RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #1 — 2013 LeBron James

[OhayoKD]

The games played are more significant than that, but the overall,tenor of what was presented is true. This doesn’t even go into 1999 providing a big chunk of what’s boosting Jordan. An honest representation would see two clear tiers between these two.

1999 is especially noisy but it's inclusion is consistent if crude. Using 96 instead of 95 and counting games Lebron didn't play as "with" is clear cut data fudging though

setting aside that context wasn't applied to any of the numbers and was just presented as is (no accounting for adding rodman, bosh, love, or subtracing pippen), wouldn't using 96 instead of 95 make more sense? even using 95 gives a +20 WOWY (13-4 = 63 wins vs 34-31 = 43 wins). and setting aside that the numbers presented for 95 include jordan inflating the record up to 47-35 so it's actually undercounting the 95 to 96 difference, it's not like anyone thinks the 17 games jordan played in the regular season in 1995 represent actual prime michael jordan. 22.1 PER with 29+ on either side in 1993 and 1996. 0.167 WS48 with 0.270 and 0.317 on either side. terrible 4.2 BPM with 11.2 and 10.5 on either side. every number is a pre-wizards career low by a country mile.

It makes sense much in the same way it would make sense to cut out the pre-sabbatical stretch lebron starts 2015 with, and the post-injury games Lebron plays in 2019 and 2021. No issue filtering for context-affected play. The issue is when you

A. aren't acknowledging you're being creative with the data
B. aren't applying that to both players you're comparing

And that is setting aside counting games without a player as with completely defeating the purpose of with and without.

[f4p]

1. 2017 LeBron James
2. 1991 Michael Jordan
3. 2016 Stephen Curry

Would love to go in-depth on Stephen, but time isn't in my hand. Ask away, though!

i know steph had maybe the greatest first 60 or 65 games to start any season ever (whatever game was the OKC double bang game), but with a playoff minutes cut-off of 350 minutes (10 games x 35 minutes per game), steph's 2016 playoffs rank all time:

PER: 250th
WS48: 617th
BPM: 133rd
On/Off: -3.7 on/off, which would presumably rank in like the 1000's.

and he missed 6 games in the playoffs. games where his team basically cruised with something around a +14 PSRS. and then he had a 2011 lebron level finals where his team lost a 3-1 lead and even a half decent finals series would have won his team the championship. i know people on this board really want to combined steph's 2016 regular season and 2017 playoffs like they were the same year, but even if you are going to pick a year, seems like it has to be 2017 since the playoffs were at least a very high level of play, even if the high level of play was essentially meaningless given how easy the title was.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

So over on the GB in the thread that was created to alert said GB to this contest, I came across a post saying that when Thinking Basketball did its peaks series in 2021, MJ was #1. Not that any one person's opinion should matter more than anyone else's, but I know that many of you guys respect Ben a lot. He was looking at multi-year(he says "at least 2 years", but in practice it looks like he's doing 3 years in order to have a bigger sample size) peaks in an era-relative context(he actually used the phrase "no time machines" at the beginning of the video), and gave #1 to Jordan.

He also states that he took a poll of Thinking Basketball subscribers and that (keeping in mind I have no idea how big of a sample this is) 59% of them had Jordan #1.

MJ/LeBron part of the video starts around 19:30.

Watch on YouTube

[Doctor MJ]

In actuality though, I'm assuming you wouldn't even have MJ as the best player in today's league.

I have more confidence with LeBron than Jordan when it comes to the era we've seen LeBron, but I don't have certainty as to who the better player would be.

I did not say Lebron though, I said you would probably not project Jordan as the best player in today's league if he played today. I assume you'd rate others like Jokic over him too

Ah, well sure in 2025, top players would be concerned about Jokic and SGA rather current LeBron or Jordan.

In the Peak debate though, I’m definitely thinking about Jokic.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Lebronnygoat]

Peaks

Lebron- 09

Best season ever. GOAT on ball PM, GOAT playoff scoring, great rim-protection and man D. One of the best wing defensive performances ever. Makes your team way more likely to win at this point more than anyone ever.

