I’ll start: Joel Embiid should be traded at the deadline

In 2021, Bleacher Report released a top 25 players list for players under the age of 25.

THT ranked 22nd while SGA ranked 23.

Also ranked higher than SGA at the time were Cade, Fox, Lamelo, Garland, and Trae Young.

SGA’s unprecedented rise doesn’t get enough credit.

These 2 players were mainly propped into MVP Conversation through narratives. They're one of the very few players who didn't have actual MVP-Level on court impact.

For 2001 Sixers, they played at a 45 Win Pace in the near 1,000 minutes Allen Iverson was NOT on the floor for 2001 Sixers. Their Offense didn't crater for someone who's constantly heralded for "carrying the Sixers all by himself"; only 4 Points worse with AI off the floor. They had the 5th ranked Defense.

For 2011 Bulls, they played at a 55 Win Pace in the near 1,000 minutes Derrick Rose was NOT on the floor. When Rose was off the floor, the 2011 Chicago Bulls held their opponents Offensive Rating a whopping 12 Points below league average in Offensive Efficiency.

Simply put for these players respective teams, the Defense was the no. 1 driving force of their team's success with AI & Rose being Secondary impact drivers for their Team's Offense. Replace AI or Rose with Stackhouse & Derron Williams respectively their teams would still 53-60 games.

Nothing will change my mind

To make this estimation fully realistic for their entire careers, we have to factor in the massive gap in shots attempted per game between mj and lebron. Over their full careers, Michael Jordan averaged 22.9 field goal attempts per game, while LeBron James sits at 19.6 FGA.

To bridge this volume gap, we need to give LeBron an extra 3.3 shots per game over his entire career along with scaling up his whistle rate to the shots he takes. For this i will actually look at what spread of shots he took during his career to give you the exact behind the scenes math. Here is how those 3.3 extra shots break down when mapped directly to LeBron's real life career shot tracking data:

• At the Rim (0–3 feet): 35% of his career shots. He gets 1.16 extra attempts. Normally he shoots 73.7% here, but scaled down for forced volume, he shoots 67.0%, yielding 1.55 points.
• Short Mid-Range (3–10 feet): 13% of his career shots. He gets 0.43 extra attempts. Normally he shoots 42.6% here, but scaled down he shoots 36.5%, yielding 0.31 points.
• Deep Mid Range (10 feet–3PT line): 28% of his career shots. He gets 0.92 extra attempts. Normally he shoots 38.5% here, but scaled down he shoots 33.0%, yielding 0.61 points.
• Three Pointers: 24% of his career shots. He gets 0.79 extra attempts. Normally he shoots 34.8% here, but scaled down he shoots 31.0%, yielding 0.73 points.

If you look at how efficiency drops when volume goes up, which i actually kinda hoed lebron on cause i assumed the extra 3.3 shots where gonna be innefficent chucked shots so he would prbabaly have had a better fg percentage but im not redoing allat, anyways a great scorer's total efficiency wouldn't fall off a cliff. But to save mj i bullshitted his numbers and made those extra 3.3 forced, unassisted shots hit at a lower 44.0% clip. I assumed the extra shots he takes are actually difficult and arent east, so i transfrered the dropped percentage for the extra shots he took.

Because these tougher shots are blended into thousands of highly efficient career field goals, LeBron's overall career field goal percentage would only take a tiny 1% hit, bringing his career average down from 50.7% to a still elite 49.7%. If you dont understand, it is because as i said I'm adding the 3.3 extra shots dropped efficiency to the shots he already took during his career and hit at 50%.

So basically I did this:
LeBron's Real Career Makes: 19.6 x 50.7% = 9.937 field goals made per game (these being his actual carrer shots then).
Extra Forced Makes: 3.3 x 44% = 1.452 field goals made per game, and added this estimation onto the first one.

Overall even with that 1% drop to his total career efficiency, the pure math behind LeBron's shot selection (which includes 3 pointers) and his ability to generate free throws keeps his scaled average incredibly high.

