OT: A different look at Jordan vs James for NBA Finals week
Very OT but it is NBA Finals week (should be a GREAT series) and I have been working on this new way to compare Jordan and James for a while, so I thought this would be a good time to get some input on it. I approached it a different way than game stats vs game stats and took a team approach. Open to all criticism on it, let me have it :P
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BymFZreT4B3OOGw0S09ydUNaSVE/view
I understand that you meant Washington, where he played for two seasons, and not Charlotte, where he is currently the majority owner of the Bobcats. Not going to hold that against you.
I do not understand how it's relevant to mention Jordan's game or accomplishments at 39 and 40 years of age on a team that won 18, 29, and 19 games in the seasons leading up to his arrival. After being retired for three seasons. With well-known knee issues. With washed up or anonymous teammates.
I don't see how it's fair to use that as a con against Jordan when LeBron is still in his prime and 7-8 years away from making this comparable.
This is true and I do cover this a bit, but it can't be said that Jordan took on all these teams and beat them all. Boston and Bird put him out of the playoffs his first 3 years in the league, followed by the Bad Boys the next 3 years. He couldn't get past great teams for 6 seasons, along with losing to Orlando when he came back for the end of the 95 season from baseball. It just seems that Jordan is portrayed as some invincible man in the playoffs and the facts just don't support that. He missed the finals half the seasons he played in the NBA. James has made the finals more than half the season he has played.
Also Jordan had more than 2 all stars playing with him for every single ring.
I commend you on your analysis -- it clearly took a while to put this all together. To me, it comes across inherently biased towards Lebron nowever. Note, I'm a Bulls fan so I cannot claim below to be completely unbiased, but...
I think you're overstating the support Jordan had on the Bulls vs. James.
Jordan
- In 13 seasons, Jordan's teammates made a total of 6 all star games (all Pippen)
- In 6 championship seasons, Jordan had 4 All Star teammates (Pippen)
- Yes, other teammates were at one time or another all-stars, but not while Jordan was there (e.g., BJ Armstrong 1x, Horace Grant 1x, Rodman 2x with Detroit early 90s, Bill Cartwright 1x in '79-'80, Charles Oakley 1x, George Gervin 12x prior to his one and final season with Bulls)
Lebron
- In 14 seasons, Lebron's teammates have made a total of 13 all star games (Wade, Bosh, Ilgauskas, Williams)
- in 3 championship seasons, Lebron had 4 All Star teammate (Wade, Bosh)
- He also had other teammates who either before or after were all stars: Ray Allen (10x), Rashard Lewis (2x), Antawn Jamison (2x), Carlos Boozer (2x), Juwan Howard (1x), Shaq (15x), Milla
- You've also left out some other talented teammates like Udonis Haslem, Shane Battier, Mario Chalmers, Mike Miller, Mike Bibby, Anderson Varejao, Delonte West (before the whole hooking up with James' mom of course). These are all arguably equivalent or betters players to Bulls teammates you mentioned such as Perdue(!), Cartright, Paxson, Longley
In the end, both Jordan and Lebron started their careers with terrible supporting casts, but I would argue James has had much stronger teammates on average over the years he has had playoff success.
Those are some good points and my contention of James doing more while having less had more to do with his early career, when he took a junk team to the Finals. Perdue had his moments in the playoffs, that's why he was mentioned but that could add in the players you also said for sure.
I don't know if I would agree that James has had "much stronger" teammates on average if we take away the first 4/5 years, but it is definitely much closer to equal than the early years. I just remember how indestructible those Bulls were during their runs and it wasn't just Jordan/Pippen, it was his supporting cast who were playing on another level with him during the playoffs. It would be amazing to see the 92 or 96 Bulls play this years Cavs or Warriors, that is for sure.
I'll be incorporating those stats in though, thanks :)
...but I don't think anybody James has played with in Cleveland is going to end up in the hall. And I think it's interesting that except for Varejao everybody you mentioned is from the Miami years. I don't think anyone doubts that he had good talent around him there.
