The Top 20 has only one player over age 27

[TheFifthSet]

Out of everyone from the dead-ball era I think KG might’ve gotten the biggest glow-up playing today. He had the tighest rotations and best motor perhaps of anyone in basketball history, was switchable before that was popular, could guard 1-5 and had great court vision. His only flaw was that his scoring was less resilient against playoff defences, as opposed to someone like Duncan.

He is the most underrated player of the 2000’s. No other Top 20 (yes he’s Top 20, probably closer to Top 10-12) had a worse supporting cast up to their early 30’s. The first year he gets a good cast, in his age 31.5 season, he wins the title.

The gap between him and Duncan is smaller than people think. It’s no wonder it practically vanished when the supporting casts were equalized.

 

[Holmes]

An era so strong it suffocates all takers, forcing those with ATG potential to the top. No more Hewitts, Roddicks, Safins at the top ushering the game into mediocrity. For the first time in a long time, the game is truly in good hands.

 

[Kralingen]

An era so strong it suffocates all takers, bringing those with ATG potential to the top. No more Hewitts, Roddicks, Safins at the top ushering the game into mediocrity. The game is truly in good hands.

Why was 29 year old PEAT too old to withstand the mediocrity of Safin and especially Hewitt?

 

[Holmes]

Why was 29 year old PEAT too old to withstand the mediocrity of Safin and especially Hewitt?

10 year age difference before magical modern medicines. Besides, I wouldn't call 3-4 and 4-5 embarrassing in context.

 

[Kralingen]

Well for one thing he’s not quite as efficient from long-range, especially in the playoffs (‘14-‘16: 42% on 11 attempts per game, since then 38% on 11). That’s a difficult thing for the eye test to catch, just as it would be difficult to notice a .320 hitter declining into a .300 hitter (all else being equal).

Considering the ever-improving spacing of the league (resulting in an ever-expanding offensive Big Bang), why is Curry barely keeping pace? Obviously some of it is that the offensive upticking is giving him less margin to separate himself from the pack, but that can’t be all of it.

You have to adjust for the changing offensive environment. Otherwise ‘23 LeBron and ‘09 LeBron are identical.

Per 100 possessions -

09 Bron: 41/11/10 59% TS
23 Bron: 39/11/9 58% TS

One had the best advanced stat season since Jordan in his prime. The other wasn’t in the single season Top 1000 all-time in any conventional advanced stat.

The other thing is that he’s even more of an injury risk now. The image of him being made of glass has merit to it but he had a five year stretch where he missed almost no time at all.


Well yeah his finishing numbers are up but he’s also taking 2x less attempts; 76% conversion rate at the rim last year (a career high) but only 11% of his shots were from there and he only played 56 games. He converted close to 70% on 20% attempts at his peak.

So it’s probably down to a mix of genuine improvement (from the 2-3 years before it), statistical noise/variance and changing offensive schemes (less packed lanes).

I mean look at LeBron’s finishing stats in LA:

33.9% of shots came at the rim, 76.7% conversion rate

Compared to Miami:

34.5%, 77.1%.

No difference at all, even with 10 years of age/mileage and diminished athleticism tacked on.


But overall I do concur that Curry’s case as a LiftBot is overstated and needs to be contextualized. I actually think ‘13-‘17 was the perfect time for Curry to prime as it was sort of a sweet-spot period where there was a good balance between coaches giving their guys the green light and the hold-overs from the previous era not shooting enough 3’s.

In the early 2000’s I think Curry is likely taking 7-8 three’s a game (a la Peja), which puts a cap on his ceiling.

In the late 2010’s to now, he shoots his customary 10-13 but the rest of the league has started to catch up, making him less valuable too.

This is an incredibly important post that I have not yet been able to express in a provable and concise manner. I obviously know that scoring and efficiency is an out of control inflation right now, and clearly 2009 LBJ was way better than 2023 LBJ, everyone knows that, but explaining the nuts and bolts and machinations of why is a lot more difficult.

Advancements in coaching, analytics, as well as subtle refereeing changes can all be referenced but I don’t have the theory of everything.

 

[Holmes]

This is an incredibly important post that I have not yet been able to express in a provable and concise manner. I obviously know that scoring and efficiency is an out of control inflation right now, and clearly 2009 LBJ was way better than 2023 LBJ, everyone knows that, but explaining the nuts and bolts and machinations of why is a lot more difficult.

Advancements in coaching, analytics, as well as subtle refereeing changes can all be referenced but I don’t have the theory of everything.

Gentlemen, if we could bring the discussion back to the game of tennis.

 

[TheFifthSet]

This is an incredibly important post that I have not yet been able to express in a provable and concise manner. I obviously know that scoring and efficiency is an out of control inflation right now, and clearly 2009 LBJ was way better than 2023 LBJ, everyone knows that, but explaining the nuts and bolts and machinations of why is a lot more difficult.

Advancements in coaching, analytics, as well as subtle refereeing changes can all be referenced but I don’t have the theory of everything.

Hopefully the more incisive analysis reaches the mainstream. My man Taylor is doing his part.


If not, it’s going to be amusing to hear the takes 20 years down the line about LeBron never actually declining over that 15 year span.

Almost as (be)musing as the Karl Malone takes that will unfurl one day, when his accolades and regular season stats are looked at. “Was Malone a Top 10 player ever?” (**** no.)

 

[travlerajm]

Oh boy glad you asked this.

Here's the video that Jordan fans have hidden from the internet more than anything in history, the game that none of them will ever discuss or touch with a 10 feet pole. The time where Jordan actually choked in the clutch, blowing a 3 point lead with a minute left. You'll see a much more spry, athletic, and mobile Shaq in this video. Look at him! He looks like a different human being!

One could very well argue that this was his close to his best version, at the least the 94-95 Shaq is statistically comparable to later versions. I think that Shaq's huge weight didn't hurt him at all game-wise, he was incredibly dominant having added about 50 pounds in the LA threepeat here:

long story short - the issue wasn't that he weighed a lot, the issue was that he was fat. Yes, there is a difference. A very big difference.

Seriously, even in his LA Lakers prime he was a fat **** who didn't care about getting in shape whatsoever. The weight can be managed if you're diligent and professional. He wasn't, he didn't care about staying in shape, injury rehab, or basic body maintenance and it led to conditioning issues, locker room drama, and eventually his injuries and downfall after 2003.

‘95 Orlando Shaq = ‘90 US Open Pete
Lakers Shaq = PETE
Miami Shaq = Fat Pete
Cleveland Shaq = Exho Pete
TNT Shaq = play-with-his-kids Pete

 

[TheFifthSet]

‘95 Orlando Shaq = ‘90 US Open Pete
Lakers Shaq = PETE
Miami Shaq = Fat Pete
Cleveland Shaq = Exho Pete
TNT Shaq = play-with-his-kids Pete

Pete’s serve = Shaq’s drop-step
Pete on clay = Shaq at the line

 

[Kralingen]

Hopefully the more incisive analysis reaches the mainstream. My man Taylor is doing his part.


If not, it’s going to be amusing to hear the takes 20 years down the line about LeBron never actually declining over that 15 year span.

Almost as (be)musing as the Karl Malone takes that will unfurl one day, when his accolades and regular season stats are looked at. “Was Malone a Top 10 player ever?” (**** no.)

I admit that I really love ****ting on Jordan's efficiency numbers in bad faith whenever I'm in a grumpy mood though, and will miss it a lot. So I suppose it's a matter of losing the battle winning the war.

 

[TheFifthSet]

I admit that I really love ****ting on Jordan's efficiency numbers in bad faith whenever I'm in a grumpy mood though.

LMAO.

Well, just know your audience. It’ll fly around certain people.

The thing with efficiency is that you have to factor in turnover rates if you’re making a pure statistical case. Jordan had historically low turnover rates for someone with his usage %’s. A turnover is much worse than a missed shot, both because you can retrieve misses and also due to the high PPP’s that turnovers lead to.

 

[travlerajm]

LMAO.

Well, just know your audience. It’ll fly around certain people.

The thing with efficiency is that you have to factor in turnover rates if you’re making a pure statistical case. Jordan had historically low turnover rates for someone with his usage %’s. A turnover is much worse than a missed shot, both because you can retrieve misses and also due to the high PPP’s that turnovers lead to.

Just like a missed overhead dunk is worse statistically than a missed return of serve, because an overhead dunk has like 0.9 expected points won while a return has only about 0.3. Just trying to keep this tennis related.

 

[The Guru]

Ah yes the lift that Curry demonstrated.

Tell me, how did Steph have two of the best statistical years of his career in 2021 and 2023, (after the 50 point Game 7 everyone was calling this “Peak Steph”), and he had his culture, his coach, his ride or die guy in Green, a young star in Wiggins coming off an amazing finals, along with some young guys he had elevated with his “cultural lift” and his “rising tides”… and then still manage to get defeated in the playoffs, including losing a series in which they had home court advantage, by 36 and 38 year old LeBron’s awful cultural fit and negative aura?

Explain how and why they lost those matchups.

Also, Curry Jokic Giannis Duncan etc all played with all stars or all NBA caliber players when it came time for them to re-sign. Curry re signed when he had Kevin ****ing Durant. Jokic had an elite Jamal Murray (who just got injured but by all accounts is one of the best guards in the league), Duncan had decorated FMVP Parker and Ginobili. Hell, Khris Middleton is literally better than anyone on the 2010 Cavs team by a significant measure.

It’s a lot easier to stay when there’s some semblance of a supporting cast. The 2010 Cavs had almost no talent around Bron.

This is such an atrocious argument I don't even know where to begin.

You seem to be struggling to grasp what I've been saying this whole time. I'm saying that culture building and stuff of that nature is one of the skills that we should evaluate in any basketball player just like on the court skills like rebounding. I'm obviously not saying its the most important or that it solves all problems. The more talented team can beat the team with a great culture. The Spurs lost to the Shaqobe Lakers plenty of times and it certainly wasnt because those teams were running super smoothly. If I drop peak Timmy on the Pistons they don't magically become the champions because culture. Everything else matters a ton. Again should be obvious but you're making me say it. LBJ is still on my mount rushmore in spite of his shortcomings in this area. Kyrie is the biggest cancer I've ever seen but everything else he does matters more than that when you compare him to ok players who are great for the locker room like say Marcus Smart or Derek Fisher.

