Heard Max and Marcellus debate this on the radio yesterday so I’m gonna take a bit of their format. Their self-limitations are that this has to be play on the court. Jerry West might make it if we take into consideration moves in the front office, but on the court there are other contenders (slightly) ahead of him.
All time has to be:
Jordan
Russell
Kareem
Magic
Using Max and Marcellus’s other limitation, which is restricting it to the “modern era” defined as after the NBA/ABA merger, then it would be:
Jordan
Kareem
Magic
Bird
Lebron, in my mind, doesn’t have a chance to knock out anybody from the first set but would probably replace Bird in the 2nd set. Reason being that of positions, he would be better than Bird so you’d want him over him if you were picking your All-Time team, but you wouldn’t replace a SG, C, or PG with Lebron if you have a choice of any of those other guys.
Interestingly, they talked about who would be on the Lakers Mt. Rushmore. They came up with:
Kareem
Magic
Kobe
And #4 was debatable between Shaq or West, maybe Chamberlain as honorable mention. I would personally give it to West because carried those late 60’s, early 70’s teams and is the freaking logo of the NBA. Shaq was dominant, but something about him just made me think he’s better as a basketball player representative than a Laker representative. The rest of those 4 guys had the majority of their careers here in LA while Shaq spent a long time as a non-Laker. Same reason why I wouldn’t put Chamberlain as one of the the top 4 Lakers
I hate to say this, but I think the early big men are overrated. If we’re looking for the truly best basketball players of all time, I don’t think we can include Wilt, Russell, or Kareem. Those guys were ahead of their times for their eras, but take any good big man from the 90’s or today and put them on those old teams, and they would be equally dominant. Can you imagine Hakeem Olajuwon or Tim Duncan or Dirk Nowitski in the 60’s? They’d be unstoppable, yet we don’t even consider them for the Mt Rushmore… so I don’t think you can consider the old bigs either.
My ultimate 4 is: Jordan, Magic, Bird, and Oscar Robertson. LeBron could make the top 4 if he stays healthy. Kobe is pretty close too, actually.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not one of the crowd that wants to discount or dismiss what LeBron James has done; I think he’s terrific, and am thrilled to see that Durant might emerge as the Bird to his Magic and give us that matchup a few times in the next decade of Finals.
For me the question was not “is LeBron James one of the best four players of all time,” but rather “does LeBron James belong on my(arbitrary and completely subjective) Mount Rushmore of basketball?” The answer to the first is ‘maybe, I don’t know yet.’ The answer to the second is “no,” because you don’t get a spot on my own personal Mount Rushmore while your career is still going. When LeBron is done, then I’ll look at his career in the contexts of what came before and after; the story is too close right now (for me) to judge it accurately.
Don’t know about that. I guess it depends what subjective factors you decide to consider. For me, again speaking only for myself, LeBron falls short of Magic, Jordan, and Bird in terms of iconic, subjectively memorable moments and persona. Some of this is because LeBron is still going and those other guys have retired, so the memorable moments seem more so for the older guys - but that’s again why I’m not much interested in comparing active players with retired players.
Don’t much care about MVPs.
This is a bit unfair to Magic, in particular. LeBron certainly outscored Magic, but it was seldom Magic’s job to put up big points by himself and when it was, he was quite good at it. Magic’s assist numbers were better than LeBron’s, but that’s to be expected for the same reasons.
Leaving aside my point at the beginning of this post - that unless we’re going with a strictly fact-based comparison (which I think you’ll agree a “basketball Mount Rushmore” cannot be) it’s hard for me to compare retired players with active ones - I don’t disagree, exactly. I just also don’t think I see what the argument is that LeBron has a better resume than they do, either; all three men were dramatically different kinds of players asked to do dramatically different kinds of things for their teams. Each of them did or has done those things exceptionally well; I think there’s no reasonable way to compare them except to go for the subjective and the impressionistic: and in those departments, for me, LeBron has a few more years of being what he’s been before I’m ready to say he’s where Magic and Bird are.
Jordan was a better player in a reasonably objective sense.
I’m not sure how you can know this; did you watch Russell play? I didn’t. I know the stats from his era were much below adequate for evaluation. At some point it becomes a weird argument that spans every sport; put Russell in the modern NBA with no changes and he’d probably “just” be an All Star power forward… but of course, if Russ played today he’d train differently and be the beneficiary of all sorts of improvements in coaching philosophy. Given this, I don’t think you can make the argument in such a definitive way that LeBron is “much more effective.”
I saw Russell and Chamberlain play live and on TV, and they were both incredibly dominant in their eras. And your point about better training is spot on, as well as better nutrition.
