4 regular season MVP awards 3 Finals MVP awards 3 championships 10 All-NBA 1st team 5 All-Defensive 1st team 1 scoring champion 1 Rookie of the Year Career regular season average: 27.2ppg/7.2rpg/6.9apg/49%FG% Career playoff average: 28ppg/8.8rpg/6.8apg/48%FG% Top 25 all-time in steals (24th), assists (18th), points (11th)
I hate Lebron but he just sneaked into the Top 5 with this Finals performance...gotta give him props!
Top 2 all time. Gonna be tough to catch Jordan, he doesn't necessarily need 3 more finals MVPs, but he needs to sustain this greatness and age well. Needs at least one more before he can be discussed as the GOAT, but he is top 2 if he retired today in my book.
Only slightly lower than Jordan, but it has to do more with supporting cast. Jordan had a better coach and better supporting players during the peak of his career.
I have him in the top 3. MJ Kareem Lebron If you look at the totality of their games, he does way more than Magic, or Bird. He's clearly a better player than Russell. He doesn't have Wilt's dominance, but we all know where Wilt falls short. He's been to the Finals with 3 different squads. He's won with veterans, and with young, inexperienced players where he is the veteran. He's never been teamed with an all-time, obviously great coach. He can legitimately play all 5 positions, which basically only Magic can also say as an all-time great. Second best PER all time, behind MJ. He's conquered the one demon of the "choke" label, which didn't make much sense in the first place but was at least understandable based on a few games. The only knock I have against him is being in such a horrible conference basically his whole career. Though you can make similar arguments about Magic's Lakers, or other squads. I don't think he can ever catch MJ. Maybe Kareem. If he has 3-5 more dominating seasons, which no reason he can't.
Lebron is #2 for me. Think he'll eventually be arguably #1 when it's all said and done. When he retires I imagine he'll be close to 30,000 10,000 10,000 if not over it. I imagine he'll probably surpass MJ and kobe in scoring.
I think he's clearly the #2. Based on skill and overall impact now coupled with accomplishments he's cemented his legacy. To be the first team to ever come back from down 3-1 while also doing it against arguably the most dominant regular season team just really is stuff for the legends. I hate LeBron, I've always hated his whiney attitude and his bolt to Miami, but I've always respected his game and recognized his dominance. And this is just something that puts him over the top in comparison to everyone else not named Jordan. I doubt he passes mj, and I'm concerned he will start to decline soon. This is probably his absolute peak and I'm glad he was able to bring a chip to Cleveland. He's been ridiculously reliable and injury free his entire career. He's logged a lot of minutes and miles. I think if Cleveland can get a pretty big haul of quality players for love, then I think they can win another 2 rings over the next half decade.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This season alone, LeBron jumped <br>J.West<br>R.Miller<br>A.English<br>K.Garnett<br>P.Pierce<br>J.Havlicek<br>T.Duncan &<br>D.Wilkins<br>on <a href="https://twitter.com/NBA">@NBA</a> All-Time Scoring List</p>— John Michael (@CavsJMike) <a href="https://twitter.com/CavsJMike/status/715682714871988224">March 31, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>