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

You're full of crap.

He only played 7 games after coming back from injury.

His TS% was still below average before the injury. He was averaging 24.3 ppg on horrible efficiency, so who cares? That's not anywhere close to all-NBA level.

Like I said, old Jordan with diminished athleticism was not a good offensive player. Without the ability to constantly get to the FT line like in his prime, and without a 3-point shot, you're left with hero-balling long twos all the time. It's bad offense.

Occasionally you shoot your lights out and have a great game, but the average result is weak offense.

Yea but what if you add RIP Hamilton to the mix?

Again, yet again, I point up that the college career counts too in the GOAT debate. That's three years worth for Jordan with one title (so 7-0 in championships), 3 years for Kareem with 3 titles and 2 POY and 3 Final Four MVPs, 3 years for Olajuwon all Final Fours, 3 for Russell with two titles and undefeated season + goat winning streak to that point (if you're so inclined to look at Russell). Two for Chamberlain with a final game, and two for Magic with a title. It needs to be factored in. The foregoing were not twiddling their thumbs in their 18-22 year old years, they were producing championships with Hall of Fame play.

Well your narrative is very different to what seem to actually happened shrug .

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001&#82...

Seem To me he was pretty good on both side on the floor shrug .
The team was doing far better then expected considering what he had to work with .

Montreal you are sorting by PPG and not reading SABR'S posts. Nobody is doubting he had the PPG stats you're saying.

Only way Lebron doesn't win 3+ titles in college is if he was forced to go to a trash school(Bird-style), he goes to a UNC/Mich St/UCLA level school and it's not close

his 07 playoff run would have been vs college students, it would have been fun to watch

My narrative?

You mean my facts? Is TS% a narrative now?

Enlighten me how .468 TS% is good? League average was .520.

And before you bring it up, no he wasn't much better pre-injury. Those last 7 games didn't tank his efficiency, it was already bad.

I have no dog in the fight but the lord’s work is being done itt

For 21 years it was universally accepted that Wizards Jordan was mediocre, no where close to all-nba level.

Today the Jordan stans are furiously trying to argue that Wizards Jordan was all-nba calibre.

All because old LeBron >>>>> old Jordan.

Wizards Jordan was mediocre, end of story.

Jordan all-nba points 2002: 29 points for 22nd place with the all-nba cutoff at 78 points

Jordan all-nba points 2003: 7 points for 30th place with the all-nba cutoff at 63 points

Maybe we should trust the voters that watched the games at the time and all came to the conclusion Wizards Jordan was no where close to all-nba.

It's funny watching them say over and over that longevity doesn't matter, that only the pro-LeBron side values longevity, blah blah blah...

Then they desperately try to argue that Wizards Jordan was still good because he was scoring 20+ ppg super inefficiently.

It seems that deep down they realize it DOES matter, it's just that old Jordan is trash compared to old LeBron. LeBron with diminished athleticism can still bully his way to the rim (being 6'9" 260 lbs helps) and shoots the 3 ball decently, greatly helping his efficiency.

Wizards Jordan was a painful chucker, with an occasional great game where he took like 35 shots and made them at a decent clip. They think this is good basketball LMAO.

LeBron shooting 41% from 3 this year on 5.4 attempts.

Last year in the playoffs his shot was garbage. If he can.shoot the ball this post season this Lakers team is a contender. They just won back to back ganes vs the bucks and the wolves. Pretty tough though when a 36-30 record has you at the 9 seed.

The thing is, it's not so much that their Jordan stans, it's that they're desperate LeBron haters. These clowns generally think Kobe was a better player than LeBron, which is one of the more laughable takes of all time.

Lakers currently have a win percentage of .545

This would have made the playoffs in the East every season of MJ’s career fwiw.

Chris Bosh said that Lebron's best season is 2012, but Lebron only averaged 27/7/6 that year, while Jordan averaged those same numbers but with 3-5 more ppg, more steals and less TO's in 91', 92' and 93..

Then he averaged 35/7/7 in the 91-93' Playoffs and 36/7/8 in the Finals, while guarding Magic and Drexler as the primary defender.

