Was Jordan's supporting cast in 1997-98 weak?

[HeartBreakKid]

Again,never Dwight Howard would dominate the front court of the 1998 bulls like he did vs cavs in 2009.It was a massive difference

Eh. Dwight is alot harder to stop at the rim than Karl Malone.

I think he is alluding that the Cavs stylistically did not have an answer for big boys.

[homecourtloss]

Agree that it depends which team we're comparing to. I'd say 98 Bulls had a better supporting cast than 06, 07, 08 Cavs but not 09 Cavs. I agree with the sentiment that 98 Bulls supporting cast has become wildly overrated because of the name power. Many of those guys were on their last legs as true impact guys, particularly Rodman and Pippen, and they suffered from the same worn-down malaise that every attempting three-peat team suffers from. The fact they won 62 games and won the title is a testament to Jordan's greatness and refusal to let them not win above anything else.

[OhayoKD]

Again,never Dwight Howard would dominate the front court of the 1998 bulls like he did vs cavs in 2009.It was a massive difference

Eh. Dwight is alot harder to stop at the rim than Karl Malone.

I think he is alluding that the Cavs stylistically did not have an answer for big boys.

Well, yeah, bigs who aren't really explosive might do that. But Dwight is much better suited for exploiting that weakness than Malone or Kemp

[TheLand13]

It's also impossible to compare the 90's Bulls to the 00's Cavs without taking into account the differences in coaching and systems being used. Coaching is probably the most underrated aspect of everything on this board tbh because we focus so much on players.

I don't think it's that underrated. The players make almost all the difference. One thing that has turned out to be underrated, however, is Mike Brown. The way Cavs fans griped about him until he was fired, one would've thought he was the worst coach alive as appose to a pretty solid defensive coach who a young and overly-confident Lebron routinely ignored, but who seemed to get quite a bit out of unheralded types, especially defensively. Now he's back at the helm of a team with one of the most exciting offenses in the league. That guy has proven to be a hell of a coach.

You're talking about now... 2023. Mike Brown of 2009 was a pretty awful coach.

I give him all the credit in the world for turning the Cavaliers around defensively, but he had no idea what he was doing coaching wise in almost every other aspect of it. One of his biggest flaws were matchup-based adjustments, which proved to be very costly to us in the 2010 Celtics series where he chose to stick with Jaminson at the four, when in reality he should have never played a single minute in that series (KG was dominating him at both ends of the floor, and then off the bench he had Davis and Rasheed to deal with, it just wasn't an ideal matchup for him). I still contend to this day that if he had put Hickson in the staring unit, Cleveland probably would have won that series pretty easily, as the Celtics had a lot of trouble dealing with the more athletic and physical style the Cavaliers played whenever they utilized him instead. But Brown didn't realize this weakness and not only didn't make any adjustments, he made very questionable rotation decisions that constantly screwed over Cleveland throughout that entire series.

People like to clown LeBron in that series, but in reality he had one bad game (and even then, the margin of defeat was too significant to the point where you can put it all on LeBron). The three other losses in that series were due to Brown not having a clue as to what he was doing.

[70sFan]

Eh. Dwight is alot harder to stop at the rim than Karl Malone.

I think he is alluding that the Cavs stylistically did not have an answer for big boys.

Well, yeah, bigs who aren't really explosive might do that. But Dwight is much better suited for exploiting that weakness than Malone or Kemp

Dwight doesn't have the quarter of passing component that Malone had though.

[VanWest82]

Jesus Christ. 09 Cavs supporting cast being comparable to 98 Bulls given Scottie missing half the year, Rodman going off the deep end, etc., is not that outlandish of a take. Cavs were good, and they did have depth, just not good depth behind Lebron. That team had an abundance of size, defense, and shooting which historically have been the key ingredients to his success. They lacked another high end talent.

The discord in this place is beyond toxic. Some of you guys seriously need to look in the mirror.

