The argument for Peak LeBron > Peak MJ

[rk2023]

Wow, so much competition for a new signature, man.

The “you think you are some chat GPT where you can shift between bias and criteria” was very elite territory for me to beat

[homecourtloss]

Because a word overrules what is actually argued/addressed when interpreting what someone is saying...

Oh I'm sure.

A tip though: You don't need to add "clearly" when you've already said "easily". They both essentially serve the same function in your sentence and that sort of redundancy often makes readers think the writer isn't really confident.

Lol, I promise you that you’re way out of your depth in trying to didactically lecture me on how to properly word things, as you’re obviously a college-aged kid at most and I’m a Harvard Law School educated lawyer who was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and basically write legal briefs for a living including in cases that I guarantee you you’ve read about in the national news. Sorry, but I definitely don’t need a writing “tip” or advocacy advice from you.

there is no way ur bringing up ur resume in a basketball forum to user whose name is ohayokd

No way this just happened

[lessthanjake]

Lmao. This is definitely one of the most pathetic things I've ever read.

As somebody who grew up in an upper class town and knows plenty of people who went to elite schools, including Harvard: nothing said here should impress anybody in the slightest.

Lol, well I definitely did *not* grow up “in an upper class town,” but also I wasn’t trying to “impress anybody” in any general sense. It’s an internet forum, so obviously no one cares. I was merely pointing out the very narrow fact that I really don’t need writing/advocacy advice from someone who is like 20 years old.

[Heej]

As the great philosopher Draymond Green once said: insecurity is loud.

Would rather have hoped to see some of the stats heads Continue their discussions on the advanced metrics vs any of this childish stuff. Am I right in my assumption that at the end of the day it's all apples and oranges discussing LeBron vs MJ impact stats because we don't have a full set of Jordan's plus minus numbers during his career?

I know Squared and others seem to have gotten close for some seasons

[OhayoKD]

As the great philosopher Draymond Green once said: insecurity is loud.

Would rather have hoped to see some of the stats heads Continue their discussions on the advanced metrics vs any of this childish stuff. Am I right in my assumption that at the end of the day it's all apples and oranges discussing LeBron vs MJ impact stats because we don't have a full set of Jordan's plus minus numbers during his career?

I know Squared and others seem to have gotten close for some seasons

The real-world singals/wowy can theoretically be used for any player in history(and even with RAPM or full plus-minus, i'd say they should be considered and weighted heavily) and that has never been favorable for Jordan(and there's no real potential for that to change). Otherwise, it depends on where you view 97/98 in an "impact" sense for MJ(the better ir ranks, the worse for Jordan), and how how comfortable you are with indirect comparisons(and there Lebron cremating the field for data-ball helps him)

[lessthanjake]

Would rather have hoped to see some of the stats heads Continue their discussions on the advanced metrics vs any of this childish stuff. Am I right in my assumption that at the end of the day it's all apples and oranges discussing LeBron vs MJ impact stats because we don't have a full set of Jordan's plus minus numbers during his career?

I know Squared and others seem to have gotten close for some seasons

I’ve made an entire thread exhaustively compiling that data: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2314587. The bottom line is that we don’t have Jordan’s on-off numbers for his whole career, but we can actually piece together quite a lot of on-off data for him between the various sources we have (overall, there’s data for about half of his Bulls games) and it looks extremely good.

[jalengreen]

Okay, this is just completely ridiculous, not least of which because, again, I was the only person in the entire quoted chain that even used the word “minutes,” which your response then focused on.

Because a word overrules what is actually argued/addressed when interpreting what someone is saying...

But I’m not going to argue about it further, since it is a dumb rabbit hole that doesn’t substantively matter and I am confident that any reasonable person who actually read through this would easily see that I’m clearly right about what happened and that your behavior is odd.

Oh I'm sure.

A tip though: You don't need to add "clearly" when you've already said "easily". They both essentially serve the same function in your sentence and that sort of redundancy often makes readers think the writer isn't really confident.

