I don’t think that’s entirely wrong, but it’s wrong enough. 
Careers are longer and you don’t see elite players quitting at 35 anymore. Steve Nash is 40, for example. And LeBron’s quite a bit bigger than Jordan, and he’s been playing in the post more over the last few years, which means he’s taking more advantage of his size. I’d expect that to continue and it’s really the opposite of the way Jordan’s career evolved. You’re right that he’s not a Shaq or Kareem, and it’s kind of tricky to compare him to anybody. But having said that, Karl Malone lasted until he was 41 and Barkley kept going until 37- and would’ve played longer if he hadn’t blown out his knee. I don’t know as much about Elvin Hayes, but he was almost 39 when he quit. I already mentioned Kobe, who’s going to play until he’s about 38 if he can. Centers aren’t the only ones who play into their late 30s at least.
I think it’s fair to say that Lebron was more hyped, coming out of high school expected to be the heir to Michael Jordan.
Tiger may well never win another major. His injuries are serious and he may have pushed his body too hard in the sole effort to win as much as possible. But the run he had coming out of college through the 2008 US Open eclipses even what Jordan did in terms of consistent domination.
I wouldn’t take it for granted that LeBron was more hyped. Tiger turned pro almost 20 years ago, but he was an enormous deal at the time, too.
Setting everything else aside, this part is nonsense. Basketball is a team game. One player cannot win championships. LeBron got them into the playoffs, deep into the playoffs, but the Cavaliers were best described as LeBron and some other schmoes you never heard of. Essentially, they were an anchor tied to his waist. He may as well have been playing with the Washington Generals.
LeBron’s last year with the Cavs, they won 61 games. The Cavs first year without LeBron, they* lost *63. They went from first to worst.
LeBron:
2 Championships
2 NBA Finals MVP’s
2 All-Star game MVPs
4 League MVP’s
10 consecutive All-Star appearances
2 Olympic Gold Medals
and still widely considered the best player in the league. I think he’s lived up to the hype.
I’m not comparing him to Tiger Woods in that respect, but other NBA greats, and that is considered as a mark in their favor. The point is, it’s hard to point to one statistic that makes the case for LeBron being the best ever. It’s easy with Tiger.
I think you just inadvertently stated the difference. LJ at 32 should still be very good, but may not be the best in the NBA. Tiger at 37 (last year, before his back problems) was far and away the best golfer in the world. 5 PGA wins (next best was 2), money leader by over $2M, Vardon Trophy (lowest scoring average over 60 or more rounds), and Player of the Year (for the 11th time, to Jack Nicklaus’ 5).
Until his injuries, it was ridiculous to compare Tiger to other players. All you could do was compare him to himself at his peak, as you did above.
I think the 11 POTYs are the best comparison you can make to such a different sport. Jordan and Russell both have 5 MVPs, Jabbar has 6. LJ has 4, and may get a couple more, but I doubt he’ll get 7 more.
Right. And yet to a lot of fans, it’s a team game where the very best players are compared by the number of championships their teams won. Since the argument about LeBron’s lack of clutch-ness and championships is dead, maybe now we can appreciate his actual game rather than comparing him to guys on other teams, sometimes in much smaller leagues. Once you tune out that stuff, he compares pretty well to the inner circle Hall of Famers, and by the time he’s done I think most people will agree he’s a top-ten or top-five player.
Which overlooks one of Lebron’s greatest assets: his versatility. Sure he’s not the scorer Kareem was, or the pure shooter that Bird is perceived to be, or the defender that Bill Russell was, or the dominating game changer Wilt was, or the most driven to be the best that Jordan was, but he’s still great at all those aspects of the game. LeBron’s surprising excellence isn’t in his stats (though they are pretty damned amazing), but in just how great he is at everything the game requires.
I don’t dispute anything you say and I’m not putting LeBron down or saying he didn’t live up to the hype. I’m just saying Tiger Woods’ performance in his sport exceeds that of LeBron in his sport.
I don’t agree with this at all. I think he was on the path, but I think many golf experts believe he hasn’t passed Jack yet. Majors are still the measuring point.
This one of those US-centric questions isn’t it … because if your measure is world recognition/domination it’s Lebron who?
It was a question specific to two US athletes who had a tremendous amount of hype before beginning their pro careers. Whether you’ve heard of them or not doesn’t concern me. Thanks for your input though. Quite helpful and all that.
I would be fairly surprised if Tiger Woods was globally more popular than Lebron James. The NBA is huge around the world, and basketball is probably the second most popular major sport worldwide. Lebron also gets global exposure every 2-4 years during the world championships and the Olympics.
That said, while I think Lebron is a doing something much harder and more remarkable, and is more athletically talented, I think it’s pretty hard to make the case that he has dominated in the way Woods has.
