wow Labald had 8 assists when he had the ball basically the entire game? amazing!

Hawks are 3rd all-time in playoff appearances. Not even close to worst franchise in pro sports. Average, sure. But lol at this.

Hey guys Michael played 44 minutes and I know he didn't complain about no fatigue 20+ years ago he was a mans man and that's that. No other variables included

Assists are contingent on other teammates scoring basket when you pass to them.

Yep it was very random, I just put all of the box scores in NBA history into a hat and just randomly happened to choose the one where MJ cemented his legacy as the Greatest Of All Time.

Lol at including the St Louis Hawks and Milwaukee Hawks.

Since moving to ATL the hawks have made one conference final (this year). You'll be hard pressed to find an established franchise with a worse history. Since 1980 their playoff win percentage is among the bottom 5. They've been as woeful as Denver or Washington.

Is this a point in favor of Bron or MJ?

Its hard to imagine how Heat lost last year with the Bron we are seeing. Wade had to WAIDS hard and Bosh had to have disappeared to think LeBron could've lost to the Spurs, as good as they were.

its pretty funny that the next game Lebron plays was a much better version of this one

I intended it as a point in favor of MJ. Another poster mentioned PEDs, but that's not what I meant by advances in science. I heard that they have machines now that regenerate the body, along the lines of the plasma treatment Kobe & other players have received in Germany. Anyways, it's suppose to dramatically accelerate the healing process & rejuvenate the body in-between games.

The first part of my post was agreeing that MJ hasn't faced as difficult a line of individual defenders as LBJ has. Outside of Joe Dumars, I can't think of a single defender, who regularly guarded MJ, that would be considered elite.

HAWKS have been to 31 playoffs since they moved to Atlanta in 1969 season...that's only 3 less than Boston in that time frame and is 4th overall from 69 to 15...so taking away other cities drops us from 3rd overall to 4th overall in years we've been in Atlanta

Sure we haven't made it to the promised land, or even to ECF before this year, but making it to playoffs 31 times in 46 years eliminates us from the "historically worst franchise in professional sports" discussion

Lol at hard pressed when there are 25 franchises with less playoff appearances than us since we moved to the ATL

But why would it be? Why would advances in nutrition, conditioning, and PEDs be a net benefit to LeBron? He plays against the guys who are using the improved conditioning, right? Wouldn't you expect things like that to level the playing field more? In an era where no one ever worked out or trained or used supplements, the "natural" talents would have the largest advantage. In a world where everyone was a genetically modified cyborg, the players would all be the same. Why would you think that moving along the spectrum towards the cyborgs would BENEFIT LeBron?

It seems pretty clear its the opposite.

Debates like this or the Bonds one always kind of reveal people who dont really think through their reasoning very well.

Well, I've been trying to avoid getting to this specific example. I use to work in a position where I coordinated an aspect of a handful of professional athletes and other celebrities' professional lives. Appearances, charity events, etc.

One night there was an event that was cancelled, and I wound up going to dinner with an NBA player due to an association with his relative. It was a really interesting experience because we weren't at dinner in a professional capacity. I knew his Uncle and the three of us were just having dinner in a social setting.

I didn't bring it up, but this player talked about how in present day (this was 2012), when you're injured they have a machine they can put you in that accelerates the healing process. I'm trying to remember details from a dinner that happened 3 years ago, so forgive me if my memory is a little fuzzy. The gist of what he was saying is that this machine makes life on your body much easier. I remember him saying something to the effect of "It really helps you play better the second night of a back-to-back..." He had played in the league for over a decade. I remember him saying that he wished this technology existed when he first came into the league. He joked that LeBron could play until he was 50 if he wanted to.

For what it's worth, I remember him talking about LeBron in tones that he was so far, shoulders & head, above everyone else that it was ridiculous.

My original point here is that Jordan did not have a magic machine to hop into when he had a sprained wrist or sore hamstring. That's a definite edge for LeBron even if every other player has the same advantage. Big picture, if LeBron is able to play another 3-5 seasons because of advancements in physical therapy treatment, that will pad his career statistics and is obviously an edge he would have over Jordan.

LOL. Yep, that was the 1990s for sure.