Lol, I promise you that you’re way out of your depth in trying to didactically lecture me on how to properly word things, as you’re obviously a college-aged kid at most and I’m a Harvard Law School educated lawyer who was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and basically write legal briefs for a living including in cases that I guarantee you you’ve read about in the national news. Sorry, but I definitely don’t need a writing “tip” or advocacy advice from you.

Not Yale? (joke)

[lessthanjake]

Because a word overrules what is actually argued/addressed when interpreting what someone is saying...

Oh I'm sure.

A tip though: You don't need to add "clearly" when you've already said "easily". They both essentially serve the same function in your sentence and that sort of redundancy often makes readers think the writer isn't really confident.

Lol, I promise you that you’re way out of your depth in trying to didactically lecture me on how to properly word things, as you’re obviously a college-aged kid at most and I’m a Harvard Law School educated lawyer who was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and basically write legal briefs for a living including in cases that I guarantee you you’ve read about in the national news. Sorry, but I definitely don’t need a writing “tip” or advocacy advice from you.

Not Yale? (joke)

Hahahahaha, that cuts deep, bro! Alas, it must be said that they rejected me

[Djoker]

Jordan clearly has a higher peak than Lebron in my eyes.

As Ben Taylor showed in his analysis looking at the four offensive dimensions:
- Jordan scored at a much higher volume ~5 points/75 possessions
- similar scoring efficiency
- similar playmaking volume; note that even though Lebron is undoubtedly a more gifted passer, Jordan's scoring attracts so much defensive attention that he generates a lot more open shots for his teammates to close the gap in this category
- Jordan had lower turnover rate

All in all, this puts Jordan a tier higher as an offensive player.

And here is the part that everyone glosses over. For non-bigs, individual offense carries way more impact than individual defense. Thus Lebron would probably have to be at least two tiers ahead as a defensive player to close the gap. And of course he is not. Lebron at his best may have been a bit better but it isn't enough to make him as good or better overall when Jordan has a clear offensive gap in his favor. And of course it's impossible to judge their defense without relying almost solely on the eye test which is subjective.

[AdagioPace]

Jordan clearly has a higher peak than Lebron in my eyes.

As Ben Taylor showed in his analysis looking at the four offensive dimensions:
- Jordan scored at a much higher volume ~5 points/75 possessions
- similar scoring efficiency
- similar playmaking volume; note that even though Lebron is undoubtedly a more gifted passer, Jordan's scoring attracts so much defensive attention that he generates a lot more open shots for his teammates to close the gap in this category
- Jordan had lower turnover rate

All in all, this puts Jordan a tier higher as an offensive player.

And here is the part that everyone glosses over. For non-bigs, individual offense carries way more impact than individual defense. Thus Lebron would probably have to be at least two tiers ahead as a defensive player to close the gap. And of course he is not. Lebron at his best may have been a bit better but it isn't enough to make him as good or better overall when Jordan has a clear offensive gap in his favor. And of course it's impossible to judge their defense without relying almost solely on the eye test which is subjective.

in your opinion:
Would Jordan be able to lead a 2017 Cavs-level offense? (It doesn't matter how do it. Heliocentric, 99% midrange shooting, whatever....).
Not a rhetorical question.

[zimpy27]

Would rather have hoped to see some of the stats heads Continue their discussions on the advanced metrics vs any of this childish stuff. Am I right in my assumption that at the end of the day it's all apples and oranges discussing LeBron vs MJ impact stats because we don't have a full set of Jordan's plus minus numbers during his career?

I know Squared and others seem to have gotten close for some seasons

I’ve made an entire thread exhaustively compiling that data: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2314587. The bottom line is that we don’t have Jordan’s on-off numbers for his whole career, but we can actually piece together quite a lot of on-off data for him between the various sources we have (overall, there’s data for about half of his Bulls games) and it looks extremely good.

Sample sizes are too small really.

The basketball reference numbers for 96-97 and 97-98 in regular season are eye-opening. Look at that drop down from 95-96 and seasons prior where there's smaller samples provided.

