Goat debate Lebron vs Jordan...

[dream34]

Originally Posted by BGT Masters

You want the top dog on your team to pad you some stats you pick Lebron, you want top dog on your team to win its MJ. Watched them both in their primes, its not debatable.

Lebron James Finals record 22-33 4* Rings 4-6
Michael Jordan Finals record 24-11 6 Rings 6-0

You can't go 22-33 in the finals and call yourself the greatest basketball player ever. And you can't blame it on his teammates because Lebron hand picked them. You also can't call yourself the greatest when you're in your prime and you jump ship to ride someone else's coat tails. The GOAT should always want to beat the man to be the man, not team up with them and jump ship to do so.

Anytime anyone has to bring this up it just points to how much they don't get context. It's the oldest and dumbest argument for MJ.

I've said it a million times, MJ's Finals record is great but he only played against 1.5 Hall of Famers per Finals appearance. No other great has played less opposition that MJ in Finals and it's not close. The number is almost always 2-3 relevant HOF'ers on each side.

Also by your math MJ playing in 35 Finals games is better than Lebron playing in 55 Finals games right? Just think about how ridiculous that statement is...

[Ferg1945]

Originally Posted by dream34

Anytime anyone has to bring this up it just points to how much they don't get context. It's the oldest and dumbest argument for MJ.

I've said it a million times, MJ's Finals record is great but he only played against 1.5 Hall of Famers per Finals appearance. No other great has played less opposition that MJ in Finals and it's not close. The number is almost always 2-3 relevant HOF'ers on each side.

Also by your math MJ playing in 35 Finals games is better than Lebron playing in 55 Finals games right? Just think about how ridiculous that statement is...

It's not just that.

It's also:

10 time scoring Champion vs 1 time scoring Champion

DPOY and scored 35.0 points a game vs 0 DPOY

9 time 1st team All-Defensive vs 5 time 1st team All-Defensive

9 time 1st team All-Defensive and All-NBA in the same year vs 5 time 1st team All-Defensive and All-NBA in the same year

Essentially MJ played both sides of the court his entire career while LeBron quit caring about defense after 2013-14 - 9 years ago

[rainmaker]

Originally Posted by pingbling23

watched them both in their prime, it is debatable. again, team game. the teams jordan beat for his titles do not have the greatest resume. sure they were some good teams and players but old lakers, never won anything blazers and suns, never won anything sonics, and never won anything jazz. the bulls were favorites in every one of their finals. of course jordan was a big part of that but it speaks to how good the bulls rosters were. people go on and on about lebron hand picking his teams but again, the teams were competitive not unfair as shown by lebron lead teams not being the favorites in the majority of his finals, teams were/are deeper in this era. whose coat tails did he ride? if youre referring to when he went to the heat he had 2 league mvps and 2 finals mvps during the heatles era. youre being disingenuous.

knowing what we do about mj, he wants to win at all cost. youre telling me if he was drafted and aged through the league in a poor situation and it was acceptable during the era to play for different teams he wouldnt have done what needed to be done to win titles? he absolutely would have because he would have done whatever he had to do to win. with the bulls he realized what his weaknesses were and overcame them to win but he knew that he had a good enough team to do that with. bulls got better and better and continued making good moves to build a dynasty. without jordan they wouldnt have been a dynasty but it was pretty telling when pippen lead the bulls to 55 wins and barely lost in the second round to the knicks who almost won the title that year and the bulls were above .500 before mj returned the next year. mj wasnt just carrying scrub teams to 2 3 peats.

Loaded with interesting and inaccurate takes

For example those old lakers of the era made it to the finals in 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89 and 91 won about half of them…

[dream34]

The scoring champ thing is really interesting. I don't think any basketball historian would ever doubt that Lebron could have won more scoring titles if he wanted to, it's just not his game or the point of THE game itself. I wonder if down the line history will more heavily weigh assists than we have in the past and do now. They are worth a guaranteed 2-3 points on 100 FG%. You don't need to dig into it too much to see that Lebron would be worth more PPG to his team and the final score of the game itself than MJ. You would argue that Lebron has more TO per game, and that would be easily refuted by the fact that MJ took 3 more shots per game (4 more per game during the playoffs).

