#4 Highest Peak of All Time (Wilt '67 wins)

[Doctor MJ]

What I have seen thus far


1. ardee - Wilt 67
2. Doctor MJ - Lebron 09 (haven't seen official vote yet)
3. C-izeMe - Hakeem 94
4. colts18 - Lebron 09
5. DavidStern - Lebron 09
6. Dr Positivity - Wilt 67
7. drza - ???
8. ElGee - Wilt 67
9. JordansBulls - Kareem 71
10. Rapcity_11 - ???
11. Vinsanity420 - ???
12. therealbig3 - Lebron 09
13. Josephpaul - Kareem 71
14. ThaRegul8r - Wilt 67
15. PTB Fan - Wilt 67

D'oh, sounds like I'm the one being unclear. I meant for my post on the first page to read as an official vote. So yeah, I'm with LeBron, and I'm not going to switch away in this post before the deadline at this point, though next thread I'll certainly reconsider again.

[Josephpaul]

Wilt looks like the winner

[therealbig3]

Are you seriously trying to convince people that LeBron is in the same league as Magic and Nash in terms of offense?

Because that's quite ridiculous. Magic and Nash have run the best offenses in history year-in, year-out. LeBron is nowhere near them in terms of running an offense. I know I'm not part of this project but it's getting ridiculous already, and I can't believe that people are seriously entertaining the idea of LeBron having a more dominant season that Wilt, Kareem, Magic, Bird, and Hakeem all things considered.

With more support and with pieces that fit them perfectly.

Unfortunately, we don't have offensive RAPM values for Magic, but Nash is the closest we've seen offensively to him since imo, and LeBron is slightly inferior, but still comparable according to offensive RAPM. And they play the same role, so I don't understand the issues of portability with LeBron that aren't levied at someone like Magic, or eventually Nash, as severely.

Why exactly is he clearly not on their level, all things considered? The only people I've seen get offended at LeBron being mentioned so far are Lakers fans.

I wonder why?

I don't get how you can cite RAPM as the reason why Lebron is nearly as good as Nash offensively and in the same breath say he's the best perimeter defender since Scottie (when all numbers show he's clearly not). Something's gotta give.

In 09, defensive RAPM of perimeter defenders:

LeBron: +2.8

Artest: +3.4
Iguodala: +2.8
Udoka: +3.0
Jaric: +3.3
Knight: +3.0

Considering that I've also said that Artest and Iguodala are right there with him and are also two of the best non-big defenders since Pippen, and since he played way more minutes than Udoka, Jaric, and Knight and was thus better, I'd say the RAPM supports that in 09.

In 10:

LeBron: +2.6

Artest: +2.9
Kirilenko: +3.2
G. Wallace: +2.7
T. Allen: +2.6

His defense is actually worse according to RAPM in 11 and 12 than it was in 09 and 10, which is why a lot more people are ahead of him, and Deng and Iguodala look way better. But if we also look at the 4-year RAPM study from 07/08-10/11:

LeBron: +3.7

Deng: +3.0
Kirilenko: +2.5
Artest: +3.5
G. Wallace: +3.0
T. Allen: +3.6
Iguodala: +2.1

So according to the 4-year multi-year study, LeBron actually is the best perimeter defender in the game. Very small differences, but there's definitely nobody clearly better than LeBron, as you've said before. And Artest/Iggy/Deng are all-time great perimeter defenders too.

Even if you don't want to consider him the best perimeter defender since Pippen...he's still an excellent defensive player, and his defense is a pretty big deal in a comparison with Bird or Magic.

But the RAPM numbers from 09 specifically and the overall 4-year study do support LeBron being the best perimeter defender in the league.

[C-izMe]

He still ranks lower than prime Artest (definetly - Artest ranks as the second best defender in the 04-09 study iirc), and he's below Iggy and Deng IMO.

For defending perimeter players post Pippen I put him under:
Artest
Battier
Iggy
Deng
Kirilienko

Those are only the high minute guys.


And personally I think following the numbers blindly can be a big issue. Lebron's RAPM is/was definetly jacked up due to his terrible backups and the team being completely Lebron centered. It's gone down to levels I think are more him. It's no coincidence that the two highest we've seen over ten years both played on terrible teams.

[Doctor MJ]

When you say hand-waving you make it sound fairly baseless. I'm trying to put these raw team numbers into perspective (or how I view them) -- I'm a little disappointed you see them as hand-waving given your proclivity for nuance and my desire to explain why I see discrepancies where people see commonalities.

