RGM GOAT Debate Thread (Part 2)

[The4thHorseman]

Sure, but you can also weight achievements, stats as well. They’re both a part of the picture. Could the guy get it done? Did he ever put his team in the position to lose as his own fault? And so on.
Longevity is nice, but if we’re weighing it that heavily, I have Kareem over lebron anyway.

The video I posted earlier looked from several angles, as one should.

This is what Kobe fans used to do- prioritize Championship count and scoring.

For Jordan, we prioritize everything because he was that dominant all around. You’ll hear everything mentioned, not just longevity, or just championships, or just stats, or just peak etc.
These people prioritizing longevity are doing it because they are Lebron fans and that’s the one general GOAT criteria he has over Jordan.

I just want to walk you through an example of a career value calculation. Going to use RAPTOR WAR (a stat created by Nate Silver formally at 538 you can download the data here to recreate what I am showing https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/tree/master/nba-raptor). I'm going to use an adjusted version of RAPTOR that weighs the playoffs twice in a nod towards the fact that the goal of each season is to win a championship. I'm then going to weigh each player's best season 100%. Their 2nd best season 95%. Their 3rd best season 90%. This gives more weight to peak and truly excellent seasons. I'm then going to add every season together using this weighing mechanism I just described. According to the adjusted version of this metric, Jordan's 7 best seasons were worth a total of 221.6 wins. LeBron's 7 best seasons were worth 198.0 wins. So Jordan is comfortably ahead in peak value. And yet it’s LeBron who comes out in front using this career metric overall with 258.3 weighted career WAR to Jordan's 248.2. So in a metric that explicitly weighs peak seasons more and sees Jordan's peak as comfortably better than LeBron's, LeBron still comes out ahead in career value. Yes some of this is just longevity, but LeBron having the 2nd best peak in the data set also helps a lot in a metric that explicitly weighs peak years more.

And this was connected with reality/proven how exactly ?.

If you believe him the argument is over in any case, Jordan had the better peak and impressive longevity and LeBron had a lower but still high peak and even greater longevity.

I obviously would take the higher peak which was quite prolonged anyway and concede LeBron is the better player after age 35 playing for a team which is not seriously contending.

Jordan and longevity should never be in the same sentence. His longest stretch of playing "by choice" was from 1987 to 93, a 7yr stretch before deciding to walk away due to fatigue.

When it comes to comparing 7 consecutive years to 22, there is no comparison.

[MavsDirk41]

I just want to walk you through an example of a career value calculation. Going to use RAPTOR WAR (a stat created by Nate Silver formally at 538 you can download the data here to recreate what I am showing https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/tree/master/nba-raptor). I'm going to use an adjusted version of RAPTOR that weighs the playoffs twice in a nod towards the fact that the goal of each season is to win a championship. I'm then going to weigh each player's best season 100%. Their 2nd best season 95%. Their 3rd best season 90%. This gives more weight to peak and truly excellent seasons. I'm then going to add every season together using this weighing mechanism I just described. According to the adjusted version of this metric, Jordan's 7 best seasons were worth a total of 221.6 wins. LeBron's 7 best seasons were worth 198.0 wins. So Jordan is comfortably ahead in peak value. And yet it’s LeBron who comes out in front using this career metric overall with 258.3 weighted career WAR to Jordan's 248.2. So in a metric that explicitly weighs peak seasons more and sees Jordan's peak as comfortably better than LeBron's, LeBron still comes out ahead in career value. Yes some of this is just longevity, but LeBron having the 2nd best peak in the data set also helps a lot in a metric that explicitly weighs peak years more.

And this was connected with reality/proven how exactly ?.

If you believe him the argument is over in any case, Jordan had the better peak and impressive longevity and LeBron had a lower but still high peak and even greater longevity.

I obviously would take the higher peak which was quite prolonged anyway and concede LeBron is the better player after age 35 playing for a team which is not seriously contending.

Jordan and longevity should never be in the same sentence. His longest stretch of playing "by choice" was from 1987 to 93, a 7yr stretch before deciding to walk away due to fatigue.

