Jordan v Lebron - A civilised conversation

[No-more-rings]

First off, LeBron and MJ can't play themselves so they only have 9 potential top 10 players they could face instead of 10.

I already said the same thing mostly applies to Jordan as well.

2nd, None of the players in the top 10 was facing other top 10 players in their primes with the exception of Wilt/Russell, Magic/Bird, Duncan/Shaq, and Kareem vs Wilt/Bird.

That's most of the top 10 and you're calling it an exception? How does that make sense?

Third, the comparison isn't fair to Lebron because his competitors are still not finished yet. Curry and Durant still have a shot to make the top 10. Harden and Giannis? still have an outside shot at making the top 10.

Lebron likely won't be facing Giannis in a series at this point, and i officially consider Lebron past his prime now anyway. If Lebron at 37 or 38 makes the finals and gets outplayed by him it won't much matter to me. Harden is really great, but he's definitely not top 10 caliber. I don't think many objective people considers KD or Curry to be top 10 for their peaks/primes.

[colts18]

His competition was definitely stiff, but i felt like he was rarely challenged on an individual level in a series. Maybe he was really that great and it wouldn't have mattered, but It's really crazy when looking at his prime lets say from 08 0r 09 up to the present, I think the 2011 finals was the only time he was probably outplayed by someone else. Like other than that series, can you think of one where someone from the other team outplayed him? It's a testament to his greatness, but I do wonder if his goat case gets slightly inflated because of it. I'm not including a year like 2007 or 2021 when he was old and injured. All I'm saying is i really doubt that would be the case if went against someone like Shaq, MJ or Kareem multiple times.

When did MJ face off vs a player of prime Shaq or Kareem's quality? He never faced an all-time great peak in his prime either.

Here is the RealGM top 30 peaks of all-time ranked in 2019:

1) Michael Jordan 1990-91
2) LeBron James 2012-13
3) Wilt Chamberlain 1966-67
4) Shaquille O'Neal 1999-00
5) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1976-77
6) Tim Duncan 2002-03
7) Larry Bird 1985-86
8) Bill Russell 1963-64
9) Hakeem Olajuwon 1993-94
10) Magic Johnson 1986-87
11) Kevin Garnett 2003-04
12) Julius Erving 1975-76
13) Bill Walton 1976-77
14) Oscar Robertson 1963-64
15) Stephen Curry 2015-16
16) Dwyane Wade 2008-09
17) Jerry West 1965-66
18) David Robinson 1994-95
19) Dirk Nowitzki 2010-11
20) Kobe Bryant 2007-08
21) Tracy McGrady 2002-03
22) Moses Malone 1982-83
23) Patrick Ewing 1989-90
24) Kevin Durant 2013-14
25) Russell Westbrook 2016-17
26) Charles Barkley 1992-93
27) Kawhi Leonard 2018-19
28) Chris Paul 2007-08
29) George Mikan 1948-49
30) Steve Nash 2004-05


The only peaks seasons MJ faced was vs Bird and Barkley. LeBron faced Curry and Dirk's peak season. If you look at each players peak season +/- 3 seasons then LeBron adds 2012 Durant and MJ adds Patrick Ewing. None of those guys were facing all-time peak players at their best. The only one who did, MJ vs 86 Bird, was before his prime.

[falcolombardi]

His competition was definitely stiff, but i felt like he was rarely challenged on an individual level in a series. Maybe he was really that great and it wouldn't have mattered, but It's really crazy when looking at his prime lets say from 08 0r 09 up to the present, I think the 2011 finals was the only time he was probably outplayed by someone else. Like other than that series, can you think of one where someone from the other team outplayed him? It's a testament to his greatness, but I do wonder if his goat case gets slightly inflated because of it. I'm not including a year like 2007 or 2021 when he was old and injured. All I'm saying is i really doubt that would be the case if went against someone like Shaq, MJ or Kareem multiple times.

