LeBron James

rabman_gold · Mar 20, 2018

BannerYearz said:
Health/availability is one of the most important skills there is.

MJ's gambling/etc. issues and everything that led him to take time off has to be accounted for. You certainly can't say that he "would've" or "should've" 8-peated as some do.

Likewise, Magic's inability to live the Showtime life semi-responsibly is his own fault. Even if it is an open secret that Savannah gives LeBron an infinite supply of hall passes, he doesn't go unprotected.

I agree with this. Without a doubt: LeBron has the greatest health habits in NBA history. He's a robust engine that knows how to take care of his body, whether it's doing yoga for flexibility or how to land on the floor correctly after every foul/50-50 plays/etc).

Even with the total amount of minutes played (50.000+ regular season and playoffs), he's making history in his 15th year. And if he can manage to keep it up (maybe for another 5 years), there will be very few people who will replicate what he's done for any basketball career. And I include international basketball as well (Oscar Schmidt was a Brazilian basketball player for almost 30 years and scored almost 50.000 points in his career).

Hell, LeBron is so damn good at handling most of his off-court responsibilities and barely gets into trouble. He's learned from his predecessors. So, I agree with everything you're saying. I'm just hoping that LeBron's career doesn't take a sudden turn at some unknown point thanks to father time. He's so close to becoming a GOAT, but the path will be rough and thorny. Whether it will be accomplished with another team is another story.

6.19.2016 · Mar 20, 2018

rabman_gold said:
I agree with this. Without a doubt: LeBron has the greatest health habits in NBA history. He's a robust engine that knows how to take care of his body, whether it's doing yoga for flexibility or how to land on the floor correctly after every foul/50-50 plays/etc).

Even with the total amount of minutes played (50.000+ regular season and playoffs), he's making history in his 15th year. And if he can manage to keep it up (maybe for another 5 years), there will be very few people who will replicate what he's done for any basketball career. And I include international basketball as well (Oscar Schmidt was a Brazilian basketball player for almost 30 years and scored almost 50.000 points in his career).

Hell, LeBron is so damn good at handling most of his off-court responsibilities and barely gets into trouble. He's learned from his predecessors. So, I agree with everything you're saying. I'm just hoping that LeBron's career doesn't take a sudden turn at some unknown point thanks to father time. He's so close to becoming a GOAT, but the path will be rough and thorny. Whether it will be accomplished with another team is another story.

Agree. I was just commenting on the bolded of how Magic's "forced into early retirement" was precisely what stacks him up negatively against LeBron, as is MJ's temporary retirement, even if you understandably noted both of them in a positive context.

It's funny how LeRegimen hasn't really been something he needs to have broadcast all that much, until maybe this past season or two, whereas MJ and Kobe needed to have it constantly noted from day one that they worked obsessively on their game.

CTownSportsFan · Mar 21, 2018

Sorry if this has been posted already, amazing insight regarding James and his health/conditioning . If LBJ desires, I believe he could play until he’s 45 and still be highly productive .

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/22778062/how-lebron-james-fixed-back-track-play-all-82-games-nba

Heej · Mar 21, 2018

gaitano said:
The so called "brain doctor" Jonathan P. Niednagel (pronounced need-noggle) leveraged his bachelor’s degree in business finance from California State University, Long Beach, and the stolen works of Raymond Catell's 16-factor model of normal personality structure developed in 1949 to hoodwink gullible sport figures like Ainge, who reportedly considered firing himself after his test revealed his brain type was the same as Captain Louis Albano. Educational society and members of American Psychological Association criticize Brain Types as not valid and built for commercial purposes only. The Skeptic's Dictionary devotes an entire article to the methods used by Niednagel to con his various victims.In his article "Brain Typing, The Pseudoscience of Cold Reading, Dr. Terry Sandbek takes a deeper look at Niednagel's ideas, exposing his "brain typing" as a pseudoscience on the same level as astrology and phrenology.

The American Psychological Association considers Brain Typing a pseudoscience. In summary, Niednagel is a con-artist fraud spouting bullshit, and people who pay for his services are idiots.

As for known LeBron hater Marc Stein's article, I won't insult people's intelligence here discussing it any further. See http://www.nbaminer.com/clutch-time-stats/. Who is #1?

That was a very ISTP-Esque takedown of that post. You sure you don't wanna sign on a 2 way contract to be the Cavs' designated game winner guy? I just wish LeBron could give me more reason to trust his ESFP brain type in close game situations, like if he had the most playoff gamewinners or something.

Tubs023 · Mar 21, 2018

I see great arguments for both but the edge has to go to MJ for several reasons. First MJ had no weakness. Offensively he could score from anywhere on the court and make his free throws especially during closing moments. Defensively he is considered arguably top 15 of all time even winning defensive player of the year. MJ's peak season is better than Lebrons peak by which Mike averaged 32 8 8 shooting .54 from field along with 3 steals per game. Also one has to take in consideration how much the rules have changed. If people were not able to hand check Mike he probably would have averaged 40 plus points per game shooting at a much higher clip than LeBron.

