LeBron vs Curry looking only at 14-15 season to now

[OhayoKD]

Back we are to the ons and offs...First, some house cleaning...

What future assets did they spend? Pretty much on all fronts those moves midseason where eyed at the future post Lebron, they improved their collection future assets. They were way better off in 2019 having made those moves than they would have been otherwise. Trading a bunch of old role players on expiring deals for young guys who they could use in the future. If anything I think the team was probably worse post trade and probably would have ended up in the same spot regardless of those moves. Not sure why Lebron is to blame for that or how that effects his on court value. The Cavs were just acting in a sub-optimal way (as they often do) and seized the opportunity to punt on a season where they had a contending team to prepare for the future. They clearly though they still would be decent since they gave Kevin Love a massive contract that offseason that immediately made him un-tradeable, probably because the owner was acting out of spite and controlling a young GM.

I don't agree with your analysis of this situation at all, and I am not really interested in arguing about it more. If you're going to take the position that Lebron made that team worse, fine, I just think it's just completely ridiculous.

You know what, let's grant the premise. Lebron James cost the Cleveland Cavaliers the 25th pick of the draft thereby hurting their future prospects. fine.

He also got his next team Anthony Davis:
https://www.si.com/nba/2018/12/28/anti-tampering-memo-nba-lebron-james-anthony-davis
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2797206-pelicans-anthony-davis-signs-with-lebron-james-klutch-sports-agency
Aside from going toe to toe with Curry individually with one foot on 65k minutes, Lebron also secured a top tier player to potentially end a dynasty? intangibles!

And yes, Lebron did punch something, after seeing an 80% ft shooter miss two ft's(which Lebron created) and JR JR to thwart a likely win, limiting himself to...still-better-than-steph production against a much better defense, true!

But is that really worse than Steph's habit of getting ejected(thus not being able to contribute at all) for making his mouthpiece a projectile?

This is a comparative exercise. Lebron doing something bad means nothinginofitself.

It's neat you like delving into extra-circulars, but let's not be so selective.

Speaking of...

When I bring up a stat that points in a particular direction, I'm not saying that that stat alone should be discussed as defining the entirety of the situation.

When you only bring up that one stat and then your conclusions seem to follow what it(and it alone) suggests, then yes it will end up "defining the situation".

As I(and others) have covered(and you have not yet addressed or acknowledged), more stable data, more inclusive data, and larger empirical samples(per-game and per-season), all seem to agree that Lebron's impact is far off Steph(and anyone else from the last 20 years) per-possession, never mind overall. Considering that Steph has seen his minutes closely tied to an even bigger impact generator(at least statistically), giving on/off more focus than everything else is odd. Okay, RAPM is not a single metric(though Lebron scoring much higher than Steph seems to hold universally), but the pattern holds when we look at specific linueps(30+ Lebron provides comparable rs lift and then his teams get substantially better Lebron lineups improving, with or without his co-stars), and the gap only widens when we take out Lebron entirely.

Without Lebron(who playedliterally twice much as Steph in 17/18), the 18-19 cavs were a 19-win team with a SRS-9.6(a 10-point regression from the previous year). When we go with wins added, Lebron consistently scores higher in the adjusted-stuff. It's one thing to argue Steph was worth more per possession(that is actually supported). But clinging to the nosiest stuff there is to effectively argue Steph was twice as good as Lebron is bizarre.

What's even weirder is that you neglect to mention that on/off favored Lebron in the 16, 17, and 18 postseasons(you gave 2 of those years to Curry). The playoff stuff also favored Durant that year. If that doesn't matter because of what Durant has proven "again and again" before and after, then why should we ignore what Lebron(and the cavs) demonstrated before, after, and and even during?(with the exception of this one thing that sees them as peers and is obviously skewed by draymond)?

But we really get out-of-pocket when we start talking "accomplishment".

Many teams that win titles are way less dialed in rounds 1 or 2 than they are for the conf finals or finals when they know they need to hit another gear. Also, Steph missed round 1 and in that game they lost to NO he goes 6-19 in 28 minutes. Houston was a 65 win team in the wcf so no explanation required I think why they were able to nearly beat the Warriors. LeBron otoh was on a 50 win team that year so that's the context under which he led his team to a finals while probably having the most overall flawless playoff run on a game to game basis we've seen in a long time. I mean he maybe had one off game out of the 22 they played that playoffs and swept the 1 seed. So idk what basis Steph has over LeBron that year other than his team was much better and could afford to have him miss entire series. Also worth noting that the Cavs closed out the season after those trades going 11-3 to get the 4 seed while the Warriors sort of coasted to 58 wins.

Fair enough, it's possible that there were other teams capable of getting swept by the Warriors.

Yeah, uh, why didn't you address or acknowledge that Steph played a combined 28-minutes in those 2 losses? Why are you only looking at the finals?

The Cavs swept a +7 SRS Raptors side(basically a healthy variant of the 89 Cavs), beat a celtics side that went 14-8 without Kyrie(+1.8 Net) and dominated the +4.5 srs 76ers, and edged a 45-win(by record and srs) Pacers side in their worst performance of the playoffs.

Yeah the east was weak, but those cavs were comfortably a 50+ win playoff team that peaked with 60+ basketball vs Toronto. The next year they won 19 games without 82 games of "+1.9 on/off" Lebron(25ish win, -3.5 net if you only look at Kevin Love minutes). That is historic-looking lift, and if you think none of those qualify as "achievements", I'm skeptical you're applying that standard consistently.

That raw "lift" is also corroborated by the stable-adjusted stuff, on/off, and Lebron outright killing Steph in terms of box-production. And that's before we get to the finals where Lebron outscored and outcreated Curry facing a dynastic defense, while also directing his team on both ends of the court and facing significantly more defensive attention, for the 4th time in a row(granted their creation was actually similar in 2017, but their defensive contributions were not).

Never mind that Steph missed a round and a half(just like he did in 16), never mind that he and his team folded when they faced adversity(losing to a significantly less talented Rockets team before their second best player got hurt), and never mind that Steph's own teammate outproduced and outvalued him(at least statistically), just like Lebron did.

