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

AD and Lebron should blow away the Kings, and only bron-ball slowed down the chemistry and teammates sufficiently to require a nail-biter and underachieving margin of victory... So I've seen tons of losing ball-dominators/stat-padders - it's never "great", as you termed it - it's a bad, losing brand of ball that doesn't develop or elevate teammates, and has a long list of bad fits to prove it.

So the 2025 season has confirmed that Lebron is a horrible off-ball player that averages 18/4/6 when his assisted rate exceeds 50%... This literally confirms everything that I've ever said about him.

This inability to play off-ball creates weaker teams than guys like Curry, MJ, and Duncan, who could facilitate great ball movement by being great assist targets themselves.. Unfortunately, Lebron can't be a great assist target because he lacks the jumpshooting efficiency and volume of MJ/Curry, or isn't a post big like Duncan.

And Lebron is a bad assist target even though frontcourt players are normally the highest-assisted players on the court, so by turning a highly-assisted position into a lowly-assisted one, Lebron prevents high-assist teams.

Last night simply showed that Reddick got AD cooking to start the season, and then put the ball back in Lebron's hands against a bad team to barely win.... But now Lebron will go back to 18 ppg as an off-ball player because Lebron is bad off-ball play, ball movement, and just a weak assist target, especially for a forward.

It's clear that the Lakers are only title-worthy when AD leads the scoring like 2020.. 5 years later, this is even more the case - the Lakers cannot beat a top Western Conference or Finals team in 2025 with Lebron-ball - it must be AD-ball like it was when they beat Denver in 2020...

Btw, the entire league is rigged for Lebron at this point, as the coaches, players, GM's and front offices league-wide are hypnotized by the media's narratives.. So they let him score, stack his teams with unbeatable rosters, and then shill for him by saying his bed-wetting is infact great (such as getting swept in the WCF is an accomplishment and adds to a goat case).

Luka is already a better version... Ditto Giannis and of course Jokic is the best passer-rebound-scorer that we've ever seen.. He's the first 10-assist guy that doesn't dominate the ball or use a point guard skillset - this ground-breaking brand allows the goat chemistry required to win with bums like Jamal Murray.

Even Paolo Banchero is another "lebron"-style player but he's bigger/taller/stronger than Lebron with better shooting upside... So Lebron's stiff-arm game is actually pretty old-fashioned and it's hilarious to watch the shrewd Reddick to pinpoint a bad team to let Lebron dominate the ball and stiff-arm all game long.
.

Hi fallguy,
Let’s not backtrack and manipulate the argument here, where you claim multiple different (often conflicting) things, argue with a giant wall of text word salad from every nonsensical angle, so that then you can claim you were correct no matter what the data shows. (You know what… that’s actually what the posters on that other forum said you do…. Hmm. Maybe they aren’t the jack*sses after all. Maybe you are the jack*ss?)

Please read the following. These are direct quotes from yourself:

Do you see how your written, documented words state that LeBron James lowers his teammates assists?

Now, contrast that with the data. Shown here:

Do you see how the data shows that LeBron James increases his team’s assists when he joins, and the team’s assists decrease when he leaves? This is true literally 100% of the time, according to the historical data.

Do you remember how earlier I explained to you how a logical contradiction works? Something cannot both increase and decrease at the same time. I may have fired you from your last fake professorship, but here is a lesson you can take forward to your next job application. I hope you read it, study it, and make an effort to understand it this time.

.
Recent Thread Cliffs (short version)

Luka and Lebron-style players increase teammates' assisted rate (impose spot-up roles), which lowers teammates assists and creates low-assist teams that win less.

Otoh, jumpshooters and bigs either maintain or decrease teammates' assisted rate (puts the ball in their hands), which creates higher teammate assists, TEAM assists, fits, and winning.

(longer version for the layman)

High-scoring point guard skillsets, aka "ball-dominators" score a lot of points unassisted by teammates and dribbling around on their own, which forces teammates into higher assisted rates (spot-up roles) - these spot-up roles reduce teammates' assists, so the TEAM has low assists and low team ceiling.

