People who don't have Jordan as GOAT: What metric(s) would make you change your mind?

[mysticOscar]

But hey, he dominates his team output, that's what matters in NBA ..more than winning

Lebron has rather consistently has won more than jordan with similar/weaker supporting cast, and nearly sweeps jordan in winning-based metrics. Odd claim.

Dismiss "dominating team output" entirely in favor of winning and jordan doesn't emerge unscathed from comps to players like hakeem, kareem, duncan, shaq, kg, ect, while losing pretty badly to lbj and russell. Again, this still hasn't been addressed by what is now a crowd of 3:

On top of that, if we avoid m-regularization and go from raw signals, jordan looks signifcantly worse, something that seems to hold for MJ whenever he's compared to better or much better paint protectors(hakeem, duncan, and Kareem all compare favorably and KG compares favorably in the regular season).
m-regularization can lead to a misdistribution of value. You might have noticed that in plus-minus stats, everything plateus's around 25 wins? That's artifical.

Stretches of outlier impact tend to get misdistributed to role players(especially when they're putting up nice box-scores). Additionally, the process of box-regression can lead to non-box impact being lost(very relevant when dealing with primary paint protectors). This is why it's important to keep track of raw signals.

If kevin love was such an impactful player, why couldn't he and kyrie keep the lineup above a 30 win pace when lebron wasn't there?

If kevin love was such an impactful player, why were the cavs basically unaffected by his injury in the 15 playoffs? APM would tell you it's because tristan thompson and delladova were really good defensively, and yet...

the cavs defense collapses to one of the worst in the league in games where Lebron didn't play

How were the cavs so bad if love and kyrie were really good attackers and md+tt was a good defense?


APM is cool, but it needs to be checked against what actually happens. And what actually happened flatly contradicts your assessment of Love.

Am also awaiting them to explain lebron's nearly unrivalled track record without good relative to era spacing(12,15, 20) and how wade-bosh-lebron were a +13 when they were in the lineup for lebron's first title(heat played 40 win ball without lebron those years).

Winning is all that matters...until it isn't.

If you have the time to make 40 variations of "kevin love's ppg went down!", you have the time to address this.

It's pointless talking about this, because neither o us our going to change each other's minds.

Let me summarise it for you and I'll leave at that.

A lot of Lebrons championships were really unconvi,cing to me when conpared to Jordan. Shortened season in '11, beating the Spurs '12, scraping through 2015 and the covid bubble with LA.

Don't get me wrong here, no one is saying LeBron is a chum. I have him as my 2nd or 3rd GOAT from what I have seen.

But Jordan once he was on top, did a 3peat, retired came back and did another 3peat while being the best in the world and having the most dominant team by far.

Peace out

[Homer38]

Between 2012 to 2020, when his team lost was because they were outscored and his team were not very good in defense...The only exception was in 2015 when the cavs were depleted by injuries

Many of his haters talk about the production of Love and Bosh in particular(it was not a problem if the heat or cavs were great on offense so who care), but the real problem was defense, a problem Jordan never had with the Bulls. Never played against a team like the warriors, with or without KD and even the 2014 spurs in the 1990s too.LeBron still won 4 rings during this period

[AEnigma]

LeBron system is a static way of playing with a lot of isolations.

What do you think the triangle is???????

LeBron NEEDS to play with elite 1-1 scorers to make that type of system successful.

This is only accurate if your idea of success is winning a championship, in which case sure he has been unable to win championships with JR Smith and Tristan Thompson or Mo Williams and Big Z as his best teammates but that says basically nothing about whether he needs another elite isolation scorer to bridge the gap.

[Jordan’s] teams laso played more team oriented basketball that was more beautiful to watch than static spread offense with LBJ bulldozing through people.

Do Jordan stans actually watch the Bulls? They were pretty interesting on defence, but “beautiful” on offence? Lmao come on.

