I can't put Bill Russell in the same tier because I believe Jordan and Bron to be vastly superior basketball players. If I could draft their peak as a GM I am taking either Jordan or Bron 1st, and Jokic 3rd but I am agonizing over it.

Wilt is a hard case because even though I believe him to be a superior basketball player to Bill, Wilt's playoff successes just aren't there. And nobody here was alive to watch the tape so its just based off stats and quotes from older players. But if rookie Wilt was to be drafted today, he'd probably go 1st in 95% of the drafts in the last 20 years.

I think Jokic, Bron and Jordan to be in very similar talent ceilings. Maybe Kareem is in there, but if he isn't, he is right up there very close.

People **** on Jokic for losing a 20 point lead in game 7 but the man just averaged 30/13/9 on great efficiency in these playoffs. That's GOAT level ****.

Because of the way caps work now Joker's equity to win even 4 championships is probably 0.

Teams have so much money now and with the new TV deal coming in, role players on championship team will be thrown the bag.

But I hope the guy wins like 7 MVPs just so that he can be in the conversation concretely.

Jokic already has one of the best peaks ever but it’s highly unlikely he’ll play long enough to enter the GOAT conversation. He doesn’t seem to care at all about accolades, etc and probably will retire earlier than we think based on his press conferences etc.

I think he’ll certainly age better and completely different styles of play obviously but I think at this point his most likely outcome is a Shaq-level career or something like that.

He’s also an amazing individual player, but hasn’t really had the level of team success you’d like to see from a GOAT candidate. Like not talking rings, but regular season and playoff record. His on off metrics are otherworldly but he’s had two 50 win seasons and never beaten a 50 win playoff team, and he’s 29 years old already.

This is what I’ve had since 2016, and at this point nothing could really happen to change my mind. I’d have given LeBron #1 if he could somehow have beaten one of those Durant GSW teams.

LBJ wins by a mile for greatest career.

Sure has been a fun ride tho!

A+

Randomly throwing Tatum out there once his team is a massive favorite to ship this year is just so LoL. Especially since he fails the FallGuy “needs too much help to win” test more than any other top 10 guy since the GSW run. Dude has had multiple AllStars and AllNBA guys basically his entire career.

Russell is indeed a tough one. He was clearly the best player on those overwhelmingly dominant Celtics squads, but it was so long ago and his offensive numbers are totally mediocre. From word of mouth it seems like his athleticism was elite and his defense was otherworldly. Would have loved to see him play and compare his defense to someone like Hakeem or maybe Gobert in today’s league.

I’d honestly probably put Jokic 3rd myself as well. He is just such a unique player and you can’t deny how good he is. Hopefully he can get a more consistently solid team around him soon.

I think you have to first make up your mind as to whether you're talking who's better on an absolute basis or a relative basis and also acknowledge that the results won't be close. One of the bigger mistakes people make in these discussions is not clearly distinguishing between the two.

If we're talking about who's better on an absolute basis, no one before Lebron is realistically in the discussion as today's players are just flat out better. Jokic has a reasonable case for the GOAT peak in that case. If we're talking about who's best relative to their own era, Jokic I think is clearly not in the top tier, though not far from it. This would be how I'd rate players relative to their era (ordered by debut year within tier) in terms of sustained peak:

Tier 1
Russell, Kareem, Lebron

Tier 2
Wilt, Magic, Hakeem, MJ, Shaq, KG, Duncan, Curry

Tier 3
Jerry West, Oscar, Dr J, Bird, D-Rob, Kobe, Giannis

I'm sure I missed some players but you get the point. I would put Jokic in Tier 2 right now which warrants some GOAT consideration, but Tier 3 I think is justifiable as well.

For offense only, this is probably Tier 1: Magic, Nash, Lebron, Curry, Jokic. Jokic is very easy to overrate because he's at his peak right now, he puts up good stats (but isn't nearly as good as his stats would indicate) and he's not a particularly good defender.

Candybar,
With all due respect, you are the twog of the LeBron side. I actually just changed my mind and it’s Jordan clearly #1 (on both an absolute and relative scale), and LeBron is fringe top 10. 6 rings vs 4 and superteam hopping etc etc.

See how that works?

Magic or Kobe were gifted great players in Kareem or Shaq, while KD was gifted a great team (Warriors) and Bird was gifted the goat franchise, so only Jordan had to develop players, teams and franchises.

Ant is coddled by comparison just like everyone else, since he was gifted All-NBA teammates and then he was gifted the goat defender as well based on DPOY's... Ant was actually raised by KAT, so KAT helped develop Ant, while Ant doesn't have to develop anyone.

