LeBron > Jordan GOAT Super AIDS Containment, solved #22999 post by Matt R. (addendum #23174)

KD vs Kobe is a real discussion. I probably pick KD, but would be okay with someone picking Kobe.

Young KD+Shaq beats the 2004 Pistons.

I got KD > Kobe and I love Kobe.

KD and Shaq. That would have been good. Definitely taking the over 3 championships.

If KD is drafted by Lakers instead of Kobe they probably beat the 98 Bulls. KD probably tears Pippen a new one (because we all know how terrible Pippen was).

25ppg on 48/42/86 splits. Man. Bulls still probably make it a six game series though.

Now that it's 2025 and we understand the evolution of brand of ball, we can see that Lebron employed an extremely simple brand back in 2006-2010 where 1 man dribbled the ball in the halfcourt.. This was called "heliocentric" and misperceived as high IQ when it was really a simpleton brand used by every AAU or playground king, and one that better playoff opponents quickly adjusted to and overcame.

Ultimately, the weaker performance of teammates was unfairly blamed instead of a bad brand of low-assisted ball-domination that imposed spot-up roles and didn't elevate anyone except the guy dribbling the ball.

In contrast to young Lebron dominating the ball and failing to elevate all-stars like Jamison, Zydrunas, Mo, or all-defenders like Snow, Hughes and Varejao, young Jordan was a great assist target (off-guard) that grew the stats of undecorated youngsters like Woodridge, Sam Vincent, Paxson, Oakley, Pippen, Grant, and BJ.... Jordan always increased the Bulls' offensive ranking, team assist ranking, and regular season wins or playoff progress each year on the way to a title, while Lebron saw regressions in regular season record and playoff regression in 08' and 10' because his imposition of spot-up roles cannot grow teammates or chemistry..

Lebron's low IQ basketball couldn't grow his team and produced a 2nd Round upset loss with a 7th-year organic juggernaut in 2010 - this inability to develop chemistry precipitated "the decision" to abandon chemistry/organic and pursue talent-based winning, aka all-star team strategy and teaming up with opposing franchise players.

The results tell the story because Jordan only lost to 1 or 2 seeds with young squads, while Lebron lost to 3 and 4 seeds with the league favorite in 10' and 11'.. Young Jordan had the off-ball game required to win with ball movement and be the 1st option for the best basketball (dynasty and dominant champion), while Lebron had access to the triangle and even more wide-ranging ball movement systems, yet his low-assisted style produced weak chemistry and perennial losers with every cast.

KD would've won in 2012 with baby Westbrick if Lebron hadn't teamed up with a veteran champion and another top 4 PER.

This ruined KD's career and it took KD 6 years to respond with the kind of unprecedented advantage required to overcome Lebron's unprecedented advantage..

Lebron's team was the only team with 3 franchise players versus 1 for every other team, and it's also unprecedented to have 6 straight preseason favorites or a sidekick outplay the league MVP - this is all unprecedented help and the media's fraud was pretending that it wasn't something that needed to be overcome.

So again, the comparison is Kobe or KD over Lebron based on them having the superior, higher-assisted skillset required of 1st options for the best basketball (dynasties or dominant champions) - KD produced a dominant champion, while Kobe got much closer to a dynasty and 3-peat twice (00-02' and 08-10').. And neither had the goat choke, goat meltdown or record losses that Lebron had in 11', 10' and 14'.. Both are far superior scorers that have great fits with teammates because their skillset doesn't have a bunch of unassisted buckets that impose spot-up roles upon teammates.. They don't have the weaknesses in their game of FT's, turnovers, and ball-domination/bad chemistry (imposing spot-up roles/reducing teammates' assists).

Kobe had plenty of meltdowns. Fortunately he had Shaq and Pau to save him most of the time.

Sometimes they didn't save him though. Like when Detroit beat them in 5 when Kobe shot 38% and had almost as many turnovers as assists (18 v 15) and more fouls than rebounds (15 v 14).

Kobe never lost a series as 1st option by shooting less than 40%, while Lebron lost 3 series by shooting less than 40% (and 6 TO's per game... yikes... 35% and 6 TO's is literally the worst anyone has ever played, and Lebron did this twice).

Furthermore, Kobe never had a "meltdown" or "choke", such as 21 on 34% for the last 3 games to lose a 2-1 lead as a -500 favorite in 2010, or the goat choke in 2011...

So no... Kobe is just better than Lebron based on any metric we look at, such as winning, winning with less, teammate elevation, chemistry, leadership, or simply having a higher-assisted skillset that came closer to the best basketball (dynasties or dominant champions) than Lebron... I don't think there's a single metric that we can look at where Lebron is superior to Kobe, except production rates like PER, which we know Lebron achieves by employing a losing brand of ball.

