Who is in your GOAT tier?

[falcolombardi]

** I don't really want to say too much because every one of these threads devolves into Jordan vs. Lebron which has been discussed a million times and no one ever seems to change their position. But I will say that Lebron has never anchored a good defense on his own so criticizing Jordan for not doing it is weird. In fact I doubt any non-big in NBA history has ever done it. Oh and Jordan's skillset obviously fits better alongside other on-ball players. Offensive load doesn't consider time of possession and a player can have high offensive load playing off-ball shooting a lot. But he was still playing off of another player in his case Pippen who was often the primary playmaker, especially in the second threepeat.

2009 cavs, had solid but unremarkable defensive help and was the main lynchpin of a -5.5 defense (both by eye test and +/-). For comparision jordan 88 dpoy season was only a -2.5 defense and fell off in 89 without oakley

2016 cavs, excellent postseason defense with a solid -1.8 reg season D, in a team with only tristan thompson as decent defensive presence in the paint

2009 Cavs had Varejao and Ben Wallace down low. That's unremarkable?

2016 Cavs were nothing special defensively 10th in DRtg and -1.9 in the regular season and 7th in DRtg and -0.7 in the postseason. And that's despite playing in the weaker conference. Plus you are underrating Tristan. How about the 2017 and 2018 Cavs that Lebron "anchored"? I wonder how those teams did defensively.

Anyways MJ never anchored a defense either. Non-big defenders don't do that. Both he and Lebron have miniscule defensive impact compared to players like Hakeem or Dwight Howard.

Ben wallace was 34 years old, played 24 mins a game, was well past his prime and missed a third of the season. Since you mentioned diwght howard in your post, he was kinda like 2020 howard but with 27 games missed (so value cut by a third) useful but not a big needle mover by himself

Varejao was ok but fairly unremarkable all thinghs considered, oakley was probably the more valuable defender than him (the bulls went from -2.5 to 0 in defense without oakley in 89 so he prolly was quite impactful) by a decent margin yet 2009 cavs were WAY better than 88 bulls defensively

There is a huge gulf between "best defense with lebron as the best defensive player" (the -5.5 2009 cavs) and best defense with jordan as the best defensive player ( the -2.5 1988 bulls)

And yeah, that defense which was fairly elite went as lebron did, his defensive on-off was near top of the league and the cavs defense went from elite to awful when he was not playing (the same effect didnt happen when varejao or wallace were not on court)

I agree that neither lebron nor jordan are comparable to great defensive bigs like hakeem, but that doesmt mean they are the same just because neither comes close to a hakeem

This is 70'sfan point, when it comes to defense people go "well, both are good, i will leave it at that and evaluate only their offense"

In reality there is a lot of room between "good" and
"literally hakeem" is perfectly possible for jordan and lebron to both be good defenders, both be way too far from a dwight howard or hakeem and still have significant differences between their defense

[falcolombardi]

So I offered three specific counter examples(2012, 2015, and 2020).

Here's what they have in common. All three are examples of Lebron demonstrating mj or mj+ impact without good era-relative spacing. 2015 in paticular was a down year for lebron on offense. And yet, the 15 cavs, without love or kyrie, swept a 60 win team(55 win srs), and took the 2015 warriors. I feel your analysis here is tunnel-visioning to offense. None of the teams I listed were atg offenses, but they were able to achieve similar relative to prime jordan analogs(88-90 for 2015, 2012, most title years for 2012 and 2020 (heat were +13 when wade/bosh were in the lineup)) with poor era-relative spacing. All three did this on the back of defense.

Your theory works fine if we assume that Lebron cannot ramp up his defensive impact to compensate for diminishing offensive influence, but all three stand as strong counter-examples for this. With the exception of 2020(where he still matched 88 mj in dpipm before playoff elevation), lebron was the primary paint protector and defensive anchor for those teams, And both the cavs, and the heat collapsed defensively in games he didn't play. Mj does not have a similar track-record, and this is probably why he compares very negatively to lebron(and various primay paint protectors) in non-box dominated comps. Both the 2020 lakers and the 2012 heat are era outliers in terms of spacing for title-winners. But lebron can impact the other side of the court more than jordan can, and that is a pretty useful advantage. Jordan only has ever anchored one good regular season defense, and to what extent he anchored that defense is questionable considering the immediate collapse that ensued in 89 when their primary front court presense departed.

It's not that lebron "switched teams", it's that lebron was able to out-value jordan via defense in situations where cieling raiser theory predicts he should be less valuable. I will also add that the non-regularized stuff is games where lebron is not playing whatsoever which should in theory minimize the "lebron-helio effect" on a team as they know they're not going to have lebron beforehand. And lebron's non-regularized stuff is better than his regularized stuff(where he still mantains a clear and consistent advantage across his prime)

Okay, so you're right that I was focusing on offense, and that arguing for LeBron based on defense presents something new.

Further, I'll say that on my own personal version of RPOY - where I only go by my own assessments - I have LeBron with the edge over MJ both overall and on defense. To give the data, just because it seems like it would be interesting for folks:

Overall:
1. Russell 12.1
2. LeBron 9.5
3. Jordan 9.1
4. Kareem 8.5
5. Mikan 8.0

Offense:
Jordan 7.8
LeBron 6.6

Defense:
LeBron 3.6
Jordan 2.4

So yeah, can certainly see the argument for LeBron based on defense, and don't think folks are crazy for picking LeBron over Jordan on offense.

Re: "Your theory works fine if we assume that Lebron cannot ramp up his defensive impact to compensate for diminishing offensive influence". I'll say flat out that I don't think LeBron CAN completely compensate for diminished offense by ramping up his defense, and on a big picture level, it relates to why both he and Jordan score so much higher on my Offensive list compared to my Defensive list. He can compensate some to be sure, but even there, I think we need to be careful presuming it's his compensation that's making up for the deficit elsewhere.

I think the 2015 finals are the case in point here because it most definitely wasn't the case that he was using less energy on offense than normal. He was certainly trying harder in general than in the regular season, but he that's not the same thing as re-allocating with a defensive focus.

Re: LeBron primary paint protector... I don't want to nitpick here, because LeBron certainly deserves major defensive props for what he did, but in the finals in 2012 LeBron blocked 2 shots and in 2015 he blocked 3. In 2012 both Bosh & Wade blocked 6, and in 2015 Mozgov & TT blocked at least 6. I would consider LeBron the defensive MVP of both teams, but this is not a situation where LeBron was the clear cut "anchor" based on what that word typically means, and given what you're saying about Jordan, it's weird to me to draw a line that lets LeBron into that club and leaves Jordan completely out of it.

Regarding "out-valuing" Jordan, I'm cautious there. Jordan's teams had more dominant top-end seasons than LeBron's teams did, and while I'm all for looking at supporting cast, there is also the matter that Jordan seemed to force an intensity with his teammates that LeBron often did not. It was utterly insane watching the '95-96 Bulls at the time, and I feel like as we look back in history we have this tendency to feel like it was inevitable based on the talent on the roster when it really wasn't.

Re: Kareem. Here you really don't seem focused on adaptability at all, but let me emphasize: In my experience reading Kareem he's pretty explicit about the fact that he didn't have great basketball instincts, but when he found the hook shot, he found something that nobody could stop him from doing, and so he practiced it with an obsessiveness very, very few NBA players are capable of - just like most NBA players are incapable of doing serious historical research and writing books by their own hand the way he is - beginning in middle school. That was his ticket to great success for a very, very long time more so than him finding a new approach to scoring after his first way stopped working so well.

My point was really that he maintained jordan+ impact signals on teams of various quality(floor vs cieling) with various teammates. But if you aren't talking era-relative adaptability, I don't have a strong enough opinion to contest it. I will, however, offer a caution: for modern era translation, box-production going up does not mean a player has become more valuable. Scoring 30 ppg where the field is scoring 20 pgg isn't necessarily worse than scoring 40 ppg in a where the field scores 30 ppg. Crude example but it should illustrate the point. If you are going to argue Jordan gets better thanks to spacing, it can't just be a matter of numbers. You need to argue that he will be better relative to his peers in 2022 than 1991. According to ben, jordan was a limited pure passer even relative to kobe(found half as many good passes per 100 iirc), so i'm not sure having him helio vs more sophisticated and talented defenses produces better results(as far as winning goes).

"he translates well" needs a little more support than "ah, spacing -> numbers go brr"

Can you elaborate on what you're seeing from Kareem in terms of "impact signals"?

and series

[quote}

Eh...
https://youtu.be/wDViQIwOtY8?t=395

What makes jordan's series adaptability special relative to other top 10 all-timers?


Once again, not looking to make strident arguments, just pointing out that I can see reasonable people thinking these things, but the core of the answer here has its roots in something simple that can admittedly be over-emphasized:

Jordan's Bulls always seemed to get better in the playoffs, with him scaling up his usage as needed. While I wouldn't want to knock LeBron or Kareem here as if they were particularly bad on this front, there have been times with each of them where their teams underperformed. In the case of Kareem, I'd tend to attribute to him really only being amazing at certain things and thus unable to "fill in the gaps" that opponents were exploiting. In the case of LeBron, we literally have cases where he doesn't know how to counter what the opponent is doing and gets passive.

In fairness: I'd tend to call Jordan's game simpler and more individualistic than LeBron's - he know he was going to attack, he just had to figure out how.

I'll try to keep things broad since you aren't looking to get in the weeds.

We don't have enough stuff for Kareem for me to take a position on his postseason translation, but with lebron, I'd offer two additional cautions:
1.compare apples to apples (down years should generally be compared to down years, and the amount of seasons whether you take the "best" or "consecutive" approach should probably be the same)
2. distinguish between underperformance relative to expectation and underperformance relative to supporting cast


A drawback of immense longevity (and immense regular season impact) is that there are more down years(and the bar for a down is lower) as well as up years. Earlier in the thread we did a 10-12 year postseason comparison and, at least in box-related stuff, lebron bridges the gap in MJ coming out ahead in two of the three common metrics that generally favor mj in the regular season(its dead split or lebron nets the majority depending on method). If you go by "best years" instead of taking a consensuctive sample, the gap widens considerably in lebron's favor. On the defensive side, at least with the second cavs stint, the teams defense consistently improved in the playoffs, and I think we'd agree lebron's defense scales up in the postseason at least when he makes his return to ohio.

I don't actually know that jordan, if you compare similar seasons(in terms of time frame and/or in terms of how they rank relative to all of the seasons of their career) is a better playoff elevator. I'd also be somewhat confident he isn't as good a playoff elevator than 2015-2018 lebron, and Lebron looks like the more impactful regular season player outside of box-stuff. 2011 finals are bad, but you can just move to 2012 and get a favorable prime comp for lebron. Without expectations as a prior, even 2011 isn't really worse than mj's weakest seasons(95, wizards).

