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

[falcolombardi]

I was mostly talking offense here since the reasoning draymond uses is about offensive portability/scalability

When those heat teams were not worse offenses on average than the average bird celtics, jordan bulls or curry warriors team. The idea that these guys teams peaked higher thanks to offensive portability doesnt work at all when they didnt have better offenses

The scalability line of argument doesnt make sense from the start imo

Yeah but why. The heatles in the small sample draymond is using to mark down every other version of lebron were as dominant as the 91 bulls when the co-stars lebron couldn't fit with due to "scalability" were on the court. That's the lede. Don't bury it.

If dray can't get around that, then their theory collapses like a deck of cards.

Yep, the fact we know now lebron teams with healthy teamates are on par with anyone and only fall below cause weaker bench play changes the whole narrative

[Djoker]

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?"

Abstract approach? Ok... If you re-simulated Lebron's career it's more likely he wins under 4 titles than over considering 2 out of 4 title wins (2013 and 2016) were incredibly tight. They literally came down to single possessions. On the other hand, he didn't really have heartbreaking losses that cost him titles and came down to single possessions.

Faced so many great teams? See I don't buy that. A lot of people will take the 2014 Spurs over the 1997 Jazz because the former won the title. It's winning bias working in Lebron's favor. The 1997 Jazz actually won 2 more games and had a near identical SRS. When you lose to your opposition, it makes your opposition look better. Jordan may not have beat a team as good as the 2017 Warriors but he did beat teams as good as the 2011 Mavs, 2014 Spurs and 2018 Warriors based on the performance metrics.

It's hard to argue that Lebron's career was unlucky. Yes he got drafted into a lottery team but MJ did too. The Cavs front office didn't surround him with the best talent but he left the Cavs after 7 seasons, retooling his team every 4 years. Free agency helped Lebron's career in a massive way. Reduction of physicality helped him. Modern medicine, training, nutrition, and load management helped extend his career.

[Djoker]

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.

I think cavs were outscored by 7 total points in the series in lebron minutes, lots of it is game 4 blowout although lebron also went +7 in game 3 which cavs lost in the 3 minutes he missed

Overall lebron minutes were an "average" -1.6 in that series which is wildly good all thinghs considered, shame cavs couldnt play non-lebron minutes a bit better and take the series to 6 at least

Yes they only got outscored by 7 points in Lebron's minutes but that's not telling the whole story.

2017 Finals

Game 1: -22 with Lebron in 40:02; 0 without Lebron in 7:58 bad with Lebron, better without
Game 2: -11 with Lebron in 39:22; -8 without Lebron in 8:38 bad with Lebron, collapsed without
Game 3: +7 with Lebron in 45:37; -12 without Lebron in 2:23 good with Lebron, collapsed without
Game 4: +32 with Lebron in 40:46: -11 without Lebron in 7:14 good with Lebron, collapsed without
Game 5: -13 with Lebron in 46:13; +4 without Lebron in 1:47 bad with Lebron, better without

So the team being good with Lebron and collapsing without him is only true in Game 3 and Game 4. In Game 1, Game 2 and Game 5 the team is getting blown out with Lebron and actually does better without him in Game 1 and Game 5.

And of course the Cavs only great game in the series was in Game 4 down 0-3 in the series when the Warriors had a predictable letdown game. In the four losses, the Cavs were -39 with Lebron (-10.9 points per 48 minutes) and -16 without Lebron (-37.0 points per 48 minutes). Of course they were a total disaster without Lebron but even with him they were getting beat by a hefty margin. Not what you expect from a team on the level of 90's Bulls that's for sure.

[falcolombardi]

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.

I think cavs were outscored by 7 total points in the series in lebron minutes, lots of it is game 4 blowout although lebron also went +7 in game 3 which cavs lost in the 3 minutes he missed

Overall lebron minutes were an "average" -1.6 in that series which is wildly good all thinghs considered, shame cavs couldnt play non-lebron minutes a bit better and take the series to 6 at least

Yes they only got outscored by 7 points in Lebron's minutes but that's not telling the whole story.

2017 Finals

Game 1: -22 with Lebron in 40:02; 0 without Lebron in 7:58 bad with Lebron, better without
Game 2: -11 with Lebron in 39:22; -8 without Lebron in 8:38 bad with Lebron, collapsed without
Game 3: +7 with Lebron in 45:37; -12 without Lebron in 2:23 good with Lebron, collapsed without
Game 4: +32 with Lebron in 40:46: -11 without Lebron in 7:14 good with Lebron, collapsed without
Game 5: -13 with Lebron in 46:13; +4 without Lebron in 1:47 bad with Lebron, better without

So the team being good with Lebron and collapsing without him is only true in Game 3 and Game 4. In Game 1, Game 2 and Game 5 the team is getting blown out with Lebron and actually does better without him in Game 1 and Game 5.

