Was Jordan's supporting cast in 1997-98 weak?

[VanWest82]

On Cavs I would say that depends on what the bar is. It's not a bad cast versus an average team. But looking at how poorly they fared with LeBron off it's seemingly a team dependent upon him. Now there's noise in that type of data so he might play more with other positive players ... and them falling off without him doesn't necessarily mean players aren't helpful with him in similar contexts ... still I think it does give some indication as to what is driving this team and that this is not such a talented team after LeBron.

I'm still completely flummoxed by this logic as it is entirely back up dependent. Does the team have someone else behind you who can replace what you do? If the answer is a flat No, that doesn't mean you hypothetically provided lift equal to the difference in winning% with and without you. It just means your GM chose to not only count on your talents but your durability and availability. Look at what a difference it makes for current Lakers having both Russell AND Schroder when Lebron is out. If they'd only had Russell and were getting killed every game because they only had one ball handler, would that have magically made Lebron's Lakers lift this year increase by some corresponding amount? No.

Let's be real for a second and admit that there isn't that much of a difference between 08, 09, and 10 Lebon. He got a little more efficient each year and probably peaked as a defender in 09, but for the most part he was the same guy. Cavs had an SRS of 0 in 08 and +8 in 09. A very small amount of that increase was because of Lebron. Mostly, it was because Mo joined the team and West, Wallace, and Varejao went from playing a quarter of the season to most of the season. That's one hell of a lift!

Lebron was certainly the key to the whole thing but 09 Cavs were STACKED with support players that complimented Lebron. One of those very important support players got hurt and they lost in the playoffs because of it. If Rodman had gotten hurt near the end of the Bulls season and Mailman averaged 40 in the Finals and Bulls lost, would their supporting cast have gone from great to mediocre? Again, No.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Some days I really hate LeBron fans.

I would be wishing for LeBron to retire if I did not think the idea of LeBron playing with Bronny was interesting.
I have nothing against LeBron but I am sick of LeBron fans.

[homecourtloss]

Some days I really hate LeBron fans.

I would be wishing for LeBron to retire if I did not think the idea of LeBron playing with Bronny was interesting.
I have nothing against LeBron but I am sick of LeBron fans.

Yes, how dare some other fans have different view on things than do Jordan Hagiographers,

[coastalmarker99]

Are people seriously overhyping LeBron”s 2009 supporting cast in this thread Lmao.

Stats:

28-8-7, .591 TS%, 9.3 RAPM

31.7 PER 318 WS/48

LeBron led his team in points, assists, rebounds, blocks, and steals becoming only the 4th player in history to accomplish that feat.

Team Success:

66-16 (.805)

+8.68 SRS (8.83 when LeBron played

112.4 Offensive Rating

102.4 Defensive Rating

+10.0 efficiency differential


On court: +15.0

Off court: -6.2 off court

Net: +21.2 plus/minus

From 08-10, LeBron missed 14 games. Here are the results:
With: .737 win% +5.81 MOV
Without: 1-13 (.071 win%) (-7.68 MOV)
Difference: .666 win%, +13.67 MOV


Furthermore.

In 2 of Cleveland’s losses, LeBron’s on court plus/minus was positive.

That means the Cavs outscored the Magic in those games, but the Cavs bench gave up the lead when LeBron was sitting.

Plus In the series, LeBron had 3 teammates who averaged 10+ PPG.

But they combined for a .505 TS%. In the playoffs LeBron had a 37.4 PER and the 2nd best PER on his team had a 14.5 PER.

That’s a 22.9 PER gap which is the highest in NBA history between the #1 and #2 guy.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Some days I really hate LeBron fans.

I would be wishing for LeBron to retire if I did not think the idea of LeBron playing with Bronny was interesting.
I have nothing against LeBron but I am sick of LeBron fans.

Yes, how dare some other fans have different view on things than do Jordan Hagiographers,

Reality free thinking bugs me. It would be nice if reality free thinking only happened in sports but itt also happens in more important subjects.

Pretending that LeBron did not have decent support in 2009 is LeBron fans choosing to be as delusional as Orange man good and Orange man bad people.

I feel sorry for you that Jordan fans just won’t accept weak arguments for LeBron being better than Jordan. I predate Jordan and never was a Jordan Stan. 20 years from now fans will be insisting that some new player is better than LeBron and they will be delusional and worshipping the new guy and you won’t like it.