Well, I'd say he went up against some really great defenders(Kawhi twice when he was dpoy level, Iggy a few times and Bowen) along with some great defensive teams and then you have KD in 17 and 18. So overall that was very good competition. I think a lot of people make the case that KD outplayed him twice and Dirk in 2011 but other then that no one comes to mind for a given series. Duncan in 07 but that's pre prime LeBron. From 08-21 I can't think of anyone else. Butler came close but then dropped off while LeBron got fmvp.

durant case is hard for me to see, their scoring volume + efficiency was conparable and lebron was the better creator/playmaker

unless we think durant played much better defense than lebron

[Cavsfansince84]

durant case is hard for me to see, their scoring volume + efficiency was conparable and lebron was the better creator/playmaker

unless we think durant played much better defense than lebron

I agree on Durant though I give him credit for stepping up his shooting in general in those two finals and hitting some big shots to win games.

[Sark]

His competition was definitely stiff, but i felt like he was rarely challenged on an individual level in a series. Maybe he was really that great and it wouldn't have mattered, but It's really crazy when looking at his prime lets say from 08 0r 09 up to the present, I think the 2011 finals was the only time he was probably outplayed by someone else. Like other than that series, can you think of one where someone from the other team outplayed him? It's a testament to his greatness, but I do wonder if his goat case gets slightly inflated because of it. I'm not including a year like 2007 or 2021 when he was old and injured. All I'm saying is i really doubt that would be the case if went against someone like Shaq, MJ or Kareem multiple times.

When did MJ face off vs a player of prime Shaq or Kareem's quality? He never faced an all-time great peak in his prime either.

Here is the RealGM top 30 peaks of all-time ranked in 2019:

1) Michael Jordan 1990-91
2) LeBron James 2012-13
3) Wilt Chamberlain 1966-67
4) Shaquille O'Neal 1999-00
5) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1976-77
6) Tim Duncan 2002-03
7) Larry Bird 1985-86
8) Bill Russell 1963-64
9) Hakeem Olajuwon 1993-94
10) Magic Johnson 1986-87
11) Kevin Garnett 2003-04
12) Julius Erving 1975-76
13) Bill Walton 1976-77
14) Oscar Robertson 1963-64
15) Stephen Curry 2015-16
16) Dwyane Wade 2008-09
17) Jerry West 1965-66
18) David Robinson 1994-95
19) Dirk Nowitzki 2010-11
20) Kobe Bryant 2007-08
21) Tracy McGrady 2002-03
22) Moses Malone 1982-83
23) Patrick Ewing 1989-90
24) Kevin Durant 2013-14
25) Russell Westbrook 2016-17
26) Charles Barkley 1992-93
27) Kawhi Leonard 2018-19
28) Chris Paul 2007-08
29) George Mikan 1948-49
30) Steve Nash 2004-05


The only peaks seasons MJ faced was vs Bird and Barkley. LeBron faced Curry and Dirk's peak season. If you look at each players peak season +/- 3 seasons then LeBron adds 2012 Durant and MJ adds Patrick Ewing. None of those guys were facing all-time peak players at their best. The only one who did, MJ vs 86 Bird, was before his prime.

I'd say that 96 Shaq was prime Shaq. It's not his peak, but he was definitely in his prime.

[Squared2020]

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[twyzted]

LeBron did face a lot of great players in their primes.

2007-
Duncan: Top 10 player all-time. Best player in the league. Still in his prime

2008-
Garnett: Top 20 player. Still in his late prime
Pierce/Allen: Top 50-60 players in their late prime

2009:
Dwight- Hall of Famer in his prime

2010, 2011, 2012:
Paul Pierce- Hall of Famer. Not in his prime but still effective

2011:
Rose- MVP. Dominates him
Dirk- Top 20 player in his absolute prime

2012-2014:
Paul George- Hall of Famer. faced him 3 times in a row. MJ never played against a SG as good as Paul George.

2012:
Carmelo Anthony- in his prime

2012:
Durant- Top 15 player in his prime

2015-2018:
Curry- Top 15 player in his prime.

2017-2018:
Durant- Top 15 player in his prime

2020:
Harden- Top 20 in his prime

2020:
Jokic- MVP player in his prime

2020:
Lillard- ATG PG in his prime

2020:
Butler- Hall of Famer in his prime

That's a lot of Hall of Famers in their primes.

Drexler is better then paul george, who was not in his prime when playing the heat.

[twyzted]

Would you call James pre-prime in 2007? Because Duncan certainly was in his prime.

Oh definitely yeah. He was only 22. No one is in their prime at that age. I know he was in his 4th season, but looking back he was too raw offensively for me to consider that his prime.

