RGM GOAT Debate Thread (Part 2)

[eminence]

My personal favorite apm length is actually 4 year, but anywho.

A drapm 'ranking' in the 40s/50s is perfectly reasonable for a big minutes non-big man to be considered an All-D contender.

Possessions played can't be left out of an award consideration. LeBron has always played a huge possession volume, sure there are some specialists who might provide greater defensive value on a given possession, but if they're playing 1/3rd the possessions LeBron is still providing more cumulative value.

Using nbarapm 5yr rapm, 2020-2024 (chosen as the most recent and to be a more middling drapm sample for LeBron - 55th in DRAPM in the league). Probably among LeBrons worst samples with this methodology due to his possession advantage dropping.

Possessions x DRAPM/100 to give an estimate of total defensive value over the period.
1. Gobert 1713
2. Bam 1674
3. Giannis 1414
4. Embiid 1280
5. Draymond 1233
6. Dillon Brooks 1192
7. Tatum 1132
8. White 1097
9. Jokic 1090 (a surprise to many I'm sure, but he is quite possibly the best defensive rebounder ever)
10. AD 1071
11. Lopez 1064
12. LeBron 1056

I would expect the ~12th most valuable defender over a period to have a couple All-D appearances given they aren't a strict center. Most notably '20 in this case (Kawhi has a worse case than LeBron, and Bam at forward was questionable).

It’s an interesting approach but I’m not really sure how you’re deriving these numbers. That website has “6-factor RAPM” that actually lists numbers of possessions so I’m assuming that’s what you’re using, but if you took LeBron’s 2020-2024 five-year DRAPM and divided by 100 and multiplied by possessions, it’d be just below 565, not 1056. I’m also able to find a whole bunch of guys you didn’t list who would also be ahead of LeBron (for instance, Alex Caruso would be at 658, despite much lower minutes).

Also, those possession numbers appear to include playoff possessions as well. Putting playoff possessions in the mix is defensible when comparing RAPM as a rate stat (though it’s not really directly relevant to all-defensive teams specifically), but it is pretty obviously not a fair thing to do if trying to convert a rate stat into a possession-weighted one.

I also think that weighting entirely by possession load is not really in the spirit of how people really think about all-defensive teams. Yes, it does matter for all-defense purposes if someone plays low minutes, but it’s treated more as a need-to-be-above-a-threshold thing. That said, I think there’s an argument it’d be a better approach if people thought of it this way instead. It’s a bit of a question of whether we want to be tallying up defensive value or identifying the best defenders—which can be subtly different things when people don’t play equal minutes.

Mea culpa (will go back and edit)

I have somehow wound up with LeBrons ORAPM and other players DRAPM in that sample (or maybe some mixed? - no clue). I was somewhat surprised at how good Bron looked there, I'd have to go back, but that'd likely drop him somewhere into the 20s.

I feel the approach given was already overly generous to high apm/low minutes guys (this treats only value above the defensive average as worth anything, where traditionally we'd assign at least some value to value at average - eg I think we'd all agree a league average +0 defender playing 3000 minutes was significantly more valuable than a +1 defender who played 10 minutes).

Including PO sample is notable but limits our public sources further.

[AEnigma]

This is a *really* odd assertion for you to make, when you recently spent a whole thread arguing that actually LeBron’s defense in 2018 wasn’t bad and that defensive on-off numbers from that season were not a correct representation of his defense. You analogized the situation to 2017 Kawhi having bad defensive on-off despite being a good defender. See here for a link to some of your posts to this effect: https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=112297694#p112297694; https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=112233482#p112233482; https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=112234133#p112234133; https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=112233752#p112233752

In other words, you yourself have argued that LeBron’s 2018 bad defensive impact data is largely just a product of negative noise.

Yes, which is an entirely different concept from what his plus/minus that year actually was.

And yet here you are acting like it is improper to have a larger sample that includes that year.

No, I am saying it is improper for you to transparently work to make sure it is included.

In other words, you just want to take out years with unfavorable variance

No, I want you to not make a deliberate point to only use samples including it.

—which will obviously almost certainly lead to a remaining sample that is biased in LeBron’s favor.

Career long trends are biased samples now.

It’s just shameless stuff and not even remotely close to serious analysis.

And there is the iconic LTJ projection.

(Meanwhile, you’ll find that your assertion that I said we must not include anything from 2009-2013 in a sample is objectively false, since I specifically noted LeBron having good five-year RAPM in 2007-2011 and 2008-2012

While also characterising that as a product of how good he was outside of 2007/08, yes.

but I suspect you already knew that your assertion was false but just couldn’t stop yourself from taking a baseless shot, perhaps due to pent-up frustration).

The frustration is evidently on the side that patently refuses to ever analyse the player in good faith and prefers to misrepresent him as a relative one-off defender.

Of course, the data I’ve outlined is not just a product of 2018 anyways. For instance, NBArapm does four-year RAPM, so we can look at what happened in the four years just after the 2009-2013 timespan without having 2018 come into the mix, and LeBron is 39th in DRAPM. He’s also ranked 28th in DRAPM in the four years immediately after 2018. And, by the way, we can do the same for the four years prior to the 2009-2013 timespan, and LeBron comes out ranked 33rd in DRAPM. These are pretty good rankings (albeit tailored to not include what is likely at least partly just a negative variance year, so it’s likely biased in LeBron’s favor), but they’re definitely worse than the spans he had that are all or mostly encompassed in 2009-2013, and are not indicative of an all-defense-level player (and the all-defense voting was also consistent with this).

Eminence already outlined the obvious flaw with this approach. Yes, Lebron peaked as a defender in 2009-13, when he was the league’s best defensive forward and more valuable than all but a couple of top tier bigs. But until this past year, that has never been the standard for all-defensive recognition for non-centres.

I think you’ll find that, while centers do tend to do particularly well in DRAPM, being ranked 39th or 28th or 33rd in DRAPM does not make you one of the four highest-ranked forwards. It’s still good, but it’s really not indicative of all-defense level, even keeping in mind centers doing particularly well compared to other positions.

Yet for some reason you quite blatantly refuse to list the names of those numerous forwards you feel would be ahead every year after 2013. You can have 2015-19 Draymond for free.

