Lebron James, I’m convinced

[Rbradleigh]

Greatest athlete of my time, 1980-current.
40 years old (Dec 30) and dang near averaging a triple double while capable of playing ~ 40min a game.
Freak of nature


I’m mostly in the baseball forum and we say we’re lucky to witness Ohtani, well we’re lucky to have Lebron too! And jfc, LA is incredibly lucky to have’em both at the same time.

[hermanotarjeta]

He has one of the greatest tool-boxes of any athlete in NBA history.

It’s shocking he didn’t translate that to more nba titles.

[pingbling23]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

He has one of the greatest tool-boxes of any athlete in NBA history.

It’s shocking he didn’t translate that to more nba titles.

is it really shocking though? no one was shocked he didnt win the first stint in Cleveland because they never had a championship caliber team. everyone agrees it was shocking the one loss to the mavs. the end to the heats run wasnt that shocking because wade was cooked. no one was shocked when the warriors won the first showdown after love and kyrie were injured. no one was shocked when the durant/curry warriors went on their run. the win with the lakers was kind of shocking. only one player has more finals mvps. so it seems that lebron has exceeded expectations because it proves how hard it is to win in the nba, especially now with how deep teams are. durant going to the warriors is probably the single biggest effect on the history of the nba. i could easily see kyrie never leaving Cleveland, lebron staying longer, and the cavs winning at least 3 titles if not for durant joining the warriors. lebron being lone #2 with 4 titles/fmvp and winning with 3 different franchises is shockingly impressive. the nba is a tough road with many things that have to go right to have team success. take a look at jokic. he will probably finish his career with 1 title. imagine him being drafted by the lakers or somehow ending up on the warriors early on or any great franchise, how many titles could he rack up? hes still one of the most talented players to ever play but he wont have the team success to his resume to really vault him up to the top of the mountain. sometimes i dont like how much weight goes into team success to rate a player but i know its neccessary.

[jplarson]

Originally Posted by pingbling23

is it really shocking though? no one was shocked he didnt win the first stint in Cleveland because they never had a championship caliber team. everyone agrees it was shocking the one loss to the mavs. the end to the heats run wasnt that shocking because wade was cooked. no one was shocked when the warriors won the first showdown after love and kyrie were injured. no one was shocked when the durant/curry warriors went on their run. the win with the lakers was kind of shocking. only one player has more finals mvps. so it seems that lebron has exceeded expectations because it proves how hard it is to win in the nba, especially now with how deep teams are. durant going to the warriors is probably the single biggest effect on the history of the nba. i could easily see kyrie never leaving Cleveland, lebron staying longer, and the cavs winning at least 3 titles if not for durant joining the warriors. lebron being lone #2 with 4 titles/fmvp and winning with 3 different franchises is shockingly impressive. the nba is a tough road with many things that have to go right to have team success. take a look at jokic. he will probably finish his career with 1 title. imagine him being drafted by the lakers or somehow ending up on the warriors early on or any great franchise, how many titles could he rack up? hes still one of the most talented players to ever play but he wont have the team success to his resume to really vault him up to the top of the mountain. sometimes i dont like how much weight goes into team success to rate a player but i know its neccessary.

Well said.

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by jplarson

Well said.

Nicely done.

[BaseRookieCards]

Originally Posted by jplarson

Well said.

Haha! 100%

[rats60]

