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homecourtloss wrote:Jordan did not face “better defenses.” See the post from falcom above quoting me. He also wasn’t as resilient against this defenses (again, see post above).
ty 4191 wrote:parapooper wrote:
If I take the same numbers listed above against elite + all time great defenses I get the following weighted averages:
Lebron vs. Elite + All Time Great Defenses:
37.4% of total playoff games played - of which 3/10 against ATG defenses
29.8 PGG @56.9%TS
9.0 RBG
6.6 AST/G
rTS%: +2.9%
Jordan vs. Elite + All Time Great Defenses
33.0% of total playoff games played - of which 1/10 (=1 series in his entire career) against an ATG defense
32.7 PPG @54.9%TS
6.4 RBG
5.6 AST/G
rTS%: +1.2%
So using the criteria + splits above:
LeBron played 1.1x MJs % of PS games against elite + ATG defenses
despite playing a 3x higher fraction of those games against ATG defenses he averaged:
0.9x MJ's points @2.4x MJs rTS%
->2.2x MJs points scored above average TS (0.9 vs. 0.4)
1.4x MJ's rbd
1.2x MJ's ast
Hey brother,
Thanks for the info and the correction.
If you can explain how you got the weighted averages mathematically, I will amend everything in my OP. And, I will also let 70'sFan know to do the same with his work, here:
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1836300
Thank you!!
parapooper wrote:
I just used your numbers for elite and ATG defenses above and weighted LeBrons ATG numbers 29.88% and MJ's 10.17% (3.35% / (3.35% + 29.61%)) in the elite+ATG numbers.
The points scored above average are just rTS x points (debatable how meaningful that is but probably a good way to combine points and rTS into one number, at least to compare similar player types)
The % of games played I obviously just added together - no idea how you got 22% of games played against elite + ATG when games against elite alone are already 26% for LeBron.
parapooper wrote:Unless you used games outside of 2008-2018 - as I said I just took the numbers listed above
ty 4191 wrote:parapooper wrote:
I just used your numbers for elite and ATG defenses above and weighted LeBrons ATG numbers 29.88% and MJ's 10.17% (3.35% / (3.35% + 29.61%)) in the elite+ATG numbers.
The points scored above average are just rTS x points (debatable how meaningful that is but probably a good way to combine points and rTS into one number, at least to compare similar player types)
The % of games played I obviously just added together - no idea how you got 22% of games played against elite + ATG when games against elite alone are already 26% for LeBron.
So what's the exact formula to weight Elite + ATG numbers? Math isn't my strong suit; my apologies. Thank you!
(I def. need to amend everything in the OP.) Here: viewtopic.php?p=98293842#p98293842parapooper wrote:Unless you used games outside of 2008-2018 - as I said I just took the numbers listed above
Everything in this thread and the OP is for complete careers, not just primes.
LesGrossman wrote:
Thats interesting. Which games were those, and which games in between did he sit out? And what was the result of those games?
) to count "pass to perimeter player-several pump fakes and jab steps - 3-4 dribbles and score at the basket" as an assist. Who knows how MJ's numbers would look like if they were counted like today. Its probably neccessary to use a correction coefficient between eras. LesGrossman wrote:I believe its very difficult to compare stats from different eras. The underlying assumption is that one point in MJ's period was as hard to score as in LeBrons. Reality is, after MJ's retirement, the league had to do a lot to keep the interest high and we ll know the game has been shifted massively towards favoring the offense. I sometimes feel like people try to deny that just because the data doesnt suit their case but its a quite obvious fact.
LesGrossman wrote:Another example is assists. The way assists are counted has been massively shifted and the numbers are inflated by about 30-50% estimated. The reason is not a sudden appearance of brilliant point guards but simply the fact that 20 years ago, a pass could only be followed by one dribble and immediate score to count as an assist whereas now its pretty common (especially for the home scorekeepers
ty 4191 wrote:LesGrossman wrote:I believe its very difficult to compare stats from different eras. The underlying assumption is that one point in MJ's period was as hard to score as in LeBrons. Reality is, after MJ's retirement, the league had to do a lot to keep the interest high and we ll know the game has been shifted massively towards favoring the offense. I sometimes feel like people try to deny that just because the data doesnt suit their case but its a quite obvious fact.
You make outstanding points. Very well said.
