Yes, no doubt his stats are great I wont take that away from him....but so were Penny's & Grant Hill's and they were surpose to be the next comings as well....I remember Sports illustrated or slam I forget which one, had a cover story of Grant Hill back in the day which said "like Mike but only better", now if you say something like that it sounds off the wall. And that is what my point stems from the thing that makes Mike uncomparable to the rest of these cats is that Mike wasnt great for 3 or 4 years Mike was great for 13 years(for those who dont believe he was up to his level of greatness in Washington). He was able to take time away from the game & still comeback to achieve the same level of greatness. And I think to compare that to anything a guy can do over a 2 year career, doesnt impress me. Lebron has not felt the pressure of the league from a champions prespective, its alot differen when you are sitting at the top of the mountain as the best player in the world or the best team in the world. Iam not saying that Lebron wont be great, Iam just saying that he isnt great yet. He hasnt put in the time to be considered great, it takes year, championships and accomplishments that are not just based on stats. Iam not saying that everyone has to agree with me by any means. But I view it just as a result of today's society of the obsession with instant stars, you have all these silly reality shows to find the next be star and entertainment to latch onto. And its no difference in sports, the first thing that comes along we try to make them seem like the "best thing since slice bread", Michelle Wie in Golf, Danna Patrick in Nascar etc....if you combine all their real accomplishments its next to nothing to be honest yet hear about them everyday, all day on Sportscenter.
Henacy, I understand your point, and Deception's, but there are distinctions to be made for several points. First of all, comparing LeBron (or any other young player) to Michelle Wie or Danica Patrick is iffy at best, given that both of them perform on an individual level, and LeBron plays at a team level. I will concede that superstars are marketed individually, but another distinction comes in when you have to decide what actually qualifies as an "accomplishment" for an individual in a team setting. For example, is it fair to hype a player based on his winning an MVP, or do you not consider it an accomplishment, in comparison to winning a championship or going deep into the playoffs? I think it's very difficult to determine whether or not a player's "accomplishments" are proportional to the hype he's receiving; on a championship team, the very last player also gets that ring, even though he may not have contributed much. By all means he still deserves the ring for being part of the team (and his contribution may have come to a larger extent off the court.) However, I read this thread and Tony Parker can't have any hype because he didn't individually present the best performance in a team setting. However, I think we should understand that different players have different roles, and not everybody can score 30 points a game. I agree that there may be excessive hype in some (many!) cases; however, what some of the posters in this thread are saying pretty much amounts to saying that hype is a bad thing. Based on what is being said, the only person who can really receive hype "legitimately" is the Finals MVP.
