No-more-rings wrote:LukaTheGOAT wrote:I would argue the Miami Heat teams were not especially well built for Lebron.
Well their postseason offenses were nothing historic anyway, so how does this help Lebron's argument? 2013 was the only year their postseason offense was ranked first, and honestly i think there's a decent chance OKC could've led a better postseason offense if Westbrook didn't get hurt after two games. I mean probably not, but i wouldn't rule it out they looked good before he went down.
LukaTheGOAT wrote:The stats come from backpicks. I'm a patreon so I can see the whole database, but if you look at this article, and go to the very end you will see what I mean
https://backpicks.com/2018/04/08/backpicks-goat-2-michael-jordan/"Shaq’s Orlando-LA years, LeBron’s Cavs-Heat seasons and Nash’s teams from the 2000s also topped Jordan’s Bulls in eight-year playoff offense."
Well let me just ask you this since you mentioned that you think relative to the competition is important here. Do you not think that Magic likely gets a bigger boost than most people if he was able to play with the space and 3 point shooting that Lebron did? That seems to help someone like him more than almost anybody considering he's probably the best passer/playmaker ever.
I know a sticking point for many will be how dominant the Cavs offense was in 2017, but that seems way more like a fluke than something we could expect year in and year out and also the defensive competition was really meh. They didn't face a top 10 defense in the East, and while the Warriors were the 2nd ranked defense in the regular season there clearly wasn't any defense played in that series with the Cavs. Lebron's teams most years were not even ranked first in ORTG in the playoffs, i don't see why that should be the crux of his argument over Magic, although like i said for a single season for two he's maybe better but over 10-12 years it gets harder to see that for me. Lebron has a lot of years in the mix where his offense underwhelmed like 2011, 2015, and well prior to 2009 he wasn't in Magic's galaxy as an offensive player so i won't even talk about those years.
I mean as I already said, PS sample sizes can be small and therefore you might want to be careful what you draw from it. That's why I did 8-yr PS offense to show you that Lebron over a large sample size is impressive, but then you disputed that by saying the era he plays in mean's it is not an apples to apples comparison.
You argue the 2017 Cavs were a fluke but the 2016 Cavs had a top 10 offense of all-time for the PS (and yes they went up against good defensive teams during this stint).
According Backpicks, the 2015-17 Cavs have the 3rd best unique offensive PS stretch for relative offensive rating, and keep in mind Lebron did not have a healthy Kyrie or KLove for much of the 2015 PS. That is factual evidence. If that is just "noise," to you, well then i did the 8 yr stretch of PS offense where Lebron beats Magic.
And we are talking dominance relative to era (or that's how I interpreted the question). I wasn't trying to do a whole time machine discussion of how Magic would do in today's game because this is hypothetical.
You can speak about the years Lebron underwhelmed but in general I just think he has better longevity, so that helps to make up for disappointments. Offensive metrics like PIPM, Backpicks BPM, etc. think he peaked higher than Magic on offense, so there also the fact that impact metrics seem to favor Lebron (if that matters to you).
Btw, the Lakers didn't exactly face stout defensive competition for all of their runs, but we still recognize how good their offense is.
I'm sorry about the rant but let me end on this; what is the evidence that I should believe Magic was more impactful on offense than Lebron? I'm not saying he doesn't have an argument, but after doing extensive research, Lebron looks better.