Why?
You may be right which is why I've stated it's situation dependent and comes down to preference in most spots. I'm mainly arguing against those slighting LeBron. Have you seen me be overly critical of Jordan in any of my posts? No, I'm mainly countering the flak Bron has received ITT. But it's not like Jordan wasn't losing in the first round some years with the style you're referencing.

It's also not like Bron didn't win 66 games with a pretty poor team on Cavs 1.0 w/ Mike Brown as coach ... Mike Brown

Driving the lane is a more efficient play. Bron's size isn't going to fade even if his athleticism and reflexes do. He's still gonna be a bad man into his late 30's playing like Chris Webber if he wants.

You assume those in the Bron camp didn't grow up during or watch Jordan play/dominate and have a recency bias.

You assume that Jordan in similar spots would've won where Bron's team failed, the critic has a pretty easy job bc in their reality they're always right

It doesn't matter how persuasive an argument. You've already tattled on yourself that you won't budge on your position.

Duncan is the most overrated player in SE by a pretty large amount. Obviously an all-time great but not close to top five.

Lol, yep him and Steph Marbury are basically the same guy. Good call.



Lol

+1

He's obv really good and had a great career but the internets in the past 2 years has been a nonstop Duncan slurp fest. He's become the guy people who don't know basketball say is amazing to show their basketball knowledge to the casuals. (not directing at anyone in here, just from what i've seen in other places)

I agree Duncan isn't top 5 OAT but his/Spurs consistency is pretty incredible, when you see things like him having more 50+ win seasons than most franchises, and his stats not really being much different to they were in his prime. I do think however, if he was more egotistical/self promoting more people would think of him as an all time great.

That stat about eliminating 50 win teams tells a hilarious story of how terrible the eastern conference has been the last 15 years.

Most years the 5th place east would be like 13th in the west. There's been a bizarre lack of parity for a long time.

Lebron should try playing less minutes in the regular season so he has more left for the play-offs.

Good luck trying to build a dynasty with Lebron as your centerpiece

http://espn.go.com/blog/marc-stein/p...att-unbecoming

Re: Duncan

For a center he's the most versatile of the greats. That's why people conflate positions and say he's a 4 ... he's that good that he could start seamlessly w/ a more prototypical 5 in DRob. Only other true top 10ish center with that kind of range was Ewing but he didn't have nearly the foot speed on defense nor was as good a passer. Pretty sure Duncan had a much better face up game ... yes the triple threat.

During the 24-game stretch that you bring up to support his GOAT case, the Bulls went 13-11 despite having Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant and Bill Cartwright, three guys who had all-star seasons without MJ's help. MJ's ball domination stat-padding led the team to 12th out of 25 teams in ORtg. The very year you chose to highlight, the four guys who played most minutes besides MJ were Horace Grant, Scottie Pippen, Bill Cartwright and John Paxson and the team's record was 47-35. This is in contrast with the 2008-9 Cavs where Lebron's main supporting cast was Mo Williams, Anderson Varejao, Delonte West and Daniel Gibson. None of these guys had any kind of individual or team success when playing without Lebron James. The Cavs, coached by Mike Brown, went 66-16.

i put timmay with kareem and wilt. duncan is the 4, the power foward, on my all time team so i put 1. jordan/lebron bird magic and those 3 at 5,6,7.

f u guys btw. bird is better than magic. i dont know what game u guys are watching sometimes.

bird and 4 scrubs...undefeated til the meet magic and 2 nbaers in ncaa. unbeatable, ok?

joins a team with what 20 some wins. no mchale no parrish...a rookie...the best record in the nba. then he gets to what 6 finals 3 rangz 3 mvps til his back gives out. wtf game are u watching man.

