RGM GOAT Debate Thread

[bledredwine]

The initial outmatched team Jordan had around him he didn't make tougher, they were entirely replaced by a competent GM.

That’s not true. The 90 team was made stronger and they’ve attested to this in interviews.

We also know how intense Jordan got about practices and that Pippen credited part of his development toJordan pushing him and having him guard him in practice.

Then there’s the on court accountability, where he’s second to none.

Nobody from his first 2 years with the Bulls would be there for a title. The only one from year 3 that would be there for the title is Paxson. After that they were a 50 win team.

Oh nice, the first two years? So you're cherry picking instead of being objective, I see.

Why don't you mention 88-89? They had Bill Cartwright, Horace Grant, John Paxson, and Scottie Pippen in 1988-89, which, including Jordan, is the full championship starting line-up for 1991-1992!
That's literally the entire Bulls starting lineup that won 2 years later!

Of course the Bulls didn't have the players that were out the door. That's because it was a trash bag squad that was tanking and some were really old. Do you really think that it was a coincidence that half of the starting line-up that entered after Jordan were elite or great defenders in Grant and Pippen? Yep, Jordan was great for their development and Pippen's given him credit for helping his development (significantly) in the past.

If you had followed the Bulls, you would know how they were pushed around by Detroit, how Jordan and (asking for help with his trainer Tim Grover to make a routine) made a plan to get the team training together and lifting in the mornings, to change the intensity of practices, etc.

That Bulls squad grew together, and Jordan was the alpha leader 100% of the way, with plenty of player testament and no one saying otherwise.

As a matter of fact, they had Jordan/Grant/Pippen together even in 87-88, four years before their championship, so yes, Jordan helped develop those guys. It's not a coincidence that they played with great tenacity that they were known for. If you don't think Jordan's competitiveness trickled to everyone else, then you probably just don't like Jordan.

[Homer38]

Lebron teamed up with Wade and Bosh in Miami

Went to Cleveland with a 22 year old all star player in Irving, and im sure he was aware that they would trade their draft pick for another all star player which they did

Went to LA and helped orchestrate the Davis trade

Dirk never demanded that Cuban trade for another all star player and he never bailed

Not even close to being the same situation if comparing the two

You have better chance to have great sucess in the long run to be drafted by a big market team with a strong front office that being drafted by a small market team with a poor front office who let a young player like Boozer leave after the rookie year of LBJ.Even if you leave that team after 7 years,this is not a advantage compared at the other who was in a great situation from the start.Some other teams tried that but it was a huge failure(Suns,Nets,Clippers just in the last 5 years)

LeBron went back to Cleveland and went to LA after that, it was because of the location....Only LBJ can go to a team that had a losing record for years and the haters say that team was loaded after that....Yeah,so unfair when LBJ has some help but when some players is in a great situation from the start and he has no reason to leave,this is fair....Make no sense

Yea it sucked for him his first 7 years in the league. But:

- he made up for it by picking several of his teammates after that
- other star players were drafted by organizations with no talent on the roster
- Cuban was so brilliant he let Nash walk to Phoenix and didnt draft Giannis because he wanted to trade down and save some money for free agency

James is awesome. Top 3 player of all time. But not every superstar player had it easy throughout their career. Wasnt just him lol

I don't compare LBJ with Dirk but if you look at the top 12 players of all-time,not many had it worse that LBJ....Maybe just Hakeem.....This is way easier to win when you have a good front office at the start of your career

Btw,yes I will gave credit to Dirk to be loyal...He was loyal...But for many others like Curry,Kobe,Magic,Bird,they were all in a great situation in their first 1-2 contract,they had no reason to leave.....Even Duncan,I gave him credit to stay with the spurs who was in a small market,but if it would been a bad team,possible he would leave too

[Homer38]

Your opinion, i disagree. He outplayed two HOF players in their prime in that finals

Dirk and the mavs had also a major choke job vs Miami in 2006.

