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Old 12-29-2013, 03:13 AM
 
12,547 posts, read 9,869,102 times
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Old 12-29-2013, 03:37 AM
 
12,547 posts, read 9,869,102 times
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I believe this was made to showcase LeBron, but it actually makes Jordan look better, IMO.

Jordan:

- tougher era (all time great teams: Pistons/Celtics/Lakers, better players)
- much more physical league, no hand checking rule and all-time great big men to meet at the rim
- 7 seasons (Jordan missed one due to injury) vs 10 season
- Jordan never left his team to join two other current top-5 players in order to win a championship
- Jordan leads by 5ppg and is close in rebounding while being 2" shorter and 60lbs lighter

Admittedly, one could argue they are close enough to be considered equals...

BUT

do you think Lebron can match Jordan over their next 5 season after 29?

- 4 more championships
- ~30 ppg, 5 apg, 6.5 rpg
- 4x defensive 1st team

And lets not forget that Jordan took 2 seasons off in his prime so I would like to think he could've won another championship during that time (not to take anything away from the great Rockets teams).
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Old 12-29-2013, 05:20 AM
 
1,018 posts, read 3,371,715 times
Reputation: 588
Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaskell View Post
I believe this was made to showcase LeBron, but it actually makes Jordan look better, IMO.

Jordan:

- tougher era (all time great teams: Pistons/Celtics/Lakers, better players)
- much more physical league, no hand checking rule and all-time great big men to meet at the rim
- 7 seasons (Jordan missed one due to injury) vs 10 season
- Jordan never left his team to join two other current top-5 players in order to win a championship
- Jordan leads by 5ppg and is close in rebounding while being 2" shorter and 60lbs lighter

Admittedly, one could argue they are close enough to be considered equals...

BUT

do you think Lebron can match Jordan over their next 5 season after 29?

- 4 more championships
- ~30 ppg, 5 apg, 6.5 rpg
- 4x defensive 1st team

And lets not forget that Jordan took 2 seasons off in his prime so I would like to think he could've won another championship during that time (not to take anything away from the great Rockets teams).

yea but you also have to look at lebron, who is shooting 40% from 3 point land and is shooting close to 60% FG %. that is just insane. to be honest i would still choose jordan over lebron if it comes to the last shot, but they are both different players.
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Old 12-29-2013, 05:43 AM
 
12,547 posts, read 9,869,102 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by civic94 View Post
yea but you also have to look at lebron, who is shooting 40% from 3 point land and is shooting close to 60% FG %. that is just insane. to be honest i would still choose jordan over lebron if it comes to the last shot, but they are both different players.
Yes, that is a very good FG%, but if we are comparing their stats until 28, it's ~49% for Lebron and ~51% for Jordan. Jordan wins again. And again, we have to consider the rules of today which favor offensive players. Who's to say Jordan wouldn't have shot 59% if he played under today's rules?

At 28 Lebron is shooting 59% averaging 25 ppg. At 28 Jordan shot 52% averaging 30 ppg.

MJ also averaged:

2.3 steals vs 1.4
0.9 blocks vs 0.4
2.5 turnovers vs 3.4

Who's having the better season at 28? I'd say it's debatable. With these stats, I think the MVP nod goes to MJ if their teams have similar records.
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Old 01-02-2014, 08:36 PM
 
Location: Michigan
2,198 posts, read 2,723,344 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaskell View Post
Yes, that is a very good FG%, but if we are comparing their stats until 28, it's ~49% for Lebron and ~51% for Jordan. Jordan wins again. And again, we have to consider the rules of today which favor offensive players.
Lebron came into the league at 18 years old fresh out of high school, Jordan came in at 21 after 3 years of college. That's not a very fair comparison. Jordan shot 51.5% his rookie year vs. 41.7% for Lebron's rookie year because Jordan was older and had spent 3 years playing against better competition before making the jump to the NBA.

Despite that, Lebron has still arguably been the more efficient scorer.
Lebron has averaged 3.9 3PT attempts per game for his career (with a higher 3PT%) vs. 1.25 per game for Jordan through age 28. That isn't reflected in the shooting percentage even though 3 pointers count for 50% more.

