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

It's the same coach running the same offense with the same #2 guy. Replace Horace Grant with Rodman. Cartwright with Long ley. Hodges/Armstrong with Kerr. Add Kukoc and Harper. It's a better version of the same team.

Phil Jackson had a system. He won 6 rings with Jordan and another 2 with Kobe as the stars. It worked. And another 3 with a stacked Shaq/Kobe team that I give less credit for. But that team was as dominant as anything in the last 25 years.

Jackson/Jordan/Pippen and a well constructed group of role players. It worked and then it worked again.

thread title is just fake news now ... did mj steal the election??? disgusting

It took 11 years.

LeBron secures all-nba 2nd team now setting the record for the oldest player to ever have all-nba team.

20 all-nba teams with 13 first teams. This record will be unbreakable. It will never happen again.

From now until the end of the NBA and the heat death of the universe, Jordan will never ever be the undisputed GOAT ever again.

There's just way too many people now that have converted.

By 2040 when the nostalgic olds from the 90s die off, it will be 80/20 Bron as the GOAT.

I really think it might be Wemby by then, if he doesn't get hurt.

It's such a cheat code what he can do physically. Historically guys with his height tend to be good rim protectors, but are immovable statues who'd never make it in today's NBA. Think guys like Mark Eaton or Shawn Bradley.

Wemby does all that and has the quickness and handle of a perimeter player AND he can pass and shoot the ball? Best prospect ever.

By dominating the ball far more... When a guy has a live dribble, aka dominating the ball, the ball isn't moving.. Since ball-domination kills ball-movement, high-scoring ball-dominators prevent high ball movement (high team assists) - this is the historical record for high-scoring ball-dominators like Luka, Harden, SGA, Lebron, and Westbrook... They litter the teams outside the top 5 in team assists and normally the bottom half of team assist rankings.. Meanwhile, the common thread in all of Lebron's playoff series losses for the last 10 years is major deficits in team assists - so there's no cherry-picking there.

In addition to hurting team assists and brand of ball, it's statistical fact that high-scoring ball-dominators like Lebron impose spot-up roles upon teammates, i.e. they lower teammates' APG and increase their assisted rate/play-finishing - these spot-up roles prevent young player development, good fits or elite strategic capacity/coaching, thereby yielding perennial underdogs and a lottery record on the championship level regardless of cast.. History shows that Lebron's spot-up role imposition never developed any low-producing rookies into meaningful producers in 20 years (zero young player development), so he never developed any "pippen's".. Guys like Hughes, Ingram, Bosh, Love, Jamison or Westbrook cratered alongside Lebron, while achieving "pippen-caliber" or greater without Lebron.

Lebron's reliance on ball-domination is skill-based - he lacks expert jumpshooting skill and great instinct to play off teammates (off-ball).. Otoh, expert jumpshooters like Curry, MJ and Bird are great assist targets - they promote great ball movement and high assist teams - they don't dominate the ball and impose spot-up roles that prevent teammates from growing.. Since expert jumpshooters promote the best brand of ball (ball movement), they're the ones with the dynasties (Curry, MJ, Bird, Kobe), while fundamental bigs also have dynasties (Jokic, Kareem, Duncan).. Otoh, I don't see any high-scoring ball-dominators with dynasties at any point in history.

The worst part about high-scoring ball-dominators like Lebron is that they're too ball-dominant at high-scoring volume, so they can't effectively carry the scoring load against top teams where great brand of ball is required to win.. Since he lacks sufficient brand at carry-job volume, he needs all-time scoring help like Kareem or AD and Wade.. Otoh, expert jumpshooters like MJ or Curry can drop 40 while the ball moves, so they effectively carry the scoring load against top teams and therefore win with less scoring help like Klay or Pippen..

We saw this play out in the 1990 WCSF when Magic was upset when he tried to carry the scoring load, and we saw this again in 2009 when Lebron lost with 38/8/8 against an injured team and historic underdog.. His brand of ball at 38 ppg was too ball-dominant so he needed a teammate to provide tremendous scoring punch as well - 18 on 38% from Mo was never going to cut it - Lebron has never infact beaten a top 5 SRS or Finals team with weak scoring & efficiency from a sidekick (no carry-jobs vs top teams in 2 decades).. He's simply too ball-dominant at carry-job volume to beat top teams and can't carry weak help over top teams, thereby needing all-time scoring help like Kareem, AD, Wade or Kyrie plus franchise players at 3rd option as well.

bump for Fallguy, don't miss these highlights!

LeBron had 17 assists today and he didn't pound the rock much at all. Could've easily had 19-20 assists if AD finished better and Rui handled a fast break pass better. He had some ****ing amazing passes.

I voted for Jordan in this thread about 10 years ago. I'd probably have changed my vote 3-4 years ago.

