RGM GOAT Debate Thread (Part 2)

[MavsDirk41]

It was in response of the post 1008 of this page,who had started a thread about that Curry and Jokic had higher peak that LeBron and this is now on this page


Jokic has a all-time great peak but this is very hard to have a higher peak that LBJ whether it's 1 year, 3 years or 5 years, etc...Hard to beat the 2009 season of LeBron.Maybe Jokic has a argument but we can't said that for sure

I meant opinion

RAPM is an inherently better stat than PER, which is just box score accumulation. Read up on both. PER is one of the most useless aggregate stats and Hollinger is quite frankly a hack.

RAPM has been around since what? 97? So that excludes players like Jordan, Wilt, Bird, prime Shaq, Magic, Kareem, Hakeem…..

[ReggiesKnicks]

I meant opinion

RAPM is an inherently better stat than PER, which is just box score accumulation. Read up on both. PER is one of the most useless aggregate stats and Hollinger is quite frankly a hack.

RAPM has been around since what? 97? So that excludes players like Jordan, Wilt, Bird, prime Shaq, Magic, Kareem, Hakeem…..

Correct, but if you actually followed this conversation, RAPM was brought up as someone said something along the lines of "Curry and Jokic peaked higher than LeBron and LeBron will be leaving the Top 5 soon".

RAPM paints LeBron as far more impactful than either Jokic or Curry while all 3 of them and James played in the RAPM-era.

[Iwasawitness]

On the flip side, I really think many of LeBron’s biggest “stans” weren’t actually old enough to have been paying attention to basketball in 2011 and earlier. They didn’t see the era of LeBron’s career where he almost always disappointed individually in the playoffs at some point.

At a cursory glance, LeBron’s playoff BPM was 9.8 from 2006 to 2011

That really masks that he was genuinely disappointing in most of the series his team lost (which is why I said “at some point”), including 2011 vs. DAL, 2010 vs. BOS, 2008 vs. BOS, and 2007 vs. SAS. The 2009 loss was definitely an exception, where his team lost but he was really not disappointing individually (2006 is somewhere in the middle, where he was not great against Detroit but not awful either, and it was early enough in his career that I wouldn’t say it was perceived as disappointing). Other than that, though, there were a lot of series losses where LeBron didn’t play well and definitely had a significant portion of the blame. Which made it different from what happened afterwards, where, for instance, one would be hard-pressed to really blame LeBron for his team losing in 2014, 2017, 2018, etc., given how he had played individually.

LeBron's 2010 series vs Boston is underrated. LeBron had one bad game in a series that went to 6 contests. From a scoring standpoint, sure, it was a little below his usual averages, but he also spent most of that series locking up Paul Pierce. By no means was this a bad series or even disappointing for LeBron, he just had one infamous bad game. Now for Cleveland in general? Yes, very disappointing given how great they were that season, but much like 2009, it's LeBron's teammates letting him down that is the main reason here (especially Jaminson, who got locked up by a hobbled KG).

As someone else already pointed out, using 2007 against LeBron makes little sense. He did carry Cleveland to the finals that year but as a player he had many flaws and a lot of learning to do. He relied heavily on his athleticism and physical advantages and a team like San Antonio was perfectly built to handle such capabilities. Jordan at 22 would have struggled against a defense like this too.

2008 vs Boston is interesting. On one hand, I don't really see how you can call his performance in that series disappointing, but admittingly, I do forget how poor he was in the losses. But with that in mind, I do want to point out that was the season where LeBron had a black hole on offense in Ben Wallace playing in the starting lineup with him. Now granted, he did help make Cleveland an elite defense team and that was a key reason for them taking Boston to seven games, but in the end, it hindered what LeBron could do offensively until he turned game sliders on and dominated in game 7.

To me, LeBron's really only had one bad series that can truly be used against him, and that was 2011, where he got locked up by Dallas (people will say he choked, but that's because they have no clue what they're talking about).

[Rust_Cohle]

At a cursory glance, LeBron’s playoff BPM was 9.8 from 2006 to 2011

That really masks that he was genuinely disappointing in most of the series his team lost (which is why I said “at some point”), including 2011 vs. DAL, 2010 vs. BOS, 2008 vs. BOS, and 2007 vs. SAS. The 2009 loss was definitely an exception, where his team lost but he was really not disappointing individually (2006 is somewhere in the middle, where he was not great against Detroit but not awful either, and it was early enough in his career that I wouldn’t say it was perceived as disappointing). Other than that, though, there were a lot of series losses where LeBron didn’t play well and definitely had a significant portion of the blame. Which made it different from what happened afterwards, where, for instance, one would be hard-pressed to really blame LeBron for his team losing in 2014, 2017, 2018, etc., given how he had played individually.

LeBron's 2010 series vs Boston is underrated. LeBron had one bad game in a series that went to 6 contests. From a scoring standpoint, sure, it was a little below his usual averages, but he also spent most of that series locking up Paul Pierce. By no means was this a bad series or even disappointing for LeBron, he just had one infamous bad game. Now for Cleveland in general? Yes, very disappointing given how great they were that season, but much like 2009, it's LeBron's teammates letting him down that is the main reason here (especially Jaminson, who got locked up by a hobbled KG).

As someone else already pointed out, using 2007 against LeBron makes little sense. He did carry Cleveland to the finals that year but as a player he had many flaws and a lot of learning to do. He relied heavily on his athleticism and physical advantages and a team like San Antonio was perfectly built to handle such capabilities. Jordan at 22 would have struggled against a defense like this too.

2008 vs Boston is interesting. On one hand, I don't really see how you can call his performance in that series disappointing, but admittingly, I do forget how poor he was in the losses. But with that in mind, I do want to point out that was the season where LeBron had a black hole on offense in Ben Wallace playing in the starting lineup with him. Now granted, he did help make Cleveland an elite defense team and that was a key reason for them taking Boston to seven games, but in the end, it hindered what LeBron could do offensively until he turned game sliders on and dominated in game 7.

To me, LeBron's really only had one bad series that can truly be used against him, and that was 2011, where he got locked up by Dallas (people will say he choked, but that's because they have no clue what they're talking about).

I’d argue 2009 is the most underrated lebron. Lots of great points made in your post.

[lessthanjake]

At a cursory glance, LeBron’s playoff BPM was 9.8 from 2006 to 2011

That really masks that he was genuinely disappointing in most of the series his team lost (which is why I said “at some point”), including 2011 vs. DAL, 2010 vs. BOS, 2008 vs. BOS, and 2007 vs. SAS. The 2009 loss was definitely an exception, where his team lost but he was really not disappointing individually (2006 is somewhere in the middle, where he was not great against Detroit but not awful either, and it was early enough in his career that I wouldn’t say it was perceived as disappointing). Other than that, though, there were a lot of series losses where LeBron didn’t play well and definitely had a significant portion of the blame. Which made it different from what happened afterwards, where, for instance, one would be hard-pressed to really blame LeBron for his team losing in 2014, 2017, 2018, etc., given how he had played individually.

LeBron's 2010 series vs Boston is underrated. LeBron had one bad game in a series that went to 6 contests. From a scoring standpoint, sure, it was a little below his usual averages, but he also spent most of that series locking up Paul Pierce. By no means was this a bad series or even disappointing for LeBron, he just had one infamous bad game. Now for Cleveland in general? Yes, very disappointing given how great they were that season, but much like 2009, it's LeBron's teammates letting him down that is the main reason here (especially Jaminson, who got locked up by a hobbled KG).

