Paul Pierce: “Bron has the greatest of all time influence on winning… His influence on winning is greater than Jordan. Because when you look at the teams he took to the finals you know it’s like ‘Damn. You dragged them?’”
Damn, this was really from Paul Pierce?
Tbf, KG and PP do that quite a bit, they see him as competition, but they’ve given him his flowers.
They are inconsistent in their takes and their messaging, cuz they don’t really have a script and riff a lot.
They’re also human beings, what they say might be influenced by how they feel in the given moment because there’s probably a not insignificant amount of “I do not giving a fuck” for those guys when it comes to “Who’s better between LeBron and MJ durr Der derr”
They’re also human beings, what they say might be influenced by how they feel in the given moment
Thats what I meant to express with the second sentence.
That’s why I really enjoyed the World Cup; you didn’t have to worry about Erling Haaland being out there bein’ all human and having feelings and stuff.
plus honestly, he’s a part of their history, their greatest rival. building up his mystique positively builds on their own legacy as guys who played against him and won/lost multiple battles
Yes and precisely why so many single retired players think their exact timeline in the league was the greatest.
But to be fair, both KG and PP seem to give props to new gen.
I don’t think anyone needs to gas Bron up for this purpose lmao. He’s almost unanimously regarded as a top two player in history.
U mean ritter a lot
Makes sense that it was the guys who were on the receiving end of some of LeBron’s best performances would be the ones that speak his praises the loudest. Whether that be media personalities like Bill Simmons, or players like Pierce and KG, Teague, or DeRozan, the list goes on and on. Ask any Toronto fan and they’d look at you like you’re crazy for thinking anything otherwise.
It’s time for them to gas their own generation.
Always found it weird it took them such a long time to understand that if they gassed LeBron they gassed their own gen ie themselves
Because for the longest time Pierce and KG always identified with the old generation for some reason. Probably because they were drafted in the 90s. They’re slow but they finally realized that they played more seasons with LeBron’s batch than with Jordan’s batch.
makes sense. Jordan’s generation gasses themselves endlessly
I assure you that in a couple of decades, the LeBron generation will do the same thing as Player X is entering the argument for greatest player ever
As someone who’s enjoyed both Jordan and LeBron’s work, Player X has a long road ahead of them.
We already have “Player X”. It is Wemby.
Wemby got a 60-win season faster than Jordan or Lebron, made the finals faster than Jordan and at the same age as Lebron (1 year faster than Lebron), won DPOY faster than Jordan and Lebron never won it (Wemby is also just objectively better at defense than either ever was), and the Thunder team that Wemby and the Spurs beat in the playoffs this year is better than any team Jordan beat his first 6 years and any team Lebron beat in his first 8 years
I swear listening to older people talk about basketball ball is the absolute worst. They are so biased and spiteful and blinded by nostalgia. The amount of hate for current players and the current game of basketball is insane. They have so many opinions on it and it’s so obvious they don’t even watch the game anymore because the playoffs these last years have been so incredible.
Wait until you grandkids start telling you how LeBron was only good because he played tiny white plumbers.
There will be slander about podcasters, skinny jeans, and open driving lanes.
You’ll become one in the future
[deleted]
You can even see the hate in the downvotes on my comment because it was a reflection of themselves and the truth. I ain’t told no lie, 🤣.
Yea this is it lol
After all the hype w Wemby, Shai, etc recently they feel the need to remind the fans
It has nothing to do with Wemby and Shai wtf. NBA has always been like this.
His new stance is to glaze LeBron so he can be proud he beat him a couple times
I was thinking what is motivating him to say this 🤔 you hit the nail on the head with this 😆
Paul Pierce has regularly been complimentary about LeBron. Weird people say he isn’t, but he has said he is the GOAT.
Now the reason why he says it, can be disputed. He can say he went toe to toe with the best and beat him. I love Paul Pierce, him and AI got me in to basketball but LeBron being the GOAT helps his legacy.
I think PP is going to turn into the biggest Bron fan in the next few years. I think he figured out that it doesn’t make any sense to trash him because his own legacy is tied to LeBron’s.
Since Lebron beat him most years it only makes sense to prop Bron up because that props himself up. That’s why all of those players from Jordan’s era prop him up.
That was my first thought too lol. Paul Pierce actually complimenting LeBron without being forced to on the back of a championship ring?
Ikr? His biggest hater is saying this
Hes said before if he was on the 2007 cavs team he took to the finals instead of lebron they wouldn’t have even made the playoffs
Elevate your competition so you elevate your own status.