Lebron only needed 27 ppg because his sidekick had a 26 PER and was top 5 across the board in 2012 (PER, BPM, VORP, WS/48)

So Lebron is the classic case of what happens when you overhype a player - the media is left trying to save face by propping up said player

2007 1st Round

JAMISON............ 32/10 on 48%
LEBRON'............. 28/10 on 43%



Career

JAMISON........... 20,042 points in 37,638 minutes.... 18.1 PER
PIPPEN.............. 18,940 points in 41,068 minutes.... 18.6 PER

I'm not arguing who is the superior player, but I'm pointing out that it's pretty nice to have a better scorer than Pippen as your third option as Lebron did in 2010... The 2009 and 2010 Cavs had more scoring options and better defenses than the 1st three-peat Bulls - this is the historical record - the Bulls never had a 3rd scorer like Jamison or Mo, while their defenses ranked 4th, 7th and 4th for the 1st three-peat (inferior to the 09' or 10' Cavs ranked 3rd & 7th)...

Lebron simply gave up a year early because his Cavs had the chemistry and reputed defense to beat the Mavs - a 1-star organic chip was up for grabs in 2011

But to answer the question.... If Jordan was 6/6 with Pippen, then how would he do with a better scorer (Jamison) plus an all-star center (Zydrunas) plus 22/6/5 1st team all-defender (Hughes) plus all-star PG in D-Lo who can take over games like he did vs Bucks?... C'mon... 75 wins.. title every year.. goat team that would never need a 6th game in the Finals, let alone a 7th

One of the primary arguments that works for Jordan over Lebron also works for Kobe over Lebron..

Kobe didn't have to dominate the ball to get elite stats - the point guard skillset wasn't the only way he could dominate like it is for Lebron and this scoring versatility allowed greater strategic capacity/coaching, teammate development (he didn't impose spot-up roles) and chemistry, so he could win more with less

i.e. Kobe repeated with less dominant teammates than Lebron had - Wade, Kyrie, AD, Bosh and Love are all arguably better than Pau, yet Lebron had perennial underdogs in the Finals while Kobe had perennial favorites.. Heck, Big Z had more all-star appearances than Pau before Pau was elevated by Kobe and I know all-star appearances are conference-dependent but so are Finals-appearances and you guys don't seem to care about that.. The point is that Kobe's expert jumpshooting skillset and ability to play off teammates yielded better teammate fits, chemistry and strategic capacity coaching.. Therefore, he played a better way that won more.. So we can argue the stats all day but Kobe's playing style was simply superior.

^^^ therein lies the rub - Lebron has tons of series and seasons where he's below-standard from three while shooting today's volumes (3+ attempts), but there are zero series or seasons where MJ shot below today's standard when he had today's volumes (3+ attempts)..

Specifically, from 85' to 93', Jordan shot 36.4% on threes in regular season games where he had 3+ attempts and 39% in series where he had 3+ attempts (regular line only).. Since MJ always shot 36-39% from three when he had today's volumes despite no practice, he would shoot 40% or more in today's game WITH practice... (edit: there's 1 series where MJ shot below-standard when he had 3+ attempts - 90' ECF)

Sure but AD is carrying the team as much or more than Lebron.. It's impossible for an all-timer to have a losing record when they have the #4 all-time PER at sidekick who is a David Robinson-level player.

Otoh, Lebron missed the playoffs with guys like Rip Hamilton or Ingram-level scorers at sidekick (2019), or even the East all-star center in 2005, while Jordan was the 4 seed in 2002 before his injury in Game 47...

And the 4 seed was despite a 2-9 start and Rip Hamilton missing a ton of games (but the Cavs were 15-1 with MJ/Rip in lineup leading up to injury)... MJ was 1 of 3 guys getting 25/5/5 with many 40 and even 50 point games, and 3 game-winners.. All of this is better than 38-year old Lebron..

Lebron only became better at 39 years old (after Jordan's injury) and maybe 18 years old is the only other age - but I think 18-year old MJ could average 20 on bad efficiency especially given the green light on a horrific team like the 03' Cavs... 19-year old MJ was a sophomore and nearly the same as junior MJ, who could've easily averaged 25+ in the league.. Mj's biggest leap was his freshman to sophomore year, according to Dean Smith.. Sophomore Jordan was basically the same Jordan that dominated the league.

