Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor)

[HeartBreakKid]

Kobe Bryant is in the montage at the start of every video, so I'm pretty sure he's in the series.

[Owly]

I agree but not everyone does.

The truth is no matter who he leaves out there will be people complaining because Humans love to complain. I do my best to not voice my frustrations on projects like this because of the amount of work put in and because there is already enough room for positive conversation.

If people want to complain about this then they likely complain in all sorts of facets of life, unfortunately.

Agree, as always there will be some complaining. For sure there will be a lot of people complaining on lack of Kobe, and probably Durant. I assume both of them won't be in this project and for many casuals it will be shocking news to hear Kobe is not top 3 ever.

I'm a big Kobe critic, but I'd be surprised if he was left out of this project.

If you look at the author, and his GOAT 40 series, his peak seemingly rates just less than half way up the MVP tier. Robinson, Magic, Bird and Kareem all went into "All time" tier (and MJ into GOAT tier). My guess then is that Bryant, just below Durant, would be one of Ben's higher rated peaks that doesn't make the series. Of course that is off single years, his views may have changed and I don't know where his threshold is (though absence of NBA Erving, Barkley, the Malones, Ewing suggest at very least you needed to be in the (full/strong) MVP tier).

{edit: the above assumes a broadly chronological order, whilst Hakeem breaks this in terms of career starting and ending before Robinson's, the "peaks" mostly overlap so I assume it's broadly chronological and Robinson before Olajuwon was an editorial decision.]

[Owly]

Kobe Bryant is in the montage at the start of every video, so I'm pretty sure he's in the series.

Good point. It is on a "to Shaq" play, but there's enough focus/time of Kobe in it that it looks like he'd be in. Wonder which years would be the notional focus? Backpicks 40 graph has 06 and 07 both above each of 09 and 10, but there's a bit of a playoff slant and his larger and better (performance) sample is later in this regard.

[eminence]

I'm almost 100% sure Kobe is in. Kobe gets views and is close enough nobody will be upset by his inclusion (on top of those of us thinking he might be out being the obvious minority).

[freethedevil]

I agree but not everyone does.

The truth is no matter who he leaves out there will be people complaining because Humans love to complain. I do my best to not voice my frustrations on projects like this because of the amount of work put in and because there is already enough room for positive conversation.

If people want to complain about this then they likely complain in all sorts of facets of life, unfortunately.

Agree, as always there will be some complaining. For sure there will be a lot of people complaining on lack of Kobe, and probably Durant. I assume both of them won't be in this project and for many casuals it will be shocking news to hear Kobe is not top 3 ever.

I'm a big Kobe critic, but I'd be surprised if he was left out of this project.

Really? Ben's incredibly low on his peak. His corp thing had him higher than magic and bird, but he ended up lowering him to 14th on the basis o not being impressed by his peak.

[PistolPeteJR]

What do you think about Robinson vs Giannis after this video? I find them quite comparable, with the difference that I think Admiral is better suited to 2nd option role on offense than Antetokumpo.

By the way, after watching Robinson video I really wish Ben didn't make videos about pre-merger players. I'd love to see a true analysis of Wilt's footage made by him without any narrative (same with Russell). I'd love to see him examing West and Oscar offense and defense as well.

I'd say the question remains with Giannis whether he's any better suited to alpha against playoff defense than Robinson. He's shown skills Robinson didn't have, but to this point he's proven to be pretty stoppable.

I'm surprised people are so frustrated with that first video. The Russell/Wilt comparison is where real advanced player comparison begin so it makes sense to use that to set the stage with that. Clearly people think he just made an anti-Wilt video, but that's not what he was actually doing.

As far as more detailed player analysis from before the merger, well, if you can help him find enough footage, that may well happen in a future project.

Yeah's that the thing. For his era, I think Robinson's defense is better than Giannis and defense being naturally additive helps him play with better players which Ben really cares about. FreetheDevil said somewhere in this thread that Robinson's PS defenses weren't very resilient, and I don't know enough about that to comment, but definitely feel like if his defense is similar in the RS and PS, then Robinson is better there.

