POLL: where does LeBron James rank all-time when his career is done?

[hthusky74]

Obviously, this requires some speculation as to how the rest of LeBron's career plays out, but...

...so at this point, he's got two rings, two finals MVPs, four regular season MVPs, more than 20,000 points, etc. He's one of the better defenders in the league as well. It's possible he ends up the all-time leading scorer. He's got a good chance to match or exceed Kareem's MVP total. Quite a lot has to go right to be in position to win an NBA championship, but he probably ends up with more than two.

Given all that, what do you think his legacy ends up being as a player?

Excluding LeBron for the moment, I think MJ is clearly the GOAT. There's a tier right behind him that includes Magic, Bird, Russell, Wilt, and Kareem in some order. And right behind them are Duncan, Big O, Jerry West, Kobe, Shaq, Hakeem (again, in some order). In my view, LeBron at this point is squarely in with the third tier and knocking on the door of that tier behind MJ. In fact, barring some sort of catastrophic injury, I don't see how he doesn't get there.

What separates Jordan clearly from LeBron, besides the four rings, is that MJ was devastating well past his athletic prime. MJ's game evolved as his physical abilities did, so the guy who won a championship in 1998 played much differently from the guy who won his first in 1991, much less the guy who scored 37.5 PPG in 1987. Of course, LeBron could have a similar evolution...or his physical prime could simply last longer than most. If those scenarios play out, the MJ-LeBron debate could well become a legitimate one. Stay tuned.

I agree. At times LeBron is a little out of control. As he matures we will get to see if he is able to attain the levels of some of the aforementioned players. Of course, this assumes he doesn't suffer any serious injuries. By the way, I'm glad to see you mentioned the Big O. He was before a lot of the Boneyarders time, but should never be overlooked. He was one of the best without question. He remains the only NBA player to ever average a triple-double for a season: 30.8 pts. 12.5 rbs. 11.4 asts and that was with no 3-pt line!

 

[hthusky74]

Not sure why Lebron gets no love. Jordan couldn't play defense on a Parker, Ginobli, Leornard or that big french dude in the same game. In fact almost every great named, Lebron can be assigned to play defense on them, but not vice versa. In addition, the players of this era are more skilled than generations ago when 6'8" was at times a Center (Wes Unseld). Lebron's nature is much different than Jordan, he does not want to take over every game, every minute he's on the floor (like the great Kobe). He does what it takes to make his team better and to win. He's unselfish to a fault, enjoying when his teammates are involved and contributing.

With that said he is clearly the best player of this generation and he could see himself at the top when all is said and done. He's 28 with maybe 7 good years left (with his body). Its too early for me too predict and a disservice to Lebron. Wait till he nears retirement (like Duncan) and I'm quite sure opinions will change. Unfortunately Lebron will always be criticized for one thing or another, but what I respect about him is he is never criticized for his off the court behavior.

Until then I will appreciate watching one of the greatest basketball players to wear sneakers. Guys like him don't come around that often. He says he wants to be the best ever and too me him saying that, makes it fun to see if he can do it. Can he ............... yes. Will he.............?

You make a good point about his off court behavior. Let's hope it stays that way. He is actually pretty friendly with Warren Buffett for what that's worth.

 

[jleves]

Things are more sophisticated. But its a fallacy to suggest that players today are "better."

Actually it's total fallacy to think today's players aren't better. Just like people live longer because of better medicine and general living conditions, players develop bigger and better with better facilities, medicine, training techniques, nutrition, etc.

Also, game knowledge doesn't get lost but continues to grow and grow as people build on ideas that came before them. To use a baseball analogy, there was a time when there teams didn't have a closer. Someone figured it out and then everyone started having relievers and then it was reinvented again when they became a guy you only used for one inning when you had the lead. Bringing it back to basketball and players being better, you have more techniques and strategies than you had 20 or 40 years ago - and it will continue to grow. We don't use peach baskets anymore.

Next you can simply look at population statistics and globalization. You have a much larger pool of humans to select your best players from and just by that, you will be more likely to find the freaks of nature that make the greatest players. There are also a lot more college places available so you can 'interview' a much larger pool of candidates for the NBA.

Finally, and this may be the biggest reason, the money involved. Because there is so much money to be earned by the superstars, there are a lot more people trying to get there from a very early age (and therefore more people using all the stuff in the first paragraph at a much younger age). I'm sure there were physical specimens that would have made great basketball players in the 50s - 70s that didn't bother because there wasn't as much money or not enough opportunity to get into a college to develop them (plus the entire race thing).

