Forget the Jordan comparisons and just enjoy LeBron

I think you are failing to see the relationship between player and team. Almost like a player should be judged based purely on individual performance and team make-up and ability shouldnt come into it. Alot of the time of the 48 minutes the individual is on the court, lets go 38 minutes, about 80%. Including most of the 4th and down the stretch; their is ample opportunity for every player to influence the game. You make it sounds like no individual is good enough to win games based largely on their performance; which i disagree with. Great players make others better. The individual being purely based on individual performance is in itself relying on invalid information because the individual role changes with the strength of the team and there role, plays called etc. Lets take Bosh for example. Since joining Miami he is down in points, rebounds and assists. In fact, he had decreased in these years every year. This would indicate Bosh is a significantly worse player and is decreasing at an alarming rate. Purely looking at individual and not team he is performing poorly. This fails to represent his position as a 2nd or 3rd option in a championship team playing a uniquely different role. The teams success is pivotal to his ranking. When judging Bosh after his career, you simply must factor in the rings as ignoring them would result in a completed twisted analysis. Rudy gay last year averaged similar individual numbers to Bosh therefore they are equal or Gay possibly better? In fact, Gay not only has similar numbers he was on the much weaker team and therefore his individual numbers indicate Gay is significantly better player than Bosh. It just cant be look at the individual and assess, their ability to contribute to a winning team and win rings is a defining factor once you get to looking the individual greats. Look, im not one for comparing anway. Great players from different eras are impossible to compare; equally great and unique in there own specific way. As i wrote above, you miss the show if you waste your time comparing between X and Y. But if you are going too, I think its fair enough to ackowledge titles won and the role the individual played.

First let me say – I’ve got Jordan over Lebron. Not based on titles but because if you take out the wizards years Jordan was just a more productive player. LeBron now seems somewhat focused on becoming the most efficient per possession player where as the reason Jordan dominated wasn’t because he was the most efficient per possession but he was very efficient for truck loads of possessions. Second you say you agree with me but also believe it should be a fair point when we get down to a difficult ranking decision, I couldn’t disagree more. Team success is an invalid measure of individual contribution, so if we use it we are knowingly basing our decision on invalid information. If it gets to that point we are going to something we know isn’t valid then I’m of the view it’s a tie. That’s why I believe in tiers not forced rankings where we need to make bad decisions to fill it out. “But if you dont use rings at some point to differeniate between 2 incredibly evenly matched players, than what is the point of rings and teams and championships? Everyone should just go out there and try to drop triple-doubles regardless of result as they can be the GOAT without winning the intended goal? Dramatic i know, but its the same reasons teams without a winning record dont have the MVP; winning matters” You are assuming that players play only for the outcome of being considered the best player of all time and not winning the game. The whole idea that this would change the way people play basically ridicules the concept of team sports, role players, bench players, coaches, front offices etc. The other issue is try to look at which players contributed the most to the goal of winning. On the triple double thing I’m assuming at this point you must be saying eschewing efficiency for quantity which wouldn’t lead to rational people believing you had contributed more to winning. (also I hate the arbitrary triple double thing) Now you can play in a game your team may lose but that doesn’t mean you didn’t contribute more to the goal of winning than any individual on the opposition. It isn’t about trying to “look” like the best but more trying to do the most to help your team win, but the fact remains that you are still reliant on team mates and coaches in a team sport. “and Yes, we do decide that the final 7 games have heightened importance but we do not ignore the regular seasons either. That’s why MVP awards are handed out and recognised” Don’t know who you mean by “We” but did you ever catch the narrative of Dirk, Garnett or LeBron pre and post championship. Or say Kobe v Duncan? Seems like a lot of emphasis placed on a few 7 games series whilst ignoring 20,000 plus minutes of other evidence. Because James had three MVP’s and people were still not even putting him top ten because of the rings. “I get what your saying about the playoffs and role player contributions and luck, but i guess the counter argument is that the great players perform during the regular seasons and first 3 rounds of playoffs to put themselves in the position to get that luck and win the title.” But it is a flawed counter argument. If player 1 on team X plays better than player 1 on team Y but player 2 on team X is injured and players 2,3,4,5 on team Y all play demonstrably better than player 3 on team X team they team Y wins even though player X did the most. That’s before factoring in that team X may have actually outscored the opponent with player 1 on the floor but no one plays 48 minutes for 7 games. Sure you need to be able to take advantage of the luck, injuries and team mate outperformance when you get it but on the flip side to win when you don’t have that against other very good professional athletes is a ridiculous benchmark as you are deliberately ignoring the uneven playing field.. It is the equivalent of forcing Bolt back 20 metres in the Olympics and saying he needs to win with a handicap or he isn’t the best sprinter in the world. Think about it under the ring counting Lebron became a “better” player and Duncan a worse one because James missed a three, bosh rebounded it and Ray Allen drained a shot all whilst Duncan was sitting on the pine at his coaches behest? But if Ray Allen misses that shot Duncan becomes a better player and James a worse one? Again knowingly relying on invalid information means knowingly making an invalid decision.

Point well made, and I hear what you are saying and to a certain extent i agree. But if you dont use rings at some point to differeniate between 2 incredibly evenly matched players, than what is the point of rings and teams and championships? Everyone should just go out there and try to drop triple-doubles regardless of result as they can be the GOAT without winning the intended goal? Dramatic i know, but its the same reasons teams without a winning record dont have the MVP; winning matters. I guess useful was the wrong word, what I meant was that it can be factored in to a players overall package when assesing the individual. It has to be, you have to place some weight on the ability to win the title; and when completing objective exercises such as top 20 players 2 players with statistical similarities but 0 and 3 the rings it become the splitting point. and Yes, we do decide that the final 7 games have heightened importance but we do not ignore the regualr seasons either. Thats why MVP awards are handed out and recognised. I get what your saying about the playoffs and role player contributions and luck, but i guess the counter argument is that the great players perform during the regular seasons and first 3 rounds of playoffs to put themselves in the position to get that luck and win the title. Really, I agree with what you are saying. I just think the inclusion of team success is a fair point to include in player comparisons if its a close run thing. It doesnt separate Russell from Jordan, but it may one day separate Paul from Irving.

