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

[VanWest82]

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

This has been answered a million times but...

1. Cavs built that 2010 team completely around Lebron with supporting vets at the end of their careers.
2. Some of those vets left/retired.
3. The ones who stayed only played part of the season or were traded for vets who only played part of the season or were washed.
4. They didn't have a heliocentric fulcrum to replace Lebron which they needed because that's how they'd build that team (i.e. no decent ball handlers besides Lebron and Mo).
5. The second half of the year they were obviously tanking.

I could just as easily say Bulls went from a +7 SRS team to -8 SRS after Jordan left. It'd be totally misleading and devoid of all the important context, but that's basically what you're doing when you say they lost 42 fewer because of Lebron.

[Taj FTW]

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

This has been answered a million times but...

1. Cavs built that 2010 team completely around Lebron with supporting vets at the end of their careers.
2. Some of those vets left/retired.
3. The ones who stayed only played part of the season or were traded for vets who only played part of the season or were washed.
4. They didn't have a heliocentric fulcrum to replace Lebron which they needed because that's how they'd build that team (i.e. no decent ball handlers besides Lebron and Mo).
5. The second half of the year they were obviously tanking.

I could just as easily say Bulls went from a +7 SRS team to -8 SRS after Jordan left. It'd be totally misleading and devoid of all the important context, but that's basically what you're doing when you say they lost 42 fewer because of Lebron. It's BS.

Some of what you wrote here is flat out false. Since it has been explained a million times, can we stick to the facts?

1. If they built the team SPECIFICALLY for LeBron, and they won't 42 less without him, doesn't that mean he was worth 42 wins for THAT team?
2. Lol who? Delonte West, 37 year old Shaq and 34 year old Big Z? They lost nobody of consequence aside from LeBron.
3. They were 8-40 from October to January, and 11-23 from February to April, so this one really makes no sense. They won more games in the 2nd half of the season.
4. Sure, so what your saying is LeBron CARRIED THEM and without him, they were more like a 19-63 team?
5. Again, they were 8-33 in the first half of the season, and 11-30 in the 2nd half. They were BETTER when they were "tanking" apparently?

[VanWest82]

Imagine you build a car with parts you source from different places and it works great. You drive around all summer and then tarp it for the winter. Next spring when you take it out you can't find your fob, so you replace it but the new one doesn't always work for whatever reason and the car won't start without it. It's hit and miss. You get another one but it's also hit and miss. Now instead of driving every day, you're only driving half the time because it's either in the shop or you're not taking your car certain places fearing that it might not be reliable to start and get you home.

It's clear at this point that having a working fob is really valuable, but at no point do you do the math and decide that original starter fob was actually worth 50% of the value of the car just because you only drove 50% of the time with the crappy replacement fobs.

[tone wone]

The only reason someone would argue the 2009 Cavs supporting cast is actually underrated is because they desperately want argue LeBron's overrated.

You could make argument that in terms of talent, the Cavs weren't even a top 5 team in 2009. LAL, BOS, ORL & DEN are absolutely more talented. Houston and Portland are close as well.

So in order for someone to find that cast comparable to the 1998 Bulls you'd have to think late 90s NBA was kinda trash or that LeBron's overrated.

[NO-KG-AI]

The Bulls were definitely not a weak cast by any era, but in 1998 it's very far from stacked or a superteam either. Likewise, that 09 Cavs team was overachieving.

I do think there is a lot of things you can do in terms of putting multiple bigs that are defensive and rebounding specialists with Jordan and not experience significant drop off offensively because he's just more versatile and malleable as a scorer and his style doesn't suffer from lack of spacing as much as Bron's does. I think naturally LeBron being a more gifted passer means you want to put guys with some scoring acumen next to him to accommodate that, and unless you are playing with unlimited cap, it means you are sacrificing one thing to bolster another.

[TheLand13]

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.

One of the reasons the LeBron thing started in the first place is because of Mike Brown. That was his entire game plan. He had no idea how to actually build an offensive system around LeBron that didn't involve just letting him go out there and run things on his own.

By the time LeBron first left Cleveland, he grew accustomed to playing that style and struggled during his first year in Miami because of it. You really want to sit here and tell me that's good coaching? Compare that to how, for example, Phil Jackson handled things when he first joined the Bulls. Did he just develop an offensive system centered around letting Jordan just run everything? No, because he realized that's a stupid idea and made one that worked with the team he had in place.

