Most Overrated Player in the Top 10

[Fencer reregistered]

Is this a question?



The man has nine rings as a player; you can argue that the rings are worth less due to era, but you can only do so much to explain away nine rings. His role on those teams speaks for itself, too; he wasn't just along for the ride.

11 championships in 13 seasons. Injured in the Finals in one of the others, but overall very durable.

Yeah go ahead and ignore the obvious (my arguments) to push your narrative

I'm arguing that he probably would not have won a ring if he played on another team besides the Celtics (similar to KD on the Warriors).

Also, that Hakeem on them Celtics would have made them a much better team, therefore, bringing to question who of the 2 (Hakeem or Wilt) are actually better

Would Hakeem have disobeyed his coaches' instructions not to block shots?
How would Hakeem have handled the racism of the era?

[70sFan]

Yeah go ahead and ignore the obvious (my arguments) to push your narrative

I'm arguing that he probably would not have won a ring if he played on another team besides the Celtics (similar to KD on the Warriors).

Also, that Hakeem on them Celtics would have made them a much better team, therefore, bringing to question who of the 2 (Hakeem or Wilt) are actually better

1. Russell didn't always play on stacked teams. Take a look at 1963/64 roster for example (arguably the most dominant Russell team) - they literally had one player who scored with above average efficiency. Surrounding seasons weren't much better. Then we have 1969 when an old team wasn't even close to the most talented in the league, which can be seen the next season without Bill.

Of course Russell wouldn't have won 11 titles in a worse team. What does it prove though? No player can build a dynasty by himself. Meanwhile, Russell built a dynasty that is untouchable by any other and he didn't do that with any MVP-level teammates like your KD comparison.

By the way, I wonder what do you mean by Hakeem making them "much better team"? How can you be much better than the best dynasty in sports history?

While I agree with your general thoughts -- in 7 out of Russell's 13 seasons, he had a teammate who also got votes for first-place MVP. (Cousy 5x, Sam Jones twice.)

Admittedly, after Cousy's MVP Russell's rookie season, those votes were quite few in number.

Yeah, Cousy rode on his reputation at the end of his career. He definitely wasn't MVP candidate after 1959.

[BostonCouchGM]

give each of these players you have listed in the top 10...Larry Bird's body and athleticism and see how they are. Almost every single one of those players except Magic and Bird, hit the genetic lottery and most of their dominance was predicated on them having a physical and athletic advantage. So essentially most of the centers and Lebron are way overrated and guys like Kobe, West, Havlicek, Oscar and Baylor are underrated because they relied on skill mostly.

The idea of taking innate size and athleticism out of things to say who is or isn't overrated is so strange to me. Would you do this in any other sports?

There are a variety of different skills in basketball unlike other sports though. You have dribbling, shooting, passing, rebounding and defense. I like to rank players based on those skills but sprinkle in leadership and clutch as well. Guys that won the genetic lottery excelled, often, despite not being skilled, but primarily because they have an athletic and size advantage. This allows them to dominate in scoring in particular. But imo, without this advantage they couldn't. So it factors into my rankings.

The guys at the top of my rankings i.e. MJ, Bird and Magic (in that order) aren't outliers but are ridiculously skilled and simply just better all around basketball players than the centers. There's plenty of 6'4" to 6'6" guys to compare Kobe, West, Havlicek, Oscar, Baylor and MJ to. There's plenty of 6'9" guys to compare Bird, Dr. J, and Magic to. There's lots of 6'11" guys like Duncan, KG, Hakeem and Dirk to compare them to. But there was only one Wilt, one Shaq and one Lebron. It's not like they fall out of the top 10. It just precludes them from being at the top where most have them ranked which is why they're overrated.

Does this apply to other sports? Well, no, because there aren't size/athletic outliers like basketball in most sports though football has some and I can use some examples to compare and explain basketball ones.

Randy Moss=Lebron James-Freak of nature, better size and speed.
Jerry Rice=Larry Bird-nothing special athletically or physically but the most skilled, highest BBIQ and hardest worker.

[turnaroundJ]

Seeing a guy you would put one spot out of the list would give you heartburn? You also probably mean subjective because objectively Curry pretty much doubled Hakeem's career highlights.

If someone has Curry top 10 then ok, cool, i dont. I have him just a couple spots down but everybody is entitled to their opinion. Curry had Durant for two of his titles and the Dream was dominate on both ends of the court. I have Dream over Curry.

Sure but you are using largely subjective criteria not objective. Curry had Durant? Hakeem had Drexler. Curry won twice with a player of that caliber. Curry won twice without a player of that caliber. Curry reached the finals an additional two times too. As I said basically double Hakeem's career highlights.

Hakeem dominated both ends? Did he now? Hakeem does not have the passing and off ball offense Curry does. Curry's offense is complete enough to make great defensive but offensive liabilities playable. That's why Curry's led teams that have been the top team in the league on offense and teams that were top in defense. Hakeem has not led a team to a top offense. Curry's best teams weren't just best of the year either they are in the argument for best historically.

Given the above it really should dawn on some people they are missing something. May I suggest they reconsider their simplistic view of the two sides of the ball theory? Offense and defense? Why not on-ball and off-ball? Or individual production and contribution to teammate production? It's why in a team game there are some things best seen in team results.

Wholeheartedly agree with this brother. We should cease this binary way of viewing players. It’s not a 50:50 between offense and defense. Great offensive players who aren’t necessarily elite defenders still can have an equal or greater impact. Curry, Magic, Nash, Dirk, etc. Being that good on offense allows teammates to focus on D and play their roles better. At the same time elite defensive greats allow their teammates to expend more energy on offense and be more efficient defense as well. There are so many different skills on the floor and nuances to being a great player.

[Zvaart]

Bill Russell. Players wasn't that great when he was playing

yeah, it's not like he had to play Wilt or something

[Bergmaniac]

give each of these players you have listed in the top 10...Larry Bird's body and athleticism and see how they are. Almost every single one of those players except Magic and Bird, hit the genetic lottery and most of their dominance was predicated on them having a physical and athletic advantage. So essentially most of the centers and Lebron are way overrated and guys like Kobe, West, Havlicek, Oscar and Baylor are underrated because they relied on skill mostly.

The idea of taking innate size and athleticism out of things to say who is or isn't overrated is so strange to me. Would you do this in any other sports?

There are a variety of different skills in basketball unlike other sports though. You have dribbling, shooting, passing, rebounding and defense. I like to rank players based on those skills but sprinkle in leadership and clutch as well. Guys that won the genetic lottery excelled, often, despite not being skilled, but primarily because they have an athletic and size advantage. This allows them to dominate in scoring in particular. But imo, without this advantage they couldn't. So it factors into my rankings.

The guys at the top of my rankings i.e. MJ, Bird and Magic (in that order) aren't outliers but are ridiculously skilled and simply just better all around basketball players than the centers. There's plenty of 6'4" to 6'6" guys to compare Kobe, West, Havlicek, Oscar, Baylor and MJ to. There's plenty of 6'9" guys to compare Bird, Dr. J, and Magic to. There's lots of 6'11" guys like Duncan, KG, Hakeem and Dirk to compare them to. But there was only one Wilt, one Shaq and one Lebron. It's not like they fall out of the top 10. It just precludes them from being at the top where most have them ranked which is why they're overrated.

Does this apply to other sports? Well, no, because there aren't size/athletic outliers like basketball in most sports though football has some and I can use some examples to compare and explain basketball ones.

Randy Moss=Lebron James-Freak of nature, better size and speed.
Jerry Rice=Larry Bird-nothing special athletically or physically but the most skilled, highest BBIQ and hardest worker.

