Why did Lebron team defenses collapse so often in the playoffs?

[OhayoKD]

Lol, you just wrote a post saying “you toss 189 minute samples vs 2000 minute ones,” when I never did anything of the sort. Just because I said someone’s post was correct doesn’t mean I literally made earlier posts in a chain that that other person actually made. You can argue with Djoker about whatever it is you’re talking about there.

Uh no. When you decide to call everything a poster says "obviously correct" and repeatedly take shots at what another group of posters have been arguing("the sky is green!"), then you are absolutely obligated to keep track of the conversation. The fact you don't, and make these sorts of claims does indeed suggest a "hivemind" even though you've tried rather hard to pin that on others.

How about instead of wasting everyone's time, you offer a specific standard for what a "defensive anchor" ought to do since the conventional one most people here are using is apparently is calling the sky green. Or is this just you derailing yet another thread after the substance of the discussion did not go the way you wanted it too?

Was 21-23 brook lopez a defensive anchor? By that bar, Lebron likely(assuming you care about evidence) qualifies.

The burden is yours to be specific since you've decided to complain about everyone(per usual) who uses a term in a way which it is commonly used because it makes a guy look good.

Lol, okay no, I’m definitely not “absolutely obligated” to respond to attacks on other posters that are addressed to me as if I am that other person. To suggest I am is fundamentally bizarre.

As for a definition of “defensive anchor,” how about the definition a poster here once very succinctly gave to this very question: “A big that substantially improves your team defense, primarily through help defense.” (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=29190143#p29190143). I think that well encapsulates what most people would consider the term to mean. LeBron is not a “defensive anchor.” He’s a different type of player, and consequently he doesn’t have the type of defensive impact of a great defensive anchor (which the information provided in this thread is strong evidence of).

Well, as you and djoker needing to cherypick 180 minute samples or a fraction of the playoff series he plays in, he almost certainly has more defensive impact(at least over replacement) than --some--bigs(and crucially the bigs he has played with on sthree different teams)

However, we can meet in the middle here. For reasons seperate from how good he is, Lebron is, by a definition lessthanjake prefers, not a defensive anchor.

By the standard of
a. being your team's best defender
b. making defenses multiple to several points better than they are without you(across a variety of contexts with a variety of teammates)

Lebron is a defensive anchor. Is he "elite"? I don't know. But arguments addressing no one aren't really worth humoring anyway

/thread

[Djoker]

Uh no. When you decide to call everything a poster says "obviously correct" and repeatedly take shots at what another group of posters have been arguing("the sky is green!"), then you are absolutely obligated to keep track of the conversation. The fact you don't, and make these sorts of claims does indeed suggest a "hivemind" even though you've tried rather hard to pin that on others.

How about instead of wasting everyone's time, you offer a specific standard for what a "defensive anchor" ought to do since the conventional one most people here are using is apparently is calling the sky green. Or is this just you derailing yet another thread after the substance of the discussion did not go the way you wanted it too?

Was 21-23 brook lopez a defensive anchor? By that bar, Lebron likely(assuming you care about evidence) qualifies.

The burden is yours to be specific since you've decided to complain about everyone(per usual) who uses a term in a way which it is commonly used because it makes a guy look good.

Lol, okay no, I’m definitely not “absolutely obligated” to respond to attacks on other posters that are addressed to me as if I am that other person. To suggest I am is fundamentally bizarre.

As for a definition of “defensive anchor,” how about the definition a poster here once very succinctly gave to this very question: “A big that substantially improves your team defense, primarily through help defense.” (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=29190143#p29190143). I think that well encapsulates what most people would consider the term to mean. LeBron is not a “defensive anchor.” He’s a different type of player, and consequently he doesn’t have the type of defensive impact of a great defensive anchor (which the information provided in this thread is strong evidence of).

Well, as you and djoker needing to cherypick 180 minute samples or a fraction of the playoff series he plays in, he almost certainly has more defensive impact(at least over replacement) than --some--bigs(and crucially the bigs he has played with on sthree different teams)

However, we can meet in the middle here. For reasons seperate from how good he is, Lebron is, by a definition lessthanjake prefers, not a defensive anchor.

By the standard of
a. being your team's best defender
b. making defenses multiple to several points better than they are without you(across a variety of contexts with a variety of teammates)

Lebron is a defensive anchor. Is he "elite"? I don't know. But arguments addressing no one aren't really worth humoring anyway

/thread

I posted the ENTIRE regular season sample and the ENTIRE playoff sample of games that Lebron and Mozgov both played in.

