Peaks: Lebron vs Jordan vs Shaq vs Hakeem

[mischievous]

Jordan
Shaq
Hakeem
Lebron

Bingo.

[JulesWinnfield]

What about the easier conference Jules, those others may have had more help (not Hakeem ) but the mountain they had to climb (Hakeem included) to get to the top was better quality than LeBron had to climb.

LeBron does heavy lifting, sure. But the others do the sacrificing. You degrade Bosh for playing a position he shouldn't be playing. LeBron sure wasn't using his 260 lbs of muscle on centers.

You get a legit center and a legit point guard and a legit PF and play them with either Jordan, Hakeem, Shaq, or LeBron. Say CP3 and the Mailman. Which trio would be more successful ?

First let me say I'm not arguing Lebron as the answer to this question, I'm going with '91 MJ by a hair and I still am twisting and turning on number 2. But to the point...

Lebron does operate in the weaker conference of his era. (Which happens to be in comparison with arguably the strongest conference ever). And that's a break relative to his *modern* peers in the West for sure. But a couple things beyond that in relation to the guys actually in the discussion

1. The overall talent in the league today is deeper than it was in any of the other 3 guys title wining years. This is the longest period without expansion in the history of the NBA, and it has coincided with a global boom to boot. The average team today is more talented in my view than at any point in the last 25 years

2. The loaded nature of the teams he has met in the finals is absurd

3. Because of the explosion of depth with the global boom and non expansion, in addition to other factors like the prominence of the 3 ball and the ditching of old illegal defense rules, I think the star player in Lebrons time has a harder time impacting outcomes than in eras past.

I'm not using these as reasons to support Lebron as number 1 here, I don't even rank him 1 here. But any conversation that looks to insinuate he had more help or an easier road en route to his championships is pretty indefensible.

[spectacularmove]

At this point its pretty safe to say Lebron's peak won't stand in time as strong as MJ's (and Shaq's) did. I see him breaking many records though, that will help him for sure in his GOAT ranking.

[Gregoire]

At this point its pretty safe to say Lebron's peak won't stand in time as strong as MJ's (and Shaq's) did. I see him breaking many records though, that will help him for sure in his GOAT ranking.

I think his 2012 and 2013 years were on par with Shaqs peak.

[Prokorov]

Jordan
Shaq
lebron


now sure why hakeem is even on this list.

[ChokeFasncists]

Tier 1: undoubted greatness and dominance

1. I'd have to say Shaq. Without Shaq it would be a bad team, he was pretty much unstoppable. Got all the opposing big men in foul trouble. His Achilles' heel of course is FT shooting and he himself would get into foul trouble often but so it's an extremely close call.

2. MJ was great but there was always a sense that you could beat his team using normal means. (therefore much better to watch.) His team wasn't very bad when he didn't play and an SG is easier to replace. He never won without Pips and Phil.



Tier 2: Not sure if could win without MJ's retirement and teaming up to form Big 3

3. Hakeem. Incredible everything. He is a center. On a mission.

4. LeBron. Incredible everything. Not a center, had more help and needed some luck, easier conference.

The notion that Lebron had clearly the most help out of this group to win titles is completely indefensible and the direct opposite of accurate. If anything he wore more hats for his teams than anyone in this conversation, and outside of the 94 rockets absolutely carried the largest overall load. The guy was their leader in scoring, rebounding. assists and was their best defender at a minimum of 3 and arguably 4 positions. This has never happend on any team let alone a back to back title team. Shouldn't be a surprise that Lebron's 12 and 13 playoffs are both top 5 all time in win shares

They were flawed squads in Miami even though casual fans get drunk off name power and the whole narrative of a big 3. In reality they were the worst rebounding teams and worst interior defensive teams to ever win. They had injuries heavily impact both of their title runs in postseason to boot. No one won with any less help than Lebron got in the 2013 playoffs with D Wade's corpse limping around averaging 15 inefficient points a night, and Bosh dealing with a crisis of confidence in addition to getting bullied in the post in every series, making guys like Roy Hibbert look like Hakeem/Shaq

Read closer. I have separated those four into two tiers. The comment "had more help" meant he had more help than Hakeem. The notion is pretty much defensible:

Wade, Bosh, Allen, Battier > Thorpe, Maxwell, Horry, Smith.

Bosh might give up bulk to Hibbert but he also pulled him out to the three point line. It was more like a strategy than a weakness.

[JulesWinnfield]

Tier 1: undoubted greatness and dominance

1. I'd have to say Shaq. Without Shaq it would be a bad team, he was pretty much unstoppable. Got all the opposing big men in foul trouble. His Achilles' heel of course is FT shooting and he himself would get into foul trouble often but so it's an extremely close call.

2. MJ was great but there was always a sense that you could beat his team using normal means. (therefore much better to watch.) His team wasn't very bad when he didn't play and an SG is easier to replace. He never won without Pips and Phil.



