OhayoKD wrote:So I think this illustrates what's happening here rather well...
Yank3525 wrote:
The point I was making is that when you have great teammates, it can be more optimal for a player to be extremely proficient at a specialized thing or two, rather than being a player who is responsible for everything.
Bingo.
If Bron was more willing to be a "utility" player (borrowing a term from MJ in 1992). I think his Cavs team could have reached historic heights in terms of +/- with him, Kyrie, and Love. It is frustrating too because you saw him play that way during the 2008 Olympics.
Except that is exactly what happened:
Spoiler:
The issue isn't that you're criticizing Lebron, it's that you leapt before looking. For example...
He made his choices, and then he either killed the coach or tried to kill the coach whenever there was a struggle.
Sounds good. The only issue is we can immediately refute this with...David Blatt.
ESPN wrote:"We got static, without question," Blatt said. "We're good when we move the ball. We're really good when we move the ball. And when we play without motion and without ball energy, I like to call it, then that's what it looks like. That is exactly what happened." ... Blatt did not call out Irving by name, but the fourth-year guard dissected his own play. "It starts with me and my patience in the half court and the full court," Irving said. "There were some plays that we were running, just what I see out there and exploiting mismatches and trying to do the best I can on making this team go."
Lebron wrote:I think my relationship with the coach continues to get better and better every day. It's just two months of us being together. I don't know him fully, he doesn't know me fully, he doesn't know any of the guys fully, and that's to be expected. It's our first year together. But he has our attention. ...
I'm happy who we have at our helm. He's our coach. For it to make a feud between me and Blatt or the team and Blatt, it's just to sell. To sell and get people to read it and put something at the bottom of the ticker. That's all it is.
Cavaliers Nation wrote:“I think a lot of people get it misconstrued on what it takes to win, you know just scoring or just going out and trying to will it yourself,” he added.
James went on to say, “There’s a lot of bad habits (that have) been built up the past couple years. When you play that style of basketball, it takes a lot to get it up out of you.”
Marion agreed with James, saying “we’re losing individually right now.” He said the “ball is sticking too much” on offense and better defense was needed, too.
After scoring just 11 points in Tuesday night’s 101-82 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James made some eyebrow-raising comments about why he didn’t try to take greater control when the game was still in question.
“I’m trying to do other things, to try to instill what it takes to win,” said James. “My mission is not a one-game thing. We have to do multiple things to win.”
Washington Post wrote:Waiters had rifts with members of the organization, most notably first-year Coach David Blatt and up-and-coming star Kyrie Irving.
Fox Sports Ohio’s Sam Amico reported Waiters didn’t like the off-guard role Blatt gave to him in the season.
Waiters prefers to have the ball in his hands, but that is primarily the job for Irving, Cleveland’s former No. 1 overall pick. Waiters and Irving reportedly had chemistry issues in their two-and-a-half years together, and the Bleacher Report article stated that is mainly because Waiters thought he was better than Irving, despite other reports from those close to the Cavaliers organization that the two are friends.
To recap, in 2015...
-> Despite the Cavs struggling early, Lebron defended Blatt as opposed to "killing" him -> Lebron went out of his way to scout Blatt's sets in the Israeli League -> Lebron significantly lowered both his touches and average time of possession while ramping up the time he spent off-ball -> Lebron encouraged his teammates to buy into blatt's system, insisted on being patient as opposed to trying to 'take over" for short-term gain, even as the Cavs struggled at the start -> Helped the Cavs go 42-5 under Blatt with their big-three on the court -> Led the cavs to a +10psrs postseason run despite love and kyrie missing large chunks of the playoffs
If you want to mark 2016 as evidence of "coach-killing" for Lebron, even though Cleveland's new coach(one Lebron has repeatedly advocated for at and post-Cleveland), is now widely considered one of the best in the league and successfully guided Cleveland to a championship, fine, but "lebron will get you fired, lebron does not respect coaches, and lebron is a coach-killer" is not something you can reasonably extrapolate as a general truth without an extremely selective lens. Lebron did not "kill the coach" when they struggled in 2015. He did not "kill the coach" when the Lakers initially struggled in 2019. He did not “kill the coach” when Ham struggled to start 23. He did not “kill” ty lue when they struggled through stretches of 2016 and 2018.
Even Blatt's firing being a matter of Lebron's "coachability" is pretty questionable given that the most commonly cited issue was in-game play-calling, and it was an issue explicitly noted by multiple non-LeBron cavaliers, and something Blatt himself has admitted fault in:
“The whole team was looking at each other crazy like, ‘You do know we got this guy LeBron over here right?’” Haywood said. “But the play was supposed to be for J.R. Bron drew up a play where basically it looked like he was going to set a screen and he pops out to the corner real quick. And he drew it up and it worked.”
— -- CLEVELAND -- The day after his team's biggest win of the season, Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt had to address several controversies that sprang up in the wake of the buzzer-beating victory over the Chicago Bulls.
Specifically, Blatt avoided potential disaster when he called for a timeout with nine seconds to play when the Cavs didn't have any. Officials, who knew the Cavs were out of timeouts, did not look to the bench and missed the call. Assistant coach Tyronn Lue came off the bench to stop Blatt from signaling further.
Blatt wrote:Usually don't lose track of them, that's usually what happens," Blatt said. "Matter of fact, that's never happened before in my time as a coach. Good thing I had great guys behind me to bail me out and then a great player to bail us all out with a terrific shot. ... A near-mistake was made and I owned up to it and I own it. A basketball coach makes 150 to 200 critical decisions during the course of a game, something that I think is paralleled only by a fighter pilot. If you do it for 27 years, you're going to blow one or two. And I blew one. Fortunately it didn't cost us.
The second-hand sources asserting Lebron "kicked around" Blatt specifically cite Lebron occasionally calling for play-calls or adjustments, a tactic which has repeatedly won his team's playoff-games...
;t=57s ...and has explicitly been noted as a positive both by Lebron's teammates and David Blatt himself. Even if it was a negative and the Cavs replacing Blatt with a coach currently considered elite at in-game coaching was a bad-call, this does not come close to establishing that Lebron "consistently" disrespects coaches or does not consider coaching important. You claim Lebron has "never shown signs" of thinking coaching matters, but he has repeatedly expressed a desire to be coached by Popavich, actively petitioned for the Lakers to hire Ty Lue, publicly called-out his team for not buying into Blatt's "flexible" "high ball-energy" offense, has gone along with Vogel, Ham and Spo playing him as a 5 and a 4, and has most recently allowed Ham to use him as an off-ball spacer for significant stretches of playoff games.