Lebron would proceed to look just as valuable aged 33-38(and yes, that can easily be argued for the first two-rounds of 2023's playoffs), just as he looked more valuable the previous two postseasons(yes, even by on/off!), and really three when we care for context like lineups, minutes played, and sample size. Yet you gave Steph 3 of those 4 years(including 2 where he's out-on/offed) and are alleging Lebron didn't really accomplish anything in a year he played literally twice as much in the regular season, nearly twice as much in the postseason, and was more valuable per-possession anyway in the games that mattered most. If we're going to say Steph "accomplished more" we may as well just count the rings.

Frankly, I think Chuck might be on to something:

I'm pretty high on KG. I think he's a top 15 all-time guy. Just find it odd that we have some really vocal posters with some clear offensive requirements that waive them exclusively for that player.

I'm not anti-KG, though I know I have that rep. I'm against anytime we make exceptions for singular players. We see this same thing with Curry right now. The exact same narrative that certain posters use as a negative for literally every other player, they spin as a positive for Curry because he's become the poster boy for how they think basketball must be played.

Some of the theory guys fall in love with certain players and don't seem to realize its become a blind spot for them in their otherwise objective evaluation process. Once they decide a player is idealized, they reverse engineer to make sure that player is GOATed.

For all the hulabaloo regarding "gravity", when we look at just about anything besides Dray-inflated on/off, Steph doesn't really have a strong empirical claim to even be this a distant 2nd(Duncan and KG both are clearly ahead value-wise when accounting for minutes played/total # of possessions) let alone a candidate for #1.

[OhayoKD]

He had lost weight and managed to get slower. Completely physically out of wack and you could see it in his performances. It was much like Russell Westbrook around 2018 and 2019. Still can see the athleticism(though diminished), but can't go full speed and stop control his body and finish. And can't change directions, burst from a stand still. LeBron's defense in the 2015 finals was all over the place. Get beaten off the dribble, on closeouts, extra effort plays. No timing at the rim. Weak contests.

IN retrospect 2015 LeBron is clearly and visibly not even a prime LeBron season. I don't see that as close at all.

Cleveland's role players were at their peaks. Mozgov put together some sort of fringe-DPOY run. Delly, Shump, Thompson all in their phyiscal primes. Cleveland was top to bottom better than the field of the East. LeBron was still good, but like 2018 Westbrook good. Not even somewhat close to Curry, Curry was better on defense than that version of LeBron.

Well I'm sure you've got some interesting justificat--'

Looking at noisy team performance splits and and on/off will just get in the way of the obvious.

Oh, it's "obvious", alright then.

Also the obvious of the lack of LeBron and Curry's offensive styles being even close to as stressful to a defense

And yet Helio-ball has generated the best playoff offenses ever while curry-ball...hasn't

. As a general rule of assumption, if LeBron and Curry are even close on the box score offensively, LeBron is getting routed on impact. Again, this is something that can be seen and picked up by metrics but there's a lot of extreme talk getting and1'd in here.

And yet its Lebron who dominates "metrics" and "impact", Lebron whose led great offenses without 3-point specialists, and Lebron whose led the better playoff-offenses, but sure "gravity".

Overall LeBron is getting compared to a guy who his offensive game is clunky and efficient compared to on every level.

Passing, inside scoring, post-play, dictating tempo, and directing your teammates is clunky. As everyone knows, efficient offense is flashy handles, hesi jumbo swish, and shooting off curls

Mozgov blows him away in 2015, to say nothing of Shumpert or Delly.

Keeping in mind Lebron averaged 11 more minutes in the regular season and 14 more minutes in the playoffs
2015 Cavs, Lebron no Mosgov Defensive Rating: 107, net: +8, 1685 min
2015 Cavs, Mosgov no Lebron Defensive Rating: 109, net: +2, 340 min
2015 Cavs, Lebron lineups(2494 min) vs No Lebron Lineups(1492 min), 4-point defensive improvement
2015 Cavs, Mosgov lineups(1149 min) vs No Mosgov Lineups(2807 min), 5-point defensive improvement

If you're determined, a case for the two being comparable per-possession is there(just pretend he didn't play in Denver), but Lebron clearly is more impactful over the course of a game even restricting our evaluation to mosgov's secret "dpoy" season(and ignoring that the nugget's defense actually improved by a point without him)


I see no such "per-possession" case for Steph, even taking the numbers at face value. Steph-lineups are <2 points better defensively and that shifts to <1 point when we compare Steph/Dray to Dray/No Steph(Steph being nuetral or a marginal positive is also consistent for his prime, regardless of approach). And while we can argue about how to divy up credit for the defense of the 15 Cavs, Lebron being a positive is pretty indisputable, with Lebron lineups without any of the three teammates you mentioned(1005 min) still performing a point better defensively than Lebron-less ones(1161 min).

Prime or not prime, Lebron was still the Cavs primary paint deterrent, still the Cavs most involved help defender, and still the guy directing his teammates on both ends of the floor. That last bit might not show up in the box-score, but it's a big reason why role players suddenly "peak" when they play with Lebron(Shumpert and Mozgov were both defensive negatives on the Knicks and Nuggets respectively). The Cavs would not be a good defense if they swapped Lebron and Steph, and Curry would be a flat negative if he were to swap Klay and Dray for Kyrie and Love.

Yes, Lebron had a down-year defending man-to-man, but that was never the crux of Lebron's defensive value(nor has it ever been a prerequire for anchoring elite defenses).

Perhaps he didn't "look" impressive, but what he seemingly achieved(using what we can actually discern rather than what we feel is "obvious") is nigh-unprecedented historically. When how things look don't reflect how things really are, it's probably time to question the value of looking at things that way in the first place.

[Doctor MJ]

I'm sorry but I don't agree with any of this at all.

The Pacers weren't a mediocre team. I mean they definitely weren't elite but by no means were they average. They won 48 games that season which is very respectable for a fifth seeded team. The problem that Cleveland ran into with this team is that they featured a starting line up of five players who could score from anywhere on the floor, which was a nightmare for the defensively challenged Cavaliers to deal with. Collison and Bogdanovic were especially deadly three point shooters, but their offense at times ran circles around them and Lue had no idea how to adjust. And Kevin Love, LeBron's all star teammate, had a terrible series and as a result, LeBron had little to no offensive help. In three of the four games the Cavaliers won, LeBron had a 40+ point performance on great efficiency. Again, not by any means a great team, but this series going to seven games is more of an indicator of how bad LeBron's team was than anything else.

The Raptors were still a 60 win team. That's no small feat and nothing to scoff at. But in this particular case, Kevin Love actually managed to have a really great series this time and the Raptors didn't have the same matchup advantages that the Pacers enjoyed having. Cleveland was able to expend less energy defensively and reaped the benefits of another incredible series from LeBron.

