RGM GOAT Debate Thread (Part 2)

[MavsDirk41]

And for the record, what happened the year before Jordan came back? What happened
to that awesome squad? Shouldn't Pippen be carrying them and an obvious MVP choice if
he's top 5?

So a team that lost a 3x MVP and replaced him with Meyers managed to win over 50 games and a playoff series and if not for some questionable officiating might have won at least one more.

What did Mike win before and after Pip? Oh that's right, not anything.

Who did James beat in the east before creating a superteam in Miami? Don’t remember James playing a team similar to Birds Celtics or the Bad Boy Pistons. But ill wait on your response knowing ill never get one from you.

Also, has there ever been a year that James hasnt cried about needing more help?

Death, taxes, James needing help….like clockwork.

[michaelm]

This has been said many times but a link to MJ saying that has never been provided.

“It’s not because I don’t love the game. I love the game of basketball, I always will. I just feel that at this particular time in my career, I’ve reached the pinnacle of my career, I’ve achieved a lot in that short amount of time, if you want to call it short, but I just feel that I don’t have anything else to myself to prove."


https://www.chicagotribune.com/1993/10/06/michael-jordans-statement-from-his-1993-press-conference-to-announce-his-retirement-from-the-nba/

So basically he was full of **** at that time cause if that were the truth, then he would've never went back to the NBA.

Not only did he decide he had something to prove again, he went ahead and duly proved whatever he wanted to prove. including breaking the regular season wins record capped off by winning the title. i hardly think a second threepeat is grounds for criticism.

[MavsDirk41]

[youtube][/youtube]

So a team that lost a 3x MVP and replaced him with Meyers managed to win over 50 games and a playoff series and if not for some questionable officiating might have won at least one more.

What did Mike win before and after Pip? Oh that's right, not anything.

And who was Mike's supporting cast?
Oh right, cocaine addicts.

And what happened when Mike returned? Oh right, they went from a barely .500 season to a .888 (84-14 streak) with MJ, including the following season, setting the all time regular season record at the time 72-10.
And that's checkmate.

.... but that's not all,
they also three-peated, including multiple Finals game winners and a game winning assist to Kerr by Jordan himself, not to mention the flu game.

This three-peat? It's something Lebron's never been able to do even after teaming up with two MVP candidates from the prior year, and one of the GOAT coaches in Riley. And he choked in 2011, nearly choked against the Spurs if not for Allen and Bosh.

When did Jordan choke like that? He was the best player on the court, period.

All of the above is what you call the true GOAT and ceiling raiser.

The second 3peat comes with an * due to needing to sit out and rest for almost 2 seasons. The Bulls first 3peat was impressive though.

Yea retiring twice is so much worse than team hopping to stack the deck in your favor. It takes courage to build superteams doesnt it? What a hero!

[ScrantonBulls]

[youtube][/youtube]

And who was Mike's supporting cast?
Oh right, cocaine addicts.

And what happened when Mike returned? Oh right, they went from a barely .500 season to a .888 (84-14 streak) with MJ, including the following season, setting the all time regular season record at the time 72-10.
And that's checkmate.

.... but that's not all,
they also three-peated, including multiple Finals game winners and a game winning assist to Kerr by Jordan himself, not to mention the flu game.

This three-peat? It's something Lebron's never been able to do even after teaming up with two MVP candidates from the prior year, and one of the GOAT coaches in Riley. And he choked in 2011, nearly choked against the Spurs if not for Allen and Bosh.

When did Jordan choke like that? He was the best player on the court, period.

All of the above is what you call the true GOAT and ceiling raiser.

The second 3peat comes with an * due to needing to sit out and rest for almost 2 seasons. The Bulls first 3peat was impressive though.

Yea retiring twice is so much worse than team hopping to stack the deck in your favor. It takes courage to build superteams doesnt it? What a hero!

You know somebody's argument is a complete failure when it revolves around ripping a player for wanting a good team.

The people who cry about LeBron joining "superteams" are the same ones who would be pointing to his lack of championships if he stayed with the dumpster fire Cavaliers organization his entire career. They're just mad that he did what was needed to win title. Apparently a GN making a championship team = good but players creating a championship team = bad It's really just a nonsensical argument.

