Michael Jordan is still the GOAT. Lebron has solidified the #2 spot though.

[therealbig3]

Just compare the film, it's not really close.

Regardless, there are plenty of aspects of 90s ball that made it easier for Jordan too. Comparing what they're doing to league average puts their production in perspective relative to the rest of the players from their era. It's a totally fair way of comparing it.

But whatever hurts the Jordan narrative doesn't count I guess.

I don't have to compare film, I'm old enough to remember scores of 82-75 in the finals and to know you don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, this is a narrative alright, just one slanted to younger people thinking the past is trash for everything. And it's clueless.

Assuming I didn't watch 90s ball, lmao.

The game is faster now, that doesn't mean defense is worse. You're seeing high point totals and assuming it's due to bad defense, when it's not. There are just more possessions now.

You can adjust for possessions too btw. LeBron still looks better.

[Sedale Threatt]

Just compare the film, it's not really close.

Regardless, there are plenty of aspects of 90s ball that made it easier for Jordan too. Comparing what they're doing to league average puts their production in perspective relative to the rest of the players from their era. It's a totally fair way of comparing it.

But whatever hurts the Jordan narrative doesn't count I guess.

I don't have to compare film, I'm old enough to remember scores of 82-75 in the finals and to know you don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, this is a narrative alright, just one slanted to younger people thinking the past is trash for everything. And it's clueless.

Been watching the NBA since 1987, and you cannot compare the level of defensive organization you see today to any other era. It just gets better and better, as you'd expect and as you see in every other sport. Zach Lowe put it perfectly today in his big LeBron-MJ piece: LeBron's era might be softer, but it is also more strategically complex.

[therealbig3]

This seals LeBron as GOAT for me. Him and MJ have comparable peaks, comparable primes but at this point LeBron blows Jordan out of the water in longevity

MJ was the same age as LBJ when he won his 6th ring (in a much more physical era) so what’s this about longevity? I’m confused.

Kind of strange that people keep trying to inflate Jordan's era relative to LeBron's. Eras are different, some things better, some things worse. Why the need to try and act like everything was just better back then? It wasn't. Like, the more physical era? Honestly, debatable. Certain teams were more physical (Knicks for example), but there was a lot of soft defense too, just like now. Some teams are great defensively, some teams are bad defensively.

As for longevity, Jordan took 2 years off in the middle of his prime, also had 1 year where he barely played due to injury. Had a total of 10 healthy, prime years. LeBron has 11 healthy, prime years, and 4 non-prime years in which he was still one of the best players in the league.

The longevity isn't close.

[sunsbg]

Jordan's dominance was from a bygone era. Just like Jordan took the crown from those in previous eras. Lebron will do the same. Jordan played on teams who shot 26% from three on 11 attempts per game. Those teams can't even make the playoffs in today's NBA. Yet in Jordan's era he won championships. If that doesn't tell you have much the NBA has changed in talent level and analytics to perfect playing styles on offense and defense, making it more difficult, just continue living nostalgic.

The era that produced the Dream Team. What a bad era it was indeed. LOL

In 20 years fans will still watch highlights/games of Jordan and Lebron and still consider MJ the GOAT, no doubt about it. Just on a different level as an entertainer in addition to all the accomplishments.

[Kobe187]

Jordan is pretty much the undisputed GOAT, as far as #2 goes it’s a toss up between KAJ & James.

[knicksNOTslick]

I’m glad that TS% is the mark of who is the GOAT or not

The Ringer got all of y’all f*cked up

Because TS% and Finals Appearances are super important nowadays. This is the Participation Trophy Era. If you can't win the whole thing, you gotta start rewarding 2nd place awards and stats. Lebron fans have been wanting to give him the Finals MVP award even when his team loses.

[therealbig3]

Jordan's dominance was from a bygone era. Just like Jordan took the crown from those in previous eras. Lebron will do the same. Jordan played on teams who shot 26% from three on 11 attempts per game. Those teams can't even make the playoffs in today's NBA. Yet in Jordan's era he won championships. If that doesn't tell you have much the NBA has changed in talent level and analytics to perfect playing styles on offense and defense, making it more difficult, just continue living nostalgic.

The era that produced the Dream Team. What a bad era it was indeed. LOL

In 20 years fans will still watch highlights/games of Jordan and Lebron and still consider MJ the GOAT, no doubt about it. Just on a different level as an entertainer in addition to all the accomplishments.