And of course the Cavs only great game in the series was in Game 4 down 0-3 in the series when the Warriors had a predictable letdown game. In the four losses, the Cavs were -39 with Lebron (-10.9 points per 48 minutes) and -16 without Lebron (-37.0 points per 48 minutes). Of course they were a total disaster without Lebron but even with him they were getting beat by a hefty margin. Not what you expect from a team on the level of 90's Bulls that's for sure.

Let me be honest but this seems some serious nitpicking of a player who averaged being -1.4 against a team that was 15-0 in the playoffs and had the best srs of all time when healthy by far

The cavs with lebron averaged over 40 minutes per game against that monstrosity and on average wete outscored by less than 1 basket per 48

They faced a 14~ SRS kind of team (their srs with dursnt in the regular season) that was 12-0 in the playoffs and with lebron playing they played them to less than 1 basket per 48 amd outscored them in 2 of 5 games.

If that is not doing well against them and i dont know what it is. Any bit better than that and you are talking about outscoring them or playing them to a literal tie

Being better than that essentially means you think bulls with jordan playing could have outscored the warriors in jordan minutes

And i mean that literally as the difference was less than 2 points when lebron played, any single extra basket jordan bulls did better than the cavs would mean they outscored what was essentially a +14 srs team

[AEnigma]

Indescribably funny to see a Jordan backer talk about “winning bias”. Almost as funny as seeing the 2018 Warriors dismissed offhandedly.

True, Lebron only beat the 2013 Spurs and 2016 Warriors narrowly. And both of them were still ahead of any team Jordan beat, including the (expansion-boosted) 8-SRS Jazz. I swear, Jordan fans are the only people who refuse to acknowledge those Jazz teams as clearly less effective in the postseason, because doing so would yet again highlight how title circumstances do not come equally.

[capfan33]

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?"

Abstract approach? Ok... If you re-simulated Lebron's career it's more likely he wins under 4 titles than over considering 2 out of 4 title wins (2013 and 2016) were incredibly tight. They literally came down to single possessions. On the other hand, he didn't really have heartbreaking losses that cost him titles and came down to single possessions.

Faced so many great teams? See I don't buy that. A lot of people will take the 2014 Spurs over the 1997 Jazz because the former won the title. It's winning bias working in Lebron's favor. The 1997 Jazz actually won 2 more games and had a near identical SRS. When you lose to your opposition, it makes your opposition look better. Jordan may not have beat a team as good as the 2017 Warriors but he did beat teams as good as the 2011 Mavs, 2014 Spurs and 2018 Warriors based on the performance metrics.

It's hard to argue that Lebron's career was unlucky. Yes he got drafted into a lottery team but MJ did too. The Cavs front office didn't surround him with the best talent but he left the Cavs after 7 seasons, retooling his team every 4 years. Free agency helped Lebron's career in a massive way. Reduction of physicality helped him. Modern medicine, training, nutrition, and load management helped extend his career.

While I suck at stat, that not how whole simulation thing works, trying to extrapolate what would happen over 1000 samples based on 1 is a fool's errand at best. And he doesn't have many heartbreaking losses because his losses have generally come against vastly superior teams. Also, those tight wins were against incredibly good teams that he probably shouldn't have beaten in the 1st place.

And yea, the disconnect in perceived competition is definitely a major sticking point. If you genuinely think that the paper-tiger Jazz, who routinely underperformed in the postseason, are at all comparable to the buzzsaw that was the 2014 Spurs I'm not really sure what to tell you. I mean using your logic the 2018 Raptors and 2012 Bulls were just slightly worse than the 2014 Spurs, and no one believes that. And this doesn't include the fact that expansion the NBA underwent inflates the SRS of those late 90s teams.

While no list is perfect, I do think Sansterre did a great job and has probably put more thought into this than anyone else I know of. As such, I think it's pretty telling that Lebron's faced 4 of the top 10 teams ever. No other ATG has faced more than 1, except Magic who faced 2. The 1st finals team MJ faced is at #35. The difference in finals competition level isn't remotely close. Is it unreasonable to conclude that Lebron just ran into an unusual number of great teams in the finals?

I'm curious about your top-5 as I don't feel like trying to find it.

[Djoker]

I think cavs were outscored by 7 total points in the series in lebron minutes, lots of it is game 4 blowout although lebron also went +7 in game 3 which cavs lost in the 3 minutes he missed

Overall lebron minutes were an "average" -1.6 in that series which is wildly good all thinghs considered, shame cavs couldnt play non-lebron minutes a bit better and take the series to 6 at least

Yes they only got outscored by 7 points in Lebron's minutes but that's not telling the whole story.

