A ton of the people arguing for Jordan are guilty of seeing the history and just flat out saying “nothing is better!” A ton of the #olds that haven’t even watched Lebron the past 5 years besides the finals because he’s in LA and Cleveland.
It’s not decency bias. It’s a legit conversation to have and just because lebron is still playing he doesn’t have that nostalgic factor.
Also, yeah he got and won 6 finals and was 6-0 but Lebron hasn’t lost in the first round and MJ has three times. Lebron went to 8 Straight finals. And his playoff numbers besides rings are all better.
Rings don’t mean everything. They mean something, but not everything.
I love this debate. This is why this forum was created! My (short) take: We have so much selective memory with MJ. LeBron is objectively more talented and better but we do love to lionize our childhood heroes.
This is what I’ve been trying to say but can’t find the right words. We’re in the NOW with lebron. We see both bad and good. MJ is history and we don’t think of any bad memories with him.
I’m old enough that neither of these guys were my childhood heroes. (That would be John Havlicek - yes, I’m old.) Bottom line, it is a great debate because both were dominant in their eras. MJ completely overtook the Bird/Magic renaissance of the NBA and took the league to an entirely new level of cultural influence. LeBron did too, but never seemed to take complete “ownership” of the league. There were many in the Team Kobe camp (even before the crash). There was never a “LeBron/Kobe” competitor pairing on par with Bird/Magic. Will be very interesting to see how the MJ vs. Lebron debate ages over the next 10-20 years.
@ScottCorken - Give me a list of your NBA Top 10. Doesn’t have to be in order. Maybe cluster them into ~3 groups to avoid the discrete ranking debates. You are obviously an NBA junkie. Who you got?
Good list. I’d probably go something like
1-3 MJ, Russell, Kareem
4-7 LeBron, Magic, Bird, Wilt
8-10 This is where it gets really tough… Duncan, Hakeem, Kobe
Close - Oscar, Curry (revolutionary), Shaq,
Honorable Mention - Havlicek (nostalgic for me), Maravich (revolutionary/nostalgic)
Oscar was dominant in his time, but in the old clips I watch he is dribbling 95% of the time with his right hand (a la Cousy). I just can’t put him in Top 10. I think the rest of our Top 10 - even Russell - would be dominant in today’s game. Our only difference was Shaq and Duncan. Tough call either way. Duncan was the most dominant boring/unflashy player I have ever seen.
And you’re entitled to that opinion. If I need a layup only I’m probably going to go with the 6’9” 250 pound beast of a man who can get to the rim at will.
Also, especially in the playoffs on buzzer beating shots, Kobe missed much more often than made.
“lebron is just a top 10” any basketball writer would literally laugh in your face.
it’s a bit of my thing.
