38 y/o MJ vs 38 y/o LeBron

[RCM88x]

Even so, the almost universally regarded top 3 guys in the league have played 68, 66 and 63 games respectively. Not like they're in the high 70s.

Only top guy whos even close to that right now is Tatum at 75 (or Sabonis at 77).

Looking at the BBRef MVP tracker the average games played is only 65.5, the bar really isn't that high.

[OhayoKD]

Even so, the almost universally regarded top 3 guys in the league have played 68, 66 and 63 games respectively. Not like they're in the high 70s.

Only top guy whos even close to that right now is Tatum at 75 (or Sabonis at 77).

Looking at the BBRef MVP tracker the average games played is only 65.5, the bar really isn't that high.

And more importantly, Lebron seems as or more valuable accumulatively...

Would love the port-folk to explain this one

[70sFan]

Unless you are heavily penalising for missed time, I really do not see ten players who provided more to their teams when they were on the court.

I definitely penalise him for missed time. James played 50 games this season, that's a lot of value missed.

He played 52 games which is 2 games less than Steph Curry and 6 games more than Kevin Durant. Would you say those guys aren't top 10 either?

I'm certainly not seeing a strong per-possession case for them being clearly better right now. Lebron's looked very good via box or raw-stuff both pre-and post-trade, and that includes a large chunk of basketball where his team had abysmal spacing(the team even looked good in lebron-westbrook minuities).

Looking at LEBRON(which i believe is considered a top tier lineup-adjusted metric), 23 Lebron is ahead of Curry, Durant, and Embid per possession AND per accumulated "wins added" only trailing Jokic from the 5 I selected(doesn't have a full list for some reason)

I don't have Durant inside my top 10 either, Curry probably is there but still likely outside top 5.

Maybe I went too far, considering how few games superstar played this season, but it's still not top 5 season to me. Like, I don't understand why people see Durant as top 5 RS player this year, he's not even close to it and wasn't in the last 3 years either.

[70sFan]

Even so, the almost universally regarded top 3 guys in the league have played 68, 66 and 63 games respectively. Not like they're in the high 70s.

Only top guy whos even close to that right now is Tatum at 75 (or Sabonis at 77).

Looking at the BBRef MVP tracker the average games played is only 65.5, the bar really isn't that high.

I mean, 52 vs 65.5 games is still a lot of value - especially if you don't view LeBron as top tier guy per possession anymore (I don't).

[OhayoKD]

I definitely penalise him for missed time. James played 50 games this season, that's a lot of value missed.

He played 52 games which is 2 games less than Steph Curry and 6 games more than Kevin Durant. Would you say those guys aren't top 10 either?

I'm certainly not seeing a strong per-possession case for them being clearly better right now. Lebron's looked very good via box or raw-stuff both pre-and post-trade, and that includes a large chunk of basketball where his team had abysmal spacing(the team even looked good in lebron-westbrook minuities).

Looking at LEBRON(which i believe is considered a top tier lineup-adjusted metric), 23 Lebron is ahead of Curry, Durant, and Embid per possession AND per accumulated "wins added" only trailing Jokic from the 5 I selected(doesn't have a full list for some reason)

I don't have Durant inside my top 10 either, Curry probably is there but still likely outside top 5.

Maybe I went too far, considering how few games superstar played this season, but it's still not top 5 season to me. Like, I don't understand why people see Durant as top 5 RS player this year, he's not even close to it and wasn't in the last 3 years either.

I mean honestly, now that I'm thinking more about it, Lebron>Curry is a pretty straightforward argument. Lebron is in a dramatically worse situation for his "situational value", yet looks as(EPM) or more valuable(LEBRON) by basically any predictive approach("pure" stuff would suggest LEBRON isn't high enough), and has looks super valuable on two completely different types of rosters(55-win pace without and 68 win pace with post-trade).

What is Curry's case here besides his team having 1 more win and higher true-shooting?

[RCM88x]

Even so, the almost universally regarded top 3 guys in the league have played 68, 66 and 63 games respectively. Not like they're in the high 70s.

Only top guy whos even close to that right now is Tatum at 75 (or Sabonis at 77).

Looking at the BBRef MVP tracker the average games played is only 65.5, the bar really isn't that high.

I mean, 52 vs 65.5 games is still a lot of value - especially if you don't view LeBron as top tier guy per possession anymore (I don't).

Sure, I think we just have to adjust ourselves a bit for how many games guys actually play these days. 78 is the new 82, 65 is the new 75, 50 is the new 65 etc..

I guess this totally depends on what your per possession impact estimation is. I'd certainly not have him in the top 3 but outside of that there's probably an argument for anywhere from 4th to 20th.

Guess I would be interested to see what your top 10 rankings are for total value based on this season alone. Again personally this is probably as hard of a season to judge as ever because of how much parity there is between teams and now many games guys miss.

