Is Lebron James still the best basketball player right now?

[osh kosh bosh]

I feel like I'm in Romany Malco in 40 year virgin and Kevin Hart is yelling " I don't understand what that means so I'm going to take that at disrespect."

Y'all education system is slacking man.

No I do not have the exact baysean regression formula Kevin pelton used. A million formulas run your life, from your car, to your computer to your social media timeline, I don't have the formulas to those either yet some we still use them.

I know the process and the process is sound, use a linear regression to figure out how much win share totals correlate to championships, control for variables like quality of competition and then appply those values to Jordan and LeBron's career totals. It's not complex, it's not quantum physics.

Google linear regression for dummies if you still confused.

And I don't even understand why y'all are getting so mad, it confirms what moat of y'all believe anyways...that Jordan at his peek was better but LeBron's longivity will allow him to pass him in total value.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

This is easily one of the most biased and ridiculous articles I have ever read in my life. Making up statistical measures and assigning player value to said made up statistic? LMAO

Sigh...okay man. Math scary, I know, I know.

 

[dland24]

The competition thing is really something that gets glaringly overlooked by all these slupers of these Finals appearances. I just looked and since Lebron went to Miami there have been 105 all NBA selections (1st, 2nd, & 3rd teams) The East has had a whopping 31 (including Bron), 24 (w/o Bron and of those 24, 5 were his teammates in those 7 seasons. That means that only 19 out of 105 (18%) of the East has been all NBA caliber in this run. That's pathetic.

I like this post and this information a great deal MVP. Very quality post. I do have one small problem with the fact that you are using 19 out of 105 rather than 19 out of 93 though. You cant take out LeBron and his teammates All NBA awards, and still use the 105 as a grand total, IMO. But the point remains. LeBrons competition in the East has been an utter joke, and only LeBron stans will say the talent discrepancy is not a big deal. (using 93 instead of 105 boosts the percentage to a staggering 20% lol)

 

[osh kosh bosh]

It's also amusing that the metric that y'all seem to turn to is "all NBA selections" which is voted on by sportswriters and team broadcasters most y'all don't even respect.


But hey man def gotta go with an award voted on by the likes of Tommy heinson and like Stephan a Smith.

 

[wavycrocket]

It's also amusing that the metric that y'all seem to turn to is "all NBA selections" which is voted on by sportswriters and team broadcasters most y'all don't even respect.


But hey man def gotta go with an award voted on by the likes of Tommy heinson and like Stephan a Smith.

MVP literally just provided that “metric” an hour or so ago.

We don’t need all nba selections to show us how weak the East has been since 2010. Simple year by year standings and a look at the rosters could get you that.

All NBA selections also are more accurate and a better measure of talent than say...all star appearances. Keep telling us what we know and who we respect though.

Condescending osh is back

 

[dland24]

Sigh...okay man. Math scary, I know, I know.

Dude stop. My and others issues about this stat have nothing to do with math.

 

[MVP]

Kobe smacked Duncan around 4 outta the 5 times they met in the 2000s but it was his era? Lmaooo

And dland24 only reasoning took the teammate out is to show the competition he's had during this run. No other reason.

Condescending osh discrediting who's giving out the awards now? So those same people that did that voted Bron on those all NBA teams and awarded him 4 MVPs. Should those be discredited too?

 

[osh kosh bosh]

Dude stop. My and others issues about this stat have nothing to do with math.

let's be serious you don't even understand how it works, so your so called "issues" with it are about as relevant as my "issues" with quatum physics.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

Kobe smacked Duncan around 4 outta the 5 times they met in the 2000s but it was his era? Lmaooo

And dland24 only reasoning took the teammate out is to show the competition he's had during this run. No other reason.

Condescending osh discrediting who's giving out the awards now? So those same people that did that voted Bron on those all NBA teams and awarded him 4 MVPs. Should those be discredited too?

I don't care about NBA awards, I don't take them as an indication of anything so the which awards you like and don't like are between you and god.

