It was as brief as a shooting star, but... peak Kawhi vs peak LeBron?

[Rubios]

Pretty even, IMHO.

LeBron being a much better playmaker, Kawhi a better (at least more efficient) scorer.

Defense is alike, maybe I'd give the slightest edge to Kawhi.

[brutalitops]

Defense is alike?

What the ****? Teams literally iced their best player to stand 30 feet from the ring and play 4v4 to keep Kahwi the **** away from any offense

Perimeter players hardly win the award. He won it twice, in a row. Once from a team which finished 6th and won it against the best defender in the best team in the league, then against the same guy anchoring a team which won 73 games.

He won the award against a lot of the chatter of "best team should X". He was utterly dominant defender.

At their peak it's LeBron, but saying defense is alike is ridiculous and means you probably didn't want either at their peak.

So why make this thread?

[Statlanta]

Peak Kawhi never existed. He got injured in 2017 and was 65% in the 2019 Finals.

LeBron James never gets injured and that what makes him better.

[zimpy27]

Nah LeBron was always better than Kawhi and Durant.

Only 30+ year old players that have been better than LeBron are Giannis and Jokic. Both are 30.

[Yoshun]

LeBron's peak lasted something like 10 years.

[Quattro]

Peak Kawhi never existed. He got injured in 2017 and was 65% in the 2019 Finals.

LeBron James never gets injured and that what makes him better.

If that was 65%, then hes the best player to have ever played.

[Onlytimewilltel]

Peak Kawhi never existed. He got injured in 2017 and was 65% in the 2019 Finals.

LeBron James never gets injured and that what makes him better.

If that was 65%, then hes the best player to have ever played.

I mean, he clearly obviously wasn’t anywhere near 100%. Are you saying he was?

2019 finals Kawhi was decently worse then 2017 pre injury Kawhi. Dude was very very clearly struggling with his leg.

[Statlanta]

Peak Kawhi never existed. He got injured in 2017 and was 65% in the 2019 Finals.

LeBron James never gets injured and that what makes him better.

If that was 65%, then hes the best player to have ever played.

It's less that I thought Leonard could play better and more that in 2017 Leonard was better than Durant. In 2019 I felt Durant was better even though Leonard played more and wasn't fully injured like Durant just partially injured.

[madmaxmedia]

Peak Kawhi has an absolute bag, but Lebron's gravity on the offensive end during his peak is almost impossible to overrate (and a great defender as well.) So even discounting health (since we're talking peak), it's still clearly Lebron for me.

[homecourtloss]

Defense is alike?

What the ****? Teams literally iced their best player to stand 30 feet from the ring and play 4v4 to keep Kahwi the **** away from any offense

Perimeter players hardly win the award. He won it twice, in a row. Once from a team which finished 6th and won it against the best defender in the best team in the league, then against the same guy anchoring a team which won 73 games.

He won the award against a lot of the chatter of "best team should X". He was utterly dominant defender.

At their peak it's LeBron, but saying defense is alike is ridiculous and means you probably didn't want either at their peak.

So why make this thread?

The data that we have says that defense is alike while one was his team's offensive engine as a scorer and distributor. It's pretty much unheard of for a GOAT tier offense creator to also be a top tier percentile defender esoecially after 30 years of age.

[falcolombardi]

Defense is alike?

What the ****? Teams literally iced their best player to stand 30 feet from the ring and play 4v4 to keep Kahwi the **** away from any offense

Perimeter players hardly win the award. He won it twice, in a row. Once from a team which finished 6th and won it against the best defender in the best team in the league, then against the same guy anchoring a team which won 73 games.

He won the award against a lot of the chatter of "best team should X". He was utterly dominant defender.

At their peak it's LeBron, but saying defense is alike is ridiculous and means you probably didn't want either at their peak.

So why make this thread?

Lebron was top 2 in dpoy voting twice

Kawhi dpoys could have easily gone to draymond

[Dr Positivity]

Peak Lebron hands down, Kawhi didn't peak on offense and defense at the same time, his D became closer to Tatum than Pippen starting in 2017. And I'd still pick Lebron if he did as he's also great on D and better on offense due to playmaking. He is also a much better leader while Kawhi was fortunate to play with players like Duncan and Lowry that could do that for him, the Clippers otoh were perhaps missing that intangibles X factor.

[thebigbird]

What an asinine comparison. It’s nowhere close. For starters, there’s a Pacific Ocean-sized playmaking gap between the two. Kawhi’s career high in assists is 10. He did it four times. Only four double-digit assist games in his entire career. Peak LeBron was also a better scorer than peak Kawhi. And by the time Kawhi was at his peak offensively, he was past his peak defensively.