[TheLand13]

Jesus Christ. 09 Cavs supporting cast being comparable to 98 Bulls given Scottie missing half the year, Rodman going off the deep end, etc., is not that outlandish of a take. Cavs were good, and they did have depth, just not good depth behind Lebron. That team had an abundance of size, defense, and shooting which historically have been the key ingredients to his success. They lacked another high end talent.

The discord in this place is beyond toxic. Some of you guys seriously need to look in the mirror.

This isn't a matter of being toxic. The 09 Cavs do not compare to the 98 Bulls in regards to the supporting casts. It's not even close.

[DirtyDez]

The Bulls supporting cast so cooked by 98’. Luckily for them Utah’s supporting cast was actually worse. Seriously look up the 98’ Jazz stats outside of Malone/Stockton. League was in shambles back then.

[VanWest82]

Jesus Christ. 09 Cavs supporting cast being comparable to 98 Bulls given Scottie missing half the year, Rodman going off the deep end, etc., is not that outlandish of a take. Cavs were good, and they did have depth, just not good depth behind Lebron. That team had an abundance of size, defense, and shooting which historically have been the key ingredients to his success. They lacked another high end talent.

The discord in this place is beyond toxic. Some of you guys seriously need to look in the mirror.

This isn't a matter of being toxic. The 09 Cavs do not compare to the 98 Bulls in regards to the supporting casts. It's not even close.

That's your opinion just like it's your opinion that it was Brown's fault in 2010. I disagree. Cavs won 66 games in 09. We could maybe have a reasonable conversation about that where we disagree in the end. But go read some of the other posts itt, particularly ones directed at me. Yeah, this place has become super toxic. It's definitely not just this thread either.

[Homer38]

Jesus Christ. 09 Cavs supporting cast being comparable to 98 Bulls given Scottie missing half the year, Rodman going off the deep end, etc., is not that outlandish of a take. Cavs were good, and they did have depth, just not good depth behind Lebron. That team had an abundance of size, defense, and shooting which historically have been the key ingredients to his success. They lacked another high end talent.

The discord in this place is beyond toxic. Some of you guys seriously need to look in the mirror.

I don't care since no way Dwight would have the success against the Bulls front court the same way he had against the Cavs.Look at the stats of Dwight vs celtics and lakers in the same years and compare it his stats against the cavs,it had a huge difference.Pippen was with the bulls in the playoffs and he was still impacful too

[Homer38]

Eh. Dwight is alot harder to stop at the rim than Karl Malone.

I think he is alluding that the Cavs stylistically did not have an answer for big boys.

Well, yeah, bigs who aren't really explosive might do that. But Dwight is much better suited for exploiting that weakness than Malone or Kemp

Dwight had 25 PPG vs cavs and 16 PPG vs celtics and lakers in 2009 playoffs.I think the Bulls would make a much better job that the cavs to contain Dwight.And without doubling so much too.Karl Malone was much better on offense,not even close

[tone wone]

The Bulls supporting cast so cooked by 98’. Luckily for them Utah’s supporting cast was actually worse. Seriously look up the 98’ Jazz stats outside of Malone/Stockton. League was in shambles back then.

This is such an underrated component in this comparison. Tactically, the league was in a dead zone by 1998. Desperately needed a new influx of talent...players and coaching.

Chicago being reigning back to back champs gave them a huge advantage. They just knew how play and win together in league that seriously lacking in prime high-end talent

[Taj FTW]

Jesus Christ. 09 Cavs supporting cast being comparable to 98 Bulls given Scottie missing half the year, Rodman going off the deep end, etc., is not that outlandish of a take. Cavs were good, and they did have depth, just not good depth behind Lebron. That team had an abundance of size, defense, and shooting which historically have been the key ingredients to his success. They lacked another high end talent.

The discord in this place is beyond toxic. Some of you guys seriously need to look in the mirror.

"Rodman going off the deep end". This is so overblown because of the Last Dance. He played 80 games and averaged 15 rebounds per game...