2017 Finals

Game 1: -22 with Lebron in 40:02; 0 without Lebron in 7:58 bad with Lebron, better without
Game 2: -11 with Lebron in 39:22; -8 without Lebron in 8:38 bad with Lebron, collapsed without
Game 3: +7 with Lebron in 45:37; -12 without Lebron in 2:23 good with Lebron, collapsed without
Game 4: +32 with Lebron in 40:46: -11 without Lebron in 7:14 good with Lebron, collapsed without
Game 5: -13 with Lebron in 46:13; +4 without Lebron in 1:47 bad with Lebron, better without

So the team being good with Lebron and collapsing without him is only true in Game 3 and Game 4. In Game 1, Game 2 and Game 5 the team is getting blown out with Lebron and actually does better without him in Game 1 and Game 5.

And of course the Cavs only great game in the series was in Game 4 down 0-3 in the series when the Warriors had a predictable letdown game. In the four losses, the Cavs were -39 with Lebron (-10.9 points per 48 minutes) and -16 without Lebron (-37.0 points per 48 minutes). Of course they were a total disaster without Lebron but even with him they were getting beat by a hefty margin. Not what you expect from a team on the level of 90's Bulls that's for sure.

Let me be honest but this seems some serious nitpicking of a player who averaged being -1.4 against a team that was 15-0 in the playoffs and had the best srs of all time when healthy by far

The cavs with lebron averaged over 40 minutes per game against that monstrosity and on average wete outscored by less than 1 basket per 48

They faced a 14~ SRS kind of team (their srs with dursnt in the regular season) that was 12-0 in the playoffs and with lebron playing they played them to less than 1 basket per 48 amd outscored them in 2 of 5 games.

If that is not doing well against them and i dont know what it is. Any bit better than that and you are talking about outscoring them or playing them to a literal tie

Being better than that essentially means you think bulls with jordan playing could have outscored the warriors in jordan minutes

And i mean that literally as the difference was less than 2 points when lebron played, any single extra basket jordan bulls did better than the cavs would mean they outscored what was essentially a +14 srs team

In Games 1, 2 and 5 the Cavs were getting blown out WITH Lebron on the court. The -1.4 numbers is the series average but isn't representative of what was happening on a game-by-game basis.

[falcolombardi]

Indescribably funny to see a Jordan backer talk about “winning bias”. Almost as funny as seeing the 2018 Warriors dismissed offhandedly.

True, Lebron only beat the 2013 Spurs and 2016 Warriors narrowly. And both of them were still ahead of any team Jordan beat, including the (expansion-boosted) 8-SRS 1998 Jazz. I swear, Jordan fans are the only people who refuse to acknowledge those Jazz teams as clearly less effective in the postseason, because doing so would yet again highlight how title circumstances do not come equally.

Per ben taylor graph at the start of the thread dont lebron 16,17,20 teams have better net ratings with lebron ON that the best bulls teams with Jordan ON in the first place?

[Djoker]

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?"

Abstract approach? Ok... If you re-simulated Lebron's career it's more likely he wins under 4 titles than over considering 2 out of 4 title wins (2013 and 2016) were incredibly tight. They literally came down to single possessions. On the other hand, he didn't really have heartbreaking losses that cost him titles and came down to single possessions.

Faced so many great teams? See I don't buy that. A lot of people will take the 2014 Spurs over the 1997 Jazz because the former won the title. It's winning bias working in Lebron's favor. The 1997 Jazz actually won 2 more games and had a near identical SRS. When you lose to your opposition, it makes your opposition look better. Jordan may not have beat a team as good as the 2017 Warriors but he did beat teams as good as the 2011 Mavs, 2014 Spurs and 2018 Warriors based on the performance metrics.

It's hard to argue that Lebron's career was unlucky. Yes he got drafted into a lottery team but MJ did too. The Cavs front office didn't surround him with the best talent but he left the Cavs after 7 seasons, retooling his team every 4 years. Free agency helped Lebron's career in a massive way. Reduction of physicality helped him. Modern medicine, training, nutrition, and load management helped extend his career.

While I suck at stat, that not how whole simulation thing works, trying to extrapolate what would happen over 1000 samples based on 1 is a fool's errand at best. And he doesn't have many heartbreaking losses because his losses have generally come against vastly superior teams. Also, those tight wins were against incredibly good teams that he probably shouldn't have beaten in the 1st place.

And yea, the disconnect in perceived competition is definitely a major sticking point. If you genuinely think that the paper-tiger Jazz, who routinely underperformed in the postseason, are at all comparable to the buzzsaw that was the 2014 Spurs I'm not really sure what to tell you. I mean using your logic the 2018 Raptors and 2012 Bulls were just slightly worse than the 2014 Spurs, and no one believes that. And this doesn't include the fact that expansion the NBA underwent inflates the SRS of those late 90s teams.