I think the top-end talent is about the same, that doesn't really change much era to era. But in terms of lower level All-Stars and role players, the league is much deeper now.

It just makes sense, talent pool has gotten way bigger.

[FinnTheHuman]

Bill Russell's narrative is still the best. His team won 11 of 13 Finals, beat the two teams he'd ever lost in the playoffs to in subsequent playoffs. He never had significant injuries that caused him to miss games (unless you count winning an Olympic medal in the same season as a championship), while playing tons of minutes. He didn't care about his numbers, in an era where his biggest rival was all about the numbers. He was just about winning where it matters, and did that to a level no one else can touch. How many HOFers does Bill Russell have without doing all that winning, without being the ultimate "win" guy? He came off a better college career, too... led his team to two NCAA championships with a mostly-nothing team (apart from KC Jones).

To paraphrase Bird -- everyone is fighting for #2.

Wasn't Bird the same guy who said that MJ is a god and the best player in the league in '86? God sounds better than GOAT to me, maybe it's God>GOAT>the rest?

I mean, c'mon, 9 out of those 11 rings were in the 50s and 60s, nobody cares about an argument favoring a guy who played versus only 7 different teams to get those 9 rings in NBA's elementary school phase. You shoulda seen my soccer stats when playing vs my classmates, that's some GOAT stuff right there. The rivalries I've formed over the years playing against the same guys from my neighborhood, and sure, beating the only guys who have ever beaten me at some point I'm certain... Oh, you wouldn't believe it!

I'm sorry he didn't play in an era when basketball was filled with talent and a globally most popular sport after soccer, maybe he would've shown he'd be better than all that competition, but I'm sorry, he just can't, life ain't fair.

There’s a bigger difference in league wide talent level between now and the 90s than there is between the 90s and the 60s.

So there goes that logic. I realize that Bill Russell is the one dude that MJ has absolutely zero case against when it comes to team success, so everyone has built up all these weak excuses to try and diminish his success so that MJ still looks like the greatest winner ever, but it just doesn’t work that way.

That's as false as false gets.

[Sedale Threatt]

This seals LeBron as GOAT for me. Him and MJ have comparable peaks, comparable primes but at this point LeBron blows Jordan out of the water in longevity

MJ was the same age as LBJ when he won his 6th ring (in a much more physical era) so what’s this about longevity? I’m confused.

Kind of strange that people keep trying to inflate Jordan's era relative to LeBron's. Eras are different, some things better, some things worse. Why the need to try and act like everything was just better back then? It wasn't. Like, the more physical era? Honestly, debatable. Certain teams were more physical (Knicks for example), but there was a lot of soft defense too, just like now. Some teams are great defensively, some teams are bad defensively.

As for longevity, Jordan took 2 years off in the middle of his prime, also had 1 year where he barely played due to injury. Had a total of 10 healthy, prime years. LeBron has 11 healthy, prime years, and 4 non-prime years in which he was still one of the best players in the league.

The longevity isn't close.

I don't think there's any debate about the physicality. People tend to exaggerate the nature of hand checking and the like, but there's zero question you could be more physical back then. But people make a huge mistake by conflating that with good defense, when that was not necessarily the case.

To me, the amount of switching and rotating you have to do to be successful today, and the physical and mental effort that requires, is on a completely different level from a tactical standpoint. Most teams back then might have had one good shooter, and they were frequently designated as specialists. Now you might play teams that put five shooters on the floor you have to account for, which presents an utterly different challenge. I remember really noticing during the 2010 Finals just how much work both teams were doing just to get an inch or two of daylight. And that was years before the pace-and-space revolution really took off, requiring an even greater level of sophistication.

We could sit and parse eras all day, and that's fun if you're coming at it from an honest and objective standpoint. Again, I thought Lowe did a really nice job touching on some of this stuff. But as you note, eras are different, with some aspects that are better and some aspects that are worse.

And yeah, longevity is the one area where Jordan cannot compare with LeBron. Roughly 250 more games and 12,000 more minutes played (around a quarter of Mike's entire career), and still going strong. Absolutely incredible.

[Ballings7]

LeBron is amazing, but he's still not even #2.

Jordan, Kareem, Magic, and Kobe are still ahead of LeBron at this point, from the full-on mainstream era.. respect to Bill Russell's era.

