People who don't have Jordan as GOAT: What metric(s) would make you change your mind?

[70sFan]

And there's 0 chance LeBron produces better offenses playing even more off the ball and letting Scottie Pippen play point guard. It's a ridiculous notion.

It is ridiculous statement, a statement nobody stated in this thread. What's your point? Who argued that James would do better with Pippen?

LeBron has played with 5 different guys that proved to be bigger offensive forces, and they all molded their game around fitting next to LeBron except for probably Kyrie(who is an excellent off ball shooting threat), and Anthony Davis who is possibly the best off the ball player in the sport outside of Stephen Curry, and the results are still good, but not super special offenses aside from small stretches.

5 different guys better than peak Pippen on offense? Who exactly? Love or Bosh? Seriously?

So of these 5, you already mentioned 2 that fit better with James than would with Jordan. Yes, Kyrie with Jordan wouldn't work as well. Neither Jordan + Davis would.

If you call three full postseason runs "small stretches", then you shouldn't take playoffs into account at all.

Maybe LeBron teams don't play hard in the regular season or something, but the results are NOT about equal to me, because sustained all time great offenses for an entire season and capping it with titles is much more impressive than merely top 5-10 offenses for full seasons, trouncing some garbage low seeds and then looking tepid on offense again against the elite teams of the west.

When did James teams look "tepid" offensively against the elite teams of the West? Are you aware that James faced ATG defensive competition in 2011-14 postseason runs? Teams like Celtics, Pacers or Bulls were far from "garbage low seeds" and James dominated against them.

I just don't see how there is any argument that either A) The results were similar on offense or in terms of total dominance or B)That Jordan's teams were more talented offensively or somehow so much of a better fit that it propelled Jordan's teams that much higher.

Well, we have seen how Bulls fared without Jordan and they didn't collapse. They actually competed for the title


If you mostly judge players abilities on RS performances, then I agree that James doesn't have any case over Jordan offensively. It doesn't mean that James has no case at all.

[Stalwart]

LeBron James has never led the best offense in the league, and has only led the 2nd best offense ONCE. I can't imagine putting him somewhere with two paint occupying big men, and a swing man who was at his best playing point guard with the ball in his hand as a tepid shooter, and moving LeBron to a more off ball role was the key to unlocking his ability to lead all time great offenses.

Quoting for truth

[AEnigma]

And there's 0 chance LeBron produces better offenses playing even more off the ball and letting Scottie Pippen play point guard. It's a ridiculous notion…

LeBron James has never led the best offense in the league, and has only led the 2nd best offense ONCE. I can't imagine putting him somewhere with two paint occupying big men, and a swing man who was at his best playing point guard with the ball in his hand as a tepid shooter, and moving LeBron to a more off ball role was the key to unlocking his ability to lead all time great offenses.

And how good was the offence when Jordan was asked to play as a true point?

They were 2-2 in the finals for a reason, and a huge part of why is LeBron's failure to produce on offense at GOAT levels at some times when the team got really desperate for it on occasion. He obviously was phenomenal at other times as well, he's amazing, but there were long stretches that nearly or DID cost them multiple times with LeBron being challenged to shoot, or giving the ball up entirely too much because he couldn't get to spots he wanted to.

Yeah maybe if Lebron had been more of a chucker he could have won more.

I realise you see 2011 as an unforgivable stain on his legacy that can never be recovered literally no matter what he did afterward, but extending it to his entire career takes the absurdity of that stance to a new level. When else was he costing his teams because he was too passive or whatever.

There were plenty of times Jordan could have chucked his teams out of games and series, but it did not matter because his opponent lacked the talent and schematic advantage to exploit those shortcomings in that era. Instead of Paul George and the Spurs’ Wingstop duo, poor Jordan had to endure man defence from Bryon Russell and Danny Ainge.

PS, while we're on the subject, Chris Paul led better offenses with less talent too

So his teams must have totally collapsed on offence whenever he missed time, right? Because they were so devoid of talent and all.

[tone wone]

Maybe. But that’s part of the trade off when everybody has to stand at the 3 point line to make space for LeBron to set up and dribble with shooters all over.

Make space for the 40% 3pt shooter and not the SG who made 26 3's combined in 2013 (17) & 2014 (9)???


