RealGM

How many years of Lebron/Kareem would you take over 1996 Jordan?

Accounting for both regular season and playoffs:

For LeBron, I think I’d put the following years above 1996 Jordan: 2009, 2012, and 2013. I think 2016 is similar overall (with Jordan’s regular season being better, but LeBron’s playoffs being better). I waffle a bit on 2010. I think LeBron was probably a better player in 2010 than Jordan was in 1996, but that second half the series against Boston was really rough. Jordan wasn’t great either in the second half the series against Seattle, but LeBron’s low that year was even lower and was very costly (and Jordan’s low came after being up 3-0 in a series). I see reasonable arguments either way and don’t feel strongly about it. If it was a POY vote between the two, then 1996 Jordan wins easily over 2010 LeBron, but that’s not exactly the question here. I think plenty of people would also say 2017, but I see too big a regular season gap for that.

For Kareem, I’d put the following years above 1996 Jordan: 1971, 1972, and 1977. I think 1974 is a coin flip. I’d say 1980 is a bit below, and it’s definitely below after accounting for getting injured in the Finals. I find Kareem’s 1976 very hard to judge, since the team didn’t do well and there aren’t playoffs to look at. I think it’s plausible that Kareem was a better player in 1976 than Jordan was in 1996, but without any playoffs I can’t really put it above 1996 Jordan.

Personally I'd say like 5-7 of each. I'm not quite as high on 96 MJ as some people are. I don't think he was the same force of nature after he retired in 93. So I'd go with most of Kareem's seasons from 71-80 and most of LeBron's from 09-20. Also the bonus points he tends to get for leading them to 72 wins is also kind of overrated imo. The league was probably at the weakest its been in a really long time in 96-98. Rodman has talked about that quite a bit how most teams would just roll over.

09-10, 12-14, 16-18 LeBron -- 8 seasons
71-74, 77 Kareem -- 5 seasons

wafflzgod wrote:09-10, 12-14, 16-18 LeBron -- 8 seasons
71-74, 77 Kareem -- 5 seasons

I agree with this except I don't know what the argument would be for 96 MJ over 80 Kareem(other than 72 wins yada yada). I'd also add 2020 LeBron though if you wanna say the quirkiness of the 2020 season worked too much in his favor I could understand leaving it off.

0 LeBron seasons over '96 MJ.

By the time he had become a reliable enough scorer, partly due to rule changes, his defense had completely fallen off.

Cavsfansince84 wrote:Personally I'd say like 5-7 of each. I'm not quite as high on 96 MJ as some people are. I don't think he was the same force of nature after he retired in 93. So I'd go with most of Kareem's seasons from 71-80 and most of LeBron's from 09-20. Also the bonus points he tends to get for leading them to 72 wins is also kind of overrated imo. The league was probably at the weakest its been in a really long time in 96-98. Rodman has talked about that quite a bit how most teams would just roll over.

This is a bit of a sideshow, but I’m a little curious about this point about the league being weak.

Are you referring to the 1995 league expansion? I think it’s kind of hard to say that the 1996 Bulls were advantaged by that. The Bulls actually gave up the #1 pick in the 1995 expansion draft, so while other teams lost a deep bench player to the expansion draft, the Bulls probably lost the most (and, to be clear, no one really lost all *that* much). Meanwhile, in terms of the expansion teams that were naturally quite weak after having just been created, the Bulls went 5-1 against those teams in the regular season. They won at a 72.3 win pace against the non-expansion teams. They also had a 12.7 SRS in just the games against the non-expansion teams (higher than their 11.80 overall SRS). The games against the new teams objectively did not pad the Bulls wins or SRS. Quite the opposite! And if the argument is that the expansion made the non-expansion teams a little weaker, then the argument basically amounts to saying that the Bulls were helped by other teams losing players in the expansion draft that were worse than the player the Bulls lost. Pretty hard sell, especially when you look at the players who were picked in the expansion draft (most of them barely had NBA careers at all, or at least barely had one after the expansion draft). I don’t think there’s much of an argument that the 1995 league expansion materially helped the Bulls.

