Is Jokic better than Lebron ever was ? Has he already peaked higher ? How long before he surpasses him all time?

[Bad Gatorade]

There’s certainly some ways that prime LeBron would be better than LeBron was in this current series. As you said, for instance, he had more energy back then. And that’s a big deal! But, at the same time, there are reasons that LeBron in this series put up the kinds of numbers that he did such that they were competitive with prime LeBron numbers—specifically, there were things that he happened to do even better than prime LeBron generally did (again, largely just because it’s a tiny sample). For instance, in this series, LeBron shot 39% from three, 50% on shots from 16 feet to the three-point line, and 60% on shots between 10-16 feet from the basket. In other words, LeBron’s jump shooting overall was way better than normal. We would expect prime LeBron to shoot notably worse than that. So yeah, if you put prime LeBron in this series, there’s definitely things he’d do notably better, but there’s also things he’d almost certainly do notably worse. Which is why the stats from this series look pretty competitive with prime LeBron. We can’t just assume that you’d get all the advantages of prime LeBron while *also* having the same random positive variance that made this an outlier series for current LeBron. Or at least, if we did assume that, then we’d be comparing Jokic to prime LeBron *plus* favorable variance—which obviously isn’t a fair thing to compare to Jokic.

To an extent, yes, LeBron was likely benefitting from higher shooting variance this series.

However, I'm not so sure I'd handwave prime LeBron's shooting so easily, when he has not only had multiple finals runs shooting 40% from 3 (and 11 series total), prime LeBron actually broke 40% from 3 over the entire 2012-13 regular season. He did have seasons struggling with his shooting, but he also had seasons where he was a very good shooter. LeBron's shooting may not be a consistently high level tool, but he has been able to showcase high level shooting over extended periods of time.

For example, he was > 44% on catch and shoot 3s across the entire 2013-14 season (which is roughly the level of, say, Klay Thompson/Kyrie Irving on catch and shoot 3s, based off what I've observed).

On that note...

I'd also like to note that LeBron's shot distribution isn't exactly the same as previous seasons either - a brief visit to Basketball-Reference shows that LeBron was assisted on 80% of his 3s in the Nuggets series, which is the highest of any playoff run he has had (his career playoff average is being assisted on 46% of 3s).

But wait; there's more!

There was another career playoff high that LeBron had, and it's that he had more shots within 0-3 feet than in any other playoff run. A younger, more athletic LeBron would have absolutely feasted on the interior. If we choose to typecast LeBron's entire prime as an individual entity without skill changes in order to handwave his hot shooting, then we need to go beyond "LeBron might be better in ways, such as having more energy!" and acknowledge that LeBron, in his youthful years, would have absolutely decimated the Nuggets interior defence... now, who was their centre again?

But wait; there's more!

I'd also note that the increase in spacing over time has made league averages across shooting zones generally higher. "Prime" LeBron extends quite far into an older, more constrained era. Back in, say, 2012-13, teams shot 63% from 0-3, 38% from 3-10 and 39.5% from 10-16. In 2024, they're shooting 70%, 45% and 44.5% respectively. It's not too wild to suggest that Miami LeBron would have been immaculate this series, and put up more eye-popping numbers in 2024. Or alternatively, 2008-09 LeBron, who literally posted up the highest single season playoff BPM ever. It's almost like... LeBron is the GOAT, or something!

[bledredwine]

Not sure what's odder...you said this (we all can make a mistake sure) or someone and one'd it. But lebron won in 2012 and 2013...

That was pointed out like four times already and I mentioned that I realized my mistake. It's fairly easy to confuse two years in the past. These things can be forgotten and I guarantee that you've made several similar mental slips like this in the past.

And now you realize why people don't want to just take y'all at your word about stuff that happened 30+ years ago

"People"? Speak for yourself. I get +1's for most of my posts. You just don't like them.
Your posts however, are remarkably empty every time.
Every post you make basically shows me how much I've upset you with all of the stats since you talk about me
and not the game

And as for 30+ years ago, probably because I'm one of the fewer posters here who actually watches games from the 80s, 90s, and now.

My posts make a hell of a lot more sense than yours do. That's for sure. I've seen you make empty posts time and time again. It really is a talent of yours.
Look. I'm sorry that your favorite player didn't make it through the first round as the second best player on his team- keep taking it out on me if it helps.

[bledredwine]

That was pointed out like four times already and I mentioned that I realized my mistake. It's fairly easy to confuse two years in the past. These things can be forgotten and I guarantee that you've made several similar mental slips like this in the past.

I'm sure I have. But that's also why I ask people when they last time they rewatch a game from the 90's or 80's was. Our memories suck sometimes. It's why it's so damn annoying hearing people talk about handchecking would stop 3 point shooting when guys were being left wide open in that era. Even the greats like Bird were taking 3's consistently with nobody even close to them before they received the ball at the line. It's why it's frustrating hearing people talk about how tough defenses were when it was "tough" because 8 guys were all within 10 feet of the basket consistently.

