Where do you rank Lebron right now in the GOAT list?

[Coach PM]

Where do you rank Lebron right now? I'm talking about the GOAT list. Specify after what players

If he wins a chip this year, he’ll be top 5 in my book

[freethedevil]

Yes, guys like Lebron and to a lesser extent, Kareem and Wilt, would dominate in any era. But Jordan absolutely did not play in the "perfect era" for his talents. It's become such an overly mythologized notion at this point that Jordan "made the league more perimeter oriented"

So in otherwords, a player who derived much of his value from iso and man d got to play in an era where his matchups weren't nearly as good as other positional mathcups, and this somehow made the era...harder... for jordan?

:/

It was most definitely the perfect era for jordan. And that's before we get to expansion letting jordan compete for mvp's with 34 year olds.

Lebron won 4 mvp's in 5 years, Jordan won 3 in 6. It was jordan's era that allowed him to retroactively boost his peak(his only claim for goathood) by stat padding extra accolades in a watered down league and a co-star signed to a vet minimum.

[freethedevil]

I currently have him #1, though I'll still debate 1-3 with Duncan/Russell (Russell usually winds up #4 on my list, but he undeniably has an argument for #1).

Duncan over MJ?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

honestly, i think depending on how you weigh the playoffs, duncan could have a case for goat peak simply on the basis of his 01-03 stretcg

[JordansBulls]

Yes, guys like Lebron and to a lesser extent, Kareem and Wilt, would dominate in any era. But Jordan absolutely did not play in the "perfect era" for his talents. It's become such an overly mythologized notion at this point that Jordan "made the league more perimeter oriented"

So in otherwords, a player who derived much of his value from iso and man d got to play in an era where his matchups weren't nearly as good as other positional mathcups, and this somehow made the era...harder... for jordan?

:/

It was most definitely the perfect era for jordan. And that's before we get to expansion letting jordan compete for mvp's with 34 year olds.

Lebron won 4 mvp's in 5 years, Jordan won 3 in 6. It was jordan's era that allowed him to retroactively boost his peak(his only claim for goathood) by stat padding extra accolades in a watered down league and a co-star signed to a vet minimum.

He wasn't losing with HCA to Dwight Freaking Howard who was known as a career loser by most nor bringing home bronze medal to America in basketball.

[Ron Swanson]

Jesus, that is such cherry-picked nonsense. Jordan only has 3 "legitimate" MVP's while Lebron has 4 "legitimate" MVP's going up against such steep competition like Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose, and 30-34 year old Dirk and Kobe. The bizarro realities that some people like to live in.

[freethedevil]

Jordan only has 3 "legitimate" MVP's while Lebron has 4 "legitimate" MVP's going up against such steep competition like Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose, and 30-34 year old Dirk and Kobe. The bizarro realities that some people like to live in.

Huh? What are you on?

Dirk was 26-30 as an mvp candidate, right smack dam in the middle of what should be his prime. Kobe was one from 27-31, again right in the middle of his prime. Dwight challenged for an mvp at 25, Rose, 23, durant, 23-26, wade from 25-28, harden from 28-30, and curry from 25-27, and nash from 31-33.

With the exception of nash(who stopped being a serious candidate by the time james starting winning mvp's) All the players listed were either in the smack dab on their primes or a year or two away.

Now let's look at jordan's competition when he came back during an expansion thinned league for his 11th season:

1994-1995
-> robinson (29)
-> shaq(22)
-> malone (31)
-> ewing (32)
-> hakeem (32)
-> barkley (31)
-> pippen (29)
-> stockton (32)

There's two players who would be in their logical primes, a 22 year old, and a bunch of players who should be over the hill at this point. Defending this with "they're all time great's" is really just running away since we're not comparing players relative to era, we're comparing eras, so hanging your hat on how they excelled in their eras is rather pointless. Something that is consistent through basketball(and sports really),(with the notable exception of the exansion weakened league) and hence can actually be used in an era comparison is that players almost always peak physically from 24-28 with an overlap in experience allowing for that to extend to 30. The fact that only two players listed here fit that age range raises serious questions about the depth of talent here. Questions with an obvious explanation in the fact that the league expanded, something commentators of the time agreed had devastated the "overall quality of the nba" in the mid-90's:

Watch on YouTube

This is what the mvp race looked like in Lebron's 11th season:

-> Durant (25)
-> Lebron (29)
-> Griffin (24)
-> Noah (28)
-> Harden (24)
-> Curry (25)
-> Chris Paul (28)

Maybe you have acesss to a bizarro reality where you saw these players teleported to the 90's and they somehow proved to be less worthy competition, but until you do, there's no way to get around the fact that one set of players were predomiantly made up of guys in their 30's, and the other set of players was almost entirely made of players at their biological apex.

