Djoker wrote: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.
Looks like he’s taking the Cavs vs. the entire playoffs (which includes the Cavs) via BKREF.
In any case, with LeBron on court that would be a sturdy -2.5 rDRtg compared to the entire playoffs teams via NBA.com. Not too bad when he is the team’s best defender, and the team’s best scorer, and the team’s best play maker. Also, people may want to take a look at what the defense looked like without defensive sieve Kyrie Irving out there. LeBron’s minutes without Kyrie Irving on the court produced some historic net results and a historic type defensive rating.
But if you go team by team and compare to Detroit’s, Atlanta’s, Toronto’s, and Golden State’s regular season ORtgs:
Cavs’ 2016 PS Defense
vs. Pistons (105.3 ORtg): 109.2 DRtg, +3.9 rDRtg LeBron vs Pistons: 103.7 DRtg, -1.6 rDRtg Cavs’ defense without LeBron: 130.9 DRtg, +25.6 rDRtg
vs. Hawks (104.6 ORtg): 106.4 DRtg, +1.8 rDRtg LeBron vs. Hawks: 103.2 DRtg, -1.4 rDRtg Cavs’ defense without LeBron: 112.9 DRtg, +8.3 rDRtg
vs. Raptors (109.3 ORtg): 98.9 DRtg, -10.4 rDRtg LeBron vs. Raptors: 102.2 DRtg, -7.1 rDRtg Cavs’ defense without LeBron: 83.9 DRtg, -25.4 rDRtg
vs. Warriors (113.5 ORtg): 107.5 DRtg, -6.0 rDRtg LeBron vs. Warriors: 104.1 DRtg, -9.4 rDRtg Cavs’ defense without LeBron: 122.0 DRtg, +8.5 rDRtg
If you go strictly by what they did in the playoffs;
Cavs Vs. Atlanta strictly in playoffs relative to ATL offense in first round: +5.2 rDRtg (106.4 ORtg vs. Cavs; 101.2 ORtg in first round)
Cavs Vs. Toronto strictly in playoffs relative to TOR offense in first two rounds: -4.1 rDRtg (98.9 ORtg vs. Cavs; 102.9 ORtg over first two rounds)
Cavs vs.Warriors strictly in playoffs relative to Warriors’ offense in western Conference: -3.1 rDRtg (107.5 ORtg vs. Cavs; 110.6 ORtg vs Western Conference ith missing games from Curryj
lessthanjake wrote:Kyrie was extremely impactful without LeBron, and basically had zero impact whatsoever if LeBron was on the court.
lessthanjake wrote: By playing in a way that prevents Kyrie from getting much impact, LeBron ensures that controlling for Kyrie has limited effect…
Djoker wrote: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.
[STUFF DELETED HERE BECAUSE IT WAS BREAKING THE WEBSITE TO QUOTE IT]
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.
We actually have direct data from Thinking Basketball on playoff rDRTG—which is what you’re trying to indirectly derive here. It does say the 2016 Cavs had a -3.8 rORTG. Not sure I’d define -3.8 as “elite playoff defense,” as that’s only the 76th percentile all time. Would take a pretty generous definition of “elite” to say the 76th percentile is “elite.” Jordan’s Bulls had 6 playoffs with a better rDRTG than that—including multiple years that were actually elite.
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):
I’m surprised this needs to be explained yet again, but the idea that “passer rating” is what “Ben’s tracking says [about] Jordan,” is objectively false. Passer Rating is just a formula using box-score stuff that is meant to generally approximate what Ben found in tracking of some NBA games in general. Passer Rating is objectively not a product of actual tracking of Jordan, and I feel like you know that and are being deliberately misleading here.
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
Djoker wrote: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.
[STUFF DELETED HERE BECAUSE IT WAS BREAKING THE WEBSITE TO QUOTE IT]
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.
We actually have direct data from Thinking Basketball on playoff rDRTG—which is what you’re trying to indirectly derive here. It does say it was the 2016 Cavs had a -3.8 rORTG. Not sure I’d define -3.8 as “elite playoff defense,” as that’s only the 76th percentile all time
I don't care what you'd call it. It's not relevant to what's being argued. If you want to make the case Jordan was a similarly valuable defender, you are welcome to address the plethora of points brought up in previous pages(or alternatively link a "very thorough" reddit post you probably didn't read )
PS: the website won't break if you unspoiler it in the editor:
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):
I’m surprised this needs to be explained yet again, but the idea that “passer rating” is what “Ben’s tracking says [about] Jordan,” is objectively false.
Do they not teach reading at Havard law? I "objectively" never said that. Nor is that relevant to Djoker's claim(which you of course incorrectly have made yourself). The whole reason behind the "relative to load" component is to estimate how often a player is "missing" looks. It also happens to track with Ben's own tracking.
If you wish to die on the hill that Lebron isn't a better playmaker, feel free. You don't need to distort english to do it.
Across the whole 2016 season, the Cavs had a 103.9 DRTG with James on court and a 109.1 DRTG with him off of it (filtering out PBP’s garbage time stats). With the PI RAPM (RS, PS, and both), LEBRON, and Synergy / 2nd spectrum data there is for 16 James (it’s been posted on various threads, some on this one) coupled with the Cavs being offensively slanted and nothing spectacular on the other end personnel wise, them being -3 or so in the RS with James on and -3 per Taylor’s estimate come PS time (I’d reckon the with James on value is much more favorable) points to one of the most valuable non-big-man defensive seasons in league history Imo.
This defensive goodness flanked by offensive value that’s still at the upper-most echelon of all-timers is what gives the nod for James (09/13/16) as GOAT peak
Mogspan wrote:I think they see the super rare combo of high IQ with freakish athleticism and overrate the former a bit, kind of like a hot girl who is rather articulate being thought of as “super smart.” I don’t know kind of a weird analogy, but you catch my drift.
rk2023 wrote:Across the whole 2016 season, the Cavs had a 103.9 DRTG with James on court and a 109.1 DRTG with him off of it (filtering out PBP’s garbage time stats). With the PI RAPM (RS, PS, and both), LEBRON, and Synergy / 2nd spectrum data there is for 16 James (it’s been posted on various threads, some on this one) coupled with the Cavs being offensively slanted and nothing spectacular on the other end personnel wise, them being -3 or so in the RS with James on and -3 per Taylor’s estimate come PS time (I’d reckon the with James on value is much more favorable) points to one of the most valuable non-big-man defensive seasons in league history Imo.
This defensive goodness flanked by offensive value that’s still at the upper-most echelon of all-timers is what gives the nod for James (09/13/16) as GOAT peak
lessthanjake wrote:Kyrie was extremely impactful without LeBron, and basically had zero impact whatsoever if LeBron was on the court.
lessthanjake wrote: By playing in a way that prevents Kyrie from getting much impact, LeBron ensures that controlling for Kyrie has limited effect…
OhayoKD wrote: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.
[STUFF DELETED HERE BECAUSE IT WAS BREAKING THE WEBSITE TO QUOTE IT]
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.