On the offensive side 2009 Cavs supporting cast were better than the 1998 Bulls but when you through in Pippen’s defense and Rodman’s offensive rebounding who had the better supporting cast gets tight.

I don’t want to hear LeBron fans minimizing Mo Williams and the rest of LeBron’s teammates.

[CzBoobie]

Reality free thinking bugs me. It would be nice if reality free thinking only happened in sports but itt also happens in more important subjects.

Pretending that LeBron did not have decent support in 2009 is LeBron fans choosing to be as delusional as Orange man good and Orange man bad people.

I feel sorry for you that Jordan fans just won’t accept weak arguments for LeBron being better than Jordan. I predate Jordan and never was a Jordan Stan. 20 years from now fans will be insisting that some new player is better than LeBron and they will be delusional and worshipping the new guy and you won’t like it.

On the offensive side 2009 Cavs supporting cast were better than the 1998 Bulls but when you through in Pippen’s defense and Rodman’s offensive rebounding who had the better supporting cast gets tight.

I don’t want to hear LeBron fans minimizing Mo Williams and the rest of LeBron’s teammates.

You provided so many compelling arguments, I can see the light now! Praise Mo Williams, Pippen has nothing on him.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

A team I would like to see,
Hybrid best qualities of both guys players

LeBron Rodman
Jordan Delonte West
Pippen Joe Smith, Pippen is better by quite a bit. Joe Smith was a good player and a number 1 overall pick in the draft.
Verajao Kukoc, tie, Kukok was a bad defender and a soft rebounder but better on offense than Verajao even though Verajao was good on offense.
Big Z Longly Big Z was a bit better
Old Ben Wallace Wennington, Ben Wallace better
Mo Williams Kerr, Mo Williams was a lot better.
Sasha Jud Buechler, almost the same player, Buechler slightly better
Szczerbiak, Scotty Burrel, Wally is better, Burrel is the better defender
Daniel Gibson Randy Brown, Gibson is better, Brown the better defender

Ron Harper Terrance Kinsey, Harper is better, Harper plays good team defense and OK man defense but his offense is weak by this phase in his career. Kinsey is barely an NBA player.

JJ Hickson Dickey Simpkins. They could play a bit. Similar players I have no opinion who was better.
Rodman is better than Delonte but Rodman was starting to fade because of age and and was no longer a great player. I kind of like Delonte. Delonet was kind of good, better than medicre.

On offense the Bulls supporting cast is downright bad.
This is not the 1st option version of Pippen who played the years Jordan missed. You don’t want 1998 Pipen as your first option. For a chamionship team Pippen shoukd be the 3rd option.

Cavs bring the 3 point shooting that the Bulls don’t have enough of

[ceoofkobefans]

No the 98 bulls were not a weak supporting cast but it’s one of the weaker supporting casts of the dynasty bulls (91-98).

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

No the 98 bulls were not a weak supporting cast but it’s one of the weaker supporting casts of the dynasty bulls (91-98).

The weakest supporting cast of Jordan’s championship years. 2009 is the strongest supporting cast of LeBron’s first go round in Cleveland.

[Owly]

On Cavs I would say that depends on what the bar is. It's not a bad cast versus an average team. But looking at how poorly they fared with LeBron off it's seemingly a team dependent upon him. Now there's noise in that type of data so he might play more with other positive players ... and them falling off without him doesn't necessarily mean players aren't helpful with him in similar contexts ... still I think it does give some indication as to what is driving this team and that this is not such a talented team after LeBron.

I'm still completely flummoxed by this logic as it is entirely back up dependent. Does the team have someone else behind you who can replace what you do? If the answer is a flat No, that doesn't mean you hypothetically provided lift equal to the difference in winning% with and without you. It just means your GM chose to not only count on your talents but your durability and availability. Look at what a difference it makes for current Lakers having both Russell AND Schroder when Lebron is out. If they'd only had Russell and were getting killed every game because they only had one ball handler, would that have magically made Lebron's Lakers lift this year increase by some corresponding amount? No.

Let's be real for a second and admit that there isn't that much of a difference between 08, 09, and 10 Lebon. He got a little more efficient each year and probably peaked as a defender in 09, but for the most part he was the same guy. Cavs had an SRS of 0 in 08 and +8 in 09. A very small amount of that increase was because of Lebron. Mostly, it was because Mo joined the team and West, Wallace, and Varejao went from playing a quarter of the season to most of the season. That's one hell of a lift!

