Peak Project: #2

[eminence]

Ballot for round #2 - explained my first two guys last round, do I need to expand on them again?

1st Ballot: Lebron James 08-09
Biggest carry job of all time. Don't think any other player in league history could have brought those Cavs to anywhere close to the level Lebron did that season.

RS numbers: 40.8 pp100 @ +4.7 rTS 10.9 rp100 10.4 ap100 31.7 per .318 ws/48 13 BPM
PS numbers: 47.5 pp100 @ +7.4 rTS 12.3 rp100 9.8 ap100 37.4 per .399 ws/48 18.2 BPM


2nd Ballot: Shaquille O'Neal 99-00
Most dominant offensive big-man. Also easily his best defensive season.

RS numbers: 38.1 pp100 @ +5.5 rTS 17.5 rp100 4.9 ap100 30.6 per .283 ws/48 9.7 BPM
PS numbers: 37.6 pp100 @ +3.3 rTS 18.9 rp100 3.8 ap100 30.5 per .224 ws/48 7.2 BPM


3rd Ballot: Wilt Chamberlain 66-67
Finally really fit into a team and the result was beautiful, one of the best teams of all time. Behind Shaq due to his sizably lower scoring volume. On the court for 45+ minutes every night. Played excellent defense throughout the season and especially in the playoffs, I'd put him a hair above Shaq's season on that end of the court.

20.7 pp100 @ 14.4 rTS 20.8 rp100 6.7 ap100 26.5 per .285 ws/48


These three guys and Jordan were pretty clearly my personal top four coming into this, should be interesting going forward. Two guys I'm really looking at breaking onto my ballot in the next round are Duncan 02-03 and Magic 86-87.

[PaulieWal]

This has been a great thread so far with the back and forth. I have certainly gained some new perspective on portability but overall I do think some concerns with LeBron are overblown. However, if he does more of the same next year then I think it would hurt his rankings a bit in my books. That being said my top 2 ballots will be from the previous thread minus MJ. I won't go into much detail on them as I already talked about them in the last thread and this thread has already talked a lot about LeBron. I am going:

1) Shaq (00)

Absolutely unstoppable and yeah, you can deny him the ball but any half-capable guard and you can't do much except to pray that he's having a bad game.

2) LeBron 12/13

I am still split between 12 and 13 as his peak. I am coming around more on 13 now because of his offensive versatility. I think his offensive versatility makes him more portable from that year and in 13 RS we saw peak LeBron/Wade pairing which resulted in 27 straight wins. His defense in the RS was probably slightly worse compared to 2012 but in the playoffs he was guarding West and Parker. Looks like I have talked myself into 13 as his peak actually lol.

3) Here's where I was a little lost. I was considering Wilt, Hakeem, Robinson, Kareem (though Spaceman didn't make much of a case for him in this thread, and even Russell).

I am going with Wilt (67) here. Wilt is a guy who had difficult years where he just wanted to score or lead the league in assists and he certainly had the propensity to stat-pad in the truest sense of the word. But 67 was one of his most complete seasons for me.

To make it easy for Trex:

Ballot 1 - Shaq 00
Ballot 2 - LeBron 12/13
Ballot 3 - Wilt 67

[theonlyclutch]

My first two ballot choices haven't really changed (Lebron + Shaq), but am looking at some other seasons for the third Ballot, Kareem, Hakeem, Wilt, and some others come to mind

[penbeast0]

For people who, like me (not a voter here), have Russell at or near the top of the GOAT list, what is his top season and why isn't it in contention here?

Probably because at his peak(depending what year it was), he was merely a 17-19 ppg on sub 50 ts%. His career high PER is 22.8. I get the massive impact on D he had, but the other guys being discussed here were a ton better offensively and also had great defensive impact. In other words, it's hard to make a case for Russell based on statistics.

I'm not a advocate of Russell being in the top 3 or even 5 for that matter, but i imagine the ones that do, do so because of his sustained success and excellence over a 10-12 year span, not because his peak was GOAT level.

He sustained it for a long time, as did Jordan, but his impact at his peak on his team's ability to win was certainly worth considering and probably higher than 1991 Jordan. Now if you make the argument that the 60s were a weaker era and he's not portable and all that, that's a different case you are making but in terms of peak impact on winning, his best year/years were monstrous.

[mischievous]

Most of the same stuff i had for these 2 in my previous ballot,

Ballot 1: 2000 Shaq. Simply the most physically dominant player ever at his peak, no disrespect to Wilt Chamberlain.

Stats: 29.7/13.6/3.8 3 blk, 57.8 ts% 30.6 PER 79 games played, elite defender.

Playoffs: Title, 30.7/15.4/3.1 2.4 blk 55.6 ts% 30.5 PER. Undoubtedly a top 5 finals performance ever imo, 38/16.7 on 57.6 ts%. Arguably the best finals performance. Simply put no one could stop or even contain a peak Shaq. Shaq over Lebron for me, because when push comes to shove i think you have a better chance of limiting Lebron, than you do Shaq. It's also worth noting Shaq as a big man had better defensive impact.

Ballot 2: 2012 Lebron James. 09 may be his best statistically, and athletically considering regular season plus playoffs, but in 2012 he was a more mature leader, smarter and complete player. His 09 playoffs were arguably the best 14 game stretch ever, but still its a 14 game sample.

2012 Regular season: 27.1/7.9/6.2 60.5 ts%, 30.7 PER. I like 2012 over 2013 because his playoff run was superior, and the way he struggled against the Spurs in a lot of that series alarmed me. 2012 was simply a Lebron who wouldn't be denied, his game 6 against Boston was possibly the greatest game i ever witnessed live. He just couldn't miss from anywhere on the floor.

Ballot 3: I'm gonna go Hakeem slightly over Wilt. I don't have the time right now to do a big comparison, i wanted to look at the 2 more in depth, but i know this thread will be done in the morning so i'll go Hakeem. Even though Wilt might've been more well rounded with his rebounding and play making skills, i lean Hakeem because Wilt's playoff scoring doesn't impress me and i think Hakeem would generally have an easier time scoring against tight defenses in the playoffs.

[yoyoboy]

1st Ballot Selection: LeBron James (2008-09) - Quite honestly I think this was the greatest peak of all time. It was in this season that I believe he was at his apex as an athlete. What impressed me most was his stamina on both ends of the floor. Take the sequence at 1:08 in the video below for example.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbxqVdN3gwM[/youtube]

First, he sprints the length of the floor and goes for a monstrous slam; then, on defense he goes up and stuffs Howard; finally, he picks himself up, runs back on offense, and nails a three. This all occurs in a period of 25 seconds and it's the type of play you saw repeatedly from LeBron throughout entire games. In the same video, you can see him go up and block Howard again at the 3:42 mark. He just never seemed to tire out.

Box Score Examination of James' and Shaq's Offense:

Per 100 Possessions:
LeBron - 40.8 ppg / 10.4 apg / 10.9 rpg / 122 ORTG
Shaq - 38.1 ppg / 4.9 apg / 17.9 rpg / 115 ORTG

Efficiency/Advanced Stats:
LeBron - 59.1% TS / 31.7 PER / 13.7 OWS / 9.4 OBPM
Shaq - 57.9% TS / 30.6 PER / 11.7 OWS / 6.2 OBPM

A popular argument for Shaq is that he commanded so much defensive attention in the paint; however, I would argue that LeBron had a very similar effect, being that he could pretty much get to the rim whenever he wanted, so other defenders would always have to come over to help. Unfortunately for them, we all know how proficient LeBron is when it comes to finding and kicking it to open shooters. Skip to 8:30 in the previous video above and pause it. Look how open Mo Williams and Delonte West are. And this was a recurring theme when it came to how defenses would have to play LeBron. By utilizing his absolutely elite ability to get to the rim and his insane vision, he essentially drove the entire Cleveland offense, which was basically filled with spot up shooters, who wouldn't have been able to do nearly as much on their own. Yet because they played with LeBron, together they were able to muster the fourth best offense in the league (112.4 ORTG, which was 1.5 points behind the leading Trail Blazers). When he was on the court, the Cavs had an ORTG of 115.6 (equivalent to the 1987 Lakers). And when was off the court, that dropped all the way down to 102.6 (which would have been the worst in the league).

