The Cavaliers winning the 2016 NBA Championship was cathartic for the city of Cleveland. It also liberated LeBron James. He is an undeniably great player, who has been dogged by critics who think he should have won more championships than he has. After winning his third title in five years, the critics have less ammunition for their cause — and LeBron’s fans have reason to compare him favorably to Michael Jordan. Of course Michael’s fans consider that sacrilege. But is it?
Joe Posnanski, my favorite sportswriter, has an article titled Michael vs LeBron that wonderfully presents the debate. http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/michael-jordan-vs-lebron-james/ I encourage you to read it. Joe is a great storyteller, writes beautifully, and always takes a well-reasoned position. He picks a winner, after concluding that there is no right or wrong answer. I will pick a winner as well.
I have been enamored with baseball analytics for decades, since reading my first Bill James Baseball Abstract in roughly 1985. He’s an engaging writer and a superb analyst. Baseball analytics are universally available and relatively well understood by average fans. Basketball analytics are not as readily accessible and I am not nearly as well versed in them. I will, nevertheless, use a basketball metric (that is also used by baseball) because it provides a shortcut to broad picture analysis that is not otherwise available via more traditional measures like points, rebounds, and assists.
VORP stands for value over replacement player. It’s basically an approximation of how valuable a player is compared to a replacement player, adjusted for game context (basically possessions per game) and prorated to an 82 game season. The metric attempts to measure production and efficiency and, for my purposes, is a decent catch-all measure of quality, in part because it is available for all players since the mid-70s. For reference, there have only been 50 players since 1973 to finish a season with a VORP of 7.99 or higher. Anything approaching 5.0 indicates an excellent season.
The question of whether it is possible to be great if you never won a championship often arises when discussing NBA players. The answer is unquestionably “YES.” The top ten in career VORP are (in order): LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Karl Malone, Kevin Garnett, Charles Barkley, Tim Duncan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, David Robinson, Julius Erving, and Larry Bird. They may not be the ten greatest, even allowing for the fact that VORP isn’t available for seasons prior to 1973, but these are all great players. Two of them did not win an NBA championship and two others won “only” one.
Winning a championship isn’t necessary for a player to be an all-time great. It doesn’t hurt, but it isn’t necessary. Conversely, being on a team that wins championships doesn’t make a player great. Sam Jones won ten championships in 12 seasons, the second most NBA championships ever. He is in the Hall of Fame and deserves to be. Yet he is never mentioned as being among the all-time greats.
Sam Jones averaged over 17 points per game, that’s more than many Hall of Famers, including James Worthy, Alonzo Mourning, Lenny Wilkins, Scottie Pippen, and Ralph Sampson. Sam Jones was an outstanding player. But he wasn’t as good as Bill Russell, who gets the lion’s share of the credit for all those Celtics’ championships. For the record, Sam Jones scored more points per game than Russell.
Nine players have played on seven or more NBA championship teams. Eight of them are Celtics from the 1960s, headlined by Russell who won 11 championships in 13 years. (Who is the ninth guy? Hint: he won seven total, two with two different teams and three with another team. Answer below.) The other Celtics with seven or more championships are Tom Heinsohn, K.C. Jones (with whom my son and I once golfed), Satch Sanders, John Havlicek, Jim Loscutoff, and Frank Ramsey. Havlicek is the only one of these Celtics to win a championship without Russell on the floor, winning two in the mid-70s.
Instead of hopping straight to LJ v. MJ, I decided to pit them against great contemporaries. MJ will compete against Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, and LJ will compete against Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan.
Michael, Larry, and Magic each had assorted injuries or retirements, so I only counted their 11 best seasons. (Bird 1979-1992, Magic 1979-1991, Michael 1984-1998)
| Bird | Johnson | Jordan | ||
|
Average Wins Regular Season |
59.8 | 59.8 | 52.7 | |
|
Average Wins in Playoffs |
8.9 | 11.5 | 10.3 | |
|
Total Championships |
3 | 5 | 6 | |
Bird and Johnson played for better teams on average. A Bird team never won fewer than 52 regular season games, Magic never won fewer than 54. An early Jordan team finished under .500, winning 38 games. Jordan has a championship edge, but then he wasn’t playing head-to-head against two inner circle hall of famers like Larry and Magic were.
| Bird | Johnson | Jordan | ||
| Average VORP | 6.9 | 6.6 | 8.2 | |
|
Average Best Teammate |
3.9 | 4.2 | 4.0 | |
|
Percent of Team VORP |
39% | 38% | 48% |
Recall that a VORP over 5 denotes an excellent season. Each of these guys averaged significantly better than that, with Jordan having the upper hand. On average, their best teammate in a given season was at least a notch below excellent. Jordan separates himself because his teammates were worse. On average Bird generated 39% of the total VORP of the seven players on his team with the most minutes played (including himself). Johnson was a bit worse and Jordan generated substantially more of his team’s production.
I get it – I’m not looking at points, turnovers, etc. I’m not considering defense, where Jordan excelled. I’m not looking at strength of competition, I’m not looking at a lot of things. But I’m not cherry picking either. After poring over the statistics readily available, I chose these six and didn’t deviate based on results. It’s pretty clear that in this battle of giants, Jordan wins the pre-2000 semi-final.