Indeed, I’ve even made a thread recently about how top-tier guards and wings often feature in the top 10 in five-year DRAPM!

“Often” is using a fascinatingly low standard there, and as multiple people highlighted, a good proportion of those finishes were from low-minute specialists.

You just don’t have a leg to stand on. Your arguments are: (1) to transparently lobby to exclude negative variance years and therefore create as biased a sample as you can;

Again, you are the one building your entire case around a single year so you can dishonestly paint as negative an interpretation as possible. There is not a serious data case against LeBron as an all-defensive-level forward in 2016 or 2020, but the easiest way for a shyster to undermine that case is to act as if 2018 must be a significant consideration as to his candidacy, so of course that is the route you took.

(2) even when that is done, to insist that LeBron’s rankings indicate all-defensive level for a forward when it doesn’t;

Yet still oddly no comparison to be found.

and (3) to rely on career RAPM numbers that you know are highly flawed and that in any event obviously are not on point in a discussion of how LeBron’s defensive ability ebbed and flowed at different points in his career. It’s all just obviously awful reasoning.

Hilarious. This is why I will never take you seriously: you are so dedicated to pushing nonsense that you live in a state of self-contradiction. We need to appreciate the ebbs and flows of defence… and that is why 2018 shows us that Lebron stopped being a laudable defender after 2013.

Long-term RAPM is not particularly pertinent in assessing a single season, no. Never said it was. But it does highlight the ludicrousness of your “Lebron only had five years” stance, and unfortunately that is not something you can try to manipulate away, so instead all you can do is ineptly throw up your hands and pretend it means nothing.

[Special_Puppy]

What's the best evidence that Jordan was a better defender than LeBron and visa versa?

[DCasey91]

It should be noted that the defensive impact metrics for his LA years are an obvious case of multicollinearity from playing with Davis. AD is handily the Lakers' most impactful defender since he came over. Lebron has been anywhere between slight positive and negative for the last five or so seasons.

Anyways there's little to no evidence from impact data that Lebron is an All-Defense caliber defender outside of 2009-2013 except for maybe the 2016 playoffs. His 2014 selection actually looks pretty suspect based on impact. And the tracking data shows that he generally doesn't fit the archetype of a high impact defender. He has very low defensive usage in terms of shots contested, in turn contests very few shots at the rim where a lion's share of defensive impact comes from, and has no rim deterrence with opposing teams taking more shots at the rim with Lebron in the game than when he's sitting.

2020 Bron in the playoffs don't care too much on data where it's noisy when it comes to defence

To my knowledge there isn't a great system in place as of yet.

[lessthanjake]

Yes, which is an entirely different concept from what his plus/minus that year actually was.


No, I am saying it is improper for you to transparently work to make sure it is included.


No, I want you to not make a deliberate point to only use samples including it.


Career long trends are biased samples now.


And there is the iconic LTJ projection.


While also characterising that as a product of how good he was outside of 2007/08, yes.


The frustration is evidently on the side that patently refuses to ever analyse the player in good faith and prefers to misrepresent him as a relative one-off defender.


Eminence already outlined the obvious flaw with this approach. Yes, Lebron peaked as a defender in 2009-13, when he was the league’s best defensive forward and more valuable than all but a couple of top tier bigs. But until this past year, that has never been the standard for all-defensive recognition for non-centres.

I think you’ll find that, while centers do tend to do particularly well in DRAPM, being ranked 39th or 28th or 33rd in DRAPM does not make you one of the four highest-ranked forwards. It’s still good, but it’s really not indicative of all-defense level, even keeping in mind centers doing particularly well compared to other positions.

Yet for some reason you quite blatantly refuse to list the names of those numerous forwards you feel would be ahead every year after 2013. You can have Draymond for free.

You can go to the various RAPM measures yourself and take a look at who is ahead of LeBron. There’s plenty of people. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an actual ranking list for the four-year RAPM measure that you insist on in order to bias the sample in LeBron’s favor. Which would make it extremely onerous to check that. So, just as an example, let’s just take the five-year RAPM measure I originally used (TheBasketballDatabase) for 2013-2017. This will include a year in that 2009-2013 time period, while not including 2018, so it is blatantly biased in LeBron’s favor for purposes of this discussion, but let’s go with it. We have a bunch of forwards ahead of LeBron, including forwards like Covington, Sefolosha, Kawhi, Draymond, Iguodala, David West, Jimmy Butler, Duncan, Pierce, Durant, Klay, and Serge Ibaka, just to name a handful. If we used a different RAPM measure or a different timeframe, the exact names would probably be a little different. For instance, if we looked at NBArapm’s “6-factor” RAPM instead for that 2013-2017 time period, we have guys like Draymond, Duncan, Covington, Sefolosha, and Kawhi ahead of LeBron. If we used NBAShotCharts RAPM, LeBron is ranked 90th in DRAPM in that timespan, so there’d surely only be more guys ahead, though it’s basically impossible to easily compile names given the form that data is in.

And if we instead looked at the one-year measures that lower variance by using box and tracking data, it doesn’t look better for LeBron. You mention later in this post that “[t]here is not a serious data case against LeBron as an all-defensive level forward in 2016 or 2020,” so let’s test that out with the most sophisticated measure we have for measuring single-season defensive impact: EPM. How many forwards are ahead of LeBron in 2016? Well, there’s plenty. Just to name a few using old EPM (i.e. not the “Expected” that is meant for projections), we have: Draymond, Kawhi, Millsap, Paul George, Durant, Crowder, Covington, etc. How about in 2020? Well, we’ve got the following forwards: Giannis, AD, Bam, Tatum, Kawhi, Butler, and Draymond (though he only played half the season, so maybe leave him out).

So yeah, you’re just wrong.

Indeed, I’ve even made a thread recently about how top-tier guards and wings often feature in the top 10 in five-year DRAPM!

“Often” is using a fascinatingly low standard there, and as multiple people highlighted, a good proportion of those finished were from low-minute specialists.

I’d definitely say it’s often when you can look at the top 10 in DRAPM in most five-year spans and virtually always find 1-4 of those guys there.

