SGA Is Already Better than Peak Lebron

[MrFonzworth]

If it weren't for Fat, OP would be the heaviest poster on the forum.

[Meticode]

Crazy talk.

[Full Court]

If it weren't for Fat, OP would be the heaviest poster on the forum.

You sound like this thread upset you.

Here's a serious question though. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being an utter meltdown, how upset were you about Lebron choking away the serious against the TWolves?

[HoopsNY]

I've seen that video, it's been debunked.

I saw his career, I don't need to watch biased videos to change the narrative after the fact. If it's true you're in your late 20s, you rely on videos to get your info whereas I don't but nice chatting wit ya, dawg

He just needs confirmation bias. He doesn't really care about actual analysis. Which Lakers fans you know hate Kobe?

[HoopsNY]

Aside from the fact that he's not a shrivelly fourth quarter choker, SGA is poised to win MVP, FMVP, and scoring title in the same season - something Lebron was never able to do.

He's poised to win a ring organically, without jumping to a stacked team. Something Lebron couldn't do.

He's already scored 3,000 points this season, regular and post season combined. Lebron never did that.

He's the best two-way player since Jordan. A better team player and more efficient than Kobe. And clearly better than Lebron ever was.

This is an absurd take. SGA isn't the defender that peak LeBron was, nor is his game as explosive as LeBron. If you want to isolate some seasons, then sure. But SGA isn't on the level of LeBron circa 2009-2014. In fact, I wouldn't say he's on the level of LeBron 2015-18, either.

[1987_Lakers]

I've seen that video, it's been debunked.

Debunked by who? Some obsessed MJ fan on youtube?

[ImKobe]

He's a more complete player than peak Bron for sure. No weaknesses.

[HoopsNY]

Debunked by who? Some obsessed MJ fan on youtube?

No, just about anyone who watched him play at any point of his career between 1988-93 could debunk it. You don't get to be a top 5 DPOY vote getter almost every year and being heralded by many analysts as being the best defensive player in the league (irrespective of truth) despite not being an elite big without actually being great defensively.

Gambling the passing lanes was a necessary consequence of not having elite shot blocking on the team back then. If you watched the Bulls, they were masterminds of the full court press. Their perimeter defense (including MJ's consistent harassment), put pressure on teams offensively. MJ was a constant pest because his speed and quickness allowed him to play elite help defense the way few guards could, and allowed him to cover almost the entire half-court set.

This was something mentioned by a lot of post players during that time, because they knew MJ was lurking and it made it more difficult to establish in the post, or perimeter guys to evade screens.

So while Taylor is correct, it's completely devoid of context, let alone the results that it yielded -- mainly an ECF appearance of finals appearance/title.

Individual stats and percentages don't tell the whole story, but you're entirely agenda driven so it doesn't surprise me that you saw something and used it to pull down MJ's position in basketball history.

[1987_Lakers]

No, just about anyone who watched him play at any point of his career between 1988-93 could debunk it. You don't get to be a top 5 DPOY vote getter almost every year and being heralded by many analysts as being the best defensive player in the league (irrespective of truth) despite not being an elite big without actually being great defensively.

Ben Taylor and his team watched over 200 MJ games to confirm this, he wasn't just nitpicking games. We saw Kobe make 12 All-Defensive teams, most of them were undeserving, I really don't put much stock into how high he finished into DPOY voting, we all know about his case in '88 where he was gifted fake steals and blocks to win the award. (Hakeem was more deserving that year)

We saw a 35 year old MJ finish 4th in DPOY voting in '98, over Tim Duncan

We saw him finish 2nd in '93, over David Robinson and Patrick Ewing who anchored a historic defense that year.

I'm supposed to believe these votings are accurate? LOL

[Im Still Ballin]

He's a more complete player than peak Bron for sure. No weaknesses.

Is he? Peak LeBron was pretty well-rounded. When was his peak, and what is meant by more complete? How do we contextualize this relative to position? James' size affords him a degree of versatility Gilgeous-Alexander can't hope to match, on offense and defense.

