/Robinson/Curry?
-While Shaq isn't as statistically as dominant as people usually suggest (e.g. in RAPM/PIPM), his on-off is otherworldly.
-While people often detract from LeBron because he needs to play LeBron ball, having his team play LeBron ball produces Jordan-Bulls-level success.
-While people detract from Robinson's supposed lack of resilience, he seems GOAT level when he has a good team around him.
-Similarly, while people detract Curry for a lack of resilience / well fitting teammates, he also seems GOAT level.

Second, should we expect changes in the relative rankings when adding adjustments to this on/off data? For example, it would be hard to estimate Jordan's teammate impact without just flat out calculating APM for everyone. But we could estimate Jordan's relative opponent difficulty (vs Shaq/LeBron/Robinson/Curry) by looking at opponent SRS. Might Jordan be facing more difficult opponents, on average? Even with a small boost in relative opponent difficulty, Jordan might pop into Tier 1 All Time in (semi-)Adjusted Plus Minus.

It has always been interesting speculated about with Jordans plus minus numbers look like and before we really didn’t have anything. Then we got the 97 and 98 data and then the 94 to 96 data, and now some data from the other years.

I always thought there would be one of three outcomes to knowing this data:

1. +/- numbers are so staggering that the GOAT talk increases and his position amongst the majority is strengthened.

2. +/- numbers are about what we thought so he stays where he is for most

3. +/- numbers are underwhelming and some serious cracks open up.

From what we have so far, #1 hasn’t happened and we’re really in the #2 range.

I think the lebron comparision is even more interesting now that we know lebron teams with him "ON" are similar to peak bulls with jordan "ON"

One of the most common arguments for jordan over bron is that the bulls peaked higher than lebron teams after all

The whole ceiling raising and off-ball vs lebron-ball ceilings thingh becomes a weaker argument now

[eminence]

Man I wish all the dots were filled in, I want to know if the 3 to the right of Robinson after Curry '15-'19 are all Curry/Dray runs.

Also those bottom left ugly bubbles.

Those ones are kinda interesting too, it's difficult to play enough minutes in the given time period and rack up that many losses (it's presumably from guys with consistent 1st/2nd round exits), I'm unsure if it'd actually be too harsh of evidence against them, but still interesting.

[falcolombardi]

Man I wish all the dots were filled in, I want to know if the 3 to the right of Robinson after Curry '15-'19 are all Curry/Dray runs.

Also those bottom left ugly bubbles.

Those ones are kinda interesting too, it's difficult to play enough minutes in the given time period and rack up that many losses (it's presumably from guys with consistent 1st/2nd round exits), I'm unsure if it'd actually be too harsh of evidence against them, but still interesting.

A rival srs adjusted version would be useful for such a player (guys who were perenially dragging teams to low seeds in the playoffs and facing off juggernauts in the first round)

[Doctor MJ]

Edit: If you're around Ben, did you do any of the other main Bulls guys? At least Scottie?

So, some bad news.

This project of Ben's was focused on Jordan with a thought to doing other players later but...the NBA has since had the games taken down from the internet, which will likely prevent going further (to other players) with it at this time.

[falcolombardi]

Edit: If you're around Ben, did you do any of the other main Bulls guys? At least Scottie?

So, some bad news.

This project of Ben's was focused on Jordan with a thought to doing other players later but...the NBA has since had the games taken down from the internet, which will likely prevent going further (to other players) with it at this time.

That is a bummer

[RCM88x]

Man I wish all the dots were filled in, I want to know if the 3 to the right of Robinson after Curry '15-'19 are all Curry/Dray runs.

Also those bottom left ugly bubbles.

Those ones are kinda interesting too, it's difficult to play enough minutes in the given time period and rack up that many losses (it's presumably from guys with consistent 1st/2nd round exits), I'm unsure if it'd actually be too harsh of evidence against them, but still interesting.

I can guarantee one of them is DeRozan... 2,368 playoff minutes. Career -8.4 on court, and a -11.0 on/off. Hard to image another guy with as many playoff minutes being that bad post '97. Though maybe he's so bad that it's off the chart here?

