Fans of greatness are blessed to be living and breathing in the most golden of eras of competitive sports.
Tennis has moved seamlessly from the great Pete Sampras to the even greater Federer, Nadal and Djokovic troika.
Football fans are mesmerised by Leo Messi and his merry band of Barcelona buddies.
Petrol heads enjoy watching six – repeat six – world champions vying for the Formula One crown.
Usain Bolt’s giraffe like strides have carried him into the record books as the fastest ever man. Ever!
Black Caviar continues to defy the glue factory with her winning ways. Frankel the best horse in the world, runs tomorrow evening at Royal Ascot.
Michael Phelps’ gold stash puts Fort Knox to shame and he’s coming again to London in 2012.
Tiger Woods counts more Masters and mistresses than most people across ten lifetimes, and in women’s tennis… well the less said about women’s tennis the better.
We are surrounded by greatness. Good times for sports fans.
And then there is the enigma that is LeBron James.
Not only is James the most dominant basketball player in the NBA, he’s arguably the most impressive athletic specimen on the planet.
Measuring 6 ft 8 inches (2.03m) and 250 pounds (113 kg), James is the perfect combination of size, power, quickness, agility, athleticism and IQ. It’s like scientists at CERN genetically developed an uber-baller using the DNA of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson together with leftover nuclear waste from Chernobyl and the pills East German ‘women’ were taking in the 1970’s.
Or if you’re mythologically inclined, like Zeus descended from Mount Olympus and stole seven minutes in the closet with Steffi Graf while Andre Agassi was busy shaving his head.
Seriously, there is absolutely nothing LBJ can’t do on a basketball court. And not only can he do it all, when he turns it on its effing awesome to watch. Anyone who saw his recent 45 point, 15 rebound, 5 assist outing against Boston in the playoffs will know what I’m talking about. It’s like watching a grown man play with midgets. He’s that dominant.
Then why does he polarise opinion so much? It can’t just be ‘The Decision’, when James decided to pack his bags and move from Cleveland to take his ‘talents to South Beach’ and play for Miami.
I know it was a real wankfest but come on… you’d choose Cleveland over Miami? Send a Wookie to the States, give him the same option and I guarantee the fur ball picks Miami eleven times out of ten.
It’s winning. It’s dominating. It’s the ability to turn it on when the team needs him most.
Most pro-golfers can chip in from the bunker, but Tiger does it on the 18th when he needs a birdie for the win. Need pole position with one lap to go in qualifying? Ayrton Senna says ‘no problem’ (or ‘não há problema’) and scorches out the fastest time.
When Pistol Pete is down break point on his second serve he launches a 200km plus ace OUT WIDE! After being crushed in a bear hug by Andre the Giant, Hulk Hogan kicks out of the pin, body slams the big fella and launches into the atomic leg drop. Legends, all at the peak of their powers, performing when it matters most.
And then there is the enigma that is LeBron James.
LeBron haters hammer him for deferring to his teammates and not taking the big shot in crunch time. On the flip side LeBron lovers will tell you it’s a team game, and LeBron is one of many in a long list of NBA greats who haven’t always taken the last shot.
Magic is celebrated more for his assists than his points. Bird’s passing abilities were contagious in Boston. Isaiah Thomas, Chris Paul, Kobe…well not Kobe…have all found ways to make plays for their teammates in big games.
Even Jordan famously passed out to John Paxson and Steve Kerr – two goofy white guys – for championship winning shots.
But the key is they made plays. There were at their absolute most aggressive, most dominant, in the final seconds of big games. It doesn’t always work out. They don’t always win.
As many game winning plays as Jordan, Magic and Bird have made, I guarantee collectively they’ve screwed up a bunch more. But they stayed aggressive. They made plays.
I can assure you that Michael Jordan has never spent a six to eight minute stretch in the fourth quarter of a playoff game hanging by the baseline while a teammate ran the point.
And this is the frustration with LeBron. He excels at everything, but he seems to be missing that gene, that extra chromosome, that Hulk mutation, that ensures that come winning time, he morphs into a big green monster and takes over, playing a major part in which way the script unfolds.
Sports fans love making comparisons between players past and present. Is LeBron like Mike? Does his cerebral passing game make him more like Magic? He’s built like the Mailman and is a triple double threat like the Big O.
For mine there is one player who LeBron reminds me of more than any other. A player who could shoot the three (albeit inconsistently) and loved setting up teammates. A player who could rebound the ball, take the ball down the floor and launch a vicious dunk on a hapless opponent.
