yeah I remember when they lost to the suns and people were killing the danny green/schroder deal, i disagreed with that. With Bubble Rondo gone, they needed some secondary playmaking and someone that can actually dribble the ball as LeBron was getting older (he just overdid it with Russ)...Bubble Rondo was very good in the 2020 run but he wasn't coming back, they needed to replace him and then some. Green also was getting old anyway. Caruso/KCP is enough defense first guys.

Their other move that offseason was getting Harrell cheap, I dunno, he went from 6th man scoring machine to useless and unplayable pretty fast. That seemed like a decent deal at the time too.

Can't even remember their other moves that offseason, getting rid of Dwight I guess. But nothing major.


Trading KCP and Kuzma + a 1st for Russ then letting go of Caruso/Schroder while paying THT, now thats a bad offseason.

Lebron's influence on and approach to team-building has had problems, but it's really difficult to measure the impact, because we can't separate his impact from the decisions that were made and GM in general is just a high-variance role that takes far more time for things to even out. Also, when we evaluate how good Lebron has been as a player, we need to reverse how we think about his impact here. The worse we think the Lebron was at LeGM'ing, the better we must conclude Lebron was as a player and vice-versa. My general assessment is that his meddling lowered the variance and ensured that he had at least viable squads often enough, but also lowered the ceiling and made it difficult for truly dynasty-type teams to emerge. With that said, a generational coach is practically a requirement for dynasty-type outcomes and I don't think he's ever had that.

Atlanta Hawks with the same starters and playing 70+ games each year - Horford, Millsap, Korver, Teague and Carroll:


2014 Hawks............. 38 wins
2015 Hawks............. 60 wins
2016 Hawks............. 45 wins


Why should I be impressed with 2015?.. It was clearly a one-off and there's a million reasons for a one-off.. In the case of the 94' Bulls, they were happy to sneak up on everyone and face opponents that no longer circled their calendar or planned what to tell grandkids - it was a big letdown playing the 94' Bulls.

See you guys can't fathom it because Lebron isn't this great - it wouldn't be that much of a letdown, whereas facing MJ was like facing Babe Ruth, Ali, or 'god in basketball shoes'.

Lebron is almost never "scary" or god-like on the court.. I remember he had one game in 2012 against the fossil Celtics where everyone jumped up and down but MJ had many games like that and reached that "unstoppable" caliber at some point in EVERY game.. That steely stare was the determination that opponents faced EVERY night from MJ.. Lebron only had that stare out of narcissistic legacy-save, while MJ was truly competitive - the genuine article that did things the hard way.
.

He was in 88' and 89', but players develop alongside an assist target like MJ, so Pippen got better... This contrasts with Lebron's ball-dominance and zero young teammates growing from low producer to meaningful producer on his watch (zero young player development in 2 decades)

It's kind of hard to develop guys when your skillset turns guys into spot-up shooter because you lack expert jumpshooting skill and great instinct to play off teammates (off-ball).

The Bulls cratered in 1999 after MJ left but no one mentions it because the Bulls didn't just lose MJ - they lost Pippen and Rodman too.

Similarly, the 2011 Cavs didn't just lose Lebron - they lost their entire starting five and 8 years of chemistry development - the 8-year organic juggernaut was blown up - the team lost Zydrunas, Varejao, Mo, Shaq and Delonte, which was 52 ppg and many years of chemistry development.

So there's no need to keep repeating the lie that you've been told about teams cratering without Lebron - they don't - his teams crater the whole team is blown up after he team-hops and bounces.. Team-hoppers gut teams and that's what happened to the 2011 Cavs... Meanwhile, the 15' Heat were injured but nearly made the 16' ECF, and of course Love was injured in 2019, so that explains the Cavs' drop-off.. Again, stop believing the lies you see on cable.. It's unbelievable that people fall for this stuff.

