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.
Got it.
Luka has gone from an overrated star that can never win to the best player in the league.
I'm just saying what you guys say - I've heard you guys say many times that Luka is the best player in the league..
So now that the league has sent him to Lebron, the league agenda is clearly to get Lebron #5... And before that the agenda was to get him #4.... Imagine failing for 5 years to get #5 with AD, so now the league upgrades you to the league's best player (Luka).
See that's the thing - everyone in history was carried by teammates (had teammates match or lead them in scoring for a playoff run), except Jordan...
A reminder that Michael Jordan played with Scottie Pippen from 1987 to 1998 (minus the baseball years). This covers the entirety of both players’ primes.
Pippen is better than anyone LeBron ever played with. He is ranked 27th all time on backpicks top 40 careers of all-time.
LeBron played with Dwyane Wade, but only for four years. He began breaking down in 2011-2012 and had knee issues throughout the 2011-12 season. So basically one healthy year of Wade (proof here:
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Wade’s healthy prime was pre-LeBron. AD and Kyrie do not sniff the top 40.
Jordan had far more consistent help across his career than LeBron had. Pippen throughout his entire prime. Elite role players in Dennis Rodman and Horace Grant. Kukoc. Tons of other role players that fit in perfectly with the triangle. Kerr, Paxson, Armstrong, Harper, etc.
Then the GOAT coach in Phil Jackson with 11 titles. It’s really not even close. Jordan didn’t win anything without Pippen and Phil Jackson - this is historical fact.
Matt, what would you have rated Pippen during his time (prime) in the league as far as how valuable he was relative to the other players? Just a number is fine along with who'd be right above him and right below him?
Nice argument. This explains why Michael Jordan was regarded as an extremely ball dominant player early in his career. It wasn’t until Phil Jackson became head coach and implemented the triangle offense that Jordan was willing to give up the ball, at all. This is the final proof that assisted field goal % is a completely irrelevant stat, and it is the scheme, and the role of the player within that scheme, which determines their assisted field goal %.
Just like Phil didn't know about modern concepts like 3 > 2, win shares, or offensive rating, he also didn't realize that most of Jordan's buckets were assisted and therefore mistakenly thought Jordan's 37 ppg meant he always had the ball...
But nowadays, the assisted rate stat exists so we can wrap our head around he concept and easily know that Klay has a high assisted rate even without looking it up, or Reggie Miller, Dale Ellis and the goat off-guard, Michael Jordan.. The eye test easily shows this for all these guys - Jordan has always been praised for his lack of ball-domination and ignorant fans simply sully his reputation by conflating shot attempts (usage) and ball-domination..
I just schooled Fidstar on assisted rate a few posts up in 1 sentence (here, yet you guys still pretend that you don't understand because you realize that if it's true, then I'm right and Lebron isn't top 10.. Well too bad because you're always going to run into the facts because bball 101 and the stats never change - shot attempts doesn't measure how long a player has the ball - time of possession does, and also assisted rate, since assisted buckets use much less hold-time.
I'm just saying what you guys say - I've heard you guys say many times that Luka is the best player in the league..
So now that the league has sent him to Lebron, the league agenda is clearly to get Lebron #5... And before that the agenda was to get him #4.... Imagine failing for 5 years to get #5 with AD, so now the league upgrades you to the league's best player (Luka).
No one has ever said Luka is the best player in the league. That is clearly Jokic. Luka is great, but a tier below (probably alongside SGA and Giannis).
Are you retracting your previous hundred post-spree argument that two ball dominant players (Luka and LeBron) cannot possibly play together? The Lakers finished 47-35 last year, 8th place in the West, and lost in the first round 1-4. If you are not admitting your previous argument was wrong, when do you expect them to collapse? Are you defining “collapse” to be a post-first round playoff exit? Because that’s not a collapse — remember they lost 1-4 in the first round last year.