Let's throw out Jordan's Washington days since he was half washed up then. Basketball Reference breaks the numbers down by team making things easy. This is Lebron for his career vs. Jordan's career as a Chicago Bull:

Effective FG%:

Jordan: 51.8%
Lebron: 52.7% (57.3% in 4 years on the Heat)

True Shooting%:

Jordan: 58.0%
Lebron: 57.8% (61.9% in 4 years on the Heat)

Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaskell View Post
Who's to say Jordan wouldn't have shot 59% if he played under today's rules?
What if Jordan had to play against today's better athletes and more advanced defensive schemes?
What if Jordan had to play with the rule changes starting around 99-00 to illegal defense rules allowing zone defenses and more double teams? These rule changes were implemented to combat all the isolation/one-on-one play that started with Jordan and continued with T-Mac, Iverson, Kobe, Vince, etc.
What if Lebron had played in the triangle with Phil Jackson?
What if Lebron and Bosh had gone to Miami 3 years earlier?

You can come up with all kind of what-if scenarios.

Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaskell View Post
MJ also averaged:

2.3 steals vs 1.4
0.9 blocks vs 0.4
2.5 turnovers vs 3.4

Who's having the better season at 28? I'd say it's debatable. With these stats, I think the MVP nod goes to MJ if their teams have similar records.
Those numbers for Lebron are from this year and based on a small sample size (<30 games). Lebron turned 29 this year, if you want to compare Lebron at 28 last year is a better comparison because he played a lot more games last year at 28 years old than he did this year.

Last year Lebron averaged 1.7 steals, 0.9 blocks, and 3.0 turnovers which are pretty close. Furthermore, steals isn't a very good stat to judge defensive ability. Allen Iverson averaged 3x as many steals per game as Bruce Bowen for his career and Bruce Bowen was 10x the defensive player Iverson was. If you want to compare defensive abilities I'll take Lebron. He guards 1-4 and occasionally 5. Jordan mostly stuck to 1s and 2s, and Pippen usually guarded the best wing player. You could argue that Jordan was the 2nd best defender on his team. You could even argue that when Rodman was there Jordan was the 3rd best defender. You can't argue that anyone on the Heat is close to Lebron defensively.
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Old 01-02-2014, 09:22 PM
 
Location: Michigan
2,198 posts, read 2,723,344 times
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BTW, if that's a real picture from ESPN then they need to fire their statistician.

Jordan was born on February 17th, 1963. He won his first NBA title on June 12th, 1991, making him 28 at the time. He won his second title June 14th, 1992 at age 29.

Furthermore, he won his third MVP award in 1992 at age 29. So that graphic should say 1 title and 2 MVPs.

Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaskell View Post
I believe this was made to showcase LeBron, but it actually makes Jordan look better, IMO.

Jordan:

- tougher era (all time great teams: Pistons/Celtics/Lakers, better players)
Pistons, Celtics, and Lakers were past their prime and on the decline by the time Jordan started winning titles. In his title years Jordan didn't face any "great" teams.

Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaskell View Post
- much more physical league, no hand checking rule and all-time great big men to meet at the rim
Never played against zone defenses. Never got double-teamed without the ball. Never faced guys shadowing him inside playing off their man, that was illegal defense.

He never went up against Hakeem in the playoffs. He never went up against David Robinson in the playoffs. He went up against a very young Shaq (22 & 23 years old IIRC) twice and lost one of those meetings.

If you compare the guys they actually played against in the playoffs it's fairly equal.

These are the big men Jordan faced in the finals:

Suns- Olive Miller/Barkley
Jazz- Greg Ostertag/Karl Malone (2x)
Sonics- Irving Johnson/Shawn Kemp
Lakers- Vlade Divac
Trailblazers- Clifford Robinson

These are the ones Lebron faced:

Spurs- Tim Duncan (2x)
Thunder- Perkins/Serge Ibaka
Mavs- Tyson Chandler

Jordan also faced in the playoffs Shaq, Ewing, Smits, Lambier, Parish etc. while Lebron faced KG/Perkins, Ben Wallace/Rasheed Wallace, Dwight Howard, Roy Hibbert, Joakim Noah/Omer Asik, Tyson Chandler, etc.

If anything Lebron faced the better defenses and defenders inside.

Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaskell View Post
- Jordan never left his team to join two other current top-5 players in order to win a championship
LOL at Bosh and Wade at top 5 players. Wade was a top 5 player before the big 3 era. Bosh has never been top 5.

Jordan didn't have to leave his team, the Bulls front office wasn't incompetent like the Cav's.

