Rings - star vs. team/opponent strength

[trex_8063]

I appreciate your long post and the time you must have taken to put this together. However, by just casting the reason for Wade, Bosh, Love and Kyrie (to a smaller extent) sharp drop to going from 1st option to 2nd and 3rd

We can ignore the context (and the little "*" I put to mark it), and simply tally the players in each grouping (and color-coding)-->for which I was marginally generous to Jordan; there still is only a small distinction (yes, in Jordan's favor) between Jordan/Lebron as far as how their teammates perform with/without. Read again: small (and that's ignoring 1st/2nd/3rd option context, and being marginally hard on Lebron as far as who is classified as "unchanged").

And Kyrie didn't drop off......like, at all. He had his best statistical season the first year Lebron arrived.

Not sure how you are being generous to Jordan here? I mean just looked up some of the players...you had Mike Brown's in the "worse with Jordan" category for his 1st and 2nd year low mins....and those 2 seasons were not even his worst BPMs?

Mentioning that he had worse BPM’s than his Bulls years is rather irrelevant, don’t you think? Given when they occurred? The first season where he would have a worse BPM is an injury year at age 31, a full seven years after his time with Jordan. SEVEN YEARS. The only other year with worse BPM is the following season (in which he only played 9 games as his career petered to an end). Please tell me you're not suggesting we should use either of those seasons ('95, '96) as a proxy for what kind of player he was circa-'88. Should we also be assuming Dwyane Wade would be capable of ~+9-10 BPM in a better setting this season ('cause he was +9.4 back in '10 and +10.7 in ‘09)?

But with regard to his two years with Jordan being his first two years: fair enough. I tried to be conscientious of where players were at in their career (not assigning “blame” during years in which decline was more likely the result of age and/or injury, or improvements which may have been more likely due to simply player development (typically in the first few seasons of most careers)). Perhaps at the time I was evaluating I simply thought the improvements were too sharp/abrupt (he’s -4.7 in rookie season with MJ, -4.4 the next, then jumps to -2.6 the following season in Utah, and -0.9 in his 4th season; gets as high as -0.8, and would never again be worse than -3.0 until that injury at age 31).
So, idk…...it’s hard to classify that as “unchanged”, even in the career circumstances. But I don’t want to leave any openings to a crowd that is looking for any loophole by which they can disregard evidence, so I will at least color-code him blue (label for slight change….even though it’s not a “slight” change: it’s a year-to-year change of 1.8; his two Bulls seasons avg -4.6, vs avg -1.7 for his first two seasons out of Chicago-->a change of 2.9).

Again you had Sedale Threatt...who played 40 games with Mike (at very low mins) in the same category...and he had a lot worse BPM's before and after??

OK, here you’re doing it again: using a double-standard of enforcing a principle if it supports Jordan, but shading your eyes from it if it hurts his case.
You just got done insinuating Mike Brown’s first and second years shouldn’t account for much (because they’re his first and second years--->can be developmental years for a player; also because of limited minutes)......yet the worse prior BPM you refer to for Threatt was his rookie season (in which his minutes were even more limited than either of Brown’s first two seasons).

And the ONE worse BPM you refer to that came after........is his final partial season (age 35)--->a full DECADE after his time with the Bulls. Come on now! How is that relevant?

Anyway, I’ll re-iterate (this is alluded to in previous post) that I put primary focus on the 1-3 seasons on either side of the trade that put a player next to (or took away from) Lebron/Jordan, with the ONE year on either side of the trade being weighted the most heavily. Because (injury withstanding) this is going to generally give the most accurate representation of what kind of player he was at that time (as opposed to paying attention to seasons taking place 7-10 years later).

And I did try to generally be conscientious of age/injury-related declines or player development (early years of career).

For Lebron...just looking at JR's...i don't really see any proof there his BPM is better with Lebron....his had one season where it's highest...but the other 2 are low....

The season prior to the midseason trade that brought he and Lebron together, he was +0.7. The year before that he was +0.1. In the season of the trade he was a -4.3 BPM prior to the trade; jumped to +2.9 in that first half-season with Lebron (nearly 1,500 minutes played). A change of +7.2. It’s only because I’m not tunnel-visioning on that one season that I don’t color-code it red. In his first FULL season with Lebron (‘16), he was +1.3; he hadn’t matched that since ‘13 (hadn’t bested it since ‘12). And all of this while turning 30 after the ‘15 season (I mention this because he’s a crazy athletic guard with [by NBA standards] a relatively limited skillset outside of his perimeter shooting…...those types of players tend to drop off quickly not real far after age 30). Hard to put a lot of stock in ‘17 so far, as part of the limited amount he’s played this year was with injury to his shooting hand, iirc.

why don't we call that an outlier like u do with some of Jordan's team mates and put him in the no change category?

I’m happy to re-evaluate anyone if you can be more specific.

Why don't we call Kyries 1st season with Lebron as an outlier since his had the 2 worst BPM of his career with him and place him in the made worse category?

Because context matters. Every single rs game in ‘16 was played after coming back from patella surgery, and he was quite clearly rusty early on; took him about 20 games to get back into somewhat “standard” form: in his first 18 games back he was going for 15.4 ppg and 3.8 apg @ 48.9% TS, 10.1 GameScore, 103 ORtg/107 DRtg (-4 differential) while playing just 26.8 mpg.
In his final 35 games, he was going for 21.8 ppg and 5.2 apg @ 56.2% TS, 15.3 GameScore, 113 ORtg/109 DRtg (+4 diff) in 33.8 mpg.
And then he came thru big-time in the ‘16 playoffs, playing at an even higher level than he had in the ‘15 playoffs (+4.8 BPM, fwiw, since that’s the stat this thread is focused on).

Don’t think the +2.3 BPM we’ve seen so far this year is sufficient to downgrade this relationship, especially considering he had his single-best year alongside Lebron.

Regardless of how you have categorised it....the bottom line is, the players (high minutes) that skew the sBPM the most are on the made worse category with Lebron.

Perhaps, though they’re also the ones with the most context regarding the BPM changes. And again, parapooper’s already gone thru and created a hypothetical sBPM for the ‘11 Heat giving all members credit for their ‘10 BPM’s (which improved the ‘11 Heat supporting cast BPM by +0.6).......but it was still lower than that of MJ’s supporting cast in ‘92, ‘95-’98.


You can argue the fit is not great with some of Lebron’s casts, and perhaps argue he’s not capable of sufficiently molding himself or others, and perhaps he’s partly to blame for whatever fit problems exist (because he plays such an active role in who his organization obtains, etc). A potential counterpoint argument (which is admittedly pure conjecture) is to ask the question: is his admittedly imperfectly assembled teams that he played a role in bringing together better than what his organization would have assembled for him had he just stayed in Cleveland and remained quiet?
I mean, we did see him more or less quietly take what the organization gave him for seven years; and it was never enough.

At any rate, those criticisms still don’t change the two (or perhaps three) big take-aways I get from all this discussion: 1) the correlation between toughest playoff match-up (as measured the weighted BPM of one’s supporting cast vs. that of the opposing team) and winning the title is extraordinarily strong. And 2) this notion that Lebron had some historical outlier super-teams which enabled an “easy ride” to championships needs to die. It’s clearly just not true (again: the ‘11 Heat hypothetical when all cast members are given credit for their ‘10 BPM’s should put this one to bed).
+/- 3) there’s at least some room to question the assertion that his casts’ shortcomings (as measured by weighted BPM) are somehow his fault.

[penbeast0]

I just want to say to trex that you are one of the names that I will open a thread to see what you are saying this time. Keep up the outstanding posts.

[Colbinii]

I don't get this whole mindset of "who do you want insert dribbling/shooting/doing anything on the court" as if that means no one else should touch the ball much less shoot it. I get it if your teammates are not talented but they do need to be involved or a whole lot of people need to recant their statements about 2006 Kobe.

Just because a player on your team is talented or is better at something than another teammate does not mean they should dominate the ball and usage. Larry Bird was the best shooter on the team but he passed it out to Ainge and Dennis Johnson for game deciding shots all the time. He did not mitigate them because he was a better shooter. He did not tell Kevin McHale and Robert Parish to get out of the post, I'm Larry Bird I should be doing all the shooting.