To miss something this well known and pretty damn recent just showcases how annoying it is to constantly have people bring up the past as if they have a photographic memory and can then apply today's players to yesterday's rules and perfectly explain how players would struggle. All the while it being obvious they haven't watched a replay of these games EVER. And then we're told that watching the game on youtube is useless...despite any normal person needing to refresh their memory of the past.

Defensive rule changes have no relation to remembering a team winning back to back championships. Rule changes can't be more obvious and impactful, not to mention general as they completely change the game.
It may be annoying to hear and doesn't support what fans hear want but it's true. You literally hear international players currently playing in the league talking about this. You have other players including Lebron himself stating it's impossible to defend now.

What's annoying is people trying to deny it, but it's gotten to the point where it's swayed more and more to our favor as fans have started to realize it's too obvious to deny at this point.

So there's no reason to point the finger at us posters when it comes to that. We're simply pointing out that the sky is not made of cheese. It's obvious, which is why it's mentioned so frequently. It's not some concoction that we pulled out of our *** just for fun or to try and one-up modern fans. We just hate how the game was stripped of defense and players are often putting just as much effort into trying not to foul their guy.

[tonyreyes123]

If Denver 3peats discussions will be fair

[KyRo23]

Even if Jokic has already peaked, he's so fundamentally sound and not reliant on athleticism that his peak should be longer than Lebron's.

This is LeBron we're talking about... not Blake Griffin. Some would argue that LeBron had like 3-4 different peaks at different times in his career. He has adapted so well to the game. If Jokic's peak can last for another 12 years, then more power to him honestly

[dhsilv2]

That was pointed out like four times already and I mentioned that I realized my mistake. It's fairly easy to confuse two years in the past. These things can be forgotten and I guarantee that you've made several similar mental slips like this in the past.

I'm sure I have. But that's also why I ask people when they last time they rewatch a game from the 90's or 80's was. Our memories suck sometimes. It's why it's so damn annoying hearing people talk about handchecking would stop 3 point shooting when guys were being left wide open in that era. Even the greats like Bird were taking 3's consistently with nobody even close to them before they received the ball at the line. It's why it's frustrating hearing people talk about how tough defenses were when it was "tough" because 8 guys were all within 10 feet of the basket consistently.

To miss something this well known and pretty damn recent just showcases how annoying it is to constantly have people bring up the past as if they have a photographic memory and can then apply today's players to yesterday's rules and perfectly explain how players would struggle. All the while it being obvious they haven't watched a replay of these games EVER. And then we're told that watching the game on youtube is useless...despite any normal person needing to refresh their memory of the past.

Defensive rule changes have no relation to remembering a team winning back to back championships. Rule changes can't be more obvious and impactful, not to mention general as they completely change the game.
It may be annoying to hear and doesn't support what fans hear want but it's true. You literally hear international players currently playing in the league talking about this. You have other players including Lebron himself stating it's impossible to defend now.

What's annoying is people trying to deny it, but it's gotten to the point where it's swayed more and more to our favor as fans have started to realize it's too obvious to deny at this point.

So there's no reason to point the finger at us posters when it comes to that. We're simply pointing out that the sky is not made of cheese. It's obvious, which is why it's mentioned so frequently. It's not some concoction that we pulled out of our *** just for fun or to try and one-up modern fans. We just hate how the game was stripped of defense and players are often putting just as much effort into trying not to foul their guy.

You're pivoting. It's really damn hard to guard today. A huge factor is that everyone on the floor can shoot. Another factor is freedom of movement. Another factor that wasn't an issue at ALL in the 90's when Lebron wasn't playing, is the landing zone. International players, are dealing with going from a literal smaller court to a larger one, which effectively prevents shooting from spreading the floor because there isn't enough floor to spread.

Because you clearly don't remember how the game was playing in the 80's, 90's or even 00's...just like you can't remember that Lebron won back to back titles. We go down these wild hot takes. It wasn't long ago you actually challenged me on the notion that in the 80's and especially early to mid 90's 3 point shots even by the best were mostly uncontested. And as a Bull's fan to not recall how Open MJ was vs the Blazer or Paxton vs the Lakers just goes back to show that our memories largely suck.

It isn't a bad topic to have a real discussion on how rules changes have impacted the game. But it's a non starter if you think 3's were limited by hand checking in the M Fing 1980's when even the 3 point champion Larry Bird was consistently left open at the line. Or that Jackson/Tex would have guys like Kerr and Paxton spacing the floor by standing a good foot inside the 3 point line consistently. And the triangle at that time was among the best offensive systems for creating space...the very thing modern basketball places such a high value on. Or in other words, the Bulls were leaders in understanding spacing and they were still making errors that frankly were confusing even to fans at the time. I know I sure as hell couldn't understand why 40%+ 3 point shooters didn't stand 1 whole foot back. Heck step in for the 2 if you want after that, but at least start where you can get 3 points.

