RealGM Greatest Peaks Project (2022): #1 - 1990-91 Michael Jordan

[ty 4191]

Kareem dominates his era more than any of them and is the Jordan/Lebron of his time. He is also better on D than Shaq and better on offense than Hakeem. In Wilt's case it might not be his fault though as he had to play against Russell while Kareem's competition was not as strong.

Def not nearly as strong. Not even close.

10 out of the top 20 NBA players statistically in 1976-1977 and 21 of the top 100 players had been in the ABA the year prior.

http://www.apbr.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=833

You couple that with an increase of 14-22 teams during Kareem's Prime (a drastic % increase- biggest ever), and, you have to consider that perhaps the 70's were not- at all- on par with the depth and quality of Wilt's Prime (9-12 teams).

And, as far as quality of opposition, in the playoffs, where it matters most, 70's Fan and I ran an exhaustive project, (in case you haven't seen it):

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2185164&p=98293842#p98293842

I wanted to find out which ATG Players faced the best teams in the Playoffs, so I looked at the Net Rating of opposing teams (for every series) for each player, and ran the numbers using this criteria, which 70s Fan used, but for overall opponent production, (not just defense, this time):

Lower -2.0 Net Rating: Bad Team
From -2.0 to +1.9 Net Rating: Average Team
From +2.0 to +3.9 Net Rating: Good Team
From +4.0 to +6.0 Net Rating: Elite Team
Above +7.0 Net Rating: All-Time Great Team

Performance Against The Very Best: Versus Elite + All Time Great Teams

Kobe: (71.8% of total games): 38 MPG, 24.4 PPG, 4.9 RBS, 4.5 AST, (+2.4 rTS%)

Jordan: (60.9% of total games): 41.9 MPG, 34.1 PPG, 6.6 RBS, 5.8 AST, (+3.6% rTS%)

Curry: (53% of total games): 38.7 MPG, 26.4 PPG, 5.2 RBS, 7 AST, (+9.0 rTS%)

Duncan: (50.2% of total games): 38.0 MPG, 20.9 PPG, 12.2 RBS, 3.0 AST, (+0.6 rTS%)

Wilt: (46.2% of total games): 47.2 MPG, 26.8 PPG, 24.3 RBS, 3.4 AST, (+2.8 rTS%)

LeBron: (43.6% of total games): 41.8 MPG, 28.3 PPG, 8.9 RBS, 7.2 AST, (+2.6 tTS%)

Magic: (39.2% of total games): 39.9 MPG, 19.3 PPG, 7.8 RBS, 12.3 AST, (+3.9 tTS%)

Bird: (37.2% of total games): 43.0 MPG, 24.8 PPG, 10.8 RBS, 6.6 AST, (+4.3 rTS%)

West: (35.9% of total games): 39.7 MPG, 27.3 PPG, 4.8 RBS, 5.5 AST, (+0.8 rTS%)

Kareem: (27.1% of total games): 39.4 MPG, 27.1 PPG, 12.4 RBS, 3.3 AST, (+4.6% rTS%)

Russell: (26% of total games): 47.6 MPG, 14.5 PPG, 24.4 RBS, 4.8 AST, (-1.6 rTS%)

And, the discrepancy between Wilt and Kareem is even more drastic when you look at quality of defenses faced:

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1836300

Wilt vs. Elite + All Time Great Defenses:
45% of total playoff games played
47.2 MPG
25.0 PPG
26.6 RBG
3.5 AST/G
rTS%: +3.8%

Lebron vs. Elite + All Time Great Defenses:
22.1% of total playoff games played
42.3 MPG
26.3 PGG
7.8 RBG
rTS%: -1.3%

Kareem vs. Elite + All Time Great Defenses:
13.9% of total playoff games played
42.1 MPG
29.4 PPG
14.2 RBG
3.8 AST/G
rTS%: +4.8%

[ty 4191]

Kareem dominates his era more than any of them and is the Jordan/Lebron of his time. He is also better on D than Shaq and better on offense than Hakeem. In Wilt's case it might not be his fault though as he had to play against Russell while Kareem's competition was not as strong.

The Celtics team defensive rating from 1960-1969 was 87. They had -7 or better defensive ratings every single year from 1961-1966, which is extremely rare and what 70'sFan appropriately deems "All Time Great" Defenses.

The second best team over that entire span had a 92 defensive rating. And the league average defense was 94.4. This means they suppressed offenses by 8% more than the league average.

To put this into perspective, consider the Spurs (second best long term defensive Dynasty in NBA history), from 98'-09' had a defensive rating of 99. The league defensive rating was 104.9. They had 3 ATG Defenses those years (99', 04' and 05'), and...

They still can't hold a candle to the Celtics of the 60's. It's one of the greatest long term team accomplishments in the history of sports.

I bring this all up to make the point, again, that Kareem never faced a Dynasty remotely like Wilt did. And, he had to face them far more than any other player during the timeframe. 104 of his 595 games, due to no Expansion and Rival ABA.

And, yet, against those 6 (consecutive) All Time Great Defenses (61'-66'), including the playoffs, in 104 games, Wilt put up a line of:

33.3/28.8/2.7 on +2.1 rTS% (.495 FG%).

And, for what it's worth, as a coda here, Russell's line against Wilt was 16.2/24.8/4.5 on .386 (!) shooting (-9.3 tTS%).

[cupcakesnake]

Voting:
1. 2013 Lebron
2. 1991 Jordan
3. 2000 Shaq

I really wanted to find a better 2-way dominant peak and make a good argument for it. I suspect there is a young Kareem season (1971 or 1974) that qualifies but I'm not at the point where I can defend that belief! I looked at Hakeem, Duncan, Wilt, Walton and Garnett but didn't find a season that I could feel awesome about lifting above these 3 players/seasons.

I think Lebron, more than most, was a different player at different points in his career. late-Miami Lebron had the best combination of rim protection, perimeter defense, off-ball offense, and efficient shooting. Earlier in his career (2009), Lebron may have had more raw juice off the dribble. Later Lebron had better post-defense, post-up prowess, pick & roll mastery and perimeter shot-making. 2013 Lebron wasn't the best at everything compared to other versions of himself, but I think he has the longest list of advantages. I also believe Spolestra was the best coach for getting Lebron out of his comfort zones and maximizing some of Lebron's best skills that he wasn't as excited about. I specifically think of Lebron's cutting, quick sealing post-up for efficient finishes, rim protection from the wing, and his c&s game. These little things add up for me enough to exceed '91 Jordan.

I'm not too into Jordan's defense and that's why there's room for Lebron to steal the top spot. His perimeter defensive ability is as good as it gets, but his defensive discipline is a weakness. He's such a cocky player, and that's part of his power on both ends, but it also results in him not taking some defensive possessions seriously. He's so emboldened to try to make crazy plays on defense whenever he feels like it, and his disrespect of opponents is sometimes visible. I think post-2011 Lebron is a much more focused and (for lack of a better word:) humble defender than MJ, not to mention being a much larger body. Offensively, I think it's close. I'd probably pick '91 MJ as the all-time most threatening scorer and playmaker, but I think 2013 Lebron was such a diverse attack that argument is quality. I'm not into 2009 Lebron like many are in this discussion, and I don't like him enough to cheat and vote strategically to get Lebron more competitively into the top spot lol.

2000 Shaq is the last player/season I put over the defensive boys I listed above. I do believe in the argument that Shaq's rim gravity and willingness of a passer broke the game in a way that numbers can't fully account for. I'm also slightly higher on Shaq's defense than some, at least at this point in his career while his mobility was still alien level. I think he's a very poor defender from a mental perspective, but his size and strength were such an obstacle in the Lakers scheme, and his mobility at that point made him sneaky effective contesting midrange shots. Rim attackers avoided Shaq and went to their counters early, and Shaq was good at contesting those counters. I don't remember teams figuring how to attack Shaq back then either. I think his defensive value is somewhat incidental and based on physical abilities, but I think the impact was there regardless. Shaq's defense goes into steady decline soon after this season. 2000 Shaq was also Shaq's most effective prime-year in terms of his counters, as his hook shot was money all season and all playoffs. Over half his FGA were in the short midrange that year and he knocked them down at a career-high rate of 46%. Basically, even when teams defender Shaq as well as possible, he was still killing them with counters. Now, Shaq gets way better as a playoff free-throw shooter over the next couple years of his prime (45% in the playoffs in 2000, goes up into the 50s and 60s the next couple years), which makes me wonder if 2001 is his real offensive peak. But again I see the defensive decline starting in 2001, even if it's subtle until 2003. His motor on defense simply looks a lot hotter before 2001 (might have been that championshipless motivation).

