No you're just making up bullshit. The truth lies somewhere in the middle of the .500 season a 55 win season. You try and act like that was a lottery team.

Then you try and act like guys who were on an actual lottery team when LeBron left are better than Pippen. It's utterly comical.

People saying Pippen is better than every piece of garbage LeBron played with in Cleveland doesn't mean they're saying he's better than Jokic Curry or MJ. It means he's better than Jamison Hughes 38 year old Shaq or whatever other slap dick you can come up with from that joke of a roster.

Now while 38 year old Shaq was washed prime Shaq was better than Pippen and your (lmao) #2 Kobe on those 3 Lakers championship teams. And yet your puzzled when you get laughed at for pretending Kobe built something there and not knowing why LeBron couldn't when he was missing the prime Shaq gifted to Kobe.

What's your next hot take Mo Williams is better than Luka?


You also place a lot of stock in meaningless bullshit former players say about themselves. It's quite strange.

I've already said I think MJ is better but the reasonable arguments get drowned out in the sea of nonsense people who hate LeBron spew.

Saying something is true because of Y reasons when all of those reasons are false and convoluted bullshit doesn't make those reasons factual even when the initial point is actually true.

"Rangz " is something the MJ camp likes to say which actually is true. There is no denying it is 6-4. But" Rangz" goes out the window the second Russel is mentioned. All of the sudden extenuating circumstances matter when before they didn't.

It has calmed down somewhat now that it's 6-4,but when it was 6-0 it's all you heard. These people wanted to give MJ Pippen, give Kobe Shaq, give Bird and Magic fellow hall of famers, and give Lebron a bag of dicks and say "rangz".
If you pointed out all of those guys had tons of help it was that's an excuse blah blah blah. Then you mention Russel and all of the sudden it magically wasn't a simple ring counting contest. This **** has gone on for 15 years.

Fortunately for the team LeBron guys after they lose to Denver it will be a better season than losing in the finals. I think that's how the "logic" works.

Smart move. Matt R. has LeBron-like longevity itt of horrendous arguments, false dichotomies, strawmen, projection, etc. he’s still at it after all these years, kudos to him for the commitment to the bit.

Good summary of how Lebron haters have shifted their arguments over the years as Lebron has obsoleted them with his longevity.

People will actually count it as a massive negative that he is going to lose at nearly age 40 in the first round to the defending champs, -400 favorites and a guy with 3 MVPs in 4 years in his prime surrounded by an incredible cast with great chemistry. For years MJ fans didn’t care about losing in the first round but now that Lebron is still playing instead of retiring it matters of course.

It matters because it was tiresome to hear mj without even an All-Star losing in first round vs nba champion was a stain on mj…
Before we didn’t even care lebron didn’t even made the playoffs instead of losing in the first round…

We actually focus only on what was accomplished, it’s the lebron side, trying to find excuses for the lack of accomplishment, started narrative of first round loss on mj , etc

Get rid of all the loses for lebron and it still 4-0 in 21 .
Many players have more rings

How many players have 4 rings as the best player on the team for all 4? Not too many

fallguy - You can think MJ is GOAT and still be impressed with how well the Bulls did without him.

Many players have more rings than MJ too. Almost like context matters.

The evidence is the historical record - Pippen was a scrawny, 23-year old rookie that averaged 8 ppg - he WAS derrick jones.

I'm not saying that Jordan can develop any good athlete but he can develop a lot of them because he's the goat model and example to follow for a scorer or 2-way wing player and he also takes all the big shots - so there's no pressure for the sidekick except they have to give max effort at all times.. But with the spotlight and 4th quarter load on MJ's shoulders, the sidekick flies under the radar and are free to develop unfettered by distractions or media scrutiny.. It's an optimal environment for young players, which is why Jordan has such a great record of teammate growth on his watch.. Of course Jordan's game didn't impose spot-up roles (he wasn't ball-dominant), which further expands capacity for growth.

It took some time with Pippen - he wasn't remotely reliable until he was the same age that Jones was this season - 26 years old (91').

But again, Jordan lost in the 89' ECF because Pippen missed games 5 and 6: effectively, and then lost in 1990 because Pippen missed Game 7.. If Jordan gets 15 points from Pippen in these games, he easily beats the Bad Boys both years - and the point is that when Jordan finally started winning from 91-98', that's all he was getting from Pippen - about 16-20 PPG on bad efficiency in the playoffs... So Jordan never had good supporting talent - Bird/Magic needed super-teams to barely hang with the Bad Boys, while Jordan needed 1 other all-star to make them a piece of cake.
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There's nothing to be impressed about - a lot of weak rosters and weak teams win 55 in one-off fashion - there are a million reasons why a team might achieve a record that is above expectation in a one-off scenario.. Having a 3-peat system doesn't hurt along with massive chip on shoulder and asleep opponents.