This is definitely a real retcon IMO. LeBron’s performance in the second half of that series—when the Cavs went from up 2-1 to losing 4-2–was bad enough that it spawned conspiracy theories that he was upset about his mother’s sex life. I’ll grant you it wasn’t his worst series—he actually had one game that was great (and I actually was at that game!). But he had a pretty marked and highly disappointing collapse in the second half of the series, which was so inexplicable that it even spawned bizarre theories as to how it could’ve happened. That really isn’t the mark of an individual performance that wasn’t disappointing.

As someone else already pointed out, using 2007 against LeBron makes little sense. He did carry Cleveland to the finals that year but as a player he had many flaws and a lot of learning to do. He relied heavily on his athleticism and physical advantages and a team like San Antonio was perfectly built to handle such capabilities. Jordan at 22 would have struggled against a defense like this too.

I don’t see anything here really saying he was anything but disappointing. LeBron was straight up bad in the 2007 Finals. There’s no way around that. The Cavs were not expected to win the series, so it’s not disappointing for the sheer fact that the Cavs lost. It was disappointing because he was bad. Saying that he struggled because “he had many flaws” is just begging the question. That’s the point! A lot of people weren’t actually old enough to watch the era of LeBron’s career where his flaws got exploited in disappointing performances.

FWIW, Jordan played against one of the greatest teams in NBA history (and the league’s #1 defense) in the playoffs at the same age, and he averaged 44/6/6 in the series, so am not sure the “Jordan at 22” comparison makes much sense.

2008 vs Boston is interesting. On one hand, I don't really see how you can call his performance in that series disappointing, but admittingly, I do forget how poor he was in the losses. But with that in mind, I do want to point out that was the season where LeBron had a black hole on offense in Ben Wallace playing in the starting lineup with him. Now granted, he did help make Cleveland an elite defense team and that was a key reason for them taking Boston to seven games, but in the end, it hindered what LeBron could do offensively until he turned game sliders on and dominated in game 7.

LeBron had a 48.0% TS% in that series. That was bad, even relative to the Celtics’ defense, and was worse than any Cavs rotation player had in the series. He also had 5.3 turnovers a game. He was actually really good in Game 7, but it was definitely a pretty bad series from him.

You are right that Ben Wallace makes things harder on offense (while being great defensively, of course), but LeBron only spent like half his minutes in that series on the court with Wallace, and he didn’t perform very well with Wallace off either. Not to mention that Jordan won three titles with Rodman—who was also crippingly limited offensively, so I wouldn’t say playing with a guy like that somehow should make a bad performance expected or not disappointing.

[michaelm]

I meant opinion

RAPM is an inherently better stat than PER, which is just box score accumulation. Read up on both. PER is one of the most useless aggregate stats and Hollinger is quite frankly a hack.

A as RAPM has been around since what? 97? So that excludes players like Jordan, Wilt, Bird, prime Shaq, Magic, Kareem, Hakeem…..

Like Jordan, one of Curry’s teams is in the discussion for greatest ever which is significant in a team sport in which the only real success is team success.

Jokic probably had as much influence on a title win as almost any player, in the discussion with Dirk 2011 and LeBron 2013 imo of the title wins with which I am most familiar, and sure Murray played exceptionally and Denver wouldn’t have won without him but if we are to give credit to LeBron for lifting team mates Jokic also qualifies imo.

If 2023 was a one off and if Jokic can be successfully targeted in defense to prevent his team winning deep in the play-offs and this can’t be covered by team construction then he can’t be in GOAT discussion imo though. If Denver don’t construct the right team around him due to ineptitude even though it may not be his fault he won’t be in the GOAT conversation either.

[Iwasawitness]

This is definitely a real retcon IMO. LeBron’s performance in the second half of that series—when the Cavs went from up 2-1 to losing 4-2–was bad enough that it spawned conspiracy theories that he was upset about his mother’s sex life. I’ll grant you it wasn’t his worst series—he actually had one game that was great (and I actually was at that game!). But he had a pretty marked and highly disappointing collapse in the second half of the series, which was so inexplicable that it even spawned bizarre theories as to how it could’ve happened. That really isn’t the mark of an individual performance that wasn’t disappointing.

You're just helping prove my point here. Again, he had one bad game in that second half of the series. Why are you trying to make it out like it represents an entire three game span? If you want to box score watch and claim he was bad in game 4, then you're just ignoring the fact that he straight up shut down Paul Pierce in that game. Both sides of the floor matter whether we want to admit it or not and LeBron's defense was a big factor in that series.

I don’t see anything here really saying he was anything but disappointing. LeBron was straight up bad in the 2007 Finals. There’s no way around that. The Cavs were not expected to win the series, so it’s not disappointing for the sheer fact that the Cavs lost. It was disappointing because he was bad. Saying that he struggled because “he had many flaws” is just begging the question. That’s the point! A lot of people weren’t actually old enough to watch the era of LeBron’s career where his flaws got exploited in disappointing performances.

Well for one thing, I and many others at the time had very low expectations of LeBron for that particular series. A lot of people weren't really sure how he was supposed to impose his will on the Spurs the same way he did on other teams. Maybe for people outside of Ohio, that series was considered disappointing, but for those who watched LeBron throughout the season and actually paid attention to what he was doing? His performance against the Spurs wasn't really all that surprising. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it was expected that he'd be 22 PPG on very bad efficiency bad, but almost no one expected him to be good.

FWIW, Jordan played against one of the greatest teams in NBA history (and the league’s #1 defense) in the playoffs at the same age, and he averaged 44/6/6 in the series, so am not sure the “Jordan at 22” comparison makes much sense.

You mean the 80s style of defense where they did basic single coverage and gave him a lot of easy looks? I love me some 86 Celtics but I can't help but laugh when people try to mention that and apply it to more modern defenses.

Watch on YouTube

;ab_channel=NBA

Look at this defensive pressure, and tell me with a straight face that it's comparable to the kind LeBron receives here:

Watch on YouTube

;ab_channel=NBADefense

LeBron had a 48.0% TS% in that series. That was bad, even relative to the Celtics’ defense, and was worse than any Cavs rotation player had in the series. He also had 5.3 turnovers a game. He was actually really good in Game 7, but it was definitely a pretty bad series from him.

You are right that Ben Wallace makes things harder on offense (while being great defensively, of course), but LeBron only spent like half his minutes in that series on the court with Wallace, and he didn’t perform very well with Wallace off either. Not to mention that Jordan won three titles with Rodman—who was also crippingly limited offensively, so I wouldn’t say playing with a guy like that somehow should make a bad performance expected or not disappointing.

Yeah, because when Wallace was sitting, next up to bat was usually Anderson Varejao, who was somehow almost as bad offensively as Ben was. LeBron was working with very little spacing against a team that had a KG/Perkins frontcourt. Cleveland was almost playing 4 on 5 basketball throughout that entire series.

[bledredwine]

This is definitely a real retcon IMO. LeBron’s performance in the second half of that series—when the Cavs went from up 2-1 to losing 4-2–was bad enough that it spawned conspiracy theories that he was upset about his mother’s sex life. I’ll grant you it wasn’t his worst series—he actually had one game that was great (and I actually was at that game!). But he had a pretty marked and highly disappointing collapse in the second half of the series, which was so inexplicable that it even spawned bizarre theories as to how it could’ve happened. That really isn’t the mark of an individual performance that wasn’t disappointing.