Magic Johnson, even after he took over as the #1 option/playmaker on the Lakers still gave the ball to Kareem when they needed a high percentage shot. In fact Pat Riley would hold his fist in the air indicating that the team would clear out for Kareem to go one on one even when he was 37 and 38 years old.

Tim Duncan was the best option for the Spurs every time but the way the Spurs built their team everybody contributed. Tim pulled back and did not mitigate the growth/development of Parker/Ginobli/Kahwi and even helped benefit the role players like Bowen/Bonner.

You don't bring in a big man with post skills and then tell him to clear out, that is ridiculous......

Am I missing something here?

LeBron James USG%: 29.5%
Kyrie Irving USG%: 30.2%
Kevin Love USG%: 26.6%
Kevin love USG in 2014: 28.8%

It looks like Kevin Love really isn't used THAT much less than in 2014, yet he is now the #3 option instead of the #1 option.

LeBron James passes it for game deciding shots all the time. This is one of the biggest criticism Jordan Stan's and Kobe Stan's have of LeBron. "Well Jordan or Kobe would have taken that shot" even though the best shot was to kick it to Mike Miller in the corner, or let Kyrie Irving go 1 on 1 with Stephen "Mismatch on defense" Curry.

The other fact you are forgetting is that LeBron mitigating a Kevin Love or Chris Bosh is completely different than a McHale. For one, McHale was a 2nd option, while Love is 3rd. LeBron doesn't/didn't mitigate Kyrie Irving OR Dwyane Wade. LeBron didn't tell anyone to "get out of the post". The fact is, having Chris Bosh spread the floor is going to raise the offensive ceiling of the team as a whole instead of him clogging the paint as he isn't close to as effective as McHale or Parish in the post.

Love is taking more effective shots with LeBron than when he wasn't with LeBron. With the Cavaliers, Love is shooting less deep 2's than when he was in Minnesota. Instead he is shooting more 3's (which provides more spacing for Kyrie/LeBron to operate) and they are more valuable shots than deep 2's.

Duncan let his guys grow, well couldn't the same be said for LeBron with Kyrie? Kyrie has flourish, yes, flourished, around LeBron. He has been mentored and his growth as a player, on and off the court, is large.

I just don't understand your post and how it relates to LeBron, unless it isn't about LeBron, in which case I agree.

[mcraft]

This is a great thread and thanks to all the guys who've contributed, it's been a pleasure to read.

In regards to the synergy Lebron's teams had/have, how big of an impact do you guys think it had with LeBron moving to Miami and back to Cleveland via free agency versus the Bulls drafting well around Jordan?

[Colbinii]

This is a great thread and thanks to all the guys who've contributed, it's been a pleasure to read.

In regards to the synergy Lebron's teams had/have, how big of an impact do you guys think it had with LeBron moving to Miami and back to Cleveland via free agency versus the Bulls drafting well around Jordan?

Pippen could mold/grow his game to compliment Jordan, while LeBron and Wade/Bosh and Kyrie/Love had to learn to fit/mold their games around each other in less than a year. This is where the discussion should start, and one big thing is how easy/difficult is it for stars to change their games to compliment the best player and how easy is it for the best player to change some of his habits to benefit the others players who use to be stars but are now getting less touches?

The other thing that nobody has mentioned is Rodman never interfered with Jordan, likewise as Tristan Thompson with LeBron. Both these guys are pure garbage men, while Thompson is a better finisher around the rim and Rodman simply a better garbageman. The mistake comes in comparison Rodman to Love, and saying "well Rodman was integrated far easier than Love", well, no duh.

[kayess]

I don't get this whole mindset of "who do you want insert dribbling/shooting/doing anything on the court" as if that means no one else should touch the ball much less shoot it. I get it if your teammates are not talented but they do need to be involved or a whole lot of people need to recant their statements about 2006 Kobe.

Just because a player on your team is talented or is better at something than another teammate does not mean they should dominate the ball and usage. Larry Bird was the best shooter on the team but he passed it out to Ainge and Dennis Johnson for game deciding shots all the time. He did not mitigate them because he was a better shooter. He did not tell Kevin McHale and Robert Parish to get out of the post, I'm Larry Bird I should be doing all the shooting.

Magic Johnson, even after he took over as the #1 option/playmaker on the Lakers still gave the ball to Kareem when they needed a high percentage shot. In fact Pat Riley would hold his fist in the air indicating that the team would clear out for Kareem to go one on one even when he was 37 and 38 years old.

Tim Duncan was the best option for the Spurs every time but the way the Spurs built their team everybody contributed. Tim pulled back and did not mitigate the growth/development of Parker/Ginobli/Kahwi and even helped benefit the role players like Bowen/Bonner.

You don't bring in a big man with post skills and then tell him to clear out, that is ridiculous......

He has been mentored and his growth as a player, on and off the court, is large.

I vehemently disagree with you here. LeBron has actually stunted Kyrie's growth as a player, leaving his progressiong quite... Flat, tbh.

[PaulieWal]

I don't get this whole mindset of "who do you want insert dribbling/shooting/doing anything on the court" as if that means no one else should touch the ball much less shoot it. I get it if your teammates are not talented but they do need to be involved or a whole lot of people need to recant their statements about 2006 Kobe.

Just because a player on your team is talented or is better at something than another teammate does not mean they should dominate the ball and usage. Larry Bird was the best shooter on the team but he passed it out to Ainge and Dennis Johnson for game deciding shots all the time. He did not mitigate them because he was a better shooter. He did not tell Kevin McHale and Robert Parish to get out of the post, I'm Larry Bird I should be doing all the shooting.

Magic Johnson, even after he took over as the #1 option/playmaker on the Lakers still gave the ball to Kareem when they needed a high percentage shot. In fact Pat Riley would hold his fist in the air indicating that the team would clear out for Kareem to go one on one even when he was 37 and 38 years old.

Tim Duncan was the best option for the Spurs every time but the way the Spurs built their team everybody contributed. Tim pulled back and did not mitigate the growth/development of Parker/Ginobli/Kahwi and even helped benefit the role players like Bowen/Bonner.

You don't bring in a big man with post skills and then tell him to clear out, that is ridiculous......

He has been mentored and his growth as a player, on and off the court, is large.

I vehemently disagree with you here. LeBron has actually stunted Kyrie's growth as a player, leaving his progressiong quite... Flat, tbh.

How has LeBron stunted Kyrie's growth? Do people not remember that when LeBron came back he WANTED to play off the ball before realizing that Irving is just a turrible playmaker? It's not like Kyrie doesn't have ample opportunities to run the offense on the floor yet Kyrie plus bench or Kyrie + Love lineups without LeBron don't fare too well. A lot of that has to do with Irving having tunnel vision.

He's a fantastic 1 on 1 scorer and great to have in crunch time situations but blaming his lack of growth as a player on LeBron is pretty absurd. Wasn't the running joke that Irving is actually the same player he has been since his 2nd year in the league?

[Colbinii]

I don't get this whole mindset of "who do you want insert dribbling/shooting/doing anything on the court" as if that means no one else should touch the ball much less shoot it. I get it if your teammates are not talented but they do need to be involved or a whole lot of people need to recant their statements about 2006 Kobe.

Just because a player on your team is talented or is better at something than another teammate does not mean they should dominate the ball and usage. Larry Bird was the best shooter on the team but he passed it out to Ainge and Dennis Johnson for game deciding shots all the time. He did not mitigate them because he was a better shooter. He did not tell Kevin McHale and Robert Parish to get out of the post, I'm Larry Bird I should be doing all the shooting.

Magic Johnson, even after he took over as the #1 option/playmaker on the Lakers still gave the ball to Kareem when they needed a high percentage shot. In fact Pat Riley would hold his fist in the air indicating that the team would clear out for Kareem to go one on one even when he was 37 and 38 years old.

Tim Duncan was the best option for the Spurs every time but the way the Spurs built their team everybody contributed. Tim pulled back and did not mitigate the growth/development of Parker/Ginobli/Kahwi and even helped benefit the role players like Bowen/Bonner.

You don't bring in a big man with post skills and then tell him to clear out, that is ridiculous......

He has been mentored and his growth as a player, on and off the court, is large.

I vehemently disagree with you here. LeBron has actually stunted Kyrie's growth as a player, leaving his progressiong quite... Flat, tbh.