[OhayoKD]

Man I wish all the dots were filled in, I want to know if the 3 to the right of Robinson after Curry '15-'19 are all Curry/Dray runs.

i'm 99% sure the dot near robinson is duncan

[OhayoKD]

Edit: If you're around Ben, did you do any of the other main Bulls guys? At least Scottie?

So, some bad news.

This project of Ben's was focused on Jordan with a thought to doing other players later but...the NBA has since had the games taken down from the internet, which will likely prevent going further (to other players) with it at this time.

I wanted hakeem stuff

[eminence]

Man I wish all the dots were filled in, I want to know if the 3 to the right of Robinson after Curry '15-'19 are all Curry/Dray runs.

i'm 99% sure the dot near robinson is duncan

I don't expect it is, if it were I strongly expect it would've been filled in. From what I remember Duncan's raw playoff +/- over that period wasn't nearly as high, though not in a way that made him look bad (basically Robinson+Duncan minutes were spectacular, just Duncan minutes were okay, and just Robinson minutes didn't exist).

I expect those not filled in (amongst the furthest positive outliers) are either duplicates, Draymond, or surprise guys that'd look badly out of place in that tier (which Ben could be concerned Dray would be amongst for his audience).

I'm welcome to being wrong, but that's my expectation.

[OhayoKD]

Man I wish all the dots were filled in, I want to know if the 3 to the right of Robinson after Curry '15-'19 are all Curry/Dray runs.

i'm 99% sure the dot near robinson is duncan

I don't expect it is, if it were I strongly expect it would've been filled in. From what I remember Duncan's raw playoff +/- over that period wasn't nearly as high, though not in a way that made him look bad (basically Robinson+Duncan minutes were spectacular, just Duncan minutes were okay, and just Robinson minutes didn't exist).

I expect those not filled in (amongst the furthest positive outliers) are either duplicates, Draymond, or surprise guys that'd look badly out of place in that tier (which Ben could be concerned Dray would be amongst for his audience).

I'm welcome to being wrong, but that's my expectation.

isn't duncan literally #1 in 3 year playoff aupm

[OhayoKD]

(got it from bucksin6 on reddit)
From Ben's mosr recent video

https://youtu.be/RqGDLV-do9c?t=842

Left to Right is how good a team is during the postseason. Down to Up is a player's plus/minus during the postseason.

6 5 year streches are in this video:

98-01 David Robinson: +25 (note: in limited minuites)

00-04 Shaq: +22

16-21 Lebron: +18

88-93 Jordan: +15

15-19 Curry: +14

91-96 Jordan: +6

Note that these are just 6 stretches that Ben singled out, not necceasrily the 6 most impressive ones.

Also note that these only date back to the 80's so legends like Kareem and Bill Russell(R.I.P) wouldn't be on this.

I also don't have access to the full data set but maybe one of you do.

Do you have the reddit thread link? Wonder what the more "mainstream" (for lack of a better word) fans in reddit think about this data compares to here in rela gm

unfortunately I think the mods of r/nbadicussion took down the post before it could get many comments because of what happened on this thread(which i also copy/pasted to realgm):
https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/vwjnsd/lebron_vs_jordan_playoff_aupmbpm/
OP posted data from a couple ben videos where lebron's best years scored much higher than mj's but mj's best three year stretch scored higher than any of lebron's. Then a bunch of commenters attacked the OP and then it devolved into a flamewar.

Shout out to u/blockedbybam tho. Girl always brings the fuega

[f4p]

I expect those not filled in (amongst the furthest positive outliers) are either duplicates, Draymond, or surprise guys that'd look badly out of place in that tier (which Ben could be concerned Dray would be amongst for his audience).

ben knows his audience doesn't want curry sharing any credit.

[OhayoKD]

That 1992 team is certainly underrated in a historical sense I think, Thinking Basketball's point that this doesn't preclude Jordan from being the GOAT is a good one. .

Is it tho?

feel like if you keep having to go to "well it doens't preclude player x from being y", then player x probably isn't y.

