This is probably the most accurate thing you've said, though MJ is 6'4.75" without shoes.

You are trying too hard and it is grossing me out. You are trying to paint the MJ fans this way but why are you fighting this battle this way? You are lying or misrepresenting the truth in such a large % of your posts. Nobody else is doing this. Do you really have to throw in Longley Grant Rodman with Shaq, Odom, and Gasol to desperately prove a point about the triangle. Do you realize how absurd that line is? How are they even on the same plane offensively? Are you trolling? The Bulls are well known for employing fodder at the bigs during the second threepeat. Another sign of Jordan brilliance.

Jordan is so great and influential that even if James had a higher peak, the old heads would still take Jordan. But given Jordan’s peak is higher in a tougher era for individual brilliance with the scoring load on his shoulders every day in an offense that suppressed ball hogging giving up three years of his prime... this one isn’t even close to me.

Other people, including many more knowledgeable than me, will disagree and I respect that. We do live in a selfish me me me era where lifting LeBron up validates our generation and our bball watching. I think this is what is going on here to some extent.

To me, a clear hater, LeBron is an angle shooting front runner coward who has killed coaches and quit on his team multiple times (in a vacuum he is still #2 all time to me lol). When the going got tough he has abandoned three franchises leaving them smoking ruins. He has luckboxed or angle shot multiple titles (lockout, COVID) with 2% equity despite hand picking super teams. He has emasculated elite players forcing them to pick and pop for elbow jumpers and avg 16/6.

Despite all of this angle shooting, absolute power, and more years he has not won more than Jordan. Put Jordan or LeBron next to every all time great and Jordan will get more production from his team. Slot them into any all time great team Jordan will mesh better. Start your franchise with either player and Jordan will stick around and will you to titles. LeBron will fk up your cap and leave after three years.

This is just my worthless opinion but in my book you do not take the summit of Olympus by slowly and steadily knocking at the gate. You must take the crown violently without any doubts. Even more forcefully when the current king is the greatest icon modern sports has ever seen. It’s not happening, sorry.

Do you take Frank Gore or Barry Sanders?

Also who is he curb stomping?! The Raptors Hawks and Celtics? lol. He just won one during COVID to get to 4-6 in the finals. He’s one of five players to have been swept in the finals twice. He’s getting stomped a lot more than he is stomping. If he runs hotter than he has so far and keeps stacking the deck maybe he will break even instead of being Jim Kelly.

Prior to Lebron, I think MJ was the 3rd greatest player of all time, so I don't think this was necessary. Not even his long-time coach has him #1 over Bill Russell:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...michael-jordan

Lebron's case over KAJ and Bill Russell is a bit weaker than his case over MJ IMO.

If you're going to talk about players in the context of an offensive system, you can't be judging them on their overall offensive abilities (or in your case PPG). The triangle does not require bigs to be great scorers - it doesn't require anyone to be a great scorer - it just requires them to be good passers and decision-makers. Because everyone is going to have to make the pass to the cutters and players coming off of screens and so on. And that's what they were, good passers and decision-makers. Did you not watch the Rodman passing highlights I posted? There aren't a lot of bigs that can make every type of pass like Rodman was able to. There are also stories about how Dennis Rodman picked up the triangle faster than anyone - the man was a savant, that's how he was such a good rebounder, he was far ahead of most players in that role mentally. Because athletic big men are rare, a lot of bigs (or even athletic wings) in the NBA don't have the instinct to do what is required of them in a decision-making role. The triangle requires less from star guards (they get a lot more easy catch&shoots than in a guard-centric system) and more from everyone else. Which is why this idea that Lebron can't thrive off-ball or in a system that would literally require him to do a lot less than he currently does is preposterous. He can do everything Pippen did and 95% of what MJ and Shaq did. He'd be a monster scorer in any reasonable motion-based offense.