And this is a big reason why I think LeBron's 2009 season deserves the title of the GOAT peak. The way in which he elevates his teammates' play, allowing them to simply play their roles to perfection for the betterment of the team, isn't accurately captured by the box score. Guys like Delonte West, Mo Williams, Wally Szczerbiak, and Daniel Gibson saw significant declines or dropped out of the league altogether after playing with LeBron. Yet LeBron was able to carry this subpar cast to 66 wins, tied for the 12th best season record of all time, and an +8.68 SRS, which was actually higher than Shaq's 2000 Lakers. There is no one else in history who could have carried those guys to 66 wins. Just look at how the Cavs fared in the 2010-11 season after LeBron left. They won just 19 games and saw the biggest SRS drop of all time from the previous season. I realize the team wasn't exactly the same, but the roster to start the year still had most of the core guys like Mo, Gibson, Hickson, Jamison, and Varejao (if you can even call that a core).

Box Score Examination of James' and Shaq's Defense:

LeBron - 99 DRTG / *6.5 DWS / 3.6 DBPM
Shaq - 95 DRTG / 7.0 DWS / 3.5 DBPM

*I thought I would note that the only SFs in NBA history with more defensive win shares in a season are Pippen and Havlicek.

It's been stated a lot how since Shaq is a center, he naturally has more impact as a defender, seeing that he has to protect the paint. In theory, I agree that centers tend to have more influence on the defensive end. However, while Shaq was a great man-to-man defender, he wasn't a good PnR defender, and I think this raises fairly serious portability issues especially if you're considering just dropping prime Shaq on a modern NBA team in an age where the pick n' roll is abused to death.

Here are some LeBron defensive stats from 2008-09 (which I stole from colts18):

On court: 100.6 DRTG (-7.7 relative to league average)
Off court: 108.8 DRTG (+0.5 relative to league average)
Differential: -8.2 (2nd highest on the season)

Opposing players guarded by LeBron on average posted a PER of just 10.4 (2014-15 Solomon Hill/Tony Snell territory).
Opposing SFs scored 12.8 pts/36 on .525 TS% against LeBron while opposing PFs scored 13.3 pts/36 on .484 TS%. I think this is interesting because a lot of people seem to believe that prime LeBron was overrated as a post defender.

Here is how some of the top SFs of 2009 (Durant, Pierce, Johnson, Carmelo, Gay, Butler) fared against Cleveland with LeBron on the court vs off the court:

Per 36:
LeBron on court: 15.1 PPG, .461 TS%, 3.3 Reb, 3.6 AST-3.4 TOV, -9.4 +/-
LeBron off court: 24.6 PPG, .596 TS%, 5.9 Reb, 2.3 AST-1.8 TOV, +0.9 +/-2

Finally, LeBron's Cavaliers allowed opposing SFs to post a mere 16.8 efficiency rating (-19.8 differential). Shaq's Lakers on the other hand allowed opposing SFs to post an 18.6 efficiency rating (-16.9 differential). Both ratings in opponent efficency rating and differential were the best in the league per position; however, LeBron slightly edged out Shaq in both stats.

Going back to what I said about Shaq's natural advantage on the defensive end due to his position, I think LeBron makes up for this due to how versatile he was defensively in his prime. I don't think the talk of him being able to guard 1-5 was that far off. He could seamlessly switch on point guards following screens and as I showed above he could even defend the post when he needed to, and that included coming over for the help defense and stuffing guys like Howard at the rim. As a team, the Cavs finished 4th in defense that season with a 102.4 DRTG (just 0.4 behind Dwight's Magic, who were in 1st), and besides Varejao, Wallace, and and an old Ilgauskas, the Cavs didn't have many above-average individual defenders around LeBron. His defensive versatility provided the glue that team needed to succeed on the defensive end.

What's amazing is that he was able to exert so much energy on defense, virtually making his presence felt everywhere on the floor, yet he still managed to carry the Cavs on the offensive end, as well.

Quick Look at RAPM:

LeBron:
8.5 PI RAPM (6.0 ORAPM / 2.5 DRAPM), 6.3 NPI RAPM (3.6 ORAPM / 2.7 DRAPM)

Shaq:
8.5 PI RAPM (6.2 ORAPM / 2.3 DRAPM), 5.2 NPI RAPM (3.9 ORAPM / 1.3 DRAPM)

Playoffs:

I don't want to delve into this too much or this post is going to be incredibly long, so I'm going to try to be concise here. A lot of people like to oversimplify the comparison by stating: "Shaq won the ring in 2000. LeBron didn't. Case closed." But I think that's extremely unfair to LeBron, as he really couldn't have played any better in the postseason. He posted a statline of 35/9/7 while shooting on 62% TS. He put up the highest WS/48 (.399) of all time and by a decent margin. He put up the highest PER (37.4) in NBA postseason history. While the Cavs may have fallen to the Magic in the ECFm can you really put any blame whatsoever on LeBron? It's not just him out there on the court. There are 4 other guys, and then you have coaches and a bench on the sidelines. While LeBron was busy putting up 39/8/8 in the Magic series, fake "All Star" Mo Williams was nowhere to be found when it counted, and the rest of the guys couldn't do anything offensively unless LeBron created them a wide open look (think: 2015 Cavs outside of LeBron in the Finals). Meanwhile, Dwight was wreaking havoc in the paint against Varejao, Illgauskas, and Wallace (who was nowhere near the defensive threat he once was). Mike Brown is a big reason to blame for this, as he seemingly made no adjustments to solve this problem. Unless you wanted to see LeBron step up and guard Dwight himself - which just isn't realistic - what more could he have done?

The NBA is a team game, and I don't think one necessarily has to win the ring in a given year to have a better season than a player who did happen to win a ring. We're evaluating players here on an individual level and LeBron was about as good individually as you can get that year. Aside from LeBron's teammates failing to give him the support he needed, Mike Brown was terribly outcoached by Van Gundy, and all in all, the Magic were just a terrible matchup for the Cavs.

2nd Ballot Selection: Shaquille O'Neal (1999-00): Easy choice for second. Shaq had the best defensive year of his career, leading the Lakers to the title of best defense in the regular season. As an offensive weapon, he was absolutely dominant in the paint, scoring just under 30 ppg, and oftentimes commanding double teams from opposing defenses, who hopelessly tried to force him away from the basket. The Lakers won 67 games that year, and carried their level of dominance into the postseason, where Shaq continued to establish his will. And of course he managed to reach the apex of his play when it all mattered most, in the NBA Finals. He put up an astounding 38 ppg and 17 rpg, which was one of the performances in Finals history and a fitting conclusion to a great regular season.

3rd Ballot Selection: Wilt Chamberlain (1966-67) - Wilt finally got a ring, and in large part it was because he finally learned to play as part of a team, rather than focusing on how many points he scored. He still managed to put up fairly gaudy numbers in the regular season (24 ppg / 24 rpg / 8 apg / 64% TS), but what's amazing is that he continued to carry that unselfish mindset into the postseason, where he averaged 9.0 apg (as a center!) while putting up near 22 ppg on the highest postseason FG% of his career: 57.9%. I believe this version of Wilt was just as dominant defensively as he had always been, and he was still the same Wilt who could drop 50 on you if he wanted. But he decided to sacrifice his gaudy scoring numbers, so that he could focus on helping his team win, and I this change in mindset is the difference between earlier Wilt and 1967 Wilt. It's easy to look at his numbers in 1962 and assume that was peak Wilt, but did he really decline as an athlete or as offensive threat? I believe not.

