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

[DraymondGold]

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

Add to it pippen being a clearly better player than kyrie. And horace grant being honestly a comparable player to love and lebron only having 1 and a half year of davis in this 6-year sample and it doesnt seem outlandish at all that jordan teams were just better and that was why they had better results without their respective Goat contender

With any other comparision when we see guys have similar ON but one has a worse OFF we find it more impressive the guy who takes a worse roster to similar heights. See: jokic vs other mvp contenders this season by on/off

Why do we change the whole framework to reason ourselves backwards here?

It honestly feels like reasoning backwards why jordam having the slightly worse impact metrics at peak is not actually worse. And we use a comtrived reasoning that is only applied this one time (the worse your team is without you tje less impressive it is how much you raise them)

Would we argue this logic if the results were reversed?

Honest question. If jordsn had the same ON and worse OFF than lebron would anyone be arguing lebron as actually more impressive and more of a ceiling raiser or saying jordan makes his teams worse without him?

Did anyone argue giannis over jokic last regular season cause both had similar ON but nuggets had much worsr off

Even the common arguments against lebron ceiling raising always focus on offense (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)

Offense being an area where lebron teams arguably reached higher heights than the bulls or warriors

The argument aleays goes curry warriors or jordan bulls > lebron heat/cavs because they fit better with better offensive talent

The answer always is "lebron teams actually peaked as high or higher on offense"

and since arguing curry>lebron or bird>lebron or whoever offensive star>lebron as ceiling raisers based on defense doesnt usually pass the sniff test

it just goes into very vague and overcomplicated (imo) reasonings about why is actually lebron fault he makes his teammates bad ar basketball and stuff like that

I never got back to this, so I figured I'd give a quick answer since LeBron's scalability came up in the other thread.

You ask why we downgrade LeBron for having roughly the same On rating (though it is lower than Jordan's) and much worse off. You ask whether we'd do the same treatment for other players if the situation was reversed, like Jordan/Curry/Jokic.

There's a simple answer: we're trying to explain the puzzling situation of the LeBron Miami heat, where LeBron shows greater diminishing returns than Jordan/Curry/Jokic.

Let me shift your questions to a different question, as I think this new one speaks to our primary disagreement. Why is LeBron's on-rating so poor (relative to other Tier 1 peaks) with the Miami heat?

The Miami Heat in 11/12 and 13/14 have the best off-rating of LeBron's entire prime. That suggests these are the years with better teammates, which fits what you said that healthy Wade/Bosh are LeBron's best supporting cast when LeBron's off. It also fits popular opinion.

Yet... LeBron's on-court differential in 11/12 and 13/14 is clearly worse than 09/10, 15/16, 16/17, and 20/21. If this Heat dynasty was LeBron's best teams, why did they underperform so much when LeBron was on the court, especially since 2012/2013 is most people's choice for peak LeBron?

The only answer that makes sense to me and that fits with occam's razor (which you suggested focusing on), is that LeBron has diminishing returns with better teammates. That's a case of poor scalability.

You suggest the on-court rating is close to Jordan's. Let's check. Per 100, 11-14 LeBron's 4-year playoff-only on-court differential is +6.1 per 100. Converting to per 48, we get
11-14 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +5.3 (but LeBron's best off-court rating)
89-93 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.0 (better off-rating)
91-96 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.5 (better off-rating)
16-21 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +9.0 (drastically worse off-rating).

So with the better supporting cast, LeBron has drastically worse on-court performance. That's over 33% worse than Jordan's on-court differential. To me, that suggests worse scalability with better teammates.

LeBron only has his best on-court performance during the years that he had better fitting but far less valuable teammates, who completely fell apart without him (to a sufficient extent that LeBron's best teams ended up being overall worse than Jordan's, see my SRS post here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100798717#p100798717). This suggests better floor raising by LeBron (but floor raising again comes at a cost, since the worse teammates perform significantly worse without LeBron).

To reiterate: do you not see diminishing returns with the Miami Heat? Why else would LeBron's on-court performance be significantly worse than Jordan's or other LeBron teams?

That is quite the extrapolation to take here

Specially because you are not considering the fact wade was literally playing injured in 2013 with his legs shot (look up wade on-off numbers vs san antonio, they are absurd and way beyond mere diminishing returns cause portability)

And by 2014 he was just straight up out of his prime

That is half of the miami playoffs run with a incredibly diminished wade

Great! I gave the larger sample to compare to Jordan's larger sample.

But let's throw out 2014 for Wade being old and throw out 2013 for Wade being injured

11-12 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +5.4 (but LeBron's best off-court rating)
11-14 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +5.3 (but LeBron's best off-court rating)
89-93 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.0 (better off-rating)
91-96 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.5 (better off-rating)
16-21 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +9.0 (drastically worse off-rating).

So if we take look when Wade is younger and healthy, we see LeBron's on court performance improves by a whopping... 0.1.

Yeah, that seems to send us back to the original question. When LeBron's teammates were best in 2011/2012, LeBron's on-court performance was over 30% worse than Jordan's 5-year sample, and also clearly worse than when LeBron was playing with better fitting (but less valuable) teammates.

So... what's going on here? What would be the better explanation than diminishing returns with better teammates?



Edit: Enigma suggested that this just shows LeBron fits worse with Wade than Jordan does with Pippin. Indeed... that's what people on my side are trying to argue! The question then becomes... 1) who should take the blame for LeBron and Wade's poor fit? (I've been arguing both play a role), 2) Who should take the credit for Jordan and Pippin's better fit? (I've been arguing both play a role), and 3) How often do these situations of poor fit impact chances at a championship relative to each other (I think it matters enough that you can make the case for peak Jordan over peak LeBron)

[falcolombardi]

I never got back to this, so I figured I'd give a quick answer since LeBron's scalability came up in the other thread.

You ask why we downgrade LeBron for having roughly the same On rating (though it is lower than Jordan's) and much worse off. You ask whether we'd do the same treatment for other players if the situation was reversed, like Jordan/Curry/Jokic.

There's a simple answer: we're trying to explain the puzzling situation of the LeBron Miami heat, where LeBron shows greater diminishing returns than Jordan/Curry/Jokic.

Let me shift your questions to a different question, as I think this new one speaks to our primary disagreement. Why is LeBron's on-rating so poor (relative to other Tier 1 peaks) with the Miami heat?

The Miami Heat in 11/12 and 13/14 have the best off-rating of LeBron's entire prime. That suggests these are the years with better teammates, which fits what you said that healthy Wade/Bosh are LeBron's best supporting cast when LeBron's off. It also fits popular opinion.

Yet... LeBron's on-court differential in 11/12 and 13/14 is clearly worse than 09/10, 15/16, 16/17, and 20/21. If this Heat dynasty was LeBron's best teams, why did they underperform so much when LeBron was on the court, especially since 2012/2013 is most people's choice for peak LeBron?

The only answer that makes sense to me and that fits with occam's razor (which you suggested focusing on), is that LeBron has diminishing returns with better teammates. That's a case of poor scalability.

You suggest the on-court rating is close to Jordan's. Let's check. Per 100, 11-14 LeBron's 4-year playoff-only on-court differential is +6.1 per 100. Converting to per 48, we get
11-14 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +5.3 (but LeBron's best off-court rating)
89-93 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.0 (better off-rating)
91-96 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.5 (better off-rating)
16-21 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +9.0 (drastically worse off-rating).

So with the better supporting cast, LeBron has drastically worse on-court performance. That's over 33% worse than Jordan's on-court differential. To me, that suggests worse scalability with better teammates.

LeBron only has his best on-court performance during the years that he had better fitting but far less valuable teammates, who completely fell apart without him (to a sufficient extent that LeBron's best teams ended up being overall worse than Jordan's, see my SRS post here: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=100798717#p100798717). This suggests better floor raising by LeBron (but floor raising again comes at a cost, since the worse teammates perform significantly worse without LeBron).

To reiterate: do you not see diminishing returns with the Miami Heat? Why else would LeBron's on-court performance be significantly worse than Jordan's or other LeBron teams?

That is quite the extrapolation to take here

Specially because you are not considering the fact wade was literally playing injured in 2013 with his legs shot (look up wade on-off numbers vs san antonio, they are absurd and way beyond mere diminishing returns cause portability)

And by 2014 he was just straight up out of his prime

That is half of the miami playoffs run with a incredibly diminished wade

Great! I gave the larger sample to compare to Jordan's larger sample.

But let's throw out 2014 for Wade being old and throw out 2013 for Wade being injured

11-12 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +5.4 (but LeBron's best off-court rating)
11-14 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +5.3 (but LeBron's best off-court rating)
89-93 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.0 (better off-rating)
91-96 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.5 (better off-rating)
16-21 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +9.0 (drastically worse off-rating).

