Harden and an injured Paul took the Warriors 7 games, so imagine what MJ would do with Mr. 28 ppg in Finals Kyrie..

And Kyrie would get to be a full-time PG next to MJ's more versatile off-ball/on-ball style.. so no need to bolt.. goat dynasty.... goat backcourt

Again, mj's off-ball style was a better way to play and get stats - his ability to score so much within a strict system demonstrates how goat he was

LeBron is in his 15th season, 4 time league MVP, 3 time champ and has been considered the best player in the league for over a decade. How much longer are people supposed to wait before throwing him in the debate? Jordan was probably considered GOAT by his 11th season or so.

labron is a rich man's Russ

prettay good, but def not tha GOAT

deal with it, ppl

To me the better argument is Lebron vs Durant. That's close. Make a thread on that someone. The whole Lebron or Jordan thing is an insult to the game and our senses.

Thx for making my point ...
Lebron talk about goat didn’t start this year or last year .
Hint: beginning this thread is 2013 !

Imagine, some here thought lebron was already goat in 2013 base on that thread , which today everyone would find that laughable .

Lebron was what , 28 ??????

The talk about goat really start when MJ return and start winning everything , AGAIN, picking up where he left off , after a big lay off !

See the difference ?
Probably not .

Ps: seadood228 already thought Lebron was goat , imagine ...
You cant really give them, thinking that in 2013, too much credit obviously !

lebron at 28 was the goat. just as lebron at 33 currently is goat as well.

hope that helps.

LOL !
And than the only factor for Lebron side about being the goat :
"Lebron peak being longer ",
just disappear in the day, having no value for some contributors in this thread....

And they talk about MJ side having no perspective.
Please Vic, just stop it...

Yes, absolutely. It's about peak over a large enough sample to remove variance as much as possible. He has removed all doubt long ago and I don't think he can do anything to raise the bar higher, as he looks noticeably worse on defense than five years ago. It doesn't have anything to do with accomplishments, just simply being a better player. You are right when you point out that being a better player and getting accomplishments are correlated but it's a team game full of infinite variables and you would need at least thousands of best-of-sevens to reach any conclusion from that. Every MJ slappy here seems like a slightly dumber or slightly smarter version of Skip Bayless so it's kinda tough to get anywhere.

I would also like to say that whenever there's a new elite player and at least 35% of people believe that he is the best player of all time, he is "in reality" best OAT close to 100% of the time.

Maybe that's worded confusingly, basically I'm saying that the scale is slow to tilt 100% of the time and will never tilt in favor of the newer player prematurely because people are dumb like that.

if Labron goes to either Houston or Boston then we will find a lot out about Lebron vs KD next year.

ya Doncic >>>>> labron


anyone who disputes that is legit brainded

Do you genuinely believe that that is what lenC or anybody else in the history of humanity said or implied? If so, you're somehow even dumber than I thought you were.

And if not, you're just making idiotic one-liner trolls bringing no value to anybody. Great posting regardless!

I'm saying if Doncic is the GOAT, people will realize it later than when it becomes objectively true in the eyes of all-knowing gods. But I think it works better for someone that will enter the league 10+ years from now. I suspect that #teambron will go through the same thing and refuse to acknowledge it.
While your joints stop working as smoothly and your wifes ass starts getting owned by gravity, there are simply some things from your younger self that you will refuse to let go from. I think it's natural.

Yes !
75% of your writing are insults.
Probably because you lack a lot of arguments ...
Shows pretty much your case is very weak in support for lebron !
Thx for bringing it that up.

You can now take a small break and go learn some other big new insulting words ... come share them with us next week.

Seriously lenC do you read yourself ?
There is so much contradictions and assumptions in your posts, you probably be able to prove 2+2 = 5 .

Lebron is goat for you , glad your happy with it ...
What is your saying ?
Ho yes : Your a slightly smarter version of pokerONETWO.

Absolutely none of the events of recent days are relevant to the mistaken claim that Jordan > Lebron, which continues to be false.

They may help the Durant > Jordan case, though.

FYP

not really. durants prime is not up to lebrons. if he is better than an aging lebron its of no consequence.

But the best way to objectively assess who the "better player" is is through statistical analysis and team success (as you said, it's a team game). Jordan is slightly, but significantly, ahead in terms of statistics. And he is way ahead through 15 seasons in overall team success.

I feel like you didn't derive that 35% number through very rigorous means, but even assuming you are right the 2+2 poll has 50% Jordan GOAT and 32.9% LeBron GOAT. By your own method, that would put LeBron close but slightly behind Jordan on the GOAT list. Which is what the statistical production also suggests is the correct answer. So turns out your method, as stated, may give the correct conclusion but you happened to pick the wrong player?

False.

lenC was speaking of peak years. Jordan is clearly ahead when taking peak years with equal numbers of seasons.

There really is no other conclusion than Jordan > LeBron, unless you want to sort by longevity and ignore everything else. But most people aren’t talking longevity when asking which player is better.

