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

If 1.3 rebound margin per game, LeBron over MJ, is 1000% better ... then yeah Bron has that going for him over Jordan. Seems a bit irrational.

I can give lebron passing .
Rebound meh slightly lebron
I definitely take mj defensively and scoring .
But we comparing 2 players with different roles so it’s kinda difficult to make infaillible facts.

Ok good, so unlike fallguy you can at least admit that LeBron is superior to Jordan at some aspects of the game. We're getting somewhere! Now let's talk about the rest.

Defense. MJ was a great perimeter defender, but in no way did he have LeBron's defensive versatility. You could ask Jordan to lock down the opposing 1-3, but LeBron in his prime could literally lock down 1-5, he had the quickness to keep up with point guards, and the size and strength to hang with bigs. Of course old LeBron isn't going to have the energy to play defense all game, but as recently as 2020, during the Lakers title run, he switched onto Jamal Murray and handled him very well, when Murray was cooking the rest of the Lakers.

So how is MJ better defensively? Because he has a DPOY and LeBron doesn't? That's a crap argument, Tim Duncan also has 0 DPOY and he's far more valuable defensively than Jordan ever was. Furthermore, LeBron's best finish in DPOY voting was 2nd, he came second to Marc Gasol, who somehow won DPOY but wasn't even in the All-Defense First Team. Tyson Chandler and Joakim Noah tied in votes at the center position. So you can easily argue that LeBron should have 1 DPOY because Gasol shouldn't have won. Anyway...

MJ had more steals? Also not a good argument, gambling for steals isn't necessarily good defense. Allen Iverson had a ton of steals too and he wasn't a good defender at all. Stephen Curry and James Harden both had years where they led the league in total steals, and they are average defenders at best. Jordan was perhaps a better 1-on-1 defender vs guards than LeBron, but LeBron was a better team defender and more versatile. You could have asked LeBron to guard Karl Malone, Jordan couldn't have.

Scoring-wise, I'm willing to concede that Jordan was a more dominant scorer (10 scoring titles and all), but how much of that was simply usage and choice, rather than scoring skill? MJ was always going to be the top scorer and get his points no matter what, while LeBron has always been more willing to pass if a teammate was in a better position to score. By no means is LeBron a "pass-first" player, but he doesn't necessarily need to take the most shots, if that's not what benefits the team the most. LeBron gets a ton of hate for "shrinking" during the 2011 finals vs the Mavericks, and some of that hate is deserved, but the Mavericks specifically game-planned to try to shut down LeBron at any cost, therefore Wade was simply more open all the time in that series so of course he scored more points than LeBron did. Jordan always took the most shots no matter what, sometimes to the detriment of his team if he had an off-night.

Jordan was undoubtedly better at some aspects of scoring, such as mid-range shots, had an unguardable fade-away late in his career, and was very slightly better at getting to the line, and was a better free throw shooter. But it's not like LeBron is a liability at the line like Shaq, he's 74% for his career compared to 84% for Jordan. That's a difference of exactly 1 point per game, if you attempt 10 FTs per game. Negligible. Meanwhile, there are areas where LeBron is a better scorer than Jordan, such as at the rim, in transition (where his passing is also more valuable), and from 3. 39 year old LeBron is shooting 41% from 3 with over 5 attempts per game. He's legitimately one of the better 3 point shooters in the league right now, as he's not just waiting to catch-and-shoot, he's willing and able to pull up from deep and drain them.

We've already established that LeBron is a better passer and rebounder. He's also a more versatile defender, and even though Jordan was a more dominant pure scorer than LeBron, LeBron certainly had many areas where he was superior to Jordan.

So how exactly was Jordan a superior basketball player to LeBron James? The argument for Jordan has to purely come down to rings, 6 vs 4. Of course the goal of every basketball player is to win the championship, but rings have to be evaluated with context and degree of difficulty in mind. It's why Dirk Nowitzki gets so much props for winning a ring in 2011, meanwhile no one respects Kevin Durant's 2 rings in 2017 and 2018.