So if we take it when Wade is younger and healthy, we see LeBron's on court performance improves by a whopping... 0.1.

Yeah, that seems to send us back to the original question. When LeBron's teammates were best in 2011/2012, LeBron's on-court performance was over 30% worse than Jordan's 5-year sample, and also clearly worse than when LeBron was playing with better fitting (but less valuable) teammates.

So... what's going on here? What would be the better explanation than diminishing returns with better teammates?

Wade being a less scalable co-star than pippen was for the illegal defense era

Wade 11-12 > pippen but pippen was a bettwr fitting teammate

His lack of jumpshooting was not an issue for the era rules and more of his percentage of value came without the ball (defense, rebounding)

Make wade equally good but replace scoring with defense or install illegal defense rules so teams cannot ignpre him off ball and i bet lebron ON minutes with wade would improve a bit

Make pippen and jordan play without illegal defense rules in a mpre 3 pointer heavy era and i bet you pippen off ball lack of shooting would be a bigger issue around jordan fit wise

The heat couldnt get away with playing 2 non shooters (rodman, longley) and 2 bad shooters (harper pippen) simultaneously around lebron. Bulls could at the time around jordan thanks to illegal defense era rules and competitors not being into 3 point shooting either

[Texas Chuck]

We never saw Jordan lift a bad team anywhere meaningful. That's neither here nor there, but it is a fact. Lebron OTOH dragged several mediocre teams to the Finals. And in terms of ceiling, he led the defeat of the 73 win Warriors.

I think we are losing ourselves in the weeds suggesting Jordan is somehow more scalable. No, Jordan got to play with the ideal running mate, with a GOAT-level head coach, and plenty of other high level supporting players and to his credit won the title every year with that mix. He did the most one could expect, and to me this is at the heart of Jordan's GOAT case--given idealized circumstances he delivered every time.

Lebron never got that. Not even one season. Yet he still won and won and won.

Not sure their circumstances are similar enough for us to suggest either is superior than the other based on on/off or +/-.

[capfan33]

So were you going to correct for that fact or just lob a talking point and hope it stuck? Is the argument here that 8th seeds like the Pacers and Pistons are weak because if they switched conferences, instead of already being swept by obviously superior teams in the East, they'd be swept by obviously superior teams in the West? Yea...no ****. The same logic would apply to MJ's opponents those years as well.

Just take a look at the first two teams the 16+17 Cavs and 91+92 Bulls beat in the playoffs, you'd see LeBron's competition is better based on many metrics.

16 Pistons vs 91 Knicks: Pistons have more wins, better SRS, better defense, better offense, better record vs West (15-15 vs 11-17)
16 Hawks vs 91 Sixers: Hawks have more wins, better SRS, better defense, better record vs West (19-11 vs 12-16)
17 Pacers vs 92 Heat: Pacers have more wins, better SRS, better defense, better offense, better record vs West (16-14 vs 11-15)
17 Raptors vs 92 Knicks: same wins, virtually same SRS, Raptors have the better offense, Knicks with better record vs West (17-9 vs 17-13)

The stats don't really fit the narrative, the complete opposite in fact. The conference finalists are more or less a wash, 16 Raptors ≈ 92 Cavs, 91 Pistons ≈ 17 Celtics.

Also this, it's not the ABA era. The NBA is a very mature, well-developed league at this point. Even though the east generally has been weaker than the west, the actual difference in record due to eastern teams playing more eastern opponents I would guess is pretty small. Like there all NBA caliber teams, it's not like the east is the G-league or anything like that.

I once ran the math on this based on the average east vs west record in the 2000's (didnt consider divisional schedule differences cause it was too mucj hassle for how marginal the difference is)

The average west team would win around 1.3 games more and the average east team around 1.3 less if they switched conferences

That's pretty much what I figured, hardly something to worry about.

[falcolombardi]

We never saw Jordan lift a bad team anywhere meaningful. That's neither here nor there, but it is a fact. Lebron OTOH dragged several mediocre teams to the Finals. And in terms of ceiling, he led the defeat of the 73 win Warriors.

I think we are losing ourselves in the weeds suggesting Jordan is somehow more scalable. No, Jordan got to play with the ideal running mate, with a GOAT-level head coach, and plenty of other high level supporting players and to his credit won the title every year with that mix. He did the most one could expect, and to me this is at the heart of Jordan's GOAT case--given idealized circumstances he delivered every time.

Lebron never got that. Not even one season. Yet he still won and won and won.

Not sure their circumstances are similar enough for us to suggest either is superior than the other based on on/off or +/-.

I think how much more "scalable" pippen in illegal defense era (hence his off ball shooting was less of a issue for fit with jordan) was than wade in the start of 3 point era was is not being acnowledged here either. Specially because a bigger proportion of his value came off defense and rebounding than wade

If we are going to talk about scalability we need to also mention how much of a easier fit pippen was, specially cause era difference with spacing and illegal D rules

Jordan could play in monster defense/rebounding lineups with harper/rodman/pippen/longley as starters without suffering the huge spacing disadvange relative to the league a lineup like that would have in the early 2010's

And here is the thingh. All this scalability talk is always about offense (usually saying lebron is a less scalable defensive player than lile bird or curry doesnt really pass the sniff test)

Lebron for all the scalability concerns actually has better offenses than most of the guys supposed to be much, much better ceiling raisers and scalable players

We -know- lebron, even in miami which is only his second best offensive run, has playoffs offenses as good as the best jordan offense runs.

Is entirely possible, maybe even likely, that the reason for lebron teams worse off compared to mike is -defense- aka jordan having similar on-off in offense than bron but worse defensive impact (amd again defense is literally the most scalable skill)

[DraymondGold]

That is quite the extrapolation to take here

Specially because you are not considering the fact wade was literally playing injured in 2013 with his legs shot (look up wade on-off numbers vs san antonio, they are absurd and way beyond mere diminishing returns cause portability)

And by 2014 he was just straight up out of his prime

That is half of the miami playoffs run with a incredibly diminished wade

Great! I gave the larger sample to compare to Jordan's larger sample.

But let's throw out 2014 for Wade being old and throw out 2013 for Wade being injured

11-12 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +5.4 (but LeBron's best off-court rating)
11-14 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +5.3 (but LeBron's best off-court rating)
89-93 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.0 (better off-rating)
91-96 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.5 (better off-rating)
16-21 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +9.0 (drastically worse off-rating).

So if we take it when Wade is younger and healthy, we see LeBron's on court performance improves by a whopping... 0.1.

Yeah, that seems to send us back to the original question. When LeBron's teammates were best in 2011/2012, LeBron's on-court performance was over 30% worse than Jordan's 5-year sample, and also clearly worse than when LeBron was playing with better fitting (but less valuable) teammates.

So... what's going on here? What would be the better explanation than diminishing returns with better teammates?

Wade being a less scalable co-star than pippen was for the illegal defense era

Wade 11-12 > pippen but pippen was a bettwr fitting teammate

His lack of jumpshooting was not an issue for the era rules and more of his percentage of value came without the ball (defense, rebounding)

Make wade equally good but replace scoring with defense or install illegal defense rules so teams cannot ignpre him off ball and i bet lebron ON minutes with wade would improve a bit

Make pippen and jordan play without illegal defense rules in a mpre 3 pointer heavy era and i bet you pippen off ball lack of shooting would be a bigger issue around jordan fit wise

The heat couldnt get away with playing 2 non shooters (rodman, longley) and 2 bad shooters (harper pippen) simultaneously around lebron. Bulls could at the time around jordan thanks to illegal defense era rules and competitors not being into 3 point shooting either

Sure, scalability changes based on the rules. If you're playing under a different ruleset, your value/scalability/resilience changes. But the discussion had been how does Jordan in his era compare to LeBron in his.

Now it sounds like you agree "Wade 11-12 > pippen", and that the fit with peak Jordan/Pippin > the fit with 11-12 LeBron/Wade.

Now we're getting somewhere! This sounds like an agreement that there are indeed more diminishing returns with the LeBron pair than the Jordan pair, which again is supported by the on/off data above.

The question then becomes who's to credit/blame for the better/worse fit. This may be where we disagree. Which is okay! But I'd at least note that if we agree there were greater diminishing returns based on poorer fit with LBJ/Wade over Jordan/Pippin, that seems like we both agree that scalability at least plays a role in how we rate which pair is better.

