Remove the star, highest win differential?

[durantbird]

Name the team and season where if you remove a single player, the win column gets impacted the most with less wins?

[AEnigma]

2009 Lebron. 2010 Lebron, 2003 Garnett, and 1994 Robinson next tier down. All four seasons are comfortably crossing that 25-win mark and in consideration for 30 wins or more. 2009 Lebron could conceivably push 40 or higher.

[Texas Chuck]

Jason Kidd never gets mentioned in these, but he kept getting traded for win now packages and his new team won a ton more games and his old team lost a ton more games.

It's not theoretical with Kidd. We have repeated evidence of this impact. Heck even his last season with the Knicks, they improved meaningfully.

Sam Cassell is another player whose teams had their best years in like 3 decades when he hits their roster. It's a bit noisier with him, but worth noting here is another player with significant impact who only gets mentioned on this forum to tell us how old he was in 2004 instead of how good he was that year....

Lebron is probably the "right" answer thought I think 03 Tim Duncan taking that roster to that record and a championship is still one of the least appreciated star seasons of all time. His contemporary had better rosters than that we use to excuse his lack of team success and certainly had a better roster that specific year yet he's somehow already been mentioned instead of Timmy. Wild.

[Special_Puppy]

Probably 1988 Jordan. Highest regular season RAPTOR WAR and highest regular season VORP. Bulls don't win 25 games without him that season

[AEnigma]

Probably 1988 Jordan. Highest regular season RAPTOR WAR and highest regular season VORP. Bulls don't win 25 games without him that season

They won 50 with him, and I do not assess that cast as anywhere near as bad as the 2003 Timberwolves or the 1994 Spurs (who had no backup big and no real lead playmaker, which made them uniquely dependent on Robinson). Players who are instrumental to the entire functioning of a team’s offence and defence, without sufficient conceivable replacements for either, are going to see a much larger win collapse than taking off a guy who is primarily lifting one side without adequate replacement.

And then the 2009 Cavaliers won 16 more games, without that cast reasonably being assessed as 16 wins better without Lebron than what the 1988 Bulls would have been without Jordan. You want to say they do not win 25 games? Okay, well, the 1984 Bulls were 27-55, and the 1986 Bulls were 21-43 without Jordan, so you are inherently arguing the 1988 Bulls were notably worse casts than both. For the sake of argument we can say that is at least plausible. Now, are the 2009 Cavaliers getting to 40 wins? Keep in mind that from 2008-10 they were 1-13 without Lebron and similarly abominable when he left for Miami. Does that seem like a .500 team to you?

[Wigginstime]

2022 Denver Nuggets Lineup (Murray and MPJ Injured)
PG. Monte Morris
SG. Austin Rivers
SF. Will Barton
PF. Aaron Gordon
C. Nikola Jokic
Bench: Jeff Green & Bones Hyland

Won 48 Games
Remove Jokic - Team doesn't win 20 games

[eminence]

LeBron in '09/'10 might be in a class of his own.

Agreeing with Aenigma that KG/Robinson are the two closest in the plus/minus era. Noting that that level of individual dependence probably isn't the best method for putting out a championship level squad.

At the dynasty squad level (modern) - Shaq in LA and Curry during the Warriors first run (15-19) both had impressive WOWY samples with reasonable sizes of missed games. I suspect MJ/Duncan/LeBron could've had similarly impressive numbers but they were healthier (I guess Duncan kinda does in '04/'05). KG was both healthier and didn't have the squad for that level of run.

Current guys - Jokic is making a case to join that tier as well. Giannis had a brief run at that impact level but it's looking too brief for me to feel comfortable with his inclusion. I guess Embiid has impressed by these measures too, but misses so many games it's kinda pointless. Tatum maybe joining the iron man group, want to see either continued dominance or success on a slightly less loaded squad.

[Joao Saraiva]

See Cavs 2010 and Cavs 2011 when losing LeBron and corpse Shaq and big Z.

It was uuuuuuuuuugly from the start. They couldn't even be competitive.

So yeah I'll go with 2010 or 2009 LeBron.

I get other mentions like Jokic, but Cavs won 60+ with LBJ in those 2 years. I don't see em winning more than 25 without him. And I think I'm being nice.

[parsnips33]

I think '16 Warriors are probably a respectable high to mid 40 win team without Steph

Which is still a ways off from 73

[One_and_Done]

2009 and 2010 Cavs are the answer. They win maybe 25 games without Lebron. The runner up is the 2002 Spurs, with 01 and 03 being honourable mentions. That team might not even win 20 in the West without Duncan.

Duncan somehow dragged the 2002 Spurs to 58 wins with a starting line-up of a washed D.Rob, a washed Steve Smith, a rookie Tony Parker, and 59 games of Bruce Bowen.

Charles Smith started 22 games that year. In case you don’t know who that is, I’m not surprised, he was a G-League level scrub who averaged 13.9mpg over his 5 year NBA career. He averaged 28 games per year over those 5 years, for 5 different NBA teams, having to go overseas for 4 non-consecutive seasons between his rookie year and final year. Their best bench player was probably Malik Rose, who was a below average player. He got paid once for being Tim’s bestie, but after leaving the Spurs we saw just how badly he sucked. They also had Antonio Daniels, another mediocre/bad player.