[Warriors Analyst]

It's also impossible to compare the 90's Bulls to the 00's Cavs without taking into account the differences in coaching and systems being used. Coaching is probably the most underrated aspect of everything on this board tbh because we focus so much on players.

I don't think it's that underrated. The players make almost all the difference. One thing that has turned out to be underrated, however, is Mike Brown. The way Cavs fans griped about him until he was fired, one would've thought he was the worst coach alive as appose to a pretty solid defensive coach who a young and overly-confident Lebron routinely ignored, but who seemed to get quite a bit out of unheralded types, especially defensively. Now he's back at the helm of a team with one of the most exciting offenses in the league. That guy has proven to be a hell of a coach.

You're talking about now... 2023. Mike Brown of 2009 was a pretty awful coach.

I give him all the credit in the world for turning the Cavaliers around defensively, but he had no idea what he was doing coaching wise in almost every other aspect of it. One of his biggest flaws were matchup-based adjustments, which proved to be very costly to us in the 2010 Celtics series where he chose to stick with Jaminson at the four, when in reality he should have never played a single minute in that series (KG was dominating him at both ends of the floor, and then off the bench he had Davis and Rasheed to deal with, it just wasn't an ideal matchup for him). I still contend to this day that if he had put Hickson in the staring unit, Cleveland probably would have won that series pretty easily, as the Celtics had a lot of trouble dealing with the more athletic and physical style the Cavaliers played whenever they utilized him instead. But Brown didn't realize this weakness and not only didn't make any adjustments, he made very questionable rotation decisions that constantly screwed over Cleveland throughout that entire series.

People like to clown LeBron in that series, but in reality he had one bad game (and even then, the margin of defeat was too significant to the point where you can put it all on LeBron). The three other losses in that series were due to Brown not having a clue as to what he was doing.

Mike BRown had a team that was well-suited to playing uptempo with that iteration of LeBron and instead had, if I recall correctly, the slowest offense in basketball. I'm with you on this and you as a Cavs' fan obviously had a more up-close look at Mike Brown, but I also recall him being deeply uncreative and uninspiring as a coach.

[Cavsfansince84]

Mike BRown had a team that was well-suited to playing uptempo with that iteration of LeBron and instead had, if I recall correctly, the slowest offense in basketball. I'm with you on this and you as a Cavs' fan obviously had a more up-close look at Mike Brown, but I also recall him being deeply uncreative and uninspiring as a coach.

Ya, there's a reason he had to wait 6 years as an asst to get another chance at being a hc. He had 6 years to learn from Kerr how to run an offense. Most decent coaches wait maybe 1-2 years before being given another chance.

[VanWest82]

So Mike Brown was an “awful” coach who held back the offense even though this was a typical Lebron team where Lebron had the ball in his hands most of the time.

Lebron's teammates also sucked. They weren't even remotely comparable to other great teams, even ones where stars missed half the season and had the usual malaise of a team in year three of an attempted three-peat. Mo Williams was substantially worse offensively than someone like Toni Kukoc. Cavs long, deep front court actually sucked because Dwight.

And yet Cavs won 66 games. Clearly, this is because Lebron provides a 45 win lift even though we can barely find a player throughout history who provided half of that, including Lebron.

The cognitive dissonance required in some of these takes is incredible.

[capfan33]

So Mike Brown was an “awful” coach who held back the offense even though this was a typical Lebron team where Lebron had the ball in his hands most of the time.

Lebron's teammates also sucked. They weren't even remotely comparable to other great teams, even ones where stars missed half the season and had the usual malaise of a team in year three of an attempted three-peat. Mo Williams was substantially worse offensively than someone like Toni Kukoc. Cavs long, deep front court actually sucked because Dwight.

And yet Cavs won 66 games. Clearly, this is because Lebron provides a 45 win lift even though we can barely find a player throughout history who provided half of that, including Lebron.

The cognitive dissonance required in some of these takes is incredible.