And yeah, I feel like Giannis is probably the better suited guy to be the #1 dude because with his handle he and slashing, he is creating so much for teammates in the PS (he had a 1.1 PlayVal in the PS, idk how much it is inflated by the Orlando series but I do think he creates more shots). However, Giannis at the moment does not look like the ideal #1 and therefore I think the skills both have for playing off-ball matters more, so therefore Robinson is more impressive on offense as well. Like I feel like as of now, Robinson is a bigger lob threat, much better floor spacer, likely a better passer for a guy who will not always have the ball, and might just be a smarter basketball player.

I'm not giving up on Giannis yet though, and I also find myself wondering if Giannis was deployed more in an AD role where he plays more like a traditional big and doesn't have to create from the 3 point line, if we are potentially seeing Giannis with rosier glasses.

I will never buy into a player being able to assume a true #1 role on a team unless:

1) They have proven they can shoulder the scoring load when defenses make them the priority in their gameplan (ie. playoffs).
2) They can run the show on offense and not be turnstiles on defense.
3) They have Russell-like impact on defense.*

*The truth is that even with Russell-like defensive impact, it's still super difficult to win unless you have one or more than one stud shouldering the load on O (eg. Cousy, Hondo, Jones; Parker, Manu; etc).

[PistolPeteJR]

Agree, as always there will be some complaining. For sure there will be a lot of people complaining on lack of Kobe, and probably Durant. I assume both of them won't be in this project and for many casuals it will be shocking news to hear Kobe is not top 3 ever.

I'm a big Kobe critic, but I'd be surprised if he was left out of this project.

If you look at the author, and his GOAT 40 series, his peak seemingly rates just less than half way up the MVP tier. Robinson, Magic, Bird and Kareem all went into "All time" tier (and MJ into GOAT tier). My guess then is that Bryant, just below Durant, would be one of Ben's higher rated peaks that doesn't make the series. Of course that is off single years, his views may have changed and I don't know where his threshold is (though absence of NBA Erving, Barkley, the Malones, Ewing suggest at very least you needed to be in the (full/strong) MVP tier).

{edit: the above assumes a broadly chronological order, whilst Hakeem breaks this in terms of career starting and ending before Robinson's, the "peaks" mostly overlap so I assume it's broadly chronological and Robinson before Olajuwon was an editorial decision.]

One of the things the Robinson peak episode shows though is that it's not simply about players in the GOAT or All-Time tier necessarily. Kobe Bryant is one of those modern era players that has sparked a TON of polar discussion in the modern era. For Ben to leave him out of this would be extremely surprising, in my opinion.

[PistolPeteJR]

Agree, as always there will be some complaining. For sure there will be a lot of people complaining on lack of Kobe, and probably Durant. I assume both of them won't be in this project and for many casuals it will be shocking news to hear Kobe is not top 3 ever.

I'm a big Kobe critic, but I'd be surprised if he was left out of this project.

Really? Ben's incredibly low on his peak. His corp thing had him higher than magic and bird, but he ended up lowering him to 14th on the basis o not being impressed by his peak.

See above for my take.

[Amares]

I'm a big Kobe critic, but I'd be surprised if he was left out of this project.

If you look at the author, and his GOAT 40 series, his peak seemingly rates just less than half way up the MVP tier. Robinson, Magic, Bird and Kareem all went into "All time" tier (and MJ into GOAT tier). My guess then is that Bryant, just below Durant, would be one of Ben's higher rated peaks that doesn't make the series. Of course that is off single years, his views may have changed and I don't know where his threshold is (though absence of NBA Erving, Barkley, the Malones, Ewing suggest at very least you needed to be in the (full/strong) MVP tier).

{edit: the above assumes a broadly chronological order, whilst Hakeem breaks this in terms of career starting and ending before Robinson's, the "peaks" mostly overlap so I assume it's broadly chronological and Robinson before Olajuwon was an editorial decision.]

One of the things the Robinson peak episode shows though is that it's not simply about players in the GOAT or All-Time tier necessarily. Kobe Bryant is one of those modern era players that has sparked a TON of polar discussion in the modern era. For Ben to leave him out of this would be extremely surprising, in my opinion.

Except Ben is clearly higher on D-Rob than Kobe when it comes to peak. If this is about top 15 peaks then Kobe for sure do not deserve to have video.

