RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #1 (LeBron James)

[Gibson22]

So yeah, to me, the goat debate comes down to: Yeah, you like jordan and you think he's the best (I don't like him but think he probably is, even if it is a wash with lebron basically), but how much better than these guys do you think he is to justify such a big gap in longevity?
-russell, wilt, magic, bird, shaq, hakeem he doesn't have a longevit disadvantage and he's decently to a lot better than these guys
- duncan, he has a good disadvantage in longevity but he's a whole lot better
- kobe, a bit of a disadvantage in longevity but a lot better
- malone, gigantic disadvantage in longevity but humongous advantage as a bball player

-but when it comes to lebron (I already explained, pretty big disadvantage in longevity, nonexistant, negligible or very small advantage as a player)
-kareem. A good bit better as a player, but you just can't think that 71-80 jabbar was so much worse than 87-93/96-98 to outweigh THE ENTIRETY OF KAJ'S 80S.

Other than that, hasn't lbj done so much more? Like, lebron just seems so much bigger as a figure and as a player. The lebron experience is so much bigger. I'm not much of a gamer but in italy we have the expression "to platinate a video game", from the word platinum, when you finish a game and go back to the start to complete every mission at the maximum grade, collect every item etc. After this year lebron's career feels just like that. He has done it all. Like, mj was a real assassin, just so much scoring ability, 1on1 defense, killer mentality, good enough to win year after year and be probably the best player of all time as far as domination on your peers and single season impact, but lebron is just so much more. He has played longer and had way more playoff series/runs, he has played in every condition, he has had to carry a team shoting 30 times per game (cleveland first stint, 2015, 2018), he has had to play with an elite scoring guard (irving, wade), with a big (ad), he has faced every coverage, every difensive style, he had to adapt to a changing league as far as style of play, he has destroyed every narrative, career defining games (in multiple instances he would have been buried in every cemetery in the us if he didn't show up big time), comebacks, failures (2011), game 7, legendary seasons, multiple roles, every gameplan. No bball player has a comparable career, just way too much variety as far as scenarios, solutions etc. And he just does so much more on the basketball floor.

Like, jordan was jordan. An absolute killer with a godlike midrange game, blazing quickness and leaping ability with a crazy ability to make layups. The best scorer ever, absolutely unguardable. He probably had the best first step/layup skills/midrange game of all time. 20 feet and less from the basket, unguardable. You'd need to be 6-7 with good wingspan to have a chance to contest his shots, but at that height you had no chance to stay with him more than half a step. If you were shorter, he would just rise up and score every time. Then he would pick up his assignment of d and just kill him.

Lebron just does so much more. He's one of the best passers ever. He's a god in every facet of passing. He can dominate in the post. He can playmake. He can cut. He can be the handler or the roller in the p&r. He has a fadeaway game. He shoots stepback 3s. He makes half court shots. He can just bully ball any forward. He can drive past guys. He's an help defender. He can gaurd basically any position. In this playoff run alone, he guarded westbrook (rarely but well), harden (pretty often and decently, I won't say he did a GREAT job, but he showed he could guard him and do a better job than most), he shut down jamal murray, and he dealt with adebayo most of the time from the game davis was put on butler on. He literally outrebounded adebayo 1vs1 and he played great defense on him. He's just so much "More" overall as a basketball player, he battles with bigs if they are not 7footers (obviously he can't mess with the valanciunas, embiid, adams etc, but he does a great job with small ball 5s like adebayo), defending them and outrebounding them, he scores in so many ways, he passes, he throws lobs, he finishes lobs. Other than that, he does a way BIGGER job of creating a group, motvating his teammates.

Like, I'd like even the biggest hater of lebron and fan of mj to argue with me with this. Don't you feel like lebron is capable of doing so much more, and he just IS so much more overall with how many things he experienced in his career, compared to mj or other guys?

[Owly]

Is that why he played **** in the last three games of the finals? Was pretty fortunate not to choke a 3 game lead

Game 4 he played poorly, as did the team, and they lost
Game 5 he shot 50%, the rest of his team shot 32% so they lost
So for Game 6 they were 9 point favorites, versus 9.5 for Game 1, and considering no team had come back from 3-1 in a finals,
no one seriously thought Seattle had a chance.