[pingbling23]

Originally Posted by rainmaker

Loaded with interesting and inaccurate takes

For example those old lakers of the era made it to the finals in 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 89 and 91 won about half of them…

what are the inaccuracies? im all for debate and if ive misspoken i will gladly retract what i posted. look i have mj as the goat and lebron #2 i just take issues with poor arguments or blatant hate to choose who was better and will gladly point out the things i have issues with. were not talking about the 80's lakers. the 90-91 lakers were at the end of their road. game 4 it was 2-1 series and james worthy (lakers leading scorer) and byron scott (lakers 3rd leading scorer) both went down with series ending injuries as well. worthys was related to an ankle sprain he suffered in the wcf so he wasnt near peak form for the finals.

[Archangel1775]

Originally Posted by pingbling23

watched them both in their prime, it is debatable. again, team game. the teams jordan beat for his titles do not have the greatest resume. sure they were some good teams and players but old lakers, never won anything blazers and suns, never won anything sonics, and never won anything jazz.

There is a reason the other teams "never won anything". There were dynasties like the modern Warriors that dominated for long stretches. But yeah, in the 90's, MJ overcame the Pistons and the rest is history.

[dream34]

For those of you who haven't heard it yet, I would suggest listening to a bit of JJ Redick's take on the MJ/Lebron debate. He knows way more about the game than all of us (well, not as much as some of us like to believe). He basically says that he watches old games every week and the game was not as rough and aggressive as everyone likes to reminisce it was in the 90's when MJ was making his run. He points out the 1993 Finals and how MJ had loads of space to take his defender on because it was basically illegal defense to do otherwise and the Suns played accordingly and got torched.

[pingbling23]

Originally Posted by Archangel1775

There is a reason the other teams "never won anything". There were dynasties like the modern Warriors that dominated for long stretches. But yeah, in the 90's, MJ overcame the Pistons and the rest is history.

i know thats the counter but what did these teams/team leaders do before, during jordans retirement, and after? nothing. lebron lead teams beat a 73 win warriors team that won the championship the year before (thanks injuries), a san antonio team that was highly decorated and still at peak form (the following year when they beat the heat was still some of the best team basketball ive ever seen in the finals, such a well oiled machine), an up and coming thunder team with 3 future mvps, a team leader capable of winning multiple fmvps, and a team the following year that had the 73 win warriors team down 3-1 in the wcf, and last and certainly least the bubble heat. lebron did this in 3 different systems with different teams and players. yes he chose to do that but it doesnt make it any less difficult or impressive.

jordans biggest accolade for goat status is after he started winning, no one won on his watch (except for the rockets back to back years when mj was playing baseball and made a mid season return). 6-0 in the finals is incredible (sounds much better then saying he couldnt make the finals in 9 of his 15 seasons), and watching him complete 2 3 peats along with the rest of his body of work is why i have him as the goat. its just not as simple as saying hes 6-0 thats why hes the goat. context does matter and is what makes the debate. the debate between mj and lebron is much closer then many want to admit. im just glad, being a fan of both, i dont have to choose sides and have enjoyed watching them both. i wish i was older and could have followed with my own eyes mj getting drafted and coming up in the league. i started watching in the early 90s.

[pingbling23]

Originally Posted by dream34

For those of you who haven't heard it yet, I would suggest listening to a bit of JJ Redick's take on the MJ/Lebron debate. He knows way more about the game than all of us (well, not as much as some of us like to believe). He basically says that he watches old games every week and the game was not as rough and aggressive as everyone likes to reminisce it was in the 90's when MJ was making his run. He points out the 1993 Finals and how MJ had loads of space to take his defender on because it was basically illegal defense to do otherwise and the Suns played accordingly and got torched.

during his bulls days, while mj did have to face hand checking, he never had to face zone defenses. even he said he would have struggled more if he had to face zones but he could do whatever he wanted because he was mainly going one on one.

