I was busy today, and find that I missed my chance to contribute to the LeBron conversation in any meaningful way. The votes have been cast, and it appears that LeBron will likely win. Thus, I'll have no opportunity to dig into this in threads moving forward, so I should go ahead and put my thoughts here.
To me, it seems like the discussion about LeBron's impact is more...accusatory and narrative-driven (in both directions) than it needs to be. LeBron has generated the largest impacts that we've got measurements for in this generation. LeBron, also, has not shown the ability to maximize his own impact in certain teammate environments...and it is true, that his more talented teammates often have to adjust/subsume/modify parts of their games in order to fit best next to him. Yet another truth is that LeBron has had strong supporting casts with high front-end talent for the past seven seasons since the decision...and that he has led all seven of them to the NBA Finals, with three of them ending as champions. LeBron is not the GM of his teams. He is the best player on them.
To me, the above statements can all be true without there being a cause for blame or anger in any direction. There's nothing in those statements, to me, that requires a need for either attack of or defense against an enemy point of view. Even when trex's question is about whether LeBron holds any blame for his team's struggles without him is thrown into the mix, I don't see that as a call to arms...it seems more, to me, like a good excuse to dig into the mechanisms by which LeBron makes his impact, and to try to characterize it as best we can. To that end, I think that comparisons to players like Duncan and Garnett can be illustrative. So, without further ado...
LeBron James, Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan: mechanisms of impactLet me start by pointing out that I was recently, just before this project, involved in a few discussions about Duncan and LeBron, and here's one of the posts that kind of summarizes my stance:
http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=55454030#p55454030There's been discussion in this project about the notion of individual offense being more important than individual defense. I weighed in on it in the first thread, I believe. A thumbnail summary of my viewpoint is that
individual offense allows for an individual to exert a larger raw impact than individual defense (supported, for example, by the +/- studies of the last two decades). However, the counterpoint is that
individual defense can have an impact almost as large as the best offense, it can be added to a given team without causing any diminishing returns http://hoopslab.rotowire.com/post/162035208506/individual-offense-is-not-more-important-than , and there are fewer individuals capable of producing elite defensive impact than elite offensive impact which makes it a scarcer resource http://hoopslab.rotowire.com/post/162019505846/individual-offense-is-not-more-important-than . LeBron, Garnett & Duncan are 1st, 2nd and 4th on Doc MJ's spreadsheet of scaled PI RAPM scores, ranked according to the five-best single season marks for all players (Shaq is 3rd). They've all measured out as mega impact players, across now a long career in different circumstances. LeBron is first on the list, so if your criteria is raw impact alone, this would support LeBron over the two bigs. But part the questions LeBron has faced in this thread are about whether LeBron's impact is as robust as the big men's, and what it might mean to a given team.
Impact across time, roleDuncan is the most uniform of this group, over time. Early in his career he was playing next to a still strong David Robinson, and Robinson was the one that had the larger measured defensive impact while Duncan had the larger offensive impact. By like 2000, Duncan had caught Robinson on defense, and as he entered his peak in 2002 Duncan led the NBA in RAPM. If you broke it down according to defense and offense,
Duncan was 2nd in the NBA in DRAPM and 26th in ORAPM in 2002. He was almost the exact same in 2003, where
Duncan was 2nd in DRAPM and 35th in ORAPM. The only year of Duncan's prime that didn't fit this general template was
2007, where Duncan finished 5th in ORAPM and 20th in DRAPM. This was a big outlier result for him, though, suggesting that either there were adjustments in team role that only occurred in 2007, or perhaps that this was a fluke in the measurements. Either way, it seems to be a true statement that in Duncan's prime, his mechanisms of impact were to be a dominant defensive player and a very good offensive player. That fits exactly with expectation, as well.
LeBron was also pretty uniform in his mechanisms of impact.
In 2009 he finished 1st in ORAPM and 14th in DRAPM. In 2010 he finished 1st in ORAPM and 15th in DRAPM. In 2013 he finished 2nd in ORAPM and 47th in DRAPM. In 2016 he was 1st in ORAPM and 5th in DRAPM, by far his best defensive finish. Again, like Duncan, the mechanisms were similar, just opposite. LeBron has always been a dominant offensive player and a very good defensive player.
Garnett is the one that has been the most dynamic in his mechanisms of impact.
In 2000 Garnett was 15th in ORAPM and 11th in DRAPM. In 2003, Garnett was 2nd in the NBA in ORAPM and 7th in DRAPM. In 2004, he was 1st in ORAPM and 3rd in DRAPM. In 2008, on the other hand, he was 1st in DRAPM and 19th in ORAPM. Garnett's consistently been strong on defensive impact, but it scaled from strong to elite based upon his role, while his offense scaled from good up through elite based on his role.
Portability/scaleabilityAbove, we looked at Duncan, LeBron and Garnett's impacts in a vacuum. But, what happens if you look at their impacts in conjunction with their teammates? Duncan first.
In 2000, David Robinson finished 4th in RAPM, Duncan 15th.
In 2002, Duncan finished 1st, Robinson 10th.
In 2005, Duncan finished 2nd, behind teammate Manu GInobili's 1st.
In 2007, Duncan finished 1st with teammate Ginobili at 3rd.
In 2016, even end Duncan finished 12th with teammate Kawhi Leonard in 6th.
