5 year plus-minus of various all-time nba peaks(Feat. Shaq, Lebron, Jordan, Robinson and Curry)

[falcolombardi]

Here are the top teams by composite (regular-season/playoff) SRS:
\

Here are the top teams by composite (regular-season/playoff) SRS:

Those higher SRS's advantages are strongly correlated to jordan bench minutes vs lebron bench minutes. The playoffs ON-OFF suggests lebron could take worse teams (OFF) to roughly the same heights (ON)

The idea that lebron is at fault for his teams being weaker without him goes against the much simpler occam razor that they were not as well built as jordan teams

Remember this is 16-21 sample vs jordan 88-93 sample. Jordan cast was already fairly good by 90 and lebron cast includes 19 lakers, 18 cavs and davis-less 21 lakers who were not that great rosters

Actually it wouldn't include the 19 lakers since they didn't make the playoffs.

(as making a case that curry or bird or magic are better defenders is really hard and even making the case jordan is a significatively enough better defender to explain the srs gap is also hard)

How do you even argue jordan is a better defender besides dpoy voting?

Ohh right, my mistake there

[falcolombardi]

The limitations on Wade & Davis' outside shooting is part of what I'm talking about.

Miami was different from the two Cavs stints in no small part because Wade lacked the ability to shoot from outside. This resulted in them pushing Bosh to the 5 so they could get better spacing.

So Wade's lack of shooting forced Bosh to the 5 but also...

Is standing outside the arc the best use of Bosh or Love in all contexts? Absolutely not, but it was what was needed with LeBron.

We're right back to Lebron forces his bigs to be spot up shooters. Which leads us to...

What would Draymond Green do if he were on LeBron's team? Stand outside the arc and shoot 3's, and if he couldn't do it well enough, you'd bench him.

Yep. For example it was benching Tristan Thompson in the Finals that got Cleveland over the hump. Oh wait, that was Golden State benching their non-shooting center Bogut in 2015. Do I need to pull up those Anderson Varejão on-off numbers from back in the day? This is just another attempt by Team Gravity to bend reality. Yeah, Green would be bench playing next to Lebron because no defensive 1st-non shooting big man has ever played a large role on any of his teams

Would playing offense through Love or Bosh create better offenses? Almost zero chance though I suppose in certain contexts it might be worth it. But overall?

BTW, the whole “Love became a spot up shooter” thing is overblown, and I’m surprised a poster such as Doctor MJ is using this. Besides the fact that Love as a spot up shooter created the best playoff offense ever (and actually wasn’t really a “spot up shooter” as he was in many motion sets, getting sprung with screens, etc.), he DID get the ball in the post but was terrible at producing points.

Going to tag Onus here since he used the trite “turned Love into a spot up shooter” as well.

.

2019: Love, 23 games played, 3 post up possessions per game (22nd most of 195 players with 10+ post up possessions during the season), .83 points per possession (PPP), BOTTOM 28%, 25th out of 27 players with 3+ post up possessions per game. https://stats.nba.com/players/playtype-post-up/?sort=PERCENTILE&dir=1&CF=POSS*GE*3&SeasonType=Regular%20Season

Now, in 2018 he was in the top 21% in post up PPP, but in the playoffs, he was bottom 30% on 4.2 post up possessions per game (6th most in the playoffs). It’s always funny to me when people say “He was turned into a spot up shooter” when his spot up shooting is infinitely better than what ANY player could provide from the post AND he was getting plenty of post up opportunities but wasn’t scoring. The Cavs created two top 5 playoffs offenses ever using him to space the floor and shoot.

2018 post up points per possession: .98 (top 21%), 4.2 possessions per game
2018 playoffs post up points per possession: .80 (bottom 31%), 4.2 possessions per game [6th most in the playoffs]
2018 spot up points per possession: 1.27 (top 4%), 3.7 possessions per game. Cavs should have had him spot up more, not less.
2018 playoffs spot up points per possession: 1.00 (bottom 38%), 4.0 possessions per game [missed wide open shots all playoffs]

2017 post up points per possession: .87 (bottom 45%), 4.3 possessions per game
2017 playoffs post up points per possession: .98 (top 33%), 3.1 possessions per game [7th most in the playoffs]
2017 spot up points per possession: 1.19 (top 10%), 4.3 possessions per game
2017 playoffs spot up points per possession: 1.15 (top 33%), 4.5possessions per game

Notice that in 2017, a top 33% post up PPP would be a BOTTOM 40% spot up PPP.