As for who's to credit/blame for the better/worse fit, it sounds like you blame Wade's lack of fit for him having less value on defense/spacing/off-ball value, while you credit Pippin for having better skills in those areas (at least relative to era, which is likely be more forgiving to worse spacers). It sounds like you put less blame/credit on LBJ/MJ for how they fit with their costar.
Personally, like I said in my previous (now-edited) post, I blame/credit all 4 players. I blame both LeBron and Wade for having a worse fit, and credit both Jordan and Pippin for having a better fit. Just like you blame Wade's lack of spacing and off-ball play, I also blame LeBron for lacking in these areas (relative to era / relative to other Greatest Peaks). Jordan to me seems like the better off-ball player, which I credit as helping Pippin's fit as an on-ball playmaker. But that's just me!

We never saw Jordan lift a bad team anywhere meaningful. That's neither here nor there, but it is a fact. Lebron OTOH dragged several mediocre teams to the Finals. And in terms of ceiling, he led the defeat of the 73 win Warriors.

I think we are losing ourselves in the weeds suggesting Jordan is somehow more scalable. No, Jordan got to play with the ideal running mate, with a GOAT-level head coach, and plenty of other high level supporting players and to his credit won the title every year with that mix. He did the most one could expect, and to me this is at the heart of Jordan's GOAT case--given idealized circumstances he delivered every time.

Lebron never got that. Not even one season. Yet he still won and won and won.

Not sure their circumstances are similar enough for us to suggest either is superior than the other based on on/off or +/-.

I'd definitely agree that Jordan didn't lift as bad teams as much as LBJ, and I'd also agree that their situations were different.

But I'd be careful with two things.
1) I'd be cautious using whether teams got to the finals as a measure of that team's success. That's very dependent on opponents. And while LeBron's opponents in the finals were harder than Jordan's, LeBron's Eastern Conference opponents were far weaker than Jordan's.
85-93 Jordan's eastern conference opponents: +2.55 SRS
95-98 Jordan's eastern conference opponents: +2.95
11-14 LeBron's eastern conference opponents: +1.68
15-18 LeBron's eastern conference opponents: +1.56
So it was easier for LeBron to make it to the finals than it was for Jordan, though it was harder for LeBron to win in the finals once he got there.

2) I'd be careful outright assuming that Jordan's case was idealized while LeBron's never was.
Was Jordan's situation pretty ideal? Sure. But was LeBron's situation never ideal?
His on-court fit seemed pretty optimal with the 16/17 Cavs. And his overall supporting stars seemed plenty talented in 2011/2012. Sure, there are flaws with both (16/17 Cavs fell apart without LBJ and 11/12 Heat faced major diminishing returns with LBJ), but by assuming the fault is with the teammates, you miss the possibility that the fault might also lie with LeBron. While it's not a given, it's possible that we're blaming LeBron's teammates for not being good enough, when in truth it was LeBron who wasn't as portable/scalable with better teammates (relative to Jordan).

[falcolombardi]

Great! I gave the larger sample to compare to Jordan's larger sample.

But let's throw out 2014 for Wade being old and throw out 2013 for Wade being injured

11-12 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +5.4 (but LeBron's best off-court rating)
11-14 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +5.3 (but LeBron's best off-court rating)
89-93 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.0 (better off-rating)
91-96 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.5 (better off-rating)
16-21 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +9.0 (drastically worse off-rating).

So if we take it when Wade is younger and healthy, we see LeBron's on court performance improves by a whopping... 0.1.

Yeah, that seems to send us back to the original question. When LeBron's teammates were best in 2011/2012, LeBron's on-court performance was over 30% worse than Jordan's 5-year sample, and also clearly worse than when LeBron was playing with better fitting (but less valuable) teammates.

So... what's going on here? What would be the better explanation than diminishing returns with better teammates?

Wade being a less scalable co-star than pippen was for the illegal defense era

Wade 11-12 > pippen but pippen was a bettwr fitting teammate

His lack of jumpshooting was not an issue for the era rules and more of his percentage of value came without the ball (defense, rebounding)

Make wade equally good but replace scoring with defense or install illegal defense rules so teams cannot ignpre him off ball and i bet lebron ON minutes with wade would improve a bit

Make pippen and jordan play without illegal defense rules in a mpre 3 pointer heavy era and i bet you pippen off ball lack of shooting would be a bigger issue around jordan fit wise

The heat couldnt get away with playing 2 non shooters (rodman, longley) and 2 bad shooters (harper pippen) simultaneously around lebron. Bulls could at the time around jordan thanks to illegal defense era rules and competitors not being into 3 point shooting either

Sure, scalability changes based on the rules. If you're playing under a different ruleset, your value/scalability/resilience changes. But the discussion had been how does Jordan in his era compare to LeBron in his.

Now it sounds like you agree "Wade 11-12 > pippen", and that the fit with peak Jordan/Pippin > the fit with 11-12 LeBron/Wade.

Now we're getting somewhere! This sounds like an agreement that there are indeed more diminishing returns with the LeBron pair than the Jordan pair, which again is supported by the on/off data above.

The question then becomes who's to credit/blame for the better/worse fit. This may be where we disagree. Which is okay! But I'd at least note that if we agree there were greater diminishing returns based on poorer fit with LBJ/Wade over Jordan/Pippin, that seems like we both agree that scalability at least plays a role in how we rate which pair is better.

As for who's to credit/blame for the better/worse fit, it sounds like you blame Wade's lack of fit for him having less value on defense/spacing/off-ball value, while you credit Pippin for having better skills in those areas (at least relative to era, which is likely be more forgiving to worse spacers). It sounds like you put less blame/credit on LBJ/MJ for how they fit with their costar.
Personally, like I said in my previous (now-edited) post, I blame/credit all 4 players. I blame both LeBron and Wade for having a worse fit, and credit both Jordan and Pippin for having a better fit. Just like you blame Wade's lack of spacing and off-ball play, I also blame LeBron for lacking in these areas (relative to era / relative to other Greatest Peaks). Jordan to me seems like the better off-ball player, which I credit as helping Pippin's fit as an on-ball playmaker. But that's just me!

We never saw Jordan lift a bad team anywhere meaningful. That's neither here nor there, but it is a fact. Lebron OTOH dragged several mediocre teams to the Finals. And in terms of ceiling, he led the defeat of the 73 win Warriors.

I think we are losing ourselves in the weeds suggesting Jordan is somehow more scalable. No, Jordan got to play with the ideal running mate, with a GOAT-level head coach, and plenty of other high level supporting players and to his credit won the title every year with that mix. He did the most one could expect, and to me this is at the heart of Jordan's GOAT case--given idealized circumstances he delivered every time.

Lebron never got that. Not even one season. Yet he still won and won and won.

Not sure their circumstances are similar enough for us to suggest either is superior than the other based on on/off or +/-.

I'd definitely agree that Jordan didn't lift as bad teams as much as LBJ, and I'd also agree that their situations were different.

But I'd be careful with two things.
1) I'd be cautious using whether teams got to the finals as a measure of that team's success. That's very dependent on opponents. And while LeBron's opponents in the finals were harder than Jordan's, LeBron's Eastern Conference opponents were far weaker than Jordan's.
85-93 Jordan's eastern conference opponents: +2.55 SRS
95-98 Jordan's eastern conference opponents: +2.95
11-14 LeBron's eastern conference opponents: +1.68
15-18 LeBron's eastern conference opponents: +1.56
So it was easier for LeBron to make it to the finals than it was for Jordan, though it was harder for LeBron to win in the finals once he got there.

2) I'd be careful outright assuming that Jordan's case was idealized while LeBron's never was.
Was Jordan's situation pretty ideal? Sure. But was LeBron's situation never ideal?
His on-court fit seemed pretty optimal with the 16/17 Cavs. And his overall supporting stars seemed plenty talented in 2011/2012. Sure, there are flaws with both (16/17 Cavs fell apart without LBJ and 11/12 Heat faced major diminishing returns with LBJ), but by assuming the fault is with the teammates, you miss the possibility that the fault might also lie with LeBron. While it's not a given, it's possible that we're blaming LeBron's teammates for not being good enough, when in truth it was LeBron who wasn't as portable/scalable with better teammates (relative to Jordan).

I cam see the argument jordan off ball game was a better fit for pippen than lebron weaker jumper would be

I also believe pippen in the 90's was a better fit (not overall player but better fit) for jordan than wade in the 10's would have been

So it goes both ways

I also thinl facing a weaker toughest rival is a bigger advantage that facing weaker conference rivals

Think of it this way, you are a random contender team like, dunno 2018 rockets (first no lebron/jordan team that came to my mind at random)

You are given these two brackets to choose for a ring

Path A: you can play the 2017 celtics, pacers and raptors. The 2017 warriors in the finals

Path B: you can play a tougher slate of 1992 cleveland, knicks, heat (well, mostly the first 2) and then a weaker finals rival like the 92 blazers

How many franchises do you think pick path A?