[70sFan]

He played 52 games which is 2 games less than Steph Curry and 6 games more than Kevin Durant. Would you say those guys aren't top 10 either?

I'm certainly not seeing a strong per-possession case for them being clearly better right now. Lebron's looked very good via box or raw-stuff both pre-and post-trade, and that includes a large chunk of basketball where his team had abysmal spacing(the team even looked good in lebron-westbrook minuities).

Looking at LEBRON(which i believe is considered a top tier lineup-adjusted metric), 23 Lebron is ahead of Curry, Durant, and Embid per possession AND per accumulated "wins added" only trailing Jokic from the 5 I selected(doesn't have a full list for some reason)

I don't have Durant inside my top 10 either, Curry probably is there but still likely outside top 5.

Maybe I went too far, considering how few games superstar played this season, but it's still not top 5 season to me. Like, I don't understand why people see Durant as top 5 RS player this year, he's not even close to it and wasn't in the last 3 years either.

I mean honestly, now that I'm thinking more about it, Lebron>Curry is a pretty straightforward argument. Lebron is in a dramatically worse situation for his "situational value", yet looks as(EPM) or more valuable(LEBRON) by basically any predictive approach("pure" stuff would suggest LEBRON isn't high enough), and has looks super valuable on two completely different types of rosters(55-win pace without and 68 win pace with post-trade).

What is Curry's case here besides his team having 1 more win and higher true-shooting?

LeBron played what - 4 games after the trade? Is that what you call "68-wins" pace? What makes James situation "dramatically worse"? How do you calculate 58 wins pace for James before the trade?

[70sFan]

Even so, the almost universally regarded top 3 guys in the league have played 68, 66 and 63 games respectively. Not like they're in the high 70s.

Only top guy whos even close to that right now is Tatum at 75 (or Sabonis at 77).

Looking at the BBRef MVP tracker the average games played is only 65.5, the bar really isn't that high.

I mean, 52 vs 65.5 games is still a lot of value - especially if you don't view LeBron as top tier guy per possession anymore (I don't).

Sure, I think we just have to adjust ourselves a bit for how many games guys actually play these days. 78 is the new 82, 65 is the new 75, 50 is the new 65 etc..

I guess this totally depends on what your per possession impact estimation is. I'd certainly not have him in the top 3 but outside of that there's probably an argument for anywhere from 4th to 20th.

Guess I would be interested to see what your top 10 rankings are for total value based on this season alone. Again personally this is probably as hard of a season to judge as ever because of how much parity there is between teams and now many games guys miss.

Yeah, it's tough. I'd have to think about my top 10 at some point. I think I could overestimate some players numbers of games played, so maybe James cracks top 10, maybe not. He's not in discussion for top 5 to me though.

[AEnigma]

I don't have Durant inside my top 10 either, Curry probably is there but still likely outside top 5.

Maybe I went too far, considering how few games superstar played this season, but it's still not top 5 season to me. Like, I don't understand why people see Durant as top 5 RS player this year, he's not even close to it and wasn't in the last 3 years either.

I mean honestly, now that I'm thinking more about it, Lebron>Curry is a pretty straightforward argument. Lebron is in a dramatically worse situation for his "situational value", yet looks as(EPM) or more valuable(LEBRON) by basically any predictive approach("pure" stuff would suggest LEBRON isn't high enough), and has looks super valuable on two completely different types of rosters(55-win pace without and 68 win pace with post-trade).

What is Curry's case here besides his team having 1 more win and higher true-shooting?

LeBron played what - 4 games after the trade? Is that what you call "68-wins" pace? What makes James situation "dramatically worse"? How do you calculate 58 wins pace for James before the trade?

He was stuck playing 42 of 52 games with Westbrook, played 33 of 52 games with his only star teammate, and plays under a coach who has done nothing to evidence any real acumen for the job. Curry plays in an established system under an excellent coach and has had the two next most established teammates in that system next to him for 52 (Draymond) and 47 (Klay) of his 54 games. Yes, I would say one has clearly been in a much better situation, regardless of how that has translated to wins (and for what it is worth, Lebron has a better win percentage and on-court rating than Curry, and the Curry-less Warriors have a better win percentage and net rating than the Lebron-less Lakers) or what that means for ranking them as individuals.

[OhayoKD]

I don't have Durant inside my top 10 either, Curry probably is there but still likely outside top 5.

Maybe I went too far, considering how few games superstar played this season, but it's still not top 5 season to me. Like, I don't understand why people see Durant as top 5 RS player this year, he's not even close to it and wasn't in the last 3 years either.

I mean honestly, now that I'm thinking more about it, Lebron>Curry is a pretty straightforward argument. Lebron is in a dramatically worse situation for his "situational value", yet looks as(EPM) or more valuable(LEBRON) by basically any predictive approach("pure" stuff would suggest LEBRON isn't high enough), and has looks super valuable on two completely different types of rosters(55-win pace without and 68 win pace with post-trade).

