I wouldn't even say he wasn't a team player. His role on the team was to go score and that's what he did. Hawks were on their mid-level tier of relevance in the 80s solely because of him. You guys are overthinking this. Put him on the Lakers instead of Worthy, (two picks away in the '82 Draft 'Nique went #3 and Worthy went #1 to Lakers and the showtime Lakers don't win any less championships.) Pair him with prime 'Shaq and Phil and the early aughts Lakers aren't winning any less championships. If he's on any of those teams, then the narrative for him totally changes. He'd be a "winner" and all the other stuff people say about guys that have the good fortune to play on championship teams. He wasn't a Lebron type that was going to drag awful teams to the Finals and "make everyone else better" but that's fine, Kobe wasn't like that either. I'm sure he was smart enough to fit into a role on a winning team if he had the opportunity. Melo, Kobe, and Nique are all the same guy. One ran good and got placed on a GOAT franchise and got paired up with most dominant big man of the modern era and the other two never got much help. Guys are going to play different depending on what's around them. If you have Kareem and Magic as teammates and are going to the Finals every year you are going to be happy getting your 20ppg and deferring when need be. If the best guys you ever played with in your prime were Tree Rollins, Doc Rivers, Etc then yeah you are gonna be more inclined to be like "#YOLO I'm gonna go get my 30 every night we aren't getting past the Celtics anyway." It's not Rocket Science.

I don't doubt Nique gets a ring with Kareem and Magic, I doubt he gets a ring on the 3 peat Lakers or any of the Bulls teams tho.

Bulls teams, maybe maybe not I think he'd at leasat have a decent chance. We aren't talking about getting 6 like MJ, just gotta get one right? The Bulls scenario would be the biggest maybe tho because you are replacing Jordan. There is no reason to think why he wouldn't get at least one with Shaq if you replaced Kobe with him.

I think there are two ways of looking at this whole thing. There is the 'pure' way, straight up just who, through their ability at shooting, rebounding, running, how they thought, what they could physically do, helped their team (or a random team, or a random contender, or a myriad of other situations) win games of basketball more. This is the way we SHOULD look at it, but noone does.

Everyone looks at things the second way, in terms of things that actually happened, which by necessity involve context and outside assistance and involve complex situations and all sorts of things that "shouldn't" matter, but to us emotional humans do. If Ray Allen had missed, if Kyrie Irving had missed and Steph had hit his 3, LeBron could easily be 1/7 while being exactly as good a player in the pure sense, but we would think less of him. If Scottie Pippen had never been born, Michael Jordan may have spent his whole career hitting 30+ PERs in a team that gets bounced in the first round. He'd still be exactly as good a player himself, but we would think less of him.

Looking at it the first way it doesn't matter if Cleveland or GSW win this year, LeBron is past peak now anyway so we know exactly how good he was and is, and they have some % to win the title this year and it's just variance whether they do or not. They only thing left to fully answer the question from this viewpoint is how LeBron ages over the next 5ish years (or more). That is irrelevant to me, his production could fall off a cliff tomorrow and he could become replacement level and he'd still be the best by the first viewpoint in my mind. The league is just better now, and LeBron dominates it. He's bigger, stronger, more versatile, plays defense better (because everyone does because coaching is better, so kind of unfair to give credit for that, but he does). He plays actual basketball better than anyone has in history.

But he still has a fair way to go to pass Jordan in accomplishments/"greatness"/the usual viewpoint. He was horrible in the 2011 Finals. That isn't really debatable. That doesn't change how good he is now, or was in 2009, but it's a thing that happened and should be counted against him IMO. He lost fair and square, with plenty of help, in 2014. He was SUPER close to losing with home court as the dominant side in 2013. Jordan's teams never sniffed a lost series in the years he was "supposed to win"*. He only has 3 rings. It's being results based, but he just hasn't been as productive as Jordan was. In fact, IMO, he's still far enough behind that a win against GSW this year still wouldn't quite get him past.

