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

[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.

Wouldn't it be unfair to give Shaq the edge because his teammates could take three pointers though?

Would the fact that Kareem was significantly more efficient post scorer than Shaq change your evaluation?

No because I don't think it's too worth trying to equate circumstances(I may have phrased this wrong) and my list is based on who I believe adds the most relative to their competition only - so if era circumstances allow Shaq or other offensive players to possibly have higher value on offense like playing in the 60s would allow individual players to add more value defensively than any era afterwards than it's just an advantage I think they should have because you can only play with/against whoever is available in your era with the rules enforced, and how I personally decided to vote.

I already do believe Kareem was a significantly more efficient post scorer and self creator - which is part why I believe he has a GOAT scorer case and is possinly the most efficient halfcourt scoring option in NBA history and makes up alot more ground than other post scorers to me because of it. In the 1977 playoffs KAJ averaged 34.6 PPG on which was probably like 126 TS+ (Using league average, not relative to opposing defenses) which is legitimately gamebreaking scoring production and I don't think a single player ever has or will add as much value just from their scoring. One of many reasons why Kareem deserves to be considered in this convo in the first place.

But we also have reason to believe that creation for teammates has a higher correlation with high level team offenses than scoring efficiency - and the advantages I feel Shaq has there, part because of era - allowed him to floor raise a more impressive stretch of playoffs team offenses and his league warping effect on roster construction give me a bit more confidence than I have compared to Kareem.

[70sFan]

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.

Wouldn't it be unfair to give Shaq the edge because his teammates could take three pointers though?

Yes, but no. We do ignore those kinds of injustices constantly.

Isn't it unfair to Duncan, Gobert, KG... that back in the day centers were able to offer MUCH more defensive value? Isn't it unfair to 60s, 70s all-star guards that current guards have absurdly lax handle standards and a 3-pt shot to work with? Etc.

Yeah, but that's my point - we shouldn't ignore these things. Recently, I've been trying to focus more on how impressive player's ability were in comparison to the era they played in, instead of looking at absolute numbers.

I think very highly of Duncan's rim protection because he did it in a tougher era to show it. Same with Gobert. I think very highly of Kareem's ability to create shots without spacing and three point line. I think very highly of West offense, despite all of disadvantages he faced.

The thing is that Shaq had slight edge in raw creation, but adjusting it for era differences I don't see that edge as relevant. Meanwhile, Kareem would be better defender in any era. I'd expect him to be better scorer in any era as well.

[ardee]

Wouldn't it be unfair to give Shaq the edge because his teammates could take three pointers though?

Yes, but no. We do ignore those kinds of injustices constantly.

Isn't it unfair to Duncan, Gobert, KG... that back in the day centers were able to offer MUCH more defensive value? Isn't it unfair to 60s, 70s all-star guards that current guards have absurdly lax handle standards and a 3-pt shot to work with? Etc.

Yeah, but that's my point - we shouldn't ignore these things. Recently, I've been trying to focus more on how impressive player's ability were in comparison to the era they played in, instead of looking at absolute numbers.

I think very highly of Duncan's rim protection because he did it in a tougher era to show it. Same with Gobert. I think very highly of Kareem's ability to create shots without spacing and three point line. I think very highly of West offense, despite all of disadvantages he faced.

The thing is that Shaq had slight edge in raw creation, but adjusting it for era differences I don't see that edge as relevant. Meanwhile, Kareem would be better defender in any era. I'd expect him to be better scorer in any era as well.

I know someone else said this too, but what do you think of the extra off-ball threat offered by Shaq? He was great at catching lobs and that's why teams needed to constantly shade him, sometimes even with two guys who weren't the primary defender.

In addition, I agree that Kareem was the better defender for their careers... but when it comes to peak, was 2000 Shaq really that much worse? I don't see it as much of a difference. He was a dominant rim protector, and while yes he was still a liability in PnR situations to a certain extent if he got switched onto a guard, I'm sure you could say the same for Kareem too, he just didn't find himself in such situations often (or at all) back in the 70s.

I will say, I've gained a new appreciation for peak Kareem through the posts here (and Duncan, and Hakeem recently too), and separating these guys is insanely difficult. It's really a hairs breadth between say no. 2 and no. 6 on this list. They were all crazy dominant and hard to pick flaws against.

I saw a no. 1 vote for 2003 Duncan, and while on the surface it sounds crazy, when I really think about it objectively, it's hard to have a huge problem with it. It was basically the perfect season, he was the best or second best defender in the league and put up 25/15/5 all Playoffs long. Like, what more can you ask for?

Is there really much separating him from Shaq or LeBron or MJ? This really feels like it's down to preference ultimately.

[70sFan]

Thank you for your very detailed response, I will try to answer to all these points!

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.

Thanks for putting all these stats together. Yeah, it seems reasonably close, which isn't surprising considering that we're talking about GOAT-level peaks here.

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.

I think I don't have similar reservations for two reasons:

1. Kareem was well known for his postseason resiliency, so I wouldn't expect him to regress against the Sixers in the finals. We've seen him having 3 complete finals runs (1971, 1974, 1980) that were on extremely high level anyway. I know it's not the perfect way to judge season (maybe I am too inconsistent with my approach as well?), but I think that Kareem couldn't have done anything better with what he had in 1977, while Shaq was in inarguably better situation and I have seen moments when he didn't play up to his potential (although he was amazing overall in the playoffs).

2. Given how well both played, I find it hard not to pick a player I consider simply better. It's not MJ vs LBJ situation to me, because I legitimatelly can't decide who was better between these two. Shaq in comparison has a lot of exploitable weaknesses compared to Kareem (FT shooting, lack of mobility, limited range, poor defensive fundamentals) and even though he was dominant in spite of them, I don't think he was more dominant than Kareem.

-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.

I think even without adjusting for anything else, Kareem looks comfortably better to me, though raw volume difference does look significant. I want to touch a few points here:

1. Pace adjustments are very important in evaluations across eras, but we shouldn't stop at linear adjustments without taking into account the context behind these differences. Kareem's team played at much higher pace than Shaq, but we have to ask how much it actually helps Kareem's raw volume scoring numbers. Jabbar was a halfcourt player, who occasionally could score in transition. He's a post up center and to run your offense through him, you have to set your offense and start running plays. How much the increased number of transition possessions could help him? I'd say that Shaq played in an era that was the most suited to maximize low post scorers volume numbers - slow, very halfcourt-heavy offenses with few transition opportunities.

