RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #1 (LeBron James)

[lessthanjake]

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[penbeast0]

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In terms of statistical dominance, Russell's rebounding is as dominating statistically as Michael's scoring. His shotblocking at 8/game (see thread I just reposted by request) is also statistically dominant, more so than any other factor that Michael brings. Michael is better all around for a guard than Russell for a center, but centers are more impactful (up through the 20th century) than any other position. What you actually mean is that Russell isn't a scorer while Michael is and you apparently value scoring over other statistical categories -- which is perfectly valid P.O.V.

[lessthanjake]

I really do not see how you expect this to be read honestly. We literally have on-court data here, and you want to place all accomplishments on Jordan. Jordan brilliantly leads a 10.7 SRS team in 1997. +13.3 on-court rating. Lebron has two seasons on that level: 2013, with +13.2 on-court, and 2009, with a monumental +15 on-court. Of course, neither teams were 10 SRS, so evidently the real advantage Jordan has over Lebron is his ability to ceiling raise teams when he is on the bench.

Actually kind of yeah. I’ve explained this a bit above. But if you have a really ball-dominant style, when you go to the bench, your teammates will have not really touched the ball much in the flow of the offense beyond just finishing some plays with a shot, so they’ll be less in rhythm overall. This can result in them performing less well when suddenly they’re not in an offensive rhythm and they need to create offense because the star isn’t on the court. A more ball-equitable style is much more conducive to guys being in rhythm when the star leaves the court. I’m sure you’ll say this is an unmeasurable vibe, but it’s also something you can find NBA players candidly talking about. And just personally it has always seemed obvious and intuitive to me that supporting casts will hold up with the star off the floor a lot more in offensive systems with a lot of ball movement where everyone’s had lots of touches in the flow of the offense.

Both Luka Doncic and James Harden have actually played under the exaggerated caricature that people have made "LeBron ball" out to be, yet their teams fare significantly better when they're off the court than LeBron's teams and often field positive net ratings with their stars on the bench.

LeBron's average times of possession in that 16-21 stretch from Ben's graph (minus 2019): 5.3, 6.4, 6.7, 7.4, 6.4
Corresponding net ratings for those teams while he sat: -4.3, -8.8, -0.5, -0.9, -2.0

Luka (20-23): 8.9, 8.9, 9.3, 9.1
Off NetRtg: +4.2, +0.3, +3.4, -2.7

Harden (17-23): 9.3, 8.8, 9.3, 8.6, 8.6, 9.2, 8.6
Off NetRtg: +3.7, +5.2, +1.1, -3.4, +2.4, +1.2, +2.8

If LeBron spends approximately six seconds with the ball in his hands, and that leads to over-reliance on him, why is it that Harden and Luka, who hold the ball for 50% longer, dribble the ball significantly more per touch, play under a similar team setup, and have comparable usage rates, see their teams perform well in their absence?

Most teams see their offensive rating plummet when their offensive superstar goes to the bench. People just selectively choose language that really just projects their aesthetic biases through their analysis. When it's a shoot first guard like Steph Curry or Michael Jordan they're celebrated: "Look at how impactful their ceiling raising is!". When it's LeBron James, it's "Well he takes his teammates out of rhythm."

The more plausible, albeit uncomfortable for some, explanation is that LeBron's unique combination of volume scoring + playmaking + all-time wing defense provides a greater lift on both ends of the court compared to Jordan, allowing him to take worse rosters to higher highs. The only caveat being that he couldn't do it for 48 minutes a game.

This is a good counterpoint. But I don’t know that the situations with those teams were comparable, particularly as it relates to rotation strategies. Just as a couple examples that I quickly checked, in LeBron’s first two years in Miami, 80% of Wade’s minutes were with LeBron on the court. In Harden’s two years with Chris Paul, only 56.6% of Paul’s minutes were with Harden on the floor. And in Brunson’s breakout year, he only played 52.1% of his minutes with Luka on the floor. Put differently, in those first two years in Miami, the Heat played 1775 minutes without LeBron. 891 of those minutes had Wade on the floor (50.2%). In Harden’s two years with Chris Paul, the Rockets played 2499 minutes without Harden. And 1609 of those minutes had Chris Paul on the floor (64.4%), even though Paul missed a bunch of games both years. Last year on the Mavs, the Mavs played 1650 minutes without Luka. And 1209 of those minutes had Brunson on the floor (73.3%). It does seem like there was a different rotation strategy for those teams—with the Rockets and Mavs staggering their second-best player more—which we’d expect to cause a pretty big difference in what happens when the main star is off the court. So, while I appreciate the point you’re making here, I wouldn’t say that these examples are holding other things constant—which is important, since on/off numbers are sensitive to a lot of different factors.

[lessthanjake]

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In terms of statistical dominance, Russell's rebounding is as dominating statistically as Michael's scoring. His shotblocking at 8/game (see thread I just reposted by request) is also statistically dominant, more so than any other factor that Michael brings. Michael is better all around for a guard than Russell for a center, but centers are more impactful (up through the 20th century) than any other position. What you actually mean is that Russell isn't a scorer while Michael is and you apparently value scoring over other statistical categories -- which is perfectly valid P.O.V.

Isn’t it almost certainly the case that Bill Russell’s rebounding stats are substantially inflated? He played on teams that had like a 120-135 pace, in a league where FG% was typically in the low 40’s, and he usually played very high minutes. I don’t think we can have exact data on this, but my intuition is that his rebound rate probably wasn’t actually outrageously high. For instance, I just took a look at the 1962-1963 Celtics (no particular reason for that year, just used it because it’s roughly in the middle of the time period). The Celtics missed 5033 field goals and 765 FTs. Let’s assume half of those missed FTs were eligible to be rebounded. And then let’s make the assumption that there were roughly as many possible rebounds off of opponents’ shots as there were off the Celtics’ shots (which might be a generous assumption, given the Celtics’ great defense, but it seems a reasonable baseline assumption). We’d get to roughly 10,831 possible rebounds. Russell played 90.79% of the team’s minutes that season. So we can roughly estimate that he was on the floor for 9,834 of those possible rebounds. He got 1,843 rebounds. So I’d estimate he had a rebound rate of about 18.7% that year. Which is really good, of course, but not nearly as great as the 23.6 rebounds a game that year would suggest. It’s a number that is fairly common for great rebounders (example: Jokic’s career rebound rate is 19.1% and it’s been 21.6% the last couple years; Moses Malone had a 19.8% career average and it was more like around 21.5% in his prime; and rebounding specialists like Rodman and Drummond would often get upwards of 25%+)

[penbeast0]

We have had estimates of rebound rate; there's also an issue with counting "team rebounds." Russ and Wilt had a rate right around 20, best in league over his career but not by a ridiculous amount in historical levels. Same goes for shotblocking, 8/game is certainly greatly inflated by pace, lack of spacing, etc., but he and Wilt clearly outpace everyone else. (I had read that Russell's rebound rate was higher, block rate a little lower but edited to match 70sfans info since it is the same for this discussion)

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=344&t=955514

[OhayoKD]

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There are other techniques to evaluate team goodness, especially for when league sizes aren't similar (not an issue here), but most point the same direction. It's perfectly reasonable to state that LeBron has never led a team to the same heights as MJ or some other candidates in this slot.

