The argument for Peak LeBron > Peak MJ

[ShaqAttac]

It’s crazy because MJ was a bit more consistent. But you can argue LeBron peaked higher in MANY areas

Overall Regular season peak - 2009

Overall playoff peak -2009, 2017 , 2018?

Offensive peak - 2009, 2017, 2018

Regular season Defensive peak 2009-2013 , 2016

Playoff defensive peak- 2012, 2013, 2016

Most impressive finals series- 2016


You can argue LeBron peaked higher in all those areas

why is 2016 not included in the overalls? wasnt he takin a 30-win team to 60?

also why u leave off 2009 from playoff d peak? u think mjs d was better?

Yeah I should have included 2009 in the playoffs defensively. His entire 09-13 stretch is better defensively than MJ ever was imo.

2016 is tough maybe in the playoffs/finals he was there but I’m not sure he was playing at near MJ levels for that entire season. He was great though

u know the cavs were bad without him right?

how was he not nearly as good mj when mj only won 40 to 50 without a supersquad.

how was he only there in the playoffs and finals when they turned into an all-time playoff team.

are you just going off box stuff? bron got better impact and plays plays way better d

[MrVorp]

… ducks

You must have searched pretty hard to find the only stat imaginable showing those players as better defenders than LeBron. Ben Wallace playing 1700 minutes less than Bron in 08/09 and not being on the team in 09/10 at all...yeah sure. Zydrunas Ilgauskas better in 09/10...lol.

Lebron 3rd on the Cavs in defense per 100 possessions in the stat named after him in 2010….

[wafflzgod]

Actually don't think it's that consensus of an agreement. In fact among the general community I often hear the sentiment of "LeBron is the better player, MJ is the greater player (due to accolades/winning/dominance etc)". And among many of the people that I have met online through Twitter and such, it feels pretty split.

To me, LeBron is a better player at his peak than MJ

[MyUniBroDavis]

… ducks

You must have searched pretty hard to find the only stat imaginable showing those players as better defenders than LeBron. Ben Wallace playing 1700 minutes less than Bron in 08/09 and not being on the team in 09/10 at all...yeah sure. Zydrunas Ilgauskas better in 09/10...lol.

Lebron 3rd on the Cavs in defense per 100 possessions in the stat named after him in 2010….

I’m fairly sure DPM isn’t meant to be used to evaluate a season lol, Which is why it’s continuous

[MrVorp]

You must have searched pretty hard to find the only stat imaginable showing those players as better defenders than LeBron. Ben Wallace playing 1700 minutes less than Bron in 08/09 and not being on the team in 09/10 at all...yeah sure. Zydrunas Ilgauskas better in 09/10...lol.

Lebron 3rd on the Cavs in defense per 100 possessions in the stat named after him in 2010….

I’m fairly sure DPM isn’t meant to be used to evaluate a season lol, Which is why it’s continuous

I'm talking about D-LEBRON

[MyUniBroDavis]

Lebron 3rd on the Cavs in defense per 100 possessions in the stat named after him in 2010….

I’m fairly sure DPM isn’t meant to be used to evaluate a season lol, Which is why it’s continuous

I'm talking about D-LEBRON

D-LEBRON is skewed towards bigs as it’s role based, as a whole it’s more accurate but for people who beat the general trends thats different

[nzahir]

Yeah, Thinking Basketball has echoed similar sentiments

https://youtu.be/FzzlvnncLOQ?si=HZyuuBq6CP0-DVJc

He also has this video on if Lebron played the best 3 games ever

Watch on YouTube

I don't think MJ could have carried his team as an underdog and done everything on both ends

Many times Lebron has had to be the best scorer, playmaker, rebounder, and defender

MJ hasn't

Pippen was at least equal in terms of playmaking and he was a better defender/equal at best for MJ's arguement

Jordan never had to be the leading rebounder and he wasn't protecting the rim like Lebron has had to at times

[MrVorp]

I’m fairly sure DPM isn’t meant to be used to evaluate a season lol, Which is why it’s continuous

I'm talking about D-LEBRON

D-LEBRON is skewed towards bigs as it’s role based, as a whole it’s more accurate but for people who beat the general trends thats different

Defense is generally skewed towards bigs

[Gregoire]

No real argument here. Career - you could argue, but not peak.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I'm talking about D-LEBRON

D-LEBRON is skewed towards bigs as it’s role based, as a whole it’s more accurate but for people who beat the general trends thats different

Defense is generally skewed towards bigs

Imagine not reading

[OhayoKD]

Alright. Lots to address here, so let's break it into parts

Cleveland without Lebron

This is why even with those pretty weak Cavs teams in 2009 and 2010, LeBron got them 66 and 60 wins. This arguably makes him a more valuable player than MJ.

Over those two seasons, 2008-09 and 2009-10, Cleveland won the most games (127), had the highest average per game point differential (+7.7 pts/g), was the 3rd best team in offensive efficiency (110.6 pts/100poss scored), and the 3rd best team in defensive efficiency (102.4 pts/100poss allowed). On defense they allowed the second lowest 2pt FG% (46.5%), grabbed the second most defensive rebounds (35.1 defreb/100poss), allowed the fewest points per game (93.5 pts/g).

James played just 1/7 to 1/6 of their total minutes over those two seasons. So obviously someone else - several someone else's - were also very good on both offense and defense those two years.

Perhaps you should reconsider your characterization of that Cleveland team rather than obfuscate the facts to make your point.

The facts:

Spoiler:

So with his talents in South Beach, Cleveland crumbled in 2011. While most teams fall off after losing a superstar, none imploded like the Lebron-less Cavs; in 21 games with a similar group of players, they played at an anemic 18-win pace (-8.9 SRS) before injuries ravaged their lineup. LeBron’s not worth 40 wins on a typical club, but no player in history has correlated more strongly with such massive, worst-to-first impact.