First of all, the 6-0 argument is pure bullshit, let's get that out of the way. Suppose Jordan was able to beat the Magic in 1995, but then lost in the finals to Houston. He'd be 6-1, is that worse than 6-0? No, it's objectively better than 6-0 because he would have won an additional series. So LeBron having a losing record in the finals is not a good argument against him, considering that most of the time he faced a team with far superior talent (2007 Spurs, 2017-18 Warriors) and thus he was expected to lose. Did LeBron James underachieve some years? Sure, but he also overachieved in other years, and on the whole, is one of the greatest performers in NBA play-off history. LeBron James is the all-time leading scorer in both the regular season and the postseason. And it's not even close, his 8023 (and counting) postseason points is more than 2000 ahead of second place, Michael Jordan.

Michael Jordan obviously was also an all-time great postseason performer, but he wasn't flawless either, as many MJ fans believe. He faced his toughest opposition in the Eastern Conference back in the 80s, the Bird-McHale-Parish Celtics and the Bad Boys Pistons. Once those teams got old, and Scottie Pippen became good, the Bulls pretty much never lost again. People vastly underrate Jordan's supporting cast and coaching, because Jordan's scoring was always grabbing all the headlines, but the Bulls routinely won with superior overall defense (Pippen, Rodman, Harper were all very good defenders) and offensive rebounding (Rodman is the GOAT rebounder). Jordan's supporting cast was actually so good that sometimes they won even when Jordan stunk. The Bulls beat the Supersonics 4-2 in the 1996 finals, a series in which Jordan shot a miserable 42% from the field. He was clearly sub-par that series, but the 72-win Bulls still prevailed. And Seattle 1996 was likely the best team Jordan ever faced in the finals, can you imagine if LeBron shot as poorly as 42% from the field in a final series? He'd get swept if that happened (and it is what happened in 2007). Jordan never faced a team as good as the 2014 Spurs or the 2017 Warriors in the finals. That is a pure fact, and it's why not every championship is equal. LeBron's 2016 finals performance has to be "worth" double. He led both teams in every statistical category and defeated a 73-win team! That's unlikely to ever happen again.

Look, the bottom line is this. If you started a fictional NBA franchise, you really couldn't go wrong with either prime Jordan or prime LeBron. They'd both be 99 OVR players on NBA2K. You could argue for prime Kareem as well. Each has their strengths and weaknesses, though I'd argue LeBron is the most complete player, with the fewest overall weaknesses. But here's where LeBron separates himself from Jordan, and everyone else: Jordan retired twice and played 1251 total NBA games, including the postseason. LeBron James has played 1758 NBA games, and counting. That's a 40% difference, and it's only increasing. If two players have similar impact and one has simply played way more, he's the more valuable player. At age 20 LeBron was already one the best players in the NBA (younger than Jordan as a rookie), and at age 39 LeBron is still an all-NBA level player. No one's ever done that, and no one has even come close to doing that. That's what makes LeBron the GOAT. He's both the best young player and best old player in NBA history.

Bravo SABR42

SABR note the new thread title. You earned it with that masterclass of a post.

When I use his whole career as a sample, you don't like that either

I made that post because the single game mirrored his career trend.

For Lebron's entire career, he never won a series against a top 5 SRS team with the kind of weak scoring that AD had vs Nuggets.. Lebron can't carry the load vs top teams because he's too ball-dominant at carry-job volume to beat top teams (09' ECF) and therefore needs AD to score much more than he did the other night vs Nuggets - Lebron's ball-dominance needs all-time scoring help like Wade, Kyrie or AD and cant win with the type of "pippen" level that AD had in the Nuggets game.

Lebron literally never beat a top 5 SRS or Finals team with weak scoring &: efficiency from a sidekick.. He's a passer like Magic that inherently needs great scorers to pass to and "close", while also being too ball-dominant at carry-job volume anyway to beat top teams.

SABR42 killed it.

Bron and Jordan's peak are basically equal with LeBron having the slight edge. LeBron having greater longevity seals the deal.

Fallguy / twog also agrees.

The RANGZ argument is total bullshit, there is a minimum threshold of rings needed to be in the conversation, the rest is individual peak + longevity of great play.