Matt, what would you have rated Pippen during his time (prime) in the league as far as how valuable he was relative to the other players? Just a number is fine along with who'd be right above him and right below him?
Offensively, I’d probably put him around 6th or 7th in the league. ‘94 and ‘95 are the best measures of his skill because he was the first option.
I’d put DRob, Malone, Barkley, Drexler, Shaq, Hakeem ahead of him. That’s 6. I’d say he was on the Payton/Stockton/Reggie Miller tier.
Now his defense was otherworldly and he is in contention as the GOAT wing defender. Not Hakeem level since he’s not a post defender but I’d feel comfortable rating him as 2nd or no lower than third.
So I think I’d put Pippen at his absolute peak as say around the 4th or 5th best player in the league at the time. Say tied with or slightly below Malone/Barkley. I’d say prime DRob, Hakeem, and young Shaq were a tier above.
Just like Phil didn't know about modern concepts like 3 > 2, win shares, or offensive rating, he also didn't realize that most of Jordan's buckets were assisted and therefore mistakenly thought Jordan's 37 ppg meant he always had the ball...
But nowadays, the assisted rate stat exists so we can wrap our head around he concept and easily know that Klay has a high assisted rate even without looking it up, or Reggie Miller, Dale Ellis and the goat off-guard, Michael Jordan.. The eye test easily sho
Completely false. You just said a player with an assisted rate above 40% could still be ball dominant. Jordan was extremely ball dominant before Phil Jackson and the triangle, and this is the textbook example. This proves assisted rate is irrelevant, and is purely a function of offensive scheme and a player’s role within that scheme.
I honest to god used to have Michael Jordan as a clear (but close) #1 all time with LeBron as a clear (but close) #2.
When I first really paid attention to fallguy’s dumbass arguments it was because he was ranking Kobe over LeBron. That got me to engage and really think about it, but I still had Jordan #1.
But I have changed my mind to put LeBron #1 because I actually agree with fallguy about assists being important to overall team success. And when I dug into the numbers it is factually clear LeBron is a tier or two above Jordan at generating assists (LeBron creates far more assists himself, and his lower assisted fg% only changes his per game assisted field goals by a fraction of a basket). It became clear to me that the reason for the title differences is because Jordan had far more consistent roster help with Pippen and other role players, way better and more consistent coaching, and a far superior consistent scheme to play in with the ‘90’s Bulls. LeBron was limited by factors outside of his control, not skill differences.
So yeah fallguy’s ultra dumbass otherworldly stupid arguments did actually get me to change my mind and now I have LeBron #1 since I did some research into the assist data and really truly considered what LeBron’s external limitations were (coaching, scheme, and general/consistent roster help). Oh and the Steph/Durant Warriors obviously. 10x better than any opponent Jordan ever faced.
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Comparing sidekick help while trying to 3-peat
Playoffs
14' Wade..... 18.5 PER.. 0.086 ws/48.. 28.6 pts per 100.... 56.0 ts... 106 ortg
93' Pippen... 16.9 PER.. 0.083 ws/48.. 26.2 pts per 100.... 50.0ts.... 102 ortg
13' Wade shows a much bigger advantage over Pippen and outscored the opposing #1 option in the Finals while being near-equal scoring partner to Lebron (1b).
backpicks?.. that's your argument?... some magazine?
If you can't make a case for Pippen's career based on his actual performance and instead must point to a magazine that bases his caliber on 6 chips that he was dragged to - then you have no case.
it's easy to make shallow fans think you had a great career when you get dragged to 6 titles by the goat...... despite having the worst efficiency and clutch that anyone ever had, and averaging under 20 for your Finals and playoff career... Pippen was just a role player, like Dominique said here.
Ultimately, Jordan 3-peated with 32-year old PIppen because he averaged 41 ppg, while Lebron failed to 3-peat with 32-year old Wade because he averaged 13 less, which caused a 13-point margin of loss... So the numbers always back up what I'm saying, and never what you're saying, unless you misstate what something is, such as saying shot attempts/usage is ball-domination, smh.