How do you defend this video with LBJ refusing to shoot at the end of the quarter during finals? I would like to see that logic. I never denied that LeBron is a great player, and I take nothing away from him, but he is a stat padder par excellence.

Did you know Tom Brady even in the playoffs will rarely throw deep bombs with twenty second left in a half? Stat padder.

This is not a real criticism, you are just grasping at empty justifications to dismiss a better player. Is it better to “statpad” efficiency in near-meaningless ways, or statpad ppg in near-meaningless ways. Jordan probably would have happily taken that shot, true… because that would mean yet another basket for him.

while still having a team mindset of understanding that it's bigger than him.

This has never, ever, ever described Michael Jordan.

He was willing to be coached

If Lebron somehow continually adapted his game without following any coaching input, that is even more impressive to me.

willing to play in a system, willing to let Scottie Pippen be the main playmaker.

Because he was a poorer playmaker himself. Yet again, turning one of Jordan’s weaknesses into an excuse to celebrate him.

It all boils down to him being an individual player first. I mean that's his whole marketing. It's not about his teams, it's always about LBJ did this, LBJ did that... That's why he can never be the GOAT to me.

You are literally describing Jordan!

You guys really need to stop just uncritically ingesting blatant myth-making. Jordan is a living brand play with a planet-sized ego, yet somehow he has people believing he was Mr. Team Player because… he did not wrongly insist on being the lead passer over a more suitable teammate?

[Stalwart]

Between 2012 to 2020, when his team lost was because they were outscored and his team were not very good in defense...The only exception was in 2015 when the cavs were depleted by injuries

Many of his haters talk about the production of Love and Bosh in particular(it was not a problem if the heat or cavs were great on offense so who care), but the real problem was defense, a problem Jordan never had with the Bulls. Never played against a team like the warriors, with or without KD and even the 2014 spurs in the 1990s too.LeBron still won 4 rings during this period

Excuses. I swear, on Lebron's tombstone they are going to write "Here lies excuses. Poor fellow never stood a chance".

[Stalwart]

LeBron system is a static way of playing with a lot of isolations.

What do you think the triangle is???????

LeBron NEEDS to play with elite 1-1 scorers to make that type of system successful.

This is only accurate if your idea of success is winning a championship, in which case sure he has been unable to win championships with JR Smith and Tristan Thompson or Mo Williams and Big Z as his best teammates but that says basically nothing about whether he needs another elite isolation scorer to bridge the gap.

[Jordan’s] teams laso played more team oriented basketball that was more beautiful to watch than static spread offense with LBJ bulldozing through people.

Do Jordan stans actually watch the Bulls? They were pretty interesting on defence, but “beautiful” on offence? Lmao come on.

How do you defend this video with LBJ refusing to shoot at the end of the quarter during finals? I would like to see that logic. I never denied that LeBron is a great player, and I take nothing away from him, but he is a stat padder par excellence.

Did you know Tom Brady even in the playoffs will rarely throw deep bombs with twenty second left in a half? Stat padder.

This is not a real criticism, you are just grasping at empty justifications to dismiss a better player. Is it better to “statpad” efficiency in near-meaningless ways, or statpad ppg in near-meaningless ways. Jordan probably would have happily taken that shot, true… because that would mean yet another basket for him.

while still having a team mindset of understanding that it's bigger than him.

This has never, ever, ever described Michael Jordan.

He was willing to be coached

If Lebron somehow continually adapted his game without following any coaching input, that is even more impressive to me.

willing to play in a system, willing to let Scottie Pippen be the main playmaker.

Because he was a poorer playmaker himself. Yet again, turning one of Jordan’s weaknesses into an excuse to celebrate him.

It all boils down to him being an individual player first. I mean that's his whole marketing. It's not about his teams, it's always about LBJ did this, LBJ did that... That's why he can never be the GOAT to me.

You are literally describing Jordan!

You guys really need to stop just uncritically ingesting blatant myth-making. Jordan is a living brand play with a planet-sized ego, yet somehow he has people believing he was Mr. Team Player because… he did not wrongly insist on being the lead passer over a more suitable teammate?

