Stockton says LeBrons titles don’t have value

[JayMKE]

idk why people are getting mad at Stockton for having the same opinion as 99% of other people. Even Laker fans would agree, it’s more special to win a championship as a lifer with one team that you’ve gone thru the trials and tribulations with. LeBron’s image would be a lot different had he stayed in Cleveland his whole career, at least his perception with fans.

I disagree, without any titles he would be a nearly man who couldn’t get it done at the highest level like Malone and Stockton themselves (more so Malone, Stockton although obviously excellent was never a franchise level player imo) and not have anywhere near his current position in the NBA pantheon.

I feel like LeBron would have still got at least 1 even if he never left Cleveland

[One Last Shot]

Dirk Nowitzki and jokic did something LeBron could never do and that’s win a championship without any help.

LeBron could only win when he was on a super team.

Dirk and jokic won a championship with literally no all stars on their team. They earned their championships, LeBron didn’t. He took the easy way.

Green font?

Jokic's 'no help' was a teammate averaging 26 PPG and 7 APG lmfao the mental gymnastics here are wild.

When it comes to mental gymnastics, moving the goal posts and finding endless excuses for your guy, noone beats you bunch. You've been practising for over 20 years of excuses, after all.

sure Jokic win it all without any help


2nd best player in 2023 playoffs
Jimmy Butler
26.9 ppg, 5.9 apg, 6.5 rpg
46/35/80% shooting splits

2nd best player in 2023 Nuggets
Jamal Murray
26.1 ppg, 7.1 apg, 5.7 rpg
47/40/93% shooting splits

[michaelm]

Dirk Nowitzki and jokic did something LeBron could never do and that’s win a championship without any help.

LeBron could only win when he was on a super team.

Dirk and jokic won a championship with literally no all stars on their team. They earned their championships, LeBron didn’t. He took the easy way.

Green font?

Jokic's 'no help' was a teammate averaging 26 PPG and 7 APG lmfao the mental gymnastics here are wild.

When it comes to mental gymnastics, moving the goal posts and finding endless excuses for your guy, noone beats you bunch. You've been practising for over 20 years of excuses, after all.

The help Jokic had performed in the manner he did next to Jokic, there is no certainty he would have performed similarly next to any other player. Same with Andrew Wiggins of whom I am a big fan next to Curry. The players concerned still deserve great credit for how they performed of course, Jokic and Curry didn’t give them the innate talent that enabled them to perform as they did, and nor were they responsible for the work they did to get to their peak level.

[Iwasawitness]

You considered the Suns a super team? That's odd.

The Nets had a 12-3 record when KD, Kyrie, and Harden played together in Brooklyn. It's odd that you would mention that it didn't work out due to the cermistances. Covid was a thing but you act as if the three of them played a full season together...15 games!

KD to Golden is a problem for you as well. KD lead them to two championships and won the FMVP both times. If you fail to realize he was the guy on Golden State you might be part of the peohlem. The chances are low that Golden State wins those two titles without KD.

Oh, wait, according to what you said about the Suns, Nets, and KD in Golden State, it's clear you have no idea what you're talking about.

Chances are low that they win those titles without KD? What kind of ass backwards logic is this? They won 73 games the previous season. They went to the finals for two straight years. They only lost to Cleveland due to injuries and LeBron being LeBron. Now you want to sit here and act like their chances of winning again are low without KD? And you have the nerve to claim HE doesn't know what he's talking about?

2017 cavs probably beat the warriors without KD in fairness

I don't really see how. One of the reasons Cleveland managed to win in 2016 is that they managed to provide a decent amount of defensive resistance. That was pretty much out the window in 2017 as they were a really bad defensive team. They did have an outstanding offense, and on paper they were stacked across multiple positions, but they had chemistry issues.