At full-strength(Ben-wallace injury a significant hit), the 09 Cavs played at a +9.7 pace. I'd say It is unreasonable to argue that Lebron could not lead any team to +10 me thinks given he basically did in his first year as an MVP. Lebron has a bunch of regular season teams that are 60+ with him and, again, Lebron played more minutes than Mike over their first 13-years in a league where the competition played less.

60-win teams that turn into 65+ win teams in the playoffs are not significantly disadvantaged in terms of championship-winning to 65-win teams that turn into 70-win teams(which probably overstates the gap when accounting for health and performance vs the biggest championship threats). The claim here is not "the bulls were better at regular season games", it is that the Bulls were better to a degree, thanks to Jordan's unique advantages, that would make up the difference and then-some for Lebron being a more valuable "floor-raiser" as it pertains to the winning of rings.

I’m losing steam here and don’t have the time/willingness at the moment to respond to the rest of this post. May get back to it later, but am not sure.

Noted. Respond or don't at your convenience.

It is unprecedented post-merger but I think we need to be careful about just using raw srs here. While those gaudy win-totals were better than any other dynasty, that is separate from them being more "dominant". It was after all, not the Bulls who won 11 championships in 13 years, and it was also not the Bulls who won 8-straight. As far as championships go, a 50-win team in the 60's or the post-merger 70's is better(or more likely to win), than a 50-win team in the 90's or the 2000's. Ceiling-raising indicates to me you are specifically focused on championships. With that in mind, when we look at standard deviations as opposed to raw-srs totals...

...we see the Celtics were far more dominant than the Bulls. And if that wasn't enough, they were also better playoff risers winning 4 more rings than expected as opposed to the Bulls only winning 3.1 more rings.

Keep in mind, unlike with Lebron, there's really no evidence for Jordan being a comparable or better "floor-raiser". Russell has won with less help than Jordan has ever won with(1969), has won with two completely different cores, and has kept the Celtics at a best in the league-level(peaking from 60-64 as a bigger outlier than any of Jordan's bulls). If you are going to opt for ceiling raising(justified with more impressive team success), isn't Bill a better choice?

I’ve discussed this a fair bit now in the thread about ranking dynasties. Russell’s winning obviously has to weigh very highly. I’ll end up voting for him pretty highly here—with the immense record of winning being the primary reason for it. But I don’t see those Celtics as being more dominant, despite the 11 titles. It’s just a very different context, where you had a much smaller league

Perhaps, but that is not particularly relevant unless you're breaking era-relativity. It also seems you and the poster in question are trying to eat your cake and have it too:

1) 90s Bulls
2) 60s Celtics
3) 80s Lakers
4) 10s Warriors

Pretty comfortable with those as the top 4 in that order. After that it's a lot closer, I think probably 80s Celtics, then 00s Spurs.

By my count, the Russell Celtics from '57 to '69 won 27 playoff series and lost 2; the Jordan Bulls from 90-93 and 95-98 (so excluding 1994 because no Jordan) did exactly the same, 27 playoff series wins and 2 series losses in 90 and 95.

That’s a great point about the 27-2 playoff series win-loss record! And within those relevant 29 playoff series’ that each team had a 27-2 series record in, the Bulls lost a total of 37 games, while the Celtics lost 59 games.

And I’d also add that, during that same time period, the Bulls won 74.7% of their regular season games, with an average SRS of 7.70. The Celtics in the relevant time period won 72.5% of their regular season games, with an average SRS of 6.00.
t.

Here's the issue. The Celtics aren't padding their record vs 1st and 2nd round fodder as the Bulls would be with a bigger playoff-field.

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

Either the Celtics won more, or the Celtics won as much against more difficult competition. Will also note that if we're willing to overlook a 5-ring difference to call the Bulls more dominant, than we can also ignore the less than 5-ring difference regarding the KD-Warriors who played at a 74-win pace and by the criteria of "won the championship most easily" were truly unrivalled. The Bulls never went 16-1 after all. If you're really concerned with "how" the championships happened, we may as well note that Steph(and Magic) have a higher game-game winning% than either. Odd criterion achieves odd-conclusions

I get your point about high regular season win totals being less common back then. But it doesn’t really move me at all, to be honest. Being more standard deviations above the mean doesn’t make a team better in absolute terms

It means you are better at winning championships which was what you made the central justification for dinging Lebron as a cieling raiser. To win a title you have to beat the best opponents of your time. Winning 70 or 48 is merely a means to that end.

But MJ and LeBron made it into my final two in part due to other factors that Russell doesn’t meet—including individual statistical dominance

What statistics are we talking about here? And, more pertinently, how do they actually help Jordan's case as a championship winner when the Celtics gained separation on the strength of their defense, not their offense?

As far as "impact towards championships" goes, Jordan lacks any sort of positive individual case vs Russell that I know of. I would have to assume Jordan was the only source of improvement for the Bulls between 84 and 88 just to get something that puts him in contention with player-coach 69 Bill on a much worse team(Fwiw, Jordan had a marginally better positional replacement). Unless you are trying to put the Celtics team success at the feet of their average offenses, I do not think it matters much how their ppg compares.

Yeah, uh no. Their SRS was "nor nearly as good" because Pippen and Grant missed games. When both were in the lineup they posted a regular season srs of 4.7, aka, a 55-win pace:

In the playoffs they played like a +8 team, boosting their srs from +4.7 to +5 for the season. Aka, a 58-win pace. Then without Grant(who would see the Magic jump from first-round outs to finalists), the Bulls won at a 52-win pace:

The names might not impress you, but they made a decent offense without Jordan and Grant, and a good one when they were just down Jordan. Pair that with an excellent defense, and you get one of the few teams in nba history that was capable of contending for a championship without their best player. For comparison, let's look at how Cleveland(second stint) and Miami fared without Lebron:

This is all a bit misleading, because injuries exist and players miss games. The average SRS of the league only in games where the team was fully “healthy” is going to be well above 0.

In this case the standard is "all 5 of the highest mpg players are playing". I do not think that is unfair in a comparison where I am only including games and minutes with both of the cavs co-stars(statmuse does not offer "full-lineup wowy"). As is we do have a large "full-strength" sample for the team that was playing near +10 with Lebron. In 21-games with the same rotation minus Lebron, 2011 Cleveland played like a 18-win team.

That said, I do agree the Bulls were a good team without Jordan—no one would really deny that.

You are apparently denying that Jordan had more help on basically nothing beyond the names at the top of the roster.

The net rating in games without LeBron is essentially completely meaningless regardless of what the number is, because the sample size of games is tiny.

You literally brought up WOWYR yesterday. But sure, the samples aren't particularly big. The problem is

A. Big samples only corroborate these small-signals(2003, 2018 and 2011 Cavs, 13-game sample from 2015, career-wide rapm, 5-year rapm, ect)
B. Lebron has unrivalled replication, when something happens over and over again in a variety of contexts...it's probably not noise.

Miami is actually the "least" valuable Lebron looks and the best-looking cast he's played with. It is also the outlier here and given the context(playing pf tends to suppress a wings defensive impact, staggering lineups with a similar player, ec), the Miami stuff probably underrates Lebron. That Lebron still looks more valuable is rather damning for Mike.

