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

[Cubbies2120]

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

Wait, does Jokic permanently lose the max contract slot from his roster in this hypothetical (Murray disappears and is replaced with nobody)?

Because if not, replace Murray with another max-contract player and you'll get similar results...

That's the fun part that people miss in these hypotheticals...they remove a high impact player, and don't replace his contract slot with another player...

[AEnigma]

Not sure there will be a better encapsulation of how deranged these Lebron takes have become than arguing that 2024 Lebron should be considered on par with peak Lebron because of 0.4 mid-range makes a game.

[OhayoKD]

.

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.

The difference is less than 1 point a game...

Stand proud, ya yapped.

[lessthanjake]

.

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.

The difference is less than 1 point a game...

Stand proud, ya yapped.

Yes, and that’s significant! It’s also not the only factor, since that’s only one subset of relevant shots. Overall, the variance adds up to about 2 points a game. That’s a really big deal! Like, when we talk about impact, something that gives you 2 points per game more of impact is genuinely a lot! Even 1 point a game more of impact is significant! I don’t understand why you would downplay that, as if it’s not. The scale of impact individual players have in the NBA is not so high that that’s not a big deal when trying to weigh how much more impact a player would’ve had in their prime.

[Lebronnygoat]

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.

The difference is less than 1 point a game...

Stand proud, ya yapped.

Yes, and that’s significant! It’s also not the only factor, since that’s only one subset of relevant shots. Overall, the variance adds up to about 2 points a game. That’s a really big deal! Like, when we talk about impact, something that gives you 2 points per game more of impact is genuinely a lot! Even 1 point a game more of impact is significant! I don’t understand why you would downplay that, as if it’s not. The scale of impact individual players have in the NBA is not so high that that’s not a big deal when trying to weigh how much more impact a player would’ve had in their prime.

No way you're equating a point of scoring with a point of impact.

Idk why you use so many words to say everything. Don’t you know how to be concise. Also, take it easy on the exclamation marks, damn.

[MavsDirk41]

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!

So BPM is more impressive than win shares per 48? PER? Regular season and playoff winning percentages? Stuff like that? Cause James isnt higher in the pecking order than 23 in those categories. Just trying to get some clarification

[Bad Gatorade]

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.

Even without "advantageous variance" at play, LeBron from, say, 2009-2020 was still better than he was in 2024. For example, LeBron shot 26% from 3 in the 2012 playoffs, and LeBron was, IMO, quite clearly "better" than in 2024, even with shooting on the colder side. I'm pretty happy to compare Jokic to prime LeBron without that variance too.

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.

2 shots in 5 games is... 0.4 shots per game (which is 0.8 points). That's... not really a notable difference in terms of addressing the question "how good was LeBron?" Yes, individual shots/redistributions of shooting variance can be pivotal in deciding a series, but it shouldn't decide how good a player was holistically.

In terms of the shooting variance across the board, I'd once again note that looking at prime shooting percentages for LeBron and applying the difference to modern LeBron ignores the larger scale increases in efficiency that have occurred due to spacing over time.

Just an exhibition as to how shooting has changed over time...

Looking at 2024 vs LeBron's (2009-2018) prime, the different shooting zones have the following TS+

Rim: 109
Short midrange: 110
Long midrange: 105
Corner 3: 100
Above break 3s: 103

Despite the clear strategic shift towards bombing 3s from afar, the largest increases are clearly occurring around the rim and in the short midrange. This is because the increase in player shooting, whilst evident in player shooting percentages, is having an even larger effect on interior finishing.

Looking at "prime LeBron" numbers and calculating 2024 LeBron's shooting "variance" based off these numbers is incorrectly framing the expectations set by prime LeBron, and is akin to an older person complaining that things "were cheaper back in my day!" whilst ignoring that inflation exists.

It's more accurate to compare 2024 LeBron's "variance" to his own 2024, given that skillsets are not uniform over time, nor is LeBron's physical health post-2019ish.

