Lowest reasonable Peak ranking for Lebron?

[Matt15]

What is the lowest reasonable ranking you could see someone having for Lebron all-time peak wise? Could you see him out of the top 5? Based on the 2022 Peaks project that would put him behind MJ, Kareem, Shaq, Wilt and Duncan.

[70sFan]

I can see him outside top 5, but anything lower than top 10 is unrealistic.

[JVL]

Anyone who has Lebron lower than top 3 is objectively joking.

[McBubbles]

I can see him outside top 10, but anything lower than top 10 is unrealistic.

Who're the top 10 you could see over him? I got to 7 at a stretch.

Kareem
Russell
Wilt
MJ
Duncan
Hakeem
Shaq

That's it for me. Don't see anyone not listed has an argument even with the benefit of the doubt.

[jalengreen]

I can reasonably see him outside of the top 3. Out of the top 5? Ehh no

[Cavsfansince84]

6-7 but still with an argument for goat peak.

[70sFan]

I can see him outside top 10, but anything lower than top 10 is unrealistic.

Who're the top 10 you could see over him? I got to 7 at a stretch.

Kareem
Russell
Wilt
MJ
Duncan
Hakeem
Shaq

That's it for me. Don't see anyone not listed has an argument even with the benefit of the doubt.

Another stupid post from me... I edited my previous post.

I don't think you can make a case for LeBron outside top 10. Your list is a good one, I'd only add Mikan to it.

[ShaqAttac]

mikan, cap, n russ bout it

[70sFan]

Anyone who has Lebron lower than top 3 is objectively joking.

That's not a good approach to such discussions...

[capfan33]

As others have said, probably around 7 but I think even that's stretching it if you're keeping criteria consistent.

[Taj FTW]

Anyone who has Lebron lower than top 3 is objectively joking.

Don't talk to OdomFan then

[Jaivl]

I think you probably could stretch it to #6 or so and not make a completely terrible argument.

[Djoker]

I have him as the 4th highest peak after MJ, Kareem and Shaq although push comes to shove I could see Wilt, Russell and Hakeem over him too. So #7 or so.

[No-more-rings]

6-7 but still with an argument for goat peak.

It’s hard for me to see how having Lebron as the goat peak but only 6-7th all time is really consistent. His longevity, prime length and prime consistency is top notch even among top 10 guys. If anything it would probably be easier to argue 6-7th for peak, but argument for overall goat. Both highly unlikely among objective posters though.

[Cavsfansince84]

6-7 but still with an argument for goat peak.

It’s hard for me to see how having Lebron as the goat peak but only 6-7th all time is really consistent. His longevity, prime length and prime consistency is top notch even among top 10 guys. If anything it would probably be easier to argue 6-7th for peak, but argument for overall goat. Both highly unlikely among objective posters though.

What I'm saying is that his reasonable range for peak is basically 1-7.

[OhayoKD]

6-7 but still with an argument for goat peak.

It’s hard for me to see how having Lebron as the goat peak but only 6-7th all time is really consistent. His longevity, prime length and prime consistency is top notch even among top 10 guys. If anything it would probably be easier to argue 6-7th for peak, but argument for overall goat. Both highly unlikely among objective posters though.

What I'm saying is that his reasonable range for peak is basically 1-7.

Think you could get him pretty low if you take the "absolute value" as opposed to "value over replacement" approach. If you work on the premise that bigs stop other bigs from obliterating then a case can be made for people who are otherwise less "valuable"(keeping in mind value/impact is measured over replacement) and then go era-relative.

Russell and Wilt already have strong peak arguments without extra steps and then you can throw in hakeem, giannis, kareem, duncan, shaq, garnett, drob, ect

And then if we count the 50's mikan may well have been more dominant with no caveats


If you're going value over replacement like most people do then things get trickier.

Russell is straightforward, Wilt can scale from Russell. Mikan can be inferred

You can go for a cieling raising argument with Kareem maybe, and team-success based arguments for Kareem, Curry, Shaq, Russell, Magic, Jordan, Kobe, Duncan, and Mikan who all were on proper dynasties and won a bunch of rings in a relatively short time span(Lebron by comparison has only won 3 in 6 and 4 in 10)

If you go by "most dominant team led" and value the regular season you can easily put Russell, Wilt, MJ, Kareem, Duncan, Shaq, Curry, Magic, and Bird ahead with the 2020 Lakers being the only Lebron team that had that type of wire to wire dominance(09 would be there if they had won).