But realistically, I'm still fine with the idea of Jordan as GOAT. Both players were the best if their eras by far, and both have different but amazing careers. But the drivel and hate spewed about LeBron from the Jordan stans is so bad I end up thinking LeBron must be the GOAT.

Re-watch the game from today Carnivore if you saw it. Watch it if you didn't.

LeBron at nearly 39.5 years old with 28/11/17 in a playoff-type atmosphere game.

Lebron finishes the year with a 28/11/17/5/1 performance on the road in a must-win game. He also was the primary defender on Zion Williamson and held him to 12 points on 4-13 shooting.

He concludes his 21st season in the NBA with the following:

- 26/7/8 on 63 TS% (28/8/10 on 67 TS% post-ASB)
- Lead the NBA in 4th quarter scoring
- 6th in EPM/BPM/PER
- Shot 70%+ at the rim and 41%+ from 3 (54%+ FG overall)

No other player in their 21st season has ever even averaged over 7 PPG. Lebron averaged more than that in the 4th quarter this year.

He played against someone the other night who was literally not even born the last time Lebron didn’t average 25/6/6 in an NBA season.

The past few weeks have shown that a locked in Lebron James in Year 21 scores as efficiently as prime Stephen Curry, distributes like prime Magic Johnson, and defends like prime Kawhi Leonard. For a single playoff series, there is a relatively strong argument that he is the 2nd best player alive, at nearly age 40.

The numbers and eye test are truly historic. When adjusting for age and mileage, they become almost incomprehensible. The minds of his haters simply cannot process his greatness. But we are all witnesses.

Jokic in 7 game series. This guy simply able to impact more possessions than Bron can.

Then Luka.

Then I'm taking Bron.

But how is he at 20ft contested 2 point shots? Those are the pinnacle of basketball

His season is a lot like the Jerry Rice stats after 40, he's so far beyond the rest of nba history it is hard to quantify

QFT.

When Jordan had the highest-scoring game of his career (69 points), he had 18 rebounds, 6 assists and 4 steals.. He averaged 35/6/6/3/2 on 54% in 1988.... Only Jordan and Wilt had goat offense and goat defense, while the point guard skillset that you laud (APG) is a small aspect of the game that Jordan dominated at it's highest level when asked to be a 1st-time point guard at 26 years old - he was instantly the best PG in the league - that's goat talent for the game of basketball.

So you're just lying when you imply that there's a material gap in "versatility" when it's really the other way around - MJ had superior offensive rebounds, BPG, SPG, better turnover rate, post ability, FT %, 2-point jumpshooting, 3-point jumpshooting (when we look at today's volume and exclude forced, "bailout volume" years or series).... MJ shot 36-39% at today's volumes in the regular season/playoffs and this was without practice, so he would be over 40% in today's era WITH practice.. There's no record of MJ shooting poorly at today's volumes, while Lebron has many series or seasons of shooting below-standard at today's volumes.. Btw, similar to Jordan, Bird shot great at today's volumes as well, aka 41% on when he had 3+ attempts for his career, and 43% when he had 5+ (46% if we look at pre-injury only).

So the only categories Lebron has are defensive rebounds and ball-dominance/assists, and also producing the worst teams to ever play on the championship level (22-33), while also having many monikers like goat-choker, goat-colluder, LeCheatCode and many others for shamelessly stacking the deck and then mostly losing with each cast.. Lebron mostly lost with 2 star teammates, while MJ was unbeatable with 1 - that's a big gap that I don't see how Lebron fans explain away.

Although I’m in somewhat of agreement re: being OK with Jordan being the GOAT, I think it’s only justifiable at this point if you are picking a GOAT based on peak performance of a few seasons (5-7 year peak).

MJ fans don’t really have a leg to stand on otherwise at this point. It’s actually become kind of embarrassing for them as Lebron has continued high level play and they continue to try and convince us MJ would have aged well if he didn’t retire despite his Wizards years proving this false. Or simply repeating 6-0 in the Finals.

The bottom line is MJ “played” 15 seasons. 2 of those were on the Wizards where he was somewhere between a solid starter and good role player depending on how his broken body held up. 2 more were massively shortened by injury or retirement. We’re basically looking at 11 full seasons of all-nba level play from MJ, with one of the best 5 year prime peaks of all time.

Lebron is about to make his 20th! all-NBA team. Game-wise, he’s well clear of 500+ games of Jordan in terms of elite level play. Now sure, you can argue that Jordan’s best stretch he was better than Lebron was. But the difference is pretty marginal and Lebron still has a top 3-4 peak ever of even the shortest timeframes. And the amount he’s played he’s simply absolutely lapped MJ. You can see this easily using BPM/VORP. Jordan bests Lebron in (tweaked) career BPM, 9.2 to 8.6, and playoff BPM, 11.1 to 10. In VORP which is simply cumulative BPM, Lebron bests Jordan 151.7 to 116.1 and playoffs 35.4 to 24.7. That’s a gap of 46.4 total. 46.4 VORP itself would be a hall of fame career on its own. The gap between Lebron and MJ is literally a top 50 NBA player of all time and continues to grow each year.

