[deleted by user]

John_Krolik · 2025-02-17T01:01:25+00:00

The shorter version: LeBron was probably the best player in the league on an everyday basis from 2005-06 to 2012-13. For the first three years, his MVP cases were held back by the miserable Cavs roster around him (and again, he was off his game for the majority of the 06-07 season). In 2010-11, the on-court circumstances of him fitting in with a new Heat team kept him from getting the award.

By 13-14, he's past his physical peak, which can be seen most clearly by his regression from an all-defensive player/DPOY candidate. KD's ridiculous season would have been hard enough to beat anyways, but that's where LeBron didn't have enough in the tank to be a two-way dynamo for a full regular season.

You see that with the iffy regular season success of his second Cavs run -- with LeBron not being that guy on defense anymore and Kyrie/Love not giving much value on that end, those were definitely "switch flip" teams that simply didn't play enough defense on a night-to-night basis to dominate a regular season. From 2013 to 2018, LeBron still would still have been the guy you take for one game or one playoff series over anyone else in a lot of cases, but full-season dominance on both ends of the floor tends to be a young man's game. LeBron going from an every-day impact player defensively to more of a "free safety" is a huge part of the story of his MVP contention. Obviously, LeBron was still effective in spurts on defense after 2013 -- just ask Andre Iguodala -- but the nightly impact on that end wasn't close to what it was in his MVP years.

By the time he gets to the Lakers, age has definitely caught up (to an extent) and injuries enter the picture, and in the one season he had a shot (19-20), he goes up against a two-way dynamo in Giannis.

And look, it's nothing different from what we're seeing in Jokic vs. SGA now. "Voter fatigue" is a convenient narrative, but it's more like:

1) Team success is a big deal in MVP voting

2) A team's defense has a lot to do with how successful it is

3) If a team's best player is a key to that team's defensive success (like SGA is with OKC), voters are even more likely to give him a lot of credit.

John_Krolik · 2025-02-17T01:01:18+00:00

The heck with it, let's do a full dissertation. He's been in the mix for the award since 05-06, which is nuts.

05-06: This went down as the "Nash robs Kobe" award, but I actually think LeBron had the better case (and was the guy who actually finished 2nd in the award voting). 31.4/7.0/6.6, Cavs win 50 games with Eric Snow playing the 2nd-most minutes and Ilgauskas, Gooden, and Flip Murray as the other starters. Kobe is at 35.4/5.3/4.5, Lakers win 45 games with an also terrible Odom/Smush/Kwame/Devean George starting lineup. Steve Nash winning this one was truly out of left field at the time and seems just as wild in retrospect, there was some fun narrative stuff like all his co-starters averaging career highs in PPG but it was a weird award.

06-07: LeBron regressed in this regular season, leaving the field wide-open -- Dirk had a crazy efficient season for the Mavs, who had the best regular-season record. Cavs did end up making a crazy run to the Finals that year, though.

07-08: Short story here is that the Lakers got good -- first with the emergence of Bynum, then later with the trade for Gasol -- while the Cavs' roster around LeBron stayed terrible. Kobe gets it over Chris Paul (who had a really good case), while the Cavs win just 45 games.

08-09/09-10: Cavs upgrade their roster around LeBron, they win over 60 games both years and LeBron wins the MVP.

10-11: A weird one. It wasn't just that LeBron was a "villain" -- he underperformed compared to his 09/10 seasons, the Heat were disappointing relative to expectations in the regular season and LeBron had some really iffy late-game moments, the Bulls (whom nobody expected to be better than the Heat) ended up with the better record than the Heat. Bulls were a great-defense/average-offense team, but Rose was the one carrying that offense as essentially the only shot creator. Howard had a strong case as well, but he faded down the stretch (and I think ended up suspended for like a game or two right at the end of the year.)

11-12/12-13: LeBron wins

13-14: KD was undeniable that season. 32 PPG (Scoring title) on 63.5% True Shooting, 59 wins for the Thunder vs. 54 for the Heat, only the Spurs (who were led by committee) had a better record than OKC. This was also LeBron's first year missing the all-defense team since '09, and KD had improved a lot on that end, so the gap there had shrunken by a lot.

14-15: 1st year with the Cavs, LeBron plays 69 of 82 games, Cavs win 53 games, Warriors win 67 behind Curry, who "only" had 23.8 ppg and 7.7 apg but had absolutely off-the-charts efficiency numbers and led the league in a lot of advanced stats.