It's basically impossible to compare players directly (especially ordinally/rank order) across eras. No offense to everyone and not an affront to anyone, but most of this (Player Comparisons) seems like merely spitballing and people's own personal biases at work.LesGrossman wrote:Another example is assists. The way assists are counted has been massively shifted and the numbers are inflated by about 30-50% estimated. The reason is not a sudden appearance of brilliant point guards but simply the fact that 20 years ago, a pass could only be followed by one dribble and immediate score to count as an assist whereas now its pretty common (especially for the home scorekeepers
Another outstanding point, and one we need to directly account for.
You might find this interesting. You're one of the only people to bring up the massive discrepancy in assist rules since I came to this board. Assist % began being tracked in 1964-1965. Here are the leaders the first ten years assists were tracked (min 15000 MP):
Robertson: 30.3%
Wilkens: 28.3%
West: 27.1%
Hazzard: 25.1%
Bing: 24.0%
7 players are over 20%. Granted, half the teams or less, roughly, compared to today. That said, the average of the top 30 players is 17.9%
Last 10 years, same criteria:
Westbrook: 45.5%
Paul: 44.0%
Wall: 43.5%
Rondo: 40.2%
Harden: 39.2%
42 players are over 20% assist percentage the past 10 years. The average assist percentage of the top 30 players is 31.6%. That's almost DOUBLE 1965-1974.
So, agreed....we need to adjust for this. Any suggestions?
Thank you!
OhayoKD wrote:My suggestion would be considering that relative production, not raw production determines goodness and that this is all kind of besides the point.
OhayoKD wrote:Why does it matter that its easier to score if its easier to score for everyone including the players you're competing against?
ty 4191 wrote:OhayoKD wrote:My suggestion would be considering that relative production, not raw production determines goodness and that this is all kind of besides the point.
What's besides the point about it? And how would you measure relative production?OhayoKD wrote:Why does it matter that its easier to score if its easier to score for everyone including the players you're competing against?
Can you please explain?
OhayoKD wrote:ty 4191 wrote:LesGrossman wrote:I believe its very difficult to compare stats from different eras. The underlying assumption is that one point in MJ's period was as hard to score as in LeBrons. Reality is, after MJ's retirement, the league had to do a lot to keep the interest high and we ll know the game has been shifted massively towards favoring the offense. I sometimes feel like people try to deny that just because the data doesnt suit their case but its a quite obvious fact.
You make outstanding points. Very well said.
It's basically impossible to compare players directly (especially ordinally/rank order) across eras. No offense to everyone and not an affront to anyone, but most of this (Player Comparisons) seems like merely spitballing and people's own personal biases at work.LesGrossman wrote:Another example is assists. The way assists are counted has been massively shifted and the numbers are inflated by about 30-50% estimated. The reason is not a sudden appearance of brilliant point guards but simply the fact that 20 years ago, a pass could only be followed by one dribble and immediate score to count as an assist whereas now its pretty common (especially for the home scorekeepers
Another outstanding point, and one we need to directly account for.
You might find this interesting. You're one of the only people to bring up the massive discrepancy in assist rules since I came to this board. Assist % began being tracked in 1964-1965. Here are the leaders the first ten years assists were tracked (min 15000 MP):
Robertson: 30.3%
Wilkens: 28.3%
West: 27.1%
Hazzard: 25.1%
Bing: 24.0%
7 players are over 20%. Granted, half the teams or less, roughly, compared to today. That said, the average of the top 30 players is 17.9%
Last 10 years, same criteria:
Westbrook: 45.5%
Paul: 44.0%
Wall: 43.5%
Rondo: 40.2%
Harden: 39.2%
42 players are over 20% assist percentage the past 10 years. The average assist percentage of the top 30 players is 31.6%. That's almost DOUBLE 1965-1974.
So, agreed....we need to adjust for this. Any suggestions?
Thank you!
My suggestion would be considering that relative production, not raw production determines goodness and that this is all kind of besides the point.
Why does it matter that its easier to score if its easier to score for everyone including the players you're competing against?
Also, let's be honest, ppg is not what people on the pc board are using if they're pushing lbj vs mj. It's usually not even the basis of vice versa though I suppose that it would favor jordan if that was a determinant of player quality.
OhayoKD wrote:ty 4191 wrote:OhayoKD wrote:My suggestion would be considering that relative production, not raw production determines goodness and that this is all kind of besides the point.
What's besides the point about it? And how would you measure relative production?OhayoKD wrote:Why does it matter that its easier to score if its easier to score for everyone including the players you're competing against?