Offensively at the time, yes he was. Major kudos to him for turning himself into one of the better coaches in the NBA. And I'm not going to bother with the whole "Lebron is a massive ball-hog narrative" because at this point it's been debunked on here umpteen times.

They didn't suck per se, but no they really weren't comparable to what most would consider a great team. I would agree that Mo Williams wasn't significantly worse than Kukoc on offense, off the top of my head. And they were generally a good frontcourt, but had 0 chance of guarding Dwight, specifically because of Wallace's injury.

And in this case, yes Lebron did approximately provide 40-45 wins. And to be crystal clear, this is not normal or easily replicable, the team was basically constructed perfectly for Lebron to floor raise and he was at his athletic/stamina peak, which allowed him to have anomalous impact. I don't think most people on here are claiming Lebron is actually worth 40 wins on the vast majority of teams, it was a unique situation that did make him look better than he actually is, because ofc normally no one is worth anywhere close to 40 wins. I do think Lebron is probably the only player that could ever reach this threshold but it shouldn't be taken as normal.

[VanWest82]

I'm not going to bother with the whole "Lebron is a massive ball-hog narrative" because at this point it's been debunked on here umpteen times.

I've never seen anyone argue Lebron is a ball hog; rather, he runs offense the way he wants to run offense. Coaches can either get on board with that or GTFO. The idea that Brown was dictating the way Lebron played and somehow holding him back from the way he wanted to play is ridiculous. We can get into reasonable debates about match ups and line up decisions, but the fundamental way those Cavs played on offense was due to Lebron, not Brown.

And in this case, yes Lebron did approximately provide 40-45 wins.

yeah, No

[Taj FTW]

I'm not going to bother with the whole "Lebron is a massive ball-hog narrative" because at this point it's been debunked on here umpteen times.

I've never seen anyone argue Lebron is a ball hog; rather, he runs offense the way he wants to run offense. Coaches can either get on board with that or GTFO. The idea that Brown was dictating the way Lebron played and somehow holding him back from the way he wanted to play is ridiculous. We can get into reasonable debates about match ups and line up decisions, but the fundamental way those Cavs played on offense was due to Lebron, not Brown.

And in this case, yes Lebron did approximately provide 40-45 wins.

yeah, No

So why did they win 42 fewer games the year after he left?

[OhayoKD]

So Mike Brown was an “awful” coach who held back the offense even though this was a typical Lebron team where Lebron had the ball in his hands most of the time.

Lebron's teammates also sucked. They weren't even remotely comparable to other great teams, even ones where stars missed half the season and had the usual malaise of a team in year three of an attempted three-peat. Mo Williams was substantially worse offensively than someone like Toni Kukoc. Cavs long, deep front court actually sucked because Dwight.

And yet Cavs won 66 games. Clearly, this is because Lebron provides a 45 win lift even though we can barely find a player throughout history who provided half of that, including Lebron.

The cognitive dissonance required in some of these takes is incredible.

Offensively at the time, yes he was. Major kudos to him for turning himself into one of the better coaches in the NBA. And I'm not going to bother with the whole "Lebron is a massive ball-hog narrative" because at this point it's been debunked on here umpteen times.

They didn't suck per se, but no they really weren't comparable to what most would consider a great team. I would agree that Mo Williams wasn't significantly worse than Kukoc on offense, off the top of my head. And they were generally a good frontcourt, but had 0 chance of guarding Dwight, specifically because of Wallace's injury.

And in this case, yes Lebron did approximately provide 40-45 wins. And to be crystal clear, this is not normal or easily replicable, the team was basically constructed perfectly for Lebron to floor raise and he was at his athletic/stamina peak, which allowed him to have anomalous impact. I don't think most people on here are claiming Lebron is actually worth 40 wins on the vast majority of teams, it was a unique situation that did make him look better than he actually is, because ofc normally no one is worth anywhere close to 40 wins. I do think Lebron is probably the only player that could ever reach this threshold but it shouldn't be taken as normal.

