LeBron > Jordan GOAT Super AIDS Containment, solved #22999 post by Matt R. (addendum #23174)
Very impressed with the minute sequence where LeBron clearly lost the ball headed to the rim, heat got the ball anyway and scored, then he elbows his defender in the chin, drawing a defensive foul and stern talking to from the official and hitting a 3.
It's these ref assisted 5 point swings in close games that truly bring out the best in great players.
Link to post of why Elon Musk is the true GOAT: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showp...
The thread that will go on for years..........
vs.
Well, I'm 38. So I can't speak too much on 80s basketball. If you want to criticize my knowledge of basketball, ok...but you don't know me and I'm not typing out these ridiculously long dissertations that are mostly insulting.
If you don't understand the topic at hand and don't want to be insulted, maybe don't write a mostly insulting post in a hostile tone:
Are you really posting a gobert hail mary fade away as evidence that players today are better?
Ever heard of arvedis sabonis or Hakeem Olajuwan btw?
If you don't understand the point, maybe ask actual questions instead of that?
Do you realize that growing up in the 90s I was flat out told that a 3 point shot was "a bad shot"? Just the way it was.
Not practicing a 3-point shot growing up doesn't have much impact on your ceiling as as a shooter, as long as you understand and work on the shooting fundamentals. If anything, it's very easy to get into bad habits (you see this all the time) trying to shoot 3's when you're not ready and don't have the fundamentals mastered. For players that end up being really tall (i.e. most NBA players), this is even more true - your mechanics will change a ton as you grow anyway, so it's much more important to understand the fundamentals, since specifics will change.
Now, today's players are way better at shooting, but it's not because kids are chucking up 3's from when they are little, but rather because players are taught better shooting fundamentals that then later translate as they increase their range.
But honestly, to assume that because you didn't see Jordan shoot these shots doesn't mean he couldn't. That's just silly.
No, we know this because we saw MJ's evolution as a jump-shooter and a post-player. It's not like we didn't see a turnaround jumper early on - we saw MJ execute it incorrectly by today's standards, he didn't know how to get separation with his feet or with the post-up, so he would either go up and awkwardly maneuver his upper body to get the shot off or just rely on the quickness / vertical.
The dude made a living as the greatest jump shooter ever and you think at 23 years old he would struggle to shoot fadeaways?
Michael Jordan came into the league at 21, but yeah that's the point - he was an unpolished jump-shooter at the time. This is fairly well-known, you could literally look this up and is kind of the entire point. It's also important to distinguish touch from footwork and skill moves (which in turn are distinct from shooting mechanics) - I think this is where you're getting confused. MJ always had great shooting touch - this doesn't mean he mastered the footwork for various skill moves he came to be known later for.
But your rather quick to try and insult and as someone mentioned the yin to his yang.
Again, this is ironic coming from someone who started the interaction with "Ever heard of Sabonis or Hakeem"
You literally believe you know more about ball than any random you run into here and automatically assume you have more experience? That alone calls into question the validity of your claims.
No, I don't have to assume, because I can read your posts and infer lack of certain knowledge.
if you watched the series you'd know rudy shot about 25% on clean floaters in the lane over a decent sample. i'll bet my life he can't replicate that shot at 30%. just look at wolves bench player afterward... he reacts exactly like someone who just won the lottery.
The shot in question is a 13-footer and Gobert is .275 from 10-16 over the past 5 years and .324 over the past 3. And .381 from 3-10 over the past 5 and .414 over the past 3. Gobert is also 3 of 8 from 3-10 and 5 of 7 from 10-16 in the playoffs this year.
I'm not sure why you think your (almost certainly incorrect) guess as to how often Rudy Gobert made floaters over a single playoff series is particularly meaningful.
If anything, the worse you think Rudy Gobert is at making the shot, the stronger this becomes as evidence of gap between today's game and 80's/90's basketball.
Again, if you want to understand, this is probably the most important point. The worse Gobert's shooting touch is, the less useful this shot is for him (not just at the moment, but at any point in Gobert's basketball career) and the more impressive it is that he knows how to execute it. As in today's basketball players are so skilled that they know how to do all sorts of things at a high level even though they don't have the complementary skills to make them useful.
Whereas, tons of guys in the 80's for whom this actually would've been extremely useful, didn't know how to do it. That's the skill gap we're talking about.
Pau was one of the best defensive players in the league in LA.
And how many titles did Kobe win without Phil? How many excuses are you gonna make up for those?
Americans - who are mostly idiots - badly underrate Pau and overrated Kobe.