[bledredwine]

Jordan is first in the *rate* version of them , but LeBron is generally ahead in the cumulative version (yes even if you give extra weight to peak) viewtopic.php?t=2393827

Longevity stats don't matter much - Lebron leads NBA history in missed field goals and turnovers.
Does that make him the most careless player of all time? I care more about who played better on a game by game basis AKA who was actually better.

If we are talking about career value (I.E. if you could have a player for their entire career who would you take) why wouldn’t longevity be a pretty big factor?

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/04/13/goat-meta-thoughts-and-longevity/#:~:text=So%2C%20it%20seems%20that%20beyond,in%20these%20kinds%20of%20rankings.

This is the GOAT thread, not career value thread.

But still, Jordan has much higher value in terms of six championships, twice as many trophies, Lebron actually lost a championship that should have been won, then Jordan’s marketing for the franchise and so on. I get that you like Lebron but I believe you understand that you’re reaching with this.
As I posted, longevity stats don’t mean better player at all.

[MavsDirk41]

[youtube][/youtube]

The second 3peat comes with an * due to needing to sit out and rest for almost 2 seasons. The Bulls first 3peat was impressive though.

Yea retiring twice is so much worse than team hopping to stack the deck in your favor. It takes courage to build superteams doesnt it? What a hero!

You know somebody's argument is a complete failure when it revolves around ripping a player for wanting a good team.

The people who cry about LeBron joining "superteams" are the same ones who would be pointing to his lack of championships if he stayed with the dumpster fire Cavaliers organization his entire career. They're just mad that he did what was needed to win title. Apparently a GN making a championship team = good but players creating a championship team = bad It's really just a nonsensical argument.

Ok taj good job

[michaelm]

[youtube][/youtube]

The second 3peat comes with an * due to needing to sit out and rest for almost 2 seasons. The Bulls first 3peat was impressive though.

Yea retiring twice is so much worse than team hopping to stack the deck in your favor. It takes courage to build superteams doesnt it? What a hero!

You know somebody's argument is a complete failure when it revolves around ripping a player for wanting a good team.

The people who cry about LeBron joining "superteams" are the same ones who would be pointing to his lack of championships if he stayed with the dumpster fire Cavaliers organization his entire career. They're just mad that he did what was needed to win title. Apparently a GN making a championship team = good but players creating a championship team = bad It's really just a nonsensical argument.

I have no problem at all with LeBron’s moves, he was a FA all 3 times and the Cavs were a horrible organisation the first time around. I did find AD’s move to the Lakers a tad malodorous.

My issue is actually the reverse, partisans of LeBron and his teams objecting to other players and teams similarly making their own choices/seeking their own best advantage. LeBron set the table for FA moves in his era, I can see no reason why it shouldn’t be open slather for all FAs. Franchises were also actually entitled to construct teams which beat his teams.

[ScrantonBulls]

Longevity stats don't matter much - Lebron leads NBA history in missed field goals and turnovers.
Does that make him the most careless player of all time? I care more about who played better on a game by game basis AKA who was actually better.

If we are talking about career value (I.E. if you could have a player for their entire career who would you take) why wouldn’t longevity be a pretty big factor?

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/04/13/goat-meta-thoughts-and-longevity/#:~:text=So%2C%20it%20seems%20that%20beyond,in%20these%20kinds%20of%20rankings.

This is the GOAT thread, not career value thread.

But still, Jordan has much higher value in terms of six championships, twice as many trophies, Lebron actually lost a championship that should have been won, then Jordan’s marketing for the franchise and so on. I get that you like Lebron but I believe you understand that you’re reaching with this.
As I posted, longevity stats don’t mean better player at all.

You've nailed why you have Jordan far and above everybody else. You fell for the marketing campaign - hook, line and sinker. You're conditioned to think he is some type of god.

The MJ marketing campaign by Nike and the NBA is an all time great campaign. It's up there with De Beers convincing people that they need to buy diamond rings for marriage.