You're just helping prove my point here. Again, he had one bad game in that second half of the series. Why are you trying to make it out like it represents an entire three game span? If you want to box score watch and claim he was bad in game 4, then you're just ignoring the fact that he straight up shut down Paul Pierce in that game. Both sides of the floor matter whether we want to admit it or not and LeBron's defense was a big factor in that series.

I don’t see anything here really saying he was anything but disappointing. LeBron was straight up bad in the 2007 Finals. There’s no way around that. The Cavs were not expected to win the series, so it’s not disappointing for the sheer fact that the Cavs lost. It was disappointing because he was bad. Saying that he struggled because “he had many flaws” is just begging the question. That’s the point! A lot of people weren’t actually old enough to watch the era of LeBron’s career where his flaws got exploited in disappointing performances.

Well for one thing, I and many others at the time had very low expectations of LeBron for that particular series. A lot of people weren't really sure how he was supposed to impose his will on the Spurs the same way he did on other teams. Maybe for people outside of Ohio, that series was considered disappointing, but for those who watched LeBron throughout the season and actually paid attention to what he was doing? His performance against the Spurs wasn't really all that surprising. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it was expected that he'd be 22 PPG on very bad efficiency bad, but almost no one expected him to be good.

FWIW, Jordan played against one of the greatest teams in NBA history (and the league’s #1 defense) in the playoffs at the same age, and he averaged 44/6/6 in the series, so am not sure the “Jordan at 22” comparison makes much sense.

You mean the 80s style of defense where they did basic single coverage and gave him a lot of easy looks? I love me some 86 Celtics but I can't help but laugh when people try to mention that and apply it to more modern defenses.

Watch on YouTube

;ab_channel=NBA

Look at this defensive pressure, and tell me with a straight face that it's comparable to the kind LeBron receives here:

Watch on YouTube

;ab_channel=NBADefense

LeBron had a 48.0% TS% in that series. That was bad, even relative to the Celtics’ defense, and was worse than any Cavs rotation player had in the series. He also had 5.3 turnovers a game. He was actually really good in Game 7, but it was definitely a pretty bad series from him.

You are right that Ben Wallace makes things harder on offense (while being great defensively, of course), but LeBron only spent like half his minutes in that series on the court with Wallace, and he didn’t perform very well with Wallace off either. Not to mention that Jordan won three titles with Rodman—who was also crippingly limited offensively, so I wouldn’t say playing with a guy like that somehow should make a bad performance expected or not disappointing.

Yeah, because when Wallace was sitting, next up to bat was usually Anderson Varejao, who was somehow almost as bad offensively as Ben was. LeBron was working with very little spacing against a team that had a KG/Perkins frontcourt. Cleveland was almost playing 4 on 5 basketball throughout that entire series.

You chose “Bruce Bowen” video on lebron vs Jordan highlights against the Veltics as a title. Do you not understand why that’s cherry picked as hell?

With a straight face, it’s still comparable and you cherry picked one of the select few teams that actually played great defense and didn’t leave space everywhere, and unlike the Jordan video, lebron was absolutely struggling against it. And you didn’t even pick full game highlights so it’s just a few cherry picked defensive plays of them stopping lebron vs some plays where Jordan’s scoring against Boston. If you posted full highlights, that celtics team absolutely would take the cake.

Meanwhile, I randomly picked a Jordan video facing a first round heat squad and Lebron against the warriors where he was left open almost the entire time in the other thread and… crickets from all of you.

In terms of facing a lack of physicality and having tons of space, especially when he had Allen Wade Bosh, Jordan’s never been so lucky like Lebron.

Unlike yours, that video included made buckets from both players and I even gave you the advantage by choosing a random GS video and Heat vid for Jordan. Still, the defensive pressure wasn’t remotely close.

In the 90s, not only was the contact allowed and defensive rules much more limiting, but you had to have fundamental defensive ability 80% of the time just to be drafted (exceptions were offensive savants like Chuck). Now, many of the players completely suck at defense. On top of that, you have 18 year olds coming in and getting minutes whereas Kobe and KG were outliers back then, KG being a tough defender in the first place.

[Iwasawitness]

With a straight face, it’s comparable to You cherry picked one of the few teams that actually played great defense and didn’t leave space everywhere, and unlike the Jordan video, lebron was absolutely struggling against it.

Serious question: how long have you been watching basketball for exactly? Because it's very clearly obvious you didn't watch in the 90s given your past statements, but now I'm starting to think you didn't watch in the 2000s either. One of the few teams that actually played great defense? A lot of teams played that kind of defense back then. Believe it or not, scoring was hard to come by in that time period. Hell, the team that LeBron had an all time outing against in the previous series played similar defense. The difference is that they didn't have the capabilities to clog up the paint like the Spurs could (having Duncan of all people helps in that situation).

And yes, LeBron was struggling against it. That tends to happen when you're facing actual defensive resistance that is all time great worthy. Again, Jordan would have struggled against this kind of defense too.

Meanwhile, I randomly picked a Jordan video facing a first round heat squad and Lebron against the warriors where he was left open almost the entire time.

Yeah, it was laughable then and it's just as laughable now.

Watch on YouTube

;ab_channel=MJ23HisAirnessForever

You want to sit here and pretend that Jordan faced incredibly tough coverage this entire time but LeBron was wide open the entire time. In reality, it was the opposite. Just like I mentioned with the Celtics defense vs Jordan, in this, the coverage is often very poor and Jordan usually has open looks or very relaxed defense. This is the rough and tough 90s defense you guys clamor on about, because just like most of the Jordanights who just have a strong hatred for LeBron, you didn't actually watch back then and are just going off of highlights of people getting hit hard. But the best part is, for some reason, this is a performance I'm supposed to be amazed by. Sorry, but that isn't going to do it for me.

Edit: My dumbass didn't even realize until now that I picked the wrong season. But this actually helped my point because the defense in the latter half of the 90s was far better than the early 90s.

Now this, on the other hand, is a performance I am amazed by.

Watch on YouTube

;ab_channel=VintageDawkins

I have a legitimate challenge for you: watch this entire video. Look at the kind of defensive pressure LeBron is going up against and look at what he's doing to it. The commentators themselves even point out the fact that LeBron is facing constant defensive pressure and making some ridiculous shots. Just an FYI: he shot 70% from the field in this game, against that kind of defensive pressure mind you. Jordan's never been able to dominate a defense that played this way against him in this kind of fashion. And if he did, I dare you to find it.

In terms of facing a lack of physicality and having tons of space, especially when he had Allen Wade Bosh, Jordan’s never been so lucky like Lebron.

I know for a fact you didn't just say LeBron had lots of spacing with Miami.

Omg you actually did. But I'm jumping ahead here. Let's start with the elephant in the room here.

I love the fact that you actually decided "hey, you know what, let's switch goal posts and hope he doesn't notice".

Hey, guess what? I noticed, and it's exactly why I don't take you seriously as a poster. What does the supporting cast that LeBron had with Miami have to do with a game against Golden State?

But yeah, sure, let's talk about that team shall we? LeBron is so lucky that he didn't need to put on all time performances to still win his games because his teammates were underperforming... wait hold on.