2016 post up points per possession: .98 (top 17%), 4 possessions per game
2016 playoffs post up points per possession: .81 (bottom 44%), 4.3 possessions per game [7th most in the NBA]
2016 spot up points per possession: 1.06 (top 23%), 4.3 possessions per game
2016 playoffs spot up points per possession: 1.18 (top 23%), 4.7 possessions per game

I think the love point is a lost cause

That narrative that love never did anythingg else but spot up in the corner (when he was used in lots of other ways) was never allowed to isolate (when he actually had a high amount of post ups for modern league standards) or was wasted by not running the offense through his post ups (when his post up efficiency was awful for modern league standards) is too ingrained

[f4p]

the other thing about "love/bosh became spot up shooters" is that they were 3RD OPTIONS, not 2ND OPTIONS. people always try to compare them to the pippen's and gasol's of the world. they try and act like wade and kyrie didn't get all the touches and points they wanted next to lebron. even ignoring the amazing offensive results with love, even if the results sucked, would anyone expect love to look like minnesota love next to lebron and kyrie? no one would suggest giving the ball to love was a better possession than lebron or kyrie, so he was pretty much destined to fall off in terms of overall iso/post-up touches. this is part of the reason why jordan/pippen/rodman and curry/thompson/green is so perfect, because rodman and green don't derive their main value from scoring, and frankly don't even want to score. they are just straight adding to the total impact of the trio while bosh and love were never going to be the top 5 PER, 25 ppg type guys they were before, because a game only has 100 possessions and the big 2 on most teams can use most of those possessions, and that's even more true when it's guys as great as lebron/wade and lebron/kyrie.

i suppose you can criticize roster construction, but there are only so many good players to go around and making any situation perfect is difficult without some serendipity along the way. lebron/wade/bosh met at team USA and wanted to be teammates. i don't think they planned out exactly how well their talents meshed and i would be shocked if smart players like wade and lebron didn't realize they would be overlapping like crazy. as far as lebron/kyrie/love, kyrie just happened to be the guy on the team in lebron's hometown and love just happened to be the main star available. if they had known he would practically become obsolete thanks to small ball, they probably don't trade for him (not that the 2015 cavs to end the regular season before love got injured and the 2017 cavs weren't still amazing teams).

[falcolombardi]

[quote="f4p"]the other thing about "love/bosh became spot up shooters" is that they were 3RD OPTIONS, not 2ND OPTIONS. people always try to compare them to the pippen's and gasol's of the world. they try and act like wade and kyrie didn't get all the touches and points they wanted next to lebron. even ignoring the amazing offensive results with love, even if the results sucked, would anyone expect love to look like minnesota love next to lebron and kyrie? no one would suggest giving the ball to love was a better possession than lebron or kyrie, so he was pretty much destined to fall off in terms of overall iso/post-up touches. this is part of the reason why jordan/pippen/rodman and curry/thompson/green is so perfect, because rodman and green don't derive their main value from scoring, and frankly don't even want to score. they are just straight adding to the total impact of the trio while bosh and love were never going to be the top 5 PER, 25 ppg type guys they were before, because a game only has 100 possessions and the big 2 on most teams can use most of those possessions, and that's even more true when it's guys as great as lebron/wade and lebron/kyrie.

i suppose you can criticize roster construction, but there are only so many good players to go around and making any situation perfect is difficult without some serendipity along the way. lebron/wade/bosh met at team USA and wanted to be teammates. i don't think they planned out exactly how well their talents meshed and i would be shocked if smart players like wade and lebron didn't realize they would be overlapping like crazy. as far as lebron/kyrie/love, kyrie just happened to be the guy on the team in lebron's hometown and love just happened to be the main star available. if they had known he would practically become obsolete thanks to small ball, they probably don't trade for him (not that the 2015 cavs to end the regular season before love got injured and the 2017 cavs weren't still amazing teams).[/quote]