[Special_Puppy]

Longevity stats don't matter much - Lebron leads NBA history in missed field goals and turnovers.
Does that make him the most careless player of all time? I care more about who played better on a game by game basis AKA who was actually better.

If we are talking about career value (I.E. if you could have a player for their entire career who would you take) why wouldn’t longevity be a pretty big factor?

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/04/13/goat-meta-thoughts-and-longevity/#:~:text=So%2C%20it%20seems%20that%20beyond,in%20these%20kinds%20of%20rankings.

This is the GOAT thread, not career value thread.

But still, Jordan has much higher value in terms of six championships, twice as many trophies, Lebron actually lost a championship that should have been won, then Jordan’s marketing for the franchise and so on. I get that you like Lebron but I believe you understand that you’re reaching with this.
As I posted, longevity stats don’t mean better player at all.

Career value is a pretty common way to view these kind of debates. Baseball writers and HOF voters are obsessed with raw career WAR and stuff like JAWS that tries to blend it with peak value. Ben Taylor at ThinkingBasketball created an entire list based on career value.

[RRR3]

Longevity stats don't matter much - Lebron leads NBA history in missed field goals and turnovers.
Does that make him the most careless player of all time? I care more about who played better on a game by game basis AKA who was actually better.

If we are talking about career value (I.E. if you could have a player for their entire career who would you take) why wouldn’t longevity be a pretty big factor?

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/04/13/goat-meta-thoughts-and-longevity/#:~:text=So%2C%20it%20seems%20that%20beyond,in%20these%20kinds%20of%20rankings.

This is the GOAT thread, not career value thread.

But still, Jordan has much higher value in terms of six championships, twice as many trophies, Lebron actually lost a championship that should have been won, then Jordan’s marketing for the franchise and so on. I get that you like Lebron but I believe you understand that you’re reaching with this.
As I posted, longevity stats don’t mean better player at all.

Six is not twice as much as four, your math is atrocious.

[michaelm]

If we are talking about career value (I.E. if you could have a player for their entire career who would you take) why wouldn’t longevity be a pretty big factor?

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/04/13/goat-meta-thoughts-and-longevity/#:~:text=So%2C%20it%20seems%20that%20beyond,in%20these%20kinds%20of%20rankings.

This is the GOAT thread, not career value thread.

But still, Jordan has much higher value in terms of six championships, twice as many trophies, Lebron actually lost a championship that should have been won, then Jordan’s marketing for the franchise and so on. I get that you like Lebron but I believe you understand that you’re reaching with this.
As I posted, longevity stats don’t mean better player at all.

You've nailed why you have Jordan far and above everybody else. You fell for the marketing campaign - hook, line and sinker. You're conditioned to think he is some type of god.

The MJ marketing campaign by Nike and the NBA is an all time great campaign. It's up there with De Beers convincing people that they need to buy diamond rings for marriage.

So there has been no marketing of LeBron ?.

Again it is not only other people who are biased. LeBron has a case even against Jordan, he is a very great player, if not a strong case in my personal opinion.

It may well have been more achievable to have a one team dynasty in Jordan’s era, but the Bulls were hardly a storied franchise prior to him, and the 6 titles from the two threepeats remain the only titles they have ever won. Perhaps you consider me to be drawing a long bow, but it seems to me that those titles coinciding with his tenure is unlikely to have been happenstance.

As has been said the main argument from those of your ilk seem to be stats related to longevity, and selected unproven and unprovable individual metrics applied retrospectively. Those metrics are also supposed to look at contribution to winning rather than to be an end in themselves. I have some familarity with scientific research and don’t consider most basketball metrics to constitute scientific proof, particularly applied retrospectively. Metrics which predict outcomes i have more time for. The anti-Jordan case mainly seems to revolve around him having had stronger teams which were built around him in a team sport, hardly a negative for him imo.

[MavsDirk41]

I alway find it comical when people say “The MJ marketing campaign” when there is an organization called Klutch who has sports talking heads like Nick Wright who are paid to promote James.

There is an old saying that goes; pot calling the kettle black which is appropriate for this. Its ok to call out one thing but put on blinders for the other.