Painting that series as Steph vs LeBron is just fantasy and delusion. LeBron's not even close to the best player on his own team anymore. The fact that you're even calling Wiggins a young star is a massive credit to Curry and the Warriors culture because in Minnesota Wiggins was not even a positive player let alone anything close to a star. If Wiggins went to LA or basically anywhere but GS and maybe a couple other places he's never even close to what he is now. Minnesota Wiggins probably couldn't even be the 4th best player on a championship team current Wiggins may have been the 2nd depending on how you view Dray. It's a remarkable improvement.

This last part isn't even true. The early 00s Spurs are an absolute skeleton of a roster the 03 Spurs are close to if not the worst supporting cast ever taken to a title. Jokic resigned when Murray had not even proved he was an above average starting guard in the league and he still really hasn't proved that he's an elite player at least in my eyes. And there are plenty of other stars who stuck around and built culture with jack squat around them. Who were Dirks best teammates in the same time frame Josh Howard? Nash had who Stoudemire? Marion? Garnett's best teammate is what frickin Wally Sczerbiak. One year of Sam Cassell. Who did Hakeem have after Sampson? I'm not saying you gotta stay where you are I'm not even saying LeBron shouldn't have left (I will say he shouldn't have done it the way he did but thats another matter) I'm saying LeBron doesn't build culture. In fact he actively undermines it and that hurts his teams.

He could've built it somewhere else he had the perfect situation to do so in Miami. Nash and KG built amazing cultures away from their first teams (well I guess it was technically Nash's first team but you know what I mean). Point still stands and I honestly don't think you'd even disagree with it. If the Cavs draft Duncan instead of LBJ Mike Brown's a HOFer instead of getting fired and the Cavs develop a strong winning culture even if Timmy more than likely ends up with significantly less than 5 rings.

 

[The Guru]

Yeah I was thinking more it's the type weight rather than just the weight. It reminds me of George Foreman in his 2nd career.

He went from 220s to 270s and the weight was mostly fat rather than muscle. But they are freaks of nature that it may not be the hindrance it looks.

Shaq sacrificed some longevity putting on weight to just absolutely stomp on the league for a few years but it took a toll on his body. He went from arguably the MVP in 05 to a low level all nba guy in 06 to pretty much just a strong role player after that. He fell apart pretty quickly.

 

[The Guru]

Out of everyone from the dead-ball era I think KG might’ve gotten the biggest glow-up playing today. He had the tighest rotations and best motor perhaps of anyone in basketball history, was switchable before that was popular, could guard 1-5 and had great court vision. His only flaw was that his scoring was less resilient against playoff defences, as opposed to someone like Duncan.

He is the most underrated player of the 2000’s. No other Top 20 (yes he’s Top 20, probably closer to Top 10-12) had a worse supporting cast up to their early 30’s. The first year he gets a good cast, in his age 31.5 season, he wins the title.

The gap between him and Duncan is smaller than people think. It’s no wonder it practically vanished when the supporting casts were equalized.

KG>Duncan. KG my number 5 all time. Timmy my number 6. Most underrated athlete in sports history.

 

[Kralingen]

This is such an atrocious argument I don't even know where to begin.

You seem to be struggling to grasp what I've been saying this whole time. I'm saying that culture building and stuff of that nature is one of the skills that we should evaluate in any basketball player just like on the court skills like rebounding. I'm obviously not saying its the most important or that it solves all problems. The more talented team can beat the team with a great culture. The Spurs lost to the Shaqobe Lakers plenty of times and it certainly wasnt because those teams were running super smoothly. If I drop peak Timmy on the Pistons they don't magically become the champions because culture. Everything else matters a ton. Again should be obvious but you're making me say it. LBJ is still on my mount rushmore in spite of his shortcomings in this area. Kyrie is the biggest cancer I've ever seen but everything else he does matters more than that when you compare him to ok players who are great for the locker room like say Marcus Smart or Derek Fisher.

Painting that series as Steph vs LeBron is just fantasy and delusion. LeBron's not even close to the best player on his own team anymore. The fact that you're even calling Wiggins a young star is a massive credit to Curry and the Warriors culture because in Minnesota Wiggins was not even a positive player let alone anything close to a star. If Wiggins went to LA or basically anywhere but GS and maybe a couple other places he's never even close to what he is now. Minnesota Wiggins probably couldn't even be the 4th best player on a championship team current Wiggins may have been the 2nd depending on how you view Dray. It's a remarkable improvement.

It's intentionally disingenuous and stupid. But that's intentional, because it's no worse than your weird fixation with this nebulous 'winning culture' thing is.

I was trying to get you to admit the obvious fact which is that your magic beans 'winning culture' means absolutely **** all in the face of a talent/coaching advantage and basically, stripped down of your flowery language and meaningless '3 to -3' rating system, essentially just means that at one point you won a championship and you didn't leave. Wow. That is, as far as I can surmise, the only definition that fits all your examples of someone who developed a 'winning culture'.

I am not saying it's totally meaningless but it's so nebulous as to basically not matter at all imo. The coach and front office is way more important than the player anyways in this instance. Why should Steph get the credit and not Kerr when the only major change from the 12-14 Dubs and the 14-15 Dubs was going from Mark Jackson to Kerr?

So again, I invite you to have an honest discussion of the 'culture building' of the '23 Warriors. Coming off a championship, with morale as high as ever, led by 10/10 GOAT culture builder Steph Curry, the greatest leader in NBA history, the following happens:
-Curry's best role players Porter, Bjelica, and GP2 walk in free agency and are replaced by players of inferior quality (remember this one)
-Curry's overbearing sidekick lacks the respect and decorum for Steph to control himself, so he literally punches young star and playoff hero Jordan Poole in training camp
-Curry does not smooth the situation over in any meaningful way, alienating Poole and creating a rift within the team (similar to how it happened in 201
-Curry plays amazingly well but falters due to poor team construction and underperformance of both old and young players
-Curry does not push for trades of said young players and sticks with weird quotes in media about committing to the 'two paths' even though it's clearly not working'
-Curry's GM makes panic move at the deadline and sells best young asset in Wiseman for pennies on the dollar, finally rectifying mistake
-Curry's teammate Wiggins inexplicably spends months away from the team and only comes back for the playoffs, Curry does not comment on situation
-Curry tries his best as team crumbles around him, putting on historic game 7 to avoid losing in 1st round
-Curry and older players' rift with young players continues, culminating in Kuminga, Moody, and Poole barely seeing the floor whatsoever in the 2nd round

End result: Curry gets eliminated with HCA as defending champion and falls apart at the end of multiple winnable games (G1/4), despite having definitely comparable talent to Lakers
-GM leaves team in frustration and Poole is again traded for pennies on the dollar

That winning culture sure is SWEET ain't it. Wow. Imagine what would've happened if they didn't have such a great winning culture and team leader.

Meanwhile the case of the '23 Lakers.

-LBJ starts season with broken roster and bloated payroll, Russ, him, and a bunch of G-League bums
-LBJ gets frustrated as team starts 2-10 due to awful roster construction and underperformance of Russ
-LBJ sends passive aggressive tweets and has very clear conversations with Pelinka about direction of team
-LBJ and Russ feud openly, numerous media pieces come out about the issue with the team
-Due to LBJ's urging, Russ is traded for numerous young players (funnily enough adding young assets to the team.. this is the guy who is accused of 'stripping team of young assets')
-LBJ trusts Reaves and DLo to take over offense and this results in great record post-trade
-LBJ inspires locker room camaraderie and the team goes on a huge run, fans are raucous, team has best vibes since title run

End Result: eternal malcontent and cancer LBJ wins play-in, 1st round, and then defeats the vaunted winning culture of the Warriors before going down in the WCF.

Man oh man. If only he had leaned into the winning culture and continuity maybe they could've finished 30-52 and Russ could finally go 0-20 in an NBA game. Sadly cancer and coach killer LeBron only got them into the WCF after pushing for a hugely successful and necessary trade.

Sometimes you need to be an a-hole. Sometimes this winning culture stuff where you don't make a fuss and you don't push for trades is actually BAD. If they had traded Poole and Kuminga mid season for real players they may have actually won it all. But no, Curry's winning culture would never let that happen, despite the fact that his flimsy leadership wasn't enough to stop the entire situation from crumbling around him.

A tale of two leaders. A tale of two outcomes.

OR maybe just maybe this winning culture stuff is all BS and it's 99.9% about the players talent and coaching around you that impacts winning.

 

[The Guru]

It's intentionally disingenuous and stupid. But that's intentional, because it's no worse than your weird fixation with this nebulous 'winning culture' thing is.

I was trying to get you to admit the obvious fact which is that your magic beans 'winning culture' means absolutely **** all in the face of a talent/coaching advantage and basically, stripped down of your flowery language and meaningless '3 to -3' rating system, essentially just means that at one point you won a championship and you didn't leave. Wow. That is, as far as I can surmise, the only definition that fits all your examples of someone who developed a 'winning culture'.

I am not saying it's totally meaningless but it's so nebulous as to basically not matter at all imo. The coach and front office is way more important than the player anyways in this instance. Why should Steph get the credit and not Kerr when the only major change from the 12-14 Dubs and the 14-15 Dubs was going from Mark Jackson to Kerr?

So again, I invite you to have an honest discussion of the 'culture building' of the '23 Warriors. Coming off a championship, with morale as high as ever, led by 10/10 GOAT culture builder Steph Curry, the greatest leader in NBA history, the following happens:
-Curry's best role players Porter, Bjelica, and GP2 walk in free agency and are replaced by players of inferior quality (remember this one)
-Curry's overbearing sidekick lacks the respect and decorum for Steph to control himself, so he literally punches young star and playoff hero Jordan Poole in training camp
-Curry does not smooth the situation over in any meaningful way, alienating Poole and creating a rift within the team (similar to how it happened in 201
-Curry plays amazingly well but falters due to poor team construction and underperformance of both old and young players
-Curry does not push for trades of said young players and sticks with weird quotes in media about committing to the 'two paths' even though it's clearly not working'
-Curry's GM makes panic move at the deadline and sells best young asset in Wiseman for pennies on the dollar, finally rectifying mistake
-Curry's teammate Wiggins inexplicably spends months away from the team and only comes back for the playoffs, Curry does not comment on situation
-Curry tries his best as team crumbles around him, putting on historic game 7 to avoid losing in 1st round
-Curry and older players' rift with young players continues, culminating in Kuminga, Moody, and Poole barely seeing the floor whatsoever in the 2nd round

End result: Curry gets eliminated with HCA as defending champion and falls apart at the end of multiple winnable games (G1/4), despite having definitely comparable talent to Lakers
-GM leaves team in frustration and Poole is again traded for pennies on the dollar

That winning culture sure is SWEET ain't it. Wow. Imagine what would've happened if they didn't have such a great winning culture and team leader.