More facts:

Spoiler:

I think there are arguments to be had for Russell, Kareem(and by extension 77 Walton) on a "corp" or "era-relative impact" lens, but with what you seem to be looking at(box-score playing a factor, post-merger years), yeah. Do not think there is much of a "statistical"counter-case. If we look at the seasons you've picked:

Other’s candidates include 88-91 MJ . 67 Wilt , Curry 16 etc

2016 Curry? No, not really. For those tempted to toss 1-year rapm or rapm derivatives as positive evidence they're similar...

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

As far as baseline goes(cheema's been used a bunch, so why don't we use the scaled-apm set Ben likes)

James is, arguably, the king of overall plus-minus stats. 2018 is the 25th season of league-wide plus-minus data, which covers nearly 40 percent of the shot-clock era and touches 12 of the top-20 players on this list. None have achieved LeBron’s heights: He holds four of the top-five scaled APM seasons on record, and six of the top eight. Since 2007, 10 of his 11 years land in the 99th percentile.

Even 15-17 regular-season Lebron grades out as a direct rival for 15-17 Steph by raw or adjusted data(1-year is directly comparable to), even with something relatively bearish on Lebron like shotcharts:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=106319069#p106319069

Getting into the "weeds" of 2009...

Like Nash, LeBron was supercharging dependent talent — finishers who disproportionately benefited from shots served to them on a silver platter. So with his talents in South Beach, Cleveland crumbled in 2011. While most teams fall off after losing a superstar, none imploded like the Lebron-less Cavs; in 21 games with a similar group of players, they played at an anemic 18-win pace (-8.9 SRS) before injuries ravaged their lineup. LeBron’s not worth 40 wins on a typical club, but no player in history has correlated more strongly with such massive, worst-to-first impact.

FWIW over a small sample(7 gms/szn) the 08-10 cavs played like a 19-win team) in games without Lebron. Perhaps more impressively, during 09/10, in 1785 minutes without Mo-Willams(best offensive teammate) and Ben Wallace(best defensive teammate), the cavs were +14. For a smaller-sample, in 630 minutes without either in 09, they were +10.

Over a much smaller sample(a bit under 700 minuites) 15/16 Steph holds up surprisingly well but not that well with his lineups scoring at +8.55 without Dray and +9 in 389 minutes without dray or klay. Note that these are much shorter stretches. Curry's minutes are significantly more tied to his best teammates than LeBron's are. Very small sample, but for comphrensiveness, in less than 300 minutes in 2016, Steph lineups score at +3.38 without Dray and(tiny 169 minute sample) -0.69 without Draymond or Klay.

And then we get into volume

(Lebron)


(Steph)

All considered I'd say there's an the evidence consistently supports 2009 Lebron being more valuable per-possession in the regular season. He's probably more valuable in 2010 too. And probably a peer in in his second Cleveland stint while coasting. And we know the postseason is not a winning case for Steph:


(Check where Steph's best teammate is)

Jordan's argument is probably weaker(though he benefits from uncertainty). He's drafted onto a better team(27-win without) and does not lead a better regular-season team until 1992 despite great fit by the back-half of 90.

Frankly, while one could point to conventional box-score as a marginal rs advantage, I think we should apply some context here.

Steph(and Jordan) created(volume) and scored at a nigh unprecedented level. Lebron also did that, but was also a strong secondary paint-protector, a mj-esque man defender(refer to the colts quote before), who was communicating and orchestrating on both-ends, was a more effecient creator(feel free to reference ben's passer-rating), handled the ball significantly more(making the turnover economy very impressive), and was facing substantially more defensive attention.

Then by box he(2009) blows right by both in the postseason(bpm/aupm/pipm/raptor). All considered, I think the "stats" are very clearly in Lebron's favor. And who knows how in his favor they'd be with a more reasonable(imo) set of weightings(BBR BPM puts jordan and steph within range of hakeem and dikembe respectively).

There are a great deal of explanations offered for this. My favorite? He played(much) better basketball.

Was just thinking of that season and it’s really crazy how a 22-23 year old nearly won 70 games with a non elite cast. And then in the playoffs he played
even better he had like a 37 PER in the POs I think

Yes. Career highest in WS, VORP, BPM and PER

The cast wasn't elite, but it was constructed well for what their goal was. An oversized front court that helped make them a top 3 defense and a laad of shooters to spread the floor. Ilgaulskas, Verajao, Hickson and Wallace all stuffed the paint while Mo Williams averaged 18/4/3 on 47/44/91 shooting. Szczerbiak, Gibson, West, Pavlovic were all right at 40% shooting from behind the arc as well.

[/quote]
Important piece of context though. Ben Wallace got injured and missed 29 games. Moreover, for the 53 games he played he was only at 23 minutes per-game. So that -5 defense largely accomplished without Lebron's best defensive teammate. The next year they would hit -3.5 with no Wallace and as you can see above, over pretty substantial samples, the cavs being really good was not contingent on Lebron sharing the floor with his best teammates. It was pretty excellent fit(though that's not really different for the Jordan, Steph, or Wilt "candidates" the op lists).

And now I hear "twas a fluke!!! variance!!! noise!!! situational!!!"

And you know...there will always be a non-zero chance that is the explanation(for any player to be clear). But Lebron is like...the least likely for that to be true for...

Replicashuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun

Spoiler:

Curry: RS On/Off +11.3, PS On/Off +12.0
LeBron: RS On/Off +10.8, PS On/Off +10.3[/quote]
True. You know who also looks monstrous with unadjusted on/off?

