ltg and ff are the board NBA experts and it isn't close.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Nah there are plenty of guys that know their shit on here. Best forum on this board if you ask me.

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Short of LBJ going on to win 7 straight titles, this debate ended in the 2011 finals. I can't be convinced the Heat didn't have the vastly superior team. Lebron lost a finals as the 5th leading scorer in that series.

Jason Terry came off the bench and scored more points that series. Although he never lost a finals, I'm not saying it wasn't possible. But he would have scratched, clawed and killed to win it. He wouldn't get outscored by Wade, Dirk, Bosh, and Terry in a loss.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/leb ... pointment/

LeBron has gone up against EVEN MORE STACKED teams.

2007 Spurs had Duncan, Parker and Ginobili at their peak (L)

2011 Mavericks had Nowitzki, Kidd, Butler, Marion...honestly just a ridiculously good second unit (L)

2012 Thunder had Durant, Westbrook, Harden and Ibaka (W)

2013-2014 Spurs had Duncan, Leonard, Parker, Ginobili (W, L)

2015-2017 Warriors had Curry, Thompson, Green, and sometimes Durant (L, W, L)

LeBron's teams did not clearly outmatch any of those teams, and were clearly outmatched in at least a couple series.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Dallas The Miami Heat were heavy favorite going into that series and every other series that they participated in.

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I still remember and old aging Jason Terry almost and one dunking his ass in that series. He actually got fouled on the play or he would have. I also remember calling Bernstein and talking with He and Goff and having them go full Lebron suckfest on me.

Jordan wouldn't have settled for 2nd or 3rd best player even in defeat.

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I picture Jordan losing a final with a stat line of 18-42 shooting a 52 points a game. If he's going to go down, its going to be in his hands.

No, they were not. Did you not even look at the link? http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/leb ... pointment/

LeBron's chances to win each series:

2007 13%
2011 63%
2012 51%
2013 66%
2014 31%
2015 28%
2016 25%
2017 7% https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMHl1zyZZ7M

So LeBron's teams have been favored three times (pretty much break even one of those honestly)...and have won 3 championships.

Stop saying shit that is factually incorrect. You did this yesterday when you claimed LeBron shot 35% in a Warriors playoff series and were wrong then too.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Like I said though - it doesn't matter whether you join forces with super star or have one develop right next to you. The outcome is the same: you are playing with a super talented teammate. The process by which a superstar becomes your teammate should be irrelevant. Think about it this way: you're hating on James because he joined up with Wade in Miami, but if let's say Miami drafted James in 2003 and then drafted Wade in 2004 (I realize Wade came out in 2003 but stick with me) then you and most everyone else here wouldn't have a problem with them being teammates. San Antonio had a big three going on for a long time but no one had issues that because they were all home-grown. Who cares if the star playing next to you was drafted by your front office or joined you in free agency? You're still playing at an advantage relative to the rest of the league. Jordan enjoyed that advantage just like James did.

This line of argumentation has nothing to do with Jordan vs LBJ as players. It's about shattering the false perception that James' Miami teams were somehow head and shoulders above Jordan's teams. IMU has already weakened this line of thinking in his previous posts. First of all, many of you have said the east was tougher back in the day due to talent and more physical defense. I agree with all of that. Despite that, it was the Bulls who went a record 72-10 one year destroyed every team on their way to winning the finals. And they did that in the same eastern conference everyone is praising in this thread. Is that not the mark of a "super team"? Three straight championships is also the mark of a super team. There was also a massive dropoff between Miami's big three and the rest of the roster - they had to stock the team with bums after absorbing the heavy contracts of the big three. Once you compare roster to roster there's no way Miami was head and shoulders above Chicago.

This piece also gets to the heart of the debate right here: https://www.foxsports.com/nba/gallery/p ... dan-052717

tl;dr: the talent level of James and Jordan's teammates is more or less equal. That Jordan won more is why most everyone says he's "better," and I don't really dispute that. But they both had the benefit of super talented teams.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

Was the 2010 heat team head and shoulders better than the Mavericks team they lost to in the finals.

Also remember the big 3 colluded and took less money to play in Miami. Unless you dont think each was deserving of a max contract.

