Doctor MJ wrote:LeBron did great stuff in Cleveland with traditional 5's. LeBron couldn't play his exact current role with all lineups, but the point is that we've seen enough from LeBron that it doesn't make sense to see him as particularly lacking in portability.
Why no GOAT teams with LeBron? Well when should this have occurred? Clearly not in Cleveland, and while I wouldn't call the Miami situation "bad", the weaknesses in the supporting cast were pretty dang clear.
This isn't to say I wouldn't knock LeBron if he just kept doing his 2011 over and over again, but he didn't. And when people say things like "Kobe only needed Pau" in contrast to Wade, I just shake my head marveling that people don't realize that Pau is a VASTLY superior complimentary player to either Kobe or LeBron than Wade was. (The mere notion of a Kobe-Wade champion team feels absurd to me.)
To be clear, I'm not trying to make a case for "LeBron would run the absolute best team if only he weren't so unlucky", it's not really on my mind one way or the other. I just don't see any big gaping whole where a particular legacy should be.
I never questioned his portability, in fact I've supported the argument that he is amongst the most versatile players of all time.
The meat of what I'm trying to get at is how his teams never quite won me over as in, there is absolutely no doubt they were the best team this year.
This never happened once in Cleveland, and in Miami of the 2 winning seasons (championship-wise), he won in 2013 but was honestly underwhelming from games 1-6 except for game 7. It was 2012 where I really felt he was peaking defensively while actually putting forth a consistent effort on that end of the floor. With teams like the Spurs, Celtics, or Lakers...when they won, as a student of the game you really felt a sense of a greatness when they won but I've never felt that way about the Miami championships, even in 2006 truth be told. Now in fairness, Lebron had a great overall series in 2014 offensively but was gassed and unable to play the level of defense everyone says he can. It could be the critic in me but I digress .
And in a matchup like this, this sticking point to me makes me legitimately feel that Magic in comparison to current Lebron has achieved slightly more career-wise. When Lebron retires, I'm certain he'll be in the discussion amongst the 3-5 greatest players ever. He is certainly on that trajectory.
Doctor MJ wrote: What about Oscar? I'll probably praise Oscar soon in another post, I don't mean to knock him. He was clear cut the Offensive Player of the '60s, and I think the best we saw until Bird & Magic. However he was playing in a more primitive era with less successful offense, and - here's the kicker - he wasn't able to separate his team's from the fray the way either the top defenses of the time or the top offenses of later eras did.
Isn't it "KG like case"? His teams in Cincinnati were so bad then it wasn't possible to do more with them? In Milwaukee (when he finally had very good supporting cast) he showed that he elevates teams as much as Magic, if not more and definitely more than Nash. I really don't see how you can vote for KG in top 5 (he also wasn't able to separate his Minnesota teams!) and at the same time knocking down Oscar. Or maybe longevity alone is enough to do so?
I think it's also important to remember that in the 60s it was more difficult for perimeter players than in 80s and later. That makes Oscar's impact even more impressive in my eyes.
EDIT If we compare Oscar's and Magic's teams ortg z-score (thanks shutupandjam for spreadsheet) then it doesn't seem like Lakers separation from the fray was bigger:
The best offensive team (and not only in comparison to LAL, but the best offensive team that ever won title) was led by Oscar, then Magic has 4 teams in top 6, but Oscar 9 in top 14. And we have to keep in mind that Magic most of his career had better offensive help, so in that comparison it's even more impressive what Oscar did with his Royals teams. (BTW, look at these late 80s/early 90s teams, when Magic's situation was similar - but IMO still much better - to Oscar's in Cincinnati. Lakers offenses weren't better than Royals.)
I'll concede the "what if his supporting casts were just that bad" is a possibility, but I think the most likely explanation isn't that. Yes they were bad, and yes Oscar was good, but in general we aren't seeing from Oscar or anyone else the kind of "whoa, they figured out it was a different game than people thought it was" in '60s offense like we see from the strongest outliers.
Do you understand that it's different because we know so much more about KG's supporting casts? It's not giving KG the benefit of the doubt where I won't give it with Oscar, it's that I didn't give KG the benefit of the doubt and his rise on my GOAT list from removal of said doubt.
