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

Fallguy is raising some great points about how terrible the Bulls teams were.

I revise my thoughts and suggest the Lakers with LeBron (instead of Kobe) sweep the 98 Bulls.

98' Shaq was swept with 3-all-star teammates, while 19-year old Lebron was a low-producer and lottery with the East all-star center on his team.

So would a 19-year old Lebron and 98' Shaq beat a goat team like the Bulls, who compared to the 17' Warriors??

That's an absurd claim obviously.

19-year Lebron certainly could not beat a goat team like the Bulls and neither could the 23-year old Lebron, who was a 22 on 35% player against championship comp (07' Spurs & 08' Celtics) - Shaq never won with that caliber either and he was massively upset when Kobe played like that in the 04' Finals to a no-star opponent..

Due to lottery in 04' and 05', or 22 on 35% against championship comp in 07' and 08', it's clear that young Lebron wasn't that good compared to MJ, or even Kobe.. of course Lebron had historic turnovers, bad clutch and bad defensive decisions to produce historic upset loss in 09', 10' and 11'.. it's remarkable how much lebron stinks
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This is absurd

Imagine swapping out sub 10ppg choker Kobe from those playoffs for 2nd year LeBron (27/7/7). Imagine LeBron not getting all the attention because of Shaq. And, as you point out, two more all star teammates!

Sorry, Bulls run is over.

Just to show how terrible Kobe was in his second season. Here are his playoff stats.

You’re not totally fair .
You compare a bench 20m player to a starting 5 40m player ….
Would Kobe development and stats would have been better if he had the opportunity to be a starter 5 players ?
Probably so but will never know shrug.

FWIW couple months later Kobe was a starter and finish nba3

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1998 Playoffs vs Pacers

Kemp........... 26 on 47% (carrying Big Z)
Pippen......... 16 on 39% (carried by MJ)

You're comparing a 20-year old to a 19-year old, so your point is moot, but I'm going to argue against 05' Lebron anyway, because you're wrong about him and apparently didn't watch him back then.

To begin the demonstration of 05' Lebron's caliber, let's consider that Shawn Kemp took Big Z to the playoffs in 1998 when Big Z wasn't an all-star yet, while Lebron missed the playoffs with the all-star version in 04' and 05'.. So Kemp confirms that Lebron wasn't great in 05', and this is also confirmed by the timeline, aka 2005 is 2 to 3 years before Lebron was confirmed as a 22 on 35% player against championship comp at 23 years old - obviously, Shaq cannot win with a 22 on 35% player against championship comp, let alone a guy that was 2 years worse than that, which equated to being worse than 98' Kemp.

So no, Shaq would get swept with 05' Lebron just like he did with 94' Penny, 95' Penny, 96' Penny, 97' Kobe, 98' Kobe, 99' Kobe, and 04' Kobe.. Penny was 1st team All-NBA in 95' and 96' when Shaq got swept.. And the common thread in these sweeps is SHAQ, so shaq ain't doing diddly with "lottery Lebron", or "worse than 98 Kemp" Lebron.. Shaq and Lebron are basically 2 of the worst and most NEEDY brands of ball colliding, especially the young bricklayer Lebron.. So a union of shaq/bron would be worse than the LeBrick/WestBrick fit, which currently holds the record for worst-ever fit.. At least Kobe/Shaq 3-peated before they really started feuding - heck, it was actually a great fit of 2 opposites.. Otoh, LeShaq and Shaq wouldn't make it very long and they would fit like oil and water.

Blah, blah, blah Pippen wasn't a good scorer. Blah, blah, blah. I don't understand the relevance of this generally agreed upon point.

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Kemp drastically outplayed Pippen against the same playoff opponent:

Kemp........... 26 on 47% (carrying Big Z)
Pippen......... 16 on 39% (carried by MJ)

Reggie Miller drastically outplayed Pippen 6 of 6 times against the same playoff opponent:

R Miller vs. 90' Pistons..... 20.7 on 57%... 17.9 usage
Pippen. vs. 90' Pistons..... 16.6 on 43%... 20.4 usage

R Miller vs 93' Knicks....... 31.5 on 53%... 27.5 usage
Pippen. vs 93' Knicks....... 22.5 on 51%... 28.4 usage

R Miller vs 94' Knicks....... 24.7 on 44%... 30.1 usage
Pippen. vs 94' Knicks....... 21.7 on 41%... 31.7 usage