Originally Posted by pingbling23

is it really shocking though? no one was shocked he didnt win the first stint in Cleveland because they never had a championship caliber team. everyone agrees it was shocking the one loss to the mavs. the end to the heats run wasnt that shocking because wade was cooked. no one was shocked when the warriors won the first showdown after love and kyrie were injured. no one was shocked when the durant/curry warriors went on their run. the win with the lakers was kind of shocking. only one player has more finals mvps. so it seems that lebron has exceeded expectations because it proves how hard it is to win in the nba, especially now with how deep teams are. durant going to the warriors is probably the single biggest effect on the history of the nba. i could easily see kyrie never leaving Cleveland, lebron staying longer, and the cavs winning at least 3 titles if not for durant joining the warriors. lebron being lone #2 with 4 titles/fmvp and winning with 3 different franchises is shockingly impressive. the nba is a tough road with many things that have to go right to have team success. take a look at jokic. he will probably finish his career with 1 title. imagine him being drafted by the lakers or somehow ending up on the warriors early on or any great franchise, how many titles could he rack up? hes still one of the most talented players to ever play but he wont have the team success to his resume to really vault him up to the top of the mountain. sometimes i dont like how much weight goes into team success to rate a player but i know its neccessary.

There were a lot of people that expected LeBron to win his last two years in Cleveland. The Cavs had the best record in the NBA both years. At a minimum they should have made the Finals and we could have seen LeBron and Kobe go head to head on the biggest stage.

It was shocking when he formed his superteam in Miami and LeBron was 3rd on the team in scoring as they lost in the Finals to Dallas. The last season, people did expect the Heat to win against the team they beat the previous season.

It wasn't a surprise that the Lakers won in 2020. They did have the best record in the Western conference as well as 2 1st team All NBA players.

Keep on trying to rewrite history.

[pingbling23]

Originally Posted by rats60

there were a lot of people that expected lebron to win his last two years in cleveland. The cavs had the best record in the nba both years. At a minimum they should have made the finals and we could have seen lebron and kobe go head to head on the biggest stage.

It was shocking when he formed his superteam in miami and lebron was 3rd on the team in scoring as they lost in the finals to dallas. The last season, people did expect the heat to win against the team they beat the previous season.

It wasn't a surprise that the lakers won in 2020. They did have the best record in the western conference as well as 2 1st team all nba players.

Keep on trying to rewrite history.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[boxbuster7]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

He has one of the greatest tool-boxes of any athlete in NBA history.

It’s shocking he didn’t translate that to more nba titles.

[ThoseBackPages]

This version of "NBA" is unwatchable.

everyone shoots threes and then jogs back to stand on their own end of the court until its time to try for another three pointer.

wash, rinse, repeat

thats why he is still able to play.

[PuddleMonkey]

Originally Posted by ThoseBackPages

This version of "NBA" is unwatchable.

everyone shoots threes and then jogs back to stand on their own end of the court until its time to try for another three pointer.

wash, rinse, repeat

thats why he is still able to play.

Yeah I tried to watch some Christmas Day games as I haven't paid much attention to the NBA since the 90's and it was atrocious.

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by PuddleMonkey

Yeah I tried to watch some Christmas Day games as I haven't paid much attention to the NBA since the 90's and it was atrocious.

Regular season NBA is worthless.

Only the playoffs matter and even the players know that.

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by ThoseBackPages

This version of "NBA" is unwatchable.

everyone shoots threes and then jogs back to stand on their own end of the court until its time to try for another three pointer.

wash, rinse, repeat

thats why he is still able to play.

Indeed.

Amazing how desperate people are here to pump the corpse the NBA has become.

[Goldie]

Originally Posted by ThoseBackPages

This version of "NBA" is unwatchable.

everyone shoots threes and then jogs back to stand on their own end of the court until its time to try for another three pointer.

wash, rinse, repeat

thats why he is still able to play.

He probably got some spiffy treatments the past few weeks to spice him up for these games

[the mesiah]

Originally Posted by ThoseBackPages

This version of "NBA" is unwatchable.

everyone shoots threes and then jogs back to stand on their own end of the court until its time to try for another three pointer.

wash, rinse, repeat

thats why he is still able to play.

Basically ..been like that for at least 10 years now ..just jack up threes and all I hear is these players now are just so much more athletic these days but I don’t see it .

[f2tornado]

Originally Posted by the mesiah

Basically ..been like that for at least 10 years now ..just jack up threes and all I hear is these players now are just so much more athletic these days but I don’t see it .

