Who is in your GOAT tier?

[LukaTheGOAT]

And I don't see how 2012 Lebron being ranked as the #10 highest peak in 2012 discounts my point. The first time when 2013 Lebron was available to choose from, he swiftly finished #3 in the peaks project. Since then he has moved up exactly 1 spot.

That isn't even considering the fact that people/basketball society as a whole learn a wealth of new information over time, which can influence how we rank players. Ben Taylor in his old posts had Lebron's peak around the 13th best ever (viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1198314&p=32896712&hilit=LeBron#p32896712)


Now If we include players that have peaked since then, it's possible that old Ben wouldn't even consider Lebron's peak top 15 ever. Now he would consider a year like 2012 to be the #1 or #2 best peak ever per his GOAT peaks series. I don't think it would be fair to say the media changed Ben's mind, rather he has done his own research which he has shared with us and has a different view on things. People change.

[OhayoKD]

Come on lol, puffing up much?

Not at all. I've been posting as Danko/dankok8/Djoker at Insidehoops, Hoops-Nation, and Hoopshype as well as here intermittently for well over a decade and people were citing my articles about Kareem. It is what it is. And I didn't post that to brag about it but just to dispel any notions that I'm a Jordan stan because my arguments in this thread have been strawman-ed and everything I say tends to be taken out of context or greatly exaggerated.

To be technical, the GOAT peaks discussion you mention in 2012, wouldn't include his 2013 nor 2016 seasons. His 2013 season usually gets the most fervor as his overall peak. If you actually look at the next GOAT peaks voting that goes on, his 2013 season leaves quite the impression on people and his peak moves up to #3 in overall peaks I'm pretty sure. And 2016 also seems to get a decent amount of attention for his personal peak.

Are we seriously going to pretend that 2009/2012 Lebron are the 10th highest peaks ever but 2013 Lebron is the 2nd highest peak ever? Come on now...

Lebron taking a massive jump in perception as the quality of data and film analysis has skyrocketed seems like an indication that the evidence for the higher evaluation is quite strong while the evidence for the lower evaluation was quite poor.

Frankly, between migya needing to fudge the most favorable looking data(with the most favorable possible metholodgy) available for MJ to come out ahead...

Best ten seasons, have to use consecutive seasons on BR,

That is not what best means, and you transparently cut out 1988 (making it nine postseasons for Jordan…) just to give Jordan a better WS/48. Even though absolutely no one takes 1988 over 1998.

We could do twelve seasons, as you initially suggested, and that would give both of them an equal number of postseasons… ah, but then those basketball-reference win share averages would again lean back to Lebron, and we cannot have that.

I used the highest scores from the highest scoring 10 season stretch. I averaged the seasons because otherwise it inherently skews towards longer runs.

Reagrdless. even using your method, if you compare 10 postseasons to 10 postseasons as opposed to dropping 88 and comparing 10 postseaons to 9 postseasons, MJ's ws/48 ends up tied which would mean they split the metrics.

If I was to use the 10 "best " years, the gap would widen considerably. We can drop the weakest years if you want, but again, that will favor lebron:

BPM: LBJ, 17.7, 12.7, 11.5 MJ,14.6, 13.7, 12.1
ws/48: LBJ, .399, .294, .269 MJ, .333, .3, .284
PER: LBJ, 37.4, 32.2, 31.0 MJ, 32, 31.7, 30.1
VORP: LBJ, 3.4, 3.1, 3.0 MJ, 2.9, 2.8, 2.7

12 years? Whether we use my method or your method, Lebron comes out ahead.

...an overwhelming empirical advantage for Lebron in terms of quality and quantity...

Averaging their best scoring 10 year playoff stretches with
ws/48:
09-18 Lebron: .264.3
88-98 Jordan: .233

PER:
09-18 Lebron: 29.67
88-98 Jordan: 28.95

BPM:
88-98 Jordan: 11.74
09-18 Lebron: 10.83

So lebron comes out ahead in 2 out of 3 stats. Off course if we actually compare them at their best as opposed to pretending their worst years are indicative of where they were at their peak(lebron's 2 lowest scoring years come in this stretch), the gap widens for the first 2 and bpm flips.

Off course these are probably the worst metrics to use here because
A. they are the least predictive:
https://fansided.com/2019/01/08/nylon-calculus-best-advanced-stat/
and
B. Box-score metrics skew towards offense

If we use metrics that account for defense better:

viewtopic.php?t=2212552

That's a paddlin.

If we use the most accurate metric, RAPM, Lebron has 5 different seasons that score signifcantly higher than Jordan's best data(+7.4 from 88):
viewtopic.php?f=64&p=100076062

Ditto for playoff on/off where, 16-18 Lebron come out ahead of jordan's best 3 year stretch which is tied with the best from shaq and curry

While we're at it, Tim Duncan's best years score higher in RAPM and playoff AUPM and playoff on/off.


And this is all with the artiifical caps that come with using adjusted plus minus data.

Using real-impact signals, mj's gap with lebron widens, but he's also stuck with a lot of unfavorable comparison to other non-lebron greats, including, most prominently, Russell

...and Lebron beating Jordan by a country mile in your own chosen criteria...

We can go a bit further and calculate average minutes played per year throughout their primes:

1985-98 Jordan: 35887 minutes in 13 seasons - 2760 minutes per season

2004-18 James: 44298 minutes in 15 seasons - 2953 minutes per season

I really don't understand why you use seasons like 2012 to prove your take, while you completely ignore 1986 or 1995.

About 2012-22 only - I think we should realize that James was in his 9th season in 2012. That's the equivalent of 1993 Jordan. You should compare 2012-22 James to 1993-03 Jordan, not to young Jordan. In this case, James played significantly more minutes per year than Jordan, because Jordan only played 7 seasons in this span. How can you talk about load management, when Jordan literally took two long breaks from basketball?

...to not even see a case for Lebron's prime being better makes me question if you're really looking at this through an objective lens.

[falcolombardi]

Come on lol, puffing up much?

Not at all. I've been posting as Danko/dankok8/Djoker at Insidehoops, Hoops-Nation, and Hoopshype as well as here intermittently for well over a decade and people were citing my articles about Kareem. It is what it is. And I didn't post that to brag about it but just to dispel any notions that I'm a Jordan stan because my arguments in this thread have been strawman-ed and everything I say tends to be taken out of context or greatly exaggerated.

To be technical, the GOAT peaks discussion you mention in 2012, wouldn't include his 2013 nor 2016 seasons. His 2013 season usually gets the most fervor as his overall peak. If you actually look at the next GOAT peaks voting that goes on, his 2013 season leaves quite the impression on people and his peak moves up to #3 in overall peaks I'm pretty sure. And 2016 also seems to get a decent amount of attention for his personal peak.

Are we seriously going to pretend that 2009/2012 Lebron are the 10th highest peaks ever but 2013 Lebron is the 2nd highest peak ever? Come on now...

Your right, 2009 Lebron is the greatest peak ever.

Finally someone gets it

[Djoker]

And I don't see how 2012 Lebron being ranked as the #10 highest peak in 2012 discounts my point. The first time when 2013 Lebron was available to choose from, he swiftly finished #3 in the peaks project. Since then he has moved up exactly 1 spot.

That isn't even considering the fact that people/basketball society as a whole learn a wealth of new information over time, which can influence how we rank players. Ben Taylor in his old posts had Lebron's peak around the 13th best ever (viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1198314&p=32896712&hilit=LeBron#p32896712)


Now If we include players that have peaked since then, it's possible that old Ben wouldn't even consider Lebron's peak top 15 ever. Now he would consider a year like 2012 to be the #1 or #2 best peak ever per his GOAT peaks series. I don't think it would be fair to say the media changed Ben's mind, rather he has done his own research which he has shared with us and has a different view on things. People change.

Because you and I both know that 2012 and 2013 Lebron are very similar. I've never seen anyone claim that 2013 Lebron is much better than 2012 Lebron. In fact many people prefer 2012 Lebron for a superior playoff performance.

[OhayoKD]

And I don't see how 2012 Lebron being ranked as the #10 highest peak in 2012 discounts my point. The first time when 2013 Lebron was available to choose from, he swiftly finished #3 in the peaks project. Since then he has moved up exactly 1 spot.

That isn't even considering the fact that people/basketball society as a whole learn a wealth of new information over time, which can influence how we rank players. Ben Taylor in his old posts had Lebron's peak around the 13th best ever (viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1198314&p=32896712&hilit=LeBron#p32896712)


Now If we include players that have peaked since then, it's possible that old Ben wouldn't even consider Lebron's peak top 15 ever. Now he would consider a year like 2012 to be the #1 or #2 best peak ever per his GOAT peaks series. I don't think it would be fair to say the media changed Ben's mind, rather he has done his own research which he has shared with us and has a different view on things. People change.

Because you and I both know that 2012 and 2013 Lebron are very similar. I've never seen anyone claim that 2013 Lebron is much better than 2012 Lebron. In fact many people prefer 2012 Lebron for a superior playoff performance.

And this is only relevant if you can demonstrate later evaluations with more data are worse than earlier evaluations with less data.

But to that you would need to actually analyze the evidence...

[falcolombardi]

So first, the YouTube links are problematic for me so I wasn't able to watch what he was talking about.

I do understand the point about the difference between a typical Jordan-block compared to an interior deterrent though, and would agree that the larger LeBron is more of an interior guy.

However, it's strange to me to use that as a focal point as if in these circumstances LeBron is playing with Jordan-block-type guys while he takes on a more interior role. That's true of Wade to be sure, but not most of the guys.

I also think we just need to really talk through what's meant by "paint protection". Here are some of the options based on what I've seen so far:

1) Basketball goalie

2) The ability to dominate the painted area on defense against opposing men.

3) The ability to deter attacks in/to the paint by those with the ball when you are in the paint.

4) Anti-Gravity - a tendency for all opposing players to avoid the territory around you.

5) The regressive impact your presence on the court has on scoring in the paint.

I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of you and others on this, but would really emphasize that "paint protection" is a metaphor, and you can't just co-opt the meaning of a metaphor and expect to have productive communication. I'm inclined to say the use of a new and/or non-metaphorical term would be a good thing here.

Okay so I'll link you some of the post's examples directly:
https://youtu.be/T-c1NradPN4?t=147
https://youtu.be/T-c1NradPN4?t=175
(lebron)
https://youtu.be/T-c1NradPN4?t=17
(draymond)

the original videos for the other links seem to have been taken down

I use "paint protection" as a catch-all term for defensive activity, in the paint, that helps prevent the other team from scoring. I guess you could call it paint-defense to make it clearer. I'm not clever enough to come up with a metaphor, but i invite the many smarter people here to try

My general impression was that Lebron resembled a traditional big-man more on d in 2015 and was doing more in the paint than he was with the heatles(i think this is partially due to a lack of agility/quickness), but I don't have data on me to confirm that theory.

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.

"anchor" is another metaphor, which originally meant something more like "last line of defense" but you're interpreting it as "most valuable defender", and that emerging semantic drift is causing more confusion here.

Re: "I don't think LeBron was even capable of expending comparable offensive energy in the 2015 finals". I mean, he went for 35/13/8 in those finals with everyone commenting how much energy he was exerting. You want to say he had even more energy when he was younger? Cool, but from a perspective of whether he was "compensating" by lowering offensive energy in those finals, this fact is as moot as the theory is counter to what people who were watching perceived.

Well first, the vast majority of Lebron's rebounds were on the defensive side so I wouldn't point that specifically as an indication of offensive effort. While the points total is the same we should probably look at how those shots came about. A bigger portion of his shot attempts are threes while significantly less, (0.07%) of his shots are at the rim. So, for one, Lebron drove signiicantly less in the 2015 playoffs. Lebron does indeed put up what is, even on his standards, an outlier degree of playmaking, but on-ball helio playmaking on a slow offense takes less energy than moving around off-the-ball on a fast one(lebron is moving off-ball less and is taking less catch-and-shoots even as his 3pa goes up). I'd go so far as to say, that slowing the game down and monopolizing the ball gave Lebron some time to recuperate. On the other hand, Lebron's block% goes significantly up and he's spending more time in the paint. This coincides with better looking individual defensive impact than any of his miami years, and the best playoff defense he's ever anchored.

Taking a broader view, In 2015, Lebron is coming off his first major injury and has traded mobility for bulk. We would expect a defense to offense trade-off there and the team-data and individual data suggests there is.

All in all I'm pretty confident in 2015 as an example of Lebron's defense going up and his offense going down because I think the granular stuff supports the holistic stuff here.

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.

Hmm, 2 things:

1) What exactly are you perceiving as "drive" in '93-94? Are you simply inferring drive because the team has a good W-L record?

2) Do you think they still had drive in '94-95? If not, why not? If so, then why did '95-96 seem like such a shocking shift?