Using the following measurement -

volume * (playoff shooting - regular season shooting)

LeBron's shooting from 3 feet to the 3 point line generated points at +1.65 per game relative to his regular season expectation. That's hot shooting on 2 point jumpers, that's fine and that's roughly what I'd expect given the +2 non-inflation adjusted estimate you mentioned in your post.

However...

LeBron's FT shooting was also equivalent to -0.05 points, which drops us to +1.60. That's fine, and doesn't move the needle much.

Now, let's add 3 point shooting to the mix, and LeBron's drop in efficiency is -0.39, which takes us to +1.21 points per game. Still an overall advantage, truth be told.

Now, let's add INTERIOR variance, which has an expected equivalent of -1.80, meaning that if LeBron was shooting the same way he did in the regular season, he'd be +0.59 points per game (and go up to +28.4).

Now, not all interior shots are created equal, but given the aplomb with which LeBron was driving towards the hoop, the fact that Denver ranked 12/16 in terms of "field goal percentage allowed within 6 feet" in round 1, the fact that they allowed the most shots within 6 feet out of any team, the fact that they were fine, but nothing notable at this family of stats in the regular season... I'm inclined to think that they weren't the masterminds behind a 10% interior finishing shift for LeBron, and that most of that is variance.

In other words - as I postulated earlier, the variance in shooting percentage matters less than you're making out, because akin to how players can have a hot/cold jump shot, they can also vary in how astute their finishing is. After all, we've seen players miss open dunks many times, and that's a high percentage, defenseless shot, lol. There's evidence to believe that LeBron's positively inclined shooting may be somewhat offset, if not completely offset, by the variance in finishing.

I think that LeBron played better in the 2024 playoffs than he did in the 2024 regular season, but that's more so a general statement on later LeBron for me, where LeBron has a tendency to redistribute his energy towards superior playoff play, rather than simply because "he shot better than you'd think."

[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

Wait, does Jokic permanently lose the max contract slot from his roster in this hypothetical (Murray disappears and is replaced with nobody)?

Because if not, replace Murray with another max-contract player and you'll get similar results...

That's the fun part that people miss in these hypotheticals...they remove a high impact player, and don't replace his contract slot with another player...

which max player makes murray last minute shots ? while carrying the team on offense in those close games ? those are shots that doncic, lillard make.

[Cubbies2120]

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

Wait, does Jokic permanently lose the max contract slot from his roster in this hypothetical (Murray disappears and is replaced with nobody)?

Because if not, replace Murray with another max-contract player and you'll get similar results...

That's the fun part that people miss in these hypotheticals...they remove a high impact player, and don't replace his contract slot with another player...

which max player makes murray last minute shots ? while carrying the team on offense in those close games ? those are shots that doncic, lillard make.

Which max-level player is so terrible in the early parts of the game that he digs his team such a hole and it's only right (i.e. he better make clutch shots) to make it right. I'm pretty certain Jokic would love a high-level 2nd option instead of being provided a modern-day Jamal Crawford or JR Smith.

You're a known hater btw.

[Bad Gatorade]

So BPM is more impressive than win shares per 48? PER? Regular season and playoff winning percentages? Stuff like that? Cause James isnt higher in the pecking order than 23 in those categories. Just trying to get some clarification

Ahh, I'm guessing you mean referring to LeBron as the GOAT?

Whilst a larger statistical case can be (and almost certainly has been made ad nauseum) for either player during their primes, I prefer LeBron both due to his insane longevity (which I do value quite a bit) and the fact that LeBron has been able to replicate GOAT-level play across different contexts, with different teammates etc. Sure, he's always going to act as an interior scorer/playmaker to an extent, but his duties have been tweaked based on his teammates.

I feel more confident in 21 years of LeBron than I do with any other career, to be honest.

[lessthanjake]

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.

Even without "advantageous variance" at play, LeBron from, say, 2009-2020 was still better than he was in 2024. For example, LeBron shot 26% from 3 in the 2012 playoffs, and LeBron was, IMO, quite clearly "better" than in 2024, even with shooting on the colder side. I'm pretty happy to compare Jokic to prime LeBron without that variance too.

