2020 Lakers vs 2023 Nuggets

[MyUniBroDavis]

When the Nuggets destroy the heat who don’t have a center in ready to hear Nuggets over 2017 warriors takes btw

Jokic vs Curry
Highpost passing vs back screens
Big man playmaking vs movement shooting

That comparison will rip this board apart.

Are 2023 Nuggets better than the 2000s all decade team?

[OhayoKD]

This is just another example of how lobsided this entire board is. The Nuggets were dominating all year, they have the guy who should have the MVP 3peat in his pocket, they just literally SWEPT the lakers and still theres discussions like this one going on. Fortunately, reality is slowly sinking in outside realGM. Jokic is real, the Nuggets might well be the new dynasty - everyone is young and they are only going to get better.

2020 tbh i felt like the refs were a critical part in the Lakers' success. The games and the entire series were a lot closer than the result suggests, in fact this was the real finals. AD was a beast back then (and still is), and Joker played a lot less active on D back in 2020 though. He was rightfully criticised for it, and he worked hard on improving on that end of the floor too. I saw him block AD multiple times this year and also steal the ball, help on screens and generally show up in the lane. This version of Jokic would probably make a huge difference in 2020.

The Nuggets were not “dominating all year”. They were 53-29, 6th in net rating, 6th in SRS and it wasn’t just because they took their foot off the gas the last month. They’re obviously playing at a really high level right now, but they never profiled as a historically good team until now.

A good point to push back on, but it should also be mentioned that Jokic's +/- dwarfed everybody else all year. Jokic came it at +640 whereas the next highest number was +521 (Aaron Gordon) and the highest from another team (Derrick White) was +488. I would say that that's actually what relative dominance looks like.

Now of course in '19-20 there weren't 82 games, so if we just look at +/- per 100 possessions, and we compare Jokic to the top Laker in '19-20:

LeBron James '19-20, +9.0 per 100
Nikola Jokic '22-23, +12.0 per 100

And of course one could argue that those Lakers would win over these Nuggets due to superior depth, but I doubt that's how people are thinking about it.

I do still think there's an argument to be made that Playoff Lakers 2020 > Playoff Nuggets 2023, but realistically it has to be an argument about the Lakers being incredible in the playoffs, not about them being inherently stronger in the regular season.

And yeah, when people are thinking those Lakers would take these Nuggets in 5 or 6 games when the much weaker '19-20 Nuggets already did that to me speaks a lot to how people are looking to frame things still. It's still not about how amazing the Nuggets are, it's about the fact that LeBron is old. I hope that changes in the future.

Jokic spent more time (and a higher percentage of his time) with KCP, Gordon, and Jamal than Lebron did with Davis. He spent more time with KCP and Gordon together than Lebron did with only Davis. And I'm sure you're aware what happens with lineup adjustment.

Lakers were absolutely the stronger regular season team. They were also the stronger regular season team in 2021 before lebron got injured.

[PhiEaglesfan712]

I'll take the 2020 Lakers in 6 games. The 2020 Lakers were truly a great team. This year's Nuggets are just a very good team in a year that there really wasn't a great team (a team that lost a play-in game and nearly lost another to a 10-seed made the Finals, lol). I feel bad for those all-time great teams in the 2016-2018 period that didn't make the Finals (see the 2016 and 2017 Spurs, 2016 Thunder, and 2018 Rockets). Those teams probably beat this year's Nuggets too.

[TheLand13]

I think we're overusing the term "gentleman's sweep" if we used it mean any series that goes 4-1.

First I should say that until recently to me it always either spoke a series where
a) a team loses Game 1 and then wins the next 4 handily
or
b) a team goes up 3-0, loses one game, and then closes the series out without much of a fuss.

I mean... okay but a 4-1 series result is literally what a gentlemen's sweep is. It doesn't matter how it happens.