Re: '60s tougher times for guards. Sure, and that's an explanation for what Oscar might have been able to do. But in terms of what he actually did and my best assessment for how impressive that was, it's not GOAT.
Re: z-score. I'm a little hesitant to go too far with that data to be honest, but here's what I see:
The 1971 is on its own planet. Very cool, but also clearly a weird time in the NBA, oh and Oscar's not the best player on the team.
The Cincy stuff in general is problematic to me because their defense is so wretched. This isn't enough that I refuse to acknowledge Oscar's offensive greatness, but when a team truly plays only one side of the court (often alleged about the Nash Suns, but its false there) I do basically factor that in to a degree when considering just how much of an outlier the offense seems.
Doctor MJ wrote:What about Oscar? I'll probably praise Oscar soon in another post, I don't mean to knock him. He was clear cut the Offensive Player of the '60s, and I think the best we saw until Bird & Magic. However he was playing in a more primitive era with less successful offense, and - here's the kicker - he wasn't able to separate his team's from the fray the way either the top defenses of the time or the top offenses of later eras did. Any kind of tiebreak here for me goes against him at that point in comparison to Magic.
I don't agree. Jerry West -- next on my hit-list of misrepresented players -- has a very, very strong case for that distinction. I'm not quite done with my "What Actually Happened" history of WOWY runs, but thus far Jerry West might be the big winner.
I'd love to see it.
My general thought at this point is that West showed enough that he might have been Oscar's offensive equal (plus a vastly superior defender) if used properly, but since he spent much of his career with Elgin Baylor, there were issues.
Put another way: The Lakers seem like they really should have been the Offensive Team of the '60s but Cincy was. I'm quite sympathetic to the role West played in it (not so much to Baylor), but still, they should have been better.
Doctor MJ wrote:LeBron did great stuff in Cleveland with traditional 5's. LeBron couldn't play his exact current role with all lineups, but the point is that we've seen enough from LeBron that it doesn't make sense to see him as particularly lacking in portability.
Why no GOAT teams with LeBron? Well when should this have occurred? Clearly not in Cleveland, and while I wouldn't call the Miami situation "bad", the weaknesses in the supporting cast were pretty dang clear.
This isn't to say I wouldn't knock LeBron if he just kept doing his 2011 over and over again, but he didn't. And when people say things like "Kobe only needed Pau" in contrast to Wade, I just shake my head marveling that people don't realize that Pau is a VASTLY superior complimentary player to either Kobe or LeBron than Wade was. (The mere notion of a Kobe-Wade champion team feels absurd to me.)
To be clear, I'm not trying to make a case for "LeBron would run the absolute best team if only he weren't so unlucky", it's not really on my mind one way or the other. I just don't see any big gaping whole where a particular legacy should be.
I never questioned his portability, in fact I've supported the argument that he is amongst the most versatile players of all time.
The meat of what I'm trying to get at is how his teams never quite won me over as in, there is absolutely no doubt they were the best team this year.
This never happened once in Cleveland, and in Miami of the 2 winning seasons (championship-wise), he won in 2013 but was honestly underwhelming from games 1-6 except for game 7. It was 2012 where I really felt he was peaking defensively while actually putting forth a consistent effort on that end of the floor. With teams like the Spurs, Celtics, or Lakers...when they won, as a student of the game you really felt a sense of a greatness when they won but I've never felt that way about the Miami championships, even in 2006 truth be told. Now in fairness, Lebron had a great overall series in 2014 offensively but was gassed and unable to play the level of defense everyone says he can. It could be the critic in me but I digress .
And in a matchup like this, this sticking point to me makes me legitimately feel that Magic in comparison to current Lebron has achieved slightly more career-wise. When Lebron retires, I'm certain he'll be in the discussion amongst the 3-5 greatest players ever. He is certainly on that trajectory.
I think you feel underwhelmed by LeBron, you aren't watching him objectively. I think there's a tendency to paint anything but perfection from the anointed best talent as failure nowadays. I see it with the way people scoffed at Lionel Messi winning the Golden Ball at the World Cup and pined for Diego Maradona while what I saw was a player in Messi clearly superior to anyone else playing right now going up against more complete teams.