We actually have direct data from Thinking Basketball on playoff rDRTG—which is what you’re trying to indirectly derive here. It does say it was the 2016 Cavs had a -3.8 rORTG. Not sure I’d define -3.8 as “elite playoff defense,” as that’s only the 76th percentile all time
I don't care what you'd call it. It's not relevant to what's being argued. If you want to make the case Jordan was a similarly valuable defender, you are welcome to address the plethora of points brought up in previous pafes(or alternatively link a "very thorough" reddit post you probably didn't read )
I’m not “mak[ing] the case” about anything. I was telling you that your claim that the 2016 Cavaliers were an “elite” playoff defense was pretty clearly untrue. Which I understand to be relevant to a discussion you were having with Djoker, as it would undermine a point you’d made. But that’s not my discussion. I was merely interjecting to point out to you (and to Djoker) that you’d made a silly factual claim.
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):
I’m surprised this needs to be explained yet again, but the idea that “passer rating” is what “Ben’s tracking says [about] Jordan,” is objectively false.
Do they not teach reading at Havard law? I "objectively" never said that. Nor is that relevant to Djoker's claim(which you of course incorrectly have made yourself). The whole reason behind the "relative to load" component is to estimate how often a player is "missing" looks. It also happens to track with Ben's own tracking.
If you wish to die on the hill that Lebron isn't a better playmaker, feel free. You don't need to distort english to do it.
Lol, I literally quoted you and then your response is to say you “never said that.” You were talking about passer rating (a stat created by Ben Taylor), then said “You cite ben, but ben’s tracking says Jordan left significantly more on the table” and then placed a colon at the end of that sentence followed by posting pictures of passer rating stats. Seems fairly straightforward to conclude you were suggesting that the passer rating stat directly reflects tracking of Jordan, particularly when you’ve made similar types of incorrect claims about passer rating in the past. And such a claim would be objectively false, so I wanted to point that out. I suppose it’s possible you were instead referring there to Ben Taylor otherwise saying what you’re referring to (and, if that’s the case, please point everyone to where that’d be, beyond a vague “iirc” parenthetical). But if that’s the case then you did a mighty bad job of making clear what you were referencing—and you still have not at all straightforwardly explained that even in your second crack at it above, such that I’m legitimately left speculating here as to what you’re talking about, even now. So, assuming that’s what’s going on here and assuming it wasn’t purposely made unclear so as to mislead, then you might want to put in some work on improving the clarity of your writing rather than attacking others as if it is “distort[ing] english” to not understand every wildly unclear reference you make to random prior statements of Ben Taylor.
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
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)
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
League average ORtg/DRtg in 2016 was 106.4. Cavs' ORtg in the postseason was 115.5 which is +9.1. Cavs' DRtg in the postseason was 106.0 which is -0.4.
The 1991 Bulls offense was slightly better at +9.3 and their defense was a lot better at -3.9.
Many teams with heliocentric pieces show bigger declines when those players sit because those teams heavily rely on that one player for everything. That's more of a case of dependency rather than an illustration of impact. In Miami from 2012-2014 where a post-prime Wade could take over for peak Lebron the drop-off was far less severe. Lebron's ON-OFF looks way worse in Miami than it does in either Cleveland stint and the reason isn't that he had less impact.
Jordan taking a core of Pippen, Grant, Armstrong, Cartwright, Paxson, Levingston to historically great offenses is nothing short of incredible. No one else in history did something similar without either a) way more offensive talent and/or b) playing on offensively slanted teams.
Look at Ben's box creation estimates for peak Jordan vs peak Lebron and you'll see they are very comparable. And box creation is a measure of their playmaking impact. Again Lebron is better at finding the right pass but Jordan creates open shots for teammates by drawing defenders to even things out.
Lebron handling the ball more isn't relevant... Jordan faced more defensive attention in terms of double and triple teams and it isn't particularly close. And Jordan also played both sides of the ball really well.
homecourtloss wrote:
OhayoKD wrote:
Djoker wrote: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.
Looks like he’s taking the Cavs vs. the entire playoffs (which includes the Cavs) via BKREF.
In any case, with LeBron on court that would be a sturdy -2.5 rDRtg compared to the entire playoffs teams via NBA.com. Not too bad when he is the team’s best defender, and the team’s best scorer, and the team’s best play maker. Also, people may want to take a look at what the defense looked like without defensive sieve Kyrie Irving out there. LeBron’s minutes without Kyrie Irving on the court produced some historic net results and a historic type defensive rating.
But if you go team by team and compare to Detroit’s, Atlanta’s, Toronto’s, and Golden State’s regular season ORtgs:
Cavs’ 2016 PS Defense
vs. Pistons (105.3 ORtg): 109.2 DRtg, +3.9 rDRtg LeBron vs Pistons: 103.7 DRtg, -1.6 rDRtg Cavs’ defense without LeBron: 130.9 DRtg, +25.6 rDRtg
vs. Hawks (104.6 ORtg): 106.4 DRtg, +1.8 rDRtg LeBron vs. Hawks: 103.2 DRtg, -1.4 rDRtg Cavs’ defense without LeBron: 112.9 DRtg, +8.3 rDRtg
vs. Raptors (109.3 ORtg): 98.9 DRtg, -10.4 rDRtg LeBron vs. Raptors: 102.2 DRtg, -7.1 rDRtg Cavs’ defense without LeBron: 83.9 DRtg, -25.4 rDRtg
vs. Warriors (113.5 ORtg): 107.5 DRtg, -6.0 rDRtg LeBron vs. Warriors: 104.1 DRtg, -9.4 rDRtg Cavs’ defense without LeBron: 122.0 DRtg, +8.5 rDRtg
If you go strictly by what they did in the playoffs;
Cavs Vs. Atlanta strictly in playoffs relative to ATL offense in first round: +5.2 rDRtg (106.4 ORtg vs. Cavs; 101.2 ORtg in first round)
Cavs Vs. Toronto strictly in playoffs relative to TOR offense in first two rounds: -4.1 rDRtg (98.9 ORtg vs. Cavs; 102.9 ORtg over first two rounds)
Cavs vs.Warriors strictly in playoffs relative to Warriors’ offense in western Conference: -3.1 rDRtg (107.5 ORtg vs. Cavs; 110.6 ORtg vs Western Conference ith missing games from Curryj
Good post but off samples in a single playoffs are very small.
-2.5 rDRtg is decent. However the claim that Lebron was the team's best defender isn't necessarily bulletproof. Tristan Thompson was very good defensively as were Shumpert and Delly. A few others pieces like JR and Jefferson were likely positive defenders as well. Kyrie and Love were subpar and of course that's problematic but the rest of the roster was at least good on that end.
Regarding Kyrie it's dubious that the Cavs improved without him if we look at bigger samples.
Bigger fluke...LeBron's mid-range shooting in the '09 playoffs or Jordan's passing in the '91 playoffs?
SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:I don’t think LeBron was as good a point guard as Mo Williams for the point guard play not counting the scoring threat. In other words in a non shooting Rondo like role Mo Williams would be better than LeBron.
Djoker wrote:League average ORtg/DRtg in 2016 was 106.4. Cavs' ORtg in the postseason was 115.5 which is +9.1. Cavs' DRtg in the postseason was 106.0 which is -0.4.
You do not do ortg or drtg "relative to league", you do it relative to opponent. You have been provided the opponent-adjusted numbers, so use them. I
The cavs were a better offense and the bulls were a better defense. Lebron's teams see a bigger delta without him on both ends.
Many teams with heliocentric pieces show bigger declines when those players sit because those teams heavily rely on that one player for everything. That's more of a case of dependency rather than an illustration of impact.