Can you please explain?
Crudely speaking, if i'm playing in a league where everyone scores 1 ppg, scoring 3 ppg is probably more valuable than if i score 4 ppg in a league where everyone scores 3 ppg as my scoring isn't as unique and isn't making as much of a difference towards winning when the other team(and mine) are generally scoring more.
I generally think looking at relative *impact on winning* is where you should start, but if you are going to take the production approach, you should be seeing how a player compares to the field,(volume relative to average) as opposed to what they're doing in a vacuum.
ty 4191 wrote:OhayoKD wrote:ty 4191 wrote:
What's besides the point about it? And how would you measure relative production?
Can you please explain?
Crudely speaking, if i'm playing in a league where everyone scores 1 ppg, scoring 3 ppg is probably more valuable than if i score 4 ppg in a league where everyone scores 3 ppg as my scoring isn't as unique and isn't making as much of a difference towards winning when the other team(and mine) are generally scoring more.
I generally think looking at relative *impact on winning* is where you should start, but if you are going to take the production approach, you should be seeing how a player compares to the field,(volume relative to average) as opposed to what they're doing in a vacuum.
How would you go about doing this? Give me parameters/please be specific. Thank you.
OhayoKD wrote:ty 4191 wrote:OhayoKD wrote:Crudely speaking, if i'm playing in a league where everyone scores 1 ppg, scoring 3 ppg is probably more valuable than if i score 4 ppg in a league where everyone scores 3 ppg as my scoring isn't as unique and isn't making as much of a difference towards winning when the other team(and mine) are generally scoring more.
I generally think looking at relative *impact on winning* is where you should start, but if you are going to take the production approach, you should be seeing how a player compares to the field,(volume relative to average) as opposed to what they're doing in a vacuum.
How would you go about doing this? Give me parameters/please be specific. Thank you.
Well alright, I suppose I could summarize my general approach. I generally like to start as broad as possible and then narrow down. General goal is to get a general range of value for an individual player at various points, then adjust for context, andthen, if era translation is required, apply the precepts of "league generally gets better" and "scarcity is value" and map to specific strengths and weaknesses.
For now I'll focus in on my era-relative placement process.
Step 1 is to just accumulate holistic evidence. What is the WOWY(always start with the biggest possible samples imo), what are potential sources of team improvement or decline, what's the regularized stuff saying(ideally look at volume and per-possession effiency), on/off, what is box-stuff saying, rs and playoffs, key to map out as much as possible as opposed to simply choosing a year based on perception. I like to look at what the high view, and the low views are. Even with a specific sample of WOWY, you can get different extrapolations based on different decisions(do you use srs or record? do you treat a player as a like for like replacement, if there's a minuites restriction, do you adjust?) In the 97 thread, that was actually a big focus of the mj discourse. Also keep in mind starting points, generally easier to elevate a 20 win team by 20 than a 50 win team(though thats not neccesarily a hard-set rule depending on the player type, some truth to "cieling raising/floor raising distinction"). With limited available, "weaker signals" may be useful to look at(olympic point diff record/pre-nba dominance with russell and kareem, partial rapm form peak mj) as a supplement.
Step 2 is adjusting for context, analyze potential sources of improvement, analyze spots where player may grow in value or decline in value, maybe establish predictions of where they should and shouldn't output value and then see if we have test-cases(so for Lebron you have the theory of cieling raising/spacing dependency and then you have spots where he defies it to some extent(2015, 2020, 2012)). Consider situation, is team having coke crisis, is FO antagonizing player unprompted, is coach competent(in this light Hakeem hitting some of the best notes of his era is very impressive(best examples of lift arguably, most impressive win maybe(lakers), single-star title, ect)). Also consider if individual metrics rising or dropping correspond with team rising and dropping(you can do this with defense, offense, or holistically).
Step 3 is weighting the holistics. Again sample size is a big consideration, but also specific player make-up. If there's outlier WOWY, then artificially capped rapm (and its derivatives) will probably be misattributing value, off-ball creation or paint protection as strengths will probably lead to weak box-score rep. Helio's may be better at elevating from lower points than they are from higher points(lebron/magic) and reverse may be true with non-helio's(curry/jordan). WOWY always has some utility as giving teams the opportunity to adapt, and going off a bigger sample is a strength vs more modern impact analysis which is looking at lineup data(as it should). To me it's like a sniff test, and if certain things are consistently disagreeing with it while others aren't, I get skeptical.
