I don't think LBJ is better than MJ right now because LBJ doesn't have MJ's killer instinct. I think it's probably his photographic memory making him unable to forget his misses but LBJ doesn't relish giving the killing blow like MJ does, you can see it in small plays like when Steph Curry was guarding LBJ, LBJ either passed out to Kyrie/JR Smith or settled for a fade away shot instead of dunking all over Steph and stepping on his head in the process. People tend to glorify MJ and think he was smooth as silk hitting his mid range Js or dunking on people, but honestly if you watched games MJ was pretty hardcore, he played smash mouth basketball and would totally give cheap shots left and right that would make Draymond Green look like Kyle Korver on defense. Its that mean streak that I think separates MJ from LBJ, when he's off LBJ can sometimes disappear like in the first 3 games of the series, MJ's almost never off because if his shots aren't falling he's dials his D up even more to even everything up. Aside from MJ and maybe Jabbar though I don't see anyone you can put above Lebron at this point, even Larry and Magic aren't this good and as for Kobe? Lol! He's at least top 3, and IMHO the scary thing is he's only 31...or more or less the age MJ had when he started winning his 6 rings. I think he can win 2-3 more rings, and when he finally retires 9 years from now LBJ will be the real King and dethrone MJ as the GOAT.
The league wasn't exactly full of power teams when MJ won his rings, why do you think they were able to do 2 three peats and set the original win record? Bulls really only had a rival in the Detroit Bad Boy Pistons but even that went away when Dumars and Thomas got old and MJ/Pippen hit their prime. The media can't even think of a single player who can match up to MJ at the time because the 2nd best wing player was his freaking side kick! Its like if LBJ signed Durant to be his wing man LOL at least LBJ had been battling against even or better teams his entire professional life guys like Celtics Big 3, Spurs, and now GSW aren't cakewalks.
He'd have to win 6 titles (all with him as the finals MVP), plus a couple more league MVPs. He is the all-time leader in VORP and BPM for both regular season and playoffs. He is also #1 all-time in playoff win shares. LBJ probably ranks #2 all-time for me. He is much closer to Jordan than Kobe is to LBJ.
The Celtics were a 29 win team without Larry. Only adding Larry turned into a 61 win ECF team. Won the championship his 2nd year on a 62 win team. LeBron missed the playoffs in a garbage conference his first 2 seasons. Was too young? Bird led a nobody team to the championship game in college. Better shooter. Better rebounder. Equal passer. Exactly equal in blocks and steals. Better post player. I'd give the IQ level edge to Bird also. If you think of Bird as a PF, he's the greatest passing and shooting PF ever. Mind you, he played PF in college, was drafted as a PF and played his first 5 years in the NBA at PF. If you think of him as a SF, you think of the best shooting and best rebounding SF ever or at least in the modern era since Elgin Baylor has video game numbers that no one can touch. I think of Bird as a Forward or combo forward. When you limit him to just being compared to SFs, hes below average athelte, but as a PF, hes actualyl a very good athlete. Very quick. People have this image of Bird having cement block feet. That's just not true. Bird was more than athletic enough at his near 6'10 size. It's the bum back dream team Bird people think of. That Bird couldn't move and was out of shape. He still would kill teams every now and then in those final years and his numbers are still pretty elite level too. But, i judge based on pre back surgery from 79 to 88. LeBron only has 1 thing he is the greatest at for his position. Passing. Even then, he's not that much better than Bird and Bird didn't have the ball in his hands all game long like LeBron. LeBron has a much higher USG. And yes, Bird was very capable of being point forward, it just wasn't the style back then. That's it IMO. Scoring? Durant. Rebounding? Baylor or Bird. Steals? Pippen. Blocks? DR J. Defensively. Of course LeBron has ideal size and strength combined with speed and jumping ability. That's great. But that doesn't translate to the numbers. As i've said, as of now, they have the exact same career steals and blocks per game. 1.7spg and .08bpg. When you look deeper into BLK% and STL%, Bron is only slightly better. LeBron= 2.3STL% compared to Birds 2.2STL% LeBron 1.6BLK% compared to Bird's 1.2BLK% Bird has 2 DWS seasons of over 6. LeBron has 1. Bird has 7 total DWS seasons of over 5. LeBron has 4. Remember Bird started his first 5 years at PF. He consistenly defended large PF's and very athletic SF's throughout his career. While people always bring up how LeBron can defend any position, he only does it for spot minutes. He's never in his career defended a PG, PF or C from start to finish. Remember also that C's are much smaller now and PF's are all mostly just perimeter guys now. So not really that big of a deal compared to if he was defending C's and PF's of the 80s and 90s that would destroy LeBron in the post. LeBron has played in 276 more games than Bird's last healthy year before he was only a shadow of himself with a bum back and out of shape and slow as hell for a few years before retirement. Lastly, Bird had to go through monster teams in his conference before even getting to the Finals to face the Lakers with 2 of the top 5 players of all time. LeBron has had to play cupcakes in his conference his whole career. IMO it's the fact that Bird accomplished so much more in 276 less games that he is still ahead of LeBron. Of course as time goes on, i think it's absolutely okay to start thinking of them as equals. And considering LeBron might be the Karl Malone of SF's, he's inevitably going to rise up past Bird by next year for me at the least. I just don't want to prematurely place him over Bird, because if Bron dies tomorrow, then i still have Bird over him. So we don't know what's going to happen in the future, but its not hard to imagine Bron going til he's 36 years old at minimum. I'm okay with looking at them as equals. But, i just think it's disrespectful how people react to Bird's place in the history of the NBA or in comparison to LeBron. People see a goofy white guy and underestimate him every time and stilll continue to do so, but it's that reason Bird would **** on you for not taking him seriously. Spoiler <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9o66NdFDHEQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5gqDadqF3Ns" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AbFNQoY8RFk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/msEmcemLR7M" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ksp82aw-jqg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3H76dsMqo3s" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Totally agree. Only reason Dream is omitted from any of these top 5 discussions is because his peak was relatively short compare to MJ and Lebrons. Peak Dream was better and affected the game more than any player.
