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

[Dutchball97]

This was pretty substantive, but no Jordan backer even bothered to respond to it:

I'll make a quick note that using rapm or "real" impact singals, lebron still comes out as more valuable in the 2016 regular season than anythign we have for jordan per rapm, and when we consider that without lebron(i don't mean he stepped out of the lineup and the team caved, i mean in games he straight up wasn't playing), the two co-stars(one who allegdly better than pippen offensively) combined for a sub-30 win pace, which is basically where the bulls werebefore they drafted MJ. Lebron also holds a defensive advantage in stufflike dpipm(2016 favorably compares to any year and 2015/2017/2020 is the same as jordan's best score from 88). For a more apples to apples comparison, Lebron's defense between 14-2020 grades out at +2 according to pipm which isn't that far off the other great defensive wing from the 10's, kawhi whose regular season stuff is at like +2.5. Note that whever lebron has left the cavs lineup thir defense has plummeted which has never really happened with MJ. That isn't to say it's "impossible" jordan was more valuable in the regular season than "coasting" 2016 lebron, but as far as I know there's no real evidence for that outside of box-aggreates and impact/rapm seems to favor even 2016 lebron over any mj. And while there were certainnly low defensive points(14, 18), I'm not really sure that works out to jordan having a comparable prime as you can probably make a case for even the likes of 2020 lebron defensively vs a prime jordan using impact stuff(and that's disregarding the playoffs where he elevates and the lakers post a really impressive adjusted defense with lebron as the clear second best defender on the team). Heck even in 2021, before his injury and with ad playing limited minutes due to injury, paired with a strong defensive cast, the lakers were the #1 defense in the league. I don't know to what degree jordan's defensive impact mantained or improved, but I think we should be careful from conflating fluctuation with being weaker. Even if lebron's defense is more variable, if he's starting from a high enough spot, that fluctation may not neccesarily led to even primes. And really, if it's a struggle to find clean evidence for Jordan being a more impactful defender in the regular season than second cavs bron(15-17), that really really doesn't bode well for a holistic comparison assuming we consider the playoffs at all. Like a reasonable extrapolation from all this is that lebron can match jordan in value without going at full tilt which...poses problems for jordan's case as the top "peak" or "8 year prime" or whatever.

With that out of the way, I'd like to address a general trend i've seen where when we are comparing jordan and someone else as overall players, instead of examining that[i], we turn it into "whose better on offense". And there's a secondary effect where we lock the question of "who can fit/adjust to more teams/raise cielings" to "whose offense is more pliable" when really what matters here is who [i]overall fits better. With that in mind I think it's worth examining 2015 where, again, without spacing and with his offensive value presumably shot, the cavs, without kyrie or love(remember 84 bulls level with those two), were comparable in the postseason(sweeping a 55 srs 60 win team, pressing the dubs, ect) to the 88-90 bulls. It would seem at least arguable. Lebron arguably provided more value, to a team lacking in spacing, than we've ever seen jordan offer, simply by ramping up his defensive value in the playoffs. If Lebron can do this on teams that are defecient in spacing, what situations are we expecting jordan to come out as more valuable? Even if we find a situation where jordan is capable of better offensive impact, why should we assume lebron can't simply offer more by scaling down his offensive impact and replacing it with defensive impact? Regardless of why things worked out the way they did, when everyone was on the lineup, the 12 heat posted a nearly +14 rating in the playoffs despite a lack of relative to era spacing, two co-stars who lebron supposedly didn't mesh with, and a team that without lebron, played 40 win ball(as opposed to the 50 win bulls).

I also think we've spent maybe too much focus/time on lebron here. Turning this into a holistic impact comparison as opposed to a "boxscore/offensive rating!" thing, Maaany players have reasonable cases vs jordan as being comparable or more valuable in the regular season, playoff, or both(Bill russell being more valuable is basically a given at this point):

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).


There are plausible explanation for all these things on their own, but as more and more evidence is added to the pile, the likelihood that they're all just noise gets less and less likely. Especially when the most popular explnation(lebron needs shooters) falls under basic scrunity(lebron has repeatedly managed jordan" value in he absence of spacing).

I don't know why so much of this thread has been dedicated to kevin-love, but he's really besides the point. Jordan loses in any serious impact analysis versus Lebron. Loses badly in both impact analysis and accomplishment/success vs Russell, and doesn't even have a clean comparison against his own contemporary in Hakeem. Kevin Love doesn't really matter here.

