MJ VS LEBRON VS WHOEVER THREAD

[TheGOATRises007]

I never really liked focusing on just the finals record either but, its hilarious how op tried to make 6/15 look bad but completely ignored if you did the same with Lebron it would make him look even worse with the 3/17

It's amazing right.

[TheGOATRises007]

I feel bad for freethedevil.

Jordan must have caused him nightmares in the 90's.

[Sark]

I'm not sure the East in the '90s was any stronger than it was in the 00's or 10's, and if it was it's certainly not by much.

The East certainly had its weak moments, especially towards the end of the 90s, but let's specifically examine the East in 2006-2007:

* The team with the best record was a 53-win Detroit Pistons who were severely weakened by the loss of Ben Wallace. Without Wallace the Pistons were eleven games worse than the previous season. The prior season, at full-strength the Pistons defeated the Cavs.

* The defending champions Miami Heat were no longer looking too impressive as Shaq had started his decline, and were swept in the first round by a questionalbe Chicago Bulls team.

*Speaking of the Bulls, the Gordon/Hinrich/Deng-era Bulls were the third-best team in the East that season. I loved that team. Super gutsy, I think Gordon was underappreciated and underrated, but none of these guys ever emerged as true stars, and all of them basically started to fizzle out a few years later. This team being as good as it was is a clear example of how weak the conference was.

So what was the Cavs path to the finals that year?

In the first round, they faced an Arenas Wizards team, a team that perpetually underachieved and has a well-documented history of their lack of seriousness towards the game. Washington was only 41-41 that year and had almost no bench.

In the second round, they faced a 41-41 NJ Nets team. The Nets were five years removed from their last NBA finals appearance. This Vince Carter-led Nets team had no front-court, and was forced to play a 40-year-old Cliff Robinson 19 minutes a game and start Jason Collins at center. Collins was absurdly bad and averaged 2ppg, 4 rpg, and 36% FG in 23 mpg. Mikki Moore was the other starting big man and Bostjan Nachbar was the 6th man.

Detroit was their first good team in the playoffs, and we've already covered why they were weakened. When they faced the Spurs, they were swept.

LeBron leading such a weak team to the finals is impressive on one hand, but it also speaks volumes to how weak the conference was. A team with Larry Hughes as its second-best player has no business in the NBA finals, and is a result of the "Leastern Conference" era.

Now lets look at what the 90s Bulls dealt with:

People keep bringing up that Jordan didn't face a tough East, but his Eastern conference was regularly tougher than LeBron's crop. I mean he swept a Shaq/Penny/Grant Orlando Magic team that looked like it was destined to become a dynasty. He defeated Patrick Ewing, a guy who is a bigger star than anyone James faced in the East that playoff run, regularly (and while admittedly the Knicks needed a second star, they were deep with tough role players). Someone brought up the Indiana Pacers as an example of a bad team, which just astonishes me. The Bulls only played the Pacers once in the playoffs, but that Pacers team was insanely tough, loaded with savvy vets, and was very deep. On top of that, Reggie Miller despite his somewhat so-so stats had an insane ability to just win games, anyone who saw him play in his prime knows that, and was certainly more dangerous than a guy like Vince Carter or even Gilbert Arenas. The Alonzo Mourning-Tim Hardaway-Jamal Mashburn Heat could have easily been a finals team, and in fact had a better record than those Cav teams. They were probably pretty close in terms of impact to the 2000-era Pistons team.

Also, by comparison the Bulls faced eight teams that won 50+ games in the playoffs during their final three-peat and five teams that won at least 60 games.

I like how you picked a single year for LeBron but listed every star MJ faced for a decade.
Mid 90's Patrick Ewing wasn't bigger than anyone LeBron had to face (KG, peak Howard) and the Reggie Pacers weren't significantly better than the PG13 Pacers if at all.
The Penny-Shaq Magic were legit title contenders but you're making it sound like they were matching up every season in the playoffs when in reality they met twice and MJ is 1-1 aginst them
The Mourning Heat team was also legit but again, short lived (they only got Mash for half of '97-'98 season and had a total of 2 elite years overlapping with MJ).
If you cherry pick who MJ faced and just go by name recognition, sure. But LeBron has faced the Celtics for many seasons, the Bad Boys 2 for a couple of years and faced some of the toughest Final opponents ever.
Not to mention that he faced an elite defensive player in his position on almost every Final (Kawhi,Iggy, KD) and also in his own conference his entire career (Prince, PP, PG). MJ had Craig Ehlo guard him for an entire series, I dare you to find a worse player guarding LeBron.
MJ won against these SGs: 6'3, 195 Byron Scott, Dan Majerle and twice against the combo of Bryon Russell and Honacek while having the second best perimeter defender and player on the court on his own team.
Now, I'll be honest and say he also won against Drexler, at the time arguably the second best SG in the league and Garry Payton, one of the best perimeter defenders ever but let's not pretend everything in the 90's was legendary and much tougher.