A simple look at Synergy Sports Tracking's play-type statistics shows us this to be true. Let's compare 2013-14 LeBron to 2024-25 Shai:

PPP = points per possession; volume = number of possessions per game; POE = points over expectation (league average)

Points Over Expectation is a metric that highlights how much more efficient a player is than what we can expect from league average performance in each play.

2013-14 LeBron RS

Isolation: 97th percentile PPP, 99th percentile volume, 2nd POE rank
PnR Ball Handler: 100th percentile PPP, 73rd percentile volume, 8th POE rank
Spot-up: 91st percentile PPP, 48th percentile volume, 41st POE rank
Transition: 94th percentile PPP, 99th percentile volume, 2nd POE rank
PnR Roll Man: 90th percentile PPP, 21st percentile volume, 34.5th POE rank
Cut: 92nd percentile PPP, 71st percentile volume, 18th POE rank
Hand-off: N/A
Off Screen: 70th percentile PPP, 73rd percentile volume, 56th POE rank
Putback: 94th percentile PPP, 60th percentile volume, 25th POE rank
Post-up: 99th percentile PPP, 84th percentile volume, 4th POE rank

2013-14 LeBron PO

Isolation: 95th percentile PPP, 98th percentile volume, 2nd POE rank
PnR Ball Handler: 92nd percentile PPP, 80th percentile volume, 4th POE rank
Spot-up: 68th percentile PPP, 54th percentile volume, 50th POE rank
Transition: 98th percentile PPP, 95th percentile volume, 1st POE rank
PnR Roll Man: 88th percentile PPP, 62nd percentile volume, 15th POE rank
Cut: 100th percentile PPP, 74th percentile volume, 2nd POE rank
Hand-off: 62nd percentile PPP, 15th percentile volume, 41th POE rank
Off Screen: 75th percentile PPP, 79th percentile volume, 20th POE rank
Putback: 98th percentile PPP, 63rd percentile volume, 4.5th POE rank
Post-up: 100th percentile PPP, 89th percentile volume, 1st POE rank

2024-25 Shai RS

Isolation: 99th percentile PPP, 100th percentile volume, 1st POE rank
PnR Ball Handler: 99th percentile PPP, 99th percentile volume, 1st POE rank
Spot-up: 95th percentile PPP, 30th percentile volume, 27th POE rank
Transition: 86th percentile PPP, 99th percentile volume, 3rd POE rank
PnR Roll Man: N/A
Cut: 87th percentile PPP, 45th percentile volume, 43rd POE rank
Hand-off: 97th percentile PPP, 51st percentile volume, 18th POE rank
Off Screen: 65th percentile PPP, 48th percentile volume, 65th POE rank
Putback: 100th percentile PPP, 31st percentile volume, 12th POE rank
Post-up: 72nd percentile PPP, 69th percentile volume, 34th POE rank

2024-25 Shai PO

Isolation: 67th percentile PPP, 89th percentile volume, 7th POE rank
PnR Ball Handler: 88th percentile PPP, 97th percentile volume, 1st POE rank
Spot-up: 7th percentile PPP, 18th percentile volume, 104th POE rank
Transition: 80th percentile PPP, 93rd percentile volume, 2nd POE rank
PnR Roll Man: N/A
Cut: N/A
Hand-off: N/A
Off Screen: N/A
Putback: 19th percentile PPP, 27th percentile volume, 26th POE rank
Post-up: 100th percentile PPP, 14th percentile volume, 1st POE rank

[Im Still Ballin]

In my opinion, Peak Miami LeBron is a more complete PF/SF than current Shai is a PG/SG. And in general, irrelevant of position. Positionally speaking, it's close; non-positionally? Comfortably James.

[dankok8]

The video that 1987_Lakers posted is by Ben Taylor from Thinking Basketball. Ben's view on Jordan's defense is very nuanced. It's not like he is hating on MJ. He said he is a clearly positive defender but has problematic tendencies particularly gambling for steals which my own eye test confirmed. MJ did at times gamble for steals which led to defensive breakdowns. No doubt about it. But that doesn't mean he still wasn't a great defender. He was.

Was he better than top tier defensive bigs like Hakeem, Robinson, and Ewing? Of course not. But that's a standard that no non-big could ever meet. MJ is still an elite perimeter defender but perimeter guys just don't touch bigs in terms of impact.

