RGM GOAT Debate Thread

[SlimShady83]

Added pic In 10.1.25

I'm not gonna lie I'm a little buzzed It's my Friday and Long wknd Friday's off woo, also Aussie whoops LOL (work 2 jobs 4 days a week) but seems to be so much discussion on the goat debate and everyone has their own opinion on the topic.

I Just feel like this topic needs to be a sticky especially on the General board forum.

Can we officially have a goat debate topic thread and any new threads Involving the goat debate be merged into 1 topic?'

BTW happy 4th July for the US

Who Is your all time Goat?

Date Is: 7/5/2024

It has been 1 week since I have posted this and wanted to do an update

*JOKIC* Some have been wondering why I included Jokic In the poll, This Is mostly for the new generational fans who all think "Jokic Is Him"... There were also a few threads a few months back and especially after Denver won, saying "Jokic Is him" his the best Center all time even ahead of; Duncan, Wilt, Shaq, Kareem, Hakeem etc etc I mean GTFOH Y'all just trolling at that point lmao.

So that's why I included JOKIC

The Poll: As for the Poll sadly you can only have 10 slots ( wish you could do more). All the guys I picked are In my top 10 goat list, just not In that order. Minus Jokic and "other Insert comment" I have Shaq and Bird In my top 10 goat list.
When It comes to Polls you can't sadly keep everyone happy, as the next 100 people gonna say something about It and think you're wrong - even though It's IMO

I also did have Wilt In the poll Instead of Curry, but because Curry In my top 10 list, I changed It, no disrepect to Wilt.

*** Please Keep In mind, just because a player that's not In the poll, doesn't mean you don't have to talk about that player, feel free to talk about anyone WHO YOU think Is the goat - but If you want a debate out of It, don't just list the player - give your reason too.

*** Please also this only goat related topic, don't go off topic about politics and other weird non related basketball topics - It will be reported.

Peace Out Slim.

[TrentTuckerRule]

it's been settled a long time ago

[TheNG]

Jordan never won the in-season tournament.
Jordan was never able to reach the Playoffs via the play-in.
Jordan was never able to play in the same NBA team as his own son.
End of discussion.

[Iwasawitness]

Jordan never won the in-season tournament.
Jordan was never able to reach the Playoffs via the play-in.
Jordan was never able to play in the same NBA team as his own son.
End of discussion.

But Jordan’s had a 27/7/7 game so…

[Hair Jordan]

Jordan vs Lebron GOAT debate threads are ok as long as the topic isn’t started by me apparently

[UglyBugBall]

There's no real debate, so we don't need a thread for this. it's like making a sticky thread for the goat debate in hockey. You don't need it, because it's pretty settled. If someone comes around that that eventually challenges Jordan (maybe Wemby or someone else) then it'll make more sense, but not now.

[stuporman]

Disappointed there isn't a poll option to vote 'no' to the thread title question.

[Joao Saraiva]

My GOAT is LeBron James.

I value longevity, I feel his peak and prime are wash with others in top tier and I believe his defensive impact was special at one point (closing the middle and winning rings on that role as a forward while being the #1 option... it's super impressive).

I also like that he won in diferent roles (PF with the Heat, SF with Cavs and PG with the Lakers). It shows he is completely capable of playing any function at the highest level.

However I wouldn't look for consensus. I think MJ, Wilt, Russell and Kareem all have solid cases and can be argued convincingly.

It's just a personal ranking and I don't believe we will ever have "consensus" (depending on what you think consensus is, if it's over 50% I think the consensus is MJ).

[ropjhk]

Jordan never won the in-season tournament.
Jordan was never able to reach the Playoffs via the play-in.
Jordan was never able to play in the same NBA team as his own son.
End of discussion.

In case anybody needed any more convincing:

Jordan never beat a team that previously beat him in the finals.
Jordan has ZERO 3rd team All NBA awards.
Jordan has ZERO Gatorade high school player of the year awards.

/thread

[Hair Jordan]

Jordan’s the GOAT. The majority of GOAT level players (Magic, Bird, Hakeem, Shaq, Kobe) agree. ROTY, 10 scoring titles, 3 steals titles, 5 MVP’s, 6 FMVP’s, 2 repeats, 2 3-peats, 6-0 in the Finals, highest career PER, highest career regular and postseason PPG average etc not to mention all of the advanced stat metric records he owns. Did it all in just 11 1/2 seasons. Some GOATS win (Russell) and some have longevity stats (Lebron) but Jordan has the best mix of winning AND stats.

[CBS7]

MJ my GOAT but LeBron and Kareem, IMO, are both fine choices for your GOAT too. I'll argue MJ over LeBron for fun, but some people take it way too seriously.

[Asian Celtic]

I don't rank Lebron as the GOAT simply because he's a Team hopper and a bigtime flopper. I'm petty like that.

[ropjhk]

Jordan’s the GOAT. The majority of GOAT level players (Magic, Bird, Hakeem, Shaq, Kobe) agree. ROTY, 10 scoring titles, 3 steals titles, 5 MVP’s, 6 FMVP’s, 2 repeats, 2 3-peats, 6-0 in the Finals, highest career PER, highest career regular and postseason PPG average etc not to mention all of the advanced stat metric records he owns. Did it all in just 11 1/2 seasons. Some GOATS win (Russell) and some have longevity stats (Lebron) but Jordan has the best mix of winning AND stats.