Kareem- 74

Only guy who could push Lebron. ATG Rim protection. ATG defender. Went 35/5/13 on +8rTS in the offs. Extremely Underrated PM, even late-prime

Spoiler:

Randomly decided to track Kareem in 1987, just to see how much post volume and gravity he still received. And, to say the least, it's quite a lot. I counted 8 times he created an advantage for his teammate.

1987 Game 1, Supersonics vs Lakers

https://youtu.be/YaHwfjjhETE?si=v7bq1qjgtBkds4Oe

5:45
9:00 (Undeniably creation, as there's an open paint shot to the right of the screen)
[img]
https://ibb.co/Lx8wLVB
[/img]
10:20
20:55
45:00
53:15
1:02:25
1:41:30

Please look at 6:05, even the commentators of the opposing team, who only just started playing the Lakers today, called Kareem a dilemma, either you double/triple and force him to pass, or go one on one. Kareem's scoring was particularly harder than the rest of the team. He definitely had issues had passing out too little, but, he still remains insanely efficient up until 1988. Mind you, this man is 40 years old!

Kareem is extremely underrated.

Kareem is extremely underrated.


Russell- 62 GOAT D. Not much else. Skillset is unimpressive but the impact/winning is hard to ignore.

[Cavsfansince84]

So over on the GB in the thread that was created to alert said GB to this contest, I came across a post saying that when Thinking Basketball did its peaks series in 2021, MJ was #1. Not that any one person's opinion should matter more than anyone else's, but I know that many of you guys respect Ben a lot. He was looking at multi-year(he says "at least 2 years", but in practice it looks like he's doing 3 years in order to have a bigger sample size) peaks in an era-relative context(he actually used the phrase "no time machines" at the beginning of the video), and gave #1 to Jordan.

He also states that he took a poll of Thinking Basketball subscribers and that (keeping in mind I have no idea how big of a sample this is) 59% of them had Jordan #1.

MJ/LeBron part of the video starts around 19:30.

Watch on YouTube

While I can respect many other people's opinions when it comes to bb(who know much more about many players than I do) I don't think there should be this sense that voters in this project somehow need to conform to any other opinions or projects which came before this one. That's the whole point of doing a new peak project is for people to try to see things through new lenses and not allow prior opinions to just run rampant. I don't think there's really going to be such thing as right opinion on who is #1 in terms of peaks or careers. This is just trying to provide a platform to discuss it and then let people make up their own minds. Not that I think you're really trying to force the issue but I've seen that before in other projects where a certain player doesn't get the same support they might have in the past and that's part of why new iterations are done. We shouldn't be bound by how people thought about things 10-20 years prior though it might be worth hearing their reasoning. It's not sacrosanct to have MJ on your ballot anymore than it would be to have Kareem or LeBron.

[trevon2x]

1. 2017 LeBron James
2. 1991 Michael Jordan
3. 2016 Stephen Curry

Would love to go in-depth on Stephen, but time isn't in my hand. Ask away, though!

i know steph had maybe the greatest first 60 or 65 games to start any season ever (whatever game was the OKC double bang game), but with a playoff minutes cut-off of 350 minutes (10 games x 35 minutes per game), steph's 2016 playoffs rank all time:

PER: 250th
WS48: 617th
BPM: 133rd
On/Off: -3.7 on/off, which would presumably rank in like the 1000's.

and he missed 6 games in the playoffs. games where his team basically cruised with something around a +14 PSRS. and then he had a 2011 lebron level finals where his team lost a 3-1 lead and even a half decent finals series would have won his team the championship. i know people on this board really want to combined steph's 2016 regular season and 2017 playoffs like they were the same year, but even if you are going to pick a year, seems like it has to be 2017 since the playoffs were at least a very high level of play, even if the high level of play was essentially meaningless given how easy the title was.

