Where Does Lebron Rank All Time

[Who]

Not counting the great player prior to the 80s

Top ornament on the cake
Jordan

Cream of the crop(in no particular order)
Magic
Bird
Duncan
Hakeem the dream
Kobe
Lebron

Why no Russell, Wilt or Kareem?

[Tr1boy]

Not counting the great player prior to the 80s

Top ornament on the cake
Jordan

Cream of the crop(in no particular order)
Magic
Bird
Duncan
Hakeem the dream
Kobe
Lebron

Why no Russell, Wilt or Kareem?

well those players also

[kraidstar]

btw baseball, football, and basketball all have very different skill sets. how many 6'6 baseball players do you see? or football players? i don't think the talent overlaps THAT much. you have some freaks like bo jackson or john havlicek (who was drafted by the cleveland browns), but for the most part a guy is only going to be good enough to be a pro in one sport.

Skill sets and athletic ability are two different things. One is mostly acquired and the other is mostly genetic.

and the salaries in the NBA were still good - bill russell was making ~$100k, which was a lot for an athlete at the time.

That's not the point -- the point that you're blasting LeBron for "cherry picking teammates", yet appear to be oblivious to the fact that in Russell's NBA, roster construction wasn't limited by cap restrictions.

Skill is more than just "acquired" though. Some of this advanced stuff, shooting, elite ball handling etc is at least partially genetic. Elite QB vision/reads, spinning a baseball and hitting the corner of the plate. Some people are just wired that way. If you could just "acquire" the skill, richard sherman would be in the NBA, making guaranteed money without bashing his brains in.

i don't doubt there's SOME crossover, but for the most part top-tier guys will really only excel in one sport, at least to the point where it is financially worth their while.


And I'm not really bashing lebron. just pointing out that he has advantages too, which he has every right to exploit. if people are going to call out russell, then i'll call out lebron, jordan, bird, kobe and whoever else if i have to. they all got breaks.

in regards to the NBA cap, while theoretically creating parity, in some ways does the opposite. lebron is actually severely underpaid. he should be making at least $50M. but because of salary limits he gets half that, giving cap space to bring in other elite (but underpaid) guys who want to win titles. love was supposedly such a player. so the system does serve him in some ways. 

and lebron certainly does want to win, he and russell have that in common. returning to cleveland was admirable, he probably would have never won with his last roster there.

i dislike lebron, but i understand his rationale, and i respect him as a player. i just don't like seeing russell get brushed aside like he wasn't the incredible champion that he was. seems like a lot of fans don't respect the history of the game.

anybody else notice how silver basically ignored russell last night during the MVP ceremony? russell didn't even touch the trophy. i thought it was a little strange.

[flybono]

12

[steve]

People put too much weight on clutch shots. It's important but so is a triple double. After this series I'd say Lebron is equal to Magic. Jordan has 6 rings. Lebron would need to at least get to 5 before he gets in the conversation.

[cltc5]

Jordan
Russel
Bird
Kareem
Oscar Robertson
Wilt
Magic
Pete Maravich
Connie Hawkins
Kobe
Olajuwon
LeBron
Dr j.

In that order

[Big333223]

I hate when the conversation gets to the "how good were the old guys, really?" part. Just watching old film without context of the era doesn't give you much. Are players more athletic today? Of course they are. Players today are also more fundamentally sound than players were back then as well. I know everyong likes to chirp the opposite but it's not true. Cousy was the Houdini of the Hardwood but he could barely dribble with his left hand. Players today are more advanced in just about every way than players in the 60's and even most of the 70's.

But how do we account for the fact that Tom Heinsohn had to sell insurance in the offseason because most players couldn't afford to not have summer jobs? How do you account for the highly paid teams of medical experts every franchise has today but didn't back then? How do you account for chartered planes versus carpooling to away games with your teammates? How much better would players in the 60's have been if they trained with weights or knew anything about keeping their bodies healthy?

It's too much to juggle. I think the only way to do it is to judge players against the eras they played in.

[Finkelskyhook]

Second to Jordan as the most coddled and bias officiated player in NBA history.

[celticsclay]

I hate when the conversation gets to the "how good were the old guys, really?" part. Just watching old film without context of the era doesn't give you much. Are players more athletic today? Of course they are. Players today are also more fundamentally sound than players were back then as well. I know everyong likes to chirp the opposite but it's not true. Cousy was the Houdini of the Hardwood but he could barely dribble with his left hand. Players today are more advanced in just about every way than players in the 60's and even most of the 70's.

But how do we account for the fact that Tom Heinsohn had to sell insurance in the offseason because most players couldn't afford to not have summer jobs? How do you account for the highly paid teams of medical experts every franchise has today but didn't back then? How do you account for chartered planes versus carpooling to away games with your teammates? How much better would players in the 60's have been if they trained with weights or knew anything about keeping their bodies healthy?

It's too much to juggle. I think the only way to do it is to judge players against the eras they played in.

Thank you. I don't understand how people don't take this kind of stuff into account. We are smarter than that as fans.

[meangreenmachine]

A little off topic but a reporter for the LA Times is saying that Lebron has enrolled his kids in school in Brentwood.

Yeah, there is a lot of fawning on here for a guy who may end up being the next Laker free agency pickup...