Jordan's supporting cast in Chicago was better than Lebron's in Miami and it's really not all that close.

Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaskell View Post
- Jordan leads by 5ppg and is close in rebounding while being 2" shorter and 60lbs lighter
Some of the best rebounders in NBA history were 6'6"-6'7": Rodman, Ben Wallace, Charles Barkley, Wes Unseld, etc.

Allen Iverson leads Magic Johnson by 7 ppg too. Jordan and Lebron aren't the same type of player. Lebron has never been a score-first player like Jordan was.

If you're going to hold Lebron being taller against him when it comes to rebounds, why don't you hold Jordan being shorter against him for having fewer turnovers? It's easier to have the ball stripped when you're taller. It's harder change directions and weave through traffic when you're taller/heavier. It's harder to move laterally and stay in front of guys when you're taller/heavier.

Pound-for-pound/relative to their height are really arbitrary and specious arguments. It doesn't have anything to do with anything. Earl Boykins was better than Larry Bird "pound-for-pound," whatever that means. Who cares?

Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaskell View Post
And lets not forget that Jordan took 2 seasons off in his prime so I would like to think he could've won another championship during that time (not to take anything away from the great Rockets teams).
Not 2 full seasons, he came back in 95 and lost to the Magic.

Last edited by EugeneOnegin; 01-02-2014 at 10:10 PM..
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Old 01-02-2014, 09:32 PM
 
Location: New York City
929 posts, read 1,654,156 times
Reputation: 540
Quote:
Originally Posted by eddiehaskell View Post
And lets not forget that Jordan took 2 seasons off in his prime so I would like to think he could've won another championship during that time (not to take anything away from the great Rockets teams).
For the sake of this argument, only one season off. He only played 17 regular season games in 94-95, but he played in the playoffs and put up about average MJ numbers.
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Old 01-03-2014, 07:49 AM
 
Location: Born & Raised DC > Carolinas > Seattle > Denver
9,338 posts, read 7,081,132 times
Reputation: 9487
ugh...more Lebron slobbering by ESPN.

Michael Jordan stayed where he was. His first 5 or 6 seasons with the Bulls, they kept running into a brick wall that was the Detroit Pistons. Did Michael Jordan flee to another team like Lebron did? No. He stayed the course, and eventually won 6 nba titles. and besides Scottie Pippen, Jordan did it with different teams. The 91-92 Bulls roster was completely different than the 97.

Unlike Jordan, after 5 years of playoff failure, Lebron James had phone conversations with fellow all-star players on other teams and agreed to all take less money and squad up together in Miami. In my opinion, that's a friggin' chump move.

How DARE Lebron get compared to MJ. is Lebron the best player that ever lived, possibly even better than Jordan? Possibly. But I'm sorry, the way Lebron, Wade, and Bosh literally built their own team is disgusting to me. I respect his game on the court, but I'll never respect Lebron. Not that he cares LOL

Bottom line, Jordan's competitive nature would never have a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality, which is exactly what Lebron did.
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Old 01-03-2014, 09:18 AM
 
Location: Crooklyn, New York
31,945 posts, read 34,489,929 times
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The numbers don't tell the whole story. Jordan had a skillset that Lebron doesn't have and will likely never have. Jordan will go down in the books as possibly having the best low-post/midrange shooting game of all time. Lebron has improved in that department, but not to the point where he can truly dominant games with that style of play. His bread and butter seems to be strong drives to the basket and long range shots. His ability do do the former will diminish over time.

There's also the fact that Jordan didn't join a Super Team. I know some people who make a big deal of the fact that Jordan had Pippen, but Pip was drafted (technically by the Sonics and then traded). In my mind, that's a bit different from saying, "I want to be on this team with a guy who's already one of the best players in the NBA." I'm sure MJ could have had a few more rings earlier in his career if he just teamed up with Isiah, Dominique, Magic, Hakeem, Ewing, Sir Charles, Larry, Malone and Stockton, etc.
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Old 01-03-2014, 11:51 AM
 
Location: California
1,191 posts, read 1,578,294 times
Reputation: 1775
BajanYankee,

But who is really dominating from the low/mid post in today's game? No one really. Zone defenses have taken away the days of consistently scoring from the post. Teams have to mix and move more than they did in the 90's.

If we are talking today's game I'll take LeBron. His size and versatility make him the ultimate threat to score or pass.
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