therealbig3 wrote:ballzboyee wrote:How is this even a debate? Jordan was All-Defensive 1st Team basically every year he was in the league, including his final season in 1998 at or near his prime at age 35. Lebron not has made an All-Defensive team in 10 years or since he was 30-years-old. Lebron was still in his prime when he stopped being All-League level defender, and that is because he does not put in the effort on both ends. He deliberately chose to embrace a heliocentric offensive style of play in which acted as his team's main facilitator even when he had an all-star level point guard, so he has coasted on one-side of the ball.
Jordan is also a better lockdown perimeter man defender. Jordan's steal and block numbers per 100 are better. Jordan led the league in defensive DBPM twice, etc. Lebron has led the league in DPBM only once but that would have been Jordan's fourth best defensive year accordiing to that metric. Lebron second best DBPM score would also only rank good enough for Jordan's fourth best season. Jordan's DBPM peak is higher. Jordan's steal and block percentages are better. Jordan was a very aggressive man defender who made a lot of timely plays that impacted the game. Both Pippen and Jordan played very smothering style of defense in which they would attack the ball handler at all levels of the court, including full court. There are so many examples of Jordan and Pippen trapping the ball early in an offensive set. Jordan was a master at ball pressure and generating steals in routine situations against very good ball handlers.
I guess you could argue that because of Lebron's size he has more utility as a post defender, but Lebron played in a era in which the opposing offensive best player has typically been a perimeter scorer. Just look at the teams that have been Lebron's rival of the years... Paul George, Paul Pierce, Dirk, Spurs with Manu and Kawhi, and the GSW with Curry, Durant, and Klay. Anyway, there was no way Lebron could play man defense against a true center like Jokic or Duncan in the post in the playoffs. He's big but he not that big, and coaches don't typically like to get their players in foul trouble like that. Those guys would just hammer Lebron in the post. He's still too small. It's just sort of a moot hypothetical assertion to claim that he is capable of that kind of defensive versatility in games that actually matter. Also, as a bigger perimeter defender, Lebron is susceptible to switches against smaller, quicker guards. Size comes with its disadvantages also.
I’d say that LeBron didn’t get reputation All-D selections like Jordan and Kobe did, even when he was worthy of it. I thought he was excellent defensively in 2020 for example.
“Stocks” are a really poor way to measure defense, and by extension so is DPM, since it’s based on the box score. We have actual +/- data that shows LeBron being an outstanding historically good wing defender throughout his prime, ESPECIALLY in the playoffs. We also have evidence that the box score stats were severely overinflated for Jordan in order to make him look good and help him get that DPOY in 1988.
As defenders, Jordan was much more of a high risk high reward defender who fortunately had excellent defenders flanking him. LeBron is much more fundamentally sound and actually anchors his team and directs his teammates. He diagnoses what the offense is doing and subsequently blows it up. He’s bigger and stronger and far more versatile than Jordan. It’s not just about man defense or box score stats. He’s capable of switching onto bigger players and battling them for position and grabbing rebounds. He’s more of a rim deterrent just because of his size and strength. And as far as his perimeter defense, pretty much it’s just the small quick guards that could attack LeBron better than Jordan…and yet, Westbrook, Rose, and Parker all struggled against him. As did Curry. He didn’t really give up much while anchoring his teams’ defense AND being a much better defender against bigger and stronger players.
LeBron has been far more deserving of a DPOY than Jordan ever was as far as actual defensive impact is concerned. His teams fell apart defensively without him, in the playoffs especially. Jordan’s teams didn’t have that happen.
I totally agree that BPM and its derivatives are fairly crude from the standpoint of interpretation, but when used with a large enough sample size it is as good as any other metric, I guess. All advanced stats are somewhat flawed because they are ultimately just stats reinterpreting other stats, so they are one or two times removed from what actually takes place on the court. BPM got totally reworked after Westbrook essentially exposed BPM's flaws of over-counting the importance of routine plays like uncontested defensive rebounds. I still believe that BPM overrates the importance of perimeter assists such as outlets to corner 3's, etc. Like uncontested defensive rebounds, these are often pretty generic plays that the average NBA starter should make.