Today's players and their 2-man PNR skillsets can barely beat international teams, let alone the 5-man basketball standard of previous eras like the 80's or 90's.

And KD would be matched up with Jordan, just like Magic, Drexler, Miller, and all the best players always were... Obviously, we all remember when a young Tatum destroyed Durant in 2022 just by getting a tad physical and also making Durant play defense to wear him out, so MJ would eat him alive.. Regarding Pippen, he would be hidden and protected from the real battles like he always was.. No one cared or paid any attention to his performance back then - he was just given the benefit of the doubt because prime Jordan could win regardless of whether Pippen wet the bed - this allows today's fans to pretend that he was better than he was even though he was actually a perennial bed-wetter and low-producer.

In contrast to young Lebron dominating the ball and failing to elevate all-stars like Jamison, Zydrunas, Mo, or all-defenders like Snow, Hughes and Varejao, young Jordan was a great assist target that grew the stats of undecorated youngsters like Woodridge, Sam Vincent, Paxson, Oakley, Pippen, Grant, and BJ....

Each season, Jordan increased the Bulls' offensive ranking, team assist ranking, and regular season wins or playoff progress on the way to a title.. Otoh, Lebron saw regressions in regular season record and playoff regression in 08' and 10' because his imposition of spot-up roles cannot grow teammates or chemistry... This inability to develop chemistry precipitated "the decision" to abandon chemistry/organic approach and pursue talent-based winning, aka all-star team strategy and teaming up with opposing franchise players.

The results tell the story because Jordan only lost to 1 or 2 seeds with young squads, while Lebron lost to 3 and 4 seeds with the league favorite in 10' and 11'.. Young Jordan had the off-ball game required to win with ball movement and be the 1st option for the best basketball (dynasty and dominant champion), while Lebron had access to the triangle and even more wide-ranging ball movement systems, yet his low-assisted style produced weak chemistry and perennial losers with every cast.

Everyone saw that Lebron was playing horrifically but then took a "personal break", and now he's back and averaging 30 ppg - he did this in 2015 and many other years as well - he gets juiced up as the season goes along and the league looks the other way.

It's rank fraud and cheating.. Accordingly, Lebron isn't top 10 due to 1) obvious cheating and mid-season refills of "new Juice" (Lebron's wife and trainer were caught receiving PED's for him, so that's like Juanita and Tim Grover being caught receiving "the clear" for Jordan in the mid-90's) and 2) he has the only skillset (low-assisted) that cannot be the 1st option for the best basketball (low-assisted skillset).

Regardless of the mid-season juicing, Lebron NEVER carries the Lakers over a top team - literally never - it's always AD-ball if the Lakers beat a top team (which they haven't done this year)... And this isn't just "old-man Lebron" because Lebron NEVER carried weak help over top teams, since he never won a series against a top 5 SRS team with weak scoring & efficiency from a sidekick..

Unlike jumpshooters like Curry or Jordan, Lebron cannot carry the scoring load vs top teams because he's too ball-dominant at carry-job volume (insufficient brand at high scoring levels), so he needs franchise players at 2nd and 3rd option - he cannot win with secondary producers like Klay, Wiggins or Pippen.

Cool. Juicing. World is flat too.

Hey Matt,

Who you picking in a KD v Kobe battle?

Are you guys seriously ******ed?... Taking 7 more seasons to accomplish something is "padding the goat resume"???... This is why no one respects the media except people that are in on the fraud like the Kamala campaign (that I fell for), or the Lebron fraud (that I avoided falling for)... Carry on.. What a joke.. I guess today's fan likes WWE and prefers to be entertained by a good fraud than real, honest competition.

Simmer down fallguy. Playing longer at a high level is a good thing. If MJ played fewer seasons he would be in the convo even less than he is already (after your arguments that have caused him to fall precipitously in the GOAT rankings). Longevity is a good thing. Anyone that has ever played organized ball at any kind of competitive level would tell you that.

I think it's KD pretty easily. Not only was Kobe grossly uncoachable, as Phil Jackson has explicitly discussed (literally in his book), he straight up cost LA a ring in 2004 because he was trying to force-feed himself finals MVP. Pistons players have directly talked about this. They would frustrate Kobe because they knew he would straight up hog the ball and it would completely ruin the Lakers offense.

The numbers don't lie either.

Kobe: 25.0 ppg, 5.2 rebounds, 4.7 assists, .550 TS%, 0.5 blocks, 1.4 steals
KD: 27.3 ppg, 7.0 rebounds, 4.4 assists, .619 TS%, 1.1 blocks, 1.1 steals

Their peaks aren't particularly close either as measured by advanced stats (best season for each):

Kobe: 28.0 PER, 7.6 BPM, 8.0 VORP
KD: 29.8 PER, 10.2 BPM, 9.6 VORP

So yeah, definitely KD. I think most people who know ball would say the same thing.

