GOAT NBA Discussion: Biggest fraud poster: fallguy. Super AIDS Containment thread

Who cares about leak-outs. You yourself have said it's all about 40% irrespective of the role the person has.

Rookie Rui...... 14/6/2 on 47%
Rookie Pip.........8/4/2 on 46%

Career Pip...... 16/6/5 on 46%

Rui was better than Pippen initially, and he barely needed to improve to reach Pippen's general caliber, so he surely would've done that alongside MJ.... I will say that Lebron can take credit for developing his first player ever in Rui, whose recent improvement occurred on Lebron's watch and alongside him (Reaves can be attributed to the highly-assisted AD, who arrived at the same time as rookie Reaves in 2020 and led the Lakers in scoring or co-led).

Leakouts do actually account for it, but isn't all I mentioned and you know that - I specifically stated that other factors were more important, such as a lack of elite off-ball play in the halfcourt that is characteristic of the best teams.. He isn't actually coming off screens in the half court, or getting assisted buckets at the end of shot clocks, or at the end of ball movement that deflates defenses.. It's just a lot of transition and down-hill in the halfcourt.

And the reason that I use career assisted rates is to eliminate noise/fugazi's like this.. The numbers will hold (he won't be the first player with career assisted rate below 40% to produce the best basketball as 1st option, aka dominant champion or dynasty), and it will ultimately devolve into your-turn-my-turn against the top teams in the playoffs - now watch the prophecy be revealed.

Rui is better than the washed and 7 ppg version of Harper that played with the Bulls in 1995 before MJ returned, and then also the version that MJ played with from 96-98'... But the pre-injuries version of Harper destroys Rui, and Pippen.. He was the original "next MJ"

Lebron is so good at 40 that when Doncic comes to town and starts out out terrible (remember he's an unwanted scrap heap guy like 95 Rodman) Lebron just goes hero mode so they win everything and nobody notices Doncic isn't even close to game ready for whatever reason that the Mavs may have been on to.

Nope.. Sorry.. You said "worst trade in history"... Everyone said that... Therefore, by process of elimination, the other option is valid, aka Lebron-ball skillset destroys everyone like Love, Luka, Westbrook, etc, etc, etc, etc.. The unfolding events continue to provide additional historical record/sample that shows Lebron's skillset lacks the chemistry/teammate performance to produce the best teams or a viable title frequency, so he isn't top 10 all-time.., Now if Luka wakes up and starts ballin', then Lebron's off-ball game won't be good enough to sway the action back his way.

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THREAD SUMMARY

Synopsis and Top 10 Argument

If a player's career assisted rate on field goals is below 40%, then they're a primary ball-handler that scores mostly unassisted by teammates, aka ball-dominator... But the problem lies with high-scoring ball-dominators like Lebron, since they have a high volume of unassisted buckets that hurts the team assist ranking over time and increasingly places teammates in spot-up roles with higher assisted rates (1)... The increased spot-up roles for teammates are a direct funnel to Lebron's assists, while reducing his teammates' assists, thus causing low-assist teams compared to the typical champion (2, 3).. Low assist teams are the Achilles heel of high-scoring ball-dominators because every series loss of Lebron's playoff career shows deficits in team assists, except the goat choke in the 11' Finals..

Furthermore, by turning everyone into spot-up shooter, ball-dominators prevent elite roster construction, so they can't be the leading scorer for dynasties or dominant champions, and are 0 for 12 in doing so (4).. Since ball-dominators can't produce the best basketball, they're inferior to the best of other skillsets that can, such as bigs or jumpshooters (12 for 12).. This puts Lebron and all ball-dominators outside the top 10 all-time (behind the best bigs and jumpshooters)... With ball-dominators outside the top 10, the actual top 10 is a subjective mix of bigs and jumpshooters, such as MJ, Russell, Wilt, Kareem, Bird, Kobe, Duncan, Shaq, Curry, Jokic, Magic, Lebron, Oscar.. This is actually a top 13 with ball-dominators bringing up the rear...

Ultimately, high-scoring ball-dominance lets defenses rest, so they have more capacity for offense - this loses the attrition battle and doesn't adhere to a tenet of all competition that the best defense is a good offense.. By failing to win the attrition battle, Lebron's ball-dominance is susceptible to teams with zippy ball movement that wins the attrition battle, such as the Nuggets, Warriors, or Spurs - they all beat Lebron by record margin, sweep, or both, despite having equal rosters or worse most of the time...

