5 year plus-minus of various all-time nba peaks(Feat. Shaq, Lebron, Jordan, Robinson and Curry)

[falcolombardi]

I think the lebron comparision is even more interesting now that we know lebron teams with him "ON" are similar to peak bulls with jordan "ON"

One of the most common arguments for jordan over bron is that the bulls peaked higher than lebron teams after all

The whole ceiling raising and off-ball vs lebron-ball ceilings thingh becomes a weaker argument now

Great points, both of y'all!

One thing to note about the scalability ( / off-ball / ceiling raising stuff) is that although the argument may not work as well against LeBron, that doesn't necessarily undermine the entire argument for other players. LeBron is pretty far from the standard... and is basically the GOAT floor-raiser even among scalability proponents like Thinking Basketball.

That said, it does raise an interesting philosophical argument for LeBron vs Jordan (hopefully this is a thoughtful enough thread that this doesn't devolve into the usual meaningless LBJ/MJ debate shenanigans ). I think you could actually use the data to argue the traditional argument... that LeBron's the better floor raiser while Jordan's the better ceiling raiser. While LeBron's teams do reach similar heights to Jordan's teams (though never quite as good, either in single-year seasons or longer 5 year samples)' while both are on, they completely collapse when LeBron is off in a way Jordan's teams never did.

This worse "off" sample is primarily what puts LeBron's on/off over Jordan's. But could this actually be used as an argument against LeBron?

With specific well-fitted team constructions (e.g. many 3-and-d spacers, a stretch big, complementary perimeter talent), LeBron's on-minutes can give Jordan's a run for their money (though not clearly beat them). But these team constructions over-rely on LeBron, and continuously fall apart without him. (so let's give credit: LeBron's the GOAT floor raiser).

But... when LeBron is on teams with enough talent that they shouldn't fall apart without him, even when on paper they seem like they should compare to at least the worse Bulls-Dynasty years, they struggle to stack up. Jordan, on the other hand, has as successful (or more successful) on-minutes, while playing for teams that have the pieces to not fall apart as much without Jordan. This gives him a lower unadjusted on-off, but... ironically the worse on/off means better overall team performance (since the only change is less bad off-minutes)

So, credit to LeBron for his floor raising, when he takes teams that would otherwise fall apart to near similar heights (provided perfect fit). But... can we not also credit Jordan for his ceiling raising, being able to raise teams to GOAT heights, all while not needing the team to be so built around him that they fall apart in his off minutes?

I'm not dead-set on this argument at all. I just think it's fascinating that you can actually make the classical argument -- LeBron's the better floor raiser while Jordan's the better ceiling raiser -- just using this new on/off data.

Feel like there's a couple holes here:

1. The 16-17 cavs were comparable in the playoffs to jordan's bull teams

2. Much of Ben's theory here is based on the idea that lebron's value is dependent on spacing. The problem is that we've seen lebron be more or as valuable than mj with worse era relative spacing(2015, 2020, 2012). Considering that ben "doesn't think we should only compare players at their best", it's pretty wierd how he just completely disregards the 2015 playoffs, where Lebron's jumper was off, he had back problems, and he was the second best shooter on his team....and the cavs swept a 60 win team and then forced the warriors to pull out the death lineup.

Peak jordan had more help and only matched that from 88-90. If Lebron is more valuable at his best, and he's more valuable when he's not at his best, and he's more valuable with spacing, and he's more valuable without spacing...what situation would you rather have jordan than lebron in?

This^ the comments on the video, here on youtibe or on reddit all are leaning into "jordan is a celing raiser, lebron is a floor raiser" arguments when we just saw that is literally not the case

Lebron and jordan teams peaked at the same level with them, jordan ones just happened to be better without him on court

And somehow that is more impressive

Imagine someone in this year mvp race saying

"Bucks with giannis and nuggets with jokic are equally good, but bucks are better when giannis sits than denver when jokic sits"

"Therefore that makes giannis a better ceiling raiser and jokic a better floor raiser"

It wouldnt be taken too seriously

[Squared2020]

.

[70sFan]

Edit: If you're around Ben, did you do any of the other main Bulls guys? At least Scottie?

So, some bad news.

