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

I assume you have forgotten the question as this gibberish had nothing to do with the question.

I feel like we've been here before.

Anyway, here's the question.

Please provide some evidence where you've convinced someone.

I have to admit this is pretty ****ing cool.

A 40 year old doing this ****!

https://x.com/BleacherReport/status/1876...

Makes me sad that this thread is more popular than the actual season thread.

Doesn't anyone wanna talk about current basketball?

NBA sux. Every game feels like an all-star game. Everyone shoots 3s and all the players love each other. Snoozefest. I'm just glad I got to see the golden era of this league. The mid-80s to the mid-90s.

PS: Jordan is still the goat and it's not even close. Never seen anything like him. Dude was an alien.

Greatest in game dunk ever by a 40+ ?

Unmotivated and sleeping opponents is what Pippen faced all year in 1994.. Once opponents woke up in the playoffs, the "real" Bulls without MJ were embarrassed and barely .500 the following season before MJ returned.

Imagine that you're an NBA player and spent tens of thousands to fly in family and friends to see you face Michael Jordan - but suddenly Mike retires right before the season, so now you're fielding uncomfortable calls from family that are cancelling and pretending they have something else to do... Some family members even offer to reimburse you, so now the biggest game of your life turns into the least important game - you could care less about playing - this is what Pippen faced all year...

Remember when Austin Reaves went into Boston last year and destroyed them without AD or Lebron??... The headlines read that the Celtics were unmotivated and took the night off - again, this is what Pippen faced all year in 94'.. We see it TIME and TIME again

Btw, the Lakers are in trouble because they're sensitive front-runners that feed off the media fawning over them and clamoring for more help from GM's league-wide - but now the media has turned on them and it's a "thing" now to hate the coddled and soft Lakers.. The Lakers cannot play well with real scrutiny and actual hate from the media - that's why they collapsed the last 2 games since Barkley annihilated them.. They're Sensitive Sally's and Front-Running Fred's, so this media backlash will destroy them .

I already did by showing posts by Matt R that agreed with the assist argument and also All-Black-Dan and others... You had no response except sheer denial by saying "b-but they were wrong", so I already won this issue.

Elite roster construction is impossible with a low-assisted 1st option, aka high-scoring primary ball-handler because they turn everyone into spot-up shooter.

The evidence of them turning everyone into spot-up shooter is that every high-scoring primary ball-handler in history reduced teammates' assists (playmaking) and increased their assisted rate (play-finishing), so it's statistical fact that they turn everyone into spot-up shooter, thus preventing elite roster construction.

If it was a great dunk, then why didn't it galvanize teammates??

Why didn't teammates play better and win??

It's because everyone knows he's juicing... Period... Full stop.. That's why teammates remained unmotivated and were blown away by the Mavs' B team

Imagine if Juanita Jordan and Tim Grover were caught receiving PED's in the mail - no one would say that Juanita is on PED's like they say about Savannah.. It's fraud - it's a cover-up... He's the Lance Armstrong of the NBA, except without the winning

A poster made a special pic to show me dunking on Lebron and his fans - this is sufficient proof, but the post where Matt agreed with the entire assist argument is even better... I could fill the remainder of the thread with people agreeing with me, but that's enough right there - you lost...Find something else to be wrong about - you're my punching bag

SGA will lose

He's just another ball-dominator that is succeeding with ball-dominance in non-adjustment basketball (regular season), just like many others before him... But this brand will be defeated by easy adjustments and ball movement in the playoffs, just like many others before him. . The ball movement of the Nuggets, Celtics, Grizzlies or Cavs will beat him.

Btw, it's quite sad that the media doesn't clamor to get Jokic more help the way they do Lebron... It's an unwritten rule that the Lakers have access to the league's best players because GM's are ready to wheel and deal with the Lakers, as instructed by the media... Accordingly, Jokic is simply f*cked... As long as the league is sending Lebron all the good players to get him #5, Jokic is stuck with his current no all-star cast.. It's a travesty

Prime Lebron never had a dunk like that because the lane wasn't open back then... That's why you're seeing Lebron do stuff that he didn't even do in his prime... Today's easy format allows it, and I have no doubt that Jordan would have some crazy posters too in today's beginner format.. We saw him posterize Duncan in the all-star game - show me where 40-year old Lebron embarrassed and all-time great.