So while it's not a convential criteria(by total team success, winning percentage Lebron is comfortably ahead of Shaq and Bird and if you go by raw win totals can even get to #1), I do think it is "reasonable" to place Lebron at the fringes or below the top 10. The thing is consistent application will also drag down other players the people who generally make those types of arguments don't usually want to have dragged down.

[Cavsfansince84]

Think you could get him pretty low if you take the "absolute value" as opposed to "value over replacement" approach. If you work on the premise that bigs stop other bigs from obliterating then a case can be made for people who are otherwise less "valuable"(keeping in mind value/impact is measured over replacement) and then go era-relative.

Russell and Wilt already have strong peak arguments without extra steps and then you can throw in hakeem, giannis, kareem, duncan, shaq, garnett, drob, ect

And then if we count the 50's mikan may well have been more dominant with no caveats


If you're going value over replacement like most people do then things get trickier.

Russell is straightforward, Wilt can scale from Russell. Mikan can be inferred

You can go for a cieling raising argument with Kareem maybe, and team-success based arguments for Kareem, Curry, Shaq, Russell, Magic, Jordan, Kobe, Duncan, and Mikan who all were on proper dynasties and won a bunch of rings in a relatively short time span(Lebron by comparison has only won 3 in 6 and 4 in 10)

If you go by "most dominant team led" and value the regular season you can easily put Russell, Wilt, MJ, Kareem, Duncan, Shaq, Curry, Magic, and Bird ahead with the 2020 Lakers being the only Lebron team that had that type of wire to wire dominance(09 would be there if they had won).

So while it's not a convential criteria(by total team success, winning percentage Lebron is comfortably ahead of Shaq and Bird and if you go by raw win totals can even get to #1), I do think it is "reasonable" to place Lebron at the fringes or below the top 10. The thing is consistent application will also drag down other players the people who generally make those types of arguments don't usually want to have dragged down.

Well reasonable is somewhat subjective to say the least thus the thread. So I get that for you what you are saying is reasonable. I think using a heavy era relative way of thinking you could add in Mikan. Robinson I don't see a case for. No arguments for Steph or Kobe either imo. Bird idk. I think his defense had fallen off too much by the time his offense really stood out the way it would need to. LeBron in 2016 was probably the best scorer in the league, best all around off player and near the best as a perimeter defender(at least in those playoffs). Led both finals teams in all major statistical categories. That's if we use 2016. I agree though though on Wilt, Kareem, Duncan, Shaq, Russell, Hakeem and Mikan(if we are going heavy on era relativity and big man value) for strong arguments. Then you could add in MJ I think which leaves LeBron at 9. I'm not sure how reasonable I would actually find that to be though if I really went through it all with a fine comb.

[rk2023]

I have Bron as my #1 pick for peaks, but to each their own ultimately. To answer the question, could see some of the maxed-out two way titans (Duncan, Wilt, Olajuwon), Shaq/KAJ/Jordan. So seventh would be the answer.

[OhayoKD]

Think you could get him pretty low if you take the "absolute value" as opposed to "value over replacement" approach. If you work on the premise that bigs stop other bigs from obliterating then a case can be made for people who are otherwise less "valuable"(keeping in mind value/impact is measured over replacement) and then go era-relative.

Russell and Wilt already have strong peak arguments without extra steps and then you can throw in hakeem, giannis, kareem, duncan, shaq, garnett, drob, ect

And then if we count the 50's mikan may well have been more dominant with no caveats


If you're going value over replacement like most people do then things get trickier.

Russell is straightforward, Wilt can scale from Russell. Mikan can be inferred

You can go for a cieling raising argument with Kareem maybe, and team-success based arguments for Kareem, Curry, Shaq, Russell, Magic, Jordan, Kobe, Duncan, and Mikan who all were on proper dynasties and won a bunch of rings in a relatively short time span(Lebron by comparison has only won 3 in 6 and 4 in 10)

If you go by "most dominant team led" and value the regular season you can easily put Russell, Wilt, MJ, Kareem, Duncan, Shaq, Curry, Magic, and Bird ahead with the 2020 Lakers being the only Lebron team that had that type of wire to wire dominance(09 would be there if they had won).

So while it's not a convential criteria(by total team success, winning percentage Lebron is comfortably ahead of Shaq and Bird and if you go by raw win totals can even get to #1), I do think it is "reasonable" to place Lebron at the fringes or below the top 10. The thing is consistent application will also drag down other players the people who generally make those types of arguments don't usually want to have dragged down.