You're characterizations of Jordan falsehoods. They're cartoonish, actually.

[AEnigma]

Rational explanations interested in realities of the sport, excuses… what is the difference really. So much easier to pretend Jordan individually “learned” how to win (as the top teams of the 1980s declined), forgot how in 1995, and then coincidentally remembered how when Dennis Rodman arrived.

Only “falsehoods” I see are those trying to talk out of both sides of their mouth to celebrate Jordan as an insurmountable individual who single-handedly generated six titles… but also the ultimate team player who definitely did not marginalise everyone else.

[Homer38]

LeBron NEEDS to play with elite 1-1 scorers to make that type of system successful.

Look at the roster of the 2007 Cavs when LBJ was 22 years old and tell me this is a finals team....And tell me that the roster of the 2009 and 2010 cavs are also a 60 wins caliber team.If you talk about the title team,during the 2013 playoffs,Wade was not the same player with his knee problem and Bosh was overmatched against Roy Hibbert,still won the title.And the 2018 cavs were awful too

[falcolombardi]

Is a bit weird to me that lebron is being acussed of statpadding when boxscore agregates for their careers usually favor jordan and points per game gap is often used against lebron in comparisions with mike

Less so in this board but "jordan 10 scoring titles, lebron only 1" is still used by the wider basketball public. While on this board i have had discussions that ended up with "jordan averaged this many points more and his bpm is higher"

Generally jordan beats lebron (and everyone else) in boxscore aggregates while lebron beats everyone we have data of (including our limited data on peak jordan) in impact +/- metrics

[Stalwart]

The reason Lebron has such great impact +/- numbers is because suppresses the impact of his teammates. He forces them to 'reinvent', 'morph', and pull back their games.

That's why measuring a players value via on/off numbers is such a fundementally flawed approach.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Since the advanced numbers argument doesn't have much usefulness seemingly at this point. Let me try this.

There is a very good argument that MJ has never elevated one player's offensive game more in the PS more than LBJ helped Kyrie Irving's game.

Kyrie is 22 & 5 in his last 22 playoff games on 43/35%.

10/22 (46%) of those games shooting under 40%.

Despite those 22 games occurring in the past few seasons when his RS box-score numbers have been at their peak, he has never matched the greatness he achieved in his Cleveland days in the PS. Perhaps one should consider that even if there is a belied that LBJ minimizes some guys, perhaps he can maximize other creative combo guards who can shoot (which is quite a few in the current era). Perhaps, even that should be considered as a reason to believe in LBJ's ability to fit next to other talent on random teams, because those type of guards are so prevalent.

[FlyingArrow]

I don't have a single GOAT. LeBron, Jordan, Wilt, Kareem, and Russell are all on the same level for me, and on a good day I let Duncan stand there with them, too.

For me, the three biggest issues keeping Jordan from stepping ahead of the others are:

1) He never won without Pippen. How good was Pippen? The better Pippen was, the less credit Jordan gets. The question of how good Pippen was isn't really settled, because Pippen didn't play much without Jordan. That makes it hard to separate them.
2) He took almost 2 years off. He needed a mental and physical break? He was bored? Whatever - it's fine. But most players didn't need a break to decide they wanted to play again.
3) When he was gone, the Bulls still did great. They didn't win the championship, but they won 55 games and Pippen was 3rd in MVP voting. That takes a lot of wind out of Jordan's GOAT narrative. (Though it does help the narrative for the overall dynasty.) We don't have a whole lot of time of Pippen without Jordan, but it looks like Pippen was a top 5 player all along.

Jordan has a balanced GOAT resume, but on almost every criteria, someone else will beat him on it.