[Dr Spaceman]

Ballot

1. Shaquille O'Neal 2000
2. LeBron James 2013
3. David Robinson 1995

Pretty much swamped today, will come back tomorrow with my thoughts on Robinson as well as more discussion on whoever doesn't win this.

[trex_8063]

I cant really vote right now, since Im in school
But I have a question, Why do people seem to never mention Wilts 50ppg season as his peak?
He brought the celtics to 7 games.

Let me start off by saying that it's super-close to me. Although all three seasons have their own unique "flavor", they seem extremely close in overall quality.

The argument for '67 over '62 is the same as '67 over '64, and is pretty well known. In a nut-shell: more well-rounded game, embraced the team concept and anchored what was by nearly all measures the best team of the decade.

But since I'm leaning toward '64 as Wilt's peak, I'll focus on why I prefer that year to '62.

So here are a few factors I consider, some of which make '64 look marginally better, some of which at least make it look "not worse" than '62:

1) Questions about his defense in '62.
The Warriors DRtg in '62 was -1.2 to league avg. In '64 it was -6.0 (an improvement of 4.8). Now obviously there are other variables in play other than Wilt's individual contribution, the most noteworthy perhaps being the presence of Nate Thurmond in '64 (though still a rookie, and playing only 25.9 mpg). otoh, prime Tom Gola (widely renowned as very good perimeter defender) was around in '62, but not in '64. So maybe those two factors mostly cancel each other out???? Otherwise, the line-ups were very similar (Guy Rodgers, Al Attles, and Tom Meschery playing principle roles for both squads).
I realize I'm trying to connect a lot of dots here, but [for me, at least] this does cast a shred of doubt about how much effort or focus Wilt was able to give defensively in the '62 season, relative to '64.

2) Pace closes the statistical gap.
The '62 Warriors were playing a frenzied pace of 131.1; this slowed down to 115.1 in '64. Now while I don't believe there's a perfectly linear relationship between pace and the raw numbers, there IS a relationship. And if we look at the per 100 possession estimates for these years, the statistical gap between the two years is pretty small:
'62 Wilt: 38.0 pts, 19.4 reb, 1.8 ast @ +5.73% rTS
'64 Wilt: 33.3 pts, 20.2 reb, 4.6 ast @ +5.22% rTS

So '62 Wilt is +4.7 pts (and on slightly better efficiency), but with -0.8 reb and -2.8 ast per 100 possessions. That seems pretty close to a wash to me, though I'll give '62 the marginal edge based on 48.5 mpg vs. 46.1 in '64.
But just saying: the gap is no where near as large as the raw numbers would suggest. Throw in my questions about Wilt's D in '62.....

And fwiw, by advanced metrics '64 looks every bit equal (if not marginally better):
31.6 PER and .325 WS/48 in 46.1 mpg in '64.
31.7 PER and .286 WS/48 in 48.5 mpg in '62.

3) Similar quality team result with similar quality supporting cast.
In '62 they came damn close to toppling the Celtics, it's true. Though I have to wonder how much of that was sort of a fluky out-come (considering they were 2-8 vs. the Celtics in the rs).
And otherwise '62 doesn't have anything in particular on '64......49 wins vs. 48 in '64, but in SRS '64 was better (+4.41 vs. +2.63). In '64 the team ORtg/DRtg gap was 4.4, in '62 it was just 2.1. They took one game off the Celtics in '64, too, and it happened in the finals (not the Division Finals).
The primary supporting casts (which I feel are fairly similar in quality; gun to my head, I'd give the edge to the '62 cast):
'62--->final year of Paul Arizin, prime Tom Gola, Guy Rodgers, Al Attles, Tom Meschery, Ed Conlin.
'64--->rookie Nate Thurmond, Guy Rodgers, Tom Meschery, Al Attles, Wayne Hightower, Gary Phillips (somewhat gross when Gary Phillips is getting 30+ mpg), rookie Gary Hill (also gross).

4) Stat-padding gimmick.
This is perhaps the largest factor for me, which makes it difficult for me to get behind '62. Professional basketball was still relatively new at this point, and its future far from certain. Owners were willing to embrace any gimmick that would put butts in the seats. And no one had previously seen a physical specimen like Wilt (or even close to it, really). And thus was born this insane season.
This isn't all on Wilt's shoulders (though he was more than happy to comply); coach Frank McGuire fully encouraged this gimmick season where Wilt should play every minute, get as many touches as possible, and break every record possible. But the validity of the crazy numbers pall as a result of this peculiar circumstance.

So anyway, that's why I value '64 marginally higher.

[thizznation]

I cant really vote right now, since Im in school
But I have a question, Why do people seem to never mention Wilts 50ppg season as his peak?
He brought the celtics to 7 games.

Let me start off by saying that it's super-close to me. Although all three seasons have their own unique "flavor", they seem extremely close in overall quality.

The argument for '67 over '62 is the same as '67 over '64, and is pretty well known. In a nut-shell: more well-rounded game, embraced the team concept and anchored what was by nearly all measures the best team of the decade.

But since I'm leaning toward '64 as Wilt's peak, I'll focus on why I prefer that year to '62.

So here are a few factors I consider, some of which make '64 look marginally better, some of which at least make it look "not worse" than '62:

1) Questions about his defense in '62.
The Warriors DRtg in '62 was -1.2 to league avg. In '64 it was -6.0 (an improvement of 4.8). Now obviously there are other variables in play other than Wilt's individual contribution, the most noteworthy perhaps being the presence of Nate Thurmond in '64 (though still a rookie, and playing only 25.9 mpg). otoh, prime Tom Gola (widely renowned as very good perimeter defender) was around in '62, but not in '64. So maybe those two factors mostly cancel each other out???? Otherwise, the line-ups were very similar (Guy Rodgers, Al Attles, and Tom Meschery playing principle roles for both squads).
I realize I'm trying to connect a lot of dots here, but [for me, at least] this does cast a shred of doubt about how much effort or focus Wilt was able to give defensively in the '62 season, relative to '64.

2) Pace closes the statistical gap.
The '62 Warriors were playing a frenzied pace of 131.1; this slowed down to 115.1 in '64. Now while I don't believe there's a perfectly linear relationship between pace and the raw numbers, there IS a relationship. And if we look at the per 100 possession estimates for these years, the statistical gap between the two years is pretty small:
'62 Wilt: 38.0 pts, 19.4 reb, 1.8 ast @ +5.73% rTS
'64 Wilt: 33.3 pts, 20.2 reb, 4.6 ast @ +5.22% rTS

So '62 Wilt is +4.7 pts (and on slightly better efficiency), but with -0.8 reb and -2.8 ast per 100 possessions. That seems pretty close to a wash to me, though I'll give '62 the marginal edge based on 48.5 mpg vs. 46.1 in '64.
But just saying: the gap is no where near as large as the raw numbers would suggest. Throw in my questions about Wilt's D in '62.....

And fwiw, by advanced metrics '64 looks every bit equal (if not marginally better):
31.6 PER and .325 WS/48 in 46.1 mpg in '64.
31.7 PER and .286 WS/48 in 48.5 mpg in '62.

3) Similar quality team result with similar quality supporting cast.
In '62 they came damn close to toppling the Celtics, it's true. Though I have to wonder how much of that was sort of a fluky out-come (considering they were 2-8 vs. the Celtics in the rs).
And otherwise '62 doesn't have anything in particular on '64......49 wins vs. 48 in '64, but in SRS '64 was better (+4.41 vs. +2.63). In '64 the team ORtg/DRtg gap was 4.4, in '62 it was just 2.1. They took one game off the Celtics in '64, too, and it happened in the finals (not the Division Finals).
The primary supporting casts (which I feel are fairly similar in quality; gun to my head, I'd give the edge to the '62 cast):
'62--->final year of Paul Arizin, prime Tom Gola, Guy Rodgers, Al Attles, Tom Meschery, Ed Conlin.
'64--->rookie Nate Thurmond, Guy Rodgers, Tom Meschery, Al Attles, Wayne Hightower, Gary Phillips (somewhat gross when Gary Phillips is getting 30+ mpg), rookie Gary Hill (also gross).

