The Conundrum that is LeBron James

[Wannabe MEP]

Heat's starting unit is now at 111.4 Ortg. Healthy Wade has made a world of difference.

As compared to last season, Miami:

-Moves the ball on offense much better
-Moves off the ball much better
-Has far more stability at the point guard spot
-Has a deeper and healthier bench
-Is no longer running out a string of immobile dinosaurs at C

There isn't any actual evidence that LeBron + Wade is any better than last year offensively. 111.4 is worse than all of the following Heat units from last season (min 100 minutes:

Arroyo-Wade-LeBron-Bosh-Ilgauskas
Arroyo-Wade-LeBron-Bosh-Anthony
Chalmers-Wade-LeBron-Bosh-Ilgauskas
Chalmers-Wade-LeBron-Bosh-Anthony
Bibby-Wade-LeBron-Bosh-Dampier

111.4 is also worse than the following Heat units from this season (min 40 minutes):

Cole-Battie-Miller-LeBron-Haslem
Chalmers-Jones-LeBron-Bosh-Anthony
Cole-Wade-Miller-Haslem-Bosh

111.4 is of course worse offensively than several other units around the league this year. For example, the Suns starters (38-year-old Steve Nash + 4 role players) are better offensively than the Heat starters.

Miami has the best halfcourt Ortg in the league according to Couper Moorehead.

This stat is per team, not per unit. The greatest strength of this Heat team is their depth of stars. Nobody else can take out two stars and still leave one on the court.



The point is, nothing you said is the least bit surprising. Just like last year, this Heat team is very, very good. Just like last year, their collection of star power has been dominant against average NBA competition. And just like last year, they may very well be susceptible to a complete team with better fitting pieces. The biggest question is whether there is such a team this year.

[Wannabe MEP]

Oh, and 15 of his 20 most-used units in his last year in Cleveland had a better Off Rtg than that 111.4.

[Apathy]

He's just a really good--but really expensive--role player.

los soles you're mad sensitive. you're said some flat-out wrong and vapid things in this thread. instead of just manning up and admitting error, you do backflips, bust out overplayed sarcasm and come off absurdly condescending and equally ill-informed.

it's clear you have an agenda and/or are too sensitive to discuss this (and possibly any) topic with any sort of nuance

[Hambone93]

You use alot of words to say nothing. It's quite fascinating.

[mopper8]

The Chalmer/Wade/Lebron/Bosh/Anthony unit is now up to an Ortg of 113, a full 10 points above league average,

But imagine how good they'd be if the pieces actually fit!

[Wannabe MEP]

Impressive that I can be "flat-out wrong" while saying nothing. That's quite an accomplishment.

[Wannabe MEP]

mopper, I'd love to engage with you without the dismissive sarcasm

The Chalmer/Wade/Lebron/Bosh/Anthony unit is now up to an Ortg of 113, a full 10 points above league average

Do you understand why I don't feel this means much (yet)? You keep comparing their offensive efficiency to things like league average and team averages, when I'm comparing units to units. This is a big difference. Still, 113 is very good. The problem in my opinion (which doesn't go away even if this rises to 115 or 116) is that:

1) LeBron was on better offensive units with the Cavs.
2) There are better offensive units on this year's team that don't use the Wade-LeBron-Bosh combo.
3) There are several better offensive units around the league this year.
4) This isn't better than similar units from last year's team, units that subsequently struggled in the playoffs.

Ultimately, I believe the expectations are higher for this crew. You take the best small forward, one of the two best shooting guards, and one of the 3 best offensive bigs, and we expect something special from their top unit. We certainly expect them to be better offensively than the Cavs units, right? Apparently you disagree?

[GreenHat]

Making any kinds of fine comparisons using units over 30ish games is dumb.

An Ortg over under 300 minutes has all kinds of statistical noise and the difference between 110 and 120 could just be nothing.

Expecting a particular 5 man combination to be the best 5 man combination out of hundreds of combinations over a small sample size is absurd.

If a raffle has 1000 numbers, you're probably going to lose even if you're number is 5 times more likely to come up than anyone else's number.

