The real mystery here is how a useless bum like Scottie was the 5th overall pick. I guess the Bulls traded for him knowing MJ could make even the biggest of losers a top 25-30 OAT player.

we can get specific with individual games, successes, and failures, or we can look at career PER, ws/48, or rings

whether we take a macro or micro look, jordan is >>>

and i've done all types of analysis itt that leads to the same conclusion

LOLOLOL

Yes a top 5 pick FROM a NON d1 school who his team traded up for is now trash that Jordan turned into gold. Jfc, you guys are brilliant.

They all don't show that. Some show Jordan > Lebron like the advanced stats and some actually show Lebron > jordan in some stats. I know that's shocking to you bro.

nope.

lebron turns empty stats all stars who have never made the playoffs like irving, love, and bosh into champions.

ive always said 15 year peak of lebron (assuming) is what ticks it over for me

Let me guess jerry rice a d2 wr who was picked in the first round was transformed from trash to best wr all time by joe Montana too?

There are guys who haven't gone to top tier schools and done well in the NBA, in fact if said player was taken high in the draft either the guy was extremely good like pippen or the team is really dumb like kandi man. The only real reason he likely became a future hofer from a naia school is he grew 7 inches in college. He went from marginal talent to superstar after the growth spurt and had a pretty sick senior year in college.

Ron Harper was a 20/6/5 guy the season before he joined the Bulls.

Bulls ruined him! Turned him into a 7/2/2 guy.

And at least Harper had more than 1 good season.

it wasnt an outlier - hughes had other seasons with 18 ppg +, with good D, which is better than nobody pippen in 89'.

and lebron caught him at his peak - hughes was considered a star pickup for the cavs in 2006, just like ANY 22/6/5, 1st team defender would be..


jordan's teams won based on teamwork, and had less talent than lebron's super teams:

before bosh/love joined lebron, they were superstar #1 options with better stats than pippen ever had - they were arguably the best at their position, just like pippen..

yet they were lebron's 3RD options!!!.. lebron still had wade/kyrie, smh.. and remember - zydrunas/hughes were better than any 2nd option jordan had thru 89'


the stats prove jordan had less help, since he had to do more:

he scored 7 more ppg in the playoffs thru each players first 3 rings (31 yrs old), with equal assists.. see the linked stats here


mj averaged 5 more ppg in playoffs with only one less assist (offset by less turnovers), while achieving equal shooting efficiency and greater per posseion efficiency..

obviously, lebron would be a far more dominant player if he averaged 5 more points on better efficiency, regardless of rebounds and assists..

per the definition of #1 option, scoring and clutch scoring is the most important and irreplaceable thing lebron does..


people overvalue lebron's rebounds and assists.. for example, jordan averaged 4 rebs and 2 assists in 1998 Finals..

but i view his performance as superior to lebron's triple-double because jordan scored 38% of his team's points.. so for lebron to match jordan's load in 2017 finals, he'd need to average 43 ppg versus the warriors.. also, lebron was bad in the 4th with 5.4 points on 50% ts, versus jordan's 11 points in 98' finals

here's the reality - lebron should've expended less energy grabbing tristan's rebounds, and more energy on defense to limit durant's outburst and prevent another fmvp.. but unfortunately, lebron went for the triple-double over defense.. thats not better than jordan, or other greats either

I wonder how MJ scored 38% of his teams points.

Oh, he didn't pass the ball and took 36% of his teams shots and 47% of his teams free-throws.

Amazing how that works out...

And MJ shot 51.6% TS in that series. Not sure about last quarter (are the stats available), but 50% seems about right.

So how do I evaluate when points per game is more valuable than rebounds or assists? You again, cherry pick stats and stories when they are convenient for you. I'm going to tell you something a little controversial but Jordan wasn't especially great in his last 2 finals/playoffs but had a good enough team to win it all. After averaging over 31 PER and 59% TS% his first 3 titles; he averaged 27 PER and 54% TS% which is good but not GOAT level but the Bulls still won and as you mentioned won pretty handily. Jordan became a bit of a chucker in his last couple of playoff runs but it didn't matter. I do agree that Lebron maybe should take a few more shots but if it's super inefficient he definitely shouldn't.

nope.

ppl were very skeptical of hughes due to his horrid shooting and inefficiency.

and even for the cavs he was their 4th choice. they went for ray allen, then michael redd, and finally joe johnson before settling on hughes.

anyway, heres the thing tho, your eye for "empty stats" is pretty much the worst of all time. hughes is the epitome of emtpy bulk stats. and really, his bulk stats werent even that good. and his efficiency was complete garbage.