Here is the top 15 list from RealGM's last top 100 list:

1. LeBron James
2. Michael Jordan
3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
4. Bill Russell
5. Tim Duncan
6. Wilt Chamberlain
7. Magic Johnson
8. Shaquille O'Neal
9. Hakeem Olajuwon
10. Larry Bird
11. Kevin Garnett
12. Kobe Bryant
13. Jerry West
14. Oscar Robertson
15. Dirk Nowitzki

First off, LeBron and MJ can't play themselves so they only have 9 potential top 10 players they could face instead of 10. 2nd, None of the players in the top 10 was facing other top 10 players in their primes with the exception of Wilt/Russell, Magic/Bird, Duncan/Shaq, and Kareem vs Wilt/Bird. The list is evenly spread between 60's, 80's, 90's, and 00's players. At most there were about 2-3 top 10 players in the league at a time.

Third, the comparison isn't fair to Lebron because his competitors are still not finished yet. Curry and Durant still have a shot to make the top 10. Harden and Giannis? still have an outside shot at making the top 10.

Its the player comparisons top100.

Jordan played magic, bird and shaq.

[falcolombardi]

LeBron did face a lot of great players in their primes.

2007-
Duncan: Top 10 player all-time. Best player in the league. Still in his prime

2008-
Garnett: Top 20 player. Still in his late prime
Pierce/Allen: Top 50-60 players in their late prime

2009:
Dwight- Hall of Famer in his prime

2010, 2011, 2012:
Paul Pierce- Hall of Famer. Not in his prime but still effective

2011:
Rose- MVP. Dominates him
Dirk- Top 20 player in his absolute prime

2012-2014:
Paul George- Hall of Famer. faced him 3 times in a row. MJ never played against a SG as good as Paul George.

2012:
Carmelo Anthony- in his prime

2012:
Durant- Top 15 player in his prime

2015-2018:
Curry- Top 15 player in his prime.

2017-2018:
Durant- Top 15 player in his prime

2020:
Harden- Top 20 in his prime

2020:
Jokic- MVP player in his prime

2020:
Lillard- ATG PG in his prime

2020:
Butler- Hall of Famer in his prime

That's a lot of Hall of Famers in their primes.

Drexler is better then paul george, who was not in his prime when playing the heat.

also reggie miller* but dont sleep on indiana george, still a excelent player and maybe a tougher defender than drexler fwiw

[LukaTheGOAT]

No, but he has on/off estimates that go back past 97. He doesn't have exact on/off data, but through the use of various regressions, etc., he has put together estimates.

Then it's a no for me, bud. Sorry.

Again, I'm not saying Hakeem shouldn't have won just that D-PIPM or D-RAPTOR or whatever isn't going to tell you he should've won.

Hey guys, I'll toss in my thirty-two cents on this sub-thread within the thread about LeBron vs. Jordan.

I am the guy who has put together the RAPM numbers. I want to be clear first and foremost on those numbers: They are indeed noisy (especially for players with less than 1000 possessions played) but more importantly: they are team metrics. For instance, here is the plus-minus of Hakeem's sample of games:

Hakeem Olajuwon,HOU Opp Score | OPoss O PTS | DPoss D PTS | P/M
8-Nov-87 LAL 92-101 | 85 75 | 88 80 | -5
10-Nov-87 POR 118-111 | 66 77 | 65 64 | 13
27-Nov-87 UTA 96-118 | 72 64 | 75 82 | -18
28-Nov-87 CHI 86-98 | 58 50 | 58 57 | -7
8-Dec-87 SAC 106-97 | 81 88 | 80 80 | 8
12-Dec-87 CHI 103-112 | 74 75 | 73 85 | -10
7-Jan-88 GSW 120-113 | 104 104 | 102 99 | 5
14-Jan-88 POR 103-98 | 91 91 | 88 79 | 12
9-Feb-88 BOS 129-120 | 86 102 | 87 101 | 1
16-Feb-88 GSW 121-116 | 92 108 | 91 94 | 14
18-Feb-88 LAL 96-111 | 88 75 | 87 95 | -20
4-Mar-88 DAL 110-118 | 90 105 | 89 110 | -5
17-Apr-88 LAL 127-119 | 93 107 | 89 100 | 7

That's not a great sample for Hakeem. As the season wore on, his stints got worse and worse with respect to DRTG. But is that his fault?