.
Lebron had more help:

But did much less in far more seasons:

Lebron mostly lost with 2 stars from 2011-2017

MJ mostly won with 1 star from 1991-1998

When Lebron had "normal" casts like Jordan with 1 franchise player, 1 all-star teammate and good defenses, he got destroyed from 2005-2010 and 2019-2024 -

even the bubble ring doesn't count because Lebron was 2nd option and AD is a franchise player, which makes 2 franchise players on 1 team - that isn't normal.




Pippen was nothing compared to all-time dominators like Kareem, McHale, Wade or AD - Pippen compares much better to the 3rd options like Worthy, Bosh or Parish and actually doesn't compare at all to elite franchise players like Kareem or Wade.

Show me where Pippen went to the Finals and outplayed MVP Barkley like Kyrie did to Curry, or like AD did to Jokic, or like Wade outplayed Dirk?..

Pippen was never expected to compete on the same level as the top players - Pippen would be compared to a guy like KJ, Nance or Schrempf - not even Stockton, Payton or Penny... he was often UNFAVORABLY compared to Grant Hill... And of course he was never compared to guys that led teams to the Finals like Hakeem, MJ, Ewing, Barkley, Malone, Drexler, Shaq or Robinson (the best players in the 90's).




Pippen cost MJ 3 rings from 88-90', while also having worst-ever efficiency on the 93' run (15 on 33% vs Dominique and 46 TS in the Finals), and 17.6 on 41% for the 96-98' Playoffs (that included worst-ever shooting splits in 96' and 98')...

So he only had 2 viable runs in 91' and 92', except he nearly caused massive upset loss by getting dominated by X-Man in the famous 7-game series in 92', so he really only had 1 viable run (91') - he wet the bed on every other run.. This includes his post-Bulls career if we want to look at the 99' Playoffs (18 on 32%) or his 6th option role in Portland where he achieved more historic choking embarassments.

So the Bulls didn't have a good cast, but MJ carrying the cast to a gaudy ring count makes it look good to new fans - the stats back up what I'm saying, not what you're saying - you only have superlatives and media propaganda, while I have the statistical record of Jordan's carry-jobs.




it's a statistical fact that Jordan went 1 on 5 offensively for his 2nd three-peat - Rodman wasn't allowed to shoot, while Pippen averaged 17.6 on 41% for the 96-98' Playoffs - this was among the least offensive help in the league - nearly every team had more and better scoring options..

Btw, as an example of the Bulls crappy help, the Knicks had 5 players that were equal or better than Horace Grant, such as all-time floor general Mark Jackson, X-Man, Oakley, Mason, and Charles Smith.. And they still had Ewing, while Starks averaged 20/5/5 and all-defense.. They were far superior top to bottom, while teams like the Blazers, Suns and Sonics also show decorated players top to bottom - only the Bulls had 2 viable players and complete robots/role players thereafter - only the bulls had a weak roster like this.

Aaron Gordon and Pope are literally rejects from other teams, while Porter has always been a disappointment and Murray has never made an all-star team

To call these guys an "incredible cast" is absurd... Wade, Bosh and Allen is an incredible cast, while the Nuggets' cast is a "normal" cast of 1 franchise player and a secondary-producing sidekick, and also role players whose marginal stats have impact due to the great chemistry development of the team.. Lebron cannot have a great team with "normal" casts because his skillset cannot generate the required chemistry (he imposes spot-up roles, aka reduces teammate assists and increases their assisted rate/play-finishing)

Ultimately, we see that players with low hold-time like Jokic and expert jumpshooters (MJ, Curry) can win with "normal" casts because their skillset allows great ball movement and the required chemistry to win with these "normal" casts.. Lebron's inability to develop great chemistry and subsequent need for "more help" (talent) is a skill deficit, namely his lack of expert jumpshooting skill or great instinct to play off teammates (off-ball).

