Lebron vs. His Airness

Originally posted by LA9erFan:

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.

Haha. Ok cool guy. Please regale me with more with your magical mathematical formulas that definitively prove who are the better players/eras. I forgot that coaching HS b ball suddenly turned you into the 2nd coming of James Naismith....and apparently a wizard. I think we should go have another all NBA team(s)debate and you can have another b***h fit when i put Jerry West on the 2nd team over Kobe. LOL.serious business indeed.

Originally posted by LA9erFan:

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.

But dude, fundamentals! When's the last time you saw a perfectly executed chest pass? All this one-handed slinging nowadays is just careless nonsense that's just asking for trouble!

Originally posted by LA9erFan:
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.

The majority of the best players in the NBA still grew up as US citizens and from what I am seeing is kids are indoors a bit more on video games than when I grew up. I'm from the block and it ain't the same. The courts are empty a lot of the time now. I don't know what kids are doing with their time but they sure ain't getting it sun up to sun down like we were from what I've seen. Pop in the tape of 80s and 90s ball if you can since it sounds like you didn't get to see it and get back to us. I am 38 so I ain't stuck on the guys that played a generation before me as if I were their age because I wasn't. They had me by oftentimes 15 and 20 years and I should have been more attached to this decade and last if anything but I know what I saw and I know it was real back then. This ain't some nostalgia play for me this is my real and honest opinion that i would swear with a lie detector hooked up. If I see that LeBron has surpassed MJ or whoever I will say it and will make no bones about it but right now MJ is better than LeBron and the players then went much harder than guys today. You really think KD was going to ball out then with that frail frame under those rules like he balling now? You had real big men back then and the rules allowed them to dictate the pace of games with physicality. You had to be a grown man to get respect and have success back then. In the US, forget about global, the same guys hooping then are the same ones starring now and I see less dudes hooping in the neighborhoods now then what I'm used to seeing growing up. Maybe I am just old and grizzled but to me everything has been watered down and made to be politically correct and all the edges have been smoothed out. It used to be hatred in the game and chumps need not apply. This game right now is cool and it is a great diversion until the NFL season starts but I don't have that feeling I used to have about it. At least I can say that NFL athletes are better physically but I definitely cannot for the NBA

Originally posted by TheSixthRing:
But dude, fundamentals! When's the last time you saw a perfectly executed chest pass? All this one-handed slinging nowadays is just careless nonsense that's just asking for trouble!

Ya, that's one of the more ironic ones, considering that there's a massive disparity in favor of today's player in that department too. But that's just part of the difference in R&D and talent pool. Far more fundamentals in today's game, but the vast majority of the cane-wavers couldn't explain them to you in the first place if pressed on the issue.

Originally posted by Pillbusta:
The majority of the best players in the NBA still grew up as US citizens and from what I am seeing is kids are indoors a bit more on video games than when I grew up. I'm from the block and it ain't the same. The courts are empty a lot of the time now. I don't know what kids are doing with their time but they sure ain't getting it sun up to sun down like we were from what I've seen. Pop in the tape of 80s and 90s ball if you can since it sounds like you didn't get to see it and get back to us. I am 38 so I ain't stuck on the guys that played a generation before me as if I were their age because I wasn't. They had me by oftentimes 15 and 20 years and I should have been more attached to this decade and last if anything but I know what I saw and I know it was real back then. This ain't some nostalgia play for me this is my real and honest opinion that i would swear with a lie detector hooked up. If I see that LeBron has surpassed MJ or whoever I will say it and will make no bones about it but right now MJ is better than LeBron and the players then went much harder than guys today. You really think KD was going to ball out then with that frail frame under those rules like he balling now? You had real big men back then and the rules allowed them to dictate the pace of games with physicality. You had to be a grown man to get respect and have success back then. In the US, forget about global, the same guys hooping then are the same ones starring now and I see less dudes hooping in the neighborhoods now then what I'm used to seeing growing up. Maybe I am just old and grizzled but to me everything has been watered down and made to be politically correct and all the edges have been smoothed out. It used to be hatred in the game and chumps need not apply. This game right now is cool and it is a great diversion until the NFL season starts but I don't have that feeling I used to have about it. At least I can say that NFL athletes are better physically but I definitely cannot for the NBA

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/215099-yesterdays-nba-todays-nba

Originally posted by Pillbusta:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/215099-yesterdays-nba-todays-nba

John Stockton was old by 1997, when Nash was a rookie, and Nash struggled. Nobody watched him then and thought that he was fundamentally where John Stockton ever was. But that is how low expectations have become.