Duncan didn’t miss a single game that year, and played 40mpg, so you don’t see his impact as clearly. It’s easier in some ways to look at the following year, when they team kept rolling regardless of D.Rob being out (15-3) or rookie Manu missing time (10-3). But there is one notable event that I remember clearly. In the 2002 playoffs Duncan’s father died, and he missed that game. The opponent was the 45 win Sonics. In that game, the Spurs were down 57-31 at halftime. After that the Sonics went into coast mode and let the game get a bit closer, but it was clear just how horrible the Spurs were sans Duncan.

KG, D.Rob, Erving, Walton, Kareem, etc, are all worthy honourable mentions. But for me this is between Lebron (who I give it to) and Duncan. Not one of the guys starting next to Duncan should have been starting on a contender, except Bruce Bowen who as a 3&D role player doesn’t do much for a bad team. His value is highest when he’s on a good team. Without Duncan I doubt Bowen would have moved the needle much, because there’s nobody to create overlaps on offense that make him useful, so he’s a zero on offense. Almost every single play the Spurs ran that year was throw the ball into Duncan, and either he’s doubled and passes or he isn’t and he gets a good shot. He did everything on both ends for that team, as much as any player can maybe.

[picko]

I default towards LeBron in 2008-09, as I genuinely believe they'd have won ~40 fewer games in his absence. And the on-off splits tend to reflect that.

Duncan in 2002-03 is also a top tier mention.

We might be sleeping a little on Jokic. Some of his on-off splits over the past few years suggest that the Nuggets would be incredibly awful without him, and that's especially true this season where through 10 games his on-off split is 37 points per 100 possessions.

[OhayoKD]

Probably 1988 Jordan. Highest regular season RAPTOR WAR and highest regular season VORP. Bulls don't win 25 games without him that season

The Bulls literally won 25 without him (30-win by srs) and won 27 while tanking (28 by SRS). Emperically, it's not even the best floor-raising effort of that season.

Unserious.

[CumberlandPosey]

What about russell??
I mean hes mister highest impact (ever) plus he coached the team simultaneously.so you remove him you are without coach and star.

[penbeast0]

What about russell??
I mean hes mister highest impact (ever) plus he coached the team simultaneously.so you remove him you are without coach and star.

Red could go back to coaching but prime Russell would be a real contender for this title. Even aging Russell in 69 shows a serious dropoff for the Celtics from 69 to 70 despite Havlicek continuing his improvement into the star he would be in the 70s.

[homecourtloss]

2009 Lebron. 2010 Lebron, 2003 Garnett, and 1994 Robinson next tier down. All four seasons are comfortably crossing that 25-win mark and in consideration for 30 wins or more. 2009 Lebron could conceivably push 40, although I feel safe ball-parking at 35.

This ^

[Bobbcats]

It wasn't a 60 win team or anything but I think 08-09 Hornets has to be one of the worst supporting casts ever to make the playoffs when you factored in Peja and Tyson Chandler being injured or not themselves all season. That team was just CP and David West that year. No one else on that entire roster was in an NBA rotation the next season except Rasual Butler as deep bench for the horrible Clippers. Definitely goes from 49 to single-digit win team IMO if CP3 wasn't there, that was his peak

[EmpireFalls]

I am inclined to believe that the 2017 Rockets would have won less than 20 games without Harden.

[RCM88x]

I am inclined to believe that the 2017 Rockets would have won less than 20 games without Harden.

Houston actually had a +3 net rating with Harden OFF that season. Not saying that would extrapolate to a whole season, but I think that supporting cast was actually decent compared to some of the other squads mentioned. They had good depth at least.

Of all the Harden teams I'd say the 2020 team w/ Westbrook probably would have dropped off the most. That squad was entirely reliant on him way more than they were in 2017 IMO. Just a bunch of 3&D guys and a big, not playmaking outside of Westbrook at all, who himself wasn't really good most of the year.

[ShaqAttac]

russ fo sho.

[One_and_Done]

What about russell??
I mean hes mister highest impact (ever) plus he coached the team simultaneously.so you remove him you are without coach and star.

Red could go back to coaching but prime Russell would be a real contender for this title. Even aging Russell in 69 shows a serious dropoff for the Celtics from 69 to 70 despite Havlicek continuing his improvement into the star he would be in the 70s.

This is a rather implausible argument. The Celtics were literally the best team in the league when Russell joined mid way into his rookie season, and when he retired in 1969 they dropped from 48 wins to 34. Not only that, Sam Jones retired along with Russell too and he was still a good player. The 1970 team also had some injuries to boot. Once they added rookie Cowens in 71 they were back to 44 wins, and up to 56 in 72. Clearly it didn't take much to fill the Russell/Jones gap in the RS.

Russell is one of the few historical legends whose career doesn't support this claim. He played his whole career with a slew of hall of famers.