While no list is perfect, I do think Sansterre did a great job and has probably put more thought into this than anyone else I know of. As such, I think it's pretty telling that Lebron's faced 4 of the top 10 teams ever. No other ATG has faced more than 1, except Magic who faced 2. The 1st finals team MJ faced is at #35. The difference in finals competition level isn't remotely close. Is it unreasonable to conclude that Lebron just ran into an unusual number of great teams in the finals?

I'm curious about your top-5 as I don't feel like trying to find it.

The 2014 Spurs needed 7 games against the Mavs in Round 1 and then 6 competitive games against OKC in the WCF. They started being called a buzzsaw only after they annihilated the Heat in the finals. The Heat had odds of +135 going into that series which means they were very slight underdogs.

The Jazz underperformed against who exactly? The Bulls? Because they beat Shaq's 60-win Lakers, Duncan-Rob Spurs, Hakeem/Barkley/Drexler Rockets in 97 and 98 to get to the finals if my memory serves me correctly.

[falcolombardi]

Abstract approach? Ok... If you re-simulated Lebron's career it's more likely he wins under 4 titles than over considering 2 out of 4 title wins (2013 and 2016) were incredibly tight. They literally came down to single possessions. On the other hand, he didn't really have heartbreaking losses that cost him titles and came down to single possessions.

Faced so many great teams? See I don't buy that. A lot of people will take the 2014 Spurs over the 1997 Jazz because the former won the title. It's winning bias working in Lebron's favor. The 1997 Jazz actually won 2 more games and had a near identical SRS. When you lose to your opposition, it makes your opposition look better. Jordan may not have beat a team as good as the 2017 Warriors but he did beat teams as good as the 2011 Mavs, 2014 Spurs and 2018 Warriors based on the performance metrics.

It's hard to argue that Lebron's career was unlucky. Yes he got drafted into a lottery team but MJ did too. The Cavs front office didn't surround him with the best talent but he left the Cavs after 7 seasons, retooling his team every 4 years. Free agency helped Lebron's career in a massive way. Reduction of physicality helped him. Modern medicine, training, nutrition, and load management helped extend his career.

While I suck at stat, that not how whole simulation thing works, trying to extrapolate what would happen over 1000 samples based on 1 is a fool's errand at best. And he doesn't have many heartbreaking losses because his losses have generally come against vastly superior teams. Also, those tight wins were against incredibly good teams that he probably shouldn't have beaten in the 1st place.

And yea, the disconnect in perceived competition is definitely a major sticking point. If you genuinely think that the paper-tiger Jazz, who routinely underperformed in the postseason, are at all comparable to the buzzsaw that was the 2014 Spurs I'm not really sure what to tell you. I mean using your logic the 2018 Raptors and 2012 Bulls were just slightly worse than the 2014 Spurs, and no one believes that. And this doesn't include the fact that expansion the NBA underwent inflates the SRS of those late 90s teams.

While no list is perfect, I do think Sansterre did a great job and has probably put more thought into this than anyone else I know of. As such, I think it's pretty telling that Lebron's faced 4 of the top 10 teams ever. No other ATG has faced more than 1, except Magic who faced 2. The 1st finals team MJ faced is at #35. The difference in finals competition level isn't remotely close. Is it unreasonable to conclude that Lebron just ran into an unusual number of great teams in the finals?

I'm curious about your top-5 as I don't feel like trying to find it.

The 2014 Spurs needed 7 games against the Mavs in Round 1 and then 6 competitive games against OKC in the WCF. They started being called a buzzsaw only after they annihilated the Heat in the finals. The Heat had odds of +135 going into that series which means they were very slight underdogs.

The Jazz underperformed against who exactly? The Bulls? Because they beat Shaq's 60-win Lakers, Duncan-Rob Spurs, Hakeem/Barkley/Drexler Rockets in 97 and 98 to get to the finals if my memory serves me correctly.