Bird is one of the biggest winners of the genetic lottery who's ever played in the NBA. 6'9" guy with one of the all-time best eye-hand coordination and pretty good "standard" athleticism before his injuries. No, he couldn't jump out of the gym, but elite eye-hand coordination is more useful for a basketball player than a great vertical. And his ability to process things on the court and see openings most players don't is largely innate too, you can't train this.

[DoItALL9]

LeBron could arguably be as low as five
Anyone over ranked by more than 3 spots
(A thought, not my hill to die on though)

Sent from my LM-G710 using RealGM mobile app

[jalengreen]

Good thread, lot of good discussion here, wanted some clarification on this, though

Sadly, clutch is not just scoring and Lebron is better at nearly everything else, which is why...

2009 Cavaliers: +39.9
2013 Heat: +33.7
2011 Mavericks: +29.5
2007 Mavericks: +29.0
2006 Clippers: +27.1
2010 Cavaliers: +26.4
1998 Lakers: +26.2
1999 Magic: +25.7
2008 Cavaliers: +24.2
2004 Pacers: +23.4

MJ in 97 was 9-2 in the clutch in the postseason (tied for best with other Bulls guys). 20-10 in the regular season. In 98 he was slipping a bit more but he was 8-6 in the clutch in the postseason (tied for the most wins), and 21-16 in the regular season. Now I know for a fact the Heat in were like -2 or -3 in the clutch in the 2013 postseason.

Now I agree young Bron was clutch, but when he was tested like MJ was he folded sometimes and MJ folded never.

I think much of the clutch talk is generally nonsense anyway, especially for LeBron v. Jordan, but why do you think Jordan has never folded? What constitutes a fold to you?

To me, the 1995 series against Orlando certainly qualifies if there were to be a discussion about "folding" in the clutch.

Game 1: Bulls up 91-90 with 18 seconds left. Here's what Jordan did to top off a 19 point (8/22 shooting) and 8 turnover performance.

Turns it over to give up the lead. The Bulls did not score afterwards.

The next Bulls loss came in Game 3.

Game 3: Jordan hits 2 free throws with roughly 6:40 to go in the game to give him 38 points and put the Bulls up 91-86. Some anti-clutch moments from him in the rest of the game:

His last points came off of free throws with over 4 minutes to go. The Bulls did not make a field goal in the final 5 minutes of the game. Jordan finished with 40 points, 31 of which came in the first half.

Game 5 loss featured a consistent ~10 pt lead for Orlando in the last 6 minutes, so no real clutch time

Game 6: BJ Amstrong hits a huge 3 to put the Bulls up 102-94 with 3:24 left in the game. The Bulls would fail to score for the rest of the game:

Jordan took just one shot during this Bulls collapse, which is shown above. Moreso looked to create shots for others (which did result in a couple of open looks).

So, we have:

- Game 1 loss where Jordan had the lead despite playing a garbage game, and then singlehandedly choked it away
- Game 3 loss where Jordan dominated the first half and then completely collapsed in the clutch, handing the game to the Magic
- Game 6 loss where the Bulls gave up a 14-0 run to lose the game, during which Jordan attempted one shot (an airball)

I count three extremely winnable close losses in which Jordan was nonexistent down the stretch. The Bulls lost the series 4-2.

I don't think we have to make stuff up. Yeah, LeBron's folded before. But so has Jordan. Sometimes people have a habit of mythologizing him as some flawless figure who could do no wrong in his prime - that's what I get from statements like "MJ folded never." In reality, his late game collapses in the Bulls' 1995 postseason exit were clear enough for the commentators to mention it as a trend (see 1:50 in Game 3 clip).

[OhayoKD]

AHHH I've been tagged!

Snip

Forgot about this but I appreciate the reminder. Had a draft saved but was a bit awkward with a couple months passing

(to eballa)Sorry this took so long, I've been a bit busy since crossing the Atlantic. Unlike mavsdirk you actually addressed stuff, so I’ll make an effort to be thorough.

(ahem)

Let's start with the criticism:

All in all you're a smart poster so take this as constructive criticism. Puking up stats doesn't really make your point if you're not engaging the argument honestly and you're just trying to throw out whatever points you think will stick.

Okay, but then what's this...

2. By SRS the 1994 Bulls were a +3 team, and the 95 Bulls were between a +3-4. That's good, but far from the +10 regular season squads Chicago had with a in basketball shape MJ.

94 saw the Bulls saw Pippen and Grant stagger missed games. At full strength, they were a +5 team starting at +4.5, and then elevating to +8 in the playoffs.


You point out differences with the 1988 Bulls lineup — fine, I will make note of that in the future — while also trying to say the 1994 Bulls dropped 7 SRS points.. Even taking +10(which is not what the Bulls were for 1993) this leaves Jordan improving the Bulls by a margin of +5.

Solid if your benchmark is 2011 Lebron, rather weak otherwise(2010-2011 Heat see a +4.6 SRS shift(lots of moving pieces, not sure what they were at full-strength), or, going by lineup-ratings, the big-three were +12 overall and +15 in the regular season. Wade and Bosh alone were +6.7, putting Lebron at +5.3(higher in the rs, lower in the playoffs).

1985, eh... The 30 game sample for Lebron was a "healthy" sample(all the games with the starting lineup) in a season where the Cavs 2nd and 3rd mpg players missed more than half the season. From what I gather you're taking 28 games(in which the Bulls were no better overall) where the Bulls 5th mpg and 7th mpg players swapped minute distributions? That seems contrived. 1988's more reasonable(Sam was an improvement over Sedale), but still not the same(taking their net-rating at face value, we get a 1-win improvement over where Ben pegged them and 3-win improvement over their actual SRS and record).

Regardless, using your "full-strength" derivation, I'm not sure, it, as you say, "has a meaning", considering that still puts 21/22 and 23/24 year-old MJ led-offense significantly behind what Lebron led at 20/21(2006, 35 game sample, Bron has a birthday, Ben decides to say Lebron is 19 in 05, BBR says he's 20 ). And here, I'll admit, I did lie. Checking Ben's write-up, that full-strength offense wasn't +5, it was +6.6, coming off a +2.3 offense(2005, 70 game sample) with 19/20 year old Lebron, and a +4.9 jump(+6 overall!) with Lebron at 18/19. Was that all Lebron? No. But even with a generous adjustment(take Boozer's 31-game without sample from the season after and pretend he wasn't on the 03 Cavs), we're around +2(+4 overall) with teenage Bron.

From Ben's derivations, the most notable stretch for Jordan came at the end of 1989 where the Bulls went at +2.9 with Jordan passing more(24 games).

Healthy, those cavs were a 56-win team with their lineup intact. The Bull's best(pre-triangle)mark is 52(or 53) wins.

And here, I'll lie again. If we pretend Oakley(who you argue shouldn't have been traded) didn't matter at all and instead attribute every bit of the Bulls' improvement between 84 and 88 to Mike, Jordan improves a (full-strength)28-win team to 52(or 53) wins for a +8 improvement. Good, but not within range of Lebron's best(non-juiced) signals

You don't like WOWY? Fine, then we can use the Cavs net rating which places kyrie and love's cavs as an average offense and a bad defense(which still leads to Lebron looking more valuable than Mike). Though to be clear, no, that you disagree with evidence does not invalidate it. Especially when half your reasoning is either cherrypicking team-level offensive performance(Bulls vs Knicks) or telling us how many points Jordan scored. Whether it’s extended RAPM. on/off, or raw(wowy, indirect, ect), “coasting” Lebron still grades out as top-tier historically. If there’s a misinformed party, it’s probably you.

Frankly, despite offering far less information, your post seems to do a better job falling to the pitfalls you claim my post fell for. For example...