2. In postseason, Shaq averaged 30.6 pts/75 on +4.8 rTS% vs Kareem's 31.2 pts/75 on +13.7 rTS%. The difference in efficiency is staggering and it's not really related to small sample of size:

- Shaq's highest rTS% accomplished in the playoffs during his prime (1994-03) was +8.7 rTS%,
- Kareem surpassed that mark 6 times in 1970-83 period (1970, 1974, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1983).

I just think that Kareem could reach the level of efficiency (with similar volume) at levels that were beyond Shaq's reach. Efficiency also requires applying context, but in this case we're comparing two high volume post players who created the offense in similar way.

3. Shaq's scoring efficiency was heavily driven by putbacks and inside finishes. It could be seen both as advantage as disadvantage. On one hand, he's amazing at creating easy shots - better than Kareem. On the other, he's far more limited as a creator with the ball in his hands. Take a look at their post game numbers I tracked throughout the last year:

- 1971-79 Kareem (33 games): 21.8 ppg on 52.8 FG% and 57.1 TS%
- 2000-01 Shaq (38 games): 17.8 ppg on 49.3 FG% and 49.8 TS%

I think samples are decently representative for both. Again, it's up to you if you prefer Shaq's ability to generate easy points, or Kareem's ability to finish tough shots no matter what. I think what Kareem gives you brings a bit more value and is less teammates depended. We really haven't seen prime Shaq in a bad situation and I don't think he'd be able to carry his team to the same degree Kareem did. We also have seen Kareem in great situations (let's say in 1971 and 1980) and he showed ridiculous value, despite probably not being at his peak anymore.

-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).

This is where we disagree more than in creation (which I touch later). I know that a lot of people are quite aware that 2000 is Shaq's defensive peak and I likely agree with you. The problem is that Shaq even at his absolute defensive peak wasn't close to elite defensive player.

I already posted Kareem's rim protection numbers I tracked. To make the sample of size bigger, here are all the numbers I tracked:

Rim protection

1971-79 Kareem: 6.4 successful stops at the rim per game, 2.5 weak effort plays at the rim per game
1999/00 Shaq (excluding 2000/01 games): 3.7 successful stops at the rim per game, 2.8 weak effort plays at the rim per game

With roughly the same number of questionable plays, Kareem defended almost twice as many shots as Shaq. You may think that Shaq was more intimidating inside, but that's not true. When I also incluce high quality rotations that prevented from rim shots vs lack of them, Shaq also looks notably worse:

1971-79 Kareem: 3.1 high quality rotations vs 2.2 missed rotations
1999/00 Shaq: 1.4 high quality rotations vs 1.8 missed rotations

If we compare these numbers to all time great rim protector like Hakeem, you'll see how these two compare:

1993-94 Hakeem (35 games): 7.7 successful stops at the rim per game, 1.9 weak effort plays at the rim per game
1993-94 Hakeem (35 games): 3.6 high quality rotations vs 1.3 missed rotations

I know that my stats are a little bit fuzzy, so I'll show my concerns based on a few examples from games I tracked:

Spoiler:

- let's start with something subtle - Shaq here cheated inside, leaving Smits open to help on Miller drive, but when Reggie actually decides to drive O'Neal was way too late with his help. Possessions like these don't pop out in mind if you don't track a lot of games, but Shaq did it consistently. He didn't guard his man on perimeter, because he wanted to help inside but he often was way too late anyway.

Spoiler:

- in this case, Shaq rotated well and was in perfect position to shut down the drive, but instead of waiting for the next move, he jumped forward for no reason, which made slasher open. Again, it could look like a random play, but Shaq's discipline in such situations was always very questionable and in next situations, I will show you what I mean by "poor fundamentals".

Spoiler:

- you can see here Shaq helping at the rim reasonably well, but watch the way he tried to contest the shot. Again, it may look subtle that he simply missed his contest due to Pacers player going for reverse, but it's really not the case. Shaq had a lot of moments like these, when he missed the ball with his hand not by inches, but by feets. His positioning was horrible in many of these situations and it often led to hard fouls we see on highlight reels. Shaq simply lacked fundamentals to position himself in right position and he lacked patinece and discipline to contest shots at the right moment. Here is another example from the same game:

Spoiler:

Again, these subtle things, along with his poor mobility and lack of motor made him considerably worse defender than Kareem. Jabbar wasn't at his absolute peak defensively in 1977, but he was still much more active. Although his fundamentals weren't on Bill Walton level (Kareem had a bad habit of positioning himself sideways to driving player at times, though it was more pronounced around 1979), he was levels above Shaq in terms of anticipation and ability to contest shots.

I know that these examples are not drastic, but they show Shaq at his absolute apex (2000 finals) doing very basic mistakes. I don't want to include his poor P&R coverages or lack of mobilty, as these things are well known here.

-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?

Well, for once we have to remember that players and teams in the 2000s post considerably higher box creation numbers due to the nature of game. I don't like comparing creation numbers across 30 years, because someone like Shaq had much more opportunities to create something with improved spacing and slower game.

If you compare both BC and PR from team perspective in 1977 and 2000, you'll see that the difference is quite drastic - more so than the difference between Kareem and Shaq. The fact that Kareem is somehow close to Shaq actually proves me with the idea that he's a better passer and playmaker than Shaq.

About Shaq's gravity - this one is a massive game changer, but I wonder how much different it was compared to Kareem. I mean, this is how Kareem was guarded in 1977 playoffs:

Spoiler:

This are not highly selected screens - I picked them from one quarter of game 3 vs Warriors. Kareem absorbed ridiculous amount of defensive attention and he had a harder time beating it without the three point line.

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.

I agree here, I think these things are the biggest advantages for Shaq over Kareem.

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...)