Pua was two decades ahead of his time interns of skill set. And he was a winner with a killer mentality.
obviously any good scorer had a killer turnaround - Bernard King, Alex English, Dominique, Jordan, Bird, Kiki Vandeweghe - amazing turnaround jumpers.. Rookie Jordan already had a great turnaround although he didn't need it as often due to his athleticism at that time.. Don't make me start posting a bunch of Jordan turnarounds, but he was doing the windshield wiper move from COLLEGE, let alone the NBA.
So let's take this as an example:
Most of these jumpshots are poorly executed by today's standards - poor footwork leading to poor alignment and poor separation despite less athletic and shorter defenders, leading to that weird shooting motion where he has to extend arms all the way and flick to get the shot off. Keep in mind, you see rookie MJ doing similar things - to his credit, MJ figured out everything out over time and looked like a modern player by the early 90's. Or should I say, modern players now look like MJ.
There's a reason why one of the most skilled scorers of his era with an incredible shooting touch who was a physical mismatch for the league at 6-8, against terrible defenses of the time put up just .550 TS for his career. You give him modern skills and footwork and he'd probably put up like .650+ TS.
Again, this is extremely unfair because the game hadn't evolved enough for people to understand what you were even supposed to do. Coaches back then couldn't tell you what you were supposed to do.
There certainly wasn't a video like this you could watch:
I mean you were lucky if someone wasn't trying to get you to do things incorrectly. I'm sure the proper footwork as we understand literally came from earlier players like Alex English messing around with different things and the basketball world collectively figuring out what's effective. But that's the point - the game evolves.
Most SG's in today's game are 6'2" to 6'4" - Scotty Barnes is the only SG listed at 6'7", whereas there were tons of 6'7" shooting guards in Jordan's era:
Wait, your impression is that NBA players are shorter nowadays? They are generally taller, with the major difference that players nowadays are generally listed at height without shoes, whereas in the past they were generally listed at whatever they wished their height was with shoes.
Americans - who are mostly idiots - badly underrate Pau and overrated Kobe.
Pua was two decades ahead of his time interns of skill set. And he was a winner with a killer mentality.
Kobe was awesome in those years with Pau. That shouldn't be taken away from him. They were probably his best seasons. But Pau was a lot of help toward the chips and that shouldn't be taken away from him, either.
Once you take into account the fact that the league is exp0nentially better now with more internat1onal players and thus greater competition than LeBon had in the ‘00’s and ‘10’s, and the advanced $tat$ of the Joker (u guys remember advanced $tat$, right lol?), Nikola Jokic is easily the GOAT. Based on the arguments laid forth previously in this thread, of course. Based on that.
+1
Not forgetting it’s not jokic fault , like LeBron .
His team let him down …(that remind me someone playing a certain game 7 in 1990 vs the pistons ..)
FWIW u will always find some events where the best player didn’t win because of outside variables .
But at least we can say jokic didn’t had a meltdown .
34/19/7 seem an ok performance for a game 7 ….
At least it's official that LeBron is no longer LAL best player.
Regular season:
Lebron EPM: 5.9 (T-5 amongst qualifying players)
AD EPM: 4.5 (17th)
Lebron BPM: 6.5 (6th)
AD BPM: 5.1 (13th)
Lebron Net Rating: +9.8
AD Net Rating: +6
Playoffs:
Lebron BPM: 10.6
AD BPM: 7.3
The all nba voters are a bunch of twogs. Lebron has a decent argument for 1st team all nba and should have been second team at worst.
The "next MJ" just had 4 games under 20 points in his last 6, and 3 of those games were sub-30% shooting.
A shrimp with baby steps and hands compared to MJ
Wow, and Ant is a horrible defender - horrific fundamentals - doesn't get low enough to play elite D
Wow guys really?... I hadn't watched Tatum in a while but he looks more like MJ than anyone else as far as the way he's scoring - the moves that he's using to score and where he's catching the ball - the 36 second mark to the 52 second marks says it all but he scores the ways that MJ does all game long:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BYfbf5o...
How in the hell is that not a lot like MJ as far as where he's catching the ball and the types of moves and shots that he's taking?... He's even fighting for good post position and sealing his man for an easy finish - kicking it back out and getting better position for a re-entry - I don't see anyone else in the league doing these things or playing that way - such an off-ball clinic and low ball-domination.. I see why he said that he's the best player in the league earlier this year.. Boston should win this easily.. I hope it's Tatum and Luka in the Finals... I'll watch that one.
Wait, your impression is that NBA players are shorter nowadays? They are generally taller, with the major difference that players nowadays are generally listed at height without shoes, whereas in the past they were generally listed at whatever they wished their height was with shoes.