How so?

[kayess]

Guys. Kyrie. Flat. Ring a bell?

[G35]

I don't get this whole mindset of "who do you want insert dribbling/shooting/doing anything on the court" as if that means no one else should touch the ball much less shoot it. I get it if your teammates are not talented but they do need to be involved or a whole lot of people need to recant their statements about 2006 Kobe.

Just because a player on your team is talented or is better at something than another teammate does not mean they should dominate the ball and usage. Larry Bird was the best shooter on the team but he passed it out to Ainge and Dennis Johnson for game deciding shots all the time. He did not mitigate them because he was a better shooter. He did not tell Kevin McHale and Robert Parish to get out of the post, I'm Larry Bird I should be doing all the shooting.

Magic Johnson, even after he took over as the #1 option/playmaker on the Lakers still gave the ball to Kareem when they needed a high percentage shot. In fact Pat Riley would hold his fist in the air indicating that the team would clear out for Kareem to go one on one even when he was 37 and 38 years old.

Tim Duncan was the best option for the Spurs every time but the way the Spurs built their team everybody contributed. Tim pulled back and did not mitigate the growth/development of Parker/Ginobli/Kahwi and even helped benefit the role players like Bowen/Bonner.

You don't bring in a big man with post skills and then tell him to clear out, that is ridiculous......

Am I missing something here?

LeBron James USG%: 29.5%
Kyrie Irving USG%: 30.2%
Kevin Love USG%: 26.6%
Kevin love USG in 2014: 28.8%

It looks like Kevin Love really isn't used THAT much less than in 2014, yet he is now the #3 option instead of the #1 option.

I don't know why we always resort to going straight to stats when we have all seen what happens on the court. Love was a post up PF who is now a spacer, completely different roles. You missed my point that you do not trade for a PF with post up skills to come shoot 3's and space the floor.

Then you only talk about his USG% and you are cherry picking this year as a sign that Love has not been marginalized. His USG% in 2015 was 21.7% and in 2016 it was 23.4%. Essentially it has taken 3 years for the Cavs and Love to figure out how to play with each other. Then Love's efficiency took a massive hit and has only recovered this year because he has improved his 3pt shooting...not his interior/post play which he excelled at in Minnesota.

Compare this to other superstar big men who have switched to these superteams:

KG's TS% went from .546 to .588 in 2008 his first year with BOS and he essentially kept it above his career TS% the rest of his time in BOS until his performance decline across the board in 2013 due to age

Pau Gasol's efficiency skyrocketed after joining the Lakers and his profile went from being a sometime all-star to All NBA level player.

Chris Bosh had a similar decline in status/efficiency/perception to Kevin Love after joining Lebron. It's very clear, the numbers clear and this shows a clear agenda when people try to dismiss it. Big men are going to be asked to clear out and shoot outlet jumpers when playing with Lebron. That is why Zydrunas was such a great fit with Lebron and was under appreciated during the 2000's. He was the perfect fit next to Lebron and allowed him the space he needed. Lebron does not need a lot of talent to form a dominant team, Lebron only needs role players that excel in their role e.g. rebounding, shooting, setting picks, defense. He does not need ultra talented multi-skilled teammates, that is Lebron's role to fill in the gaps.

This is why Lebron had more dominant RS teams in 2008 and 2009 because those teams had players that filled specific roles and stayed out of the lane. Players like JJ Hickson, Tristan Thompson, Chris Anderson, Anderson Varejao look great next to Lebron because they do the dirty work and allow Lebron the energy to dominate in other areas......

[andrewww]

Conclusions can definitely be drawn that Lebron isnt the most portable player but that in and of itself doesnt mean someone like Wilt or Shaq were either. Since he isnt a great shoote and needs the ball in his hands to be what makes him great, its not a surprise that he is best utilized by clearing out space in the post (mitigating big men) for him to operate, along with plenty or 3pt shooters around him.

Lebron doesn't mitigate big men. That fictional notion needs to stop, right now. There is no evidence that LeBron mitigates big men. In fact, he has raised the efficiency of the "old school" big men he has played with like Thompson and Mozgov. With regards to Love and Bosh, do you want them to be operating out of the high post or LeBron? Seems like a no brainer to me who I would want with the ball.

I have a tough time accepting that MJ's competition in the Finals was inferior as a whole.

That is fine, let's see what the stats say.

The 96 Sonics won 64 games and were a great team. The 97 Jazz won 64 games while the 98 Jazz had HCA over an aging Bulls team thay MJ literally will to victory. Pippen was playing at much less than 100% and had that series gone 7 games the Bulls likely would have lost based on momentum alone.

Meanwhile, the 2011 Heat blew a 1-0 lead and a double digit lead going into the 4th quarter of game 2 of Im not mistaken. Had the Heat won that series, all indications points to Wade being the FMVP.

Why are you focusing on one blemish for the Heat yet only focus on the positives for the Bulls? Smells like some bias here.

What about the fact that Jordan put up 5/19 shooting in game 6 against the Sonics. Or how about the fact that the Bulls were up 3-0 in the series, and then in the final 3 games of the series Jordan shot 22/60? Even if you compare that to how LeBron played in games 4-6 against Dallas, he still played better than Jordan, shooting 20/45 in the final 3 games. This doesn't even take into account the fact that LeBron averaged 7.6 rebounds and 7.6 assists over games 4-6, while Jordan averaged 5.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists over the final 3 games.

The 2013 Finals outside of game 7 was underwhelming for Lebron. His poor last two minutes of the 4th quarter in game 6 will be a footnote since they came back, and in the pivotal game 4 to tie the series it was Wade again who was the catalyst (Lebron was stat stuffing at the end anyone who saw that game would realize this). Not exactly what youd expect from a peak Lebron. The Spurs basically dared him to beat them shooting jumpers and it worked from games 1-6.

LeBron averaged 23.3/10.7/7.5 with 2.3 steals, and only 2.7 turnovers in games 1-6 in 2013. Sure, it wasn't a GOAT series, but to act like it was underwhelming, and then ignoring all of Jordan's "underwhelming" finals is not being objective. What about in 1998 when Jordan, in games 5 and 6, shot 24/61, averaged only 2.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists, while turning the ball over 5 times? That seems like a lot less impact on those games than what LeBron did in games 1-6, no?

The 2016 Finals on paper was a huge upset, but we all know that if you account for context (game 5 suspension initiated by Lebron's step over and the subsequent post game lobbying to the press, the Bogut absence from game 5 onwards, the bs Curry foul trouble in game 6), the same conclusion can be drawn from the 2015 Finals. That is one of an incomplete picture of the two teams at full strength for both Finals.

What conclusion? In 2015, Lebron and the Cavaliers EASILY win the series if he has Kryie. I don't see Jordan winning ANY finals with both Pippen and any one of Grant/Rodman/Kukoc going down before the Finals. 2016, say what you want, but the fact is LeBron played better, or at the very least on par, with ANY Jordan Finals.

Dont forget that the 96 Sonics and 97/98 Jazz had some tough competition just to get to the Finals. You had the Shaq/Eddie Jones/Nick Van Exel/Elden Campbell/young Kobe Lakers, the Hakeem/Barkley/Pippen Rockets. Hardly slouches in competition.

What is the point of this? Are you implying that the Spurs/Thunder/Warriors didn't play good teams? Are you implying they played against slouches?

The 1997 Lakers were NOT a title contender; not close. They were a sub-4 SRS team. The 1998 Lakers were solid, but they got swept by Utah. They were a lot like the 2015 Hawks. Nick Van Exel, Kobe Bryant, and Eddie Jones all forgot how to shoot in that series, and they simple got out matched by a clearly superior and mature team in the 1998 Jazz. To act like "They had young Kobe" means anything is a fallacy, because Kobe was nothing close to resembling prime Kobe Bryant in 1998.

The Spurs in 2014 played against the 2014 Thunder, a team that was equally as good as the 1998 Lakers, and far superior to the 1997 Lakers. The 2013 Spurs played against the Grizzles, who were one of the best defensive teams in the league, won 56 games, and were also superior to the 1997 Lakers. The 2012 Thunder beat the 2012 Spurs, who were on par with ANY team that Jordan faced in the Finals.

MJ never got pushed to more than 6 games.