1. You are playing word games. The Bulls were dependent on Jordan's scoring, hence Jordan's scoring was impactful. There is no difference between the two terms 2. Describing Lebron as "heliocentric" (while Jordan evidently is not) means that this...
Djoker wrote:
AdagioPace wrote: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.
...was, as you say, a [u["flat-out lie"[/u] 3. Lots of helios [b[don't[/b] see a big drop-off:
Spoiler:
AEnigma wrote:
lessthanjake wrote:
AEnigma wrote:Uh huh. I do not know, are you sure that is not actually Jokic’s fault for not keeping his bench players in proper “rhythm” to create offence without him on the court? This seems to be a recurring issue for Jokic, and seeing how he has never led even a 5 SRS team despite playing with talented players like Jamal Murray and Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter, Jr., that gives me very serious and sincere concern about his ability to lead good teams.
Maybe it is. It’s less plausible, since he isn’t as ball-dominant, so other guys do get touches on the ball a good deal. Notably, you don’t hear NBA players talking about how it is an issue to get in rhythm playing alongside him, like you do regarding the really heliocentric ball-dominant guys. In fact, players talk the exact opposite about playing with Jokic. So it seems much less plausible.
Yet somehow his exit to the bench dwarfs the bench effects we see from “the really heliocentric ball-dominant guys” like Harden, Luka, Wall, Morant, Parker, DWill, Rose… Even Chris Paul and Steve Nash and peak helio Westbrook (which does need to be specified because for whatever mysterious reason the team survived his absences much better outside of that 2016-18 period…) see less of a drop-off than Steph Curry. Very strange, given this very real and very legitimate theory about how “helio” stars routinely ruin their benches.
But the better explanation is probably just that they’re not at all deep at the center position, so they’re often trotting out some pretty bad players when he’s off the court
Fascinating. I wonder if you might be onto something there: not being easily replaced means your team struggles more without you??? Going to need to double-check the numbers on that, because I was under the impression stars controlled their replacements and that having replacements incapable of recreating their effect was in fact a failing on them.
Lebron sees a big-drop off because he does everything and is extremely effecient at it. Just like Magic and just like Nash who also led better playoff offenses than Jordan, and have also led great offenses in different systems with different co-stars and different coaches(Unlike Jordan).
Lebron is harder to replace because he's better. If someone's impact is being suppressed, it's Lebron who played a bunch of prime-years as a power-forward next to a very similar player....and still looked Jordan+ in value
You are making things up.
Jordan led a +9.3 rORtg offense in 1991 with a much weaker offensive cast.
so you say. As it often does, reality suggests the opposite.
And on top of that the 2017 Cavs had an unbalanced roster slanted towards offense at the expense of defense.
And that unbalanced roster was still posting a +13 psrs overall and was alot worse defensively in games Lebron missed. You are grasping at straws.
In Miami from 2012-2014 where a post-prime Wade could take over for peak Lebron the drop-off was far less severe. Lebron's ON-OFF looks way worse in Miami than it does in either Cleveland stint and the reason isn't that he had less impact.
Yes, and the proper way to assess players is to take low-end signals as representatives and ignore everything else. Because you know, if you forget all the stuff that makes him look better than Jordan...he doesn't look better than jordan(and to be clear lebron arguably does look better anyway if you account for team-wide playoff elevation from 12/13
Jordan taking a core of Pippen, Grant, Armstrong, Cartwright, Paxson, Levingston to historically great offenses is nothing short of incredible.[/quote[ Jordan taking a good offense that was optimally suited for Jordan to..."not goat offense" is...not a goat-lvl offensive outcome.
Listing names to denigrate support is silly when those names produce good results over large samples.
Look at Ben's box creation estimates for peak Jordan vs peak Lebron and you'll see they are very comparable. And box creation is a measure of their playmaking impact. Again Lebron is better at finding the right pass but Jordan creates open shots for teammates by drawing defenders to even things out.
Except he doesn't. As I just showed, Jordan does not create more or even as much. Jordan finds the right pass less often and also creates less looks. He is not a comparable playmaker. Just like he isn't a comparable defender and just like he isn't a comparable floor-general.
He is worse at basketball. It's really not that deep. [quote[ Lebron handling the ball more isn't relevant
Oh, but it very definitely is. Lebron handling the ball more means he's breaking defenses more throughout a possession. Lebron being a primary means he is drawing more attention from the opposing defense. Lebron handling the ball more means he sets the tempo, Lebron handling the ball more means he has more oppurtunities to turn it over.
Jordan not handling the ball meant someone else had to, meant he was not drawing the same extra defensive attention, and that he wasn't taking defenders out of the play before he saw a clear passing opportunity.
This is an advantage for Lebron. If you have to present advantages as meaningless to make two players look comparable...they are not comparable
lessthanjake, esq wrote:Lol, I literally quoted you and then your response is to say you “never said that.” You were talking about passer rating (a stat created by Ben Taylor), then said “You cite ben, but ben’s tracking says Jordan left significantly more on the table” and then placed a colon at the end of that sentence followed by posting pictures of passer rating stats.
A thing being said right after another thing does not mean the second thing was literally a part of the first thing.
IOW, "Lol, you suck at reading".
Or, alternatively, you knew that was a stretch and are trying to distract from djoker incorrectly asserting passer-rating was not an estimate of playmaking quality. A claim you yourself have falsely made time and time again.
Regardless, your "simple extrapolation" is wrong and was obviously a leap per the conventions of the english language. Additionally, I have never said passer-rating included direct film-tracking. So ontop of horrible reading, we have a flat-out lie.
Yet again, you are aiming for pendantry, and yet again, you whiffed. Do not explain what you do not understand.
tone wone wrote:Bigger fluke...LeBron's mid-range shooting in the '09 playoffs or Jordan's passing in the '91 playoffs?
Jordan's AST% in the 91 playoffs was right in line with with the previous two postseasons. Lebron's mid range jumpers were uhhh... not in line with any surrounding years.
Lebron on shots 10 feet to the three point line in the playoffs. 07 - 31.2% 08 - 25.7% 09 - 47.8% 10 - 38.7% 11 - 37.3%
2006 Lebron: 27.8/7.3/5.3 on +2.1 rTS with 4.5 to (13 games) 2007 Lebron: 23.6/7.6/7.5 on -2.5 rTS with 3.1 to (20 games) 2008 Lebron: 27.8/7.7/7.5 on -1.5 rTS with 4.1 to (13 games) 2009 Lebron: 35.6/9.2/7.4 on +7.4 rTS with 2.8 to (14 games) ---> OUTLIER 2010 Lebron: 27.1/8.6/7.1 on +6.4 rTS with 3.5 to (11 games) 2011 Lebron: 22.5/8.0/5.6 on +2.2 rTS with 3.0 to (21 games) 2012 Lebron: 29.0/9.3/5.4 on +4.9 rTS with 3.4 to (23 games) 2013 Lebron: 25.6/8.3/6.5 on +5.0 rTS with 3.0 to (23 games) 2014 Lebron: 30.0/7.7/5.2 on +12.7 rTS with 3.4 to (20 games) 2015 Lebron: 28.3/10.7/8.0 on -4.7 rTS with 3.8 to (20 games) 2016 Lebron: 26.7/9.7/7.7 on +4.4 rTS with 3.6 to (21 games) 2017 Lebron: 29.6/8.3/7.1 on +9.7 rTS with 3.6 to (18 games) 2018 Lebron: 31.9/8.6/8.5 on +6.4 rTS with 4.0 to (22 games) 2020 Lebron: 28.2/11.0/8.9 on +8.2 rTS with 4.1 to (21 games) 2021 Lebron: 24.0/7.4/8.3 on -0.7 rTS with 4.3 to (6 games) 2023 Lebron: 23.3/9.4/6.2 on +0.3 rTS with 2.4 to (16 games)
As we can see here, 2009 Lebron is a clear statistical outlier.