In either case, the expectation is that the victorious team outscores the other considerably. Let's consider how the Lakers outscored their '19-20 playoff opponents:

Portland 4-1, outscore by 10.6.
Houston 4-1, outscore by 7.2.
Denver 4-1, outscore by 4.4.
Miami 4-2, outscore by 5.5.

Give Miami credit for being the only team to take two off the Lakers, but no one played the Lakers tighter than the Nuggets then, so "gentleman's sweep" really seems misleading to me.

And yeah, I do think this Nugget team is considerably better than the '19-20 version of the team, so if you're imagining a similar performance to before, I think that's too much anchoring on what happened in the past.

Too much anchoring on what's happened in the past? Isn't that literally what you're doing now with your logic here? You brought up the point differential in 2020 and pointed out how close the Denver series was... you haven't exactly giving any compelling case yourself here.

My argument isn't even based on past events. At no point do I say "well they beat them badly before so they'll beat them badly again". My argument is based entirely on matchups. The 2023 Lakers didn't really have the tools needed to slow down a player of Murray's caliber. The 2020 team on the other hand does.

[Ambrose]

I'd say it's a toss up but gun to my head I'm not picking against prime LeBron.

[Doctor MJ]

The Nuggets were not “dominating all year”. They were 53-29, 6th in net rating, 6th in SRS and it wasn’t just because they took their foot off the gas the last month. They’re obviously playing at a really high level right now, but they never profiled as a historically good team until now.

A good point to push back on, but it should also be mentioned that Jokic's +/- dwarfed everybody else all year. Jokic came it at +640 whereas the next highest number was +521 (Aaron Gordon) and the highest from another team (Derrick White) was +488. I would say that that's actually what relative dominance looks like.

Now of course in '19-20 there weren't 82 games, so if we just look at +/- per 100 possessions, and we compare Jokic to the top Laker in '19-20:

LeBron James '19-20, +9.0 per 100
Nikola Jokic '22-23, +12.0 per 100

And of course one could argue that those Lakers would win over these Nuggets due to superior depth, but I doubt that's how people are thinking about it.

I do still think there's an argument to be made that Playoff Lakers 2020 > Playoff Nuggets 2023, but realistically it has to be an argument about the Lakers being incredible in the playoffs, not about them being inherently stronger in the regular season.

And yeah, when people are thinking those Lakers would take these Nuggets in 5 or 6 games when the much weaker '19-20 Nuggets already did that to me speaks a lot to how people are looking to frame things still. It's still not about how amazing the Nuggets are, it's about the fact that LeBron is old. I hope that changes in the future.

Jokic spent more time (and a higher percentage of his time) with KCP, Gordon, and Jamal than Lebron did with Davis. He spent more time with KCP and Gordon together than Lebron did with only Davis. And I'm sure you're aware what happens with lineup adjustment.

Lakers were absolutely the stronger regular season team. They were also the stronger regular season team in 2021 before lebron got injured.

When you point out that raw +/- is a flawed stat because of things like lineup staggering the thing is, we have the next level up stat handy: RAPM. And RAPM also sides with Jokic here from what I've seen.

[Doctor MJ]

I think we're overusing the term "gentleman's sweep" if we used it mean any series that goes 4-1.

First I should say that until recently to me it always either spoke a series where
a) a team loses Game 1 and then wins the next 4 handily
or
b) a team goes up 3-0, loses one game, and then closes the series out without much of a fuss.

I mean... okay but a 4-1 series result is literally what a gentlemen's sweep is. It doesn't matter how it happens.

To be clear: I'm not saying you're semantically wrong for using "gentleman's sweep" to mean any 4-1 series in the current landscape, I'm pointing out that this was not my impression of how it was used pragmatically when it first became an idiom.

Let's note that the implied meaning of the term is that the dominant side graciously allowed the other to have one win so that the loser wouldn't be as humiliated. This was never literally true in these circumstances, but it made sense from the perspective of the dominant team losing one game out of five due to not being fully focused.