Plus it's very possible that the small sample of games that squared or thinking basketball have captured are ones where Jordan was more impactful and that's why they were available to begin with. Thus superficially elevating his +/- stats.

[lessthanjake]

Would rather have hoped to see some of the stats heads Continue their discussions on the advanced metrics vs any of this childish stuff. Am I right in my assumption that at the end of the day it's all apples and oranges discussing LeBron vs MJ impact stats because we don't have a full set of Jordan's plus minus numbers during his career?

I know Squared and others seem to have gotten close for some seasons

I’ve made an entire thread exhaustively compiling that data: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2314587. The bottom line is that we don’t have Jordan’s on-off numbers for his whole career, but we can actually piece together quite a lot of on-off data for him between the various sources we have (overall, there’s data for about half of his Bulls games) and it looks extremely good.

Sample sizes are too small really.

The basketball reference numbers for 96-97 and 97-98 in regular season are eye-opening. Look at that drop down from 95-96 and seasons prior where there's smaller samples provided.

Plus it's very possible that the small sample of games that squared or thinking basketball have captured are ones where Jordan was more impactful and that's why they were available to begin with. Thus superficially elevating his +/- stats.

Yes, there’s not a full sample. But we have info on hundreds of games outside of the second three peat years. So it’s not some tiny sample at all. And it’s just as possible that the sampled games are ones where Jordan was *less* impactful. Indeed, for instance, the 56 games from the 1991 regular season that we have are way less good of games from the Bulls than the season as a whole (the Bulls completely dominated the remaining games) which would suggest Jordan was probably more impactful in the unsampled games (though we can’t know for sure of course).

Relatedly, as for whether the sampled games are systematically chosen because they’re ones where Jordan was more impactful, I don’t think that’s an issue. Thinking Basketball’s sampled games were just all the playoff games from 1988 onwards (and we also have data from the entire 1985 playoffs from Squared). So we basically have virtually every playoff game, not some sample of his best ones. Meanwhile, the Squared regular season data is, as I understand it, just based on Squared having footage from the NBA of essentially all games and just going through them at random (and as I said, that randomness has, for example, resulted in Squared actually sampling a notably bad sample of games for the Bulls from 1991).

[Djoker]

Jordan clearly has a higher peak than Lebron in my eyes.

As Ben Taylor showed in his analysis looking at the four offensive dimensions:
- Jordan scored at a much higher volume ~5 points/75 possessions
- similar scoring efficiency
- similar playmaking volume; note that even though Lebron is undoubtedly a more gifted passer, Jordan's scoring attracts so much defensive attention that he generates a lot more open shots for his teammates to close the gap in this category
- Jordan had lower turnover rate

All in all, this puts Jordan a tier higher as an offensive player.

And here is the part that everyone glosses over. For non-bigs, individual offense carries way more impact than individual defense. Thus Lebron would probably have to be at least two tiers ahead as a defensive player to close the gap. And of course he is not. Lebron at his best may have been a bit better but it isn't enough to make him as good or better overall when Jordan has a clear offensive gap in his favor. And of course it's impossible to judge their defense without relying almost solely on the eye test which is subjective.

in your opinion:
Would Jordan be able to lead a 2017 Cavs-level offense? (It doesn't matter how do it. Heliocentric, 99% midrange shooting, whatever....).
Not a rhetorical question.

I'm assuming you're talking about 2017 Cavs playoff offense of +11.5. Their RS offense was just a +4.8.

Yes. He would be able to. Based on his profile that I touched on above Jordan does everything Lebron does except scores on higher volume and turns the ball over less.

Jordan led a +9.3 rORtg offense in 1991 with a much weaker offensive cast. And on top of that the 2017 Cavs had an unbalanced roster slanted towards offense at the expense of defense. The 2017 Cavs playoff defense was +3.3 rDRtg which is pretty bad and takes some luster off of that offensive number.

Also worth noting that all playoff samples are very small and subject to variations in quality of opposition. And stylistic differences between the two eras like better spacing, higher pace, and less physicality in 2017 allows for more prolific offenses.