This thread was presumably created by someone who thinks jordan is the goat and asks what it would take for other people to accept he is the goat. Even if we just grant that jordan is better than Lebron, the claim of "goat" requires you conquer all comers, not simply lebron. It's also somewhat telling that the various people who've advocated for jordan, have still, 44 pages in, Not addressed any of these[i][/i] arguments made by various posters over dozens of posts:

The full argument, as opposed to the wierd strawman that dozens of pages worth of posts have been pushing against can be summarized by these points
-> Lebron has achieved better or comparable team results with as much or less help(multiple times across multiple contexts)
-> Various players people would dare not compare to jordan arguably had better or comparable team results with as much or less help
-> Lebron has managed to achieve comaprable results with peak jordan on teams without spacing(which theoreitcally is a situation jordan should be more valuable in according to cieling raising theory) with less help including a season which was supposed to be one of his weaker years(2015) due to a broken shot
-> Lebron's best scoring years look better in almost all impact data besides box-score aggregates where they generally split(jordan rs, lebron playoffs)
-> Jordan consistently looks worse relative to paint-protectors/two-way bigs the less the box-score plays a factor in metrics
-> Consistentlylooks worse relative to paint-protectors/two way bigs if you go by real-data as opposed to artifically capped apm stuff
-> Lebron's teammates weren't able to do **** in games he wasn't even playing in(so much for "they were minimized")
-> Lebron and two players he supposedly shouldn't fit with produced jordan bullsy results without spacing when they played games together in 2012 despite **** relative to era spacing(also did worse in games where lebron was completely absent than the jordan-bulls)

Taking this away from lebron vs jordan and making it relevant to jordan's goat case in general, the other argument which no one has really bothered dealing with is russells' which is...

-> he won way more
-> he won way more in less time
-> he won at least once with less help than jordan has ever had for a playoff series win in the season he retired

For some reason, instead of addressing these arguments(supported with a variety of evidence), we're making random unsupported claims like "jordan had no weaknesses" or "jordan never stat-padded"

I saw someone claim this was a "**** on jordan" thread, but the first 10 pages or so were dominated by pro-jordan posts. If it has become a "**** on jordan" thread, I would argue it is because when arguments/evidence was offered, instead of responding we got 20 page tangents about kevin love, another tangent about longetvity(when the arguments have almost exclusively centered on "how good" these players were), and posters complaining that everyone was biased with one going so far to say that everyone disagreeing with them proved they were the only "reasonable person there". Is that really good-faith discussion?

Also can we start talking about russell more here? People are casually claiming that Jordan was "individually more dominant" than a player who
won way more than anyone
won way more in less time
and critically(at least with all the evidence that's been presented
won a title with substantially less help

It's been established to death why offensive box-score stuff doesn't really matter with 60's players. Russell scoring 11 ppg or 2 ppg would not change that all the evidence we have suggests his imapct relative to era basically nukes any modern nba player

Interesting how comparatively little “substance” we see in the cases for Jordan in this thread…

There are some good points and some overconfident assumptions (Russell is DEFINITELY proven more valuable than Jordan now? By who lol) but I don't see how one wall of text not being dissected by one of the Jordan backers is such an issue.

You're only further proving the point this has turned into an anti-Jordan circlejerk. All you're doing is dismissing every pro-Jordan argument as having little to no substance and a gaggle of people instantly agree with you.

[mysticOscar]

This was pretty substantive, but no Jordan backer even bothered to respond to it:

