No debate about who is the best player in the NBA right now. Where is "The Taint" from the ESPN days? He claimed that James would be bust, and staked his board name on it. I have a guess he still posts here under another name that begins with jl...
It's a sign of how weak the league has become. Debate LBJ vs. MJ, but where's anyone who ranks with Pippen, or Ewing, or Barkley, or Karl Malone, or David Robinson, or Kevin Johnson, or Shaq. MJ did it against those guys. LBJ puts up his numbers against Thabo Sefalosha.
I really don't get this comment. None of those guys were MJ's position, one of them was his teammate.. And Kevin Johnson... What? Most of the players you listed are big men, and yes, there are not many big men these days on the level of Malone, Barkley, and Robinson. If you say MJ did it against those guys, you can just as easily say that LeBron has done it against Shaq, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Derrick Rose.
The league is so much more competitive on the wing, where Jordan played, than it was back then. It was the age of the big man, and MJ took advantage of it.
I think if Kobe had been born in 1975, entered the league in 1983, he would have just as good, if not better, than Jordan.
Shaq was old by the time LeBron came along. Kevin Johnson. The guy who put up 20/10 for 3 seasons and 19.7/10 for another. To put it in perspective, only Rondo averaged 10 assists this season. And you act like he's some mediocre player? Sure, he may have been in his time, which says a LOT about the quality of the league now. My point is how deep the league was back then. None of those guys you mentioned are close in ability to the guys I named.