Has Lebron caught Michael Jeffrey Jordan

[ropjhk]

If Lebron beats the Warriors again this season there will be a serious conversation to be had. Some people complain that MJ=GOAT is too much an unquestionable matter of fact for some fans, but until lately I would say there wasn't much of an argument to be had. Kobe was never on Jordan's level, and Lebron only started to approach MJ's greatness with his Finals performances in these past two years with Cleveland.

[Jedi32]

People keep saying lebron beat a super team without acknowledging lebron is on a super team himself.

[mobifree]

in this thread: cleveland fans or <25 year olds back Lebron. Rest of the population know its Jordan.

Not true.
I'm in my late 30s and I've watched MJ in his prime and Jordan in his prime.

Until the 2014-15 finals, there was NO doubt Jordan was the GOAT, and then the transition started. Lebron capped it off in the 2015-16 finals with that performance.

This argument is similar to the Kobe vs Lebron argument.

People have chosen sides early, and refuse to acknowledge what Lebron has done over his career to surpass Kobe and now Jordan.

Now people are being stubborn to try to save face instead of admitting that Lebron is indeed the best.

I too was in a similar position with my belief that Tim Duncan was the greatest post-Jordan player (not Kobe, no Shaq, no Lebron). Kobe and Shaq were knocked off the list relatively early; But after the 2014 performance, there's no doubt Lebron is a better all-round player than Duncan and best since Jordan. The following finals, it became glaringly obvious to objective fans Lebron is indeed the greatest basketball player of all time.

Acknowledging Lebron is the greatest doesn't make Jordan chopped liver. He's still the 2nd greatest player of all time, and the greatest player from the 80s and 90s.

[itzmrgigglez]

If Lebron can't be the greatest ever because of 2011 then Jordan can't be the greatest ever because of 1995. Bird and Magic obviously choked in the finals too.

I'm going with Brandon Rush as the greatest ever. The Warriors unraveled in the finals the year after he left

-----------------------------------------------------------------------Hinkie has created a monster that will awaken in 2018 precisely 200 years after Mary Shelley published Frankenstein in 1818 A.D.
I don't think for a second this is coincidental as Hinkie is well educated and a fan of Classic British Lit

Those two events aren't comparable in anyway.

MJ didn't play in the league for two years and came out of retirement at age 32 in March of the 94-95 season

Lebron at age 27 with a good supporting cast only managed a measly 17.8 pts in the 2011 finals and this is the same man who 4 years earlier he dragged a terrible cavs team to the finals vs the Spurs.

4 years is a good amount of time so I digress

[NZB2323]

Yes I did and you are wrong.

The nba is a team sport now not an individual player showcase. It's much more difficult to dominate vs team defense than vs man defense, period.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------Hinkie has created a monster that will awaken in 2018 precisely 200 years after Mary Shelley published Frankenstein in 1818 A.D.
I don't think for a second this is coincidental as Hinkie is well educated and a fan of Classic British Lit

Jordan had to play against the best team defense of all time, as he faced the Bad Boys Pistons in the playoffs 4 years in a row.

One thing Jordan benefited from that is never brought up was the competition. Not team competition, but one on one competition. He played in an era of the iso. Teams were by the rules, basically not allowed to stop the other team from going into iso every possession. That really helped him as it was his specialty.

But the real competition problem I'm talking about was the fact that when he played might of been the worst era of SG/SF maybe ever in the NBA when it comes to defense. Teams scrambled every year to try and find someone, anyone that could guard MJ with any effect. Gerald Wilkins, yes Dominique's' brother, was considered the "Jordan stopper". Gerald freakin Wilkins! He wouldn't even be a top 20 wing defender in the NBA today yet that was the best one on one defender MJ faced. LeBron, Khawi, George, Butler, Giannis, Durant, all would of been easily the best wing defender he faced. Hell, Jae Crowder would of easily been the best (considering Pippen was on the Bulls).

I feel that context somehow got lost in history. Consider "The shot" which he shot over Craig Ehlo which is historically linked as a great MJ shot. Ehlo was a 6'5" hustle player. Would it be that special hitting the game winning shot in game 5 of the ECF's shooting over say the 6'4" hustling Matthew Dellevedova if he played today? If he bitched Kahwi or PG13, then sure that would be a hell of a shot, but over a non athletic guy that was only in the NBA because of hard work, gets overblown because people only look at the results, not the variables.