You mean the one where Wade lived at the free throw line? Did you watch that series at all?

Yes...It would not matter if the mavs would not choke a 2-0 lead and a 13 points lead in the fourth quarter in game 3...It would not matter if Dirk would not choke at the free throw line at the end of game 3....It would also not matter if Dirk would been better that 39% from the field

[MavsDirk41]

You have better chance to have great sucess in the long run to be drafted by a big market team with a strong front office that being drafted by a small market team with a poor front office who let a young player like Boozer leave after the rookie year of LBJ.Even if you leave that team after 7 years,this is not a advantage compared at the other who was in a great situation from the start.Some other teams tried that but it was a huge failure(Suns,Nets,Clippers just in the last 5 years)

LeBron went back to Cleveland and went to LA after that, it was because of the location....Only LBJ can go to a team that had a losing record for years and the haters say that team was loaded after that....Yeah,so unfair when LBJ has some help but when some players is in a great situation from the start and he has no reason to leave,this is fair....Make no sense

Yea it sucked for him his first 7 years in the league. But:

- he made up for it by picking several of his teammates after that
- other star players were drafted by organizations with no talent on the roster
- Cuban was so brilliant he let Nash walk to Phoenix and didnt draft Giannis because he wanted to trade down and save some money for free agency

James is awesome. Top 3 player of all time. But not every superstar player had it easy throughout their career. Wasnt just him lol

I don't compare LBJ with Dirk but if you look at the top 12 players of all-time,not many had it worse that LBJ....Maybe just Hakeem.....This is way easier to win when you have a good front office at the start of your career

- name a player on the Bulls roster before they drafted Pippen/Grant
- Pippen took 3 years to develop into an allstar
- can you provide evidence that Pippen would have turned into the player he became if he didnt play with Jordan?
- same with Grant? (Sometimes star players take young players under their wing and help them develop into allstar players)

Not saying only Jordan did this. Boston went from a 29 win team to a championship contender Bird’s first year in Boston.

[Homer38]

Yea it sucked for him his first 7 years in the league. But:

- he made up for it by picking several of his teammates after that
- other star players were drafted by organizations with no talent on the roster
- Cuban was so brilliant he let Nash walk to Phoenix and didnt draft Giannis because he wanted to trade down and save some money for free agency

James is awesome. Top 3 player of all time. But not every superstar player had it easy throughout their career. Wasnt just him lol

I don't compare LBJ with Dirk but if you look at the top 12 players of all-time,not many had it worse that LBJ....Maybe just Hakeem.....This is way easier to win when you have a good front office at the start of your career

- name a player on the Bulls roster before they drafted Pippen/Grant
- Pippen took 3 years to develop into an allstar
- can you provide evidence that Pippen would have turned into the player he became if he didnt play with Jordan?
- same with Grant? (Sometimes star players take young players under their wing and help them develop into allstar players)

Not saying only Jordan did this. Boston went from a 29 win team to a championship contender Bird’s first year in Boston.

LBJ would love if Boozer would stay after his rookie seasonand that the 10th overall pick in 2004 would been better that Luke Jackson....No one can make a scrub to a good player and no one can make a average player to a great all around player on a long period of time....LBJ was not in the same situation that other top 12 players outside of Hakeem(my top 12 in no order are Wilt,Russell,Magic,Bird,Jordan,Kareem,Kobe,Curry,LBJ,Hakeem,Shaq and Duncan)

And I did not talk about the first year or 2,I was talking over their first or second contract,before the first time they could become FA

[MavsDirk41]

I don't compare LBJ with Dirk but if you look at the top 12 players of all-time,not many had it worse that LBJ....Maybe just Hakeem.....This is way easier to win when you have a good front office at the start of your career

- name a player on the Bulls roster before they drafted Pippen/Grant
- Pippen took 3 years to develop into an allstar
- can you provide evidence that Pippen would have turned into the player he became if he didnt play with Jordan?
- same with Grant? (Sometimes star players take young players under their wing and help them develop into allstar players)

Not saying only Jordan did this. Boston went from a 29 win team to a championship contender Bird’s first year in Boston.

