lebrons **** series against the mavs is a fair criticism. with that said rings arguments are terrible

lerbon won 2 games by himself in 2015.
then the cavs beat a 73 win team with lebron and irving going nuts the last 3 games of that series- 2 on the road.keep crying about your moron dirtbag player getting a suspension he deserved. cle deserved to win last year and gs hasn't ****ed the cavs once so doing it for a 3rd year in a row would be difficult.

"lebron played a good game 5"

lmao.yea he sucked the rest of the series.
was his block at the end of game 7 at least acceptable to you?

Lol reading that AJ post and then having the first 2 words of the first reply be "good post" had me in literal tears. You guys should check out the flat earth thread in OOT you'd fit right in.

Love outplaying Curry in 2016 finals is the hottest take Ive ever heard.


Comparing the greats of Jordan's era to LBJ's can't be done currently. All of Jordan's contemporaries played full careers while a large number of LBJ's still have time to add to theirs.

I believe this current era is much more competitive than MJ's for a few reasons. The influx of foreign players has upped the skill level quite a bit. Way more so than the 3 extra teams added during that time waters it down. I think the increase of AAU ball and scouting make it so less would-be greats and good players slip through the cracks than might have before. I also think front offices and coaching staffs are overall better than before.

There might be other factors that contradict my belief but I cant think of many.

Seems a debate like this one often gets bogged down by people arguing different things. Mainly, who had the greater career vs who was the greater player. There is definitely a difference. Think of CP3 vs the og Isiah Thomas.

You need to find a balance between the two when assigning GOAT status but people will give more weight to whichever favors their guy so idk.

Not that complicated imo ruseman.jordan era ain't that far...
Jordan played against shaq and Kobe and he certainly his not behind them .
So you can kinda compare .

Agreed. I've always thought that MJ will remain the goat over lebron due to cultural rather than logical reasons. Only a subset of the most devoted fans can decide if metrics/achievements constitutes being the best in your sport. For me that was very clearly decided last year.

For the majority of sports fans I think, LBJ needed to have been the first to globalize NBA superstardom to truly hold the title.

Saying the bit about giving credit where credit is due and following it with dissing LeBron in the best finals performance of the decade is pretty nuts.

Also, Draymond definitely deserved to be suspended. It should've happened in the OKC series, but I guess the league wanted a Cavs-Warriors rematch and Durant to leave OKC.

Seeing Bron tie MJs playoff scoring record in his 14TH SEASON has me all aboard the Bron GOAT train

Bob Ryan from the Boston Globe wrote about this debate last week:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/c...ZbL/story.html

I thought this table was interesting and illuminates how close these guys are (at least statistically):

Michael vs. LeBron
Comparing the numbers.
Michael Jordan LeBron James
G-GS 1,072-1,039 1,061-1,060
Min 38.3 38.9
FG% .497 .501
3P% .327 .342
FT% .835 .740
PPG 30.1 27.1
Reb 6.2 7.3
Ast 5.3 7
Win% .658 .670
Playoff W/L 30-7 31-8
SOURCE: basketball-reference.com

The comments from Boston fans are hilarious. Bird's career is just too short to be #1 and his peak has nothing on MJ or Lebron. Russell, while he did lead his team to a ton of titles; his stats are so bad compared to one of his contemporaries (Wilt) and bad in general for the GOATs. It's like Ben Wallace being considered the best player of all time. Someone so limited offensively in a game where points are how you score things I think is silly to consider.

I'm shocked that Ryan thinks some/a bunch of centers should be in the conversation although I can see where he's coming from. Good article otherwise.

Filled my boots on Spurs 1q and Spurs +12.5 in game last night. What's your point?

My point was that your bets seemed to be emotional in nature rather than rational, and many of the LeBron haters seem to occupy a space of spending the entire season waiting for him to lose before declaring victory.

Those are some good bets though with respect to last night's game. Kudos.

I didn't like the hockey tangent in the article that much, but the rest was good. I'm also surprised he has Wilt, Russell and Kareem as top 5 players by default. Although it's not too far fetched, they are all clear top 10 players (I see how you might rank Russell outside, but hard to do so with 11 titles and factoring in for era).

So LeBron and MJ are clearly the top 2, who's 3? Kareem?

Wow AJ I guess you weren't paying attention in 2015 when the Cavs were decimated by injuries and still almost beat GS. The next year a healthy Cavs team obviously smacked GS around. This year it will be a lot more fair with the addition of KD. Should be a great series.

LeBron playing like a scared little ***** tonight.

Up 2-0 chance to really put his foot on their throat and he's 1-8 getting outplayed by smart and ****ing jerebko.

I see the Stans making excuses, Jordan didn't need them.

Lock this **** up player

yes, up 2-0 i'm sure the pressure got to him

LUL. Shocked he posted right after tonight. Shocked that he shied away after last finals. Pathetic as always. Not Lebron's best night but everyone has poor nights.

Jordan never had a bad playoff game against the Celtics

yea he sucks
bulls never lost a playoff game

moron

You would be better off offing yourself

Remember when MJ had four other starters on the Bulls with $60-110 million contracts who could combine for 88 points to carry the team when he slanked it up in the conference finals? Me neither. I can confidently say if MJ had a night like Lebron did tonight when playing against the #1 seed in the ECF the Bulls would have been blown out of the game.

Jordan's teams are 16-15 when he shoots less than 40% in the playoffs. LeBron's teams are 9-12. So not only does Jordan's teams perform better when he shot terribly but he also shot terribly more often.

Check games 4-6 of the '96 Finals for Jordan slanking

LeBron played awful, but this game was basically irrelevant to their title odds. If he loses this series somehow I'll even concede Jordan is the GOAT.

LeBron Stan wishing death on me after tonight.

LMAO

you can confidently say it?
the team Jordan beat in the ECF in 7 before he "retired", was the same team the bulls took to 7 next year, without him.