A player who relished the chance to lock down his opposite number, and redefined his position with his all round abilities.
Scottie Pippen.
Before you spit out your hazelnut latte and begin furiously typing a response starting with ‘Dear Mr. D–khead…” hear me out.
I’m not saying LeBron is as good as Pippen. If that were the case I wouldn’t have written this piece and you wouldn’t be wasting valuable work time reading it.
The problem is that LeBron is wired like Scottie, but his natural abilities make him so much better than everyone else.
Pippen was more than capable of carrying a team, and has had some ridiculous stat lines to prove it, but he was always at his best doing everything to impact a game. Score, defend, assist and rebound, whilst letting Jordan make those game deciding plays.
Sound familiar?
Unfortunately for LeBron he’s like Pippen 2.0, or the Pippen T-1000. His natural instinct is to play the Pippen role, but he’s so much more dominant than every other player on the court that we want him to do more.
We want him to brutalise his opponents every night. Not because we’re blood thirsty Roman hordes in the Colosseum begging for Christian blood. But for the same reason a dog licks his balls.
Because he can.
Aleks Duric
Roar Guru
Hey mushi. A thousand apologies. I had my mum's birthday dinner yesterday evening, and unfortunately the old lady's birthday is one of the few things that will trump sports banter, mores the pity. Few quick points: 1. Thank God for people like you. I thought I had a lot of time on my hands, but you've taken things to a whole new level. Great stuff. 2. Seriously though, you're not related to LeBron are you??? 3. The line about skewing stats was meant for the global "I" not the individual "I" e.g. stats can be skewed, or anyone can skew stats. Like Hollinger's PER and the +/-, which only tell a certain part of the tale. I didn't mean you've done any skewing..have you? I hope you didn't take too much offense. 4. Hat's off to your fantastic research. If LeBron plays with the same tenacity you've displayed he'll probably elevate his game and end up proving me right. 5. I still maintain that if you watch each one of Jordan's 4Q finals appearances and compare them with LeBron, you'll notice that Jordan is never hanging around the baseline past the 3 point line for multiple plays. LeBron's not the only one guilty. OKC goes through possessions where Durant doesn't touch the ball in the 4th...he could do with a little more 'eff you' also. 6. Advanced stats are great...but nothing compares to actually watching the game to help formulate an opinion. Heaven forbid we sports fans start watching sports!!! You're a good egg mushi. Keep roaring. And say hi to LeBron at the next family function. Here endeth the lesson!
Slade
Guest
Seriously Mushi, I'm thinking you might be Le Brons love child or maybe have a man crush?? The article makes a point, it's an opinion based on one mans observation, most of all it's entertaining whilst at the same time encouraging people to question the norm. Sadly, can not say the same about your comments. Nice work Aleks, even if I don't agree with you, I will forever be looking out for those last qtr fades!!
mushi
Guest
I just went to the play by play from the 8th to 4th minutes Miami have 8 possesions lebron is involved in 4 of them (missed FG, draws shooting foul, rebound and an assist) and the team had a 125 offensive efficiency. Of course we could do what you accused me of and cherry pick and take the 7:59 to the 4.32 mark to deliberately skew the appearance of a lack of invovlement and he is involved in 1 of 5 plays during a 207 second stretch. Where they did score 8 points on 5 possesions so his lack of offensive assertivness for this 207 second stretch hardly hurt the team.
mushi
Guest
How have I skewed them. How have I misrepresented them. Fact is you have you’ve formed you entire view on the memory of at most a 4 minute period out of 202 this post season. Less than 2% of the total time is all that has pierced your near impregnable field of confirmation bias and you worry about people skewing statistics.
Aleks Duric
Roar Guru
Lies, damned lies and statistics. The great thing about stats is that you can skew them to tell any story you want. I can't argue against the usage rates you've quoted. But I guarantee if you watch the games you'll notice long stretches of play where he's just not involved in the offense. At present Miami has only two capable playmakers, James and Wade. I'd expect LeBron's fourth quarter usage rate as a percentage to increase simply because you'd hate to have the ball in the hands of Chalmers, Battier, Miller etc. So it's usually the James and Wade show down the stretch. But because James doesn't rest in the 4th, statistically it's easy to say that there is an incremental increase in his usage rate, while still having patches where he's not involved in the offense. Watch the fourth quarter of game 2 when OKC is furiously making a comeback. There's a stretch between the 8 and 4 minute marks where LeBron just isn't involved. So although his usage as a percentage for the quarter might be high, the stat doesn't account for four minutes of non activity. I'm not trying to bash LeBron...my point is he could be so much better if he told everyone to eff of and took the ball. There's a theory that he's gassed from having to do everything. If that's the case then the coaching staff need to find a way to maximise his offensive play in the fourth quarter.
