How many rings do you think Lebron would have won with Durant's teams.

[Djoker]

He probably threepeats with the Warriors (2017-2019) and gets one with OKC (probably 2016).

[Cavsfansince84]

Sort of silly to compare the two imo. LeBron has just won so much more as the centerpiece of teams(which KD hasn't really done yet imo). KD is still top 20 all time but LeBron is one of the few guys in nba history that you can give most any decent supporting cast and expect them to contend because of how many ways he can lift a team. Same as MJ, KAJ and a few others. KD gives a team good scoring lift but he's not a leader and wasn't assertive enough as a scorer for a lot of his career given his talents.

[rand]

Three are locks: 2017-2019. 2016 is probable. Every other season is questionable at best.

2012 KD was a pretty massive downgrade even relative to 2014 KD imo who i'd probably put on par with 2006-2008 Lebron. Think in much of the same way people ignore the playmaking improvement to undersell nets Durant, people overlook how limited KD was outside of scoring in his "pre-prime". Replacing 2012 KD with almost any prime top 30 year leads to an immediate improvement imo and Miami are probably not surviving the injury stuff they faced vs Boston leading to a relatively easy finals opponent. That 2012 team also did not lack for spacing the way later teams would.

As for 2016(and 2014), I can get why you'd be questionable on Lebron-Westbrook in theory, but I think the "extent" of the penalty is being overstated, especially if we reference what happened the season before...

Whether 2012 KD was a massive downgrade relative to 2014 KD in a vacuum isn't relevant since what actually happened in the 2012 playoffs was KD was extremely effective and that level of effectiveness is what 2008 LeBron is hypothetically replacing. In order for LeBron to make the difference in winning a title for the 2012 Thunder, his level of effectiveness has to beat what 2012 KD produced by a margin that equals the gap between how well the 2012 Thunder historically did and how well they would have needed to do in order to win a championship. Was 2008 LeBron actually better at all --- for the team OKC was putting on the court --- than the level of performance turned in by 2012 KD in the playoffs? LeBron certainly stands to bring much less effective scoring (30.0 PPG, .568 TS% in the regular season which is taken here because presenting his even worse scoring stats from the playoffs would be unfair to LeBron since half that sample comes against the historically elite Celtics defense) than what 2012 KD brought (28.2 PPG, .632 TS%) in the playoffs. He would have brought better playmaking but this highlights the redundancy with Westbrook.

Remember, in replacing KD in a given season LeBron does not automatically get to beat the teams KD historically beat. Those games have to be re-run, which analytically presents a certain probability in each round that LeBron loses. In 2017-2019 that probability is negligible. That is not the case in most seasons. Take 2012 for example. Let's say 2008 LeBron would have been as good for OKC as 2012 KD was, which I think is false but let's go with it for the sake of argument, and then assign win probabilities for each round under the working assumption that OKC faces the same opponents they did historically:

1st round (Mavs): OKC swept Dallas but three of the wins were very close (1 pt, 3pts, 6pts) which indicates their win probability was not actually near 100%. But regardless let's give them a 95% win probability suggesting that if this series is played 20 times OKC loses only once. I think this is a very conservative assumption for my argument.

2nd round (Lakers): OKC won in 5 with two close games though the overall Rtg margin in this series was actually significantly larger than the first round (10.8 vs 7.2) which indicates the gap between the two teams was actually larger in this matchup than in OKC's first round sweep over Dallas. Let's again assign a 95% win probability, which I again say is very conservative.

3rd round (Spurs): OKC won in 6 with a +4.8 Rtg margin. All of the games in the series were single-digit margins except OKC's Game 3 win. KD was extremely effective (29.5 PPG, .662 TS%), presenting a high bar for 2008 LeBron to clear. I'll assign a 60% win probability for OKC here, though I doubt LeBron would have played as well vs SA as KD did.

4th round (Heat): Here we have a triple hypothetical clouding the issue: swapping 2012 KD with 2008 LeBron on the Thunder, swapping 2012 LeBron with 2012 KD on the Heat, and the possibility that in the latter exchange Miami doesn't even make the Finals. By the numbers Boston would be a less imposing opponent for the 2008 LeBron-led 2012 Thunder than the Heat but we know how Cavs LeBron struggled against those Celtic defenses. For argument's sake let's disregard Boston and only consider the 2008 LeBron-led Thunder vs the 2012 KD-led Heat.

