GOATed, Part 2: Why MJ’s ring in ‘97 holds more weight than LeBron’s in ‘16

Another common misconception I always see on NBA twitter everyday, is that Lebron in 2016 had to go through much more adversity than Jordan ever had to, in order to get a ring. This couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Not only did Jordan have to go through more adversity in ‘97, but the same argument could be made that he had to go through more in ‘98 as well. But I’ll just be focusing on ‘97 for now, because it’s so blatantly obvious Jordan did more with less in ‘97.

And if we’re going to factor in that Lebron is 35 this season still going for a ring, then we’re going to factor in that Lebron was 31 in ‘16 and Jordan was 34 in ‘97.

Like I said in the beginning, Jordan did more with less. Yes. I hate to break it to you guys(not really), but Pippen and Rodman were not as effective in the playoffs in ‘97, than Kyrie and Kevin Love.

“But he had a HOF coach” okay? Yes that helps but HOF coaches don’t win championships by themselves. A perfect example of this Phil Jackson’s 3peat Lakers in ‘03 getting embarrased by Popovich’s Spurs in ‘03.

This playoff run by Tim Duncan is one of the greatest of all-time. Both Shaq and Kobe averaged 25+ with Kobe averaging 32ppg on 43%, Shaq 25 on 56%. Duncan didn’t have a teammate averaging over 15ppg, Tony averaging 14.8ppg on 41%. Manu 12ppg on 51%.

Phil Jackson was already established as one of the greatest coaches of all-time, meanwhile Popovich had only one ring to his name and was a 7th year coach. It goes to show that your BEST player impact on BOTH ends of the floor MATTERS.

Yes we all know that the Lakers were going through problems with Shaq and Kobe’s chemistry, but that same Spurs team got embarrased the next year once a 40 year old Karl Malone entered the chat and clamped Duncan the following year. Player impact matters.

Jordan had less help. This shouldn’t even be a hot take, because it’s factually true, but he did. Pippen averaged 19ppg on a whopping 42%. 48% eFg. No other Bulls teammate had 8ppg in the playoffs.

No other *championship* team in the history of the NBA has had only 2 10+ppg scorers ever. Kukoč had 7.9ppg on 36%. Harper 7.5ppg on 40%. If Lebron won with this supporting cast, imagine what twitter would be like? We’d be reminded by ESPN everyday Lebron did this.

The only reason why they don’t talk about Jordan like this, is because ESPN wants to generate ratings and ad revenue by consistently talking about LeBron in detail because they market towards kids who don’t truly watch basketball. I’m sorry, but ESPN doesn’t respect greatness

Not ONLY did Jordan carry offensive loads, but almost led the bulls in 5/5 categories for the entire playoffs. He was .53 rbds away, and .05bpg away. Jordan actually did led in 5/5 for the last 3 rounds.

Dennis Rodman’s stats were almost laughable in the last 3 rounds. 4/8/2/.6/.2 on 33%. I get that what Rodman brings to the game can’t be measured, as he frequently trash talked players out of games. But come on now?

Again, imagine if Lebron won a ring with his 3rd best player averaging these numbers. Oh my god, Lebron fans would find all types of advanced stats to prove nobody ever could pull off such a carry job.

Jordan had as many rebounds as Rodman over the last 3 rounds. Jordan led his team in assists. Only 3 single digit scorers averaged a better fg% than MJ. Lol, but this is the amazing help that Jordan needed?

Now let’s look at Lebron’s help. His 3rd best scorer, Kevin Love averaged .1 less ppg than Jordan’s second best scorer on 39%, 48% eFg, just like Pippen. Lebron had the 8th best FT% on his own team, despite averaging the most FTA, by 1.7.

Jordan, by far, averaged the most FTA, by 3.3 from the next player, Pippen. Jordan was #2 in FT% on his own team, trailing only behind Kerr, who averaged .7 FTM, and .7 FTA.

Once again, imagine if Jordan averaged the 8th best FT% on his team, yet won a ring? Lebron fans would never ever let it rest, adding to their “Jordan had more help” list.