Gotta be AI lol
Every Jordan LeBron argument is a bigger waste of time than the previous
I think that’s true, but it’s mainly because people have come around to realize that Bron and MJ are the GOAT in different aspects, which PP is highlighting here.
If I were to start a team from scratch, franchise mode, I’d take Bron over MJ. He’s a floor raiser like no one before him.
But if I had to win a single game, full stop, and choose who has the ball in his hands on the last possession, it’s MJ. No question.
it depends the team as well. if i have like magic, cp3 mj is better. if i have steph, kd give me lebron.
I am so sad we didn’t get an Unction with LeBron and Curry, their playstyles mesh so well together
Olympic Gold is for all of us (except the French)
Brother I am Canadian
So French with Poutine sauce.
Not knowing the name of gravy is wild
two different players period. One is a natural facilitator and the other is a natural scorer/closer, though both are so immensely talented that they can do everything else to an elite level as well.
To me neither is lesser than the other because you need multiple archetypes on a good basketball team.
I think a team of all LeBron wipes the floor with a team of all MJ
That’s because LeBron plays the position that’s closest to every other.
A team of all SFs beats a team of all centers or all PGs for example.
MJ was the better defender tho. I’m taking nostalgia on this one
The problem already begins with the fact people calling it a debate or a discussion in the first place, because it’s not.
Everybody who has a horse in this race already has their GOAT set in stone and isn’t going to change their opinion on it, regardless of how many arguments the opposite side throws at them. Every single argument has already been used a million times. Jordan is already retired for over 20 years, so he doesn’t add to his legacy, and LeBron is at that point in his career that 99% of his legacy is already pretty much set as well: his ridiculous longevity argument is already at a point that any year barely adds to that portion..
Honestly my GOAT wasn’t set in stone until a couple of days ago.
Bron was always my GOAT, but i’m more sure now
What happened to change that? Did another player do something to vault over him?
Really, the debate is about defining what a GOAT is in my opinion. Objectively better? Better relative to the rest of the league? Best peak? What peak, one season? Playoff? Game? 3 seasons? Career? Accolades? Narrative? Myth?
Everyone has different definitions. It’s remarkable how you can change definitions and get a different answer with Jordan & Lebron.
I agree with the rest of your post but
his ridiculous longevity argument is already at a point that any year barely adds to that portion.
You got it backwards.
Further additions to longevity become increasingly more impressive.
In other words, when it comes to longevity:
Adding +1 to a 20 year career means more than adding +1 to a 15 year career, which means more than adding +1 to a 10 year career.
Lebron is adding +2 to a 23 year career.
>LeBron is at that point in his career that 99% of his legacy is already pretty much set as well: his ridiculous longevity argument is already at a point that any year barely adds to that portion..
His argument isn’t simply longevity. It just gets silly to argue against when you factor in the ridiculous longevity you mentioned.
This “debate” only exists as a talking point to begin with - figuring out who the GOAT is has no practical impact on anything at all.
Agree. When Jordan left the Bulls in 93’ they were a championship contender despite being the same team minus MJ, but everytime LeBron left his team they were a lottery team the next season.
Jordan: 93’ Bulls 57-25 > 55-27, 98’ Bulls 62-20 > 13-37 (tore down roser), 03’ Wizards 37-45 > 25-57 LeBron: 10’ Cavs 61-21 > 19-63, 14’ Heat 54-28 > 37-45, 18’ Cavs 50-32 >19-63,
Why did you mention tore down roster just for MJ’s 98 Bulls? The 19 Cavs were the same thing (and the only good player Kevin Love barely played 20 games or so) but you didn’t mention it.
Also the Heat were bad the year after LeBron left since they had a lot of injuries. A year later, the Heat with basically the same core roster of the post-LeBron era went to 7 games in the ECSF, similar to the 94 Bulls but people don’t remember that since it was only 2 years out and they were more healthy. You’ll see a lot of similarities with the 2016 Heat as the 1994 Bulls but because it was not 2015, it isn’t mentioned at all but that’s only because the 1994 Bulls were lucky enough not to get injured like the 2015 Heat.
The heat could have won a title that year too. People forget that Bosh had the bloodclot issue and Whiteside was injured in that series vs Toronto. Game 7 rookie Winslow played centre.
In no world was the 2016 Heat beating the 73 win Warriors in the finals. Let’s be serious. It took a Herculean effort from LeBron and Miami didn’t have the juice..