I'm sorry but that's not cherrypicking.

Also when I post screenshots I post the entry boxes as well so you can see what I entered as input into the PBP search.

[OhayoKD]

Lol, okay no, I’m definitely not “absolutely obligated” to respond to attacks on other posters that are addressed to me as if I am that other person. To suggest I am is fundamentally bizarre.

As for a definition of “defensive anchor,” how about the definition a poster here once very succinctly gave to this very question: “A big that substantially improves your team defense, primarily through help defense.” (https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=29190143#p29190143). I think that well encapsulates what most people would consider the term to mean. LeBron is not a “defensive anchor.” He’s a different type of player, and consequently he doesn’t have the type of defensive impact of a great defensive anchor (which the information provided in this thread is strong evidence of).

Well, as you and djoker needing to cherypick 180 minute samples or a fraction of the playoff series he plays in, he almost certainly has more defensive impact(at least over replacement) than --some--bigs(and crucially the bigs he has played with on sthree different teams)

However, we can meet in the middle here. For reasons seperate from how good he is, Lebron is, by a definition lessthanjake prefers, not a defensive anchor.

By the standard of
a. being your team's best defender
b. making defenses multiple to several points better than they are without you(across a variety of contexts with a variety of teammates)

Lebron is a defensive anchor. Is he "elite"? I don't know. But arguments addressing no one aren't really worth humoring anyway

/thread

I posted the ENTIRE regular season sample and the ENTIRE playoff sample of games that Lebron and Mozgov both played in.

I'm sorry but that's not cherrypicking.

Also when I post screenshots I post the entry boxes as well so you can see what I entered as input into the PBP search.

You, having said "small sample on/off is meaningless", posted a 189 minute sample and a 58 minute sample and ignored several samples ranging from 1700 minutes to 2800 minutes including two samples which show how the team functions completely without the player in question.

You also ignored much larger samples for ben wallace who you claimed was the true anchor at the start of lebron's prime. In order to make the wowy sample more substantial, i included 2010 where big z's minutes went down and they added a negative in shaq and 2008 where lebron was not as good of a defender and Wallace didn't suffer a career destroying injury mid-way through. Despite that, Lebron still came out ahead.

Ignoring all those larger samples sbecause a combined 230 minutes outputted the result you wanted after complaining about sample size is about as egregious of an example of cherrypicking as it gets

[Djoker]

Well, as you and djoker needing to cherypick 180 minute samples or a fraction of the playoff series he plays in, he almost certainly has more defensive impact(at least over replacement) than --some--bigs(and crucially the bigs he has played with on sthree different teams)

However, we can meet in the middle here. For reasons seperate from how good he is, Lebron is, by a definition lessthanjake prefers, not a defensive anchor.

By the standard of
a. being your team's best defender
b. making defenses multiple to several points better than they are without you(across a variety of contexts with a variety of teammates)

Lebron is a defensive anchor. Is he "elite"? I don't know. But arguments addressing no one aren't really worth humoring anyway

/thread

I posted the ENTIRE regular season sample and the ENTIRE playoff sample of games that Lebron and Mozgov both played in.

I'm sorry but that's not cherrypicking.

Also when I post screenshots I post the entry boxes as well so you can see what I entered as input into the PBP search.

You, having said "small sample on/off is meaningless", posted a 189 minute sample and a 58 minute sample and ignored several samples ranging from 1700 minutes to 2800 minutes including two samples which show how the team functions completely without the player in question.

You also ignored much larger samples for ben wallace who you claimed was the true anchor at the start of lebron's prime. In order to make the wowy sample more substantial, i included 2010 where big z's minutes went down and they added a negative in shaq and 2008 where lebron was not as good of a defender and Wallace didn't suffer a career destroying injury mid-way through. Despite that, Lebron still came out ahead.

Ignoring all those larger samples sbecause a combined 230 minutes outputted the result you wanted after complaining about sample size is about as egregious of an example of cherrypicking as it gets

You can see my screenshots and the entries that I put in. How did I cherrypick? I gave the entire 2015 RS sample in which both players played and the entire 2015 PS sample.

That's literally the opposite of cherrypicking!