In Lebron's shoes, Jordan probably plays a heliocentric style mixed in with some off-ball attack.

[zimpy27]

I’ve made an entire thread exhaustively compiling that data: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2314587. The bottom line is that we don’t have Jordan’s on-off numbers for his whole career, but we can actually piece together quite a lot of on-off data for him between the various sources we have (overall, there’s data for about half of his Bulls games) and it looks extremely good.

Sample sizes are too small really.

The basketball reference numbers for 96-97 and 97-98 in regular season are eye-opening. Look at that drop down from 95-96 and seasons prior where there's smaller samples provided.

Plus it's very possible that the small sample of games that squared or thinking basketball have captured are ones where Jordan was more impactful and that's why they were available to begin with. Thus superficially elevating his +/- stats.

Yes, there’s not a full sample. But we have info on hundreds of games outside of the second three peat years. So it’s not some tiny sample at all. And it’s just as possible that the sampled games are ones where Jordan was *less* impactful. Indeed, for instance, the 56 games from the 1991 regular season that we have are way less good of games from the Bulls than the season as a whole (the Bulls completely dominated the remaining games) which would suggest Jordan was probably more impactful in the unsampled games (though we can’t know for sure of course).

Relatedly, as for whether the sampled games are systematically chosen because they’re ones where Jordan was more impactful, I don’t think that’s an issue. Thinking Basketball’s sampled games were just all the playoff games from 1988 onwards (and we also have data from the entire 1985 playoffs from Squared). So we basically have virtually every playoff game, not some sample of his best ones. Meanwhile, the Squared regular season data is, as I understand it, just based on Squared having footage from the NBA of essentially all games and just going through them at random (and as I said, that randomness has, for example, resulted in Squared actually sampling a notably bad sample of games for the Bulls from 1991).

Ok so taking the total of his playoff games would be good to see but regular season is much less biased. When a team loses a series on the playoffs they are a worse team but they don't keep playing. So yeah there's biased towards only showing data when a team is winning.

Interesting that squared2020 is doing it at random, that definitely helps. I thought it was off that they had a larger sample from Bulls games than any other team by quite a large margin, didn't look random to me.

[lessthanjake]

Sample sizes are too small really.

The basketball reference numbers for 96-97 and 97-98 in regular season are eye-opening. Look at that drop down from 95-96 and seasons prior where there's smaller samples provided.

Plus it's very possible that the small sample of games that squared or thinking basketball have captured are ones where Jordan was more impactful and that's why they were available to begin with. Thus superficially elevating his +/- stats.

Yes, there’s not a full sample. But we have info on hundreds of games outside of the second three peat years. So it’s not some tiny sample at all. And it’s just as possible that the sampled games are ones where Jordan was *less* impactful. Indeed, for instance, the 56 games from the 1991 regular season that we have are way less good of games from the Bulls than the season as a whole (the Bulls completely dominated the remaining games) which would suggest Jordan was probably more impactful in the unsampled games (though we can’t know for sure of course).

Relatedly, as for whether the sampled games are systematically chosen because they’re ones where Jordan was more impactful, I don’t think that’s an issue. Thinking Basketball’s sampled games were just all the playoff games from 1988 onwards (and we also have data from the entire 1985 playoffs from Squared). So we basically have virtually every playoff game, not some sample of his best ones. Meanwhile, the Squared regular season data is, as I understand it, just based on Squared having footage from the NBA of essentially all games and just going through them at random (and as I said, that randomness has, for example, resulted in Squared actually sampling a notably bad sample of games for the Bulls from 1991).

Ok so taking the total of his playoff games would be good to see but regular season is much less biased. When a team loses a series on the playoffs they are a worse team but they don't keep playing. So yeah there's biased towards only showing data when a team is winning.

Interesting that squared2020 is doing it at random, that definitely helps. I thought it was off that they had a larger sample from Bulls games than any other team by quite a large margin, didn't look random to me.

