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Old 02-25-2013, 10:15 PM
 
387 posts, read 405,523 times
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Good Discussion...Personally i've always preferred Kobe over Lebron. When you break down their games Kobe has alot more technical variety. When I look at Lebron I see a Hulked-up version of Magic. Just in the last 1-2 years he's finally learned how to post up and while Kobe has for the most part has always had Jordan-ish footwork down low. One place where Lebron has a definite advantage is his feel for the game. He can dominate whether he scores 10pts or 50. One thing I'd like to see Lebron do more of is have a quicker first step. Because of his size and strength Lebron can just bully his way to the bucket. You couple that with today's quick whistle and he'll get to the line very frequently. However after 3-4 yrs of more wear/tear you'll have to wonder if his game will age as gracefully as Kobe's. One area where I think Kobe is totally overrated is on defense. Even in his earlier days if you scored a few buckets on him he would say to himself "I'll show him when I get the rock". Then usually after that he would go into a strictly scoring mode and choose not to play d. Plus having Shaq in the paint would make anyone on this board a 1st team selection. When their careers are both over Kobe will have more titles but Lebron will have more points/MVp awards. You couldn't go wrong with either one though. Enjoy watching them both.
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Old 02-27-2013, 08:25 AM
 
Location: Crooklyn, New York
31,936 posts, read 34,448,248 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jza View Post
Don't know why people keep making this point. I'm sure when he's talking about rings as accomplishments he's talking about players who are the main factors in said accomplishments. Why to people need to be walked through statements like this. It's easy to assess with just a tad of common sense that Dennis Rodman had more to do with winning a title than say Luc Longley. That's what he means.
Exactly.
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Old 02-27-2013, 09:01 AM
 
Location: Austin, Texas
3,092 posts, read 4,944,619 times
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The biggest knock against LeBron is that he lacks the "killer instinct" on the big stage that guys like Jordan and Lebron had. Lebron's lone finals victory has come against KD, a guy that has even less of that nasty, "killer instinct" mindset than him. Plus, I think KD and Westbrook were just overwhelmed by the big stage.

Don't get me wrong, Lebron and KD are both great players, but they don't have that "intimidating" presence that Jordan and Kobe had.
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Old 02-27-2013, 09:09 PM
 
462 posts, read 424,646 times
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LeBron will never be as great as Jordan or Kobe because we, the basketball fan, won't allow it. LeBron will never live up to the standards we have set for him as long as we judge him through the prism of Jordan and Kobe. We will always find a flaw in his game, some achievement not met or something LeBron hasn't accomplished in the same manner as Jordan and Kobe to protect our legacies of them.

Whether it's killer instinct, clutch gene, anti-heroism, his opponents, teaming up with two other star player, the way he left Cleveland or simply just leaving Cleveland; we will use these things against LeBron prove he isn't worthy.

And that's the shame of it all in retrospect when observing the career of one of the most unique talents in the history of the sport.
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Old 02-28-2013, 12:20 AM
 
266 posts, read 408,643 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild100s View Post
LeBron will never be as great as Jordan or Kobe because we, the basketball fan, won't allow it. LeBron will never live up to the standards we have set for him as long as we judge him through the prism of Jordan and Kobe. We will always find a flaw in his game, some achievement not met or something LeBron hasn't accomplished in the same manner as Jordan and Kobe to protect our legacies of them.

Whether it's killer instinct, clutch gene, anti-heroism, his opponents, teaming up with two other star player, the way he left Cleveland or simply just leaving Cleveland; we will use these things against LeBron prove he isn't worthy.