Love and bosh were basically in horace grant/toni kukok situation playing alongside two perimeter stars as third bananas

And within that comparision they actually had more prominent offensive roles than grant or kukok

[LukaTheGOAT]

Kevin Love set his career best mark in NBA ShotCharts RAPM in 2017 and had his 2nd best mark in APM/G this year as well (3.6 which was just behind his career-high of 3.7). Despite his box-score numbers not being what they were in Minnesota, by pure plus-minus he was arguably never more impact. This is suggestive of the idea that maybe Lebron did get the most value out of Kevin Love as possible.

[PistolPeteJR]

There is so much focus on how LeBron needs good shooters MORE than other players do (eg. Curry, Nash, etc.) but absolutely no mention of how guys like Curry and Nash need good defenders, playmakers, rebounders, to name a few basketball necessities that lead to winning, MORE than LeBron, for example. That is not to say that those two (for example, not picking on them specifically) don't depend on good shooting around them as well to help them be more successful when it comes to WINNING, but perhaps the importance of your supporting cast's shooting specifically helps LeBron more than, say, Curry. What about the rest of the basketball necessities? Do we simply ignore those?

Defense is more easily obtainable than shooting and offense. You see it in the salaries all the time. GPII couldn't make a roster. Thybulle gets benched. Tony Allen vet min player. There are ample defensive players that can't get on the court because they can't score or shoot.

The principle behind what I’m arguing stands.

[Onus]

Varejao averaged less than 6 minutes per game for the full series and mostly garbage minutes. Festus ezeli and andrew bogut averaged under 9.

The whole trio played under 24 of each 240 available minutes which is a lot less than tristan thompson alone (32 mins per game of each 240), another non shooter played for the cavs

24 mpg vs 32 mpg where both teams had a true center.

You also stretch thw definition of "non shooter" here by including iggy and to a lesser degree barnes and even draymond

Barnes shooting 5 of 30 something on wide open shot, I'd assume that qualifies as being a non shooter. Imagine getting 30 wide open looks in 3 games. They obviously aren't guarding him.
Andre only shoots when he's wide open. He rarely take 3s unless he has to. He's not a shooter, never has been.

Draymond shot 40% from 3 in over 5 3's a game that series (this was the short era he could shot the 3). He literally took 50% more 3's per game than love in the finals and shot them 4% better

Draymond missed his previous 10 3pt attempt before game 7. They were barely guarding him in game 7 when he exploded.

Non curry/klay warriors shot 41/112 from 3 (36.5%)

Non lebron/kyrie cabaliers shot 28/92 from 3 (30.5%)

Curry "non" shooters took more 3's than lebron team and shot them bettwr

But even if it was the opposite it wouldnt make cavs the "super team" here cause 3 point shooting is not the only thingh that matters in basketball

LMAO at thinking it's the 3 point shooting role players that makes a super team. What makes a super team is that Lebron and Kyrie both exploded. Kyrie avg 27ppg while klay avg 20ppg.
Granted Curry stunk it up in this series, but there was no one to take advantage of wide open shots.

Warriors had the league best defensive big and multiple strong defenders like iguodala, klay and some bogut minutes

Iguodala hurt his back in game 5 and had to get injections the rest of the series. Bogut also got hurt in game 5.