We live in the social media era. MJ is basically sealed unless LeBron can surpass his numbers. It's rather unfortunate. If you let MJ play in today's era, he'd be meme'd up and dissed so bad. LeBron for all the hate he gets, and to still be considered #2 all-time by a lot (top 5 for sure) is really saying something.
With all respect o Akeem, people forget that Jordan could have had 7 or 8 rings if he hadn't retired at the peak of his playing powers. Jordan voluntarily quit the game because championships at the time became meaningless. I mean, who does that?
His rebounding and blocking/steals dominance was pre championships though. He was individually a dominant beast his whole career before the rings, but he just had garbage teams. If Ralph Sampson never got hurt and continued to develop alongside Akeem, there's no reason to think they wouldn't have won 1 championship against the Pistons. Assuming of course they could get past the Lakers or Blazers which i think they would have.
Your MJ opinion has 180'd over the last year Great post. I stopped disrespecting Bird long ago. He was AWESOME. He has legit argument for THE most skilled player ever. That being said, defense and handles is the biggest advantage for LeBron. Bird was stout in the post defensively, but he wasn't guarding PGs and SGs. He wasn't dribbling through traffic like LeBron can. All-time SFs 1) LeBron 2) Bird 3) Doctor Funny thing is, people just think Hakeem's peak is 2-3 years. Here's what he did outside of '93-'96... 2 rebounding titles (something neither Shaq nor Duncan did once, prime or non-prime) 1 (probably 2) quadruple doubles... something <5 players have accomplished in NBA history Multiple block* titles 200/200*.... something no one has done in league history *stls/blks weren't always an official stat So, I think people discredit Olajuwon out of ignorance Jordan didn't volunteer to "retire", he got suspended for gambling. The '94 and '95 championships do deserve mention of MJ, though. Especially '94.
Agree Bird doesn't get the respect, but keep in mind his rookie year was age 23, James was 18. Hard to blame a teenager on a sixers level team for missing the playoffs
He's top 3 all tiem without a doubt....and then you start to wonder who you'd rather have amongst him, magic, and bird....then it gets scary. 2nd player all time that I'd start a team around.
Agree with everything in your post. Furthermore, the greatness of players can only be measured against the quality of their opponents, their own teams, and the teams they played against. Basketball is often described as a team game so individual greatness must also factor the quality of their own as well as the other teams'. Having said these, it might be helpful to remind some about the so called golden era of basketball when the NBA games went from being relegated to tv replays and only on odd times during the week ends. The NBA came to prime time only when Magic and Bird started playing against each other with the Lakers and Celtics, respectively. During that era, the NBA welcomed the greatest batch of hof players ever which culminated in the formation of the first Dream Team whose players were all real tough no-nonsense players. The dream teamers played against each other when there were very few cup cake teams. The other great players in that era who were not in the dream team were super stars who were either ineligible, injured or retired but were part of the golden era like Dream, Rodman, Thomas, Laimbeer, Dominque, Zo Mourning, Reggie Miller, Mark Jackson, Charles Oakley, Worthy, Kareem, Parish, McHale, Iceman, Aguirre, Malone, Sampson, Buck Williams, Bernard King, Mark Price, and many others who would have been tough superstars today. Just look at these players who opposed each other and maybe one can see the real greatness of the those who won championships, and even those whose teams failed. Compare the quality of teams and opposition now and pray tell us if you can determine the greatest player or players of all time. No, Lebron James will not be among the top five greatest players of all time. We will never know because the kind of players I mentioned above may never come together again at the same era in the NBA. It was truly the golden years of basketball.
Top 3 all time definitely (IMO) and even before this finals win. But this finals win I think cements his legacy and stature. Sure he had more help this finals compared to last, but they wouldn't have made it out of the 1st or 2nd round without Lebron. He dragged that Cavs team over the line and with the drought in Cleveland, his come back and being a home town boy, that cements LeBron as an all time great.
In the western conference, Lebron's team won't even go to the final. So no need to talk about Lebron being the GOAT.