Bill Russell has almost double the rings as Jordan yet zero Jordan GOAT people out there say Russell > Jordan

I would put the minimum threshold of rings at 3, if Joker wins 3 rings and maintains this level of peak play for another 6+ years, hard not to throw him in the conversation.

Game 7 of the NBA finals and I can only dress one, I'm still dressing MJ 😀

Jordan WAS an extraordinary athlete, it's important to say that everyone here on the LBJ side of this recognises Jordan's greatness. I would agree with the Simmons / Russilo type take that LBJ has "chased" Jordan, and I think that's probably true. LeBron was a massive Jordan fan and entered the league weeks after Jordan left it. Having Jordan to chase has probably pushed LeBron further. In time, someone will come along to chase LeBron and will play for a quarter century at an unprecedented level (and maybe find a better situation in their career in terms of winning titles).

Jordan was also a cultural icon in a way LeBron could never be, and Jordan played an integral role in the sport leaping into the International consciousness. Indeed, Jordan's cultural impact widened and deepened the pool of potential NBA players that LeBron had to face ~20 years on from Jordan's peak.

Jordan was a breath-taking scorer, ferocious competitor and has the best regular seasons in the history of the sport, statistically speaking. Just because I think LeBron got there eventually, doesn't detract from any of that. And look, if one reaches a conclusion that Jordan is still their GOAT and they'll never see past the perfection of 6 - 0, fair enough - so long as they aren't denigrating LeBron unfairly in the process.

You could if you choose, but LeBron has the more extensive record in game 7s, including two finals wins, and quite the exceptional series of performances:

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/how-man...

Not that Jordan did poorly in his 3, mind:

https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/how-man...

The reason that I won't say that Jordan was an inferior passer is because there's clear-cut evidence to the contrary, explained elsewhere itt on numerous occasion..

i.e. MJ had 30/10/10 capability 30 years before Lebton did (89') despite specializing in a different playing-style (off-guard), or averaging more assists than Lebron ever did on the championship level, or averaging more assists than Lebron in the playoffs pre-Curry era (thru half their chips), or being capable of assists and offensive styles/roles that Lebron isn't (non-ball-dominant), or being the assist leader on #1 offense (Lebron had far crappier offenses despite more scoring & playmaking help).

People simply don't notice how great Jordan was as a playmaker because their brain is enamored with his goat scoring and preset on that way of thinking

It's amazing that people give Lebron credit for pounding the rock forever and getting an assist, as if Jordan couldn't do that, or didn't.. He got a wider variety of assists than Lebron and tricked defenses in more ways because he didn't play primarily a ball-dominant style like Lebron.

In addition to the passing being arguably a wash or better, Jordan was the better offensive rebounder - this point keeps getting ignored as rebounding keeps getting given to Lebron.. Jordan had superior rebounding talent (two-foot and quick leaping; big-man hands, aggressiveness).

MJ was quicker with superior instincts, while being able to work relentlessly and tirelessly on that end in a way that Lebron cannot - of course he also carried the goat offensive load.. He also didn't dance on the sidelines or lay on the ground for 5 minutes after being hit - his mentality was opposite and he famously told a young Horace mid-game "don't let them see you hurt".. So MJ's mentality was superior and he held teammates to account better.. He carried himself in a boss manner that permeated teammates and the team (superior leader).

History shows that MJ was also goat at locking guys down, whereas the only documented case of Lebron playing great defense on an extended basis vs another position (who wasn't a role player and crappy anyway) was his defense on Rose in 2011.. Otherwise, there's only high-profile, playoff examples of him getting destroyed by opposing 4's (West) and fellow perimeter players (Kawhi, KD, Igoudala).

So Lebron has 1 case of defending Rose, while MJ locked down Isiah all the time, or KJ, or Payton - it was standard for MJ to lock up 3 positions, while Lebron can't defend guys off screens like Klay, Reggie or MJ (can't defend 2-guards), while SF's have notable drubbings of him in the Finals and it's a mismatch for any decent big against him just like it is for Jordan.

Furthermore, Jordan was required to be a top defender in the league for every chip (1st team defense), while Lebron wasn't all-defense in his 30's (the latter half of his chips).. Jordan also has the goat longevity of MVP ability by being MVP in 88' and 98' (10 years apart), while being scoring champ and 1st team defense from 88-98' (goat longevity of peak play).