Also, we've had numerous polls on age here. Most of us are very late 30's into early 40s with about 25% over 55. Maybe 55 isn't old enough to speak on 80's ball in real time from following it. But you'd have certainly been old enough to have seen a lot of ball back then. And even guys in their 20's like 70's fan, has likely seen more ball from before 1990 than anyone in their 70's has anyway.

[lessthanjake]

There’s certainly some ways that prime LeBron would be better than LeBron was in this current series. As you said, for instance, he had more energy back then. And that’s a big deal! But, at the same time, there are reasons that LeBron in this series put up the kinds of numbers that he did such that they were competitive with prime LeBron numbers—specifically, there were things that he happened to do even better than prime LeBron generally did (again, largely just because it’s a tiny sample). For instance, in this series, LeBron shot 39% from three, 50% on shots from 16 feet to the three-point line, and 60% on shots between 10-16 feet from the basket. In other words, LeBron’s jump shooting overall was way better than normal. We would expect prime LeBron to shoot notably worse than that. So yeah, if you put prime LeBron in this series, there’s definitely things he’d do notably better, but there’s also things he’d almost certainly do notably worse. Which is why the stats from this series look pretty competitive with prime LeBron. We can’t just assume that you’d get all the advantages of prime LeBron while *also* having the same random positive variance that made this an outlier series for current LeBron. Or at least, if we did assume that, then we’d be comparing Jokic to prime LeBron *plus* favorable variance—which obviously isn’t a fair thing to compare to Jokic.

To an extent, yes, LeBron was likely benefitting from higher shooting variance this series.

However, I'm not so sure I'd handwave prime LeBron's shooting so easily, when he has not only had multiple finals runs shooting 40% from 3 (and 11 series total), prime LeBron actually broke 40% from 3 over the entire 2012-13 regular season. He did have seasons struggling with his shooting, but he also had seasons where he was a very good shooter. LeBron's shooting may not be a consistently high level tool, but he has been able to showcase high level shooting over extended periods of time.

Yes, the nature of variance is that it does sometimes go in an advantageous direction, so obviously there are advantageous-looking data points in LeBron’s prime too. Overall, though, we have a lot of data and can pretty clearly say we wouldn’t *expect* prime LeBron to shoot from three like he did in this past series, even if it would be possible for it to occur. And probably the bigger thing is that there’s no amount of variance in his prime that ever got him shooting mid-range jumpers like he did in this series. Again, it would be unfair to compare current Jokic to prime LeBron + advantageous shooting variance.

For example, he was > 44% on catch and shoot 3s across the entire 2013-14 season (which is roughly the level of, say, Klay Thompson/Kyrie Irving on catch and shoot 3s, based off what I've observed).

On that note...

I'd also like to note that LeBron's shot distribution isn't exactly the same as previous seasons either - a brief visit to Basketball-Reference shows that LeBron was assisted on 80% of his 3s in the Nuggets series, which is the highest of any playoff run he has had (his career playoff average is being assisted on 46% of 3s).

This is true, but there’s also seemingly essentially no real correlation between the percent of LeBron’s threes that were assisted and his 3P%, so I’m not really sure there’s much of a point here. Some of his best 3P%’s in playoff runs have been with his lowest percent of assisted three-pointers!

Meanwhile, if you want to just look at catch-and-shoot threes specifically, we have tracking data on this for the portion of LeBron’s prime from 2013-2014 onwards, and he never had a prime season where he shot as well on catch-and-shoot threes as he did in this series (only in the 2023-2024 season did he do so). He was typically quite far off. He did have one playoffs where he did (2020), but he typically shot substantially worse on catch and shoot threes than he did in this series. There was definitely advantageous variance here (or, in this case, perhaps just him having gotten better at something later in his career—either way, it isn’t something we would expect prime LeBron to have).

There was another career playoff high that LeBron had, and it's that he had more shots within 0-3 feet than in any other playoff run. A younger, more athletic LeBron would have absolutely feasted on the interior. If we choose to typecast LeBron's entire prime as an individual entity without skill changes in order to handwave his hot shooting, then we need to go beyond "LeBron might be better in ways, such as having more energy!" and acknowledge that LeBron, in his youthful years, would have absolutely decimated the Nuggets interior defence... now, who was their centre again?

Yes, as I already said, prime LeBron would likely have more shots near the rim than LeBron did in this series. But that’s one of the main things we’re talking about when we say prime LeBron was better! It’s one of the main things that would need to overcome the advantageous shooting variance he had in this series.

But wait; there's more!

I'd also note that the increase in spacing over time has made league averages across shooting zones generally higher. "Prime" LeBron extends quite far into an older, more constrained era. Back in, say, 2012-13, teams shot 63% from 0-3, 38% from 3-10 and 39.5% from 10-16. In 2024, they're shooting 70%, 45% and 44.5% respectively. It's not too wild to suggest that Miami LeBron would have been immaculate this series, and put up more eye-popping numbers in 2024. Or alternatively, 2008-09 LeBron, who literally posted up the highest single season playoff BPM ever. It's almost like... LeBron is the GOAT, or something!