What is Curry's case here besides his team having 1 more win and higher true-shooting?

LeBron played what - 4 games after the trade? Is that what you call "68-wins" pace? What makes James situation "dramatically worse"? How do you calculate 58 wins pace for James before the trade?

Well, at least theoretically, very bad-spacing and lots of minuites shared with westbrook would be a place where we'd expect Lebron's value to drop right?

I'm calling the lakers going 6-1 with Lebron a 68 win pace and 14-7 overall a 55-win pace(and yes I just realized that I conflated that with without which would make for an even bigger gap).

I never said the Lakers were 58-win pace before the trade. I said lebron looked super valuable before. Don't remember the exact raw numbers(but lakers were>.500 with and absymal without), and probably more notably, the state of the art adjusted stuff(which I think we both agree is more useful for smaller sample contemporary player eval.) supports with EPM putting Lebron on par with Curry and LEBRON having him will above.




From what I understand RPM is less accurate but it also has Lebron well ahead of Steph:
http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm

Not saying any of this, or even the combination, makes Lebron>Curry gospel, but in lieu of a compelling counter...

[PistolPeteJR]

I definitely penalise him for missed time. James played 50 games this season, that's a lot of value missed.

He played 52 games which is 2 games less than Steph Curry and 6 games more than Kevin Durant. Would you say those guys aren't top 10 either?

I'm certainly not seeing a strong per-possession case for them being clearly better right now. Lebron's looked very good via box or raw-stuff both pre-and post-trade, and that includes a large chunk of basketball where his team had abysmal spacing(the team even looked good in lebron-westbrook minuities).

Looking at LEBRON(which i believe is considered a top tier lineup-adjusted metric), 23 Lebron is ahead of Curry, Durant, and Embid per possession AND per accumulated "wins added" only trailing Jokic from the 5 I selected(doesn't have a full list for some reason)

I don't have Durant inside my top 10 either, Curry probably is there but still likely outside top 5.

Maybe I went too far, considering how few games superstar played this season, but it's still not top 5 season to me. Like, I don't understand why people see Durant as top 5 RS player this year, he's not even close to it and wasn't in the last 3 years either.

I don’t think you’re doing it on purpose, but the back and forth here isn’t that James is or isn’t a top-5 player this season. It was originally that he is top-10.

[70sFan]

He played 52 games which is 2 games less than Steph Curry and 6 games more than Kevin Durant. Would you say those guys aren't top 10 either?

I'm certainly not seeing a strong per-possession case for them being clearly better right now. Lebron's looked very good via box or raw-stuff both pre-and post-trade, and that includes a large chunk of basketball where his team had abysmal spacing(the team even looked good in lebron-westbrook minuities).

Looking at LEBRON(which i believe is considered a top tier lineup-adjusted metric), 23 Lebron is ahead of Curry, Durant, and Embid per possession AND per accumulated "wins added" only trailing Jokic from the 5 I selected(doesn't have a full list for some reason)

I don't have Durant inside my top 10 either, Curry probably is there but still likely outside top 5.

Maybe I went too far, considering how few games superstar played this season, but it's still not top 5 season to me. Like, I don't understand why people see Durant as top 5 RS player this year, he's not even close to it and wasn't in the last 3 years either.

I don’t think you’re doing it on purpose, but the back and forth here isn’t that James is or isn’t a top-5 player this season. It was originally that he is top-10.

I know and I backed down with the original statement, he has a case for top 10.

[MyUniBroDavis]

The post playoffs bump if they make it out of the play in gonna be funny lol

[OhayoKD]

I don't have Durant inside my top 10 either, Curry probably is there but still likely outside top 5.

Maybe I went too far, considering how few games superstar played this season, but it's still not top 5 season to me. Like, I don't understand why people see Durant as top 5 RS player this year, he's not even close to it and wasn't in the last 3 years either.

I don’t think you’re doing it on purpose, but the back and forth here isn’t that James is or isn’t a top-5 player this season. It was originally that he is top-10.

I know and I backed down with the original statement, he has a case for top 10.

I'll take a step forward and ask what's Curry's case against Lebron here.

With all the stuff in the previous posts being considered, Lebron being significantly better than Curry seems fair and that probably gives him a decent top 5 case all considered. Besides Jokic, Giannis, Embid, and Tatum(haven't been tracking the Celtics but since he's a popular top 4 pick here and played significantly more, I'll assume the hype's warrnated), which players are we saying had a better regular season(either per-possession or accumulatively) than Lebron?

[The-Power]

What is Curry's case here besides his team having 1 more win and higher true-shooting?

I mean, that's a pretty strong argument.

Curry's TS add for the season is 174.6. LeBron's TS add for the season is -0.8. That's a lot of points to make up for in other areas. Is he that much better on defense this season? Has the added that much more in terms of playmaking (raw numbers are close)? Clearly it's not the off-ball impact that propels his value compared to Curry.

