Rodman, another former NBA great, to slam Lebron James!

Interesting that his top three years for scoring came as a Piston.

 

Scoring was higher league-wide in the late 80s than it was in most of the 90s.

 

You can also argue that eating paint chips is good for brain development.

However, saying that would be ALMOST as asinine as labeling Dennis Rodman as the "Bill Russell of our generation."

 

As much I want to write a response in the vein of "scoring =/= dominance", and want to argue the concept that "relative performance =/= raw stats", I'm a bit lazy to do the research. So we'll just agree to disagree here.

See above

Lebron first took his inferior team to the finals. Then his team got better(more wins) and he took them to the semis. Then his team stayed the same, and he took them to the 2nd round. By your logic, does this mean Lebron has regressed and is no longer that dominant player you make him out to be?

Btw, Lebron's supposed "miracle run" to the finals.

Eastern conference standings(top 2)
Detroit Pistons* (1) 53-29 .646
Cleveland Cavaliers* (2) 50-32 .610

HOLY CRAP! THE CAVS SUCKED SO BAD THEY WERE THE NUMBER TWO TEAM IN THE EAST! AND THEY BEAT A TEAM THAT WAS 3 GAMES BETTER THAN THEM!

Oh, Lebron is obviously GOD himself! For no team could ever beat a team 3 games better than them. Obviously, Pippen isn't nearly the player Lebron was because we all know the 06-07 Pistons was far better than the 03-04 Knicks. That Knicks team was filled with scrubs. How they pushed the Rockets to 7 games in the finals was a miracle I scratch my head over even today.

Chi

 

It's not about the fact that Lebron led his team past the better team. It's how he did. He completely dominated stretches during the Pistons series, including scoring his team's last 25 points in a row at the end of a must-win game. That's just a level of offensive dominance that Pippen was not capable of.

 

Another interesting argument.

During all his years with the Pistons, the last being 92-93, he averaged 8.7 ppg.

For the rest of his career, he averaged 4.6.

I don't think the rest of the league declined in scoring by approximately 45% from 92-93 to 93-94 and beyond, which is what it would have had to do for your statement to have anything close to the meaning you intended.

Not coincidentally, this dramatic decline in scoring happened just when he went on his rebounding tear. I think the criticisms whispered back then were correct: he forsook a lot of the game to focus on rebounding.

 

Well you have the top 3 free agents taking less money and more shared roles so they can be a part of the best basketball TEAM possible and they are getting flogged by most fans, media and many former players. Go figure.

Relative performance is key, I agree. And there were a mix of big men in the top of the scoring list, and a mix of smalls, in most all eras. Sure rule changes impact some, but not that great.(with the exception being rule changes to lesson dominant big men like Wilt, in contrast to later years of increased superstar calls/favors). I believe the 1st year zones were allowed was one of Shaq's best and MVP years. I am pretty sure Malone or Barkley would do well against a zone. Jordan, Lebron & Wade might even have been helped with tighter hand checking, because they are stronger than most all the players guarding them and with more liberal hand checking came more liberal push offs (see Bryan Russell). Regardless, the great players would adjust.

I am not sure where this rant comes from. I do know Lebron has lead his teams to two 60 wins seasons (one 66). I believe he has lead his team to the semis 4 strait years, with a conference finals and NBA finals in there. I don't believe he is as good as Jordan or will end up as good as Jordan, but that is a remarkable feet for a 25 year old and if anyone tries to claim he wasn't the undisputed leader of those teams you are going to have a tough sledding argument. One might bring up Bird or Magic as young dudes leading their team to finals and winning them, but then they played with other league MVPS and playoff MVPs and in fact multiple other hall of famers (2+ in addition to them on all teams I think). The only hall of famer Lebron has played with is Shaq, and that is like counting Bill Walton as a hall of famer in one of Bird's squad.

 

lol probably. But what's he going to do to Rodman

 

The rant came from this statement by you.

If you really believe that all playoff victories are created equal, and that the overall quality of competition doesn't factor into how far you advance, then we can again only agree to disagree. Actually, I personally believe you're very wrong. But since you can't see that logic fallacy, there's not much else I can say on the subject.

 

Not necessarily. That's only the case if scoring decreased for all players the same way. If, on the other hand, the star players were still scoring big and there were just fewer points to go around for the role players, that could help explain his drop in points. I didn't say that was the only reason.

I agree that he neglected other parts of the game to focus on rebounding. In fact, I think his defense was quite overrated in his later years because he often would not follow his man around if it would take him out of rebounding position.

 

I grant you the Bulls performed better that playoffs than I expected. I grant you New York was a very, very good team. Meanwhile Lebron loses to an NBA champion team who took the Lakers to 7--and Ibelieve you want to knock him there (if a mistaken identity I apologize). So I would call it a wash there.

But Lebron had 5 years of leading his team to the EC semis or later, losing to the EC champ every time (unless they won it), and lead his team to 66 & 61 win seasons. Pippen's resume with better players than Lebron has played with (Hakeem, Barkley, Sheed, Smith, Kukoc, Grant), even without being a distant 2nd fiddle to Jordan, doesn't compare.

Let's also contrast playoff numbers. Lebron scores 29.3PPG to 17.5 for Pippen. Lebron has has a higher shooting %, 3%, FT%, and is a more efficient scorer. He also leads him in every other statistical category except steals, where he isn't far behind. (1.8 to 1.6). To believe Pippen could do what Lebron has done is hard to believe, much harder to believe that Chicago with a young Lebron next to Jordan wouldn't have won every ring they ended up getting with Pippen as the sidekick.

Lebron isn't in Jordan's class. But if he gets a couple of titles on his resume he will be closer to Jordan than Pippen is to him. Honestly in terms of wings from the 90s and on, you have Jordan, than you have Kobe and Lebron, than the rest (with Wade showing the most potential to the above group, but hasn't be able to sustain it).

 

lebron is not better than pippen???

sigh... non of this bullcrap would've happen if lebron stayed in cleveland... everyone will still be on his **** and remember he is a 260 6`8 mvp for 2 straight seasons. and now he is degraded to less than pippen (who owe his entire career to mj)... ahahaha