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I would pick Lebron. As a transition player, both of them are close, but for me I would take Lebron, because I am more confident in Lebron's ability to score in transition. Lebron is a better HC player, by being elite at ball-manipulation, rim pressure, vision, for the half-court playmaking. Magic may as well might be the better passer, but I think Lebron is a better playmaker in the HC (top 10 HC player of all-time, at worst).


Meanwhile, as it is pretty close as a playmaker, we still have the scoring and off-ball (this itself may even put Jokic over Magic at this point, it worked for Steph and for Jordan). Lebron is absolutely amazing on all 3 levels as a scorer, even against GOAT level personnel like the 2013 Spurs, 2014 Spurs and Pacers, etc. Although Lebron relies mostly on transition scoring (which he's the GOAT at, he is extremely scalable against elite defenses as a transition scorer as-well, not like he gets exposed in transition ever, best PPP in transition with volume, and it translates in the playoffs as well). This makes me put Lebron over Magic on-ball, (although Magic is a top 3 on-ball player ever, behind Bron and Jordan)

Example of Lebron's scoring in the playoffs: Against 2014 Pacers with a -7.1 defense (27.8 IA pts/75 on +13.6 rTS opp adjusted, leading a +17.4 rORtg offense )

Lebron is also a better off-ball player than Magic, as a better play-finisher than Magic, he has some good years being in C&S, and he is a great screener in everyway. He is a good connective passer, as well. His most important trait (slashing), is all-time, and he is a good lob-threat, putting Lebron comfortably above Magic off the ball (whom I am not moved off the ball, it's not like Lebron is elite off the ball).

There are some things like mismatch hunting that Lebron is the GOAT at, soft traits I'd give to Lebron as well.

Anyways, this is just a quick analysis of why Lebron > Magic offensively, in my opinion. What do you think? Who do you think is a better offensive player? Please give good reasoning to your answers, please do not be dismissive as some others do, because there is a chance the thread will be locked if we are all not open-minded and hostile )! Thank you, and may Christ bless you on your journey!

This is an interesting discussion, we get noone to discuss here. Hm, might as well do Jordan vs Lebron, to get people to discuss.....

I think the answer here is Magic. The bottom line is that LeBron is a great passer, but Magic is just better and that makes a significant difference. Of course, if Magic didn’t have other skills that wouldn’t leave him on top. But Magic’s unique blend of size and ball-handling actually exerted a huge amount of gravity—which opens up his passing quite a lot. Of course, LeBron’s downhill attack exerts a ton of gravity too, but I genuinely think that despite not being a score-first guy, Magic was somehow able to exert about as much gravity. Teams just wouldn’t single-cover him in the post. Meanwhile, LeBron is an absolute freight train in transition, but Magic was probably the best player in history at leading the break, so I really can’t put LeBron ahead in transition (at best, it’s a wash IMO). Also, Magic is worth quite a bit more in terms of offensive rebounding—having over a 2% higher career OREB% while playing the PG position. Finally, while we don’t have full data, I’m *extremely* impressed by the on-off and impact data we have for Magic, which if anything has made me recently revise upwards my assessment of his offensive capability.

lessthanjake wrote:I think the answer here is Magic. The bottom line is that LeBron is a great passer, but Magic is just better and that makes a significant difference. Of course, if Magic didn’t have other skills that wouldn’t leave him on top. But Magic’s unique blend of size and ball-handling actually exerted a huge amount of gravity—which opens up his passing quite a lot. Of course, LeBron’s downhill attack exerts a ton of gravity too, but I genuinely think that despite not being a score-first guy, Magic was somehow able to exert about as much gravity. Teams just wouldn’t single-cover him in the post. Meanwhile, LeBron is an absolute freight train in transition, but Magic was probably the best player in history at leading the break, so I really can’t put LeBron ahead in transition (at best, it’s a wash IMO). Also, Magic is worth quite a bit more in terms of offensive rebounding—having over a 2% higher career OREB% while playing the PG position. Finally, while we don’t have full data, I’m *extremely* impressed by the on-off and impact data we have for Magic, which if anything has made me recently revise upwards my assessment of his offensive capability.

