falcolombardi wrote:f4p wrote:falcolombardi wrote:
Or more topical to the discussion at hand, we dont have evidence of jordan doing the very efficient scoring he did in 91 against actually great defenses either, as his efficiency fell off against high end defenses (see 88-90 pistons, 92-93 knicks, 96 seattle)
hmm, this is the second time you've referenced jordan's very efficient scoring in 91. what metric am i missing? his TS% is basically exactly the same in the 88, 89, 90, and 91 playoffs and in 91 his PP100 is actually the worst of the 86-93 stretch. he was scoring more and scoring basically as efficiently in years where he played those great defenses.
which is why i dont get why you sort of "penalize" 2009 lebron -who actually had a monster scoring series against a league best defense- for the possibility another team like 2011 would have made him struggle in 2009, but dont keep the same reasoning for the possibility that the 92 knicks, 93 knicks, 88 detroit, 89 detroit, 96 seattle would make 91 jordan suffer too
so first, jordan's declines against those teams don't really seem catastrophic, right? i mean it's a bunch of 54-56 TS% series on generally massive volume and a 52 TS% series thrown in against the 1993 knicks. i mean at some point that's going to happen right? and 32/6/7 on 52 TS% with 2.3 TOPG against a -8 defense in that 1993 series is what we're essentially arguing as like a "bad" series from jordan? that doesn't seem particularly bad on the scale of bad series. i mean if we throw in one of those series for 5 games in 1991, his 60 TS% goes to 59% and his volume numbers basically don't change? so maybe his overall numbers end up right around his already amazing 1990 season. give or take?
in the 2007 finals, lebron got held to 22 ppg on 42.8 TS% on 5.8 TO/G. that's a catastrophic offensive performance. in 2008 it was good volume at 26.7 ppg but down to 48 TS% and 5.3 TO/G. and in 2011 he held the TS% to bad but non-catastrophic levels at 51.6 TS% but his volume collapsed to 17 ppg and there was still 4 TO/G.
none of those jordan series compare to those declines. they just seem like what you would expect if you go from playing a bad defense to playing a great defense. yes it's nice that lebron was largely immune to this later in his career, but it doesn't seem to be true before 2012. early career lebron appears to have a much lower floor against great defenses, agreed?
2009 lebron got through 3 rounds of the playoffs and, against the teams he played, probably played the best basketball ever. but if, say, KG stayed healthy in 2009 and lebron had had to face the celtics in the ECF, are you sure he doesn't have a 2007 finals, 2008 ECSF, or 2011 finals in him? he just weirdly had this issue up to 2009, vanquished it for 6 weeks in the 2009 playoffs, and then it returned again for 2 more years before going away? even in 2010 he was only at 55.6 TS% and still had 4.5 TO/G against the celtics (yes, the elbow).
if 2009 was 2011 and the prelude to lebron's 2012-2020 run, it would look like a coming out party for a decade of ridiculous dominance. as it is, it stands as a stark outlier to surrounding seasons and look more like the most freakishly athletic/highest motor version of lebron managed to not run into a problem he hadn't quite solved, a claim back up by the fact it would pop up again in subsequent seasons.
Using bballref data
1991 jordan vs the declining pistons: 40 mpg, 30 points on 65% ts(!) And 11% turnovers is a monster series
1990 jordan vs pistons: 42 mpg, 32 points on 57% ts with 9% turnovers is a very strong series but a clear drop off is not it
1989 jordan vs pistons: 43 mpg 30 points on 56% ts, with 12% turnovers is good but worse thsn 1990 which was already worse than 1991
1988 jordan vs pistons: 42 mpg, 27 points on 55% ts, 13% tuenovers is solid but also unremarkable relatively speaking
Now what about jordan with another set of series in a row vs the same team as they get better defensively each year (aka the inverse of their saga vs pistons)
1991 bulls vs knicks: 37 mgp, 29 ppg on a crazy 65% ts (!) On a crazy 5.5% turnovers (!) In admittedly only 3 games which takes a lot of the luster off
So what happens when knicks take a huge leap as a defense next two years?