It's nothing too in-depth but generally, teams find it hard to maintain success, especially in the regular season, after several deep-runs, so hitting 55 wins and then genuinely operating like a contender in the postseason strikes me as a sign of impressive commiment to winning. Admitedly this is a bit of a shot in the dark(maybe they actually weren't going full tilt and they hypothetically would be winning 60 games if they were able to mantain motivation).

94-95 they are still posting a 50 win srs, but you now have 4 deep playoff runs, an additional olympics, and the second best player from the 93-94 team leaving. All in all, keeping a winning record(and this is probably somewhat a product of variance giving the srs) doesn't speak negatively to me about their ability to stay motivated.

It also helps this is a coach who has done the "win repeat championships" thing three times. Not to say Jordan shouldn't be given any credit(notably there was a regular season drop-off with the lakers), but I'm unsure to what degree Jordan's "intangibles" should be credited here. Honestly, maybe, in a strictly off-court sense, it might be presumptive of us to assume Pippen didn't do a large part of that given the Bulls really did go for the four-peat in 94.

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.

Okay, but do remember that there's that soft middle to Kareem's career where the Lakers were going nowhere, and know that at least with Ben's prime WOWYR metric Kareem doesn't look as good as Jordan. Now, much as I respect Ben, I wouldn't treat a number like this as a definitive answer, however I'd be real careful about running with an in-head-WOWY if it tells you something counter to what the data has told him.

And of course, if you've done something more quantitative, or you see a specific issue with Kareem's data along these lines, please elaborate.

Well it's not an in-head-WOWY. It's actually taken directly from Ben in the "impact evaluation" section of his Kareem write-up:
https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/04/12/backpicks-goat-1-kareem-abdul-jabbar/
70's listed the numbers for 75 in paticular here:

1974/75 Bucks with Kareem: 35-30, 44 wins pace
1974/75 Bucks without Kareem: 3-14, 15 wins pace

You might notice that generally, even though Ben lists the wowyr at the top, his "impact evalution" feature pure WOWY samples more. In his peaks project vids, he lists WOWY stuff from a couple of seasons, not multi-season WOWYR.

As I understand, regularization offers the same issue with wowy as it does with APM(artificial caps) and Kareem's wowy stuff crosses the treshold where value would be mis-attributed(25-30 wins). Perhaps more significantly, on a per-season basis the sample is relative miniscule and is covering a massive period of time(players change). I'll quote myself here if you don't mind:

Over 10 year spans or so, wowy will typically be based on a handful of games per season with players who've probably changed signifcantly during that time span. That's not really all that useful. What you want to do is look for moments where players or teammates miss(or are absent) from an unusally high number of games so you can get the largest samples. A good starting point for this would be the year before a player joins a team or the year after a leaves a team as you get a full season sample of data(70 Celtics, 84 Bulls, 84 Rockets, 69 Bucks, ect.) Then you can track roster changes, and granular stuff to adjust or guesstimate if the team improved got worse, ect. Lookign for concentrated stretches of missed game time, or how teams do when a star's teammates go out also can be useful. Ideally you want as much of this type of data for a player in various contexts and then you can compare players in these various situations directly.

I don't think the wowry averages are all that useful(and i suspect Ben agrees). I'd much rather start with the "raw stuff" and then adjust for context:

-> 69 Bucks are a 27 win team before they draft Kareem, win 56 games with rookie kareem and dandridge
-> 72 Bucks play at a 63 win pace in 18 games robertson misses
-> 75 Bucks go 3-14 in the 17 games Kareem misses, play at a 49 win pace with Kareem despite dandridge and robertson and falling off

I'm not super knowledgeable on the 70's, so I'm happy to learn about specific factors that may warrant consideration, but taking a holistic look, Kareem looks "more valuable" and his pre-nba dominance along with his status as the best player in the league for close to a decade(signified with 6 mvp's and probably should have won more) has me thinking kareem is the more impactdul dude, at least in the regular season. While I'm not extremely confident about it, I haven't seen much to push against that.

If you have specific criticisms/concerns for Kareem, I'm all ears.

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?"

I think the 2nd Cavs run is a good place to focus for LeBron having a more bulletproof run than Jordan.

I also think that the focus on the playoffs makes sense...but it's tricky because the East was weak and the Cavs lost to the Warriors every time but one. That one win is beyond huge of course, but beyond that the team's playoff highlights involved teams led by Paul Millsap and DeMar DeRozan.

That's fair, but the Warriors apparent lack of influence on his effiency/volume either as a scorer or a playmaker gives me some confidence. People talk about draymond/iggy/klay, but looney was also an extremely strong defender on a per minuite basis. Even for his career, Lebron's effiency holds up a bit better vs better defenses than Jordan's, and I think from 16-18 he's really a complete package offensively. The defense holding up better against the hawks, raptors and warriors than they did against weak offenses also indicates to me the numbers aren't necessarily representative of what the cavs would be doing if they went at full tilt. I'll also add that in terms of competition, the Cavs opponents in 2016 weren't weaker than the 91 Bulls going by SRS.

Neither the Raptors or the Hawks were that impressive, but sweeping them feels like a legitimate accomplishment, especially in 2015 where neither kyrie or love are playing.

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.

1. I think I got into this with falco. I think we should be careful about trying to downplay a player's significance in Achievement X as a means to downplay his significance in Achievement Y. Jordan on his own was not enough to ensure a Top 5 defense, but the same is true for Pippen or Phil Jackson the coach or LeBron.

2. I'd appreciate if you could share where you're getting the data on these metrics.

3. I certainly understand being more impressed with LeBron's D, and as I've noted, my analysis also sides with LeBron.

4. Uh, the Lakers had the best DRtg in the league over the entire year despite playing most their minutes without LeBron. To me the story of the Laker defense that year was about how good the Laker role players had become in Vogel's scheme...which was why it was so heartbreaking the way they then seemed to treat those players as if they were background extras when planning their off-season strategy.

5. You're using LeBron's presence in 2015 show a general trend of defensive WOWY impact while also pointing to 2020, while ignoring the way the defense caved in between those years. Meanwhile, you use the years between 1988 and 1991 to try to talk as if Jordan really didn't have much defensive impact. If feels to me like you're in real danger of falling prey to confirmation bias.

1. That's fair. Still. the lack of replication in terms of individual data or team-wide signals, and aforementioned indications of defensive decline, has me see it in the same vein of 2001 Kobe, it's a good year specifically and an accomplishment In of itself, but it shouldn't be assumed to apply to later versions of Jordan. Regardless though, I don't think it does much for MJ in a comparison with Lebron. Lebron has several years that match or outdo it in terms of PIPM(2009, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2020), is clearing it in RAPM with post-prime rs samples(2015-20, +2 vs +1.5 for 88), clearing it by a margin with his best scoring stretches(+4.7 drapm between 07-11), and the gap widens if you go by pure wowy analysis. Additionaly Lebron has anchored(with more influence apparently) 2 defenses in 2015 and 2016I'd say were significantly better(much better in the playoffs, a bit off in the regular season, improved vs good offenses) in his 30's, and a much better defense in 09 in what was his own "outlier". I didn't get into the weeds of the surrounding years because you were going off a single season, but that's not because I think Lebron looks worse over larger samples. Lebron's 15 year playoff drapm is on par with the consensus best non-big defender of his era(kawhi) despite lebron's sample covering vastly more minuites(averages dip the longer you play). Even with three defensive down years in 2018, 2019, and 2014, lebron scores at +2 from 14-20 in the regular season. I don't think it's a coincidence that the more a holistic metric accounts for defense, the better Lebron looks.

2. Noted. Maybe I should give 2021 marc gasol more credit then. I was under the impression the defense dropped after lebron's injury, but maybe I'm off.

3. Well, ultimately the goal is to try and isolate the individual defensive value of the player in question, and to that end, I think tracking how well a player's impact, granulars, and level of defensive activity correlates with the the team's defense is worthwhile. I'm noting the years between 88 and 91 because Jordan's own defensive signals decline. Even as his offensive box-stuff improves, his on/off, apm, rate of defensive breakdowns, and volume of defensive activity at the rim and on the perimeter all take a turn for the worse. If the Bulls defense is skyrockets anyway, and then maintains that level with Jordan retiring, it's hard to give too much credit to Jordan defensively outside of 88. I also don't know we should treat the bulls with oakley in 88 as the same as the bulls without oakley in 89. 88 is the outlier here, whether you want to look at what they were before, or after. Oakley might explain why.

When there's a decrease in Lebron's signals, or defensive activity, the team drops accordingly. On top of everything else we have, that suggests that Lebron, at his prime, influences the quality of his team's defenses to a significantly higher degree. Looking at his second cleveland stint, if we go past 2015, the 2016 cavs maintain most of their previous playoff defensive impact despite adding two negatives to the lineup in kyrie and love, in 2017, Lebron is doing less defensively(though he still looks good relative to say mj) and the cavs fall-off to average in the rs(still good in the playoffs), and in 2018 he's truly a non-factor on the defensive end and the cavs are now not a good defense.

When the signals within in a season are supported by what's happening season to season, I trust them more. Consensus reduces uncertainty.

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

1. As I've said, it's not just 2022, this began in 2018 with his arrival in LA. The Westbrook stuff has only made clear how clear-cut his priorities were.

Re: 2nd stint Cavs. Indeed, after the Heatles, LeBron seemed like he understood what kind of fit he actually needed, which is why it was so maddening to see how he changed with his next team. A couple things though:

a) On those Cavs, he didn't explicitly choose role players over stars. He came to Cleveland because they had Kyrie and could were able to acquire Love. That's what he cared about first and foremost, and so in that sense, I'm not sure if anything actually changed. Just as LeBron pushed the Cavs to get Love to create a 3-star team, he pushed the Lakers to get Westbrook. The difference really is that in the first circumstance the Cavs had a big time prospect to trade, in the second they had to sacrifice the supporting cast. And that - along with the fact that he drastically overrated Westbrook - is why the former wasn't a bad move but the latter was one of the most damaging moves I can ever remember a player twisting his team to make.

b) I do think it likely that LeBron's advanced age in LA led him to believe that he needed someone who could "play LeBron" so that he could rest. I really don't know if there's any evidence that this is why he was obsessed with getting a 3rd star at all cost, but I'm sure it relates to why he ended up zeroing in on the absolute worst fitting teammate he could have ever had in Westbrook.

Re: "You say 2020 is a fluke but he did it before." I think we need to drill down further here than just "They were great at 3's, but they won the title."

I said 2020 was a fluke specifically because the Bubble caused teams to shoot better than they ever did before, and the Lakers improving their spacing capacity was exactly what they needed to shore up their obvious weakness at shooting. We can debate whether that really made the difference for them in the playoffs, but this was absolutely a change precisely in the direction they needed due to reasons that they couldn't have expected to occur.

What about 2012? Let's look at it like this:

In the playoffs, the Heat played 4 teams.
The Heat had a higher 3PAr than 2 of those teams in the RS.
The Heat had a higher 3P% than the other two teams in the RS.
The Heat hit more 3's than their opponents in 3 out of their 4 PS series.
And also had a higher 3P% than 3 out of their 4 PS opponents.


In a nutshell, this absolutely was not a team that was winning despite being outstripped from the arc against the opponents they were playing.

Now, was their stellar defense a part of the reason for this? Sure, but it wouldn't have been enough to make up the difference against the shooters of today's game.

In 2012, the Heat were literally not at a massive spacing disadvantage, and that's how they won.
In 2022, they would get crushed trying to play the same way.

1. Fair
2. Fair(in terms of assessing the wisdom of lebron's decision), but as this sort of touches on "absolute translation"(which came up with Falco), I feel i should maybe reiterate what I said before about era-translation:

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).

More spacing does not automatically determine that a player will get more valuable offensively. Jordan's a relatively undersized interior threat and has limitations as a passer. What makes you think he gets more valuable in an era where the field has gotten much better at his unique strengths (shooting/off-ball movement)? Let's assume talent level is equal.

Re: 2015 "impressively close". Certainly impressive and close, but I do think it's important to remember that once the Warriors adapted, it really wasn't all that close. In that series, the Cavs had no ability to run an effective offense, and were getting by on the Warriors being unsure how to attack a Cavs team that looked very different from the one the Cavs had intended to put out there. It was no given even that the Warriors would figure it out in time, but figure it out they did, and in the end, it's those last 3 games in the series that foretell what we'd have expected to happen if the two teams kept playing each other indefinitely.

This is fair, but it also lends itself to a second framing: Lebron was beating with the 67 win Warriors(and competitive in the one loss), and then they got better. I have heard youtubers like dom2k say that the Warriors became their 73 win-selves over the course of the series. Not sure how true that is, but you could argue that the Warriors found a new level. If nothing else, forcing a big tactical switch from Kerr to break the tie is still impressive. Who knows if a doc rivers or a mike budenhoizer would have managed the same.