[Djoker]

There is a large amount of uncertainty in interpreting defensive data. However I think it's ridiculous to say that peak defensive Lebron (2013/2016) is a tier ahead of peak defensive Jordan as some sort a fact. Could he be better? Maybe. Maybe not. Lebron's edge in rim protection is overstated. Peak MJ basically matches him in blocks which isn't the end-all-be-all of course but it casts doubt on Lebron's "big man" type rim protection. Players that contest a lot of shots at the rim generally block more as well so there is strong (not perfect) correlation between rim protection and blocks. Some posters on here frequently pretend that Lebron's defensive impact is akin to a defensive center which is just absurd. Peak MJ had better motor, was a clearly superior man defender, grabbed more steals and was also an excellent help defender and rim protector for a non-big and although Lebron has an edge in these last two areas, that edge isn't large. There are definitely in the same tier defensively regardless of who you have ahead. And neither comes close to the defensive impact of peak Shaq let alone Hakeem or Bill Russell.

And no the fact that the Bulls remained an elite defense without him is a bad argument against MJ's defense. The Bulls played a completely different style without MJ plus the 1993 vs. 1994 Bulls is such a flawed comparison because the 1994 Bulls had a huge chip on their shoulder in the regular season and played way harder than the 1993 Bulls did who were just sleepwalking waiting for the playoffs. For what it's worth the 1993 Bulls were -0.6 rDRtg while the 1994 Bulls were +0.5 rDRtg in the playoffs. Of course tiny sample sizes and I wouldn't make anything of it but posters here don't seem to care about sample size when they think the data helps their arguments.

Plus we've been through DRAPM, DRPM etc. in other threads and Jordan compared very favorably to Pippen/Rodman/Grant so that too provides no evidence he was carried on defense by his teammates. There is no evidence that he wasn't an elite defender unless of course we start saying that Pippen wasn't elite either.

[Gregoire]

There is a large amount of uncertainty in interpreting defensive data. However I think it's ridiculous to say that peak defensive Lebron (2013/2016) is a tier ahead of peak defensive Jordan as some sort a fact. Could he be better? Maybe. Maybe not. Lebron's edge in rim protection is overstated. Peak MJ basically matches him in blocks which isn't the end-all-be-all of course but it casts doubt on Lebron's "big man" type rim protection. Players that contest a lot of shots at the rim generally block more as well so there is strong (not perfect) correlation between rim protection and blocks. Some posters on here frequently pretend that Lebron's defensive impact is akin to a defensive center which is just absurd. Peak MJ had better motor, was a clearly superior man defender, grabbed more steals and was also an excellent help defender and rim protector for a non-big and although Lebron has an edge in these last two areas, that edge isn't large. There are definitely in the same tier defensively regardless of who you have ahead. And neither comes close to the defensive impact of peak Shaq let alone Hakeem or Bill Russell.

And no the fact that the Bulls remained an elite defense without him is a bad argument against MJ's defense. The Bulls played a completely different style without MJ plus the 1993 vs. 1994 Bulls is such a flawed comparison because the 1994 Bulls had a huge chip on their shoulder in the regular season and played way harder than the 1993 Bulls did who were just sleepwalking waiting for the playoffs. For what it's worth the 1993 Bulls were -0.6 rDRtg while the 1994 Bulls were +0.5 rDRtg in the playoffs. Of course tiny sample sizes and I wouldn't make anything of it but posters here don't seem to care about sample size when they think the data helps their arguments.

Plus we've been through DRAPM, DRPM etc. in other threads and Jordan compared very favorably to Pippen/Rodman/Grant so that too provides no evidence he was carried on defense by his teammates. There is no evidence that he wasn't an elite defender unless of course we start saying that Pippen wasn't elite either.

Exactly this. I think if we take best playoffs fully locked-in versions of peak Jordan and peak LeBron - Jordan maybe slightly better defensively or its a tie.
At the same time his peak playoffs offense 89-92 IMO is a tier above best playoffs LeBron offense (2016 or 2009 or 2013)

[Doctor MJ]

I guess another issue I have is, so we define peak as which player was the best, or which season was the best?

I personally tend to try and estimate the former which often leads to confusion in discussions with people who lean towards the latter.

I'm going to suggest a tweak to UniBro's thought-provoking question:

"Do we define peak as which player play was the best, or which player season was the best?"

I don't think we should imply that either of these two approaches, or any other variant that one might subscribe to, are not about the player in question.

For myself, this is a distinction without a difference to my process. When a player plays well in one part of the year, and not as well another part of the year, what do you do with that? I don't know how to answer that question without thinking about how valuable he was in different points in time, and what those points in time meant to his team given the context of the season.

Of course, if one takes the approach to a kind of platonic ideal of the player, in which case, we might argue that Kawhi reached that level at some point during his last year in San Antonio - in between his defensive peak in SA and the offensive peak that was to come - when he happened to be pushing his way out of town rather than playing NBA games, but I've never found that to be satisfactory for my own thinking.

[Doctor MJ]

You did a monster post on 2016 LeBron's defense... how much worse do you think he was in 2017 on that end?

I just wanted to piggy back here and say:

When I hit UniBro's post I thought, okay "We've got somebody who has his head in the game looking to bring us forward!". None of us can be this all the time, but I'm glad when we can recognize someone who is en fuego!

[70sFan]

I'm quite late on the first voting, but I will try to do my best to explain my choices. I will note that I'm voting here for the best quality of the basketball played throughout the season all time, not the absolute peak within a series or two.

A lot of people did a great job using statistical case for their choices, so I decided to focus more on film analysis.

My voting:

1. 1976/77 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
2. 1966/67 Wilt Chamberlain
3. 1990/91 Michael Jordan

Let's start with Kareem. In my honest opinion, this season was one of (if not THE) greatest carryjobs in NBA history. Jabbar anchored Lakers mediocre supporting cast to 53 wins, which was the best record in the league at that time. His boxscore numbers were strong, but not out of mind.

It got worse in the playoffs though, because Lakers lost their starting forward Kermit Washington and their best perimeter creator (Lucious Allen) played through injury. As a result, Kareem was forced to do literally everything on both ends of the floor to make Lakers competitive against quality competition. He did that: he averaged astonishing 35/18/4/4 on ridiculous 60.7 FG% and 64.6 TS% (+13.7 rTS%). This already amazing combination of GOAT volume and GOAT efficiency should tell you that he was incredible in that sample, but you have to add that he rebounded like the best rebounder in the league (21.6 TRB%), all while being forced to erase all the mistakes from his teammates on defensive end.

The playoff run lasted 12 games and I've been fortunate to get footage from 8 of them. Two of them were highly incomplete (from WCSF game 7 is only 20 minutes long, game 3 has only half of the game), but other games are farily complete. I made a shotchart from these games, along with shooting data:

Spoiler:

0-3 feet: 82.8% efficiency, 20% of shots taken (24/29)
3-10 feet: 62.0% efficiency, 54.5% of shots taken (49/79)
10+ feet: 48.6% efficiency, 25.5% of shots taken (18/37)

I know that the sample of size isn't huge (only 145 shots in total), but it's just nothing short of incredible. Kareem in that run was just absurd from all spots of the floor, he could make any shot he wanted. Even with bigger sample including different seasons, Kareem's efficiency and volume from in-between area (3-10) made his extremely unique scorer. You just couldn't do anything to stop him from scoring effectively from that range. He didn't take a lot of long range shots, but that wasn't his game - Lakers tried to create spacing for him to work in the paint (which usually didn't work, because Lakers didn't have many good shooters).

His skyhook efficiency was also absurd in sampled games. He made 35/56 attempts in sampled games, which given linear adjustment leads us to 62% on over 8 attempts per game.

Again, note that all these numbers were created against very strong defensive competition - he was guarded by the combination of Ray/Parish and swarming Warriors defense in 5 of these 7 games, while he had to deal with peak Bill Walton in another 3.

Scoring isn't the only thing that puts Kareem at the top for me. In the sampled games, I estimated that Kareem successfully contested 6.5 shots at the rim per game, which is extremely high number - only short of the very best rim protectors ever. His rotations also kept from scoring at the rim around 3.1 times per game. It doesn't include regular intimidation inside of course. He also made relatively low mistakes with his rotations or late contests. I don't have enough time to post clips right now, but if anyone is interested - I will post them later.

Despite massive offensive load from Kareem, Lakers still posted very solid -2.1 rDRtg in the playoffs and they missed their second best defender. All of that was due to Kareem's massive size inside, but also his smart positioning and willingness to step outside and help on perimeter.