Now the same information for three post-2000 giants, based on their first 13 years in the league. (Kobe 1996-2009, Duncan 1997-2010, LeBron 2003-2016)
| Bryant | Duncan | James | ||
|
Average Wins Regular Season |
52.2 | 55.3 | 52.5 | |
|
Average Wins in Playoffs |
8.6 | 8.2 | 10.1 | |
|
Total Championships |
4 | 4 | 3 | |
This is really close. LeBron has a won a few more playoff games, but one fewer championship.
| Bryant | Duncan | James | ||
| Average VORP | 4.3 | 5.5 | 8.4 | |
|
Average Best Teammate |
4.8 | 4.3 | 2.9 | |
|
Percent of Team VORP |
29% | 33% | 55% |
This is a landslide. On average, Kobe’s best teammate was better than he was and Duncan’s was relatively close. LeBron’s best teammates have been solid players, but not nearly as productive as Kobe’s or Tim’s teammates. And LeBron’s overall level of production is much higher. No shame in coming in 2nd or 3rd to LeBron.
We can quibble about the numbers. Maybe I should have selected different ones (win shares or advanced plus/minus) or more, maybe I should weight them, maybe this, maybe that. But for a broad-brush approach, these statistics tell a tale, and it is obvious that LeBron is the tallest.
Now the two champions go head to head.
| James | Jordan | ||
|
Average Wins Regular Season |
52.5 | 52.7 | |
|
Average Wins in Playoffs |
10.1 | 10.3 | |
|
Total Championships |
3 | 6 | |
|
Average VORP |
8.4 | 8.2 | |
|
Average Best Teammate |
2.9 | 4.0 | |
|
Percent of Team VORP |
55% | 48% | |
The first two categories are a wash. Obviously, Jordan won more championships. Each great’s overall production (VORP) is basically the same.
The main difference is the quality of Jordan’s teammates. His average best teammate has a VORP of 4.0, but that number is dragged down by Charles Oakley (2.3), Dave Corzine (1.3), Orlando Woolridge (2.4), and Horace Grant (2.2). In those four seasons early in his career, Jordan’s teams won a total of 13 playoff games. Once Scottie Pippen blossomed into a superstar, Jordan’s teams never won fewer than 15 playoff games in a season – if we ignore (as we should) the second year of his first retirement when he returned late in the season and the team never really came together. Pippen had four seasons with a VORP over 6, almost eclipsing Michael one year, 6.7 to 6.8. In those seasons Pippen was one of the best players in the league.
LeBron can only dream of having a player as good as Pippen as a teammate. One teammate in 13 years has had a VORP over 5, Dwyane Wade with 5.7 in LeBron’s first year in Miami. This year, Kevin Love was LeBron’s most productive teammate with a VORP of 2.8. The caliber of teammates is not close. Over the course of his career, LeBron has averaged a significantly higher VORP than his six teammates with the most playing time combined, 8.4 for LJ vs. 6.8 for his teammates. MJ produced 8.2 VORP to his teammates’s 8.8.
Only four times in 13 years have LeBron’s teammates out produced him – according to VORP. Jordan out produced his teammates his first five years in the league, when the team wasn’t ready for primetime, but never after that. He also never made it to the NBA finals without Scottie Pippen producing at a high level
LeBron gets unfairly dinged because he has lost four finals. But he lost to the Spurs twice. They are the best team of the last 15 years. Jordan’s Bulls defeated very good teams (Drexler’s Trailblazers, Barkley’s Suns, the Jazz of Malone and Stockton) but only one team that ever won a championship (the 1990-91 Lakers). LeBron made the NBA finals with Zydrunas Ilgauskas as his second best player with a VORP of 2.1. Jordan would not have taken that team to the NBA finals, let alone defeated the Spurs. Yet, LeBron is discredited for making it to the finals but losing.
Only Kobe ever had a teammate as good as Pippen. At his best, Shaquille O’Neal was outstanding, maxing out with a VORP of 9.3. Jordan and Kobe each had five teammates with a VORP over 5.0, Duncan had three, Bird had two, Magic and LeBron had one.
The year after Jordan retired for the first time, the Bulls won 55 games and a playoffs series. The first three years after LeBron left for Miami, the Cavaliers won a total of 64 games and attended a playoff game only upon the purchase of a ticket.
Michael Jordan was a transcendent player without amazing athleticism, work ethic, and competitive fire. But he wasn’t a champion without a superstar Scottie Pippen playing beside him. LeBron is all the things that Michael was and he’s 6’9”. LeBron is at least as good a player as Michael, but he has not been blessed with outstanding teammates. Maybe Kyrie Irving will become a superstar. If he does, I predict more championships are headed to Cleveland.
Michael never had to carry a team the way LeBron has. Maybe he could have, but the fact is that he didn’t get out of the Eastern Conference until the Celtics got old and the Pistons started to slide. If my team already has a Scottie Pippen on it, I’ll draft Michael and win a bunch of games and championships. But if my team doesn’t have a superstar, I would draft LeBron because he has proven that he can win a championship without a superstar at his side. In my opinion, LeBron is a better player than Michael was because, although their production is roughly equivalent, Lebron has received much less support from his teammates. And remember, LeBron is still only 31; he has a lot of years left.
Answer to trivia question: Robert Horry won two championships with the Rockets (best player Hakeem Olajuwon), three with the Kobe/Shaq Lakers, and two with the Duncan/David Robinson Spurs. He was almost as good as picking teammates as Sam Jones.