At this point using ben's own data, (someone whose criteria is allegedly "impact on winning")
-> Jordan isn't close to having the #1 on/off with multiple peaks he ranks below doing as well or better
-> In the aupm/bpm average thing he provides 5 seasons in lebron's 9 year prime would boost the average of mj's 3 best seasons
-> if we take out regression-stuff so we don't have colineraity issues(which ben himself does in backpicks), hakeem, kg, kareem, and duncan all look better in the regular season and lebron is out winning 66 and 61 games with a team that goes 5-25 without him while adding peak jordan (by ben's own estimation) to a 27 win team gets you 48.
-> as a bonus, jordan's team isn't even better than the teams of "less scalable" historical peers when he's on the court. So much for cieling raising.

Seems like Ben's just drinking copium here tbh.

[falcolombardi]

(got it from bucksin6 on reddit)
From Ben's mosr recent video

https://youtu.be/RqGDLV-do9c?t=842

Left to Right is how good a team is during the postseason. Down to Up is a player's plus/minus during the postseason.

6 5 year streches are in this video:


Note that these are just 6 stretches that Ben singled out, not necceasrily the 6 most impressive ones.

Also note that these only date back to the 80's so legends like Kareem and Bill Russell(R.I.P) wouldn't be on this.

I also don't have access to the full data set but maybe one of you do.

Do you have the reddit thread link? Wonder what the more "mainstream" (for lack of a better word) fans in reddit think about this data compares to here in rela gm

unfortunately I think the mods of r/nbadicussion took down the post before it could get many comments because of what happened on this thread(which i also copy/pasted to realgm):
https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/vwjnsd/lebron_vs_jordan_playoff_aupmbpm/
OP posted data from a couple ben videos where lebron's best years scored much higher than mj's but mj's best three year stretch scored higher than any of lebron's. Then a bunch of commenters attacked the OP and then it devolved into a flamewar.

Shout out to u/blockedbybam tho. Girl always brings the fuega

For real, girl was out there shutting down all the cliche reasoning comments lol

Man, that thread got heated with defensive comments lol

[falcolombardi]

Is it tho?

feel like if you keep having to go to "well it doens't preclude player x from being y", then player x probably isn't y.

At this point using ben's own data, (someone whose criteria is allegedly "impact on winning")
-> Jordan isn't close to having the #1 on/off with multiple peaks he ranks below doing as well or better
-> In the aupm/bpm average thing he provides 5 seasons in lebron's 9 year prime would boost the average of mj's 3 best seasons
-> if we take out regression-stuff so we don't have colineraity issues(which ben himself does in backpicks), hakeem, kg, kareem, and duncan all look better in the regular season and lebron is out winning 66 and 61 games with a team that goes 5-25 without him while adding peak jordan (by ben's own estimation) to a 27 win team gets you 48.

Seems like Ben's just drinking copium here tbh.

Essentially i think ben defaults to jordan because in a theorical level he believes off-ball offense > on-ball offense to win rings and he believes jordan is better at the former and that makes him better at meshing with other talent

Which is fine, but at some point i think you have to ask yourself. If all actual impact metrics i use point to lebron slightly ahead of jordan

including the thinghs like higher offensive ratings or higher "ON" ratings that jordan should distance himself with according to the reasoning

Then maybe defaulting to jordan based on theory when the data clearly and sonewhat consistenly tilts (if only by a bit) lebron way is somehow...lazy? For lack of a better word

I dont even say this to say jordan doesnr have a fantastic goat peak case himself, he does. Is just that based on ben data heavy approach maybe is kind of lazy to just go "jordan better cause ceiling raising/offball" and leave it at that?

Do you know what it feels reminiscent of for me? The larry bird vs magic johnson offense comparisions where a lot of people (maybe ben too? I domt remember) argue magic is the better floor raiser but bird the better ceiling raiser who meshes better with better talent thanks to his less ball dominant profile

Sound theory, at least until you remember both played in talented offensive rosters and bird didnt have the best offenses among the two, it was also magic

And the same thinfg happens in offense only comparisions between curry and lebron. Lebron + kyrie reached higher offensive ratings that curry + durant but he is obviously not the ceiling raiser curry is cause he is too ball doninant

so he could never do somethingh like play in a team with other offense stars (like lets say, love and kyrie, totally at random) and elevate it to the goat playoffs offense stretch. Except he actually did that but is still diminished as a weaker ceiling raiser that cannot do stuff he literally has done

It almost feel at times as ignorig results when they dont fit theory

[OhayoKD]

Do you have the reddit thread link? Wonder what the more "mainstream" (for lack of a better word) fans in reddit think about this data compares to here in rela gm

unfortunately I think the mods of r/nbadicussion took down the post before it could get many comments because of what happened on this thread(which i also copy/pasted to realgm):
https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/vwjnsd/lebron_vs_jordan_playoff_aupmbpm/
OP posted data from a couple ben videos where lebron's best years scored much higher than mj's but mj's best three year stretch scored higher than any of lebron's. Then a bunch of commenters attacked the OP and then it devolved into a flamewar.

