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

Infact, I'll go as far as to say that the way Wemby is playing right now - no team can be any good with a guy that big trying to play that way .. The Spurs will literally never contend with him as a top scoring option playing that way

Wemby is 20 years old dude. Let's take a minute before you write him off.

Anyway, you made excuses for Kobe by saying defenses got better on him due to the length of the series.

Thought the longer a series goes it would have given Kobe more time to work out there defense.

But, you know, that's just me.

Good catch. Battle of attrition. Zippy ball movement and jump shooting should wear down the defense and make it easier as time goes on in a series. Another contradiction in fallguy’s argument, perhaps?

Fallguy,
Does your entire player ranking and argument hinge on the opinion that Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant are better jump shooters than Stephen Curry?

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Games 1-4 of 2016 Finals...... 24 and 6 TO's
Games 1-3 of 2013 Finals...... 16 on 39%
Games 1-6 of 2013 Finals...... 23 on 43%
Games 1-6 of 2008 ECSF........ 24 on 32%

Firstly, Lebron's style is to save energy by wetting the bed for 4 to 6 games (above), and therefore CAUSE the Game 7 where he tries to save face and hopes for something funky like a teammate bailout... He didn't get this bailout in 08', but he did in 13' and 16'.. You don't seem to care about Lebron wetting the bed for most of the series and causing long series to begin with, or outright losses.

Secondly, Lebron has equal-scoring partners to attract equal defensive attention, so he doesn't face the greatest burden of max defensive attention (carrying the scoring load)... So the lack of scoring burden and defensive attention keeps him fresh, while his game also doesn't command doubles that wear down defenses, so he doesn't get worn down as much as a player that wears down defenses - defenses get to play the simplest way against him by staying at home, so he plods away at his own losing pace.. Meanwhile, Kobe forces opponents into double-teaming that wears them down, hurts their rebounding and wins the attrition battle.

I'll be right about Wemby just like I was about Lebron, Ingram, Cade, etc

The only guy that I was wrong about was Curry. He proved me wrong, so I have him top 5.. He might get his 5th ring this year, so he would have chips with losers like Wiggins, Klay and Hield as his "pippens"... It's perfect... And of course he'll have the most rings of the current/toughest era, so he can crap on prior era's ring counts like MJ did.

No, it's completely subjective whose jumpshooting you prefer but just know that Curry or MJ/Kobe are the goat jumpshooters on 3' and 2's, respectively.. As the goat jumpshooters (greatest combination of volume/efficiency on jumpers), they provide the greatest capacity for ball movement, chemistry, team record, and team ceiling/Finals record.

Also, the 1 thru 4 spots in my rankings (the jumpshooter skillset) are interchangeable - the main concept is that the best jumpshooters > the best bigs > the best ball-dominators.. This order is based on the skillsets that produce the best teams/dynasties and develop the chemistry to win with less, aka the rosters they were given (organic).

Are there any other roles, skills, responsibilities, etc. on a basketball roster that add value or is it strictly jump shooting because one can construct a dynasty around it?

And if it’s subjective who the best jumpshooter is, could we perhaps rate Harden’s jumpshooting over Kobe’s since his fg% is way higher?

I've always said that we could determine the goat basketball player if we could give everyone infinite life, so then we could see who wins the most titles if everyone got 1000 randomly-selected rosters (a healthy sample size of randomly-selected rosters to see who wins the most titles)... So a guy might win 17 titles and fail the other 983 times.. The guy that wins the most titles is the goat.

Accordingly, it's intuitive that the skillsets that would win the most titles are the ones that can develop the best chemistry to produce the best teams and win with less, such as the roster they were given, aka organic... History shows that these skillsets are the aforementioned "highly-assisted" skillsets of expert jumpshooting (MJ, Curry, Kobe) and fundamental bigs (Russell, Kareem, Shaq, Duncan) - these are all the dynasties, aka the teams that mostly won over a material stretch like 5 years.. Otoh, the skillset that had perennially-weak fits, struggling chemistry and high losing frequency are the low-assisted skillsets of ball-domination, specifically high-scoring ball-domination.

You were right about LeBron becoming the all time scoring leader and one of the all time greats. Amazing.

I don’t think you answered either of my questions. Do you think there are any other skill sets or roles besides highly assisted jump shooter that could perhaps contribute to title equity?

If it’s subjective who the best jump shooter is between Jordan, Kobe, and Curry, is it possible that James Harden is a better jump shooter than Kobe, and on a randomized roster he would have higher title equity than some of the teams he played on? Would it be possible Kobe would have lower title equity on a team without Shaq and Phil Jackson? Note I am not saying Harden is better overall than Kobe. Just wondering if you think on different rosters they may have different title equities than what they had in their actual careers.

What if someone posited that they subjectively believe that James Harden was a better jump shooter than Kobe because he had a significantly higher eFG%, and perhaps on a different roster with Phil Jackson and Shaq he could/would play off ball more and win titles?

Also, any thoughts as to why Kobe Bryant went 34-48 in 2004-05 and missed the playoffs? Why didn’t the coach build the team offense around Kobe’s highly assisted jump shooting skill set, and then Kobe lead them to an NBA title and dynasty?

