Luca is incredible but never going to have quite the same trust in the numbers given his defense being clearly mediocre. Still has a great chance to enter the pantheon but could also settle in that Nash/Nowitzki tier.

Sometimes contrarian is just stupid.

33.3%,
31%,
24.3%

Hint: Lebron is not #1 on usage in this list. Yet the player that is is an “undisputed top player” despite being the most plausible candidate for having the offense designed to “maximize his talents”. Curious.

And let’s not forget Wilt, who we don’t have usage stats for but would definitely be competing with Lebron and Jordan for top 2 usage. But yes, we can pretend Lebron was some kind of all-consuming Westbrookian usage soaker and Jordan wasn’t for the sake of the bit.

IMO, Lebron is in the same class as them in terms of raw basketball, but he’s notch below guys like Jordan, Bird, Magic, and quite a few others in “mental strength”.

Imagine having lived through the 2016 Finals and believing this to be true.

Just going to leave this here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl3JCYxLvDI

Yeah, now Luca just has to play at close to this level for another 15 years to match LBJ. That’s insane.

Reminds me of Mike Trout. Before he started getting injured, the pace of his WAR was akin to the very best in baseball history. He’s a little over halfway through his career now (if he plays through his entire 30s, as I suspect he will, because he earns $37M a year until he turns 39) and only needs to duplicate his first decade to catch up to Bonds, Ruth and Mays. That’s all. Just have a HOF career… twice.

It’s pretty crazy.

IMO, Lebron is overrated. There I said it.

I know that’s the ultimate contrarian opinion, but I believe it.

This? This is not it, chief.

I know that’s the ultimate contrarian opinion, but I believe it.

1. The stats are the stats, but the stats are partly a function of who has the ball in their hands, how often, their role, the make up of their team, the rules, the system etc… Lebron’s teams were generally built to maximize HIM given the rules (similar to Doncic now). Other great players were on teams trying to win championships with a more balanced approach with tougher rules instead of one guy always having the ball piling up numbers in space. So I think the comparisons via stats alone are flawed.

2. IMO, when you get down to the top 10-15 players of all time playing on some of the all time great teams, the difference between winning and losing championships is not just a function of your best player’s overall stats in the series. Those games and series tend to go back and forth and are very tough and tight. Winning then partially becomes a function of who can execute at the same or an even higher level under extreme duress down the stretch of critical games consistently.

I would argue, that most of the all time greats could handle that extreme pressure and rise up. In fact, that’s why they won and that’s partly how we know they were great. They did it.

IMO, Lebron is in the same class as them in terms of raw basketball, but he’s notch below guys like Jordan, Bird, Magic, and quite a few others in “mental strength”. I don’t say that lightly. He’s made plenty of great plays under pressure, but imo he also clearly buckled at times in ways some of those other guys never did. There’s a difference between missing and buckling. They all missed. IMO Lebron buckled. I think given 2 very similar overall teams, guys like Jordan, Magic, Bird, Kareem, and a few others would handle Lebron fairly consistently.

If you ask me about Giannis, I think he’s still a hair below those guys in skills, but he’s mentally as strong as anyone.

I don’t think Giannis would be easily stopped in any era. I think in the 90’s he would have thrived with his physical toolset. I actually think that he is negatively impacted in this era by his poor ft shooting and three point shooting.

I think his poor shooting makes his dominance in this era somehow more freakish, but I see what you mean. If Giannis had a jump shot (Wembanyama incoming) he would be unfair in a previously-unseen sort of way. Instead, we just get Prime Shaq as a PG in the pace-and-space era, which is its own kind of unfair.

I think it’s also good to remember that if Giannis played in the 80s or 90s, he probably would have been made to develop as a post-playing PF. Magic Johnson, the league’s first GOAT-level oversized PG, was an anomaly because he was so damn good at ball handling from the outset. Giannis was given a whole lot of reps before he got the greenlight to run an offense. So in another sense, Giannis benefits from the modern NBA’s greater focus on demonstrated skills than body archetypes. Put him on the 90s Sonics and he’s basically Shawn Kemp. He’s not scoring 25 PPG on ridiculous efficiency unless he’s allowed to initiate the offense.