If I owned a team, I would pick MJ over Lebron any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Pippen's douchiness managed to get himself hated in Houston, and now Chicago.
Here's the thing about LBJ and Air. You don't see Wade jumping ship to Cleveland so that brings LBJ from top dog to Sidekick IMO. If you were that good, people would want to flock to you, not the other way around.
I have my own conspiracy theory about the Super Friends formation and it all leads down to one thing--Wade is a smart m'fer. This might have looked like buddies joining together to win championships on the surface, but underneath it all, it helps Wade's place in NBA history moreso than James'. And for the people that like to think James don't care about his place in history, . You don't tattoo "The Chosen 1" across your back if you didn't think you could become the best player ever in the history of the game.
Honestly, I feel silly even responding to this argument because the biggest thing I gathered from your response is even when your wrong, you'll still keep piling on the bull**** rather than admit it like a man. Magic better than Jordan in his era? No one is buying that. I don't recall Jordan ever having the nickname "Tragic" that Magic did on when he played "defense". Was Shaq better later in his career? Yes. But he also abused everyone earlier in the career and led his team the final in the mid 90s and was voted one of the 50 greatest players of all time during that period. You act like that means nothing because his best years were ahead of him. In short, your crazy if you think bigs today are still bigger than bigs in the 80s/90s - just crazy. For christ sake - look at our big rotation?!?! We would have got smoked on the boards in the 80s /90s. The fact Houston is a top 10 rebounding team with short relatively unathletic players as our bigs shows you how weak the bigs are in the league right now. About the only thing I agree with you is that Jordan would never average 50 in today's game but I don't think it's unrealistic to think he would average in the high 30s pretty easily. I also don't get your selective memory about wing defenders in the 80s/90s. Want some wing defenders from the mid 80s thru mid 90s? How bout Anfernee Hardaway(more of a point forward, but a lanky, athletic guy), Grant Hill, Mitch Richmond, Larry Johnson, Dominque, Clifford Robinson, Jerome Kersey, Drexler, James Worthy, Byron Scott, Larry Bird(not very big, but a very savvy defender), Reggie Lewis, Bernard King, Xavier McDaniel, Drazen Petrovich, etc. Most of those guys were decent sized and there were few pushovers in that bunch. I can see your argument for the 70s when teams literally had no work out routine with their players but they were already hip to hitting the gym by the mid 80s and most certainly by the 90s. Even Charles Barkley has stories of the basketball guys getting picked on when they shared the gym with the football guys(notably Bo Jackson) in college. ...the fact that you saw Jordan play live dozens of times and you don't remember any of this means you either won't paying attention or your too old to remember so many of these important details. Don't assume everyone bought the Nike kool aid on Jordan - there are still plenty of people on this board who remember basketball in the 80s and 90s well - myself being one of those.
glimmertwins-- you can keep with the personal attacks if you want, but they are doing nothing for your argument. I have posted two complete Jordan games in this thread, one from the 80s and one from the 90s. In the 80s one in particular, you can see the glaring difference in the size of the players compared to today. You can also see how open Jordan was on the majority of his shots in both videos. Compare this to, for instance, what Kobe Bryant (who I detest more than any player in NBA history) faced in 2008, or the schemes LeBron and Wade faced in Chicago (and even against Dallas now). If you can't see the evolution of NBA defenses due to much less restricted rules, then I can't debate with you. It is plain as day. Yes, offensive players can penetrate more easily due to the lack of handchecking, but that is countered by more athletic, larger defenders and more sophisticated defenses. That is the VERY REASON they outlawed handchecking! If you want to be wrapped up in a belief where players in the 90s were magically superior in all facets of the game to players today, despite a much larger pool of talent and much better training, then so be it. The only reason the 80s product was competitive with today's era is because there were a lot less teams so each team had more talent, but if there were 30 teams in the 80s (like there have been through the 90s and 00s), then you would have seen the difference there too.
Mental toughness -- that's the difference between Jordan and James. Lebron is just as gifted as MJ was physically and skill-wise he might even be a little better, but mentally he's nowhere near where MJ was.
MJ and LeBron are not similar physically or in their approach to the game. Wade is much more like Jordan-- in fact, he's the closest player to Jordan ever in the way he attacks, but he has not developed the mid-range game Jordan used as his bread & butter (see both videos, but esp, the 90s one). LeBron honestly plays the game more like a cross between Jason Kidd and Shawn Kemp, if you can imagine that. He doesn't have the incredible first step and manueverability in traffic that Wade & Jordan had, but he has amazing vision and power once he gets in transition.
Here are two videos comparing the best defenses of the 90s and 00s against the best scorers of those generations. Pistons v. Jordan in the 90s: <iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/NLv2F33snCE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Celtics v. Kobe in the 00s: <iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nepmd2ygMK4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Both defenses are tough, but the Celtics one is more advanced because it works at all times off the ball (the old NBA defensive rules really limited this kind of defense). Because MJ was such an isolation player, teams would run these matchup zone schemes against him (it doesn't have to be a true zone for teams to use it-- for instance, the Celtics don't camp out guys in the paint). Now I think MJ was a more gifted scorer than prime Kobe, but not by that great of margin where he'd suddenly be able to score effortlessly in these cases. Bottom line, defenses today are tougher. It just makes sense given the way the game has progressed.