[1987_Lakers]

The video that 1987_Lakers posted is by Ben Taylor from Thinking Basketball. Ben's view on Jordan's defense is very nuanced. It's not like he is hating on MJ. He said he is a clearly positive defender but has problematic tendencies particularly gambling for steals which my own eye test confirmed. MJ did at times gamble for steals which led to defensive breakdowns. No doubt about it. But that doesn't mean he still wasn't a great defender. He was.

Was he better than top tier defensive bigs like Hakeem, Robinson, and Ewing? Of course not. But that's a standard that no non-big could ever meet. MJ is still an elite perimeter defender but perimeter guys just don't touch bigs in terms of impact.

Correct. Ben Taylor basically still calls him an All-NBA defender, just not all-time great.

[HoopsNY]

Ben Taylor and his team watched over 200 MJ games to confirm this, he wasn't just nitpicking games. We saw Kobe make 12 All-Defensive teams, most of them were undeserving, I really don't put much stock into how high he finished into DPOY voting, we all know about his case in '88 where he was gifted fake steals and blocks to win the award. (Hakeem was more deserving that year)

We saw a 35 year old MJ finish 4th in DPOY voting in '98, over Tim Duncan

We saw him finish 2nd in '93, over David Robinson and Patrick Ewing who anchored a historic defense that year.

I'm supposed to believe these votings are accurate? LOL

Sorry, but you're once again showing how you're agenda driven.

1- I didn't argue the entirety of MJ's career. You conveniently highlighted 1998 whereas I mentioned '88-'93.

2- You then specify 1988, but only to tear down the DPOY. Nowhere did I say he in fact deserved it over Hakeem. I don't care that his steals and blocks may have been inflated. That wasn't my point. The point is that he was an elite defender between '88-'93.

You're focusing on the DPOY, meanwhile in '87 he averaged nearly the same amount of steals and blocks (2.9/1.5) without the discrepancy. In fact, he averaged almost the same amount of blocks that season whether home or away.

The DPOY award doesn't matter to me. I merely said he consistently finished top 5 because he was an elite defensive player.

3- Where does Taylor say he was an overrated defensive player, or that he wasn't great? Maybe I missed it.

4- You're mentioning '93 like I believe he was the best. I don't. That's why I put in parenthesis (irrespective of truth). I'm saying this is how he was viewed. It's why when Phil wanted to stop KJ from lighting up in the finals, he switched MJ onto him and KJ got shudown. Mike Fratello in the telecast goes onto say, "they put the best defensive player in the league on Kevin Johnson...."

Was he actually the best defensive player? No. I don't believe he was. But that's about all there was to the extent of him being "overrated."

But that's not what you're interested in. You want to make yourself believe that MJ was just an ordinary defensive player and maybe even just "good." To you, overrated is merely because of accolades being awarded, not actual impact on the game.

[HoopsNY]

The video that 1987_Lakers posted is by Ben Taylor from Thinking Basketball. Ben's view on Jordan's defense is very nuanced. It's not like he is hating on MJ. He said he is a clearly positive defender but has problematic tendencies particularly gambling for steals which my own eye test confirmed. MJ did at times gamble for steals which led to defensive breakdowns. No doubt about it. But that doesn't mean he still wasn't a great defender. He was.

Was he better than top tier defensive bigs like Hakeem, Robinson, and Ewing? Of course not. But that's a standard that no non-big could ever meet. MJ is still an elite perimeter defender but perimeter guys just don't touch bigs in terms of impact.

Right, but even then, I think Taylor is forgetting the type of defensive schemes that Chicago played, and the fact that Chicago didn't have elite shot blocking and relied a lot on three quarter court and full court presses.

Chicago's perimeter defenders were in your face from the jump (at least in the 3peat years) to make it difficult to develop entry passes. MJ lurked on the wings a lot but had the lateral quickness and speed for help defense, but gambled a lot because he was that good at recovering for help defense.

I believe it speaks more about the style of Chicago's defensive schemes than it did about MJ's passing lane gambles.

Either way, Taylor isn't tearing MJ down, he's simply being critical of where MJ's defense showed to have some negative impact. But it's a far cry from what 1987 is consistently trying to do.