The reason that the "superteam" era is worse is that it's the ultimate competitive advantage to join up with a team in free agency. That's why they did it. With a draft pick, or a trade you are giving up far more instead of getting a ready made title team out of nowhere with a player who had already won a title at that same place. Imagine this more extreme example. Lebron James REALLY wants to win 6 titles, so he goes to the Warriors for the league minimum next year. The Warriors win the next 4 titles and Lebron has 7. How do we view those titles? Does it really impress us? Do we even know if he is still elite during that time or is it just that his team is so stacked that we can't accurately judge them? That is a more extreme version of what happened in Miami. Wade already had a title there. Wade was at least of similar ability at the start and was pretty close to as important as Lebron for the beginning though his decline was starting to show towards the end.

Now, compare that to Jordan who was playing on a team that didn't create an artificial competitive advantage through free agency. We know that Jordan played with one truly great player too, but they came up together and he had one other player who was great but in decline and was a reclamation project that worked out perfectly for the next 3 titles. Besides that, it was a bunch of good players with the best one probably being Horace Grant who isn't even in consideration for the basketball HOF which puts in just about anyone.

So I would say it is different. Do you view Kevin Durant any differently because he won a title with a stacked team? I'm sure you do a little but it has to effect how they are viewed. That's why I was so excited when Lebron went back to Cleveland. He wasn't joining a ready-made team that was a lock to win a title and it was really cool to see him do it. Irving was really his Pippen in this scenario and it was cool.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I don't get your point then, if the talent around Jordan and LBJ is roughly equal. Then if we are comparing who the better player is, you are saying Jordan is the better player as he took an equal collection of talent and pushed them to a 6-0 record in the finals.

SInce when is Nate Silver the standard bearer for Basketball Predictions? Also when it comes to factually incorrect bullshit there is not a comparison between You and I. Being off by 5% isn't that big a fucking deal anyway and I was still within the parameters of the question anyway.

If you go off the predictions of people that know a whole lot more than Nate Silver the Heat were the favorite in every series in which they were a participant.

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When you get past all of the Nate Silver bullshit this is what most people will agree on. In 2011 Lebron James was beaten by one Star/Superstar (depending how you view Nowitzki) and a bunch of role players. You talk about "factually incorrect" you rolled off the names of a group of role players and attempted to portray them as stars. If you think I'm lying i will simply bump it.

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Very well said.

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Pippen wasn't all that great in 91. He was really just coming into his own and was one year removed from the migraine headache game. IN fact most people still had doubts about him as a player as late as 91.

Bosh and Wade were both top 15 players when they signed up to play alongside James. The Bulls never had a true third wheel at any point of Jordan's reign either. Not one. Bosh was top 15 the day he signed in Miami.

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while i think to make the finals you have to be pretty good.

That jazz team had a few important HOF'ers on it, that portland team was just a beast of a team, as well as the suns. i think both of those teams had at least 7 guys in the double digits scoring. the lakers had an aging team of hall of famers that were still pretty much all there. that seattle team won i think 65 games. they were STACKED. its not like jordan went 6-0 against slouches. those teams were every bit as formidable as the teams lebron has faced in the west today.

btw i don't hold it against lebron going to the heat.

https://www.si.com/nba/point-forward/20 ... spurs-heat

http://www.espn.com/nba/playoffs/2014/s ... s-forecast

LTG makes it a point to make one factually incorrect statement in each post. He can't help it.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Just about every list known to man will have Wade as the Better player. I'm sure he will hide behind "opinion" speak

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Shawn Marion, Kidd, Butler, Marion, Unbelievably Stacked team. Ok. Another factually incorrect statement that will be passed off as "opinion" speak.

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You're the guy that says first team All NBA is of the utmost importance.

http://www.landofbasketball.com/player_ ... e_wade.htm

Pippen was there 3 times. Wade was there only twice.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

For the 47th time Wade was slotted 2nd only because Kobe Bryant was 1st. Real basketball fans know that.

SF position was extremely thin during the early 90's.

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I know you keep propping up 2014 as some sort of revelatory thing but it was common knowledge that Wade was in decline at that point. It is the main reason Lebron "top flight" James headed for the hills.

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You are also the guy that loves bringing up winning (that is until it doesn't support things like Jimmy Butler top 10 or in this instance Scottie Pippen apparently) Wade was the best player on a championship winning team. Scottie Pippen was the best player on a team that couldn't get out of the second round. Why isn't that being factored into the equation?

