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

Having more weight doesn't always mean stronger or more powerful.

Of course, Shaq or Kemp were more powerful but still inferior because basketball is about SKILL.

And the reality is that MJ is taller, longer, bigger hands and broader shoulders than Ant, despite being skinnier - MJ would look bigger than Ant if they stood next to each other due to bigger bone structure (despite being skinnier with more capacity to add muscle).

Just look how often Ant falls down - he's a lot like Iverson or Wade in that way - I guess falling down is a short guy thing

Ant's first 3 seasons were as follows:

1) lottery
2) 1st Round loss (2-4)
3) 1st Round loss (1-4)

So what's worse - lottery and then 3-8, or no lottery and 1-9?

Most importantly - Ant has an All-NBA teammate and another teammate that is candidate for goat defender - Jordan 3-peated with less

It's remarkable that the shorter guy (Ant) is the power guy with less scoring and shot-making variety, while the taller guy is actually the more skilled player with unlimited shot-making diversity, polish, and finesse

The best part is that all these guys just show how great MJ is - I didn't realize how great MJ was until I compared Ant's rudimentary shot-making - it makes MJ look like a completely different level

Ant regular season Age 22 stats per 36:

26.6/5.6/5.3 on 57.5 TS%

Playoffs:

30.1/7/5 on 65.6 TS% (5-0 team record)

MJ first two seasons (age 21 and 22) per 36:

27.2/6/5.3 on 58 TS%

Playoffs:

29.2/4.9/6 on 57.5 TS% (1-6 team record)

MJ CAREER per 36:

28.3/5.9/4.9 on 56.9 TS%

candybar is right - the evidence is pretty clear that Ant is very similar if not > MJ on an absolute basis right now. Obviously the league as a whole has gotten much more efficient, so MJ was superior on a relative basis, but numbers don’t lie.

yeah only fallguy lies itt (mostly to himself).

the numbers do NOT.

Nature of highlights, those aren't good possessions(maybe the layup) but you just ignore the 70% of shots like that he missed, I mean sometimes you are forced to settle for contested shots but if you force those types of attempts a lot you'll win since he's going to miss a ton

Except for the facts that scoring today is far easier and stats are boost up ….
Anyone knows mj would be scoring more in this era like any other players.

How can a guy have all-time "IQ" but have a long history of bad chemistry, bad fits and turning guys into spot-up shooter, which never developed a single young player in 2 decades (zero young players grew from low producer to meaningful producer on his watch)???

The reason that everyone thinks Lebron has all-time "IQ" is that everyone conflates IQ with vision, even though they aren't the same - vision is being able to find the open man or set up a teammate, while IQ is understanding how to execute the best brand of ball, fits, chemistry and how to develop young players.

The proof is in the results - Lebron has zero #1 offenses in 21 years and low ball movement (low assist teams) - the common thread in all of Lebron's playoff losses for the last 10 years is massive deficits in team assists - he gets beat by better brands of ball and chemistry (Spurs, Nuggets, Warriors, Mavs), thus confirming that his own brand and chemistry is consistently inferior.. So Lebron lacks all-time IQ because he doesn't understand what the best brand of ball is (ball movement) and certainly cannot execute it as the biggest ball-dominator and turnover king in the history of the game.

(Lebron decreases everyone's assists and increases their play-finishing, aka assisted rate, so he does infact turn guys into spot-up shooter, hence the weak chemistry and young player development)
.

Congrats on not reading the post, impressive stuff.

MJ was barely more efficient in the regular season and worse in the playoffs - a 1.7 TS% is not a meaningful single year gap at all. They were very similar players on an absolute basis at the same age, and that’s with being generous to MJ.

^^^ Nonsense

85' MJ.............. 25.8 PER... 7.3 BPM... 7.4 VORP.... 0.213 WS/48... 28.2.. 6.5.. 5.9.. 2.4.. 0.8.. 59.3 TS
24' ANT........... 19.7 PER... 3.3 BPM... 3.7 VORP.... 0.130 WS/48... 25.9.. 5.4.. 5.1.. 1.3.. 0.5.. 57.5 TS

MJ's efficiency was superior despite facing max defensive attention (carrying scoring load), while Ant has a developed team (4th year team) and All-NBA teammates to take defensive attention away from him.. Meanwhile, Ant can exert less defensive energy by virtue of having the GOAT defender on his team...

All-NBA teammate + the goat defender = more help than MJ 3-peated with.... So it looks like another fake debate

MJ's scoring and shot-making diversity was 2nd to none - Ant is basic by comparison... MJ is the only goat athlete with goat-jumpshooting on either 2's or 3's
.