I know kareem's teams didn't necessarily replicate that effect so I can't dismiss the idea that mj was able to bridge whatever regular season gap was present in the rs.

I'm definitely focused on LeBron's blips when I talk about Jordan being the more robust playoff performer, but I don't think "immense longevity" really explains it. I remember watching LeBron in his early prime, and I remember the ways he struggled. At the time I was one of the ones trying to calm others down about what it said about limits to LeBron's capacity, and I don't think I've actually changed my stance.

In general, there's a common issue I tend to call the "Fast Eddie" growth curve (after the character in the 1961 move "The Hustler") where a young guy can hit phenomenal highs but is more easily rattled than the old, grizzled vet. Fast Eddie over the course of the movie makes that transition, and I think there are a bunch of actual athletes who show similar tendencies, with LeBron being one of them.

I think it's actually important not to give Jordan too much credit for being "perfect" in avoid chokes, but while LeBron has developed toward being greatly robust with time, it's hard for me to say that that actually allowed him to be more dominant over any run than Jordan was.

Well, the issue with the rings approach is Russell (Mind you, focusing on the "individual impact" side does MJ no favors), but I'll acknowledge that modern-translation does offer some leeway here, if you can make a compelling case for jordan being able to translate his success to lebron's era better than russell could have managed in MJ's.

It does seem the philosophy you're describing is that "longevity matters less" which I guess is fine, but if you're downplaying it to that large of an extent, why even distinguish between prime and accumulative value in the first place? Like either mj's prime years just have a massive value edge or longevity doesn't matter.

When you say Russell is the "issue", to me you're implying something like, "By that rationale, Russell should be the GOAT not Jordan or LeBron, so if you don't believe Russell is the GOAT, you should drop the argument." You're talking to someone who had Russell as his GOAT for a long time and only went away from that with the recognition that Russell was the GOAT of a different, vastly less popular, game, and could not be expected to be the best player in a league where humans are shooting up to human-capacity.

Re: if downplaying longevity, why distinguish between prime & accumulated value? I'd say what we're talking about there are the thresholds of what people feel as significant. In baseball, Pedro Martinez is generally seen as having the best prime of any pitcher, but few would argue that he had the best overall career of any pitcher because even after you take the cheaters out, he still didn't win the most Cy Young Awards. But Jordan's run of dominance was a lot longer than Pedro's, so it's harder for people to see such a split.

1. I think you are tunneling on offense here. The drop for lebron casts in lebron's prime years comes also comes from defense. The biggest difference between the 89 and 91(90 saw the bulls leap towards their 91 selves with the triangle), and 93/94 was the defense getting vastly better. Anyone positing that helio is producing the drop-off needs to account for the defensive stuff. Via regularized impact, lebron vs jordan is generally a tie on offense, and anything but on defense.

This also extends, obviously, to duncan, but in the absence of good pure signals(healthy thoughout his best years) the support for a holistic advantage is weaker(if unopposed)

I would point out that from '87-88 to '90-91, the defensive improvement of the team was negligible. It was the offense that changed. When you zoom in like you've done I understand why you draw different conclusions, but flat out: Jordan proved he was capable of leading an elite defense before Phil or Pippen got there, it was the offense where he was unproven.

2. I will reiterate that apples should be compared to apples. These last two years are more anaglous to mj with the wizards. And whatever you think of lebron off-the-court, it's hard to argue it was worse rhan what MJ did(when he should be at his most experienced) with washington. Jordan also insisted on not shooting threes, started beef with his gm over potentially getting a lotto pick, punched a teammate, ect, ect. Are you sure off-court intangibles is a good tree to climb? LeGM also should proably get some credit for getting davis in the first place if we're knocking him for the westbrook decision.

2019 may not be the best evidence here, as, prior to a plethora of injuries, the lakers were looking alright despite a bunch of spacing concerns. How indicative do we think Lebron's drop in performance with his first major injury(and the rest of the cast hurt) is of his best years?

We can certainly have the argument about Laker LeBron vs Washington Jordan. 2 important things though:

1. Many of us were critical of Magic/LeBron's approach to team building in 2018, and some of us in 2020 made a point to eat our words based on the fact that LeBron seemed to be able to get the shooting he needed from those players when it counted. But the looming spectre even then was what the Bubble meant with all that shooting. I absolutely hate when people try to act as if the Bubble championship doesn't count - it absolutely does! - but from a perspective of evaluating the effect of LeBron's team building, I think it's proven to be an anomaly. He thought he didn't need shooters, he seemed to show that he didn't...but he absolutely did need them.

And none of this means LeBron doesn't deserve credit for bringing in Davis, but that was less about basketball insight and more about the draw of LeBron/Lakers. It was obvious that AD would be a good guy to pair with LeBron, what was not obvious was how the team would get by without explicitly going after great shooters to go around the Big 2. The fact that that original concern has since proven quite well-founded means that it's silly not to look at this as a blindspot of LeBron in his team-building, and unfortunately for his GOAT candidacy, he's made team-building a key part of what he's done for most of his career.

2. Washington was a trash heap with or without Jordan. This wasn't him taking a contender and using his threat as superstar to make them make moves which moved them in the opposite direction. This isn't to say Jordan was too wise to do such a thing, only that the effect of what LeBron did is qualitatively different than the effect of Jordan, and while it's up to each of us to decide what that means, the dichotomy is a real thing.

Mmm, i have to disagree with some of these points

think the 2015 finals are the case in point here because it most definitely wasn't the case that he was using less energy on offense than normal.

2015 was a down year with back issues for lebron, that he got them as far as he did with two max contract players missing and a hurt back is impressive already.

LeBron primary paint protector... I don't want to nitpick here, because LeBron certainly deserves major defensive props for what he did, but in the finals in 2012 LeBron blocked 2 shots and in 2015 he blocked 3. In 2012 both Bosh & Wade blocked 6, and in 2015 Mozgov & TT blocked at least 6.

Primary paint protector =/= most blocks imo, just like the player doing more to defend the paint in the 2008 celtics was not perkins (highest blocks) but garnett.

5's are in better position to block shots than roamer 4's without necesarrily affecting the opposite offense more

it's weird to me to draw a line that lets LeBron into that club and leaves Jordan completely out of it.

Gonna paraphrase 70's fan here amd hope i dont butcher it

"People evaluate offense in player comparision to maximun detail but evaluate defense in broad strokes, if both players are good in defense they leave it at that amd focus on offense"

Just because lebron and jordan were both good defenders and at some point the best defenders om their teams doesnt necesarrily mean they were on the same level. But if we were to define am arbitrary line, jordan only led one good defense (-2.5 88' bulls) between 85 and 89. And it went back to near zero without oakley. So is possible that oakley was more of a co anchor even there

Lebron for comparision was the unarguable best defendet in many good defensive teams, including thw -5.5 cavs (much better than jordan single good pre pippen ascension defensive team)

And this is corroborated by +/- data, 2nd best defensive on/off in the whole league with no other cavalier coming close

Jordan seemed to force an intensity with his teammates that LeBron often did not

Why credit jordan for his teammates intensity? Why not the coach or the actual players?

I remember watching LeBron in his early prime,

Lebron early prime started at a age when jordan eas still playing in north carolina, that alone is part of it.

And while his scoring repertoire took time to become resilient, so did jordan ability to create others take some time to come along

Lebron prime alone starting with 2009 is also longer than jordam whole bulls career so evenif we threw away pre 2009 lebron, his prime still stacks up well to jordan

I would point out that from '87-88 to '90-91, the defensive improvement of the team was negligible

They were mediocre defensively every year of 87-90 except for 88 where they were good but not great.

The defensive improvement which by all measures have to have come more from pippen and grant leaps were fairly important parts of the bulls rise starting the second half of the 90 season

Let me put this in perspective, the bulls went from a +0.9 defense in 1990 to a -2.7 defense in 91, a 3.6 points leap in defense alone is quite significant. One that was probably not caused by jordan improvements from 90 to 91

Jordan proved he was capable of leading an elite defense before Phil or Pippen got there,

The bulls were consistently good (but not great) in offense and mediocre in defense pre phil jackson amd pippen leap, and after their single good year (88) they went back to average in defense after losing oakley. If anythingh it was the opposite

And i still wouldnt call a -2.5 defense elite. If leading elite defense is a criteria here, the 2009 -5.5 cavs are a better example

But the looming spectre even then was what the Bubble meant with all that shooting. I absolutely hate when people try to act as if the Bubble championship doesn't count - it absolutely does

Except that lakers were still bad at 3 point shooting in the bubble while seemingly all the other teams shooters got hot

Also is not even just 2020, 2012 was another ring won with below average 3 point shooting

For all the talk of lebron needing shooters, he has the only two rings with below average 3 point shooting (volume AND efficiency) since 2011,

If anythingh he is the only one "proven" to not need the same shooting to win

This isn't to say Jordan was too wise to do such a thing, only that the effect of what LeBron did is qualitatively different than the effect of Jordan, and while it's up to each of us to decide what that means, the dichotomy is a real thing.

Lebron mistake with westbrook happened at his 37 years old season, two years older than jordan last bulls year. Had he retired after 35 like jordan did he wouldnt have made the mistake. Even if lebron career ended after 2020 he would have a sizable prime longevity lead on jordan

For comparision jordan choice to retire,while understandable, cost the bulls two title runs in the middle of his prime

[OhayoKD]

So I offered three specific counter examples(2012, 2015, and 2020).

Here's what they have in common. All three are examples of Lebron demonstrating mj or mj+ impact without good era-relative spacing. 2015 in paticular was a down year for lebron on offense. And yet, the 15 cavs, without love or kyrie, swept a 60 win team(55 win srs), and took the 2015 warriors. I feel your analysis here is tunnel-visioning to offense. None of the teams I listed were atg offenses, but they were able to achieve similar relative to prime jordan analogs(88-90 for 2015, 2012, most title years for 2012 and 2020 (heat were +13 when wade/bosh were in the lineup)) with poor era-relative spacing. All three did this on the back of defense.

Your theory works fine if we assume that Lebron cannot ramp up his defensive impact to compensate for diminishing offensive influence, but all three stand as strong counter-examples for this. With the exception of 2020(where he still matched 88 mj in dpipm before playoff elevation), lebron was the primary paint protector and defensive anchor for those teams, And both the cavs, and the heat collapsed defensively in games he didn't play. Mj does not have a similar track-record, and this is probably why he compares very negatively to lebron(and various primay paint protectors) in non-box dominated comps. Both the 2020 lakers and the 2012 heat are era outliers in terms of spacing for title-winners. But lebron can impact the other side of the court more than jordan can, and that is a pretty useful advantage. Jordan only has ever anchored one good regular season defense, and to what extent he anchored that defense is questionable considering the immediate collapse that ensued in 89 when their primary front court presense departed.