Bottom line, players are better across the board for a variety or reasons and the players who aren't superstars are better than the role players of the past, making it more difficult on the superstars. Sure the group of players you mention would still be great NBA players today, but they wouldn't have the same numbers if they played today. It would be much more difficult on them.

 

[UCHuskies08]

Why spend so much time pontificating about this when he's 29. He could play another 10 years. Let it play out first. What actually happens is going to be kind of important in making that determination.

 

[huskiesNhoos]

I think he's going to make it hard to differentiate between him and Jordan by the time he is done.

In some ways he has surpassed Jordan at the age of 28. Jordan didn't win his first championship until he was 28 and had never made the finals before than. Lebron has made four and has won two.

keep in mind that lebron gets a 3 year head start on jordan. lebron was 18 when he came into the league compared to jordan being 21

 

[IMind]

I think he'll only be better than Jordan, if during LeBron's attempt to play baseball, he makes at least one MLB All-Star team.

 

[MilliniumPrince]

I have him top 5 now. 2 more rings and he enters my top 3. He may get there without the rings. Never seen a player with his elite combination of skills.

I would put Kobe top 20. MJ, Kareem, Wilt, Magic round out my top 5.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

I think he'll only be better than Jordan, if during LeBron's attempt to play baseball, he makes at least one MLB All-Star team.

He'd be better served trying to make the Pro-Bowl as a tight end. And, honestly, he probably would.

 

[Drame]

I think its harder to win now than in any other era. One championship now is worth. 1.5 championships in another era. Teams play harder through the season and there are more good teams to challenge for the title. Jordan and chicago barely had a true rival on par with them. In the past five years you've had Miami, LA, SA, and Boston all with claims as best team for a time. And a level below that of Indiana, Memphis, OKC, Chicago who were contenders for a title as well. No other era can claim 8 legit contenders per year.

 

[Hoophound]

Jordan played in the hand checking era. That slowed him down a lot. It is very hard to say that defense is better now vs then when the best defenders in the league were allowed to put their hands on Jordan legally the entire game.

I'd argue that some of today's "good" players would be much less effective with hand checking. Jordan averaged 37 with it.

Also, I have always been a proponent of the theory that as athletes evolve, they get much better. Today's players are bigger and stronger. However, Jordan was freakishly strong and that is pretty obvious given that he could play effectively at 40.

 

[Drame]

I think you're making a case for Lebron again. Lebron is stronger than Jordan. If he could hand check no one could get past him ever. Hand checking rules go both ways.

 

[tzznandrew]

Actually it's total fallacy to think today's players aren't better. Just like people live longer because of better medicine and general living conditions, players develop bigger and better with better facilities, medicine, training techniques, nutrition, etc.

Also, game knowledge doesn't get lost but continues to grow and grow as people build on ideas that came before them. To use a baseball analogy, there was a time when there teams didn't have a closer. Someone figured it out and then everyone started having relievers and then it was reinvented again when they became a guy you only used for one inning when you had the lead. Bringing it back to basketball and players being better, you have more techniques and strategies than you had 20 or 40 years ago - and it will continue to grow. We don't use peach baskets anymore.

Next you can simply look at population statistics and globalization. You have a much larger pool of humans to select your best players from and just by that, you will be more likely to find the freaks of nature that make the greatest players. There are also a lot more college places available so you can 'interview' a much larger pool of candidates for the NBA.

Finally, and this may be the biggest reason, the money involved. Because there is so much money to be earned by the superstars, there are a lot more people trying to get there from a very early age (and therefore more people using all the stuff in the first paragraph at a much younger age). I'm sure there were physical specimens that would have made great basketball players in the 50s - 70s that didn't bother because there wasn't as much money or not enough opportunity to get into a college to develop them (plus the entire race thing).

Bottom line, players are better across the board for a variety or reasons and the players who aren't superstars are better than the role players of the past, making it more difficult on the superstars. Sure the group of players you mention would still be great NBA players today, but they wouldn't have the same numbers if they played today. It would be much more difficult on them.

The "fallacy" I was suggesting is this:

If Jordan was born in 1984, he would have had the ability to be trained and to adapt to the era. If LeBron had been born in 1963, he would not have had the benefit of modern training techniques, would have had to go to college, etc.