Re: sense of greatness...Spurs? Spoken like someone who doesn't remember what Duncan-led Spur teams looked like. There was no way to get a sense like that in '03 or '05, and in '07 after the suspensions they didn't actually play anyone. But no doubt, the '14 Spurs? BEAUTIFUL. More impressive than the Heat titles certainly. Guarantee you Pop would take LeBron over any of his players though.
Doctor MJ wrote:Guarantee you Pop would take LeBron over any of his players though.
I remember people saying after the Finals that Pop wouldn't want LeBron (on his team) as he prefers a more complete team. Granted it was on the GB but it was funny to read nonetheless.
JordansBulls wrote:The Warriors are basically a good college team until they meet a team with bigs in the NBA.
D Nice wrote:Do you really see Bird's efficacy skyrocketing giving he'd also be exposed, on a nightly basis, to significantly better man-to-man defenders? Some of it is attributable to the general in-game fluidity of the eram but some of it is not. I've long cited Bird's underused 3pt shot in the 80s as a means of his era-portability being a bit understated, and it's not that he didn't face some really good individual defensive players of his own, but when you go back and watch the games by and large the defense you see Larry get is a joke compared to the coverages he'd see now.
Obviously where exactly the balance is nobody knows but I don't think it's fair to theorize about the one without addressing the other.
I think that in many ways, statistically, Dirk has been more effective that Bird was, and I don't have any reason to consider Dirk a superior talent. His shooting was at least roughly as good, his vision was better, his instincts were better, his motor was better. Do you disagree with that assessment?
Doctor MJ wrote:I think you feel underwhelmed by LeBron, you aren't watching him objectively. I think there's a tendency to paint anything but perfection from the anointed best talent as failure nowadays. I see it with the way people scoffed at Lionel Messi winning the Golden Ball at the World Cup and pined for Diego Maradona while what I saw was a player in Messi clearly superior to anyone else playing right now going up against more complete teams.
Re: sense of greatness...Spurs? Spoken like someone who doesn't remember what Duncan-led Spur teams looked like. There was no way to get a sense like that in '03 or '05, and in '07 after the suspensions they didn't actually play anyone. But no doubt, the '14 Spurs? BEAUTIFUL. More impressive than the Heat titles certainly. Guarantee you Pop would take LeBron over any of his players though.
Yeah, Messi was kind of in the same predicament but the breakout story of James Rodriguez made it feel to a lot of people that Messi got it because of the name on the back of the jersey (or kit as they would correct you in Europe).
Oh and re: Spurs, I've watched them in their entirety since Duncan got drafted and believe me, while those 05 and 07 teams got by on a clutch Horry 3 in 2005, then the clutch Horry hipcheck to Nash in 2007. Supremely close calls both times. 1999 was dominant even though the league was in a bit of a transition year overall. But 2014 certainly belongs in the discussion of greatest teams I've ever seen since 1996.
Pop would I'm sure as would I if that question was asked in the present. But to draft a team from scratch choosing Duncan or James, that would be a tough one wouldn't it?
The more research I do the more I think Karl Malone deserves some traction. Not this high, but after LeBron-Magic-Bird-Hakeem-Kobe get voted in then certainly.
He essentially put up 25-10 every season for 11 years. That HAS to matter.
His Playoff failures are overblown as well IMO. He had a few poor elimination games but people are talking about voting KG here, the king of bad performances in elimination...
I'll post more in detail when people are actually going to consider him but some of the posts by ElGee in the previous top 100 projects are pretty eye-opening. I think he's right there in the Oscar-West-Dirk-KG category, might even be the best of the lot.
ardee wrote:The more research I do the more I think Karl Malone deserves some traction. Not this high, but after LeBron-Magic-Bird-Hakeem-Kobe get voted in then certainly.
He essentially put up 25-10 every season for 11 years. That HAS to matter.
His Playoff failures are overblown as well IMO. He had a few poor elimination games but people are talking about voting KG here, the king of bad performances in elimination...
I'll post more in detail when people are actually going to consider him but some of the posts by ElGee in the previous top 100 projects are pretty eye-opening. I think he's right there in the Oscar-West-Dirk-KG category, might even be the best of the lot.
Yep, given the criteria put forth, Malone deserves serious consideration after the first 11 (Magic/Hakeem/LeBron/Bird/Kobe), along with others in that next tier like KG/Dr J/Oscar/West/Dirk/Moses.