The average height of today's player is 1 inch shorter than previous eras and I just listed a bunch of bonafide 6'7" shooting guards like Dale Ellis, Reggie Lewis, Clyde Drexler, Reggie Miller, Dan Majerle, Finley, Theus, Sealy and many more - these guys were legitimately 6'7" and it's common knowledge - the eye test would also confirm this quite clearly.. Gifs provided above - no one would try to say Lewis or Ellis or Gervin aren't 6'7"... that's why I provided all the specific examples, so you couldn't refute it with some broad brush statement like wishful height or whatever you said.
It's simply a fact that today's small ball is a common strategy and it's lowered the height and length of the league compared to prior eras.. Guys like Derrick White and other 3-point shooters are all listed as SG's.. Again, previous eras weren't allowed to travel or carry, so their handle was inferior - they offset this with HEIGHT at the SG position and other posiitons.
Wow guys really?... I hadn't watched Tatum in a while but he looks more like MJ than anyone else as far as the way he's scoring - the moves that he's using to score and where he's catching the ball - the 36 second mark to the 52 second marks says it all but he scores the ways that MJ does all game long:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BYfbf5o...
How in the hell is that not a lot like MJ as far as where he's catching the ball and the types of moves and shots that he's taking?... He's even fighting
Please stop arguing with nobody on Ant being the next MJ. I'm embarrassed for you.
Regular season:
Lebron EPM: 5.9 (T-5 amongst qualifying players)
AD EPM: 4.5 (17th)
Lebron BPM: 6.5 (6th)
AD BPM: 5.1 (13th)
Lebron Net Rating: +9.8
AD Net Rating: +6
Playoffs:
Lebron BPM: 10.6
AD BPM: 7.3
The all nba voters are a bunch of twogs. Lebron has a decent argument for 1st team all nba and should have been second team at worst.
It's okay. Being the second best player on a team that got knocked out in the first round in 5 games, by a team that got eliminated in the second round is still a massive achievement 👍
Luka + old kyrie > lebron + young kyrie.
So let's take this as an example:
Most of these jumpshots are poorly executed by today's standards - poor footwork leading to poor alignment and poor separation despite less athletic and shorter defenders, leading to that weird shooting motion where he has to extend arms all the way and flick to get the shot off. Keep in mind, you see rookie MJ doing similar things - to his credit, MJ figured out everything out over time and looked like a modern player by the early 90's. Or should I say, modern
The biggest change is that literally no one had a left hand except maybe Isiah. To defend mj you they forced him left all the time.
It's almost like basketball gods are conspiring to make fun of twog now:
Turnaround jumper, so easy that even Gobert can do it.
On a more serious note though, this is the kind of skill gap I'm talking about and why offensive efficiency has exploded. Back in twog's days, this was something that lots of players, even decently skilled, could not execute well at all. In today's game, even one of the least offensively skilled players can pull this off. But the bar for efficiency is so high now - MJ'
Yes only the players of today can evolve , not the players of other eras….
It’s like thinking chess players , poker players of 20 years ago wouldn’t be better today if they had all the tools of today , to get better back then .
The narrative of “The peak they had then is the max they could ever have achieve, regardless of the environment u put them in” is so dumb ….
It's okay. Being the second best player on a team that got knocked out in the first round in 5 games, by a team that got eliminated in the second round is still a massive achievement 👍
Well two decades straight of All - NBA level play is a massive achievement. Year in, year out for 20 ****ing years.
Davis being considered the 10th best player on the season and LeBron 11th doesn’t bother me in the slightest here.
Yes only the players of today can evolve , not the players of other eras….
It’s like thinking chess players , poker players of 20 years ago wouldn’t be better today if they had all the tools of today , to get better back then .
The narrative of “The peak they had then is the max they could ever have achieve, regardless of the environment u put them in” is so dumb ….
Incredible. The entire point is that those players from the 80's and 90's would be much better if they had access to modern training.
Incredible. The entire point is that those players from the 80's and 90's would be much better if they had access to modern training.
Ah ok
It's almost like basketball gods are conspiring to make fun of twog now:
Turnaround jumper, so easy that even Gobert can do it.
On a more serious note though, this is the kind of skill gap I'm talking about and why offensive efficiency has exploded. Back in twog's days, this was something that lots of players, even decently skilled, could not execute well at all. In today's game, even one of the least offensively skilled players can pull this off.
But everyone would be better except mj because he couldn’t have learn to be a bit better 3pts shooting like everybody else to have slightly better advanced stats in TS% ….
Ah ok
But everyone would be better except mj because he couldn’t have learn to be a bit better 3pts shooting like everybody else to have slightly better advanced stats in TS% ….
No. He means MJ's career TS% as it was if pasted into today would be well below average, not that MJ wouldn't have been a better player had he been born in 1995 than he was in reality.
You're missing the point. People are trying to argue that MJ is better than Lebron in *absolute* terms rather than just *relative to his era* terms, and that is LOL.