You just don’t have a leg to stand on. Your arguments are: (1) to transparently lobby to exclude negative variance years and therefore create as biased a sample as you can;

Again, you are the one building your entire case around a single year so you can dishonestly paint as negative an interpretation as possible. There is not a serious data case against LeBron as an all-defensive-level forward in 2016 or 2020, but the easiest way for a shyster to undermine that case is to act as if 2018 must be a significant consideration as to his candidacy, so of course that is the route you took.

Lol, you demand to cherry-pick out a year that you believe has negative variance (which we know you believe, since you have specifically argued LeBron wasn’t actually a bad defender that year), and I point out that you’re just wanting to bias the data by taking out as much negative noise as you can, but I nevertheless give you multiple time periods of RAPM that don’t include that year (including just before 2018, just after 2018, and just before that 2009-2013 period) and they still support my point, and so you just baselessly say I am “building [my] entire case around a single year.” You are not operating in good faith. It’s sad to see.

As for the part about 2016 and 2020, see above.

Long-term RAPM is not particularly pertinent in assessing a single season, no. Never said it was. But it does highlight the ludicrousness of your “Lebron only had five years” stance, and unfortunately that is not something you can try to manipulate away, so instead all you can do is ineptly throw up your hands and pretend it means nothing.

Long-term RAPM definitely doesn’t mean much in a discussion about more specific time periods, when we actually have RAPM data for those more specific time periods. This is exceedingly obvious, but you have nothing else to cling to so you sure are clinging.

[lessthanjake]

Anyways there's little to no evidence from impact data that Lebron is an All-Defense caliber defender outside of 2009-2013 except for maybe the 2016 playoffs. His 2014 selection actually looks pretty suspect based on impact. And the tracking data shows that he generally doesn't fit the archetype of a high impact defender. He has very low defensive usage in terms of shots contested, in turn contests very few shots at the rim where a lion's share of defensive impact comes from, and has no rim deterrence with opposing teams taking more shots at the rim with Lebron in the game than when he's sitting.

This is an important point. There’s a contingent of people here who like to act like LeBron was some major rim protector, but we actually have data on rim contests from 2013-14 onwards, and LeBron really didn’t contest shots at the rim very often. He was well below league average in that regard. He tended to reduce people’s FG% when he did contest at the rim, so he was a positive when he did it, but there’s only so much value you can derive from this when you’re contesting at the rim so little.

[Iwasawitness]

Anyways there's little to no evidence from impact data that Lebron is an All-Defense caliber defender outside of 2009-2013 except for maybe the 2016 playoffs. His 2014 selection actually looks pretty suspect based on impact. And the tracking data shows that he generally doesn't fit the archetype of a high impact defender. He has very low defensive usage in terms of shots contested, in turn contests very few shots at the rim where a lion's share of defensive impact comes from, and has no rim deterrence with opposing teams taking more shots at the rim with Lebron in the game than when he's sitting.

This is an important point. There’s a contingent of people here who like to act like LeBron was some major rim protector, but we actually have data on rim contests from 2013-14 onwards, and LeBron really didn’t contest shots at the rim very often. He was well below league average in that regard. He tended to reduce people’s FG% when he did contest at the rim, so he was a positive when he did it, but there’s only so much value you can derive from this when you’re contesting at the rim so little.

I can remember Cleveland fans who didn’t pay any attention to Miami when LeBron went there at the time being completely baffled when LeBron returned to the team and they saw him play defense. A lot of them remembered LeBron being one of the best defensive players in the league during his last two years in Cleveland and wondered what the hell happened. I had to explain to multiple people at the time that he just doesn’t play that end anymore and that there isn’t anything wrong with him.

With that said, what LeBron did defensively in those 2016 finals was something special.

[AEnigma]

I think you’ll find that, while centers do tend to do particularly well in DRAPM, being ranked 39th or 28th or 33rd in DRAPM does not make you one of the four highest-ranked forwards. It’s still good, but it’s really not indicative of all-defense level, even keeping in mind centers doing particularly well compared to other positions.

Yet for some reason you quite blatantly refuse to list the names of those numerous forwards you feel would be ahead every year after 2013. You can have Draymond for free.

You can go to the various RAPM measures yourself and take a look at who is ahead of LeBron. There’s plenty of people. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an actual ranking list for the four-year RAPM measure that you insist on in order to bias the sample in LeBron’s favor.

The only one insisting on arbitrary spans is you lol.

Which would make it extremely onerous to check that. So, just as an example, let’s just take the five-year RAPM measure I originally used (TheBasketballDatabase) for 2013-2017. This will include a year in that 2009-2013 time period, while not including 2018, so it is blatantly biased in LeBron’s favor for purposes of this discussion, but let’s go with it.

Blatantly biased… to what? What year? Why is replacing 2013 with 2018 neutral?

I know this is “merely” the General Board, but you could at least quarter-ass this.

We have a bunch of forwards ahead of LeBron, including forwards like Covington

Did not play in 2013, played 34 minutes in 2014, played under 2000 minutes in 2015/16, and played 2119 minutes in 2017. So exactly what years are you putting him ahead.

Sefolosha,

Averaged 24.6 minutes a game in this period while routinely missing ten or more games (and his minutes peaked in 2013 in both average and total).

Kawhi

Played 2030 or fewer minutes those first three years, then had famously bad defensive indicators in 2017 if you are truly committed to this argument. So give him 2016 and then what.

Iguodala,

Most minutes coming in 2013. 2069 minutes was his next highest. So which years was he providing more defensive value to his teams.

David West,

Fine argument in 2014, but minutes fell rapidly after.

Jimmy Butler,

Was still playing less than Lebron but at least now we finally have someone you could frame as a serious contender for basically all those contested years. Still, which years specifically?

Duncan,

Fine argument in 2014 and 2015.

Pierce,

2098 minutes in 2014 and went down from there.

Durant,

Lol, alright, which years.

Klay,

A guard, and also frankly his inclusion automatically calls that database into even more severe question for me.

and Serge Ibaka, just to name a handful.

Which years.