Now Wilt Chamberlain. This choice is more controversial to me, as I think both Jordan and James have very reasonable cases over him.

Wilt did something nobody ever did before - in huge help of Alex Hannum he anchored the greatest offense in NBA history (up to that point) as a post playmaker. A lot of people think it was a fluke and I may suggest second thought on that - it's true that it's quite unusual way to run your offense but it doesn't mean it can't be done. In different thread, I made a calculation for 1967/68 season that suggests it wasn't a fluke and Sixers were on their way to another dominant offensive season next year after Wilt's early scoring slump:

viewtopic.php?t=2159841

To understand how it was done, it's necessary to understand how Sixers offense worked. It was mostly built around triangle fundamentals, but Hannum introduced many Wilt-specific plays. He had a nose for finding cutters and he loved two-man game with Greer, focused mostly on hand-off actions and short P&Rs. Philly played a lot of isolation ball when Wilt didn't have the ball in his hand, but when he had they made anything to make someone open, with Jackson and Walker setting screens and guards moving around all night long.

When it didn't work, Wilt always could turn into post up scorer himself and he was quite deadly when he tried to score, as we all know. Other than that, based on footage I've seen it's fair to say that Wilt might be the best offensive rebounder ever - at least in terms of volume and ability to turn them into points.

I haven't finished tracking 1967 Wilt games, but I will try to do it as quickly as possible (assuming that he won't get in within next few days, which is very likely). When I will, I post similar numbers to the ones I did with Kareem.

Wilt wasn't the most active defender ever, but his sheer dominance at the rim is unmatched. I haven't finished my tracking, as noted above, but he contested absurd amount of shots. The part of that is era related - but the truth is that I have never seen anyone that was capable of doing things Wilt did regulary as a rim protector. His immense size and athleticism made him possibly the most intimidating inside shotblocker in NBA history. I think he also has a strong case for the best rebounder ever despite that, although I don't love his defensive rebounding style. He didn't box out his opponents and instead he relied on his instinct a lot.

Still, despite ridiculous combination of two way play and team success, I struggle to put him clearly ahead of MJ/LBJ because he had one huge weakness in his game which was FT shooting. This season was especially bad for him in that aspect, although in the end it didn't stop him from dominating the league and extremely tough matchups in the playoffs.

If anyone wants to analyze 1966/67 Sixers footage, I can provide all I have for you.

LBJ vs MJ is a very close debate. In short - I think that Jordan was just a little bit more consistent offensively than James, while LeBron could reach higher heights on both ends of the floor. As I mentioned at the beginning, I count season as a whole, not taking only parts of it into consideration.

[Max123]

I guess another issue I have is, so we define peak as which player was the best, or which season was the best?

I personally tend to try and estimate the former which often leads to confusion in discussions with people who lean towards the latter.

I'm going to suggest a tweak to UniBro's thought-provoking question:

"Do we define peak as which player play was the best, or which player season was the best?"

I don't think we should imply that either of these two approaches, or any other variant that one might subscribe to, are not about the player in question.

For myself, this is a distinction without a difference to my process. When a player plays well in one part of the year, and not as well another part of the year, what do you do with that? I don't know how to answer that question without thinking about how valuable he was in different points in time, and what those points in time meant to his team given the context of the season.

Of course, if one takes the approach to a kind of platonic ideal of the player, in which case, we might argue that Kawhi reached that level at some point during his last year in San Antonio - in between his defensive peak in SA and the offensive peak that was to come - when he happened to be pushing his way out of town rather than playing NBA games, but I've never found that to be satisfactory for my own thinking.

I think I should clarify how I personally interpreted UniBro's statement.

I regard the people who fall into the latter camp in UniBro's question (those who think about which season was the best) as looking strictly at what happened in any given season and then assigning a certain value to said season. From these people, you often hear statements, let's say, regarding peak seasons such as "he was good in the regular season but he really struggled in the playoffs" and usually some numbers to back such statements up. Because of this, lots of people who fall into this camp may see major differences in value between back-to-back seasons from players (a good example I suppose would be how KG's seasons from 2003 to 2008 are viewed) because player "production" is inherently tied to the situation the player is in.

In contrast, I view the people who fall into the prior camp (those who think about which player was the best; me included) as looking at what happened and then trying to think about why this happened and what would've happened if the player was in different situations or how much what happened actually matters if I had the choice to say choose between two players in any given season. This leads to less variance in perceived player value from season-to-season because usually major changes in short times can be attributed to environmental factors as opposed to factors inherent to a player. I wonder if this view was what you referred to as the thinking about the "platonic ideal of the player".

I'm aware that my clarification may still be rather vague but I hope it conveyed more understanding regarding what I was saying; not to say that you necessarily didn't understand what I meant at first. I also hope that I am simply not painting an untrue caricature of some people, and their arguments, whom I've come across on this forum and elsewhere.

If we are on the same page, why don't you find the second approach satisfactory and do you find some other approach more satisfactory?

[70sFan]

For people who picked Shaq ahead of Kareem - what's your reason behind it? Shaq was a worse creator than Kareem, significantly worse defender and even his biggest strength (post game) isn't an advantage in this case.

I see two things in Shaq's favor - offensive rebounding and inside finishing. Is that enough to overcome what I consider significant gap on defense and iso scoring?

[Max123]

For people who picked Shaq ahead of Kareem - what's your reason behind it? Shaq was a worse creator than Kareem, significantly worse defender and even his biggest strength (post game) isn't an advantage in this case.

I see two things in Shaq's favor - offensive rebounding and inside finishing. Is that enough to overcome what I consider significant gap on defense and iso scoring?

What do you mean by Shaq being a worse creator than Kareem?

[ceiling raiser]

For people who picked Shaq ahead of Kareem - what's your reason behind it? Shaq was a worse creator than Kareem, significantly worse defender and even his biggest strength (post game) isn't an advantage in this case.

I see two things in Shaq's favor - offensive rebounding and inside finishing. Is that enough to overcome what I consider significant gap on defense and iso scoring?

This is an instance in which I wish we had more granular data. I would love to see how often Shaq and Kareem were doubled, and the improvement on teammate TS% with both on the floor.

I feel like both have tremendous gravity.

[MyUniBroDavis]

There is a large amount of uncertainty in interpreting defensive data. However I think it's ridiculous to say that peak defensive Lebron (2013/2016) is a tier ahead of peak defensive Jordan as some sort a fact. Could he be better? Maybe. Maybe not. Lebron's edge in rim protection is overstated. Peak MJ basically matches him in blocks which isn't the end-all-be-all of course but it casts doubt on Lebron's "big man" type rim protection. Players that contest a lot of shots at the rim generally block more as well so there is strong (not perfect) correlation between rim protection and blocks. Some posters on here frequently pretend that Lebron's defensive impact is akin to a defensive center which is just absurd. Peak MJ had better motor, was a clearly superior man defender, grabbed more steals and was also an excellent help defender and rim protector for a non-big and although Lebron has an edge in these last two areas, that edge isn't large. There are definitely in the same tier defensively regardless of who you have ahead. And neither comes close to the defensive impact of peak Shaq let alone Hakeem or Bill Russell.

For the record, I probably think 2016 lebrons defense is a good deal better than 2013 brons especially in the playoffs.

Rim protection =/= blocks, lebron was clearly the cavs best rim protector throughout the playoffs.

Again, rim protection is based upon deterrence and how much you effect shots, while I’ll concede lebron probably didnt guard as many shots as other rim protectors, he was great in these other two facets. We don’t have evidence on rim deterrence aside from the fact that the cavs surrendered conceded less points in the paint than I think any team in the RS though I’d have to check on that to make sure, despite a fairly not intimidating defensive front court, although some of that is good coaching. In terms of effecting shots we know he was second in the league in that regard, teams shooting -19% against him inside of 10 feet, -22% him inside of 5 feet. The caveat that he didn’t protect shots as much as like centers did, but he did snuff out a lot of possessions with his rotations where shots weren’t attempted

I’ve already explained my thoughts on lebrons defense on my post in the first page, most of the things here don’t really make sense. Saying MJ is clearly superior at man defense when lebron grades out at absolutely top tier in that regard in 2016 doesn’t make sense, you can say you believe MJ’s man defense is better, but saying it’s a clear edge is like saying for example Jerry west is a clearly better shooter than lillard, we know one is good and we have data for another being absolutely elite

The issue here, the evidence that Jordan was superior to 2016 lebron in terms of steals (same steal percentage) and as a man defender (lebron grades out as hyper elite both in the RS and playoffs) is, for point one not true, and point 2 mainly based off of eye test when he grades out as elite regardless.

