Larry Bird vs Lebron James - Greatest SF of all Time

[Clyde Frazier]

Well, Larry was 23 for most of his rookie campaign with 3 years of College under his belt, while Lebron was 18 as a rookie.

LeBron's second year in the NBA he was putting up 27/7/7, arguable better than anything Larry Bird did in any of his first 5 seasons.

I think LeBron is already a tier ahead of Larry Bird.

A tier ahead? If we agree LeBron is better than Bird, they're clearly in the same tier. The top 2 SFs of all time, and bird has cemented himself as a top 10 player all time regardless of who comes along next.

Just because we agree LeBron is better than Bird doesn't mean they have to be in the same tier.

The more I have looked into Larry Bird's Career, the less impressed I am with him.

Larry Bird will eventually be out of the top 10, although it could take 30-40 years.

The main thing bird has going against him is the lack of longevity. Outside of that, what leaves you "less impressed"? He's one of the best basketball minds and most unique / complete players to ever play the game, and has the resume to back it up.

[longball]

FWIW, ORtg from different eras:

1985/6: 107.2
2013/14: 105.6

So per-possession there's not a really massive difference in what offenses put up from then to now.

(But) Dangerous to generalise about how things are obviously easier / harder nowadays.

not really.... not when virtually anyone who is really anyone says the game changed with the rules in 2004-2005 season to make it easier for the offense.... i'm talking guys like david stern, stu jackson, numerous other nba officials have flat-out said many times as common knowledge that the rules were designed to make it easier on the offense... and a shoal of former players have alluded to the same thing... guys like gary payton, kobe, oscar robertson, tmac, matt barnes, phil jackson, the list goes on and on.

on nba.com's webpage that lists all the rule changes, it says the following regarding the changes instituted before the 2004-2005 season:

"New rules were introduced to curtail hand-checking, clarify blocking fouls and call defensive three seconds to open up the game."

then there is this is from grantland's article on three-pointers... http://grantland.com/features/the-relia ... rting-nba/

"We’re still in a place where the huge majority of 3-pointers are the product of the kind of fun ball movement the league sought to unleash by banning the handcheck, scrapping the old illegal-defense rule, and replacing it with the defensive three-seconds rule in the early 2000s. Those tweaks combined to give ball handlers more freedom of movement on the perimeter, and to declutter the lane of both interior defenders and post-up players".

... wow, so i'm not alone in this thinking.. this stuff is actually quite factual and common knowledge, but a lot of fans simply don't understand the game well enough to think past anything they are currently seeing.

Well, as I said... context!

What you're not acknowledging is that scoring was at a serious low in the period before these rule changes came in.

1999: 91.6 ppg (.437 FG%) 88.9 pace
2000: 97.4 ppg (.445 FG%) 93.1 pace
2001: 94.8 ppg (.442 FG%) 91.3 pace
2002: 95.5 ppg (.445 FG%) 90.7 pace
2003: 95.1 ppg (.442 FG%) 91.0 pace
2004: 93.4 ppg (.438 FG%) 90.1 pace

Compare this to the Bird era:

1981:108.1 ppg (0.486 FG%) 101.8 pace
1982:108.59 ppg (0.491 FG%) 100.9 pace
1983:108.51 ppg (0.485 FG%) 103.1 pace
1984:110.12 ppg (0.492 FG%) 101.4 pace
1985:110.84 ppg (0.491 FG%) 102.1 pace
1986:110.22 ppg (0.487 FG%) 102.1 pace
1987:109.94 ppg (0.48 FG%) 100.8 pace
1988:108.16 ppg (0.48 FG%) 99.6 pace

Big difference in raw scoring and FG%.

Now I enjoy watching a good defense as much as the next fan, but I think as a spectacle, you can see why the NBA decided they might want to take action.

after jordan retired, there was an influx of players into the league that were trying to emulate jordan, but due to the ballhandling revolution that was going on at the time, they were imitating jordan in a much more ball-dominant and less efficient fashion - that was the era of the jordan chuckers - iverson, kobe, pierce, tmac, antoine walker, steve francis... even gilbert arenas was getting his shine and had a brief peak or heyday of chucking... these guys took the 1-on-1 approach of previous eras and basically gave it a bad name - this brief period you speak of introduced the nba to the sub-40%-shooting wing, that became the standard in the early 2000's.... prior to the early 2000's, the sub-40% chucking guard was not a standard thing - that brief period introduced the nba to this type of player.