Draymond: RS On/Off: +9.6, PS On/Off: +12.6

Gee. I wonder what would happen if we adjusted for lineups...



Huh? Lebron is #1 and Steph isn't close? Well okay, maybe that's a fluke. Different creators use different means of regression, blah, blah blah...


(Yeah it's not going to get better)

First, I want everyone to appreciate just how far ahead Lebron is, per possession. In the first set, if I count Embid, the gap between Lebron and #2 is about as big as the gap between #2 Embid and #5 Steph Curry. If I apply a 100000 possession filter, the gap between Lebron and #2 Garnett is bigger than the gap between #2 Garnett and #6 Tim Duncan.

Second, let's check the possession count. Keeping in mind, that averages tend to go down the longer you play, Lebron has maintained this large advantage having played 70,000 more minutes than #2(or 3) Garnett and nearly twice as much as #6(or 7) Steph Curry.

Again, with the second-set, Lebron is dominant per-possession, posting the best, 2nd best, and 4th best 5-year marks. But what happens when we also look at the # of possessions...



See that circle? It's the Lebron system. It has 3 planets. one of them is named "2013-2017 Lebron". "2013-2017 Lebron"'s climate has 3 unique seasons, 2015 Lebron, 2016 Lebron, and 2017 Lebron. If we switch to Elgee's data(where Lebron also "cooks")...



All 3 are at the tippity top, right there with the second best season on record

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

Regardless, 2015-2017 consistently grades out as a top-tier 3-year stretch with the adjusted stuff. And yet...

15 - Curry(easily)
16 - LeBron(very close)
17 - Curry(very close)
18 - LeBron(very close)
19 - Curry
20 - LeBron(extra super duper easy)
21 - Curry(Very close)
22 - Curry
23- Curry


LeBron has this thing of having fringe MVP RS, .

It's surprising how close LeBron is here. I think he was better but I'd take Curry's career obviously (rings aside)

'15 Curry was clearly better
'16 LeBron had the higher series/single game peak; Curry had one of the ATG seasons, so it's kinda close
'17-'18 Curry's basically as good as '16, slightly better, but doesn't show cause of Durant; LeBron has asome all-time playoff performances
'19 duh
'20 duh
'21-'22 Curry clearly but it's mega injury marred
'23 uninjured LeBron somehow better than Curry and injured LeBron outplays him in critical moments in the playoffs...

Yeah it's tough. I think LeBron's the better player and can express that "betterness" maybe 20% of the time vs. Curry who can sustain ~95% of that level longer.

Curry probably overall (by a hair)
LeBron better player

This is insane you can exclude 11 seasons of LeBron (4x MVP, 2x Finals MVP) in the best days athletically of him and it's still very arguable that he was better than borderline top10 player ever (Curry) impact-wise.

Just longevity stats some people say...

Curry better RS performer, LeBron better PS performer is a comfortable assessment to make here.

Not only that, you’re also excluding all of his all defense selection seasons, two of which he was second in DPOY voting.

I think some people forget just how good LeBron was.

hmm...

Regular Season
Let's start with 2015. To set the table, the lebron-less cavs with kyrie and love are a bad defense and average offense if you go by net-rating(-1.73 overall, 30ish wins). This is also true in 2016(-1.7), 2017(-2.81) which adds up to -1.99 for all 3-seasons. Without any of the 3, the cavs are -14.62.

With Lebron and no kyrie or love, the Cavs are +6.79. With all 3 they're [b]+10.76[/b](PBPstats). with both and without both Lebron looks historically valuable.

But maybe this is just a matter of wonky lineups/rotations? Well, we can then look at WOWY, only including games where the Cavaliers knew they'd be playing without Lebron. In 2015 they were 3-10 without Lebron. Extending our sample the Cavs out to 2017 and the Cavs were 4-23. In games without Lebron and with Kyrie and Love, the cavs were 4-11, a 21-win pace.

With Lebron, the 2015 Cavs went 50-19(59-win). Without they went 3-10 going at a 19-win pace. With all three of Love, Kyrie, and Lebron, the Cavs were 42-5(73-win) improving from 4-11 with just kyrie and love 21-win(note that's a 3-year sample, not just 2015).

What if we forget w-l and look at the o-rating and d-rating splits:




(it's probably not a matter of rotations

In summary, adjusted, lineup-splits, and wowy all seem to agree 2015 Lebron, back problems and all, was all-time valuable. It also seems that the Cavs improved dramatically on offense when he was on the floor while also significantly bolstering cleveland defensively. But how? Well, I think we can get a clue when we look at how Lebron's teammates shot with and without:


Lebron's teammates shoot dramatically more efficiently with Lebron on the floor. Incidentally, Lebron has an ast% of 36 to go with a tov% of 3:1. Lebron also isn't scoring inefficiently as he would in the playoffs(more on that later) scoring 25 points on +4.1 rTS. Finally their is the mental side of the game, and here we get back to Lebron having one of the highest bbal iq's ever:

Which is what makes LeBron so incredible because he's been the control tower on offense and defense for damn near his entire career. We've had coaches and teammates describe him as a coach on the floor. There was an article during the 2018 Finals I remember where JR Smith said LeBron's communication on the floor legitimately makes everyone one step faster on defense. And this is something he doesn't get nearly enough credit for. But this is a big deal to people who are actually in the game and around the game, because one of the major talking points about the Lakers acquiring Rondo for LeBron was about how helpful it would be for LeBron to have someone else think the game for him and organize sets and get guys to their spots.