The evidence that Jordan is a better help defender or rim protector isn’t much unless we say Wade was also as good of a rim protector as bron, but obviously that comes down to eye test. I’ll concede that bron didn’t contest as many shots as like centers or anything (although most of this comes from the raptors series bringing it down, in volume not in percentage, so if someone has footage of that I’d be curious to see if that holds true)

I’ll concede that there isn’t evidence that Jordan wasn’t a great help defender or anything, but the evidence he was near lebron in that regard is pretty much non existent as well

And no the fact that the Bulls remained an elite defense without him is a bad argument against MJ's defense. The Bulls played a completely different style without MJ plus the 1993 vs. 1994 Bulls is such a flawed comparison because the 1994 Bulls had a huge chip on their shoulder in the regular season and played way harder than the 1993 Bulls did who were just sleepwalking waiting for the playoffs. For what it's worth the 1993 Bulls were -0.6 rDRtg while the 1994 Bulls were +0.5 rDRtg in the playoffs. Of course tiny sample sizes and I wouldn't make anything of it but posters here don't seem to care about sample size when they think the data helps their arguments.

Plus we've been through DRAPM, DRPM etc. in other threads and Jordan compared very favorably to Pippen/Rodman/Grant so that too provides no evidence he was carried on defense by his teammates. There is no evidence that he wasn't an elite defender unless of course we start saying that Pippen wasn't elite either.

A difference of 1 drtg over that kind of a sample isn’t too significant at all though.

DRAPM and stuff provided here I think implies what ive been saying, 91 grades at a 1.5 ish, 2016 lebron grades out at a 2.8 on defense

I’ve never said that the fact that the bulls defense went from -1.9 with MJ in 1993 to a -3.6 defense without him in 1994 despite their main additions minutes wise (means he’s not an elite defender, I said he’s probably a elite perimeter defender, despite the fact that the main additions (Kerr, Myers,rookie kukoc) not all being very great defensive additions at the time seemingly.

Technically that would imply his defense would be more bad than elite, but obviously that doesn’t pass the sniff test and I do agree they took the regular season harder most likely

However saying that this isn’t evidence at all and should be thrown away and non significant doesn’t make much sense

The evidence we have for MJ being an elite defender is roughly the same evidence we would have had for Kobe being one without impact data (I do think he was in spurts to be clear). lol

In spite of that I do agree he was a great defender, but it’s fair to say, hey maybe our assumptions on certain things are wrong?

That lebron physically cannot be a better defender in 2016 than in 2013 when 2020 was pretty clearly his most impactful defensive season other than maybe 09, for example, and that intangible aspects cant bring him up.

As of right now what we have for MJs defense is, impact data pointing out him being about where I’m having him (around +1.5 on defense in the three rapm samples we have), and lebron ranking +2.8 in 2016 (off a cursory look I think the std def if MJs might be higher as well)

The implication this isn’t possible seems doubtful to me when a more defensive focused but far less athletic lebron posted a +3.3 rating in 2020 (might be diff distributions but it was second in the league and the overall range seems similar), so I think his iq increasing is a fair point

My issue here comes from this

Pretty much all Data points to 2016 Lebron being an elite defender that breaches the impact that perimeter defenders are often capped at, especially the data we have in comparison to Jordan.

In NPI RAPM data, Jordan is at a +1.5 with a similar standard dev for the data seen based off of a glance, whereas lebron is at a +2.9

A year without Jordan they improved on defense, they improve slightly on defense, in the 19 or so games from 2015 and 2016 (his 2 years where he was more solid in the RS) without lebron, with the caveat of a smaller sample, their defense goes from fairly decent to worst in the league

Synergy data makes him look fantastic in that respect, as does tracking data although as perimeter guy

For the applicable data this all only improved in the playoffs, where you could probably construct an argument of him having DPOY type impact as a whole.

So saying it’s utterly ridiculous to say lebron is a tier above Jordan defensively when the comparable data all points to him being a bit more than a tier above is a bit odd to me. It’s fine to say Jordan is an elite defender I’m not against that statement

I stand by my statement that 2016 g5-7 lebron had brook tier level impact defensively, I don’t see how he didnt. That doesn’t mean I think he was a better defender than like peak kg or anything but Mitchell dropping 50 bubble doesn’t make him the best offensive scorer in nba history, but he went off that one game

The issue for me is that the evidence against 2016 lebron as far as I know is that, younger bron looked better and was more athletic, even though 2020 lebron grades out as A DPOY type guy in these regards

A general lack of evidence, with the available weak evidence we have point Jordan as anywhere from elite perimeter defender to bad, isn’t much support

I don’t believe it was bad because team defense improved without him over a season, because I think the explanations are probably valid and it sounds unreasonable to say so.

That doesn’t mean you can completely discount it when it’s essentially the only real quantifiable evidence we have over his peaks. Outside of that we have 20-30 year old eye tests, limited RAPM data pointing him out as a tier below lebrons best years, etc etc.

[DraymondGold]

For people who picked Shaq ahead of Kareem - what's your reason behind it? Shaq was a worse creator than Kareem, significantly worse defender and even his biggest strength (post game) isn't an advantage in this case.

I see two things in Shaq's favor - offensive rebounding and inside finishing. Is that enough to overcome what I consider significant gap on defense and iso scoring?

This is an instance in which I wish we had more granular data. I would love to see how often Shaq and Kareem were doubled, and the improvement on teammate TS% with both on the floor.

I feel like both have tremendous gravity.

I definitely agree with ceiling raiser that it would be fantastic to have more data! I took a somewhat data-driven approach in my first post, since I thought that's how I could best contribute to the conversation, but we definitely shouldn't ignore the film either. The data can't exist without its context, so thanks for diving into the film in your post 70sFan!

As for the wholistic data that we do have:
Ai. Regular Season BPM: +7.3 2000 Shaq > +5.2 1977 Kareem [though 1972 Kareem is higher, and 1971 and 973 are close].
Aii. Postseason BPM: +8.5 1977 Kareem > +7.0 2000 Shaq [1974 Kareem is also higher than peak Shaq, though 2000 and 2001 Shaq come next]
B. CORP: 29.4% 2000 Shaq > 25.8% 1977 Kareem.
If we're looking for more data, regular season total win shares has Shaq over Kareem (with equal WS/48), BR's regular season BPM has Kareem just edging out Shaq by a hair. In the postseason, Kareem has a better WS/48 (though a lower total WS due to the fewer games), and a better BR BPM. WOWY favors Shaq over Kareem by a fair bit.
That's about all the data I could find. Supposedly Goldstein PIPM data exists for late 70s Kareem, but I've been unable to find a publicly accessible version. I know Shaq and Kareem's ~3 year average postseason PIPM is similar.

It's clearly close, with Shaq likely having the better regular season and Kareem having the better postseason. To me, it's a question of how low you are on the regular season and on the smaller sample of playoff games. You (70sFan) were saying you were lower on incomplete seasons by LeBron compared to complete seasons by MJ; I think I'm similar for the more incomplete season by 77 Kareem compared to more complete season by 2000 Shaq, particularly since the postseason sample of 12 games is smaller. Could Kareem sustain such a lofty postseason performance over a deeper postseason run, or if he had dedicated more of his motor during the regular season? It's certainly possible, but those are some of my concerns for him vs Shaq. If I could find better data (e.g. a larger sample of 77 PIPM/RAPM) to suggest Kareem was 1977 closer in the regular season, that might assuage my concerns a bit and push him over the edge.

As far as more specific comparisons go, here's how I see it:
-Scoring: 27.2 inflation adjusted pts/75 at +9.7% relative True shooting for Kareem vs 30.3 pts/75 at +5.5% relative True shooting for Shaq. Kareem may have the edge in overall scoring (certainly in efficiency), though Shaq may be better in volume. Both of their scoring can translate to the playoffs.
-Defense: Kareem may have the defensive advantage, but I'm not sure Shaq's a significantly worse defender in the one-year sample. It's absolutely significant over the course of their full prime, but I have 2000 as Shaq's best defensive year, with him taking far fewer possessions off defensively than he would later. For Kareem, I have 77 has a good defensive year but certainly not his best, as he'd lost some of the motor he had when he was younger (at least for the regular season).
-Creation and other offensive skills: I think here's where we might disagree? At least as far as I can tell (though I'm not film expert on Kareem -- feel free to let me know if I'm wrong here!), I see Shaq's overall offensive creation as above Kareem's. 2000 Shaq has a higher box creation and passer rating than 1977 Kareem in the regular season, and although Kareem's box creation overcomes Shaq's in the playoffs, his passer rating stays behind. While Kareem is certainly underrated as far as gravity goes, Shaq is usually considered the gold standard for big man rim gravity, drawing the double team and kicking back out to three pointers. I see this as a major driver of Shaq's offensive value, and something he has over Kareem (at least in my eye). Perhaps Shaq's benefited from his era, gaining more value than Kareem with his rim gravity and kickout passes simply because he was passing to 3 point shooters? I also like Shaq's compatibility with perimeter teammates. You mentioned his superior offensive rebounding, which allows him to work well off of teammates' misses. I also like Shaq's offball movement and his ability to fight for position while teammates work on the perimeter.

