Honestly that 2011 Mavs team seems super underrated. 57-25 in a really tough western conference, a team of smart veterans and great shooters, and they all shot terrific from 3 in the playoffs.

Yeah there's really no shame in losing to Dirk plus throw in the factor that LeBron/Wade/Bosh was not exactly a synergistic fit.

lol at above two posts

Even most people in this thread acknowledge that embarrassment of a series from Bron. A black mark that Jordan doesn't even have anything close too. Even a so-so performance from Bron and they easily win that series.

It's just whether you think he's done enough since to make up for it.

Correct, ran through defending champ Lakers easily and next year’s finalists the Thunder en route to the Finals as well. Team is denigrated to fit the narrative that it was the worst loss in Finals history when it’s not even in the top 5.


Bulls bigger favorites against the Magic in ‘95 than Heat were vs Mavs in ‘11. Don’t let the general public and media’s “hindsight” fool you.

Were they substantially better players or did they look better without a certain someone taking all the shots? Is the main take here that the Bulls did well in 93-94 because Pippen and Grant, who were already 27 the prior season improved substantially? Also both of them played quite a bit less in 93-94 vs 92-93.

They lost some players and added some players. As did the Cavs. It's also interesting how these excellent role players only become extremely important during the one season MJ missed, while their contributions are largely ignored during their title runs.

I think you're generally missing the point here - the point is not just about the difference, but how it allows us to evaluate their supporting cast. We saw how Lebron's 09-10 supporting cast performed in 10-11 (and beyond) in circumstances not including Lebron. Basically they weren't good. And we also got to see how their careers unfolded after the season. Well that tells the exact same story. We saw how MJ's supporting cast from both three-peats performed in 93-94. They were really really good.

Wow, I though this was pretty obvious but I guess this is too hard for the scientist (and totally not a research coordinator) in the thread. Also, it's interesting that you started this conversation by mocking the use of point differential, and now you seem to be saying that I should be using point differential or net rating everywhere. But I guess that's just how you roll.

Also, I know you're not particularly perceptive, but you don't seem to realize that when I say the Bulls outscored, but lost to the Knicks in 7 games, I'm mentioning both the record and the point differential. So your basic premise is flawed.

Anyway, speaking of learning experience, I still can't get over how you talk about statistics all the time in this thread, even bringing your "scientist" cred (and totally not research coordinator) here and don't understand this. But it's simple - let's say an NBA season was 10,000 games long. Would we still look at the net rating? Probably not. Why is that? Because that's a large enough sample size where we can trust the record as is. And the discrepancy between two is probably attributable more to some teams' tendency to do worse in crunch time or having better garbage-time lineups rather than luck. What about if we have a 3-game series? Does a 2-1 record over 3 games mean a lot? Not really. So would you look at the net rating or point differential? Sure, it's not conclusive, but by virtue of it being more granular, it's a larger sample size. Without boring everyone with notions like stabilization and things like that, it should be self-evident. Which brings me to:

Now this is a truly disingenuous take. The Bulls went 55-27 with a net rating of +3.3. That's roughly equivalent to the Nuggets this year, who went 53-29 with a net rating of 3.4. Now, the Nuggets won the #1 seed and made past the second round, so if you think that's unfair, I think the Bucks last season, who went 51-31 with a +3.3 net rating and lost in the 2nd round to the eventual finalists fit the bill, though they had a worse record.

In fact the difference between the Bucks in 20-21 and the Bucks in 21-22 is probably the closest comp in general to the difference between the Bulls in 92-93 and 93-94. The Bucks went from winning the title (against the Suns in 6 games, as did the Bulls) to bouncing out in the 2nd round in 7 games against the Finalists.

Hasn't this already been completely debunked?



https://priceofdata.wordpress.com/ma...-june-22-2012/

Oh yeah, I forgot, you're the same guy that thought Kyrie outplayed Curry in the 2016 Finals despite being a Warriors/Curry fanboy because you literally can't see past the stats and have no idea how to account for schemes and how to consider the overall impact instead of just being involved scoring plays directly.

It's important to understand that Miami Heat played almost as well on offense as you'd expect - their regular season ORtg was 111.7 and the Mavs regular season DRtg was 105. The Heat had an ORtg of 107.9, which is pretty close to average. So the Mavs' overall defensive scheme (which was centered entirely around messing with Lebron and not super-concerned around everyone else) worked, but didn't have huge success exactly because Lebron recognized what was going on and made the right decision. Now, players like MJ and Kobe would have almost certainly put up more points in these types of situations, but also almost certainly hurt the team while doing so. Lebron gave the team a chance to win with his play and decisions, regardless of how this may appear to people who don't understand the schemes. Where they lost the series was on the other end - the Mavs were much better offensively in the series than they were in the regular season, against a top defensive team in Miami. That's pretty tough to pin on Lebron - I think it's a combination of personnel issue (poor guard/wing depth on the defensive end against lots of shooters for the time) and possibly the Mavs getting hot at the right time.

Obviously you'd say that. Maybe it's the same job with a slightly different title? Does your actual job title have "scientist" in it? Maybe "scientist assistant?"