They also didn’t have a guy like Kyrie that can drop 41 like Lebron did. Damn, that game was special.
lol no that team is not even close fully healthy
The Heat were never winning against the Dubs don’t pmo
Insane this has as many upvotes as it does.
lol what. We absolutely did not
Okay what about the first stint Cavs tho? They went from 61 wins and the 2nd best net rating in the league to 19 wins and literally the worst net rating. Mo Williams was their best player, and he missed some time, but the Cavs were still only 19-39 in games he started which is like a 26 or 27 win pace. Lebron was the only significant roster loss outside of 20 minutes a game from geriatric Shaq
That team LeBron carried, and was before he moved teams. I don’t think that is in much dispute. The only thing people say about that one is that the East was incredibly weak that year, which was fairly true tbh
Shaq was their starting center. They also lost their back up center
They were absolutely not the same team from the year before lol they added Kukoc, Steve Kerr and Luc longley.
If you’re bringing up the Bulls’ additions, you should also mention the other players they lost.
You’re right that they added Kukoc to the bench, but they also lost literally all their rotation bigs to injury (Cartwright, Williams, King).
They added Steve Kerr, but he basically just replaced the injured John Paxson as the Bulls’ shooter off the bench.
Luc Longley wasn’t even in the rotation for most of the season. The only reason he got any significant playing time was because the Bulls’ rotation bigs had been decimated by injury.
Obviously the 1994 Bulls weren’t exactly the same team, but it really was the 1993 Bulls returning with a new shooting guard and a couple adjustments to the bench. It’s still a good comparison.
They also lost Jordan and didn’t replace him with anything close to comparable. So for them to still win 55 games is pretty dang impressive.
Yep, which further goes to show how the Bulks dynasty was not a one man carry job like it’s being portrayed. It was a damn good team with a GOAT level player spearheading it
You should also mention that Pippen and Grant had massive down years in 1993, too, and were much better in 94. The 93 Bulls underachieved
Then do the same with the Cavs when LeBron left in 2010. The Cavs had only had 4 players from the 2010 team that played meaningful minutes on the 2011 dumpster fire. I will give you the 2018 to 2019 Cavs, that was basically the same team, but the East sucked in 2018 and even LeBron could only dragged them to 50 wins in that conference. If the Cavs would had been in the West, it is debatable if they make it out of the first round much like he failed to do several times on the Lakers, including missing the playoffs twice. The 2015 Heat fell apart because of injuries.
The ‘94 Bulls had the core of a team that 3-peated, I repeat, 3-peated, and Phil Jackson did a magnificent coaching job and they still lost to the Knicks, a team who’s dreams they had crushed for 3 consecutive seasons.
Context is needed there that MJ left a dominat team that wanted to continue to compete. LeBron left teams when wheels fell off and then those teams turned to tanking.
IMO - LeBron has a legit case for goat title but that is just not the argument.
I agree but needs more context. LeBron’s teams also get blown up including losing many players in the rotation from the previous year.
Not the first stint Cavs. The only shakeup in meaningful minutes were Bron and old man Shaq playing 20 minutes a game.
It is very difficult to underrate how hard LeBron was carrying those last two seasons during his first stint in Cleveland. Probably the best floor-raising in basketball history
If you think the Cavs record in 2010-11 was just because of LeBron leaving then you’re clearly ignorant about what happened and don’t understand basketball.
Even aside from the GOAT debate, it always pissed me off in those second Cavs years that he wasn’t winning MVP. The dude adds 20-30 wins to a season by being on the roster. Guaranteed finals. Who could be more valuable? Voter fatigue is stupid.
Didn’t he just stop caring as much about the regular season? Also players started having monstrous seasons too. 15⁄16 Curry, 17 WB, etc. After that he got too old to really continue competing for MVPs.
Lmao he didn’t deserve any of those MVPs. 2015 was not a great regular season for him, 2016 was better but there’s 0 chance he was getting it over Westbrook. 2017 the same logic you used about adding 20-30 wins to a team applies 2x more to Westbrook and Harden who had spectacular historic seasons. Bron was coasting in those regular seasons
2018 was the only year he has a good case but again harden has another historic season and leads the rockets to 60+ wins. What years should he have won? Lmao
Yeah both LeBron and Jordan should have more MVPs. Jordan should have like 6-8 and LeBron should have like 8-10.
Eh, not really. Neither guy has less MVPs than they should wth the exception of 1997. The MVP is more than just a best player award, it’s your ovoerall season results — a combination of play, win total, and narrative. If you look at the years where LeBron didn’t win MVP after 2009, they were all years where he didn’t take the regular season as seriously and his teams underachieved.
2014: Easy case for KD, 32-7-5 on a 59-win team missing his best player for half the year
2015: Worst year of LeBron’s prime, Steph and Harden achieved more
2016: lol
2017: Kawhi and Harden had much better cases while the Cavs took their foot off the pedal 2/3s of the way through
2018: Arguably his best case, but you’re really gonna pick the best player on a 4th seed over the guy who led the lead in scoring on a 65-win team?