I'd love to hear more about how Wade molded his game around Lebron

[Stalwart]

I'd love to hear more about how Wade molded his game around Lebron

"I definitely changed mine more. It's not even a conversation. There's no conversation to have. I definitely had to change mine more." - Dwyane Wade on playing with Lebron James

"It was one of those things where I constantly had to reinvent myself. I don’t think I ever all the way got used to it because I had to morph…” - Chris Bosh on playing with Lebron James

[Djoker]

Even adjusted for opponents DRtg, it's a lot easier to overachieve against weaker teams. For instance I don't think it's a coincidence that the 1991 Bulls had the best PS rORtg of all the Bulls runs considering that was their easiest run in terms of competition. Lebron facing a lot more bad/mediocre teams in the Eastern Conference is inflating those numbers.

LeBron faced some of the best defensive teams ever during that period though. 2011 Celtics, 2012 Celtics, 2012-14 Pacers, 2013-14 Spurs... Strictly in terms of defense faced, James faced absolutely stellar competition in that period. His opponents were far weaker during 2015-18 period actually.

Wade's usage rate in 2013 and 2014 was very Pippen-esque and Jordan played off ball next to Pippen so I don't see a reason he couldn't do it next to Wade. We don't know but it isn't a stretch IMO.

Maybe, although style-wise Pippen and Wade are nothing alike.

You can't separate offense from defense. When you're facing a team that is poor offensively (as those Celtics and Pacers teams were) you can rest more on the defensive end which gives you more energy for offense. And those very impressive defensive ratings were accumulated by mainly facing weaker East teams in the first place. That's why it's very plausible that the best team in the West in 2014 for instance (Spurs) was actually better than the Pacers on defense as well as offense.

If anything, if I was comparing team quality, I would compare Net Ratings. You can't really separate offense from defense. They are connected both sequentially (i.e. a steal leading to a fast break) and strategically (i.e. lineups fielded on the court).

[falcolombardi]

Even adjusted for opponents DRtg, it's a lot easier to overachieve against weaker teams. For instance I don't think it's a coincidence that the 1991 Bulls had the best PS rORtg of all the Bulls runs considering that was their easiest run in terms of competition. Lebron facing a lot more bad/mediocre teams in the Eastern Conference is inflating those numbers.

LeBron faced some of the best defensive teams ever during that period though. 2011 Celtics, 2012 Celtics, 2012-14 Pacers, 2013-14 Spurs... Strictly in terms of defense faced, James faced absolutely stellar competition in that period. His opponents were far weaker during 2015-18 period actually.

Wade's usage rate in 2013 and 2014 was very Pippen-esque and Jordan played off ball next to Pippen so I don't see a reason he couldn't do it next to Wade. We don't know but it isn't a stretch IMO.

Maybe, although style-wise Pippen and Wade are nothing alike.

You can't separate offense from defense. When you're facing a team that is poor offensively (as those Celtics and Pacers teams were) you can rest more on the defensive end which gives you more energy for offense. And those very impressive defensive ratings were accumulated by mainly facing weaker East teams in the first place. That's why it's very plausible that the best team in the West in 2014 for instance (Spurs) was actually better than the Pacers on defense as well as offense.

If anything, if I was comparing team quality, I would compare Net Ratings. You can't really separate offense from defense. They are connected both sequentially (i.e. a steal leading to a fast break) and strategically (i.e. lineups fielded on the court).

According to this reasoning having a good defensive rating against bill russel celtics would be equally impressive to having a good defensive rating against steve nash suns because, well, you are spending more energy scoring against celtics elite defense that you would against suns paper thin defense

Or viceversa having a good offense agains nash suns defense would be equally impressive to having a good offense against bill russel celtics defense because you are spending more energy defending against the suns offense

At that point there is no, well, point to having separate offense and defensive ratings

[AEnigma]

I'd love to hear more about how Wade molded his game around Lebron

"I definitely changed mine more. It's not even a conversation. There's no conversation to have. I definitely had to change mine more." - Dwyane Wade on playing with Lebron James

As always, absolutely nothing specific.

It would be nice if you could try to analyse the sport and what players are doing on the court rather than just spamming the same vague comments over and over again.

"It was one of those things where I constantly had to reinvent myself. I don’t think I ever all the way got used to it because I had to morph…” - Chris Bosh on playing with Lebron James

And how is Bosh’s reinvention explicitly tied to Lebron rather than to also playing alongside Wade and being a third option?

