I'm not talking about a stupid 'who won more rings' thing. I dont care about "Steph only won because this" or "Lebron choked then" or whatever. There's obviously so many outside factors in all of that. I'm not talking about what HAS happened. I'm saying that winning rings is what is important in basketball, period. You could theoretically be the best player ever and have everything go against you and never win one, so you cant just compare people on how many they got, but how "good" a player is at basketball should be based on how they help their team win rings (as opposed to games). Or would if they were ever in the position to. Point is, noone cares about winning games. Helping a team like the Bulls, Nets or Suns win games is as helpful as winning the Dunk Contest. Worse even, you're ruining their draft pick.

If in your little weird sim thing where we randomise the league a million times, Lebron might avg more wins, but he'd have less rings (imo) and that makes him the worse player. And over a million simulations just comparing rings SHOULD be a perfectly fine metric since you should weed out all the noise.

And obviously LBJ is far more than just a RWB type. But compared to Steph he's a RWB type, because Steph is like the anti-RWB. Which COULD be enough to make Steph better at this stage in their careers. Or not, Lebron might still just be better anyway, not sure. But it should be based around who could contribute more, in the playoffs, in a team with real title equity. NOT who would add more useless wins to some lottery team

EDIT: oh and all this just comparing last 4 years. Peak Lebron hands down obv, Steph isn't quite in that ballpark even with my way of looking at it

Like e.g. lots casual fans think dudes like Kobe, Iverson etc. are so good, because they can do these crazy plays and stuff that noone else is capable of doing. Heaps of players can physically do the boring stuff, say, Tim Duncan does. But we realise what Tim Duncan does helps his team win more, and winning is what MATTERS, so Tim Duncan is better. Except just 'winning' isn't actually what matters (in fact in most situations when you're surrounded by awful teammates it's actively bad) so you have to take it a step further.

It's the art and beauty of any game that matters most.

I shouldn't have actually said that I think Lebron would have less rings in that simulation thing, I'm still undecided on that. But who had more rings should be the thing you're looking at.

You realize that in your simulation Lebron has 15 elite seasons of basketball compared to curry's 4 ?

Does your simulation also know that defense is half the game?

Tim also had pop and a FO that binked manu, Parker, kawhi and already has drob. I agree Tim was great but he had a pretty perfect situation. Steph has had a near perfect situation the last few years. It’s more than just his skill set that has gone well for him. Warriors don’t get Durant, lebron May just have more rings and maybe kyrie doesn’t force a trade. Durant literally broke the league.

playoff Lebron > regular season Steph > regular season Lebron

I had Steph as the best per minute player itl but didn't pick him for MVP (or even consideration) because voters are stupid, I figure he'll only play like 60 games and the Warriors won't try (and they'll be mediocre if/when Steph doesn't play).

also lol mavs

LOL

I agree with this. Lebron doesn't seem to try until the playoffs the last couple years. I disagree with someone else's statement about Lebron being better on random teams than Steph. Steph doesn't need spacing, he is the spacing. Lebron needs teams like the Cavs(surrounded by shooters) to truly show his abilities, the current Lakers prevent him from being his best. Steph would still be Steph on every team.

Catching up on last night's highlights.

Dat Kawhi no-look dive on the floor steal

Lowry screening Towns, lol

Dat Yannis falling oob behind the head pass

Steph 11-16 from 3, w/ 4 of them beyond 30 feet, what a boss. On pace for 50% more 3's than Ray Allen, lol.

Iverson did take a horrendous Sixers team to the finals though where they lost to an absolute juggernaut. Something, LeBron has done multiple times. Not advocating for Iverson being an all time great or anything, but he did take one terrible team to the finals almost single-handedly.

And this is the smart thing to do and something every obvious playoff NBA team should do. Unless you're going for actual GOAT, then you have to go all out in the regular season, but otherwise players should just rest and go through the motions until the final month of the season to prepare for the playoffs. Who cares about playing 1 more game at home?

Who knows. Lebron is the best player in the league. He always has been.

He probably is slightly better than Curry at making good teams great and bad teams average. But if Lebron is the best player in the league by that measure, I think Curry pretty clearly is the second best.

And I think he would have an enormous impact on a bad team. There's a million reasons. First, he seems to be the easiest superstar in the league to play alongside, mostly because he is upbeat guy and he doesn't prevent other guys from getting touches. Second, he is happy to be the face of the team, but also willing to be the lightning rod when the team fails (which is a lot more than I can say for someone like KD). Third, his gravity and style of play almost ensures that ball stagnation is not be a problem. In other words, just by being on the floor, he makes teammates to play the right way and he gets easy shots for others. The statistical evidence of Curry's impact on his teammates' efficiency is impossible to dispute. And the impact seems greater for marginal offensive players than it does for someone like Durant, which suggests that Curry's impact on a bad team would be enormous.

He did, but the East sucked that year.

Iverson pretty much was Russ, except smaller and more of a mess in his personal life.

Like how bad of a current squad could curry really boost up to a contending level? Like could he inflate the current lakers minus lebron to a contender?

I doubt he’s taking awful teams and getting them into the playoffs much less contending just by being there. Maybe he can take a wizards level team and boost them, but the kings are hawks are still meddling teams with him.

Silly me it opened at DEN-4 and is now DEN-3. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around my Nuggies who've always sucked on the road being favored over Lebron.

The East has sucked LeBrons entire career. The East has always been lol

no, he wasn't even close to his peak. his peak was just so high that he was still the best player even after a big dropoff in production

his team is not awful. they sweep this years cavs without lebron and if they were in the east would make the playoffs pretty easily. they are just not a great fit with LBJ.

Obviously Lebron's career >> Steph's career. The simulation was about who wins more rings if you drop current-day Lebron and current-day Steph on every team over a million seasons.

Damn I jumped on Nuggs -4 with Lakers on a b2b. Surprised it's come down even more. Sorry dood

Steph has got to be the greatest superstar teammate ever. He could average 40 pts a game if he had Mamba Mentality, but he just wants to win and have fun.

The East did suck, but they beat a pretty solid Bucks team that year (Cassell, Allen, and Robinson)

That Iverson team was well built around him from a defensive standpoint.

the takes after less than a week of NBAing are fantastic, keep them coming

hard to say because we've never seen it. He's always been on a stacked team.

But I suspect if we swapped him and labron right now they'd be the WWWWakers.

KC,

YA SUSPECT!

- Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting / interview scene