TLDR: -> Lebron buys into Blatt's system, defends Blatt, and calls out his teammates for not buying in after facing criticism for "not doing everything" -> Cavs post a historically strong +/- and record with Lebron and his co-stars(over a sizable sample, that team is not good with those co-stars and without Lebron(horrible when lebron is not in the game at all) thanks to a bad no-lebron defense, holds true if we extend the sample over multiple years) -> Cavs are still very strong when those two co-stars go down -> Blatt is fired due to game-management issues that Lebron helps paper over(most notably for a swing game vs chicago in round two) -> Blatt is replaced with a better coach and despite costars returning and going through injury(kyrie misses a big chunk of the season), the cavs are a 60+ win team in the rs with lebron and then go ballistic in the playoffs posting a top 10 ever postseason-rating(8th at +14.55 per Sans) before they take out the Golden-State warriors led by ultra cieling raisiers steph and draymond(a team that also posts a very strong psrs despite Steph missing a bunch of games).
Frankly this cieling-raising bit seems rather detached from actual results:
Spoiler:
He has been the best player on title teams for three separate franchises, with three separate coaches and three distinct rosters. In the postseason, he leads everyone in: - wins - road wins - series wins - road series wins - series wins as an SRS underdog - games played - minutes played - points He is also top twelve in appearances outright (Stockton/Malone at 19, Duncan/Kareem at 18, and Shaq/Kidd/Parker at 17). He has the second highest playoff road win percentage among anyone in the consensus top twelve (Magic). He has the third highest playoff win percentage among anyone in the consensus top twelve (Magic and Jordan). He has the most consecutive series with a road playoff win. He has the second best road series win percentage, with five times the sample as Russell’s 3-1 record.
He has led six top 50 relative playoff teams (four titles plus 2009 and 2017), which is the same number as Jordan — and he had a better on-court and on/off rating than Jordan did across those respective six teams, despite false claims about his inability to lead teams to similar ceilings. He is tied for the third most conference finals (behind Kareem and Russell), and he is tied with Kareem for second most finals (with three of Kareem’s coming as a tertiary figure)
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.
As it happens we literally just saw Lebron become a "utility player" en route to beating "ceiling raiser" Steph:
Never mind that he has spent stretches of the last 3-seasons, nearing 40, playing as a 5 or a 4 next to a non-5 like Rui defensively.
Maybe these "very obvious" things people can't actually back up aren't so obvious?...
lessthanjake wrote:Most of this is just your own subjective judgments.
And all of your post is "subjective judgement" so
And they’re also not really relevant to the point I was making
It kind of is if you want your point to actually mean something.
The point I was making is that when you have great teammates, it can be more optimal for a player to be extremely proficient at a specialized thing or two, rather than being a player who is responsible for everything. A great team inherently has teammates that are great at stuff, and therefore they can handle a lot of things. The best way to add the most marginal value to a team like that is to be miles above the pack at a major thing—i.e. MJ with scoring, Russell with defense, Steph with shooting/gravity, etc. When on a great team, that’s the way to provide value that is as non-redundant as possible. That’s how you optimally ceiling raise.
Yeah, but Russell was not "specialized" in a thing or two. Defense is not a "thing", especially in the 60's. So no. "This is how you optimally cieling raise" is just an odd "subjective judgement". Magic won 5-rings and made 10 finals monopolizing offense like Lebron does. Duncan has a case as the most successful player post-russell and he was not a "historic outlier" at any one skill. Just that it is convenient for your stances that "specializtion = cieling raising", does not actually make it true. Your thought exercise seems more applicable to a fantasy nba rather than the actual one, which is why it doesn't really jive with what actually happens. As is, Lebron has averaged a conference final trip over 20-years and won 4 championships in a 9-year span to go with 8 final trips.
Right now "cieling raising" as you are using it is poorly defined and as long as it is poorly defined(and is not justifed in relationship to title-winning), it is really just an empty term that rather conveniently allows you to dimiss most of the evidence one might present for Lebron over Jordan. And when we hone in on the specific criticisms...
LeBron’s style is to do everything,
"Do everything" is a style now? Yeah. I think we you might just be going by the vibes now. Lebron has shifted what he does and does not do based on the teammates around him, specifically molding his style to fit the teams he plays for again and again...
Spoiler:
off the wall wrote:James points per game are up from 25.3 last season to 27.3 this season, a modest increase. That could be the result of any number of things. But then we start looking at the data on his touches, the results of which are summarized in the table below.6 James is receiving 12 fewer touches this season, down from a bonkers 81.7 touches per game. He’s also possessing the ball nearly two minutes less per game, dribbling less, and driving less. But then we see his post touches have more than doubled, and his points per post touch have increased nearly 40 percent. The film (using the examples above) would suggest that his improved off-ball play has contributed to his improved efficiency in the post. The end result: nearly nine more points per 100 touches, or a 26.5 percent more efficient player this season when viewing touches as the input.
uberhikari wrote:Just to give an example, not all on-ball creators are created equally. In Miami, from 2012-2014 LeBron was an on-ball creator as a passing hub out of the mid-post. That allowed him to optimize Miami's offense.
In Cleveland, from 2015-2018 LeBron was an on-ball creator but operated from the perimeter which allowed him to manufacture skip passes and attack the paint from the perimeter.
In LA in 2020 LeBron was an on-ball creator but operated as a "do-everything" point guard.
We have 3 completely different contexts where LeBron is an on-ball creator but in each context, LeBron has uniquely modified his game to maximize his effectiveness and the team around him.
Aenigma wrote:Lebron likes playmaking in general. This is more traditionally his best skill… but there too he is not exactly unwilling to share — with Wade, with Kyrie, or with Westbrook. Westbrook, in sort of a similar situation as Pippen, really only has abstract value now as a passer, although without his scoring threat, and without any spacing ability, it is not exactly a high value offering. But to accommodate that, what does Lebron do? He tries to pull a Jordan. He relinquishes ballhandling, focuses more on scoring, for the first time in over a decade legitimately pushes for a scoring title… but the team’s defence is bad with Davis “suffering from hurt”, the roster overall is a mess, and a diminished Westbrook is still a pretty active negative who cannot be any actual analogue for even a younger Scottie Pippen. But is any of that a real consequence of some fundamental inability of Lebron to score next to a lead ballhandler?