Celtics were better on both ends of the floor without Irving, so I don't really think it matters who they were being led by. The fact of the matter is, they were a really great team that year and one of the best defensive teams in the league might I add. I will admit that as time as gone by, I'm starting to fall more in line with the idea that the Celtics choked away game 7, but it still doesn't take away how incredible it was that LeBron was able to will his team to a series victory here despite the massive talent gap.

And can we talk about that bolded statement for a moment? I mean... really? Outside of the Warriors and Rockets, what team in the NBA did ANYONE think had a realistic chance at a title? Even the Cavaliers weren't expected to win. I don't really understand the point of mentioning this. That doesn't take away from how great of a team the Celtics were.

I'll let you have the last word on the other points, but to the point you said you wanted to talk about:

The fact that the Rockets & Warriors were by far the two favorites, and thus that other teams didn't really feel like contenders, is not something that I'd say makes sense when trying to argue for why a player not on the Rockets or Warriors accomplished more than players on the Rockets or Warriors.

But beyond this, let's be clear:

This was a Celtics team that wasn't expected to be a contender after Kyrie went down, and who was seen as a scrappy team punching above their weight all year long. As I alluded to: This was the Terry Rozier team. I don't think it should be seen as crazy to discount the significance of beating the Rozier Celtics.

Except it wasn't the Rozier team. Yes he was the starting PG but this was also the season of Tatum having a great rookie season and showing NO fear whatsoever in the playoffs. This was the year where Al Horford became a defensive anchor and first team all defense member while also being an incredibly valuable player for the Celtics. And let's not forget that this was a team deep with talent. Marcus Morris was considered one of the few people in the NBA who could slow down LeBron (which ended up not only not happening, but he got completely cooked by LeBron over and over again, putting that narrative to bed) and this was also a team that still had the coaching brilliance of one Brad Stevens. Were they the underdogs? Perhaps but we cannot sit here and pretend that they weren't at the very least an elite team. They more than earned the seed they had and there's a reason they took Cleveland to seven games.

And just like the Pacers series, this was another case where LeBron practically had to carry his team to victory. Doing it to the extent that he did is one of the reasons why this playoff run of his is considered legendary.

I think it's fine for you to object to me giving it the label "the Rozier team", but make no mistake:

In the playoffs, Rozier was the lead minute guy on the Celtics that year, whereas in all the other years he was on the Celtics he was getting played less than 20 MPG. This was the year where the Celtics injury desperation led them to take a guy that saw as a back-up level guy, and ride him.

"also the season of Tatum having a great rookie season". That's true, you know who's better though? Actual NBA all-stars that actual contenders are stocked with, which includes what the Celtics had in Tatum in later years.

"This was the year where Al Horford became a defensive anchor". I love Horford and would consider him the MVP of the team, but he was also an undersized center (he played power forward in college), and notoriously his teams haven't been able to deal with LeBron.

"Marcus Morris was considered one of the few people in the NBA who could slow down LeBron." This is a good point to bring up, though I'd note that in their previous series matchup, Morris' team got swept. People tend to hype up role players who are "X stoppers" where X is a particular superstar, and I just think that really this is rarely the case - that what actually ended up happening is something team-matchup dependent. So not that big of a deal to me, but people should consider it for themselves.

"still had the coaching brilliance of one Brad Stevens". Your wording says everything honestly. When you say "still", you're acknowledging that this is a team that only has some of what made them a better team.

Re: "Pacers series...one of the reasons why this playoff run of his is considered legendary." I mean, this was a first round series against a 1.18 SRS team that never got out of the first round in any of the years surrounding this one. The drama was fantastic, but the bar to jump over just wasn't that high.

[ShaqAttac]

Back we are to the ons and offs...First, some house cleaning...

You know what, let's grant the premise. Lebron James cost the Cleveland Cavaliers the 25th pick of the draft thereby hurting their future prospects. fine.

He also got his next team Anthony Davis:
https://www.si.com/nba/2018/12/28/anti-tampering-memo-nba-lebron-james-anthony-davis
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2797206-pelicans-anthony-davis-signs-with-lebron-james-klutch-sports-agency
Aside from going toe to toe with Curry individually with one foot on 65k minutes, Lebron also secured a top tier player to potentially end a dynasty? intangibles!

And yes, Lebron did punch something, after seeing an 80% ft shooter miss two ft's(which Lebron created) and JR JR to thwart a likely win, limiting himself to...still-better-than-steph production against a much better defense, true!

But is that really worse than Steph's habit of getting ejected(thus not being able to contribute at all) for making his mouthpiece a projectile?

This is a comparative exercise. Lebron doing something bad means nothinginofitself.

It's neat you like delving into extra-circulars, but let's not be so selective.

Speaking of...

When I bring up a stat that points in a particular direction, I'm not saying that that stat alone should be discussed as defining the entirety of the situation.

When you only bring up that one stat and then your conclusions seem to follow what it(and it alone) suggests, then yes it will end up "defining the situation".

As I(and others) have covered(and you have not yet addressed or acknowledged), more stable data, more inclusive data, and larger empirical samples(per-game and per-season), all seem to agree that Lebron's impact is far off Steph(and anyone else from the last 20 years) per-possession, never mind overall. Considering that Steph has seen his minutes closely tied to an even bigger impact generator(at least statistically), giving on/off more focus than everything else is odd. Okay, RAPM is not a single metric(though Lebron scoring much higher than Steph seems to hold universally), but the pattern holds when we look at specific linueps(30+ Lebron provides comparable rs lift and then his teams get substantially better Lebron lineups improving, with or without his co-stars), and the gap only widens when we take out Lebron entirely.

Without Lebron(who playedliterally twice much as Steph in 17/18), the 18-19 cavs were a 19-win team with a SRS-9.6(a 10-point regression from the previous year). When we go with wins added, Lebron consistently scores higher in the adjusted-stuff. It's one thing to argue Steph was worth more per possession(that is actually supported). But clinging to the nosiest stuff there is to effectively argue Steph was twice as good as Lebron is bizarre.

What's even weirder is that you neglect to mention that on/off favored Lebron in the 16, 17, and 18 postseasons(you gave 2 of those years to Curry). The playoff stuff also favored Durant that year. If that doesn't matter because of what Durant has proven "again and again" before and after, then why should we ignore what Lebron(and the cavs) demonstrated before, after, and and even during?(with the exception of this one thing that sees them as peers and is obviously skewed by draymond)?