*checks notes*

Ah yes, LeBron is so fortunate that Wade could provide him with those nice 14 points in that critical game 6. Oh but the... the the spacing! Right? Oh wait, Wade didn't attempt a three pointer that entire series (yes, you read that right, and they usually didn't guard him tightly at the perimeter).

But but Chris Bosh must have been great, right? Let's see... oh yeah, those 10 points Bosh provided, so much great. But the spacing! Oh wait, Bosh didn't attempt a single three pointer in that entire game either... hmm... well, what about Allen huh?

NINE POINTS? Nine points, are you **** me?

What's actually funny about all of this is that this is a series you've mentioned before in the past as an example of LeBron "almost" underperforming. Every single time you are forced to mention the fact that LeBron in the end DIDN'T underperform because he ended up dominating in the end. See, the big issue that LeBron faced in this series at first is that he didn't have spacing at all. At first, spacing for Miami was actually a very serious issue, because with how they were structured and how the Spurs defended, LeBron didn't have many open paths to the rim. In game 4, Spo opted to take Haslem out of the starting lineup in favor of Mike Miller and move LeBron over to the four. Now mind you, Miller wasn't dominant by any stretch of the imagination, but he didn't need to be. He forced the Spurs to spread out their defense, and that was all LeBron needed. At that point, second half LeBron of that series was a different animal and was able to impose his will. And even during those games where he had more spacing to work with, he didn't consistently receive the help from his supporting cast you pretend he does. In reality, it wasn't any more meaningful or impactful than the kind Jordan got from his, ergo: Jordan was in fact very lucky to have the help he did, just as lucky as LeBron was.

[michaelm]

This is definitely a real retcon IMO. LeBron’s performance in the second half of that series—when the Cavs went from up 2-1 to losing 4-2–was bad enough that it spawned conspiracy theories that he was upset about his mother’s sex life. I’ll grant you it wasn’t his worst series—he actually had one game that was great (and I actually was at that game!). But he had a pretty marked and highly disappointing collapse in the second half of the series, which was so inexplicable that it even spawned bizarre theories as to how it could’ve happened. That really isn’t the mark of an individual performance that wasn’t disappointing.

You're just helping prove my point here. Again, he had one bad game in that second half of the series. Why are you trying to make it out like it represents an entire three game span? If you want to box score watch and claim he was bad in game 4, then you're just ignoring the fact that he straight up shut down Paul Pierce in that game. Both sides of the floor matter whether we want to admit it or not and LeBron's defense was a big factor in that series.

I don’t see anything here really saying he was anything but disappointing. LeBron was straight up bad in the 2007 Finals. There’s no way around that. The Cavs were not expected to win the series, so it’s not disappointing for the sheer fact that the Cavs lost. It was disappointing because he was bad. Saying that he struggled because “he had many flaws” is just begging the question. That’s the point! A lot of people weren’t actually old enough to watch the era of LeBron’s career where his flaws got exploited in disappointing performances.

Well for one thing, I and many others at the time had very low expectations of LeBron for that particular series. A lot of people weren't really sure how he was supposed to impose his will on the Spurs the same way he did on other teams. Maybe for people outside of Ohio, that series was considered disappointing, but for those who watched LeBron throughout the season and actually paid attention to what he was doing? His performance against the Spurs wasn't really all that surprising. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it was expected that he'd be 22 PPG on very bad efficiency bad, but almost no one expected him to be good.

FWIW, Jordan played against one of the greatest teams in NBA history (and the league’s #1 defense) in the playoffs at the same age, and he averaged 44/6/6 in the series, so am not sure the “Jordan at 22” comparison makes much sense.

You mean the 80s style of defense where they did basic single coverage and gave him a lot of easy looks? I love me some 86 Celtics but I can't help but laugh when people try to mention that and apply it to more modern defenses.

Watch on YouTube

;ab_channel=NBA

Look at this defensive pressure, and tell me with a straight face that it's comparable to the kind LeBron receives here:

Watch on YouTube

;ab_channel=NBADefense

LeBron had a 48.0% TS% in that series. That was bad, even relative to the Celtics’ defense, and was worse than any Cavs rotation player had in the series. He also had 5.3 turnovers a game. He was actually really good in Game 7, but it was definitely a pretty bad series from him.

You are right that Ben Wallace makes things harder on offense (while being great defensively, of course), but LeBron only spent like half his minutes in that series on the court with Wallace, and he didn’t perform very well with Wallace off either. Not to mention that Jordan won three titles with Rodman—who was also crippingly limited offensively, so I wouldn’t say playing with a guy like that somehow should make a bad performance expected or not disappointing.

Yeah, because when Wallace was sitting, next up to bat was usually Anderson Varejao, who was somehow almost as bad offensively as Ben was. LeBron was working with very little spacing against a team that had a KG/Perkins frontcourt. Cleveland was almost playing 4 on 5 basketball throughout that entire series.

You chose “Bruce Bowen” video on lebron vs Jordan highlights against the Veltics as a title. Do you not understand why that’s cherry picked as hell?

With a straight face, it’s still comparable and you cherry picked one of the select few teams that actually played great defense and didn’t leave space everywhere, and unlike the Jordan video, lebron was absolutely struggling against it. And you didn’t even pick full game highlights so it’s just a few cherry picked defensive plays of them stopping lebron vs some plays where Jordan’s scoring against Boston. If you posted full highlights, that celtics team absolutely would take the cake.

Meanwhile, I randomly picked a Jordan video facing a first round heat squad and Lebron against the warriors where he was left open almost the entire time in the other thread and… crickets from all of you.

In terms of facing a lack of physicality and having tons of space, especially when he had Allen Wade Bosh, Jordan’s never been so lucky like Lebron.

Unlike yours, that video included made buckets from both players and I even gave you the advantage by choosing a random GS video and Heat vid for Jordan. Still, the defensive pressure wasn’t remotely close.

In the 90s, not only was the contact allowed and defensive rules much more limiting, but you had to have fundamental defensive ability 80% of the time just to be drafted (exceptions were offensive savants like Chuck). Now, many of the players completely suck at defense. On top of that, you have 18 year olds coming in and getting minutes whereas Kobe and KG were outliers back then, KG being a tough defender in the first place.

Perhaps oddly on this thread I see many explanations in regard to LeBron’s performances being better than they looked or due to shortcomings in his team mates, and downgrading of Jordan because of the excellence of his coach, GM and team-mates, but even staunch Jordan partisans don’t seem to feel any great need to defend individual performances by him or obviously team performance once he embraced the triangle offense and playing a more team game.

[Iwasawitness]

I see that Bled here chose to edit his original post, so there were some things that I didn't address. I'm going to make an entirely new post to address them now, because they're probably just as laughable.

You chose “Bruce Bowen” video on lebron vs Jordan highlights against the Veltics as a title. Do you not understand why that’s cherry picked as hell?

So this is actually hilarious because it tells me one of two things: You either don't know what the term cherry picked means or you have no idea what we're talking about, or possibly both.

The whole reason I brought in the video showing the defense Bowen played on LeBron is because Jake claimed it made no sense to claim that a 22 year old Jordan would struggle against the 07 Spurs defense because he dominated the Celtics in 86. My point in doing so was to point out the very extreme difference in the type of defensive pressure LeBron played against compared to the kind Jordan played against. And as you can see in the videos (that I would hope you watched but you probably didn't), the difference is night and day.

