Lebron vs. His Airness

Originally posted by fortyninerglory:

Which team would win the most games against the other generations?

1985-1995 team:

Magic Johnson
Michael Jordan
Larry Bird
Charles Barkley
Hakeem Olajuwon
Isiah Thomas
Clyde Drexler
James Worthy
Karl Malone
Patrick Ewing

1996-2006 team

Jason Kidd
Kobe Bryant
Scottie Pippen
Kevin Garnett
Shaquille O'Neal
Gary Payton
Ray Allen
Vince Carter
Tim Duncan
Dikembe Mutombo

2007 - Present team:

Chris Paul
Stephen Curry
Lebron James
Kevin Durant
Dwight Howard
Derrick Rose
James Harden
Carmelo Anthony
Pau Gasol
Joaquim Noah

I wonder!?

I'd bet on the '85 - '95- squad every day, and make enough in the long run to retire on.

Originally posted by fortyninerglory:
Which team would win the most games against the other generations?

1985-1995 team:

Magic Johnson
Michael Jordan
Larry Bird
Charles Barkley
Hakeem Olajuwon
Isiah Thomas
Clyde Drexler
James Worthy
Karl Malone
Patrick Ewing

1996-2006 team

Jason Kidd
Kobe Bryant
Scottie Pippen
Kevin Garnett
Shaquille O'Neal
Gary Payton
Ray Allen
Vince Carter
Tim Duncan
Dikembe Mutombo

2007 - Present team:

Chris Paul
Stephen Curry
Lebron James
Kevin Durant
Dwight Howard
Derrick Rose
James Harden
Carmelo Anthony
Pau Gasol
Joaquim Noah

I wonder!?

We clearly got youth here that didn't see 80s 90s ball. Knowledge? How you get knowledge when you come to the game at 19yo as opposed to 21? That's crazy! I swear we wasting time with folk that haven't seen the game and the changes to where it is today. Rules of today were all about fantasy stats and commercial appeal. The old rules was about ball and by nature it is to be a big man's game. MJ dominated in the big man's game. That's what made him a freak. Today's rules were clearly made for the benefit of the wings and it was explicitly stated when the rules went into effect. Statistically they began to score more and now we got young guys thinking they know what's up but didn't see the old game. Smh. Hard to compare eras but I know why we are playing the game the way we are now and I don't necessarily like it but it is what we've got

Originally posted by IWASATTHECATCH:
I'd bet on the '85 - '95- squad every day, and make enough in the long run to retire on.

Only group that had HOF players throughout

Originally posted by Pillbusta:

We clearly got youth here that didn't see 80s 90s ball. Knowledge? How you get knowledge when you come to the game at 19yo as opposed to 21? That's crazy! I swear we wasting time with folk that haven't seen the game and the changes to where it is today. Rules of today were all about fantasy stats and commercial appeal. The old rules was about ball and by nature it is to be a big man's game. MJ dominated in the big man's game. That's what made him a freak. Today's rules were clearly made for the benefit of the wings and it was explicitly stated when the rules went into effect. Statistically they began to score more and now we got young guys thinking they know what's up but didn't see the old game. Smh. Hard to compare eras but I know why we are playing the game the way we are now and I don't necessarily like it but it is what we've got

Funny - players who played in the 60s and 70s said the same thing about the game in late 80s and 90s.

Ya, if you think that players today are better than ever before, it's not due to the fact that literally tens of millions more people are playing the sport (if not more), thusly improving the quality of those occupying the 400 premier jobs in it, or the fact that billions of dollars more are spent on player development than ever before...it's because we just didn't see the glory and majesty of 80's and 90's basketball. That must be it.

Originally posted by 4ML:
Funny - players who played in the 60s and 70s said the same thing about the game in late 80s and 90s.

Yup. They'd always say that Wilt would average 75ppg if he played under those rules, and that players of that day were soft and only concerned about dunking. The big fish stories and hubris of old men is as old as time.

Funny how no one makes those claims about swimming, track & field, or any other sport where these things are easily measured. People get better at things. It's pretty simple.

Originally posted by LA9erFan:

Originally posted by 4ML:

Funny - players who played in the 60s and 70s said the same thing about the game in late 80s and 90s.