But we really get out-of-pocket when we start talking "accomplishment".

Fair enough, it's possible that there were other teams capable of getting swept by the Warriors.

Yeah, uh, why didn't you address or acknowledge that Steph played a combined 28-minutes in those 2 losses? Why are you only looking at the finals?

The Cavs swept a +7 SRS Raptors side(basically a healthy variant of the 89 Cavs), beat a celtics side that went 14-8 without Kyrie(+1.8 Net) and dominated the +4.5 srs 76ers, and edged a 45-win(by record and srs) Pacers side in their worst performance of the playoffs.

Yeah the east was weak, but those cavs were comfortably a 50+ win playoff team that peaked with 60+ basketball vs Toronto. The next year they won 19 games without 82 games of "+1.9 on/off" Lebron(25ish win, -3.5 net if you only look at Kevin Love minutes). That is historic-looking lift, and if you think none of those qualify as "achievements", I'm skeptical you're applying that standard consistently.

That raw "lift" is also corroborated by the stable-adjusted stuff, on/off, and Lebron outright killing Steph in terms of box-production. And that's before we get to the finals where Lebron outscored and outcreated Curry facing a dynastic defense, while also directing his team on both ends of the court and facing significantly more defensive attention, for the 4th time in a row(granted their creation was actually similar in 2017, but their defensive contributions were not).

Never mind that Steph missed a round and a half(just like he did in 16), never mind that he and his team folded when they faced adversity(losing to a significantly less talented Rockets team before their second best player got hurt), and never mind that Steph's own teammate outproduced and outvalued him(at least statistically), just like Lebron did.

Lebron would proceed to look just as valuable aged 33-38(and yes, that can easily be argued for the first two-rounds of 2023's playoffs), just as he looked more valuable the previous two postseasons(yes, even by on/off!), and really three when we care for context like lineups, minutes played, and sample size. Yet you gave Steph 3 of those 4 years(including 2 where he's out-on/offed) and are alleging Lebron didn't really accomplish anything in a year he played literally twice as much in the regular season, nearly twice as much in the postseason, and was more valuable per-possession anyway in the games that mattered most. If we're going to say Steph "accomplished more" we may as well just count the rings.

Frankly, I think Chuck might be on to something:

I'm pretty high on KG. I think he's a top 15 all-time guy. Just find it odd that we have some really vocal posters with some clear offensive requirements that waive them exclusively for that player.

I'm not anti-KG, though I know I have that rep. I'm against anytime we make exceptions for singular players. We see this same thing with Curry right now. The exact same narrative that certain posters use as a negative for literally every other player, they spin as a positive for Curry because he's become the poster boy for how they think basketball must be played.

Some of the theory guys fall in love with certain players and don't seem to realize its become a blind spot for them in their otherwise objective evaluation process. Once they decide a player is idealized, they reverse engineer to make sure that player is GOATed.

For all the hulabaloo regarding "gravity", when we look at just about anything besides Dray-inflated on/off, Steph doesn't really have a strong empirical claim to even be this a distant 2nd(Duncan and KG both are clearly ahead value-wise when accounting for minutes played/total # of possessions) let alone a candidate for #1.

didn steph get thrown from a final

doc basically spoutin hater/troll takes, but more words

[eminence]

LeBron
Curry
Giannis

are my pretty clear top 3 from 2015 to 2022*. Pretty clear order, too.

*nothing's really gonna change including 2023.

I could see Harden, Jokic, or Dray having relatively serious arguments against Giannis.

[Doctor MJ]

And yes, Lebron did punch something, after seeing an 80% ft shooter miss two ft's(which Lebron created) and JR JR to thwart a likely win, limiting himself to...still-better-than-steph production against a much better defense, true!

But is that really worse than Steph's habit of getting ejected(thus not being able to contribute at all) for making his mouthpiece a projectile?

This is a comparative exercise. Lebron doing something bad means nothinginofitself.

It's neat you like delving into extra-circulars, but let's not be so selective.

So, I want to take a step back here.

You're responding to a factoring in of a specific incident having specific on-court impact in a playoff series with a general what-about. This is counterproductive rhetoric in a comparative exercise for a number of reasons, but one clear cut one is that it means we're operating as if we're doing two different exercises and talking past each other.

For the record, I don't think it's unreasonable at all to be less bothered by LeBron's incident than Steph's habit. After he threw the mouthpiece even the first time, were I the NBA I'd have had a conversation with him where I said:

Steph, we absolutely cannot have you turning something you play with all game into an intimidation device - plus it's just disgusting. We're going to come down on you like an f-ing hammer on you if you do anything like this again.

Speaking of...

When I bring up a stat that points in a particular direction, I'm not saying that that stat alone should be discussed as defining the entirety of the situation.

When you only bring up that one stat and then your conclusions seem to follow what it(and it alone) suggests, then yes it will end up "defining the situation".

No matter WHAT we do, we're never able to bring the entirety of the situation to bear by quoting enough statistics, and thus whenever we bring stats into the conversation, we only get partial visibility of the situation.

What you're suggesting here is a reason to avoid using statistics at all in discussion, and why in many contexts where people aren't really used to intellectual discussion, it's probably better not to.

But RealGM, and especially the PC Board, is not one of these contexts.

When someone brings up a stat as something to ponder, there's always at least the implied question of:

What do we think best explains this?

And if nothing else, that's the guide for productively furthering the conversation. Often a different statistical spotlight can be used in conjunction with the initial spotlight to illuminate the confounding.

As I(and others) have covered(and you have not yet addressed or acknowledged), more stable data, more inclusive data, and larger empirical samples(per-game and per-season), all seem to agree that Lebron's impact is far off Steph(and anyone else from the last 20 years) per-possession, never mind overall. Considering that Steph has seen his minutes closely tied to an even bigger impact generator(at least statistically), giving on/off more focus than everything else is odd. Okay, RAPM is not a single metric(though Lebron scoring much higher than Steph seems to hold universally), but the pattern holds when we look at specific linueps(30+ Lebron provides comparable rs lift and then his teams get substantially better Lebron lineups improving, with or without his co-stars), and the gap only widens when we take out Lebron entirely.

