Throughout the season, we're checking in on which big NBA topics are real or not.
In this edition: Can star players thrive with LeBron James? And should more teams start tanking?
Buy or sell: Kevin Durant is right about playing with LeBron
LeBron James is the best player of this generation, hands down. He has made -- and continues to make -- a very credible case for greatest of all time.
If I were starting a team right now for a three-year run, LeBron might still be my first pick despite turning 34 this month.
With that said ... if we interpret Kevin Durant's comments this week to mean that it is difficult for other superstar players to be maximized next to James, then he kind of has a point.
"If you're a younger player like a Kawhi [Leonard], trying to pair him with LeBron James doesn't really make sense," Durant told Bleacher Report. "Kawhi enjoys having the ball in his hands, controlling the offense, dictating the tempo with his post-ups; it's how he plays the game. A lot of young players are developing that skill. They don't need another guy."
When a superstar player has the chance to go play with LeBron, he does need to realize two things:
1. He will have to take a bit of a back seat to LeBron.
2. There will likely be some decline in his production.
LeBron has demonstrated the ability to lift his team to a maximum level more than any other player of the past 17 years. Per ESPN's real plus-minus (RPM) data, since 2001-02 there have been 17 player seasons that reached an RPM of 9.0 -- meaning that a player's presence on the floor correlated with at least a 9.0 points-per-100-possession improvement in his teams' scoring margin, after factoring in the quality of his teammates and opponents. That is a massive impact.
LeBron has been responsible for five of those seasons while no other player during that stretch has more than two. Some of the other names on this list include Shaquille O'Neal (2001-02), Tim Duncan (2002-03), Kevin Garnett (2002-03, 2003-04), Dirk Nowitzki (2010-11), Dwyane Wade (2005-06, 2009-10), Chris Paul (2008-09) and Stephen Curry (2014-15).
The three primary mechanisms that lead to these types of maximum impact scores are on-ball offense (shot creation), off-ball offense (spacing, defense warping) and defense. LeBron is a strong defender and off-ball player, but his main path to winning basketball is his ability to create high-quality team offense with the ball in his hands. If James maintains his current usage rate of 31.7 percent (tied with Russell Westbrook for eighth in the NBA), it will mark his 14th-straight season topping 30 percent usage. By comparison, Larry Bird only did that once (30.2 percent usage in 1987-88).
The limitation of ball-dominant offensive creation is that it is difficult to scale across multiple players. There is, of course, only one ball. We saw this during James' stint with the Miami Heat.
LeBron and Wade had finished No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, in RPM for the 2009-10 season on separate teams, but when they teamed up in 2010-11 they slid to No. 6 and No. 7. James returned to the top of the RPM leaderboard in 2011-12 and 2012-13, but Wade continued to slide from No. 5 in 2011-12 to No. 32 in 2012-13. Some of Wade's fall may have been due to injury -- and both seasons ended in Heat championships -- but that team success didn't come until LeBron moved to the forefront and Wade stepped back.
Contrast this with the other impact kings on the list when they were able to play with elite talent. Duncan and Manu Ginobili finished top-2 in RPM as teammates in 2004-05, and Duncan and David Robinson both had top-6 finishes in 2000-01. Shaq led the league in RPM in 2001-02, even though teammate Kobe Bryant had a higher offensive RPM on similar usage. Garnett led the league in RPM in both 2003-04 and 2007-08 while Sam Cassell and Paul Pierce turned in the best RPM finishes of their careers in those respective seasons. Curry and Draymond Green finished in the top four in RPM in both 2015-16 (pre-Durant) and 2016-17 (with Durant). Chris Paul and James Harden finished in the top two in 2017-18.
The difference? While LeBron and Wade utilized similar ball-dominant styles to lift their teams, the other mega-MVPs on this list were elite at either defense or off-ball offense. Both of these are more additive than on-ball creation when it comes to playing with elite talent. So I do buy to some extent that it is difficult for other superstars to be maximized while playing with LeBron.
On the other hand, consider Kevin Love. He spoke to ESPN's Brian Windhorst about the challenges of playing next to LeBron, but he also pointed out that James dramatically increases the chances of team success and winning championships. There are still reasons for great players, even superstars, to want to come play next to James.
Buy or sell: Multiple Western Conference teams should start tanking
Only 5.5 games separate the top 14 teams in the West. On the other hand, the two-time defending champion Golden State Warriors have already moved back into a tie for first in the West with Curry back from injury, and they expect to add All-NBA big men Draymond Green (toe) and DeMarcus Cousins (Achilles) to the mix in upcoming weeks. With the Warriors so dominant and the conference as a whole so deep, should some of the teams out West start moving their veterans and tanking for lottery position in what looks to be a talented 2019 NBA draft?
Let's look at each team.
The Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder are both impressive squads that are playing well and believe that they can compete right now. The LA Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers are playing a bit better than expected when the season began, but both have a lot of cap space next offseason and are likely to look to NBA veterans instead of the draft for improvement. The Memphis Grizzlies are built around two strong veterans in Marc Gasol and Mike Conley, and they already appear to have their future franchise player in rookie Jaren Jackson Jr.
The Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz are both built to win right now. The San Antonio Spurs are a veteran-laden team with a Hall of Fame coach; they are built more to compete than to rebuild. Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Tom Thibodeau definitely wants to win now for job security, and with the way the team has played since the Jimmy Butler trade, it appears that they are ready to make another postseason run.
I could see arguments for top-heavy teams -- such as the New Orleans Pelicans and Portland Trail Blazers -- to get a jump on the re-start by trading their superstars and looking to the future. However, both teams showed last season that they can get scorching hot and stay that way for long stretches. While the Warriors are still a juggernaut, the lane is open for almost any other team out West to get hot and make it to the conference finals.
The Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks are young teams playing well above expectations, but the Kings don't have their pick and Dallas' pick is owed to the Atlanta Hawks unless it falls in the top five. Given the flattened lottery odds, it doesn't make a lot of sense for the Mavs to start playing for the draft now if there's a real chance they don't even get a top-10 pick out of it.
Finally, the main reason that tanking isn't appealing to the teams out West is that the lottery teams in the East are just too far ahead. The Hawks, Cleveland Cavaliers and Chicago Bulls join the Suns as pretty clear favorites to land the worst records in the NBA. The New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets aren't far behind, and they also seem much more likely to finish poorly than even the worst of the West playoff contenders. I sell that West teams should start tanking for the draft.