Yeah, I can’t speak to Squared’s exact process. There’s definitely more games of certain teams than others (so there’s more Bulls games than, say, Kings games, and I doubt that that’s random), but what I was saying is I don’t think the specific Bulls games chosen were chosen because they’re particularly good Jordan games. I’m admittedly not an expert in Squared’s exact process though.

As for playoffs, that’s correct to some degree. Not sure how big of an effect it has though, since a team is definitely worse when they lose, but a team doing badly doesn’t actually necessarily mean a specific player’s on-off will be worse (maybe the team did badly because they did horribly with that player on the bench!). And, indeed, Jordan’s playoff on-off actually tends to be higher in the years his team did less well (basically because, in the better years, the team does a lot better with him on the bench than they’d done in the worse years). Anyways, even if we think about playoff on-off as in its own separate bucket, Jordan’s playoff on-off looks extremely impressive as compared to other peoples’ playoff on-off (it’s like an estimated +15 with our data only missing 3 playoff games).

[OhayoKD]

Jordan clearly has a higher peak than Lebron in my eyes.

As Ben Taylor showed in his analysis looking at the four offensive dimensions:
- Jordan scored at a much higher volume ~5 points/75 possessions
- similar scoring efficiency
- similar playmaking volume; note that even though Lebron is undoubtedly a more gifted passer, Jordan's scoring attracts so much defensive attention that he generates a lot more open shots for his teammates to close the gap in this category
- Jordan had lower turnover rate

All in all, this puts Jordan a tier higher as an offensive player.

And here is the part that everyone glosses over. For non-bigs, individual offense carries way more impact than individual defense. Thus Lebron would probably have to be at least two tiers ahead as a defensive player to close the gap. And of course he is not. Lebron at his best may have been a bit better but it isn't enough to make him as good or better overall when Jordan has a clear offensive gap in his favor. And of course it's impossible to judge their defense without relying almost solely on the eye test which is subjective.

in your opinion:
Would Jordan be able to lead a 2017 Cavs-level offense? (It doesn't matter how do it. Heliocentric, 99% midrange shooting, whatever....).
Not a rhetorical question.

I'm assuming you're talking about 2017 Cavs playoff offense of +11.5. Their RS offense was just a +4.8.

Yes. He would be able to. Based on his profile that I touched on above Jordan does everything Lebron does except scores on higher volume and turns the ball over less.

Fantasy MJ maybe. The actual Micheal Jordan is not as good of a passer or effecient as a creator,(passer-rating peaks alot higher, box-creation peaks a bit higher with the gap expanding when we extend the sample) handles the ball alot less(contributing to that "turns over the ball less"), faces less defensive attention(also helps mj with his turnover economy AND scoring effeciency(, and isn't running his team as an on-court general(on both ends of the floor)

Maybe you shouldn't be trying to create player profiles based on PER? As is, Lebron has scaled up to jpeak ordan esque scoring numbers(effeciency and volume) at points(jordan has never matched Lebron's effeciency as a playmaker)

"Player x is this but better" applies much better to 2009 Lebron than any Jordan ironically. Yet you had them on the "same tier"

As it happens the Cavs also led a "better than any mj" playoff offense in 2016 with Lebron --also-- anchoring an elite playoff defense next to multiple lineup negatives

Go figure...

Yes, there’s not a full sample. But we have info on hundreds of games outside of the second three peat years. So it’s not some tiny sample at all. And it’s just as possible that the sampled games are ones where Jordan was *less* impactful. Indeed, for instance, the 56 games from the 1991 regular season that we have are way less good of games from the Bulls than the season as a whole (the Bulls completely dominated the remaining games) which would suggest Jordan was probably more impactful in the unsampled games (though we can’t know for sure of course).