Not to mention, 2017 Warriors are more than likely coming in with a lot of anger and bitterness after what happened in 2016. They aren't going to take that lying down. And then of course, we can't ignore the roster improvements that would've been made. Remember, this is a team that had the cap space to sign Durant as a free agent. As Steve Nash pointed out, if it wasn't Durant, it was going to be someone else. Either way, the Warriors were going to improve.

[SomeBunghole]

To be fair unless LeBron deliberately tanked a season they weren’t going to get many if any top 10 draft picks, he is fairly definitely the GOAT floor raiser.

Top 10 draft picks are not the only way to build a contender around a generational talent. Hell, the Cavs had a number 10 pick the year after they drafted LeBron and they took Luke Jackson over Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, and Jameer Nelson.

This has been discussed before on here, but the problem is that people around LeBron and LeBron himself forced Cavs to go all in when LeBron was 22. That's ludicrous. 22-year-olds don't lead teams to NBA titles even if their name is LeBron. You're just not going to beat experienced, balanced, well-built teams at that age. Maybe you get lucky and win a series or two just based on your youth and talent, but you need to win 16 games to be an NBA champion.

The Cavs traded away so many first and second round picks and traded away anything resembling young talent for corpses of players like Ben Wallace, Wally Szczerbiak, Shaq, Antawn Jamison. There was never a plan beyond "right now," as if James was 35 at the time and not barely 25 by the time he left.

The Cavs needed to both come up with a long-term plan, wait for talent to develop, or wait for good trades or free agency to work out. They also needed to wait for LeBron to mature and for some of the strong teams around that time to either age out or break up. That's the NBA and that's the reality for every star player. You need planning, you need some luck, and you need patience. The Cavs and LeBron acted that same way the Lakers and LeBron have been acting the past few years except LeBron was 15(!) years younger. It was never going to work out.

[michaelm]

idk why people are getting mad at Stockton for having the same opinion as 99% of other people. Even Laker fans would agree, it’s more special to win a championship as a lifer with one team that you’ve gone thru the trials and tribulations with. LeBron’s image would be a lot different had he stayed in Cleveland in his whole career, at least his perception with fans.

I disagree, without any titles he would be a nearly man who couldn’t get it done at the highest level like Malone and Stockton themselves (more so Malone, Stockton although obviously excellent was never a franchise level player imo) and not have anywhere near his current position in the NBA pantheon.

I feel like LeBron would have still got at least 1 even if he never left Cleveland

Perhaps, but then he would be Dirk, given great credit for a single title rather than a player who has a case against Jordan. He pretty much avowedly set out to challenge Jordan from the get-go in his career, and the path he took was pretty much his only path to a significant multiple number of titles imo. I don’t see his path as being easy at all, but don’t regard his fans as having any case to complain about players on more organically grown teams being on teams with better fit either, which is probably part of Stockton’s point.

[Sealab2024]

Stockton is not something y'all understand. Born a hater of the first degree and assimilated to the system so far he became nothing more or less than basketball in the raw. John is the ball as it bounces and the sight of someone holding back vomit cause you nut tapped them at that exact special point in the crossover.

John Stockton exists under an entire generations skin exactly where it sucks the most. Adjust your opinion properly.

[michaelm]

To be fair unless LeBron deliberately tanked a season they weren’t going to get many if any top 10 draft picks, he is fairly definitely the GOAT floor raiser.

Top 10 draft picks are not the only way to build a contender around a generational talent. Hell, the Cavs had a number 10 pick the year after they drafted LeBron and they took Luke Jackson over Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, and Jameer Nelson.

This has been discussed before on here, but the problem is that people around LeBron and LeBron himself forced Cavs to go all in when LeBron was 22. That's ludicrous. 22-year-olds don't lead teams to NBA titles even if their name is LeBron. You're just not going to beat experienced, balanced, well-built teams at that age. Maybe you get lucky and win a series or two just based on your youth and talent, but you need to win 16 games to be an NBA champion.