All considered, if you combine strong scoring, great-playmaking, the ability to handle the ball and control pace alot more than anyone else(without commiting too many turnovers) and being a "control tower" like draymond is for the Warriors, it's not hard to see why Lebron can still look all-time-valuable even if he isn't at his physical peak. Combine that with still historically good non-big d, and you get an extremely yaluable regular season player, even in down year, and then we get to the...

Playoffs
For 2015-2017, the Cavs without lebron and with kyrie and love go from -1.99 to -5.05. the Cavs with none of the three go from -14.62 to -11.62. Frankly i'm not inclined to rely on these samples(a combined 280 minutes is covered here), and would recommend using the larger regular season stuff as an "off", regardless, whatever happens with the lebron-less teams, the lineups with lebron improve, The +6.79 no kyrie/love lineups from the regular season improve to +8.47(648 minutes) and the lebron and kyrie and love lineups improve from 10.76 to +14.50.

As importantly, this lineup-level improvement manifests in team-wide elevation:

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)

(2015)

While Lebron's net-rating without kyrie and love drops to +4.83(doesn't adjust for opponent quality), the Cavs post an inciredible +10 PSRS with the two co-stars basically missing half of the postseason. Moreover, with kyrie barely playing, they sweep a 50ish win srs(60-win record) Hawks team and go 2-1 up on the 67-win Warriors forcing a switch to the 73-win inducing death-lineup. Again, you may ask, how? Didn't Lebron shoot bad?

His TS does plummet by 8 points, but he also goes from scoring 25ppg to 30ppg. And whatever you think of that scoring trade-off, lebron's creation improves:


Take a peep at Kyrie Irving. While he's basically unaffected by Lebron in the regular season, his playoff shooting spikes by 9 points when Lebron is on the floor.

As it so happens, Lebron puts up goat-level playmaking-box stuff(and the best of his playoff prime(, putting up an ast% of 45 to a tov% of only 11%. In the finals, against the best playoff defense of the era, Lebron puts up an ast% of 52 on a tov% of 8 in for, at least per box, one of the best playmaking series ever.

The Cavs also improve defensively, with Lebron anchoring a -5.4 playoff defense. Check who that defense performs best against:

Boston Celtics: +7.1 / -3.0
Chicago Bulls: +8.0 / -1.6
Atlanta Hawks: +10.9 / -9.1
Golden State Warriors: -1.7 / -4.3

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

Overall, the 15/16 Cavs were elite playoff defenses, elevating significantly from "ok" in the regular season(bad without Lebron), and then turning all-time great against top 5 offenses(including the small-ball warriors). While they regress a bit in 2016 in the playoffs(kevin love and kyrie irving lineups consistently look worse defensively than lineups without the two), they remain elite overall and hit another gear in the last two rounds.

Lebron has been wildly ahead of the curve since he was a teenager, stayed there all the way nearing his 40's and has put out outlier level in his prime again and again and again merely looking like an all-timer in the rs(and outlierish in the playoffs) next to a very similar player in Miami. If you are questioning Lebron's ability to lift teams, you should have bigger questions for everyone else ever(excepting russell).

Switching gears to one side of the court...'

Was Lebron really his teams best defender?

… ducks

You must have searched pretty hard to find the only stat imaginable showing those players as better defenders than LeBron. Ben Wallace playing 1700 minutes less than Bron in 08/09 and not being on the team in 09/10 at all...yeah sure. Zydrunas Ilgauskas better in 09/10...lol.

Oh no Ben Wallace, washed for half the season and playing 28 mpg was definitely was why the cavs were good. Not to mention Big Z. That's why they...

...were still much better than any defense Jordan has led with big z playing 20 minutes a game and Wallace playing 0.

I bet that's also why they were...

7 points worse defensively when Lebron left playing at an 18-win pace in 21 games with the same starters.

Perhaps thats also why 30+ Lebron also ended up leading decent rs defenses and pippen-esque playoff defenses in cleveland with a bunch of players that were defensively neutral or negative before they started playing together.

And now I hear "what do you mean pippen esque? Jordan was as important defensively!"...

but could also be your teams best defender as well.

If Jordan is your team's best defender, your defense isn't very good. At his peak Jordan was a great guard defender, but he was never the best defender on his own team when they had good ones.

Yeah, Thinking Basketball has echoed similar sentiments

https://youtu.be/FzzlvnncLOQ?si=HZyuuBq6CP0-DVJc

He also has this video on if Lebron played the best 3 games ever

Watch on YouTube

Pippen was at least equal in terms of playmaking and he was a better defender/equal at best for MJ's arguement

Jordan never had to be the leading rebounder and he wasn't protecting the rim like Lebron has had to at times

Well how about instead of asserting Pippen was better we go about checking if it was true? What if we were to isolate the variables?

Spoiler:

[spoiler]

Interesting thoughts Doc. That said, I feel we put the cart a bit ahead of the horse

Okay. Sure, the Bulls are the best defense in the league. But that is a team-achievement and it seems you are distributing a very big chunk of that credit to Jordan. Also notable to me is that Dennis Rodman is not mentioned. And here I think we get into a bit of a problem.

It was not built around a big, but Pippen is an all-time paint-protector for a non-big. So is Rodman. Even MJ is notable in a comparison with guards. So how do we decide where and how to allocate credit. How do we decide which traits to allocate credit to? Well, I'd say step one is to isolate for variables. And in this case those variables are each of these player's respective teammates. For simplicity, let's ignore Rodman. Instead let's key in on Scottie and MJ.