Underlined: Lebron's rim pressure alone is better than Magic's gravity. Magic is a playmaker, making his gravity less effective. Lebron is just too dangerous at the rim, even in 2007 Finals we saw this, and that's not a prime Lebron year.

Italics: Lebron is the GOAT transition scorer, and a top 2 transition playmaker. Do you really think Magic had a good enough combo of scoring + playmaking for beating out Lebron in transition?

Magic also was very mid-tier off-ball, and not better at soft traits than Lebron. So, you have anything to justify this?

Top10alltime wrote:

lessthanjake wrote:I think the answer here is Magic. The bottom line is that LeBron is a great passer, but Magic is just better and that makes a significant difference. Of course, if Magic didn’t have other skills that wouldn’t leave him on top. But Magic’s unique blend of size and ball-handling actually exerted a huge amount of gravity—which opens up his passing quite a lot. Of course, LeBron’s downhill attack exerts a ton of gravity too, but I genuinely think that despite not being a score-first guy, Magic was somehow able to exert about as much gravity. Teams just wouldn’t single-cover him in the post. Meanwhile, LeBron is an absolute freight train in transition, but Magic was probably the best player in history at leading the break, so I really can’t put LeBron ahead in transition (at best, it’s a wash IMO). Also, Magic is worth quite a bit more in terms of offensive rebounding—having over a 2% higher career OREB% while playing the PG position. Finally, while we don’t have full data, I’m *extremely* impressed by the on-off and impact data we have for Magic, which if anything has made me recently revise upwards my assessment of his offensive capability.

Underlined: Lebron's rim pressure alone is better than Magic's gravity. Magic is a playmaker, making his gravity less effective. Lebron is just too dangerous at the rim, even in 2007 Finals we saw this, and that's not a prime Lebron year.

If Magic got the ball in the post, he would get consistently doubled. And he wasn’t a score-first player but he would absolutely punish you if you actually did single-cover him, because he was a major mismatch for like every defender in the league. I know you’re far too young to have watched him play at the time, so I’ll say that the best present-day analogy I can give you in terms of low-post gravity is Jokic. But a key thing with Magic in this regard is that he really didn’t need an entry pass to get the ball in the post. Rather, he would just dribble down there himself. He was the best player ever at just keeping his dribble while backing his defender down into the post. Jokic can do that to some degree too so you may have seen him do this, but Magic is pretty clearly the best ever at protecting the ball while backing someone down, so it was much more consistent. It meant that, unlike other players with massive post gravity, you couldn’t just try to deny the entry pass. Magic could just walk up with the ball and consistently create that advantage essentially whenever he wanted to. It’s certainly very hard to stop LeBron from creating advantages with his drives, but I don’t think it was as metronomically consistent as what Magic could do, because (1) it’s not like LeBron is going to *always* succeed at driving by his defender—sometimes a defender is going to stay with you on a drive and/or navigate the pick really well; and (2) driving to the basket takes a lot of energy, so LeBron genuinely just can’t do it all the time.

The other factor, of course, is that Magic’s passes had even more precision, velocity, and disguise to them than LeBron’s. Which means that, for any given amount of gravity exerted, Magic’s going to be able to exploit the window even better than LeBron. Not to mention that Magic’s decision-making as a passer was even better than LeBron’s (i.e. he was going to choose the right pass even more often).

Italics: Lebron is the GOAT transition scorer, and a top 2 transition playmaker. Do you really think Magic had a good enough combo of scoring playmaking for beating out Lebron in transition?

I definitely don’t agree that LeBron is a top 2 transition playmaker, but it doesn’t really matter because wherever you rank him in that regard he’s definitely way below Magic Johnson—who is easily the best transition playmaker in history. In general, Magic Johnson is NBA history’s gold standard as a transition player. LeBron is incredible in transition too, but no one has an advantage in transition over Magic Johnson.

Magic also was very mid-tier off-ball, and not better at soft traits than Lebron. So, you have anything to justify this?

