Greater Accomplishment: Lebron's 4 or Duncan's 5?

[Bornstellar]

I literally said I understand that people don't respect LeBron.

It doesn't take away from what I said. I don't care why people do or don't like him. Purely basketball I think LeBrons finals performances are easily better than Duncans

Lebron literally finished the 2013 Finals with +0 and a ring. He's -86 in the finals for his career.

And he was still by far the best player in that series.

Sorry the facts don’t align with your narrative

The topic of this thread is not who is better or who put up better numbers, it's whose achievements are greater. Try to keep up

[dhsilv2]

Tony outperformed him in the finals imo, but that could be due to the opponent being so much lesser

If we ignore the impact of being game planned for and defense, I guess. But that's kinda silly. Also it was a 4 game sweep...

im not ignoring that at all, watch the games. tony shredded them. and in 14, tim that same argument would be used against tim. lebron has had to perform at GOAT level for every ring hes won.

2014 I don't think there was any real defensive attention or planning for Duncan. Or at least nothing special. 2007 is a whole other topic. Duncan was the best player in the league. I'd also argue that the "finals" were in the west that year. That Cav's team simply never had any chance.

[iggymcfrack]

Lebron literally finished the 2013 Finals with +0 and a ring. He's -86 in the finals for his career.

You mean the series where he led both teams in PPG, APG, and SPG and led the Heat in RPG? The one where with his team down 10 facing elimination, he scored 16 4th quarter points on 7/11 shooting to get them to OT? The one where he put up 37 points on .698 TS% in Game 7 including the clincher with 0:28 left? You weren't impressed with his on/off that series while he played 43 MPG? Huh. Interesting.

No, I'm very impressed with Lebron. But it's a comparison to Tim Duncan, who was +157 in his finals career.

Well, of course. All the talent was concentrated in the West during his prime. Timmy faced:

27-23 Knicks
49-33 Nets
54-28 Pistons
50-32 Cavs
66-16 Heat
54-28 Heat

LeBron faced:

58-24 Spurs
57-25 Mavericks
47-19 Thunder
58-24 Spurs
62-20 Spurs
67-15 Warriors
73-9 Warriors
67-15 Warriors
58-24 Warriors
44-29 Heat

If you combine all those Finals opponents, LeBron has 9 of the top 10. The only team Duncan ever faced that was better than Bron's 2nd worst opponent was LeBron's Heat in 2013. It's not an indictment of LeBron that he couldn't make his team perform as well against 61-win talent on average as Duncan did against 53-win talent on average. (Win totals from seasons with <82 games are adjusted to an 82 game season.)

[iggymcfrack]

To go further, the one time LeBron faced a weak opponent in the Finals (as Duncan often did), he was +36 against the Heat. But yeah, let's blame him for the team performing poorly when his 2nd best player was Anderson Varejao at age 22 or when he faced the Warriors with Dellavadova as his second best player after Kyrie and Love got hurt or when he went up against KD, Curry, Dray, and Klay together with Larry Nance as his second best player. You're saying the Cavs were -60 with LeBron on the floor that series? No ****. He did average 34/9/10 on .620 TS%, but I'm sure Duncan would have done better and made the series competitive.

[ChaseDown]

Interesting topic. Of course the majority will say Duncan. But I find it hard to believe that people here still believe winning a championship is on one guy. Context context context.

Duncan had continuity throughout his entire career. Almost the same constant productive teammates, same system. What else does that add to? Chemistry. The thing that tends to get ignored. Timmy had the best teammate of all time throughout his career, Gregg Popovich. 5-1 is definitely a nice record, but it's mainly a team record.

LeBron always gets disrespected because he used to say a lot of stupid things, flopping, etc. But if you were in Bron's position and had the goal of being the best, I can guarantee you wouldn't have lasted in Cleveland past 2010 either. playing with Mo Williams and Antawn Jamison as your best 2. I'm sure you'd compete against the '11 Mavs pretty well. But if he were to have stayed there his whole career, people would be comparing him to non-champions like Barkley, Malone, etc. It's a business, so LeBron took his product somewhere else to profit more. 4 chips w/ 3 different franchises & being Finals MVP in all of it is something that's never been done right? So why is that accomplishment being hated on? Because his name is LeBron James. That's why his kid already getting so much hate from this board is quite disturbing regarding the bitterness of some people. Betterhelp.com might help.

Tim is a top 10 lock for me no matter what. He was truly a great. However LeBron showed he was greater that he can do it his way under different teams, coaches, etc.

[Hobo4President]

Lebron is a better player so probably Lebron

Lebron literally finished the 2013 Finals with +0 and a ring. He's -86 in the finals for his career.

You mean the series where he led both teams in PPG, APG, and SPG and led the Heat in RPG? The one where with his team down 10 facing elimination, he scored 16 4th quarter points on 7/11 shooting to get them to OT? The one where he put up 37 points on .698 TS% in Game 7 including the clincher with 0:28 left? You weren't impressed with his on/off that series while he played 43 MPG? Huh. Interesting.

No, I'm very impressed with Lebron. But it's a comparison to Tim Duncan, who was +157 in his finals career.

That is impressive but for context Timmy was playing in the dominant West his whole career, so basically any time they weren't the best team in the league they got knocked out before the finals (besides 2013 and even then that series was very close). Facing inferior teams is obviously positive for +/- stats.

[AbeVigodaLive]

What a contrived, silly bait thread.

[Tor_Raps]

Heck, I'd pick Duncan '03 ring over Lebrons 2 Miami and Mickey Mouse rings lol.

[Noctilux]

There is not one GM in the NBA in this era or past that would take Duncan over LeBron in any era. Pop himself would choose LeBron over Timmy.