[Doctor MJ]

Is 99 robinson the one you want to compare to giannis?

And again, no, not really, becase robinson's team got murked on both ends against 99% of opponents. Giannis broke that bar like, on his first try.

Giannis could literally retire right now, and his track record in the postseason would be better than robinson. The comparison makes like no sense.

In '99 Robinson was the most valuable player on the team that ripped every other playoff team apart. Let me know when Giannis does that.

Also, you're implying '99 Robinson wasn't peak Robinson, and yeah, I know. Still more impressive than anything Giannis has led his team to accomplish in the playoffs so far.

Robinson wasn't the most valuable player. You understand plus minus is a rate stat right? liek true shooting? Effiency goes up as volume goes down.

This is like callig gobert the second best player in 2019 based on his ws/48, or calling draymond the best player in the league based on his pipm.

Robinson had exceptional effiency on a hilariously diminished role. If you think draymond is a better player than james harden, fine, if not, robinson achieve dnothing of note in an all time context in 99.

This is robinson's impact as a superstar in the playoffs

https://youtu.be/G_5ZhbbDvQg?t=1185

Was david robinson better at basketball in 99? No. He played a far diminsihed role. If you think robinson's 99 demonstrates he's a giannis level peak, I expect similar argumentation for someone like draymond.

Otherwise, we can look at their primes where, Giannis took one season to accomplish more than robinson managed in 8. It would seem the player who requires schemes to stop him is better than the one getting man handled 1 on 1 by karl malone.

Go look at the +/- for the '98-99 Spurs in the playoffs. It's not a small edge he's got over Duncan there.

You're also talking a lot about offense...which not the reason why they were great.

Did Duncan play more than Robinson? Sure, but Robinson was playing 35 MPG in the playoffs during a playoff run where the Spurs were winning with ease (+20 with Robinson on the court). This really isn't a time where you should be assuming that Robinson's playing time cherry picked.

[Doctor MJ]

I will never buy into a player being able to assume a true #1 role on a team unless:

1) They have proven they can shoulder the scoring load when defenses make them the priority in their gameplan (ie. playoffs).
2) They can run the show on offense and not be turnstiles on defense.
3) They have Russell-like impact on defense.*

*The truth is that even with Russell-like defensive impact, it's still super difficult to win unless you have one or more than one stud shouldering the load on O (eg. Cousy, Hondo, Jones; Parker, Manu; etc).

Apply analogous reasoning back in the other direction.

Realistically, you're not going to win leading a great offense without great defense, and having a DPOY level defender is the simplest way to do it.

Since we're in the Ben Taylor thread, I'll note he's fond of talking about how it's a problem to look at "#1 roles" as if they exist only for offense. Realistically, if you can get a guy who is a #1 on one side of the court and #2 on the other, you've got someone who will scale far better to championship basketball than most volume scorers.

[Jordan Syndrome]

In '99 Robinson was the most valuable player on the team that ripped every other playoff team apart. Let me know when Giannis does that.

Also, you're implying '99 Robinson wasn't peak Robinson, and yeah, I know. Still more impressive than anything Giannis has led his team to accomplish in the playoffs so far.

Robinson wasn't the most valuable player. You understand plus minus is a rate stat right? liek true shooting? Effiency goes up as volume goes down.

This is like callig gobert the second best player in 2019 based on his ws/48, or calling draymond the best player in the league based on his pipm.

Robinson had exceptional effiency on a hilariously diminished role. If you think draymond is a better player than james harden, fine, if not, robinson achieve dnothing of note in an all time context in 99.

This is robinson's impact as a superstar in the playoffs

https://youtu.be/G_5ZhbbDvQg?t=1185

Was david robinson better at basketball in 99? No. He played a far diminsihed role. If you think robinson's 99 demonstrates he's a giannis level peak, I expect similar argumentation for someone like draymond.

Otherwise, we can look at their primes where, Giannis took one season to accomplish more than robinson managed in 8. It would seem the player who requires schemes to stop him is better than the one getting man handled 1 on 1 by karl malone.

Go look at the +/- for the '98-99 Spurs in the playoffs. It's not a small edge he's got over Duncan there.