The massive upsets by the 1-star Mavs and Magic were also products of Lebron's high-scoring ball-dominance, which isn't a top 10 all-time caliber of basketball - it can't win with normal rosters of 1 franchise player and needs super-teams of multiple franchise players, yet still has the lowest win frequency of any top 10 candidate.. 1 for 6 with AD isn't top 10 caliber, and neither are the mostly losing tenures with Love/Kyrie (couldn't win 60 games), or Wade/Bosh (goat choke and record loss bookending a win over babies and teammate bailout).

Early Career and Receiving 4 players that were better than 1990 Pippen

05' HUGHES.................. 21.6 PER... 0.157 WS/48... 3.7 VORP... 4.3 BPM... 22/6/5.... 1st Team All-D
90' PIPPEN.................... 16.3 PER... 0.087 WS/48... 3.0 VORP... 1.8 BPM... 16/6/5.... No All-D

09' MO WILLIAMS........ 17.2 PER... 0.165 WS/48... 3.1 VORP... 2.3 BPM... 17/3/4
90' PIPPEN.................... 16.3 PER... 0.087 WS/48... 3.0 VORP... 1.8 BPM... 16/7/5

09' JAMISON................. 20.6 PER... 0.126 WS/48... 2.8 VORP... 1.6 BPM... 22/9/2
90' PIPPEN.................... 16.3 PER... 0.087 WS/48... 3.0 VORP... 1.8 BPM... 16/7/5

06' ZYDRUNAS'.............. 21.9 PER... 0.184 WS/48... 2.1 VORP... 1.6 BPM... 16/8/1 (2 bpg)
90' PIPPEN..................... 16.3 PER... 0.087 WS/48... 3.0 VORP... 1.8 BPM... 16/7/5

Early Career is Misreported

If the 2008 Cavs had the worst cast in the league, then how did they basically beat the 2008 Celtics with Lebron playing worse than anyone ever has?... No one in history shot 35% with 5 TO's per game in a series except Lebron in the 08' ECSF, and also the 07' Finals (35.6% and 5.8 TO's).

It's easy to forget that Lebron entered the league with the East all-star center on his team and they added a player that was better than 1990 Pippen to make their first playoffs in 2006 (previous post).

But instead of 3-peating, Lebron played worse than anyone ever has in the 07' and 08' Playoffs and produced a 45-win team until Mo's all-star spacing took the team to another level in 2009, and helped Lebron's game... By elevating a 45-win loser to a 66-win league favorite, Mo's spacing proved to be the difference and a historic part of the foundation for Curry's style of play in later years...

By 2010, the Cavs were a 7th-year organic juggernaut and added another 2x all-star that outplayed Lebron in the 07' 1st Round, while also being a rare 20k scorer (Jamison).. It's pretty nice to have a better scorer than Pippen as your THIRD option, so the 2010 Cavs had more scoring options and better defenses than the 1st three-peat Bulls.. They also added a better center than Jordan ever had (Shaq).

The high defensive ranking in 09' and 10' was due primarily to Lebron's teammates, since the Cavs had great defensive ranking in 07' when Lebron was still 2 years away from being viewed as a good defender/all-defense.. The Cavs simply had a bevy of decorated defenders like Snow, Hughes, Varejao, Ben Wallace, and Zydrunas (2.1 bpg) - Jordan never had this caliber of defensive help that allowed top defensive ranking without Jordan himself being a good defender (all-defense).

Choking

When Jordan lost to the Bad Boys in the 1990 Eastern Conference Finals, he averaged 26.7 on 35.5% with 5.3 TO's per game to lose a very winnable series in 7 games... That's a choke by anyone's standards and a massive one - I don't know if anyone has ever averaged 35% and 5 TO's in a series.

Oh wait - I got the names confused - it was Lebron that wet the bed in a winnable 7-game series with 26 on 35% and 5 TO's in the 08' ECSF... It was his 2nd major choke after 22 on 36% and 6 TO's in the 07' Finals - this performance at 22 years old was a joke compared to 22-year Amare dominating the 05' Spurs with 37 on 55%, or 22-year old Kobe dominating the 01' Spurs with 33/7/7 on 53%..