Jordan had 1 all-star for 7 seasons, while Lebron had 2 all-stars for 7 seasons (2011 to 2017), and then a rich man's Pippen for 6 (AD).. Now he's got Magic (Luka).
Lebron never had to win with young or aging teammates like Jordan did because he got to refresh his cast with the best prime players in the league on 4 different occasions (including the disposal of AD).
Wade was top 5 in everything in 2012 and better than Pippen ever was based on PPG, efficiency, PER, BPM, WS/48 and more, while Pippen was broken down in 93' and 96-98' with the worst stats than any winning sidekick ever had - this is well documented..
The 93' Playoffs show that Pippen had the lowest PER, WS/48, VORP, BPM and TS of any winning sidekick, while also averaging 17 on 41% for the entire 2nd three-peat Playoffs (96-98').. Again, Jordan could carry weak help over top teams, while Lebron can't, since he never beat a top 5 SRS team with weak scoring & efficiency from a sidekick, and he never defeated max defensive attention (carried scoring load on championship level).
Both are much better than Pippen by virtue of not being carried players - their dominant and superior performance makes them superior, while Pippen is simply inflated by the winning spotlight to undeserved media accolade..
Pippen's actual performance was inferior, so he's inferior... He never outplayed the league's best players like Barkley, Malone, Hakeem or Shaq, while AD and Kyrie did outplay league MVP's like Curry, Jokic or young MJ... This means more than meaningless media awards.. Pippen was just a role player and mostly a dunker/defender.
Lebron had twice the help of Jordan, since Jordan had an all-star teammate for 7 years, while Lebron TWO all-star teammates for 7 years (11' to 17'), and then another 6 years with a rich man's Pippen (AD)... Now he's got a Magic (Luka).
Yet he produced perennial losers with all of these teammates.
fallguy has every single person in this thread that put Jordan at #1 arguing against him in this thread. Incredible.
One thing we aren't considering in these GOAT debates is how difficult it is currently to construct contending teams with all the new league rules.
If you threw Jokic into the league in the mid 90s and then gave him Kobe on the Lakers, we probably would have Jokic as a top 3 GOAT all time if not the GOAT.
Go away fallguy you lost. Prime Pippen was a far superior player to knee falling apart breaking down post-prime Dwyane Wade.
Notice that Pippen was a more efficient and effective offensive player in his prime when Michael Jordan was not on the roster in ‘94 and ‘95. Which immediately torpedoes your “Jordan makes teammates better due to his assisted field goal %” argument (legit what the ****, that is the stupidest argument ever. Even on the surface. How have you kept it up for this long lol.)
The backpicks “magazine” provides some of the best true comprehensive basketball analysis out there, and I would much rather trust his analysis of Pippen as a player (not even accounting for his stats and actually watching him play), over a deranged internet lunatic.
You said that Tatum had a low 40% assisted rate last year, yet the Celtics still had a good regular season, so I pointed out that it's common for low-assisted rates to still have good regular seasons, such as SGA or Lebron for example... But again, these individual seasons are irrelevant to whether they can produce the BEST basketball (dynasties or dominant champions)... And of course right on schedule, a higher assisted rate from Tatum was required for his team to dominate playoff competition (
So why you cared so much on preseason odds and not on the final odds if regular season does means ***** ?
Don’t you have consistency on anything you speak about ?
Got it.
Luka has gone from an overrated star that can never win to the best player in the league.
+1
Got it.
Individual seasons are irrelevant when determining a dominate champion, despite there being a strong correlation between winning during the regular season and being a dominate Champion.
Exactly .
Stockton is the only example, and we don't have his numbers before 1997 - I'm going off his old years from 97' and 98', so he might not even be an example.
Otherwise, every other primary ball-handler has a career assisted rate below 40% for the guys that we have entire careers of number for.
