RGM GOAT Debate Thread (Part 2)

[michaelm]

But he is. And nothing in this thread has really shown otherwise. Look at the poll… and that’s despite the PC crew heading over and Lebron being an active player.
No one has said “the next Lebron”
6 championships, 10 scoring titles (record), 9 times first team defense (record), first in winshares, vorp per 48, PER, ppg, box plus minus, all in regular season and playoffs. Jordan has 19 of the top 100 gamescores of all time singlehandedly and 7 of the top 10 playoff series scoring averages ever himself; all hyper efficient by the way. Only four times has a player won regular season MVP, finals MVP, the scoring title and was first team defense.. all Jordan.

Never choked in a finals or put his team in a position to lose, never let his finals matchup win FMVP (let alone four times), held teammates accountable so they didn’t make dumb defensive mistakes and were battle ready, didn’t bandwagon teams to chase championships “not 6 not 7 not 8” didn’t let a player outscore him in career head to head (as durant has against lebron)

Thats as close to unanimous GOAT as you’re going to get. Its such a bad comparison, just like Kobe was. And just as I said with Kobe, you wait you’ll see just how quickly after lebron retires it’ll move on to the next player being compared to Jordan. Not Lebron… but Jordan as the GOAT. Lebron comparisons would simply feel fake and fabricated, as they are. Jordan has 80+ % of bases covered in this one, and that’s game set match.

And of course we are lucky enough that there are several players who played both and every single one says it’s Jordan “by far” “no question” etc. Yeah, that’s unanimous.

Damn man. This is an all-time bledredwine post. So much incorrect information here in typical bledredwine fashion.

1. MJ is 5th in winshares, not first. He is below Kareem, LeBron Wilt and Malone.
2. VORP per 48? Are you just making up stats now?
3. Jokic is #1 in PER, not MJ.
4. Jokic is #1 in BPM, not MJ.
5. LeBron is #1 in playoff win shares by far.

You are without question my favorite poster here. There's nobody else that displays such complete confidence while being so wrong and including so many fallacies in their posts - on a regular basis. It cracks me up every time. Reminds me of the meme below.

You picked cumulative stats, how shocking! I’m talking per game and how high a level a player performs throughout a season.

Jordan is first in history in all of those. He simply played at a higher level Funny how lebron has to use longevity and cumulative to lead in any of it. Then there are the obscure stats lebron fans pick to try and dance around the fact. We can dissect this if you’d enjoy that!

Fairly obviously posting pre-prepared selected stats/metrics to favour an argument. The real metrics guys will tell you which ones are shaky and can use metrics to predict outcomes.

[INKtastic]

But he is. And nothing in this thread has really shown otherwise. Look at the poll… and that’s despite the PC crew heading over and Lebron being an active player.
No one has said “the next Lebron”
6 championships, 10 scoring titles (record), 9 times first team defense (record), first in winshares, vorp per 48, PER, ppg, box plus minus, all in regular season and playoffs. Jordan has 19 of the top 100 gamescores of all time singlehandedly and 7 of the top 10 playoff series scoring averages ever himself; all hyper efficient by the way. Only four times has a player won regular season MVP, finals MVP, the scoring title and was first team defense.. all Jordan.

Never choked in a finals or put his team in a position to lose, never let his finals matchup win FMVP (let alone four times), held teammates accountable so they didn’t make dumb defensive mistakes and were battle ready, didn’t bandwagon teams to chase championships “not 6 not 7 not 8” didn’t let a player outscore him in career head to head (as durant has against lebron)

Thats as close to unanimous GOAT as you’re going to get. Its such a bad comparison, just like Kobe was. And just as I said with Kobe, you wait you’ll see just how quickly after lebron retires it’ll move on to the next player being compared to Jordan. Not Lebron… but Jordan as the GOAT. Lebron comparisons would simply feel fake and fabricated, as they are. Jordan has 80+ % of bases covered in this one, and that’s game set match.