Expansion was real, ignoring it only works in made up alternate histories.

Post by Ron Swanson » Today 8:31 am

Jesus, that is such cherry-picked nonsense.

Speaking of cherrypicking, is there a reason you didn't respond to this:

So in otherwords, a player who derived much of his value from iso and man d got to play in an era where his matchups weren't nearly as good as other positional mathcups, and this somehow made the era...harder... for jordan?

Can you explain how the league being weak at jordan's position made jordan's era harder for jordan?

[Ron Swanson]

I guess guys like Grant Hill, Gary Payton, Penny Hardaway, and Alonzo Mourning don't make the "MVP candidates in their prime" list, but Joakim Noah does, huh?

Can you explain how the league being weak at jordan's position made jordan's era harder for jordan?

You've said this twice now and maybe you either quoted the wrong post or you need to, idk, learn how to read better? I refuted this myth that he played in the "perfect" era for his skill set when he entered a league that was dominated by big men both before and after he left.

The rules didn't make it harder for players to score anymore than the 1960s rules made it harder for Big O to score as efficiently as he did. But it certainly did perimeter players no favors, Jordan was simply that much better and more efficient than anyone else. He adapted to the rules like any other great player would/does. Honestly, it's not my fault if you think that basketball was just a one-on-one pickup game where Jordan was only scoring on guys like Bryon Russell and Craig Ehlo for 48 minutes.

[Hal14]

Jordan only has 3 "legitimate" MVP's while Lebron has 4 "legitimate" MVP's going up against such steep competition like Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose, and 30-34 year old Dirk and Kobe. The bizarro realities that some people like to live in.

Huh? What are you on?

Dirk was 26-30 as an mvp candidate, right smack dam in the middle of what should be his prime. Kobe was one from 27-31, again right in the middle of his prime. Dwight challenged for an mvp at 25, Rose, 23, durant, 23-26, wade from 25-28, harden from 28-30, and curry from 25-27, and nash from 31-33.

With the exception of nash(who stopped being a serious candidate by the time james starting winning mvp's) All the players listed were either in the smack dab on their primes or a year or two away.

Now let's look at jordan's competition when he came back during an expansion thinned league for his 11th season:

1994-1995
-> robinson (29)
-> shaq(22)
-> malone (31)
-> ewing (32)
-> hakeem (32)
-> barkley (31)
-> pippen (29)
-> stockton (32)

There's two players who would be in their logical primes, a 22 year old, and a bunch of players who should be over the hill at this point. Defending this with "they're all time great's" is really just running away since we're not comparing players relative to era, we're comparing eras, so hanging your hat on how they excelled in their eras is rather pointless. Something that is consistent through basketball(and sports really),(with the notable exception of the exansion weakened league) and hence can actually be used in an era comparison is that players almost always peak physically from 24-28 with an overlap in experience allowing for that to extend to 30. The fact that only two players listed here fit that age range raises serious questions about the depth of talent here. Questions with an obvious explanation in the fact that the league expanded, something commentators of the time agreed had devastated the "overall quality of the nba" in the mid-90's:

Watch on YouTube

This is what the mvp race looked like in Lebron's 11th season:

-> Durant (25)
-> Lebron (29)
-> Griffin (24)
-> Noah (28)
-> Harden (24)
-> Curry (25)
-> Chris Paul (28)

Maybe you have acesss to a bizarro reality where you saw these players teleported to the 90's and they somehow proved to be less worthy competition, but until you do, there's no way to get around the fact that one set of players were predomiantly made up of guys in their 30's, and the other set of players was almost entirely made of players at their biological apex.

Expansion was real, ignoring it only works in made up alternate histories.

Post by Ron Swanson » Today 8:31 am

Jesus, that is such cherry-picked nonsense.

Speaking of cherrypicking, is there a reason you didn't respond to this:

So in otherwords, a player who derived much of his value from iso and man d got to play in an era where his matchups weren't nearly as good as other positional mathcups, and this somehow made the era...harder... for jordan?

Can you explain how the league being weak at jordan's position made jordan's era harder for jordan?

lol love when people use "Jordan played in expansion era" yet even including the expansion teams, the league still had less teams than the 30 team league that LeBron's played his whole career in

[TurinTurambar]

Yes, guys like Lebron and to a lesser extent, Kareem and Wilt, would dominate in any era. But Jordan absolutely did not play in the "perfect era" for his talents. It's become such an overly mythologized notion at this point that Jordan "made the league more perimeter oriented"

So in otherwords, a player who derived much of his value from iso and man d got to play in an era where his matchups weren't nearly as good as other positional mathcups, and this somehow made the era...harder... for jordan?

:/

It was most definitely the perfect era for jordan. And that's before we get to expansion letting jordan compete for mvp's with 34 year olds.