Shout out to u/blockedbybam tho. Girl always brings the fuega

For real, girl was out there shutting down all the cliche reasoning comments lol

Man, that thread got heated with defensive comments lol

i kinda wanna lock her in a room with bt and see what happens.

[DraymondGold]

That's exactly what I was thinking! It's not shocking to me at all that LeBron/Shaq have a higher on/off. They're absolutely top Tier in on/off. What is surprising is that their team's performance with them on was as good as the GOAT-level Jordan Bulls, or that Jordan doesn't get more separation when looking at his on-court differential. He doesn't get this, inspire of his teams being clearly the best of the non-Curry bunch over a 5-year average... like the video suggests, the team's success does indeed seem more tied with teammates and less with Jordan than his Legend would suggest.

By my count, Jordan has one 5-year stretch that's top 15 in on/off ever and both stretches are top 15 ever in on-court differential. Considering we're using unadjusted plus-minus, one of the noisiest stats around, Thinking Basketball's point that this doesn't preclude Jordan from being the GOAT is a good one.

The fact that he doesn't dominate in this first ever comprehensive plus-minus study does raise some questions.

First, if we're saying the noise of unadjusted plus minus shouldn't make us that lower (yet) for Jordan, should this data make us higher for peak Shaq/LeBron/Robinson/Curry?
-While Shaq isn't as statistically as dominant as people usually suggest (e.g. in RAPM/PIPM), his on-off is otherworldly.
-While people often detract from LeBron because he needs to play LeBron ball, having his team play LeBron ball produces Jordan-Bulls-level success.
-While people detract from Robinson's supposed lack of resilience, he seems GOAT level when he has a good team around him.
-Similarly, while people detract Curry for a lack of resilience / well fitting teammates, he also seems GOAT level.

Second, should we expect changes in the relative rankings when adding adjustments to this on/off data? For example, it would be hard to estimate Jordan's teammate impact without just flat out calculating APM for everyone. But we could estimate Jordan's relative opponent difficulty (vs Shaq/LeBron/Robinson/Curry) by looking at opponent SRS. Might Jordan be facing more difficult opponents, on average? Even with a small boost in relative opponent difficulty, Jordan might pop into Tier 1 All Time in (semi-)Adjusted Plus Minus.

It has always been interesting speculated about with Jordans plus minus numbers look like and before we really didn’t have anything. Then we got the 97 and 98 data and then the 94 to 96 data, and now some data from the other years.

I always thought there would be one of three outcomes to knowing this data:

1. +/- numbers are so staggering that the GOAT talk increases and his position amongst the majority is strengthened.

2. +/- numbers are about what we thought so he stays where he is for most

3. +/- numbers are underwhelming and some serious cracks open up.

From what we have so far, #1 hasn’t happened and we’re really in the #2 range.

I think the lebron comparision is even more interesting now that we know lebron teams with him "ON" are similar to peak bulls with jordan "ON"

One of the most common arguments for jordan over bron is that the bulls peaked higher than lebron teams after all

The whole ceiling raising and off-ball vs lebron-ball ceilings thingh becomes a weaker argument now

Great points, both of y'all!

One thing to note about the scalability ( / off-ball / ceiling raising stuff) is that although the argument may not work as well against LeBron, that doesn't necessarily undermine the entire argument for other players. LeBron is pretty far from the standard... and is basically the GOAT floor-raiser even among scalability proponents like Thinking Basketball.