Nobody thought Nash was close to the level of Stockton when Nash was in his rookie year? Hell of an argument there!

Originally posted by Pillbusta:
The majority of the best players in the NBA still grew up as US citizens and from what I am seeing is kids are indoors a bit more on video games than when I grew up. I'm from the block and it ain't the same. The courts are empty a lot of the time now. I don't know what kids are doing with their time but they sure ain't getting it sun up to sun down like we were from what I've seen. Pop in the tape of 80s and 90s ball if you can since it sounds like you didn't get to see it and get back to us. I am 38 so I ain't stuck on the guys that played a generation before me as if I were their age because I wasn't. They had me by oftentimes 15 and 20 years and I should have been more attached to this decade and last if anything but I know what I saw and I know it was real back then. This ain't some nostalgia play for me this is my real and honest opinion that i would swear with a lie detector hooked up. If I see that LeBron has surpassed MJ or whoever I will say it and will make no bones about it but right now MJ is better than LeBron and the players then went much harder than guys today. You really think KD was going to ball out then with that frail frame under those rules like he balling now? You had real big men back then and the rules allowed them to dictate the pace of games with physicality. You had to be a grown man to get respect and have success back then. In the US, forget about global, the same guys hooping then are the same ones starring now and I see less dudes hooping in the neighborhoods now then what I'm used to seeing growing up. Maybe I am just old and grizzled but to me everything has been watered down and made to be politically correct and all the edges have been smoothed out. It used to be hatred in the game and chumps need not apply. This game right now is cool and it is a great diversion until the NFL season starts but I don't have that feeling I used to have about it. At least I can say that NFL athletes are better physically but I definitely cannot for the NBA

I'm in my mid-30's, spent several years as a basketball coach, and basketball is pretty much my only hobby. You're right, the kids that can play aren't on the asphalt courts. They're in gyms from the time they're 5-6 years old, working with people whose full-time job is to train kids on how to play. It's a multi-billion dollar industry. Last summer I worked a camp with the great Bob Hurley Sr and several other guys from every level and we had a couple of hundred kids in our camp. It's pretty much 2 hours straight of fundamentals, and they get the "reward" of a 10-minute game at the end. There's stuff like that happening ALLLL over the country. Tons of kids are playing ball, but the good ones are not out on the streets.

KD is an example of the kind of freaks that are being produced these days. There weren't dudes with 7'5" wingspans with elite perimeter games back in the day. He would have absolutely dominated. George Gervin was 180lbs soaking wet and was dropping 30, and he didn't even have range. The physicality stuff is just romanticized. Watch those games, and see how bigs would just walk down to the low block and set up with ZERO resistance, with the defender just standing behind him. No 3/4 denial on the post catch, no establishment of his base, nothing.

Originally posted by TheSixthRing:

John Stockton was old by 1997, when Nash was a rookie, and Nash struggled. Nobody watched him then and thought that he was fundamentally where John Stockton ever was. But that is how low expectations have become.

Nobody thought Nash was close to the level of Stockton when Nash was in his rookie year? Hell of an argument there!