Let's look at the actual numbers:
Real Jordan Career: 22.9 FGA | 49.7% FG | 30.1 PPG
Real LeBron Career: 19.6 FGA | 50.7% FG | 27.1 PPG
High Volume LeBron (With the Drop): 22.9 FGA (Exactly Equalized) | 49.7% FG | 31.2 PPG

Here is exactly why LeBron outscores mj:

The Extra Points from the Field (+3.2 PPG): Even with his efficiency on the extra 3.3 shots hitting at 44.0%, scaling up his shot diet where roughly 24% of his looks are three pointers naturally adds an extra 3.15 points per game from the floor easily.

The Extra Free Throws (+0.9 PPG): 3.3 more shots per game realistically forces the referees to blow the whistle more. Based on LeBron's career whistle rate, this gives him an extra 1.25 free throw attempts per game. i estimated this based of his whistel rate for his actual shot attempts duing his career so i actually hoed him on this aswell considering his free throws would scale up to absurd rates, anyways this added nearly a full point from the line when scaled to his 70% from the line.

Overall when looking at their entire careers, and their shot volume while applying a realistic (Maybe) efficiency drop, it still pushes LeBron's scoring average to 31.2 points per game on 49.7% which is funnily jordan exact career averge. This would make him the highest scoring player in NBA history on average, eclipsing Jordan's 30.12 PPG.

Ofc some mfs in the comments are gonna crash out but i did this for fun so you can rage at the air. Oh but dont bother to pull put some "Slower era" bs for mj btw, lebron had his highest scoring seaons in eras even slower than mjs. During Michael Jordan's peak scoring years in the late 1980s, the league average Pace (the number of possessions a team gets per 48 minutes) was around 100 to 102. Teams were running and gunning a shit ton.

Now look at the league average pace when LeBron was putting up some of his most legendary scoring seasons:

• 2005–06 (LeBron averaged 31.4 PPG): League average pace was 90.5.
• 2007–08 (LeBron won the scoring title with 30.0 PPG): League average pace was 92.4.
• 2011–12 (LeBron's first ring in Miami): League average pace went down to 90.

So no lebron didnt play in a faster paced era for the majority of his points anyways.

Do you think after some intense training that he could be one of the top pickleball players on tour? I've never seen anyone like him before on the pickleball court. With his height and wingspan he could cover a lot of the court. I think if he really put his mind to it he could probably be a pretty dominant player on tour.

im not talking about like oh he played with plumbers and what not but from a mental standpoint he would be horrible. nowadays, with the player empowerment era, nobody would want to play with jordan who would constantly berate and embarrass teammates as much as possible.

Feels like the honeymoon phase is starting to wear off for him. People used to talk about him being the future face of the league, but now he’s getting clowned for going into year 7 without any accolades like an All-NBA First Team selection.

The hype he had during the 2024 playoffs was special.

Why are people allowed to talk about kd in a negative way etc.. but he’s a soft bitch for responding?

1) Knicks - they have the pedigree now, along with the chemistry since they’ve stayed together. This is a no doubt

2) Toronto - obviously Kawhi is the X factor here but otherwise an extremely tough defense, good coach, etc.

3) Miami - good coach, just acquired one of the best players in the world, they’re going to be another top defense, and this franchise has no issue finding guys to play roles

4) Indiana - Haliburton is back now obviously, and we saw how important he is as the engine of the pacers offense

I want to emphasize “regardless of regular season seeding”

I’ll start

1. Steve Nash

2. Chris Paul

3. Austin Reaves

This has to be some sort of deliberate campaign to promote him because all ive been seeing in reddit today is MJ spam posts

Does my guy use a butcher’s knife to enjoy fruit or something?

He’s 28, currently getting lapped by his peers in accolades. His MVP window is rapidly closing. Has been injured in the playoffs for 3 consecutive years but is still constantly put in best in the world convos.

He has a brand new roster built around him so I don’t think there should be any excuses if he fails to clinch the title this year.