lol

in a separate universe where instead of being 7 for 13 in the finals, he's 7 for 7, does that make him better?

I'd argue the opposite. I could see how someone could argue LeBron has had a "greater" career than MJ due to longevity. But no way is he a better basketball player to anyone that has played basketball and seen both play. Plus the quantitative stats and championships paint a similar picture.

And re: your dream team vs. 2016 Olympic team comment. Is that a typo or are you looking at different rosters?

88-90' were Pippen's first 3 years in the league. The way you're talking about him during those years is silly, in the sense that he should have been expected to perform then like he did in his prime. Pippen improved steadily in his first few years before making a big jump to become the great player most people think of him as in his age 25 season, which unsurprisingly is when Jordan won his first championship.

Neither Jordan nor Pippen should be criticized for the Bulls not winning a championship during those years. Similarly, Lebron shouldn't be criticized for not winning a championship before he joined Miami.

Lebron is bigger, faster, stronger than MJ. He is by far the superior athlete. Its like comparing MJ to a player from the 70s like John Havlicek or something. The athletic difference is just too great.

With that being said, MJ dominated his era in a greater fashion than Lebron has. He scored 30 points a game in an era where a team would be scratching and clawing to reach 90. It would be the equivalent of someone averaging 40 points a game today.

Yes you are right, I meant the 2012 Olympic team.

It's close, and I don't recall what the international rules were like in '12 but I still got the Dream Team. Post play just waaaay better. Barkley/Robinson/Malone/Ewing vs. Tyson Chandler/Love/and a super young AD. '12 would get crushed in the post.

I agree that LeBron is bigger and stronger than MJ. Faster? Uh, no way. MJ had probably the GOAT first step, which is the speed that matters. Maybe LeBron could outrun MJ in the 100m. Who knows.

Hulk Hogan was bigger and stronger than both of them. Doesn't mean he was the better basketball player.

Lebron is bigger than Barkley and Malone. Pretty sure he and even Iguodala would be able to handle them on defense in the post.

Nobody on that '12 team is coming remotely close to defending prime David Robinson. LeBron could probably do reasonably well defending Barkley or Malone. But trying to defend either of those two would tire him out on offense. Barkley actually led that team in scoring. Then you have Ewing as a wild card. LeBron isn't defending all 4 of them.

Then you have that nobody Magic Johnson, the GOAT point guard. Pippen the GOAT wing defender. Clyde Drexler who was a beast around that time.

Oh yeah, then you have that Jordan guy on the wing. And you're saying a team whose best post players are Kevin Love and Tyson Chandler is beating them? What....?

Of course he didn't- MJ is a top 2 player all-time & Pippen isn't close to that level.

It's not about it being the same in terms of what their individual outputs were- it's pointing out that neither deserves criticism for losing before 1991- Jordan because he didn't have enough help to win despite already putting up historically dominant seasons, and Pippen because he was young and hadn't entered his prime yet.

The sun is the star at the center of the solar system.


I understand it very well, which is precisely why I said MJ doesn't deserve any criticism for not winning a championship prior to 1991.

What's more accurate (at least based on your posts ITT) is that you don't understand how little help Lebron had prior to joining Miami.

James Worthy? I don't think you want to go that route.

Anyone playing with MJ won the "play with MJ" lottery, excluding Kwame Brown. Pippen would have been a great player without Jordan and he would have won a lot fewer championships (if any).


Pointing out that Lebron lost in 2009 and 2010 helps my argument, but you can keep doing it if you like.

- Yes. Lebron was 20 years old in 2005 and missed the playoffs with a 42-40 record. MJ made the playoffs in 1985 with a 38-44 record and made the playoffs in 1986 with a 30-52 record. All of that is true, and yet it means nothing.
-Pippen had a higher BPM in his 2nd season (0.4) than Zydrunas and Larry Hughes have combined for their entire careers.
-Lebron being COY is a compliment to him, so props to you for acknowledging that.

Sure, I have no problem acknowledging Lebron had a better supporting cast when comparing their records in those two years. It also helps that Lebron set the single-season record for BPM that year.

Lol ring frequency is a stat now

Dude would be completely silent if the Corona hadn't wiped out LeBron's final 2 seasons.

I've gone back and read the beginning of the thread, and this troll was literally making the same bad arguments 6-7 years ago, ignoring everything that refutes his bad arguments, and going back to repeating the same thing over and over again.

At one point he seriously used "LeBron has played with more all-star teammates than Jordan" as a point in favor for Jordan. I mean, geez, you mean a guy who has played with all-stars on 3 different teams has had more unique all-star teammates than the guy who played with Pippen every year? Shocking!