[meangreenmachine]

as for the general talent in the league, the US population in 1965 was 194 million. the population now is 323 million.


9 NBA teams in 1965, 30 teams in 2016.
1.66x more people now
3.33x more teams

so teams were formed at about double the rate of the population increase.

That's not the way it works. In 1966, the baseball and pro football leagues were 2 to 2.5 times larger in terms of the number of teams (20 MLB teams, and 25 teams between the NFL and the AFL). Athletically gifted young men were more likely to end up in baseball or football.

lebron has thrived in this travel-friendly, open space NBA. russell dominated in the closed paint era (he also did not have the benefit of cherry-picking teammates in free agency).

Both players thrived in the NBA as it was at their time. Russell, for example, played with no salary cap. Are you going to hold that against him?

and yet baseball and football players from the 60's looked relatively "small," slow", "weak," compared to today.

why is that? as you correctly noted, baseball especially was HUGE then. every kid wanted to be a baseball player.

human genetics can't have changed much in a few decades. the population isn't that much bigger, though there's admittedly more international talent.

the underlying players should be roughly the same.

and yet guys are undeniably bigger and stronger now.

i'd guess the primary reason is PED's followed by training and nutrition. equipment has improved too. but PEDs have changed the body type of the athlete. bonds went from being skinny to being literally a monster. and guys WERE juicing in bonds' original heyday in the 80's. but we saw the difference when steroids really, really exploded in the 90's. we're likely still in that era. you can bet lebron is on something too, probably a lot of things. his forehead is the size of a volleyball.

Yeah, LeBron just does not look "natural" like Jordan and Malone did. Compare those guys from the beginning to the end of their career and their appearance does not change all that much. Now go look at LeBron at 22 versus 31. This ought to beg questions.

[alldaboston]

A little off topic but a reporter for the LA Times is saying that Lebron has enrolled his kids in school in Brentwood.

Apparently it was first reported by Stephen A Smith on SiriusXM NBA. SAS: the same guy who said Lebron was going to Miami with bosh and wade, and the same guy who said he was going back to Cleveland.

It was also reported awhile before Lebron returned to Cleveland about how he had enrolled his kids in a school in Ohio, so this is likely something serious.

[Redz]

Just above Blue Edwards

[Surferdad]

I hate when the conversation gets to the "how good were the old guys, really?" part. Just watching old film without context of the era doesn't give you much. Are players more athletic today? Of course they are. Players today are also more fundamentally sound than players were back then as well. I know everyong likes to chirp the opposite but it's not true. Cousy was the Houdini of the Hardwood but he could barely dribble with his left hand. Players today are more advanced in just about every way than players in the 60's and even most of the 70's.

But how do we account for the fact that Tom Heinsohn had to sell insurance in the offseason because most players couldn't afford to not have summer jobs? How do you account for the highly paid teams of medical experts every franchise has today but didn't back then? How do you account for chartered planes versus carpooling to away games with your teammates? How much better would players in the 60's have been if they trained with weights or knew anything about keeping their bodies healthy?

It's too much to juggle. I think the only way to do it is to judge players against the eras they played in.

Yes, EXACTLY.  You have to judge player greatness from within the context that they played.  THEN, compare that greatness across eras.  If you try to compare greatness across eras first you run into the debate we are having now.

[BornReady]

as for the general talent in the league, the US population in 1965 was 194 million. the population now is 323 million.


9 NBA teams in 1965, 30 teams in 2016.
1.66x more people now
3.33x more teams

so teams were formed at about double the rate of the population increase.

That's not the way it works. In 1966, the baseball and pro football leagues were 2 to 2.5 times larger in terms of the number of teams (20 MLB teams, and 25 teams between the NFL and the AFL). Athletically gifted young men were more likely to end up in baseball or football.

lebron has thrived in this travel-friendly, open space NBA. russell dominated in the closed paint era (he also did not have the benefit of cherry-picking teammates in free agency).

Both players thrived in the NBA as it was at their time. Russell, for example, played with no salary cap. Are you going to hold that against him?

and yet baseball and football players from the 60's looked relatively "small," slow", "weak," compared to today.

why is that? as you correctly noted, baseball especially was HUGE then. every kid wanted to be a baseball player.

human genetics can't have changed much in a few decades. the population isn't that much bigger, though there's admittedly more international talent.

the underlying players should be roughly the same.

and yet guys are undeniably bigger and stronger now.

i'd guess the primary reason is PED's followed by training and nutrition. equipment has improved too. but PEDs have changed the body type of the athlete. bonds went from being skinny to being literally a monster. and guys WERE juicing in bonds' original heyday in the 80's. but we saw the difference when steroids really, really exploded in the 90's. we're likely still in that era. you can bet lebron is on something too, probably a lot of things. his forehead is the size of a volleyball.

Yeah, LeBron just does not look "natural" like Jordan and Malone did. Compare those guys from the beginning to the end of their career and their appearance does not change all that much. Now go look at LeBron at 22 versus 31. This ought to beg questions.

i dont think lebron is doing PED
as the NBA tests players for drugs
so he'd probably be caught by now

Also I think with jordan, he preferred not to gain too much muscle as he didnt want it affecting his shooting