We've talked about 88 and 89. Jordan leads a -2 defense(some on this board have argued oakley was a co-lead but I wouldn't go that far). We can ignore that it fell apart in the playoffs for sample size, but then Oakley leaves and the Bulls regress to average. Now at this point you noted the Bulls do not spike in 1990. Indeed if you just look at the regular season they regress. But looking at what happens over the course of the season paints a different picture:

There's alot of talk about the triangle offense. But let's talk first talk about the defense. Pre ASB, they are below average. Post ASB they are good. In the playoffs they are very good(around -3. In the last two rounds they are -5. This continues through 91 where they are -2.7 in the rs and then around-4 in the postseason(sans actually has them nearing -8 but that is a different process from 90(you scale-up from your opponents series ratings) where I'm just eyeballing bbr). All very impressive, but what caused this change? Did Jordan suddenly get better? I find that unlikely as

1. Jordan started suffering from jumper's foot(something he would have for the rest of his career)
2. By every source of tracking Jordan's defensive activity diminished post 89
3. When Jordan left, Chicago's defense wasn't significantly worse

I'd argue the catalyst was the ascension of Pippen and Grant. Two, very strong, for non-bigs, paint-protectors. From what I've seen(and per tracking I trust) I see Pippen protecting the paint as much as Grant, doing more on the perimeter than Mike, and telling everyone what to do more than anyone besides Jackson. IOW, while you seem to see the Bulls defense as "pippen and jordan", I see it as "pippen(gap), Grant and MJ". And here I'd say the Bulls may not have built around a big, but they built around the next best thing: a wing who can protect the paint.

I also think looking simply for "best in the league" obscures things...

Consider the possibility that when you build a defense around a big that you can't really emulate when he goes to the bench, you might be providing that big an opportunity for maximum DRAPM potential, but you might also be putting certain weaknesses in your overall team defense.

Okay but here's the thing. The Bulls were not better than the best big-led defenses of that time period. The Duncan/Robinson spurs were much better. In fact, Duncan's Spurs, without d-rob were better. The best defenses ever are not perimeter orientated. Even with 2nd-tier bigs, the 71-73 Bucks were all better defenses than anything that came out of Chicago. As were the 2019/2020 Raptors. A defense that turned all-time great with a 30+ Gasol, and then fell to mediocrity in his absence.

You bring up Lebron and Pippen's defenses, but Pippen and Lebron are all-time "paint-protectors" at their size. You know which dpoy-winning non-big has seen their defenses collapse repeatedly in the absence of top-tier rim-protection? Kawhi. The guy who quite arguably is the pinnacle of the archetype you seem to be ascribing unique resiliency to. And that one-year where Jordan was flanked by a strong front-court defender, rather than an exceptional one, that nice regular season defense collapsed in the playoffs.

And on that note

Some of those teams are pretty predictable: great defenses anchored behind a great defensive big. Nobody’s surprised to see the Russell Celtics, Kareem Bucks, Wilt Lakers, Wallace Pistons, Garnett Celtics or Duncan Spurs. Or the Draymond Warriors for that matter. But that’s only 14 of the 25. The 11 remaining don’t really have a dominant defensive big.
…

In other words, 44% of the best playoff defenses ever didn’t have great rim protectors, and instead had deep athleticism and perimeter defenders. That seems high, right? Let’s contrast this with the Top 25 defensive ratings in the regular season: … That’s 19 of the 25.
…
So what should we conclude? That big men are less critical in the playoffs? Or that the small sample size of playoffs is throwing things off? Either is possible. But I do think that there is a lot to suggest that great playoff defenses are more dependent on perimeter defense than they are in the regular season.

To be honest, I do not see how that conclusion logically follows from what you're highlighting. The best defenses from your list are the big-led ones. The top 6, and 8 of the top 9 are all led by bigs. The exception here are Pippen's Bulls. And Pippen is goat-tier rim-protecting non-big. The kawhi-raptors were literally unaffected by his absence and became all-time-great only when a big-man joined. Really the only defense here led by a not-strong paint-deterrent is Kawhi's Spurs, a team that had strong rim-help in the rs and then got yeeted out in the second round when their best rim-protector broke-down(Duncan).

I do not see any evidence here for rim-protection is less important in the postseason and I do not think your argument logically leads to such a conclusion.[/quote]

...Yeah. not seeing it.

PS: per film tracking

-> Pippen was involved in more full-court presses
-> Pippen made more plays on the perimeter
-> Pippen made as many plays as grant at the rim

Per eleven rings(and I think you can notice examples of this in the game0

-> Pippen told people where to go and organized his teammates defensively

Lebron was a better defender than Jordan in his 30's(much better come playoffs). There are physical advantages at play obviously, but much of this stems from Lebron being a much better court-mapper/on-court captain

Spoiler:

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

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

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


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

...

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

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

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

"coast" or not coast, old or not old, next to negatives or positives, Lebron is the better defender, and on that note...

why is 2016 not included in the overalls? wasnt he takin a 30-win team to 60?

also why u leave off 2009 from playoff d peak? u think mjs d was better?

Yeah I should have included 2009 in the playoffs defensively. His entire 09-13 stretch is better defensively than MJ ever was imo.

2016 is tough maybe in the playoffs/finals he was there but I’m not sure he was playing at near MJ levels for that entire season. He was great though

u know the cavs were bad without him right?

how was he not nearly as good mj when mj only won 40 to 50 without a supersquad.

how was he only there in the playoffs and finals when they turned into an all-time playoff team.

are you just going off box stuff? bron got better impact and plays plays way better d

Lol, maybe just link the post? (click the # at the top of the post if you want to direct readers to the post in question rather than just the top of the page)
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=106319069#p106319069

Regardless, yeah. You are, mostly based on box-score/a scoring disadvantage I'm guessing, saying Lebron was not near Jordan in a year where he beat a better team than anyone jordan has(you can use the playoff-only rating or the rating from the okc series instead of the regular-season if you want), posted the 8th best playoff-rating ever by sans(+14.55) after a regular-season where the cavs were playing like a 65-win team in games with Lebron and won nearly 60 despite

-> a team that with co-stars was bad or horrible without him(similar to the pre-jordan bulls...) depending on approach(defense is the main culprit here)
-> the 2nd best player missing half the season with a down-year recovering from injury

But even in 2015, Lebron is leading a team that looks bad without him(pretty large off sample mind you) to a regular season and postseason better than anything posted by the 88, 89, or 90 Bulls with the latter bit happening despite that same team missing 2 of 5 starters for 3/4ths of the playoffs their third best player for almost all of it, and their second and third best player for nearly half of it.

