Scottie Pippen has lost his mind (Lebron > MJ?)

[Fafnir]

Anyway, the topic of the thread is Jordan vs James. I'm curious. Where do you stand?

Right now Jordan is better based on his body of work. Especially given how he continued to dominate long after he physically was no longer the best in the league.

LeBron is on pace to pass him if he can sustain this level of play and add team accomplishments.

[Mr October]

Anyway, the topic of the thread is Jordan vs James. I'm curious. Where do you stand?

Right now Jordan is better based on his body of work. Especially given how he continued to dominate long after he physically was no longer the best in the league.

LeBron is on pace to pass him if he can sustain this level of play and add team accomplishments.

I agree.

And TP for a fellow Celtic maniac. Go Celtics! ...(whenever we actually get to see them again...  )

[Mike-Dub]

Anyway, the topic of the thread is Jordan vs James. I'm curious. Where do you stand?

Right now Jordan is better based on his body of work. Especially given how he continued to dominate long after he physically was no longer the best in the league.

LeBron is on pace to pass him if he can sustain this level of play and add team accomplishments.

There always will be an asterisks to me with LeBron having to change teams even though he had every right to do so.  Jordan was just luckier to have better pieces around him on the team that drafted him at a year earlier in his career.

[BballTim]

Lebron needs to prove his clutch scoring about 5 more times after he finishes this postseason....then you can start to compare his postseason clutchness to that of Jordan's.

But I tend to agree with Pippen's overall estimation.

I think if you are looking at scoring, passing and defense...Lebron is better than Jordan overall.

Lebron has the physical gifts from god that he can be the best defender this league has ever seen.

Probably the best 2 way player this league has ever seen.

KG is also a physical marvel too. But he was never strong enough to guard the great PFs and he was too tall to be a true lockdown perimeter defender.

I certainly don't agree with you on Lebron being a better scorer than Jordan,

Also KG was never strong enough to guard the great PF's? Huh?

KG was able to guard the PF's, but he couldn't shut down the best ones.

Lebron can actually shut down the best perimeter players in the game.

  I don't think it's true that LeBron "shuts down" players any more that KG did. You're being pretty selective in your memory.

[pearljammer10]

Jordan will always have the upper hand on LeBron because of his influence on the game. When you hear "NBA" I imagine 9 out of 10 people immediately think "Jordan". Even in the end, if LeBron gets more rings and has better stats, I still think Jordan will be considered the better player because of the influence and impact he has had on the NBA game.

[the TRUTH]

While it's ridiculous for Pippen to say this, I'm not sure why it's getting so much publicity now considering that Pippen said the EXACT SAME THING during Lebron's rookie year. He was on the halftime show for an ABC game that the Cavs were playing in, and the host asked Pippen if he thought Lebron had the potential to become a better player than MJ. Pippen responded by saying that Lebron is already better than MJ. From that point on, Pippen lost all credibility in my eyes.

Another one that people never bring up is when Bill Walton was discussing Pierce sometime in the 05-06 or 06-07 season. He said Pierce would never be better than a 3rd or 4th option on a championship team.

For two guys that ought to know much better, that's pathetic.

[TitleMaster]

Do you have to have a championship to be considered the greatest player?

I'd say it helps.

Absolutely

Hold on fellows ... wasn't Elgin Baylor considered the Michael Jordan of the 60s?

And likewise, wasn't Oscar Robertson the Magic Johnson of the 60s?

Well, Baylor's team only won a title after his retirement and Oscar only won a title when he was in his walking cane.

[BballTim]

Anyway, the topic of the thread is Jordan vs James. I'm curious. Where do you stand?

Right now Jordan is better based on his body of work. Especially given how he continued to dominate long after he physically was no longer the best in the league.

LeBron is on pace to pass him if he can sustain this level of play and add team accomplishments.

  He won't likely sustain the stats he has. In any case, his numbers are still short of MJ's. If you look at their per36 playoff numbers (I did ages 21-26 because they both played in the league for all of those years) LeBron's at 24/7/6 and MJ's at 30/6/6 with 1 more steal a game than LeBron. MJ has the regular season advantage as well.

