Truth

No mention of the Cavs when talking about Jordan's competition They had some legit teams that got bounced from the playoffs by the bulls

the one year where they were competitive, half the team was injured in the playoffs including price.

he has always been elite offensively tho. check his stats. and I think he is being underrated by ppl in this thread who are putting him around 20-25th best itl when he is closer to top 10 imo.

but cmon, pippen is a top 50 all time player. its really not close.

dude, you argued that kobe and lebron are close. you dont deserve proper arguments and analysis. ppl would be wasting their time bc you clearly are incapable of understanding.

bron haters are so funny.

cavs come back to beat a 73 win team with lbj leading all stat categories, 3 straight 40 pt games, absurd tripled doubles, iconic cluctch plays.

and his haters just say, so what? hes gonna lose next year.

When this happened and my Lebron-hating Kobe-loving friends didn't budge in their positions I finally accepted that no matter what he does it will never be enough.

His play last year was absurd, easily the best performance in finals history.

never said kobe was better but believe what you like and keep thinking you know it all

Well those don't matter bc they weren't in the finals. Remember if you don't win the finals then the result is the same. Losing in the finals is the same as losing in the first round. Actually it's worse. If you lose in the finals you're no longer undefeated in the finals. If you lose in the second round then we can just pretend that year didn't happen. 6-0. SIX AND ZERO.

Careful, you keep arguing against his posts and you might find yourself switching sides.

Also, there's 0 chance he ever responds to this post. There's no way to shift the goalpost or weasel his way out of it. Well done. The funny thing is it won't cause him to reflect on his critical thinking skills one iota, just sweep it under the rug and move on. That's how these people operate.

Look at them both after 6 seasons and both at age of 24. You can't say it's not close. Kyrie is on arc to be surefire HOFer and "top xx" player of all time. Whatever the equivalent to 50 from 1996 is when he retires. 70, 80 whatever.

Can someone explain to me the case for the league being better now than it was in the 80s and 90s? There's clearly a change at the end of the 70s, early 80s when salaries skyrocketed (I don't know exactly when it was) with the corresponding increase in professionalism, but in the late 80s and early 90s there was already plenty of money on the table.

I watch ball now I see a lot of sloppy play with the ball, everyone spread out around the arc, no one inside, no one stopping penetration, not much post play. It's clearly different, and part of it is clearly the defensive rule changes. But, it seems much easier to get off a shot. There's clearly a preference now for mobile players and shooters, but there's not much ball movement, just 1-2-3 shoot, and too many open shots.

Summary, I don't see it as self evident that Lebron faces the kind of competition that Jordan did. Watching him just go to the basket at will against Boston makes that idea hard to accept, as good as Lebron is (someone will say: Tristan Thompson). The reason us old people love Iverson so much in spite of his Kobe like statistics is that we remember that little tiny guy getting to the hoop through a sea of Oakley minded defenders. Same for someone like Bird (Lebron's game reminds me most of Bird's, he's just a better athlete).

Basketball is a ton more popular than it was around the globe especially in Asia so the pool of potential players is much greater. Pretty sure the players from around the world are at the highest level they've ever been at.

What we are also dealing with is you're memories of the 1980s and 90s and basically remembering all the big positive and big negative issues while with everything going on today you get all the details too. So you remember the poor bron game but we forget all the games let's say for example MJ struggled in because he went 6-0.

Bulls have historically struggled in Denver, and lost to Mahmoud Abdul Rauf (integral marksman/scorer who was on the 8 seed nuggets beating the 1 seed Sonics in 93) dropping 35+ and Mutombo grabbing 15+ rebounds.

Bulls lost in Phoenix to the shell of the finals team, but Barkley was still on the team and dropped 35/16 and multiple all star Kevin Johnson 20/10.

The 16-17 bulls had Jimmy Butler and Bobby Portis as the two best players against the warriors. And Hoiberg as coach.