And just an FYI, just to put things further into perspective, Brown literally tried the exact same thing when he came back in 2014 but only this time he did it with Irving instead. And it was a disaster. There's a reason they let him go after only one season.

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.

Let's talk about Mo then, since you seem to want to single him out.

Mo was a perfect example of a player who benefited greatly from playing with LeBron but wasn't anywhere close to being as good anywhere else. The problem with Mo is that he was a natural SG with the body of a PG. He lacked the skills and abilities to excel at a high level with the type of style he preferred compared to, say, Allen Iverson. But when he joined Cleveland, he was able to become a SG-type of player because LeBron was there to run things. It was about as perfect of a situation for him as you could ask for.

With all of that said, Williams struggled heavily in the post season and this was a huge issue because Cleveland relied heavily on his ability to be a consistent and reliable second option to LeBron. So you have a guy here who in the most important part of the season couldn't defend anyone, wasn't running the offense and he wasn't able to score at a high level. At that point you have to ask: what good exactly is he? In 2010 he had at least had some notable postseason performances, but in 09 he was a complete no-show. You're trying to prop him up but in reality he was practically a hindrance. LeBron needed teammates who could step up and perform at a high level in the postseason and Williams just wasn't that guy. Kukoc at least was able to do this.

You mentioned the Cavs long, deep front court. Let's talk about that long, deep front court shall we?

They had one player who actually fits the description of someone who was long, and that was good old Big Z. And while he was definitely long and tall (7'3 with a great wingspan), Dwight was a matchup nightmare for him. Dwight was stronger, faster, and far younger. It was actually pathetic trying to watch him do anything against Dwight, and at times I feared for his safety. Apart from him, you had guys like Varejao who couldn't defend the rim to save his life, and Ben Wallace. Now, if this was prime Ben Wallace? Forget about it. I'm not saying he shuts down Dwight but he'd put up more than enough of a fight to the point where it makes all the difference in the world and Cleveland wouldn't need to double team. But this is well past his prime Ben, who was no longer playable at this point. You could put him out there for about a few minutes and he'd be able to put up a somewhat decent fight, but after those few minutes he'd already be gassed.

I don't know if you are just desperately trying to prop up that front court or if you just don't know anything about them, but trust me when I say this, Cleveland's front court in 09 was actually pretty pathetic. It's one of the reasons why LA got two regular season wins over them because their front court just couldn't hang with LA's.

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.

And because we can barely find any player, that means we should just automatically dismiss it?

I don't think you understand just how much of an impact LeBron had on Cleveland overall as a team.

When he sat, Cleveland went from being a top five defensive team in the league to one of the worst. Their offense was pathetic without him. Apart from Mo, no one on that team apart from maybe Delonte was capable of creating their own offense. While I don't necessarily agree that LeBron's the entire reason Cleveland lost 45 more games the following season (I do think that Cleveland losing both of their big centers had a major impact and we have to keep in mind that Cleveland did have injury issues throughout the season), he was no less the difference between them being a finals contender and being a bottom of the pack team.

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

Do you even know what cognitive dissonance means? If not, I strongly recommend not using words that you clearly don't understand the meaning of. That isn't what's happening here. We can't help it if you don't understand what was going on at the time. That's on you, not us. The least you could do is try to put in a little extra effort to understand what was going on at the time and not just automatically write it off because it doesn't sound plausible to you.

[Djoker]

^ Varejao was a really good defender. At 6'11'' definitely had size as well. If anything his problem was that he was raw offensively.

As for the 1998 Bulls, MJ definitely carried a relatively weak cast that year. His scoring load in the postseason is one of the highest on record and that fact that it came on a championship team is quite impressive. Not sure how this thread even devolved into yet another Lebron thread but I'm not surprised.

[The Explorer]

I've been having a discussion with residents NBA expert MavsDirk about supporting casts. He's arguing that MJ's supporting cast that season is similar to what LeBron was working with from 2006-2009. I simply don't agree. His argument is below.

I think we have been over this before but here we go again: Pippen missed half the season with an injury. Without Pippen the only other Bulls players in double figures besides Jordan was Kukoc (13ppg) and Longley (11ppg). Rodman was outstanding on the boards but gave them no offense. Jordan carried that team in the regular season with Pippen out. In the finals Jordan averaged 34ppg while Pippen avg 16ppg and Kukoc 15ppg. This was Pippens worst regular season and finals with the Bulls imo. In his 4 finals victorys (James that is) name a second fiddle that James had who was worse than 98 Pippen. You also mentioned Longley and Kerr as part of a solid supporting cast. Ok. Are they worse than Mo Williams, Mario Chalmers, Tristian Thompson, or the Birdman? Im not taking away from what James did in 07 but its been done before by other alltime greats. And yes, consider ive been watching the nba since 87 im pretty sure i watched 90s nba. You get on here and insult people who disagree with your opinion on lebron james. Reality is not everbody views him or his career the same as you.