[f4p]

LMAO at thinking it's the 3 point shooting role players that makes a super team. What makes a super team is that Lebron and Kyrie both exploded. Kyrie avg 27ppg while klay avg 20ppg.

ignoring the fact curry's team was going to make the WCF without him, and ignoring that kyrie pre- and post-lebron has proven to be quite terrible at winning, and ignoring love was so bad that people were joking the cavs should give him another concussion so he wouldn't play, we have a series where lebron led both teams in all 5 stats, the first time in nba history that happened (i would think a super team could muster up a second stat leader in something), and a series where you yourself said curry sucked. and with that differential between the two, it still went to game 7 and was tied with a minute to go. that would seem to speak to a pretty wide gulf between the teams. and considering that lebron was also the first player since hakeem on the '94 rockets to lead a team in all 5 stats in the playoffs and win the title, and the '94 rockets weren't exactly a super team, that would further make it seem lebron was not on a superteam.

[Onus]

ignoring the fact curry's team was going to make the WCF without him,

Unlikely

and ignoring that kyrie pre- and post-lebron has proven to be quite terrible at winning,

I think the problem with Kyrie is that he's actually a sg and needs someone else to be the pg, which is why he fits so well with Lebron who can be the pg and get others involved.

we have a series where lebron led both teams in all 5 stats, the first time in nba history that happened (i would think a super team could muster up a second stat leader in something), and a series where you yourself said curry sucked. and with that differential between the two, it still went to game 7 and was tied with a minute to go. that would seem to speak to a pretty wide gulf between the teams.

Gameplans matter. Warriors were fine with Lebron doing everything. They didn't double him and get the ball out of his hands to make the others beat them, which allowed him to rack up a lot of stats. Whereas the cavs were doubling steph all the time, on and off the ball. Just so that he couldn't shoot forcing the others to beat them. So yea the supposed superteam was forced to have the others beat them but couldn't. While Lebron's team was forced to have Lebron beat them because they were scared of everyone else.

and considering that lebron was also the first player since hakeem on the '94 rockets to lead a team in all 5 stats in the playoffs and win the title, and the '94 rockets weren't exactly a super team, that would further make it seem lebron was not on a superteam.

Only lebron fans can really say that 2 all stars before Lebron with Lebron is not a super team. Kyrie was an all star before Lebron and after Lebron. Love was arguably the best pf before he joined Lebron and you really want to sit here and say that's not a superteam. Unreal. They literally had the best odds to win the championship in 2015 when they got put together but they weren't a superteam.

[dcstanley]

Varejao averaged less than 6 minutes per game for the full series and mostly garbage minutes. Festus ezeli and andrew bogut averaged under 9.

The whole trio played under 24 of each 240 available minutes which is a lot less than tristan thompson alone (32 mins per game of each 240), another non shooter played for the cavs

24 mpg vs 32 mpg where both teams had a true center.

You also stretch thw definition of "non shooter" here by including iggy and to a lesser degree barnes and even draymond

Barnes shooting 5 of 30 something on wide open shot, I'd assume that qualifies as being a non shooter. Imagine getting 30 wide open looks in 3 games. They obviously aren't guarding him.
Andre only shoots when he's wide open. He rarely take 3s unless he has to. He's not a shooter, never has been.

Draymond shot 40% from 3 in over 5 3's a game that series (this was the short era he could shot the 3). He literally took 50% more 3's per game than love in the finals and shot them 4% better

Draymond missed his previous 10 3pt attempt before game 7. They were barely guarding him in game 7 when he exploded.

Non curry/klay warriors shot 41/112 from 3 (36.5%)

Non lebron/kyrie cabaliers shot 28/92 from 3 (30.5%)

Curry "non" shooters took more 3's than lebron team and shot them bettwr

But even if it was the opposite it wouldnt make cavs the "super team" here cause 3 point shooting is not the only thingh that matters in basketball

LMAO at thinking it's the 3 point shooting role players that makes a super team. What makes a super team is that Lebron and Kyrie both exploded. Kyrie avg 27ppg while klay avg 20ppg.
Granted Curry stunk it up in this series, but there was no one to take advantage of wide open shots.

Warriors had the league best defensive big and multiple strong defenders like iguodala, klay and some bogut minutes

Iguodala hurt his back in game 5 and had to get injections the rest of the series. Bogut also got hurt in game 5.

