Wiggins
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Cleveland/Lebron’s ultimate goal was to win a championship and take away the freak injury to love, i’m pretty sure they would have won it all. So, the trade was the right move esp since no one knew what they were getting with Wiggins.
i personally wouldn’t have done it and kept Wiggins- but for whatever reason- either Wiggin’s not so stellar performance while @ KU or maybe Chalmer’s really turned him off on KU…Lebron wanted to go the other direction.
I wouldn’t have done it, but can’t blame cleveland- they wanted to win and did what they thought was the right thing @ that point in time.
if they did win a championship, everyone on this board would be much quieter or singing a different tune.
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@elpoyo but they didn’t, and meanwhile Wigs keeps getting stronger!
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but…the trades were not the reason why they didn’t win, like it has been implied in many posts, injuries were the real reason and that is something that cannot be planned. Look at Oklahoma, they had assembled a Championship contender and then injuries to Ibaka, Westbrooke, most of all Durant and even Collison, made them into an also run.
Th trade worked out well for Wiggins, who is with a team where he was given lots of playing time to move up the learning curve with little or no pressure; a perfect spot for a talented yet inexperienced player. Had he stayed in Cleveland and much like Mario in Miami, he would have been at the receiving end of LeBron’s bad moods. No question the LeBron is the best player in the world right now, and when he is done he will be top 3 of all-time…maybe even the best, but as a teammate he is very…shall we say…high-maintenance?
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“when he is done he will be top 3 of all-time…”
I’m curious who you have in that top 3? Wilt, Michael J, and LeBron?
I respect and admire LeBron’s game. Hard not to. But I’m not sure where to put him amongst the greats of basketball. Not sure I could put him in the top 3. But not to take anything away from LeBron.
What factors are most-important in determining the top 3? Career stats? Eye test? Importance to the team? Monumental performances?
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@JayHawkFanToo Top 3? Best all time? Not so sure about that… Wilt #1 I have about 5-10 guys in front of Lebron. Its a fun debate, but my opinion is if LBJ is the best or top 3 player of all time, then why cant he win a championship without making a damn all star team?
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@JayHawkFanToo the only thing I care about in that scenario is Wigs and his development.
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I wouldn’t call LeBron’s Miami teams “all-star” - Dwayne Wade was the only other true superstar on that team. I like Bosh, but he wasn’t always a high-producer, and they never had a real good point guard (sorry but LeBron and Wade made Mario look better than he is). And we’re now starting to see Wade take the path of Kobe late in his career… The success of those teams was largely due to LeBron with Wade as the sidekick; every good team has a good supporting cast.
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I don’t know about top 3 but Lebron is definitely top 5.
Jordan, Wilt, Oscar Robinson or Lebron (those are interchangeable), and Kareem.
I’m not sure how you can keep Lebron out of the top 5.
I could go on and on about this one. Jordan is the greatest ever. But he’s not untouchable. Couldn’t win with an average team but got help then took over the league.
I always find it amusing that people say “Jordan, Magic, Bird, Kareem are easily top 5”. And they just happened to play around the time the media exploded and just happened that they were the ones they watched growing up. Get some perspective people! 4 of the greatest players to ever play the game just happened to play in the same decade by coincidence? Come on now.
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@Crimsonorblue22 said:
but they didn’t, and meanwhile Wigs keeps getting stronger!
wig would be getting stronger no matter what. Not sure what your point is here.
this comment reminds me of a typical MU trash fan…KU didn’t win the Natl championship, meanwhile, MU keeps on getting stronger.
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@elpoyo Ewww! I don’t think Wigs would have developed as fast w/Lebron coaching the team.
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@JhawkAlum I like Russel and a few others more, but top 6-8 is easy
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You make a point and then immediately contradict it. You talk about James not winning a title without and all-star team and then you have Wilt at #1…How many titles did Wilt win? Two, the same as LeBron…and Mario Chalmers…and they are still playing with a chance of getting more; Bill Russel has 11.