I ain't arguing nothing because if you really want to see the games you will make the effort but I saw what I saw. Players aren't all of a sudden bigger faster stronger unless we talking about LeBron but other than him I just don't see it. You posted a pic of Reggie but he was still killing it late in his career vs some of these guys. One thing Reggie had when he was young is that he played with that hate on his heart. The hate is gone from the game and I can feel it tangibly missing. To me this is a disservice to the game but I guess this is what is supposed to sell to other folk. I'm just watching for the love of the game but the game has changed. I still don't see dudes yanking on guys like Shawn Kemp used to and if I put Penny Hardaway in his prime in todays game he would be a stud and he never got to fulfill his talent ceiling. Straight clowning dudes is what he would be doing today

Originally posted by LA9erFan:
I'm in my mid-30's, spent several years as a basketball coach, and basketball is pretty much my only hobby. You're right, the kids that can play aren't on the asphalt courts. They're in gyms from the time they're 5-6 years old, working with people whose full-time job is to train kids on how to play. It's a multi-billion dollar industry. Last summer I worked a camp with the great Bob Hurley Sr and several other guys from every level and we had a couple of hundred kids in our camp. It's pretty much 2 hours straight of fundamentals, and they get the "reward" of a 10-minute game at the end. There's stuff like that happening ALLLL over the country. Tons of kids are playing ball, but the good ones are not out on the streets.

KD is an example of the kind of freaks that are being produced these days. There weren't dudes with 7'5" wingspans with elite perimeter games back in the day. He would have absolutely dominated. George Gervin was 180lbs soaking wet and was dropping 30, and he didn't even have range. The physicality stuff is just romanticized. Watch those games, and see how bigs would just walk down to the low block and set up with ZERO resistance, with the defender just standing behind him. No 3/4 denial on the post catch, no establishment of his base, nothing.

Where are the big men today? Where is the punishment? Ron Artest was the rule of thumb i the 90s. That's how the game was played and you telling me I'm romanticizing what the game was? You saw the Malice at the Palace? That's how the game was played but now things have changed. Nuts was in your face and testosterone was flying around everywhere. That was the game! I saw it!

You know why KD lost that Finals? He let LeBron beat him up and Lebron was the same guy that the year prior allowed JJ Berea to work him over on the block. The same LeBron that I saw allowed Kawhi Leonard to handle him one on one down the stretch last year. Kobe even says he doesn't like the game the way the rules are today. He specifically said he preferred to 80s 90s rule. If you asked Kobe what he thought of the game today and yesterday he would tell you and there aren't too many folk smarter about the game than him and he grew up in Europe!

Hey man I deal with the game the way it is but it ain't the same and these rules are for chumps. I remember real Eastern conference ball during the 90s. Knicks ball

Originally posted by Pillbusta:
Where are the big men today? Where is the punishment? Ron Artest was the rule of thumb i the 90s. That's how the game was played and you telling me I'm romanticizing what the game was? You saw the Malice at the Palace? That's how the game was played but now things have changed. Nuts was in your face and testosterone was flying around everywhere. That was the game! I saw it!

The rules changed in 2001 to allow for zone principles to be incorporated into defenses. That's where the big men went. No more having to be within an arm's length of your man off the ball. It took a few years to incorporate into schemes, just like the 3-point line did, but that's what happened. Guys like Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon? Never more than 16-17ppg guys in college. Once they got to the pros? 20ppg from JUMP, in the same amount of minutes. More PPG in their rookie years than they ever scored in college. That's because they went from a game with zone defense to one completely without it.

"The reason the post-up doesn't work anymore is that teams just front now," George Karl says. "Help defenders can drift from their assignments to prevent a lob pass over that front, forcing the defense to whip the ball elsewhere."

So now, the bigs are on the perimeter. They're asked to do more things, be more skilled. There are more talented bigs than ever. It's just that the rule changes, combined with analytics realizing that pace & space is more efficient have changed their role. About 30 years ago, Pat Riley said that the game would eventually be five 6'9" guys that can do a little bit of everything. He was right.

The Malice at the Palace was not an every day thing. Sure, guys talked their s**t, but defense was terrible for the most part.

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.

I would dispute most of that.

Bird is not even close to Lebron and if Durant can stay healthy, I'd take Durant over Bird. It sucks that he got hurt this season, because he had passed Lebron as the best player in the game in a lot of people's minds. He's definitely closed the gap defensively which is where Lebron has always had an edge.

