mysticbb wrote:ElGee wrote:Just to put something into perspective on West -- he missed the PS 3 times in his 13 years. That's a 10-year healthy career to LeBron James' 8. Everyone has made it very clear how much they value peak/prime performance when periods are comparable like that...just saying there isn't this giant perceived gap that exists in the career value of LBJ and West.
I think you are making a mistake here by running into one of the congnitive biases you wanted to avoid. It seems like you are interpreting every possible data in a way that it favors James. James didn't have 8 years which I would count, he has 7. His rookie season was nothing special except for the hype and some raw boxscore numbers, but impactwise he was way closer to the average than everything else.
Not at all. There was no in-depth analysis in that post. Just reminding people who have a hard time putting current careers into perspective with finished ones. I didn't say anything about quality...and what are you suggesting, that West's rookie season was way better than James?
Additonal to that it seems like you are not really evaluating his play, but rather some hypothetical situation in which James is surrounded with the best fitting talent. The thing is that this best fitting talent is not capable of taking over games when James struggles. James takes every ballhandler out of his comfort zone by not being able to play effective off the ball. That's why there is such a difference between Wade's performance with and without James on the court. Wade didn't get better during that time, he got worse. James occupied an area in which Wade has his strenth, that makes him less effective. That why the Heat had so much trouble scoring in closing minutes in the finals. You want to chalk that up with luck for the Mavericks, but that wasn't just luck.
No - I don't want to put all the emphasis on someone who has been the best player in the league for 4 years on 4 or 5 Finals games. How did the Heat magically do well against Chicago and Boston down the stretch?
The Heat couldn't maximize their talent with James, because the talent they have has strength in areas in which James also has strength. For 989 minutes last season without James the Heat had +0.9 per 48 minutes. During the 3985 minutes with James the Heat had +7.8 per 48 minutes. James didn't lift them as much as he lifted teams in previous seasons, he was worse than that, and the reason is not just the not good fitting talent, it is also a flaw in James' game, his inability to be effective without the ball makes it a problem to maximize talent. Something Jordan for example didn't have, he played very well off the ball, that made it possible to give Pippen a role in which he had much more strength than in a role as a pure scorer off the ball. Do you think James could have maximized Pippen as much as Jordan?
You're talking about redundancy. Dr. J had the same thing with George McGinnis. They are similar players IMO -- LeBron is basically just a better *everything* than Erving. I've said many times his biggest weakness is his outside shot/spot up shooting. That, and he'd been a focal point for 7 years in one system...and he wasn't exactly chopped liver this year anyway. There are obvious diminishing returns in basketball...I don't know if James could maximize Pippen as much since they are way more similar as players than he and Wade or MJ. It's like asking if Dirk could maximize Barkley if they played in the same frontcourt.
We are seeing a flaw in his game, in an area you hardly recognise. Your focus on the on-ball action leds you believe you are correct about your judgement about the NBA finals. That's the reason why you didn't question the numbers Hollinger presented regarding the free throws, because that was fitting into your own belief that the Mavericks rather won due to luck. Can you explain why the Mavericks got outscored by 27 points per 48 minutes during the finals when Nowitzki wasn't on the court? Why did they outscore the Heat with Nowitzki on the court by 8 points per 48 minutes? Do you honestly believe that was just luck or coincidence?
This is just weird man. You're levying charges of bias against the guy who wrote a treatise on +/- variance during the middle of season after one of the closest playoff series in 15 years because I've referenced luck? And you're pinning something on me that John Hollinger wrote after the season ended?
Sometimes it's both luck and skill. I know you know math (probably better than me) and you know how absolutely easy it is for those numbers you just cited to be variance. Then again, we know it's easy for them to be causal, because, you know, Dirk Nowitzki is one of the best players in the world. When the sample size of the opponent is 1, and you play a single short series, the losing team will usually have fewer points and the winning team usually more, and the stars of those teams will have relatively opposite +/- results. If you're not understanding that, you aren't understanding +/- and what it's measuring in the short-term.
When we take out James' and Nowitzki's two best seasons we are getting a similar impact player for 5 years in James and 9! years in Nowitzki. You want to ignore that, because you have the feeling that James impact in 2009 and 2010 was so huge that it overcomes the difference in longevity.
ElGee wrote:Obviously if people don't "trust" James that's well...let's just say sometimes I wonder if we did these projects after G3 of the 93 ECF if Jordan would be outside the top-10.
Your analogy is a fail here, because Jordan in 1993 had already two championships with dominant performances. James has now several questionable performances in elimination games. That is the difference here.
It's not an analogy. It's a statement to how knee-jerk the reactions are around here. If we did the project on June 5 LeBron would probably be in the top-10.
I'm also not sure what you mean when I'm say I'm ignoring something. I have a "feeling" LeBron had a higher impact in 09 and 10 so I'd rather have that than something with less of an impact? Yes, precisely. You harp and harp on James' weaknesses but act like there was some huge gulf between Dirk and someone like Paul Pierce at the beginning of the decade. As if Nowitzki clearly didn't improve over the years and he's just been some metronomic constant plugging along for 11 years because of *spacing.* (I've told you from day 1, I appreciate spacing and find it hard to quantify, but you act like it makes Dirk Nowitzki some offensive God. I suppose then stretch bigs are all awesome (!) and Larry Bird is the GOAT 10x over, because defenders glued to him like they were part of his wardrobe.)
Sorry that I don't love Dirk in 04 and 05. His 08 and 09 seasons were down years to me too -- a drop in offense AND defense. And I hold his 06 peak in limitation relative to every player we've voted (and well behind James) because of HIS giant shortcoming....which is that he's a big occupying one of the key interior defensive positions, and at his best he's slightly above average in that area. It's the same reason why an offensive wizard like Charles Barkley doesn't get more love from me.