One way to look is take into consideration items like PIPM. I love PIPM. By the way, PIPM suggests LeBron, Jordan, and Kareem are the only GOATS ever. PIPM suggests Jordan has the better overall career than LeBron but LeBron has the best prime of all time. Take that with a grain of salt.

But what PIPM does, is it applies a 12-year RAPM regression to help effectively estimate plus-minus values (its does more than than that, but let's stick with this story for simplicity). However, you have to make the assumption that the style of the game is the same between 1970 and 2020. The sampling frame for the prior implicitly makes that assumption. Now, if you are okay with that, we then look at the second layer of functions which are box score metrics. We also make an assumption that the game is uniform between first and last game of season and between first and last minute, regardless of crunch time or blowout. If you're okay with that assumption, then PIPM is for you!

Let me make clear that I am outlining the implicit assumptions to show that PIPM is not perfect either. The question raised is whether Hakeem got his states in blowout losses (he does) or did he get them in the most important parts of games (he does).

By the way, from the eye test, Michael Cooper was a nasty perimeter defender. The RAPM numbers (team-wise of course) even back it up. Double win!

After all, Cooper had more all-defense votes (25) and first team guard votes (12) than Jordan (24 and 10, respectively) in 1988. Jordan's D-RAPM is down because the team was terrible at defense when Jordan was on the court. Hakeem had the most all-defense votes with 27; but be careful to note that selections are based by position.

Voting that year: Player Name (First Team Votes - Overall Votes)
FIRST TEAM...
FORWARDS: McHale (11-26), McCray (10-22)
CENTER: Olajuwon (11-27)
GUARDS: Cooper (12-25), Jordan (10-24)

SECOND TEAM...
FORWARDS: B. Williams (3-11), K. Malone (3-10)
CENTER: Eaton (5-19)
GUARDS: Robertson (9-19), Lever (4-14)

I'm content with Jordan being DPOY in 1988. I'd be content with Olajuwon and Cooper, too. If I had to say someone had the right to be upset, I'd say it's Coop. But that's just opinion based off some small numbers and the eye test.

I'd be skeptical of the near-zero Olajuwon RAPM numbers, and say "how did he get in this situation?" instead of "Oh boy, he was terrible!" He wasn't terrible, he just didn't dominate sampled games on defense. If he did, his sampled +/- would look better. He did his part and kept the team afloat, which is what PIPM suggests.

Hope this helps with the conversation and thanks for linking me in. This was fun.

Thank you for your input, it was really insightful. Though, one small correction I have to what you said, is the MJ having more career value per PIPM. At one pint, that was true, but that is no longer the case. Below is an example of Jacob Goldstein noting that Lebron has more cumulative career value than Jordan back in 2020.

Read on Twitter

Michael Jordan has 261.27 Career PIPM Wins Added. Before PIPM stopped being updated for the Public, Lebron was at 326.16 PIPM Wins Added. If you make a copy of this spreadsheet, you can actually, mess around with the Player Finders Tab, and see that. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EIZvj_3-9SZULWomHz54V1CPL092j70u_0vUhoEEaIk/edit#gid=90945325

Thanks again for your insight.

[Squared2020]

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[VanWest82]

Hey guys, I'll toss in my thirty-two cents on this sub-thread within the thread about LeBron vs. Jordan.

Spoiler:

I am the guy who has put together the RAPM numbers. I want to be clear first and foremost on those numbers: They are indeed noisy (especially for players with less than 1000 possessions played) but more importantly: they are team metrics. For instance, here is the plus-minus of Hakeem's sample of games:

Hakeem Olajuwon,HOU Opp Score | OPoss O PTS | DPoss D PTS | P/M
8-Nov-87 LAL 92-101 | 85 75 | 88 80 | -5
10-Nov-87 POR 118-111 | 66 77 | 65 64 | 13
27-Nov-87 UTA 96-118 | 72 64 | 75 82 | -18
28-Nov-87 CHI 86-98 | 58 50 | 58 57 | -7
8-Dec-87 SAC 106-97 | 81 88 | 80 80 | 8
12-Dec-87 CHI 103-112 | 74 75 | 73 85 | -10
7-Jan-88 GSW 120-113 | 104 104 | 102 99 | 5
14-Jan-88 POR 103-98 | 91 91 | 88 79 | 12
9-Feb-88 BOS 129-120 | 86 102 | 87 101 | 1
16-Feb-88 GSW 121-116 | 92 108 | 91 94 | 14
18-Feb-88 LAL 96-111 | 88 75 | 87 95 | -20
4-Mar-88 DAL 110-118 | 90 105 | 89 110 | -5
17-Apr-88 LAL 127-119 | 93 107 | 89 100 | 7

That's not a great sample for Hakeem. As the season wore on, his stints got worse and worse with respect to DRTG. But is that his fault?