Miami won the series in 5 with +4.5 Rtg differential despite KD ripping them for 30.6 PPG on .650 TS%. Let's say 2008 LeBron manages to be as effective in the series as 2012 KD was. In that case I'll assign a 40% win probability to OKC, mirroring the probability from the Spurs series.

Now let's aggregate these probabilities to produce the odds the 2008 LeBron-led Thunder win the title:

0.95 * 0.95 * 0.6 * 0.4 = 0.22, which rounds down to the 0.2 ring shares I originally assigned them. Note that one has to disagree sharply with some component of my analysis to substantially affect this outcome. For instance if we say LeBron actually exceeds what 2012 KD produced in these series by a significant enough margin to bump OKC's win probabilities to 70% vs the Spurs and 50% vs Miami, the title probability still only bumps up to 31.5%, rounding down to 0.3 ring shares.

Westbrook gives massively diminished returns with LeBron relative to with Durant. Nor does LeBronball work very well with OKC's mediocre shooting.

Okay, but a weaker version of Lebron was able to lead a +10 PSRS team, sweep a 60-win opponent, and push the 67-win warriors with terrible shooting and delladova as the second banana. Westbrook-Lebron might lead to some diminishing returns, but Lebron can probably replicate or better his defensive stuff in 2015 if he focused to that end, and as we've seen with wade, Lebron can still do a job on offense paired with similar players. You're talking about a team that took a 70-win team to a woodshed and was a game away from beating the 73 win warriors. You don't think replacing one of the worst examples of playoff-dropping from an arguable top 20er, with a strong most valuable season ever case bridges the gap?

In this scenario where they swap places, the 2016 cavs are probably outright an afterthought. With all the time KD missed, and how bad the cavs were without Lebron those years, the cavs may not be a lock for the playoffs and are realistically not a threat to the okc-spurs-warriors triad.

What does 2015 LeBron have to do with the fit between LeBron and Westbrook in this hypothetical? You've gotten confused by the timeframes here. Remember, each of these OKC teams are getting the version of LeBron from four seasons before. So the 2015 Thunder are getting 2011 LeBron, which obviously should change the analysis significantly. I think you've also got the timeframes confused with regard to the 2016 Cavs and the time KD supposedly missed. 2016 KD played 72 games. Had the 2012 LeBron-led 2016 Thunder made the Finals and faced the 2016 Cavs with KD/Kyrie/Love, they would not have been facing a pushover.

That said, it doesn't really matter which version of LeBron we're taking, the point which you concede is that the LeBron/Westbrook pairing does present non-negligible diminished returns due to the reduced need/opportunity for Westbrook's playmaking. The redundancy is not total of course, Westbrook is still a tremendous player and will have opportunities to make plays, but it contributes at least some marginal drag on whatever effectiveness gap exists between each version of LeBron and Durant, though the drag actually is on Westbrook's effectiveness rather than LeBron's.

If we take the historical offensive value of Westbrook alongside Durant while dominating the playmaking as Westbrook's baseline, Westbrook's offensive value goes down to 80% (or 90% or whatever) playing alongside LeBron instead. That has to be factored in when assessing how much value the Thunder actually get from replacing Durant with LeBron. A given version of LeBron may be worth 150% of the corresponding version of KD (or 175%, or whatever) but when Westbrook's reduced value is factored in OKC might only get 135% of KD's value.

I see the LeBron-led Thunder winning in 2016 since they were so close and 2012 LeBron in a vacuum is a clear upgrade over 2016 Durant but the other Thunder teams are doubtful.

I'm pretty sure you can make a weaker version of the 2016 case for 2014. The Thunder came close to a game 7 vs the Spurs(lost in overtime) and 2010 Lebron is a pretty seismic upgrade in a vacuum. None of the teams they're facing really have the personnel to replicate what Boston managed, and even if they did, Westbrook was garnering comparable attention to Durant in the Spurs WCF so I'd guess we get something more 2009-like. You also can probably win the first-seed outright with the RS upgrade giving you the advantage of home-court.

The point differential is daunting(10.5), but most of that was based on a single blow-out. And in a more absolute sense, OKC were knocking on the door.