In 2000, Garnett finished 2nd in RAPM, Terrell Brandon 40th (w/ his best mark we have on record, only partial career available)
In 2003, Garnett finished 1st, Nesterovic finished 63rd
In 2004, Garnett finished 1st, Sam Cassell finished 13th (w/ best mark of his career)
In 2008, Garnett finished 1st, Paul Pierce finished 8th (w/ best mark of his career)
In 2009, Garnett finished 2nd, Pierce finished 18th, Ray 19th (w/ best mark of his career to date, topped in 2010)
In 2007, LeBron finished 2nd in RAPM, Ilgauskas 28th
In 2009, LeBron finished 1st, Ilgauskas 31st (Wade finished 4th, Bosh 13th)
In 2010, LeBron finished 1st, Anthony Parker 51st (Wade 2nd, Bosh 9th)
In 2011, LeBron finished 4th, Wade 9th, Bosh 14th
In 2012, LeBron finished 3rd, Wade 12th, Bosh 24th
In 2016, LeBron finished 2nd, Love 22nd, Tristan 25th, Kyrie 154th
I listed rankings here, instead of scores, which hopefully helps show the pattern (but actually under-emphasizes how much drop-off LeBron and Wade did from 09, 10 to 11, 12). But the general idea is that when Duncan was making his best impacts, his teammates were also making their best impacts. When Garnett was making his best impacts, his teammates were also making their best impacts. But with LeBron, he made his HOLY CRAP impacts on teams where his teammates were role players. When he played with the Heat, even though he was still right in his peak window, LeBron's impact as well as his best teammates' impacts both attenuated.
This supports that the bigs have more portability/scaleability than LeBron when playing with talent, and opens the door to them possibly being better ceiling raisers than LeBron.
Is LeBron "to blame" for the current Cavs "falling off a cliff" without him?This is a more nuanced question, and one that doesn't lend itself to quick quantified answers. Let's start with an interesting quote in this thread, that to me makes a good jumping off point:
Outside wrote:I have my theory that the Cavs are specifically built to operate with LeBron on the court, that the other Cavs have their roles customized to complement LeBron, that they spend the vast majority of their time playing that way, and that they're far less efficient when LeBron's no longer there, both because of the absence of their best player and that it's not so easy to switch from the complementary roles they are trained to play.
This puts me in mind of some of the Wilt discussions we had years ago. The general concept was that, especially in his early years, everything went through Wilt to such a degree that he could put up megasaurus numbers with good efficiency, but that because the offense was built around funnelling things to WIlt, none of the other teammates were optimized and thus the team itself was weakened. DocMJ wrote something about this on his blog, and called his variation of the discussion The Chamberlain Theory:
https://asubstituteforwar.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/chamberlain-theory-the-real-price-of-anarchy-in-basketball/ with the suggestion that Wilt was't playing the game correctly, and thus that it negatively influenced his team and countered some of his own individual greatness.
But it's different, with LeBron. I don't think anyone would dare suggest that he's playing the game the wrong way. And the way that he plays is MASSIVE impact, which is the opposite of those Wilt years, so LeBron's monster numbers are leading to positive team results as well.
However, where there could be some overlap, is with the concept that the team has to play to LEBRON'S strengths, instead of their own. As several posters (kayess?) have pointed out, it makes basketball sense for the team to be built around LeBron, because he's clearly the best player, and it leads to great team results...as long as LeBron is there. Bosh moved away from his on-ball offensive style in Toronto, and instead picked up defensive skills and a more consistent spot-up 3-point shot. These skills served him in good stead to maximize his play with LeBron. But if you take LeBron OUT Of the equation, Bosh's Toronto game would likely be more conducive to positive team results than his Miami game.
Same thing, with Kevin Love in Cleveland. A lot of the current Cavs teammate discussion revolves around Kyrie Irving, because he's the spectacular scorer. But really, Love is the more established impact guy than Kyrie (to be fair, a lot of this is due to Love having a longer career pre-Cavs). And in Minnesota, Love was a lot more of an iso offensive threat and team engine. If you go through his basketball-reference page, it's fairly clear. Love averaged 6 assists per 100 possessions in his last year in Minnesota, but about half that in Cleveland. Love was assisted on fewer shots in Cleveland, and took a larger proportion of his shots inside the 3-point line. He isn't nearly as good of an offensive option as LeBron, and clearly the Cavs are best served running things through LeBron. BUT. Again, when LeBron ISN'T on the floor, Minnesota Love would make a better team centerpiece than Cleveland Love, but it seems that (be it scheme, repitition, mindset, whatever) Minnesota Love is nowhere to be seen when LeBron is off the court.
A LeBron-less Cavaliers squad featuring Kyrie as a primary scorer/ball-handler and part-time team offense initiator, with Minneota Love as the other primary scorer/team offense initiator from the high post, surrounded by shooters and a hustle-big like Thompson would, I would expect, play dramatically better than the Cavs currently do when LeBron sits. But, is that LeBron's fault?
I think "fault" is too strong of a word. It makes sense to build the team around LeBron's strengths, after all. And if the coach doesn't set up the units such that "Minnesota Love" and Kyrie get consistent 5 - 7 minutes each half when LeBron is on the bench, that's a coaching decision and not a LeBron one. So, no, I don't see it as a "blame LeBron" kind of thing.
BUT. I do believe, as I alluded to and tried to quantify above, that by definition offense isn't additive. And that if your team is built around an offensive nova like LeBron, then other offensive players that can create will fall into diminishing returns. The result can be lower impacts by both LeBron and Wade...or it can be a necessity for guys like Bosh or Love to change the way that they play offense to best play off LeBron. Either way, though, there IS a diminishing return that you get with LeBron that you don't get with Duncan or Garnett. Not because LeBron deserves blame, or because he is playing selfishly...it's just inherent in being a player that primarily makes impact with offense/volume scoring/on-ball decision-making. It's just part of what, as I led with, I don't see individual offense as more important overall than individual defense. Yes, you can have a larger impact in a vacuum with individual offense. But when you look at the overall team impact and dynamics, I think defense can have the larger net impact.