Joao Saraiva wrote:He operated with the ball in the perimeter with Cleveland. He changed to PF so Wade could that with the Heat. So he was portable.
He operated as a roll man (C, PF) when playing with Westbrook in the Lakers. And it worked on offense. He doesn't need to be a shooter to be able to play off ball roles.
If you ask him to be a shooter he probably can, but you're not putting him in a good position since he's streaky and you're taking away his ability to playmake and attack the rim, two of his best attributes. If you do that it's not him who isn't portable, you're just a bad coach.
f4p wrote:yeah, somehow lebron, who has played on many different teams for many different coaches with many different teammates, who has played on heavy offensive teams, has played off-ball more than normal, has played on heavy defensive teams, and has given his teams exactly what they need at every step, is not portable because he doesn't have a great outside shot and likes to have the ball.
His scoring was inconsistent, but I would say his playmaking was great throughout. Keep in mind the team was basically as good on d and o in the postseason, so that defensive aspect was rather important. Lebron posted the best playmaking-box stuff of his career(45% ast:11tov%) and that ramps up in the postseason to pair with that crazy(for a non-big) looking defensive impact and that just ramped up as the playoffs progressed. Lebron's efficacy also probably undersells the "value" he offered a team that, for large stretches didn't have real-spacing or alternative options to score with, via that volume "chucking". There's probably an offensive cieling set with that version of Lebron, but if you're going to anchor a -5 defense(sansteere iirc) I'm not sure it matters that much. +10 PSRS(per sansterre) is title-worthy and that was what they were without kyrie or love. Small sample, but it tracks with raw and adjusted impact stuff that puts it at near the very top of post-russell stuff. Also I put alot of value on scaling up against the best, and the finals vs the warriors is firmly Lebron's best offensive and defensiive performance from like every aspect of analysis. Can't really argue with that personally.
Recently, James has also taken a shine to more elaborate off-ball schemes that require him to use or set a whole collection of screens. This isn’t NBA Jam-style button-mashing, but chess-piece maneuvering that, while lacking immediate gratification, has an ultimately more satisfying payoff than bullying a way to the hoop.
Last Friday against the New York Knicks, James sets a pick for ball-handler Mo Williams, who goes all the way from the right side to the left side along the three-point line. James then cuts toward the basket, leading his man into a succession of screens set by J.R. Smith and Kevin Love. By the time he’s underneath the basket, Mo’s reached the opposite side of the court and Carmelo Anthony is too far behind James to deny an easy entry pass. Anthony has no choice but to foul James.
Versatility is actually very important for retaining value on better teams. Skill-sets are not fixed. And a capable(and willing) player can shift focus so where they offer value does not take away from others do. Of course that is theoretical, but when we look for proof of concept...
but he’s not just a complete historical outlier supernova at any specific thing.
At his prime, he was incredible at scoring, passing, and defense, for instance. It was an amazing combination, but he was not GOAT-tier at any of those (passing is the closest, but he’s still below a guy like Magic).
He is probably top 3 scorer ever(top 2 in scoreval fwiw though I have kareem and Mike ahead) a top 5 creator ever(4th in playval fwiw), and is one of a handful of players capable of directing offenses and defenses on the court(an attribute that has been specifically highlighted by many opposing players including +20 net cieling-raisier draymond(will get to that later)). I do not know what you consider "goat-tier", but it seems this standard is constructed more out of convenience for this framework of yours than an actual belief in it's application. In an actual league, a league-best scorer, a candidate for league-best passer, and someone who can run offense and defense is offering alot of things nearly every team(including contenders) they do not have "9's at. And in the actual game, players can shift their focus on one attribute or another.
In fact, that is actually what happened when Lebron played with a guy who was also a 9[/] in the things Lebron was also really good at:
Spoiler:
homecourtloss wrote:
So we remember, [b]this is what was happening to Wade by 2012:
Spoiler:
Wade declined to comment on the procedure after Game 4 other than to say, "If I'm in uniform, I ready to play."
Heat teammates and coaches have maintained that Wade has been banged up throughout the series, but especially the past three games, with nagging injuries that have lingered since late in the regular season when Wade missed eight of the last 15 games.
But issues with his knee, which required surgery four seasons ago, apparently cropped up again after Miami's 95-86 victory in Game 1. Wade scored 24 points in Game 2 but was just 8 of 22 from the field and missed a crucial layup in the final seconds of Miami's 78-75 home loss to Indiana.
After having fluid drained from his troublesome left knee last week, Wade had one of the worst playoff games of his career as Miami stumbled into a 2-1 series hole against the Indiana Pacers.
This is what we call context. When we account for it, suddenly what actually happens(miami did not play like a contender when Lebron missed time) might start making sense. When we ignore it, you get...
This manifests itself fairly obviously. LeBron put together a team with the #1, #2, and #4 players in PER the year before
...repetition of a point which has no real link to what you're arguing. What relationship does PER have with ceiling raising or floor-raising. Tell me again what happened when Russell left a team with players featuring higher PER? What manifested is you setting expectations based on the names at the top of the roster, ignoring potential variables like Wade's knees or Bosh missing playoff games, and willingly throwing in junk that has no relevance to what you're trying to argue(games where co-stars miss games, games and minutes without Lebron, ect -> lebron has a glass ceiling with co-stars).
It was +12.53 the next year, then +10.07 the year after that (and then down to a +4.74 the final year, when Wade was broken down, so it’s not a super relevant data point IMO).
But Wade was breaking down by year 2. And teams are not 3 players. This is why people look at how the team performs, not just the names at the top of a roster-sheet. Miami did not play like the super-cast you are imagining without Lebron. It may be difficult to imagine when you spam game-score and don't count things that are inconvenient as "production", but we have a perfectly reasonable explanation for why those teams did not win 70, and when we got to see the cast on its own(note: not two players), the results reflect not super-help. Despite that we have two championships from the three years which coincide with Lebron's "peak", and one finals loss when the team wasn't so good anymore. Moreover, if we focus on data which is actually relevant to your claim, we see that Lebron falling short is a product of health. Your standard is random and arbitrary and you are trying very hard to mask what is an argument from absence as a well-supported claim. Lebron has not won 70-games in a regular season. Does that mean he can't? No. Does that actually matter for who is easier to win a championship with? You haven't really established that.