This is, of course, as usual complete nonsense. The Cavs got significantly better outside of Lebron. Aside from Lebron, their #2-#5 in minutes during the 09-10 season were Mo Williams, Anthony Parker, Anderson Varejao and JJ Hickson. All of these players were back in 10-11. The Cavs were outscored by 9.8/100 when these 4 players played together. Sure Mo Wiliams was traded and Varejao got hurt, but the Cavs weren't any better before that. Their best player was probably Ramon Sessions who wasn't on the 09-10 team. Their second best player was probably Jamison who played much more in 10-11 than in 09-10 on the Cavs.

Sure, Big Z, Shaq and West were no longer on the team, but this was because they weren't good enough - these 3 players literally combined just 4 more seasons in the NBA.

Again, we got to see how these players' careers turned out. It wasn't completely crazy to hold on this idea that Lebron was surrounded by limited, but capable role players during 09-10. It's insane to hold on to that belief now that we've seen how their careers turned out without Lebron:

There's nothing to be impressed about a 34-31 record in 95' after being the goat dynasty with MJ.

The 55 wins was clearly a one-off, while the 95' and 96' Bulls had a lottery trajectory without MJ - this is the historical record..

So there's just nothing to be impressed about and I was there - I was watching those games and following the NBA - no one was particularly impressed because everyone knew they were kind of flying by the seat of their pants and under the radar - reality hadn't set in yet and everyone knew it would.. And when it did, they were 34-31 and that was after being thoroughly embarrassed in the previous playoffs.

It's quite likely that MJ's return in 95' allowed the Bulls to hang on to their low seed... Regardless, where would the mighty tandem of Pippen and Kukoc be in 96' after another early playoff loss in 95 and continued downward trajectory?... They would be just a nothing team heading nowhere and most likely lottery, whereas they were the goat team with MJ... Similarly, the Bulls would never have developed into anything if MJ was never there in the 80's - where would 89' Pippen take the team without MJ?... Nowhere - no titles - no 3-peat so they could have a one-off 55 wins

I'm not sure what you mean here, but the general data-driven consensus is that Lebron had the highest peak. As long as we focus on the actual impact, MJ's case against Lebron requires making a lot of assumptions in MJ's favor. Lebron has easily the best impact-stat (RAPM) in the play-by-play era and MJ doesn't look like a strong outlier relative to his peers when try to tease out MJ's impact (since he played the majority of his career during a period when play-by-play stats weren't available) using methods available.

Looking at individual seasons, Lebron has more impressive regular seasons (08-09 and 09-10, again in terms of impact) as well as more impressive playoff runs (16, 15) in terms of success relative to teammates and competition. MJ has been better at putting up box stats that correlate with RAPM I guess? Keep in mind, while MJ has the higher BPM, BPM is designed to approximate 5-year RAPM. And Lebron has the best 5-year stretch in the sample and the second best 5-year stretch:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/bpm2.html

So this whole MJ has the higher BPM 2.0 than Lebron is a bit misleading because Lebron is the outright leader in RAPM which BPM is designed to approximate and there's not a ton of circumstantial evidence (by looking at how the Bulls did without MJ) that leads us to think MJ had the type of impact that Lebron demonstrated.

I think this is the best summary of available statistics for Lebron vs MJ in terms of peak seasons:

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/vie...866#p100019866

This is just utter nonsense lol. "We don't have RAPM for both, we do have BPM for both which is designed to predict RAPM, and it predicts Jordan's would be better, but that's misleading because Lebron has the highest RAPM (which we don't have for both)"

Hahah this is your evidence for the bulls being a lottery team if Jordan doesn't come back? Great stuff.

So now what the Hawks did (kinda of they snuck in the playoffs at 38 wins) and what Pippen did as a year 2 player is magically relevant in his 8th year in his prime. Fascinating.

This is ALMOST as good as pretending 20 win garbage wasn't in fact 20 win garbage.

I don't care if youre impressed by the 94 Bulls.I'm not pretending they're the 98 Bulls. But they're leaps and bounds better than the Lebronless Cavs. You can roll around your bed in a Cavaliers Antoine Jamison jersey and Mo Williams shorts if you want. That doesn't change the facts.


