2014 NBA Playoffs thread

The thing is this (and I'm only quoting you because I'll forget what I have to say if I wait till the end of the thread): LeBron is every bit as good as Jordan. What is this comparison bullshit? Dude, you tell me to build a team right now and ask my No. 1 pick, I'd easily go LeBron over Jordan.

What is this obsession with trying to compare the two? LeBron might be the greatest player ever, and I say that grudgingly considering my forever crush on Magic, who I think is the best ever. But you can't even give one player the "best ever" tag. Magic, Bird, Wilt, Oscar, Pistol Pete, Kareem, LeBron, Russell, Jordan, Kobe, Pippen, Isaiah, Dr. J, Moses, etc etc ... the "best ever" is a group of about 25 players.

Jordan is no more "better" than LeBron than LeBron is "better" than Jordan. LeBron performed like an MVP in the Finals. Had Miami won he would have been the MVP and we'd be tripping all over each other trying to take the Jordan-LeBron comparisons to another absurd level.

If you built a team and picked Jordan over LeBron just because of 6 titles (and 6 Finals MVPs) then you're dumb.

I don't know. I think we're getting dumber.

Put all of the statistics aside and just go on basketball talent.

Stand Michael Jordan next to LeBron James.

You get one pick. Who would it be?

 

Bosh is going to the HOF. Jordan, like Duncan, won all of his titles with his original team. He didn't have to leave via free agency and bring his friends with him to win a title. He bided his time and let the Bulls build around him.

I don't blame James for leaving Cleveland, but it does make a difference as to how history will view him.

It's not like that's a terrible thing. Shaq did the same thing. But, if LeBron winds up playing for 4-5 teams it will change the way he's remembered.

 

Just checked basketball-reference. They have Bosh at a .9622 HOF probability, higher than players like Ray Allen, Chris Paul, Kevin Durant, Steve Nash, Ginobili and Parker.

That's ridiculous, if you ask me. He's a nice player, but it shocks me that he's essentially a HOF lock.

 

I'd take Jordan over LeBron in a second, every single time.

 

So the fuck what?

It's one thing to let people like Jerry Krause and Phil Jackson build a team around you.

It's another to let Dan Gilbert, Mike Brown and Danny Ferry do the same.

 

I think the perception is that Bosh is a top 10ish overall player who deferred to James and Wade so they could win titles.

 

LeBron should average 40 a game but he can't because the rest of the team has to get involved. Who can stop him low? No one. There are times I watch him just kill in the paint but then, for whatever reason, Spoelstra will pull away from that and call other plays.

I'm all for team ball but sometimes you have to let the stud be a stud.

LeBron talked about it midway through the season. I don't think he meant to but how could he not? It's when Durant was in the midst of that string of 30-point games. What, you don't think LeBron couldn't put up 35-40 a game, if he were allowed? It's too bad because Spoelstra is going to wake up one day and realize that he had the best Porsche on the planet but decided to drive it 60 miles an hour.

 

I'm going to start a list of players who did less for the teams that drafted them than LeBron did for Cleveland. For starters:

 

I don't think James' having played for more than one team will change how his career is perceived. Kareem, Dr. J., Earl Monroe, Shaq (as noted) all played for more than one franchise. Wilt played for four. Their legacies don't seem to have suffered.

 

More than half the players on Jordan's first championship team were drafted by other teams. Including Scottie Pippen, if you want to get technical.

Two-thirds of the players on the 72-win team were drafted by other teams.

 

It depends on how much of a journeyman he becomes and how successful he is the rest of the way.

Erving played for one NBA team. Kareem played for two. Monroe played for two. If James plays for 4-5 teams before he retires, I think it will impact how people remember him, fairly or unfairly.

 

Jordan and it isn't close. Maybe if I stand them next to each other I'm more impressed by James physically. As basketball players go, and especially as basketball players at the most intense times, it's no contest.

Sometimes I think a lot of guys here forget that they even ever watched Michael Jordan.