You got to set parameters before just throwing out a bunch of stars loosely connected with logically inconsistent reasoning

I thought it was clear from my first response to Mavs what my parameters were, but let's be more specific. "Better" here means
-> Is more likely to win in general
-> is more likely to win championships
Lebron can do more, he needs less to win, and has consistently had a bigger effect on a wide variety of teams ranging from non-contenders to champions.

Examining what appear to be your "foundations":

- Yes other teammates took over responsibilities in place of MJ because they were better suited for them. It also led to more team success and the most dominant stretch of any franchise since Russell's Celtics. Tim Duncan also let teammates take over and had the most dominant stretch since MJ. Before MJ it was Magic who was the most successful since Russell, he also delegated tasks. Historically this is the most consistent recipe for success.

Yeah, I'm not really sure what you're trying to accomplish with your examples here. Duncan, like Lebron(and unlike MJ) anchored his team's offense and defense simultaneously at his apex.

Bill Russell was specifically valuable on the defensive side as the best man defender, the best help defender, and the guy coordinating all the other pieces(something he ended up doing to an extent Lebron never has for the most impressive run of his tenure(69)). Incidentally, besides being the best winner ever, what we have for Russell suggests he also may have been the most valuable player ever.

No similar case exists for Jordan(Magic and Curry look better by your “winning” measure) which is probably why you later resort to "he's never been outplayed(translation:outscored) by a teammate!" as if the "distribution" of help is what matters here. The most successful and most valuable players are the ones who can do more. Lebron happens to be one of the most successful players ever, on top of having the biggest discernible influence on winning of anyone since fellow pseudo-coach Russell.

Needing to delegate by virtue of having a less complete skillset is not a positive and Lebron would have welcomed naturally developed teammates who fit him well (Shane Battier and Rasheed Wallace come to mind). The blueprint for more limited players may be to do less, but it is not an advantage. There's a reason we don't mention Robert Horry here. Why should one care about Steph's weaknesses when he sufficiently "delegated" to his other teammates to lead the best team ever in 2017?

Half your examples don't support your conclusion, and I'd guess most of your player-rankings do not reflect "doing more is actually not better". I'm also not sure how you saw three players who were drafted in fortunate conditions and came to the conclusion this is a "consistent" recipe...but at least you seem to be "engaging the argument honestly".

Unfortunately, you don't do that here...

Why are we pretending MJ had perfectly healthy teammates and didn't show the ability to step up at other points in their career?

(No one pretended this)
Or here...

Wait... Are we pretending now that help defense is useless after you were harping on MJ not having to deal with it?

(No one pretended this either)
Or here…

Either way they're on the same level at least, so it's odd to pretend MJ never faced similar comp and played well.

(Really?)
Or here...

His shots defended inside increased in the playoffs too. About an extra shot a game each year. He was CLEARLY coasting in the regular season.

before we get to the playoffs where he anchored multiple defenses on the level of the Pippen-anchored Bulls:

I think people act as if Lebron stopped trying after 2013: he went full help defender, which is less versatile and why his clear defensive peak is earlier, but that does not mean he stops being a lot more valuable to his teams than Jordan was.

I was responding to the claim Lebron stopped being better than Jordan because he "stopped" giving effort. You turned that into "Lebron peaked at 30!" because that's much easier fruit to pick than “pretending” Jordan and Lebron are comparable defenders.

This is more egregious...

Regardless if you want to give LeBron credit for longevity, then you can't suddenly want 2011, 2007, and 2008 removed from the conversation. It's either all worth mentioning or not at all worth mentioning. Especially when Ohayo talked so much about Wizards MJ in that post.

Ohayo talked about Wizards MJ in the context of leadership. And Ohayo didn't "ignore" 2011, they claimed it was better than Jordan's 1995(not to mention 1994 and his wizards stint), to which you responded "but look at his slashline!". Just like Ohayo specifically highlighted that Jordan's "resume" was largely propped up by post-peak MVP wins(not just in terms of winning but in terms of vote-share) in response to a poster claiming that longevity doesn't matter.

And no it's not "all or nothing". It's one thing to not reward Lebron for his longevity(something I didn't attempt to do despite you repeatedly claiming otherwise), it's another thing to punish Lebron for playing longer. You want to bring up 2008 and 2007? Then show me what you're comparing it to. Jordan played 15 seasons of basketball. You are looking at the worst years in a 20-year span and Lebron still wins any serious comparison("BUT HE WASN'T OUTPLAYED" is not a solid defense). Lebron had a decent if not spectacular regular season by mvp standards, Mikey played for a fraction. Lebron had a great team and lost a close final to a Mavericks side that can rightly be argued as stronger than any team Jordan's Bulls vanquished. Jordan joined a great team(53-win pace without, second superstar in a league where contenders typically had one) and lost to soon-to-be-swept Orlando.

You also accuse me of vomiting,,,

Puking up stats doesn't really make your point if you're not engaging the argument honestly and you're just trying to throw out whatever points you think will stick. You got to set parameters before just throwing out a bunch of stars loosely connected inconsistent reasoning

But again, this applies to your stuff more than mine.

You made a few legit critiques(Ex: Jordan's game 4-7 sample), but the majority of your argumentation was more like...

When discussing illegal defenses why do we consistently overlook what MJ did in his 3rd career? I understand we like to forget those years but a well post prime MJ coming off a 4 year retirement was a top 15ish offensive player still.

Let’s say 02 MJ was a top 15ish offensive player when healthy. Jordan being way worse on the Wizards than he was on the Bulls does not prove anything. This is solid evidence for Jordan not needing illegal d to be top 15. It's "puke" otherwise. You know what's also puke?

These the same box models that use height and position at times as a proxy for how much credit each individual player should get for a stop?

Oh gee. If only I went over how these box models accomplish that...

This box score information is also weighted according to what position or role the player has on the team. For instance, a block by a center is good, but a block by a guard is great.

This section addresses nothing I said while confidently stating something that's obviously false ("all box stats are equal!") with no rationale. It's textbook fluff. Just you typing words onto a screen because you didn't have anything better to do.

As for "throwing up stats"

They were a +6.1 team without him half the season in 98, and he had a negative on/off in the playoffs (he scored 14 points in the last 2 games of the Finals his back was so bad).

Jordan's 98 on/off scores lower than eighteen of Lebron's 20 nba seasons. No one argued Pippen was never injured, but just like "jordan was a top 15ish player", "they were a +6.1 team without" amounts to nothing here. Ditto with "x player had y record in the clutch". "jordan had x points and y stocks!!!", and "A STOP IS A STOP!".

But your worst vomit comes with Bill:

Russell was 107-58 in his whole playoff career. MJ was 105-37 from 1990 to 1998 (119-60 overall). They're about equal as winners.

When it comes to players that have won an MVP before the top guys by win percentage in the postseason are:
1. Stephen Curry (.694 - it's .652 without KD in the lineup) selective contextualization is selective
2. Magic Johnson (.674)
3. Michael Jordan (.665)
4. LeBron James (.654)
5. Kareem Abdul Jabbar (.650)
6. Bill Russell (.648)

If this was how it worked dynasties would be MORE common after league expansion across sports not less. The same way I value the modern Patriots over the 60s Packers is the same way I see the 90s Bulls and 60s Celtics as equally accomplished.

The Celtics were playing teams with losing records in the Finals some years, he wasn't hurt by there being less rounds that's ludicrous.

Off z-score it obliterates the whole gap damn near. But that just means they faced just about even opponents which is my point. About even accomplishments.

But if they faced generally even opponents and Russell won almost twice as many rings and made the finals twice as much, I would definitely give the edge to Russell. Even accounting for the extra series' Jordan played, I don't think extra first-round series should count for that much.