LBJ would love if Boozer would stay after his rookie seasonand that the 10th overall pick in 2004 would been better that Luke Jackson....No one can make a scrub to a good player and no one can make a average player to a great all around player on a long period of time....LBJ was not in the same situation that other top 12 players outside of Hakeem(my top 12 in no order are Wilt,Russell,Magic,Bird,Jordan,Kareem,Kobe,Curry,LBJ,Hakeem,Shaq and Duncan)

And I did not talk about the first year or 2,I was talking over their first or second contract,before the first time they could become FA

Well even if you want to say Cleveland’s management and roster building sucked, which im sure it did, during his first tenure there, he has had the opportunity to play with numerous all star players and played 4 years with an organization run by Riley and coached by Spo after that. I get you are a huge James fan. James is one of the greatest players all time, top 3 for me. But i dont see him in the same way you do. Sorry pal.

[Iwasawitness]

No he said an all around player is a player who did everything. It was a weak definition. By definition a player who literally does everything is not Lebron; it's guys like Rodman and Draymond. That's literally doing everything. I am only responding to a weak definition.

That's literally what an all around player is dude. Enough already.

Watch any game in full where he’s credited with 7 or 8+ assists. Assists are subjective and therefore easier to spam. So many phantom assists that it’s laughable. Hand the ball to AD, watch him dribble to his left 4X, pump fake twice, pivot, step thru travel across the lane, bank in a floater and credit Lebron for “assisting” on the FG

Alright so you literally have nothing. Got it.

There are scores of videos on YouTube if you’d bother to look. It’s the worst kept secret in sports.

I’m not going through the effort to see if your obviously false claim is false. You’re the one who made the claim, it’s on you to prove it. Until you give me some videos, you’re full of ****, which is par the course for you.

[Homer38]

- name a player on the Bulls roster before they drafted Pippen/Grant
- Pippen took 3 years to develop into an allstar
- can you provide evidence that Pippen would have turned into the player he became if he didnt play with Jordan?
- same with Grant? (Sometimes star players take young players under their wing and help them develop into allstar players)

Not saying only Jordan did this. Boston went from a 29 win team to a championship contender Bird’s first year in Boston.

LBJ would love if Boozer would stay after his rookie seasonand that the 10th overall pick in 2004 would been better that Luke Jackson....No one can make a scrub to a good player and no one can make a average player to a great all around player on a long period of time....LBJ was not in the same situation that other top 12 players outside of Hakeem(my top 12 in no order are Wilt,Russell,Magic,Bird,Jordan,Kareem,Kobe,Curry,LBJ,Hakeem,Shaq and Duncan)

And I did not talk about the first year or 2,I was talking over their first or second contract,before the first time they could become FA

Well even if you want to say Cleveland’s management and roster building sucked, which im sure it did, during his first tenure there, he has had the opportunity to play with numerous all star players and played 4 years with an organization run by Riley and coached by Spo after that. I get you are a huge James fan. James is one of the greatest players all time, top 3 for me. But i dont see him in the same way you do. Sorry pal.

Spo and Riley are great and it would been even better if he had that at the start of his career!

[MavsDirk41]

LBJ would love if Boozer would stay after his rookie seasonand that the 10th overall pick in 2004 would been better that Luke Jackson....No one can make a scrub to a good player and no one can make a average player to a great all around player on a long period of time....LBJ was not in the same situation that other top 12 players outside of Hakeem(my top 12 in no order are Wilt,Russell,Magic,Bird,Jordan,Kareem,Kobe,Curry,LBJ,Hakeem,Shaq and Duncan)

And I did not talk about the first year or 2,I was talking over their first or second contract,before the first time they could become FA

Well even if you want to say Cleveland’s management and roster building sucked, which im sure it did, during his first tenure there, he has had the opportunity to play with numerous all star players and played 4 years with an organization run by Riley and coached by Spo after that. I get you are a huge James fan. James is one of the greatest players all time, top 3 for me. But i dont see him in the same way you do. Sorry pal.

