He only won every championship round he was involved with, which happened to be six times. LeBron has had one more chance and has half the rings.

Jordan's team won more, because his very presence on the team meant that his teams were better than lebrons, because he's the far better player. This is precisely why he is the best. Jason Kidd dragged a **** squad to the playoffs... And? LeBron is somehow better than Jordan because he got to the finals early then got massacred by a real team? Jordan's finals teams WERE the real team, six times.

Which is what this thread is about, facts and truths, not distorted fan fiction explaining away how and why LeBron has a losing record in the finals and how 3-4(very soon to be 3-5, let's be honest) is somehow as or more impressive than three peating, twice.

Jordan is all time ppg in the regular season and playoffs with an unblemished 6/6 championship run, and this is somehow viewed as less than 3/7. Add in the 9 time first team defense, dpoy and it only further illustrates the absurdity of the original premise: that this balding ***** of a loser (3/7 doesn't lie) somehow holds a candle to the actual king of the sport.

Bend the knee, you misguided mother****ers

Man, it must be so tough to be a Jordan guy and read those posts and be like "yup, that's my side"

Bolded is true but isn't the only metric for greatness. There are plenty of players in today's NBA who could probably get a 30 win team an extra 10 wins, but you'd never want to touch if trying to win a ring. LeBron is kinda that compared to MJ when you've moved up to the GOAT scale of looking at things. Can't ever really imagine a supporting cast that LeBron couldn't at least win a playoff series with, but he's also never been part of a truly super dominant team either, despite getting plenty of all star help. He joined up with the 2nd and 5th best players in the league in PER and won 3 less games. His best ever team needed a miracle Ray Allen shot not to lose the title in 6. As amazing as he is, there's more diminishing returns with adding guys to him than there was with Jordan. They're just different players.

Gun to my head I take peak LeBron if I want to win a single game or series of basketball, but when people say things like "surpass" they're not actually talking about how good at playing someone is (LeBron is already past his absolute peak, we've got all the information we'll ever have on how literally "good" he was), they're including accomplishments. MJ clearly has him covered still, comfortably. If he can win this year then they're starting to be comparable but it's still probably MJ.

Man imagine Jason Kidd in the 80's

If Jordan was 6/13 (hell let's assume he dragged the Wizards to the finals twice and was 6/15), would that hurt his legacy?

You aren't wrong although I feel most people on my side have difficulty keeping their saliva from inadvertently coming out the side of their mouths.

I know what you mean. It's like DeMar Derozan vs Danny Green kinda. The thing is this is a relative debate, it's literally the two best people to ever play basketball. So I guess if you're saying that Jordan's more likely to allow other stars to play their best bc he can do less...sure. Pippen could operate in his wheelhouse bc he was allowed to do the things he was best at, Wade wasn't bc everything that made Wade great LeBron was just better at.

Also, and I don't mean to nitpick at you it's just brought up all the time and it's annoying- Ray Allen obviously hit a big shot, but..there's a reason that they were even in a position to have a game tying shot. LeBron scored 16 points in the final quarter which they entered down 10. And the series didn't end there, there was a game 7 to be played. A game 7 in which LeBron both held the other teams best player (a quick PG) to single digits AND scored 37 points. It's just another example of the ridiculous standard he's held to, punished bc anybody else did something while his efforts are diminished/ignored.

This question will never ever ever be answered. Bc it would force them to accept the stupidity of the aura around 6/6. It will just be shrugged off with more sick burns about LeBron balding.

ok this is where we disagree, and it is fine.
You really think Jordan, in Lebron shoes, would not of done has good ?

Anyway i am not punishing Lebron but if you agree that because Lebron went further than MJ (ist round elemination) so it counts more, than please by all means, winning and reaching the finals is not the same and give due respect to the guy who actually won it and not say it is close to a wash because Lebron reached the finals.

With my limit of knowledge of Russel and Wilt era, i give the nod to Russel because he always beat Chamberlain .

Bird gave the nod over magic because most wins.

i just think it is normal.

Hell no.
Lebron would be what ? (3-11 now).
Like i said make Lebron reach the same win as Jordan tho, and he pass him imo. Yeah more lost in the finals then jordan but he did reach more finals anyway and have the same number of wins.

Maybe he went trough a tougher ride by not being stellar clean in the finals like Jordan but he did accomplishes as much and beyond.

Lets be real - Lebron is dominating, but hes dominating in a pure garbage league. Why else are we still talking about Lebron vs MJ DURING THE MIDDLE OF THE CONFERENCE FINALS? Do you see NFL fans discussing brady vs montana on the day before the AFC championship game? no, they wait till after the season is over to discuss brady vs manning, brady vs montana etc. because they have real live actual competitive sports to be discussed during the season. I tried watching the ecf tonight, I couldnt make it through more than 2 minutes before turning it off. And the Western finals isn't much better. just for this reason alone, lebron needs to win 7-8 titles to even come close to matching MJ.

Obviously winning the finals and reaching it isn't the same thing? Who would think that?