[pete2345]

Kobe over Lebron all day forget about MJ.

[drobfan8]

It's not common to see someone with no horse in the race pick LeBron.

The Finals 6 and 0 is a weak argument.

I always wonder what Prime MJ would do vs the Spurs teams and Dubs teams that Bron fanatics swear were so scary. You really think Jordan is worried about Steph, Klay and Draymond?

The Spurs teams were better in the early 00s than the team that wiped a stacked LeBron Heat squad anyway.

LeBron is an incredible athlete. Probably has been juiced the last 10 years. But ain't they all.

How is anyone gonna call LeBron the GOAT when his direct opposition (Kawhi, Durant, Iggy, ok, Iggy was bad) have won the Finals MVP? They torched him.

Deserves to be in the convo but he's a ways off.

[6celtics33]

I’ll point out a few things. When pingbling says old lakers I’d like to point out they were much younger than the spurs that wiped the floor with the heat in their prime.

Magic finished 2nd in the mvp race that year and had won it the previous two years. So he was in a 3 year run of 1st 1st 2nd. And 31 years old. Not old.

All those teams that never won anything he listed. Well Portland got there twice. The Jazz got there twice. I thought getting there was a big deal. It is now.

The Jazz in 98 beat a 1st team all nba Duncan and still prime Robinson combo 4-1 and the bulls beat them. 10 years later Duncan and Parker blow Lebron away 4-0 and now they are a dynasty.

Lebron played one finals series where the scores were 90s style. That’s the aforementioned 07 finals. He averaged 22 and shot 36% from the field and got swept.

The 3 future mvps pingbling mentions Lebron beat were 21-22-23 years old at the time and one was harden and one was Westbrook who he and laker fans are overjoyed to be rid of now. But if needed to make Lebron look better then the script flips and he’s something to appreciate when Lebron beats him. Harden was coming off the bench.

As far as the league being more stacked now. Bosh has made more all star teams by himself than pippen rodman and grant combined. Bosh ain’t nowhere near Lebron’s best teammate. But those are Jordan’s 3 best teammates.

So either bosh was in a weaker league or those guys weren’t as good as they are made out to be. Yes the bulls won 55 games in 93-94. They lost Jordan and added kukoc. The year after they went 34-31 and struggled. They wemt 13-4 as soon as he came back. Replaced rodman for grant and won 3 more titles.

It’s not all about the finals opponent either. Getting there matters too. Jordan’s bulls swept a 60 win Shaq and Penny team when penny was top 5-6 player in the league. They had to beat the Knicks or pacers in a battle every year. The heat were right there too. The bulls heat played games in the 70s. It was the style but you had to adapt. That’s how it was and Jordan still has the highest ppg ever in the playoffs and 33-6-6 averages for his playoff career which is nuts. Lebron gets credit for making 10 finals. His road of 60 win teams includes hawks and raptors.

You can like them both. They are both great. But too many disappearing acts for me to enjoy Lebron on here like others do. Since we like to show 3rd party sources I’ll leave you with this clip for 3 minutes to watch. This is game 3 in 2017 finals. It was a winnable game and they were ahead at home. They won game 4. The series could’ve been 2-2. But instead the goat candidate was a complete both sides of the ball non factor for the end of the game.

Also, the stat that tells it for me in terms of winning. Is that when Lebron left Cleveland the first time and got the team he wanted. They were the super team having made the finals all 4 years and having vets line up to chase titles on min deals. They played 3 different west teams in 4 years. They went 11-12. Not even .500. And old lakers? No. Old spurs torched them. They couldn’t guard anyone cutting backdoor on them. They just gambled passing lanes and Boris Diaw cut them up.

I thought we weren’t going to go down this road again with this thread but if you all want to put time into this please watch this end to the game 3 must win situation and tell me that’s the best basketball ever.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3v7A-o0XMn0

[6celtics33]

Originally Posted by pingbling23

during his bulls days, while mj did have to face hand checking, he never had to face zone defenses. even he said he would have struggled more if he had to face zones but he could do whatever he wanted because he was mainly going one on one.

