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

Faalguy - How many rings do the Lakers win if LeBron is drafted instead of Kobe to the 96 Lakers.

how many ring u think mj have if shaq comes to the bulls instead of pipen in 1988?

No one is saying Scottie is better than Shaq.

Fallguy is saying Kobe is better than LeBron, and not just. 2nd GOAT vs outside top 10.

I'm just taking the over 5 chips if there's money to be bet.

In the 2010 2nd Round, Lebron averaged 21 on 34% for the last 3 games to lose a 2-1 lead as a massive -500 favorite - he essentially reverted back to his 2008 caliber when he averaged 26 on 35% against the same Celtic team.

^^^ The T'Wolves gave up Kevin "Luka" Love for Wiggins and Bennett, so how is the league not rigged for Lebron?... This is WWE-type stuff to create a fake goat debate and yet this bum can barely win enough to keep the fraud going.

The same question was asked when Lebron teamed up with Wade/Bosh, or Kyrie/Love, or AD

Kobe achieved expectation with Shaq by 3-peating, while 21 years proved that Bron-ball cannot produce dominant teams and mostly loses regardless of cast:

* Wade/Bosh > Shaq, yet only 2/4

* 1/5 so far with AD

* 1/4 and only 50-57 wins with Kyrie/Love (pathetic)

* 2nd Round loss after adding Jamison & Shaq to 66-win league favorite - a developed, 6th-year team with various deep runs

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THE CONFIRMED IMPACT OF MO WILLIAMS:

2008 Cavs......... 45 wins.... #16 SRS... #16 net rating... #20 offense... #11 defense
2009 Cavs......... 66 wins....... #1 SRS..... #1 net rating..... #4 offense..... #3 defense

Lebron always needed an all-star spacer for his stiff-arm to win 60 games and MVP as we saw in 09' and 13'.

AD had an even greater impact in 2020 by lifting a lottery team to champion - he did this by turning the defense from worst to first and leading the team in scoring for regular season, playoffs and dominated Jokic.. It's a goat season, but AD gets no credit because of the media's fraud regarding Lebron.

It's important to note that Lebron lost the 09' ECF because he guarded Courtney Lee instead of his providing the height/agility needed for Hedo or Rashard Lewis, while also turning into a 12 turnover per game player in clutch-time (last 5 within 5), which no team could win with - this includes 7 turnovers in the 4th quarter of Game 4, which swung the series.. Losing the 09' ECF as a -700 favorite was Lebron's first big choke, and it preceded chokes in 2010 and the biggest one in 2011...

Furthermore, Lebron is too ball-dominant at carry-job volume to beat top teams like the Magic, so he can't carry weak help over top teams and needs all-time scoring help.. Lebron's inability to carry weak help over top teams is proven by the fact that he never beat a top 5 SRS team with weak scoring & efficiency from a sidekick, and he never carried the scoring load on the championship level (never defeated max defensive attention).

Lebron received 4 players that were superior to 1990 Pippen but his simpleton "bron-ball" skillset couldn't develop them or win anything with them:

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

09' MO WILLIAMS........ 17.2 PER... 0.165 WS/48... 3.1 VORP... 2.3 BPM... 17/3/4
90' PIPPEN.................... 16.3 PER... 0.087 WS/48... 3.0 VORP... 1.8 BPM... 16/7/5

09' JAMISON................. 20.6 PER... 0.126 WS/48... 2.8 VORP... 1.6 BPM... 22/9/2
90' PIPPEN.................... 16.3 PER... 0.087 WS/48... 3.0 VORP... 1.8 BPM... 16/7/5

06' ZYDRUNAS'.............. 21.9 PER... 0.184 WS/48... 2.1 VORP... 1.6 BPM... 16/8/1 (2 bpg)
90' PIPPEN..................... 16.3 PER... 0.087 WS/48... 3.0 VORP... 1.8 BPM... 16/7/5

Jordan's early playoff record suffered by being thrown into the playoffs immediately in Year 1 with no time to grow his team, while Lebron achieved a better early playoff record by waiting 3 years to develop a high seed before entering his first playoffs in 06'... This 3-year development included Lebron and Zydrunas becoming all-stars in 05', while adding a HOF coach entering the 06' season, along with a 22/6/5 all-defensive player that was playing better than 1990 Pippen (stats above).

From 2005-2010, the Cavs ran a modern-style pick-n-pop with Lebron and Big Z as their go-to play - this gave them a strategic advantage at the time, but Big Z was still behind Lebron, Mo, Jamison, or even Hughes.. That's far more scoring help than Jordan ever had, plus better defensive rankings than the 1st three-peat Bulls.