Meanwhile the case of the '23 Lakers.

-LBJ starts season with broken roster and bloated payroll, Russ, him, and a bunch of G-League bums
-LBJ gets frustrated as team starts 2-10 due to awful roster construction and underperformance of Russ
-LBJ sends passive aggressive tweets and has very clear conversations with Pelinka about direction of team
-LBJ and Russ feud openly, numerous media pieces come out about the issue with the team
-Due to LBJ's urging, Russ is traded for numerous young players (funnily enough adding young assets to the team.. this is the guy who is accused of 'stripping team of young assets')
-LBJ trusts Reaves and DLo to take over offense and this results in great record post-trade
-LBJ inspires locker room camaraderie and the team goes on a huge run, fans are raucous, team has best vibes since title run

End Result: eternal malcontent and cancer LBJ wins play-in, 1st round, and then defeats the vaunted winning culture of the Warriors before going down in the WCF.

Man oh man. If only he had leaned into the winning culture and continuity maybe they could've finished 30-52 and Russ could finally go 0-20 in an NBA game. Sadly cancer and coach killer LeBron only got them into the WCF after pushing for a hugely successful and necessary trade.

Sometimes you need to be an a-hole. Sometimes this winning culture stuff where you don't make a fuss and you don't push for trades is actually BAD. If they had traded Poole and Kuminga mid season for real players they may have actually won it all. But no, Curry's winning culture would never let that happen, despite the fact that his flimsy leadership wasn't enough to stop the entire situation from crumbling around him.

A tale of two leaders. A tale of two outcomes.

OR maybe just maybe this winning culture stuff is all BS and it's 99.9% about the players talent and coaching around you that impacts winning.

Just because it's hard to quantify or define doesn't make it not real and whether you want to admit it or not culture is absolutely real and clearly important.

Except it clearly doesn't. The 2022 Warriors were not the most talented team. They were not even one of the 3 most talented teams. The Celtics are clearly a more talented team. But the culture and continuity in GS provides a lot of value enough to elevate that team to a championship. Again do you really think if none of those guys have ever played together before and we drop them in Chicago they win the championship. I'd say odds of that are pretty much zero. I'd be shocked if they made it past the second round. It matters. It obviously matters.

You really think the last 4 years of Heat success is about talent? The heat dramatically outperforming the Nets was talent based? I'm sorry but your argument here is just completely indefensible. It makes a difference and anyone who knows anything about basketball or any team sport would never deny that. If you'd ever played a team sport even at the high school level you'd never deny that. It's not even worth arguing over it's just obviously true. Let's see how it works out for the Suns this year I know where my money is.

This is at least a fair point and yeah Kerr and Pop and other coaches and front offices deserve a ton of credit. It is ultimately a symbiotic relationship and doling out credit is complex. Ultimately, though it is completely dependent on the star's buy in and leadership to make it work. No other coach can even try to coach like Pop and the only reason he's able to is because Timmy enabled it. Listen to the former players talk about it. The beautiful game Spurs don't happen with LeBron or Shaq or KD or Harden or Wilt or any of those type of megadiva superstars. Anyone with any semblance of honesty talking about this subject admits this it really should not be a point of contention.

The bottom of your post is just narrative nonsense with an obvious spin and agenda behind it. Somehow in the course of this argument you paint Curry supporting his FO moves to the media and not discussing his teammates personal leave of absense with the world as poor leadership like wtf. The fact that Curry's held GS together despite getting strapped with psycho clown draymond and mega cancer KD for 3 years is nothing short of a miracle.

 

[TheFifthSet]

It's intentionally disingenuous and stupid. But that's intentional, because it's no worse than your weird fixation with this nebulous 'winning culture' thing is.

I was trying to get you to admit the obvious fact which is that your magic beans 'winning culture' means absolutely **** all in the face of a talent/coaching advantage and basically, stripped down of your flowery language and meaningless '3 to -3' rating system, essentially just means that at one point you won a championship and you didn't leave. Wow. That is, as far as I can surmise, the only definition that fits all your examples of someone who developed a 'winning culture'.

I am not saying it's totally meaningless but it's so nebulous as to basically not matter at all imo. The coach and front office is way more important than the player anyways in this instance. Why should Steph get the credit and not Kerr when the only major change from the 12-14 Dubs and the 14-15 Dubs was going from Mark Jackson to Kerr?

So again, I invite you to have an honest discussion of the 'culture building' of the '23 Warriors. Coming off a championship, with morale as high as ever, led by 10/10 GOAT culture builder Steph Curry, the greatest leader in NBA history, the following happens:
-Curry's best role players Porter, Bjelica, and GP2 walk in free agency and are replaced by players of inferior quality (remember this one)
-Curry's overbearing sidekick lacks the respect and decorum for Steph to control himself, so he literally punches young star and playoff hero Jordan Poole in training camp
-Curry does not smooth the situation over in any meaningful way, alienating Poole and creating a rift within the team (similar to how it happened in 201
-Curry plays amazingly well but falters due to poor team construction and underperformance of both old and young players
-Curry does not push for trades of said young players and sticks with weird quotes in media about committing to the 'two paths' even though it's clearly not working'
-Curry's GM makes panic move at the deadline and sells best young asset in Wiseman for pennies on the dollar, finally rectifying mistake
-Curry's teammate Wiggins inexplicably spends months away from the team and only comes back for the playoffs, Curry does not comment on situation
-Curry tries his best as team crumbles around him, putting on historic game 7 to avoid losing in 1st round
-Curry and older players' rift with young players continues, culminating in Kuminga, Moody, and Poole barely seeing the floor whatsoever in the 2nd round

End result: Curry gets eliminated with HCA as defending champion and falls apart at the end of multiple winnable games (G1/4), despite having definitely comparable talent to Lakers
-GM leaves team in frustration and Poole is again traded for pennies on the dollar

That winning culture sure is SWEET ain't it. Wow. Imagine what would've happened if they didn't have such a great winning culture and team leader.

Meanwhile the case of the '23 Lakers.

-LBJ starts season with broken roster and bloated payroll, Russ, him, and a bunch of G-League bums
-LBJ gets frustrated as team starts 2-10 due to awful roster construction and underperformance of Russ
-LBJ sends passive aggressive tweets and has very clear conversations with Pelinka about direction of team
-LBJ and Russ feud openly, numerous media pieces come out about the issue with the team
-Due to LBJ's urging, Russ is traded for numerous young players (funnily enough adding young assets to the team.. this is the guy who is accused of 'stripping team of young assets')
-LBJ trusts Reaves and DLo to take over offense and this results in great record post-trade
-LBJ inspires locker room camaraderie and the team goes on a huge run, fans are raucous, team has best vibes since title run

End Result: eternal malcontent and cancer LBJ wins play-in, 1st round, and then defeats the vaunted winning culture of the Warriors before going down in the WCF.

Man oh man. If only he had leaned into the winning culture and continuity maybe they could've finished 30-52 and Russ could finally go 0-20 in an NBA game. Sadly cancer and coach killer LeBron only got them into the WCF after pushing for a hugely successful and necessary trade.

Sometimes you need to be an a-hole. Sometimes this winning culture stuff where you don't make a fuss and you don't push for trades is actually BAD. If they had traded Poole and Kuminga mid season for real players they may have actually won it all. But no, Curry's winning culture would never let that happen, despite the fact that his flimsy leadership wasn't enough to stop the entire situation from crumbling around him.

A tale of two leaders. A tale of two outcomes.

OR maybe just maybe this winning culture stuff is all BS and it's 99.9% about the players talent and coaching around you that impacts winning.

To add on to your point about Reaves: he improved a lot the moment Russ was traded. A lot a lot. Like at the very moment Westbrook was shipped, he jumped to another level. And then he improved on that and had his best stretch of the season when LeBron came back from injury.

Russ was a bad basketball fit, culture isn’t to blame for that.

I said before the ‘21-‘22 season that the Lakers were a 38 win calibre team. I think 538 pegged them close to that too. Neither of us were heavily factoring in intangibles (538 wasn’t at all).

 

[Kralingen]

Just because it's hard to quantify or define doesn't make it not real and whether you want to admit it or not culture is absolutely real and clearly important.

Except it clearly doesn't. The 2022 Warriors were not the most talented team. They were not even one of the 3 most talented teams. The Celtics are clearly a more talented team. But the culture and continuity in GS provides a lot of value enough to elevate that team to a championship. Again do you really think if none of those guys have ever played together before and we drop them in Chicago they win the championship. I'd say odds of that are pretty much zero. I'd be shocked if they made it past the second round. It matters. It obviously matters.

You really think the last 4 years of Heat success is about talent? The heat dramatically outperforming the Nets was talent based? I'm sorry but your argument here is just completely indefensible. It makes a difference and anyone who knows anything about basketball or any team sport would never deny that. If you'd ever played a team sport even at the high school level you'd never deny that. It's not even worth arguing over it's just obviously true. Let's see how it works out for the Suns this year I know where my money is.

This is at least a fair point and yeah Kerr and Pop and other coaches and front offices deserve a ton of credit. It is ultimately a symbiotic relationship and doling out credit is complex. Ultimately, though it is completely dependent on the star's buy in and leadership to make it work. No other coach can even try to coach like Pop and the only reason he's able to is because Timmy enabled it. Listen to the former players talk about it. The beautiful game Spurs don't happen with LeBron or Shaq or KD or Harden or Wilt or any of those type of megadiva superstars. Anyone with any semblance of honesty talking about this subject admits this it really should not be a point of contention.

The bottom of your post is just narrative nonsense with an obvious spin and agenda behind it. Somehow in the course of this argument you paint Curry supporting his FO moves to the media and not discussing his teammates personal leave of absense with the world as poor leadership like wtf. The fact that Curry's held GS together despite getting strapped with psych clown draymond and mega cancer KD for 3 years is nothing short of a miracle.

Chemistry matters obviously. Fitting guys into an established system and giving them a path to success matters. But continuity and a great leader can only foster so much chemistry. I can give so many counter examples. Talk to me about why the Richard Jefferson experiment was a complete disaster in San Antonio, given how great of a leader Duncan was? Sometimes it just doesn't work basketball wise. RJ was a nice guy and a hard worker. He just wasn't what the Spurs needed and he cost too much money. But again, if the Richard Jefferson failure happened to LeBron like it happened to him on the Spurs, on Duncan's team? My oh my would the narrative be different.