[DraymondGold]

We never saw Jordan lift a bad team anywhere meaningful. That's neither here nor there, but it is a fact. Lebron OTOH dragged several mediocre teams to the Finals. And in terms of ceiling, he led the defeat of the 73 win Warriors.

I think we are losing ourselves in the weeds suggesting Jordan is somehow more scalable. No, Jordan got to play with the ideal running mate, with a GOAT-level head coach, and plenty of other high level supporting players and to his credit won the title every year with that mix. He did the most one could expect, and to me this is at the heart of Jordan's GOAT case--given idealized circumstances he delivered every time.

Lebron never got that. Not even one season. Yet he still won and won and won.

Not sure their circumstances are similar enough for us to suggest either is superior than the other based on on/off or +/-.

I think how much more "scalable" pippen in illegal defense era (hence his off ball shooting was less of a issue for fit with jordan) was than wade in the start of 3 point era was is not being acnowledged here either. Specially because a bigger proportion of his value came off defense and rebounding than wade

If we are going to talk about scalability we need to also mention how much of a easier fit pippen was, specially cause era difference with spacing and illegal D rules

Jordan could play in monster defense/rebounding lineups with harper/rodman/pippen/longley as starters without suffering the huge spacing disadvange relative to the league a lineup like that would have in the early 2010's

And here is the thingh. All this scalability talk is always about offense (usually saying lebron is a less scalable defensive player than lile bird or curry doesnt really pass the sniff test)

Lebron for all the scalability concerns actually has better offenses than most of the guys supposed to be much, much better ceiling raisers and scalable players

We -know- lebron, even in miami which is only his second best offensive run, has playoffs offenses as good as the best jordan offense runs.

Is entirely possible, maybe even likely, that the reason for lebron teams worse off compared to mike is -defense- aka jordan having similar on-off in offense than bron but worse defensive impact (amd again defense is literally the most scalable skill)

The point isn't to maximize on-court offensive rating, but to maximize overall team rating (i.e. maximize wins). Plenty of people have argued that the Cavs were more offense-first over Curry's Warriors or Jordan's Bulls. Both Kerr and Jackson have been shown to value defense often over offense in many of their role players, which seems like the exact opposite approach of the 17 Cavs especially (but many other LeBron teams too).

Why would the Warriors/Bulls want to prioritize putting better offensive players who are worse overall players on the court, if doing so will cost wins? If we compare LeBron's overall team net rating to Curry's or Jordan's, both "better ceiling raisers" Curry and Jordan come out on top with some separation, as does "better ceiling raiser" Bird in 86 (though those Celtics much less consistently reached that level). [Source: my previous SRS post in this thread, and the Top 100 Overall-SRS team list which is linked in that post]

[AEnigma]

Then that cuts away from the assertion that the 2016/17 Cavaliers were “ideal” for Lebron lol. As you said, ideal offence is not ideal team. But Lebron made it work! Because unlike Jordan, he can at least passably anchor a defence.

But the discussion had been how does Jordan in his era compare to LeBron in his.

Maybe you wanted it to be that specific frame. Always interesting how selectively era relativity gets applied.

Enigma suggested that this just shows LeBron fits worse with Wade than Jordan does with Pippin. Indeed... that's what people on my side are trying to argue! The question then becomes... 1) who should take the blame for LeBron and Wade's poor fit? (I've been arguing both play a role), 2) Who should take the credit for Jordan and Pippin's better fit? (I've been arguing both play a role), and 3) How often do these situations of poor fit impact chances at a championship relative to each other (I think it matters enough that you can make the case for peak Jordan over peak LeBron)

No, what you are trying to argue is that the disparity represents a clear advantage to Jordan, with no real analysis of whether Jordan’s supposed scalability was ever too meaningfully tested next to worse fitting players, whether he would be a meaningfully better fit with Wade-type players overall, whether Pippen-type players universally fit worse with Lebron overall, or what the trends are across the many archetypes of players you find across the league.

You love to talk about scoring primacy being overrated, yet that drops as soon as it comes to Lebron and Jordan. Lebron as more of a lead creator certainly fits a little less naturally on offence with other lead creators; in what sense does that mean he is universally, or even in the majority, less fitting overall with any given set of teammates?

[falcolombardi]

We never saw Jordan lift a bad team anywhere meaningful. That's neither here nor there, but it is a fact. Lebron OTOH dragged several mediocre teams to the Finals. And in terms of ceiling, he led the defeat of the 73 win Warriors.

I think we are losing ourselves in the weeds suggesting Jordan is somehow more scalable. No, Jordan got to play with the ideal running mate, with a GOAT-level head coach, and plenty of other high level supporting players and to his credit won the title every year with that mix. He did the most one could expect, and to me this is at the heart of Jordan's GOAT case--given idealized circumstances he delivered every time.

Lebron never got that. Not even one season. Yet he still won and won and won.

Not sure their circumstances are similar enough for us to suggest either is superior than the other based on on/off or +/-.

I think how much more "scalable" pippen in illegal defense era (hence his off ball shooting was less of a issue for fit with jordan) was than wade in the start of 3 point era was is not being acnowledged here either. Specially because a bigger proportion of his value came off defense and rebounding than wade

If we are going to talk about scalability we need to also mention how much of a easier fit pippen was, specially cause era difference with spacing and illegal D rules

Jordan could play in monster defense/rebounding lineups with harper/rodman/pippen/longley as starters without suffering the huge spacing disadvange relative to the league a lineup like that would have in the early 2010's

And here is the thingh. All this scalability talk is always about offense (usually saying lebron is a less scalable defensive player than lile bird or curry doesnt really pass the sniff test)

Lebron for all the scalability concerns actually has better offenses than most of the guys supposed to be much, much better ceiling raisers and scalable players

We -know- lebron, even in miami which is only his second best offensive run, has playoffs offenses as good as the best jordan offense runs.

Is entirely possible, maybe even likely, that the reason for lebron teams worse off compared to mike is -defense- aka jordan having similar on-off in offense than bron but worse defensive impact (amd again defense is literally the most scalable skill)

The point isn't to maximize on-court offensive rating, but to maximize overall team rating (i.e. maximize wins). Plenty of people have argued that the Cavs were more offense-first over Curry's Warriors or Jordan's Bulls. Both Kerr and Jackson have been shown to value defense often over offense in many of their role players, which seems like the exact opposite approach of the 17 Cavs especially (but many other LeBron teams too).

Why would the Warriors/Bulls want to prioritize putting better offensive players who are worse overall players on the court, if doing so will cost wins? If we compare LeBron's overall team net rating to Curry's or Jordan's, both "better ceiling raisers" Curry and Jordan come out on top with some separation, as does "better ceiling raiser" Bird in 86 (though those Celtics much less consistently reached that level). [Source: my previous SRS post in this thread, and the Top 100 Overall-SRS team list which is linked in that post]

Tell me with all honesty, do you think curry/bird vs lebron is the reason why the 17 warriors or 86 celtics were better -defensively- than somethingh lebron 16 cavs ?

Jordan bulls could get away with playing all those defense first lineups in no small part because of the era rules. They had fine spacing relative to their in era competition because putting non shooters out there was more doable

Id you teleported the 96 bulls to 2012 they would be in for some tough balancing act decisions in how to balance their bad spacing/great rebounding defense players (harper,pippen, rodman, longley) with their great spacing/weaker defense and rebounding guys (kukok, kerr) around jordan. Decisions the ruleset and era style solved for them which didnt happen with lebron heat teams

Look at somethingh like the 2012 heat which had below average 3 point shooting volume -and- efficiency yet won a ring with dominant offensive advantage. Those teams didnt have much of a offensive talent/spacing/shooting advantage (relatice to era) if at all vs curry or bird or jordan teams.

Now on the warriors example

Lebron teams in 16-17 had better offensive relatice ratings than the warriors with dursnt did in 17-18. Did they also have better offensive talent? They were offense first cause they couldnt have everythingh.

The 17-18 warriors could pair multiple all time level shooters , scorers and specially defenders. They didnt have to be offense first or defense first cause they had such a talent advantage they could be both.

They didnt have to make any choice between offense first and defense first, their 2 way talent did it for them where lebron only had the offensive talent around

Let me ask these questions

Do you think curry/bird impacting the [b]defense[/b] more than lebron is why the 17-18 warriors or 86 celtics were a better defense than the 16 or 17 cavs? Cause that is the reason they had better results, not their offense which is where lebron scaling concerns come from (for some reason) even when he has led goat tier offenses

Do you not think wade off ball issues would be a lesser fit problem if illegal D existed still as in jordan era? Or pippen and co fit with jordan worse off in a era of more shooting and no illegal defense?