Not mentioned, but from 15-17 it is the lebron lineups(with or without his co-stars) that ramp up in the playoffs and while the co-star lineups drop off without lebron. Incidentally those 3 regular-seasons look historically great by artificial and real-world impact indicators(outlierish for the former depending on what you're looking at, outlierish for the latter pretty much no matter what).

Even in 2015, in an off-year, the cavs are +14.55 in lineups with the healthy versions of love, lebron, and kyrie. By record, in those games they were playing at a 70+win pace(stat muse breaks down when you ask for net-rating with multiple players ).

Jordan has better scoring, cool. Lebron is the better defender(especially in the postseason), posts better ajusted passer-rating and box-creation than Jordan in almost any year(including 90 and 91 notably), is breaking down defenses throughout the possession as a primary ball-handler and is running his teams on both ends of the floor(interestily it is reported lebron was the one telling his teammates to matchup hunt steph from game 3 onward). Lebron's case is hardly just a matter of 3 games vs the warriors. You do not need to match someone in the box-score to be as good or even better.

2016 is one of the best regular seasons ever...and then it went up a notch in the playoffs. Even in a down-year preceding that he was arguably doing more with as much(rs) or less(playoffs).

Lebron is just a better player. When he is matching or exceeding Jordan in box(2009!), it simply ceases to be an argument.

Bonus: Needs the ball = not portable?

I won't get into to much detail, but I often find that people agree that MJ was the better individual player at both of their best, but I kind of have a counter to that: MJ might be more likely to win you a series with evenly matched teams and a solid supporting cast, but because of his legit big man size (6'8" 250), LeBron is the better floor-raiser because he play every position and has the actual size to do certain tasks MJ can't do. This is why even with those pretty weak Cavs teams in 2009 and 2010, LeBron got them 66 and 60 wins. This arguably makes him a more valuable player than MJ. MJ might win the 2014 series against the spurts, but then again, he quite possibly doesn't get to the finals in the first place that year, same with 2015.

Yes, yes Lebron is just a floor-raiser, absolutely no chance he could retain jordan+ value without hogging the ball...

Oh. Wait. He can
-> scale down and retain his impact
-> scale down and retain his impact and beat a 73-win team?

Yeah this was never a serious point. If "portability" is your argument against Lebron, you don't have one. If Lebron having a down-year(after gaining 20 pounds to prep for becoming a post-hub for his teammates to work off) gives him a black-mark you can't look past, fine. Fixating on that when trying to evaluate Lebron's ability, as a basketball player, to fit within a variety of contexts and stats is not serious analysis.

[lessthanjake]

I don’t think anyone says LeBron never shifted his heliocentrism up or down depending on his team. Obviously he’s going to hold the ball less on teams with great ball-handling guards like Wade or Kyrie than when he doesn’t have those players. The question is just whether the team’s overall outcomes scale up commensurately with having that extra talent on the floor. And the issue there is that LeBron’s not an elite off-ball threat or a great shooter, so when those other guys have the ball, LeBron isn’t producing elite offensive value like he does when he’s on the ball. There’s still some value in sharing the ball because it makes LeBron less tired (and therefore able to be better when he *does* have the ball, able to expend more energy on defense, probably able to play more minutes, etc.), but the marginal value of having another great player who can handle the ball is relatively minimal, because LeBron’s value without the ball is greatly minimized (and the same is true for those other guys when LeBron is actually doing his heliocentric thing). We saw that with how the net-rating impact of adding those extra guys onto the court with LeBron didn’t tend to help very much, despite them being really good players. I’ve shown that data comprehensively before. Now, of course, he can still win in those years where his heliocentrism is scaled down, but that’s because those are literally the years where his teams are most talented! It doesn’t really answer the question of whether he’s able to scale up with talent alongside him commensurately with what we’d expect from a GOAT-level player like Jordan. And, on that question, we have on-off data showing a lack of elite scaling with talent, and we know he had very conspicuous failures to win titles in plenty of years with Wade/Kyrie (including but not limited to 2011, where he basically malfunctioned as a player and cost his team the title despite being on the vastly more talented team).

[RCM88x]

I don’t think anyone says LeBron never shifted his heliocentrism up or down depending on his team. Obviously he’s going to hold the ball less on teams with great ball-handling guards like Wade or Kyrie than when he doesn’t have those players. The question is just whether the team’s overall outcomes scale up commensurately with having that extra talent on the floor. And the issue there is that LeBron’s not an elite off-ball threat or a great shooter, so when those other guys have the ball, LeBron isn’t producing elite offensive value like he does when he’s on the ball. There’s still some value in sharing the ball because it makes LeBron less tired (and therefore able to be better when he *does* have the ball, able to expend more energy on defense, probably able to play more minutes, etc.), but the marginal value of having another great player who can handle the ball is relatively minimal, because LeBron’s value without the ball is greatly minimized (and the same is true for those other guys when LeBron is actually doing his heliocentric thing). We saw that with how the net-rating impact of adding those extra guys onto the court with LeBron didn’t tend to help very much, despite them being really good players. I’ve shown that data comprehensively before. Now, of course, he can still win in those years where his heliocentrism is scaled down, but that’s because those are literally the years where his teams are most talented! It doesn’t really answer the question of whether he’s able to scale up with talent alongside him commensurately with what we’d expect from a GOAT-level player like Jordan. And, on that question, we have on-off data showing a lack of elite scaling with talent, and we know he had very conspicuous failures to win titles in plenty of years with Wade/Kyrie (including but not limited to 2011, where he basically malfunctioned as a player and cost his team the title despite being on the vastly more talented team).