And to be sure: it's possible to overcame the scoring gap. Clearly. But I certainly wouldn't just wave it off as if it's just a minor aspect that doesn't really matter (which is what it looks like when you mention it right with the one-more-win argument that is clearly not serious).

That being said: LeBron ended up having an impression season by any standard. So did Curry. Both are playing at levels that few players in history were capable of doing at their respective age. So this is not me trying to downplay what LeBron has done this season. It's been incredible.

[The-Power]

He was stuck playing 42 of 52 games with Westbrook, played 33 of 52 games with his only star teammate

(the team even looked good in lebron-westbrook minuities).

This presents Westbrook as a drag on LeBron but there's no evidence for that.

The team did not look good even in the LeBron-Westbrook minutes but especially in those.

Filtered for LeBron, Westbrook and Davis, ranked by net rating.

LeBron ON, Westbrook ON, Davis OFF (431 minutes): +9.95
LeBron OFF, Westbrook OFF, Davis ON (686 minutes): +5.78
LeBron ON, Westbrook OFF, Davis ON (520 minutes): +5.57
LeBron ON, Westbrook ON, Davis ON (299 minutes): +2.28
LeBron ON, Westbrook OFF, Davis OFF (606 minutes): +1.04
LeBron OFF, Westbrook ON, Davis ON (300 minutes): -2.22
LeBron OFF, Westbrook OFF, Davis OFF (530 minutes): -6.76
LeBron OFF, Westbrook ON, Davis OFF (461 minutes): -14.41

The Lakers sucked when it was Westbrook without LeBron and when none of the three players were on the court. But there is no evidence that LeBron's line-ups worked better without Westbrook. So the claim that Westbrook must be considered a drag when it comes to the performance of line-ups that include LeBron is not based on or supported by line-up data.

[OhayoKD]

What is Curry's case here besides his team having 1 more win and higher true-shooting?

I mean, that's a pretty strong argument.

Curry's TS add for the season is 174.6. LeBron's TS add for the season is -0.8. That's a lot of points to make up for in other areas. Is he that much better on defense this season? Has the added that much more in terms of playmaking (raw numbers are close)? Clearly it's not the off-ball impact that propels his value compared to Curry.

[/quote]
Well, the point of everything that came before that sentence(which I expounded on in further posts) is that it hasn't stopped Lebron from looking more valuable in a disadvantageous situation(also covered in posts on this page) with two completely different types of rosters(making it likely he's the signal, not the noise).

Curry's scoring advantage is baked into the the "winning" stuff which favors lebron even though, at least theoretically, this year should suppress that(if you buy Lebron is especially dependent on spacing, and can't function as well next to heliocentric playmakers like Westbrook(this is basically the main justification analysts have for not taking his apparent impact at face-value)).

This leaves three possibilities
1. Curry's scoring advantage isn't actually represented in per-possession or overall impact/winning analysis
2. Curry's scoring advantage is a byproduct of context than a reflection of him being a much better scorer
3. Curry's scoring advantage doesn't matter because Lebron is out-doing curry in other parts of the court

I don't see a basis for No.1 right now, and even if there was a basis, for the argument to be "strong", I think you still need to actually establish the degree of underpeformance and then why things actually swing to curry when we account for whatever is being missed here.

Otherwise I don't see any reason to think of Curry's true-shooting as more than a piece of a bigger puzzle which currently seems to favor Lebron. As for how it's possible that Lebron is better when his true-shotting is lower?

Well Lebron is
a. A much better ball-handler
b. A much better floor-general(as in telling teammates where to go/where to me much like how Draymond does)
c. A better defender physically
d. A better defensive coordinator(basically B)

Historically, all-doing playmakers like Lebron(Nash, Magic) seem to have a significantly bigger influence on winning than their box-score might indicate:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=105158719#p105158719
On the flip side, players who don't run the offense, aren't clear-cut primary ball-handlers, and/or aren't all-time passers seem to have the opposite problem where their discernible influence on offense is lower than a box-analysis would suggest(ts-add/ppg falls under this).

Thus it's fair to say we have historic precedent for Lebron-types performing better than Curry-types even when "raw numbers" may suggest otherwise, ontop of measures of the "bigger-picture"/winning agreeing that Lebron has been more valuable whether it's the most predictive/stable adjusted stuff or the more direct/larger sample raw stuff

I will grant this is a fair counter...

So the claim that Westbrook must be considered a drag when it comes to the performance of line-ups that include LeBron is not based on or supported by line-up data.

...but if Westbrook can't drag Lebron's impact down, what would?

Again Lebron, not Curry, seems to have a strong advantage in terms of situational value. If maximizing the prospect of theoretical diminishing returns, a frequently hobbled co-star, and the team completely changing mid-season aren't going to stop you from being more valuable, then in what situations would Lebron not be better for winning than Steph?