Also important to remember the time-based limitations of data. Kareem's RS ws/48 from 71-73 looks goated(and tracks with what a WOWY+context analysis of 71-75 would lead to imo), but his playoff score looks horrible because...the data is incomplete. Whatever you think of RAPTOR(apparently it ranges from sub-pipm to only behind direct-rapm depending on the test), if you're using it to assess older-era players, its basically stripped down to a PER-esque metric as player-tracking/plus-minus(which in every test seems to make data more predictive/stable) are gone. D-PIPM can do a bit better because its box component is tied to d-rapm but the offensive accuracy plummets(box-component is sub raptor's while full stat is more predictive and taken more seriously by nba teams).
Obviously consider sample size(wowyr suggests Russell is winning 11 rings with 35 win help, but that's only off 2.2 games a season, 82 game sample from 70 and 57 are probably better too work off), and consider additions/subtractions and the effect(Lebron is still anchoring an elite defense without second best defender in 09/10, Kareem is leading 62 win pace team without Oscar, Rodman looks really good in impact stuff(kd-esque wowy), Hondo sees their production skyrocket in 1970 and replacement for bill is drafted, defense rises and collapses with Oakley, ect, ect.)
Step 4 is to look for replication, if a player scores at or within range of the top at basically everything multiple times over in multiple contexts(Kareem and Lebron more or less) in close to every possible frame(playoff, rs, playoff+rs, floor-raising, cieling-raising, blah blah blah), then my instinct is to trust consensus and rate them accordingly(which is why right now, Lebron and Kareem are my two best post-russell/wilt peaks. Lebron actually does the best in terms of replication imo (by a margin), but Kareem has the "led a goat rs and po level team with probably not spectacular help" feather in his cap). Also accept uncertainty(we don't have everything on Russell, but what we have indicates he has a GOATED era-relative prime, and Wilt can scale off that to an extent. No reason to think in black and white and dismiss all that due to "not being enough info".)
Step 5 sort of builds for step 4, but basically its to look for resiliency, playoff performance, whether performance drops the longer a series goes on, whether they can remain impactful when certain parts of their game are hindered(2015 lebron and 2019 Giannis are good examples of this. Curry outplaying KD while injured, Flu game, also good examples.).
Step 6, assess off-court stuff. Is a player causing problems/instigating, are they operating as secondary coaches, weigh the good vs the bad, and remember that just because a player happens to win in a specific context does not mean that what they're doing off the court is positive(better to look at general trends to determine what is good or bad imo). Bill Russell is the clear GOAT here
Finally Step 7 is to consider longevity/sustained excellence. Even if you only care about peaks/primes, it's a good idea to remember that players who play longer will generally see averages dip and have more "bad" moments. If you don't want to credit players for that, fine. But don't penalize them for it.
With all that considered, I'm going to offer my own peak/prime/career val in case you're wondering how this can shape out. You are welcome to scrutinize/challenge anything here. Keep in mind this is purely era-relative and post shot-clock.
Prime
1.Russell
(Gap)
2. Lebron
3. Kareem
4. Wilt
(Gap)
5. Jordan
6. Hakeem
7. Duncan
8. Magic
(Gap)
9. Bird
T-10. KG/Curry
Peak
1. Russell
(gap)
2. Wilt/Lebron(1 year lens produces outliers of russell-level rs and playoff value arguably)
(gap)
4. Kareem
(gap)
5. Duncan
T-6. Jordan/Hakeem
T-7. Shaq/KG(1-year would be at t-6 or t-5 FWIW)
T-9. Bird/Magic
T-11. Giannis/Curry
Career Val.
T-1. Lebron/Kareem(i consider how good players were pre-nba relative to the nba)
2. Russell
(Gap)
3. Wilt
T-4. Jordan/Duncan/Hakeem
T-7. Shaq/KG
(Gap)
9. Kobe
10. Magic
T-11. Dirk/Bird
Tell me what you think!
Jaqua92 wrote:OhayoKD wrote:ty 4191 wrote:
How would you go about doing this? Give me parameters/please be specific. Thank you.
Well alright, I suppose I could summarize my general approach. I generally like to start as broad as possible and then narrow down. General goal is to get a general range of value for an individual player at various points, then adjust for context, andthen, if era translation is required, apply the precepts of "league generally gets better" and "scarcity is value" and map to specific strengths and weaknesses.