Kerr's motion offense is a derivative of the triangle and he talks about how they had to simplify the offense for new players - it's not that the motion offense is that much more complex or harder overall, but it does not tolerate weaknesses well, because the playmaking burden is shared (though Kerr's system is less democratic than how the Bulls ran the triangle). From a roster construction point of view, requiring everyone to do be able to do a certain set of things from a skill perspective automatically means you're going to have a harder time finding that skill set in bigs. It's not about them being great individually - plenty of college bigs who have no chance of being a good offensive player in the NBA would still thrive in the triangle. But big men that can do big men things (mainly on defense) adequately at the NBA level and not be weak links in a system like this are not that common and to run a system like this as a team, you need multiple bigs that can do this. This is why players like Draymond are so impactful - not only is he one of those players himself, but his versatility and motor allow him to play either as one of 2 bigs or as the lone big.

So everyone was a moron then and only you know basketball .
Got it ....

Lol your funny .
Where did I put Dallas ?

Actually it’s more about LeBron than Jordan .
Jordan did not lose while the mental gymnastic to explain LeBron loses are always amazing .
I am just preparing myself about what to expect before the bias comes in ...
Seem my perception of what a goat team is is incorrect (like warriors 2016 just because they win 73 wins while LeBron having 66 wins not reaching the finals is normal ,shrug) .
So before bias results I want to see where people stands .


I just want to hear the truth before the meeting ....

Are we close of a confirmation draymond = goat defender from you too ?

Most of the voters don't understand the game and don't even watch the game that much. They are often practically innumerate and have no ability to properly analyze stats. I mean, they aren't paid to be experts on the game or analyzing players - they are just members of the media, their job is to report. So they end up voting on stats (whichever stat happens to be considered important at the time), reputation and media narratives. There's no good reason to care about who the media happens to vote for, unless your level of understanding is below even mainstream sports media (in which case I'm not sure why anyone should care about your opinion).

Defense is even more context-dependent and it's unclear what the baseline for defensive value should be, i.e. whether players should be compared relative to their role/position or compared to all other players. He's definitely not as impactful defensively as Bill Russell (relative to the league) or Kevin Garnett was in their day and in today's game isn't as impactful as Giannis or Gobert. If you include defensive rebounding as part of defense (it's not as important now, but historically defensive rebounding was more important), Dennis Rodman was probably a more impactful defender as well. Draymond is probably not even as good as peak Lebron defensively though Draymond's willingness to be more physical and play a lot of minutes as a small-ball 5 likely made him more impactful in the regular season (though Lebron's impact likely topped much higher in the playoffs). You could make an argument that he's one of the easiest players to build a great defense around due to his versatility.

it's a fact that you make your points by comparing Jordan's 8 seeds from 85-87' to lebron's developed high seeds from 06-10', instead of comparing Jordan's 8 seeds to Lebron's 8 seeds from 04', 05', and 19'.

Lebron is simply lucky that his 30-40 win teams missed the 8 vs 1 matchup against the 04' Pistons or the 19' Warriors, while Jordan's 30-40 win teams were forced to face dynasties due to a smaller league where most teams made the playoffs (even the bad teams)




It's a fact that lebron was a 1-trick-pony with only 1 Finals run like Iverson, Dwight or Kidd.........

until the "decision" to form super-teams in a conference that 1-star teams were routinely winning (a complete manufacturing of his resume)...

He's forced to team-hop because his skill restriction to ball-dominance imposes spot-up roles that stall young players, thereby needing ready-made stars to win (talent-based winning).. Talent-based winning loses to organic ball movement, so lebron has a lottery record against the Spurs, Mavs and Warriors.