Same thing with MJ. Barkley deserved that MVP in 93.
yeah the 2018 cavs being in shambles is because lebron got all his friends paid, the team sucked, so he left. Lebron leaves when the times get tough.
Obviously true, but the question is not how good of a LeGM LeBron is, but how impactful of a player he is compared to Jordan.
His impact is a direct result of the team throwing everything at the now and then not having anything remaining when he leaves. The Cavaliers threw their draft picks and young players at Kevin Love, had to pay Tristan Thompson an insane amount of money because Lebron wanted them to keep him, and then the year before Lebron left they lost Kyrie already. Lebron leaves when the team is no longer going to be able to compete.
Teams cannot build with any long-term in mind when LeBron is on the team. They gut their current resources to get LeBron the guys he wants, and then they have to overspend on the players LeBron personally likes on the team even if those guys aren’t good. Same thing happened to the lakers. They assembled a championship team (literally) by acquiring Anthony Davis, and yet that still wasn’t enough for LeBron and he wanted Westbrook, which destroyed their bench and all their championship hopes for the rest of his tenure.
Both examples you mentioned were the right choice at the time and if they wouldn’t sign LeBron neither the Lakers or the Cavaliers would have a ring by now most likely.
Getting Kevin Love and keeping Tristan Thompson were good decisions, because they were a good fit for that Cavs team. What really messed them up was Kyrie leaving. When Kyrie left there was really nothing they could’ve done to compete with the 18’ Warriors or even 18’ Rockets.
For the Lakers getting AD was the only way that team could win. If they kept their young core together they’d be a play-in team year in and out, knowing how those young players from that team developed. Getting Westbrook and not keeping their role players like Caruso, KCP, Danny Green, and D12 was the only really bad decision LeBron made.
So if you were in charge of the Cavs and Lakers in both times they brought in LeBron and knowing in hindsight you’d win one ring respectively, would you still say no?
I’m not disagreeing that those were the right choices (except Westbrook). What I’m saying is that the teams LeBron joins aren’t constructed in a way to survive after he leaves by design.
The only team that could have been ok was the Heat, but Chris Bosh had a pulmonary embolism and Wade got hurt again. Their first year without Lebron the whole team was hurt, it wasn’t just that they lost LeBron. The following year they went 48-34 and lost in 7 games in the Eastern conference semis (2nd round gasp), and they didn’t even have Bosh for the series. They were 1 game away from playing against Lebron’s 2nd stint cavs in the Eastern conference finals without Bosh.
People also forget that after LeBron left the 2nd stint cavs tenure, Kevin love got injured and only played 20 games and JR Smith only played 11 games. Their 2nd and 3rd highest scoring players from lebrons final year were hurt. Plus they’d already lost Kyrie the year prior.
You guys act like the only thing that changed was LeBron left and ignore that those teams 2nd and 3rd best players all got injured and missed most of the season as well
Do you actually think the 94 Bulls would have made the playoffs if Pippen and Horace Grant had been injured most of the season when Jordan left? Please
This take is pretty much what I’d expect from someone who’s just looking at numbers and wasn’t there/didn’t see the man play. And forget Washington, where he was 40 on one leg.
The Bulls’ regular season success in 93-94 can be attributed to that team being grown - that was essentially the same team that had just won 3 straight chips, which was ALSO primarily the same team that had been bounced by Detroit the 3 years prior… again, going back to the knock many have on LeBron constantly leaving and constructing or “stacking” his teams vs. going through the fire. His first Cleveland stint was akin to MJ’s first 6 years: ran into their boogeyman and got bounced. MJ took one path, LeBron chose another. The 93-94 Bulls were still a quality team, but MJ’s leadership and clutch, end-of-game gene was prominently absent multiple times that year - especially with Pippen making some terrible decisions down the stretch.
LeBron has his teams built out wherever he goes… then when he leaves, those teams have no choice but to get rid of those crazy contracts, or one or more of the other all-stars leaves as well. He’s absolutely an all-time great, and inarguably a huge factor in all of his teams’ success, but this revisionist take that MJ’s teams were “basically just as good” without him is literally insane. No one seriously feared the Bulls without MJ. I was an adult in the 90s, and from Chicago (phantom call vs. the Knicks notwithstanding… that was some unforgivable bullshit).
Scottie was not a #1 guy… he was the best player on that ‘93-94 team - and one of the best in the league, sure - but he was in need of that killer alpha next to him. He shrank in clutch moments.