The gist is, the warriors are discussed as some supernatural force that would roll the Jordan bulls, that's not the case at all.

dude, are you illiterate as well?

read my post again. mebbe a bit slower. here, I will highlight it for you:

so ya, sick strawman bro.

and ya, just for completeness.

oh hai der...

but wait, there is more. I will highlight it here just so its clear:

so, not only do you think it is close (which is pure idiocy) but with these words you actually say that lebron needs to beat the best team of all time to "definitely surpass" kobe. which means that he has not surpassed kobe yet in your mind.

oh and one more for the lols:

lol wat. you actually said that.

so, what you are saying is that the Bull lost to two sub 500 teams back to back in the regular season and it doesn't influence their greatness?

It's almost like you can't pick out single regular season games to tell you how good a team is.

If you put Kyrie 20-25 yiu have to put guys like horford, Lowry ahead of him which is just a joke. Even guys like Conley or wall probably aren't as good a fit with Lebron as Kyrie because neither one of them can shoot or spread the floor.

Conley has a virtually identical 3pt%, not sure how his splits look like in terms catch and shoot vs off the dribble, etc.

Conley is an infinitely better fit with LeBron than Kyrie. Simply don't understand how good he is or what type of player he is. Better in the p&r, at least as a passer. You're essentially sacrificing creation and finishing for a small upgrade in passing and an enormous upgrade in defense. When LeBron is your best player the latter attributes are more important.

Kyrie didn't make it into any of the ALL-NBA teams and there were some snubs that one would consider before Kyrie (Chris Paul, Gordon Hayward). He might be top 15, but it seems like a stretch. Given his youth, his future looks pretty bright though.

What i said was, what is the difference if you lose in the first round or the final if the you lose vs the champion, not all lost are equal.

Jordan got lucky(?) having the celtics and pistons in the same conference while Lebron had the luxury to have almost a clear easy path to the final.
Put the warrior in Lebron conference, would he reach 7 final in a row ?

Has for Lebron over Kobe, i mean goeff saying reaching the final is better than losing early without making any different on why you lose earlier.

I say fine than, will keep that line of thinking and this is where 5-2 in the final ( Kobe) much better than Lebron with 3-4.
If you only think the way geooff, think, hey jordan lost in first round case close.

Anyway all the argument between Kobe and Lebron came from a previous post about Barkley saying, in his opinion, Lebron might not be in front of Kobe while i said in response (which barkley seemed to agree) if Lebron wins this year he will definately pass Kobe..
All that was in relation for the 5-2 kobe in final vs 3-4 Lebron in final.

Yeah he had Shaq but he did succeed alone without Shaq as well winning 2 mvp final without Shaq.


And all those garbage first round lost , Jordan was freeakin alone, alone !!!
Pipen was not even there and Jordan faced the freakn Celtics whicj were monstruous at that time.

Guest what happen when pippen came in even in his first year?
Jordan never lost in first round after that and even worst, he lost vs the piston ( they already were a chamion level caliber) that lost in the final vs the lakers ( huge team at that time)

You telling me the first year of Pippen he was already HOF top 50, gtfo...
After that the bulls not able to reach the final because they actual loose vs the champion piston ( unlucky for the bulls they were in their division i guess contrary to Lebron..)

So cool off in that first round lost stupid arguments, Lebron in Jordan shoes would done even worst..
( yeah right, Lebron putting over 60points at celtics home without any support? get real..)

You both are really disingenuous, so i am done...

So you're saying Jordan could only achieve the 8 seed without Pippen....

no you're not

This is literally the most wrong grouping of letters and words in the history of language.

Well hey, much better than missing the playoff totally for LeBron in his first 2 seasons...
At least Jordan did reach the playoff without pippen
I rather actually reach the playoff than not at all ...
Seem not for lot of you around here ..

Lol got lucky I forgot I am done with troll..
Did not recognize you ..so I won't even bother to response for your nonsense

Jordan had a combined record of 68-96 his first two seasons (1-6 in playoffs), while Lebron was 77-87. Which of those is more impressive? Also Jordan had three years of college while Lebron came straight out of high school.