Barnes shot 38% from 3 on the season. He wasn't a high volume shooter but he didn't have the reputation of being a total non-shooter. He's a player that scouting reports would emphasize to close out on. He shot 31% from three in the series while Love shot 26% from three in the series, is Love also a non-shooter? Imo players like Rajon Rondo or current Draymond fit that archetype-- they're players that are only going to shoot wide open threes as an absolute last resort. Barnes was a plus shooter.

The Cavs rotation consisted of 7 players getting the bulk of the minutes- Lebron, Kyrie, Love, Thompson, Smith, Jefferson, and Shumpert. Shumpert went 4-15 (26%) from beyond the arc in the series (he also shot 30% from three during the season), Jefferson attempted six 3s in the entire series and only made one, Love also shot 26% from beyond the arc, and Thompson obviously didn't attempt a single three. That leaves two players excluding Lebron that were reasonably effective from three point distance. I do think the Cavs might have had a spacing advantage but only a slight advantage.

[tone wone]

Gameplans matter. Warriors were fine with Lebron doing everything. They didn't double him and get the ball out of his hands to make the others beat them, which allowed him to rack up a lot of stats. Whereas the cavs were doubling steph all the time, on and off the ball. Just so that he couldn't shoot forcing the others to beat them. So yea the supposed superteam was forced to have the others beat them but couldn't. While Lebron's team was forced to have Lebron beat them because they were scared of everyone else.

This is insane. The Warriors were the most talented defensive team in the league. They didn't "send doubles" to any star. The didnt have to. They had an army of switchable 6'7-6'9 players who could switch off and flatten out any teams offense. This allowed them to stay home on shooters while sending help in paint when needed. Its the foundation of why they were so damn hard to play against.

If they cloned themselves and played a 7-game series they wouldn't double Steph "all the time" either.

[letskissbro]

3PT% and 3PA of the last 11 champions

2012 Heat: 9th/23rd
2013 Heat: 2nd/6th
2014 Spurs: 1st/16th
2015 Warriors: 1st/4th
2016 Cavaliers: 7th/3rd
2017 Warriors: 3rd/5th
2018 Warriors 1st/16th
2019 Raptors: 6th/11th
2020 Lakers: 21st/23rd
2021 Bucks: 5th/8th
2022 Warriors: 8th/3rd

A bit simplistic and some of this is obviously due to Steph inflating his team's numbers but I see two outliers here: the 2012 Heat and the 2020 Lakers.

3 point shooting is a near prerequisite for championship teams these days. It isn't the 90s anymore. You can't just start 4-5 sub-30% 3 point shooting defensive studs and do clear outs like the Bulls. Unless a player absolutely needs 5-out to function or something (like some theorize with Giannis) can it really be considered a valid knock against them?

[MyUniBroDavis]

3PT% and 3PA of the last 11 champions

2012 Heat: 9th/23rd
2013 Heat: 2nd/6th
2014 Spurs: 1st/16th
2015 Warriors: 1st/4th
2016 Cavaliers: 7th/3rd
2017 Warriors: 3rd/5th
2018 Warriors 1st/16th
2019 Raptors: 6th/11th
2020 Lakers: 21st/23rd
2021 Bucks: 5th/8th
2022 Warriors: 8th/3rd

A bit simplistic and some of this is obviously due to Steph inflating his team's numbers but I see two outliers here: the 2012 Heat and the 2020 Lakers.

3 point shooting is a near prerequisite for championship teams these days. It isn't the 90s anymore. You can't just start 4-5 sub-30% 3 point shooting defensive studs and do clear outs like the Bulls. Unless a player absolutely needs 5-out to function or something (like some theorize with Giannis) can it really be considered a valid knock against them?

Giannis didn’t play 5 out lol

[tone wone]

3PT% and 3PA of the last 11 champions

2012 Heat: 9th/23rd
2013 Heat: 2nd/6th
2014 Spurs: 1st/16th
2015 Warriors: 1st/4th
2016 Cavaliers: 7th/3rd
2017 Warriors: 3rd/5th
2018 Warriors 1st/16th
2019 Raptors: 6th/11th
2020 Lakers: 21st/23rd
2021 Bucks: 5th/8th
2022 Warriors: 8th/3rd

A bit simplistic and some of this is obviously due to Steph inflating his team's numbers but I see two outliers here: the 2012 Heat and the 2020 Lakers.