The Kawhi led raptors(a all time great team) was a worse team than the raptors a year before they got kawhi so kawhi was a negative on that team since the kawhi less raptors had a better reg season record if we take your argument
Taking regular season record to determine a player value is crazy
It’s pretty documented that the 1992-93 the bulls were costing in the regular season and taking that record to make the argument that jordan was not that important to the team is crazy
Kawhi played 60 games with the Raptors vs Derozan the year before played 80. No shit they’re gonna win less games when preserving Kawhi for the playoffs was the name of the game.
No it’s not because the objective of regular season is to make the playoffs and if you don’t even make it to the playoffs, then you’re objectively a bad/below average team.
Same can be literally said for the Raptors. The thing is Bulls were still a contender without Jordan and LeBron teams were all mediocre at best without him
Tell me why kerr in the last dance said they were a bad team without jordan
“Same can be said about the raptors” so you are literally agreeing with me here,the raptors coasted just like the bulls coasted in the 93 season returning from the olympics,they were usually a 60+ win team with jordan( a 67 win team in 91-92) but you wouldn’t bring that up since it does not fit your narrative
The Bulls were not a championship contender without Jordan. They won 55 games but were bounced in the second round. They didn’t even make the conference finals.
Chris Bosh had a pulmonary embolism and Wade was hurt lmfao Lebron stans are so shameless
They were solid but they werent a legit contender anymore. They would have been swept by the rockets.
The magic were absolutely stacked for the next couple years, and jordan effectively ended that when he came back.
this argument is so idiotic. Lebron leaves teams after trading all the assets away so obviously the teams will suffer when he goes
2010 Cavs LeBron left + starting pg + starting center + back up center
2014 heat LeBron left + bosh playing 44 games + Battier and Ray Allen left
2018 Cavs LeBron left + Kevin love played only 22 games + wade left + jeff green + Kyle korver and George Hill traded mid season.
Just to add context since I always hear the “LeBron leaves and the team becomes shit” .
the heat got injured the year after he left. the year after that they were #3 in the east and the diff was about 5 wins
There is literally another post of Barkley saying he stacked his teams on here. Now, he had to drag his teams. Which one is it?
Are you stacking or dragging?!?
Not my tempo.
Well these are two different people saying two different things. Hope that explains it
Also 23 years worth of basketball to analyze, it’s almost as if he’s played for both types of teams
They aren’t mutually exclusive. The first Cavs stint LeBron had to do heavy dragging. After that, not so much. Anyone said LeBron had to “drag” that Heatles to a back-to-back championship is just trolling, or dickriding fanatic. So he has both drag and stack in his long career, which one overweights the other is what ultimately determines one’s opinion on his placement in the GOAT pantheon
Second Cavs stint was a lot of dragging too
Those second-stint Cavs teams were absurdly more talented than anyone else in the East and the only reason they looked undermanned is because of the KD Warriors.
I’m not downplaying how good Lebron was those years, but he had very good teams, especially compared to the teams they had to go through.
Against which Eastern Conference teams? Even after he lost Kyrie, who had a better team in the East? Baby Celtics? Trash Bros Raptors? Ben Simmons-Embiid Sixers?
2018 for sure, and the 2015 Finals when Love and Kyrie were both injured, but aside from that those were really good teams.
2015 finals yes, not the run to the finals. 2018 definitely though
Man has played almost a quarter century in the NBA. He’s done both
I mean it’s been both, so you can argue either way depending on your bias 😂
Yeah, I remember time he came to drag Bosh and Wade.
Don’t forget about the time he dragged Kyrie and Love.
It’s almost like he made a lot more finals than those and didn’t have much talent in those
He dragged Wade who already won without him.
He was obviously not talking about the Heatles, why are you being disingenuous?
Bunch of scrubs
Going to the final in some of the worst years the east ever had.
Lebron has spent 15 seasons in the East.
Of those 15 seasons, 9 of them were in the 15 worst Eastern conferences ever. Source
The 15 weakest Eastern conferences of all time, and their win percentage against the West;
2003-04, 36.7%
1971-72, 36.8%
2013-14, 36.9%
2000-01, 38.3%
1970-71, 39.5%
2002-03, 40.5%
2014-15, 41.6%
2012-13, 41.8%
2010-11, 42.0%
2011-12, 42.2%
2023-24, 42.3%
2007-08, 42.7%
2006-07, 42.9%
2004-05, 43.1%
1994-95, 43.4%
That Cavs team was good, the Lakers roster was great and had AD, and then you had Miami with Wade, Bosh, a decent supporting cast, and Spo.
Love me some PP, but this is a weak take.
The 2007 Cavs would’ve easily lost 50-60 games without LeBron, he dragged their asses all the way to the finals…..