When it comes to comparing 7 consecutive years to 22, there is no comparison.

Had nothing to do with his father passing, but you got to stick with your Jordan hating agenda as always lol. Its easy to avoid stating all of the facts though huh?

[Djoker]

There's many ways to slice this proverbial pie. Here are some of my views on this longevity discussion.

Problem with longevity is that it's so situational and in many cases related to factors and events that have nothing to do with the game of basketball. And sometimes in fact, success can even be a factor against longevity. Does Russell retire if he loses in 1969 or does Jordan retire if he loses in 1998... maybe not! Does Lebron keep playing the last several years if he already has 7 rings? Maybe not. To me it definitely makes sense to penalize a player who had issues with durability like, for example, Larry Bird. But for Jordan who retired for other reasons (father's death, Krause disbanding the team, the feeling that he's done everything after 6 rings) and lost three years by going to college which was a product of his era, I struggle to penalize him for it. Same for Magic who probably doesn't retire if he doesn't get HIV which has nothing to do with Magic the basketball player. Not to mention that there have been major advancements in medicine, nutrition, training, equipment etc. in the last 30 years. We are seeing not just Lebron but Curry, KD, CP3 and many others playing at an extremely high level into their late 30's. In other sports, we are also seeing it with Messi, Ronaldo, Ovechkin, Crosby, Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, Brady etc.

I also believe that an end-all career value comparison is flawed because it doesn't consider the salary cap. 2013 Lebron and 2025 Lebron both earn max salary but the former is a great first option on a title team while the second is not a good first option. Because of this, it is much more difficult to construct a championship roster around 2025 Lebron because you need a significantly stronger supporting cast within the same finite salary cap (inflation adjusted of course). Bottom line is that post prime years simply aren't nearly as valuable as a career value analysis would have you believe. Ben Taylor's model does actually use era-related longevity but still doesn't factor in the salary cap.

Of course, the longevity argument can also be flipped on its head and used against Lebron as many do by saying "Lebron played 21 years. Why did he only lead his teams to 4 rings?" And I like that approach because it boils down the whole debate to this simple bottom line. Does Lebron have a convincing reason for accomplishing less? To me, he does not and so he's not top 2 on my all time list.

[Special_Puppy]

I also believe that an end-all career value comparison is flawed because it doesn't consider the salary cap. 2013 Lebron and 2025 Lebron both earn max salary but the former is a great first option on a title team while the second is not a good first option. Because of this, it is much more difficult to construct a championship roster around 2025 Lebron because you need a significantly stronger supporting cast within the same finite salary cap (inflation adjusted of course). Bottom line is that post prime years simply aren't nearly as valuable as a career value analysis would have you believe. Ben Taylor's model does actually use era-related longevity but still doesn't factor in the salary cap.

Nate Silver found a similar CORP curve to Ben Taylor when he looked at this problem 12 years ago. Admittedly I found a steeper curve when I looked at this but I weighed playoff WAR twice as much in my model so it might have been exaggerating the relationship. Of course players with more playoff success in a season are more likely to win the championship https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/lebrons-odds-of-catching-jordan/#:~:text=James%20needs%20four%20more%20championships,13%2C%20or%20about%2030%20percent.

[Special_Puppy]

.

[bledredwine]

There's many ways to slice this proverbial pie. Here are some of my views on this longevity discussion.

Problem with longevity is that it's so situational and in many cases related to factors and events that have nothing to do with the game of basketball. And sometimes in fact, success can even be a factor against longevity. Does Russell retire if he loses in 1969 or does Jordan retire if he loses in 1998... maybe not! Does Lebron keep playing the last several years if he already has 7 rings? Maybe not. To me it definitely makes sense to penalize a player who had issues with durability like, for example, Larry Bird. But for Jordan who retired for other reasons (father's death, Krause disbanding the team, the feeling that he's done everything after 6 rings) and lost three years by going to college which was a product of his era, I struggle to penalize him for it. Same for Magic who probably doesn't retire if he doesn't get HIV which has nothing to do with Magic the basketball player. Not to mention that there have been major advancements in medicine, nutrition, training, equipment etc. in the last 30 years. We are seeing not just Lebron but Curry, KD, CP3 and many others playing at an extremely high level into their late 30's. In other sports, we are also seeing it with Messi, Ronaldo, Ovechkin, Crosby, Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, Brady etc.

