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

imagine if young lou alcindor grew up with victor wembanyama
two twiggy mantids freed from one hard wooden though about winning with lane counting defense
best threes are found prancing with pace beyond the outer space boundary not fouls called for paint lingering

lol….
It’s like saying Kobe wouldn’t be top 10….
Unbelievable.

FWIW I trust this guy opinion …

Ps: Lot people like to use TS% stats and stuff like that , love what KD think about it at 10m45

Agree

U can find any narrative u like but claiming the wizard were a better team then the lakers is nonsense , period !

I never said it’s more impressive .
I’m saying losing is losing .
U lose vs the champs in the first round or the final what’s the difference really ?
I guess that leads to point #3

There is absolutely nothing special in 07 because LeBron didn’t beat anything worthwhile .
That road to the final was a real joke , who did they beat really ?
I mean seriously I keep hearing mj had it easy because of the weak competition in the final yet everyone praises LeBron for beating almost a nonexistent eastern conference .
Double standard at its best ….

I’m glad he reach the final good for him but getting swept just show u didn’t belong much there .
Just look what the spurs had in their division …

What fascinating is w.e narrative (excuses) people try to push for LeBron , Duncan is always there to prove he did even better imo .

It’s not a narrative. It’s a literal fact. The Wizards without MJ on the court were a much better team than the Lakers were with LeBron off.

The facts don’t fit your narrative so you are trying to frame it as a hot take/opinion when it’s not debatable.

Right so your opinion is, the seasons results are binary. A success if you win a title, any other result is the same because you lost. Whether that be in the Finals in a close 7 game series, swept in the first round, or I guess even win 20 games, you lost - so it’s all the same.

I guess that’s telling in why people think MJ is so great, although they’d have to contend with Russell being far better than MJ since by that criteria Russell is far superior. But overall it’s not really worth debating someone who thinks a Finals loss at 22 is equal to getting swept in the first round in terms of accomplishment. A truly bizarre position but to each their own and I suppose one of the only ways left to twist your brain into a pretzel and justify MJ>Lebron.

MJ made stepbacks look easy 30 years ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dFjrWLAvnp...

His shot on Russell in 98' was a step -back... If he was doing step-backs easily 30 years ago, I'm sure he could add the extra travel that today's players use and that every player today has

Btw, Bird had a sick step-back

It just occurred to me that for the first time ever choosing an all-time starting 5 is relatively easy.

Can anyone disagree with:

PG: Steph
SG: MJ
SF: Bird
PF: Lechoke
Center: Jokic

I guess maybe you can argue Lechoke at SF and Duncan at PF or maybe Wemby at center. I don't see how anyone could choose Magic Johnson at PG over Steph anymore though.

Or maybe doesn’t leave at all. Which is an interesting hypothetical in terms of whether the stars would have taken more control over their contracts and playing locations anyway, irrespective of the Decision.

We are bound by what happened though. Cleveland fumbled the ball one too many years and LeBron took matters into his own hands.

A hypothetical was offered earlier itt of who you'd rather have on an average roster. I was responding to that.

Magic > Steph in ranking
Magic < Steph in an all time team.

I'm also picking some other centres over the Joker. May change in a few years the way Joker is projecting.

Ah fair, makes sense

Only one year later:

Looks like we’ve got 1 more year at best where current players consensus is different than the “LeBrontards”. Time to find a new slant.

And yes, before anyone says anything, it’s not that meaningful of a poll in terms of the actual debate, lol at every vote here besides MJ/LBJ. Just speaking solely on the fact that some didn’t think this trend would continue.

Lol at the 9% that picked Kobe. Most overrated player by far. And I want to know who put Paul Pierce on this ballot.

And again, I'm a big fan of all 3 of these guys, could watch any of their highlight packages and enjoy it, and do so.

Jordan's career is really only 11 legit seasons. He missed almost an entire year at the beginning of his career. Then he played only 17 games in his comeback season. Then his wizard years really aren't something that adds anything good to his resume. 11 years isn't much. He did a lot with it, but generally careers so short don't receive GOAT status. It's a very unusual career.

Wilts career is so statistically dominant, why does he get so little GOAT credit? It's before my time, so all I have is stats, but his career stat line is certainly GOAT. He's like the Babe Ruth of the NBA.

Kobe I would say was a poor man’s MJ with his play style and attitude so for a younger generation they might identify more with Kobe. That’s really all I got. The other votes are just the couple guys not taking it seriously.

Statistically Wilt was amazing but his lack of GOAT consideration is probably due to a combination of age and lack of team success/titles despite playing in a poor era with very few teams. It’s a tough sell to have Wilt above Russell or even Kareem in GOAT consideration given that. Ruth had incredible team success so that probably helped him historically. We don’t really have any advanced stats from Wilt’s era but there are some indicators that suggest his on court impact to winning wasn’t they substantial when he was scoring infinite and that he actually was more impactful to winning later in his career when he was more deferential and focused on defense.

Jordan was unbeatable when he got 1 all-star, while Lebron mostly lost with two.... 21 years confirms that Lebron mostly loses with every cast and isn't capable of a 3-peat, 70 wins or dynasty with any cast, aka objectively inferior to MJ

Furthermore, if Jokic 3-peats with goat production rates, maybe you'll get to feel the aura and caliber that Jordan had, where it wasn't just Jordan asking the question of 'what else is there to achieve' - everyone was asking that of the 41 ppg three-peater...