Most teams would lose a ton of games without their best player. That’s how it works.
Ok cool, look who they faced. No talent in the Wizards, Nets or the Pistons. So of course the Cavs make it to the final when the teams they face in the East are that bad?
Right. He mostly dominated a weaker conference in the East. But he didn’t actually win anything without plenty of help.
Not just help…literally franchise players from other teams. Wade and Bosh were franchise players. Kyrie and Love were franchise players. These weren’t just run of the mill all stars. AD franchise player.
It doesn’t matter how elite you are, if you play with Lebron his PR machine will trash you and convince people you were carried by him
The only chip Lebron won in Cleveland, Kyrie averaged 25ppg through the playoffs and Kyrie also completely outplayed Steph in the finals.
The only chip Lebron won in LA, Davis averaged 27.7ppg through the playoffs while also providing 2nd in DPOY voting level defense
And then of course he wasted Wade’s best year in 2011 by choking the finals
Don’t forget KLove was averaging 26 and 12 before his trade to Cleveland
I just look at Bosh, Love, and Westbrook as the third wheels that Lebron specifically wanted to play with. He recruited all of them to his team to be the 3rd guys behind Wade, Kyrie, and Davis. Bosh and Love were both top 15-20ish players the year before playing with Lebron, and even if they were the weakest of their respective trios they were still better players than some teams even had on their rosters, especially in the East. Westbrook was the only guy that didn’t work
And then of course the Lakers also were able to trade a ham sandwich for fucking 5x 1st team all nba Luka Doncic
Lebron has played with an embarrassment of riches on the court but people just think about his first Cavs stint which wasn’t even 1⁄3 of his career at this point
Nobody did
You just can’t handle The Truth
Forreal.. LeBron only dragged 1 garbage team to the Finals, which is still an amazing feat, but the rest of his squads were pretty much always stacked after his first Cavs stint. That Westbrook experiment was his own damn fault.
Wut?
He dragged the Heat with D-Wade and Bosh?
The Cavs with Kyrie and K Love?
and Wade outplayed him in 2011 finals
Wade outplayed Dirk too. He was the best player on the floor that finals.
Dragged a bunch of hall fame players to the finals? FOH
Yeah honestly. HE FUCKING CHOSE ALL THE PLAYERS HE WANTED TO PLAY WITH. if anything that should hurt his goat status bc he played gm too much. Jordan let other build the team instead of picking just his friends to play with. Lebron wanted Russ. He could have another two rings if he didn’t try and gm his teams
Letruth
When Paul Pierce was talking trash to Bron we were calling him poopoo pants
Now he’s our boy 😂
2007.
1982.
NBA Finals.
Celtics and Pistons. You can keep going back and fourth lol
Hes talking about the 2007 squad id assume. Which is not a great point considering how shit the east was that year. He only had to get by an old pistons team that was past their peak and lost their best interior post defender that season which grounded most of what they did. He also only beat 2 500 teams before them. So it was a pretty easy road out the east that particular year. Wasnt so much him being great as much as it was just a generationally weak east. I mean Jordna never had that luxury early in his career before he had Pippen. This nonesense is propagated so much even by guys like Paul but when you actually look back, if you put Jordan in those exact same circumstances most people would bet Jordan would get to the finals as well that year. Case and point, Lebron couldnt get back there after Boston Loaded up and Dwight Howard entered his prime. He got stopped pretty easily once teams had moderately gotten better the years after which forced him to Miami to team up with the best team the league had seen in decades.
In the worst conference
He took one mediocre team to the finals (even Howard did that). That’s more of a knock on how weak the conference was. That’s MORE than made up for by the underachievements.
You referring to 2007 or 2018?
He “dragged” one team to the finals at best.
esp in the brutal east going up against the hawks led by millsap and horford and toronto with lowry/derozan
I love the debate. I always find it funny that this question isn’t asked…….Who would you take to win 1 game? I know who I’d bet everything on
Larry Bird
IM TAKING Andre Iguodala
Jeremy Lin
Ever since Lebron took these gambling sponsorships he started paying off these old heads to go on podcasts and embarrass themselves. Its sad really.
Bingo
Jordan benefited from Pippen’s contract being laughable even for its time but I don’t really think any of the teams Bron took to the Finals are that much worse than the ones Jordan dealt with in his early years. The Bulls legacy before and after Jordan should pretty much show us all how competent that FO really was
Yeah but Jordan never made the Finals on those teams either. Most of the seasons were first round exits. Agree about their FO though.
Yea, when you meet the Celtics with 5 HoF in the squad and you play on the Traveling Cocaine Circus, it doesn’t matter if you score 63, average 40ppg in the series and Bird says you are god disguised aas Michael Jordan.