Lol, you demand to cherry-pick out a year that you believe has negative variance (which we know you believe, since you have specifically argued LeBron wasn’t actually a bad defender that year), and I point out that you’re just wanting to bias the data by taking out as much negative noise as you can, but I nevertheless give you multiple time periods of RAPM that don’t include that year (including just before 2018, just after 2018, and just before that 2009-2013 period) and they still support my point, and so you just baselessly say I am “building [my] entire case around a single year.” You are not operating in good faith. It’s sad to see.

But you are not arguing for them, you are just providing a rank over a time span and leaving it there — and then turning around and saying longer spans than five years are also irrelevant.

Long-term RAPM is not particularly pertinent in assessing a single season, no. Never said it was. But it does highlight the ludicrousness of your “Lebron only had five years” stance, and unfortunately that is not something you can try to manipulate away, so instead all you can do is ineptly throw up your hands and pretend it means nothing.

Long-term RAPM definitely doesn’t mean much in a discussion about more specific time periods, when we actually have RAPM data for those more specific time periods. This is exceedingly obvious, but you have nothing else to cling to so you sure are clinging.

Again: hilarious.

[ScrantonBulls]

The person complaining about poll, about Wilt not being in the first one, so I put Wilt in this one now they have a sook about Russell not being on the poll and thinks I'm trolling, wow just wow.

Mods if you want block this one start your own etc I'm not fussed I'm done here.

Just wow.

Ummm yeah, Bill Russell is one of the more common GOAT choices. Leaving him off of a GOAT list with 10 choices with inexcusable. Leaving Wilt off is a joke, leaving Bill off is an even bigger joke.

[michaelm]

The person complaining about poll, about Wilt not being in the first one, so I put Wilt in this one now they have a sook about Russell not being on the poll and thinks I'm trolling, wow just wow.

Mods if you want block this one start your own etc I'm not fussed I'm done here.

Just wow.

Ummm yeah, Bill Russell is one of the more common GOAT choices. Leaving him off of a GOAT list with 10 choices with inexcusable. Leaving Wilt off is a joke, leaving Bill off is an even bigger joke.

I am actually in full agreement with you on this. Sure a different era and a different NBA then, but in other discussions I have asked what exactly more should or could Bill have done ?.

[lessthanjake]

Yet for some reason you quite blatantly refuse to list the names of those numerous forwards you feel would be ahead every year after 2013. You can have Draymond for free.

You can go to the various RAPM measures yourself and take a look at who is ahead of LeBron. There’s plenty of people. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an actual ranking list for the four-year RAPM measure that you insist on in order to bias the sample in LeBron’s favor.

The only one insisting on arbitrary spans is you lol.

Which would make it extremely onerous to check that. So, just as an example, let’s just take the five-year RAPM measure I originally used (TheBasketballDatabase) for 2013-2017. This will include a year in that 2009-2013 time period, while not including 2018, so it is blatantly biased in LeBron’s favor for purposes of this discussion, but let’s go with it.

Blatantly biased… to what? What year? Why is replacing 2013 with 2018 neutral?

I know this is “merely” the General Board, but you could at least quarter-ass this.

I’ve spelled this out so obviously for you that there is no way you do not actually understand. Stop playing dumb in order to try to save face in an argument you are clearly losing. It’s okay. You chose the wrong side of the argument, and there’s no putting lipstick on the pig, so to speak.

For the benefit of others who may not have actually read the entire exchange: The entire discussion presupposes that LeBron was an elite defender from 2009-2013 and the discussion is about LeBron’s defense in other years, so obviously including 2013 biases the data in LeBron’s favor. Meanwhile, this poster has previously argued that LeBron was not a bad defender in 2018 despite impact data saying otherwise. This is an argument that the impact data that year is noisy in a way that hurt LeBron’s numbers that year. But, of course, over a longer timespan, noise gets reduced, so when we are working with a longer timespan, simply taking away a year that has bad variance for LeBron is very likely going to leave us with a set of data that has good variance for him on average. This biases the data in LeBron’s favor. So that is why it is very likely biased in LeBron’s favor to use 2013-2017 to discuss how good LeBron’s defense was in the period after 2009-2013. And yet, even then, when we did that we did not see data suggesting LeBron was an all-defense level defender, so all these attempts to massage data in LeBron’s favor *still* couldn’t get AEnigma to his preferred conclusion. But yet he persists—now by trying to halfheartedly argue against the mountain of individual players that have better DRAPM than LeBron in that timespan.

We have a bunch of forwards ahead of LeBron, including forwards like Covington

Did not play in 2013, played 34 minutes in 2014, played under 2000 minutes in 2015/16, and played 2119 minutes in 2017. So exactly what years are you putting him ahead.

Sefolosha,

Averaged 24.6 minutes a game in this period while routinely missing ten or more games (and his minutes peaked in 2013 in both average and total).

Kawhi

Played 2030 or fewer minutes those first three years, then had famously bad defensive indicators in 2017 if you are truly committed to this argument. So give him 2016 and then what.

Iguodala,

Most minutes coming in 2013. 2069 minutes was his next highest. So which years was he providing more defensive value to his teams.

David West,

Fine argument in 2014, but minutes fell rapidly after.

Jimmy Butler,

Was still playing less than Lebron but at least now we finally have someone you could frame as a serious contender for basically all those contested years. Still, which years specifically?

Duncan,

Fine argument in 2014 and 2015.

Pierce,

2098 minutes in 2014 and went down from there.

Durant,

Lol, alright, which years.

Klay,

A guard, and also frankly his inclusion automatically calls that database into even more severe question for me.

and Serge Ibaka, just to name a handful.

Which years.

I gave you people ahead of LeBron in five-year RAPM. Not all of those people will have been better defenders than him in a given year in that timeframe, but of course not everyone behind LeBron in five-year RAPM will be behind LeBron in a given year either. The fact that he’s behind so many people in five-year RAPM strongly suggests he was not an all-defense level defender in that span.

Of course, we are using five-year RAPM in order to reduce variance—five-year RAPM is generally considered the sweet spot in terms of RAPM timeframes (again, this is why things like BPM were tested as against five-year RAPM). But since LeBron himself may have actually been a better defender some years compared to others, I also gave you single-year data for the years you purported to identify as years that there was no data-based case against LeBron being an all-defense level defender. Not surprisingly, the single-year data didn’t support your claim either. Of course, you simply ignored that part of my post, in favor of erroneously asserting that I am “just providing a rank over a timespan and leaving it there.” I’ve given you far more information than that—and spent a good deal of time doing so—and you just ignore it and keep claiming I haven’t. This is bad faith, even for you.