Lebron was certainly the key to the whole thing but 09 Cavs were STACKED with support players that complimented Lebron. One of those very important support players got hurt and they lost in the playoffs because of it. If Rodman had gotten hurt near the end of the Bulls season and Mailman averaged 40 in the Finals and Bulls lost, would their supporting cast have gone from great to mediocre? Again, No.

This is intended to be an only response.
So reading it you will note that it is acknowledged that lineups play a role, both in the sense of players who may be complementary to LeBron but less valuable in other lineups and the possibility that a player can just benefit from playing with other effective players.

It is nowhere claimed that on-off is a perfect measure.

That said
It is in the first instance, wrong to say on-off is "entirely backup dependent". If all else were held the same (it isn't), if there were a single backup (that's not how rotations work) and if you are just looking at on-off or raw off, and confined it too one season then ... still no, it would be a measure of the difference between the two pieces in that scenario. But there are other pieces on both sides, it isn't one backup, LeBron has consistently huge impact signals (though that year is somewhat of an outlier), this is the case whether by simple on-off or more complex measures ... Probably best to credit Delonte West?


Mo Williams has a career PER of 15, peaking at 17.2 with LeBron, .080 WS/48 peaking at .165, -0.3 BPM peaking at 2.3. Impact data tends to regard him as a mild negative: https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-rapm-2, in the season in question a mild positive. https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/rapm.

Varejao's an energy big managing 14.6, .166, 0.6 that year. In an era where big's shooting isn't so important he's a nice rotation piece if he's not expected to do things outside [edit to complete thought: ... his comfort zone.]

Ben Wallace played 1314 minutes. He was always "limited" but nevertheless managed significant net impact. He is clearly diminished from his Detroit days, but averages fewer than 24mpg and that's mostly before the broken leg that diminishes him and his role further.

Delonte West ... do I have to explain why he isn't part of the "stacking" of a team? Really?

As to how an injury affects ones rating of a "cast", that would depend on how one measures players. If there's a heavy playoff tilt then the playoff rotation matters most. If one is more RS inclined (as I am) it would make more sense to look at that for the surrounding players too.

Regardless, given the extreme nature of his impact data that year, that him being the somewhat outlier leader on his team was typical in adjacent years, the more advanced impact metrics (https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/rapm) ...

You can use SHOUTY CAPS if you want but the idea that Williams (at circa 2800 minutes), Varejao (circa 2300), West (2200) and late career Wallace (1300 then broken leg) makes a team STACKED ... how many teams in history do you consider to be stacked?!

[Taj FTW]

Some days I really hate LeBron fans.

I would be wishing for LeBron to retire if I did not think the idea of LeBron playing with Bronny was interesting.
I have nothing against LeBron but I am sick of LeBron fans.

Yes, how dare some other fans have different view on things than do Jordan Hagiographers,

Reality free thinking bugs me. It would be nice if reality free thinking only happened in sports but itt also happens in more important subjects.

Pretending that LeBron did not have decent support in 2009 is LeBron fans choosing to be as delusional as Orange man good and Orange man bad people.

I feel sorry for you that Jordan fans just won’t accept weak arguments for LeBron being better than Jordan. I predate Jordan and never was a Jordan Stan. 20 years from now fans will be insisting that some new player is better than LeBron and they will be delusional and worshipping the new guy and you won’t like it.

On the offensive side 2009 Cavs supporting cast were better than the 1998 Bulls but when you through in Pippen’s defense and Rodman’s offensive rebounding who had the better supporting cast gets tight.

I don’t want to hear LeBron fans minimizing Mo Williams and the rest of LeBron’s teammates.

You provided zero evidence or stats backing your opinion. I guess we should just take your word for it, LOL

[Taj FTW]

I think we have been over this before but here we go again: Pippen missed half the season with an injury. Without Pippen the only other Bulls players in double figures besides Jordan was Kukoc (13ppg) and Longley (11ppg). Rodman was outstanding on the boards but gave them no offense. Jordan carried that team in the regular season with Pippen out. In the finals Jordan averaged 34ppg while Pippen avg 16ppg and Kukoc 15ppg. This was Pippens worst regular season and finals with the Bulls imo. In his 4 finals victorys (James that is) name a second fiddle that James had who was worse than 98 Pippen. You also mentioned Longley and Kerr as part of a solid supporting cast. Ok. Are they worse than Mo Williams, Mario Chalmers, Tristian Thompson, or the Birdman? Im not taking away from what James did in 07 but its been done before by other alltime greats. And yes, consider ive been watching the nba since 87 im pretty sure i watched 90s nba. You get on here and insult people who disagree with your opinion on lebron james. Reality is not everbody views him or his career the same as you.

