Ainosterhaspie wrote:MavsDirk41 wrote:We can what if all day though. How do you think James would fair playing against Birds Celtics or the Bad Boy Pistons? Can he get out of the east to make it to the finals? What dynasties did he face in the east other than the Celtics Big 3 of Garnett, Pierce and Allen who were aging. Playing in Miami with Bosh and Wade and then Cleveland with Irving and Love those were the teams in the east. He played with 4 all stars during that time. Plus those teams had some quality depth.
We don't have to play what if there though. We have solid proxies in the 07 Pistons and Spurs, and 08 and 10 Celtics. I dont think LeBron would have done much better in Jordan's place before 91, or that Jordan would have done better in LeBron's place before 11.
The point is Jordan had much better fortune during his title runs (both in teammate health and in strength of opposition) than LeBron did during his. He never beat a team as good as the 14 Spurs or 16, 17 and 18 Warriors, so using his extra titles to argue he's better doesn't make much sense. doesn't make much sense.
Except the rosters on LeBron’s teams post 2010 were largely of his own choosing. If he chose injury prone players or players who don’t fit well that is at least partly on him. Same with GSW in 2016, it shouldn’t come as a great surprise if players with the injury history of Bogut or Curry get injured, and Durant getting injured in 2019 was also not unrelated to GSW deliberately choosing to gut their depth and construct a top heavy team. In answer to one of your earlier posts the Bulls might still have won without Rodman, but he was on the team because the Bulls GM thought he would be a good addition and Jordan and Piippen agreed despite previous bitter rivalry. All of those Bulls teams were put together by conventional means btw with no help from a player agency owned by Jordan or recruitment by Jordan in general afaik. That was the way of things in those days, but it is hardly to Jordan’s discredit that good to great teams were built around him as I have been arguing with one of your fellow LeBron partisans for many pages now. The point you made that Jordan and his Bulls teams didn’t achieve major success until he decided/was persuaded to play a more team game is also very much to his credit imo in the team game of basketball.
You are also arguing longevity against a player who led his team as FMVP to 4 titles after the age pf 30, fairly good longevity by most standards. LeBron hasn’t done much but accumulate individual statistics since he turned 35 imo, but if he makes a serious run this year at the age of 40 that will indeed be significant, even if the Lakers don’t win the title, the opposition is stiff this year.
If LeBron faced tougher opposition than Jordan that was largely self created as well, no way the KD GSW team is formed without his own previous superteam endeavours and to an extent him contriving Green’s suspension and his triumphalism after winning the 2016 title which rightly or wrongly annoyed the GSW core players/Hampton’s 5. And if he faced tough opposition it is also the case that no team built around him has been in GOAT team contention like the 72 win Bulls team or 2017 GSW team.
You also chose to selectively discredit individual statistics which favour Jordan, and can’t have it both ways imo. I happen to agree with you about scoring titles and DRAPM, but this doesn’t make the metrics you like necessarily valid either. I have some understanding of statistics in medical science, and many of the other so called advanced basketball statistics which weren’t designed to be an end in themselves anyway look ropy/not strictly validated to me, and I am told favour players who have the ball in their hands. In regard to the latter I have just agreed with you that Jordan choosing/being persuaded to have the ball in his hands less was a major contributor to he and the Bulls becoming ultimately successful.
LeBron is obviously very great, and as I have often said on here has the greatest collection of individual attributes of any player ever including Jordan imo, with being a highly elite PG as a SF or PF quite rare, with others who were not also defensive mavens at the same time. This makes him the GOAT floor raiser imo, but even apart from aesthetics/style preference I don’t regard the heliocentric playing scheme played by most of LeBron’s teams as the best way to play the team sport of basketball, and regard Jordan playing in the triangle offense as the superior ceiling raiser.
LeBron is 0-7 in game winning/tying FGs in the finals. And is 20/116 or 17% in game winning/tying FGs in the 4th/OT for his career. That's historically bad 