Not to mention, LeBron was Bowen's main defensive assignment in that series. So uh, no. That's not cherry picking at all.

With a straight face, it’s still comparable and you cherry picked one of the select few teams that actually played great defense and didn’t leave space everywhere, and unlike the Jordan video, lebron was absolutely struggling against it. And you didn’t even pick full game highlights so it’s just a few cherry picked defensive plays of them stopping lebron vs some plays where Jordan’s scoring against Boston. If you posted full highlights, that celtics team absolutely would take the cake.

A few defensive plays? It's a nine minute video showcasing the majority of the defensive possessions Bowen had against LeBron. That's a very decent sample size. I could show all four games if I wanted to and it would help prove my point even more.

Meanwhile, I randomly picked a Jordan video facing a first round heat squad and Lebron against the warriors where he was left open almost the entire time in the other thread and… crickets from all of you.

Well first and foremost, you didn't receive crickets from me. I completely missed said video and when you brought it up again, I laughed at how terrible of an example it was from you. And if no one else mentioned anything, it's probably because they also laughed at it. More on that in a minute...

Unlike yours, that video included made buckets from both players and I even gave you the advantage by choosing a random GS video and Heat vid for Jordan. Still, the defensive pressure wasn’t remotely close.

It's hilarious that you are accusing me of cherry picking, and then proceed to not once, not twice, but three times bring up this point where you cherry picked like crazy.

First and foremost, the difference between the defensive coverages being displayed in those videos isn't all that different. Jordan has a lot of open looks, easy paths to the baskets, really the only time he's consistently facing tough defense is when he's posting up, and that's an area he thrives in. So, not a great example. Second, I know you haven't been watching basketball for very long so I'm going to explain this to you as plainly as I can: defensive pressure during the regular season vs post season are two very different animals. The fact that you just tried to use a regular season game and compare it with the playoffs is downright laughable.

Unlike yours, that video included made buckets from both players and I even gave you the advantage by choosing a random GS video and Heat vid for Jordan. Still, the defensive pressure wasn’t remotely close.

Again, you chose a regular season game and compared it with a playoff game. Try comparing two playoff games and then we can start having a serious discussion here.

In the 90s, not only was the contact allowed and defensive rules much more limiting, but you had to have fundamental defensive ability 80% of the time just to be drafted (exceptions were offensive savants like Chuck). Now, many of the players completely suck at defense. On top of that, you have 18 year olds coming in and getting minutes whereas Kobe and KG were outliers back then, KG being a tough defender in the first place.

Enough with the "in the 90s, contact was allowed" nonsense. Contact still takes place in today's game. People still get hacked going to the rim. Hell, we just had a Celtics/Lakers game last night featuring multiple examples of the very thing you're talking about. Again, this is why I'm fully convinced you didn't actually watch the 90s. You had to have fundamental defensive ability 80% of the time in the 90s? Guess what, you need fundamental defensive ability 80% of the time in today's game.

And I'm sorry, what?? 18 year olds coming in and getting minutes? Who? Name them. Oh, do you mean Ulrich Chomche? The guy who has played a grand total of 7 games so far this season and only played more than 10 minutes once? This is what you're referring to as getting minutes? Funny part is, we don't even have a single 18 year old playing in the NBA right now. So I can't wait to see where you got this info from. I'll gladly wait.

[lessthanjake]

This is definitely a real retcon IMO. LeBron’s performance in the second half of that series—when the Cavs went from up 2-1 to losing 4-2–was bad enough that it spawned conspiracy theories that he was upset about his mother’s sex life. I’ll grant you it wasn’t his worst series—he actually had one game that was great (and I actually was at that game!). But he had a pretty marked and highly disappointing collapse in the second half of the series, which was so inexplicable that it even spawned bizarre theories as to how it could’ve happened. That really isn’t the mark of an individual performance that wasn’t disappointing.

You're just helping prove my point here. Again, he had one bad game in that second half of the series. Why are you trying to make it out like it represents an entire three game span? If you want to box score watch and claim he was bad in game 4, then you're just ignoring the fact that he straight up shut down Paul Pierce in that game. Both sides of the floor matter whether we want to admit it or not and LeBron's defense was a big factor in that series.

I think he was bad in every one of the games in the second half of the series. Sure, Game 5 was a different level of bad so it stands alone in a certain sense, but LeBron had a 48% TS% and 7 turnovers in Game 4, and a 51% TS% and 9 turnovers in Game 6. One can look at the rebounds and assists numbers in Game 6 and decide it wasn’t bad, or talk about defense on Paul Pierce, but that’s the kind of retconning I’m talking about. People who watched it at the time were so shocked by how badly LeBron was playing that there were popular conspiracy theories about what might’ve caused him to be so bad.

I don’t see anything here really saying he was anything but disappointing. LeBron was straight up bad in the 2007 Finals. There’s no way around that. The Cavs were not expected to win the series, so it’s not disappointing for the sheer fact that the Cavs lost. It was disappointing because he was bad. Saying that he struggled because “he had many flaws” is just begging the question. That’s the point! A lot of people weren’t actually old enough to watch the era of LeBron’s career where his flaws got exploited in disappointing performances.

Well for one thing, I and many others at the time had very low expectations of LeBron for that particular series. A lot of people weren't really sure how he was supposed to impose his will on the Spurs the same way he did on other teams. Maybe for people outside of Ohio, that series was considered disappointing, but for those who watched LeBron throughout the season and actually paid attention to what he was doing? His performance against the Spurs wasn't really all that surprising. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it was expected that he'd be 22 PPG on very bad efficiency bad, but almost no one expected him to be good.

I think the bolded means you agree with me. The Cavaliers were not expected to beat the Spurs, so in a sense it was expected that LeBron wouldn’t dominate the series. But he was genuinely bad, to a level that was not expected and that was disappointing.

FWIW, Jordan played against one of the greatest teams in NBA history (and the league’s #1 defense) in the playoffs at the same age, and he averaged 44/6/6 in the series, so am not sure the “Jordan at 22” comparison makes much sense.

You mean the 80s style of defense where they did basic single coverage and gave him a lot of easy looks? I love me some 86 Celtics but I can't help but laugh when people try to mention that and apply it to more modern defenses.

Watch on YouTube

;ab_channel=NBA

Look at this defensive pressure, and tell me with a straight face that it's comparable to the kind LeBron receives here:

Watch on YouTube

;ab_channel=NBADefense

I think this just gets us into a “What era was tougher” discussion, which is a huge rabbit hole. FWIW, I personally think defenses are always getting better because players’ knowledge of the game and their conditioning gets better as the years go by. But that goes both ways—with players also having better knowledge of the game on offense too. So I don’t think it’s fair to talk about schemes being more complicated decades later as if that must be harder for a player, when we know that knowledge of how to deal with such schemes was also better. Same with things like player conditioning. In the context of the league at the time and the knowledge of players and their conditioning at the time, the 1986 Celtics were the league’s #1 defense. And, in absolute terms, their DRTG was not that far off the 2007 Spurs. The 2007 Spurs were a little better as a defense both in absolute and relative terms, but the difference in performance of these guys at age 22 against such a great defense was just an enormous chasm. If you want to believe that, while he didn’t struggle at all against the best defense the NBA had to offer in 1986, Jordan would’ve nevertheless struggled at age 22 against a great defense in 2007, I guess you can believe that. It’s an unfalsifiable concept, since we’ll never know the answer. But I’m just pointing out that I think it’s an odd assertion, given how well Jordan did at that age against the best defense in the NBA.

