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

do you have dyslexia or some other issue?

Anyone can look at those numbers and see that Lebron had a lower assisted rate than Kobe - Lebron was in the 30's and Kobe was in the 40's.. if you want the averages - you look up the fga and do the math yourself, but it seems dumb when anyone can see that Lebron's is lower.

And Kobe shouldn't be anywhere near Lebron in assisted rate let alone beating him in it because Lebron is a forward and forwards normally have a 60-90% assisted rate.. So Lebron is an abnormal ball-dominator and that gives all his teams abnormal ball-dominance, weak ball movement/chemistry and weak teams compared to his peers.

Fallguy,
When you said the “normal” forward assisted rate is 60 to 70%, and I explicitly said to show me the data, and NOT cherry picked data, and then you cite data of a few players where only their very top seasons are in this range, it makes it seem like you legitimately do not know how to calculate an average.

I’ll ask again: what is the average of these 3 numbers?: 3, 5, 9.

Can you show how you calculated your answer? (Hint: the answer isn’t 8 or 9. Therefore when you say the “normal” assisted rate of a forward is above 60%, it doesn’t make sense to take the highest number or two in the distribution. Do you understand that?)

I just looked up a few guys randomly but you sound bad at this point because it's bball 101 that forwards are highly-assisted players between 50-90% - this isn't debatable and any player we look up will support this, except Lebron of course.

Lebron's ball-dominance is the most abnormal in the history of the NBA, which is why he has the worst chemistry and lowest team ceilings/Finals records in history, and also most underachieving rosters in history, such as los.ing 7 times as the preseason favorite or homecourt advantage.

Lebron's worst-ever or most-abnormal ball-dominance has the effect of imposing spot-up roles that stall young players, thereby needing ready-made stars to win.. His worst-ever chemistry requires the most-ever talent (and still mostly loses with every cast - his weak chemistry can never produce a great team)
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You said 60% to 70% before. Now it’s 50% or higher. 50% is considerably more “normal” than 60%+. Why did you change the numbers?

Forward Jayson Tatum’s assisted rate this past season, the year they won the championship and the year you have been raving about his off ball jump shooting ability and the Celtics zippy ball movement was….. 40.0% What’s up with that? And since you obviously can’t mentally keep track of all the shitty arguments you spew, better yet: how are you going to shift the goalposts this time in your next 5000 word 6 post essay?

Aren't you people tired of talking about this ****?

No one is going to convince fallguy or vice versa.

It's like a never ending rerun.

Time to move on.

Praying for an OKC-lol first round matchup.

To be fair, the debate before was Jordan vs LeBron vs whoever. Now it’s “can fallguy actually calculate an average? Does he even know what an average is? Has he ever played competitive basketball before, or was that a lie too”? I’m legitimately trying to figure out the latter.

Kobe shot 41% EFG on jumpshots in 2000. Not only was he not a "expert jump shooter", he was a brick layer that year.

Now you are just embarrassing yourself.

Well that doesn’t make any sense. I wonder if Shaquille O’Neal had anything to do with how good the Lakers were that year? Nah, couldn’t be that.

I’m also trying to make sense of the fact Jayson Tatum’s assisted fg% was the lowest of his career in 2024.. but that also happened to be the year the Celtics won the title?

I wonder if there is more to basketball than only off-ball jump shooting yields the best results and unbeatable teams? That couldn’t be it though - we’ve been assured that there is an infinite sample size proving otherwise. Must be a mistake somewhere.

Accept the reality that Lebron is the only SF in history with a point guard assisted rate that is in the 30's for nearly his entire career and never reached 42%.

KD, Tatum, PG13, Kawhi, Jamison and other SF's are nowhere near this level and are generally between 50-90% - it gets worse if we look at PF's, who have even higher assisted rates .

Lebron simply has the lowest assisted rates ever for any frontcourt player, and therefore the most ball-dominant teams that require the most help (but still mostly lose with every cast and cannot produce great teams).

LeBron has been most often a point forward and has had an entirely different role in his offenses than every other forward you listed. You understand how that may impact assisted fg rate compared to a traditional power forward, yes?

He also won far more than any of the other players you listed, and I wish you would realize that this throws a serious monkey wrench into your theory that only off ball jump shooting matters, which was the entire reason for this ridiculous exchange. Infinite sample size indeed.

Who cares - that's a nothingburger - Tatum is a jumpshooter with an assisted rate that ranges between 40-67%, so he allows the ball to move and therefore develops great fits and chemistry.