The knock on Chamberlain is that he had great individual stats but his teams always lost. He played against Bill Russel and the Celtic 8 playoff series and each time he had better stats than Russell but the Celtics won 7 of the 8 series. Makes you think, doesn’t it? This is one of the reason why many rank Russel ahead of Chamberlain and cite that he made his teams better.
At this time, Michael Jordan is probably the top player but with a good run in the remainder of his playing days, LeBron can catch him. I don’t care much for LeBron as an individual but as a player, he is not only great but he is an athletic freak as well. He is the only player since Magic that can play all 5 position competently.
I just browsed over several “top xx NBA players of all time” rankings and none has Wilt at #1, many don’t even have him in the tops 5. As much as you and I like Wilt, the rest of the world does not seem to thinks he is the best of all time.
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I am with @Crimsonorblue22 on this one. At Cleveland, Wiggins would not have had as much playing time as he had last season with the Wolves and he would have not developed nearly as much as he did.
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@JayHawkFanToo said:
I am with @Crimsonorblue22 on this one. At Cleveland, Wiggins would not have had as much playing time as he had last season with the Wolves and he would have not developed nearly as much as he did.
True, but take love out, and put wiggins in…with Kyrie’s injury, Wiggins playing time would have increased dramatically in the playoffs…and the experience he would have gotten…playoffs and the finals- you can’t recreate that and even with Kyrie out and wiggins in, Cavs chances of winning it all become very very doable. IMO they would have won the playoffs with that setup
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Ah, yes…and if my aunt had balls she would be my uncle. Way too many hypothetical situations and assumptions. My point was simply that “development-wise,” Wiggins ended up in a much better situation with the Wolves than he would have been with the Cavs. I am sure that we can go back and forth on this issue and probably will end up in the same place…agree to disagree?
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@JayHawkFanToo Wilt- They had to chagne the rules because of him…goaltending, 3 sec lane, etc. Russel had how many hall of famers on his teams?
Lebron is good, but not anywhere near top 5, in my opinon. Thats all this is, opinions.
I respectfully disagree with you, Wilt is the greatest basketball player of all time. Maybe not the best winner, but he made them change the rules of basketball.
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Cleveland hung in with a ton of injuries even without Wigs.
With Wigs, and a few less injuries, maybe even just with Wigs and the same injuries, Cleveland almost certainly would be hanging a banner.
I don’t see how Wigs would not have made Cleveland sharply better than they were during the play-offs.
And careers tend to go better with championships won.
I reckon a championship would make Wigs an even hotter property than he already is.
Wigs increasingly appears to have been sand bagging at KU.
He apparently could have stepped in and had a very good season with any team in the NBA, I reckon.
Playing with Lebron?
My god, Wigs would hardly have been guarded at all much of the time with the overshifting and help needed to keep Lebron under wraps; that could only have helped Wigs.
Wigs might have scored quite a bit more on Cleveland than in the land of Chainsaw Ice Sculptures and no Lebrons.
It only seems logical that a player’s scoring, or at least scoring efficiency, goes up when they get to play with a great player, instead of being the focus of another team’s defense, while playing for a weak team.
Right?
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Please note that I wrote…
"At this time, Michael Jordan is probably the top player."
This is by no means a statement of fact or even an endorsement, but simply and observation based on what the prevailing opinion is. Also, the basketball rules were still in flux at the time, as the game had just started to take off. Had Jabbar or Olajuwon or another similar player would have come along at that time instead of Wilt, chances are the rules would have been changed as well. This by no means diminishes what Wilt accomplished and he should, by all means, be in the conversation for top player.
Again, we all have our own opinions and as such, they are not right or wrong. I am not saying that Wilt is or isn’t the best player of all time, frankly, I don’t know who I would pick. All I am saying is that the prevailing opinion (and by not means absolute) is that Jordan is at the top. Retired players can no longer do anything to change that, so the only active player with a chance of doing enough to overtake Jordan appears to be LeBron. That’s all.
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To properly assess the trade, you’re asking three questions.
First, how does this help us right now, because the long term is hard to pin down in sports?
Second, what do we have to give up that could otherwise help us right now?
Third, is there another way to get what we need without giving anything (or as much) up?
Now let’s answer those questions.