I'll make a quick note that using rapm or "real" impact singals, lebron still comes out as more valuable in the 2016 regular season than anythign we have for jordan per rapm, and when we consider that without lebron(i don't mean he stepped out of the lineup and the team caved, i mean in games he straight up wasn't playing), the two co-stars(one who allegdly better than pippen offensively) combined for a sub-30 win pace, which is basically where the bulls werebefore they drafted MJ. Lebron also holds a defensive advantage in stufflike dpipm(2016 favorably compares to any year and 2015/2017/2020 is the same as jordan's best score from 88). For a more apples to apples comparison, Lebron's defense between 14-2020 grades out at +2 according to pipm which isn't that far off the other great defensive wing from the 10's, kawhi whose regular season stuff is at like +2.5. Note that whever lebron has left the cavs lineup thir defense has plummeted which has never really happened with MJ. That isn't to say it's "impossible" jordan was more valuable in the regular season than "coasting" 2016 lebron, but as far as I know there's no real evidence for that outside of box-aggreates and impact/rapm seems to favor even 2016 lebron over any mj. And while there were certainnly low defensive points(14, 18), I'm not really sure that works out to jordan having a comparable prime as you can probably make a case for even the likes of 2020 lebron defensively vs a prime jordan using impact stuff(and that's disregarding the playoffs where he elevates and the lakers post a really impressive adjusted defense with lebron as the clear second best defender on the team). Heck even in 2021, before his injury and with ad playing limited minutes due to injury, paired with a strong defensive cast, the lakers were the #1 defense in the league. I don't know to what degree jordan's defensive impact mantained or improved, but I think we should be careful from conflating fluctuation with being weaker. Even if lebron's defense is more variable, if he's starting from a high enough spot, that fluctation may not neccesarily led to even primes. And really, if it's a struggle to find clean evidence for Jordan being a more impactful defender in the regular season than second cavs bron(15-17), that really really doesn't bode well for a holistic comparison assuming we consider the playoffs at all. Like a reasonable extrapolation from all this is that lebron can match jordan in value without going at full tilt which...poses problems for jordan's case as the top "peak" or "8 year prime" or whatever.

With that out of the way, I'd like to address a general trend i've seen where when we are comparing jordan and someone else as overall players, instead of examining that[i], we turn it into "whose better on offense". And there's a secondary effect where we lock the question of "who can fit/adjust to more teams/raise cielings" to "whose offense is more pliable" when really what matters here is who [i]overall fits better. With that in mind I think it's worth examining 2015 where, again, without spacing and with his offensive value presumably shot, the cavs, without kyrie or love(remember 84 bulls level with those two), were comparable in the postseason(sweeping a 55 srs 60 win team, pressing the dubs, ect) to the 88-90 bulls. It would seem at least arguable. Lebron arguably provided more value, to a team lacking in spacing, than we've ever seen jordan offer, simply by ramping up his defensive value in the playoffs. If Lebron can do this on teams that are defecient in spacing, what situations are we expecting jordan to come out as more valuable? Even if we find a situation where jordan is capable of better offensive impact, why should we assume lebron can't simply offer more by scaling down his offensive impact and replacing it with defensive impact? Regardless of why things worked out the way they did, when everyone was on the lineup, the 12 heat posted a nearly +14 rating in the playoffs despite a lack of relative to era spacing, two co-stars who lebron supposedly didn't mesh with, and a team that without lebron, played 40 win ball(as opposed to the 50 win bulls).

I also think we've spent maybe too much focus/time on lebron here. Turning this into a holistic impact comparison as opposed to a "boxscore/offensive rating!" thing, Maaany players have reasonable cases vs jordan as being comparable or more valuable in the regular season, playoff, or both(Bill russell being more valuable is basically a given at this point):

This thread was presumably created by someone who thinks jordan is the goat and asks what it would take for other people to accept he is the goat. Even if we just grant that jordan is better than Lebron, the claim of "goat" requires you conquer all comers, not simply lebron. It's also somewhat telling that the various people who've advocated for jordan, have still, 44 pages in, Not addressed any of these[i][/i] arguments made by various posters over dozens of posts:

I saw someone claim this was a "**** on jordan" thread, but the first 10 pages or so were dominated by pro-jordan posts. If it has become a "**** on jordan" thread, I would argue it is because when arguments/evidence was offered, instead of responding we got 20 page tangents about kevin love, another tangent about longetvity(when the arguments have almost exclusively centered on "how good" these players were), and posters complaining that everyone was biased with one going so far to say that everyone disagreeing with them proved they were the only "reasonable person there". Is that really good-faith discussion?

Also can we start talking about russell more here? People are casually claiming that Jordan was "individually more dominant" than a player who
won way more than anyone
won way more in less time
and critically(at least with all the evidence that's been presented
won a title with substantially less help

It's been established to death why offensive box-score stuff doesn't really matter with 60's players. Russell scoring 11 ppg or 2 ppg would not change that all the evidence we have suggests his imapct relative to era basically nukes any modern nba player

Interesting how comparatively little “substance” we see in the cases for Jordan in this thread…

There are some good points and some overconfident assumptions (Russell is DEFINITELY proven more valuable than Jordan now? By who lol) but I don't see how one wall of text not being dissected by one of the Jordan backers is such an issue.

