RealGM 2025 Greatest Peaks Project #1 — 2013 LeBron James

[KembaWalker]

Stuff like this is why LeBrons legacy is already slipping in the NBA world as a still active player, which is actually kind of impressive in itself. It’s too forced

[jalengreen]

Stuff like this is why LeBrons legacy is already slipping in the NBA world as a still active player, which is actually kind of impressive in itself. It’s too forced

So while our (anonymous) NBA player poll was released Monday, with a record 142 players weighing in on some of the most interesting questions surrounding their league, we decided to dive even deeper into the age-old GOAT discussion because there’s a fascinating voting trend that simply must be explored.

While Michael Jordan won the “Greatest of All Time” category for the third consecutive time, his once-massive lead over LeBron James has shrunk significantly with every passing poll. This time around, James almost took the mantle. The data speaks loud and clear…

- 2019 (the first time The Athletic conducted the poll): Jordan earned 73 percent of the votes, with James second at 11.9 percent (a gap of 61.1 percentage points)
- 2023: Jordan earned 58.3 percent of the votes, with James second at 33 percent (a gap of 25.3 percent)
- 2024: Jordan earned 45.9 percent of the votes, with James second at 42.1 percent (a gap of just 3.8 percent)

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5432961/2024/04/23/lebron-james-goat-michael-jordan-nba-player-poll/

Idk bout that

[Djoker]

It's not just about how exciting it is. If you go back and watch the 1986 Celtics defense on Jordan, anybody with an eye for the sport would conclude that the quality of play on the defensive end is below what we see today. It was bad. It has nothing to do with ball handling rules (actually, it kinda does, but not in the direction that would help your argument).

But yes, I do think "younger fans don't subscribe to era relativism" is the better case for you to make compared to "younger fans don't watch the games." Watching the games isn't the problem, the problem is not subscribing to the same criteria as you.

I'm a little skeptical of how many people are actually 100% era relativists tbh. Discounting Mikan due to era is the norm, is it not? I would argue that a true 100% era relativist approach would defeat the purpose of the title "greatest of all time" because the best player in the older, weaker eras would in many cases be impossible to top.

"Younger fans don't watch the games" is still a valid argument to make. Most fans not just younger ones simply don't watch older games. Case in point, I have a family friend who is 26 yo. Huge Lebron fan. I asked him if he ever watched a MJ game start to finish. He admitted he never did. He saw highlights. And many who watch may watch a game or two. They don't know much about that era, the rules, the tactics etc. It's not even about being an era relativist. It's about understanding what one's watching. A general pattern that I noticed is people who have done real research about all eras and watched as much footage as possible are the ones who are generally very open-minded. Case in point, Ben Taylor, 70'sFan and just about anyone who is a real student of the game. They have their opinions but never stick to their guns that strongly. The old adage. The more you know, the more you know how much you don't know.

You're right about Mikan. But honestly Mikan-era basketball is tough to even compare. It was a completely different sport pre-shot clock. And the NBA not being integrated really hurt the talent in the league. I think if prime Mikan was playing just 10 years later against Russell and Wilt, he would get completely overmatched. I think the circumstances of Mikan's dominance are really unique and different than anyone else in the sport. So yes in his case I'm not an era relativist.

[jalengreen]

Bottom line is that I'm a 100% era-relativist. The first reason for that is that without era-relativism, rankings are based on hypotheticals. You may think Jordan in 2025 would be worse than Shai or even Kawhi. I may think he would average 45/8/8. Bottom line is we don't know. We are both guessing. I don't like to make lists based on guessing and when you say modern players are better than X from a past era, you think they are but there is absolutely zero evidence for it or against it and there never will be.

I think if prime Mikan was playing just 10 years later against Russell and Wilt, he would get completely overmatched.

[Djoker]

Bottom line is that I'm a 100% era-relativist. The first reason for that is that without era-relativism, rankings are based on hypotheticals. You may think Jordan in 2025 would be worse than Shai or even Kawhi. I may think he would average 45/8/8. Bottom line is we don't know. We are both guessing. I don't like to make lists based on guessing and when you say modern players are better than X from a past era, you think they are but there is absolutely zero evidence for it or against it and there never will be.