Not stephs fault houston can't clean their floors properly, also Saying that high level of play was "essentially meaningless given how easy the title was" is kind of disingenuous, He is still facing top 3 defenses in the playoffs (no don't add the context to why Utah was the #3 defense I am not here for context) and performing, while his GUY Klay is stinking things up. You can give Steph his respect for the 2017 playoffs while adding the CONTEXT of his offensive situation, not completely filter it. The thing is though, I like to ignore the postseason when evaluating 2016 Stephen, even though he is showing me TWO elite series of play, which I can't factor in due to those series not being him at 100%. The only postseason game in 2016 where Stephen was 100% was Game 1 in Houston, and that was a masterpiece. People are inclined to look at how Stephen dropped and use that to evaluate his season, but it is so much deeper than that. The regular season is a masterpiece.

[Djoker]

Another counterpoint: LeBron’s teams, at their best, actually slightly outperformed the Bulls with Jordan on the court—but they fell apart when he sat. The difference wasn’t that Jordan elevated his teams to significantly greater heights because of a more scalable skillset. It was that the Bulls had stronger infrastructure that held up better in his absence.

ok, good post, but we also now have on/off for Jordan's playoff career and at +18.3, it's the best ever. Which isn't even like KG where he was on teams that were comically bad without him but Jordan did that in a career where his teams managed to win 6 titles. Now his best on/offs were I believe in the 80s when his team wasn't as good (like KG and many others) but, by virtue of being shorter playoff runs, they don't have that much overall weight either.

He made a good post but Lebron's teams definitely did not outplay Jordan's teams when they were both on the court. In fact, it was Jordan's teams that produced better on-court net ratings both in the regular season and postseason. None of Lebron's teams ever had an on court Net of +16.7 which the 1996 Bulls had in the regular season with Jordan and none of Lebron teams ever had on court Net of +15.0 and +15.5 which the 1991 and 1996 Bulls had in the playoffs with Jordan on. For their playoff careers, Lebron's teams are +5.5 Net when he's on court. Jordan's teams are +7.7 when he's on court.

[homecourtloss]

So over on the GB in the thread that was created to alert said GB to this contest, I came across a post saying that when Thinking Basketball did its peaks series in 2021, MJ was #1. Not that any one person's opinion should matter more than anyone else's, but I know that many of you guys respect Ben a lot. He was looking at multi-year(he says "at least 2 years", but in practice it looks like he's doing 3 years in order to have a bigger sample size) peaks in an era-relative context(he actually used the phrase "no time machines" at the beginning of the video), and gave #1 to Jordan.

He also states that he took a poll of Thinking Basketball subscribers and that (keeping in mind I have no idea how big of a sample this is) 59% of them had Jordan #1.

MJ/LeBron part of the video starts around 19:30.

Watch on YouTube

This video was posted here when it came out and there was a good deal of discussion about it—this isn’t anything new for the majority of regular posters here.

[One_and_Done]

Peaks

Lebron- 09

Best season ever. GOAT on ball PM, GOAT playoff scoring, great rim-protection and man D. One of the best wing defensive performances ever. Makes your team way more likely to win at this point more than anyone ever.

Kareem- 74

Only guy who could push Lebron. ATG Rim protection. ATG defender. Went 35/5/13 on +8rTS in the offs. Extremely Underrated PM, even late-prime

Spoiler:

Randomly decided to track Kareem in 1987, just to see how much post volume and gravity he still received. And, to say the least, it's quite a lot. I counted 8 times he created an advantage for his teammate.

1987 Game 1, Supersonics vs Lakers

https://youtu.be/YaHwfjjhETE?si=v7bq1qjgtBkds4Oe

5:45
9:00 (Undeniably creation, as there's an open paint shot to the right of the screen)
[img]
https://ibb.co/Lx8wLVB
[/img]
10:20
20:55
45:00
53:15
1:02:25
1:41:30

Please look at 6:05, even the commentators of the opposing team, who only just started playing the Lakers today, called Kareem a dilemma, either you double/triple and force him to pass, or go one on one. Kareem's scoring was particularly harder than the rest of the team. He definitely had issues had passing out too little, but, he still remains insanely efficient up until 1988. Mind you, this man is 40 years old!