Yes, the league average mid-range shooting percentage is generally better in this era. But there’s a few key points here:

First, the composition of players in the league is not the same as it was in 2012-2013. For obvious reasons, the league is filled with a lot more shooting talent. So a large part of the reason that mid-range shooting is higher now is just that the players in the league are better at shooting. The league being better at shooting doesn’t mean LeBron James himself would be better at shooting. And, indeed, his mid-range shooting in recent years has actually been essentially identical to his career average (actually slightly worse). So it’s a pretty dubious argument to suggest that higher league-wide mid-range shooting percentages means that prime LeBron would shoot them better than he did.

Second, this is just quibbling at the edges anyways. His mid-range shooting in this past series was an outlier for him even if we compared relative to league average mid-range shooting percentages. There’s really no argument that it was mid-range shooting that there’s any reasonable reason to think we’d expect from prime LeBron. Would it be *possible* for prime LeBron to shoot like that over 5 games? Sure! After all, it was possible for current LeBron! But we wouldn’t expect it, and we shouldn’t compare Jokic to prime LeBron + advantageous variance.

[Mr Loggins]

"People"? Speak for yourself. I get +1's for most of my posts. You just don't like them.
.

hmm, 12,000 posts and 3000 "and 1's".......the math doesn't add up to "most posts"

[bledredwine]

"People"? Speak for yourself. I get +1's for most of my posts. You just don't like them.
.

hmm, 12,000 posts and 3000 "and 1's".......the math doesn't add up to "most posts"

Go ahead and look over this year.

The above volume is mostly from fans who get upset when I post stats/substance, such as what you're witnessing today.
Of course there won't be any and 1's in those. Still, I enjoy them and am completely fine with replying to them. I'm a mirror, in that regard. But those replies aside, you're mistaken.

[HMFFL]

Not a LeBron fan at all, but comparing a 6'8'' SF's efficiency in an era where the average TS% was like 53, to a 6'11'' Center playing in an era where TS % is almost 60, isn't exactly fair imo.

Ah, but, all the big men are washed away like they're nobody, while the short guys are mentioned as Goats. The Jordan and James height because people can relate to them more than a 7'footer.

Sent from my SM-N975U using RealGM Forums mobile app

[OhayoKD]

Um, 4 BPM actually is quite a lot. That’s like the difference between Steph Curry’s career BPM and Mike Conley’s career BPM. Or LeBron’s career BPM and Dame’s. Or Michael Jordan’s and Clyde Drexler’s. It’s not a small difference.

Granted, I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in stats like this in such tiny samples. But that flaw goes more to the argument it seems like you’re making. This weird attenuated argument that current LeBron was purportedly close to peak Jokic in a series and peak LeBron was much better than current LeBron and therefore peak LeBron was much better than peak Jokic is just overly complicated nonsense. Even leaving aside that Jokic was a lot better than LeBron in this past series, a single series is a tiny sample size where there’s tons of variance in how well someone plays, and LeBron played a lot better than his average current level. So yeah, current LeBron is not as good as peak LeBron, but current LeBron playing well above his normal level (as he was in that series) may not be *that* much behind peak LeBron.

Like, for reference on this, LeBron’s Thinking Basketball BPM in these playoffs was 7.8. Meanwhile, he was rocking a 5.8 BPM during the regular season, and last year he had a 4.8 BPM in the regular season and a 5.22 BPM in the playoffs, while it was 5.1 in the 2022 regular season, and 5.6 in the 2021 regular season and 4.22 in the 2021 playoffs. So this performance was a clear outlier from what current LeBron generally is. Which isn’t super surprising to see, since 5 games is a tiny sample, so you’d expect a lot of variance—someone can play a lot better or worse than normal over 5 games. So how does this outlier performance compare to LeBron in his younger years? Well, a 7.8 BPM is above every regular season LeBron has had except 2009, 2010, and 2013! And, in terms of playoff BPM, it’s towards the bottom compared to the rest of his prime years, but it’s ahead of some of them (2007, 2008, 2011, and 2015) and clustered within 0.6 of 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2018. Only the 2009 and 2016 playoffs are more than 1.6 ahead. If we instead look at Basketball-Reference’s BPM, we see a very similar story. LeBron has a 7.0 BBREF BPM in the last 4 seasons (and 6.5 in this season specifically). But his BPM in the playoffs this year was 10.6. Compared to his prime regular seasons, that is only below the 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013 regular seasons (and only below 2008 and 2012 by a tiny amount). And in terms of playoffs in his prime, it is only below 2009, 2010, 2016, and 2018 (and only 2009 is ahead by more than 2). And, of course, LeBron was doing this in these playoffs while facing better than the average playoff opponent—which you’d expect to skew his output downwards. So, basically, I think the better reading here is that old LeBron is generally pretty far off from prime LeBron, but that in the course of a tiny five-game sample, old LeBron managed to play pretty similar to the level he did in his prime. And that makes the entire logic chain that you’re pushing break down.