I mean, this is insanity. I cant believe ppl are actually defending larry hughes.

that equals lebron's CAREER per...

so old man jordan was still equal to lebron, but with better clutch/4th quarter play, and defense

see jordan's 2nd three-peat stats below, which shed light on just how great he still was


2nd three-peat Jordan = 08-10' Kobe:

JORDAN 1996-1998 REG SEASON:. 29.6 ppg.. 48.2% fg.. 2 MVP
BRYANT 2008-2010 REG SEASON:. 27.4 ppg.. 46.1% fg.. 1 MVP


JORDAN 1996-1998 PLAYOFFS:. 31.4 ppg.. 45.9% fg
BRYANT 2008-2010 PLAYOFFS:. 29.8 ppg.. 46.4% fg


JORDAN 1996-1998 FINALS:. 31.1 ppg.. 43.4% fg.. 3 championships.. 3 FMVP's
BRYANT 2008-2010 FINALS:. 29.2 ppg.. 41.3% fg.. 2 championships.. 2 FMVP's

except Jordan scored a far higher proportion of his team's points (carried a bigger load)

............PERCENTAGE OF TEAM POINTS SCORED WHILE PLAYER WAS ON FLOOR


.........................RS.....RS 4th.... PO....PO 4th....Finals.. Finals 4th


JORDAN 1997... 36.0..... 40.1..... 37.7..... 46.3...... 40.9...... 50.4 <--- links to nba.com data
JORDAN 1998... 36.3..... 42.1..... 39.7..... 48.8...... 43.6...... 49.1

KOBE 2008....... 31.8..... 36.8..... 33.9..... 41.5...... 30.4...... 32.1
KOBE 2009....... 32.6..... 40.5..... 34.3..... 35.8...... 36.2...... 34.4
KOBE 2010....... 32.2..... 37.8..... 33.9..... 38.4...... 36.8...... 37.6

The reason Jordan had to carry a bigger burden is because prime Pau Gasol was FAR more impactful than the older Pippen, who averaged an abysmal 17 ppg on 39% in 1996-1998 playoffs.

So how good was PRIME Jordan? well, the stats above show that 2nd three-peat jordan > prime kobe, so we know prime jordan was WAY better than prime kobe, since his stats blow evryone's away.. If someone is waaaay better than prime Kobe, that's the GOAT... Remember, Kobe was considered better than Lebron during that time (08-10')



jordan's PER in his last 3 playoff runs was equal or greater than lebron's career PER - all 3 runs would rank solidly among lebron's playoff runs.. and indeed, lets wait and see lebron's per for HIS last 3 rings, into his mid-30's

btw, mj averaged 4 rebs and 2 assists in 1998 Finals.. but i view his performance as superior to lebron's triple-double because jordan scored 38% of his team's points.. so for lebron to match jordan's load in 2017 finals, he'd need to average 43 ppg versus the warriors.. also, lebron was bad in the 4th with 5.4 points on 50% ts, versus jordan's 11 points in 98' finals

here's the reality - lebron should've expended less energy grabbing tristan's rebounds, and more energy on defense to limit durant's outburst and prevent another fmvp.. but unfortunately, lebron went for the triple-double over defense.. thats not better than jordan, or other greats either
.

ya flawless logic here. nice job using the opinions of complete and utter idiots to justify something.

if jordan had a triple double with turnovers, youd try make an argument for it being a good thing.

Guy keeps citing basic stats, PER and WS/48 right?

LeBron averaged 28.3/7.4/7.6/1.6/0.9 with 59.7 TS%, 30 PER and .287 WS/48 during that time.

Kobe was 27.4/5.6/5.1/1.6/0.4 with 56.1 TS%, 23.5 PER and .192 WS/48

Better than Lebron tho clearly.