At least they're actually shooting these days. I was not impressed when it was almost exclusively a paint game in the 90s. Simply pass it to Shaq and dunk. Yawn. Then the Euros come over who can shoot and perhaps it's too extreme the other way. I won't hold my breath awaiting a return of 80s NBA.

Lebron is performing extremely well for his age and looks like he could go a few more years.

[the mesiah]

Originally Posted by f2tornado

At least they're actually shooting these days. I was not impressed when it was almost exclusively a paint game in the 90s. Simply pass it to Shaq and dunk. Yawn. Then the Euros come over who can shoot and perhaps it's too extreme the other way. I won't hold my breath awaiting a return of 80s NBA.

Lebron is performing extremely well for his age and looks like he could go a few more years.

Man , you are right ..the 90’s were boring rather much see the 3 point bricks nowadays from 30 by someone that shouldn’t even be shooting mid range much less 3pt range than dunks from those non athlete stiff cab drivers in the 90’s

[drobfan8]

Originally Posted by f2tornado

At least they're actually shooting these days. I was not impressed when it was almost exclusively a paint game in the 90s. Simply pass it to Shaq and dunk. Yawn. Then the Euros come over who can shoot and perhaps it's too extreme the other way. I won't hold my breath awaiting a return of 80s NBA.

Lebron is performing extremely well for his age and looks like he could go a few more years.

Shaq dominating was super boring. Either a thunder slam or he went to the line to clang free throws.

You can tell defense was a thing through that era though as so many Euros came to the NBA and were pretty much unplayable or just didn't have a lot of impact because they got destroyed on the defensive end.

Now with so little physicality in the game, they're all of a sudden the best in the game.

[davidantx]

MJ , Tiger and Tom Brady are all higher imho, but no denying he's terrific and has been a pleasure to watch .

[bmf]

Originally Posted by davidantx

MJ , Tiger and Tom Brady are all higher imho, but no denying he's terrific and has been a pleasure to watch .

MJ and Brady for sure. Easily. But many still have Jack Nicklaus as the golf goat.

[Asian62150]

Originally Posted by bmf

MJ and Brady for sure. Easily. But many still have Jack Nicklaus as the golf goat.

Jack may be the golf goat, but at the absolute peak of their powers (2-3 year stretch), it's Tiger over Jack, and I don't think it is particularly close.

And I love MJ (probably goat overall like Jack), but if you apply the same peak conversation to basketball, I'd take LeBron over MJ. Physically there was just nothing LeBron couldn't do on offense and defense in his prime. And he was so good at elevating his teammates.

[asujbl]

Originally Posted by Asian62150

Jack may be the golf goat, but at the absolute peak of their powers (2-3 year stretch), it's Tiger over Jack, and I don't think it is particularly close.

And I love MJ (probably goat overall like Jack), but if you apply the same peak conversation to basketball, I'd take LeBron over MJ. Physically there was just nothing LeBron couldn't do on offense and defense in his prime. And he was so good at elevating his teammates.

Apples and Oranges for Golf. Jack hit with a freaking wooden mallet for all intents and purposes

Different thread though

[the mesiah]

[Asian62150]

Originally Posted by asujbl

Apples and Oranges for Golf. Jack hit with a freaking wooden mallet for all intents and purposes

Different thread though

If Jack and Tiger's respective contemporaries/opponents were using the same equipment as them, does it matter?

I don't play a lot of golf so I'm out of my element. Is it easier to dominate everyone else with today's golf club technology?

Back to the thread, what LeBron has done is impressive. We can argue who is the goat and that's fun and all, but LeBron is a unique talent who is the league's all-time leading scorer when scoring is not even his best skill.

[SteigerWRX]

Originally Posted by davidantx

MJ , Tiger and Tom Brady are all higher imho, but no denying he's terrific and has been a pleasure to watch .

Tom Brady and Tiger Woods have no business on any greatest ATHLETE list. Winners? Yes. Performers? Yes. Athletes? Not a chance.