But if sample-size is such a hold-up, we can always take a peek at how Lebron compares to a bunch of top-tier peaks(including 3 players in Shaq, KG, and Duncan who compare well to Mike using substantial "raw" samples):


You see that red circle? That is all Lebron. From eminence's eyeball, Lebron has the 7 best 5-year stretches. He is flatly a bigger outlier than jordan even when we use MJ's best looking rapm sets(half-season in 1988) with even his Miami years looking top-tier. When i do the "give Jordan all the credit for the Bulls improvement" trick(with 86 corroborating 84), that artificial inflation still does not get Jordan close to what just directly taking Lebron's "lift" from his first cleveland stint with the exact same rotation minus lebron(over what is close to a 1000 minute sample). Jordan's RS on/off from 97 and 98 would rank 18th and 19th among Lebron-years and his on+on/off from his 2nd and 5th best rs teams would rank 8th and 11th. He also quite clearly trails in playoff on/off losing in the majority of frames looking at consecutive years and getting utterly obliterated if we use the "best years averaged" method.

Lebron was also the much better college-aged player hitting similar beats relative to the nba as jordan was in college and leading a 56-win full-strength team(+6 offense with no 3-point specialists!) at 21(Jordan would not cross that until 91) after being drafted to a 17-win team and seeing the cavs lose their 2nd best player(boozer). Lebron also has been the far better late-career player, looking top 5 in 2023 per adjusted signals and raw signals alike despite playing with terrible spacing and high minutes with players he theoretically shouldn't be able to mesh with like Westbrook(lebron-westbrook lineups were actually very good). In case you're wondering, the equivalent for Jordan here would be his Wizards tenure/

Where there is a comparison to be made, Lebron consistently comes out ahead. If you're going to argue everything leaning in one direction is actually just noise or situational, it would be nice for you to provide a basis.

Even engaging with the substance of this though, I’d refer you to my earlier post above. It’s comparing apples and oranges to talk about what happens in isolated games a star player misses when his team is built around him compared to what happens in a season in the team’s heyday where the team is completely without that star player.

WOWY actually maximizes a team's chance to adapt and we always can compare large samples where there was minimal turnover. Either approach leaves Lebron looking strongly advantaged.

where LeBron’s teams play such a LeBron-centric style that is hard to pivot away from for isolated games. I don’t think there can be any comparison whatsoever between the two scenarios, even if we had an adequate sample size (which we do not).

Are you under the impression that the triangle wasn't "jordan-style"? This is actually probably a good oppurtunity to cover why the Bulls were an "exceptional", rather than "good" fit. Here are Jordan's relative weaknesses as a player

-> passing/creative efficiency. Even if his raw creative volume is on-par with all-time playmakers, the quality of those chances and the amount of looks he missed lag behind(as is reflecred in a much lower passer-rating) putting him at a general disadvantage.
-> running the offense. Jordan was simply a worse decision-maker pairing worse shot-selection with with weaker passing and an inability to set-tempo the way a magic or Lebron can
-> orchestration/on-court coaching. Jordan did not really tell teammates where to go on either end or force team-wide adjustments after reading opposing schemes
-> Paint-protection. Jordan as a guard could not really function as a primary paint-protector. Consequently while a Lebron was capable of anchoring great playoff and regular season defenses in the absence of their best defensive teammates, Jordan has only led one -2 rs defense with oakley(Lebron led a -5.5 defense with his best defensive teammate missing half the season and a -3.5 defense with said teammate entirely missing, along with multiple great playoff defenses alongside defensive negatives in his 30's)
-> Positioning. This is more a critique of early/1st 3-peat Jordan but he ranked in the 23rd percentile of defensive breakdowns per Ben's film-tracking and would get in trouble for overextending a fair bit. This was especially notable in 91 vs Magic and 92 vs Drexler
-> Decision-making facing extra defensive attention. This is basically covered above, but this is worth specifying as the triangle basically ensured it was very, very difficult to double Jordan

Here are Pippen's relative weaknesses as a player
-> scoring
-> Off-ball cutting
(these are strengths for Jordan)
Pippen's relative strengths
-> literally everything i listed above for offense
-> help d, covering for Jordan's mis-timed swings while simultaneously making more plays at the perimeter
-> rim-protection, Pippen, like Lebron was a legitimate defensive anchor that could protect the paint. Also like Lebron while he was an exceptional paint-protector for a big, he was not actually a big giving Jordan plenty of opportunity to provide value on the weak-side.
-> one of the best primary-ball handlers in the league which in the era of illegal d translates to Jordan getting to shoot a bunch in single-coverage

All in all, Pippen was specifically strong in all the areas Jordan was less than top-tier at and Jordan was strong specifically where Pippen was weak at. This can generally be applied to the Bulls as a whole but the triangle was a perfect fit, probably even better suited than the 2009 Cavs given ben wallace's injury. Yet, despite that, 24-year old Lebron was just as efficient offensively despite carrying a much larger load on both ends and facing significantly more defensive attention, thus turning a 20-win team into a 60+ one whether you go off the small 08-10 sample, or the large 2011 one. All those relative weaknesses I listed for Jordan? They do not show-up in the boxscore. They are also all relative strengths for Lebron. Lebron is simply a smarter, larger, and more versatile player. Historically speaking teams do worse when they lose smarter, larger, and more versatile players. Also, historically speaking, smarter, larger, and more versatile players win more.

The most successful player ever(Bill) did everything defensively in an era where defense was king and was also operated as a two-way on-court coach(much like Lebron). Magic, like Lebron, was functionally an oversized guard, monopolized offense, and acted as an on-court coach. Duncan's spurs were led by a two-way big who like Lebron(and unlike Jordan) could function as an anchor on both ends of the floor. Your assumptions regarding what is "scalable" do not actually lineup with what we have directly seen with Lebron, or what we have seen historically. A two-way anchor who protects the paint and has an impact on both ends beyond what he physically does would project as a portable player who can succeed in all manner of teams. A player who combined goat-tier scoring with all-time creation(effeciency and volume) and also is a top-tier general/orchestrator and is also anchoring -3/-5 defenses on the back of strong man d, strong paint-protection, strong help d, and excellent communication would project as one of the most valuable players, regardless of "situational dependency".

A winning-based analysis of skill-set would predict Lebron being better than Jordan. The data just reflects what should be apparent unless you're going off slashlines. Incidentally you've basically spent the last 2 pages trying to substitute 2-man cast evals for actual evidence. Indeed Lebron has played with better scorers. That does not mean he had similar help.

and any assertion that they might’ve had a dominant playoff run if Bosh had been healthy is purely speculative.

If you were to ignore their actual performance with wade and bosh, sure. As is, it is you trying to use an absence of evidence as evidence of absence. The burden is yours. If you are going to center your argument on Lebron not fitting well with bosh and wade, then you need to actually use how the heat looked with bosh and wade. And to that end...

2011: 113.5 ORtg, 101.4 DRtg, +12.1 on court, 111.7 highest ORtg in league, Wade+James +1.8 better ORtg
2012: 110.2, 96.6, +13.6 on court, 110.0 highest ORtg in league, Wade+James +.2 better
2013: 114.2, 99.8, +14.4 on court, 111.4 highest ORtg in league (Miami), Wade+James +2.8

Looks to me that James did plenty well with Wade. For reference, in 1996-1997 season in which the Bulls won 69 games (and could have won 70+ if not resting at the end of the season), Jordan + Pippen was +13.3 on court

2013 James+Wade: +14.4 on court
2012 James+Wade: +13.6
1997 Jordan+Pippen: +13.3
2011 James+Wade: +12.1

Wade and James were wildly successful. But yes, they didn’t put everything together in the playoffs and regular season except in 2012. 2011 saw the Dallas series and an overall poor playoffs as far as on court dominance is concnernee, and then 2013 saw Wade injured, but look at 2012:

2012 Playoffs: James+Wade +13.5; James+Wade+Bosh +13.9

James + Kyrie

2015: 114.3, 102.6, +11.7, 111.6 highest ORtg in league, kyrie+James +2.7 better
2016: 114.0, 105.5, +8.5 (114.6 with Delly, 94.8 DRtg, +16.1; 115.2, 100.7 with TT, +14.5), 113.5 highest ORtg in league, Kyrie+James +.5 better
2017: 119.6, 109.2, +10.4, 114.8 highest ORtg in league, Kyrie+James +4.8 better

James+Kyrie never really reached the on court Dominace of Wade+James in the regular season.