Jordan has better efficiency than Ant despite a much heavier scoring burden (facing greater defensive attention) - Ant doesn't get doubled like MJ or at least I didn't see it in Game 1 - doubling Jordan was a standard gameplan for literally every opponent that MJ faced.. The main gameplanning was the doubling schemes on MJ.. Ant simply isn't nearly as lethal a scorer... Go youtube "Jordan total reverse" - Ant is nowhere near this level of shot-making - no one is

So I've been thinking about the talent pool thing, especially in light of the fact that the former D-1 player from the 90's ITT that seems to think moves being executed at a level commonly seen in AAU U12 tournaments are some amazing next-level stuff. Then embarrassingly posts about Ant while comparing to early MJ, posting videos of MJ improvising random shots that are mainly demonstrative of MJ's poor decision making and lack of counter-moves to get separation that modern top players would have easily managed. While of course ignoring the fact that Ant literally is doing a bunch of things that MJ couldn't dream of, not to mention that Ant pulls off a lot of the same moves MJ did (um, you know, good ones, not the garbage stuff posted recently) with crisper execution.

That made me think - one key reason as to why the effective basketball talent pool has exploded that we don't talk about often enough is the internet. From a baseball thread:

We can see the velocity improvements in baseball as a fairly objective measurement of the effective increase in talent pool. We know the human body hasn't changed that much and raw athleticism can't have improved that much, yet velo at the highest level (or for that matter any other measurement of pitch quality) has gone up substantially even over the last 10 years. We also know hitting has improved significantly because somehow scoring isn't down that much despite absolutely crazy improvements in pitching. And we know that all of this is largely due to significantly better training at the youth level.

While it's difficult to measure this for basketball the same way, the same is likely happening.

Kids are simply exposed to much higher quality instruction much earlier, because the internet democratized access. This likely started in the early 2000's as the internet started to become mainstream but likely significantly accelerated since then. Basketball is also one of those sports where natural talent is so important that so much innovation happens outside of the NBA, and the internet facilitated these skills to be transferred across the world - there are tons of moves that are in wide use today that were either not invented yet or were highly obscure in the 90's. Since learning the game early at a high level increases the skill ceiling, this massievly increased the effective talent pool over that time period. Which explains why the last generation that grew up largely without the benefits of this aged so terribly:

From the standpoint of how they learned to play, not much changed from MJ to Lebron. However, because Lebron was basically part of the last generation before the internet changed everything, he had to compete against the next generation that was far more skilled. This meant Lebron's generation, as a group, appeared to age extremely poorly. Yet Lebron still remains a top player.

I think this is also an underrated part of what we think of as the 3-point revolution. Sure, coaches and front offices were sometimes being dumb about mid-range shots, but a huge part of this was that there just weren't that many good 3-point shooters and because there weren't that many good 3-point shooters (not just NBA, but all levels), and basketball tactics around utilizing 3-point shots were somewhat primitive. It's probably not a coincidence that the 3-point revolution only really started as the new internet generation (i.e. KD and Curry age cohort) came into their own in the league.

How can a guy have all-time "IQ" but have a long history of bad chemistry, bad fits and turning guys into spot-up shooter, which never developed a single young player in 2 decades (zero young players grew from low producer to meaningful producer on his watch)???

The reason that everyone thinks Lebron has all-time "IQ" is that everyone conflates IQ with vision and also memory, even though they aren't the same - vision is being able to find the open man or set up a teammate, while IQ is understanding how to execute the best brand of ball, fits, chemistry and how to develop young players.

And the memory stuff is BS because every basketball player is supposed to learn the opponents' plays and coaches have their team simulate the opponents' plays in practice - some players are better than others at remembering the plays but this was something I was really good at.. Peers simply talk about Lebron's memory because some of the stuff on all these podcasts is bullshit -:this is one of those things - not everything these guys talk about is real.

The proof is in the results - Lebron has zero #1 offenses in 21 years and low ball movement (low assist teams) - the common thread in all of Lebron's playoff losses for the last 10 years is massive deficits in team assists - he gets beat by better brands of ball and chemistry (Spurs, Nuggets, Warriors, Mavs), thus confirming that his own brand and chemistry is consistently inferior.. So Lebron lacks all-time IQ because he doesn't understand what the best brand of ball is (ball movement) and certainly cannot execute it as the biggest ball-dominator and turnover king in the history of the game.

(fyi regarding Lebron turning teammates into spot-up shooter - it's statistical fact - Lebron decreases everyone's assists and increases their play-finishing, aka assisted rate... So he does infact turn guys into spot-up shooter, hence the weak chemistry and young player development).

Oh joy. Another copy pasta from fallguy.

Get some new material.

