LeBron > Jordan GOAT Super AIDS Containment, solved #22999 post by Matt R. (addendum #23174)

What strong evidence do we have that peak MJ is clearly better than peak DRob? Or for that matter peak Hakeem? I think your response is very typical of MJ-stans - all you have are box stats, rings and general reputation, but you think you know the answer, despite murky reality.

Now almost every analytically minded person that thinks DRob may have had a higher peak than MJ still has MJ > DRob, but that's due to longevity and lower variance (MJ has a much longer track record of success, especially in the playoffs and that makes it easy to see that his style of play is consistent with winning; with DRob, we just don't know). Of course applying the same criteria here leads to MJ not even being close to Lebron. For example, we have a lot less evidence that MJ's style would've translated across eras or systems, from the standpoint of team success.

On the whole, reading those threads, while the MJ-stans over there are far better posters than the MJ-stans here, one common pattern we find is that MJ-stans simply don't apply consistent standards across player comparisons. For example, Kareem & Bill Russell's success is downplayed due to worse competition in the earlier days, while in their mind MJ takes no hit relative to modern players. Likewise, Lebron's longevity advantages are completely ignored, even though they themselves ascribe a ton of meaning to longevity when ranking other players.

A few things I learned while reading those threads:

1) I might have underrated Wilt - his impact on defense + offensive skills (which haven't always been consistently been applied) mean he might have had a ton of ring equity that didn't materialize due to subpar coaching and the existence of Bill Russell.

2) I might have been slightly overrating MJ and underrating Pippen. I think I had MJ #4 and thought there was some separation between him and players like KG/Duncan/Hakeem types. It doesn't look like impact metrics clearly separate MJ above those players and Pippen looks really good in impact metrics, which further bring into question MJ's own impact. If anything, there appears to be less uncertainty in KG/Duncan/Hakeem's impact than in MJ's.

3) I might have been slightly underrating Curry & Draymond. They compare well to Jordan/Pippen as a duo from an impact standpoint, which is pretty insane. Their impact doesn't translate quite as well to the playoffs (compared to MJ/Pippen or Lebron squads), but their regular season ceiling might have been higher. On the whole, Curry and MJ are both in the KG/Duncan/Hakeem tier from an impact metric perspective, though both have some "system" and "duo" entanglements that are not easy to tease out statistically.

4) I might have underrated Kareem's peak.

5) I feel somewhat validated in my belief that longevity helps validate the peak (given that stats can be very noisy). OhayoKD makes the same argument in more detail (in arguing for Kareem > MJ in terms of peak) that Kareem being so good so early and so good so late in his career hint at a higher peak. This overall post seems worth reading:

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtop...

Across all the threads, OhayoKD's posts seem very good (and largely echo my general observations with much more substance). He seems to be one of the few people that truly understand that box stats don't really prove anything and can mislead, especially in terms of defensive impact.

I might give you a run for your money (figuratively, not literally. There would be no running).

u know i was just messing with u a bit but if that is what u feel then clearly kawhi is the goat raptors yah ?

I do have clips ofc.

At the moment I have a 465 backsquat and 565 deadlift which are fairly decent for an amateur lifter.

Yeah no **** running. I'm too old for that and my back hurts lol.

Yeah who else would it be? DeMar DeRozan? Vince Carter who ran out of town?

Prime VC aka Air Canada just for the 2000 dunk contest.

yes, everybody knows when you measure GOAT's that dunk contest is the top criteria.

Interesting that the two GOAT raptor candidates are the most iconic dunker of his generation and probably the worst dunker of his generation (among good NBA players I guess) in Kyle Lowry.

Guys like Pippen, BJ and other cast members were nothing outside the triangle, so they would rank low in Ben Taylor's cast rankings if they played in Lebron or Luka-ball (who can't run the triangle), but do well in the cast rankings alongside MJ and the coddling triangle.

Accordingly, "impact stats" like Ben Taylor's misinterpret basketball by assuming that when a cast plays great, it's because the players are great instead of the chemistry or strategy being great as dictated by the #1 option's skillset.. Essentially, "impact stats" don't account for elevating teammates or brand of ball, aka getting the cast to play better via chemistry and brand of ball deflates a 1st option's "impact" stats.