It's a fact that lebron's "genius" basketball IQ results in zero #1 offenses in 2 decades of playing - the man is simply incapable of a #1 offense no matter how much help you give him..

his frontcourt ball-dominance and low assist teams are simply suboptimal and need excessive talent to still mostly lose... Imagine being a perennial loser and underdog with super-teams (lebron was a Finals loser or underdog on 6 of 7 super-teams from 11-17'.. only the ray allen miracle prevented 7/7)




It's a fact that 05' Zydrunas was an all-star with better offensive production than 90' Pippen (PER, WS/48, scoring and efficiency), while the Cavs had the#12 defense (#19 for Bulls)

So Jordan nearly beat the champs in 90' with less help on both sides of the ball than lottery lebron in 05'

05-10' Lebron actually had several teammates with better offensive production than 90' Pippen (05' and 06' Zydrunas, 05' Hughes, 09' Mo Williams, 10' Jamison), while also having better defenses... Yet Jordan nearly beat the champs in 89' or 90', while Lebron was swept (07'), lottery (05'), or beaten as the favorite (09' and 10')

Facts gonna facts... But carry on your delusions and ignoring of facts.
.

Talent based winning and yet his teams absolutely fall apart when he leaves.

Jordans teams compete for titles without him.

Weaker competitions. Easier rules. Jordan era was a joke.

Lebron waits until his hand-picked cast gets old, then he leaves and lets everyone say the team can't win without him.

That's his M.O. and it's low character and fraudulent




In 2011, the Cavs lost their entire starting 5, not just Lebron - Mo, Shaq, Zydrunas, Varejao and Delonte were out, which accounted for 52 ppg, or more than Lebron's 30 ppg..

In 2015, the Heat missed the playoffs by 1/2 game due to Wade/Bosh missing 40 games, otherwise they were easily a playoff team.... and Wade was a star in the 16' Playoffs by nearly leading a weak cast to the ECF...

Furthermore, anyone that saw the 14' Finals knows they were already a joke - the Heat had already sunk to the equivalent of a 1st Round Western team by 2014, as they performed worse against the Spurs than any Western opponent did.

Finally, the 19' Cavs had seen Lebron run off Kyrie in 2017 and then IT in 18'... then Love was hurt in 19', so they had no chance - Lebron destroyed that team both in 2011 and again in 18'.




ultimately, all ball-dominators like Nash, CP3 or Lebron see their team's collapse without them (see nash/cp3 teams collapse without them in 12 or 13', while the current Rockets are nothing without Harden)... But despite a good on/off from having the ball all the time, their ball-dominant brand and team ceiling usually falls short of championship level, hence the weak Finals records of ball-dominators (Magic/Lebron are 9-10 in the Finals).. Lower team ceiling/Finals record = lower championship odds = inferior player.

Btw, Jordan set the plus/minus record in 1996, until Curry broke it in 16'... So Jordan had goat plus/minus, along with PPG, PER, BPM, VORP, WS/48, and rings in 3-pointer basketball as the best player
.

ya jordan played comparatively weak competition. we have been over this. its just the way it is. players get better as time goes on. in 20 years another player will have surpassed Lebron.

I remember watching a Cavs Lakers game early in Lebron's career, maybe year 5. Cavs were up with like a minute left, Laker ball, they put Lebron on Kobe, and he just sort of swallowed him up. Made him look like a little kid.

It hard to overcome the image of what I think would happen if these two wings played one-on-one in their primes. To 11, straight up, no make it take it.

Lebron jab steps one way, takes 2 dribbles the other, turns his back to Jordan. Back him up, turns, wide elbows, huge shoulders, 6'9'' 270 lbs and powers the ball in.

Jordan's ball, Lebron backs up a step, not to get beat, Jordan hits from the top of key.

Lebron jab steps one way, takes 2 dribbles the other, turns his back to Jordan. Backs him up, turns, wide elbows, etc... 270 lbs and powers the ball in.

Jordan's ball, Lebron plays up on him, Jordan gets a half a step into the lane, Lebron recovers, Jordan turns his back to Lebron, fakes one way, quick turn, fades over his right shoulder, hits a nice 12 foot turnaround jumper off the glass.

Lebron jab steps one way, takes 2 dribbles the other, turns his back to Jordan. Backs him up, turns, wide elbows, 270 lbs and powers the ball in.