You don't really seem to have anything here to work off. You're tossing assumptions and then insisting it's common sense these assumptions are true. Why exactly could Wade's injury not derail a talented team? Why do rosters with similar talent at the top have to be equally capable in terms of support? Why is it "noise" when larger samples than much of what you usually bring up have cleveland as a bad defense and an average offense with kyrie and love and no Lebron?
Anything that does not reach your arbitrary treshold is floor-raising. The games that are most relevant for winning titles are small-samples. Substantial samples are also small samples when convenient. The minutes where Lebron or the other great players are absent somehow matter, but repeatedly demonstrating as good or better lift in situations your priors say it should not happen is actually noise or "ball-dominant style = bad bench"(make sure you ignore all the other helios who are as or more ball-dominant for who this is clearly not the case).
It’s just genuinely true that LeBron has proven to not be an optimal ceiling raiser. And my explanation for that is this issue of specialization
It's probably false. As reflected as your case effectively boiling down to an extended appeal to incredulity and a bunch of points you cannot be bothered to actually tie to your position. If we were to apply the logic you're using to say Lebron has a glass cieling:
Spoiler:
anenigma wrote:And no one other than Russell “showed” they could win 11 rings either, yet most of us are not putting him at the peak. You know, by the same standard, Jordan quite literally never showed he could lead a team any higher than 50 wins without Pippen starting, whereas Pippen did that immediately without Jordan! Never made a conference finals without Pippen starting either, but Pippen did that shortly after leaving the Bulls. Ergo, Pippen carried Jordan.
I also think there are better thought out("ball-dominance make the bench worse!") explanations for how this might be happening. Such as...
You do not need to shoot to offer value off the ball:
Keeping in mind Lebron averaged 11 more minutes in the regular season and 14 more minutes in the playoffs 2015 Cavs, Lebron no Mosgov Defensive Rating: 107, net: +8, 1685 min 2015 Cavs, Mosgov no Lebron Defensive Rating: 109, net: +2, 340 min 2015 Cavs, Lebron lineups(2494 min) vs No Lebron Lineups(1492 min), 4-point defensive improvement 2015 Cavs, Mosgov lineups(1149 min) vs No Mosgov Lineups(2807 min), 5-point defensive improvement
If you're determined, a case for the two being comparable per-possession is there(just pretend he didn't play in Denver), but Lebron clearly is more impactful over the course of a game even restricting our evaluation to mosgov's secret "dpoy" season(and ignoring that the nugget's defense actually improved by a point without him) ... still the Cavs most involved help defender, and still the guy directing his teammates on both ends of the floor. That last bit might not show up in the box-score, but it's a big reason why teammates suddenly "peak" when they play with Lebron(Shumpert and Mozgov were both defensive negatives on the Knicks and Nuggets respectively). The Cavs would not be a good defense if they swapped Lebron and Steph, and Curry would be a flat negative if he were to swap Klay and Dray for Kyrie and Love.
https://youtu.be/K9JGlAKf7zU?t=7 (Was telling toronto players where to go, warrior-cavs battles are in part described as chess matches between lebron and draymond. You can actually see and hear draymond firing off instructions in game 3 via mic'd up even when he's on the bench) https://youtu.be/lHvsQ-IUhrc?t=525 (Lebron sees the warriors are running a hammer-action and that wiggins is a little too close, tells AD to blow it up helping clinch game 4) https://youtu.be/Rcuf28mqhkA?t=57 (signals cleveland to make a sub that baits the wizards into subbing in an exploitable matchup)
gmoney411 wrote:
I'd say Jordan is taking something away from anyone whose value is tied to high-volume scoring(bigs, wings, and guards can all be affected here). Here's a decent case made on that front if you're curious: [spoiler]
70sFan wrote:Jordan played with perfectly optimized rosters throughout his career and I'm 100% sure he'd fit worse with Wade/Bosh or even Kyrie/Love than LeBron actually did.
I'm almost shocked how easily Jordan's portability is taken for granted to be honest. Jordan never played with other high level creators. He never had to change his game because of roster construction. I very much doubt anything would change the way he played.
You may argue that in most situations, Jordan wouldn't need to change his style to make it work. I can see that, although it's far from given. At the same time though, I don't think Jordan shooting 25 times per game next to another high volume perimeter scorer would be a good thing. I doubt Jordan would bring that much value (relative to other GOAT candidates) next to someone like Wade or Kobe. I don't even love his fit with someone like Curry.
AEnigma wrote:Fitting with Pippen is nothing like fitting with Wade. Jordan made an adjustment (or more accurately was advised to make an adjustment by Phil Jackson) to give Pippen more ballhandling primacy, and that is used as de facto proof of his offensive (reminder that defence scales too…) scalability next to players like Wade. … But Jordan’s dominant skill is not ballhandling, it is scoring. And he cared about that skill a lot.
Does that sound like a guy who is legitimately worried about not deferring enough? No. Now, as I said, Wade was not Pippen. I do not think Jordan would have taken the same approach with Wade, although obviously we have no real way of knowing. But I do think Jordan was dramatically less likely to be worried about not stepping on the toes of this other elite scorer. Jordan supporters might chalk that up to superior mentality; “Jordan knew he was the best scorer and would rightly force Wade to adjust at the outset!” Whatever. But that is not really a point for his “scalability”.
So then we look at what is being sacrificed, and here we have a nice little sample of what Pippen looks like with no Jordan eating up the entire scoring load. And… he takes like one or two extra shots a game. Pippen was not really being asked to sacrifice anything by playing with Jordan — not in the way someone like Wade, who on his own was taking just as many shots as Jordan (albeit much less effectively). And for all those comments from Phil, what did Jordan sacrifice from 1988? Again, like a shot or two a game. The mentality may have changed as advised, but the total scoring load? Pretty much the same. As mentioned, he also sacrificed some general control of the offence to Pippen, and that was very successful, because Pippen was (or at least developed into) a better passer than Jordan, and passing was his best offensive skill. Contrast this with Wade, who is a worse scorer than both Jordan and Lebron, is a worse playmaker than Lebron, and has explicitly talked about not wanting to act as the point guard on offence… but who is an elite player because on any other team he would be one of the best scorers and playmakers in the game. Suddenly that question of who sacrifices what and how much becomes a lot murkier.
