The Cavs were actively tanking in 2011:

Shaq left.

Mo Williams was traded 1/3 way into the season.

Despite leading the Cavs in scoring, Antawn Jamison only started 38 (of 56) games before breaking his finger and being out the rest of the season.

No LeBron. No Shaq. No Mo. No Antawn.

"Only lost 1 guy though"

Jamison played 800 minutes of 0 BPM basketball in 2010, Shaq played 1240 minutes of -0.2 BPM basketball in 2010. Shaq was 8th in minutes and Jamison was 11th.

I’ll give you they lost about 1200 net minutes of Mo, but he went from a solid starter to below replacement level after LeBron left the team, and was never good again despite being in the prime of his career at age 28. He actually completely sucked in 2011.

the Cavs didnt start tanking until they the massive losing streak early in the year. they were 7-9 and were talking playoffs lol. then they lost like 36 of 37 or something. oh then they beat the Lakers and I started the lol lakers thread.

If you want to say all his teammates were terrible, that's fine I guess. But we can't say the Cavs "only lost 1 player" between the two seasons. They lost 4 of their 5 playoff starters for all (or a significant amount) of the next season.

JJ Hickson & Ramon Sessions led the Cavs, in minutes, in 2011.

We’re discussing regular season wins, not playoffs. Playoff starting lineups are irrelevant to regular season wins.

Technically they didn’t only lose one player if you are factoring in injuries, but the vast majority of their leading minutes getters returned. Sessions was the only major new guy and he was their best player.

More importantly, we can look at how the team did when those guys played. Williams and Jamison missed time, but it’s not like they were good. They were total ass. The Cavs were 10-47 when they traded Mo Williams, and he was also horrific that year. They got better after he got traded. He did miss some time but they were still an absolutely awful team when he played. Same goes for Jamison.

This isn’t really hard to figure out for yourself. With Williams on the court the Cavs had a net rating of +11.8 in 2009 and +6.1 in 2010. This went to -12.7 in 2011. Now do you think that’s because allstar Mo Williams suddenly declined at age 28 or maybe he was never very good to begin with and people only thought he was because he was playing with a basketball god?

At age 38, MJ hadn’t played competitive basketball for 3 and a half years.

And at the completion of MJ’s 2001-2002 season, he was 39. At the end of this season, LeBron is 38. LeBron is about 10 and a half months younger than Jordan was at the end of the 2001-02 season, so you may want to re-ask this question next year.

Careful with these statements of fact VanceAce. You may be accused of having a seething irrational hatred against LeBron if you don’t at least try to add some spin to it.

Not that this hasn’t been discussed and refuted 10 times already in this thread, but:

Pippen and Horace Grant took massive steps up on the offensive end to help replace Jordan.

The Bulls also added several solid starters and role players in Toni Kukoc, Steve Kerr, and Luc Longley.

And then they got bounced in the 2nd round of the playoffs. Remember how you guys like to say regular season doesn’t matter and players don’t even try until the playoffs when it helps your not at all biased LeSwept arguments?

So they went from one of the greatest teams ever assembled, to losing in the second round of the playoffs. Nah, ackshually a more fair summary of all this is that Jordan is only worth two wins above a replacement level player lol.

The fact that they were trying to tank with more or less the same team that Lebron won 60+ games with says a ton about Lebron. I mean, this is the best regular season peak ever relative to the league and it's not even close. The Cavs in 08-09 won 66 games with a net rating of 10 - that's near all-time territory as far as the regular season is concerned - and the team was complete garbage outside of Lebron.

Technical disputes about small roster changes aside, the actual 08-09 and 09-10 Cavs teams without Lebron were hardly better than the actual 10-11 Cavs team.

Do you have any thoughts on why the Cavs lost to the Celtics (a 50 win team) that year in the 2nd round of the playoffs?

Doesn't stop you from getting everything wrong.

You mean when the guy who takes all the shots isn't there any more, other players have more opportunities?

Several solid starters as in 3 players that combined for 25 starts?

In that series, the Bulls went 7 games against and outscored the eventual Finalists Knicks, who in turn went 7 games against and outscored the eventual Champions Rockets in the Finals. Whether you look at the regular season records or the playoff results, they were clearly good enough to contend. When you add an all-time great to a team that's already good enough to contend, you should have an all-time great team, except:

The Bulls weren't really an all-time great team in 92-93. They won 57 games (3rd best in the league) with a net rating of +6.8 (2nd best) and won the Finals 4-2, but the series was basically tied in terms of total points.

I think this is because Lebron in the playoffs at the time was only a little bit better than MJ's peak playoff form, as opposed to during the regular season, where he was a ton better than MJ's peak regular season form. There's a reason why I say this was Lebron's regular season peak - he was likely already better in the playoffs than MJ ever was, but Lebron does get even better in the playoffs.

Candypantsland must be a glorious place, where all the children and nephews think you put forth intelligent arguments.


Yes, when the greatest player of all time (who led the team in question to two 3-peats) retires, those shots that he took now have to be taken by other people. Nothing gets by you candypants.