And of course we are lucky enough that there are several players who played both and every single one says it’s Jordan “by far” “no question” etc. Yeah, that’s unanimous.

Damn man. This is an all-time bledredwine post. So much incorrect information here in typical bledredwine fashion.

1. MJ is 5th in winshares, not first. He is below Kareem, LeBron Wilt and Malone.
2. VORP per 48? Are you just making up stats now?
3. Jokic is #1 in PER, not MJ.
4. Jokic is #1 in BPM, not MJ.
5. LeBron is #1 in playoff win shares by far.

You are without question my favorite poster here. There's nobody else that displays such complete confidence while being so wrong and including so many fallacies in their posts - on a regular basis. It cracks me up every time. Reminds me of the meme below.

You picked cumulative stats, how shocking! I’m talking per game and how high a level a player performs throughout a season.

Jordan is first in history in all of those. He simply played at a higher level Funny how lebron has to use longevity and cumulative to lead in any of it. Then there are the obscure stats lebron fans pick to try and dance around the fact. We can dissect this if you’d enjoy that!

No, he's not.

Jordan's best season in PER is 6th all time. The last 4 Jokic seasons and 08-09 LeBron are better
Exact same for BPM
Jordan's best single season win share is 9th all time

Playoffs single season:
Jordan's best VORP season Is 7th all time. 3 of the top 4 are LeBron. The other 3 ahead of Jordan are Duncan, Bird, Jokic.
Jordan's best BPM is 2nd all time, behind LeBron.
Jordan's best win share was 9th all time, LeBron had 4 seasons better than that
Win Share/48: Jordan's best was 4th all time, with .3325, #1 is LeBron .3994
PER: Jordan's best was 8th all time, behind two separate seasons by LeBron.

Only 1 player has led all players on both teams in points, assists, rebounds, blocks and steals in any series in NBA playoff history. LeBron. Who did that in the 2016 NBA Finals to beat a 73 win team. That series, beating that team, is when he became the GOAT.

https://www.nbcsports.com/nba/news/lebron-james-becomes-first-player-on-record-to-lead-series-in-points-rebounds-assists-steals-and-blocks

Will he always be the GOAT? I sure hope not. How bad is it for the sport of players don't keep getting better?.

Jordan was the GOAT before he won 6 championships, even though several players had more championships than him at the time and one important one has many more than Jordan. Jordan is no longer the GOAT after that 2016 finals.

[RRR3]

But he is. And nothing in this thread has really shown otherwise. Look at the poll… and that’s despite the PC crew heading over and Lebron being an active player.
No one has said “the next Lebron”
6 championships, 10 scoring titles (record), 9 times first team defense (record), first in winshares, vorp per 48, PER, ppg, box plus minus, all in regular season and playoffs. Jordan has 19 of the top 100 gamescores of all time singlehandedly and 7 of the top 10 playoff series scoring averages ever himself; all hyper efficient by the way. Only four times has a player won regular season MVP, finals MVP, the scoring title and was first team defense.. all Jordan.

Never choked in a finals or put his team in a position to lose, never let his finals matchup win FMVP (let alone four times), held teammates accountable so they didn’t make dumb defensive mistakes and were battle ready, didn’t bandwagon teams to chase championships “not 6 not 7 not 8” didn’t let a player outscore him in career head to head (as durant has against lebron)

Thats as close to unanimous GOAT as you’re going to get. Its such a bad comparison, just like Kobe was. And just as I said with Kobe, you wait you’ll see just how quickly after lebron retires it’ll move on to the next player being compared to Jordan. Not Lebron… but Jordan as the GOAT. Lebron comparisons would simply feel fake and fabricated, as they are. Jordan has 80+ % of bases covered in this one, and that’s game set match.

And of course we are lucky enough that there are several players who played both and every single one says it’s Jordan “by far” “no question” etc. Yeah, that’s unanimous.