4) Stat-padding gimmick.
This is perhaps the largest factor for me, which makes it difficult for me to get behind '62. Professional basketball was still relatively new at this point, and its future far from certain. Owners were willing to embrace any gimmick that would put butts in the seats. And no one had previously seen a physical specimen like Wilt (or even close to it, really). And thus was born this insane season.
This isn't all on Wilt's shoulders (though he was more than happy to comply); coach Frank McGuire fully encouraged this gimmick season where Wilt should play every minute, get as many touches as possible, and break every record possible. Nonetheless, the validity of the crazy numbers pall as a result of this peculiar circumstance.

So anyway, that's why I value '64 marginally higher.

With the stat padding gimmick thing, I am on board with that and I think stuff like that went on. On the flip side though that could almost be used as an argument for Wilt as well. When posters have been talking about Wilt having empty stats that didn't translate into overall team performance I think they need to take into account what you posted. I think some of the early 60's basketball owners didn't give two **** about winning nor proper basketball and they had the original "Big Ticket"(wilt) and that was good enough for them to put some butts in the seats. So wilt put up these amazing stats with dubious circumstances, but there is just no denying his immense level of talent in my opinion. And how much penalization are you going to give Wilt for some of the circumstances he played under? I've seen some posters flat out say they won't touch Wilt with a 10 foot pole when it comes to player comparisons because of all the unknown factors. This approach seems extreme but it is more fair than just rating Wilt and saying "he played vs **** opponents and didn't boost his team's performance that well". For me personally, even when taking his stats with a grain of salt, there is still a picture being painted of Wilt being one of the most dominating players of all time.

[Gregoire]

Shaw had issues defensively, and the most glaring one hasn't yet been mentioned; how he tended to drift and leave great shooting big men wide open pretty consistently. PNR defense in his peak season was just fine in my personal opinion, his later Laker years is when he's far more held back by that. The Lakers actually ran a pretty effective PNR scheme that doesn't look much different from all the ICEing we see today.

For me very doubtful statement: as I remember he was usually very weak in these situations in 2000, its not about effort, its more about natural limitations IMO.

[SideshowBob]

1. Shaq 2000 +8.00

2. Jordan 1991 +8.00

3. James 2013 +8.00

4. Bird 86 +7.25

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Here's how I rate these dudes on O/D:

Shaq +5.50 Offense/+2.50 Defense

Jordan +6.50 Offense/+1.50 Defense

James +5.75 Offense/+2.25 Defense

RS GP is pretty much my tiebreaker here, just for the sake of rankings, and even that is a minor difference (I'm pretty comfortable with the top seasons of Jordan/Shaq/James all at the sameish level).

On portability, between my top 3 (Jordan/Shaq/James) I actually rate both James and Shaq the same, and higher, in fact, than Jordan. I think the specified versions of James and Shaq retain more offensive value next to talent and both IMO are better than Jordan defensively.

On offense:

Shaq by nature of being a dominant offensive big man just creates a larger fraction of offensive pressure without the ball than Jordan (not to say that Jordan did not do so), even though Jordan IMO is the clearly superior offensive player. Probably has the most gravity of any player ever on that end; he's going to create good positioning/space for the other 4 on the floor no matter how much he's scoring himself game-in-game-out. Couple that in with the clearly more polished skillset displayed in his LA title years and you get an enormous amount of leeway enabled in ITO the lineups you can put around him. When you couple that with the fact that he's probably the best defensive force of these three (at least when honing in on 2000, better discipline/awareness on the PnR, size/lateral coverage of the lane, imposing shotblocking/deterring presence at the rim, by far the best rebounder of the group) and we get a GOAT level peak.

2013 version of James (and 2014 as well) is an exceptional spot-up 3 point shooter, near tops in the league from the corner and has begun to incorporate the post into his offensive game (though he makes clear advancements the following year). This makes him far more dynamic ITO movement/positioning within the offense, and just gives teams an insane degree of lineup flexibility on offense. I thus think he's more portable than Jordan despite Jordan's greater variety of off-ball skills, THOUGH he lags behind Jordan as an offensive player ITO ability/impact (only 2014 is on Jordan's level IMO).

The gap, however, is made up on defense.

Spoiler:

As one of the people who has watched pretty much every Lebron game for the last 5 years and really honing in on his defensive abilities I'd say that the answer is yes and no in the media and on this forum.

This is going to be a long ass post.

He's legitimately inflippngsanely good on defense. His basketball IQ is almost as good on D as it is on O. Also the fact that he's probably the GOAT transition finisher it makes players shook when he's close to the ball.

In terms of one on one defense a locked in stance Lebron is probably the best at covering any perimeter player in the league. He's strong as ****, he's long, he moves his feet super well and is really good at giving cushion (like so much that it would be stupid to drive on him and bounce off his chest) while still in hard contest range because of his athletic ability and wingspan. It's why he does so well on the guys like Derrick Rose and Tony Parker despite being in a quickness deficit. He's so far off them but they can't shoot worth a **** over him (unlike someone like Steph Curry) they become useless one on one. He's also extremely difficult to screen on ball which is odd because he's not like a Tony Allen where he just avoids screens like he's in the Matrix. He just powers over and makes it hard for you to make any sort of pass because you are scared of him getting a fast break and since he went over the shot really isn't there. Or he goes under and gets back in time for the contest with his athleticism. Against the Carmelo, Paul Pierce, Joe Johnson types it's even a worse scenario for them. They are slower and play right into his hands and they can't overpower him, are slower and usually end up taking contested jumpshots (which Lebron wants since he plays a cushion) one on one that have like no chance or become spot up shooters when he guards them. It's crazy when Carmelo lights up Shane Battier (amazing defender) for an entire playoff series and shoots like complete poop against Lebron (not like the 12 Knicks had a chance anyways). Now where is he overrated? Effort on matchups he deems the player to not be as dangerous. On a close out where someone attacks him he a lot of the times will just give up on the play and let him go by rather than exerting the energy neccessary to reverse directions and slide to cut the dude off. Even though that player may be less dangerous its still giving up penetration that forces his teammates to cover for him.

Lebron is overrated in terms of his ability to guard post players one on one. Guys who have a solid base and leverages can back him down and get good shots in the post/ close to the basket. Getting Lebron on your back and leaning on him eliminates some of his athletic advantage. But the fact that he is adequate to good and can contest their shots/ play solid one on one D as a perimeter player as especially beneficial when we get to his team defense and his switching potential. And then we get to his ability to ball deny the **** out of the post. He has no where near the energy needed to do this for the whole game or even more than 3-5 possessions at a time but when he fronts the post there's no way to get the ball there. You aren't throwing a lob over Lebron James and he's strong enough to keep that post player on his back (reversing the leverages) which is kind of funny. He can park you right on his butt and you can't get around him even though you are taller and longer. That game in 12 where he was fronting Pau Gasol was probably the best example of this caught on National TV. But when Lebron wants to ball deny a post player that dude ain't getting the ball however it requires all of his energy.