Probably some truth there ... LOL-Triangle Offense; LOL-Phil

No he cherry picks his stats and uses only the ones that fit his story line while ignoring the complete story. He does this all the time, it's so dumb.

I didn't say Jordan was bad, I just said he wasn't his normal otherworldly self. Lebron has been averaging nearly a 30 PER his last 7 years in the playoffs. He had 1 year with 48% TS% but otherwise he's been in the 57% range+ and 65% a number of years.

jordan averaged 10.6 pts on 51% ts in 4th quarter

compared to lebron's 5.4 pts on 50% ts in 17' finals

prime lebron can't even finish at the rim like 35-year old jordan in the 4th - see the stats below:



Playoff At-Rim Percentages for 31-32 yr-Lebron and 34-35 yr Jordan, with 4th quarter isolated (stats linked to source nba.com, 'less than 5 feet' percentages)

Lebron's at-rim percentage in 2016 playoffs: 68.1%
Lebron's at-rim percentage in 2016 playoffs 4Q: 59.6%<-- link nba.com

Lebron's at-rim percentage in 2017 playoffs: 72.9%
Lebron's at-rim percentage in 2017 playoffs 4Q: 53.8%


Jordan's at-rim percentage 1997 playoffs: 60.2%
jordan's at-rim percentage 1997 playoffs 4Q: 65.4%

Jordan's at-rim percentage 1998 playoffs: 66.2%
jordan's at-rim percentage 1998 playoffs 4Q: 71.3%

and remember that mj's burden was greater, especially in 4th quarter

..............PERCENTAGE OF TEAM PTS SCORED WHILE PLAYER ON FLOOR


........................RS......RS 4th.... PO.....PO 4th....Finals.. Finals 4th


JORDAN 1997... 36.0..... 40.1..... 37.7..... 46.3...... 40.9...... 50.4<-- link nba.com
JORDAN 1998... 36.3..... 42.1..... 39.7..... 48.8...... 43.6...... 49.1

LEBRON 2012... 34.2..... 33.8..... 34.5..... 34.9...... 30.0...... 33.3
LEBRON 2013... 32.1..... 32.1..... 30.6..... 36.0...... 29.3...... 39.1
LEBRON 2016... 31.5..... 36.7..... 30.2..... 35.2...... 33.9...... 47.1
LEBRON 2017... 29.6..... 33.5..... 32.2..... 37.4...... 31.8...... 30.0

false

ron harper averaged 7 ppg during 1995 season BEFORE jordan came back for the last 17 games

jordan simply didn't kill his teammates' game like bron did to bosh, love, wade, and hughes

Does anyone know if Jordan had to carry a larger percentage of his team's points compared to LeBron?? Seems like an important stat we haven't looked at, yet.

Did you read my post?! It's almost like you saw, "LOL-Phil" -- and somehow, read "LOL-Jordan."

Lebron is a well known stat whore. Let's take a look at his teammates assist totals the year they joined lebron compared to the year before.

Wade - assists decreased by 29% upon joining lebron
Bosh - assists decreased by 21% upon joining lebron
Love- assists decreased by 50% upon joining lebron
Kyrie- assists decreased by 15% upon joining lebron

This is what happens when you join forces with a ball dominator/stat whore. But you say this is natural as these players are no longer the primary ball handler? Let's take a look at pippen after MJ retired.

Pippen - assists decreased by 11% after MJ left to go play baseball despite the fact that he became the primary ball handler, and his ppg only increased by 3.4 despite the fact that his usg% went way up. In MJs first full season back, pippen assists actually increased by 12% despite the fact that he was not the primary ball handler anymore, and his ppg only decreased by 2 ppg from the previous year. This is an example of MJ making his teammates better

Another example of lebron stat whoring:
http://www.espn.com/nba/playbyplay?gameId=400954514

Take a look at the final 4 minutes, lebron decides to have his best fourth quarter performance of the entire series, at the same time that golden state is celebrating their championship on their home floor as the game is already been wrapped up.

imagine that. assist totals decrease because the best passer of the ball joined their team. amazing.