3 point shooting is a near prerequisite for championship teams these days. It isn't the 90s anymore. You can't just start 4-5 sub-30% 3 point shooting defensive studs and do clear outs like the Bulls. Unless a player absolutely needs 5-out to function or something (like some theorize with Giannis) can it really be considered a valid knock against them?

at the 2020 Lakers. I remember how as that season went on and they kept winning despite being absolute bricks the fanbase starting viewing the lack of shooting with pride. Like, while the whole league lived and died with 3pt shooting, they could actually beat good teams without it.

Such a quirky team.

[falcolombardi]

3PT% and 3PA of the last 11 champions

2012 Heat: 9th/23rd
2013 Heat: 2nd/6th
2014 Spurs: 1st/16th
2015 Warriors: 1st/4th
2016 Cavaliers: 7th/3rd
2017 Warriors: 3rd/5th
2018 Warriors 1st/16th
2019 Raptors: 6th/11th
2020 Lakers: 21st/23rd
2021 Bucks: 5th/8th
2022 Warriors: 8th/3rd

A bit simplistic and some of this is obviously due to Steph inflating his team's numbers but I see two outliers here: the 2012 Heat and the 2020 Lakers.

3 point shooting is a near prerequisite for championship teams these days. It isn't the 90s anymore. You can't just start 4-5 sub-30% 3 point shooting defensive studs and do clear outs like the Bulls. Unless a player absolutely needs 5-out to function or something (like some theorize with Giannis) can it really be considered a valid knock against them?

Someone remind me again why the player who has won rings in the modern era with the least 3 point shooting is the one singled out for "needing" 3 point shooting ?

Why do these thinghs only apply to lebron lol

Led literally goat level peak offenses and all time level offensive run over a long prime when playing with offensive talent? Not a ceiling raiser cause he doesnt mesh with other offensive stars

Teams suck without him? Is his fault for making them dependant on him even though they are obviously stacked

Lifts worse teams without him (OFF) to the same or higher heights than other stars (ON) ? Obviously a good floorraiser but not a REAL ceiling raiser

Has played and won in the most different eras, rosters and even positions? Needs everyone to accomodate him unlike other all time players who played with the same coach, system and era style for their whole runs

[homecourtloss]

3PT% and 3PA of the last 11 champions

2012 Heat: 9th/23rd
2013 Heat: 2nd/6th
2014 Spurs: 1st/16th
2015 Warriors: 1st/4th
2016 Cavaliers: 7th/3rd
2017 Warriors: 3rd/5th
2018 Warriors 1st/16th
2019 Raptors: 6th/11th
2020 Lakers: 21st/23rd
2021 Bucks: 5th/8th
2022 Warriors: 8th/3rd

A bit simplistic and some of this is obviously due to Steph inflating his team's numbers but I see two outliers here: the 2012 Heat and the 2020 Lakers.

3 point shooting is a near prerequisite for championship teams these days. It isn't the 90s anymore. You can't just start 4-5 sub-30% 3 point shooting defensive studs and do clear outs like the Bulls. Unless a player absolutely needs 5-out to function or something (like some theorize with Giannis) can it really be considered a valid knock against them?

at the 2020 Lakers. I remember how as that season went on and they kept winning despite being absolute bricks the fanbase starting viewing the lack of shooting with pride. Like, while the whole league lived and died with 3pt shooting, they could actually beat good teams without it.

Such a quirky team.

It’s astonishing that the “LeBon needs shooters” mantra just gets lazily thrown around when we have actual, not theoretical evidence of how he won on teams that were era anomalies, especially 2020. In 2020, they won using rim pressure (James + lob threats to Davis, Howard, and McGee led to a league lead in dunks), AD scoring, James scoring+playmaking, offensive rebounding, and defense with LeBron being their best defensive player at age 35 WHILE leading the league in assists. We’re talking about things that never happen actually happening (i.e., a 35 year old primary creator at or near the top of the league in creation also being the team’s overall best defender statistically), yet you’ll get the LeBron specific portability discussions. As falcolombardi mentioned in another thread, other players’ theoretical portability into different systems are given higher validity that James ACTUALLY doing it using vastly different systems.