My point is, I think MJ is a better player than LeBron or at least more conducive to winning championships but I won't argue dishonestly. MJ was great but he also benefited greatly from the Lakers and Celtics dynasties getting older, the league being diluted by expansion and a lack of quality stars in his position and I don't believe he faced any major challenges that LeBron hasn't.

How about this for a single year for Jordan. In 1991, Jordan beat a Ewing led Knicks team in the first round, a Barkley led Sixers team in the second round, an Isiah Thomas led defending champion Pistons team in the Conf Finals, and a Magic Johnson led Lakers team in the Finals. All without a single All Star player besides Jordan on the roster.

[og15]

News flash, Jordan didn’t play 6 years in the nba. People gotta stop using this 6/6 in their arguments. Just because you didn’t make the finals doesn’t mean you DIDNT lose. 6/15 is his actual record and even that being said can you have worse finals competition ? We leaving 6/6 in the last decade. This is the 1 argument people have for Jordan over bron and it’s expired. Lemme know when Jordan carries a team to the finals that has no business being there. I’m open to someone changing my mind about Lebron >jordan with a real argument. Until then lebron the goat and it’s not even close.


Edit: I see a lot of people saying lebron made 2 superteams. That’s probably what he was going for but that ain’t what he got. The heat were probably a super team for their first year after that wade was shot, missing 30-40% of regular season games and year 3/4 of that era averaging 16-17ppg in the playoffs. If that’s the second best player on your superteam that team ain’t so super lol. And we’ve seen the cavs recently whenever lebron would take a seat on the bench what the result of that team was. As for 2011, lebrons first year on “wades” team he let wade and bosh try and go get it they both shot more than him that series. Only after that summer when he said I got this is when they won, and people gotta stop downplaying the mavs that year, swept a back2back champ, beat the spurs, then okc in 5. Give them credit too.

Started out making a solid point, there's value in being able to carry a team that shouldn't be to the finals there, and penalizing a player more for losing to a vastly superior team in the finals vs in an earlier round isn't a consistent means or argumentation. Context is important and people should move away from very simplistic arguments.

Of course then you went and added the foolish and ridiculous "and it's not even close" for your side of the argument and that just starts toppling down the whole call for consistent and sound argumentation.

[twyzted]

If we weigh championships by strength of opponents, Jordan's 6 titles wouldn't rank very highly.

1991 Lakers
1992 Blazers
1993 Suns
1996 Sonics
1997 Jazz
1998 Jazz

There are no all-time great teams here. The only opponent with Finals experience was the Kareem-less, injured Lakers and the 1998 Jazz, because of 1997.

The Blazers, Suns and Sonics were all relatively mediocre historically and each only had 1 hall of famer on the roster with a head coach that has also never won anything.

Compare that to this team:

2013 San Antonio Spurs

Tim Duncan
Tony Parker
Manu Ginobili
Kawhi Leonard

4 hall of famers + Pop + 4-0 Finals record.

That title alone is worth the Blazers, Suns and Sonics titles combined.

Who was injured in the 91 lakers? Byron Scott and James Worthy? They both played 4 games starting all of them and played starter minutes both missed the last game when the bulls were leading 3-1.

The suns had Charles Barkley, Dan Majerle, Kevin Johnson, Tom Chambers, Danny Ainge and Richard Dumas who was talented but had problem with drugs and Cedric Ceballos who was injured i would say they were pretty good even though they only had 1 hofer.

Seattle had Shawn Kemp, Payton, Hersey Hawkins, Sam perkins, Detlef Schremph maybe not a team full of hofers but pretty good.

Jazz and Blazers both were great teams.

And 1 title=1 title no matter who the opponent was, i could say that the loss vs the mavericks would cancel out all lebron titles but i would be lying.

[NyKnicks1714]

6-0 is the only fact you need. It ends any debate and will for the rest of time.

I think that Jordan is better than LeBron. This however is the single dumbest argument for it.

[Stillwater]

6-0 is the only fact you need. It ends any debate and will for the rest of time.

Chicago Bulls were 6-0 dude that is a basketball team not a player.

[freethedevil]

The funniest thing to me is that Lebron fans deep down all know he doesn't belong which is why they are constantly trying to find another argument that they can try to use.

Why are you so insecure?

Here's Lebron's argument:

-> possible GOAT peak
-> Potentially valuable career
-> GOAT prime

Here's jordan's argument
-> possible GOAT peak

One player has multiple venues of argumentation, the other has one. Jordan's case vs Lebron is based on something he can't claim close to goathood in. Russell and Kareem were unquestionably greater winners. That's just reality.

I'd expect a former mod to have better comping mechanisms.

lol only one argument?