This project of Ben's was focused on Jordan with a thought to doing other players later but...the NBA has since had the games taken down from the internet, which will likely prevent going further (to other players) with it at this time.

Working on it...

From your perspective, is there any chance to get a decent (at least 25 games) sample from 1960s players like Wilt, Russell or Oscar to get on/off data? I know that NBA have a lot of games in their archives, but I don't know how much.

[Squared2020]

.

[zimpy27]

(got it from bucksin6 on reddit)
From Ben's mosr recent video

https://youtu.be/RqGDLV-do9c?t=842

Left to Right is how good a team is during the postseason. Down to Up is a player's plus/minus during the postseason.

6 5 year streches are in this video:

98-01 David Robinson: +25 (note: in limited minuites)

00-04 Shaq: +22

16-21 Lebron: +18

88-93 Jordan: +15

15-19 Curry: +14

91-96 Jordan: +6

Note that these are just 6 stretches that Ben singled out, not necceasrily the 6 most impressive ones.

Also note that these only date back to the 80's so legends like Kareem and Bill Russell(R.I.P) wouldn't be on this.

I also don't have access to the full data set but maybe one of you do.

How is Shaq +22?

From pbp

2001 +1.4
2002 +21.3
2003 +9.2
2004 +25

I don’t know what his +/- was in 2000 but it would be about the same as his 02 and 04 runs I think from other stuff

Wouldn’t that add up to +18 if you take the 5 years?

Your numbers are right. But it includes 2000 playoffs: +23

And when coming up with an average you would times each by the minutes in each year. The lesser years in 2001 and 2003 had very little minutes because they wrecked teams in 01 and he was out for a number of game in 03

[MyUniBroDavis]

(got it from bucksin6 on reddit)
From Ben's mosr recent video

https://youtu.be/RqGDLV-do9c?t=842

Left to Right is how good a team is during the postseason. Down to Up is a player's plus/minus during the postseason.

6 5 year streches are in this video:


Note that these are just 6 stretches that Ben singled out, not necceasrily the 6 most impressive ones.

Also note that these only date back to the 80's so legends like Kareem and Bill Russell(R.I.P) wouldn't be on this.

I also don't have access to the full data set but maybe one of you do.

How is Shaq +22?

From pbp

2001 +1.4
2002 +21.3
2003 +9.2
2004 +25

I don’t know what his +/- was in 2000 but it would be about the same as his 02 and 04 runs I think from other stuff

Wouldn’t that add up to +18 if you take the 5 years?

Your numbers are right. But it includes 2000 playoffs: +23

And when coming up with an average you would times each by the minutes in each year. The lesser years in 2001 and 2003 had very little minutes because they wrecked teams in 01 and he was out for a number of game in 03

That still wouldn’t lead to +22 though, if we combine 01 and 03 into one run and put it at +5, which would overestimate his plus minus, he wouldn’t be above +20

[zimpy27]

How is Shaq +22?

From pbp

2001 +1.4
2002 +21.3
2003 +9.2
2004 +25

I don’t know what his +/- was in 2000 but it would be about the same as his 02 and 04 runs I think from other stuff

Wouldn’t that add up to +18 if you take the 5 years?

Your numbers are right. But it includes 2000 playoffs: +23

And when coming up with an average you would times each by the minutes in each year. The lesser years in 2001 and 2003 had very little minutes because they wrecked teams in 01 and he was out for a number of game in 03

That still wouldn’t lead to +22 though, if we combine 01 and 03 into one run and put it at +5, which would overestimate his plus minus, he wouldn’t be above +20

True, it is on/off per 48 mins and not 100 possessions but at the same time, that shouldn't make a difference. I suspect they made a mistake with Shaqs number, probably forgot to divide by either 2000 minutes or 2004 minutes.

Should flag them about it.

That Shaq run should be around 16.. so same as Jordan but below LeBron

[70sFan]

Working on it...

From your perspective, is there any chance to get a decent (at least 25 games) sample from 1960s players like Wilt, Russell or Oscar to get on/off data? I know that NBA have a lot of games in their archives, but I don't know how much.

Full games? Probably not. NBA did not own the rights to the reels back in the 1960's. Frequently, the broadcast companies would re-use the reels after broadcasts. So we have to rely on archival footage saved by the networks. This is why we predominantly only have a few playoff games floating around. The rest tends to be archival footage saved by the likes of the Associated Press; or the Calvin Murphy early 70's clips I sent you a year ago as reels saved from destruction.

