What great player doesn’t throw temper tantrums? When Tom Brady freaks out at his O-line, is that any different? Or is it because he’s just so intense? Michael Jordan punching out Steve Kerr during a practice? Well, that’s ok, too, because he’s got great commercials, and a winning smile. How about Kobe?
Jordan is still the GOAT, by pretty much every statistical measure. Wilt, Russell, and Kareem (don’t forget Kareem!) are all arguably as good as LBJ. Putting those four in any order is defensible (I’d say Kareem, then LeBron, then Russell & Wilt).
If you’re especially nostalgic, you can say Bird and Magic are better. I’d disagree, but I can understand why you’d say so. But there is simply no way anyone who knows basketball could legitimately argue that Dr. J or Isiah were greater players than LeBron. It just comes off as a petty unwillingness to give LeBron his due.
If LeBron pulls this off, you can make an argument that he’s the greatest ever. He has no team around him right now. Who’s 2nd best on that team, Mozgov? Jordan always had great players around him. Colin Cowherd reminded me today that the Bulls went from 57 wins to 55 wins while Jordan was playing baseball.
Curry had the worst game of his life and they still almost won. Can’t remember the last time the supposed MVP got demolished by a borderline scrub like that. Curry isn’t particularly physical. He can’t go to the basket and draw fouls if his shot isn’t falling. Could be a problem if he goes cold. Lots of issues with your best player being a shrimpy PG like Nash, CP3, or Stockton.
I’ve seen some people suggest it’s the West that’s secretly overrated – just run up and down the floor, play no D, chuck up threes, that sort of idea. Plus GSW was lucky not to face the Spurs or Clippers, Thunder weren’t even in the playoffs, plus injuries to other teams. I dunno, I wouldn’t be surprised if this still ended up as a gentlemen’s sweep. I just expected GSW’s frontline to do way better than this. And LeBron has to average basically a 40 point triple double to make this even competitive. That’s impossible, right?
Also, if you’re inclined to hate, it’s easy to roll your eyes at a lot of Curry’s antics.
Even if they win, LeBron has crapped the bed too many times and has too many holes in his game to ever be the basketball GOAT. Players have done the one man wrecking crew thing before. Just look at Hakeem in the '94 playoffs. If Jordan or prime Kobe played this same “do whatever you want” D it’d be so graphic they wouldn’t be able to show it on TV.
LeBron’s already got best SF on lock, though. Bird is more skilled and has more mental toughness, but LeBron is hilariously more athletic and already has longevity arguments. LeBron’s “guard 1-5” meme is more like “2-4 if the 4 is kinda crappy” but Bird would get obliterated trying to guard someone like Rose. I think if I had to choose one time travel 1 on 1 matchup it’d be Bird vs. LeBron. Not sure which way it would go.
Also, I kinda suspect the Magic/LeBron-style buddy buddy type team camaraderie leadership style is better than Jordan/Bird/Kobe’s totalitarian alpha male macho army style that old heads on TV praise. Maybe that has its place depending on personnel, but it just seems like every team LeBron is on the role players play waaaaay above their heads compared to previous teams, and not just because they’re getting open looks.
Not even LeBron can make JR Smith not be an idiot, though. Guy must give Cleveland fans heart attacks. He’s due for a big game where all his garbage goes in.
In other news, these finals are doing gang busters in the ratings. Game 2, 18.8 million. Suck it, baseball. On the other hand, it’s kinda sad people weren’t as interested in the Spurs. GG team basketball, no one cares. People want to see three point bricks and guys iso’ing all day on the wing and storyline drama about Ohio.
Yes I’m a nostalgic Celtics fan who grew up back east.
OK I admit it, you caught me. 
But then again I don’t know the numbers, I’m just going by my opinion. I’m a legend in my own mind.
Nice analysis, marshmallow.
In some respects when Irving went down I think the GSWs let all the “it’s a lock” discussions go to their heads. They’re not a mentally tough and grizzled team. They’re mentally young. They might’ve come out thinking, hey this is gonna be easy, let’s have fun.