Sure thing, by no means I want to sound like it's a closed debate. We're talking here about the greatest of the greatest after all

[70sFan]

I know someone else said this too, but what do you think of the extra off-ball threat offered by Shaq? He was great at catching lobs and that's why teams needed to constantly shade him, sometimes even with two guys who weren't the primary defender.

As I said, that's the biggest advantage Shaq has over Kareem. It's certainly important to mention, but I don't think it's enough to overcome Shaq's advantages.

In addition, I agree that Kareem was the better defender for their careers... but when it comes to peak, was 2000 Shaq really that much worse? I don't see it as much of a difference. He was a dominant rim protector,

Yes, I think he was that much worse. You can read my post above in which I focused almost only on rim protection and Kareem crushes him in any other part of defense (well, other than post defense).

and while yes he was still a liability in PnR situations to a certain extent if he got switched onto a guard, I'm sure you could say the same for Kareem too, he just didn't find himself in such situations often (or at all) back in the 70s.

That's actually not true. Kareem wasn't forced to defend a lot of P&Rs, but if we go by my tracking data Kareem actually averaged more defended P&Rs per game than Shaq (around 4.0 vs 3.7). I usually only counted possessions when teams tried to attack out of P&Rs, so you shouldn't be attached strongly to raw numbers but with the same methodology, Kareem defended more P&Rs than Shaq.

About switching - that one certainly isn't true. Kareem wasn't 1-5 switchabel defender, but until he got older and slowed down (around 1979), he was more than capable of switching onto guards or pressuring centers on the outside. Shaq had a lot of problems with staying in front of old Sabonis in 2000 WCF in comparison. I'm not kidding, Arvydas went past Shaq multiple times in that series and he was very slow at that point.

I will say, I've gained a new appreciation for peak Kareem through the posts here (and Duncan, and Hakeem recently too), and separating these guys is insanely difficult. It's really a hairs breadth between say no. 2 and no. 6 on this list. They were all crazy dominant and hard to pick flaws against.

I saw a no. 1 vote for 2003 Duncan, and while on the surface it sounds crazy, when I really think about it objectively, it's hard to have a huge problem with it. It was basically the perfect season, he was the best or second best defender in the league and put up 25/15/5 all Playoffs long. Like, what more can you ask for?

Is there really much separating him from Shaq or LeBron or MJ? This really feels like it's down to preference ultimately.

Yeah, I always said that ranking top 5 peaks is always up to your preference more than anything else. I value two way players very highly and that's why I prefer someone like Kareem over Shaq. That's also why I am very high on Hakeem and Duncan. I respect that Doctor MJ might prefer someone like Curry at the 3rd spot, even if I certainly don't feel he deserves such a high rank.

[Dutchball97]

Yes, but no. We do ignore those kinds of injustices constantly.

Isn't it unfair to Duncan, Gobert, KG... that back in the day centers were able to offer MUCH more defensive value? Isn't it unfair to 60s, 70s all-star guards that current guards have absurdly lax handle standards and a 3-pt shot to work with? Etc.

Yeah, but that's my point - we shouldn't ignore these things. Recently, I've been trying to focus more on how impressive player's ability were in comparison to the era they played in, instead of looking at absolute numbers.

I think very highly of Duncan's rim protection because he did it in a tougher era to show it. Same with Gobert. I think very highly of Kareem's ability to create shots without spacing and three point line. I think very highly of West offense, despite all of disadvantages he faced.

The thing is that Shaq had slight edge in raw creation, but adjusting it for era differences I don't see that edge as relevant. Meanwhile, Kareem would be better defender in any era. I'd expect him to be better scorer in any era as well.

I know someone else said this too, but what do you think of the extra off-ball threat offered by Shaq? He was great at catching lobs and that's why teams needed to constantly shade him, sometimes even with two guys who weren't the primary defender.

In addition, I agree that Kareem was the better defender for their careers... but when it comes to peak, was 2000 Shaq really that much worse? I don't see it as much of a difference. He was a dominant rim protector, and while yes he was still a liability in PnR situations to a certain extent if he got switched onto a guard, I'm sure you could say the same for Kareem too, he just didn't find himself in such situations often (or at all) back in the 70s.

I will say, I've gained a new appreciation for peak Kareem through the posts here (and Duncan, and Hakeem recently too), and separating these guys is insanely difficult. It's really a hairs breadth between say no. 2 and no. 6 on this list. They were all crazy dominant and hard to pick flaws against.

I saw a no. 1 vote for 2003 Duncan, and while on the surface it sounds crazy, when I really think about it objectively, it's hard to have a huge problem with it. It was basically the perfect season, he was the best or second best defender in the league and put up 25/15/5 all Playoffs long. Like, what more can you ask for?

Is there really much separating him from Shaq or LeBron or MJ? This really feels like it's down to preference ultimately.

I see 03 Duncan and 94 Hakeem as the best play-off runs ever. While their level of play might not necessarily stand out above the likes of MJ, Shaq and LeBron, the fact that they managed to play at such an elite individual level, while carrying not so great teams to a title is huge to me. However, I'm not as high on Duncan and Hakeem's regular seasons compared to the previously mentioned guys. There is 0 question whether Mj in 91, Shaq in 2000 or LeBron in 2013 were the best players in the regular season those years and then they followed it up with maybe slightly less of a carryjob but still elite post-season runs resulting in titles. Duncan and Hakeem have a bit more competition and look more like they ended up on top of a relatively comparable group instead of standing alone at the top.

In the end everyone is going to have their own criteria. We're already seeing it with the best season vs best player discussion. Neither is wrong but they're definitely going to lead to different lists. Same with the people looking for more complete seasons against people who prioritize the post-season. I think it's part of the fun we're getting different takes on a topic we don't really discuss much on this board. Like others have said during many projects before, finding out more about players by discussing different perspectives on them is more valuable than the eventual ranking we end up with.