Lol, you demand to cherry-pick out a year that you believe has negative variance (which we know you believe, since you have specifically argued LeBron wasn’t actually a bad defender that year), and I point out that you’re just wanting to bias the data by taking out as much negative noise as you can, but I nevertheless give you multiple time periods of RAPM that don’t include that year (including just before 2018, just after 2018, and just before that 2009-2013 period) and they still support my point, and so you just baselessly say I am “building [my] entire case around a single year.” You are not operating in good faith. It’s sad to see.

But you are not arguing for them, you are just providing a rank over a time span and leaving it there — and then turning around and saying longer spans than five years are also irrelevant.

I responded to this above. It’s just shockingly bad faith from you.

And I didn’t say spans longer than five years are irrelevant. That is just an obvious lie. I said five-year RAPM is better than 28-year RAPM. That is a very mainstream view to take, because five-year RAPM reduces the vast majority of the variance and 28-year RAPM introduces huge age-related issues. It is also transparently obvious that 28-year RAPM is not on point in a discussion about how good LeBron was in more specific timeframes of his career. You know this and yet are desperately clinging onto it like a life raft. But that does not mean that there couldn’t be other longer lengths of time that would be informative to this discussion. For instance, seven-year RAPM might be good. I tend to think five-year RAPM is better than seven-year RAPM because seven years starts to create age-related issues without much additional value in terms of reducing variance, but at least there might be an argument there and it wouldn’t be transparently not on point for this discussion, like 28-year RAPM is. We just don’t actually have RAPM for that length of time, so it is hypothetical. Five-year RAPM is clearly the best measure we have to test this. You just don’t like the results and are flailing about trying to muddy the waters. And when four-year RAPM was used instead to avoid the specific issue you complained (in bad faith) about, you essentially ignored the results, as you likewise did for single-year data in your chosen years.

Anyways, what makes this all the more silly is that the data is clear *and* it agrees with the actual contemporaneous perception at the time, as evidenced by all-defense voting. When contemporaneous perception isn’t on your side and you’re drowning in data that isn’t on your side either and are flailing around saying nothing of substance beyond being contrarian, then that’s a really good sign you’ve chosen the wrong side of the argument.

[AEnigma]

You can go to the various RAPM measures yourself and take a look at who is ahead of LeBron. There’s plenty of people. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an actual ranking list for the four-year RAPM measure that you insist on in order to bias the sample in LeBron’s favor.

The only one insisting on arbitrary spans is you lol.

Which would make it extremely onerous to check that. So, just as an example, let’s just take the five-year RAPM measure I originally used (TheBasketballDatabase) for 2013-2017. This will include a year in that 2009-2013 time period, while not including 2018, so it is blatantly biased in LeBron’s favor for purposes of this discussion, but let’s go with it.

Blatantly biased… to what? What year? Why is replacing 2013 with 2018 neutral?

I know this is “merely” the General Board, but you could at least quarter-ass this.

I’ve spelled this out so obviously for you that there is no way you do not actually understand. Stop playing dumb in order to try to save face in an argument you are clearly losing. It’s okay. You chose the wrong side of the argument, and there’s no putting lipstick on the pig, so to speak.

For the benefit of others who may not have actually read the entire exchange: The entire discussion presupposes that LeBron was an elite defender from 2009-2013 and the discussion is about LeBron’s defense in other years, so obviously including 2013 biases the data in LeBron’s favor. Meanwhile, this poster has previously argued that LeBron was not a bad defender in 2018 despite impact data saying otherwise. This is an argument that the impact data that year is noisy in a way that hurt LeBron’s numbers that year. But, of course, over a longer timespan, noise gets reduced, so when we are working with a longer timespan, simply taking away a year that has bad variance for LeBron is very likely going to leave us with a set of data that has good variance for him on average. This biases the data in LeBron’s favor. So that is why it is very likely biased in LeBron’s favor to use 2013-2017 to discuss how good LeBron’s defense was in the period after 2009-2013. And yet, even then, when we did that we did not see data suggesting LeBron was an all-defense level defender, so all these attempts to massage data in LeBron’s favor *still* couldn’t get AEnigma to his preferred conclusion. But yet he persists—now by trying to halfheartedly argue against the mountain of individual players that have better DRAPM than LeBron in that timespan.

My feelings as to what Lebron’s RAPM in 2018 says about his true quality as a player is immaterial to what his actual RAPM was or how that RAPM affects these five year samples to which you are so committed. And per usual, you think vomiting out a few dozen empty words will be enough to distract from the fact you are disingenuously trying to argue it has any real bearing on how good a defender he was in 2016 or 2020.

As always, you either have such a comically poor grasp of these metrics that you think otherwise, or you are arguing something you do not believe, and I cannot tell which is more pitiful.

We have a bunch of forwards ahead of LeBron, including forwards like Covington

Did not play in 2013, played 34 minutes in 2014, played under 2000 minutes in 2015/16, and played 2119 minutes in 2017. So exactly what years are you putting him ahead.

Sefolosha,

Averaged 24.6 minutes a game in this period while routinely missing ten or more games (and his minutes peaked in 2013 in both average and total).

Kawhi

Played 2030 or fewer minutes those first three years, then had famously bad defensive indicators in 2017 if you are truly committed to this argument. So give him 2016 and then what.

Iguodala,

Most minutes coming in 2013. 2069 minutes was his next highest. So which years was he providing more defensive value to his teams.

David West,

Fine argument in 2014, but minutes fell rapidly after.

Jimmy Butler,

Was still playing less than Lebron but at least now we finally have someone you could frame as a serious contender for basically all those contested years. Still, which years specifically?

Duncan,

Fine argument in 2014 and 2015.

Pierce,

2098 minutes in 2014 and went down from there.

Durant,

Lol, alright, which years.

Klay,

A guard, and also frankly his inclusion automatically calls that database into even more severe question for me.

and Serge Ibaka, just to name a handful.