Not a lock, but I'd sort it into possible. Obviously if you get past SAS, the Heat(or maybe the pacers in this case) should be easy cooking.

You are mistaken on "most" of that 10.5 point differential (11.1 Rtg differential) coming from a single blow-out. Aside from the OT Game 6, all of OKC's losses were by large margins: 17 in Game 1, 35 in Game 2 and 18 in Game 5. All of these games were at San Antonio, as a hypothetical Game 7 would have been. Both of OKC's wins and their only close loss all came at home. What it boils down to is OKC was probably a substantial real underdog in that matchup. If that series is played 10 times I think OKC would be very fortunate to win 3 of them. I should note that KD was not anywhere near as effective in this series as he was in 2012 so the actual value bar 2010 LeBron would need to clear would not be so high but it would still have to clear that bar by a giant margin to give OKC parity with the Spurs. If we take what 2010 LeBron did vs 2010 Boston (#5 DRtg) as a proxy for what he would have done vs 2014 San Antonio (#3 DRtg), he doesn't clear what 2014 KD brought vs SA by much at all, at least offensively. But let's allow that LeBron does substantially improve OKC's victory odds to 40% (an increase of 133%) and perform another aggregate title odds analysis:

1st round (Grizzlies) OKC won in 7 with +5.8 Rtg, Durant was mediocre (29.9 PPG, .543 TS%) = 90% odds to win with 2010 LeBron

2nd round (Clippers) OKC won in 6 with +0.9 Rtg, Durant was exceptional (33.2 PPG, .610 TS%) = 60% odds to win with 2010 LeBron

3rd round (Spurs) OKC lost in 6 with -11.1 Rtg, Durant was mediocre (25.8 PPG, .560 TS%) = 40% odds to win with 2010 LeBron

4th round (Heat? Pacers?) with no historical result to use as a baseline this one is a shot in the dark but let's give them 65% odds to win a Finals with 2010 LeBron.

Aggregated odds to win the title: 0.9 * 0.6 * 0.4 * 0.65 = 14.0%, rounding down to 0.1 ring shares which happens to be what I originally assigned.

Note that although you can't verify this, I didn't doctor these approximate win odds to match the ring shares I originally assigned. And again, I expect you disagree with one or more of the odds I assigned but you have to disagree by a gargantuan extent to convert the 0.1 ring share I gave the 2010 LeBron-led 2014 Thunder to the 0.5 ring share you gave them. It would have to look something like 95%, 85%, 75%, 85% which would be absurd.

I have no idea how OP thinks the 2021 Nets automatically get through Milwaukee.

Well for one, by just about any measure known to man, 2016-2017 Lebron was a vastly better player. Durant was superhuman for Durant standards in a couple of games, but as someone who has defended Nets Durant a-plenty, you're really overhyping this.

KD was superhuman in that series

He was superhuman for like one game, and very good in two others. 16-17 Lebron was more superhuman against the greatest team ever, and mantained that for the entire postseason. Really, he mantained that for 3 straight-postseasons including 3-straight finals against the greatest team ever. And even when he wasn't so superhuman from a scoring perspective in 2015, he was superhuman at the "winning" bit posting nigh unrivalled impact on the back of absurd playmaking(even by lebron standards) with phenomenal defense(by non-big standards). Really 15-18 Lebron as a whole was substantially more superhuman than Durant was vs the Bucks, let alone 16-17 Lebron who went nova on the greatest team of all time.

Losing in 7 games in a series where they actually had a +2.9 Rtg differential indicates that Brooklyn probably had at least a 50% chance to win that series, probably well over 50% before injuries. But in order to convert what was a toss up into an automatic Nets victory, ie make the Nets a 95%+ favorite, the gap between what 2017 LeBron would give Brooklyn in that series has to exceed what 2021 KD gave them by a margin that's something like the gap between a 2nd Team All-NBA level player and the best player in the league. 2017 LeBron holds up the back end of that equation but 2021 KD in that series gave the Nets an MVP level performance. So even if we grant a gap between what 2021 KD did in that series (35.4 PPG, .594 TS% with trash support) and what 2017 LeBron would do, I find it ridiculous to claim a gap that large. KD's series stats, great as they are, don't do justice to how well he played. More on that below.

and most of his teammates were trash.