I’m not sure how good the 22 Celtics actually were… Tatum and Brown literally couldn’t dribble the ball midway through the series. If you seriously watched games 4-6 and came away with any positive opinion of Boston as a team I'm not sure what you were watching. It was pathetic. The lack of a real ball handler and creator finally caught up to them, just as it had every year since 2017. I do not think they would've come close to a title in any of the previous 10 seasons.

The point I’m making with Boston's lack of ball handling above is along with Richard Jefferson failing in San Antonio is actually the same as the point I’m making about LBJ/Curry. It's about why pushing for trades behind the scenes can actually be a good thing to do sometimes. Team composition as in roster construction is MORE important than one player’s "culture and chemistry" is.

You can massage a square to try to make it a circle as much as you want but sometimes it’s better to just trade the square and get a circle.

Yes I am openly saying that 2023 LeBron's abrasive style got his team meaningful and demonstrable better results than nice guy Steph's in 2023. Because it's demonstrably true. Sometimes you need to not trust your GM so much, sometimes you need to be the bad guy. This is an instance (like trading those young players for AD in 2019), where LBJ's 'cancerous behavior' directly led to success. You can call it cancerous I call it effective, and you can call Steph's turning a blind eye and putting his head down 'good culture' I call it a missed opportunity. If they had traded Poole and Kuminga for real players they absolutely could've repeated, zero doubt in my mind. Instead both were complete zeroes in a series they ended up losing.

Again, what chemistry did the Warriors really foster that meaningfully gave them an advantage over the field? How can we call Steph such a great leader given that psych clown and mega cancer Draymond and KD were engaged in a feud on his team? Say what you will about LBJ but he's a much more active leader than that. And anyways, getting cancer KD was literally their single biggest contributors to team success. their 2 titles in 17/18 are mainly because they had KD. And in 15 they had a ridiculous talent advantage unless you want to argue that Iguodala, Klay, Draymond, Livingston, Bogut, etc. are somehow equivalent to Delly JR TT and James Jones with Ky/Love on the bench.

Without a massive talent advantage for one team (15, 17, 18, 21), LeBron's teams are now 2-0 vs. Steph's with comparable talent in the playoffs (16, 23).

The reason I'm harping on 2022 vs 2023 is trying to extract the meaning of this 'winning culture'. It was mainly the same team, one won the title one got ROFLMAO'd by a play-in team.

either a) it was a talent issue, but again, that only happened bc Porter, Payton, Bjelica were so much better than the role players in 2023.
or b) it was a fit and chemistry issue behind the scenes between the young vs. old players, which makes Curry a bad leader and completely invalidates this cultural argument you're making for him. You're caught between a rock and a hard place here, either small differences in talent and fit of role players matter a lot more than you're suggesting, or some diminished 'winning culture' was the downfall of the 23 dubs. Which is the literal exact point I'm trying to illustrate.

I'm not trying to invalidate the existence of this thing you're discussing, I'm trying to show you counter examples of how LeBron has elevated his teams in non-conventional ways and how he truly can be a great leader, in 2023 was one of his leadership masterpieces actively pushing for a trade to fix a team that was broken, then taking a back seat to the younger guys, motivating and hyping them up, and picking his spots. But you'd never give him credit for that in a million years and continue to call him a cancer.

 

[The Guru]

Chemistry matters obviously. Fitting guys into an established system and giving them a path to success matters. But continuity and a great leader can only foster so much chemistry. I can give so many counter examples. Talk to me about why the Richard Jefferson experiment was a complete disaster in San Antonio, given how great of a leader Duncan was? Sometimes it just doesn't work basketball wise. RJ was a nice guy and a hard worker. He just wasn't what the Spurs needed and he cost too much money. But again, if the Richard Jefferson failure happened to LeBron like it happened to him on the Spurs, on Duncan's team? My oh my would the narrative be different.

I’m not sure how good the 22 Celtics actually were… Tatum and Brown literally couldn’t dribble the ball midway through the series. If you seriously watched games 4-6 and came away with any positive opinion of Boston as a team I'm not sure what you were watching. It was pathetic. The lack of a real ball handler and creator finally caught up to them, just as it had every year since 2017. I do not think they would've come close to a title in any of the previous 10 seasons.

The point I’m making with Boston's lack of ball handling above is along with Richard Jefferson failing in San Antonio is actually the same as the point I’m making about LBJ/Curry. It's about why pushing for trades behind the scenes can actually be a good thing to do sometimes. Team composition as in roster construction is MORE important than one player’s "culture and chemistry" is.

You can massage a square to try to make it a circle as much as you want but sometimes it’s better to just trade the square and get a circle.

Yes I am openly saying that 2023 LeBron's abrasive style got his team meaningful and demonstrable better results than nice guy Steph's in 2023. Because it's demonstrably true. Sometimes you need to not trust your GM so much, sometimes you need to be the bad guy. This is an instance (like trading those young players for AD in 2019), where LBJ's 'cancerous behavior' directly led to success. You can call it cancerous I call it effective, and you can call Steph's turning a blind eye and putting his head down 'good culture' I call it a missed opportunity. If they had traded Poole and Kuminga for real players they absolutely could've repeated, zero doubt in my mind. Instead both were complete zeroes in a series they ended up losing.

Again, what chemistry did the Warriors really foster that meaningfully gave them an advantage over the field? How can we call Steph such a great leader given that psych clown and mega cancer Draymond and KD were engaged in a feud on his team? Say what you will about LBJ but he's a much more active leader than that. And anyways, getting cancer KD was literally their single biggest contributors to team success. their 2 titles in 17/18 are mainly because they had KD. And in 15 they had a ridiculous talent advantage unless you want to argue that Iguodala, Klay, Draymond, Livingston, Bogut, etc. are somehow equivalent to Delly JR TT and James Jones with Ky/Love on the bench.

Without a massive talent advantage for one team (15, 17, 18, 21), LeBron's teams are now 2-0 vs. Steph's with comparable talent in the playoffs (16, 23).

The reason I'm harping on 2022 vs 2023 is trying to extract the meaning of this 'winning culture'. It was mainly the same team, one won the title one got ROFLMAO'd by a play-in team.

either a) it was a talent issue, but again, that only happened bc Porter, Payton, Bjelica were so much better than the role players in 2023.
or b) it was a fit and chemistry issue behind the scenes between the young vs. old players, which makes Curry a bad leader and completely invalidates this cultural argument you're making for him. You're caught between a rock and a hard place here, either small differences in talent and fit of role players matter a lot more than you're suggesting, or some diminished 'winning culture' was the downfall of the 23 dubs. Which is the literal exact point I'm trying to illustrate.

I'm not trying to invalidate the existence of this thing you're discussing, I'm trying to show you counter examples of how LeBron has elevated his teams in non-conventional ways and how he truly can be a great leader, in 2023 was one of his leadership masterpieces actively pushing for a trade to fix a team that was broken, then taking a back seat to the younger guys, motivating and hyping them up, and picking his spots. But you'd never give him credit for that in a million years and continue to call him a cancer.

Never did I say that every time a player goes to the Spurs it will work out beautifully and they will play the best basketball they ever have. It happened most of the time but yes obviously basketball fit is still important and yes roster and team construction is the most important thing. Duh.

On RJ specifically I'm pretty sure his asthma got really bad and he had surgery for it in the offseason before his first season with the Spurs. It didn't really seem to be a Spurs problem he was never the same anywhere despite not being that old. In fact the Spurs helped him fix his jump shot before shipping him off which pretty much saved his career.

You can find examples of players not working great pretty much everywhere but with the Spurs that's obviously the exception. It's almost the norm that guys not only improve but find a level no one expected them to ever have while playing there.

Yeah they were an imperfect roster for sure certainly a more talented roster than GS though imo. GS the better team as we saw but in terms of talent stacking it's clearly Boston.

Yeah maybe if you're good at it. What are the odds that you actually are as a player? What are the odds you know better than the front office of 50 people who's job it is to know better than you?

But it's not. LeBron's team was only in the position it was in the first place because he meddled. WB is never a Laker if LeBron just allowed Pelinka to do his job unimpeded and if LeBron never said anything to Pelinka he would've tried to trade WB anyway because oh wait that's what he was already doing. He just has to ask LeBron for permission because that's how LeBron forces the team to function. Giving LeBron credit for undoing the **** up that he made which left them in an overall worse spot than if he had just done nothing would be stupid already. But LeBron had nothing to with undoing the **** up that would've happened regardless of his input.

People thought the Dubs were messing up in 22 too. Turns out Bob Myers is pretty good at his job. Maybe the Warriors made the wrong call maybe not. I do think though that Steph was smart to leave that decision in the hands of Bob Myers both because he's the more qualified person to make the choice and for the sake of the healthy functioning of the organization.

The Dalai Llama couldn't keep KD and Dray from fighting. Curry allowed KD to be the alpha to the detriment of himself (and the team) because he knew it would be worth it because they would win and KD would be happy. You can count on 1 hand the amount of ATGs who would be willing to do that to make it work. Pure clown **** to blame any of that on Curry.

Dumb take btw on the KD warriors but don't wanna get sidetracked.

Another irrelevant argument but really it should be 1-0 because can't really call it LeBron's team when he's not the best player and also there was a significant talent discrepancy.

Again culture doesn't guarantee **** it's just one positive thing to have out of the many many things that contribute to winning basketball. A team with 15 guys with the personality of Bill Russell and the basketball ability of Joe Harris isn't winning ****. Again should be obvious but you're making me say it.

I'm not at all caught between a rock and a hard place. Again this is incredibly reductive and basing your argument on one series is very stupid but even within this dumb reductive argument I don't have to choose between those things. The Lakers were simply a more talented team and the supporting cast was great and AD posed a massive stylistic problem for the Dubs he completely wrecked their offense and the Warriors cast completely did not show up.

I actually think LeBron wasn't so bad this year. I was impressed he took a back seat at times and was willing to play within an offense which is something he's pretty much never done before. I give him credit for that. He also had some really bad moments including quitting on his teammates leaving the court before a game ended and most of his typical diva **** was still there but in terms of on the court play and actions he was better than normal for sure. I think if you're trying to make the argument that who LBJ is as a person is a positive for his teams that is an argument that's pretty much indefensible but if you're trying to say that he provides as much value or more value in that way as Curry and Duncan then um well I recommend a strong clozapine subscription.

 

[Kralingen]

Never did I say that every time a player goes to the Spurs it will work out beautifully and they will play the best basketball they ever have. It happened most of the time but yes obviously basketball fit is still important and yes roster and team construction is the most important thing. Duh.