MavsDirk where you at brah? You made the claim but won't discuss it at all?

[tsherkin]

Yes, how dare some other fans have different view on things than do Jordan Hagiographers,

Really? No one's gonna take a second to appreciate this? What a bomb dropped, lmao. Excellent diction, I literally LOL'd because you almost never see/hear this word, it's fantastic.

[DCasey91]

Short answer no, comparatively speaking. Yes it was probably the “weakest” cast in the Bulls era but was still very capable.
Wasn’t it so the Bulls support cast was in the upper percentile during the whole time?
Harper/Rodman/Kukoc/Pippen is a very solid quartet and I would comfortably take it over the 2009 Cavs squad.

Different discussion but Lebron’s first stint was all kinds of bad in team construction.

[DCasey91]

On what basis?

Mo Williams posted 2 career 2+ OBPM seasons in his entire career [2 BPM is a good starter]. Both of these seasons were achieved because of the gravity of LeBron James [2009 and 2010 seasons]. He is a 6' 1", no defensive guard.

Toni Kukoc has 6 seasons in his career at 2+ OBPM or higher, with multiple seasons at 3+ and a brilliant season [1996] at 4.6 OBPM [All-star level] while Kukoc was a positive defender. As an offensive force, he provided a triple threat attack on-ball with good [great?] playmaking from the Wing.

1998 RAPM has Kukoc at #7 in the entire NBA and Ron Harper #8 [with the rest of the Top 10 filled with good role players and superstars].

I can't buy Mo Williams being a better offensive player than Kukoc by any stretch of the imagination.

Again, throw out those RAPM numbers because of the line ups. Kukoc and Harper played all their mins with MJ whereas MJ played a bunch without them + end of bench guys.

We're not talking about 96 Kukoc who got to play with much better versions of MJ, Pippen, and Rodman. He was an all star role player which is why his BPM looks better. Notice how it drops in 98 along with his TS when has to take on more defensive attention (albeit not as much as Mo)?

MJ was the one who provided all the gravity because he was always on the floor. Mo carried his own line ups in 09 and had a bigger offensive load. That alone should prove who was the better offensive player. I concede the defensive side of it.

Ummm Kukoc was more than fine offensively without Jordan… you know the season he took off?

I don’t think there’s much argument that Mo was a better offensive player than Kukoc when Kukoc was consistent from year to year and played very well in some important playoff games. Also two of his best seasons were without Jordan.

Mo and the word carrying is a bit of a stretch lol.

[VanWest82]

This is intended to be an only response.

An "only" response...feel free to not respond to this but I find your arguments wholly unconvincing. 1. it's not about Lebron's back up because "rotations" and because he's always been impactful, and 2. the guys listed either didn't play that much or aren't very good or both, so we can just dismiss the argument and avoid having to answer the harder questions.

Let's look at 2 first.

'08 and '09 supporting cast mins and ON NRTG:

Devin Brown: 1762 mins '08 / 0.0 NRTG '08 / 0 mins '09 / n/a NRTG '09
Drew Gooden: 1564 mins '08 / -1.1 NRTG '08 / 0 mins '09 / n/a NRTG '09
Larry Hughes: 1210 mins '08 / -4.4 NRTG '08 / 0 mins '09 / n/a NRTG '09
Ira Newble: 650 mins '08 / -11.1 NRTG '08 / 0 mins '09 / n/a NRTG '09

Mo Williams: 0 mins '08 / n/a NRTG '08 / 2834 mins '09 / +11.3 NRTG
Andy Verajao: 1320 mins '08 / +4.3 NRTG '08 / 2306 mins '09 / +11.2 NRTG 09
Delonte West: 806 mins '08 / +2.8 NRTG '08 / 2152 mins '09 / +15.2 NRTG '09
Ben Wallace: 578 mins '08 / +0.2 NRTG '08 / 1314 mins '09 / +18.2 NRTG '09

So, basically you're swapping out 5186 less helpful mins for 5902 more helpful mins before we even get into potentially controversial guys like Wally who shot 41% from distance in 09 playing 3x the mins. Again, Cavs go from -0.5 SRS in 08 to +8.6 SRS in 09. Unless you're going to try to say that was all due to Lebron's individual improvement between 08 and 09, a claim that's highly dubious to say the least, then it seems the other option is 09 Cavs got much better because much better players played more mins.