I think the 96-98 jazz is great but you are sleeping on san antonio

That oklahoma team when healthy played 65 win basketball in the surrounding years (13 amd 16)

In 2013 they had a +9SRS In reg season, in 2016 they beat the 67 win spurs and went to 7 and outscored the 73 win warriors. They were really damn good and spurs beat them somewhat comfortably

You diminish the spurs but they literallt had one of the best regular season/post season dominance combinations ever. The odd struggles against dallas were a blimp in the radar

[falcolombardi]

[/quote]

Seems relevant to post again that lebron teams actually peaked higher in the playoffs than jordan teams when both were on court

[f4p]

The Jazz underperformed against who exactly? The Bulls? Because they beat Shaq's 60-win Lakers, Duncan-Rob Spurs, Hakeem/Barkley/Drexler Rockets in 97 and 98 to get to the finals if my memory serves me correctly.

i'm guessing they just mean the stockton/malone jazz in general. 2 all-time greats together for 18 years who practically never missed a game due to injury, and they never made the finals until everybody else in the west basically just aged out. certainly not on the level of a tried and tested, amazing role player, dynasty spurs team with hall of famers with past and future rings.

they definitely benefited from the expansion as we had bulls 72 and 69 wins, sonics 64, and jazz 64 all in a 2 year window.

also, the 1998 jazz would seem to have the same situation as the 2014 spurs except even worse. they faced an 8th seeded rockets with hakeem having his first big injury year and they struggled even more than the spurs. they went down 2-1 and were getting worked by barkley in game 4 early in the 2nd quarter when barkley tore his triceps and then the rockets hakeem/barkley alternating offense went to crap (and drexler shot 2-14 in game 5 in the last game of his career). the spurs didn't get as close to losing. granted, the spurs were also partially saved by dajuan blair kicking someone and getting suspended. if anything, it just shows results aren't perfectly transitive, as that same jazz team shouldn't have swept the lakers and that spurs team shouldn't have made the finals based on the 1st round results. but when they clicked, they clicked.

[f4p]

also, to go to the scalability with lebron in 2011 and 2012. i'm not sure using 2011 really means all that much. it doesn't seem to be a problem with scalability and certainly not with lebron's teammates fitting with him. it's just a straight up bad year from lebron.

in the 2 years before, he was at 31+ PER, 0.31 WS48, and 12+ BPM. in the 2 years after he was at 31+ PER, 0.31 WS48, 11+ BPM. in 2011 he was 27.3 PER, 0.244 WS48, 8.1 BPM. he just wasn't good. and all of the same trends hold in the playoffs, except even a little more pronounced. so unless he just had perfectly fitting teammates every other year of his career, it's basically just his worst year since maybe 2008. and as for the playoff on-court +/- specifically, you basically have to factor in the hilarious bibby/ilgauskas minutes at the start of the playoffs. bibby and ilgauskas started the first 8 games (bibby kept starting even after) and you have ilgauskas with an on court -34.9 per 100! in a lot of non-garbage minutes at the beginnings of games! the only other big time on court negative is bibby at -6.3. since the big 3 absorbed all of that, you get them all near breakeven on the court. and who have some of the best big minute on court numbers? joel anthony and mario chalmers, the guys who would replace bibby and ilgauskas after the traditional shellacking to start the game, when the heat would immediately go on a run.

[Owly]

Yes they only got outscored by 7 points in Lebron's minutes but that's not telling the whole story.

2017 Finals

Game 1: -22 with Lebron in 40:02; 0 without Lebron in 7:58 bad with Lebron, better without
Game 2: -11 with Lebron in 39:22; -8 without Lebron in 8:38 bad with Lebron, collapsed without
Game 3: +7 with Lebron in 45:37; -12 without Lebron in 2:23 good with Lebron, collapsed without
Game 4: +32 with Lebron in 40:46: -11 without Lebron in 7:14 good with Lebron, collapsed without
Game 5: -13 with Lebron in 46:13; +4 without Lebron in 1:47 bad with Lebron, better without

So the team being good with Lebron and collapsing without him is only true in Game 3 and Game 4. In Game 1, Game 2 and Game 5 the team is getting blown out with Lebron and actually does better without him in Game 1 and Game 5.

And of course the Cavs only great game in the series was in Game 4 down 0-3 in the series when the Warriors had a predictable letdown game. In the four losses, the Cavs were -39 with Lebron (-10.9 points per 48 minutes) and -16 without Lebron (-37.0 points per 48 minutes). Of course they were a total disaster without Lebron but even with him they were getting beat by a hefty margin. Not what you expect from a team on the level of 90's Bulls that's for sure.

Let me be honest but this seems some serious nitpicking of a player who averaged being -1.4 against a team that was 15-0 in the playoffs and had the best srs of all time when healthy by far

The cavs with lebron averaged over 40 minutes per game against that monstrosity and on average wete outscored by less than 1 basket per 48

They faced a 14~ SRS kind of team (their srs with dursnt in the regular season) that was 12-0 in the playoffs and with lebron playing they played them to less than 1 basket per 48 amd outscored them in 2 of 5 games.