One way to look is take into consideration items like PIPM. I love PIPM. By the way, PIPM suggests LeBron, Jordan, and Kareem are the only GOATS ever. PIPM suggests Jordan has the better overall career than LeBron but LeBron has the best prime of all time. Take that with a grain of salt.

But what PIPM does, is it applies a 12-year RAPM regression to help effectively estimate plus-minus values (its does more than than that, but let's stick with this story for simplicity). However, you have to make the assumption that the style of the game is the same between 1970 and 2020. The sampling frame for the prior implicitly makes that assumption. Now, if you are okay with that, we then look at the second layer of functions which are box score metrics. We also make an assumption that the game is uniform between first and last game of season and between first and last minute, regardless of crunch time or blowout. If you're okay with that assumption, then PIPM is for you!

Let me make clear that I am outlining the implicit assumptions to show that PIPM is not perfect either. The question raised is whether Hakeem got his states in blowout losses (he does) or did he get them in the most important parts of games (he does).

By the way, from the eye test, Michael Cooper was a nasty perimeter defender. The RAPM numbers (team-wise of course) even back it up. Double win!

After all, Cooper had more all-defense votes (25) and first team guard votes (12) than Jordan (24 and 10, respectively) in 1988. Jordan's D-RAPM is down because the team was terrible at defense when Jordan was on the court. Hakeem had the most all-defense votes with 27; but be careful to note that selections are based by position.

Voting that year: Player Name (First Team Votes - Overall Votes)
FIRST TEAM...
FORWARDS: McHale (11-26), McCray (10-22)
CENTER: Olajuwon (11-27)
GUARDS: Cooper (12-25), Jordan (10-24)

SECOND TEAM...
FORWARDS: B. Williams (3-11), K. Malone (3-10)
CENTER: Eaton (5-19)
GUARDS: Robertson (9-19), Lever (4-14)

I'm content with Jordan being DPOY in 1988. I'd be content with Olajuwon and Cooper, too. If I had to say someone had the right to be upset, I'd say it's Coop. But that's just opinion based off some small numbers and the eye test.

I'd be skeptical of the near-zero Olajuwon RAPM numbers, and say "how did he get in this situation?" instead of "Oh boy, he was terrible!" He wasn't terrible, he just didn't dominate sampled games on defense. If he did, his sampled +/- would look better. He did his part and kept the team afloat, which is what PIPM suggests.

Hope this helps with the conversation and thanks for linking me in. This was fun.

Thanks so much for your detailed post. See this is you're the Orl..er...American South Regional Data Guy

But what PIPM does, is it applies a 12-year RAPM regression to help effectively estimate plus-minus values (its does more than than that, but let's stick with this story for simplicity).

Is it possible to get a slightly more detailed explanation of the RAPM regression? Are you saying they're regressing 12 year RAPM with for example all the different box score stats and then applying that to estimate plus/minus (or RAPM) given we have box for the years we don't have actual plus/minus or am I way off here? Presumably someone has tested this approach in years we have plus/minus data against other years for which we also have plus/minus data to get an idea of things like relative error. Any idea what that looks like? It'd be interesting to see actual errors of that approach once you're finished your project.

I'm still a little dubious that this would yield accurate results given (my impression is that) plus/minus or rapm doesn't always correlate well with traditional box measures but I'm happy to learn something new.

P.S. I noticed you posted 91 numbers. At some point we're going to need to start a gofundme. Keep up the great work!

[VanWest82]

So it looks like squared2020 has a donation section on his website: https://squared2020.com/about/

I bring this up because I know a lot of posters on here love getting pre-97 data that isn't available to the public and as far as I'm aware he's the only one generating actual on court points per possession and RAPM from that time and providing it to the public for free. I made a small donation and I'd encourage everyone here who loves stats to do the same. Cheers.