I also believe that an end-all career value comparison is flawed because it doesn't consider the salary cap. 2013 Lebron and 2025 Lebron both earn max salary but the former is a great first option on a title team while the second is not a good first option. Because of this, it is much more difficult to construct a championship roster around 2025 Lebron because you need a significantly stronger supporting cast within the same finite salary cap (inflation adjusted of course). Bottom line is that post prime years simply aren't nearly as valuable as a career value analysis would have you believe. Ben Taylor's model does actually use era-related longevity but still doesn't factor in the salary cap.

Of course, the longevity argument can also be flipped on its head and used against Lebron as many do by saying "Lebron played 21 years. Why did he only lead his teams to 4 rings?" And I like that approach because it boils down the whole debate to this simple bottom line. Does Lebron have a convincing reason for accomplishing less? To me, he does not and so he's not top 2 on my all time list.

Exavtly. Jordan accomplished a hall of fame career more in achievements in eight year less of playing. It’s fairly clear who the GOAT is if it’s between these two.

[RRR3]

There's many ways to slice this proverbial pie. Here are some of my views on this longevity discussion.

Problem with longevity is that it's so situational and in many cases related to factors and events that have nothing to do with the game of basketball. And sometimes in fact, success can even be a factor against longevity. Does Russell retire if he loses in 1969 or does Jordan retire if he loses in 1998... maybe not! Does Lebron keep playing the last several years if he already has 7 rings? Maybe not. To me it definitely makes sense to penalize a player who had issues with durability like, for example, Larry Bird. But for Jordan who retired for other reasons (father's death, Krause disbanding the team, the feeling that he's done everything after 6 rings) and lost three years by going to college which was a product of his era, I struggle to penalize him for it. Same for Magic who probably doesn't retire if he doesn't get HIV which has nothing to do with Magic the basketball player. Not to mention that there have been major advancements in medicine, nutrition, training, equipment etc. in the last 30 years. We are seeing not just Lebron but Curry, KD, CP3 and many others playing at an extremely high level into their late 30's. In other sports, we are also seeing it with Messi, Ronaldo, Ovechkin, Crosby, Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, Brady etc.

I also believe that an end-all career value comparison is flawed because it doesn't consider the salary cap. 2013 Lebron and 2025 Lebron both earn max salary but the former is a great first option on a title team while the second is not a good first option. Because of this, it is much more difficult to construct a championship roster around 2025 Lebron because you need a significantly stronger supporting cast within the same finite salary cap (inflation adjusted of course). Bottom line is that post prime years simply aren't nearly as valuable as a career value analysis would have you believe. Ben Taylor's model does actually use era-related longevity but still doesn't factor in the salary cap.

Of course, the longevity argument can also be flipped on its head and used against Lebron as many do by saying "Lebron played 21 years. Why did he only lead his teams to 4 rings?" And I like that approach because it boils down the whole debate to this simple bottom line. Does Lebron have a convincing reason for accomplishing less? To me, he does not and so he's not top 2 on my all time list.

Exavtly. Jordan accomplished a hall of fame career more in achievements in eight year less of playing. It’s fairly clear who the GOAT is if it’s between these two.

To you. Unfortunately for you, lots of people think LeBron is as well. You're just going to have to accept that MJ isn't the unanimous GOAT anymore.