Lebron was down 3-2 or worse facing elimination in 6 out of 7 Finals.

Yes, that happens when your TEAM and COACH are superior to the other team.

Here is some food for thought:
The average Bulls Finals team had an SRS of 9.1, and their average opponent had an SRS of 6.84.
The average LeBron Finals team had an SRS of 5.2, and their average opponent had an SRS of 7.75.

The fact is, Jordan had better teams, and his teams were clearly superior to the competition. We know from what Parapooper posted earlier that Jordan had stronger teammates as well, and we can all agree that Phil Jackson is a better coach than Brown, Spoelstra, Blatt, and Lue (lol, Tryonn Lue!).

Draw your own conclusions from that. The whole Lebron leading both teams in 5 categories can be countered by Jordan's scoring prowess. Its what theyre both supposed to be doing.

LeBron is suppose to be leading his team in 5 categories while Jordan is only suppose to score? I think that should answer your question as to who has more responsibility and who has teammates that can do other things. This is the most asinine thing I have read here in a while. "LeBron is suppose to do everything, Jordan is only suppose to score" is what you said, thanks for making my point andru.

As G35 stated, if you bring in a post up big man, is it optimal to have him relegated to shooting jumpers? Not the most optimal way of maximizing the talent around you.

All these avgs you bring about Lebron having higher REB and AST than MJ is a given. Its what makes Lebron...Lebron. One of the ultimate swiss army knifes in NBA history save for Magic Johnson. In other words, you would EXPECT him to avg higher stats in these categories, just as one would expect MJ to be the clear cut better scorer.

Jordan's teams werent necessarilyy superior to Lebron's. in fact on talent alone its clear Lebron's teams were much much more talented. The difference is that the synergy in their teams was much greater for MJ"s teams, and ditto for the recent challengers to the Heat/Cavs, namely the Spurs and Warriors. Does Lebron have bad luck or is it not a coincidence that in 13 full seasons, there's a reason why his teams have a lower SRS despite playing in the weakest conference since the western conference of the 1980s? Jordan's teams were better because Jordan's style of play enabled his teams to maximize their skillsets moreso than Lebron. Raws stats wont show that.

Lebron isnt necessarily supposed to be leading both teams in 5 categories, you missed the point here. The point is that as I've stated earlier, it is Lebron's game to impact the stat sheet across the board, just as it is MJ's to dominate the scoreboard. With Lebron's usage rate, it is natural to correlate that to monster stats across the board. That same principle is also why Lebron's teams are constantly facing an uphill battle in the Finals against a championship level team.

As I've also said before, Lebron is the GOAT floor raiser but that same swiss army knife principle limits the ceiling of his teams. MJ found a greater balance of this than arguably anyone in history and thats why hes the GOAT.

[mysticOscar]

What has the correlation with titles and is plotted are the toughest matchups, be they in the finals or whenever.
As I wrote before: matchups of +1, +1, +1, +1 vs. matchups of 0, 0, 0, 4 add up to the same average PS matchup difficulty, but scenario 1 is basically a must win while scenario 2 is basically impossible (nobody ever overcame a matchup harder than 2.
I was probably a bit confusing above, here are the stats for just finals runs (on average):
Jordans sBPM: 1.69
Jordans toughest opponent tBPM: 2.01

LBJ's sBPM: 0.43
LBJ's opp tBPM: 2.56
(all of the toughest opponent were in the finals, except 98 when the Sonics were slightly better than the Jazz)

Yes, in the first 3 rounds Jordan had tougher opponents during finals runs:
-0.52, 1.24, 1.53, 2.0 vs.
-0.36, 0.78, 1.11, 2.56

So if you want to give Jordan a bonus for that - fine (anyone should of course)
However, to integrate the other rounds into my stats would be really hard to do properly and impartially (I discussed this with somebody else earlier here) and the toughest matchups correlate so well with title already that that is all I need to make my point that titles should not be used to rank players

Right i can see what you have done. Were you able to seperate the tBPM from the actual series that they played in the finals? Since playoffs has a 50% weight in your tBPM, so any series in the playoffs (could approximately) have a big impact on the tBPM playoffs weight. Since Lebron's teams have lost a few finals...it could add to their opponents tBPM. And a reverse with Jordan's teams since Jordan's teams dominated the finals.

And this can have massive effect on opponents for earlier rounds (i.e 8th seed vs 1st seed in rd 1)....the 8th rd tBPM possibly could be really effected negatively since that makes up 50% of the tBPM (and its a severe mismatch and does not reflect the average tBPM from RS when playing a more evenly distributed types of opponents). So your stats showing the average per series for MJ vs Lebron could be underating how easy those teams are on the east for Lebron, since 50% of there tBPM is measured vs a weaker east teams due to the seperate conference outside of the finals.

Or am i missing something here? Correct me if im wrong.

Regarding the 1994 Bulls...i mean if your subtracting the highest BPM player from a team then comparing it to another team with all there players...then of course its going to be lower.

Not really, I compared '93 sBPM vs. 94 tBPM. sBPM is the supporting cast BPM where the BPM of the main guy (here Jordan) is replaced with a 0 BPM replacement player for his minutes. If your theory that MJ makes his teammates better is true than it is strange that their '94 tBPM is better than their '93 sBPM (1.49 vs. 1.2, RS +PS) even though the guy who replaced Jordan had a BPM of -2.3 (so lower than what I use in the '93 sBPM calculation)

In contrast, the tBPM of the 2015 Heat was significantly lower than the sBPM of the 2014 Heat (-0.8 vs. -0.16, RS only) even though LeBron was replaced with a positive BPM player in Deng.

This can probably be explained by Bosh going down and Deng/Dragic/Whiteside being worse than whoever the Bulls got in '94, so let's not get into that. Just saying, if one wanted to come up with arguments contrary to what you say and ignore all context and qualifiers one could do that, but what's the point?

Why use the '93 Bulls when you know they were cruising? Theres 91 and 92 years also to choose from.

Once again, my main conclusion here is that the stats clearly demonstrate that using rings to rank GOATish players makes no sense. Because their supporting casts matchup difficulty is extremely well correlated with wins, while their personal performance is not.
The biggest outlier in my data is LeBron. If you say his teams were actually better than the stats show and move his matchup difficulties down (see graphs above) by the maximum punishment (gap between Heat supporting cast performance in 2011 vs. 2010) than that (almost) closes the gap. That removes the one outlier in the overall data and makes the argument even more convincing. You however have been saying my overall conclusion is wrong because LeBron's teams were better than the stats indicate - when in fact, if it were true, that would strengthen my conclusion.

Personally, an obvious explanation for LeBron being an outlier is the eastern conference being worse. If you would look at the stars coming out of the east in the early 2000's they were in a similar situation - yeah, they had an easier path to the finals but then they faced the toughest team from the west - so they had less opportunities to fail at an easier hurdle before they ran into a juggernaut. That easier path to the finals doesn't mean it was easier for Iverson or Kidd than Kobe or Shaq to win a title though - in fact in was basically impossible for them. Another (anecdotal) reason why using rings to rank players makes no sense.

Because without using rings (which is the main objective for players at this level)....the stats don't hold much weight.

You can draw your own conclusions....but winning a ring and winning it consistantly leaves little room for excuses (everything seems to fall just right). We can analyse it to death on why a certain player didn't win....up to the point where he first laid eyes and picked up a bball..but i find that it leads to just excuses.

I look at MJ and his 6 rings in just over 10 years...then I look at his individual impact, his teams flourishing playing with him, those critical moments where he rose to the occasion...really it all makes sense.

[mysticOscar]

Mentioning that he had worse BPM’s than his Bulls years is rather irrelevant, don’t you think? Given when they occurred? The first season where he would have a worse BPM is an injury year at age 31, a full seven years after his time with Jordan. SEVEN YEARS. The only other year with worse BPM is the following season (in which he only played 9 games as his career petered to an end). Please tell me you're not suggesting we should use either of those seasons ('95, '96) as a proxy for what kind of player he was circa-'88. Should we also be assuming Dwyane Wade would be capable of ~+9-10 BPM in a better setting this season ('cause he was +9.4 back in '10 and +10.7 in ‘09)?