It's not that lebron "switched teams", it's that lebron was able to out-value jordan via defense in situations where cieling raiser theory predicts he should be less valuable. I will also add that the non-regularized stuff is games where lebron is not playing whatsoever which should in theory minimize the "lebron-helio effect" on a team as they know they're not going to have lebron beforehand. And lebron's non-regularized stuff is better than his regularized stuff(where he still mantains a clear and consistent advantage across his prime)

Okay, so you're right that I was focusing on offense, and that arguing for LeBron based on defense presents something new.

Further, I'll say that on my own personal version of RPOY - where I only go by my own assessments - I have LeBron with the edge over MJ both overall and on defense. To give the data, just because it seems like it would be interesting for folks:

Overall:
1. Russell 12.1
2. LeBron 9.5
3. Jordan 9.1
4. Kareem 8.5
5. Mikan 8.0

Offense:
Jordan 7.8
LeBron 6.6

Defense:
LeBron 3.6
Jordan 2.4

So yeah, can certainly see the argument for LeBron based on defense, and don't think folks are crazy for picking LeBron over Jordan on offense.

Re: "Your theory works fine if we assume that Lebron cannot ramp up his defensive impact to compensate for diminishing offensive influence". I'll say flat out that I don't think LeBron CAN completely compensate for diminished offense by ramping up his defense, and on a big picture level, it relates to why both he and Jordan score so much higher on my Offensive list compared to my Defensive list. He can compensate some to be sure, but even there, I think we need to be careful presuming it's his compensation that's making up for the deficit elsewhere.

I think the 2015 finals are the case in point here because it most definitely wasn't the case that he was using less energy on offense than normal. He was certainly trying harder in general than in the regular season, but he that's not the same thing as re-allocating with a defensive focus.

Re: LeBron primary paint protector... I don't want to nitpick here, because LeBron certainly deserves major defensive props for what he did, but in the finals in 2012 LeBron blocked 2 shots and in 2015 he blocked 3. In 2012 both Bosh & Wade blocked 6, and in 2015 Mozgov & TT blocked at least 6. I would consider LeBron the defensive MVP of both teams, but this is not a situation where LeBron was the clear cut "anchor" based on what that word typically means, and given what you're saying about Jordan, it's weird to me to draw a line that lets LeBron into that club and leaves Jordan completely out of it.

So, first I'd push back a bit on relying heavily on blocks per game as a measure of paint protection. One can collect blocks without necessarily being the primary paint deterrent. I think this concept is explained well here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/ktyynk/oc_the_secular_lebron_james_the_case_for_the_king/

We talk about gravity on offense, but what about defensive gravity? As I said before, Ben touches on the concept when he notes that Walton affected more possessions than Kareem despite Kareem getting alot more blocks, but this reaches a whole new level with players like Larry Bird or 6'6 shooting guard MJ, players who spent their defensve primes playng with one or multiple comparable-better rim deterrents.

This is what most jordan blocks look like:https://youtu.be/fFPi95UEpog?t=55Jordan gets the block, but is he even the key to this possession? The difficult part of this, holding ewing still, isn't being done by Jordan. Jordan is making this play off his teamamte's, gravity defensively. If you rewatch the section where ben is fawning over Jordan's rim protection...

https://youtu.be/p5aNUS762wM?t=1212

...you might notice that aside for --two-- clips, all these plays have jordan making plays on a defender whose preoccupied worrying about a larger guy at the rim.

Lets compare this to the following non-blocks:https://youtu.be/T-c1NradPN4?t=147Lebron's presence here blows up a potential dunk/layup, a shot even more dangerous than a curry three. Lebron isn't awarded a block here, but this play is more valuable than the majority of plays you'll see in a jordan defensive highlight reel.https://youtu.be/T-c1NradPN4?t=17Lebron here basically prevents a open layup/dunk. These kinds of plays are both extremely valuable and require a combination of strength and size Jordan doesn't have.https://youtu.be/T-c1NradPN4?t=176Here, Lebron isn't rewarded a block and even looks a bit silly, but his presence is what draws draymond's attention and allows for delly to get the block.https://youtu.be/3oAAcEQ8t84?t=1529Lebron ends up getting a block later on the possessions, but the key of this possession is here, where Lebron's presence makes dwight opt for a post up, preventing what is the most dangerous play in basketball, an all time interior threat coming in at the rim.Per r/blockedbybam, Lebron blocked, diverted, or deterred a dwight inside atempt 18 times over the ECF..https://youtu.be/MyWFllfRqaU?t=256.Grant gets the block, and pippen is made to look silly, but it's pippen who sets the play up for grant. Much like a shooter will feed of a slasher's interior gravity, grant makes this play off pippen's defense.https://youtu.be/C7uxePXXfU8?t=63While the possession doesn't end up going chicago's way, what Pippen is doing here, essentially pre-emptively nuetralizing the threat of an Ewing drive is about as valuabe as a play you will get defensively. It doesn't show up in the scoresheet.

I'll push more strongly on the idea that Lebron being an anchor wasn't clear-cut here. These defenses generally collapsed without him(moreso in the second cleveland stint), dropped as his own indvidual influence faded, and regularized data like drapm, dpipm, ect, ect has him leading the team across the board for the rs and the playoffs. This is true whether you go with his first mvp years, the heatles, or the second cavs stint.

Even if you doubt the extent of his paint protection, he also usually offers signifcant value as the primary defensive quarterback/play-caller, and, in his best years at least, can do a job vs bigger and smaller players, notably having a big role in limiting steph curry in 2015 and 2016, and derrick rose in 2011. Returning to paint protection, even in 2020, with Davis as the undisputed best defender, Lebron was tasked with most of the paint protection for 2 of the lakers 4 series with AD shutting down key perimiter matchups with minimal help.

I don't think Lebron was even capable of expending comparable offensive energy in the 2015 finals to what he was exerting in his heatle years, and I think that at least partially informed the approach of slowing the game to a grinding halt.

Regarding "out-valuing" Jordan, I'm cautious there. Jordan's teams had more dominant top-end seasons than LeBron's teams did, and while I'm all for looking at supporting cast, there is also the matter that Jordan seemed to force an intensity with his teammates that LeBron often did not. It was utterly insane watching the '95-96 Bulls at the time, and I feel like as we look back in history we have this tendency to feel like it was inevitable based on the talent on the roster when it really wasn't.

That's plausible, though I'd ask how much credit we think MJ deserves for the off-court side of this as the Bulls seemed to be able to mantain this drive in 1994 in Jordan's absence coming off a three-peat.

My point was really that he maintained jordan+ impact signals on teams of various quality(floor vs cieling) with various teammates. But if you aren't talking era-relative adaptability, I don't have a strong enough opinion to contest it. I will, however, offer a caution: for modern era translation, box-production going up does not mean a player has become more valuable. Scoring 30 ppg where the field is scoring 20 pgg isn't necessarily worse than scoring 40 ppg in a where the field scores 30 ppg. Crude example but it should illustrate the point. If you are going to argue Jordan gets better thanks to spacing, it can't just be a matter of numbers. You need to argue that he will be better relative to his peers in 2022 than 1991. According to ben, jordan was a limited pure passer even relative to kobe(found half as many good passes per 100 iirc), so i'm not sure having him helio vs more sophisticated and talented defenses produces better results(as far as winning goes).

"he translates well" needs a little more support than "ah, spacing -> numbers go brr"

Can you elaborate on what you're seeing from Kareem in terms of "impact signals"?

It's those samples I mentioned in the last post, with the 71/72 bucks being peers for the peak bulls(era-relative anyway) and holding up well(63 win pace) when oscar was out of the lineup(cieling raising), you have him winning 56 on a 27 win team(identical record to the bulls pre-mj) as a rookie and then going from 3-14 to a 48(srs) or 45 win pace(record) in 75 with his second and third best players plummeting in production(floor-raising). The weakest sample >10 game sample iirc comes with the 75 and 78 lakers(from ben's peak video on the cap) with a 32 win team lifted to a 52 win team. Compared to the progression of the bulls where you have a 27 win team reach 48-50 wins(sub 50 srs), a schematic jump, and then another massive jump in 1991(the blip is oakley's depature in 89 which conincdes with a defensive collapse), I get the impression Kareem hit goat-level(71/72) team results with less help, contention(40-63), with less help, and everything below with less help. Additinonally he's able to replicate this with his the nature of his supporting cast being significantly shook-up(post-75). It also doesn't hurt that Kareem is considered one of the best players in the world before he enters the nba and is flirting with perfection(team-wise) in college and highschool. I don't know we have anything else really(well, besidesincomplete box-aggregates from the era), but in lieu of a compelling counter-case, i think its probable Kareem has a relative to era impact advantage, even if we theorize that he doesn't translate across eras as well.

[quote}
I'll try to keep things broad since you aren't looking to get in the weeds.

We don't have enough stuff for Kareem for me to take a position on his postseason translation, but with lebron, I'd offer two additional cautions:
1.compare apples to apples (down years should generally be compared to down years, and the amount of seasons whether you take the "best" or "consecutive" approach should probably be the same)
2. distinguish between underperformance relative to expectation and underperformance relative to supporting cast


A drawback of immense longevity (and immense regular season impact) is that there are more down years(and the bar for a down is lower) as well as up years. Earlier in the thread we did a 10-12 year postseason comparison and, at least in box-related stuff, lebron bridges the gap in MJ coming out ahead in two of the three common metrics that generally favor mj in the regular season(its dead split or lebron nets the majority depending on method). If you go by "best years" instead of taking a consensuctive sample, the gap widens considerably in lebron's favor. On the defensive side, at least with the second cavs stint, the teams defense consistently improved in the playoffs, and I think we'd agree lebron's defense scales up in the postseason at least when he makes his return to ohio.

I don't actually know that jordan, if you compare similar seasons(in terms of time frame and/or in terms of how they rank relative to all of the seasons of their career) is a better playoff elevator. I'd also be somewhat confident he isn't as good a playoff elevator than 2015-2018 lebron, and Lebron looks like the more impactful regular season player outside of box-stuff. 2011 finals are bad, but you can just move to 2012 and get a favorable prime comp for lebron. Without expectations as a prior, even 2011 isn't really worse than mj's weakest seasons(95, wizards).

I know kareem's teams didn't necessarily replicate that effect so I can't dismiss the idea that mj was able to bridge whatever regular season gap was present in the rs.

I'm definitely focused on LeBron's blips when I talk about Jordan being the more robust playoff performer, but I don't think "immense longevity" really explains it. I remember watching LeBron in his early prime, and I remember the ways he struggled. At the time I was one of the ones trying to calm others down about what it said about limits to LeBron's capacity, and I don't think I've actually changed my stance.