CTownSportsFan · Mar 21, 2018

Tubs023 said:
I see great arguments for both but the edge has to go to MJ for several reasons. First MJ had no weakness. Offensively he could score from anywhere on the court and make his free throws especially during closing moments. Defensively he is considered arguably top 15 of all time even winning defensive player of the year. MJ's peak season is better than Lebrons peak by which Mike averaged 32 8 8 shooting .54 from field along with 3 steals per game. Also one has to take in consideration how much the rules have changed. If people were not able to hand check Mike he probably would have averaged 40 plus points per game shooting at a much higher clip than LeBron.

You seem to forget the era Jordan played . During this time the NBA was going through a growth spurt adding several expansion teams . With this came a very water down quality across the board . Jordan arguably played during the easiest Era in NBA history . Time machine LeBron in to the 90’s . He would utterly destroy every record MJ put up including rings as he would have prevented MJ from obtaining any. James would slap Jordan silly without question .

gaitano · Mar 21, 2018

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...the-top-25-late-game-players-in-recent-memory

Heej said:
That was a very ISTP-Esque takedown of that post. You sure you don't wanna sign on a 2 way contract to be the Cavs' designated game winner guy? I just wish LeBron could give me more reason to trust his ESFP brain type in close game situations, like if he had the most playoff gamewinners or something.

Thank you Heej. I had just got done working a long shift, so that was a lazy ending to my post. A quick search brings up this article: "The Top 25 Late-Game Players in Recent Memory": http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...the-top-25-late-game-players-in-recent-memory
LeBron is listed #1 above Jordon's #3 there. As most Cavs fans already know, he is not a choker for certain. edit: Link fixed. Old article from 2015

Tubs023 · Mar 21, 2018

CTownSportsFan said:
You seem to forget the era Jordan played . During this time the NBA was going through a growth spurt adding several expansion teams . With this came a very water down quality across the board . Jordan arguably played during the easiest Era in NBA history . Time machine LeBron in to the 90’s . He would utterly destroy every record MJ put up including rings as he would have prevented MJ from obtaining any. James would slap Jordan silly without question .

Actually I didn' forget. That would be offset with kids staying in college much longer. Instead of many players playing against kids like they do today they were playing against adults. Secondly the league as a whole back then was not as weak as the east especially the last several years. Your argument would be stronger if LeBron numbers were drastically different when comparing east vs west but in reality they are about the same.

However LeBron is right there so if I came across as if MJ was far superior I appologize. LeBron because of his all around greatness can take an inferior team further than Jordan could or any other player that played the game.

cavsfever · Mar 21, 2018

I in no way support the idiotic stylings of Dr. Jonathan B. Niednagel, but I do think Lebron's emotional makeup is interesting. He has had to bear up under more pressure than possibly any NBA player ever. The expectations on him were so high that only championships would do, and once he reached about 16 he never had any point where he was anything close to an ordinary player who could simply get coaching and instruction in a relatively sheltered environment (e.g. a college team). He also was the first megastar of the social media era, he was monitored 24/7 and there was never any shelter from the pressure, hype, and expectations.

He has borne up INCREDIBLY well under that pressure overall, but I do think at certain points in his career you can see the signs of self-doubt and frustration creeping in. Notably in the 2010 playoffs with the Cavs and the 2011 Finals. But I feel like once he cracked the code in 2012 -- a point I think you can date precisely to Game 6 against the Celtics in the 2012 playoffs -- he had control of his emotions and performance.

But a fundamental issue in his career has always been the tremendous expectations on him as an individual to win *all the time* in what is after all a team game. All the top players have to deal with this in some way but for him it's been particularly intense because of the pressure on him. You can still see him trying to balance out when he as an individual can carry a team and when he just can't, and trying to figure out what to do when he can't. The frustration does show then, as in earlier this year.

I think it's interesting that he often will say around playoff time that he doesn't care what other people think, that he won't look at others opinions, and doesn't care whether he wins or loses as long as he does his best. He obviously does care a lot, but he had to learn to separate himself from peoples' expectations in order to perform his best. Because those expectations were crushing.

Cassity14 · Mar 21, 2018

CTownSportsFan said:
You seem to forget the era Jordan played . During this time the NBA was going through a growth spurt adding several expansion teams . With this came a very water down quality across the board . Jordan arguably played during the easiest Era in NBA history . Time machine LeBron in to the 90’s . He would utterly destroy every record MJ put up including rings as he would have prevented MJ from obtaining any. James would slap Jordan silly without question .

