Sedale Threatt wrote:NZB2323 wrote:MacGill wrote:Yup - it certainly is possible. I have him in the top 10 right now but aside from fantastic regular season and some post season campaigns, he has some of the worst top 10 player post season meltdowns of any of the greats. When you realize that in the nba you don't have to be the best at everything on your team to become the best player and/or have the greatest impact you'll understand why others, even if modern statistical measurements don't show them as such, were superior players as they could work within a system, while exceling their own game and teammates beyond a simple statisical measurement that looks more and more empty each year as this era continues to balloon to heights not seen since the 60's.
Only if you compare him to Jordan. Everyone else has stinkers:
Lebron 2011 Finals: 18, 7, and 7, 54.1 TS%, 13.7 GmSc
Kobe 2004 Finals: 23, 4, and 3, 45.6 TS%, 11.6 GmSc
Shaq 2007 1st round: 18, 9, and 1, 52.9 TS%, 11.3 GmSc
Hakeem 1990 1st round: 19, 12, and 2, 47.8 TS%, 17.1 GmSc
Curry 2016 Finals: 23, 5, and 4, 58 TS%, 13.1 GmSC
Duncan 2011 1st round: 20, 3, and 5, 50 TS%, 10.6 GmSc
Magic 1981 1st round: 17, 14, and 7, 44.1 TS%
Kareem 1973 1st round: 23, 16, and 3, 44.7 TS%
Wilt 1969 Finals: 12, 25, and 3, 50% FG, 36.4 FT%
Russell 1967 Division Finals: 11, 23, and 6, 35.8 FG%, 67.9 FT%
Bird 1983 ECF: 18, 14, and 7, 41.2/20/73.1 shooting splits
That's what seperates Jordan. His worse series is probably in 1995 coming back from baseball, but even that wasn't that bad:
Jordan 1995 ECSF: 31, 7, and 4, 53.9 TS%, 21.6 GmSc
I guess you could say Hakeem wasn't that bad, but he had a real stinker in 1998 also. You could say he was past his prime, but he was the same age as Jordan who won Finals MVP that year.
If anyone knows how I could find the GmSc stats for Magic, Kareem, Wilt, Russell, and Bird in those series I would appreciate it.
Also, Lebron put up great stats from 2007-2016, which is similar to the 1990s in terms of scoring. And even today's numbers aren't as inflated as 1962.
And Wilt is the opposite of a player who could work within a system. Dude refused to practice before noon for a season.
Unfortunately a lot of this stuff gets lost over time, or newer fans come along and never knew or learned about it to begin with.
Larry Legend, patron saint of clutchness, was awful in that series with the Sixers -- he failed to surpass his scoring average in the final six games, shooting terribly in the process -- and a couple of others. Magic Johnson remains my favorite player of all time, and while he had good counting stats in the 84 Finals he also screwed up not one but two end-of-regulation possessions in games the Lakers lost in OT (bricking two critical FTs in the second for good measure). L.A. should have swept that series and they lost in 7 in no small part because of those F ups. As great as Kobe was, much like Brett Favre with his unforced interceptions there was always a chance he was going to shoot you right out of a game. And so on.
The 2011 Finals remains probably the biggest WTF performance I've ever seen from a big gun. At that point I was ready to pretty much write LeBron off. But he proceeded to turn in monster performance after monster performance over the next decade, to the point that I have to laugh when people say he doesn't pass the "eye test" or whatever other BS. I had a list at one point of like 15 games where the Heat/Cavs were facing a 3-1 deficit or outright elimination that he came up huge. He's got the highest Game 7 scoring average in history. He's got the highest elimination scoring average in history. Totally redeemed in my eyes.
At the end of the day it just comes down to personal biases. But you should still be able to put that crap aside. Like it would be hard to put into words just how much I loathed Jordan while he was playing. But at no point did I try to twist myself into pretzels to deny his greatness. How so many people continue to do that with LeBron honestly boggles my mind sometimes. The notion that he's not going to be Top 10 in 30, 40, even 50 years with everything he's done is preposterous.
I mean, we also have this website from 1999 that claims that Michael Jordan isn’t a top 50 player, and came up with Power Points that have Derrick Coleman, Gus Johnson, Bill Bridges, Harry Galatin, Gerald Govin, Alex Groza, Jim Lison, John Raymond, and Johnny Kerr ranked ahead of Jordan.
https://airjudden2.tripod.com/ejf/indexf.html
Jordan haters can be just as silly as Lebron haters. It’s silly because they both should be appreciated for their greatness.