On RJ specifically I'm pretty sure his asthma got really bad and he had surgery for it in the offseason before his first season with the Spurs. It didn't really seem to be a Spurs problem he was never the same anywhere despite not being that old. In fact the Spurs helped him fix his jump shot before shipping him off which pretty much saved his career.

You can find examples of players not working great pretty much everywhere but with the Spurs that's obviously the exception. It's almost the norm that guys not only improve but find a level no one expected them to ever have while playing there.

sure I’m not arguing everything will always work perfectly. The early 10s Spurs were in flux and DeJuan Blair getting hurt didn’t help also. its just one of many counter-examples but he definitely **** the bed vs Memphis in 2011 and was unceremoniously dumped that summer, I’m just pointing out that Duncan never gets blamed for this although you can be sure LBJ would 100% if it happened.

Another way of framing the winning culture is that it is an “ok with losing and being mediocre for a few years to re-tool” culture - see 08-12 Spurs, see 19-21 Dubs, etc. no one says anything about Duncan or Curry during those stretches. But LeBron gets killed every year he doesn’t make it to the Finals.

Yeah they were an imperfect roster for sure certainly a more talented roster than GS though imo. GS the better team as we saw but in terms of talent stacking it's clearly Boston.

True but I mean the Heat beat them 2 of the last 4 years and were an inch from beating them in 22 as well. Now the Heat are severely underrated, Butler has the most antifragile playoff game in the NBA and crucially he and Bam are unique two way defenders that allow for amazing versatility on both offense and defense. Role players going nuclear from 3 was ultimately the only way they could overcome these talent gaps… but I think the 22 Heat who most would agree are still comfortably worse than the 22 Dubs proved that Boston has real structural flaws. They have had these exact same flaws in 2018 when they lost to LeBron if I’m honest.

Either way it was a good win for Steph and really the one that made me take him seriously as a top 10 ATG so respect to him for that. He is an amazing player.

Yeah maybe if you're good at it. What are the odds that you actually are as a player? What are the odds you know better than the front office of 50 people who's job it is to know better than you?

But it's not. LeBron's team was only in the position it was in the first place because he meddled. WB is never a Laker if LeBron just allowed Pelinka to do his job unimpeded and if LeBron never said anything to Pelinka he would've tried to trade WB anyway because oh wait that's what he was already doing. He just has to ask LeBron for permission because that's how LeBron forces the team to function. Giving LeBron credit for undoing the **** up that he made which left them in an overall worse spot than if he had just done nothing would be stupid already. But LeBron had nothing to with undoing the **** up that would've happened regardless of his input.

People thought the Dubs were messing up in 22 too. Turns out Bob Myers is pretty good at his job. Maybe the Warriors made the wrong call maybe not. I do think though that Steph was smart to leave that decision in the hands of Bob Myers both because he's the more qualified person to make the choice and for the sake of the healthy functioning of the organization.

I agree with this to be sure. anyone who is not a GM picking players is stupid and not sustainable and that includes owners coaches and obviously players. But it’s not like he cooked up DLo or Rui Hachimura specifically. He did put serious pressure on Pelinka though and it led to direct success. And that’s my point sometimes being the bad guy and trying to put the pressure on the front office can have better outcomes than not doing it. This instance was one of them. LeBron picking players is stupid but LeBron saying “hey this isn’t working we need to make a move” might be more effective results-wise than being Mr. Nice guy.

The Dalai Llama couldn't keep KD and Dray from fighting. Curry allowed KD to be the alpha to the detriment of himself (and the team) because he knew it would be worth it because they would win and KD would be happy. You can count on 1 hand the amount of ATGs who would be willing to do that to make it work. Pure clown **** to blame any of that on Curry.

Dumb take btw on the KD warriors but don't wanna get sidetracked.

Another irrelevant argument but really it should be 1-0 because can't really call it LeBron's team when he's not the best player and also there was a significant talent discrepancy.

Again culture doesn't guarantee **** it's just one positive thing to have out of the many many things that contribute to winning basketball. A team with 15 guys with the personality of Bill Russell and the basketball ability of Joe Harris isn't winning ****. Again should be obvious but you're making me say it.

I'm not at all caught between a rock and a hard place. Again this is incredibly reductive and basing your argument on one series is very stupid but even within this dumb reductive argument I don't have to choose between those things. The Lakers were simply a more talented team and the supporting cast was great and AD posed a massive stylistic problem for the Dubs he completely wrecked their offense and the Warriors cast completely did not show up.

This is the part that’s really juicy to me. You say it’s reductive.. I say, if the winning culture is real, if his leadership is so transformative as you say it is, it should have an impact in avoiding broken situations. It should be able to smooth teammate feuds. The winning culture stuff might be cool when you have a significant talent advantage (15, 17-18) but if it’s real, it shows up when things are NOT good.

So yeah, I guarantee if what happened in the Dubs locker room under Curry happened to LeBron you’d be the first to use it against him.

-2018-19 Durant and Draymond are feuding and the locker room is divided leads to KD leaving and ends the dynasty.

-2022-23 Draymond and Poole fall out effects the entire team and basically alienated the entire young core, causing them to severely underperform from the previous year’s level.
Your point is that, oh, Draymond is a loose cannon he’s a lunatic who can’t be controlled. And KD is a super cancer. And both of those things are obviously true.

But my point is, what the hell is the purpose of this leadership and winning culture if it doesn’t help solve these situations on your team? The fact that I can point to two broken locker rooms under Curry’s “winning leadership and culture” that directly impacted team success doesn’t help your case at all. Because either a) it doesn’t exist or b) it’s so minuscule in importance that it doesn’t have any positive effect when real issues occur…

And if you want to play this game with LeBron, there’s really only ever been two broken locker rooms under LBJ, one with crazy Kyrie who makes KD look like a choir boy (and btw LeBron got 3 great years out of him, same as Curry with KD), and one with Russ who now is on his 5th team in 5 years.

I actually think LeBron wasn't so bad this year. I was impressed he took a back seat at times and was willing to play within an offense which is something he's pretty much never done before. I give him credit for that. He also had some really bad moments including quitting on his teammates leaving the court before a game ended and most of his typical diva **** was still there but in terms of on the court play and actions he was better than normal for sure. I think if you're trying to make the argument that who LBJ is as a person is a positive for his teams that is an argument that's pretty much indefensible but if you're trying to say that he provides as much value or more value in that way as Curry and Duncan then um well I recommend a strong clozapine subscription.

Ok fair enough. I ultimately think Curry’s playstyle and gravity is probably what I would lean for him being a better teammate than LeBron if you’d argue that way, and I say that matters way way more than any nebulous culture stuff as I explained above. You could argue he elevates non shooters and bigs as well as anyone in the modern era (I wouldn’t necessarily say this about LBJ although he’s better than most). To be fair though you need a certain level of skill and ball-handling/passing IQ to succeed with the Dubs so I disagree that everyone works with Curry and there are role guys (like obviously Kyrie or Mo Williams or for just role bigs, Hachimura/Andersen/Tristan Thompson) who had success with LBJ but wouldn’t really fit into what the Warriors do well.

 

[The Guru]

sure I’m not arguing everything will always work perfectly. The early 10s Spurs were in flux and DeJuan Blair getting hurt didn’t help also. its just one of many counter-examples but he definitely **** the bed vs Memphis in 2011 and was unceremoniously dumped that summer, I’m just pointing out that Duncan never gets blamed for this although you can be sure LBJ would 100% if it happened.

Another way of framing the winning culture is that it is an “ok with losing and being mediocre for a few years to re-tool” culture - see 08-12 Spurs, see 19-21 Dubs, etc. no one says anything about Duncan or Curry during those stretches. But LeBron gets killed every year he doesn’t make it to the Finals.

True but I mean the Heat beat them 2 of the last 4 years and were an inch from beating them in 22 as well. Now the Heat are severely underrated, Butler has the most antifragile playoff game in the NBA and crucially he and Bam are unique two way defenders that allow for amazing versatility on both offense and defense. Role players going nuclear from 3 was ultimately the only way they could overcome these talent gaps… but I think the 22 Heat who most would agree are still comfortably worse than the 22 Dubs proved that Boston has real structural flaws. They have had these exact same flaws in 2018 when they lost to LeBron if I’m honest.

Either way it was a good win for Steph and really the one that made me take him seriously as a top 10 ATG so respect to him for that. He is an amazing player.

I agree with this to be sure. anyone who is not a GM picking players is stupid and not sustainable and that includes owners coaches and obviously players. But it’s not like he cooked up DLo or Rui Hachimura specifically. He did put serious pressure on Pelinka though and it led to direct success. And that’s my point sometimes being the bad guy and trying to put the pressure on the front office can have better outcomes than not doing it. This instance was one of them. LeBron picking players is stupid but LeBron saying “hey this isn’t working we need to make a move” might be more effective results-wise than being Mr. Nice guy.

This is the part that’s really juicy to me. You say it’s reductive.. I say, if the winning culture is real, if his leadership is so transformative as you say it is, it should have an impact in avoiding broken situations. It should be able to smooth teammate feuds. The winning culture stuff might be cool when you have a significant talent advantage (15, 17-18) but if it’s real, it shows up when things are NOT good.

So yeah, I guarantee if what happened in the Dubs locker room under Curry happened to LeBron you’d be the first to use it against him.

-2018-19 Durant and Draymond are feuding and the locker room is divided leads to KD leaving and ends the dynasty.

-2022-23 Draymond and Poole fall out effects the entire team and basically alienated the entire young core, causing them to severely underperform from the previous year’s level.
Your point is that, oh, Draymond is a loose cannon he’s a lunatic who can’t be controlled. And KD is a super cancer. And both of those things are obviously true.

But my point is, what the hell is the purpose of this leadership and winning culture if it doesn’t help solve these situations on your team? The fact that I can point to two broken locker rooms under Curry’s “winning leadership and culture” that directly impacted team success doesn’t help your case at all. Because either a) it doesn’t exist or b) it’s so minuscule in importance that it doesn’t have any positive effect when real issues occur…

And if you want to play this game with LeBron, there’s really only ever been two broken locker rooms under LBJ, one with crazy Kyrie who makes KD look like a choir boy (and btw LeBron got 3 great years out of him, same as Curry with KD), and one with Russ who now is on his 5th team in 5 years.