You always talk about how much more importsnt 3 point shooting is today when we discussed west vs wade, why not here?.

It is definitely pertaining to the discussion as jordan played with bad 3 point shooting co-stars in a era where it mattered much less. Lebron played with a no 3 point shooting co-star in a era where it mattered more

Do you not think illegal D is a big part of why bulls could play those Defense/rebound first teams around jordan scoring without worrying as mucg about spacing?

[Texas Chuck]

But I'd be careful with two things.
1) I'd be cautious using whether teams got to the finals as a measure of that team's success. That's very dependent on opponents. And while LeBron's opponents in the finals were harder than Jordan's, LeBron's Eastern Conference opponents were far weaker than Jordan's.
85-93 Jordan's eastern conference opponents: +2.55 SRS
95-98 Jordan's eastern conference opponents: +2.95
11-14 LeBron's eastern conference opponents: +1.68
15-18 LeBron's eastern conference opponents: +1.56
So it was easier for LeBron to make it to the finals than it was for Jordan, though it was harder for LeBron to win in the finals once he got there.

2) I'd be careful outright assuming that Jordan's case was idealized while LeBron's never was.
Was Jordan's situation pretty ideal? Sure. But was LeBron's situation never ideal?
His on-court fit seemed pretty optimal with the 16/17 Cavs. And his overall supporting stars seemed plenty talented in 2011/2012. Sure, there are flaws with both (16/17 Cavs fell apart without LBJ and 11/12 Heat faced major diminishing returns with LBJ), but by assuming the fault is with the teammates, you miss the possibility that the fault might also lie with LeBron. While it's not a given, it's possible that we're blaming LeBron's teammates for not being good enough, when in truth it was LeBron who wasn't as portable/scalable with better teammates (relative to Jordan).

Lebron cannot control who his teams face. All he can do is beat the teams in front of him. Just like I feel strongly Mike deserves a ton of respect for going 6 for 6 (not counting 95 obviously), Lebron deserves credit for beating who is in front of him. Its like when Kidd detractors complain about who the Nets beat--these guys have no control over that.

You are kinda naming 2 seasons and then acknowledging well not really. So I feel comfortable with Lebron never got idealized rosters. I said nothing about them not being talented. I said nothing about blame or not blame.

Just that I'm not comfortable using the data you were using to suggest Jordan is more scalable. Or that being more scabable is even particularly relevant. Of course I'm less interested in theory than history so that may just be a me issue.

[capfan33]

Great! I gave the larger sample to compare to Jordan's larger sample.

But let's throw out 2014 for Wade being old and throw out 2013 for Wade being injured

11-12 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +5.4 (but LeBron's best off-court rating)
11-14 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +5.3 (but LeBron's best off-court rating)
89-93 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.0 (better off-rating)
91-96 Jordan's playoff on-court differential per 48: +8.5 (better off-rating)
16-21 LeBron's playoff on-court differential per 48: +9.0 (drastically worse off-rating).

So if we take it when Wade is younger and healthy, we see LeBron's on court performance improves by a whopping... 0.1.

Yeah, that seems to send us back to the original question. When LeBron's teammates were best in 2011/2012, LeBron's on-court performance was over 30% worse than Jordan's 5-year sample, and also clearly worse than when LeBron was playing with better fitting (but less valuable) teammates.

So... what's going on here? What would be the better explanation than diminishing returns with better teammates?

Wade being a less scalable co-star than pippen was for the illegal defense era

Wade 11-12 > pippen but pippen was a bettwr fitting teammate

His lack of jumpshooting was not an issue for the era rules and more of his percentage of value came without the ball (defense, rebounding)

Make wade equally good but replace scoring with defense or install illegal defense rules so teams cannot ignpre him off ball and i bet lebron ON minutes with wade would improve a bit

Make pippen and jordan play without illegal defense rules in a mpre 3 pointer heavy era and i bet you pippen off ball lack of shooting would be a bigger issue around jordan fit wise

The heat couldnt get away with playing 2 non shooters (rodman, longley) and 2 bad shooters (harper pippen) simultaneously around lebron. Bulls could at the time around jordan thanks to illegal defense era rules and competitors not being into 3 point shooting either

Sure, scalability changes based on the rules. If you're playing under a different ruleset, your value/scalability/resilience changes. But the discussion had been how does Jordan in his era compare to LeBron in his.

Now it sounds like you agree "Wade 11-12 > pippen", and that the fit with peak Jordan/Pippin > the fit with 11-12 LeBron/Wade.

Now we're getting somewhere! This sounds like an agreement that there are indeed more diminishing returns with the LeBron pair than the Jordan pair, which again is supported by the on/off data above.

The question then becomes who's to credit/blame for the better/worse fit. This may be where we disagree. Which is okay! But I'd at least note that if we agree there were greater diminishing returns based on poorer fit with LBJ/Wade over Jordan/Pippin, that seems like we both agree that scalability at least plays a role in how we rate which pair is better.

As for who's to credit/blame for the better/worse fit, it sounds like you blame Wade's lack of fit for him having less value on defense/spacing/off-ball value, while you credit Pippin for having better skills in those areas (at least relative to era, which is likely be more forgiving to worse spacers). It sounds like you put less blame/credit on LBJ/MJ for how they fit with their costar.
Personally, like I said in my previous (now-edited) post, I blame/credit all 4 players. I blame both LeBron and Wade for having a worse fit, and credit both Jordan and Pippin for having a better fit. Just like you blame Wade's lack of spacing and off-ball play, I also blame LeBron for lacking in these areas (relative to era / relative to other Greatest Peaks). Jordan to me seems like the better off-ball player, which I credit as helping Pippin's fit as an on-ball playmaker. But that's just me!

We never saw Jordan lift a bad team anywhere meaningful. That's neither here nor there, but it is a fact. Lebron OTOH dragged several mediocre teams to the Finals. And in terms of ceiling, he led the defeat of the 73 win Warriors.

I think we are losing ourselves in the weeds suggesting Jordan is somehow more scalable. No, Jordan got to play with the ideal running mate, with a GOAT-level head coach, and plenty of other high level supporting players and to his credit won the title every year with that mix. He did the most one could expect, and to me this is at the heart of Jordan's GOAT case--given idealized circumstances he delivered every time.

Lebron never got that. Not even one season. Yet he still won and won and won.

Not sure their circumstances are similar enough for us to suggest either is superior than the other based on on/off or +/-.

I'd definitely agree that Jordan didn't lift as bad teams as much as LBJ, and I'd also agree that their situations were different.

But I'd be careful with two things.
1) I'd be cautious using whether teams got to the finals as a measure of that team's success. That's very dependent on opponents. And while LeBron's opponents in the finals were harder than Jordan's, LeBron's Eastern Conference opponents were far weaker than Jordan's.
85-93 Jordan's eastern conference opponents: +2.55 SRS
95-98 Jordan's eastern conference opponents: +2.95
11-14 LeBron's eastern conference opponents: +1.68
15-18 LeBron's eastern conference opponents: +1.56
So it was easier for LeBron to make it to the finals than it was for Jordan, though it was harder for LeBron to win in the finals once he got there.

2) I'd be careful outright assuming that Jordan's case was idealized while LeBron's never was.
Was Jordan's situation pretty ideal? Sure. But was LeBron's situation never ideal?
His on-court fit seemed pretty optimal with the 16/17 Cavs. And his overall supporting stars seemed plenty talented in 2011/2012. Sure, there are flaws with both (16/17 Cavs fell apart without LBJ and 11/12 Heat faced major diminishing returns with LBJ), but by assuming the fault is with the teammates, you miss the possibility that the fault might also lie with LeBron. While it's not a given, it's possible that we're blaming LeBron's teammates for not being good enough, when in truth it was LeBron who wasn't as portable/scalable with better teammates (relative to Jordan).

The fit was relatively good in the 1st case, but I've said before that Love was not at all an ideal 3rd star next to LBJ/Kyrie. They would've been much better off with a defensively-minded big, at the expense of some offense. They would've been far more balanced and had less in diminishing returns offensively, triumvirates with 3 players focused on 1 side of the ball are more or less impossible to optimize.

And the 2011-12 (not 2011), Heat were plenty talented but Wade and Lebron were honestly pretty close to as suboptimal as you could get. Wade literally couldn't shoot 3s which I think is a pretty low bar to clear when it comes to fit. The fact that their partnership worked as well as it did ( while Wade was healthy) is a testament to their skillsets, ego and IQ but I'm not sure you could pick a much worse player as a 2nd star next to LBJ specifically.

And moreover, outside of a 2-way big like Ewing, it's hard to imagine a better fit for MJ than Pip, they were a perfect complement for each other as perimeter players. I think there's definitely an argument for MJ having better portability compared to Lebron, but I think the difference really isn't that significant in the way that it is for say Bird compared to Lebron.