Kareem is extremely underrated.

Kareem is extremely underrated.


Russell- 62 GOAT D. Not much else. Skillset is unimpressive but the impact/winning is hard to ignore.

You're supposed to have preferences. It's going to be weird if Jordan wins, just because it's easier for Jordan fans to agree on a single year, and those who voted Lebron kept forgetting to preference other years.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

So over on the GB in the thread that was created to alert said GB to this contest, I came across a post saying that when Thinking Basketball did its peaks series in 2021, MJ was #1. Not that any one person's opinion should matter more than anyone else's, but I know that many of you guys respect Ben a lot. He was looking at multi-year(he says "at least 2 years", but in practice it looks like he's doing 3 years in order to have a bigger sample size) peaks in an era-relative context(he actually used the phrase "no time machines" at the beginning of the video), and gave #1 to Jordan.

He also states that he took a poll of Thinking Basketball subscribers and that (keeping in mind I have no idea how big of a sample this is) 59% of them had Jordan #1.

MJ/LeBron part of the video starts around 19:30.

Watch on YouTube

This video was posted here when it came out and there was a good deal of discussion about it—this isn’t anything new for the majority of regular posters here.

I didn't think it was. But it might be new for a few(it was for me), so I still thought it worth putting in here.

[iggymcfrack]

1 - 2009 Lebron James
2 - 2003 Tim Duncan
3 - 1962 Bill Russell

Honest I feel like the votes putting MJ ahead are basically justifying the #1 for me. One is avoiding 1 year anything probably because 2009 has the GOAT weird stats crazy on/off and has the Cavs go from like 60 wins to 15. Two are listing stats which literally have Lebron ahead but are just ignoring that.

But whatever. Lebron's obviously on a different level on defense and in terms of passing and this Lebron has the best stats and the best impact and the only thing people really have to say is that he lost while averaging a 30 point triple double vs a great defense. Also it sort of matters he's doing it against way more talent. Feel like no one would be questioning this as #1 if the Cavs just win so I'm not going to change my mind just because Lebron's team let him down. Like pretty much everyone going for MJ loves stuff like PER or whatever but then ignores that 2009 is just waaay ahead of everyone in all those stats in the playoffs and right at the top before that.

Like you're talking about the best regular season ever. And then Lebron goes from 28 to 35 and his true-shooting actually goes up. I feel like if you're just going to add GOAT scoring to the GOAT RS that's the #1 peak.

So if 2009 was the greatest of all time peak season and his teammates let him down, how are you accounting for the following:

- James goes scoreless in the 4th quarter of the ECF Game 1
- James gets outplayed by Hedo Turkoglu down the stretch
- James commits 4+ turnovers in 5 of the 6 games ECF
- His turnovers late in game 4 helped hand Orlando the game despite a double-digit lead
- Shot just 28.6% from 3 in the ECF, and Orlando routinely went under screens and dared him to shoot
- Orlando hunted LeBron on pick-and-rolls — he routinely died on screens and didn’t fight through.
- 2nd-worst FG% of the series came in the series-clinching Game 6 (40%)
- Lost in 6 games to the Dwight Howard-led Magic despite being the heavy favorite and having home-court advantage
- Overall in the 2009 Playoffs FT%: 74.6% — barely above average, and only 68% in the 4th quarter of close games
- On not facing Bryant in the finals: "I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain,” James said of 2009, when the Cavs were upset by the Orlando Magic in the conference finals. “I know the world wanted to see it. I wanted it, he wanted it. He held up his end, I didn’t hold up my end and I hate that. I hate that it didn’t happen.” He admits he wasn't up to par, and by implication admits Bryant performed better, and yet we are supposed to take your word that this was the greatest season anyone has ever had in the history of the sport.

Trying to nitpick a series where LeBron averaged 39/8/8 with excellent defense and one of the greatest buzzer beaters of all-time is crazy. FWIW, I just went to look up how LeBron could be scoreless in the 4th quarter of Game 1 scoring 49 points. Turns out he wasn't. He had 10 4th quarter points on 4/6 from the field. Also, you said he had 4+ turnovers in 5 out of 6 games? No, it was only 3 out of 6. You're just spewing a lot of nonsense here.