Well reasonable is somewhat subjective to say the least thus the thread. So I get that for you what you are saying is reasonable. I think using a heavy era relative way of thinking you could add in Mikan. Robinson I don't see a case for. No arguments for Steph or Kobe either imo. Bird idk. I think his defense had fallen off too much by the time his offense really stood out the way it would need to. LeBron in 2016 was probably the best scorer in the league, best all around off player and near the best as a perimeter defender(at least in those playoffs). Led both finals teams in all major statistical categories. That's if we use 2016. I agree though though on Wilt, Kareem, Duncan, Shaq, Russell, Hakeem and Mikan(if we are going heavy on era relativity and big man value) for strong arguments. Then you could add in MJ I think which leaves LeBron at 9. I'm not sure how reasonable I would actually find that to be though if I really went through it all with a fine comb.

You can't really throw MJ in there if you make the "big-man value" case since the logic applied there would resign guards to the bottom.

From what you're saying I'm guessing you don't consider team-success heavy arguments reasonable which is fine. If you center it around some standard of individual contribution then things get alot stricter as really only Russell stacks up emperically(Kareem does have specific counter punches with his pre-nba stuff and "most valuable player on a goat-level team"). Even the 2016 regular season looks goaty from an "analytics" standpoint(as does 15 and 15-17 as a whole) and then obvious playoff elevation.

Mikan is entirely inference from how much he won and how he was talked about to my knowledge but it's not like Lebron has strong counter evidence.

[AEnigma]

I agree with the allusions in this thread to the idea that much of what can be assessed as “reasonable” is dependent on consistency and application of context. There are a few approaches which I could see resulting in a much lower marker, but only one seems to have consistent application and room for contextual considerations of the sport.

One approach, often partially utilised, is to try to assess how much of an outlier a player was relative to their league. By that framework, it would be easy to exclude Lebron from the top ten. However, most people do not commit to that approach, because most people understand that there is a contextual flaw in rewarding the players who had the worst competition. I could say my top peaks were 1949 Mikan, 1968 Connie Hawkins, 1961 Russell, 1971 Kareem, and 2000 Shaq, but all that does is blindly penalise players in more competitive leagues without any attempt to analyse the players themselves.

Another approach, also partially utilised, is to chase narratives: who had the most complete/“perfect” season. Lebron can take a hit there because 2013 had the blemish of two series extended to seven games (and 2016/2020 has the blemish of not winning MVP or having the best record). However, here too, most people understand there is a contextual flaw in rewarding players for having elite team support and/or poor opponent support and ignoring how good the player is themselves. A true disciple might point to 1961 Russell, 1967 Wilt, 1971 Kareem, 1974 Erving, 1983 Moses, 1986 Bird, 1987 Magic, 1991 Jordan, and 2003 Duncan before they look at the “imperfections” of 2013 Lebron or 2000 Shaq or 1994 Hakeem or 1977 Walton, but — perhaps as suggested some of the selected years — this too qualifies as a blind penalty of players for daring to have lesser teammates or tougher opponents, and the issues behind this approach compound over time (would Robinson or Jokic or Nash even crack the top forty of players who won Finals MVP or otherwise made a deep run as an MVP?). Again, this method allows us to push Lebron out of the top ten, and I in fact know a couple of posters in this forum who seem to use a similar methodology, but at this point it stops being a basketball ranking and starts just being a ranking of stories, and that strikes me as fundamentally unreasonable. As an addendum, I also often see “cultural influence” being used as a separator for this process (goodbye, Moses, but hello, Kobe!), which I suppose people feel blends with that aforementioned focus on era relative rankings.

The potentially reasonable exception is a prioritisation of big men. Yet another method by which establishing consistency can be difficult, because there is no set marker where a perimetre player finally eclipses a big. However, here at least analysis of the players themselves becomes possible, so there is a conceivable path to a contextually reasonable ranking placing Lebron below some or all of the top bigs.

With that all said, I find the question odd when applied to Lebron specifically. Inverse perimetre arguments can be made against bigs (potential top five peaks: Lebron, Jordan, Magic, Bird, Curry). Inverse era arguments can be made against older players (potential top peaks: Lebron, Curry, Giannis, Jokic, etc.). We can prioritise offence, we can prioritise box score production, we can prioritise “overcoming adversity”, we can prioritise the regular season because “sample size” (hello, David Robinson!)… any top peak can be kicked out of the top ten if you just want to invent a methodology, but the problem is most of those methodologies require a mix of a) disregard for the sport itself, b) increasingly absurd rankings as you go further down the list, or c) arbitrary weights and assessments to manipulate that base choice of methodology. None of that is especially reasonable, but you can always do it (and many already do without needing this prompt lol).