I personally think MJ had a good supporting cast. Pippen was still effective, despite the injuries. Kukoc was in his prime. Rodman was putting up 15 RPG. Longley, Kerr, Harper are damn good complimentary pieces IMO. The team was a top defensive team that year as well.

Its really bad form to start a thread about a poster who doesn't post here to get people who are very likely to agree with you to pile on that poster. Why don't you start a thread that he will see and continue the discussion with him.

[Taj FTW]

I've been having a discussion with residents NBA expert MavsDirk about supporting casts. He's arguing that MJ's supporting cast that season is similar to what LeBron was working with from 2006-2009. I simply don't agree. His argument is below.

I think we have been over this before but here we go again: Pippen missed half the season with an injury. Without Pippen the only other Bulls players in double figures besides Jordan was Kukoc (13ppg) and Longley (11ppg). Rodman was outstanding on the boards but gave them no offense. Jordan carried that team in the regular season with Pippen out. In the finals Jordan averaged 34ppg while Pippen avg 16ppg and Kukoc 15ppg. This was Pippens worst regular season and finals with the Bulls imo. In his 4 finals victorys (James that is) name a second fiddle that James had who was worse than 98 Pippen. You also mentioned Longley and Kerr as part of a solid supporting cast. Ok. Are they worse than Mo Williams, Mario Chalmers, Tristian Thompson, or the Birdman? Im not taking away from what James did in 07 but its been done before by other alltime greats. And yes, consider ive been watching the nba since 87 im pretty sure i watched 90s nba. You get on here and insult people who disagree with your opinion on lebron james. Reality is not everbody views him or his career the same as you.

I personally think MJ had a good supporting cast. Pippen was still effective, despite the injuries. Kukoc was in his prime. Rodman was putting up 15 RPG. Longley, Kerr, Harper are damn good complimentary pieces IMO. The team was a top defensive team that year as well.

Its really bad form to start a thread about a poster who doesn't post here to get people who are very likely to agree with you to pile on that poster. Why don't you start a thread that he will see and continue the discussion with him.

This is more a PC thread IMO. I didn't want to muck up the general board. He knows the thread is here.

[AEnigma]

Not sure how this thread even devolved into yet another Lebron thread but I'm not surprised.

Love seeing people who blatantly did not read the thread beyond the title yet have strong opinions about how it “devolved”.

[Colbinii]

^ Varejao was a really good defender. At 6'11'' definitely had size as well. If anything his problem was that he was raw offensively.

As for the 1998 Bulls, MJ definitely carried a relatively weak cast that year. His scoring load in the postseason is one of the highest on record and that fact that it came on a championship team is quite impressive. Not sure how this thread even devolved into yet another Lebron thread but I'm not surprised.

Did you even read OP?

[Ein Sof]

I don't understand the question, are you referring to 1998 Pippen's supporting cast? In that case I would rate it fairly since he was injured for part of the season, yet it held on.

[TheLand13]

^ Varejao was a really good defender. At 6'11'' definitely had size as well. If anything his problem was that he was raw offensively.

Yes, Varejao was a really good defender. But he lacked the physical tools needed to slow down someone like Howard. He also was a terrible rim protecting big.

[OhayoKD]

I could just as easily say Bulls went from a +7 SRS team to -8 SRS after Jordan left. It'd be totally misleading and devoid of all the important context, but that's basically what you're doing when you say they lost 42 fewer because of Lebron. It's BS.

Some of what you wrote here is flat out false. Since it has been explained a million times, can we stick to the facts?

1. If they built the team SPECIFICALLY for LeBron, and they won't 42 less without him, doesn't that mean he was worth 42 wins for THAT team?
2. Lol who? Delonte West, 37 year old Shaq and 34 year old Big Z? They lost nobody of consequence aside from LeBron.
3. They were 8-40 from October to January, and 11-23 from February to April, so this one really makes no sense. They won more games in the 2nd half of the season.
4. Sure, so what your saying is LeBron CARRIED THEM and without him, they were more like a 19-63 team?
5. Again, they were 8-33 in the first half of the season, and 11-30 in the 2nd half. They were BETTER when they were "tanking" apparently?