In addition to using metrics that misinterpret basketball, Ben Taylor's numbers are useless because they don't account for competition - his numbers say that Lebron's losing teams performed better with him on the floor than Jordan's 3-peat teams but this is because Lebron's teams were beating the Raptors by record amount every year in a diluted East, while MJ was facing real teams and competitive series in an undiluted East (no "decisions" to dilute the competition)..

Ben also uses a 5-year stretch for Jordan that included the 89' and 90' seasons of 0 percentile casts (worst in the league), but only uses great casts for the 5-year stretches of Lebron, Shaq or Robinson.. Regardless, when Jordan won titles from 96-98', his teams were 16, 21 and 13 points better with him on the floor, which is probably better than the title years of Lebron, Shaq or Robinson, but Taylor doesn't reveal those numbers - he only uses his cherry-picked 5-year stretches that are flawed by using a couple lottery cast years for Jordan compared to champion casts for Lebron or Shaq.

Still waiting.

Btw, how good were you at executing team defense, rotation, communication and all that stuff? I'm wondering because I genuinely don't think you ever got any of that. Don't worry, you have some good company:

https://www.businessinsider.com/kawhi-le...

You seem really confused - people have dissected every single season by every single player at this point - it's just that the overall evidence points to MJ not being that good (i.e. not enough to conclusively rule him out for GOAT peak, but others have better claims). Ben Taylor is probably the biggest Jordan fanboy within that world either way, so trying to discredit him doesn't really do any favors for MJ.

No one has viewed "overall evidence" or created a stat that reveals the goat peak.. The links and videos that you posted refer to "impact" stats, which conclude that the 2011 Mavs had better on-paper talent than the Heat because they outperformed opponents by more than the Heat during those playoffs and fell off less when Dirk left the floor.. Therefore the 2011 Mavs had better on-paper talent than the Heat - this is the logic used by Ben's video to say the Bulls had better casts than they actually did.

But his logic is obviously false - the Mavs didn't have more talent - it's intuitive that their superior dominance of opponents compared to the Heat, or their superior cast performance was due to their superior chemistry and strategy, not talent - so that's the problem with "impact" numbers - they measure more than on-paper talent and are often a better reflection of a chemistry or brand of ball advantage, which is dictated by the 1st option's skillset.. The Mavs developed great chemistry with Dirk, so they had it without him too, which deflates Dirk's "impact" even though he's responsible for the chemistry development.. It's the opposite for Lebron's teams because his ball-dominant skillset can't develop the kind of chemistry that wins with Jason Terry (or Mo Williams).

Lebron has the kind of bad chemistry that needs franchise players at 2nd and 3rd option, otherwise he can't win as 1st option.. So he literally has the worst chemistry of all-time, based on these talent requirements - he needs franchise players at 2nd and 3rd option for him to win as 1st option.

There's no singular stat that calculates the goat peak but obvious logic says that 41 ppg to 3-peat is the goat peak because it's the only documented case where a team needed 41 from the star player to win.. We know the Bulls needed 41 because both the Bulls and Suns averaged exactly 106.7 ppg and 113.0 ortg, so every ounce of Jordan's 41 was needed, particularly because Pippen shot 46% true shooting and couldn't handle additional load.. Since it's a documented case of a cast needing 41, it's a documented case of a garbage cast that MJ was able to 3-peat with.

And there's just a lot of peaks that no one reached but the biggest one was achieving goat statistical dominance and goat team dominance at the same time - no one else is close to MJ at this, which makes him GOAT - everyone either has one or the other, while only the GOAT has both..

In addition to achieving unprecedented individual and team success simultaneously, no one is close to Jordan's offensive accolade or 2-way accolade, while also having 2 three-peats of title/FMVP/scoring title/1st team defense.. He's also the only player good enough to undertake the league's biggest burden (usage leader) and still achieve championship brand of ball (win title).. Or being the only guy that won multiple Finals without a franchise player sidekick or while defeating max defensive attention (carrying scoring load on championship level).