So, it's an unfair and unreasonable comparison. People are stronger, faster, and do play more sophisticated defenses. So when comparing players generationally, it's best to compare the talent pools of the era, and how that player did against his peers. If a player dominated an era that had no peers (Mikan) it's fair to knock them down a notch.

But I think it's fair to suggest that players like Baylor, Wilt, Russell, KAJ, Bird, Magic, West, etc, with the benefit to modern advances in the game and fitness, would be awesome were they born later.

So my rejection is of simply moving a player like LeBron back in time and giving him modern advances, or moving a player forward in time and denying them that. Since we can't actually know how they would perform in those scenarios, it's best not to do that.

 

[mauconnfan]

I think you're making a case for Lebron again. Lebron is stronger than Jordan. If he could hand check no one could get past him ever. Hand checking rules go both ways.

"ever".........please! He's a basketball player not God.........

And by the way the good players are still allowed to hand check.......watch the quick hand to the hip when Wade and Lebron's guys get a step on them!! It's not called still..........

 

[tzznandrew]

I think its harder to win now than in any other era. One championship now is worth. 1.5 championships in another era. Teams play harder through the season and there are more good teams to challenge for the title. Jordan and chicago barely had a true rival on par with them. In the past five years you've had Miami, LA, SA, and Boston all with claims as best team for a time. And a level below that of Indiana, Memphis, OKC, Chicago who were contenders for a title as well. No other era can claim 8 legit contenders per year.

I disagree.

Jordan beat:

a 58-win Lakers team starring Magic Johnson.
a Blazers team (57 wins) that had already been to a Finals, and had averaged 59.7 wins over the previous three years
a very talented 62-win Suns team that Chicago had to beat on the road
a 64 win Seattle team, that they utterly destroyed
a 64 win Utah team, which won 62 games the next year and Chicago beat them on the road.

Their Finals opponents averaged 61.1 wins.

And that doesn't account for the fact that Jordan had to compete against the mid-80s Celtics and Lakers (albeit when he wasn't in his prime), the Bad Boy Pistons (how's that for a rival?), the mid-90s Knicks (who were brutal), some really good Pacers teams, a Rockets team that won two straight in the two years Jordan was "retired," and the burgeoning Shaq-Penny team.

By comparison, the four best players of the post-Jordan era: Duncan, Shaq, Kobe, LeBron, played teams with these average Finals win totals:

Duncan: 52.6 (normalized the 1999 season based on win percentage: gave the Knicks 54% wins on an 82 game sched [44.28]) He has gone 4-1
Shaq: 55.6, going 4-1
Kobe: 56.1, going 5-2
LeBron: 55.8 (normalizing 2012 in the same way as 1999), going 2-2.

The league was really deep in the late 80s and early 90s, with lots of great teams. We don't remember the Suns as a great team because Jordan demolished them. Drexler's Blazers had some great runs, but the Pistons and Bulls took them out.

 

[tzznandrew]

In addition, the players of this era are more skilled than generations ago when 6'8" was at times a Center (Wes Unseld).

Ben Wallace was only 6'9" and he was able to cause Shaq all sorts of problems.

 

[Scoe]

who here actually put Lebron outside the top 15 lol, own up to it dont hide.

 

[tzznandrew]

Right. The players who have 4 MVPs, 2 Finals MVPs, 2 Titles, 4 Finals appearances, 20000 points, and career averages of 27-7-7 is almost no one. He has to be Top 10 right now. Like, if he retired right now, he'd be there. But he has time left.

I don't think he passes Jordan. But he's going to be in the discussion of the Top 5. And for a single season, or a five year window, he already is.

 

[Inyatkin]

People who get mad at LeBron don't make much sense to me, but I can sort of see it. The Decision was a bad idea. Fine. But to take that and then question his actual accomplishments makes no sense. What else does the guy have to do at this point?

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

Jordan played in the hand checking era. That slowed him down a lot. It is very hard to say that defense is better now vs then when the best defenders in the league were allowed to put their hands on Jordan legally the entire game.

First of all, Lebron suffers from a little bit of the Shaq syndrome. Because he is a freak of nature athletically, guys are allowed to be more physical with him than they are with guys like, for example, Durant, who gets blown over by a strong wind. Sitting courtside at an NBA game, you really get an appreciation for how fast and strong these guys are. Sitting courtside at a Heat game, you realize how much faster and stronger Lebron is than the rest of them.

Also, if you're going to talk about how Jordan would fare in today's game where there's a premium on allowing freedom of movement, you've gotta think about how Lebron - who is virtually unstoppable off the dribble - would fare in Jordan's era, when it was against the rules to put 5 guys in the paint and make someone shoot jumpshots. I tend to think there'd be a lot of isos and easy layups.