Otoh, Lebron is a dumb ball-dominator with an assisted rate of 28-40%, so this type of ball-domination at high scoring levels (high-scoring point guard) imposes spot-up roles, bad chemistry, and weak or needy teams that can't complete viably on the championship level.

And the 60% minimum assisted rate that I initially cited were for PF's, while SF's have assisted rates of 50-90% most of the time and dipping into the 40's as the exception - they virtually never dip into the 30's like Lebron has lived his entire career.

Fallguy,
I’m going to blow your mind here, but consider the possibility that since LeBron has generally played point forward/point guard, him imposing jump shooter roles on his teammates is BY DESIGN, and therefore the ultra important role of off-ball jump shooter has been graciously imparted to his teammates, facilitated by LeBron’s elite on-ball skills.

Which is probably why he has 4 titles, and has won 3 rings in 5 years (your criteria for being “mostly winning” and “unbeatable”😉.

Lebron has no choice but to impose spot-up roles and a losing brand of ball because that's what the ball-dominant skillset DOES (high-scoring point guard skillset) - it imposes spot-up roles and mostly loses with every cast.. Luka, SGA, Westbrook and Harden are perennial losers too.

Since the ball-dominant skillset cannot produce great chemistry, it cannot produce great teams and dynasties that mostly win for a material stretch of time, like 5 years - the Lakers, Cavs and Heat were all 1 for 4, except the Allen miracle - it took a miracle for Lebron to avoid going 1 for 4 with a team.... lol... The only teams in history that mostly won over a material stretch of time (dynasty) were led by expert jumpshooters (Warriors, Bulls) or fundamental bigs (60's Celtics, 80's Lakers, 00's Lakers, 00s Spurs)

Otoh, Lebron is a "1 for 4 guy" regardless of cast - that's how bad his rudimentary, AAU skillset is... The "downhill" skillset is code for the "dumb" skillset - it isn't 5 man basketball but casuals don't care and can't see why that's important.

Can you understand that Duncan only had Ginobili and Parker, yet he won 3 in 5, so he would win 5 in 5 with Wade/Bosh or Kyrie/Love - these guys are better players than Parker/Ginobili... The same goes for Curry - he won with Klay, so he would go 5 for 5 with AD, Wade/Bosh or Kyrie/Love...

From 2011 to 2016, Lebron had the only team in the league with 3 franchise players on 1 team (3 elite producers that were asked to build a lottery team from scratch) - this is why he was a preseason favorite for a record 6 straight years.. That's an unprecedented stretch of the best help in the league - no one had that except Lebron, and yet he only won half the time with the best roster.. This underachieving of favored rosters proves that his chemistry and brand of ball is bad.

Not at all, because no amount of defense could stop AD from getting traded and completely downgraded by fans/media if he averaged 17.5 on 44% in a series, let alone for his entire playoff career like Pippen, or 19 on 42% for his Finals career, or 17 on 41% for an entire 3-peat playoffs (96-98').

No amount of defense would stop everyone from downgrading AD if he put up those kinds of numbers, so you simply have a double-standard with Pippen - his ring count blinds fans and media.. It's that simple - I'm just a lot smarter on this topic than you are, and most people...

To summarize, Pippen was just a dunker that took 4 years to learn a low production role in a system (15-20 ppg) and otherwise he was 14 on 40% outside the system.. Again, he was just a dunker and the biggest lane-clogger in playoff history - he had the worst shooting splits ever for a playoff run of 15 games and 35 MPG - he did this twice and they were TITLE runs in 96' and 98' (and nearly in 93'), so MJ won with the biggest bricklayer and worst efficiency sidekick in history.
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Yeah man, I’ve been saying he has (mostly) been a point forward for most of his career. Although he has played off-ball at times, and was quite good at it, so I would leave the “just” out of “just a point guard”.

But anyway man, you’re definitely right. If LeBron just had some decent forward skills he would have won as many rings as Karl Malone and Antawn Jamison.

I also did a formal statistical analysis, and there is a perfect 100% correlation between assisted fg% of the number one option and championships won. Much like you though, I don’t need to show this analysis because it’s self evidently obvious which is how good statistics are done.

Also Shaq was bad, LeBron only won 1 ring in 4 years, and you’re the only human being who has ever touched a spherical object. I think that covers everything; nice work fallguy.

Pop Quiz: Since 1980, who has won titles with the least help from their best teammate? (as defined by ratio of his own VORP to second best in his team for the playoffs)

Jordan in '93 is 4th and Lebron in '13 is 5th when they both had about 3x the VORP of Grant/Wade respectively. Strangely enough the whole top ten is unique players, the first repeat is Jordan again in 11th in '91 with about 1.9x Pippen.