If the first round series are against teams as strong as the CF opponents for Russell then it should count. Again equal team strength, equal amounts of series played, MJ won more games and had a better W/L percentage.

but it does matter to most people that two of those guys, in the same era, stuck it out and won every ring in an 8 year stretch. It's admirable.

just using regular season SRS and playing out the playoffs, i have russell with 7.0 expected titles and jordan with 2.9. now i don't know if winning 11 when expecting 7 or winning 6 when expecting 2.9 is better. more extra titles for russell but only 57% above expected, less extra titles for jordan but over 100% above expected. jordan did manage to win every season with better than a 6.3% chance, which is ridiculous, while russell lost 30% and 71% chances, but russell also converted 7.1% and 13.5% chances so it probably evens out.

of course, russell should have more expected titles, as jordan didn't join the best team in the league his rookie year like russell did.

(not you, but may as well address this too)

1. First round opponents are generally worse than conference-final and final opponents, even if their "srs" is equal. So no, Jordan did not "face similar opponents and accomplish as much", he faced easier opponents and accomplished less. Putting a bunch of weaker teams in a league where Russ never lost, barring health or availability, would only help his win%, even if that ate into the massive gulf in actual hardware. "Dynasties were less common" is vomit because your argument here is not centered on rings.

2. Jordan did not win "every ring" in an 8-year period, he won 6.

3. (for fp4) Russell's career did not end in 1957. Of his 11 rings, 5 came after the core behind the first 6 had left or diminished. fp4 cherrypicks a 27 game sample from the most stacked team Bill played with but ignores an 82 game sample where the Celtics, with a basically identical roster(and a better version of Russell's best teammate) played 35-win ball. If we take the small career wide sample at face value(which eballa referenced to his credit), Russell should have won less than Mike. Instead he won nearly twice as much, not only doing better in the regular season(7 expected wins to 2.9!),but capitalizing better in the playoffs(+4 overperformance vs +3.1).

4. Your metric of choice still does not put Jordan on top. Instead he's 3rd(lower if we go by total wins). No.1 is Wardell "Stephen" Curry, leader of the best team ever ("when dynasties were less common"), a more willing delegator than Mike, and a guy Lebron outplayed b2b2b2b in his 30's.

Since you offered me some constructive criticism, let me return the favor.

You wanna nitpick? Cool. There's nothing wrong with hitting a few things you disagree with. But if you're going to nitpick and then use those picks to justify big swings(like implying my post was incoherent and dishonest), those picks needs to be rock-solid.

Instead, we got a bunch of straw(6 by my count) and a bunch of herring(not gonna bother) building up to this…

This is the problem with using other posters' work to support yours, they don't all believe or think the same things, so you end up making a lot of contradictory arguments here.

There aren’t “a lot of contradictory arguments”, hence why you’re stuck manufacturing contradictions where they don’t exist. This is not to say the post was flawless, but when making worthwhile omelets, you may break a few eggs. The benefit of using “other poster’s work to support yours” is we can draw on the knowledge and perspectives of many to create something more valuable than what one of us might come up with alone. You may have forgotten, but this is a forum, not a courthouse. Mixing and matching is kind of the point.

The criticism also rings hollow when it comes in a post with significantly less coherence(despite covering waaaay less ground!). Frankly, I’d recommend coming down from on high(“whatever has befallen realgm!!!”) because your bravado is starting to read as a cover for you not having much to offer

When you could have asked for clarification, you assumed ill-intent. Where things were not explicit, you assumed the worst. You clearly did not follow the conversation and were largely unable or unwilling to represent the bits you focused on accurately.

TLDR: do better

All considered, you’re probably smarter than I am. Aim higher than Dillon Brooks.

[DonaldSanders]

Yikes.

Ya'll do realize there is no objective answer to who the best player is, right?

[twyzted]

Its Lebron and its not even close.
Been stacking the deck for 13+ years with pretty mediocre results.

Only one in top8 with a losing record in the most important games of the season.

Needed the most help of all top 10 guys.

Was regurlary outplayed in the clutch by his teammates.
Wade in 2011.
Kyrie in 2016.
Ad in 2020.

[_qubik]

It needs to be Russel, no denial of his importance for the whole game. But it was the most different possible era of basketball

[ShaqAttac]

AHHH I've been tagged!

Snip

Forgot about this but I appreciate the reminder. Had a draft saved but was a bit awkward with a couple months passing

(to eballa)Sorry this took so long, I've been a bit busy since crossing the Atlantic. Unlike mavsdirk you actually addressed stuff, so I’ll make an effort to be thorough.

(ahem)

Let's start with the criticism:

All in all you're a smart poster so take this as constructive criticism. Puking up stats doesn't really make your point if you're not engaging the argument honestly and you're just trying to throw out whatever points you think will stick.

Okay, but then what's this...

2. By SRS the 1994 Bulls were a +3 team, and the 95 Bulls were between a +3-4. That's good, but far from the +10 regular season squads Chicago had with a in basketball shape MJ.

94 saw the Bulls saw Pippen and Grant stagger missed games. At full strength, they were a +5 team starting at +4.5, and then elevating to +8 in the playoffs.


You point out differences with the 1988 Bulls lineup — fine, I will make note of that in the future — while also trying to say the 1994 Bulls dropped 7 SRS points.. Even taking +10(which is not what the Bulls were for 1993) this leaves Jordan improving the Bulls by a margin of +5.

Solid if your benchmark is 2011 Lebron, rather weak otherwise(2010-2011 Heat see a +4.6 SRS shift(lots of moving pieces, not sure what they were at full-strength), or, going by lineup-ratings, the big-three were +12 overall and +15 in the regular season. Wade and Bosh alone were +6.7, putting Lebron at +5.3(higher in the rs, lower in the playoffs).

1985, eh... The 30 game sample for Lebron was a "healthy" sample(all the games with the starting lineup) in a season where the Cavs 2nd and 3rd mpg players missed more than half the season. From what I gather you're taking 28 games(in which the Bulls were no better overall) where the Bulls 5th mpg and 7th mpg players swapped minute distributions? That seems contrived. 1988's more reasonable(Sam was an improvement over Sedale), but still not the same(taking their net-rating at face value, we get a 1-win improvement over where Ben pegged them and 3-win improvement over their actual SRS and record).

Regardless, using your "full-strength" derivation, I'm not sure, it, as you say, "has a meaning", considering that still puts 21/22 and 23/24 year-old MJ led-offense significantly behind what Lebron led at 20/21(2006, 35 game sample, Bron has a birthday, Ben decides to say Lebron is 19 in 05, BBR says he's 20 ). And here, I'll admit, I did lie. Checking Ben's write-up, that full-strength offense wasn't +5, it was +6.6, coming off a +2.3 offense(2005, 70 game sample) with 19/20 year old Lebron, and a +4.9 jump(+6 overall!) with Lebron at 18/19. Was that all Lebron? No. But even with a generous adjustment(take Boozer's 31-game without sample from the season after and pretend he wasn't on the 03 Cavs), we're around +2(+4 overall) with teenage Bron.

From Ben's derivations, the most notable stretch for Jordan came at the end of 1989 where the Bulls went at +2.9 with Jordan passing more(24 games).

Healthy, those cavs were a 56-win team with their lineup intact. The Bull's best(pre-triangle)mark is 52(or 53) wins.

And here, I'll lie again. If we pretend Oakley(who you argue shouldn't have been traded) didn't matter at all and instead attribute every bit of the Bulls' improvement between 84 and 88 to Mike, Jordan improves a (full-strength)28-win team to 52(or 53) wins for a +8 improvement. Good, but not within range of Lebron's best(non-juiced) signals

You don't like WOWY? Fine, then we can use the Cavs net rating which places kyrie and love's cavs as an average offense and a bad defense(which still leads to Lebron looking more valuable than Mike). Though to be clear, no, that you disagree with evidence does not invalidate it. Especially when half your reasoning is either cherrypicking team-level offensive performance(Bulls vs Knicks) or telling us how many points Jordan scored. Whether it’s extended RAPM. on/off, or raw(wowy, indirect, ect), “coasting” Lebron still grades out as top-tier historically. If there’s a misinformed party, it’s probably you.

