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

LMFAO. Thank you for this.

So, out of curiosity I calculated the correlation between wins and assisted % for field goals made for the 2023-24 season. The correlation is -0.16049. Yes, that is a minus sign in front of that number. The correlation is NEGATIVE.

fallguy, benchwarmer basketball analyst. Dribbling behind his back like we all learned how to do in the 4th grade, but falling on face. Looks like his two business certificates didn’t go beyond his undergrad stats class that he probably had to take 3 times to pass with a C.

Please don’t lock the thread yet. I want to see how fallguy reacts to data driven proof that he has lost and every argument, every post he has made, for the last several years on multiple basketball forums across the internet has been completely irrefutably wrong. This is going to be great.

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Recent Timeline of Events itt

1) fallguy says that a high scorer's low assisted rate (ball-dominance) prevents high team assists.

2) this is disputed by posters itt, so fallguy is forced to provide linked data that proves 1) Lebron lowers his teammates' assists, and 2) the correlation between a scorer's low assisted rate and low team assist ranking.

3) after proving to posters that Lebron lowers his teammates' assists and prevents a high-assist team, posters itt say that team assists don't matter - they've literally been cornered into saying that team assists and ball movement don't matter and aren't drivers for elite basketball and titles..

Since you fail at refuting the arguments that I've made itt, your pattern is to invent an unrelated argument that we weren't having, so you can try and win at something, or appear to put up a fight.

The argument was never about a teams' assisted rate, which is entirely different from team assists per game.. Talented teams can to play faster and have lower assisted rates, but might still rank high in team assists per game.. And the argument was never that higher assists = more regular season wins.. The argument was that title teams and the best teams in history have high ball movement and higher-assist teams - they perfected the best high-assist styles, so players that prevent high-assist styles altogether surely can't have great teams..

This is why Lebron and ball-dominators like him are inferior - the stats earlier showed that they score high volumes of buckets at low assisted rates, which prevent high assist teams and therefore the best brand of ball employed by every dynasty in history.

Ultimately, Lebron's "decision" gave up on learning the chemistry required to win with the roster he was given, or "normal" rosters of 1 franchise player.. Instead, he opted for super-teams of 3 franchise players - it was a talent-based approach to avoid the hard grind of learning the right chemistry and producing a great champion.. Indeed, it must be really hard to learn great chemistry with a skillset that imposes spot-up roles and prevents great ball movement... So he prefers to stack the deck and use a talent-based approach devoid of chemistry, which barely ever wins and wins by the skin of his teeth instead of having dominant dynasties.
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Through 23 games played this year, LeBron is averaging 23.0 points per game.

Lmaooo. fallguy’s response is everything I hoped it would be. He argues for hundreds, maybe even thousands of posts across the internet far and wide that assisted fg% is the key to winning, and then when presented with hard, factual data that assisted fg% is minimally correlated with team wins, and even at times negatively correlated, he twists himself into a patented fallguy pretzel of illogic and obfuscation.

I’m spent. The lol’s are too much. Lock it up. We must create an Internet archive of this for future generations.

YES LOCK THIS UP SO I DON'T HAVE TO WASTE MY TIME LOOKING AT THIS ANYMORE

LOCK IT UP!

LOCK IT UP!

A dynasty could have high team assist ranking but low assisted rate just because they play fast... That's why team assists and a team's assisted rate cannot be substituted for one another in this argument.. You lost the team assist argument, so you introduced the team's assisted rate, which is completely different and isn't correlated with winning the way team assists are..

But regardless, due to the obvious variance, the argument was never to correlate high team assists with more regular season wins - the argument was to correlate high team assists with champions and dynasties, since that's where the strong and obvious correlation lies.

Perfecting ball movement is hard, so teams can have weak regular season records despite good assist levels all the time, but history shows that it's still required to produce the best basketball (dynasties)... Virtually all dynasties employ great ball movement and high team assists, which low-assisted scorers like Lebron and Luka cannot produce (proven earlier itt).. Accordingly, we proved itt that the best low-assisted players like Luka and Lebron are inferior to highly-assisted players like Jokic and Curry by virtue of having an inferior skillset that cannot produce great teams/dynasties... Again, all dynasties have great ball movement and high-assist teams, which we proved that low-assisted players cannot produce... Checkmate.