Yeah, uh. Not sure what you're basing this off? Durant was outscored(similar volume, worse effiency) by Giannis in 2 games with a fully healthy and functional kyrie Irving. He also benefitted from Bud, for some reason I'm still trying to fathom, sending doubles to Harden and leaving Durant in single coverage in games 6 and 7. Durant's teammates also outshot Giannis's, and crucially, for the four games where Durant had "no help", he only walked away with one win. Ironically, Lebron probably is a much better fit for that nets team than Durant is, as he's much better at juicing up shooters, and he can function as a defensive anchor. We saw Lebron perform better four times in a row against a much better opponent with significantly less help. The Bucks are probably cooked.

First, you have quite an uphill task to show that KD benefitted from a coaching edge in that series with Nash as his team's coach and Bud as the other team's coach. I'll just leave that there because elaborating should not be necessary.

Second, it's not surprising that KD's scoring goes down in the games Kyrie played since he doesn't need to carry as large of a load alongside Kyrie. And more to the point, in the 3.5 games Kyrie played the Nets were +40 point differential. There's good reason to believe if Kyrie hadn't gotten hurt the Nets would have prevailed and of course I expect that would have been true if you swap KD with 2017 LeBron. The question is whether the swap would have allowed the Nets to prevail after Kyrie goes down and the walking wounded Harden took the court (Harden suffers from the same diminished value alongside LeBron that any facilitator does, and since facilitating was practically the only source of positive value Harden brought to that series, that's a big problem...but let's wave it off). This is where KD's performance becomes truly impressive because as 2015 LeBron showed, single-handedly carrying a team in playoff games against a championship caliber opponent is extremely difficult and often results in depressed stat lines. Instead KD responded with a Game 5 for the ages (statistically arguably better than any in LeBron's entire playoff career) and a Game 7 that had KD's toe not been on the line would also have gone down as an all-time great performance. KD's Game 7 stat line ended up being not very impressive because he went 0/6 in OT at the end of a game he went wire-to-wire (53 minutes) at the end of a series where he played 299 minutes including the last 3.5 games with zero support. In regulation of Game 7 KD went for 48 on .698 TS% and made the game tying buzzer beater, essentially replicating Game 5 with only a few less assists.

That said, I'll concede that superhuman is not a fitting description for the balance of games KD played in that series, even though the average comes out quite impressively. Instead I'll substitute this statement: if you inserted 2017 LeBron for KD starting at the point Kyrie was injured, it is highly unlikely the Nets win and it's entirely possible they either don't reach 7 games or don't reach OT in Game 7. The obvious candidate for a game LeBron might have flipped is Game 3 where Kyrie played and the Nets lost close with Durant shooting poorly, but even if you flip this game it's not assured the Nets win since LeBron might have failed to carry Brooklyn to victory in Game 5 or flip any other losses.

Bottom line is with Kyrie fated (for our purposes) to be injured, the series was a toss up with 2021 KD playing like an MVP. Swap KD for 2017 LeBron and I'll grant the Nets odds of winning go up, but the point was they do not come close to automatic victory. The best I'll grant is LeBron converts a series where Brooklyn was a coin flip to one where they win 67% of the time. More on how that affects their 2021 title odds below.

Far from a guarantee that the LeBron-led 2021 Nets beat the Suns either.

Eh? They had their hands full with the Kawhi-less clippers and lost to an extremely flawed Bucks side. Again, we're talking about a guy who can sweep 60-win teams with Matthew delladova in off-years. Now we're giving him a much better shot, much better spacing, and better teammates. Maybe it's not a "lock", but it's at least "probable" imo.

First, "60-win teams" doesn't mean much at all. There are no shortage of teams in NBA history that were well situated to rack up regular season wins but whose playoff strength was comparatively low, and vice-versa. The 2015 Hawks were not an impressive playoff opponent despite their 60 regular season wins while the 2012 Celtics were an impressive playoff opponent despite their 48* wins (actually 39 wins but in a 66 game season). I apprehend you are sophisticated enough to know this and I'll pardon the attempt to propagandistically pump a team that should be a massive underdog against any legit Finals contender.

