LeBron vs Jordan, Supporting Casts and Finals Opponents

In the ongoing GOAT conversation between LeBron and MJ, LeBron has frequently been lambasted for changing teams to go to greener pastures with better (and younger) teammates when he couldn't get the job done with his current team. The argument goes that Jordan never left the Bulls (except for that one year he retired to play baseball/serve David Stern's secret suspension for gambling) and won his titles with the players around him. Thing is, those players were pretty good, including two future Hall of Famers. So how did Jordan's counterparts stack up with LeBron's?

I took every season in which either player made the NBA Finals and compared the other starters' average PER on each team, the top two units' average PER (starters and top five bench players), and each star's PER in each season.

Jordan
Season	Won Title	Starters	Top 2 Units	PER
1990-91	Y	16.40	15.05	31.6
1991-92	Y	17.73	15.59	27.7
1992-93	Y	16.92	14.63	29.7
1995-96	Y	17.88	15.77	29.4
1996-97	Y	16.86	16.07	27.8
1997-98	Y	15.32	14.71	25.2
Average		16.85	15.30	28.57

LeBron
Season	Won Title	Starters	Top 2 Units	PER
2006-07	N	15.12	13.33	24.5
2010-11*	N	18.29	15.14	27.3
2011-12	Y	17.27	13.93	30.7
2012-13	Y	18.32	14.94	31.6
2013-14	N	13.98	14.77	29.3
2014-15*	N	18.13	15.91	25.9
2015-16	Y	15.65	14.26	27.5
2016-17	?	17.39	14.68	27
Average		16.77	14.62	27.98
	Y	17.08	14.38	29.93
	N	16.38	14.79	26.75

*First season on a new team; 2010-11: Miami Heat, 2014-15: Cleveland Cavaliers

The other starting teammates for both LeBron and Jordan were actually fairly comparable on average, but Jordan did have a larger advantage with his bench unit. The gripes with LeBron are accurate though: in both seasons prior to when he left his respective teams in free agency, his teammates were remarkably worse than who he had on his next team. That being said, Jordan never had a situation as bad as LeBron's until his last title in 97-98, so he arguably never had an incentive to jump ship like LeBron did.

Not surprisingly, LeBron's teammates were better in the years he won the title than in the years he didn't, on average. There's a point and counterpoint here though: the "Didn't Win Title" distribution is very bi-modal. In his last seasons with the Cavs and Heat, his starting teammates' average PER was 15.12 and 13.98, respectively. But in his ensuing first seasons with the Heat and Cavs, his starting teammates' average PER was 18.29 and 18.13, respectively, and they didn't win the title in either of those seasons.

The point I've failed to bring up yet is that none of these numbers exist in a vacuum. Upon reaching the Finals, Jordan faced an arguably lighter set of competition. So I looked at the NBA Finals opponents' starters' average PER to gauge the quality of each year's competition.

Jordan
Season	Won Title	Opponent Starters
1990-91	Y	18.18
1991-92	Y	16.68
1992-93	Y	18.06
1995-96	Y	18.36
1996-97	Y	20.41
1997-98	Y	19.87
Average		18.59

LeBron
Season	Won Title	Opponent Starters
2006-07	N	18.73
2010-11*	N	17.76
2011-12	Y	20.31
2012-13	Y	19.37
2013-14	N	17.79
2014-15*	N	18.55
2015-16	Y	19.68
2016-17	?	20.10
Average		19.04
	Y	19.79
	N	18.21

LeBron has faced stiffer competition in the Finals, and the irony is that in his title-winning seasons he actually beat the better teams, on average. His vanquished Finals foes were much better than Jordan's were.

So what can we conclude from this? LeBron did indeed leave when his teammates were weaker, which is a fair criticism when comparing him to Jordan. The thing is, Jordan never had to leave because his teammates were good enough already. And while LeBron is 3-4 in the Finals so far (with 1 pending), he's already been to 8 (and 7 in the last 7 years!!!), whereas Jordan went to 6 and went 6-0 against weaker competition.

Lavar vs Jordan, An Incredibly Lopsided Game of One-on-One

A couple of months ago, in a show of utter brashness and clickbait-worthy quotes, Lavar Ball (father of former UCLA star/lottery pick Lonzo Ball) stated he "would kill Michael Jordan one-on-one". Coming off my post simulating LeBron vs Jordan one-on-one, a friend/colleague brought up that I was looking at the wrong comparison, given Lavar's insane quote. So I threw his stats into the simulator too.