[LA Bird]

There were 29 votes in this round:

Spoiler:

Stan
Max123
falcolombardi
Lou Fan
capfan33
Dutchball97
MyUniBroDavis
Proxy
SickMother
Gregoire
Eddy_JukeZ
90sAllDecade
E-Balla
ceiling raiser
trelos6
homecourtloss
JordansBulls
Blazers-1977 
ardee
2klegend
Djoker
Dr Positivity
Colbinii
DraymondGold
cupcakesnake
70sFan
letskissbro
mdonnelly1989
Doctor MJ

1991 Michael Jordan won over half of the 1st place votes (17) and is thus the winner.

[Djoker]

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



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

Ok a couple of points I want to raise or re-raise here:

1. First of all regarding the 1993 and 1994 Bulls... Defense is largely based on effort. Therefore trying to equate the Bulls getting better on defense with a hypothetical scenario in which they get better on offense is ridiculous. Simply by taking regular season games more seriously, a team can put up much better defensive numbers. Not the case on offense where losing a player of Jordan's caliber cannot be replaced.

2. And then of course there is a major fallacy in using 1993 Jordan to discredit 1991 Jordan's defense. It would be like me using 2018 Lebron's lack of defense to discredit his 2016 defense. How would you feel about that?

3. From Square2020's RAPM data, it includes 57 of the Bulls games in which they went 37-20. In the remaining 25 games their record is a shopping 24-1. It's safe to say that Jordan's RAPM for the entire season is a lot higher. Is it +8? +9? We don't know but the Bulls approximate margin of victory is +12.2 in the 24-1 stretch so Jordan's RAPM probably jumps a lot from what is a third of the season absolutely hammering opponents.

4. So we are just going to ignore defensive awards, opinions of contemporaries etc. when evaluating defense. Surely there was a conspiracy to give Jordan those awards. Everyone watching him at the time had no clue what they were seeing. Peeps on forums 30 years later know a lot better having seen a fraction of the games. I mean that's got to be it.

5. You mentioned in an earlier post that 2016 Lebron is a prime Pippen/Kawhi level defender. Ok. Jordan and Pippen played in the same era on the same team. Where is the evidence that Pippen is a whole tier better than Jordan defensively? Because that evidence would then show that Lebron >> Jordan.

Defensive RAPM

https://basketball-analytics.gitlab.io/rapm-data/

1996-1997 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.0
Pippen: +1.0
Rodman: +1.2

1997 Playoffs
Jordan: +1.8
Pippen: +1.1
Rodman: +0.9

1997-1998 Regular Season
Jordan: +0.6
Pippen: -0.7
Rodman: -0.5

1998 Playoffs:
Jordan: +0.6
Pippen: +0.1
Rodman: +0.7

Defensive RPM

http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/year/1997/sort/DRPM
1996-1997 Regular Season
Jordan: +2.47
Pippen: +0.90
Rodman: N/A

1997-1998 Regular Season
Jordan: +2.15
Pippen: N/A
Rodman: +0.86

Defensive PIPM

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1c-vFm9T5aVltZ8btJX-5s_OSk2OYgcuzEYtN3XFruY0/edit#gid=90945325

1987-1988 Regular Season
Jordan: +2.2
Pippen: +0.9
Grant: +0.6

1988-1989 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.4
Pippen: +1.1
Grant: +0.4

1989-1990 Regular Season
Jordan: +0.5
Pippen: +1.4
Grant: +0.2

1990-1991 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.7
Pippen: +2.1
Grant: +0.5

1991-1992 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.4
Pippen: +1.6
Grant: +1.8

1992-1993 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.1
Pippen: +1.1
Grant: +0.9

1995-1996 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.3
Pippen: +1.7
Rodman: +1.4

1996-1997 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.5
Pippen: +1.3
Rodman: +1.8

1997-1998 Regular Season
Jordan: +0.0
Pippen: +0.9
Rodman: +1.1

Absolutely no evidence that Pippen is a tier ahead of Jordan defensively...

6. I never discounted the possibility that peak Lebron was a bit more impactful on defense than peak Jordan. That's a reasonable take. But a whole tier better is hard to accept. And again, the only thing that I can agree with your previous post is that there is no evidence to make this kind of claim.

[DQuinn1575]

There were 29 votes in this round:

Spoiler:

Stan
Max123
falcolombardi
Lou Fan
capfan33
Dutchball97
MyUniBroDavis
Proxy
SickMother
Gregoire
Eddy_JukeZ
90sAllDecade
E-Balla
ceiling raiser
trelos6
homecourtloss
JordansBulls
Blazers-1977 
ardee
2klegend
Djoker
Dr Positivity
Colbinii
DraymondGold
cupcakesnake
70sFan
letskissbro
mdonnelly1989
Doctor MJ

1991 Michael Jordan won over half of the 1st place votes (17) and is thus the winner.

For the future record can you list who got the other 1st place votes?
Thanks,

[Dutchball97]

For the future record can you list who got the other 1st place votes?
Thanks,

Out of 29 votes 17 had 1991 MJ, LeBron got 9 votes (2013 x4, 2009 x2, 2016 x1, 2017 x1, 2018 x1) and the remaining 3 votes went 1 each to 1977 Kareem, 2001 Shaq and 2003 Duncan.

[LA Bird]

For the future record can you list who got the other 1st place votes?
Thanks,

Out of 29 votes 17 had 1991 MJ, LeBron got 9 votes (2013 x4, 2009 x2, 2016 x1, 2017 x1, 2018 x1) and the remaining 3 votes went 1 each to 1977 Kareem, 2001 Shaq and 2003 Duncan.

The tally is correct but you can't combine the votes for the different LeBron peak seasons. The seasons are all compared individually like this:

91 Jordan vs 13 LeBron (91 Jordan wins 22-6)
91 Jordan vs 09 LeBron (91 Jordan wins 23-5)
13 LeBron vs 09 LeBron (13 LeBron wins 11-5)
... etc.

That's why I encourage voters to have different LeBron and Kareem years in their rankings because those votes are not transferrable across seasons. It seems like many voters still don't understand how this works though and are still listing single seasons in what will end up as blank votes in key H2H comparisons. There will probably eventually be a round where someone being too lazy to list a season in their rankings will result in that preferred season missing out on a deserved win but it is what it is.