Lock it up McLovin... I'm not "spent" like Matt because I'm on the right side of the argument and playing offense, while he plays defense, but you may as well lock it up nonetheless... I don't want to burden people with opening the thread and seeing Matt and Fidstar floundering around desperately trying to pretend they haven't lost the argument many times over.. I was planning on getting to 1000 pages and then starting a youtube channel, but it's up to you.. We've literally proven statistically that the best low-assisted players are inferior to the best high-assisted players, so that's pretty good and I'm satisfied with that.

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ASSIST RANKING FOR 1ST OPTIONS THAT MOSTLY WON OVER A MATERIAL STRETCH OF 5+ YEARS (DYNASTIES), PLUS BIRD & JOKIC'S TOO:

57' Russell............. 2nd
58' Russell............. 3rd
59' Russell............. 1st
60' Russell............. 2nd
61' Russell............. 4th
62' Russell............. 3rd
63' Russell............. 1st
64' Russell............. 4th
65' Russell............. 2nd
66' Russell............. 7th
67' Russell............. 2nd
68' Russell............. 9th
69' Russell............. 5th
___________________________
Average................. 3.5


80' Kareem........... 1st
81' Kareem........... 2nd
82' Kareem........... 1st
83' Kareem........... 1st
84' Kareem........... 2nd
85' Kareem........... 1st
86' Kareem........... 1st
87' Kareem........... 1st
88' Kareem........... 3rd
89' Kareem........... 2nd
____________________________
Average................ 1.5


85' Jordan............. 20th
87' Jordan............. 12th
88' Jordan.............. 9th
89' Jordan.............. 6th
90' Jordan.............. 7th
91' Jordan.............. 4th
92' Jordan.............. 3rd
93' Jordan.............. 6th
96' Jordan.............. 5th
97' Jordan.............. 2nd
98' Jordan.............. 7th
____________________________
Average................. 7.3


10' Curry................ 5th
11' Curry................ 7th
12' Curry................ 9th
13' Curry............... 15th
14' Curry................ 7th
15' Curry................ 1st
16' Curry................ 1st
17' Curry................ 1st
18' Curry................ 1st
19' Curry................ 1st
20' Curry................ 9th
21' Curry................ 1st
22' Curry................ 5th
23' Curry................ 1st
24' Curry................ 4th
25' Curry................ 5th
___________________________
Average................. 4.6


98' Duncan........... 12th
99' Duncan............ 6th
00' Duncan........... 16th
01' Duncan........... 16th
02' Duncan........... 27th
03' Duncan........... 22nd
04' Duncan........... 19th
05' Duncan........... 14th
06' Duncan........... 10th
07' Duncan........... 11th
08' Duncan........... 21st
09' Duncan........... 12th
10' Duncan............ 7th
11' Duncan............ 8th
12' Duncan............ 4th
13' Duncan............ 1st
14' Duncan............ 1st
15' Duncan............ 5th
16' Duncan............ 3rd
___________________________
Average................. 11.3



16' Jokic................. 14th
17' Jokic................. 2nd
18' Jokic................. 5th
19' Jokic................. 2nd
20' Jokic................. 4th
21' Jokic................. 5th
22' Jokic................. 3rd
23' Jokic................. 2nd
24' Jokic................. 3rd
25' Jokic................. 1st
__________________________
Average................. 4.1


80' Bird.................. 8th
81' Bird.................. 7th
82' Bird.................. 7th
83' Bird.................. 7th
84' Bird................. 14th
85' Bird.................. 6th
86' Bird.................. 2nd
87' Bird.................. 2nd
88' Bird.................. 2nd
90' Bird................... 1st
91' Bird................... 8th
92' Bird................... 9th
_____________________________
Average.................. 6.1

^^^^ This #1 assist capability and otherwise high team assist rankings are due mostly to the skillset of the 1st option because we know that low-assisted scorers like Luka and Lebron cannot produce high-assist teams!!!... Players that average 25+ with assisted rates of under 40% don't produce high-assist teams and their teams average 18th....