Let me know what areas you disagree on! These peaks are all very close, so even though I've initially stated my preference for 2000 Shaq > 1977 Kareem, I'm definitely open to discussing more (chances are, we'll have at least 1 more round to discuss before either get voted in, given the number of people in favor of MJ/Lebron...)

[MyUniBroDavis]

I personally tend to try and estimate the former which often leads to confusion in discussions with people who lean towards the latter.

I'm going to suggest a tweak to UniBro's thought-provoking question:

"Do we define peak as which player play was the best, or which player season was the best?"

I don't think we should imply that either of these two approaches, or any other variant that one might subscribe to, are not about the player in question.

For myself, this is a distinction without a difference to my process. When a player plays well in one part of the year, and not as well another part of the year, what do you do with that? I don't know how to answer that question without thinking about how valuable he was in different points in time, and what those points in time meant to his team given the context of the season.

Of course, if one takes the approach to a kind of platonic ideal of the player, in which case, we might argue that Kawhi reached that level at some point during his last year in San Antonio - in between his defensive peak in SA and the offensive peak that was to come - when he happened to be pushing his way out of town rather than playing NBA games, but I've never found that to be satisfactory for my own thinking.

I think I should clarify how I personally interpreted UniBro's statement.

I regard the people who fall into the latter camp in UniBro's question (those who think about which season was the best) as looking strictly at what happened in any given season and then assigning a certain value to said season. From these people, you often hear statements, let's say, regarding peak seasons such as "he was good in the regular season but he really struggled in the playoffs" and usually some numbers to back such statements up. Because of this, lots of people who fall into this camp may see major differences in value between back-to-back seasons from players (a good example I suppose would be how KG's seasons from 2003 to 2008 are viewed) because player "production" is inherently tied to the situation the player is in.

In contrast, I view the people who fall into the prior camp (those who think about which player was the best; me included) as looking at what happened and then trying to think about why this happened and what would've happened if the player was in different situations or how much what happened actually matters if I had the choice to say choose between two players in any given season. This leads to less variance in perceived player value from season-to-season because usually major changes in short times can be attributed to environmental factors as opposed to factors inherent to a player. I wonder if this view was what you referred to as the thinking about the "platonic ideal of the player".

I'm aware that my clarification may still be rather vague but I hope it conveyed more understanding regarding what I was saying; not to say that you necessarily didn't understand what I meant at first. I also hope that I am simply not painting an untrue caricature of some people, and their arguments, whom I've come across on this forum and elsewhere.

If we are on the same page, why don't you find the second approach satisfactory and do you find some other approach more satisfactory?

I feel roles and skillset and coaching all play a big part too

For an example, ADs offense. The Lakers run a pretty poor offense and don’t really have a good p and r partner with AD, even bron as good as it sounds switching works really wel against that matchup, dropping vs Westbrook and THT. Furthermore, their post offense is horrendously coached

When they help high, from the wing, you counter by having his man cut, when the help comes from the baseline doing this packs the paint, so either have someone flash baseline, or have someone set a pin down to open up a shooter in the corner for a good shot. Other things apply, flashing baseline etc etc

The Lakers have struggled with this, lebron I feel can kind of get the skip pass in but even he struggles despite being the best ever at it. Compare this to the nuggets who as far as I know are pretty on point with this regard

AD for example specifically plays that had correct counters or nothing to counter yielded something like 1.3ppp over the season, plays where an incorrect counter was used was more like 0.7ppp, and he generally made the right read. I don’t remember the data exactly it’s on bball index somewhere. Tracking it I can def say eye test wise it was really enlightening, even doing a sort of “expected points per play” kind of thing yielded a result where a correct counter was a 1.2ppp type possession and an incorrect or no counter was closer to 0.7-8 I recall, although that was over 10-20 games vs a whole year

Even when bron did it it was kind of similar not to the same extremes and in both regards they had a correct counter rate of like 20% vs the nuggets being 70-75% if cranjis was right

I wonder how many other players have issues like this, the rockets couldn’t beat a zone, the Lakers this year of course, etc etc

You see the limitations of coaches more than strengths in the playoffs, adjustments we tend to credit players for rather than teams, and we often blame a player for a lack of adjusting than a coach when a lot of the time something like prerotating is solved by things other players that aren’t driving should do to make it easier (early Giannis).

At this point bron and Jokic are probably the only guys that can contribute on that coaching level and neither of them are infallibility at all in that regard

Even other players, like role players for example, they might be a perceived as a bad player or a low impact player that will thrive under the right role or situation, GP2 for example, I don’t think this type of situational or deployment improvement is limited to role players but we tend to just say how much spacing player X had as how easy or hard their situation was

A guy like dray on offense can range from a very solid offensive player to horrendous depending on deployment and how he’s defended, and we do see players often used in suboptimal ways, not just in role offensively but defensively as well, guys great at navigating screens used mostly used as poa defenders and vice versa for example

[letskissbro]

1. 2013 LeBron James
(2009, 2010)

I still struggle deciding whether LeBron was better in 2013 or 2009/10. From a production and situational impact standpoint, 09 probably has 13 beat. There's something to be said about the raw panic he used to induce simply standing at the perimeter with the ball in his hands in those late Cavs years. Defenders would preemptively load up on his drives like crazy because they knew no matter who they put in front of him they wouldn't be able to keep him from getting to the rim in isolation and this boosted his impact as a playmaker even though he wasn't necessarily a better passer than he was in later years. He still had this effect in Miami but with the extra weight on his frame zapping him of some quickness it wasn't quite to the same degree.

I decided to go with 2013 because from a skillset standpoint, I think he was better than 09/10. With a vastly improved shot, better decision making, and an expanded post game I think I have more faith in him to produce consistently in a variety of coverages against all time level defenses like the 08 Celtics. Many knock this season for his postseason dip, I used to myself, but I've become more forgiving the last few years as I've come to understand it as a situational drop and symptomatic of sharing the floor with Wade, who was a ball dominant guard with basically no off-ball utility.

With Wade off the floor in the 2013 playoffs LeBron averaged

33.8 IA PTS/75 on +7.8 rTS%
8.6 REB/75
8.6 AST/75
1.8 STL/75
1.2 BLK/75 (0.9 at the rim)

He propelled the Heat to a +17.7 rORtg in these minutes as well (would be the best all time). Even against the Spurs, the series that people remember for LeBron struggling, Miami fielded an insane 131.3 offensive rating with LeBron on the court and Wade off.

Sample size is 282 minutes. If that isn't large enough he averaged 36.5 per 75 on +7.8 rTS% across his entire 3 year peak in Miami from 2012-2014. That's 703 minutes which roughly amounts to 18 games. These numbers are consistent with the regular season too.

Playing off the ball with another ball dominant slasher, while effective enough to win 2 championships, actually was not the most optimal strategy for the Heat and suppressed his raw numbers and impact. If LeBron had the opportunity to play with an off ball motion shooter like Klay or a star guard who could pass and shoot like Kyle Lowry as examples he realistically could've been putting up 2009/2018 playoff numbers every season of his prime.

Some might point this out as a criticism of LeBron's portability but I think Wade's own portability issues get unfairly attributed to LeBron. LeBron himself has shown to mesh well with basically any archetype of player outside of ball dominant, non-shooting guards like Wade or Westbrook. He and Bosh were extremely effective as a duo and worked well off of each other but this was ruined when Wade was on the court. Portability absolutely matters when it comes to secondary stars and role players but it's pretty overrated to me when talking about superstars because teams typically construct their rosters with their best player's strengths and weaknesses in mind.

LeBron gets a bad rap off the ball. He's an elite roll man, an elite secondary passer, the best cutter in the league when he actually gets the opportunity to play with good passers, a great post player, and shot 40% on catch and shoot 3s in Miami. He actually shot a higher percentage on perimeter shots than MVP Kevin Durant as well, 42.5% to 40.8%. If this doesn't constitute elite off-ball play then I don't know what could outside of running around off the ball and shooting 3s like Reggie Miller.