That dispensed with, you once again concede my point regarding the Suns. I agree that the 2017 LeBron-led 2021 Nets should be significant favorites over the 2021 Suns but it is far from a guarantee. That was my entire point. How big a favorite the Nets should be is something we can haggle over, but Phoenix's strong showing against a legit champion Bucks team shows they would have been no pushover. It took an all-time great performance by Giannis to give Milwaukee a 6 game win with a 2.5 Rtg differential. Who knows what could have been if Giannis hadn't come up with one of the very greatest performances in NBA history in Game 6.

The 2022 Nets might get past Boston given that they were in every game despite KD playing terribly but since they were swept, it's a bit too much for me to say they automatically win with LeBron. They might be favorites over a Middleton-less Bucks but they still have to contend with Giannis who would still crush them defensively. I don't like them vs GS given how weak the Nets are defensively but they would have a chance.

Well you're replacing Durant with a much better player again and the margin was close. Warriors were fairly impressive champions though so I'd sort this into "possible". Love Giannis, but Lebron would be working with a much more talented team. 2018 Lebron can't really boost the defense, but he can probably at least hold his own here. That being said, Kyrie is a wild-card so eh.

Boston lost in 6 with a -4.2 Rtg differential, which is pretty close although not a single one of their losses was by single-digits. They were in the Warriors ball-park but clearly significantly behind, which is what I think the Nets would have been with LeBron. So let's do one more title odds aggregation:

Round 1 (Celtics) Brooklyn was swept but only with a -4.8 Rtg differential while KD was awful so with 2018 LeBron instead I'll make the Nets a significant but not overwhelming favorite. 60% sounds about right, which I estimate would make LeBron's impact on the order of +10 pts per 100.

Round 2 (Bucks) No Middleton would make the Bucks a clear underdog but far from hopeless since they still have the rest of their title team including Giannis who struggled vs Boston but murdered Brooklyn in the regular season. LeBron's Nets are again a favorite here but not a crushing one. 75% seems like a very conservative (ie pro-LeBron) estimate.

Round 3 (Heat) Miami seemed to be swinging above their weight to push Boston to 7 games. If that series is replayed 10 times I'd estimate the Celtics would have won 7 of them and I'm willing to give the 2018 LeBron-led Nets a slightly better margin, 75%.

Round 4 (Warriors) As discussed above, the Nets are a fairly close underdog here. To be conservative I'll make it practically a toss-up at 45% though I expect their real odds would not have been quite that good.

Aggregated: 0.6 * 0.75 * 0.75 * 0.45 = 15.2%, which rounds up to the 0.2 ring shares I assigned them.

If you don't mind, I'll just put my own ratings in bold next to yours. Feel free to dispute

Ring shares per season (1.0 = 100% chance of a ring, 0.5 = 50% chance of a ring, 0.0 = 0% chance of a ring)

2008 Thunder = 0.0
2009 Thunder = 0.0
2010 Thunder = 0.1 (lost to champ Lakers with KD getting squelched; maybe 2006 LeBron does better but even if they win they still have to get through the rest of the field) 0.4 (2010 was an unusually weak field with the celtics and lakers as the finalists. Durant isn't all that until 2013.)
2011 Thunder = 0.1 (if they somehow get through the buzzsaw Mavs they'd have a very tough matchup vs the 2011 Heat) 0.2 Big upgrade imo, but Mavs are a buzz-saw. Heat aren't scary if you're putting baby-durant instead of Lebron though
2012 Thunder = 0.2 (may lose in the West field as KD played fantastic; if they made the Finals it would be a tough series vs Miami) .8 (Saying KD played "fantastic" is scoring blindness me thinks. Lebron is a much better player and the Heat aren't really a threat if you swap Lebron for Durant. Injuries also probably leave the Celtics as your finals opponent
2013 Thunder = 0.0 (no chance with such poor support, probably still don't get past Memphis) 0.0. The 2013 Spurs are a bridge too far
2014 Thunder = 0.1 0.5. aforementioned reasons
2015 Thunder = 0.3 0.8, Prime Westbrook and Lebron is probably enough, see the 2015 Cavs and 2016 Thunder for reference
2016 Thunder = 0.7 1, for aforementioned reasons
2017 Warriors = 1.0 1.0, duh
2018 Warriors = 1.0 1.0, also duh
2019 Warriors = 1.0 0.7, injuries make things dicey and if the Bucks find a way, they're a very scary matchup
2020 Nets = 0.5 0.7, Could be done but the Heat, the Bucks, Nuggets, Celtics, and the Raptors are all formidable challenges for a one-star team. This is my pick for best modern peak ever though...so
2021 Nets = 0.3 0.8. Honestly your weirdest scoring choice imo
2022 Nets = 0.2 0.3, Don't see the bucks as that imposing