Yeah, the tanking bit's a stretch. When teams tank, they do so by weakening the roster or putting weaker lineups. Role players don't tank, role players are playing for their careers. The cavs, after their owner insisted they would do just fine without Lebron, played those same teammates, and those teammates simply weren't that good without Lebron as an amplifier. As for this contrived analogy:

Imagine you build a car with parts you source from different places and it works great. You drive around all summer and then tarp it for the winter. Next spring when you take it out you can't find your fob, so you replace it but the new one doesn't always work for whatever reason and the car won't start without it. It's hit and miss. You get another one but it's also hit and miss. Now instead of driving every day, you're only driving half the time because it's either in the shop or you're not taking your car certain places fearing that it might not be reliable to start and get you home.

It's clear at this point that having a working fob is really valuable, but at no point do you do the math and decide that original starter fob was actually worth 50% of the value of the car just because you only drove 50% of the time with the crappy replacement fobs.

Pretty much all role players are "hit or miss". Replacement level parts tend to be inconsistent. The thing about Lebron is he's not really just a fob. He's a fob(play-calling), engine(scoring/creation), and a cooling-system(defensive anchor). Fixing your analogy, we would expect such a player to be extremely valuable in a wide variety of settings, and...surprise, surprise, he is!

He achieved outlier-level value again in the regular season from 15-17 and then arguably replicated his 2009/2010 lift in the postseason as the cavs played 65+ win basketball in 16/17, and 60-win ball in 15 with poor-spacing when his top-heavy roster lost its two heavy hitters. Even when playing/staggering with another engine, at a position which tends to make cooling systems function worse(yeah this is getting a bit extra), Lebron still looked as valuable as anyone from the last 40 years.

When one player is an engine, and the other player is an engine, fob, and system-cooler, we don't need to pretend the disparity in "value" is simply a result of situation. Especially when the other player has succeeded in a wide variety of contexts while player one has not. And it's telling the theoretical excuses rely on reductive skillset-breakdowns that don't lineup with what's actually happened...

I do think there is a lot of things you can do in terms of putting multiple bigs that are defensive and rebounding specialists with Jordan and not experience significant drop off offensively because he's just more versatile and malleable as a scorer and his style doesn't suffer from lack of spacing as much as Bron's does. , and unless you are playing with unlimited cap, it means you are sacrificing one thing to bolster another.

One, the idea that great passers are disproportionately dependent on guys with "scoring acumen" doesn't really lineup with history, and it certainly doesn't lineup with what's actually happened when a young Lebron played with "defensive and rebounding specialists"(more on that later). Lebron is also a much better ball-handler allowing questionable decision makers(like kyrie) to focus on what they're special at(We saw this with Pippen/Jordan with Jordan's and playoff on/off peaking in 90/91 as Pippen running the offense allowed Jordan to play a significantly more specialized role).

Two, Lebron orchestrates both the defense and the offense for his teams. Something that offers value beyond a player's physical skillset has value basically anywhere, and is quite rare/hard to replace:

Highly reminiscent of what Phil wrote in Eleven Rings about Scottie being the quarterback and middle linebacker for offense and defense, being the guy who bore mental load of running the offense and getting people in their spots on defense and directing people. This allowed MJ to singularly focus on getting buckets as well as following his own defensive plan alongside the common Jordan steal improvisations. When you play, it can't be overstated how draining and constricting it is to be the guy responsible for rhe majority of the communication on the floor for one end, let alone both ends.

Which is what makes LeBron so incredible because he's been the control tower on offense and defense for damn near his entire career. We've had coaches and teammates describe him as a coach on the floor. There was an article during the 2018 Finals I remember where JR Smith said LeBron's communication on the floor legitimately makes everyone one step faster on defense. And this is something he doesn't get nearly enough credit for. But this is a big deal to people who are actually in the game and around the game, because one of the major talking points about the Lakers acquiring Rondo for LeBron was about how helpful it would be for LeBron to have someone else think the game for him and organize sets and get guys to their spots.

Three, Lebron is a much better defender. More specifically he sports a major advantage as a paint-protector. And If we look to history...