Yeah, LeBron is better off the ball offensively, though it’s not a massive part of either of their games and Magic could make some nice flashes across the basket. But again, Magic is significantly better as an offensive rebounder. Magic also was a way better FT shooter (pretty important, since they both get to the line a good bit—the difference here ends up amounting to around 1 point a game just in superior FT shooting). Magic was also better at some more basic passes that we may not exactly think about as playmaking. For instance, if you have a post player that needs an entry pass, I definitely want Magic over LeBron (not that LeBron is bad at this, but this is another area that Magic is GOAT-tier in). Similarly, I would definitely want Magic over LeBron if I have a player coming off a screen that wants a timely pass into their shooting pocket. In other words, when someone else’s number is called and you just want the guy with the ball to get the ball to that person, you want Magic over LeBron.

I could see the argument for peak(2016-2018 James), but I think prime I would take Magic. I think 1987-1991 is a longer prime of sustained offensive greatness and we have the ORtg's to back it up

Top10alltime wrote:Lebron is also a better off-ball player than Magic, as a better play-finisher than Magic, he has some good years being in C&S, and he is a great screener in everyway. He is a good connective passer, as well. His most important trait (slashing), is all-time, and he is a good lob-threat, putting Lebron comfortably above Magic off the ball (whom I am not moved off the ball, it's not like Lebron is elite off the ball).

There are some things like mismatch hunting that Lebron is the GOAT at, soft traits I'd give to Lebron as well.!

It's interesting that the bolded or scoring volume advantage that matter in other discussions all of a sudden won't matter in this particular discussion to some posters.

Also, the weak competiton with a bunch of negative SRS, even -2 and -5 SRS teams faced in the playoffs won’t be brought up even though in other discussions how one fares against an arbitrary +5 SRS opponent (no rDRtgs taken into account, just being 5+ SRS) matters a great deal…

This seems like an obvious answer. That's a reason LeBron is unquestionably above Magic by multiple spots in all time rankings. It isn't because of his defense either. His scoring is head and shoulders above Magic.

I'm honestly a but surprised the poll is this close. LeBron dominates Magic statistically on offense. He dominates Magic even more by the eye test.

LeBron is the better absolute offensive player, can do more, better scorer, better finisher, better outside shooter, capable of a takeover mode and isolation ability that is literally unstoppable when clicking.

Magic, however, was wired with a once-in-a-lifetime feel for the game, for feeding his teammates, he understood the rhythms of defensive rotations and where his guys liked the ball better than anyone. Just a natural born distributor and PG. A true virtuoso. Simply put, he was Magic.

While their peaks are very close, Magic led slightly better offenses relative to era and was likely slightly better offensively relative to era due to his innate sense of the moment and passing feel.

LeBron could basically make every pass Magic could, but when comparing the two, everything just seems a tad stiffer, a tad more calculated, robotic when watching Bron passing compared to Magic. And it is a credit to LBJ that their passing is close, but the mindset behind it isn’t close.

Magic is a pass-first player who was a lovely driver and great scorer. LeBron is marketed as pass-first, but was really a drive-first, beat his man player. He could pass at an elite level or he could score, also at an elite level, but his game wasn’t quite as cerebral as Magic’s, and more often than not he looked to score than to set up. Coaching and development matters a lot here too, but there was something intangible about the way Magic saw the game and innately understood the role of distributor more than James ever did. I think I’d rather have LeBron on a limited team, and Magic on a team with other alpha scorers.

Ultimately, if they were on the same team, Magic could set LeBron up better than LeBron could set up Magic. I think that’s about the only answer I’m truly confident in.

Anyways, this is just a quick analysis of why Lebron > Magic offensively, in my opinion. What do you think? Who do you think is a better offensive player? Please give good reasoning to your answers

From 1979-80 to 1990-91 (12 seasons) the Lakers were the top offensive team in the league at 110.5 pts/100poss scored. No one else was even close (Boston was 2nd best at 109.6 pts/100poss scored, Lakers almost a full point better over a dozen years).