You're also talking a lot about offense...which not the reason why they were great.

Did Duncan play more than Robinson? Sure, but Robinson was playing 35 MPG in the playoffs during a playoff run where the Spurs were winning with ease (+20 with Robinson on the court). This really isn't a time where you should be assuming that Robinson's playing time cherry picked.

The thing is, all Robinson's numbers truly showed in Comparison to Duncan's is how much better Robinson was compared to his backup.

Robinson played just about all his minutes with Duncan. Duncan played lots of minutes without Robinson.

[Outside]

Amazing work from Ben Taylor.

Jordan’s defense screams decent at best to me. No way in hell he was elite.

I’ve seen enough NBA to know, guys who constantly abandon schemes and fundamentals are usually outright negatives.

It’s so hard to overcome that. Jordan had the defensive talent to make enough positive plays to outweigh it but not even close to the level of elite defense IMO.

Guys like Tony Allen and Prime Chris Paul were amazing because they didn’t sacrifice proper positioning to get a **** load of steals and deflections.

Jordan was just a mess on that end in this film.

Lol, it really bothers me because I hate when players do it on teams I root for.

Late to the discussion, but this point sticks with me. Something that I think Ben left out of the discussion is scheme/role. Yes, he can find lots of video of Jordan being a rover and taking chances on defense, sometimes making the play and sometimes not. But from a scheme perspective, I would think that's intentional. Chicago had a rock-solid defensive unit, and that allowed them to designate someone to play the role that Jordan did, floating around and being a disrupter. They'd be fine with him taking chances knowing that they have solid defenders behind him if he misses on a steal, combined with the fact that the reward -- lots of breakaway buckets -- is worth the risk. Plus having a skilled defensive rover puts doubt (fear?) in the offense's mind, making them hesitate to make passes they might normally make.

Jordan obviously showed he could be an excellent on-ball defender. Not Pippen-level, but excellent nevertheless. But with someone who carried an enormous offensive load, putting him in the rover role on defense was an excellent use of his effort, keeping him engaged and effective on that end with minimal physical effort compared to tracking someone through screens or expending the effort required for on-ball defense.

I'll contrast that with LeBron, who has high defensive IQ and can also play that rover role but spends far more time taking plays off standing in one area and is not the on-ball defender that Jordan could be, even earlier in his (LeBron's) career.

I'm fine with Jordan's defensive performance because, from my perspective, that's what his designated role was, he was highly effective in that role, and the rewards far outweighed the risks. I don't think it's fair to compare his defensive performance to the standard of a player in an on-ball defender role.

But that's nit-picking. Overall, I'm enjoying the videos enormously. As a fan, I don't see how you can't appreciate the effort and excellence of what Ben has put together here. Love it.

EDIT: added a few sentences at the end.

[LukaTheGOAT]

My fear is that at the end of the series when Ben rates the top peaks in order, it will be highly controversial when Kobe's peak is towards the bottom. I think there are going to be a lot of dislikes and just general discontent from people.

[Doctor MJ]

Robinson wasn't the most valuable player. You understand plus minus is a rate stat right? liek true shooting? Effiency goes up as volume goes down.

This is like callig gobert the second best player in 2019 based on his ws/48, or calling draymond the best player in the league based on his pipm.

Robinson had exceptional effiency on a hilariously diminished role. If you think draymond is a better player than james harden, fine, if not, robinson achieve dnothing of note in an all time context in 99.

This is robinson's impact as a superstar in the playoffs

https://youtu.be/G_5ZhbbDvQg?t=1185

Was david robinson better at basketball in 99? No. He played a far diminsihed role. If you think robinson's 99 demonstrates he's a giannis level peak, I expect similar argumentation for someone like draymond.

Otherwise, we can look at their primes where, Giannis took one season to accomplish more than robinson managed in 8. It would seem the player who requires schemes to stop him is better than the one getting man handled 1 on 1 by karl malone.

Go look at the +/- for the '98-99 Spurs in the playoffs. It's not a small edge he's got over Duncan there.

You're also talking a lot about offense...which not the reason why they were great.

