"LeBron is more Magic than Jordan"

Lebron is that player that you create on NBA 2k.

 

Lol he’s closer to a Westbrook than MJ or Magic.

 

lerbon is lerbon. he is his own category. in the future we will talk about players being a lerbon or jordan or kirby.

 

I wasn't old enough to see Magic play even a game. The dude is like 60 now, he never played for a team I care about, I don't understand why he is relevant.

 

First of all MJ wasn't physically dominant, I know if you ask @Caesar he will say Jordan is 9 feet tall with the grace of a white swan and the majesty of a proud Lion but the reality is MJ was only 6'5 1/4...perfect height for SG during his time but nowhere near dominant.

OTH Magic was seen as a freak as a 6'8 pg and Lebron is the same. Of course Lebron scores more than he passes, last I checked Magic also scored more than he passed so whats the issue lol.

I know Jordan wasn't always in score mode but Magic also wasn't always in pass mode he averaged 19 pts which is a lot for a 2nd option during the 80s. And during their first ring Magic took over the game as their center too. Lebron was an amazing defender in the past but now he is closer to Harden on D so he is similar to Magic now defensively lol.

 

Jordan shot over Bryon Russell for his last ship.

He never had to deal with anything close to the gsw superteams.

 

He is relevant because most people consider him in the top 3 GOAT.

 

This is so stupid because Lebron technically only ever faces one realistic 'super team' every single year in the playoffs and that is the winner of the west, which he has a losing record against.

Each year he basically gets a easy road to the finals

On top. Take out the GSWs. Jordan faced tougher finals competition and faired much better.

I'll give Lebron the Spurs, they were probably the toughest team before the GSW era. But aside from them I'd argue the Jazz & Lakers Jordan faced were better then any team Lebron had to face before the Warriors

Jordan actually had to play good teams in order to even reach the finals

 

He is more Scottie than Michael, and some other time more Michael than Scottie.

 

Jordan was 6'6 and if you see footage of his early career he was extremely physically dominant.

You can't just say take out the gsw when Lebron has met them so many times already in the finals.

The reason he keep meeting them is because they are so cheat code dominant.

I give you that Jordan faced tougher opposition getting to the finals. On paper though this past year Lebron took a crappy team and beat the 1st seed of the east though.

Jordan wasn't getting to the finals until he had good teams.

 

I can because you are the one bringing the argument saying 'Jordan never had to face the Warriors wah wah wah'

Lebron hasn't faced the warriors his whole career

Yes, Jordan never faced anyone as good as the warriors, no one before right now has. However, he definitely faced teams better then other Final teams that Lebron ended up losing to. All while pretty much always having a tougher strength of schedule on the road to the finals aswell.


Physical dominance is spoken of in this thread. Jordan had a great benefit of playing with a great defensive player in Pippen. But in every truly important game, who was guarding the opposing teams best player? It wasn't Pippen. Jordan refused to let it be Pippen, Jordan demanded that challenge. This is the heart argument I speak of.

Lebron has never played with a truly great defensive player, but in crucial games he still doesn't demand that he guards the opposing teams best player. Jordan would have demanded he guarded Durant whether he was 6'5", 6'6" or not, and history shows he would have found a way to be relatively successful. I also don't believe Jordan would have allowed his team to get swept by the Warriors. That heart would have gained 1 game, but thats in theory and a discussion on it's own.

 

MJ leaves they win 55 games, LeBron leaves, they miss the playoffs and pick in the lottery. Teams are teams and individual players are players. Now you want to compare teams, Jordan with Pippen and The Zen master for most of his career, LeBron for his first 7 had Big Z and Mike Brown, lol. That matters. And he still took them to the finals at 22. That team was really bad. It's no wonder when he started playing with better players he would go to 8 straight finals and win 3 of them. But player to player, no team accomplishments, just individual, LeBron is closer to Jordan as far as dominance then anybody imo. Everything LeBron brings and everything Jordan brings, Jordan is a 10, LeBron is like a 9.8. But people forget about Wilt, Kareem, prime Shaq and of course Hakeem. You can't stop them guys. It's the preference of the people having a debate. The age old barber shop argument. But different eras produced different goats. One thing, when it's all said and done LeBron may be first in points, and have over 15,000 rebounds and assist and if he is smart and joins Houston he should add to his ring count. That's crazy! I followed LeBrons career since he was a young pup, and I was fortunate enough to watch Jordans prime years. In my honest opinion Jordan got him by a little. But just to be mentioned with the greats is an accomplishment. You can't go wrong with what you feel is right.

 

Take out the greatest team in NBA history and Jordan faced tougher finals competition. LOL

 

The argument was 'Jordan didn't have to face GSW'
I'm saying 'so what?' Lebrons Career didn't start with the Warriors

Lets assume GSW would have done the same to Jordan as they have Lebron.