*As dumb as the finals strike rate stuff is, there is some merit to the line thinking. Jordan never really lost in a year when he had a big amount of title equity. LeBron has. It's absolutely ridiculous to count 2007 against him, but it would be equally dumb to NOT count 2011 against him, and even 2014 (though I guess that loss is similar to the 1990 loss for Jordan).

2011 was bad and should definitely be counted against him.
The spurs years are not "supposed" to win years, the heat were probably not better in 2013 and they were definitely not in 2014. The Spurs were just really really good, people will want to pin the Heat not being as good as advertised on Lebron, but I'm not sure that's fair, it doesn't seem like Jordan should work out better with another ball dominant wing that couldn't shoot 3's. But that's a different argument though, it's an argument based on Jordan actually being better than Lebron, not on perceived failure when you're Favorited.

66-16 vs 58-24 probably not better? Cmon.

I definitely think it's ok to pin some of the Heat not being as good as advertised stuff on LeBron, but for different reasons to most. To me, in the context of being the GOAT, LeBron is a high floor, low ceiling guy. He is a jack of all trades, has no real weaknesses, but doesn't do anything at a truly elite level (again, in the GOAT context). Jordan doesn't do everything, but he's the greatest scorer of all time. IMO, LeBron + 4 scrubs > Jordan + 4 scrubs, but Jordan + 4 hand picked teammates > LeBron + 4 hand picked teammates. I mean, I still don't even know what the proper LeBron team is supposed to look like. It's why LBJ managed to make the finals in 2007 and win 66 games in 2009 with nothing, but also went from 61 wins to 58 wins when moving from a team with nothing to a team with the 2nd and 4th best players in the league by PER. Obviously some of it is Wade's unsuitability to being a second banana compared to Pippen's, but I think it's an actual thing that LeBron is just harder to 'help' in general because it's hard to work out what you're supposed to be helping.

High floor low cieling jfc. Are you Kristine Leahy?

The only way his scoring isn't truly elite is if you're comparing directly with Jordan (and the last couple of years of regular season Curry). And the rest has to be elite, by definition, because it's better than Jordan's, who is generally assumed to be the GOAT.
So what you're saying is that being the GOAT scorer gives you a higher ceiling to form a team around, I'm not sure that's true, but it's not too far fetched of a theory. Although the question of how you help LeBron seems pretty easy to answer, give him the best defenders and best shooters, stick him in the spurs of a few years ago and that's the best team ever, or close.

High floor low ceiling? I mean he's #2 all time at worst not a lot of wiggle room there lol.

I'd say LeBron's easier to build around too. Better facilitator, more versatile defender, better rebounder, and won't punch teammates. That makes up for being a slightly worse scorer.

Btw, how do you think you build a team around Jordan?

i've long espoused the (relatively) high floor low ceiling thing. it makes a lot of sense. but at the same time, it might be playing the result. cavs have some ridic record when lebron rests. wade had fit issues, wasnt peak any year, and wasn't prime after 2012.

your theory can also can be true while lebrons ceiling > jordans or lebrons floor < jordans, so i don't know if it answers the question so much as it can be a compromise

I don't know how many times I need to type "in the context of being the GOAT", but apparently it's more than two.

I am exactly comparing directly to Jordan. And in rebounding I'm comparing to Rodman. And in assists I'm comparing to Magic/Stockton. etc. I just meant he doesn't really do any one particular thing at a truly, all time, elite level. It wasn't a knock on him and it's obviously perfectly possible to be the overall GOAT while not being the best in any single category.

His "low ceiling" is still best team in the NBA etc., but not quite 3-peats/70 wins. I could have just as easily said Jordan is low floor high ceiling, with his "low floor" being still making the playoffs and pushing good teams with absolutely zero help rather than dragging them to conference finals/NBA finals with no help. It's not ACTUALLY a low floor, just like LeBrons low ceiling isn't low either, but in the context of being literally the best player ever it IS low.

With Pippen and Rodman?