You nailed it.....using BPM in a 5 game series isn't some amazing way to evaluate anything. Yes lebron played really well in this series compared to his current baseline. It doesn't mean he played like prime lebron though, and the evidence is having seen prime lebron play, the energy he had. He doesn't have that energy anymore, to take over a game/series like he used to on both ends, breaking down the defense and covering everything. No stats or math needed to see that. I consider prime lebron much better than current lebron, and think based on how well current lebron played in the series, that prime Lebron would've comfortably been the best player in the series. I'm not sure why "math" is needed like dhsilv2 to form an opinion like that. It's OK to have opinions based on logic and not blindly follow formulas made by strangers, especially when talking about the top players, to form all opinions.

Do you think prime Lebron wouldve been significantly better in this series for the Lakers than current lebron? I do, by a pretty wide margin, which is my point. I really don't care about the BPMs, because I saw the games. Current lebron wasn't far off from being the best player in that series, he just ran out of gas and had to pick his spots alot more than he did in his prime. Is anyone on this board capable of talking hoops rather than posting numbers from whatever the hot advanced stats formula is?

Nobody thinks BPM over a small sample is good. It's just better than your argument which is "I feel and nothing can change how my emotions drive me".

Using BPM to argue the player who torches Jokic in rapm and wowy and even on/off (while staggering far more over the course of his prime with co-stars) while playing for a wide variety of casts under different systems and coaches is very much "i feel and nothing can change how my emotions drive me"

Lebron's peak statistically decimates Jokic's. Pretending otherwise because of cherrypicked box-inputs and made-up formulas is very much vibes based analysis.

Lebron is a much better defender than Jokic and with that should end any debate for serious people.

[dhsilv2]

"People"? Speak for yourself. I get +1's for most of my posts. You just don't like them.
.

hmm, 12,000 posts and 3000 "and 1's".......the math doesn't add up to "most posts"

Go ahead and look over this year.

The above volume is mostly from fans who get upset when I post stats/substance, such as what you're witnessing today.
Of course there won't be any and 1's in those. Still, I enjoy them and am completely fine with replying to them. I'm a mirror, in that regard. But those replies aside, you're mistaken.

And 1's means you're saying things people WANT to hear. Not that you're right or you're adding value. You can get all kinds of and 1's if you make a stupid joke or you say something about a popular player. It doesn't mean you made a good post. That's the equivalent of stating Survivor is a great show because it gets high ratings. Or even worse reality tv. They're terrible shows and a lot of people enjoy bad content.

[dhsilv2]

You nailed it.....using BPM in a 5 game series isn't some amazing way to evaluate anything. Yes lebron played really well in this series compared to his current baseline. It doesn't mean he played like prime lebron though, and the evidence is having seen prime lebron play, the energy he had. He doesn't have that energy anymore, to take over a game/series like he used to on both ends, breaking down the defense and covering everything. No stats or math needed to see that. I consider prime lebron much better than current lebron, and think based on how well current lebron played in the series, that prime Lebron would've comfortably been the best player in the series. I'm not sure why "math" is needed like dhsilv2 to form an opinion like that. It's OK to have opinions based on logic and not blindly follow formulas made by strangers, especially when talking about the top players, to form all opinions.

Do you think prime Lebron wouldve been significantly better in this series for the Lakers than current lebron? I do, by a pretty wide margin, which is my point. I really don't care about the BPMs, because I saw the games. Current lebron wasn't far off from being the best player in that series, he just ran out of gas and had to pick his spots alot more than he did in his prime. Is anyone on this board capable of talking hoops rather than posting numbers from whatever the hot advanced stats formula is?

Nobody thinks BPM over a small sample is good. It's just better than your argument which is "I feel and nothing can change how my emotions drive me".

Using BPM to argue the player who torches Jokic in rapm and wowy and even on/off (while staggering far more over the course of his prime with co-stars) while playing for a wide variety of casts under different systems and coaches is very much "i feel and nothing can change how my emotions drive me"

Lebron's peak statistically decimates Jokic's. Pretending otherwise because of cherrypicked box-inputs and made-up formulas is very much vibes based analysis.

Lebron is a much better defender than Jokic and with that should end any debate for serious people.

Troll someone else dude. I'm sick and tired of you using my posts to rant about a topic that I am not discussing.

[OhayoKD]

Nobody thinks BPM over a small sample is good. It's just better than your argument which is "I feel and nothing can change how my emotions drive me".

Using BPM to argue the player who torches Jokic in rapm and wowy and even on/off (while staggering far more over the course of his prime with co-stars) while playing for a wide variety of casts under different systems and coaches is very much "i feel and nothing can change how my emotions drive me"

Lebron's peak statistically decimates Jokic's. Pretending otherwise because of cherrypicked box-inputs and made-up formulas is very much vibes based analysis.

Lebron is a much better defender than Jokic and with that should end any debate for serious people.