mushi
Guest
I mean his 4th quarter numbers. There was an article a few weeks back on either ESPN or NBA.com that had him with the 4th highest average for 4th quarters for his career and the highest amongst active players. Not bad for a guy who goes missing right? But lets go to the NBA.com stats tool for Lebron and compare his 4th quarter numbers with the rest of the game for the playoffs: Points per 40 minutes: 4th 29.7 vs 28.6 for the rest of the game so he scores more points in the 4th Useage rate: 35.3% in the 4th vs. 33.1% adjusted for the first three quarters so he commands the ball more often in the 4th quarter Rebounding: 18.2% rate (11.9 boards per 40) in the 4th quarter vs a 12.9% rate (8.3) during the first three. This is huge those are rebound rates in line with centres like Tim Duncan, Sam Dalembert and Greg Monroe pull down during the regular season. So he turns into a top 10 ten rebounding centre Steals per 40: 2.4 in the 4th vs 1.6 in the first 3. Blocks per 40: 0.8 in the 4th v 0.6 in the first 3. Assists: 4.4 vs 4.8 so these playoffs he passes the ball less in the fourth quarter. So the guy who goes missing for stretches in the 4th and becomes passive somehow take more of his teams possessions, scores more points, rebounds far more, steals the ball more blocks more shots whilst passing to his team mates less??????
Johnno
Guest
And don't forget wilt chamberlain either Aleks Duric his stats were phenomenal.
Aleks Duric
Roar Guru
Completely agree that using only rings as the measure is limiting, but it can't be discounted. If Dirk doesn't lead Dallas to the title last year he probably sits behind Barkley and Malone in the list of great modern power forwards. With that amazing title winning performance he jumps ahead of them - rightly or wrongly. If James somehow, as unlikely as it is, doesn't win a championship in his career, years from now people will look at his stats in the same way they look at Malone, Ewing, Wilkins etc. Dominant players but not on the same level as champions. This does a massive disservice to how good James is, but is a perception that is unavoidable. Agree on the Kobe point, but add up the rings, plus the points, plus the longevity etc. and it's a compelling case for greatness...even if he is a d#ck The Russell example is exactly what I'm talking about. By all account...and with the caveat that I've not seen Russell play...he had all the physical tools to dominate, along with a ferocious will to win that was unsurpassed. Statistically he's not in the same league as Shaq, Kareem, Hakeem...but it's the intangible, unmeasurable aspect of the game that makes him so great. Implant Russell's will into LeBron's body and he's becomes the Terminator...simply unstoppable.
Aleks Duric
Roar Guru
Don't just look at the stats...which are unbelievable. I know James dominates games, and he'll usually finish with 32 points, 9 boards, 7 assists or the like. But there are periods where he won't be an active member of the offense. Sometimes going 4 -5 minutes...sometimes more...when he isn't involved. It's happened in each fourth quarter this finals. Miami could be up 3-0 if James put his foot on OKC's throat. I don't think this is because he's a choker...far from it. I just think his mentality as a baller is different to a Bird or Jordan, who in fourth quarters wouldn't let the game flow without being the primary point of contact. The fact that James can still dominate without demanding the ball every single trip down the court is testimony to his natural greatness - he is far and away the best player on the planet. No-one is close...not even Durant who's a phenom but isn't the two way player and physical monster that James is. My main point is that Jordan (and greats from other sports) brought it every time, regardless of the opponent or the prize on offer. His will to win, and his capacity to break down opponents was the point of difference. Imagine if LeBron approached his game the same way. His current domination wouldn't even scratch the surface of his capacity to elevate his game beyond anything we've witnessed before. I honestly think a 45, 15, 5 line on a nightly basis wouldn't be out of the question
Johnno
Guest
what was i making up Ian you tell me. Did i mention Paxson or Kerr in my comment, ah no read it again you'll find no mention of them. And by the way they were actually quite good players in the Bulls championship teams who made crucial plays and shots, so i don't know what you mean by saying i made stuff up in my comment, maybe you need to get glasses . Maybe you might recall Paxson hitting the winning 3 to beat Phoenix suns and win the NBA title for chicago bulls. in 93. Maybe your comments should be ignored Ian, some of the nonsense you spin on this website.
mushi
Guest
Its odd how none of the numbers back up the myth of fourth quarter disappearance for lebron. It also seems like a very odd time to post this article given this year's playoffs kind of refute it.
mushi
Guest
Why does kobe get credit for 5 rings? Surely if we're using the retarded test of rings to determine indidivual value in a team sport we either use it for everyone so Russel wins and Kobe still sits behind robert horry or only the finals MVP gets to count them right?