Even though versatility is important, how much you dominate in other areas may make up for lack of it. Like Shaq. Not trying to say he's not one of the top players of all time, but I do think he is a bit overrated [when compared to other all time greats].

actually...wait...i would pick shaq at the 5 russell at the 4 lebron at the 3 jordan at the two magic at the one.

good luck.

yes, i know russell played the five. and i got him and shaq so u can hack a shaq and russell. but man. better rap em up and block out. and magic jordan and lebron are there too.

we got mde at the 5. we go 11 rangz and help and swat and get every bound at the 4. lebron james is my small forward. michael jordan is my shooting guard. he can play. and my point is six nine

T Lol. Referring to Cartwright'a play in 1989 as an all star talent because he made one career all star game in 1979-80 is great. Pip and Horace were also second year guys then who hadn't found their real NBA game. Pretty funny overall to somehow imply 30/9/11 and first team all-NBA defender isn't enough out of the PG position.

Duncan's a nearly 40-year old man still posting a 22 PER and peaking in the postseason. The slurping is warranted.

the real tragedy of it all is that Labron is apparently a worse GM than Jordan

Well, Lebron didn't break Kyrie's knee and dislocate Kevin Love's shoulder so little to none.

Shump and JR are great rotational players, but were thrusted into larger roles in the finals that most knew they couldn't do.

Basketball is a team game and the individual statistics are completely incidental to the game itself. The objective is to win, not to put up X/Y/Z. That season, Bill Cartwright was 31 and Horace Grant and Scottie Pippen were both 23. Michael Jordan in his prime couldn't elevate his talented teammates who were fairly close to their own physical prime to play at a high enough level to win even 50 games, which Lebron has consistently been able to do since he turned 21 with a rotating cast of nobodies with Mike Brown as his head coach.

I didn't bring that season up - this season was specifically brought up to support MJ's GOAT case. It seems that MJ's GOAT case in relation to Lebron largely rests on two factors:

1. MJ's statpadding years when he led a reasonably talented team nowhere while putting up GOAT #s.
2. MJ's championship years when he won 6 championships while surrounded by GOAT supporting cast and a HoF coach who won 5 championships without him.

But you can't have it both ways. If team success is what ultimately matters, you can't use his individual stats - you have to consider MJ's team success relative to expected team success without him. And MJ's lack of team success before a GOAT-level supporting cast was put together around him is a point against him. If you think individual stats sufficiently capture value and we don't have to look at how the team did, then you can't hold Lebron having fewer championships against him.

It's also dishonest to frame the conversation around MJ's accomplishments and try to measure Lebron against that standard because that ignores all the things Lebron brings to the table that MJ never did. Neither measures up to the other if you try to measure one against the standard set by the other. That's why they are in this conversation.

Good luck going thru life believing everything hack reporters say

https://vine.co/v/eBQO0nLx9mK

too quick for anyone to notice!

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/sho...6&postcount=86

Pretty sure twog is a bot.

Wrong season. We were talking about 08-09. LOL at Mo Williams being the second best player and Daniel Gibson playing the 5th most minutes on an extremely deep team. Jamison, Shaq and Parker weren't on the team, not that they did much the year after. Hickson was a 20 year old rookie who played 700 minutes. Big Z was only ever an all-star with Lebron around and that year he missed a bunch of games was only 6th on the team in minutes. Again, this is why Lebron is in this conversation - his teams contend no matter what. This is what happened to the other 4 guys who led the 66-16 team in minutes with Lebron: All-Star Mo Williams hasn't even been a league average player without Lebron. Delonte West and Daniel Gibson played themselves out of the league in their prime, despite Lebron making them look serviceable before their prime. Varajeo has been the same injured role player he's always been. Remember the narrative earlier about how MJ's supporting cast wasn't good enough for him to win 50 games with because an all-time great Pippen and future all-star and borderline HoF candidate Horace Grant were only 23 and all-star Cartwright @ 31, who played 6 more seasons, wasn't the same player he used to be? Daniel Gibson was 22 and he wasn't even good enough to play in the league at age 27. Z was 33 and done in 2 seasons. Szczerbiak was 7th in minutes and was done after the season.

That team full of has-been's and never-were's plus Mike Brown plus Lebron won 66 games. They had basically the same net rating and pythogorean as this year's Warriors. It's completely mind-boggling.

Like a bad relationship with a hot GF, Lebron will bring Cleveland a few more years of misery.