Regardless of whether one would support "played like ****" or "fortunate not to choke" ...

I can't see the logic regarding game 6.

For one I don't see 3-1 use in general (if making an opportunistic case why not say 3-0?)

Beyond that cynicism, I don't see the case for 3-1. It was 3-2 at that point. Having been 3-0 and 3-1 don't matter at that point and that (3-2) is a series that's far from secure.

Even allowing for the idea that MJ could have felt it was relatively secure that means ... what ... that he wasn't trying in game 6? That such was their certainty of winning his performance didn't matter to the outcome?

Without rewatching and checking the matchups one can note that despite awful shooting from the field, getting to the line a lot and being very accurate from the stripe takes much of the edge off this. Whilst turnover prone (5, 17.1 TOV%) he contributed significantly with passing (7 assists) and on the offensive glass (3). For what it's worth both Ortg (110) and OBPM (+2) see this as a net positive on O, if not a huge one. Then too (again would need to check matchups) the Sonics 2, Hersey Hawkins had a difficult night on offense.

[Texas Chuck]

It's much more even than I thought. If people asked me before I would say MJ would win as the clear #1 like he always does.

Shouldn't be too surprising. Lebron has stacked up some significant value since this was last done.

[limbo]

As I've mentioned, I think there are two general approaches. Either context is averaged out or it is not. This is the difference between asking "who played their hand the best" and "who could play any hand the best". I think there's a real argument that second approach is more fair since players have limited control over what the rules were when they played, who they played against, and so on. But I also understand that the first approach may be more meaningful in a human way. And there's fewer "what-ifs", so the analysis is more factual, so there are ways in which the first approach is more fair. Regardless, I've said I think both are equally reasonable.
.

It's like if we were making a GOAT list for Physicists. Who would be #1 on that list? Well if we judged by the impact they had in a vacuum, then Sir Isaac Newton would be number 1 and it wouldn't be even remotely close. Dude literally invented Physics and all the basic laws/concepts of it. But what Newton invented is basically known by most teenagers in elementary school now. If you compare the scientists in Newton's time to the ones now, there's no comparison. Even if you compare Newton himself to scientists/physicist now, there's no comparison. The guys now know everything Newton did and WAAAAAAY more. The problem now is that we live in an era where basic concepts like gravity can not be invented by someone tinkering around with an apple tree in his backyard or something... Those days are long gone. Now you need a crew of brilliant scientists with knowledge of +500 years of Physics, the right amount of money, the right type of scenario, and then maybe you can incrementally discover some new findings in the field...

And that's kind of how i see the Russell debate. He was like Newton. He played in an era where it was still possible to revolutionize basic concepts of the game and he was the first to make all the stars align. Which is absolute kudos to him, and the reason why i can accept him as a GOAT candidate, but when i contrast him to someone like Hakeem Olajuwon, what happens? Hakeem Olajuwon knows all the concepts and moves Bill Russell knew, likely even more than that, but he just can't put them in practice in a way that would make his team completely lap the field like the Celtics did in the 60's, because the league caught up and adjusted to that long time ago. So now i'm going to punish Hakeem Olajuwon in a sense for maybe not even being a worse defender than Russell in a vacuum, just not in the right place at the right time.

So yeah, it's totally valid to put Russell/Newton at #1, but in that case, they're going to stay #1 forever, and then it just becomes kind of boring making a GOAT list every 5-10 years, and Russell ending #1 always, because there's just no possible way for anyone to unseed him in impact. The same way it's not possible for a Physicist now to come along and make a bigger impact on Physics than Newton did less than 400 years ago, despite the fact that he knows everything Newton knew about Physics when he was 15 years old in elementary school, and has just kept on studying the field until he dies.

But i'm sure 70'sFan will have plenty to say on this subject.

[ZeppelinPage]

To Owly:

I'm not super-confident, but given how he improved his offensive production in postseason I think he was a positive on that end overall (but definitely not huge). Mind you that I'm talking about 1960-63 Russell, not later versions.

