picko wrote:There aren't many genuine championship contenders there. It's asking a lot to take a .500 team and turn them into championships..
However, I think the 2008 76ers, 2009 Bulls, 2013 Hawks, 2014 Wizards, 2021 Heat would all be good chances to make it through to the Finals.
Lebron arguably did that for this first 3-titles:
From 12-14 Miami posted a net-rating of -3.5 in games without Lebron(7.5 with). In the title-winning years Miami were a +8.4 team with Lebron and a -2.5 team without. That actually looks like a 30ish win team rather than a 40ish won but presumably missed time and opponent quality shift the lebron-less heat towards neutrality with SRS.
Switching from WOWY, to lineup-ratings, the Heat were +11.04 with Lebron/Wade lineups, +2.7 with with Wade, no Lebron lineups, 10.87 with Lebron/Bosh lineups, -1.19 with Bosh, no Lebron lineups, +10.28 with the big-three, and -4.48 with the big-three minus Lebron. The heat were also +2.77 in lineups with Lebron and without Wade or bosh. Overall, Lebron lineups scored at +9.62 while Lebron-less lineups scored at +0.75
In the title-winning years, the Heat were -3.25 with just Wade and Bosh and +12 with all three, +5.88 with Lebron and no wade or bosh, and +0.48 without any of the big three. Overall, for 12 and 13, Lebron lineups scored at 11.96 while Lebron-less lineups were -0.36.
Let's start with 2015. To set the table, the lebron-less cavs with kyrie and love are a bad defense and average offense if you go by net-rating(-1.73 overall, 30ish wins). This is also true in 2016(-1.7), 2017(-2.81) which adds up to -1.99 for all 3-seasons. Without any of the 3, the cavs are -14.62.
With Lebron and no kyrie or love, the Cavs are +6.79. With all 3 they're +10.76(PBPstats). with both and without both Lebron looks historically valuable.
But maybe this is just a matter of wonky lineups/rotations? Well, we can then look at WOWY, only including games where the Cavaliers knew they'd be playing without Lebron. In 2015 they were 3-10 without Lebron. Extending our sample the Cavs out to 2017 and the Cavs were 4-23. In games without Lebron and with Kyrie and Love, the cavs were 4-11, a 21-win pace.
With Lebron, the 2015 Cavs went 50-19(59-win). Without they went 3-10 going at a 19-win pace. With all three of Love, Kyrie, and Lebron, the Cavs were 42-5(73-win) improving from 4-11 with just kyrie and love 21-win(note that's a 3-year sample, not just 2015).
If we take lineup-ratings instead of wowy(they seem to be significantly higher on non-Lebron lineups) to get the highest possible empirically supported assessments, Miami-less Lebron were averagish and the Cavs were bad. Plausible that changes in the postseason but the no-lebron, love & kyrie lineups actually get worse by net-rating from 15-17 while Lebron lineups see improvement without kyrie and love and with kyrie and love.