All to say, I think history suggests actually stacking the same type of archetype tends to be suboptimal, and scoring wings are not exempt from this. In fact I think we can say stacking paint protectors has been as or more successful. Since 2000 we've had the Twin-Towers, Brook-Giannis, and the two Wallaces win. Defensive value in general is more "portable" than offense if you believe Ben. Going by individual data, Paint protectors consistently mantain value when they switch teams, do fine when paired with other capable paint protectors.

...

Perhaps at a higher theoretical treshold the gap between playmaker stacking and wing-scorer stacking becomes evident, but that treshold hasn't been reached and "paint-protectors" currently look like the least "situation-dependent" archetype. At an individualwhich level, Duncan and Russell are probably the quintessential metronomes if we go by team success and if we go by individual impact, Russell and Kareem stand-out in terms of a lack of fluctuation. From rookie year to 1980 Kareem's "impact" stays pretty consistent with small postseason samples being where most of the fluctuation happens. Russell is still winning with seemingly average help right as he's about to retire.

...Paint protection is the skill which best leads to consistent, situation-independent value.

When we move past simply describing one as a "gifted passer" and the other as a "versatile scorer", assumptions like "this guy's style suffers more without spacing" don't seem so obvious. And(shock!), when we check these theories against reality...
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=103648795#p103648795
While an older Jordan joined a better "non-shooting" offense and managed to lead it to average heights pre-triangle(Iirc the Bulls peaked as a +1 offense?), a younger Lebron sees a bigger offensive improvement when he joins the Cavs, and reaches significantly higher heights with a roster of non-shooters(+6.6!). Even if I was to subtract Boozer's net-rating in 05(essentially pretending he didn't get better, and wasn't on the cavs before Lebron), that would leave a 4-point improvement from a 19 year old Lebron(before the cavs improve further in 05 with Boozer departing).

The aforementioned defensive component shows up in 2015 when Lebron outright looks more valuable in a situation with bad era-relative spacing(both per lineup-adjusted and raw data), and similarly valuable in 2020(one of the few recent examples of a mediocre-spaced champion) well, well into his 30's.

We can speculate where Jordan would shine and not shine, but really, the actual results with "defensive/rebounding specialists" favor Lebron, and the Bulls were never really at a disadvantage in the shooting department(it just wasn't really a thing in the 80's and Chicago were ahead of the curve in the 90's). Again, reality just doesn't lineup with the assumption, and that really shouldn't just be dimissed...

However, in any fact-based discussion, empirical evidence trumps all. And when the theory and empirical evidence conflict, the empirical evidence takes precedence. The problem Ben Taylor has when it comes to LeBron James is that Ben has a predetermined set of skills that he thinks makes a player more scalable or portable. He doesn't think LeBron excels at those skills, therefore, he concludes that LeBron has lower scalability and portability than other players who excel at those skills.

Except we have a decade of empirical evidence suggesting that LeBron's portability and scalability are apparently not necessarily contingent upon the predetermined skills that Ben Taylor has identified. But instead of changing his theory to fit the evidence, Taylor simply ignores the evidence in favor of his theory. So, he concludes that LeBron is less scalable or portable than other players.

But the evidence is on the side of LeBron being scalable and portable. Therefore, either LeBron has some skills that Taylor is unable to identify that make LeBron more portable and scalable than Taylor is assuming or Taylor's theory of scalability and portability is wrong. I'm pretty sure it's the former.

Instead of throwing one poorly supported hypothesis after another to try and make reality conform to our priors, maybe we should acknowledge the truth is different from what we expected and try and gleam why. Lebron has been extremely valuable in a bunch of contexts for basically his whole career. Even nearing 40 on a team with poor spacing, the lakers looked much, much better with him and lineups featuring Lebron and a second helio well past his peak were very, very strong(Lebron and Westbrook were something like +30! IIRC). But yeah, Lebron is a "fob".

Not really related to anything above but...

= While I don't necessarily agree that LeBron's the entire reason Cleveland lost 45 more games the following season (I do think that Cleveland losing both of their big centers had a major impact and we have to keep in mind that Cleveland did have injury issues throughout the season), he was no less the difference between them being a finals contender and being a bottom of the pack team.

We actually have a 29 game sample before injuries blew things up and the cavs weren't any better before the injuries(same by srs, worse by record I think). As for the centers, presumably you're talking about Wallace and Big Z but er...Wallace was already off the team in 2010(and really became a non-factor after he got injured mid-season in 2009) while Big Z was only playing 20 mpg.

Also, maybe elaborate on what you saw defensively since "very bad rim-protecting big" and "very good defender" feels close to an oxymoron.