[70sFan]

You can't separate offense from defense. When you're facing a team that is poor offensively (as those Celtics and Pacers teams were) you can rest more on the defensive end which gives you more energy for offense. And those very impressive defensive ratings were accumulated by mainly facing weaker East teams in the first place. That's why it's very plausible that the best team in the West in 2014 for instance (Spurs) was actually better than the Pacers on defense as well as offense.

If anything, if I was comparing team quality, I would compare Net Ratings. You can't really separate offense from defense. They are connected both sequentially (i.e. a steal leading to a fast break) and strategically (i.e. lineups fielded on the court).

Well, 2013 and 2014 Pacers had better SRS than any team 1991 Bulls faced in the East. 2011 Bulls had higher SRS than any team Bulls faced in 1991-93 period. 2011 Celtics were better than 1992 Knicks and on similar level to 1993 Knicks. 1992-93 Knicks were also poor on offense and they gave Chicago as many problems as any team.

We are comparing offensive production here and you won't convince me that it was harder for Jordan to score against Suns than against Knicks in 1993...

[Homer38]

The offensive rating(and defensive) in the regular season can be misleading at times since star players play fewer minutes than before and also fewer games, especially at the end of the season when you know where the team will end up in the standing

Like in 2012, the heat had dropped to the 8th rank on offense because they rested their big three for at least 3 games in the last week....Same for 2013, when the heat was first in offense all year long until they rested the big three for most of the final 2-3 week, after their historic winning streak.In 2020, the Lakers were 4th in offensive rating before the pandemic and they dropped out of the top 10 after the 8 games in the bubble before the playoffs.

[capfan33]

Even adjusted for opponents DRtg, it's a lot easier to overachieve against weaker teams. For instance I don't think it's a coincidence that the 1991 Bulls had the best PS rORtg of all the Bulls runs considering that was their easiest run in terms of competition. Lebron facing a lot more bad/mediocre teams in the Eastern Conference is inflating those numbers.

LeBron faced some of the best defensive teams ever during that period though. 2011 Celtics, 2012 Celtics, 2012-14 Pacers, 2013-14 Spurs... Strictly in terms of defense faced, James faced absolutely stellar competition in that period. His opponents were far weaker during 2015-18 period actually.

Wade's usage rate in 2013 and 2014 was very Pippen-esque and Jordan played off ball next to Pippen so I don't see a reason he couldn't do it next to Wade. We don't know but it isn't a stretch IMO.

Maybe, although style-wise Pippen and Wade are nothing alike.

You can't separate offense from defense. When you're facing a team that is poor offensively (as those Celtics and Pacers teams were) you can rest more on the defensive end which gives you more energy for offense. And those very impressive defensive ratings were accumulated by mainly facing weaker East teams in the first place. That's why it's very plausible that the best team in the West in 2014 for instance (Spurs) was actually better than the Pacers on defense as well as offense.

If anything, if I was comparing team quality, I would compare Net Ratings. You can't really separate offense from defense. They are connected both sequentially (i.e. a steal leading to a fast break) and strategically (i.e. lineups fielded on the court).

The first part of this regarding energy seems like a stretch, we're talking about the NBA not high school lol. Energy/stamina is a factor of course. But given the level of competition and skill in the NBA, I think the idea that there's a major difference in energy expenditure when guarding, say, the 16th-ranked offense vs the 3rd-ranked offense is tenuous, there all NBA teams it's going to be **** hard regardless.

Moreover, other factors are more important, the 1st one that comes to mind is playstyle. For example, both the Harden-era Rockets and Spurs/Warriors were close to the top of the league in offense, but if I had to guess it takes more energy to guard the Spurs and Warriors than the Rockets despite the similar ranking. That's something you don't get from raw numbers.

Also, the whole "they got those ratings from playing weaker teams in the east", once again there all NBA teams. Differences are very very marginal, someone's already done this with the difference in team records playing in the east vs western conference, and the difference is like 2-3 wins at most. I wonder if anyone has the numbers here of these teams' DRTGs versus the east and west. I doubt the difference would be anything particularly important.

There's always nuance and granular detail you can look at when it comes to using any number as a proxy, but using defensive rating as a general proxy for how difficult it is to score against a team seems pretty solid to me overall.

[OhayoKD]

And there's 0 chance LeBron produces better offenses playing even more off the ball and letting Scottie Pippen play point guard. It's a ridiculous notion.

