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Except you have to look at why players are stronger/faster - and that usually comes down to training.
If Jordan were playing today, he'd have the benefit of that same training... thus it's a moot point.

I never said the opposite.

It’s not how hard you push along the way; It’s if you have it in you to finish

by MJ

I think we're done here

Jordan mental attributes were far better than LeBron's. In fact, they were his best attribute, his mentality was above the rest and that's the main reason he was the best.

However, we are comparing 2 different things here, as we are comparing basketball in the late 80s & 90s with basketball today, and believe me, go watch those videos again, it's a very different sport. Defenses are better, offensives are played more open, less medium range shots and much more 3p shots are taken now, players run faster and are stronger, etc... so how can we compare this guys? Take this example, Bird is famous worldwide as a great 3p shooter, well he had less than 1 3P a game, shot hardly above 38% BUT he played with 4 or 5 HoF so he could shoot most of his 3P after receiving a pass, with both feet on the floor and not off the dribble as most superstars have to shoot today.

If we are comparing mental attributes Jordan is above the rest by a big margin.

If we are comparing who was more important in his time Jordan also wins.

BUT if we are trying to compare stats that's impossible as they don't face the same opposition and don't play the same kinda basketball.

AND finally, if we are trying to fake a time machine and put Lebron as he is now playing in the past, I'm quite sure he would be the best player and would dominate the League even above Jordan as he is taller, faster and stronger and has a very close talent. But is just an opinion, it's impossible to prove any of this.

Last edited by Supermán at 6/14/2011 6:29:37 AM

Basketball has changed a lot in this (not so many) years. Players are now faster and stronger, defenses have improved a lot, rules have changed, etc...

NBA has also made it easier for guards/driving players to dominate the game. Jordan was a freak athlete 20 years ago the same as he would be today. The only difference is the refs would have made it even easier for him to score.

(http://thereal2kinsider.blogspot.com/2010/02/history-of-n...)

Here's a pretty good run of the rules. Jordan was at his scoring peak at a time before 2 levels of hand-checking rules had been applied, particularly all the changes in 2002.

Since Jordan was gone, the NBA needed to try to make it easier for everyone else to be Jordan-esque.

Last edited by brian at 6/14/2011 8:44:26 AM

players run faster and are stronger

like that one really fast strong guy that helped kill Miami, what's his name...JJ Barea

AND finally, if we are trying to fake a time machine and put Lebron as he is now playing in the past, I'm quite sure he would be the best player and would dominate the League even above Jordan as he is taller, faster and stronger and has a very close talent. But is just an opinion, it's impossible to prove any of this.

Wow..this is bringing the crazy. LeBron can be a lock down defender at Jordan's level when he chooses to be in the game (as if lack of consistency alone doesn't bring this conversation to a grinding halt), but offensively LBJ just doesn't have the same tools.

Last edited by brian at 6/14/2011 9:07:13 AM

There's a reason for all those rule changes: Defenses started to get better and better, so the points per game were dropping and for marketing purposes it doesn't seem to be a good thing, to say the rules were changed to help other guards to be Jordan isn't serious. You disagree?? Watch the videos, watch a Bill Chamberlain game, then watch Lakers vs Celtics in the 80's, then Chicago vs Utah in the 90s, then the Kobe Shaq Lakers vs whatever in the 00s and then watch again last week final games.

There was another fact that proves the improvement in individual & team defenses: the offenses changed from 95% close to the basket points in Chamberlain - Rusell era to what we got today were in FIBA (shorter dimmensions plus pure zone defense allowed) & in NCAA there are teams shooting from 3p range as much as from the 2p. You disagree?? Go check the stats: 3p attempts per game evolution in the NBA in only the last 40 years... Bird used to make less than 1 3P per game and only 2 attempts per game and in his time he was recognized as a great 3p shooter... that's a clue if you don't want to go check stats.

Watch Lakers vs Celtics in the 80s and you'll be surprised as how slow and naive were the defensive reactions. It looks like a training match, there's no D if you compare it with what you are used to watch today. It's all in youtube...

So my point is: there was a very different defensive opposition then than now and that's not a detail, a minor issue, as it's not the same if you play covered by Turkoglu or by Lebron James, to score 20 vs Turkoglu is not the same than scoring 20 vs Lebron, you don't have to work as hard to get those 20 pts. SO it DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE and that's what it makes this comparison impossible and useless.

You have 2 ways of seeing it: you can think all current players are worse than the ones they learned of by watching them on TV and the rules were changed to compensate that lack of talent or you can accept that the people learns from the past, team tactics get better, scouting is now better, defenses get better, and logically, the current players are better athletes and better basketball players if it was possible to travel through time and take them to the past because of better training, better knowledge of defense but not necesarily because of more talent.