I have LeBron as the 2nd best scorer ever behind Jordan and a top ~5 playmaker ever as well. He and Jordan are the two best offensive players ever in my eyes. I think that they separate themselves from the pack with their volume scoring and postseason resiliency.

As a defender I think LeBron is very underrated, and this is mostly where he separates himself from MJ. This is in part due to his tendency to take it easy at times in the regular season, and his best years coming on relatively weak defensive teams. His defensive prowess is illustrated in '98-'18 PS DRAPM.

Among perimeter players (2000+ MP)

1. Manu Ginobili (3.52)
2. LeBron James (2.20)
3. Kawhi Leonard ( 2.09)
4. Tony Allen (2.09)
5. Josh Howard (2.00)
6. Shawn Marion (1.84)
7. Paul George (1.72)
8. Jason Kidd (1.70)
9. Tayshaun Prince (1.67)
10. Rajon Rondo (1.64)
11. Bruce Bowen (1.53)
12. Danny Green (1.50)
13. Mike Conley (1.40)
14. Dwyane Wade (1.37)
15. Luol Deng (1.25)
16. Metta World Peace (1.23)
17. Kyle Lowry (1.22)

Ignoring Ginobili, who despite being great looks to be a pretty big outlier because of likely collinearity issues with Duncan, LeBron comes out as the most impactful perimeter defender since '98. And that's on a significantly larger sample size than anybody after him. What makes this even more impressive is that LeBron acted as the primary defensive anchor for his teams for basically the entirety of his prime, unlike Tony Allen who had Gasol or Kawhi Leonard who had Tim Duncan.

So in the end I consider LeBron to be at minimum, a top ~3 offensive player ever and, at his best, a defender who rivals the impact of Scottie Pippen and Kawhi Leonard. He's my #1.

2. 1991 Michael Jordan
(1989, 1990)

Everything that needs to be said about Jordan has been already so I don't have much to talk about. In a vacuum from a production/winning/accolades standpoint this is the perfect season, arguably the only one of its kind. Jordan at his peak was the best scorer ever and imo a top 10 playmaker ever, because of the openings he created for his teammates with his scoring. He was incredibly active on defense and an all-time man defender but overall I would not put him in the conversation for best wing defenders ever because of his lack of versatility and his tendency to fish for high risk momentum shifting plays on the ball which often led to breakdowns. He's probably the best offensive player but the difference between him and LeBron on that end is more negligible than the defensive gap.

3. 2000 Shaquille O'Neal

This is the one year everything really came together for Shaq. After 2022 Jokic I think this is the best offensive season by a center ever. Defensively he was solid and was a borderline elite rim protector. On the perimeter he was exploitable and this would be a much bigger issue in today's league for sure but in 2000 most teams didn't really have a way to consistently take advantage of this. What puts Shaq over the top is the unmatched defensive attention he got at the rim. I'm higher on Kareem's peak than I used to be and could still be persuaded to put him third but I'm just not there yet.

[Proxy]

For people who picked Shaq ahead of Kareem - what's your reason behind it? Shaq was a worse creator than Kareem, significantly worse defender and even his biggest strength (post game) isn't an advantage in this case.

I see two things in Shaq's favor - offensive rebounding and inside finishing. Is that enough to overcome what I consider significant gap on defense and iso scoring?

I do not really believe Kareem is a better creator and I think the shots Shaq created have higher value because of era differences. I also don't think the defense gap when looking at Shaq's single best season vs '77 KAJ is TOO significant especially with Shaq forcing more replacement level big minutes with his foul drawing threat(tho I give KAJ a very clear edge). My impression is also that Shaq has higher off ball value w/ his offensive rebounding advantage, lob threat, and what I perceive as slightly more 'gravity', but the tracked double teamed information might sway my opinion a bit. Really tho it's just splitting hairs and I have a higher degree of confidence w/ Shaq with the amount of film and data we have. Honestly KAJ's performance in the 1977 playoffs can stack up pretty well against anyone ever.

[Doctor MJ]

I personally tend to try and estimate the former which often leads to confusion in discussions with people who lean towards the latter.

I'm going to suggest a tweak to UniBro's thought-provoking question:

"Do we define peak as which player play was the best, or which player season was the best?"

I don't think we should imply that either of these two approaches, or any other variant that one might subscribe to, are not about the player in question.

For myself, this is a distinction without a difference to my process. When a player plays well in one part of the year, and not as well another part of the year, what do you do with that? I don't know how to answer that question without thinking about how valuable he was in different points in time, and what those points in time meant to his team given the context of the season.

Of course, if one takes the approach to a kind of platonic ideal of the player, in which case, we might argue that Kawhi reached that level at some point during his last year in San Antonio - in between his defensive peak in SA and the offensive peak that was to come - when he happened to be pushing his way out of town rather than playing NBA games, but I've never found that to be satisfactory for my own thinking.

I think I should clarify how I personally interpreted UniBro's statement.

I regard the people who fall into the latter camp in UniBro's question (those who think about which season was the best) as looking strictly at what happened in any given season and then assigning a certain value to said season. From these people, you often hear statements, let's say, regarding peak seasons such as "he was good in the regular season but he really struggled in the playoffs" and usually some numbers to back such statements up. Because of this, lots of people who fall into this camp may see major differences in value between back-to-back seasons from players (a good example I suppose would be how KG's seasons from 2003 to 2008 are viewed) because player "production" is inherently tied to the situation the player is in.

In contrast, I view the people who fall into the prior camp (those who think about which player was the best; me included) as looking at what happened and then trying to think about why this happened and what would've happened if the player was in different situations or how much what happened actually matters if I had the choice to say choose between two players in any given season. This leads to less variance in perceived player value from season-to-season because usually major changes in short times can be attributed to environmental factors as opposed to factors inherent to a player. I wonder if this view was what you referred to as the thinking about the "platonic ideal of the player".

I'm aware that my clarification may still be rather vague but I hope it conveyed more understanding regarding what I was saying; not to say that you necessarily didn't understand what I meant at first. I also hope that I am simply not painting an untrue caricature of some people, and their arguments, whom I've come across on this forum and elsewhere.

If we are on the same page, why don't you find the second approach satisfactory and do you find some other approach more satisfactory?

Good thoughts.

I'm struck by how I'm focused on changes within a season and your focused on taking a larger data sample. First thing I feel like saying is that I don't disagree with you doing that at all generally speaking, it's just that this is a project where we're supposed to point to a particular season rather than a range.

[Djoker]

There is a large amount of uncertainty in interpreting defensive data. However I think it's ridiculous to say that peak defensive Lebron (2013/2016) is a tier ahead of peak defensive Jordan as some sort a fact. Could he be better? Maybe. Maybe not. Lebron's edge in rim protection is overstated. Peak MJ basically matches him in blocks which isn't the end-all-be-all of course but it casts doubt on Lebron's "big man" type rim protection. Players that contest a lot of shots at the rim generally block more as well so there is strong (not perfect) correlation between rim protection and blocks. Some posters on here frequently pretend that Lebron's defensive impact is akin to a defensive center which is just absurd. Peak MJ had better motor, was a clearly superior man defender, grabbed more steals and was also an excellent help defender and rim protector for a non-big and although Lebron has an edge in these last two areas, that edge isn't large. There are definitely in the same tier defensively regardless of who you have ahead. And neither comes close to the defensive impact of peak Shaq let alone Hakeem or Bill Russell.

For the record, I probably think 2016 lebrons defense is a good deal better than 2013 brons especially in the playoffs.

Rim protection =/= blocks, lebron was clearly the cavs best rim protector throughout the playoffs.

Again, rim protection is based upon deterrence and how much you effect shots, while I’ll concede lebron probably didnt guard as many shots as other rim protectors, he was great in these other two facets. We don’t have evidence on rim deterrence aside from the fact that the cavs surrendered conceded less points in the paint than I think any team in the RS though I’d have to check on that to make sure, despite a fairly not intimidating defensive front court, although some of that is good coaching. In terms of effecting shots we know he was second in the league in that regard, teams shooting -19% against him inside of 10 feet, -22% him inside of 5 feet. The caveat that he didn’t protect shots as much as like centers did, but he did snuff out a lot of possessions with his rotations where shots weren’t attempted

I’ve already explained my thoughts on lebrons defense on my post in the first page, most of the things here don’t really make sense. Saying MJ is clearly superior at man defense when lebron grades out at absolutely top tier in that regard in 2016 doesn’t make sense, you can say you believe MJ’s man defense is better, but saying it’s a clear edge is like saying for example Jerry west is a clearly better shooter than lillard, we know one is good and we have data for another being absolutely elite

The issue here, the evidence that Jordan was superior to 2016 lebron in terms of steals (same steal percentage) and as a man defender (lebron grades out as hyper elite both in the RS and playoffs) is, for point one not true, and point 2 mainly based off of eye test when he grades out as elite regardless.