Oh look, you tried to find evidence online that coach and scheme do not matter, and the best you could do was find an article from 2014 that explicitly agrees with my entire point and refutes yours. That's excellent.

Lebron's wife and trainer were caught receiving PED's for him, so that's like Juanita and Tim Grover being caught receiving "the clear" for Jordan in the mid-90's... And guys like KG don't think the world is flat regarding Lebron's PED use.. Many other athletes and media feel the same way...

This guy was caught popping pills on the bench and he just took another "personal break", so they're quite bold with it now - they know that they have you hypnotized and you will buy anything they sell... You're literally putting your head in the sand on this one.

The media and fans simply ignored the obvious and played dumb... "b-b-but it wasn't lebron - it was his wife that is on PED's"... lol... Today's weak, spineless jellyfish simply covered it up and no one did a real investigation.

Oh well, I guess I didn't misunderstand you after all: you're actually saying a player's entire career average tells the story of who they are... except for Jordan. Where cherry-picking the games where he shot better from 3 are the only ones that count and we are supposed to ignore the games where he shot poorly.

The truth is actually the complete opposite of what you're saying: it's Jordan career average that tells you how good he was as a 3 point shooter, on average, by definition. But assisted field goal % is a function of a player's role in an offense and the scheme being run. And if a player exceeds some threshold (say, 40%) 9 times, then he is capable of achieving 40+%, by definition, when his role calls for it. This is really elementary and obvious to anyone that understands basketball and super basic statistics.

Wow numbers are terrible for Kobe.

Looked into the 2004 Finals some more. On/offs - Kobe on -52, Kobe off +7

He had the highest usage on a team with Shaq (who was shooting 63% for the series, while Kobe was shooting 38%).

This is inexcusable for a player in his prime.

You're right, this is an easy decision.

Kobe probably still top 20 though (just). Back in the group of Malone/Barley etc.

I think you're really mixed up. Durant and Kyrie deliberately minimizing Nash's influence (and Brooklyn failing miserably), does not mean Phil Jackson, Popp, and Kerr were not important to their teams' success. That makes literally no sense lmao.

No one is saying Redick, Blatt, and any other entirely mediocre coach are on the same level as Phil Jackson, Popp, Kerr, Auerbach. What are you even saying. Jordan explicitly said he wouldn't play for any other coach except for Phil Jackson, Doug Collins, or Dean Smith, so players who know anything about basketball obviously think coaching is important. People who don't know anything about basketball may argue otherwise.

False. I mean, duh? lmfao

Yeah, false.

LeBron never had a prime Phil Jackson, Popp, Kerr, etc. as coach with an appropriately built roster. Yeah he had a young and inexperienced Spoelstra and a good, but breaking down Wade. And then Kyrie with... Tyronn Lue (lmao). This is not the same as Phil Jackson, Popp, or Kerr. Anyone that knows anything about ball would be able to tell you that.

Phil Jackson won 11 championships lmfao. Good try fallguy. Troll mask is slipping something fierce.

It's literally all common sense. Sorry that you don't know ball. Anyone that has played at any kind of competitive level would agree with everything I'm saying.

I pointed out the common knowledge that today's entire league copied the Warriors' offense, which was based on the triangle.. So Lebron and every player in today's game has access to the triangle and many advanced systems, but only highly-assisted 1st options produced the best basketball, while low-assisted ball-dominators are 0 for 12.

So you've been saying that "lebron didn't have the triangle", but he did and the entire league uses hybrid versions of it - he simply stinks at ball movement, just like all low-assisted 1st options, so they can't produce the best basketball (dynasties or dominant champions), great chemistry, or high average ranking in team assists.

Btw, even though the 40% career average or prime ranges of 40-60% totally work to make the case, we don't have to use numbers at all - we can eye test this thing and see that ball-dominators never had a dynasty or dominant champion (the best basketball)... Luka, Lillard, Lebron, Trae, Tim Hardaway, Iverson - you name it - none of these ball-dominators produced the best basketball, while the best bigs or jumpshooters did.

This is literally the definition of data dredging. Have you ever taken a statistics class before?

^^^ Fixed

lol Warriors don't play the Triangle. They have aspects of the Triangle in their offense. If anything it's more like the Spurs motion offense. But in reality it's based on the gravity of Steph Curry (hence why it typically falls to pieces when he's on the bench).

But being that you don't watch any games (and I've seen every warriors game since Kerr became coach) you would have nfi.