Gary Payton, Joe Dumars, Clyde Drexler, ect. were all excellent defensive players that Jordan played against.

Lebron has also made shots against bad defensive players. Who is the defensive ace on the Wizards that Lebron hit his recent game winner against? Lebron hit a famous game winner in the playoffs against Hedo Turkoglu, hardly considered to be a defensive stopper.

[Edrees]

Lebron's numbers vs Jordan's aren't different enough to warrant calling Lebron the best unless he gets at least 6 rings. It's the only way he has a chance. Just like Tom brady was debated even until last week, but now that he has 5 rings he's cemented it. Lebron would have to do the same thing.

[Mulhollanddrive]

This thread would have been Steph Curry without Kyrie Irving.

[FlopShow2013]

Who is Michael Jeffrey?

[monopoman]

It's a bit early for this type of talk if you ask me...

Lebon needs to beat the Warriors this year for this to even be a conversation, take it from someone who lived through the 90s and watched Jordan dominate he was on a different level. The flu game is quite possibly the greatest playoff game I have ever seen from a player in that type of condition. Meanwhile we have seen Lebron bitch about the AC units being broken or potentially shut off in a Finals game against the Spurs.

[Hindenburg]

Gotta win more rings and FMVPs to have this discussion. Way too early at the moment

[Alonzo_Morning]

No

[jagz]

i've always wondered if lebron threw that finals in 2011 on purpose because wade was so spectacular in it,and he knows that if the heat had won the narrative of him being a robin would have exploded with wade winning finals mvp.

I've had the same thought many times. It's not hard to imagine LBJ (or Maverick Carter) concluding, once it became apparent that James could not be FMVP, that the short-term hit to his brand of being labeled a choker would be far less damaging than winning a title as the second best player on his team. If Wade gets that FMVP, any and all LBJ GOAT talk would have been dead forever (it should be,anyway, but the media has a myopic memory and has been grading him on a massive curve ever since he came on the scene-- they've wanted to crown him the best ever since before he was in the league.)

Honestly, I find these threads OFFENSIVE-- there's one on the player comparison board too. This is not a Brady-like debate where his detractors have tried to claim that Montana and Bradshaw's 4/4 somehow surpass TB's 5/7-- that's an asanine argument. But, this is a case where LeBron has a 3/7 record, and people are trying to say that somehow puts him above MJ's 6/6. LeBron has HALF the titles Mike does and a sub-.500 Finals record vs. MJ's 100% (to say nothing of the fact that one of those losses was overwhelmingly his fault).

I don't know if it's a function of the board being populated by millennial ignoramuses or the forum's pathetic circle-jerking over all the made up alphabet soup metrics that stat nerds keep coming up with, but the only salient points that need to be factored are that LeBron had far more offensive support in Miami (this goes without saying) but also in Cleveland (whereas MJ shouldered the weight of the Bulls offense at ALL times) and that LeBron not once but twice stacked the deck in the weakest conference to ensure his yearly passage to the Finals. MJ never did that. Brady never did that. But, LeBron did.

And spare me the arguments about collective team talent. First, only during MJ's second three-peat did he have anything on the level of what LeBron had in either Miami or Cleveland. Mike three-peated with fellow starters B.J. Armstrong, Scottie, Horace Grant and Bill Cartwright for god's sake. Second, the only comparison that truly matters is the relative disparity between the #1 and the #2. On the Bulls, MJ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Scottie. On the Heat, there was ZERO disparity in year one (in fact, a strong case can be made that Wade was actually better), and the disparities that emerged in years two through four were (at least until injuries sapped Wade's prime) a result of Wade volunteering to suppress his game for the good of the team. And in Cleveland, Kyrie may not be better than Scottie, but he's certainly better on offense, which is the critical element with respect to who was bearing the most load.

[JackZZ]

in this thread: cleveland fans or <25 year olds back Lebron. Rest of the population know its Jordan.

Not true.
I'm in my late 30s and I've watched MJ in his prime and Jordan in his prime.

I'm guessing Jeffrey is a whole different guy too then, for you.