I think if prime Mikan was playing just 10 years later against Russell and Wilt, he would get completely overmatched.

I know. I am aware. That's why I said my era relativism doesn't extend to Mikan.

[KembaWalker]

Stuff like this is why LeBrons legacy is already slipping in the NBA world as a still active player, which is actually kind of impressive in itself. It’s too forced

So while our (anonymous) NBA player poll was released Monday, with a record 142 players weighing in on some of the most interesting questions surrounding their league, we decided to dive even deeper into the age-old GOAT discussion because there’s a fascinating voting trend that simply must be explored.

While Michael Jordan won the “Greatest of All Time” category for the third consecutive time, his once-massive lead over LeBron James has shrunk significantly with every passing poll. This time around, James almost took the mantle. The data speaks loud and clear…

- 2019 (the first time The Athletic conducted the poll): Jordan earned 73 percent of the votes, with James second at 11.9 percent (a gap of 61.1 percentage points)
- 2023: Jordan earned 58.3 percent of the votes, with James second at 33 percent (a gap of 25.3 percent)
- 2024: Jordan earned 45.9 percent of the votes, with James second at 42.1 percent (a gap of just 3.8 percent)

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5432961/2024/04/23/lebron-james-goat-michael-jordan-nba-player-poll/

Idk bout that

Active players are not who I’m talking about, they know the least of all lmao

[jalengreen]

Stuff like this is why LeBrons legacy is already slipping in the NBA world as a still active player, which is actually kind of impressive in itself. It’s too forced

So while our (anonymous) NBA player poll was released Monday, with a record 142 players weighing in on some of the most interesting questions surrounding their league, we decided to dive even deeper into the age-old GOAT discussion because there’s a fascinating voting trend that simply must be explored.

While Michael Jordan won the “Greatest of All Time” category for the third consecutive time, his once-massive lead over LeBron James has shrunk significantly with every passing poll. This time around, James almost took the mantle. The data speaks loud and clear…

- 2019 (the first time The Athletic conducted the poll): Jordan earned 73 percent of the votes, with James second at 11.9 percent (a gap of 61.1 percentage points)
- 2023: Jordan earned 58.3 percent of the votes, with James second at 33 percent (a gap of 25.3 percent)
- 2024: Jordan earned 45.9 percent of the votes, with James second at 42.1 percent (a gap of just 3.8 percent)

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5432961/2024/04/23/lebron-james-goat-michael-jordan-nba-player-poll/

Idk bout that

Active players are not who I’m talking about, they know the least of all lmao

Ah, "the NBA world" doesn't include the actual NBA. Fair

[f4p]

Pro Jordan arguments have always came from a place of ignorance.

Ahh yes, I guess Doctor MJ and his encyclopedic knowledge of NBA and basketball history and Ben Taylor and his massive study of film are simply too ignorant and mushy-brained to have tracked and realized the value of all the DOTs and EDOTs and EPCOTs necessary to have realized just how terrible MJ is.

[Special_Puppy]

Yea this video is pretty well known around here. A decent chunk of Ben's subscribers are Lebron fans (I'm on their Discord so I know) and Ben definitely had to be careful to be very diplomatic in his approach. Backing Jordan or Lebron publicly is like endorsing a political candidate these days. People who support the same guy will love you but the other side will hate you. And polarizing isn't what Ben wants to be. It's not his style as a basketball researcher and he tries to look as objective as positive. Ben had three peak impact metrics which are AuPM, BPM and PIPM and Jordan led in all three of them as well as the basic box score.

Since that video, there's been a lot of numbers released for prime Jordan courtesy of Thinking Basketball, Squared2020 and even my own tracking. The evidence for Jordan has grown stronger if anything. But of course, 3 years have gone by and the basketball watching population has increasingly never seen MJ play and people naturally prefer those they've seen over those that haven't.