Those 12 years Magic Johnson among all Lakers players:

- scored the most points (17239)
- passed for the most assists (9921) in the league, no other Laker had more than 3666, and the Lakers lead the league in highest 2pt FG% (52.6%)
- attempted - by far - the most FTAs (5649), no other Laker had more than 3846
- made - by far - the most FTs (4788), no other Laker had more than 2859
- grabbed the 2nd most offensive rebounds (1561), most by a PG in the league, and the Laker with the most had 1563

And to show you Magic wasn't just riding the coattails of Kareem, the first season he outscored Jabbar was 1986-87. The 5 seasons from 1986-87 to 1990-91 the Lakers were still the best offensive team in the league (111.8 pts/100poss allowed), and Magic:

- lead the Lakers in scoring (8343 pts)
- lead them in assists (4719), no other Laker had more than 1366, and the Lakers had the 2nd highest 2pt FG% in the league (51.6%)
- lead them in FTAs (2893), no other Laker had more than 1692
- lead them in FTM (2551), no other Laker had more than 1296
- grabbed the 4th most offensive rebounds (554) on the team

Magic > Lebron offensively - these good enough reasons for you?

Show us where Lebron James' teams were the best offensively in the league over a 5 year span let alone a 12 year span, with Lebron leading the team in both scoring and passing.

I might lean Magic as well, but definitely see the argument for both, and it’s quite close. From an adding-up-skills perspective, I think things might favor LeBron. But basketball’s more complex than “oh the playmaking’s a wash or slightly favors X, while the scoring gap’s hugely in favor of Y, so it has to be Y”. There’s a lot of importance to how your different skills are synergistic with each other and with teammates. And I think that subtler chemistry aspect favored Magic. LeBron’s the more well-rounded offensive player, but Magic’s playmaking may have been more game-breaking for whatever reason. Some of this may have been era or rules, and some may prefer the modern game. Fair enough. But Magic’s ability to basically always make the right decision for his team in the half court and in transition and execute that plan pretty perfectly was pretty unique. The perfect half court passing, the aggressive layup passes, the postup scoring threat given Magic’s size advantage relative to position, the perfect passing out of postup doubles, the offensive rebounding, the shooting, the showtime transition offense (which may have been the most effective transition offense ever)…

I think the offensive team results were better for the Lakers (which is of course highly teammate based, but consistent with slightly better ceiling raising offensively for Magic). If 2nd Cavs LeBron had maintained his playoff performance over the full regular season, that may have been enough - but as is, the coasting in the regular season (plus the possibility that the playoff excellence may have been boosted just a little by shooting luck) takes off just enough shine from those years to help me prefer Magic’s year-round offensive excellence. And the impact metrics we have - across a range of WOWY, adjusted WOWY, raw plus minus, and adjusted plus minus metrics, limited as they each are - don’t clearly favor LeBron by that much if at all (WOWY, adjusted WOWY and raw plus minus actually favor Magic), despite the clear defensive advantage LeBron has. Dont get me wrong - I still favor LeBron when we include defense. But the contrast between the skillset analysis that seems to favor LeBron vs the wholistic metrics that seem to favor Magic offensively (assuming we give LeBron the significant edge in defense, which seems pretty inarguable) support the idea I said at the start, that Magic’s offensive skills were a bit more synergistic with each other and his teammates.

If you need a monster game in elimination game, you go with Magic quite easily. See game 6 of the 1980 finals against the sixers. Guy slid over to center like it was nothing and dropped 42. James has never done that. Magic was better at controlling the tempo of the game. Also a far better ft shooter.

The Explorer wrote:If you need a monster game in elimination game, you go with Magic quite easily. See game 6 of the 1980 finals against the sixers. Guy slid over to center like it was nothing and dropped 42. James has never done that. Magic was better at controlling the tempo of the game. Also a far better ft shooter.

Generally "elimination game" refers to a game where the player/team will be eliminated if they lose (the highest possible stakes). That was not the case in Game 6 of the 1980 Finals for Magic & the Lakers as they were up 3-2. Such a game would be more commonly referred to as a "closeout game" for the Lakers, while it was an elimination game for the 76ers.