But with regard to his two years with Jordan being his first two years: fair enough. I tried to be conscientious of where players were at in their career (not assigning “blame” during years in which decline was more likely the result of age and/or injury, or improvements which may have been more likely due to simply player development (typically in the first few seasons of most careers)). Perhaps at the time I was evaluating I simply thought the improvements were too sharp/abrupt (he’s -4.7 in rookie season with MJ, -4.4 the next, then jumps to -2.6 the following season in Utah, and -0.9 in his 4th season; gets as high as -0.8, and would never again be worse than -3.0 until that injury at age 31).
So, idk…...it’s hard to classify that as “unchanged”, even in the career circumstances. But I don’t want to leave any openings to a crowd that is looking for any loophole by which they can disregard evidence, so I will at least color-code him blue (label for slight change….even though it’s not a “slight” change: it’s a year-to-year change of 1.8; his two Bulls seasons avg -4.6, vs avg -1.7 for his first two seasons out of Chicago-->a change of 2.9).

Again you had Sedale Threatt...who played 40 games with Mike (at very low mins) in the same category...and he had a lot worse BPM's before and after??

OK, here you’re doing it again: using a double-standard of enforcing a principle if it supports Jordan, but shading your eyes from it if it hurts his case.
You just got done insinuating Mike Brown’s first and second years shouldn’t account for much (because they’re his first and second years--->can be developmental years for a player; also because of limited minutes)......yet the worse prior BPM you refer to for Threatt was his rookie season (in which his minutes were even more limited than either of Brown’s first two seasons).

And the ONE worse BPM you refer to that came after........is his final partial season (age 35)--->a full DECADE after his time with the Bulls. Come on now! How is that relevant?

But you're the one that initially categorised it like that right? You categorised Mike Brown based on his 1st and 2nd year BPM and then ignored it for Sedale Threatt? I'm just pointing out that since you stated that you were "favouring Jordan in your categorisation". Also Threatt had 40 games with Jordan....40!. Are we really gonna try this hard to put players in the "Made worse with Jordan" section? I mean Threatt played with another team on that same season before going to the Bulls and he dropped by 0.3?

For Lebron...just looking at JR's...i don't really see any proof there his BPM is better with Lebron....his had one season where it's highest...but the other 2 are low....

The season prior to the midseason trade that brought he and Lebron together, he was +0.7. The year before that he was +0.1. In the season of the trade he was a -4.3 BPM prior to the trade; jumped to +2.9 in that first half-season with Lebron (nearly 1,500 minutes played). A change of +7.2. It’s only because I’m not tunnel-visioning on that one season that I don’t color-code it red. In his first FULL season with Lebron (‘16), he was +1.3; he hadn’t matched that since ‘13 (hadn’t bested it since ‘12). And all of this while turning 30 after the ‘15 season (I mention this because he’s a crazy athletic guard with [by NBA standards] a relatively limited skillset outside of his perimeter shooting…...those types of players tend to drop off quickly not real far after age 30). Hard to put a lot of stock in ‘17 so far, as part of the limited amount he’s played this year was with injury to his shooting hand, iirc.

Again, it's easy to place JR on the unchanged depending on what context you use....the only thing i'm trying to point out that your "favouring Jordan" statement...i really don't see it.

why don't we call that an outlier like u do with some of Jordan's team mates and put him in the no change category?

I’m happy to re-evaluate anyone if you can be more specific.

You stated that about Horace Grant's 92 season with Jordan (when what i see is him rapidly improving from 91 to 92 before the 93 season where the Bulls were in cruise mode).

You also stated that about Love's BPM, what i saw how he was improving (outside that injury season)....but you then stated that '14 season was an outlier.

Why don't we call Kyries 1st season with Lebron as an outlier since his had the 2 worst BPM of his career with him and place him in the made worse category?

Regardless of how you have categorised it....the bottom line is, the players (high minutes) that skew the sBPM the most are on the made worse category with Lebron.

Perhaps, though they’re also the ones with the most context regarding the BPM changes. And again, parapooper’s already gone thru and created a hypothetical sBPM for the ‘11 Heat giving all members credit for their ‘10 BPM’s (which improved the ‘11 Heat supporting cast BPM by +0.6).......but it was still lower than that of MJ’s supporting cast in ‘92, ‘95-’98.

Regardless if the '10 BPM's being lower to the greatest championship teams in terms of MJ's sBPM....for a support team comprising of Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and a lot of other role players not really havng that major rise (like you see with some other greats) in there BPM with Lebron...it begs the question right?

[trex_8063]

But you're the one that initially categorised it like that right? You categorised Mike Brown based on his 1st and 2nd year BPM and then ignored it for Sedale Threatt?

But it's a little different between the two......
For Brown, his first two seasons are with the Bulls. So for him those years it's all I have to go on (and he doesn't appear to make significant gains (as measured by BPM) from year one to year two; he does make a significant leap upon leaving (and then again in his 4th season), however).
Sedale, otoh, doesn't join the Bulls until halfway thru his FOURTH season, and we had already seen significant gains from rookie year to year two in the league (which was maintained into year three and beyond). i.e. he was clearly no longer the player that he was as a rookie by the time he reached Chicago.

I'm just pointing out that since you stated that you were "favouring Jordan in your categorisation". Also Threatt had 40 games with Jordan....40!.

Actually he played 85 in Chicago (40 in '87, 45 in '88).
And while he initially seems to make a stride forward in his first half season with the Bulls, he regresses slightly in his second half-season; then makes a pretty giant leap forward after leaving Chicago (was -2.8 BPM in first half of '88 with Bulls, +2.9 in admittedly tiny sample over second half of season with Seattle; then maintains BPM >0 (or even >1) over next two full seasons, though).

I'll change color-coding to blue (for small change), but an overall shift is there. And again: I'm looking at years immediately around the trades (on BOTH) sides, with preferential focus on those nearest the trade: Threatt was a -3.2 BPM in the 1.5 seasons prior to joining Chicago (-2.9 BPM in the 2.5 seasons prior to joining them), -2.4 BPM during his 85 games with Chicago, then a +0.9 BPM in his first 1.5 seasons after leaving Chicago (+1.1 BPM in the first 2.5 seasons after leaving).

For Lebron...just looking at JR's...i don't really see any proof there his BPM is better with Lebron....his had one season where it's highest...but the other 2 are low....

The season prior to the midseason trade that brought he and Lebron together, he was +0.7. The year before that he was +0.1. In the season of the trade he was a -4.3 BPM prior to the trade; jumped to +2.9 in that first half-season with Lebron (nearly 1,500 minutes played). A change of +7.2. It’s only because I’m not tunnel-visioning on that one season that I don’t color-code it red. In his first FULL season with Lebron (‘16), he was +1.3; he hadn’t matched that since ‘13 (hadn’t bested it since ‘12). And all of this while turning 30 after the ‘15 season (I mention this because he’s a crazy athletic guard with [by NBA standards] a relatively limited skillset outside of his perimeter shooting…...those types of players tend to drop off quickly not real far after age 30). Hard to put a lot of stock in ‘17 so far, as part of the limited amount he’s played this year was with injury to his shooting hand, iirc.

Again, it's easy to place JR on the unchanged depending on what context you use....the only thing i'm trying to point out that your "favouring Jordan" statement...i really don't see it.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. When I see a shift of +7.2 within the same season after switching teams (and nearly 1,500 minutes played with Lebron in that half-season), I can't fathom how one can label that insignificant. Especially when we see in the following full season a BPM that is roughly +1 to the last two full seasons he played with another franchise.

why don't we call that an outlier like u do with some of Jordan's team mates and put him in the no change category?

I’m happy to re-evaluate anyone if you can be more specific.

You stated that about Horace Grant's 92 season with Jordan (when what i see is him rapidly improving from 91 to 92 before the 93 season where the Bulls were in cruise mode).

You also stated that about Love's BPM, what i saw how he was improving (outside that injury season)....but you then stated that '14 season was an outlier.

It is an outlier. But regardless, I already have Love color-coded in red (for large change) in the "worse with Lebron" category. What more do you want?

Why don't we call Kyries 1st season with Lebron as an outlier since his had the 2 worst BPM of his career with him and place him in the made worse category?

Perhaps, though they’re also the ones with the most context regarding the BPM changes. And again, parapooper’s already gone thru and created a hypothetical sBPM for the ‘11 Heat giving all members credit for their ‘10 BPM’s (which improved the ‘11 Heat supporting cast BPM by +0.6).......but it was still lower than that of MJ’s supporting cast in ‘92, ‘95-’98.

