in some alternate universe labron has won 10 of 21 championships all with cleveland and fraudguy is on here spouting "mostly losing" nonsense about him.

Kobe had a couple down years but so did Lebron in 04', 05', 08', 10', 11', 19', 21', 22' and 24'... Lebron had a crappy 45-win team in Year 5 (08') until he received the all-star spacing in 2009 that his stiff arm needs to have a real contender and be MVP.

And again, you're forgetting that Phil got there at the same time that MJ got his first all-star teammate in 1990 - this is why MJ started winning, not Phil.. MJ nearly beat the champs without Phil in 89' but he also didn't have an all-star teammate that year - the instant a teammate became all-star caliber, MJ was unbeatable by winning 6 titles and not losing 3 straight games for 9 years (90-98')..

Again, MJ is the only player where a coach is used against him and considered part of his cast - no other player gets this treatment - it's a fake narrative because no real ones can be drawn from a perfect career.. A "perfect" career means never losing when expected to win, a perfect record on the championship level, and also goat offense, goat defense and MVP's throughout a 10-year period (scoring champ/1st-team defense/MVP throughout the 88-98' period).




Kobe would shoot better from 3 in today's high-screen-roll, drive-and-kick format - this yields open kickouts that Kobe didn't get because he was in a 2-pointer offense (triangle)... Due to today's drive-and-kick format and spacing strategy, today's player enjoys over 80% of their threes as "open" (4-6 feet from closest defender) or "wide open" (6+ feet from closest defender) - this is according to nba.com.. Defenders simply cannot cover the ground in today's spacing era.

Furthermore, when i say scoring diversity, I'm not talking about the "3 levels" crap you hear on TV and popular podcasts - this method only considers the distance that the player scored from and not how the player got to that distance/spot - if the player relies on ball-dominance, aka high-scoring ball-dominator, then we know this style impose spot-up roles and has bad fits/teams..

Otoh, a more diverse scoring skillset can dominate via ball-domination but also dominate off-screens and playing off teammates as an assist target - this facilitates better ball movement, fits/chemistry and strategic capacity/coaching - these things yield better teams with less help.. "Less help" would be 1 all-star teammate that averages less than 20 ppg and was a 1x all-star after 7 seasons prior to joining Kobe and becoming perennial all-nba.

10/21 = 48% win frequency

so no, I wouldn't knock Lebron for losing less frequently than Jordan, who had a 40% win frequency (6/15)...

But unfortunately, 10/21 is more fantasy land by Lebron fans because Lebron won a ghastly 4 of 21 years, which is the worst frequency of any top 10 candidate aside from maybe Wilt.

Otoh, Jordan won the most frequently of anyone in the modern era, aka 6 chips in 15 years, or 40%... that's the goat winning frequency in 3-pointer history.

But the original point was that guys like Curry won 3 chips in 4 years, or Duncan won 3 in 5, or MJ won 6 in 7, so they proved that they can have a stretch where they mostly won with a team - they can be "unbeatable" or at least mostly win, while Lebron never had a stretch of mostly winning with any cast and mostly lost with every cast that he ever had - he mostly loses, regardless of cast and therefore is a few levels below guys that showed they can mostly win (MJ, Duncan, Curry, Kobe, and more)..

Ultimately, Lebron is the biggest loser of all-time by virtue of the aforementioned woat winning frequency (4/21) among top 10 candidates and also mostly losing regardless of cast, while also having the worst championship record in modern history (22-33) and a bevy of upset losses (09-11'), sweeps or record losses (07', 14', 17', 18', 23'), losses with 2 all-star teammates (11', 14', 17'), and lottery seasons in prime or with HOF teammates (19', 22')..

I think you're underrating what Phil did for his team's defenses. His teams were very well built, but Scottie was raw, Kobe wasn't much of a defender until Phil came around, and Pau wasn't a great defender until L.A. Without Pau's defense, they probably don't win Kobe's final two titles and this conversation doesn't exist because Kobe would be a guy who couldn't win without Shaq.

There's a heavy correlation with Phil coaching top-6 or top-8 defenses and winning championships.