It is ridiculous statement, a statement nobody stated in this thread. What's your point? Who argued that James would do better with Pippen?

LeBron has played with 5 different guys that proved to be bigger offensive forces, and they all molded their game around fitting next to LeBron except for probably Kyrie(who is an excellent off ball shooting threat), and Anthony Davis who is possibly the best off the ball player in the sport outside of Stephen Curry, and the results are still good, but not super special offenses aside from small stretches.

5 different guys better than peak Pippen on offense? Who exactly? Love or Bosh? Seriously?

So of these 5, you already mentioned 2 that fit better with James than would with Jordan. Yes, Kyrie with Jordan wouldn't work as well. Neither Jordan + Davis would.

If you call three full postseason runs "small stretches", then you shouldn't take playoffs into account at all.

Maybe LeBron teams don't play hard in the regular season or something, but the results are NOT about equal to me, because sustained all time great offenses for an entire season and capping it with titles is much more impressive than merely top 5-10 offenses for full seasons, trouncing some garbage low seeds and then looking tepid on offense again against the elite teams of the west.

When did James teams look "tepid" offensively against the elite teams of the West? Are you aware that James faced ATG defensive competition in 2011-14 postseason runs? Teams like Celtics, Pacers or Bulls were far from "garbage low seeds" and James dominated against them.

I just don't see how there is any argument that either A) The results were similar on offense or in terms of total dominance or B)That Jordan's teams were more talented offensively or somehow so much of a better fit that it propelled Jordan's teams that much higher.

Well, we have seen how Bulls fared without Jordan and they didn't collapse. They actually competed for the title


If you mostly judge players abilities on RS performances, then I agree that James doesn't have any case over Jordan offensively. It doesn't mean that James has no case at all.

Hey 70's. I was originally planning to continue the lebron defense thing, but I feel much of what I'm going to post in response to KG-AI is going to basically cover this, so I figured i'd just quote you on this post. Hope that's okay! I'll make a quick note that using rapm or "real" impact singals, lebron still comes out as more valuable in the 2016 regular season than anythign we have for jordan per rapm, and when we consider that without lebron(i don't mean he stepped out of the lineup and the team caved, i mean in games he straight up wasn't playing), the two co-stars(one who allegdly better than pippen offensively) combined for a sub-30 win pace, which is basically where the bulls werebefore they drafted MJ. Lebron also holds a defensive advantage in stufflike dpipm(2016 favorably compares to any year and 2015/2017/2020 is the same as jordan's best score from 88). For a more apples to apples comparison, Lebron's defense between 14-2020 grades out at +2 according to pipm which isn't that far off the other great defensive wing from the 10's, kawhi whose regular season stuff is at like +2.5. Note that whever lebron has left the cavs lineup thir defense has plummeted which has never really happened with MJ. That isn't to say it's "impossible" jordan was more valuable in the regular season than "coasting" 2016 lebron, but as far as I know there's no real evidence for that outside of box-aggreates and impact/rapm seems to favor even 2016 lebron over any mj. And while there were certainnly low defensive points(14, 18), I'm not really sure that works out to jordan having a comparable prime as you can probably make a case for even the likes of 2020 lebron defensively vs a prime jordan using impact stuff(and that's disregarding the playoffs where he elevates and the lakers post a really impressive adjusted defense with lebron as the clear second best defender on the team). Heck even in 2021, before his injury and with ad playing limited minutes due to injury, paired with a strong defensive cast, the lakers were the #1 defense in the league. I don't know to what degree jordan's defensive impact mantained or improved, but I think we should be careful from conflating fluctuation with being weaker. Even if lebron's defense is more variable, if he's starting from a high enough spot, that fluctation may not neccesarily led to even primes. And really, if it's a struggle to find clean evidence for Jordan being a more impactful defender in the regular season than second cavs bron(15-17), that really really doesn't bode well for a holistic comparison assuming we consider the playoffs at all. Like a reasonable extrapolation from all this is that lebron can match jordan in value without going at full tilt which...poses problems for jordan's case as the top "peak" or "8 year prime" or whatever.