The bolded is what should be done. That’s my point. And if someone just takes how LeBron played in the series against Denver and then layers on the ways that prime LeBron was better without accounting for positive shooting variance LeBron had in the series (amongst other ways he was better than his general current baseline), then one is effectively comparing Jokic to LeBron with positive shooting variance added on (and doing so using a roundabout analogy). And then it becomes an unfair comparison. That’s been my whole point.

2 shots in 5 games is... 0.4 shots per game (which is 0.8 points). That's... not really a notable difference in terms of addressing the question "how good was LeBron?" Yes, individual shots/redistributions of shooting variance can be pivotal in deciding a series, but it shouldn't decide how good a player was holistically.

I disagree, and certainly disagree once we layer on some other variance that makes the number higher. A point or two here and there really is the difference between the impact of different tiers of players in the NBA.

It's more accurate to compare 2024 LeBron's "variance" to his own 2024, given that skillsets are not uniform over time, nor is LeBron's physical health post-2019ish.

That is right if we were trying to actually isolate out variance specifically. But that’s not the relevant inquiry here. Whether LeBron shot so well in this series because of actual variance or because he’s just a better shooter now than he was in his prime (or a combination of the two) is not really relevant. The relevant thing is just that he shot better than we’d expect prime LeBron to have shot, because we are assessing how prime LeBron probably would’ve performed compared to how current LeBron actually performed. The question of how we’d have expected current LeBron to have performed is not a relevant question.

In other words - as I postulated earlier, the variance in shooting percentage matters less than you're making out, because akin to how players can have a hot/cold jump shot, they can also vary in how astute their finishing is. After all, we've seen players miss open dunks many times, and that's a high percentage, defenseless shot, lol. There's evidence to believe that LeBron's positively inclined shooting may be somewhat offset, if not completely offset, by the variance in finishing.

Yes, it’s very likely true prime LeBron would’ve finished better at the rim in this series, but I think we are essentially internalizing that when we talk about ways that we’d expect prime LeBron to be better. We’d expect prime LeBron to have finished better. Maybe some of that is due to LeBron having had negative variance at the rim in the series, but it’s also just because LeBron was better at finishing back then. It’s one of the main ways he was better back then. And it’s one of the factors that I’d assume would go a long way to overcoming the drop we’d expect in jump shooting percentage.

Anyways, talk of shooting variance is largely just going down one specific rabbit hole. My point was a more general one—which was that LeBron was substantially better in this series than his current baseline. That’s corroborated by all sorts of data. And my point was just that, if we ignore that and act like prime LeBron would’ve been as much better in this series as he was better than LeBron’s current baseline, then it’s an unfair comparison.

[lessthanjake]

The difference is less than 1 point a game...

Stand proud, ya yapped.

Yes, and that’s significant! It’s also not the only factor, since that’s only one subset of relevant shots. Overall, the variance adds up to about 2 points a game. That’s a really big deal! Like, when we talk about impact, something that gives you 2 points per game more of impact is genuinely a lot! Even 1 point a game more of impact is significant! I don’t understand why you would downplay that, as if it’s not. The scale of impact individual players have in the NBA is not so high that that’s not a big deal when trying to weigh how much more impact a player would’ve had in their prime.

No way you're equating a point of scoring with a point of impact.

Idk why you use so many words to say everything. Don’t you know how to be concise. Also, take it easy on the exclamation marks, damn.

This is largely just a bait post. But to address the only substantive thing you said, scoring an extra point off the same number of shots is pretty akin to a point of impact. It’s not *exactly* the same, since on one hand the team can get an offensive rebound off a missed shot while on the other hand a missed shot tends to negatively effect the team’s defense on the next possession (since it’s easier to score on a possession after a missed shot), but it’s generally going to be pretty equivalent.

[MavsDirk41]

So BPM is more impressive than win shares per 48? PER? Regular season and playoff winning percentages? Stuff like that? Cause James isnt higher in the pecking order than 23 in those categories. Just trying to get some clarification

Ahh, I'm guessing you mean referring to LeBron as the GOAT?