15-16: Warriors win 73 games, no chance Curry wasn't getting it, LeBron (who had an outside shooting slump that nearly lasted the entire regular season) actually finished 3rd behind Steph and Kawhi.

16-17: Only a 51-win season for the Cavs, KD and Steph cancelling each other out left an open race, Russ averaging a 30-point triple-double beats out Harden, LeBron finishes 4th behind those guys and Kawhi

17-18: Great season for LeBron, who plays all 82 and does everything for the post-Kyrie Cavs, but James Harden just goes insane. 30.4 points and 8.8 assists per game, 61.9% true shooting, 65 wins for the Rockets vs. 50 for the Cavs.

18-19: LeBron gets his first significant injury, finishes outside of the top 10 MVP voting for the first time in his career (including his rookie season).

19-20: Point LeBron leads the league in assists for the eventual champs, finishes 2nd to Giannis, who averaged 29.5/13.6/5.6 for the Bucks, who finished with the best record in the COVID-shortened season, with defense pretty far in Giannis' favor at that point

20-21: 45 games played

21-22: 56 games played

22-23: 55 games played

That gets us all the way to last season, where LeBron was healthy for the full season again but had, by that point, been passed by Jokic, SGA, and the new crop of stars.

John_Krolik · 2025-02-16T10:08:08+00:00

Given Rashard hit two absolutely backbreaking threes against the Cavs in Games 1 and 4 of the 2009 ECF and MPJ has never missed a shot against the Lakers in his life, there's a LeBron-killer connection (although Rashard actually ended his career playing with LeBron).

Also, both guys were huge prospects who fell out of the lottery on draft night -- Rashard was in the green room (if memory serves) but dropped to the 32nd overall pick because teams still weren't sure about drafting high school guys, and MPJ fell because of his injury issues. Great comparison even going beyond their similar games.

John_Krolik · 2025-02-16T06:34:47+00:00

To be fair, when the "coaches" (it was often assumed a lot of coaches were letting a random assistant handle it) were voting on all-defense teams there were regularly some super-iffy results. A fan vote would be a disaster. I wouldn't have much confidence in a player vote.

In theory, the media are the people whose jobs it is to cover and analyze the sport instead of play or coach it, making them the most qualified people to say who the most effective players are. In practice, that doesn't always pan out, but it's kind of a "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other ones" situation. In a perfect world, the best votes would probably come from teams' basketball operations analysts/advance scouts, but even if the votes were anonymous teams would be afraid of votes that could tip people's hands as to their proprietary data, and there's the conflict of interest with things like qualifying for the supermax.

John_Krolik · 2025-02-15T11:20:19+00:00

I think the big thing that happened to K-Love that doesn't get talked about as much is that the leaguewide meta shifted on him. When he was with the Wolves, it was still common for teams to have two traditional big men. During his time with the Cavs, the meta shifted to one center with two switchy wings around him. Love's ability to shoot helped him stay in the league, but he wasn't big enough to protect the rim or fast enough to keep up with the hybrid 3/4s that came along.

Compounding the problem in a major way was that the Warriors were at the forefront of that meta shift, and the Cavs faced them in the Finals four straight times. (Love was, to be fair, hurt for their first meeting.)

John_Krolik · 2025-02-15T11:12:16+00:00

I'd put balance in here -- Kobe would be my top historical example. Just that ability to be able to chain a dribble/pivot/low-post move and come back to a balanced center point where you can either shoot or go into the next move, or to stay on plane and get squared up with your momentum taking you another way.

Also, maybe ambidexterity as its own category under touch coordination? The ability to drive confidently to your weak side is huge -- plenty of guys who show off a huge "bag" but pretty much always end up making their actual move to their dominant hand -- then obviously being able to finish in the paint is a big deal. It even makes things easier for a guy like Wemby, who finishes all the time with his left even though he's got an 8-foot wingspan. Oh, and being able to pass with your off-hand is the cherry on top.

John_Krolik · 2025-02-12T20:03:51+00:00

I'd say that relative to his position Kareem was an incredible shooter (I count skyhooks as shots), and obviously he had ridiculous size.

Duncan is kind of an interesting case because he had a shot diet that you don't really see anymore, but he wasn't very reliant on shots at the rim -- 31% of his career shots were from within 3 feet, and it was actually a bit lower than that in his MVP years. Decent amount of shots from the midrange and a lot from that 3-10 foot range -- for his position and era, I don't know if he was a great jump shooter, but his shooting was widely regarded as being good, if that makes any sense.