Compared to surrounding years he's averaging an extra 8 pts/75 on better efficiency while turning the ball over much less.
Even his second best postseason statistically which is 2018 is still almost 4 pts/75 less with slight worse efficiency and a worse assist to turnover ratio.
lessthanjake, esq wrote:Lol, I literally quoted you and then your response is to say you “never said that.” You were talking about passer rating (a stat created by Ben Taylor), then said “You cite ben, but ben’s tracking says Jordan left significantly more on the table” and then placed a colon at the end of that sentence followed by posting pictures of passer rating stats.
A thing being said right after another thing does not mean the second thing was literally a part of the first thing.
IOW, "Lol, you suck at reading".
Or, alternatively, you knew that was a stretch and are trying to distract from djoker incorrectly asserting passer-rating was not an estimate of playmaking quality. A claim you yourself have falsely made time and time again.
Regardless, your "simple extrapolation" is wrong and was obviously a leap per the conventions of the english language. Additionally, I have never said passer-rating included direct film-tracking. So ontop of horrible reading, we have a flat-out lie.
Yet again, you are aiming for pendantry, and yet again, you whiffed. Do not explain what you do not understand.
You once again decline to actually precisely explain what you apparently did mean, or to point to the actual underlying thing you were apparently referring to. There’s just no clarity as to what you were saying, even though you’ve now made three posts about it. Like, if I was wrong about what you meant, then that’s totally fine and we can throw my point away (it’s not even something that was really substantively important anyways), but the combination of personal attacks and continued lack of clarity is just very weird behavior.
Also, just as some advice, if you don’t want people to think something you said relates to something else, don’t end a sentence with a colon that’s immediately followed by pictures relating to the thing you were apparently not referring to. Doing that clearly suggests that whatever comes after the colon directly relates to what came before it. It’s just bad writing to do that if they’re not directly related. Of course, everyone can write badly sometimes, and no one is exhaustively proofreading and editing what they write on an internet forum, so it doesn’t actually matter much, but at the very least have some self awareness and don’t insult others for being confused when the issue is clearly in large part a consequence of your bad writing.
OhayoKD wrote:Lebron contributes more to all the phases of play than Messi does. And he is of course a defensive anchor unlike messi.
Djoker wrote:As we can see here, 2009 Lebron is a clear statistical outlier.
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I don't really buy the outlier theory for 2009 when it's clear that 2010 before the elbow injury / however the season ended (which is a point that has been brought up by many) has an argument for being virtually the same player if not better. Both his box creation and passer rating increase, he looks better as a whole against more top-end competition across the season, and there's a dip that's correlated with injuries; Sideshowbob highlighted this in a breakdown from over a decade ago, feel like the intel from one who's gone in depth with guesstimated +/- and macro skill-set tracking with positive rhetoric for various players should hold at least *some* consideration to look into. I've also seen people push-back and mention that facing the Celtics in 2010 is another proof of concept of outlier-level play.. but I'm not exactly sure how much I buy into that as well - given 2008 was before a breakout year and in 2009/10 - he fared very well in general against a Boston team that seemed to have his number.
SideshowBob wrote:I know I haven't really participated in any discussion prior to this, but I want to chime in here. Why indeed, is 2010 Lebron not being included? If this is a comparison of peaks and its been clear that we're trying to go beyond something as simple as just a "most successful season" list, then why exclude what might just be Lebron at his absolute best (IMO his strongest regular season), even if the playoffs were underwhelming. Allow me to present the case.
The Cavaliers finish with a 61-21 record and a 6.19 SRS, both down from the previous year, though it should be noted that the roster was riddled with absences and injuries throughout the season. Williams plays 69 games as opposed to 81, West misses 20 games in the early season, Shaq misses 29 games and posed further issues by never fitting into Cleveland's offensive system very well (of the 10 best offensive lineups Cleveland ran that year with >40MP, Shaq was in one of them), Gibson played 19 fewer games than the year before, Ilgauskas/Jamison trade caused chemistry issues with Jamison struggling particularly to fit in on the defensive end (and randomly dropping off to a 50% FT shooter after shooting 70% in WAS an shooting 73% for his career), Kuester leaving as the head offensive coach, etc.
Despite all this, they managed to go 60-16 in the 76 games that James played (he missed 4 games at the end, which Brown at the time attributed to lingering issues but later claimed was due to his elbow, both of which, could be given as an explanation for his relatively inconsistent performance in the last month or so of the regular season), and using ElGee's In/Out method, were roughly a 6.89 SRS team in the 76 games James played in, putting up an ORTG of 111.8 (#3 in the league, +4.2). On the other hand, they went 1-5 in the 6 games they played without him (close win against the Spurs at home, 1 close loss against ORL at the dead end of the season, the other 4 were very winnable games, and its not unreasonable to suggest that they would have won 65-66 again had Lebron played, which would be a slight overperformance based on their +7 SRS w/Lebron), put up a -2.95 SRS in those 6 games and an ORTG of 103.6 (-4.0).
Taking a further look at just the offense, with James ON Court:
2009: 116.4 (+8.1, #1) 2010: 116.6 (+9.0, #1)
So despite the drop overall, Cleveland's offense with James on the floor is even more impressive than the previous year, which his ORAPM seems to support (+7.1). Let's take it further and compare the performance against top 5 defensive teams (Orlando, Boston, Houston, San Antonio in 2009 and Charlotte, Milwaukee, Orlando, Los Angeles, and Boston in 2010) excluding any games James didn't play in (and one game against Boston in which Garnett did not play).
2009: 106.5 (-1.8 LA, #24) against an expected DRTG of 102.9 (+3.6) 2010: 108.8 (+1.2 LA, #11) against an expected DRTG of 103.3 (+5.5)
So what I see here is a Lebron who's running an offense even better than the year before, despite having less/weaker talent to work with. The roster was frequently changing around him, he was asked to play far more roles in various lineups and he managed to adjust and perform better than he had before.
The most evident example of this, of course, was the extended stretch at the end of January 2010 and through February 2010 where Williams missed significant time and Lebron was thrust into the De-Facto PG position. Looking purely from a box-score perspective, over this 11 game stretch James put up 31.0/6.6/10.5 on 61.8% TS with 3.8 TO. Taking it further, Cleveland posted a 115.5 ORTG (+7.9 LA) over this period, which would be tied with Nash's Suns for the best offense in the league. So not only is he able to take on the larger scoring load and creation load due to the loss of the team's secondary ball handler and playmaker, he's able to do so while effectively IMPROVING the offense and while IMPROVING his own efficiency.
Getting into the box-score, James' individual numbers look better: 30/7/9 on 60% TS (+7.1 ORAPM, +2.6 DRAPM, +9.8 overall) in 2010 vs 28/8/7 on 59% TS (+6.6 ORAPM, +2.8 DRAPM, +9.3 overall) in 2009. Prior to the mid-late March injury (whatever caused him to miss the 4 games at the end of the season), even his PER was higher than the 31.1 he finished with, somewhere above 32.0 which would be ahead of his 31.7 from 2009. I don't like putting much stock into "clutch" numbers, but I know colts has been stressing those in his posts for 2009, so again 66/16/8 on 63% TS (+37 overall) in 2010 vs 56/14/13 on 69% TS (+45 overall) in 2009.