This doesn't even mention Jordan's NCAA and Olympic accomplishments. If we're giving Lebron credit for his longevity due to the number of seasons he played we should also give Jordan credit for what he did while in college.

[Homer38]

Because of his longevity, LBJ's peak and prime became more and more underrated...I mean, he was considered as an all-time top 3-5 after 2016 when he was only 31....And for longevity , the thing is that he is still a top 10 caliber player, so we can't penalize him for that...He is much better than Jordan was with the wizards in 2002 and 2003

For the peak, I could make an argument that LBJ was as good if not better in the playoffs in 2016 to 2018 than Jordan was in 1991 to 1993

[parapooper]

There's no real debate, so we don't need a thread for this. it's like making a sticky thread for the goat debate in hockey. You don't need it, because it's pretty settled.

Hockey is pretty settled because there aren't a horde of geniuses making 10000s of posts like:
4<X case closed!
Waste Gretzky won only 4 times and couldn't even 3-peat once despite playing for 2 decades - ha, ha what a loser.
Gretzky put up lots of meaningless stats but has too many playoff failures to list.
Gretzcheat teamed up with Kevin Lowe and others to form a super team.
Gretzbum lost as the heavy favorite with 6 other all-stars and future Hall-of-famers on his team.
The ungretzful one can't be GOAT because he deserted his home team for LA and played for 4 different teams.

[Homer38]

There's no real debate, so we don't need a thread for this. it's like making a sticky thread for the goat debate in hockey. You don't need it, because it's pretty settled.

Hockey is pretty settled because there aren't a horde of geniuses making 10000s of posts like:
4<X case closed!
Waste Gretzky won only 4 times and couldn't even 3-peat once despite playing for 2 decades - ha, ha what a loser.
Gretzky put up lots of meaningless stats but has too many playoff failures to list.
Gretzcheat teamed up with Kevin Lowe and others to form a super team.
Gretzbum lost as the heavy favorite with 6 other all-stars and future Hall-of-famers on his team.
The ungretzful one can't be GOAT because he deserted his home team for LA and played for 4 different teams.

And the oilers won a stanley cup 2 years after he was traded!

[Hair Jordan]

Because of his longevity, LBJ's peak and prime became more and more underrated...I mean, he was considered as an all-time top 3-5 after 2016 when he was only 31....And for longevity , the thing is that he is still a top 10 caliber player, so we can't penalize him for that...He is much better than Jordan was with the wizards in 2002 and 2003

For the peak, I could make an argument that LBJ was as good if not better in the playoffs in 2016 to 2018 than Jordan was in 1991 to 1993

Nobody gave a sh-t about longevity until Bronsexuals needed something to boost Lebron’s case. Nobody cared about Kareem playing 20 seasons in addition to his 4 years in college. Nobody cared that Karl Malone scored more career points than Jordan, Kobe, Wilt etc. Nobody thinks Pete Rose is the best hitter of all time even though he has more hits than anyone in history. Longevity stats are their own separate animal and are only talked about because Lebron falls short of Jordan everywhere else.

[Homer38]

Because of his longevity, LBJ's peak and prime became more and more underrated...I mean, he was considered as an all-time top 3-5 after 2016 when he was only 31....And for longevity , the thing is that he is still a top 10 caliber player, so we can't penalize him for that...He is much better than Jordan was with the wizards in 2002 and 2003

For the peak, I could make an argument that LBJ was as good if not better in the playoffs in 2016 to 2018 than Jordan was in 1991 to 1993

Nobody gave a sh-t about longevity until Bronsexuals needed something to boost Lebron’s case. Nobody cared about Kareem playing 20 seasons in addition to his 4 years in college. Nobody cared that Karl Malone scored more career points than Jordan, Kobe, Wilt etc. Nobody thinks Pete Rose is the best hitter of all time even though he has more hits than anyone in history. Longevity stats are their own separate animal and are only talked about because Lebron falls short of Jordan everywhere else.

Make no sense....peak and prime of LBJ was much better that Malone...LBJ is considered as a top 3 player ever since 2016 so this is not only about the record......

[parapooper]

Jordan’s the GOAT. The majority of GOAT level players (Magic, Bird, Hakeem, Shaq, Kobe) agree. ROTY, 10 scoring titles, 3 steals titles, 5 MVP’s, 6 FMVP’s, 2 repeats, 2 3-peats, 6-0 in the Finals, highest career PER, highest career regular and postseason PPG average etc not to mention all of the advanced stat metric records he owns. Did it all in just 11 1/2 seasons. Some GOATS win (Russell) and some have longevity stats (Lebron) but Jordan has the best mix of winning AND stats.

This doesn't even mention Jordan's NCAA and Olympic accomplishments. If we're giving Lebron credit for his longevity due to the number of seasons he played we should also give Jordan credit for what he did while in college.

Sure, let's give Jordan credit for what he did in College:
He took over a champion with multiple future NBA players and a GOAT-level coach from James Worthy and then proceeded to deliver consecutive epic postseason bed-wettings for the rest of his Worthy-less college career.
Sure, he lost in consecutive seasons as a (the?) championship favorite to nameless bums, but since he didn't even sniff the finals it's not remotely as bad as LeBron losing in the finals to the 2007 Spurs at a similar age.

[xxSnEaKyPxx]

I LOVE the idea of having this thread stickied, so the people who just want to debate it all day every day for the next however many years, can all talk about it in one spot instead of the 8 threads daily we see.