Ok fair enough. I ultimately think Curry’s playstyle and gravity is probably what I would lean for him being a better teammate than LeBron if you’d argue that way, and I say that matters way way more than any nebulous culture stuff as I explained above. You could argue he elevates non shooters and bigs as well as anyone in the modern era (I wouldn’t necessarily say this about LBJ although he’s better than most). To be fair though you need a certain level of skill and ball-handling/passing IQ to succeed with the Dubs so I disagree that everyone works with Curry and there are role guys (like obviously Kyrie or Mo Williams or for just role bigs, Hachimura/Andersen/Tristan Thompson) who had success with LBJ but wouldn’t really fit into what the Warriors do well.

You keep assigning beliefs to me and referencing the media. I don't care who the media blames I care whether you are actually blame worthy. Spin it however you want Duncan doesn't deserve blame for RJ's underperformance in fact again if anything his time with the Spurs helped him unlock a part of his game that saved his career. And tons and tons of players reached heights we would've thought impossible for them when they joined the Spurs organization. The Spurs culture is very real and very beneficial and Duncan was a huge part of that and its honestly just ridiculous that we're even arguing about it.

Ok again that has literally nothing to do with what we're talking about and what the media says has no bearing on me. Just stop it with this stuff. Also by literally no measure are the 08-12 Spurs mediocre. Yes they didn't win a championship but they were averaging like 55 wins a year during that period that's far from mediocre. If the Spurs and Brons teams swapped conferences the Spurs are in the finals almost every year and you'd never call them mediocre. The 19 Warriors were also not mediocre by any definition of the word and Curry was hurt in 2020 and they had a lot of injury problems in 2021 too. The healthy 21 Warriors once Wiseman was out of the rotation were a top 5 team.

Lol at drawing an equivalence between the 18 and 22/23 Celtics. Yes the Celtics are a flawed team but they've been the most talented team in basketball the last two years imo. I'd listen to an argument for the Bucks though.

Ok again. Best possible interpretation of this is he mitigated (not eliminated) the damage of his **** up after it hurt them for a year and a half. Accurate interpretation he screwed the team then asked for something the front office was going to do anyway (so did something bad and then did something neutral).

It has. Curry and Kerr worked miracles holding those teams together. He's not God he can't telekinetically block Draymond's punches or change KD and Dray's personalities into placated drones. He did everything he could including making massive personal sacrifices to try to keep everyone happy. Basically no superstars would've done what he did not even most guys who were some of the greatest locker room guys ever. He deserves nothing but praise for that.

That being said your framing this in the most favorable possible way for you. You make this about the uncontrollable egos and actions of others that really have little do with what we're talking about instead of focusing on the system and culture they built that allowed them to turn guys who weren't even making it in the NBA to massive value drivers. Guys like Green, Bowen, Payton, Wiggins, Looney, Diaw, Mills, Bellinelli, Poole (remember he was supposed to go undrafted now he's on a max), etc. hell even Ginobili and Draymond. Those guys are no doubt HOFers and top 100 all time guys they may never have even made it in the league if they went somewhere else. Time and time again we see guys go to SA or GS or one of the other spots with great leaders I mentioned and they play better than they ever have and get paid afterwards. The culture and the system gets the best out of guys consistently and that's big value.

Nope. Didn't I already say I don't blame LeBron for Kyrie. Some dudes are just cancers can't fix em. Doesn't mean the place is broken it means the people are. Saw that tons of times in New England. Belichick and Brady obviously weren't the problem. Kerr and Curry aren't either and no serious person would claim that they are.

Again I say if you'd even ever played sports at the high school level you'd never say

a) it doesn’t exist or b) it’s so minuscule in importance that it doesn’t have any positive effect when real issues occur…

This is just obviously wrong and I'm not gonna spend anymore time arguing against this position because it's a waste of time.

Well sure Curry is also easier to play with and fit next to on the court but that's an entirely separate matter.

 

[Kralingen]

You keep assigning beliefs to me and referencing the media. I don't care who the media blames I care whether you are actually blame worthy. Spin it however you want Duncan doesn't deserve blame for RJ's underperformance in fact again if anything his time with the Spurs helped him unlock a part of his game that saved his career. And tons and tons of players reached heights we would've thought impossible for them when they joined the Spurs organization. The Spurs culture is very real and very beneficial and Duncan was a huge part of that and its honestly just ridiculous that we're even arguing about it.

Ok again that has literally nothing to do with what we're talking about and what the media says has no bearing on me. Just stop it with this stuff. Also by literally no measure are the 08-12 Spurs mediocre. Yes they didn't win a championship but they were averaging like 55 wins a year during that period that's far from mediocre. If the Spurs and Brons teams swapped conferences the Spurs are in the finals almost every year and you'd never call them mediocre. The 19 Warriors were also not mediocre by any definition of the word and Curry was hurt in 2020 and they had a lot of injury problems in 2021 too. The healthy 21 Warriors once Wiseman was out of the rotation were a top 5 team.

Lol at drawing an equivalence between the 18 and 22/23 Celtics. Yes the Celtics are a flawed team but they've been the most talented team in basketball the last two years imo. I'd listen to an argument for the Bucks though.

Ok again. Best possible interpretation of this is he mitigated (not eliminated) the damage of his **** up after it hurt them for a year and a half. Accurate interpretation he screwed the team then asked for something the front office was going to do anyway (so did something bad and then did something neutral).

It has. Curry and Kerr worked miracles holding those teams together. He's not God he can't telekinetically block Draymond's punches or change KD and Dray's personalities into placated drones. He did everything he could including making massive personal sacrifices to try to keep everyone happy. Basically no superstars would've done what he did not even most guys who were some of the greatest locker room guys ever. He deserves nothing but praise for that.

That being said your framing this in the most favorable possible way for you. You make this about the uncontrollable egos and actions of others that really have little do with what we're talking about instead of focusing on the system and culture they built that allowed them to turn guys who weren't even making it in the NBA to massive value drivers. Guys like Green, Bowen, Payton, Wiggins, Looney, Diaw, Mills, Bellinelli, Poole (remember he was supposed to go undrafted now he's on a max), etc. hell even Ginobili and Draymond. Those guys are no doubt HOFers and top 100 all time guys they may never have even made it in the league if they went somewhere else. Time and time again we see guys go to SA or GS or one of the other spots with great leaders I mentioned and they play better than they ever have and get paid afterwards. The culture and the system gets the best out of guys consistently and that's big value.

Nope. Didn't I already say I don't blame LeBron for Kyrie. Some dudes are just cancers can't fix em. Doesn't mean the place is broken it means the people are. Saw that tons of times in New England. Belichick and Brady obviously weren't the problem. Kerr and Curry aren't either and no serious person would claim that they are.

Again I say if you'd even ever played sports at the high school level you'd never say

This is just obviously wrong and I'm not gonna spend anymore time arguing against this position because it's a waste of time.

Well sure Curry is also easier to play with and fit next to on the court but that's an entirely separate matter.

I’m not disputing that great team cultures and winning systems/beliefs/regimes exist. I cannot stand hearing the platitude of synergy in a business setting but it exists, alignment and harmony between all levels of a team between coaching front office and players will lead to better results.

Obviously chemistry exists, obviously player development within a system over years is easier with a great coach and a stable established core etc. Kawhi I believe had the talent to become all-NBA Kawhi anywhere because he’s that uniquely great but it is probable that San Antonio allowed him to become the absolute best version of himself. Looney Parker Green etc are examples of the same.

I’m not disputing basic concepts of the game and team building I’m disputing how you interpret it and give outsized credit to some players you like and downplay the impact of players you dislike (mainly LeBron)

I am beyond fed up with the constant shots at LeBron’s intangibles based on inconsistent and not even really provable criteria on this. LeBron never had teammates drafted with him who were ever worth a damn, seriously look at the draft picks they made in 04-10. That matters a lot too. Who was he holding back exactly Boobie Ginson Varejao and Norris Cole? Cedi Osman? He was too good too early to ever have a draft pick that wasn’t in the 20s. The guy got drafted into the worst situation possible from all aspects and that shaped his massive mistrust of front offices the rest of his career. All I’m saying his context plays a role and the fact that he was drafted into such a bad situation has to give him some slack.

As we’ve seen, Jokic/Murray with Malone, Curry/Klay/Green with Kerr, Duncan/Parker/Manu with Popovich, this is all occurring as a team package, an entire collective over years. It’s not just on one superstar (and most of the time, it’s on the coach).

Meanwhile someone who you can actually tie individual impact to a team is LBJ. Because he guarantees a championship within the second year on the team. He’s done it 3 consecutive times. With three entirely different rosters coaches and supporting casts, new systems, and all forcing him to evolve to different phases of his career. Talk about a guy who demonstrably elevates a situation and is actually antifragile and able to adapt.

And btw none of those teams had proven winners on them except Wade. So that’s twice he showed a championship standard to his teammates and was the main impetus behind the improvement of numerous role players on each of those teams too.

I’m gonna take shots at Steph bc you’re overrating his cultural impact to mythical levels when I can easily point out two situations where his locker room was broken. If you’re going to be completely uncharitable and slanderous to LeBron don’t act so indignant when it happens to a player you like. Is LeBron abrasive and one of the most demanding teammates ever? Obviously. But it comes with winning guaranteed.

Final note I did play in HS both basketball and soccer and my sophomore year we played with a guy who was all state and runner up state player of the year. Teddy you can look him up. He was the biggest ******* I’ve ever met and he got a DUI as well as a burglary charge (no joke). Went to go play academy so no more HS the next year. We never came close to being as good as a team without him as we were with him.

 

[The Guru]

I’m not disputing that great team cultures and winning systems/beliefs/regimes exist. I cannot stand hearing the platitude of synergy in a business setting but it exists, alignment and harmony between all levels of a team between coaching front office and players will lead to better results.

Obviously chemistry exists, obviously player development within a system over years is easier with a great coach and a stable established core etc. Kawhi I believe had the talent to become all-NBA Kawhi anywhere because he’s that uniquely great but it is probable that San Antonio allowed him to become the absolute best version of himself. Looney Parker Green etc are examples of the same.

I’m not disputing basic concepts of the game and team building I’m disputing how you interpret it and give outsized credit to some players you like and downplay the impact of players you dislike (mainly LeBron)

I am beyond fed up with the constant shots at LeBron’s intangibles based on inconsistent and not even really provable criteria on this. LeBron never had teammates drafted with him who were ever worth a damn, seriously look at the draft picks they made in 04-10. That matters a lot too. Who was he holding back exactly Boobie Ginson Varejao and Norris Cole? Cedi Osman? He was too good too early to ever have a draft pick that wasn’t in the 20s. The guy got drafted into the worst situation possible from all aspects and that shaped his massive mistrust of front offices the rest of his career. All I’m saying his context plays a role and the fact that he was drafted into such a bad situation has to give him some slack.