There is simply no argument any longer for MJ > Lebron career wise. And I think candybar could potentially be onto something in terms of MJ isn’t a lock at 2 there either. He simply did not play long enough with a well rounded enough skillset to cement him as top 2. I believe that even if you are an MJ skeptic/Lebron truther that the decades and decades of pro-MJ propaganda along with the total overrating historically of isolation scoring being the most important quality in a player raises the view of MJ too high. I mean just think about it logically - what is MJ better than Lebron at, other than specifically scoring in midrange isolation? Lebron is very clearly superior at:

Rim finishing
Outside shooting
Passing/playmaking
Rebounding
On-ball defending
Help defending
Rim protection

People joke about this but there is a reason why the youth who weren’t born when MJ played have their minds blown when they actually watch the games. It is totally comical for them to turn on these 80s and 90s MJ games and compare it to what they are told by the old heads clinging to the past. The thing about the huge majority of pro-MJ people is they don’t even argue he was just superior on a relative basis but an absolute one. Then you turn on the games, the players can’t even dribble well, they stand around, spacing is non-existent etc. It’s embarrassing, truly. I mean it makes sense that the majority of MJ fans are literally dying out, and his #1 fan ITT has admitted to not having watched the NBA in the last 15 years. This is basically a reverse Idiocracy situation.

Jokic is the only guy I’m taking over him. I think you can formulate an argument for Lebron especially if you shorten it to 1-2 games but for a full series, I give the nod to Joker.

Luka would be next, for now I’m still taking Lebron over him though.

See how easy those guys are to replace?.. it's because they're all low producing role-players.. Horace or Rodman could easily be Haslem and Varejao, let alone Bosh, Love or Jamison..

Hodges and Kerr could be Mike Miller or Chalmers or Battier.. Kukoc and Harper could be Korver and JR Smith... Cartwright and Longley are Mosgov and Zydrunas or McGee or Tristan or Boozer.

Clearly, Jordan won with Lebron's role players

And stop crying about Wade's caliber from 2013 to 2016 because why does Lebron need a Kobe-level player to carry him like prime Wade???.. Why isn't being an all-star and 20/5/5 enough to win (pippen-caliber), while also having an extra star in Bosh anyways?.. Why did Lebron mostly lose with that while MJ was unbeatable the instant he got 1 all-star?

(btw, it's absolutely legit to compare an all-defender like Varejao to a fossil like Rodman who wasn't even the starter in the 98' Playoffs and averaged 3/8 for the entire 97' Playoffs.)

His wouldn't even think of trying to run that with today's high-scoring, ball-dominant skillsets like Luka, Lebron or Westbrook - they would never be able to run it because they lack the post dominance, footwork and expert jumpshooting skill required to be the 1st option in that offense.. Luka might have a chance but Lebron would never hire the "triangle guy".. And Westbrook would just be Westbrook and play hard regardless but not have success with the jumpshot-requiring triangle.

And Phil didn't think the system would be the kind of unbeatable force that it was in part because it never was before in it's 50 year history, and in part because he didn't realize how great MJ was - he told MJ that he wouldn't be scoring champ anymore - can you believe that?? .. Phil must've been proud and a little cocky like "i told him.. i've always been wanting to say that to this hot-dogging star... it's time for equal-opportunity and the triangle"... MJ proceeded to shock Phil with his high-caliber beyond anything Phil dreamed - it turns out that Phil's triangle still needed 41 ppg in the 93' Finals or 34/7/7 for the 91-93' Playoffs, or 36/7/8 for the 91-93' Finals - and MJ was scoring champ every time while also being the only guy to win as usage champ (5 times)... It turns out that Phil was a 1st-time nobody coach when MJ won with him in 1990/91, while MJ was already the goat candidate - so you do the math - once Phil was established with 2 three-peats, he could get respect that he would never have gotten from Shaq, which is exactly what Shaq said.

I wouldn't put much emphasis on BPM, they tweaked the formula a few years ago because of Westbrook.

https://www.sports-reference.com/blog/20...

Old:

LeBron James 9.1
Michael Jordan 8.1
Charles Barkley 7.4
David Robinson 7.4
James Harden 7.3
Larry Bird 7.2
Magic Johnson 7.2
Chris Paul 7.1
Stephen Curry 6.5
Kawhi Leonard 6.4

New:

Michael Jordan 9.2
LeBron James 8.9
Chis Paul 7.6
Magic Johnson 7.5
David Robinson 7.5
James Harden 6.9
Larry Bird 6.9
John Stockton 6.8
Kawhi Leonard 6.8
Kevin Durant 6.7

And now CP is top 3 in BPM all time but not even a top 15 talent all time.