You're only further proving the point this has turned into an anti-Jordan circlejerk. All you're doing is dismissing every pro-Jordan argument as having little to no substance and a gaggle of people instantly agree with you.

It's an echo chamber of posters that try to go against the grain to highlight / display there knowledge of the game

[70sFan]

Well, I defended both Jordan and LeBron in this thread. I generally suggest anyone to stay away from this discussion though, it quickly turns into a toxic exchange of two extremely polarized groups.

To be fair though, James supporters provided a lot of arguments in this thread. I don't like the tone of some of their posts and their conclusions went sometimes way too far, but their arguments are solid. Jordan side mostly rely on rings won and RS success. It's fair, but we shouldn't expect to leave the debate here. Unless you want to admit that Russell is the GOAT and I doubt most will agree with that.

[Dutchball97]

This was pretty substantive, but no Jordan backer even bothered to respond to it:

Interesting how comparatively little “substance” we see in the cases for Jordan in this thread…

There are some good points and some overconfident assumptions (Russell is DEFINITELY proven more valuable than Jordan now? By who lol) but I don't see how one wall of text not being dissected by one of the Jordan backers is such an issue.

You're only further proving the point this has turned into an anti-Jordan circlejerk. All you're doing is dismissing every pro-Jordan argument as having little to no substance and a gaggle of people instantly agree with you.

It's an echo chamber of posters that try to go against the grain to highlight / display there knowledge of the game

Just to be clear I'm not trying to paint the people who are harping against Jordan in this thread as irrational or contrarians. I feel like this thread specifically has created an environment where people who are jaded over Jordan being seen as the GOAT by the vast majority of people when they personally have someone else as best ever finally getting their time to throw all that frustration out. I'm only mixing myself in the discussion because some people keep bringing up things I've said out of context and I'd honestly rather not at this point but just about any other thread there are plenty of good discussions to be had with these guys imo.

[mysticOscar]

Well, I defended both Jordan and LeBron in this thread. I generally suggest anyone to stay away from this discussion though, it quickly turns into a toxic exchange of two extremely polarized groups.

To be fair though, James supporters provided a lot of arguments in this thread. I don't like the tone of some of their posts and their conclusions went sometimes way too far, but their arguments are solid. Jordan side mostly rely on rings won and RS success. It's fair, but we shouldn't expect to leave the debate here. Unless you want to admit that Russell is the GOAT and I doubt most will agree with that.

I don't personally see any solid arguments here for LeBron. It's always been the same arguments.

- Using some stats to compare different eras to prop up LeBron
- Using some new stat that couldn't really account for MJs prime but come up with some Frankenstein stat to calculate Jordan to prop up LeBron
- Use Lebrons jumping from team to team to prop up Lebron
- Use stats to show how LeBron is the unluckiest player in history of having bad team mates
Etc..

Like MJ never gets credit for having pretty much a completely new team outside of Pippen in the 2nd 3peat.

Like it's funny how an pretty aged Rodman, Kukoc and other new players integrated into the 96 team with Jordan and the team then went ahead and duplicated the 3peat. That speaks volume about how his skillset and a system implemented by Jackson just implements well with other players

In short, I just see excuses for LeBron why he never reached the same dominance as Jordan

[prolific passer]

Well, I defended both Jordan and LeBron in this thread. I generally suggest anyone to stay away from this discussion though, it quickly turns into a toxic exchange of two extremely polarized groups.

To be fair though, James supporters provided a lot of arguments in this thread. I don't like the tone of some of their posts and their conclusions went sometimes way too far, but their arguments are solid. Jordan side mostly rely on rings won and RS success. It's fair, but we shouldn't expect to leave the debate here. Unless you want to admit that Russell is the GOAT and I doubt most will agree with that.

Some good discussion in this thread but also some other discussion that is the reason why this goat debate has gotten out of hand over the years.

[AEnigma]

Well, I defended both Jordan and LeBron in this thread. I generally suggest anyone to stay away from this discussion though, it quickly turns into a toxic exchange of two extremely polarized groups.