In the case of both the Laker series against Portland & Houston, frankly, this fits. You're taking about a heavy favorite waking up after losing the first game, and winning 4 straight games.

In the case of the Denver series, this really wasn't the case though, and when you insist on using the phrase "gentleman's sweep" multiple times in your argument, you're essentially implying that because the Lakers didn't have to fully engage to beat the Nuggets before, they'd probably be fine now. In reality, there was no such disengagement from the Lakers in that series.

In either case, the expectation is that the victorious team outscores the other considerably. Let's consider how the Lakers outscored their '19-20 playoff opponents:

Portland 4-1, outscore by 10.6.
Houston 4-1, outscore by 7.2.
Denver 4-1, outscore by 4.4.
Miami 4-2, outscore by 5.5.

Give Miami credit for being the only team to take two off the Lakers, but no one played the Lakers tighter than the Nuggets then, so "gentleman's sweep" really seems misleading to me.

And yeah, I do think this Nugget team is considerably better than the '19-20 version of the team, so if you're imagining a similar performance to before, I think that's too much anchoring on what happened in the past.

Too much anchoring on what's happened in the past? Isn't that literally what you're doing now with your logic here? You brought up the point differential in 2020 and pointed out how close the Denver series was... you haven't exactly giving any compelling case yourself here.

My argument isn't even based on past events. At no point do I say "well they beat them badly before so they'll beat them badly again". My argument is based entirely on matchups. The 2023 Lakers didn't really have the tools needed to slow down a player of Murray's caliber. The 2020 team on the other hand does.

I'm saying that you're trying to extrapolate what would happen with the '22-23 Nuggets with a heavy weight on what the '19-20 Lakers did to the '19-20 Nuggets despite the fact that the '22-23 Nuggets are a very different team. Jokic is FAR better now than he was then, Porter is considerably improved, and the rest of the non-Murray core is completely switched out.

[parsnips33]

When the Nuggets destroy the heat who don’t have a center in ready to hear Nuggets over 2017 warriors takes btw

Need some peak Jokic > peak Bron arguments to keep things interesting

[MyUniBroDavis]

When the Nuggets destroy the heat who don’t have a center in ready to hear Nuggets over 2017 warriors takes btw

Need some peak Jokic > peak Bron arguments to keep things interesting

Do the current Nuggets beat the 2017 warriors but replace iggy with peak bron? Stay tuned, if they can beat this miami team that may be a difficult question to answer

[rk2023]

When the Nuggets destroy the heat who don’t have a center in ready to hear Nuggets over 2017 warriors takes btw

Need some peak Jokic > peak Bron arguments to keep things interesting

The BPM 2.0 creator is looking down with a very wide grin right about now. As is Hollinger

[MyUniBroDavis]

When the Nuggets destroy the heat who don’t have a center in ready to hear Nuggets over 2017 warriors takes btw

Need some peak Jokic > peak Bron arguments to keep things interesting

The BPM 2.0 creator is looking down with a very wide grin right about now. As is Hollinger

Bro broke the PER record it’s over ladies and gentleman

[OhayoKD]

A good point to push back on, but it should also be mentioned that Jokic's +/- dwarfed everybody else all year. Jokic came it at +640 whereas the next highest number was +521 (Aaron Gordon) and the highest from another team (Derrick White) was +488. I would say that that's actually what relative dominance looks like.

Now of course in '19-20 there weren't 82 games, so if we just look at +/- per 100 possessions, and we compare Jokic to the top Laker in '19-20:

LeBron James '19-20, +9.0 per 100
Nikola Jokic '22-23, +12.0 per 100

And of course one could argue that those Lakers would win over these Nuggets due to superior depth, but I doubt that's how people are thinking about it.

I do still think there's an argument to be made that Playoff Lakers 2020 > Playoff Nuggets 2023, but realistically it has to be an argument about the Lakers being incredible in the playoffs, not about them being inherently stronger in the regular season.