Frankly, despite offering far less information, your post seems to do a better job falling to the pitfalls you claim my post fell for. For example...

You got to set parameters before just throwing out a bunch of stars loosely connected with logically inconsistent reasoning

I thought it was clear from my first response to Mavs what my parameters were, but let's be more specific. "Better" here means
-> Is more likely to win in general
-> is more likely to win championships
Lebron can do more, he needs less to win, and has consistently had a bigger effect on a wide variety of teams ranging from non-contenders to champions.

Examining what appear to be your "foundations":

- Yes other teammates took over responsibilities in place of MJ because they were better suited for them. It also led to more team success and the most dominant stretch of any franchise since Russell's Celtics. Tim Duncan also let teammates take over and had the most dominant stretch since MJ. Before MJ it was Magic who was the most successful since Russell, he also delegated tasks. Historically this is the most consistent recipe for success.

Yeah, I'm not really sure what you're trying to accomplish with your examples here. Duncan, like Lebron(and unlike MJ) anchored his team's offense and defense simultaneously at his apex.

Bill Russell was specifically valuable on the defensive side as the best man defender, the best help defender, and the guy coordinating all the other pieces(something he ended up doing to an extent Lebron never has for the most impressive run of his tenure(69)). Incidentally, besides being the best winner ever, what we have for Russell suggests he also may have been the most valuable player ever.

No similar case exists for Jordan(Magic and Curry look better by your “winning” measure) which is probably why you later resort to "he's never been outplayed(translation:outscored) by a teammate!" as if the "distribution" of help is what matters here. The most successful and most valuable players are the ones who can do more. Lebron happens to be one of the most successful players ever, on top of having the biggest discernible influence on winning of anyone since fellow pseudo-coach Russell.

Needing to delegate by virtue of having a less complete skillset is not a positive and Lebron would have welcomed naturally developed teammates who fit him well (Shane Battier and Rasheed Wallace come to mind). The blueprint for more limited players may be to do less, but it is not an advantage. There's a reason we don't mention Robert Horry here. Why should one care about Steph's weaknesses when he sufficiently "delegated" to his other teammates to lead the best team ever in 2017?

Half your examples don't support your conclusion, and I'd guess most of your player-rankings do not reflect "doing more is actually not better". I'm also not sure how you saw three players who were drafted in fortunate conditions and came to the conclusion this is a "consistent" recipe...but at least you seem to be "engaging the argument honestly".

Unfortunately, you don't do that here...

Why are we pretending MJ had perfectly healthy teammates and didn't show the ability to step up at other points in their career?

(No one pretended this)
Or here...

Wait... Are we pretending now that help defense is useless after you were harping on MJ not having to deal with it?

(No one pretended this either)
Or here…

Either way they're on the same level at least, so it's odd to pretend MJ never faced similar comp and played well.

(Really?)
Or here...

His shots defended inside increased in the playoffs too. About an extra shot a game each year. He was CLEARLY coasting in the regular season.

before we get to the playoffs where he anchored multiple defenses on the level of the Pippen-anchored Bulls:

I think people act as if Lebron stopped trying after 2013: he went full help defender, which is less versatile and why his clear defensive peak is earlier, but that does not mean he stops being a lot more valuable to his teams than Jordan was.

I was responding to the claim Lebron stopped being better than Jordan because he "stopped" giving effort. You turned that into "Lebron peaked at 30!" because that's much easier fruit to pick than “pretending” Jordan and Lebron are comparable defenders.

This is more egregious...

Regardless if you want to give LeBron credit for longevity, then you can't suddenly want 2011, 2007, and 2008 removed from the conversation. It's either all worth mentioning or not at all worth mentioning. Especially when Ohayo talked so much about Wizards MJ in that post.

Ohayo talked about Wizards MJ in the context of leadership. And Ohayo didn't "ignore" 2011, they claimed it was better than Jordan's 1995(not to mention 1994 and his wizards stint), to which you responded "but look at his slashline!". Just like Ohayo specifically highlighted that Jordan's "resume" was largely propped up by post-peak MVP wins(not just in terms of winning but in terms of vote-share) in response to a poster claiming that longevity doesn't matter.

And no it's not "all or nothing". It's one thing to not reward Lebron for his longevity(something I didn't attempt to do despite you repeatedly claiming otherwise), it's another thing to punish Lebron for playing longer. You want to bring up 2008 and 2007? Then show me what you're comparing it to. Jordan played 15 seasons of basketball. You are looking at the worst years in a 20-year span and Lebron still wins any serious comparison("BUT HE WASN'T OUTPLAYED" is not a solid defense). Lebron had a decent if not spectacular regular season by mvp standards, Mikey played for a fraction. Lebron had a great team and lost a close final to a Mavericks side that can rightly be argued as stronger than any team Jordan's Bulls vanquished. Jordan joined a great team(53-win pace without, second superstar in a league where contenders typically had one) and lost to soon-to-be-swept Orlando.

You also accuse me of vomiting,,,

Puking up stats doesn't really make your point if you're not engaging the argument honestly and you're just trying to throw out whatever points you think will stick. You got to set parameters before just throwing out a bunch of stars loosely connected inconsistent reasoning

But again, this applies to your stuff more than mine.

You made a few legit critiques(Ex: Jordan's game 4-7 sample), but the majority of your argumentation was more like...

When discussing illegal defenses why do we consistently overlook what MJ did in his 3rd career? I understand we like to forget those years but a well post prime MJ coming off a 4 year retirement was a top 15ish offensive player still.

Let’s say 02 MJ was a top 15ish offensive player when healthy. Jordan being way worse on the Wizards than he was on the Bulls does not prove anything. This is solid evidence for Jordan not needing illegal d to be top 15. It's "puke" otherwise. You know what's also puke?

These the same box models that use height and position at times as a proxy for how much credit each individual player should get for a stop?

Oh gee. If only I went over how these box models accomplish that...

This box score information is also weighted according to what position or role the player has on the team. For instance, a block by a center is good, but a block by a guard is great.

This section addresses nothing I said while confidently stating something that's obviously false ("all box stats are equal!") with no rationale. It's textbook fluff. Just you typing words onto a screen because you didn't have anything better to do.

As for "throwing up stats"

They were a +6.1 team without him half the season in 98, and he had a negative on/off in the playoffs (he scored 14 points in the last 2 games of the Finals his back was so bad).

Jordan's 98 on/off scores lower than eighteen of Lebron's 20 nba seasons. No one argued Pippen was never injured, but just like "jordan was a top 15ish player", "they were a +6.1 team without" amounts to nothing here. Ditto with "x player had y record in the clutch". "jordan had x points and y stocks!!!", and "A STOP IS A STOP!".

But your worst vomit comes with Bill:

Russell was 107-58 in his whole playoff career. MJ was 105-37 from 1990 to 1998 (119-60 overall). They're about equal as winners.

When it comes to players that have won an MVP before the top guys by win percentage in the postseason are:
1. Stephen Curry (.694 - it's .652 without KD in the lineup) selective contextualization is selective
2. Magic Johnson (.674)
3. Michael Jordan (.665)
4. LeBron James (.654)
5. Kareem Abdul Jabbar (.650)
6. Bill Russell (.648)

If this was how it worked dynasties would be MORE common after league expansion across sports not less. The same way I value the modern Patriots over the 60s Packers is the same way I see the 90s Bulls and 60s Celtics as equally accomplished.