This is really weird to say when all the eyetest stuff is coming from Lebron guys and you guys are just throwing out stat whatevers no one really cares about

Pro Jordan arguments have always came from a place of ignorance. Now that people are tracking games properly, not ignoring entire seasons worth of data, and attempting actual contextual analysis as opposed to making up gibberish in the hope no one fact-checks, there are really two ways things will go:

Either laziness and/or inertia takes hold and the fake "knowledge" will be enough to keep most doing hagiography.

I don’t understand this. The tracking data we have gotten supports largely supports the idea that Jordan has the GOAT peak (although he is not unassailable). The tracking “studies” that I see you citing are pretty obvious nonsense that are as credible as an all in one stat saying that Jalen Green was better than SGA last season. The tracking studies you cite are simply not compatible with reality.
viewtopic.php?t=2314587

[OhayoKD]

Pro Jordan arguments have always came from a place of ignorance.

Ahh yes, I guess Doctor MJ and his encyclopedic knowledge of NBA

I specifically didn't mention Doctor MJ. The one and only one Jordan voter whose rationale wasn't either immense cherry-picking or basically admitting he's worse. I did mention you Mr. "see Lebron played two tiers according to the madeup bull i'm always worshipping, but hypothetically he might not".

Ben Taylor and his massive study of film

*Massive study of film where he posts isolated clips of players doing things, claims they happened with a vague level of frequency, and offers no avenue of peer-review.

Of course, since you really value Ben's film-tracking, I would love to hear which of the things he's tracked is informing your view on Jordan. His "good passes per 100", "error rate", and "blowbys per 100"?

I mean setting aside these are all just less inclusive, unweighted, and less detailed versions of what primarily highschoolers and college students have been setting up as a hobby over the last year, let's hear how this "massive study of film" informed your or his opinion of Jordan beyond gesturing to paint-protection we now know he doesn't offer, and off-ball creation half a dozen different people have confirmed (using actual time-stamps with tracking that offers specific definition and edge cases) wasn't a thing when he played.

Actually I'm going to guess you aren't even aware of any thing he's actually looked at, never mind having an opinion on it's merits or demerits. You just know Ben Taylor is a figure of authority whose popular (or at least used to be) among this board and figured saying his name might bail the Jordan squad out of the pickle they've gotten themselves into: arguing ignorance is why Jordan is falling when those arguing for Jordan are clearly the more ignorant ones. Present company included.

[therealbig3]

I mean Ben picking Jordan over LeBron is his personal preference also btw, and just an informed opinion at the end of the day. He also pretty clearly mentions he could easily have switched them and had LeBron #1 as well.

So, citing Ben’s work isn’t really a slam dunk argument in favor of Jordan the way it’s being portrayed, since he basically all but said he has them basically at the same level and picked Jordan partly because he had to pick one of them as #1.

[OhayoKD]

This is really weird to say when all the eyetest stuff is coming from Lebron guys and you guys are just throwing out stat whatevers no one really cares about

Pro Jordan arguments have always came from a place of ignorance. Now that people are tracking games properly, not ignoring entire seasons worth of data, and attempting actual contextual analysis as opposed to making up gibberish in the hope no one fact-checks, there are really two ways things will go:

Either laziness and/or inertia takes hold and the fake "knowledge" will be enough to keep most doing hagiography.

I don’t understand this. The tracking data we have gotten supports largely supports the idea that Jordan has the GOAT peak (although he is not unassailable). The tracking “studies” that I see you citing are pretty obvious nonsense that are as credible as an all in one stat saying that Jalen Green was better than SGA last season. The tracking studies you cite are simply not compatible with reality.
viewtopic.php?t=2314587

Reality, you say? I think we need a reminder:

lebron 09-21
656-263 with lebron 0.714% win rate
37-73 without lebron 0.336% win rate
net rating with lebron +6.49 (59 win pace level)
net rating without lebron -5.50 (25 win pace level)
+8.6 ortg difference
-3.68 drtg difference
+12 total swing

jordan 88-98
bulls with MJ 490-176 (73.6% win rate)
bulls without MJ 90-64 (58.4% win rate)
net rating with MJ +7.7 (62 win pace level)
net rating without MJ +3.6 (52 win pace level)
+5.1 ortg difference
+1.1 drtg difference
+4 total swing

Reality doesn't agree with you. So much so that even after throwing in games Lebron wasn't playing as with, and throwing in Jordan seasons he did play in as without, djoker still couldn't get "looks worse than Magic" over "looks like an outlier over everyone".