However, it does give us a baseline of how a player performs compared to the league average from year to year, especially with regard to the regular season because there is significant sample of games. Playoffs is way too noisy and just gives some rather ridiculous numbers like Westbrook MVP season. The problem is that we are really talking about individual defense in a team sport, and it's simply impossible to compare players of similar ability and make a definitive determinations of value, imho. Jordan was a better iso wing defender, and Lebron due to his size and strength was a more versatile defender who could cheat in the post or in spots guard the big on the floor. If you wish to believe Lebron is the better defender, that's fine by me, but it is really a question of taste and style in my opinion. For a wing, I prefer a full court ball stopper and head hunter like Jordan. Like I said in my other post, putting Lebron in the post to guard a legit big would get a coach fired, so what is the real advantage of being more versatile from a practical standpoint? Lebron can play free safety and have his overall impact, but there is the risk he gets mismatched against certain players. See Jason Terry in the in the Finals in 2011, for example. Also, the way teams use bigs to defend perimeter is way different now, so I am not sure that Lebron is unique in that regard as much anymore. For example, Boston will try to put Porzingis in all of the defensive action on the perimeter at times, but he also can be shot blocker in the post. This is a style of defense that teams employ today, so guys are guarding everybody now.
In any case, it is very obvious Lebron's career has been managed to extend it, and this means he has often not been engaged defensively as much he could be. This load management paradigm over the years has evolved to the point where Lebron is not even trying on defense anymore. Since he joined the Lakers there are so many examples of Lebron just being flat out lazy as a defender, i.e. getting back slowly or even just skipping the defensive possession altogether. To be honest, he wasn't much more locked in as a defender in Cleveland, but his overall talents allowed him to get away with some bad habits. This showed because those squads were finishing close to the bottom of the league in defense by the time Lebron left Cleveland. If you look closely, Lebron was a hot and cold player on defense through a substantial part of his prime. His last year in Miami he was a slightly above average regular season defender compared to the league according to his DBPM and DRtg. He goes from Miami to a Cleveland team that controlling for pace finished 18th in the league in defense the year before (average team), and his first full season there with a completely upgraded roster the Cavs finished 18th again. Overall, the team was better by about a point with Lebron on the roster, but saw no improvement overall compared to the league. In 2018 when factoring pace, Cavs finished ranked 29th out of 30 teams Lebron's last year. On paper at least that team was significantly worse defensively than the 2014 Kyrie-led Cavs. This is a 33-year-old Lebron who played all 82 games and averaged 36 mpg. There is no objective way to look at those numbers and conclude that prime Lebron is having some kind of all-defensive impact. I am not even going to discuss this Lakers run because there is not much to say. He is well past his prime, but obviously they did win a championship . However, it is pretty common knowledge that Anthony Davis anchored that team defensively and was the best player. The last three years the Lakers have either been average to really bad defensively, more so on the bad side I would say. Lebron has become a wreckless defender who flails a lot to try to make up for missed assignments. I stands around a lot too instead of trying make a play even when he is in position.
In terms of Jordan being a risk taker on defense, his team was generally top 5 in the league defensively all throughout the 90's and during his championship runs. In 1993 Jordan was first in steals in the league, Bulls finished ranked 7th defensively per 100, Jordan led his team in DWS at 5.2, and the Bulls three-peated. What's the problem, I guess? Almost all of Jordan's other seasons are similar to this pattern. This contention about his gambling for steals is basically irrelevant to the overall team success and winning. It's also a very subjective critique that in my opinion is impossible to really prove.
In terms of Lebron's teams with our without him and their defensive baseline abilities on-off, again... we are talking individual defense, but I think that stats really show that Lebron's impact has been hit and miss, especially since 2014 or so where his time in Cleveland was basically geared more toward managing his exertion so that the offense could run through him and to facilitate his ball dominance. The second half of his career which encompasses a significant part of his prime has not been overwhelming to say the least in terms of him being a defensive stopper and all-nba level defender. He's been very inconsistent as a defender throughout these years.Prime Lebron was a beast on defense, I admit, but no more so than Jordan. All things being equal, you have to defer to the Jordan's success on the court and his accolades. Jordan was recognized as the better defender during his career. Jordan was considered a two-way specialist. Lebron has not received the same recognition.
LeBron is 0-7 in game winning/tying FGs in the finals. And is 20/116 or 17% in game winning/tying FGs in the 4th/OT for his career. That's historically bad 