Wow a steely stare! Why didn't LeBron think of that!

And no Jordan wasn't unstoppable at times every game. That's just a clown thing to say.

Good point though the guy who is 39 years old and still playing a high level with a great work ethic isn't competitive at all.


LeBron has been scary good since basically the day he came into the league. Whether or not Jordan is better doesn't change that.

I mean don't get me wrong, BPM (and the box score in general) is pretty trashy. But for whatever it's worth, it sides with MJ. The fact that Lebron has the best 5-year RAPM (something I agree is a very good metric) in pbp era doesn't mean squat. He absolutely should have, it's a requirement of being in this conversation, it isn't remotely surprising.

Just to get this out of the way, Jokic is awesome and has an argument for the highest offensive peak in history. However, there are a few problems with his GOAT case, especially now that the bar is set so high (Lebron).

Playing time

Between the ages of 20 and 28, Jokic played 21078 minutes. Lebron played 27252 minutes at the same age. That's an enormous gap. While there are some metrics that show Jokic to be near the very top in efficiency, it's important to understand that Jokic is putting up otherworldly efficiency in far fewer minutes than Lebron did.

Efficiency

For modern players that played their entire careers during the databall era where play-by-play data is available, RAPM is probably the best way to judge their efficiency. Keep in mind that this is per-possession and needs to be weighted by playing time in case there's significant disparity (i.e. Jokic, Curry, Ginobili). Keep in mind this is based on on/off, accounting for all players on the court and literally what BPM is designed to predict.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussi...hes_influence/

Jokic is far enough behind that there's realistically no way for him at this age to catch up. Now, without age and coach adjustment, Jokic does take the top place:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussi...udes_playoffs/

But that's still not anywhere near enough to overcome the disparity in playing time. This is also comparing mostly prime Jokic against mostly out-of-prime Lebron. Even just looking at this, it's certain that Peak Lebron > Peak Jokic even on a per-possesion basis and this isn't close once you account for playing time (per year). Lebron's best seasons are also likely penalized here - his impact during 08-09 and 09-10 seasons was so statistically improbable that Lebron likely didn't get the full credit.

Longevity

While we don't know how Jokic will age, it's extremely unlikely that Jokic will make up ground towards the end of his career given that Lebron is still playing like a top-10 player at age 39.

Playoffs

We can think about this either from a qualitative perspective or a quantatitve perspective. Jokic has very clear defensive weaknesses and by virtue of being a center, limits his team's small ball options. This can get exposed in certain match-ups. Again, this is true of most top players, but Lebron is just an impossible comparison because prime Lebron single-handedly plugged his team's holes on both ends against any matchup.

Does that also show up in the data?

Nuggets NRtg with Jokic On/Off

2019 Playoffs
Jokic On: +7.0
Jokic Off: -16.7
Overall record: 7-7
Series record: 1-1

2020 Playoffs
Jokic On: -3.5
Jokic Off: -0.5
Overall record: 9-10
Series record 2-1

2021 Playoffs
Jokic On: -8.4
Jokic Off: -0.2
Overall record: 4-6
Series record 1-1

2022 Playoffs
Jokic On: -14.4
Jokic Off: +2.1
Overall record: 1-4
Series record 0-1

2023 Playoffs
Jokic On: +9.0
Jokic Off: +6.9
Overall record: 16-4
Series record 4-0

I wouldn't put too much stock in the Off #s since that's a small sample size, but it is somewhat damning that the Nuggets were outscored with Jokic 3 out of 5 playoff series (age 23-27). How does this compare with early career Lebron?