Lebron won 4 mvp's in 5 years, Jordan won 3 in 6. It was jordan's era that allowed him to retroactively boost his peak(his only claim for goathood) by stat padding extra accolades in a watered down league and a co-star signed to a vet minimum.

The bolded is a particularly weird thing to say, considering that as I'm typing this, a 35 year old LeBron is a finalist for 2020 MVP, something that's being appropriately celebrated, I think.

Am I to believe that one day someone is going to be able to credibly pick at Giannis simply because he played in an era where 35 year olds were competing for MVP's?

I also have no idea how a player retroactively does anything with their career.

[trex_8063]

Jordan only has 3 "legitimate" MVP's while Lebron has 4 "legitimate" MVP's going up against such steep competition like Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose, and 30-34 year old Dirk and Kobe. The bizarro realities that some people like to live in.

Huh? What are you on?

Dirk was 26-30 as an mvp candidate, right smack dam in the middle of what should be his prime. Kobe was one from 27-31, again right in the middle of his prime. Dwight challenged for an mvp at 25, Rose, 23, durant, 23-26, wade from 25-28, harden from 28-30, and curry from 25-27, and nash from 31-33.

With the exception of nash(who stopped being a serious candidate by the time james starting winning mvp's) All the players listed were either in the smack dab on their primes or a year or two away.

Now let's look at jordan's competition when he came back during an expansion thinned league for his 11th season:

1994-1995
-> robinson (29)
-> shaq(22)
-> malone (31)
-> ewing (32)
-> hakeem (32)
-> barkley (31)
-> pippen (29)
-> stockton (32)

There's two players who would be in their logical primes, a 22 year old, and a bunch of players who should be over the hill at this point. Defending this with "they're all time great's" is really just running away since we're not comparing players relative to era, we're comparing eras, so hanging your hat on how they excelled in their eras is rather pointless. Something that is consistent through basketball(and sports really),(with the notable exception of the exansion weakened league) and hence can actually be used in an era comparison is that players almost always peak physically from 24-28 with an overlap in experience allowing for that to extend to 30. The fact that only two players listed here fit that age range raises serious questions about the depth of talent here. Questions with an obvious explanation in the fact that the league expanded, something commentators of the time agreed had devastated the "overall quality of the nba" in the mid-90's:

Watch on YouTube

This is what the mvp race looked like in Lebron's 11th season:

-> Durant (25)
-> Lebron (29)
-> Griffin (24)
-> Noah (28)
-> Harden (24)
-> Curry (25)
-> Chris Paul (28)

Maybe you have acesss to a bizarro reality where you saw these players teleported to the 90's and they somehow proved to be less worthy competition, but until you do, there's no way to get around the fact that one set of players were predomiantly made up of guys in their 30's, and the other set of players was almost entirely made of players at their biological apex.

Expansion was real, ignoring it only works in made up alternate histories.

Post by Ron Swanson » Today 8:31 am

Jesus, that is such cherry-picked nonsense.

Speaking of cherrypicking, is there a reason you didn't respond to this:

So in otherwords, a player who derived much of his value from iso and man d got to play in an era where his matchups weren't nearly as good as other positional mathcups, and this somehow made the era...harder... for jordan?

Can you explain how the league being weak at jordan's position made jordan's era harder for jordan?

lol love when people use "Jordan played in expansion era" yet even including the expansion teams, the league still had less teams than the 30 team league that LeBron's played his whole career in

The single-biggest driving factor influencing average player quality in the NBA is size of player pool.
Let's look at their respective rookie years ('85 and '04)......
The U.S. population increased from 240.5M in 1985 to 292.35M in 2004 (a 21.6% increase).
The world population increased from 4.86 billion in 1985 to 6.46 billion in 2004 (a 32.9% increase).
The NBA increased from 23 teams to 30 (a 30.4% increase).

If we look at their respective 5th seasons ('89 [because that's the first time it expanded in MJ's career] and '08).....
The U.S. population increased from 249.7M in 1989 to 303.5M in 2008 (a 21.5% increase).
The world population increased from 5.24 billion to 6.79 billion (a 29.6% increase).
The NBA increased in size by a somewhat smaller 20% (30 teams vs. 25 in '89 [and it would then expand by two more teams the following year]).

Let's look at that following year (Jordan's 6th in the NBA) vs. Lebron's 6th in the NBA.....
The U.S. population increased from just under 248.7M in 1990, to just under 305.5M in 2009 (an increase of 22.8%).
The world population increased from just under 5.33 billion in 1990, to just under 6.87 billion in 2009 (an increase of 28.9%).
Meanwhile, the size of the NBA was just 11.1% bigger (30 teams vs. 27).