It is not original to say that in many ways Lebron is like taking Pippen and giving him some of Jordan’s scoring acumen. Lebron does not really care much about scoring titles (despite how many of his detractors refuse to admit that). He is an all-time scorer regardless, so it makes sense for him to score a lot, and he does have some ego about scoring (in before the “ten points in every game!” streak gets brought up), but that is not his primary game, and even though he has basically always been the best scorer on his teams, he is perfectly happy to share the scoring load, whether it be with Wade, Kyrie, or Davis.
Lebron likes playmaking in general. This is more traditionally his best skill… but there too he is not exactly unwilling to share — with Wade, with Kyrie, or with Westbrook. Westbrook, in sort of a similar situation as Pippen, really only has abstract value now as a passer, although without his scoring threat, and without any spacing ability, it is not exactly a high value offering. But to accommodate that, what does Lebron do? He tries to pull a Jordan. He relinquishes ballhandling, focuses more on scoring, for the first time in over a decade legitimately pushes for a scoring title… but the team’s defence is bad with Davis “suffering from hurt”, the roster overall is a mess, and a diminished Westbrook is still a pretty active negative who cannot be any actual analogue for even a younger Scottie Pippen. But is any of that a real consequence of some fundamental inability of Lebron to score next to a lead ballhandler?
Kyrie and Wade like ballhandling too. Neither have anything on Lebron’s playmaking or passing ability, and to some extent they both probably know that (questionable with Kyrie lol), but Lebron is happy enough to share. With Kyrie, this works well because Kyrie is an elite spacer. With Wade, this does not work as well, because Wade is a relatively poor spacer. But then we consider Jordan and Pippen again. Is Pippen a good spacer? Not really, and not to an extent I would put him beyond Wade. Well, alright, then is Jordan a better spacer and more capable of working past the spacing limitations of players like Wade and Westbrook and Pippen? There I would say the answer is maybe, and the reason why it is maybe is why era differences are important to this question (as has been discussed).
Jordan was a pretty strong spacer in his era. 3s were not a focus and illegal defence rules limited the extent to which an individual top scorer could be hounded compared to what happened once those rules were dropped… but nevertheless, he is one of the best ever midrange scorers, and he has a degree of raw scoring gravity that really only Curry has competed with as a perimetre player. Lebron, on the other hand, has no leniency from illegal defence. Lebron takes threes, and is enough of a threat to make them that he does draw attention out there, while always having a pretty strong degree of raw scoring gravity of his own. In Jordan’s era, I definitely give the advantage as a spacer to Jordan. In a more modern era? Well, obviously some fans like to argue Jordan would become a strong three-point shooter, but if we take his skills at face value, and his own commentary about feeling that reliance on threes is bad for his own mentality, it seems a lot more debatable whether at that point he actually fits all that much better as a spacer with Pippen or Westbrook or Wade.
So we know Lebron is willing to relinquish ballhandling, as Jordan did. We know he is willing to relinquish scoring primacy, as Jordan did not do and expressly did not want to do but hypothetically could have done if given the opportunity. We know era disparities penalise spacing in different ways, to an extent that it is not clear whether in Lebron’s era Jordan would fare better playing with non-spacing (/non-defending) teammates than Lebron did. We know that Pippen did not particularly eat into Jordan’s scoring and that Jordan’s presence barely affected Pippen’s scoring load. What exactly does all that tell us about how much better Jordan fits with random teammates than Lebron does?
I would say exceedingly little. What I am comfortable saying is that Jordan fits better on offence in his own era with non-spacers than Lebron would — and in that sense, relative to their own respective eras too. I am comfortable saying Jordan fits better with non-scoring ballhandlers than Lebron would, pretty much regardless of era, in the specific sense that Lebron loses more of his innate value from that situation than Jordan does. But on the other side, I think Lebron fits better with spacers and/or off-ball players than Jordan does, by virtue of being better able to take advantage of their skillsets with his passing. I think Lebron fits better with poor defenders than Jordan does. I think Lebron also fits better with Kyrie-type playmakers than Jordan does — scorers who space and like to have some offensive control but are overtaxed as a team’s first choice to perform either skill. And I think it is unclear which of the two fits better on offence in the modern era with that particular breed of player who does not space well yet is best maximised as an on-ball scorer… such as Dwyane Wade.
Mind you, this analysis has been mostly about duos. Think back to that comment about wanting to win the scoring titles. Is that easier with Horace Grant and/or Dennis Rodman, or with Chris Bosh and/or Kevin Love? We talk all about how these third stars oh so tragically were placed into a box next to Lebron. Okay, what does Chris Bosh look like next to Wade and Jordan? Is he suddenly freed up? Is a higher volume scorer asking Bosh to score more too? Is a weaker defender letting Bosh lower is defensive load? Does the team no longer want him to space the floor? Kevin Love has more of a passing game, so he is more interesting (not that either Blatt or Lue seemed to figure out how to make that work well even with Kyrie), but there too it is hard to say his scoring volume would increase next to Jordan or that he would struggle less on defence or that his spacing would be less important.
Jordan pretty much always got to play his way. He was never forced into a situation where he seriously had to consider relinquishing his league high scoring load (his principle and most personally valued skill). He was almost never asked to take a role that did not suit him. Because we know that Lebron struggled a little bit in those situations that Jordan never faced, we conclude that Jordan is an easier fit with more players? Nonsense. This guy is not Steph — not as a spacer (obviously), nor as someone who seems at all willing to sacrifice scoring volume. And he is also not Kobe or Iverson or Carmelo, in the sense that it almost always should be best practice for him to be that primary scorer… but then it similarly has almost always been best practice for Lebron to be both the primary scorer and creator, and despite his clear willingness to compromise on either, that is being held against him, with zero evidence of whether Jordan could maintain his “impact” next to players who would force him to adapt his game or otherwise see their own games disrupted next to him. When Lebron gets strong fit teams that allow him to balance his skills, they are dismissed because he was not as good on bad fitting teams. But when Jordan wins six titles on teams that allow him to maximise his scoring above any other responsibilities? Well, that is just a good example of how scalable he is!
