It's funny how everyone who chooses LeBron over MJ always has a bias directly related to MJ beating their teams ass. http://www.espn.com/nba/playoffs/2009/columns/story?columnist=keri_jonah&page=Morey-090512 Keri: Who were your favorite players and favorite team while you were growing up with stats and your "feeble high school playing career"? Morey: The Cleveland Cavaliers. Price, Daugherty, Nance, Hot Rod Williams, Sanders. Besides the current Rockets team, that team will always be the team I'm most fond of. **He's made mention many times that Mark Price was his favorite player ever
**Oh and just to add more Morey stat bias for todays stat happy league, Morey has also said CP3 is the greatest point guard of all time long before he was a Rocket and before he was even a Clipper IIRC. Purely looking at advanced stats only. CP3 has the best advanced metrics. Of course that only tells a part of the story. He just now got to the WCF for the first time in his career and has tons of low moments, but to Morey he was GOAT PG a long time ago purely because of advanced stats. Speaking of "wide margin" comment. How so? LeBron's advanced stats aren't wide margin over MJ at all. Career totals and advanced stats that accumulate with more games played? Career VORP the only thing LeBron leads other than the obvious rebounding and assist advanced stats. Michael Jordan had higher single season VORP ratings and is hurt with total VORP score due to 0.8 total vorp for his 2nd season not counting that MJ had a broken foot most of the season or 0.8 in 95 when he only played the final 17 games of the season coming out of a nearly 2 year retirement. If you just give MJ his lowest usual VORP season of 8 for that 2nd season, 94 and 95, he would currently have a higher total VORP than Lebron. Clearly it would be over 8, and in the prime range of 9-11 in reality. It's just another totals stat he has over MJ. Yeah sorry. I'll take the advanced metrics and raw stats + dominance of 6 rings with two 3 peats in shorter time over a guy who will end up playing hundreds more games and half the rings spread out over all that time and tons of more career low moments and black marks. I'll take the quality over quantity and that's not even talking the eye test.
I think you have to put LeBrons teams up against the teams Jordans Bulls went up against and ask yourself if he could beat them first before asking if he could beat Jordans teams. I don't think you can compare players outputs who play with vastly different rules. The rules now are much more player friendly and the aggressiveness and trash talk is almost obsolete into today's game. The league has cleaned it up so much that a player talks a little $hit and he immediately gets a tech. Basketball was more like hockey in the 80's and 90's and was psychological as well as physical warfare. Great players got into the heads of their opponents far more than players today. Their not even really allowed to today. I don't think LeBron could handle the amount of $hit he would hear and same goes for Kobe. Look how Kobe's team got rolled by an old school 80's style grind it out team like Detroit in the Finals. It was beautiful! LeBron hasn't played a team like that. The Center position has been neutered. I guarantee he would get hurt going up against Robinson, Ewing, Hakeem, etc even Big Ben Wallace. Not saying he wouldn't adapt but his numbers wouldn't be as shiny as today that's for damn sure.
This is an atrocious headline, OP. Talk about clickbait. I just watched the Dan Patrick video, and Hakeem isn't even part of the conversation. He and Patrick just happen to be discussing something involving Lebron, and Morey mentions off the cuff that he's the greatest of all-time, which Patrick briefly asks him to elaborate on. While I don't completely agree with Morey that Lebron is unequivocally the GOAT, he's certainly my No. 2 behind Jordan and he's done enough to deserve to be in that GOAT discussion.
I like Morey but this latest comment from him serves no purpose. I guess it's one the slow summer days, so whatever...
Super post. I think Rodman would have given Lebron a tough time too. Dennis could defend at multiple positions.
Dork Elvis has a right to his opinion, even if his opinion is wrong! Long live the King ....King Dream!! (P.S.) I’m not biased, I just think my team/players are better than yours!!! Go Rockets!!! ....... ....... .......
him being the goat is debatable.. him being better than Hakeem Olajuwon is undebatable. I love Hakeem. But LeBron is better, brah. Now remove Hakeem's **** from your hapless palms.
Good point. Reminds me of the Stros last year going through the Saux, Yankees and Dodgers. When the dust settled there was 0 doubt who the best team was. But on the other hand, Lebron's last title was over the team with the best regular season record in league history. Can't discount that.
LeBron haters will say it was due to Kyrie's performance that sealed that victory. The same group will dismiss the 29.7/11.3/8.9/2.6stl/2.3blk/49.4%/37% statline James put up in that series.
We need to define what "Greatest", "Best", and "Most Accomplished" are to have this debate. Kareem is the GREATEST player of all time, 38k points, all time career WS leader, retired at 42, Put up THREE OF THE FOUR BEST seasons of all time ('72, '71, '73). Nobody's statistical accomplishments even come close as of now, LeBron will chase him down if he continues his current production until he's 38/39. Jordan is the BEST player of all time, highest career WS/48 (amongst non-active players, CP3 is higher but his eventual decline isn't factored in) in both the regular season and the playoffs, 2nd highest career BPM after LeBron, if you value BPM over WS/48 then LeBron is the best to ever play. Bill Russell is the MOST ACCOMPLISHED player of all time, 11 rings, only prime Ben Wallace compares to his defensive metrics. Multiple MVPs, a litany of All-NBA 1st selections and all-star appearances. Nobody will ever come close to replacing him. These three things are not interchangeable, Greatness being the magnitude of one's statistical accomplishments, Goodness being the Quality of said accomplishments, and Most Accomplished being the amount of accolades one receives from the media and team accomplishments. The crazy thing is, LeBron may end up being two of those 3 if he plays long enough and you value BPM over WS/48