That said, it does raise an interesting philosophical argument for LeBron vs Jordan (hopefully this is a thoughtful enough thread that this doesn't devolve into the usual meaningless LBJ/MJ debate shenanigans ). I think you could actually use the data to argue the traditional argument... that LeBron's the better floor raiser while Jordan's the better ceiling raiser. While LeBron's teams do reach similar heights to Jordan's teams (though never quite as good, either in single-year seasons or longer 5 year samples)' while both are on, they completely collapse when LeBron is off in a way Jordan's teams never did.

This worse "off" sample is primarily what puts LeBron's on/off over Jordan's. But could this actually be used as an argument against LeBron?

With specific well-fitted team constructions (e.g. many 3-and-d spacers, a stretch big, complementary perimeter talent), LeBron's on-minutes can give Jordan's a run for their money (though not clearly beat them). But these team constructions over-rely on LeBron, and continuously fall apart without him. (so let's give credit: LeBron's the GOAT floor raiser).

But... when LeBron is on teams with enough talent that they shouldn't fall apart without him, even when on paper they seem like they should compare to at least the worse Bulls-Dynasty years, they struggle to stack up. Jordan, on the other hand, has as successful (or more successful) on-minutes, while playing for teams that have the pieces to not fall apart as much without Jordan. This gives him a lower unadjusted on-off, but... ironically the worse on/off means better overall team performance (since the only change is less bad off-minutes)

So, credit to LeBron for his floor raising, when he takes teams that would otherwise fall apart to near similar heights (provided perfect fit). But... can we not also credit Jordan for his ceiling raising, being able to raise teams to GOAT heights, all while not needing the team to be so built around him that they fall apart in his off minutes?

I'm not dead-set on this argument at all. I just think it's fascinating that you can actually make the classical argument -- LeBron's the better floor raiser while Jordan's the better ceiling raiser -- just using this new on/off data.

[falcolombardi]

It has always been interesting speculated about with Jordans plus minus numbers look like and before we really didn’t have anything. Then we got the 97 and 98 data and then the 94 to 96 data, and now some data from the other years.

I always thought there would be one of three outcomes to knowing this data:

1. +/- numbers are so staggering that the GOAT talk increases and his position amongst the majority is strengthened.

2. +/- numbers are about what we thought so he stays where he is for most

3. +/- numbers are underwhelming and some serious cracks open up.

From what we have so far, #1 hasn’t happened and we’re really in the #2 range.

I think the lebron comparision is even more interesting now that we know lebron teams with him "ON" are similar to peak bulls with jordan "ON"

One of the most common arguments for jordan over bron is that the bulls peaked higher than lebron teams after all

The whole ceiling raising and off-ball vs lebron-ball ceilings thingh becomes a weaker argument now

Great points, both of y'all!

One thing to note about the scalability ( / off-ball / ceiling raising stuff) is that although the argument may not work as well against LeBron, that doesn't necessarily undermine the entire argument. LeBron is pretty far from the standard... and is basically the GOAT floor-raiser even among scalability proponents like Thinking Basketball.

That said, it does raise an interesting philosophical argument for LeBron vs Jordan (hopefully this is a thoughtful enough thread that this doesn't devolve into the usual meaningless LBJ/MJ debate shenanigans ). While LeBron's teams do reach similar heights to Jordan's teams (though never quite as good, either in single-year seasons or longer 5 year samples)' while both are on, they completely collapse when LeBron is off.

This worse "off" sample is primarily what puts LeBron's on/off over Jordan's. But could this actually be used as an argument against LeBron?

With specific well-fitted team constructions (e.g. many 3-and-d spacers, a stretch big, complementary perimeter talent), LeBron's on-minutes can give Jordan's a run for their money (though not clearly beat them). But these team constructions over-rely on LeBron, and continuously fall apart without him. (so let's give credit: LeBron's the GOAT floor raiser).

But... when LeBron is on teams with enough talent that they shouldn't fall apart without him, even when on paper they seem like they should compare to at least the worse Bulls-Dynasty years, they struggle to stack up. Jordan, on the other hand, has as successful (or more successful) on-minutes, while playing for teams that have the pieces to not fall apart as much without Jordan. This gives him a lower unadjusted on-off, but... ironically the worse on/off means better overall team performance (since the only change is less bad off-minutes)

So, credit to LeBron for his floor raising, when he takes teams that would otherwise fall apart to near similar heights (provided perfect fit). But... can we not also credit Jordan for his ceiling raising, being able to raise teams to GOAT heights, all while not needing the team to be so built around him that they fall apart in his off minutes?