The Cavs traded away so many first and second round picks and traded away anything resembling young talent for corpses of players like Ben Wallace, Wally Szczerbiak, Shaq, Antawn Jamison. There was never a plan beyond "right now," as if James was 35 at the time and not barely 25 by the time he left.

The Cavs needed to both come up with a long-term plan, wait for talent to develop, or wait for good trades or free agency to work out. They also needed to wait for LeBron to mature and for some of the strong teams around that time to either age out or break up. That's the NBA and that's the reality for every star player. You need planning, you need some luck, and you need patience. The Cavs and LeBron acted that same way the Lakers and LeBron have been acting the past few years except LeBron was 15(!) years younger. It was never going to work out.

Fair enough, I didn’t follow the NBA or the Cavs closely enough back then to know what draft picks they had. Whether this was on LeBron rather than the Cavs organisation becomes the question though, did he pressure them to go win now when he was 20 ?.

I am a Curry partisan and whether partly due to injury misfortune which eventually became good fortune or not GSW who had been similarly hapless as a franchise managed to build around him to win 4 titles which they didn’t commence doing until he was 25. Their owner was prepared to spend as well as take short term fan disapproval, and at least had the good judgement to get Jerry West involved, though.

[zimpy27]

To be fair unless LeBron deliberately tanked a season they weren’t going to get many if any top 10 draft picks, he is fairly definitely the GOAT floor raiser.

Top 10 draft picks are not the only way to build a contender around a generational talent. Hell, the Cavs had a number 10 pick the year after they drafted LeBron and they took Luke Jackson over Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, and Jameer Nelson.

This has been discussed before on here, but the problem is that people around LeBron and LeBron himself forced Cavs to go all in when LeBron was 22. That's ludicrous. 22-year-olds don't lead teams to NBA titles even if their name is LeBron. You're just not going to beat experienced, balanced, well-built teams at that age. Maybe you get lucky and win a series or two just based on your youth and talent, but you need to win 16 games to be an NBA champion.

The Cavs traded away so many first and second round picks and traded away anything resembling young talent for corpses of players like Ben Wallace, Wally Szczerbiak, Shaq, Antawn Jamison. There was never a plan beyond "right now," as if James was 35 at the time and not barely 25 by the time he left.

The Cavs needed to both come up with a long-term plan, wait for talent to develop, or wait for good trades or free agency to work out. They also needed to wait for LeBron to mature and for some of the strong teams around that time to either age out or break up. That's the NBA and that's the reality for every star player. You need planning, you need some luck, and you need patience. The Cavs and LeBron acted that same way the Lakers and LeBron have been acting the past few years except LeBron was 15(!) years younger. It was never going to work out.

Fair enough, I didn’t follow the NBA or the Cavs closely enough back then to know what draft picks they had. Whether this was on LeBron rather than the Cavs organisation becomes the question though, did he pressure them to go win now when he was 20 ?.

I am a Curry partisan and whether partly due to injury misfortune which eventually became good fortune or not GSW who had been similarly hapless as a franchise managed to build around him to win 4 titles which they didn’t commence doing until he was 25. Their owner was prepared to spend as well as take short term fan disapproval, and at least had the good judgement to get Jerry West involved, though.

If Lebron was on a team that was LeBron, Klay, Barnes, Green, Bogut - Livingston, Barbosa, Iggy, Festus when he was 26 then he wouldn't have left the Cavs.

If they then swapped Barnes for Durant then he wouldn't have ever left. Through all the iterations of the Warriors if you swapped LeBron with Curry then LeBron would have never left either.

Just interesting how the dice roll.

[michaelm]

Chances are low that they win those titles without KD? What kind of ass backwards logic is this? They won 73 games the previous season. They went to the finals for two straight years. They only lost to Cleveland due to injuries and LeBron being LeBron. Now you want to sit here and act like their chances of winning again are low without KD? And you have the nerve to claim HE doesn't know what he's talking about?