And by the way, I would hope that the GOAT of this sport would hit more than 3 out of every 4 freethrows and shoot beyond 32 percent from midrange over twenty seasons and would be a ceiling raiser rather than one to have some of the worst beatdowns ever (finals). Thats no GOAT.

If 57% is your definition of unanimous I think your literacy is pretty low

If you like numbers it is nearly 2.5 times Lebron's vote on a present day internet basketball forum, with Lebron still an active player, 27 years after MJ's glory days when such forums didn't exist. He also beats the field, which may be unfair, but to players other than LeBron imo.

That's nice. 57 is nowhere close to unanimous. About 30% of the public or more think LeBron is GOAT. Not unanimous. Fun fact, it's almost dead even when 133 players were surveyed https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10117950-michael-jordan-narrowly-tops-lebron-james-as-nba-goat-kobe-bryant-3rd-in-player-poll

LeBron was barely behind Jordan in that sample size

[bledredwine]

Damn man. This is an all-time bledredwine post. So much incorrect information here in typical bledredwine fashion.

1. MJ is 5th in winshares, not first. He is below Kareem, LeBron Wilt and Malone.
2. VORP per 48? Are you just making up stats now?
3. Jokic is #1 in PER, not MJ.
4. Jokic is #1 in BPM, not MJ.
5. LeBron is #1 in playoff win shares by far.

You are without question my favorite poster here. There's nobody else that displays such complete confidence while being so wrong and including so many fallacies in their posts - on a regular basis. It cracks me up every time. Reminds me of the meme below.

You picked cumulative stats, how shocking! I’m talking per game and how high a level a player performs throughout a season.

Jordan is first in history in all of those. He simply played at a higher level Funny how lebron has to use longevity and cumulative to lead in any of it. Then there are the obscure stats lebron fans pick to try and dance around the fact. We can dissect this if you’d enjoy that!

No, he's not.

Jordan's best season in PER is 6th all time. The last 4 Jokic seasons and 08-09 LeBron are better
Exact same for BPM
Jordan's best single season win share is 9th all time

Playoffs single season:
Jordan's best VORP season Is 7th all time. 3 of the top 4 are LeBron. The other 3 ahead of Jordan are Duncan, Bird, Jokic.
Jordan's best BPM is 2nd all time, behind LeBron.
Jordan's best win share was 9th all time, LeBron had 4 seasons better than that
Win Share/48: Jordan's best was 4th all time, with .3325, #1 is LeBron .3994
PER: Jordan's best was 8th all time, behind two separate seasons by LeBron.

Only 1 player has led all players on both teams in points, assists, rebounds, blocks and steals in any series in NBA playoff history. LeBron. Who did that in the 2016 NBA Finals to beat a 73 win team. That series, beating that team, is when he became the GOAT.

https://www.nbcsports.com/nba/news/lebron-james-becomes-first-player-on-record-to-lead-series-in-points-rebounds-assists-steals-and-blocks

Will he always be the GOAT? I sure hope not. How bad is it for the sport of players don't keep getting better?.

Jordan was the GOAT before he won 6 championships, even though several players had more championships than him at the time and one important one has many more than Jordan. Jordan is no longer the GOAT after that 2016 finals.

We're not talking single seasons, we're talking overall. And you know well that Jordan has a higher peak anyway (or at least you should. We can analyze). Now, if you are going to state something regarding these, post the link... but you probably won't because Jordan will be all over the top of the list in single seasons.

Okay, so for career, Jokic has passed Jordan in a couple, but once again, it's an inflated era and Jokic is in his peak.
Either way, Jordan leads Lebron in every single one. CAREER per season. And that's not longevity, that's overall performance.

PER, win shares, + - (performance, not longevity)

PER https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/per_career.html. ---------> MJ 27.9 to LBJ 26.9

PER playoffs(playoffs) https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/per_career_p.html --------> MJ 28.6 to LBJ 27.9 in an inflated era

WS per 48 (not cumulative)https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/ws_per_48_career_p.html -------> MJ .255 Lebron .237

Box + -https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/bpm_career.html -------> MJ 9.21 Lebron 8.57

Literally beating Lebron in every one. Non longevity based? It's Jordan, all day.
And of course, championships, teaming up and choking in the finals matters as well.