Yes, you keep bringing it up! Sure, I also brought it up, but it takes two to tango and I'm not the one complaining. Given that you literally talked about your job initially specifically to attack me, I feel it's a perfectly fair part of the discourse now. Though maybe not, because you implicitly conceded that argument. Remember when you were trying to say that I made up the whole TS Add thing? This is how it started:

And how it ended:

lol. Now LeBron wasn't terrible in that series. Excellent work guys. Posting a Mark Cuban video might just top this thread. Didn't watch obviously. But isn't every superstar ever schemed against in playoff series? They're superstars because it doesn't matter what the opposition does, they're still good. LeBron has performed perfectly well in almost every series since and being schemed against wasn't a problem. That series was a failure. Obviously any other take is terrible. Hence it being a take by Candybar is standard.

And yes, Kyrie was better in that series than Steph, particularly in the last 3 games.

Aren't you the same bloke that thought the Warriors had no title equity after KD left?

I have no memory of that actually series. At the time I was a LeBron hater though so I loved his failure. I'm just saying that Mavs team was actually very good, and.not some team that was just there to get stomped.

Never said they weren't any good fwiw.

Sure, but a lot of superstars would do worse in these situations from the team's perspective, even if they put up better stats by taking up more possessions. Which I already addressed:

Also this is why having a great offensive system is helpful - they help generate better looks for the team even when the other team sells out to stop the team's star, which both lessens the degree to which this happens and lessens the effectiveness when it does.

Lebron's offensive impact overall was definitely at a superstar-level, even if much of the impact was simply forcing the Mavs to play a type of defense that basically allowed other players to score more efficiently.

Part of this is that Lebron went from being slightly more versatile than MJ to being possible the most versatile offensive player ever. It's a bit fair to compare anyone to this later version of Lebron, in terms of being impossible to stop.

This is why you're a joke.

Nope, I said, effectively, they weren't looking too hot for the 20-21 season and disputed that they were a 55-win type of team, which I was completely right about. I literally did not make any predictions about their 21-22 season and obviously I'm not the type to make any concrete multi-year predictions.

But, you know... 1.5ppg in the last quarter on 2/12 shooting after game 1 is terrible no matter how you look at it.

We talked before the 2021 season. Before Klay's injury.

But then when Klay came back and they won 53 games and a Championship the following year your commentary is all null and void? Even though they are all a year older, and Klay having two significant injuries instead of one. Excellent work CB.

It's not the same team? I know you're all kinds of confused, but this is, literally in your words, what you thought we were arguing:

You were pretty clear that you didn't think they were winning a championship.

And they didn't win a championship. Also, I'm pretty sure that I talked about them not being a top-tier contender, rather than them not being a contender at all. I don't know how much more I could've been right than I actually was, in retrospect.

I wrote this about the Warriors going into the 20-21 season:

Keep in mind, this was really about the 20-21 season and I was arguing against the likes of:

It's pretty clear to me which side was right but it's also not surprising which side fidstar decided to argue against.

Please ….
Props LeBron reaching the finals but man , look the opposition he had to face .
2 team that were .500 and another at 53 wins …
No wonder he got swept in final.
The point is he would never even pass the 1st round if he would have been in the west .

The only time jordan had scrub for the playoffs and didnt had the chance to do what LeBron did
(even tho mj was 40 ppg + vs 4-5 HoF , without mj having even 1 all stars in his s ….) , he faced all time great teams for years in Celtics and pistons and got swept twice .
What’s your point ?
The only difference , mj had killer teams in his conference .

Yes afterward , MJ stop having clowns as teammates because he install huge work ethics in practice and never played for another teams chasing rings!
And now people uses that against MJ for having a good team ?
Lol….

I thought we went over this already ?
LeBron better but MJ was basically almost equal when you looked how they fare compared to the competition they faced .
And again I believe MJ would have done better if he would had the chance to have an HoF with him …

The stats are so inflated today …and u get FT just by flopping .
Seriously i couldn’t imagine how much points mj would have if he played today ..
Obv. More then 30 ppg .

U got 6 players over 30 ppg in a season this year , never seen before I think beside one time in like 1962 with 5 players .
NBA real joke now .

https://syndication.bleacherreport.c...-year.amp.html

Is candybar saying kyrie wasnt better then steph when they won ?

I guess u describe perfectly the difference between a player that play into a system ( MJ not trying to do evrything ) to a player being the system (LeBron ) .

Who won the most ? Individually and team ?
Thx !

Yup odds is such a credible factor .
Look at Miami this year for example ….

Or lakers second favorite didn’t even made the playoffs in 2022
https://www.basketball-reference.com...ason_odds.html

Because Klay got injured. The following season they won it, once Klay came back.

You're allowed to be wrong.

It's okay.

It's not the end of the world.

So many posts in May 2021 from Candybar ripping in to me about thinking that the Warriors were a championship contender that year. He waited 5 minutes until after the season was completed to gloat.

Yet 12 months later with essentially the same roster Warriors win a Championship (but a healthy Klay).

But somehow he still thinks he was right.

This when we had the nut worst result with our number 2 draft pick.