Which years.

I gave you people ahead of LeBron in five-year RAPM. Not all of those people will have been better defenders than him in a given year in that timeframe, but of course not everyone behind LeBron in five-year RAPM will be behind LeBron in a given year either. The fact that he’s behind so many people in five-year RAPM strongly suggests he was not an all-defense level defender in that span.

Not when so many of those minute samples are not remotely proportional. Which again, either you know and dishonestly want to pretend should not matter, or somehow fail to understand.

Of course, we are using five-year RAPM in order to reduce variance—five-year RAPM is generally considered the sweet spot in terms of RAPM timeframes (again, this is why things like BPM were tested as against five-year RAPM).

Based on what, by whom, by what invariable rule.

But since LeBron himself may have actually been a better defender some years compared to others, I also gave you single-year data for the years you purported to identify as years that there was no data-based case against LeBron being an all-defense level defender. Not surprisingly, the single-year data didn’t support your claim either. Of course, you simply ignored that part of my post,

Why, because some of those composite metrics prefer Jae Crowder? If you care about year to year variance, why suddenly flee to composite rate metrics rather than recognise that Lebron is both accumulating defensive value in a way several others are not and by pure impact outpaced most of those names.

in favor of erroneously asserting that I am “just providing a rank over a timespan and leaving it there.” I’ve given you far more information than that—and spent a good deal of time doing so—and you just ignore it and keep claiming I haven’t. This is bad faith, even for you.

No, bad faith is when you select and frame metrics specifically and self-evidently to argue against a player rather than take a coherent position and assess the whole. Bad faith is when you go into every conversation with the intent to advance your agenda any way you can, rather than go in with an open mind and use data as a means of bolstering your own understanding — which is why every post sees you more rabidly talk about anything other than what RAPM indicates the more you start narrowing in on 2016 or 2020.

Lol, you demand to cherry-pick out a year that you believe has negative variance (which we know you believe, since you have specifically argued LeBron wasn’t actually a bad defender that year), and I point out that you’re just wanting to bias the data by taking out as much negative noise as you can, but I nevertheless give you multiple time periods of RAPM that don’t include that year (including just before 2018, just after 2018, and just before that 2009-2013 period) and they still support my point, and so you just baselessly say I am “building [my] entire case around a single year.” You are not operating in good faith. It’s sad to see.

But you are not arguing for them, you are just providing a rank over a time span and leaving it there — and then turning around and saying longer spans than five years are also irrelevant.

I responded to this above. It’s just shockingly bad faith from you.

And I didn’t say spans longer than five years are irrelevant. That is just an obvious lie. I said five-year RAPM is better than 28-year RAPM. That is a very mainstream view to take, because five-year RAPM reduces the vast majority of the variance and 28-year RAPM introduces huge age-related issues. It is also transparently obvious that 28-year RAPM is not on point in a discussion about how good LeBron was in more specific timeframes of his career. You know this and yet are desperately clinging onto it like a life raft. But that does not mean that there couldn’t be other longer lengths of time that would be informative to this discussion. For instance, seven-year RAPM might be good. I tend to think five-year RAPM is better than seven-year RAPM because seven years starts to create age-related issues without much additional value in terms of reducing variance, but at least there might be an argument there and it wouldn’t be transparently not on point for this discussion, like 28-year RAPM is. We just don’t actually have RAPM for that length of time, so it is hypothetical. Five-year RAPM is clearly the best measure we have to test this. You just don’t like the results and are flailing about trying to muddy the waters. And when four-year RAPM was used instead to avoid the specific issue you complained (in bad faith) about, you essentially ignored the results, as you likewise did for single-year data in your chosen years.

Yet again, long-term RAPM is not relevant to a single year assessment and no one has said otherwise. Yet again, vomiting out several dozen words pretending that was the argument is not going to distract anyone paying even a sliver of attention. What long-term RAPM suggests is that you claim that Lebron really only offered significant defensive value in one set five-year period is a embarrassing delusion or a deliberate misrepresentation.

Anyways, what makes this all the more silly is that the data is clear *and* it agrees with the actual contemporaneous perception at the time, as evidenced by all-defense voting. When contemporaneous perception isn’t on your side and you’re drowning in data that isn’t on your side either and are flailing around saying nothing of substance beyond being contrarian, then that’s a really good sign you’ve chosen the wrong side of the argument.

Lebron was the sixth highest voted forward in 2016, measured up well with Kawhi in synergy data, and graded out highly in DRAPM focused in that year. You are the one making a post-hoc case.

[Special_Puppy]

Would either of you disagree with the idea that LeBron’s defensive impact post-Miami is roughly similar to Butler’s or Paul George’s or Tatum’s?

[AEnigma]

Would either of you disagree with the idea that LeBron’s defensive impact post-Miami is roughly similar to Butler’s or Paul George’s or Tatum’s?

As an average, I would not, although to be clear the only years I would definitely prefer Lebron over all three are 2016 and 2020, and as regular seasons I do not think either were quite on the level of 2014/19 Paul George.

[ScrantonBulls]

The only one insisting on arbitrary spans is you lol.


Blatantly biased… to what? What year? Why is replacing 2013 with 2018 neutral?

I know this is “merely” the General Board, but you could at least quarter-ass this.

I’ve spelled this out so obviously for you that there is no way you do not actually understand. Stop playing dumb in order to try to save face in an argument you are clearly losing. It’s okay. You chose the wrong side of the argument, and there’s no putting lipstick on the pig, so to speak.

For the benefit of others who may not have actually read the entire exchange: The entire discussion presupposes that LeBron was an elite defender from 2009-2013 and the discussion is about LeBron’s defense in other years, so obviously including 2013 biases the data in LeBron’s favor. Meanwhile, this poster has previously argued that LeBron was not a bad defender in 2018 despite impact data saying otherwise. This is an argument that the impact data that year is noisy in a way that hurt LeBron’s numbers that year. But, of course, over a longer timespan, noise gets reduced, so when we are working with a longer timespan, simply taking away a year that has bad variance for LeBron is very likely going to leave us with a set of data that has good variance for him on average. This biases the data in LeBron’s favor. So that is why it is very likely biased in LeBron’s favor to use 2013-2017 to discuss how good LeBron’s defense was in the period after 2009-2013. And yet, even then, when we did that we did not see data suggesting LeBron was an all-defense level defender, so all these attempts to massage data in LeBron’s favor *still* couldn’t get AEnigma to his preferred conclusion. But yet he persists—now by trying to halfheartedly argue against the mountain of individual players that have better DRAPM than LeBron in that timespan.