I'm not dead-set on this argument at all. I just think it's fascinating that you can actually make the classical argument -- LeBron's the better floor raiser while Jordan's the better ceiling raiser -- just using this new on/off data.

There are always fairly [i]esoteric[/i] reasonings for why is lebron fault his teams were weaker when he sits that jordan ones when jordan sits

And the simple occam razor one that would be used for any other comparision like this, that jordan teams were better (if only at playing without a goat level player) is never even considered

When jokic and giannis had similar-ish "ON" but the nuggets were a worse without joker than bucks without giannis, did -anyone- argue giannis is more impressive cause bucks were better without him that nuggest without jokic? Of course they didnt

Some people say that playing with lebron makes players forget how to play basketball without him. Others argue jordan leadership magically makes his teams play better with mike on the bench cause.......honestly i dont know? It somehow never can be he had great teammates, is even jordan credit what they do without him

The whole reasoning is always like a logic pretzel. Cause we all know that if it was the other way around

That if lebron has the smaller lift but his teams are better without him that jordan teams without jordan the argument would be essentially shut down and the question of lebron vs jordan would be declared a case closed... in jordan favor

Seriously, if jordan had the bigger lift but lebron teams were better without him than jordan teams without mike: do we think there would be even a debate that maybe lebron numbers are more "ceiling raising"?

Or would it be seen as undeniable proof jordan is better and lebron just had more stacked teams?

[OhayoKD]

It has always been interesting speculated about with Jordans plus minus numbers look like and before we really didn’t have anything. Then we got the 97 and 98 data and then the 94 to 96 data, and now some data from the other years.

I always thought there would be one of three outcomes to knowing this data:

1. +/- numbers are so staggering that the GOAT talk increases and his position amongst the majority is strengthened.

2. +/- numbers are about what we thought so he stays where he is for most

3. +/- numbers are underwhelming and some serious cracks open up.

From what we have so far, #1 hasn’t happened and we’re really in the #2 range.

I think the lebron comparision is even more interesting now that we know lebron teams with him "ON" are similar to peak bulls with jordan "ON"

One of the most common arguments for jordan over bron is that the bulls peaked higher than lebron teams after all

The whole ceiling raising and off-ball vs lebron-ball ceilings thingh becomes a weaker argument now

Great points, both of y'all!

One thing to note about the scalability ( / off-ball / ceiling raising stuff) is that although the argument may not work as well against LeBron, that doesn't necessarily undermine the entire argument for other players. LeBron is pretty far from the standard... and is basically the GOAT floor-raiser even among scalability proponents like Thinking Basketball.

That said, it does raise an interesting philosophical argument for LeBron vs Jordan (hopefully this is a thoughtful enough thread that this doesn't devolve into the usual meaningless LBJ/MJ debate shenanigans ). I think you could actually use the data to argue the traditional argument... that LeBron's the better floor raiser while Jordan's the better ceiling raiser. While LeBron's teams do reach similar heights to Jordan's teams (though never quite as good, either in single-year seasons or longer 5 year samples)' while both are on, they completely collapse when LeBron is off in a way Jordan's teams never did.

This worse "off" sample is primarily what puts LeBron's on/off over Jordan's. But could this actually be used as an argument against LeBron?

With specific well-fitted team constructions (e.g. many 3-and-d spacers, a stretch big, complementary perimeter talent), LeBron's on-minutes can give Jordan's a run for their money (though not clearly beat them). But these team constructions over-rely on LeBron, and continuously fall apart without him. (so let's give credit: LeBron's the GOAT floor raiser).

But... when LeBron is on teams with enough talent that they shouldn't fall apart without him, even when on paper they seem like they should compare to at least the worse Bulls-Dynasty years, they struggle to stack up. Jordan, on the other hand, has as successful (or more successful) on-minutes, while playing for teams that have the pieces to not fall apart as much without Jordan. This gives him a lower unadjusted on-off, but... ironically the worse on/off means better overall team performance (since the only change is less bad off-minutes)

So, credit to LeBron for his floor raising, when he takes teams that would otherwise fall apart to near similar heights (provided perfect fit). But... can we not also credit Jordan for his ceiling raising, being able to raise teams to GOAT heights, all while not needing the team to be so built around him that they fall apart in his off minutes?

