The LeBron side is basically uncle rico trying to convince Napoleon that he could throw a football over a mountain

the thing with irving is that he really hasnt improved all that much over the course of his career. I kinda think he is what he is at this point. and ya, thats a pretty great offensive player. terrible on defense

maybe I am overrating pippen. great 2 way player. 10 time all defense team. perfect complement.

Bulls team makes the playoffs without MJ.

Heat team without LeBron make the playoffs.

Cavs team without LeBron make the playoffs.

I will give you the second three peat team was slightly better without MJ than any of the LeBron led teams. But then again that second three-peat team (with MJ) is better than any team that LeBron has been on.

when you start arguing mj would defend better than lebron, you enter gerb/aj/montreal level of delusion.

I will take the guy who was bigger and stronger with some of the freakiest athleticism of all time.

Lol @ love and kyrie top 15 players in the league

Speaking of delusion, draymond green is a far better defender than LeBron and is smaller weaker and way less athletic.

irving def is.

Draymond can focus on d all season long because there are two or more stud offensive players on his team. Bron shoulders the offensive load and basically saves his elite d for the playoffs. There is little comparing the two.

If Lebron had Draymond Green's role on offense he would be a a literal superhero version of current Draymond on D

If you rewind it to LeBron's physical prime it would get even more absurd

You're sort of proving a point. A God in a man's body (which is what James is) should have a better than 0.8 blocks per game average.

He's so good when he's switched on. But he isn't always switched on.

Being bigger, stronger and more athletic doesn't automatically mean you are better than someone at something.

People are confusing comparing talent in a vacuum and supporting casts. The best the Heat ever were was the 2013 season and still when it came down to it they played some of their best ball with old Shane Battier, old Ray Allen, and Mario Chalmers on the floor.

Wade and Bosh are amazing players, and Boshs ability to go from the inside guy he was in Toronto to the p&r blitzing perimeter shooter he was in Miami should be commended. But these two were horrid fits next to LeBron. Fit matters. And the fact of the matter is he's pretty much never had good team construction until now. Kyrie isn't great, but his shooting ability makes him a passable 2nd best player. Obv not near as bad as those first 7 years in Cleveland which are as lol as it gets.

Pippen, otoh, was a perfect 2nd option. An above average creator who always guarded the other teams best player.

Fidstar-

MJ is not in LeBrons league as a defender. Would recommend checking this out. Combine that with versatility, LeBron can legit guard any position in the modern NBA, Jordan wouldn't be able to. Pippen could though!

I think MJ as a defender gets overrated bc analysis and schemes were a lot more simplistic*. He got some steals so he was a great defender. The tape shows a lot of easily defendable schemes (so his athletic/skill edge is more valuable) and not a lot of moving. I'd bet a lot (obv unprovable) that he'd be perceived differently if he had to deal with the switching/rotating/extending of today's game. Especially with the offensive burden he always carried. It's a different world. It's not the 80s where you ran 1 guy off a ball screen to get a mid range jumper and nobody could shoot so defenses cud just pack it in.

Michael Jordan had 9 first team all defense selections, won dpoy, and had 10 scoring titles on top of being the #1 all time ppg scorer during the regular season and playoffs.

Sounds unheard of, right? It is. Except my guy went all out each night and would play 20 and sit with his team holding a 25pt lead to get his rest.

LeBron doesn't try and then decides to take off multiple games to ice his pussy from the multiple poundings he took in the finals.

"My guy doesn't try hard so he can save it for losing at the end"

This **** is hilarious

Idk I'm pretty sure I can easily think of 15 players I'd much rather have than Irving even though he's great.

Curry
Thompson
Kiwi
Bron
Durant
Westbrook
Harden
Butler
Wall
George
Davis
KAT
Giannis
CP3

Off the top, I guess he's around the 13-20 range

yeah Kyrie is prob top 20 but def not top 15

Jordan never played 14 straight years or made 7 straight finals.

Jordan retired the 1st time because he was mentally exhausted.

also, his father was murdered

a mentally ill person was ****ing Lebron's mom and people still joke about it, life is rough

Kyrie is not a top 15 player, not close.

Horford
Lowry
Giannis
Butler
George
Wall
Millsap
Westbrook
Gobert
Hayward
Towns
Paul
Griffin
Steph
Klay
Durant
Draymond
Kawhi
Harden
Brow
Cousins
Gasol
Conley

Not perfect but at least 15 of those guys are slam dunks. Kyrie is in a no lose spot. His warts basically get hidden bc of LeBron. He's a below average distributor for a guard but that doesn't matter bc LeBron can just be the creator. One of the worst defenders in the league too. He basically gets to sit back and take over games as a scorer (his best skill) when he can with limited effort spent elsewhere and 0 mental burden. He'd be viewed different as "the guy" on a team bc his warts would be more exposed.

That link didn't show much (the one you gave was actually broken, but I think I worked out where you were trying to send me). Maybe I'm missing something (or I'm in the wrong place), but I'm not learning much from a 400 word article.

Yes, both offensive and defensive schemes have changed considerably over the years.

did jordan ever do this on defense?



here is a close-up for you:

This is dishonest. Just prior to your cherry-picked timeline, the Spurs won 2 championships in the previous 3 years and 3 in the previous 5 - all with the Duncan/Ginobilli/Parker core. I started the timeline from when Stockton became a starting point guard for the Jazz - that just happens to be 9 seasons before they made the finals. Whereas you picked this exact timeline to exclude the success the Spurs core had before, while including a season after Duncan retired. Yes they are similar if you ignore the four championships in the big-3 era.

Re Jazz

They played in the weakest division in the west. 4 teams were sub 25 in both years and they went 16-0 vs them iirc both years and only lost a couple of games in their division in 2 years. Can't remember but pretty sure couple of expansions too without looking. I'm non Murcia so don't know divisions by heart.

Kyrie isn't top 15 (top 20-25). It's hard to know, when he's playing second fiddle, just how good he is.

I mean before MJ had a break Pippen was probably only seen as a Top 15-20 player (in the 4 seasons before MJ retired he had one NBA 2nd team and one 3rd team). It wasn't until he got a chance by himself that he looked like a consistent Top 5-10 player.

Well actually the year before my analysis they didn't win the Championship. I just went back 5 years. Thought that was reasonable for how a good a team is at point.

But you are right. They were awesome before that. But before that was a very different team to the one LeBron played. He wasn't playing peak Duncan (GOAT Power Forward), Parker was getting older and the other guy was getting balder.

If you want to take out the year Duncan retired (even though KL's rise to Top 5 player more than offset old man Duncan retiring), that's fine. It still wouldn't change the analysis much.