In general, there's a common issue I tend to call the "Fast Eddie" growth curve (after the character in the 1961 move "The Hustler") where a young guy can hit phenomenal highs but is more easily rattled than the old, grizzled vet. Fast Eddie over the course of the movie makes that transition, and I think there are a bunch of actual athletes who show similar tendencies, with LeBron being one of them.

I think it's actually important not to give Jordan too much credit for being "perfect" in avoid chokes, but while LeBron has developed toward being greatly robust with time, it's hard for me to say that that actually allowed him to be more dominant over any run than Jordan was.

So what specifically do you define as a "run" here. I feel pretty comfortable Lebron was more robust in his second cavs stint on the basis of how he was relatively unaffected by opposing defensive quality, how the cavs relative defense was more effective against better offenses than worse offenses(sort of implying they weren't even going at full gear), his production improving over the course of the series as jordan's generally declined, and significantly better looking aupm/pipm single year results(ben presents thar as an average), better three year on/off(2nd behind duncan wierdly enough), and what looks like staggering life if you go with "pure impact". (cavs are a sub 30 in games lebron doesn't play reflecting a collapse on both ends and play like a 65-70 win team in the 16/17 playoffs while playing like the 88-90 bulls in the 15 playoffs when love and kyrie go out).

You might respond to me with "but the regular season"(and jordan's box-stuff looks better), but then I look at the better holistic signals(which account for defense better) for lebron(rapm, non-regularized impact, pipm), and would have to respond "are we sure about that?"

Well, the issue with the rings approach is Russell (Mind you, focusing on the "individual impact" side does MJ no favors), but I'll acknowledge that modern-translation does offer some leeway here, if you can make a compelling case for jordan being able to translate his success to lebron's era better than russell could have managed in MJ's.

It does seem the philosophy you're describing is that "longevity matters less" which I guess is fine, but if you're downplaying it to that large of an extent, why even distinguish between prime and accumulative value in the first place? Like either mj's prime years just have a massive value edge or longevity doesn't matter.

When you say Russell is the "issue", to me you're implying something like, "By that rationale, Russell should be the GOAT not Jordan or LeBron, so if you don't believe Russell is the GOAT, you should drop the argument." You're talking to someone who had Russell as his GOAT for a long time and only went away from that with the recognition that Russell was the GOAT of a different, vastly less popular, game, and could not be expected to be the best player in a league where humans are shooting up to human-capacity.

Re: if downplaying longevity, why distinguish between prime & accumulated value? I'd say what we're talking about there are the thresholds of what people feel as significant. In baseball, Pedro Martinez is generally seen as having the best prime of any pitcher, but few would argue that he had the best overall career of any pitcher because even after you take the cheaters out, he still didn't win the most Cy Young Awards. But Jordan's run of dominance was a lot longer than Pedro's, so it's harder for people to see such a split.

1. I think you are tunneling on offense here. The drop for lebron casts in lebron's prime years comes also comes from defense. The biggest difference between the 89 and 91(90 saw the bulls leap towards their 91 selves with the triangle), and 93/94 was the defense getting vastly better. Anyone positing that helio is producing the drop-off needs to account for the defensive stuff. Via regularized impact, lebron vs jordan is generally a tie on offense, and anything but on defense.

This also extends, obviously, to duncan, but in the absence of good pure signals(healthy thoughout his best years) the support for a holistic advantage is weaker(if unopposed)

I would point out that from '87-88 to '90-91, the defensive improvement of the team was negligible. It was the offense that changed. When you zoom in like you've done I understand why you draw different conclusions, but flat out: Jordan proved he was capable of leading an elite defense before Phil or Pippen got there, it was the offense where he was unproven.

Well to be clear, the "proof" you're referencing is the 1988 regular season. Here are my quibbles:

1. If we zoom out a little more, 1988 is the only season prior to pippen and grant's ascension(and per pipm, on/off/partial rapm, Jordan's own decline in terms of "two-way" impact) where the Bulls managed a good regular season defense. That defense did not hold up in the postseason and it fell back to average in the following regular season. This rise and immediate decline coincided with Oakley's time at the Bulls. Oakley was chicago's premier front-court presence and probably the second best defender on that singular strong regular season defense.
2. 1988 is also an outlier for Jordan in terms of D-PIPM, and via various people's film-tracking, jordan's perimiter and paint activity, foot speed, and defensive error rate all go the wrong direction from that point forward. Even if 1988 MJ could lead a good defense, that doesn't necessarily apply to all versions of MJ.
3. If we compare to this Lebron's own outlier outcome(2009), the defense wasn't nearly as good(-2 vs -5), held up much worse in the playoffs, and experienced a much smaller drop-off(regularized or non-regularized) when the player in question went off the court. Lebron's corresponding 5 year D-RAPM was the 5th best. Lebron's playoff D-RAPM, for his career, is tied with Kawhi(consider how many more games that is maintained over for Lebron) as of 2020.
4. Lebron matches or exceeds jordan's 88 dpipm score at multiple points including 2020. Even in 2021, with Davis an injured shell, the Lakers are the best defense in the league before Lebron gets hurt. Using raw, stuff, I'd also say the 15 cavs and the 16 cavs are better defenses than the 88 bulls when we consider the post-season, and again, the experience a bigger drop-off without Lebron in the rs.
5. To really zoom-in on 2015, the cavaliers aren't initally very good at defense. Lebron rests and rejuvenates and the cavs defense skyrockets when he's back(top 10 post-miami vacation). Again, Lebron seems tied to the defensive success of his teams in a way Jordan doesn't.

I don't know it much matters where you draw the lines here. Unless we think Jordan was anchoring the defense for the Bulls at their peak(and I don't think the timeline of their improvement, film-tracking, or non-decline in 94 support this), Lebron looks more impressive. Maybe Lebron suffers from some sort of defensive port concern, but in lieu of that, Lebron strikes me as more impactful defensively and I'm not sure it's particularly close.

2. I will reiterate that apples should be compared to apples. These last two years are more anaglous to mj with the wizards. And whatever you think of lebron off-the-court, it's hard to argue it was worse rhan what MJ did(when he should be at his most experienced) with washington. Jordan also insisted on not shooting threes, started beef with his gm over potentially getting a lotto pick, punched a teammate, ect, ect. Are you sure off-court intangibles is a good tree to climb? LeGM also should proably get some credit for getting davis in the first place if we're knocking him for the westbrook decision.

2019 may not be the best evidence here, as, prior to a plethora of injuries, the lakers were looking alright despite a bunch of spacing concerns. How indicative do we think Lebron's drop in performance with his first major injury(and the rest of the cast hurt) is of his best years?

We can certainly have the argument about Laker LeBron vs Washington Jordan. 2 important things though:

1. Many of us were critical of Magic/LeBron's approach to team building in 2018, and some of us in 2020 made a point to eat our words based on the fact that LeBron seemed to be able to get the shooting he needed from those players when it counted. But the looming spectre even then was what the Bubble meant with all that shooting. I absolutely hate when people try to act as if the Bubble championship doesn't count - it absolutely does! - but from a perspective of evaluating the effect of LeBron's team building, I think it's proven to be an anomaly. He thought he didn't need shooters, he seemed to show that he didn't...but he absolutely did need them.

And none of this means LeBron doesn't deserve credit for bringing in Davis, but that was less about basketball insight and more about the draw of LeBron/Lakers. It was obvious that AD would be a good guy to pair with LeBron, what was not obvious was how the team would get by without explicitly going after great shooters to go around the Big 2. The fact that that original concern has since proven quite well-founded means that it's silly not to look at this as a blindspot of LeBron in his team-building, and unfortunately for his GOAT candidacy, he's made team-building a key part of what he's done for most of his career.

2. Washington was a trash heap with or without Jordan. This wasn't him taking a contender and using his threat as superstar to make them make moves which moved them in the opposite direction. This isn't to say Jordan was too wise to do such a thing, only that the effect of what LeBron did is qualitatively different than the effect of Jordan, and while it's up to each of us to decide what that means, the dichotomy is a real thing.

[/quote]
1. I will say, that when you are discussing a 20 year career, its likely not wise to assume a player's mentality/philosophy has been identical throughout. Perhaps in 2022 Lebron overestimated himself, but in 2016 Lebron demanded the Cavs pay big bucks for a three-and-d. It's also possible the limitations of 2022 Lebron were more limiting than prior versions. In 2021 the Lakers were looking league-best before injury, and still looked like a threat to the suns. You say 2020 is a fluke, but Lebron first pulled the "win with bleh spacing" trick in 2012 and got impressively close in 2015. As falco mentioned, Lebron has the two "worst shooting" titles of the era with Gianni's bucks coming closest. And ultimately, with time, comes volume. We would expect more bad and more good here.
2. The specific thing I think Lebron deserves credit(at least as far as off-court winning goes) is his willingness to actively pursue co-stars. The lakers were not the only option for AD to potentially win, but Lebron was the guy who was socializing with him and unofficially "tampeing" to get him. Old-heads, including Jordan, have looked down on that practice, but Lebron encouraged it, repeatedly exploiting friendships to help his teams get co-stars. Maybe he erred when he went for the shiny thing again with Westbrook, but it was probably necessary for the Lakers to win in 2020.
3. I think with off-court analysis it is important to look at process independent of the tangible results in a specific case. While the Wizards may have been **** with or without Jordan, its not hard to see a variety of situations where contention is at play where MJ's conduct at the Wizards doesn't ruin things. Even at the Bulls, Jordan played a role in the relationship fraying with Krause. He's quoted having made anti-semetic remarks, he punched a teammate, got into beef with various bigs, and had issues with Erving out of spiteful envy.

Especially with your focus being on transporting players to the modern nba, how well do you think Jordan's off-court behavior plays in the age of social media. It's not hard to see this breaking a locker-room:
https://thesportsrush.com/nba-news-michael-jordan-used-flaming-fagot-as-reference-for-kwame-brown-his-whipping-boy-according-to-si-and-washington-post/

While the Bulls were able to survive, does your understanding of how organizations work support the idea that Jordan is a positive leadership influence? Particularly if we're transposing this to 2022, I see loads of potential pitfalls with MJ's off-court antics

We celebrate when machismo and "killer instinct" succeeds, but we tend to sweep aside when it fails

[Doctor MJ]

Re: LeBron had Jordan-impact on 4 teams. Yes, but in general it was his team's adapting to him rather than the other way around. The biggest exception is probably the Heatle team where he had more star talent around him than anywhere else but failed to reach the same top-tier levels of offense that were produced on other teams. LeBron deserves all sorts of "achievement points" for his time in Miami, but in terms of a lesson to take away offensively, that lesson was that you shouldn't try to pair LeBron with high usage stars who can't shoot

I gotta ask doc Why do you think lebron didnt adapt his game?