Otoh, jumpshooters and bigs score many buckets while being assisted by teammates, so teammates aren't forced into spot-up roles and get higher assists along with the team - everyone is playing off each other and the team has good fits, chemistry and team ceiling.

Since jumpshooters and bigs produce better chemistry, strategy/coaching and teams, the best jumpshooters and bigs are better than the best ball-dominators.. This means that Curry, MJ, Duncan and Kobe are better than Lebron, Oscar and Luka...

(FYI - Nash, Stockton, Haliburton and Magic aren't high-scoring ball-dominators, so they don't have a bunch of unassisted buckets that force teammates to stand around in spot-up capacities, thus lowering their assists and the team's.. These guys have #1 assist teams regularly because again, they aren't HIGH-SCORING ball-dominators - they aren't excessive ball-dominators that essentially hog the ball and assists.. It's actually a stark contrast, which confirms that only high-scoring ball-dominators score a ton of unassisted buckets that impose spot-up roles, lower teammate assists and low TEAM assists - only excessive ball-dominators have this problem and inherent flaw or suboptimal nature to their game, aka imposing spot-up roles that kill teammate development, chemistry and team ceiling).

No dummy, smh - you didn't calculate teammate assists - you calculated TEAM assists, which includes Lebron's own assists - subtract Lebron's assists and then show his teammates' assists before he arrived and after.

Go

Now since I know you won't do this (and you don't need to because it's obvious you're wrong here and have been wrong the entire time), I will go ahead and re-state the original, correct premise in the previous post above.

Ultimately, Lebron's teams rank in the bottom half of assists nearly every year because his abnormal ball-dominance hogs the assists and lowers everyone's assists.

Fallguy,
Are you r*tarded? When LeBron joins a team, it does not become 6 on 5. One player has to leave. You can’t sum the previous year’s player assists then leave off LeBron’s for the year he’s on the team. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard in my life.

The relevant feature is how LeBron impacts overall team assists, and it literally goes up every time he’s joined a team and gone down when he leaves.

Magic Johnson gets a whole bunch of assists. Team dominates and wins a bunch of titles. But oh no the other 4 guys get fewer assists because that’s literally how math works.

Substitute Magic with LeBron. [fallguy] oh no that’s bad.

You’re seriously the dumbest motherf*cker I’ve ever interacted with.

Lebron lowered all his teammates' assists, with almost no exceptions... Here's a very incomplete list of guys that saw their assists crater alongside Lebron (in chronological order):

Eric Snow, Hughes, Boobie, Mo Williams, Jamison, Wade, Chalmers, Bosh, Love, Kyrie, JR Smith, Shumpert, Derrick Rose, IT, Lonzo Ball, KCP, Ingram, Kuzma, Westbrook and MANY MORE.... There's too many to name, but that list is most of the contributing players and bigger assist guys anyway.

Dellevadova and Delonte increased slightly due to getting a lot more playing time alongside Lebron than before, and they're the most prominent exceptions.. Other guys that average low assists barely saw any change like Tristan, Zydrunas, or Varejao.

So you were wrong bro... and it's okaaaayy. ... It's called fraud and the important thing is that you catch it and aren't a fool for too long... better late than never, you know what I mean?

Nope.... Magic's teams were #1 in assists every year... So are Stockton's, Nash's or Haliburton's.

Again, only high-scoring point guards get high volumes of unassisted buckets that leave teammates standing around in spot-up roles (higher assisted rates).. These spot-up roles lower teammate assists and the team's.

Otoh, lower-scoring point guards like Magic, Stockton or Nash don't have the high volume of unassisted buckets because they actually play lower-scoring style and different style entirely - they bring the ball up and then GIVE IT UP - they don't actually dominate it for the entire possession, which is why they score less and don't have all those unassisted buckets... Stockton or Nash give it up and run off-screens to use their great shooting, while Magic might go to the post or high-post like Jokic.