To be fair though, James supporters provided a lot of arguments in this thread. I don't like the tone of some of their posts and their conclusions went sometimes way too far, but their arguments are solid. Jordan side mostly rely on rings won and RS success. It's fair, but we shouldn't expect to leave the debate here. Unless you want to admit that Russell is the GOAT and I doubt most will agree with that.

I don't personally see any solid arguments here for LeBron. It's always been the same arguments.

- Using some stats to compare different eras to prop up LeBron
- Using some new stat that couldn't really account for MJs prime but come up with some Frankenstein stat to calculate Jordan to prop up LeBron
- Use Lebrons jumping from team to team to prop up Lebron
- Use stats to show how LeBron is the unluckiest player in history of having bad team mates
Etc..

Like MJ never gets credit for having pretty much a completely new team outside of Pippen in the 2nd 3peat.

Like it's funny how an pretty aged Rodman, Kukoc and other new players integrated into the 96 team with Jordan and the team then went ahead and duplicated the 3peat. That speaks volume about how his skillset and a system implemented by Jackson just implements well with other players

In short, I just see excuses for LeBron why he never reached the same dominance as Jordan

The “excuse” is 1) that Jordan had nowhere near the same high-level competition as what Lebron saw in most of his Finals runs, and 2) that Lebron was never added on top of a 50-win core — despite how much people like to pretend that having two 20-point scorers means that is actually what you are. Oh wow, the Bulls were really good after adding an in-shape Jordan and replacing Will Purdue with Dennis Rodman, and they were subsequently able to handle playoff Malone and Stockton? Imagine that.

All that matters is the ring count (oh, and 2011, can never forget that)… unless it is Bill Russell. Then we start needing to contort ourselves to explain why actually teammates matter and league quality matters and how if you do not think about it, winning 50 games with the 1988 Bulls is more impressive than winning a title with the 1969 Celtics over the 1969 Lakers and 1969 DeBusschere Knicks.

[70sFan]

Well, I defended both Jordan and LeBron in this thread. I generally suggest anyone to stay away from this discussion though, it quickly turns into a toxic exchange of two extremely polarized groups.

To be fair though, James supporters provided a lot of arguments in this thread. I don't like the tone of some of their posts and their conclusions went sometimes way too far, but their arguments are solid. Jordan side mostly rely on rings won and RS success. It's fair, but we shouldn't expect to leave the debate here. Unless you want to admit that Russell is the GOAT and I doubt most will agree with that.

I don't personally see any solid arguments here for LeBron. It's always been the same arguments.

- Using some stats to compare different eras to prop up LeBron
- Using some new stat that couldn't really account for MJs prime but come up with some Frankenstein stat to calculate Jordan to prop up LeBron
- Use Lebrons jumping from team to team to prop up Lebron
- Use stats to show how LeBron is the unluckiest player in history of having bad team mates
Etc..

Like MJ never gets credit for having pretty much a completely new team outside of Pippen in the 2nd 3peat.

Like it's funny how an pretty aged Rodman, Kukoc and other new players integrated into the 96 team with Jordan and the team then went ahead and duplicated the 3peat. That speaks volume about how his skillset and a system implemented by Jackson just implements well with other players

In short, I just see excuses for LeBron why he never reached the same dominance as Jordan

If that's all you came up after reading the discussion here, then I'm afraid you do it in a bad faith.

[Stalwart]

The thing Ive noticed about the pro-Lebron crowd is that they try to paint the Jordan argument as just rangz. They ignore that Jordan has him beat in everything across the board outside of longevity. More rings, more mvps, more fmvps, more dpoys, more all defense, 10 scoring titles, better statlines, leading in most traditional analytic metrics, better intangibles, fewer black marks on his career, less help, won on all levels, doesn't lose in the olympics, led two dynasties, had the greatest team of all time, more complete skillset, ect ect.

He did all of this in about half the time. He didn't choke in the Finals either. But sure guys, its all about rangz. That's all Jordan has going for him

[AEnigma]

The thing Ive noticed about the pro-Lebron crowd is that they try to paint the Jordan argument as just rangz. They ignore that Jordan has him beat in everything across the board outside of longevity. More rings, more mvps, more fmvps, more dpoys, more all defense, 10 scoring titles, better statlines, leading in most traditional analytic metrics, better intangibles, fewer black marks on his career, less help, won on all levels, doesn't lose in the olympics, led two dynasties, had the greatest team of all time, more complete skillset, ect ect.