Well, depends what we consider close. But a high-end empirical appraisal of the 15-17 cavs has Lebron providing 30-win lift in the 15/16 regular season and that's before dramatic playoff elevation.

And then a situation his value should be suppressed(playing as a pf instead of an sf, staggering with a very similar player in wade), he's providing 20+ win lift from 2012-2014

yeah, No

Sadly, yes:

One way to measure supporting cast is by looking at AuPM/G.

Based on the slightly older AuPM/G, that incorporates season long on/off and the box-score, I think you can get an understanding of what guys are working with.

The stat goes back to 97. When calculating supporting cast, I want to mention that Cast = Relative AuPM value of the 2nd through the 8th-best player on a team, among players who logged at least 40 percent of team’s minutes. Value is relative to +0.75.


Per the stat:

"LeBron took the two worst supporting casts to the Finals during this stretch, the 2018 Cavs (AuPM of -3.6 PS Cast Strength) and the 2007 Cavs (-2.8 in PS Cast Strength) ...LeBron’s Cavs are the weakest supporting unit to even reach a conference final in this period." -Ben Taylor

Looking at the 06-09 Period, we can look at the overall cast strength during the RS for a bigger sample.

The Cavs in terms of RS Cast Strength

06: -1.4
07: -0.3
08: -2.6
09: +4.8

The Bulls in terms of RS Cast Strength

97: +8.3 (You didn't ask for 97, but I will share it because I think it highlights my point)
98: +8.6

Keeping in mind that a 0 is supposed to be a league average cast, one could argue that from at least 06-08, Lebron perhaps had below average help. I think the Cavs had good defensive personnel overall, however the offensive help was lacking, but how you weigh that is up to you. The Bulls arguably had better defensive personnel, then the Cavs, however that defensive personnel, had more offensive chops to go along with it.


The 98 Bulls had a relatively similar roster to the 97 team in overall team strength, however they were a year older and bit more beat up by injuries however. Nonetheless, the Bulls help eclipses the Cavs' helps by multiple standard deviations under this measure.

Some Caveats:

A. Box-score doesn't really account for defensive stuff. Notably the pre-09 cavs weren't significantly affected by Lebron's absence defensively, while the 2009/2010 cavs collapsed
B. Box-score isn't really going to be able to account for how various players influence each's other counting numbers. This is true with both defense(blocks/steals) and offense(ppg, apg, ect)


This is part of why it's good to look at how a team performs "without" a player. And here I think we get a different picture regarding the 09/10 cavs cast:

From 08-10, LeBron missed 14 games. Here are the results:
With: .737 win% +5.81 MOV
Without: 1-13 (.071 win%) (-7.68 MOV)
Difference: .666 win%, +13.67 MOV

Defense:

On court: 100.6 D rating (-7.7 relative to league average)
Off court: 108.8 D rating (+0.5 rel to LA)
Difference: -8.2 (According to BasketballValue.com, that difference is the 2nd highest in the league behind Pryzbilla)

Obvious caveat here is that the sample is tiny. Luckily, we can extend this sample and...

n 21 games with a similar group of players, they played at an anemic 18-win pace (-8.9 SRS) before injuries ravaged their lineup.

For the season they finished at 19 wins and -8.88 SRS. Notably a big chunk of this drop-off came on the defensive side(recall that the second best defender on those teams was Ben Wallace, who played 28 mpg before missing 30 games(the injury more or less ended his career as a useful player), before leaving in 2010. The 2011 Cavs were 7 points worse defensively, tracking with the 8-point drop from our teeny-tiny 14 game sample.

Lebron grades out as the "impact king" post Russell because he combines top-tier offensive lift(reflected in top-tier box-stuff), with top-tier(for a non-big) defensive elevation. I've posted the holistics, but let's hone in on some of the granulars:

LeBron is also 3rd in FG%, 4th in 3P%, and 3rd in eFG%.