LeBron had a 48.0% TS% in that series. That was bad, even relative to the Celtics’ defense, and was worse than any Cavs rotation player had in the series. He also had 5.3 turnovers a game. He was actually really good in Game 7, but it was definitely a pretty bad series from him.

You are right that Ben Wallace makes things harder on offense (while being great defensively, of course), but LeBron only spent like half his minutes in that series on the court with Wallace, and he didn’t perform very well with Wallace off either. Not to mention that Jordan won three titles with Rodman—who was also crippingly limited offensively, so I wouldn’t say playing with a guy like that somehow should make a bad performance expected or not disappointing.

Yeah, because when Wallace was sitting, next up to bat was usually Anderson Varejao, who was somehow almost as bad offensively as Ben was. LeBron was working with very little spacing against a team that had a KG/Perkins frontcourt. Cleveland was almost playing 4 on 5 basketball throughout that entire series.

LeBron had a pretty average amount of spacing for that era. The team was right in the middle of the league in terms of 3PA, 3PM, and 3P%. Not good, but not bad either. And it was arguably above-average by playoff time, since they had Wally, who was a good shooter but had barely played for them in the regular season. If LeBron needed well above-average spacing to not be woefully inefficient against good teams in the playoffs, then that reflects real flaws in his game.

FWIW, I think you’re actually right and it exposes his weak jump shooting. From other discussions with you, I think you like to take LeBron’s flaws as given and say a performance wasn’t disappointing or unexpected because LeBron’s weak performances flowed from flaws we knew he had. But I think that just begs the question. The performances were disappointing because his flaws got exposed and resulted in him playing badly, and saying they weren’t disappointing because people should’ve known he could be forced to play badly isn’t a meaningful response IMO. The point here is that that happened several times in the relatively early years of LeBron’s career, and a lot of younger people just never saw that. Instead, what they saw were LeBron’s playoff failures largely being situations where he actually played well. That makes their perspective on him very different than people who actually saw the entire career—they don’t really understand or acknowledge his flaws and the fact that they got exploited.

As for Ben Wallace and Varejao, I assume that you’d come to the same conclusion about any inefficient shooting games or series Jordan might have with Rodman? Jordan won a three-peat basically playing 4-on-5 basketball on offense. And, to be fair, his playoff scoring was less efficient in those years than it was prior to that. Some of that is probably that he was older, but Rodman’s definitely also a factor. But Jordan was also upping his scoring volume in those years, so it was just wasn’t like that 2008 series where LeBron’s scoring efficiency was really bad *and* his scoring volume went down. And Jordan also barely turned the ball over in the playoffs in those years, while LeBron turned it over a ton in the series we’re talking about. It’s definitely by no means expected to just have a bad offensive performance—with bad scoring efficiency, reducing scoring volume, and tons of turnovers—when facing a great opponent and having a weak offensive player playing. You may be identifying some of the reason that it happened, but it reflects flaws in LeBron’s game and was disappointing.

[bledredwine]

You're just helping prove my point here. Again, he had one bad game in that second half of the series. Why are you trying to make it out like it represents an entire three game span? If you want to box score watch and claim he was bad in game 4, then you're just ignoring the fact that he straight up shut down Paul Pierce in that game. Both sides of the floor matter whether we want to admit it or not and LeBron's defense was a big factor in that series.



Well for one thing, I and many others at the time had very low expectations of LeBron for that particular series. A lot of people weren't really sure how he was supposed to impose his will on the Spurs the same way he did on other teams. Maybe for people outside of Ohio, that series was considered disappointing, but for those who watched LeBron throughout the season and actually paid attention to what he was doing? His performance against the Spurs wasn't really all that surprising. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it was expected that he'd be 22 PPG on very bad efficiency bad, but almost no one expected him to be good.



You mean the 80s style of defense where they did basic single coverage and gave him a lot of easy looks? I love me some 86 Celtics but I can't help but laugh when people try to mention that and apply it to more modern defenses.

Watch on YouTube

;ab_channel=NBA

Look at this defensive pressure, and tell me with a straight face that it's comparable to the kind LeBron receives here:

Watch on YouTube

;ab_channel=NBADefense



Yeah, because when Wallace was sitting, next up to bat was usually Anderson Varejao, who was somehow almost as bad offensively as Ben was. LeBron was working with very little spacing against a team that had a KG/Perkins frontcourt. Cleveland was almost playing 4 on 5 basketball throughout that entire series.

You chose “Bruce Bowen” video on lebron vs Jordan highlights against the Veltics as a title. Do you not understand why that’s cherry picked as hell?

With a straight face, it’s still comparable and you cherry picked one of the select few teams that actually played great defense and didn’t leave space everywhere, and unlike the Jordan video, lebron was absolutely struggling against it. And you didn’t even pick full game highlights so it’s just a few cherry picked defensive plays of them stopping lebron vs some plays where Jordan’s scoring against Boston. If you posted full highlights, that celtics team absolutely would take the cake.

Meanwhile, I randomly picked a Jordan video facing a first round heat squad and Lebron against the warriors where he was left open almost the entire time in the other thread and… crickets from all of you.

In terms of facing a lack of physicality and having tons of space, especially when he had Allen Wade Bosh, Jordan’s never been so lucky like Lebron.

Unlike yours, that video included made buckets from both players and I even gave you the advantage by choosing a random GS video and Heat vid for Jordan. Still, the defensive pressure wasn’t remotely close.

In the 90s, not only was the contact allowed and defensive rules much more limiting, but you had to have fundamental defensive ability 80% of the time just to be drafted (exceptions were offensive savants like Chuck). Now, many of the players completely suck at defense. On top of that, you have 18 year olds coming in and getting minutes whereas Kobe and KG were outliers back then, KG being a tough defender in the first place.

Perhaps oddly on this thread I see many explanations in regard to LeBron’s performances being better than they looked or due to shortcomings in his team mates, and downgrading of of Jordan because of the excellence of his coach, GM and team-mates, but even staunch Jordan partisans don’t seem to feel any great need to defend individual performances by him or obviously team performance once he embraced the triangle offense and playing a more team game.

Yep.

It’s longevity and excuses.

We can add the third category of oddly specific/cherry picking stats as well. No shocker there. Jordan has the major stats and achievements covered, and the more challenging era in the paint by far, so there’s not much else to rely on.

[EmpireFalls]

Finally some good debate rather than name calling.

[Ainosterhaspie]

So this is actually hilarious because it tells me one of two things: You either don't know what the term cherry picked means or you have no idea what we're talking about, or possibly both.

No, he doesn't know what cherry picked means. I brought up LeBron's first 13 postseason, same number of post seasons Jordan had in his career, and he called that cherry picked.

[Ainosterhaspie]

As for Ben Wallace and Varejao, I assume that you’d come to the same conclusion about any inefficient shooting games or series Jordan might have with Rodman? Jordan won a three-peat basically playing 4-on-5 basketball on offense.

That comparison doesn't work. 90s illegal defense rules meant Rodman could occupy a defender on the weak side despite not being a scoring threat. In LeBron's era guys like that can be completely ignored and their defenders can roam and cut off driving and passing lanes.