On LeBrons off-court minutes in Miami. Basically, they didn't play significantly worse than what I would expect given the squad. I don't see some unexpected failure by the cast here, and have seen even less evidence to assign that blame to LeBron even if one sees it.

'11-'13 LeBron/Wade/Bosh On-Court, 8920 possessions, +14.5 rating
'11-'13 LeBron/Wade On-Court, 1641 possessions, +11.5 rating
'11-'13 LeBron/Bosh On-Court, 1944 possesssions, +6.2 rating
'11-'13 Just LeBron On-Court, 3247 possessions, +6.5 rating
'11-'13 Wade/Bosh On-Court (no LeBron), 1642 possessions, +1.5 rating
'11-'13 Just Wade On-Court, 842 possessions, -2.1 rating
'11-'13 Just Bosh On-Court, 1238 possessions, +2.5 rating
'11-'13 None On-Court, 1568 possessions, -12.6 rating

'07-'10 LeBron On-Court, 23109 possessions, +8.8 rating
'07-'10 Cavs no-LeBron On-Court, 6654 possessions, -7.3 rating
'07-'10 Wade On-Court, 18580 possessions, +2.2 rating
'07-'10 Heat no-Wade On-Court, 11134 possesssions, -8.8 rating
'07-'10 Bosh On-Court, 20097 possessions, +2.3 rating
'07-'10 Raptors no-Bosh On-Court, 10251 possessions, -5.1 rating

Left out '14 due to what I felt was clear Wade decline, adjust if you see fit.

Wade and Bosh simply don't show strong evidence of being the types of floor raisers to be able to float those no-LeBron lineups to a high level (not that they did particularly poorly either, being not-LeBron isn't the worlds harshest criticism).

Your evidence against Lebron basically boils down to him losing a close finals to an atg opponent in what was one of his worst ever performances in the midst of a down-year. The actual issue for Miami was injury. That the Heat still went and beat multiple atg opponents for championships with Wade breaking down is a testament to how difficult it is to stop peak Lebron from winning.

I think Jordan’s scalability probably rests primarily on off ball scoring capability and great defense. He had an offensive game that could work well in a system like the triangle that focuses a lot on sharing the ball around. When you have a really great team, sharing the ball around a lot with everyone is going to end up creating better offense. Jordan had an offensive game that was conducive to getting tons of points within the rhythm of a more ball-equitable offense like that. Meanwhile, of course, great defense scales well with a great team since it’s obviously not depriving the ball from anyone.

And again, we are in conflict with reality. The 2015 Cavs played a system(which Lebron actually made his teammates buy into) and went 42-5 with a big-three with worse co-stars than Pippen/Grant(both in terms of "talent" and "fit"). That "system" than saw them sweep the 60-win Hawks and go 2-1 up on a 67-win Warriors with both co-stars missing and defensive role players(multiple of whom were actually defensive negatives before playing with Lebron) before Kerr pulled out a 73-win trump-card. In 2016, the Cavs played like a 65-win team with Lebron and then were bulls-esque in the playoffs despite love and kyrie coming back from or suffering new injuries.

The "never led the most efficient offense" sounds good, but falls apart when you realize that even the 2015 Cavs, in what was supposed to be a down-year for Lebron, were the most efficient offense with their superstar on the floor. Even the 2023 Lakers with Lebron carrying a torn-tendon proved to be better offensively than portability-god Steph with the Lakers seeing a big-drop off even when hobbled off-ball Lebron missing games. Your theories do not line-up with reality. Especially if we look at the postseason...

2013 +6.4 (RS) +7.2 (PS)
2014 +4.2 (RS) +10.6 (PS)
2015 +5.5(RS) +5.5 (PS)
2016 +4.5(RS) +12.5 (PS)
2017 +4.8 (RS) +13.7 (PS)
Average +5.1(RS) +9.9 (PS)
combined average: +7.5

jordan* (i had to use his first 5 championship seasons)
1991 +6.7(RS) +11.7 (PS)
1992 +7.3(RS) +6.5 (PS)
1993 +4.9 (RS) +9.8 (PS)
1996 +7.6 (RS) +8.6 (PS)
1997 +7.7(RS) +6.5(PS)
average +6.85 (RS) +8.6(PS)
combined average:+7.7

The Bulls main advantage on defense where of course it was Pippen whose ascension correlated with their improvement, and Jordan's departure was not followed by any significant decline. Aged 30-32, regular season Lebron saw a 30-win team(average offense, bad defense) play like a 60-win team(great offense, average defense). Then with Lebron-lineups specifically improving(with and without his co-stars) those average offenses became great postseason defenses(-5 in 2015, -3 in 2016) that were disproportionately good facing better offenses:

Playoff Offensive Rating: +4.2 (63rd), Playoff Defensive Rating: -5.4 (44th)
Playoff SRS: +9.98 (65th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +3.72 (26th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +2.85 (32nd), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -2.37 (41st)

Round 1: Boston Celtics (-0.4), won 4-0 by +9.2 points per game (+8.8 SRS eq)
Round 2: Chicago Bulls (+5.8), won 4-2 by +5.5 points per game (+11.3 SRS eq)
Round 3: Atlanta Hawks (+4.8), won 4-0 by +13.3 points per game (+18.1 SRS eq)
Round 4: Golden State Warriors (+11.2), lost 4-2 by -7.2 points per game (+4.0 SRS eq)

Playoff Offensive Rating: +11.43 (4th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -3.82 (68th)
Playoff SRS: +14.55 (8th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +5.84 (5th)
Shooting Advantage: +3.1%, Possession Advantage: +2.7 shooting possessions per game
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +3.42 (16th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -2.33 (43rd)

Detroit Pistons: +14.9 / +4.4
Atlanta Hawks: +21.5 / +4.0
Toronto Raptors: +13.3 / -8.8
Golden State Warriors: +5.3 / -6.0

Come playoff-time the 16-17 cavs elevated from merely title-worthy with lebron to bulls-esque. In 2015 they were Bulls-esque with everyone healthy in the rs and were merely title-worthy with Kyrie and Love missing half or more of the playoffs. Jordan has never demonstrated similar influence on either end of the floor. There is not much of anything to support Jordan being comparably valuable, be it as a floor-raiser or as a ceiling-raiser. Just theories working off assumptions with little or no support. The simpler interpretation is that Lebron, largely as byproduct of being a much better defender, is better at generating wins.

They sure weren’t dominant the year before in the playoffs when Wade and Bosh were healthy.

They were dominant through three-rounds and dominant in the rs with their big-three before losing narrowly to a mavericks side that absolutely cooked the West. For what is one of the worst years of Lebron's career it's really not all that bad. 1995 probably ranks higher with internal-scaling among MJ years than 2011 does Lebron and a second round exit to a soon to be swept finalist on a 53-win cast is an outright worse outcome. If your argument here is that peak-jordan had an advantage over non-peak Lebron, fair is fair, but this does not logically lead to Lebron being a worse ceiling raiser at his apex.

but I can infer from the results you’re saying it spits out (such as the 2012 OKC team being rated super highly) that it puts extremely high value on beating teams in the playoffs that had playoff success in surrounding years.