And yeah, when people are thinking those Lakers would take these Nuggets in 5 or 6 games when the much weaker '19-20 Nuggets already did that to me speaks a lot to how people are looking to frame things still. It's still not about how amazing the Nuggets are, it's about the fact that LeBron is old. I hope that changes in the future.

Jokic spent more time (and a higher percentage of his time) with KCP, Gordon, and Jamal than Lebron did with Davis. He spent more time with KCP and Gordon together than Lebron did with only Davis. And I'm sure you're aware what happens with lineup adjustment.

Lakers were absolutely the stronger regular season team. They were also the stronger regular season team in 2021 before lebron got injured.

When you point out that raw +/- is a flawed stat because of things like lineup staggering the thing is, we have the next level up stat handy: RAPM. And RAPM also sides with Jokic here from what I've seen.

I was addressing your assertion that these +/- numbers indicate team-wide parity and I'm confused how Jokic's RAPM would get you to that. The "adjustment" I had in mind was looking at the team performance in games with the players in question instead of rotation-vulnerable lineup stuff.

The Lakers were 50-17 team with Lebron(61-win). The Nuggets were 48-21 with Jokic(57-win). The Lakers posted a net-rating of +6 with Lebron. The Nuggets had a net-rating of +4.7 with Lebron. The 2021 Lakers, with Lebron dropping off significantly due to injury, were +5.7, with Lebron and 30-15(54-win) overall.


I have also pointed out that RAPM(and similar derivatives) are not designed to weed out single-season highs:

(disclaimer: getting the best, the second best, or the third best season isn't significant inofitself. At a certain treshold, adjusted stuff starts misattributing value, if you want to distingush between single-season, you need to get into the weeds. What's note-worthy is how frequently a player scores near or at the top, and how you look over extended samples. RAPM is great for establishing a baseline of value, not deciding if 2004 kg is more valuable than 2016 draymond)

Lebron scoring at the very top(historically) over and over again is remarkable/unprecedented. But these metrics do not distinguish between single-year toppers(or really capture the extent of situational value present with outliers), which is why I'd strongly recommend "adjusting" with data outside of the scales of these sets when you're honing in on a single year(and then applying whatever context you think is present) and also looking at surrounding seasons to extend the sample(Jokic looks crazy with extended samples too fwiw)


To be clear that is not an argument against Jokic's 2023 which, going by "raw" stuff lineup-ratings and wowy looks better than the best rs signals of players people consider to be peak-lebron level in the rs(shaq, mj) though it's probably noteworthy that the lineup-adjustment you have in mind is not nearly as high on him over multi-year samples:
http://nbashotcharts.com/rapm3?id=507996595
(Gap between Jokic and Embid is much bigger than it is between 15-17 Steph and a "coasting" 15-17 Lebron despite Curry scoring significantly higher than Embid). Embid is also higher on this career-wide set:


Oddly that flips if you just use lineup-ratings/wowy with Jokic looking significantly better than embid over those same 3-years...

In the case of the Denver series, this really wasn't the case though, and when you insist on using the phrase "gentleman's sweep" multiple times in your argument, you're essentially implying that because the Lakers didn't have to fully engage to beat the Nuggets before, they'd probably be fine now. In reality, there was no such disengagement from the Lakers in that series.

Doesn't this also apply to the sweep-sweep the nuggets just made on the Lakers? 3 of the 4 games came down to the wire and the Nuggets repeatedly emphasized they needed to go all-out vs the lakers in game 4. I'm not really sure why we're scaling from 2020 here when we can just look at 2023 where the Nuggets were putting everything to win against a lakers team where Lebron and AD played through injuries which require surgery(Lebron's typically being a seaosn-ender). Frankly you might be exaggerating the gap here. The nuggets were not as balanced in 2020 nor was jokic as established, but Jamal Murray was playing just as well as Jokic those playoffs and Jokic was producing like he would from 21-23 in the regular season. That team won 3-straight to come back from 3-1 against a +6srs clippers side that was probably more like +8 at full-strength and beat the jazz team that would post a +8 srs with a new and improved Mitchell(having debuted that postseason) the next year with their rotation hobbled.