Even better, Kyrie avg’ed the next most FTA with 4.2, and shot a team best 88%. Pippen had the 3rd best % on his team too. So atleast Jordan could rely on Pippen to make his FTs, unlike Kyrie with Lebron.

“Lebron had more DW/S!! He carried more of a defensive load!!” First off, DW/S ≠ defensive impact. Secondly, Lebron is leading AD in DW/S as I write this, why isn’t Lebron in the DPOY race this year?

Against the only team that could truly even be considered a challenge in the East, the Raptors, Lebron led his team in 5/5 categories, but he padded his way to it.

In G1: by the 3rd QTR, the game is put away at 66-46 Cavs. Kyrie has 18pts on 8/11 and LeBron on 7/7. In the 3rd QTR, Lebron puts up 10 on 4/6, Kyrie 9 on 3/6. I don’t care what you say, that’s statpadding.

In G5 - Lebron put up 4pts on 2/5 in the 1st QTR, meanwhile he got outscored and outplayed by his whole starting 5, as they went 13/18 combined. The score at the end of the 1st was 37-19 Cavs.
(This alone proves that Lebron had more help than MJ)

Lebron then proceeds to go 8/12 for the next 3qtrs, playing more mins than his entire starting 5. At half, Cavs are up by 30. In the 3rd qtr alone, Lebron puts up 11 on 4/5. Yes you can pad other stats too besides, pts.

Which he did with ASTs, as his team scored 35pts in the 3rd yet Lebron was the ONLY player on his team to record an AST(2), besides Dellavedova(1), in the 3rd QTR.

In the Finals, Lebron beat the 73-9 Warriors after leading both teams in 5/5 categories. Amazing right? Well yeah, if you completely leave out the fact he padded, and played bad defense.

G1: 4th QTR, 76-68 GSW. Shaun Livingston lights up the Cavs for 10pts in the 4th while Bron goes 2/4 and 5pts. Lebron gets outscored by his PG and a bench player with game 1 on the line. Sure his team shot bad, doesn’t mean he should too.

G3: With the game put away by the 4th at 89-69 Cavs, Lebron proceeded to pad his stats by scoring 8pts and playing more minutes than his starters.

Sure the Cavs outscored the Warriors in the 4th, but Lebron already had 24 pts at this point before the 4th. I’m not entirely sure he needed to score anymore, but he padded anyway.

G6: I can’t wait to hear: “ELiMiNaTiOn GaMe, FiNaLs oN tHe LiNe” The Cavs were already up 31-11 by the 1st, andCurry fouled out with 4:22 left, by far their best scorer. MJ never had the benefit of a teams best scorer fouling out of an elimination game + their best def suspended.

Curry already had 30 at this point as well, he shot 40% from 3 in the second half leading up to this point, and the game was 99-87. Jordan never had the benefit of getting bailed out in back to back elimination games in the Finals like that.

In G3: 13/32. Lebron scored 13 points out of his 32 from being up by 15+.
In G6: 19/41. 19 out of Lebron 41 points came from being up by 15+.

Mind you, that from all of the times Lebron scores points from being up, or down 10+, only twice did those points come from a 10-12 point deficit. The rest are all between 13-24 point deficits.

This is the Finals, so ofcourse you can say it came out of necessity... but most of the games were blow outs. It’s clear Lebron pads his stats in Finals series just to save face. He did this in 14 and 17 as well. That’s why I don’t take his ‘17 Finals trip-dub seriously.

So now that we clearly see Lebron’s stats aren’t as impressive with context, let’s compare look and see if we see how many times Lebron& Jordan scored from a 15 point or more deficit for the ENTIRE PLAYOFFS.

There are 47 examples of Lebron scoring at a 15 or more deficit in the entire 2016 playoffs. There are 22 examples of Jordan scoring at a 15 point or more deficit.

I measured these at a 10 or more deficit, so that means 22/51, or 43% of Jordan’s examples came from a deficit of 15 or more. Lebron had 47/64, or 73% examples come for a deficit of 15 or more. Proof:

The major difference here, is Lebron had way more offensive help than Jordan did. Just to add to the fact that Lebron takes more 3s than Jordan, so it’s VERY safe to assume a higher % of his points, not attempts, were from blowout situations.

