What is the criteria for greatness? Is it rings, is it dominance in your own era, is it ability to dominate any era? It really changes based on that. I think the common answer is Jordan but I wonder how much of that is supplemented by groundbreaking marketing at a time when that was truly unique.
If you laid out the criteria like @pmac stated and then ranked the top five to ten players and then added up the totals I’m still gonna go MJ hands down. LeBron is so entitled. Give me my due/mic drop. I will give you your due sir. Almost cemented yourself as the second best player ever. Kobe/Kareem/Magic still in the conversation! And so we continue the debate!
LeBron James took 3 different lottery franchises to win all. no one in NBA history could make their teammates better than what LeBron James did. It is hard to believer there are still so many people choosing MJ. As for 1 on 1. MJ would be no match to LeBron James's skills and physical. of course, there is nonsense to talk about 1v1 for a team sport here, that is why LeBron James is better than MJ.
Kobe is not even top 10. He' s been inflated so much after he died. He was great, and probably top 15, but he is not even sniffing the top 3. For me is Jordan, Lebron, Kareem, Russell. Kareem and Russell are very close, so not sure who goes n3, but those two guys have so many mvps, championships and finals mvps, and both where era defining players. I think with this championship lebron has secure n2 and passed them both.
This is such a bullshit narrative. He went to miami to join another top 3 player in dwade and Bosh, who was maybe top 20. He went to Cleveland to join Kyrie Irving who was probably a top 10/15 player and love who was also 15/25 player. Now, he came to the lakers and year 1, nothing, so he got a top 3 player again to join him. And peopple say Mj had a great pr team hahaha That being said, Lebron is awesome, every place he goes, he makes them contender, dont need to make a narrative about how he changed these terrible franchises into championship teams. By the way, every time he realized his teams sucked and he got no chance of winning, he packed bags and left. He has controlled the narrative of his whole career masterfully, and his only bleep was @The decision, and i mean this as a compliment, but lets not lie about how he did things.
I only started watching ball in 2009, so obvious caveat there. From what I can piece together from watching videos, pre 80's ball doesn't look nearly as competitive from an overall talent and athleticism pool league-wide, from my eye test. It's very hard for me to consider Russell or WIlt all-time GOAT's considering the level of competition. In the 80's it seems like things really started picking up, athleticism and talent levels, from the eye test of watching old games, the game starts to look very similar to what we see in today's game with the sheer speed and fluidity of players movements. Magic and Larry and very special players, but starting to look at stats, this argument for me is between LBJ and MJ, and I honestly couldn't pick between the two. They are so close on so many metrics. LeBron's career isn't over either, if he runs a back2back, the LBJ vs MJ debate becomes even crazier.
Don't think so man. LeBron choked hard in his first finals and lost even with a stacked team. No way Jordan would have done that.
Did The Last Dance have better ratings than the NBA Finals? Just curious. In a year starved of sports and still many jobless at home, who did the world want to watch? Probably pretty close which says a lot for someone retired this long.
Be like Mike doesn't work without the game. The shoes don't sell without the game. The logo means nothing without the game. Without the thrill of the sheer artistry and creativity along with the fundamentals and the mind, it just doesn't work. It's just another guy who can jump high with dope sneakers. MJ's the entire package that maybe no other sport GOAT outside of Ali has. He didn't just get the rings, and dominate with the raw and advanced stats, he did it while making the world stop to watch him do it. He had kids and men and women of all races wanting to be him. He was the Beatles in one package. He was Michael Jackson for sports. He was and still is larger than life that no other NBA, NFL or MLB star has come close to reaching. Jordan and Ali are the 2 sport GOATS that transcend sports altogether and they will never be surpassed or even replicated IMO and i think Jordan is even a tier above Ali in fame and legend. It's why Kobe is so beloved to his fans who claim his GOAT status or even top 3, etc. They got a taste of Michael post Michael, but an incomplete package that no numbers back up, and basically no originality to the package along with career low moments. Despite that, there's a magnetic pull to an artist performing his art at that level, and that level was doing it's best to mimic Michael Jeffery Jordan.
You are full of yourself. Bosh couldn't make playoffs for years, Kyrie Irving and Love did not know what it feels like in playoffs before they teamed up with LeBron. Anthony Davis struggled to make playoffs without DeMarcus Cousins. Now he is a top 3 player too? do you want to count how many top 3 players on your list? Probably you forgot the fact LeBron took his team to finals to play against warriors when both of his star teammates were injured.
Lebron has had very good teams. The Miami super squad was ridiculous and it was an underachievement to only win 2 rings. This years squad with AD, who’s a top 10 superstar, was also clearly dominant at they went 16-5. The 2016 ring the is the only one that stands out a LBJ having an inferior team. They beat the team with the greatest record in NBA history.
Wasn't it because LeBron and some lakers players were injured? edit: Lakers was standing at #4 in the western conference on the day LeBron was injured.