[michaelm]

I just want to walk you through an example of a career value calculation. Going to use RAPTOR WAR (a stat created by Nate Silver formally at 538 you can download the data here to recreate what I am showing https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data/tree/master/nba-raptor). I'm going to use an adjusted version of RAPTOR that weighs the playoffs twice in a nod towards the fact that the goal of each season is to win a championship. I'm then going to weigh each player's best season 100%. Their 2nd best season 95%. Their 3rd best season 90%. This gives more weight to peak and truly excellent seasons. I'm then going to add every season together using this weighing mechanism I just described. According to the adjusted version of this metric, Jordan's 7 best seasons were worth a total of 221.6 wins. LeBron's 7 best seasons were worth 198.0 wins. So Jordan is comfortably ahead in peak value. And yet it’s LeBron who comes out in front using this career metric overall with 258.3 weighted career WAR to Jordan's 248.2. So in a metric that explicitly weighs peak seasons more and sees Jordan's peak as comfortably better than LeBron's, LeBron still comes out ahead in career value. Yes some of this is just longevity, but LeBron having the 2nd best peak in the data set also helps a lot in a metric that explicitly weighs peak years more.

And this was connected with reality/proven how exactly ?.

If you believe him the argument is over in any case, Jordan had the better peak and impressive longevity and LeBron had a lower but still high peak and even greater longevity.

I obviously would take the higher peak which was quite prolonged anyway and concede LeBron is the better player after age 35 playing for a team which is not seriously contending.

Jordan and longevity should never be in the same sentence. His longest stretch of playing "by choice" was from 1987 to 93, a 7yr stretch before deciding to walk away due to fatigue.

When it comes to comparing 7 consecutive years to 22, there is no comparison.

If you want to go there arguments can be made about Lebron's 4th title being favoured by circumstances which allowed him to avoid fatigue. I don't accept that line of argument myself, it was the same for all players and teams and afaik LeBron didn't cause the pandemic. I somehow doubt the tragic circumstances which led to Jordan not playing for 18 months were deliberately devised by him to allow him to take a break either though.

[Djoker]

I'll give y'all an example that further illustrates what I'm talking about how CORP models don't work. In 1993, Ben Taylor has Jordan with a 27% CORP and Reggie Miller with a 9% CORP so basically you have the same title odds with one Jordan-caliber player as you do with three Reggie-caliber players on your team assuming the same rest of the supporting cast. Of course you're paying your one Jordan 1 max-level salary but you're paying those three Reggie's 3 max-level salaries because stars in the NBA make max deals. Good luck assembling a high quality of supporting cast in the second example with three max deals! Impossible... Thus, in reality, under a salary cap structure, 1 Michael Jordan is worth way more than 3 times Reggie Millers that CORP predicts. Maybe 5 times or even 10 times! Because he has 3 times the value and gets paid 3 times less!

[Special_Puppy]

I'll give y'all an example that further illustrates what I'm talking about how CORP models don't work. In 1993, Ben Taylor has Jordan with a 27% CORP and Reggie Miller with a 9% CORP so basically you have the same title odds with one Jordan-caliber player as you do with three Reggie-caliber players on your team assuming the same rest of the supporting cast. Of course you're paying your one Jordan 1 max-level salary but you're paying those three Reggie's 3 max-level salaries because stars in the NBA make max deals. Good luck assembling a high quality of supporting cast in the second example with three max deals! Impossible... Thus, in reality, under a salary cap structure, 1 Michael Jordan is worth way more than 3 times Reggie Millers that CORP predicts. Maybe 5 times or even 10 times! Because he has 3 times the value and gets paid 3 times less!

CORP says that 3 *years* of Prime Reggie Miller are worth about as much as 3 years of Prime Jordan. Not that 3 Reggie Millers on the same team are worth about the same as 1 Michael Jordan. I will say that even in your hypothetical I would be tempted to take 3 Reggie Miller equivalents over 1 Michael Jordan if I wanted to maximize my odds of winning the championship in one season.