Troll someone else dude. I'm sick and tired of you using my posts to rant about a topic that I am not discussing.

You are discussing the utility of BPM in the context of a larger conversation of what 40 year old Lebron vs Jokic would inform us about peak Lebron vs Jokic.

Maybe you shouldn't be on a basketball forum if you're more interested in indiscriminate pedantry than basketball.

Why are you using a made-up box formula to pretend peak Lebron doesn't outclass peak Jokic emperically

There are people on this board who have flat out told me that their approach to rating players doesn't require them to watch games. They just need the advanced stats. That's very sad, and we're seeing that undercurrent here. Jokic is not close to peak Lebron. Not. Close.

Show me where any person here has said that? Unless you're trying to compare two completely night and day different players.

Last I checked the completely night and day different players both are there to improve there teams...

I don’t know why people keep saying LeBron is worse offensively than players he's obviously superior to

LeBron 2009-2021
656-263 with lebron 0.714% win rate
37-73 without lebron 0.336% win rate
Net rating with lebron +6.49 (59 win pace level)
Net rating without lebron -5.50 (25 win pace level)
+8.6 ortg difference

+12 total swing

Jokic 2022-2024
136-68 (66.7% win rate) with jokic
8-15 (34.8% win rate) without jokic
+4.1 net rating with jokic (53 win pace)
-4.6 net rating without jokic (28 win pace)
+6.5 ortg change
+8.7 overall change

Magic 1984-1991
454-149 75.3% win rate with
29-24 54.7% win rate
+7.4 net rating with (61 win pace level)
+0.2 net rating without (42 win pace level)
+4.9 ortg difference
+7.2 overall difference

Jordan 1988-1998
Bulls with MJ 490-176 (73.6% win rate)
Bulls without MJ 90-64 (58.4% win rate)
Net rating with MJ +7.7 (62 win pace level)
Net rating without MJ +3.6 (52 win pace level)
+5.1 ortg difference
+4 total swing

The most impactful offensive player ever by the facts

Woah! The much better defender and better ball-handler does it more over more years. Who coulda guessed that?

[Sofia]

"People"? Speak for yourself. I get +1's for most of my posts. You just don't like them.
.

hmm, 12,000 posts and 3000 "and 1's".......the math doesn't add up to "most posts"

Go ahead and look over this year.

The above volume is mostly from fans who get upset when I post stats/substance, such as what you're witnessing today.
Of course there won't be any and 1's in those. Still, I enjoy them and am completely fine with replying to them. I'm a mirror, in that regard. But those replies aside, you're mistaken.

“Check my $tat$”

[NbaAllDay]

hmm, 12,000 posts and 3000 "and 1's".......the math doesn't add up to "most posts"

Go ahead and look over this year.

The above volume is mostly from fans who get upset when I post stats/substance, such as what you're witnessing today.
Of course there won't be any and 1's in those. Still, I enjoy them and am completely fine with replying to them. I'm a mirror, in that regard. But those replies aside, you're mistaken.

“Check my $tat$”

"Realgm posts posts arnt graded based on a spreadsheet"

[Bad Gatorade]

Yes, the nature of variance is that it does sometimes go in an advantageous direction, so obviously there are advantageous-looking data points in LeBron’s prime too. Overall, though, we have a lot of data and can pretty clearly say we wouldn’t *expect* prime LeBron to shoot from three like he did in this past series, even if it would be possible for it to occur. And probably the bigger thing is that there’s no amount of variance in his prime that ever got him shooting mid-range jumpers like he did in this series. Again, it would be unfair to compare current Jokic to prime LeBron + advantageous shooting variance.

LeBron also shot 41% from 3 during the regular season this year, so whilst I wouldn't say that we could, say, throw 2008-09 LeBron and see similar results, I also don't think that there's a notable departure from what LeBron was doing this year from 3, and I think that there's no reason to believe LeBron, in one of the seasons where his jump shot was "on", wouldn't be doing the same as he did in those regular seasons.

Some of the shooting variance is also likely boiled down to the fact that LeBron only took 14 mid-long range 2s in the series, and he went 8/14. If LeBron missed two of the shots that he made, he's all of a sudden 6/14 (42.9%), which is hardly "outlier shooting." LeBron goes from 27.8PPG on 63.7 TS% to... 27PPG on 61.9 TS%. Not much different at all, especially since this is without adjusting for the fact that LeBron shot lower on interior shots than he normally does. LeBron shot 31/46 on 0-3 shots this series - if we give him, say, two extra shots to go up to 71.7% (both below his career average and his percentage for the season) then... there's not really much different, is there?

This is true, but there’s also seemingly essentially no real correlation between the percent of LeBron’s threes that were assisted and his 3P%, so I’m not really sure there’s much of a point here. Some of his best 3P%’s in playoff runs have been with his lowest percent of assisted three-pointers!

Welp, you're correct here - usually assist % is a proxy for "catch and shoot" and LeBron is better at catch and shoot, but what you said is correct here.

