Doctor MJ wrote:OhayoKD wrote:
You mean the Lakers right now? Why, and what does that have to do with whether Curry is the best offensive player of the era?
Because Lebron is Steph's competition for that mantle and Steph is playing a Lebron-led offense with both teams facing off against similarly elite playoff defenses. Lebron is nearing 40, has played twice as many minutes(65,000 to 35,000), and has had to completely redo his approach because of a tendon tear.
He wasn't really able to match 31-34 year old Lebron(or even 2020 Lebron really) offensively in what would be conventionally considered his peak but people seem to be under the impression these last few years have been his offensive peak with many posters going so far to call steph the best offensive scoring guard ever(in a vacuum or in this era anyway) on this board("curry's offense" thread). Now maybe that holds up regardless, but in a comparison with Lebron both have played at the same time so you can't really use "era-context" as an excuse. Steph dominating Lebron is a fair expectation I think given the circumstances.
I think you're trying to draw way too broad and abstract conclusions from this one series in general, and I think the case in point is this for me:
Why would it make sense to say that a series in which Steph outplays LeBron overall show that LeBron is the best offensive player of his era?
1. Steph "outplaying" Lebron is not a given to me. You bring up that the Warriors outperformed Memphis. But by that same token, this Lebron-led offense is currently outperforming the the best absolute offense ever against a maybe the best playoff defense of their era(who held the kings 8 points under their rs). Their box-production looks similar, and while you may be inclined to say "gravity can't be captured in the statsheet", by the same token neither can Lebron(and Draymond's) influence as play-callers or whatever Lebron is doing defensively(though I suppose the latter matter isn't relevant for this discussion). The Warriors are still shooting better than the Lakers from open 3's. If gravity could actually garuntee game 6-level effiency from Wiggins, Draymond, and GP2 every game, they would not be down in the series.
2. Another thing that is not accounted for with the box-score is creation quality and this series is an example of it. Converted or not, Lebron has been creating wide open dunks and layups repeatedly every game by simply bypassing the Dubs entire defense with a pass. Compare that to say, Steph hitting a guy who still needs to drive past a defender to score and we get back to the issue of "all creation is not created equal":
In my tracking sample, Stockton hit 3.5 “good” or “great” passes per 100 possessions — a formidable clip for his era, behind only Magic and Bird among ’80s and ’90s players on this list. However, he also missed an elite pass once per 100, leaving points on the scoreboard that the best passers would have found.
Overall, Kobe’s rate of “good” passes in my sample was around 3 per 100. For comparison, Jordan was at 2 per 100 and an all-timer like Nash over 8 per 100.8
As a result of his increased primacy and evolved court vision, LeBron’s creation rates jumped from about 11 per 100 to a whopping 14 per 100, just short of the highest rates ever estimated. In my sampling, his quality passes leapt into the upper stratosphere, reaching Nash-like frequencies with a “good” pass on 8 percent of his possessions.
If you don't differentiate for creation quality, someone like Curry grades out ahead of someone like Lebron on a metric like score-val(bpm derived) or box-oc looks better than cp3, westbrook and Lebron. Stockton looks as good as nash using stuff like box-oc and ast%. But those metrics can't really distinguish that well between the creation of great opportunities and the creation of good opportunities which we can actually see reflected in terms of team-level results(with some attempt at estimating cast):
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2284849&p=105688672&hilit=blackmill#p105688672(control f "incidentally, they don't seem")
2. As I've said earlier, I did not enter this series expecting it to be close. and to me it's somewhat similar to 2015 where the Warriors making a meal out of this is disappointing inofitself.
At this stage in their careers, a similar offensive player would be expected to dominate the other even if they were healthy. And this gets us too
3. Whether you go by multiple years, or this year, before Lebron tore his tendon, James has compared well to Steph in basically every measure/approach of impact. This year, he's more or less swept both adjusted AND raw indicators and has done so in a situation where he theoretically should be less valuable(playing alot with another ball-dominant playmaker, bleh spacing, different rosters) and that is making no adjustment for injuries like the one he suffered in 2021 and 2019(he looked more valuble than in Steph in both years prior to season altering knocks). All considered, Curry started this regular season to me at a disadvantage. You mention his "per-possession" stuff looking top 5ish, but Lebron looked better or as good in those measures when healthy on the same amount of minutes(and the gap widens if you take "pure" stuff):
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=105201520#p105201520Now Lebron, a 38-year old whose played nearly twice as many minutes, is playing with what is typically a season-ender. He has had to completely rework his game in a matter of weeks:
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How is Steph still struggling to gain seperation?
I'm not saying it's unreasonable to consider LeBron the best offensive player of his era to be clear, just saying, your logic here is extra-ordinarily top-down.
Consider what happens if the Warriors come back and win this series with Steph & LeBron basically playing the same as they already have. Are you really going to bring up this series as your go-to for why LeBron was the best offensive player of his era in the years to come?
It would be one of many at this point, but yes. I can give Curry some credit for resilience and "figuring things out" if he finds a way to win, but you shouldn't need to "figure out" a supposed equal when they're older, playing on a season-ender, and have basically doubled you in career minutes while completely redoing how they play as a new batch of teammates are integrated in a matter of months.
Is that an unreasonable gripe?
If you want to argue prime for prime, I'm not uncomfortable getting into the weeds of when lebron at 30+ outplayed steph in 4 straight finals and postseasons(at least imo) and 3-straight postseasons/finals offensively. But there's always been the out of, "well, is the "off" of Lebron's teams being underwhelming a result of Lebron's ball dominance? "
Well, that's not really an out this year. Lebron is not monopolizing the physical on-ball responsibilities(he wasn't even doing it with westbrook when healthy and those lebron-westbrook lineups performed rather well). He's provided historically impressive looking lift when the lakers were bad, he's provided historically impressive lift when the lakers got good(and were good without him) and somehow, as a shell of even his regular season self, he is finding a way to utilize his iq and whatever he offers off-ball to lead an offense that is outperforming the revolutionary Sacramento kings while also taking on significant defensive responsbilities steph simply isn't(repeatedly playing stretches as the
5 without a true big to assist).
You have repeatedly used performance/results after the fact to re-frame previous stretches of play. I'd say what Lebron is doing right now is about as impressive as a "Post-hoc" performance as you'll get from an offensive great.