Whilst a larger statistical case can be (and almost certainly has been made ad nauseum) for either player during their primes, I prefer LeBron both due to his insane longevity (which I do value quite a bit) and the fact that LeBron has been able to replicate GOAT-level play across different contexts, with different teammates etc. Sure, he's always going to act as an interior scorer/playmaker to an extent, but his duties have been tweaked based on his teammates.

I feel more confident in 21 years of LeBron than I do with any other career, to be honest.

Ok. You didnt answer my question about BPM being more impressive than the other statistics that i mentioned. I was just curious. Im more impressed with a player that a team drafts as the franchise player and that team goes from a lottery team to a championship team by putting some pieces around said franchise player through the draft and a few role players. Im not impressed with player empowerment where star player A decides he wants to play with star player B and star player C. And when that team loses, star player A decides to go build a roster with other star players. Im also impressed with what a player accomplishes during their career in comparison to longevity based stats.

[DimesandKnicks]

Jokic ain’t winning MVP this year - BRUNSON BABYYYY!!!!

[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"

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.

Bucket’s don’t lie - stats say you’re a 30% “And1-er” the Jordan Poole of realgm, as it were

[MavsDirk41]

Jokic ain’t winning MVP this year - BRUNSON BABYYYY!!!!

I know you are kidding obviously and congrats to the Knicks but Jokic has that mvp locked up

[OhayoKD]

.

Yes, it’s very likely true prime LeBron would’ve finished better at the rim in this series, but I think we are essentially internalizing that when we talk about ways that we’d expect prime LeBron to be better. We’d expect prime LeBron to have finished better. Maybe some of that is due to LeBron having had negative variance at the rim in the series, but it’s also just because LeBron was better at finishing back then. It’s one of the main ways he was better back then. And it’s one of the factors that I’d assume would go a long way to overcoming the drop we’d expect in jump shooting percentage.

They weren't talking about prime LeBron
They were talking about 2024 LeBron
across the board

I hope you don't do contracts Mr Lawyer.

Yes, and that’s significant! It’s also not the only factor, since that’s only one subset of relevant shots. Overall, the variance adds up to about 2 points a game. That’s a really big deal! Like, when we talk about impact, something that gives you 2 points per game more of impact is genuinely a lot! Even 1 point a game more of impact is significant! I don’t understand why you would downplay that, as if it’s not. The scale of impact individual players have in the NBA is not so high that that’s not a big deal when trying to weigh how much more impact a player would’ve had in their prime.

No way you're equating a point of scoring with a point of impact.

Idk why you use so many words to say everything. Don’t you know how to be concise. Also, take it easy on the exclamation marks, damn.

This is largely just a bait post. But to address the only substantive thing you said, scoring an extra point off the same number of shots is pretty akin to a point of impact

No, it's not. A teammate can potentially take and score that shot if the scorer isn't present. As is, scores are not actually generated by one player, but multiple, even though we semantically cheat a bit with the term "scorer".

PS: Maybe consider using the enter key? Blocks chalk full of filler words and clauses become annoying to work through after a while.

[MavsDirk41]

.

Yes, it’s very likely true prime LeBron would’ve finished better at the rim in this series, but I think we are essentially internalizing that when we talk about ways that we’d expect prime LeBron to be better. We’d expect prime LeBron to have finished better. Maybe some of that is due to LeBron having had negative variance at the rim in the series, but it’s also just because LeBron was better at finishing back then. It’s one of the main ways he was better back then. And it’s one of the factors that I’d assume would go a long way to overcoming the drop we’d expect in jump shooting percentage.

They weren't talking about prime LeBron
They were talking about 2024 LeBron
across the board

No offense but I'm not trusting you with any contracts Mr Lawyer.

No way you're equating a point of scoring with a point of impact.

Idk why you use so many words to say everything. Don’t you know how to be concise. Also, take it easy on the exclamation marks, damn.