Aleks Duric
Roar Guru
Agreed...which is why it's going to be so hard for James with the new enterprise bargaining agreement in the NBA increasing penalties for teams who exceed the cap. He's got some all star teammates in Bosh and Wade, but the rest of the supporting cast is a motley collection of over the hill vets and untested rookies all on minimum contracts. Watch this space as OKC Thunder tries to keep their young core together whilst maintaining cap flexibility and a strong supporting cast all at the same time. Honestly, you need a degree in pure mathematics to successful work out the NBA cap
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Peeeko, Relax. Its Johnno. He makes stuff up. Its a better website when you ignore anything he writes.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Aleks, Just speaking in general, rings for your fingers and toes are easier in a league that doesnt have a salary cap, as a team that wins multiple rings has better income - and therefore an ability to pay a supporting cast - than the rest of the league.
Aleks Duric
Roar Guru
Cheers JonSun...that's the trick with LeBron. The stats and physical abilities say he's one of the all time greats (even only halfway through his career), but the rings say otherwise. Jordan = 6; Magic & Kobe = 5; Bird = 3...long way to go for James
JonSun
Guest
Out of all the things in this article you took offence to goofy white guys? That's stereotyping, not racism. Anyway, this is a damn fantastic article. Well written. Pippen for mine is not better than LeBron, but 6 rings say otherwise, so that'll do. Yes, watching him destroy the Celtics was one of my favourite NBA moments. He could not miss. -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.
peeeko
Roar Guru
paxson and kerr "goofy white guys" these guys could really shoot the three. how come it seems ok for people to write off white guys in the NBA, reverse racism i would say. interesting article apart from that
Johnno
Guest
Very hard to compare different eras. I suppose you have to look at it based on who was more dominant in there eras. Of course Le Bron is more athletic than Pippen and i would add Jordan yes Jordan, and Pippen to. He is 6'8 super athletic playing in a time with better coaching , and sport science and sports medicine, so of course he will be superior. Watch NBA games 20 years ago 15 years ago type games 1992 or 1995. The players look just as tall but no where as athletic and muscular, and the speed is much slower. And look at the 1980's magic showtime and boston celitcs of the 1980's , larry bird and magic look nothing like le Bron, or chris Bosch. But i would argue pippin is still ahead of James. Yes Pippen i don't think but don't know for sure won an MVP, but pippen has won 6 titles and Olympic gold. Le bron has an Olympic gold in 2008 , and was part of a losing 2004 olympic team USA . -And for those that don't know Pippen's stats went up when jordan retired , and in 93-94 had his best season when Jordan retired, and Chicago Bull steam stats went up when Jordan left not went down. There best regular season win loss record was 93-94 when Jordan left. And they had to endure on of the toughest and most unlucky foul calls on Pippen in the play off series vs New York Knicks in 94. And jordan would only come back if Pippen stayed at the bulls. And also Le Bron went to Miami to have amazing back up in NVP winner dwayne wayde and chris bosch what an amazing 3 players, jut like the bulls pippen-jordan-kukoc-rodman-horace grant. La Lakers shaq/kobe, la lakers 1980's Kareem/Majic/James worthy, and celtics Bird/Mchale/robert parish. So all good teams have had more than 1 star usually, 1 marquee player , marketing wise but 2 or 3 players who are marquee. But maybe championships should not be the definition of how good a player is. Think Charles Barkley/ and utah teams Malone/stockton and seatlle teams of 90's Kemp/Gary Payton. But they were rgeat players. Charles Barkley and Micheal jordan are really good mates and both love golf too and are the same age. In a great interview with oprah winfrey , they were chit chatting and laughing, and also getting competitive was great tv. And MJ got all competitive with charles bakery and said look how many championships i won, and everyone felt sorry for charles except charles. And charles just fired back 1 word scottie pippen, then MJ went all red face and oprah too gave MJ a huge how do you respond to that. And Charles just said well you had better team mates. so maybe championships should not define how good you are a player as it is not always accurate. But Dirk last year stepped up for the mavericks he is a former MVP. But le bron in the grand final series has not always stepped up in the clutch in the past, but is he truly great i am not sure yet, but Pippen has proven he has been great, but Le Bron is catching Pippen.