That team did everything well except shoot and when they DID shoot well, they were close to invincible. James + McGee lineups had an ORtg of 114.5 before the bubble and these lineups had little or no spacing.

Someone remind me again why the player who has won rings in the modern era with the least 3 point shooting is the one singled out for "needing" 3 point shooting ?

Why do these thinghs only apply to lebron lol

Led literally goat level peak offenses and all time level offensive run over a long prime when playing with offensive talent? Not a ceiling raiser cause he doesnt mesh with other offensive stars

Teams suck without him? Is his fault for making them dependant on him even though they are obviously stacked

Lifts worse teams without him (OFF) to the same or higher heights than other stars (ON) ? Obviously a good floorraiser but not a REAL ceiling raiser

Has played and won in the most different eras, rosters and even positions? Needs everyone to accomodate him unlike other all time players who played with the same coach, system and era style for their whole runs

Exactly. When you already have your conclusion in mind, i.e., “LeBon not portable, LeBron need Le shooters,” then you’ll wind up getting these type of logical contortions. Frankly, LeBron seems to get punished for creating the best offenses ever using spacing and shooting around him. Imagine if the Cavs had the exact same results in 2015, 2016, 2017 but with worse shooting—you’d then get fewer arguments that LeBron needs shooters. He gets criticized for reaching heights on offense for playing in a way that others had access to but couldn’t create the same type of offense and that offensive peak is used against him because “he needed shooters and spacing to do it” even though everyone else needs spacing and shooting and he also created great offense and championship quality teams without that spacing.

There’s this overall thread of argument that to maximize LeBron you need shooters and though that’s true for basically everyone, it’s also strange because he’s being punished for getting to heights others didn’t on offense but needed some specific set of circumstances to do it when others couldn’t get to those heights regardless though they needed THEIR OWN set of circumstances.

[falcolombardi]

3PT% and 3PA of the last 11 champions

2012 Heat: 9th/23rd
2013 Heat: 2nd/6th
2014 Spurs: 1st/16th
2015 Warriors: 1st/4th
2016 Cavaliers: 7th/3rd
2017 Warriors: 3rd/5th
2018 Warriors 1st/16th
2019 Raptors: 6th/11th
2020 Lakers: 21st/23rd
2021 Bucks: 5th/8th
2022 Warriors: 8th/3rd

A bit simplistic and some of this is obviously due to Steph inflating his team's numbers but I see two outliers here: the 2012 Heat and the 2020 Lakers.

3 point shooting is a near prerequisite for championship teams these days. It isn't the 90s anymore. You can't just start 4-5 sub-30% 3 point shooting defensive studs and do clear outs like the Bulls. Unless a player absolutely needs 5-out to function or something (like some theorize with Giannis) can it really be considered a valid knock against them?

at the 2020 Lakers. I remember how as that season went on and they kept winning despite being absolute bricks the fanbase starting viewing the lack of shooting with pride. Like, while the whole league lived and died with 3pt shooting, they could actually beat good teams without it.

Such a quirky team.

It’s astonishing that the “LeBon needs shooters” mantra just gets lazily thrown around when we have actual, not theoretical evidence of how he won on teams that were era anomalies, especially 2020. In 2020, they won using rim pressure (James + lob threats to Davis, Howard, and McGee led to a league lead in dunks), AD scoring, James scoring+playmaking, offensive rebounding, and defense with LeBron being their best defensive player at age 35 WHILE leading the league in assists. We’re talking about things that never happen actually happening (i.e., a 35 year old primary creator at or near the top of the league in creation also being the team’s overall best defender statistically), yet you’ll get the LeBron specific portability discussions.