R Miller vs 95' Magic........ 25.9 on 52%... 26.2 usage
Pippen. vs 95' Magic........ 19.0 on 42%... 23.1 usage

R Miller vs 00' Lakers....... 24.3 on 41%... 25.0 usage
Pippen. vs 00' Lakers....... 15.1 on 43%... 19.5 usage
Pippen. vs 99' Lakers....... 18.3 on 33%... 23.5 usage

R Miller 98' ECF................. 17.4 on 41%... 21.1 usage
Pippen. 98' ECF................. 16.6 on 39%... 26.0 usage

Horry outplayed Pippen against the 95' Magic, and Pippen is 0/6 in matching Horry's gamescore from 95' Finals:

1995 Playoffs vs Magic

Horry............ 18/10/4/3/2 on 57 TS... 19.0 gmsc
Pippen'......... 19/10/6/1/1 on 52 TS... 15.8 gmsc


FINALS

95' Horry...... 19.0 gamescore... 18/10/4/3/2 on 57 TS

92' Pippen.... 18.1 gamescore.... 21/8/7/2/1 on 56 TS
91' Pippen.... 17.5 gamescore.... 21/9/7/2/1 on 53 TS
93' Pippen.... 15.6 gamescore.... 20/9/8/2/1 on 46 TS
97' Pippen.... 15.1 gamescore.... 20/8/3/2/2 on 54 TS
96' Pippen.... 13.4 gamescore.... 16/7/5/2/1 on 43 TS
98' Pippen.... 13.0 gamescore.... 16/8/5/2/1 on 50 TS

everyone outplays pippen REPEATEDLY, not just kemp.

pippen was a serial bed-wetter... guys like KAT, Mo, Brunson or Jamal Murray get 18 on 40% and everyone says that "more help needed", but true goats must learn to win with that like MJ did, otherwise they don't qualify.

ultimately, the kemp comparison to pippen is to show that Kemp was pretty good, so there's no shame in him outperforming 05' Lebron by taking Big Z to the playoffs when Lebron couldn't... Heck, Lebron was still 2 to 3 years away from being a 22 on 35% player against championship comp like he was in 07' and 08' Playoffs..

people forget that lebron was averaging 22 on 35% vs the Spurs at 22, while Kobe was dominating them in 2001 at 22 years old - I recommend youtubing "kobe vs 2001 Spurs in playoffs" - that guy is dimensions superior to 07' Lebron, as proven by his vastly superior performance against the same team at that age.

"Who won more championships with less?" is a boring, low-brow conversation

Needing less help to win should be at the core of any goat discussion

especially since it's skillset-based.

If you were building a team, you shouldn't want someone with a low-chemistry skillset that needs a ton of star help - that's a GM's nightmare.. Otoh, a GM should prefer someone that can carry the scoring load while having great teammate elevation and chemistry, so they don't need as much talent.

Btw, have you done your eye test yet on comparing 22-year old Kobe vs Spurs in the Playoffs, versus 22-year old Lebron vs Spurs in the Playoffs?.. What did you think? who was CLEARLY better at 22?

Barkley joined Olajuwon and Drexler for a few years straight and won nothing.

Dude you fanboy Kobe up number 2 all time and hate Lebron all the way to 11 all your opinions are automatically worthless because of that. Those 2 spots are so backwards they can only be respected as a typo.

But go ahead and cry walls of text for another 5000 pages.

If Jordan was drafted by the Lakers, he wouldn't be less of a GOAT. A guy is who he is.x

That's very precise. A couple of weeks out of extremely long careers. I don't remember.

You may be missing the point.

Fallguy putting more evidence on the table that Lakers + LeBron would kill those terrible Bulls who only had one good player.

well maybe not that much.
Why kobe couldnt be a starter like MJ and lebron ?
Kobe actually had an allstar in front of him so i guess the opportunity to be great in 1998 for example wasnt really there and when he had it couple months later , he proved right away, finishing nba3 shrug

eddie jones got traded after 20 games in 1999, they knew at that point.

And lebron did played badly some finals so i dont know why lebron couldnt never played bad early in his career with shaq too.
had that time, shaq got swept many times with great teams and lebron did played poorly in finals until he reach 2012.
So im not that sure lakers with a yougn lebron would of change much .

If you don't think 2nd year LeBron >>>>>>>> 2nd year Kobe I don't know what to say.