As we’ve seen, Jokic/Murray with Malone, Curry/Klay/Green with Kerr, Duncan/Parker/Manu with Popovich, this is all occurring as a team package, an entire collective over years. It’s not just on one superstar (and most of the time, it’s on the coach).

Meanwhile someone who you can actually tie individual impact to a team is LBJ. Because he guarantees a championship within the second year on the team. He’s done it 3 consecutive times. With three entirely different rosters coaches and supporting casts, new systems, and all forcing him to evolve to different phases of his career. Talk about a guy who demonstrably elevates a situation and is actually antifragile and able to adapt.

And btw none of those teams had proven winners on them except Wade. So that’s twice he showed a championship standard to his teammates and was the main impetus behind the improvement of numerous role players on each of those teams too.

I’m gonna take shots at Steph bc you’re overrating his cultural impact to mythical levels when I can easily point out two situations where his locker room was broken. If you’re going to be completely uncharitable and slanderous to LeBron don’t act so indignant when it happens to a player you like. Is LeBron abrasive and one of the most demanding teammates ever? Obviously. But it comes with winning guaranteed.

Final note I did play in HS both basketball and soccer and my sophomore year we played with a guy who was all state and runner up state player of the year. Teddy you can look him up. He was the biggest ******* I’ve ever met and he got a DUI as well as a burglary charge (no joke). Went to go play academy so no more HS the next year. We never came close to being as good as a team without him as we were with him.

Your argument keeps shifting from it doesn’t exist/doesn’t matter to it matters but players like Curry and Duncan deserve little to no credit for their contributions towards as convenient in response to the points I make. We can’t pin this down because you don’t have a consistent position.

First two paragraphs are great finally an acknowledgment of what I’ve been saying this whole time. Players who put in the time to help build those things are providing value. It’s a plus that they have over players that don’t do that.

It’s not a bias. I love Shaq he was my second favorite player as a kid but this was not his strong suit. Don’t particularly like or dislike Duncan but he deserves his flowers for his culture building abilities. LeBron has a lot of strengths this is clearly not one of them.

Who knows? What we do know is that auxiliary pieces have regularly either shown no improvement or been worse on LeBron teams and that they rarely if ever are able to develop anyone in house. What are the odds Gary Payton becomes anything in Cleveland? You think Wiggins ever develops into what he is in LA? I can go through tons of examples vets and young guys alike of the opposite happening. I’m at the airport rn and I’m doing this on my phone so I don’t wanna go through the process of doing the research but I can if you insist that I do. Off the dome though a guy like Mike Miller (theoretically great fit next to Bron) has his best year in Memphis more scoring on better efficiency sandwiched between years w LeBron teams. (Lost everything else I typed from here so here’s my lazy recreation). Same with Shump and JR from NY to CLE. Bosh and Love need no explanation. Look at how all the young guys blossomed outside of LA too. Yeah there’s the odd exception like Delly but in Sa and GS GPII and Splitter are the norm and RJ/Oubre is the exception. On LBJ teams it’s the opposite.

I agree the coach/org deserves some credit and how to divy up credit is vague but what is clear is that none of it functions without the stars buy in and leadership. That’s the most critical element. You think Malone could get selfish hoopers like MPJ and Murray to buy in to the team first concept without Jokic’s leadership? Or that Pop could coach entitled millionaires as hard as he does without Duncan setting the example and providing the championship pedigree? The stars are the key and they deserve the most credit. These orgs are able to consistently get the best and more out of guys and that’s in large part attributable to the stars.

Yes LeBron is really good at basketball. So good that despite not being a great culture guy he has been able to win consistently. LBJ has a lot of amazing skills this is not one of them. Again you’re massively overstating his adaptability because he played the same way at all 4 stops but whatever

Except I’m not at all. What claims have I made that are outrageous enlighten me. That the Warriors system/culture which he is in large part responsible for has elevated players past what anyone thought they were capable of consistently. Like in the cases of Wiggins, Dray, GP, Poole, Looney etc. What about that is wrong?

Yeah again you’re just taking all the nuance out of this. Any team is better with massive cancer Dwight Howard than not having massive cancer Dwight Howard. But a team with Dwight Howard that’s a leader who can get his guys to run through a wall for him and does everything he can to build a culture and system to elevate them is significantly better than the team with cancer Dwight.

 

[Kralingen]

Your argument keeps shifting from it doesn’t exist/doesn’t matter to it matters but players like Curry and Duncan deserve little to no credit for their contributions towards as convenient in response to the points I make. We can’t pin this down because you don’t have a consistent position.

First two paragraphs are great finally an acknowledgment of what I’ve been saying this whole time. Players who put in the time to help build those things are providing value. It’s a plus that they have over players that don’t do that.

Sorry I actually just forgot about this man. Busy week. Yeah, I do agree that development continuity and chemistry year over year helps and obviously LBJ’s team jumping isn’t optimal for that. On a macro level if you just want to take that as my agreement with your base argument then sure.

It’s not a bias. I love Shaq he was my second favorite player as a kid but this was not his strong suit. Don’t particularly like or dislike Duncan but he deserves his flowers for his culture building abilities. LeBron has a lot of strengths this is clearly not one of them.

I do think it is bias because you’re totally ignoring what he did in 2004-10 with Cleveland. you’re heavily discounting the fact that 18 year old LeBron James had to immediately uplift and carry a franchise of seasoned veterans and teach them how to win.

Do you realize how bad the 03 Cavs were when he got there and how quickly their culture had changed by 2006, making the finals even when the surrounding talent had barely been upgraded?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1684676855457038336

Look at what he was born into. No David Robinson in the locker room to lead. He immediately became the sole leader and he did develop the culture himself, becoming the sole leader in his early 20s. That’s nigh unprecedented in NBA history.

Who knows? What we do know is that auxiliary pieces have regularly either shown no improvement or been worse on LeBron teams and that they rarely if ever are able to develop anyone in house. What are the odds Gary Payton becomes anything in Cleveland? You think Wiggins ever develops into what he is in LA? I can go through tons of examples vets and young guys alike of the opposite happening. I’m at the airport rn and I’m doing this on my phone so I don’t wanna go through the process of doing the research but I can if you insist that I do. Off the dome though a guy like Mike Miller (theoretically great fit next to Bron) has his best year in Memphis more scoring on better efficiency sandwiched between years w LeBron teams. (Lost everything else I typed from here so here’s my lazy recreation). Same with Shump and JR from NY to CLE. Bosh and Love need no explanation. Look at how all the young guys blossomed outside of LA too. Yeah there’s the odd exception like Delly but in Sa and GS GPII and Splitter are the norm and RJ/Oubre is the exception. On LBJ teams it’s the opposite.

A lot of that is due to the high usage scorers he had next to him in MIA/CLE/LA. And I agree he does deserve some blame for roster construction, I would’ve never gotten Love in 2014 I would’ve flipped Wiggins for two-three great role players and a secondary ball handler.

Boobie Gibson had a career bc of LeBron. Mario Chalmers definitely only had a career bc of LeBron. Mo Williams improved a lot on LBJ’s team. He helped a ton of players improve defensively as well I might add especially in Miami.

The players he didn’t elevate never did better elsewhere. Literally find me one real example.

Hughes and Jamison were inefficient chuckers with poor efficiency everywhere else. Kuzma is not at all better in Washington than LA, worse efficiency just much higher volume allowing him to shoot to his heart’s content. Hart mostly same. Ingram did improve but he was still great with LBJ just got hurt. And he made himself into a much better shooter and better pro after playing with LeBron, and he credits learning the craft of self-improvement from LeBron for his personal improvement in interviews.

Speaking of Miller. He was still a great fit with LeBron, Battier was just a better fit. So he played more.

And again what sort of development do you really expect from 33 year old veterans (because that was all the Heat could really afford salary wise). After 2014, half of the Heat’s roster retired within the next 2 years!

I agree the coach/org deserves some credit and how to divy up credit is vague but what is clear is that none of it functions without the stars buy in and leadership. That’s the most critical element. You think Malone could get selfish hoopers like MPJ and Murray to buy in to the team first concept without Jokic’s leadership? Or that Pop could coach entitled millionaires as hard as he does without Duncan setting the example and providing the championship pedigree? The stars are the key and they deserve the most credit. These orgs are able to consistently get the best and more out of guys and that’s in large part attributable to the stars.

Fair enough. But I can play this game too - the literal only time in an entire decade where selfish headcase Kyrie Irving actually bought into the team concept and play focused defense and efficient winning basketball?

Under LeBron James. Massive feather in his cap. The amazing Brad Stevens, the culture of Boston, and Durant/Harden/Doncic couldn’t do it.

Yes LeBron is really good at basketball. So good that despite not being a great culture guy he has been able to win consistently. LBJ has a lot of amazing skills this is not one of them. Again you’re massively overstating his adaptability because he played the same way at all 4 stops but whatever

Meh he expanded his off ball capabilities at all 4 stops and you’re totally ignoring his defensive revolution in Miami. The havoc defense was revolutionary and he was at the center of their swarming, recovering and transition game. No one had ever played successful dominant defense like that in NBA history and he was the catalyst for it happening. But people who hate LeBron never see that nuance because you never want to.

He also then became a legit PG in 2020 for the Lakers. Most star players play the same way for their careers by the way. Jordan was the exact same player his entire life. That isn’t some own…

Except I’m not at all. What claims have I made that are outrageous enlighten me. That the Warriors system/culture which he is in large part responsible for has elevated players past what anyone thought they were capable of consistently. Like in the cases of Wiggins, Dray, GP, Poole, Looney etc. What about that is wrong?

The idea that Steph is some sort of mythical leader when there are two massive locker room scandals under his leadership that directly affected their chances of winning championships.

If that crap ever happened under LeBron you’d never ever let him live it down. Bc it happened to Steph you just wipe it away.

Yeah again you’re just taking all the nuance out of this. Any team is better with massive cancer Dwight Howard than not having massive cancer Dwight Howard. But a team with Dwight Howard that’s a leader who can get his guys to run through a wall for him and does everything he can to build a culture and system to elevate them is significantly better than the team with cancer Dwight.

Completely agree with this.

To sum it up it’s not that I disagree with your argument that selfish team cancers are worse for overall success than selfless culture builders with good coaches.

It’s that I disagree that LeBron deserves to be lumped in with Harden Howard Shaq etc. he completely does NOT.