The 2009 Magic offense was a simple 4-out-1-in scheme where Howard dominated inside and the team shot 38% from 3. In the Finals, Howard had a .572 FG% during the season, .488 in the Finals and the Magic shot 33% from 3. Kobe was amazing and carried that offense, but the Lakers won that series with defense after it fell apart in the 2008 Finals.

The 2010 Celtics blew a 3-2 lead by scoring only 67 in Game 6 and 79 in Game 7. They only scored over 96 once in that series after averaging over 99 in the regular season. Their ORtg went from ~107 in the reg to ~102 in the Finals. The Lakers won that series with defense.

Kobe was a big part of that defense, like MJ was, but he had a lot of help.

Other than 2010-11 through 2019-20, LeBron's supporting cast has either sucked or been injured.

2007 was a great achievement by LeBron and it's weird to take that away from him.

2011 was a result of not having shooters to beat a zone defense. Not sure how this is LeBron's fault.

2014, the Spurs took Wade out of the series. Not sure how you fault LeBron with that.

2018, it's tough to fault LeBron for losing to Curry/Durant/Klay when all he really had was Kevin Love. 2017 was a disaster, I'll give you that, but it's hard to fault LeBron for the crappy team defense. Tyronn Lue is a bad coach.

In 2023, they just got owned by a better team. LeBron was 38 and maybe the 3rd best player in the series at that time, let alone not a top-8 player in the league anymore. Hrd to hold that against LeBron.

I will give this to Kobe over LeBron. Kobe seems like the more coachable player. We can't and shouldn't ignore that good coaches don't wanna be anywhere near LeBron, other than Spo.

My guess is if LeBron had that level of measurable success in this alternate universe reality (10 titles in 21 seasons), fallguy and everyone else would consider him the GOAT.

In another reality however, LeBron has superteam hopped 15 times, won zero titles, and LeBron Stans would still say he’s the GOAT and it was due to variance and bad luck.

You know how I know this? LeBron has superteam hopped, and only won 4 titles in 21 seasons (4 is less than 6 FYI), and LeBron Stans still say he’s the GOAT and would have 42 titles if not due to variance and bad luck.

Who are these LeBron stans?

I don't seem to ever encounter any. LeBron didn't get much credit until his 3rd title.

It's very clear to anyone with a brain that he's the best player of the 25 post Jordan years (this isn't even close but the Kobestans are hilarious) so far, and it's very clear that he ranks somewhere in the top few all time depending on how you want to weight things.

In other sports, players with abbreviated short careers like Jordan don't get much GOAT consideration.

In another reality, Jordan retired again after losing to the Magic in 95, but the Jordan stans still cling to him being GOAT.

Pretty much everyone accepts Jordan is 1 or 2, but the LeBron haters are something truly special as they try to justify putting him outside the top 10. It would be like Djokovic haters in tennis trying to put him at number 9 all time or something absurd and clinging to Federer as their GOAT.

You is right. LeBron Stans do not exist, and there definitely wasn’t anyone calling LeBron GOAT after only his first superteam title and they definitely aren’t in the first three posts of this very thread.

Poor Jokic. I guess the exponential evolutions of the game of basketball, no help, and bad variance arguments do not apply to him. Where are the Jokic Stans to come to his defense?

Probably because no one else with a short’ish career won 6 titles and showed unprecedented dominance in their respective league for 11 years?

Alternate realities or made up variance and luck factors should probably not be used to evaluate player ability. IMO facts and this reality are more suited to that.

That is probably a response to the LeBron slurpers that have to constantly trash Jordan (e.g omg Jordan’s dad was murdered at a rest stop, he only played 15 seasons, and had a 35 year old Dennis Rodman on his team… he can’t be that good at basketball!1!! Professional basketball players making tens of millions of dollars per year didn’t even dribble with their left hand until 2010!) because they are/were desperate to crown their king the king of Stans before he even won his first title.

But not like anyone ranks Jordan outside the top 5 or 10 in this very thread due to the cherry picking LeBron stan statistical algorithm, right? That would never happen and you definitely wouldn’t lie and say only Jordan fans do that. Plz say u wouldn’t lie about that. Plz.