And then 6 years later [after '90] it expanded AGAIN by another two teams (so we'll move 6 years along in Lebron's career too...):
The U.S. population increased from 268.3M in 1996 to 320M in 2015 (a 19.3% increase).
The world population increased from 5.825 billion in 1996 to 7.38 billion in 2015 (a 26.7% increase).
Meanwhile, the NBA got just 3.4% bigger (going from 29 teams to 30).


So with the exception of their first four seasons (where the growth in league size is relatively equitable to population growth, or maybe marginally "in favour of" Jordan [given the league wasn't terrible international yet]), the rest of their respective careers the U.S. and global population dynamics would suggest it's a tougher crowd during Lebron's career.

And this is ALL assuming the the proportion of the population playing basketball seriously and/or pursuing it as a career has remained the same over these few decades.......which it very obviously hasn't.
The very cultural phenomenon that Jordan was saw to that: he was the primary driving factor in propelling basketball to a level of global popularity that is far and away above what it was 30-35 years ago.


The player pool the NBA is now selecting from is probably [quite literally] about TWICE the size it was during Jordan's career (while the actual league size has only increased by 3.4 to 30.4%).

[Owly]

Jordan only has 3 "legitimate" MVP's while Lebron has 4 "legitimate" MVP's going up against such steep competition like Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose, and 30-34 year old Dirk and Kobe. The bizarro realities that some people like to live in.

Huh? What are you on?

Dirk was 26-30 as an mvp candidate, right smack dam in the middle of what should be his prime. Kobe was one from 27-31, again right in the middle of his prime. Dwight challenged for an mvp at 25, Rose, 23, durant, 23-26, wade from 25-28, harden from 28-30, and curry from 25-27, and nash from 31-33.

With the exception of nash(who stopped being a serious candidate by the time james starting winning mvp's) All the players listed were either in the smack dab on their primes or a year or two away.

Now let's look at jordan's competition when he came back during an expansion thinned league for his 11th season:

1994-1995
-> robinson (29)
-> shaq(22)
-> malone (31)
-> ewing (32)
-> hakeem (32)
-> barkley (31)
-> pippen (29)
-> stockton (32)

There's two players who would be in their logical primes, a 22 year old, and a bunch of players who should be over the hill at this point. Defending this with "they're all time great's" is really just running away since we're not comparing players relative to era, we're comparing eras, so hanging your hat on how they excelled in their eras is rather pointless. Something that is consistent through basketball(and sports really),(with the notable exception of the exansion weakened league) and hence can actually be used in an era comparison is that players almost always peak physically from 24-28 with an overlap in experience allowing for that to extend to 30. The fact that only two players listed here fit that age range raises serious questions about the depth of talent here. Questions with an obvious explanation in the fact that the league expanded, something commentators of the time agreed had devastated the "overall quality of the nba" in the mid-90's:

Watch on YouTube

This is what the mvp race looked like in Lebron's 11th season:

-> Durant (25)
-> Lebron (29)
-> Griffin (24)
-> Noah (28)
-> Harden (24)
-> Curry (25)
-> Chris Paul (28)

Maybe you have acesss to a bizarro reality where you saw these players teleported to the 90's and they somehow proved to be less worthy competition, but until you do, there's no way to get around the fact that one set of players were predomiantly made up of guys in their 30's, and the other set of players was almost entirely made of players at their biological apex.

Expansion was real, ignoring it only works in made up alternate histories.

Post by Ron Swanson » Today 8:31 am

Jesus, that is such cherry-picked nonsense.

Speaking of cherrypicking, is there a reason you didn't respond to this:

So in otherwords, a player who derived much of his value from iso and man d got to play in an era where his matchups weren't nearly as good as other positional mathcups, and this somehow made the era...harder... for jordan?

Can you explain how the league being weak at jordan's position made jordan's era harder for jordan?

lol love when people use "Jordan played in expansion era" yet even including the expansion teams, the league still had less teams than the 30 team league that LeBron's played his whole career in

Trex has covered the broader point in the previous post (250) and it's tangential to the broader point but (and given you only did a one line response it becomes more pertinent)...

You're wrong (and Trex threw off [a little bit of] his math accepting your inaccuracy at face value).

LeBron played in a 29 team league in his first year (03-04). The Bobcats came in his second year.
Rookie

[Hal14]

Huh? What are you on?

Dirk was 26-30 as an mvp candidate, right smack dam in the middle of what should be his prime. Kobe was one from 27-31, again right in the middle of his prime. Dwight challenged for an mvp at 25, Rose, 23, durant, 23-26, wade from 25-28, harden from 28-30, and curry from 25-27, and nash from 31-33.

With the exception of nash(who stopped being a serious candidate by the time james starting winning mvp's) All the players listed were either in the smack dab on their primes or a year or two away.