Maybe. But it seems to me that you could look at MJ as the T101 of his Era (playing humans), while Lebron is the T1000 of his (playing T101s).

Right. But most modern sports are RELATIVE achievements, not ABSOLUTE achievements. We arent talking about Bron running the 100m dash here. All of Brons opponents, his teammates, etc., they are all benefitting from this magical healing technology as well. Jordan may have had to play through more aches and pains, but he was playing against a bunch of opponents who were ALSO playing through those aches and pains.

Why do you think this is a net positive for LeBron? I think you are confusing the idea that this is, in absolute terms, nice for Lebron personally, with the idea that this is a relative advantage to him. It is entirely possible, and in fact likely, that he would be even better without these advantages, as long as his opponents didnt get the advantages either. He is a freak physical specimen and has been since he was 14. If no one ever got to workout or go to the trainer, the gap between him and the league would be much greater. In my opinion at least, but if you think its wrong I'd like to know why these advances held Lebron SPECIFICALLY more so than they help the rest of the league.

People say without steroids, Bonds wouldnt be the home run king, but since over 50% of those busted for steroids are pitchers, I think its fairly reasonable to assume that without steroids he'd have probably hit more home runs. They certainly help pitchers more.

Of course I dont believe that, I was setting a left side of the spectrum

You could, or you could look at it as Lebron being the T1000 playing a bunch of T931s. Its certainly far from obvious which is closer to the truth, but it seems hard to believe that modern medicine and training methods would INCREASE the gap between the natural athletic freaks and the normies, rather than narrow it.

Labron's window may end up being longer because of the healing machine, but the healing machine also was instrumental in a bunch of OLDS on the Mavericks and Spurs taking two chips from him.

VHawk is pretty much right.

This is true for all sports. Everyone is using the same training regimens, teams have a lot of the same analytics data, etc. This all creates more parity and an even playing field. Dominating in an even playing field is harder than dominating in the 1980s when there was a dominant team or two in pretty much every sport.

In the 80s and 90s it felt like there were more "superstars" than there are now, when in reality it is just that the baseline is so much better that dominating is just that much harder.

One could argue that it makes it easier to dominate


Like a multiplier...everything is amped up then the gap between best and good players is increased

Haven't thought about which is correct; just pointing out there are two obvious ways to look at it

If you look at Jordan vs Lebron at the peak of their game it is very close but I think you have to give the slight edge to Jordan. If it is their overall body of work I don't think its relatively close. While Lebron has been the best player on the planet through 3 1/2 quarters this finals I find it weird that nobody is brining up his terrible play in crunch time of the Cavs 3 losses in the series.

If you look at the 3 Cavs losses and take the minutes Lebron has played from the last time the game score was 1 possession to the end of the game (ex game 1: about 4 1/2 left in OT, game 4:near the end of the third, Game 5: roughly 5 to go in the 4th) His stats are as follows:

18 min, 2-10 with 6 points, 1 assist and 3 turnovers.

He's unreal through 3 1/2 but in crunch time he's Clark Kent.

Look at long distance running. In the US there hasn't been a baseline recently comparable to that in the 70s, and the drugs are much better now. US folks just don't train like they used to. No one does 70 miles a week anymore in high school.

It's not at all clear that the baseline in basketball is better than it used to be or that anyone trains harder. Recovery times are better because of doping, but the rest is not that different. The undeniable change in the NBA is the influx of foreign talent, but the league expanded too.

You really can't tell the difference in the foot speed of the players from say 1990 to now? Doesn't take more than a decent eye test to see that.

Agree with foreign talent but also add in stuff like training, economic incentives (a few good years and someone is paying you FU money) and just changes in the game to increase optimization. In the 80's guys smoked cigs at halftime and a lot of dudes didn't even lift weights.

45+ years with no championship is pretty much worst ever (ignoring Sacramento). 45+ years without making it out of the second round is pathetic.

Nique was a goddamn superstar talent of the highest order and they couldn't get him to the finals. Not making the playoffs with him on the team would have been near impossible, like Chicago with Jordan before they brought in Kukoc.

A lot of those 25 franchises didn't exist when the hawks moved to atlanta.