I think the only argument that could be made is that Woods had/has much more grandiose hype. He has failed to live up to the (unrealistic) projections people had early in his career, and to being a marketable role model. I think many experts expected him to have passed Jack in majors by now, or at the very least, expected that such a thing was a near certainty. I don’t think people generally think that now. Of course he still might, but the hype was that was it was destined. I wouldn’t put the odds above 20% now. Even without that, he is still probably the best ever, but I think failing to best his nearest competitor on the bases he claimed were most important is a minor failure in some form.
On the other hand, while many thought James could be one of the best ever, I don’t think many foresaw the versatility and dominance he has shown. Assuming he can put to together a few more great years, I think you can make the case he lived up to the hype more than Tiger if only because the NBA has never really seen a player with his unique skills and athleticism.
Given that Golf is heavily international, and basketball is the most popular sport in the world that isn’t soccer, this is remark is doubly pointless.
Tripley pointless when you think that Lebron IS better than any international basketball player (since they all play in the NBA anyway) and that, at his peak, Tiger IS better than any international golfer
I think that’s a solid argument.
I don’t know. It does bump up against the fact that golf is an individual and totally indirect form of competition, though. The identity of the best golfer in the world at a given time is harder to obfuscate because he goes up there in something like total control (as sports go) of the outcome of his shots. Team sports get super weird when it comes to dramatizing who the “best” is. Look at Jordan’s 5 MVPs, for instance. There is no one in the world who doesn’t acknowledge that Michael Jordan was the best basketball player on the planet for a (for him) continuous stretch of much more than five seasons. Not even best in some abstract sense; he was the guy having the best seasons, too. Nobody would have even seriously argued this at the time. But they gave the MVPs to other people anyway. Still, there’s a general understanding who owned the NBA for that entire period.
It’s the same thing with LeBron. Even this past year, while Durant was having his MVP season, you’d hear idle references to LeBron as the best player in the world, because he is, and he has been for six or seven years; he probably will be for the next three or four, at least.
If Tiger was the best golfer in the world for let’s say 15 years, which seems fair, that’s a pretty straightforward comparison. Does that overstate it? Understate it? I think it’s fair to say that it’s physically easier to remain dominant in golf than in NBA basketball, right?
Valid points, but the fact remains that Jordan did get 5 MVPs, and Kareem got 6, so LJ has his work cut out for him to become the leader in that stat. Meanwhile, Tiger has more than twice as many POTYs as Nicklaus. Jack had the same control over his shots as Tiger has, so apparently it’s not that easy to win more than 5 POTYs.
It kind of sounds like you repeated the same argument right after saying he’d made some valid points. These are subjective awards and MVP is team-dependent in a way that Player of the Year in an individual sport is not. Sometimes the fact that one team is better than another swings the award. If LeBron finishes his career with four MVP awards - which would tie him for third-most all-time - it won’t be a major strike against him. For that matter most people seem to have decided that he should’ve won the award in 2011 and that Jordan probably should’ve won a couple more.
I guess I wasn’t clear. I’m comparing dominance within sports, not across sports. IMO dominance is better measured in golf by POTY, which requires sustained excellence for a season, than majors, which only require one hot week. You will see a John Daly or a Bubba Watson win majors, but not POTY.
I acknowledge that because it’s a team sport, it’s harder to win an MVP in basketball, even if you’re the best player in the world. But the same was true for Jordan and Kareem, so IMO it’s still valid to compare their numbers with LJ’s.
I’m also granting that since there’s no defense in golf, it should be easier to win a POTY if you’re the best player in the world. But the same was true for Nicklaus. And in a 25-year career (counting only the years from his first win to his last), Jack only won it five times. So obviously, it’s pretty hard to be the best year in and year out.
I’m not comparing Tiger’s 11 POTYs to LJ’s four MVPs, I’m comparing Tiger’s 11 POTYs to Jack’s five. Over twice as many. It speaks of a dominance that AFAIK hasn’t been matched.
I thought maybe Gretzky might have won twice as many MVPs as anyone else, but no, he won 9, and Howe won 6. You have guys like Federer in tennis who dominate for a few years, but Tiger won POTY in his first full year on tour, and in his last, a span of 17 years (Jack’s POTYs spanned 10 years).
I realize LJ isn’t done. But hopefully, neither is Tiger.
LJ has been in the Top 5 in MVP voting for 9 consecutive years, starting with 2005-06 season, missing only his Rookie and Sophomore seasons. He finished 2nd twice. This does speak to his dominance and consistency in the league. Also the fact that when we choose players to compare him to, we choose first ballot Hall of Fame, best player ever contenders.
MJ played 15 season, Kareem played 20. King James has played 11 so far. And seeing as LJ started his NBA younger (2 years younger than MJ, 3 years younger than Kareem), its a pretty good bet that he still has a lot of playing left in him. (barring injury, of course)