Now let's look at jordan's competition when he came back during an expansion thinned league for his 11th season:

1994-1995
-> robinson (29)
-> shaq(22)
-> malone (31)
-> ewing (32)
-> hakeem (32)
-> barkley (31)
-> pippen (29)
-> stockton (32)

There's two players who would be in their logical primes, a 22 year old, and a bunch of players who should be over the hill at this point. Defending this with "they're all time great's" is really just running away since we're not comparing players relative to era, we're comparing eras, so hanging your hat on how they excelled in their eras is rather pointless. Something that is consistent through basketball(and sports really),(with the notable exception of the exansion weakened league) and hence can actually be used in an era comparison is that players almost always peak physically from 24-28 with an overlap in experience allowing for that to extend to 30. The fact that only two players listed here fit that age range raises serious questions about the depth of talent here. Questions with an obvious explanation in the fact that the league expanded, something commentators of the time agreed had devastated the "overall quality of the nba" in the mid-90's:

Watch on YouTube

This is what the mvp race looked like in Lebron's 11th season:

-> Durant (25)
-> Lebron (29)
-> Griffin (24)
-> Noah (28)
-> Harden (24)
-> Curry (25)
-> Chris Paul (28)

Maybe you have acesss to a bizarro reality where you saw these players teleported to the 90's and they somehow proved to be less worthy competition, but until you do, there's no way to get around the fact that one set of players were predomiantly made up of guys in their 30's, and the other set of players was almost entirely made of players at their biological apex.

Expansion was real, ignoring it only works in made up alternate histories.



Speaking of cherrypicking, is there a reason you didn't respond to this:

Can you explain how the league being weak at jordan's position made jordan's era harder for jordan?

lol love when people use "Jordan played in expansion era" yet even including the expansion teams, the league still had less teams than the 30 team league that LeBron's played his whole career in

The single-biggest driving factor influencing average player quality in the NBA is size of player pool.
Let's look at their respective rookie years ('85 and '04)......
The U.S. population increased from 240.5M in 1985 to 292.35M in 2004 (a 21.6% increase).
The world population increased from 4.86 billion in 1985 to 6.46 billion in 2004 (a 32.9% increase).
The NBA increased from 23 teams to 30 (a 30.4% increase).

If we look at their respective 5th seasons ('89 [because that's the first time it expanded in MJ's career] and '08).....
The U.S. population increased from 249.7M in 1989 to 303.5M in 2008 (a 21.5% increase).
The world population increased from 5.24 billion to 6.79 billion (a 29.6% increase).
The NBA increased in size by a somewhat smaller 20% (30 teams vs. 25 in '89 [and it would then expand by two more teams the following year]).

Let's look at that following year (Jordan's 6th in the NBA) vs. Lebron's 6th in the NBA.....
The U.S. population increased from just under 248.7M in 1990, to just under 305.5M in 2009 (an increase of 22.8%).
The world population increased from just under 5.33 billion in 1990, to just under 6.87 billion in 2009 (an increase of 28.9%).
Meanwhile, the size of the NBA was just 11.1% bigger (30 teams vs. 27).

And then 6 years later [after '90] it expanded AGAIN by another two teams (so we'll move 6 years along in Lebron's career too...):
The U.S. population increased from 268.3M in 1996 to 320M in 2015 (a 19.3% increase).
The world population increased from 5.825 billion in 1996 to 7.38 billion in 2015 (a 26.7% increase).
Meanwhile, the NBA got just 3.4% bigger (going from 29 teams to 30).


So with the exception of their first four seasons (where the growth in league size is relatively equitable to population growth, or maybe marginally "in favour of" Jordan [given the league wasn't terrible international yet]), the rest of their respective careers the U.S. and global population dynamics would suggest it's a tougher crowd during Lebron's career.

And this is ALL assuming the the proportion of the population playing basketball seriously and/or pursuing it as a career has remained the same over these few decades.......which it very obviously hasn't.
The very cultural phenomenon that Jordan was saw to that: he was the primary driving factor in propelling basketball to a level of global popularity that is far and away above what it was 30-35 years ago.


The player pool the NBA is now selecting from is probably [quite literally] about TWICE the size it was during Jordan's career (while the actual league size has only increased by 3.4 to 30.4%).

More people in the U.S. does NOT mean more high quality basketball players.

Based on your logic, every single profession in existence.....there are more high quality people at each profession...simply because an increase in the population.

Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that player quality in the MLB in the last 10 years is the highest it's ever been. After all, higher population, better player quality.

Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that player quality in the NFL in the last 10 years is the highest it's ever been. After all, higher population, better player quality.

Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that the movie industry in the last 10 years is the best it's ever been. After all, higher population, more of a pool of actors and directors to choose from, so the movies must be better, right?

Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that the print media industry in the last 10 years is the best it's ever been. After all, higher population, means more potential news reporters, means better print media, right?

Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that music industry in the last 10 years is the best it's ever been. After all, higher population, means more potential music artists, so it must be better today, right?

Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that coaching in the NBA is the best it's ever been. After all, higher population, that must mean a greater pool of NBA head coaches to choose from, which must mean the coaching is better.

Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that officiating in the NBA in the last 10 years is the highest it's ever been. After all, higher population, means greater pool of refs to choose from, so surely that means we're witnessing the best refs of all time right here.

Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that the restaurant industry in the last 10 years is the best it's ever been. After all, higher population, means more people are cooking food and opening restaurants, so that must mean the food/restaurants are better than ever.

It doesn't work that way!

Just because more people are doing something does not mean they are doing it better. In the 2000s we saw the amount of AAU basketball teams explode. Did this mean the players were better? Nope. Instead of AAU being for a select few, the best of the best...the best playing against the best, and therefore raising the bar...you had 1 top team full of top talent from a particular city or region and that was it.

But in the 2000s it blew up, now every kid in the US who could put a pair of sneakers on was playing for an AAU team. This watered down the talent in a huge way. Instead of every AAU game being a battle against top notch talent, it became a situation where 90% of AAU games were a joke. Not only that, but the more AAU teams that were created, all of these teams needed games to play. Teams were playing 3 to 6 games every weekend...how many practices? 1 or 2 per week, if that. There was a huge increase in AAU teams but not an increase of qualified coaches to coach these teams. Players weren't getting better. It used to be that top players would spend their summers in the gym, working on their games, practicing, working on the fundamentals, doing skill work, hitting the weight room, playing a smaller number of games and when they did play games it was always against top notch competition. Hitting the weight room. In the 2000s? They spend their summers playing in games, way too many games, many of which are against mediocre competition with AAU programs and basketball facilities making a bunch of $ while some short fat 11 year old shoots it from half court.

I know, I used to run one of those basketball facilities n the 2000s, which was the home to an AAU program, where 50+ teams would play during the course of a weekend and showcase zero fundamentals.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Not to mention that yes, greater population in the 2000s, more people playing basketball but not playing the right way. Just look at the And-1 mix tape tour. All of those guys were playing the wrong way. Instead of working on their bounce passes, they worked on bouncing the ball off the defenders forehead. Instead of working on their mid range pull-up jumper, they pull up from half court and throw an alley oop pass off the ceiling.

More people in the world in the 2000s, but look at the rise of tech. Many people in the 2000s aren't trying to go pro in basketball...they're more realistic, knowing that the odds of them making it to the NBA are so slim that they mine as well hit the books and become the founder of a tech company instead...or just a marketing director at a tech company, or just the manager of a supermarket. Bottom line, even though there's more people in the US over the past 10 years, that doesn't mean more quality basketball players. The amount of new jobs for people to earn a living doing something other than playing in the NBA has grown tremendously in the past 15 years.

Not to mention that in the 2000s you also had the rise of the X games, and many other sports other than basketball which have grown tremendously in popularity. Lacrosse especially has blown up in the US, and more athletes in the 2000s have chosen to do things like snowboarding, skateboarding, surfing, body building, etc. There's way more options for sports in the 2000s outside of just basketball...and there's also way more options for a career in general in the 2000s besides playing pro sports.

Not to mention that in 2000s you also had the rise of video games, the internet, smart phones, tablets, devices, social media. All of these digital things, so many things for a person to do and be consumed with. We're seeing a generation of kids who would rather watch Netflix, Snapchat, tweet or instagram instead of putting an an extra hour of work in the gym getting shots up. When back in the day, there was nothing else for a kid to do besides go outside, shoot hoops and try to find a pickup game.

[Hal14]

Huh? What are you on?

Dirk was 26-30 as an mvp candidate, right smack dam in the middle of what should be his prime. Kobe was one from 27-31, again right in the middle of his prime. Dwight challenged for an mvp at 25, Rose, 23, durant, 23-26, wade from 25-28, harden from 28-30, and curry from 25-27, and nash from 31-33.

With the exception of nash(who stopped being a serious candidate by the time james starting winning mvp's) All the players listed were either in the smack dab on their primes or a year or two away.