Doctor MJ wrote: What about Oscar? I'll probably praise Oscar soon in another post, I don't mean to knock him. He was clear cut the Offensive Player of the '60s, and I think the best we saw until Bird & Magic. However he was playing in a more primitive era with less successful offense, and - here's the kicker - he wasn't able to separate his team's from the fray the way either the top defenses of the time or the top offenses of later eras did.
Isn't it "KG like case"? His teams in Cincinnati were so bad then it wasn't possible to do more with them? In Milwaukee (when he finally had very good supporting cast) he showed that he elevates teams as much as Magic, if not more and definitely more than Nash. I really don't see how you can vote for KG in top 5 (he also wasn't able to separate his Minnesota teams!) and at the same time knocking down Oscar. Or maybe longevity alone is enough to do so?
I think it's also important to remember that in the 60s it was more difficult for perimeter players than in 80s and later. That makes Oscar's impact even more impressive in my eyes.
EDIT If we compare Oscar's and Magic's teams ortg z-score (thanks shutupandjam for spreadsheet) then it doesn't seem like Lakers separation from the fray was bigger:
The best offensive team (and not only in comparison to LAL, but the best offensive team that ever won title) was led by Oscar, then Magic has 4 teams in top 6, but Oscar 9 in top 14. And we have to keep in mind that Magic most of his career had better offensive help, so in that comparison it's even more impressive what Oscar did with his Royals teams. (BTW, look at these late 80s/early 90s teams, when Magic's situation was similar - but IMO still much better - to Oscar's in Cincinnati. Lakers offenses weren't better than Royals.)
I'll concede the "what if his supporting casts were just that bad" is a possibility, but I think the most likely explanation isn't that.
Why? During his career in Cincinnati Royals were 18 wins team without Oscar. Sure, lot of noise in such data, but it's pretty consistent from season to season and what is the basis of your claim that they weren't bad enough to explain that Royal's offenses weren't better (while they still were the best in the 60s!)?
Re: '60s tougher times for guards. Sure, and that's an explanation for what Oscar might have been able to do. But in terms of what he actually did and my best assessment for how impressive that was, it's not GOAT.
GOATs are already voted in. Now we discuss players from tier below and I would really like to see why for impact guy like you KG or Magic are higher? (If Magic isn't then sorry for my assumption.)
The 1971 is on its own planet. Very cool, but also clearly a weird time in the NBA, oh and Oscar's not the best player on the team.
He was the best player on that team. I wrote about it before and even for guys who don't like such approach like mine there are articles from early 70s, which also say that. (to be clear - for me that has almost 0 value, but I know some people value such things a lot.) I think that was situation similar to mid 00s Suns, where also not leading scorer was the most important player. And it shouldn't be surprise, because 1971 team was better on offense than on defense (of course on that end they also were very good, just not as good as on O) and perimeter players are usually responsible for offense - and no doubt Oscar was VERY impactfull player on that end of the floor.
The Cincy stuff in general is problematic to me because their defense is so wretched. This isn't enough that I refuse to acknowledge Oscar's offensive greatness, but when a team truly plays only one side of the court (often alleged about the Nash Suns, but its false there) I do basically factor that in to a degree when considering just how much of an outlier the offense seems.
I agree, it's problematic, but context kind of explains it. I mean, bigs are mainly responsible for defense, it's even more true in the 60s, when game was in the paint oriented more than post 1980, so It's hard to knock Oscar for Royals defensive performance. Especially considering how big burden on offense he had to carry. You know, even LeBron right now isn't able to play non stop at 100% on both ends of the floor, so why we should expect something like that from player in the 60s, when his defensive impact from perimeter was even more limited by specifics of era he played? After all he proved that he was also capable of leading great offenses when at the same time team played very good defense, so it doesn't seem like something was wrong with Robertson - just really bad situation in Cinncinati, just like KG in Minnesota (BTW, remember how his impact was great on offense or on defense, but not on both ends of the floor at the same time? And how Minny's defense for most of his time there were just barley above average?)
I am finally making my vote for No. 7 and it is going to be LeBron James.
I don't know how many times I was going between LeBron and Magic, even including Bird at some point. At the end I feel that LeBron beats Magic with his ability to make virtually every team into a 50-win team. Both have amazing primes that stretch for a very long time; both own the boxscore like all the candidates for a top 10 spot. Both had amazing playoff runs and both had their down moments in the playoffs.