The Cavs had the 4th-ranked defense in 2007, which was long before Lebron made an all-defensive team, so the Cavs had great defensive help for Lebron.. They had an all-defensive backcourt (Snow, Hughes) and the acquisition of 33-year old Ben Wallace in 2008 was similar to 34-year Rodman joining the Bulls.. The Cavs became a 7-year organic juggernaut by 2010 with Zydrunas, Shaq and Varejao providing great rebounding and defense, while Jamison, Mo and Zydrunas provided all-star scoring experience.. Many guys have won with less than this, such as Jokic, Dirk and MJ, to name a few.

This issue is that Lebron gave up on the chemistry learning curve required to win with organic rosters of 1 franchise player and opted for better rosters of 3 franchise players (super-team), aka talent-based winning.. Since he never learned championship chemistry, he always needs more talent (more help)..

PER
WS/48
VORP
BPM
PPG/APG/RPG

OK.

Bron
27.1
.224
151.9
8.7
27.1/7.4/7.5

Kobe
22.9
.170
80.1
4.6
25.0/4.7/.5.2

Tell me more about how Hughes/Williams/Jamison/Z are on par with Scottie Pippen, but Kobe was better than LeBron. I just used your own line of thinking to disprove Kobe was better than LeBron.

Playoffs:

Bron
27.9
.237
36.1
10.0
28.4/7.2/9.0

Kobe
22.4
.157
16.2
5.4
25.6/4.7/5.1

By your own reasoning, Kobe is not a top-10 player of all-time.

Acting like 2010 Shaq is anything close to 99-04 Shaq is laughable.

Same reason he only uses 90 Pippen in all his single season cherry picking, it's the only year that fits the narrative

1990 was the 6th year of the Bulls' development on MJ's watch, and also the year before he won the title, so it compares well to Lebron in 2009, who had a 6th-year team and was expected to win a title soon.

Accordingly, when we compare 1990 to 2009, we see that the Cavs had the 3rd-ranked defense compared to 19th for the Bulls, while Mo was superior to Pippen offensively across the board (stats posted earlier).. This means that Lebron had better help on both sides of the ball, yet MJ still beat him to titles by winning the next year in 91', while Lebron kept losing as the favorite for 2 more years.. (despite adding Jamison/Shaq to a 66-win league favorite or forming a super-team).

The overall point is that Jordan's off-ball game developed 1990 Pippen, while Lebron's ball-dominance didn't develop 4 guys that were better than 1990 Pippen.. So Jordan's game was capable of developing guys like Pippen, while Lebron was given 4 guys that were better than Pippen, but his "bron-ball" skillset couldn't develop them or win with them.

Zydrunas or old Shaq would've been the best centers that Jordan ever had, by far - the frontcourt of Jamison, Shaq, Varejao, Zydrunas and Hickson destroys any frontcourt that MJ ever had, while also having Mo in the backcourt, who destroys Paxson.. Jamison is a rare 20k scorer that outplayed Lebron in the 07' Playoffs, so it's pretty nice to have a better scorer than Pippen as your THIRD option in 2010, while also having better defenses than the 1st three-peat Bulls.

The Cavs also had all-defensive experience with Hughes, Snow and Ben Wallace during this stretch as well, so Lebron's early Cavs teams from 06-10' had more defensive help, rebounding, scoring and playmaking help than the 1st three-peat Bulls.. Remember that the 07' Cavs were top 5 defense without Lebron being considered a good defender (no all-defense until 09').
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1st options dictate how a team approaches the game by dictating a team's chemistry, brand of ball, and strategic capacity/coaching.... So they require greater analysis than just their production rates/stats

The previous stat comparisons to 1990 Pippen were for secondary options, who are pure stat-producers under a brand that the 1st option dictates

Again, 1st options dictate brand of ball, such as Curry, Duncan, MJ, Jokic, Lebron - since these guys dictate how your team approaches the game, you have to consider more than just the production rate/stats - it's necessary to consider the brand of ball, chemistry and strategic capacity/coaching that each guy's game produces and how this impacts winning over the course of their career... In the case of high-scoring ball-dominators like Luka and Lebron, they do very poorly in the teammate development, chemistry and brand of ball areas, so they have lower team ceilings and tend to be talent-based winners (all-star team strategy) instead of chemistry/organic.

At least it came to the correct outcome.

Comparing prime Shaq to Kyrie/Love is amazing.

Shaq + Derek Fisher is pretty close to Love + Kyrie.. Kyrie is a "finals player" by virtue of making the Finals without Lebron and also outplaying young MJ and MVP Curry - so Kyrie is a pretty good player that doesn't compare to Derek Fisher, which is a more ridiculous comparison than Shaq/Love.

so 1/4 is unacceptable with Love, if Lebron is being compared to Kobe's 3-peat..

