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

i'm starting a gofundme for fallguy's myriad tomes on why MJ rules and LeBron is ****. money raised will go toward high-quality printouts, three-hole punching the pages, assembling in a binder, and shipping to Michael Jordan (via fedex) in hopes we get some grassroots feel good ESPN-lead-story on how one anonymous person on a poker message board went to bat so hard for MJ that MJ went to bat for him. but in the basketball sense, not the baseball sense, pm me for details.

they used to call Sasha Vucevic "The Machine"

he ain't got nothing on this guy

Let’s revisit the Clippers who were “very happy” to have Westbrook.

Westbrook playoff stats: 6.2/4.2/1.7 on 26% FG.

Per the Athletic:

The 35-year-old who lost his starting point guard job to Harden in mid-November, and who team and league sources say had to be convinced by Frank to take on the sixth-man role when the organization’s power brokers deemed it a requirement, has a player option worth $4 million for next season.

He’s a locker room cancer and washed up, but people were desperate to blame Lebron for it.

Well if you got MJ’s assistant to read them, it would mean at least one person is reading them.

All clippers sucked in that serie beside one or 2 games and Westbrook had 1 good game too shrug .

Lebron burns as many coaches as teams and players .
It’s never Lebron fault but it is always Lebron success ….

The disrespect of Utah Jazz is just amazing …
That is how MJ impacted the nba !
He crippled many HoF legacy by takes like this .

Lebron had 5 coaches with the Lakers so far, so he's simply uncoachable - seriously, what's wrong with this guy - Lebron could have 100 coaches and everyone would say that he needs a good coach

The reality is that Spoelestra is the goat coach because he didn't need Lebron to make the Finals, while Phil and Popovich needed goat candidates to make the Finals and were nothing without their goat players.. Whereas Spo had a contender with just Butler and an injured team.

This is evidence that Spo > Phil yet Lebron could barely win with Spo - needed a miracle to avoid 1/4 with Wade/Bosh.. The facts easily show Lebron is a fraud

I would take the Spurs, Mavs, and Warriors team who beat LeBron over those Jazz at their ages. The Jazz were just oddly put together. I don't think they were ever better than the Heat in '97 or the Pacers in '98.

And yet spurs in 2013-14 had Duncan at 37 years old, ginobli 36 and Parker 31 lol ….
Mavs , Jason Kidd 37 ….dirk 32 , Jadon terry 33 .

Malone , Stockton and hornacek 33-34 lol
Ho they were old all right …
wtf .

But yeah , all time leader in assist with third all time leader in points must suck as a team especially being old at 33 years old .

Here food for thoughts a tiny example .
The sucky Jazz swept prime (beginning) Shaq with 3 all stars that year and beat the spurs (next year champion) 4-1 in 1998 before losing to an « old » mj …

Like fidstar says , rings changes so much the perception of great players when people spit on the Utah Jazz like that .

Ps: Malone so old in 1998 he was mvp , allnba 1st team and 1st team defense in 1999.
That’s what I called being too old …

It’s funny I keep hearing all the excuses of lebron losing being alone due to players like wade and bosh being hurt or finish and yet healthy prime Malone backed by stockton couldn’t beat the mavs and even old spurs .

FWIW Utah went through a bunch of « old » HoFs (33- 34-35 years old) made of drexler, Hakeem and Barkley in Houston , being as old ( well little younger in actuality ) as the spurs just fine in 1997 and 1998 .

Malone and Stockton weren't at their best at that time. Malone got buckets, but wasn't the defender old Duncan was. Stockton was pretty much just a jump-shooting facilitator at that point of his career. His drive-and-kick game was in slow motion. Losing a step, he wasn't the elite defender he once was. That team was a mess after their top-four guys.

Interetsting Kawhi erasure, btw.

Also, Malone in '98 wasn't as good as Duncan in '14 or Dirk in '11. 2013-14 Spurs would lose to the '98 Bulls, but they weren't worse than those Jazz.

I was just watching highlights of Ant vs Nuggets and I noticed some differences between him and M when I compared his performance to MJ vs 86' or 87' Celtics.

Ant is all power and has a basic shot-making skillset compared to Jordan - he needs NEAT jumpers and buckets, so he needs an extra dribble or two.. He can't just rise up and take shots whenever he wants like MJ - he lacks the hang-time, agility, touch, hands, size and overall athleticism to take the kind of seamless, ad-hoc shots that Jordan took with no set up time.