This is largely just a bait post. But to address the only substantive thing you said, scoring an extra point off the same number of shots is pretty akin to a point of impact

No, it's not. A teammate can potentially take and score that shot if the scorer isn't present. As is, scores are not actually generated by one player, but multiple, even though we semantically cheat a bit with the term "scorer".

PS: Maybe consider using the enter key? Blocks chalk full of filler words and clauses become annoying to work through after a while.

Hey when are you going to answer how you got that Scottie Pippen averaged 22 points a game in his career without Jordan? You mentioned it on here before and when i asked you how you got that number you never responded. Ill wait again for your response now. Thank you.

[capfan33]

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.

Even without "advantageous variance" at play, LeBron from, say, 2009-2020 was still better than he was in 2024. For example, LeBron shot 26% from 3 in the 2012 playoffs, and LeBron was, IMO, quite clearly "better" than in 2024, even with shooting on the colder side. I'm pretty happy to compare Jokic to prime LeBron without that variance too.

The bolded is what should be done. That’s my point. And if someone just takes how LeBron played in the series against Denver and then layers on the ways that prime LeBron was better without accounting for positive shooting variance LeBron had in the series (amongst other ways he was better than his general current baseline), then one is effectively comparing Jokic to LeBron with positive shooting variance added on (and doing so using a roundabout analogy). And then it becomes an unfair comparison. That’s been my whole point.

2 shots in 5 games is... 0.4 shots per game (which is 0.8 points). That's... not really a notable difference in terms of addressing the question "how good was LeBron?" Yes, individual shots/redistributions of shooting variance can be pivotal in deciding a series, but it shouldn't decide how good a player was holistically.

I disagree, and certainly disagree once we layer on some other variance that makes the number higher. A point or two here and there really is the difference between the impact of different tiers of players in the NBA.

It's more accurate to compare 2024 LeBron's "variance" to his own 2024, given that skillsets are not uniform over time, nor is LeBron's physical health post-2019ish.

That is right if we were trying to actually isolate out variance specifically. But that’s not the relevant inquiry here. Whether LeBron shot so well in this series because of actual variance or because he’s just a better shooter now than he was in his prime (or a combination of the two) is not really relevant. The relevant thing is just that he shot better than we’d expect prime LeBron to have shot, because we are assessing how prime LeBron probably would’ve performed compared to how current LeBron actually performed. The question of how we’d have expected current LeBron to have performed is not a relevant question.

In other words - as I postulated earlier, the variance in shooting percentage matters less than you're making out, because akin to how players can have a hot/cold jump shot, they can also vary in how astute their finishing is. After all, we've seen players miss open dunks many times, and that's a high percentage, defenseless shot, lol. There's evidence to believe that LeBron's positively inclined shooting may be somewhat offset, if not completely offset, by the variance in finishing.

Yes, it’s very likely true prime LeBron would’ve finished better at the rim in this series, but I think we are essentially internalizing that when we talk about ways that we’d expect prime LeBron to be better. We’d expect prime LeBron to have finished better. Maybe some of that is due to LeBron having had negative variance at the rim in the series, but it’s also just because LeBron was better at finishing back then. It’s one of the main ways he was better back then. And it’s one of the factors that I’d assume would go a long way to overcoming the drop we’d expect in jump shooting percentage.

Anyways, talk of shooting variance is largely just going down one specific rabbit hole. My point was a more general one—which was that LeBron was substantially better in this series than his current baseline. That’s corroborated by all sorts of data. And my point was just that, if we ignore that and act like prime LeBron would’ve been as much better in this series as he was better than LeBron’s current baseline, then it’s an unfair comparison.

Dude, are you really spending this much time arguing over 2 midrange jump shots in a 6 game series? Like, I'm sure you can make better arguments then this. It's common sense.

[srhcan]

I think it deserves his own thread

Jokic is more efficient, more clutch, better teammate, doesn't get refs' calls ( he could have won in 2020 ), and he is better with his attitude.

I don't see where Lebron is better , except for media hype...

Jokic can never be better than Lebron. Lebron is a candidate of GOAT and will always be among Top 5 players all-time list. Jokic is not even among Top 5 Centers all-time. Put the pipe down.