[Djoker]

I'll give y'all an example that further illustrates what I'm talking about how CORP models don't work. In 1993, Ben Taylor has Jordan with a 27% CORP and Reggie Miller with a 9% CORP so basically you have the same title odds with one Jordan-caliber player as you do with three Reggie-caliber players on your team assuming the same rest of the supporting cast. Of course you're paying your one Jordan 1 max-level salary but you're paying those three Reggie's 3 max-level salaries because stars in the NBA make max deals. Good luck assembling a high quality of supporting cast in the second example with three max deals! Impossible... Thus, in reality, under a salary cap structure, 1 Michael Jordan is worth way more than 3 times Reggie Millers that CORP predicts. Maybe 5 times or even 10 times! Because he has 3 times the value and gets paid 3 times less!

CORP says that 3 *years* of Prime Reggie Miller are worth about as much as 3 years of Prime Jordan. Not that 3 Reggie Millers on the same team are worth about the same as 1 Michael Jordan. I will say that even in your hypothetical I would be tempted to take 3 Reggie Miller equivalents over 1 Michael Jordan if I wanted to maximize my odds of winning the championship in one season.

It's ridiculous to take three players who are as good as one player but they make three times the money.

[SlimShady83]

[bledredwine]

There's many ways to slice this proverbial pie. Here are some of my views on this longevity discussion.

Problem with longevity is that it's so situational and in many cases related to factors and events that have nothing to do with the game of basketball. And sometimes in fact, success can even be a factor against longevity. Does Russell retire if he loses in 1969 or does Jordan retire if he loses in 1998... maybe not! Does Lebron keep playing the last several years if he already has 7 rings? Maybe not. To me it definitely makes sense to penalize a player who had issues with durability like, for example, Larry Bird. But for Jordan who retired for other reasons (father's death, Krause disbanding the team, the feeling that he's done everything after 6 rings) and lost three years by going to college which was a product of his era, I struggle to penalize him for it. Same for Magic who probably doesn't retire if he doesn't get HIV which has nothing to do with Magic the basketball player. Not to mention that there have been major advancements in medicine, nutrition, training, equipment etc. in the last 30 years. We are seeing not just Lebron but Curry, KD, CP3 and many others playing at an extremely high level into their late 30's. In other sports, we are also seeing it with Messi, Ronaldo, Ovechkin, Crosby, Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, Brady etc.

I also believe that an end-all career value comparison is flawed because it doesn't consider the salary cap. 2013 Lebron and 2025 Lebron both earn max salary but the former is a great first option on a title team while the second is not a good first option. Because of this, it is much more difficult to construct a championship roster around 2025 Lebron because you need a significantly stronger supporting cast within the same finite salary cap (inflation adjusted of course). Bottom line is that post prime years simply aren't nearly as valuable as a career value analysis would have you believe. Ben Taylor's model does actually use era-related longevity but still doesn't factor in the salary cap.

Of course, the longevity argument can also be flipped on its head and used against Lebron as many do by saying "Lebron played 21 years. Why did he only lead his teams to 4 rings?" And I like that approach because it boils down the whole debate to this simple bottom line. Does Lebron have a convincing reason for accomplishing less? To me, he does not and so he's not top 2 on my all time list.

Exavtly. Jordan accomplished a hall of fame career more in achievements in eight year less of playing. It’s fairly clear who the GOAT is if it’s between these two.

To you. Unfortunately for you, lots of people think LeBron is as well. You're just going to have to accept that MJ isn't the unanimous GOAT anymore.

But he is. And nothing in this thread has really shown otherwise. Look at the poll… and that’s despite the PC crew heading over and Lebron being an active player.
No one has said “the next Lebron”
6 championships, 10 scoring titles (record), 9 times first team defense (record), first in winshares, vorp per 48, PER, ppg, box plus minus, all in regular season and playoffs. Jordan has 19 of the top 100 gamescores of all time singlehandedly and 7 of the top 10 playoff series scoring averages ever himself; all hyper efficient by the way. Only four times has a player won regular season MVP, finals MVP, the scoring title and was first team defense.. all Jordan.