If that is not doing well against them and i dont know what it is. Any bit better than that and you are talking about outscoring them or playing them to a literal tie

Being better than that essentially means you think bulls with jordan playing could have outscored the warriors in jordan minutes

And i mean that literally as the difference was less than 2 points when lebron played, any single extra basket jordan bulls did better than the cavs would mean they outscored what was essentially a +14 srs team

In Games 1, 2 and 5 the Cavs were getting blown out WITH Lebron on the court. The -1.4 numbers is the series average but isn't representative of what was happening on a game-by-game basis.

So genuine, honest question ... what do you mean by this? What would you have us take from it. What is the virtue of splitting the series?

My priors would be:
+/- is a noisy measure.
1 series is a very, very small sample size to be working with.
Thus I'd already be reluctant to put much stock into this (but I suppose if people are going to talk about team level results in the playoff then seeing if they were on for the winning/losing at least gives some context to that)

From that I'd be reluctant to further chop it into smaller pieces ... and then ... your latest post seems only on focused on the bad games and then not the ones that implicitly must get to that average where they're exceptional (g4) or good (g3) versus this elite team with him on (and incidentally destroyed with him off). And presently I don't see the virtue or purpose of that chopping. If you want to say GS quit one game and can support it I'd see the case for saying that number is inflated (though the game is still relevant and they still have to get to the point where opponents quit) that would be relevant. Or if in every series a player gave you 3 great games and 4 bad ones maybe you could argue it harms your odds versus what is typical of the raw average of a player at a certain "level" [am assuming +/- is being used as a proxy for player's level of play] (though 1 bad player doesn't necessarily kill a team and for there to be a good or reasonable average the positive games would have to be more positive than the negative ones negative ... in short unless it's super extreme and they're taking and making or missing every shot I don't actually know what this does to the odds and it may be significantly contextual anyway, e.g. as underdog versus as favourite), though I suspect this doesn't happen beyond chance. Or maybe if you're results oriented rather than process you could say it's a bad series for the player even though they haven't played badly (though here cf above on uncertainty whether 3 good, 4 poor individual games type balance actually does for odds).

I don't know I just ... especially in the context of such a noisy measure ... presently I can't see the virtue of carving up a series (especially absent deeper and systematic analysis). What am I missing?


fwiw, from your numbers and given the variance in the scores of individual games (versus seasonal averages) I wouldn't have called LeBron on in G2, G5 them getting "blown out", though I don't generally converse a lot on game to game level so it may be me not being attuned to norms.

[capfan33]

also, to go to the scalability with lebron in 2011 and 2012. i'm not sure using 2011 really means all that much. it doesn't seem to be a problem with scalability and certainly not with lebron's teammates fitting with him. it's just a straight up bad year from lebron.

in the 2 years before, he was at 31+ PER, 0.31 WS48, and 12+ BPM. in the 2 years after he was at 31+ PER, 0.31 WS48, 11+ BPM. in 2011 he was 27.3 PER, 0.244 WS48, 8.1 BPM. he just wasn't good. and all of the same trends hold in the playoffs, except even a little more pronounced. so unless he just had perfectly fitting teammates every other year of his career, it's basically just his worst year since maybe 2008. and as for the playoff on-court +/- specifically, you basically have to factor in the hilarious bibby/ilgauskas minutes at the start of the playoffs. bibby and ilgauskas started the first 8 games (bibby kept starting even after) and you have ilgauskas with an on court -34.9 per 100! in a lot of non-garbage minutes at the beginnings of games! the only other big time on court negative is bibby at -6.3. since the big 3 absorbed all of that, you get them all near breakeven on the court. and who have some of the best big minute on court numbers? joel anthony and mario chalmers, the guys who would replace bibby and ilgauskas after the traditional shellacking to start the game, when the heat would immediately go on a run.

I'm not sure how long you've read this forum, but there's been a lot of analysis done on 2011 Lebron and how it's easily one of the worst years of his prime. Probably the worst if you take out injury years. And this is independent of the finals. He gained 20 pounds and had 0 half-court driving ability and was settling for jumpers as a result. Both statistically and based on the eye test it was an outlier in a bad way for him.

[Djoker]

Let me be honest but this seems some serious nitpicking of a player who averaged being -1.4 against a team that was 15-0 in the playoffs and had the best srs of all time when healthy by far

The cavs with lebron averaged over 40 minutes per game against that monstrosity and on average wete outscored by less than 1 basket per 48

They faced a 14~ SRS kind of team (their srs with dursnt in the regular season) that was 12-0 in the playoffs and with lebron playing they played them to less than 1 basket per 48 amd outscored them in 2 of 5 games.

If that is not doing well against them and i dont know what it is. Any bit better than that and you are talking about outscoring them or playing them to a literal tie

Being better than that essentially means you think bulls with jordan playing could have outscored the warriors in jordan minutes

And i mean that literally as the difference was less than 2 points when lebron played, any single extra basket jordan bulls did better than the cavs would mean they outscored what was essentially a +14 srs team

In Games 1, 2 and 5 the Cavs were getting blown out WITH Lebron on the court. The -1.4 numbers is the series average but isn't representative of what was happening on a game-by-game basis.