[Texas Chuck]

For the future record can you list who got the other 1st place votes?
Thanks,

Out of 29 votes 17 had 1991 MJ, LeBron got 9 votes (2013 x4, 2009 x2, 2016 x1, 2017 x1, 2018 x1) and the remaining 3 votes went 1 each to 1977 Kareem, 2001 Shaq and 2003 Duncan.

The tally is correct but you can't combine the votes for the different LeBron peak seasons. The seasons are all compared individually like this:

91 Jordan vs 13 LeBron (91 Jordan wins 22-6)
91 Jordan vs 09 LeBron (91 Jordan wins 23-5)
13 LeBron vs 09 LeBron (13 LeBron wins 11-5)
... etc.

That's why I encourage voters to have different LeBron and Kareem years in their rankings because those votes are not transferrable across seasons. It seems like many voters still don't understand how this works though and are still listing single seasons in what will end up as blank votes in key H2H comparisons. There will probably eventually be a round where someone being too lazy to list a season in their rankings will result in that preferred season missing out on a deserved win but it is what it is.

This is interesting. Makes me wonder if some players with clear peak seasons will end up ranking higher than some players who might have had multiple seasons better than that player's best season, but will have their votes split because posters don't agree which single season is their best.

04 KG is the first player who comes to mind with this, but there are others--03 TMac for instance. And those players who are remarkably consistent(Lebron, Dirk) could end up lower than they should because of the splitting of votes.

Like if Lebron had gotten 25 votes split between 5 seasons to Mike's 17 votes all dedicated to one season, is it really that clear Mike would have had the highest peak? Or should we consider in that case, that maybe Lebron had multiple seasons better than 91 Mike. I realize this didn't happen, but feels like something that is potentially going to happen at some point.

[Dutchball97]

For the future record can you list who got the other 1st place votes?
Thanks,

Out of 29 votes 17 had 1991 MJ, LeBron got 9 votes (2013 x4, 2009 x2, 2016 x1, 2017 x1, 2018 x1) and the remaining 3 votes went 1 each to 1977 Kareem, 2001 Shaq and 2003 Duncan.

The tally is correct but you can't combine the votes for the different LeBron peak seasons. The seasons are all compared individually like this:

91 Jordan vs 13 LeBron (91 Jordan wins 22-6)
91 Jordan vs 09 LeBron (91 Jordan wins 23-5)
13 LeBron vs 09 LeBron (13 LeBron wins 11-5)
... etc.

That's why I encourage voters to have different LeBron and Kareem years in their rankings because those votes are not transferrable across seasons. It seems like many voters still don't understand how this works though and are still listing single seasons in what will end up as blank votes in key H2H comparisons. There will probably eventually be a round where someone being too lazy to list a season in their rankings will result in that preferred season missing out on a deserved win but it is what it is.

Yeah that's why I listed the amount per season in brackets. Good thing you remind me though as I forgot to list the other LeBron seasons in my #2 vote just now.

[LA Bird]

Out of 29 votes 17 had 1991 MJ, LeBron got 9 votes (2013 x4, 2009 x2, 2016 x1, 2017 x1, 2018 x1) and the remaining 3 votes went 1 each to 1977 Kareem, 2001 Shaq and 2003 Duncan.

The tally is correct but you can't combine the votes for the different LeBron peak seasons. The seasons are all compared individually like this:

91 Jordan vs 13 LeBron (91 Jordan wins 22-6)
91 Jordan vs 09 LeBron (91 Jordan wins 23-5)
13 LeBron vs 09 LeBron (13 LeBron wins 11-5)
... etc.

That's why I encourage voters to have different LeBron and Kareem years in their rankings because those votes are not transferrable across seasons. It seems like many voters still don't understand how this works though and are still listing single seasons in what will end up as blank votes in key H2H comparisons. There will probably eventually be a round where someone being too lazy to list a season in their rankings will result in that preferred season missing out on a deserved win but it is what it is.

This is interesting. Makes me wonder if some players with clear peak seasons will end up ranking higher than some players who might have had multiple seasons better than that player's best season, but will have their votes split because posters don't agree which single season is their best.

04 KG is the first player who comes to mind with this, but there are others--03 TMac for instance. And those players who are remarkably consistent(Lebron, Dirk) could end up lower than they should because of the splitting of votes.

Like if Lebron had gotten 25 votes split between 5 seasons to Mike's 17 votes all dedicated to one season, is it really that clear Mike would have had the highest peak? Or should we consider in that case, that maybe Lebron had multiple seasons better than 91 Mike. I realize this didn't happen, but feels like something that is potentially going to happen at some point.

Split votes wouldn't matter if the voters all listed their full rankings. As an example, imagine if we have the following preferences from 5 voters,

1. 13 LeBron > 09 LeBron > 67 Wilt > 00 Shaq
2. 13 LeBron > 09 LeBron > 67 Wilt > 00 Shaq
3. 09 LeBron > 13 LeBron > 67 Wilt > 00 Shaq
4. 09 LeBron > 13 LeBron > 67 Wilt > 00 Shaq
5. 67 Wilt > 00 Shaq > 13 LeBron > 09 LeBron

If every voter cast the ballots as shown above, 67 Wilt and 00 Shaq loses to both 13 LeBron and 09 LeBron by a 1-4 margin.
Final result is 13 LeBron > 09 LeBron > 67 Wilt > 00 Shaq. Both LeBron seasons are clearly above 67 Wilt and 00 Shaq.

However, if the exact same 5 voters only listed the highest LeBron season while leaving the other LeBron season completely off their ballot,

1. 13 LeBron > 67 Wilt > 00 Shaq
2. 13 LeBron > 67 Wilt > 00 Shaq
3. 09 LeBron > 67 Wilt > 00 Shaq
4. 09 LeBron > 67 Wilt > 00 Shaq
5. 67 Wilt > 00 Shaq > 13 LeBron

67 Wilt and 00 Shaq now wins against both 13 LeBron and 09 LeBron by a 3-2 margin.
Final result is 67 Wilt > 00 Shaq > 13 LeBron > 09 LeBron. The two LeBron seasons now end up last.

The self-cannibalization of LeBron votes only happened in example 2 here because the voters didn't submit their full ballots.
As long as voters include all candidate peak seasons for their players, the current voting system is perfectly fine.