[DraymondGold]

Then that cuts away from the assertion that the 2016/17 Cavaliers were “ideal” for Lebron lol. As you said, ideal offence is not ideal team. But Lebron made it work! Because unlike Jordan, he can at least passably anchor a defence.

And I agree that peak LeBron's the better defender, and you'll never hear me say otherwise (unless we're discussing older motor-limited Lebron vs peak Jordan, in which case Jordan has an argument).

If we're discussing realistic scalability (e.g. how well players play on teams with better teammates), how realistic is it to build a team with
A) the offensive fit of the 16/17 Cavs when LeBron's on, and
B) far better defensive teammates than the 16/17 Cavs, And/Or
C) enough talent to not fall apart during LeBron's off minutes?
... because that basically what's being asked to prevent LeBron from having diminishing returns on offense, good performance on defense, and not fall apart without LeBron. TO me, this seems like a much more unrealistic teambuilding requirement than what Jordan needs to be the best player on a similar All-Time-Great SRS team.

But the discussion had been how does Jordan in his era compare to LeBron in his.

Maybe you wanted it to be that specific frame. Always interesting how selectively era relativity gets applied.

There's no time machine in on/off data. The on/off numbers are based on the opponents you faced in the time you faced them. And this thread's about on/off data. So No, it's not what I wanted it, it's literally baked into the title of the thread.

Did you see anyone else mention a time machine in any 189 posts in this thread? Because unless I missed something (which is entirely possible), I sure haven't...

Please don't blame one person for not talking about something that nobody else was talking about! If you'd like to talk about time machine, great, then raise the topic yourself... but don't just accuse others of being biased or manipulating the topic of conversation to their advantage if you don't have to

Enigma suggested that this just shows LeBron fits worse with Wade than Jordan does with Pippin. Indeed... that's what people on my side are trying to argue! The question then becomes... 1) who should take the blame for LeBron and Wade's poor fit? (I've been arguing both play a role), 2) Who should take the credit for Jordan and Pippin's better fit? (I've been arguing both play a role), and 3) How often do these situations of poor fit impact chances at a championship relative to each other (I think it matters enough that you can make the case for peak Jordan over peak LeBron)

No, what you are trying to argue is that the disparity represents a clear advantage to Jordan, with no real analysis of whether Jordan’s supposed scalability was ever too meaningfully tested next to worse fitting players, whether he would be a meaningfully better fit with Wade-type players overall, whether Pippen-type players universally fit worse with Lebron overall, or what the trends are across the many archetypes of players you find across the league.

Previous posts by me in this thread had 600+ words, 300 words, 660+ words, 450 words, often with additional numerical research. If you wanted me to consider 1) how Jordan's scalability was tested, 2) whether Jordan would fit with Wade-type players, 3) how often these make a difference for winning a championship, that could add 200-300-500 words for each point.

I'm happy to discuss these in detail, but I'm not sure anyone wants to read a 1000-2000 word post. Rather than telling me "what I am trying to argue" and telling me that I have "no real analysis on" these points, why not just ask me what I think about those points? When people write 500 words on one topic but miss other points, I don't assume what they're trying to argue and don't accuse them of putting no thought into the other points. I assume their time is valuable and don't have the inclination to write 500 words on every variation, without hearing there's interest from other people first.

[and for the record, I've discussed some of those 3 points in other threads with falcolombardi and so didn't feel the need to repeat previous conversations without someone else mentioning interest first]

You love to talk about scoring primacy being overrated, yet that drops as soon as it comes to Lebron and Jordan. Lebron as more of a lead creator certainly fits a little less naturally on offence with other lead creators; in what sense does that mean he is universally, or even in the majority, less fitting overall with any given set of teammates?

I do love to talk about scoring primacy! And I do think scoring without creation is overrated!

But I'd be careful about saying the fact that LeBron's the better creator (which I agree with) proves he's more scalable. The scalability concerns that come with scoring primacy usually come from a complete lack of creation, and Jordan (while not quite as good as LeBron as a creator) is an all-time creator. Thinking Basketball ranks Jordan a top-10 creator of all time. I just did a film-analysis of 91 Jordan's Game 1 vs Lakers, and Thinking Basketball's optimistic evaluation of Jordan's creation fit my play-by-play analysis.
[Note: not passer, but overall creator, which includes factors like gravity and how much your defensive attention generates better looks for teammates. ]

When I'm talking about LeBron's and Jordan's in-era scalability relative to each other, it's not concerns about Jordan's lack of creation that trouble me (at his peak under Phil, though I do have concerns for 80s Jordan). It's LeBron's relative worse off-ball ability that troubles me. LeBron faces diminishing returns when off-ball more (see the Miami Heat numbers I linked above), while when Jordan went off-ball more he continued to have All-time impact (see impact numbers at the start of this thread).

[[qualifier / note: that said, when comparing the scalability of Jordan to the most scalable all-time greats of all time like Curry/Bird/Garnett, Jordan's slight over-preference for scoring over playmaking does start to concern me. However, LeBron's not an all-time scalable player, so the small gaps in peak Jordan's scalability are less important relative to LBJ. And to reiterate, my scalability concerns for Jordan are less at his peak and more for his early/late years.]]

[falcolombardi]

Then that cuts away from the assertion that the 2016/17 Cavaliers were “ideal” for Lebron lol. As you said, ideal offence is not ideal team. But Lebron made it work! Because unlike Jordan, he can at least passably anchor a defence.

And I agree that peak LeBron's the better defender, and you'll never hear me say otherwise (unless we're discussing older motor-limited Lebron vs peak Jordan, in which case Jordan has an argument).

If we're discussing realistic scalability (e.g. how well players play on teams with better teammates), how realistic is it to build a team with
A) the offensive fit of the 16/17 Cavs when LeBron's on, and
B) far better defensive teammates than the 16/17 Cavs, And/Or
C) enough talent to not fall apart during LeBron's off minutes?
... because that basically what's being asked to prevent LeBron from having diminishing returns on offense, good performance on defense, and not fall apart without LeBron. TO me, this seems like a much more unrealistic teambuilding requirement than what Jordan needs to be the best player on a similar All-Time-Great SRS team.

If we are in the 90's when i can spot pippen or longley or even rodman in the 3 point line and they havr to be guarded as if they are legit 3 point threats cause the rules demand it? It at least becomes a bit easier

Jordan era just made spacing worries less of a concern relatively speaking

Put the same roster in the 2010's and suddendly playing all those great defenders and rebounders has a bigger downside trade-off so they need to decide if the defense and rebounsing is worth the awful spacing

Lebron heat teams could have played their bigger and/or best defensive players together mpre (think wade/lebron/battier/bosh/birdman) if spacing was partially solved by the ruleset

[DraymondGold]

Then that cuts away from the assertion that the 2016/17 Cavaliers were “ideal” for Lebron lol. As you said, ideal offence is not ideal team. But Lebron made it work! Because unlike Jordan, he can at least passably anchor a defence.

And I agree that peak LeBron's the better defender, and you'll never hear me say otherwise (unless we're discussing older motor-limited Lebron vs peak Jordan, in which case Jordan has an argument).

If we're discussing realistic scalability (e.g. how well players play on teams with better teammates), how realistic is it to build a team with
A) the offensive fit of the 16/17 Cavs when LeBron's on, and
B) far better defensive teammates than the 16/17 Cavs, And/Or
C) enough talent to not fall apart during LeBron's off minutes?
... because that basically what's being asked to prevent LeBron from having diminishing returns on offense, good performance on defense, and not fall apart without LeBron. TO me, this seems like a much more unrealistic teambuilding requirement than what Jordan needs to be the best player on a similar All-Time-Great SRS team.

If we are in the 90's when i can play pippen and have him be guarded like he is love cause the rules demand it? It at least becomes a bit easier

I have to head out soon (hopefully I'll have a chance to reply to your other latest post soon!), but wanted to reply quickly here.

I actually suggested to Thinking Basketball in his Q/A that scalability could change over time, with different rules and strategies. It's a cool question! And it's something I've thought about before (at least a little bit). Thinking Basketball seemed open to the idea!

If you'd like to argue someone like Pippin is less scalable today or someone like Wade is mores scalable in the 90s (at least without giving either a chance to adjust their play style), I'm not against that idea If you'd like to suggest LeBron or Mj would also change, that would be interesting and certainly a possibility. I do have time-machine concerns about Jordan's shooting (or lack thereof) today vs in the 90s, both for his overall value and for his scalability.