You go out in the first round.
Clowns who ignore context on purpose should be banned from this sub.
Ya and they went on to win the championship, so technically Mj faced the champions at their most fresh in the beginning of the playoffs.
Jordan’s playoff losses were to a 59-23 Bucks team in round 1, a 67-15 Celtics team in round 1 (that won the championship), a 59-23 Celtics team in round 1, a 54-28 Pistons team in round 2, a 64-18 Pistons team in the conference semis (that won the championship), and a 59-23 Pistons team in the conference semis (that won the championship), and a 57-25 Magic team in round 2
During Lebron’s 15 years in the East he never played a 50-win team in round 1. When Lebron went to the West, the first time he played a 50-win team in round 1 he lost lmao
Celtics and Pistons during those years were actual dynasties in their prime basically. Lebron didn’t really beat any crazy teams during that run
Lebron was 1-5 against 50+ win teams in his first Cavs stint, he just got to play against them way later in the playoffs because the East was ass.
Jordan’s first 3 years in the NBA his round 1 opponents had 59, 67, and 59 wins
Raises the floor of shitty teams (cavs) but Jordan raises the ceiling more (bulls vs heat)
Is he drunk again?
6-0 in the Finals versus 4-6 in the Finals
Oh, and making Karl Malone and Derek Scott look like chumps on the same sequence.
“Fuck Paul Pierce” Kobe Bryant
What an absolute stupid take. I don’t fault Bron for losing in the finals early in his career because his team had no business being there the East was awful. Pierce’s argument, falls flat though, because if you truly are the greatest, and you have this outsized effect on winning, you would win more in the finals than you would lose and you wouldn’t miss the playoffs multiple times. That’s because as much as LeBron is an unselfish player his leadership skills are lacking, and he could never raise even stacked teams to the level of winning championships consistently. If you’re supposed to be the greatest, you can’t keep pointing and saying well yeah but he had to play against team X who was really good. He should be that team.
LeBron has never won a ring without a MVP caliber player bailing him out. This is nonsense, saying he dragged Wade Kyrie and AD is ridiculous.
Didn’t realize dragging teams to the Finals and LOSING was the main component in influencing WINNING 🤔
Yep. You need to add a lot of caveats to put him amongst the all time great. I have never seen a player that his teammates are so disrespected as those who played or play with LeBron. It’s uncanny.
Guys finally figuring out what Kendrick Perkins figured out 6 years ago. $$$$$
Both can be true. Yeah he dragged some crappy teams to the finals but to Barkley’s point he’s needed stacked teams to win
but see that’s my thing with barkley, respect to the legends that paved the way, but their isn’t a superstar who won who didn’t have a supreme team (no pun), no star is like i won’t the least amount of help so i can take all the credit
and he did the same thing he just didn’t finish the job
It’s almost like it’s a team sport or something
lol… literally every team Bron took to the finals was stacked af with the exception of that first Cavs team, but even there he had two all stars
(G)oes (O)n (A)nother (T)eam. Yep, he’s the goat alright.
This guy has so many bad takes. Lebron has superstars attached to every chip he has.
LEBRON’S TEAMS WERE OVER STACKED WITH HOF PLAYERS COMPARED TO JORDAN!!! Jordan had Pippen and Rodman going to HOF , LeBron had Wade, Bosh, Kyrie, Anthony Davis, Luka plus Kevin Love and possibly Jaylen Brown will make the HOF , he only dragged that one bum Cleveland Team to a finals WHAT ARE Y’ALL TALKING ABOUT????!!???? 😅😅😅😅🤦🏾🤦🏾🤦🏾🤦🏾
the guy is an absolute legend, no doubt. top 3 player all time. at that stage you could make a case for him, MJ or Kareem as your GOAT, ALL have a valid case. but i’m sorry, he’s always made it a point to try to engineer superteams. until he went West, Lebron played in the weaker conference, on stacked teams basically after 2010.
the 2007 Finals run? absolutely a “he dragged this team” kinda deal. after he went to South Beach, he always had 2 other All Stars and you could make an argument (not saying they ABSOLUTELY WERE, but you could make a case) that his best teammate (Wade/Kyrie) was the next best player in the conference, definitely at least top 5.
the Celtics were too old by the time he got to Miami then he poached Ray Allen to further weaken them. the Pacers’ main guys were too young (PG), always injured (Granger) or overrated/obsolete (Hibbert). the Hawks/Raptors were frauds. Giannis hadn’t become GIANNIS yet until he left for LA. the gaudy “8 straight Finals” stat would not have happened if he’d played all 8 of those seasons in the West, even with the stacked squads
and once again he’s ducking the harder conference to join a stacked deck - i’d bet he wanted the chance to win for a fourth different team to try to burnish his GOAT credentials
he didnt drag dwyane wade and chris bosh thats for sure, if he didnt had dwyane wade there is no way Miami would have got 2 rings
4-6 in the finals no goat has a losing record in a championship game
Lebron’s teams were custom-tailored to fit around him, and those teams gave up their futures to win now with him.