Tier 2: Not sure if could win without MJ's retirement and teaming up to form Big 3

3. Hakeem. Incredible everything. He is a center. On a mission.

4. LeBron. Incredible everything. Not a center, had more help and needed some luck, easier conference.

The notion that Lebron had clearly the most help out of this group to win titles is completely indefensible and the direct opposite of accurate. If anything he wore more hats for his teams than anyone in this conversation, and outside of the 94 rockets absolutely carried the largest overall load. The guy was their leader in scoring, rebounding. assists and was their best defender at a minimum of 3 and arguably 4 positions. This has never happend on any team let alone a back to back title team. Shouldn't be a surprise that Lebron's 12 and 13 playoffs are both top 5 all time in win shares

They were flawed squads in Miami even though casual fans get drunk off name power and the whole narrative of a big 3. In reality they were the worst rebounding teams and worst interior defensive teams to ever win. They had injuries heavily impact both of their title runs in postseason to boot. No one won with any less help than Lebron got in the 2013 playoffs with D Wade's corpse limping around averaging 15 inefficient points a night, and Bosh dealing with a crisis of confidence in addition to getting bullied in the post in every series, making guys like Roy Hibbert look like Hakeem/Shaq

Read closer. I have separated those four into two tiers. The comment "had more help" meant he had more help than Hakeem. The notion is pretty much defensible:

Wade, Bosh, Allen, Battier > Thorpe, Maxwell, Horry, Smith.

Bosh might give up bulk to Hibbert but he also pulled him out to the three point line. It was more like a strategy than a weakness.

First, the 3 point shot wasn't even really a part of Bosh's game until last year. But more importantly, the Heat played Bosh at the 5 because they didn't have a real Center on the roster. It wasn't a "strategy" unique to playing Indiana. It was because they didn't have a starting caliber true big who was worthy of heavy minutes. They had the thinnest front courts among contending teams in history. And it certainly WAS a consistent weakness to anyone who watched that team regularly.

Any assertion that the Hibbert-Bosh matchup in the 2013 ECF was anything other than a massive net negative for Miami is incredibly revisionist. Chris Bosh was absolutely abysmal on both ends of the floor while Hibbert was having the 2 weeks of his life, averaging an incredibly efficient 22 and 10 over 7 games. After Lebron James, the best 3 players on the floor in that series were all members of the Indiana Pacers.

[Brenice]

The Heat chose to play Bosh at center. They had centers, they just weren't any good so they chose to go small and play Bosh at center to get their 5 best players on the court.

[JulesWinnfield]

The Heat chose to play Bosh at center. They had centers, they just weren't any good so they chose to go small and play Bosh at center to get their 5 best players on the court.

When they went small full time, they had Joel Anthony who is barely an NBA player (in addition to being an undersized 6'9"). Then late in 2013 they added Birdman, who isn't even really a true Center and has a minutes ceiling. You're not saying anything different than I am. They played Bosh at Center because they didn't have a real one. It was born out of necessity, it is no ones best laid plan to play him at the 5.

[Brenice]

It really wasn't much of a problem because the Heat won the East each year. It hurt when they played the Spurs. But the majority of LeBron's stats were accumulated in the boys conference. His stats would not be as glossy or efficient if the majority of his games were played in the man's conference, the West. Now if he was in the west, he still would be GOAT of this era, just not as efficient. IMO

[JulesWinnfield]

It really wasn't much of a problem because the Heat won the East each year. It hurt when they played the Spurs. But the majority of LeBron's stats were accumulated in the boys conference. His stats would not be as glossy or efficient if the majority of his games were played in the man's conference, the West. Now if he was in the west, he still would be GOAT of this era, just not as efficient. IMO

This is another instance of someone making a point that is the exact opposite of the truth. In terms of defenses faced, Lebron was going through the number 1 defense in the entire league in the playoffs on a perennial basis at one point (the past 4 seasons and 6 of the last 7 to be exact), be it from Boston to Orlando to Chicago to Indiana. Staggeringly good defensive squads far from conducive to stat padding. You don't want to do a study comparing the defensive ratings of opposition faced in the playoffs between Lebron and Jordan. Jordan played NBA finals series against defenses that would be the worst Lebron ever faced in any round. Lebron has faced the clearly tougher road from this standpoint. Not to mention he sees defenses that were literally illegal in Jordan's prime

[LLJ]

What must be taken into account in Shaq's prime was that the centre position was in a severe downturn in 2000-2002. Can someone name another centre who was truly star calibre during Shaq's prime? Steamrolling the likes of an aging Sabonis, Robinson and Divacs is different from competing against the likes of a prime Ewing, Robinson, and a very great young Shaq. That's something that I always have in mind when thinking about Hakeem.