He wasn't

Both guys weren't that good though, so it isn't saying much

Maybe you don't realize it, but half the league could average around 25/5/5 in any era with the green light on a lottery team.. And even if the number isn't "half the league", it's still a really high number - tons of guys can do it and have done it... So if you don't think 2nd-year Kobe could average 27 on a lottery team, then you don't know basketball.

No, maybe you guys were too young at the time, but it was widely-known among fans, players and media that Dell Harris was a doofus for not playing Kobe, who had the best bag in the league at 18 years old and was already far better than all-star Eddie Jones.. This was common knowledge in any NBA circle of fans, media or players at the time.. Dell Harris was just foolishly "old school" and his decision not to play Kobe is in the annals of history as an all-time goof - it's on the all-time list of boneheaded "old-school" decisions and coaching blunders.. Again, all of this is common knowledge.

Total number of guys that average 25/5/5 in 2004-2005 season.

McGrady
Kobe
LeBron
end of list

"everyone can do it".

And LeBron averaged 27/7/7. No one else did it.

Simple question - Who was better in year 2. Kobe or LeBron?

No comment on Kobe's playoff run that year?

But before injury mj in 2002 had those stats and everyone said he sucks anyway….
And finish 23/5/5 .
So if he sucked I guess everyone can have those stats on a lottery team ?

I remember that before Jordan's injury in Game 46 of the 2002 season, he was 1 of 3 guys averaging 25/5/5.

But I meant more the scoring aspect - 25+ ppg - Cade will probably do it on a LOTTERY team - that's the key - on a lottery team, many guys could "iverson it" to 25 and probably 5+ rebounds... Jerry Stackhouse averaged 30 for example... And if Arenas had missed some games in 2005, perhaps even the "lowly" Hughes could've bumped his 22 up to 25 - the point is that it's completely feasible for many good scorers in the NBA that have the greenlight on a lottery team.. Accordingly, Lebron's 2nd year season was nothing more than Westbrooking or Iverson-caliber basketball that yielded lottery results..

Again, we know that 23-year old Lebron had worst-ever efficiency against championship comp - that was his caliber - 22 on 35% - and the 2005 season that you're referencing was 2-3 years BEFORE this worst-ever efficiency.. The jumpshooting numbers show that Lebron lacked jumpshooting skill in 2005, but he didn't need it as much because that was the first year of the hand-check ban and the new defensive 3 seconds.. So the paint opened up more than ever before, as shown by the record increase in league-average ORTG.

Fans and media should put the 30/10/10 stat line from primary ballhandlers into perspective - it isn't an all-time stat line from a primary ballhandler because a team cannot have an "unbeatable" team or dynasty with a high-scoring ball-dominator and this approach needs exorbitant help to muster even a low ring frequency (mostly loses regardless of cast).

In addition to high-scoring ball-dominance yielding weak and underperforming teams, most people don't realize that 30/10/10 with 5 turnovers is a bad game.

Period

Let alone 6, 7 or more turnovers..

And Lebron is #1 all-time in turnovers.. In addition to 35% shooting, Lebron averaged 6 turnovers in the 07' Finals, which is why he lost 3 straight close games and 2 fourth quarter leads.. This similar to the 09' ECF, where he lost three 4th quarter leads by turning into a 12 turnover per game player in clutch-time, which included 7 turnovers in the 4th quarter of Game 4 that swung the series... He also averaged 5-6 turnovers per game in the 18 ECF to nearly lose that series vs babies led by Al Horford.

Ultimately, the high-scoring ball-dominant approach of Lebron, Luka, SGA, Harden and Westbrook is complete trash.. The only reason Lebron barely achieved a low ring-frequency and therefore avoided the career-losing fate of his fellow ball-dominators is because Westbrook, Luka, and Harden didn't team-up with multiple franchise players like Lebron did.. Lebron was also the first player to orchestrate such team-ups, thereby getting the best pickings.. Other guys that tried team-ups after Lebron had older and injured team-ups because they weren't the first-mover in the colluding space like lebron was - the only thing that overcame Lebron's ground-breaking and colluding expertise was KD joining a 70-win team - that's the sea shift required to overcome a first-mover in an industry.

Heck, Luka had BRUNSON on his team for goodness sakes, but did nothing... No titles.. He would need to team-up with multiple stars like Lebron did and he'll still mostly lose because high-scoring, ball-dominance is losing basketball that mostly loses regardless of cast - it's such a losing skillset that the so-called "goat" teamed up with Wade, Bosh, Kyrie, Love, and AD but barely win 4 Finals that were offset by 6 losses.

Kobe never ruled a dynasty or led an unbeatable team.