No personal attacks here - I just don't think your going to listen to a good point even if it's obvious when one is being made to you. You made the argument that wing scorers like Lebron would have feasted on the "scrawny" defenders in the 80s/90s. I quote: ...yet you conveniently forgot that nearly every team in that mid80s-mid 90s era had at least a couple of true bigs as in real 6'10" and taller, 250lb+ big men. While you wax poetic about how "scrawny" the defenders were in Jordan's era, you forget that of the voluminous highlight real that was Jordan's career - most of those highlights where from him in the paint dunking over and shooting around those very same big men who were as a whole far and away bigger and stronger than bigs of the current generation. By contrast, name the defensive masters Lebron has faced so far in the playoffs - Iguadala playing with a knee injury, Paul Pierce, Loul Deng, and Deshawn Stevenson/Shawn Marion. The bigs for those teams? Spencer Hawes & Elton Brand, Garnett, the ghost of Jermain O'Neal, Tyson Chandler, Noah and Boozer. That's 12 guys that represent the first and second line of defense for Lebron in the playoffs this year and I would argue only 3 of those guys has a rep as a decent defender and probably only Chandler & Garnett could hang with the mid 80s defenders(maybe Noah, but he has a slight frame and doesn't like to work out which doesn't bode well for his long term potential). And I'm sorry, but posting two games does not define a decade of Jordan's defenders. Also, We must have been living in parallel worlds because my take on why they outlawed hand checking was simply to allow more scoring - the other rules they enacted that year were to shorten the 3 pt line, give 3 free throws for players fouled in the act of shooting a 3, and the "clear path" rule. All of these amount to a series of small tweaks to allow more scoring. It effected the defenders of the time, but I don't think it was David Stern giving a flip about how good defenders had gotten - he just wanted to get a more uptempo game and put more points on the board in a desperate attempt to make the game more palatable for fans after their viewership stalled when the old dogs of the 80s game started to retire and the new guys weren't as attractive from a fan standpoint(and Stern had banked on continued growth from all the expansion you mentioned). I do agree, once you get in the late 90s, the league was really thin on talent and while it has gotten better, I think we are still relatively thin from a talent pool perspective in terms of stars. Lots of quality players - very few legit stars in the game right now - certainly not one for every team.
I think you are really underrating the bigs of this era. Like I said earlier, the main thing is that there aren't nearly as many marquee centers today (Howard really the only one), but there are plenty of big guys in the vein of the types you listed. Noah and Laimbeer are almost the same player physically, although Noah is a better defender and Laimbeer a better shooter. Most teams have one or two huge guys... for instance, my Clippers (a crappy NBA team) has Griffin (6'11), Kaman (7'0) and Jordan (7'0). The Rockets are undersized but even you guys have a bunch of 6'9-6'11, 230-250lb guys on the roster. The reason I posted full game footage is that a lot of people make snap judgements off of highlights or even the memory of how things were, when we really need to put it in our current perspective. For example, tons of people think the 80s were really physical because of the McHale clotheline or the fact that players didn't get suspended much for fighting. It's true that the rules today are really pussified as far as that stuff goes (I mean, it's insane that the Suns basically lost their shot at a championship a few years ago because of that weakass bench mob rule). However, the game itself is way more physical now. And when you watch these clips, you can see that.
As far as your point regarding LeBron's defenders-- while it's true that someone like Deng isn't a big name, I'd argue that he's a better individual defender than almost everyone MJ faced. He's long and quick and very athletic. The league is full of this type of modern swingman, and that makes it tough of players. But more importantly, when you watch the Dallas series, you see that the reason LeBron is having a tough time scoring has much more to do with team defense. Dallas has waves of defenders swarming him at all times. Sometimes this is only when he has the ball, sometimes it's in a matchup zone. You can see that LeBron is trying to play the "right" way and not take shots over these doubles, and it's severely throwing the Heat offense out of wack. A lot of the stuff Dallas is doing wouldn't have been legal in the 80s and 90s.
Jesus why is this an argument? This series has totally killed the "LeBron is one of the best defenders in the NBA" argument. DRose just had a terrible shooting series. LeBron can block shots, but he is no lock down defender. If he was he would have been on Dirk in the 4th every game. If he was an elite defender, Jason Terry would not be killing the Heat in the 4th.
That is ridiculous. Dirk has like 5 inches on Bron. That's just a dumb matchup. Bron has been fine defensively for the most part-- Terry hit some great shots in the last two games.
OMG the height difference is more like 3 inches and Bron has the weight, speed and vertical advantage. There is NO physical reason Bron can not cover Dirk. Bron is freakishly fast, thus the reason he is covering a 6'2" Terry. His defense is over rated.
LeBron is much the same size as McGrady (same height, LeBron heavier, but nearly as athletic), and T-Mac absolutely locked down Dirk in the playoffs.