2017 cavs probably beat the warriors without KD in fairness

I don't really see how. One of the reasons Cleveland managed to win in 2016 is that they managed to provide a decent amount of defensive resistance. That was pretty much out the window in 2017 as they were a really bad defensive team. They did have an outstanding offense, and on paper they were stacked across multiple positions, but they had chemistry issues.

Not to mention, 2017 Warriors are more than likely coming in with a lot of anger and bitterness after what happened in 2016. They aren't going to take that lying down. And then of course, we can't ignore the roster improvements that would've been made. Remember, this is a team that had the cap space to sign Durant as a free agent. As Steve Nash pointed out, if it wasn't Durant, it was going to be someone else. Either way, the Warriors were going to improve.

Agree, they didn’t need to replace Harrison Barnes with a top 5 player in the NBA to be considerably better than they were with him playing as he did in the 2015 (2016 of course) play-offs, and the 2016 finals in particular. I became a GSW fan because Andrew Bogut joined them, but he was also an unreliable commodity and they were better off with the 3-headed center who replaced him, although they would likely not have gotten too many center minutes from any alternative to KD at SF. A healthier Curry and Iguodala would have improved them as well. This was rather the rub, they thought at the time Curry was too frail for a dynasty to rest on his shoulders, and the actual pitch to KD was reputedly that they could win titles without him but could be a dynasty with him.

[puny]

Stockton is not something y'all understand. Born a hater of the first degree and assimilated to the system so far he became nothing more or less than basketball in the raw. John is the ball as it bounces and the sight of someone holding back vomit cause you nut tapped them at that exact special point in the crossover.

John Stockton exists under an entire generations skin exactly where it sucks the most. Adjust your opinion properly.

More postal than The Mailman. What a jerk.

[brutalitops]

Go look at some of the teams ai tmac iverson pierce carter Kobe etc had in the early to mid 2000s. They’d be begging to have the talent LeBron was surrounded with in his first Cleveland run.

Surely this is a pisstake?

[Sealab2024]

Stockton is not something y'all understand. Born a hater of the first degree and assimilated to the system so far he became nothing more or less than basketball in the raw. John is the ball as it bounces and the sight of someone holding back vomit cause you nut tapped them at that exact special point in the crossover.

John Stockton exists under an entire generations skin exactly where it sucks the most. Adjust your opinion properly.

More postal than The Mailman. What a jerk.

Wars get waged over the type of things John did daily.

[brutalitops]

Stockton is not something y'all understand. Born a hater of the first degree and assimilated to the system so far he became nothing more or less than basketball in the raw. John is the ball as it bounces and the sight of someone holding back vomit cause you nut tapped them at that exact special point in the crossover.

John Stockton exists under an entire generations skin exactly where it sucks the most. Adjust your opinion properly.

He was a generational hater, Everyone see's a small white boy with the lego haircut and thinks he's just a solid nice white boy, Dude was one of the dirtiest physical guys in the league. He's P-Bev with skill

[michaelm]

Top 10 draft picks are not the only way to build a contender around a generational talent. Hell, the Cavs had a number 10 pick the year after they drafted LeBron and they took Luke Jackson over Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, and Jameer Nelson.

This has been discussed before on here, but the problem is that people around LeBron and LeBron himself forced Cavs to go all in when LeBron was 22. That's ludicrous. 22-year-olds don't lead teams to NBA titles even if their name is LeBron. You're just not going to beat experienced, balanced, well-built teams at that age. Maybe you get lucky and win a series or two just based on your youth and talent, but you need to win 16 games to be an NBA champion.

The Cavs traded away so many first and second round picks and traded away anything resembling young talent for corpses of players like Ben Wallace, Wally Szczerbiak, Shaq, Antawn Jamison. There was never a plan beyond "right now," as if James was 35 at the time and not barely 25 by the time he left.