And fwiw, LeBron James has the highest PPG in elimination games in league history while also playing the second most such games. He has never slid over to center and dropped 42 in an elimination game, that's true. One could just as easily say that in 13 career elimination games, Magic has scored 28+ points just once, while LeBron has scored 40+ points in 7 out of 29 career elimination games. So if volume scoring in elimination games is your metric of interest, then it bodes well for LeBron.

Isn't pretty much circumstantial why LeBron didn't generate as great offenses as Magic?

The first time he played with a very good offensive supporting cast actually fitting his skillset really well - was in his 2nd stint with Cavs, but then he was in his 30s already. And you could criticize his RS effort in comparison to let's say Jordan 95-97, but not necessarily to Magic who himself had only one-two prime seasons in his 30s played.

Considering that Cavs were +4.8 rORTG in 15-18 period despite LeBron being 'only' at 6.7 OBPM (also: Kyrie being so-so in '16 and out in '18) - I don't think there's that much of a doubt that he could facilitate visibly better offenses (he was +8.3 OBPM in the 09-14 period and everyone knows he was a significantly better regular season performer). Especially taking into account how great Cavs were offensively in the 16-17 playoffs - it's not even giving benefit of the doubt here. Cavs 09-10 had +4 rORTG offenses with Mo Williams and Delonte West as the 2nd-3rd options, so the same story.

It's still pretty close here, don't get me wrong - but the whole 'more synergistic skillset' sounds pretty circumstantial. At the end of the day, Magic didn't play with a lesser version of himself (Wade) nor he played on as drought team talent wise as Cavs 07-10 - and yet we still know that his best seasons came out once Kareem regressed.

homecourtloss wrote:

Top10alltime wrote:Lebron is also a better off-ball player than Magic, as a better play-finisher than Magic, he has some good years being in C&S, and he is a great screener in everyway. He is a good connective passer, as well. His most important trait (slashing), is all-time, and he is a good lob-threat, putting Lebron comfortably above Magic off the ball (whom I am not moved off the ball, it's not like Lebron is elite off the ball).

There are some things like mismatch hunting that Lebron is the GOAT at, soft traits I'd give to Lebron as well.!

It's interesting that the bolded or scoring volume advantage that matter in other discussions all of a sudden won't matter in this particular discussion to some posters.

Also, the weak competiton with a bunch of negative SRS, even -2 and -5 SRS teams faced in the playoffs won’t be brought up even though in other discussions how one fares against an arbitrary +5 SRS opponent (no rDRtgs taken into account, just being 5+ SRS) matters a great deal…

Underlined: That's because most posters use data, unlike posters like myself, who still does use data, but relies on the eye-test for who is better.

The scoring volume advantage almost always matter in discussions, unless you hate a player that much.

Bolded: what are you talking about? Is this relevant to the discussion, Magic or Lebron offensively?

jalengreen wrote:

The Explorer wrote:If you need a monster game in elimination game, you go with Magic quite easily. See game 6 of the 1980 finals against the sixers. Guy slid over to center like it was nothing and dropped 42. James has never done that. Magic was better at controlling the tempo of the game. Also a far better ft shooter.

Generally "elimination game" refers to a game where the player/team will be eliminated if they lose (the highest possible stakes). That was not the case in Game 6 of the 1980 Finals for Magic & the Lakers as they were up 3-2. Such a game would be more commonly referred to as a "closeout game" for the Lakers, while it was an elimination game for the 76ers.

And fwiw, LeBron James has the highest PPG in elimination games in league history while also playing the second most such games. He has never slid over to center and dropped 42 in an elimination game, that's true. One could just as easily say that in 13 career elimination games, Magic has scored 28+ points just once, while LeBron has scored 40+ points in 7 out of 29 career elimination games. So if volume scoring in elimination games is your metric of interest, then it bodes well for LeBron.

Note: the following list hasn’t been update in a few years so Giannis’s, Jokic’s Curry’s, Luka’s numbers probably chsnged a bit.

The Master wrote:Isn't pretty much circumstantial why LeBron didn't generate as great offenses as Magic?

The first time he played with a very good offensive supporting cast actually fitting his skillset really well - was in his 2nd stint with Cavs, but then he was in his 30s already. And you could criticize his RS effort in comparison to let's say Jordan 95-97, but not necessarily to Magic who himself had only one-two prime seasons in his 30s played.