[PistolPeteJR]

One thing I’d add further to this. Given that, during LeBron’s defensive peak, we know LeBron’s teams virtually always were bad defensively in the business end of the playoffs, what does that tell us about what happened in later years that were after LeBron’s defensive peak? In those later years, LeBron’s teams certainly did do badly defensively in late playoff series, but it actually wasn’t quite as consistent as it was in LeBron’s defensive peak. So how does that make sense? People want to give the credit for those defensive performances to LeBron. But if LeBron at his defensive peak and with high-ranked defenses consistently resulted in bad late-stage playoff defenses, then why should we assume that LeBron outside of his defensive peak was somehow the reason his teams actually had some good late-stage playoff performances defensively? The more logical explanation is that the team just happened to do well for other reasons (whether that’s the other teams luckily being below their norm offensively, or coaching, or random shooting variance). It does not make sense to assume non-defensive-peak LeBron should get credit for his teams being good defensively in some playoff series when defensive-peak LeBron with good defensive teams consistently failed to be able to do that. The evidence shows that LeBron at his defensive peak was unable to create high-quality late-stage playoff defense, and so we can easily conclude he is not responsible for it when it did happen later. [Note: To a large degree, I'm parodying arguments that certain people here often make in other contexts, where apparently a team-level improvement can't be credited at all to a particular player if the poster happens to believe that that player probably didn’t improve in any way at the same time].

Bold is not true at all.
What do you consider his peak? 2012? 2013? 2016? Either one of these years, the team’s playoff defense was bad?

[lessthanjake]

One thing I’d add further to this. Given that, during LeBron’s defensive peak, we know LeBron’s teams virtually always were bad defensively in the business end of the playoffs, what does that tell us about what happened in later years that were after LeBron’s defensive peak? In those later years, LeBron’s teams certainly did do badly defensively in late playoff series, but it actually wasn’t quite as consistent as it was in LeBron’s defensive peak. So how does that make sense? People want to give the credit for those defensive performances to LeBron. But if LeBron at his defensive peak and with high-ranked defenses consistently resulted in bad late-stage playoff defenses, then why should we assume that LeBron outside of his defensive peak was somehow the reason his teams actually had some good late-stage playoff performances defensively? The more logical explanation is that the team just happened to do well for other reasons (whether that’s the other teams luckily being below their norm offensively, or coaching, or random shooting variance). It does not make sense to assume non-defensive-peak LeBron should get credit for his teams being good defensively in some playoff series when defensive-peak LeBron with good defensive teams consistently failed to be able to do that. The evidence shows that LeBron at his defensive peak was unable to create high-quality late-stage playoff defense, and so we can easily conclude he is not responsible for it when it did happen later. [Note: To a large degree, I'm parodying arguments that certain people here often make in other contexts, where apparently a team-level improvement can't be credited at all to a particular player if the poster happens to believe that that player probably didn’t improve in any way at the same time].

Bold is not true at all.
What do you consider his peak? 2012? 2013? 2016? Either one of these years, the team’s playoff defense was bad?

2009 to 2014. I can honestly say that if, before reading this thread, someone had asked me what LeBron’s defensive peak years were, those are the years I’d have said. I also think they’re the years most people would say (and also, by the way, it’s the timespan he did best in DPOY voting too). But, during those years, LeBron’s teams had a worse-than-average rDRTG in all but one playoff series in the business end of the playoffs (i.e. conference finals and finals, and we could also count the one conference semifinals they lost in if we want). In other words, LeBron’s teams were consistently a bad defense in the business end of the playoffs in the years that I think are generally considered his defensive peak. So I think the statement you bolded was absolutely true.

[OhayoKD]

One thing I’d add further to this. Given that, during LeBron’s defensive peak, we know LeBron’s teams virtually always were bad defensively in the business end of the playoffs, what does that tell us about what happened in later years that were after LeBron’s defensive peak? In those later years, LeBron’s teams certainly did do badly defensively in late playoff series, but it actually wasn’t quite as consistent as it was in LeBron’s defensive peak. So how does that make sense? People want to give the credit for those defensive performances to LeBron. But if LeBron at his defensive peak and with high-ranked defenses consistently resulted in bad late-stage playoff defenses, then why should we assume that LeBron outside of his defensive peak was somehow the reason his teams actually had some good late-stage playoff performances defensively? The more logical explanation is that the team just happened to do well for other reasons (whether that’s the other teams luckily being below their norm offensively, or coaching, or random shooting variance). It does not make sense to assume non-defensive-peak LeBron should get credit for his teams being good defensively in some playoff series when defensive-peak LeBron with good defensive teams consistently failed to be able to do that. The evidence shows that LeBron at his defensive peak was unable to create high-quality late-stage playoff defense, and so we can easily conclude he is not responsible for it when it did happen later. [Note: To a large degree, I'm parodying arguments that certain people here often make in other contexts, where apparently a team-level improvement can't be credited at all to a particular player if the poster happens to believe that that player probably didn’t improve in any way at the same time].