[xAIRNESSx]

How many rings would Duncan have won if he was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers?

[UglyBugBall]

People get so mad at what LeBron TRIED TO build in Miami that they ignore that it mostly didn't work.

That literally proves Lebron is not that good and barely got by and won hose titles. How is that impressive? He took a loaded team he expected would win 8 straight and got 2. You turn that into a positive?

[iggymcfrack]

People get so mad at what LeBron TRIED TO build in Miami that they ignore that it mostly didn't work.

That literally proves Lebron is not that good and barely got by and won hose titles. How is that impressive? He took a loaded team he expected would win 8 straight and got 2. You turn that into a positive?

The point is he did a bad job of surrounding himself with superstar talent. The guys he joined up with turned out to be not at the level everyone thought they were. He did an amazing job of the actual playing basketball part.

[Wigginstime]

Duncan had some amazing team mates

1999: David Robinson actually led the team in PER. He was only 33 and still in his prime
2003: Duncan went god mode
2005: Parker, Ginobli, and Bowen were all at an elite level
2007: Parker, Ginobli, and Bowen were all at an elite level
2014: Ultimate team effort as Parker, Ginobli, Bowen, and Kawhi all averaged between 14 and 18 ppg. I believe Parkers 18ppg was the fewest points ever a teams leading scorer that won the championship.

Duncan had some great teams. He was definitely the core but its not like we played with low talent.

[maradro]

There is not one GM in the NBA in this era or past that would take Duncan over LeBron in any era. Pop himself would choose LeBron over Timmy.

That's not the question though, it's which is a better accomplishment. And if you think lebron is that much better than Tim, the fact that Tim won one more ring should be an important sign Tim accomplished more.

I think it's arguable that Tim actually played with better teammates than lebron despite his team hopping and the klutch angle. I find it laughable some people only want to talk finals teams and point at tims opponents, especially when lebron teams were his opponent 3 times and he went 2-1.. even if they never went h2h, the fact that east opponents (for spurs) were weaker than west opponents (for Cavs/heat) is an argument for Tim, as he had to beat 3 west teams to get to the finals.

Also the 2005 run is epic and underrated, 2005 WCF vs suns had iirc MVP, coy, 4-5 Allstars, and probably more awards than I'm remembering, then faced the defending champ pistons. Those are two all time great teams with almost opposite styles.

:lol at the people suggesting Leonard carried the spurs in 2014

[GANGSTERDOG]

Honestly it’s pretty much equal. Imagine LeBron with Ginobli and Parker and everyone else.
But at the time , the western conference was better than the Eastern.
So about Even.

[jasonxxx102]

Lebron literally finished the 2013 Finals with +0 and a ring. He's -86 in the finals for his career.

And he was still by far the best player in that series.

Sorry the facts don’t align with your narrative

The topic of this thread is not who is better or who put up better numbers, it's whose achievements are greater. Try to keep up

Did more individually, with multiple teams, unquestioned best in every single ring, way better statistically, and faced significantly more difficult teams.

All of that represents a greater achievement.

[Bornstellar]

Duncan had some amazing team mates

1999: David Robinson actually led the team in PER. He was only 33 and still in his prime
2003: Duncan went god mode
2005: Parker, Ginobli, and Bowen were all at an elite level
2007: Parker, Ginobli, and Bowen were all at an elite level
2014: Ultimate team effort as Parker, Ginobli, Bowen, and Kawhi all averaged between 14 and 18 ppg. I believe Parkers 18ppg was the fewest points ever a teams leading scorer that won the championship.

Duncan had some great teams. He was definitely the core but its not like we played with low talent.

No one said he did.

By the way - are you serious trying to include Bruce in this? Bowen was an elite man to man defender but that was it. He did nothing else elite besides shooting corner threes. He had 0 game besides those two things

1999 Robinson was still a very good player but he was not in his prime, just slightly passed it. 2005 Parker was certainly not at an elite level either. And 2014 Bowen didn't even play here and was retired 5 years by then

Again, no one is saying he had bad teammates. But compared to some of the talent other GOAT level players played with, LeBron especially, he hasn't played with as much talent

[Bornstellar]

I also do agree that it's pointless to discuss their finals opponents since LeBron had basically no real competition in the East for a decade while the West was a gauntlet pretty much Tim's entire career

[shi-woo]

Lebron would have won with tony Parker and Manu too and people act like Duncan didn’t win his first ring with David Robinson against an injured knicks team

I think LeBron had stiffer competition in his finals, and that's not arguable, but I also think Tim had to go through a blood bath Western Conference every year.

Dirk's Mavs. Nash's Suns. Shaq then Kobe's Lakers. Webber's Kings. KD's Thunder.

LeBron never really had to face those type of teams. For the longest time, Jame's toughest competition came from Paul George and Roy Hibbert's Pacer's and IT and Horford's Celtic's. LeBron would still have found success, but I don't think it would have been as much as Duncan. Hard to tell though, because Duncan was the perfect player for his generation, and LeBron for his.

And Duncan won that finals in his 2nd year of the league. That's something not many players can say, and Duncan was the clear #1. I think that's why most people don't care. It was still a very impressive run from Duncan.

[Statlanta]

Timmy is love and LeBron is hated so the outcome of this is not surprising.

If you took both of their names away I think it's hands down LeBron.

3 different teams, carried way more of the load than Tim, unquestioned best player for every ring. One of the titles was taking down the single greatest regular season team in NBA history after being down 3-1.

I know people on here can't separate their personal gripes from actual basketball.

Imagine if you flipped the names. Nobody would rank Tim Duncan anywhere of he team hopped and played the same level he did. Hell Curry isn't top 10 with 4 titles.

Imagine LeBron winning 5 for a franchise like Cleveland.