[Iwasawitness]

I think he was bad in every one of the games in the second half of the series. Sure, Game 5 was a different level of bad so it stands alone in a certain sense, but LeBron had a 48% TS% and 7 turnovers in Game 4, and a 51% TS% and 9 turnovers in Game 6. One can look at the rebounds and assists numbers in Game 6 and decide it wasn’t bad, or talk about defense on Paul Pierce, but that’s the kind of retconning I’m talking about. People who watched it at the time were so shocked by how badly LeBron was playing that there were popular conspiracy theories about what might’ve caused him to be so bad.

Is it retconning? Or are you only focusing on one side of the floor here? If you are talking strictly from an offensive standpoint, then you're absolutely correct and LeBron was poor in games 4 and 5 (I think he was fine in game 6, but the 9 turnovers is pretty bad). But if we're including both ends of the floor, then that's an entirely different discussion.

I think the bolded means you agree with me. The Cavaliers were not expected to beat the Spurs, so in a sense it was expected that LeBron wouldn’t dominate the series. But he was genuinely bad, to a level that was not expected and that was disappointing.

Well again, no not really. Again, the expectation from a lot of us at the time is that LeBron wouldn't have played well in that series. There was no clear outline for what our expectations would be in terms of how he played... just that he wasn't going to be his dominant self. I guess it just comes down to what you were expecting out of him. Me? I wasn't really expecting much at all from him. I'm not going to pretend like what we got was exactly what I predicted. But with that in mind, I just can't call it disappointing when I wasn't expecting much of anything to begin with.

I think this just gets us into a “What era was tougher” discussion, which is a huge rabbit hole. FWIW, I personally think defenses are always getting better because players’ knowledge of the game and their conditioning gets better as the years go by. But that goes both ways—with players also having better knowledge of the game on offense too. So I don’t think it’s fair to talk about schemes being more complicated decades later as if that must be harder for a player, when we know that knowledge of how to deal with such schemes was also better.

But this doesn't just come down to schemes. Personal and effort come into play too. The only game from that 1986 series that I haven't seen is game 4, but I'm willing to bet that the kind of defense Michael received in that game is similar to what he got in the first three: barely any real effort being given to stop him and when people do, they don't really have the capabilities to do so, which in large part is a credit to the greatness of Jordan.

But on the flip side of things, it begs the question: who on that Celtics team is really comparable as a defender to the likes of Bowen and Duncan? I mean... these are two all time great defenders for their positions. And when we are talking about effort, we have a guy in Bowen who is out there looking like he's fighting for his life on every position to try to stay in front of and contain LeBron, and when he fails, he usually has Duncan waiting in the paint.

Same with things like player conditioning. In the context of the league at the time and the knowledge of players and their conditioning at the time, the 1986 Celtics were the league’s #1 defense. And, in absolute terms, their DRTG was not that far off the 2007 Spurs. The 2007 Spurs were a little better as a defense both in absolute and relative terms, but the difference in performance of these guys at age 22 against such a great defense was just an enormous chasm. If you want to believe that, while he didn’t struggle at all against the best defense the NBA had to offer in 1986, Jordan would’ve nevertheless struggled at age 22 against a great defense in 2007, I guess you can believe that. It’s an unfalsifiable concept, since we’ll never know the answer. But I’m just pointing out that I think it’s an odd assertion, given how well Jordan did at that age against the best defense in the NBA.

Again, look at the difference between the defensive intensity between the two teams. Look at how players were being defended, especially out at the perimeter. You are right about one thing: I have no way of being able to truly determine how good of a job Michael Jordan would have done against a defense like this, but I can say this: Jordan got his way against Boston with his athleticism and his incredible mid range game. In isolation situations, there was almost no one that could stop Jordan. Bowen feasted on players like this. And with different defensive rules, zone being allowed (something Jordan himself said he would have struggled against if he played against it) and the type of defensive personal San Antonio had, I have no reason not to believe that, at the very least, Jordan would have played well below his typical standards. Whether he'd be as bad as LeBron is something we will never be able to determine.

LeBron had a pretty average amount of spacing for that era. The team was right in the middle of the league in terms of 3PA, 3PM, and 3P%. Not good, but not bad either. And it was arguably above-average by playoff time, since they had Wally, who was a good shooter but had barely played for them in the regular season. If LeBron needed well above-average spacing to not be woefully inefficient against good teams in the playoffs, then that reflects real flaws in his game.

FWIW, I think you’re actually right and it exposes his weak jump shooting. From other discussions with you, I think you like to take LeBron’s flaws as given and say a performance wasn’t disappointing or unexpected because LeBron’s weak performances flowed from flaws we knew he had. But I think that just begs the question. The performances were disappointing because his flaws got exposed and resulted in him playing badly, and saying they weren’t disappointing because people should’ve known he could be forced to play badly isn’t a meaningful response IMO. The point here is that that happened several times in the relatively early years of LeBron’s career, and a lot of younger people just never saw that. Instead, what they saw were LeBron’s playoff failures largely being situations where he actually played well. That makes their perspective on him very different than people who actually saw the entire career—they don’t really understand or acknowledge his flaws and the fact that they got exploited.

Pretty much, yes. LeBron's mid range and three point shooting during the early portions of his career were always a great concern of mine, but more importantly, I was always concerned about his mentality when attacking defenses. He was almost always able to get his way, until he came up against teams where he couldn't. And even then, sometimes he'd have games where it felt like he could do no wrong offensively and got whatever he wanted. The problem is that in a seven game series, that was an easy way for you to get exposed. And more often than that, that's exactly what happened. This, among other reasons, is why I thought LeBron was going to lose in 2011 to Dallas.

One thing I was asked before I joined this site was who was the better player in their first seven years before their first championship, and my answer was and always will be Jordan. Jordan came into the league with a much more NBA friendly game and a more polished skillset. While LeBron was outright dominant in his own way, it limited him and what he could do. Now mind you, he made up for this by being a terrific passer and playmaker, thus making double and triple teaming him almost worthless. But that's where not having an all star caliber player alongside him often led to him coming up short in the postseason. But when he went to Miami, he thought things would be easier. He thought "well, I have my all star teammates now, time for the championships to role in". In reality, the problem never really got solved. He still thought he could get by doing his usual thing, not understanding that in order for him to truly experience the success he wanted, he needed to change how he played and improve on his flaws. And it took him experiencing what is without question his greatest failure (losing in 2011) to realize he was part of the problem.

That's why I ultimately think LeBron is the GOAT, because the player he became once he realized he had to truly develop his offensive game was, at least in my opinion, greater than Jordan ever was.

As for Ben Wallace and Varejao, I assume that you’d come to the same conclusion about any inefficient shooting games or series Jordan might have with Rodman? Jordan won a three-peat basically playing 4-on-5 basketball on offense. And, to be fair, his playoff scoring was less efficient in those years than it was prior to that. Some of that is probably that he was older, but Rodman’s definitely also a factor. But Jordan was also upping his scoring volume in those years, so it was just wasn’t like that 2008 series where LeBron’s scoring efficiency was really bad *and* his scoring volume went down.

