Gianni’s picks
The acronym GOAT stands for Greatest Of All Time, which to me, means the greatest player of all time, and when you consider nothing other than who is better at playing the sport, it’s LeBron James.
Yes, it is likely that LeBron will have won half as many finals as he has lost after these next few weeks. But throughout his career, the Eastern Conference was never really competitive against him and therefore, would just coast to the finals each year.
If you want to talk about losses in the playoffs, let’s bring up the fact that it took Michael Jordan six years to lead a team to the finals. The first three years of his career, he got first rounded each year, and the best the Bulls ever did in any series was lose 3-1 to the Milwaukee Bucks.
It took LeBron three years to lead a team to the finals, with one of the worst teams to ever make to the finals ever. LeBron averaged 27.3 points per game the first year he dragged that team to the finals. The second best player on that team was Larry Hughes, who only played three less minutes than LeBron, and average 13 less points. Jordan’s second best player on the first NBA championship team was future Basketball Hall of Fame small forward, Scottie Pippen.
Along with dragging this team to the finals, LeBron did it when he was about 5 years younger than Jordan. This may not be true, I just feel like if LeBron had went to college, and spent three years there, he would have led a team to the finals in his rookie year.
The most important part about this argument is, who is a better basketball player? There has never been anyone in the history of the NBA that can play the sport as good as LeBron James can. The man is 33 years old still leading absolutely horrible teams to the finals. When Jordan was 33 he had Scottie Pippen in his prime, and in my opinion, the greatest rebounder of all time, Dennis Rodman, towards the end of his prime. LeBron second best player as of right now, is Kevin Love, who used to be a 27 point scorer, but has turned into a spot up shooter.
LeBron James is the first player since the Bill Russell era Celtics to reach the finals eight straight times.
On to the MVPs, we all know that if the MVP was actually the “MVP” LeBron would have like 10 of them. But it gets to a point where the voters just get bored of seeing the same person win over and over again. A lot of the time, the voters give the award to the player with the best story. Last year, Harden should have won it, but Russell Westbrook had the whole, averaging a triple double thing and had just gotten backstabbed by his best friend.
People seem to think that LeBron isn’t one of the greatest clutch players of all time. He has won the last 10 game seven’s of his career. In the last seven, James either had a triple double, or a forty point performance.
One thing that is undisputed like Skip and Shannon is that Jordan was one of the best perimeter defenders of all time, but we all saw the block, did Jordan ever do anything like that? LeBron does literally everything that he can to help his team win but it gets to a point where it’s just too much.
My final point, because it ties in with Jordan very well, the 73-9, 2015-16 Golden State Warriors. The greatest regular season of all time, beating the 1995-96 Bulls previous record of 72-10. No one though for one second that the Cavaliers had the slightest chance to even win one game, but then, game three happened. Warriors lead 2-1, game four happens, Warriors lead 3-1. One game away from solidifying themselves as the greatest NBA team of all time. Game five, 3-2, game six, 3-3, game seven, “Blocked by James,” “Irving, and Curry, one on one, Irving puts it up, it’s good, Kyrie Irving from downtown and the Cavaliers by three.” said Mike Breen.
Possibly the greatest game in the history of basketball, and possibly the greatest play in the history of basketball is that block.
At the end of the day, no one can put the basketball into a hoop the way LeBron James does, and we won’t see anyone like him ever.
LeBron James is the GOAT…
Lol jk it’s Steph Curry, Warriors in 4.