In contrast to Lebron's history of bad fits, zero young player development, or weak ball movement and brand of ball, aka low IQ, Curry has goat IQ because his brand of ball was so great that it changed an era.. Curry took the 2014 Spurs basketball to another level and always had great fits, chemistry and teammate development - that's goat IQ - Curry understands how to play off teammates and elevate teammates, while Lebron clearly doesn't.. Curry's greater chemistry allows the team can win with less, such Wiggins or Poole (clear-cut disappointments that Curry turned into winners, while Lebron craters teammates and never grew any young players).. The story for 21 years is always how Lebron's teammates are underperforming, which confirms Lebron's inability to develop great chemistry that elevates teammates.

You post the same things over and over and over. No one even bothers to read the posts anymore. Save your time and do something else is my suggestion.

Why not try to answer the question?

How can a guy have all-time "IQ" but have a long history of bad chemistry, bad fits and turning guys into spot-up shooter, which never developed a single young player in 2 decades (zero young players grew from low producer to meaningful producer on his watch)???

Aren't people conflating "IQ" (understanidng the best brand of ball and how to elevate teammates) with vision (finding the open man) and also memory (doing what all basketball players do - memorize the opponent's plays - some do it better than others)

It's okay - I don't really want an answer - I just want you to read the posts/education, which you have and do

You guys should add Ant and to the thread title... And why not add Candybar?.. He's put in a pretty good effort - you guys don't like him or something?

Awww man who changed the thread title?

It was so cool when it was the other way 😀

Sorry candybar - no shine for you i guess.. i tried

And I guess Jokic lacks what is needed to win with bums like Murray and Pippen - goat scoring to defeat max defensive attention (carry scoring load)

But Lebron had 6 and 8 point playoff games, so I think you guys should leave Jokic in the thread title... to be consistent.

I don’t care to answer you.

Time to take the thread down because all these bums are choking and falling short of the GOAT standard and making mods change the thread titles, thus proving that there should never have been a thread in the first place.... Jokic, Magic, Wilt, Lebron, Shaq - you name it - the massive sample size of everyone falls short of the GOAT standard

Another one bites the dust baby!!!

No one can live up to the GOAT standard of being an unbeatable with just 1 all-star teammate, or having the goat ring count and ring frequency in the modern era as the best player, and with a "normal" cast (1 franchise player)

[quote=fallguy]85' MJ.............. 25.8 PER... 7.3 BPM... 7.4 VORP.... 0.213 WS/48... 28.2.. 6.5.. 5.9.. 2.4.. 0.8.. 59.3 TS
24' ANT........... 19.7 PER... 3.3 BPM... 3.7 VORP.... 0.130 WS/48... 25.9.. 5.4.. 5.1.. 1.3.. 0.5.. 57.5 TS[/quote]

key stat missing is WIM:

MJ..................92.8 WIM
ANT...............98.4 WIM

puts him over the edge

wemby > ant > mj > bron /thread

Thread title updated!

As if TS% is everything.
Even KD didn’t care much about TS% , he rather focus on what actually happen during the game in FG% , does the player hit the shot or not during the game and MJ is much better with much higher scoring …
I don’t consider a guy scoring 30 ppg with the same TS% bs with a similar TS% but scoring 5-10 ppg lower as being similar .

What year are you comparing anyway ?
It is just a fact , today every players score more pts .
U see it in individual stats , team stats , amazing scoring in single game , etc .

It doesnt matter he deserve the mvp or not.
The argument u made was malone was old and not in his prime which its clearly not true.
he dominate from 97 to 99.

Please dont use lebron team failure to show how the jazz wouldnt win.
it make no sense.
Especially when lebron beat them the year before...

Compare with similar thing.
take the houston 1997 and tell me hakeem isnt as good a defender as duncan?
they both had similar stats and both players were surrounded by good 2 HoF and good support cast.
You talk about kawhi defense well houston had mario elie and he finish 6th in dpoy in 97 for example too.
and they had 6 players in double digit in scoring....
Well the jazz beat them 4-1 that year...

please stop.
lebron in his prime in miami were a better team aged between 29-32 then old spurs at 36-37 years old and a baby kawhi ...just stop.
i mean lebron did beat the same spurs the year before while the spurs being younger and duncan that year being better then 2014 ...

point is, the jazz beat similar team has the spurs (houston) and swept other kind of teams like shaq surrounded by 3 all stars for example (61 wins team) .

anyway believe what u will but the jazz only got defeated by the goat while beating and even crushing everything else for 2 years, that is all i know.
Even yes, the spurs got beaten 4-1 by the jazz with "baby" tim duncan and robinson in 98 ( champion the year after..)
But i mean if baby kawhi so great in your opinion shouldnt duncan be considered the same ?
duncan rookie year was better then duncan 2014 year that is for sure...