Worst team that had the best player in the league?

[jalengreen]

Of the teams in NBA history that had the player who was the best in the world at the time, which team was worst?

(requires that player actually being healthy)

A separate question if you want to answer it is which best in the league player had the worst supporting cast in a specific season (so not evaluating the full quality of the team; the best player is excluded).

[FuShengTHEGreat]

62-63 Warriors 31-49 with Wilt

[OldSchoolNoBull]

FuSheng's answer above is a good one.

Some other candidates:

74-75 Bucks, Kareem played 65 games and they went 38-44, 0.25 SRS, +0.2 Net Rtg.
18-19 Lakers, LeBron played 55 games and they went 37-45, -1.33 SRS, -1.7 Net Rtg.

I don't know that anyone thought Kobe was the best player in the league in 2004-05(I mean, outside of hard core Kobe fans), but he played 66 games and they went 34-48, -2.32 SRS, -3.2 Net Rtg.

Also, no one thought Barkley was the best player in the league in 1988 when MJ and Magic were putting up MVP caliber seasons, but the 88 Sixers are worth a shout, going 36-46, -0.79 SRS, -1.5 Net Rtg while Barkley put up 28.3ppg/11.9rpg on 66.5% TS while playing 80 games.

[AEnigma]

I think it has to be the 1975/76 Lakers, but the 1962-63 Warriors, 2005-07 Timberwolves, and 2019 Lakers are the other teams I would consider: even though I do not think I would confidently call any of them the league’s best player in those years, being bookended by years where many would/should (1962/64 Wilt, 2004/08 Garnett, 2018/20 Lebron) makes it plausible, or at least plausible that they would be on a better structured team.

[70sFan]

Yeah, it's 1976 Lakers probably.

[eminence]

I'll throw an HM to the '56 Nationals with Schayes.

[Verticality]

Must be 76 Los Angekes Lakers. Missed the playoffs with the Most Valuable Player

[MiamiBulls]

This answer will be 2009 LeBron James.

That 2009 Cavaliers squad was the epitome of Fools' Gold; sub-average role players being propped up by LeBron James.

[AEnigma]

This answer will be 2009 LeBron James.

That 2009 Cavaliers squad was the epitome of Fools' Gold; sub-average role players being propped up by LeBron James.

Not quite the question though because that team won 66 games and made the conference finals, so regardless of whether the support was bad (and unprecedented for a result of that calibre), the overall team itself still qualifies as great.

[An Unbiased Fan]

This answer will be 2009 LeBron James.

That 2009 Cavaliers squad was the epitome of Fools' Gold; sub-average role players being propped up by LeBron James.

That team had two all-stars and won 66 games

They just choked against a lesser Orlando squad.

2006 Lakers would probably be my answer

[Cavsfansince84]

No mention of 2018 Cavs and 2022 Nuggets? To me 2018 might actually be LeBron's best carry job even though he was mostly focused on offense and had the 2 weeks where he forced the gm to make trades. Because at the end of the day he took all those new guys, made them into a winning team and then got them mentally ready to go on a long playoff run. Not that he gets all the credit but 90% of it. That they won 50 games is just ridiculous. Also Jokic's season with g leaguers and still won 48.

[jalengreen]

No mention of 2018 Cavs and 2022 Nuggets? To me 2018 might actually be LeBron's best carry job even though he was mostly focused on offense and had the 2 weeks where he forced the gm to make trades. Because at the end of the day he took all those new guys, made them into a winning team and then got them mentally ready to go on a long playoff run. Not that he gets all the credit but 90% of it. That they won 50 games is just ridiculous. Also Jokic's season with g leaguers and still won 48.

I prolly made things confusing by asking two very different questions

Question A, the main question, asked for the worst team that had the best player in the league - an evaluation that should include the quality of that best player. Hard to pick a team that made it to the Finals for that question

Question B, the side question in the body, asked for the team that had the worst supporting cast around a player who was the best player in the league - so you're only evaluating the supporting cast. That's when it might be reasonable to include a carry job like the 2018 Cavs

I think most people are responding to the main question (except for maybe the 2009 Cavs mention)

[Cavsfansince84]

I prolly made things confusing by asking two very different questions

Question A, the main question, asked for the worst team that had the best player in the league - an evaluation that should include the quality of that best player. Hard to pick a team that made it to the Finals for that question

Question B, the side question in the body, asked for the team that had the worst supporting cast around a player who was the best player in the league - so you're only evaluating the supporting cast. That's when it might be reasonable to include a carry job like the 2018 Cavs

I think most people are responding to the main question (except for maybe the 2009 Cavs mention)

Yes but at the same time I think that one the better ways to actually measure question a would be srs and by that measure the 2018 Cavs only had a .59 which is even sort of far behind what the 2022 Nuggets posted. So even with the finals appearance that required a couple game 7 wins over so so competition they could still be considered I would say unless its Wilt's 63 team.

[Doctor MJ]

I think it has to be the 1975/76 Lakers, but the 1962-63 Warriors, 2005-07 Timberwolves, and 2019 Lakers are the other teams I would consider: even though I do not think I would confidently call any of them the league’s best player in those years, being bookended by years where many would/should (1962/64 Wilt, 2004/08 Garnett, 2018/20 Lebron) makes it plausible, or at least plausible that they would be on a better structured team.

This is a great starting point.

Kareem was the first guy to come to mind to me. '75-76 Lakers had Kareem for all games and went 40-42.

KG's '06-07 Wolves went 32-44 with him and 0-6 without him for a total of 32-50.

LeBron's '18-19 Lakers went 28-27 with him and 9-18 without him for a total of 37-45.

Wilt played in Russell's era.

So I'll say KG.