 

[Adios]

I think top 15 will be reasonable in the end. Tim Duncan is one free throw away from 5 rings. That has to sting.

Chose "top 10" for the poll.

 

[jfuchs91]

I know he has a long way to go, but I really don't understand when people say that there's no way that LeBron can become the G.O.A.T. I love this chart:

 

[SubbaBub]

I know he has a long way to go, but I really don't understand when people say that there's no way that LeBron can become the G.O.A.T. I love this chart:

The reasons there is no way (short of dominating the next decade):

1. He won't be first all time in anything. Titles, scoring, MVPs*, PPG, Triple Doubles, etc.

2. He's missed, choked, not showed up for too many opportunities already in his career. Not losses, but he's disappeared or otherwise failed in big spots. Something Jordan, Kareem, Johnson, Bird, Russell, Wilt** or anyone else you might consider never did while healthy.

3. Most seem to bestowing GOAT based solely on the eyeball test or his physical specimen. I bet quite a bit that most of those people never saw most of the others.

* He still has a chance at this one.
** Some will cite his battles with Russell, but LBJ has no opponent anywhere close to that level. Battle of titans that Russell won.


Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk 2

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

2. He's missed, choked, not showed up for too many opportunities already in his career. Not losses, but he's disappeared or otherwise failed in big spots.

Absolute, unadulterated horsesh!t.

I think Zach Lowe nailed it:

A word about LeBron: It’s over now. The noise needs to stop. The guy has really had three subpar playoff series, by his high standards, in his career: the 2007 Finals, when he was a kid; the 2010 conference semifinals, his last series with the Cavs, when he put up very good numbers but looked weirdly disengaged while battling an elbow injury; and the 2011 Finals, when he clearly melted down under pressure.

That Finals resulted in a Men in Black–style (or maybe Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a much better movie?) memory-wiping of everything that had come before it — the 25 straight points against Detroit in 2007; the Game 7 masterpiece against the heavily favored Celtics in 2008; the unthinkable 38.5-8-8 line he put up against Orlando in the 2009 conference finals, a series in which LeBron hit an unusually high number of clutch shots and free throws in multiple games. It was as if this stuff had never happened, even though everyone knew it had.

James has done nothing but eviscerate the league since those 2011 Finals. He might be the game’s best elimination-game player since Bill Russell, and maybe the best ever. The next time he has a so-so Finals performance, please spare me the dreck about how he’s shrinking from the moment. He’s faced more big-stage moments than any player on earth over the last two seasons, and he’s risen to all of them. If he looks passive in one or two games, as he did in Game 3 of this series, it’s not because he’s mentally weak or unsure of himself as a player.

It’s probably because a smart team with big players at multiple positions is packing the paint in ways that were against the rules when Michael Jordan, the false foil for LeBron, was in the league . . .

Incidentally, the whole "clutch" thing is largely a matter of perception. Kobe Bryant is almost universally regarded as a clutch player, but his stats on game winners are worse than certain other players who are consistently regarded as choke artists.

 

[Huskybass]

Today's game is a finesse game. In the early 90's, 80's and before it was primarily a physical game dominated by frontcourt play. Jordan excelled with a somewhat sinewy frame in those days. I think if LeBron played during that time period, his stats/greatness would be significantly less. However, if MJ played nowadays, I think he'd be even better than what he was.

Players are bigger and stronger now than they have ever been. Watch some game film from the 80's and you will see lots of scrawny looking guys in short shorts.

 

[jfuchs91]

The reasons there is no way (short of dominating the next decade):

1. He won't be first all time in anything. Titles, scoring, MVPs*, PPG, Triple Doubles, etc.

LeBron has a decent chance of becoming the all-time NBA leader in points by the time his career is over. If he wins two more MVPs the rest of his career (which seems likely at this point) he'll tie for the all-time lead. And he's likely to end up in the top 5-10 in all-time assists... and he's a forward!

This is all assuming he stays healthy and can maintain close to his current level of production for at leas the next few years, but he's far and away the best player in the league right now and has been healthy his entire career.

However, it's near impossible to make these kind of comparisons in the middle of LeBron's career. He's squarely in his prime and we have no idea how his career will finish. Jordan set the bar insanely high, but it's not out of reach for LeBron. Love him or hate him, if you like basketball, you have to appreciate what he's doing right now.