Relatedly, as for whether the sampled games are systematically chosen because they’re ones where Jordan was more impactful, I don’t think that’s an issue. Thinking Basketball’s sampled games were just all the playoff games from 1988 onwards (and we also have data from the entire 1985 playoffs from Squared). So we basically have virtually every playoff game, not some sample of his best ones. Meanwhile, the Squared regular season data is, as I understand it, just based on Squared having footage from the NBA of essentially all games and just going through them at random (and as I said, that randomness has, for example, resulted in Squared actually sampling a notably bad sample of games for the Bulls from 1991).

Ok so taking the total of his playoff games would be good to see but regular season is much less biased. When a team loses a series on the playoffs they are a worse team but they don't keep playing. So yeah there's biased towards only showing data when a team is winning.

Interesting that squared2020 is doing it at random, that definitely helps. I thought it was off that they had a larger sample from Bulls games than any other team by quite a large margin, didn't look random to me.

Yeah, I can’t speak to Squared’s exact process. There’s definitely more games of certain teams than others (so there’s more Bulls games than, say, Kings games, and I doubt that that’s random), but what I was saying is I don’t think the specific Bulls games chosen were chosen because they’re particularly good Jordan games. I’m admittedly not an expert in Squared’s exact process though.

As for playoffs, that’s correct to some degree. Not sure how big of an effect it has though, since a team is definitely worse when they lose, but a team doing badly doesn’t actually necessarily mean a specific player’s on-off will be worse (maybe the team did badly because they did horribly with that player on the bench!). And, indeed, Jordan’s playoff on-off actually tends to be higher in the years his team did less well (basically because, in the better years, the team does a lot better with him on the bench than they’d done in the worse years). Anyways, even if we think about playoff on-off as in its own separate bucket, Jordan’s playoff on-off looks extremely impressive as compared to other peoples’ playoff on-off (it’s like an estimated +15 with our data only missing 3 playoff games).

Well as it pertains to this discussion, Lebron matches his on/off over more years so...
(and of course if we take out rotations as a factor and look at their teams completely without it becomes extremely lopsided)

[lessthanjake]

Ok so taking the total of his playoff games would be good to see but regular season is much less biased. When a team loses a series on the playoffs they are a worse team but they don't keep playing. So yeah there's biased towards only showing data when a team is winning.

Interesting that squared2020 is doing it at random, that definitely helps. I thought it was off that they had a larger sample from Bulls games than any other team by quite a large margin, didn't look random to me.

Yeah, I can’t speak to Squared’s exact process. There’s definitely more games of certain teams than others (so there’s more Bulls games than, say, Kings games, and I doubt that that’s random), but what I was saying is I don’t think the specific Bulls games chosen were chosen because they’re particularly good Jordan games. I’m admittedly not an expert in Squared’s exact process though.

As for playoffs, that’s correct to some degree. Not sure how big of an effect it has though, since a team is definitely worse when they lose, but a team doing badly doesn’t actually necessarily mean a specific player’s on-off will be worse (maybe the team did badly because they did horribly with that player on the bench!). And, indeed, Jordan’s playoff on-off actually tends to be higher in the years his team did less well (basically because, in the better years, the team does a lot better with him on the bench than they’d done in the worse years). Anyways, even if we think about playoff on-off as in its own separate bucket, Jordan’s playoff on-off looks extremely impressive as compared to other peoples’ playoff on-off (it’s like an estimated +15 with our data only missing 3 playoff games).

Well as it pertains to this discussion, Lebron matches his on/off over more years so...

That’s objectively untrue. You’d have to posit that you think the estimations I’ve provided in that thread are substantially wrong to get to that conclusion.

[OhayoKD]

Yeah, I can’t speak to Squared’s exact process. There’s definitely more games of certain teams than others (so there’s more Bulls games than, say, Kings games, and I doubt that that’s random), but what I was saying is I don’t think the specific Bulls games chosen were chosen because they’re particularly good Jordan games. I’m admittedly not an expert in Squared’s exact process though.