The Cavs needed to both come up with a long-term plan, wait for talent to develop, or wait for good trades or free agency to work out. They also needed to wait for LeBron to mature and for some of the strong teams around that time to either age out or break up. That's the NBA and that's the reality for every star player. You need planning, you need some luck, and you need patience. The Cavs and LeBron acted that same way the Lakers and LeBron have been acting the past few years except LeBron was 15(!) years younger. It was never going to work out.

Fair enough, I didn’t follow the NBA or the Cavs closely enough back then to know what draft picks they had. Whether this was on LeBron rather than the Cavs organisation becomes the question though, did he pressure them to go win now when he was 20 ?.

I am a Curry partisan and whether partly due to injury misfortune which eventually became good fortune or not GSW who had been similarly hapless as a franchise managed to build around him to win 4 titles which they didn’t commence doing until he was 25. Their owner was prepared to spend as well as take short term fan disapproval, and at least had the good judgement to get Jerry West involved, though.

If Lebron was on a team that was LeBron, Klay, Barnes, Green, Bogut - Livingston, Barbosa, Iggy, Festus when he was 26 then he wouldn't have left the Cavs.

If they then swapped Barnes for Durant then he wouldn't have ever left. Through all the iterations of the Warriors if you swapped LeBron with Curry then LeBron would have never left either.

Just interesting how the dice roll.

Sure, some luck with the roll of the dice even imo, but the players you mention didn’t just spontaneously materialise next to Curry as fully developed players who had great fit with him though.

[xinxin]

The typical straw man as if there wasnt a honorable third way - leave Cleveland but dont go and build a superteam with two other top tier superstars and hide in the east and fill up with great role players.

He could have done a dozen other things people would have accepted, he could have won titles - a few less maybe but a lot more respectable. He chose the easiest possible way while still demanding people call him GOAT. But...GOATs do not need to take the easiest way.

Dirk, Giannis, Kawhi, Joker won without the weak stuff. When all the media manipulation and hype is over, it will be commonly accepted those people are more relevant than LeBron in the big picture.

This post was written like we are still in the year 2012 by people who also thought LeBron's impact would steeply decline after age 30. Here we are in 2025 with LeBron the all time leader in points in both the rs & ps(by huge margins), led 3 different franchises to titles and people are making posts like this one. I mean.. come on. At some point you gotta come back to reality even if you are the biggest LeBron hater in the world. 4 mvps, 4 fmvps, 40k+ pts, 13x all nba 1st team. That speaks for itself.

Agreed.

I was such a LeBron hater for a long time.. up until 2017.. in the finals vs the monster Warriors squad with KD & Steph.. I was rooting for the Dubs..

& I was so worried that LeBron might go into god-mode and crush the warriors all by himself.. and he nearly did .. for some games.. if not for the boneheaded play by JR Smith( the cavs could have won Game 1 & changed complexion of the series..

It was undeniable at that point , his greatness. So I had to give him his props


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[NO-KG-AI]

To be fair unless LeBron deliberately tanked a season they weren’t going to get many if any top 10 draft picks, he is fairly definitely the GOAT floor raiser.

Top 10 draft picks are not the only way to build a contender around a generational talent. Hell, the Cavs had a number 10 pick the year after they drafted LeBron and they took Luke Jackson over Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, J.R. Smith, and Jameer Nelson.

This has been discussed before on here, but the problem is that people around LeBron and LeBron himself forced Cavs to go all in when LeBron was 22. That's ludicrous. 22-year-olds don't lead teams to NBA titles even if their name is LeBron. You're just not going to beat experienced, balanced, well-built teams at that age. Maybe you get lucky and win a series or two just based on your youth and talent, but you need to win 16 games to be an NBA champion.

The Cavs traded away so many first and second round picks and traded away anything resembling young talent for corpses of players like Ben Wallace, Wally Szczerbiak, Shaq, Antawn Jamison. There was never a plan beyond "right now," as if James was 35 at the time and not barely 25 by the time he left.