In addition to the chokes in 07' and 08', Lebron had the worst-ever defensive blunder of defending Courtney Lee in the 09' ECF instead of Hedo or Rashard, while his 7 turnovers in the 4th and OT of Game 4 won the series for Orlando - Lebron was a 12 turnover per game player in clutch-time for that series.. This choke in 09, coupled with the chokes in 07', 08', and the 2010 meltdown were the precursors that should've predicted the goat choke in 2011.

Accordingly, Lebron was a massively-choking player and the media simply lies and pretends otherwise.. In addition to his chokes each year from 07' to 11', he's 0% on championship game-winners or tyers (0-7), with zero scores on the last possession of 1-possession Finals game in 10 Finals.. He's also only 37% on game-winners in the playoffs overall, with only 40% clutch-time efficiency (48% for old Jordan in 97' and 98' with 20% greater burden/attempts)..

Bron' lacks sufficient brand of ball to successfully carry the scoring load vs top teams

Lebron never beat a top 5 SRS team or Finals team with weak scoring and efficiency from a sidekick, so he never carried weak help over top teams.. He also never defeated maximum defensive attention (never carried scoring load on championship level).

Since he can't carry the scoring load, he needs extra star help compared to guys that could carry the scoring load like Curry or MJ, and this need for expensive offensive stars reduces the GM's capacity to get good defenders... So an inability to carry the scoring load hurts a team on many levels.. And a player like MJ or Curry's ability to carry the scoring load and therefore allow the GM to surround him with cheap defenders has a greater defensive impact than the player's individual defense.. This is why weaker defenders that can carry the scoring load like Bird or Curry still had #1 defenses.

The reason that Lebron can't carry the scoring load is because he's too ball-dominant as his scoring levels increase, so he can't beat top teams at carry-job volumes and therefore needs franchise players that can match his scoring (AD, Wade, Luka)... Otoh, off-ball guys like Curry or Jordan score 40 while the ball moves, so they can beat top teams with high scoring levels and win with secondary producers (Klay, Pippen).

Underachiever

Lebron had 6 straight preseason favorites and no one else had more than 3... Then he fell to underdog or lost for all 6 years, except the Allen miracle.. So he underachieves favored talent by losing with preseason favorites, or falling to underdog.. Lebron has the most losses with preseason favorites ever (4) and has a losing record with preseason favorites (3-4).

Lebron's weak brand of ball causes a losing record with every type of good team, such as preseason favorites (3-4), Finals teams (4-6), all-star teammates (4-7), 1 or 2 seeds (4-5), and 3 losses with homecourt (09-11').

Media Misreporting Durant's Career

The "Decision" gave Lebron 6 straight preseason favorites, which is unprecedented because no one else in history had more than 3 straight.. Then he enjoyed further unprecedented help when his sidekick outplaying the league MVP..

The media simply pretended that this unprecedented help wasn't something that needed to be overcome by another unprecedented advantage (KD's Warriors).. So both Lebron and KD had unprecedented advantages, but Lebron's lasted twice as long (11-16' vs 17-19').

Lebron falls short of the top caliber of MVP's, teams and achievement or accolade

Half of Lebron's MVP's lack titles and they all lack scoring titles, while his team achievement also falls short due to no 3-peat, 70 wins or dynasty (never a great team).. Lebron also wasn't all-defense in his 30's, so he wasn't required to be a good defender for the latter half of his chips, while passing less than MJ for the first half of his chips (less playoff APG through 9 years of their respective playoff careers - 06-14' vs 85-93').
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Yup... Lebron was carried again tonight against the Clippers... That's how it works when you team-up with a top 2 player in the league - there's nothing that can be done that would make it okay and not "carried"..

It will always be "carried" to team up with arguably the league's best player, or when 2 franchise players team-up that attract equal defensive attention, so neither is forced to defeat max defensive attention... This contrasts with guys that carried secondary producers like Klay or Pippen and therefore defeated max defensive attention (carried scoring load for playoffs and Finals of title runs).

Carrying the star category (scoring) allows a team to win with less stars and have a better defensive cast.... Unfortunately, Lebron never beat a top 5 SRS team or Finals team with weak scoring and efficiency from a sidekick, so he never carried weak help over top teams.. He also never defeated maximum defensive attention (never carried scoring load on championship level).

