Offense Only: Lebron James vs Magic Johnson

[falcolombardi]

Scottie rarely defended Magic in 1991 finals and Johnson had no help with injured Worthy and Scott. Magic still created more opportunities than Jordan in these finals and scored effectively.

If that's what you call stopping player, then James was stopped plenty of times in his career.

How do you think Magic would have fared going up against a team like the Warriors with guys like Iggy, Green, KD, and to a lesser extent, Klay, Livingston all doing their thing?

He'd fare quite well I think. There is no individual defender who could stop things Magic did on offense and I don't think Warriors defense fared amazingly against top tier playmakers.

Fair enough i can agree to that

[feyki]

I suppose you missed all the data that was shared with Lebron having better PS offenses?

Context matters when headed into the playoffs. It's not so necessary that since Lebron and Magic had elite teams, we have to leave out easy series.

Against 5+ SRS Teams:
12/16 Lebron in 5 Series - +4,9 TmORtg,
86/90 Magic in 4 Series - +7,6 TmORtg
. Already, you can't compare 22/12 with +20 rORtg player with 28/7 with +12/13 rORtg one. Different tiers.

why +5 srs teams and not +5 Drtg teams if what we are evaluating is offense ?

iirc magic faced fairly weak defenses in the 80's west and lebron faced really tough defenses in the east even if overall neither conference was strong on average

Competition. A team could be +5 defence but if they're +1 SRS team they would lose to +6/7 SRS without being competitive and couldn't show up their potential defensive effect.

Worst team defensively Magic faced of those 4 series were 87 Celtics and they were with %51,3 Defensive TS and %12 defensive TOV, compared to Lebron's best defensive team that faced in those 5 series 2013 Spurs with %51,4 DTS and %13,7 DTOV.

[falcolombardi]

Context matters when headed into the playoffs. It's not so necessary that since Lebron and Magic had elite teams, we have to leave out easy series.

Against 5+ SRS Teams:
12/16 Lebron in 5 Series - +4,9 TmORtg,
86/90 Magic in 4 Series - +7,6 TmORtg
. Already, you can't compare 22/12 with +20 rORtg player with 28/7 with +12/13 rORtg one. Different tiers.

why +5 srs teams and not +5 Drtg teams if what we are evaluating is offense ?

iirc magic faced fairly weak defenses in the 80's west and lebron faced really tough defenses in the east even if overall neither conference was strong on average

Competition. A team could be +5 defence but if they're +1 SRS team they would lose to +6/7 SRS without being competitive and couldn't show up their potential defensive effect.

Worst team defensively Magic faced of those 4 series were 87 Celtics and they were with %51,3 Defensive TS and %12 defensive TOV, compared to Lebron's best defensive team that faced in those 5 series 2013 Spurs with %51,4 DTS and %13,7 DTOV.

are you going by raw offensive rating rather than relative to league average?

[feyki]

why +5 srs teams and not +5 Drtg teams if what we are evaluating is offense ?

iirc magic faced fairly weak defenses in the 80's west and lebron faced really tough defenses in the east even if overall neither conference was strong on average

Competition. A team could be +5 defence but if they're +1 SRS team they would lose to +6/7 SRS without being competitive and couldn't show up their potential defensive effect.

Worst team defensively Magic faced of those 4 series were 87 Celtics and they were with %51,3 Defensive TS and %12 defensive TOV, compared to Lebron's best defensive team that faced in those 5 series 2013 Spurs with %51,4 DTS and %13,7 DTOV.

are you going by raw offensive rating rather than relative to league average?

Relative. Just showed those four teams as good as Spurs, defensively; but league rebounding strategy is what changes the defensive ratings, which aspect cover %03 of Lebron's offence.

5 or less Points and 2 or less SRS differences series:

86/90 Magic in 6 Series - 7,93 TmORtg, +20 rORtg
12/16 Lebron in 5 Series(added plus two Warriors Finals) - 6,05, +7 rORtg
. From any angle and degree it's not close, unless with hiding behind blowout games.