[OhayoKD]

I mean Ben picking Jordan over LeBron is his personal preference also btw, and just an informed opinion at the end of the day. He also pretty clearly mentions he could easily have switched them and had LeBron #1 as well.

So, citing Ben’s work isn’t really a slam dunk argument in favor of Jordan the way it’s being portrayed, since he basically all but said he has them basically at the same level and picked Jordan partly because he had to pick one of them as #1.

Actually, he very specifically argued that Lebron exerted more value at his peak but for theoretical reasons he thinks Jordan might be better. But knowing that would require actually having engaged with Ben Taylor's evidence and reasoning. And certainly his tracking didn't do Jordan any favors. (not to be confused when the pretty box-metrics he made)

[70sFan]

If people really believed in era relativism, Mikan wouldn't have zero votes right now.

May I know why people keep repeating that? Is there any era-relativistic argument that puts Mikan above the other top candidates? I don't deny that Mikan has one of the best peaks ever, but what makes all these era-relativism critics so certain that Mikan should already gain the attention in the first thread? What makes him a better candidate than Russell, James or Jordan? Care to elaborate?

[70sFan]

Bottom line is that I'm a 100% era-relativist. The first reason for that is that without era-relativism, rankings are based on hypotheticals. You may think Jordan in 2025 would be worse than Shai or even Kawhi. I may think he would average 45/8/8. Bottom line is we don't know. We are both guessing. I don't like to make lists based on guessing and when you say modern players are better than X from a past era, you think they are but there is absolutely zero evidence for it or against it and there never will be.

I think if prime Mikan was playing just 10 years later against Russell and Wilt, he would get completely overmatched.

I know. I am aware. That's why I said my era relativism doesn't extend to Mikan.

It should, Mikan would be fine in the 1960s. He was a very talented player.

[Verticality]

What an ugly turn. Why did this high level discourse turn into a personal contest? Jordan is not even the focus anymore. Lebron seems to have won this round but we can handle this more mature surely? To the losers. I cannot see how one can read his thread say those who think otherwise of Jordan do not watch him or understand less.

And to the winners. Be gracious. Must preferring Jordan at peak be referendum on one's entire being? Why these blanket proclamations. Ben Taylor is not Stephen A. Smith.

It is great to have knowledge from both old and new. So why fight over who knows more?

[OhayoKD]

If people really believed in era relativism, Mikan wouldn't have zero votes right now.

May I know why people keep repeating that? Is there any era-relativistic argument that puts Mikan above the other top candidates? I don't deny that Mikan has one of the best peaks ever, but what makes all these era-relativism critics so certain that Mikan should already gain the attention in the first thread? What makes him a better candidate than Russell, James or Jordan? Care to elaborate?

You're asking why a player who not a single person on this board (at least not to my knowledge) has ever disputed being easily the best player in the league several years in row, won 7 titles in a shorter time-frame than anyone who managed to win 6, and has multiple years in a row where he was unanimously considered the best offensive and defensive player is worth attention in thread #1? (at least per pure era-relavitism)

[70sFan]

If people really believed in era relativism, Mikan wouldn't have zero votes right now.

May I know why people keep repeating that? Is there any era-relativistic argument that puts Mikan above the other top candidates? I don't deny that Mikan has one of the best peaks ever, but what makes all these era-relativism critics so certain that Mikan should already gain the attention in the first thread? What makes him a better candidate than Russell, James or Jordan? Care to elaborate?

You're asking why a player who not a single person on this board (at least not to my knowledge) has ever disputed being easily the best player in the league several years in row, won 7 titles in a shorter time-frame than anyone who managed to win 6, and has multiple years in a row where he was unanimously considered the best offensive and defensive player is worth attention in thread #1? (at least per pure era-relavitism)

Yes, I am asking that. I want to see the arguments for his impact ranking higher than any other of GOAT candidates, because right now it's just an appeal to ring counting. People use Mikan's case instrumentally but I have never seen anyone trying to capture his impact, he's just there because of big boxscore numbers and titles.