Guards put up record numbers these days. It’s 141-130 somewhere every night. Literally no one struggles to score. So someone with 10 scoring titles and the highest averages ever ain’t gonna struggle now.

[6celtics33]

Originally Posted by dream34

For those of you who haven't heard it yet, I would suggest listening to a bit of JJ Redick's take on the MJ/Lebron debate. He knows way more about the game than all of us (well, not as much as some of us like to believe). He basically says that he watches old games every week and the game was not as rough and aggressive as everyone likes to reminisce it was in the 90's when MJ was making his run. He points out the 1993 Finals and how MJ had loads of space to take his defender on because it was basically illegal defense to do otherwise and the Suns played accordingly and got torched.

Did he point out how phoenix had the strategy of wanting to make Jordan beat them and not let the rest of the bulls. They stayed at home on him and tried all kinds of different matchups. Bigger and smaller players. None of it worked. Jordan set the finals scoring record thst series. Bad strategy. They had the mvp, the home court, and 5 current or former all stars as well as Dumas who was playing like one for that one year. They were good.

But see, Jordan doesn’t make other teams look super. He stops them from becoming super.

[6celtics33]

Oh and if we are gonna say worthy got injured when he played 4/5 games and led them in scoring in that series then I’ll add in draymond was out game 5 suspended and bogut went down eliminating their rim protection in the warriors comeback year for Lebron.

See, both ways. Pick whichever you like but let’s at least be balanced in our narratives.

[BlueXtreme]

Why does no one being up the fact MJ was on the Warriors/Spurs of his era. His team was the dynasty of his time. And not JUST because of him. Phil Jackson. ECF run without him. His team for THAT era was the dynasty. Where it wasn’t multiple superstars on each team. So saying who he faced is irrelevant due to the gap and team make ups of their era. ECF run without him. Yeah. A great player can take any team over the hump. Let alone one in the GOAT debate.

Imagine if LeBron was drafted on to the Warriors or Spurs.

[KhalDrogo]

Originally Posted by dream34

For those of you who haven't heard it yet, I would suggest listening to a bit of JJ Redick's take on the MJ/Lebron debate. He knows way more about the game than all of us (well, not as much as some of us like to believe).

Mr. plumbers and firemen is who you want us to believe the opinion of?

[6celtics33]

Originally Posted by KhalDrogo

Mr. plumbers and firemen is who you want us to believe the opinion of?

Exactly

I could easily say you guys should listen to Hakeem or ewing or Ray Allen or Jason Kidd or Garnett. They are way smarter than us or at least smarter than some of us think we are. They pick Jordan.

[rhigh2390]

Originally Posted by 6celtics33

Exactly

I could easily say you guys should listen to Hakeem or ewing or Ray Allen or Jason Kidd or Garnett. They are way smarter than us or at least smarter than some of us think we are. They pick Jordan.

Great posts in here, as always, from you.

[6celtics33]

Originally Posted by BlueXtreme

Why does no one being up the fact MJ was on the Warriors/Spurs of his era. His team was the dynasty of his time. And not JUST because of him. Phil Jackson. ECF run without him. His team for THAT era was the dynasty. Where it wasn’t multiple superstars on each team. So saying who he faced is irrelevant due to the gap and team make ups of their era. ECF run without him. Yeah. A great player can take any team over the hump. Let alone one in the GOAT debate.

Imagine if LeBron was drafted on to the Warriors or Spurs.

First… Jordan wasn’t drafted into a basketball utopia. They had drug issues all over and went through their own coaching carousel before Phil who had never coached nba basketball before worked out. They drafted to support Mj. They built that team around him. And they haven’t won before or since.

What I wonder is why the best players ever jordan and Russell and magic and bird or even Duncan get credit for being on some of the best all time teams as well that they led. But Lebron is always against better teams and the underdog.

Why doesn’t he make his teams the all time team?

[6celtics33]

And can we put to bed once and for all that the bulls did NOT make the eastern conference finals without Jordan. They went to the second round.