The underlined below is what I'm asking for an answer to:

How long would it take before you would be willing to concede that Lebron isn't capable of a 3-peat, dynasty or 6 chips with any lineup?.. It's been 21 years so far, so how many years would be a big enough sample size to conclude that he isn't capable of having teams that dominated like MJ did regardless of cast, aka objectively inferior to MJ?
.

twog, what are you babbling about? none of that is at all relevant to the points made in these threads, other than making it clear that you don't understand how player evaluation works at all. maybe you should answer question about your college career instead? that was a lot more entertaining.

Fwiw I would stay with your first pick .
I don’t believe 1 great season could erase an entire franchise history .
Especially with a franchise ( and player ) who had more then 1 ring with the team
And they beat buck (kareem 58 wins) + Laker ( wilt+ Baylor + west 0o !) in 1970 ?
That’s pretty competitive too …

Sorry I need more for Brunson ….

Unfortunately, you've gone back to projecting your inexperience and low competency onto me as a deflection to avoid fleshing out topics that you brought up - there's nothing worse than someone saying "i don't want to play anymore".. "No mas"... This tends to happen when they can't respond at a high level.

It's common in this debate as few are willing to do more than take things at face value from the fraudulent youtuber of their choice.. I entertained it as if the numbers were real and you still ran away..

History shows that some 1st options can develop the chemistry needed to win with a bunch of role players getting 8 ppg, and chemistry allows ANY team of low producers to have good performance metrics... So the good performance can't be misinterpreted as a stacked or talented team and that's the issue with all the plus-minus crap and RAPM bullshit.. It doesn't consider chemistry and misinterprets great performance by individuals or teams as talent instead of a function of circumstance or developed-chemistry, which the 1st option is more directly responsible for.

So look at Draymond - RAPM says he's goat-level player but take him out of Curry's system and let Detroit draft him instead - his 8/7/6 would still be regarded as a pretty smart, solid player and I'm sure he would have a nice youtube channel but he would never sniff HOF losing on the Pistons.. The misperception people have of RAPM misses this, so Curry's superior chemistry-building skillset inflates the perception of his team's talent.. MJ suffered from this misperception too - his skillset allowed great system and chemistry, which inflates his team's talent in the eyes of people that misinterpret these "impact" stats like plus-minus or RAPM or any of these types of stats

Yes - it's bball 101 that a team's chemistry and strategic capacity/coaching depends on the skillset/style of the top shot-taker (1st option).

Their skillset and large shot volume dictates the strategic capacity/coaching and chemistry of the team.. The ability to foster great chemistry and strategy is why MJ and others were far superior at basketball than Lebron, as the gap in win-rates shows - their skillsets allowed great chemistry development, so they didn't need more help all the time like Lebron.. They also climbed the organic learning curve of team chemistry and championship strategy, while Lebron-ball gave up the organic learning curve in 2010 and pursued a talent-based approach thereafter (teaming up with opposing franchise players).

Lebron's consistent and blatant attempts to stack the deck instead of building chemistry (learning great basketball) like everyone else is why a large swathe of (smart) fans don't like him or respect him.. His perception as a choker doesn't help, nor do the numbers backing it such as 37% on playoff game-winners (50% normally) and 0% in the Finals.. He famously had 7 turnovers in the 4th quarter of critical 2009 ECF game that lost the series, or the 2010 meltdown and 2011 choke, and many other meltdowns such as laying on the ground for 5 minutes like a child after getting hit.. The guy is a joke and I'm glad he's a professional so I can **** on him about his inability to do his craft to expectation or the level he claims... fu for hating on me for exercising my right as a fan, especially in a case like this where we're talking about a blatant deck-stacker, colluder, and sensitive sally mindset that no peer is fears and no fan truly respects.