Jordan still found more success whilest facing tougher competition than Lebron.

 

but the spurs and warriors are 7 of lebron's 8 finals opponents. a team with 5 rings and a team with 3 rings. and lebron even beat them once each. jordan beat one great team in the pistons. otherwise he beat a lot of good but not great teams.

so basically the mavs in 2011. is that the whole argument? i think everyone agrees lebron choked in those finals, and that may be enough to never put him over jordan, but at this point that's pretty much all there is. the spurs in 2007, 2013, and 2014 certainly aren't worse than any team jordan faced in the finals.

he guarded drose in the chicago series in the 4th quarters. he guarded paul pierce for years. he certainly guarded durant for decent chunks of the 2012 finals. he may not have guarded curry in 2016 (because that would be kind of ridiculous to expect) but you would be hard-pressed to find a more dominant perimeter player defensive series ever with the amount of times he protected the rim and the number of steals he got while anchoring the D as a free safety the way draymond does now. finally, at the age of 33, carrying an offense and minutes load few players ever have over the course of a playoff run, he doesn't find the energy to guard kevin durant and we're gonna criticize that and extrapolate it to his whole career? come on now.

he put up 51/8/8 in game 1 and lost. exactly what else was there to do? much like jordan finding kerr for a game-winner off a double, he found george hill for a layup which turned into 2 free throws and his teammate couldn't even make those and then, of course, j.r. messed it up even more.

 

MJ Finals opposing teams ELO rankings (Peak, Mean, Median, Composite):
15:'96-97 Utah Jazz 1764 1693 1748 1735 W
17:'97-98 Utah Jazz 1766 1695 1737 1733 W
41:'95-96 Seattle SuperSonics 1731 1687 1704 1707 W
79:'91-92 Portland Trail Blazers 1708 1667 1682 1686 W
92:'92-93 Phoenix Suns 1715 1667 1649 1677 W
93:'90-91 Los Angeles Lakers 1705 1660 1662 1676 W

MJ Finals team rankings

1 '95-96 Chicago Bulls 1853 1770 1823 1815
2 '96-97 Chicago Bulls 1811 1792 1802 1802
6 '91-92 Chicago Bulls 1782 1759 1762 1768
7 '97-98 Chicago Bulls 1788 1719 1785 1764
8 '90-91 Chicago Bulls 1785 1693 1785 1755
31 '92-93 Chicago Bulls 1755 1677 1726 1719

LeBron Finals opposing teams ELO rankings (Peak, Mean, Median, Composite):
3:'14-15 Golden State Warriors 1822 1745 1822 1796 L
12:'13-14 San Antonio Spurs 1764 1696 1764 1742 L
32:'12-13 San Antonio Spurs 1751 1688 1712 1717 W
34:'06-07 San Antonio Spurs 1736 1687 1725 1716 L
36:'11-12 Oklahoma City Thunder 1743 1686 1711 1713 W
45: '10-11 Dallas Mavericks 1736 1644 1736 1705 L

Lebron's Finals team rankings:

287 '06-07 Cleveland Cavaliers 1641 1574 1621 1612
112 '14-15 Cleveland Cavaliers 1723 1590 1692 1669
11 '12-13 Miami Heat 1774 1715 1754 1748
42 '11-12 Miami Heat 1729 1679 1712 1707
52 '10-11 Miami Heat 1727 1676 1702 1702
139 '13-14 Miami Heat 1712 1657 1604 1658

I Couldn't find any ELO Ratings after 14-15 Warriors... However I'd say they're probably somewhere between Spurs 12-13 and GSW 14-15 (all top 30 teams, more than likely all top 15-20 teams).
MJ has only played one top 15 team all while having 5 top ten teams of all time. LeBron has never been on a top 10 team, yet has faced atleast 2 top 15 teams of all time (probably closer to 3-5 depending on how you rank the GSWs)

All data from projectfivethirtyeight

In all honesty you can twist data anyway you want. Some will say this proves MJ made his teams better because he was the better player, or that Lebron has done more with less. At the end of the day it doesn't matter. But what I do think matters is that MJ did not face tougher competition in the finals statistically speaking than LeBron did. Road to the playoff teams? I could probably try to figure that out, but again I'll be capped to 14-15 season...

 

I think Kyle Irving would be very happy to play with Jordan. Jordan was a great teammate. Jordan wasn't busy banana boating his teams. He left those decisions up to the front office.

LeBron is notorious for quitting midgame during a blowout. There are many games where teams willed their way behind a 20 point deficit to win in the 4th quarter alone. The quitter mentality that LeBron brings to the team signals to the rest of his teammates that its hopeless to win if they get too far behind.