I have some audio of recorded broadcasts, such as Petit's 50 point game from the 1958 playoffs or the entire fourth quarter of Chamberlain's 100 point game. That may be the way to go for piecing together such data from that era.

Yeah, I have been working with the AP for over two years, but their reels are incomplete unfortunately.

There is another source of 1960s material - silent B&W Knicks coaching tapes. Among those I have seen, they are mostly complete (missing only a few possessions) and I know that this source is just immenese. I have seen clips from a lot of random RS games from 1959-73 period. Do you have the access to them?

Also, I have seen your work on RAPM study from 1969/70 season. Would you mind sharing the list of games you tracked? 15 isn't a lot, but it's much more than even I could collect throughout the years

[LAL1947]

Curry from pbp converted to /48 minutes (skipping his single series run as MJs were as well)
'13: +5.0 on, -25.5 off
'15: +9.6 on, -0.5 off
'16: +3.7 on, +5.1 off
'17: +19.6 on, -3.3 off
'18: +12.7 on, +6.6 off
'19: +6.8 on, -10.0 off
'22: +7.6 on, -1.6 off

Is that a typo (positive 5.1 off instead of negative) or does it mean GSW was better when Curry was off the court compared to when he was on it in 2016?

[LAL1947]

How is he calculating the left axis?

Man I wish all the dots were filled in, I want to know if the 3 to the right of Robinson after Curry '15-'19 are all Curry/Dray runs.

i'm 99% sure the dot near robinson is duncan

Ohayo gozaimasu! I think it's more likely to be Manu Ginobili.

I want to know if the 3 to the right of Robinson after Curry '15-'19 are all Curry/Dray runs.

Draymond could be one of them. I think Manu's on/off stuff will be high because of how he was used. Then there's also Stockton, Nash, Dirk, CP3, Durant, Giannis, Embiid and Luka who could be high on this graph.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Is it tho?

feel like if you keep having to go to "well it doens't preclude player x from being y", then player x probably isn't y.

At this point using ben's own data, (someone whose criteria is allegedly "impact on winning")
-> Jordan isn't close to having the #1 on/off with multiple peaks he ranks below doing as well or better
-> In the aupm/bpm average thing he provides 5 seasons in lebron's 9 year prime would boost the average of mj's 3 best seasons
-> if we take out regression-stuff so we don't have colineraity issues(which ben himself does in backpicks), hakeem, kg, kareem, and duncan all look better in the regular season and lebron is out winning 66 and 61 games with a team that goes 5-25 without him while adding peak jordan (by ben's own estimation) to a 27 win team gets you 48.
-> as a bonus, jordan's team isn't even better than the teams of "less scalable" historical peers when he's on the court. So much for cieling raising.

Seems like Ben's just drinking copium here tbh.

For what it's worth, MJ consistently comes out taking up the most oxygen in terms of top 10 spots in box-models like Backpicks BPM, BPM, etc. EXCEPT he doesn't have a single season typically that is quite as good as 09 Lebron. The consistency there probably instills some confidence in MJ having the best peak even if he doesn't have the #1 single-season spot.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Is it tho?

feel like if you keep having to go to "well it doens't preclude player x from being y", then player x probably isn't y.

At this point using ben's own data, (someone whose criteria is allegedly "impact on winning")
-> Jordan isn't close to having the #1 on/off with multiple peaks he ranks below doing as well or better
-> In the aupm/bpm average thing he provides 5 seasons in lebron's 9 year prime would boost the average of mj's 3 best seasons
-> if we take out regression-stuff so we don't have colineraity issues(which ben himself does in backpicks), hakeem, kg, kareem, and duncan all look better in the regular season and lebron is out winning 66 and 61 games with a team that goes 5-25 without him while adding peak jordan (by ben's own estimation) to a 27 win team gets you 48.

Seems like Ben's just drinking copium here tbh.