[TheLand13]

We actually have a 29 game sample before injuries blew things up and the cavs weren't any better before the injuries(same by srs, worse by record I think). As for the centers, presumably you're talking about Wallace and Big Z but er...Wallace was already off the team in 2010(and really became a non-factor after he got injured mid-season in 2009) while Big Z was only playing 20 mpg.

Doesn't really matter if they weren't any better before injuries, you can't just disregard them entirely and act like they weren't a factor.

And Big Z and Wallace? I'm talking about Shaq and Big Z. I know Shaq wasn't very good at that point and in fact was a hindrance to the Cavaliers, but he did provide some legitimate benefits. His extra size and having Z come off the bench gave Cleveland a better frontcourt to matchup with LA's, which allowed them to grab two regular season victories over them compared to the previous season where they lost both games. Chicago was another team that Cleveland benefited from having Shaq, as Noah, despite being a good defensive center, just couldn't do anything about Shaq due to his size. There were also other teams that were ill-equipped to deal with Shaq simply due to his size alone. Ultimately, he was brought in to give Cleveland someone who could hang downlow with Dwight and prevent Cleveland from needing to resort to double teaming him. We're never going to know if that worked because, as we all know, Cleveland got eliminated before they could even meet Orlando in the playoffs.

Losing both of them meant that Varejao had to play out of position at the center spot, which he never should have been doing. He was much better off being a PF and providing one on one defensive coverage, he just wasn't meant to be a rim protector. I'm not going to act like either of them would have been elite rim protectors, but at least allowing Varejao to spend most of his time at PF would have been extremely beneficial. Granted, he spent a lot of time at center in 09 and 10... but that team had LeBron James on it. And that guy was like, top five all time at being a help defender and roaming the court. In this case we could get away with it.

Also, maybe elaborate on what you saw defensively since "very bad rim-protecting big" and "very good defender" feels close to an oxymoron.

It's not an oxymoron by any means. Varejao was a great one on one defender away from the paint and had excellent awareness. He was also a ridiculously good flopping big. Sometimes you'll get bigs who are known for flopping and it's meme worthy. But in his case, it caused teams fits as he was able to generate turnovers and charges for days with it.

But his calling card was and always will be his pick and roll defense, which he was top notch at. That aspect alone is probably what got him all defensive team in 2010.

When tasked with protecting the rim however, it was a disaster. Varejao had short arms, and while he was definitely a hustler, he wasn't athletic. So it was difficult for him to disrupt shots at the rim. Like I said before, Varejao's natural position was PF, and when he was forced to go to center, that drastically affected his defensive impact. Could he get rebounds for days? Sure, but defensively it just wasn't a good fit.

[rk2023]

Going to avoid the LeBron X Cavs comparisons and focus more on the meat-and-potatoes of the OP's question.

I don't see how it is weak. One of the key arguments cited by Jordan supporters around that season is "they missed Pippen for extensive time and Jordan was carrying scrubs"

On the season, Jordan is third in on/off splits:

Spoiler:

Ron Harper - +10.4 / 100 on , 7.8 on-off
Toni Kukoc - +10.2 / 100 on , 7.1 on-off
Michael Jordan - +8.4 / 100 on , 6.7 on-off

Scottie Pippen WOWY:
Without Scottie Pippen:

Spoiler:

- 26-12 Record
- 6.1 Net-Rating (104.6 - 98.5)

With Pippen:

Spoiler:

- 36-10 Record
- 9.6 Net-Rating (112.1 - 102.5)

Unsure about SRS / SOS, but team indicators cast the Bulls as strong under both circumstances. When assessing the Bulls, there's no doubt Jordan still comes off as an MVP value player this season and is best on this team / arguably P.O.Y. for the season (I have my gripes with PS Malone and find Shaq missed too much time to warrant this title).

Furthermore:

Jordan stats (P/R/A/TS%)with and without Pippen:

Spoiler:

28.8 -> 28.7
5.3 -> 6.3
3.5 -> 3.4
54.9% TS -> 51.6% TS
+8.0 /g -> +6.4/g

*** If anyone has on/off splits or tracking for the two scenarios, this would be great! PBP doesn't seem to have such tools for this season ***

There's far more to "replacing Pippen" than just Jordan's stats and impact, but from looking at a higher level there isn't much evidence that Jordan had a major ramp up as the team missed Pippen in the regular season.