[ScrantonBulls]

You picked cumulative stats, how shocking! I’m talking per game and how high a level a player performs throughout a season.

Jordan is first in history in all of those. He simply played at a higher level Funny how lebron has to use longevity and cumulative to lead in any of it. Then there are the obscure stats lebron fans pick to try and dance around the fact. We can dissect this if you’d enjoy that!

No, he's not.

Jordan's best season in PER is 6th all time. The last 4 Jokic seasons and 08-09 LeBron are better
Exact same for BPM
Jordan's best single season win share is 9th all time

Playoffs single season:
Jordan's best VORP season Is 7th all time. 3 of the top 4 are LeBron. The other 3 ahead of Jordan are Duncan, Bird, Jokic.
Jordan's best BPM is 2nd all time, behind LeBron.
Jordan's best win share was 9th all time, LeBron had 4 seasons better than that
Win Share/48: Jordan's best was 4th all time, with .3325, #1 is LeBron .3994
PER: Jordan's best was 8th all time, behind two separate seasons by LeBron.

Only 1 player has led all players on both teams in points, assists, rebounds, blocks and steals in any series in NBA playoff history. LeBron. Who did that in the 2016 NBA Finals to beat a 73 win team. That series, beating that team, is when he became the GOAT.

https://www.nbcsports.com/nba/news/lebron-james-becomes-first-player-on-record-to-lead-series-in-points-rebounds-assists-steals-and-blocks

Will he always be the GOAT? I sure hope not. How bad is it for the sport of players don't keep getting better?.

Jordan was the GOAT before he won 6 championships, even though several players had more championships than him at the time and one important one has many more than Jordan. Jordan is no longer the GOAT after that 2016 finals.

Okay, so Jokic has passed him in a couple, but once again, it's an inflated era and Jokic is in his peak.
Either way, he leads Lebron in every single one. CAREER per season. And that's not longevity, that's overall performance.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/per_career.html

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/per_career_p.html

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/ws_per_48_career_p.html

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/bpm_career.html


Literally beating Lebron in every one. Non longevity based? It's Jordan, all day.
But of course, championships, teaming up and choking in the finals doesn't matter.

Imagine using all these advanced stats and not understanding that most of them are league/pace adjusted. You're completely out of your league here, son.

[bledredwine]

No, he's not.

Jordan's best season in PER is 6th all time. The last 4 Jokic seasons and 08-09 LeBron are better
Exact same for BPM
Jordan's best single season win share is 9th all time

Playoffs single season:
Jordan's best VORP season Is 7th all time. 3 of the top 4 are LeBron. The other 3 ahead of Jordan are Duncan, Bird, Jokic.
Jordan's best BPM is 2nd all time, behind LeBron.
Jordan's best win share was 9th all time, LeBron had 4 seasons better than that
Win Share/48: Jordan's best was 4th all time, with .3325, #1 is LeBron .3994
PER: Jordan's best was 8th all time, behind two separate seasons by LeBron.

Only 1 player has led all players on both teams in points, assists, rebounds, blocks and steals in any series in NBA playoff history. LeBron. Who did that in the 2016 NBA Finals to beat a 73 win team. That series, beating that team, is when he became the GOAT.

https://www.nbcsports.com/nba/news/lebron-james-becomes-first-player-on-record-to-lead-series-in-points-rebounds-assists-steals-and-blocks

Will he always be the GOAT? I sure hope not. How bad is it for the sport of players don't keep getting better?.

Jordan was the GOAT before he won 6 championships, even though several players had more championships than him at the time and one important one has many more than Jordan. Jordan is no longer the GOAT after that 2016 finals.