Total ring shares = 5.5. So I say either 5 or 6 rings. 8.2, so I guess that rounds down to 8

It's worth noting that KD himself might have 1-3 more rings if it weren't for his own injuries. 2019 for sure, possibly 2015 and 2020 as well.I give him no chance vs the 2020 Lakers, and he's a pretty clear underdog vs the 2015 Dubs. 2019 is probable, but the Rockets series inspires enough doubt for me to call it a lock.

Most of the commentary I would have on these projections can be found above, but to emphasize the point let's take a look at one of the the seasons I sharply disagree with you and which I didn't run an odds analysis on yet: 2015.

For 2015 we have the additional complication of not knowing who OKC would have played. Unlike the 2012 West bracket where we can simply plug LeBron into each historical matchup (this itself is not 100% valid since theoretically if LeBron is an upgrade over KD the Thunder should win more regular season games and get a better seed, but I set this factor aside for the sake of an easier analysis), for 2015 we have to somehow supply prospective opponents. Rather than guess who OKC would have faced, let's say in the first round they face someone against whom they are a virtual lock, in the second round they face one of the four non-GSW teams who present an actual threat, and in the WCF they face the Warriors. We have a similar problem with OKC's prospective Finals opponent but since none of the East teams are threatening the problem is not very significant.

Round 1 (Blazers, Mavs or Pels) = 98% odds of winning for the 2011 LeBron-led 2015 Thunder
Round 2 (Clippers, Rockets, Spurs or Grizzlies) = 70% victory odds
Round 3 (Warriors) = 55% victory odds
Round 4 (East Champ) = 95% victory odds

Aggregate odds: 0.98 * 0.7 * 0.55 * 0.95 = 35.6% odds of winning the title, which rounds up to 0.4 ring shares and which is a little bit larger than the odds I assigned them originally.

At this point it's worth confessing that I made an analytical error in originally assessing the Thunder's 2016 ring share, in that I took for granted that the Thunder certainly win all of the series they historically won. This is not valid even if LeBron in a vacuum is better than the version of KD he is replacing. Their actual odds are probably not as great as the 70% chance to win a title I generously afforded them.

Round 1 (Mavs) 100% odds of victory
Round 2 (Spurs) 80% odds of victory (OKC won in 6 but actually ended up -0.5 Rtg with one one-point win and another four point win; this was a toss up series with KD but 2012 LeBron is massively better than 2016 KD so we bump OKC's chances massively)
Round 3 (Warriors) 85% odds of victory
Round 4 (Cavs) 85% odds of victory

Aggregate odds: 1.0 * 0.8 * 0.85 * 0.85 = 57.8% title odds, which rounds to 0.6 ring shares

If you're wondering why the 2016 Thunder's odds are so much better than the 2015 Thunder, you have to recall that Ibaka was hurt in 2015 (had orthoscopic surgery and sat out the last month of the regular season; if they were making a playoff run perhaps he guts through and has the surgery after the season but he would not have been anywhere near 100%) and he was massive for them in their 2016 playoff run. The extra year of experience made a huge difference for Adams, as he went from a -2.0 On/Off player in 2015 to a +8.2 player in 2016. In 2015 Roberson also had a slightly smaller role with more of his minutes going to Anthony Morrow among others. Roberson was huge for OKC in their near-win over the 2016 Warriors and a reduction in his minutes for Morrow's sake would have hurt.

Well that's pretty much it for me in this thread, this long post has taken hours to produce and I'm officially tapped out. I'm certainly not going to repeat another line-for-line effort in a long post so bear that in mind if it affects your input at all, but rest assured any reply you make will be read and if I feel some issues can be clarified in a short reply I'll make the effort. I expect you have some disagreements with either my analytical method or some of the specific inputs I've given them. I look forward to seeing what exceptions you'll claim should you choose to continue the argument.