Cleveland got Love, a top 15 player in the NBA. That helps them become much more offensively diverse because Love can score both in the post and on the perimeter, and, for all his shortcomings as an individual defender, he is one of the best rebounders in the league on both ends. He would certainly have helped in the Finals because unlike Tristan Thompson and Mozgov, Love is an actual low post scorer. He would have really made Golden State think about constantly playing small because he could have dominated inside against smaller defenders, and he is such a skilled passer that tons of open threes would have been there for the taking, not to mention the gravity he creates in the post. GS played the entire Finals guarding the post one on one with smaller guys. They don’t do that if Love is on the floor. So you get one of the best 10 offensive players in the NBA, and an elite rebounder with defensive deficiencies. Pretty good.
So what are you giving up? I’m going to focus on Wiggins and Bennett here, even though there are other parts to the trade. Bennett had what most people consider to be the worst rookie season of a number one pick in at least 15 years. Kwame Brown was better. Bennett was out of shape, then ineffective. That’s what Cleveland saw from Bennett. He wasn’t hurt. He was just bad. The entire league saw that. There were a lot of people questioning whether Bennett could actually play in the NBA after that rookie season - not if he would become a good player - if he could stay in the league. That’s HUGE when evaluating trade value. Bennett was on a bullet train to Bust-ville. So his value was very limited.
Adding in Wiggins, the #1 pick that everyone agrees has tons of potential can get you a top 15 player. So now the question is “When will Wiggins become a top 20 NBA player?” As a rookie, certainly not, doubtful his second year, either. Best case scenario, Wiggins becomes a top 20 NBA player in his third season. Love is a top 15 player right now.
So Cleveland knows that Wiggins may be an MVP candidate in five years, and will likely be a potential all star in three years, but probably will be just a rotation level or starter level player the next two years. That matters, because Cleveland’s championship window likely closes (or remains only slightly ajar) once Lebron passes 33. You get four shots with the James/Love/Irving group (including last season) with all four coming with those guys as potentially elite players. You only get 2 shots with a James/Wiggins/Irving combo all as elite players because Wiggins is not yet an elite NBA player.
Here are Wiggins’ lines of Points, Rebounds, Assists, Steals and Blocks, broken out by month for his rookie season, along with a comp for that line:
November - 12.3/3.8/1.0/1.1/0.5 (Kyle Korver without the 3s)
December - 14.6/4.1/1.8/0.9/0.6 (James Posey about 10 years ago, but with fewer steals)
January - 19.8/4.6/2.5/1.4/0.6 - Reggie Miller in the mid 90’s, with more rebounds, but with fewer 3s, assists and a much lower shooting %.
February - 16.8/4.8/2.3/1.0/0.8 - Cedric Maxwell of the early 80’s Celtics, but with fewer rebounds
March - 17.9/4.8/1.8/0.8/0.5 - Cedric Maxwell again
April - 23.3/6.0/4.0/1.0/0.9 - Young Ray Allen around 2000, 2001
Overall - 16.9/4.6/2.1/1.0/0.6 - Cedric Maxwell is close, but was always a better rebounder than Wiggins was last year. That season doesn’t exactly scream all time great. Maxwell was exactly what Wiggins projected as last year - a solid starter on a title caliber team (which Maxwell was) but not a star by any means.
Could Cleveland have landed Love or his equivalent without giving up what they did? Absolutely not. There’s just no way Minnesota does the deal (surrender top 15 player) for anything less than Wiggins and Bennett.
So there are the three answers. Wiggins will eventually be an outstanding player, but by the time he is that guy, Lebron will be 32 or 33 and Cleveland will be fading.
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See my reply to @elpoyo.
By the way, when you say that: “Wigs increasingly appears to have been sand bagging at KU.” In my opinion, you are not being fair to Wiggins and you diminish what he accomplished at KU. Wiggins did exactly what Coach Self asked him to do and he did it well and you never heard him complain or second guess the coaching staff. He had the best freshman season of any player ever at KU, better than even Danny Manning’s freshman season…that is quite a feat, don’t you think. Obviously we disagree on this so there is no need to reply, let’s each of us have our own opinion and move on.