In addition to the lower scoring burden, Ant averages 0.7 offensive rebounds, compared to 1.6 for Jordan... Jordan averaged more offensive rebounds than a lot of frontcourt players like Lebron for example.. So it's a completely different caliber - Jordan is bigger, stronger and faster, while Ant can't offset this with better scoring, clutch or defense, since he's inferior in these areas as well.. Ant could never achieve Rodman-level rebounds for an entire playoff run like MJ did in 97' - MJ and Rodman co-led the rebounding on that run, while Ant will never be a rebounding leader for his team.

the rebounding, blocks, and steals are relevant because Ant and MJ play the same position.

Ultimately, there isn't a single aspect of basketball that Ant isn't inferior to MJ.. MJ even shoots threes better at today's volumes than Ant.

twog is the Kobe Bryant of this thread. All the volume, got the right idea, misses more than he makes.

Kobe Bryant is a top-15 player of all-time.

TWOG is more like Jordan Poole.

I thought you were a big fan of twog? Either way, it doesn't matter what you believe, there isn't a particularly strong case for MJ's era-relative peak being on par with Russell/Kareem/Lebron and his peak also doesn't stand out much from the others in Tier 2. I don't have an axe to grind - though it's clear that you do - it's just that when you realize the fragility of evaluating players by box stats and try to understand all factors, it's easy to see that the overall body of evidence is simply stronger for Russell/Kareem/Lebron than it is for MJ.

Anyway, no offense but you have no idea how you're even supposed to compare players (you are not that far from twog from an analytic standpoint, you're just not as crazy and more willing to blend in mainstream consensus as your own opinion) and frankly this thread is of no use, it mostly exists so that we can make fun of twog. The player comparisons board on RealGM is way better than here:

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewforum.php?f=64

Now, about 90% of the posts are garbage too, but that's way better than here, where like 99.9% of the takes are garbage and completely uninformed. It's also not hard to see that even there, the worst posters (and there's a ton even there that pretty much works backwards from MJ being the GOAT) massively overrate MJ, while the best posters tend to have strong arguments in favor of Kareem and Russell. Lebron supporters are kind of in-between - there are some fanboys with poor arguments, but also good posters.

Ant shoots 35% on threes, so you can say he's better at threes but I don't buy it - MJ shot better from three at today's volumes than Ant and he didn't grow up with the shot like Ant did - there's no comparison with their shooting form or touch, while MJ is also the better FT shooter.

So aside from threes where we will agree to disagree, what aspect of basketball is Ant as good as MJ?... There's nothing.. Jordan is bigger, faster and stronger - and all this matters because they play the exact same position on the floor (SG).

I refute what you guys say - you guys don't refute what I say or rarely have the balls to try

When I say that SGA is a massive ball-dominator and I back it up with time of possession, low assisted rate and his low-assist teams, this is treated as poppycock only because you didn't hear it on TV or your media of choice... But it's literal fact - time of possession, assisted rate and team assists are direct measures of ball-domination..

Nonetheless, right after I post this stuff, some idiot will come on here and say some dumb **** about how MJ led the league in usage, so he was ball-dominant too.. So you guys are just dumb about basketball and I'm guessing most of you aren't even 6 feet tall.

And of course the idea of chemistry is ignored by casual fans and guys that never played, but it's basketball 101 that some skillsets yield better chemistry, which yields better-performing casts, aka better teams.. Lebron is bad at chemistry based on his many bad fits, coaching turnover and zero young player development - this is the historical record.

You guys can't refute Lebron's bad chemistry and that his "down-hill" skillset isn't 5-man basketball... You can't refute that only Jordan had to build teammates, teams and franchises, while everyone else was gifted one of more of these things.. It's a pretty simple statement but it won't get refuted.. It proves MJ is goat and it's the historical record, but yet will be treated as if it's poppycock.

Carry on... I'll keep educating you guys until this gets to 1000 pages then I'm out

I refuted your claim that LaBron "mostly lost" with the Heat (2/4 in rangz), and you just straight up ignored me.

Remember Allen's three title didn't count.

It's almost like basketball gods are conspiring to make fun of twog now:



Turnaround jumper, so easy that even Gobert can do it.

On a more serious note though, this is the kind of skill gap I'm talking about and why offensive efficiency has exploded. Back in twog's days, this was something that lots of players, even decently skilled, could not execute well at all. In today's game, even one of the least offensively skilled players can pull this off. But the bar for efficiency is so high now - MJ's career TS would now be well below average in today's NBA - that casual fans don't realize that lots of role players in today's game can do all the things that only the most skilled offensive players used to be able to do in the past, they just can't do it effectively enough to meet the high efficiency bar that today's game demands.

Basketball is a game of relative efficiency, so it's not enough to be able to do something well enough, you have to do it more efficiently than your alternative options.