That NBA overreacted after this stretch - that 4 year stretch you posted was a temporary drop-off after 20 years of higher scoring and faster pace... and the drop-off was not just due to ball-dominant, inefficient chuckers that were doing a bad job of imitating jordan - the drop-off was also due in large part to ambiguity in the hand-checking and zone rules that were actually instituted in 2001, but not clarified or enforced until the 2004-2005 season - so there was a brief period where there was unusual ambiguity surrounding basketball strategy on both ends of the floor.

that is why the nba changed the rules in 2004-2005 season - to clarify and enforce rules introduced in 2001 and free the nba from the brief period of ambiguity they were experiencing at the time.

my point is that there will always be short-term fluctuations due to other factors - infact, at this point where we are today, offensive rating is back on the decline as teams have learned on how to defend the dantoni strategy... originally, offensive rating went gangbusters after the league put in the new rules in 2004-2005 season and the dantoni system was introduced, but now that defenses have climbed the learning curve on how to defend that strategy, offensive rating is back on the decline..

league-wide offensive rating for the last 3 years compared to jordan's first 3-peat....

2012: 104.6
2013: 105.8
2014 (this season)" 105.6

1991: 107.9
1992: 108.0.2
1993: 108.0

[Okada]

I'm surprised at how many people think it's LeBron easily.

84-85: 29-11-7 on 52-43-88
85-86: 26-10-7 on 50-42-90
86-87: 29-9-8 on 53-40-91
87-88: 30-9-6 on 53-41-92

Seems like a pretty insane peak to dismiss so quickly. I'm sure someone here will find some advanced statistics to throw at me but that's at least as good as anything LeBron's ever done, if not better.

[longball]

keep in mind that larry got his assists without having to slow everything down and dominate the ball and have it be "his show" like lebron has to do to get his assists... bird marginalizes great teammates LESS than lebron does... just compare bosh and mchale.

[G35]

keep in mind that larry got his assists without having to slow everything down and dominate the ball and have it be "his show" like lebron has to do to get his assists... bird marginalizes great teammates LESS than lebron does... just compare bosh and mchale.

I agree with this.

On the other hand the game was played at a much faster pace and I think defense has advanced since Birds day. Today's NBA has gone primarily to a pick and roll type offense which in itself marginalizes the other players that are there to space the floor or stay out of the way.

Lebron is able to run an offense without having to go exclusively to pick and roll, even though I do think Bosh and to a lesser extent Wade have been marginalized.....

[longball]

this post is not to compare lebron to jordan... it is to demonstrate how bird and lebron played two distinctly different and separate games in their respective eras - almost two different sports altogether.

so any comparison between these two players is inherently fatally flawed because these players almost play different sports - lebron plays in an era with offensive spacing, where he can average 25ppg largely on open shots where he doesn't have to create individually for himself... larry bird played in an era where if you were going to average 25ppg, you could NOT do it on open shots - you would have to get those 25 points scoring ON a defender... and with no one spreading the floor, the points came in much heavier mid-range traffic.

one era gets a much larger proportion of it's shots on better looks and far more open shots than the other era.

here's an example - just look at highlights of lebron james from last year's Finals... almost all of his points come on relatively open jumpshots and open looks... and this season, he scores most of his point in this open, high-quality shot sort of way...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWTobKuBYV4[/youtube]

now compare to the quality of jordan's shots at the same age in the Finals - look at the drive by jordan at the 2:18 mark and pause the vid at the 2:20 mark - look at how many defenders are in the lane that jordan has to finish over (and he did this the entire game.. he makes elite athlete and then-budding superstar richard dumas look like a junior higher in the 2nd half).... when does lebron have to finish over defenders in the lane like this?... this congestion will only be prevalent in an era devoid of floor-spreading 3's and a hands-off approach on defense.

it's a totally different game altogether.. (vid has legit HD, not as good as lebron's vid, but still pretty good and better than most older jordan vids).. pay attention to severe clutter in paint.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLLfcJhJ9wc&t=2m17s[/youtube]

[Okada]

If LeBron ever had a Finals game like that Jordan 55 pointer, everyone would lose their **** and declare it the best individual performance ever. For Jordan, it's practically a forgotten game. Because whatever is newer is better.

[colts18]

keep in mind that larry got his assists without having to slow everything down and dominate the ball and have it be "his show" like lebron has to do to get his assists... bird marginalizes great teammates LESS than lebron does... just compare bosh and mchale.

When will this myth end? LeBron doesn't dominate the ball. LeBron is 40th in the NBA in time of possession with the ball (4.6 minutes per game). Guys ahead of Lebron include Kobe, Greivis Vasquez, Steve Blake, Kendall Marshall, Steve Blake, Stephen Curry, and Kemba Walker. Why aren't you calling those guys ball dominant?

[wigglestrue]

keep in mind that larry got his assists without having to slow everything down and dominate the ball and have it be "his show" like lebron has to do to get his assists... bird marginalizes great teammates LESS than lebron does... just compare bosh and mchale.

When will this myth end? LeBron doesn't dominate the ball. LeBron is 40th in the NBA in time of possession with the ball (4.6 minutes per game). Guys ahead of Lebron include Kobe, Greivis Vasquez, Steve Blake, Kendall Marshall, Steve Blake, Stephen Curry, and Kemba Walker. Why aren't you calling those guys ball dominant?