By definition, Finals record is the team ceiling that a player's skillset yields - over decent samples, it's a reflection of the kinds of teams a player typically has - the kind of chemistry and brand of ball a player has

To say that the massive chasm between 6-0 and 4-6 is luck or variance is naive and objectively wrong.. Lebron had 10 years from 2011-2021 of good "help" but won far less than Jordan's 10 years with help (88-98').. Jordan won more MVP's, FMVP's, titles, scoring titles or defensive accolade during this period plus far superior team accomplishment (70 wins, perennial favorite, 3-peat)

What do we project Jordan would have done in his prime against the modern NBA D's and schemes? I'm sure it got mentioned in the other 191 pages. I gotta think he'd have had higher stats across most of his numbers, maybe minus the steals?

Absolutely there's more ways for a good player to generate an advantage over peers (spacing, hand-off defense, defensive 3 second), so this yields higher advanced box stats like PER and also raw stats like PPG, yet Jordan still leads them all

The league allows 20 more PPG than previous eras, most of which goes to star players

Be so cool for someone to write a simulator that would show what Jordan might have averaged today. Scary.

Another rebuttal to the passing and rebounding argument is that Bird, Oscar and Magic were arguably better passers & rebounders than Lebron - so Lebron's own goat argument works against him when compared to other players, which makes it a weak compared to MJ's scoring argument, where no one scored more than MJ..

Scoring is also the most important category because teams can't win with less points, but they can with less rebounds or assists.

However, in addition to PPG, the factor that makes Jordan's scoring even more goat is that no one else in history was good enough to score the most points while playing a championship brand of ball (win titles), except peak Shaq im 2000 or peak Kareem in 71'

You know, if I was an MJ guy I would ****ing hate the arguments you guys make. Making a Finals > Losing before the Finals. ALWAYS AND FOREVER.

MVPs, FMVPS - Jordan has one more, cool. All Defense he has a couple more, has a DPOY but LeBron was robbed in bizarre fashion by Gasol one year. Two more titles.

But LeBron led both teams in a finals in points, assists, rebounds, steals and blocks. Led both teams in the 2015 finals in points, assists and rebounds. First player to ever average a triple double in a finals series. Jordan wasn't physically capable of these things. In terms of longevity, LeBron has 19 All NBAs (20 if he doesn't suffer an injury across the next few games) to Jordan's 11.

You're just so busto man, years of woeful posting. Still here today talking about a "massive chasm" existing between them. It just ain't so. Why don't you give me another essay on ball movement and "ball domination".

Again, this type of era adjustment hurts MJ even further. MJ came into the league when the average team scored 110.8 points per game. The first season where it dipped below 107 was 90-91 or his 7th season, the first season where it dipped below 100 was 95-96 or near the end of his prime.

Lebron came into the league when the average team scored 93.4 points per game. The first season it went above 100 was 08-09 or his 6th season. The first season it went above 107 was 18-19 or his 16th season. Keep in mind, MJ only played 15 seasons in the NBA and 2 of those were throwaway years on the Wizards. If MJ came into the league at around the same time as Lebron and had a similar career arc, he would've played in a far lowering scoring environment than he actually did. This is also true for other stats - the gap in rebounding rate (11.3 vs 9.4) and assist rate (36.3 vs 24.9) between Lebron and MJ is higher than raw per-game numbers would suggest.

Also the actual MJ, if you used the time machine to bring him, would not have been anywhere near as good in the first place. Now that's a bit unfair since MJ didn't have the same benefits modern athletes would have from a skill development perspective. But even boosting him quite a bit to account for that, he would've been a lot less efficient due to the type of defense he would've had to face. Consider why Kobe was much less efficient than MJ.