The Celtics were playing teams with losing records in the Finals some years, he wasn't hurt by there being less rounds that's ludicrous.

But if they faced generally even opponents and Russell won almost twice as many rings and made the finals twice as much, I would definitely give the edge to Russell. Even accounting for the extra series' Jordan played, I don't think extra first-round series should count for that much.

If the first round series are against teams as strong as the CF opponents for Russell then it should count. Again equal team strength, equal amounts of series played, MJ won more games and had a better W/L percentage.

but it does matter to most people that two of those guys, in the same era, stuck it out and won every ring in an 8 year stretch. It's admirable.

just using regular season SRS and playing out the playoffs, i have russell with 7.0 expected titles and jordan with 2.9. now i don't know if winning 11 when expecting 7 or winning 6 when expecting 2.9 is better. more extra titles for russell but only 57% above expected, less extra titles for jordan but over 100% above expected. jordan did manage to win every season with better than a 6.3% chance, which is ridiculous, while russell lost 30% and 71% chances, but russell also converted 7.1% and 13.5% chances so it probably evens out.

of course, russell should have more expected titles, as jordan didn't join the best team in the league his rookie year like russell did.

(not you, but may as well address this too)

1. First round opponents are generally worse than conference-final and final opponents, even if their "srs" is equal. So no, Jordan did not "face similar opponents and accomplish as much", he faced easier opponents and accomplished less. Putting a bunch of weaker teams in a league where Russ never lost, barring health or availability, would only help his win%, even if that ate into the massive gulf in actual hardware. "Dynasties were less common" is vomit because your argument here is not centered on rings.

2. Jordan did not win "every ring" in an 8-year period, he won 6.

3. (for fp4) Russell's career did not end in 1957. Of his 11 rings, 5 came after the core behind the first 6 had left or diminished. fp4 cherrypicks a 27 game sample from the most stacked team Bill played with but ignores an 82 game sample where the Celtics, with a basically identical roster(and a better version of Russell's best teammate) played 35-win ball. If we take the small career wide sample at face value(which eballa referenced to his credit), Russell should have won less than Mike. Instead he won nearly twice as much, not only doing better in the regular season(7 expected wins to 2.9!),but capitalizing better in the playoffs(+4 overperformance vs +3.1).

4. Your metric of choice still does not put Jordan on top. Instead he's 3rd(lower if we go by total wins). No.1 is Wardell "Stephen" Curry, leader of the best team ever ("when dynasties were less common"), a more willing delegator than Mike, and a guy Lebron outplayed b2b2b2b in his 30's.

Since you offered me some constructive criticism, let me return the favor.

You wanna nitpick? Cool. There's nothing wrong with hitting a few things you disagree with. But if you're going to nitpick and then use those picks to justify big swings(like implying my post was incoherent and dishonest), those picks needs to be rock-solid.

Instead, we got a bunch of straw(6 by my count) and a bunch of herring(not gonna bother) building up to this…

This is the problem with using other posters' work to support yours, they don't all believe or think the same things, so you end up making a lot of contradictory arguments here.

There aren’t “a lot of contradictory arguments”, hence why you’re stuck manufacturing contradictions where they don’t exist. This is not to say the post was flawless, but when making worthwhile omelets, you may break a few eggs. The benefit of using “other poster’s work to support yours” is we can draw on the knowledge and perspectives of many to create something more valuable than what one of us might come up with alone. You may have forgotten, but this is a forum, not a courthouse. Mixing and matching is kind of the point.

The criticism also rings hollow when it comes in a post with significantly less coherence(despite covering waaaay less ground!). Frankly, I’d recommend coming down from on high(“whatever has befallen realgm!!!”) because your bravado is starting to read as a cover for you not having much to offer

When you could have asked for clarification, you assumed ill-intent. Where things were not explicit, you assumed the worst. You clearly did not follow the conversation and were largely unable or unwilling to represent the bits you focused on accurately.

TLDR: do better

All considered, you’re probably smarter than I am. Aim higher than Dillon Brooks.

GB has infoormed Eball he wont be brought back under "any circumstances"

[Chokic]

Bill Russell by a country mile followed by shaq and magic.

[homecourtloss]

AHHH I've been tagged!

Snip

Forgot about this but I appreciate the reminder. Had a draft saved but was a bit awkward with a couple months passing

(to eballa)Sorry this took so long, I've been a bit busy since crossing the Atlantic. Unlike mavsdirk you actually addressed stuff, so I’ll make an effort to be thorough.

(ahem)

Let's start with the criticism:

All in all you're a smart poster so take this as constructive criticism. Puking up stats doesn't really make your point if you're not engaging the argument honestly and you're just trying to throw out whatever points you think will stick.

Okay, but then what's this...

2. By SRS the 1994 Bulls were a +3 team, and the 95 Bulls were between a +3-4. That's good, but far from the +10 regular season squads Chicago had with a in basketball shape MJ.

94 saw the Bulls saw Pippen and Grant stagger missed games. At full strength, they were a +5 team starting at +4.5, and then elevating to +8 in the playoffs.


You point out differences with the 1988 Bulls lineup — fine, I will make note of that in the future — while also trying to say the 1994 Bulls dropped 7 SRS points.. Even taking +10(which is not what the Bulls were for 1993) this leaves Jordan improving the Bulls by a margin of +5.

Solid if your benchmark is 2011 Lebron, rather weak otherwise(2010-2011 Heat see a +4.6 SRS shift(lots of moving pieces, not sure what they were at full-strength), or, going by lineup-ratings, the big-three were +12 overall and +15 in the regular season. Wade and Bosh alone were +6.7, putting Lebron at +5.3(higher in the rs, lower in the playoffs).

1985, eh... The 30 game sample for Lebron was a "healthy" sample(all the games with the starting lineup) in a season where the Cavs 2nd and 3rd mpg players missed more than half the season. From what I gather you're taking 28 games(in which the Bulls were no better overall) where the Bulls 5th mpg and 7th mpg players swapped minute distributions? That seems contrived. 1988's more reasonable(Sam was an improvement over Sedale), but still not the same(taking their net-rating at face value, we get a 1-win improvement over where Ben pegged them and 3-win improvement over their actual SRS and record).

Regardless, using your "full-strength" derivation, I'm not sure, it, as you say, "has a meaning", considering that still puts 21/22 and 23/24 year-old MJ led-offense significantly behind what Lebron led at 20/21(2006, 35 game sample, Bron has a birthday, Ben decides to say Lebron is 19 in 05, BBR says he's 20 ). And here, I'll admit, I did lie. Checking Ben's write-up, that full-strength offense wasn't +5, it was +6.6, coming off a +2.3 offense(2005, 70 game sample) with 19/20 year old Lebron, and a +4.9 jump(+6 overall!) with Lebron at 18/19. Was that all Lebron? No. But even with a generous adjustment(take Boozer's 31-game without sample from the season after and pretend he wasn't on the 03 Cavs), we're around +2(+4 overall) with teenage Bron.

From Ben's derivations, the most notable stretch for Jordan came at the end of 1989 where the Bulls went at +2.9 with Jordan passing more(24 games).

Healthy, those cavs were a 56-win team with their lineup intact. The Bull's best(pre-triangle)mark is 52(or 53) wins.