He went from do it all guy floorraising a star-less team team to 60 wins into making it work to win rings with a no shooting ball dominant co-star, to making it work with no-defense co-stars back in cleveland to playing point guard alongside a scoring big

Lebron flooraising a team with two defense holes into a very good defense should count as adaptability at making different kinds of rosters imo

Jordan went from being a super high volume scorer pre triangle to a super high volume scorer post triangle. If anythingh "his team adapted around him" fits jordan more in my opinion as jordan kept doing his thingh too (scoring) while the bulls built around that with defense, rebpunding, passing and spme shooting.

We never saw jordan tested by making it work alongside a ball dominant ballhandler/scorer the way lebron was

Evert player is affected by playing with no shooters regardless, but in jordan era it was easier to get away with it cause illegal defense rules

in the modern game i think jordan would have suffered playing alongside non shooters like rodman and wouldnt thrive (at 100%) playing alongside bad shooting ball handler in the modern game either

Hmm, well I did specifically mention the very first thing you mention here in the part from my previous post quote above.

LeBron did adapt in Miami to a more significant degree, but despite the fact the talent on the roster was greater, the offensive results were worse. The best results he's had offensively have always been playing helio with minor variations. That's not a knock on him - it was the best way to use him and build around him - but it's not what I'd call evidence of great adaptability.

To be clear, I wouldn't necessarily call Jordan the most flexible of players himself. It's just that his career should have gone down the tubes when he aged out of explosion, and it didn't because he proved to be a remarkably good shooter in a way that I don't think anyone would have seen as a given when he was younger, and in a way that LeBron never achieved.

Re: every player affected by no shooters. Sure, but decision makers are more affected because it robs them of their decision making options.

Let me also remind that I'm long on record saying that the 3-point revolution has made volume scorers less valuable and decision makers more valuable, and this is part of what I talked about when I moved LeBron ahead of Jordan on my list. And this is also why I find LeBron's preferences on the Lakers - other than AD - to be so bizarre and so specifically damaging to what he was trying to accomplish.

Re: summered playing along non-shooters like Rodman. Rodman basically wouldn't have a prominent place in the league today if he played exactly like he did back then, which is why I've long said that it's silly to talk as if the '95-96 Bulls would have a prayer against the top teams of today. But Rodman as he was, was certainly more valuable playing with Jordan than he would be with LeBron because Jordan wasn't relying on Rodman for spacing the way LeBron relies on everyone he plays with.

Jordan of course would benefit from spacing like everyone does, but his game wasn't about finding 2D space so much as manufacturing 3D space, which he did with remarkable effectiveness even after he was past his physical prime.

but LeBron's killer decision making edge is dependent on having guys who can space the floor on offense

the two worst shooting teams to win a ring since 2011 are both lebron teams (12 and 20 were both the only below average volume and efficiency champions in 3pt shooting)

lebron has won with worse spacimg relative to era than jordan so in any case the one who has "proven" to win with bad (relative to era) spacing would be him

Hmm, so first let's focus on the absolutes:

Jordan's teammates on the '95-96 Bulls shot less 3's than LeBron's '11-12 Heat teammates, and obviously way, way, way less than LeBron's 19-20 teammates.

This was being done with a 3 that was closer, at a time when defenses weren't scared enough at the 3 to sell out on spacing.

So fundamentally, if we literally measure the spacing Jordan was working with, it was considerably worse than what LeBron was dealing with.

Now, you're talking relatives and looking to essentially give LeBron a boost because his team shot less than the teams they were competing against, and that makes sense...but it's not like every champion is equally successful on offense. The '95-96 Bulls had an ORtg 7.6 point above league average. The '11-12 Heat were only 2.0 above. The '19-20 Lakers were only 1.4 above. This is a huge difference, and given that the Bulls were literally below average in their league by 3PAr, I'm pretty skeptical that you've done math that actually suggests that the Bulls' relative spacing advantage is enough to make up the difference.

But hey, if I'm wrong, speak to that math. Short of that, I'd just urge caution about treating championships as a finish line.

Let me also specifically reiterate the thing about the Bubble. Those Lakers went from a RS 3PAr of .358 to as PS of .407, while seeing their 3P% go up. They weren't the only ones to improve their shooting in the Bubble of course, but they were the only team that had two interior threats of the caliber of LeBron & AD. Add 3-point shooting to the mix and there's just no safe harbor from the perfect storm.

Again - I don't want to take anything away from what the '19-20 Lakers accomplishment, they won fair and square, but as someone who prior to the Bubble questioned whether the Lakers really had the shooting to win 4 series, I thought their ability to shoot from deep in that run was essential to their success, and so the idea of using that as proof that LeBron won without spacing just rings hollow.

In the case of LeBron, we literally have cases where he doesn't know how to counter what the opponent is doing and gets passive.

We have the stats on this, it is lebron who gets better and better per production as series go on while jordan gets worse later in series

If one is better at solving defenses it is probably prime lebron

Those stats speak to averages, not the ability to avoid getting stymied in all circumstances. No matter what LeBron does in the years after 2011, it's not going to change the fact that he looked flummoxed against Dallas in a way Jordan never did.

As we've seen though for 3 out of LeBron's 5 years with the Lakers though, it's not the case that LeBron can make any group of players good

Injured lebron (19) and a lebron 2-3 years older than jordan last star year at 37-38 (2022). But beyomd that i think The point is not that lebron can win with any roster but that he has a easier time flooraising teams into contention due to better defense anchoring ability and ability to run a offense

I feel like penalizing lebron for his off court decision making at his 37 year old season (2 years older than the end of jordan relevant years) but not penalizing jordan for costing his tean two ring runs in his prine (94 and 95) for off court criticism is somethingh i disagree with

I think the argument that LeBron is only having issues post-prime would resonate more if he hadn't won a title in the middle of that run looking amazing along the way.

I also think it would make more sense if we hadn't seen the way the Lakers without LeBron & AD continued to do great on defense with their scrappy role players until they let them all go in the name of a misguided superteam.

While I do think LeBron has a great case for being the best floor-raiser in history, I think we've clearly seen the notion that he can lift any group of guys exposed. LeBron is a player with strengths and weaknesses like everyone else, and he's not immune to fit issues.

[Djoker]

2009 cavs, had solid but unremarkable defensive help and was the main lynchpin of a -5.5 defense (both by eye test and +/-). For comparision jordan 88 dpoy season was only a -2.5 defense and fell off in 89 without oakley

2016 cavs, excellent postseason defense with a solid -1.8 reg season D, in a team with only tristan thompson as decent defensive presence in the paint

2009 Cavs had Varejao and Ben Wallace down low. That's unremarkable?

2016 Cavs were nothing special defensively 10th in DRtg and -1.9 in the regular season and 7th in DRtg and -0.7 in the postseason. And that's despite playing in the weaker conference. Plus you are underrating Tristan. How about the 2017 and 2018 Cavs that Lebron "anchored"? I wonder how those teams did defensively.

Anyways MJ never anchored a defense either. Non-big defenders don't do that. Both he and Lebron have miniscule defensive impact compared to players like Hakeem or Dwight Howard.

Ben wallace was 34 years old, played 24 mins a game, was well past his prime and missed a third of the season. Since you mentioned diwght howard in your post, he was kinda like 2020 howard but with 27 games missed (so value cut by a third) useful but not a big needle mover by himself

Varejao was ok but fairly unremarkable all thinghs considered, oakley was probably the more valuable defender than him (the bulls went from -2.5 to 0 in defense without oakley in 89 so he prolly was quite impactful) by a decent margin yet 2009 cavs were WAY better than 88 bulls defensively

There is a huge gulf between "best defense with lebron as the best defensive player" (the -5.5 2009 cavs) and best defense with jordan as the best defensive player ( the -2.5 1988 bulls)

And yeah, that defense which was fairly elite went as lebron did, his defensive on-off was near top of the league and the cavs defense went from elite to awful when he was not playing (the same effect didnt happen when varejao or wallace were not on court)

I agree that neither lebron nor jordan are comparable to great defensive bigs like hakeem, but that doesmt mean they are the same just because neither comes close to a hakeem

This is 70'sfan point, when it comes to defense people go "well, both are good, i will leave it at that and evaluate only their offense"

In reality there is a lot of room between "good" and
"literally hakeem" is perfectly possible for jordan and lebron to both be good defenders, both be way too far from a dwight howard or hakeem and still have significant differences between their defense

Non-bigs just don't move the needle on defense. Not Jordan, not Lebron...

[LukaTheGOAT]

** I don't really want to say too much because every one of these threads devolves into Jordan vs. Lebron which has been discussed a million times and no one ever seems to change their position. But I will say that Lebron has never anchored a good defense on his own so criticizing Jordan for not doing it is weird. In fact I doubt any non-big in NBA history has ever done it. Oh and Jordan's skillset obviously fits better alongside other on-ball players. Offensive load doesn't consider time of possession and a player can have high offensive load playing off-ball shooting a lot. But he was still playing off of another player in his case Pippen who was often the primary playmaker, especially in the second threepeat.

2009 cavs, had solid but unremarkable defensive help and was the main lynchpin of a -5.5 defense (both by eye test and +/-). For comparision jordan 88 dpoy season was only a -2.5 defense and fell off in 89 without oakley

2016 cavs, excellent postseason defense with a solid -1.8 reg season D, in a team with only tristan thompson as decent defensive presence in the paint

2009 Cavs had Varejao and Ben Wallace down low. That's unremarkable?

2016 Cavs were nothing special defensively 10th in DRtg and -1.9 in the regular season and 7th in DRtg and -0.7 in the postseason. And that's despite playing in the weaker conference. Plus you are underrating Tristan. How about the 2017 and 2018 Cavs that Lebron "anchored"? I wonder how those teams did defensively.

Anyways MJ never anchored a defense either. Non-big defenders don't do that. Both he and Lebron have miniscule defensive impact compared to players like Hakeem or Dwight Howard.

I'm looking at Backpicks.com, and it has the 16 Cavs in the PS as a -3.8 PS rDRTG.

[falcolombardi]

2009 Cavs had Varejao and Ben Wallace down low. That's unremarkable?

2016 Cavs were nothing special defensively 10th in DRtg and -1.9 in the regular season and 7th in DRtg and -0.7 in the postseason. And that's despite playing in the weaker conference. Plus you are underrating Tristan. How about the 2017 and 2018 Cavs that Lebron "anchored"? I wonder how those teams did defensively.

Anyways MJ never anchored a defense either. Non-big defenders don't do that. Both he and Lebron have miniscule defensive impact compared to players like Hakeem or Dwight Howard.