Essentially i think ben defaults to jordan because in a theorical level he believes off-ball offense > on-ball offense to win rings and he believes jordan is better at the former and that makes him better at meshing with other talent

Which is fine, but at some point i think you have to ask yourself. If all actual impact metrics i use point to lebron slightly ahead of jordan

including the thinghs like higher offensive ratings or higher "ON" ratings that jordan should distance himself with according to the reasoning

Then maybe defaulting to jordan based on theory when the data clearly and sonewhat consistenly tilts (if only by a bit) lebron way is somehow...lazy? For lack of a better word

I dont even say this to say jordan doesnr have a fantastic goat peak case himself, he does. Is just that based on ben data heavy approach maybe is kind of lazy to just go "jordan better cause ceiling raising/offball" and leave it at that?

Do you know what it feels reminiscent of for me? The larry bird vs magic johnson offense comparisions where a lot of people (maybe ben too? I domt remember) argue magic is the better floor raiser but bird the better ceiling raiser who meshes better with better talent thanks to his less ball dominant profile

Sound theory, at least until you remember both played in talented offensive rosters and bird didnt have the best offenses among the two, it was also magic

And the same thinfg happens in offense only comparisions between curry and lebron. Lebron + kyrie reached higher offensive ratings that curry + durant but he is obviously not the ceiling raiser curry is cause he is too ball doninant

so he could never do somethingh like play in a team with other offense stars (like lets say, love and kyrie, totally at random) and elevate it to the goat playoffs offense stretch. Except he actually did that but is still diminished as a weaker ceiling raiser that cannot do stuff he literally has done

It almost feel at times as ignorig results when they dont fit theory

He also considers Bird a considerably better defender than Magic and with the belief that defense is additive, that allows Bird to eclipse Magic peak for peak. He thinks Magic is a tier ahead of Bird offensively speaking.

[LAL1947]

Sound theory, at least until you remember both played in talented offensive rosters and bird didnt have the best offenses among the two, it was also magic[/b]

Both teams had talented offensive rosters but I feel the Lakers had quite a bit more offensive firepower... Kareem and Worthy were better than anyone on the Cs at that end, apart from Larry ofc.

[RCM88x]

Curry from pbp converted to /48 minutes (skipping his single series run as MJs were as well)
'13: +5.0 on, -25.5 off
'15: +9.6 on, -0.5 off
'16: +3.7 on, +5.1 off
'17: +19.6 on, -3.3 off
'18: +12.7 on, +6.6 off
'19: +6.8 on, -10.0 off
'22: +7.6 on, -1.6 off

Is that a typo (positive 5.1 off instead of negative) or does it mean GSW was better when Curry was off the court compared to when he was on it in 2016?

They were better with him off, however, this is due to the games he played in/opponents. If you look at the games he missed vs the games he played its not really all that surprising they could be slightly better in the games he missed.

[eminence]

Curry from pbp converted to /48 minutes (skipping his single series run as MJs were as well)
'13: +5.0 on, -25.5 off
'15: +9.6 on, -0.5 off
'16: +3.7 on, +5.1 off
'17: +19.6 on, -3.3 off
'18: +12.7 on, +6.6 off
'19: +6.8 on, -10.0 off
'22: +7.6 on, -1.6 off

Is that a typo (positive 5.1 off instead of negative) or does it mean GSW was better when Curry was off the court compared to when he was on it in 2016?

They were better with him off, however, this is due to the games he played in/opponents. If you look at the games he missed vs the games he played its not really all that surprising they could be slightly better in the games he missed.

Yep, no typo there. Combo of teams played (on minutes mostly against Thunder/Cavs, off mostly against Rockets/Blazers), Curry not being his 100% best, and mostly relatively small sample - it's not all that unlikely to happen over a single playoff run (per BbRef, slightly different possession counter than pbp, other deep-run examples - Shaq '01 (lol), Shaq '06, LeBron '11, '05 Duncan, I'm sure many others).

The single run on/offs are just not particularly valuable data, even 3 year samples are pretty noisy (I'd say slightly noisier than a single regular season on/off for a run of 3 deep playoff years, though I don't have a way to quantify that off the top of my head). Heck even whole career playoff on/off is a bit noisy.

It's mostly the on-samples I'm looking at here, though obviously very very teammate dependent.

[Onus]

Is it tho?

feel like if you keep having to go to "well it doens't preclude player x from being y", then player x probably isn't y.