To ZeppelinPage:

I think that your TOV% is unreasonably high, I think that he was a bit turnover prone but this would give him among the worst players ever in that aspect.

...

You've made a huge work on Russell games available recently, could you calculate his adjusted TOV% based on this sample?

I've logged at least parts of NINE different games for Russell [ranging from a single quarter to full-game footage], that total to about 4.65 games. fwiw, ALL of these were playoff games, occurring in '64-'69.

I have his mTOV% for that sample.
For ZP: mTOV% is my own "modified TOV%", which unlike the TOV% on bbref [which considers ONLY turnovers and shots taken; formula is: Tov / (Tov + TSA)], mTOV% also considers playmaking volume [and other considerations wherein a turnover might occur].

The current formula is:

Tov / [Tov + TSA + (Ast * 2.33) + (Reb * 0.04)]

Russell's mTOV% over this little sample is 13.96%, which is poor even for a big-man.

To put it in perspective, here are the mTOV%'s of some more recent "turnover-prone" bigs:
Dwight Howard: 13.73% (career rs)
Dikembe Mutombo: 13.77% (career rs)
Tyson Chandler: 13.89% (career rs)
Shawn Kemp: 13.22% (career rs), 13.84% (career playoff)
Alonzo Mourning: 13.01% (career rs), though career playoffs is 14.35%


As to some limited sample information on some of Russell's actual contemporaries:
Walt Bellamy's is 15.83% (5.4-game sample)
Wilt Chamberlain's is 9.39% (3.7-game sample)
Willis Reed's is 9.43% (6.85-game sample)


THough obviously it's hard to draw any solid conclusions from such a small sample

Thanks for the post, trex. I don't think I need to post any of my data now.

I did my own stat tracking of Russell and Wilt (if you would like more data on Wilt, I have his TOV% data on over 200 possessions, it's around 13 TOV%.)

My sample on Russell was pretty similar in amount of games to yours, so it's not surprising he was poor in this aspect. I also do feel like using something like mTOV% for Russell (which factors in assists) undersells just how turnover prone he was in comparison to a modern player like Dwight Howard. The fact that his mTOV% is worse than Dwight's even with the assists, should tell anyone wondering about Bill Russell's offensive game that he definitely had issues in this area, specifically with live-ball turnovers, which are devastating to a teams offense--and it becomes apparent on film.

To put it in perspective for anyone reading that is still confused: Red Auerbach's system was based around a lot of screens and movement--a clear point Red would make in practice would be to keep moving. He constantly wanted his players moving around Russell when he had the ball and working off screens. So, when you watch the film of the Celtics, and while Russell definitely was a good passer for a big man, especially later in his career--what begins to become apparent is that a lot of Russell's assists were coming from simple passes like hand offs and pass outs because of Auerbach's system in place.

Before the Celtics acquired Russell in 1956, Ed Macauley was the center. In '53, he averaged 4.1 assists, which was good for 7th in the league--he was also the only center in the top 20 in APG. Now, Russell is a more skilled passer than Ed (who was a good all-around player.) But, it's fair to say Russell was getting assists in a way that other centers in history weren't able to. Watching Warriors Wilt, for instance, the entire team stands around with little movement. Wilt could obviously make more difficult passes than Russell, but he didn't have an offense that was quite as movement based until Hannum came along (and even his offense definitely wasn't Auerbach's.)

Now, some might say "Well, he is still making the passes that allow his team to score, it's valuable." But, here's the thing: why did the Celtics get so much worse on offense with Russell then? It's because his assists weren't as valuable as one might think on first glance for a center averaging 5 APG. Basically, Russell wasn't actually making the defense react to him, like someone such as Shaq or Dwight Howard would do: post up as a threat, draw pressure, and pass out to the open man. Russell was literally standing motionless in the same spot, waiting for players to move off screen--he wasn't actually putting any pressure on a defense. The other team wanted him to shoot from the post instead of his more offensively talented teammates, so if he was in the post there was really no point in doubling him at all.

Basically, Auerbach predicated his offensive system to work through the center as almost a "central hub" which allowed other players to score off passes from the post. In conclusion, Russell's actual passing ability is a little bit overrated, and this makes sense considering his turnover proneness.