I also don't think Mikan is considered unanimously the best offensive player of his era.

[OhayoKD]

May I know why people keep repeating that? Is there any era-relativistic argument that puts Mikan above the other top candidates? I don't deny that Mikan has one of the best peaks ever, but what makes all these era-relativism critics so certain that Mikan should already gain the attention in the first thread? What makes him a better candidate than Russell, James or Jordan? Care to elaborate?

You're asking why a player who not a single person on this board (at least not to my knowledge) has ever disputed being easily the best player in the league several years in row, won 7 titles in a shorter time-frame than anyone who managed to win 6, and has multiple years in a row where he was unanimously considered the best offensive and defensive player is worth attention in thread #1? (at least per pure era-relavitism)

Yes, I am asking that. I want to see the arguments for his impact ranking higher than any other of GOAT candidates, because right now it's just an appeal to ring counting. People use Mikan's case instrumentally but I have never seen anyone trying to capture his impact, he's just there because of big boxscore numbers and titles.

I also don't think Mikan is considered unanimously the best offensive player of his era.

Considering the absence of footage or missed games. I'm not sure how exactly you're expecting someone to do that.

Unless we are of the position that knowing less about a player inherently makes it unlikelier for them to be better than a player we know about, what we have for Mikan are box numbers, his reputation/award-voting, and the winning which all look great for him. And monster box-numbers as a two-way big, 4 straight MVP wins, 7 championships as the reported lead, being reported as the league's "first" superstar, and fwiw, being the only player to be voted as the unanimous opoy and dpoy in multiple seasons in one of the few spaces anywhere where people have even seen him, all point to him being out of reach to anyone who isn't an era-outlier.

Moreover, even if you think that's a bunch of rubbish, the crucial point here, is no one abstaining from including him at 1, 2, or 3 does.

[70sFan]

Considering the absence of footage or missed games. I'm not sure how exactly you're expecting someone to do that.

I mean, that's not exactly true. We do have some footage available (not much, but still like 2 games) that can be analysed. We also can extract some WOWY signals that you like:

1954 with Mikan: 46-26, +2.7 SRS, winning the title
1955 without Mikan: 40-32, +1.0 SRS, losing in the WDF

It's only one datapoint from the end of his prime and the Lakers had solid replacement in sophomore Clyde Lovellette, but it doesn't scream like GOAT-level signal.

Unless we are of the position that knowing less about a player inherently makes it unlikelier for them to be better than a player we know about, what we have for Mikan are box numbers, his reputation/award-voting, and the winning which all look great for him.

It's true and Mikan was definitely a great player, nobody is denying that. Does any other candidate here lacks the similar arguments though?

And monster box-numbers as a two-way big, 4 straight MVP wins, 7 championships as the reported lead,

Mikan didn't win any MVP, because the award didn't exist back then.

fwiw, being the only player to be voted as the unanimous opoy and dpoy in multiple seasons in one of the few spaces anywhere where people have even seen him,

Yeah but when you start to analyze the discussion about these years, they unfortunately are usually shallow due to the limited amount of data.

For example, I find it hard to believe that he was clearly the best offensive player in the league giving the fact that Lakers were never elite offensively during his NBA prime (can't say anything about his pre-NBA years). It's not like Mikan didn't have a good team around him, he had plenty of firepower.

His defense seems to be easier to believe in.

all point to him being out of reach to anyone who isn't an era-outlier.

Do we talk about players who are not?

Moreover, even if you think that's a bunch of rubbish, the crucial point here, is no one abstaining from including him at 1, 2, or 3 does.

I think the problem is that people don't care about Mikan, they exclude him from the discussion from the start. The reality is people vote here for players they are mostly attached emotionally to, I don't think anyone is for Mikan.

I would love to watch more Mikan tape and give him a closer look, but I don't have the time for serious basketball work for now and probably for a long time unfortunately. I also failed to find anything truly relevant to him as far as footage goes, so in part it is my fault. Not that I didn't try, but maybe I didn't try enough.