It isn't for lack of balls. It's just the fatigue of refuting 8-10 bad takes in every post to a guy who repeatedly craps on the value of Pippen, Rodman, Phil, and Shaq, while claiming 2. Kobe and won't entertain that LeBron is even close to #2.

Jordan was nearly beating the champs in 89' without Phil, Rodman, or effectively Pippen - the Bulls were the only team in the league to win any playoff games off the 89' Pistons and they could've beaten them if Pippen didn't miss Game 6 (the original "migraine")..

Phil was excused for losing to the 90' Pistons because of the well-known "migraine", but his predecessor Doug Collins experienced a much worse version of Pippen and the original "migraine" in 89'... So the Bulls already had the spark and the severe upward trajectory in 89' with the "shot", which propelled a low seed to the ECF and nearly beating the champs - this experience made them contenders going forward instead of 1st Round losers that missing the "shot" would've produced.. TLDR: Phil inherited a team that was already on the cusp of a title.

Btw, Phil's triangle is a literal joke offense that was LAUGHED AT AND REJECTED by literally every team - only MJ or his clone made it a winner - it has zero rings without MJ or his clone (kobe).





Do you guys agree or disagree that certain skillsets yield better chemistry than others?... Using team assists as a barometer for "chemistry", jumpshootes like Curry or Bird had great chemistry, while fundamental bigs like Duncan, Kareem or Jokic did too, but ball-dominators like Lebron, Luka, Harden, Westbrook, SGA and many others have bad chemistry and often have weak fits, while winning titles far less often.. Bad fits include Luka/Brunson, Lebron/Westbrook, Lebron/Ingram, Lebron/Love, Lebron/Bosh, Lebron/(insert non-elite jumpshooter).

When Pau arrived in LA, he was a 1x all-star, but similar to other winning sidekicks, he was perennial all-nba after winning titles and being part of a historic run - this is similar Klay, Pippen, and Parker - inflated by the winning spotlight.. Their play was good but never that top level of an elite franchise player or elite producer, yet their multiple All-NBA accolade indicates otherwise.

The point is that Kobe's skillset and superior scoring diversity (elite on-ball and off-ball) produced better fits/chemistry that allowed winning with less talent (1x all-star Pau)... Kobe won with a Bosh-level player at 2nd option, while Lebron needed Bosh at 3rd option, yet still had a more beatable team.

We've learned that 2/4 is best-case scenario, and it's the thinnest 2/4 possible.. He either barely won via teammate bailout, or he had goat choke and then record loss.. That's a polarized range - not optimal here.... Anytime he has a 17 ppg sidekick and top 10 defense, he should be exclusively sure things that don't need a game 7 - this is if he wants to achieve goat-caliber performance.

Btw, teammates staved off an 0-3 deficit in the 2013 Finals while Lebron averaged 16 on 39% for the first 3 games.. His 23 on 43% was insufficient through 6 games and required Ray Allen to force game 7 - the Heat never won with Lebron on the floor since he had a zero plus/minus and negative net rating for the series..

Lebron also shot 52.9 true shooting, which is less than MJ's worst Finals in 96' (53.8%)... And again, Lebron's 23 on 43% was insufficient through 6 games, while MJ's 27 on 42% was sufficient and he had already cinched the series with 31 on 46% through 3 games (3-0 lead) instead of 16 on 39% like Lebron (nearly 3-0 deficit).

Are you really posting a gobert hail mary fade away as evidence that players today are better?

Ever heard of arvedis sabonis or Hakeem Olajuwan btw?

Are you following the conversation at all? Or for that matter, do you know who Rudy Gobert is? The very fact that you're bringing up the most skilled big men from the 90's kind of says it all - Rudy Gobert's name comes up all the time as an example of a player that literally has no offensive skills by today's standards. And today's game is often derided for not emphasizing the mid-range, with old school folks talking about how today's players don't know how to score in the mid-range.

Yet, we literally just saw Gobert, one of the least offensively skilled players in the game, pull off a turnaround fadeaway from the mid-range in a close playoff game that you would never see from rookie MJ, who would later go on to dominate the NBA from the mid-range in the 90's and become known as the most skilled player of his generation.

Also, the point isn't that he made it - it's very clear from his footwork that he knows how to do it. If you go back to like 84 when MJ started his career, a lot of players might have been able to improvise shots (see twog's MJ gifs), but not many players would've known how to properly execute that in a repeatable manner.

gobert makes that shot maybe 6 times out of 100, so not the best example of how the bar for efficiency has been raised in today's game. unless youre just trolling fg in which case bravo

Pau was one of the best defensive players in the league in LA.

And how many titles did Kobe win without Phil? How many excuses are you gonna make up for those?