Regardless if the '10 BPM's being lower to the greatest championship teams in terms of MJ's sBPM....for a support team comprising of Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and a lot of other role players not really havng that major rise (like you see with some other greats) in there BPM with Lebron...it begs the question right?

I don't know how to answer, because I'm not seeing the "major rise" you refer to (not with Jordan's casts, anyway).

[parapooper]

Right i can see what you have done. Were you able to seperate the tBPM from the actual series that they played in the finals? Since playoffs has a 50% weight in your tBPM, so any series in the playoffs (could approximately) have a big impact on the tBPM playoffs weight.

No, I just got the RS and PS BPMs from BB Reference - they don't have series-by-series advanced stats (except gamescore which is lie PER or worse). These stats try to show how good the supporting casts and opponents were during the season and the correlation with titles is great, so I am happy with that.

Since Lebron's teams have lost a few finals...it could add to their opponents tBPM. And a reverse with Jordan's teams since Jordan's teams dominated the finals.

Yes, finals series contribute about 1/8th to the numbers - why exactly would we exclude how Jordan's and LBJ's supporting casts played in the finals though? I wish I could upweight team performance in decisive series but a) I don't have the data and b) this was enough boring work as it is.
First round series actually contribute 1/2 the number, but then they show exactly how well supporting cast and opponent played in the exact series that decided title vs. no title, so it makes sense to overweight the actual series. For the first round series you can indeed say that players who are really strong defenders have slightly lowered matchup numbers because in that scenario their defense would have some effect on opponent BPM.
Roughly estimated, if a player plays forty minutes, then 40/48 x 1/5 x (1/2 + 4/82) = 9% of the time the opponent would have been defended by the player in question - a player with DRtg of 95 vs a league average of 104 would then lower his opponents tBPM as I caclulate it for the season by about 1%
For a finals series of a 102 DRtg player these numbers would be 40/48 x 1/5 x (1/4 + 2/82)= 2.4 and 0.05% -
edit: actualy even lower 40/48 x 1/5 x (1/2 + 4/82 x1/2) and 40/48 x 1/5 x (1/4 x1/2 + 2/82x1/2)

And this can have massive effect on opponents for earlier rounds (i.e 8th seed vs 1st seed in rd 1)....the 8th rd tBPM possibly could be really effected negatively since that makes up 50% of the tBPM (and its a severe mismatch and does not reflect the average tBPM from RS when playing a more evenly distributed types of opponents). So your stats showing the average per series for MJ vs Lebron could be underating how easy those teams are on the east for Lebron, since 50% of there tBPM is measured vs a weaker east teams due to the seperate conference outside of the finals.

Or am i missing something here? Correct me if im wrong.

If LBJ's teams play significantly weaker teams before the finals and the finals opponent harder ones than that increases LeBron's sBPM and decreases opponent tBPM and thus makes LeBron's matchups (in the finals) look easier than they actually are.
Big of you to point out this strong pro-LeBron argument. However the effect is obviously not that big since the correlation of opptBPM-sBPM with titles is so great.

Why use the '93 Bulls when you know they were cruising? Theres 91 and 92 years also to choose from.

Because they are adjacent years with the most similar casts
92 is about on par with '94 and '91 roughly like '93 (they are all pretty close together

Because without using rings (which is the main objective for players at this level)....the stats don't hold much weight.

You can draw your own conclusions....but winning a ring and winning it consistantly leaves little room for excuses (everything seems to fall just right). We can analyse it to death on why a certain player didn't win....up to the point where he first laid eyes and picked up a bball..but i find that it leads to just excuses.

I calculated objective stats the same for every GOATish player I could and shared them and the obvious conclusion. Then you answered with tons of cherry-picked arguments on why things are different for two players you have a personal opinion on.
And I am the one making excuses?

I look at MJ and his 6 rings in just over 10 years...then I look at his individual impact, his teams flourishing playing with him, those critical moments where he rose to the occasion...really it all makes sense.

We went over this, MJ's supporting casts were, if anything slightly better without him and there is zero evidence he made them better. And his supporting casts in his final years were already so close to his opponents that he hardly had any critical moments when he had to rise to the occasion - a pro-MJ poster posted somewhere here he didn't even need game 7s.

Plus, to invalidate my conclusions you would also have to show that all the other players also made their opponents worse (for the entire season) in the years they won because of that as well as making their own casts better.

Why for instance did rookie Duncan decide to make his team with still prime Robinson better, then didn't do it for the next couple of years, then decided to make his team better again when he got Ginobili and Parker, then decided not to do that anymore for a while and then suddenly decided to make his teams better again when he got Kawhi?
Or why did Kobe make the Lakers so good in the early and late 2000's but chose to make them horrible just when he was at peak basketaball age? Seems like a strange decision to me.
Why didn't Garnett make the Timberwolves as good as he made the Celtics the minute he got there?
I mean, that's already a completely insane line of reasoning before you try to explain how Duncan made the 2013 Heat better and 2014 Heat worse all season. The only reason it sounds slightly less ridiculous for MJ is because his easy matchups happened to cluster.

[mysticOscar]

Right i can see what you have done. Were you able to seperate the tBPM from the actual series that they played in the finals? Since playoffs has a 50% weight in your tBPM, so any series in the playoffs (could approximately) have a big impact on the tBPM playoffs weight.

No, I just got the RS and PS BPMs from BB Reference - they don't have series-by-series advanced stats (except gamescore which is lie PER or worse). These stats try to show how good the supporting casts and opponents were during the season and the correlation with titles is great, so I am happy with that.

Since Lebron's teams have lost a few finals...it could add to their opponents tBPM. And a reverse with Jordan's teams since Jordan's teams dominated the finals.

Yes, finals series contribute about 1/8th to the numbers - why exactly would we exclude how Jordan's and LBJ's supporting casts played in the finals though? I wish I could upweight team performance in decisive series but a) I don't have the data and b) this was enough boring work as it is.
First round series actually contribute 1/2 the number, but then they show exactly how well supporting cast and opponent played in the exact series that decided title vs. no title, so it makes sense to overweight the actual series. For the first round series you can indeed say that players who are really strong defenders have slightly lowered matchup numbers because in that scenario their defense would have some effect on opponent BPM.
Roughly estimated, if a player plays forty minutes, then 40/48 x 1/5 x (1/2 + 4/82) = 9% of the time the opponent would have been defended by the player in question - a player with DRtg of 95 vs a league average of 104 would then lower his opponents tBPM as I caclulate it for the season by about 1%
For a finals series of a 102 DRtg player these numbers would be 40/48 x 1/5 x (1/4 + 2/82)= 2.4 and 0.05% -
edit: actualy even lower 40/48 x 1/5 x (1/2 + 4/82 x1/2) and 40/48 x 1/5 x (1/4 x1/2 + 2/82x1/2)

And this can have massive effect on opponents for earlier rounds (i.e 8th seed vs 1st seed in rd 1)....the 8th rd tBPM possibly could be really effected negatively since that makes up 50% of the tBPM (and its a severe mismatch and does not reflect the average tBPM from RS when playing a more evenly distributed types of opponents). So your stats showing the average per series for MJ vs Lebron could be underating how easy those teams are on the east for Lebron, since 50% of there tBPM is measured vs a weaker east teams due to the seperate conference outside of the finals.

Or am i missing something here? Correct me if im wrong.

If LBJ's teams play significantly weaker teams before the finals and the finals opponent harder ones than that increases LeBron's sBPM and decreases opponent tBPM and thus makes LeBron's matchups (in the finals) look easier than they actually are.
Big of you to point out this strong pro-LeBron argument. However the effect is obviously not that big since the correlation of opptBPM-sBPM with titles is so great.

Sure you can make that hypothesis also...and you can make a case that the finals sBPM for Lebron is a little bit overrated based on that. But this also makes the case stronger that Lebron surpresses the sBPM ceiling.

Why use the '93 Bulls when you know they were cruising? Theres 91 and 92 years also to choose from.

Because they are adjacent years with the most similar casts
92 is about on par with '94 and '91 roughly like '93 (they are all pretty close together

Because without using rings (which is the main objective for players at this level)....the stats don't hold much weight.