Without Lebron(who playedliterally twice much as Steph in 17/18), the 18-19 cavs were a 19-win team with a SRS-9.6(a 10-point regression from the previous year). When we go with wins added, Lebron consistently scores higher in the adjusted-stuff. It's one thing to argue Steph was worth more per possession(that is actually supported). But clinging to the nosiest stuff there is to effectively argue Steph was twice as good as Lebron is bizarre.

What's even weirder is that you neglect to mention that on/off favored Lebron in the 16, 17, and 18 postseasons(you gave 2 of those years to Curry). The playoff stuff also favored Durant that year. If that doesn't matter because of what Durant has proven "again and again" before and after, then why should we ignore what Lebron(and the cavs) demonstrated before, after, and and even during?(with the exception of this one thing that sees them as peers and is obviously skewed by draymond)?

A variety of good things to bring up. I think you should consider why you feel the need to frame it in such a rhetorically aggressive way.

"Why should we ignore..." Did I tell you that you should ignore something? I really don't think I did. Can't you just present the data you're pushing onto the stack and say how you interpret it, and what makes the most sense to you? If not, what else are looking to get from the interaction?

But we really get out-of-pocket when we start talking "accomplishment".

Fair enough, it's possible that there were other teams capable of getting swept by the Warriors.

Yeah, uh, why didn't you address or acknowledge that Steph played a combined 28-minutes in those 2 losses? Why are you only looking at the finals?

The Cavs swept a +7 SRS Raptors side(basically a healthy variant of the 89 Cavs), beat a celtics side that went 14-8 without Kyrie(+1.8 Net) and dominated the +4.5 srs 76ers, and edged a 45-win(by record and srs) Pacers side in their worst performance of the playoffs.

Yeah the east was weak, but those cavs were comfortably a 50+ win playoff team that peaked with 60+ basketball vs Toronto. The next year they won 19 games without 82 games of "+1.9 on/off" Lebron(25ish win, -3.5 net if you only look at Kevin Love minutes). That is historic-looking lift, and if you think none of those qualify as "achievements", I'm skeptical you're applying that standard consistently.

That raw "lift" is also corroborated by the stable-adjusted stuff, on/off, and Lebron outright killing Steph in terms of box-production. And that's before we get to the finals where Lebron outscored and outcreated Curry facing a dynastic defense, while also directing his team on both ends of the court and facing significantly more defensive attention, for the 4th time in a row(granted their creation was actually similar in 2017, but their defensive contributions were not).

Never mind that Steph missed a round and a half(just like he did in 16), never mind that he and his team folded when they faced adversity(losing to a significantly less talented Rockets team before their second best player got hurt), and never mind that Steph's own teammate outproduced and outvalued him(at least statistically), just like Lebron did.

Lebron would proceed to look just as valuable aged 33-38(and yes, that can easily be argued for the first two-rounds of 2023's playoffs), just as he looked more valuable the previous two postseasons(yes, even by on/off!), and really three when we care for context like lineups, minutes played, and sample size. Yet you gave Steph 3 of those 4 years(including 2 where he's out-on/offed) and are alleging Lebron didn't really accomplish anything in a year he played literally twice as much in the regular season, nearly twice as much in the postseason, and was more valuable per-possession anyway in the games that mattered most. If we're going to say Steph "accomplished more" we may as well just count the rings.

So, I'll give you the last word here on this. Reading to the end, I feel like I need to speak to that part in a separate post.

[Doctor MJ]

Frankly, I think Chuck might be on to something:

I'm pretty high on KG. I think he's a top 15 all-time guy. Just find it odd that we have some really vocal posters with some clear offensive requirements that waive them exclusively for that player.

I'm not anti-KG, though I know I have that rep. I'm against anytime we make exceptions for singular players. We see this same thing with Curry right now. The exact same narrative that certain posters use as a negative for literally every other player, they spin as a positive for Curry because he's become the poster boy for how they think basketball must be played.

Some of the theory guys fall in love with certain players and don't seem to realize its become a blind spot for them in their otherwise objective evaluation process. Once they decide a player is idealized, they reverse engineer to make sure that player is GOATed.

For all the hulabaloo regarding "gravity", when we look at just about anything besides Dray-inflated on/off, Steph doesn't really have a strong empirical claim to even be this a distant 2nd(Duncan and KG both are clearly ahead value-wise when accounting for minutes played/total # of possessions) let alone a candidate for #1.

So, on Chuck's point:

I think we're all in danger of feedback loops in our analysis and certainly I don't think I'm immune from it. I think I can claim more shifts in my opinions over time than most, and that's something I feel as an accomplishment, but I think you have to expect it won't be the last time that weeds grow in the garden.

I will say with Garnett specifically, he's going to be lower on my 2023 GOAT list than he was for 2014, 2017 & 2020, because I reached a breaking point with the criteria I was using. While I still find Garnett the more impressive player, I can't say it feels right to claim he achieved more than Duncan, and I'm really trying to focus more in on achievement for the criteria I'm now using for the Top 100.

To the rest of your post Ohayo, you're kinda losing me, but I do feel a clear need to address this:

"for all the hullabaloo regarding 'gravity'". Gravity is a great term for a clear phenomenon that exists in every competitive basketball game in the world. It's not a Curry-exclusive thing, it's just his style of play made this metaphor salient and thus helpful in communicating this dimension of analysis.

Just as with stats, bringing up gravity to champion Curry is not an absolute statement about what matters most, it's just bringing up something that does matter.

Sigh. It's starting to feel that people are so prone to polarization in their analysis that people are trying to make the claim defenders don't really tend to move toward offensive players who might score...which is all that "gravity" is really intended to point to.

[LukaTheGOAT]

I know you're under siege right now Doc, but I would like to hear your opinion on this.

I would like to ask how do you interpret Jrue Holiday's performance the past few years in comparison to Steph. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seemed in a recent post on another thread, you seemed to imply that while Giannis is clearly the best player on the Bucks, but the last few years, Jrue has perhaps been a more impactful player for the Bucks. If this is true, couldn't this extend all the way to preferring Jrue to Steph?

By pure plus-minus, Jrue has arguably been more valuable than Steph.

This is dated as of April 3, however,

Read on Twitter

In 2020-23 RAPM:

Jrue-5.9 (4th)

Steph-5.44 (8th)

Jrue had 6,297 minutes played in the RS to Steph's 6,304 minutes played. Jrue has played 1566 minutes in the PS, and Steph has played 1275 minutes in the PS. Overall, they have very similar minutes totals, so this isn't an example of a low-minutes star or anything.