I don't disagree with this, but LeBron has also spent his entire career in what is by far the inferior of the two conferences. Not to mention, tanking has been a big thing, particularly in the east, during the second half of LeBron's career.

cavsfever · Mar 21, 2018

Cassity14 said:
I don't disagree with this, but LeBron has also spent his entire career in what is by far the inferior of the two conferences. Not to mention, tanking has been a big thing, particularly in the east, during the second half of LeBron's career.

In Lebron's 15 years in the NBA, the East has won six titles and the West has won nine titles. And frankly it would be seven titles for the East if half the Cavs starters hadn't been injured in the 2015 Finals. So the West is better but I wouldn't say it's "by far". The West has also won the additional titles because of two of the greatest teams in NBA history, the Pop/Duncan Spurs and the Warriors with Durant. And not sure how regular season tanking is relevant to playoff success.

The NBA in general and across the board is a lot better than the 90s.

Cassity14 · Mar 21, 2018

cavsfever said:
In Lebron's 15 years in the NBA, the East has won six titles and the West has won nine titles. And frankly it would be seven titles for the East if half the Cavs starters hadn't been injured in the 2015 Finals. So the West is better but I wouldn't say it's "by far". The West has also won the additional titles because of two of the greatest teams in NBA history, the Pop/Duncan Spurs and the Warriors with Durant. And not sure how regular season tanking is relevant to playoff success.

The NBA in general and across the board is a lot better than the 90s.

I really don't like when the number of titles is the defense of the better conference because that's not a metric to determine the actual strength of the entire conference. In fact, it can be argued that the easier conference is more likely to win the finals because it's lower number of powerful teams makes for a less tiring road to the gold.

Look at the overall number of wins per seed in the east vs west at that time. It's a big difference.
The West, in LeBron's career, has been far superior in terms of depth than the East has. I'm not going to get into the Spurs/Warriors "greatest of all time" debate because given my point above, it's not very relevant.

My point about tanking was to contradict the earlier point made about expansion teams. I'd argue there are as many teams at that level of awful now as there were in Jordan's time. Sure, they aren't expansion teams, but the teams all-out tanking are just as bad, if not worse than expansion teams.

Heej · Mar 21, 2018

Tubs023 said:
I see great arguments for both but the edge has to go to MJ for several reasons. First MJ had no weakness. Offensively he could score from anywhere on the court and make his free throws especially during closing moments. Defensively he is considered arguably top 15 of all time even winning defensive player of the year. MJ's peak season is better than Lebrons peak by which Mike averaged 32 8 8 shooting .54 from field along with 3 steals per game. Also one has to take in consideration how much the rules have changed. If people were not able to hand check Mike he probably would have averaged 40 plus points per game shooting at a much higher clip than LeBron.

Score from anywhere except the unshortened 3 point line, you mean. Do you watch current NBA games and seriously think to yourself these guys aren't handchecking? How else do they have a prayer of even stopping LeBron. I'm pretty sure MJ would be a lot more concerned about the zone rules than the handchecking considering be begged David Stern not to implement them.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-04-01/sports/0104010375_1_defense-recommendations-nba

"But there was one that might be bothersome, the zone defense. It was the topic du jour at last month's All-Star Game, and Jordan was making an impassioned plea before the competition committee that had gathered to consider rules changes to enliven the NBA game. Jordan spoke passionately. If teams were able to play zone defenses, he said, he never would have had the career he did."

Yeaaaa, I'm not buying it. LeBron already gets flagrantly fouled as it is, and there's no pre-help due to the illegal defense rules. Put him out there in a parking lot by himself against Thunder Dan instead of Jimmy Butler and see how anyone in that era would be able to handle him. It would be a massacre

Tubs023 · Mar 21, 2018

cavsfever said:
In Lebron's 15 years in the NBA, the East has won six titles and the West has won nine titles. And frankly it would be seven titles for the East if half the Cavs starters hadn't been injured in the 2015 Finals. So the West is better but I wouldn't say it's "by far". The West has also won the additional titles because of two of the greatest teams in NBA history, the Pop/Duncan Spurs and the Warriors with Durant. And not sure how regular season tanking is relevant to playoff success.

The NBA in general and across the board is a lot better than the 90s.

By no means was it a lot better now compared to the 90s. The reason why I would know that is because I wrote a thesis paper on the NBA comparing the last five decades.

Even if I chose to use your argument, we all would agree playoff teams are better than regular season. During the playoffs in Mike's era playoff teams in the eastern conference were slightly better. Mike' stats increased more than LeBron's during their playoff runs. Also one can not point to anytime in Mike's career where his psychological approach to the game was questioned or he came up small.

However before it is all said and done I believe LeBron will have a greater career than Mike. He should go down as the greatest player to ever play the game. Great and better are two totally different words and I wish the media would stop using them as if they are interchangeable.

Cassity14 · Mar 21, 2018

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