Which years are you thinking of here, outside of 2011?

[Gibson22]

It would be constructed around lebron having this heliocentric ability, being both a scorer and a passer and a playmaker, and better defender, and floor raising abilities. For me there isn't an argument, mj at his best is better than lebron at his best, lebron trumps with longevity even tho he wishes he was mj and everybody would rather hae mj's career

[KTM_2813]

While LeBron is probably my favorite player, I think that Jordan had the higher peak. I also think that "highest peak" or "best resume" is generally what people are referring to what discussing the GOAT, which is why I also generally choose Jordan in that debate.

If I had to make an argument for Peak LeBron > Peak Jordan, I would probably narrow the comparison down to a single playoff series, in which case LeBron's 2016 Finals against the Warriors is hard to beat. With that being said, I think that's way too small a sample size, which is why I would never actually do that. But in my mind, that's the best bet for Peak LeBron > Peak MJ.

[LukaTheGOAT]

No real argument here. Career - you could argue, but not peak.

2009

[rk2023]

Seeing some of these comments, I think 09/12/16 - 13, if you’re more or less forgiving of the PS - at the least have objective, rooted in fact, GOAT peak arguments that have been laid out by various posters and alum (eg. Colts18, Sideshowbob, drza, Ben Taylor, various active users) essentially over a decade now. I have found these ones much more reliant on roster context, standardized or pragmatic/raw impact, and production/level of goodness as opposed to narrative-picking.

[lessthanjake]

I don’t think anyone says LeBron never shifted his heliocentrism up or down depending on his team. Obviously he’s going to hold the ball less on teams with great ball-handling guards like Wade or Kyrie than when he doesn’t have those players. The question is just whether the team’s overall outcomes scale up commensurately with having that extra talent on the floor. And the issue there is that LeBron’s not an elite off-ball threat or a great shooter, so when those other guys have the ball, LeBron isn’t producing elite offensive value like he does when he’s on the ball. There’s still some value in sharing the ball because it makes LeBron less tired (and therefore able to be better when he *does* have the ball, able to expend more energy on defense, probably able to play more minutes, etc.), but the marginal value of having another great player who can handle the ball is relatively minimal, because LeBron’s value without the ball is greatly minimized (and the same is true for those other guys when LeBron is actually doing his heliocentric thing). We saw that with how the net-rating impact of adding those extra guys onto the court with LeBron didn’t tend to help very much, despite them being really good players. I’ve shown that data comprehensively before. Now, of course, he can still win in those years where his heliocentrism is scaled down, but that’s because those are literally the years where his teams are most talented! It doesn’t really answer the question of whether he’s able to scale up with talent alongside him commensurately with what we’d expect from a GOAT-level player like Jordan. And, on that question, we have on-off data showing a lack of elite scaling with talent, and we know he had very conspicuous failures to win titles in plenty of years with Wade/Kyrie (including but not limited to 2011, where he basically malfunctioned as a player and cost his team the title despite being on the vastly more talented team).

Which years are you thinking of here, outside of 2011?

Well, obviously, the other years in question where he had Wade or Kyrie are 2014, 2015, and 2017. 2015 gets a pass because of injuries in the Finals. I think the response one might have is that Wade was broken down by 2014 and the Warriors were unbeatable in 2017. Which are fair points. But then again, Pippen was broken down in 1998 and Jordan still got it done. And I don’t give LeBron nearly the pass that others do with regards to the Durant Warriors, since I don’t actually think the Durant Warriors were substantially more talented than the Cavaliers were (particularly in 2017; the 2018 Cavaliers were a different story)—I think the biggest factors were that their two main stars scaled up with other elite talent a lot better (and LeBron not doing that so well is my point!). There’s a bit of retroactive excuse-making there IMO. In fact, betting odds before that series still gave the Cavaliers a 30-35% chance to win the series. And that’s after it was *already* clear that Curry and Durant scaled up better together! I’m not sure I’d necessarily *expect* LeBron to actually win that series (though I don’t think it should’ve been at all out of the realm of possibility, and indeed it wasn’t considered to be at the time), but it wasn’t even remotely close and I’d say that that was a failure for a GOAT-level player on a very talented team. But yeah, obviously 2011 is the worst and most obviously disqualifying example for LeBron.

[RCM88x]

I don’t think anyone says LeBron never shifted his heliocentrism up or down depending on his team. Obviously he’s going to hold the ball less on teams with great ball-handling guards like Wade or Kyrie than when he doesn’t have those players. The question is just whether the team’s overall outcomes scale up commensurately with having that extra talent on the floor. And the issue there is that LeBron’s not an elite off-ball threat or a great shooter, so when those other guys have the ball, LeBron isn’t producing elite offensive value like he does when he’s on the ball. There’s still some value in sharing the ball because it makes LeBron less tired (and therefore able to be better when he *does* have the ball, able to expend more energy on defense, probably able to play more minutes, etc.), but the marginal value of having another great player who can handle the ball is relatively minimal, because LeBron’s value without the ball is greatly minimized (and the same is true for those other guys when LeBron is actually doing his heliocentric thing). We saw that with how the net-rating impact of adding those extra guys onto the court with LeBron didn’t tend to help very much, despite them being really good players. I’ve shown that data comprehensively before. Now, of course, he can still win in those years where his heliocentrism is scaled down, but that’s because those are literally the years where his teams are most talented! It doesn’t really answer the question of whether he’s able to scale up with talent alongside him commensurately with what we’d expect from a GOAT-level player like Jordan. And, on that question, we have on-off data showing a lack of elite scaling with talent, and we know he had very conspicuous failures to win titles in plenty of years with Wade/Kyrie (including but not limited to 2011, where he basically malfunctioned as a player and cost his team the title despite being on the vastly more talented team).