As you also mentioned, perhaps we shouldn't expect people on stronger teams to put us quite as impressive individual impact, because the team is already strong as is. Well the Bucks were clearly stronger the Warriors in 21 and 23. It isn't an absolute given that the Warriors were stronger in 22 either.

Now, if your initial impression is that in the RS, perhaps they have similar value, but in the PS, in a heavily-focused on-off metric like AuPM/G, Jrue still comes out as on the same plane as Steph.

Jrue's numbers by PS:

21: 3.9
22: 2.5
23: 3.3

Steph's numbers by PS:

21: N/A
22: 4.3
23: 3.2

It seems like quite the reach to put Jrue over Steph honestly.
However, would you come to the conclusion that Holiday and Steph were on a similar level the past 3-years based on their plus-minus profiles?

[ShaqAttac]

I know you're under siege right now Doc, but I would like to hear your opinion on this.

I would like to ask how do you interpret Jrue Holiday's performance the past few years in comparison to Steph. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seemed in a recent post on another thread, you seemed to imply that while Giannis is clearly the best player on the Bucks, but the last few years, Jrue has perhaps been a more impactful player for the Bucks. If this is true, couldn't this extend all the way to preferring Jrue to Steph?

By pure plus-minus, Jrue has arguably been more valuable than Steph.

This is dated as of April 3, however,

Read on Twitter

In 2020-23 RAPM:

Jrue-5.9 (4th)

Steph-5.44 (8th)

Jrue had 6,297 minutes played in the RS to Steph's 6,304 minutes played. Jrue has played 1566 minutes in the PS, and Steph has played 1275 minutes in the PS. Overall, they have very similar minutes totals, so this isn't an example of a low-minutes star or anything.

As you also mentioned, perhaps we shouldn't expect people on stronger teams to put us quite as impressive individual impact, because the team is already strong as is. Well the Bucks were clearly stronger the Warriors in 21 and 23. It isn't an absolute given that the Warriors were stronger in 22 either.

Now, if your initial impression is that in the RS, perhaps they have similar value, but in the PS, in a heavily-focused on-off metric like AuPM/G, Jrue still comes out as on the same plane as Steph.

Jrue's numbers by PS:

21: 3.9
22: 2.5
23: 3.3

Steph's numbers by PS:

21: N/A
22: 4.3
23: 3.2

It seems like quite the reach to put Jrue over Steph honestly.
However, would you come to the conclusion that Holiday and Steph were on a similar level the past 3-years based on their plus-minus profiles?

jrue got more "impact" than giannis?

[Doctor MJ]

I know you're under siege right now Doc, but I would like to hear your opinion on this.

I would like to ask how do you interpret Jrue Holiday's performance the past few years in comparison to Steph. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seemed in a recent post on another thread, you seemed to imply that while Giannis is clearly the best player on the Bucks, but the last few years, Jrue has perhaps been a more impactful player for the Bucks. If this is true, couldn't this extend all the way to preferring Jrue to Steph?

By pure plus-minus, Jrue has arguably been more valuable than Steph.

This is dated as of April 3, however,

Read on Twitter

In 2020-23 RAPM:

Jrue-5.9 (4th)

Steph-5.44 (8th)

Jrue had 6,297 minutes played in the RS to Steph's 6,304 minutes played. Jrue has played 1566 minutes in the PS, and Steph has played 1275 minutes in the PS. Overall, they have very similar minutes totals, so this isn't an example of a low-minutes star or anything.

As you also mentioned, perhaps we shouldn't expect people on stronger teams to put us quite as impressive individual impact, because the team is already strong as is. Well the Bucks were clearly stronger the Warriors in 21 and 23. It isn't an absolute given that the Warriors were stronger in 22 either.

Now, if your initial impression is that in the RS, perhaps they have similar value, but in the PS, in a heavily-focused on-off metric like AuPM/G, Jrue still comes out as on the same plane as Steph.

Jrue's numbers by PS:

21: 3.9
22: 2.5
23: 3.3

Steph's numbers by PS:

21: N/A
22: 4.3
23: 3.2

It seems like quite the reach to put Jrue over Steph honestly.
However, would you come to the conclusion that Holiday and Steph were on a similar level the past 3-years based on their plus-minus profiles?

A fair question.

I'll start by noting that I had Jrue #4 on my regular season MVP ballot this year ahead of Giannis (as well as Curry obv), so I am looking to seriously consider Jrue as an MVP/POY candidate.

Looking back at my '20-21 vote, I had Curry at 5th and I didn't include either Khris or Jrue on my Honorable Mention next-5. Of course, every one of the 10 names I do mention is a bigger name than these two, so there's nothing odd about my list necessarily, though perhaps that itself is what's concerning.

I do know that at the time, the existence of both Khris & Jrue kinda held each other back. While Jrue had the +/- indicators over Khris, Khris had greater stature and did seem to be more the hero of the Hawks series where Giannis went down.

At this point I would say I've seen enough to be confident that Jrue has the impact edge and should be the stronger candidate, as well as a pretty clear Top 10 level achievement guy. Still not simple elevating him over the other guys to make that particular 10, but not unworthy.

In terms of '21-22, that's pretty straight forward right?

For '22-23, I'm still making up my mind, and would see both of these guys as candidates for the Honorable Mention at this point. I will say that with the Warriors' upset win, with Curry's heroic performance in it, I think he'll have the edge just between the two though.

What about the 3 years as a whole? Might we say that Jrue has been more valuable than Curry on average throughout that time? Yes, I think there's an argument for that. I will bring up one thing though that doesn't necessarily answer the question, but does context it:

I take note of who opponents game plan around. When teams go to play against the Bucks, they think about what they are going to do to mitigate Giannis and devote all of their lineups and scheming to that end. And when they do this, Jrue really thrives most of the time. We can have a debate about whether it someone in Jrue's position can ever truly be more valuable than the guy in Giannis' position given that the former really needs the latter, but what's undeniable is that +/- stats sometimes end up pointing in that direction.

And of course, when it comes to Golden State, they plan around Curry.

Now, saying this, I do feel like a riposte question is bound to come up:

You still put Jrue ahead of Giannis on your ballot, why don't you ever do this with Draymond & Curry?