[Doctor MJ]

So the overrating is more so something I’m talking about relative to the people that I’m kind of “debating” his defense with

I’m not sure where you stand on the 91 Jordan on defense, I’m not saying he’s not an elite perimeter defender, but I think he’s overrated in the sense that it wasn’t an all time great perimeter defensive season the way I rate 2016 bron.

What do you mean by the splits? That’s mainly what I meant. If we’re talking about an “objective value”, I would agree the evaluation of +0.5 is probably lower than I’d expect, but I think personally I’d think it’s closer to a +1.5-2 whereas I think the argument is if it’s a +3 or near best defender in the league tier


(what’re your thoughts on that btw lol)

Your reasoning is understandable. I don't think you're crazy if you think LeBron was the more impactful defender. In fact I think LeBron has an excellent case both as someone who should have won DPOY and as someone who should be ranked hire on a Defensive GOAT list.

I myself am just very reluctant to use that data to draw those conclusions both because of a) rough sample, and b) overall marks for player and team were so, so good.

Appreciate the en fuego comments lol

[MyUniBroDavis]

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

Ok a couple of points I want to raise or re-raise here:

1. First of all regarding the 1993 and 1994 Bulls... Defense is largely based on effort. Therefore trying to equate the Bulls getting better on defense with a hypothetical scenario in which they get better on offense is ridiculous. Simply by taking regular season games more seriously, a team can put up much better defensive numbers. Not the case on offense where losing a player of Jordan's caliber cannot be replaced.

2. And then of course there is a major fallacy in using 1993 Jordan to discredit 1991 Jordan's defense. It would be like me using 2018 Lebron's lack of defense to discredit his 2016 defense. How would you feel about that?

3. From Square2020's RAPM data, it includes 57 of the Bulls games in which they went 37-20. In the remaining 25 games their record is a shopping 24-1. It's safe to say that Jordan's RAPM for the entire season is a lot higher. Is it +8? +9? We don't know but the Bulls approximate margin of victory is +12.2 in the 24-1 stretch so Jordan's RAPM probably jumps a lot from what is a third of the season absolutely hammering opponents.

4. So we are just going to ignore defensive awards, opinions of contemporaries etc. when evaluating defense. Surely there was a conspiracy to give Jordan those awards. Everyone watching him at the time had no clue what they were seeing. Peeps on forums 30 years later know a lot better having seen a fraction of the games. I mean that's got to be it.

5. You mentioned in an earlier post that 2016 Lebron is a prime Pippen/Kawhi level defender. Ok. Jordan and Pippen played in the same era on the same team. Where is the evidence that Pippen is a whole tier better than Jordan defensively? Because that evidence would then show that Lebron >> Jordan.

Defensive RAPM

https://basketball-analytics.gitlab.io/rapm-data/

1996-1997 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.0
Pippen: +1.0
Rodman: +1.2

1997 Playoffs
Jordan: +1.8
Pippen: +1.1
Rodman: +0.9

1997-1998 Regular Season
Jordan: +0.6
Pippen: -0.7
Rodman: -0.5

1998 Playoffs:
Jordan: +0.6
Pippen: +0.1
Rodman: +0.7

Defensive RPM

[url] http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/year/1997/sort/DRPM
[/url]
1996-1997 Regular Season
Jordan: +2.47
Pippen: +0.90
Rodman: N/A

1997-1998 Regular Season
Jordan: +2.15
Pippen: N/A
Rodman: +0.86

Defensive PIPM

[url] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1c-vFm9T5aVltZ8btJX-5s_OSk2OYgcuzEYtN3XFruY0/edit#gid=90945325
[/url]

1987-1988 Regular Season
Jordan: +2.2
Pippen: +0.9
Grant: +0.6

1988-1989 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.4
Pippen: +1.1
Grant: +0.4

1989-1990 Regular Season
Jordan: +0.5
Pippen: +1.4
Grant: +0.2

1990-1991 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.7
Pippen: +2.1
Grant: +0.5

1991-1992 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.4
Pippen: +1.6
Grant: +1.8

1992-1993 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.1
Pippen: +1.1
Grant: +0.9

1995-1996 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.3
Pippen: +1.7
Rodman: +1.4

1996-1997 Regular Season
Jordan: +1.5
Pippen: +1.3
Rodman: +1.8

1997-1998 Regular Season
Jordan: +0.0
Pippen: +0.9
Rodman: +1.1

Absolutely no evidence that Pippen is a tier ahead of Jordan defensively...

6. I never discounted the possibility that peak Lebron was a bit more impactful on defense than peak Jordan. That's a reasonable take. But a whole tier better is hard to accept. And again, the only thing that I can agree with your previous post is that there is no evidence to make this kind of claim.

1) while it’s true much of defense is based on effort, at the same time if Jordan was a comparable defender to 2016 playoff bron, who by most evidence appears DPOY level, it’s hard to believe that effort alone could make up for it

2) if you find evidence for Jordan specifically not trying in 1993 on defense then that’s fair, but I think that saying at the very least 1993 Jordan wasn’t very impactful in defense is 1991. I’m not saying this is automatically meaning he wasn’t good on defense, but I am saying that this was a prime year

3) I agree his overall RAPM probably looks far more impressive, but if you’re talking about the February to March stretch most of the difference was seen offensively iirc, so most of his improvement is likely gonna be offensive.

4) if we were ignoring that, the take would be that since the evidence seems to point that Jordan wasn’t a very impactful defender then he’s not an impactful defender, which isn’t what I’m saying.

5) hmm? I don’t recall saying pippen or Kawhi specifically, I think playoff bron was a step above while RS bron was a step below.

PIPM for pre 1997 doesn’t really make much sense, because it used luck adjusted RAPM as a measurement iirc, which we don’t have, so I don’t really know what that dataset is but it’s more likely a box score estimate of what it could be rather than anything else. RPM too.

The gitlab data is pretty bad, I think if you ask ceilingraiser or eminence they’d explain that better

Accross the court has numbers for 1997 and 1998 rapm, where they seen rather close in 1997 with MJ having a lead and pippen having a bit more of one in 1998. More importantly lebron is a tier ahead of those seasons based on data.