In 2003 Spurs won with Duncan having 3.3x Manu's VORP

2006 Heat won with having almost 4x as much VORP as his next best teammate "James Posey" (this one blew my mind a bit, BPM really doesn't like Shaq lol)

But the runaway leader is Bird in 1984 having a VORP of almost 5x his next best teammate, Cedric Maxwell

Obviously this is just purely going by VORP and doesn't necessarily have any true meaning, but I thought it was interesting

For interest, by VORP in playoffs, Jordan has the most "rings as best player" with 6 (no surprise there), Lebron and Magic are tied in second with 4 (Magic was the best player throughout the playoffs for all but his first ring, ironically one of his FMVPs), and Bird, Duncan, Kobe and Curry have 3 each (Kobe pips Shaq in '01, Curry gets one of the Durant years on the back of Durant missing two games in the run, and TD dropped one to Manu in his peak).

Curry in '22 the only player besides Bird and Wade mentioned above to win a title without another top 10 playoffs VORP teammate

Doubt anyone particularly cares, but I figured I wasted enough time looking all this up out of curiosity, might as well share

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The stats below confirm that Jordan's 6 rings are equal or bigger carry-jobs then 94' Hakeem or 11' Dirk:

PLAYOFFS

94' Hakeem....... 27.7 PER.... 8.5 BPM... 2.6 VORP... 0.208 WS/48... 28.9 ppg
94' Horry'........... 16.7 PER.... 5.0 BPM... 1.4 VORP... 0.152 WS/48... 11.7 ppg
GAP.......................... 11.0.............3.5............... 1.2............ 0.056............ 17.2

93' Jordan'.......... 30.1 PER... 11.6 BPM... 2.9 VORP... 0.270 WS/48... 35.1 ppg
93' Pippen.......... 16.9 PER..... 2.0 BPM... 0.8 VORP... 0.083 WS/48... 20.1 ppg
GAP.......................... 13.2............ 9.6............... 2.1............. 0.187............ 15.0

11' Dirk'............... 25.2 PER... 5.5 BPM... 1.6 VORP... 0.210 WS/48... 27.7 ppg
11' Terry.............. 20.3 PER... 4.6 BPM... 1.1 VORP... 0.179 WS/48... 17.5 ppg
GAP........................... 4.9...............1.1.............. 0.5.............. 0.031........... 10.2

92' Jordan''.......... 27.2 PER.... 9.9 BPM... 2.8 VORP... 0.216 WS/48... 34.5 ppg
92' Pippen........... 20.1 PER.... 6.6 BPM... 2.0 VORP... 0.168 WS/48... 19.5 ppg
GAP............................ 7.1............. 3.3.............. 0.8.............. 0.048............ 15.0

91' Jordan'........... 32.0 PER... 14.6 BPM... 2.9 VORP... 0.333 WS/48... 31.1 ppg
91' Pippen........... 22.0 PER..... 6.5 BPM... 1.5 VORP... 0.197 WS/48... 21.6 ppg
GAP.......................... 10.0............. 8.1.............. 1.4............... 0.136............. 9.5

96' Jordan'........... 26.7 PER... 10.7 BPM... 2.4 VORP.. 0.317 WS/48... 30.7 ppg
96' Pippen........... 19.4 PER..... 7.8 BPM... 1.8 VORP.. 0.195 WS/48... 16.9 ppg
GAP............................. 7.3............. 2.9.............. 0.6.............. 0.122........... 13.8

97' Jordan'............ 27.1 PER.... 9.9 BPM... 2.4 VORP... 0.235 WS/48... 31.1 ppg
97' Pippen............ 18.1 PER.... 5.1 BPM... 1.4 VORP... 0.145 WS/48... 19.2 ppg
GAP............................. 9.1............. 4.8.............. 1.0.............. 0.090.......,... 11.9

98' Jordan'............ 28.1 PER.... 9.0 BPM... 2.4 VORP... 0.265 WS/48... 32.4 ppg
98' Pippen............ 19.4 PER.... 5.6 BPM... 1.6 VORP... 0.166 WS/48... 16.8 ppg
GAP............................. 8.7............. 3.4............... 0.8.............. 0.095.......... 16.4

Every "duo" in history was close statistically except MJ/Pippen, who weren't any more of a "duo" than Hakeem/Horry or Dirk/Terry:

Accordingly the statistical record confirms that Pippen's burden or production rates weren't all-time caliber, and therefore his performance was inflated by the winning spotlight to all-time status and media accolade

"Point-forward" means a 2nd point guard on the floor and a 2nd player with a low assisted rate, which lowers the assist-capacity of the team relative to other teams that only have 1 low-assisted player (1 point guard lineups).