So with all that in mind, I just don't see how Lebron's 2009 regular season at least could be considered superior to his 2010 regular season. While the 09 Cavs certainly maintained a consistently higher level of play, it seems that the 2010 Cavs were dropping off to a much lower level when James was off the floor, and thus even a greater level of lift from him would not propel their numbers to match 2009 overall (thought they were arguably even better with him on the court).
Now, the playoffs is where it gets a bit tricky. As far as I can tell, his first-round Chicago series was superior to what we saw against Detroit and Atlanta the year before (all average to above-average defensive teams) and this is DESPITE him playing far more inconsistently than usual (the elbow issue had already popped up in games 1 and 4, before the left handed free throw fiasco in game 5). Evidence, 22/8/7 on 53% TS in Games 1 and 5, 39/10/9 on 74% TS in Games 2-4. Watching that series again, in Game 5 I saw a Lebron who lacked full game aggression and exhibited a certain passivity that we saw again later in the Boston series. Again, evidence, after maintaining a 32% USG in the first four games, he puts up a USG of only 23.9%, taking only 12 shots, in a close game Game 5 no less. What would be the reasoning for that? Certainly after putting up 35/9/8 in the first 4 games it's not that he's not skilled enough to take on the defense. Nor is this Chicago team posing enough of a threat for him to give up, or lock himself out of the game due to not being mentally strong enough to handle the adversity. Is it really that far-fetched to believe that he could have been injured, and that this injury was one that could show up and affect his play one day and then not cause much of a problem another day?
There's documented evidence that his outside shooting showed somewhat of a correlation to how many rest days he had, specifically in the last month or so of the season and the playoffs. The elbow issue that he claimed to have would be something that effected exactly that, long distance shooting, so why is it so much more likely that he choked or seized up mentally or just wasn't skilled enough to cope with the tough playoff defenses, defenses that he was able to tear apart that very year?
So let's move on the to Celtics series. He plays great in Games 1 and 3, putting up 37/8/7 on 67% TS. Both games are in line with how he performed vs. Boston in the regular season (37/7/8 on 57% TS). Also, notably, BOTH games came after 3 days of rest and both were the result of strong outside shooting performances from him (barometer - 16/20 FT 80%). On the other hand, in the 4 losses, he put up 22/10/7 on 49% TS. All four were far worse outside shooting performances (barometer - 36/50 FT 72%) and un-coincidentally, all four came after only a SINGLE day of rest, as opposed to the 3 days he had before the good games. Looks like a pattern to me, one that could be easily explained by an injury that would very clearly hamper a jumpshot.
So at the end, it comes down to that postseason performance. The regular season, to me, clearly suggests that he was at a level above his previous 09 level, and the playoffs looked like they would have been the same story had it not been for the slip ups. I suppose at that point, it comes down to what you're willing to attribute the struggles to. If the faltering is attributed to the idea that he was a fundamentally flawed player who got exposed by an elite defense OR that he just had a mental breakdown in the face of adversity, then yeah, I can't really pick this season as his best one. But if you're willing to consider that he was actually hampered by injury, I think its perfectly reasonable to believe that he was better and more impactful in 2010 and 2009, and in that case I'm willing to pick 2010 as his peak year with confidence.
Using Goodhart's law, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”, I don't think the exact /75 stat-line should be used to proclaim James an outlier when it's evident that 2010 has shown to be just as good from multiple angles (including prior to the last 3 Boston games come PS time), 2009 was a clear ramp-up from 2008 and before as (1) James just seemed more confident attacking and finishing (increase in FTR, FT%, Rim FG%), (2) became a better court-mapper which shows in passing efficacy and TOV economy [below is how Ben Taylor put it back in 2018], (3) took a massive leap as a wing-defender. Being at his physical / athletic peak, I'd say James checked all these boxes where not being as polished offensively as later years is moot ITO assessing the production at hand.
His game evolved over the years, and in ’09 and ’10 he increased his already large on-ball role, carrying two of the 10 biggest loads in history. His passing rates, always good, graduated to another level that year. As a result of his increased primacy and evolved court vision, LeBron’s creation rates jumped from about 11 per 100 to a whopping 14 per 100, just short of the highest rates ever estimated. In my sampling, his quality passes leapt into the upper stratosphere, reaching Nash-like frequencies with a “good” pass on 8 percent of his possessions.
Mogspan wrote:I think they see the super rare combo of high IQ with freakish athleticism and overrate the former a bit, kind of like a hot girl who is rather articulate being thought of as “super smart.” I don’t know kind of a weird analogy, but you catch my drift.
Djoker wrote:As we can see here, 2009 Lebron is a clear statistical outlier.
.
I don't really buy the outlier theory for 2009 when it's clear that 2010 before the elbow injury / however the season ended (which is a point that has been brought up by many) has an argument for being virtually the same player if not better. Both his box creation and passer rating increase, he looks better as a whole against more top-end competition across the season, and there's a dip that's correlated with injuries; Sideshowbob highlighted this in a breakdown from over a decade ago, feel like the intel from one who's gone in depth with guesstimated +/- and macro skill-set tracking with positive rhetoric for various players should hold at least *some* consideration to look into. I've also seen people push-back and mention that facing the Celtics in 2010 is another proof of concept of outlier-level play.. but I'm not exactly sure how much I buy into that as well - given 2008 was before a breakout year and in 2009/10 - he fared very well in general against a Boston team that seemed to have his number.
SideshowBob wrote:I know I haven't really participated in any discussion prior to this, but I want to chime in here. Why indeed, is 2010 Lebron not being included? If this is a comparison of peaks and its been clear that we're trying to go beyond something as simple as just a "most successful season" list, then why exclude what might just be Lebron at his absolute best (IMO his strongest regular season), even if the playoffs were underwhelming. Allow me to present the case.
The Cavaliers finish with a 61-21 record and a 6.19 SRS, both down from the previous year, though it should be noted that the roster was riddled with absences and injuries throughout the season. Williams plays 69 games as opposed to 81, West misses 20 games in the early season, Shaq misses 29 games and posed further issues by never fitting into Cleveland's offensive system very well (of the 10 best offensive lineups Cleveland ran that year with >40MP, Shaq was in one of them), Gibson played 19 fewer games than the year before, Ilgauskas/Jamison trade caused chemistry issues with Jamison struggling particularly to fit in on the defensive end (and randomly dropping off to a 50% FT shooter after shooting 70% in WAS an shooting 73% for his career), Kuester leaving as the head offensive coach, etc.
Despite all this, they managed to go 60-16 in the 76 games that James played (he missed 4 games at the end, which Brown at the time attributed to lingering issues but later claimed was due to his elbow, both of which, could be given as an explanation for his relatively inconsistent performance in the last month or so of the regular season), and using ElGee's In/Out method, were roughly a 6.89 SRS team in the 76 games James played in, putting up an ORTG of 111.8 (#3 in the league, +4.2). On the other hand, they went 1-5 in the 6 games they played without him (close win against the Spurs at home, 1 close loss against ORL at the dead end of the season, the other 4 were very winnable games, and its not unreasonable to suggest that they would have won 65-66 again had Lebron played, which would be a slight overperformance based on their +7 SRS w/Lebron), put up a -2.95 SRS in those 6 games and an ORTG of 103.6 (-4.0).