 

[junglejim]

I feel like I'm in Romany Malco in 40 year virgin and Kevin Hart is yelling " I don't understand what that means so I'm going to take that at disrespect."

Y'all education system is slacking man.

No I do not have the exact baysean regression formula Kevin pelton used. A million formulas run your life, from your car, to your computer to your social media timeline, I don't have the formulas to those either yet some we still use them.

I know the process and the process is sound, use a linear regression to figure out how much win share totals correlate to championships, control for variables like quality of competition and then appply those values to Jordan and LeBron's career totals. It's not complex, it's not quantum physics.

Google linear regression for dummies if you still confused.

And I don't even understand why y'all are getting so mad, it confirms what moat of y'all believe anyways...that Jordan at his peek was better but LeBron's longivity will allow him to pass him in total value.

The problem is win shares doesnt account for quality of competition and other variables that you cannot account for in a formula. Its looks mostly at estimated individual points produced over total possessions and factors in league pace. In its simplest form its factoring just points scored, assists, and team pace vs league pace.

They say they "factor" in qualify of competition by using the amount of minutes played from an overall pool which literally tells me nothing about the style of play from the 90s to 2000s to 2010s. Its an arbitrary metric that one guy made up to factor level of competition. It absolutely skews the results toward players of today since they assume that players of today have faced tougher competition which may or may not be true. The metric may be "passable" for people in the same era, but it is deeply flawed when comparing to different decades.

It doesnt at all factor in the teammates one player played with, played against, or coaches in which said player played for.

But yes, continue to diminish others education because you found some flawed metric that you took as gospel without truly understanding what the hell it does.

 

[dland24]

The problem is win shares doesnt account for quality of competition and other variables that you cannot account for in a formula. Its looks mostly at estimated individual points produced over total possessions and factors in league pace. In its simplest for its factoring just points scored, assists, and team pace vs league pace.

They say they "factor" in qualify of competition by using the amount of minutes played from an overall pool which literally tells me nothing about the style of player from the 90s to 2000s to 2010s. Its an arbitrary metric that one guy made up to factor level of competition.

It doesnt at all factor in the teammates one player played with, played against, or coached in which said player played for.

But yes, continue to diminish others education because you found some flawed metric that you took as gospel without truly understanding what the hell it does.

But maff.

 

[junglejim]

"Adjusting for league quality
The last stop of the process is adjusting for how quality of play has evolved in the NBA over time. When I was ranking the top teams of all time last June, I used an adjustment based on whether players saw more or less playing time from one season to the next after accounting for aging.

That version worked well at the team level as far as dealing with expansion and the merger, but it doesn't seem to reflect the improvement of the league over time. Given the increased size of the player pool the NBA now draws from with the growth of the game internationally, it's hard to believe quality of play is really worse now than in the 1980s.

The solution turned it to be considering minutes played year over year without the aging factor. That results in the following graph of league quality dating back to 1946-47 and relative to 2014-15."

That how this guy adjusted for competition. Real ******* scientific.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

The problem is win shares doesnt account for quality of competition and other variables that you cannot account for in a formula. Its looks mostly at estimated individual points produced over total possessions and factors in league pace. In its simplest form its factoring just points scored, assists, and team pace vs league pace.

They say they "factor" in qualify of competition by using the amount of minutes played from an overall pool which literally tells me nothing about the style of play from the 90s to 2000s to 2010s. Its an arbitrary metric that one guy made up to factor level of competition. It absolutely skews the results toward players of today since they assume that players of today have faced tougher competition which may or may not be true. The metric may be "passable" for people in the same era, but it is deeply flawed when comparing to different decades.

It doesnt at all factor in the teammates one player played with, played against, or coaches in which said player played for.