Jordan was extremely ball dominant before Phil Jackson and the triangle, and this is the textbook example.
Jordan wasn't ball-dominant before the triangle, which is why he won with the triangle almost immediately.. There was no transition period - MJ was instantly great in the offense... But we can agree to disagree because no one agrees with your proof of Jordan's ball-domination i.e. your conflation of shot attempts and ball-domination - it's simply false and ignorant.
So why you cared so much on preseason odds and not on the final odds if regular season does means ***** ?
Don’t you have consistency on anything you speak about ?
Preseason odds measure on-paper talent... Then the games begin and brand of ball or chemistry determines regular season record and playoff odds - this is where Lebron fails because he has the worst brand and chemistry of all time (imposes spot-up roles)...
This worst-ever chemistry causes the favored talent (preseason favorite) to fall to underdog, which causes people like you to call his Finals win in 2012 or 2016 an "upset"... it's laughable that Lebron's veteran super-team could be underdog to babies like 22-year old Westbrick, yet that's how bad Lebron's brand cratered the preseason favorite/favored talent... It all makes perfect sense and works out perfectly.. My doctrine has never been more perfect.
Offensively, I’d probably put him around 6th or 7th in the league. ‘94 and ‘95 are the best measures of his skill because he was the first option.
I’d put DRob, Malone, Barkley, Drexler, Shaq, Hakeem ahead of him. That’s 6. I’d say he was on the Payton/Stockton/Reggie Miller tier.
Now his defense was otherworldly and he is in contention as the GOAT wing defender. Not Hakeem level since he’s not a post defender but I’d feel comfortable rating him as 2
I promise I wasn't trying to set you up and I appreciate the sincere answer. I don't think your rating is out of line by any means, but given that I don't think anyone would say Pippen is necessarily better than all of Lebrons best teammates (Davis is a good comparison for defensive and offensive rating and dwade for overall value).
Thing is, I think this debate is set in stone at this point and I loved Jordan and don't like Lebron. I think it's hard to argue that Lebron had a better prime/more dominant. And i think it's hard to argue that Jordan had a better career than Lebron on an individual level.
Jordan had 1 all-star for 7 seasons, while Lebron had 2 all-stars for 7 seasons (2011 to 2017), and then a rich man's Pippen for 6 (AD).. Now he's got Magic (Luka).
Lebron never had to win with young or aging teammates like Jordan did because he got to refresh his cast with the best prime players in the league on 4 different occasions (including the disposal of AD).
Wade was top 5 in everything in 2012 and better than Pippen ever was based on PPG, efficiency, PER, BPM, WS/48 and more, while Pippen
Maybe I can’t read right but LeBron only had 1 all star in 2015 ( which he couldn’t play in the final ) and no all star where he won 2016….
Yeah 2017 Lebron had 2 all star but the warrior got KD ….
Ps: yeah AD , I guy that hurts half the time ….
I promise I wasn't trying to set you up and I appreciate the sincere answer. I don't think your rating is out of lime by any means, but given that I don't think anyone would say Pippen is necessarily better than all of Lebrons best teammates (Davis is a good comparison for defensive and offensive rating and dwade for overall value).
Thing is, I think this debate is set in stone at this point and I loved Jordan and don't like Lebron. I think it's hard to argue that Lebron had a better prime/more
It’s ok, I didn’t take it as a set up. I honestly forget which side people are on in this thread.
I think prime Pippen (which is when Jordan played with him) is clearly > AD due to AD’s injury issues and inconsistency. I’d say AD at his very best (and healthy) would be perhaps slightly above Pippen. But it’s close and he’s never healthy. And when he was, LeBron won a ring with him in 2020. Full value of Bulls Pippen vs Lakers AD is pretty easily Pippen imo.
Go away fallguy you lost. Prime Pippen was a far superior player to knee falling apart breaking down post-prime Dwyane Wade.