Okay, so Jokic has passed him in a couple, but once again, it's an inflated era and Jokic is in his peak.
Either way, he leads Lebron in every single one. CAREER per season. And that's not longevity, that's overall performance.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/per_career.html

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/per_career_p.html

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/ws_per_48_career_p.html

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/bpm_career.html


Literally beating Lebron in every one. Non longevity based? It's Jordan, all day.
But of course, championships, teaming up and choking in the finals doesn't matter.

Imagine using all these advanced stats and not understanding that most of them are league/pace adjusted. You're completely out of your league here, son.

Imagine making a post like this and not understanding that point scorers run the league today and rack up more stats than system based players ever could! Imagine not noting that Russell Westbrook averaged a triple double at near 30 points across 3 seasons and finding it bizarre.

You're out of your league here, daughter.

[RRR3]

Someone's upset! That poll of NBA players where it's basically even between LBJ and MJ eally riled the poor guy up

[bledredwine]

Someone's upset! That poll of NBA players where it's basically even between LBJ and MJ eally riled the poor guy up

Yeah, it sucks for him that Jordan has not too far from 2-3 times the votes!

[RRR3]

Someone's upset! That poll of NBA players where it's basically even between LBJ and MJ eally riled the poor guy up

Yeah, it sucks for him that Jordan has not too far from 2-3 times the votes!

On realgm. Not according to NBA players though.

[MavsDirk41]

Damn man. This is an all-time bledredwine post. So much incorrect information here in typical bledredwine fashion.

1. MJ is 5th in winshares, not first. He is below Kareem, LeBron Wilt and Malone.
2. VORP per 48? Are you just making up stats now?
3. Jokic is #1 in PER, not MJ.
4. Jokic is #1 in BPM, not MJ.
5. LeBron is #1 in playoff win shares by far.

You are without question my favorite poster here. There's nobody else that displays such complete confidence while being so wrong and including so many fallacies in their posts - on a regular basis. It cracks me up every time. Reminds me of the meme below.

You picked cumulative stats, how shocking! I’m talking per game and how high a level a player performs throughout a season.

Jordan is first in history in all of those. He simply played at a higher level Funny how lebron has to use longevity and cumulative to lead in any of it. Then there are the obscure stats lebron fans pick to try and dance around the fact. We can dissect this if you’d enjoy that!

No, he's not.

Jordan's best season in PER is 6th all time. The last 4 Jokic seasons and 08-09 LeBron are better
Exact same for BPM
Jordan's best single season win share is 9th all time

Playoffs single season:
Jordan's best VORP season Is 7th all time. 3 of the top 4 are LeBron. The other 3 ahead of Jordan are Duncan, Bird, Jokic.
Jordan's best BPM is 2nd all time, behind LeBron.
Jordan's best win share was 9th all time, LeBron had 4 seasons better than that
Win Share/48: Jordan's best was 4th all time, with .3325, #1 is LeBron .3994
PER: Jordan's best was 8th all time, behind two separate seasons by LeBron.

Only 1 player has led all players on both teams in points, assists, rebounds, blocks and steals in any series in NBA playoff history. LeBron. Who did that in the 2016 NBA Finals to beat a 73 win team. That series, beating that team, is when he became the GOAT.

https://www.nbcsports.com/nba/news/lebron-james-becomes-first-player-on-record-to-lead-series-in-points-rebounds-assists-steals-and-blocks

Will he always be the GOAT? I sure hope not. How bad is it for the sport of players don't keep getting better?.

Jordan was the GOAT before he won 6 championships, even though several players had more championships than him at the time and one important one has many more than Jordan. Jordan is no longer the GOAT after that 2016 finals.