[JulesWinnfield]

The only time in the past 7 postseasons where Lebron didn't face the #1 defensive rating team in the entire league was 2010. Every other season since he was 22 he has at some point had to go through the best defensive team in the NBA. Of the Top 100 stingiest defenses of the last 30 years linked below, (sorted by defensive rating) Lebron has faced 11 of these defenses across his postseason career. Jordan merely 3 (93 Nyk, 97 Miami, 98 Indy). The notion that he has amassed his numbers against weak resistance is in direct opposition with the truth.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... r_by_asc=Y

[Brenice]

This is another instance of someone making a point that is the exact opposite of the truth. In terms of defenses faced, Lebron was going through the number 1 defense in the entire league in the playoffs on a perennial basis at one point (the past 4 seasons and 6 of the last 7 to be exact), be it from Boston to Orlando to Chicago to Indiana. Staggeringly good defensive squads far from conducive to stat padding. You don't want to do a study comparing the defensive ratings of opposition faced in the playoffs between Lebron and Jordan. Jordan played NBA finals series against defenses that would be the worst Lebron ever faced in any round. Lebron has faced the clearly tougher road from this standpoint. Not to mention he sees defenses that were literally illegal in Jordan's prime

I wasn't talking about just playoffs.

[JulesWinnfield]

This is another instance of someone making a point that is the exact opposite of the truth. In terms of defenses faced, Lebron was going through the number 1 defense in the entire league in the playoffs on a perennial basis at one point (the past 4 seasons and 6 of the last 7 to be exact), be it from Boston to Orlando to Chicago to Indiana. Staggeringly good defensive squads far from conducive to stat padding. You don't want to do a study comparing the defensive ratings of opposition faced in the playoffs between Lebron and Jordan. Jordan played NBA finals series against defenses that would be the worst Lebron ever faced in any round. Lebron has faced the clearly tougher road from this standpoint. Not to mention he sees defenses that were literally illegal in Jordan's prime

I wasn't talking about just playoffs.

Your point was Lebron would undoubtedly decline statistically if he played in the West. We have 12 years of Lebron splits against both the East and the West, and they call BS on that claim. (link below. EDIT: link is inexplicably not working, but page can easily be found at B-R on Lebrons page under the splits bar when clicking on career). Not only does Lebron score more against the West in his career, he does so while shooting a higher percentage from the floor and from 3 (identical ts% of .581 solely due to the aberration of Lebron shooting better at the foul line against the east). He also averages more assists and more rebounds and is marginally better across the board against the West.

The notion that playing in the east as opposed to the west has had a big advantageous impact on his individual numbers isn't supportable on any level, in fact we have evidence to suggest it has had the opposite effect (microscopically). The best defenses (if not the best teams) have come from the east at a mildly higher rate than the west. The impact on his individual statistics based on the conference disparity is virtually non existent

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 01/splits/

[Brenice]

This is another instance of someone making a point that is the exact opposite of the truth. In terms of defenses faced, Lebron was going through the number 1 defense in the entire league in the playoffs on a perennial basis at one point (the past 4 seasons and 6 of the last 7 to be exact), be it from Boston to Orlando to Chicago to Indiana. Staggeringly good defensive squads far from conducive to stat padding. You don't want to do a study comparing the defensive ratings of opposition faced in the playoffs between Lebron and Jordan. Jordan played NBA finals series against defenses that would be the worst Lebron ever faced in any round. Lebron has faced the clearly tougher road from this standpoint. Not to mention he sees defenses that were literally illegal in Jordan's prime

I wasn't talking about just playoffs.

Your point was Lebron would undoubtedly decline statistically if he played in the West. We have 12 years of Lebron splits against both the East and the West, and they call BS on that claim. (link below. EDIT: link is inexplicably not working, but page can easily be found at B-R on Lebrons page under the splits bar when clicking on career). Not only does Lebron score more against the West in his career, he does so while shooting a higher percentage from the floor and from 3 (identical ts% of .581 solely due to the aberration of Lebron shooting better at the foul line against the east). He also averages more assists and more rebounds and is marginally better across the board against the West.

The notion that playing in the east as opposed to the west has had a big advantageous impact on his individual numbers isn't supportable on any level, in fact we have evidence to suggest it has had the opposite effect (microscopically). The best defenses (if not the best teams) have come from the east at a mildly higher rate than the west. The impact on his individual statistics based on the conference disparity is virtually non existent

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 01/splits/

Those east defenses play the majority of their games in the east too. Just because a western team may not have as good defensive stats as a east team doesn't mean that west team is not as good defensively. They play against better offenses night in and night out. Again, LeBron would dominate and all that, no matter where he played, but there would be a little decline. For every Bulls and Indy, there were a Bucks, or Cleveland, or Bobcats, or....

And there is no need to discuss winning percentage

[JulesWinnfield]

I wasn't talking about just playoffs.