With that out of the way, I'd like to address a general trend i've seen where when we are comparing jordan and someone else as overall players, instead of examining that[i], we turn it into "whose better on offense". And there's a secondary effect where we lock the question of "who can fit/adjust to more teams/raise cielings" to "whose offense is more pliable" when really what matters here is who [i]overall fits better. With that in mind I think it's worth examining 2015 where, again, without spacing and with his offensive value presumably shot, the cavs, without kyrie or love(remember 84 bulls level with those two), were comparable in the postseason(sweeping a 55 srs 60 win team, pressing the dubs, ect) to the 88-90 bulls. It would seem at least arguable. Lebron arguably provided more value, to a team lacking in spacing, than we've ever seen jordan offer, simply by ramping up his defensive value in the playoffs. If Lebron can do this on teams that are defecient in spacing, what situations are we expecting jordan to come out as more valuable? Even if we find a situation where jordan is capable of better offensive impact, why should we assume lebron can't simply offer more by scaling down his offensive impact and replacing it with defensive impact? Regardless of why things worked out the way they did, when everyone was on the lineup, the 12 heat posted a nearly +14 rating in the playoffs despite a lack of relative to era spacing, two co-stars who lebron supposedly didn't mesh with, and a team that without lebron, played 40 win ball(as opposed to the 50 win bulls).

I also think we've spent maybe too much focus/time on lebron here. Turning this into a holistic impact comparison as opposed to a "boxscore/offensive rating!" thing, Maaany players have reasonable cases vs jordan as being comparable or more valuable in the regular season, playoff, or both(Bill russell being more valuable is basically a given at this point):

On top of that, if we avoid m-regularization and go from raw signals, jordan looks signifcantly worse, something that seems to hold for MJ whenever he's compared to better or much better paint protectors(hakeem, duncan, and Kareem all compare favorably and KG compares favorably in the regular season).


There are plausible explanation for all these things on their own, but as more and more evidence is added to the pile, the likelihood that they're all just noise gets less and less likely. Especially when the most popular explnation(lebron needs shooters) falls under basic scrunity(lebron has repeatedly managed jordan" value in he absence of spacing).

I don't know why so much of this thread has been dedicated to kevin-love, but he's really besides the point. Jordan loses in any serious impact analysis versus Lebron. Loses badly in both impact analysis and accomplishment/success vs Russell, and doesn't even have a clean comparison against his own contemporary in Hakeem. Kevin Love doesn't really matter here.

This thread was presumably created by someone who thinks jordan is the goat and asks what it would take for other people to accept he is the goat. Even if we just grant that jordan is better than Lebron, the claim of "goat" requires you conquer all comers, not simply lebron. It's also somewhat telling that the various people who've advocated for jordan, have still, 44 pages in, Not addressed any of these[i][/i] arguments made by various posters over dozens of posts:

The full argument, as opposed to the wierd strawman that dozens of pages worth of posts have been pushing against can be summarized by these points
-> Lebron has achieved better or comparable team results with as much or less help(multiple times across multiple contexts)
-> Various players people would dare not compare to jordan arguably had better or comparable team results with as much or less help
-> Lebron has managed to achieve comaprable results with peak jordan on teams without spacing(which theoreitcally is a situation jordan should be more valuable in according to cieling raising theory) with less help including a season which was supposed to be one of his weaker years(2015) due to a broken shot
-> Lebron's best scoring years look better in almost all impact data besides box-score aggregates where they generally split(jordan rs, lebron playoffs)
-> Jordan consistently looks worse relative to paint-protectors/two-way bigs the less the box-score plays a factor in metrics
-> Consistentlylooks worse relative to paint-protectors/two way bigs if you go by real-data as opposed to artifically capped apm stuff
-> Lebron's teammates weren't able to do **** in games he wasn't even playing in(so much for "they were minimized")
-> Lebron and two players he supposedly shouldn't fit with produced jordan bullsy results without spacing when they played games together in 2012 despite **** relative to era spacing(also did worse in games where lebron was completely absent than the jordan-bulls)

Taking this away from lebron vs jordan and making it relevant to jordan's goat case in general, the other argument which no one has really bothered dealing with is russells' which is...

-> he won way more
-> he won way more in less time
-> he won at least once with less help than jordan has ever had for a playoff series win in the season he retired

For some reason, instead of addressing these arguments(supported with a variety of evidence), we're making random unsupported claims like "jordan had no weaknesses" or "jordan never stat-padded"

I saw someone claim this was a "**** on jordan" thread, but the first 10 pages or so were dominated by pro-jordan posts. If it has become a "**** on jordan" thread, I would argue it is because when arguments/evidence was offered, instead of responding we got 20 page tangents about kevin love, another tangent about longetvity(when the arguments have almost exclusively centered on "how good" these players were), and posters complaining that everyone was biased with one going so far to say that everyone disagreeing with them proved they were the only "reasonable person there". Is that really good-faith discussion?