It is still pretty impressive to hold the fort down without him from both a standpoint of gauging Jordan's impact and the Bulls' team play, but such results do bring the question worth answering up: "How did the defense manage to improve by four points (a 98.5 would be a -6.5 relative dRTG) in Pippen's absence?".

From a team and player standpoint (definitely would have to look into this further), there's evidence of a good cast for their era and this particular season within this thread - will cite some good and more objective posts below:

From Colbinii:

Spoiler:

Kukoc and Harper ranked 11th and 13th respectively in +/- [Jordan 4th at 598] in the entire NBA in 1998. Pippen, playing only 44 games, ranked 32nd.

In 2007, LeBron ranked 18th in +/- [378] while the next Cavaliers ranked 30th and 31st respectively [Big Z & Varejao].

In Terms of BPM, LeBron was at 8.1 [Jordan at 6.9] while the Cavaliers had 3 players => 0 BPM [Marshall, Big Z and Varejao, all defensive slanted players] while the Bulls had 5 [yes 5] role players => 0 BPM [Pippen, Kukoc, Burrell, Harper and Kerr].

From LukaTheGoat:

Spoiler:

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

The article cited in the case of latter is pay-walled. For anyone who subscribes to Ben Taylor's Thinking Basketball product-line, here's the link:

Spoiler:

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2021/07/15/playoff-plus-minus-part-iv-supporting-casts-ensembles/

While the Bulls cast tails-off somewhat in the PS by this measure (4.8 in 1997, 4.6 in 1998 - still pretty solid numbers), they were seen as 8.3 and 8.6 in the respective regular seasons: third and fourth all-time in the entire data-base of casts and seasons assessed.

One last bit of food for thought is Engelmann's RAPM (note, this is from 1997 and 1998 - but I think we all know better than single-year samples and I am ultimately just going with what I see available):

Spoiler:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R_VgaKr980LMmReroItR94hzhuexf9wxM4l3cIw0QmY/edit#gid=0

Some Bulls Players and Rankings in data-sheet sorted by descending MPG (>=20.0) from 1998:

Spoiler:

Jordan: 7.1, 1st
Pippen: 4.8, 9th
Rodman: 1.9, 56th
Kukoc: 3.8, 22nd
Harper: 4.2, 15th

I definitely don't think this signals a "weak" cast either.

At the end of the day, there is a lot more nuance required to know the makings of the 1998 Bulls to a spade.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I've been having a discussion with residents NBA expert MavsDirk about supporting casts. He's arguing that MJ's supporting cast that season is similar to what LeBron was working with from 2006-2009. I simply don't agree. His argument is below.

I think we have been over this before but here we go again: Pippen missed half the season with an injury. Without Pippen the only other Bulls players in double figures besides Jordan was Kukoc (13ppg) and Longley (11ppg). Rodman was outstanding on the boards but gave them no offense. Jordan carried that team in the regular season with Pippen out. In the finals Jordan averaged 34ppg while Pippen avg 16ppg and Kukoc 15ppg. This was Pippens worst regular season and finals with the Bulls imo. In his 4 finals victorys (James that is) name a second fiddle that James had who was worse than 98 Pippen. You also mentioned Longley and Kerr as part of a solid supporting cast. Ok. Are they worse than Mo Williams, Mario Chalmers, Tristian Thompson, or the Birdman? Im not taking away from what James did in 07 but its been done before by other alltime greats. And yes, consider ive been watching the nba since 87 im pretty sure i watched 90s nba. You get on here and insult people who disagree with your opinion on lebron james. Reality is not everbody views him or his career the same as you.

I personally think MJ had a good supporting cast. Pippen was still effective, despite the injuries. Kukoc was in his prime. Rodman was putting up 15 RPG. Longley, Kerr, Harper are damn good complimentary pieces IMO. The team was a top defensive team that year as well.

Rodman was declining.
Bulls did not have a good cast but Pippen when healthy was better than the 2nd best Cavalier.

You can’t say 2006 to 2009 because Mo Williams was a very important player and he was only thre in 2009. Without Mo Williams the Cavaliers offense sputters when LeBron sits.

I assume you mean good support relative to the leagues they played in because modern 3 point shooting makes the Cavaliers supporting cast as good as the Bulls supporting cast if you are going to have them both play a team from a different era. The rest of the 2009 league also got more modern 3 point shooting so relative to their league I think the Bulls supporting cast was better.