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This whole business of “top whatever” in the league is mostly a popularity contest. That’s why no one mentions Kobe Bryant. His career highlights and awards exceeds LeBron’s in some categories, lower in others… still…
5× NBA champion (2000–2002, 2009–2010) 2× NBA Finals MVP (2009–2010) NBA Most Valuable Player (2008) 17× NBA All-Star (1998, 2000–2015) 4× NBA All-Star Game MVP (2002, 2007, 2009, 2011) 11× All-NBA First Team (2002–2004, 2006–2013) 2× All-NBA Second Team (2000–2001) 2× All-NBA Third Team (1999, 2005) 9× NBA All-Defensive First Team (2000, 2003–2004, 2006–2011) 3× NBA All-Defensive Second Team (2001–2002, 2012) NBA All-Rookie Second Team (1997) 2× NBA scoring champion (2006–2007) NBA Slam Dunk Contest champion (1997) Los Angeles Lakers all-time leading scorer Naismith Prep Player of the Year (1996)The league has had plenty of superstar players, all playing under different conditions. Impossible to just compare apples to apples. Without a good PG, a player typically won’t build a great stat line.
LeBron is pretty good under the eye test. But it relates mostly to his size and that he can do quite a bit for a guy his size. But skill wise… if you take out his size as a factor, he doesn’t really dominate anything else. His ball handling is good, not great. Shooting… good not great. Defending… good not great (when you toss out his height as a consideration).
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Bryant is at the end of his career while LeBron still has a few year to surpass Bryant…and I like Bryant a lot more than I do LeBron.
As far as defense…LeBron has consistently finished in the top 5 in the vote for Defensive POY and twice he has been the runner up. He has also been in the NBA All-defensive-team just about every year. He is currently the only player in the NBA that routinely defends all 5 positions. LeBron is not just a good defender he is one of the top defensive players in the League, as the vote for Defensive POY and inclusion in the All-defensive team appear to indicate.
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Good points! I think when most people think MVPs and top players they think of offense… but what may separate LeBron most is his quality defense riding along side his overwhelming offensive abilities.
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Jordan used to get the same criticism and he was a perennial All-Defensive-Team and Defensive POY one year, but people just thought of him not as a defender but as scorer and ball hog…which he also was…:(
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@drgnslayr you can’t take away what kind of player Lebron is because of his size and speed. That’s like taking away Jordan because he was more athletic than everyone else. They both are superior athletes to everyone on the court.
The frustrating part when talking to Jordan lovers is they want to hang championships as a measurement to being the greatest player. But if you bring up Russell, it’s because of the all star team he had. Their equation for championships/pure talent just happens to match up perfectly with who they watched growing up.
If you think championships measure the greatest, than it’s Russell. If it’s pure basketball talent, then you can’t automatically count out Lebron.
I openly admit, I grew watching Jordan and absolutely hated him. If people call Lebron arrogant, they must not remember Jordan’s post game comments and commercials. But personal opinions about the individual shouldn’t matter when discussing performance on the court.
When people ask “Which Lebron are we going to see? Magic or Jordan”? 2 of the top 3 players of all time in many people’s opinion, how can you keep him out of the top five?
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Good post!
It just isn’t possible that we judge these guys without our own personal biases getting involved. I definitely consider LeBron one of the greats. I just don’t know how to pick a list and try to defend it and not have it sound like I’m just picking my personal favorites that I like the most, or who I relate to most concerning style of play, or…
Putting LeBron in the top 3 means (for most of us anyways) putting him in company with MJ and Wilt. He may deserve to be there, but I’m not ready to discount the rest of the pile of greats in the process.
The closest thing I have towards a list is my top 2: Wilt and Michael. Who do I pick as #1? Got to go with Jordan. But if I was picking which player was the most-superior during his time, I might just flip over to Wilt.
I’m okay with my top 2 and still feel like I’m giving the proper credit to the rest of the crowd by not having them up there. So I have 1 and 2, and I sort of pile about 10 players in the next group, which would definitely include LeBron, and he sure wouldn’t be #10!