Even if LeBron gets 6, he still won't have the defensive establishment Jordan did with 1 DPOY and the several all-defensive team enlistings. Also Jordan's East compared to LeBron's east is no comparison historically. Jordan never lost in the Finals.

Jordan and Kareem are tops from a complete impact and accomplishment perspective. Going to be tough to meet or succeed either of them.. which has still yet to be done.

LeBron still has a respectable amount of accomplishments to obtain before he's credibly put over Jordan and Kareem from a comparison -- aka win two more titles. Just that simple until then.

Lakers can build a dynasty if they stay focused and don't let egos and external factors get in the way.

[aliasxn]

I can only imagine 20 years from now when there is some new punk putting up big numbers and we are all on a virtual-reality forum and 70% of the avatars are arguing that "well, LeBron wasn't really all that, defenses are much better nowadays".

[Johnny Bball]

Just compare the film, it's not really close.

Regardless, there are plenty of aspects of 90s ball that made it easier for Jordan too. Comparing what they're doing to league average puts their production in perspective relative to the rest of the players from their era. It's a totally fair way of comparing it.

But whatever hurts the Jordan narrative doesn't count I guess.

I don't have to compare film, I'm old enough to remember scores of 82-75 in the finals and to know you don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, this is a narrative alright, just one slanted to younger people thinking the past is trash for everything. And it's clueless.

Assuming I didn't watch 90s ball, lmao.

The game is faster now, that doesn't mean defense is worse. You're seeing high point totals and assuming it's due to bad defense, when it's not. There are just more possessions now.

You can adjust for possessions too btw. LeBron still looks better.

Yeah I am. Don't tell me you watched youtube and know. You can't possible think pace of play makes the entire difference here, because that means you have no idea of the historical pace of play. You just keep moving your goalposts ... I really don't care because it's such a dumb take.

[camby23]

LeBron is amazing, but he's still not even #2.

Jordan, Kareem, Magic, and Kobe are still ahead of LeBron at this point

[JonFromVA]

If Lebron 3 peated in Miami he might have a chance but Jordan did it twice that’s the difference regardless
How many players won 3 times in a row twice

[ropjhk]

I had Lebron in the #2 spot heading into the bubble and I still have him there, but he's one step closer to taking the title from Jordan.

For me Jordan and Lebron stand apart from all the other greats. Before I can even think about giving Lebron the GOAT title I need to see him win another back to back championship. 4 championships is nice, but only 2 of them are back to back.

[The Warrior]

Jordan is the GOAT to me. Lebron has the best longevity at an elite level but Jordan achieved and accomplished more in less time. It's also silly to keep bringing up Jordan's early playoff losses as some sort of blemish on him. He won 6 championships when he was the defacto best player in the NBA and always delivered. I also have Lebron behind Kareem right now but it's close.

Sent from my SM-N950W using Tapatalk

[The Warrior]

If Lebron 3 peated in Miami he might have a chance but Jordan did it twice that’s the difference regardless
How many players won 3 times in a row twice

Point being, not many if you have to post a picture of a relic.

Sent from my SM-N950W using Tapatalk

[inquisitive]

LeBron will be GOAT by the time he retires...

3 titles with 3 different teams, went to finals 9 straight years, took a scrub team to finals, etc.

Stats galore Will break KAJ's scoring record, etc

[DNice68]

I don't have a problem with people still feeling MJ is the goat and James is 2. I also don't have a problem with people feeling Bron is the goat. I tend to side with the latter, but to each his own!

[E-Balla]

The average team in 1998 scored 95.6 ppg. The average team in 2020 scores 111.8 ppg. There were 230 combined ppg in the Finals in 2020 vs 168 combined ppg in the 1998 Finals. It's not MJ's fault teams don't play defense anymore.

Ever heard of the 3 point shot? The 98 Bulls shot 11.7 3 pointers per game at 32% starting two offensively inept players in Rodman and Longley. Defenses were actually trash in the 90s compared to today. Ask your self this question? where would a team like that rank against the defenses of today...They'd be in the lottery.

If you think defenses were trash back then compared to now when defenses are the worst they've ever been IDK what to tell you. If they let players get away with all the offensive fouls they do now back then I'd be different.

Also in the modern league Chicago would kill. Kerr-Harper-MJ-Scottie-Rodman would be a deadly lineup on both ends.