So genuine, honest question ... what do you mean by this? What would you have us take from it. What is the virtue of splitting the series?

My priors would be:
+/- is a noisy measure.
1 series is a very, very small sample size to be working with.
Thus I'd already be reluctant to put much stock into this (but I suppose if people are going to talk about team level results in the playoff then seeing if they were on for the winning/losing at least gives some context to that)

From that I'd be reluctant to further chop it into smaller pieces ... and then ... your latest post seems only on focused on the bad games and then not the ones that implicitly must get to that average where they're exceptional (g4) or good (g3) versus this elite team with him on (and incidentally destroyed with him off). And presently I don't see the virtue or purpose of that chopping. If you want to say GS quit one game and can support it I'd see the case for saying that number is inflated (though the game is still relevant and they still have to get to the point where opponents quit) that would be relevant. Or if in every series a player gave you 3 great games and 4 bad ones maybe you could argue it harms your odds versus what is typical of the raw average of a player at a certain "level" [am assuming +/- is being used as a proxy for player's level of play] (though 1 bad player doesn't necessarily kill a team and for there to be a good or reasonable average the positive games would have to be more positive than the negative ones negative ... in short unless it's super extreme and they're taking and making or missing every shot I don't actually know what this does to the odds and it may be significantly contextual anyway, e.g. as underdog versus as favourite), though I suspect this doesn't happen beyond chance. Or maybe if you're results oriented rather than process you could say it's a bad series for the player even though they haven't played badly (though here cf above on uncertainty whether 3 good, 4 poor individual games type balance actually does for odds).

I don't know I just ... especially in the context of such a noisy measure ... presently I can't see the virtue of carving up a series (especially absent deeper and systematic analysis). What am I missing?


fwiw, from your numbers and given the variance in the scores of individual games (versus seasonal averages) I wouldn't have called LeBron on in G2, G5 them getting "blown out", though I don't generally converse a lot on game to game level so it may be me not being attuned to norms.

My post was in response to falcolombardi's ridiculous assertion that the Cavs with Lebron were competitive with the Warriors in 2017... According to his weird logic, a team that loses four games by seven points but wins one game by thirty points is winning the series!

[Djoker]

The Jazz underperformed against who exactly? The Bulls? Because they beat Shaq's 60-win Lakers, Duncan-Rob Spurs, Hakeem/Barkley/Drexler Rockets in 97 and 98 to get to the finals if my memory serves me correctly.

i'm guessing they just mean the stockton/malone jazz in general. 2 all-time greats together for 18 years who practically never missed a game due to injury, and they never made the finals until everybody else in the west basically just aged out. certainly not on the level of a tried and tested, amazing role player, dynasty spurs team with hall of famers with past and future rings.

they definitely benefited from the expansion as we had bulls 72 and 69 wins, sonics 64, and jazz 64 all in a 2 year window.

also, the 1998 jazz would seem to have the same situation as the 2014 spurs except even worse. they faced an 8th seeded rockets with hakeem having his first big injury year and they struggled even more than the spurs. they went down 2-1 and were getting worked by barkley in game 4 early in the 2nd quarter when barkley tore his triceps and then the rockets hakeem/barkley alternating offense went to crap (and drexler shot 2-14 in game 5 in the last game of his career). the spurs didn't get as close to losing. granted, the spurs were also partially saved by dajuan blair kicking someone and getting suspended. if anything, it just shows results aren't perfectly transitive, as that same jazz team shouldn't have swept the lakers and that spurs team shouldn't have made the finals based on the 1st round results. but when they clicked, they clicked.

Expansion inflated the league to 29 teams in the late 90's. The 2014 NBA had 30 teams. I can understand how it was easier to win 72 games in the late 90's compared to the 80's but I don't understand how it is easier to win 72 in the late 90's compared to the 10's when there was 1 more team.

[falcolombardi]

In Games 1, 2 and 5 the Cavs were getting blown out WITH Lebron on the court. The -1.4 numbers is the series average but isn't representative of what was happening on a game-by-game basis.

So genuine, honest question ... what do you mean by this? What would you have us take from it. What is the virtue of splitting the series?