Whilst it would be reasonable to say Jordan was older and not as good on defense (although elgee I recall disagrees based on his tracking), that doesn’t equal Jordan is close to lebron on defense (keep in mind brons defensive peak came at 31, and then 35)

6) I feel there’s reasonable evidence lebron was a DPOY caliber player in the playoffs and as a whole had a defensive season as impactful as you’d expect from the best bigs of a year. I don’t see a reason to say Jordan was at that level.

It’s like saying we don’t have evidence Jordan was bull Russell but he might have been.

Here’s what I will say.

On the 1993 vs 1994 data. This does at the very least prove 1993 Jordan wasn’t as impactful defensively as you suggest. I agree defense is more about effort than offense is, but losing an ATG perimeter defender isn’t gonna typically improve your defense if you try harder, that’s a lot. More than that, he appeared in the defensive first team that year, so if we go by the route of believing contemporaries than him having a 2018 lebron season where everyone knew he wasn’t trying in that end isn’t valid. Their playoff defense didn’t stand out much either it seems, off of a cursory look

Had those teams lost lebron, and they were relatively cruising in the regular season, they would clearly be a bottom tier team defensively, I don’t think that’s very debatable. We’ve seen what happens when lebron went from his RS cruising on defense to cruising even more and becoming more of a neutral on defense even.

Implying that trying harder would be enough to mitigate Jordan’s impact basically supports my point, as lebrons that year impact couldn’t be mitigated by the team putting in 110%


I also think the argument here doesn’t make sense. I don’t have any reason to have X player at level X, I have lebron at this level, the onus is on you to prove that Jordan was at that level, since I’ve already made my post on bron. Showing that’s that shows pippen wasn’t all that as well isn’t going to prove that point, which is what that data suggest rather than Jordan being close to bron

As a whole we’ve assumeed something along the lines that lebron was a +1.5-2 on defense while Jordan was a +1.25-1.75.

I’ve made an argument that he’s more of a +3, +4 on defense, if you disagree with that sure, make an argument for that, but boosting up Jordan because I boosted bron on defense doesn’t make sense

As for the data you posted, let me give a rundown

The gitlab data is just known to be wonky as hell, you could ask others for more details but there’s a reason no one really ever posts RAPM from there.

Pre 1997 PIPM data isn’t really

While to me RPM is essentially worthless, it is a bit more interesting since at the very least it isn’t a completely different measurement like PIPM or invalid like gitlab, but you would need the standard deviations to compare accross seasons. The 2016 dataset looks as if it has a decently lower standard deviation than the 1997 one off a cursory glance, so a cross season comparison would favor bron a bit more than it already does. Rpm includes playoffs despite the game count btw, as far as I know.

So we have three datasets. What was brons pipm? That would be interesting, but I don’t think people that didn’t access the Google doc before he probated have access. I know his playoff PIPM led the league iirc

The RPM one seems to favor bron at a glance, esp considering the range and just distribution of values implies a different standard deviation, with the two caveats that we don’t have one for peak Jordan, and RPM changed its formula and privated it and it’s no longer really used here since that happened.

No where did I say there is definitive evidence Jordan wasn’t that impactful, if you believe he was that’s fine, there is limited evidence that suggests otherwise that is I think fair to mention

To say however that it’s ludicrous to claim lebron being a tier higher defensively, when my original thing was saying lebron was a tier higher defensively where he is normally rated on that end for this season, implies that because lebron was underrated Jordan must have been as well

Where do we stop? If someone that’s lebron with Kevin Garnett’s defense comes along so we say that person isn’t better than Jordan on defense either?

Here’s the crux of my issue.

I can agree that the evidence for defense pre 1997 is generally quite limited. While the evidence we do have for the 91-93 suggests he’s decent rather than elite, there are caveats that one applies to the 1993 season, the other data set isn’t complete yet

I don’t think that equals throwing them away, but it’s enough for me personally to say that 91 Jordan was probably an elite perimeter defensive season

However, the idea that, because I’m high on lebrons 2016 defense I must also be high on Jordan’s makes no sense which is the implication here. So far the argument doesn’t seem to be “why bron wasn’t that impactful” but more so “Bron shouldn’t have been more impactful than Jordan” as if there needs to be a certain distance between them.

If you want to make the claim that they’re roughly equal, I think either start by explaining why Jordan should rank that high outside of contemporary opinion, or why lebron shouldn’t rank where I rank him despite my post.

As it stands the same arguments could be made for Marcus smart being a better defender now than peak lebron which obviously isn’t true

[LukaTheGOAT]

Hi LukaTheGoat! It looks like you quoted me above and bolded my first sentence, but I don't see any text. Did you mean to? If you're concerned about the stat CORP +/- stat, I don't mean for it to be the be-all-end-all, just a starting point to ballpark an answer to the hypothetical proposed (what if MJ dropped to Kobe's defensive level).

Seeing this thread prompted me to update the 1991 page. It's up to 294 games now: https://squared2020.com/2021/09/11/1990-1991-nba-rapm/

That's sick! I didn't realize you were on RealGM. Thanks so much for the update! I've really enjoyed looking at your RAPM stats.

So I do have to ask

Now that we have a reasonable amount of RAPM data for his season + the season where he left both suggesting that in that 91-93 era MJ was more of a decent defensive wing than an all time great perimeter defender, isn’t this significant?

I think if it was just one or another it’d be noise, and this doesn’t really take him out from second spot for me

But I feel at least with the people I’ve engaged with the main thing between MJ and Bron peak vs peak is the defensive gap larger than the offensive gap, and that the defensive gap isn’t as large as I’m purporting (playoff bron ofc).

Now that the available evidence seems to imply the gap might be larger than I thought too, doesn’t that change thing significantly?

Im still in the MJ is an elite defensive wing camp, but like, I feel like for any other player in nba history

If we had

- a season without them with a reasonable amount of roster turnover where the defense slightly improved
- NPI Rapm data showing their defense as closer to decent than all time elite at their position

We would pretty quickly question our assumptions about their impact defensively?

Hmm, maybe I've missed something:

Do we see any data that has Jordan's overall RAPM standing as disappointing?