You can draw your own conclusions....but winning a ring and winning it consistantly leaves little room for excuses (everything seems to fall just right). We can analyse it to death on why a certain player didn't win....up to the point where he first laid eyes and picked up a bball..but i find that it leads to just excuses.

I calculated objective stats the same for every GOATish player I could and shared them and the obvious conclusion. Then you answered with tons of cherry-picked arguments on why things are different for two players you have a personal opinion on.
And I am the one making excuses?

Well Lebron played with many role players, old, young...none that really blossomed...then we made the excuse that well his players just weren't good enough. Then he played with talented players (that he literally chose himself)...and now were saying, well they are first options...of course they are going to struggle to integrate. None of Lebron's team in his 13 years had any great sBPM...and he has been with different teams several times. I'm the one making excuses? All i'm doing is asking the question...is Lebron really that unlucky?

I look at MJ and his 6 rings in just over 10 years...then I look at his individual impact, his teams flourishing playing with him, those critical moments where he rose to the occasion...really it all makes sense.

We went over this, MJ's supporting casts were, if anything slightly better without him and there is zero evidence he made them better. And his supporting casts in his final years were already so close to his opponents that he hardly had any critical moments when he had to rise to the occasion - a pro-MJ poster posted somewhere here he didn't even need game 7s.

Plus, to invalidate my conclusions you would also have to show that all the other players also made their opponents worse (for the entire season) in the years they won because of that as well as making their own casts better.

Why for instance did rookie Duncan decide to make his team with still prime Robinson better, then didn't do it for the next couple of years, then decided to make his team better again when he got Ginobili and Parker, then decided not to do that anymore for a while and then suddenly decided to make his teams better again when he got Kawhi?
Or why did Kobe make the Lakers so good in the early and late 2000's but chose to make them horrible just when he was at peak basketaball age? Seems like a strange decision to me.
Why didn't Garnett make the Timberwolves as good as he made the Celtics the minute he got there?
I mean, that's already a completely insane line of reasoning before you try to explain how Duncan made the 2013 Heat better and 2014 Heat worse all season. The only reason it sounds slightly less ridiculous for MJ is because his easy matchups happened to cluster.

Maybe just maybe Duncan and those other players integrated there game well with other players and allowed them to grow and enabled them to maximise there impact?

I mean, you mention Garnett... i bet that if we look at Garnett's sBPM with Minnisota (and his team is notorious for having a bad team)....i bet his average sBPM will look similar to Lebron's with his first stint with Cleveland. I wouldn't be suprised if Garnett's avg sBPM with Mini will even be higher's than Lebron's first stint with Cavs.

But, Lebron is meant to be a player maker and elevate team mates right? How could this be when Garnett...whose strength is defensive assignment can elevate his team mates BPM impact just as high as Lebrons? Then we look at Garnett moving to Boston, with talented players...i mean, there total synergy from what i see was outstanding! And i'm sure that will be reflected with his sBPM. So we can say...Garnett can integrate his skills better than Lebron right? Since if he plays with crappy role players...his elevation on sBPM is as high as Lebrons...but Garnett can integrate MUCH better with talented players.

Lebron shoots too much for someone that dominates assist %....and when his not involved, his not as engaged. Thats what i see..especially in his first stint with the Cavs.

BUT....if Lebron wins rings....all of that does not matter! Because he won right? Whose to say that he has to integrate his game better with team mates when he wins it anyway? Lebron is in my top 3 of all time....because he has won 3 championships...and I have seen him take his team (regardless of how bad there synergy is) to the finals 7 times and he was the main reason why that is.

Am i making sense? (About why i highly rate rings...i just don't want to continue going round and round about it)

[parapooper]

.....

I mean, you mention Garnett... i bet that if we look at Garnett's sBPM with Minnisota (and his team is notorious for having a bad team)....i bet his average sBPM will look similar to Lebron's with his first stint with Cleveland. I wouldn't be suprised if Garnett's avg sBPM with Mini will even be higher's than Lebron's first stint with Cavs.

But, Lebron is meant to be a player maker and elevate team mates right? How could this be when Garnett...whose strength is defensive assignment can elevate his team mates BPM impact just as high as Lebrons? Then we look at Garnett moving to Boston, with talented players...i mean, there total synergy from what i see was outstanding! And i'm sure that will be reflected with his sBPM. So we can say...Garnett can integrate his skills better than Lebron right? Since if he plays with crappy role players...his elevation on sBPM is as high as Lebrons...but Garnett can integrate MUCH better with talented players.

Lebron shoots too much for someone that dominates assist %....and when his not involved, his not as engaged. Thats what i see..especially in his first stint with the Cavs.

BUT....if Lebron wins rings....all of that does not matter! Because he won right? Whose to say that he has to integrate his game better with team mates when he wins it anyway? Lebron is in my top 3 of all time....because he has won 3 championships...and I have seen him take his team (regardless of how bad there synergy is) to the finals 7 times and he was the main reason why that is.

Am i making sense? (About why i highly rate rings...i just don't want to continue going round and round about it)

Getting a bit tired of this - it has just been you making stuff up and going on rants based on what you are making up for a while now.

LeBron's sBPM with early Cavs(06-10): -0.438
Garnett's sBPM with Wolves ('99-07): -0.83
prime Garnett's (at maximum cast lifting capacity) sBPM last 3 years with Wolves: -1.43 (did not make PS)

Plus LeBron makes at least the second round since age 21 and the finals at age 22 while Garnett spent almost his entire prime failing in the first round or missing the playoff. I don't consider that to mean much if anything but in your world where matchup difficulty is irrelevant that should make LeBron better at lifting casts by an absolutely insane amount - yet there you go again contradicting your own arguments and saying Garnett lifted his casts more. So you are not even consistent.

Then Garnett goes from a -1.6 sBPM cast with Wolves in '07 to a +1.65 cast with Celtics in '08 and you interpret that to mean rings depend on player more than supporting cast ... I mean wtf
And as for Garnett's impact on his sBPM:
2006: -1.65
2007: - 1.58 (same cast +0.07 year-to-year change)
2008: +1.65 (new cast: +3.23 year-to-year change)
But according to you that wasn't because the different supporting cast, no it was because Garnett suddenly got infinitely better at lifting casts at the exact moment he got a completely new cast

And no, I don't use LeBron's rings and finals to rank him - you do that, I find it nonsensical. I mean, it's only what this entire thread is about ..
And for all the things you say LeBron does wrong he does surprisingly well in impact stats:
https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-rapm-2
even compared to impact-god MJ:
https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/xrapm-per-100-91-14


Sure GOAT's teams would mostly not win their titles without them - they provide a large chunk of their tBPMs as you see from my stats. But as the stats show, once you have a guy of that caliber their ability to win titles depends much more on the large differences in their matchup difficulties than on the comparativeley small differences in their own performances.
Garnett wentfrom missing the PS to a title in '08 - his pBPM went +0.2 from '07 to '08, but the sBPM went up +3.2 and he ran into not-too-tough opponents
Garnett's matchup difficulty in MIN: 2.45 (and that's for his "good" teams that made the playoffs)
Garnett's matchup difficulty for his title with BOS: 0.69
Garnett's matchup difficulty with aging BOS: 1.27 (doable, but he was aging as well)

[homecourtloss]

I don't get this whole mindset of "who do you want insert dribbling/shooting/doing anything on the court" as if that means no one else should touch the ball much less shoot it. I get it if your teammates are not talented but they do need to be involved or a whole lot of people need to recant their statements about 2006 Kobe.

Just because a player on your team is talented or is better at something than another teammate does not mean they should dominate the ball and usage. Larry Bird was the best shooter on the team but he passed it out to Ainge and Dennis Johnson for game deciding shots all the time. He did not mitigate them because he was a better shooter. He did not tell Kevin McHale and Robert Parish to get out of the post, I'm Larry Bird I should be doing all the shooting.

Magic Johnson, even after he took over as the #1 option/playmaker on the Lakers still gave the ball to Kareem when they needed a high percentage shot. In fact Pat Riley would hold his fist in the air indicating that the team would clear out for Kareem to go one on one even when he was 37 and 38 years old.