You're welcome to list the mj argument other atg's don't kick his ass in

[Blacksheep25]

6-0 is the only fact you need. It ends any debate and will for the rest of time.

I’m going to have to check the +/- both by game and cumulatively over their finals careers to see who really won the most games. 6-0 is a team stat and you know you don’t count team stats, who does anymore? It’s all about +/-

[mixerball]

lol, this guy... mj didnt have a prime. his whole career is prime.

I feel bad for freethedevil.

Jordan must have caused him nightmares in the 90's.

i dont think he saw him play at the time

[Xherdan 23]

The East certainly had its weak moments, especially towards the end of the 90s, but let's specifically examine the East in 2006-2007:

* The team with the best record was a 53-win Detroit Pistons who were severely weakened by the loss of Ben Wallace. Without Wallace the Pistons were eleven games worse than the previous season. The prior season, at full-strength the Pistons defeated the Cavs.

* The defending champions Miami Heat were no longer looking too impressive as Shaq had started his decline, and were swept in the first round by a questionalbe Chicago Bulls team.

*Speaking of the Bulls, the Gordon/Hinrich/Deng-era Bulls were the third-best team in the East that season. I loved that team. Super gutsy, I think Gordon was underappreciated and underrated, but none of these guys ever emerged as true stars, and all of them basically started to fizzle out a few years later. This team being as good as it was is a clear example of how weak the conference was.

So what was the Cavs path to the finals that year?

In the first round, they faced an Arenas Wizards team, a team that perpetually underachieved and has a well-documented history of their lack of seriousness towards the game. Washington was only 41-41 that year and had almost no bench.

In the second round, they faced a 41-41 NJ Nets team. The Nets were five years removed from their last NBA finals appearance. This Vince Carter-led Nets team had no front-court, and was forced to play a 40-year-old Cliff Robinson 19 minutes a game and start Jason Collins at center. Collins was absurdly bad and averaged 2ppg, 4 rpg, and 36% FG in 23 mpg. Mikki Moore was the other starting big man and Bostjan Nachbar was the 6th man.

Detroit was their first good team in the playoffs, and we've already covered why they were weakened. When they faced the Spurs, they were swept.

LeBron leading such a weak team to the finals is impressive on one hand, but it also speaks volumes to how weak the conference was. A team with Larry Hughes as its second-best player has no business in the NBA finals, and is a result of the "Leastern Conference" era.

Now lets look at what the 90s Bulls dealt with:

People keep bringing up that Jordan didn't face a tough East, but his Eastern conference was regularly tougher than LeBron's crop. I mean he swept a Shaq/Penny/Grant Orlando Magic team that looked like it was destined to become a dynasty. He defeated Patrick Ewing, a guy who is a bigger star than anyone James faced in the East that playoff run, regularly (and while admittedly the Knicks needed a second star, they were deep with tough role players). Someone brought up the Indiana Pacers as an example of a bad team, which just astonishes me. The Bulls only played the Pacers once in the playoffs, but that Pacers team was insanely tough, loaded with savvy vets, and was very deep. On top of that, Reggie Miller despite his somewhat so-so stats had an insane ability to just win games, anyone who saw him play in his prime knows that, and was certainly more dangerous than a guy like Vince Carter or even Gilbert Arenas. The Alonzo Mourning-Tim Hardaway-Jamal Mashburn Heat could have easily been a finals team, and in fact had a better record than those Cav teams. They were probably pretty close in terms of impact to the 2000-era Pistons team.

Also, by comparison the Bulls faced eight teams that won 50+ games in the playoffs during their final three-peat and five teams that won at least 60 games.

I like how you picked a single year for LeBron but listed every star MJ faced for a decade.
Mid 90's Patrick Ewing wasn't bigger than anyone LeBron had to face (KG, peak Howard) and the Reggie Pacers weren't significantly better than the PG13 Pacers if at all.
The Penny-Shaq Magic were legit title contenders but you're making it sound like they were matching up every season in the playoffs when in reality they met twice and MJ is 1-1 aginst them
The Mourning Heat team was also legit but again, short lived (they only got Mash for half of '97-'98 season and had a total of 2 elite years overlapping with MJ).
If you cherry pick who MJ faced and just go by name recognition, sure. But LeBron has faced the Celtics for many seasons, the Bad Boys 2 for a couple of years and faced some of the toughest Final opponents ever.
Not to mention that he faced an elite defensive player in his position on almost every Final (Kawhi,Iggy, KD) and also in his own conference his entire career (Prince, PP, PG). MJ had Craig Ehlo guard him for an entire series, I dare you to find a worse player guarding LeBron.
MJ won against these SGs: 6'3, 195 Byron Scott, Dan Majerle and twice against the combo of Bryon Russell and Honacek while having the second best perimeter defender and player on the court on his own team.
Now, I'll be honest and say he also won against Drexler, at the time arguably the second best SG in the league and Garry Payton, one of the best perimeter defenders ever but let's not pretend everything in the 90's was legendary and much tougher.