If Lebron doesn't have an issue mantaining his impact next to Westbrook, then that would indicate that Lebron is surprisingly "portable" ontop of being "more valuable".

If Lebron is more valuable, and his value doesn't go down when paired with similar archetypes, does it matter that Steph has a higher TS add? The point is ultimately to help your team win. How you get it done is a matter of aesthetics.

[70sFan]

I don’t think you’re doing it on purpose, but the back and forth here isn’t that James is or isn’t a top-5 player this season. It was originally that he is top-10.

I know and I backed down with the original statement, he has a case for top 10.

I'll take a step forward and ask what's Curry's case against Lebron here.

With all the stuff in the previous posts being considered, Lebron being significantly better than Curry seems fair and that probably gives him a decent top 5 case all considered. Besides Jokic, Giannis, Embid, and Tatum(haven't been tracking the Celtics but since he's a popular top 4 pick here and played significantly more, I'll assume the hype's warrnated), which players are we saying had a better regular season(either per-possession or accumulatively) than Lebron?

I haven't looked closely at their impact metrics, but LeBron had a horrible start of the season that hurts his already limited on-court sample. Him being no longer an efficient scorer also doesn't help and I see a clear decline in his creation ability at this point (though that's anecdotal, I could be wrong). All of that along with not being a great defender anymore makes me hard to pick him over Curry who is much better scorer and off-ball player that plays better than last season.

About top 5 candidates: I'd also consider Sabonis, Curry, Butler, Doncic and Shai over James. Davis is also a questionable one - very inconsistent, but similar number of games played. Durant should be somewhere there as well, though I probably put him below James for RS only.

Not saying James is below all of them, but I doubt I'd have him over all these players.

[The-Power]

Valid and good thoughts. I'll just respond to some of them.

Curry's scoring advantage is baked into the the "winning" stuff which favors lebron even though, at least theoretically, this year should suppress that(if you buy Lebron is especially dependent on spacing, and can't function as well next to heliocentric playmakers like Westbrook(this is basically the main justification analysts have for not taking his apparent impact at face-value)).

I think it's fair to be a bit more cautious about single-year plus-minus data on the whole, especially when we're talking about players with many years worth of data that paint a clear picture.

Both Curry and LeBron have been elite in terms of impact stats. Curry this year is very low by his standards despite the boxscore production not having taken a hit. So in this regard, I think it's important to not only look at the results of a metric, take them at face value and speculate about the reason for the discrepancy in terms impact without at least asking: why should his impact this year be considerably lower than in the past when there is nothing very noticeable in the boxscore production that changed? Is there anything particular that suppresses his impact this year, has he regressed, or is it noisy data due to the limited sample size?

Otherwise I don't see any reason to think of Curry's true-shooting as more than a piece of a bigger puzzle which currently seems to favor Lebron. As for how it's possible that Lebron is better when his true-shotting is lower?

I agree that scoring efficiency is only part of the equation but I still want to emphasize that I'm hesitant to accept LeBron's alleged higher impact as empirical reality when it may not be.

Well Lebron is
a. A much better ball-handler
b. A much better floor-general(as in telling teammates where to go/where to me much like how Draymond does)
c. A better defender physically
d. A better defensive coordinator(basically B)

Historically, all-doing playmakers like Lebron(Nash, Magic) seem to have a significantly bigger influence on winning than their box-score might indicate:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=105158719#p105158719
On the flip side, players who don't run the offense, aren't clear-cut primary ball-handlers, and/or aren't all-time passers seem to have the opposite problem where their discernible influence on offense is lower than a box-analysis would suggest(ts-add/ppg falls under this).

Thus it's fair to say we have historic precedent for Lebron-types performing better than Curry-types even when "raw numbers" may suggest otherwise, ontop of measures of the "bigger-picture"/winning agreeing that Lebron has been more valuable whether it's the most predictive/stable adjusted stuff or the more direct/larger sample raw stuff

Well, let's just assume that all the advantages above are true. They were true in years before, too. Yet especially over the past couple years – at least if I recall correctly – the gap between Curry and LeBron in your preferred metrics was smaller than today. This is despite LeBron seemingly falling off more in terms of boxscore composites than Curry.

None of the meta-thoughts presented above can account for that because they are not limited to this year. I'm also not sure whether it's true that historically, LeBron's impact-relative-to-boxscore numbers are greater than Curry's. Do you have anything to back that up? Because if not, there is an obvious issue with the archetype comparison as, again, this is not a one-year perspective.

That's why I believe we should be cautious about taking one-year impact metrics at face value and then argue the difference of impact based on broader ideas. Because these explanations would have to hold up across the years or, if they don't, they are either not that useful for this specific comparison or still miss some very important factors.

I also don't really see any basis to suggest that Curry's archetype limits his offensive impact compared to others and that his boxscore numbers overstate his impact. This is also where archetype-discussions become flawed, because we have never seen someone quite like Curry and even of the more ‘traditional’ archetype, there are so few at the elite level that it's tough for me to throw them into one box and derive generalized statements from it.