Also can we start talking about russell more here? People are casually claiming that Jordan was "individually more dominant" than a player who
won way more than anyone
won way more in less time
and critically(at least with all the evidence that's been presented
won a title with substantially less help

It's been established to death why offensive box-score stuff doesn't really matter with 60's players. Russell scoring 11 ppg or 2 ppg would not change that all the evidence we have suggests his imapct relative to era basically nukes any modern nba player

[falcolombardi]

LeBron faced some of the best defensive teams ever during that period though. 2011 Celtics, 2012 Celtics, 2012-14 Pacers, 2013-14 Spurs... Strictly in terms of defense faced, James faced absolutely stellar competition in that period. His opponents were far weaker during 2015-18 period actually.



Maybe, although style-wise Pippen and Wade are nothing alike.

You can't separate offense from defense. When you're facing a team that is poor offensively (as those Celtics and Pacers teams were) you can rest more on the defensive end which gives you more energy for offense. And those very impressive defensive ratings were accumulated by mainly facing weaker East teams in the first place. That's why it's very plausible that the best team in the West in 2014 for instance (Spurs) was actually better than the Pacers on defense as well as offense.

If anything, if I was comparing team quality, I would compare Net Ratings. You can't really separate offense from defense. They are connected both sequentially (i.e. a steal leading to a fast break) and strategically (i.e. lineups fielded on the court).

The first part of this regarding energy seems like a stretch, we're talking about the NBA not high school lol. Energy/stamina is a factor of course. But given the level of competition and skill in the NBA, I think the idea that there's a major difference in energy expenditure when guarding, say, the 16th-ranked offense vs the 3rd-ranked offense is tenuous, there all NBA teams it's going to be **** hard regardless.

Moreover, other factors are more important, the 1st one that comes to mind is playstyle. For example, both the Harden-era Rockets and Spurs/Warriors were close to the top of the league in offense, but if I had to guess it takes more energy to guard the Spurs and Warriors than the Rockets despite the similar ranking. That's something you don't get from raw numbers.

Also, the whole "they got those ratings from playing weaker teams in the east", once again there all NBA teams. Differences are very very marginal, someone's already done this with the difference in team records playing in the east vs western conference, and the difference is like 2-3 wins at most. I wonder if anyone has the numbers here of these teams' DRTGs versus the east and west. I doubt the difference would be anything particularly important.

There's always nuance and granular detail you can look at when it comes to using any number as a proxy, but using defensive rating as a general proxy for how difficult it is to score against a team seems pretty solid to me overall.

I once calculated this and the expected difference in record between playing in the east or the west at the time (2000's) was like 1.3 wins

[Djoker]

Judging by some of the replies I don't think y'all understood what I was trying to say or maybe I didn't explain it properly. I'm just stating that offense and defense are interconnected to some degree. And obviously not to a ridiculous extent... falcolombardi blew my argument out of proportion with that comparison of Bill Russell's Celtics to Steve Nash's Suns.

Either way, when analyzing Jordan's and Lebron's offenses we see that despite generally superior offensive supporting casts, Lebron put up much worse rORtg in the regular season and only comparable rORtg in the postseason. And the RS data is a much larger sample.

As for 2-3 wins difference between East and West in the Lebron years, that is usually about right. However realize that teams who win 50 games sometimes miss the playoffs out West and finish as a top 4 seed in the East. It's pure naivety to think that the Heat/Cavs playing in the West wouldn't have had a much tougher road.

[VanWest82]

Judging by some of the replies I don't think y'all understood what I was trying to say or maybe I didn't explain it properly. I'm just stating that offense and defense are interconnected to some degree. And obviously not to a ridiculous extent... falcolombardi blew my argument out of proportion with that comparison of Bill Russell's Celtics to Steve Nash's Suns.

Either way, when analyzing Jordan's and Lebron's offenses we see that despite generally superior offensive supporting casts, Lebron put up much worse rORtg in the regular season and only comparable rORtg in the postseason. And the RS data is a much larger sample.