That's total time spent with the ball. Where is he ranked in terms of time of possession with the ball immediately preceding an assist?

[mojay641]

keep in mind that larry got his assists without having to slow everything down and dominate the ball and have it be "his show" like lebron has to do to get his assists... bird marginalizes great teammates LESS than lebron does... just compare bosh and mchale.

When will this myth end? LeBron doesn't dominate the ball. LeBron is 40th in the NBA in time of possession with the ball (4.6 minutes per game). Guys ahead of Lebron include Kobe, Greivis Vasquez, Steve Blake, Kendall Marshall, Steve Blake, Stephen Curry, and Kemba Walker. Why aren't you calling those guys ball dominant?

lol @ including kobe, who has played 6 games.

[MisterWestside]

here's an example - just look at highlights of lebron james from last year's Finals... almost all of his points come on relatively open jumpshots and open looks... and this season, he scores most of his point in this open, high-quality shot sort of way...

That's because LeBron is among the best finishers (not just today, but ever) at the rim and in the paint. Teams will gladly concede a midrange jumper - even a jumper at .500 efg% - than to allow LeBron to score at .700+ efg% with the added bonus of drawing fouls. Hence the defenses played against him.

[longball]

here's an example - just look at highlights of lebron james from last year's Finals... almost all of his points come on relatively open jumpshots and open looks... and this season, he scores most of his point in this open, high-quality shot sort of way...

That's because LeBron is among the best finishers (not just today, but ever) at the rim and in the paint. Teams will gladly concede a midrange jumper - even a jumper at .500 efg% - than to allow LeBron to score at .700+ efg% with the added bonus of drawing fouls. Hence the defenses played against him.

lebron's open looks come in large part because today's era simply has less defenders to guard the paint and mid-range area because they have to guard the 3... in previous eras, it was the defense's sole objective to guard the paint and mid-range area... this key difference between the eras has been well-documented... the jordan-lebron vids posted earlier was just to show it visually.

lebron's open looks also come in large part because those are the types of shots lebron strives to take every game... that has been his entire strategy this season and last - to take open shots... his unwillingness to force it and take contested shots is well-documented, has been complained about by lebron fans, and has earned lebron a new nickname, lecoast.

but really, he isn't coasting - 25ppg is pretty good for lebron and just about anybody - it's not like his numbers went UP in last year's playoffs.. they did not.. they went down.. expect the same this year... and plus, how could he be coasting when he looks gassed half the time?

keep in mind that lebron can't force it and just start jacking, because he doesn't have the moves that it takes to effectively force it... he will look clumsy forcing it to the hole, fumbling his way to into a ready defense... and as he gets older, his willingness to force it will only continue to decrease.

[JordansBulls]

If LeBron ever had a Finals game like that Jordan 55 pointer, everyone would lose their **** and declare it the best individual performance ever. For Jordan, it's practically a forgotten game. Because whatever is newer is better.

Good post!!! How would you compare Bird in the finals to Lebron in them?

[wigglestrue]

If LeBron ever had a Finals game like that Jordan 55 pointer, everyone would lose their **** and declare it the best individual performance ever. For Jordan, it's practically a forgotten game. Because whatever is newer is better.

Good post!!! How would you compare Bird in the finals to Lebron in them?

This ought to be fun.

[Okada]

Bird:

81 - 15.3 PPG on 42/50/81, 15.3 RPG, 7 APG, 2.8 S+BPG
84 - 27.4 PPG on 48/67/84, 14 RPG, 3.6 APG, 3.2 S+BPG
85 - 23.8 PPG on 60/0/73, 10.7 RPG, 1.3 APG, 2.1 S+BPG
86 - 24.0 PPG on 57/0/80, 9.7 RPG, 9.5 APG, 3.0 S+BPG
87 - 24.2 PPG on 45/50/92, 10.0 RPG, 5.5 APG, 2.4 S+BPG

LeBron:

07 - 22.0 PPG on 36/20/69, 7.0 RPG, 6.8 APG, 1.5 S+BPG
11 - 17.8 PPG on 48/32/60, 7.2 RPG, 6.8 APG, 2.2 S+BPG
12 - 28.6 PPG on 47/19/83, 10.2 RPG, 7.4 APG, 2.0 S+BPG
13 - 25.3 PPG on 45/35/80, 10.9 RPG, 7.0 APG, 3.2 S+BPG

Yeah, I prefer Bird. Also, so interesting that Bird averaged 15 and 14 RPG in his first two Finals. That's pretty surprising.