Now let's look at jordan's competition when he came back during an expansion thinned league for his 11th season:

1994-1995
-> robinson (29)
-> shaq(22)
-> malone (31)
-> ewing (32)
-> hakeem (32)
-> barkley (31)
-> pippen (29)
-> stockton (32)

There's two players who would be in their logical primes, a 22 year old, and a bunch of players who should be over the hill at this point. Defending this with "they're all time great's" is really just running away since we're not comparing players relative to era, we're comparing eras, so hanging your hat on how they excelled in their eras is rather pointless. Something that is consistent through basketball(and sports really),(with the notable exception of the exansion weakened league) and hence can actually be used in an era comparison is that players almost always peak physically from 24-28 with an overlap in experience allowing for that to extend to 30. The fact that only two players listed here fit that age range raises serious questions about the depth of talent here. Questions with an obvious explanation in the fact that the league expanded, something commentators of the time agreed had devastated the "overall quality of the nba" in the mid-90's:

Watch on YouTube

This is what the mvp race looked like in Lebron's 11th season:

-> Durant (25)
-> Lebron (29)
-> Griffin (24)
-> Noah (28)
-> Harden (24)
-> Curry (25)
-> Chris Paul (28)

Maybe you have acesss to a bizarro reality where you saw these players teleported to the 90's and they somehow proved to be less worthy competition, but until you do, there's no way to get around the fact that one set of players were predomiantly made up of guys in their 30's, and the other set of players was almost entirely made of players at their biological apex.

Expansion was real, ignoring it only works in made up alternate histories.



Speaking of cherrypicking, is there a reason you didn't respond to this:

Can you explain how the league being weak at jordan's position made jordan's era harder for jordan?

lol love when people use "Jordan played in expansion era" yet even including the expansion teams, the league still had less teams than the 30 team league that LeBron's played his whole career in

Trex has covered the broader point in the previous post (250) and it's tangential to the broader point but (and given you only did a one line response it becomes more pertinent)...

You're wrong (and Trex threw off [a little bit of] his math accepting your inaccuracy at face value).

LeBron played in a 29 team league in his first year (03-04). The Bobcats came in his second year.
Rookie

ooooohh, no way, LeBron played a whopping 1 whole season in a 29 team league. Wow, you really showed me! lol That tiny detail is really going to move the needle...

[TheGOATRises007]

freethedevil is a pretty good poster until it comes to MJ.

You can't reason with him.

Yes people go overboard in their praise for MJ, but he also goes overboard with distorted realities pertaining to MJ.

[Owly]

lol love when people use "Jordan played in expansion era" yet even including the expansion teams, the league still had less teams than the 30 team league that LeBron's played his whole career in

Trex has covered the broader point in the previous post (250) and it's tangential to the broader point but (and given you only did a one line response it becomes more pertinent)...

You're wrong (and Trex threw off [a little bit of] his math accepting your inaccuracy at face value).

LeBron played in a 29 team league in his first year (03-04). The Bobcats came in his second year.
Rookie

ooooohh, no way, LeBron played a whopping 1 whole season in a 29 team league. Wow, you really showed me! lol That tiny detail is really going to move the needle...

1) My purpose in posting here isn't to "really show" you.
2) As you'd note if you read the post, I note that it's tangential to the broader point.
3) As you should also note reading the post there is an implication that getting one sentence wrong in a one sentence post is .... well unfortunate and reflects rather more poorly on the poster than if done in longer more complex, more thoughtful response.


But give some of he reasoning and analogies you are willing to offer ...

Based on your logic, let's just make a blanket statement and say that the print media industry in the last 10 years is the best it's ever been. After all, higher population, means more potential news reporters, means better print media, right?

... I see no reason to engage with you further.

[Dutchball97]

In which realisty are 31 and 32 year olds considered over the hill in basketball? That's either late prime or the start of the decline. When you look at the guys listed this just has to be trolling.

32 year old John Stockton was firmly in his prime and would go on to play at a high level till he was 40. Not over the hill in the slightest. 32 year old Hakeem had won the MVP award the year before and won Finals MVP both years. If that counts as over the hill I don't know what LeBron is supposed to be right now at 35. 31 year old Karl Malone would go on to win 2 MVPs in the next 5 years and made his last All-Star appearance at 38 years old, while still averaging 22/9/4/2/1 with solid defense on top of that. 31 year old Barkley was still producing at nearly the same level as he did 2 years prior when he won MVP. 32 year old Patrick Ewing was also still in his prime and would continue to be as good for a few more years.

Writing off All-Time greats in their early 30s is a dumb thing to do. It's like saying Curry, KD, Harden, Westbrook and Butler to name a few would all be obsolete next season.

[nurseryc]

Where do you rank Lebron right now? I'm talking about the GOAT list. Specify after what players

If he wins a chip this year, he’ll be top 5 in my book

Hard to argue with this.

[RCM88x]

In which realisty are 31 and 32 year olds considered over the hill in basketball? That's either late prime or the start of the decline. When you look at the guys listed this just has to be trolling.

