Best basketball players of all time
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Joe Crawford was the Angel Hernandez of the NBA. Attention *****.
Knowing what we know now about Tim Donaghy puts this clip in a different light.
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Also no Karl Malone, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant, or Carmelo Anthony: All of them among the NBA Top 10 career scorers.
11 - 13 aren’t chopped liver either: Moses Malone, Elvin Hayes, and Hakeem Olajuwon.
MJ was the best offensive player but also won Defensive player of the year. He is also one of the greatest clutch players ever in sports.
Too many people forget how great he was all around. LeBron is basically modern day Magic Johnson. Tall point guard who can score.
Too many people forget how great he was all around. LeBron is basically modern day Magic Johnson. Tall point guard who can score.
Lebron placed top 5 in DPOY something like 5 times. If you want to say Mike was better then fine, but it's not like Lebron sucks or something at defense.
Jordan was better defensively... and the margin is wide. Stats back this up as well.
Larry Bird was the same way. He made all the players around him much better. Plus, he's the greatest **** talker of all-time so you gotta love that. This vid is faf. Bird was also a prankster. He gathered the rookies together for dinner. After dinner they asked him if there was a good club close by. Bird gave them the address to the Ram Rod but it wasn't the kinda club they were expecting. Bird and MJ probably had more killer instinct than any players to ever lace up a shoe. Plus, Bird was just cold.
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Literally what I said
They are both very, very elite so I'm curious how wide the margin could be? I have zero issue with anyone saying MJ is the greatest - I agree! But the campaign by some to make Lebron suck or something is obtuse.
How wide?
Jordan 14.5 year career:
9 time all defense (60+% of his career). 7 times in top 5 of DPOY voting (nearly 50% of his career). 1 time DPOY
Lebron: 21 year career:
5 times all defense (less than 25% of his career), 5 times in top 5 of DPOY (less than 20% of his career), 0 DPOY
Can compare primes too: Age 24, both won their 1st MVP. Fair to say began the prime of both: Jordan did walk away for a year during these prime years. But even then. He out performed Lebron numbers wise.
Jordan ages 24-34. Was on the all defense team every season, top 5 seven of those season, top 10 every season.
Lebron: longest stretch was his 5 year stretch to be All D team, never made it again after year 28. top 5 five of those seasons. 2 years didnt even get a vote.
Basically Jordan was twice the defensive player LeBron was.
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You're kind of being creative there using % of career - nice try.
They're both elite. "twice the defensive player" is simply being dogmatic.
I'm really not being creative.
Jordan is the all team leader in 1st team all time defensive team selections. 9 straight 1st team selections, 7 top 5 DPOY selections and 1 DPOY selection during that time frame... and did all that in 7 less seasons than lebron did.
LeBron in his 21 year career has only been able to show he's a elite defender for 5 of those seasons.
If one player at 9 MVPs in 14 years and another had 5 in 21. There wouldnt even be a conversation about who the goat was.... Thats how wide the gulf is b/t them defensively.... very wide.
Magic was taller and had better ball handling skills. Magic could play any position on the floor including center. He had to play center in the NBA finals due to injuries and they won. Magic is higher on my list than Lebron but I can honestly say, I am biased as I never watched much of Lebron. I had quit the NBA due to the favoritism. Lebron flops too damn much to be on any list of mine.
The internet only has so much bandwidth.
From the Russell/Wilt Era, it goes to Russell.
Magic/Bird was unbelievable at times with the way they made their teams better. Passing, defense, scoring, they did it all in a league that was vicious.
Jordan stood alone in the 90's.
LeBron has put up great numbers, but I just can't see him surving this long in the league in the 80's and 90's. The PF position is baby soft the last 20 years.
Shaq, Kareem, same as Wilt, bigger/taller than their peers. Consider that the only center that could body Shaq was Dampier and he gave up 50+ pounds.
My all time starting 5.
PG: Magic
SG: Jordan
SF: Bird
PF/C: Russell
C/PF: Duncan
Magic/Bird was unbelievable at times with the way they made their teams better. Passing, defense, scoring, they did it all in a league that was vicious.
Jordan stood alone in the 90's.
LeBron has put up great numbers, but I just can't see him surving this long in the league in the 80's and 90's. The PF position is baby soft the last 20 years.
Shaq, Kareem, same as Wilt, bigger/taller than their peers. Consider that the only center that could body Shaq was Dampier and he gave up 50+ pounds.
My all time starting 5.
PG: Magic
SG: Jordan
SF: Bird
PF/C: Russell
C/PF: Duncan
If you think Jordan didn’t whine and flop then you’re playing revisionist history. Jordan played the refs so much.
I went with Russell . He was obviously one of the all-times and I got to meet him to sit and visit with him a few minutes Starkville. Very sharp guy, liked to laugh and easy to talk to.
One thing forgotten is these players you guys are comparing are not playing against the same quality of players. In other words, the guys from Michael Jordan's or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's era were playing against those players, and LeBron James was playing against players of today's quality.
This creates another argument... whether the players from older eras were better than the players today or if the players today are better than the old players. The argument continues...
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