If so, I'd appreciate if you could elaborate.

If not, then I'd guess what you're pointing to that the Offense vs Defense split is just overwhelmingly offensive for Jordan? Presuming that's the case, I'll just emphasize that I'm very reluctant to take such splits too seriously. Coaches choose who to play around a star based on them in part being able to balance out his limitations. All of this can skew the split that the regression spits out.

To be clear: I'm not dead set on the idea that Jordan must be mega-valuable defensively. It's pretty easy to see how such a thing could be possible with his tendency toward improvisation and gambling. I ain't betting on Jordan turning out to have been overrated defensively personally, but if that's what it turns out, we'll know how it happened.

But I am reluctant to assert that it (the overrating) was definitely happened with what I see here to this point.

I also was a bit puzzled here. It didn't seem like the RAPM data so far is that disappointing (though perhaps it's not the world-beating GOAT-by-a-wide-margin stuff people might hope for). And I'm also less interested in the split and more interested the net value

So far, comparing LeBron vs Jordan by RAPM :
LeBron: +8.84 in 2009 (would be 4th all time), +9.73 in 2011 (would be 2nd all time), +9.5 in 2012 (would be 2nd all time), +6.4 in 2013 (would be 13th all time), 6.79 in 2014, 8.7 in 2015, +8.62 in 2016 (would be 4th all time), 6.62 in 2017, 1.56 in 2018 (holy coasting! wow!), 3.44 in 2019.

Jordan: +7.47 in 1988 (would be 8th all time. 43 game sample where Bulls just barely performed better than their average season level), +6.40 in 1991 (57 games where Bulls drastically underperformed their average season level), +7.17 in 1996 (21 games sample where Bulls performed at their average season level), +5.85 in 1997 (full season sample), +6.15 in 1998.

To be clear, from the sample we have, LeBron seems to perform better. But it's worth noting LeBron underperforms in RAPM in 2013 (usually considered his peak), and isn't too far ahead of the pack in 2009 and 2016. As for Jordan, both 1988 and 1996 would be top 10 seasons. We're missing 89, 90, 92, and 93. For 91, the bulls drastically underperformed for their season average (on pace to lose 9 games more than they did), so there's reason to believe Jordan might improve with the full season sample.

Again, this doesn't paint Jordan as the clear GOAT by a wide margin, and perhaps it should give us pause when ranking his peak over LeBron's, but there's enough uncertainty and he's good enough in non-peak years to still feel fairly good about his peak. Thoughts?

Source: Goldstein for full seasons (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eK0i6L0q2Brih5nKOKZLGHVofY0JWKOlnnEaSMu1LTM/edit#gid=0), Squared2020 for incomplete seasons (at their website https://squared2020.com/1987-88-nba-rapm/ and their twitter account). Qualifier: The RAPM all time rankings I listed only include top ~20 peaks (sorry Draymond), with 1 entry per player. Notable older players who aren't included are Wilt, Russell, young Kareem, Oscar, Jerry, Walton. Players included in the ranking are: LeBron, Jordan, Shaq, Curry, incomplete Hakeem seasons, older Kareem, Duncan, incomplete Bird seasons, KG, incomplete Magic seasons, Kobe, KD, Robinson, Wade, Dirk, Nash, older Karl Malone, Chris Paul, Kawhi, Harden, Jokic (pre 2020), Giannis (pre 2020), AD (pre 2020).

Apologies for my blank response. I just wanted to let you know that Taylor's =/- evaluations aren't a metric but rather his personal opinion on the player's goodness. I see someone already informed you after I made the initial comment, so I attempted to delete what I wrote, but couldn't lol.

[Squared2020]

Hi LukaTheGoat! It looks like you quoted me above and bolded my first sentence, but I don't see any text. Did you mean to? If you're concerned about the stat CORP +/- stat, I don't mean for it to be the be-all-end-all, just a starting point to ballpark an answer to the hypothetical proposed (what if MJ dropped to Kobe's defensive level).

Seeing this thread prompted me to update the 1991 page. It's up to 294 games now: https://squared2020.com/2021/09/11/1990-1991-nba-rapm/

That's sick! I didn't realize you were on RealGM. Thanks so much for the update! I've really enjoyed looking at your RAPM stats.

Thanks, I appreciate it! Everything is being completely built from video. I have stints with possessions and points scored. So we can get better estimates for time played, get partial RAPM counts, and accurate plus-minus for every player in every logged game.

I was pointed towards these forums from Ben Taylor a while back. He pointed me towards 70sfan, whose Patreon I have been supporting since almost day one.

I can't reply to private messages for some reason though.

[colts18]

Hi LukaTheGoat! It looks like you quoted me above and bolded my first sentence, but I don't see any text. Did you mean to? If you're concerned about the stat CORP +/- stat, I don't mean for it to be the be-all-end-all, just a starting point to ballpark an answer to the hypothetical proposed (what if MJ dropped to Kobe's defensive level).

Seeing this thread prompted me to update the 1991 page. It's up to 294 games now: https://squared2020.com/2021/09/11/1990-1991-nba-rapm/

That's sick! I didn't realize you were on RealGM. Thanks so much for the update! I've really enjoyed looking at your RAPM stats.

Thanks, I appreciate it! Everything is being completely built from video. I have stints with possessions and points scored. So we can get better estimates for time played, get partial RAPM counts, and accurate plus-minus for every player in every logged game.

I was pointed towards these forums from Ben Taylor a while back. He pointed me towards 70sfan, whose Patreon I have been supporting since almost day one.

I can't reply to private messages for some reason though.

Awesome Work Squared2020.

The 1991 data looks very promising. I hope you are able to complete that whole season or at least as many games as possible. If you have a patreon, I would support it if meant you could get full seasons of RAPM data uploaded and maybe even include shot charts.

[falcolombardi]

Unibrodavis numbers on 2016 lebron are making me reconsider thinghs, colts numbers on wade-less lebron in 2013 playoffs are mindblowing....but is a relatively small sample size still

I think i will still go with a lebron season for thread #2.... but not sure which one now.... i also am incredibly high on duncan hakeen shaq, wilt and kareem peaks