And you would be wrong. The methodology is to scale off the full-season ratings as a starting point, the twist is 3/4ths weight is derived from the postseason. Surrounding years play no part. That is playoff-heavy, but it reflects the priorities of most contenders. Not that shifting rs and po weighting helps MJ much against the guy who beat a 73-win team. The 2012 Thunder took out a spurs team that was going ballistic in the playoffs after a very strong rs. The mavs torched a bunch of 55-win teams. The 13/14 Spurs like the 89/90 Pistons benefited from similar injury scaling(89 cavs, 13 okc, ect), but they were playing their key pieces limited minutes in the rs. The Warriors had 3/4ths weight put on a partially curry-less sample but were still good without their unanimous MVP thanks to Draymond.

I think such an approach is especially useful with the advent of load-management, but regardless, Lebron has beaten better teams than Jordan. If Jordan is a better ceiling raiser, it would seem to be more relevant to a hypothetical all-time league than an actual one such as the National Basketball Association.

[70sFan]

We have had estimates of rebound rate; there's also an issue with counting "team rebounds." Russ was slightly higher than Wilt the last time with a rate generally just south of 20, best in league over his career but not by a ridiculous amount in historical levels. Same goes for shotblocking, 8/game is certainly greatly inflated by pace, lack of spacing, etc., but he and Wilt clearly outpace everyone else.

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=344&t=955514

I will add best seasons TRB% averages for Wilt and Russell:

1960-65 Russell: 19.7% in RS, 20.9% in PS
1962-68 Wilt: 20.4% in RS, 22.6% in PS

[eminence]

There are other techniques to evaluate team goodness, especially for when league sizes aren't similar (not an issue here), but most point the same direction. It's perfectly reasonable to state that LeBron has never led a team to the same heights as MJ or some other candidates in this slot.

At full-strength(Ben-wallace injury a significant hit), the 09 Cavs played at a +9.7 pace. I'd say It is unreasonable to argue that Lebron could not lead any team to +10 me thinks given he basically did in his first year as an MVP. Lebron has a bunch of regular season teams that are 60+ with him and, again, Lebron played more minutes than Mike over their first 13-years in a league where the competition played less.

60-win teams that turn into 65+ win teams in the playoffs are not significantly disadvantaged in terms of championship-winning to 65-win teams that turn into 70-win teams(which probably overstates the gap when accounting for health and performance vs the biggest championship threats). The claim here is not "the bulls were better at regular season games", it is that the Bulls were better to a degree, thanks to Jordan's unique advantages, that would make up the difference and then-some for Lebron being a more valuable "floor-raiser" as it pertains to the winning of rings.

I certainly haven't argued that he couldn't, I've stated that he didn't.

I have also not assigned value to specific numerical thresholds like +10 SRS.

I don't think most would argue that the '09 Cavs are a serious contender for Brons best squad despite the highest RS ratings, both the teams and his own on-court rating (at a minimum I'd prefer his championship squads and the '17 Cavs), or that they deserve serious comparison to Jordans best squads. If you'd like to make the argument the '09 Cavs were a similar level squad to the '96 Bulls, feel free.

Through his first run in Cleveland they beat one team worth mentioning in the playoffs, the '07 Pistons. They earned those RS ratings, but did not seem capable of translating that to the playoffs (not surprisingly, the casts were not particularly good, and it's beyond impressive that LeBron managed to take them to that level of RS success).

[OhayoKD]

At full-strength(Ben-wallace injury a significant hit), the 09 Cavs played at a +9.7 pace. I'd say It is unreasonable to argue that Lebron could not lead any team to +10 me thinks given he basically did in his first year as an MVP. Lebron has a bunch of regular season teams that are 60+ with him and, again, Lebron played more minutes than Mike over their first 13-years in a league where the competition played less.

60-win teams that turn into 65+ win teams in the playoffs are not significantly disadvantaged in terms of championship-winning to 65-win teams that turn into 70-win teams(which probably overstates the gap when accounting for health and performance vs the biggest championship threats). The claim here is not "the bulls were better at regular season games", it is that the Bulls were better to a degree, thanks to Jordan's unique advantages, that would make up the difference and then-some for Lebron being a more valuable "floor-raiser" as it pertains to the winning of rings.

I certainly haven't argued that he couldn't, I've stated that he didn't.

I have also not assigned value to specific numerical thresholds like +10 SRS.

No, but that is the claim shaqattac was responding to.

I don't think most would argue that the '09 Cavs are a serious contender for Brons best squad despite the highest RS ratings, both the teams and his own on-court rating (at a minimum I'd prefer his championship squads and the '17 Cavs), or that they deserve serious comparison to Jordans best squads. If you'd like to make the argument the '09 Cavs were a similar level squad to the '96 Bulls, feel free.

That preference would be justified via the postseason, where Lebron's teams have crossed +10. As is, the 16/17 Cavs do not look far off the Bulls in the playoffs. Nor does 12 Miami. It is also not unbelievable to me that with a healthy ben wallace or just better shooting luck the 09 Cavs get past the Magic and beat the lakers. In such a scenario they'd probably be viewed(justifably) as Lebron's best team. As ben would say, "variance."

Through his first run in Cleveland they beat one team worth mentioning in the playoffs, the '07 Pistons. They earned those RS ratings, but did not seem capable of translating that to the playoffs (not surprisingly, the casts were not particularly good, and it's beyond impressive that LeBron managed to take them to that level of RS success).

Well, this is somewhat misleading. Lebron's first tenure only had two 60+ win teams so we are working off a sample of two playoff runs and 5 playoff series. The Cavs generally improved in the postseason prior to 09.

[AEnigma]

Through his first run in Cleveland they beat one team worth mentioning in the playoffs, the '07 Pistons. They earned those RS ratings, but did not seem capable of translating that to the playoffs (not surprisingly, the casts were not particularly good, and it's beyond impressive that LeBron managed to take them to that level of RS success).

I mostly agree with the point here — there is good reason we almost never see a title won without a second star on the team alleviating pressure — but I think their performance against the 2008 Celtics qualified as playoff translation even with the loss.

[eminence]

Through his first run in Cleveland they beat one team worth mentioning in the playoffs, the '07 Pistons. They earned those RS ratings, but did not seem capable of translating that to the playoffs (not surprisingly, the casts were not particularly good, and it's beyond impressive that LeBron managed to take them to that level of RS success).

I mostly agree with the point here — there is good reason we almost never see a title won without a second star on the team alleviating pressure — but I think their performance against the 2008 Celtics qualified as playoff translation even with the loss.

I worded that poorly. The only Cavs with RS ratings to translate were '09/'10. I agree prior to '09 they at least met and likely exceeded playoff expecations.

[eminence]

.

Not everything is a response to a full thought/post, Shaq specifically asked 'didnt the cavs hit 10 in bron's 1st stint?'. I replied to that.

[homecourtloss]

Whoops: I posted the versions using raw Win Shares and not adjusted ones for Kareem, MJ, and LeBron. Will update shortly.

EDIT: I've fixed them now.

By the way, LeBron's 2009 season has the highest estimated championship probability under this model of any player season, at 0.715.