[michaelm]

If we are talking about career value (I.E. if you could have a player for their entire career who would you take) why wouldn’t longevity be a pretty big factor?

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/04/13/goat-meta-thoughts-and-longevity/#:~:text=So%2C%20it%20seems%20that%20beyond,in%20these%20kinds%20of%20rankings.

This is the GOAT thread, not career value thread.

But still, Jordan has much higher value in terms of six championships, twice as many trophies, Lebron actually lost a championship that should have been won, then Jordan’s marketing for the franchise and so on. I get that you like Lebron but I believe you understand that you’re reaching with this.
As I posted, longevity stats don’t mean better player at all.

You've nailed why you have Jordan far and above everybody else. You fell for the marketing campaign - hook, line and sinker. You're conditioned to think he is some type of god.

The MJ marketing campaign by Nike and the NBA is an all time great campaign. It's up there with De Beers convincing people that they need to buy diamond rings for marriage.

And you have obviously fallen for the LeBron marketing campaign, pervasive before he ever played in the NBA and in an era with hugely greater media coverage than in MJ’s when social media and the internet were non existent or in their infancy.

Both players had significant substance on which marketing campaigns could be based, and Jordan made Nike rather than the other way around. Attempting to use the marketing involved with the respective players to distinguish between them is risible in the extreme. If anything LeBron should be grateful to MJ for showing him the way to become a billionaire basketball player.

[michaelm]

So a team that lost a 3x MVP and replaced him with Meyers managed to win over 50 games and a playoff series and if not for some questionable officiating might have won at least one more.

What did Mike win before and after Pip? Oh that's right, not anything.

And who was Mike's supporting cast?
Oh right, cocaine addicts.

And what happened when Mike returned? Oh right, they went from a barely .500 season to a .888 (84-14 streak) with MJ, including the following season, setting the all time regular season record at the time 72-10.
And that's checkmate.

.... but that's not all,
they also three-peated, including multiple Finals game winners and a game winning assist to Kerr by Jordan himself, not to mention the flu game.

This three-peat? It's something Lebron's never been able to do even after teaming up with two MVP candidates from the prior year, and one of the GOAT coaches in Riley. And he choked in 2011, nearly choked against the Spurs if not for Allen and Bosh.

When did Jordan choke like that? He was the best player on the court, period.

All of the above is what you call the true GOAT and ceiling raiser.

The second 3peat comes with an * due to needing to sit out and rest for almost 2 seasons. The Bulls first 3peat was impressive though.

Straws, clutching at.

[ScrantonBulls]

I alway find it comical when people say “The MJ marketing campaign” when there is an organization called Klutch who has sports talking heads like Nick Wright who are paid to promote James.

There is an old saying that goes; pot calling the kettle black which is appropriate for this. Its ok to call out one thing but put on blinders for the other.

LMAO hold up. So you think Klutch and Nick Wright are somehow comparable to the Air Jordan marketing campaign when it comes to marketing and popularity? I'm legitimately cracking up at that notion

[michaelm]

I alway find it comical when people say “The MJ marketing campaign” when there is an organization called Klutch who has sports talking heads like Nick Wright who are paid to promote James.

There is an old saying that goes; pot calling the kettle black which is appropriate for this. Its ok to call out one thing but put on blinders for the other.

LMAO hold up. So you think Klutch and Nick Wright are somehow comparable to the Air Jordan marketing campaign when it comes to marketing and popularity? I'm legitimately cracking up at that notion

Not as much as people are laughing at you for trying to differentiate between Jordan and LeBron on the basis of Jordan being marketed while LeBron apparently was not.

I do think Jordan may have kept back “The Last Dance ” documentary for release at a strategic time though.

If you wish to argue Jordan was more successfully marketed than LeBron that is hardly a knock on Jordan. I find your notions of causality osomewhat flawed btw; you do realise that LeBron tried to emulate Jordan rather the other way around ?.

[michaelm]

Double

[bledredwine]

If we are talking about career value (I.E. if you could have a player for their entire career who would you take) why wouldn’t longevity be a pretty big factor?