As for 2-3 wins difference between East and West in the Lebron years, that is usually about right. However realize that teams who win 50 games sometimes miss the playoffs out West and finish as a top 4 seed in the East. It's pure naivety to think that the Heat/Cavs playing in the West wouldn't have had a much tougher road.

Right. Basically, Lebron had to coast in the regular season the second half of his career to lead postseason offenses that were comparable to MJ's after MJ had gone full out all season long. Every postseason Lebron run post 2013 needs to be qualified by this fact, let alone the East vs. West thing which was definitely a thing despite attempts to downplay that fact.

[NO-KG-AI]

Judging by some of the replies I don't think y'all understood what I was trying to say or maybe I didn't explain it properly. I'm just stating that offense and defense are interconnected to some degree. And obviously not to a ridiculous extent... falcolombardi blew my argument out of proportion with that comparison of Bill Russell's Celtics to Steve Nash's Suns.

Either way, when analyzing Jordan's and Lebron's offenses we see that despite generally superior offensive supporting casts, Lebron put up much worse rORtg in the regular season and only comparable rORtg in the postseason. And the RS data is a much larger sample.

As for 2-3 wins difference between East and West in the Lebron years, that is usually about right. However realize that teams who win 50 games sometimes miss the playoffs out West and finish as a top 4 seed in the East. It's pure naivety to think that the Heat/Cavs playing in the West wouldn't have had a much tougher road.

Agree with all this.

Maybe. But that’s part of the trade off when everybody has to stand at the 3 point line to make space for LeBron to set up and dribble with shooters all over.

Make space for the 40% 3pt shooter and not the SG who made 26 3's combined in 2013 (17) & 2014 (9)???


I'd love to hear more about how Wade molded his game around Lebron

Dwyane Wade took his game off the ball to a much bigger extent in Miami than LeBron did, is that even in question? Rightfully btw, it is clearly the right move, somebody has to give up primacy between those two, and LeBron was bigger, better, and younger and more durable, the logical fit. Both LeBron and Wade have spoken openly about their conversations regarding Wade taking a bigger backseat to allow LeBron and the Heat to flourish.

But yea, the Heat playing Bosh at the 5 and going with another shooter in the front court was very frequent otherwise their offense would stall out and go through struggles (comparatively). The LeBron formula for creating great offenses is dead in the water without sacrificing some size and defensive acumen for shooting and space.

[falcolombardi]

Judging by some of the replies I don't think y'all understood what I was trying to say or maybe I didn't explain it properly. I'm just stating that offense and defense are interconnected to some degree. And obviously not to a ridiculous extent... falcolombardi blew my argument out of proportion with that comparison of Bill Russell's Celtics to Steve Nash's Suns.

Either way, when analyzing Jordan's and Lebron's offenses we see that despite generally superior offensive supporting casts, Lebron put up much worse rORtg in the regular season and only comparable rORtg in the postseason. And the RS data is a much larger sample.

As for 2-3 wins difference between East and West in the Lebron years, that is usually about right. However realize that teams who win 50 games sometimes miss the playoffs out West and finish as a top 4 seed in the East. It's pure naivety to think that the Heat/Cavs playing in the West wouldn't have had a much tougher road.

I didnt blow it out of proportion, i put the same reasoning in other contexts to see how quickly it stops passing the smell test. Imagine if i took jordan bulls best scoring years against teams like peak riley knicks and diminished that offensive result because those knicks had no offensive firepower to tire the bulls out would you still agree?

The difference in best regular season offensive results between jordan and lebron teams is roughly the same as thd other direction in post season

Lebron teams dont barely match jordan team offense results in the post season, they are comfortably ahead. Lebron average post season offense in his prime is +10.2 to jordan +8.2 prime average

And that includes 2009, 2010, 2015,2018,2019 for "much more offensive talent"

If you want to evaluate on regular season then lebron 3 best overall regular seasons (2009,2010,2013) stack up really well to any 3 years we pick for jordan

[falcolombardi]

Judging by some of the replies I don't think y'all understood what I was trying to say or maybe I didn't explain it properly. I'm just stating that offense and defense are interconnected to some degree. And obviously not to a ridiculous extent... falcolombardi blew my argument out of proportion with that comparison of Bill Russell's Celtics to Steve Nash's Suns.

Either way, when analyzing Jordan's and Lebron's offenses we see that despite generally superior offensive supporting casts, Lebron put up much worse rORtg in the regular season and only comparable rORtg in the postseason. And the RS data is a much larger sample.