Is LeBron better than Bird? I can’t answer that. Both incredible players with a very different skill set. Should we favor athleticism more than court intelligence? I know, I know… LeBron certainly doesn’t lack basketball IQ, but Bird was a rare species of bird.
I don’t think we could find all the right footage… but I’d feel better ranking individual highlight plays. It would be great to find some of the best clips of all these top players and rank them… say… the Top 100!
What is the all-time greatest play in NBA history? I put it to all of you. If it is that great, there must be a clip of it to post from youtube! Bring on the gold and glitter to the fabulous careers of all these magnificent players!
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I’ll kick it off -
That’s art.
So do you prefer the “art” of LeBron or the “art” of Dr. J?
Considering art form surely has to be in everyone’s calculation for a player making top of the list.
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See my reply above, also.
FWIW, there is never a NEED to reply. There was no need for you to reply to my post. But it is always good to reply any time one has something to say in a civil way, right?
And, rest assured that I WANT you and I to retain our opinions and to express them and that neither of us ever has to fret about having a last word. There appears no last word on anything in this forum.
And FWIW, there is absolutely zero chance that either of us could or would deny the other an opinion. I am not even sure it is feasible to deny someone else an opinion. In my personal experience as an alias, I’ve never had one of my opinions denied me by someone else, have you? And I know I don’t even know how to deny anyone else their opinion. Don’t even have a clue how to deny someone else their opinion. Wouldn’t even want to if I could figure out how to.
Next, IMHO, we really don’t disagree substantively that I can see, except on whether Wigs would have done better with Cleveland than Minnesota. You apparently think he was better off in Minnie and I am at least equally confident he would have done even better in Cleveland playing with Lebron.
But that’s not really the essence of this IMHO. The essence has to do with whether or not Wigs was appearing to play something short of his performance envelope during his OAD season at KU.
You don’t appear to dispute that he appeared to play below his full capacity during his year at KU. You just appear to opine that I am out to diminish what he did at KU.
Well, I can put you completely at ease on that issue and NOT EVEN deny you having your opinion.
And here is how.
I don’t see how anyone could with a straight face doubt Wigs was performing something under his optimum while at KU. I mean, he proved he could throw big numbers up at a moments notice and then stop and work on other aspects of his game. He turned it off and on all season against lowly D1 players; then suddenly could perform big time against hardened NBA professionals. There just doesn’t appear to be any other credible explanation than that he was apparently protecting the merchandize in D1. Heck, when I have watched him in the NBA, he appears to be still holding back some.
And you don’t really dispute that, do you? Do you really think he just some how nonlinearly got to where he could torch some NBA players after not being able to torch D1 players? I just find that taxing credibility–a real stretch of imagination, if you will. I mean, most folks would say that Wigs could have gone straight to the pros and played were it not for the OAD rule. How could he light up NBA guys, but not lots of D1 guys? I just can’t quite fathom that?
Now let’s cut to the nub here and let me gush for you about Wigs, so you absolutely cannot mistake how extraordinary Wigs was.
Here is how awesome I think Wigs was and is. I think we may not see the full Wiggins package until after the start of his second contract–the one that brings in the mega-bones. I mean does he really owe the Timberwolves 100 percent effort and completely risking his body, since they are not yet paying him whatever the market will bear (only what the NBA draft apparatus allows), and they are a small market franchise with little chance to win big and so pay him whatever the market will bear? Should Wigs risk everything for the Timberwolves, who are not yet paying him nearly what the open market might bear. I mean this is a business, isn’t it? In business, professionals tailor what they do for their client to what the client is willing to pay, right. Professionals have minimum professional standards they are supposed to observe, but the pros rarely go above and beyond those standards unless the pay is commensurate, right? You get what you pay for in business, right?
What we are talking about is a professional basing his service above a minimum professional standard consistent with his fee given what the market would bear.