Jordan was injured in Game 47 and played 14 more games after that - he took a break and tried to come back again but then fizzled out - he averaged 15 on 39% after the injury but was 1 of 3 guys getting 25/5/5 pre-injury, while also averaging 27/6/6 in the 20 games leading up to injury (29/6/6 in last 10).. He also had 3 game-winners and many 40 or 50 point games.. All of this is better than 38-year old Lebron, but Jordan's injury happened right before his 39th birthday - so I can concede that 39-year Lebron is better than 39-year old Jordan, but not 38-year old Jordan before the injury.. Pre-injury Jordan had a zero-cast team at the 4 seed and a chance to win the East.. Lebron getting carried by AD or lottery with Ingram doesn't compare.

It would be the 2011 Finals every night where Dallas befuddled LeBrick with zone looks (not a real zone, but various creative looks) - LeBrick stinks vs zone and most guys have much lower stats in college so LeBrick would average like 17/8/5 in college zone format

And don't say that today's NBA allows zone because it doesn't allow zone in the paint and it actually allows the opposite of a zone in the paint - defenders must stay within "armslength" of an offensive player, or they can't be in the paint at all - the only stricter rules would be requiring that defenders are shoulder-to-shoulder with their man at all times while in the paint lol - again, this is literally the opposite of a zone, where defenders are allowed to camp under the rim even if no one else is around.

Bogus. And we don't quite get to grant LeBron college years and pro years at the same time. The point of emphasizing the college careers of the other GOAT candidates is that LeBron, Kobe, etc. had those extra years in the NBA and you don't compare them to NOTHING for the college stars. No you give the GOATs credit for their college superstar years too. Then you are looking at their career post prep days in a comparable way. So the point in introducing the college career into the debate is not even that they got titles, but they were performing at Hall of Fame levels for those years and it counts as Marv Albert would say.

Consider that Jordan in his second and third superstar college years went 3-2 in the NCAA tourney, not even close to a sniff of the Final Four. But LeBron is auto titling. That's ridiculous. Stone cold ridiculous. Consider that Chamberlain, the player with the biggest by far disparity between himself and the competition, didn't title in either college season.

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The "Illegal Defense Rules" from realgm (link) - 1981-82 season clarification of zone defense rules and new rules of illegal defense alignments:

A. Weakside defenders may be in defensive position within the outside lane [16'] with no time limit
but within the inside lane [12'] for no longer than 2.9 seconds.

^^^ how is that different from today? ... Defenders on the weakside clearly did not have to hug their man and could sag off to the edge of the paint and even into the "outside lane" without time limit - keep in mind that the paint in previous eras had 2 partitions - an "inside lane" (the main part) and an "outside lane" which was a thin strip on each side of the inside lane

B. Defender is allowed within inside lane as long as he is closely guarding a player adjacent to the 3-
second lane.

^^^ Defenders could stand under the rim while their man was outside the paint ("adjacent" to the 3-second lane) - that's why there's so much footage of Robert Parish and Bill Laimbeer paint-camping under the rim while their man was outside the paint.. Accordingly, defenders could legally paint-camp while their man was out of "armslength" (outside the 3-second lane), while today's rules require defenders to remain within armslength of offensive players to remain in the paint - they cannot stand under the rim while their man is outside the paint (outside of armslength).

E. Offensive player above foul line and inside circle must be played by a defender inside dotted line.

F. If offensive player is above the top of the circle, defender must come to a position above foul line
or remain in either outside lane.

^^^ Defenders are clearly allowed to sag off their man to the dotted line (if their man is within the 3-pt line) or edge of the paint (if their man is outside the 3-point line).. So once again, we see this idea that defenders had to hug their man at the 3-point line is false (Thinking Basketball and other channels spewing false information about previous eras and the way the game was)..

Illegal defense rules clearly allowed defenders to sag off their man and even more than today's game if we're talking inside the paint where today's "armslength" rule hamstrings defenders
.