My feelings as to what Lebron’s RAPM in 2018 says about his true quality as a player is immaterial to what his actual RAPM was or how that RAPM affects these five year samples to which you are so committed. And per usual, you think vomiting out a few dozen empty words will be enough to distract from the fact you are disingenuously trying to argue it has any real bearing on how good a defender he was in 2016 or 2020.

As always, you either have such a comically poor grasp of these metrics that you think otherwise, or you are arguing something you do not believe, and I cannot tell which is more pitiful.

Did not play in 2013, played 34 minutes in 2014, played under 2000 minutes in 2015/16, and played 2119 minutes in 2017. So exactly what years are you putting him ahead.


Averaged 24.6 minutes a game in this period while routinely missing ten or more games (and his minutes peaked in 2013 in both average and total).


Played 2030 or fewer minutes those first three years, then had famously bad defensive indicators in 2017 if you are truly committed to this argument. So give him 2016 and then what.


Most minutes coming in 2013. 2069 minutes was his next highest. So which years was he providing more defensive value to his teams.


Fine argument in 2014, but minutes fell rapidly after.


Was still playing less than Lebron but at least now we finally have someone you could frame as a serious contender for basically all those contested years. Still, which years specifically?


Fine argument in 2014 and 2015.


2098 minutes in 2014 and went down from there.


Lol, alright, which years.


A guard, and also frankly his inclusion automatically calls that database into even more severe question for me.


Which years.

I gave you people ahead of LeBron in five-year RAPM. Not all of those people will have been better defenders than him in a given year in that timeframe, but of course not everyone behind LeBron in five-year RAPM will be behind LeBron in a given year either. The fact that he’s behind so many people in five-year RAPM strongly suggests he was not an all-defense level defender in that span.

Not when so many of those minute samples are not remotely proportional. Which again, either you know and dishonestly want to pretend should not matter, or somehow fail to understand.

Of course, we are using five-year RAPM in order to reduce variance—five-year RAPM is generally considered the sweet spot in terms of RAPM timeframes (again, this is why things like BPM were tested as against five-year RAPM).

Based on what, by whom, by what invariable rule.

[quote[But since LeBron himself may have actually been a better defender some years compared to others, I also gave you single-year data for the years you purported to identify as years that there was no data-based case against LeBron being an all-defense level defender. Not surprisingly, the single-year data didn’t support your claim either. Of course, you simply ignored that part of my post,

Why, because some of those composite metrics prefer Jae Crowder? If you care about year to year variance, why suddenly flee to composites rate metrics rather than recognise that Lebron is both accumulating defensive value in a way several others are not and by pure impact outpaced most of those names.

in favor of erroneously asserting that I am “just providing a rank over a timespan and leaving it there.” I’ve given you far more information than that—and spent a good deal of time doing so—and you just ignore it and keep claiming I haven’t. This is bad faith, even for you.

No, bad faith is when you select and frame metrics specifically and self-evidently to argue against a player rather than take a coherent position and assess the whole. Bad faith is when you go into every conversation with the intent to advance your agenda anyway you can, rather than go in with an open mind and use data as a means of bolstering your own understanding — which is why every post sees you more rabidly talk about anything other than what RAPM indicates the more you start narrowing in on 2016 or 2020.

Lol, you demand to cherry-pick out a year that you believe has negative variance (which we know you believe, since you have specifically argued LeBron wasn’t actually a bad defender that year), and I point out that you’re just wanting to bias the data by taking out as much negative noise as you can, but I nevertheless give you multiple time periods of RAPM that don’t include that year (including just before 2018, just after 2018, and just before that 2009-2013 period) and they still support my point, and so you just baselessly say I am “building [my] entire case around a single year.” You are not operating in good faith. It’s sad to see.

But you are not arguing for them, you are just providing a rank over a time span and leaving it there — and then turning around and saying longer spans than five years are also irrelevant.

I responded to this above. It’s just shockingly bad faith from you.

And I didn’t say spans longer than five years are irrelevant. That is just an obvious lie. I said five-year RAPM is better than 28-year RAPM. That is a very mainstream view to take, because five-year RAPM reduces the vast majority of the variance and 28-year RAPM introduces huge age-related issues. It is also transparently obvious that 28-year RAPM is not on point in a discussion about how good LeBron was in more specific timeframes of his career. You know this and yet are desperately clinging onto it like a life raft. But that does not mean that there couldn’t be other longer lengths of time that would be informative to this discussion. For instance, seven-year RAPM might be good. I tend to think five-year RAPM is better than seven-year RAPM because seven years starts to create age-related issues without much additional value in terms of reducing variance, but at least there might be an argument there and it wouldn’t be transparently not on point for this discussion, like 28-year RAPM is. We just don’t actually have RAPM for that length of time, so it is hypothetical. Five-year RAPM is clearly the best measure we have to test this. You just don’t like the results and are flailing about trying to muddy the waters. And when four-year RAPM was used instead to avoid the specific issue you complained (in bad faith) about, you essentially ignored the results, as you likewise did for single-year data in your chosen years.[/quote]
Yet again, long-term RAPM is not relevant to a single year assessment and no one has said otherwise. Yet again, vomiting out several dozen words pretending that was the argument is not going to distract anyone paying even a sliver of attention. What long-term RAPM suggests is that you claim that Lebron really only offered significant defensive value in one set five-year period is a embarrassing delusion or a deliberate misrepresentation.

Anyways, what makes this all the more silly is that the data is clear *and* it agrees with the actual contemporaneous perception at the time, as evidenced by all-defense voting. When contemporaneous perception isn’t on your side and you’re drowning in data that isn’t on your side either and are flailing around saying nothing of substance beyond being contrarian, then that’s a really good sign you’ve chosen the wrong side of the argument.