[Squared2020]

.

[Cavsfansince84]

So I got sort of inspired by this thread to rewatch a bunch of games from the 89 and 90 ecf and am going to share a few observations from them. I'm guessing I watched at least half of those games when they were live on tv but really when I think back to most of those games I watched pre 2000 they've become very foggy so I wanted to refresh my memory. I will say I didn't watch any of the 40 pt games MJ had in those two series yet which was 1 in 89 and 2 in 1990. So I give him full credit for being great in those games. In the 5 games I've watched so far though MJ isn't really standing out a ton the way you might expect him to. I think a lot of us have signed off to this narrative that MJ was mostly great in those series and his teammates simply weren't good enough and its true that sometimes his teammates were bad in those series(most particularly game 7 from 90) but all in all I feel like MJ was overly passive in the games I watched. I think one of the things he learned from 89 & 90 is that he needed to be more assertive in big series.
The Pistons did trap him quite a bit above the key in 89 when he was playing more pg but in 90 he wasn't really being doubled that much until he got into the paint. He just had a lot of trouble getting around Dumars and Rodman and the Pistons did a good job of not giving up layups or dunks(seeing an MJ dunk in these games almost never happened) so he really just had to settle for a lot of jumpers and some games they'd go in and others he'd miss quite a bit or just pass it off a lot(MJ loved to do the thing from the top of the key where he'd jump like he was shooting then pass it off at the last instant to someone on the perimeter which he did a lot in these two series which wasn't really leading to a good shot most of the time). Pippen for instance would get passed the ball out at the 3 pt line a lot as the shot clock was winding down and get sort of forced into a long jumper which was never his strength and he bricked a lot of those. Pippen's ability to penetrate, finish and play make in 90 does stand out.
The Bulls offense in general just did not flow well in either series except in spurts where MJ might get hot or they got some turnovers. Less so in 89 where they could focus on MJ more easily before Phil took over. These are both ugly series to watch. Both teams were missing a lot of jumpers. The Bulls always going to Cartwright a lot in the 1st and 3rd quarters isn't a good thing either and Grant had almost no post game at all. Rodman's energy and explosiveness stands out a lot in these games. Back then he was doing things like getting put backs, taking charges constantly, running the lane and finishing as well as shooting jumpers. His defense on MJ is also next level. To where on some possessions MJ just got swallowed by him which was sort of shocking to watch considering this was peak athletic MJ. MJ seems sort of intimidated by Rodman's size and quickness tbh. MJ also seemed sort of worn down in 89. I think taking on the burden of playing pg and playing long playoff series had caught up to him by the ecf that year. Isiah was very up and down in the games I watched. His jumper was very inconsistent but his defense stood out more than I was expecting it to. He and Dumars would throw out these random traps at times that would often lead to turnovers. He had quick hands as did Joe.
Watching these games makes me think that MJ benefited a lot from having played in the triangle for a few years by 92-93 and that because of this he was much harder to defend by then. As well as the polish he gained to his skills and the added strength. So while his motor wasn't as good his ability to pick and choose when to dominate seems much better.

[jalengreen]

So it looks like squared2020 has a donation section on his website: https://squared2020.com/about/

I bring this up because I know a lot of posters on here love getting pre-97 data that isn't available to the public and as far as I'm aware he's the only one generating actual on court points per possession and RAPM from that time and providing it to the public for free. I made a small donation and I'd encourage everyone here who loves stats to do the same. Cheers.

Oh wow, much appreciated! I put the donation part up so I can cover costs of the site. Image/Video storage and the private github runs at approximately 480 a year. If I post in a slow rate, the site generates approximately 300 dollars a year off ads.

Send me your email and I will send you a doc file every player's +/- I have detailed for those RAPM pages.

Awesome content, awesome website. Question, though: What's the variance like on those pre-97 RAPM estimates?

Based on this article of your's (https://squared2020.com/2019/10/03/exercising-error-quantifying-statistical-tests-under-rapm-part-iv/) I would expect the variance to be quite high?

[Squared2020]

So it looks like squared2020 has a donation section on his website: https://squared2020.com/about/

I bring this up because I know a lot of posters on here love getting pre-97 data that isn't available to the public and as far as I'm aware he's the only one generating actual on court points per possession and RAPM from that time and providing it to the public for free. I made a small donation and I'd encourage everyone here who loves stats to do the same. Cheers.