Considering that Cavs were +4.8 rORTG in 15-18 period despite LeBron being 'only' at 6.7 OBPM (also: Kyrie being so-so in '16 and out in '18) - I don't think there's that much of a doubt that he could facilitate visibly better offenses (he was +8.3 OBPM in the 09-14 period and everyone knows he was a significantly better regular season performer). Especially taking into account how great Cavs were offensively in the 16-17 playoffs - it's not even giving benefit of the doubt here. Cavs 09-10 had +4 rORTG offenses with Mo Williams and Delonte West as the 2nd-3rd options, so the same story.

It's still pretty close here, don't get me wrong - but the whole 'more synergistic skillset' sounds pretty circumstantial. At the end of the day, Magic didn't play with a lesser version of himself (Wade) nor he played on as drought team talent wise as Cavs 07-10 - and yet we still know that his best seasons came out once Kareem regressed.

Is the team offense circumstantial? Absolutely. It's one of the data points, and probably one we shouldn't weight too heavily (or at least more heavily than the individual impact metrics), since they depend on teammates -- like we both say. It's part of the picture, but only one part.

But just to clarify, when I say Magic's skills are more synergistic, I mean both that they're more synergistic with teammates and more synergistic with each other.
-For the former, yes that does depend on the exact teammates, but it's also possible to do a skillset based analysis. There are trends in how different skills mesh with different types of teammates. This kind of skillset / chemistry analysis is really noisy, and people can disagree pretty heavily on this sort of stuff, so it's far from perfect, but it is part of the picture. It's absolutely true that Magic had substantially more offensive talent than 1st Cavs LeBron. I'm not too interested in getting into a scalability/LeBron discussion here (it's been overdone in the past), but suffice it to say, I think someone like Magic who monopolizes playmaking (with the greatest playmaking ever and some of the greatest offensive IQ ever) but shares scoring load (with better era relative spacing) fits a little better next to high-quality scorers and finishers (like Kareem, Worthy, Wade, Kyrie, Love, AD) than a guy like (younger?) Lebron who wants to monopolize both the playmaking (with all-time playmaking and offensive IQ, but not quite as good as Magic's) and monopolize more of the scoring too (with less spacing). So I like the synergy of Magic's skills with his teammates, based on the teammates yes, but also based on the skills and play styles themselves.

Now this comparison might be less fair when we get to older LeBron. As I insinuated in my first post, I'm open to discussions that as he got older the gap shrunk or even flipped in favor of LeBron. Late Miami LeBron and 2nd Cavs LeBron had improved passing, IQ, command of pace, and yes spacing/shooting/scoring counters, which I think helped these scalability issues. But unlike Magic, these evolutions came at a time when LeBron was older and the he had to (chose to?) coast in the regular season.

This coasting muddies the waters a little bit.... how much of the playoff offenses benefited from LeBron's motor and stamina, and would he have had this motor/stamina if he hadn't coasted? How much of 2017/2018's offensive brilliance comes from coasting more on the defensive end relative to his ability (which again is higher than Magic's), not just in the regular season, but in the playoffs as well? Since the peak team offensive brilliance came in small sample playoffs, how much are boosted by shooting luck? The answers are unclear, and people may rightly differ. If younger LeBron had developed some of the skills of older LeBron, I would be more comfortable taking him. But as is, I think Magic had the teamate-synergistic skills when he was younger and didn't need to coast, whereas LeBron developed the synergistic skills only after his athleticism and regular season effort began to fade. This prolonged his prime to incredible lengths, but decreased the heights of the offensive peak for me (or at least gives me wider uncertainty bars for the heights of the offensive peak).