But to me, I'd separate these into two discussions. 1) Who's the better player / better peak in their own era (which considers overall value as well as contextual adjustments like resilience/scalability), and 2) Time machine argument (who's the better player/peak in a different era, how does resilience/scalability change in a different era, etc. Usually the time machine is to today's era but not always).

For our original discussion, in the 90s (which may well have been favorable to Jordan's lack of ranged shooting), I do see Jordan as the better ceiling raiser than LeBron, and LeBron as the better floor raiser (per the previous posts I've made).

Let me know if you have more time machine thoughts! I think scalability is an under-discussed factor that might change in different eras, so I'd' definitely enjoy talking about it more (time permitting)

[AEnigma]

Then that cuts away from the assertion that the 2016/17 Cavaliers were “ideal” for Lebron lol. As you said, ideal offence is not ideal team. But Lebron made it work! Because unlike Jordan, he can at least passably anchor a defence.

And I agree that peak LeBron's the better defender, and you'll never hear me say otherwise (unless we're discussing older motor-limited Lebron vs peak Jordan, in which case Jordan has an argument).

If we're discussing realistic scalability (e.g. how well players play on teams with better teammates), how realistic is it to build a team with
A) the offensive fit of the 16/17 Cavs when LeBron's on, and
B) far better defensive teammates than the 16/17 Cavs, And/Or
C) enough talent to not fall apart during LeBron's off minutes?
... because that basically what's being asked to prevent LeBron from having diminishing returns on offense, good performance on defense, and not fall apart without LeBron. TO me, this seems like a much more unrealistic teambuilding requirement than what Jordan needs to be the best player on a similar All-Time-Great SRS team.

… You literally just described Jordan’s teams.

But the discussion had been how does Jordan in his era compare to LeBron in his.

Maybe you wanted it to be that specific frame. Always interesting how selectively era relativity gets applied.

There's no time machine in on/off data. The on/off numbers are based on the opponents you faced in the time you faced them. And this thread's about on/off data. So No, it's not what I wanted it, it's literally baked into the title of the thread.

Did you see anyone else mention a time machine in any 189 posts in this thread? Because unless I missed something (which is entirely possible), I sure haven't...

Please don't blame one person for not talking about something that nobody else was talking about! If you'd like to talk about time machine, great, then raise the topic yourself... but don't just accuse others of being biased or manipulating the topic of conversation to their advantage if you don't have to

Wow, and I never said “time machine” either! Crazy…

Why do you need to disingenuously pretend this thread occurs in a random vacuum. Player comparisons consistently involved considerations of era substitutions and evolutions. As you know. Because you do it too (even if not in this exact thread).

But here it becomes inconvenient so we should pretend that is not a reality of how these players are discussed.

Enigma suggested that this just shows LeBron fits worse with Wade than Jordan does with Pippin. Indeed... that's what people on my side are trying to argue! The question then becomes... 1) who should take the blame for LeBron and Wade's poor fit? (I've been arguing both play a role), 2) Who should take the credit for Jordan and Pippin's better fit? (I've been arguing both play a role), and 3) How often do these situations of poor fit impact chances at a championship relative to each other (I think it matters enough that you can make the case for peak Jordan over peak LeBron)

No, what you are trying to argue is that the disparity represents a clear advantage to Jordan, with no real analysis of whether Jordan’s supposed scalability was ever too meaningfully tested next to worse fitting players, whether he would be a meaningfully better fit with Wade-type players overall, whether Pippen-type players universally fit worse with Lebron overall, or what the trends are across the many archetypes of players you find across the league.

Previous posts by me in this thread had 600+ words, 300 words, 660+ words, 450 words, often with additional numerical research. If you wanted me to consider 1) how Jordan's scalability was tested, 2) whether Jordan would fit with Wade-type players, 3) how often these make a difference for winning a championship, that could add 200-300-500 words for each point.

I'm happy to discuss these in detail, but I'm not sure anyone wants to read a 1000-2000 word post. Rather than telling me "what I am trying to argue" and telling me that I have "no real analysis on" these points, why not just ask me what I think about those points? When people write 500 words on one topic but miss other points, I don't assume what they're trying to argue and don't accuse them of putting no thought into the other points. I assume their time is valuable and don't have the inclination to write 500 words on every variation, without hearing there's interest from other people first.

[and for the record, I've discussed some of those 3 points in other threads with falcolombardi and so didn't feel the need to repeat previous conversations without someone else mentioning interest first]

Terribly sorry that making thorough arguments is inconvenient.

I do not really care what your answers are, because you cannot actually answer most of them — and it is true that even trying to answer the one about all player types would be absurdly labour intensive.

Our point is that you are using definitive labels based on extraordinarily limited samples extrapolated with total speculation, and then yeah, not really bothering to put in any work to better support that speculation. Jordan/Pippen better in-era fit than Lebron/Wade + Jordan less of a ballhandler, ergo Jordan more scalable, ergo Jordan better.

You love to talk about scoring primacy being overrated, yet that drops as soon as it comes to Lebron and Jordan. Lebron as more of a lead creator certainly fits a little less naturally on offence with other lead creators; in what sense does that mean he is universally, or even in the majority, less fitting overall with any given set of teammates?

I do love to talk about scoring primacy! And I do think scoring without creation is overrated!

But I'd be careful about saying the fact that LeBron's the better creator (which I agree with) proves he's more scalable.

I said nothing of the sort. To the extent I could argue Lebron is more scalable, it would be through his defence, but I am not actually invested in which was more scalable because I do not think you can demonstrate that in a remotely satisfying way that would make up for Lebron’s starting advantage.

The scalability concerns that come with scoring primacy usually come from a complete lack of creation, and Jordan (while not quite as good as LeBron as a creator) is an all-time creator. Thinking Basketball ranks Jordan a top-10 creator of all time. I just did a film-analysis of 91 Jordan's Game 1 vs Lakers, and Thinking Basketball's optimistic evaluation of Jordan's creation fit my play-by-play analysis.
[Note: not passer, but overall creator, which includes factors like gravity and how much your defensive attention generates better looks for teammates. ]

When I'm talking about LeBron's and Jordan's in-era scalability relative to each other, it's not concerns about Jordan's lack of creation that trouble me (at his peak under Phil, though I do have concerns for 80s Jordan). It's LeBron's relative worse off-ball ability that troubles me. LeBron faces diminishing returns when off-ball more (see the Miami Heat numbers I linked above), while when Jordan went off-ball more he continued to have All-time impact (see impact numbers at the start of this thread).

[[qualifier / note: that said, when comparing the scalability of Jordan to the most scalable all-time greats of all time like Curry/Bird/Garnett, Jordan's slight over-preference for scoring over playmaking does start to concern me. However, LeBron's not an all-time scalable player, so the small gaps in peak Jordan's scalability are less important relative to LBJ. And to reiterate, my scalability concerns for Jordan are less at his peak and more for his early/late years.]]

But you are not really quantifying this. Say we treat it as a given that Jordan spent more time offball than Lebron did. So what? That is not really an analysis of offball ability, of whether it made more sense for Lebron to ever be as offball, or of whether Jordan taking on that offball role would be a logical and superior option in place of Lebron. It makes sense with those players who gain more offensive value through active control than they do in other circumstances — Draymond the best example here — but like I said, that is hardly universal, and Jordan fitting better with certain archetypes does not extend to all.

[Djoker]

Isn't the same true about Jordan in the late 1990s? Pippen was better than any player on the opposing team throughout the 1997 and 1998 Eastern Conference playoffs. I guess you could argue Mourning and Miller were better than him but you could also argue that Lowry and Paul George were better than Kyrie.

Sure. Pippen was also better. But Kyrie was also better than Steph in the 2016 Finals if we extend that line of thinking. And he wasn't even much worse than Steph in the 2017 Finals either.

Lowry being better than Kyrie is laughable... PG has a case but in 2016, Indy didn't even play the Cavs.

Basically this is what this argument comes down to.. IF Lebron's Cavs didn't play weak teams and were truly on the level of 1990s Bulls in terms of playoff dominance when Lebron was on the floor (ON impact) then why did they completely fall off the map against the Warriors in the 2017 Finals? Like why did they, with Lebron, get pretty much completely decimated in the 2017 Finals outside of Game 4 when they were already down 0-3? Surely a team on par with the 1990's Bulls could have been far more competitive.

It kind of comes back to what actually happened in their entire careers too. If Lebron was really more impactful than Jordan, why couldn't he lead objectively at least equally talented supporting casts to more championships than Jordan could? Why couldn't he at least lead them to more competitive outcomes? Lebron's teams underachieved betting odds in the 2007, 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2018 finals. Too many of those finals should have been at least extremely competitive and ended up being total beatdowns. And there's always a plethora of excuses.

