Stalwart wrote:"Superteams" refer to a abnormal collection of top end talent. I think what is generally considered a superteam is 3 or more established superstars/all stars joining forces in or around their primes. Examples include 11 Heat, 15 Cavs, 21 Lakers, 20 Nets, 08 Boston. Or it can also refer to teams who add a top shelf superstar onto an already championship level team. Examples include 83 76ers, 82 Lakers 17 Warriors. Although its always more egregious when the players collude behind the scenes rather than management putting a superteam together.
I don't consider teammates who develop into superstars/all stars together to be superteams. Example: Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Its true that Pippen developed into a superstar but he did it under the guidance and leadership of Jordan. So its not like Jordan just looked around the league for the best players to go hook up with. He put in time, sacrifice, and leadership to help develop his teammates. Another example is the 15/16 Warriors. Again, this is another example of guys developing next to and underneath a great player. We don't know if Klay & Dray are legit superstars or if they have simply benefited from playing next to Steph Curry. And if its the latter then Steph gets credit for making his teammates better rather than discredited for having a strong team.
This is not an unreasonable definition. But it does create two problems:
1) It skews toward scorers. Imagine Dikembe Mutombo and Carmelo Anthony are both coming from 35-40 win teams. Which would be considered "Top end talent"? Probably Carmelo; his 30ppg heroics on a bad team stick out all the more, while nobody really cares too much about great defenders on mediocre teams (historically). Let us imagine that LeBron can add one of them. Adding Carmelo would definitely lead to accusations of "Adding a Superstar", "Making a SuperTeam" and all of that. Adding Mutombo would more likely be seen as merely shoring up the defense with a strong defender. But, if the poll on the forum can be believed, Mutombo would actually be the more addition, and he certainly would scale better next to an ATG high-volume scorer.
So I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your "Top end talent" assertion, but do you see how in the above scenario the player with the better "Top end talent / superteam" assessment could easily be the worse addition?
One thing that I think really distinguishes LeBron's "top" teammates from Jordan's is that LeBron's teammates were largely better scorers. There's a reason that the '96-98 juggernaut Bulls dominated with defense, because the roster was mostly Jordan, Pippen and defensive specialists (and Kukoc). If "Top end talent" is mostly scoring, LeBron's teams probably had more. But there's more to the game than scoring, and Jordan's teammates were best at defense and rebounding. Which doesn't make them worse by a long shot.
2) As far as the "added" vs "developed". I can understand that position. But it does basically mean that you're punishing players (from the Superteam angle) for being on a team without homegrown talent. If the '04-10 Cavs had lots of drafted talent around LeBron and they'd won a few rings, they wouldn't have been a Superteam, by your definition. But, of course, they did a fairly terrible job surrounding LeBron with talent and that didn't happen. So instead of waiting for good players to come to him, he went to them. Which now makes his collection of teammates a "Superteam", even if the same collection of players had occurred organically on his team, they wouldn't have. So the whole thing plays a bit like punishing LeBron for having had worse GMs than Jordan.
I guess I'm not quite there. If "Superteam" means "a really good team made from the pieces of many teams" then yes, LeBron definitely had Superteams and Jordan didn't. But how helpful is that in determining how much support a star had? I mean, the Spurs had Duncan, Ginobili and Parker in the mid-late aughts; that was a collection of high-end talent that was as good as a lot of historical Top 3s, but it was all developed internally. From '12 to '14 the Spurs had those three (older) plus Kawhi. Definitely not a "Superteam" by your definition, but clearly an ATG supporting cast.
If we're defining Superteam in the way you have above (which is fine) it seems like more of an aesthetic quibble than an actual evaluation of the support the star of the team had. If you don't *like* the way LeBron's teams were assembled that's totally fine.
The 96 Bulls are tricky because was Rodman really a superstar? Was Jordan really joining forces with a superstar in Pippen or simply reconnecting with the sidekick he spent years helping to develop?
Completely fair question. Rodman on a bad team was fairly useless. But on a very good or better team he was clearly extremely valuable. But if you need to be able to score to be a "Superstar" he definitely wasn't. And as for Pippen, we're back at what "Superteam" means. If it means "Collection of high-end (scoring) talent from other teams" then Pippen shouldn't count, even if he did play without Jordan for almost 2 years. But if it means "Collection of really good players" then Pippen absolutely counts, as we've seen that without Jordan, Pippen was considered a Top 5 player in the league. And Jordan + a Top 5 player in the league is pretty insane, I'm sure you'll admit.