Ben wallace was 34 years old, played 24 mins a game, was well past his prime and missed a third of the season. Since you mentioned diwght howard in your post, he was kinda like 2020 howard but with 27 games missed (so value cut by a third) useful but not a big needle mover by himself

Varejao was ok but fairly unremarkable all thinghs considered, oakley was probably the more valuable defender than him (the bulls went from -2.5 to 0 in defense without oakley in 89 so he prolly was quite impactful) by a decent margin yet 2009 cavs were WAY better than 88 bulls defensively

There is a huge gulf between "best defense with lebron as the best defensive player" (the -5.5 2009 cavs) and best defense with jordan as the best defensive player ( the -2.5 1988 bulls)

And yeah, that defense which was fairly elite went as lebron did, his defensive on-off was near top of the league and the cavs defense went from elite to awful when he was not playing (the same effect didnt happen when varejao or wallace were not on court)

I agree that neither lebron nor jordan are comparable to great defensive bigs like hakeem, but that doesmt mean they are the same just because neither comes close to a hakeem

This is 70'sfan point, when it comes to defense people go "well, both are good, i will leave it at that and evaluate only their offense"

In reality there is a lot of room between "good" and
"literally hakeem" is perfectly possible for jordan and lebron to both be good defenders, both be way too far from a dwight howard or hakeem and still have significant differences between their defense

Non-bigs just don't move the needle on defense. Not Jordan, not Lebron...

This is 70'sfan point, when it comes to defense people go "well, both are good, i will leave it at that and evaluate only their offense"

In reality there is a lot of room between "good" and
"literally hakeem" is perfectly possible for jordan and lebron to both be good defenders, both be way too far from a dwight howard or hakeem and still have significant differences between their defense

If you define moving the needle as prime dwight howard then yeah, non-bigs dont move the needle. But that is not the definition most people would have

A lot of the reason why people have jordan and lebron as goat peaks clearly ahead of the likes of magic or curry is precisely because they do make a defensive "needle moving" impact

And in that wide area called "positive defender but not hof defensive big" there is a lot of range to compare players

[LukaTheGOAT]

2009 Cavs had Varejao and Ben Wallace down low. That's unremarkable?

2016 Cavs were nothing special defensively 10th in DRtg and -1.9 in the regular season and 7th in DRtg and -0.7 in the postseason. And that's despite playing in the weaker conference. Plus you are underrating Tristan. How about the 2017 and 2018 Cavs that Lebron "anchored"? I wonder how those teams did defensively.

Anyways MJ never anchored a defense either. Non-big defenders don't do that. Both he and Lebron have miniscule defensive impact compared to players like Hakeem or Dwight Howard.

Ben wallace was 34 years old, played 24 mins a game, was well past his prime and missed a third of the season. Since you mentioned diwght howard in your post, he was kinda like 2020 howard but with 27 games missed (so value cut by a third) useful but not a big needle mover by himself

Varejao was ok but fairly unremarkable all thinghs considered, oakley was probably the more valuable defender than him (the bulls went from -2.5 to 0 in defense without oakley in 89 so he prolly was quite impactful) by a decent margin yet 2009 cavs were WAY better than 88 bulls defensively

There is a huge gulf between "best defense with lebron as the best defensive player" (the -5.5 2009 cavs) and best defense with jordan as the best defensive player ( the -2.5 1988 bulls)

And yeah, that defense which was fairly elite went as lebron did, his defensive on-off was near top of the league and the cavs defense went from elite to awful when he was not playing (the same effect didnt happen when varejao or wallace were not on court)

I agree that neither lebron nor jordan are comparable to great defensive bigs like hakeem, but that doesmt mean they are the same just because neither comes close to a hakeem

This is 70'sfan point, when it comes to defense people go "well, both are good, i will leave it at that and evaluate only their offense"

In reality there is a lot of room between "good" and
"literally hakeem" is perfectly possible for jordan and lebron to both be good defenders, both be way too far from a dwight howard or hakeem and still have significant differences between their defense

Non-bigs just don't move the needle on defense. Not Jordan, not Lebron...

I think saying non-bigs don't move the needle on defense is kind of a slap in the face to the many great perimeter players that have been in the game and were in the NBA primarily for defensive prowess. Both Jordan, and Lebron were important for their defenses to be as successful as they were. Lebron with rim-protection, and Jordan with his aggressive style that was encouraged by his team to force high-value turnovers.

Furthermore, I don't think there is absolute evidence, that perimeter players can't have tremendous impact on defense. I think most poignantly in the case of why 2009 Lebron is so brilliant, is because of what the numbers inform us on.



For instance,

let's compare him to 2009 Dwight who won DPOY and was also maybe at his peak defensively

2009 Lebron
D-PIPM: 3.25
D-RAPM: 2.8

2009 Dwight
D-PIPM: 3.08
D-RAPM: 2

If you don't like single year stuff, it is hard to really show how special 09 was because I think he had a different approach that year than any other year. However:

5-Yr D-RAPM splits used for developing BPM
07-11 Lebron: 4.7
07-11 Howard: 3.5

Lebron compares well analytically. But it is more than just that. Like really watch 2009 Lebron, and generally I feel like he up there with the greats. He was at his athletic peak, allowing him to make plays that I am not sure any player in history could make. He had a 2.4 block percentage in the RS, which was the highest of his career. He was more active moving around the court. I typically have always considered Jordan to have been more active than Lebron on defense throughout their respective years however 2009 is the one year where I feel like his motor on defense was truly Jordan-like.

I also think his man-defense was GOAT-like for a perimeter wing. Like look at the defensive numbers below. Idk if I have ever seen such a stark contrast between a player on the court and off the court in how certain guys scored the ball.

https://realcavsfans.com/index.php?threads/the-case-for-2009-lebron-as-the-goat-peak.46121/

Tracking data backs this up too. In the 2008-09 season LeBron James allowed just 0.72 Points Per Possession in Isolation according to Synergy data. This is right around 2016 Kawhi's mark of allowing 0.69 Points Per Possession in Isolation, and Kawhi's best defensive trait is him being a lockdown 1 on 1 defender, while Lebron's best traits are generally considered to be communication, and help defense (protection at the rim).

Not only does Lebron rate as the most impactful defender on his team on a per-possession basis in 09, but it is hard to imagine that Ben Wallace or Anderson Varaejo for example could have provided as much per game impact, when they are playing significantly less minutes than Lebron is.

Lebron averaged 37.7 minutes per game in 09, while Varaejo was at 28.5 and Wallace was at 23.5 minutes per game. That means Lebron is playing almost 10 more minutes per game than Varaejo and 14.2 more minutes per game than Wallace. Those minutes matter meaningfully in total team impact.

In the playoffs, the difference in minutes increases. Lebron averaged 41.4 minutes per game in 09, while Varaejo was at 30 MPG and Wallace was at 12.6 minutes per game. I don't see how they could have had the cumulative impact on defense, that Lebron had.

[Djoker]

Ben wallace was 34 years old, played 24 mins a game, was well past his prime and missed a third of the season. Since you mentioned diwght howard in your post, he was kinda like 2020 howard but with 27 games missed (so value cut by a third) useful but not a big needle mover by himself

Varejao was ok but fairly unremarkable all thinghs considered, oakley was probably the more valuable defender than him (the bulls went from -2.5 to 0 in defense without oakley in 89 so he prolly was quite impactful) by a decent margin yet 2009 cavs were WAY better than 88 bulls defensively

There is a huge gulf between "best defense with lebron as the best defensive player" (the -5.5 2009 cavs) and best defense with jordan as the best defensive player ( the -2.5 1988 bulls)

And yeah, that defense which was fairly elite went as lebron did, his defensive on-off was near top of the league and the cavs defense went from elite to awful when he was not playing (the same effect didnt happen when varejao or wallace were not on court)

I agree that neither lebron nor jordan are comparable to great defensive bigs like hakeem, but that doesmt mean they are the same just because neither comes close to a hakeem

This is 70'sfan point, when it comes to defense people go "well, both are good, i will leave it at that and evaluate only their offense"

In reality there is a lot of room between "good" and
"literally hakeem" is perfectly possible for jordan and lebron to both be good defenders, both be way too far from a dwight howard or hakeem and still have significant differences between their defense

Non-bigs just don't move the needle on defense. Not Jordan, not Lebron...

This is 70'sfan point, when it comes to defense people go "well, both are good, i will leave it at that and evaluate only their offense"

In reality there is a lot of room between "good" and
"literally hakeem" is perfectly possible for jordan and lebron to both be good defenders, both be way too far from a dwight howard or hakeem and still have significant differences between their defense

If you define moving the needle as prime dwight howard then yeah, non-bigs dont move the needle. But that is not the definition most people would have

A lot of the reason why people have jordan and lebron as goat peaks clearly ahead of the likes of magic or curry is precisely because they do make a defensive "needle moving" impact

And in that wide area called "positive defender but not hof defensive big" there is a lot of range to compare players

We don't have data on Jordan to make any kind of granular comparisons. Although many numbers like DRAPM, DRPM etc. paint second threepeat Jordan as on the same tier defensively as Pippen and Rodman. But as usual, many people ignore or dismiss the stats they don't like.

Defensive RAPM

https://basketball-analytics.gitlab.io/rapm-data/

1996-1997 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.0
Pippen: +1.0
Rodman: +1.2

1997 Playoffs
Jordan: +1.8
Pippen: +1.1
Rodman: +0.9

1997-1998 Regular Season
Jordan: +0.6
Pippen: -0.7
Rodman: -0.5

1998 Playoffs:
Jordan: +0.6
Pippen: +0.1
Rodman: +0.7

Defensive RPM

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/year/1997/sort/DRPM
1996-1997 Regular Season
Jordan: +2.47
Pippen: +0.90
Rodman: N/A

1997-1998 Regular Season
Jordan: +2.15
Pippen: N/A
Rodman: +0.86

Defensive PIPM

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1c-vFm9T5aVltZ8btJX-5s_OSk2OYgcuzEYtN3XFruY0/edit#gid=90945325

1987-1988 Regular Season
Jordan: +2.2
Pippen: +0.9
Grant: +0.6

1988-1989 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.4
Pippen: +1.1
Grant: +0.4

1989-1990 Regular Season
Jordan: +0.5
Pippen: +1.4
Grant: +0.2

1990-1991 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.7
Pippen: +2.1
Grant: +0.5

1991-1992 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.4
Pippen: +1.6
Grant: +1.8

1992-1993 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.1
Pippen: +1.1
Grant: +0.9

1995-1996 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.3
Pippen: +1.7
Rodman: +1.4

1996-1997 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.5
Pippen: +1.3
Rodman: +1.8

1997-1998 Regular Season
Jordan: +0.0
Pippen: +0.9
Rodman: +1.1

@LukathegGOAT

I got the rDRtg stats from B-Ref.