Yup. They'd always say that Wilt would average 75ppg if he played under those rules, and that players of that day were soft and only concerned about dunking. The big fish stories and hubris of old men is as old as time.

Funny how no one makes those claims about swimming, track & field, or any other sport where these things are easily measured. People get better at things. It's pretty simple.

But no one has gotten better than MJ .

Jordan was dropping 40 burgers on this generation of players as a 40 year old.

Originally posted by blizzuntz:

Originally posted by LA9erFan:

Originally posted by 4ML:
Funny - players who played in the 60s and 70s said the same thing about the game in late 80s and 90s.

Yup. They'd always say that Wilt would average 75ppg if he played under those rules, and that players of that day were soft and only concerned about dunking. The big fish stories and hubris of old men is as old as time.

Funny how no one makes those claims about swimming, track & field, or any other sport where these things are easily measured. People get better at things. It's pretty simple.

But no one has gotten better than MJ .

Jordan was dropping 40 burgers on this generation of players as a 40 year old.

no one has gotten better than the majority of the 80's cream of the crop. If you ask someone to name the all time starting 5, majority would say SG-Jordan, PG-Magic, SF-Bird (although more people may be leaning towards Lebron, but i would not). The majority would also then put Hakeem or Jabbar at C. So you have a bit 70's, 80's and 90's there, with Jabbar spanning 2 dominant decades.. And then with PF, the majority would say Duncan, who falls into the 2000's. So from what i can see, the bulk of the top starting 5 of all time consists of 80's era players...so if players today are so much better than that era, why have they not easily supplanted them in the all time starting 5 yet?

Originally posted by Hoovtrain:

Originally posted by blizzuntz:

Originally posted by LA9erFan:

Originally posted by 4ML:
Funny - players who played in the 60s and 70s said the same thing about the game in late 80s and 90s.

Yup. They'd always say that Wilt would average 75ppg if he played under those rules, and that players of that day were soft and only concerned about dunking. The big fish stories and hubris of old men is as old as time.

Funny how no one makes those claims about swimming, track & field, or any other sport where these things are easily measured. People get better at things. It's pretty simple.

But no one has gotten better than MJ .

Jordan was dropping 40 burgers on this generation of players as a 40 year old.

no one has gotten better than the majority of the 80's cream of the crop. If you ask someone to name the all time starting 5, majority would say SG-Jordan, PG-Magic, SF-Bird (although more people may be leaning towards Lebron, but i would not). The majority would also then put Hakeem or Jabbar at C. So you have a bit 70's, 80's and 90's there, with Jabbar spanning 2 dominant decades.. And then with PF, the majority would say Duncan, who falls into the 2000's. So from what i can see, the bulk of the top starting 5 of all time consists of 80's era players...so if players today are so much better than that era, why have they not easily supplanted them in the all time starting 5 yet?

Because of the same type of nostalgia that you see in this thread. The current era is always the most under-represented on "best ever" lists, despite more people playing the sports. People feel more attached to the athletes/music/pop culture from when they grew up than anything else, with the stories they heard from their parent's generation right behind that. It's the same reason that pretty much every 40 year old man ever thinks that music sucks nowadays, regardless of when nowadays is.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/feature/video/_/id/8652210/espn-hall-100-ranking-all-greatest-mlb-players

http://top100.nfl.com/all-time-100

Originally posted by LA9erFan:

Originally posted by Hoovtrain:

Originally posted by blizzuntz:

Originally posted by LA9erFan:

Originally posted by 4ML:
Funny - players who played in the 60s and 70s said the same thing about the game in late 80s and 90s.

Yup. They'd always say that Wilt would average 75ppg if he played under those rules, and that players of that day were soft and only concerned about dunking. The big fish stories and hubris of old men is as old as time.

Funny how no one makes those claims about swimming, track & field, or any other sport where these things are easily measured. People get better at things. It's pretty simple.

But no one has gotten better than MJ .