The reason that Lebron can't carry the scoring load is because he's too ball-dominant as his scoring levels increase, so he can't beat top teams at carry-job volumes and therefore needs franchise players that can match his scoring (AD, Wade, Luka)... Otoh, off-ball guys like Curry or Jordan score 40 while the ball moves, so they can beat top teams with high scoring levels and win with secondary producers (Klay, Pippen).

40-year old Jordan would win the title with Luka (Bird) and this cast quite easily, so we'll have to see..

The Lakers have the best 2nd, 3rd and 4th best options in the league, plus a carefully-filtered secondary unit from 6 years of tweaking, so only the most impactful and best fits are left... Plus a massive FT differential on the entire league.. So yeah, it's obvious that this generation's Bird or Magic (Luka), plus Reaves and Rui could should be expected to easily win with a ton of other guys replacing Lebron's weak fit, such as 40-year Jordan or Senguin or something.. Peak Luka shouldn't need much and he has plenty.. It's massive overkill - peak Luka came to a fully-tweaked roster that has 6 years of optimizing.

Curious to know how LeBron was carried. Please explain.

The funny thing is that if Jordan went to this team, he would demand his own coach who made everyone on the team feed him in the post. And everyone would watch him shoot a little over 40%.

Do you believe Reaves is better than Mobley and Holmgren?
Do you believe Rui is better than White and Prichard?

Lebron had an equal-scoring partner to attract equal defensive attention, which is "carried" compared to guys that defeated max defensive attention (carried scoring load).

Lebron teamed up with the #2 scorer all-time and possibly the league's best player, which is "carried" compared to playing with secondary producers like Klay, Pippen or Parker that force the 1st option to defeat max defensive attention (carry scoring load for playoffs and championship level/Finals of title run).

But hey, I agree that 40-year Jordan would be carried by teaming up with Luka as well, but Jordan's superior fit, skillset and clutch would easily title with Luka, which remains to be seen from Lebron and his ball-dominant skillset/inferior fit, weaker chemistry, and worst-ever clutch.

So, just to be sure. "Carried" means someone that scored as many points as you. Not sure anyone in the history of the world has used it in that context before.

Anyway, as usual, you didn't watch the game. LeBron outplayed Luka tonight. "Carried" is so wrong it's sad.

Holmgren and Mobley are alley-oop guys, putbackers and simpleton/tertiary production as the role man - very simple crap that every team has some version of ("bangers")... I expect Aaron Gordon or Rui to hang with them in the banger role, or Porter Jr to possibly nullify them by bringing them out to the perimeter, just like Lebron might do while Reaves tries to stalemate Jalen Williams or Garland (and easily out-produces Holmgren or Mobley - they won't average 20 like Reaves).... This is all quite conceivable (unfortunately), so Luka beats SGA just like he did last year with a much worse cast, or newbie Cleveland against a motivated "never happen" Lebron... A spectacular scenario would be Cleveland teaching Lebron a brand of ball lesson like the 14' Spurs, Nuggets, Warriors or Mavs.

A common excuse for Lebron's efficiency in the 07' Finals is that he was going 1 on 5... And the issue is that he never defeated max defensive attention by carrying the scoring load for the playoffs and Finals of a title run.

So let me know when Lebron defeats max defensive attention (carries scoring load) like he failed to do so many times before when he had normal rosters of 1 franchise player (06-10')... Specifically, let me know when he averages 10 more than all teammates for a playoffs and championship of a title run like Curry, MJ, Duncan and others.. otherwise yawn...

Ultimately, the reason that Lebron can't carry the scoring load is the same reason he has bad chemistry - he's too ball-dominant as his scoring levels increase, so he can't beat top teams at carry-job volumes and therefore needs franchise players that can match his scoring (AD, Wade, Luka)... Otoh, off-ball guys like Curry or Jordan score 40 while the ball moves, so they can beat top teams with high scoring levels and win with secondary producers (Klay, Pippen).

Since he can't carry the scoring load and also lacks great chemistry (imposes spot-up roles), he can't win with normal rosters of one franchise player and needs super-teams of multiple franchise players to offset the weaker chemistry and carrying ability.
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ok thats cool !
lest go with what you saying for a sec....
wade is a top 10 player ever and you are missing 2 to prevent lebron to be in top 10.
i got this right ?

magic, kareem, wilt, russell, not in top 10 right ?
that is what your requirements says just to be clear to be in top 10 ?