Relative to their league I think the 1998 Bulls supporting cast was better on defense but worse on offense than the 2009 Cavs supporting cast. Who other than Pippen and Kukok can score. Kerr can only score if you leave him open. Mo Williams runs an offense better than Pippen.

Cavs and Clippers had a Ron Harper that could score but Bulls and Lakers did not have a Ron Harper that could score. Clippers only had a Ron Harper that scored adecent efficiency for 1 year. The next 2 Clipper years he was still scoring but at horrible efficiency.

Longley, Randy Brown, Rodman and Burrell were useless on offense other than Rodman’s offensive rebounds. 1998 Bulls supporting cast was definitely weaker than the 2009 Cavs supporting cast on offense. But the Bulls were good on defense.

1998 Bulls and 2009 Cavs supporting casts were almost equal but 1998 Bulls supporting cast was better than 2006-2008 Cavs supporting cast.

Mo Williams improved the shooting percentage for guys like Pavolic. 2008 Cavaliers without Mo Williams have the bad 28th best FG% in the league. 2009 Cavaliers with Mo Williams have a good 6th best FG percentage in the league.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

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.

It is totally closea. 1998 Bulls have crap for offensive support beyond Pippen and Kukoc they have nobody that can create their own shot or create for anybody else. The only other good offensive player is Kerr who unlike the rest of the Bulls can knock down an open shot if somebody creates the open shot for him.

2009 Cavs being a bad supporting cast is a myth.

[OhayoKD]

We actually have a 29 game sample before injuries blew things up and the cavs weren't any better before the injuries(same by srs, worse by record I think). As for the centers, presumably you're talking about Wallace and Big Z but er...Wallace was already off the team in 2010(and really became a non-factor after he got injured mid-season in 2009) while Big Z was only playing 20 mpg.

Doesn't really matter if they weren't any better before injuries, you can't just disregard them entirely and act like they weren't a factor.

If they weren't better before, then they weren't a factor in the 45-win gap. If you're concerned about the injuries, then just use the pre-injury data:

While most teams fall off after losing a superstar, none imploded like the Lebron-less Cavs; in 21 games with a similar group of players, they played at an anemic 18-win pace (-8.9 SRS) before injuries ravaged their lineup.

[/quote]
They were on an 18-win pace before the injuries. They played 18-win ball after the injuries, and 18-win ball for the season as a whole. Use whichever sample you want, the drop doesn't change. If anything, it just indicates that the injured players were non-factors in a lebron-less context.

And Big Z and Wallace? I'm talking about Shaq and Big Z. I know Shaq wasn't very good at that point and in fact was a hindrance to the Cavaliers, but he did provide some legitimate benefits.

Maybe he did, but during the regular season(which is where the "45 win drop-off" comes from, he seemingly made the team worse:
http://www.backpicks.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/201-Cavs-4-man-units.png

I'm open to the idea that an extra center could have helped a weaker/shallower team by allowing for some positional flexibility, but Shaq wasn't a good rim protector in 2010. He was actually a liability on defense, so I don't know how much of an improvement over-the-hill Shaq offers.

Also, maybe elaborate on what you saw defensively since "very bad rim-protecting big" and "very good defender" feels close to an oxymoron.

It's not an oxymoron by any means. Varejao was a great one on one defender away from the paint and had excellent awareness. He was also a ridiculously good flopping big. Sometimes you'll get bigs who are known for flopping and it's meme worthy. But in his case, it caused teams fits as he was able to generate turnovers and charges for days with it.

It's "almost" an oxymoron because rim-protection is typically a lot more important than any other type of defense for a big man. If he was "terrible" at it, it's hard to see him being "very good" defensively. Perhaps he was a situational postive when paired with an all-time free safety who could also function as a primary paint protector, but that's not exactly a common combination of skills to have in a teammate. I'd imagine in most situations he's neutral at best, and for what it's worth, in the non-lebron season after, his health seemingly made no difference for the cavs.

Even for a PF, being a outright bad rim protector is a serious weakness.

[tsherkin]

I don't know that I'd call it a "weak" cast. That said, Pip missed half the regular season (44 GP), Rodman missed a chunk of the season (66 GP), Longley (58) and Kerr (50) were out for chunks of the season. Rodman was especially crap on O in the playoffs, and Pippen was not good on O in the ECFs or the Finals (but especially against the Pacers). Both were still all-league defenders, though, and of course Rodman was a great rebounder. Team D, spacing, and everyone was there come the playoffs.

Hard to really envision calling the 98 Bulls "weak," particularly league-relative.