I definitely don't believe your criticisms of LeBron's defense after reading your made up statistics. He was a one man wrecking crew defensively that year. My jaw would hit the floor on chase down blocks pretty much every game. He played 44 MPG, scored or assisted on over half of Cleveland's points and STILL carried the defense too. That's why 2009's so far ahead of every other LeBron year for me. That was the only year he had the ability and the motor to have an all-time offense carrying season and still be the best wing defender in the league at the same time.

[f4p]

1 - 2009 Lebron James
2 - 2003 Tim Duncan
3 - 1962 Bill Russell

Honest I feel like the votes putting MJ ahead are basically justifying the #1 for me. One is avoiding 1 year anything probably because 2009 has the GOAT weird stats crazy on/off and has the Cavs go from like 60 wins to 15. Two are listing stats which literally have Lebron ahead but are just ignoring that.

But whatever. Lebron's obviously on a different level on defense and in terms of passing and this Lebron has the best stats and the best impact and the only thing people really have to say is that he lost while averaging a 30 point triple double vs a great defense. Also it sort of matters he's doing it against way more talent. Feel like no one would be questioning this as #1 if the Cavs just win so I'm not going to change my mind just because Lebron's team let him down. Like pretty much everyone going for MJ loves stuff like PER or whatever but then ignores that 2009 is just waaay ahead of everyone in all those stats in the playoffs and right at the top before that.

Like you're talking about the best regular season ever. And then Lebron goes from 28 to 35 and his true-shooting actually goes up. I feel like if you're just going to add GOAT scoring to the GOAT RS that's the #1 peak.

So if 2009 was the greatest of all time peak season and his teammates let him down, how are you accounting for the following:

- James goes scoreless in the 4th quarter of the ECF Game 1
- James gets outplayed by Hedo Turkoglu down the stretch
- James commits 4+ turnovers in 5 of the 6 games ECF
- His turnovers late in game 4 helped hand Orlando the game despite a double-digit lead
- Shot just 28.6% from 3 in the ECF, and Orlando routinely went under screens and dared him to shoot
- Orlando hunted LeBron on pick-and-rolls — he routinely died on screens and didn’t fight through.
- 2nd-worst FG% of the series came in the series-clinching Game 6 (40%)
- Lost in 6 games to the Dwight Howard-led Magic despite being the heavy favorite and having home-court advantage
- Overall in the 2009 Playoffs FT%: 74.6% — barely above average, and only 68% in the 4th quarter of close games
- On not facing Bryant in the finals: "I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain,” James said of 2009, when the Cavs were upset by the Orlando Magic in the conference finals. “I know the world wanted to see it. I wanted it, he wanted it. He held up his end, I didn’t hold up my end and I hate that. I hate that it didn’t happen.” He admits he wasn't up to par, and by implication admits Bryant performed better, and yet we are supposed to take your word that this was the greatest season anyone has ever had in the history of the sport.

This feels like the same posts I see made about Harden where no matter how well he plays overall, we pretend any of the bad stuff was somehow the actual important factor or that one particular game where he wasn't good was secretly the key game of the series and the others don't count.

LeBron had a scoreless 4th in one game (edit: which apparently wasn't even true)...while averaging 38 ppg for a conference finals against the #1 defense.

Shot 29% on 3s...while averaging 38 ppg on overall great efficiency.

Got outplayed by hedo for 1 quarter, when hedo was on his own unsustainable heater in that series.

Lost as the favorite...while putting up basically the best numbers we've ever seen, pretty much indicating that he wasn't the reason for the underperformance.

[f4p]

1 - 2009 Lebron James
2 - 2003 Tim Duncan
3 - 1962 Bill Russell

Honest I feel like the votes putting MJ ahead are basically justifying the #1 for me. One is avoiding 1 year anything probably because 2009 has the GOAT weird stats crazy on/off and has the Cavs go from like 60 wins to 15. Two are listing stats which literally have Lebron ahead but are just ignoring that.

