re: At 28 years old Lebron James has twice as many NBA Championships and MVPs as MJ

Damn you're stupid. You think I'm saying Jordan wasn't a great athlete? I'm saying Jordan was both and lebron isn't. He may be one day but not yet. And the fact that he had a game 7 to even at was totally due to missed free throws and ray Allen

I like lebron. He's a good dude. I just don't like the way he went a out getting a title and I don't think he's the same caliber player that Jordan was.

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With that said, PER is a siginficant data point, but its value is largely debatable and should be looked upon with an open mind.

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PER is flawed no question about that. Win Shares or WS/48 is (for now) the best metric, imo.

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assists are not worth as much as points, and are not weighted equally.

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Well if we start talking flaws, the NBA assist is as flawed as they come. For starters, "arena" assists (the home player credited when he shouldn't have been) occurs, secondly assists as a whole are interpreted more loosely in todays game by scorekeepers. Third, it is very much subjective to the receiving player. Fourth, the "hockey assist" is not accounted for.

Basically an assist in general doesn't necessarily indicate playmaking. Passing bigs are the biggest victims and ball dominating guards receive the advantage here.

He has such a smooth left handed stroke.

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Damn you're stupid. You think I'm saying Jordan wasn't a great athlete? I'm saying Jordan was both and lebron isn't. He may be one day but not yet.

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You're right, I'm stupid, lebron certainly isn't one of the best jump shooters in the league, he only makes jump shots because he's sooooo athletic, right?

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And the fact that he had a game 7 to even at was totally due to missed free throws and ray Allen

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Paxson/Kerr/Horry/Fisher, stop dude, it's for your own sake.

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With that said, PER is a siginficant data point, but its value is largely debatable and should be looked upon with an open mind.

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Your entire post focused on PER, and ignored the other efficiency metrics that only helped to support my argument.

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I can't believe this thread has gone for this long...my initial post was "this shouldn't go on for 11 pages".

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I curse myself every day for even acknowledging some of the posts I read, and yet i continue to do it. It's my own fault.

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Well he's left handed. So that helps. He's been known to shoot (and make) 3 pointers with his left hand in warm ups.

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he writes left handed but plays right handed. For basketball purposes, he isn't a "lefty" like Lamar Odom. He's ambidextrous.

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b/c titles = team stat and shouldn't be used to compare players (yes, even in the NBA)

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To an extent, yes. But we aren't comparing say Robert Horry who was a part of multiple title wins when he was just a role player to guys like Duncan, Garnett, LeBron, Jordan, Barkley, Robinson and so on and such who were the clear cut alpha males on their team where the team went as they went.

In the NBA, one player can tilt a team's fate and success. There are only 5 players from each team on the court. During the regular season, alphas play 34-38 minutes a night. In the postseason, it's 38-42 minutes. They play both ends of the court. This isn't the NFL. The reason why people can say that Manning is better than Brady is because that as an individual Manning is a better player. However, Brady has more wins over Manning and more titles, because Manning only plays one of the 3 aspects of the game. He doesn't play defense or special teams.

In the NBA, one player contributes far more than any other sport. So yes you can say that a title is a determining factor. That's assuming that the player is indeed the alpha player on his team and he's excepted to be their leading point scorer since points are what determine the winners of the game.

Sure you can bring in the supporting cast argument, but you also have to factor in that just because Tony Parker developed into an All-Star in San Antonio with an established coach and an established HOFer like Duncan, doesn't mean he'd do the same in Cleveland with whomever the Cavs had a coach in 2003 and with a rookie who had the most hype for a draftee since Wilt.

But yeah, point being, you can't say that titles are exclusively a team stat, because well, it's not true.

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I just don't like the way he went a out getting a title

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What elite player was drafted into a similarly bad situation as Lebron, had the chance to get out and go to a better situation, and turned it down?

Virtually any player in his position would have done the same thing.