Since I'm trying to look at the big picture, I won't break it down to say LeBron was much better on defense. I feel that as an individual his overall impact is probably slightly better than Magic's. What we know for a fact however is that Magic's teams were stacked almost throughout his career. He was almost expected to win the titles and RS wins that he got. LeBron was on many mediocre teams that he turned into 50- and 60-wins teams.
Spoiler:
Just for the record, since LeBron is still in his prime, his next years can either seal this deal or reverse this if he underperforms - this is the thing with already retired players, we can look at their entire careers and make our decision based on the whole picture. The knocks on LeBron are pretty well-known but I think in retrospect the 4 seasons on the supposedly stacked Heat super-team were almost underwhelming (I know, they made 4 finals and could arguably have 4 titles right now but they could just as easily have only 1 title at this point). Now that LeBron has hand-picked his team for the second time, I am going to be even more critical on his and his team's eventual success or failure. Done ranting.
Just some more food for thought about Oscar: 1) I'm all for looking at how a guy carried a team, I do it all the time, but I do it by looking at individual years and saying "this was his team in that given year, and here's how he carried them". Lorak is looking at a 10 year stretch and asserting the support cast quality was always the same, when it obviously wasn't. For instance, most of the games Oscar missed come right at the end or right at the beginning of his Royals career. And, of course, that was the time when the Royals had the weakest support casts. In 7/10 years Oscar was missing between 0 and 5 games. I'm not sure that's a meaningful enough sample size to draw conclusions from, and it's particularly troublesome given the constantly changing support casts over this 10 year period. I mean, do we know who else played in the 0-5 games he played in those years? Were they resting guys, were they losing only to the Bill Russell Celtics? These are all legitimate questions, for which we have no data. 2) By Lorak's argument Steve Nash has an even stronger case. From the 05-11 period he not only had the Suns playing like an offensive juggernaut, but the with/without wins record was even more compelling: In games with Nash they were a 55 win team, and without him they were a 25 win team, so he improved them by 30 games, not 26. Nash's achievement is even more impressive, because that includes 2009 (when Terry Porter ran the offense through Shaq and not Nash, the equivalent of Spo telling Lebron this year "I want to try something new, let's run everything through Wade and have you play off the ball". Obviously it was ludicrously dumb and backfired).
The other 3 problems remain for Oscar's Royals tenure: 1) Weak Era 2) Still not as impactful as other guys in play here 3) The law of diminishing returns; it's easier to turn a bad team into a middling team than it is to turn a bad team into a contender.
I think I have Bird over Magic as of right now. Magic from 80-83 was in a completely different situation than Bird from 80-83...he didn't have nearly the same offensive responsibility, and he was in a system DESIGNED to generate a lot of assists, so his numbers and his overall efficiency would obviously look great compared to a Larry Bird who hits the rookie wall in 1980 and gets the flu in 1983. Bird was a comparable passer to Magic, just didn't play on-ball as much. But his shooting (thus his overall off-ball play) and his defense was on another level compared to Magic, even early Magic who played a key role in LA's trapping defensive schemes.
Basically, from 1980-1986, there's no question who the better player was to me: Larry Bird. Even in 1987 and 1988, they're comparable. Magic out-duels him in the 1987 Finals, and doesn't get bogged down by injuries in 1988 like Bird does, which is why I'd give Magic the edge in both of those years, but it's really quite close. Only from 1989-1991 does Magic destroy Bird in terms of impact, because Bird basically misses all of the 1989 season, and then he's a shell of himself in 1990 and 1991. But Magic also suffers an injury in the 1989 Finals which should dock him a bit too.
I think as individual players, Bird was better, and there's no real longevity edge for Magic in this comparison imo. His early career had the benefit of playing on a Lakers team where he wasn't asked to be the main star, in a pretty generous offensive system. Bird was a heavy lifter on offense from day 1.