Never choked in a finals or put his team in a position to lose, never let his finals matchup win FMVP (let alone four times), held teammates accountable so they didn’t make dumb defensive mistakes and were battle ready, didn’t bandwagon teams to chase championships “not 6 not 7 not 8” didn’t let a player outscore him in career head to head (as durant has against lebron)

Thats as close to unanimous GOAT as you’re going to get. Its such a bad comparison, just like Kobe was. And just as I said with Kobe, you wait you’ll see just how quickly after lebron retires it’ll move on to the next player being compared to Jordan. Not Lebron… but Jordan as the GOAT. Lebron comparisons would simply feel fake and fabricated, as they are. Jordan has 80+ % of bases covered in this one, and that’s game set match.

And of course we are lucky enough that there are several players who played both and every single one says it’s Jordan “by far” “no question” etc. Yeah, that’s unanimous.

And by the way, I would hope that the GOAT of this sport would hit more than 3 out of every 4 freethrows and shoot beyond 32 percent from midrange over twenty seasons and would be a ceiling raiser rather than one to have some of the worst beatdowns ever (finals). Thats no GOAT.

[michaelm]

I'll give y'all an example that further illustrates what I'm talking about how CORP models don't work. In 1993, Ben Taylor has Jordan with a 27% CORP and Reggie Miller with a 9% CORP so basically you have the same title odds with one Jordan-caliber player as you do with three Reggie-caliber players on your team assuming the same rest of the supporting cast. Of course you're paying your one Jordan 1 max-level salary but you're paying those three Reggie's 3 max-level salaries because stars in the NBA make max deals. Good luck assembling a high quality of supporting cast in the second example with three max deals! Impossible... Thus, in reality, under a salary cap structure, 1 Michael Jordan is worth way more than 3 times Reggie Millers that CORP predicts. Maybe 5 times or even 10 times! Because he has 3 times the value and gets paid 3 times less!

CORP says that 3 *years* of Prime Reggie Miller are worth about as much as 3 years of Prime Jordan. Not that 3 Reggie Millers on the same team are worth about the same as 1 Michael Jordan. I will say that even in your hypothetical I would be tempted to take 3 Reggie Miller equivalents over 1 Michael Jordan if I wanted to maximize my odds of winning the championship in one season.

No, you would take one Michael Jordan and spend the other two Reggie Miller salaries on other players.

[ScrantonBulls]

Exavtly. Jordan accomplished a hall of fame career more in achievements in eight year less of playing. It’s fairly clear who the GOAT is if it’s between these two.

To you. Unfortunately for you, lots of people think LeBron is as well. You're just going to have to accept that MJ isn't the unanimous GOAT anymore.

But he is. And nothing in this thread has really shown otherwise. Look at the poll… and that’s despite the PC crew heading over and Lebron being an active player.
No one has said “the next Lebron”
6 championships, 10 scoring titles (record), 9 times first team defense (record), first in winshares, vorp per 48, PER, ppg, box plus minus, all in regular season and playoffs. Jordan has 19 of the top 100 gamescores of all time singlehandedly and 7 of the top 10 playoff series scoring averages ever himself; all hyper efficient by the way. Only four times has a player won regular season MVP, finals MVP, the scoring title and was first team defense.. all Jordan.

Never choked in a finals or put his team in a position to lose, never let his finals matchup win FMVP (let alone four times), held teammates accountable so they didn’t make dumb defensive mistakes and were battle ready, didn’t bandwagon teams to chase championships “not 6 not 7 not 8” didn’t let a player outscore him in career head to head (as durant has against lebron)

Thats as close to unanimous GOAT as you’re going to get. Its such a bad comparison, just like Kobe was. And just as I said with Kobe, you wait you’ll see just how quickly after lebron retires it’ll move on to the next player being compared to Jordan. Not Lebron… but Jordan as the GOAT. Lebron comparisons would simply feel fake and fabricated, as they are. Jordan has 80+ % of bases covered in this one, and that’s game set match.

And of course we are lucky enough that there are several players who played both and every single one says it’s Jordan “by far” “no question” etc. Yeah, that’s unanimous.

Damn man. This is an all-time bledredwine post. So much incorrect information here in typical bledredwine fashion.