Best and longest producer of statistics does not equal GOAT. I second that Olajuwon doesn't get enough (or any) GOAT consideration. He's another one whose college career helps his resume: Final Four every year of his career losing brutally to champion every year. Just watched that maybe GOAT Final Four of 1982 Drexler/Olajuwon versus Worthy/Perkins/Jordan (also sick vintage Louisville and peak Hoyas). UNC goes up 14-0 v. Houston in the semis with Akeem not starting, all of it underneath. As soon as he comes in he rejects the first shot. Then a couple more great rejections with stupid whistles. Guy Lewis decision. LOL.

It's cool watching the budding Jordan in that game surrounded by world class hooping athletes when he's not The Man. And it showed a few times, including bricking layups with Olajuwon swatting at it, a harbinger of MJ's later respect for and even leeriness of Akeem. Jordan and Drexler both #23 in the game.

twog, you're still not responding to a substantially larger body of evidence that I just posted and just repeating your nonsense over and over again.

This has always been my point. Box stats for the most part only record what happen at the end of each possession, so it's at best correlates with impact, rather than measuring impact directly. Twog is obviously dodging questions about this because he realizes the MJ argument is largely contingent upon simplifying things down to box stats.

Points don't measure your impact on scoring, assists don't measure how your passing impacts the game and rebounds certainly don't measure your contributing to your team's rebounding. You will score more points if scoring opportunities are funneled to you as a result of your team's offensive scheme, you will deliver more assists if you handle the ball while your teammates work off-ball to create and you will get more rebounds if you sit back on defense and don't have to worry about transition defense on offense.

A lot of this is just scheme - a huge part of how the stats correlate with impact is that typically your role in the scheme correlates with ability. As in, if you're a great scorer, your team will probably funnel scoring opportunities to you, which will lead to higher PPG. If you're a great rim protecting big, you will often be situated close to the rim at the end of plays, giving your more opportunities for defensive rebounds. If you're a good passer with great handle, then you will often be entrusted with the ball even in plays with off-ball action, leading to more assists.

That's a huge part of why the correlation exists and why it breaks down with outliers. For instance, some bigs collect more rebounds than others precisely because they are slow footed, which means the team always schemes to keep them out of perimeter and they are useless in transition, which means the player has more opportunities for rebounds on both ends. Some players average fewer points as a result of being a better passer because they can amplify advantages into a better shot for others. Some players average fewer assists because they are better passers that are able to make a good pass earlier in the possession, rather than a pass late in the possession which must lead to a shot.

This is of course even worse for defense, where almost all the good things you do tend to be non-events from a box perspective, which leads to ridiculous things like writers awarding guards leading the league in steals DPOY, because there's no easy way to statistically evaluate defense.

I think he's in the MJ range - it's hard to bring him up to Lebron/Kareem/Russell range without interpreting evidence massively in his favor, but his overall case, again once you take out the box stats, is fairly similar to MJ's. His GOAT case of course has been a victim of the simplistic sort-by-rings & sort-by-ppg tendencies of the average casual fan. Overall, once you ignore the sort-by-rings, it's hard to distinguish between Hakeem, Duncan & KG - they seems very similar from an overall impact perspective purely as basketball players. MJ, despite a completely different statistical profile, seems fairly similar to those players from an impact perspective as well.

.
FINALS

95' Horry...... 19.0 gamescore... 18/10/4/3/2 on 57 TS

92' Pippen.... 18.1 gamescore.... 21/8/7/2/1 on 56 TS
91' Pippen.... 17.5 gamescore.... 21/9/7/2/1 on 53 TS
93' Pippen.... 15.6 gamescore.... 20/9/8/2/1 on 46 TS
97' Pippen.... 15.1 gamescore.... 20/8/3/2/2 on 54 TS
96' Pippen.... 13.4 gamescore.... 16/7/5/2/1 on 43 TS
98' Pippen.... 13.0 gamescore.... 16/8/5/2/1 on 50 TS

it was a harbinger of MJ not being as good as he would later be:

And MJ won POY over Hakeem in college.

Here's a video where MJ actually gets mad and blocks Hakeem 3 times in 1 game, while finishing directly over him at least 10 other times with either hand - you don't see anyone consistently finishing over a goat defender like this over and over and over:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7N_qSFA...