Taking a further look at just the offense, with James ON Court:
2009: 116.4 (+8.1, #1) 2010: 116.6 (+9.0, #1)
So despite the drop overall, Cleveland's offense with James on the floor is even more impressive than the previous year, which his ORAPM seems to support (+7.1). Let's take it further and compare the performance against top 5 defensive teams (Orlando, Boston, Houston, San Antonio in 2009 and Charlotte, Milwaukee, Orlando, Los Angeles, and Boston in 2010) excluding any games James didn't play in (and one game against Boston in which Garnett did not play).
2009: 106.5 (-1.8 LA, #24) against an expected DRTG of 102.9 (+3.6) 2010: 108.8 (+1.2 LA, #11) against an expected DRTG of 103.3 (+5.5)
So what I see here is a Lebron who's running an offense even better than the year before, despite having less/weaker talent to work with. The roster was frequently changing around him, he was asked to play far more roles in various lineups and he managed to adjust and perform better than he had before.
The most evident example of this, of course, was the extended stretch at the end of January 2010 and through February 2010 where Williams missed significant time and Lebron was thrust into the De-Facto PG position. Looking purely from a box-score perspective, over this 11 game stretch James put up 31.0/6.6/10.5 on 61.8% TS with 3.8 TO. Taking it further, Cleveland posted a 115.5 ORTG (+7.9 LA) over this period, which would be tied with Nash's Suns for the best offense in the league. So not only is he able to take on the larger scoring load and creation load due to the loss of the team's secondary ball handler and playmaker, he's able to do so while effectively IMPROVING the offense and while IMPROVING his own efficiency.
Getting into the box-score, James' individual numbers look better: 30/7/9 on 60% TS (+7.1 ORAPM, +2.6 DRAPM, +9.8 overall) in 2010 vs 28/8/7 on 59% TS (+6.6 ORAPM, +2.8 DRAPM, +9.3 overall) in 2009. Prior to the mid-late March injury (whatever caused him to miss the 4 games at the end of the season), even his PER was higher than the 31.1 he finished with, somewhere above 32.0 which would be ahead of his 31.7 from 2009. I don't like putting much stock into "clutch" numbers, but I know colts has been stressing those in his posts for 2009, so again 66/16/8 on 63% TS (+37 overall) in 2010 vs 56/14/13 on 69% TS (+45 overall) in 2009.
So with all that in mind, I just don't see how Lebron's 2009 regular season at least could be considered superior to his 2010 regular season. While the 09 Cavs certainly maintained a consistently higher level of play, it seems that the 2010 Cavs were dropping off to a much lower level when James was off the floor, and thus even a greater level of lift from him would not propel their numbers to match 2009 overall (thought they were arguably even better with him on the court).
Now, the playoffs is where it gets a bit tricky. As far as I can tell, his first-round Chicago series was superior to what we saw against Detroit and Atlanta the year before (all average to above-average defensive teams) and this is DESPITE him playing far more inconsistently than usual (the elbow issue had already popped up in games 1 and 4, before the left handed free throw fiasco in game 5). Evidence, 22/8/7 on 53% TS in Games 1 and 5, 39/10/9 on 74% TS in Games 2-4. Watching that series again, in Game 5 I saw a Lebron who lacked full game aggression and exhibited a certain passivity that we saw again later in the Boston series. Again, evidence, after maintaining a 32% USG in the first four games, he puts up a USG of only 23.9%, taking only 12 shots, in a close game Game 5 no less. What would be the reasoning for that? Certainly after putting up 35/9/8 in the first 4 games it's not that he's not skilled enough to take on the defense. Nor is this Chicago team posing enough of a threat for him to give up, or lock himself out of the game due to not being mentally strong enough to handle the adversity. Is it really that far-fetched to believe that he could have been injured, and that this injury was one that could show up and affect his play one day and then not cause much of a problem another day?
There's documented evidence that his outside shooting showed somewhat of a correlation to how many rest days he had, specifically in the last month or so of the season and the playoffs. The elbow issue that he claimed to have would be something that effected exactly that, long distance shooting, so why is it so much more likely that he choked or seized up mentally or just wasn't skilled enough to cope with the tough playoff defenses, defenses that he was able to tear apart that very year?
So let's move on the to Celtics series. He plays great in Games 1 and 3, putting up 37/8/7 on 67% TS. Both games are in line with how he performed vs. Boston in the regular season (37/7/8 on 57% TS). Also, notably, BOTH games came after 3 days of rest and both were the result of strong outside shooting performances from him (barometer - 16/20 FT 80%). On the other hand, in the 4 losses, he put up 22/10/7 on 49% TS. All four were far worse outside shooting performances (barometer - 36/50 FT 72%) and un-coincidentally, all four came after only a SINGLE day of rest, as opposed to the 3 days he had before the good games. Looks like a pattern to me, one that could be easily explained by an injury that would very clearly hamper a jumpshot.
So at the end, it comes down to that postseason performance. The regular season, to me, clearly suggests that he was at a level above his previous 09 level, and the playoffs looked like they would have been the same story had it not been for the slip ups. I suppose at that point, it comes down to what you're willing to attribute the struggles to. If the faltering is attributed to the idea that he was a fundamentally flawed player who got exposed by an elite defense OR that he just had a mental breakdown in the face of adversity, then yeah, I can't really pick this season as his best one. But if you're willing to consider that he was actually hampered by injury, I think its perfectly reasonable to believe that he was better and more impactful in 2010 and 2009, and in that case I'm willing to pick 2010 as his peak year with confidence.
Using Goodhart's law, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”, I don't think the exact /75 stat-line should be used to proclaim James an outlier when it's evident that 2010 has shown to be just as good from multiple angles (including prior to the last 3 Boston games come PS time), 2009 was a clear ramp-up from 2008 and before as (1) James just seemed more confident attacking and finishing (increase in FTR, FT%, Rim FG%), (2) became a better court-mapper which shows in passing efficacy and TOV economy [below is how Ben Taylor put it back in 2018], (3) took a massive leap as a wing-defender. Being at his physical / athletic peak, I'd say James checked all these boxes where not being as polished offensively as later years is moot ITO assessing the production at hand.
His game evolved over the years, and in ’09 and ’10 he increased his already large on-ball role, carrying two of the 10 biggest loads in history. His passing rates, always good, graduated to another level that year. As a result of his increased primacy and evolved court vision, LeBron’s creation rates jumped from about 11 per 100 to a whopping 14 per 100, just short of the highest rates ever estimated. In my sampling, his quality passes leapt into the upper stratosphere, reaching Nash-like frequencies with a “good” pass on 8 percent of his possessions.
You can't just dismiss the end to the 2010 postseason. And besides we don't know for sure that Lebron had an elbow injury. It's one of the many theories floating around including that Delonte hooked up with his mom, that he quit on his team etc. We don't know which is true but the bottom line is that 2010 PS Lebron is clearly a whole lot worse than 2009 PS Lebron.
It's also misleading to cite his team's 1-5 record without him in the regular season when four of those losses were meaningless games to end the season with the 1st seed wrapped up.
tone wone wrote:Bigger fluke...LeBron's mid-range shooting in the '09 playoffs or Jordan's passing in the '91 playoffs?