2006 Playoffs
Lebron On: -4.8
Lebron Off: +16.3
Overall Record: 7-6
Series Record: 1-1

2007 Playoffs
Lebron On: +4.9
Lebron Off: -19.3
Overall Record: 12-8
Series Record: 3-1

2008 Playoffs
Lebron On: +5.6
Lebron Off: -19.0
Overall Record: 7-6
Series Record: 1-1

2009 Playoffs
Lebron On: +11.6
Lebron Off: +3.2
Overall Record: 10-4
Series Record: 2-1

2010 Playoffs
Lebron On: +4.6
Lebron Off: -18.6
Overall Record: 6-5
Series Record: 1-1

2011 Playoffs
Lebron On: +1.6
Lebron Off: +16.2
Overall Record: 14-7
Series Record: 3-1

2012 Playoffs
Lebron On: +10.9
Lebron Off: -13.4
Overall Record: 16-7
Series Record: 4-0

Up to the same point (in terms of age), Lebron had 7 playoff runs and his team outscored with him on the court just once (his age 21 season). Had 15 playoff series wins to just 8 for Jokic.

So adding this all up, I think Jokic has practically no GOAT equity at this point, though he could certainly get to a point where he has a reasonable argument against everyone except Lebron, especially since the error bars for older players are a bit higher. But we literally have play-by-play data for each of Lebron's and Jokic's years.

Btw, it certainly seems possible that Jokic at his best might been a better overall basketball player than Lebron at his best has been on an absolute basis. But I don't think that's a particularly reasonable basis for GOAT.

To be clear, BPM 1.0 sides with Lebron, BPM 2.0 sides with MJ. Lebron's peak BPM seasons as well as MJ seasons that were in the play-by-play era were already in the data set for BPM 1.0, so most of the change between the 2 versions is due to extrapolation from modern data that don't have either MJ's or Lebron's peak seasons.

This is simply incorrect - there's a reasonably strong chance that MJ does not have the top 5-year stretch in his own era, based on circumstantial evidence. If I had to guess, Magic, D-Rob and MJ would be the top 3 (in no particular order) and I would probably take the field against any one player. Also, these are preset spans of 5 years for all players, which happens to cut Lebron's absolute peak in two separate spans (07-11, 12-16), yet these they were #1 and #2. It seems extremely unlikely that in a similar exercise, MJ would have the top-2 5-year spans. The correlation between box stats and impact stats isn't strong enough for us to have that much confidence in MJ's impact.

What's also remarkable (I understand this is super wonky stuff that most of you that don't care about how RAPM is arrived at won't necessarily understand) is I that Lebron generally comes up #1 even without box office priors.

Also some of MJ's seasons did end up in the play-by-play era (4 to be exact), so we can statistically extrapolate (which is how BPM works) how good MJ must have been age-adjusted based on that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussi...hes_influence/

Yeah, so there's that.

Again, the point here is that Lebron's case is extremely robust and doesn't rely on box stats - he does well whether you talk about the playoffs or the regular season, box stats or impact stats and peak or longevity. MJ's case is extremely fragile and relies on putting our trust in box score stats, when we literally know for sure that they aren't that accurate. We also know that MJ cared a lot about box score stats and he's known to wield his influence to ensure that his team play in a way that ensure he puts up good stats.

So which players got better under lebron ?

Is this part of the standard criteria you can use to evaluate and compare players across eras or some bullshit twog made up that you're dumb enough to swallow and regurgitate?

I mean, should we give extra credit to Shaq for developing Kobe and to Kareem for developing Magic? Or for that matter Worthy for developing MJ? Do we take this into account for any sports? Any other basketball players? Or is this transparently reverse-engineered from the realization that the Bulls were pretty good without MJ and Pippen was an excellent player, as to give MJ credit for Pippen and the Bulls being pretty good, all while of course denying that Pippen was a great player (but if it was, somehow that was all due to MJ).

There's literally zero evidence that players have significant influence on other players' development, and even if they did, there's no real way to measure the impact and even if there was, we don't know that MJ would come out ahead of Lebron under this hypothetical measurement.

Bold is just ridiculous (unless you're using a super loose defintion of 'reasonable chance' I guess). Literally only you thinks this. Honestly you're as bad as fallguy.