I can't really remember perfectly but they were what, T10 and T25ish in league at the time (in a vacuum)? Who would be perfect with roughly those vacuum ratings for Lebron now? Does Jimmy Butler/PG fit with Lebron the same way Pippen did with Jordan? (I honestly don't know). At the very least I'd think you're getting a less marginal benefit there than you would with Jordan because they wouldn't be the #1 wing defender. LBJ and PG team LBJ still guards Durant. MJ and PG team I reckon PG does.

Think I'm taking like Boogie/Gobert (T10) and like IT2/Eric Bledsoe (T25) to put around Bron in that scenario without looking anything and just spitballing off the top of my head. Which just further speaks to Bron's versatility since Boogie/Gobert and IT2/Bledsoe couldn't be much different as players at their positions. I think Kiwi/Butler/PG13 types are pretty redundant to pair with Bron but they'd undoubtedly make it work. Butler would be the best fit since he's the most apt of the 3 to play an SG (lol using these positions in terms of modern NBA seems so weird) type role.

I can see your theory and I think I am inclined to agree, with the way you put it and all. Makes some sense actually.

Does LBJ still guard Durant? I think I might rather PG and have LBJ swallow up #2.

This would be a fun exercise to hear you guys talk about. It'd be interesting to compare that team to Best-Team-For-Lebron. It would perhaps decide Banzai's theory and at worst it would at least push it in a direction. And it'd be nice to have some wind in here.

Someone who can defend elite bigs well (ala Rodman) is much more important to a Jordan team than a Bron team I think since Bron could do a more than serviceable job against bigs if absolutely necessary and MJ obviously couldn't. Never really thought about it much outside that.

Guess we are talking vs GSW these days so LBJ/Kyrie+ anyone that can guard the permiter and shoot 3s at an elite level (Klay Thompson would be perfect)

Yeah Klay is like a legit perfect fit for Bron. Didn't even cross my mind for some reason so I'll answer the T10/T25 question with Klay/Bron/Gobert for now. Lol at the thought of that.

Also to be clear it's just my opinion that LeBron's floor/ceiling is higher/lower than MJs respectively. One of them might just be flat better. My "theory" is that because of their play styles MJ gets more, like, marginal gains from having good players on his team. Precisely because he is less versatile.

100% agree and a big part of why I have Bron as the GOAT.

I was thinking Klay too. If Klay and Kyrie are 2/5, does LBJ go play the 3 and you look to get a stretch 4? Like say... Kevin Love? What happens if we go Blake/Draymond/AD?

Or is it possible for LBJ to go 4 and you get a legit 3, like PG.

And what does bold mean? Like Top10/Top25 but ???

I'm assuming that's what T10/T25 meant in that post but I could be wrong. I don't think either of Kyrie or Love (or even Blake or Draymond for that matter) are even close to the best options and they're still all obv great to elite fits - which once again and even further speaks to the dude's versatility.

I'm pretty sold on Klay/Bron/Gobert and think it's a really fun excercise and would like to hear more opinions. With that you're a lock to have a historically good defense and your offense is going to be elite at the very worst.

the reason I asked that question is precisely because I feel the two should be extremely similar when building around them, except that you get a much bigger margin of error with LeBron. You don't absolutely need an elite interior defender, specially in today's nba, you don't absolutely need to avoid the Wade's and Kyrie's because should be a little better off the ball.
I think in theory it should be easier to build a GOAT candidate team with LeBron, I don't see what Jordan's GOAT scoring really changes in this equation, it's not like an offensive void such as Rodman is unplayable with LeBron. But I'm genuinely interested in pro-Jordan arguments for this

Yup once again 100% agree.

Oh I see now that it was in reference to another post. I was like when did we establish already the rule that the players need to be in similar range (even though that was the next time I was going to say).

I was also thinking we should use current players only (it'll be too complicated to compare old-era to now, imo). Let's just waste our time only with MJ and Lebron.

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Alright... I think I can agree with that. x / Klay / Lebron / x / x, then?