But yes, continue to diminish others education because you found some flawed metric that you took as gospel without truly understanding what the hell it does.

sigh...yes pelton adjusted for quality of comp.

his adjustment makes perfect sense, the quality of the league generally improves minus dilutions due to expansion. Thus if a player minutes go down more than you would expect controlling for age, it makes sense to conclude that it's likely from quality younger player taking his place, if his production goes up it means there aren't the young players able to take their place.

it's only "made up" in the sense that any thing invented by humans can be described as "made up"

it's a smart way to measure the quality of the league.

yes win shares is a simple box score, metric and has the limitations of box score metric,

1. it's the best measure we have, that goes back to the 50's.
2. In a debate about lebron vs. MJ more advanced statistics tend to favor Lebron anyways, so if anything Jordan probably benefits from the use of Win shares.
3. Even if it sin't the perfect stat it still correlates strongly to winning chips, and thus it has predictive value.


The argument, X stat doesn't measure every single thing in fine granular detail so thus the stat is "made up" is just fallacious thinking. We get it you love MJ no need to twist yourself into knots, pretending math is "made up" to justify it.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

Also this idea that people are shocked that the league is 12% better than the 90's is hilarious an a-historical.

2 teams added in 88, 2 teams in 89, 2 teams in 95.

Rapid expansion over the course of MJ's career didn't dilute the talent level of the league? wut?


The overrating of the 90's is scourge on society,

 

[osh kosh bosh]

So MJ's 33/6/6 playoff averages while with the Bulls has less impact than the 28/8/7 playoff averages of Bron? That's what you're saying? Or just show the math even if it's ridiculous.

Also Bron with NO hand checking is a better option than MJ as well? Man what?!

1. man cmon man, Jordan's PER GAME contributions are higher, but Lebron beats him on TOTAL value because he's played in two more series.


this is another 90's tic that I missed.

YES. HAND CHECKING is not the height of defense.

Modern defenses make it harder to dominante as an iso scorer, having a guy who can pick a part zone coverage with great passing IMO is more valuable than a non 3 point shooting ISO scorer in the modern era.



You can disagree and take Jordan but stop acting like it's absurd, it's perfectly a perfectly rational thought process.

 

[Sole4realex]

Media helping him as always. Lebron 33 years old, analysis are already bringing up," The father time catching up" subject. Should be in his prime still for 1 to 2 more years tops.

 

[junglejim]

Also this idea that people are shocked that the league is 12% better than the 90's is hilarious an a-historical.

2 teams added in 88, 2 teams in 89, 2 teams in 95.

Rapid expansion over the course of MJ's career didn't dilute the talent level of the league? wut?


The overrating of the 90's is scourge on society,

So you agree with his analysis that the league was more competitive in 1965 than it was in the 1980s and 1990s because that is the statistical output that he came up with? A time where one team won the NBA championship 9 out of 10 years was possibly the most competitive era in basketball prior to the 2000s. I've got a ******* bridge to sell you believe that.

He is actually showing that the expansion in those years did next to nothing to competitiveness of the 1980s and 1990s so by your very measure they apparently had little to no impact on league competitiveness.

While I do agree that the league has improved in terms of an overall international talent pool and skill (we can see that just by looking at the olympics), this also doesnt measure that overall increase in younger, less experienced players that entered the league straight out of high school after one year in college. It also doesnt factor in the quality of the individual teams played against or played with. It just assumes that since there is a deeper talent pool I am automatically facing a tougher road without factoring competition of teams face or conference quality differentials. I would argue that this year has been one of the least competitive playoffs in a long damn time. How many playoff series have been decided 4-1 or 4-0? Other than like two first round playoffs series, this playoffs has been trash in terms of competitiveness.

And im not laughing at the league being 12% more competitive. I'm laughing at the fact that this guy just said it in an article without any form of analysis or proof to back it up within that article. Its piss poor writing, but writing you chose to co-sign as gospel.

And im not a Jordan fan. At all. The guy was as big of a douche as lebron, but it doesnt change what he did.