He did all of this in about half the time. He didn't choke in the Finals either. But sure guys, its all about rangz. That's all Jordan has going for him

Ah, true, I did forget about the scoring titles — the real marker of basketball excellence. The rest, though? No, you would not really care if he did not have the rings. You only care to the extent all of that offers a lazy shorthand narrative without need of analysis. Why analyse who was better on defence when we have awards that obviously prove it was Jordan. Why analyse who was more valuable to their team when we have more awards saying it was Jordan. Why analyse who was producing more when I prefer the look of Jordan’s boxscore. Why analyse skillsets when ultimately their basketball-reference pages tells me all I need to know about passing and defence? Why analyse who had better support when all I need to do is check who had more scorers — or in Russell’s case, eventual hall-of-famers. Why analyse what happens on the court at all, really; basketball is after all ultimately an individual sport where the best guy is the one who scores and wins the most.

[OhayoKD]

They ignore that Jordan has him beat in everything across the board outside of longevity.

Everything you're cherrypicking you mean?

More rings,

So rangz.

more fmvps

Rangz again, good job.

more mvps

Neato, but Lebron has more mvp votes, won more mvps in his prime(4 in 5 vs 3 in 6 years) and has two mvp wins that are far more dominant than any of mj's. I thought you were a peak guy?

, more dpoys,

1 more yes, but lebron got more dpoy votes in their best 5 year stretches

more all defense

You know those are handed out by position right...

, 10 scoring titles

Lopsided distribution of boxscore makes jordan better? That's certainly a claim

, better statlines,

entirely subjective claim is entirely subjective. But I think I'll take lebron nearly leading every player in every stat in 2020, leading both teams in every stat in the finals(16, three of five in 15), leading his team in all the box-stuff multiple times, ect) as more impressive from a 'slashline' perspective tbh. Far rarer(and arguably more indicative of value) than scoring titles or a higher "ppg" or "steals per game"(curry and westbrook obviously great defenders given they led the league in steals, right?)

leading in most traditional analytic metrics

In the regular season(and it's not even unanimous there). It completely flips in the postsseason. Put their best scoring years together and Lebron comes out ahead. Heck, you can take out his "outlier" 2009 playoff run(which tramples everything mj has done statistically) and lebron will still come out ahead when you average his best years. Lebron's playoff advantage is actualyl stronger than mj's rs advantage. And off course by "traditional" you mean "boxscore aggegretates" which are demonstrably the least predictive and has been shown multiple times in this thread skew against primary paint protectors(you never did address that).

The true "traditoinal" analytic metric is RAPM where none of jordan's data thus far stacks up to 4 seperate Lebron seasons, including 2016 where he was supposedly coasting. Funny that. PIPM is also pretty big(nba team actually ended up buying it), predictive and, yeah it favoes lebron, strongly. And off course in taylor's metrics if you go by individualo years(as opposed to conveniently cherrypicking based on chronology) with the expection of his box-plus-minus, lebron clobbers mj

Playoff pipm, lebron is ahead despite playing vastly more(averages go down the longer you play) and lebron comes out ahead in playoff on/off which ben just did for jordan in his best consecutive three year stretch. And then you have "real" impact signals vs aritifically apped ones where Lebron just outright wins in various contexts, including those that should theoreticallly favor MJ per "cieling raiser theory", rs and post season, in basically any chosen time frame or distribution. But yes, if we cherrypick the least predictive analytics AND cherrypick the regular season, you can get a pro-jordan case. Super compelling stuff there boo.

', better intangibles,

Baseless claim(which was actually addressed by various posters with varying pieces of evidence) which you never really bothered to defend. Lots of pro lebron arguments to be made on this front, but your track record suggests you'd just ignore them.

fewer black marks on his career,

If by "black mark" you mean who "wasn't that good", then no actually. Lebron was at his weakest between 18 and 22 and was still far better than jordan at that age. 11 is still a much better season in totality(regular season and playoffs) than 95 or the ****(not only from a basketball perspective but also an "Intangible" perspective that was Jordan's wizard tenure. In 19 the lakers were on a 50 win pace with lebron healthy(and then the team got injured), jordan has done worse than that several times. Maybe if 2022 goes awry you'd finally have a "black mark" on par with jordan's lows...

less help

Well no , actually, all the evidence we have says that jordan consistently had more help throughout his career. You finally attempted a response(small 10-15 game samples!). The only issue is some of the data came from 82 game samples. You're getting closer tho, keep it up!