Are you instead just saying that the drafts prior to this point were weak enough that there just was less talent at that point? That’s perhaps a valid point. After all, the drafts from 1988 to 1991 were pretty thin. The drafts starting in 1992 were definitely better—you had Shaq and Mourning in 1992, Penny and Webber in 1993, Kidd and Grant Hill in 1994, and Garnett in 1995. That generation didn’t turn out as great as it could’ve, because Penny and Grant Hill succumbed to injury, but that hadn’t happened yet by the 1996 season. So the young generation at that point was actually pretty good, IMO. It was that 1988-1991 draft generation that was weak. You had Payton, Kemp, Mutombo, and Tim Hardaway, so there were some very good players, but it was definitely a weak time period for the draft. And that did make the league weaker than it might’ve been. But we should keep in mind that the 1983-1987 draft generation was abnormally strong, and those guys were still in their primes. So I wouldn’t say that overall draft strength was really weakening the league at this point. You had an amazing generation in their late prime, a very weak generation in their early prime, and a young generation that already had several genuine stars blossoming. I think the league starts to get weaker in the next couple years (and definitely by 1998), because that “amazing generation in their late prime” starts having a lot of guys no longer in their prime. But that wasn’t really the case in 1996.

lessthanjake wrote:
This is a bit of a sideshow, but I’m a little curious about this point about the league being weak.

Are you referring to the 1995 league expansion? I think it’s kind of hard to say that the 1996 Bulls were advantaged by that. The Bulls actually gave up the #1 pick in the 1995 expansion draft, so while other teams lost a deep bench player to the expansion draft, the Bulls probably lost the most (and, to be clear, no one really lost all *that* much). Meanwhile, in terms of the expansion teams that were naturally quite weak after having just been created, the Bulls went 5-1 against those teams in the regular season. They won at a 72.3 win pace against the non-expansion teams. They also had a 12.7 SRS in just the games against the non-expansion teams (higher than their 11.80 overall SRS). The games against the new teams objectively did not pad the Bulls wins or SRS. Quite the opposite! And if the argument is that the expansion made the non-expansion teams a little weaker, then the argument basically amounts to saying that the Bulls were helped by other teams losing players in the expansion draft that were worse than the player the Bulls lost. Pretty hard sell, especially when you look at the players who were picked in the expansion draft (most of them barely had NBA careers at all, or at least barely had one after the expansion draft). I don’t think there’s much of an argument that the 1995 league expansion materially helped the Bulls.

Are you instead just saying that the drafts prior to this point were weak enough that there just was less talent at that point? That’s perhaps a valid point. After all, the drafts from 1988 to 1991 were pretty thin. The drafts starting in 1992 were definitely better—you had Shaq and Mourning in 1992, Penny and Webber in 1993, Kidd and Grant Hill in 1994, and Garnett in 1995. That generation didn’t turn out as great as it could’ve, because Penny and Grant Hill succumbed to injury, but that hadn’t happened yet by the 1996 season. So the young generation at that point was actually pretty good, IMO. It was that 1988-1991 draft generation that was weak. You had Payton, Kemp, Mutombo, and Tim Hardaway, so there were some very good players, but it was definitely a weak time period for the draft. And that did make the league weaker than it might’ve been. But we should keep in mind that the 1983-1987 draft generation was abnormally strong, and those guys were still in their primes. So I wouldn’t say that overall draft strength was really weakening the league at this point. You had an amazing generation in their late prime, a very weak generation in their early prime, and a young generation that already had several genuine stars blossoming. I think the league starts to get weaker in the next couple years (and definitely by 1998), because that “amazing generation in their late prime” starts having a lot of guys no longer in their prime. But that wasn’t really the case in 1996.

I think between all of that the league was weak. Bringing up actual records vs expansion teams isn't really that relevant imo. What happened though is most of the top players had started aging out, teams like the Cavs and Warriors had been destroyed by injuries, some weak drafts without real all nba level players and whatever else. I think this subject has actually been covered on here many times before so I'm not gonna go through all of it.

Anywhere between 9 to 13.

1996 Jordan’s regular season is a bit underrated, but his finals’ performance doesn’t get the scrutiny it deserves in large part due to an extremely kind whistle on perimeter touch fouls that inflated his TS from putrid to meh.

09’ Lebron is the GOAT. Most unstoppable season-long performance by an individual player regular and post.

If anything I think Jordan's 1996 Finals gets too much scrutiny. The Bulls were up 3-0 and then MJ started struggling to shoot. Through the first three games which basically killed the series he averaged 31/5/5 on +6.3 rTS. In this case, the context is favorable rather than unfavorable to MJ IMO.

I would take 2009 and 2012 Lebron over him. That's peak Lebron and these seasons are pretty much flawless whereas 1996 Jordan had already lost a step. Many would argue 2013 and 2016 but I think Lebron in those seasons actually had more damning declines in form in the PS. In the Finals in those years, Lebron struggled in the first five and four games, respectively, and could have very well cost his team those series.

For Kareem, I would take 1974 and 1977 above it. Again, this is peak Kareem with two pretty much flawless seasons.