Did Duncan play more than Robinson? Sure, but Robinson was playing 35 MPG in the playoffs during a playoff run where the Spurs were winning with ease (+20 with Robinson on the court). This really isn't a time where you should be assuming that Robinson's playing time cherry picked.

The thing is, all Robinson's numbers truly showed in Comparison to Duncan's is how much better Robinson was compared to his backup.

Robinson played just about all his minutes with Duncan. Duncan played lots of minutes without Robinson.

This is certainly an important thing to bring up, but note a few things:

1. Robinson did play more than 10% of his time without Duncan. It's a small sample size to be sure, but it was not the case that they only played Robinson with Duncan.

2. Robinson's on-court +/- is actually better when Duncan's on the bench, whereas Duncan without Robinson drops from about +19 to -13. Small sample size yes, but those numbers are pretty huge.

3. Duncan & Robinson aren't exactly thunder & lightning. It's called the Twin Towers because they're supposed to be the same type of player. Weird then that the team would struggle so badly without Robinson.

4. We know that defense is something that generally takes time to become a master at, and this was a time where Duncan was still actively being mentored by Robinson. It really shouldn't come as a surprise that Robinson was still more effective on defense than Duncan.

[Doctor MJ]

Amazing work from Ben Taylor.

Jordan’s defense screams decent at best to me. No way in hell he was elite.

I’ve seen enough NBA to know, guys who constantly abandon schemes and fundamentals are usually outright negatives.

It’s so hard to overcome that. Jordan had the defensive talent to make enough positive plays to outweigh it but not even close to the level of elite defense IMO.

Guys like Tony Allen and Prime Chris Paul were amazing because they didn’t sacrifice proper positioning to get a **** load of steals and deflections.

Jordan was just a mess on that end in this film.

Lol, it really bothers me because I hate when players do it on teams I root for.

Late to the discussion, but this point sticks with me. Something that I think Ben left out of the discussion is scheme/role. Yes, he can find lots of video of Jordan being a rover and taking chances on defense, sometimes making the play and sometimes not. But from a scheme perspective, I would think that's intentional. Chicago had a rock-solid defensive unit, and that allowed them to designate someone to play the role that Jordan did, floating around and being a disrupter. They'd be fine with him taking chances knowing that they have solid defenders behind him if he misses on a steal, combined with the fact that the reward -- lots of breakaway buckets -- is worth the risk. Plus having a skilled defensive rover puts doubt (fear?) in the offense's mind, making them hesitate to make passes they might normally make.

I agree with this but the chronology is important.

Jordan didn't show up to a team with great defense and say "Hey, I can gamble with impunity!"

Jordan showed up to Chicago and gambled, gambled, gambled like crazy. Over time the Bulls surrounded him with good defenders who would dutifully stay in their lane to allow Jordan to continue his gambling tendencies.

To me the story of how the Bulls successfully built around an outlier individual talent without great team instincts is extremely instructive for understanding team basketball in general.

[Jordan Syndrome]

Go look at the +/- for the '98-99 Spurs in the playoffs. It's not a small edge he's got over Duncan there.

You're also talking a lot about offense...which not the reason why they were great.

Did Duncan play more than Robinson? Sure, but Robinson was playing 35 MPG in the playoffs during a playoff run where the Spurs were winning with ease (+20 with Robinson on the court). This really isn't a time where you should be assuming that Robinson's playing time cherry picked.

The thing is, all Robinson's numbers truly showed in Comparison to Duncan's is how much better Robinson was compared to his backup.

Robinson played just about all his minutes with Duncan. Duncan played lots of minutes without Robinson.

This is certainly an important thing to bring up, but note a few things:

1. Robinson did play more than 10% of his time without Duncan. It's a small sample size to be sure, but it was not the case that they only played Robinson with Duncan.

2. Robinson's on-court +/- is actually better when Duncan's on the bench, whereas Duncan without Robinson drops from about +19 to -13. Small sample size yes, but those numbers are pretty huge.

3. Duncan & Robinson aren't exactly thunder & lightning. It's called the Twin Towers because they're supposed to be the same type of player. Weird then that the team would struggle so badly without Robinson.

4. We know that defense is something that generally takes time to become a master at, and this was a time where Duncan was still actively being mentored by Robinson. It really shouldn't come as a surprise that Robinson was still more effective on defense than Duncan.