BTW, what are people's opinions of Dr. J? From what I remember from the peaks project, he was an absolute monster, with legitimate impact on both sides of the ball...comparable to LeBron according to some. He also looks like he has some pretty legitimate longevity, making the AS team up until his very last year in the league, and was still a 20 ppg scorer until he was 34. I understand if people downgrade him, because they don't rate the ABA that highly, but I've read some posts (I think by Doctor MJ actually) that suggest the difference in competition between the NBA and ABA was pretty negligible, and what Erving was doing in the ABA shouldn't be dismissed at all. His numbers do drop once he crosses over to the NBA, but according to Erving, he was suffering from injuries his first few years, and along with the adjustment that he would have had to make in a new league on a new team, it would make sense when you look at his numbers. After his first couple of seasons in the NBA (77 and 78), in which he's "only" a 21/8/4 player that led his team to the Finals in his first year...he averages 25/7/4 as the first option from 79-82, during which he leads the Sixers to the Finals 2 more times BEFORE Moses even shows up. After that, he plays the role of a great 2nd option to Moses for a few years, as he gradually declines and eventually retires.
Erving was also an extremely durable player, but he did miss 13 games in 1973 (2nd year in the league, leads ABA in scoring), 8 games in 1978 (2nd year in the NBA), 8 games total in 1979 and 1980 (maybe his two best seasons in the NBA), and 19 games total from 83-85 (his last 3 seasons as a 20+ ppg scorer, was a 2nd option to Moses).
Would be really interesting to see the with/without data for Erving in these games. If ElGee has them and could provide them, that would be great. Otherwise, I could look into it myself when I have the time.
There was basically no difference between the ABA and NBA in the last 3-4 years when Erving was dominating. Dr J should be coming right up IMO. Just after the top 10. The way he carried the Nets in 1976 was top 10 player like impact.
Baller2014 wrote:Just some more food for thought about Oscar: 1) I'm all for looking at how a guy carried a team, I do it all the time, but I do it by looking at individual years and saying "this was his team in that given year, and here's how he carried them". Lorak is looking at a 10 year stretch and asserting the support cast quality was always the same, when it obviously wasn't. For instance, most of the games Oscar missed come right at the end or right at the beginning of his Royals career. And, of course, that was the time when the Royals had the weakest support casts. In 7/10 years Oscar was missing between 0 and 5 games. I'm not sure that's a meaningful enough sample size to draw conclusions from, and it's particularly troublesome given the constantly changing support casts over this 10 year period. I mean, do we know who else played in the 0-5 games he played in those years? Were they resting guys, were they losing only to the Bill Russell Celtics? These are all legitimate questions, for which we have no data.
Inconsistent again.
You have no problem citing a 40 odd game sample for Kobe without Shaq over a long period of time.
Yet you take issue with a big sample for Oscar over multiple years because it's too small to be meaningful?
Why does one mean something and the other doesn't?
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You have no problem citing a 40 odd game sample for Kobe without Shaq over a long period of time.
Yet you take issue with a big sample for Oscar over multiple years because it's too small to be meaningful?
Why does one mean something and the other doesn't?
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It's not inconsistent at all, for the following reasons; Firstly, Lorak is doing it over 10 years, not 6 years. Secondly, what I'm doing is comparing 2 people who played on that same team over a 6 year stretch, and how they did in games where the other was out. Both players are on level footing- they both had weak teams around them without the other, except Shaq led those weak teams to a 61 win pace, while Kobe led those same teams to a 38 win pace. I remember going through the breakdowns game by game a while back, and I don't remember Kobe being shafted in terms of available team mates; both Shaq and Kobe had poor teams without each other. If you have data to the contrary, feel free to present it. Thirdly, some of the problems I cited will obviously not accrue in the Shaq/Kobe example. If the Lakers rested their stars to close out the season for instance rather than go for a meaningless W, they obviously will have rested both of them, so neither Shaq nor Kobe is likely being disadvantaged from this stuff, whereas Oscar's situation is contextless. Almost all the games he missed come from 3 out of the 10 years, and those 3 years happen to co-incide with some of the weakest teams. It's problematic. There's no problem with Kobe and Shaq, because they were on the same team during that stretch, both had the benefit/detriment of the same calibre of team mates.
Really, the things Lorak and I are trying to prove with said data are totally different.
- I'm looking at how 2 players on the same team in the same situation fared over a 6 year stretch.