The top 4 here:

2009 LeBron, .715
1964 Wilt, .706
1974 Kareem, .628
1991 Jordan, .606

Does any player outside these 4 top .600?

[homecourtloss]

#1 LeBron James

What’s absurd about James is in how many different contexts he has shown that he can provide impact that increases his team’s championship odds. His peak can argued as the highest peak, his prime can be argued as the longest prime, his longevity can be argued as the greatest.

In the 27 year datasets that Chema looked at

LeBron has two unique five year stretches during which he had a higher RAPM than all but one other player’s best single five year stretch. In other word, LeBron’s 6.15 RAPM from 2006 to 2010 is the 4th highest five year RAPM peak since 1997. Of the three five year stretches ahead, two belong to LeBron and both of those stretches didn’t overlap with the 2006-10 stretch at all.

1. 2012-2016 James
2. 2013-2017 James
3. 2003-2007 KG
4. 2006–2010 James
11. 2016-2020 James
13. 2005-2009 James
14. 2008-2012 James

This is out of 16,000+ 5 year stretches. It’s absurd that this has happened.
https://www.thespax.com/nba/quantifying-the-nbas-greatest-five-year-peaks-since-1997/

This is an absolute ludicrous outcome. Looking at the data, it doesn’t seem any way that this won’t be also true after the next three years,so you’ll have a 30 year data set dominated by LeBron. I can go on about the post season with this data but people are a bit more squeamish about post-season sample sizes. To have this many different dominant runs in vastly different environments with different casts speaks to James’s unparalleled longevity in which you have 6 different seasons posters on the PC board have argued is his peak, a prime as long as most players’ career.

James’s longevity’s catalyst is his ability to adjust his game in so many ways and roster constructions in vastly different playing style eras, i.e., slow grind out of early and mid 200s, expanding , which is impressive, and a testament to his ability to impact the game in so many different ways, whether that is though quarterbacking defenses, providing rim pressure, scoring inside, shooting, playmaking in a defensive era with two bags, playmaking in a five out offense, playmaking and scoring with great efficiency in vastly different leagues, i.e., late 2000s versus pace and space of the 2020s, etc.

B. Lebron has unrivalled replication, when something happens over and over again in a variety of contexts...it's probably not noise.

Miami is actually the "least" valuable Lebron looks and the best-looking cast he's played with. It is also the outlier here and given the context(playing pf tends to suppress a wings defensive impact, staggering lineups with a similar player, ec), the Miami stuff probably underrates Lebron. That Lebron still looks more valuable is rather damning for Mike.

But if sample-size is such a hold-up, we can always take a peek at how Lebron compares to a bunch of top-tier peaks(including 3 players in Shaq, KG, and Duncan who compare well to Mike using substantial "raw" samples):


You see that red circle? That is all Lebron. From eminence's eyeball, Lebron has the 7 best 5-year stretches.

#2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Again, you have an argument for peak, prime, and longevity. He has a GOATish peak but also has a game that regardless of era or rules was so effective that he provided championship odds increasing impact into his late 30s. I go back to the little variance in his scoring from game to game. You knew how he was going to score but you couldn’t do anything about it, which engendered GOATish longevity.

Kareem’s impact late in his career in the limited samples we have for RAPM look very, very good even if there is a great overlap with Magic’s minutes in their rotations in 1987 and 1988.

[lessthanjake]

At full-strength(Ben-wallace injury a significant hit), the 09 Cavs played at a +9.7 pace. I'd say It is unreasonable to argue that Lebron could not lead any team to +10 me thinks given he basically did in his first year as an MVP. Lebron has a bunch of regular season teams that are 60+ with him and, again, Lebron played more minutes than Mike over their first 13-years in a league where the competition played less.

I’m not much moved by comparisons about what a player’s team did in portions of seasons where the team was fully healthy. That’s not what happened in reality, and every team has injuries. The 1990’s Bulls were actually generally pretty well-off in terms of health (though Rodman missed a lot of time and they were still dominant, which is a pretty notable point here). But the reality is that injuries (as well as missing time for load management and whatnot) were generally less common back then. So, while I think it’s fair to say the Bulls were generally healthier than LeBron’s teams (or at least their best players played more—maybe they were playing through injuries guys would sit for now), their average opponents would’ve been too. I don’t actually think Jordan’s teams were abnormally healthy for their era or that LeBron’s teams were abnormally unhealthy for their era, and Jordan’s teams ended up more dominant. If you want to posit that LeBron’s teams would’ve been as dominant as Jordan’s teams were if LeBron’s teams were abnormally healthy for their era, then that’s fine but I don’t think it’s very persuasive.

Here's the issue. The Celtics aren't padding their record vs 1st and 2nd round fodder as the Bulls would be with a bigger playoff-field.

I don’t think that’s at all the case. As I pointed out in that thread (longer explanation there), the semifinals in a league of 8 or 9 teams is actually conceptually equivalent to the 1st or 2nd round now. The semifinals in an 8-team league includes the top 50% of teams, which is basically what the first round is now. In terms of the percentile of opponent they were facing, the semifinals that Boston played were essentially equivalent to the first or second round now (closer to conference semis as the league expanded late in the Celtics’ run), and the finals were essentially equivalent to the finals or conference finals now.

The bottom line is that I don’t see how the Celtics’ playoff series’ were actually tougher on average than the Bulls’, given that the average percentile of the league that their opponents were in was surely very similar. And both teams went 27-2 in playoff series.

Either the Celtics won more, or the Celtics won as much against more difficult competition. Will also note that if we're willing to overlook a 5-ring difference to call the Bulls more dominant, than we can also ignore the less than 5-ring difference regarding the KD-Warriors who played at a 74-win pace and by the criteria of "won the championship most easily" were truly unrivalled. The Bulls never went 16-1 after all. If you're really concerned with "how" the championships happened, we may as well note that Steph(and Magic) have a higher game-game winning% than either. Odd criterion achieves odd-conclusions

And you’ll find that Magic and Curry are high on my list too. But Magic’s Lakers were not as dominant as Jordan’s Bulls, and Steph’s Warriors were as dominant but only briefly. And I think both of those guys had more talented teams at the height of their teams’ runs (though I don’t think the pre-Durant Warriors were). But they do both get a lot of credit from me and will be ranked highly by me.

In this case the standard is "all 5 of the highest mpg players are playing". I do not think that is unfair in a comparison where I am only including games and minutes with both of the cavs co-stars(statmuse does not offer "full-lineup wowy"). As is we do have a large "full-strength" sample for the team that was playing near +10 with Lebron. In 21-games with the same rotation minus Lebron, 2011 Cleveland played like a 18-win team.

Notice that first-stint Cleveland is expressly not what I’m talking about when I said LeBron had really talented teams, and indeed, the lack of talent on those teams was the primary reason I gave for why I think LeBron was a superior floor raiser.

That said, I’m not sure how you can define the 2011 Cavaliers as having “the same rotation minus LeBron” as the 2010 Cavaliers. Among other things, they were missing Shaq and Ilgauskas. That team wasn’t just 2010 Cavaliers minus LeBron. They were not as good. LeBron had a huge influence of course—he was an incredible floor raiser on those Cavs!—but let’s not exaggerate, especially as there’s no need to.

You literally brought up WOWYR yesterday. But sure, the samples aren't particularly big. The problem is

A. Big samples only corroborate these small-signals(2003, 2018 and 2011 Cavs, 13-game sample from 2015, career-wide rapm, 5-year rapm, ect)
B. Lebron has unrivalled replication, when something happens over and over again in a variety of contexts...it's probably not noise.