One can only wonder if Wilt had played in the era if the 60's and 70's, had all the tv and world wide audiences that Jordan had maybe not in the 80's but by the 90's.

Agree, the whole best ever debate is ridiculous. The NBA is a joy to watch and bron is part of that I actually don’t think anyone, regardless of their actual performances will ever eclipse MJ for the NBA community as a whole, he was the first athlete who became truly global and bigger than his sport. People bought Jordan’s because they ahd his name on it even if they’d never seen him play basketball. You just are never going to compete with that, you’ll always be the Aldren to his Armstrong.

It depends on how you are asking the question. Are you saying in the conversations presently had do they hold weight or do I believe they should hold weight. If it is do they presently – oh hell yes. It is a great example of people doing short cut thinking so they can be part of the conversation. But as yet I’ve yet to hear a single reasonable account for why it should overrule the information we have for individual performance. As to do I think it should be added, to me it seems like the whole concept of team vs individual is being bastardised by the inclusion. Now if you are talking team success versus the expected success without that player – sure. But that isn’t what we are doing. Single players don’t win games, teams do. One guy cannot effectively guard the entire opposition and run the entire offence for 48 minutes and a minimum of 98 games. The ring counting basically assumes playoff series involve no luck, that the team mates and coaches on each side are perfectly equal and injuries never occur. Now you may be comfortable making those assumptions but I find them a bridge to far. I’ll use T-mac as an example, I think he was the best player in every orlando playoff series, his average playoff PER at Orlando is better than all but one of Kobe’s regular seasons at the Lakers but because he had a crap team he will be forever dogged as a guy that can’t play in the playoffs. Now that isn’t an argument that T Mac is better player than Kobe over the course of their careers– because I don’t believe that – but it does suggest that the talking heads insistence he couldn’t play when it mattered is moronic when you look at the actual individual information . The other problem is the metric for team “accomplishments”. 29 teams don’t accomplish anything in a given year – which is ridiculous. We somewhere along the way decided that the performance in 94 to 103 other reference points are worthless and instead focus on the swing factor in 7 games against a really good opponent where your team mates may or may not have played well. That seems like a really good idea... The bit I love is that during the series when you get those 50/50 games decided by low percentage plays and/or a wrong whistle here or there, the journo’s all talk about how you need luck to win a championship... but then they point to rings as this go to arbiter of quality? And yet we lap it up like a Labrador at lunch time. Think about the finals that just went by Tim Duncan failed and LeBron James succeeded. And yet there were several low percentage plays that affected the outcome of that series, and prior series, plays that neither of them had a hand in. If a team goes on a 10-0 run when the “star” player is on the pine for 44 minute rest and they lose a crucial game in the playoff it is “his” failure and you think that should be metric for individual success? I wrote about this with Dirk before they won the title that the whole soft in the playoff thing was a ring counter’s myth. Then he won finals MVP... and all of a sudden he’s a different player and the context of the player from the previous 1000+ went from empty soft stat stuffing to mercurial ice cold killer in one of the most mystifying pieces of revisionist history.

The question is how do you "define" the best ever? Passing, Shooting %'s, clutch moments, steals, hussle, being a leader. There is so many things that define who could be the best that the arguments could go on forever. Just enjoy it for what it is, a great player in his prime.

So you think that team accomplishments hold no weight comparing players? I dont think its everything, but i think its an area that definetely gets added in the equation.

In what regards is it useful. the only "use" I've seen for it is to short cut having to think

Mainly because bron metaphorically defecates in the mouths of both guys as a defender. I'd still take Jordan but I feel Lebron is better in every aspect outside of both of those greats one great strength.

But you imply it is easier, I think for a big ball handler with a massive strength advantage modern defences are a bigger hurdle than a more physical man to man defence

Sure Johnny you can have either of them, in a hypothetical world with the same team mates I think you get your ass handed to you

Longley was a great centre for the bulls system. Triangle offence needs a few smarts to run properly and some reasonable hands/passing game. He was also a big body that clogged the lane and could slow down the likes of Ewing, Robinson, Olajuwan, Smits and Shaq. You can't realistically have an All-Star at every position and he did the job nicely. Jackson wouldn't tolerate a guy who couldn't cut it in his system. Not a great player but a solid NBA centre.

Lebron would shine in any era mushy

You are also more often than not throwing out 600+ games of evidence

And mj had Scottie pippin, Lebron had Mo Williams

Johnno wouldn't a big bloke like bron shine more in hand checking without collapsed paint defences that you are allowed today? Also the in relation to his opponents argument is pro Lebron.

Regrettably, neither Magic nor Bird will be trying to stop LeBron James from winning another championship. Johnno probably knows this. Probably.

more exciting than Julius Erving, MJ, Magic and showtime at the Lakersm Blake Griffen, George Gervin, Dom Wilkens,Pete Maravich, Iverson and Darryl Dawkins with his famous Chocolate-Thunder-Flying, Robinzine-Crying, Teeth-Shaking, Glass-Breaking, Rump-Roasting, Bun-Toasting, Wham-Bam, Glass-Breaker-I-Am-Jam." The Rim Wrecker, the Go-Rilla, the Look Out Below, the In-Your-Face Jam? He may be better than all of them but certainly not more exciting, the NBA has a long history. most exciting and best are not the same thing