Hakeem was more leery of MJ than vice-versa:

If MJ hadn't retired in 94', the Bulls would've been heavily-favored over the Rockets, but the Rockets actually had better players at every position except SG and SF.

Regarding the SF matchup, Pippen is 0/6 in matching Horry's gamescore from the 95' Finals (see stats above), so Horry played better in those Finals than Pippen ever played.. And the alpha, clutch Horry believes he would lock up and outscore Pippen the same way SF's frequently did - Pippen was outscored by the opposing SF in about half the series that he played and Horry-Pippen matchup was also dangerous because Pippen fears confident, alpha-clutch opponents like Horry.. Horry tells Rachel Nichols that he would "lock up the sorry-ass Pippen" [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZpVlMVYr-A&t=24s]here[/url].

So the 94' Rockets would beat the Bulls if Pippen wet the bed like he did in the 90' ECF, 92' ECSF, 96' Finals, 98' ECF, or 98' Finals, to name a few - this could easily happen vs Horry.. Meanwhile the following year, the Rockets added Drexler in addition to Hakeem, Horry, and 25-year old sophomore Sam Cassell (all-star caliber), so their roster vastly exceeded the Bulls.. However, being outmatched on-paper was standard for the Bulls and it's why MJ was required to achieve goat production rates and defeat max defensive attention (carry scoring load) far more than anyone ever has.
.

I don't like Steph Curry.

He makes a bitch face when ever he scores. And put your mouthpiece in your ****ing mouth where it belongs.

Therefore he's not on the GOAT list.

Speaking of title equity, the best gauge is the historical record, which shows that when you give Lebron "help", he goes 1/4, such as 1/4 with AD, or 1/4 with Love.. The only exception is the Allen miracle, which allowed 2/4

How is this not the best gauge of a player's title equity? A player goes to many different teams and goes 1/4 regardless of cast

So Lebron provides absolute trash title equity compared to other greats like MJ that could win 6 titles in 7 years, or other guys like Curry, Duncan or Kobe who can have dynasties and far higher win rates.

twog, what's Phil Jackson's title equity? Or for that matter Pippen's?

Which reminds me:

So what's the typical casual fan argument for Brady being more important than Belichick? Why is it that a lot of people have recently decided that Brady was the more important part of the dynasty than Belichick? Isn't it that Brady won a Super Bowl without Belichick whereas Belichick without Brady hasn't really had much team success?

Now, if you apply this to MJ vs Phil Jackson, where would that lead? Or for that matter Pippen vs MJ? Who had more team success without the other?

Just so that we keep the record straight, Lebron & ring factor analysis:

Dwyane Wade
Rings without Lebron: 1
Lebron rings without Wade: 2

Chris Bosh
Rings without Lebron: 0
Lebron rings without Bosh: 2

Spoelstra
Rings without Lebron: 0
Lebron Rings without Spo: 2

Kevin Love
Rings without Lebron: 0
Lebron Rings without Love: 3

Kyrie Irving
Rings without Lebron: 0
Lebron Rings without Kyrie: 3

Ty Lue
Rings without Lebron: 0
Lebron Rings without Ty Lue: 3

Anthony Davis
Rings without Lebron: 0
Lebron Rings without AD: 3

Frank Vogel
Rings without Lebron: 0
Lebron Rings without Vogel: 3

Now as for Jordan

Scottie Pippen
Rings without MJ: 0
MJ Rings without Pippen: 0

Horace Grant
Rings without MJ: 1
MJ Rings without Grant: 3

Dennis Rodman
Rings without MJ: 2
MJ Rings without Rodman: 3

Phil Jackson
Rings without MJ: 5
MJ Rings without Phil: 0

Oops. Do I need to go on? So even if you're literally looking at rings, as long you apply to some semblance of attribution, the MJ case looks shaky. There's zero doubt that Lebron is the main factor behind his titles even if you look at nothing other than rings - it's difficult to make the case that MJ was the singular casual factor behind the 6 titles.