Not to also add that 4 out of the 19 games Jordan played resulted in 15+ or more deficit,
Lebron has 4 of those alone in the finals, not to mention game 6 ended at a 14 point deficit.
11/21 games he played ended in a 15+ or more deficit.

Not to ALSO add that Jordan played in a triangle offense. If you know anything about basketball, you’d know that this deflates a players stats, as it promotes everyone to be a playmaker.

Meanwhile Lebron played in a system on the Cavs where they rely on him to be the main playmaker and they completely get lost when he’s on the bench, just like how the Lakers this year “seem” to be bad without him.

And this is why it’s cringeworthy when the advanced metrics worshippers try to say Lebron is better than Kobe, cause he beats him out in stats. When you add CONTEXT, you know that Kobes stats weren’t as appealing because of this.

Want a stat, advanced metrics-devotees? Jordan is 4/8 in game winning/tying shots in the finals with under 25 secs left. Lebron is 0/6. Jordan had TWO in ‘97, in both G1&5.

Saying Steve Kerr saved Jordan like how Ray Allen saved Lebron doesn’t sound so good anymore, does it Lebron fans? Lebron also went 1/4 and 3 TOs in the last 4 mins of that game of the qtr until Ray Allen, btw.

But Lebron beat the 73-9 Warriors, that means he beat a team that’s better than Jordan beat, right? Well, eh.

First off the 90s was a more competitive era, and 80s and 90s players did better against the players of 00s than they did in the 80s and 90s.

There are many, many examples of this out there, but a PERFECT one is Karl Malone. Like I mentioned earlier, in 03,Duncan had one of the greatest finals runs of all time, absolutely embarrassing Shaq, and this time Kobe couldn’t carry Shaq.

So what do the Lakers do? Sign a 40 year old Karl Malone. Next year, in 04, fresh off a FMVP, Duncan proceeds to get held to one of his worst playoff series EVER. The Lakers added Gary Payton too, but he didn’t make much of a difference, as seen in the Finals.

Secondly, Lebron played way lower quality teams to get to the Finals. Jordan didn’t have the luck of playing a 4th seed 48-34 team in the 2nd round w/ 0 all-NBA players.

Jordan didn’t get to play a 56-26 in his ECF match up without their big man for most of those games. Sure, they both played a 44-38 team in the first round because they were both the first seed, but legacies aren’t made in the first round.

Jordan had to play a 56-26 team in the second round, who did have their best big man. Jordan had to play a 61-21 team in the ECF, with their best big man. Jordan had to play a 64-18 team in the finals, with their best big man.

Jordan played a HOFer in every round too. I HIGHLY doubt Andre Drummond, Jeff Teague, DeRozan, and Jonas are all making the HOF. Some players maybe, like Kyle Korver, Horford, Lowry, Luis Scola might make it, but I HIGHLY doubt it.

Jordan‘s opponents total record = 225/103
Lebron’s opponents total record = 221/107

So even though Lebron played the “better” team, he still didn’t play better competition overall. Mind you, that he had more help, and he still needed many things to go his way in order to pull off this ring.

Its absolutely asinine how much Lebron fans will pump up his achievements, and then downplay Jordan’s without having any idea of what actually happened. Boxscore stats do not mean much without CONTEXT.

Lebron would have to have the 2-3 best years of his career beating high levels of competition in the West+rings to solidify him as the GOAT. The more and more you learn about Jordan, the more you realize it’s STILL not close.

Lebron has never beaten a 60+ win team in his conference to WIN a championship, Lebron has never WON a championship with his teammates collectively averaging less than 56ppg. Jordan did the latter twice(97,98)

Mind you Lebron has played atleast one team every year from 15-18 that had their 1st, 2nd or 3 best player injured. Mind you Lebron beat 3 teams with less than 50 wins each in 2013, and then barely scraped by the Spurs.

Jordan is still so far and away the GOAT, it’s not even funny. Lebrons resume, nor stats compare with context added. I don’t wanna hear about Lebron doing more than anyone anymore. There’s only 1 GOAT. And that’s Michael Jordan.