I disagree that Jordan would have done as good. He actually had plenty of opportunity before Pippen came along, against weaker competition. He lost in the first round 3 straight years. Yes he had to play great teams, but if he elevated his own team to higher seeds (LeBron has had home court in the first round 12 straight postseasons..) then he wouldn't have had to play those teams 'til later. And while the top of the East was tough (Celtics, Pistons, later on the Bulls were all dynasties) the rest was fairly soft.

Great post until this.

It is not ridiculous, it is what the GOAT means, being the highest standard achievement possible.

Ignoring the fact that this "pure garbage league" is very obviously tougher than anything Jordan was dealing with (seriously, watch this high quality ball), the Brady/Manning thread is bumped all the time. Like every time Brady had a good game this year, or when Brady/Manning had good games the years before it was bumped. That's what people do, they overreact to single games.

These are more reasons in favor of LeBron btw, bc these are things Jordan did not have to deal with. He didn't have to deal with close to the level of evaluation, scrutiny, coverage, anything LeBron has. Imagine if LeBron was spotted at a casino the night before a playoff game, or punched a teammate.

common prior to winning his first championship, he lost twice vs the champs pistons and once vs the champs celtics in his first 6 years.
I mean whether he lost in the first or second round, would it really tarnish his legacy ? ...

It is? So do '93 & '97 count less bc Paxson and Kerr hit big shots?

That is too subjective.
Any human are raise and are condemn in the times they lived in.
With the mental toughness Jordan is reputed to have, i have no idea where you pick your reasoning on thinking that Jordan would succumb to pressure, scrutiny or any other diffiulty Lebron had that Jordan did not have.

I mean Jordan getting bullied by the piston, Lebron never had to deal with it.
Does that give me the right to say Lebron wouldnt go trough and succumb to pressure by always being hit?
Of course not and imo the same respect should be applyed to Jordan on the aspect you talked about.

No, but I think we can agree that there's things you can do that aren't winning titles that can bolster your resume right? Like winning 50 games and a playoff series with this roster. What if '87-'88 MJ was the best MJ that ever lived? Would that make you question how much value you're placing on winning in favor of everything else?

Winning is the ultimate goal, and if we were discussing greatest teams of all time of course winning the title would be mandatory. But basketball is a team game, more so now than it ever has been given how advanced it has become. You can't win by yourself. So we can't derive value solely from how many times their teams won the title, an individual can only control so much. If that wasn't the case, then Russell would be the undisputed GOAT. But he isn't. Why not? He has the resume, he's considered one of the best to ever play the game, and he has the titles. He isn't because it's clear that Michael Jordan was the better basketball player...and not because he won more.

So why can't we have that same conversation with LeBron vs Jordan? Why does every single conversation turn into a resume contest with the Jordan side reverting to this



When two guys are this good the discussion should be about trying to break down who added the most value to their teams over the course of their careers. Maybe it is Jordan, maybe it's LeBron, maybe we'll never know. But the notion that it's Jordan lol at it being close bc he went 6/6 is just ridiculous to me, and why this thread becomes close to unreadable at it's worst.

Of course not and you knew the answer...

Well i hope you do not think that is what i only thinking because than it mean all the ***** i wrote before means nothing...

But to be the goat you have to surpass the man in more than 1 ways and this is probably his last hurdle.

Jordan's playoff FTs made 1463 playoff FT percentage of 82.8

LeBron is at 1422 and 74.5. Jordan made 41 more FTs in 30 less games while choking less than lefraud. With twice the titles.

A lot will be made of which guy made/makes his teammates better, but I'm sure most players would agree the man who puts rings on fingers does a better job than the guy who has the moral victory and the finals sweep the wrong way.

And let's not forget LeBron being carried off the court spread eagled in a finals game because he began getting pussy pains.

it's interesting how Jordan side can barely type a coherent sentence while Lebron side is all the well known 2p2 NBA regs that have a million years of experience. I wonder who I consider more reliable as an outsider.

The Ray Allen thing wasn't meant as a slight on LeBron, just pointing out that even his VERY best team VERY nearly lost. He's never been part of a team that's been like "yep they're obv winning" and just cakewalked. Just a point of data toward the (relatively to Jordan) high floor/low ceiling kinda thing.

LeBron was obviously still the main reason they ended up winning that series, he was amazing. I remember because I was cheering Spurs :P

I honestly can't take anyone seriously who says the competition was better in the 80s/early 90s. Just watch the games. The amount of "defense" and "effort" is hilarious. It's literally just standing/walking around and isoball. And I'm talking playoff or NBA Finals games. I can't even imagine how pathetic the regular season was.

You get teams like Toronto that have very good regular seasons then just get manhandled by Lebron so everyone whines about the competition. Guess what, Lebron is dominating because he's the GOAT or second GOAT. When Barry Bonds was hitting moonshots off elite pitching constantly that doesn't mean pitchers were better 20-30 years earlier it just means he's the GOAT

In the late 80s/early 90s there was a distinct pecking order in the NBA and teams had to get to the top one level at a time.

Both the Pistons and Bulls went thru this, advancing one round per year basically until they got to the Finals, then dominating.

Once MJ got there, he didnt lose until baseball and then came back and immediately won thrice more and said gg. Unprecedented