Now we get to his team defense. He has an effect by just existing. Opposing player hate to throw passes near him because if he picks it off/ his teammates steal it, it's a dunk on the other end. It allows him to shut down the weak side corner unless he is forced to rotate or make it very difficult for the primary ball handler (who's normally the engine of the offense) to initiate stuff. Then we get to his versatility. Being the athlete he is just makes him able to get to spots quicker than others (his rotations are insanely fast) and play in between where he's guarding 2 people at once (can challenge the rim if roller gets a nice pass but still close enough to hard close out the corner/ wing) where most other guys would be essentially guarding nobody. Also given his athleticism and size he's credible at dealing with a big in a pinch while also able to close out hard 6'8 jump out of the gym and long/ deter any attacks on his close outs (when he isn't being a lazy bitch/ see early 2013-2014 season). It just makes him a swiss army knife on defense that can cover any mistake adequately which allows his teammates to play more aggressive and force more turnovers which given his status as likely the GOAT transition finisher is what you want.

What's essential is how to value 1on1 and help D from a global floor impact perspective. What, in most general terms, makes a 1on1 defender valuable and the same for help. The key for the defense as a whole is not conceding open buckets, power plays, essentially 5on4 situations for the offense due to a defensive error. Late/inadequate help or late recovery from help, missed rotations, poor rotation (matchup advantage/disadvantage), etc., you want to minimize all of these as much as possible and keep the player movement and coverage disciplined.

Thus, generalized, the ideal 1on1 defender needs to above all need as little help as possible. If you have the tools/ability to single cover your man (with and without the ball) with as little need for additional defenders as possible, you're good to go. The problem, of course is that offenses are designed to disrupt this as much as possible, creating matchup advantages via player action/movement, thus defenders will never cover only a single player or even position, and it becomes highly difficult to stay in single coverage without help, even for a split seconds time. THIS is precisely why Lebron's 1on1 defense is valuable. He doesn't need to be able to shut down ANY position, he just needs to be adequate enough to switch on to anyone without consistently needing help from teammates and allowing an easy bucket for the offense. He is a mistake reducer, the team as a whole will see its defensive errors decline when Lebron is on the floor.

The same thought process can be applied to help defense; be able to provide additional coverage for your teammates while covering your man. Essentially, you need the quickness for recovery, the awareness to know the positioning of both your man and your teammate's, the instinct/knowledge of player tendencies and your potential coverage options (remember this applies to on-ball AND off-ball help coverage), and the size/athleticism to be able to physically undertake this in just a split second. It just so happens that Lebron tends to exhibit all of these traits, and as you stated, the additional threat of Lebron initiating a break off a capitalized error just increases the timidness of offensive players against him. All of this suggests the potential for massive defensive impact, which aligns with the player and team data we have.

Now if he was dumb as rocks and couldn't recognize where to go to cover for his teammates then all that versatility would be useless. What I admire most about his team defense is how good he is at reading situations. His brain when locked in works differently than other defenders. Just little **** like where to be in situations where my teammates **** up and I'm covering these 2 shooters and I should close out to the corner even though I'm closer to the guy at the wing and the pass is going to the guy at the wing because the guy in the corner is a better shooter and the corner 3 is an easier shot.

Lastly get to the fact that he's probably the best transition defender of all time when he chooses to get back on defense. It probably evens out/ maybe slight positive for his team. Lazy/ arguing with refs vs. the fact that he probably has the highest % success of anybody at thwarting fast breaks when he gets back. Not only did he stop getting so many chase down blocks because he got more lazy but also the fact that guards stopped challenging him.

The TLDR. In terms of skill, IQ, versatility and overall ability he's actually probably the scariest Non-Big defender ever on any given possession. Turbo D Lebron is unreal he can literally do everything in a possession and do it super well (front the post, switch on to the primary ball handler, then bump down and slide the nail and close out and make the corner guy shoot an air ball). There's just no **** way that he has the energy to do that on every defensive possession to start with and then when you add in his offensive load as one of the best players of all time on that end it really mutes his defensive impact overall where he's good but he's not the highest impacting perimeter defender you've ever seen (this year's Kawhi, Tony Allen, Draymond all have peaked higher on D for instance).

I think this speaks to his strong learning ability and memory, but also to the time invested in studying game tape. His knowledge of player habits/tendencies/positioning can't just be instinctual, he has to be legitimately putting in the work for it.

2013, particularly the late RS and the postseason was IMO his defensive peak. Athleticism superior to 2012 and thus he had superior quickness/lateral mobility to go disrupt offenses with his timing/positioning/etc. I rank it slightly lower overall defensively than 2012 due to inconsistent effort in the 1st half of the season suggestive of a depleted motor but he was insanely impressive in the 2nd half IMO.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My thoughts on Bird from before (I'll expand once we get lower down the list).

Spoiler:

Got him at +6.75 Off/+0.50 Def

4. Larry Bird, 1986

He's the primary one-way guy in my top 5. His offensive impact is ridiculous, second only to Magic, and I'd argue that his particular skill-set enables a higher team offensive ceiling than Magic's does (remember the theoretical scenario; lower variance lower impact more valuable at a certain threshold than higher variance higher impact). Magic is the guy you build around; Bird is the guy you can just throw in anywhere.

Now, the driving reason for this impact is diversity. When looking strictly at offense, he's the rare master of all trades. GOAT level off-ball game, GOAT level outside shooting, GOAT level transition player/outlet passer, diverse post skillset and GOAT level interior passing, elite offensive rebounding. He can space the floor, he can divert defensive attention with just smart positioning, he can play inside and allow better spacing for an additional ball handler or ball dominant wing, he can run the floor himself, he's excellent at running the break, etc.

Having all of these together just enables huge lineup diversity. You can run anyone with this guy, and he enables them to play to their strengths while simultaneously playing to his own strengths (given that he has so many). He's a threat to score or create in virtually any offensive situation, he's basically pulling more offense out of lineups than anyone else is going to, and rarely plays poorly because he just has so much to provide.

He's no game changer on defense; he works effectively within the framework of the team defense and is a very strong rebounder, enabling very minimal positive impact, but his offensive so damn strong to begin with that this minor defensive impact propels him into my top 5 overall.

[SactoKingsFan]

My 1st and 2nd ballots will go to 13 LeBron and 2000 Shaq for the same reasons mentioned in the #1 thread.

viewtopic.php?p=44623575#p44623575

I can understand why Wilt is gaining so much traction, but as previously mentioned by drza, 64/65 Russell should probably be a candidate. Wilt peaking in 67 makes sense to me since it was his most complete/well rounded season with very efficient scoring, great defense and rebounding. 67 Wilt was also a highly effective offensive hub with ATG passing and had a fantastic playoff run. Then there's 64/65 Russell who anchored historically dominant defenses (10+ pts better than league avg). If we can agree that most of that defensive dominance can be attributed to Russell, then why are most voters not even considering him for the #4 peak? Is it his limited offensive skill- set or are we assuming Russell was a major negative on offense?

1st ballot: 13 LeBron James
2nd ballot: 00 Shaquille O'Neal
3rd ballot: 67 Wilt or 64/65 Russell

[GoldenFrieza21]

This has been a great thread so far with the back and forth. I have certainly gained some new perspective on portability but overall I do think some concerns with LeBron are overblown. However, if he does more of the same next year then I think it would hurt his rankings a bit in my books. That being said my top 2 ballots will be from the previous thread minus MJ. I won't go into much detail on them as I already talked about them in the last thread and this thread has already talked a lot about LeBron. I am going:

1) Shaq (00)

Absolutely unstoppable and yeah, you can deny him the ball but any half-capable guard and you can't do much except to pray that he's having a bad game.

2) LeBron 12/13

I am still split between 12 and 13 as his peak. I am coming around more on 13 now because of his offensive versatility. I think his offensive versatility makes him more portable from that year and in 13 RS we saw peak LeBron/Wade pairing which resulted in 27 straight wins. His defense in the RS was probably slightly worse compared to 2012 but in the playoffs he was guarding West and Parker. Looks like I have talked myself into 13 as his peak actually lol.

3) Here's where I was a little lost. I was considering Wilt, Hakeem, Robinson, Kareem (though Spaceman didn't make much of a case for him in this thread, and even Russell).