As for playoffs, that’s correct to some degree. Not sure how big of an effect it has though, since a team is definitely worse when they lose, but a team doing badly doesn’t actually necessarily mean a specific player’s on-off will be worse (maybe the team did badly because they did horribly with that player on the bench!). And, indeed, Jordan’s playoff on-off actually tends to be higher in the years his team did less well (basically because, in the better years, the team does a lot better with him on the bench than they’d done in the worse years). Anyways, even if we think about playoff on-off as in its own separate bucket, Jordan’s playoff on-off looks extremely impressive as compared to other peoples’ playoff on-off (it’s like an estimated +15 with our data only missing 3 playoff games).

Well as it pertains to this discussion, Lebron matches his on/off over more years so...

That’s objectively untrue. You’d have to posit that you think the estimations I’ve provided in that thread are substantially wrong to get to that conclusion.

They are substantially wrong

All we have to do to see this is apply an even process...as you were informed by various posters you decided to ignore

[Djoker]

in your opinion:
Would Jordan be able to lead a 2017 Cavs-level offense? (It doesn't matter how do it. Heliocentric, 99% midrange shooting, whatever....).
Not a rhetorical question.

I'm assuming you're talking about 2017 Cavs playoff offense of +11.5. Their RS offense was just a +4.8.

Yes. He would be able to. Based on his profile that I touched on above Jordan does everything Lebron does except scores on higher volume and turns the ball over less.

Fantasy MJ maybe. The actual Micheal Jordan is not as good of a passer or effecient as a creator,(passer-rating peaks alot higher, box-creation peaks a bit higher with the gap expanding when we extend the sample) handles the ball alot less(contributing to that "turns over the ball less"), faces less defensive attention(also helps mj with his turnover economy AND scoring effeciency(, and isn't running his team as an on-court general(on both ends of the floor)

Maybe you shouldn't be trying to create player profiles based on PER? As is, Lebron has scaled up to jpeak ordan esque scoring numbers(effeciency and volume) at points(jordan has never matched Lebron's effeciency as a playmaker)

"Player x is this but better" applies much better to 2009 Lebron than any Jordan ironically. Yet you had them on the "same tier"

As it happens the Cavs also led a "better than any mj" playoff offense in 2016 with Lebron --also-- anchoring an elite playoff defense next to multiple lineup negatives

Go figure...

Ok so taking the total of his playoff games would be good to see but regular season is much less biased. When a team loses a series on the playoffs they are a worse team but they don't keep playing. So yeah there's biased towards only showing data when a team is winning.

Interesting that squared2020 is doing it at random, that definitely helps. I thought it was off that they had a larger sample from Bulls games than any other team by quite a large margin, didn't look random to me.

Yeah, I can’t speak to Squared’s exact process. There’s definitely more games of certain teams than others (so there’s more Bulls games than, say, Kings games, and I doubt that that’s random), but what I was saying is I don’t think the specific Bulls games chosen were chosen because they’re particularly good Jordan games. I’m admittedly not an expert in Squared’s exact process though.

As for playoffs, that’s correct to some degree. Not sure how big of an effect it has though, since a team is definitely worse when they lose, but a team doing badly doesn’t actually necessarily mean a specific player’s on-off will be worse (maybe the team did badly because they did horribly with that player on the bench!). And, indeed, Jordan’s playoff on-off actually tends to be higher in the years his team did less well (basically because, in the better years, the team does a lot better with him on the bench than they’d done in the worse years). Anyways, even if we think about playoff on-off as in its own separate bucket, Jordan’s playoff on-off looks extremely impressive as compared to other peoples’ playoff on-off (it’s like an estimated +15 with our data only missing 3 playoff games).

Well as it pertains to this discussion, Lebron matches his on/off over more years so...
(and of course if we take out rotations as a factor and look at their teams completely without it becomes extremely lopsided)

2016 Cavs had a +9.1 rORtg and a -0.4 rDRtg in the postseason. That's hardly an elite playoff defense. That's average defense!

1991 Bulls had a +9.3 rORtg and a -3.9 rDRtg in the postseason. So no the Bulls' best offense was a bit better and that's despite less offensive talent.