Spo and Riley are great and it would been even better if he had that at the start of his career!

Indeed it would have been

[nikster]

That’s not true. The 90 team was made stronger and they’ve attested to this in interviews.

We also know how intense Jordan got about practices and that Pippen credited part of his development toJordan pushing him and having him guard him in practice.

Then there’s the on court accountability, where he’s second to none.

Nobody from his first 2 years with the Bulls would be there for a title. The only one from year 3 that would be there for the title is Paxson. After that they were a 50 win team.

Oh nice, the first two years? So you're cherry picking instead of being objective, I see.

Why don't you mention 88-89? They had Bill Cartwright, Horace Grant, John Paxson, and Scottie Pippen in 1988-89, which, including Jordan, is the full championship starting line-up for 1991-1992!
That's literally the entire Bulls starting lineup that won 2 years later!

Of course the Bulls didn't have the players that were out the door. That's because it was a trash bag squad that was tanking and some were really old. Do you really think that it was a coincidence that half of the starting line-up that entered after Jordan were elite or great defenders in Grant and Pippen? Yep, Jordan was great for their development and Pippen's given him credit for helping his development (significantly) in the past.

If you had followed the Bulls, you would know how they were pushed around by Detroit, how Jordan and (asking for help with his trainer Tim Grover to make a routine) made a plan to get the team training together and lifting in the mornings, to change the intensity of practices, etc.

That Bulls squad grew together, and Jordan was the alpha leader 100% of the way, with plenty of player testament and no one saying otherwise.

As a matter of fact, they had Jordan/Grant/Pippen together even in 87-88, four years before their championship, so yes, Jordan helped develop those guys. It's not a coincidence that they played with great tenacity that they were known for. If you don't think Jordan's competitiveness trickled to everyone else, then you probably just don't like Jordan.

It's not cherry picking. Those were there worst years. In 88-89 they were already conference finalists going head to head with the champs (and the only team to take any games from them).

I didn't argue he didn't impact their development (tho I think it's generally overstated). You said he "stuck with the team when they were outmatched" but once they acquired all those were players they were already contenders with a young core.

[ScrantonBulls]

I'm reposting this. It got moved to the GOAT thread, but it is NOT a GOAT discussion. It about intangibles and off the court things that truly improved teammates. That's not the same as a GOAT discussion at all.

I'm not talking about making their teammates better by giving them assist like Magic or anything. See the thought provoking post below about what I mean - specifically the bolded.

That's a really unusual take. Jordan impacted both ends of the floor as much as anyone.

And more than Hakeem, Lebron, or anyone you mentioned, Jordan held the teammates accountable,
holding them to a very high standard and turning practices into wars, which made games easy-
this has been said by multiple players, from Scottie to BJ, Grant etc.

To say he didn't have a multitude of impact is wild. And when he played point for the Bulls? He averaged near a 32 point triple double during the season while only playing PG for a portion of it. In 1991? He averaged 32.5, 11.4 (3rd highest finals assists of all time behind Russell and Magic) with awesome defense.

There was not much else if anything he could have done to be impactful.

This is why Jordan and Scottie 3-peated twice with two different supporting casts, and Pippen himself stated that Jordan's push made him the player he became (Jordan used to have Pippen guard him during practice when he was young in the league)

The only players that holds others accountable like that whom you mentioned is probably Duncan or Hakeem to an extent, but nearly the same extent as Jordan.

Either way, I appreciate you acknowledging that. Lebron's are impressive as well.

It's been said that no player had the off court impact on his teammates like MJ did.