That's the inherent flaw in Lebron's game and his "point forward" style... It's hilarious because "point forward" is the same as Pippen, except the Bulls offset the suboptimal 2-point guard issue by having a spot-up shooter at point guard... Lebron cannot do this because he needs so much scoring help and always needed 18-25 ppg from Kyrie, Mo, or D-Lo.. The only exception was when he had a high-flying wing like Wade, which allowed them to put Chalmers at point guard.

And you tried to claim that forward skills weren't that special by saying sarcastically that Lebron would've won more if he played like Jamison or Malone - however, the best forwards were Duncan, Bird and Durant, who all achieved better teams than Lebron.. Duncan is a fundamental big, while Bird and Durant are expert jumpshooters, so these are the exact skillsets that we've said all along produce the best ball movement, chemistry and teams.. Otoh, it's Lebron's high-scoring ball-dominance that imposes spot-up roles, weak chemistry and can't achieve great teams.. Btw, Karl Malone was actually a bad example by you since he was 1st team defense and MVP for 3 straight years from 97' to 99', except a 2nd to MJ in 98' - this peak isn't that far from Lebron's, especially since Malone would be 2x champion if not for MJ.

Finally, we don't need to do statistical analysis to determine the correlation between highly-assisted players and winning since all the dynasties were led by highly-assisted players and skillsets, such as fundamental bigs (Russell's Celtics, Kareem's Lakers, Duncan's Spurs, Shaq's Lakers) or expert jumpshooters (Curry's Warriors, MJ's Bulls - the greatest 3-point jumpshooter and 2-point jumpshooter, respectively).. So the entirety of NBA history already shows that highly-assisted skillsets have produced the only dynasties in history.

An excellent, intelligent point as usual fallguy. For it’s not possible for the other guard to play off guard with a point forward. Like when Kyrie Irving did it in 2016 when the Cavs beat the 73 win Warriors. This has never happened in the history of basketball, in fact.

So many good points. LeBron was a point forward like Pippen, and both teams had the other guard(s) play off ball. Leading to the point forward playing point (it’s in the name) and the other players playing off ball (because, you know, they’re not playing point). But as you can see this is suboptimal and does not work because the Bulls didn’t 3-peat twice and the LeBron/Kyrie Cavs didn’t beat the 73 win Warriors. Proving once and for all point forwards don’t work and you have to be sub 6’4” to play point.

So many good arguments.

Crap you got me I can’t believe I brought up Karl Malone.

Agree completely. In fact, I would go one further and argue the entire field of statistics is useless for finding things such as “correlations” and performing “statistically valid inference”. It’s much, much more logically sound to just make stuff up and use a lot of random words, rather than those pesky quantitative numbers like “averages”, “correlation coefficients”, “p values”, or “3 rings in 5 years”. We could even say things like “entirety of NBA history” and “infinite sample size” to cover up the fact we’re just making things up with zero statistical backing. I love it.

Great points as always fallguy. I can’t believe we doubted u!

Kyrie didn't play off-ball and had a [url=https://www.nba.com/stats/player/202681/scoring?Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular+Season
]28%[/url] assisted rate in 2016 and 30% in 2017.

So again, "point-forward" means a 2nd point guard on the floor and therefore a 2nd player with a low assisted rate, which lowers the assist-capacity of the team relative to other teams that only have 1 low-assisted player (1 point guard lineups).

This matters since the common thread in all of Lebron's playoff losses for the last 10 years is deficits in team assists, mostly massive deficits.

The Bulls ran the triangle, so they had an equitable distribution of the assists and great teams, while Lebron's teams have 1 guy hogging the assists and perennial losers.

Secondly, the triangle didn't have a point guard role because the ball was always moving and no one was dribbling, but if anyone was the team's point guard and assist man, it was MJ... MJ averaged more assists than Pippen for their Finals career, playoff career, and regular season career, and also 6 of 9 playoff runs alongside Pippen - he handled the ball much more than Pippen and was the team's only option for elite assists levels and playmaking.. MJ was the only guy on the Bulls with a "breakdown handle" that averaged 8+ APG in the regular season, playoffs, or Finals.

As a first-time point guard at 26 years old, MJ was thrown into the position suddenly, yet he averaged 30/9/11 in a pinch - that's goat talent for the game of basketball.. Then he averaged 11 APG in the 91' Finals and carried the scoring load despite his legs being worn out as the primary defender on Magic.. It's the goat 2-way and all-round series that's ever been played..