, won on all levels,

Lebro has won on all levels of compeition he's actually pariticpated in...

doesn't lose in the olympics, led two dynasties, had the greatest team of all time, more complete skillset, ect ect.

Wow, RANGZ again, you're doing great!

All jordan has "going for him", russell has a much better version of. You can argue between Lebron/Jordan/Kareem's resumes based on what you weigh, but only Lebron and Kareem have 'resume" arguments for #1(yes, that's longetivity). The best Jordan can hope for is #2. How does this help your case?

[Stalwart]

And when you bring out Jordans complete resume the other side calls it a narrative. They then default to Ben Taylors made up formulas.

[Stalwart]

They ignore that Jordan has him beat in everything across the board outside of longevity.

Everything you're cherrypicking you mean?

More rings,

So rangz.

more fmvps

Rangz again, good job.

more mvps

Neato, but Lebron has more mvp votes, won more mvps in his prime(4 in 5 vs 3 in 6 years) and has two mvp wins that are far more dominant than any of mj's. I thought you were a peak guy?

, more dpoys,

1 more yes, but lebron got more dpoy votes in their best 5 year stretches

more all defense

You know those are handed out by position right...

, 10 scoring titles

Lopsided distribution of boxscore makes jordan better? That's certainly a claim

, better statlines,

entirely subjective claim is entirely subjective. But I think I'll take lebron nearly leading every player in every stat in 2020, leading both teams in every stat in the finals(16, three of five in 15), leading his team in all the box-stuff multiple times, ect) as more impressive from a 'slashline' perspective tbh. Far rarer(and arguably more indicative of value) than scoring titles or a higher "ppg" or "steals per game"(curry and westbrook obviously great defenders given they led the league in steals, right?)

leading in most traditional analytic metrics

In the regular season(and it's not even unanimous there). It completely flips in the postsseason. Put their best scoring years together and Lebron comes out ahead. Heck, you can take out his "outlier" 2009 playoff run(which tramples everything mj has done statistically) and lebron will still come out ahead when you average his best years. Lebron's playoff advantage is actualyl stronger than mj's rs advantage. And off course by "traditional" you mean "boxscore aggegretates" which are demonstrably the least predictive and has been shown multiple times in this thread skew against primary paint protectors(you never did address that).

The true "traditoinal" analytic metric is RAPM where none of jordan's data thus far stacks up to 4 seperate Lebron seasons, including 2016 where he was supposedly coasting. Funny that. PIPM is also pretty big(nba team actually ended up buying it), predictive and, yeah it favoes lebron, strongly. And off course in taylor's metrics if you go by individualo years(as opposed to conveniently cherrypicking based on chronology) with the expection of his box-plus-minus, lebron clobbers mj

Playoff pipm, lebron is ahead despite playing vastly more(averages go down the longer you play) and lebron comes out ahead in playoff on/off which ben just did for jordan in his best consecutive three year stretch. And then you have "real" impact signals vs aritifically apped ones where Lebron just outright wins in various contexts, including those that should theoreticallly favor MJ per "cieling raiser theory", rs and post season, in basically any chosen time frame or distribution. But yes, if we cherrypick the least predictive analytics AND cherrypick the regular season, you can get a pro-jordan case. Super compelling stuff there boo.

', better intangibles,

Baseless claim(which was actually addressed by various posters with varying pieces of evidence) which you never really bothered to defend. Lots of pro lebron arguments to be made on this front, but your track record suggests you'd just ignore them.

fewer black marks on his career,

If by "black mark" you mean who "wasn't that good", then no actually. Lebron was at his weakest between 18 and 22 and was still far better than jordan at that age. 11 is still a much better season in totality(regular season and playoffs) than 95 or the ****(not only from a basketball perspective but also an "Intangible" perspective that was Jordan's wizard tenure. In 19 the lakers were on a 50 win pace with lebron healthy(and then the team got injured), jordan has done worse than that several times. Maybe if 2022 goes awry you'd finally have a "black mark" on par with jordan's lows...

less help

Well no , actually, all the evidence we have says that jordan consistently had more help throughout his career. You finally attempted a response(small 10-15 game samples!). The only issue is some of the data came from 82 game samples. You're getting closer tho, keep it up!