Bold is not true at all.
What do you consider his peak? 2012? 2013? 2016? Either one of these years, the team’s playoff defense was bad?

They're looking at defensive ratings from the conference finals and finals and tossing out 2015/2016 because it hurts their agenda.


They're also ignoring that the cavs offense goes the opposite direction of a lot of these series because by the reasoning you're using it would paint Lebron as the offensive goat:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewforum.php?f=64

I only included the 2009-2018 stretch and only later rounds (ECF + Finals) except for 2010 where he lost in Round 2.

You know you have an agenda when you can't even be consistent with your own arbitrary thresholds and have to sneak in a second round +1.1 rDRtg as a defensive "collapse".

Anyways, looking at the list, only the 09 ECF and the 14/17/18 Finals stand out as particularly bad defensive team performances and the obvious theme there is hot opponent 3pt shooting. The +6.1 rDRtg in the 14 ECF looks horrible on paper but considering ORtg/DRtg sometimes get wonky for outlier paces (as noted in this thread of mine) and the fact the Heat had a +18.7 rORtg in that same series, it's a nothingburger.

And OP's proposed explanations don't even make sense:
a) If LeBron is so bad that he is only a "pseudo" and not the real defensive anchor of his teams, why is he the one blamed for the team's defensive shortcomings rather than the actual anchor whoever that is?
b), c) A team build being biased towards offense does not reflect poorly on LeBron's individual defense at all. That's a question of roster construction and considering his teams' overall success, it's not necessarily a bad trade off. But it's kind of obvious OP only brought this point up to downplay how good the rORtg of LeBron-led teams are.

and, crucially, they really have no buisness asserting whether lebron is an anchor or not as they have repeatedly ignored what those defenses looked like without him:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=108226321#p108226321

If you click the previous page two page backs, you'll see the two complaining about small off samples, and then using a 189 and 58 minute sample to make mosgov look like the true defensive anchor when three samples ranging from 1700 to 2800 minuites suggest the opposite(as such samples do about lebron and wallace from 08-10).

Simply put, it's a desperate attempt to make Lebron look worse. Best to leave it alone

[lessthanjake]

If you click the previous page two page backs, you'll see the two complaining about small off samples, and then using a 189 and 58 minute sample to make mosgov look like the true defensive anchor when three samples ranging from 1700 to 2800 minuites suggest the opposite(as such samples do about lebron and wallace from 08-10).

I genuinely don’t understand why you are insisting on acting like I’ve said things I plainly have not said. I have not “complain[ed] about small off samples” in this thread, as I have not talked about off samples at all. Like, ultimately, as far as I can tell, Djoker has had zero problem completely dismantling everything you’ve said on this stuff. And I suspect most readers will have no problem seeing the clear disparity in argumentation quality between the two of you. But I am obviously not Djoker. So you constantly explicitly saying I’ve said things that only Djoker has said, even after I’ve pointed out that I’ve simply not done so, is just really weird. Like, honestly, why are you doing that? And what does it say about your approach to discussion that you keep knowingly misrepresenting what others have and haven’t said, even after it’s explicitly pointed out to you that it’s a complete misrepresentation?

[OhayoKD]

If you click the previous page two page backs, you'll see the two complaining about small off samples, and then using a 189 and 58 minute sample to make mosgov look like the true defensive anchor when three samples ranging from 1700 to 2800 minuites suggest the opposite(as such samples do about lebron and wallace from 08-10).

I genuinely don’t understand why you are insisting on acting like I’ve said things I plainly have not said. I have not “complain[ed] about small off samples” in this thread, as I have not talked about off samples at all. Like, ultimately, as far as I can tell, Djoker has had zero problem completely dismantling everything you’ve said on this stuff.

My bad, djoker complained small samples and then ignored a bunch of larger ones which hurt his agenda. You simply championed him as being right about everything and dismantling everything after lying about what people have argued so you could justify tossing out 15 and 16:

Spoiler:

Me:

I don't really care how cleveland lebron compares to miami lebron. What matters is second cleveland lebron was an anchor on multiple elite playoff defenses. If you think miami was clearly better then in the right situation, miami lebron should have been capable of anchoring playoff defenses as good as 30+ lebron's while generating similar or better signals.

