trex_8063 wrote:To me, using the '94 Bulls in the without would be a little bit like using the '15 Miami Heat outcome in LeBron's without sample: they still had Bosh, Wade, Chalmers, Chris Andersen, Udonis Haslem, Michael Beasley, Norris Cole [for half the year], plus a couple other scant-minute scrubs from '14; same coach, too. It's as much the "same team minus LeBron" as the the '94 Bulls were "the '93 Bulls minus Jordan". So why don't we just add it to Bron's without sample?
Because he wasn't a part of that organization at all that year; just like Jordan wasn't for the '94 Bulls.
And if ONLY using WOWY data gleaned from the years within the span where Jordan was actually part of the organization [at all], the Bulls without Jordan were 35-37 [from '88-'98] (.486 win%), vs .736 win% with him; and the net rating swing falls somewhere closer to +7.
I do not think 2015 is rarely cited because of organisational absence. Generally people are going to notice when teams collapse upon an exit. 2011/19 are the comically glaring ones for Lebron, but we see it with Garnett and the 2008 Timberwolves, Durant and the 2017 Thunder, Moses and the 1983 Rockets, Russell and the 1970 Celtics (to be fair, they also lost a championship coach
), etc. And it is absolutely held against players like Wilt that the 76ers did not get
that much worse (although still going from a top two team to a middling contender) and the Lakers did not get
that much better (although now being a more serious title contender). It certainly gets held
against Lebron that the 2011 Heat only
improved by 11 wins (although more like 5 SRS); that is the origin of all the portability scolding!
The Miami fell 7-SRS from 2014 to 2015, which is true even if you only look at games with both Wade and Bosh, or even if you try to incorporate how they each had been performing without Lebron over the past three years. And 7-SRS is a strong mark, such that anyone looking for reasons to deny Lebron’s impact would be happy to leave it be in favour of focusing on the 2011 failure. However, it is also not one of Lebron’s stronger signals, so other signals are more easily emphasised by those seeking to do so. It threads a needle where it is too impressive to be held against him — as you highlighted, matching prime Jordan even when ignoring 1994 — but also not so impressive that anyone familiar with his signals is going to feel compelled to trumpet it, because it is still lower than his prime average.