He only played sparingly over one season at Washington State in 1987-88 and averaged 2.2 points a game, so that's all the data I have to go off of. Over 10,000 simulations, Jordan beats him 93.25% of the time by an average score of 21-14.  I'm surprised Lavar's chances are this high, but the simulator doesn't take into account the difference in competition between the NBA and late 80's Pac-10 bench players. Lavar's 40.4% field goal percentage probably wouldn't hold up against the best players on the planet. 

I guess a blind hog finds an acorn roughly 6.75% of the time.

LeBron vs Jordan, One-on-One, in Their Primes

With LeBron reaching his seventh straight NBA Finals, the age-old debate remains: who is better? LeBron or Jordan?

This post isn't looking to answer that question. What it does attempt to answer is this: who would win a game of one-on-one? Last year I created a play-by-play basketball simulator and adapted it to simulate games of pickup, projecting Steph Curry to beat LeBron James in a battle of the best players in the NBA. I've adapted this simulator again, pairing off LeBron and Jordan in their primes in a game of one-on-one.

The first step though is identifying their respective "primes". I compiled the career statistics for each player from Basketball Reference and looked at the best PER seasons for each. I took the top three seasons (per PER) to get metrics such as shooting percentages, rebounding rates, steal rates, etc and averaged them to use as the inputs into the simulator. One thing that is incredibly striking is the eerie similarity for these two GOAT candidates in their top seasons:

Player	Year	Age	PER		Player	Year	Age	PER
Jordan	1987-88	24	31.7		LeBron	2008-09	24	31.7
Jordan	1988-89	25	31.1		LeBron	2009-10	25	31.1
Jordan	1990-91	27	31.6		LeBron	2012-13	28	31.6
Jordan			31.5		LeBron			31.5

Their top 3 PER seasons are exactly the same, at virtually the same ages. 

As before, the pickup rules I used are as follows: 

1. Standard pickup scoring is applied: 2's and 1's (3-pointers count as 2, 2-pointers count as 1)
2. No free throws. You don't shoot free throws in pickup
3. The games are to 21, win by 2

Jordan has a definitive defensive edge, and even though LeBron isn't exactly considered a sharp shooting three-point shooter, he shoots them way more often than Jordan did in his day.

Player	Year	Age	PER	3P Avg	2P Avg	3P Ratio	OReb	DReb	Steal	Block
Jordan	1987-88	24	31.7	13.21%	54.60%	2.65%	4.80%	10.70%	3.90%	2.40%
Jordan	1988-89	25	31.1	27.55%	55.33%	5.46%	5.50%	17.30%	3.60%	1.20%
Jordan	1990-91	27	31.6	31.18%	55.10%	5.06%	4.60%	14.30%	3.70%	1.70%
Jordan			31.5	23.98%	55.01%	4.39%	4.97%	14.10%	3.73%	1.77%
Player	Year	Age	PER	3P Avg	2P Avg	3P Ratio	OReb	DReb	Steal	Block
LeBron	2008-09	24	31.7	34.38%	53.46%	23.81%	4.30%	19.00%	2.40%	2.40%
LeBron	2009-10	25	31.1	33.33%	56.00%	25.33%	3.00%	18.50%	2.20%	2.00%
LeBron	2012-13	28	31.6	40.55%	60.18%	18.76%	4.40%	20.80%	2.40%	1.90%
LeBron			31.5	36.09%	56.55%	22.63%	3.90%	19.43%	2.33%	2.10%

LeBron benefits immensely from the 2's and 1's scoring, and over 10,000 simulations he wins the game of pickup 55.75% of the time by an average score of 21-19.

Efficiency of NCAAF Coaching Salaries, I.E. How Bad Charlie Weis Was

With Notre Dame just now finishing paying out Charlie Weis to NOT coach their football team, much has been made the past few days about how he was ultimately paid $1.6 million per win he achieved between Notre Dame and Kansas. That's $64.5m total for a record of 41-49.

That's really bad! Is it historically bad? I compiled this past year's head coach salaries (gathered from USA Today) and win/loss records to gauge some context.