You see: I feel extremely fair to Wigs and I aim to extoll what he accomplished perhaps even beyond what you appear to do. To me, it is absolutely awesome what he accomplished appearing to play at perhaps 3/4 capacity, or so. I mean how many other players could have contributed what he did as a freshman, at what at least appeared something like 3/4 capacity? He was a cornerstone of a conference title team. As you said, his freshman season exceeded even Danny Mannings. I can’t think of another really good 17-18 year old, except maybe Lebron himself, that would have apparently played to protect himself from injury with an eye on the lottery, and still have been able to rack up the kind of numbers he did in the two image burnishing games he and his posse and Self at least appeared able to agree on to cut him loose in offensively. Who knows if this were how it really was, but it APPEARED that way.
Wigs was awesome at KU!
I have nothing but awe and respect for the way he and his parents appeared to manage his high school years, OAD year and his pro career so far. I mean he has almost zero wear and tear and he is already rookie of the year, isn’t he?
Far, far, FAR from diminishing what he accomplished, I want to call attention to it. I want to praise it. Based on appearances, it may have been the most phenomenally productive, apparent sand bagging performance in the history of basketball.
Only a great, great, GREAT talent could have done it IMHO.
But of course this is entirely opining and speculating about appearances and it is not assertions of fact based on inside knowledge.
Neither of us really knows, no matter how much we agree on somethings and disagree on others.
Ain’t that right?
Rock Chalk!!!
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P.S.: I am among those that still think Wigs WAS the greatest prospect since Lebron. Wiggins is a superbly talented basketball player on a path to becoming one of the all time greats. Go, Andrew, Go!!!
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@drgnslayr I’m smelling what you’re stepping in.
When we look at Lebron, he isn’t as sexy because sometimes he doesn’t play with the grace of other greats. He doesn’t dribble through the legs 7 times over and float up for the midrange as beautifully as Jordan. He doesn’t do the turnaround fade away while doubled teamed with consistently like Kobe can.
But with his size and strength, he gets to the bucket whenever he wants. He learned a post of game when a smaller players are guarding him. And he is now an above average shooter.
Though is he very potent offensively, the best thing he does is makes everyone better. It goes from guarding any position when there’s a weak spot in the defense to making bench players into valuable players.
To put into perspective, Bulls with Jordan won 58 games during the regular season. He retires for a year, and they won 55 games and Scottie was up for the MVP! Talk about an all star team! Not to mention everyone else stats went up.
Now fast forward to LeBron in Cleveland. He makes it to the finals with Mo Williams having a career year and being the second option of the team. Then when he leaves for Miami, Cleveland gets the first pick of the draft because they were so bad and Williams the surrounding players have worse stats.
First year in Miami, Lebron fell a part and that was inexcusable. Something Jordan would NEVER do. Got it. But then wins two Championships when Wade could barely finish a game. Look at the stats for the playoffs the rest of the three years with Wade and Bosh. Anyone want to say his team was stacked? No way.
Now this year is self explanatory. Everyone knows what Lebron did. Turns Mozgov into a one of the top Centers when the man couldn’t get ten points before Cleveland.
All this in saying, what makes Lebron great isn’t the beautiful offense, but everything else he does. His overall package of a player has never been seen and it’s impossible to keep him out of the top 5.
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Lebron is the best player in the world because he can fill in any blank at any time.
His greatness is in the diversity of his skills.
He can score from both inside and out, pass from both the perimeter and the post, rebound on either end and defend any position.
He’s the only player in NBA history to average 27 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists for his career (He’s actually almost 27/7/7, just 76 assists shy of that for his career). He’s had 53 triple doubles.
He’s been to the Finals now five years in a row and six times total.
By the time Lebron is done, there is a possibility that the sheer volume of his resume will be too great to ignore that he’s the best player ever. Lebron is great because Lebron could play with any other historical great and still be an incredible player because he can do everything well.
If Lebron decided that he would shoot less and just facilitate the offense, he could turn into Magic Johnson tomorrow (19 points, 11 assists, 7 rebounds) by simply converting some of those shot attempts into passes (he’s never had the luxury of being surrounded by enough scoring to do this, but he has averaged 7+ assists 7 times in his career).
He could become Michael Jordan by shooting more - (30 points, 5 assists, 6 rebounds) by shooting a bit more and passing less (he actually has had 3 seasons with those types of numbers in his career).