Meanwhile, if you want to just look at catch-and-shoot threes specifically, we have tracking data on this for the portion of LeBron’s prime from 2013-2014 onwards, and he never had a prime season where he shot as well on catch-and-shoot threes as he did in this series (only in the 2023-2024 season did he do so). He was typically quite far off. He did have one playoffs where he did (2020), but he typically shot substantially worse on catch and shoot threes than he did in this series. There was definitely advantageous variance here (or, in this case, perhaps just him having gotten better at something later in his career—either way, it isn’t something we would expect prime LeBron to have).

It is true that 2013-14 and onwards LeBron never had an eFG% matching the one he did across this series on catch and shoot shots, but it's also true that jump shots seemed to take a smaller proportion of LeBron's total shots than across the rest of his career. Not only that, but pull up jump shots (which was the larger component of LeBron's jump shooting) was lower than all but 2 of the past 11 seasons.

I don't think that LeBron's "hot shooting" is constituting as much of his play as is being made out. Yes, it was a "hot" series for LeBron shooting wise, but the degree as to which his shooting was hot is honestly not particularly notable when you consider the volume of his jump shots.

Yes, the league average mid-range shooting percentage is generally better in this era. But there’s a few key points here:

First, the composition of players in the league is not the same as it was in 2012-2013. For obvious reasons, the league is filled with a lot more shooting talent. So a large part of the reason that mid-range shooting is higher now is just that the players in the league are better at shooting. The league being better at shooting doesn’t mean LeBron James himself would be better at shooting. And, indeed, his mid-range shooting in recent years has actually been essentially identical to his career average (actually slightly worse). So it’s a pretty dubious argument to suggest that higher league-wide mid-range shooting percentages means that prime LeBron would shoot them better than he did.

The average shooting efficiency of the league is increasing even if we keep players constant. I compared 2015-16 to 2023-24 and found that amongst 40 selected players (selected via shooting volumes from range), 36/40 shot better at the rim in 2024 (average increase of 6.3%) and 34 shot better from short mid range (4.2% better on average). To an extent, one might argue this is due to an improvement in skills, but the improvement across the league is 6.1% and 4.0%, which is very close. Some players improving makes sense (e.g. Jokic and Booker were two of the biggest increases from short mid range, which makes sense given their ages) but then we've got a lot of older guys (e.g. Durant) whose mobility is clearly worse in 2024 than it was in 2016, has a career predicated on being a good shooter, and they're still shooting better, simply because of the league wide improvement in spacing.

Another way to frame it - if we choose to represent the FG(2024)%/FG(2016)% in terms of TS+, the increase at the rim and in the short mid range for both the league and keeping players constant was... 110, 110, 110, 110.

LeBron might not be as generally good at shooting as he was in Miami, but he's also older than he was in Miami, and less athletic (which is... kind of remarkable). Not every aspect of athleticism, nor does every basketball skill depreciate at the same rate. He's not a role player who is hanging onto his role in the NBA by the virtue of still being able to shoot, but rather, he's still the key driving force of his team.

So yes, I don't see why LeBron (who did have above average shooting across the board in Miami) shouldn't be treated as a beneficiary of the era he would be translated into, when it's clear that the overall trend of players improving seems to be apparent at similar rates both league wide and by keeping players constant.

Second, this is just quibbling at the edges anyways. His mid-range shooting in this past series was an outlier for him even if we compared relative to league average mid-range shooting percentages. There’s really no argument that it was mid-range shooting that there’s any reasonable reason to think we’d expect from prime LeBron. Would it be *possible* for prime LeBron to shoot like that over 5 games? Sure! After all, it was possible for current LeBron! But we wouldn’t expect it, and we shouldn’t compare Jokic to prime LeBron + advantageous variance.

There's a difference between whether or not we should "expect" LeBron to shoot 8/14 (I wouldn't, because LeBron was not a 57% mid range shooter) and whether or not it should really matter that heavily in terms of how we approach an assessment of that series, because the real "quibbling at the edges" is quibbling over the fact that LeBron shooting 8/14 instead of, say, 6/14, which isn't really a particularly discernible factor to begin with.

[greekman]

jokic isn't winning anything without murray, not even making the second round. prime lebron could take a gleague team to the second round

[lessthanjake]

Yes, the nature of variance is that it does sometimes go in an advantageous direction, so obviously there are advantageous-looking data points in LeBron’s prime too. Overall, though, we have a lot of data and can pretty clearly say we wouldn’t *expect* prime LeBron to shoot from three like he did in this past series, even if it would be possible for it to occur. And probably the bigger thing is that there’s no amount of variance in his prime that ever got him shooting mid-range jumpers like he did in this series. Again, it would be unfair to compare current Jokic to prime LeBron + advantageous shooting variance.

LeBron also shot 41% from 3 during the regular season this year, so whilst I wouldn't say that we could, say, throw 2008-09 LeBron and see similar results, I also don't think that there's a notable departure from what LeBron was doing this year from 3, and I think that there's no reason to believe LeBron, in one of the seasons where his jump shot was "on", wouldn't be doing the same as he did in those regular seasons.

