AEnigma wrote:Djoker wrote:AEnigma wrote:Respect the full shift back to vibes-based analysis.
Lebron’s teams had scorers and bad defenders (i.e. offensive players), therefore they must have been a better offensive roster.
Yet somehow, the 1998 Bulls offence tanked without Pippen. Somehow, the 1994 Bulls had a relative offensive rating with Pippen right on par with every Jordan Bulls team pre-1990, and somehow, they were then able to post a +8 rOrtg against a historic defence in the postseason.
To whatever extent we want to say Lebron’s teams had better offensive support in the 2010s, it never manifested. Lebron missed 18 games from 2011-14, and the Heat were bad offensively. Filtering for games where Wade played (down to 9), and they were still bad. Granted, Wade was only a superstar through 2011, but it is not like he was running good offences in 2009/10. Same story with the 27 games Lebron missed in his second Cavaliers stint. Okay, Kyrie only played 18 of those games, and they were better when he did… as a +1.5 offence (and of course the defence fell apart without Lebron acting as one of the team’s two or three best defenders).
Which leaves the question, what could be this mysterious 11-ring winning variable producing unexpectedly strong offensive results with ostensibly less “talented” offensive teams.
You accused me of using SRS (which I admittedly did use simplistically on its own) to prove my point so I gave you betting odds showing that the 2012 Celtics and 2020 Nuggets were not considered to be great teams.
Personally I care more about what teams do than about what people think they will do eight months earlier, and you already threw out SRS by making it abstractly about “great teams” than about any tangible cutoff markers. Is the move now going to be who performed best against which teams had the best preseason odds? Cannot wait.Using tiny WOWY samples without Lebron to make your point doesn't really work well especially when a large chunk of these games were late season games with seeding wrapped up. In other words, these were largely meaningless contests. Wade was still All-NBA caliber in 2012 and all-star caliber in 2013 and 2014. And don't forget Bosh who was also an all-star caliber player in Bron's Miami stint. Kyrie was also All-NBA caliber with Love all-star caliber from 2015-2017 and 2015-2018, respectively. Look up top player lists from those years and see where those players were ranked at the end of the day if you don't believe me.
To echo my last point, I also care more about what players do than about how they are perceived. Shawn Marion never made all-defence, but Kobe made it 12 times. Duncan and Pippen do not have a DPoY but Marcus Camby, Metta Artest, Marcus Smart, Gary Payton, Alvin Robertson, Michael Jordan, and Michael Cooper all do, and Kawhi, Rodman, and Moncrief have two. Rasheed Wallace never made all-NBA (or all-defence), but Julius Randle has done so twice. And Jamal Murray is not an all-star and may never be one, but I dare you to try to meaningfully distinguish his playoff production from Kyrie’s. This is not a real argument for anything.
I gave you odds right before the playoffs and going into the conference finals series. So it's not 8 months before.
Everyone agrees there is disparity between perception/accolades and real value for some players. The problem is when people swing too far in the other direction and pretend that it doesn't matter at all or doesn't matter in all cases. Of course Jamal Murray is really good despite never making an all-star game. But doesn't mean that all-star appearances are useless as indicators of player value. Or All-NBA teams. Or player rankings on NBA.com, ESPN etc.