I do acknowledge and agree with your point about the strength of a team being more than just their top end talent and offensive skills.
Thanks!
I think 2011/12 Wade and Kyrie are pretty clearly better than Pippen. Pippen never had a NBA finals like Wade had in 2011 and Kyrie had in 2016. I would say Love and Bosh are comparable to Pippen. Don't forget Bosh put up 24/10 and Love put up 26/14, respectively, the season prior to joining Lebron. I would also say 13/14 DWade was comparable to Pippen's later years with the Bulls.
What's that!? Time for an anonymous comparison! Don't mind if I do!
Here are five players, anonymous. We're only going to look at offense (because we all know that Pippen was way, way more valuable on defense than any of those four.
Regular Season (I'll use '94-97 for Pippen, '11-14 for Wade, '09-12 for Bosh, '13-16 for Love and '14-17 for Kyrie):
Player A: 25.9% Usage, +3.2% rTS, 7.8% OReb, 10.4% AST, 10.4% TO, +2.6 OBPM
Player B: 28.5% Usage, +1.9% rTS, 2.4% OReb, 28.3% AST, 11.4% TO, +4.1 OBPM
Player C: 25.1% Usage, +2.3% rTS, 7.7% OReb, 14.8% AST, 10.5% TO, +4.7 OBPM
Player D: 25.6% Usage, +1.5% rTS, 6.6% OReb, 24.2% AST, 13.7% TO, +4.5 OBPM
Player E: 31.0% Usage, +3.1% rTS, 4.8% OReb, 26.7% AST, 13.3% TO, +4.4 OBPM
Which of these five is the better offensive player? It's not especially clear, save that Player A seems to be on the bottom of the heap. What about in the playoffs?
Player A: 22.2% Usage, +2.0% rTS, 8.1% OReb, 4.7% AST, 10.3% TO, +2.0 OBPM
Player B: 28.8% Usage, +3.0% rTS, 2.4% OReb, 23.1% AST, 9.7% TO, +4.7 OBPM
Player C: 22.7% Usage, +0.6% rTS, 6.6% OReb, 11.5% AST, 9.3% TO, +3.3 OBPM
Player D: 24.7% Usage, -2.5% rTS, 7.2% OReb, 22.0% AST, 13.2% TO, +4.2 OBPM
Player E: 28.4% Usage, +0.3% rTS, 5.1% OReb, 22.8% AST, 13.1% TO, +3.7 OBPM
Who's the best of this group? If OBPM can be believed, Player B in the playoffs. But the point is that Pippen (Player D) didn't really stand out as a weak spot in this group. And if Pippen is loosely comparable to the rest on offense, he's clearly better on defense. Pippen has never had a *scoring* Finals that was particularly dominant, but I'm not convinced that he needs it. Compare Kyrie and Pippen. In *every* element of the game Pippen ranges from comparable (passing) to wildly superior (rebounding and defense). For Kyrie to be better than Pippen, he'd have to be light-years better as a scorer. And he isn't, at least, not by enough.
I'm not trying to tell you that Pippen is a better scorer than the other players. But I think it's a pretty easy argument that he was more valuable than any of them overall (except for Wade in 2011).
I think its pretty tough to establish your own superstar status while playing next to an all time great superstar. You kind of do need to prove that by yourself. Not always but often times. I would say Pippen established himself in 94 as a legit, stand alone, lower end, superstar. Kyrie did the same thing in 2018. Love & Bosh established themselves as legit all stars during their time in Toronto and Minnesota. And obviously AD & Westbrook are established superstars.
Kukoc and Horace never established themselves as a legitimate all stars and definitely not superstars.
This may all be true, but it again comes back to the problem of the "Superteam" distinction being 50% an evaluation of teammate quality and 50% an assessment of *how* the star got those teammates. And I don't know that the second half is necessary at all for understanding teammate support, though I certainly understand it on aesthetic grounds.
Comparing Pippen&Kukoc to prime Wade&Bosh is one heck of a stretch lol.
Pippen from '94-97, Kukoc from '94-97, Bosh from '09-12 and Wade from '11-14:
Regular Season:
Pippen + Kukoc: +7.8 OBPM
Wade + Bosh: +7.0 OBPM
Playoffs:
Pippen + Kukoc: +7.1 OBPM
Wade + Bosh: +5.7 OBPM
Even if we ignored Heat Bosh, and only did '07-10 Bosh, the totals would still be:
+7.8 vs +8.0 and
+7.1 vs +5.7
It's not that crazy of a stretch.