But whatever. Lebron's obviously on a different level on defense and in terms of passing and this Lebron has the best stats and the best impact and the only thing people really have to say is that he lost while averaging a 30 point triple double vs a great defense. Also it sort of matters he's doing it against way more talent. Feel like no one would be questioning this as #1 if the Cavs just win so I'm not going to change my mind just because Lebron's team let him down. Like pretty much everyone going for MJ loves stuff like PER or whatever but then ignores that 2009 is just waaay ahead of everyone in all those stats in the playoffs and right at the top before that.

Like you're talking about the best regular season ever. And then Lebron goes from 28 to 35 and his true-shooting actually goes up. I feel like if you're just going to add GOAT scoring to the GOAT RS that's the #1 peak.

So if 2009 was the greatest of all time peak season and his teammates let him down, how are you accounting for the following:

- James goes scoreless in the 4th quarter of the ECF Game 1
- James gets outplayed by Hedo Turkoglu down the stretch
- James commits 4+ turnovers in 5 of the 6 games ECF
- His turnovers late in game 4 helped hand Orlando the game despite a double-digit lead
- Shot just 28.6% from 3 in the ECF, and Orlando routinely went under screens and dared him to shoot
- Orlando hunted LeBron on pick-and-rolls — he routinely died on screens and didn’t fight through.
- 2nd-worst FG% of the series came in the series-clinching Game 6 (40%)
- Lost in 6 games to the Dwight Howard-led Magic despite being the heavy favorite and having home-court advantage
- Overall in the 2009 Playoffs FT%: 74.6% — barely above average, and only 68% in the 4th quarter of close games
- On not facing Bryant in the finals: "I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain,” James said of 2009, when the Cavs were upset by the Orlando Magic in the conference finals. “I know the world wanted to see it. I wanted it, he wanted it. He held up his end, I didn’t hold up my end and I hate that. I hate that it didn’t happen.” He admits he wasn't up to par, and by implication admits Bryant performed better, and yet we are supposed to take your word that this was the greatest season anyone has ever had in the history of the sport.

Trying to nitpick a series where LeBron averaged 39/8/8 with excellent defense and one of the greatest buzzer beaters of all-time is crazy. FWIW, I just went to look up how LeBron could be scoreless in the 4th quarter of Game 1 scoring 49 points. Turns out he wasn't. He had 10 4th quarter points on 4/6 from the field. Also, you said he had 4+ turnovers in 5 out of 6 games? No, it was only 3 out of 6. You're just spewing a lot of nonsense here.

I definitely don't believe your criticisms of LeBron's defense after reading your made up statistics. He was a one man wrecking crew defensively that year. My jaw would hit the floor on chase down blocks pretty much every game. He played 44 MPG, scored or assisted on over half of Cleveland's points and STILL carried the defense too. That's why 2009's so far ahead of every other LeBron year for me. That was the only year he had the ability and the motor to have an all-time offense carrying season and still be the best wing defender in the league at the same time.

Also, my recollection of watching the series live (which could obviously be faulty 16 years later) was that the magic pretty much went to whichever of turkoglu or Lewis wasn't being guarded by LeBron, and both of them were about as on fire on big shots as any two people can be for a series.

[OhayoKD]

Peaks

Lebron- 09

Best season ever. GOAT on ball PM, GOAT playoff scoring, great rim-protection and man D. One of the best wing defensive performances ever. Makes your team way more likely to win at this point more than anyone ever.

Kareem- 74

Only guy who could push Lebron. ATG Rim protection. ATG defender. Went 35/5/13 on +8rTS in the offs. Extremely Underrated PM, even late-prime

Spoiler:

Randomly decided to track Kareem in 1987, just to see how much post volume and gravity he still received. And, to say the least, it's quite a lot. I counted 8 times he created an advantage for his teammate.

