OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ (MERGED)

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

I hate Kobe, but there's no denying that aside from Jordan, there has been no more cold-blooded a player than Kobe. We Blazer fans have had the misfortune of seeing it many times.

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

Yeah, they won only two games more with Jordan instead of the immortal Pete Meyers.

That's a testament to the greatness of Pippen, making the claims that "Pippen wasn't one to strike fear in the hearts of others" pretty ridiculous. Maybe not as a pure scorer, but as a team-changing defender, a creator who made his teammates better (he made BJ Armstrong an All-Star the year Jordan was playing baseball) and as a very good scorer, he was very much a game-changing superstar who forced other teams to game-plan around him.

Jordan didn't need to go find a brilliant Hall of Fame teammate to hook up with because the Bulls provided it. The Cavs didn't for James. If Jordan played his young prime in this day and age and had his best teammates be players like Jamison or Ilgauskas, he definitely would have left town. And not to join a bad team to "prove he could carry a team." He probably would have tried to join up with someone like his friend Charles Barkley.

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

It's as much or more a testimony to PJax than Pip.

Maybe. But MJ and Barkley wouldn't have lost, would they?

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

I don't know if it's as much or more. Unless you also want to say the success of the Bulls when Jordan was there was also "as much or more a testament to Jackson as to Jordan." I personally give the players more credit, but I certainly view Jackson as a brilliant coach who was necessary, both to the championship years and the unexpectedly successful 93-94 season.

The first year? I have no idea. I don't think it's a certainty that Jordan and Barkley would have won every championship until their decline phase. That said, I don't think James is as good as a prime Jordan right now. Whether he ever will be is still to be determined. Jordan did set the bar very high.

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

Lebron has been living with the "heir to Jordan" talk since High school which has largely been a media driven phenomena. That he's failed to meet or exceed that standard isn't all that compelling. So what if he's not as good as Jordan? He's in good company with every other basketball player before or after.

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

And that's the difference... Jordan was just as deadly at 36 as he was at 28. The guy was unstoppable while playing for the Bulls. I highly doubt LeBron will even come close to resembling the same player when he's 36...

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

There is no comparison, not even close. Jordan's career finals low, in 35 games, was 22 points. LeBron just scored less than 22 points (20, 17, 8, 17, 21) for the 5th straight game (four of them losses).

LeBron scored a TOTAL of 17 4th quarter points in a six game series. Jordan, on multiple occasions scored more than 17 points in a single 4th quarter.

LeBron's career finals scoring high is 25 points. Jordan's was 55 points, with several more games above 40 points.

LeBron's career finals scoring average = 19.5ppg. Michael Jordan's career finals scoring average = 33.6ppg.

Michael Jordan = 6 rings. LeBron stock on ZERO rings.

BNM

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

Pippen played on several championship level teams after MJ wasn't around. How many titles did he get?

He was a very good player, but take away MJ and his career would have been different and he'd not be remembered as a top 50 player. He has MJ to thank for that.

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

I was a LeBron fan before he left Cleveland but what you say is true. His best skill, really, is passing but his ability to score in big games is severely lacking. He had SIX chances to step up in the Finals this year and he couldn't do it, even when Wade was hobbling to the lockerroom and his scoring was needed desperately.

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

A sore point for somebody who takes the name "Mamba" I would've thought. How's that knee doing?

Hey, at least the Mavs didn't sweep the Heat, huh?

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

Again: how many titles did Jordan win without Pippen (who was better than Wade) and Phil Jackson (who was probably the greatest coach of all time)? Jordan was clearly a better scorer than Lebron, probably greater than he'll ever be. But as a recent post on Truehoop showed, he wasn't a greater "clutch" scorer.

I think James' problem (if he has one) is that he's too much of a team player. Both Jordan and Kobe think they're the only player that matters, that the other players are, in Jordan's immortal phrase, their "supporting cast". James, on the other hand, followed his midget friend to a less popular high school because the friend wouldn't've made the team otherwise. Jordan and Bryant would never have thought of that, and if they had, their controlling fathers would have forbidden it.

The heat have been oversold: Bosh was never as good as he was made out to be (big stats on a bad team) and may be less valuable than either Horace Grant or Dennis Rodman. And the rest of that roster is pretty much garbage. James is deferring to Wade, who is an inferior player but more of a gunner. But they're both ball dominant. If Lebron ever had a team round him like Magic did (and how is it that Magic managed to be a "great" player without scoring hugely, when Lebron has to score like Jordan?), then we'd see.

James will be all right. This is like when Hakeem and Drexler swept the Shaq/Penny Magic. They were a team of destiny. Never mind that the Magic had just knocked Jordan out of the playoffs. Shaq went on to do all right.

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

Tell that to the Celtics and the Bulls. Oh, I guess those weren't "big games". I bet the Bulls and the Celtics thought they were.

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

I'm going to guess that you're joking with this one.

James #1 problem is that he has no mid range game. He's a pretty good player beyond the line and at the rim in an open court situation, but he lacks a game at the 12-18' range off the dribble or creating a shot for himself. But I suspect he will improve that aspect of his game and that Wade & Bosh will take him to several titles. Then, whether he fully deserves them or not, he'll get the props. A team so talented can't be denied several rings.

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

[video=youtube;2bacMpv1BPs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bacMpv1BPs&feature=channel_video_title[/video]

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

Actually, it showed he was basically the best of all time.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/29844/todays-crunch-time-best-vs-air-jordan

Of course, this is only one way to look at clutch. By this methodology, last night didn't even happen. I don't think that is the case.

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

He had one championship-level supporting cast without Jordan and that was his first season in Portland when he was past his prime. He did not have a championship-level supporting cast in Chicago while Jordan was retired from basketball. He had one established good player in Horace Grant, one player he helped reach All-Star status but never got there before or after (Armstrong) and a bunch of mediocre players.

The same number as Jordan got without him.

He'd have fewer titles...Jordan's career would have been different in exactly the same way without him. Both players would still have been great Hall of Famers without the other. Pippen as one of the best all-around offensive players ever and one of the greatest defensive players ever is a top-tier Hall of Famer.

 

Re: OT: LeBron will never be as good as MJ

Pippen was better than Wade? debatable....