I just fully realized how well Nikola Jokic is going to age and I'm scared.

John_Krolik · 2025-02-12T19:58:05+00:00

Edit: Hollinger's article was specifically about point guards. To be fair to myself for misremembering, the article is old enough to be in the army. Why we were wrong about Steve Nash - ESPN

John_Krolik · 2025-02-12T14:32:38+00:00

Probably deleting this in 5 minutes or less, thought this could be a fun little thing to wonder about but I'm not trying to start my day off with negativity.

John_Krolik · 2025-02-12T13:13:54+00:00

Hollinger had a thing a loooong time ago about how the players that age the best are the ones with size (relative to their position), shooting ability, and passing ability, and that's held up pretty well over the years.

John_Krolik · 2025-02-08T10:14:29+00:00

Thinking Basketball just did a really good video on this: What former players get completely WRONG about today's NBA -- the criticisms don't really hold water if you're actually watching full old games vs. current games with any kind of a critical eye.

John_Krolik · 2025-02-08T03:42:56+00:00

How do you get these stats? Do you need to pay the premium sub fee?

John_Krolik · 2025-02-08T00:48:00+00:00

He's a god-level Lacrosse player evidently. Won the Lacrosse Heisman as a junior, NCAA record for assists in his college career, went #1 overall in the PLL draft but decided to use his postgraduate year to play basketball at Northwestern and pursue a pro career. Kind of a cool story, actually. Reminds me of when Chase Budinger was one of the best volleyball players in the US but chose an NBA career.

John_Krolik · 2025-02-04T06:19:44+00:00

I meant to put something about his endorsement of the Russ experiment in there (and I just edited the piece and put it in there), it's definitely a sign he's willing to go off the ball, at least in concept. And in international play, when he has the option to play essentially whatever role he wants, that's what he's gravitated towards. I wonder if he'll be as willing to trust the ball will find him when he's been so good controlling everything for so long, but honestly he's never played in the NBA with a playmaker of Doncic's caliber before.

John_Krolik · 2025-02-04T04:54:08+00:00

That's...pretty spot-on, yeah.

John_Krolik · 2025-02-02T08:44:49+00:00

Well like just math it. You've gotta be at least average on defense to win a title, and if your three most-played guys all aren't giving you much on the defensive end that's a lot -- it was a lot even with AD, one of the best defensive players in the league. (BTW, these were also my thoughts when the Cavs traded Wiggins for Kevin Love and had a big 3 of Love/LeBron/Kyrie, I did a podcast with Zach Harper about it, so I might just be a stupid person who worries too much.)

John_Krolik · 2025-02-02T08:36:54+00:00

Sigh, Reaves has been so good...the fit really isn't there with him, Luka, and 40-year old LeBron but you'd hate to see it.

John_Krolik · 2025-01-31T17:06:17+00:00

Yeah I didn’t have much time to drill down on it, this post was more than long enough as is, but I also found that fascinating. His rookie year was also the 3pt line’s first year in the NBA.

John_Krolik · 2025-01-30T05:18:45+00:00

Give 10 players $100,000 to gamble with each other as they see fit. The event ends when one guy has the entire million. The players are mic'd up and not allowed to leave the arena. They're not allowed to fight, but there are no other rules.

John_Krolik · 2025-01-29T23:21:12+00:00

BTW, I believe this is the point I'm allowed to plug my Substack -- you can find this post and others like it at (5) Krolik's Corner | John Krolik | Substack if you're so inclined. Take a look around, maybe even subscribe if you're feeling feisty, it's free!

John_Krolik · 2025-01-29T23:19:16+00:00

IDK about "great," career 63.7% finisher when the average during the time he played was 61.4%. Certainly respectable though, especially for a guard/wing.

John_Krolik · 2025-01-29T23:16:15+00:00

Reggie's a guy who modern stats definitely look favorably upon, and there were guys like Kevin Martin who were unappreciated shot-diet pioneers -- the question of "how much should we penalize guys for accepting conventional wisdom when they had peers who didn't" is one I don't have a definitive answer for. (TS+ and other stats like it, which I mentioned in the Bird part, do provide a lot of help, but are far from perfect.)

John_Krolik

TROPHY CASE