I'm sorry if what I wrote came off as rude. I didn't mean it to be that way. I don't mean to say you have no basis for your beliefs here, I think you make good points, but the more I thought about what you wrote, there were things that seemed just plain strange.

I'm just saying it was a specific type of offense. It's an easy one to build in a sense, but the height of the offenses here seems drastically different to me: Bird's Celtics at GOAT levels, whereas James' offenses the last 4 years were very good, but I don't think it's fair to say these are heights Bird's team rarely reached. Consider:

2009 Cavs PS +7.3 (4.1 RS)
2010 Cavs PS +2.2 (3.6 RS) Granted, role players went in the TANK at times. But the series felt almost easy for the Boston defense.
2011 Heat PS +3.6 (4.5 RS)
2012 Heat PS +8.4/6.7* (2.0 RS)

*The lockout saw more dramatic shifts in offense. If we use the second-half DRtgs only for these teams, the number is +6.7. I hope no one considers this hand-waving since this seems like a giant thing to overlook.

1984 Bos PS +6.4 (3.1 RS)
1985 Bos PS +3.9/+6.3* (4.9 RS) *First 12g, pre-Bird bar fight
1986 Bos PS +8.2 4.6 RS)
1987 Bos PS +8.5 (5.2 RS)
1988 Bos PS +8.5 pre-Detroit series where Bird had bone spurs (7.3 RS)

Well okay so you're focusing on playoffs here, which I wasn't. A focus on playoffs is a fine thing to do, so in that sense, yes if you're satisfied Bird's offenses were not-fluky in these performances, it is a nice rebuttal to my specific point about Bird's team rarely reaching this level.

But I look at this and it raises more questions. Some of LeBron's offenses there are seeing peak separation up there with Bird's, which is actually making LeBron look even closer to Bird than what we saw in the regular season.

I find myself thinking that if you simply throw LeBron & Bird on a random team, chances are Bird helps the team more. However, if you draft each guy, and have a few years to build around them, chances are LeBron gives you more than Bird.

Does that make sense to folks?
If it does, how does that fit in with your philosophy? Implicitly, I think a hyper-portability focus encourages piece-of-the-puzzle thinking rather than draft foundational thinking, which to me probably isn't quite the most productive way to think about the best of the best.

Great points. I agree that implicitly, build-around makes more sense than piece-of-the-puzzle. But I don't think it makes sense to default to "drafting" these guys from their rookie year, because if I run a team, and all I care about is player goodness (which is the whole point of my evaluations), I can acquire guys through draft, free agency, or trade (I'm an aggressive trader). That means if I grab a guy, I still need to restructure the roster or still need to be concerned with the secondary and tertiary players (very important on high-level teams). Granted, this is less of an issue in a single, peak season...

So I will admit, as someone asked, that further seasons very well might subtly influence my opinion of James' portability (which matters a lot in the context of this project). But as of right now, I don't know how well he plays with a post-presence, I don't know how well he does as a "magical" distributor, and I pretty safely assume he's redundant with any ball-dominant player.

Okay, this makes sense to me. And yeah, I'm not trying to use this to dismiss portability, it's important, but I just found myself thinking that I don't see any reason to think I couldn't build a team at least as good as the Cavs around LeBron in pretty much any situation given a few years to work with. Obviously I'd rather have a guy who can both instantly make any team amazing AND has an incredibly high potential value, but even with the subtle disappointment in Miami I don't really find anything scary about acquiring LeBron if I'm an actual GM thinking on the scale that GM's think.

I guess that leaves a difference of how high he already took Cleveland as the big question. My GOAT offensive list look likes this (by peak):

Magic +8.0
Bird +7.5
Jordan/Nash +7.0
Barkley +6.5
Shaq/Oscar/Paul/West +6.0

I have a hard time seeing where LeBron fits on that list. IMO, if you think LeBron is as good as Chris Paul on offense, you should strongly be considering taking him as the No. 1 peak of all-time.

I'm probably inclined to side with Paul ever so slightly on offense over LeBron, but I might side with both ahead of Barkley, Shaq, and West. Incidentally, my list might look something more like:

Magic +10.0
Nash/Bird +9.5
Oscar +9.0
Jordan/Paul +8.5
LeBron +8.0

[therealbig3]

He still ranks lower than prime Artest (definetly - Artest ranks as the second best defender in the 04-09 study iirc), and he's below Iggy and Deng IMO.

For defending perimeter players post Pippen I put him under:
Artest
Battier
Iggy
Deng
Kirilienko

Those are only the high minute guys.