They forgot that in game 1 they got out-physicalled in the paint and were sloppy with the ball.
Curry played embarrassingly poor. Let’s see how he comes out Tuesday night, but they’re in Cleveland and so I am worried.
My GOAT candidates are Magic, Bird, Tim Duncan, Jordan, and Kareem. I would put them in that order, but wouldn’t argue with any other order.
The guy no one ever seems to mention in these conversations is Duncan. 5 rings, 2xMVP, 15xAll-Star, ROY, and both all-NBA and all-Defensive Team 13 years in a row. He was the best player on 5 championship teams, and although there are others who have matched or exceeded that, look at the teammates he had to work with. Yeah, for the first championship he had the decline-phase David Robinson. After that…Ginobli and Parker are certainly great players, but would anyone compare them to McHale/Parish, Pippen/Rodman, or (Magic/Kareem)/Worthy?
People’s opinions on this subject are always fascinating to me, because I feel like there’s so much variance. For me, Larry Bird does not belong in the conversation at all; I think you’re the first person I’ve ever seen to rank him ahead of Jordan. I can’t see it. Jordan was a better defensive player and light years better as a scorer; Bird has maybe a tiny edge in terms of playmaking but MJ’s durability and consistency make it a slam dunk in favor Jordan (pun, surprisingly, not intended). To me, Jordan is so obviously the best player in NBA history that I have trouble articulating the argument for it, and I’m very surprised to see someone rank him fourth.
For me, it goes Jordan, then Russell, then Kareem, then Wilt, then Magic. That’s the Top 5. Assuming Duncan retires this year, he’ll probably land at 6 in my mind, ahead of Bird (not exactly a knock!). I’m not sure about LeBron James because so much of the book has yet to be written, but I’d bet on second-best all time, short of Michael and surpassing everyone else.
Russell gets too much credit, imho. Terrific player, great leader, a truly transcendent athlete, but he played mostly in a 10 team league. He would certainly be in my top 10, but not my top 5.
I encourage you all to take a look at this article from 538 which proclaims Tim Duncan’s Spurs as the better dynasty than Russel’s Celtics.
Did any of those GOAT candidates take their teams to the finals with such a dearth of talent around them? I know Jordan didn’t - Jordan always had players at least on par with the Irving/Love support LeBron has.
That’s why I was saying that winning this series without his support would be amazing. I suspect that none of those other players up for the GOAT mention ever won a championship with guys like Delly playing pivotal roles.
If the Cavs win this series against what apparently is a really great team without 2/3rds of their star power out, it will both be a triumph of coaching and a transcendent instance of lifting the players around you to overachieve by LeBron James. If LeBron had the talent around him that Jordan had in his career he’d have at least the same number of championships I think.
Winning this series would be a remarkable feat in a vacuum. Doing it for the most tortured sports franchise in the US would elevate him to sports godhood.
You can tell me all day that “Steph had a bad night Sunday.” What’s his excuse tonight? The GS Warriors haven’t played a defense like this all year. And, Cleveland’s offense is still as intense as before their best players got hurt.
Defense is gonna win it.
I’ve been hearing this all playoffs. “Huh, the Celtics players had an off game, where did their shooting go?” “Cavs got lucky the Bulls are just having a bad night for absolutely no reason” “Huh weird, Atlanta has been such a good shooting team, how weird that it suddenly ended”
Seems like there might be a common factor there.
How big an upset would this be if the Cavs win? I mean would it make one of the top upsets of NBA history? The Warriors were like -440 or something for the series in Vegas after game one.
GS–Worst 2nd quarter ever this year.
GS–worst 3rd quarter this year.
They’re just having an off night 
I know that the team is extremely thin, everyone is playing a ton of minutes, and they’re playing very high-energy defense. It’s about as exhausted as an NBA team can be.