1. MJ is 5th in winshares, not first. He is below Kareem, LeBron Wilt and Malone.
2. VORP per 48? Are you just making up stats now?
3. Jokic is #1 in PER, not MJ.
4. Jokic is #1 in BPM, not MJ.
5. LeBron is #1 in playoff win shares by far.

You are without question my favorite poster here. There's nobody else that displays such complete confidence while being so wrong and including so many fallacies in their posts - on a regular basis. It cracks me up every time. Reminds me of the meme below.

[RRR3]

Exavtly. Jordan accomplished a hall of fame career more in achievements in eight year less of playing. It’s fairly clear who the GOAT is if it’s between these two.

To you. Unfortunately for you, lots of people think LeBron is as well. You're just going to have to accept that MJ isn't the unanimous GOAT anymore.

But he is. And nothing in this thread has really shown otherwise. Look at the poll… and that’s despite the PC crew heading over and Lebron being an active player.
No one has said “the next Lebron”
6 championships, 10 scoring titles (record), 9 times first team defense (record), first in winshares, vorp per 48, PER, ppg, box plus minus, all in regular season and playoffs. Jordan has 19 of the top 100 gamescores of all time singlehandedly and 7 of the top 10 playoff series scoring averages ever himself; all hyper efficient by the way. Only four times has a player won regular season MVP, finals MVP, the scoring title and was first team defense.. all Jordan.

Never choked in a finals or put his team in a position to lose, never let his finals matchup win FMVP (let alone four times), held teammates accountable so they didn’t make dumb defensive mistakes and were battle ready, didn’t bandwagon teams to chase championships “not 6 not 7 not 8” didn’t let a player outscore him in career head to head (as durant has against lebron)

Thats as close to unanimous GOAT as you’re going to get. Its such a bad comparison, just like Kobe was. And just as I said with Kobe, you wait you’ll see just how quickly after lebron retires it’ll move on to the next player being compared to Jordan. Not Lebron… but Jordan as the GOAT. Lebron comparisons would simply feel fake and fabricated, as they are. Jordan has 80+ % of bases covered in this one, and that’s game set match.

And of course we are lucky enough that there are several players who played both and every single one says it’s Jordan “by far” “no question” etc. Yeah, that’s unanimous.

And by the way, I would hope that the GOAT of this sport would hit more than 3 out of every 4 freethrows and shoot beyond 32 percent from midrange over twenty seasons and would be a ceiling raiser rather than one to have some of the worst beatdowns ever (finals). Thats no GOAT.

If 57% is your definition of unanimous I think your literacy is pretty low

[SlimShady83]

I haven't been following, I'm drinking atm ... I just looked at these pictures and they made me laugh, again no Idea what the convo Is but the pics made me laugh

[bledredwine]

When scranton replies hysterically, I know that I made a great post and hit all of the truth bones that would rather be left uncovered … just like the kobe days.

I’ve posted that video several times. Jokic is having an all time high PER season this year, sure. And he hasn’t had the playoffs yet either. And this is in the modern game, where you have an open court and blown up stats anyway. That includes Lebron. Jordan still leads lebron in PER regardless, and that’s despite not playing point from his position as higher PER tends to favor point players and centers. Jordan played offball and still is first playoffs and reg season.

[michaelm]

To you. Unfortunately for you, lots of people think LeBron is as well. You're just going to have to accept that MJ isn't the unanimous GOAT anymore.

But he is. And nothing in this thread has really shown otherwise. Look at the poll… and that’s despite the PC crew heading over and Lebron being an active player.
No one has said “the next Lebron”
6 championships, 10 scoring titles (record), 9 times first team defense (record), first in winshares, vorp per 48, PER, ppg, box plus minus, all in regular season and playoffs. Jordan has 19 of the top 100 gamescores of all time singlehandedly and 7 of the top 10 playoff series scoring averages ever himself; all hyper efficient by the way. Only four times has a player won regular season MVP, finals MVP, the scoring title and was first team defense.. all Jordan.