And personally I think following the numbers blindly can be a big issue. Lebron's RAPM is/was definetly jacked up due to his terrible backups and the team being completely Lebron centered. It's gone down to levels I think are more him. It's no coincidence that the two highest we've seen over ten years both played on terrible teams.

But RAPM adjusts for poor defensive teammates.

BTW, I'm not saying it's perfect, totally reasonable to say he's not the best defensive wing since Pippen...but I personally do think he's up there with any non-big since Pippen, and I do think he's reasonably close to Magic/Nash as an offensive player. And it's nice to see RAPM support me on that.

That's why I think so highly of his peak.

[Josephpaul]

Congrats wilt

[C-izMe]

He still ranks lower than prime Artest (definetly - Artest ranks as the second best defender in the 04-09 study iirc), and he's below Iggy and Deng IMO.

For defending perimeter players post Pippen I put him under:
Artest
Battier
Iggy
Deng
Kirilienko

Those are only the high minute guys.


And personally I think following the numbers blindly can be a big issue. Lebron's RAPM is/was definetly jacked up due to his terrible backups and the team being completely Lebron centered. It's gone down to levels I think are more him. It's no coincidence that the two highest we've seen over ten years both played on terrible teams.

But RAPM adjusts for poor defensive teammates.

BTW, I'm not saying it's perfect, totally reasonable to say he's not the best defensive wing since Pippen...but I personally do think he's up there with any non-big since Pippen, and I do think he's reasonably close to Magic/Nash as an offensive player. And it's nice to see RAPM support me on that.

That's why I think so highly of his peak.

RAPM can't properly adjust for what doesn't happen. A good example is Tony Parker and his high DRAPM. That could just be a raised due to the many minutes he plays with Duncan (and the small amount without him).

So if RAPM tracks Lebron and his teammates when they play with each other a lot and only a few minutes without him it won't come out right. Now the multi year samples will be better but they still have a definite margin of error.

And I'm not saying there is anything wrong with placing Lebron this high. 3-11 are interchangeable if you ask me. Personally I think Lebron is a slightly worse offensive player than Kobe and a Bruce Bowen level defender. That's high enough to rank him up here.

Personally I think the addition of APM related stats have overrated Lebron and other modern players slightly. Not knowing the numbers for past players has scared off voters IMO.

[colts18]

The Cavs had the worst defensive decline from one season to another season in history without LeBron.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=8665

You can argue that the offensive decline was because they were built around him offensively, but why did they decline so much defensively? The lost players argument can't be used because Shaq and Big Z are both huge defensive liabilities and West is not a great defender. So James was responsible for a huge chunk of that defensive decline.

I wouldn't say LeBron is the best perimeter defender since Pippen (Artest and Bowen are better), but he is the best one who actually has a significant role on offense. None of the other high usage stars compare (Wade, Kobe, CP3, T-Mac, etc.). The Cavs declined a total of 8 points/100 relative to the league average

[Dr Positivity]

Losing offense hurts you defensively too

When Lebron was there the Cavs have to defend, shoot 3s, and clean up baskets at the rim while he did the rest

Being behind the 8 ball offensively meant that they all had to expend themselves more offensively, they played a super small lineup most of that year, there wasn't as much psychological motivation to defend when they weren't gunning for #1 seed and were instead down by 15 every game

Furthermore the Cavs played an unbelievable amount of SCRUBS that year. Like a handful of the least NBA caliber types in the league. Young guys who had know idea

Finally, Antawn Jamison was on their team

Lebron is a great defender but I think there's more to the Cavs collapse defensively than just him being that impactful. Their entire team and system collapsed without Lebron and they went from a "defend and we win" team to a "man we have to do everything we can to score 85 pts tonight or we done" one

[C-izMe]

They lost Andy (Played about 20 games) and even though Z and Shaq weren't good defenders they were way better than Ryan Hollins and JJ Hickson. They lost their best defensive guard (Delonte), and a defensive minded coach too (Mike Brown). And then you factor in how less motivated a bottom dweller team is and the decline in effort. And then on top of that they lost Lebron. Lebron isn't the only reason they got worse and I think most of that 45 win swing can be attributed to the new bigman rotation, lack of motivation, and loss of Mike Brown. The other 20 wins is probably Lebron.

[GrangerDanger]

I'm interested in seeing debates for the number 2 peak SG of alltime. Imo peak Wade (06 or 09?), West (66 or 70?), and Kobe (sometime between 06-08) all have strong arguments

[Doctor MJ]

Okay, Wilt takes it. Congrats to the Big Dipper!