Miami is actually the "least" valuable Lebron looks and the best-looking cast he's played with. It is also the outlier here and given the context(playing pf tends to suppress a wings defensive impact, staggering lineups with a similar player, ec), the Miami stuff probably underrates Lebron. That Lebron still looks more valuable is rather damning for Mike.

Yes, I brought up WOWYR yesterday, and you’ll find that, in that very thread, I also specifically identified low sample size as making it an arguably meaningless measure for Hakeem. What I’m saying here is entirely consistent with that. My point in that thread was about there being a lack of information, not that WOWY ratings are great and should be given high weight. I think you misunderstood that in that thread too.

And LeBron looking “least valuable” with the “best-looking cast he’s played with” is actually a good part of my point! That’s suggestive of more of a floor raiser than a ceiling raiser.

As for RAPM, unless I’m missing something, I think we need to recognize that there’s not really any such thing as RAPM for the vast majority of Jordan’s career. I think all we have are either (1) relatively small data sets; or (2) “augmented” measures that go a bit further back than tracking data by just trying to use WOWY and box-score measures to basically fit an estimate for prior years. There’s not actually much of an any comparison that can be made using a stat that hardly exists for one of the players. For instance, that chart you provided is essentially irrelevant here, since it is 5-year RAPM in a time period where Michael Jordan does not have a 5-year span.

WOWY actually maximizes a team's chance to adapt and we always can compare large samples where there was minimal turnover. Either approach leaves Lebron looking strongly advantaged.

I’m not sure what you mean here. Jordan is literally ahead of LeBron James in WOWY ratings: https://thinkingbasketball.net/metrics/wowyr/

The measure has a low-sample-size issue such that I’m not convinced it’s super meaningful, but it does not “leave[] LeBron looking strongly advantaged.”

Are you under the impression that the triangle wasn't "jordan-style"? This is actually probably a good oppurtunity to cover why the Bulls were an "exceptional", rather than "good" fit. Here are Jordan's relative weaknesses as a player

-> passing/creative efficiency. Even if his raw creative volume is on-par with all-time playmakers, the quality of those chances and the amount of looks he missed lag behind(as is reflecred in a much lower passer-rating) putting him at a general disadvantage.
-> running the offense. Jordan was simply a worse decision-maker pairing worse shot-selection with with weaker passing and an inability to set-tempo the way a magic or Lebron can
-> orchestration/on-court coaching. Jordan did not really tell teammates where to go on either end or force team-wide adjustments after reading opposing schemes
-> Paint-protection. Jordan as a guard could not really function as a primary paint-protector. Consequently while a Lebron was capable of anchoring great playoff and regular season defenses in the absence of their best defensive teammates, Jordan has only led one -2 rs defense with oakley(Lebron led a -5.5 defense with his best defensive teammate missing half the season and a -3.5 defense with said teammate entirely missing, along with multiple great playoff defenses alongside defensive negatives in his 30's)
-> Positioning. This is more a critique of early/1st 3-peat Jordan but he ranked in the 23rd percentile of defensive breakdowns per Ben's film-tracking and would get in trouble for overextending a fair bit. This was especially notable in 91 vs Magic and 92 vs Drexler
-> Decision-making facing extra defensive attention. This is basically covered above, but this is worth specifying as the triangle basically ensured it was very, very difficult to double Jordan

Here are Pippen's relative weaknesses as a player
-> scoring
-> Off-ball cutting
(these are strengths for Jordan)
Pippen's relative strengths
-> literally everything i listed above for offense
-> help d, covering for Jordan's mis-timed swings while simultaneously making more plays at the perimeter
-> rim-protection, Pippen, like Lebron was a legitimate defensive anchor that could protect the paint. Also like Lebron while he was an exceptional paint-protector for a big, he was not actually a big giving Jordan plenty of opportunity to provide value on the weak-side.
-> one of the best primary-ball handlers in the league which in the era of illegal d translates to Jordan getting to shoot a bunch in single-coverage

These are all just your subjective views on what Jordan’s weaknesses are, and having those views magically map on to Pippen’s strengths. There’s truth to some of it, but it strikes me as mostly motivated reasoning. I could just as easily come up with a different list of Jordan’s weaknesses that Pippen didn’t really fit around. Indeed, you even listed one of them: Obviously as a SG, Jordan was not a big rim protector, but Pippen wasn’t some rim protecting big man either. So maybe Jordan would’ve been a better fit with an elite center than with Pippen? A very similar player (Kobe) certainly worked great with an elite center (Shaq, and to a lesser extent Gasol) while in the same exact offensive system. I don’t dispute that Pippen was a good fit for Jordan (and for the triangle in general). But the idea that he was some uniquely great fit doesn’t strike me as very plausible, especially when we saw the Kobe Lakers teams find a ton of success in the same offensive system pairing Kobe with very different players than Pippen. So, discounting Jordan’s team’s dominance based on the idea that he was just lucky to have the uniquely perfect running mate strikes me as very odd.

This also all raises the question of whether there’s *any* great player that would fit great with LeBron. Your assertion appears to be that MJ had weaknesses and another great player could slot in to plug those weaknesses. Is that the case with LeBron? I think your view seems to basically be that LeBron does not have weaknesses and therefore there weren’t weaknesses to plug. But that’s just putting a positive spin on the issue I’m identifying. It was hard for great players to fit with LeBron, because the system was always so centered on LeBron doing everything, such that there wasn’t much room for those other players to do their things. Maybe you think LeBron is a better all-around basketball player than Jordan. And perhaps that’s right. But when it comes to ceiling raising, it can be better to be a more specialized player—who hyper-excels at a few things, while having great teammates take responsibility for other things that they really excel at—than it is to excel at a broader range of things such that you’re crowding out your teammates but maybe not hyper-excelling at anything (i.e. not in the same way Jordan did at scoring).

For instance, to use a stylized example, let’s say there’s two categories of offensive skills: Category A and Category B. And let’s say Player 1 is a 10 at Category A and a 7 at Category B. Meanwhile, Player 2 is a 9 at Category A and a 9 at Category B. Both can have a teammate that is a 9 at one category and a 7 at another. Player 1’s team can end up with a 10 in Category A and a 9 in Category B, while Player 2’s team just ends up with a 9 in both categories. Player A’s team will be better. But if we instead say that both players have teammates that are 7’s or below in both categories, then Player B’s team will be better. Player A is a superior ceiling raiser, and Player B is a superior floor raiser.

If you were to ignore their actual performance with wade and bosh, sure. As is, it is you trying to use an absence of evidence as evidence of absence. The burden is yours. If you are going to center your argument on Lebron not fitting well with bosh and wade, then you need to actually use how the heat looked with bosh and wade. And to that end...

I think the history of the NBA tells us that it does not make sense to assume that doing really well in one playoffs series means a team will do well in another. Doing well with Bosh in certain series’ doesn’t mean they’d have done similarly well with Bosh in other series’. The burden isn’t on me here, since you’re trying to prove that, despite the numbers and results, the Heat were actually a dominant team because of a specific subset of games. I’m just saying that that kind of extrapolation is wildly flawed.