[1993Playoffs]

Kawhi is amazing but the playmaking gap is too much.

[lessthanjake]

Defense is alike?

What the ****? Teams literally iced their best player to stand 30 feet from the ring and play 4v4 to keep Kahwi the **** away from any offense

Perimeter players hardly win the award. He won it twice, in a row. Once from a team which finished 6th and won it against the best defender in the best team in the league, then against the same guy anchoring a team which won 73 games.

He won the award against a lot of the chatter of "best team should X". He was utterly dominant defender.

At their peak it's LeBron, but saying defense is alike is ridiculous and means you probably didn't want either at their peak.

So why make this thread?

Kawhi’s best defensive years were better than LeBron’s best defensive years, but “peak Kawhi” isn’t actually Kawhi’s best defensive years, because he never really put together his best offensive and defensive years together. Like, to me, 2014-2016 Kawhi was clearly his defensive peak, but those years were a noticeable step down offensively from what he’d be in subsequent years, and I’d say one of those subsequent years is his overall peak. I don’t think he ever really put it all together enough to be as good as peak LeBron. If you grafted Kawhi’s best offensive years onto his best defensive years, then the result might well be better than LeBron ever was, but that version of Kawhi never happened (and, honestly, even the real versions of Kawhi hardly happened due to injury).

[maradro]

Defense is alike?

What the ****? Teams literally iced their best player to stand 30 feet from the ring and play 4v4 to keep Kahwi the **** away from any offense

Perimeter players hardly win the award. He won it twice, in a row. Once from a team which finished 6th and won it against the best defender in the best team in the league, then against the same guy anchoring a team which won 73 games.

He won the award against a lot of the chatter of "best team should X". He was utterly dominant defender.

At their peak it's LeBron, but saying defense is alike is ridiculous and means you probably didn't want either at their peak.

So why make this thread?

Kawhi’s best defensive years were better than LeBron’s best defensive years, but “peak Kawhi” isn’t actually Kawhi’s best defensive years, because he never really put together his best offensive and defensive years together. Like, to me, 2014-2016 Kawhi was clearly his defensive peak, but those years were a noticeable step down offensively from what he’d be in subsequent years, and I’d say one of those subsequent years is his overall peak. I don’t think he ever really put it all together enough to be as good as peak LeBron. If you grafted Kawhi’s best offensive years onto his best defensive years, then the result might well be better than LeBron ever was, but that version of Kawhi never happened (and, honestly, even the real versions of Kawhi hardly happened due to injury).

saved me the time from writing this!
Would only add also that the mythical peak Kawhi never carried a team like lebron (or most stars) did, neither in terms of teammates nor total production..

[giordunk]

If peak Kawhi and peak LeBron both played each other with equally talented teams, I'm sure Kawhi's team could win, but LeBron has done it so long and so consistently there's no reason not to go with LeBron.

[Cavsfansince84]

What I will say is that Kawhi in 2017 was above KD at his best. The other thing I'll say is that when he went down in game 1 of the wcf he'd put up 26/8/3 in only 24 minutes and SA had I think a 25 pt lead about halfway into the 3rd qtr. This was also after he'd had two incredible series the 1st 2 rds. So if the injury hadn't happened and SA wins game 1 and then had taken 1 more game off of GS while Kawhi avgs something like 36/10/4 for the series on high efficiency there might be some argument for him. As is I don't think there is one but I think the 2019 version of him was only about 90% of the 2017 version and we saw what he did over a full playoff run. LeBron just has a gear where he combines his athleticism and bbiq in a way that no other player really can do which includes every other player who ever played imo. For instance I think his 2018 run is the best combo of scoring and playmaking we've ever seen and obviously his 2016 finals is historic for its own reasons. He's like uber Magic with all nba defense when he needs to be.

[One_and_Done]

It's still Lebron, who has the GOAT peak. Kawhi is definitely top 10 for peaks though. I'd put him above Jordan for sure, which is a much better comp.

[falcolombardi]

If peak Kawhi and peak LeBron both played each other with equally talented teams, I'm sure Kawhi's team could win, but LeBron has done it so long and so consistently there's no reason not to go with LeBron.

Because we are kind of comparing a player in our imagination to a player in reality

Kawhi and most injury prone legends tend to get a bit mythified because we imagine limitless potential proyectef of their best moments as if they played always like that

If lebron got hurt in game 3 vs orlando back in 2009 or at the start of 2013 playoffs after his crazy mvp season he peobably would win a lot of "what if factor" too

but what players actually did is more important than what we convince ourselves they would/,could/should have been

And what lebron did is probably the best peak/prime/career all time in my view