Matt and Fidstar would have you believe that the players above got all the high assist coaches, while Luka, Lebron, Harden and Westbrook got all the low assist coaches - for like 100 years straight when we combine everyone's career... But we know it's skillset-based because the number of assisted buckets that the biggest shot-taker has will have the biggest impact on teammates' and the team's assist capacity - this is mathematical fact.... Low-assisted 1st options simply produce lower-assist teams on average, so they're inferior to higher assisted players that can produce high-assist teams and therefore qualify for dynasty potential and elite winning - and this is exactly what happens - the high-assisted 1st options produced all the best ball movement, chemistry and the only dynasties in history.
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Crazy to think teams with better players who shoot better and score more points have higher assists. Wow.

Anyway. If you weren't dead after 23000, it's over now. It's like a zombie coming up from the dead to be whacked as he's digging out of the grave.

Good to see you have got the Joker in there. 1 Championship and 1 other Conference Final (where they got smashed) in 10 years.

80' Bird.................. 8th
81' Bird.................. 7th
82' Bird.................. 7th
83' Bird.................. 7th
84' Bird................. 14th
85' Bird.................. 6th
86' Bird.................. 2nd
87' Bird.................. 2nd
88' Bird.................. 2nd
90' Bird................... 1st
91' Bird................... 8th
92' Bird................... 9th

Bolded are Championships.

Average in Championship years - 7th
Average in non-Championship years - 5th

Seems like there's no correlation that when Bird is on a team with more assists he's more likely to win.

Wow. Duncan has an even worse correlation.

10' Curry................ 5th
11' Curry................ 7th
12' Curry................ 9th
13' Curry............... 15th
14' Curry................ 7th
15' Curry................ 1st
16' Curry................ 1st
17' Curry................ 1st
18' Curry................ 1st
19' Curry................ 1st
20' Curry................ 9th
21' Curry................ 1st
22' Curry................ 5th
23' Curry................ 1st
24' Curry................ 4th
25' Curry................ 5th

Using the Warriors is so dumb. They have had the two greatest off-ball shooters the game has ever seen. And then they had Durant for 3 seasons who isn't a slouch. Of course they have a lot of assists.

Bolded are seasons Steph missed the playoffs btw.

It's almost like the team is a function of it's coaches and players.

The recent results of this thread is incredibly hilarious.

Indeed, you changed the thread title when a poster put forth a big effort to fight back against the beat down...........but then I introduced the end game... smh.... All of Matt's points were quickly destroyed including ridiculous ones that he's abandoned anyway (like Lebron "improving everyone's off-ball game", aka removing their versatile assisted rate and increasing it to one-dimensional spot-up territory (cratering their assists)..

And now Fidstar has responded for Matt to save face, but it's just a matter of repackaging existing math to make the point crystal clear and swat him down like a fly.. This is fun.. We've finally figured it out - we can mathematically explain why Lebron, Luka and the best high-scoring, low-assisted players are inferior and win less than the best highly-assisted players.. Again, it's the end game and Fidstar/Matt are frantically moving their king around to avoid the inevitable.. Unfortunately, the math is what it is, so there's no escape..

Repackaged math to make the point crystal clear incoming....

Jokic won with less than lebron ever did and most champions because his skillset produces the best chemistry, which includes #1 team assist capability and generally higher team assist rankings, both of which are required for dynasties and goat basketball.

The reason that I have Jokic in my top 10 already is because he's the first highly-assisted player ever to average 10 assists - his assisted rate is 60-70%, but everyone else that averaged 10+ assists had an assisted rate of 10-38% or so (point guards).. He's getting the same assists as them by dominating the ball half as much and generating assists for teammates on twice as many of his own buckets.

The point is that Jokic's superior brand of ball and production would win every year if he had a modicum of help, such as a healthy borderline all-star like Jamal Murray... How many guys could replace Jamal Murray??.. Tons and tons.. Jokic would win every year with a ton of guys in Murray's place... But we'll see because Murray might step it up later on and I think Jokic should win 1 more with or without Murray.. He nearly beat the T-Wolves last year while Murray wet the bed, and I would pick Jokic over Luka every day and twice on Sunday.. I expect Jokic to be there and compete for a title this season when it's all said and done.