I'm not dead-set on this argument at all. I just think it's fascinating that you can actually make the classical argument -- LeBron's the better floor raiser while Jordan's the better ceiling raiser -- just using this new on/off data.

Feel like there's a couple holes here:

1. The 16-17 cavs were comparable in the playoffs to jordan's bull teams

2. Much of Ben's theory here is based on the idea that lebron's value is dependent on spacing. The problem is that we've seen lebron be more or as valuable than mj with worse era relative spacing(2015, 2020, 2012). Considering that ben "doesn't think we should only compare players at their best", it's pretty wierd how he just completely disregards the 2015 playoffs, where Lebron's jumper was off, he had back problems, and he was the second best shooter on his team....and the cavs swept a 60 win team and then forced the warriors to pull out the death lineup.

Peak jordan had more help and only matched that from 88-90. If Lebron is more valuable at his best, and he's more valuable when he's not at his best, and he's more valuable with spacing, and he's more valuable without spacing...what situation would you rather have jordan than lebron in?

[OhayoKD]

Is it tho?

feel like if you keep having to go to "well it doens't preclude player x from being y", then player x probably isn't y.

At this point using ben's own data, (someone whose criteria is allegedly "impact on winning")
-> Jordan isn't close to having the #1 on/off with multiple peaks he ranks below doing as well or better
-> In the aupm/bpm average thing he provides 5 seasons in lebron's 9 year prime would boost the average of mj's 3 best seasons
-> if we take out regression-stuff so we don't have colineraity issues(which ben himself does in backpicks), hakeem, kg, kareem, and duncan all look better in the regular season and lebron is out winning 66 and 61 games with a team that goes 5-25 without him while adding peak jordan (by ben's own estimation) to a 27 win team gets you 48.

Seems like Ben's just drinking copium here tbh.

Essentially i think ben defaults to jordan because in a theorical level he believes off-ball offense > on-ball offense to win rings and he believes jordan is better at the former and that makes him better at meshing with other talent

Which is fine, but at some point i think you have to ask yourself. If all actual impact metrics i use point to lebron slightly ahead of jordan

including the thinghs like higher offensive ratings or higher "ON" ratings that jordan should distance himself with according to the reasoning

Then maybe defaulting to jordan based on theory when the data clearly and sonewhat consistenly tilts (if only by a bit) lebron way is somehow...lazy? For lack of a better word

I dont even say this to say jordan doesnr have a fantastic goat peak case himself, he does. Is just that based on ben data heavy approach maybe is kind of lazy to just go "jordan better cause ceiling raising/offball" and leave it at that?

Do you know what it feels reminiscent of for me? The larry bird vs magic johnson offense comparisions where a lot of people (maybe ben too? I domt remember) argue magic is the better floor raiser but bird the better ceiling raiser who meshes better with better talent thanks to his less ball dominant profile

Sound theory, at least until you remember both played in talented offensive rosters and bird didnt have the best offenses among the two, it was also magic

And the same thinfg happens in offense only comparisions between curry and lebron. Lebron + kyrie reached higher offensive ratings that curry + durant but he is obviously not the ceiling raiser curry is cause he is too ball doninant

so he could never do somethingh like play in a team with other offense stars (like lets say, love and kyrie, totally at random) and elevate it to the goat playoffs offense stretch. Except he actually did that but is still diminished as a weaker ceiling raiser that cannot do stuff he literally has done

It almost feel at times as ignorig results when they dont fit theory

Feel like he does this all the time tbh.

Duncan has a more valuable playoff peak by his metrics so ben decides to use duncan's surrounding playoffs to say that was noise and lower him below garnettt because garnett has marginally better surroinding three year stretches on a comically lower sample size.

In his top 10 players of 2021 video, he said kd and kawhi's volume/effiency was similar while completely ignoring that his sample consisted of kd playing on the golden state warriors while kawhi was playing on the raptors and the clippers.

Dude just likes a certain kind of player(off-ball, can shoot, doesn't ballhog) and then moves heaven and earth to rate that player as high as he possibly can.