I guess people who think, for example, Barry Sanders, Calvin Johnson, Gale Sayers, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Ronaldo and others are among the GOATs of their sport do not exist. This LeBron Stan alternate universe is a fascinating place where you need to play at least 20 seasons to be considered GOAT, like LeBron and John Stockton. And titles do not matter which is why Tom Brady, Bill Russell, and Michael Jordan are schmucks. I too want to exist on this alternate plane of reality where my favorite player has 42 titles, but only has 4 in this plane of existence due to variance.

So now we're crediting Phil with the DEFENSES? lol.... the Bulls had better defensive ranking without Phil when MJ was DPOY in 1988 (3rd) than any of the 1st three-peat Bulls teams (7th, 4th, 7th).. Of course, the biggest factor that fueled Pippen's growth as a 2-way player was landing alongside the only DPOY/MVP/scoring champ in history.

You're forgetting that the Bulls had no rim protection in a big man league, which is why the 1st three-peat Bulls had worse-ranked defenses than any of their ECF and Finals opponents, such as the 91' Pistons, 91' Lakers, 92' Knicks, 92' Blazers, and 93' Knicks.

The 2007 Cavs also had better-ranked defense than the 1st three-peat Bulls and this was long before Lebron was an all-defensive player, so those Cavs just had a ton of defensive help - this includes an all-defensive backcourt in Eric Snow and Larry Hughes, while also having Varejao (all-defense in 2010), great rim protection (Zydrunas was elite shot-blocker), and so much rebounding help that Lebron was 3rd or 4th on his team in rebounds for every season except 09'..

33-year old Ben Wallace was added in 08', so he compares to say, 35-year old Rodman being added to the Bulls and stinking in the 97' and 98' Playoffs (3/8 for entire 97' Playoffs and wasn't the starter in 98' Playoffs..

Overall, the following teams had better-ranked defenses than the 1st three-peat Bulls - 07' Cavs', 09' Cavs, 10' Cavs, 11', Heat, 12', Heat, 20' Lakers, and 21' Lakers.

4 chips in 10 years with 2 star teammates doesn't compare to 6 chips in 10 years with 1 star teammate (89-98').

Lebron had 2 Pippen's from 2011-2017 but only won 3 chips and then was 2nd-leading scorer to AD in the 2020 regular season and playoffs, so that wasn't even a 1st option ring.

All of this shows that Lebron is objectively inferior to MJ.

,


It wasn't that great, that's why - everyone was taking a 1-star team to the Finals at that time such as Iverson, Dwight and Kidd twice... The 2000's East is the only conference in history that was won by multiple 1-star teams.

Furthermore, Lebron's Eastern run was invalidated when the Finals confirmed that a 22 on 35% bum achieved it..

Again, everyone was winning the East at that time, even 22 on 35% bums like Lebron... And don't cry about age because many guys played better at 22 such as Amare averaging 37 on 55% against the 05' Spurs, or Magic getting FMVP at 20, or MJ breaking the playoff record at 23 against the Celtics (23-year lebron averaged 26 on 35% against the 08' Celtics).

Ultimately, Lebron never won a series against a top 5 SRS team with weak scoring & efficiency from a sidekick, so he never beat a top team with weak help in 21 years .. He can't have carry-jobs vs top teams because he's too ball-dominant at carry-job volume to beat top teams and therefore needs all-time scoring help.. He can't beat top teams with 18 on 38% from Mo, whereas MJ always won with that - MJ's brand of ball was superior, so he could actually WIN with scoring.




The Mavs didn't shoot that great from 3, so great shooting like we have today wasn't needed back then - Lebron simply wet the bed with 18 ppg and zero clutch points in the series (last 5 within 5) - he wasted a 27 ppg performance by Wade, who outplayed Dirk.




Jordan won 2 Finals with Pippen at 15.7 on 34% and 15.7 on 41%, while also winning 6 Finals with Pippen at 19 on 42% overall, so why can't Lebron win a Finals with weak help?.. Teammates are always banged up on the 3rd leg of the 3-peat, so MJ averaged 41 to 3-peat, while Lebron averaged 13 less and lost by 13 ppg against the 14' Spurs.. lebron learned from this and shot twice as much in 2015 - he did much better with a weaker cast against a better team.