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I think your points are more about the concept of free agency rather than James. Adam Silver/David Stern probably share your viewpoint; that's why tried to incentivize players to stick with their original team. Obviously not working out as well as they hoped. But I won't begrudge a player for getting out of what is usually a bad situation and going somewhere where they can truly compete. Whether you gain an advantage because your front office got lucky in the draft or someone joined you in free agency the result is the same: a really good team. So I would disagree that what James did is "artificial." Why should we celebrate Jordan for benefiting from Krause's moves and judge James for switching teams because he didn't benefit from the same fortune Jordan did? All James did was put himself in the same situation players like Kobe (Gasol, Odom, Artest), Durant (Westbrook, young Harden), and Duncan (Ginobli, Parker) were in.

It seems as if a GM pulls of a shrewd move by, say, acquiring Pau Gasol for pennies and pairing him with Kobe, Odom, and Artestz then that's cool and no one has a problem. But if Gasol himself placed himself in that situation by signing with LA as a free agent then all of a sudden he's a sell-out, he's not "doing it through right way, etc. Why is that? It's the same thing.

As for "stacked teams," that's another misconception about James. Look at the Fox Sports link I provided earlier. Yes, the Heat were top heavy, but the rest of the players sucked. The rhetoric about the Heat being some invincible team doesn't match what actually happened. They won't go down in history as one of the best teams ever. And if you view that as an indictment of James then that just demonstrates you're focused more on Wade and James than you are the entire roster. Even with the big three when you take the whole roster and match it up against other rosters throughout history and even during the league at the time then you'll see that plenty of teams had similar, if not more, talent. The "best team ever" label is still reserved for some Celtics, Lakers, Bulls, and now Warriors teams. I think the spectacle of "The Decision" clouds a lot of the reality of what happened.

The Bulls did use free agency to create advantages (as they should) - they just didn't acquire stars in free agency because they already had them. They made numerous pick-ups in free agency to bolster the supporting cast. I think you're basically saying teams should develop organically and if you tamper with that via things like "The Decision" then that creates unfair advantages. But there is no such thing as an organically made team. At least not anymore. The vast majority of champions over the past 20 or so years benefited from free agent acquisitions/trades (which are sometimes the same thing - LBJ was technically traded to Miami):

Houston
LA (early 2000s)
LA (late 2000s)
Detroit
Miami 2006
Miami 2010s
Dallas
GS
Cleveland

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

You have me mixed up with someone else. I can accept that the GOAT in any sport never wins a championship. I'm okay with an MVP being on a losing team. I recognize Quintana being a good pitcher even with a losing Sox record.

So, you are wrong again. Maybe just don't make any further declarative sentences?

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

You bash the hell out of Melo for not winning anything even though he is a Hall of Fame player and every team he played on for the first 10-11 years got better.


I seem to remember you bashing the hell out of Boogie Cousins for similar reasons though with him the lack of winning is more pronounced obviously.

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I think there is a lot of rewriting history there. Lebron, Wade, and Bosh were openly joking about winning 7 titles together. They were far and away the most talented team in the league in a league where stars win titles. He didn't just choose to leave Cleveland. He chose to team up with his good friends and give themselves a massive competitive advantage. Don't get me wrong. That was their choice. Durant made the same choice to take the easy way to a few titles if not more. I even get it after living their whole lives hearing how Malone, Miller, Barkley and others never got a title. We just don't have to pretend it is the same thing as Scottie Pippen going from lightly regarded project who didn't even start as a rookie and having Horace Grant and then a Dennis Rodman with a questionable future to the point that he was traded for Will Perdue. I mean, that's basically what Kevin Durant gave up on in OKC to go win some easy titles though Westbrook was probably regarded higher when he was drafted than Pippen was.

But, let's say that it is true, and that all Lebron did was "even" the talent level with the 90s Bulls. He still went 2/4 with them. He then chose his next destination, dictated all the moves, got another All Star there along with an up and coming star in Irving. 1/3. Probably 1/4.

A pattern starts to develop. Lebron even while giving himself the best possible chance of winning, and being at worst the second best player of all time, is 3/7 under that circumstance in winning a title.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Happens a lot around here regarding Lebron.

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Elections have consequences.

I've never bashed either of those for not winning a championship. I've bashed both of those players for making their teams lose.

Not only does Carmelo not win, but he contributes to losses. He is a reason the Thunder were so disappointing.

Cousins has improved his overall game a lot in the past two seasons or so. I haven't ripped him much, or at all, in awhile.

Unlike you, I recognize when players progress or regress.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.