Lebron's style LOOKS more like a PG, but everything else says MJ was better passer

[3ball]

1. Stats


Considering Lebron's bread and butter is a predictable drive-and-kick, it's not surprising that his basic repertoire and style achieves lower assist averages in the playoffs (when the competition moves up to the higher level).


PLAYOFF AVERAGES THRU 30 YRS OLD:

Jordan: 35 PPG / 7 APG / 50% FG
Lebron: 28 PPG / 6 APG / 48% FG


FINALS AVERAGES THRU 30 YRS OLD:

Jordan: 36 PPG / 8 APG / 50% FG
Lebron: 24 PPG / 6 APG / 46% FG

Source: basketball-reference.com



2. Role on Team




As the aforementioned stats show, Jordan carried 25% more scoring burden in the playoffs and 50% more in the Finals - it's a testament to his superior skill that he still averages more assists and less turnovers than Lebron.. That should end the argument right there.. But there's more.

Lebron and Harden are the only wings in the league that dominate the ball more than point guards, even the ones on their own team.. This season, Lebron happens to be splitting PG duties with Kyrie - but normally, Lebron is always his team's point guard, like when he played with Chalmers and Mo Williams.. Even though Lebron has played point guard his entire career, he's never averaged anywhere near the 11 assists, or the all-round numbers MJ averaged the one time he got to play point guard.

Jordan's stats at point guard over the 24 games (31/9/11/51) were so ridiculous and so much better than Lebron has ever done, that they can't be explained away by statistical variance - those stats simply prove Jordan was the better passing point guard.. And we already know he was the better off-ball passer, which are passes made without using a point-guard-style, live dribble (shown in GIF above).

Of course, most people have a shallow view of the game, and in their mind, they only think of good passing coming from someone with a live-dribble, like a point guard.. This is the main reason Lebron's passing gets overrated.. But this is simple delusions - his assist averages are FAR from elite for a ball-dominator - elite would be guys like Magic, Nash, CP3, Isiah, Stockton, etc., who literally average twice the assists of Lebron.



3. Spacing Era

Passing is easier in this era because spacing creates wider lanes for easier passing.. Additionally, the NBA changed the rules with the specific intent of making passing easier - the NBA officially stated they opened up the lane with defensive 3 seconds and made drive-and-kicks more frequent with the penetration-easing hand-check ban.

A cursory glance at old footage shows that previous eras had far smaller passing and driving lanes lanes.. It's easy to see how much closer proximity defenders used to be - the lack of spacing in previous eras forced players to thread needles much more than today's game.. Less spacing makes for tougher passing.. That's common knowledge.
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[BigNBAfan]

[ralph_i_el]

MJ wasn't even good

[ImKobe]

[pauk]

Why go after just Lebron, i mean with that logic why not go ahead and say he possessed better passing ability than say Magic aswell including everybody else who were better than Jordan at that... or excuse me not better... nobody could have possibly been better than Jordan at anything.... especially that damned Lebron, argh, hate that guy!

Why not create a thread where you explain how he is a better rebounder than Rodman aswell or something.... You are creative, think of something...

Is it to much? I dont think so... you already said Jordan is as good of a shooter as Reggie Miller, Ray Allen and such so i mean you might aswell step your game up....

[ImKobe]

Why go after just Lebron, i mean with that logic why not go ahead and say he possessed better passing ability than say Magic aswell including everybody else who were better than Jordan at that... or excuse me not better... nobody could have possibly been better than Jordan at anything.... especially that damned Lebron, argh, hate that guy!

Why not create a thread where you explain how he is a better rebounder than Rodman aswell or something.... You are creative, think of something...

Is it to much? I dont think so... you already said Jordan is as good of a shooter as Reggie Miller, Ray Allen and such so i mean you might aswell step your game up....

Jordan is also the GOAT shot blocker

[Trollsmasher]

A single gif

You slippin' fvckboi

[navy]

You never stop huh?

[plowking]

MJ wasn't even good

This.

[Kvnzhangyay]

when you have to spend so much time making a stupid argument over and over again its generally wrong.

obviously true things don't need to be argued

[Prometheus]

3. Spacing Era

Passing is easier in this era because spacing creates wider lanes for easier passing.. Additionally, the NBA changed the rules with the specific intent of making passing easier - the NBA officially stated they opened up the lane with defensive 3 seconds and made drive-and-kicks more frequent with the penetration-easing hand-check ban.

A cursory glance at old footage shows that previous eras had far smaller passing and driving lanes lanes.. It's easy to see how much closer proximity defenders used to be - the lack of spacing in previous eras forced players to thread needles much more than today's game.. Less spacing makes for tougher passing.. That's common knowledge.
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This conjecture is not supported by the stats: http://www.basketball-reference.com/..._g_top_10.html, which show that the league-leaders in assists were averaging higher APG in the '80s and '90s than they do today. This could be rationalized in a number of ways, but there's no need to analyze it. The numbers simply prove that you're wrong.

[SHAQisGOAT]

Lebron is the best passing small forward in NBA History.

[L.A.Showtime]

Of course MJ was better. 3ball with another "duh" thread. He puts more work into obvious threads than anybody.

[L.A.Showtime]

Lebron is the best passing small forward in NBA History.

[Lebron23]

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/12...-pippen-record