It certainly shouldn't be as big of a difference as with 2020 and 2023(two best players are crippled, team has a few months to figure things out, ect), never mind that the Lakers did not have home-court while the Nuggets did.

[OhayoKD]

When the Nuggets destroy the heat who don’t have a center in ready to hear Nuggets over 2017 warriors takes btw

Need some peak Jokic > peak Bron arguments to keep things interesting

Inb4 3-0 comeback in the 2024 WCF

[Doctor MJ]

Jokic spent more time (and a higher percentage of his time) with KCP, Gordon, and Jamal than Lebron did with Davis. He spent more time with KCP and Gordon together than Lebron did with only Davis. And I'm sure you're aware what happens with lineup adjustment.

Lakers were absolutely the stronger regular season team. They were also the stronger regular season team in 2021 before lebron got injured.

When you point out that raw +/- is a flawed stat because of things like lineup staggering the thing is, we have the next level up stat handy: RAPM. And RAPM also sides with Jokic here from what I've seen.

I was addressing your assertion that these +/- numbers indicate team-wide parity and I'm confused how Jokic's RAPM would get you to that. The "adjustment" I had in mind was looking at the team performance in games with the players in question instead of rotation-vulnerable lineup stuff.

The Lakers were 50-17 team with Lebron(61-win). The Nuggets were 48-21 with Jokic(57-win). The Lakers posted a net-rating of +6 with Lebron. The Nuggets had a net-rating of +4.7 with Lebron. The 2021 Lakers, with Lebron dropping off significantly due to injury, were +5.7, with Lebron and 30-15(54-win) overall.

Fair enough on your intentions on your prior post. I'm sorry if my interpretation missed the mark.

To put to some thoughts together after reading what you've written:

I do tend to see how well a team's does with their star on the floor as something that needs to be considered in addition to the overall team record/SRS when considering how good the team actually is, because that star can play more in the playoffs as needed.

So in a nutshell, if Team A has a better record/SRS than Team B, but Team B has the star/lineup with better +/- indicators, I don't think it's at all straight forward to assume that Team A is the better team.

And obviously, using the star player's raw +/- for this does seem like a stretch if it was primarily about just playing with much better teammates, but if that were so, then I'd expect that RAPM would give us some counter indication, but it doesn't here.

To be clear though, one can still make the case that the Lakers were better because of their depth, I just would be reluctant to do so. To me the main argument for the 2020 Lakers in a playoff series is based on how well AD & LeBron played in the playoffs.

I have also pointed out that RAPM(and similar derivatives) are not designed to weed out single-season highs:

(disclaimer: getting the best, the second best, or the third best season isn't significant inofitself. At a certain treshold, adjusted stuff starts misattributing value, if you want to distingush between single-season, you need to get into the weeds. What's note-worthy is how frequently a player scores near or at the top, and how you look over extended samples. RAPM is great for establishing a baseline of value, not deciding if 2004 kg is more valuable than 2016 draymond)

Lebron scoring at the very top(historically) over and over again is remarkable/unprecedented. But these metrics do not distinguish between single-year toppers(or really capture the extent of situational value present with outliers), which is why I'd strongly recommend "adjusting" with data outside of the scales of these sets when you're honing in on a single year(and then applying whatever context you think is present) and also looking at surrounding seasons to extend the sample(Jokic looks crazy with extended samples too fwiw)


To be clear that is not an argument against Jokic's 2023 which, going by "raw" stuff lineup-ratings and wowy looks better than the best rs signals of players people consider to be peak-lebron level in the rs(shaq, mj) though it's probably noteworthy that the lineup-adjustment you have in mind is not nearly as high on him over multi-year samples:
http://nbashotcharts.com/rapm3?id=507996595
(Gap between Jokic and Embid is much bigger than it is between 15-17 Steph and a "coasting" 15-17 Lebron despite Curry scoring significantly higher than Embid). Embid is also higher on this career-wide set:


Oddly that flips if you just use lineup-ratings with Jokic looking significantly better than embid over the 3-years

A lot of good stuff here, and I do think it's good to look at multiple season samples.