Name another great player that could just decide to morph into another great player, and could likely do so seemlessly? He could decide to just become an average offensive player and become a one man wrecking crew on defense a la vintage Ron Artest.
Lebron is average or above in literally every basketball category. He literally has zero actual weaknesses. He does some things better than others, but he is not below average at any basketball skill. That’s just uncanny.
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@justanotherfan When we get into best ever, championships are a part of that discussion. LeBron is now 2-4 in the finals. LeBron and MJ is a modern version of Russell and Wilt. LeBron is Wilt, if he wants to lead the league in a specific stat, he’s good enough that he can lead the league in a specific stat. Michael is Russell in that once his team was good enough, he won a championship every year. The only great team MJ never went through for a championship was the Rockets.
So if you pick Russell over Wilt, you have to pick MJ over LeBron and if you pick Wilt over Russell, then you have to pick LeBron over MJ once LeBron’s career is over.
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I agree with yours assessment but when you look at overall stats, keep in mind that Oscar Robertson averaged 25.7 points, 9.5 assists and 7.5 rebounds per game over the 14 years of his career; he is the only player to average a triple double for an entire season, a mark that will likely never be matched. Wilt himself averaged 30.1 points, 22.9 rebounds and 4.4 assists over a 16 year career and one year, he decided to lead the League in assists and he did…in addition to scoring 24.3 ppg; no other center has ever led the League in assists. In my opinion,. both are better number than LeBron. Wilt owns more records than any other player and it is not even close. These are just the first two players that come to mind and there are probably others, Jordan, Magic, Bird, Jabbar come to mind
Having said that, at 12 seasons LeBron still has at least 4 -5 season left…or 8 more…if like Kobe he plays 20 seasons, so he has plenty of time to improve his already impressive stats…
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We need to have this discussion AFTER LeBron leaves the game. Hard to say how much longer he sticks around and what he will do to his stat line, including, perhaps, add more titles.
This thread has been a very insightful (and entertaining) read!
I’d like to know what factors posters are using to determine “the greatest?”
There simply isn’t an objective method to figure that out.
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I have always advocated judging players as the best of their generation and creating a hall of fame to house all of the greats that time has prevented from competing against each other.
I have my favs that I “believe” are the best across the generations, but I really don’t “think” cross generation comparisons are decisively resolvable.
I “believe” Wilt would take Kareem, Lebron, or MJ in maker takes 9 times out of 1o. But hoops is a team game, so it is always doomed to variables impossible to measure and compare validly to talk about who is the “best.”
In each of their times, I would start my team with each of them and build around them. Period.
And even then I would expect some to opt for Big Russ over Wilt, and I reckon there were players in the NBA during Jordan’s era that were better in some ways the MJ. Same for Lebron. All of these guys required some super teammates and some super coaching, or GMing, or Presidenting, to win championships.
Only Big Russ and MJ won rings consistently.
And Big Russ won way more than MJ and even player-coached one, or two.
So, if I have to violate my own desire not to compare the greats across the ages and pick one above all the rest, based on the only way I could remotely compare them–based on making their teams win rings–Big Russ is the best and its not even close.
But I saw Big Russ and Wilt play dozens of times head to head when both were at their peaks.
Head to head, Wilt was better than Big Russ, but Big Russ was on the better teams that were, confoundingly enough, better in part because of Big Russ.
Basketball is a team game.
It ain’t like track and field, or golf, or tennis.
Greatness lies ultimately in the alchemy of team.
But if you asked me who I wanted to build a team around today, well, it would be Wilt.
Whenever he was surrounded by top talent, he won.
He seemed more dominant than Big Russ, Kareem, Oscar, Magic, Bird, MJ, and Lebron to name a few.
I would pick the most dominant player to build a team around for sure, especially one like Wilt that had a huge baseball IQ and remodeled his game perhaps 4 different times in his career to help his teams.
One big difference that makes Wilt stand out among the players mentioned above is that he was the ONLY one of them that remodeled his game even twice.
It takes a demigod to remodel his game several times in a career and still dominate.
But the above being said, I am much more happy to say Lebron is the man now and enjoy him for all he is worth.