Top PER

Jordan 31.71
James 31.67
Jordan 31.63
James 31.59
Jordan 31.18
Jordan 31.14
James 31.10


Top 5 seasons BPM
Jordan James
13.0 13.2
12.0 11.8
11.9 11.7
11.2 10.9
11.2 10.9

Top 5 seasons win shares
Jordan James
21.2 20.3
20.4 19.3
20.3 18.5
19.8 15.6
19.0 14.5

Top 5 seasons DWS
Jordan James
6.2 6.5
6.1 5.7
5.6 5.3
5.4 5.2
5.4 4.7


Top 5 seasons VORP
Jordan James
12.5 11.8
11.4 10.3
10.8 9.9
10.6 9.8
10.4 9.4


Jordan regular season winning pct 65.9
James regular season winning pct 64.5

Jordan playoff winning pct 66.5
James playoff winning pct 63.8

Jordan against 60 win teams in the playoffs 7-2
James against 60 win teams in the playoffs 3-5

Jordan is the greatest player i have ever seen and he clears James in accolades and advanced stats

[MavsDirk41]

If 57% is your definition of unanimous I think your literacy is pretty low

If you like numbers it is nearly 2.5 times Lebron's vote on a present day internet basketball forum, with Lebron still an active player, 27 years after MJ's glory days when such forums didn't exist. He also beats the field, which may be unfair, but to players other than LeBron imo.

That's nice. 57 is nowhere close to unanimous. About 30% of the public or more think LeBron is GOAT. Not unanimous. Fun fact, it's almost dead even when 133 players were surveyed https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10117950-michael-jordan-narrowly-tops-lebron-james-as-nba-goat-kobe-bryant-3rd-in-player-poll

LeBron was barely behind Jordan in that sample size

How many of those surveyed players saw Jordan play?

[RRR3]

If you like numbers it is nearly 2.5 times Lebron's vote on a present day internet basketball forum, with Lebron still an active player, 27 years after MJ's glory days when such forums didn't exist. He also beats the field, which may be unfair, but to players other than LeBron imo.

That's nice. 57 is nowhere close to unanimous. About 30% of the public or more think LeBron is GOAT. Not unanimous. Fun fact, it's almost dead even when 133 players were surveyed https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10117950-michael-jordan-narrowly-tops-lebron-james-as-nba-goat-kobe-bryant-3rd-in-player-poll

LeBron was barely behind Jordan in that sample size

How many of those surveyed players saw Jordan play?

What are you gonna do when most living people haven't seen Jordan play?

[MavsDirk41]

That's nice. 57 is nowhere close to unanimous. About 30% of the public or more think LeBron is GOAT. Not unanimous. Fun fact, it's almost dead even when 133 players were surveyed https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10117950-michael-jordan-narrowly-tops-lebron-james-as-nba-goat-kobe-bryant-3rd-in-player-poll

LeBron was barely behind Jordan in that sample size

How many of those surveyed players saw Jordan play?

What are you gonna do when most living people haven't seen Jordan play?

What are you gonna do when people say James played against plumbers 20 years from now?

[ScrantonBulls]

That's nice. 57 is nowhere close to unanimous. About 30% of the public or more think LeBron is GOAT. Not unanimous. Fun fact, it's almost dead even when 133 players were surveyed https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10117950-michael-jordan-narrowly-tops-lebron-james-as-nba-goat-kobe-bryant-3rd-in-player-poll

LeBron was barely behind Jordan in that sample size

How many of those surveyed players saw Jordan play?

What are you gonna do when most living people haven't seen Jordan play?

Imagine thinking people haven't seen the all time greats play in today's day and age - when damn near everything is on YouTube. It's a complete loser of an argument, and one people generally bring up when they aren't knowledgeable enough to debate.

[RRR3]

How many of those surveyed players saw Jordan play?

What are you gonna do when most living people haven't seen Jordan play?

What are you gonna do when people say James played against plumbers 20 years from now?

Not care, it isn't that important to me. You seem very riled up.

[MavsDirk41]

What are you gonna do when most living people haven't seen Jordan play?

What are you gonna do when people say James played against plumbers 20 years from now?

Not care, it isn't that important to me. You seem very riled up.

I am man you really got me riled up pal

[MrBigShot]

nba refs are literal garbage sometimes with the obvious calls they blow

[michaelm]

How many of those surveyed players saw Jordan play?