The evidence that Jordan is a better help defender or rim protector isn’t much unless we say Wade was also as good of a rim protector as bron, but obviously that comes down to eye test. I’ll concede that bron didn’t contest as many shots as like centers or anything (although most of this comes from the raptors series bringing it down, in volume not in percentage, so if someone has footage of that I’d be curious to see if that holds true)

I’ll concede that there isn’t evidence that Jordan wasn’t a great help defender or anything, but the evidence he was near lebron in that regard is pretty much non existent as well

And no the fact that the Bulls remained an elite defense without him is a bad argument against MJ's defense. The Bulls played a completely different style without MJ plus the 1993 vs. 1994 Bulls is such a flawed comparison because the 1994 Bulls had a huge chip on their shoulder in the regular season and played way harder than the 1993 Bulls did who were just sleepwalking waiting for the playoffs. For what it's worth the 1993 Bulls were -0.6 rDRtg while the 1994 Bulls were +0.5 rDRtg in the playoffs. Of course tiny sample sizes and I wouldn't make anything of it but posters here don't seem to care about sample size when they think the data helps their arguments.

Plus we've been through DRAPM, DRPM etc. in other threads and Jordan compared very favorably to Pippen/Rodman/Grant so that too provides no evidence he was carried on defense by his teammates. There is no evidence that he wasn't an elite defender unless of course we start saying that Pippen wasn't elite either.

A difference of 1 drtg over that kind of a sample isn’t too significant at all though.

DRAPM and stuff provided here I think implies what ive been saying, 91 grades at a 1.5 ish, 2016 lebron grades out at a 2.8 on defense

I’ve never said that the fact that the bulls defense went from -1.9 with MJ in 1993 to a -3.6 defense without him in 1994 despite their main additions minutes wise (means he’s not an elite defender, I said he’s probably a elite perimeter defender, despite the fact that the main additions (Kerr, Myers,rookie kukoc) not all being very great defensive additions at the time seemingly.

Technically that would imply his defense would be more bad than elite, but obviously that doesn’t pass the sniff test and I do agree they took the regular season harder most likely

However saying that this isn’t evidence at all and should be thrown away and non significant doesn’t make much sense

The evidence we have for MJ being an elite defender is roughly the same evidence we would have had for Kobe being one [b]without impact data (I do think he was in spurts to be clear). lol [/b]

In spite of that I do agree he was a great defender, but it’s fair to say, hey maybe our assumptions on certain things are wrong?

That lebron physically cannot be a better defender in 2016 than in 2013 when 2020 was pretty clearly his most impactful defensive season other than maybe 09, for example, and that intangible aspects cant bring him up.

As of right now what we have for MJs defense is, impact data pointing out him being about where I’m having him (around +1.5 on defense in the three rapm samples we have), and lebron ranking +2.8 in 2016 (off a cursory look I think the std def if MJs might be higher as well)

The implication this isn’t possible seems doubtful to me when a more defensive focused but far less athletic lebron posted a +3.3 rating in 2020 (might be diff distributions but it was second in the league and the overall range seems similar), so I think his iq increasing is a fair point

My issue here comes from this

Pretty much all Data points to 2016 Lebron being an elite defender that breaches the impact that perimeter defenders are often capped at, especially the data we have in comparison to Jordan.

In NPI RAPM data, Jordan is at a +1.5 with a similar standard dev for the data seen based off of a glance, whereas lebron is at a +2.9

A year without Jordan they improved on defense, they improve slightly on defense, in the 19 or so games from 2015 and 2016 (his 2 years where he was more solid in the RS) without lebron, with the caveat of a smaller sample, their defense goes from fairly decent to worst in the league

Synergy data makes him look fantastic in that respect, as does tracking data although as perimeter guy

For the applicable data this all only improved in the playoffs, where you could probably construct an argument of him having DPOY type impact as a whole.

So saying it’s utterly ridiculous to say lebron is a tier above Jordan defensively when the comparable data all points to him being a bit more than a tier above is a bit odd to me. It’s fine to say Jordan is an elite defender I’m not against that statement

I stand by my statement that 2016 g5-7 lebron had brook tier level impact defensively, I don’t see how he didnt. That doesn’t mean I think he was a better defender than like peak kg or anything but Mitchell dropping 50 bubble doesn’t make him the best offensive scorer in nba history, but he went off that one game

The issue for me is that the evidence against 2016 lebron as far as I know is that, younger bron looked better and was more athletic, even though 2020 lebron grades out as A DPOY type guy in these regards

A general lack of evidence, with the available weak evidence we have point Jordan as anywhere from elite perimeter defender to bad, isn’t much support

I don’t believe it was bad because team defense improved without him over a season, because I think the explanations are probably valid and it sounds unreasonable to say so.

That doesn’t mean you can completely discount it when it’s essentially the only real quantifiable evidence we have over his peaks. Outside of that we have 20-30 year old eye tests, limited RAPM data pointing him out as a tier below lebrons best years, etc etc.

At least three times in your post that I bolded, you conceded the lack of evidence and yet you still defend putting Lebron a tier ahead of Jordan defensively... even though Jordan's defense passes the eye test in flying colors, even though his contemporaries raved about his defense, even though he won DPOY and finished with a lot more All-Defensive selections than Lebron. Seems weird to me and I can't reconcile the words "lack of evidence in either direction" with "Lebron is a tier ahead of Jordan defensively". Like it doesn't make sense to me.

Defensive valuations have large margins of error even with available data. Without it it's a complete shot in the dark. We simply have no idea so I'm baffled at the logic here, no offense.

[MyUniBroDavis]

There is a large amount of uncertainty in interpreting defensive data. However I think it's ridiculous to say that peak defensive Lebron (2013/2016) is a tier ahead of peak defensive Jordan as some sort a fact. Could he be better? Maybe. Maybe not. Lebron's edge in rim protection is overstated. Peak MJ basically matches him in blocks which isn't the end-all-be-all of course but it casts doubt on Lebron's "big man" type rim protection. Players that contest a lot of shots at the rim generally block more as well so there is strong (not perfect) correlation between rim protection and blocks. Some posters on here frequently pretend that Lebron's defensive impact is akin to a defensive center which is just absurd. Peak MJ had better motor, was a clearly superior man defender, grabbed more steals and was also an excellent help defender and rim protector for a non-big and although Lebron has an edge in these last two areas, that edge isn't large. There are definitely in the same tier defensively regardless of who you have ahead. And neither comes close to the defensive impact of peak Shaq let alone Hakeem or Bill Russell.

For the record, I probably think 2016 lebrons defense is a good deal better than 2013 brons especially in the playoffs.

Rim protection =/= blocks, lebron was clearly the cavs best rim protector throughout the playoffs.

Again, rim protection is based upon deterrence and how much you effect shots, while I’ll concede lebron probably didnt guard as many shots as other rim protectors, he was great in these other two facets. We don’t have evidence on rim deterrence aside from the fact that the cavs surrendered conceded less points in the paint than I think any team in the RS though I’d have to check on that to make sure, despite a fairly not intimidating defensive front court, although some of that is good coaching. In terms of effecting shots we know he was second in the league in that regard, teams shooting -19% against him inside of 10 feet, -22% him inside of 5 feet. The caveat that he didn’t protect shots as much as like centers did, but he did snuff out a lot of possessions with his rotations where shots weren’t attempted

I’ve already explained my thoughts on lebrons defense on my post in the first page, most of the things here don’t really make sense. Saying MJ is clearly superior at man defense when lebron grades out at absolutely top tier in that regard in 2016 doesn’t make sense, you can say you believe MJ’s man defense is better, but saying it’s a clear edge is like saying for example Jerry west is a clearly better shooter than lillard, we know one is good and we have data for another being absolutely elite

The issue here, the evidence that Jordan was superior to 2016 lebron in terms of steals (same steal percentage) and as a man defender (lebron grades out as hyper elite both in the RS and playoffs) is, for point one not true, and point 2 mainly based off of eye test when he grades out as elite regardless.