And in due time say Wigs is the man in his time.
And so on.
Bottom line?
I love them all.
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Since I don’t like to rock the boat and keep everybody happy - when it comes to the greatest player of all time, their is only one name.
WILT
From nba.com
He was basketball’s unstoppable force, the most awesome offensive force the game has ever seen. Asked to name the greatest players ever to play basketball, most fans and aficionados would put Wilt Chamberlain at or near the top of the list.
Dominating the game as few players in any sport ever have, Chamberlain seemed capable of scoring and rebounding at will, despite the double- and triple-teams and constant fouling tactics that opposing teams used to try to shut him down.
SHOOT - I tried a hundred times and ways to import stats from nba.com, but they just got all jumbled up. Check them out if you’d like: http://www.nba.com/history/players/chamberlain_stats.html
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I agree with you except in the part about most fans picking Wilt. Let’s face it, most fans under 40 years old don’t know who Wilt was and to them Jordan is it…amazing that Jordan, 12 years after retiring, is still the biggest name in basketball worldwide and in no small measure because he still is the biggest shoe endorser ever…and it is not even close.
The members of this board are not a good indicator of Wilt’s popularity and/or greatness because, as Jayhawk fans, we are well acquainted and big fans of THE man. Like I mentioned in a previous post, while reading this thread I browsed through 20-30 rankings of the best players ever from all types of publication and I don’t recall one that had Wilt at the top; most have Jordan, although there are also a number of articles that question Jordan as the top player and present, in some cases, compelling arguments why he is not the top player ever.
In the end, it is a highly subjective opinion depending on how much you value some attributes and what weight you assign to the different stats. To most of us in this forum, Wilt will be, if not the top player at least in the top 3 to top 5 group; to the younger generation, he is probably not even top 10.
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To add to my previous post, until well into the 70’s, basketball exposure was miniscule compared to the wide world exposure that the game has now. This is likely the primary reason why older player are hardly known while younger players are known and have a world-wide following.
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@JayHawkFanToo A couple of things that jumped out at me - the 1961-1962 season where he AVERAGED 50.4 pts per game and 25.7 rebounds. It’s mind boggling.
Then when people accused him of being a ball hog (which he was not) - he lead the league in assists in 1967-1968 with 702 !!
The one stat, which I don’t think is listed here, that really blows my mind though is he never fouled out of a single game in his career. Incredible.
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@JayHawkFanToo “Lebron is great because Lebron could play with any other historical great and still be an incredible player because he can do everything well.” Wish I could like that ten times over.
And @Texas-Hawk-10 if that’s the case about championships, than isn’t Russell the greatest ever? It shouldn’t be a discussion. Because Jordan is not the modern day Russell with 11-6 in championships. That’s not even a poor mans Russell. That is half the greatness of Russell! That’s like saying Wade is the modern version of Jordan.
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@JhawkAlum I never made a declaration of who the best is so that’s up to you if you want to use championships as the sole measurement.
It’s also very import to note that the way the NBA operated in the mid 1950’s and 60’s in almost no way resembled how the NBA operated in the mid 1980’s and 90’s. There was no free agency in Russell’s era, the draft looked nothing like it does now, and the number of teams in the NBA was far less in Russell’s era than MJ’s. If the NBA operated like it did during Russell’s time like it did during MJ’s time (free agency being the biggest difference), the Celtics don’t win 11 out of 13 titles so MJ winning in his last 6 full seasons is a feat that is more impressive because of the quality and turnover in his supporting cast. Think about how many hall of famers Russell played with compared to MJ. Now realize that those HoF players Russell played with didn’t have the option of free agency when they played with Russell so Russell was always playing with multiple HoF players for his entire career. MJ played with 2 HoF players for during his run in Chicago and one of them (Rodman only play on 3 of the 6 teams).
So given the differences in the league, MJ’s run is just as impressive to me as Russell’s was mainly because MJ did not have near the supporting cast Russell had.
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@Crimsonorblue22 there’s a nice link in that article to a YouTube channel full of old basketball clips: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCFfDF7oCw7sVL7PzEg57E4g