Jordan was a dude who played on a team, and they added pieces when he left, because he didn’t force the Bulls to make concessions to join them: he won with them.
Imagine helping a team win a championship…..and the narrative is you are some deadweight which has been dragged to the chip by a Diva……no wonder Kyrie hated getting dragged into Lebrons narrative
You’d have to be really dense to think he’s talking about anything other than rosters like the 07 and 18 Cavs, which were objectively dragged kicking and screaming to the finals by Bron.
You forgot to change your flair to sixers…..
Now imagine how Jordan’s team mates felt.
He’s not talking about the 2016 Cavs lmao
And people think Jordan’s team mates dont get any/enough credit lol. It’s true Lebron has dragged some terrible rosters farther then they should have gone but it’s also true he’s played with some of the most talent in the history of the NBA like alot of other great players because thats what you need to win.
How do you think Scottie Pippen feels when fans give Jordan credit for being 6-0 in the Finals but not him? Jordan is the only player from those teams who gets to use 6-0 to elevate his status.
If LeBron goes to 4 franchises and wins a championship with all of them, it will be a remarkable achievement.
Jordan joined one of the worst teams in the league and got them 1 win away from the playoffs without stacking it.
LeBron is joining his Superfriends again to form the Avengers.
LeBron deserves all the flowers, no doubt. But MJ affected winning so much he never lost a finals appearance. And he got the absolute best out of teammates who didn’t even like each other. You don’t see the 98 Bulls meeting up for anniversary vacations.
Look at the teams LeBron was in the finals with:
07: Is a team with Gooden, Hughes, Z even a .500 team?
11-14: Take LeBron off those Heat teams and they still have Wade, Bosh. Not that they’d win the finals without LeBron, but that’s still a 50 win team who could make the conference Finals.
15-18: No LeBron in Cleveland, but same story as in Miami, Love and Kyrie without LeBron and the Cavs are still above .500. They won’t make the finals, but could be a 2nd round exit team.
20: All the Lakers had would’ve been AD, and I don’t think they make it past the first round
So only 2 teams I think would have suffered big time without him. None are winning without him, but only 2 of those teams I don’t see making it to at least the 2nd round.
It’s a cycle, players won’t gas the top guy of their gen while competing because it looks bad on them. But at a certain point it shifts. Usually when the whole gen is retired.
Happened with Jordan and we are officially almost there with LeBron
Both a King and LeDrag Queen
The player with the greatest influence on winning all time is obviously Bill Russell lmfao this isn’t even a contest
Then there’s another celtics great named Larry Bird that took a 29 win celtics team to 61 wins his rookie year. In Bird’s first 9 seasons in the league the celtics won 61, 62, 63, 56, 62, 63, 67, 59, and 57 games. Then he was injured his 10th year (only played 6 games) and the Celtics went 42-40, despite still having McHale, Parish, and Johnson. Then Bird returned and they won 52, 56, and 51 games in his final 3 seasons before retiring. After Bird retired, the Celtics wouldn’t win 50 games in a season for 16 years when the Big 3 2008 Celtics were formed and won the championship.
You could also argue that Kareem has a bigger impact on winning, seeing as he’s the only guy with comparable longevity to Lebron but he absolutely dwarfs Lebron in championships and win percentage. Kareem is 12th in all time regular season win%, while Lebron isn’t even top 25. And Kareem also has more MVPs than any other player in history
Literally the worst finals winning percentage in the history of the sport (22-33). Only reason he made so many finals is cause he played in the Leastern Conference at that time. He doesn’t make half of those finals if he’s in the west.
This debate is a losers race and always has been
I’m convinced that most NBA fans and media don’t actually like basketball, judging by the comments. I don’t know of any other sport where people try to hard to constantly hate on the past and current greats of the game, instead of just appreciating them for what they’ve contributed. It’s pathetic.
He only dragged that early calves team to the finals that was not full of talent. Every other team has been stacked.
1994 Bulls (Jordan absent playing baseball) almost made it to the Finals. Some late game questionable calls vs the Knicks.
This almost reads like hes being sarcastic knowing Pierce and considering the team Bron just joined. Pierce is the type of dude that would compliment you only because it makes him look good