Mozgov/Shumpert/Thompson/Dellavedova might have been the worst lineup ever to win a finals game; somehow they won two, and with no bench behind them beyond J.R. Smith. Except for Thompson those guys scream replacement value (or did at the time; of course they got paid after they played with LeBron): for Mozgov they gave up a draft pick that turned into Furkan Korkmaz, for Smith and Shumpert they gave up Dion Waiters (OK, I'll back off there, that's better than replacement value for the two of them together at least) and pocket change (Lou Amundson), Dellavedova was signed as an undrafted free agent.
I'm old enough to remember Oscar and Wilt--there's nobody I ever saw that you could add to those four and beat GSW twice. I don't think it's a full answer to the original question, there's more to the game than that, but when it comes to dragging crap with him to key playoff wins LeBron's in a class of his own. (2007 was a brutal lineup too, and there weren't any injuries at fault that year. They were just a bad team with one great player.)
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And just to be clear, even a replacement-level NBA player is a damn good basketball player. Any reference to "crap" is by NBA standards.
I feel like you're supporting his point, really.
One guy is 6-0 in the Finals and probably would've been 8-0 had he not taken a hiatus in the middle of his prime. The other guy is 3-4, soon to be 3-5. It's no contest
It's a team sport. You can't attribute the games' outcomes solely to the player
If Lebron surpasses Jordan in championships like Brady did with Montana then I'll reconsider. As it stands, Lebron has half the number of rings as Jordan.
...has more rings than Jordan.
Yes, I've been saying for years that the greatest player of this generation debate has to begin with James Jones and his 3 rings....
You should make your post readable and free of spelling and grammatical errors before calling other people dumb.
Your comparison of 5 to 22 is also flawed. The proper comarison would be 5 to 11 or 10 to 22 as that is how many players are participating in the game at any given time from a team or total perspective.
December 3rd, 2017 at 9:25 PM ^
You're rewarding Jordan for early round losses. Jordan not playing those two years shouldn't be held agaisnt Lebron either.
It's very obvious that your perspective is skewed towards Lebron being better well before your conclusions. Your analysis is very flawed imo. Also it's a stupid debate imo. It's impossible to compare across eras of basketball. Rules have changed so much since the 80s & 90s. The league is arguably more athletic now, but imo, the players as a whole are far less skilled.
I'll say this about Jordan and Lebron...neither of them won a title until they learned how to play properly with their teammates & their respective front offices put better players around them. Jordan needed to learn how to trust his teammates more before he won. Lebron needed to learn how to be more selfish at the appropriate times before he won.
Yeah I admit in it I think James is better, but I'm open to all information and it is still open for James to cement it or lose it over the next few years. I grew up watching Jordan and thought he was the best ever for a long time (and is easily the most clutch ever), James had to convince me otherwise to take the best player title away from him but he has done that over the last few years. There's bias in just about every article out there, I don't try to hide it. I'm just trying to provide another perspective on the debate that I haven't seen yet.
I've heard plenty of things said about James "needing" to get on super teams and the like, but it is rarely mentioned just how jam packed the Bulls were when Jordan finally did win and how he wasn't able to win with lesser talented players around him, or how he thought he was so great he could come back at the end of the 95 season for another ring and lost to the Magic in the 2nd round. Or how he punched his teammate in the face. There are a lot of rosy glasses that seem to view Jordan.
Jordan is a clear winner in 2 areas: clutch time and ego. He has at least 50% of the conversation on greatest scorer.
That doesn't automatically equal greatest player to me although it is a strong argument for it, James has proven himself to be the most complete player I have ever seen on the court. If he WAS as clutch as Jordan, this conversation wouldn't even be close imo, that's how much he wins the rest of the categories.
All that aside, there are some who think MJ is the best and some who think LJ is the best and you can never convince them otherwise and that just comes with the territory.
or spurs, right?