Okay, now let me ask you this: at what point during their time playing with LeBron did Ben and/or Varejao come anywhere close to having the same kind of impact that Rodman did? Yeah sure, Rodman was a black hole on offense, but he was also an offensive rebounding machine that put opposing players in foul trouble. He was an all defensive team member in two of the three seasons he played with them, and still gave Karl Malone fits in both 97 and 98. Hell, he got FMVP votes in 96. Now granted, if this were Detroit Pistons Ben Wallace that LeBron James was playing with, I probably wouldn't even mention the fact that he was ineffective on offense because his defensive impact was just that insane. But the fact of the matter is... that isn't what he got. This was a Ben Wallace who was affected by past injuries, out of his prime, and all he could really do was play, at best, very very good one on one post defense. And... I don't know, I guess he played very good defense against Kevin Garnett, which was his main defensive assignment, but that doesn't make up for him being a non factor offensively.

And Jordan also barely turned the ball over in the playoffs in those years, while LeBron turned it over a ton in the series we’re talking about.

Fair.

It’s definitely by no means expected to just have a bad offensive performance—with bad scoring efficiency, reducing scoring volume, and tons of turnovers—when facing a great opponent and having a weak offensive player playing. You may be identifying some of the reason that it happened, but it reflects flaws in LeBron’s game and was disappointing.

I mean I don't disagree with any of these, but again, I think it comes down to the following things, breaking down each series one by one...

The 2007 series just can't be used against him. Yes he had flaws in his game at this point that were exploited but the man was 22 years old. A lot of players at that age have very unpolished games that need work. It's not out of the question to say that what he was at this point wasn't a reflection of what he'd be at his best.

2008 as I mentioned before is a series I often forget just how bad he actually was, but at the same time we can't ignore the factors that led to this. Yeah, it paints a picture that severe flaws still existed, but again, dude was only 23 years old at the time.

And with 2010, I just don't think he he was as bad in that series as people think. I believe that game 5 of that series was the only truly awful game he had. The only way we can really call this a bad series is if we just ignore all the other contributions, most notably the fact that he locked up Boston's best scorer in that series.

There is a reason 2011 will always be known as LeBron's greatest failure. It's something that should have never happened, but it did, and LeBron has no one really to blame but himself for it. Dallas did a terrific job game planning for LeBron, had the better team, and Miami had several exploitable flaws, but it's on him for allowing these kinds of personal flaws to still exist so many years later after the fact. I can excuse those flaws for still existing when he's 22, 23, and hell even 24. But when you're at age 27, and you still haven't improved on those things, that's on you. LeBron was arrogant and thought he didn't need to make any improvements on his end. In a way, it makes me kind of happy that 2011 happened, because that was his wake up call that he wasn't as good as he thought he was, and that he needed to make changes in order to reach the level he wanted to be at.

[Iwasawitness]

You chose “Bruce Bowen” video on lebron vs Jordan highlights against the Veltics as a title. Do you not understand why that’s cherry picked as hell?

With a straight face, it’s still comparable and you cherry picked one of the select few teams that actually played great defense and didn’t leave space everywhere, and unlike the Jordan video, lebron was absolutely struggling against it. And you didn’t even pick full game highlights so it’s just a few cherry picked defensive plays of them stopping lebron vs some plays where Jordan’s scoring against Boston. If you posted full highlights, that celtics team absolutely would take the cake.

Meanwhile, I randomly picked a Jordan video facing a first round heat squad and Lebron against the warriors where he was left open almost the entire time in the other thread and… crickets from all of you.

In terms of facing a lack of physicality and having tons of space, especially when he had Allen Wade Bosh, Jordan’s never been so lucky like Lebron.

Unlike yours, that video included made buckets from both players and I even gave you the advantage by choosing a random GS video and Heat vid for Jordan. Still, the defensive pressure wasn’t remotely close.

In the 90s, not only was the contact allowed and defensive rules much more limiting, but you had to have fundamental defensive ability 80% of the time just to be drafted (exceptions were offensive savants like Chuck). Now, many of the players completely suck at defense. On top of that, you have 18 year olds coming in and getting minutes whereas Kobe and KG were outliers back then, KG being a tough defender in the first place.

Perhaps oddly on this thread I see many explanations in regard to LeBron’s performances being better than they looked or due to shortcomings in his team mates, and downgrading of of Jordan because of the excellence of his coach, GM and team-mates, but even staunch Jordan partisans don’t seem to feel any great need to defend individual performances by him or obviously team performance once he embraced the triangle offense and playing a more team game.

Yep.

It’s longevity and excuses.

We can add the third category of oddly specific/cherry picking stats as well. No shocker there. Jordan has the major stats and achievements covered, and the more challenging era in the paint by far, so there’s not much else to rely on.

Nice to see you ducked my points again and ran away when your arguments got picked apart, which is what you always do. Remember what it was you said, hold on let me go find it really quick...

Meanwhile, I randomly picked a Jordan video facing a first round heat squad and Lebron against the warriors where he was left open almost the entire time in the other thread and… crickets from all of you.

Your lack of self awareness is truly astounding. But then again, I shouldn't be surprised. You've spent this entire thread making stuff up, incorrectly saying things about the 90s, and demonstrating a complete lack and utter understanding of the sport of basketball. But for some reason, despite doing all of these things, you think any of us apart from Jordan stans will still take you seriously. It's pretty hilarious.

[MavsDirk41]

RAPM is an inherently better stat than PER, which is just box score accumulation. Read up on both. PER is one of the most useless aggregate stats and Hollinger is quite frankly a hack.

RAPM has been around since what? 97? So that excludes players like Jordan, Wilt, Bird, prime Shaq, Magic, Kareem, Hakeem…..

Correct, but if you actually followed this conversation, RAPM was brought up as someone said something along the lines of "Curry and Jokic peaked higher than LeBron and LeBron will be leaving the Top 5 soon".

RAPM paints LeBron as far more impactful than either Jokic or Curry while all 3 of them and James played in the RAPM-era.

Ok i gotcha. Lets compare VORP, BPM, WS, WS/48, OWS, and usage rate between Jokic and James during prime years and you will see how close it is. Taking one metric and calling it a day is lazy. Peak Jokic can be compared to any player that has ever played the game. Cause his peak can rival any player, including who i think the goat is in Jordan. Im not a Jokic fan, but im a realist when it comes to greatness. James is the greater all time player, but i dont know if any player has raised the level of his teammates like Jokic. Curry is great but he doesnt belong in the conversation between James and Jokic much less Jordan.

[MavsDirk41]

RAPM is an inherently better stat than PER, which is just box score accumulation. Read up on both. PER is one of the most useless aggregate stats and Hollinger is quite frankly a hack.

A as RAPM has been around since what? 97? So that excludes players like Jordan, Wilt, Bird, prime Shaq, Magic, Kareem, Hakeem…..

Like Jordan, one of Curry’s teams is in the discussion for greatest ever which is significant in a team sport in which the only real success is team success.

Jokic probably had as much influence on a title win as almost any player, in the discussion with Dirk 2011 and LeBron 2013 imo of the title wins with which I am most familiar, and sure Murray played exceptionally and Denver wouldn’t have won without him but if we are to give credit to LeBron for lifting team mates Jokic also qualifies imo.

If 2023 was a one off and if Jokic can be successfully targeted in defense to prevent his team winning deep in the play-offs and this can’t be covered by team construction then he can’t be in GOAT discussion imo though. If Denver don’t construct the right team around him due to ineptitude even though it may not be his fault he won’t be in the GOAT conversation either.

I 100% agree about Jokic being targeted defensively. Seems like he was in the playoffs last year. I think he needs another championship against a better opponent to be in the top 10 all time but his loyalty to the organization and the way he lifts the play of his teammates is what I admire about the guy.