Good points.

I'll say this about Robinson--he never was in a role which truly maximized his impact until Duncan came around.

Imagine If Bill Russell was forced to be the offensive catalyst (notably scoring) for his Celtics teams.

The comparison to Giannis is a common one but I see even more similarities than most in the fact Giannis will be maximized offensively as a secondary playmaker or even third. I would love to see Giannis more as the role man in pick and roll, work closer to the rim when he catches the ball and do more dirty work offensively.

Unfortunately Giannis sees himself more as a guard and it is difficult to tell a player of Giannis caliber and stature (stature around the league) to do what I described but to maximize his impact on the court, I feel it is best.

[HeartBreakKid]

If you look at the author, and his GOAT 40 series, his peak seemingly rates just less than half way up the MVP tier. Robinson, Magic, Bird and Kareem all went into "All time" tier (and MJ into GOAT tier). My guess then is that Bryant, just below Durant, would be one of Ben's higher rated peaks that doesn't make the series. Of course that is off single years, his views may have changed and I don't know where his threshold is (though absence of NBA Erving, Barkley, the Malones, Ewing suggest at very least you needed to be in the (full/strong) MVP tier).

{edit: the above assumes a broadly chronological order, whilst Hakeem breaks this in terms of career starting and ending before Robinson's, the "peaks" mostly overlap so I assume it's broadly chronological and Robinson before Olajuwon was an editorial decision.]

One of the things the Robinson peak episode shows though is that it's not simply about players in the GOAT or All-Time tier necessarily. Kobe Bryant is one of those modern era players that has sparked a TON of polar discussion in the modern era. For Ben to leave him out of this would be extremely surprising, in my opinion.

Except Ben is clearly higher on D-Rob than Kobe when it comes to peak. If this is about top 15 peaks then Kobe for sure do not deserve to have video.

But he also has to explain WHY Kobe Bryant isn't in the top 15. Kobe is going to get a lot of views and a large % of the populace think Kobe is a top 5 player, therefore, it wouldn't make sense for him to make a peaks video and to omit Kobe without an explanation.

In many ways his Kobe video (assuming he makes one which I am pretty sure he will) will be a bit of a hit piece if I had to assume. Though he will likely give Kobe his do and say something like "there is without doubt, Kobe was one of the best scorers ever" like he does at the end of all his videos. He's not really giving any super hard rankings as of yet (maybe at the end?).

He will certainly highlight Kobe's major weaknesses perhaps in an attempt to educate some fans, but his video can end on a positive note since Kobe was a big time offensive force still. Based on the montage he is putting Kevin Garnett in these videos which is not a surprise to many posters here, but may surprise a few other fans if Garnett were to get a video but Bryant were not.

[freethedevil]

Amazing work from Ben Taylor.

Jordan’s defense screams decent at best to me. No way in hell he was elite.

I’ve seen enough NBA to know, guys who constantly abandon schemes and fundamentals are usually outright negatives.

It’s so hard to overcome that. Jordan had the defensive talent to make enough positive plays to outweigh it but not even close to the level of elite defense IMO.

Guys like Tony Allen and Prime Chris Paul were amazing because they didn’t sacrifice proper positioning to get a **** load of steals and deflections.

Jordan was just a mess on that end in this film.

Lol, it really bothers me because I hate when players do it on teams I root for.

Late to the discussion, but this point sticks with me. Something that I think Ben left out of the discussion is scheme/role. Yes, he can find lots of video of Jordan being a rover and taking chances on defense, sometimes making the play and sometimes not. But from a scheme perspective, I would think that's intentional. Chicago had a rock-solid defensive unit, and that allowed them to designate someone to play the role that Jordan did, floating around and being a disrupter. They'd be fine with him taking chances knowing that they have solid defenders behind him if he misses on a steal, combined with the fact that the reward -- lots of breakaway buckets -- is worth the risk. Plus having a skilled defensive rover puts doubt (fear?) in the offense's mind, making them hesitate to make passes they might normally make.

Jordan obviously showed he could be an excellent on-ball defender. Not Pippen-level, but excellent nevertheless. But with someone who carried an enormous offensive load, putting him in the rover role on defense was an excellent use of his effort, keeping him engaged and effective on that end with minimal physical effort compared to tracking someone through screens or expending the effort required for on-ball defense.