I am going with Wilt (67) here. Wilt is a guy who had difficult years where he just wanted to score or lead the league in assists and he certainly had the propensity to stat-pad in the truest sense of the word. But 67 was one of his most complete seasons for me.

To make it easy for Trex:

Ballot 1 - Shaq 00
Ballot 2 - LeBron 12/13
Ballot 3 - Wilt 67

Can you compare Shaq vs Wilt and LeBron vs Wilt? Wilt was a much better defensive player than both. He was probably on the same level offensively as Shaq, just impacted in different ways and could still score ridiculous points on mind-boggling efficiency any time he wanted to. He just chose to be the point-center and it worked insanely well. The guy had no weakness in his game except free-throw shooting, but the same goes for Shaq. Anything Shaq could do, Wilt could do better that year, except maybe volume scoring.

But Wilt could still put up points like maybe 3-4 players in history whenever he needed to. He didn't do it all the time because he had a great team, and he shouldn't be punished for his team. Doesn't the rebounding, defense, playmaking gap make up for the much smaller scoring gap?

I can potentially understand LeBron over Wilt if you argue it if you value perimeter players more because of their superior creation skills but Shaq over Wilt just doesn't make sense to me. If you have a guy who's a little better at one thing, vs a guy who's vastly better at every other important thing, wouldn't you pick the second guy?

[Joao Saraiva]

1. 2009 LeBron James
I had a tough time picking it over James in 2012, and I have picked 2012 in the past. Anyway:
RS: 28.4 PPG 7.6 RPG 7.2 APG 1.7 SPG 1.1 BPG 3 TOPG 31.7 PER 59.1ts% and 31.8 WS/48. 66 wins in the regular season with a cast composed by old big Z, old Ben Wallace, Delonte West (average SG at best) and Mo Williams (Just see where Mo's career has gone after leaving Cle). I have to be impressed with that record. LeBron had arguably the quickest 1st step EVER, and he scored in the paint with a better % than Shaq at his peak. How insane is that? He was also #2 at DPOY, and it was well deserved.

Playoffs: 35.3 PPG 9.1 RPG 7.3 APG 1.6 SPG 0.9 BPG 2.7 TOPG 37.4 PER 61.8 ts% abd 39.9 WS/48. He was playing at GOAT level. His driving was superb, he was hitting huge shots, 3 pointers from half court, fade away 3s in the clutch and having some of his most amazing performances ever. Games 1 and 5 against Orlando were insane, and he also had a great great one vs Atlanta. He was eliminated against Orlando averaging 38.5 PPG 8.3 RPG 8.0 APG 1.2 SPG and 1.2 BPG at 59.1ts%. And that was against a team with DPOY Dwight, defending the paint. Volume/efficiency scoring is truly amazing.

I think it also can be challanged by 2012 LeBron. Game 4 vs Indiana, game 6 vs Boston and great finals where LeBron couldn't get his shot outside the paint going and still scored great volume on good efficiency. MVP, Finals MVP and another #2 at DPOY. Still I had to go with 09. That just shows you how great 09 was.

2. Shaquille O'Neal 2000
RS: 29.7 PPG 13.6 RPG 3.8 APG 0.5 SPG 2.8 BPG 2.8 TOPG 30.6 PER 57.8ts% 28.3 WS/48. Shaq just took a leap with his game playing under Phil Jackson. He was dominating in the paint like it was easy. 57.4 FG% is just amazing. Other teams had to double him in the post a lot of times, they had to foul him because if they didn't he would most likely get the 2 points, and if he got the ball deep in the post... It just seemed like either it was a basket, a foul, or both! Very few teams could SLOW him down. When I say slow it's not playing bad, it's just make him seem human instead of superman.

Playoffs: 30.7 PPG 15.4 RPG 3.1 APG 0.6 SPG 2.4 BPG 2.4 TOPG 30.5 PER 55.6ts% 22.4WS/48. He started against SAC. Divac and Webber are a great frontcourt, and gave the Lakers a competitive series. They grabbed between themselves 16.8 RPG. But Shaq ALONE outrebounded them, at 17.4 RPG. He also blocked 13 times in those series, while Webber and Divac combined for 14 blocks. That while scoring 29.4 PPG. Then 30.2 PPG and 16.2 RPG against the Suns. Simply dominant. Then 4-3 against Portland with great games and bad games. Still averaged 25.9 PPG and 12.4 RPG. That shows you how great he was, 25.9 PPG and 12.4 RPG was subpar for Shaq in the playoffs! And then in the finals... Indiana just had no frontcourt capable to guard Shaq (like that was something easy to find...). 38 PPG 16.7 RPG 2.7 BPG and only 13 turn overs in 6 games! 61.1FG%. Rewatching this finals will show you the spell of dominance Shaq had at his peak. He has a case for the best finals ever.

3. Hakeem Olajuwon 93-94 season
RS: 27.3 PPG 11.9 RPG 3.6 APG 1.6 SPG 3.7 BPG 3.4 TOPG 25.3 PER 56.5ts% 21 WS/48.
58 wins for Houston in the regular season. Onyle behind the Sonics who had a great team. Hakeem won MVP and DPOY and it was well deserved. Great impact on both sides of the court, leading a team with no 2nd star (despite having a good cast) to that great record. He was scoring, blocking, rebounding, assisting, stealing and living up to his legendary reputation, both on offense and specially on D.

Playoffs: 28.9 PPG 11.0 RPG 4.3 APG 1.7 SPG 4.0 BPG 3.6 TOPG 27.7 PER 56.8 ts% 20.8 WS/48.
Jordan had Pippen. LeBron had Bosh/Wade. Shaq had Kobe Bryant. Hakeem had Kenny Smith, Maxwell, Otis, Horry and Sam Cassel. It's a great cast don't get me wrong, but he won without a 2nd great player like those guys had. And despite being great on offense, the most interesting thing to look at is his D. Karl Malone in the WCF scored 26 PPG but at 50.5ts%. Barkley scored 23.4 PPG at 53.2ts% in the 2nd round vs Houston, and Ewing scored 18.9 at 39%ts in the NBA finals! Those numbers will indeed show the kind of impact Hakeem had on D.

Also he won MVP, DPOY and finals MVP in the same season. That's a very restrict club: only Hakeem has done that. Despite being the 4th in my list, I would have no problem ranking this season over Shaq or even over LeBron 2009 or 2012.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I cant really vote right now, since Im in school
But I have a question, Why do people seem to never mention Wilts 50ppg season as his peak?
He brought the celtics to 7 games.

Let me start off by saying that it's super-close to me. Although all three seasons have their own unique "flavor", they seem extremely close in overall quality.

The argument for '67 over '62 is the same as '67 over '64, and is pretty well known. In a nut-shell: more well-rounded game, embraced the team concept and anchored what was by nearly all measures the best team of the decade.

But since I'm leaning toward '64 as Wilt's peak, I'll focus on why I prefer that year to '62.

So here are a few factors I consider, some of which make '64 look marginally better, some of which at least make it look "not worse" than '62:

1) Questions about his defense in '62.
The Warriors DRtg in '62 was -1.2 to league avg. In '64 it was -6.0 (an improvement of 4.8). Now obviously there are other variables in play other than Wilt's individual contribution, the most noteworthy perhaps being the presence of Nate Thurmond in '64 (though still a rookie, and playing only 25.9 mpg). otoh, prime Tom Gola (widely renowned as very good perimeter defender) was around in '62, but not in '64. So maybe those two factors mostly cancel each other out???? Otherwise, the line-ups were very similar (Guy Rodgers, Al Attles, and Tom Meschery playing principle roles for both squads).
I realize I'm trying to connect a lot of dots here, but [for me, at least] this does cast a shred of doubt about how much effort or focus Wilt was able to give defensively in the '62 season, relative to '64.

