Lets go through it shall we?
Which is one of the reasons your argument doesn't work for me.
But when you include RAPM/RPM you're not including one season but many seasons including predicting the next upcoming season. You can't use these stats (including win shares and VORP) out of context, and that's one of the points I was making earlier.
I'm not sure if I would argue that there was as a substantial difference in the areas you're referencing as being LeBron's strengths. For example, it seems you're arguing that James was somehow in another tier defensively than Jordan - but that's false. They were both elite defenders, in fact, I might argue that Jordan was a better defender overall on the perimeter for numerous reasons. We're talking about someone who averaged nearly 3 steals a game for over a decade of play. That is astounding.
Regarding rebounding, again the difference isn't quite as distinguishable as your argument seems to suggest. I mean, we're literally talking about 1 extra rebound for James. That's not a significant different I think.
Your argument with regarding "facilitating" I think is flawed in that nowhere in your posts do you reference Scottie Pippen, BJ Armstrong or John Paxson. Again, missing context. Jordan played alongside all three, who were capable facilitators and point-guards/forwards yet still had the second most assists on the team, even when his job was to score and defend.
I'm not saying James isn't a better facilitator than Jordan, as I think that's a difficult question to conclusively answer one way or another. I am saying though that James' game is more modeled after Magic Johnson than Jordan, and in that, he often looks to pass rather than to shoot, so yes, he'd likely get his teammates involved somewhat more than Jordan. But, I think the point is that the difference here is far more subtle than your argument would make it seem.
With respect to scoring, Jordan's ability to score the ball was simply unreal and is in another tier than James. Yes, 1991 stands out overall for numerous reasons, but Jordan actually took his foot off the pedal that year. In that season averaged over the previous 5, Jordan scored at a 34 PPG clip on a .525 FG%. That is fucking insane. While James is an elite scorer for his era, that's not his game, and he had far fewer tools to score during his first Cleveland stint than Jordan had in his first championship run. This is where I think we do see some substantial space between these two players and Jordan truly stands out from the crowd.
That's why I don't see your argument. Because while James might be a marginally better facilitator, his defense and rebounding aren't really that much better or worse than Jordan's either way; however, Jordan's ability to score, at will, and massively, allowed him to win six virtually consecutive championships.
I think it's really an exercise in futility. I don't think you can look at a single year and say - this was Jordan or James at their peak. These guys might decline in scoring and improve defensively, or improve their efficiency will playing less on the other end of the ball to reserve energy. It's just too fluid a game for this type of analysis. You're assuming that Jordan's peak scoring ability was 31 PPG (1991) which is somewhat of a ridiculous position because that was actually a significant dip for him; he had scored more and at high efficiency in both prior and future seasons. It's just not a rational way to make an assessment.
Essentially what you're doing is grabbing one season, out of context of the rest, and trying to make an assessment without any other actually useful data.
Instead what you should do is extrapolate their likely peak performance based on some statistical model. Determine if that model agrees with observational data and analysis, and then use that as a metric for their respective "peaks."
But simply plucking a season out of over a dozen seasons and saying, this one in this era vs this one in another, on different teams, essentially against different competition (SOS), and with substantially different rules; I don't get how you can come to a rational conclusion.
What? It's practically universally accepted that it was harder for perimeter players to score in the 90s versus today.
What does this have to do with the rule/officiating changes, the influence of the 3-point shot, hand-checking, zone defenses, the permitting of physical defensive play, etc?
The styles of basketball are completely different.
This has nothing to do with the argument at hand unless you're saying some international player made a significant difference in Jordan or James peak seasons.
So what?
But it seems like instead of approaching this question critically, it seems like you're trying to rationalize a preconceived notion.
You've discounted the substantial difference in scoring that Jordan produces, you've discounted the fact that Jordan is a substantially scorer, better shooter, better free throw shooter, and is a superior ball-handler. From the box score, you've attempted to argue that +1.7 assists, and +1.6 rebounds is somehow conclusively better than -0.5 TOV, +1.0 STL, and +3.1 PPG, wherein from some fairly agreed upon standards (see Basketball Prospectus), we'd likely conclude these differences to be marginal at best, with a slim advantage to Jordan if anything.
I don't really want to get into this as much because I think it's too subjective. It's really a matter of opinion when we're talking about respect, disrespect, etc etc..
I think the problem most people would have with your argument, myself included, is that you've essentially discounted all of Jordan's strengths, while disregarding James' glaring weaknesses.
Jordan didn't need to team up with Magic and Bird, Jordan didn't need to "grow up" in the middle of his NBA career to learn to play ball; Jordan Pippen made Scottie into what he ultimately became, not the other way around. Jordan went the NBA Finals and won, six times.
The list goes on and on. And again, this comes back to the definition of peak season, and I highly doubt if you ask James he'd agree with 2008-09 being his best season. Nor do I think it's fair to look at Jordan's peak scoring by looking solely at the 1990-91 season. I don't think you're using the data necessary to answer your question.
Simply put, you might be right, you might be wrong; I just don't see enough evidence to come to the same conclusion as you. And yes, I have an opinion, and yes, it's different from yours - but I don't think the question can be posed as simply as you're attempting to frame it.