2. Pursuing co-stars. In general I'm not looking to judge this as if it's a bad thing, and I'll also say it's not a new thing. From the Laker perspective, LeBron, AD & Westbrook are just 3 more established stars the team was able to acquire as part of a long line of similar players going back to Wilt.

This incidentally means that while I'm very critical of LeBron, I'm certainly not letting Laker management off the hook for the Westbrook situation. The reality is that this was a very Laker mistake to make.

I think a player taking an active role in it is unusual and really a byproduct of player empowerment. Lebron also did this with Miami and Bosh. Having a player whose willing to actively recruit talent on your behalf has perks.

3. I'm quite critical of Jordan's bullying tendencies and push back at any idea that he represents an ideal leader. I agree with you that behaving like this in eras closer to the present would not go well, and can certainly see arguments for why LeBron would be the better player to draft in today's league.

At the same time, I think Jordan's all-encompassing approach probably helped the team with the 3-peats and was likely essential to their 72-10 year.

Leadership impact is a slippery, slippery thing.

1. I'll add that I do think, at least during the first cleveland stint, Lebron was a pretty effective leader and he didn't really showcase the drawbacks he would later. I don't know quite how you would weigh "character arcs" over a career, but when we consider leadership/off-court impact predictively, Lebron was able to avoid the negative notes Jordan had at the start with the Bulls despite a fair bit of off-court adversity.

2. Fair. I don't have an issue with that assumption. I suppose you don't see 09 and 10 similarly due to the drop-off without him?

Somethingh i wanna comment on here is the bolded part (lots of interesting stuff in this conversation but i will focus on this)

The idea that the player who protects the paint more =/= the one with most blocks

Is heavily correlated but not quite the same (always) as for example nobody will ever convince me that kendrik perkins was 2008 boston main rin protector and that garnett only was more impactful because of his perimeter play

Sometines mobile players with the -threath- of a block can be more impactful at defending the paint that even the primary blockers

blowing out opportunities at the rim with the threat of their roaming, making rival players dubitative at driving when they are behind them, corraling rival slashers into the shot blocker and of course their own blocks

[Doctor MJ]

Okay, but do remember that there's that soft middle to Kareem's career where the Lakers were going nowhere, and know that at least with Ben's prime WOWYR metric Kareem doesn't look as good as Jordan. Now, much as I respect Ben, I wouldn't treat a number like this as a definitive answer, however I'd be real careful about running with an in-head-WOWY if it tells you something counter to what the data has told him.

And of course, if you've done something more quantitative, or you see a specific issue with Kareem's data along these lines, please elaborate.

I am not interested in another MJ vs LBJ discussion, but I will bite here.

I think it's very important to be careful to call anything "going nowhere":

1. Lakers finished with the best RS record in 1977, Jordan neve did that before 1991.

2. Lakers finished with +2.95 SRS in 1979, which is better than Bulls in any year in 1987-90 period outside of 1988. It happened in the smaller, more balanced league as well.

3. Lakers lost to two future champions in the playoffs during 1977-79 period. The other time, they lost to future finalists in a 3 games series. That's the same level of playoff success as 1987-89 Bulls.

If you want to say that they did nothing during that period, then I'm afraid you should say the same for Jordan's whole career before 1990.

About WOWY - Jordan's biggest samples don't show him as the better one than Kareem (from Ben's database):

1986 Jordan: +2.0 SRS change, 1.2 WOWY score
1995 Jordan +2.7 SRS change, 1.9 WOWY score

1975 Kareem: +7.1 SRS change, +3.6 WOWY score

I'm afraid Ben's database has an error with 1978 sample, as it shows as clear negative for Kareem, despite all the calculations I made and his own words in Kareem profile:

At the beginning of the ’78 season, Kareem cold-cocked Bucks center Kent Benson and missed substantial time with another broken hand. However, it’s hard to infer much from the injury since LA fired off two trades around that period.10 With Jabbar — and ignoring all the other lineup activity — the Lakers played like a 53-win team (4.1 SRS) in ’78. With a similar roster in ’79 (minus Charlie Scott), LA ticked along at a 50-win clip when healthy (3.1 SRS). Below, I’ve plotted the ’78 team’s performance in 21 games without Kareem, in which the Lakers played at a 36-win pace (-1.7 SRS) after a major offensive drop-off.

Which shows a +5.8 SRS change again. The biggest samples we have show Kareem having a clear advantage. We can also look at the more nuanced samples, when a player even joins or leaves his team:

1984 Bulls without MJ: -4.7 SRS, 27 wins
1985 Bulls with MJ: -0.5 SRS, 38 wins
Change: +4.2 SRS and +11 wins

1993 Bulls with MJ: +6.2 SRS, 57 wins
1994 Bulls without MJ: +2.9 SRS, 55 wins
Change: +3.3 SRS, +2 wins

1995 Bulls without MJ: +3.8 SRS, 52 wins pace
1996 Bulls with MJ: +11.8 SRS, 72 wins
Change: +8 SRS, 20 wins

I wouldn't include 1998-1999, because the whole team changed, including a coach.

1969 Bucks without Kareem: -5.1 SRS, 27 wins
1970 Bucks with Kareem: +4.3 SRS, 56 wins
Change: +9.4 SRS, 29 wins

1975 Bucks with Kareem: +2.6 SRS, 49 wins pace
1976 Bucks without Kareem: -1.6 SRS, 38 wins
Change: +4.2 SRS, 11 wins

1975 Lakers without Kareem: -3.9 SRS, 30 wins
1976 Lakers with Kareem: +0.2 SRS, 40 wins
Change: +4.1 SRS, 10 wins

The difference is that Kareem left Bucks in a trade, which means that Lakers gave a lot of value to Bucks. Jordan samples are clean, as Jordan didn't go to the Bulls in exchange.

I don't know, I don't see the case for MJ > Kareem in terms of WOWY.

Great rebuttal 70s!

[Doctor MJ]

Okay so I'll link you some of the post's examples directly:
https://youtu.be/T-c1NradPN4?t=147
https://youtu.be/T-c1NradPN4?t=175
(lebron)
https://youtu.be/T-c1NradPN4?t=17
(draymond)

the original videos for the other links seem to have been taken down

I use "paint protection" as a catch-all term for defensive activity, in the paint, that helps prevent the other team from scoring. I guess you could call it paint-defense to make it clearer. I'm not clever enough to come up with a metaphor, but i invite the many smarter people here to try

My general impression was that Lebron resembled a traditional big-man more on d in 2015 and was doing more in the paint than he was with the heatles(i think this is partially due to a lack of agility/quickness), but I don't have data on me to confirm that theory.

Thank you for the links and the clarification, but to be clear myself:

I'm saying metaphors are treacherous, and it would be better if we could use something not, or at least less, metaphorical.

But in terms of making yourself clear, you now have, and as long as we can talk it through, such metaphors can be great openings for conversation.

Well first, the vast majority of Lebron's rebounds were on the defensive side so I wouldn't point that specifically as an indication of offensive effort. While the points total is the same we should probably look at how those shots came about. A bigger portion of his shot attempts are threes while significantly less, (0.07%) of his shots are at the rim. So, for one, Lebron drove signiicantly less in the 2015 playoffs. Lebron does indeed put up what is, even on his standards, an outlier degree of playmaking, but on-ball helio playmaking on a slow offense takes less energy than moving around off-the-ball on a fast one(lebron is moving off-ball less and is taking less catch-and-shoots even as his 3pa goes up). I'd go so far as to say, that slowing the game down and monopolizing the ball gave Lebron some time to recuperate. On the other hand, Lebron's block% goes significantly up and he's spending more time in the paint. This coincides with better looking individual defensive impact than any of his miami years, and the best playoff defense he's ever anchored.

Taking a broader view, In 2015, Lebron is coming off his first major injury and has traded mobility for bulk. We would expect a defense to offense trade-off there and the team-data and individual data suggests there is.

All in all I'm pretty confident in 2015 as an example of Lebron's defense going up and his offense going down because I think the granular stuff supports the holistic stuff here.

I'll just reiterate that the context here is in evaluating the question of whether LeBron could substitute defensive impact for offensive impact at will. I'm saying he cannot, and not because he's not a great defender, but because he - like most modern stars - is capable of more offensive impact than defensive impact.

Hmm, 2 things:

1) What exactly are you perceiving as "drive" in '93-94? Are you simply inferring drive because the team has a good W-L record?

2) Do you think they still had drive in '94-95? If not, why not? If so, then why did '95-96 seem like such a shocking shift?

It's nothing too in-depth but generally, teams find it hard to maintain success, especially in the regular season, after several deep-runs, so hitting 55 wins and then genuinely operating like a contender in the postseason strikes me as a sign of impressive commiment to winning. Admitedly this is a bit of a shot in the dark(maybe they actually weren't going full tilt and they hypothetically would be winning 60 games if they were able to mantain motivation).

94-95 they are still posting a 50 win srs, but you now have 4 deep playoff runs, an additional olympics, and the second best player from the 93-94 team leaving. All in all, keeping a winning record(and this is probably somewhat a product of variance giving the srs) doesn't speak negatively to me about their ability to stay motivated.

It also helps this is a coach who has done the "win repeat championships" thing three times. Not to say Jordan shouldn't be given any credit(notably there was a regular season drop-off with the lakers), but I'm unsure to what degree Jordan's "intangibles" should be credited here. Honestly, maybe, in a strictly off-court sense, it might be presumptive of us to assume Pippen didn't do a large part of that given the Bulls really did go for the four-peat in 94.

Okay, thank you for elaborating. Here's my perception:

I think '93-94 should be seen as a significant accomplishment for the folks who were still on the Bulls, but I also think it's crucial to recognize that when a champion drops by more than 7 SRS without the star, that's not a small drop off.

The drop off from '92-93 to '93-94 is less than that of course, but I would advise against taking '93-93's performance as an accurate assessment of what the Bulls were capable of.

Now, I feel like people are going to read that and say "But didn't you say Jordan should get credit for helping motivation, and now you're saying he failed to have the same impact in '92-93 as he did in '91-92 or '95-96. Isn't that a contradiction?"

As you my guess, my answer is "No". Leadership is not a constant, linear weight.

Well it's not an in-head-WOWY. It's actually taken directly from Ben in the "impact evaluation" section of his Kareem write-up:
https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/04/12/backpicks-goat-1-kareem-abdul-jabbar/
70's listed the numbers for 75 in paticular here:

1974/75 Bucks with Kareem: 35-30, 44 wins pace
1974/75 Bucks without Kareem: 3-14, 15 wins pace

You might notice that generally, even though Ben lists the wowyr at the top, his "impact evalution" feature pure WOWY samples more. In his peaks project vids, he lists WOWY stuff from a couple of seasons, not multi-season WOWYR.

As I understand, regularization offers the same issue with wowy as it does with APM(artificial caps) and Kareem's wowy stuff crosses the treshold where value would be mis-attributed(25-30 wins). Perhaps more significantly, on a per-season basis the sample is relative miniscule and is covering a massive period of time(players change). I'll quote myself here if you don't mind:

Over 10 year spans or so, wowy will typically be based on a handful of games per season with players who've probably changed signifcantly during that time span. That's not really all that useful. What you want to do is look for moments where players or teammates miss(or are absent) from an unusally high number of games so you can get the largest samples. A good starting point for this would be the year before a player joins a team or the year after a leaves a team as you get a full season sample of data(70 Celtics, 84 Bulls, 84 Rockets, 69 Bucks, ect.) Then you can track roster changes, and granular stuff to adjust or guesstimate if the team improved got worse, ect. Lookign for concentrated stretches of missed game time, or how teams do when a star's teammates go out also can be useful. Ideally you want as much of this type of data for a player in various contexts and then you can compare players in these various situations directly.

I don't think the wowry averages are all that useful(and i suspect Ben agrees). I'd much rather start with the "raw stuff" and then adjust for context:

-> 69 Bucks are a 27 win team before they draft Kareem, win 56 games with rookie kareem and dandridge
-> 72 Bucks play at a 63 win pace in 18 games robertson misses
-> 75 Bucks go 3-14 in the 17 games Kareem misses, play at a 49 win pace with Kareem despite dandridge and robertson and falling off

I'm not super knowledgeable on the 70's, so I'm happy to learn about specific factors that may warrant consideration, but taking a holistic look, Kareem looks "more valuable" and his pre-nba dominance along with his status as the best player in the league for close to a decade(signified with 6 mvp's and probably should have won more) has me thinking kareem is the more impactdul dude, at least in the regular season. While I'm not extremely confident about it, I haven't seen much to push against that.