Note that the preseason championship odds for the Lakers in 2004-05 were +500, tied for second best in the NBA and right behind the Spurs odds of +400 (the eventual champion).

All the while the Lakers had the second GOAT in his prime on their roster — one of the greatest highly assisted jump shooters ever. I wonder if any other aspects of the game of basketball matter to winning?

James Harden doesn't have a turnaround jumper.

And his assisted rate is 14%, so his jumpers are the "dribble-dribble-dribble" variety that imposes spot-up roles

Based on these 2 factors and his lower jumpshooting volume in general, his jumpshooting skill cannot compare to Kobe, MJ and Curry, or fit into any ball movement system like the triangle - there's never been a high-scoring, low-assisted player in ANY ball movement offense, and the triangle offense doesn't use any type of low-assisted/primary ball-handler skillset - the presence of such a skillset would change the offense away from the triangle.

Again, if MJ was a Luka-style ball-dominator, then Phil wouldn't have been hired, or his triangle would've been fired quickly like David Blatt was fired by Lebron - Lebron literally FIRED a coach that wanted to run a ball movement offense... This is why ball movement coaches aren't hired to coach ball-dominators..

Essentially, the NBA is pro league, so if a great player has a 15-year career, he will invariably run into a ball movement coach, especially if he has a ball movement skillset - ball movement coaches will eventually trend towards ball movement players, while ball-dominant coaches will eventually trend towards the ball-dominators.. Again, the NBA is a pro league, so they aren't pairing coaches with players just randomly - there's some methodology to it.
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Preseason odds are useless unless there's a massive trend, such as falling from preseason favorite to underdog or loser for 6 straight seasons (except the Allen miracle), or losing many times with favored rosters, such as 7 times with the preseason favorite or homecourt.. Only ball-dominators like Lebron routinely underachieve favored talent like this, not expert jumpshooters like Kobe, Curry or MJ.

Lebron's high-scoring ball-dominance loses with preseason favorites and all-star teammates as a standard, so his skillset underachieves as a standard, whereas Kobe instantly had the league favorite and champion with just 1 all-star that was worse than Bosh/Love...

Kobe's run with a poor man's Bosh confirmed that he could win more with less and fulfilled the tenet that "expert jumpshooters produce great fits/chemistry, which allows winning with less talent".. Lebron never won with that little - he always needed a heralded franchise player and elite producer as sidekick and then another star that was better than Pau at 3rd option.
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Harden’s assisted rate was 49 to 60% when he was with OKC.

Do you think the coach, the offense, and a player’s role within that offense impacts assisted rate at all? Remember, you claim you have played organized basketball before.

Also, you never answered my question: are there any other skill sets or roles besides off ball jump shooting that contribute to title equity?

History shows that the only dynasties in history were led by highly-assisted skillsets of jumpshooting (MJ, Curry) or bigs (Russell, Kareem, Duncan, Shaq/Kobe).

Otoh, ball-dominant and low-assisted skillsets are associated with weak chemistry that perennially-underachieves talent, such as losing with preseason favorites or homecourt 7 times in Lebron's career.. Or losing with multiple all-star teammates 3 times and 1 all-star teammate 6 times.

We established that those dynasties were due to elite roster construction and coaching. E.g. Jordan had Pippen and Phil Jackson, Curry had Durant and Klay, Russell had all of his other Celtics hall of famers, Kareem had Magic, Duncan had Robinson, Pop, Parker, Manu, Kawhi, Kobe and Shaq had well, themselves and Phil Jackson. The highly-assisted part was due to offensive strategy employed by the coach and elite roster construction.

But anyway:

Do you think the coach, the offense, and a player’s role within that offense impacts assisted rate at all? Remember, you claim you have played organized basketball before.

Also, you never answered my question: are there any other skill sets or roles besides off ball jump shooting that contribute to title equity?

Harden came off the bench in OKC with Westbrook as the primary ball-handler.

And a coach can have a great ball movement philosophy but needs the right players to execute it .. So a ball movement coach like Blatt fails with Lebron and gets fired... Or a coach can have a great ball movement philosophy but is simply forced to run ball-domination with a Luka, Lebron or Harden.

Ok, so would it be safe to say that a team’s offensive strategy, and a player’s role within that offense, can change a player’s assisted fg%?

Also, you never answered my question: are there any other skill sets or roles besides off ball jump shooting that contribute to title equity?

You can have all the roster construction you want, but if the top guy is a low-assisted ball-dominator, then your team will have weak chemistry as teammates become spot-up shooters, and the team will be a perennial loser (never a dynasty).. The entirety of NBA history shows this.

Otoh, roster construction and chemistry is better with highly-assisted skillsets like bigs or jumpshooters - they allow the ball movement to have great chemistry and great "roster construction", lol .. stop watching TV..

Harden cannot dominate with a 50% assisted rate

He can only get 30/10/10 as a dumb ball-dominator

So if Harden or any dumb ball-dominator is your top guy, then you have a perennial loser with weak chemistry and teammate reduced into spot-up roles