1987 Game 1, Supersonics vs Lakers

https://youtu.be/YaHwfjjhETE?si=v7bq1qjgtBkds4Oe

5:45
9:00 (Undeniably creation, as there's an open paint shot to the right of the screen)
[img]
https://ibb.co/Lx8wLVB
[/img]
10:20
20:55
45:00
53:15
1:02:25
1:41:30

Please look at 6:05, even the commentators of the opposing team, who only just started playing the Lakers today, called Kareem a dilemma, either you double/triple and force him to pass, or go one on one. Kareem's scoring was particularly harder than the rest of the team. He definitely had issues had passing out too little, but, he still remains insanely efficient up until 1988. Mind you, this man is 40 years old!

Kareem is extremely underrated.

Kareem is extremely underrated.


Russell- 62 GOAT D. Not much else. Skillset is unimpressive but the impact/winning is hard to ignore.

You're supposed to have preferences. It's going to be weird if Jordan wins, just because it's easier for Jordan fans to agree on a single year, and those who voted Lebron kept forgetting to preference other years.

Actually no. The player who gets the most total votes is the one who gets their peak (whichever year is voted most often) selected.

[Djoker]

So over on the GB in the thread that was created to alert said GB to this contest, I came across a post saying that when Thinking Basketball did its peaks series in 2021, MJ was #1. Not that any one person's opinion should matter more than anyone else's, but I know that many of you guys respect Ben a lot. He was looking at multi-year(he says "at least 2 years", but in practice it looks like he's doing 3 years in order to have a bigger sample size) peaks in an era-relative context(he actually used the phrase "no time machines" at the beginning of the video), and gave #1 to Jordan.

He also states that he took a poll of Thinking Basketball subscribers and that (keeping in mind I have no idea how big of a sample this is) 59% of them had Jordan #1.

MJ/LeBron part of the video starts around 19:30.

Watch on YouTube

Yea this video is pretty well known around here. A decent chunk of Ben's subscribers are Lebron fans (I'm on their Discord so I know) and Ben definitely had to be careful to be very diplomatic in his approach. Backing Jordan or Lebron publicly is like endorsing a political candidate these days. People who support the same guy will love you but the other side will hate you. And polarizing isn't what Ben wants to be. It's not his style as a basketball researcher and he tries to look as objective as positive. Ben had three peak impact metrics which are AuPM, BPM and PIPM and Jordan led in all three of them as well as the basic box score.

Since that video, there's been a lot of numbers released for prime Jordan courtesy of Thinking Basketball, Squared2020 and even my own tracking. The evidence for Jordan has grown stronger if anything. But of course, 3 years have gone by and the basketball watching population has increasingly never seen MJ play and people naturally prefer those they've seen over those that haven't.

[AEnigma]

I have witnessed more default Jordan people (it is the public consensus after all) go back and be underwhelmed by those Bulls games than I have default Lebron people go back and suddenly “see the light”.

And “prime Lebron” has never been a mainstay of NBA TV’s hardwood classics airings the way Jordan has been and continues to be, so it is odd that Jordan backers consistently try to push this narrative that the shift over the last few years is simply because too many people are caught in the moment of… watching a diminished end-of-career Lebron. Did everyone watching him in his prime suddenly discover the internet in the past few years? Big rural Lebron fan population which just now got that fiber hookup? And if nostalgia is indeed the argument, well, guess which player nostalgia benefits even more strongly…

The issue of lack of viewership applies dramatically more to players like Russell, Wilt, Kareem, etc. Few people recall watching their primes live, and prime games and footage are extremely scarce from that era.

[ReggiesKnicks]

the basketball watching population has increasingly never seen MJ play and people naturally prefer those they've seen over those that haven't.