Lebron was the sixth highest voted forward in 2016, measured up well with Kawhi in synergy data, and graded out highly in DRAPM focused in that year. You are the one making a post-hoc case.[/quote]
Really enjoy your responses and breakdowns in this thread. Hope to see you posting in this thread more. I've noticed the same thing you talked about regarding bad faith arguments in his posts. I've just started ignoring them because of that and because they are SO freaking wordy. I think that's done purposely though.

[lessthanjake]

Bad faith is when you go into every conversation with the intent to advance your agenda any way you can, rather than go in with an open mind and use data as a means of bolstering your own understanding

I agree, but you saying that is…highly ironic to say the least.

which is why every post sees you more rabidly talk about anything other than what RAPM indicates the more you start narrowing in on 2016 or 2020.

This is a really curious thing to say, when I’m the only one who has presented data specific to 2016 or 2020 (or any data at all actually). I gave you a single-year metric that uses box/tracking data to reduce variance. As you well know, those metrics are generally understood to be superior to single-year RAPM, due to the huge variance in single-year RAPM. And this is even more the case when only looking at defense, which increases the variance. I also specifically used the one that is most sophisticated in terms of measuring defense. It just didn’t support your argument so you’ve decided to ignore it. Again, the bad faith is obvious. In any event, if we looked at high-variance single-season RAPM, we have LeBron at 41st in the NBA in DRAPM in 2016, but we do have him at 2nd in 2020 (all as per TheBasketballDatabase). So you’ve now found one data point that supports your argument for one season. The only problem being that it’s single-season RAPM (and for only one such season)—which is understood to not be reliable at all—and the more reliable data clearly did not support your argument.

Anyways, what makes this all the more silly is that the data is clear *and* it agrees with the actual contemporaneous perception at the time, as evidenced by all-defense voting. When contemporaneous perception isn’t on your side and you’re drowning in data that isn’t on your side either and are flailing around saying nothing of substance beyond being contrarian, then that’s a really good sign you’ve chosen the wrong side of the argument.

Lebron was the sixth highest voted forward in 2016, measured up well with Kawhi in synergy data, and graded out highly in DRAPM focused in that year. You are the one making a post-hoc case.

Did I miss something and the sixth highest-voted forward makes all-defense? Or are you just making another transparently nonsense point?

The rest of your post is basically just ad hominem nonsense, non-substantive filibustering, or you repeating things that have already been clearly addressed and refuted and that I’m confident any remotely non-biased reader would therefore never find persuasive at this point.

[lessthanjake]

Would either of you disagree with the idea that LeBron’s defensive impact post-Miami is roughly similar to Butler’s or Paul George’s or Tatum’s?

LeBron’s post-Miami defensive impact is not as good at Paul George’s IMO. I also don’t think it’s as good as Tatum’s but that’s closer than Paul George. I also don’t think it’s as good as Jimmy Butler from a handful of years ago, but it is probably on par with Jimmy Butler in the 2020s (or maybe a little better depending on the exact timeframes we’re looking at). And I think those positions are consistent with what RAPM data tells us.

[AEnigma]

Bad faith is when you go into every conversation with the intent to advance your agenda any way you can, rather than go in with an open mind and use data as a means of bolstering your own understanding

I agree, but you saying that is…highly ironic to say the least.

Not really. You assume I have an offsetting Lebron agenda because this represents the majority of our interactions, but I am not a particular fan of Lebron and generally do not care when people, e.g. the overwhelming majority of the General Board, prefer Jordan for reasons they do not manufacture (even if I may find those reasons superficial or otherwise unevenly applied).

which is why every post sees you more rabidly talk about anything other than what RAPM indicates the more you start narrowing in on 2016 or 2020.

This is a really curious thing to say, when I’m the only one who has presented data specific to 2016 or 2020 (or any data at all actually). I gave you a single-year metric that uses box/tracking data to reduce variance. As you well know, those metrics are generally understood to be superior to single-year RAPM, due to the huge variance in single-year RAPM. And this is even more the case when only looking at defense, which increases the variance. I also specifically used the one that is most sophisticated in terms of measuring defense. It just didn’t support your argument so you’ve decided to ignore it. Again, the bad faith is obvious. In any event, if we looked at high-variance single-season RAPM, we have LeBron at 41st in the NBA in DRAPM in 2016, but we do have him at 2nd in 2020 (all as per TheBasketballDatabase). So you’ve now found one data point that supports your argument for one season. The only problem being that it’s single-season RAPM (and for only one such season)—which is understood to not be reliable at all—and the more reliable data clearly did not support your argument.

I do not find artificial formulas to be particularly relevant “data”, no. Like I said, Engelmann’s data is far higher on Lebron in 2016 that your newest RAPM database of choice, and although there are not one-years available on the NBA RAPM website, Lebron being top ten in 2015/16 gives a pretty strong indication which way that year leans. However, if you insist on box composites, your newly discovered MAMBA goes against your narrative, as does dPIPM Wins Added. But you were never trying to be inclusive here, because the goal was not to take a measured approach and arrive to a conclusion organically.

Anyways, what makes this all the more silly is that the data is clear *and* it agrees with the actual contemporaneous perception at the time, as evidenced by all-defense voting. When contemporaneous perception isn’t on your side and you’re drowning in data that isn’t on your side either and are flailing around saying nothing of substance beyond being contrarian, then that’s a really good sign you’ve chosen the wrong side of the argument.

Lebron was the sixth highest voted forward in 2016, measured up well with Kawhi in synergy data, and graded out highly in DRAPM focused in that year. You are the one making a post-hoc case.

Did I miss something and the sixth highest-voted forward makes all-defense? Or are you just making another transparently nonsense point?

Do you think there are four objective best forwards every year which the voters in aggregate select correctly every time?

The rest of your post is basically just ad hominem nonsense, non-substantive filibustering, or you repeating things that have already been clearly addressed and refuted and that I’m confident any remotely non-biased reader would therefore never find persuasive at this point.

Yeah you always have respected our readers much less than I do.

[Iwasawitness]

It’s weird to see a well thought out debate on both sides between two users in a GOAT thread.

[bledredwine]

Jordan.