But this is exactly my point! We shouldn’t be comparing Jokic to prime LeBron with advantageous variance! Talking about times when LeBron’s shot was “on” is essentially exactly that. I realize you’re referring to entire seasons, but even that is subject to a lot of variance when we are talking about subsets of shots. For instance, there’s not much of any correlation between his best seasons in terms of shooting and his best playoffs in shooting. It’s all kind of just random.

Some of the shooting variance is also likely boiled down to the fact that LeBron only took 14 mid-long range 2s in the series, and he went 8/14. If LeBron missed two of the shots that he made, he's all of a sudden 6/14 (42.9%), which is hardly "outlier shooting." LeBron goes from 27.8PPG on 63.7 TS% to... 27PPG on 61.9 TS%. Not much different at all, especially since this is without adjusting for the fact that LeBron shot lower on interior shots than he normally does. LeBron shot 31/46 on 0-3 shots this series - if we give him, say, two extra shots to go up to 71.7% (both below his career average and his percentage for the season) then... there's not really much different, is there?

So I get your point, but two additional shots made in the course of just a few games is really not nothing! That’s a notable difference (both statistically, and in a series this close). We also haven’t mentioned LeBron shooting like 11-14% better on shots from 3-10 feet than he did in his prime years on average (the range depending on if we are comparing to his prime RS numbers or playoff numbers). That’s another shot or two extra from positive shooting variance. And then there’s the three-point shooting, where he basically made an extra three-pointer than you’d expect prime LeBron to make. At that point, we’re looking at a difference of about 2 points a game from what we’d generally expect. That’s a big deal! Would prime LeBron make that up by scoring a higher percent of his shots at the rim and likely getting to the rim more in the first place? Yeah, probably. This stuff would probably roughly cancel out and you’d be left with prime LeBron being a better defender. So I think prime LeBron would be better overall, but my point has just been that it’s much more complicated and less clear cut than just saying prime LeBron was way better than current LeBron, because that completely ignores that LeBron played much better than his current baseline in this series.

Yes, the league average mid-range shooting percentage is generally better in this era. But there’s a few key points here:

First, the composition of players in the league is not the same as it was in 2012-2013. For obvious reasons, the league is filled with a lot more shooting talent. So a large part of the reason that mid-range shooting is higher now is just that the players in the league are better at shooting. The league being better at shooting doesn’t mean LeBron James himself would be better at shooting. And, indeed, his mid-range shooting in recent years has actually been essentially identical to his career average (actually slightly worse). So it’s a pretty dubious argument to suggest that higher league-wide mid-range shooting percentages means that prime LeBron would shoot them better than he did.

The average shooting efficiency of the league is increasing even if we keep players constant. I compared 2015-16 to 2023-24 and found that amongst 40 selected players (selected via shooting volumes from range), 36/40 shot better at the rim in 2024 (average increase of 6.3%) and 34 shot better from short mid range (4.2% better on average). To an extent, one might argue this is due to an improvement in skills, but the improvement across the league is 6.1% and 4.0%, which is very close. Some players improving makes sense (e.g. Jokic and Booker were two of the biggest increases from short mid range, which makes sense given their ages) but then we've got a lot of older guys (e.g. Durant) whose mobility is clearly worse in 2024 than it was in 2016, has a career predicated on being a good shooter, and they're still shooting better, simply because of the league wide improvement in spacing.

Another way to frame it - if we choose to represent the FG(2024)%/FG(2016)% in terms of TS+, the increase at the rim and in the short mid range for both the league and keeping players constant was... 110, 110, 110, 110.

LeBron might not be as generally good at shooting as he was in Miami, but he's also older than he was in Miami, and less athletic (which is... kind of remarkable). Not every aspect of athleticism, nor does every basketball skill depreciate at the same rate. He's not a role player who is hanging onto his role in the NBA by the virtue of still being able to shoot, but rather, he's still the key driving force of his team.

So yes, I don't see why LeBron (who did have above average shooting across the board in Miami) shouldn't be treated as a beneficiary of the era he would be translated into, when it's clear that the overall trend of players improving seems to be apparent at similar rates both league wide and by keeping players constant.

To be clear, I wasn’t suggesting *all* of the increase in mid-range shooting percentage is because of the league getting better at shooting. I do think the players are better at it now, both because the league naturally has shifted towards better shooters, and because players focus on it even more. But it’s also true that more space makes everything a little easier. But you were already accounting for it being a little easier when you said it was like the difference between going 8/14 instead of 6/14 (since 6/14 is better than the mid-range percentage prime LeBron usually had). And, as noted above, even that is significant when we are just talking about a few games! Absolute numbers will always look small in this context, but that’s because the sample size is just small in general.

[LaLover11]

Jokic has zero defense and even admitted it in the post game conference after game 5

He will never be better than LeBron
Sorry James haters