Everyone should put this idiot on ignore.

COY=Mike Brown

22/5/5 all-defender=Larry mfin Hughes

Just think of this as a way to normalize their careers. Jordan played 15 seasons total. 1 was a partial 18 game season due to injury. 1 was a partial 17 game season coming out of retirement. 2 seasons were at age 38+. 1 other prime season was skipped due to retirement.

So Jordan really has about 11 full seasons in or near his prime.

LeBron already has 17 full seasons. All in or near his prime (he has no near-40 year-old seasons yet).

So unless you want to make this a "who played more years" discussion, Jordan is the clear victor, Victor, with 6 rings to 3, and superior rate stats (with more minutes played per game/season). All accomplished in 6 fewer prime years of play.

Jordan beat scrubs. LeBron beat GOATS. We been over this. Yawn.

Yes, we have been over this. And it is still wrong. But I guess we haven't actually listed the top players in the NBA the years Jordan titled.

Jordan shipped in '91, '92, '93, '96, '97, '98. 6 rings.

The scrubs that did not win in those years because of Jordan:

Barkley, Malone, David Robinson, Magic Johnson, Shaq, Patrick Ewing, Dominique Wilkins, Clyde Drexler, Hakeem Olajuwon, James Worthy, Joe Dumars, John Stockton, Chris Mullin, Tim Hardaway, Mark Price, Larry Johnson, Anfernee Hardaway, Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp, Grant Hill, Reggie Miller, Mitch Richmond, Glen Rice, Vin Baker, Dikembe Mutombo, etc. etc. etc.

LeBron James shipped in '12, '13, '16. 3 rings. Half the number Jordan had in 6 fewer seasons. Too bad Jordan only did it against the above all-pros and hall of famers. I mean oops SCRUBS. ALL SCRUBS. JORDAN WOULDN'T EVEN MAKE A STARTING LINEUP IN 2020. LEBRON OWNED 38 YEAR OLD JASON KIDD IN 2011. YEAH. LEBRON 9-0 IN FINALS. FACTS

A hypothetical on "do titles matter, at all?":

Who was the better basketball player: Tim Duncan or David Robinson?

There were overlaps in their careers. They even played on the same team.

David Robinson 2 titles (both with Duncan). Tim Duncan 5 titles (3 without Robinson)

However, Robinson decidedly ahead on peak advanced stats, before he hurt his back and declined.

BPM/VORP (designated in this thread as the "most accurate" of the advanced stats) top 3 years (you can go more, it tells the same story):

Robinson:
11.9/11.4
9.2/8.7
8.9/8.3

Duncan:
7.6/8.0
7.6/7.7
8.5/6.7

Win Shares and WS/48 has Robinson way ahead peak as well.

If we do LeStan analytics, and completely ignore titles and team success when determining how good a player is, then David Robinson is light years ahead of Duncan.

This seems odd to me, and conflicts with traditional wisdom that Duncan was likely the better of the two. (I personally think it's close, but I'd go Duncan).

What's going on here? Is Robinson actually the far better player as determined by LaSlappy $tati$tic$?

Nah, this comp would only work if Duncan didn’t have the longevity edge over Robinson. As you touched on earlier, it’s a perfectly reasonable take to give the nod to LeBron having the better career over MJ even if MJ added more value at his apex.

It’s a reasonable take (and correct actually imo) that peak Robinson > peak Duncan, but Duncan is the better player factoring everything in. If Robinson and Duncan swapped ring totals it would actually be a legitimate debate like LeBron/MJ is (though Robinson would have the edge here since Duncan is retired so we can’t project forward, unlike LeBron).

I don't completely disagree, it's just that we're using different definitions for what "better player" actually means. For me, it's clearly who was the better basketball player at their peak/prime years. For you (and others), it's who had more longevity at a relatively high level (which I agree LeBron has the better longevity). I don't quite understand why you would define "better player" that way, though. Take two hypothetical players:

Player 1 plays for 3 years. Crazy skill, athletic freak. Has a devastating, career ending injury after his 3rd year, and never plays again. Fluke injury (no durability concerns). Let's assume BPM is the "best" advanced stat. His 3 year BPM is 14/14/14 under high minutes played. So let's say VORP all 13+ for those 3 years. Clearly the best 3 season stretch by a wide margin. And his team wins 74+ games all years and crushes the playoffs to 3 titles.

Player 2 plays for 18 years. Also a great, great player. Let's say his career average BPM is 9.5. Good enough for best ever, aside from player 1. He doesn't win any rings, however, due to whatever reason (bad teammates, maybe his stats/play style don't translate well to wins against great teams, whatever). Makes 11 finals in a row, but no titles. However super healthy, great longevity, and his average year is insanely good over a long career.