Pure athleticism... Wilt or LeBron.
Winning... Russell wins this criteria, but Duncan and Kareem's resumes here are also just as good as Jordan's
Longevity... this is his weakest criteria. All the other 5 beat him here.
Team culture... this is a strong point for him, but Duncan wins this and Russell also beats him
Offense... Kareem and Wilt
Defense... Duncan and Russell

On any given day, if you turn up the dial for one criteria and say, "This is the most important thing," then you get a different GOAT result. You can get any of the 6, depending on what you emphasize, which is why I can't agree that Jordan is the GOAT.

There's a herd of GOATs.

[prolific passer]

The reason why Jordan is regarded as the GOAT compared to other players is just how balanced he was in the overall game. Scoring, passing, rebounding, defense, shooting, athleticism, bball iq, fundamentals, ft shooting. Just gave you a little bit of everything. He started from the ground up and learned how to win and stayed on top. Left and came back and found a way to get on and stay on top again. Would Pippen have been an all time great if it wasn't for Jordan pushing him? That is the real question.

[prolific passer]

Jordan did say that he wished he could have been beaten on his way to another title and pass that torch to the next generation like it was to him but it was never meant to be.

[Gooner]

Between 2012 to 2020, when his team lost was because they were outscored and his team were not very good in defense...The only exception was in 2015 when the cavs were depleted by injuries

Many of his haters talk about the production of Love and Bosh in particular(it was not a problem if the heat or cavs were great on offense so who care), but the real problem was defense, a problem Jordan never had with the Bulls. Never played against a team like the warriors, with or without KD and even the 2014 spurs in the 1990s too.LeBron still won 4 rings during this period

Miami Heat team was very good on defense with their trapping scheme. They disrupted pick and roll wich was the main offensive focal point in the NBA at the time. Bosh was crucial for that as a mobile big.

Jordan faced 4 60+win teams in the finals, and his eastern conference was tougher than it was during LeBron's time which was honestly very weak. Warriors before KD were not some super team stacked against LBJ. All their guys were drafted. KD's move is not an excuse either, Houston almost beat them in 2018. 2014 Spurs were an old team and they destroyed Miami led by LBJ.

[Gooner]

LeBron system is a static way of playing with a lot of isolations.

What do you think the triangle is???????

LeBron NEEDS to play with elite 1-1 scorers to make that type of system successful.

This is only accurate if your idea of success is winning a championship, in which case sure he has been unable to win championships with JR Smith and Tristan Thompson or Mo Williams and Big Z as his best teammates but that says basically nothing about whether he needs another elite isolation scorer to bridge the gap.

[Jordan’s] teams laso played more team oriented basketball that was more beautiful to watch than static spread offense with LBJ bulldozing through people.

Do Jordan stans actually watch the Bulls? They were pretty interesting on defence, but “beautiful” on offence? Lmao come on.

How do you defend this video with LBJ refusing to shoot at the end of the quarter during finals? I would like to see that logic. I never denied that LeBron is a great player, and I take nothing away from him, but he is a stat padder par excellence.

Did you know Tom Brady even in the playoffs will rarely throw deep bombs with twenty second left in a half? Stat padder.

This is not a real criticism, you are just grasping at empty justifications to dismiss a better player. Is it better to “statpad” efficiency in near-meaningless ways, or statpad ppg in near-meaningless ways. Jordan probably would have happily taken that shot, true… because that would mean yet another basket for him.

while still having a team mindset of understanding that it's bigger than him.

This has never, ever, ever described Michael Jordan.

He was willing to be coached

If Lebron somehow continually adapted his game without following any coaching input, that is even more impressive to me.

willing to play in a system, willing to let Scottie Pippen be the main playmaker.

Because he was a poorer playmaker himself. Yet again, turning one of Jordan’s weaknesses into an excuse to celebrate him.

It all boils down to him being an individual player first. I mean that's his whole marketing. It's not about his teams, it's always about LBJ did this, LBJ did that... That's why he can never be the GOAT to me.

You are literally describing Jordan!

You guys really need to stop just uncritically ingesting blatant myth-making. Jordan is a living brand play with a planet-sized ego, yet somehow he has people believing he was Mr. Team Player because… he did not wrongly insist on being the lead passer over a more suitable teammate?