 

[MVP]

So you agree with his analysis that the league was more competitive in 1965 than it was in the 1980 and 1990s because that is the statistical output that he came up with? A time where one team won the NBA championship 9 out of 10 years was possibly the most competitive era in basketball prior to the 2000s. I've got a ****ing bridge to sell you believe that.

He is actually showing that the expansion in those years did next to nothing to competitiveness of the 1980s and 1990s so by your very measure they apparently had little to no impact on league competitiveness.

While I do agree that the league has improved in terms of an overall international talent pool and skill (we can see that just by looking at the olympics), this also doesnt measure that overall increase in younger, less experienced players that entered the league straight out of high school after one year in college. It also doesnt factor in the quality of the individual teams played against or played with. It just assumes that since there is a deeper talent pool I am automatically facing a tougher road without factoring competition of teams face or conference quality differentials. I would argue that this year has been one of the least competitive playoffs in a long damn time. How many playoff series have been decided 4-1 or 4-0?

And im not laughing at the league being 12% more competitive. I'm laughing at the fact that this guy just said it in an article without any form of analysis or proof to back it up within that article. Its piss poor writing, but writing you chose to co-sign as gospel. Its garbage.

And im not a Jordan fan. At all. The guy was as big of a douche as lebron, but it doesnt change what he did.

The talent pool may in fact be bigger but the disparity of that talent is more lopsided than ever. 80+% of the league's top 30 or so players are in one conference. It's never been this bad. Which is why the whole league is better now doesn't hold water with Bron. He never has to face that gauntlet until the Finals and that's where he's failed a lot more than any other consensus top 10 player.

 

[junglejim]

The talent pool may in fact be bigger but the disparity of that talent is more lopsided than ever. 80+% of the league's top 30 or so players are in one conference. It's never been this bad. Which is why the whole league is better now doesn't hold water with Bron. He never has to face that gauntlet until the Finals and that's where he's failed a lot more than any other consensus top 10 player.

This is what im saying. The quality of players may be better, but we havent seen superstar teams like this since the 80s. That stat doesnt factor in the fact that lebron had to face like ten 50 win teams to get to the finals while MJ had to face 25. But since it was passed off as an advanced stat it is the best way to measure a player's greatness.

Im all for analytics, but some advanced stats just suck ***.

 

[EnvyTheGreen]

math that doesnt line up with reality isnt good math. period. you cant be ACTUALLY responsible for HYPOTHETICAL results. so whatever this article was supposed to prove.... it didnt. it just shows dudes cant find anything in REALITY to say why lebrons career is on par with jordans.



.....hold on. it was the duncan era? is this a joke? you must mean duncan yoyos. and yea those yoyos had a great run but that era is over. cuz CERTAINLY you dont mean tim duncan was the best player in the league for an era. thats definitely not what im reading.

duncan was a great player in his role. but you telling me if you had to put a team together with either kobe or duncan in 2000-2008 time frame you're gonna choose duncan? nah you gotta get out of here G

I’d take Duncan for sure.

Arguably the greatest to ever play his position. Always competitive (much credit to Pop and the organization but he was their one constant from their first championship in 1999 to their last in 2014).

Kobe was clearly second fiddle for the 3-peat and it’s highly debatable whether he would have won in 2009 OR 2010 had KG not gotten injured. Celtics washed Lakers in 2008 and they were even better in 2009 until the injury. In 2010 they nearly beat the Lakers anyway with KG at 75%, Perkins blowing out his knee, and ‘Sheed hobbling around on fumes.


There was nothing original about Kobe. He was an extraordinary competitor but his ego always got in the way. Whether it was the 2004 Finals, his feud with Shaq, or driving the Lakers into the basement in the twilight of his career. All-time-great scorer, overrated defender, and questionable leader/teammate.

Duncan the consummate professional always, and went through everybody there was in his era to win his five titles.

So yes, Duncan over Kobe if we leave homerism out of this and look at it objectively.

 

[tekthemaestro]

I mean....from 99-07 Duncan won 4 Chips, 3Finals MVPs and 2 League MVPS.....(Back 2 Back)

He also never missed the playoffs and his 03 Finals is the greatest “do it yourself” probably ever.