[cbjrdm]

i've always wondered if lebron threw that finals in 2011 on purpose because wade was so spectacular in it,and he knows that if the heat had won the narrative of him being a robin would have exploded with wade winning finals mvp.

Got to be the dumbest thing I have read in a long time. Pure fiction created by Lebron fanboys who simply can't accept that Lebron choked in the finals.

[andrewww]

i've always wondered if lebron threw that finals in 2011 on purpose because wade was so spectacular in it,and he knows that if the heat had won the narrative of him being a robin would have exploded with wade winning finals mvp.

I've had the same thought many times. It's not hard to imagine LBJ (or Maverick Carter) concluding, once it became apparent that James could not be FMVP, that the short-term hit to his brand of being labeled a choker would be far less damaging than winning a title as the second best player on his team. If Wade gets that FMVP, any and all LBJ GOAT talk would have been dead forever (it should be,anyway, but the media has a myopic memory and has been grading him on a massive curve ever since he came on the scene-- they've wanted to crown him the best ever since before he was in the league.)

Honestly, I find these threads OFFENSIVE-- there's one on the player comparison board too. This is not a Brady-like debate where his detractors have tried to claim that Montana and Bradshaw's 4/4 somehow surpass TB's 5/7-- that's an asanine argument. But, this is a case where LeBron has a 3/7 record, and people are trying to say that somehow puts him above MJ's 6/6. LeBron has HALF the titles Mike does and a sub-.500 Finals record vs. MJ's 100% (to say nothing of the fact that one of those losses was overwhelmingly his fault).

I don't know if it's a function of the board being populated by millennial ignoramuses or the forum's pathetic circle-jerking over all the made up alphabet soup metrics that stat nerds keep coming up with, but the only salient points that need to be factored are that LeBron had far more offensive support in Miami (this goes without saying) but also in Cleveland (whereas MJ shouldered the weight of the Bulls offense at ALL times) and that LeBron not once but twice stacked the deck in the weakest conference to ensure his yearly passage to the Finals. MJ never did that. Brady never did that. But, LeBron did.

And spare me the arguments about collective team talent. First, only during MJ's second three-peat did he have anything on the level of what LeBron had in either Miami or Cleveland. Mike three-peated with fellow starters B.J. Armstrong, Scottie, Horace Grant and Bill Cartwright for god's sake. Second, the only comparison that truly matters is the relative disparity between the #1 and the #2. On the Bulls, MJ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Scottie. On the Heat, there was ZERO disparity in year one (in fact, a strong case can be made that Wade was actually better), and the disparities that emerged in years two through four were (at least until injuries sapped Wade's prime) a result of Wade volunteering to suppress his game for the good of the team. And in Cleveland, Kyrie may not be better than Scottie, but he's certainly better on offense, which is the critical element with respect to who was bearing the most load.

+1000

[jagz]

i've always wondered if lebron threw that finals in 2011 on purpose because wade was so spectacular in it,and he knows that if the heat had won the narrative of him being a robin would have exploded with wade winning finals mvp.

Got to be the dumbest thing I have read in a long time. Pure fiction created by Lebron fanboys who simply can't accept that Lebron choked in the finals.

This is not an argument made by LBJ fanboys. Quite the contrary, this point is lethal to them because it stipulates not only is LeBron not better than MJ, he may not have even have been better than Wade.

I adamantly believe that Wade would have been better than James if not for a) Wade's injury troubles (definitely) and b) their friendship (possibly-- Wade, to his shame, should have had a mentality like Kobe and tried to rip out James' jugular instead of teaming up with him; however, if he could have stayed healthy, their partnership may have never materialized, and the issue would have been moot.)

People forget that sophomore Wade was on his way to the Finals in 2005 with Shaq hurt and sitting out playoff games. The only reason the Heat didn't make it was because Wade himself tore his abdominal in Game 5 of the ECFs as the Heat went up 3 - 2. The Pistons-- the Larry Brown/ Ben Wallace era Pistons-- had no answers for him to that point. But, he missed Game 6 and played Game 7, which they lost by 2 points, in a virtual mummy cast. Would Wade have picked up his first FMVP that year? We'll never know, obviously, but given that the Pistons took the Spurs to seven games, and Wade was abusing the Pistons, it's safe to say it would have been great a series.