All completely fair. You get your own Rushmore and I’m not about to say that it’s unreasonable to have Magic friggin’ Johnson or Bill Russell on it. Things like big moments, personality, style, impact and influence, etc. are totally in play and I’ve got no beef with any of those criteria. What I was reacting to was this idea that it’s offensive or egotistical for Lebron to have said, in response to the same question, “I’m going to belong on there when it’s all said and done.” I’m really talking about best. I probably shouldn’t have used “clearly.” I was referring to the kind of reasonably objective analysis by which, as you say, Jordan’s just obviously the greatest. I think Lebron is, objectively, closer to that level than he is to being on the next level down, which is where everyone else is. So, skipping the parts where your own preferences come into play, because I’ve got no argument with any of it:
Well, that argument lies in the kinds of numbers I presented in the last post, because I doubt anybody would even bother reading 10,000 words about shot selection and modern offensive philosophies and how much Lebron means in an era of intensely cerebral half-court defensive sets.
For where he is in his career, when you add up his accomplishments, he’s done more as an individual basketball player than anybody else except Jordan and probably Wilt. It’s fine to not like scoring in particular or this award or that award, but when you add it all up, if not in MVPs or points or bla bla bla, where’s the argument he’s below those guys, is what I’m saying. There are, in fact, reasonable objective ways to make such comparisons - PER and Win Shares and various field goal efficiency metrics all give you different pictures of what a guy does and doesn’t do on the court - and the total body of work, if you don’t know who any of these guys are except what’s on the page, is very very strongly suggestive that Lebron’s on a different level. You don’t have to like any individual stat as a be-all, end-all measurement. But if they all say Lebron’s better, what basis do we have to reject them?
I mean that still in a purely objective sense. With all due respect to Bill Russell (I swear to god!), it’s not even a very difficult call. I’m not comparing eras or translating or anything like that. I’m saying this is what Lebron has done on a basketball court, and this is what Russell did on a basketball court, and it’s obvious on the face of it that Lebron does more and does it better in context.
The fact is, Russell won eight million championships, and either you’re the kind of person who can look at anything other than that or you aren’t that kind of person (you, storyteller, I am pretty confident are not the sort to say 11 rings la la la I can’t hear you). I think once you agree not to give 11 rings vs. 2 rings undue weight, it’s totally uncomplicated. Bill Russell was, all available evidence suggests, a consummate professional, an otherworldly defender, a phenomenal teammate, and nothing special on the offensive end. And that last part is so important! This has nothing to do with nutrition or sophistication - for his era, Bill Russell wasn’t a very good offensive player. He shot a terrible percentage from the floor and from the free throw line. He took a lot of shots for a guy who wasn’t converting effectively. Even assuming he blocked, let’s say, fourteen shots a game - which I’m pretty sure is being generous, that still isn’t enough at the lofty heights we’re dealing with. You can’t help your team more than Lebron helps his if you aren’t a very good offensive player, because a great offensive player in Bill Russell’s era was contributing to his team on nearly a hundred possessions. Lebron contributes on a lot fewer than that, but the point is the team’s out there playing half the time on that end, and if you’re not mega-maximizing what you’re giving to them, you aren’t doing what Lebron does.
And, as it happens, the same objective measurements I was talking about above point to the same conclusion about Russell. He was super great, historically great, but not as good as the guys at the very very top, because he wasn’t a force offensively.
It’s never been “my schtick” because I rarely, if ever, post in NBA threads because I don’t particularly like it versus college ball, but all of those players had NBA careers and I’m free to choose whom I want on my own Mount Rushmore! The fact that they all played for UK is just a coincidence!
I’m not, though I will admit to being something of a spoilsport as a UK fan with my initial reply. Obviously the other candidates mentioned in the thread are far more worthy than my choices. Although if there was an “elite defender that can also drown the three Mount Rushmore” I’d be tempted to put Prince on there.
I really don’t understand the love that Larry Bird gets. Was he a great player? Yes. Top 5? Not even close. Lebron has already surpassed him in career points, despite playing two less year. And while Bird has three championships, he also had a few hall of famers that he played with. LeBron is a better scorer, a better defender, and a better ball handler than Bird, and has done less with more.
Even if you don’t buy LeBron, Bird was still not top 5 on his own. It was nice that he and Magic got people involved in NBA basketball, but there is no way in hell I’d put a guy who is 31st in scoring total, 17th in ppg, 48th in rebounds, and 36th in assists in the top 5.
Wouldn’t that show up on his assists numbers, if that were true? As far as I can tell, he was 36th in career assists, and 43rd in assists per game. Nice, but nothing that would make me consider him one of the greatest passers of all time. I’ll also point out that Lebron is 29th, 7 spots ahead of Bird in assists per game.