So clearly you don't watch SGA.

He always plays within the offense. 63.7 ts is nuts for a 30ppg player. 6.1 assists.

I've seen him play for team Canada and some Thunder games. He's unguardable. All nba 1st team no question about it.

The Celtics who have fewer team assists per game than the Thunder, those Celtics? Incidentally this was also true last season, when the Celtics were one of your famous dominant champions.

Tatum being in your list was laughable last season and it's even more ridiculous this season - the success of the Celtics has been inversely proportional to his assisted FG percent. If you look at the relevant actual numbers when the team has been good then he's evidence against your entire hypothesis but because he had a 16-3 post-season you're forced to include him and brush over the fact that if he had one fewer unassisted FG in the regular season he'd be below your magic 40% number. He has the 2nd lowest assisted FG percent among high volume (>20 minutes per game and >20 games played) forwards in the entire league this season.

Fun fact: The 2 runaway betting favourites to win the championship this season are in the bottom third of the league for assisted FG percent - Celtics being 7th from bottom and OKC being 5th from bottom. Celtics last season, a "dominant champion", were 10th from bottom in the regular season.

SGA gets 30 ppg, but it's mostly unassisted buckets, aka he dominates the ball - so of course he plays within the offense because his ball-domination IS the offense, which makes it harder to win against top teams in the playoffs.

It's also weird for a point guard that has the ball as much as him to only average 6 APG... This makes me think that he gets assists after penetrating and trying to score himself first - then he passes if he's too covered to score.. It's kind of a rudimentary style that lost in the NBA Cup and also last year to a more experienced ball-dominator (Luka)..

Teams don't adjust to ball-domination in the regular season because there's no 2nd game right away against the same opponent, so many guys win 60+ by dominating the ball... But in the playoffs, Game 2 usually looks a lot different from Game 1, and ball-domination is something that gets adjusted to as the series progresses.

I think that SGA will need Jalen Williams to become a superstar (literally one of the best players in the league) for him to win

The Celtics out-assisted the Mavericks in the Finals at a rate of 24 to 16 per game (domination), and they had an assist-fest against the #1 assist Pacers with a 26 to 29 deficit in the ECF .... So they can employ great ball movement if needed, and this is because their #1 bucket-getter isn't getting a bunch of unassisted buckets, while being capable of getting mostly assisted buckets if needed.. Can OKC adjust like this and become a high-assist team against the best teams like the Celtics did?... I doubt it because their #1 bucket-getter gets the most unassisted buckets in the league - these types of players (high-scoring primary ballhandlers) put a lower ceiling on team assists (low average ranking in team assists), and were never 1st option for the best basketball (dynasties or dominant champions).

And sure, there's always the "if" this, and "if" that... But the numbers are what they are - the best basketball that includes dynasties or dominant champions doesn't use primary ball-handlers as 1st option, and used jumpshooters or bigs 12 of 12 times (12 of 12 dominant champions or dynasties).
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The bolded is why this is such a ridiculous argument. Tatum is one of the least assisted forwards in the entire league, even in the post-season last year he was below average for #1 scoring forwards and well under 50% assisted rate. He's an above average provider of assisted baskets and well below average scorer of assisted baskets for his position, even if you only consider forwards who are the #1 scorer on the team (Luka is the only #1 option forward with a lower assisted percentage, although admittedly it's not a huge sample size when there can only be 30 #1 options in the league and not many are forwards).

Also in your "assist-fest" series the Celtics averaged fewer assists per game than they did during the regular season (26.0 v 26.9) and would have been good enough for 17th in the league. Their assisted FG percentage for the post-season was also lower than in the regular-season (60.5 vs 61.3), which is hardly indicative of them "becom[ing] a high-assist team against the best teams".

So who do you think will win?

SGA - 26% assist rate?
Brunson - 28%
Luka - 34%
Tatum - 38%
Mitchell - 39%

I've just listed the 5 favourites.

Please keep in mind "highly assisted" is 40%. This covers approximately 90% of the league.