I'll contrast that with LeBron, who has high defensive IQ and can also play that rover role but spends far more time taking plays off standing in one area and is not the on-ball defender that Jordan could be, even earlier in his (LeBron's) career.

I'm fine with Jordan's defensive performance because, from my perspective, that's what his designated role was, he was highly effective in that role, and the rewards far outweighed the risks. I don't think it's fair to compare his defensive performance to the standard of a player in an on-ball defender role.

But that's nit-picking. Overall, I'm enjoying the videos enormously. As a fan, I don't see how you can't appreciate the effort and excellence of what Ben has put together here. Love it.

EDIT: added a few sentences at the end.

I don't understand this at all. The bulls scheme wasn't some hindrance to Jordan, their high focus of poa and elite swhitchable persnell allowed jordan to make full use of his strengths while coverng for his weaknesses. The sceheme/role makes Jordan's defense less impressive not more, he was in a system perfectly designed to maximize his strengths and his defensive footprint was rather unimpressive.

What "this was intentional, he had many solid defenders behind him" implies is that his peformance was lagely tied to the quality of his teamates and the scheme he was utilized in. If jordan is being allowed to "make minimal physical effort", then that means one of his teammates is doing the "phsycial effort" part for him, iow, they're doing the brunt of the work while Jordan is gettng highlights of their contributions.

Jordan being a man defender is fine, man defense isn't the primary determinent of value, paint protectinon is. Lebron was his team's primary paint protector from 09-17 -in addition-- to being able to do alot of the stuff jordan did on the perimiter --withotu-- committing nearly as many errors. A play where you dont start the possesion picking up an attacking player isn't "taking a play off", and "standing still" when you're on a forward or a big is often far more valuable than "being engaged."

When we look at defense with and without, impact stats, or playoff drapm, all of it points to Lebron having the impact of an all time defensive wing, Meanwhile Jordan's growth, decline, and absense is barely affecting the quality of the bulls defense season to season, as one might expect from a defensve guard.

You're right in that the comparison is unfair, its unfair to compare players whose limitations and strengths weren't extensively schemed around to Jordan who played in a scheme catered around his weaknesses and strengths .

[Outside]

Amazing work from Ben Taylor.

Jordan’s defense screams decent at best to me. No way in hell he was elite.

I’ve seen enough NBA to know, guys who constantly abandon schemes and fundamentals are usually outright negatives.

It’s so hard to overcome that. Jordan had the defensive talent to make enough positive plays to outweigh it but not even close to the level of elite defense IMO.

Guys like Tony Allen and Prime Chris Paul were amazing because they didn’t sacrifice proper positioning to get a **** load of steals and deflections.

Jordan was just a mess on that end in this film.

Lol, it really bothers me because I hate when players do it on teams I root for.

Late to the discussion, but this point sticks with me. Something that I think Ben left out of the discussion is scheme/role. Yes, he can find lots of video of Jordan being a rover and taking chances on defense, sometimes making the play and sometimes not. But from a scheme perspective, I would think that's intentional. Chicago had a rock-solid defensive unit, and that allowed them to designate someone to play the role that Jordan did, floating around and being a disrupter. They'd be fine with him taking chances knowing that they have solid defenders behind him if he misses on a steal, combined with the fact that the reward -- lots of breakaway buckets -- is worth the risk. Plus having a skilled defensive rover puts doubt (fear?) in the offense's mind, making them hesitate to make passes they might normally make.

I agree with this but the chronology is important.

Jordan didn't show up to a team with great defense and say "Hey, I can gamble with impunity!"

Jordan showed up to Chicago and gambled, gambled, gambled like crazy. Over time the Bulls surrounded him with good defenders who would dutifully stay in their lane to allow Jordan to continue his gambling tendencies.

To me the story of how the Bulls successfully built around an outlier individual talent without great team instincts is extremely instructive for understanding team basketball in general.

I agree. My point was about the seasons Ben designated for Jordan's peak only, not the seasons leading up to that. I think what you say is valid but doesn't negate the point I was trying to make.