That gets repeated so often like some of these narratives that it becomes fact and it objectively is NOT.

[BlueXtreme]

Originally Posted by 6celtics33

First… Jordan wasn’t drafted into a basketball utopia. They had drug issues all over and went through their own coaching carousel before Phil who had never coached nba basketball before worked out. They drafted to support Mj. They built that team around him. And they haven’t won before or since.

What I wonder is why the best players ever jordan and Russell and magic and bird or even Duncan get credit for being on some of the best all time teams as well that they led. But Lebron is always against better teams and the underdog.

Why doesn’t he make his teams the all time team?

You kind of made my point for me. They drafted to surround MJ with the right pieces and ended up creating a dynasty. Including finding the right coach. He was on the dynasty of his era. It’s indisputable. Same with the others you listed. LeBron gave the Cavs that chance. They didn’t get it done.

Because it’s a team and it’s a different era we are comparing. How many finals was LeBron favored? How many was MJ? Dynasty.

[BlueXtreme]

Originally Posted by 6celtics33

And can we put to bed once and for all that the bulls did NOT make the eastern conference finals without Jordan. They went to the second round.

That gets repeated so often like some of these narratives that it becomes fact and it objectively is NOT.

Sure. If we could put to bed without MJ they were a winning team without him while LBJ’s never have been. Probably the reason MJ came back lol. Also wonder why he released his series when he did. What what happens if LeBron does win another. Maybe he’ll find another way to put out there he’s the GOAT.

Everyone wants to pretend LeBron is the only one who does it here. MJ does the same thing. He’s just most discreet about it. And it’s more acceptable because he is most people’s idol and they can’t seem to disconnect and look at it from a purely unbiased perspective.

In their primes. LeBron was a more complete basketball player. That’s why we resort to team accolades without factoring in era, how basketball has expanded it’s reach, the evolution of the game in general, etc.

[6celtics33]

Originally Posted by BlueXtreme

You kind of made my point for me. They drafted to surround MJ with the right pieces and ended up creating a dynasty. Including finding the right coach. He was on the dynasty of his era. It’s indisputable. Same with the others you listed. LeBron gave the Cavs that chance. They didn’t get it done.

Because it’s a team and it’s a different era we are comparing. How many finals was LeBron favored? How many was MJ? Dynasty.

Yes I agree on the first stint in Cleveland. The heat, the second stint, and the lakers have all done that for him. Do the results scream dynasty to you for Lebron since he left Cleveland the first time? He’s had 3 different big 3s. At the very least we can agree I hope that Lebron isn’t a very good gm.

As to the favorites I don’t know. I can’t believe Jordan was favored in 91 when he’d never been there. They didn’t have home court in 93 or 98. Favored in terms of betting lines? People believed in Mj. Why wasn’t Lebron favored?

He was competitive and should’ve had a chance in all but 07, 15 (love and Kyrie injuries) if that’s the right year, and 18 when Kyrie was gone. The rest were winnable.

[BlueXtreme]

Originally Posted by 6celtics33

Yes I agree on the first stint in Cleveland. The heat, the second stint, and the lakers have all done that for him. Do the results scream dynasty to you for Lebron since he left Cleveland the first time? He’s had 3 different big 3s. At the very least we can agree I hope that Lebron isn’t a very good gm.

As to the favorites I don’t know. I can’t believe Jordan was favored in 91 when he’d never been there. They didn’t have home court in 93 or 98. Favored in terms of betting lines? People believed in Mj. Why wasn’t Lebron favored?

He was competitive and should’ve had a chance in all but 07, 15 (love and Kyrie injuries) if that’s the right year, and 18 when Kyrie was gone. The rest were winnable.

I agree he’s not a good GM. Westbrook.. really? Lol. Any basketball mind could tell that would never work.
I don’t believe the rest were winnable. He had plenty of years where his team just wasn’t getting it done. I mean let’s list some teammates from the Cavs who remained in the league after he was gone. Not many.

Also would like to commend you for not getting hostile and resorting to insults. I appreciate that.