08 Lebron: 3027 mins, 39.6/10.4/9.5/2.4/1.4 per 100
09 Lebron: 3054 mins, 40.8/10.9/10.4/2.4/1.6 per 100

Now let's look at 1.

Who was Lebron's back up in 09? Lebron was the lead ball handler and play maker. The guy off the bench who did the most ball handling and play making was Boobie Gibson.

Who was Lebron's back up in other years? Again, using the same logic that in order to "replace" Lebron, one needs to bring ball handling, play making, and scoring to the table, but most importantly the first two, here are the leading candidates for Lebron's back up by year: 07 Eric Snow, 08 Devin Brown, 09 Boobie Gibson, 10 Delonte West, 11 Mario Chalmers, 12 Norris Cole, 13 Norris Cole, 14 Norris Cole, 15 Matthew Dellavedova, 16 Matthew Dellavedova, 17 DeAndre Liggins and eventually Deron Williams, 18 Washed up Wade and Calderon for part of the year, 19 Washed Rondo and Lance, 20 Washed Rondo again, 21 THT, 22 THT and Monk, 23 Russ/Schroder/Reaves (one of the few years with multiple ball handlers on the team).

Now some of those guys were good players, just not PGs / everyday play makers. And no doubt you'd argue that guys like Wade and Kyrie were really the back up PGs on those Miami and Cavs teams. But most line ups don't work with only one ball handler - you need at least two. Guys like Lebron, Nash, Magic, CP, Harden, MJ, etc., are different in that they can run good/great offenses as the only guy out there. Wade was perhaps that guy (I'd disagree) in 11, 12, and part of 13. Kyrie was never that guy. Bottom line: Lebron's on/off stats have been inflated throughout his career because his teams rarely invested in his back up. This makes sense because he has the ball so much and plays 40 mins in all the big games, but it shouldn't be used to try to back up ridiculous claims like he had a 45 win lift in 09 despite the mountain of contextual evidence that he was playing lots of mins with quality teammates even though they only had one other quality ball handler (Mo) on the roster.

[homecourtloss]

This is intended to be an only response.

An "only" response...feel free to not respond to this but I find your arguments wholly unconvincing. 1. it's not about Lebron's back up because "rotations" and because he's always been impactful, and 2. the guys listed either didn't play that much or aren't very good or both, so we can just dismiss the argument and avoid having to answer the harder questions.

Let's look at 2 first.

'08 and '09 supporting cast mins and ON NRTG:

Devin Brown: 1762 mins '08 / 0.0 NRTG '08 / 0 mins '09 / n/a NRTG '09
Drew Gooden: 1564 mins '08 / -1.1 NRTG '08 / 0 mins '09 / n/a NRTG '09
Larry Hughes: 1210 mins '08 / -4.4 NRTG '08 / 0 mins '09 / n/a NRTG '09
Ira Newble: 650 mins '08 / -11.1 NRTG '08 / 0 mins '09 / n/a NRTG '09

Mo Williams: 0 mins '08 / n/a NRTG '08 / 2834 mins '09 / +11.3 NRTG
Andy Verajao: 1320 mins '08 / +4.3 NRTG '08 / 2306 mins '09 / +11.2 NRTG 09
Delonte West: 806 mins '08 / +2.8 NRTG '08 / 2152 mins '09 / +15.2 NRTG '09
Ben Wallace: 578 mins '08 / +0.2 NRTG '08 / 1314 mins '09 / +18.2 NRTG '09

So, basically you're swapping out 5186 less helpful mins for 5902 more helpful mins before we even get into potentially controversial guys like Wally who shot 41% from distance in 09 playing 3x the mins. Again, Cavs go from -0.5 SRS in 08 to +8.6 SRS in 09. Unless you're going to try to say that was all due to Lebron's individual improvement between 08 and 09, a claim that's highly dubious to say the least, then it seems the other option is 09 Cavs got much better because much better players played more mins.

08 Lebron: 3027 mins, 39.6/10.4/9.5/2.4/1.4 per 100
09 Lebron: 3054 mins, 40.8/10.9/10.4/2.4/1.6 per 100

Now let's look at 1.