And that's the shame of it all in retrospect when observing the career of one of the most unique talents in the history of the sport.
That's exactly how I feel. I like Jordan more than Lebron but I find myself having to stick up for Lebron often for some unknown reason because people just refuse to give him the respect he deserves. We can find just as many faults in Kobe's or Michael's game as Lebron's but nobody ever wants to talk about it. Notice when people talk about Jordan its always about his greatness, when people talk about Lebron its a mixture of greatness and weakness. I find it funny that people want to always point to acomplishments (Titles and MVP's) but at the age of 28 do you know who had more accomplishments? Lebron James. Lebron is 28 years and 2 months old, Michael Jordan had 0 titles and 1 MVP at that exact age. Michael Jordan couldn't win when Magic, Bird and Isiah were in their primes, he basically had to wait till they were done to become the 'winner' we know today but no one will admit that. Also people talk about how good Michael was under pressure and he was as good as it gets but no professional athlete in any American sport in history has had as much pressure on them as Lebron James has. Michael was allowed to miss game winning shots Lebron is not.

As far as Kobe goes just look at the current season the Lakers are having. Nobody is really talking about this season damaging Kobe's legacy and I don't think it should but imagine if that was Lebron. If Lebron had Howard and Nash and they weren't a top 4 team in the conferance let alone even a playoff team everyone would be saying how much of a loser Lebron is.

I think Lebron has a long way to go before we say he's better or even as good as Jordan, who knows he may never be, but nobody should be naive enough to think that Lebron's not capable of doing it.
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Old 02-28-2013, 01:45 AM
 
Location: Earth
3,652 posts, read 4,681,980 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eagles123 View Post
That's exactly how I feel. I like Jordan more than Lebron but I find myself having to stick up for Lebron often for some unknown reason because people just refuse to give him the respect he deserves. We can find just as many faults in Kobe's or Michael's game as Lebron's but nobody ever wants to talk about it. Notice when people talk about Jordan its always about his greatness, when people talk about Lebron its a mixture of greatness and weakness. I find it funny that people want to always point to acomplishments (Titles and MVP's) but at the age of 28 do you know who had more accomplishments? Lebron James. Lebron is 28 years and 2 months old, Michael Jordan had 0 titles and 1 MVP at that exact age. Michael Jordan couldn't win when Magic, Bird and Isiah were in their primes, he basically had to wait till they were done to become the 'winner' we know today but no one will admit that. Also people talk about how good Michael was under pressure and he was as good as it gets but no professional athlete in any American sport in history has had as much pressure on them as Lebron James has. Michael was allowed to miss game winning shots Lebron is not.
I largely agree here but a few points:

- comparing Jordan and Lebron at 28 isn't exactly an apples to apples comparison. Lebron at 28 has 10 years under his belt, Jordan at 28 had 7. Its more accurate to compare them in terms of achievements after the same amount of seasons. Lebron in 10 seasons has 3 mvps and 1 ring, Jordan had 3 mvps and 3 rings. In fact, Jordan accomplished that in 9 seasons to be exact. We also cant discount that Lebron entered at 18, Jordan at 21 after 3 years of collegeball. In reality there's several layers of subjectivity when it comes to comparing these two. But make no mistake, in terms of impact on the floor Lebron is on the same plane now. Jordan is definitely the more skilled player and I believe his game was more aesthetically pleasing, but you don't get style points in the NBA. Lebron is about as impactful on the floor as Jordan was, the question is can he maintain it into his 30s like Jordan did? Stay tuned.

- Jordan not winning when Magic, Bird and Isiah were in their primes comes with a major caveat: those guys has far, far, far superior teams around them. Jordan's singular greatness could not overcome those squads, a great team always bests a great individual. The Bulls putting the pieces around MJ happened to coincide with those guys exiting their peak as players and/or their teams growing old, thats just how it is in sports. Timing is everything. Now whether those 90s Bulls could have won titles in the 80s with a prime Lakers and Celtics squad is a speculative argument that I won't get into.

- It should be noted that the Pistons team that Chicago swept enroute to their first title, won the championship the previous year and their core wasn't exactly old( Isiah was only 30), so its not like they took advantage of old geesers out there. Also, although the Lakers team that the Bulls beat in the finals wasn't the mid 80s team, they were still a very good team. People like to act like Magic was broken down by that point but conveniently forget that he had won the MVP the season before, and was MVP runnerup the year Jordan beat him in the finals. He was 31, averaged 19/12/7, not exactly ready for retirement by any means( the HIV situation excepted of course).
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