If you have specific criticisms/concerns for Kareem, I'm all ears.

Thank you, and with your post and 70s, I'll concede the point.

That's fair, but the Warriors apparent lack of influence on his effiency/volume either as a scorer or a playmaker gives me some confidence. People talk about draymond/iggy/klay, but looney was also an extremely strong defender on a per minuite basis. Even for his career, Lebron's effiency holds up a bit better vs better defenses than Jordan's, and I think from 16-18 he's really a complete package offensively. The defense holding up better against the hawks, raptors and warriors than they did against weak offenses also indicates to me the numbers aren't necessarily representative of what the cavs would be doing if they went at full tilt. I'll also add that in terms of competition, the Cavs opponents in 2016 weren't weaker than the 91 Bulls going by SRS.

Neither the Raptors or the Hawks were that impressive, but sweeping them feels like a legitimate accomplishment, especially in 2015 where neither kyrie or love are playing.

LeBron averaged at TS of 47.7 while his team had an ORg south of 100 in the 2015 finals. Obviously, his teammates were injured in that series, but there's a crucial point here that I know you know:

It's not that LeBron was able to score at will against the Warriors in all circumstances.

Heck, even in 2016, it wasn't until late in the series when he gained confidence with his jumper that he really looked unstoppable.

Beyond that time, simply put, we do not have competitive series, and so the Warriors are not forced to "sell out everything else" the way they did in the 2015 finals. Not looking to talk as if LeBron wasn't an absolute master of the craft, but there's absolutely no reason to think that the Warriors couldn't have done similar things to LeBron in later years if they thought they simply had to. Sure, the fact that Kyrie & Love were other threats made the Warriors more reluctant to use such an approach and had the Warriors done so it might have resulted in even worse team results...but this is not the same thing being fundamentally unable to make a dent on a particular metric.

Re: Sweeping Raptors & Hawks feels like a legit accomplishment. It's not nothing and I shouldn't talk as if it is, but fundamentally there's an issue when speaking to LeBron's playoffs accomplishments in those years because any type of "Well they beat the Nth best team to get to the finals", doesn't really impress.

This therefore leads to a wide variety of interpretations of accomplishment, and I think we need to be okay with diverging. I'll say that I used to be higher on LeBron's accomplishment in these years, but what I concluded was that I was effectively giving LeBron "championship belt" credit over and over again.

"LeBron won in 2016, then the Warriors got overwhelming talent with the addition of KD, so it's not right to say that either Steph or KD accomplished more than LeBron in 2017/2018."

This all feels very logical, but it comes with the assumption that as long as LeBron only lost to the Warriors, we should keep treating LeBron as if he were playing identically to 2016 regardless of what actually took place out there.

Now, 2018 is obviously a tougher comparison because of the loss of Kyrie, but let's just consider something comparing '15-16 & '16-17.

In '15-16, LeBron had a raw plus minus of +618 in the regular season.
In '16-17, LeBron had a raw plus minus of +483 in the regular season.

He didn't miss many more games in one season than the other, so it begs the question where the difference in dominance was.

Offense?
'15-16 RS 115.4
'16-17 RS 118.4

3 points better, for which he deserves some credit. There's a reason why '16-17 has a case for LeBron's best offensive season.

But that means...

Defense?
'15-16 PS 104.0
'16-17 PS 109.9

Massive defensive dropoff, for worse team results.

Now, is that proof LeBron didn't have the most impressive regular season that year? No, and neither is the fact that LeBron got less MVP shares that year despite no longer having to really compete with Steph or KD. My point though is that obviously some stuff is changing from year to year, and that if you actually try to evaluate player accomplishment starting from zero and incrementing each year, then there's a real possibility that you'll end up rating LeBron lower than if you think from the championship belt perspective where we keep a guy on top as long as he still shows himself capable to reaching similar heights as before at some key moments.

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.

Interesting. When you say film-tracking, are you saying that they have data on this, or that they just feel that Jordan had a higher error rate when he got older? I have to say, that's not what I would expect, which would make it potentially quite relevant to my analysis going forward.

Thank you for your thorough response. I'm going to cut my responses off there. If there's anything specific you wrote you really want me to respond to, please let me know.

[AEnigma]

That's fair, but the Warriors apparent lack of influence on his effiency/volume either as a scorer or a playmaker gives me some confidence. People talk about draymond/iggy/klay, but looney was also an extremely strong defender on a per minuite basis. Even for his career, Lebron's effiency holds up a bit better vs better defenses than Jordan's, and I think from 16-18 he's really a complete package offensively. The defense holding up better against the hawks, raptors and warriors than they did against weak offenses also indicates to me the numbers aren't necessarily representative of what the cavs would be doing if they went at full tilt. I'll also add that in terms of competition, the Cavs opponents in 2016 weren't weaker than the 91 Bulls going by SRS.

Neither the Raptors or the Hawks were that impressive, but sweeping them feels like a legitimate accomplishment, especially in 2015 where neither kyrie or love are playing.

LeBron averaged at TS of 47.7 while his team had an ORg south of 100 in the 2015 finals. Obviously, his teammates were injured in that series, but there's a crucial point here that I know you know:

It's not that LeBron was able to score at will against the Warriors in all circumstances.

Heck, even in 2016, it wasn't until late in the series when he gained confidence with his jumper that he really looked unstoppable.

Beyond that time, simply put, we do not have competitive series, and so the Warriors are not forced to "sell out everything else" the way they did in the 2015 finals. Not looking to talk as if LeBron wasn't an absolute master of the craft, but there's absolutely no reason to think that the Warriors couldn't have done similar things to LeBron in later years if they thought they simply had to. Sure, the fact that Kyrie & Love were other threats made the Warriors more reluctant to use such an approach and had the Warriors done so it might have resulted in even worse team results...but this is not the same thing being fundamentally unable to make a dent on a particular metric.

This is an odd comment in a number of ways.

2015 was the scoring nadir of Lebron’s prime (2009-18) in both the regular season and the postseason, and it feels very clearly tied to the back issues he had all year. The following year, Lebron rebounded as a scorer even as he had arguably the worst outside shooting season of his entire career (aside from his rookie year).

[Tangent: Shooting variance is not a totally unfair reason to be down on a regular season’s impact — although Ohayo and even yourself have shown how Lebron’s impact that year was still massive and among the highest in his entire career — but as we just saw with 2022 Curry, that type of shooting variance does not actually mean much in assessing the player, and that shooting variance is clearly distinct from being injured or otherwise playing through pain, as by all indications was the case in 2015. If Lebron shoots at his career average that season and literally makes just ten more threes all season, his true shooting jumps a full percentage and no one really has much to critique about his scoring. And if in 2013 and 2014 he does not shoot 50% on corner threes, even fewer people will just reflexively label that his clear scoring apex.]

In 2015, he is at 53% efficiency against the Celtics — a mere -1 relative defence — even with Kyrie and Love. Against the Bulls he has maybe the worst scoring series of his entire prime: 46% efficiency, with Kyrie present, on much lower volume than we will see in the Finals. And against the Hawks — a -2.5 defence — he is at 50.6% efficiency, with J.R. on enough of a hot streak that he has at least some pressure taken off of him even with Kyrie mostly absent.

So we reach the Finals. No Love. Kyrie for a game. Outside of the 2011 Finals, all his worst scoring series since 2008 have happened in this postseason. The Warriors are a -4 relative defence and on that end are captained by the greatest defender of his generation (although we have yet to truly realise that). J.R. craters, the team for large chunks of the game is running two bigs who cannot shoot at all, and the average non-Lebron scoring efficiency is 48%. The Warriors have the league’s stingiest scoring defence are capable of throwing everything they possibly can at Lebron with the full knowledge that he is the only person on this team theoretically capable of beating them with his scoring. And so Lebron puts up 36 points per game on 47.7% efficiency (while keeping his turnovers under full control too).

Contrast that with every other team, and with Lebron’s own standards in any healthy prime year, and suggesting that they solved him then but simply did not return to the strategy because of “fear of Kyrie and Love” or whatever feels woefully off the mark. All context considered, I have this pretty comfortably as Lebron’s best scoring series that year, which is both a sad reflection of what rough shape he was in and an incredible instance of elevation in the face of total adversity.

And then, of course, since this was ultimately a comparison being made with Jordan, I think it is as always worth pointing out that not only did Jordan lack the passing acumen to threaten teams the way you suggest Lebron did in any series where he did have offensive support, and not only did he never have a defensive load like what Lebron had in the 2016 Finals — to use your “rim protection = archor” shorthand, I would be remiss not to point out Lebron had a 5.9 block percentage, essentially even with Thompson and Mozgov combined — but also he never had to deal with the level of schematically permitted defensive focus that the Warriors could throw at Lebron.

I would advise against taking '93-93's performance as an accurate assessment of what the Bulls were capable of.

Now, I feel like people are going to read that and say "But didn't you say Jordan should get credit for helping motivation, and now you're saying he failed to have the same impact in '92-93 as he did in '91-92 or '95-96. Isn't that a contradiction?"

As you my guess, my answer is "No". Leadership is not a constant, linear weight.

But how are you assessing “leadership” here independent of just team success? “The best regular seasons were the ones where Jordan led the best” is not an especially rigorous standard.

And to whatever extent we want to treat that as a given anyway, does that carry over to the postseason? Because with leadership being variable and shifting, I have a hard time identifying much of a case for Jordan having better playoff leadership moments than 2015/16/18/20 Lebron? Do we not frequently mark our leaders by how they respond to adversity and inspire others? If you want to contend that some chunk of the difference in regular season results between the two is attributable to specifically Jordan’s leadership in allegedly making his teammates play harder, does that make the same sense as a carryover to the postseason?

[OhayoKD]

Interesting. When you say film-tracking, are you saying that they have data on this, or that they just feel that Jordan had a higher error rate when he got older? I have to say, that's not what I would expect, which would make it potentially quite relevant to my analysis going forward.

Thank you for your thorough response. I'm going to cut my responses off there. If there's anything specific you wrote you really want me to respond to, please let me know.

So to answer this. First, let me clarify this is specific to First three-peat and pre-championship MJ. Blocked(the other film-tracking I'm going off) has argued the defensive relationship between first three-peat and second three-peat MJ isn't as linear as people assume. From Ben Taylor, his "mj traded athleticism for guile" specifically references second three peat MJ. Ben specifically notes 1991 as a nadir in terms of defensive errors:

But his style was still high-risk, high-reward, and his defensive error rates were on the high side, landing in the 17th percentile for the heart of his career. His highlights are impressive, but he bled value at times.

For instance, in the 1991 Finals, Jordan slowed the Magic Johnson train by picking him up in the backcourt, preventing him from building a head of steam. In the low-post, Chicago constantly doubled Magic, and although Jordan did a solid job bodying him up at times, he also struck out on a number of steal attempts:

Ben also notes a drop in activity starting in 1990:

In 1990, his motor slowed from the fever pitch he had played at for two years, and his defensive involvement tapered down a bit. He idled more, resting his engines to conserve fuel. Although, on possessions where he went full throttle, he made ball-denial an art, navigating screens (a strength of his) and shutting off passing lanes:

So Jordan is less involved but is also posting higher error rates going by Ben Taylor.

When I say "film-tracking' I mean the parties involved granularly tracked something happening on tape. BlockedbyBAm had her own variant but a couple caveats:
The sample is much smaller(playoffs only), her definition of breakdown is broader and, while she didn't use this specifically for MJ, she's adapted her system to be more qualitative/specific about these things:

Defensive plays are when you do something that helps the prevention of a score, even if they end up scoring anyway
GREAT DP: Rim contest, rim deterrence, (note: getting a block does not necessarily mean you should get the most credit for a defensive stoppage), charge near rim, stealing during a 2 v1, denying an entry pass that leads to an easy score, a contested defensive rebound that prevents an uncontested score ect, ect, remember to adjust for teammates!!! If a bunch of players are helping on a rim play its probably not a "great" play
GOOD DP: Being involved in a rim stop, shot contest, stonewalling a player in the perimiter, being the primary cause of a steal, winning a contested rebound ect
DECENT DP: Weaker contests, being in postion for a few secs, applying seocondary pressure, secondary help on a rebound ect, ect,
Defensive errors are when you do something that hurts your team defensively:
MAJOR BREAKDOWN: When you're primarily responsible for a really good scoring chance
MINOR BREAKDOWN: When everyone's to blame or it doesn't lead to a really good scorng chance, ect.

I don't recall the specific numbers off the top of my head, but according to blocked, Jordan made less "dp's" yet still had more breakdowns in 91 compared to 89 and 90. Blocked also noted that Pippen made more plays on the perimiter and in the paint and the ratio of dp's to db's was still better.

MJ especially struggled with dumars and Hawkins per blocked. He also struggled against Magic according to Ben.