So what you want to compare: impact in the game?? Mental attributes?? Jordan by a mile. No doubt. But that's as far as I'd go.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_Caj1bkb7Q)

just as an example I bring up this video... it's not in slow motion, you are watching the "fast break makers" vs the Celtics...

can you compare the stats of any of this players with any of the players who currently play in NBA?? You gotta be kidding

No D, no speed, no offensive motion, etc... it looks like a senior exhibition game but they were the 2 best teams in the 80s playing a final game.

Hey (talking to the Celtics hall of fame players playing (on) defense), the bold tall guy is Abdul Jabbar, do you know him, he will kill you with his hooks if you don't double team, don't fight por position in the paint, don't try to make it hard to give him the ball, etc... it looks like a joke, but it's a serious game with 2 teams full of HoF and no defense at all.

So I rest my case fellas, we can't compare.

But wouldn't the reasons the players today (training) are stronger/faster be applied to any player of "then" that we brought forward to "now"?
Same with putting LeBron "back". He wouldn't have the same training, nor would he have had the benefits he accrued since he was a kid.

For some strange reason, I'm going to just to do a hit and run with this one. I used to watch MJ play. A lot. We had a couple of season tickets right behind the Bulls bench (my dad sold most of them, they were quite profitable!) starting in 1987 and through the championship seasons. (Long story about how my dad got them, I'm not going to tell it since who know who could get in trouble over this, but the motivation was actually to just to get any season tickets since that was the easiest way to guarantee getting tickets to the All Star game that year.) Anyway, the point is, I saw MJ up close. Here are some things I'll just throw out there, think of them what you will.

I never ever ever saw another player who could seemingly just score whenever he wanted to like MJ did. He would get that look in his eye and you could send the whole team after him (hard to due with the defense rules in those days, and keep in mind that MJ didn't have to deal with "NBA-approved zone defenses" like LeBron does, even though the zones have been cut back since post-MJ implementation). Anyway, when MJ had the ball and he needed to score, he pretty much scored as he wanted. Yeah, everybody misses sometimes, even MJ sometimes, but wow, if you never saw it, you could never believe it.

MJ was a great defender. The best, nobody today is as good and tenacious as MJ. As long as he was defending somebody who wasn't really bigger than him. Scottie took care of them. MJ could shut down an opposing SG pretty well. A big part of his defense was the mental game. He perfected the trash talking. I hear he wasn't the "out-of-bounds" type who'd take shots at some guy personal stuff, but he could lay into somebody's game with his mouth and make guys mess themselves up as they tried to show MJ what kind of game they had. He also had great hands, practically invented the wrap around, and when he picked somebody's pocket you just knew what was coming next and you couldn't wait to see the replay at home. LeBron can guard just about anybody, big or small (except maybe MJ in his day). But LeBron can't finish a steal like MJ.

MJ once scored 63 points in a playoff game while getting guarded by Dennis Johnson. Yeah, DJ of the Celtics (a pretty darn good defender, one of the best of his generation). After MJ missed most of the season with a broken foot. It was only his second NBA season. And the Bulls had a really mediocre lineup, so it wasn't like the Celtics had to focus on guarding anybody else. (Dave Corzine? Kyle Macy? Orlando Woolridge? Charles Oakley?) Okay, the Bulls lost the game in OT. But wow.

MJ never said anything about how he was the bet player. He let other people do that for him. He also never made a TV show about himself when his contracts would expire.

MJ never tried to draw contact and do his scoring from the FT line. I grimace every time I see LeBron do that. I never root for fouls or injuries, but if one of these days somebody really smacks LeBron on one of those plays, it would be so deserved. You know what I'm talking about. It's when he does stuff like when he's 20 feet from the basket and does a pump fake, then leans towards the defender with this shoulder to try to get him to bump into him, and the goes up to shoot the ball. Come on, LeBron. That is so lame. MJ never did that. He went for the best shot, not the contact. Would MJ have even attempted that amazing right-hand-to-left-hand driving layup against the Lakers ('91 Finals I was there, two days after high school graduation, it was awesome!) if he was just looking for contact? MJ was a man.

MJ made his teammates better. If you couldn't hack it at practice, MJ chewed you up and spit you out That's why MJ and Pippen didn't get along so well sometimes before Pippen really played like a Hall-of-Famer. (Scottie is great in his own right, but I wonder how good he would have become without MJ in his face when the cameras weren't rolling.) Some

But wouldn't the reasons the players today (training) are stronger/faster be applied to any player of "then" that we brought forward to "now"?
Same with putting LeBron "back". He wouldn't have the same training, nor would he have had the benefits he accrued since he was a kid.

Nope. That's the pretty part of the time machine, we compare them as they are vs as they were and in that only scenario Lebron is better than michael Jordan because I´m quite sure MJ would have adapted his play and training to whatever was necessary to dominate. That mentality made him the best.

However, I also think Lebron makes his teammates better players, Cleveland finished regular season as number 1 with him and last without him, that's how important he was.

Fair enough... if that's the limits of the time machine then (so... we can't bring 'em back/forward when they're younger?), understood.

Sidenote: how do you guys think the Finals impacted this entire conversation?