I do have to push back when you talk about '15-17 LeBron as if that's when I said LeBron was "coasting". Maybe you can point to a quote of mine where I somehow accidentally said that, but recently when I've been talking about coasting LeBron, I've believe I've been talking about the '17-18 year specifically. '18-19 is obviously a rough year in general, and yeah, I'm also critical of LeBron's D in '16-17.

[OhayoKD]

I was addressing your assertion that these +/- numbers indicate team-wide parity and I'm confused how Jokic's RAPM would get you to that. The "adjustment" I had in mind was looking at the team performance in games with the players in question instead of rotation-vulnerable lineup stuff.

The Lakers were 50-17 team with Lebron(61-win). The Nuggets were 48-21 with Jokic(57-win). The Lakers posted a net-rating of +6 with Lebron. The Nuggets had a net-rating of +4.7 with Lebron. The 2021 Lakers, with Lebron dropping off significantly due to injury, were +5.7, with Lebron and 30-15(54-win) overall.

Fair enough on your intentions on your prior post. I'm sorry if my interpretation missed the mark.

To put to some thoughts together after reading what you've written:

I do tend to see how well a team's does with their star on the floor as something that needs to be considered in addition to the overall team record/SRS when considering how good the team actually is, because that star can play more in the playoffs as needed.

So in a nutshell, if Team A has a better record/SRS than Team B, but Team B has the star/lineup with better +/- indicators, I don't think it's at all straight forward to assume that Team A is the better team.

Well, as I outlined, when we look at games with the star player, Lebron's Lakers were better than Jokic's Nuggets in the regular season. Two players posting high plus-minus or RAPM is fine, but that is not a team-wide(or even lineup-wide) measure. The Lakers full-lineup played a whopping 43-minutes together(+33!) to the Nuggets 700(+13!) so I'm not sure how exactly one would go about extrapolating one team having a better full-lineup directly, much-less indirectly with RAPM or +/- as a proxy. If anything, the Lakers lineups being significantly more varied might indicate they spent the regular season "figuring things out"(this is indeed what they spent the season doing) to an extent the Nuggets didn't which makes them posting better srs/net and better w-l with their star and overall a strong indication the Lakers had a higher-ceiling than the Nuggets.

I have also pointed out that RAPM(and similar derivatives) are not designed to weed out single-season highs:

Lebron scoring at the very top(historically) over and over again is remarkable/unprecedented. But these metrics do not distinguish between single-year toppers(or really capture the extent of situational value present with outliers), which is why I'd strongly recommend "adjusting" with data outside of the scales of these sets when you're honing in on a single year(and then applying whatever context you think is present) and also looking at surrounding seasons to extend the sample(Jokic looks crazy with extended samples too fwiw)


To be clear that is not an argument against Jokic's 2023 which, going by "raw" stuff lineup-ratings and wowy looks better than the best rs signals of players people consider to be peak-lebron level in the rs(shaq, mj) though it's probably noteworthy that the lineup-adjustment you have in mind is not nearly as high on him over multi-year samples:
http://nbashotcharts.com/rapm3?id=507996595
(Gap between Jokic and Embid is much bigger than it is between 15-17 Steph and a "coasting" 15-17 Lebron despite Curry scoring significantly higher than Embid). Embid is also higher on this career-wide set:


Oddly that flips if you just use lineup-ratings with Jokic looking significantly better than embid over the 3-years

A lot of good stuff here, and I do think it's good to look at multiple season samples.

I do have to push back when you talk about '15-17 LeBron as if that's when I said LeBron was "coasting". Maybe you can point to a quote of mine where I somehow accidentally said that, but recently when I've been talking about coasting LeBron, .