All this also seems to be supported holistically. Jordan's D-PIPM and D-RAPM drop in the regular season and Jordan's playoff on/off drops in the postseason despite box-related stuff improving.

If there's anything specific you wrote you really want me to respond to, please let me know.

Don't feel any pressure to reply, but for posterity, and perhaps your consideration, I'd like to clarify some things where I feel there was a misunderstanding.

Re: Defense subsituting offense
My specific assertion would not be that He can trade d for o "at will", but rather that, over the course of a season, he can up his defensive value to compensate for at least some of the offense when roster or, his own, limitations(in 2015. alot of this was physical) cap his individual offensive value. I also argued that's what transpired in 2015 with granular/holistic stuff informing my position. It's not that Lebron can replace offense with defense on a whim, but rather, that he starts from a high enough place, that he can replace enough of it to still potentially be the most valuable player post-russell in a situation where his offense isn't optimized.

Re: Title-Belt
So I think I used an incrementalism approach when discussing seasons in the last post, specifically citing the drop-off from 16 to 17 in defensive value/activity. My claim is not so much that Lebron doesn't fluctuate, but more that Lebron starts from a high enough place, that even downward fluctuation doesn't necessarily bring him to a place where his regular seasons compare unfavorably to say, an MJ. I do think this has empirical support. I listed out the multi-year stuff, but zoning in on 2017: LBJ posts a +6.62 Regular Season RAPM which is higher than all but one year we have for MJ(1988), his d-pipm and total pipm is higher, and the "pure impact" approach looks just as favorable. Zooming out Lebron posts a +8.6 in 2015, +8.5 in 2016, and +6.5 in 2017. Via RAPM(admittedly not full samples)Jordan has one year which tops 2017(88) and no years that match 2015 or 2016 in the regular season. For a larger all-inclusive sample, unregularized data/wowy comes out less favorably for Jordan. This is also arguably better to use here than APM, besides sample, size, because it resolves a big question mark regarding cross-season rapm comparisons:

In layman terms, the process of calculating RAPM involves some math that distorts the "real scale" of the numbers in favor of accuracy. The scale is just different for each season. I prefer to use rank, and use the number itself as a rough ballpark.

ElGee's ratings are subjective, they are not subject to a formula, although the scale he uses (average player is +0, max value peaks around +7-something) leans on findings supported by +/- data.

While we're in agreement that Lebron dropped off between 2016 and 2017, I'm not sure the regular season end result is actually worse.

That being said...

Feel free to the points above if you're interested, but I think we've bridged alot of ground here and I'm satisfied with how this conversation has unfolded

[Doctor MJ]

That's fair, but the Warriors apparent lack of influence on his effiency/volume either as a scorer or a playmaker gives me some confidence. People talk about draymond/iggy/klay, but looney was also an extremely strong defender on a per minuite basis. Even for his career, Lebron's effiency holds up a bit better vs better defenses than Jordan's, and I think from 16-18 he's really a complete package offensively. The defense holding up better against the hawks, raptors and warriors than they did against weak offenses also indicates to me the numbers aren't necessarily representative of what the cavs would be doing if they went at full tilt. I'll also add that in terms of competition, the Cavs opponents in 2016 weren't weaker than the 91 Bulls going by SRS.

Neither the Raptors or the Hawks were that impressive, but sweeping them feels like a legitimate accomplishment, especially in 2015 where neither kyrie or love are playing.

LeBron averaged at TS of 47.7 while his team had an ORg south of 100 in the 2015 finals. Obviously, his teammates were injured in that series, but there's a crucial point here that I know you know:

It's not that LeBron was able to score at will against the Warriors in all circumstances.

Heck, even in 2016, it wasn't until late in the series when he gained confidence with his jumper that he really looked unstoppable.

Beyond that time, simply put, we do not have competitive series, and so the Warriors are not forced to "sell out everything else" the way they did in the 2015 finals. Not looking to talk as if LeBron wasn't an absolute master of the craft, but there's absolutely no reason to think that the Warriors couldn't have done similar things to LeBron in later years if they thought they simply had to. Sure, the fact that Kyrie & Love were other threats made the Warriors more reluctant to use such an approach and had the Warriors done so it might have resulted in even worse team results...but this is not the same thing being fundamentally unable to make a dent on a particular metric.

This is an odd comment in a number of ways.

2015 was the scoring nadir of Lebron’s prime (2009-18) in both the regular season and the postseason, and it feels very clearly tied to the back issues he had all year. The following year, Lebron rebounded as a scorer even as he had arguably the worst outside shooting season of his entire career (aside from his rookie year).

[Tangent: Shooting variance is not a totally unfair reason to be down on a regular season’s impact — although Ohayo and even yourself have shown how Lebron’s impact that year was still massive and among the highest in his entire career — but as we just saw with 2022 Curry, that type of shooting variance does not actually mean much in assessing the player, and that shooting variance is clearly distinct from being injured or otherwise playing through pain, as by all indications was the case in 2015. If Lebron shoots at his career average that season and literally makes just ten more threes all season, his true shooting jumps a full percentage and no one really has much to critique about his scoring. And if in 2013 and 2014 he does not shoot 50% on corner threes, even fewer people will just reflexively label that his clear scoring apex.]

In 2015, he is at 53% efficiency against the Celtics — a mere -1 relative defence — even with Kyrie and Love. Against the Bulls he has maybe the worst scoring series of his entire prime: 46% efficiency, with Kyrie present, on much lower volume than we will see in the Finals. And against the Hawks — a -2.5 defence — he is at 50.6% efficiency, with J.R. on enough of a hot streak that he has at least some pressure taken off of him even with Kyrie mostly absent.

So we reach the Finals. No Love. Kyrie for a game. Outside of the 2011 Finals, all his worst scoring series since 2008 have happened in this postseason. The Warriors are a -4 relative defence and on that end are captained by the greatest defender of his generation (although we have yet to truly realise that). J.R. craters, the team for large chunks of the game is running two bigs who cannot shoot at all, and the average non-Lebron scoring efficiency is 48%. The Warriors have the league’s stingiest scoring defence are capable of throwing everything they possibly can at Lebron with the full knowledge that he is the only person on this team theoretically capable of beating them with his scoring. And so Lebron puts up 36 points per game on 47.7% efficiency (while keeping his turnovers under full control too).

Contrast that with every other team, and with Lebron’s own standards in any healthy prime year, and suggesting that they solved him then but simply did not return to the strategy because of “fear of Kyrie and Love” or whatever feels woefully off the mark. All context considered, I have this pretty comfortably as Lebron’s best scoring series that year, which is both a sad reflection of what rough shape he was in and an incredible instance of elevation in the face of total adversity.

And then, of course, since this was ultimately a comparison being made with Jordan, I think it is as always worth pointing out that not only did Jordan lack the passing acumen to threaten teams the way you suggest Lebron did in any series where he did have offensive support, and not only did he never have a defensive load like what Lebron had in the 2016 Finals — to use your “rim protection = archor” shorthand, I would be remiss not to point out Lebron had a 5.9 block percentage, essentially even with Thompson and Mozgov combined — but also he never had to deal with the level of schematically permitted defensive focus that the Warriors could throw at Lebron.

Hmm, good points to bring up, but let me focus on this:

You are skeptical "fear of Kyrie and Love" made a difference. Okay, let's step back from that particular label and just note:

In the '14-15 finals, LeBron had a usage of 40.8% while the team averaged 15.8 APG.
In the '15-16 finals, LeBron had a usage of 33.4% while the team averaged 18.0 APG.

Do you truly believe this is something to be explained by LeBron having a bad back in the '14-15 finals? I don't.

I would advise against taking '93-93's performance as an accurate assessment of what the Bulls were capable of.

Now, I feel like people are going to read that and say "But didn't you say Jordan should get credit for helping motivation, and now you're saying he failed to have the same impact in '92-93 as he did in '91-92 or '95-96. Isn't that a contradiction?"

As you my guess, my answer is "No". Leadership is not a constant, linear weight.

But how are you assessing “leadership” here independent of just team success? “The best regular seasons were the ones where Jordan led the best” is not an especially rigorous standard.

And to whatever extent we want to treat that as a given anyway, does that carry over to the postseason? Because with leadership being variable and shifting, I have a hard time identifying much of a case for Jordan having better playoff leadership moments than 2015/16/18/20 Lebron? Do we not frequently mark our leaders by how they respond to adversity and inspire others? If you want to contend that some chunk of the difference in regular season results between the two is attributable to specifically Jordan’s leadership in allegedly making his teammates play harder, does that make the same sense as a carryover to the postseason?

Leadership is not easily quantified, and I think you know that. The question then really is whether you want to try to assess it as best as you can, or whether you want to punt.

I'm not claiming to have simple quantified measure for leadership, but I think it's important not to punt on something real and significant, so I try.

What I see in the Bulls locker room is a pretty classic situation where one person has way more power than everyone else and looks to apply it push those around him to work harder and be better without much concern over "going too far". While such a situation can simply fall apart, many effective groups get led by someone like this and so it's really much of a debate for me whether Jordan had a profound off-court impact on his teammates, and that some of that resulted in superior on-court performance.

Doesn't mean the other guys don't deserve credit too, but the nature of leadership is that you work through those other people, and thus when they succeed, you get credit too.

Doesn't mean Jordan necessarily had more net positive leadership impact than anyone else on the Bulls, because the negatives to Jordan's approach could drag him below someone with a more of a positive-only impact. So maybe Phil deserves more credit along these lines than Jordan...but when Jordan was there, Phil always knew that Jordan was the most powerful person in the room.

And not of this necessarily means that Jordan should be ranked ahead of LeBron by leadership impact, but I do think we need to acknowledge that LeBron's teams showed more of a tendency to coast than Jordan's, and deal with that fact with analysis that goes beyond "But how do we know the effect of LeBron vs everyone else? Best to just pretend this information doesn't exist."

Re: "I have a hard time identifying much of a case for Jordan having better playoff leadership moments than 2015/16/18/20 Lebron". Hmm, so first:

LeBron having great moments in leadership is true, but he also has some walkabout moments. The peaks don't mean the valleys don't exist.

But also: 2018? You mean when he had won great game, got mad at how it ended, through a punch that injured him for the rest of the series, and managed not to beat the Warriors a single time despite the fact that all 3 of the Warriors' prior opponents were able to do so? That's "great leadership" to you?

I'll say flat out that that particular moment was very informative to me in evaluating LeBron's accomplishments in these "no win" situations.

[AEnigma]

LeBron averaged at TS of 47.7 while his team had an ORg south of 100 in the 2015 finals. Obviously, his teammates were injured in that series, but there's a crucial point here that I know you know:

It's not that LeBron was able to score at will against the Warriors in all circumstances.

Heck, even in 2016, it wasn't until late in the series when he gained confidence with his jumper that he really looked unstoppable.

Beyond that time, simply put, we do not have competitive series, and so the Warriors are not forced to "sell out everything else" the way they did in the 2015 finals. Not looking to talk as if LeBron wasn't an absolute master of the craft, but there's absolutely no reason to think that the Warriors couldn't have done similar things to LeBron in later years if they thought they simply had to. Sure, the fact that Kyrie & Love were other threats made the Warriors more reluctant to use such an approach and had the Warriors done so it might have resulted in even worse team results...but this is not the same thing being fundamentally unable to make a dent on a particular metric.

This is an odd comment in a number of ways.

2015 was the scoring nadir of Lebron’s prime (2009-18) in both the regular season and the postseason, and it feels very clearly tied to the back issues he had all year. The following year, Lebron rebounded as a scorer even as he had arguably the worst outside shooting season of his entire career (aside from his rookie year).

[Tangent: Shooting variance is not a totally unfair reason to be down on a regular season’s impact — although Ohayo and even yourself have shown how Lebron’s impact that year was still massive and among the highest in his entire career — but as we just saw with 2022 Curry, that type of shooting variance does not actually mean much in assessing the player, and that shooting variance is clearly distinct from being injured or otherwise playing through pain, as by all indications was the case in 2015. If Lebron shoots at his career average that season and literally makes just ten more threes all season, his true shooting jumps a full percentage and no one really has much to critique about his scoring. And if in 2013 and 2014 he does not shoot 50% on corner threes, even fewer people will just reflexively label that his clear scoring apex.]

In 2015, he is at 53% efficiency against the Celtics — a mere -1 relative defence — even with Kyrie and Love. Against the Bulls he has maybe the worst scoring series of his entire prime: 46% efficiency, with Kyrie present, on much lower volume than we will see in the Finals. And against the Hawks — a -2.5 defence — he is at 50.6% efficiency, with J.R. on enough of a hot streak that he has at least some pressure taken off of him even with Kyrie mostly absent.