The playoffs and following season confirmed the one-off regular season.

The Bulls were barely beating teams that were asleep and no one was tuning in either - opponents didn't care about playing the Bulls and neither did fans.. The Bulls were completely under the radar.. I think it's a little comparable to Ngannou's fight with Fury - zero expectations and an asleep opponent, so a complete beginner did decently against a goat... But once the cat was out of the bag, we saw what happened in the 2nd fight - it was lights out just like the 94' Playoffs and then begging MJ to return during the 95' season.

Keep in mind that the Bulls were nearly down 0-3 before the Kukoc miracle made the series weird and a dogfight.. Pippen averaged 3.0 on 20% in the 4th quarter of that series and was clearly outplayed by Ewing... He completely embarrassed himself with numerous historic chokes in that series like the "sit-out" game and the beginner foul on Hubert Davis (never foul a jumpshooter)... These unbelievable chokes are like cries out "I'm lost.. I need MJ!!!"

Again, if MJ never returns in 95', the Bulls were on massive downward trajectory and likely lottery that year or the following year in 96'.. I don't see how Pippen handles the pressure and holds on to a playoff spot down the stretch in 95.. But regardless, the downward trajectory from 94' indicates they would be lottery in 95' or 96', which contrasts with being the goat team with MJ.. The 34-31 record before MJ returned shows an extremely speedy drop-off from being the goat modern dynasty.

And again, 55 wins never meant that Pippen is a 55-win franchise player - he was simply handed the keys to the most well-oiled machine ever and unique scenario - otherwise he could never build a contender from scratch like true franchise players.. Any team with Pippen as the best scorer will fall out of contention QUICKLY due to lack of talent, even a 3-peat dynasty like we saw in 95'.

You need to stop saying a team with a 34 - 31 record was going to end up in the lottery for that season. You are weakening the whole bit by repeating easily disproven statements over and over. The whole effort would be much improved by dropping that stuff, it's just so obviously silly.

Are you purposefully misstating what I wrote to avoid addressing the point?

I never said the Bulls were going to miss the playoffs in 95' - I said the downward trajectory they were on since 94' indicated they would likely miss the 95' or 96' Playoffs... So i acknowledged that they might make the 95' Playoffs, but it was your typical tight race for the bottom seeds and i don't see how Pippen hangs on to a bottom seed with the pressure on for the last 15 games - I think it's VERY likely the team chokes when the pressure is on and everyone is playing hard down the stretch, just like they did in the 94' Playoffs.. The triangle was very solvable without MJ or his clone, and opponents had already solved it that season.

So again, the downward trajectory from 94' indicates they would be lottery in 95' or 96', which contrasts with being the goat team with MJ.. The team's 34-31 record before MJ returned shows an extremely speedy drop-off for the goat modern dynasty.. No team reaches this caliber so it's impossible to compare to the drop-off of far lesser teams and scenarios..

It's funny because Lebron's teams are one-offs that otherwise win 53 games and lose by record amount or choke (17', 14', 11).. so they stink WITH him against regular comp but he simply diluted an already weak East via "decision".. That's when he put the top 3 players im the conference on 1 team.

And again, 55 wins never meant that Pippen is a 55-win franchise player - he was simply handed the keys to the most well-oiled machine ever and unique one-off scenario (no one looking) - otherwise he could never build a 50-win team from scratch like true franchise players (i.e. Dominique, Ewing, Barkley, etc).... Any team with Pippen as the best scorer will fall out of contention QUICKLY due to lack of talent, even a 3-peat dynasty like we saw in 95'.

Wait until Jokic gets his team to 3-peat achievement and caliber - they'll be the most well-oiled machine ever and could probably have a one-off decent record without him but would probably crater pretty quickly too.. This assumes Jokic is on that top level and we'll find out.

Pippen was given the keys to a well-oiled machine BUT ALSO that same machine, but with Pippen too, shouldn't really get any credit, it's all MJ. In fact, the 2010 Cavs were better but Bron sucks.

Winning 55 games then being on pace to win 45 or whatever after losing an alltime great level player (and then a fringe allstar one the following year) is indicative of an extremely strong supporting cast and elite coaching.

Most teams losing that level of player are horrible - The Nuggets with Jokic off the floor the last 3 seasons have a double digit negative net rating - they would struggle to win 35 games without him, forget 55. Every team Lebron has left has sucked immediately without him.

And yeah, Nuggets would probably win 55 without Jokic.

Look what the Lakers did the first year Shaq left and still had Kobe. I remember Bill Simmons pegged them to finish third in the conference. They ended up winning 34 games and missing the playoffs but still, it could've happened.

Or look what happened when Bron left Cleveland, they went from 66 and 61 seasons to a 19 win one. But still, could've happened.