But what does it do to the meter?
If you're older than 35 you think Jordan's the better player. If you're under 25 you think Lebron's the better player. If you're between 25-35 it's a toss up. They're both phenomenal players and completely different.
I have to disagree that Jordan never had a cast like the current cavs. Here's a look at his 91-92 and 95-96 teams, usually considered his strongest teams.
91-92 Bulls
Pippen (S), Horace Grant (S), Bill Cartwright (S), John Paxson (S), BJ Armstrong (B), Stacey King (B), Will Perdue (B). One could argue any of those 3 bench players would have started on lesser teams. Easily all strong 6th man at that time. Armstrong made the all star team in 94.
95-96 Bulls
Pippen (S), Dennis Rodman (S), Luc Longley (S), Ron Harper (S), Tony Kucoc (B), Steve Kerr (B), Bill Wennington (B), John Salley (B). That is a deep bench with a lot of talent and experience.
Jordan had LOADED teams. James does as well, but again there is a perception that Jordan didn't have loaded teams. He absolutely did, and lost with those loaded teams until they learned to play together.
Also, didn't the Bulls make the ECF the first year Jordan was baseballing? Cavs the year before LeBron's second coming are not exactly a fair comparison for a number of reasons, but still, they were so not close to making the ECF that I've always considered Jordan's supporting cast to be better than LeBron's current one.
But then Bulls GM Jerry Krause did an excellent job of building a team around Jordan. And it showed when the Bulls achieved a 55-27 record in 1994 without Jordan (baseball) and reached the 94 ECF semifinals (losing in 7 games to the #2 seed Knicks).
Jordan never reached a Finals without Scottie Pippen. But Lebron carried a bunch of nobodies to a NBA Finals (where the Cavs were swept by a far superior team).
I don't have a dog in the Jordan/Lebron debate. But I lived through both eras and I prefer today's brand of non-iso basketball more. There's more variety to the motion offenses and team defenses are far more complex.
This^^
I'm not sure where I land on the debate, but I do think it's ridiculous that people crap on Lebron for playing with a few other top 20 players in the league when nobody mentions that Pippen is a top 50 player of all time -- nobody Lebron has played with will ever fall in that category (I suppose an outside chance for Kyrie because he's still young)
Is a top 50 and Kyrie could be when he's done.
New guy always looks better in comparison, especially to those who never watched older player. As others have pointed out those teams Jordan had to play against; the Lakers, Celtics and Bad Boys were dynasties filled with All Star and HOF players. Lebron has not had to face any team that great, although the Warriors could make a case in the end. The rules also favored more contact back then, remember the "Jordan Rules"?
Another case I'd make, I don't know that you can say Lebron is a better defender other than because he has the better stats at the few defensive stats that are kept. The fact is Jordan was 1st team defense 9 seasons compared to Lebron's 5 and Jordan was a defensive player of the year. In football terms he was a shut down corner, you simply were not going to beat him. If you happened to beat him he would come right back at you and make you look silly.
The last thing that absolutely cannot be quantified was Jordan's killer instinct. He wanted to win badly. I don't doubt many others, including Lebron, really want to win. But no one had that desire that I've ever seen like MJ. End of the game, tie score, you give the ball to MJ in isolation and watch the magic happen.
MJ didn't just face HOFers, but legends. Albeit some were nearing the end of their career but some of the most legendary players ever in the NBA are who MJ faced.
Celtics: Larry Bird, Danny Ainge, Dennis Johnson, Reggie Lewis, Kevin McHale, Robert Parrish, Bill Walton
Lakers: Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jubar, AC Green, James Worthy
Portland: Danny Ainge, Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Jerome Kersey
Pistons: Isaiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer, Joe Dumars, Dennis Rodman, Mark Aquire
Jazz: best pick-n-roll combo in NBA history with Karl Malone and John Stockton
Suns: Danny Ainge, Charles Barkley, Kevin Johnson, Dan Majerle
So many great players that were faced and most of these teams had deep benches as well.