Jake

. Take whatever time period LeBron’s teams happened to have done the best, and then if you don’t think that was his peak

Except I didn't claim about Miami being his "peak", that was you:

One thing I’d add further to this. Given that, during LeBron’s defensive peak, we know LeBron’s teams virtually always were bad defensively in the business end of the playoffs, what does that tell us about what happened in later years that were after LeBron’s defensive peak?

[lessthanjake]

I genuinely don’t understand why y
My bad, djoker complained small samples and then ignored a bunch of larger ones which hurt his agenda. You simply championed him as being right about everything and dismantling everything after lying about what people have argued so you could justify tossing out 15 and 16:

[/spoiler]
Do you want to keep going?

Okay, so your posts literally consistently break this website, but the bottom line is that you can’t just keep explicitly claiming I’ve said things that I didn’t say just because I’ve expressed general agreement with the posts of someone who did say those things. This is just like very basic rules of human interaction that I think all humans agree on if they’re acting in good faith. It doesn’t actually matter in any substantive way, but your insistence on attributing to me things you know I didn’t say is just fundamentally bizarre. I don’t know why you’re doing it over and over, and I do think that you doing so perhaps is indicative of a level of flailing around that reflects on how the discussion is going for you and your agenda.

[OhayoKD]

[/spoiler]
Do you want to keep going?

Okay, so your posts literally consistently break this website

Yes, that is what consistently means,

, but the bottom line is that you can’t just keep explicitly claiming I’ve said things that I didn’t say just because I said that I agree with the posts of someone who did say those things.

I claimed it once and acknowledged the mistake. Though I am confused why you are so shook about this when you seem to think djoker was correct to think 180 minutes>2800

This is just like very basic rules of human interaction that I think all humans agree on if they’re acting in good faith.

Dawg, you don't even know who message boards work

It doesn’t actually matter in any substantive way, but your insistence on attributing to me things you know I didn’t say is just fundamentally bizarre. I don’t know why you’re doing it over and over, and I do think that you doing so perhaps is a result of a level of flailing around that reflects on how the discussion is going for you.

Good faith is when you lie about what people say, are caught lying, and proceed to insist you are definitely right while trying to lecture posters about human interaction.

You are aware that the overton window has shifted agaisnt the guys you champions since you got here? Ever wonder how and why that keeps happening...

[lessthanjake]

[/spoiler]
Do you want to keep going?

Okay, so your posts literally consistently break this website

Yes, that is what consistently means,

, but the bottom line is that you can’t just keep explicitly claiming I’ve said things that I didn’t say just because I said that I agree with the posts of someone who did say those things.

I claimed it once and acknowledged the mistake. Though I am confused why you are so shook about this when you seem to think djoker was correct to think 180 minutes>2800

This is just like very basic rules of human interaction that I think all humans agree on if they’re acting in good faith.

Dawg, you don't even know who message boards work

It doesn’t actually matter in any substantive way, but your insistence on attributing to me things you know I didn’t say is just fundamentally bizarre. I don’t know why you’re doing it over and over, and I do think that you doing so perhaps is a result of a level of flailing around that reflects on how the discussion is going for you.

Good faith is when you lie about what people say, are caught lying, and proceed to insist you are definitely right while trying to lecture posters about human interaction.

You are aware that the overton window has shifted agaisnt the guys you champions since you got here? Ever wonder how and why that keeps happening...

LOL, the overton window has not moved on anything. You seem to think your posting or my posting has *way* more of an impact than it does. You’re screaming endlessly into the void, buddy. This is an extremely small community of people, and even within this tiny community, peoples’ views have not changed virtually at all on the issues we’ve discussed in the last few months, and to whatever extent they have it’s highly unlikely that it’s because of any posting you or I have done. The main thing that changes discourse in the PC board is just who is actually posting. The idea that you’ve been so successful in your arguments that the overton window has moved is just self-aggrandizing nonsense.

Anyways, the idea that you “claimed it once and acknowledged the mistake” is absurd when you both didn’t acknowledge the mistake the first time (instead insisting it was totally valid to have done so) and then just promptly did it again now. Ah well. It doesn’t actually substantively matter to the discussion. It’s just very bizarre behavior to keep explicitly attributing things to me that you know I didn’t say. Like, it’s just needless dishonesty, and I’m genuinely confused why you keep doing it. And I do think it’s a reflection of a level of frustration you must have at how badly this discussion (and perhaps other discussions) has gone for you. I’d ask that you control your frustration, though, and stop brazenly asserting that I’ve said things I never said. It should be easy for you to do that here, since there is actually someone who has apparently said what you’re talking about—all you have to do is just not inexplicably lump me in, in a show of weird frustration towards me.