But, if Wade picks up his first FMVP in 2005, then 2006 would have been a repeat. Now all of a sudden we've got a dynasty, but unlike the Lakers' Shaq/Kobe dynasty, it would have been a Wade/Shaq dynasty, and all of the sudden the narrative would have been "LeBron who?" Further, in 2007, Wade was hands-down the best player in the league, averaging numbers basically identical to his 09 season (29/5/8) and with a 30+ PER when nobody else was above 27... until he tore his shoulder after the all-star break. Shaq was also hurt again that year, but if both had stayed healthy, LeBron could forget his Finals run; he wasn't beating a healthy Wade and Shaq. Then once again, the Heat would have faced the Spurs, and it would have been a spectacular match-up. But, if Miami wins, now Wade would have just authored a three-peat.

[The4thHorseman]

People keep saying lebron beat a super team without acknowledging lebron is on a super team himself.

Who on the Cavs roster (besides James) made an All-NBA team or the All-Star team in 2016?

[therealbig3]

That's a nice story and all, but there isn't a team that LeBron has ever played for that would have won 55 games and come within one game of the conference finals without him.

So let's hold off on dismissing Jordan's supporting cast and hyping up LeBron's. Even in Miami and his 2nd stint with Cleveland, LeBron hasn't had the help that Jordan had in Chicago. And Jordan certainly never played a team as good as the Warriors.

[Jedi32]

People keep saying lebron beat a super team without acknowledging lebron is on a super team himself.

Who on the Cavs roster (besides James) made an All-NBA team or the All-Star team in 2016?

May I ask why that would matter? I mean according to realgm things like all star games are irrelevant because they're voted on by casual fans...

[The4thHorseman]

i've always wondered if lebron threw that finals in 2011 on purpose because wade was so spectacular in it,and he knows that if the heat had won the narrative of him being a robin would have exploded with wade winning finals mvp.

I've had the same thought many times. It's not hard to imagine LBJ (or Maverick Carter) concluding, once it became apparent that James could not be FMVP, that the short-term hit to his brand of being labeled a choker would be far less damaging than winning a title as the second best player on his team.[/b] If Wade gets that FMVP, any and all LBJ GOAT talk would have been dead forever (it should be,anyway, but the media has a myopic memory and has been grading him on a massive curve ever since he came on the scene-- they've wanted to crown him the best ever since before he was in the league.)

Since you confirm that both Wade and James are both close friends, then it's not hard to imagine an agreement of LeBron taking a back seat so Wade can have one last hurrah and try to win another FMVP.

Does it not strike you odd that shortly after that Finals loss, Wade told the media "it's LeBron's team now" in which Miami proceeded to win B2B Championships with Wade taking the backseat and the luxury of taking games off during the reg. season??

I don't know if it's a function of the board being populated by millennial ignoramuses or the forum's pathetic circle-jerking over all the made up alphabet soup metrics that stat nerds keep coming up with, but the only salient points that need to be factored are that LeBron had far more offensive support in Miami (this goes without saying) but also in Cleveland (whereas MJ shouldered the weight of the Bulls offense at ALL times) and that LeBron not once but twice stacked the deck in the weakest conference to ensure his yearly passage to the Finals. MJ never did that. Brady never did that. But, LeBron did.

MJ shouldered the offense while Pippen shouldered the defense by guarding the best opposing offensive player. That's why MJ could stay fresher on offense.

Younger non-injured better 2 way player Pippen > 2012-14 Wade. Young Grant banging for rebounds and posting up > 2012-14 Bosh

And spare me the arguments about collective team talent. First, only during MJ's second three-peat did he have anything on the level of what LeBron had in either Miami or Cleveland. Mike three-peated with fellow starters B.J. Armstrong, Scottie, Horace Grant and Bill Cartwright for god's sake. Second, the only comparison that truly matters is the relative disparity between the #1 and the #2. On the Bulls, MJ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Scottie. On the Heat, there was ZERO disparity in year one (in fact, a strong case can be made that Wade was actually better), and the disparities that emerged in years two through four were (at least until injuries sapped Wade's prime) a result of Wade volunteering to suppress his game for the good of the team. And in Cleveland, Kyrie may not be better than Scottie, but he's certainly better on offense, which is the critical element with respect to who was bearing the most load.