[Texas Chuck]

Point of the list is to try and get it right, not to entertain. And note Russell isn't going to finish in the top 2 and my guess is he falls further than 3 because those against him for the top 2 tend to stay against him for much longer. So he's not going to be 1, but if he deserves to be it shouldn't be an issue because boring.

[Doctor MJ]

Hey y'all, I made prettied up spreadsheets for historical best offense and defense by year. Please let me know if you have any question.

Doc's NBA Historical Best Offense/Defense

[penbeast0]

It's like if we were making a GOAT list for Physicists. Who would be #1 on that list? ...

I think any GOAT list for physicists would HAVE to include Newton, probably at #1. You can take into account the greater difficulty of making fundamental discoveries in later eras but even with that Newton's impact is so much greater, he should be favored over the modern Nobel laureate of the year.

Not to say someone can't revolutionize physics the way Newton did, or Einstein with relativity, or Heisenberg, etc. but if they don't, they don't belong in the discussion even though they may know everything Newton, Einstein, or Heisenberg did.

[limbo]

Point of the list is to try and get it right, not to entertain. And note Russell isn't going to finish in the top 2 and my guess is he falls further than 3 because those against him for the top 2 tend to stay against him for much longer. So he's not going to be 1, but if he deserves to be it shouldn't be an issue because boring.

This is a never-ending debate. There will be people like you who say it's not Russell's fault he played in the 60's when the league was in its infancy and was able to pioneer basic basketball concepts that won him 11 titles in an 8-team league. And then there will be people like me who will say, how is a guy that joins the league in 2004 suppose to compete with something that's literally an impossibility in his version/era of the game of basketball and that be fair?

Should we go even further back to the 16th century where the Aztec Empire held Tlachtli games where they threw stuff through a hoop made of stone? That's pretty similar to basketball, right? About as much as the NBA now and 70 years ago, and the amount of footage is almost the same. I'm sure some dude over there was like dominating the game by himself en route to 15 titles at the annual tournaments they had back then...

I mean, at what point are you adjusting for the popularity/development curve, or is there just no adjustments made? Is Mikan #2 on your list then? Probably some more dudes from the 40's as well.

[Texas Chuck]

Point of the list is to try and get it right, not to entertain. And note Russell isn't going to finish in the top 2 and my guess is he falls further than 3 because those against him for the top 2 tend to stay against him for much longer. So he's not going to be 1, but if he deserves to be it shouldn't be an issue because boring.

This is a never-ending debate. There will be people like you who say it's not Russell's fault he played in the 60's when the league was in its infancy and was able to pioneer basic basketball concepts that won him 11 titles in an 8-team league. And then there will be people like me who will say, how is a guy that joins the league in 2004 suppose to compete with something that's literally an impossibility in his version/era of the game of basketball and that be fair?

Should we go even further back to the 16th century where the Aztec Empire held Tlachtli games where they threw stuff through a hoop made of stone? That's pretty similar to basketball, right? About as much as the NBA now and 70 years ago, and the amount of footage is almost the same. I'm sure some dude over there was like dominating the game by himself en route to 15 titles at the annual tournaments they had back then...

I mean, at what point are you adjusting for the popularity/development curve, or is there just no adjustments made? Is Mikan #2 on your list then? Probably some more dudes from the 40's as well.

I'm not arguing that you should agree Russell is GOAT. I'm not interested in converting others to my opinions, just sharing them.

But you essentially argued we shouldn't consider Russell because it would be boring. I just don't find that a good reason to exclude someone.

You start with a valid concept and then it loses most of its impact with your reductionist extremism with Aztecs.

[kayess]

Kareem aggressively protested the lakers trading for magic and was annoyed about magic getting a bigger role in the offense. Than magic went and started a **** coup in the press.

Really the OG Shaq+Kobe

I haven't heard anything about that and if you read this article, it seems that Magic was more happy with trading Kareem than the other way:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-01-08-sp-2903-story.html

It was also Magic who demanded a trade in case of not firing Paul Westhead. Young Magic was a lot harder to deal with than most realize...