And the bigger issue is that how did Lebron have garbage teams compared to the "not 6, not 7" expectation?... How did he win 54 games with Wade/Bosh or 53 games with Kyrie/Love?... that's ABSURDLY horrible and below expectation of what an all-timer should do with 2 star teammates... So the issue is that the 14' Heat should've been massive favorites heading into every Finals instead of crappy 50-win teams and underdogs...

They were underdogs to baby Westbrick!!!! ... let that sink in... that's how crappy the teams are that bron-ball produces.. We know for a fact that Lebron-ball underachieves the talent expectation because Lebron either falls to underdog or loses with preseason favorites (loses with favored talent) from 2011-2016 (6 straight years), except the Allen miracle.




Nonsense - the Lakers have FAR more talent on their roster - for example, AD is a far superior sidekick (top 75) than Jamal Murray (not even an all-star).

Lebron simply underachieved favored talent again by being the hottest team heading into the 23' playoffs and many people thought he would win the title after beating the Warriors in the 2nd Round, but then he was SWEPT by a 1-star team...

Lebron has lost to many 1-star teams as the outright favorite (09', 11') or with the hotter team that had more momentum and that people were higher on (23').




If you're giving me the fact that Lebron isn't coachable, this means that his skillset lacks strategic capacity - he can never play the best brand of ball, and is therefore inferior to Kobe.

Since he can't play the best basketball, he mostly loses with every cast that he ever had - he never proved that he could mostly win with a cast like Curry winning 3 chips in 4 years, or Kobe 3-peating, or duncan winning 3 in 5, or MJ winning 6 in 7... These guys showed that they can mostly win with a team and have an "unbeatable" team for a stretch, while Lebron proved that he mostly loses regardless of cast (due to the aforementioned inability to play the best brand of ball, aka uncoachable)

A coach has complete freedom to run ANY offense with Kobe, whereas a coach's hands are tied with Lebron and forced to put the ball in his hands and struggle against the top teams like Luka-ball is struggling now.. Since bron-ball imposes spot-up roles and isn't 5-man basketball, it can't develop chemistry and must rely on more talent (more help) - so it's a talent-based way of trying to win, which means Lebron never really learned how to win (chemistry)...
.

Jokic has played half a career and has only reached the NBA finals once. If he retired today his name would never come up in GOAT conversations. 6 all star seasons. Not enough. He's be remembered as a guy that had a great peak.

And calling Jordans career 15 seasons is generous. His Wizards seasons are not part of his GOAT case and are basically a footnote. Another year he only came back to play 17 games at the end of the season and got knocked off in the second round of the playoffs when he should've been playing peak basketball. Another season he missed almost the entire year due to injury.

His career is basically judged on 11 seasons of play. Just like you said.

And I'm still fine with considering him GOAT.

I will end the argument.

Muhammed Ali. Babe Ruth. Wayne Gretzky.

These are MJ's athlete equivalents.

Mj pushed basketball to a new level like those people did. He was the biggest superstar on the planet during his reign.

He's on the Mount Rushmore of atheletes while Lebron is not.

I'm not gonna continue if I keep getting passive-aggressively strawmanned into a position where I'm framed to believe that MJ isn't the GOAT. I've established many times that I believe MJ is the GOAT and that LeBron is #2. My argument is two-fold: that LeBron out of the top-10 is insane and that LeBron was better than Kobe.

MJ and Kobe had time to win without Phil and never did. MJ did nothing without Scottie. Kobe nothing without Shaq or Pau. I don't care about the small samples of those player not being perfect all the time. I hold this against MJ or Kobe. I'm saying that it's ridiculous to dwell on the "who had more help" argument by establishing how ridiculous it is when flipped back on MJ and Kobe.

I think it's actually ridiculous to reduce the Kobe vs. LeBron debate to a few playoff series that happened to be Finals series. They played many many games in the regular season to establish seeding and most of their playoff experiences were outside fo the Finals. Look at everything and LeBron is greater than Kobe.

These micro-deep dives on when Pippen had some bad games and such are ridiculous. I presented the career stats of Kobe and LeBron, using the stats you use most often to qualify and disqualify players. Address that.