Jordan was dropping 40 burgers on this generation of players as a 40 year old.

no one has gotten better than the majority of the 80's cream of the crop. If you ask someone to name the all time starting 5, majority would say SG-Jordan, PG-Magic, SF-Bird (although more people may be leaning towards Lebron, but i would not). The majority would also then put Hakeem or Jabbar at C. So you have a bit 70's, 80's and 90's there, with Jabbar spanning 2 dominant decades.. And then with PF, the majority would say Duncan, who falls into the 2000's. So from what i can see, the bulk of the top starting 5 of all time consists of 80's era players...so if players today are so much better than that era, why have they not easily supplanted them in the all time starting 5 yet?

Because of the same type of nostalgia that you see in this thread. The current era is always the most under-represented on "best ever" lists, despite more people playing the sports. People feel more attached to the athletes/music/pop culture from when they grew up than anything else, with the stories they heard from their parent's generation right behind that. It's the same reason that pretty much every 40 year old man ever thinks that music sucks nowadays, regardless of when nowadays is.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/feature/video/_/id/8652210/espn-hall-100-ranking-all-greatest-mlb-players

http://top100.nfl.com/all-time-100

I am pretty you and i had a discussion before and we were both in agreement on the majority of the all time top 5....so does that mean you are basing your picks on nostalgia? is Jordan not the best SG ever? Magic not the best PG ever? Bird not the best SF ever? Would you dispute Jabbar and Hakeem being the 2 best C's ever?
I know you like to play the nostalgia card, but that is a cop out IMO. I have watched/played 3 1/2 decades of basketball. I have no reason to get nostalgic when i have spent equal amounts of time watching 80s, 90s and 2000's basketball. If anything, i would be nostalgic towards the 2000's...but it's not about nostalgia. it's about who i deem to be the best players i have ever seen play. You can talk about the globalization of basketball, advancements in training, nostalgia, etc etc....but the fact of the matter is this is all based on opinion...no matter how much that may bother you.

Originally posted by Hoovtrain:
I am pretty you and i had a discussion before and we were both in agreement on the majority of the all time top 5....so does that mean you are basing your picks on nostalgia? is Jordan not the best SG ever? Magic not the best PG ever? Bird not the best SF ever? Would you dispute Jabbar and Hakeem being the 2 best C's ever?
I know you like to play the nostalgia card, but that is a cop out IMO. I have watched/played 3 1/2 decades of basketball. I have no reason to get nostalgic when i have spent equal amounts of time watching 80s, 90s and 2000's basketball. If anything, i would be nostalgic towards the 2000's...but it's not about nostalgia. it's about who i deem to be the best players i have ever seen play. You can talk about the globalization of basketball, advancements in training, nostalgia, etc etc....but the fact of the matter is this is all based on opinion...no matter how much that may bother you.

LOL, you're way more upset about this than I am. It's mathematically impossible to produce worse athletes when you have hundreds of millions more people participating in the sport, training and technological advancements, and billions of dollars more being poured into it.

I would list Jesse Owens as being one of the Top 5 greatest sprinters of all time, but that doesn't mean he'd even make the Olympic team in 2015. Or use Carl Lewis instead, if you want someone more recent. They don't have to have silly arguments like "Jesse Owens was better than Usain Bolt!" because that s**t is actually timed. Look at any sport that has an objective measurement attached to it like a clock and see what years the best performances are from. And those sports haven't experienced the same explosion in the talent pool that basketball has. You can have whatever opinion you want, but this isn't a matter of opinion. Just basic math.

Originally posted by LA9erFan:

Originally posted by Hoovtrain:

I am pretty you and i had a discussion before and we were both in agreement on the majority of the all time top 5....so does that mean you are basing your picks on nostalgia? is Jordan not the best SG ever? Magic not the best PG ever? Bird not the best SF ever? Would you dispute Jabbar and Hakeem being the 2 best C's ever?
I know you like to play the nostalgia card, but that is a cop out IMO. I have watched/played 3 1/2 decades of basketball. I have no reason to get nostalgic when i have spent equal amounts of time watching 80s, 90s and 2000's basketball. If anything, i would be nostalgic towards the 2000's...but it's not about nostalgia. it's about who i deem to be the best players i have ever seen play. You can talk about the globalization of basketball, advancements in training, nostalgia, etc etc....but the fact of the matter is this is all based on opinion...no matter how much that may bother you.