That team did everything well except shoot and when they DID shoot well, they were close to invincible. James + McGee lineups had an ORtg of 114.5 before the bubble and these lineups had little or no spacing.

I have long accepted lebron is the only player people judge on theorycrafting/aesthetics over results lol. Well, him and ball dominant players in general ever since on-ball play went out of vogue

Is the only way i can make sense of how the 3 players with arguably the best offensive results ever (nash, magic and lebron) are criticized for their ball dominance limiting them in offense alongside other stars

[Onus]

Barnes shot 38% from 3 on the season. He wasn't a high volume shooter but he didn't have the reputation of being a total non-shooter. He's a player that scouting reports would emphasize to close out on. He shot 31% from three in the series while Love shot 26% from three in the series, is Love also a non-shooter? Imo players like Rajon Rondo or current Draymond fit that archetype-- they're players that are only going to shoot wide open threes as an absolute last resort. Barnes was a plus shooter.

The Cavs rotation consisted of 7 players getting the bulk of the minutes- Lebron, Kyrie, Love, Thompson, Smith, Jefferson, and Shumpert. Shumpert went 4-15 (26%) from beyond the arc in the series (he also shot 30% from three during the season), Jefferson attempted six 3s in the entire series and only made one, Love also shot 26% from beyond the arc, and Thompson obviously didn't attempt a single three. That leaves two players excluding Lebron that were reasonably effective from three point distance. I do think the Cavs might have had a spacing advantage but only a slight advantage.

5-30 on wide open shots is not plus shooting. Once he started missing they had more and more leeway to help off of him. Him going into a slump, them not guarding draymond, and Iguodala with a hurt back that's what we're working with.

I agree we should've let the others shoot more.

[Onus]

Gameplans matter. Warriors were fine with Lebron doing everything. They didn't double him and get the ball out of his hands to make the others beat them, which allowed him to rack up a lot of stats. Whereas the cavs were doubling steph all the time, on and off the ball. Just so that he couldn't shoot forcing the others to beat them. So yea the supposed superteam was forced to have the others beat them but couldn't. While Lebron's team was forced to have Lebron beat them because they were scared of everyone else.

This is insane. The Warriors were the most talented defensive team in the league. They didn't "send doubles" to any star. The didnt have to. They had an army of switchable 6'7-6'9 players who could switch off and flatten out any teams offense. This allowed them to stay home on shooters while sending help in paint when needed. Its the foundation of why they were so damn hard to play against.

If they cloned themselves and played a 7-game series they wouldn't double Steph "all the time" either.

They would absolutely double steph all the time as well. You realize the celtics tried not to double steph and analysts were killing the celtics saying you can't play steph this way. The celtics also have an army of switchable high level defenders.

[Onus]

3PT% and 3PA of the last 11 champions

2012 Heat: 9th/23rd
2013 Heat: 2nd/6th
2014 Spurs: 1st/16th
2015 Warriors: 1st/4th
2016 Cavaliers: 7th/3rd
2017 Warriors: 3rd/5th
2018 Warriors 1st/16th
2019 Raptors: 6th/11th
2020 Lakers: 21st/23rd
2021 Bucks: 5th/8th
2022 Warriors: 8th/3rd

A bit simplistic and some of this is obviously due to Steph inflating his team's numbers but I see two outliers here: the 2012 Heat and the 2020 Lakers.

3 point shooting is a near prerequisite for championship teams these days. It isn't the 90s anymore. You can't just start 4-5 sub-30% 3 point shooting defensive studs and do clear outs like the Bulls. Unless a player absolutely needs 5-out to function or something (like some theorize with Giannis) can it really be considered a valid knock against them?

at the 2020 Lakers. I remember how as that season went on and they kept winning despite being absolute bricks the fanbase starting viewing the lack of shooting with pride. Like, while the whole league lived and died with 3pt shooting, they could actually beat good teams without it.

Such a quirky team.

2020 was an odd year.

But a starting lineup featuring an AD shooting 38% from 3, Lebron, KCP, Danny Green shouldn't really be seen as a poor shooting team. They were a very impressive defense.