[CelticG1]

Lebron needs to prove his clutch scoring about 5 more times after he finishes this postseason....then you can start to compare his postseason clutchness to that of Jordan's.

But I tend to agree with Pippen's overall estimation.

I think if you are looking at scoring, passing and defense...Lebron is better than Jordan overall.

Lebron has the physical gifts from god that he can be the best defender this league has ever seen.

Probably the best 2 way player this league has ever seen.

KG is also a physical marvel too. But he was never strong enough to guard the great PFs and he was too tall to be a true lockdown perimeter defender.

I certainly don't agree with you on Lebron being a better scorer than Jordan,

Also KG was never strong enough to guard the great PF's? Huh?

KG was able to guard the PF's, but he couldn't shut down the best ones.

Lebron can actually shut down the best perimeter players in the game.

  I don't think it's true that LeBron "shuts down" players any more that KG did. You're being pretty selective in your memory.

Yeah this and I don't see how when referring to KG's defense on PF's that he "Couldn't shut down the best ones" and not name who you are talking about.

[Fafnir]

Anyway, the topic of the thread is Jordan vs James. I'm curious. Where do you stand?

Right now Jordan is better based on his body of work. Especially given how he continued to dominate long after he physically was no longer the best in the league.

LeBron is on pace to pass him if he can sustain this level of play and add team accomplishments.

  He won't likely sustain the stats he has. In any case, his numbers are still short of MJ's. If you look at their per36 playoff numbers (I did ages 21-26 because they both played in the league for all of those years) LeBron's at 24/7/6 and MJ's at 30/6/6 with 1 more steal a game than LeBron. MJ has the regular season advantage as well.

Michael played at a higher pace, his teams usually had 5-10 more possessions per game (depends on the year). If you pace adjust their numbers are very even.

The question is does LeBron sustain this?

[Eja117]

I'm not paying lots and lots of attention to this, but I think the burden of evidence here should fall squarely on Pippen

This isn't even an Emmit Smith vs Barry Sanders type debate.

This is more like at best Tiger Woods after 3 wins vs Nicklaus.  At best.

[housecall]

Blasphemy...pure blasphemy on Scottie's behalf.

[BballTim]

Anyway, the topic of the thread is Jordan vs James. I'm curious. Where do you stand?

Right now Jordan is better based on his body of work. Especially given how he continued to dominate long after he physically was no longer the best in the league.

LeBron is on pace to pass him if he can sustain this level of play and add team accomplishments.

  He won't likely sustain the stats he has. In any case, his numbers are still short of MJ's. If you look at their per36 playoff numbers (I did ages 21-26 because they both played in the league for all of those years) LeBron's at 24/7/6 and MJ's at 30/6/6 with 1 more steal a game than LeBron. MJ has the regular season advantage as well.

Michael played at a higher pace, his teams usually had 5-10 more possessions per game (depends on the year). If you pace adjust their numbers are very even.

  Good point.

The question is does LeBron sustain this?

  I think he has to do more than sustain it. Jordan was (during his prime) clearly the best player in almost every if not every playoff series. I don't know that LeBron's at that level.

[dlpin]

Michael played at a higher pace, his teams usually had 5-10 more possessions per game (depends on the year). If you pace adjust their numbers are very even.

The question is does LeBron sustain this?

Well, yes. But there is also the matter of efficiency. Lebron's playoff average is 45.9 fg% and 32.3% 3pt. Jordan only shot worse than that 3 times out of 13 for fg, and 5 out of 13 for 3pt. Lebron's average PER is 27, and MJ only had worse playoffs than that 3 times.

That in an era where rules were a lot less wing friendly. And that is including Jordan over 30.

[Celtics17]

Pippen's comments are nothing more then hype to get more people intersted in the Finals! What I think is really too bad is how Pippen never gets the credit for what he did. It's always MJ, MJ. Well, I will say this for sure, MJ could not guard Lebron, no way, I dont care if he won the DOY or not, he couldn't guard him. Pippen on the other could do it very well. In fact, if Scottie is on the Mavs in this years Finals, no way Miami wins it.