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/04/13/goat-meta-thoughts-and-longevity/#:~:text=So%2C%20it%20seems%20that%20beyond,in%20these%20kinds%20of%20rankings.

This is the GOAT thread, not career value thread.

But still, Jordan has much higher value in terms of six championships, twice as many trophies, Lebron actually lost a championship that should have been won, then Jordan’s marketing for the franchise and so on. I get that you like Lebron but I believe you understand that you’re reaching with this.
As I posted, longevity stats don’t mean better player at all.

Career value is a pretty common way to view these kind of debates. Baseball writers and HOF voters are obsessed with raw career WAR and stuff like JAWS that tries to blend it with peak value. Ben Taylor at ThinkingBasketball created an entire list based on career value.

It’s only common if by career value, you’re not speaking longevity but achievements, stats and marketing value as well. Otherwise, it’s not career value. It’s longevity, which is just one aspect of that.

You’re basically disguising longevity as career value to use longevity/cumulative stats, since it’s the one set of stats where Lebron looks better. But it certainly doesn’t imply better player, more achievements and more dominance, which all go to Jordan. You’d use those stats if MJ wasn’t on top.

[michaelm]

This is the GOAT thread, not career value thread.

But still, Jordan has much higher value in terms of six championships, twice as many trophies, Lebron actually lost a championship that should have been won, then Jordan’s marketing for the franchise and so on. I get that you like Lebron but I believe you understand that you’re reaching with this.
As I posted, longevity stats don’t mean better player at all.

Career value is a pretty common way to view these kind of debates. Baseball writers and HOF voters are obsessed with raw career WAR and stuff like JAWS that tries to blend it with peak value. Ben Taylor at ThinkingBasketball created an entire list based on career value.

It’s only common if by career value, you’re not speaking longevity but achievements, stats and marketing value as well. Otherwise, it’s not career value. It’s longevity, which is just one aspect of that.

You’re basically disguising longevity as career value to use longevity/cumulative stats, since it’s the one set of stats where Lebron looks better. But it certainly doesn’t imply better player, more achievements and more dominance, which all go to Jordan. You’d use those stats if MJ wasn’t on top.

LeBron should be and is up there on most lists in regard to performance as a basketball player.

You can also make up any metric/statistic you like and apply it retrospectively, which this guy seems to have done, though.

We know LeBron has had a longer career, but as even this guy says Jordan’s peak was high and his career not short, if not reaching LeBron and Kareem levels of longevity. I don’t think Jordan’s time at the Washington Wizards is very relevant to his quality as a basketball player, and or that the statistics LeBron has accumulated in his latter years at the Lakers have much meaning either. Leading a team to a title at age 35 as both Jordan and LeBron did is evidence of impressive longevity at or near their peaks for both players in any case.

If you want to place high value on longevity Kareem who kept winning to eventually accumulate 7 titles might have both Jordan and LeBron covered.

[Special_Puppy]

This is the GOAT thread, not career value thread.

But still, Jordan has much higher value in terms of six championships, twice as many trophies, Lebron actually lost a championship that should have been won, then Jordan’s marketing for the franchise and so on. I get that you like Lebron but I believe you understand that you’re reaching with this.
As I posted, longevity stats don’t mean better player at all.

Career value is a pretty common way to view these kind of debates. Baseball writers and HOF voters are obsessed with raw career WAR and stuff like JAWS that tries to blend it with peak value. Ben Taylor at ThinkingBasketball created an entire list based on career value.

It’s only common if by career value, you’re not speaking longevity but achievements, stats and marketing value as well. Otherwise, it’s not career value. It’s longevity, which is just one aspect of that.

You’re basically disguising longevity as career value to use longevity/cumulative stats, since it’s the one set of stats where Lebron looks better. But it certainly doesn’t imply better player, more achievements and more dominance, which all go to Jordan. You’d use those stats if MJ wasn’t on top.

You can tweak how you want to calculate career value to put more or less emphasis on peak. A lot of the lists I listed (including mine further down the thread) explicitly weight peak and prime years more.