The Cavs needed to both come up with a long-term plan, wait for talent to develop, or wait for good trades or free agency to work out. They also needed to wait for LeBron to mature and for some of the strong teams around that time to either age out or break up. That's the NBA and that's the reality for every star player. You need planning, you need some luck, and you need patience. The Cavs and LeBron acted that same way the Lakers and LeBron have been acting the past few years except LeBron was 15(!) years younger. It was never going to work out.

It’s easier to blame your teammates and coaches when you constantly shuffle them and force the entire team to recalibrate

[zimpy27]

Fair enough, I didn’t follow the NBA or the Cavs closely enough back then to know what draft picks they had. Whether this was on LeBron rather than the Cavs organisation becomes the question though, did he pressure them to go win now when he was 20 ?.

I am a Curry partisan and whether partly due to injury misfortune which eventually became good fortune or not GSW who had been similarly hapless as a franchise managed to build around him to win 4 titles which they didn’t commence doing until he was 25. Their owner was prepared to spend as well as take short term fan disapproval, and at least had the good judgement to get Jerry West involved, though.

If Lebron was on a team that was LeBron, Klay, Barnes, Green, Bogut - Livingston, Barbosa, Iggy, Festus when he was 26 then he wouldn't have left the Cavs.

If they then swapped Barnes for Durant then he wouldn't have ever left. Through all the iterations of the Warriors if you swapped LeBron with Curry then LeBron would have never left either.

Just interesting how the dice roll.

Sure, some luck with the roll of the dice even imo, but the players you mention didn’t just spontaneously materialise next to Curry as fully developed players who had great fit with him though.

Well yeah they developed on the team, not because of Curry though. Because of the trainers and coaches and vets on the team. Bogut had a huge influence on Draymond.

But that's luck too from Curry's perspective.

[JujitsuFlip]

Dirk Nowitzki and jokic did something LeBron could never do and that’s win a championship without any help.

LeBron could only win when he was on a super team.

Dirk and jokic won a championship with literally no all stars on their team. They earned their championships, LeBron didn’t. He took the easy way.

Green font?

Jokic's 'no help' was a teammate averaging 26 PPG and 7 APG lmfao the mental gymnastics here are wild.

When it comes to mental gymnastics, moving the goal posts and finding endless excuses for your guy, noone beats you bunch. You've been practising for over 20 years of excuses, after all.

You're attacking a strawman lol

In no world will anyone believe Joker had no help when Murray averaged 26 PPG.

[JujitsuFlip]

The typical straw man as if there wasnt a honorable third way - leave Cleveland but dont go and build a superteam with two other top tier superstars and hide in the east and fill up with great role players.

He could have done a dozen other things people would have accepted, he could have won titles - a few less maybe but a lot more respectable. He chose the easiest possible way while still demanding people call him GOAT. But...GOATs do not need to take the easiest way.

Dirk, Giannis, Kawhi, Joker won without the weak stuff. When all the media manipulation and hype is over, it will be commonly accepted those people are more relevant than LeBron in the big picture.

This post was written like we are still in the year 2012 by people who also thought LeBron's impact would steeply decline after age 30. Here we are in 2025 with LeBron the all time leader in points in both the rs & ps(by huge margins), led 3 different franchises to titles and people are making posts like this one. I mean.. come on. At some point you gotta come back to reality even if you are the biggest LeBron hater in the world. 4 mvps, 4 fmvps, 40k+ pts, 13x all nba 1st team. That speaks for itself.

Agreed.

I was such a LeBron hater for a long time.. up until 2017.. in the finals vs the monster Warriors squad with KD & Steph.. I was rooting for the Dubs..

& I was so worried that LeBron might go into god-mode and crush the warriors all by himself.. and he nearly did .. for some games.. if not for the boneheaded play by JR Smith( the cavs could have won Game 1 & changed complexion of the series..

It was undeniable at that point , his greatness. So I had to give him his props


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

JR had the dumb play in game 1 of the 2018 Finals