-For the latter, I do think there's a synergy between a players skills. For one of the clearest cases, consider the difference between a static shooter, an off-ball motion player, and a motion shooter. The defense has a very different reaction to each of these players. The static shooter does pull at the defense gravitationally, but is much more predictable -- and that decreases the mental tax on the defender, and makes it easier for them to figure out when and how to help. The motion player does tug at the defense from different places, but can be more easily ignored on the perimeter -- they only become more of a threat if they're setting a good screen or cutting near the basket where their lack of range is less limiting. But the motion shooter tugs at the defense almost constantly throughout the possession, and is far more taxing on the defense's attention. That's the kind of synergy I mean. With Magic, I think there's a synergy between his size (specifically relative to his position -- since he played guard alongside other wings, that meant he more frequently had a clearer size advantage), post up ability, handle, and passing. This is akin to what jake was saying. I agree with jake that his post up scoring threat was highly effective against 80s defenses and smaller defenders (and didn't have issues like how to get the ball to the post given Magic's handle)... and frequently drew double teams, even though doubling Magic was perhaps one of the worst things a defense could do ever given his GOAT level passing. There's other synergies you could draw with his size and spacing, or his high defensive rebounding rates at the guard position alongside his speed and handle and transition passing (the Showtime Lakers wouldn't have been able to be the GOAT transition team if they hadn't had so many transition opportunities, and Magic's defensive rebounding and speed helped create more defense-to-offense opportunities).

Other may disagree, and I do think it's close. Overall, across all the evidence we have (team level, box level, possession-level or game-level impact metrics), I just think the defensive edge for LeBron is wider than the overall gap in their performance, which leaves me favoring Magic offense-only... again with enough uncertainty that it's totally reasonable to flip to LeBron.

Top10alltime wrote:Underlined: That's because most posters use data, unlike posters like myself, who still does use data, but relies on the eye-test for who is better.

Aren't you the guy who said Giannis is like Bol Bol?

On my latest list of top 10 offensive players ever, I had Magic #3 and Lebron #4 in the same tier.

I went with Magic by a hair because I think his teams have proven to be a bit more resilient against top teams (5+ SRS cutoffs and higher) compared to Lebron's teams. Both guys have relative limitations from being too ball dominant and running through weak conferences to pad their offensive numbers but Magic's offenses fared better in the Finals and in a handful of other tough series compared to Lebron's. Magic has two series with a negative rORtg ON Court (1981 HOU, 1983 PHI) and 1986 HOU could potentially join the list after I'm done tracking it. Lebron, on the other hand, has thirteen such series! Lebron's playoff offenses have reached tremendous highs but also had some bad lows. Magic had Kareem and you can certainly use that as an argument against him given Kareem's own offensive stature (probable top 10 all-time offensive player?) but Lebron had significant tactical advantages with spacing and his two best postseason runs benefited from very hot 3pt shooting. In addition, Magic showed tremendous offensive lift even as Kareem really declined and outright retired.

In terms of skillset alone, I'd probably favour Lebron slightly. His gap in scoring (5-7 points/75) is huge and Magic's edge in playmaking even though it's hefty doesn't overcome it in a vacuum for me. So depending on how the question is phrased (i.e. individual skill only) I may go with Lebron. But in a team context, it becomes close and I probably lean towards Magic slightly.

DraymondGold wrote:But just to clarify, when I say Magic's skills are more synergistic, I mean both that they're more synergistic with teammates and more synergistic with each other.
-For the former, yes that does depend on the exact teammates, but it's also possible to do a skillset based analysis. There are trends in how different skills mesh with different types of teammates. This kind of skillset / chemistry analysis is really noisy, and people can disagree pretty heavily on this sort of stuff, so it's far from perfect, but it is part of the picture. It's absolutely true that Magic had substantially more offensive talent than 1st Cavs LeBron. I'm not too interested in getting into a scalability/LeBron discussion here (it's been overdone in the past), but suffice it to say, I think someone like Magic who monopolizes playmaking (with the greatest playmaking ever and some of the greatest offensive IQ ever) but shares scoring load (with better era relative spacing) fits a little better next to high-quality scorers and finishers (like Kareem, Worthy, Wade, Kyrie, Love, AD) than a guy like (younger?) Lebron who wants to monopolize both the playmaking (with all-time playmaking and offensive IQ, but not quite as good as Magic's) and monopolize more of the scoring too (with less spacing). So I like the synergy of Magic's skills with his teammates, based on the teammates yes, but also based on the skills and play styles themselves.