32 year old John Stockton was firmly in his prime and would go on to play at a high level till he was 40. Not over the hill in the slightest. 32 year old Hakeem had won the MVP award the year before and won Finals MVP both years. If that counts as over the hill I don't know what LeBron is supposed to be right now at 35. 31 year old Karl Malone would go on to win 2 MVPs in the next 5 years and made his last All-Star appearance at 38 years old, while still averaging 22/9/4/2/1 with solid defense on top of that. 31 year old Barkley was still producing at nearly the same level as he did 2 years prior when he won MVP. 32 year old Patrick Ewing was also still in his prime and would continue to be as good for a few more years.

Writing off All-Time greats in their early 30s is a dumb thing to do. It's like saying Curry, KD, Harden, Westbrook and Butler to name a few would all be obsolete next season.

Well "over the hill" literally means late prime or declining, so you answered your own question here.

I think the argument is that late 80-90s stars all showed a particularly high level of "longevity" and play into their 30s relative to other eras, perhaps because of their era and the talent cycle of the league in the mid-late 90s.

The late 90s especially was a league dominated by old players. Is it just that these guys were special and would have done so no matter when they came up, or was it that the league in the late 90s was devoid of young talent which allowed these guys to remain at the top for longer.

That is the argument trying to be made here, which I think is fair. It really wasn't until the class of 96' came of age that the old guard was fully phased out, and by that point most of them were 35+.

Ironically of the guys you mentioned, basically all of them are on the back end of their prime, especially KD, Westbrook and Curry. Except for Harden, its quite unlikely any of those guys will contend for MVPs again. Maybe they will next season ('21) but I find it highly unlikely any will finish top 3 or even top 5.

IMO, the league was really weak from '96 till about '00. Expansion, lack of young MVP talent to push the old guard out, style of play, all sorta contributed to this. It's not a knock on any of the top players of that era, its just how the league was imo.

[Dutchball97]

In which realisty are 31 and 32 year olds considered over the hill in basketball? That's either late prime or the start of the decline. When you look at the guys listed this just has to be trolling.

32 year old John Stockton was firmly in his prime and would go on to play at a high level till he was 40. Not over the hill in the slightest. 32 year old Hakeem had won the MVP award the year before and won Finals MVP both years. If that counts as over the hill I don't know what LeBron is supposed to be right now at 35. 31 year old Karl Malone would go on to win 2 MVPs in the next 5 years and made his last All-Star appearance at 38 years old, while still averaging 22/9/4/2/1 with solid defense on top of that. 31 year old Barkley was still producing at nearly the same level as he did 2 years prior when he won MVP. 32 year old Patrick Ewing was also still in his prime and would continue to be as good for a few more years.

Writing off All-Time greats in their early 30s is a dumb thing to do. It's like saying Curry, KD, Harden, Westbrook and Butler to name a few would all be obsolete next season.

Well "over the hill" literally means late prime or declining, so you answered your own question here.

I think the argument is that late 80-90s stars all showed a particularly high level of "longevity" and play into their 30s relative to other eras, perhaps because of their era and the talent cycle of the league in the mid-late 90s.

The late 90s especially was a league dominated by old players. Is it just that these guys were special and would have done so no matter when they came up, or was it that the league in the late 90s was devoid of young talent which allowed these guys to remain at the top for longer.

That is the argument trying to be made here, which I think is fair. It really wasn't until the class of 96' came of age that the old guard was fully phased out, and by that point most of them were 35+.

Ironically of the guys you mentioned, basically all of them are on the back end of their prime, especially KD, Westbrook and Curry. Except for Harden, its quite unlikely any of those guys will contend for MVPs again. Maybe they will next season ('21) but I find it highly unlikely any will finish top 3 or even top 5.

IMO, the league was really weak from '96 till about '00. Expansion, lack of young MVP talent to push the old guard out, style of play, all sorta contributed to this. It's not a knock on any of the top players of that era, its just how the league was imo.

It sounds like such a weird argument. Like the only reason why these guys kept playing at a high level for so long was because there wasn't enough young talent. Then is the current league **** because a 35 year old LeBron is in the MVP convo? Because 34 year old CP3 made the All-NBA team? No, they're still good enough at their age and it doesn't mean the likes of Giannis, Kawhi, Jokic and AD are simply not good enough to push the old guard out.

When you have to reach this much to make an argument for LeBron, that's a pretty good argument for LeBron not being the GOAT.

[Joao Saraiva]

Actually Stockton 95 might be considered prime but he was already decreasing his production.

By 98 he was definitely playing less minutes and had much less of a motor.

Yes he played until he was 40. You can't make a comparison between late 80s early 90s Stockton and Stockton at 35 or 36. He was still good, but no way he was at the same level.

Even Karl Malone who sustained superstar level started for longer experienced some decrease after 98... even tough he was still awesome by then.