If by some chance we get full PBP stuff back to the 80s and you are correct, MJ is only like 3rd or something, then he absolutely falls out of GOAT conversation himself (assuming we trust RAPM, which personally I do)

For anyone reasonable, MJ is clearly the best player in his era and Lebron is clearly the best in his, and comparing is where the difficulty lies. But they need to be the clear best players of their era for this to even be a convo.

I don't even know what that last link is meant to say but just going to go ahead and ignore anything that based on extrapolating backwards from old age seasons after a three year retirement. Grats to Lebron on being the GOAT 39yo if that's your sorta thing I guess

Really , well I guarantee you , if not being a ****** , anyone learning, participating /practising with the goat in any field will make u better , and usually at much rapid rate then anything else …
Especially when you already a gifted professional player .


For the bolded part , We actually do And its called how team perform and how those players perform better and worst in what situation .
It isn’t a surprise LeBron team or players can’t do much good afterwards.
even when they join LeBron all their numbers take a deep dive .
And lebron can’t respect any system because the team play the LeBron system so when he leaves what’s left ?

When mj left , the triangle stayed in place and anyone had their role very define for years and still could play the same way without too much trouble and they all peaked that year at the same time (pippen,Armstrong, Grant) enabling to score a little more to compensate MJ absence .
But they weren’t anymore of a championship squad tho but could still played and they had a great work ethic thx to mj .

It’s funny I hear many time mj benefited to have perfectly fit players to him and yet people seem do not believe team chemistry can be a great quality in winning teams even tho mj wouldn’t be there anymore .
Like that great chemistry would disappear with mj ….

Nonsense... Curry, Kobe and Duncan won more rings, better Finals records, and won more despite having "normal" casts of 1 franchise player as opposed to 3 franchise players (super-team) that Lebron had.

No one in history lost so many times with high-producing teammates - he lost with Wade getting 27 ppg in the 2011 Finals, or Kyrie getting 29 ppg in the 17' Finals, or AD getting nearly 30 ppg in various series or seasons.

Brand of ball, chemistry, and teammate development MATTERS, along with how a skillset impact strategic capacity/coaching - these things matter because they dictate winning more than the roster talent - Lebron is simply had at all of it, so he's the biggest loser in NBA history based on Finals record or bad losses (sweep losses, upset losses, record losses, locked up in losses, losses with multiple all-star teammates, losses with preseason favorites, losses with 1 or2 seeds) .. No one was a bigger turnover machine, bricklayer in the clutch, ball-dominator, or needier skillset than Lebron James.

Nah it s more about not being blinded by hate …..
It’s not because u dislike someone it means his actually 100% wrong .

I think fallguy has some relevant points .
Doesn’t mean I agree 100% with him .

Are you projecting again?

I guarantee you no one ITT hates anything or anyone as much as TWOG hates LeBron James. It's psychotic and cultish. No one else cares that much.

EVIDENCE


1) There's a massive historical trend - there's a long list of bad fits for Lebron and teammates playing below capacity, along with zero young player development, while there's a massive trend of great fits for Jordan and frequent young player development... These clear-cut opposite trends are evidence that these 2 guys have opposite impacts on teammates.

2) Lebron lowers teammates' assists and increases their play-finishing rate (assisted rate) - since he turns guys into spot-up shooter, zero young players grew from low producer to meaningful producer on his watch (zero young player development in 2 decades), while literally everyone developed alongside MJ's off-ball game, or Curry's or Bird's or Kobe's... Jumpshooters fit with everyone - this is bball 101

I hate that the most beatable player in NBA history is advertised as the goat.. And each successive loss is ignored like it never happened.. He mostly loses with every cast and never had a stretch of mostly winning with any cast.. This can be explained by his worst-ever brand of ball (big man ball-dominance) that imposes spot-up roles - these spot-up roles prevent good fits and strategic capacity/coaching, thereby producing weak RS records and lottery records the championship level regardless of cast.

Lebron has taught us that weak chemistry will mostly lose with ANY cast.