Jordan's ball, he dribbles on the perimeter, uses his quickness to get a step to the rim, Lebron closes and skies for the contest, gets some ball, mostly arm, a lot of body, Jordan is on the ground 8 feet out of bounds.

Jordan's ball...again he is given space up top, shoots, lebron contests a bit...and...miss...

Lebron jab steps one way, takes 2 dribbles the other, turns his back to Jordan. Backs him up, turns, huge shoulders, wide elbows, 6'9'' 270 lbs and powers the ball in.

If one wing can physically dominate another, and he is by far the better passer and playmaker...man it's just hard to be better than that guy at basketball.

Jordan's prime career ended only 5 years before lebron entered the league, so they played against a lot of the same players - and Jordan played better against the best players lebron ever faced like Shaq, Duncan, Kobe, or Garnett

98' Jordan (old Jordan) beat out the aforementioned Shaq and company for MVP, scoring champ, 1st team defense, FMVP and all-star MVP in 98' - lebron never dominated these players or the league like this.

Heck, 40-year old Jordan had higher PER in 03' than rookie Lebron in 04' - seems relevant to me.




Today's best players are Giannis, Harden, KD, Kawhi

Jordan's best comp in 88' was Magic, Bird, Isiah, Hakeem

Jordan's best comp in 93' was Barkley, Shaq, Drob, Malone

Seems quite comparable and favorable for Jordan infact..

candybar that is cool that Jordan is number three and LeBron is not number one. Gives you more credibility and I do think a lot of the historic greats are underrated (case in point this thread calling 98 MVP Malone trash)

Am starting to suspect you are a Jordan hater though. Also you can make a case for Rodman who was a genius (still a big fat minus for offense and spacing). But bro you have Luc Longley in the list!

Victor I ran SRS for all of Jordan’s ECF competition it’s not even close his competition was tougher. Unless you want to argue that all players are better today than back then which I’m not even sure I buy. And even that is mooted by LeBron stacking the deck in his favor constantly.

Median and replacement level players are much better nowadays. Stats, logic, eyetest show that.

Stats don't say that.. stop lying

And you guys have no eye test - you can't tell the difference between DeRozan and Jordan, so you're like a dog watching TV - you have no idea what you're watching.

You just say what you want to believe with no backup

You look at the short shorts or grainy footage and conclude that the eras were inferior.. you don't know what the heart of basketball actually is (contested shot-making).

Today's spacing doesn't require contested shot-making, so players are inferior.. 3-and-D robots that can't actually play - they need a spaced out mickey mouse format to shoot and pass... A joke

This thread sucks. The Jordan homers aren't even trying to be rational.

We're the only ones being rational and presenting facts, while you cower and complain about rationality, without ever presenting any facts that demonstrate lebron can match Jordan

There's only facts that show Jordan is far better.. there's no facts showing lebron can hang

Again, you're sorting by PPG and overall reputation, which is how you're missing things like Luc Longley being a very good passer for a big man.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comment...ssing_big_man/

Edit: Also a reliable shooter from mid-range.

Quoting one line and responding to it with three paragraphs can only be 3ball lol.

I wish jordan were playing today. He would blast mid range jumpers at 40% all the way to ring #7

You take Jordan's entire career with his teammates and adjust the players' ability based on era and Jordan is a longshot to win even 4 rings given the years he played. Talent has consolidated at the top way more than it did during Jordan's era.

Jordan benefited from having the perfect complementary superstar, tons of other talent, and mediocre top end competition. I'd call it the perfect storm. Only way a guy obsessed with the midrange jumper could win 6 titles.

I already posted quite a bit of analysis in this thread. It's a waste of time. I just casually skim it these days. Each group, including me, is just talking past each other.

In ten years when data becomes even more robust we'll be able to say with pretty close certainty who was the better player (era adjusted).

Candybar,

3ball = trainwreckog

That was 8 years ago and then he completed melted down soon after making that post and turned into what you see now. We've been laughing at him for 8 years straight in this thread now.

3ball is trainwreckog's 15th account on twoplustwo after having been banned over a dozen times.