For example,

here's the kind of seamless jumpshot that Ant cannot attempt because it isn't neat enough and lacked sufficient set up time ([url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx7x8Jz2Mgw&t=12s]here[/url])... Again, Ant needs an extra dribble or two for a nice NEAT jumper because his shot-making athleticism isn't as good, so he can't take any shot whenever he wants like MJ - he needs set-up time that MJ didn't need because MJ's overall athleticism was superior

Here's another example of an ad-hoc pure-scoring mid-range that Ant cannot attempt ([url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1QJwQZHNc4&t=316s]here[/url])

Here's another jumper that Ant cannot attempt ([url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIO5wpDVJC8&t=12m19s]here[/url]

Here's another (here) or [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIO5wpDVJC8&t=37s]here[/url].

there is no comparison between MJ's jumper and Ant's - Jordan was literally the goat 2-point jumpshooter and could make jumpers that guys can only dream of

Then there's the at-rim attack - Jordan's shot-making was 2nd to none, while Ant's at-rim "bag" is basic by comparison.. Ordinary - all hops/power and no touch or finesse in the paint - I recommend youtubing "Michael Jordan total reverse" to get a feel for his superiority to the extremely basic shot-making of Ant-man

Of course, Ant has an All-NBA teammate in KAT, and also the goat defender in Gobert, so MJ would obviously 3-peat with this kind of cast.

What are you smoking ?
Again Malone was mvp in 1997 and 1999 !
1997 to 1999 was literally prime Malone being mvp twice (97/99 and second in 98) and nba1 and def1 …
Duncan wasn’t in 2014 .
Saying Duncan at 37 was better than Malone mvp at 33-34 is nutz ….

Those jazz won 64 and 62 games while sweeping team like shaq (61 win ) and a team of 3 HoF younger then 2013/2014 spurs .
Did you really check that Houston team in 97 ?
That isnt as good then 37 years old Duncan spurs ??
To me Houston = spurs and Jazz beat them twice …

But hey you are entitled to your opinion …
Fidstar right , the narrative on the Jazz would changed drastically if they would have beat those bulls since they beat everybody else but the goat .

Ant will also be an elite FT shooter very soon. And he'll just get even more whistles as he staples himself within the league.

Hey fallguy,

ANT will never be Jordan. No one will EVER be Jordan. So stop comparing everyone to JORDAN.

Try watching a whole game if you can stomach it. The NBA has never been better!

Imagine being so delusional in your Jordan obsession that you make that post after one of the best playoff performances ever.

Malone shouldn't have won that MVP in 1997. Duncan in 2014 6th in DRB% and was top-10 in DWS and defensive +/-, despite only 2158 minutes. He was the best defensive player on a team with Kawhi Leonard. Chris Bosh barely got 10 shots a game and 5 boards in those finals. Malone wasn't a slouch, defensively, but he was even old Tim Duncan in 1998. And, again, Kawhi Leonard in 2014 is a guy I'd take over any Jazz player in 1998.

Malone's PPG was sexy, but those Spurs locked down the Heat to an 87.4 pace and nearly seven points per 100 under their season rate. You can't have it both ways. LeBron was surrounded by an all-time great cast and this all-time great cast was still not as great as the Spurs. Because those Spurs were also an all-time great cast. A greater one.

Here's a question:
Better team the 2014 Heat or the 1998 Jazz? Bearing in mind that the 2014 Spurs were better than the 2014 Heat.

1997 was probably the year that Jazz had the best shot at cracking MJ's code and couldn't do it. Measure them up against the 2014 Spurs or 2011 Mavs? Maybe not, but measure them against the Warriors that beat LeBron? Hell, no.

Ant is 22 man.

This is such a perfect encapsulation of TWOG’s “the passion of the Mike” position. It just will never be anyone else, it is Michael Jordan and 90’s basketball until the heat death of the universe.

I'm not deeply familiar with Ant's game, but I'm quite familiar with MJ's (and did follow him in real time during his prime) strengths and weaknesses and from more of a scouting perspective, don't see why Ant couldn't have been a better MJ if he had to play during MJ's time. Ant right now might also be close to MJ's best case scenario if he had to play in today's NBA without completely reinventing him as a player.

Ant is bigger, more powerful and stronger (and more explosive than MJ after MJ bulked up to be close to Ant's weight), his bag of moves is much tighter than young MJ's and doesn't have to improvise as much to overcome sloppy setup, he's a far better 3-point shooter, a much more willing passer and less selfish than young MJ. He's not quite as long (which mainly impacts him on the defensive end, especially as a help defender) but is more disciplined and a lot stronger on that end.

Ant, who in many ways is a better MJ, being not even a clear top 20 player in the NBA says a lot about the evolution of basketball over that time period.

John Lennon beat his wife and abandoned his son!

Ant is a basic shot-maker compared to Jordan - he's all power and hops - no polish or variety

Show me where Ant's shot-making ability is on this level:

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It's just a different level from anything we've ever seen, and guys like Ant only make MJ look even better because MJ makes them look basic... Ant's moves and shot-making is like Zion-level, not MJ-level