This. Magic Johnson is my favorite basketball player and he was wondrous to watch in early years as grew into his game. He was also, in retrospect, full of himself and overestimated his abilities. He was a kid. Really, Kareem's demeanor worked to his advantage here. Not to be a dick or anything, but when a guy at the beginning of his third year, whose lousy play (and a way errant shot) kept the team from advancing in an elimination game the year before says that the guy who was 3rd in MVP voting the year before--and won the damn thing the year before that on a championship team--is holding a team back ... well, most players would have been a lot more angry, publicly and privately, than Kareem. Kareem dealt with it the right way. I'd actually say that by letting Riley handle it (correctly) and recognizing Magic's immaturity and not letting that impede their relationships on and off court, Kareem did a lot more to keep Magic than the other way around.

WOW. I mean stuff like this is why I tune into these threads. Doesn't really change my rankings of them, but man Kareem does deserve even more of our respect

[70sFan]

I think some people really overstate the weakness and lack of popularity of 1960s NBA.

[eminence]

Kind of granular, but how do people view Russell's hands? Closer to DeAndre or Rudy? Actually a pretty big range of offensive outcomes for him in my head depending on that.

[limbo]

It's like if we were making a GOAT list for Physicists. Who would be #1 on that list? ...

I think any GOAT list for physicists would HAVE to include Newton, probably at #1. You can take into account the greater difficulty of making fundamental discoveries in later eras but even with that Newton's impact is so much greater, he should be favored over the modern Nobel laureate of the year.

Not to say someone can't revolutionize physics the way Newton did, or Einstein with relativity, or Heisenberg, etc. but if they don't, they don't belong in the discussion even though they may know everything Newton, Einstein, or Heisenberg did.

No modern Physicists would make the list, because it's impossible to tinker around in your garage now and discover something like 'relativity', same way it's impossible to have like 12 seasons of elite level defensive dominance the way the Celtics did back then, peaking at -11.0 DRtg relative to league and winning titles by being underwhelming offensively...

You're essentially okay with discrediting the legacy of every modern Physicists, regardless of how skilled/smart, literally because of the fact that people came before them and invented all the biggest break-throughs already, because they were born sooner. So the game is basically rigged from the start for these guys, and there's no point in having cross-era comparisons, because no one will ever beat Newton... and then Einstein in 2nd place... and then so on...

So again, the question is how do we put modern achievements into proper context. Acknowledging that maybe, idk, Zion can't win 11 titles by leading -11 rDRtg defense... but if he can win 5 titles in his own era, that is perhaps worth more considering all circumstances? Or is Zion just screwed?

[Odinn21]

1) Is he the capable of being the offensive catalyst of a great offense?

I think he proved it both in Milwaukee and LA. 1980 Lakers were a great offensive team. 1971-74 Bucks were also amazing. If you wonder about how much of it is Oscar, then keep in mind that Bucks played without Oscar at over 60 wins pace in 1972.

I don't think it's arguable that Jababr was offensive catayst of 1980 Lakers team.

2) How did his offensive and defensive peaks overlap?

I think that he was at his best defensively in 1971-77 period, while his best offensive years were probably in 1974-80. So there is some overlap and you have to keep in mind that Kareem was all-time great offensive player for whole decade and he didn't really regress defensively until 1979.

3) Did he ever have a run as great as Peak Duncan?

I think that 1971, 1974, 1977 and 1980 all can be argued. If you don't want to include incomplete posteasons, you can leave 1977. If you are very high on boxscore prodcution, I guess that 1971 won't make it either (but keep in mind that Bucks were brutally dominant in 1971 and Kareem faced all-time great defensive matchups in all series he played). There is no reason to exclude 1974 and 1980 though and I say this as the biggest Duncan fan in the world.

Nah man, that's me.

I think Kareem's 1973-74 season as a whole is truly underrated. He was in a pretty similar situation that Duncan was in 2002 and 2003. His production was on par with Timmy, I'd say even slightly better. Solely postseason runs, I might put Duncan ahead but Kareem definitely had better regular season run. And he was one game away from the result Duncan got in 2003. Had not Dandridge or Robertson sh.t the bed in some games, Kareem and the Bucks would be crowned as champions and Kareem would get the credit he deserves for historic runs.
In game 1 of '74 Finals, Dandridge and Robertson scored 18 points on .283 ts... If a more popular figure got that kind of offensive help in an NBA Finals game, we'd never hear the end of it. Imagine Pippen and Grant scoring like that, or Wade and Bosh...