For now I'll focus in on my era-relative placement process.
Step 1 is to just accumulate holistic evidence. What is the WOWY(always start with the biggest possible samples imo), what are potential sources of team improvement or decline, what's the regularized stuff saying(ideally look at volume and per-possession effiency), on/off, what is box-stuff saying, rs and playoffs, key to map out as much as possible as opposed to simply choosing a year based on perception. I like to look at what the high view, and the low views are. Even with a specific sample of WOWY, you can get different extrapolations based on different decisions(do you use srs or record? do you treat a player as a like for like replacement, if there's a minuites restriction, do you adjust?) In the 97 thread, that was actually a big focus of the mj discourse. Also keep in mind starting points, generally easier to elevate a 20 win team by 20 than a 50 win team(though thats not neccesarily a hard-set rule depending on the player type, some truth to "cieling raising/floor raising distinction"). With limited available, "weaker signals" may be useful to look at(olympic point diff record/pre-nba dominance with russell and kareem, partial rapm form peak mj) as a supplement.
Step 2 is adjusting for context, analyze potential sources of improvement, analyze spots where player may grow in value or decline in value, maybe establish predictions of where they should and shouldn't output value and then see if we have test-cases(so for Lebron you have the theory of cieling raising/spacing dependency and then you have spots where he defies it to some extent(2015, 2020, 2012)). Consider situation, is team having coke crisis, is FO antagonizing player unprompted, is coach competent(in this light Hakeem hitting some of the best notes of his era is very impressive(best examples of lift arguably, most impressive win maybe(lakers), single-star title, ect)). Also consider if individual metrics rising or dropping correspond with team rising and dropping(you can do this with defense, offense, or holistically).
Step 3 is weighting the holistics. Again sample size is a big consideration, but also specific player make-up. If there's outlier WOWY, then artificially capped rapm (and its derivatives) will probably be misattributing value, off-ball creation or paint protection as strengths will probably lead to weak box-score rep. Helio's may be better at elevating from lower points than they are from higher points(lebron/magic) and reverse may be true with non-helio's(curry/jordan). WOWY always has some utility as giving teams the opportunity to adapt, and going off a bigger sample is a strength vs more modern impact analysis which is looking at lineup data(as it should). To me it's like a sniff test, and if certain things are consistently disagreeing with it while others aren't, I get skeptical.
Also important to remember the time-based limitations of data. Kareem's RS ws/48 from 71-73 looks goated(and tracks with what a WOWY+context analysis of 71-75 would lead to imo), but his playoff score looks horrible because...the data is incomplete. Whatever you think of RAPTOR(apparently it ranges from sub-pipm to only behind direct-rapm depending on the test), if you're using it to assess older-era players, its basically stripped down to a PER-esque metric as player-tracking/plus-minus(which in every test seems to make data more predictive/stable) are gone. D-PIPM can do a bit better because its box component is tied to d-rapm but the offensive accuracy plummets(box-component is sub raptor's while full stat is more predictive and taken more seriously by nba teams).
Obviously consider sample size(wowyr suggests Russell is winning 11 rings with 35 win help, but that's only off 2.2 games a season, 82 game sample from 70 and 57 are probably better too work off), and consider additions/subtractions and the effect(Lebron is still anchoring an elite defense without second best defender in 09/10, Kareem is leading 62 win pace team without Oscar, Rodman looks really good in impact stuff(kd-esque wowy), Hondo sees their production skyrocket in 1970 and replacement for bill is drafted, defense rises and collapses with Oakley, ect, ect.)
Step 4 is to look for replication, if a player scores at or within range of the top at basically everything multiple times over in multiple contexts(Kareem and Lebron more or less) in close to every possible frame(playoff, rs, playoff+rs, floor-raising, cieling-raising, blah blah blah), then my instinct is to trust consensus and rate them accordingly(which is why right now, Lebron and Kareem are my two best post-russell/wilt peaks. Lebron actually does the best in terms of replication imo (by a margin), but Kareem has the "led a goat rs and po level team with probably not spectacular help" feather in his cap). Also accept uncertainty(we don't have everything on Russell, but what we have indicates he has a GOATED era-relative prime, and Wilt can scale off that to an extent. No reason to think in black and white and dismiss all that due to "not being enough info".)