You know which hypothesis one should question most? Not one that doesn't fit a small sample of (playoff) +/- data... You should question a hypothesis that is greatly at odds with the actual result of impact, which is winning. If Lebron was better than Jordan, then he should have won more than Jordan. Or at the very very least should have won more than he did and pushed many of those finals to be more competitive. But he didn't... so he mostly probably isn't better then Jordan.

Well for starters no team jordan ever beat was remotely on the 17 warriors level, that had quite a bit to do with it.

Second. Lebron kept the cavs competitive with a team that played +14~ srs basketball when fully healthy in 2017. The cavs for example in game 3 outscored warriors in 45 minutes lebron played and lost the game when he sat

I dont have the numbers at hand but when lebron played the cavs kept within 2-3 points against a team that was historically off the charts

The point isn't beating the 2017 Warriors, although the stronger Bulls teams like 91, 92, 96 and 97 would have had a real good shot... The point is if Lebron's Cavs were really that good in the playoffs, why couldn't they play better against the Warriors? The fact that they were +14 SRS when fully healthy (seems awfully high lol) only feeds into my point. If you deny that the competition was weak, then the only other explanation is that the Cavs were a great team that underachieved. If so, Lebron should surely take some of the blame. Because legit +14 SRS teams aren't getting steamrolled by any team in history.

[Djoker]

Isn't the same true about Jordan in the late 1990s? Pippen was better than any player on the opposing team throughout the 1997 and 1998 Eastern Conference playoffs. I guess you could argue Mourning and Miller were better than him but you could also argue that Lowry and Paul George were better than Kyrie.

Sure. Pippen was also better. But Kyrie was also better than Steph in the 2016 Finals if we extend that line of thinking. And he wasn't even much worse than Steph in the 2017 Finals either.

Lowry being better than Kyrie is laughable... PG has a case but in 2016, Indy didn't even play the Cavs.

Basically this is what this argument comes down to.. IF Lebron's Cavs didn't play weak teams and were truly on the level of 1990s Bulls in terms of playoff dominance when Lebron was on the floor (ON impact) then why did they completely fall off the map against the Warriors in the 2017 Finals? Like why did they, with Lebron, get pretty much completely decimated in the 2017 Finals outside of Game 4 when they were already down 0-3? Surely a team on par with the 1990's Bulls could have been far more competitive.

It kind of comes back to what actually happened in their entire careers too. If Lebron was really more impactful than Jordan, why couldn't he lead objectively at least equally talented supporting casts to more championships than Jordan could? Why couldn't he at least lead them to more competitive outcomes? Lebron's teams underachieved betting odds in the 2007, 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2018 finals. Too many of those finals should have been at least extremely competitive and ended up being total beatdowns. And there's always a plethora of excuses.

You know which hypothesis one should question most? Not one that doesn't fit a small sample of (playoff) +/- data... You should question a hypothesis that is greatly at odds with the actual result of impact, which is winning. If Lebron was better than Jordan, then he should have won more than Jordan. Or at the very very least should have won more than he did and pushed many of those finals to be more competitive. But he didn't... so he mostly probably isn't better then Jordan.

I'm not sure if you're overrating Kyrie or underrating Steph, but Steph generally speaking is a significantly better player than Kyrie. 2016 considering Stephs injury maybe, but like I don't think Kyrie has any case over Steph in 2017, Steph was the best player on arguably the best team ever.

And to the point about betting odds, sometimes the betting odds are wrong. Moreover I think there are better ways to evaluate individual players than through team results based on betting odds. I don't think anyone in good faith would argue that Lebron underachieved in 2007, 14, 17 or 18 given the circumstances.

Also 2007 especially is an odd year to bring up, that's probably not one of Lebron's 12 best seasons and he was very raw at that point, he was 22 lol. Jordan was 2 years removed from college at that point and getting swept in the 1st round, and moreover Jordan has 11 functional years as a player, so throwing 2007 in their as some sort of black mark compared to MJ doesn't make any sense.

I said Kyrie wasn't much worse than Steph in 2017. He was worse.

You are avoiding my main point which is this... If Lebron was better or even equal to Jordan, why couldn't he win more than Jordan especially with a longer prime?

Sometimes betting odds are wrong but one player's teams are consistently underperforming their expectations one has to ask why. With Lebron there is always a lot of excuses. And it's not just that he lost but how he lost.

[AEnigma]

Maybe because Jordan never came close to facing teams like what Lebron saw from 2014-18.

The 2017 Warriors replaced Harrison Barnes with Kevin Durant, on what had been a team that when healthy was already fully on par with Jordan’s best teams… and then Lebron played them to a relative draw in his minutes (strictly speaking I think they outscored him when he was on the court by a couple of points over the entirety of the series). With an immediately apparent inferior roster, he had them at the same level. But that becomes a five game loss when it is a blowout every minute he ends off the court.

2018 they did fare a lot worse, so it is certainly fair to say the Cavaliers played above their heads in 2017 (unless we want to argue Kyrie was directly worth something like a fifteen point per game swing). But again: this was a 1996/97 level team that replaced their fifth starter with peak Kevin Durant. It is not an “excuse” to acknowledge there should be no reasonable path to victory barring internal meltdowns by the Warriors, just as it is not an “excuse” to say that the 1985-89 Bulls had no reasonable path to a title either.

[capfan33]

Sure. Pippen was also better. But Kyrie was also better than Steph in the 2016 Finals if we extend that line of thinking. And he wasn't even much worse than Steph in the 2017 Finals either.

Lowry being better than Kyrie is laughable... PG has a case but in 2016, Indy didn't even play the Cavs.

Basically this is what this argument comes down to.. IF Lebron's Cavs didn't play weak teams and were truly on the level of 1990s Bulls in terms of playoff dominance when Lebron was on the floor (ON impact) then why did they completely fall off the map against the Warriors in the 2017 Finals? Like why did they, with Lebron, get pretty much completely decimated in the 2017 Finals outside of Game 4 when they were already down 0-3? Surely a team on par with the 1990's Bulls could have been far more competitive.

It kind of comes back to what actually happened in their entire careers too. If Lebron was really more impactful than Jordan, why couldn't he lead objectively at least equally talented supporting casts to more championships than Jordan could? Why couldn't he at least lead them to more competitive outcomes? Lebron's teams underachieved betting odds in the 2007, 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2018 finals. Too many of those finals should have been at least extremely competitive and ended up being total beatdowns. And there's always a plethora of excuses.

You know which hypothesis one should question most? Not one that doesn't fit a small sample of (playoff) +/- data... You should question a hypothesis that is greatly at odds with the actual result of impact, which is winning. If Lebron was better than Jordan, then he should have won more than Jordan. Or at the very very least should have won more than he did and pushed many of those finals to be more competitive. But he didn't... so he mostly probably isn't better then Jordan.

I'm not sure if you're overrating Kyrie or underrating Steph, but Steph generally speaking is a significantly better player than Kyrie. 2016 considering Stephs injury maybe, but like I don't think Kyrie has any case over Steph in 2017, Steph was the best player on arguably the best team ever.

And to the point about betting odds, sometimes the betting odds are wrong. Moreover I think there are better ways to evaluate individual players than through team results based on betting odds. I don't think anyone in good faith would argue that Lebron underachieved in 2007, 14, 17 or 18 given the circumstances.

Also 2007 especially is an odd year to bring up, that's probably not one of Lebron's 12 best seasons and he was very raw at that point, he was 22 lol. Jordan was 2 years removed from college at that point and getting swept in the 1st round, and moreover Jordan has 11 functional years as a player, so throwing 2007 in their as some sort of black mark compared to MJ doesn't make any sense.

I said Kyrie wasn't much worse than Steph in 2017. He was worse.

You are avoiding my main point which is this... If Lebron was better or even equal to Jordan, why couldn't he win more than Jordan especially with a longer prime?

Sometimes betting odds are wrong but one player's teams are consistently underperforming their expectations one has to ask why. With Lebron there is always a lot of excuses. And it's not just that he lost but how he lost.

I mean there's lots of reasons. The 1st way to approach this is the abstract approach, which is that it's just one career sample for each player. If you run MJ and Lebron's career a thousands times and randomize where they are drafted, coaching, supporting cast, etc, I think it's very possible if not likely that Lebron on average ends up with more championships.

If you just look at their careers for what they are, off the top of my head, being drafted to Cleveland (lol) is a big one, running into an unusual number of ATG teams in the finals, (according to sansterres list by far the most of any ATG player), not playing in a watered-down era, being too good too early which prevented the Cavs from drafting someone like Scottie (not that I trust them to pick the correct player anyways), I feel like all this stuff has been talked about before.

Also, you can pretty readily turn that statement around with, "why didn't MJ win as many championships as Bill Russell. Moreover, how did he not even get close?"