Ultimately, Kobe met expectation by having an "unbeatable" team and dominant dynasty, while Lebron mostly lost with every cast that was put around him, so we must use this empirical evidence to say that he would mostly lose, disappoint and "need more help" with Shaq just like he does AD, Wade/Bosh, or Kyrie and Love.

You know who we’ve never mentioned as one of Lebrons AllStar teammates - Wally Szcerbiak. Love that guy.

#3 Kevin Love was a thing for awhile around here if I recall correctly. That and Ramon Session top 8 PG.

1st options dictate a team's chemistry, brand of ball, and strategic capacity/coaching.... So they require greater analysis than just their production rates/stats

Otoh, secondary options like Pippen, Mo or Hughes are robotic stat producers under the 1st option's brand of ball, so their stats can be more directly compared.

This is intuitive and bball 101... You should never directly compare stats of the franchise players without considering all the other factors that go into being the team's top dog.. You never hear me talk about brand of ball when comparing 2nd option like Klay, Pippen, Mo, etc - I just look at the stats - they aren't great enough to look at other things because they don't dictate those other things on the NBA level.
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Szcerbiak was another all-star spacer like Mo, Korver or Allen - premium spacers - the best the league has... Lebron's teams from 2006-2010 had far greater spacing help, rebounding, defensive help, and scoring help than Jordan's 1st three-peat Bulls - the team defensive rankings and individual scoring confirms this, along with the bevy of rebounders, spacers and all-defensive experience on those teams..

There wasn't spacing in the 90s because every team had at least 1 idiot that couldn't make a shot from 4 feet and no one shot 3s

Fallguy,
FYI people would take your arguments more seriously if you didn’t put LeBron outside your top 10 and then reasoned backwards to come up with assumptions to make it so. You’re effectively pulling a reverse candypants.

Don’t get me wrong, I think your unintended troll game is hilarious. And I think you make some good points in general. Just that if you actually want to convince people it’s probably best to back off the accelerator a bit.

unintended lmao

lol

The "down-hill" or high-scoring, ball-dominant skillset isn't top 10 basketball.

It isn't top 10 basketball because it lacks scoring diversity and therefore yields frequent bad fits, zero teammate development (imposes spot-up roles), weak chemistry/brand of ball, and uncoachability/coaching carousal, all of which severely limit team ceiling/Finals records.

Unfortunately, people no longer blame losses on unstoppable individual forces, even though they used to for guys like Shaq and Wilt... It's clearly a double standard - Shaq and Wilt dominated more at their peak but get correctly punished for having a ton of bad losses in their prime with favored talent and star teammates.. Meanwhile, Lebron isn't punished for the exact same thing over a longer period of time, despite a lower peak, worst-ever ring frequency, more bad losses than anyone, and the worst championship record in 3-pointer history..

The issue is that the same lack of "bag", fluidity, chemistry, turnovers and FT's that people attributed Shaq's losses to, aren't used to explain Lebron's losses.. So that's the double standard... Unlike Shaq or Wilt, the holes in Lebron's game aren't used to explain his low ring frequency and consistent underachievement of favored talent (7 losses with preseason favorite or homecourt advantage).. Instead, all losses are blamed on needing more help, which is the convenient excuse that Lebron gets because of people pushing this fake debate.

Ultimately, the best players in history learned the chemistry required to win with what they had, so they truly learned how to win (chemistry), while Lebron only learned how to team-hop (talent-based winning, all-star team strategy).. And the inability to develop great chemistry to win with normal rosters is skillset-based.. .i.e. high-scoring ball-dominators like Luka or Lebron impose spot-up roles and therefore cannot develop teammates or have great chemistry, thereby preventing a great-performing cast or coaching, aka great team.. But again, unlike Shaq or Wilt, this weak ability to win and propensity to underperform favored isn't held against Lebron, since all losses are blamed on needing more help as part of the fake debate.. But feel free to carry on being brainwashed if you prefer, by thinking that a guy who never learned how to win and lost more than anyone is actually a candidate for the best ever.

I don't hold it against Shaq or Wilt that they ran into better teams in the Finals a few times. Especially Shaq in 2004 when Kobe shot .384 from the floor (4/23 from 3P range) in those Finals, while Shaq averaged 26.6 PPG and nearly 10.8 RPG with a .615 TS%. Wilt was bad in those Finals against the Celtics, but Russell might've just been that damn great.

I don't think Kobe was a bad chemistry guy in general. He just required certain personalities for things to work with his. And when he got that with the Pau/Bynum squad, the chemistry looked great. Before that, though, Kobe wasn't bringing anyone together to win much of anything.