1. LeBron himself formed a Super Team in Miami well before Durant helped do so in Golden State
2. Yes those great Bulls teams would beat these Warriors
Teams with a big 3 like Miami and Boston arent comparable to the what the Warriors have created.
For your second statement, that can never be proven either way so arguing about it is pointless
BTW those bulls teams are still to this day my favorite team of all time. And I like Jordan more than lebron. Kobe is my favorite of all time. Lebrons politics are disgusting and probably the main reason zit hates him
But this shouldn't be an emotional argument. Lebron is a better basketball than Jordan based on all the facts.
You're right it can never be proven but just look at the players.
Rodman would destroy Green on the boards & defensively.
Harper would make things a little tougher on Curry & Kerr would match him on his open look 3pointers he would get.
Pippen was one of top defenders ever & would make things harder on Durant not to mention Kevin would have to try & cover Scottie on the other end.
And then there's MJ who nobody on the Warriors can even begin to cover & Jordan also one of best defenders ever to shadow Durant or Klay.
I think Golden State would get smoked...
Physicality is one variable of defense. You could do more, but a lot of the guys "doing more" couldn't really do much else. Why teams were still scoring 106ppg until 1991 (and this is with significantly less +EV 3's being taken) Yeah, John Starks or Craig Ehlo could be more physical with MJ than Iguodala or Kawhi can be with LeBron. But it's still John Starks and Craig Ehlo. This is why plenty of guys that aren't Jordan were able to score tons of points then, because the defense was bad.
Just because someone elbows someone in the gut once every 5 minutes doesn't make it great defense.
As far as the Pistons go, the NBA has done a great job of marketing that as this Little Brother beats Big Brother narrative where MJ was finally able to overcome his foes and rise to the throne. When in reality, all that really happened was the Pistons got old and the Bulls got better. They slogged through the regular season with 52 wins and almost lost to the Reggie Lewis-led Celtics in the rd before.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/DET/1991.html
People cite the 80's Pistons as this notch on MJ's resume when he didn't even beat them. That's not historical accuracy, it's Nike marketing.
There's become 2 MJ's over the years. The one that is the best/most accomplished player of all time by most reasonable metrics, and then the Nike Jordan that is basically this superpower that played with weak teammates, played the toughest defenses ever compared to his soft predecessors and beat the most stacked, toughest era of the NBA ever. The ladder is not a real person. It's just Nike/ESPN marketing
I don't really care but it has been pretty jarring to watch large portions of the NBA's history and the evolution of the game just get totally distorted because one guy needs to be built into a God-like figure so people will spend $500 on shoes.
I respect your opinion, you're one of the most knowledgeable people in here.
When all is said and done, I realize it's really hard to compare players from different eras. There is no doubt that guys today are bigger, faster and stronger than 20,30,40 years ago.
(And, significant rules have changed... the game has evolved. I used to think a guy that attempted 4-5 threes in a game was shooting a lot of them, now it's common for someone to
attempt 20 or more)
Which is why the best argument for Jordan is that if he played today, it isn't the weakness of the modern era that he would be able to exploit. It's that he would be able to stand on the shoulders of the games advances in the same way that Kevin Durant or LeBron or whoever else gets to.
What would make him better is that he would spend 1m a year on his body like LeBron does, be on whatever LeBron is on for from a "supplements" standpoint, shoot 10 3's a game on good efficiency (I doubt they even had a 3pt line at his HS), run more pick and rolls rather than ISO. He would probably be like a 6'6 Westbrook that could shoot. Or something.
If he was born in 1982 instead of 1961, he would likely be the best player in the league right now. But this is so hypothetical that it can't really be the reason he is better than Best Player X to play after him so it has to be all this other stuff that can fill airwaves. So people rely on all of these other things that just can easily be refuted in 5 minutes.
It's changed but you guys conflate the eras it has changed in.
1984 to roughly 1991, it was easier to score...1992 to say 2004 it was harder to score.
2004 to 2012 it was easier than 92-04 but harder than before that. LeBron played in that era and played against good defenses of that era like the Celtics, Pistons. They couldn't be as physical but they were more athletic and exploited the newer zone rules by having an agile big on the back end (KG, Wallace)
The NFL is a little different, it's basically just one long line of getting easier and easier to score. But the NFL doesn't try to rely on silly historical arguments to sell their product the way the NBA/NBA media does.
The NBA/NBA media loves asking these questions that can never be answered, gets so much mileage out of it. ESPN will be running LeBron/MJ segments for the next 30 years. Hopefully some 7ft freak with point guard and 3pt skills comes along and just crushes everyone so it can be done away with.
Yes you're right it can never be answered, but it's fun debate.
It's like anything else in life, you aren't going to change someone's mind once it's decided.
President Trump could reveal himself as Jesus Christ himself, but those who dislike him would continue to do so.
But just like in politics, you have those with an opinion who are uneducated on the topic at hand.
Who's making the call on Jordan or LeBron being the greatest?
Those of who have followed the NBA religiously since a child & have seen both play regularly their whole careers (not just watched highlights from the past), or the casual sports fan who primarily followed the NFL, NCAA, or MLB, and rarely watched basketball?
There's a lot of factors in these opinions of many.
Regardless, i enjoy the discussion & hearing opinions of other known sports fans such as yourselves.
My issue isn't with people calling MJ the best of all time.
I think based on the combination of his team/individual accolades he deserves to be called that. I'm moreso just pointing out the complete lionization/fabrication of the time period he played in to build him up. It's just inaccurate.
I watched all of these games, I saw Dan Majerle covering him in the '93 finals (probably the zenith of MJ's career as he averaged 41 a game in this series en route to the 3peat) and trust me the D was pretty bad.
Kobe Bryant isn't as good as LeBron James or Michael Jordan but played against much tougher defense than both of them. He didn't get to play in the 80's when it was so easy to score and he was washed up/retired before the pace and space, wide-open game we have today. They took away the illegal defense rule that helped Jordan right as Kobe was coming into his prime. He also had to face guys that were more physically comparable to him than Jordan did. As Jordan was 1 of the 1st of that 6'6 super-athletic wingman breed. By the time Kobe was in the league, a lot of teams had guys like this.
This is game 6 of the '93 finals. Majerle does such a bad job on MJ that they have to switch Kevin Johnson onto him. Kevin Johnson is 6'1.
If you get to the finals and get to see these guys instead of Kawhi Leonard or Andre Iguodala, probably a good thing, not a bad thing........Best defender MJ saw on the big stage was easily Gary Payton (consensus best PG defender of all time) in '96 and guess what? He didn't have a great series at all by his standards. Like anyone else, he does worse against better competition than bad competition. Why? Because he's a human being. Not a Nike Superhero.
Also, because of GP's pedigree the refs actually let him play very, very physical with Jordan. Something most other players weren't allowed to do once it was clear that MJ was the cash cow.