To that I'd say I actually did have Dray ahead of Curry during the regular season this year. After the playoffs, I'm going to side with Curry. And this is a common trend in my analysis:

The guys with more primacy/starpower/etc have a tendency to play absolutely critical roles in the playoffs that make it hard to side with guys with less, and thus certain shifts are likely to occur as the post-season unfolds. This then can be seen as a quirk of my process where regular season ballot looks considerably stranger than my all-season ballot to folks.

[VanWest82]

Part of the reason I like looking at MVP voting is it incorporates off the court stuff which doesn't get included in the stats (which are also incorporated into voting), and even though we probably aren't assessing it exactly right at least we're trying to account for it.

To me, all the crap Lebron pulled during this time period (i.e. mainly, the way he influenced team decisions) counts because it really impacted some of his teams' ability to win, positively and negatively. Steph also got penalized for this 17-19 for KD joining.

MVP points over that period:

Steph 3202
Lebron 3010

Many would give Lebron a healthy edge in the post season, but at first glance picking Curry isn't a ridiculous notion.


.

[uberhikari]

If Doctor MJ wasn't a mod, s/he would be added to my foe list.

I don't know why people entertain arguing with this type of intransigence.

Warned for personal attack - CF

[DonaldSanders]

If Doctor MJ wasn't a mod, s/he would be added to my foe list.

I don't know why people entertain arguing with this type of intransigence.

That's sad, I find him one of the least biased posters on the board who frequently causes me to question my own assumptions. His willingness to patiently reply while negativity is shot at him is impressive. The level of effort, thought, and patience he displays is in my opinion the Gold Standard for the board and occurs on any topic he joins.

There are plenty of areas where I disagree strongly with him, but never ever can I say he does not have a logically consistent viewpoint (e.g. he did have Jrue #4 on his MVP ballot when the topic came up). I cannot say the same for many posters around here that have beliefs they twist their arguments constantly to match.

I often just sit back and soak his posts in, there is a lot to think about and to challenge your beliefs on before having a knee jerk response. Defensive guys still aren't valued properly in all-in-one metrics, it's interesting to hear the arguments for some of the best defensive players in the league like Jrue or Draymond.

[uberhikari]

If Doctor MJ wasn't a mod, s/he would be added to my foe list.

I don't know why people entertain arguing with this type of intransigence.

Warned for personal attack - CF

Clyde Frazier would also be added to my foe list.

[Bidofo]

Part of the reason I like looking at MVP voting is it incorporates off the court stuff which doesn't get included in the stats (which are also incorporated into voting), and even though we probably aren't assessing it exactly right at least we're trying to account for it.

To me, all the crap Lebron pulled during this time period (i.e. mainly, the way he influenced team decisions) counts because it really impacted some of his teams' ability to win, positively and negatively. Steph also got penalized for this 17-19 for KD joining.

MVP points over that period:

Steph 3202
Lebron 3010

Many would give Lebron a healthy edge in the post season, but at first glance picking Curry isn't a ridiculous notion.

In what ways specifically did LeBron's off-court 'issues' compromise his teams from winning more than they already did? Through the years, the issues I can recall are:
2015: takes quite some time off for his back -> Cavs play dominant basketball to close the season and make the Finals, series still goes to 6 without Love and Irving
2016: gets Blatt (the coach who tried calling timeout in the final moments of a playoff game when his team had none lol) fired -> Cavs still make the Finals with Lue and win
2017: coasting I guess?? Still make the Finals and lose to the GOAT team
2018: sandbags the middle of the year to force trades, and maybe the Kyrie situation (though in hindsight, we now know Kyrie is just a really...peculiar guy) -> STILL makes Finals with an SRS upset each of the first 3 rounds, including a sweep of the Raptors (7.29 SRS, +6.7 difference from Cavs SRS) and coming back from 0-2 and 2-3 on the Celtics (3.23, +2.64). Ftr, the Warriors were just 2.42 SRS underdogs vs the Rockets
2019: injury, trade rumors at the end of the season, which led to...
2020: Davis arrival and a chip their first year together. In other words, validating the trade requests. Does LeGM get extra credit for strong-arming the Davis trade? Because factoring that in with his actual level of play, it might be one of the best seasons in history
2021 and on: many injuries, also Westbrook

So in which of these seasons did his teams underperform? And how exactly could have things gone differently such that the 2017 Cavs beat the GOAT team, or the 2018 Cavs beat a slightly worse version of the GOAT team, etc.? The ONLY thing I can think of that completely derailed a season and you can put a fair amount of blame on LeBron is the Westbrook trade. Seems like most of the 'issues' have been positive. Also, under your framework, why does Curry get penalized for KD joining? It seems to me, if you HAVE to assert some credit/blame to star players for management decisions, that convincing Durant to join your 73-win team is THE MOST +EV move of all time.

I don't think the MVP voting works much in your favor either considering the difference is pretty minimal and LeBron has a reputation for coasting lol. The year with the worst offcourt issues of his prime, 2018, he still came in second pretty clearly.

[VanWest82]

2015: takes quite some time off for his back -> Cavs play dominant basketball to close the season and make the Finals, series still goes to 6 without Love and Irving
2016: gets Blatt (the coach who tried calling timeout in the final moments of a playoff game when his team had none lol) fired -> Cavs still make the Finals with Lue and win
2017: coasting I guess?? Still make the Finals and lose to the GOAT team
2018: sandbags the middle of the year to force trades, and maybe the Kyrie situation (though in hindsight, we now know Kyrie is just a really...peculiar guy) -> STILL makes Finals with an SRS upset each of the first 3 rounds, including a sweep of the Raptors (7.29 SRS, +6.7 difference from Cavs SRS) and coming back from 0-2 and 2-3 on the Celtics (3.23, +2.64). Ftr, the Warriors were just 2.42 SRS underdogs vs the Rockets
2019: injury, trade rumors at the end of the season, which led to...
2020: Davis arrival and a chip their first year together. In other words, validating the trade requests. Does LeGM get extra credit for strong-arming the Davis trade? Because factoring that in with his actual level of play, it might be one of the best seasons in history
2021 and on: many injuries, also Westbrook

So in which of these seasons did his teams underperform? And how exactly could have things gone differently such that the 2017 Cavs beat the GOAT team, or the 2018 Cavs beat a slightly worse version of the GOAT team, etc.? The ONLY thing I can think of that completely derailed a season and you can put a fair amount of blame on LeBron is the Westbrook trade. Seems like most of the 'issues' have been positive. Also, under your framework, why does Curry get penalized for KD joining? It seems to me, if you HAVE to assert some credit/blame to star players for management decisions, that convincing Durant to join your 73-win team is THE MOST +EV move of all time.