I will grant this is a fair counter...

So the claim that Westbrook must be considered a drag when it comes to the performance of line-ups that include LeBron is not based on or supported by line-up data.

...but if Westbrook can't drag Lebron's impact down, what would?

Again Lebron, not Curry, seems to have a strong advantage in terms of situational value. If maximizing the prospect of theoretical diminishing returns, a frequently hobbled co-star, and the team completely changing mid-season aren't going to stop you from being more valuable, then in what situations would Lebron not be better for winning than Steph?

Well, apparently the players he plays with when neither Westbrook nor Davis are on the court. So there are (objectively) players that ‘drag his numbers down’ more than Westbrook. But of course, we're running into sample size issues here.

As for the second question: what about young and/or inexperienced players? Because this is what has dragged Curry down, and the Lakers do not have the same issue.

Curry ON (1883 minutes): +4.9
Curry ON, Wiseman OFF (1815 minutes): +5.7
Curry ON, Kuminga OFF (1430 minutes): +8.5
Curry ON, Wiseman OFF, Kuminga OFF (1368 minutes): +9.7

Line-ups with these two players are a HUGE drag on Curry's numbers. The team is elite whenever Curry plays without either of them, and the sample size is not small for a single season. That's likely a reason for his comparatively less stellar impact numbers.

If Lebron doesn't have an issue mantaining his impact next to Westbrook, then that would indicate that Lebron is surprisingly "portable" ontop of being "more valuable".

That's a different conversation to have, I think.

If Lebron is more valuable, and his value doesn't go down when paired with similar archetypes, does it matter that Steph has a higher TS add? The point is ultimately to help your team win. How you get it done is a matter of aesthetics.

No, higher TS add in and of itself does not matter. I'd just caution against using small-sample all-in-one metrics for a conclusion and then working the way back from there instead of at least questioning the reliability of the numbers.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Valid and good thoughts. I'll just respond to some of them.

Curry's scoring advantage is baked into the the "winning" stuff which favors lebron even though, at least theoretically, this year should suppress that(if you buy Lebron is especially dependent on spacing, and can't function as well next to heliocentric playmakers like Westbrook(this is basically the main justification analysts have for not taking his apparent impact at face-value)).

I think it's fair to be a bit more cautious about single-year plus-minus data on the whole, especially when we're talking about players with many years worth of data that paint a clear picture.

Both Curry and LeBron have been elite in terms of impact stats. Curry this year is very low by his standards despite the boxscore production not having taken a hit. So in this regard, I think it's important to not only look at the results of a metric, take them at face value and speculate about the reason for the discrepancy in terms impact without at least asking: why should his impact this year be considerably lower than in the past when there is? Is there anything particular that suppresses his impact this year, has he regressed, or is it noisy data due to the limited sample?

Otherwise I don't see any reason to think of Curry's true-shooting as more than a piece of a bigger puzzle which currently seems to favor Lebron. As for how it's possible that Lebron is better when his true-shotting is lower?

I agree that scoring efficiency is only part of the equation but I still want to emphasize that I'm hesitant to LeBron's alleged higher impact as empirical reality when it may not.

Well Lebron is
a. A much better ball-handler
b. A much better floor-general(as in telling teammates where to go/where to me much like how Draymond does)
c. A better defender physically
d. A better defensive coordinator(basically B)

Historically, all-doing playmakers like Lebron(Nash, Magic) seem to have a significantly bigger influence on winning than their box-score might indicate:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=105158719#p105158719
On the flip side, players who don't run the offense, aren't clear-cut primary ball-handlers, and/or aren't all-time passers seem to have the opposite problem where their discernible influence on offense is lower than a box-analysis would suggest(ts-add/ppg falls under this).

Thus it's fair to say we have historic precedent for Lebron-types performing better than Curry-types even when "raw numbers" may suggest otherwise, ontop of measures of the "bigger-picture"/winning agreeing that Lebron has been more valuable whether it's the most predictive/stable adjusted stuff or the more direct/larger sample raw stuff

Well, let's just assume that all the advantages above are true. They were true in years before, too. Yet especially over the past couple years – at least if I recall correctly – the gap between Curry and LeBron in your preferred metrics was smaller than today. This is despite LeBron seemingly falling off more in terms of boxscore composites than Curry.

None of the meta-thoughts presented above can account for that because they are not limited to this year. I'm also not sure whether it's true that historically, LeBron's impact-relative-to-boxscore numbers are greater than Curry's. Do you have anything to back that up? Because if not, there is an obvious issue with the archetype comparison as, again, this is not a one-year perspective.

That's why I believe we should be cautious about taking one-year impact metrics at face value and then argue the difference of impact based on broader ideas. Because these explanations would have to hold up across the years or, if they don't, they are either not that useful for this specific comparison or still miss some very important factors.