The evidence that Jordan is a better help defender or rim protector isn’t much unless we say Wade was also as good of a rim protector as bron, but obviously that comes down to eye test. I’ll concede that bron didn’t contest as many shots as like centers or anything (although most of this comes from the raptors series bringing it down, in volume not in percentage, so if someone has footage of that I’d be curious to see if that holds true)

I’ll concede that there isn’t evidence that Jordan wasn’t a great help defender or anything, but the evidence he was near lebron in that regard is pretty much non existent as well

And no the fact that the Bulls remained an elite defense without him is a bad argument against MJ's defense. The Bulls played a completely different style without MJ plus the 1993 vs. 1994 Bulls is such a flawed comparison because the 1994 Bulls had a huge chip on their shoulder in the regular season and played way harder than the 1993 Bulls did who were just sleepwalking waiting for the playoffs. For what it's worth the 1993 Bulls were -0.6 rDRtg while the 1994 Bulls were +0.5 rDRtg in the playoffs. Of course tiny sample sizes and I wouldn't make anything of it but posters here don't seem to care about sample size when they think the data helps their arguments.

Plus we've been through DRAPM, DRPM etc. in other threads and Jordan compared very favorably to Pippen/Rodman/Grant so that too provides no evidence he was carried on defense by his teammates. There is no evidence that he wasn't an elite defender unless of course we start saying that Pippen wasn't elite either.

A difference of 1 drtg over that kind of a sample isn’t too significant at all though.

DRAPM and stuff provided here I think implies what ive been saying, 91 grades at a 1.5 ish, 2016 lebron grades out at a 2.8 on defense

I’ve never said that the fact that the bulls defense went from -1.9 with MJ in 1993 to a -3.6 defense without him in 1994 despite their main additions minutes wise (means he’s not an elite defender, I said he’s probably a elite perimeter defender, despite the fact that the main additions (Kerr, Myers,rookie kukoc) not all being very great defensive additions at the time seemingly.

Technically that would imply his defense would be more bad than elite, but obviously that doesn’t pass the sniff test and I do agree they took the regular season harder most likely

However saying that this isn’t evidence at all and should be thrown away and non significant doesn’t make much sense

The evidence we have for MJ being an elite defender is roughly the same evidence we would have had for Kobe being one [b]without impact data (I do think he was in spurts to be clear). lol [/b]

In spite of that I do agree he was a great defender, but it’s fair to say, hey maybe our assumptions on certain things are wrong?

That lebron physically cannot be a better defender in 2016 than in 2013 when 2020 was pretty clearly his most impactful defensive season other than maybe 09, for example, and that intangible aspects cant bring him up.

As of right now what we have for MJs defense is, impact data pointing out him being about where I’m having him (around +1.5 on defense in the three rapm samples we have), and lebron ranking +2.8 in 2016 (off a cursory look I think the std def if MJs might be higher as well)

The implication this isn’t possible seems doubtful to me when a more defensive focused but far less athletic lebron posted a +3.3 rating in 2020 (might be diff distributions but it was second in the league and the overall range seems similar), so I think his iq increasing is a fair point

My issue here comes from this

Pretty much all Data points to 2016 Lebron being an elite defender that breaches the impact that perimeter defenders are often capped at, especially the data we have in comparison to Jordan.

In NPI RAPM data, Jordan is at a +1.5 with a similar standard dev for the data seen based off of a glance, whereas lebron is at a +2.9

A year without Jordan they improved on defense, they improve slightly on defense, in the 19 or so games from 2015 and 2016 (his 2 years where he was more solid in the RS) without lebron, with the caveat of a smaller sample, their defense goes from fairly decent to worst in the league

Synergy data makes him look fantastic in that respect, as does tracking data although as perimeter guy

For the applicable data this all only improved in the playoffs, where you could probably construct an argument of him having DPOY type impact as a whole.

So saying it’s utterly ridiculous to say lebron is a tier above Jordan defensively when the comparable data all points to him being a bit more than a tier above is a bit odd to me. It’s fine to say Jordan is an elite defender I’m not against that statement

I stand by my statement that 2016 g5-7 lebron had brook tier level impact defensively, I don’t see how he didnt. That doesn’t mean I think he was a better defender than like peak kg or anything but Mitchell dropping 50 bubble doesn’t make him the best offensive scorer in nba history, but he went off that one game

The issue for me is that the evidence against 2016 lebron as far as I know is that, younger bron looked better and was more athletic, even though 2020 lebron grades out as A DPOY type guy in these regards

A general lack of evidence, with the available weak evidence we have point Jordan as anywhere from elite perimeter defender to bad, isn’t much support

I don’t believe it was bad because team defense improved without him over a season, because I think the explanations are probably valid and it sounds unreasonable to say so.

That doesn’t mean you can completely discount it when it’s essentially the only real quantifiable evidence we have over his peaks. Outside of that we have 20-30 year old eye tests, limited RAPM data pointing him out as a tier below lebrons best years, etc etc.

At least three times in your post that I bolded, you conceded the lack of evidence and yet you still defend putting Lebron a tier ahead of Jordan defensively... even though Jordan's defense passes the eye test in flying colors, even though his contemporaries raved about his defense, even though he won DPOY and finished with a lot more All-Defensive selections than Lebron. Seems weird to me and I can't reconcile the words "lack of evidence in either direction" with "Lebron is a tier ahead of Jordan defensively". Like it doesn't make sense to me.

Defensive valuations have large margins of error even with available data. Without it it's a complete shot in the dark. We simply have no idea so I'm baffled at the logic here, no offense.

Awards for defense are largely meaningless, first team selections and all that. Smart wasn’t even the best defender on his team for example

Defensive valuations do have a large margin of error, and the available evidence we do have is limited.

This evidence points to him either being a great perimeter defender, based on the 91 rapm data, which for the bulls tracks about a bit less than half the season, or a negative defender if you consider the season he left and got replaced with unspectacular defenders taking the bulk of the remaining minutes the bulls got better on that end.

Otoh, we do have a good amount of evidence that lebrons defense as a whole through the 2016 season reached pretty near best defender in the nba levels, and seemingly did so completely in the playoffs

Since the argument is about playoff lebron, we have a situation where you could construct a reasonable argument playoff lebron was a best defender in the league type defender, in a world dray didn’t exist

I don’t understand why it’s baffling to rate Jordan’s defense on the top end of where the objective evidence rates him? If we argue about DPOY and all defensive teams we should bring Kobe’s peak up to top 10 as well.

It’s fair to say, of the objective evidence we have that rates Jordan from a -1 to a +1 on defense, the evidence for -1 can be explained, and the evidence for +1 isn’t fully definitive.

To follow up with, people said he was good in D so therefore he’s actually a +3 does not follow at all, if anything that’s far more baffling

Realistically the fact that their defense improved without Jordan despite pippen missing 10 games can’t be explained by “they tried harder”

If the opposite happened, their offensive performance remained mostly unchanged with Jordan’s departure, it would have been extremely damning to Jordan’s offensive impact.

I’m willing to say, okay they played on a chip on their shoulder so that explains why their defense didn’t get worse without Jordan. On the other hand, the fact that it got better, while not damning to the point of me saying “well Jordan is a negative defender” is pretty obviously a strong statement against Jordan is as good as a lebron in a 2016 playoff run that arguably had top tier defensice impact

To say, the best evidence we have in evaluating defense is limited evidence that suggests he was very good but unspectacular defensively, therefore he must have been absolutely incredible because people said he was great on defense is a far greater leap in logic than taking the evidence and only taking the data that calls him an elite defender while believing that the evidence that shows him as an arguable negative can be explained away but still is an important piece of evidence hat suggests he wasn’t close to a top tier of defensive impact that you are suggesting

Again, imagine if the bulls got better offensively without Jordan? Them trying harder would certainly not be a very viable explanation

In any case there’s a huge jump between we don’t have a lot of data on him and I think the data low on him can be explained away to an extent, to he was a best defender in the league type of player

Edit: squared2020 updated the rapm data, mjs defense has gone down from an elite perimeter defender to a decent one with a now 57/82 game sample, so I think it’s fair to say it’s fairly decent evidence now

Even more so now I have trouble believing MJ was reallly particularly close to playoff bron defensively, because the original point of we don’t have data suggesting he wasn’t a top tier defensive guy seems to be no longer valid, now we have a few data points saying so

(The standard dev has gone down a bit, but MJs defense has dropped from +1.5 to +0.6)

Is the combination of the fact that npi rapm seemingly has him as a more of a good defensive wing than an elite one, and the data of the team without him for a whole year paints him as a bad one enough to dispel that he was an elite defensive wing?

Probably not, I do think he was still an elite defender, but we are now in a situation where we do have more data on Jordan than others of that era in terms of their defensive impact, the combination of him dipping out without the roster changing too much + NPI RAPM data, and it isn’t particularly impressive