[Wannabe MEP]

Making any kinds of fine comparisons using units over 30ish games is dumb.

Minor point in the thread that someone else keyed on.

Expecting a particular 5 man combination to be the best 5 man combination out of hundreds of combinations over a small sample size is absurd.

If a raffle has 1000 numbers, you're probably going to lose even if you're number is 5 times more likely to come up than anyone else's number.

I certainly wasn't comparing them to 1000 units or "hundreds of combinations." I was only comparing them to other units with a lot of minutes. We can draw that line wherever you want to: minimum 100 minutes? only starting units? top 50 units by minutes?

But again, minor point. The larger argument is about multiple units stretching over last season, the playoffs, and this season.

[Wannabe MEP]

Looking at the combined Off Rtg of 2011 playoff units, minimum 20 minutes.

Wade + LeBron: 103.11
Terry + Nowitzki: 128.65

[Apathy]

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story/_/ ... eason-ever

[GreenHat]

Looking at the combined Off Rtg of 2011 playoff units, minimum 20 minutes.

Wade + LeBron: 103.11
Terry + Nowitzki: 128.65

What is the minutes on that?

And the Heat played much better defenses last playoffs. They played the 1st, 2nd, 7th and 8th teams by Drtg

Chicago gave up 100.3, Boston 100.3, Philly 105.0 and Dallas 105.0

The Mavs got to play the Heat 103.5, Lakers 104.3, Blazer 107.1 and OKC 107.2

[GreenHat]

Making any kinds of fine comparisons using units over 30ish games is dumb.

Minor point in the thread that someone else keyed on.

Awesome.

I'm not going to read this whole thread that's months old.

Expecting a particular 5 man combination to be the best 5 man combination out of hundreds of combinations over a small sample size is absurd.

If a raffle has 1000 numbers, you're probably going to lose even if you're number is 5 times more likely to come up than anyone else's number.

I certainly wasn't comparing them to 1000 units or "hundreds of combinations." I was only comparing them to other units with a lot of minutes. We can draw that line wherever you want to: minimum 100 minutes? only starting units? top 50 units by minutes?

But again, minor point. The larger argument is about multiple units stretching over last season, the playoffs, and this season.

Ok do a minimum of 1000 minutes for this season.

100 minutes tells me very little.

[Hambone93]

Impressive that I can be "flat-out wrong" while saying nothing. That's quite an accomplishment.

I was responding to apathy. I like your thread, it has substance and interesting analysis. Sorry I didn't make that clear.

[Wannabe MEP]

Impressive that I can be "flat-out wrong" while saying nothing. That's quite an accomplishment.

I was responding to apathy. I like your thread, it has substance and interesting analysis. Sorry I didn't make that clear.

Ok, thanks. But there goes my accomplishment.

[Wannabe MEP]

Looking at the combined Off Rtg of 2011 playoff units, minimum 20 minutes.

Wade + LeBron: 103.11
Terry + Nowitzki: 128.65

What is the minutes on that?

I didn't add it up exactly, but more than 600 for Wade + LeBron and about 400 for Terry + Nowitzki.

Ok do a minimum of 1000 minutes for this season.

There are no units close to that yet this season.

[tclg]

What units have the highest amount of minutes together
Rose-Brewer-Deng-Boozer-Noah the Bulls Number 1 Unit in minuts has 250 min with an Off Rating of 115, And the defensive rating is 92. The next unit has like 80 min less.

[Wannabe MEP]

Nash-Hill-Dudley-Frye-Gortat -- Off Rtg: 114.75 (661.55 minutes)
Chalmers-Wade-LeBron-Bosh-Anthony -- Off Rtg: 111.08 (420.37 minutes)

Suns starters also have better overall rating and adjusted +/-. So that would be a 38-year-old, a 39-year-old, and 3 borderline bench players clearly outperforming the Three Stooges' go-to unit.

I call that "fit."

[rrravenred]

Out of interest, what're the Def Rtgs for those two lineups?

[tclg]

for ths first one there defensive rating is 101