What are you gonna do when most living people haven't seen Jordan play?

Imagine thinking people haven't seen the all time greats play in today's day and age - when damn near everything is on YouTube. It's a complete loser of an argument, and one people generally bring up when they aren't knowledgeable enough to debate.

I got very interested in Bill Russell after seeing a documentary and sought out old footage, much scarcer from his day but saw enough to know he gave every appearance of being a modern fluid athlete and some of his highlights especially the famous chase down block were impressive even to modern eyes, but not much more than that. There will be more and better footage of Jordan and LeBron but that just means more to watch, which wouldn’t be in context in Jordan’s case anyway.

Are you seriously suggesting modern players have taken time off from video games and social media and those little things their job description requires like training, travelling to and from games and playing games to make a study of footage from Jordan’s very long career just so they knew they were being fair in rating LeBron above him ?.

You could I guess watch all of the finals games of both players which would demonstrate the extreme quality of both but I doubt would show Jordan to be the lesser player, although it would be difficult if not impossible to find someone neutral to watch the footage. It is basically impossible decades later to watch footage of Jordan in context in any case.

You have raised the real question which is how posterity will grade the players. Unlike some posters with whom I often agree I am not sure how each will be remembered in 20 years. LeBron is fairly definitely on another level to Kobe imo and will always be judged his superior. However your argument as is often the case when discussing human endeavours cuts both ways. In 30 years time it is certainly possible memory of LeBron may fade which is not the case with Jordan 27 years on from his last title. I doubt people will be saying LeBron must have been better, he had a better backwards somersault with a half twist VORP, and if Kareem’s longevity as a player contributing to the winning of titles doesn’t put him ahead of both Jordan and LeBron now then I doubt LeBron’s longevity, including 4 or 5 years past his peak and starting earlier than was even possible for Jordan will put him ahead of Jordan given both have impressive longevity, having led teams to titles as FMVP at the age of 35.

What it comes down to at present is that your argument for LeBron mainly comes down to metrics and statistics, and those biased towards longevity at that. Maybe this will be the way of the future, since after the 4th GSW title which it is fairly clear now was a last hurrah the owners voted to essentially abolish dynasties within the current salary cap rules but 6 titles and 6 FMVPs when dynasties were possible along with Jordan’s first all defensive team and other accolades will always stand out in my biased opinion. I do doubt DRAPM which as far as I can tell is universally regarded as a weak metric by those who actually understand metrics will come into it much though.

[michaelm]

Someone's upset! That poll of NBA players where it's basically even between LBJ and MJ eally riled the poor guy up

Why so ?. Of course the poll results on here are not unanimous, but pretty impressive given LeBron is the current player and favour of the month and you have actually posted that even current active players are not putting him ahead ?. Do you think that is going to improve with the passage of time when LeBron and all those current active players are retired ?. LeBron also hasn’t made a big enough splash to supplant Jordan as the face and instigator of the modern NBA and is unlikely to do anything to change that at this stage in his career. Sure MJ has a great publicity machine but it is not as though LeBron hasn’t tried to have an equivalent publicity machine. As has actually been said by you or one of your fellow travellers Nike is still pushing Jordan and profiting from Jordan labelled footwear which I can tell you from experience in Australia was a worldwide phenomenon While perhaps not very relevant to their respective quality as players Jordan’s quality as a player and charisma were not totally irrelevant to NIke’s success with him either, him making them at least as much as they made him imo.

[Special_Puppy]

Someone's upset! That poll of NBA players where it's basically even between LBJ and MJ eally riled the poor guy up

Why so ?. Of course the poll results on here are not unanimous, but pretty impressive given LeBron is the current player and favour of the month and you have actually posted that even current active players are not putting him ahead ?. Do you think that is going to improve with the passage of time when LeBron and all those current active players are retired ?. .

I mean there is just going to be more and more people who just weren't old enough to watch prime Jordan. Someone who was 18 at the time of the 1998 finals is 44 now.