As for 2-3 wins difference between East and West in the Lebron years, that is usually about right. However realize that teams who win 50 games sometimes miss the playoffs out West and finish as a top 4 seed in the East. It's pure naivety to think that the Heat/Cavs playing in the West wouldn't have had a much tougher road.

Right. Basically, Lebron had to coast in the regular season the second half of his career to lead postseason offenses that were comparable to MJ's after MJ had gone full out all season long. Every postseason Lebron run post 2013 needs to be qualified by this fact, let alone the East vs. West thing which was definitely a thing despite attempts to downplay that fact.

Not comparable, but clearly better*. By a decent margin over their full primes (+10.2 vs +8.2)

I dont downplay the difference in records vs east and west. It just is that small, you can run the math and will find that it never leads to more than 1-2 extra expected wins to be in the east

[VanWest82]

Judging by some of the replies I don't think y'all understood what I was trying to say or maybe I didn't explain it properly. I'm just stating that offense and defense are interconnected to some degree. And obviously not to a ridiculous extent... falcolombardi blew my argument out of proportion with that comparison of Bill Russell's Celtics to Steve Nash's Suns.

Either way, when analyzing Jordan's and Lebron's offenses we see that despite generally superior offensive supporting casts, Lebron put up much worse rORtg in the regular season and only comparable rORtg in the postseason. And the RS data is a much larger sample.

As for 2-3 wins difference between East and West in the Lebron years, that is usually about right. However realize that teams who win 50 games sometimes miss the playoffs out West and finish as a top 4 seed in the East. It's pure naivety to think that the Heat/Cavs playing in the West wouldn't have had a much tougher road.

Right. Basically, Lebron had to coast in the regular season the second half of his career to lead postseason offenses that were comparable to MJ's after MJ had gone full out all season long. Every postseason Lebron run post 2013 needs to be qualified by this fact, let alone the East vs. West thing which was definitely a thing despite attempts to downplay that fact.

Not comparable, better*. By a decent margin over their full primes (+10.2 vs +8.2)

I dont downplay the difference in records vs east and west. It just is that small, you can run the math and will find that it never leads to more than 1-2 extra expected wins to be in the east

I haven't looked but I'm willing to guess that if they're somewhat normally distributed an outsized effect is felt at the poles which manifests in much tougher playoff opponents than what you're leading everyone to believe by sloughing it off as 1-2 wins.

Also, Jordan's late 80s years would likely be over-represented in that "full primes" sample compared to Lebron who played on way more offensively stacked rosters just by playing longer and therefore being able to "stack the deck" more times in his free agency years. What does it look like if we just compare 90s Bulls to 2010s Lebron teams? Bet it's reasonably close.

[falcolombardi]

Right. Basically, Lebron had to coast in the regular season the second half of his career to lead postseason offenses that were comparable to MJ's after MJ had gone full out all season long. Every postseason Lebron run post 2013 needs to be qualified by this fact, let alone the East vs. West thing which was definitely a thing despite attempts to downplay that fact.

Not comparable, better*. By a decent margin over their full primes (+10.2 vs +8.2)

I dont downplay the difference in records vs east and west. It just is that small, you can run the math and will find that it never leads to more than 1-2 extra expected wins to be in the east

I haven't looked but I'm willing to guess that if they're somewhat normally distributed an outsized effect is felt at the poles which manifests in much tougher playoff opponents than what you're leading everyone to believe by sloughing it off as 1-2 wins.

Also, Jordan's late 80s years would likely be over-represented in that "full primes" sample compared to Lebron who played on way more offensively stacked rosters just by playing longer and therefore being able to "stack the deck" more times in his free agency years. What does it look like if we just compare 90s Bulls to 2010s Lebron teams? Bet it's reasonably close.

Stacked decks as 2009, 2010, 2015 (since we are talking playoffs), 2018 ?

Then rosters like 2014 (post wade injury) and 2020 (weak -offensive- talent outside of davis) are not really better than somethingh like pippen/grant or pippen/kukok/rodman (yes, rodman)

Lebron best rosters on his prime had great scorers but not always depth (2011) or spacing (2012,2020).

Jordan teams arguably had better spacing on average relative to era and goat level offensive rebounding front courts, And with the exception of wade 2011-2012 better passers/creators too

Jordan offensive help is honestly very underated because his teammates strenghts were not volume scoring.