Step 5 sort of builds for step 4, but basically its to look for resiliency, playoff performance, whether performance drops the longer a series goes on, whether they can remain impactful when certain parts of their game are hindered(2015 lebron and 2019 Giannis are good examples of this. Curry outplaying KD while injured, Flu game, also good examples.).
Step 6, assess off-court stuff. Is a player causing problems/instigating, are they operating as secondary coaches, weigh the good vs the bad, and remember that just because a player happens to win in a specific context does not mean that what they're doing off the court is positive(better to look at general trends to determine what is good or bad imo). Bill Russell is the clear GOAT here
Finally Step 7 is to consider longevity/sustained excellence. Even if you only care about peaks/primes, it's a good idea to remember that players who play longer will generally see averages dip and have more "bad" moments. If you don't want to credit players for that, fine. But don't penalize them for it.
With all that considered, I'm going to offer my own peak/prime/career val in case you're wondering how this can shape out. You are welcome to scrutinize/challenge anything here. Keep in mind this is purely era-relative and post shot-clock.
Prime
1.Russell
(Gap)
2. Lebron
3. Kareem
4. Wilt
(Gap)
5. Jordan
6. Hakeem
7. Duncan
8. Magic
(Gap)
9. Bird
T-10. KG/Curry
Peak
1. Russell
(gap)
2. Wilt/Lebron(1 year lens produces outliers of russell-level rs and playoff value arguably)
(gap)
4. Kareem
(gap)
5. Duncan
T-6. Jordan/Hakeem
T-7. Shaq/KG(1-year would be at t-6 or t-5 FWIW)
T-9. Bird/Magic
T-11. Giannis/Curry
Career Val.
T-1. Lebron/Kareem(i consider how good players were pre-nba relative to the nba)
2. Russell
(Gap)
3. Wilt
T-4. Jordan/Duncan/Hakeem
T-7. Shaq/KG
(Gap)
9. Kobe
10. Magic
T-11. Dirk/Bird
Tell me what you think!
Wtf.
This may be the most astounding representation of overthinking I've ever seen for a sport.
SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:If you disregard the context in which LeBron and Jordan played the scoring efficiency stats and rebounds and assusts would suggest that LeBron surpassed Jordan but LeBron has not surpassed Jordans.
The 3 point shooting in the current league and during LeBron’s career gas made it easier to drive to the hoop and score. Jordan would score more efficiently in the modern NBA than he scored in his own time. LeBron had the ball in his hands more and is getting Pipin’s assists and Jordans assists. LeBron is bigger and does rebound better.
LeBron is not as good as Jordan.
SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:If you disregard the context in which LeBron and Jordan played the scoring efficiency stats and rebounds and assusts would suggest that LeBron surpassed Jordan but LeBron has not surpassed Jordans.
The 3 point shooting in the current league and during LeBron’s career gas made it easier to drive to the hoop and score. Jordan would score more efficiently in the modern NBA than he scored in his own time. LeBron had the ball in his hands more and is getting Pipin’s assists and Jordans assists. LeBron is bigger and does rebound better.
LeBron is not as good as Jordan.
AEnigma wrote:SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:If you disregard the context in which LeBron and Jordan played the scoring efficiency stats and rebounds and assusts would suggest that LeBron surpassed Jordan but LeBron has not surpassed Jordans.
The 3 point shooting in the current league and during LeBron’s career gas made it easier to drive to the hoop and score. Jordan would score more efficiently in the modern NBA than he scored in his own time. LeBron had the ball in his hands more and is getting Pipin’s assists and Jordans assists. LeBron is bigger and does rebound better.
LeBron is not as good as Jordan.
Bulls Jordan played in a higher paced league with a higher offensive rating on a team funnelling as many shots to him as possible, but you have seen a bunch of big numbers recently so you assume every advantage goes to Lebron.
Jordan played against worse defenders and schematically worse defences with rules and a team structure which allowed him to wholly dominate his team’s scoring load every year of his career. The way Jordan is treated as some disadvantaged scorer compared to a guy who came into the league in the mid-2000s perfectly encapsulates how many basketball “fans” lack an ability to separate nostalgic memories from reality.
Players from LeBron’s era would not score as efficiently if they played in Jordan’s era.
Lebron is a better defender, better athlete, better creator/passer/playmaker, better finisher, better driver, and smarter player, playing in a better league against better competition, for a longer period of time. Any other sport, the obvious conclusion would be that he is better. Not when it comes to Michael Jordan’s basketball though!