I have said it before, but we are essentially rewarding Jordan for having a less dynamic skillset: “well, both of them probably see diminishing returns as scorers next to other high volume scorers by virtue of both being some of the highest volume scorers ever, but Lebron’s superior passing sees more diminishing returns next to high volume creators, so that means Jordan fits better with more players!” Like, fine, for those of you who want to give Jordan an easy 38% three-point shot on good volume, this is not going to matter for you as much. Just like there are those of you who will never move past six titles, or how scoring is the number one skill, or what a failure 2011 was, or how Jordan was actually a god-tier defender, or how Lebron is a coward for not sticking with the Cavaliers from the start. But for those of you looking at the type of spacers they actually are and are ostensibly trying to be objective and properly critical of the context in which each played? You should be asking a lot more
More briefly: I am not a fan of the demonstrable groupthink that elite scalability is when a team is built around a single volume scorer, comprised of players who are not looking to be volume scorers themselves (Pippen took an extra two shots a game without Jordan in 1994 and Grant took an extra shot and a half). There is only one ball, and on the Bulls, that ball was relentlessly funnelled straight to Jordan. It is not especially distinct from throwing Lebron onto a roster with George Hill and Mikal Bridges and Shane Battier and Rasheed Wallace, and then declaring him an all-time scaleable force for not taking more away from their playstyles. It is an inconsistent standard built around a hypothetical never evidenced.
Honestly, even if Jordan could theoretically make everything work, there's also the matter of willingness...
Spoiler:
According to one official, Hughes was explicitly told by Jordan to get him the ball if he wanted to play. When Hughes began passing it to Stackhouse as much as to Jordan, he was soon benched. Point guard Tyronn Lue, the official said, obliged and began finding Jordan every time he played. ''He was scared to death of what would happen to him in his career if he didn't,'' the player said of Lue. ''He was always looking at the bench at Michael.''
Late last fall, Richard Hamilton and Jordan got into an ugly shouting match. The two officials said it began when Hamilton told Jordan he was tired of being a ''Jordannaire,'' the term used for Jordan's role players in Chicago. ''Rip was a young, brash guy who threatened the idea of Michael being the guy here,'' the official said. ''He was promptly gotten rid of for Stackhouse.'' A person close to Jordan denied Hamilton was traded because of a personality conflict. He insisted contractual issues led to the Stackhouse deal.
In the season's final weeks, players openly complained about the double standards for Jordan. Promptly dressed and ready to speak with reporters after games, they were forced to wait in the locker room for 15 or 20 minutes while Jordan showered and dressed in a private room.
I guess in the sense that there is less to optimize Jordan may not need to adapt as much. But by that same token, I do not think Jordan has as much to adapt to in a situation where he has to scale-down. Jordan's value(scoring and creation) is driven disproportionately by his scoring and compared to someone like Kareem, that scoring is more useful due to the amount of shots he is taking than the clip he makes them. He's a volume creator. He can scale with Lebron in the amount of looks he makes, but those looks are not as valuable(finds 70% of the "high-value" reads as atg passers per Ben, much worse passer-rating. ect). That creation comes because of how often Jordan is going up to score and how often Jordan has an opportunity to capitalize. Let's say I put him next to peak Kawhi, where does Jordan go to compensate for him or kawhi lowering their shot-volume? Even in terms of optimization(which is only half the battle here), it's not as simple as "player who does less fits better". The most successful players tend to be the more versatile ones. Even Jordan's status as the best scorer(fwiw I think Kareem also has a decent case), is a byproduct of the different ways he can score on you. His scoring being portable is reliant on his ability to shift where he scores from. We can apply this concept broadly with Lebron, where he can scale up different attributes depending on context. But even if that wasn't enough for Lebron to be as theoretically optimizable, you still have to want it. Contrary to popular belief, Jordan was not in control in Chicago. He was in Washington and notably he returned to a coach who, before he starting winning with the Bulls, let him do as much as he wanted to(on full-strength offenses/teams that never reached the heights of even the 21-year old Lebron's 2006 Cavs. Then when he got control, Jordan used that power to...get everyone to give him the ball and let him shoot as much as he wanted to.
I'm not sure that's a recipe that fits well with most superstars. Pippen was a low-volume scorer who led good offenses without Jordan, largely based onnon-scoring attributes while also getting a big chunk of his value on the defensive end where Jordan is relatively limited in terms of potential value, optimized or otherwise. That's pretty rare for a co-star, and it doesn't really offer a test for how flexible Jordan or his "playstyle" is.
Jordan is limited in terms of potential value lol???? What???
On Sunday you said James is smarter than Jordan….i asked you for evidence of this….come on guy pony up! You write a thesis of words but its just your opinion. You are not fooling anybody on here….
Jordan's TS% is more above league average than Lebron's.
People that use TS% as an argument for LeBron against Jordan are either being disingenuous or have no idea how 3 point attempts inflate that stat. I'd bet my life savings Jordan would have a TS% in the 60s if he played in the 3 pt era.
Jordan did play in the 3 pt era. His whole career, in fact.
Jordan's TS% is more above league average than Lebron's.
People that use TS% as an argument for LeBron against Jordan are either being disingenuous or have no idea how 3 point attempts inflate that stat. I'd bet my life savings Jordan would have a TS% in the 60s if he played in the 3 pt era.
Cherry picking bias stats to prove your point? TS is pretty much same on Jordan years to Lebron Prime years. So your arguement is false.
53% and 56% is a 3% difference.
I was quoting a poster who called Jordan a chucker, because Jordan's playoff TS% is 57% and Lebron's is 58%.
Jordan is 4% above league average, Lebron is 2% above league average.
Thaddy wrote:I can tell you right now the Bulls will collapse by mid season and will be fighting in or for the play in.
Jordan's TS% is more above league average than Lebron's.
People that use TS% as an argument for LeBron against Jordan are either being disingenuous or have no idea how 3 point attempts inflate that stat. I'd bet my life savings Jordan would have a TS% in the 60s if he played in the 3 pt era.