- Lorak is trying to infer that Oscar's teams were the same over a 10 year stretch, when almost all the games missed come from 3 out of the 10 years, meaning the sample size in the remaining 7 years is too small to use. Lorak's logic infers that the Royals were 26 wins better with Oscar. Odd then that in Oscar's first year with the Royals they only improved from 19 wins to 33 wins (and if we only use the win % from games Oscar played, it's still only 37 wins on an 82 game season, v.s 21 wins on an 82 game season in the previous Royals season, so Oscar came in and made them 16 wins better, well short of what is being claimed; this season is, of course, one of the 3 seasons where Oscar missed substantial time out of the 10).
Wade, Bosh, and LeBron: +8.2 (net efficiency, 100 possessions) Wade and Bosh with LeBron the bench: -0.5
Bosh and LeBron with Wade on the Bench: +13.9 Bosh's stats: 1.25 PPP, 22.8 usage Bosh with LeBron and Wade on the bench: -3.3 Bosh's stats: 1.09 PPP, 25.8 usage
Wade and LeBron with Bosh on the bench: +13.6 Wade's stats: 1.11 PPP, 30.3 usage Wade with LeBron and Bosh on the bench: +1.7 Wade's stats: 1.01 PPP, 30.2 usage
Ray Allen and LeBron: +8.8 Ray's stats: 1.22 PPP, 17.0 usage Ray Allen with Lebron on the bench: -1.5 Ray's stas: 1.06 PPP, 18.8 usage
Chris Andersen and LeBron: +10.6 Chris Andersen's stats: 1.26 PPP, 13.9 usage Chris Andersen with LeBron on the bench: +4.2 Chris Andersen's stats: 1.25 PPP, 16.1 usage
Yeah, I don't see how LeBron's the problem here....
After the past couple finals, I thought the conclusion was made that Wade was the problem, even on defense with his terrible transition defense, and that he made things more difficult for LeBron against smart defenses. I think the problem with stars having more agency in how teams are built is that they don't consider what smart teams would and how ultimately Wade/LeBron are a bad match, which is mostly Wade's fault.
Well, I'm bored, so I decided to look into Erving myself, and ElGee can correct me if I'm wrong in case my numbers aren't right.
Don't really know how to check Erving's in/out data for 1973, since game logs are only available from 1977 onwards. For the years we do have the numbers for:
From 1978 to 1980, the Sixers had an average of a 3.55 SRS. During this time, Erving missed 16 games. In those 16 games, the Sixers had a 12-4 record (.750), a +4.44 MOV and a 4.18 SRS. Meaning with Erving, the Sixers had a 3.51 SRS. IOW, the Sixers actually played better when Erving missed time, so that doesn't speak too highly about his tenure as a #1 option from 78-80.
From 1983 to 1985, the Sixers had an average of a 4.70 SRS. During this time, Erving missed 19 games. In those 19 games, the Sixers had a 12-7 record (.632), a -0.32 MOV and a 0.10 SRS. Meaning with Erving, the Sixers had a 5.09 SRS. IOW, the Sixers were A LOT better when Erving played.
So I feel pretty good giving him a ton of credit for his role as a 2nd option on those 83-85 Sixers teams...in fact, I know that some posters actually feel that he was better than Moses on the 1983 team and that Erving was the one that really led them, in terms of his on-court impact.
However, even though it's not a huge sample size, 16 games isn't exactly nothing, and Erving doesn't really look too impressive in terms of his lift in those years. This leads me to believe that his 81 and 82 seasons were more of the same, and that he wasn't really having great impact on those teams.
So my opinion of Erving after seeing that: not yet. His longevity doesn't look that impressive if you can say that his 77-82 stretch as the leader of the Sixers were low-impact years.
Baller2014 wrote:Larry Bird faced tougher D back in the day. I'm actually strongly considering voting for him next.
Some months ago, I watched game 7 (and 5, I think) of the classic Celtics.Sixers ECF-series in 1981 (unfortunately, it seems it has been taken off youtube). The PHYSICALITY of the game was nothing short of astonishing. It was a WAR, and they took no prisoners.
PC Board All Time Fantasy Draft:
PG Mark Price (92-94) SG Manu Ginobili (05-07) SF Larry Bird (84-86) PF Horace Grant (93-95) C Dwight Howard (09-11) + Bernard King (82-84) Vlade Divac (95-97) Derek Harper (88-90) Dan Majerle (91-93) Josh Smith (10-12)
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It was a WAR, and they took no prisoners.