Now, if you brought him (a sufficiently upgraded version to account for era adjustment) to today's game, MJ would certainly carve up the mid-range, but what little data we have on his shooting - from 96-97 and 97-98 - is that he just wasn't very efficient by modern standards. Those two seasons, he shot a pitiful .590 at the rim (0-3 feet), and just .416 3-10, .456 10-16, .490 16-3P (a bit boosted by a short 3-point line). None of this is particularly good offense and again anecdotally, MJ was rarely doubled on the perimeter and he's neither faced modern defensive schemes (causing him to be guarded 1:1 way more than, say, Kobe) and was seldom guarded by long athletic wings that are common these days, but rare back then. Given these limitations, it's hard to imagine he'd be a game changing type of player. The flip-side of "offense is so easy these days" is that the bar for efficiency is higher and MJ would've had to significantly increase efficiency to justify extraordinary usage on a top team and give his limitations as a player, it's hard to imagine how. He wasn't a great 3-point player, wasn't that efficient at the rim, mid-range shots are structurally inefficient and he wasn't that great of a playmaker for others. You'd may be able to build a mediocre heliocentric offense out of him where he puts up 35/6/6 on a bad offensive team, but his best role might be like Jimmy Butler on the Heat (but smaller and less defensively versatile).

Lebron lost before the Finals more times than Jordan with many bad losses that MJ never had (4-0 sweeps, upset losses, record losses, losses where he was locked up) - all in his prime and with favored rosters (preseason favorites) and rosters with multiple all-star teammates.

And there are many things that Lebron isn't physically capable of like like a sustained, relentless, goat-level effort and performance on both sides of the ball that yields 1st team defense + scoring title or DPOY + scoring title.

In addition to his physical limitations, Lebron also isn't capable SKILL-WISE to carry the scoring load and win with less help - he needs franchise players at 2nd and 3rd option that can match his scoring because he can't carry the scoring load on the championship level (can't defeat max defensive attention).. Lebron never carried scoring load for playoffs and Finals, let alone lead in assists as well like MJ in 91', 93' and 97'.

Again, it's statistical folly and naive to think that the massive chasm between 6-0 and 4-6 is just luck and variance.

At this point, we know the kind of teams that Lebron's skillset yields - they're teams that can't win via chemistry and therefore need more help/talent, while also underachieving favored talent by falling from preseason favorite to Finals underdog or loser every year from 2011-2016 and 2021.. This is literally what happened most years of his prime (preseason favorite to underdog or loser, aka underachieving favored talent via weak chemistry/brand of ball.

Weren't you bragging about your analytic skills or whatever? This is frankly not even up to bar for a 4th grader, let alone someone with an MBA or whatever. If your claims about your past are correct, to what do you owe such precipitous decline in cognitive ability?

Why don't you elaborate more on Lebron's physical limitations? I'm sure that's a great argument for MJ's GOAT case.

Adjusting for pace and drtg

Points per 100 possessions for RS, PO

Jordan........ 40.4, 43.3
Lebron....... 36.7, 36.8

So no

And according to your data, during the period where both eras allowed less than 100 points (96-98' vs 05-09'), Jordan averaged 40-43 pts per 100 vs 34-40 for Lebron.. So Jordan was always scoring more regardless of points allowed, pace or drtg.. Keep in mind that Jordan didn't only score more than Lebron, he averaged 5 more points than anyone in playoff history, so do your analysis for everyone else in history smh - your results would be the same - MJ scored at far higher rate than anyone else - it's silly to argue against 10x scoring champ and the only guy above 30 ppg

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This is quite hilarious. MJ's higher offensive rebounding rate is entirely a function of scheme (and MJ not being disciplined enough to stick to his role at times) - physically, there's zero question who is the better rebounder between the two and the actual rebounding rate difference (where Lebron still has a sizable lead) massively underrates the underlying ability. I mean you claim to have played organized basketball, but I guess you literally didn't understand anything that was going on, which makes sense all things considered.

Twog, have you tried taking this argument to the street? Feels that you're wasting your talent here, it would be far more entertaining that way, especially if someone was kind enough to record or livestream this for social media.

The simplest takes are the best - the truth is always simple

In this case, you're saying that Lebron is goat over MJ due to better rebounding and passing, yet he doesn't even have better rebounding/passing then Bird, Oscar Magic and others.. So they have a better case for goat based on those factors than Lebron, which means those were weak arguments and Bron fans are really reaching by making them