Magic Johnson joined the Lakers in 1979. Their team assists went up. This is good, right?

Oh wait no. It cratered the assist rates of Norm Nixon, Kareem, and Ron Boone. This follows from the fact there can be only 5 players on the court at a time.

This isn’t even an extreme case because Magic was a rookie and was only averaging a fraction of his assists that he was at his peak.

When you were arguing before, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt and assuming you wouldn’t be subtracting out the player with the most assists on the team (LeBron) and not adjusting for the fact that leaves fewer assists for everyone else by the laws of mathematics.

Turns out you are dumber than any of us could possibly imagine. So I guess you did prove me wrong in your own way. Good job fallguy.

Guess what the Lakers were at the year before Magic joined? That would be #3 in the NBA. With 28.5 assists per game.

Yes, if you add the GOAT playmaking point guard your team assists will go up…. From 3rd to first in this case. At 29.4 assists per game. An increase of +0.9 assists per game. Imagine that. Adding Magic Johnson to a team that’s in 3rd in assists already makes them first. It’s almost like team makeup and offensive strategy plays into this.

Magic averaged 7.3 assists per game but the lakers only increased 0.9. hOw iS THaT PoSSiBLe? It’s because you can’t play 6 on 5 and the assists have to come from somewhere so teammate assists have to go down.

Do you find it puzzling that when LeBron joined a new team the team’s assist rate went up even more? Excited to hear the next lecture from the internet’s greatest basketball mind on why this is the case.

Oh man that’s a good cigar. Thank you for posting this.

Seriously though, I’m excited to hear why it’s good when Magic’s team assists went up when he joined the Lakers, but it’s bad when LeBron’s team assists went up even more literally every time he joined a new team. I bet your explanation is going to be interesting.

When fallguy came off the bench in a blowout back in the 80’s, his team’s ball dominant forward threw a pass, hitting fallguy in the head, giving him a concussion and causing brain damage.

His hatred for skilled forwards that can handle the ball persists to this day, and led to his internet basketball analytics career. “Professorship” as he calls it. Remember, brain damage.

See the bolded above is why you lost - you equated teammate assists with team assists - you said that teammates' assists didn't decline and then showed the team assists to prove it.. This is obviously wrong.

Here's how it actually works.

When Lebron is added to a team, his 6-8 assists are greater than the total amount that he reduces his teammates' assists.. So the team's assists increase marginally, but the team has a lower assist capacity because teammates are below their assist capacity and saw their assists decline.

With 1 guy hogging the assists and teammates below their assist capacity, the team can never have a high-assist team or reach their potential.. This inability to reach potential is why Lebron has 7 losses with favored rosters, such as preseason favorites or homecourt.. And again, all of Lebron's playoff losses for the last 10 years saw deficits in team assists, and mostly massive deficits.. The evidence of Lebron's low assist teams is overwhelming.

Otoh, if Lebron could get his 6-8 assists without dominating the ball, imposing spot-up roles, and reducing his teammates' assists, then he would have high-assist teams, great chemistry, and goat winning like Curry and MJ.

Hope that helps

Thank you for this explanation.

As I pointed out in my last few posts, I was assuming a modicum of intelligence on your part. When a high assist player joins a team, and leads the team in assists, the teammate assists have to go down by the laws of mathematics, because there are a finite number of possessions.

This is true, probably for literally every instance in basketball history that a high assist player joins a team. It was even true for Magic Johnson, as I showed with data. It was true, by a wide margin, for every other player I checked as well. For it not to be true, the number of possessions would have to increase by like 50% or something absurd.

Therefore, this cannot be evidence that it’s “bad” when teammates’ assists go down when LeBron joins a team. Because, as explained above, this is true for every high assist player ever, since you cannot play 6 on 5.

But, as I said, I was assuming some intelligence and thought behind your words. Turns out that this entire time you have been arguing that LeBron’s teammates have fewer assists when LeBron has a lot, which is true for every high assist player in history. This is a real situation where “infinite sample size” actually applies.