So we reach the Finals. No Love. Kyrie for a game. Outside of the 2011 Finals, all his worst scoring series since 2008 have happened in this postseason. The Warriors are a -4 relative defence and on that end are captained by the greatest defender of his generation (although we have yet to truly realise that). J.R. craters, the team for large chunks of the game is running two bigs who cannot shoot at all, and the average non-Lebron scoring efficiency is 48%. The Warriors have the league’s stingiest scoring defence are capable of throwing everything they possibly can at Lebron with the full knowledge that he is the only person on this team theoretically capable of beating them with his scoring. And so Lebron puts up 36 points per game on 47.7% efficiency (while keeping his turnovers under full control too).

Contrast that with every other team, and with Lebron’s own standards in any healthy prime year, and suggesting that they solved him then but simply did not return to the strategy because of “fear of Kyrie and Love” or whatever feels woefully off the mark. All context considered, I have this pretty comfortably as Lebron’s best scoring series that year, which is both a sad reflection of what rough shape he was in and an incredible instance of elevation in the face of total adversity.

And then, of course, since this was ultimately a comparison being made with Jordan, I think it is as always worth pointing out that not only did Jordan lack the passing acumen to threaten teams the way you suggest Lebron did in any series where he did have offensive support, and not only did he never have a defensive load like what Lebron had in the 2016 Finals — to use your “rim protection = archor” shorthand, I would be remiss not to point out Lebron had a 5.9 block percentage, essentially even with Thompson and Mozgov combined — but also he never had to deal with the level of schematically permitted defensive focus that the Warriors could throw at Lebron.

Hmm, good points to bring up, but let me focus on this:

You are skeptical "fear of Kyrie and Love" made a difference. Okay, let's step back from that particular label and just note:

In the '14-15 finals, LeBron had a usage of 40.8% while the team averaged 15.8 APG.
In the '15-16 finals, LeBron had a usage of 33.4% while the team averaged 18.0 APG.

Do you truly believe this is something to be explained by LeBron having a bad back in the '14-15 finals? I don't.

No, and I never said anything like that, and I would think that obvious when the alternative logic would be “Kyrie and Love made zero difference at all to Cleveland’s offence compared to what it was in the 2015 Finals.”

This was your specific contention:

there's absolutely no reason to think that the Warriors couldn't have done similar things to LeBron in later years if they thought they simply had to.

I see that as a patently absurd one for all the reasons I listed.

I would advise against taking '93-93's performance as an accurate assessment of what the Bulls were capable of.

Now, I feel like people are going to read that and say "But didn't you say Jordan should get credit for helping motivation, and now you're saying he failed to have the same impact in '92-93 as he did in '91-92 or '95-96. Isn't that a contradiction?"

As you my guess, my answer is "No". Leadership is not a constant, linear weight.

But how are you assessing “leadership” here independent of just team success? “The best regular seasons were the ones where Jordan led the best” is not an especially rigorous standard.

And to whatever extent we want to treat that as a given anyway, does that carry over to the postseason? Because with leadership being variable and shifting, I have a hard time identifying much of a case for Jordan having better playoff leadership moments than 2015/16/18/20 Lebron? Do we not frequently mark our leaders by how they respond to adversity and inspire others? If you want to contend that some chunk of the difference in regular season results between the two is attributable to specifically Jordan’s leadership in allegedly making his teammates play harder, does that make the same sense as a carryover to the postseason?

Re: "I have a hard time identifying much of a case for Jordan having better playoff leadership moments than 2015/16/18/20 Lebron". Hmm, so first:

LeBron having great moments in leadership is true, but he also has some walkabout moments. The peaks don't mean the valleys don't exist.

But also: 2018? You mean when he had won great game, got mad at how it ended, through a punch that injured him for the rest of the series, and managed not to beat the Warriors a single time despite the fact that all 3 of the Warriors' prior opponents were able to do so? That's "great leadership" to you?

I'll say flat out that that particular moment was very informative to me in evaluating LeBron's accomplishments in these "no win" situations.

I suppose you might have thought better of him if instead of punching a wall he just punched J.R. directly.

If your primary interest in Lebron now is more for taking potshots about whether he lost in five game or in four games against an impossibly advantaged opponent that was if anything taking Lebron more seriously than any of their prior matchups (with all due respect to the Spurs and their incredible single game victory against a Curry-less Warriors team), then it would seem you do not much care whether you give people good reason to engage with you on the subject anymore.

[Doctor MJ]

Interesting. When you say film-tracking, are you saying that they have data on this, or that they just feel that Jordan had a higher error rate when he got older? I have to say, that's not what I would expect, which would make it potentially quite relevant to my analysis going forward.

Thank you for your thorough response. I'm going to cut my responses off there. If there's anything specific you wrote you really want me to respond to, please let me know.

So to answer this. First, let me clarify this is specific to First three-peat and pre-championship MJ. Blocked(the other film-tracking I'm going off) has argued the defensive relationship between first three-peat and second three-peat MJ isn't as linear as people assume. From Ben Taylor, his "mj traded athleticism for guile" specifically references second three peat MJ. Ben specifically notes 1991 as a nadir in terms of defensive errors:

But his style was still high-risk, high-reward, and his defensive error rates were on the high side, landing in the 17th percentile for the heart of his career. His highlights are impressive, but he bled value at times.

For instance, in the 1991 Finals, Jordan slowed the Magic Johnson train by picking him up in the backcourt, preventing him from building a head of steam. In the low-post, Chicago constantly doubled Magic, and although Jordan did a solid job bodying him up at times, he also struck out on a number of steal attempts:

Ben also notes a drop in activity starting in 1990:

In 1990, his motor slowed from the fever pitch he had played at for two years, and his defensive involvement tapered down a bit. He idled more, resting his engines to conserve fuel. Although, on possessions where he went full throttle, he made ball-denial an art, navigating screens (a strength of his) and shutting off passing lanes:

So Jordan is less involved but is also posting higher error rates going by Ben Taylor.

Okay, to be clear, he has said that this is a low sample size thing and not something that should be taken a definitive quantitative measure.

When I say "film-tracking' I mean the parties involved granularly tracked something happening on tape. BlockedbyBAm had her own variant but a couple caveats:
The sample is much smaller(playoffs only), her definition of breakdown is broader and, while she didn't use this specifically for MJ, she's adapted her system to be more qualitative/specific about these things:

Defensive plays are when you do something that helps the prevention of a score, even if they end up scoring anyway
GREAT DP: Rim contest, rim deterrence, (note: getting a block does not necessarily mean you should get the most credit for a defensive stoppage), charge near rim, stealing during a 2 v1, denying an entry pass that leads to an easy score, a contested defensive rebound that prevents an uncontested score ect, ect, remember to adjust for teammates!!! If a bunch of players are helping on a rim play its probably not a "great" play
GOOD DP: Being involved in a rim stop, shot contest, stonewalling a player in the perimiter, being the primary cause of a steal, winning a contested rebound ect
DECENT DP: Weaker contests, being in postion for a few secs, applying seocondary pressure, secondary help on a rebound ect, ect,
Defensive errors are when you do something that hurts your team defensively:
MAJOR BREAKDOWN: When you're primarily responsible for a really good scoring chance
MINOR BREAKDOWN: When everyone's to blame or it doesn't lead to a really good scorng chance, ect.

I don't recall the specific numbers off the top of my head, but according to blocked, Jordan made less "dp's" yet still had more breakdowns in 91 compared to 89 and 90. Blocked also noted that Pippen made more plays on the perimiter and in the paint and the ratio of dp's to db's was still better.

MJ especially struggled with dumars and Hawkins per blocked. He also struggled against Magic according to Ben.

All this also seems to be supported holistically. Jordan's D-PIPM and D-RAPM drop in the regular season and Jordan's playoff on/off drops in the postseason despite box-related stuff improving.

Okay, I get why you've come to the conclusions you have, but I remain cautious.

If there's anything specific you wrote you really want me to respond to, please let me know.

Don't feel any pressure to reply, but for posterity, and perhaps your consideration, I'd like to clarify some things where I feel there was a misunderstanding.

Re: Defense subsituting offense
My specific assertion would not be that He can trade d for o "at will", but rather that, over the course of a season, he can up his defensive value to compensate for at least some of the offense when roster or, his own, limitations(in 2015. alot of this was physical) cap his individual offensive value. I also argued that's what transpired in 2015 with granular/holistic stuff informing my position. It's not that Lebron can replace offense with defense on a whim, but rather, that he starts from a high enough place, that he can replace enough of it to still potentially be the most valuable player post-russell in a situation where his offense isn't optimized.

Okay, I can agree on the "some" statement, but would still urge caution when looking at something like 2015.

I don't think it makes much sense to act as if he was conserving energy on offense when he's got a 40% usage.

Re: most valuable since Russell when offense isn't optimized. Hmm, this is a tricky statement. My gut would be to say someone like Kevin Garnett would be a strong candidate for that specific title, and when it comes to being able to actually change the direction of his impact by changing his focus, I think it's more true of him than LeBron.

Re: Title-Belt
So I think I used an incrementalism approach when discussing seasons in the last post, specifically citing the drop-off from 16 to 17 in defensive value/activity. My claim is not so much that Lebron doesn't fluctuate, but more that Lebron starts from a high enough place, that even downward fluctuation doesn't necessarily bring him to a place where his regular seasons compare unfavorably to say, an MJ. I do think this has empirical support. I listed out the multi-year stuff, but zoning in on 2017: LBJ posts a +6.62 Regular Season RAPM which is higher than all but one year we have for MJ(1988), his d-pipm and total pipm is higher, and the "pure impact" approach looks just as favorable. Zooming out Lebron posts a +8.6 in 2015, +8.5 in 2016, and +6.5 in 2017. Via RAPM(admittedly not full samples)Jordan has one year which tops 2017(88) and no years that match 2015 or 2016 in the regular season. For a larger all-inclusive sample, unregularized data/wowy comes out less favorably for Jordan. This is also arguably better to use here than APM, besides sample, size, because it resolves a big question mark regarding cross-season rapm comparisons:

In layman terms, the process of calculating RAPM involves some math that distorts the "real scale" of the numbers in favor of accuracy. The scale is just different for each season. I prefer to use rank, and use the number itself as a rough ballpark.

ElGee's ratings are subjective, they are not subject to a formula, although the scale he uses (average player is +0, max value peaks around +7-something) leans on findings supported by +/- data.

While we're in agreement that Lebron dropped off between 2016 and 2017, I'm not sure the regular season end result is actually worse.

That being said...

Feel free to the points above if you're interested, but I think we've bridged alot of ground here and I'm satisfied with how this conversation has unfolded

I'm uncomfortable with statements giving LeBron credit for an RAPM edge over Jordan when, so far as I know, we don't have full season RAPM data for Jordan in his best years. Feel free to quote sources though, as I expect it's only a matter of time before we get more data like this.

Re: 2017, not sure the regular season result is actually worse. Huh?

Because the Cavs dropped from a top 10 RS defense to a bottom 10 RS defense, the '16-17 Cavs had an SRS less than 2 and a W-L record of 51-31, and unless I'm missing someone, there hasn't been a champion with a regular season that bad since the '94-95 Rockets.

This I think ties into the title belt thing:

You're seeing data telling you that the Cavs played like a non-contender in the RS, but because it never really felt like the Cavs were in danger of not going deep in the playoffs - in part probably because LeBron felt inevitable, but also almost certainly because the 5 best teams in the RS were all in the West (Cavs would have been a 6th seed in the West the way they played, just like that Rockets team was), it doesn't even really register.

I can certainly accept it if coasting in the RS doesn't bother you - it's absolutely something that can be called "good strategy" - but I really think you need to consider that the drop off in performance in '16-17 was significant, and was significant specifically on the end of the court where coasting happens.

I'll also say: While I'm not looking to deny the significance of the +/- data as a starting point, I think it is important not to let the physical implications of the word "impact" shape our perspective too much. It feels like "to have impact" you must be working your ass off, but in the case of someone like late Cavs LeBron when its like this, you're talking about a team that doesn't have anyone who can play the LeBron role when he's off the court, and never develops a way to optimize for the remaining players, and in RS minutes, LeBron was capable of doing his offensive thing without actually expending too much energy and he's also setting more of a coast-tone on defense which infects the entire roster.

Now, with me using words like this it sounds more negative than I intend. We're talking about someone who by any reasonable measure is having a superstar-season up there with very few other guys...but the idea that we'd perceive him as actually achieving something greater in the RS than Jordan in a year where his team is gutting out 72 games based on a regression stat, to me it just doesn't resonate.

[Doctor MJ]

I suppose you might have thought better of him if instead of punching a wall he just punched J.R. directly.