- He held teammates accountable like you wouldn't believe. Nobody held teammates more accountable than MJ did.
- He made practices ALL OUT WAR. Per bledredwine's post, this games simple. Games were a walk in the park after to into battle with MJ during practice. Those must have been intense practices.

More than any other player, you hear? How much Pippen benefited from practicing against Jordan. How do you think he became a GOAT wing defender? Practicing against Jordan. He may not have become the all-star player he was without Jordan to play against.

The question is simple. Did any players have the off court impact on teammates that MJ had?

[Sofia]

I understand your point. He can do everything: assist, score, rebound, defense, walk on water, etc., but he's only had one great year as the primary facilitator when the Lakers won the championship at Disney World. He averaged 10.2 assists, but for the most part, he's been a 30 point 6 assist guy. Those are Kobe, Shai, Curry, Jordan numbers, so he belongs in that tier. Trust me, that's the tier he wants to be in. All-around guys are a tier below those guys. It's not a diss on Lebron calling him a prolific scorer.

Only 5 of the guys you listed have higher career assists per game average than LeBron.

In fact, LeBron is 26th all time in assists per game - the highest for a non-guard. The only other top 50 non guards are Jokic (33rd) and Bird (50th).

One of my criteria is to omit records. If he plays longer than all those players, then it goes to reason he will have more assists, but to claim his passing is the equivalent of Kidd or Magic is just being disingenuous. Magic stopped playing in his early 30s; Lebron is still playing close to 40. Claiming he has a record number of assist doesn't mean jack squat. It just means he's an old fart who played longer than anybody on that list

If you read my post again, I specifically looked at per game rankings over a career, which has nothing to do with longevity.

So if LeBron is slightly behind Magic or Kidd in assists and playmaking, where are they relative to LeBron in scoring?

[Homer38]

Maybe it was Phil Jackson?

[Karate Diop]

Oh boy... Wait till Op finds out about Jordan's real impact on the locker room...

[Lalouie]

"making players better" is an grossly overrated concept

reserved for stars, "making players better" is more like alleviating the burden for them who can't carry it, and it doesn't really make them BETTER. it's like carrying the melons so they only have to carry the biscuit. i guess you could say some stars force teammates to reassess their game but on a grander scale you always hear about coaches putting their players "in position to,,,,,,"

and accountability is such a specious concept. all goats, by their play, make their teammates accountable. a player doesn't have to do it overtly or demonstrably.

only coaches have the ability to put their players IN POSITION to perform as close the ceiling as possible, and imho that's how good coaches find raw gems

if there was an inverse star to teammate performance ratio, i pick lonzo as the "least skilled" to teammate enabler. he made his teammates rethink their game

[SelfishPlayer]

How much better did Jordan make Kwame Brown?

[xAIRNESSx]

LeBron

[Hair Jordan]

That's literally what an all around player is dude. Enough already.



Alright so you literally have nothing. Got it.

There are scores of videos on YouTube if you’d bother to look. It’s the worst kept secret in sports.

I’m not going through the effort to see if your obviously false claim is false. You’re the one who made the claim, it’s on you to prove it. Until you give me some videos, you’re full of ****, which is par the course for you.

It’s not my job to spoon feed you video evidence that’s readily available with a quick Google or YouTube search. You can believe the Earth is flat as well if you want. Not my job to convince you otherwise. The proof is out there

[LakersLegacy]

Punching Kerr
Rodman was best rebounder and 2x champ before
Best Europe player before
Best Australian player before

[Hair Jordan]

What’s amazing to me is that the Chicago Bulls, who’ve been in existence since 1966 (58 years) have never made a Finals appearance before or after Jordan’s tenure but managed to win 6 championships in his 11 full seasons with the franchise (excluding 1985-86 and 1994-95 when he only played 18 and 17 games respectively). So Jordan either made his teammates better or he didn’t and won regardless because he was such a dominant individual player. That’s remarkable if you think about it and speaks to Jordan’s greatness and GOAT case.