So yeah. Duncan had an era. He shared it with Shaq.

nope. Shaq had an era. Kobe had an era. Like many great players... they existed in other players eras. It was kobes league. it was shaqs league. it was never duncans league.

as for the do it yourself finals moment, iirc dude averaged like 22 for the series and played over 40 minutes a game? maybe im spoiled by todays game but thats hardly mindblowing team carrying action.

Duncan is a great player. But to have an era.... its gotta be your league. Youve gotta be THE guy. And tho im 28... i cant remember a time where duncan was ever THE guy

 

[tekthemaestro]

I’d take Duncan for sure.

Arguably the greatest to ever play his position. Always competitive (much credit to Pop and the organization but he was their one constant from their first championship in 1999 to their last in 2014).

Kobe was clearly second fiddle for the 3-peat and it’s highly debatable whether he would have won in 2009 OR 2010 had KG not gotten injured. Celtics washed Lakers in 2008 and they were even better in 2009 until the injury. In 2010 they nearly beat the Lakers anyway with KG at 75%, Perkins blowing out his knee, and ‘Sheed hobbling around on fumes.


There was nothing original about Kobe. He was an extraordinary competitor but his ego always got in the way. Whether it was the 2004 Finals, his feud with Shaq, or driving the Lakers into the basement in the twilight of his career. All-time-great scorer, overrated defender, and questionable leader/teammate.

Duncan the consummate professional always, and went through everybody there was in his era to win his five titles.

So yes, Duncan over Kobe if we leave homerism out of this and look at it objectively.

to each their own. but im no homer at all. dont even like the lakers. but if im trying to win in todays leauge... (lets assume players are both in their prime) im taking prime kobe over prime duncan. every time. no hesitation. as for kobe not being original? doesnt matter to me. if somebody can copy lebron to a T and wins while doing it.... im not gonna take him cuz hes not original? thats not a negative to me if you can WIN. cuz at the end o the day i need to win. i like duncan. but in TODAYS league.... nah. gimme the dominant scorer who can play at a fast tempo.

 

[hand2handking]

so if bron loses to a team of rookies, young players and al horford?

how does that change the equation?

 

[junglejim]

so if bron loses to a team of rookies, young players and al horford?

how does that change the equation?

It doesnt. It was game 1 of what will likely be a long series. Cavs arent going to let the celtics go on a 25-2 run to start next game.

 

[EnvyTheGreen]

to each their own. but im no homer at all. dont even like the lakers. but if im trying to win in todays leauge... (lets assume players are both in their prime) im taking prime kobe over prime duncan. every time. no hesitation. as for kobe not being original? doesnt matter to me. if somebody can copy lebron to a T and wins while doing it.... im not gonna take him cuz hes not original? thats not a negative to me if you can WIN. cuz at the end o the day i need to win. i like duncan. but in TODAYS league.... nah. gimme the dominant scorer who can play at a fast tempo.

In any era, you take the talent. You would take Draymond Green over Shaq? I’m using extreme examples to illustrate your point.

The good teams play at their pace. They can slow down the game to what they want. Pop knew Duncan was an excellent half court player on both sides, so they made all their opponents play in the half court. Duncan may not have been KG athletically, but he was certainly not a stiff.

Kobe is what he set out to be, a B-grade Jordan. Not knocking him, he’s an all-time great. But Duncan was a bigger winner than Kobe.

And speaking of their primes, which Kobe you taking? The second-banana three-peat young Kobe? How about the 35ppg barely-.500 Kobe? Gotta be the b2b Finals MVP version (despite Gasol having more win shares both seasons, and of course the aforementioned Celtics injuries undoubtedly allowing that success), right?

But Duncan, his prime was nearly his entire career. His per-36 were eerily similar throughout (sans the last two or so seasons). And considering he was winning the entire time, that’s even more impressive.