If your primary interest in Lebron now is more for taking potshots about whether he lost in five game or in four games against an impossibly advantaged opponent that was if anything taking Lebron more seriously than any of their prior matchups (with all due respect to the Spurs and their incredible single game victory against a Curry-less Warriors team), then it would seem you do not much care whether you give people good reason to engage with you on the subject anymore.

Okay, I'd say we're done here. I posted in this thread trying to ease my way back into this place by talking not about my GOAT, but about guys I could see arguments for being GOAT - in which I included LeBron.

Along the way I made clear that in 2020 I elevated LeBron to #1 on my GOAT list.

Yet, here I am again, with people just looking to make it personal, and blame someone else's bias for why someone comes to disagree with them, and is thus best dismissed sarcastically after pages and pages of writing on the subject.

Feels like there's no escaping this any more.

[OhayoKD]

Re: Title-Belt
So I think I used an incrementalism approach when discussing seasons in the last post, specifically citing the drop-off from 16 to 17 in defensive value/activity. My claim is not so much that Lebron doesn't fluctuate, but more that Lebron starts from a high enough place, that even downward fluctuation doesn't necessarily bring him to a place where his regular seasons compare unfavorably to say, an MJ. I do think this has empirical support. I listed out the multi-year stuff, but zoning in on 2017: LBJ posts a +6.62 Regular Season RAPM which is higher than all but one year we have for MJ(1988), his d-pipm and total pipm is higher, and the "pure impact" approach looks just as favorable. Zooming out Lebron posts a +8.6 in 2015, +8.5 in 2016, and +6.5 in 2017. Via RAPM(admittedly not full samples)Jordan has one year which tops 2017(88) and no years that match 2015 or 2016 in the regular season. For a larger all-inclusive sample, unregularized data/wowy comes out less favorably for Jordan. This is also arguably better to use here than APM, besides sample, size, because it resolves a big question mark regarding cross-season rapm comparisons:

In layman terms, the process of calculating RAPM involves some math that distorts the "real scale" of the numbers in favor of accuracy. The scale is just different for each season. I prefer to use rank, and use the number itself as a rough ballpark.

ElGee's ratings are subjective, they are not subject to a formula, although the scale he uses (average player is +0, max value peaks around +7-something) leans on findings supported by +/- data.

While we're in agreement that Lebron dropped off between 2016 and 2017, I'm not sure the regular season end result is actually worse.

That being said...

Feel free to the points above if you're interested, but I think we've bridged alot of ground here and I'm satisfied with how this conversation has unfolded

I'm uncomfortable with statements giving LeBron credit for an RAPM edge over Jordan when, so far as I know, we don't have full season RAPM data for Jordan in his best years. Feel free to quote sources though, as I expect it's only a matter of time before we get more data like this.

Re: 2017, not sure the regular season result is actually worse. Huh?

Because the Cavs dropped from a top 10 RS defense to a bottom 10 RS defense, the '16-17 Cavs had an SRS less than 2 and a W-L record of 51-31, and unless I'm missing someone, there hasn't been a champion with a regular season that bad since the '94-95 Rockets.

This I think ties into the title belt thing:

You're seeing data telling you that the Cavs played like a non-contender in the RS, but because it never really felt like the Cavs were in danger of not going deep in the playoffs - in part probably because LeBron felt inevitable, but also almost certainly because the 5 best teams in the RS were all in the West (Cavs would have been a 6th seed in the West the way they played, just like that Rockets team was), it doesn't even really register.

I can certainly accept it if coasting in the RS doesn't bother you - it's absolutely something that can be called "good strategy" - but I really think you need to consider that the drop off in performance in '16-17 was significant, and was significant specifically on the end of the court where coasting happens.

I'll also say: While I'm not looking to deny the significance of the +/- data as a starting point, I think it is important not to let the physical implications of the word "impact" shape our perspective too much. It feels like "to have impact" you must be working your ass off, but in the case of someone like late Cavs LeBron when its like this, you're talking about a team that doesn't have anyone who can play the LeBron role when he's off the court, and never develops a way to optimize for the remaining players, and in RS minutes, LeBron was capable of doing his offensive thing without actually expending too much energy and he's also setting more of a coast-tone on defense which infects the entire roster.

Now, with me using words like this it sounds more negative than I intend. We're talking about someone who by any reasonable measure is having a superstar-season up there with very few other guys...but the idea that we'd perceive him as actually achieving something greater in the RS than Jordan in a year where his team is gutting out 72 games based on a regression stat, to me it just doesn't resonate.

Not to be annoying. but I think there's another misunderstanding here. I was specifically thinking of 88-91, seasons which are perceived as both Jordan's defensive and holistic regular season peak. 88-91 seems like the best frame to estimate MJ's value because I think we have the best idea of the level of his supporting cast those years. Maybe its noise, but the cavs without lebron in his second stint were similar to the bulls before they drafted MJ so even a generous assumption like(the team didn't improve at all between 84 and 90!) doesn't give jordan very clear arguments against lebron's second cav stint. Always good to consider roster construction/fit tho.

72 wins is impressive, but isolating Jordan here gets tricky because Jordan was on the team before and after and then they added Dennis Rodman in the off-season. I don't really know how much of the big jump comes from Jordan or Rod but maybe you have insight there.

I know you've said you don't want to do any more responses, but I am curious how you think 96 compares to MJ's first three-peat as a regular season player. Due to the general consensus jordan was at his best from 88-93, I've mostly zeroed in on that period when trying to assess how his peak/prime stacks up.

Do not feel any pressure to reply though. I know this thread has gotten a bit heated

[falcolombardi]

Interesting. When you say film-tracking, are you saying that they have data on this, or that they just feel that Jordan had a higher error rate when he got older? I have to say, that's not what I would expect, which would make it potentially quite relevant to my analysis going forward.

Thank you for your thorough response. I'm going to cut my responses off there. If there's anything specific you wrote you really want me to respond to, please let me know.

So to answer this. First, let me clarify this is specific to First three-peat and pre-championship MJ. Blocked(the other film-tracking I'm going off) has argued the defensive relationship between first three-peat and second three-peat MJ isn't as linear as people assume. From Ben Taylor, his "mj traded athleticism for guile" specifically references second three peat MJ. Ben specifically notes 1991 as a nadir in terms of defensive errors:

But his style was still high-risk, high-reward, and his defensive error rates were on the high side, landing in the 17th percentile for the heart of his career. His highlights are impressive, but he bled value at times.

For instance, in the 1991 Finals, Jordan slowed the Magic Johnson train by picking him up in the backcourt, preventing him from building a head of steam. In the low-post, Chicago constantly doubled Magic, and although Jordan did a solid job bodying him up at times, he also struck out on a number of steal attempts:

Ben also notes a drop in activity starting in 1990:

In 1990, his motor slowed from the fever pitch he had played at for two years, and his defensive involvement tapered down a bit. He idled more, resting his engines to conserve fuel. Although, on possessions where he went full throttle, he made ball-denial an art, navigating screens (a strength of his) and shutting off passing lanes:

So Jordan is less involved but is also posting higher error rates going by Ben Taylor.

Okay, to be clear, he has said that this is a low sample size thing and not something that should be taken a definitive quantitative measure.

When I say "film-tracking' I mean the parties involved granularly tracked something happening on tape. BlockedbyBAm had her own variant but a couple caveats:
The sample is much smaller(playoffs only), her definition of breakdown is broader and, while she didn't use this specifically for MJ, she's adapted her system to be more qualitative/specific about these things:

Defensive plays are when you do something that helps the prevention of a score, even if they end up scoring anyway
GREAT DP: Rim contest, rim deterrence, (note: getting a block does not necessarily mean you should get the most credit for a defensive stoppage), charge near rim, stealing during a 2 v1, denying an entry pass that leads to an easy score, a contested defensive rebound that prevents an uncontested score ect, ect, remember to adjust for teammates!!! If a bunch of players are helping on a rim play its probably not a "great" play
GOOD DP: Being involved in a rim stop, shot contest, stonewalling a player in the perimiter, being the primary cause of a steal, winning a contested rebound ect
DECENT DP: Weaker contests, being in postion for a few secs, applying seocondary pressure, secondary help on a rebound ect, ect,
Defensive errors are when you do something that hurts your team defensively:
MAJOR BREAKDOWN: When you're primarily responsible for a really good scoring chance
MINOR BREAKDOWN: When everyone's to blame or it doesn't lead to a really good scorng chance, ect.

I don't recall the specific numbers off the top of my head, but according to blocked, Jordan made less "dp's" yet still had more breakdowns in 91 compared to 89 and 90. Blocked also noted that Pippen made more plays on the perimiter and in the paint and the ratio of dp's to db's was still better.

MJ especially struggled with dumars and Hawkins per blocked. He also struggled against Magic according to Ben.

All this also seems to be supported holistically. Jordan's D-PIPM and D-RAPM drop in the regular season and Jordan's playoff on/off drops in the postseason despite box-related stuff improving.

Okay, I get why you've come to the conclusions you have, but I remain cautious.

If there's anything specific you wrote you really want me to respond to, please let me know.

Don't feel any pressure to reply, but for posterity, and perhaps your consideration, I'd like to clarify some things where I feel there was a misunderstanding.

Re: Defense subsituting offense
My specific assertion would not be that He can trade d for o "at will", but rather that, over the course of a season, he can up his defensive value to compensate for at least some of the offense when roster or, his own, limitations(in 2015. alot of this was physical) cap his individual offensive value. I also argued that's what transpired in 2015 with granular/holistic stuff informing my position. It's not that Lebron can replace offense with defense on a whim, but rather, that he starts from a high enough place, that he can replace enough of it to still potentially be the most valuable player post-russell in a situation where his offense isn't optimized.

Okay, I can agree on the "some" statement, but would still urge caution when looking at something like 2015.

I don't think it makes much sense to act as if he was conserving energy on offense when he's got a 40% usage.

Re: most valuable since Russell when offense isn't optimized. Hmm, this is a tricky statement. My gut would be to say someone like Kevin Garnett would be a strong candidate for that specific title, and when it comes to being able to actually change the direction of his impact by changing his focus, I think it's more true of him than LeBron.

Re: Title-Belt
So I think I used an incrementalism approach when discussing seasons in the last post, specifically citing the drop-off from 16 to 17 in defensive value/activity. My claim is not so much that Lebron doesn't fluctuate, but more that Lebron starts from a high enough place, that even downward fluctuation doesn't necessarily bring him to a place where his regular seasons compare unfavorably to say, an MJ. I do think this has empirical support. I listed out the multi-year stuff, but zoning in on 2017: LBJ posts a +6.62 Regular Season RAPM which is higher than all but one year we have for MJ(1988), his d-pipm and total pipm is higher, and the "pure impact" approach looks just as favorable. Zooming out Lebron posts a +8.6 in 2015, +8.5 in 2016, and +6.5 in 2017. Via RAPM(admittedly not full samples)Jordan has one year which tops 2017(88) and no years that match 2015 or 2016 in the regular season. For a larger all-inclusive sample, unregularized data/wowy comes out less favorably for Jordan. This is also arguably better to use here than APM, besides sample, size, because it resolves a big question mark regarding cross-season rapm comparisons:

In layman terms, the process of calculating RAPM involves some math that distorts the "real scale" of the numbers in favor of accuracy. The scale is just different for each season. I prefer to use rank, and use the number itself as a rough ballpark.

ElGee's ratings are subjective, they are not subject to a formula, although the scale he uses (average player is +0, max value peaks around +7-something) leans on findings supported by +/- data.

While we're in agreement that Lebron dropped off between 2016 and 2017, I'm not sure the regular season end result is actually worse.

That being said...

Feel free to the points above if you're interested, but I think we've bridged alot of ground here and I'm satisfied with how this conversation has unfolded

I'm uncomfortable with statements giving LeBron credit for an RAPM edge over Jordan when, so far as I know, we don't have full season RAPM data for Jordan in his best years. Feel free to quote sources though, as I expect it's only a matter of time before we get more data like this.

Re: 2017, not sure the regular season result is actually worse. Huh?

Because the Cavs dropped from a top 10 RS defense to a bottom 10 RS defense, the '16-17 Cavs had an SRS less than 2 and a W-L record of 51-31, and unless I'm missing someone, there hasn't been a champion with a regular season that bad since the '94-95 Rockets.

This I think ties into the title belt thing:

You're seeing data telling you that the Cavs played like a non-contender in the RS, but because it never really felt like the Cavs were in danger of not going deep in the playoffs - in part probably because LeBron felt inevitable, but also almost certainly because the 5 best teams in the RS were all in the West (Cavs would have been a 6th seed in the West the way they played, just like that Rockets team was), it doesn't even really register.

I can certainly accept it if coasting in the RS doesn't bother you - it's absolutely something that can be called "good strategy" - but I really think you need to consider that the drop off in performance in '16-17 was significant, and was significant specifically on the end of the court where coasting happens.