But still, there’s gotta be something better on offense than LeBron standing with the ball outside the 3 point line for 21 seconds at the start of every possession.
If LeBron was as productive as MVP Curry was, he would be absolutely lambasted in the media. But I suspect Curry won’t get the same scrutiny.
Delly MVP.
It’s not exciting, I’ll grant that, but it is working. These games are a LOT about pace. They’ve taken GS off their pace and it’s affecting them all, but Curry appears particularly vulnerable. It sure seemed like that during the 5 or 6 minutes to start the 4th as the pace picked up so did his shooting. Pace slowed back down and suddenly he’s turning the ball over. I think bullitt nailed it - GS is the better team, but not the tougher team - at least mentally.
We’ll see though. They leave Cleveland at 2-2 and I think GSW has to be favored to win it.
If 2-2, GSW would have to count themselves lucky. And I don’t think they’d be favored. The Cavs’ defense is stifling, and they are out-coaching Golden State. Steve Kerr has shown nothing except for get open behind the 3-point line and let it fly.
Just like he did in his playing days.
Cleveland’s defense is going to be the difference here.
I apologize for calling Delly a borderline scrub. I don’t know what I’m talking about. Obviously they should’ve given this guy the MVH - Most Valuable Human.
LeBron shooting so much reminded me of this classic Barkley moment.
LeBron goes SSJ.
It’s amazing how many of GSW’s players aren’t doing much of anything. Green, Barnes, Bogut. So deep they have an all star in Lee they don’t play much, try him out for fun. Hilarious.
Shumpert passing it to Curry was one of the worst plays I’ve seen in awhile.
Warriors are so shook right now, complaining to the refs…you guys serious? I mean OK, LeBron straight up tackled Curry’s knees, but really now. You guys are hacking him everytime he goes into the paint, Bogut and Green literally holding fistfuls of jersey and pushing guys out of bounds because they can’t box out for crap and acting the angel when the whistle blows.
Several 1 seeds losing to 8 seeds and the like. If you mean just the finals, LeBron’s Heat losing to the Mavs in '11 was pretty big. The way the Heat won in '06 was ridiculous. At the time a lot of people thought Detroit beating LA in '04 was a big upset, but Detroit was legit.
I think the closest Jordan came was in the '98 finals when Pippen was suffering from a back injury and Rodman was over the hill.
Best one man band runs were Rick Barry in '75, Hakeem in '94 (I think this will still be better even if Cleveland wins), and arguably Dirk in '11. They lost, but '81 Moses Malone somehow drug a 40-42 Houston team to the finals and took 2 games off the Celtics, while averaging 29/15. Probably forgetting some.
Stealing these stats by mixing and matching from some other boards:
Finals scoring, first three games:
2015 LeBron: 123pts, 50 TS%
1993 Jordan: 117pts, 52 TS%
2000 Shaq: 116pts, 65 TS%
2001 Shaq: 111pts, 64 TS%
Jordan had 172 through four games in '93. LeBron needs 49 to match.
I thought these were some funny comments from around the web:
The best option is LeBron orchestrating the offense from the low post. But after that, the next best option is probably to give LeBron the ball and clear out. One thing about LeBron holding the ball like that GS has a great switching defense, and this takes that away from them, and GS is great jumping into the passing lanes and creating turnovers, and this is preventing them from getting easy transition baskets.
You know, people dismiss LeBron’s iso ball because it’s such a throwback to an era that analytics and spacing and movement had left behind forever, but it has its advantages. For one thing, if LeBron leisurely walks up the ball after a rebound, it gives him a quick breather and a chance to collect himself, and it slows the pace. But more importantly, nobody on the opposing defense can ever relax. GS doesn’t make you defend for the whole shot clock, their half court sets seem rushed much of the time because they want nothing more than to pour it on. But against the Cavs, if you sleep for a second in the half court, LeBron will zip a pass to a cutter or go flying past you to the rim.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to tweeze out all the gray hairs that sprouted on me in the 4th quarter.