2009 Lebron is a classic case of an outlier because if that was Lebron's true peak then 2008 or 2010 must be part of Lebron's peak and neither is. Lebron in 2009 put up the best playoff stats of his career (over a mere 14-game sample) but it wasn't the best version of Lebron. If it was, the virtually identical Lebron the following year(s) would replicate it.

Obviously I would have more confidence in MJ's playoff peak which is roughly 35/7/7 over about 100 playoff games spanning 8 seasons from 1986-1993 than I would in Lebron's 2009 outlier run.

And you're confusing passing with playmaking. Jordan matched Lebron in box creation despite being a lesser passer because the scoring pressure he exerted collapsed defenses and gave teammates open shots.

Lebron never consistently scored at Jordan's volume... that's a flat out lie.

[OhayoKD]

2016 Cavs had a +9.1 rORtg and a -0.4 rDRtg in the postseason. That's hardly an elite playoff defense. That's average defense!

I have no idea how you got those marks.

If I use "flat" defensive-rating, the cavs went

+4 over 4 games
+4 over 4 games
-9 over 6 games
-6 over 7 games
8x4 =32
9x6 = -54
-6x7 = -42
-54-42 = -96
-96+32 = -64

-64/21 ~ -3.

If I use "flat" offensive-rating the cavs go

+14 over 4 games
+21 over 4 games
+13 over 6 games
+5 over 7 games

14 x 4 = 56
21 x 4 = 84
13 x 6 = 78
5 x 7 = 35

all that adds up to 253.

253/21 ~ +12

Here's falco's calculation with tighter rounding:

Spoiler:

Lebron peak offenses
2013 +7.2 (PS)
2014 +10.6 (PS)
2015 +5.5 (PS)
2016 +12.5 (PS)
2017 +13.7 (PS)
Average +9.9 (PS)


jordan peak offenses
1991 +11.7 (PS)
1992 +6.5 (PS)
1993 +9.8 (PS)
1996 +8.6 (PS)
1997 +6.5(PS)
average +8.6(PS)

If we go by rolling marks from sansterre for both:

Spoiler:

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

Spoiler:

Playoff Offensive Rating: +6.48 (36th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -7.92 (18th)
Playoff SRS: +15.73 (6th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +6.38 (3rd)
Shooting Advantage: +6.2%, Possession Advantage: -1.7 shooting possessions per game
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +2.92 (28th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -1.18 (69th)

Any way you slice it, the 2016 cavs offense top the 1991 bulls and the cavs are a very good playoff defense with Lebron instead of Pippen.

Of course you can claim(baselessly) that was a product of talent but the Bulls without Jordan were a better offense in 94 and 95 than the lebron-less cavs(especialy if we compare games with the two co-stars) and their offense and defense skyrocketed starting in the second half of 1990 despite minimal change in Jordan's own "production" to speak. There's really no reason to assume Jordan had worse or even similar support, so Lebron simply doing more and therefore being more valuable is probably the better explanation...

2009 Lebron is a classic case of an outlier

It is a classic case of Lebron playing better than Jordan and thus Jordan supporters needing to backflip a bunch to "curve" lebron down to MJ's level. Concede the better player is better or throw out bull to muddy the water?

Clearly you have opted for the latter.

And you're confusing passing with playmaking. Jordan matched Lebron in box creation despite being a lesser passer because the scoring pressure he exerted collapsed defenses and gave teammates open shots.

Nope. Passer-rating is not "how impressive does the pass look" and was specifically designed as a compliment for box-creation. creating on volume =/ creating the same quality of looks. You cite ben, but ben's tracking says Jordan left significantly more on the table(iirc he said he found looks at a rate of 70% relative to all-timers):

Lebron never consistently scored at Jordan's volume... that's a flat out lie.

And this is a flat out strawman. I never said "consistently", I said "at points", and there are flatly more points for Lebron the scorer than Jordan the playmaker so I'd tread lightly.

of course you never addressed Lebron handling the ball more, facing more defensive attention, running his team on both ends...

But sure "jordan is lebron+scoring". Very serious take