Your point was Lebron would undoubtedly decline statistically if he played in the West. We have 12 years of Lebron splits against both the East and the West, and they call BS on that claim. (link below. EDIT: link is inexplicably not working, but page can easily be found at B-R on Lebrons page under the splits bar when clicking on career). Not only does Lebron score more against the West in his career, he does so while shooting a higher percentage from the floor and from 3 (identical ts% of .581 solely due to the aberration of Lebron shooting better at the foul line against the east). He also averages more assists and more rebounds and is marginally better across the board against the West.

The notion that playing in the east as opposed to the west has had a big advantageous impact on his individual numbers isn't supportable on any level, in fact we have evidence to suggest it has had the opposite effect (microscopically). The best defenses (if not the best teams) have come from the east at a mildly higher rate than the west. The impact on his individual statistics based on the conference disparity is virtually non existent

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 01/splits/

Those east defenses play the majority of their games in the east too. Just because a western team may not have as good defensive stats as a east team doesn't mean that west team is not as good defensively. They play against better offenses night in and night out. Again, LeBron would dominate and all that, no matter where he played, but there would be a little decline. For every Bulls and Indy, there were a Bucks, or Cleveland, or Bobcats, or....

And there is no need to discuss winning percentage

You keep making a claim that has zero basis. If he were to see a statistical decline playing in the West during this era, we would certainly see some evidence of that in a sample of roughly 350 career games against that conference. Not only do we see no such decline, his numbers are actually better against that conference than they are against the East across the board. You are just throwing stuff against the wall with zero support for your claims. It's also funny that you use examples of the bucks and bobcats as terrible defenses when in fact the bobcat defense Lebron faced in the playoffs last year would have statistically been one of the better ones MJ ever faced in postseason play. The bucks defense he faced in the 2013 title run was statistically on par defensively (either better or within 1 point in defensive rating) with every single *finals* opponent Jordan ever had save for the 96 sonics. And neither of them are anything more than a blip in the laundry list of elite playoff defenses Lebron has faced, they're not even worth mentioning

If you want to make a claim that the road would be tougher for his teams in the West then that's another matter. That's a team deal, I've already detailed earlier how overrated his career supporting casts have been even in years where casual fans viewed his help as "stacked". He has never played on a team that's winning 55 games if he decided to go play baseball

[ChokeFasncists]

First, the 3 point shot wasn't even really a part of Bosh's game until last year.

Uh......he made quite a few important ones in the playoffs before.

But more importantly, the Heat played Bosh at the 5 because they didn't have a real Center on the roster. It wasn't a "strategy" unique to playing Indiana. It was because they didn't have a starting caliber true big who was worthy of heavy minutes. They had the thinnest front courts among contending teams in history. And it certainly WAS a consistent weakness to anyone who watched that team regularly.

I never said it was a unique strategy to playing Indiana, it was a strategy they used all the times, the stretch five. They could have had Anthony, Pittman, Birdman and Haslem (slightly tougher than Bosh) share most the minutes at the five if they chose to. Bosh at five had distinct advantage against other fives. Sure it was a weakness, but they have other advantages.

Any assertion that the Hibbert-Bosh matchup in the 2013 ECF was anything other than a massive net negative for Miami is incredibly revisionist. Chris Bosh was absolutely abysmal on both ends of the floor while Hibbert was having the 2 weeks of his life, averaging an incredibly efficient 22 and 10 over 7 games. After Lebron James, the best 3 players on the floor in that series were all members of the Indiana Pacers.

Just because Hibbert (the biggest player in the league) dominated Bosh doesn't make LeBron's peak better than Hakeem's peak. Bosh is still a better player than Horry during those years. I never said LeBron wasn't extremely important on his team, just that his teammates were better than the ones Hakeem had.

On the other hand, it seems like you have misunderstood what a stretch five does, it's not to dominate but just to pull the opposing team's big to the perimeter so that his teammates could have more space to work with in the paint, guess who benefited? One just need to look at the case of Matt Bonner and Pop. There is no question Pop is a great coach, there's no question there were better centers on the roster and there's no question Bonner sucked huge besides being a stretch five. Why did Pop still consistently play him major minutes? All statistics point to the fact that his teammates score more easily and it supposedly outweighs the rebounding and interior defense this strategy gives up. Unfortunately it's not quite the case in reality and he abandoned it later to good effect. And hey, it's Pop. On the other hand, one must keep in mind, Bosh is hugely better than Bonner in every way.

As for the case in point, one just needs to look at the fact that Bosh averaged 50% from deep in the series and Hibbert averaged only 1 block per game, 1.6 fewer than his season average to know that this strategy had worked to a certain extent.

[SactoKingsFan]

Jordan
LeBron
Shaq
Hakeem

[Gregoire]

Very wanted posters!

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