Then if Jokic's dad gets brutally murdered and he decides to go back to Serbia and play pro soccer for a couple years to honor his dad - no one would knock Jokic for that even now.. And today's media wouldn't write articles about how he stinks at soccer - they would be kissing his a**

So it's true that Jordan's career was weird but that's because his dominance was weird/unprecedented and allowed him to take breaks - there's no way Jordan retires in 93' if he'd lost to Barkley, regardless of his father's death (his father would've wanted Michael to get revenge).

People forget that the Bad Boys were a massive problem for Bird/Magic's super-teams but a piece of cake for Jordan once he got 1 all-star.. And Jordan was nearly beating the Pistons with nothing in 89' or 90' - Pippen missed Game 6 of the 89' ECF but only 10 points from Pippen would've been more than enough help for Jordan to win that series, while Bird/Magic needed super-teams.. Ditto 1990 when Pippen missed Game 7 with the "migraine"..

Again, 10 points from Pippen was easily enough help for peak MJ to win and when he finally started winning from 91-98', he was pretty much getting those 10 points from Pippen or similar garbage like 15.7 on 34% in the 96' Finals, or many other bed-wettings and marginal career playoff numbers.. 19 on 42% for Finals career (with less APG than mJ and more TO's), or 17.6 on 41% for the entire 96-98' Playoffs.. Also Pippen was a historic bricklayer and lane-clogger with worst-ever efficiency during the 2nd three-peat and also the 93' playoff run.. He shot 0% on threes in the 93' Finals with 59% FT (46.9 TS overall).. Pippen's true shooting was below league-average in the playoffs for every year of his career except 89-91', and 02/03'.
.

LeBron's league was tougher with the Heat and he ran into the Warriors with the Cavs. The 2011 Heat had no shooting to counter the Mavs zone that year. Dirk and Chandler were out of their minds on their respective ends of the floor. IIRC, the Maves went 2-3 zone and the Heat shooters were a bunch of guys you can't afford to play big minutes other than Chalmers, so they could shoot their way through that zone and lost in seven.

I agree with you that MJ was the GOAT, but you don't seem to see the whole conversation is splitting hairs. Instead, you trash an undisputed top-two player in history along with Pippen and that's just wrong. It's why no one takes you seriously.

Tougher league?

It was tougher for Lebron to team up with the 2nd-best player in the league and put the top 3 first options in the conference on 1 team???.,.. (the "decision").

Lebron hand-picked the preseason favorite from 2011 to 2016 - he was the only player in the NBA with 3 franchise players on 1 team (super-team) and he was the only player that was teaming up during that time.. He had a 6-year headstart in the colluding space until Durant finally responded in 2017.

So you're completely delusional to say that the league was "tougher" when he was with the Heat - the easiest path possible is forming a Year 1 league favorite as lebron did in 2011 and 2015.

Ultimately, the East was won by 1-star teams routinely (01', 02', 03', 07', 09'), yet this is the conference that Lebron put the top 3 first options on 1 team (the "decision")... He remarkably got credit for winning the conference after that.

If Wilt Chamberlain had his own "Klutch Sports" back in the 60's that stood on the highest mountain and proclaimed he was GOAT. while simultaneously sh*tting on Bill Russell with stuff like "we done with the 50's", or "you had 8 HOF teammates and were carried", or "you were just a defender that shot 38% lol we done with 38%"

I guarantee that everyone would lap it up and think Wilt was better than Russell - we can be certain the propaganda would work because the polls show the gap between MJ/Lebron narrowing despite Lebron providing zero of examples of playing on MJ's level since the last poll - Lebron was lottery in 2019 and then 2nd option in 2020, and then disaster ever since such as missed play-ins, 1st Round losses and sweep loss... With zero examples of MJ-level performance since the last poll, we can conclude that the propaganda is worked to narrow the gap... and don't bother with the longevity career totals garbage - everyone that passed arithmetic knows that it's a reflection of playing longer, not better.

So you can claim "consensus top 2" but Lebron isn't... The top 2 label is for winners

You give them good players and they mostly WIN for stretches and have towering dynasties; they don't mostly lose and have weak records

If a player isn't capable of mostly winning with a cast and mostly loses with every cast, then they aren't an elite-level winner and cannot be in the top 2.. This insufficient winning factor is exacerbated if the player also has more bad losses than anyone in history and the worst championship record in history.

And when we look at why Lebron isn't the "winner" that the guys ranked above him were, we quickly find the reasons - it's skill-based - he cannot shoot or play off teammates compared to other all-timers, and the resulting inferior chemistry yields weaker team ceilings, such as perennial underdog status or lottery records on the championship level - that's what Lebron produces when he has help..

This is nowhere near "top 2" all-time.. Absurd... Tonight when you're watching bron-ball get it's yearly spanking, the answer to your inevitable question of "why can't the lakers stop the onslaught?" is that they have to put the Nuggets on their heels defensively, which takes away their offensive capacity.. Unfortunately, we already know that bron's ball-dominance lets a defense rest, so they have more capacity for offense (spurs, warriors, nuggets, magic, mavs), while zippy ball movement wears down a defense, so they have less capacity for offense (bron's teams).

Yeah, a conference finals at 38 losing to the champions is just a 'sweep loss'

Jordan couldn't even play 1 playoff game after age 35.

Get a life.

Jordan didn't mostly win.

Help only counts if they score a lot but also having a bunch of scorers doesn't work

It was very hard for anybody to ever score a lot while playing alongside Jordan, for obvious reason.

Also, if Jordan had tried to orchestrate teams, his career would've been a big failure. He has no idea how to build a winning team. He probably needed Phil Jackson 100 times more than people realize.

Your take is that LeBron isn't a top-two player of all-time? You're un****ingreal.

You must be new here.

He rates LeBron as the ~11th best player of all-time or so.

Karl Malone with a better handle - TWOG on LeBron James