Think this has been through this thread so many times so I would rather not go over it. It was my understanding that both sides consider them close enough in terms of personal $tats.

Team MJ: Thinks that 6-0 in the finals takes the tiebreaker. This in itself isn't unreasonable behavior, though I don't think being 3-6 is exactly as shameful as some of you paint it out to be.

Team Bron: Thinks that The Bieber Theorem takes the tiebreaker(TBT applies to many things, but ironically not Bieber himself). Where in time, not only players in the league but also coaches, GMs and everything part of the NBA operation continually moves towards an equilibrium to solve the game and any similar output in the future of hoverboards and fancy shoes is superior to that of the past.

This could be countered by TTT(The Timemachine Theorem), which means that MJ starting in 2003 would have the superior career. But I don't like that, as it is impossible to tell and then it could even be any of the other olds like Wilt. It's like saying that Usain Bolt isn't the fastest of all time since if Julius Caesar were born in 1986, he would have run a 9.4s 100m. I mean, maybe.

The 35 was completely made up, an astute observation, my friend. I said that being at 35% meant a 100% GOAT, being at 25% might be 99% for all you know, so I don't think you had enough information to infer what you did.

Also, I would not count people like Skip Bayless into these polls, this includes anyone here who uses arguments as: "soft cast in the presser", "kyrie literally bailed him out", "disappears in the final minutes", "3-6", "no killer instinct", "didn't kill his father", et cetera. I encourage all the trolling but I can't consider them as serious arguments.

Also that poll has like 30 twog gimmicks

Labron crew, question.

Is it not a reasonable expectation of the GOAT that he be at his best winning % when it matters the most? Or at the very least win more than he loses?

What team sport, historically, can you pick out a GOAT player winning sub 40% of his finals? I think the entire point of being the GOAT is that when the biggest stage arrives, you got it done more often than you didn't.

Gretzky did it, Jordan did it, I gotta think Babe Ruth did without checking. I'm not a huge soccer guy but I'm almost sure Pelé did with the world cup since he got 3. Brady did it.

I think those names are pretty cemented as their sport GOATS and they all have the same criteria. Why are we all of sudden not applying that here?

Yes, close. But Jordan is definitely a bit ahead when considering peak seasons. Stats act as the first filter. My thought is "close enough" to move to tiebreakers, roughly speaking.

Not 6-0, at least for me, but 6 championships. Don't care about "losses in finals" because any loss in the playoffs is still a null when it comes to the season goal. Championships are the ultimate measure of team success, and basketball, being a team game, has the ultimate goal of winning championships. Jordan has 6. LeBron has 3. Massive difference. Would be irrelevant if LeBron had Jordan beat on stats soundly (or some other valid, objective argument), but he doesn't. Jordan is actually a little head, in fact.

There are a bunch of things wrong with this method. It is not unreasonable to assume that ON AVERAGE all of this improves over time. But that doesn't mean you can say (ability in year x) > (ability in year y) is true for all x > y. There are yearly fluctuations and variance. Also, basketball cannot really be a "solved" game because rules change and strategies change. The equilibrium is constantly shifting. Rule changes and strategy changes do not make one era better than another. Just different, putting different demands on the coaches and players.

Also, human evolution flat out does not occur at any appreciable level (at least in context that the proponents of The Bieber Theorem suggest) in a time span of ~30 years. Improvements may come from improved equipment (this can improve very rapidly. Technology advancements. Not human genetics.) or training methods (this is overblown. Sports science was extremely well developed by the 90's). When most people consider GOAT they aren't thinking "this guy had better weight equipment".

Also, even if we allow the Bieber Proponents that "basketball" and its players improve year over year, that gives no quantitative measure of HOW MUCH they have improved. If you can't even estimate that then how can you say player 1 is better than player 2 separated by 25 years? You can't.

There are scientific methods that can estimate how much improved athletic performance is due to inherent athleticism vs. better "environment" (like, say a track in sprinting). It's actually *mostly* due to better environment.

If we transport peak LeBron and MJ to 2050, they're going to get that better environment. Same if we transport Usain Bolt to future track surface in 2050. When people discuss GOAT they aren't talking track surface, basketball court, or weight equipment. They're talking inherent ability.

So Bieber method fails and doesn't make sense to use, UNLESS two players are so close to be indistinguishable, and we have reason to believe the game has improved in x years, then it can act as a tiebreaker.

This doesn't apply to LeBron b/c 1) Jordan slightly, but significantly ahead on stats. 2) Much better team success. 3) NBA is approximately as good on average as it was in Jordan's era (plus more teams/roster spots, talent dilution, to counter any slight improvements). 4) No one is talking about if LeBron has better weight equipment or training methods. Unless 1) to 3) are all a tie.

And then 1% is 97%. Who cares if it's all completely made up? This is kinda what the LeBron side does. Just makes up completely arbitrary arguments to support the LeBron narrative, while completely ignoring the most concrete measurables when determining GOAT.

So your completely made up method of 35% consensus means 100% only works when certain people are allowed to vote and others are left out?

Sounds like your completely made up method may not be very useful lol.