Who was Lebron's back up in 09? Lebron was the lead ball handler and play maker. The guy off the bench who did the most ball handling and play making was Boobie Gibson.

Who was Lebron's back up in other years? Again, using the same logic that in order to "replace" Lebron, one needs to bring ball handling, play making, and scoring to the table, but most importantly the first two, here are the leading candidates for Lebron's back up by year: 07 Eric Snow, 08 Devin Brown, 09 Boobie Gibson, 10 Delonte West, 11 Mario Chalmers, 12 Norris Cole, 13 Norris Cole, 14 Norris Cole, 15 Matthew Dellavedova, 16 Matthew Dellavedova, 17 DeAndre Liggins and eventually Deron Williams, 18 Washed up Wade and Calderon for part of the year, 19 Washed Rondo and Lance, 20 Washed Rondo again, 21 THT, 22 THT and Monk, 23 Russ/Schroder/Reaves (one of the few years with multiple ball handlers on the team).

Now some of those guys were good players, just not PGs / everyday play makers. And no doubt you'd argue that guys like Wade and Kyrie were really the back up PGs on those Miami and Cavs teams. But most line ups don't work with only one ball handler - you need at least two. Guys like Lebron, Nash, Magic, CP, Harden, MJ, etc., are different in that they can run good/great offenses as the only guy out there. Wade was perhaps that guy (I'd disagree) in 11, 12, and part of 13. Kyrie was never that guy. Bottom line: Lebron's on/off stats have been inflated throughout his career because his teams rarely invested in his back up. This makes sense because he has the ball so much and plays 40 mins in all the big games, but it shouldn't be used to try to back up ridiculous claims like he had a 45 win lift in 09 despite the mountain of contextual evidence that he was playing lots of mins with quality teammates even though they only had one other quality ball handler (Mo) on the roster.

Do you know what these respective players’ net ratings were in 2009 WITHOUT James on court? I do, but was wondering if you did.

[VanWest82]

Why do people feel the need to quote respond when it's clear they didn't even read the post, or worse that they did read it but somehow completely missed the point?

[VanWest82]

Do you know what these respective players’ net ratings were in 2009 WITHOUT James on court? I do, but was wondering if you did.

Now let's look at 1.

Who was Lebron's back up in 09? Lebron was the lead ball handler and play maker. The guy off the bench who did the most ball handling and play making was Boobie Gibson.

Who was Lebron's back up in other years? Again, using the same logic that in order to "replace" Lebron, one needs to bring ball handling, play making, and scoring to the table, but most importantly the first two, here are the leading candidates for Lebron's back up by year: 07 Eric Snow, 08 Devin Brown, 09 Boobie Gibson, 10 Delonte West, 11 Mario Chalmers, 12 Norris Cole, 13 Norris Cole, 14 Norris Cole, 15 Matthew Dellavedova, 16 Matthew Dellavedova, 17 DeAndre Liggins and eventually Deron Williams, 18 Washed up Wade and Calderon for part of the year, 19 Washed Rondo and Lance, 20 Washed Rondo again, 21 THT, 22 THT and Monk, 23 Russ/Schroder/Reaves (one of the few years with multiple ball handlers on the team).

Now some of those guys were good players, just not PGs / everyday play makers. And no doubt you'd argue that guys like Wade and Kyrie were really the back up PGs on those Miami and Cavs teams. But most line ups don't work with only one ball handler - you need at least two. Guys like Lebron, Nash, Magic, CP, Harden, MJ, etc., are different in that they can run good/great offenses as the only guy out there. Wade was perhaps that guy (I'd disagree) in 11, 12, and part of 13. Kyrie was never that guy. Bottom line: Lebron's on/off stats have been inflated throughout his career because his teams rarely invested in his back up. This makes sense because he has the ball so much and plays 40 mins in all the big games, but it shouldn't be used to try to back up ridiculous claims like he had a 45 win lift in 09 despite the mountain of contextual evidence that he was playing lots of mins with quality teammates even though they only had one other quality ball handler (Mo) on the roster.

[rim213221]

Uh, yes absolutely… exponentially and stratospheres weaker than any team LeBron won a title with - which has never been with anything short of either 2 stars, 1 co-superstar top 3 player or one co-superstar top 3 player and another star, not to mention teams full of players who were formerly #1 offensive options on their own teams and capable of carrying a scoring load the way Jordan’s teammates couldn’t. One of the many reasons LeBron will never be the true GOAT.