Which years are you thinking of here, outside of 2011?

Well, obviously, the other years in question where he had Wade or Kyrie are 2014, 2015, and 2017. 2015 gets a pass because of injuries in the Finals. I think the response one might have is that Wade was broken down by 2014 and the Warriors were unbeatable in 2017. Which are fair points. But then again, Pippen was broken down in 1998 and Jordan still got it done. And I don’t give LeBron nearly the pass that others do with regards to the Durant Warriors, since I don’t actually think the Durant Warriors were substantially more talented than the Cavaliers were (particularly in 2017; the 2018 Cavaliers were a different story)—I think the biggest factors were that their two main stars scaled up with other elite talent a lot better (and LeBron not doing that so well is my point!). There’s a bit of retroactive excuse-making there IMO. In fact, betting odds before that series still gave the Cavaliers a 30-35% chance to win the series. And that’s after it was *already* clear that Curry and Durant scaled up better together! I’m not sure I’d necessarily *expect* LeBron to actually win that series (though I don’t think it should’ve been at all out of the realm of possibility, and indeed it wasn’t considered to be at the time), but it wasn’t even remotely close and I’d say that that was a failure for a GOAT-level player on a very talented team. But yeah, obviously 2011 is the worst and most obviously disqualifying example for LeBron.

Do you think general betting odds are an accurate projection for team quality within a playoff series matchup? Before the season (before anything was clear) GS was listed as the greatest preseason favorite in the history of the sport, for whatever that's worth. Cavs were still +385 which for most years is 2nd or at worst 3rd best odds.

With regards to Curry and Durant, I think it's pretty obvious they would scale up better because both of those players were/are significantly better than Kyrie. Not sure how it's a nock on Lebron that he couldn't push Kyrie to be on par with those two guys when at no point in his career was he in that tier of player.

[OhayoKD]

Which years are you thinking of here, outside of 2011?

Well, obviously, the other years in question where he had Wade or Kyrie are 2014, 2015, and 2017. 2015 gets a pass because of injuries in the Finals. I think the response one might have is that Wade was broken down by 2014 and the Warriors were unbeatable in 2017. Which are fair points. But then again, Pippen was broken down in 1998 and Jordan still got it done. And I don’t give LeBron nearly the pass that others do with regards to the Durant Warriors, since I don’t actually think the Durant Warriors were substantially more talented than the Cavaliers were (particularly in 2017; the 2018 Cavaliers were a different story)—I think the biggest factors were that their two main stars scaled up with other elite talent a lot better (and LeBron not doing that so well is my point!). There’s a bit of retroactive excuse-making there IMO. In fact, betting odds before that series still gave the Cavaliers a 30-35% chance to win the series. And that’s after it was *already* clear that Curry and Durant scaled up better together! I’m not sure I’d necessarily *expect* LeBron to actually win that series (though I don’t think it should’ve been at all out of the realm of possibility, and indeed it wasn’t considered to be at the time), but it wasn’t even remotely close and I’d say that that was a failure for a GOAT-level player on a very talented team. But yeah, obviously 2011 is the worst and most obviously disqualifying example for LeBron.

Do you think general betting odds are an accurate projection for team quality within a playoff series matchup? Before the season (before anything was clear) GS was listed as the greatest preseason favorite in the history of the sport, for whatever that's worth. Cavs were still +385 which for most years is 2nd or at worst 3rd best odds.

With regards to Curry and Durant, I think it's pretty obvious they would scale up better because both of those players were/are significantly better than Kyrie. Not sure how it's a nock on Lebron that he couldn't push Kyrie to be on par with those two guys when at no point in his career was he in that tier of player.

I'm also very confused why 2015 needs a "pass" when the cavs were a better rs or playoff team than any of Jordan's before he got 55-win support.

The question one should be asking about 2015 was how the cavs were so good given what they were without him, and the track-records of his teammates(especially post-injury). And while asking that, they should probably consider the results with the stars he apparently struggles to fit with and ask themselves why this is being presented as a potential negative for Lebron when it's Jordan who failed to replicate what Lebron was doing at 30 with back problems at any point in his career.

Those "most talented" cleveland teams were bad without him and the co-stars, even in 2015 when they were +14 with. Could it be there's more to talent than points per game?

If I had to make an argument for Peak LeBron > Peak Jordan, I would probably narrow the comparison down to a single playoff series, in which case LeBron's 2016 Finals against the Warriors is hard to beat. With that being said, I think that's way too small a sample size, which is why I would never actually do that. But in my mind, that's the best bet for Peak LeBron > Peak MJ.

Yep definitely, the best way to make an argument for a bigger, smarter, and more versatile player who generates all-time results running teams on both ends of the floor, seems to generate higher impact in a variety of contexts and obliterates all contemporaries in pretty much anything tied to winning is.........

fixating on a single playoff series.

PS: This has been mentioned ad nauseum, but if you think the only way for a guy who opposing coaches identified as reading their playbooks by his first playoff series is passing and scoring..."scalability" is probably just window dressing for "how can i glaze the guy who hesi-tweens better".