This is the post I'm talking about:

I don't think LeBron being uncoachable has anything to do with his skill-set and probably has more to do with him as a human. But I'm just speculating, as it is very weird that no good coach other than Spo has ever wanted to coach him. Again, I think there is very little to do with basketball schemes or x's and o's.

People forget that Phil arrived at the same time that MJ got an all-star teammate in 1990 - MJ nearly beat the champs in 89' without Phil, so the all-star help was the primary reason MJ started winning and that's the reason that ANY player wins - all-star help - not Phil Jackson... Coaches have never been considered part of the "cast" and the only reason Phil has been used in that light is because haters don't see sufficient star power among the actual cast, so they throw Phil in there.

But history tells the story - everyone in history needed many all-star teammates except MJ - he's the only player that was unbeatable once he got a single all-star, so he never needed another one - he's then punished for this by new fans that say he "needed" this low-producing and choking mental case of a sidekick.. Ultimately, new fans criticize MJ without realizing that the years they're criticizing him for were years without all-star teammates and low seeding (of course the exception to low seeding was 88' when MJ won MVP/DPOY by achieving a high seed with zero cast).

Ultimately, Lebron had a really short peak of 6 years where he achieved all-defense or MVP's (09-14'), while MJ was all-defense and MVP throughout a 10-year period (88-98'), while also being scoring champ - this is the highest and longest peak of all-time (MVP, 1st-team defense & scoring champ throughout a 10-year period).

The "more help" argument applies to winning 6 chips and 40% win frequency with 1 star teammate, versus 4 chips and 20% win frequency with 2 star teammates (or being the 2nd-leading scorer in 2020)... For Lebron to win as 1st option, he needed 2 star teammates, which includes a sidekick that made the Finals without him (wade, kyrie) - that's objectively more help than MJ needed... or Kobe.

And if a player like Duncan, Curry or MJ is good enough to develop an unbeatable team so they never need another one, you'll use the fact that they played for 1 team to say they "needed" that team and are therefore inferior.. Meanwhile, the guy that can't develop an unbeatable team regardless of cast and hops around failing to have dynasties everywhere he goes is somehow comparable... This is an obvious misperception of the situation, or a flat-out lying/playing dumb... It isn't better to lose a bunch with an all-star and need more all-stars, than be unbeatable with the first all-star you receive and never need another one.

It might be different if the all-star sidekick was an elite producer that frequently took over and was "the man" like kareem or shaq, or a legit "1a/1b"... But there's never been bigger statistical gap between 1st and 2nd option than MJ and Pippen, or a lower-producing and more lane-clogging mental case than Pippen.. It's amazing how result-oriented fans can be though, so Pippen's bricklaying and ordinary numbers are inflated by the winning spotlight to all-time status and media accolade...

It isn't just a few bad games from Pippen - he averaged 17.6 on 41% for the entire 96-98' Playoffs and 19 on 42% in 6 Finals, which includes 2 Finals of 15.7 on 40% - imagine if AD did any of that - he would be destroyed... "Pandemic P" was destroyed for averaging 22 on 45%, which would be among the best series of Pippen's career - MJ won 6 titles with "Pandemic P" caliber from Pippen.. Heck, at least PG13 still hit some big shots and had some clutch moments, while Pippen never did because he was just a transition player/dunker and nothing outside the system (89' or 99').

not getting the sweep in the finals hurts tatum's goat argument

had a chance to do something lebron and jordan never did

Kobe
22.9 PER
4.6 BPM
80.1 VORP
.170 WS/48

LeBron
27.1 PER
8.7 BPM
151.9 VORP
.224 WS/48

Production rate stats aren't the entire story for 1st options because 1st options dictate brand of ball, playing style, fits/chemistry, strategic capacity/coaching, and teammate development, which ultimately determines a team's ceiling/Finals record.

Obviously, Kobe's goat scoring diversity (elite on-ball and off-ball) fit with any teammate or system, while also getting 40 while the ball moves, so he could develop the great chemistry over time to develop a great-performing cast - Kobe had goat fits with teammates due to his goat scoring diversity, and this great chemistry produced great teams with less help.

Of course, Kobe had already spent many years learning how to 3-peat and knew the blueprint in 2008, so it was instant when Pau joined - this is similar to Jordan quickly lifting a borderline .500 team in 95' to a 3-peat the next year.

