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Re: Lebron in the 90s
I think it goes without saying that great players are great players in any era of basketball. But because its Friday night and I have no plans I'm bored. I feel like talking basketball, LeBron is one of my favorite topics and the "era" arguing is probably the one that annoys me the most. So I'll give my reasoning in my post above that said LeBron, Dwight, Melo, and Rondo might have been even better players in the 90's era than the current one.
First things first, basketball has never been football guys, basketball has always been basketball. The game hasn't had such major changes that its went from a full contact sport to a non contact sport. There has never at any point in the game been so much contact allowed that you could grab, push, or move players so much that it completely altered or changed their game. A great scorer is a great scorer. And my point being is a great offensive player has always been able to trump a great defensive player, regardless of "hand-checking", "rough fouls", and whatever other excuse we can make for how each generation seemingly is worse, or couldn't compete "back in my day".
Offensively, LeBron has always been great at attacking the basket, much like many of the great scorers before him were. Like I said earlier, one man has never in the history of basketball been able to stop the great scorers in our league history. To think that it would change just for the argument of somehow not letting LeBron "be MJ" or as good as any other past player is baffling to me. You put LeBron in the 90's and you take away the one thing that slows him down now, the ability to cram the lane due to zone defenses. Do you really think a simple touching of the hands, of all things, is enough to stop a player with his size, strength, and speed? A hand-check didn't stop players in the past, and a hand check sure as hell isn't going to stop players today, especially players who are big and strong enough to take a slight bump and keep going. LeBron already takes as much contact as any player in today's league, often times not even getting the shooting foul calls other wing players get, despite his"constant flopping" because he, like some others, can play through that contact.. Which brings me to my next point....
A foul is a foul. The biggest difference between today's game and the 90's in that a hard foul today is a technical or a flagrant. A hard foul then was a statement, it was intimidation, it was saying "don't bring that **** back in my lane.".... But guess what guys, it was STILL A FOUL, it's still a blown whistle, it's still two free throws and a chance for two points. How often do great scorers stop looking to score because someone gave them a hard foul? Do some of you really expect a player of his caliber to just have the mindset of being scared to score because he might get fouled? C'mon now... When you take away the zone, or the way Dallas and even San Antonio defended him he's going to get to the basket. And he's probably going to get fouled or score.. Probably not to the extent of the "Jordan rules" but it would be a similar scheme to stop him that guys like Jordan faced. That's just how it worked then. I could see him averaging 10 free throws a game honestly, that wouldn't surprise me at all.
Defensively LeBron is already as versatile as probably any player I've watched since Rodman. He doesn't have the footwork and quickness to just stick on his man the way currently Paul George does, or from the past a guy like Pippen does. But his ability to switch on to literally any player and still be an effective defender is incomparable to any player currently playing. You pair that with the hand-checking and it amplifies it that much more. LeBron plays defense primarily by using his length to his advatage, he gives the quicker players space but his length allows him to defend them well enough, and his size/strength lets him handle the bigger guys. The more contact he's allowed the less space he has to give, simple as that.. While a simple hand-check isn't enough to contain a great scorer it will only enhance everything LeBron is already good at defensively. You pair that with the fact that their isn't as many deadly 3 point shooters then as there is now, even the ones who were great didn't take as many and as often, and he's even more dangerous. He can sag off and not pay for it by a barrage of 3 point shooting. Not saying you take him to the 90's and he's the best defender ever, I'm not saying that at all.. But everything about the way LeBron plays defense is geared towards it being even better in past eras. I really don't even think that's opinionated, I think it's obvious.
And last, and arguably the biggest reason he could be even better in the 90's, is that statistically the great NBA players are in a downward trend. Durant is arguably the greatest scorer in today's game but he isn't averaging 30-35 per game the way other scorers of his caliber have. The same works with rebounds, assists, etc. In other threads on here we have had many Wilt discussions. By digging into the numbers (because I obviously didn't see him play) you can see that as the NBA progresses the number of shot attempts declines as time goes by. The pace of the league gets faster as teams want to run and gun more but gets slower in the sense that shots aren't taken as quickly. A large reason why Big O was able to average a triple double, and 6'5" Elgin Baylor was able to average over 20 rebound per game. Teams then were taking 20+ more shots per game, or 40+ more shots total in every game. That's 40 more chances for rebounds, 20 more chances for an assist, and 20 more chances to get points. Stats are always a good comparison for players within the same era, but trying to go forwards and backwards is always going to skew the validity of looking at stats and box scores.
Obviously we aren't talking about the 60's here so for comparisons sake I quickly looked at a few of the Bulls 6 championship teams. I only did this because they were top dogs, as the Heat have been the past couple years, they both arguably had/have the best player of the time period, and because everyone loves to bring LeBron and Jordan into the same conversation. (Not really)... Just from a quick look a lot of those Bulls teams took about 600 - 1,000 more field goal attempts than LeBron's Heat teams.. This is just total attempts on the season. Obviously it's tough to completely judge because the Heat have only had two full 82 game seasons with LeBron. But just off that alone that is more opportunities to score, more opportunities for assists, more opportunities for rebounds, more chances to block shots, and could even back up the argument that LeBron more than likely could get to the line for more free throws.. Though I'm not sure it needed backing up because everyone who makes the argument talks about all the "hard fouls" anyways.... I don't know if he has the mind set to take much more shots than he currently does, but I think it's pretty safe to say that he would probably take a slight statistical jump in just about every category, even without completely changing his play style.
Like I said before with only two full Heat seasons to compare its not perfectly accurate, the Cavs teams I checked still much lower in field goal numbers. But being that the Bulls under Jackson were a team that would pass for good looks when not playing through MJ (like the Heat now) and the Cavs were a Mike Brown clueless offense I thought the Miami comparison was slightly more accurate. In either instance its a likely boost to any great players overall statistical total.
Now I'm not saying LeBron goes to the 90's and we see him as better than MJ, I'm not saying he goes and wins lots of rings, and lots of MVPs, I'm not saying he goes and becomes the best defender of the era.... But out of all the players you could make the argument about for "not being as good in whichever era" he's pretty much the perfect fit. Everything he does well are things that transcend well to that era of basketball, and its highly reasonable to me that his stats alone would at least take a slight jump.
Last edited by ojandpizza; 01-18-2014 at 06:26 AM.
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01-17-2014, 10:40 PM
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