Dynasties that mostly won for a material stretch of 5 years

Russell's Celtics......... goat ball movement
Kareem's Lakers........ goat ball movement
Jordan's Bulls............. goat ball movement
Duncan's Spurs......... goat ball movement
Curry's Warriors........ goat ball movement

Every "dynasty" that mostly won over a material stretch of 5+ years was known for best-ever ball movement, which was statistically-supported by #1 assist capability and a good ranking over the long-run - this type of criteria is necessary to account for the massive variance as you showed where the difference between 5th and 7th means little for an established, great ball movement team - it doesn't show that "less ball movement won more" because we're talking about the same great ball movement team, and the yearly variance can mean a million things like differing opponents, teammates, or anything else.

11th ranking for Duncan's career is better than low-assisted 1st options, while Duncan helped invent the #1 assist offenses in 13' and 14' that the Warriors used to usher in the current era, so that's pretty good too...

Again, there's a ton of variance in the yearly assist rankings, but every dynasty demonstrated goat ball movement in both eye test and stats - all dynasties require goat ball movement that is statistically-supported by #1 assist capability and higher rankings over the long run... Duncan did this, as did every other dynasty.

Kareem had great assist rankings before Magic, so that destroys your point - I just forgot to put them up there but he was 5th, 5th, and 3rd before Magic arrived.

The reason that Kareem always had good assist rankings is because his sky hook is the best possession-finisher ever, and he did that on every team at high volume - the greatest assist target ever and the most points ever, so he had the best assist rankings ever.. Meanwhile, it's Magic who cratered to 11th in 1991 (when he was 2nd for MVP to Jordan).

Again, it all comes down to the statistical reality that the best low-assisted players like Luka and Lebron are inferior to highly-assisted players like Jokic and Curry by virtue of having an inferior skillset that cannot produce the historic ball movement, #1 assist capability and higher assist rankings over the long-term that dynasties require.

Again, a 3rd ranking in assists doesn't mean a team is moving the ball in a more winning way than a 5th ranked team - it takes a big gap over a long period to conclude a real difference, such as the gap in team assist ranking for highly-assisted scorers vs low-assisted ones over the course of their careers - it's a big gap over a long period of time that shows highly-assisted scorers produce higher-assist teams than low-assisted scorers - this is basic math and intuitive

It isn't just Curry - Jordan, Kareem, Duncan and all highly-assisted scorers produce higher assist rankings over the long-term - this is literally why they're superior, because this higher assist ranking and superior ball movement is required to have dynasty potential, as opposed to playing futilely with no chance of a great team or dynasty like ball-dominators, lol

You're arguing that highly-assisted players like Curry, Jordan, Jokic, and Kareem got all the high-assist coaches for 100 straight years (if we combine their careers), while all the low-assisted players like Luka, Lebron, Harden, etc got all the low-assist coaches for 100 straight years.

This is obviously wrong, and the obvious truth is that the skillsets of players dictate what coaches can do... Low-assisted 1st options offer a high volume of unassisted buckets and barely any assisted buckets, so they produce lower assist teams, which disqualifies them from dynasties and makes their play futile.

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Quick Summary

It's a statistical fact that low-assisted 1st options like Luka and Lebron cannot produce the #1 assist teams, historic ball movement and higher assist rankings over the long-term that dynasties require, so they play futilely and are therefore inferior to the best highly-assisted players that produce the brand of ball required to pursue great teams/dynasties.

fallguy, showing data that Bill Russell's Celtics had team assist rankings between 1 and 9, in a league that had 8 teams through 1961 and 9 teams through 1966. It is these analysis skills that make me wonder why fallguy had a failed career as an analyst. 🤔

fidstar, Matt, and everyone else who has a basic understanding of basketball:

NBA dynasties have been built when elite roster construction, elite coaching, and elite scheme and strategy come together.

fallguy:

No, not that. Dynasties are built with a single statistic that has a negative correlation with wins. The laws of mathematics are wrong and the earth is flat.

Thank you for your contributions fallguy. We're not laughing at you, we're laughing with you. (Just kidding, we're all laughing at you.)