[70sFan]

I think that Newton is definitely among the GOAT physicists if you want to make ranking. What he did wasn't easier at all - I'm well aware that now most physics students know more than him (I am the one), but it doesn't make it any less impressive. You can't overstate how powerful mind you have to have to link the movement of planets with free fall. It's such an abstract thing, not obvious at all.

Not to mention that Newton's knowledge is highly underrated and I'm sure that most people who pretend that know more than him aren't right. He was a highly specialized mathematician and astrophysicist. Newton knew a lot of things most students of physics don't.

[limbo]

I'm not arguing that you should agree Russell is GOAT. I'm not interested in converting others to my opinions, just sharing them.

But you essentially argued we shouldn't consider Russell because it would be boring. I just don't find that a good reason to exclude someone.

You start with a valid concept and then it loses most of its impact with your reductionist extremism with Aztecs.

Boring is definitely ONE of the adjectives i'd use, yes. Because instead of trying to find some middle ground in how Russell's achievements/impact would be 'weighed' against modern era accomplishments and possible dominance/impact (the two are not and can not be the same for obvious reasons), you just start every GOAT debate by putting Russell #1 no questions asked because of what he did in a vacuum. And that's boring to me, and also kind of pointless.

But hey, whatever rocks your boat. Not everyone is looking to get the same things out of a project like this.

[limbo]

Anyway

I don't want to derail this thread into Newton/Physics territory. I just needed to think of an analogy for Russell/proto-basketball and how to weight that against what is possible in modern times for the best people in their field, and that's the best i could come up with.

At the end of the day it's really a matter of perspective more than a 'right' or 'wrong' type of thing.

[70sFan]

It's like if we were making a GOAT list for Physicists. Who would be #1 on that list? ...

I think any GOAT list for physicists would HAVE to include Newton, probably at #1. You can take into account the greater difficulty of making fundamental discoveries in later eras but even with that Newton's impact is so much greater, he should be favored over the modern Nobel laureate of the year.

Not to say someone can't revolutionize physics the way Newton did, or Einstein with relativity, or Heisenberg, etc. but if they don't, they don't belong in the discussion even though they may know everything Newton, Einstein, or Heisenberg did.

No modern Physicists would make the list, because it's impossible to tinker around in your garage now and discover something like 'relativity', same way it's impossible to have like 12 seasons of elite level defensive dominance the way the Celtics did back then, peaking at -11.0 DRtg relative to league and winning titles by being underwhelming offensively...

You're essentially okay with discrediting the legacy of every modern Physicists, regardless of how skilled/smart, literally because of the fact that people came before them and invented all the biggest break-throughs already, because they were born sooner. So the game is basically rigged from the start for these guys, and there's no point in having cross-era comparisons, because no one will ever beat Newton... and then Einstein in 2nd place... and then so on...

So again, the question is how do we put modern achievements into proper context. Acknowledging that maybe, idk, Zion can't win 11 titles by leading -11 rDRtg defense... but if he can win 5 titles in his own era, that is perhaps worth more considering all circumstances? Or is Zion just screwed?

If someone find a way to link general relativity with quantum mechanics, he'll definitely become on Newton/Einstein level.

People thought in the 19th century that there is not much to discover in physics until some of the greatest mindsets like Heisenberg, Einstent, Schrödinger and Dirac came along. Then you have more modern scientists like Hawking or Penrose.

It's not true that it's impossible to be GOAT-level physicist. People underestimate how tough it is to be a pioneer in given branch of science. I've heard this argument very often, but it doesn't convince me at all. Creative minds will find a way to revolutionize the branch of science they specialize in, no matter what.

I'm often mad that my capabilities aren't on that level, but I hope that the world needs lower level physicists as well

[Odinn21]

James Clerk Maxwell is the goat physicist. Fight me.