I also don't really see any basis to suggest that Curry's archetype limits his offensive impact compared to others and that his boxscore numbers overstate his impact. This is also where archetype-discussions become flawed, because we have never seen someone quite like Curry and even of the more ‘traditional’ archetype, there are so few at the elite level that it's tough for me to throw them into one box and derive generalized statements from it.

I will grant this is a fair counter...

So the claim that Westbrook must be considered a drag when it comes to the performance of line-ups that include LeBron is not based on or supported by line-up data.

...but if Westbrook can't drag Lebron's impact down, what would?

Again Lebron, not Curry, seems to have a strong advantage in terms of situational value. If maximizing the prospect of theoretical diminishing returns, a frequently hobbled co-star, and the team completely changing mid-season aren't going to stop you from being more valuable, then in what situations would Lebron not be better for winning than Steph?

Well, apparently the players he plays with when neither Westbrook nor Davis are on the court. So there are (objectively) players that ‘drag his numbers down’ more than Westbrook. But of course, we're running into sample size issues here.

As for the second question: what about young and/or inexperienced players? Because this is what has dragged Curry down, and the Lakers do not have the same issue.

Curry ON (1883 minutes): +4.9
Curry ON, Wiseman OFF (1815 minutes): +5.7
Curry ON, Kuminga OFF (1430 minutes): +8.5
Curry ON, Wiseman OFF, Kuminga OFF (1368 minutes): +9.7

Line-ups with these two players are a HUGE drag on Curry's numbers. The team is elite whenever Curry plays without either of them, and the sample size is not small for a single season. That's likely a reason for his comparatively less stellar impact numbers.

If Lebron doesn't have an issue mantaining his impact next to Westbrook, then that would indicate that Lebron is surprisingly "portable" ontop of being "more valuable".

That's a different conversation to have, I think.

If Lebron is more valuable, and his value doesn't go down when paired with similar archetypes, does it matter that Steph has a higher TS add? The point is ultimately to help your team win. How you get it done is a matter of aesthetics.

No, higher TS add in and of itself does not matter. I'd just caution against using small-sample all-in-one metrics for a conclusion and then work my way back instead of questioning the reliability of the numbers.

So just to be quick here, for me there are three phases of brons season so far, I know we said to be careful using his impact stuff for a single year but just to get it out of the way since I feel no one has quantified it. Obv have followed nearly the whole year

Start of the year, where he was genuinely horrible on both ends and probably not top 20 (for like 10 games)

A period of time between him being healthy and him breaking the scoring record before he overdid it that game and messed up his foot, where he was top 5 (30 or so games)

Tangibly, he starting going through guys and utilizing strength more than his explosiveness in getting past them. Of course he always did this but he was going through guys a bit more than he did before if that makes sense

Coming back aft that where he hasn’t really gotten time to get in a rhythm yet, although physically he’s looked good just been really sloppy

I think there’s a difference between, is a Healthy game ready Lebron a top 5 or 10 player, or has the cumulative impact of bron been top 5 or 10



Healthy bron this year I think can safely be put in the second “section” I mentioned before for very obvious reasons. I think anyone that watches the Lakers can see how rusty he’s been with his decision making since coming back even if the numbers have been there and he looks physically good, and the first ten games were really poor and he starts most seasons poorly like that anyways.
Whether he can get back to that form either in the playoffs or with more game reps remains to be seen of course, but I wouldn’t doubt him with how he’s looking right now.


For the season, lebrons net rtg is +7.4. That isn’t anything world breaking, but it should be noted that they made some pretty big trades during the time period he missed, and he missed a majority of those games, so it’s natural that it’s a bit low. Prior to the trade deadline, it was +9.9, although this is notable because of who else is there as well. Not counting Rui since he was traded for mid season,

2nd place is Reaves, at +5.2 and then 3rd is AD, at +5.1 (ADs rating is a tad bit lowered as well because of that Lebron only stretch). Schroder at +2, and then I think the rest of the team is neutral or negative.

FWIW, RAPM has him at 15th, and luck adjusted RAPM has him at 5th. From my recollection he had risen from somewhere at like the 100 range to get to that spot from the first 20 or so games, I heard it hasn’t updated from deadline onwards but I’m not sure, might be wrong.




Also, when isolating that second stretch (34 games) I was talking about, so when he came back from his injury vs the Clippers during his bad start, to the OKC game, his on-off turns into +17.7

Outside of Rui who was traded for mid season, next is AD at +6.2

In this the Lakers offensive rtg was 117.0

In the games lebron played, it was 118.4, good for 2nd in the nba. In the 5 games he missed, it was 107.4 FWIW, although it’s such a small sample of course.