At this point using ben's own data, (someone whose criteria is allegedly "impact on winning")
-> Jordan isn't close to having the #1 on/off with multiple peaks he ranks below doing as well or better
-> In the aupm/bpm average thing he provides 5 seasons in lebron's 9 year prime would boost the average of mj's 3 best seasons
-> if we take out regression-stuff so we don't have colineraity issues(which ben himself does in backpicks), hakeem, kg, kareem, and duncan all look better in the regular season and lebron is out winning 66 and 61 games with a team that goes 5-25 without him while adding peak jordan (by ben's own estimation) to a 27 win team gets you 48.

Seems like Ben's just drinking copium here tbh.

Essentially i think ben defaults to jordan because in a theorical level he believes off-ball offense > on-ball offense to win rings and he believes jordan is better at the former and that makes him better at meshing with other talent

Which is fine, but at some point i think you have to ask yourself. If all actual impact metrics i use point to lebron slightly ahead of jordan

including the thinghs like higher offensive ratings or higher "ON" ratings that jordan should distance himself with according to the reasoning

Then maybe defaulting to jordan based on theory when the data clearly and sonewhat consistenly tilts (if only by a bit) lebron way is somehow...lazy? For lack of a better word

I dont even say this to say jordan doesnr have a fantastic goat peak case himself, he does. Is just that based on ben data heavy approach maybe is kind of lazy to just go "jordan better cause ceiling raising/offball" and leave it at that?

Do you know what it feels reminiscent of for me? The larry bird vs magic johnson offense comparisions where a lot of people (maybe ben too? I domt remember) argue magic is the better floor raiser but bird the better ceiling raiser who meshes better with better talent thanks to his less ball dominant profile

Sound theory, at least until you remember both played in talented offensive rosters and bird didnt have the best offenses among the two, it was also magic

And the same thinfg happens in offense only comparisions between curry and lebron. Lebron + kyrie reached higher offensive ratings that curry + durant but he is obviously not the ceiling raiser curry is cause he is too ball doninant

so he could never do somethingh like play in a team with other offense stars (like lets say, love and kyrie, totally at random) and elevate it to the goat playoffs offense stretch. Except he actually did that but is still diminished as a weaker ceiling raiser that cannot do stuff he literally has done

It almost feel at times as ignorig results when they dont fit theory

I will continue to remind you that the Cavs had more offensive talent than the warriors did. The Warriors had more defensive talent. So using offensive ratings to compare the two to determine ceilings is foolhardy. Having 2 players you don't have to guard but at the rim vs having everyone being able to shoot 3s, one has a much higher offensive ceiling than the other.

[Onus]

When jokic and giannis had similar-ish "ON" but the nuggets were a worse without joker than bucks without giannis, did -anyone- argue giannis is more impressive cause bucks were better without him that nuggest without jokic? Of course they didnt

Some people say that playing with lebron makes players forget how to play basketball without him. Others argue jordan leadership magically makes his teams play better with mike on the bench cause.......honestly i dont know? It somehow never can be he had great teammates, is even jordan credit what they do without him

I'm just going to posit a theory here. The fact that the bulls ran a system that anyone can run should in theory lift the off numbers of their superstar, because everyone can rely on the system and can make plays and knows what to do. Vs a system that relies on their superstar to create everything things will tend to fall apart when that superstar is off. This is why that superstar will always need more help to offset that heavy reliance on their talent. Because even if you have another superstar that superstar has to be able to play like the 1a to have similar results, which should be damn near impossible since 1a is one of the goats.

[homecourtloss]

Do you have the reddit thread link? Wonder what the more "mainstream" (for lack of a better word) fans in reddit think about this data compares to here in rela gm

unfortunately I think the mods of r/nbadicussion took down the post before it could get many comments because of what happened on this thread(which i also copy/pasted to realgm):
https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/vwjnsd/lebron_vs_jordan_playoff_aupmbpm/
OP posted data from a couple ben videos where lebron's best years scored much higher than mj's but mj's best three year stretch scored higher than any of lebron's. Then a bunch of commenters attacked the OP and then it devolved into a flamewar.

