Due to retirements or injury, Jordan only had 11 quality years including his rookie season. 1985, 1987-1993, and 1996-1998.
By 2018, when Ben Taylor made his Backpicks list LeBron had 14 quality seasons (not including the 2018 playoffs): 2005-2018
My question is this: Why did Ben Taylor think Jordan's 11 seasons were worth more than 3 extra prime LeBron seasons?
In his write-up Taylor said stuff like this:
Instead, James is the greatest floor-raiser in NBA history, able to do more with spare parts than anyone ever by simultaneously bolstering an offense while upgrading the defense.
The best four-year offenses in NBA history have finished about 7 points ahead of the league. At full-strength, Nash’s Suns were nearly 10 points better from 2005-08, although they were small-balling lineups at the expense of defense. LeBron’s teams downsized at times too, and his best full-strength four-year offense was +8.1 (2013-16), in the upper stratosphere historically.
James is, arguably, the king of overall plus-minus stats. 2018 is the 25th season of league-wide plus-minus data, which covers nearly 40 percent of the shot-clock era and touches 12 of the top-20 players on this list. None have achieved LeBron’s heights: He holds four of the top-five scaled APM seasons on record, and six of the top eight. Since 2007, 10 of his 11 years land in the 99th percentile.
Of course, James also ranks among the box score titans, tallying points like a pinball machine while playing quarterback. (A style approximated by James Harden today.) His statistical peak came in his original Cleveland days, hybridizing Magic-like table-setting with Jordan’s scoring. Only Steph Curry’s three-year regular season peak covers more real estate on the Big 4 box diamond featured in this series. In the postseason, LeBron’s Cleveland numbers trailed only Jordan, and his line in Miami matched Curry’s efficiency:
I keep invoking Nash, another ball-dominant engine like James, but LeBron is different in a handful of ways. Both have generated excellent results surrounded by shooters and pick-and-roll dance partners, but James maintains greater value next to other ball-dominant players (like Wade and Irving) thanks to his post game, offensive rebounding and thunderous cuts to the rim. This is a versatility advantage that makes LeBron a more valuable player in a wider variety of lineups and roles, which in turn makes him slightly more scalable (because better teams often come with other on-ball stars).
In total, Jordan is the only comparable perimeter peak in history, although James’s defense was slightly more impressive at its apex. Eight of LeBron’s last nine seasons are all-time level campaigns, pairing either good or great defense with transcendent offense.
So, to summarize: James is the greatest floor-raiser, he's also a historic ceiling-raiser, he's a king of overall plus-minus and box score stats, he's scalable + portable because of his ability to fit in a wide variety of contexts even with other ball-dominant players, and the only comparable peak is Jordan.
But at the veeery end, Ben Taylor writes this:
In a few weeks, he will likely move to No. 2 on this list. If I had fewer reservations about his ball-dominance scaling (and his lack of spot-up shooting), he’d be a spot higher already, and I do think he has an outside argument as the highest-peak player in NBA history.
Ben Taylor can't really be saying that his concern about LeBron's spot-up shooting means that 14 prime LeBron seasons brings his value down below 11 prime Jordan seasons...right?
What am I missing here?
I'm not interested in the GOAT debate. I don't have a GOAT, only a list of GOAT candidates. I'm only interested in understanding Ben Taylor's methodology.