Lebrons on court off rtg (nba.com so diff measurement) was 119.2 (next highest is Reaves at 117.4) the team off court off rtg was 105.8 (next lowest is Schroder at 113.4)


To put it a lot more clearly, in a 34 game span, lebron was by far the most impactful offensive player, on a team that when he played were the 2nd in the league on offense, while being relatively good defensively as well (on off numbers would be a bit skewed because we played a lot of dumb small lineups, but even in that regard brons pretty darn good).


Now in this stretch, he averaged 32/8/7 on 60.9TS and 3 turnovers a game, and the team went 19-15.

It also should be clarified that AD only played in a bit less than half of these games, so the roster offensively was, pretty darn horrendous lmao.

Now that stretch of play With AD out bron was probably the best player in the league, think that was about 15 games?


Now I think this stretch makes sense to bring up because when the thread was made this was the Lebron we were talking about.


Situationally, it’s a mixed bag but I agree Lebrons impact is somewhat inflated because of a general lack of playmakers on the team (Iirc for the AD-less stretch Westbrook’s offensive stuff looked p good, although brons were other worldly).

Otoh, the team lacks shooting, which is kind of the bread and butter for Bron teams




^^^^

So the impact stuff out of the way, in the context of a healthy Lebron, he looks very good. There’s a strange idea that floated around in another thread that this is akin to getting a players best stretch of games randomly in an 82 game season, but I feel tangibly speaking if a guy who has a history of having a slow start, as he has for pretty much every year since he left miami, except 2018 (2019 he started slow heated up and then the groin injury happened and iirc he said he came back too early), compounded with him getting sick in the middle of that stretch too among other things

It just seems a bit ludicrous at this point to think that’s more representative of his level of play, this isn’t targetted at you or anything it’s just people really be focusing on those ten games, which is fine from the perspective of cumulative season value but pretty dumb in the context of how good healthy Bron actually is on a per minute basis




So anyways, to summarize the impact stuff, healthy Bron was a positive defender who had absolutely incredible impact signals (based on his current season wide data, probably would be second to Jokic during that stretch) on a team that was the second best offensive team with him playing in that stretch, with overall very little offensive help for over half those games

The caveats would be that players with size were heavily needed on defence, and that he provided a lot of value in a talent area they were scarce in.




Now where that ranks him? I’m not sure, but if we’re evaluating him as a player, he’s offensively had his most impactful year as a laker, including the 2020 RS.

There’s an idea that brons some big negative defender that’s pretty much entirely unsupported by data. He’s been bad one on one and bit lazy at times but isn’t targetted because he’s lebron, and makes up for it in other ways, and I think most people aren’t worried about how he stacks up in the playoffs. He’s a defensive playmaker type and makes a few great defensive plays a game with his hands and rotations and that BS that more than makes up for it, not enough to be near elite or anything but he’s a solid defender that can turn it up overall

Oh and ham has a good offensive system/playbook




Where that ranks as a player in the league when everyone is healthy is hard.

When evaluating Lebron, as a player, he’s an effecient super high volume scorer, can function both on and off ball (more so as a cutter with his shot being somewhat gone, although teams don’t leabe him open spotting up still mostly so he doesn’t hurt spacing), and a fantastic playmaker. As a pure offensive player, he’s probably top 5 in the league without too much of an arguement. Defensively he’s a moderate positive

Personally I think the nba is very much in tiers.

A clear top 9 (healthy) is something like


Giannis/Jokic/Embiid as a tier 1

Curry/Lebron/Durant/Tatum/Luka/AD as a tier 1.5

Now I think you can arrange this in any way, even guys like Embiid and Jokic can drop for various reasons, concerns of Jokic on D for example.

On the merits of this season alone, I think healthy Bron has certainly been a strong top 5 competitor on a per minute basis. I don’t see much of an argument for Luka for example, he’s basically put in a better position than bron was without AD and did a million times worse (the Lakers defense without AD that stretch was absurdly bad as well, but they were .500 with the best offense with bron not hurt). Tatum seems like a tryhard pick, and for some reason guys usually will only pick one of Curry and durant.

I don’t think it’s particularly difficult at all to argue that a healthy Lebron has been top 5 this year personally. I do think despite the impact numbers saying otherwise I’d give Curry the benefit of the doubt because he won last year though, and because of how little playmaking was on this Lakers team brons impact is a bit inflated (although in that stretch it was second only to Jokic anyways).


Westbrook wasn’t really a handicap on Bron as much as he was to the whole team in general


Overall, I’d say that if we are discussijf total seasonal cumalative value I understand him not being top 10, mostly because of him missing 30 games.

If we are discussing healthy or per minute, I think he has a pretty valid argument for top 5, although I might give a few guys the benefit of the doubt over him

From a impact side it’s easy
From a production or volume perspective it’s easy
From a player evaluation/reputation perspective it’s easy
From a playoff translation perspective I think that is self explanatory

Bron + brook was good because off ball bron is very good

Overall, I wouldn’t say anything like, oh bron is for sure top 5 because there’s a wait and see element come playoff time, because the competition is pretty fierce and volatile come playoff time