I'll also say: While I'm not looking to deny the significance of the +/- data as a starting point, I think it is important not to let the physical implications of the word "impact" shape our perspective too much. It feels like "to have impact" you must be working your ass off, but in the case of someone like late Cavs LeBron when its like this, you're talking about a team that doesn't have anyone who can play the LeBron role when he's off the court, and never develops a way to optimize for the remaining players, and in RS minutes, LeBron was capable of doing his offensive thing without actually expending too much energy and he's also setting more of a coast-tone on defense which infects the entire roster.

Now, with me using words like this it sounds more negative than I intend. We're talking about someone who by any reasonable measure is having a superstar-season up there with very few other guys...but the idea that we'd perceive him as actually achieving something greater in the RS than Jordan in a year where his team is gutting out 72 games based on a regression stat, to me it just doesn't resonate.

Feels like this discussion is getting a bit too loose as 1996 is not a jordan peak year.

Jordan peak years like 89-90 the bulls actuallt won less games that the 17 cavs and not for jordan lack of trying

But in general i am not a huge fan of correlating "best team record=best regular season player" so directly. Or diminishing impact metrics

For examplem Jordan was not a significatively worse player in 93 regular season than 92, yet the reg seasom was a lot worse for the bulls. Did he become a worse leader that year? Fire up his teammates less?

I honestly dont think so.

[OhayoKD]

So to answer this. First, let me clarify this is specific to First three-peat and pre-championship MJ. Blocked(the other film-tracking I'm going off) has argued the defensive relationship between first three-peat and second three-peat MJ isn't as linear as people assume. From Ben Taylor, his "mj traded athleticism for guile" specifically references second three peat MJ. Ben specifically notes 1991 as a nadir in terms of defensive errors:

Ben also notes a drop in activity starting in 1990:

So Jordan is less involved but is also posting higher error rates going by Ben Taylor.

Okay, to be clear, he has said that this is a low sample size thing and not something that should be taken a definitive quantitative measure.

When I say "film-tracking' I mean the parties involved granularly tracked something happening on tape. BlockedbyBAm had her own variant but a couple caveats:
The sample is much smaller(playoffs only), her definition of breakdown is broader and, while she didn't use this specifically for MJ, she's adapted her system to be more qualitative/specific about these things:


I don't recall the specific numbers off the top of my head, but according to blocked, Jordan made less "dp's" yet still had more breakdowns in 91 compared to 89 and 90. Blocked also noted that Pippen made more plays on the perimiter and in the paint and the ratio of dp's to db's was still better.

MJ especially struggled with dumars and Hawkins per blocked. He also struggled against Magic according to Ben.

All this also seems to be supported holistically. Jordan's D-PIPM and D-RAPM drop in the regular season and Jordan's playoff on/off drops in the postseason despite box-related stuff improving.

Okay, I get why you've come to the conclusions you have, but I remain cautious.

Don't feel any pressure to reply, but for posterity, and perhaps your consideration, I'd like to clarify some things where I feel there was a misunderstanding.

Re: Defense subsituting offense
My specific assertion would not be that He can trade d for o "at will", but rather that, over the course of a season, he can up his defensive value to compensate for at least some of the offense when roster or, his own, limitations(in 2015. alot of this was physical) cap his individual offensive value. I also argued that's what transpired in 2015 with granular/holistic stuff informing my position. It's not that Lebron can replace offense with defense on a whim, but rather, that he starts from a high enough place, that he can replace enough of it to still potentially be the most valuable player post-russell in a situation where his offense isn't optimized.

Okay, I can agree on the "some" statement, but would still urge caution when looking at something like 2015.

I don't think it makes much sense to act as if he was conserving energy on offense when he's got a 40% usage.

Re: most valuable since Russell when offense isn't optimized. Hmm, this is a tricky statement. My gut would be to say someone like Kevin Garnett would be a strong candidate for that specific title, and when it comes to being able to actually change the direction of his impact by changing his focus, I think it's more true of him than LeBron.

Re: Title-Belt
So I think I used an incrementalism approach when discussing seasons in the last post, specifically citing the drop-off from 16 to 17 in defensive value/activity. My claim is not so much that Lebron doesn't fluctuate, but more that Lebron starts from a high enough place, that even downward fluctuation doesn't necessarily bring him to a place where his regular seasons compare unfavorably to say, an MJ. I do think this has empirical support. I listed out the multi-year stuff, but zoning in on 2017: LBJ posts a +6.62 Regular Season RAPM which is higher than all but one year we have for MJ(1988), his d-pipm and total pipm is higher, and the "pure impact" approach looks just as favorable. Zooming out Lebron posts a +8.6 in 2015, +8.5 in 2016, and +6.5 in 2017. Via RAPM(admittedly not full samples)Jordan has one year which tops 2017(88) and no years that match 2015 or 2016 in the regular season. For a larger all-inclusive sample, unregularized data/wowy comes out less favorably for Jordan. This is also arguably better to use here than APM, besides sample, size, because it resolves a big question mark regarding cross-season rapm comparisons:

While we're in agreement that Lebron dropped off between 2016 and 2017, I'm not sure the regular season end result is actually worse.

That being said...

Feel free to the points above if you're interested, but I think we've bridged alot of ground here and I'm satisfied with how this conversation has unfolded

I'm uncomfortable with statements giving LeBron credit for an RAPM edge over Jordan when, so far as I know, we don't have full season RAPM data for Jordan in his best years. Feel free to quote sources though, as I expect it's only a matter of time before we get more data like this.

Re: 2017, not sure the regular season result is actually worse. Huh?

Because the Cavs dropped from a top 10 RS defense to a bottom 10 RS defense, the '16-17 Cavs had an SRS less than 2 and a W-L record of 51-31, and unless I'm missing someone, there hasn't been a champion with a regular season that bad since the '94-95 Rockets.

This I think ties into the title belt thing:

You're seeing data telling you that the Cavs played like a non-contender in the RS, but because it never really felt like the Cavs were in danger of not going deep in the playoffs - in part probably because LeBron felt inevitable, but also almost certainly because the 5 best teams in the RS were all in the West (Cavs would have been a 6th seed in the West the way they played, just like that Rockets team was), it doesn't even really register.

I can certainly accept it if coasting in the RS doesn't bother you - it's absolutely something that can be called "good strategy" - but I really think you need to consider that the drop off in performance in '16-17 was significant, and was significant specifically on the end of the court where coasting happens.

I'll also say: While I'm not looking to deny the significance of the +/- data as a starting point, I think it is important not to let the physical implications of the word "impact" shape our perspective too much. It feels like "to have impact" you must be working your ass off, but in the case of someone like late Cavs LeBron when its like this, you're talking about a team that doesn't have anyone who can play the LeBron role when he's off the court, and never develops a way to optimize for the remaining players, and in RS minutes, LeBron was capable of doing his offensive thing without actually expending too much energy and he's also setting more of a coast-tone on defense which infects the entire roster.

Now, with me using words like this it sounds more negative than I intend. We're talking about someone who by any reasonable measure is having a superstar-season up there with very few other guys...but the idea that we'd perceive him as actually achieving something greater in the RS than Jordan in a year where his team is gutting out 72 games based on a regression stat, to me it just doesn't resonate.

Feels like this discussion is getting a bit too loose as 1996 is not a jordan peak year.

Jordan peak years like 89-90 the bulls actuallt won less games that the 17 cavs and not for jordan lack of trying

But in general i am not a huge fan of correlating "best team record=best regular season player" so directly. Or diminishing impact metrics

For examplem Jordan was not a significatively worse player in 93 regular season than 92, yet the reg seasom was a lot worse for the bulls. Did he become a worse leader that year? Fire up his teammates less?

I honestly dont think so.

TBF, Doc did acknowledge the 92-93 drop off:

Now, I feel like people are going to read that and say "But didn't you say Jordan should get credit for helping motivation, and now you're saying he failed to have the same impact in '92-93 as he did in '91-92 or '95-96. Isn't that a contradiction?" As you my guess, my answer is "No". Leadership is not a constant, linear weight.

[falcolombardi]

Okay, to be clear, he has said that this is a low sample size thing and not something that should be taken a definitive quantitative measure.



Okay, I get why you've come to the conclusions you have, but I remain cautious.



Okay, I can agree on the "some" statement, but would still urge caution when looking at something like 2015.

I don't think it makes much sense to act as if he was conserving energy on offense when he's got a 40% usage.

Re: most valuable since Russell when offense isn't optimized. Hmm, this is a tricky statement. My gut would be to say someone like Kevin Garnett would be a strong candidate for that specific title, and when it comes to being able to actually change the direction of his impact by changing his focus, I think it's more true of him than LeBron.



I'm uncomfortable with statements giving LeBron credit for an RAPM edge over Jordan when, so far as I know, we don't have full season RAPM data for Jordan in his best years. Feel free to quote sources though, as I expect it's only a matter of time before we get more data like this.

Re: 2017, not sure the regular season result is actually worse. Huh?

Because the Cavs dropped from a top 10 RS defense to a bottom 10 RS defense, the '16-17 Cavs had an SRS less than 2 and a W-L record of 51-31, and unless I'm missing someone, there hasn't been a champion with a regular season that bad since the '94-95 Rockets.

This I think ties into the title belt thing:

You're seeing data telling you that the Cavs played like a non-contender in the RS, but because it never really felt like the Cavs were in danger of not going deep in the playoffs - in part probably because LeBron felt inevitable, but also almost certainly because the 5 best teams in the RS were all in the West (Cavs would have been a 6th seed in the West the way they played, just like that Rockets team was), it doesn't even really register.

I can certainly accept it if coasting in the RS doesn't bother you - it's absolutely something that can be called "good strategy" - but I really think you need to consider that the drop off in performance in '16-17 was significant, and was significant specifically on the end of the court where coasting happens.

I'll also say: While I'm not looking to deny the significance of the +/- data as a starting point, I think it is important not to let the physical implications of the word "impact" shape our perspective too much. It feels like "to have impact" you must be working your ass off, but in the case of someone like late Cavs LeBron when its like this, you're talking about a team that doesn't have anyone who can play the LeBron role when he's off the court, and never develops a way to optimize for the remaining players, and in RS minutes, LeBron was capable of doing his offensive thing without actually expending too much energy and he's also setting more of a coast-tone on defense which infects the entire roster.

Now, with me using words like this it sounds more negative than I intend. We're talking about someone who by any reasonable measure is having a superstar-season up there with very few other guys...but the idea that we'd perceive him as actually achieving something greater in the RS than Jordan in a year where his team is gutting out 72 games based on a regression stat, to me it just doesn't resonate.

Feels like this discussion is getting a bit too loose as 1996 is not a jordan peak year.

Jordan peak years like 89-90 the bulls actuallt won less games that the 17 cavs and not for jordan lack of trying

But in general i am not a huge fan of correlating "best team record=best regular season player" so directly. Or diminishing impact metrics

For examplem Jordan was not a significatively worse player in 93 regular season than 92, yet the reg seasom was a lot worse for the bulls. Did he become a worse leader that year? Fire up his teammates less?

I honestly dont think so.

TBF, Doc did acknowledge the 92-93 drop off:

Now, I feel like people are going to read that and say "But didn't you say Jordan should get credit for helping motivation, and now you're saying he failed to have the same impact in '92-93 as he did in '91-92 or '95-96. Isn't that a contradiction?" As you my guess, my answer is "No". Leadership is not a constant, linear weight.

Fair enough, big overachieving regular seasons like 2009 cavs or 96 bulls have a lot of motivation going on

I just wouldnt give the star player the full credit (or blame) for the whole team attitude in each year

[OhayoKD]

Feels like this discussion is getting a bit too loose as 1996 is not a jordan peak year.

Jordan peak years like 89-90 the bulls actuallt won less games that the 17 cavs and not for jordan lack of trying

But in general i am not a huge fan of correlating "best team record=best regular season player" so directly. Or diminishing impact metrics

For examplem Jordan was not a significatively worse player in 93 regular season than 92, yet the reg seasom was a lot worse for the bulls. Did he become a worse leader that year? Fire up his teammates less?

I honestly dont think so.

TBF, Doc did acknowledge the 92-93 drop off:

Now, I feel like people are going to read that and say "But didn't you say Jordan should get credit for helping motivation, and now you're saying he failed to have the same impact in '92-93 as he did in '91-92 or '95-96. Isn't that a contradiction?" As you my guess, my answer is "No". Leadership is not a constant, linear weight.

Fair enough, big overachieving regular seasons like 2009 cavs or 96 bulls have a lot of motivation going on

I just wouldnt give the star player the full credit (or blame) for the whole team attitude in each year

Yea that's reasonable. Tricky part is establishing what is "overperformance" and what is just carrying.