Tim Duncan was the best option for the Spurs every time but the way the Spurs built their team everybody contributed. Tim pulled back and did not mitigate the growth/development of Parker/Ginobli/Kahwi and even helped benefit the role players like Bowen/Bonner.

You don't bring in a big man with post skills and then tell him to clear out, that is ridiculous......

He has been mentored and his growth as a player, on and off the court, is large.

I vehemently disagree with you here. LeBron has actually stunted Kyrie's growth as a player, leaving his progressiong quite... Flat, tbh.

Kyrie has stunted his own growth. He still doesn't defend and his playmaking is mediocre because of his lack of court vision and general unwillingness to create enen though he should be able to given his skills. He had plenty of time to develop these things at least a little before James went back to Cleveland (yeah, he was young, awful coaching, etc., but some progress should be shown). Kyrie as a team's best player = lottery.

[kayess]

He has been mentored and his growth as a player, on and off the court, is large.

I vehemently disagree with you here. LeBron has actually stunted Kyrie's growth as a player, leaving his progressiong quite... Flat, tbh.

Kyrie has stunted his own growth. He still doesn't defend and his playmaking is mediocre because of his lack of court vision and general unwillingness to create enen though he should be able to given his skills. He had plenty of time to develop these things at least a little before James went back to Cleveland (yeah, he was young, awful coaching, etc., but some progress should be shown). Kyrie as a team's best player = lottery.

I must be extremely **** at being sarcastic/making puns.

I was making a "Kyrie thinks the earth is flat joke"

[mysticOscar]

.....

I mean, you mention Garnett... i bet that if we look at Garnett's sBPM with Minnisota (and his team is notorious for having a bad team)....i bet his average sBPM will look similar to Lebron's with his first stint with Cleveland. I wouldn't be suprised if Garnett's avg sBPM with Mini will even be higher's than Lebron's first stint with Cavs.

But, Lebron is meant to be a player maker and elevate team mates right? How could this be when Garnett...whose strength is defensive assignment can elevate his team mates BPM impact just as high as Lebrons? Then we look at Garnett moving to Boston, with talented players...i mean, there total synergy from what i see was outstanding! And i'm sure that will be reflected with his sBPM. So we can say...Garnett can integrate his skills better than Lebron right? Since if he plays with crappy role players...his elevation on sBPM is as high as Lebrons...but Garnett can integrate MUCH better with talented players.

Lebron shoots too much for someone that dominates assist %....and when his not involved, his not as engaged. Thats what i see..especially in his first stint with the Cavs.

BUT....if Lebron wins rings....all of that does not matter! Because he won right? Whose to say that he has to integrate his game better with team mates when he wins it anyway? Lebron is in my top 3 of all time....because he has won 3 championships...and I have seen him take his team (regardless of how bad there synergy is) to the finals 7 times and he was the main reason why that is.

Am i making sense? (About why i highly rate rings...i just don't want to continue going round and round about it)

Getting a bit tired of this - it has just been you making stuff up and going on rants based on what you are making up for a while now.

LeBron's sBPM with early Cavs(06-10): -0.438
Garnett's sBPM with Wolves ('99-07): -0.83
prime Garnett's (at maximum cast lifting capacity) sBPM last 3 years with Wolves: -1.43 (did not make PS)

I calculated the stats from BBallRef. Not sure why it doesn't match yours? I got the total for all seasons for each individual (support BPM * min) then divided by total mins....Here's what I got.

Regular Season Only sBPM
Garnet sBPM ('96 to '07): -0.99
LBJ sBPM ('04 to '10): -1.06

For there full the stint in there first teams, Garnett actually has a higher sBPM.

For the seasons you have chosen, i got:
Regular Season Only sBPM
Garnett sBPM ('99-'07): -0.96
LBJ sBPM ('06 to '10): -0.85

LBJ has a slight edge. So how am i making stuff up? It actually correlates to what i assumed!! Very similar in sBPM.

There is no point in adding the playoffs since Lebron's pBPM has taken the Cavs to better seeds, while Garnett managed to get lower seeds hence playing the best team in his conference in a lot of years...which greatly affect the sBPM since in your formula, playoffs is 50% of the weight. We have already pointed this in previous posts...which you agreed on, but if you must know:

50% RS + 50% PO sBPM
Garnett sBPM ('99-'07): -0.68
LBJ sBPM ('06 to '10): -0.48

Not sure how you calculated yours. Just double check your numbers (its a pretty labourious task...easy to make mistake)...i tripled checked just to make sure i didnt accidentally make a mistake.

Plus LeBron makes at least the second round since age 21 and the finals at age 22 while Garnett spent almost his entire prime failing in the first round or missing the playoff. I don't consider that to mean much if anything but in your world where matchup difficulty is irrelevant that should make LeBron better at lifting casts by an absolutely insane amount - yet there you go again contradicting your own arguments and saying Garnett lifted his casts more. So you are not even consistent.

Lebron is better at lifting his cast to deeper into playoffs because of his great pBPM. Let me make this clearer...because its not sinking in for you....you used sBPM vs opp tBPM in your original post to make your conclusions right? I'm saying to you that its lacking context, because you see, theres a high probablity that Lebron's style of play is the cause of that sBPM ceiling that his teams seem to have.

Let me be clear also, that him taking his team deep to the playoffs does not disprove that he doesn't raise sBPM. It's just because individually, LBJ is a dominant player....and his pBPM can raise the tBPM. I don't know how i can be any clearer than this.

Then Garnett goes from a -1.6 sBPM cast with Wolves in '07 to a +1.65 cast with Celtics in '08 and you interpret that to mean rings depend on player more than supporting cast ... I mean wtf
And as for Garnett's impact on his sBPM:
2006: -1.65
2007: - 1.58 (same cast +0.07 year-to-year change)
2008: +1.65 (new cast: +3.23 year-to-year change)
But according to you that wasn't because the different supporting cast, no it was because Garnett suddenly got infinitely better at lifting casts at the exact moment he got a completely new cast

Again you are not really getting it. I'm telling you that there is a great case that Garnett can integrate his game with more players and therefore has a overall better chance of raising sBPM. When he went to Boston and played with other talented players...his sBPM is a lot higher than Lebron when LEbron played with talented players. When Garnett played with so called "scrubs", as we saw...his sBPM was similar to Lebron when he also played with so called "scrubs"....even tho, Lebron is meant to be a play maker and Garnett is known to be just defensive anchor...how does Garnett raise the sBPM as high as Lebron?

And no, I don't use LeBron's rings and finals to rank him - you do that, I find it nonsensical. I mean, it's only what this entire thread is about ..
And for all the things you say LeBron does wrong he does surprisingly well in impact stats:
https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-rapm-2
even compared to impact-god MJ:
https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/xrapm-per-100-91-14

Stop confusing this with pBPM or personal impact. Geez!

If it wasn't for Lebron winning the rings....what is the point of him accumulating the stats? There is good evidence that he limits sBPM ceiling...and it makes sense to me. I mean he dominates assist %, while having a pretty high fga, fta volume and to top that off, his treb% is quite high. I mean...that speaks loudly of how much he dominates the ball in all areas of his team...which stunts the growth of a lot of players or limits established players roles that come across to the team.

So is that how we should measure GOATS? Do great players, before they retire, think..."hey, i want to leave a legacy where i will just dominate every category on my team!" But at the end of the day, the rings is the greatest judge right. If a player who just dominates all categories...and really leaves his team mates not as invovled....who cares right? if he got the main objective and won the ring. Whose to say it was a bad strategy, when he actually won it?

Sure GOAT's teams would mostly not win their titles without them - they provide a large chunk of their tBPMs as you see from my stats. But as the stats show, once you have a guy of that caliber their ability to win titles depends much more on the large differences in their matchup difficulties than on the comparativeley small differences in their own performances.
Garnett wentfrom missing the PS to a title in '08 - his pBPM went +0.2 from '07 to '08, but the sBPM went up +3.2 and he ran into not-too-tough opponents
Garnett's matchup difficulty in MIN: 2.45 (and that's for his "good" teams that made the playoffs)
Garnett's matchup difficulty for his title with BOS: 0.69
Garnett's matchup difficulty with aging BOS: 1.27 (doable, but he was aging as well)

But what you need to understand is if a player after 13 years...regardlesss of what team mates they have always have a low sBPM...then maybe just maybe, his part to blame??