Shout out to u/blockedbybam tho. Girl always brings the fuega

For real, girl was out there shutting down all the cliche reasoning comments lol

Man, that thread got heated with defensive comments lol

Pretty wild that discussion is shut down and people get so aggressive, almost to the same degree as if one were attacking a religion or religious belief. That’s what the Jordan mythologizing and Jordan hagiographies have engendered.

I expect those not filled in (amongst the furthest positive outliers) are either duplicates, Draymond, or surprise guys that'd look badly out of place in that tier (which Ben could be concerned Dray would be amongst for his audience).

ben knows his audience doesn't want curry sharing any credit.

That’s part of it, but also Ben, even though by now he’s built a solid base and a solid audience, is probably worried about what Draymond’s presence in these studies does to the perception of validity of his numbers but Ben should his stand his ground based on the data. Additionally, it also poses a problem for those who discuss competition as it seems that James was facing a perfectly meshing, massive impact duo for two seasons and then two more with a Durant added in.

Is it tho?

feel like if you keep having to go to "well it doens't preclude player x from being y", then player x probably isn't y.

At this point using ben's own data, (someone whose criteria is allegedly "impact on winning")
-> Jordan isn't close to having the #1 on/off with multiple peaks he ranks below doing as well or better
-> In the aupm/bpm average thing he provides 5 seasons in lebron's 9 year prime would boost the average of mj's 3 best seasons
-> if we take out regression-stuff so we don't have colineraity issues(which ben himself does in backpicks), hakeem, kg, kareem, and duncan all look better in the regular season and lebron is out winning 66 and 61 games with a team that goes 5-25 without him while adding peak jordan (by ben's own estimation) to a 27 win team gets you 48.
-> as a bonus, jordan's team isn't even better than the teams of "less scalable" historical peers when he's on the court. So much for cieling raising.

Seems like Ben's just drinking copium here tbh.

It will be a bit odd if he doesn’t change some of his theories since the data present doesn’t directly support the “scalability and ceiling raising” arguments he and others have espoused for quite a while. I’m glad he posted his research, though, because this has always been something that was an unknown and something we could theorize at.

[homecourtloss]

I think the lebron comparision is even more interesting now that we know lebron teams with him "ON" are similar to peak bulls with jordan "ON"

One of the most common arguments for jordan over bron is that the bulls peaked higher than lebron teams after all

The whole ceiling raising and off-ball vs lebron-ball ceilings thingh becomes a weaker argument now

Great points, both of y'all!

One thing to note about the scalability ( / off-ball / ceiling raising stuff) is that although the argument may not work as well against LeBron, that doesn't necessarily undermine the entire argument. LeBron is pretty far from the standard... and is basically the GOAT floor-raiser even among scalability proponents like Thinking Basketball.

That said, it does raise an interesting philosophical argument for LeBron vs Jordan (hopefully this is a thoughtful enough thread that this doesn't devolve into the usual meaningless LBJ/MJ debate shenanigans ). While LeBron's teams do reach similar heights to Jordan's teams (though never quite as good, either in single-year seasons or longer 5 year samples)' while both are on, they completely collapse when LeBron is off.

This worse "off" sample is primarily what puts LeBron's on/off over Jordan's. But could this actually be used as an argument against LeBron?

With specific well-fitted team constructions (e.g. many 3-and-d spacers, a stretch big, complementary perimeter talent), LeBron's on-minutes can give Jordan's a run for their money (though not clearly beat them). But these team constructions over-rely on LeBron, and continuously fall apart without him. (so let's give credit: LeBron's the GOAT floor raiser).

But... when LeBron is on teams with enough talent that they shouldn't fall apart without him, even when on paper they seem like they should compare to at least the worse Bulls-Dynasty years, they struggle to stack up. Jordan, on the other hand, has as successful (or more successful) on-minutes, while playing for teams that have the pieces to not fall apart as much without Jordan. This gives him a lower unadjusted on-off, but... ironically the worse on/off means better overall team performance (since the only change is less bad off-minutes)

So, credit to LeBron for his floor raising, when he takes teams that would otherwise fall apart to near similar heights (provided perfect fit). But... can we not also credit Jordan for his ceiling raising, being able to raise teams to GOAT heights, all while not needing the team to be so built around him that they fall apart in his off minutes?

I'm not dead-set on this argument at all. I just think it's fascinating that you can actually make the classical argument -- LeBron's the better floor raiser while Jordan's the better ceiling raiser -- just using this new on/off data.