13 of these guys were voted as part of the 50 greatest NBA players ever in 1996. There are some good players in the NBA right now, but only a handful that could be considered legends, one of them is Lebron. Jordan played in a day when the paint was congested and he excelled going there. Lebron plays in a day where the floor is more spread because of the emphasis on the 3 point shot. More and more big men aren't playing down low because their man is outside. In MJ's day, entering the paint was a trip to pain town, aka the Jordan Rules.
Lastly, Jordan was both a scoring and defensive machine. The main weakness I can see is lack of 3 pt shot, yet despite that Jordan has the edge in scoring and he did it in a way that defied gravity. Lebron is a great player, I just don't think he's quite at the level of MJ.
LeBron doesn't have to face anyone that was voted as part of the 50 greatest NBA players ever in 1996.
You don't think Dirk Nowitzki would be on the list of top-50 if it was re-tablulated today?
What about Tim Duncan?
What about Kevin Garnett? (He was a force of nature but had the misfortune of playing on some bad Minnesota teams.)
FYI: Look up Duncan and Garnett's stats side-by-side. You'll be surprised by what you see...
You're citing a stat from 1996 which is outdated by 2017 standards. More all-time players have come and gone. For instance, Kobe wasn't even in the NBA back in 1996 but he is absolutely one of the top 50 greatest players thus far in NBA history.
Other players like Curry, Durant, Leonard, Melo etc. will be on that list in due time. And I'm undoubtedly forgetting a few others...
OT: If you have a problem with Melo being on the list, then you should have a problem with Bernard King being on the list.
Irony fail on my part I guess.
Really, of all the arguments I've heard on this subject (and I'm mostly in it for the arguing, I don't think there's a right answer) this is the one that most drives me bonkers.
Think about the sports where we have objective measures of performance. 19 of the 24 recognized mens' weightlifting records were set in the last four years. The oldest swimming record still standing dates from 2009. In track there are still a few left from the 90s but there's nothing left from 30 years ago except those Soviet/East German hammer and discus records from the 80s that are going to be tough to break unless PED restrictions are eased.
The fastest and strongest athletes today are the fastest and strongest athletes ever, and that's been the case for as long as we've been tracking this stuff. Everything keeps getting better, decade after decade. Nutrition's better, training's better, equipment's better, and when all else fails we've got PEDs. Why would that be any different in other sports?
For the most part in these GOAT discussions we adjust for the changing baseline. Jesse Owens's 100m time in '36 wouldn't put him among the top ten high schoolers now; nobody says that means he wasn't a great runner. I'm happy to make the same kind of adjustment for Jordan or Wilt or Oscar. But to claim players were simply better 30 years ago? That's far-fetched, in any sport.
don't the networks wait another month to start the finals
so we can forget the nba altogether.
There is no right or wrong answer for this comparison. It's like spliting hairs. LeBron is more physically gifted (which seems weird to say in a comparison to MJ) but MJ had the stronger will. If it came down to crunch time with the game on the line, I would want the ball be in MJ's hands over LeBron's. Maybe that is the very finest of hairs that splits the difference for me.
I like your analysis...but I do think people in general overestimate the ends of games in these types of debates. Whether discussing a closer in baseball or here over the best NBA player ever, it seems that the minutes at the end of games trump everything else. Closing is a great skill, but it is important to ask who would you want most of the game. Who will avoid those close situations all together? For me, that is the better player
as Harbaugh said, don't do comparisons. It always lessens one or the other, and (in this case) is fairly pointless.
What's amazing is that we've gotten to see two amazing players play basketball - what a pleasure each was (and one is) to watch.
An ironic side note about MJ: all the love he gets now, man, it sure wasn't there when he was losing to the Celtics and Pistons. "He'll never win" was a pretty common refrain among various fan bases. Funny how time, and some winning, changes perspectives. Same will happen to all the Lebron haters too - they will fade into oblivion.