When those shots are efficient as well, we say that those players “stepped up” their game. It’s a common phrase amongst those who have actually played sports.

You left out the role player parts. I’m sure it was an accident. Hope you’re not super mad already, I was being pretty gentle.

Kukoc, Kerr, Longley were solid starters OR role players at various points in their careers, even if they didn’t start many games that year, fwiw.

Oh wow. If the series were decided by total points instead of wins and losses then, well, uh I guess the rules of basketball would be completely different. Maybe we can call it candypantsball?

Aside from the statistical problem of that being only one season (there is a term for this — “outlier”), the words you are using don’t seem to map to reality, which could potentially cause confusion.

When you say LeBron’s statistical outlier season was “a ton” better than MJ’s best season, why when I look at the numbers are they in reality super close and MJ actually superior once you adjust for minutes played?

I’m sure there is a mistake somewhere in the basketball statistics databases — have you submitted a candypants support request ticket so they properly adjust to your cherry �� picked stats?

Matt, I know you're not necessarily going to understand the point I'm about to make, but I still find it interesting that you think looking at point totals as a proxy for team quality (which is almost certainly more accurate than win/loss over a 7 game sample in terms of determining team quality) is something worth ridiculing, while you literally cannot divorce quality of play and impact of winning from box stats.

Obviously Lebron's regular season peak in 08-09 being substantially higher than MJ's regular season peak isn't about his personal stats being some kind of statistical outlier - it's about his total impact on winning being an outlier.

Just curious, Matt, did you get yelled at by your scientist bosses at work again?

I mean, they did play in the regular season too.

West & Ilgauskas were 6th & 7th in minutes during the regular season. They were both gone in 2011, as well.

6 of the top 11 minutes guys either left, got traded, or injured in 2011. Again, you can say they were all terrible if you want (Lebron has a history of having terrible, washed-up teammates), but the Cavs didn't just lose one player.

LeBron James finished Game 4 with 40 points, ten rebounds, nine assists and two steals. He shot 60 percent from the field (15-25) and 4-7 from the three-point line while playing the entire game.

Well, he did his part. What an incredible year at age 38. And the debate rages on!

do you think if the Cavs kept West and Big Z in 2011 that they would have won more games?

I was initially responding to Dodger who said the only thing that changed was that Lebron left. That simply is not true. Multiple other players left, or were traded, or were injured. Even the coach, Mike Brown (current Coach of the Year) was fired.

That isn't anything new though. Lebron teams tend to always have high turn over rates. Cleveland management rotated pieces around Lebron, basically every year (during his 1st tenure), to try to win a title:

Drew Gooden
Eric Snow
Larry Hughes
Ben Wallace
Mo Williams
Shaq
Antawn Jamison

*I know, I know ... these were all terrible, washed teammates*

This is a completely different situation to where the '94 Bulls were when Jordan left, though. The Bulls had just completed a 3-peat, were considered 1 of the greatest teams ever, kept 4 of 5 starters, kept the same coach, etc ... Pippen, Grant, Armstrong, & Cartwright all played significant minutes together dating back to 1990 and some even before. Turns out that team chemistry matters! Who knew!?

You really wanna compare that pile of trash you just listed with the Bulls without Jordan in 95?

Lol@ even mentioning 37 year old completely out of shape Shaq slogging around the court like he was anything useful.

The 95 bulls smoke any Cavs team team without LeBron his first time there.

As terrible a gm as LeBron has been when he tried to play gm later in his career,the Cavs front office proved to be totally inept for years and their owner is a clown.

It's actually amazing that Jordan had a better career than Lebron and even with that people stand can't be objective when comparing anything between the 2 of them.

It's actually possible for
1)38 year old lebron to be way better than 38 year old MJ
2) Jordans bulls teammates to be better than Lebrons first run Cavs teammates
3)Jordan to be better than Lebron overall.

40 / 8 / 8 games in playoffs: LeBron 14, Jordan 4 (tied with Doncic)
30+ point playoff games: LeBron 120, Jordan wins 109 (third is 90)

And then yeah, the finals appearances. So you can cherry pick these comparisons to death. Quality info on Facebook once again.

Your “age X” season in NBA stat keeping is consistent for everyone.

But nonetheless, ye can’t just say it. LeBron is better. Have to wheel out all the context. I’m sure there will be lots of context when he’s statistically better as part of a more impactful season next year too.

But that’s okay - context is everything. Lots of context behind LeBron’s finals record.

MJ BPM by age:

32: 10.5
33: 8.9
34: 6.9

3 years off

38: 3.1
39: 1.7

LBJ BPM by age:

32: 7.6
33: 8.7
34: 8.0
35: 8.4
36: 8.1
37: 7.7
38: 6.1

Truly a mystery what would have happened if MJ kept playing and didn’t take 3 years off. This is why MJ fans can’t be taken seriously at all and don’t argue in good faith. An argument can be made for Jordan’s peak > LeBron’s, an argument cannot be made Jordan aged better or was better from his mid 30s on. He literally didn’t play for years then was much worse when he did - compared with LeBron who still produced at first/second team all NBA level on a rate basis every year.

Can we drop MJ from the thread title now?