Never choked in a finals or put his team in a position to lose, never let his finals matchup win FMVP (let alone four times), held teammates accountable so they didn’t make dumb defensive mistakes and were battle ready, didn’t bandwagon teams to chase championships “not 6 not 7 not 8” didn’t let a player outscore him in career head to head (as durant has against lebron)

Thats as close to unanimous GOAT as you’re going to get. Its such a bad comparison, just like Kobe was. And just as I said with Kobe, you wait you’ll see just how quickly after lebron retires it’ll move on to the next player being compared to Jordan. Not Lebron… but Jordan as the GOAT. Lebron comparisons would simply feel fake and fabricated, as they are. Jordan has 80+ % of bases covered in this one, and that’s game set match.

And of course we are lucky enough that there are several players who played both and every single one says it’s Jordan “by far” “no question” etc. Yeah, that’s unanimous.

And by the way, I would hope that the GOAT of this sport would hit more than 3 out of every 4 freethrows and shoot beyond 32 percent from midrange over twenty seasons and would be a ceiling raiser rather than one to have some of the worst beatdowns ever (finals). Thats no GOAT.

If 57% is your definition of unanimous I think your literacy is pretty low

If you like numbers it is nearly 2.5 times Lebron's vote on a present day internet basketball forum, with Lebron still an active player, 27 years after MJ's glory days when such forums didn't exist. He also beats the field, which may be unfair, but to players other than LeBron imo.

[bledredwine]

To you. Unfortunately for you, lots of people think LeBron is as well. You're just going to have to accept that MJ isn't the unanimous GOAT anymore.

But he is. And nothing in this thread has really shown otherwise. Look at the poll… and that’s despite the PC crew heading over and Lebron being an active player.
No one has said “the next Lebron”
6 championships, 10 scoring titles (record), 9 times first team defense (record), first in winshares, vorp per 48, PER, ppg, box plus minus, all in regular season and playoffs. Jordan has 19 of the top 100 gamescores of all time singlehandedly and 7 of the top 10 playoff series scoring averages ever himself; all hyper efficient by the way. Only four times has a player won regular season MVP, finals MVP, the scoring title and was first team defense.. all Jordan.

Never choked in a finals or put his team in a position to lose, never let his finals matchup win FMVP (let alone four times), held teammates accountable so they didn’t make dumb defensive mistakes and were battle ready, didn’t bandwagon teams to chase championships “not 6 not 7 not 8” didn’t let a player outscore him in career head to head (as durant has against lebron)

Thats as close to unanimous GOAT as you’re going to get. Its such a bad comparison, just like Kobe was. And just as I said with Kobe, you wait you’ll see just how quickly after lebron retires it’ll move on to the next player being compared to Jordan. Not Lebron… but Jordan as the GOAT. Lebron comparisons would simply feel fake and fabricated, as they are. Jordan has 80+ % of bases covered in this one, and that’s game set match.

And of course we are lucky enough that there are several players who played both and every single one says it’s Jordan “by far” “no question” etc. Yeah, that’s unanimous.

Damn man. This is an all-time bledredwine post. So much incorrect information here in typical bledredwine fashion.

1. MJ is 5th in winshares, not first. He is below Kareem, LeBron Wilt and Malone.
2. VORP per 48? Are you just making up stats now?
3. Jokic is #1 in PER, not MJ.
4. Jokic is #1 in BPM, not MJ.
5. LeBron is #1 in playoff win shares by far.

You are without question my favorite poster here. There's nobody else that displays such complete confidence while being so wrong and including so many fallacies in their posts - on a regular basis. It cracks me up every time. Reminds me of the meme below.

You picked cumulative stats, how shocking! I’m talking per game and how high a level a player performs throughout a season.

Jordan is first in history in all of those. He simply played at a higher level Funny how lebron has to use longevity and cumulative to lead in any of it. Then there are the obscure stats lebron fans pick to try and dance around the fact. We can dissect this if you’d enjoy that!