[Djoker]

Ben wallace was 34 years old, played 24 mins a game, was well past his prime and missed a third of the season. Since you mentioned diwght howard in your post, he was kinda like 2020 howard but with 27 games missed (so value cut by a third) useful but not a big needle mover by himself

Varejao was ok but fairly unremarkable all thinghs considered, oakley was probably the more valuable defender than him (the bulls went from -2.5 to 0 in defense without oakley in 89 so he prolly was quite impactful) by a decent margin yet 2009 cavs were WAY better than 88 bulls defensively

There is a huge gulf between "best defense with lebron as the best defensive player" (the -5.5 2009 cavs) and best defense with jordan as the best defensive player ( the -2.5 1988 bulls)

And yeah, that defense which was fairly elite went as lebron did, his defensive on-off was near top of the league and the cavs defense went from elite to awful when he was not playing (the same effect didnt happen when varejao or wallace were not on court)

I agree that neither lebron nor jordan are comparable to great defensive bigs like hakeem, but that doesmt mean they are the same just because neither comes close to a hakeem

This is 70'sfan point, when it comes to defense people go "well, both are good, i will leave it at that and evaluate only their offense"

In reality there is a lot of room between "good" and
"literally hakeem" is perfectly possible for jordan and lebron to both be good defenders, both be way too far from a dwight howard or hakeem and still have significant differences between their defense

Non-bigs just don't move the needle on defense. Not Jordan, not Lebron...

I think saying non-bigs don't move the needle on defense is kind of a slap in the face to the many great perimeter players that have been in the game and were in the NBA primarily for defensive prowess. Both Jordan, and Lebron were important for their defenses to be as successful as they were. Lebron with rim-protection, and Jordan with his aggressive style that was encouraged by his team to force high-value turnovers.

Furthermore, I don't think there is absolute evidence, that perimeter players can't have tremendous impact on defense. I think most poignantly in the case of why 2009 Lebron is so brilliant, is because of what the numbers inform us on.



For instance,

let's compare him to 2009 Dwight who won DPOY and was also maybe at his peak defensively

2009 Lebron
D-PIPM: 3.25
D-RAPM: 2.8

2009 Dwight
D-PIPM: 3.08
D-RAPM: 2

If you don't like single year stuff, it is hard to really show how special 09 was because I think he had a different approach that year than any other year. However:

5-Yr D-RAPM splits used for developing BPM
07-11 Lebron: 4.7
07-11 Howard: 3.5

Lebron compares well analytically. But it is more than just that. Like really watch 2009 Lebron, and generally I feel like he up there with the greats. He was at his athletic peak, allowing him to make plays that I am not sure any player in history could make. He had a 2.4 block percentage in the RS, which was the highest of his career. He was more active moving around the court. I typically have always considered Jordan to have been more active than Lebron on defense throughout their respective years however 2009 is the one year where I feel like his motor on defense was truly Jordan-like.

I also think his man-defense was GOAT-like for a perimeter wing. Like look at the defensive numbers below. Idk if I have ever seen such a stark contrast between a player on the court and off the court in how certain guys scored the ball.

https://realcavsfans.com/index.php?threads/the-case-for-2009-lebron-as-the-goat-peak.46121/

Tracking data backs this up too. In the 2008-09 season LeBron James allowed just 0.72 Points Per Possession in Isolation according to Synergy data. This is right around 2016 Kawhi's mark of allowing 0.69 Points Per Possession in Isolation, and Kawhi's best defensive trait is him being a lockdown 1 on 1 defender, while Lebron's best traits are generally considered to be communication, and help defense (protection at the rim).

Not only does Lebron rate as the most impactful defender on his team on a per-possession basis in 09, but it is hard to imagine that Ben Wallace or Anderson Varaejo for example could have provided as much per game impact, when they are playing significantly less minutes than Lebron is.

Lebron averaged 37.7 minutes per game in 09, while Varaejo was at 28.5 and Wallace was at 23.5 minutes per game. That means Lebron is playing almost 10 more minutes per game than Varaejo and 14.2 more minutes per game than Wallace. Those minutes matter meaningfully in total team impact.

In the playoffs, the difference in minutes increases. Lebron averaged 41.4 minutes per game in 09, while Varaejo was at 30 MPG and Wallace was at 12.6 minutes per game. I don't see how they could have had the cumulative impact on defense, that Lebron had.

Don't move the needle relatively speaking... Of course perimeter defenders can still impact the game but not in the same ballpark as big defenders. Jordan did protect the rim. HIs career block numbers are similar to Lebron's.

Anyways my issue is when people claim that Lebron "anchored" the team's defense. I'd have the same problem if people said Jordan did so.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Non-bigs just don't move the needle on defense. Not Jordan, not Lebron...

I think saying non-bigs don't move the needle on defense is kind of a slap in the face to the many great perimeter players that have been in the game and were in the NBA primarily for defensive prowess. Both Jordan, and Lebron were important for their defenses to be as successful as they were. Lebron with rim-protection, and Jordan with his aggressive style that was encouraged by his team to force high-value turnovers.

Furthermore, I don't think there is absolute evidence, that perimeter players can't have tremendous impact on defense. I think most poignantly in the case of why 2009 Lebron is so brilliant, is because of what the numbers inform us on.



For instance,

let's compare him to 2009 Dwight who won DPOY and was also maybe at his peak defensively

2009 Lebron
D-PIPM: 3.25
D-RAPM: 2.8

2009 Dwight
D-PIPM: 3.08
D-RAPM: 2

If you don't like single year stuff, it is hard to really show how special 09 was because I think he had a different approach that year than any other year. However:

5-Yr D-RAPM splits used for developing BPM
07-11 Lebron: 4.7
07-11 Howard: 3.5

Lebron compares well analytically. But it is more than just that. Like really watch 2009 Lebron, and generally I feel like he up there with the greats. He was at his athletic peak, allowing him to make plays that I am not sure any player in history could make. He had a 2.4 block percentage in the RS, which was the highest of his career. He was more active moving around the court. I typically have always considered Jordan to have been more active than Lebron on defense throughout their respective years however 2009 is the one year where I feel like his motor on defense was truly Jordan-like.

I also think his man-defense was GOAT-like for a perimeter wing. Like look at the defensive numbers below. Idk if I have ever seen such a stark contrast between a player on the court and off the court in how certain guys scored the ball.

https://realcavsfans.com/index.php?threads/the-case-for-2009-lebron-as-the-goat-peak.46121/

Tracking data backs this up too. In the 2008-09 season LeBron James allowed just 0.72 Points Per Possession in Isolation according to Synergy data. This is right around 2016 Kawhi's mark of allowing 0.69 Points Per Possession in Isolation, and Kawhi's best defensive trait is him being a lockdown 1 on 1 defender, while Lebron's best traits are generally considered to be communication, and help defense (protection at the rim).

Not only does Lebron rate as the most impactful defender on his team on a per-possession basis in 09, but it is hard to imagine that Ben Wallace or Anderson Varaejo for example could have provided as much per game impact, when they are playing significantly less minutes than Lebron is.

Lebron averaged 37.7 minutes per game in 09, while Varaejo was at 28.5 and Wallace was at 23.5 minutes per game. That means Lebron is playing almost 10 more minutes per game than Varaejo and 14.2 more minutes per game than Wallace. Those minutes matter meaningfully in total team impact.

In the playoffs, the difference in minutes increases. Lebron averaged 41.4 minutes per game in 09, while Varaejo was at 30 MPG and Wallace was at 12.6 minutes per game. I don't see how they could have had the cumulative impact on defense, that Lebron had.

Don't move the needle relatively speaking... Of course perimeter defenders can still impact the game but not in the same ballpark as big defenders. Jordan did protect the rim. HIs career block numbers are similar to Lebron's.

Anyways my issue is when people claim that Lebron "anchored" the team's defense. I'd have the same problem if people said Jordan did so.

Okay gotcha. Perhaps the appropriate language for describing perimeter player defense is tricky. Anchor suggests "hard carrying to some," while to others anchoring is "best defensive player on the team."

[NO-KG-AI]

When I think of the word anchor for defense, I think of it as a centerpiece where the goal of the rest of the defense is to do their best to force guys into the anchor's area, where it will drastically lower efficiency and maximize the chance he gets them the ball back in some fashion.

That's a hard thing to apply to perimeter defenders.

[NO-KG-AI]

Regarding "out-valuing" Jordan, I'm cautious there. Jordan's teams had more dominant top-end seasons than LeBron's teams did, and while I'm all for looking at supporting cast, there is also the matter that Jordan seemed to force an intensity with his teammates that LeBron often did not. It was utterly insane watching the '95-96 Bulls at the time, and I feel like as we look back in history we have this tendency to feel like it was inevitable based on the talent on the roster when it really wasn't.

I wanted to quote this to make a point of something that has been on my mind lately, because I don't know where else to put it. There has been a narrative from the mega negative LeBron heads on here that LeBron's style of play leaves teammates disengaged to the point where they are lethargic and that is partly or mostly to blame for the perceived drop offs by some of his all NBA teammates, etc, or he is to blame for them not playing as well as they used to.

I don't subscribe to that notion, I think effort and intensity, and playing your hardest, staying in shape, or all that is your responsibility as a man, it's not another man's responsibility, especially someone that works as hard as LeBron.

That said, LeBron's teammates seem to have a very serious problem with playing a lot harder and more intense with their prior teams, and when he's out (Davis might have turned the corner in accepting more responsibility with LeBron around, we'll see), and at some point we have to ask why. To me it seems like a case of guys like Davis/Bosh just take their foot off the gas when LeBron is around because they feel like they'll coast into the playoffs, or LeBron will carry them, or whatever other reason.

I just can't imagine a world where Mike's teammates are like "Well boys, Mike is back, we can relax now" without having to wrestle with him at practice . I think Mike being such an iron man, always being there, and always being laser focused the whole season made a culture where guys couldn't get lax and comfortable.

But to your point, it is weird that people look at those Bulls teams like they were the most stacked team ever and should have been winning 72 and 68 games, wen it doesn't look like the case at all to me. I'm not saying it was all Jordan lifting scrubs, but they definitely played well above their own talent level and stayed on the gas pedal in ways that very few teams have been able to mentally and physically manage.

[AEnigma]

… Which seems like something that should be credited to a coach who similarly oversaw multiple repeat champions elsewhere and had the team chugging along at 50+ wins without Jordan there at all. Instead though it all gets filtered back to Jordan.

[NO-KG-AI]

… Which seems like something that should be credited to a coach who similarly oversaw multiple repeat champions elsewhere and had the team chugging along at 50+ wins without Jordan there at all. Instead though it all gets filtered back to Jordan.

Thanks for missing the whole point.