Oh wow, much appreciated! I put the donation part up so I can cover costs of the site. Image/Video storage and the private github runs at approximately 480 a year. If I post in a slow rate, the site generates approximately 300 dollars a year off ads.

Send me your email and I will send you a doc file every player's +/- I have detailed for those RAPM pages.

Awesome content, awesome website. Question, though: What's the variance like on those pre-97 RAPM estimates?

Based on this article of your's (https://squared2020.com/2019/10/03/exercising-error-quantifying-statistical-tests-under-rapm-part-iv/) I would expect the variance to be quite high?

Thanks! I just ran the current 1991 set. The errors are between 3.7 and 5.6 for each. Which leads to 5.2 to 7.9 error for the overall estimate. That's about triple compared to a full season.

[Djoker]

I remember watching Game 5 of the 1989 ECF not too long ago... as far as stat lines go this looks like one of the worst games peak MJ ever had taking just 8 shots and finishing with 18 points and 9 assists. I honestly came away with the impression that he should have had 15-20 assists in that one. Pistons kept throwing double and triple teams at him and he kept passing it to open shooters who would either miss or commit turnover after turnover trying to do something mostly simple. It was so painful to watch. The Bulls actually played some pretty decent defense on the Pistons but Jordan's supporting cast was completely inept offensively. I looked at the box score and Jordan's teammates had 7 assists and 20 turnovers in that game! Craig Hodges who was basically a spot up shooter had 6 turnovers. How do you even do that?

In the 1990 ECF I only remember Game 7 somewhat vividly. But for the series as a whole, the team shooting stats paint the entire picture. Jordan's teammates collectively shot 38.2% in the series. In Game 7, they shot an unbelievable 23.8% (15/63). Pippen had his infamous migraine and was completely useless.

Like someone also pointed out, the Bulls were actually the only team to even give the Pistons any kind of a test in those two championship runs. In 1989, the Pistons swept the other three rounds losing the only two games in the playoffs to the Bulls. In 1990, the Pistons lost three out of the five games in the entire playoffs to the Bulls.

[migya]

I remember watching Game 5 of the 1989 ECF not too long ago... as far as stat lines go this looks like one of the worst games peak MJ ever had taking just 8 shots and finishing with 18 points and 9 assists. I honestly came away with the impression that he should have had 15-20 assists in that one. Pistons kept throwing double and triple teams at him and he kept passing it to open shooters who would either miss or commit turnover after turnover trying to do something mostly simple. It was so painful to watch. The Bulls actually played some pretty decent defense on the Pistons but Jordan's supporting cast was completely inept offensively. I looked at the box score and Jordan's teammates had 7 assists and 20 turnovers in that game! Craig Hodges who was basically a spot up shooter had 6 turnovers. How do you even do that?

In the 1990 ECF I only remember Game 7 somewhat vividly. But for the series as a whole, the team shooting stats paint the entire picture. Jordan's teammates collectively shot 38.2% in the series. In Game 7, they shot an unbelievable 23.8% (15/63). Pippen had his infamous migraine and was completely useless.

Like someone also pointed out, the Bulls were actually the only team to even give the Pistons any kind of a test in those two championship runs. In 1989, the Pistons swept the other three rounds losing the only two games in the playoffs to the Bulls. In 1990, the Pistons lost three out of the five games in the entire playoffs to the Bulls.

Really shows how much Jordan didn’t have help on his team. Imagine Lebron on a team like that with such bad shooting.

[VanWest82]

So I got sort of inspired by this thread to rewatch a bunch of games from the 89 and 90 ecf and am going to share a few observations from them.

Spoiler:

I'm guessing I watched at least half of those games when they were live on tv but really when I think back to most of those games I watched pre 2000 they've become very foggy so I wanted to refresh my memory. I will say I didn't watch any of the 40 pt games MJ had in those two series yet which was 1 in 89 and 2 in 1990. So I give him full credit for being great in those games. In the 5 games I've watched so far though MJ isn't really standing out a ton the way you might expect him to. I think a lot of us have signed off to this narrative that MJ was mostly great in those series and his teammates simply weren't good enough and its true that sometimes his teammates were bad in those series(most particularly game 7 from 90) but all in all I feel like MJ was overly passive in the games I watched. I think one of the things he learned from 89 & 90 is that he needed to be more assertive in big series.
The Pistons did trap him quite a bit above the key in 89 when he was playing more pg but in 90 he wasn't really being doubled that much until he got into the paint. He just had a lot of trouble getting around Dumars and Rodman and the Pistons did a good job of not giving up layups or dunks(seeing an MJ dunk in these games almost never happened) so he really just had to settle for a lot of jumpers and some games they'd go in and others he'd miss quite a bit or just pass it off a lot(MJ loved to do the thing from the top of the key where he'd jump like he was shooting then pass it off at the last instant to someone on the perimeter which he did a lot in these two series which wasn't really leading to a good shot most of the time). Pippen for instance would get passed the ball out at the 3 pt line a lot as the shot clock was winding down and get sort of forced into a long jumper which was never his strength and he bricked a lot of those. Pippen's ability to penetrate, finish and play make in 90 does stand out.
The Bulls offense in general just did not flow well in either series except in spurts where MJ might get hot or they got some turnovers. Less so in 89 where they could focus on MJ more easily before Phil took over. These are both ugly series to watch. Both teams were missing a lot of jumpers. The Bulls always going to Cartwright a lot in the 1st and 3rd quarters isn't a good thing either and Grant had almost no post game at all. Rodman's energy and explosiveness stands out a lot in these games. Back then he was doing things like getting put backs, taking charges constantly, running the lane and finishing as well as shooting jumpers. His defense on MJ is also next level. To where on some possessions MJ just got swallowed by him which was sort of shocking to watch considering this was peak athletic MJ. MJ seems sort of intimidated by Rodman's size and quickness tbh. MJ also seemed sort of worn down in 89. I think taking on the burden of playing pg and playing long playoff series had caught up to him by the ecf that year. Isiah was very up and down in the games I watched. His jumper was very inconsistent but his defense stood out more than I was expecting it to. He and Dumars would throw out these random traps at times that would often lead to turnovers. He had quick hands as did Joe.
Watching these games makes me think that MJ benefited a lot from having played in the triangle for a few years by 92-93 and that because of this he was much harder to defend by then. As well as the polish he gained to his skills and the added strength. So while his motor wasn't as good his ability to pick and choose when to dominate seems much better.

Forgive me for saying, but it seems like you set yourself up to be underwhelmed by avoiding all of MJ's best games. How can you possibly provide a balanced view doing that? Merely giving a guy credit for a good box score isn't enough just like killing a guy for a poor box score isn't either. You have to actually see it to really know.

Out of curiosity which games in 90 did you watch because it feels like you left out a lot of context. For starters, the main reason Pistons went up 2-0 (and ultimately won the series) is because of Rodman's cheap shot on MJ in the first half of game one where he undercut him mid air and MJ cracked his hip. He was hobbling up and down the court after that and so even though he finished with a decent stat line due to his hot start he was a shell of himself for most of that game as well as game 2 where he was still noticeably limping. It's not a coincidence that the six quarters Dumars went off was when MJ was so busted up. The extended lay off between games 2 and 3 (almost) saved the Bulls bacon by allowing Jordan to heal up and turn it into a series with the games you didn't watch.

The other big omission was just how impactful MJ was defensively in all three series. He had so many games where he just completely erased one of Isiah or Dumars in addition to providing help on the Pistons bigs who were manhandling Bulls front court. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to hide Sam Vincent and Craig Hodges and so Pistons back court took turns attacking them with whichever guy MJ wasn't guarding. Paxson being so banged up in 90 didn't help either. MJ erased Dumars in game 7 but Isiah just killed Hodges like usual with Paxson out and we know what happened with Bulls on offense.

The way you write about Bulls offense improving in 90 makes it seem like Scottie did a better job running the offense but again this is missing context. I agree that Bulls definitely improved under Jackson but such a big part of that was the way teams always shaded extra defenders to MJ in the HC. This opened up the floor for Scottie when he had the ball which is a big reason why it looked better. MJ benefitted from the triangle in that it empowered his teammates to become more involved and they developed because of it which took some of the attention off him, but it's not like it was some elixir to hide (perceived) weakness in his game. I agree he improved his overall craftsmanship in the 90s and so in some ways was more dangerous when he picked his spots but that was because he was a tireless worker not because of the triangle.