Wade's 2013 Finals was equal or better than Pippen's 93' and 97' Finals:
13' Wade........... 20 on 50.5 TS.... 4.6 APG... 2.2 TO's
97' Pippen'........ 20 on 54.1 TS.... 3.5 APG... 3.5 TO's
93' Pippen'........ 20 on 46.9 TS.... 7.0 APG... 4.3 TO's
And destroys Pippen's 96' and 98' Finals:
13' Wade........... 20 on 50.5 TS
96' Pippen'........ 16 on 42.8 TS
98' Pippen'........ 16 on 50.2 TS
Notice that Pippen was a more efficient and effective offensive player in his prime when Michael Jordan was not on the roster in ‘94 and ‘95.
Pippen was far less efficient in 94' based on FG%, TS, and ORTG compared to 91', 92', 96', 97' and 98', while his highs in PPG remained the same without Jordan (21.0 vs 22.0), and his APG decreased from 7 to 5 per game...
so you're just making stuff up.. Any team with Pippen as the best scorer lacks talent and will fall out of contention quickly, even a 3-peaty dynasty as we saw in 1995.
The backpicks “magazine” provides some of the best true comprehensive basketball analysis out there, and I would much rather trust his analysis of Pippen as a player (not even accounting for his stats and actually watching him play), over a deranged internet lunatic.
Sorry to burst your bubble, backpicks is like Trix.. Trix is for kids.. Just like backpicks..... Most kids don't know that possession data didn't exist until 1997, which backpicks relies on to trick you with it's data that uses imaginary possession data from the 80's and 90's.. It's pretty funny.
Yea, there's no doubt David's health lowers his overall value. I try to just think if a player in his prime/healthy when comparing but with him you absolutely have to consider his health when evaluating as it is such a problem for him.
Preseason odds measure on-paper talent... Then the games begin and brand of ball or chemistry determines regular season record and playoff odds - this is where Lebron fails because he has the worst brand and chemistry of all time (imposes spot-up roles)...
This worst-ever chemistry causes the favored talent (preseason favorite) to fall to underdog, which causes people like you to call his Finals win in 2012 or 2016 an "upset"... it's laughable that Lebron's veteran super-team could be underdog t
Paper theory means $h!t . Pre season odds
Practical theory means everything . Final odds .
But it’s ok u believe pre season odds means everything , doesn’t your belief is right .
Ie: bird and the Celtic were an amazing +160 preseason odds to win in 1987 ?
And they failed -> proof bird bad chemistry and bad player - > still top 10 ?
Maybe I can’t read right but LeBron only had 1 all star in 2015 ( which he couldn’t play in the final ) and no all star where he won 2016….
Yeah 2017 Lebron had 2 all star but the warrior got KD ….
Ps: yeah AD , I guy that hurts half the time ….
Pippen wasn't an all-star in 1991 and 1998, so Jordan only had 5 years with an all-star teammate, while Lebron had 7 years with 2 perennial all-stars from 11' to 17', and then a rich man's Pippen from 20-25'.. And now he has Magic (Luka).
Yea, there's no doubt David's health lowers his overall value. I try to just think if a player in his prime/healthy when comparing but with him you absolutely have to consider his health when evaluating as it is such a problem for him.
Davis was healthy in 2023 and 2024 with a better roster than the Nuggets, yet they were destroyed because Lebron always gets destroyed by ball movement teams like the Nuggets, Spurs, and Warriors - he's 2-8 against these teams in the playoffs.
And what's the excuse for the 7 seed in 2021 with AD healthy all regular season, or the debacle in the 2022 regular season???... Lebron's skillset simply produces bad chemistry, so there are issues with every lineup..
I can't believe people make roster excuses for this guy for 22 years - it's literally schizophrenic.. Why not consider that there's an issue with his game instead of thinking that he just got unlucky again?... Oh I know why - it's because you want to believe that your life is special and valuable, so you want to think that you saw the GOAT... Well you didn't.. Sorry.
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