* The Cavs lost by record amount in 2017 and 2018.

* The Heat lost by record choke and record amount in 2011 and 2014.
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* The Lakers were lottery and 1st Round losers twice.

Lesson: do not compare Lebron's perennial losers to MJ's dominant dynasties

There's never been a 2nd option that outplayed the current league MVP in a playoff series, so Lebron should be knocked for going 7 games with this unprecedented help and also the favored roster (preseason favorite)..

The Cavs were the preseason favorite since they were the only team with 3 franchise players (3 elite producers that were asked to build a lottery team from scratch), while every other team only had 1 franchise player (including the Warriors)... Lebron simply gave up on learning the chemistry required to win with 1 franchise player and opted for 3 franchise players (talent-based winning, all-star team strategy).. But again, this need to be a talent-based winner is skillset based - lebron's skillset cannot develop great chemistry, so it needs extra talent.. The high-scoring point guard or "low-assisted" skillset imposes spot-up roles, weak chemistry, and perennial losing (not capable of great team/dynasty).

There's nothing to cover up because history is clear - the historical and statistical record is public information for all to see.

History shows that the only dynasties in history (the only teams that mostly won over a material stretch of at least 5 years) were led by highly-assisted skillsets, such as expert jumpshooters (Curry's Warriors and MJ's Bulls), or fundamental bigs (Duncan's Spurs, Shaq's Lakers, Russell's Celtics, Kareem's Lakers)... If you want to include Bird's Celtics, he would be categorized as "expert jumpshooter" as well along with Curry and MJ.. The only reason you might consider throwing Bird in there is because his losses were to Kareem and extremely close.

Otoh, history also shows that certain skillsets never produced great teams and always produced weak chemistry and perennial losers with every cast... This skillset would be high-scoring point guards, aka "ball-dominators, who impose spot-up roles, lower teammate or team assists, and weak chemistry/teams... They're also turnover machines and they're the only skillset with a long list of bad fits like Brunson, Porzingas, Bosh, Kuzma, Ingram, Westbrook, and so many more.. Love... Too many to even start naming.. It's absurd how many horrific fits Lebron, Luka, Harden and the ball-dominator skillset has.
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Historical Record (for reference purposes)

In the history of the NBA, the only "dynasties" or "great teams" that mostly won over a 5 year period were led by highly-assisted skillsets, such as expert jumpshooters (Curry's Warriors and MJ's Bulls), or fundamental bigs (Russell's Celtics, Kareem's Lakers, Shaq's Lakers, Duncan's Spurs).

Otoh, history also shows that other skillsets such as high-scoring point guards, aka "ball-dominators" never produced great teams and produced perennial losers with every cast - their inability to play off teammates (low assisted rate), while imposing spot-up roles causes lower teammate or team assists, and weaker chemistry/teams.

This is the historical and statistical record of how the game of basketball plays.

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High-scoring point guards, aka "ball-dominators" achieve stats by lowering their teammates' PPG and APG.

Specifically, they impose spot-up roles by lowering their teammates' APG (playmaking) and increasing their assisted rate (play-finishing):

.............................................................APG................... ASSISTED RATE

Wade before Lebron (04'-10'):......... 6.6.............................29.2% <---- links to nba.com data
Wade with... Lebron (11'-14'):'......... 4.7.............................40.3%

Irving before Lebron (12'-14'):......... 5.8.............................31.9%
Irving with... Lebron.. (15-17'):......... 5.3.............................32.7%

Bosh before Lebron (04'-10'):........... 2.2.............................55.8%
Bosh with... Lebron (11'-14'):'........... 1.6.............................71.6%

Love before Lebron (09'-14'):............ 2.5.............................62.7%
Love with...Lebron (15'-18'):............. 2.1.............................78.3%

Mo Will before Lebron (05'-08'):...... 5.7.............................39.2%
Mo Will with... Lebron (09'-10'):....... 4.6.............................47.6%


FYI...

Pippen with... Jordan 91'-93':............ 6.5
Pippen w/out Jordan 94'-95':............ 5.4
Pippen with... Jordan 96'-98':............ 5.8

It's clear that off-ball players or highly-assisted players like MJ and Curry are big assist targets that increase their teammates' assists, thereby increasing the team's assists... Otoh, ball-dominators and low-assisted players like Luka and Lebron reduce everyone's assists so the team has low assists and can't compete viably on the championship level - they have a lottery record on the championship level (22-33 and -86).