I don't think you've watched the Bulls based on your comments about triangle.

LBJ never adapted his game to a different coaching input. Coaches always have to adapt to him.

I don't watch NFL and don't care about Tom Brady. Maybe he is a stat padder too. LBJ definitely is.

[mysticOscar]

I don't have a single GOAT. LeBron, Jordan, Wilt, Kareem, and Russell are all on the same level for me, and on a good day I let Duncan stand there with them, too.

For me, the three biggest issues keeping Jordan from stepping ahead of the others are:

1) He never won without Pippen. How good was Pippen? The better Pippen was, the less credit Jordan gets. The question of how good Pippen was isn't really settled, because Pippen didn't play much without Jordan. That makes it hard to separate them.
2) He took almost 2 years off. He needed a mental and physical break? He was bored? Whatever - it's fine. But most players didn't need a break to decide they wanted to play again.
3) When he was gone, the Bulls still did great. They didn't win the championship, but they won 55 games and Pippen was 3rd in MVP voting. That takes a lot of wind out of Jordan's GOAT narrative. (Though it does help the narrative for the overall dynasty.) We don't have a whole lot of time of Pippen without Jordan, but it looks like Pippen was a top 5 player all along.

Jordan has a balanced GOAT resume, but on almost every criteria, someone else will beat him on it.

Pure athleticism... Wilt or LeBron.
Winning... Russell wins this criteria, but Duncan and Kareem's resumes here are also just as good as Jordan's
Longevity... this is his weakest criteria. All the other 5 beat him here.
Team culture... this is a strong point for him, but Duncan wins this and Russell also beats him
Offense... Kareem and Wilt
Defense... Duncan and Russell

On any given day, if you turn up the dial for one criteria and say, "This is the most important thing," then you get a different GOAT result. You can get any of the 6, depending on what you emphasize, which is why I can't agree that Jordan is the GOAT.

There's a herd of GOATs.

Pippen only had half of the games in '98 and the Bulls still managed 62 wins and Pippen was carried in the finals that year.

I don't get how that's a negative for MJ that he stuck with one team, it should be a positive.

In terms of offense, MJ is definatly first in line candidate as the best ever. Not sure why you don't think so.

In terms of athleticism, MJ is also arguably have the greatest in that department.

In defense, his also one of the best ever to do it for his position.

His game had no weakness, shooting, dribbling into traffic, post game, passing, ball iq and defense.

That's why Mj can insert into any system and do well. LbJs weakness on other hand (shooting and post game early in his game limited the system his in).

But hey he does it all for the team so his the GOAT...because that's what nba is about

[Texas Chuck]

Jordan did say that he wished he could have been beaten on his way to another title and pass that torch to the next generation like it was to him but it was never meant to be.

link the video please.

And also if he said that, and I'm skeptical since it goes against everything we know about Mike, I don't think for one second he means that and he definitely wasn't thinking it in real-time.

Mike wanted to win at everything he did. His competitiveness is one of his separators.

[prolific passer]

Jordan did say that he wished he could have been beaten on his way to another title and pass that torch to the next generation like it was to him but it was never meant to be.

link the video please.

And also if he said that, and I'm skeptical since it goes against everything we know about Mike, I don't think for one second he means that and he definitely wasn't thinking it in real-time.

Mike wanted to win at everything he did. His competitiveness is one of his separators.

Not like Jordan was gonna make it easy for somebody to beat him. The teams that were in front of him didn't do that for him.

[FlyingArrow]

In terms of offense, MJ is definatly first in line candidate as the best ever. Not sure why you don't think so

Wilt averaged 50ppg in a season. Kareem is the all-time leading scorer.

[Stalwart]

In terms of offense, MJ is definatly first in line candidate as the best ever. Not sure why you don't think so

Wilt averaged 50ppg in a season. Kareem is the all-time leading scorer.

Jordan is the all time leader in PPG...