My point is, I think MJ is a better player than LeBron or at least more conducive to winning championships but I won't argue dishonestly. MJ was great but he also benefited greatly from the Lakers and Celtics dynasties getting older, the league being diluted by expansion and a lack of quality stars in his position and I don't believe he faced any major challenges that LeBron hasn't.

How about this for a single year for Jordan. In 1991, Jordan beat a Ewing led Knicks team in the first round, a Barkley led Sixers team in the second round, an Isiah Thomas led defending champion Pistons team in the Conf Finals, and a Magic Johnson led Lakers team in the Finals. All without a single All Star player besides Jordan on the roster.

What's your point? That Jordan didn't always have an easy way to the finals? I agree.
But still, the "Ewing led Knicks" has Trent Tucker and Gerald Wilkins matching up with MJ and Pippen, the Sixers had 6'3 Hawkins on him, the Pistons had Dumars (great defender but also 3 inches shorter and 20 pounds lighter than MJ) and the Lakers put 6'3 Byron Scott on him.
You just picked 4 HOF big names and tried to make it look like super tough opponents. How about I give it a shot?

In 2012 LeBron beat the Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire led Knicks in the first round, a Paul George led Pacers in the second round, a Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett in the third and a Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden led Thunder team in the finals.
Do you see why it's ridiculous to just name drop HOFers without context?

I can't believe I'm defending LeBron on this one even though I stated multiple times here that MJ is the GOAT for me. It's like for some people LeBron is either the GOAT or a complete bum. Why can't he just be one of the best in history? Why is it always "3/9" and "but 2011" or "beat 73-9" and "2016 is better than MJ"?
I'm kinda sick of it.

[marcush]

According to this thread, isn't Robert Horry one of the greatest?

Read the OP again and try thinking this time.

Just trying to point out the idiocy of the OP using such simple measures, as Horry played 16 years for 7 championship rings and is considered one of the greatest ever clutch shooters, but no one puts him as one of the greatest players and rightfully so.

I'll try to be less obtuse next time so I don't go over so many people's heads.

You seem confused ..... is he one of the greatest or not?

[Stillwater]

FACTS
MJ is the GOAT

LeBron is right there in the discussions on who's the #2

Not really and a lot of smart people are in disagreement either way .If you want to understand the argument against MJ
Read this : https://www.foxsports.com/nba/gallery/michael-jordan-lebron-james-nba-finals-playoffs-perfect-record-greatest-all-time-052617

[freethedevil]

Why is this obvious troll thread still not locked?

Because it is a relevant topic. Lebron gets beat up on here all the time for not having as many rings as Michael Jordan and sometimes even as many as Kobe yet if that is the case why isn't Bill Russell considered the greatest of all time for having as many rings as Kobe and Jordan combined?

Relevant topic that is not really approached as a genuine discussion by the OP. Seems to be a covert LeBron is better than Jordan thread.

It's not convert at all. "Jordan is Lebron without the sustained greatness" is a pretty explicit opinion. Last I checked those were allowed for pro-Jordan posts.

[freethedevil]

According to this thread, isn't Robert Horry one of the greatest?

Read the OP again and try thinking this time.

Just trying to point out the idiocy of the OP using such simple measures,

What simple measures? You realize there was a post under the op?

The argument wasn't "rings=great", it was there's two greater winners(who also have comparable or MUUCH better indubidual accolades).


Whether you agree or not, "Jordan is Lebron without the sustained excellence" isn't some tirade about winning.

[mediocrityrules]

Read the OP again and try thinking this time.

Just trying to point out the idiocy of the OP using such simple measures, as Horry played 16 years for 7 championship rings and is considered one of the greatest ever clutch shooters, but no one puts him as one of the greatest players and rightfully so.

I'll try to be less obtuse next time so I don't go over so many people's heads.

You seem confused ..... is he one of the greatest or not?

Did I honestly have to put green font on a post that said that Robert Horry is one of the greatest of all time?!? really?

[freethedevil]

I feel bad for freethedevil.

Jordan must have caused him nightmares in the 90's.

I feel bad for eddy jukes. Freethedevil still causes nightmares for him in the 2020's

[Greyhound]

What a fraud. Should have went 15/15 if he wants to be considered the GOAT.

Well, Bill Russell went 11/13.

His GOAT status should be untouchable.

[freethedevil]

6-0 is the only fact you need. It ends any debate and will for the rest of time.

In the world where jordan fans concede he can only ever be the third greatest? Yes. If not, the stats are the only thing saving him against russell or kareem.

I didn't realize internally consistent logic was so triggering to mj--truthers

[so_bored]

You made your point OP. Russell > KAJ > Jordan >>> Lebron.