Actually, Lebron was only MVP or all-defense for a small window of 5 years (2009-2013), while MJ was MVP and 1st team defense from 88-98' (top 5 DPOY as well), so that's the goat peak and also the goat peak longevity - he was MVP and 1st team defense throughout a 10 year period, compared to only 5 years for Lebron.

MJ was MVP and Finals MVP at 35 years old (and 1st team defense), while Lebron was FMVP at 35 but hadn't been MVP or all-defense for nearly a decade... it's a clear gap... MJ had goat offense and defense for an 11-year period (88-98'), while also winning twice as many rings as the best player and having double the win frequency overall for their careers (40% to 20%).

and that stretch was 12 years (88-98') - MVP and 1st team defense in 88' and 98' vs Lebron only from 09-13'

MJ's higher caliber (goat offense and defense for 10 years) allowed him to be unbeatable with 1 star teammate, while Lebron mostly lost with 2 - it's not close and it's always been a fake debate

VORP is cumulative (based on longevity), but Jordan has 5 of the top 7 VORP seasons of all-time.. VORP is his strongest category

He also leads Lebron in PER, BPM and WS/48

and Jordan is #1 all-time in those categories for the regular season and also playoffs when proper minimums on games are placed (to weed out early-career players like Jokic, Giannis or Doncic that haven't had chance to level out - they won't do this for 11 years like MJ did from 88-98' and really 87-98').

MJ had superior offensive rebounds, BPG, SPG, better turnover rate, post ability, FT %, 2-point jumpshooting, 3-point jumpshooting (when we look at today's volume and exclude forced, "bailout volume" years or series).... MJ shot 36-39% at today's volumes in the regular season/playoffs and this was without practice, so he would be over 40% in today's era WITH practice.. There's no record of MJ shooting poorly at today's volumes, while Lebron has many series or seasons of shooting below-standard at today's volumes.. Btw, similar to Jordan, Bird shot great at today's volumes as well, aka 41% on when he had 3+ attempts for his career, and 43% when he had 5+ (46% if we look at pre-injury only).

So the only categories Lebron has are defensive rebounds and ball-dominance/assists, and also producing the worst teams to ever play on the championship level (22-33), while also having many monikers like goat-choker, goat-colluder, LeCheatCode and many others for shamelessly stacking the deck and then mostly losing with each cast.. Lebron mostly lost with 2 star teammates, while MJ was unbeatable with 1 - that's a big gap that I don't see how Lebron fans explain away.

You can't just look at 3+ 3pa games and pretend that the rest of the games didn't happen, that's not how stats work, and even if you could the sample size for those games is tiny and a ton are from the short 3pt era too

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Rookie MJ was thrown into the playoffs right away as an 8 seed, while 3rd year Lebron and his all-star center got this acquisition before entering their first playoff season:

05' HUGHES....... 21.6 PER... 4.3 BPM... 0.157 WS/48... 3.7 VORP... 22/6/5... 1st Team All-D
90' PIPPEN......... 16.3 PER... 1.8 BPM... 0.087 WS/48... 3.0 VORP... 16/6/5... No All-D

Yet they were still a garbage 45-win team by Year 5 (2008) until Lebron got the all-star spacing that his stiff-arm needs in 2009 to be MVP and have a real contender.. Then he added Jamison/Shaq to a 66-win league favorite and still found a way to blow it.. Then super-teams didn't work the following year and have mostly lost ever since.
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There's no record of MJ shooting poorly at today's volumes, while Lebron has many series or seasons of shooting below-standard at today's volumes

We don't have to use 3+ attempts - we can use anything greater than 3 or as low as 1.5 - MJ didn't have any seasons where he was between 1.5 and 3 - it was either bailout volume (1.5 or less) or today's volume (3+)

So again, excluding forced, "bailout volume" years or series, MJ shot 36-39% at today's volumes in the regular season or playoffs and this was without practice, so he would be over 40% in today's era WITH practice.. Similarly, Bird shot great at today's volumes as well, aka 41% on when he had 3+ attempts for his career, and 43% when he had 5+ (46% if we look at pre-injury only).

Ultimately, Lebron mostly lost with 2 star teammates, while MJ was unbeatable with 1 - that's a big gap that I don't see how Lebron fans explain it away

It's a shame Stocktown has so many "fake" / "manufactured" / "homecooked" assists in his stats. LeBron if he played til 45 would be able to break the all time assists record then, but alas he probably finishes about 1200 assists short.