Jesus Christ I can’t believe that’s what you’ve been arguing the last 100 posts. I think it’s time to take a break fallguy.

I'd bet a lot of money that Matt R. has gone further than you have in mathematics in school.

This last back and forth over assist % has been a straight up beatdown.

You admittedly haven't watched basketball since 2011, how do you know anything about Luka / Curry / Giannis.

And the current Kings, how good they are, how bad they are.

One needs to watch the games to know what is going on?

Explain.

Smh... This is beyond incompetent.

You're assuming that 100% of all buckets are assisted in basketball, so if a player joins the team, his assists replace those of teammates.. A new player that averages 0.1 assists would have this 0.1 replace someone else's, since 100% of buckets are assisted and the number of possessions are fixed in your scenario.

Obviously, that isn't how basketball works.. Teams only assist on a fraction of possessions, so teammates might assist on 20 of 100 possessions, which will change depending on who is added to the team... For example, an off-ball assist target and high assisted rate like Draymond, Jokic, or MJ will add many assisted buckets and more assist opportunities for teammates.. Meanwhile, a ball-dominator will offer very few assisted buckets and reduce the assists of teammates.

So it's clear that despite being high APG players, Jokic or Draymond still increase teammates' assist opportunity by being assist targets themselves that provide assisted buckets (high assisted rates) and allow the ball to move.

And even the high APG players that weren't big assist targets like Magic or Nash - they still increased teammates' assists like Kareem's, Amare's, and Karl Malone's because they weren't high-scoring point guards - they didn't have high volume of unassisted buckets that left teammates standing around.. Accordingly, history shows that the lower-scoring point guards maintained their teammates' assists much better and had #1 assist teams, while high-scoring point guards like Lebron or Luka crater the assists of every teammate and have low-assist teams.. This is a stark contrast between high-scoring and low-scoring point guards - I've always highlighted this difference and said that high-scoring point guards, aka the "ball-dominators" are the problem skillsets that have weak chemistry and therefore underperform favored rosters.

You'd lose your money - Matt doesn't understand assisted rate and look at his ridiculous finite possessions argument from the prior post - it's childlike in it's intelligence.

Otoh, I went to 2 different Masters programs in business.. A regular MBA program and then a MS in Finance... Got A's in Calculus in high school and took several stats classes in college.. Scored well on GMAT, etc... This isn't spectacular, but well above the layman and almost certainly above Matt based on his rudimentary understanding of these concepts... I doubt he went to college or finished.

Why did Steve Kerr bench expert jump shooter Tatum and go to Bron ball? Do you know more than 9x champion Steve Kerr?

LeBron back to his career assist average, this contradicts your statement that LeBron is muzzled. Narrative destroyed.

How much are you willing to bet?

We have to discount 100% of this since one would only know by watching NBA games, and you haven't watched NBA games since 2011.

The same reason that GM's league-wide gave the Lakers a roster overhaul every year since Lebron came out West - they're trying to fulfill media narratives.. The entire league does everything to fulfill the Klutch narratives.

Hope you're aware that the USA would've won regardless of who we played and the offense we ran... Kerr knows that and it was only the bron-ball offense and 5 turnovers per game that slowed us down and made the games close.... Otoh, putting the muzzle on Lebron like Reddick did for the first 2 games showed the "unbeatable" ceiling that this team had all along..

History already showed that the 3-peat formula is to run the offense around a big like Shaq or AD and then have an off-ball closer get 25-30 as well... Unfortunately, Lebron can only get 18/4/6 off-ball and isn't a closer, so there won't be a 3-peat in the offing.

History will show that in the Western Conference, Lebron cannot win as the best player and needs a teammate to lead the scoring and the defense..

It's called fraud (LeFraud)
.

Isn't it cool that you can learn and know this stuff without watching and simply using available stats like assisted rate (off-ball percentage), hold-time, or teammate and team assists?