No LeBron doesn't. The fact that you are aware how much help is required, for multiple seasons, to have that many titles should show you how flawed simply counting rings is.
It's nice, but it's not epic/alltimeish like LeBron, Shaq, Wilt, MJ. Even Paul, that one year, putting up 22-12, leading the league in steals - with his help being Doug West, Peja, and Rasaul Butler instead of Worthy, Jabbar, etc, is more impressive.
All I'm saying is that I don't think Lebron is as good as MJ, Magic, Wilt, Kareem, Bird, Hakeem, Kobe, Russel. MJ: Nuff said Magic: He changed the game, best PG ever Wilt: Crazy averages. Was like Lebron in that he could do everything. Except shoot free throws... But he was unstoppale Kareem: NBA all time leading scorer, 20 great consistent season Bird: Crazy clutch, had the most heart out of any player I've ever seen. Slightly better than Bron. Could score, rebound, pass, willed his team to championships. Hakeem: Lebron is a GREAT defender, but Hakeem was second best defender all time. Won his first championship pretty much by himself. MVP, Finals MVP, DPOY all in same year. I view him as better than Bron. Kobe: 81 points, 5 rings. An assasin. Just flat out drove himself to championships. Hardest working player. MJ himself said that the only one who could ever be compared to him was Kobe. And absolute monster. Russel: Best defender ever. 11 rings. Arguable IMO, him or Lebron. Lebron: Great player. Best all-around player ever. Pass, Defend, rebound, score. He belongs in this discussion with these type of players. But IMHO he is not better than those players I listed above except maybe Russel. Lebron doesn't really have any weakness other than his sometimes choking and him not having a great shot yet. Crazy athlete. But, IMO he just hasn't achevied the greatness that the players I listed ahead of him have. I'm not a Lebron hater, I think and know that he is a GREAT, but I don't think he is top 5.
I think a career average of 20/7/11 is epic/alltimeish. Magic and Bird put the "t" in triple threat. LeBron does too. I think Magic would put up the same numbers today, even with teammates like West or Peja.
Except that's not his career average - it seems piddly to argue over 19.5 but he only broke 20 points 4 times in his career so it's kind of crazy to give him the "career 20-10" guy label considering that more often than not, he was on the downside of 20 points in an era when a lot more guys put up big scoring #'s...and given that he missed about 3-4 years there where he would have been under 20 due to his early retirement. Chris Paul putting up a 30+ PER with mediocre teammates is > than Magic who topped out at 27.
Ok, 19.5, 7.2, 11.2 is an epic career average. Better? Chris Paul wouldn't take himself over Magic Johnson. And David Robinson has a higher PER than Kareem, Duncan and Dream. Stats can lie. Dirk and Karl Malone have higher PER's than Dream too. Only using Dream as a reference since any Rocket fan should know ridiculous using PER as a guage to say either was better than Dream is.
That's because David Robinson had a more productive season on offesne than Dream that year. The only category where you can say Dream was better was FG% - everything else, points, assists, and especially drawing fouls, he was clearly better. Head to head and in the playoffs - the results were different, as we know. It's not a popular opinion but it's true, David Robinson was a better offensive player in terms of productivity than Hakeem for those seasons during the regular season. Just because we don't want to give him credit doesn't mean we shouldn't.
Would you take Barkley, Karl Malone, Dirk or Robinson over Hakeem? CP3 has the 7th best career PER. No one considers CP3 a top 10 player, not even him.
Would you take Lebron over Barkley, Malone, Dirk, Robinson? I would. He also only 28 years old so he will add a few more mvps and all nba first teams. All said and done if he doesn't get hurt I don't see how he doesn't go top 5. He just has so much hardware.
Career means aren't really what it should be based on. And obviously Paul's is skewed. But you'd be kidding yourself if you don't think there were times when those guys weren't far more productive on offense than Hakeem- especially during the regular season. Folks on this board are willing to overlook hakeems good not great period, but its there. The argument with respect to LeBron + PER differs in that he's reached a plateau of multiple 30+ seasons that the guys above either never reached or even came close and that only wilt and MJ have been to. Magic never got to that level of production either
While that's true, I just can't put much reliance in a stat that rates David Robinson ahead of Wilt, Kareem, Duncan and Dream. We will just agree to disagree on that one.
Maybe. But think about it. Can he really pass MJ, Magic, Kareem, Wilt? It seems just to hard. Those guys are complete legends. I still would also put Hakeem, Kobe, Bird over Lebron too. Lebron just doesn't have that assasin, Killer mentality that those guys have.
It's not just PER tho- Robinson at his peak was a monster on O and only behind Dream and Mutumbo on D. Use points, assists fg% - whatever. His face up game enabled him to get to the line a ridiculous amount of times and dish out lots of assists. His offensive production was superior to Hakeems- it can't be spun the other way in any unbiased fashion. Most of our memories of Robinson are colored by 6 games in 1995 playoffs.....he had some bad luck to run into a playoff mauler like Dream.
That's the thing though. His offense wasn't superior to Dream's because he had no post game and Hakeem did. It's one of the main reasons he flopped in the postseason, and PER wont tell you that. Kinda like it won't tell you that Magic is versatile enough to be a big or small while another PG, like CP3, isn't.*
I see some people have missed the argument here. If one asks who is more dominant at their prime, Iverson, Mcgrady or Bryant, you will hear a lot of different answers and it is very arguable. But if one asks who ranks higher in the list of the greatest ever, we all know the answer. You can argue who had more talent, who had better numbers in particular stats, what team they played on, what teammates they had, what opponent they had to face, what if there were no injury and etc, But when a player passes his prime and fades into history, all that matters is what he accomplished in his career. Lebron knew this and that is why he left Clevland for the south beach. To me with 1 championship, there is no way (well not no way, if say he had crazy stats like Wilt that were way above anyone else in the league) he belongs to the top 10 greatest ever.
That is exactly what PER shows you, how much dominant you are compared to the rest of the league, and only Wilt, MJ, and Lebron have consistently broken 30 in that aspect.
doubtful, read on. It's actually not that arguable. Bryant was far & away the best pure scorer and did a lot more in the playoffs than the other two, with Iverson number 2 in Playoffs for dragging mediocre phillly teams to the finals. McGrady when healthy and at his peak was far and away the best overall player of the three in Orlando, but he wasn't really ever at that level for very long, certainly not like LeBron's 4-year period of ridiculousness. Yes, we know the answer. I just gave you the answer. Yes. And LeBron has been where few others have ever been. In his career. And also the fact that Cleveland kind of sucks compared to South Beach - and I don't even like South Beach. We miss the utterly invalid "Robert Horry is the greatest!" ring argument? Then LMFAO at this entire board who puts Hakeem and his puny 2 rings on the pedestal....He shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath as the Russells, Shaqs, Duncans, Jabbars, Parishes -> shame on you all. He belongs down with Dave Cowens. This argument is horrifying....This is what many talking head media idiots tend to believe when banging the "team success to measure individual greatness" drum - it's mind bogglingly stupid (Nobel peace prize for Nelson Mandela!?!! But South Africa is a crime ridden sh-thole!) and wrapped up with a good deal of moral superiority which doesn't really have any place outside of the cliched world of sports punditry and the incredibly boring narratives that are crafted therein.