, won on all levels,

Lebro has won on all levels of compeition he's actually pariticpated in...

doesn't lose in the olympics, led two dynasties, had the greatest team of all time, more complete skillset, ect ect.

Wow, RANGZ again, you're doing great!

All jordan has "going for him", russell has a much better version of. You can argue between Lebron/Jordan/Kareem's resumes based on what you weigh, but only Lebron and Kareem have 'resume" arguments for #1(yes, that's longetivity). The best Jordan can hope for is #2. How does this help your case?

....

You're only further proving the point this has turned into an anti-Jordan circlejerk. All you're doing is dismissing every pro-Jordan argument as having little to no substance and a gaggle of people instantly agree with you.

[70sFan]

The thing Ive noticed about the pro-Lebron crowd is that they try to paint the Jordan argument as just rangz. They ignore that Jordan has him beat in everything across the board outside of longevity. More rings, more mvps, more fmvps, more dpoys, more all defense, 10 scoring titles, better statlines, leading in most traditional analytic metrics, better intangibles, fewer black marks on his career, less help, won on all levels, doesn't lose in the olympics, led two dynasties, had the greatest team of all time, more complete skillset, ect ect.

He did all of this in about half the time. He didn't choke in the Finals either. But sure guys, its all about rangz. That's all Jordan has going for him

I hope you keep being consistent, as Bill Russell has more rings, same amount of MVPs, would have more FMVPs and DPOYs, more all-defense, more rebounding titles, better intangibles, fewer black marks on his career, less help, won on all levels, doesn't lose in the olympics, led the longest and the greatest dynasty in sports history, etc etc...

He did it in less seasons than Jordan. He never lost in the first round. He never choked the finals either. His resume is basically flawless.

[Cavsfansince84]

And when you bring out Jordans complete resume the other side calls it a narrative. They then default to Ben Taylors made up formulas.

What I find somewhat dishonest about your approach is the inability to admit that objective criteria exists by which someone could call LeBron the goat or Kareem the goat or Russell. I can respect that all 4 have arguments that can be made for them which is why I don't really care or mind what order other people put them in. It can still be somewhat fun to debate it all but honestly this is one debate I've never put much energy into outside of doing just for my own personal top 10. There is no ironclad case for any of the 4 imo. I'm just curious if your defense of MJ is based on him meeting your own criteria so much as just the impression he made on you by watching him play.

[prolific passer]

There's only like what? 6-7 players who have an argument for GOAT in the history of the nba? Wilt, Jordan, Kareem, Bird, Magic, Lebron, and Russell.?

[AEnigma]

And when you bring out Jordans complete resume the other side calls it a narrative. They then default to Ben Taylors made up formulas.

You're only further proving the point this has turned into an anti-Jordan circlejerk. All you're doing is dismissing every pro-Jordan argument as having little to no substance and a gaggle of people instantly agree with you.

Because you blatantly have no interest in trying to assess context outside results. Accolades are not objective, and rings are not individual accomplishments.

How many years on this forum, and you still have absolutely no idea what anyone is measuring. “Formulas” are made up. Measuring how a team performs with and without a player on the court is made up. But MVP, DPoY, all-defence? Ah, well, that is all objective.

If this looks like a “circlejerk”, maybe it is because only one group has shown a consistent interest in interpreting how the game is played rather than abdicating all analysis in favour of Wikipedia page listings. But by that standard anything can become a “circlejerk”. Thread on how Chris Paul is better than Isiah Thomas? Circlejerk. Thread on how David Robinson was better than Moses Malone? Circlejerk.

[Stalwart]

There are only 3 players with a GOAT argument. Thats Jordan, Kareem, and Russell. Magic, Bird, and Lebron do not have legitimate arguments. Lebron has a extreme cult of personality pushing him into the discussion but once you get past the fanbase he doesnt have a case...at all.

[Cavsfansince84]

There are only 3 players with a GOAT argument. Thats Jordan, Kareem, and Russell. Magic, Bird, and Lebron do not have legitimate arguments. Lebron has a extreme cult of personality pushing him into the discussion but once you get past the fanbase he doesnt have a case...at all.

So you're basically on a lifelong crusade to discredit any argument that would make LeBron appear to be a legitimate goat candidate or have him seen as on equal footing to MJ?

[penbeast0]

Going to retire this thread.