LOL, you're way more upset about this than I am. It's mathematically impossible to produce worse athletes when you have hundreds of millions more people participating in the sport, training and technological advancements, and billions of dollars more being poured into it.

I would list Jesse Owens as being one of the Top 5 greatest sprinters of all time, but that doesn't mean he'd even make the Olympic team in 2015. Or use Carl Lewis instead, if you want someone more recent. They don't have to have silly arguments like "Jesse Owens was better than Usain Bolt!" because that s**t is actually timed. Look at any sport that has an objective measurement attached to it like a clock and see what years the best performances are from. And those sports haven't experienced the same explosion in the talent pool that basketball has. You can have whatever opinion you want, but this isn't a matter of opinion. Just basic math.

whatever you say man. I've never seen someone get so bent out of shape when others talk about their opinions on other NBA eras vs today's NBA era. It's only that typical tired, pompous response from you that I take issue with. "How dare anyone say any other era is better than today...it's mathematics you simpletons!" Lol spare me. And again when did this turn into a discussion about better athletes? I never disputed better athletes, I disputed better players and game.

Here aRe plenty of great Athletes now and then who have no history of playing any professional sport.

It's a much smaller variable than Kobe and Lebron fans make it out to be.

Originally posted by Hoovtrain:

Originally posted by LA9erFan:

Originally posted by Hoovtrain:

I am pretty you and i had a discussion before and we were both in agreement on the majority of the all time top 5....so does that mean you are basing your picks on nostalgia? is Jordan not the best SG ever? Magic not the best PG ever? Bird not the best SF ever? Would you dispute Jabbar and Hakeem being the 2 best C's ever?
I know you like to play the nostalgia card, but that is a cop out IMO. I have watched/played 3 1/2 decades of basketball. I have no reason to get nostalgic when i have spent equal amounts of time watching 80s, 90s and 2000's basketball. If anything, i would be nostalgic towards the 2000's...but it's not about nostalgia. it's about who i deem to be the best players i have ever seen play. You can talk about the globalization of basketball, advancements in training, nostalgia, etc etc....but the fact of the matter is this is all based on opinion...no matter how much that may bother you.

LOL, you're way more upset about this than I am. It's mathematically impossible to produce worse athletes when you have hundreds of millions more people participating in the sport, training and technological advancements, and billions of dollars more being poured into it.

I would list Jesse Owens as being one of the Top 5 greatest sprinters of all time, but that doesn't mean he'd even make the Olympic team in 2015. Or use Carl Lewis instead, if you want someone more recent. They don't have to have silly arguments like "Jesse Owens was better than Usain Bolt!" because that s**t is actually timed. Look at any sport that has an objective measurement attached to it like a clock and see what years the best performances are from. And those sports haven't experienced the same explosion in the talent pool that basketball has. You can have whatever opinion you want, but this isn't a matter of opinion. Just basic math.

whatever you say man. I've never seen someone get so bent out of shape when others talk about their opinions on other NBA eras vs today's NBA era. It's only that typical tired, pompous response from you that I take issue with. "How dare anyone say any other era is better than today...it's mathematics you simpletons!" Lol spare me. And again when did this turn into a discussion about better athletes? I never disputed better athletes, I disputed better players and game.

If you've seen the player play it gives you a right to an opinion. Wilt, Russell, Oscar and even Bob Petit would be superstars today.

Originally posted by Hoovtrain:
whatever you say man. I've never seen someone get so bent out of shape when others talk about their opinions on other NBA eras vs today's NBA era. It's only that typical tired, pompous response from you that I take issue with. "How dare anyone say any other era is better than today...it's mathematics you simpletons!" Lol spare me. And again when did this turn into a discussion about better athletes? I never disputed better athletes, I disputed better players and game.

Lol, you're the one who's bent out of shape.

100 people apply for 10 jobs.

5,000 people apply for the same 10 jobs. After billions of dollars were spent on research and development.

I wonder who's gonna end up with the better group of 10.

But no, it's all about how you feel inside, and like, your opinion, man.