2) Pace closes the statistical gap.
The '62 Warriors were playing a frenzied pace of 131.1; this slowed down to 115.1 in '64. Now while I don't believe there's a perfectly linear relationship between pace and the raw numbers, there IS a relationship. And if we look at the per 100 possession estimates for these years, the statistical gap between the two years is pretty small:
'62 Wilt: 38.0 pts, 19.4 reb, 1.8 ast @ +5.73% rTS
'64 Wilt: 33.3 pts, 20.2 reb, 4.6 ast @ +5.22% rTS

So '62 Wilt is +4.7 pts (and on slightly better efficiency), but with -0.8 reb and -2.8 ast per 100 possessions. That seems pretty close to a wash to me, though I'll give '62 the marginal edge based on 48.5 mpg vs. 46.1 in '64.
But just saying: the gap is no where near as large as the raw numbers would suggest. Throw in my questions about Wilt's D in '62.....

And fwiw, by advanced metrics '64 looks every bit equal (if not marginally better):
31.6 PER and .325 WS/48 in 46.1 mpg in '64.
31.7 PER and .286 WS/48 in 48.5 mpg in '62.

3) Similar quality team result with similar quality supporting cast.
In '62 they came damn close to toppling the Celtics, it's true. Though I have to wonder how much of that was sort of a fluky out-come (considering they were 2-8 vs. the Celtics in the rs).
And otherwise '62 doesn't have anything in particular on '64......49 wins vs. 48 in '64, but in SRS '64 was better (+4.41 vs. +2.63). In '64 the team ORtg/DRtg gap was 4.4, in '62 it was just 2.1. They took one game off the Celtics in '64, too, and it happened in the finals (not the Division Finals).
The primary supporting casts (which I feel are fairly similar in quality; gun to my head, I'd give the edge to the '62 cast):
'62--->final year of Paul Arizin, prime Tom Gola, Guy Rodgers, Al Attles, Tom Meschery, Ed Conlin.
'64--->rookie Nate Thurmond, Guy Rodgers, Tom Meschery, Al Attles, Wayne Hightower, Gary Phillips (somewhat gross when Gary Phillips is getting 30+ mpg), rookie Gary Hill (also gross).

4) Stat-padding gimmick.
This is perhaps the largest factor for me, which makes it difficult for me to get behind '62. Professional basketball was still relatively new at this point, and its future far from certain. Owners were willing to embrace any gimmick that would put butts in the seats. And no one had previously seen a physical specimen like Wilt (or even close to it, really). And thus was born this insane season.
This isn't all on Wilt's shoulders (though he was more than happy to comply); coach Frank McGuire fully encouraged this gimmick season where Wilt should play every minute, get as many touches as possible, and break every record possible. Nonetheless, the validity of the crazy numbers pall as a result of this peculiar circumstance.

So anyway, that's why I value '64 marginally higher.

Fantastic post.
I was aware of the impact-part of why some dont consider 62 his peak, but imo, wouldnt that work for 67 as well?
I mean, from 67 to 68, despite Wilt arguably bettering his averages from 67, when he left, the offense stayed exactly the same.
Personally, I understand where people are coming from, but when it comes to that 64 season, the only thing I really dont understand is how the warriors went 17-65 the next year


For the Celtics, in my opinion, they went to game 7s against many inferior teams. Discouting Wilt's teams, I recall that they went to game 7s with teams that averaged around 44 wins overall.

[Moonbeam]

The discussion has been fascinating before. I wish I had more time to post lengthy replies. I'm ok if you want to drop me as a voter, trex, since I can't guarantee how active I'll be.

Whether my vote counts or not, here is my thinking for this ballot.

1. LeBron James 2009: I was expecting to go with Shaq in 2000 as my #1 pick here, but I thought it would be close over LeBron. LeBron has other great candidates for peak years (2012, 2013, even 2014), but I find the arguments for 2009 LeBron to be quite convincing given the cast he had in Cleveland. I think it can be overstated how weak that cast was, but it still was nothing to write home about. To manage a +8 SRS in a relatively strong East (about equal with the West that year) was pretty remarkable.

Then he had a postseason for the ages. The guy had an O+ (net ORating above average DRating of opponents) of 23.01, on top of playing good defense. Other guys you see with an O+ that high are usually doing so in small minutes, or are 3-point specialists. Jordan's best was 20.57 in 1991. Shaq's best was actually 14.69 in 2003. The Orlando series saw him post an O+ of 15.65 - still a crazy elite number, if not as strong as his earlier rounds. I find it hard to fault him for the Cavs being overmatched at the big positions.

2. Shaquille O'Neal 2000: First, let me say that it was hard for me to choose between 2000 Shaq and 2001 Shaq. In 2001, there was a little more of a "turn it on when we need to" aspect to the Lakers, which was evident in the playoffs when they suddenly obliterated everyone after a comparatively lackluster regular season. And I feel like Shaq was part of what set that tone. But what was true about Shaq's presence in 2000 was also true in 2001, and what's also true is that Shaq was shooting an extra 2.7 free throws per game in 2001, suggesting that he was drawing more even more fouls. His free throw rate was an absurd .684 that year as opposed to "just" .495 the year before. That's a significant jump, and by drawing more fouls, Shaq weakened opponents' ability to not just defend him, but defend other positions as well. These fouls were mostly coming from big men, after all.

Nonetheless, in 2000, Shaq was a hungrier and more focused Shaq than we ever saw, and as someone who absolutely hated the guy, it was indeed terrifying. His scoring was actually not as directly impactful on the scoreboard as in previous years (a pace-adjusted net PPG of 3.036 as opposed to 3.280 and 3.557 in 1998 and 1999, but his improved passing made him a more lethal offensive force. He was not only sucking in so much attention from the defense and generating tons of fouls, but he was now quite capable of being effective as a passer from the post. Granted, the Laker offense was better in 2001, but the defense was quite a bit better in 2000, and I think it's at least partly due to Shaq remaining hungry.

I'm still tossing up #3, but I'm thinking it will go to Wilt, Russell, Kareem, or Hakeem.

[MyUniBroDavis]

This has been a great thread so far with the back and forth. I have certainly gained some new perspective on portability but overall I do think some concerns with LeBron are overblown. However, if he does more of the same next year then I think it would hurt his rankings a bit in my books. That being said my top 2 ballots will be from the previous thread minus MJ. I won't go into much detail on them as I already talked about them in the last thread and this thread has already talked a lot about LeBron. I am going:

1) Shaq (00)

Absolutely unstoppable and yeah, you can deny him the ball but any half-capable guard and you can't do much except to pray that he's having a bad game.

2) LeBron 12/13

I am still split between 12 and 13 as his peak. I am coming around more on 13 now because of his offensive versatility. I think his offensive versatility makes him more portable from that year and in 13 RS we saw peak LeBron/Wade pairing which resulted in 27 straight wins. His defense in the RS was probably slightly worse compared to 2012 but in the playoffs he was guarding West and Parker. Looks like I have talked myself into 13 as his peak actually lol.

3) Here's where I was a little lost. I was considering Wilt, Hakeem, Robinson, Kareem (though Spaceman didn't make much of a case for him in this thread, and even Russell).

I am going with Wilt (67) here. Wilt is a guy who had difficult years where he just wanted to score or lead the league in assists and he certainly had the propensity to stat-pad in the truest sense of the word. But 67 was one of his most complete seasons for me.

To make it easy for Trex:

Ballot 1 - Shaq 00
Ballot 2 - LeBron 12/13
Ballot 3 - Wilt 67

Can you compare Shaq vs Wilt and LeBron vs Wilt? Wilt was a much better defensive player than both. He was probably on the same level offensively as Shaq, just impacted in different ways and could still score ridiculous points on mind-boggling efficiency any time he wanted to. He just chose to be the point-center and it worked insanely well. The guy had no weakness in his game except free-throw shooting, but the same goes for Shaq. Anything Shaq could do, Wilt could do better that year, except maybe volume scoring.