[longball]

Bird:

81 - 15.3 PPG on 42/50/81, 15.3 RPG, 7 APG, 2.8 S+BPG
84 - 27.4 PPG on 48/67/84, 14 RPG, 3.6 APG, 3.2 S+BPG
85 - 23.8 PPG on 60/0/73, 10.7 RPG, 1.3 APG, 2.1 S+BPG
86 - 24.0 PPG on 57/0/80, 9.7 RPG, 9.5 APG, 3.0 S+BPG
87 - 24.2 PPG on 45/50/92, 10.0 RPG, 5.5 APG, 2.4 S+BPG

LeBron:

07 - 22.0 PPG on 36/20/69, 7.0 RPG, 6.8 APG, 1.5 S+BPG
11 - 17.8 PPG on 48/32/60, 7.2 RPG, 6.8 APG, 2.2 S+BPG
12 - 28.6 PPG on 47/19/83, 10.2 RPG, 7.4 APG, 2.0 S+BPG
13 - 25.3 PPG on 45/35/80, 10.9 RPG, 7.0 APG, 3.2 S+BPG

Yeah, I prefer Bird. Also, so interesting that Bird averaged 15 and 14 RPG in his first two Finals. That's pretty surprising.

see, all the regular season stuff is fine and everything, but these are the numbers that COUNT.

based on them, it's an easy choice... bird easily... the Finals shooting percentages tell the story... i'd rather have my guy hitting for 60% in the Finals... lebron is still trying to hit for 50%.. i wonder how much his shooting percentage will go down this year in the playoffs.

[wigglestrue]

Bird:

81 - 15.3 PPG on 42/50/81, 15.3 RPG, 7 APG, 2.8 S+BPG
84 - 27.4 PPG on 48/67/84, 14 RPG, 3.6 APG, 3.2 S+BPG
85 - 23.8 PPG on 60/0/73, 10.7 RPG, 1.3 APG, 2.1 S+BPG
86 - 24.0 PPG on 57/0/80, 9.7 RPG, 9.5 APG, 3.0 S+BPG
87 - 24.2 PPG on 45/50/92, 10.0 RPG, 5.5 APG, 2.4 S+BPG

LeBron:

07 - 22.0 PPG on 36/20/69, 7.0 RPG, 6.8 APG, 1.5 S+BPG
11 - 17.8 PPG on 48/32/60, 7.2 RPG, 6.8 APG, 2.2 S+BPG
12 - 28.6 PPG on 47/19/83, 10.2 RPG, 7.4 APG, 2.0 S+BPG
13 - 25.3 PPG on 45/35/80, 10.9 RPG, 7.0 APG, 3.2 S+BPG

Yeah, I prefer Bird. Also, so interesting that Bird averaged 15 and 14 RPG in his first two Finals. That's pretty surprising.

see, all the regular season stuff is fine and everything, but these are the numbers that COUNT.

based on them, it's an easy choice... bird easily... the Finals shooting percentages tell the story... i'd rather have my guy hitting for 60% in the Finals... lebron is still trying to hit for 50%.. i wonder how much his shooting percentage will go down this year in the playoffs.

Also: Who wasn't surprised, honestly, by Bird's pronounced advantage in S+BPG?

[orangeparka]

Is it really fair to include Lebron's as a 22yo on one of the worst Finals teams ever?

He massively overachieved that year, and the fact that he brought his team to the Finals shouldn't count against him just coz he was the only one worth a damn on that squad.

It's why those "Lebron already lost two Finals while Jordan is 6-0" things don't hold too much weight.


Now on-topic, I love Bird and he's arguably my favorite non-current era player, but this is easily Lebron for me. I believe Bird himself said this.

Not that I think there's a massive gap or anything like that, but I don't think it's a hard choice.

[Drummer Boy]

A prime Elgin Baylor>>>>>>>

The prototype of the SF position Baylor averaged 25-15-4 in his ROOKIE season, no other forward in NBA history has come close to averaging that in their first year, Bird came close at 21-10-5.

During Elgin's first five years: 32.4-16.8-4.5 Other than Wilt, no one in NBA history has produced such a crazy span of numbers during their first five years than Mr. Baylor

Elgin could shoot, go left or right, take you all the way to the basket or drop you off anywhere in between, change speeds, finish high or low, use the rim as an ally, and release the ball from any angle, his insane hangtime

Baylor's high game his rookie season was 55 points.

Baylor had the record in the league of 71 points in a game until Wilt snapped it.

He defended his nation's country and spend 3/4 of his career in the Finals, walked away from a sure ring as well 'cause he knew his time was up



When people start putting the likes of Wade, Hakeem, Dirk, and Stockton above this man, it's time to start revisiting how we rank players

[VoodooPriest]

(and he did this the entire game.. he makes elite athlete and then-budding superstar richard dumas look like a junior higher in the 2nd half)....

You lost it with that, agenda blown.

Being guarded by a rookie in the Finals is not something you bring up if you want to boost Jordan and the 93 Finals.