I don't think the MVP voting works much in your favor either considering the difference is pretty minimal and LeBron has a reputation for coasting lol. The year with the worst offcourt issues of his prime, 2018, he still came in second pretty clearly.

I said positively and negatively. But because you asked...

Lebron came in second in 2018 even though he was the best player. Think about that. He coasted so hard and caused so many problems for that 2018 team that voters voted Harden over him even though he was consensus (unanimous?) best player.

He tried to trade Kyrie for PG, lost Kryrie, and then tanked 2019 when he tried to trade Lonzo and Ingram for AD midseason. Bron finished T11 in voting that year. I'd suggest there was some failed LeGM voter fatigue at play. People find excuses to not vote for you if they don't like how you've conducted yourself. Yes, coasting. Yes, the Russ fiasco. Yes, the way he tanks seasons when he thinks they don't have a chance.

The consensus opinion among NBA fans seems to be that they don't like it when players collude to break rules that are in place for teams, and this is especially true if you do it as part of the creation of a superteam. People just want the seasons to be fair, so you get penalized for stacking the deck not credited with +EV. And it makes sense too, because if you pair up with another superstar teammate that means things are easier. How can you be MVP if you didn't have to overcome adversity because everything was so stacked in your favour to begin with?

The voting takes into consiration everything: what happened on the court, who your team was, how it was put together, what you had to overcome, what your role was in all of that, etc.

You listed a bunch of postseason accomplishments in rebuttal to me listing MVP voting points. I conceded in my OP that many would have Lebron with a clear postseason edge. I might even agree. My point was that Steph seemed to be ahead in the regular season, and it's your entire track record that counts not just the postseason.

Edit: to provide context, let's consider 93 MJ. He didn't win MVP. He didn't even finish second even though he was pretty clearly the best player in the world regardless of the pro-Hakeem hype train that's left the tracks 30 years after the fact. So why did MJ lose?

Bulls won 67 games and the title the year before. Clearly, his team was good. But they only won 57 games in 93, so it looked like they underachieved which they did. Did MJ underachieve? No. He carried them all season. But why did he have to carry them? Because Scottie and Horace sulked that entire year due to feeling underappreciated in 91 & 92 which turned into a real problem once MJ blew up on a global scale at the Olympics. And may this fact get referenced in every pro-Scottie and Horace argument - that they gave sub-optimal effort, basically throwing away a season of their primes due to good old fashioned jealousy. Except, Jordan Rules was not nice to Jordan. It's not an accident that the casino incident turned into a big thing in 93 playoffs as media had been waiting for that kind of story. In their minds, MJ was now doing things to hurt his team's chances, and even though Scottie and Horace deserved the lion's share of the blame for adversity that year, the media was right. On the court, no one could touch MJ but it's a team game and some of this other stuff matters.

[ShaqAttac]

If Doctor MJ wasn't a mod, s/he would be added to my foe list.

I don't know why people entertain arguing with this type of intransigence.

That's sad, I find him one of the least biased posters on the board who frequently causes me to question my own assumptions. His willingness to patiently reply while negativity is shot at him is impressive. The level of effort, thought, and patience he displays is in my opinion the Gold Standard for the board and occurs on any topic he joins.

There are plenty of areas where I disagree strongly with him, but never ever can I say he does not have a logically consistent viewpoint (e.g. he did have Jrue #4 on his MVP ballot when the topic came up). I cannot say the same for many posters around here that have beliefs they twist their arguments constantly to match.

I often just sit back and soak his posts in, there is a lot to think about and to challenge your beliefs on before having a knee jerk response. Defensive guys still aren't valued properly in all-in-one metrics, it's interesting to hear the arguments for some of the best defensive players in the league like Jrue or Draymond.

we rlly stannin posters now

aint no way u read doc tryna prop 1/2 szn of curry over bron bein objectiive and come away with "hes one of da least biased posters"

bro just picks whatver suits da narrative n dips when hes called out

there a reason hes goin "why are u being mean" instead of defendin his use of plus-minus

[ceiling raiser]

Not that he needs the defense, but I need to stand in support of Doc here. He (along with ElGee and drza back in the day) has always been someone willing to take and defend heterodox positions, for well over a decade. This isn’t contrarianism, but a sound theory-based approach. Everybody has their biases of course, and there are a ton of other very adept analysts here who go against the grain in different ways, or use an evidence-based approach to show that CW is in some cases correct — but Doc’s track record here is legendary.

[eminence]

Considering that Steph has seen his minutes closely tied to an even bigger impact generator(at least statistically), giving on/off more focus than everything else is odd. Okay, RAPM is not a single metric(though Lebron scoring much higher than Steph seems to hold universally)

Ryan Davis's 5 year datasets:

'15-'19:
Steph: +8.15 (1st)
LeBron: +6.08 (3rd)
Dray: +5.03 (6th)

'16-'20:
Steph: +7.82 (1st)
LeBron: +6.62 (3rd)
Dray: +4.36 (14th)

'17-'21:
Steph: +7.02 (1st)
LeBron: +6.11 (3rd)
Dray: +3.52 (21st)

'18-'22:
Steph: +6.42 (1st)
LeBron: +4.75 (12th)
Dray: +2.90 (34th)

'19-'23:
Steph: +5.88 (5th)
LeBron: +4.91 (9th)
Dray: +3.60 (21st)

What other readily available stuff do you like to use?

[Cavsfansince84]

Not that he needs the defense, but I need to stand in support of Doc here. He (along with ElGee and drza back in the day) has always been someone willing to take and defend heterodox positions, for well over a decade. This isn’t contrarianism, but a sound theory-based approach. Everybody has their biases of course, and there are a ton of other very adept analysts here who go against the grain in different ways, or use an evidence-based approach to show that CW is in some cases correct — but Doc’s track record here is legendary.

I don't think people are really out to get Doc here. I think there were a couple posts critical of him but I think most of the pushback he got is strictly debate based. I think he's without a doubt a well respected poster on this board but when it comes to Steph he may have something of a blind spot that he debates from. Not that he's the only one on here who has it I think but that's the point of discussing it. Just seeing things in different ways and whatnot.