In contrast to 1st options (who dictate brand of ball), sidekicks are more pure stat producers, so their production rates (PER, etc) can be directly compared - when we do this, we see that Pippen ranks outside the top 100 in PER and WS/48, while ranking below Kyrie, AD, and Wade in BPM.. VORP is an accumulation stat based on minutes played, but Pippen's peak VORP for a season is also outside the top 100.

Ultimately, due to their high-scoring ball-dominance and imposition of spot-up roles, Lebron and Luka can never develop great chemistry, so they can never develop the kind of seemingly unbeatable juggernaut that we see with these Celtics, or last year's Nuggets, or the 90's Bulls and other dynasties... Even a 50/20/20 player would crater teammate performance and need more help - the heliocentric brand of ball freezes out teammates, so it lacks chemistry and therefore needs more talent (more help).. Now I'm not saying Tatum > Lebron, but his brand of ball is, so other guys with similar brand of ball (expert jumpshooters) that are more talented than Tatum are infact better than Lebron, such as Curry, MJ, Kobe, and Bird.

Let’s check in on “excellent Jump Shooter” Jayson Tatum through 4 games of the NBA Finals:



Now let’s check in on cancer Luka, who doesn’t have the midrange jump shooting skillset that MJ and Tatum do, which leads to “organic chemistry”

The point with Tatum's jumpshooting is that it's often assisted, so teammates are involved even when he scores a lot of points (great fits) and the ball movement expends more energy from opponent's defenses, thus leaving less capacity for offense (less likely to "get hot"), aka winning the attrition battle..

And when the Celtics win in 5, no one will think that Game 4 was anything more than a game the Celtics mailed in.. Accordingly, thru 3 games (when the series was won), the Celtics have a 26 to 15 advantage in assists per game, and this ball movement has worn down the Mavs' defenders, which left them less capacity for offense and a 48 to 55 deficit in effective FG% (2's and 3's combined)..

So Luka's ball-dominance is losing the attrition battle and getting smashed on the Finals level just like Lebron did.. Surely if he was a player that facilitated great ball movement and chemistry the way high-assisted players do such as Jokic, Curry, Tatum, MJ or Kobe, he would develop dominant juggernauts like they do... Instead, his ball-dominance is repeatedly failing to develop juggernauts and dominant teams despite many star teammates like Brunson, Kyrie, or even Porzingas..

Luka might be better than Lebron, but I don't see a difference in results (winning) of his ball-dominant style of play - he's getting smashed by Finals teams just like Lebron did - this includes the 22' Warriors or these Celtics... Surely if he was a player that facilitated great ball movement and chemistry the way high-assisted players do such as Jokic, Curry, or Tatum, he would develop dominant juggernauts like they do... Instead, his ball-dominance is repeatedly failing to develop juggernauts and dominant teams despite many star teammates like Brunson, Kyrie, or even Porzingas..

Luka's team has a massive deficit in team assists through 3 games (26 to 15 per game) and this scrambling defensively from ball movement is leaving the Mavs less capacity for offense and shooting much worse than the Celtics (48 to 55 efg thru 3 games), aka losing the attrition battle.

All of this is just like Lebron, so even though Luka is better than Lebron, the results of this brand of ball is the same - it gets smashed on the championship level.. Lebron and his teammates are the only guys with a losing Finals record over a meaningful sample size (4+ Finals), since the beginning of 3-pointer basketball.. Luka and his teammates will become the 2nd group of guys that have a losing record in the Finals over a meaningful sample (once Luka has 4+ Finals)..

If there was a player that averaged a "heliocentric" 50/20/20, his teammates would always underperform in the obvious spot-up roles that they would have and the team would still have a losing record on the championship level.. The story would STILL be that his teammates stunk and he needs new ones - standard procedure for all high-scoring, ball-dominators.. Since they can't develop elite chemistry, they always need more talent (more help)..

Indeed, high-scoring ball-dominators never really learned effective basketball/how to win, aka chemistry development - Luka is struggling with that now - hopefully he will change his style of play instead of being like a fly hitting a window repeatedly like Lebron did with his high-scoring, ball-domination (unable to compete on championship level, aka 22-33).