And here, I'll lie again. If we pretend Oakley(who you argue shouldn't have been traded) didn't matter at all and instead attribute every bit of the Bulls' improvement between 84 and 88 to Mike, Jordan improves a (full-strength)28-win team to 52(or 53) wins for a +8 improvement. Good, but not within range of Lebron's best(non-juiced) signals

You don't like WOWY? Fine, then we can use the Cavs net rating which places kyrie and love's cavs as an average offense and a bad defense(which still leads to Lebron looking more valuable than Mike). Though to be clear, no, that you disagree with evidence does not invalidate it. Especially when half your reasoning is either cherrypicking team-level offensive performance(Bulls vs Knicks) or telling us how many points Jordan scored. Whether it’s extended RAPM. on/off, or raw(wowy, indirect, ect), “coasting” Lebron still grades out as top-tier historically. If there’s a misinformed party, it’s probably you.

Frankly, despite offering far less information, your post seems to do a better job falling to the pitfalls you claim my post fell for. For example...

You got to set parameters before just throwing out a bunch of stars loosely connected with logically inconsistent reasoning

I thought it was clear from my first response to Mavs what my parameters were, but let's be more specific. "Better" here means
-> Is more likely to win in general
-> is more likely to win championships
Lebron can do more, he needs less to win, and has consistently had a bigger effect on a wide variety of teams ranging from non-contenders to champions.

Examining what appear to be your "foundations":

- Yes other teammates took over responsibilities in place of MJ because they were better suited for them. It also led to more team success and the most dominant stretch of any franchise since Russell's Celtics. Tim Duncan also let teammates take over and had the most dominant stretch since MJ. Before MJ it was Magic who was the most successful since Russell, he also delegated tasks. Historically this is the most consistent recipe for success.

Yeah, I'm not really sure what you're trying to accomplish with your examples here. Duncan, like Lebron(and unlike MJ) anchored his team's offense and defense simultaneously at his apex.

Bill Russell was specifically valuable on the defensive side as the best man defender, the best help defender, and the guy coordinating all the other pieces(something he ended up doing to an extent Lebron never has for the most impressive run of his tenure(69)). Incidentally, besides being the best winner ever, what we have for Russell suggests he also may have been the most valuable player ever.

No similar case exists for Jordan(Magic and Curry look better by your “winning” measure) which is probably why you later resort to "he's never been outplayed(translation:outscored) by a teammate!" as if the "distribution" of help is what matters here. The most successful and most valuable players are the ones who can do more. Lebron happens to be one of the most successful players ever, on top of having the biggest discernible influence on winning of anyone since fellow pseudo-coach Russell.

Needing to delegate by virtue of having a less complete skillset is not a positive and Lebron would have welcomed naturally developed teammates who fit him well (Shane Battier and Rasheed Wallace come to mind). The blueprint for more limited players may be to do less, but it is not an advantage. There's a reason we don't mention Robert Horry here. Why should one care about Steph's weaknesses when he sufficiently "delegated" to his other teammates to lead the best team ever in 2017?

Half your examples don't support your conclusion, and I'd guess most of your player-rankings do not reflect "doing more is actually not better". I'm also not sure how you saw three players who were drafted in fortunate conditions and came to the conclusion this is a "consistent" recipe...but at least you seem to be "engaging the argument honestly".

Unfortunately, you don't do that here...

Why are we pretending MJ had perfectly healthy teammates and didn't show the ability to step up at other points in their career?

(No one pretended this)
Or here...

Wait... Are we pretending now that help defense is useless after you were harping on MJ not having to deal with it?

(No one pretended this either)
Or here…

Either way they're on the same level at least, so it's odd to pretend MJ never faced similar comp and played well.

(Really?)
Or here...

His shots defended inside increased in the playoffs too. About an extra shot a game each year. He was CLEARLY coasting in the regular season.

before we get to the playoffs where he anchored multiple defenses on the level of the Pippen-anchored Bulls:

I think people act as if Lebron stopped trying after 2013: he went full help defender, which is less versatile and why his clear defensive peak is earlier, but that does not mean he stops being a lot more valuable to his teams than Jordan was.

I was responding to the claim Lebron stopped being better than Jordan because he "stopped" giving effort. You turned that into "Lebron peaked at 30!" because that's much easier fruit to pick than “pretending” Jordan and Lebron are comparable defenders.

This is more egregious...

Regardless if you want to give LeBron credit for longevity, then you can't suddenly want 2011, 2007, and 2008 removed from the conversation. It's either all worth mentioning or not at all worth mentioning. Especially when Ohayo talked so much about Wizards MJ in that post.

Ohayo talked about Wizards MJ in the context of leadership. And Ohayo didn't "ignore" 2011, they claimed it was better than Jordan's 1995(not to mention 1994 and his wizards stint), to which you responded "but look at his slashline!". Just like Ohayo specifically highlighted that Jordan's "resume" was largely propped up by post-peak MVP wins(not just in terms of winning but in terms of vote-share) in response to a poster claiming that longevity doesn't matter.

And no it's not "all or nothing". It's one thing to not reward Lebron for his longevity(something I didn't attempt to do despite you repeatedly claiming otherwise), it's another thing to punish Lebron for playing longer. You want to bring up 2008 and 2007? Then show me what you're comparing it to. Jordan played 15 seasons of basketball. You are looking at the worst years in a 20-year span and Lebron still wins any serious comparison("BUT HE WASN'T OUTPLAYED" is not a solid defense). Lebron had a decent if not spectacular regular season by mvp standards, Mikey played for a fraction. Lebron had a great team and lost a close final to a Mavericks side that can rightly be argued as stronger than any team Jordan's Bulls vanquished. Jordan joined a great team(53-win pace without, second superstar in a league where contenders typically had one) and lost to soon-to-be-swept Orlando.

You also accuse me of vomiting,,,

Puking up stats doesn't really make your point if you're not engaging the argument honestly and you're just trying to throw out whatever points you think will stick. You got to set parameters before just throwing out a bunch of stars loosely connected inconsistent reasoning

But again, this applies to your stuff more than mine.

You made a few legit critiques(Ex: Jordan's game 4-7 sample), but the majority of your argumentation was more like...

When discussing illegal defenses why do we consistently overlook what MJ did in his 3rd career? I understand we like to forget those years but a well post prime MJ coming off a 4 year retirement was a top 15ish offensive player still.

Let’s say 02 MJ was a top 15ish offensive player when healthy. Jordan being way worse on the Wizards than he was on the Bulls does not prove anything. This is solid evidence for Jordan not needing illegal d to be top 15. It's "puke" otherwise. You know what's also puke?

These the same box models that use height and position at times as a proxy for how much credit each individual player should get for a stop?

Oh gee. If only I went over how these box models accomplish that...

This box score information is also weighted according to what position or role the player has on the team. For instance, a block by a center is good, but a block by a guard is great.

This section addresses nothing I said while confidently stating something that's obviously false ("all box stats are equal!") with no rationale. It's textbook fluff. Just you typing words onto a screen because you didn't have anything better to do.

As for "throwing up stats"

They were a +6.1 team without him half the season in 98, and he had a negative on/off in the playoffs (he scored 14 points in the last 2 games of the Finals his back was so bad).

Jordan's 98 on/off scores lower than eighteen of Lebron's 20 nba seasons. No one argued Pippen was never injured, but just like "jordan was a top 15ish player", "they were a +6.1 team without" amounts to nothing here. Ditto with "x player had y record in the clutch". "jordan had x points and y stocks!!!", and "A STOP IS A STOP!".

But your worst vomit comes with Bill:

Russell was 107-58 in his whole playoff career. MJ was 105-37 from 1990 to 1998 (119-60 overall). They're about equal as winners.

When it comes to players that have won an MVP before the top guys by win percentage in the postseason are:
1. Stephen Curry (.694 - it's .652 without KD in the lineup) selective contextualization is selective
2. Magic Johnson (.674)
3. Michael Jordan (.665)
4. LeBron James (.654)
5. Kareem Abdul Jabbar (.650)
6. Bill Russell (.648)

If this was how it worked dynasties would be MORE common after league expansion across sports not less. The same way I value the modern Patriots over the 60s Packers is the same way I see the 90s Bulls and 60s Celtics as equally accomplished.