My priors would be:
+/- is a noisy measure.
1 series is a very, very small sample size to be working with.
Thus I'd already be reluctant to put much stock into this (but I suppose if people are going to talk about team level results in the playoff then seeing if they were on for the winning/losing at least gives some context to that)

From that I'd be reluctant to further chop it into smaller pieces ... and then ... your latest post seems only on focused on the bad games and then not the ones that implicitly must get to that average where they're exceptional (g4) or good (g3) versus this elite team with him on (and incidentally destroyed with him off). And presently I don't see the virtue or purpose of that chopping. If you want to say GS quit one game and can support it I'd see the case for saying that number is inflated (though the game is still relevant and they still have to get to the point where opponents quit) that would be relevant. Or if in every series a player gave you 3 great games and 4 bad ones maybe you could argue it harms your odds versus what is typical of the raw average of a player at a certain "level" [am assuming +/- is being used as a proxy for player's level of play] (though 1 bad player doesn't necessarily kill a team and for there to be a good or reasonable average the positive games would have to be more positive than the negative ones negative ... in short unless it's super extreme and they're taking and making or missing every shot I don't actually know what this does to the odds and it may be significantly contextual anyway, e.g. as underdog versus as favourite), though I suspect this doesn't happen beyond chance. Or maybe if you're results oriented rather than process you could say it's a bad series for the player even though they haven't played badly (though here cf above on uncertainty whether 3 good, 4 poor individual games type balance actually does for odds).

I don't know I just ... especially in the context of such a noisy measure ... presently I can't see the virtue of carving up a series (especially absent deeper and systematic analysis). What am I missing?


fwiw, from your numbers and given the variance in the scores of individual games (versus seasonal averages) I wouldn't have called LeBron on in G2, G5 them getting "blown out", though I don't generally converse a lot on game to game level so it may be me not being attuned to norms.

My post was in response to falcolombardi's ridiculous assertion that the Cavs with Lebron were competitive with the Warriors in 2017... According to his weird logic, a team that loses four games by seven points but wins one game by thirty points is winning the series! :lol:

Do you want any more straw in that strawman .

I never said that the cavs with lebron were beating the warriors i said that it was relatively close when he was on court.. ..which yeah, it was lol

Cavs with lebron were outscored by 7 points across like 220 minutes and outscored the warriors with lebron on in 2 out of 5 games.

I never denied warriors were still better

[falcolombardi]

The Jazz underperformed against who exactly? The Bulls? Because they beat Shaq's 60-win Lakers, Duncan-Rob Spurs, Hakeem/Barkley/Drexler Rockets in 97 and 98 to get to the finals if my memory serves me correctly.

i'm guessing they just mean the stockton/malone jazz in general. 2 all-time greats together for 18 years who practically never missed a game due to injury, and they never made the finals until everybody else in the west basically just aged out. certainly not on the level of a tried and tested, amazing role player, dynasty spurs team with hall of famers with past and future rings.

they definitely benefited from the expansion as we had bulls 72 and 69 wins, sonics 64, and jazz 64 all in a 2 year window.

also, the 1998 jazz would seem to have the same situation as the 2014 spurs except even worse. they faced an 8th seeded rockets with hakeem having his first big injury year and they struggled even more than the spurs. they went down 2-1 and were getting worked by barkley in game 4 early in the 2nd quarter when barkley tore his triceps and then the rockets hakeem/barkley alternating offense went to crap (and drexler shot 2-14 in game 5 in the last game of his career). the spurs didn't get as close to losing. granted, the spurs were also partially saved by dajuan blair kicking someone and getting suspended. if anything, it just shows results aren't perfectly transitive, as that same jazz team shouldn't have swept the lakers and that spurs team shouldn't have made the finals based on the 1st round results. but when they clicked, they clicked.

Expansion inflated the league to 29 teams in the late 90's. The 2014 NBA had 30 teams. I can understand how it was easier to win 72 games in the late 90's compared to the 80's but I don't understand how it is easier to win 72 in the late 90's compared to the 10's when there was 1 more team.

And the league had 8 teams in the 60's, that must mean the 90's were a wildly diluted league in comparision/s

The 2010's have a couple teams more but out of a much bigger talent pool both in the united states
(population growth and popularity rise of the sport)

And worldwide. We have a higher amount of high to ultra high end talent coming overseas than ever before

That is a much bigger deal that having 30 teams instead of 29.

And more importantly the reason why people bring up expansions is because suddendly adding a bunch of bad teams to the league inflates the top teams SRS's as it suddendy increases the proportion of bad teams they face

[VanWest82]

Haven't read through the whole thread but has anyone figured out yet why the author didn't include MJ's off #s in the 90 season? Seems like a glaring omission that would skew results.

Also, I find it a little disingenous to isolate playoffs only given the massive discrepancy between the way players of this era and players of the 80s and 90s treated the regular season.

And as always, it's tough to hyper focus on on/off and claim it's the be-all-end-all irrespective of role. I've always said that it's easier for someone like Nash or Lebron to excel in this area given they always have the ball and are in effect irreplaceable vs. guys playing within a system.