Jordan added 18 wins to the Wizards team, while Lebron added no wins to the 2019 Lakers and was lottery in the West without AD or another franchise player like Luka..

So Lebron simply diluted the East by putting the top 3 players on 1 team, and then was exposed out West until he got a chance to basically run the same ruse by getting a top 2-3 player like Luka or AD..

Since the 2019 version of Lebron was already doing less with more than Wizards Jordan, we can assume Jordan would do better with Luka too, especially given the superior fit..

And btw, you don't understand the kind of pure and instinctual scorer that MJ was if you think he was just going to the post.. He scored a lot of points so easily and fundamentally off screens, and that was his primary scoring mechanism as a Wizard - maybe check out some footage next time, and understand that being the goat post player PFP is part of being the goat off-ball player and quick-scorer upon the catch - he wasn't playing bully-ball like Lebron..

Goat post ability as a guard is singularly-unique and is part of the goat caliber of basketball that achieved the goat caliber of team winning and individual play, aka 4 of the highest-caliber MVP's that come with the title + the goat 2-way play (scoring title/1st team defense).

The top 10 is a subjective mix of bigs and jumpshooters, since they produce the best chemistry/teammate performance and therefore the best title frequency and all of the best basketball (dynasty and dominant champions).. Otoh, ball-dominators impose spot-up roles that prevent elite roster construction and chemistry, so they can't be 1st option for the best basketball (0 for 12 since possession tracking began in 97').

Rui was offloaded by a tanking Wizards team for super cheap.

His first 4 years, including his initial half season with the Lakers when LeBron was injured for most of his games:

48% FG, 34.7 % 3P on 2.4 att/game, 77% FT, -2.6 BPM

Last 2 seasons:

52.4% FG, 41.6% 3P on 3.7 att/game, 75% FT, -0.9 BPM

Wow, interesting stuff here. His 3P efficiency massively spikes on way more volume. FT% the same so didn’t appear to make a significant leap as a shooter. Impact stats go way up too (although still negative) I wonder what happened here. Probably succeeded in spite of LeBron…if LeBron wasn’t on the Lakers, he’d probably be shooting 45% 3P on more volume.

He’s definitely much better than Pippen though, that’s for sure. Not to mention Chet, Mobley, White etc.

Mobley and Chet are both averaging more points per 100 possessions than Reaves is this year.

Lol Fraudguy.

I like how Rui is a 20 ppg guy when he's never averaged more than 13.

Damn Bron holding everyone back.

Of course if Rui actually was averaging 20, well that would mean he was carrying Bron.

No matter what, everything keeps coming up fallguy!

Does anyone else not understand what fallguy is even arguing anymore? Here he is agreeing that LeBron James has the proper skillset, and can be perfectly integrated into this better "brand of ball", as fallguy himself words it:

This is, word-for-word, agreeing with our central point that scheme matters, and that LeBron can, and always has been, perfectly capable of being integrated into these other systems, which depend on the coach and the exact scheme they employ.

Also, a related argument he has made a few hundred times:

This has trivially been proven false as well by historical example: the 80's Lakers were not led by a jumpshooter nor a big. They were led by Magic Johnson, a ball dominant point guard. This proves that you don't need to be led by a jumpshooter nor a big to build a dynasty (they won 3 championships in 4 years: '85, '87, and '88), and you also don't need to be led by a jumpshooter nor big to be a "dominant champion" ('87 Lakers only had 3 losses in the playoffs). The '82 Lakers were led by Magic as well and they only had 2 playoff losses; Kareem was on their roster but at this stage in his career he was averaging sub-24 ppg and the offense was well-balanced, facilitated by Magic.

Also, the 50's and 60's Celtics (11 championships in 13 years), were led by a defensive anchor in Bill Russell. There was no highly assisted volume scorer on any of those championship teams (0 for 11 in needing a highly assisted volume scorer to win, but 11 for 13 rings overall: the most dominant dynasty in the history of basketball).

Lastly, LeBron James himself won championships in 2012, 2013, and 2016 (3 rings in 5 years; fallguy's definition of a dynasty). This proves that, well, LeBron James can win 3 championships in 5 years (fallguy's definition of a dynasty).

So since fallguy agrees with literally all of our core points, what is he arguing about?