The Celtics were playing teams with losing records in the Finals some years, he wasn't hurt by there being less rounds that's ludicrous.

But if they faced generally even opponents and Russell won almost twice as many rings and made the finals twice as much, I would definitely give the edge to Russell. Even accounting for the extra series' Jordan played, I don't think extra first-round series should count for that much.

If the first round series are against teams as strong as the CF opponents for Russell then it should count. Again equal team strength, equal amounts of series played, MJ won more games and had a better W/L percentage.

but it does matter to most people that two of those guys, in the same era, stuck it out and won every ring in an 8 year stretch. It's admirable.

just using regular season SRS and playing out the playoffs, i have russell with 7.0 expected titles and jordan with 2.9. now i don't know if winning 11 when expecting 7 or winning 6 when expecting 2.9 is better. more extra titles for russell but only 57% above expected, less extra titles for jordan but over 100% above expected. jordan did manage to win every season with better than a 6.3% chance, which is ridiculous, while russell lost 30% and 71% chances, but russell also converted 7.1% and 13.5% chances so it probably evens out.

of course, russell should have more expected titles, as jordan didn't join the best team in the league his rookie year like russell did.

(not you, but may as well address this too)

1. First round opponents are generally worse than conference-final and final opponents, even if their "srs" is equal. So no, Jordan did not "face similar opponents and accomplish as much", he faced easier opponents and accomplished less. Putting a bunch of weaker teams in a league where Russ never lost, barring health or availability, would only help his win%, even if that ate into the massive gulf in actual hardware. "Dynasties were less common" is vomit because your argument here is not centered on rings.

2. Jordan did not win "every ring" in an 8-year period, he won 6.

3. (for fp4) Russell's career did not end in 1957. Of his 11 rings, 5 came after the core behind the first 6 had left or diminished. fp4 cherrypicks a 27 game sample from the most stacked team Bill played with but ignores an 82 game sample where the Celtics, with a basically identical roster(and a better version of Russell's best teammate) played 35-win ball. If we take the small career wide sample at face value(which eballa referenced to his credit), Russell should have won less than Mike. Instead he won nearly twice as much, not only doing better in the regular season(7 expected wins to 2.9!),but capitalizing better in the playoffs(+4 overperformance vs +3.1).

4. Your metric of choice still does not put Jordan on top. Instead he's 3rd(lower if we go by total wins). No.1 is Wardell "Stephen" Curry, leader of the best team ever ("when dynasties were less common"), a more willing delegator than Mike, and a guy Lebron outplayed b2b2b2b in his 30's.

Since you offered me some constructive criticism, let me return the favor.

You wanna nitpick? Cool. There's nothing wrong with hitting a few things you disagree with. But if you're going to nitpick and then use those picks to justify big swings(like implying my post was incoherent and dishonest), those picks needs to be rock-solid.

Instead, we got a bunch of straw(6 by my count) and a bunch of herring(not gonna bother) building up to this…

This is the problem with using other posters' work to support yours, they don't all believe or think the same things, so you end up making a lot of contradictory arguments here.

There aren’t “a lot of contradictory arguments”, hence why you’re stuck manufacturing contradictions where they don’t exist. This is not to say the post was flawless, but when making worthwhile omelets, you may break a few eggs. The benefit of using “other poster’s work to support yours” is we can draw on the knowledge and perspectives of many to create something more valuable than what one of us might come up with alone. You may have forgotten, but this is a forum, not a courthouse. Mixing and matching is kind of the point.

The criticism also rings hollow when it comes in a post with significantly less coherence(despite covering waaaay less ground!). Frankly, I’d recommend coming down from on high(“whatever has befallen realgm!!!”) because your bravado is starting to read as a cover for you not having much to offer

When you could have asked for clarification, you assumed ill-intent. Where things were not explicit, you assumed the worst. You clearly did not follow the conversation and were largely unable or unwilling to represent the bits you focused on accurately.

TLDR: do better

All considered, you’re probably smarter than I am. Aim higher than Dillon Brooks.

Oh my what a post

[ryguy613]

there's about 2 or 3 that shouldnt be in the convo, HOWEVER there's no other to replace them either.

for instance no way does kd get into this convo

Kobe cant even get into the conversation to replace Hakeem or Duncan?

[SNPA]

there's about 2 or 3 that shouldnt be in the convo, HOWEVER there's no other to replace them either.

for instance no way does kd get into this convo

Kobe cant even get into the conversation to replace Hakeem or Duncan?

No.

[SNPA]

The idea of taking innate size and athleticism out of things to say who is or isn't overrated is so strange to me. Would you do this in any other sports?

There are a variety of different skills in basketball unlike other sports though. You have dribbling, shooting, passing, rebounding and defense. I like to rank players based on those skills but sprinkle in leadership and clutch as well. Guys that won the genetic lottery excelled, often, despite not being skilled, but primarily because they have an athletic and size advantage. This allows them to dominate in scoring in particular. But imo, without this advantage they couldn't. So it factors into my rankings.

The guys at the top of my rankings i.e. MJ, Bird and Magic (in that order) aren't outliers but are ridiculously skilled and simply just better all around basketball players than the centers. There's plenty of 6'4" to 6'6" guys to compare Kobe, West, Havlicek, Oscar, Baylor and MJ to. There's plenty of 6'9" guys to compare Bird, Dr. J, and Magic to. There's lots of 6'11" guys like Duncan, KG, Hakeem and Dirk to compare them to. But there was only one Wilt, one Shaq and one Lebron. It's not like they fall out of the top 10. It just precludes them from being at the top where most have them ranked which is why they're overrated.

Does this apply to other sports? Well, no, because there aren't size/athletic outliers like basketball in most sports though football has some and I can use some examples to compare and explain basketball ones.

Randy Moss=Lebron James-Freak of nature, better size and speed.
Jerry Rice=Larry Bird-nothing special athletically or physically but the most skilled, highest BBIQ and hardest worker.

Bird is one of the biggest winners of the genetic lottery who's ever played in the NBA. 6'9" guy with one of the all-time best eye-hand coordination and pretty good "standard" athleticism before his injuries. No, he couldn't jump out of the gym, but elite eye-hand coordination is more useful for a basketball player than a great vertical. And his ability to process things on the court and see openings most players don't is largely innate too, you can't train this.

I’ve been making this point on the player comparison board with varying results. Some of these guys are natural basketball players (innate), some are top level world class athletes that play basketball (learned). There is a difference. Some people can’t spot it apparently or think it doesn’t matter. It does.

[ryguy613]

there's about 2 or 3 that shouldnt be in the convo, HOWEVER there's no other to replace them either.

for instance no way does kd get into this convo

Kobe cant even get into the conversation to replace Hakeem or Duncan?

How exactly are Duncan and Hakeem clear cut favorites over Kobe? Whats the criteria?

[Cavsfansince84]

there's about 2 or 3 that shouldnt be in the convo, HOWEVER there's no other to replace them either.

for instance no way does kd get into this convo

Kobe cant even get into the conversation to replace Hakeem or Duncan?

How exactly are Duncan and Hakeem clear cut favorites over Kobe? Whats the criteria?

You do realize that Hakeem in some regular seasons and even more post seasons was as good or better than Kobe offensively then was an all time level big man defender on top of that right? I mean Kobe is pretty safely seen as top 15 all time which I think his fans should be content with. Hakeem and Duncan both just were easier to build around and had higher peaks also. You can't entirely leave out Kobe's hard to get along personality out of this either. Phil literally tried to have him traded just as he was entering his prime and already knew the triangle forwards and backwards.