Jordan did play in the 3 pt era. His whole career, in fact.
After the Spurs-Pistons finals, the NBA changed rules to make it easier to score, which the Steve Nash Suns took advantage of, and eventually the entire league.
The greatest way Jordan would benefit from playing in the modern era is you could surround him with 3 point shooters and he wouldn't have to finish in the paint against Mutumbo, Hakeem, Ewing, Mourning, Shaq, Robinson, Rodman, Duncan, ect.
In 91 Jordan had 1 teammates who attempted over 1 three a game none who attempted 2 a game.
In 98 Jordan had Pippen who led the team in shooting 4.4 threes a game...at less than 32%.
Thaddy wrote:I can tell you right now the Bulls will collapse by mid season and will be fighting in or for the play in.
Here is my answer to the topic requested of this thread.
Michael Jordan - Career PER: Approx. 27.91, Career BPM: Approx. 9.18, Career Win Shares: Approx. 214.0 LeBron James - Career PER: Approx. 27.00, Career BPM: Approx. 9.23, Career Win Shares: Approx. 238.0 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Career PER: Approx. 24.60, Career BPM: Approx. 5.56, Career Win Shares: Approx. 273.4 Tim Duncan - Career PER: Approx. 24.17, Career BPM: Approx. 6.29, Career Win Shares: Approx. 206.8 Magic Johnson - Career PER: Approx. 24.10, Career BPM: Approx. 7.46, Career Win Shares: Approx. 154.8 Larry Bird - Career PER: Approx. 23.50, Career BPM: Approx. 6.25, Career Win Shares: Approx. 181.3 Wilt Chamberlain - Career PER: Approx. 26.13, Career BPM: Not available (BPM data not available for players before the 1973-74 season), Career Win Shares: Approx. 247.3 Shaquille O'Neal - Career PER: Approx. 26.43, Career BPM: Approx. 5.84, Career Win Shares: Approx. 181.7 Hakeem Olajuwon - Career PER: Approx. 23.77, Career BPM: Approx. 4.68, Career Win Shares: Approx. 162.8 Chris Paul - Career PER: Approx. 25.25, Career BPM: Approx. 7.86, Career Win Shares: Approx. 215.6
Salieri wrote: Again, more narratives trying to pass as facts.
Did LeBron finish every contract he signed? Yes. So he didn't quit on any team.
Did MJ stop playing basketball during his peak and then came back a couple years later? Yes. So he quit on the sport.
In the face of those facts, if you wanna start playing semantics and argue which verb is closer to a synonym of quit, be my guest. But play that game with someone else, please.
I don't understand how it's Jordan fans who are arguing with my point, given that MJ benefits more than LeBron of my take: one did quit, the other didn't. And that is indisputable.
So please let it go, and stop considering loyalty as a factor in basketball performance. It is a stupid approach, anyway. It's like saying Messi is better than CR7 because he speaks Spanish instead of Portuguese. Messi might very well be better than CR7, but that is not the reason why.
Forget about loyalty already, I beg you!
Despite saying others are creating a narrative in reality you're the one creating a narrative. It's not about loyalty. It is about doing one's job. Players are drafted by teams to bring success to their franchise. Jordan brought 3 championships to Chicago before leaving the first time. He did his job. Did you think simply staying until the end of a contract qualifies as finishing the job?
Players are signed in free agency to bring success to their franchise. Explain to me why spreading the wealth is inferior to letting one team hoard everything?
This is rich from someone who thinks highly of LeBron a player who actively colluded to bring and concentrate the best talent in the Eastern Conference on his team. You think he was spreading the wealth then?
OhayoKD wrote:Regardless, whatever emotional reasons one has for preferring one or the other, for anyone who is trying to use a line like "ceiling raising", not replicating success in different contexts makes for a difficult argument outside of thought exercises
You and Kemba are welcome to "spin" it to a positive based on emotional preference, but when people want to run with "jordan is more portable", the lack of replication is a bit of a problem. It leads to an argument from absence. As in, you can't really demonstrate Jordan had some sort of advantage as a player who can fit better on a greater variety of championship rosters, so we're left with assumptions regarding help on two different teams based on nothing but the names on the top of a roster and their corresponding PER
I wasn't the one using the term "ceiling raising" but I will note that term only seems to have come into fashion to try and explain away Curry's successes in the middle of LeBron's career with the backhanded implication that Curry couldn't "floor raise" with similar aplomb, an assumption that should have been gutted by the last few seasons.
Jordan had two threepeats with the Bulls with almost completely different teammates. He didn't have to switch teams to show he can win with different personnel.
When it comes to spinning narratives it is LeBron fans who come up with doozies and creative ways of explaining his shortcomings.
Midwest219 wrote:I'm goin' in for the kill. MJ - on court
Cool. I don't agree, but that should be fine too.
How is it a stupid argument though? the purpose of the top guy is to lead. Thats why they get majority of the credit when the team wins, and why they take mostly all the blame when they lose. When Magic lost in the 80s media started calling him Tragic Johnson. It's nothing new. When he won again they went back to calling him Magic.
This is why Michaels Finals record is held in such a high degree. For one, its two three peats in a decade that he led his team to. With that said, the way I also look at it with Lebron and MJ is the difference in what both men did to impact the overall squad.
On the one hand you have Lebron. Guy that does all these things as the point forward. Rebound, score and be the playmaker. It looks great on the stat sheet but when it comes down to it it also effects the team in a not so good way due to all of the focus being on him as the system of that team. This is why Bosh, Love, Wade, Hughes, etcs numbers went down when they played alongside him vs their time on opposite teams from him. Who is Lebrons most memorable coach? whos going to go down in history as the iconic coach for him? No one I can think of. They all made it about him.
On the other side you have Mike. Great player before Phil came along, but became even better with Phil. Why? the triangle offense. The triangle is what made him a better player and leader. The triangle is what helped Pippen develop into the second best player on that team next to Mike, and the triangle is what made the overall squad the powerhouse that they would be throughout the 90s. Every single player understood what they were supposed to do, and Michael as the leader made sure that they were going to go out there and do it to the best of their ability.
No memorable coach in Lebrons legacy, and no young talent ever developed into a star next to him.