I mean, I guess it seems to have only really happened to MJ but somehow that proves that he's the best ever and Pippen sucks and he saved them from the lottery.

But they were a 55 win lottery team lol.

The refusal to give up any ground, concede any part of the discussion, leads to these bizarre imagined histories discordant from the reality of what actually occurred. The annoying part is TWOG just coming back to them over and over, no matter how many times or ways they are debunked. But the fascinating part is the burning desire to want to do this. The psychological allegiance to MJ is so pure, so complete that they must invent things to replace the facts when they are inconvenient. It’s the kind of loyalty that could overthrow governments and rule nations. Supremely impressive, in its own way.

Let's not forget, Pippen = Derrick Jones Jr.

One has to wonder if Jordan had that kind of power, why didn't he turn Kwame Brown into Kevin Garnett? Why didn't he turn Jerry Stackhouse into himself?

Yeah the reason the Wizards years matter is because they blow a hole in the notion that Jordan’s sheer aura and will to win is what made all of the good aspects of the Bulls good. The Bulls winning 55 without him in his prime and losing a competitive 2nd round series speaks to this too.

It’s why certain MJ fans reinvent these events or pretend they didn’t happen.

And I take fidstar’s recent points about how the LBJ extremists:


- say 2011 wasn’t a choke
- argue the Decision was an acceptable way to announce his decision to leave Cleveland
- gloss over his culpability in a series of atrocious Lakers transactions between game 6 of the 2020 Finals and the 2023 Trade Deadline
- pretend the comments on China didn’t happen or were somehow acceptable
- engage in bad faith statistical cherrypicking to try and twist LeBron’s into having the best individual seasons (he does not)
- say “year 21” over “age 39” and use stats related to the former rather than the latter
- ignore that LeBron is deeply passive aggressive and sometimes can just be a bitch

These are men we are discussing, not mythological Gods. They are flawed and that’s okay.

He really did **** himself over with that Westbrook deal. Who knows what the team looks like today but basically got rid of 4 good players for a guy who was so bad they couldn't even start him anymore despite making like 50M.

And for what? They just won the title in 2020 with 1 of the best defenses ever.



It is funny because people said he sucked as a GM before that, when he really hadn't been that bad (think basically everyone deals #1 for Love at that point and the 1st run Cavs deals were probably the best they could do, also think Kyrie had a lot of leverage with threatening knee surgery and that was a little more Griffin than LeBron, who likely knew he was leaving regardless in a year at that point and didn't really care too much)

But then he made/OKd the worst trade of his career after that narrative that LeGM was trash was already established.

I personally believe the decision to “freshen up” the squad in 2020 was the bigger mistake given the shorter offseason and truncated regular season ahead. You have to run it back in that spot imo.

The Westbrook deal was terrible but I’d say both LeBron and AD had their injury woes from 2021 front and centre and felt they needed a third “star” to make it work. But you look at them in this series against Denver or last year and wonder how much a Caruso or KCP could help. Alternative realities though - no guarantees those guys become what they are if they hadn’t got the minutes they got elsewhere.

But you make a good point - the LeGM stuff at Cleveland was mostly fine. If Kyrie wanted out in summer 2017 then what are you going to do? It also wasn’t really rational to run it back again after they had been so badly outmatched in the finals by the Durant Warriors even with LeBron averaging a triple double.

I think that is the whole point from fallguy.
Which players LeBron ever developed or played under Lebron and was better afterwards ( meaning they learned something ?) .
People has the narrative LeBron makes other players play better and yet we never seen much of any ascendant players playing under LeBron or afterwards ?

With mj clearly we see many players getting much better .
Seem players actually do learn under mj and since mj focus on certain thing and respect a system of play ( compare to the « lebron system ») , players get actual skills and the chance to play and getting better …..

So kinda normal once LeBron leaves, team collapse because the system of play they had and played under just disappears…and they didn’t de flop much of anything .

This is some truly amazing spin.

It's one thing to be the cult leader (TWOG), it's another to be dumb enough to believe what he says.

This doesn't really belong there - the whole 2011 happened because Lebron choked narrative (very similar to the narrative that Curry choked in 2016) is a mostly a casual fan narrative that's been repeatedly debunked:

https://priceofdata.wordpress.com/ma...-june-22-2012/

In other words, literally the person who had inside information on what the defense was trying to do, and looked at the tracking data based on every decision Lebron made thought Lebron did a pretty good job and did enough to give his team a chance to win. And a bunch of casuals who literally have no problem with superstars shooting their teams out of games and would not have said anything had Lebron made much worse decisions but put up decent looking conventional stats, are talking about how Lebron choked because well, he didn't put up the stats and had bad body language or something. Also:

Basketball is not like baseball - stats are extremely far from being able to distinguish individual contribution even across a very large sample, let alone a single series.