Sounds exactly what happened to Jordan in regards to Russell/Kareem

[IlikeSHAIguys]

So if 2009 was the greatest of all time peak season and his teammates let him down, how are you accounting for the following:

- James goes scoreless in the 4th quarter of the ECF Game 1
- James gets outplayed by Hedo Turkoglu down the stretch
- James commits 4+ turnovers in 5 of the 6 games ECF
- His turnovers late in game 4 helped hand Orlando the game despite a double-digit lead
- Shot just 28.6% from 3 in the ECF, and Orlando routinely went under screens and dared him to shoot
- Orlando hunted LeBron on pick-and-rolls — he routinely died on screens and didn’t fight through.
- 2nd-worst FG% of the series came in the series-clinching Game 6 (40%)
- Lost in 6 games to the Dwight Howard-led Magic despite being the heavy favorite and having home-court advantage
- Overall in the 2009 Playoffs FT%: 74.6% — barely above average, and only 68% in the 4th quarter of close games
- On not facing Bryant in the finals: "I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain,” James said of 2009, when the Cavs were upset by the Orlando Magic in the conference finals. “I know the world wanted to see it. I wanted it, he wanted it. He held up his end, I didn’t hold up my end and I hate that. I hate that it didn’t happen.” He admits he wasn't up to par, and by implication admits Bryant performed better, and yet we are supposed to take your word that this was the greatest season anyone has ever had in the history of the sport.

Trying to nitpick a series where LeBron averaged 39/8/8 with excellent defense and one of the greatest buzzer beaters of all-time is crazy. FWIW, I just went to look up how LeBron could be scoreless in the 4th quarter of Game 1 scoring 49 points. Turns out he wasn't. He had 10 4th quarter points on 4/6 from the field. Also, you said he had 4+ turnovers in 5 out of 6 games? No, it was only 3 out of 6. You're just spewing a lot of nonsense here.

I definitely don't believe your criticisms of LeBron's defense after reading your made up statistics. He was a one man wrecking crew defensively that year. My jaw would hit the floor on chase down blocks pretty much every game. He played 44 MPG, scored or assisted on over half of Cleveland's points and STILL carried the defense too. That's why 2009's so far ahead of every other LeBron year for me. That was the only year he had the ability and the motor to have an all-time offense carrying season and still be the best wing defender in the league at the same time.

Also, my recollection of watching the series live (which could obviously be faulty 16 years later) was that the magic pretty much went to whichever of turkoglu or Lewis wasn't being guarded by LeBron, and both of them were about as on fire on big shots as any two people can be for a series.

Feel like if people did this with 1991 there's a lot more bad or meh from MJ than 2009 Lebron. Especially if we're using the eyetest too and not just stats. Also Lebron made a almost game-winner in game 1 so Idk how he could have gone scoreless

[IlikeSHAIguys]

So over on the GB in the thread that was created to alert said GB to this contest, I came across a post saying that when Thinking Basketball did its peaks series in 2021, MJ was #1. Not that any one person's opinion should matter more than anyone else's, but I know that many of you guys respect Ben a lot. He was looking at multi-year(he says "at least 2 years", but in practice it looks like he's doing 3 years in order to have a bigger sample size) peaks in an era-relative context(he actually used the phrase "no time machines" at the beginning of the video), and gave #1 to Jordan.

He also states that he took a poll of Thinking Basketball subscribers and that (keeping in mind I have no idea how big of a sample this is) 59% of them had Jordan #1.

MJ/LeBron part of the video starts around 19:30.

Watch on YouTube

Yea this video is pretty well known around here. A decent chunk of Ben's subscribers are Lebron fans (I'm on their Discord so I know) and Ben definitely had to be careful to be very diplomatic in his approach. Backing Jordan or Lebron publicly is like endorsing a political candidate these days. People who support the same guy will love you but the other side will hate you. And polarizing isn't what Ben wants to be. It's not his style as a basketball researcher and he tries to look as objective as positive. Ben had three peak impact metrics which are AuPM, BPM and PIPM and Jordan led in all three of them as well as the basic box score.

Since that video, there's been a lot of numbers released for prime Jordan courtesy of Thinking Basketball, Squared2020 and even my own tracking. The evidence for Jordan has grown stronger if anything. But of course, 3 years have gone by and the basketball watching population has increasingly never seen MJ play and people naturally prefer those they've seen over those that haven't.

This is really weird to say when all the eyetest stuff is coming from Lebron guys and you guys are just throwing out stat whatevers no one really cares about