Now this comparison might be less fair when we get to older LeBron. As I insinuated in my first post, I'm open to discussions that as he got older the gap shrunk or even flipped in favor of LeBron. Late Miami LeBron and 2nd Cavs LeBron had improved passing, IQ, command of pace, and yes spacing/shooting/scoring counters, which I think helped these scalability issues. But unlike Magic, these evolutions came at a time when LeBron was older and the he had to (chose to?) coast in the regular season.

First of all, thank you for your feedback.

Re: Magic

1. Is it really the case that playmaking monopolization + 1A/1B scoring volume guarantees better synergy? Or maybe - Magic played in an era where he could monopolize the offense in the best way fitting his skillset (dominant playmaker, non-dominant scorer) in fast paced offense, but that wouldn't be necessarily the case in the early 2010s era where talent pool was pretty much centered on perimeter and he would've been in position to actually share playmaking duties in several scenarios. Not saying that he wouldn't fit in, but let's say it was less probable to find Kyries and Wades in 1987. And again, I'm not disputing the overall premise (Magic potentially on par with LeBron offensively), but some arguments here mentioned I find as very much context-dependent (mainly, 'Magic generated better offenses' and 'he had better synergy as an anchor offensively'), and it's hard to compare two players from completely different eras without unpacking this context.

Re: LeBron

2. Did he really monopolize the ball that much, or just modern basketball demands from 'mutual synergy' perspective both great on- and off-ball skills, both in terms of playmaking and shooting, and this is something Wade (shooting) and Bosh (playmaking) really couldn't provide. The result was that even the very bright mind of Spoelstra couldn't come out with anything better than the Heatless era and their offense. Lakers 2020 had really flawed spacing - and yet they had +5 offense in the playoffs that year with below average shooting, and Cavs 16-17 had +9 offenses in the playoffs as well. Why? The difference is both AD and Kyrie were both great as off-ball scorers for their respective positions. Even with Mo Williams and Delonte West - they shared playmaking/ballhandling duties and there was, with limited talent of both, synergy just based on their shooting capabilities. So did really LeBron monopolize the offense that much considering that he was certainly capable of being +10 APG type of player, and yet the first time he reached that mark was for the Lakers who played typical ballhandler-big man type of offense in the twilight of his prime years? I doubt it.

Also, obviously LeBron in the latter part of his career was indeed a smarter and more versatile player, but I don't think this is really an explanation of why (offensively) the results of Heat and 1st LeBron tenure's Cavs offenses were sub-optimal (or not elite besides 12/13 season, let's say).

3. Re: coasting in the regular season - yeah, obviously it was related to him conserving energy for the playoffs, what was more than understandable considering his career volume in the playoffs already at that time. But my point rather was:

a) 2015-18 regular seasons were still MVP candidate worthy, and LeBron was 30-33 at that time, so I don't think this is an argument in favor of Magic of all people for well known reasons that he did it,
b) coasting LeBron in optimal offensive conditions was able to generate +4/+5 rORTG offenses in the regular season (and +9 rORTG offenses in the playoffs with his 'regular' self) - so I don't think that it is fair reaching assumption that peak LeBron would've been capable of generating much better offenses than he did in this 08-14 era, considering that he was at +8.7 OBPM if you exclude 2011 season, if he was at that time playing under 'optimal' offensive circumstances.

The point that I can agree with - but again, I think this is pretty much related to the growth of the game on both sides of the floor rather than Magic being 'inherently' better synergy-wise - is that LeBron in 2010s was probably more demanding in terms of specific fit than Magic was in the 80s. But isn't related to the fact that talent pool, defenses and the way offense is played - are all much better, and Magic would've also demanded a specific roster construction, especially if he had spent majority of his prime in lower pace era like LeBron did, in the 00s or 10s? I believe so.

But again - these are my 2 cents to this discussion without disputing the overall assumption that this comparison is indeed really close. I'd probably prefer prime LeBron, as he was really an underrated off-ball scorer in this 12-18 era, but like I said several times, I'm not disputing the basic assumption of them being on the same tier offensively.