In these examples, player 1 is clearly the "better player". Player 2 MAY have had the "better career" (depending on how you value longevity and cumulative value vs. rings). But player 1 was clearly better and I'd always take him over player 2.

I honestly can't quite comprehend longevity playing (much) of a factor in the GOAT player debate (yes to GOAT career), unless everything else is super close. Like if LeBron had 5+ rings or something, then sure. Use it as a tiebreaker. But otherwise I don't get it.

Oh and I think it's basically a coin flip but I take peak Duncan over Robinson for a single season (so leaving all longevity factors out of the equation), despite Robinson having vastly superior advanced stats at his peak.

I pick Duncan because he has 5 rings compared to Robinson's 2 (both with Duncan). This is evidence his style better translates to win probability against elite teams. Granted there may be other factors at play, but 5 vs. 2 (esp. when those 2 came with the other player) is a huge difference.

Now take MJ with generally superior advanced stats at his peak and 6 rings vs. LeBron with the longevity and 3 rings, and well it's MJ all day.

Lebron so obviously better not sure how this thread still exists. Put it in quarantine.

Longevity matters because "staying healthy" is part of being good at basketball. Sure maybe in certain special cases of complete 100% variance (or non-basketball) based reasons for a career being cut short it shouldn't count against them (like say they were assassinated or something, or a good example from another sport would be not holiding Ali's Vietnam protest absence against him in the GOAT debate) but in general staying healthy enough to play a long career matters. Noone has Greg Oden remotely in the GOAT debate (or even best players of the decade).

Longevity mattes because motivation/devotion to your craft is a skill. Pure Talent/Physical gifts wise there was possibly noone better than Shaq. But he was lazy, didn't train enough, got fat in off seasons, and so his aging curve was more of a plummeting cliff. This makes him a worse basketballer. I have Duncan > Shaq because of this, which would've seemed ridiculous back when they were both in their primes.

Finally, while longevity matters, it IS only one minor factor of many. Noone is chucking up names like John Stockton, Jason Kidd or Reggie Miller in these debates. But it's still an important part of the GOAT argument imo. (and despite the thread we are in, please don't try to read anything MJ vs LBJ from this post, I have no interest in that worn out debate. Just addressing your specific thoughts about 'longevity' in general.)

EDIT: Sorry one more point. This is all just my interpretation of the "GOAT player" definition. If you want just go by pure peak that's fine. Just recognize that you may be arguing something completely different to others. I get into this problem a bit in the Tennis GOAT debate. I think at his pure peak Djokovic was the best at tennis that anyone has ever been. But I don't think he's the GOAT (AORN) because he was quite a late bloomer, and had a lot of things he had to work on before he put it all together. He's only a year younger than Nadal and yet from 2005-2010 Djokovic managed 1 GS to Nadal's 9. Those young 20s years of his where he was on the tour but not really winning anything yet are part of who he is as a tennis player overall and thus matter in the GOAT argument to me. Similarly, the years were Duncan was still winning playoff series after playoff series and even a final ring while Shaq was fat, washed up and then retired also matter.

Banzai,
How do you factor in rings when discussing GOAT? How would you rate these two players, for example (these guys obviously aren't in the singular GOAT discussion, but given how you value longevity they gotta be up there):

1) You mentioned John Stockton. He played for 19 years at an extremely high, consistent level. 3rd all time VORP, 8th in career BPM. Best longevity of any player ever. But no rings.

He's gotta be top 3-4'ish ever using your criteria, I would think?

2) David Robinson. He actually played 14 years. Crazy high peak stats. Really really consistent (even really good after injury). He missed 2 years at the beginning of his career because of Naval obligations. Like you said, longevity matters, but things that aren't basketball related and outside of his control should not count against him. 10th all time in total career VORP, despite losing those 2 early years due to factors outside his control. And crazy high peak (11.9/11.4 BPM/VORP his top year). 5th all time career BPM.

No rings without Duncan though. But with his overall career, given your criteria, he's gotta be flirting with top 5 player ever right?

Or do you consider rings when evaluating how good a player was?

Oh, one other one:

Better player: Duncan or Garnett?

Garnett superior longevity (21 years played) compared to Duncan (19).

Garnett ahead in career VORP. Tied in career BPM (with Garnett ahead in longevity and minutes played).

Given your criteria, Garnett clearly better right? Irrelevant that Garnett has 1 ring vs. Duncan's 5?

The LaSlappy "only longevity matters and who cares about rings" narrative doesn't make a lot of sense to me, when you actually apply it to player careers, imo.

Duncan played longer seasons than KG.