[Doctor MJ]

No mention of 2018 Cavs and 2022 Nuggets? To me 2018 might actually be LeBron's best carry job even though he was mostly focused on offense and had the 2 weeks where he forced the gm to make trades. Because at the end of the day he took all those new guys, made them into a winning team and then got them mentally ready to go on a long playoff run. Not that he gets all the credit but 90% of it. That they won 50 games is just ridiculous. Also Jokic's season with g leaguers and still won 48.

So I'd say you could call the '17-18 playoff run a carry job, but in the regular season, it wasn't. Unlike almost any other season in his career he lacked a big on-off that year, this despite the fact them losing Kyrie for effectively nothing. Further, when you see what the problem actually was, you see it was that played turnstile defense in the regular season, and did so particularly when LeBron was playing.

I would classify this was conserving energy for the playoffs, and it made the team look worse than actually was in the regular season.

'21-22 Nuggets is a good team to bring up, but I just think that it wasn't until the playoffs that Jokic's teammates completely fell apart. They might be the weakest playoff team to ever be led by the best player in the world.

[Doctor MJ]

This answer will be 2009 LeBron James.

That 2009 Cavaliers squad was the epitome of Fools' Gold; sub-average role players being propped up by LeBron James.

Can't be the worst to have the best player when it's clearly not the worst that particular best player played with.

[Cavsfansince84]

So I'd say you could call the '17-18 playoff run a carry job, but in the regular season, it wasn't. Unlike almost any other season in his career he lacked a big on-off that year, this despite the fact them losing Kyrie for effectively nothing. Further, when you see what the problem actually was, you see it was that played turnstile defense in the regular season, and did so particularly when LeBron was playing.

I would classify this was conserving energy for the playoffs, and it made the team look worse than actually was in the regular season.

'21-22 Nuggets is a good team to bring up, but I just think that it wasn't until the playoffs that Jokic's teammates completely fell apart. They might be the weakest playoff team to ever be led by the best player in the world.

Well at the end of the day this isn't about biggest carry job though. It's worst team for the best player. So even though we can definitely criticize LeBron's defensive effort I still think its a very weak roster. So that's more of where the discussion would be. A team where the 3rd best player was who? A 36 yr old Kyle Korver I guess.

[Doctor MJ]

So I'd say you could call the '17-18 playoff run a carry job, but in the regular season, it wasn't. Unlike almost any other season in his career he lacked a big on-off that year, this despite the fact them losing Kyrie for effectively nothing. Further, when you see what the problem actually was, you see it was that played turnstile defense in the regular season, and did so particularly when LeBron was playing.

I would classify this was conserving energy for the playoffs, and it made the team look worse than actually was in the regular season.

'21-22 Nuggets is a good team to bring up, but I just think that it wasn't until the playoffs that Jokic's teammates completely fell apart. They might be the weakest playoff team to ever be led by the best player in the world.

Well at the end of the day this isn't about biggest carry job though. It's worst team for the best player. So even though we can definitely criticize LeBron's defensive effort I still think its a very weak roster. So that's more of where the discussion would be. A team where the 3rd best player was who? A 36 yr old Kyle Korver I guess.

Right but the thing is: In the minutes without LeBron, those Cavs didn't actually look godawful, they looked better than they did sans LeBron in their earlier years.

And yes, to be clear, Korver was a significant part of that, and he continues to be drastically underrated to this day based on your comment.

Would I want Korver to be my high volume start carrying my team through the playoffs? No.

Was his game extremely well-suited to helping teams stay afloat in the regular season because defenses didn't know how to deal with the instant spacing he provided? Yes.

For perspective, here's the leaderboard of 2003 draft picks in terms of most times leading their team in +/-:

1. LeBron James 15 (the record going back to when we first got data in the '90s, and probably the all-time record)
2. Kyle Korver 7
3. Dwyane Wade 3

(Bosh checks in a 2, Melo at zero)

So yeah, with Korver on the team those Cavs were actually unusually poised to do well even outside of LeBron's minutes against RS competition, and people just assumed LeBron's supporting cast was hideous because they weren't a top regular season team. The reality is that they quite clearly could have been elite if LeBron were dedicated to doing so like he had been in earlier years.

[AEnigma]

Weird how all that incredible lineup success without Lebron — a 920-minute regular season bench sample where they still were being outscored — was absolutely nowhere to be found in the playoffs or in surrounding seasons.

This way of attempting to talk about basketball was outdated twenty years ago.

[OhayoKD]

So I'd say you could call the '17-18 playoff run a carry job, but in the regular season, it wasn't. Unlike almost any other season in his career he lacked a big on-off that year, this despite the fact them losing Kyrie for effectively nothing. Further, when you see what the problem actually was, you see it was that played turnstile defense in the regular season, and did so particularly when LeBron was playing.

I would classify this was conserving energy for the playoffs, and it made the team look worse than actually was in the regular season.

'21-22 Nuggets is a good team to bring up, but I just think that it wasn't until the playoffs that Jokic's teammates completely fell apart. They might be the weakest playoff team to ever be led by the best player in the world.

Well at the end of the day this isn't about biggest carry job though. It's worst team for the best player. So even though we can definitely criticize LeBron's defensive effort I still think its a very weak roster. So that's more of where the discussion would be. A team where the 3rd best player was who? A 36 yr old Kyle Korver I guess.

Right but the thing is: In the minutes without LeBron, those Cavs didn't actually look godawful, they looked better than they did sans LeBron in their earlier years.

But then those same starters opened 2019 getting blasted by 15-points a game and everyone promptly agreed it was time to blow it up...

Also this interpretation essentially suggests kyrie was a nuetral/negative impact rs player in Cleveland which...I guess is consistent with what happened in Boston but I'm not all too comfortable with.