There are always fairly [i]esoteric[/i] reasonings for why is lebron fault his teams were weaker when he sits that jordan ones when jordan sits

And the simple occam razor one that would be used for any other comparision like this, that jordan teams were better (if only at playing without a goat level player) is never even considered

When jokic and giannis had similar-ish "ON" but the nuggets were a worse without joker than bucks without giannis, did -anyone- argue giannis is more impressive cause bucks were better without him that nuggest without jokic? Of course they didnt

Some people say that playing with lebron makes players forget how to play basketball without him. Others argue jordan leadership magically makes his teams play better with mike on the bench cause.......honestly i dont know? It somehow never can be he had great teammates, is even jordan credit what they do without him

The whole reasoning is always like a logic pretzel. Cause we all know that if it was the other way around

That if lebron has the smaller lift but his teams are better without him that jordan teams without jordan the argument would be essentially shut down and the question of lebron vs jordan would be declared a case closed... in jordan favor

Seriously, if jordan had the bigger lift but lebron teams were better without him than jordan teams without mike: do we think there would be even a debate that maybe lebron numbers are more "ceiling raising"?

Or would it be seen as undeniable proof jordan is better and lebron just had more stacked teams?

Exactly.

[falcolombardi]

Is it tho?

feel like if you keep having to go to "well it doens't preclude player x from being y", then player x probably isn't y.

At this point using ben's own data, (someone whose criteria is allegedly "impact on winning")
-> Jordan isn't close to having the #1 on/off with multiple peaks he ranks below doing as well or better
-> In the aupm/bpm average thing he provides 5 seasons in lebron's 9 year prime would boost the average of mj's 3 best seasons
-> if we take out regression-stuff so we don't have colineraity issues(which ben himself does in backpicks), hakeem, kg, kareem, and duncan all look better in the regular season and lebron is out winning 66 and 61 games with a team that goes 5-25 without him while adding peak jordan (by ben's own estimation) to a 27 win team gets you 48.

Seems like Ben's just drinking copium here tbh.

Essentially i think ben defaults to jordan because in a theorical level he believes off-ball offense > on-ball offense to win rings and he believes jordan is better at the former and that makes him better at meshing with other talent

Which is fine, but at some point i think you have to ask yourself. If all actual impact metrics i use point to lebron slightly ahead of jordan

including the thinghs like higher offensive ratings or higher "ON" ratings that jordan should distance himself with according to the reasoning

Then maybe defaulting to jordan based on theory when the data clearly and sonewhat consistenly tilts (if only by a bit) lebron way is somehow...lazy? For lack of a better word

I dont even say this to say jordan doesnr have a fantastic goat peak case himself, he does. Is just that based on ben data heavy approach maybe is kind of lazy to just go "jordan better cause ceiling raising/offball" and leave it at that?

Do you know what it feels reminiscent of for me? The larry bird vs magic johnson offense comparisions where a lot of people (maybe ben too? I domt remember) argue magic is the better floor raiser but bird the better ceiling raiser who meshes better with better talent thanks to his less ball dominant profile

Sound theory, at least until you remember both played in talented offensive rosters and bird didnt have the best offenses among the two, it was also magic

And the same thinfg happens in offense only comparisions between curry and lebron. Lebron + kyrie reached higher offensive ratings that curry + durant but he is obviously not the ceiling raiser curry is cause he is too ball doninant

so he could never do somethingh like play in a team with other offense stars (like lets say, love and kyrie, totally at random) and elevate it to the goat playoffs offense stretch. Except he actually did that but is still diminished as a weaker ceiling raiser that cannot do stuff he literally has done

It almost feel at times as ignorig results when they dont fit theory

I will continue to remind you that the Cavs had more offensive talent than the warriors did. The Warriors had more defensive talent. So using offensive ratings to compare the two to determine ceilings is foolhardy. Having 2 players you don't have to guard but at the rim vs having everyone being able to shoot 3s, one has a much higher offensive ceiling than the other.

The warriors with -checks notes- kevin durant and klay thompson? Were not even aa good as love and kyrie? I am not talking 2015 rosters here

Also the shooting argument.

Cavs also played a non shooter in tristan thompson in their lineups