I would pick Shaq as the best C of all time and I would probably take Wilt over Kareem. Wilt was a better rebounder and defender but was less skilled offensively. Shaq had a higher rebounding rate and block rate throughout his career than Kareem, who benefited from playing in a much weaker and higher scoring era (overlapped slightly with Wilt). The block rate is surprising given the evolution of the perimeter game and 3 point shot.

The best PG of all time is debatable. There hasn't been a standout PG this decade, but Magic would have issues guarding Curry/Rose/Westbrook/Paul. He was almost like a less athletic Lebron - a 6'8 point forward who has tremendous vision and passing, but is not a great shooter. He has longevity if we're talking about the greatest PG of all time, but I'm not convinced he was better than these guys in his prime.

The 1985-1995 team has the best SG of all time, the 1996-2006 team has the best C, and the 2007-2017 team has the best SF (and the best PF if you consider Lebron a PF). The best PG is probably Magic by a very slight margin, but I'd take Curry, Rose, Paul, and Westbrook ahead of Isiah Thomas so I'd still give the 2007-2017 team the edge for their depth and shooting at the position. And the 2007-2017 team already has the best PG of all time playing PF.

Originally posted by eastcoast49ersfan:

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.

I would dispute most of that.

Bird is not even close to Lebron and if Durant can stay healthy, I'd take Durant over Bird. It sucks that he got hurt this season, because he had passed Lebron as the best player in the game in a lot of people's minds. He's definitely closed the gap defensively which is where Lebron has always had an edge.

I would pick Shaq as the best C of all time and I would probably take Wilt over Kareem. Wilt was a better rebounder and defender but was less skilled offensively. Shaq had a higher rebounding rate and block rate throughout his career than Kareem, who benefited from playing in a much weaker and higher scoring era (overlapped slightly with Wilt). The block rate is surprising given the evolution of the perimeter game and 3 point shot.

The best PG of all time is debatable. There hasn't been a standout PG this decade, but Magic would have issues guarding Curry/Rose/Westbrook/Paul. He was almost like a less athletic Lebron - a 6'8 point forward who has tremendous vision and passing, but is not a great shooter. He has longevity if we're talking about the greatest PG of all time, but I'm not convinced he was better than these guys in his prime.

The 1985-1995 team has the best SG of all time, the 1996-2006 team has the best C, and the 2007-2017 team has the best SF (and the best PF if you consider Lebron a PF). The best PG is probably Magic by a very slight margin, but I'd take Curry, Rose, Paul, and Westbrook ahead of Isiah Thomas so I'd still give the 2007-2017 team the edge for their depth and shooting at the position. And the 2007-2017 team already has the best PG of all time playing PF.

You and I just have totally different takes on this subject

After the Miami Heat were beaten in convincing fashion by the San Antonio Spurs in last year's NBA Finals, LeBron James decided it was time for another drastic change.

In classic LeBron fashion, the superstar kept the Heat brass holding their breath as he took his time to weigh his options in NBA free agency. The Cleveland Cavaliers eventually lucked out by being able to do something that was thought to be impossible in bringing back the former face of the franchise.


As a result of LeBron's departure from Miami, the fans in Florida aren't all that fond of the two-time NBA champion anymore. In fact, it seems Kobe Bryant has surpassed LeBron in the eyes of many in the state he brought two titles to.

In a recent SportsNation poll, Kobe received more votes than LeBron with the question about which player of the two was better in their respective prime.


With LeBron still having quite a few more years ahead in his NBA career, and the fact that many still believe he's in his prime, the four-time NBA MVP might be able to change the perception he's below Kobe on the totem pole before it is all said and done.

As for Kobe, the five titles he's won will likely continue to overshadow anything LeBron has accomplished in his 12 seasons in the league. Bryant will likely be stuck at five with little hope the Los Angeles Lakers can contend in his final season(s), but it appears he's still got the edge over LeBron in Florida and around the country.

Originally posted by StOnEy333:

Until LeBron matches the chips Kobe's acquired he gotta take the back seat to him. Sorry but that's just the way leaders are measured. I fully believe LeBron has the potential to pass Kobe and maybe one day MJ but he's gotta do it first and so far he has come up short on the court. Off the court I feel he is a better person than either guy but we talking ball here not likeability