Okay if you say so.....I don't really care enough about Kobe to argue the point. LBJ's flameout against the Mavs is and will always be the damaging part of his legacy that will keep him from being the GOAT imho.
I never argued about mental makeup winning rings. I only argued about mental makeup in determining GOAT/the truly elite players. Read slower next time. But for fun : The Lakers' entire offense was predicated on Magic getting players the ball. It was Magic who played CENTER for an injured Kareem that dominated that game. And can you prove to me where Bird was a poor playoff performer? And Kobe was 2nd fiddle to Shaq for 3 titles.... please tell me what instrument he was playing for his other 2 rings. But hey, let's use your words and play a game : if you discredit championships won by players because they had help from other stars, Lebron has no championships, right? Yes? D'oh.
Magic was also trying to beat the Celtics (with multiple HOFers) and Moses, Dr J and Maurice cheeks. That 76ers (fo, fo, fo) team was probably the best of the '80s, if not the best team ever. I don't see the '96 Bulls beating that team. You can't say Magic had a supporting cast and ignore Bird and Moses did, too. Magic won 5 rings against the best competition in the history of the game. Had Bird never existed, Magic would have 7-8 rings. And likewise, Bird would have 6 easy. Jordan never had that level of competition and Lebron never has either, until this year. Stop saying Magic had a bunch of HOFers, because his competition did, too.....He actually resurrected Jabbar's career. Without Magic, Jabbar would have only won one ring, and that was with Oscar Robertson.
So should we remove Magic Johnson from the GOAT convo, considering his flameout in the 84 Finals? "Tragic Johnson"
Barkley saying these words makes me lose respect for him. Lebron is playing in an era where there are not nearly as many legit centers when Michael Jordan played. In addition, Jordan never tried to team up with other stars, he would want to beat them.
just for the record. Jordan never faced a HOF center in the Finals. He really only beat Ewing. Aside from Ewing, the best centers were in the West. I don't think the '96 Bulls can beat the '83 Moses team...much less Hakeem.
You can if you want to. I never seriously considered Magic as THE GOAT. So no....."we" won't be removing him.
TBH it's not really much of a discussion....Jordan is the mark to which all other players are measured. Certain players come close (and LBJ has that kind of talent) but none of them deserve that title imho. For me to consider somebody the GOAT they have to have the kind of drive and competitive nature that Jordan had and it must be on display in big moments....not just every few years but every year. Having one bad showing, knocks you out of that realm even if you have more god given talent.
By one bad showing, I don't mean a bad game...everybody has those. I mean not showing up in a key series, not being a difference maker.
in this widely unread thread i made just before the playoffs: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=218892 bird didn't do particularly well. out of the 75 players i looked at, he ranked 69th in playoff vs regular season PER. he did slightly better at 47th in WS/48. if you averaged the two, he came in 60th, slightly behind guys like drob and wilt who are almost always thought of as poor playoff performers. now of course he did have big moments but it appears history may have been favorable in forgetting some poor performances.
exactly, no big centers in the finals and few and far between in the overall eastern playoffs outside of ewing. and he got beat by shaq in 1995. and while lebron may not have to face great centers, unlike kobe it's not like lebron has been playing with all-world frontlines while going up against these teams with weak centers. he was the team's PF for a big chunk of the last playoffs.
whatever plateau kobe has hit with his mental makeup, lebron has hit a higher one with or without it. kobe has never had a season like the one lebron just had, or 2008-2009, or one or two others. the end result is what matters, not the style points in getting there. kobe's legend is based on too many style points where the actual production wasn't at a GOAT level.
i actually largely agree with this. that's what makes jordan so incredible. he had stats that actually slightly surpass even lebron's ridiculous stats and a clutch record that is as good as people like to think kobe's is. he had bad moments but he has so few of them in big moments and they were almost never sustained for a stretch of games. and that's amazing when you consider how many big moments he played in. he never played badly in a finals and played extremely well in several of them. and i believe he didn't lose a series as the favorite, meaning he never lost out on a title he could have had just by winning as the favorite. even one slip-up like lebron's 2011 finals really does take you out of the running (unless lebron really does win "not 6, not 7...").
^^^^^^^ Weren't the Bulls favored to beat the Magic in 95? What happened that postseason? Please don't mention rust, as MJ dropped better numbers that postseason than he did during the 2nd 3-peat. FYI, Jordan had a pretty bad Finals in 96.
How much competitive nature does it take to win 11 titles and however many in a row that Russell won? How much competitive nature does it take to have more MVPs than anyone else, as many titles as Jordan and 2 league records when you retire (points and blocks), one which still stands and probably won't be broken? Jordan the mark to which all players are measured....even the ones who arguably accomplished more? If one bad showing knocks you out then what about Jordan in the 96 Finals? That was a bad showing. What about when Orlando mopped them in 95?
I've never agreed with PER. I favor the player efficiency stat -- pre PER. PER awards players equally independent of minutes. If you look at only players who log 33mpg, then come back to me. And note, in the Finals, Bird and Magic faced better competition that any other players in the history of the NBA, so yes, reason dictates their playoff stats would not rack up to their regular season numbers. and come on, Bird was the best player on the court...or Magic...or Moses....in the 80's. If you use stats to try to prove that otherwise, then the stats are flawed...not Bird and my eyes.
i don't know where vegas had them or anything, but the magic won 57 games that year and i think the bulls won 47 so the magic certainly had homecourt. i don't know if adding jordan late vaults them to favorites but strictly from a standings/seeding perspective it wasn't an upset. he did have his 2 worst finals shooting games in that series, but i think his overall stats still came out to something like 28/5/4 (don't quote me on that) on a lower-40's FG%. not otherworldly and below average for MJ maybe, but i wouldn't call it bad. certainly nothing like lebron's 2011 finals or kobe's 2004 finals.