He’s one of the best leaders in NBA history just in his own way.

 

[Third Serve]

Talk NBA Warehouse

 

[Holmes]

no need to take shots at Sampras.

He had a rare blood condition in thalassemia that could’ve been treated much more effectively in this modern age from what I’ve read.

Also modern medicine and improvements might include something like Djokovic’s egg or hyperbaric chamber or the plasma injections and stem cell therapy Nadal gets for his knees.. it’s not just made up gibberish, there are real advancements.

PETE definitely could’ve lasted longer in this era.

An excellent post.

 

[Sudacafan]

no need to take shots at Sampras.

He had a rare blood condition in thalassemia that could’ve been treated much more effectively in this modern age from what I’ve read.

Also modern medicine and improvements might include something like Djokovic’s egg or hyperbaric chamber or the plasma injections and stem cell therapy Nadal gets for his knees.. it’s not just made up gibberish, there are real advancements.

PETE definitely could’ve lasted longer in this era.

Did you just create this thread because you are 27?

 

[TheFifthSet]

Talk NBA Warehouse

The TS stamp of approval that validates every OT thread.

Talk Baseball Warehouse

Now I just need one of my manic MMA/Football rants to get the hat-tip.

2024 goals.

 

[Third Serve]

The TS stamp of approval that validates every OT thread.



Now I just need one of my manic MMA/Football rants to get the hat-tip.

2024 goals.

lol didn’t realize I posted that

I promise I’m not a bot

 

[TheFifthSet]

lol didn’t realize I posted that

I promise I’m not a bot

Well I copy-paste the same few posts about Fedal's return statistics at least 5 times a year so I have no room to complain.

 

[abmk]

lol didn’t realize I posted that

I promise I’m not a bot

Well I copy-paste the same few posts about Fedal's return statistics at least 5 times a year so I have no room to complain.

Prove that you are not a bot!

 

[Tennfan123]

I don't think Sampras would have kept competing into his 30s if medicine had allowed.
He was off his peak at 29.
He was a family man who had a new family and had provided for his parents, siblings.
He'd won Wimbledon and US Open a bunch. AO didn't mean the same back then. He was never going to win RG.
The only records that really matter, YE No.1 and slams he had.
Players didn't have smoke blown up them back then like they do now and Pete was never into that anyway. What reason to stick around?

 

[Kralingen]

I don't think Sampras would have kept competing into his 30s if medicine had allowed.
He was off his peak at 29.
He was a family man who had a new family and had provided for his parents, siblings.
He'd won Wimbledon and US Open a bunch. AO didn't mean the same back then. He was never going to win RG.
The only records that really matter, YE No.1 and slams he had.
Players didn't have smoke blown up them back then like they do now and Pete was never into that anyway. What reason to stick around?

More records to chase.

 

[travlerajm]

More records to chase.

He retired because he felt like he’d achieved the records he was chasing after.

 

[Holmes]

More records to chase.

'97-99 were wasted years for PETE at RG. Some truly pitiful losses that he has only himself to blame for. A bit more focus and he might have made a final.

 

[The Guru]

Sorry I actually just forgot about this man. Busy week. Yeah, I do agree that development continuity and chemistry year over year helps and obviously LBJ’s team jumping isn’t optimal for that. On a macro level if you just want to take that as my agreement with your base argument then sure.


I do think it is bias because you’re totally ignoring what he did in 2004-10 with Cleveland. you’re heavily discounting the fact that 18 year old LeBron James had to immediately uplift and carry a franchise of seasoned veterans and teach them how to win.

Do you realize how bad the 03 Cavs were when he got there and how quickly their culture had changed by 2006, making the finals even when the surrounding talent had barely been upgraded?

https://twitter.com/x/status/1684676855457038336

Look at what he was born into. No David Robinson in the locker room to lead. He immediately became the sole leader and he did develop the culture himself, becoming the sole leader in his early 20s. That’s nigh unprecedented in NBA history.

A lot of that is due to the high usage scorers he had next to him in MIA/CLE/LA. And I agree he does deserve some blame for roster construction, I would’ve never gotten Love in 2014 I would’ve flipped Wiggins for two-three great role players and a secondary ball handler.

Boobie Gibson had a career bc of LeBron. Mario Chalmers definitely only had a career bc of LeBron. Mo Williams improved a lot on LBJ’s team. He helped a ton of players improve defensively as well I might add especially in Miami.

The players he didn’t elevate never did better elsewhere. Literally find me one real example.

Hughes and Jamison were inefficient chuckers with poor efficiency everywhere else. Kuzma is not at all better in Washington than LA, worse efficiency just much higher volume allowing him to shoot to his heart’s content. Hart mostly same. Ingram did improve but he was still great with LBJ just got hurt. And he made himself into a much better shooter and better pro after playing with LeBron, and he credits learning the craft of self-improvement from LeBron for his personal improvement in interviews.

Speaking of Miller. He was still a great fit with LeBron, Battier was just a better fit. So he played more.

And again what sort of development do you really expect from 33 year old veterans (because that was all the Heat could really afford salary wise). After 2014, half of the Heat’s roster retired within the next 2 years!

Fair enough. But I can play this game too - the literal only time in an entire decade where selfish headcase Kyrie Irving actually bought into the team concept and play focused defense and efficient winning basketball?

Under LeBron James. Massive feather in his cap. The amazing Brad Stevens, the culture of Boston, and Durant/Harden/Doncic couldn’t do it.


Meh he expanded his off ball capabilities at all 4 stops and you’re totally ignoring his defensive revolution in Miami. The havoc defense was revolutionary and he was at the center of their swarming, recovering and transition game. No one had ever played successful dominant defense like that in NBA history and he was the catalyst for it happening. But people who hate LeBron never see that nuance because you never want to.

He also then became a legit PG in 2020 for the Lakers. Most star players play the same way for their careers by the way. Jordan was the exact same player his entire life. That isn’t some own…

The idea that Steph is some sort of mythical leader when there are two massive locker room scandals under his leadership that directly affected their chances of winning championships.

If that crap ever happened under LeBron you’d never ever let him live it down. Bc it happened to Steph you just wipe it away.

Completely agree with this.

To sum it up it’s not that I disagree with your argument that selfish team cancers are worse for overall success than selfless culture builders with good coaches.

It’s that I disagree that LeBron deserves to be lumped in with Harden Howard Shaq etc. he completely does NOT.

He’s one of the best leaders in NBA history just in his own way.

All good I feel you my life been crazy recently.

I just don't think that's an accurate representation of what happened. Certainly by 09/10 diva Bron was in full force. I completely agree with you that LeBron was drafted into a rough place with little to no help or culture to uplift him and I'm certainly not saying that building a winning culture in Cleveland would've been easy. I just don't think he did it. Yes they won games because (especially in 09/10) he was unbelievably good at basketball but again I don't think who LeBron was as a person was part of what was helping them win. I think if you're pointing to 1st stint Cavs as the height of Bron's leadership and culture building acumen I think that really says it all. I mean we're talking about a stint where the best team they beat is what the scraps of the Pistons after they lost their best player. I actually think your right that 1st stint Cavs Bron is the best Bron through this lens but the fact that that's the case is clearly indicting in my eyes.

Far from it. That's the norm for superstars. They get drafted to ****ty teams. Having Robinson and Pop is the exception. MJ was drafted onto the Bulls cocaine traveling circus. Shaq onto an expansion team. The Warriors were almost kings level sad before Curry. KG into the biggest dumpsterfire possible. etc. etc. Going to a ****ty franchise is the norm. Duncan just got very lucky.

Sure that would be an explanation for volume dipping. Not efficiency. Efficiency should go up as volume dips especially if LeBron is elevating his teammates so much like you claim. The thrust of my claim here was more that his style often marginalizes his teammates (though the results for the team are still good of course just not as good as they could be imo).

Gibson and Williams are good examples though I will note that Chalmers best year happened post Bron and it was an Achilles injury that killed his career in Memphis but whatever.

I just gave you some. And it's all worth noting here that LeBron's insistence on playing only with vets is doing a lot of work covering him here because you can just hide behind though they're old and declined when it doesn't work out.

Hart Ingram and Ball all clearly improved I don't think that's up for debate. Hart's actually another guy who has a year pre Bron and post Bron that are both much better than the Bron year sandwiched in between.

Sure that doesn't explain why Miller's volume and efficiency peaked in the one year sandwiched between runs on Bron teams especially if he's such a good fit next to Bron (which I agree with btw but that only hurts your point)

I mean you could also say before LeBron too right? I mean I'm not going to blame LeBron for Kyrie but it's not hard to imagine that the circus around the Cavs may have been what made him so crazy. I really don't think any unbiased person would refer to a relationship that's so bad that a guy is demanding a trade just to get away from you after a finals run as a massive feather in your cap. Again likely not Bron's fault in my eyes because Kyrie is a crazy person but this is some Kool-Aid stuff from you here. How is 3 years managing KD (and having it break down because of something you had nothing to do with) a negative but 3 years with Kyrie before the relationship got so toxic a trade was demanded is a positive? Like surely you can see you're being inconsistent here.

Meh LeBron was a better defender in 1st stint Cleveland than in Miami. But sure he ran the system. No one doubted Bron's defensive effort before he got older. Just his flexibility or lack thereof on offense.

He was always a PG. Please tell me how his role differed in any significant way from 2018. Sure but Jordan's style wasn't I am the entire system and Jordan was able to play in multiple ways. They stuck with the triangle because it worked not because Jordan couldn't or wouldn't play another way. Before this year LeBron had shown basically no willingness to play anything other than LeBronball (outside of some stints in 2015 which he was clearly unhappy with).

See you're the one putting those words in my mouth. And you didn't disagree with the positive claims I made for Steph because they're true. You just made up some meaningless stance like mythical leader and attacked that because it's not tangible so it doesnt mean anything.

Again nope. You can keep accusing me of that but it doesn't make it any more true. Again have not and will not blame LeBron for Kyrie because it would be stupid to do so. I also will not blame Steph for Dray and KD because it would be stupid to do so. Steph actually went above and beyond what literally any other non-Russell superstar would do to try to keep the peace and keep KD happy.

He does deserve to be lumped in with those guys.

And that's just ludicrous I'm sorry. It'd be one thing if you were like oh he's not terrible he's like ok. But one of the best ever is just not a defensible position.

 

[robthai]

@UnderratedSlam If you had any integrity you would just admit you were wrong.

 

[ghostofMecir]

@UnderratedSlam If you had any integrity you would just admit you were wrong.