Jordan's AST% in the 91 playoffs was right in line with with the previous two postseasons.
I was speaking more on the actual reads instead of assists numbers. But even still, he never approached that level of passing ever again. Why?
SinceGatlingWasARookie wrote:I don’t think LeBron was as good a point guard as Mo Williams for the point guard play not counting the scoring threat. In other words in a non shooting Rondo like role Mo Williams would be better than LeBron.
Djoker wrote: 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...
lessthanjake, esq wrote: 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.
Part of the 2016 Cavs' issue was injuries.
If you look at as Thinking Basketball describes, "Healthy," offenses (when all 25-minute per game players were in action),
The 2016 Cavs had a rORTG of +9.1 during the RS. That figure is better than the 1991 Bulls under the measure who are at +8.8 when "fully healthy."
Djoker wrote:As we can see here, 2009 Lebron is a clear statistical outlier.
.
I don't really buy the outlier theory for 2009 when it's clear that 2010 before the elbow injury / however the season ended (which is a point that has been brought up by many) has an argument for being virtually the same player if not better. Both his box creation and passer rating increase, he looks better as a whole against more top-end competition across the season, and there's a dip that's correlated with injuries; Sideshowbob highlighted this in a breakdown from over a decade ago, feel like the intel from one who's gone in depth with guesstimated +/- and macro skill-set tracking with positive rhetoric for various players should hold at least *some* consideration to look into. I've also seen people push-back and mention that facing the Celtics in 2010 is another proof of concept of outlier-level play.. but I'm not exactly sure how much I buy into that as well - given 2008 was before a breakout year and in 2009/10 - he fared very well in general against a Boston team that seemed to have his number.
SideshowBob wrote:I know I haven't really participated in any discussion prior to this, but I want to chime in here. Why indeed, is 2010 Lebron not being included? If this is a comparison of peaks and its been clear that we're trying to go beyond something as simple as just a "most successful season" list, then why exclude what might just be Lebron at his absolute best (IMO his strongest regular season), even if the playoffs were underwhelming. Allow me to present the case.
The Cavaliers finish with a 61-21 record and a 6.19 SRS, both down from the previous year, though it should be noted that the roster was riddled with absences and injuries throughout the season. Williams plays 69 games as opposed to 81, West misses 20 games in the early season, Shaq misses 29 games and posed further issues by never fitting into Cleveland's offensive system very well (of the 10 best offensive lineups Cleveland ran that year with >40MP, Shaq was in one of them), Gibson played 19 fewer games than the year before, Ilgauskas/Jamison trade caused chemistry issues with Jamison struggling particularly to fit in on the defensive end (and randomly dropping off to a 50% FT shooter after shooting 70% in WAS an shooting 73% for his career), Kuester leaving as the head offensive coach, etc.
Despite all this, they managed to go 60-16 in the 76 games that James played (he missed 4 games at the end, which Brown at the time attributed to lingering issues but later claimed was due to his elbow, both of which, could be given as an explanation for his relatively inconsistent performance in the last month or so of the regular season), and using ElGee's In/Out method, were roughly a 6.89 SRS team in the 76 games James played in, putting up an ORTG of 111.8 (#3 in the league, +4.2). On the other hand, they went 1-5 in the 6 games they played without him (close win against the Spurs at home, 1 close loss against ORL at the dead end of the season, the other 4 were very winnable games, and its not unreasonable to suggest that they would have won 65-66 again had Lebron played, which would be a slight overperformance based on their +7 SRS w/Lebron), put up a -2.95 SRS in those 6 games and an ORTG of 103.6 (-4.0).
Taking a further look at just the offense, with James ON Court:
2009: 116.4 (+8.1, #1) 2010: 116.6 (+9.0, #1)
So despite the drop overall, Cleveland's offense with James on the floor is even more impressive than the previous year, which his ORAPM seems to support (+7.1). Let's take it further and compare the performance against top 5 defensive teams (Orlando, Boston, Houston, San Antonio in 2009 and Charlotte, Milwaukee, Orlando, Los Angeles, and Boston in 2010) excluding any games James didn't play in (and one game against Boston in which Garnett did not play).
2009: 106.5 (-1.8 LA, #24) against an expected DRTG of 102.9 (+3.6) 2010: 108.8 (+1.2 LA, #11) against an expected DRTG of 103.3 (+5.5)
So what I see here is a Lebron who's running an offense even better than the year before, despite having less/weaker talent to work with. The roster was frequently changing around him, he was asked to play far more roles in various lineups and he managed to adjust and perform better than he had before.
The most evident example of this, of course, was the extended stretch at the end of January 2010 and through February 2010 where Williams missed significant time and Lebron was thrust into the De-Facto PG position. Looking purely from a box-score perspective, over this 11 game stretch James put up 31.0/6.6/10.5 on 61.8% TS with 3.8 TO. Taking it further, Cleveland posted a 115.5 ORTG (+7.9 LA) over this period, which would be tied with Nash's Suns for the best offense in the league. So not only is he able to take on the larger scoring load and creation load due to the loss of the team's secondary ball handler and playmaker, he's able to do so while effectively IMPROVING the offense and while IMPROVING his own efficiency.
Getting into the box-score, James' individual numbers look better: 30/7/9 on 60% TS (+7.1 ORAPM, +2.6 DRAPM, +9.8 overall) in 2010 vs 28/8/7 on 59% TS (+6.6 ORAPM, +2.8 DRAPM, +9.3 overall) in 2009. Prior to the mid-late March injury (whatever caused him to miss the 4 games at the end of the season), even his PER was higher than the 31.1 he finished with, somewhere above 32.0 which would be ahead of his 31.7 from 2009. I don't like putting much stock into "clutch" numbers, but I know colts has been stressing those in his posts for 2009, so again 66/16/8 on 63% TS (+37 overall) in 2010 vs 56/14/13 on 69% TS (+45 overall) in 2009.
So with all that in mind, I just don't see how Lebron's 2009 regular season at least could be considered superior to his 2010 regular season. While the 09 Cavs certainly maintained a consistently higher level of play, it seems that the 2010 Cavs were dropping off to a much lower level when James was off the floor, and thus even a greater level of lift from him would not propel their numbers to match 2009 overall (thought they were arguably even better with him on the court).
Now, the playoffs is where it gets a bit tricky. As far as I can tell, his first-round Chicago series was superior to what we saw against Detroit and Atlanta the year before (all average to above-average defensive teams) and this is DESPITE him playing far more inconsistently than usual (the elbow issue had already popped up in games 1 and 4, before the left handed free throw fiasco in game 5). Evidence, 22/8/7 on 53% TS in Games 1 and 5, 39/10/9 on 74% TS in Games 2-4. Watching that series again, in Game 5 I saw a Lebron who lacked full game aggression and exhibited a certain passivity that we saw again later in the Boston series. Again, evidence, after maintaining a 32% USG in the first four games, he puts up a USG of only 23.9%, taking only 12 shots, in a close game Game 5 no less. What would be the reasoning for that? Certainly after putting up 35/9/8 in the first 4 games it's not that he's not skilled enough to take on the defense. Nor is this Chicago team posing enough of a threat for him to give up, or lock himself out of the game due to not being mentally strong enough to handle the adversity. Is it really that far-fetched to believe that he could have been injured, and that this injury was one that could show up and affect his play one day and then not cause much of a problem another day?