1992 bulls vs knicks: 43 mpg, 31 ppg on roughly league average 54% ts, 11.5% turnovers, still good but no longer a monster scoring series
1993 bulls vs knicks: 41 mpg, 32 ppg on 52% ts with a strong 7% turnovers, still good but again not close to 91 at all
This is a close to a perfect case control study as it gets, a player going agains the same teams year after year with the same roster around him to compare to, with the peculiarity that vs pistons detroit has a clear falling off year and knicks a clear breakout year
So it seems to me like he couldnt replicate his 91 scoring against better defensive versions of those pistons/knicks teams even in adjacent years with the same team context, aka a clear dropoff in
so by better scoring in 91 you meant against one particular opponent and not the whole playoffs? either way, jordan does worse against great defenses kind of seems like how it should be, right? i mean it would be weird if playing a -8 defense and a +8 defense resulted in the same numbers. but like i said and you didn't seem to respond to, jordan doesn't really fall off a cliff like the 3 lebron series right?
like 1993 jordan is a 56.4 TS% player in the regular season. the knicks are a -8.3 defense. back of the envelope says 1 TS% = 2 DRtg points. so we would expect jordan to fall off 4.15% to 52.25%. he ends up at 52.2%. his 24.4 Game Score is a 28.3 PER, about 2 lower than the regular season. seems like a normal drop for playing an ATG defense. seems like typical jordan, just against a great defense. does 22 ppg on 42.8 TS% with 5.8 TO/g seem like typical lebron just against a great defense?
1989: 29.9 PER, 60.2 TS% regular season. -3.1 pistons defense, expected 58.7 TS%, got 56.1 TS%, 21.4 Game Score = 23.5 PER vs 29.9 regular season. little worse than expected, limited a decent amount.
1990: 31.2 PER, 60.6 TS% regular season. -4.5 pistons defense, expected 58.4 TS%, got 56.6 TS%, 24.8 Game Score = 27.5 PER vs 31.2 regular season. little worse than expected, still huge numbers.
1992 knicks series: 57.9 TS% regular season, -4 knicks defense, expected 55.9 TS%, got 53.8 TS%. 20.7 Game Score = 22.8 PER vs 27.2 regular season. so a little bigger than expected fall but nothing crazy.
1993 knicks series: 29.7 PER, 56.4 TS% regular season, -8.3 knicks defense, expected 52.3 TS%, got 52.2 TS%. 24.4 Game Score = 28.3 PER vs 29.7 regular season. normal decline against even an average postseason defense.
Lebron
2007 finals: 24.5 PER, 55.2 TS% regular season. -6.6 spurs defense, expected 51.9 TS%, got 42.8 TS%, 10.6 Game Score = 15.0 PER vs 24.5 regular season. much worse than expected.
2008 ECSF: 29.1 PER, 56.8 TS% regular season. -8.6 celtics defense, expected 52.3 TS%, got 48.0 TS%, 17.5 Game Score = 20.7 PER vs 29.1 regular season. much worse than expected.
2011 finals: 27.3 PER, 59.4 TS% regular season. -2.3 mavs defense, expected 58.3 TS%, got 54.1 TS%, 13.7 Game Score = 18.0 PER vs 27.3 regular season. much worse than expected.
TS% vs Expected TS%
Jordan
-2.6%
-1.8%
-2.1%
-0.1%
Average = -1.7%
Lebron
-9.1%
-4.3%
-4.2%
Average = 5.9%
PER vs Regular Season
Jordan
-6.4
-3.7
-4.4
-1.4
Average = -4.0
Lowest = 22.8 PER
Lebron
-9.5
-8.4
-9.3
Average = -9.1
Highest = 20.7 PER
This is conveniently as close as it gets short of gaining a time machine to testing 91 jordan vs better defensive teams to see if he could keep up his 91 scoring and it makes it very likely that, since this is the scenario you talked hipothetically with 2009 lebron facing other defenses, that 91 jordan playing better defensive teams wouldnt have been quite as effective
and as demonstrated above, jordan just doesn't fall off the same. i mean the 93 series is essentially directly in line with expectations, not even an actual fall off. lebron falls of 5 more PER (the famous 2 tiers level!) and 4.2 TS% more. the argument isn't that jordan stats would look exactly the same if he faced a 1993 knicks, why would they? it's that he would keep the volume up, keep the turnovers down, and be a little less to a decent amount less efficient. and assuming we're keeping overall opponent strength the same and weakening the opponents offense for bulking up their defense, in stats like WS48 and BPM, the trade off probably leaves those stats somewhat similar. i mean we're only replacing 1/4 of the playoff opponents here so there's only so much you can affect the overall stats. so instead of 32.0 PER, 0.333 WS48, 14.6 BPM as part of a 15-2 title run, it's what, 31 PER, 0.323 WS48, 14.0 BPM as part of a 15-2 title run?