This is also why I hold Duncan ahead of Lebron. Duncan wasn't a playmaker but his unselfishness is what helped Popovich be able to usher in that style of team play that the Spurs were known for year after year for so long. It is what helped develop Manu and Parker into stars alongside Tim and keep the Spurs winning when the 1999 squad was out the door. The Spurs constantly bringing in guys that could keep that way of play going next to Duncan. To me that is the strongest argument for a talent to be the best for their team. not having everything ran through one guy.
but hey, just my 2 cents.
Just a thought for LJ fans.. maybe Lebron tried to take too much upon to himself to make himself "great" that nobody had the chance to actually come up like he did and devlope into a better player for Mr. James???? You know, this is a social media society, Lebron needed the ball in his hands back then to become who he is today chasing that goat #23.
Maybe you should hush with team accomplishments. He obviously had a superior team that most stars.
Couple things Marcus
Yes, Bulls won 55 games in 94 without Jordan. Great accomplishment very true. No argument.
In 95 the Bulls were 34-31 without Jordan
They finished 13-4 with Jordan that year. So basically one year is what you are basing your argument on. Yes, Jordan had plenty of help. All star players do, but:
Scottie Pippen has a losing playoff record without Jordan although he played with Hakeen/Barkley in Houston and Sabonis, Rasheed Wallace, Damon Stoudamire, and Steve Smith in Portland. Let that sink in.
Also….
What team in the east between 2010 - 2018 was better than these teams?
Miami with James, Bosh, and Wade = 3 all star players
Cleveland with James, Love, and Irving = 3 all star players
If any team beat either Miami of Cleveland would that have been a major upset? I would say yes.
There was that Celtics teams with KG, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Rondo. Not sure if you remember them, but they were pretty freaking good.
that team nearly lost along with the wild 7 playoff OT's that year with the new-born Bulls. Rose, Gordon and Noah.
gmoney411 wrote: People that use TS% as an argument for LeBron against Jordan are either being disingenuous or have no idea how 3 point attempts inflate that stat. I'd bet my life savings Jordan would have a TS% in the 60s if he played in the 3 pt era.
Jordan did play in the 3 pt era. His whole career, in fact.
OhayoKD wrote: Let's say I put him next to peak Kawhi, where does Jordan go to compensate for him or kawhi lowering their shot-volume?
Why would Jordan or Kawhi really have to lower their shot total? Kawhi has never been a 20+ shots a game guy. Kawhi has averaged around 17-19 attempts in his best years and Pippen was around 16-18 during the championship years. Kawhi isn't the same level of passer as Pippen so Jordan might have to do more ball handling (which he is very capable of) allowing Kawhi to take a few more shots and focus more on defense. I really see no reason why Kawhi and Jordan would not be a great fit together.
2007: took an insane performance from LeBron to get to the finals, his team was overmatched in the finals
2011: I will give you this one of course, they lost to Dallas as a favorite.
2014: This one kind of a wash, they lost as a slight underdog.
2015: lost his 2nd and 3rd best players to injury, still took the Warriors to 6
2017-18: completely overmatched, KD Warriors
Jordan has won as a favorite every time, and lost as an underdog every time. LeBron has often won as an underdog, in many of those runs through the east, and a few times lost as a favorite.
That finals streak is an argument in Lebron’s favor, anyone saying anything otherwise is being silly or biased.
Its just dumb to bring up comp altogether bc the argument works in favor for and against, every single player being discussed in one season or another.
What excuse should we make for the teams/players who lost to LBJ in the Finals when he had the better team?
I mean, you would have to go through each individual case, like the above. The Pacers with Paul George did quite well against the LBJ Heat, and it’s not a knock on George that they ended up losing to a much better team.
Thats all I'm highlighting, is the lack of consistency when someone brings up which teams were played.
MJ's teams were favored because that was the best team remaining come Finals time. LBJ has been an underdog, in part, because he played against weaker competition to make his Finals in the East, but clearly wasn't playing on the best team. If you're going to give him credit for the Finals streak, bringing up who he lost to in the Finals is weak imo. Its quite possible those teams wouldn't have been that far to begin with had the comp been comparable to what we've ween in the West since 2000.
It's just disingenuous to acknowledge who someone has played in the Finals (or who won Finals MVP in the case of Kobe), but not the entire body of work during that playoff season.
MJ's 100% success in the Finals. MJ's Defensive Player of the Year. MJ's career scoring average is 30.1 which is number one among every single NBA player's career average.
dj20001 wrote: Its just dumb to bring up comp altogether bc the argument works in favor for and against, every single player being discussed in one season or another.
What excuse should we make for the teams/players who lost to LBJ in the Finals when he had the better team?
I mean, you would have to go through each individual case, like the above. The Pacers with Paul George did quite well against the LBJ Heat, and it’s not a knock on George that they ended up losing to a much better team.
Thats all I'm highlighting, is the lack of consistency when someone brings up which teams were played.
MJ's teams were favored because that was the best team remaining come Finals time. LBJ has been an underdog, in part, because he played against weaker competition to make his Finals in the East, but clearly wasn't playing on the best team. If you're going to give him credit for the Finals streak, bringing up who he lost to in the Finals is weak imo. Its quite possible those teams wouldn't have been that far to begin with had the comp been comparable to what we've ween in the West since 2000.
It's just disingenuous to acknowledge who someone has played in the Finals (or who won Finals MVP in the case of Kobe), but not the entire body of work during that playoff season.
Yeah, just some quick info for people:
In his 53 career playoffs series, LeBron only faced a 5+ SRS team 14 times (26.4% of the time). And his teams only won 5 out of those 14 series’ against 5+ SRS teams (a 35.7% win rate).
In contrast, in his 37 career playoff series, Jordan faced a 5+ SRS team 21 times (56.8% of the time). And his teams won 14 out of those 21 series’ against 5+ SRS teams (66.7% win rate).
Jordan faced really good teams a lot more than LeBron, and he beat them a lot more consistently than LeBron.
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
Also, remember that MJ and His Bulls beat Utah Jazz's first ballot hall of famers and two Top 75 All Time studs in John Stockton and Karl Malone and Hall of Fame coach Jerry Sloan in back to back Finals. Back to Back.
Meaning that Coach Sloan, Stockton, Karl Malone, and company had plenty of time to learn from failures, improve, and adjust...and they still couldn't beat MJ and Pippen.