Here is what some of the top SF of 2009 did vs LeBron offensively (their regular season per 36 in parenthesis)

Durant- 16.4 PPG, .518 TS% (23.3 PPG, .577 TS%)
Pierce- 18.1 PPG, .474 TS% (19.7 PPG, .582 TS%)
Johnson- 13.7 PPG, .475 TS% (19.5 PPG, .534 TS%)
Carmelo- 15.8 PPG, .488 TS% (23.8 PPG, .532 TS%)
Butler- 14.2 PPG, .438 TS% (19.4 PPG, .552 TS%)
Gay- 10.9 PPG, .357 TS% (18.3 PPG, .528 TS%)
Average dropoff: -5.8 PPG, -9.3 TS%

What’s amazing is that when faced Cleveland and LeBron was off the court, they dominated:

The 6 SF’s stats when (Per 36):
LeBron on court: 15.1 PPG, .461 TS%, 3.3 Reb, 3.6 AST-3.4 TOV, -9.4 +/-
LeBron off court: 24.6 PPG, .596 TS%, 5.9 Reb, 2.3 AST-1.8 TOV, +0.9 +/-

That is a 9.5 points per 36 and 13.5 TS% difference.

I've seen people question Lebron's defense in the ensuing postseason(the cavs remain elite overall, but their d-rating tanks vs red-hot orlando shooting), but er...

LeBron continued playing elite man defense. Here are how some of his guys did when LeBron was on the court (per 36 minutes):

Tayshaun Prince: 3.9 PPG, .260 TS%
Joe Johnson: 15.3 PPG, .480 TS%
Marvin Williams: 5.8 PPG, .337 TS%
Dropoff from regular season averages: -7.6 PPG, -18.1 TS%

Defensive stats from Hoopsstats.com for his position:
17.3 pts/game allowed (1st in league) (13.2 points per 36 minutes)
41.2 FG% allowed (1st)
15.1 FGA allowed (2nd fewest)
16.6 Efficiency allowed (1st)
1.3 Offensive rebounds allowed (3rd)

+2.8 Defensive RAPM [2nd among qualifying perimeter players (Artest)]

Will add that via Blocked's film-tracking Lebron also contested/deterred Dwight in the paint 22 times, lagging a bit behind what Pippen did vs Ewing in 1994(Grant was oddly positioned all series).

Honestly, comparing this to 97/98 is wild, when, at least by evidence beyond non-predictive box-aggregates, the 09/10 Cavs don't really even stack up to the 1984 Bulls. Yeah those bulls were bad on offense, but they were a functional defense and overall were significantly better overall(28-wins, -4.68 SRS).

The 97/98 Bulls were fine without Jordan from what we have, and while Rodman and Pippen may have been diminished from 94-96(at least in the regular season), we should keep in mind what was diminished in the first place:

I realize the cavs doing so well with seemingly limited support may not fit so neatly into some of our priors, but I imagine at least some of the performance is simply a product of Lebron being a much better defender.

Going off reality, the 09/10 cavs have a strong case as less talented than any team jordan's ever played on. I suppose you can say they fit better, but Lebron has actually replicated this on a different team and his impact still looks "best post-russell level" in a situation where his value should be suppressed(Miami).

The Bulls played at a 53-win pace without their best and third best player in 1995 with Pippen's beef with the front-office peaking. I don't know why you'd think whatever decline they experienced would have turned the 58-win cast into a 20-win cast, and as it is, the bulls didn't play like that when jordan was off the court.

If you're really concerned about lebron making other players play bad, we can look at games where Lebron didn't suit up at all and the cavs don't look any better(first stint). If we go by the second stint, taking Lebron out of the game completely actually makes the cavs look like a 20ish win team(as opposed to simply rotating him out of the lineup where they're at 30 wins)

And when we break down the granulars like Colts did above, it becomes pretty clear why there's an influence gap. Lebron is a much better defender. We don't need giga-brain theories you can't defend for an explanation. Lebron defends better, so a team that might win 50 under mj(let's say the significant srs gap between the 84 bulls and the cavs without lebron is entirely made up by "fit") wins 66 under lebron. Simple