But Wilt could still put up points like maybe 3-4 players in history whenever he needed to. He didn't do it all the time because he had a great team, and he shouldn't be punished for his team. Doesn't the rebounding, defense, playmaking gap make up for the much smaller scoring gap?

I can potentially understand LeBron over Wilt if you argue it if you value perimeter players more because of their superior creation skills but Shaq over Wilt just doesn't make sense to me. If you have a guy who's a little better at one thing, vs a guy who's vastly better at every other important thing, wouldn't you pick the second guy?

I would still generally use impact as an arguement.
Shaq's supporting cast was not as good as some people believed. they had a few injuries, and I recall that they were barely 50%, win percentage wise, with Shaq out.
When Wilt left the 76ers, their offensive rating stayed exactly the same, and I recall that relative to competition it actually decreased. They also won 55 games. offensively at least, Im pretty sure that I would take Shaq over wilt. Wilt was a monster defensively, but he and Shaq had similar problems. They were both DPOTY candidates. From what I hear, they both couldn't defend the pick and roll well. I would give wilt the edge in terms of rim protection and man to man defense though, But I have heard that Wilt wasnt exactly the best defender off-ball.

This was a general trend in Wilts career.

For example, in his rookie year to his second year, his team went from a 4.3+ defensive rating team and a -3.4 offensive team to a (im using plsu as being a good thing btw) 1.6 + defensive team and a 0.9 - offensive team.
(pre wilt, they were 0.9+ on defense and -4.5 on offense)

In the next year, they became 0.9+ on offense, and 1.2 + on defense.


Since his playstyle was similar in 1967 to 68, ill show what he did when he left.
they were 1.3 offense+ and 5.6 defense+ in 68.
They traded wilt and only got 2 players, since 1 went to the military. (it looks like other than that they kept their core intace accordin to bball reference stats)
they became +1.6 on defense and +2.6 on offense when wilt left.
(in 67 they were +5.4 on offense and plus 3 on defense)
Take Jordan in 93 for example
and it was well documented I think that Pippen had a "breakout" year defensively, even for him.
they went from +4.9 on offense to -0.2 offensively
the bulls suprisingly improved on defense, though I attribute that to Pippen



This is a situation where I believe that on paper doesent generally show the reality. I mean, thinking about it on a per position basis, Lebron should be miles ahead of Shaq, he is a better passer, scores slightly less, can make his teammates play well, actually scored a higher % of his post ups, etc, but they are definately comparable. the same applies to Wilt. Personally, I put wilt behind Shaq and Lebron.

I also realize that they beat the celtics handily, and that Wilt in general had a decent record against them in the playoffs (it was around 28-16) I would almost say that his teams did not over achieve. In general, excluding Wilts teams, teh celtics went to game 7s against teams with an overall average of around 44 wins, and this is skewed by 1 50 win team they faced.

[The-Power]

Pretty much swamped today, will come back tomorrow with my thoughts on Robinson as well as more discussion on whoever doesn't win this.

I would love to read your take on the difference between '95 and '96 DRob. Given the emphasis of my endorsement for Robinson one could easily take his '96 version as well, although I sided with '95 myself. It seems like it's our task to promote him in this project.

[Joao Saraiva]

All good points but anyone making a point about LeBron "marginalizing" Love/Bosh is not being honest. Both went from a 1st option to 3rd options. I'd like to see what a 3rd option on a good team is supposed to average.

You're making the exact same point I'm always making when someone says that LeBron marginalizes bigmen. I'm proud that others are now using the exact same argument I made.

My argument wouldn't be that LeBron marginalizes big men...or marginalizes anyone, per se. My argument would be that a team sporting that much combined talent should be able to translate it into a dominant unit. The 80s Lakers or Celtics on offense. The early 00s Mavs offense, the mid-00s Suns offense. Oscar and Kareem. Sporting a whole lot of offensive talent around an all-history offensive player should result in an all-history offensive unit.

Same on defense. Duncan and Robinson overlap a bunch, but put the two together and the defense was ridiculous. Put Ben and Sheed Wallace together with a Prince thrown in, and the Pistons defense went nuts. Excess talent around an all-history player SHOULD lead to insanity mode.

My "issue" with LeBron at this level isn't that Kyrie's/Love's numbers went down...or that Wade's/Bosh's numbers went down, as individuals. My issue is that we've now seen LeBron as part of two different talent-rich big 3s over the past 5 years, in his prime, and on a team-level it appears that added talent leads to diminishing returns at a higher rate than it does with other mega stars. This isn't an issue with LeBron in general, but if we're talking about for the 2nd greatest peak of all time then I think it's worthy of discussion. Especially as a counter-point to the usual criticism that sometimes stats may be over-used. Really defining the issue is a qualitative exercise, but it's interesting to me to see that the phenomenon can be quantified at least to some extent using the available +/- data.

I won't discuss Cleveland's big 3 since it's not LeBron's peak and it was only his 1st year.

But I'll discuss what you're talking about the Heat. I have no problem with LeBron's peak being 12 or 13 (even tough I think it was 09).

Let's talk about the dominant teams and the Heat, in those two years.
They were actually a team with high eFG% and ts%, maximizing their efficiency. They had Joel Anthony (an offensive cancer and not more than a d-leaguer) playing 21.1 MPG. And they still were a very efficient team. So the reason they were not that dominant was because they didn't have an elite rim protector and had some rebounding issues. So LeBron actually didn't make them worse, he made that team really realiable on offense.

Then in 13 the Heat's cast improved. As a result, they won more than 80% of their games and went on a 27 win streak. They were also #2 in ORTG and #1 in eFG%. For a team with no real rim protection, playing small with and with rebounding issues, that is absolutely stunning.

The Lakers from the 80s had rebounding, rim protection and were a better team in more areas than the Heat. That's the diference.

People usually talk about LeBron diminuishing his teammates but that's absolutely not true. What he and the Heat did was remarkable, and I doubt any SF in his position would have done better. Add to that the fact that he closed the middle and you really have something special in those two seasons.

[E-Balla]

This has been a great thread so far with the back and forth. I have certainly gained some new perspective on portability but overall I do think some concerns with LeBron are overblown. However, if he does more of the same next year then I think it would hurt his rankings a bit in my books. That being said my top 2 ballots will be from the previous thread minus MJ. I won't go into much detail on them as I already talked about them in the last thread and this thread has already talked a lot about LeBron. I am going:

1) Shaq (00)

Absolutely unstoppable and yeah, you can deny him the ball but any half-capable guard and you can't do much except to pray that he's having a bad game.

2) LeBron 12/13

I am still split between 12 and 13 as his peak. I am coming around more on 13 now because of his offensive versatility. I think his offensive versatility makes him more portable from that year and in 13 RS we saw peak LeBron/Wade pairing which resulted in 27 straight wins. His defense in the RS was probably slightly worse compared to 2012 but in the playoffs he was guarding West and Parker. Looks like I have talked myself into 13 as his peak actually lol.

3) Here's where I was a little lost. I was considering Wilt, Hakeem, Robinson, Kareem (though Spaceman didn't make much of a case for him in this thread, and even Russell).

I am going with Wilt (67) here. Wilt is a guy who had difficult years where he just wanted to score or lead the league in assists and he certainly had the propensity to stat-pad in the truest sense of the word. But 67 was one of his most complete seasons for me.

To make it easy for Trex:

Ballot 1 - Shaq 00
Ballot 2 - LeBron 12/13
Ballot 3 - Wilt 67

Oh yeah the concerns were overblown but this is a discussion on the 2nd best ever so IMO it's justified. Plus Lebron is still top 5 IMO (tied with Duncan for 4th).