Weis would have been right at the top of the list of worst pay per win coaches in FBS:

Most Inefficient
SCHOOL	CONF	COACH	Wins	Pay/Win	Rank
Virginia	ACC	Bronco Mendenhall	2	$1,637,500	1
Fresno State	Mt. West	Tim DeRuyter	1	$1,518,480	2
Michigan State	Big Ten	Mark Dantonio	3	$1,433,333	3
Texas	Big 12	Charlie Strong	5	$1,040,000	4
Rutgers	Big Ten	Chris Ash	2	$1,000,000	5
Mississippi	SEC	Hugh Freeze	5	$940,000	6
Michigan	Big Ten	Jim Harbaugh	10	$900,400	7
UCLA	Pac-12	Jim Mora	4	$862,500	8
Arizona	Pac-12	Rich Rodriguez	3	$833,333	9
Oregon	Pac-12	Mark Helfrich	4	$825,000	10

The most inefficient coach, Bronco Mendenhall of Virginia, is almost four times worse than the most efficient coach, Paul Petrino of Idaho:

Most Efficient
SCHOOL	CONF	COACH	Wins	Pay/Win	Rank
Idaho	Sun Belt	Paul Petrino	9	$46,345	1
Appalachian State	Sun Belt	Scott Satterfield	10	$52,500	2
Old Dominion	C-USA	Bobby Wilder	10	$55,459	3
Louisiana Tech	C-USA	Skip Holtz	9	$55,556	4
Hawaii	Mt. West	Nick Rolovich	7	$57,144	5
Eastern Michigan	MAC	Chris Creighton	7	$62,120	6
Western Michigan	MAC	P.J. Fleck	13	$62,797	7
Troy	Sun Belt	Neal Brown	10	$66,000	8
Southern Mississippi	C-USA	Jay Hopson	7	$71,429	9
Ohio	MAC	Frank Solich	8	$71,589	10

There aren't any Power 5 conference coaches on this "most efficient" list though. Restricting to these conferences crowns Mike MacIntyre of Colorado as #1:

SCHOOL	CONF	COACH	Wins	Pay/Win	Rank
Colorado	Pac-12	Mike MacIntyre	10	$201,105	1
Wisconsin	Big Ten	Paul Chryst	11	$245,455	2
North Carolina	ACC	Larry Fedora	8	$248,283	3
West Virginia	Big 12	Dana Holgorsen	10	$298,000	4
Washington	Pac-12	Chris Petersen	12	$300,000	5
Wake Forest	ACC	Dave Clawson	7	$301,881	6
Nebraska	Big Ten	Mike Riley	9	$311,111	7
North Carolina State	ACC	Dave Doeren	7	$314,286	8
Clemson	ACC	Dabo Swinney	14	$315,536	9
Virginia Tech	ACC	Justin Fuente	10	$320,000	10

A lot of ACC on this list, so you can a lot of mediocrity for your dollar here. For those curious, here's how the top 25 highest paid coaches fair:

Salary	SCHOOL	CONF	COACH	Wins	Pay/Win	Rank
1	Michigan	Big Ten	Jim Harbaugh	10	$900,400	113
2	Alabama	SEC	Nick Saban	14	$495,671	86
3	Ohio State	Big Ten	Urban Meyer	11	$545,727	92
4	Oklahoma	Big 12	Bob Stoops	11	$504,545	89
5	Florida State	ACC	Jimbo Fisher	10	$525,000	90
6	Texas	Big 12	Charlie Strong	5	$1,040,000	116
7	Texas A&M	SEC	Kevin Sumlin	8	$625,000	103
8	Auburn	SEC	Gus Malzahn	8	$590,625	100
9	Mississippi	SEC	Hugh Freeze	5	$940,000	114
10	Iowa	Big Ten	Kirk Ferentz	8	$562,500	94
11	Penn State	Big Ten	James Franklin	11	$409,091	79
12	Clemson	ACC	Dabo Swinney	14	$315,536	63
13	LSU	SEC	Les Miles	8	$537,500	91
14	Michigan State	Big Ten	Mark Dantonio	3	$1,433,333	117
15	Florida	SEC	Jim McElwain	9	$474,258	84
16	Mississippi State	SEC	Dan Mullen	6	$700,000	108
17	Arkansas	SEC	Bret Bielema	7	$585,714	98
18	Tennessee	SEC	Butch Jones	9	$456,667	82
19	Stanford	Pac-12	David Shaw	10	$406,722	78
20	Texas Christian	Big 12	Gary Patterson	6	$669,121	107
21	Louisville	ACC	Bobby Petrino	9	$431,159	81
22	Oklahoma State	Big 12	Mike Gundy	10	$377,500	72
23	Georgia	SEC	Kirby Smart	8	$469,200	83
24	Utah	Pac-12	Kyle Whittingham	9	$405,556	76
25	Washington	Pac-12	Chris Petersen	12	$300,000	58