There's documented evidence that his outside shooting showed somewhat of a correlation to how many rest days he had, specifically in the last month or so of the season and the playoffs. The elbow issue that he claimed to have would be something that effected exactly that, long distance shooting, so why is it so much more likely that he choked or seized up mentally or just wasn't skilled enough to cope with the tough playoff defenses, defenses that he was able to tear apart that very year?
So let's move on the to Celtics series. He plays great in Games 1 and 3, putting up 37/8/7 on 67% TS. Both games are in line with how he performed vs. Boston in the regular season (37/7/8 on 57% TS). Also, notably, BOTH games came after 3 days of rest and both were the result of strong outside shooting performances from him (barometer - 16/20 FT 80%). On the other hand, in the 4 losses, he put up 22/10/7 on 49% TS. All four were far worse outside shooting performances (barometer - 36/50 FT 72%) and un-coincidentally, all four came after only a SINGLE day of rest, as opposed to the 3 days he had before the good games. Looks like a pattern to me, one that could be easily explained by an injury that would very clearly hamper a jumpshot.
So at the end, it comes down to that postseason performance. The regular season, to me, clearly suggests that he was at a level above his previous 09 level, and the playoffs looked like they would have been the same story had it not been for the slip ups. I suppose at that point, it comes down to what you're willing to attribute the struggles to. If the faltering is attributed to the idea that he was a fundamentally flawed player who got exposed by an elite defense OR that he just had a mental breakdown in the face of adversity, then yeah, I can't really pick this season as his best one. But if you're willing to consider that he was actually hampered by injury, I think its perfectly reasonable to believe that he was better and more impactful in 2010 and 2009, and in that case I'm willing to pick 2010 as his peak year with confidence.
Using Goodhart's law, “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”, I don't think the exact /75 stat-line should be used to proclaim James an outlier when it's evident that 2010 has shown to be just as good from multiple angles (including prior to the last 3 Boston games come PS time), 2009 was a clear ramp-up from 2008 and before as (1) James just seemed more confident attacking and finishing (increase in FTR, FT%, Rim FG%), (2) became a better court-mapper which shows in passing efficacy and TOV economy [below is how Ben Taylor put it back in 2018], (3) took a massive leap as a wing-defender. Being at his physical / athletic peak, I'd say James checked all these boxes where not being as polished offensively as later years is moot ITO assessing the production at hand.
His game evolved over the years, and in ’09 and ’10 he increased his already large on-ball role, carrying two of the 10 biggest loads in history. His passing rates, always good, graduated to another level that year. As a result of his increased primacy and evolved court vision, LeBron’s creation rates jumped from about 11 per 100 to a whopping 14 per 100, just short of the highest rates ever estimated. In my sampling, his quality passes leapt into the upper stratosphere, reaching Nash-like frequencies with a “good” pass on 8 percent of his possessions.
You can't just dismiss the end to the 2010 postseason. And besides we don't know for sure that Lebron had an elbow injury. It's one of the many theories floating around including that Delonte hooked up with his mom, that he quit on his team etc. We don't know which is true but the bottom line is that 2010 PS Lebron is clearly a whole lot worse than 2009 PS Lebron.
It's also misleading to cite his team's 1-5 record without him in the regular season when four of those losses were meaningless games to end the season with the 1st seed wrapped up.
No one is dismissing the end of the 2010 PS. Do you see anyone considering it his peak? He simply was explaining why Lebron's results in 2010 might not be as good as 2009. Miami Lebron is clearly a different player from 1st stint Cleveland as he adds a bunch of weight, slowing his athleticism. I also think 2010 Lebron has a lower motor than 09 (09 was the 1 year that Lebron's motor was Jordan-like), as he was a worse offensive rebounder and defender.
Yet nonetheless, there is reason to suggest in small sample sizes, Lebron's floor-raising in Miami, could touch what he did in his last 2 years of Cleveland. When Lebron is the the main ball-handler, without having to split duties, he looks better.
Lebron certainly had more aggression as a scorer when Wade or Kyrie was out.
LeBron in the playoffs with Wade off the court from 2012-14:
▫️ 36.5 PTS/75 on 65.2 TS% ▫️ 7.7 REB/75 and 7.8 AST/75 ▫️ Led a +18.1 NRTG outside of garbage time (stats opponent and inflation adjusted)
And if you want a bigger sample size that has the RS:
12-'14 Lebron without Wade on the floor:
34.4 IA PTS/75 (4th Ever) +9.5 rTS% 7.2 IA AST/75 39.5% from 3 67.7 Points Generated (2nd Ever)
These teams were well served with Wade and Kyrie being there, but that's the point. Pretty much almost all players who heavily create their own shot sacrifice some scoring volume for the good of the team in the long-run.
Lebron's scoring numbers look much prettier here than they do normally when he didn't have to defer as much.
Now you don't have to take the numbers at face-value, but it certain seems like Lebron's aggression increases when he can handle more.
tone wone wrote:Bigger fluke...LeBron's mid-range shooting in the '09 playoffs or Jordan's passing in the '91 playoffs?
Jordan's AST% in the 91 playoffs was right in line with with the previous two postseasons.
I was speaking more on the actual reads instead of assists numbers. But even still, he never approached that level of passing ever again. Why?
Do you have any concrete evidence that he was a much better passer in 91 relative to what he was, compared to shooting 13% better than career averages? I acknowledge that assists aren't everything, but to answer your original question, I think the answer is clearly Lebron's mid-range shooting. Shooting is one of the most variable things in the sport.
tone wone wrote:Bigger fluke...LeBron's mid-range shooting in the '09 playoffs or Jordan's passing in the '91 playoffs?
Jordan's AST% in the 91 playoffs was right in line with with the previous two postseasons.
I was speaking more on the actual reads instead of assists numbers. But even still, he never approached that level of passing ever again. Why?
I mean the --actual-- reason is that assists(and yes, passer-rating and box-creation) do not always track with actual creation. Particularly when defensive attention(something that increases the opportunities a player gets to create) goes down. Jordan was not playmaking as much in 90/91 as he was in 89, just like KD was not being asked to playmake as much in gsw when his assists matched steph(and yet his effect on teammate effeciency trailed kawhi). Reads becoming easier can off-set the drop-off in creation oppurtunities when the measure is largely(or entirely) "how often do you pass to the scorer". That's the kind of thing you need to actually watch, track, and analyze film for. A tough ask when we're debating "is jordan just lebron+scoring", ignoring opponent-adjusted numbers because they ruin our preferred narratives, and making up bull about how stats work
tone wone wrote:Bigger fluke...LeBron's mid-range shooting in the '09 playoffs or Jordan's passing in the '91 playoffs?
Jordan's AST% in the 91 playoffs was right in line with with the previous two postseasons. Lebron's mid range jumpers were uhhh... not in line with any surrounding years.
Lebron on shots 10 feet to the three point line in the playoffs. 07 - 31.2% 08 - 25.7% 09 - 47.8% 10 - 38.7% 11 - 37.3%
47.8% isn’t technically an outlier for his playoffs’ career and maybe not not if you add a few years after 2011.
lessthanjake wrote:Kyrie was extremely impactful without LeBron, and basically had zero impact whatsoever if LeBron was on the court.
lessthanjake wrote: By playing in a way that prevents Kyrie from getting much impact, LeBron ensures that controlling for Kyrie has limited effect…
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