And this goes for some of the other related stuff you said below this. Your assertion appears to be that LeBron should be deemed to have made teams dominant because, even though they weren’t actually dominant overall, they were dominant in smaller sample sizes of games where they were fully healthy. But again, injuries happen and players miss time (especially in this more recent era), including on the teams facing LeBron, and your argument amounts to basically saying “LeBron’s teams were dominant when they were in games where they were abnormally healthy compared to the rest of the league.” Of course that’s the case! You’re artificially limiting consideration only to games where they had an advantage over the average opponent! Rodman missed a lot of time in 1995-1996 and 1996-1997—should we only consider the Bulls’ record and net rating in those games? Because we know that the Bulls were +16.8 with Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman on the floor in 1996-1997, for instance—which is above what Lebron/Wade/Bosh or LeBron/Kyrie/Love ever were. And that wasn’t even the Bulls’ best year.

The "never led the most efficient offense" sounds good, but falls apart when you realize that even the 2015 Cavs, in what was supposed to be a down-year for Lebron, were the most efficient offense with their superstar on the floor. Even the 2023 Lakers with Lebron carrying a torn-tendon proved to be better offensively than portability-god Steph with the Lakers seeing a big-drop off even when hobbled off-ball Lebron missing games. Your theories do not line-up with reality. Especially if we look at the postseason...

Saying LeBron “proved by be better offensively” than Steph in 2023 is a pretty wild take. The Lakers scored 118.5 points per 100 possessions with LeBron on the floor, and the Warriors scored 119.9 points per 100 possessions with Curry on the floor.

The Bulls main advantage on defense where of course it was Pippen whose ascension correlated with their improvement, and Jordan's departure was not followed by any significant decline. Aged 30-32, regular season Lebron saw a 30-win team(average offense, bad defense) play like a 60-win team(great offense, average defense). Then with Lebron-lineups specifically improving(with and without his co-stars) those average offenses became great postseason defenses(-5 in 2015, -3 in 2016) that were disproportionately good facing better offenses:

The Bulls advantage was actually both offense *and* defense. And they literally put up below-average offensive efficiency in the year Jordan was gone.

Come playoff-time the 16-17 cavs elevated from merely title-worthy with lebron to bulls-esque. In 2015 they were Bulls-esque with everyone healthy in the rs and were merely title-worthy with Kyrie and Love missing half or more of the playoffs. Jordan has never demonstrated similar influence on either end of the floor. There is not much of anything to support Jordan being comparably valuable, be it as a floor-raiser or as a ceiling-raiser. Just theories working off assumptions with little or no support. The simpler interpretation is that Lebron, largely as byproduct of being a much better defender, is better at generating wins.

Again, talking about what a team does when they are abnormally healthy is just a very skewed way of looking at it, and doesn’t really make sense.

As for the 2016-2017 Cavs being “bulls-esque” I’m not sure what you mean. They didn’t win the title. I know they played an unbelievably good team in the finals, so it can be excused. But there’s only so much credit that a team can get for dominating through the weak eastern conference teams they went through that season.

You’re constantly wanting to ignore the overall picture for LeBron’s ceiling raising, in favor of taking smaller snippets of data that look artificially better for him—whether that’s only looking at regular season minutes/games where his teams are fully healthy, or only looking at playoff games where his team is fully healthy and extrapolating that out to suggest they were dominant overall, or calling his team “bulls-esque” for a playoff run that didn’t even end in a title.

They were dominant through three-rounds and dominant in the rs with their big-three before losing narrowly to a mavericks side that absolutely cooked the West. For what is one of the worst years of Lebron's career it's really not all that bad. 1995 probably ranks higher with internal-scaling among MJ years than 2011 does Lebron and a second round exit to a soon to be swept finalist on a 53-win cast is an outright worse outcome. If your argument here is that peak-jordan had an advantage over non-peak Lebron, fair is fair, but this does not logically lead to Lebron being a worse ceiling raiser at his apex.

Same thing here. LeBron was “dominant through three-rounds” and “dominant in the rs with their big-three.” How about just dominant without any caveats, like Jordan’s Bulls were? That’s better than dominant in limited samples of games that either don’t include the hardest matches (i.e. the finals) or are games where they’re abnormally healthy! If you need to narrow down consideration to specific favorable scenarios, then the team definitionally wasn’t dominant!

And you would be wrong. The methodology is to scale off the full-season ratings as a starting point, the twist is 3/4ths weight is derived from the postseason. Surrounding years play no part. That is playoff-heavy, but it reflects the priorities of most contenders. Not that shifting rs and po weighting helps MJ much against the guy who beat a 73-win team. The 2012 Thunder took out a spurs team that was going ballistic in the playoffs after a very strong rs. The mavs torched a bunch of 55-win teams. The 13/14 Spurs like the 89/90 Pistons benefited from similar injury scaling(89 cavs, 13 okc, ect), but they were playing their key pieces limited minutes in the rs. The Warriors had 3/4ths weight put on a partially curry-less sample but were still good without their unanimous MVP thanks to Draymond.

I think such an approach is especially useful with the advent of load-management, but regardless, Lebron has beaten better teams than Jordan. If Jordan is a better ceiling raiser, it would seem to be more relevant to a hypothetical all-time league than an actual one such as the National Basketball Association.

Okay, if a measure if basing its assessment of how good a team is primarily on the results of a super small number of playoff games they’ve already played in those particular playoffs, then it’s just a trash measure.

[eminence]

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Small note, not sure you knew, but Cheema includes playoff possessions in their RAPM data, unsure of weight given.

[rk2023]

He has a GOATish peak but also has a game that regardless of era or rules was so effective that he provided championship odds increasing impact into his late 30s. I go back to the little variance in his scoring from game to game. You knew how he was going to score but you couldn’t do anything about it, which engendered GOATish longevity.

Kareem’s impact late in his career in the limited samples we have for RAPM look very, very good even if there is a great overlap with Magic’s minutes in their rotations in 1987 and 1988.

Just curious where you have access to this information (great write up by the way). I have seen 91/96 RAPM and play-by-play tracking from Justin / Squared2020, but am not too familiar where to find any of the pre-data ball info aside from those two.

[homecourtloss]

He has a GOATish peak but also has a game that regardless of era or rules was so effective that he provided championship odds increasing impact into his late 30s. I go back to the little variance in his scoring from game to game. You knew how he was going to score but you couldn’t do anything about it, which engendered GOATish longevity.

Kareem’s impact late in his career in the limited samples we have for RAPM look very, very good even if there is a great overlap with Magic’s minutes in their rotations in 1987 and 1988.

Just curious where you have access to this information (great write up by the way). I have seen 91/96 RAPM and play-by-play tracking from Justin / Squared2020, but am not too familiar where to find any of the pre-data ball info aside from those two.

Yes, basically Squared2020’s numbers. Obviously nothing definitive but does make Kareem look really good.

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Small note, not sure you knew, but Cheema includes playoff possessions in their RAPM data, unsure of weight given.

Yes, that was poorly worded on my part, i.e., the next step would be to post just the playoff impact which was also posted.

[eminence]

^Agreeing with the above that Kareem looks very good in his late career +/- numbers from Squared. I felt moderately confident with Duncan above him prior to those numbers, my eye test is not very impressed by late career Kareem, but the stats disagree pretty strongly.

[rk2023]

^Agreeing with the above that Kareem looks very good in his late career +/- numbers from Squared. I felt moderately confident with Duncan above him prior to those numbers, my eye test is not very impressed by late career Kareem, but the stats disagree pretty strongly.

To clarify, this is implying you have Duncan 3rd? I saw the Kareem vote at 2 on the initial ballot, and that you mentioned Russell as well - so am now curious haha