[/quote]
It wasn't directed at you specifically.

I've believe I've been talking about the '17-18 year specifically. '18-19 is obviously a rough year in general, and yeah, I'm also critical of LeBron's D in '16-17

I mean, as always, it depends on what the comparison is. A non-big who can function as a primary paint deterrent, direct his teammates defensively, and sees his team's defense improve significantly with him on the floor is still a rarity. I don't see 2017 Lebron's regular season defense as a disadvantage relative to other "two-way" perimeter stars.

[TheBigMon]

End result doesn't change. Lakers still win. Nuggets version of KCP is better than Lakers version though.

[TheBigMon]

Though the Lakers were swept it was always close going into the 4th quarter. With a 2020 fresh legs lebron and 2020 AD + bodies against Jokic there is not much the nuggets can do.

[Doctor MJ]

Well, as I outlined, when we look at games with the star player, Lebron's Lakers were better than Jokic's Nuggets in the regular season. Two players posting high plus-minus or RAPM is fine, but that is not a team-wide(or even lineup-wide) measure. The Lakers full-lineup played a whopping 43-minutes together(+33!) to the Nuggets 700(+13!) so I'm not sure how exactly one would go about extrapolating one team having a better full-lineup directly, much-less indirectly with RAPM or +/- as a proxy. If anything, the Lakers lineups being significantly more varied might indicate they spent the regular season "figuring things out"(this is indeed what they spent the season doing) to an extent the Nuggets didn't which makes them posting better srs/net and better w-l with their star and overall a strong indication the Lakers had a higher-ceiling than the Nuggets.

I think we've already gone back & forth on the first sentence so I'll leave it there.

After that you get into lineups but so far as I can tell you're comparing the Laker lineup that happened to have the best per minute +/- with the Nugget lineup that played the most minutes. While you have a point when you say that the Lakers didn't have any one lineup playing as much as the Nuggets, if we want to focus on a Laker lineup, I think the clear choice based on minutes is:

Green / KCP / James / AD / McGee

This was the #2 minutes lineup in the RS, and the #1 minutes lineup both in the PS and in the season overall.

In the regular season, that lineup had a +/- rate of -1.7.
In the post season, that lineup had a +/- rate of +18.2.

Obviously, there's a huge difference there. And while I think it's reasonable to look at the Lakers as "figuring things out" during the RS, I think it's pretty clear they didn't figure out some killer lineup in that process and then rode that to a title.

I said before this was mostly about LeBron & AD. Let's remember that LeBron went from 25.3 PPG on 57.7% TS in the RS to 27.6 PPG on 64.7% TS, and he wasn't even the one of the duo that made everyone's jaws drop in surprise in the playoffs.

I've believe I've been talking about the '17-18 year specifically. '18-19 is obviously a rough year in general, and yeah, I'm also critical of LeBron's D in '16-17

I mean, as always, it depends on what the comparison is. A non-big who can function as a primary paint deterrent, direct his teammates defensively, and sees his team's defense improve significantly with him on the floor is still a rarity. I don't see 2017 Lebron's regular season defense as a disadvantage relative to other "two-way" perimeter stars.

I would just say that he and his team were less focused on defense in that regular season than they were in the previous one, and also less focused on defense than in the playoffs that year.

[eminence]

The question for me is whether AD can replicate his '20 level of scoring. He hasn't done it since, has the league figured something out - do the '23 Nuggets have an edge here? Was he on an insane heater? Was peak AD just that good? Presumably some combination thereof.

I don't think either team really contains the other if AD is scoring like that. Who wins it, I'm not sure.

[Cavsfansince84]

I feel like that level of LBJ+AD would trump whatever Denver can do in a 7 game series. Idk if people are quite remembering how good Bron was in those playoffs either. He totally eviscerated two of their opponents and was still great in the other two series. Though part of this is how much rest those Lakers had most likely but that's something which is hard to factor out given their opponents had more rest also.