The Bulls won 55 games(11th in net rating) the year after Jordan left, and they were 34-31 without him the next year, and weren't going to win 50 games again, as they were stabilizing into about where they are expected to be, a team in the mid 40s. the Rudy Gobert teams won 60+ games and stuff, getting teams between 45 and 55 wins isn't some grand accomplishment or some masterpiece of coaching, it's a sign of a good and well coached team, but not a signal that they're playing possibly the best basketball of all time. Plenty of run of the mill franchises with guys that aren't considered top 25-30 players of all time have hit similar levels. It's nothing like the sustained levels of excellence you need to hit high 60's and into the 70's for wins, and do it back to back. Look at the toll it took on the Warriors, they've spoken on it as well. You need all time dominance, cohesion, etc, but you also need a level of focus and push to keep that ball rolling that most teams can't handle. What they did was admirable, and showed they are well coached, talented, and no pushovers. It's nothing like winning back to back to back titles and keeping yourself immensely dominant in the regular season as well. It's not even in the ballpark. It's orders of magnitudes different.

As for the Championship teams, not all title teams are created equally, and none of them had the sustained level of statistical dominance the Bulls did. The 3 peat Lakers had two MVP and top 5-15 players, and were basically known for coasting or packing it in for the playoffs, taking games off, playing down to the talent of other teams at times. Those Lakers were #1 on offense ZERO times, despite having two of the greatest offensive players of all time, and a bevvy of clutch shooters as well. Whoever you want to argue is worse of Shaq or Kobe is certainly magnitudes of levels better offensively than Scottie Pippen. Winning championships isn't proof that they were sustaining the type of dominance the Bulls did over the regular season and what not.

Blame it on whatever you want, the fact is that at this point, LeBron has handpicked multitudes of Superstars to team up with, 2 at a time in most cases, and he hasn't been able to replicate those levels of play, despite having much more talented offensive teammates. Blame coaching, blame decline, blame injury, blame the other guys, blame LeBron, whatever, it just is what it is at this point.

But yea, we can act like the Bulls didn't play with hyper intensity levels compared to those other title teams fill had, and we can also pretend that wasn't partially because of the way Jordan himself went about it and what he expected of guys, despite his teammates giving him credit for that as well. I don't think Phil would even pretend that gunning for that level of play during the regular season was even his cup of team, he seems way more about trying to keep it at a nice level, and then peak in the playoffs. Chugging along was the right word, because that's what a lot of these teams did, instead of slaughtering teams in the regular season.

[AEnigma]

… Which seems like something that should be credited to a coach who similarly oversaw multiple repeat champions elsewhere and had the team chugging along at 50+ wins without Jordan there at all. Instead though it all gets filtered back to Jordan.

Thanks for missing the whole point.

The Bulls won 55 games the year after Jordan left, and they were 34-31 without him the next year, and weren't going to win 50 games again.

Yeah because they lost their at that time second-best player (third-best when Jordan was there). This was a 50-win-by-SRS group adding Jordan, Rodman, and some other mild edits. No, 72 wins is not a given, but consistent 60s entirely tracks.

the Rudy Gobert teams won 60+ games and stuff, getting teams between 45 and 55 wins isn't some grand accomplishment or some masterpiece of coaching, it's a sign of a good and well coached team, but not a signal that they're playing possibly the best basketball of all time. Plenty of run of the mill franchises with guys that aren't considered top 25-30 players of all time have hit similar levels. It's nothing like the sustained levels of excellence you need to hit high 60's and into the 70's for wins, and do it back to back. Look at the toll it took on the Warriors, they've spoken on it as well. You need all time dominance, cohesion, etc, but you also need a level of focus and push to keep that ball rolling that most teams can't handle. What they did was admirable, and showed they are well coached, talented, and no pushovers. It's nothing like winning back to back to back titles and keeping yourself immensely dominant in the regular season as well. It's not even in the ballpark. It's orders of magnitudes different.

Literally in the same period you had the Jazz win 69 games, 55 games, 64 games, 62 games, and the shortened season equivalent of 60 games, while the Sonics won 55, 63, 57, 64, 57, and 61. In the early 1970s, the Bucks won 66, 63, 60, and 59 games, and the Lakers won 69, 60, and then 47 with their two best players retiring, much as the 76ers did a few years earlier with their run of 68, 62, and then 55 despite Wilt leaving. The 1980s Celtics won 61, 62, 63, 56, 62, 63, 67, 59, and 57, and the Showtime Lakers won 62, 62, 65, 62, 57, 63, and 58. The Kawhi era Spurs won 62 (equivalent), 58, 62, 55, 67, and 61, even as the Warriors won 67, 73, and 67. Turns out schematic excellence and base level talent advantages over the rest of the league go a long way!

I know everyone is nostalgic for some bygone era where “the regular season mattered”, but there are too many recent examples of why it does not for us to keep trying to justify it as any sort of ideal. The Bucks had back-to-back 60+ win-rate seasons, but only won a title the year they scaled back their intensity to focus on readying themselves for the postseason. The 7SoL Suns won 62, 54 without Amar’e, and 61. Not even a finals appearance. The Mavericks had 60 and then 67 at the same time, but those seasons are ultimately seen as failures too. The Thibodeau Bulls went hard for back-to-back 62-win seasons, but Rose broke down and it got them nothing; evidently Thibodeau had not learned much from his immediately preceding Celtics experience, which saw them intensely pursuing 66 and 62 wins before coasting for 50 wins en route to a near title. And then Lebron, oh Lebron: 66 and then 61 wins with a team that would not hit 30 wins without him, going maximum effort, and then it all completely goes down the drain because that type of one-man impact does not inherently translate to the postseason. He is a try-hard in 2013, and they nearly lose all the same.

No one is risking prolonged burnout or injury anymore to prove themselves to the fans sitting on the couches for games which ultimately do not matter. Despite common sentiment and assumptions, the modern league asks too much from players physically for that to ever be a smart longterm strategy. And frankly, given Jordan’s unprecedented predilection for retirement, that regular season obsession does not seem to have been a particularly healthy longterm mental strategy for him anyway.

[Djoker]

I don't think NO-KG-AI was saying that teams today should go all out in the regular season to prove something. Resting for the postseason is fine and probably the optimal strategy. The point is that a team that wins 53 games and then a championship isn't the same as a team that wins 67 games and then a championship. The latter is much more difficult and should be appreciated more.

When a player misses say 10 regular season games every season, takes off second nights of back-to-back etc. plays shortened seasons due to lockouts/Covid/whatever it just doesn't seem right to value that the same way as another season where a player plays all 82 games with highest minutes to boot. It's not a Lebron thing. All modern players suffer in all-time comparisons due to having seasons that feel incomplete. I wonder what kind of postseason numbers Jordan and all other past legends would put up if they had the luxury to take the foot off the gas pedal in the regular season. It's a relevant question to ponder. Modern and past stars aren't competing on an equal footing from a load management perspective. The NBA 8 years ago reduced the minimum games requirement for scoring titles and other statistical achievements. These days you can win a scoring title playing 58 games. Before 2014 you had to play 70 games. A scoring title now isn't even the same thing it used to be back then. 58 games is a bit over two thirds of the season. And that's just one example.

As for proving things to fans, excuse me but they should. The NBA wouldn't exist if not for the fans. People pay big money to go watch an NBA game. Imagine paying $600 for you and your girl to go watch a Lakers - Nets game and an hour before the game you find out Lebron is sitting out the game resting a sore ankle and Durant isn't playing because it's the 2nd night of a back to back and he's supposedly resting a sore shoulder. You'd feel cheated and rightfully so.

[AEnigma]

I don't think NO-KG-AI was saying that teams today should go all out in the regular season to prove something. Resting for the postseason is fine and probably the optimal strategy. The point is that a team that wins 53 games and then a championship isn't the same as a team that wins 67 games and then a championship. The latter is much more difficult and should be appreciated more.

But it is a team accomplishment that people are trying to impute primarily onto Jordan and his assumed ability to motivate everyone to go hard (I guess that failed with Pippen in 1998, right).

When a player misses say 10 regular season games every season, takes off second nights of back-to-back etc. plays shortened seasons due to lockouts/Covid/whatever it just doesn't seem right to value that the same way as another season where a player plays all 82 games with highest minutes to boot. It's not a Lebron thing. All modern players suffer in all-time comparisons due to having seasons that feel incomplete. I wonder what kind of postseason numbers Jordan and all other past legends would put up if they had the luxury to take the foot off the gas pedal in the regular season. It's a relevant question to ponder. Modern and past stars aren't competing on an equal footing from a load management perspective.

… They also are not competing on an equal footing in terms of schematic expectations and quality of opposing talent. No, I am not disadvantaging the players in the better league because as part of playing in that better league they are scaling back their minutes.

The NBA 8 years ago reduced the minimum games requirement for scoring titles and other statistical achievements. These days you can win a scoring title playing 58 games. Before 2014 you had to play 70 games. A scoring title now isn't even the same thing it used to be back then. 58 games is a bit over two thirds of the season. And that's just one example.

It is an excellent example of something Jordan fans care about even though it makes no difference to player quality.

As for proving things to fans, excuse me but they should. The NBA wouldn't exist if not for the fans. People pay big money to go watch an NBA game. Imagine paying $600 for you and your girl to go watch a Lakers - Nets game and an hour before the game you find out Lebron is sitting out the game resting a sore ankle and Durant isn't playing because it's the 2nd night of a back to back and he's supposedly resting a sore shoulder. You'd feel cheated and rightfully so.

Any fan that cares more about regular season games than a title is a poor fan. Now, if you like players more for that reason, sure. You can like them more for taking the all-star game seriously. You can like them more for their bravado, for their image, for whatever. None of that is related to being a better player though.

[Homer38]

I agree it's a disrespect to the fans when a super star sits out for rest, even if the player is healthy, but for LeBron before his health issues in 2019 and after in 2021,2022 and this year, the season he missed the most games outside of the 2015 season was 8 in 2017 and most of the years, he had 2-3 games at the end of the year he missed before the playoffs, which almost all teams do.Some situation are way worst that LBJ( Like Kawhi and his load management in 2019 and 2020 and even Giannis rarely plays the back to back game)

I will defend KD on that because of his serious injury back in 2019, he can't play all the games because of that

[falcolombardi]

I agree it's a disrespect to the fans when a super star sits out for rest, even if the player is healthy, but for LeBron before his health issues in 2019 and after in 2021,2022 and this year, the season he missed the most games outside of the 2015 season was 8 in 2017 and most of the years, he had 2-3 games at the end of the year he missed before the playoffs, which almost all teams do.Some situation are way worst that LBJ( Like Kawhi and his load management in 2019 and 2020 and even Giannis rarely plays the back to back game)

I will defend KD on that because of his serious injury back in 2019, he can't play all the games because of that

This

Of all the players to criticize for load managing, lebron is a odd choice