LeBron: I'm Going To Be On The NBA's Mt. Rushmore

http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/02/11/lebron-james-says-when-hes-done-hell-belong-on-nbas-mount-rushmore/


LeBron James says when he’s done he’ll belong on NBA’s Mount Rushmore
Kurt Helin Feb 11, 2014, 9:06 PM EST



It’s one of those bar stool sports debates — name the Mount Rushmore for your team. Who are the four players/coaches/owners/whoever that had the biggest impact on this franchise? ProFootballTalk did it with every NFL team. You can certainly do it with the NBA as well.

LeBron James sat down with NBA TV  for an interview that airs Feb. 17. In it LeBron talks about Dwyane Wade and that first season in Miami, how Kevin Durant pushes him plus much more. The NBA sent out a little preview of the discussion.

Then Steve Smith asks LeBron to name the NBA’s Mount Rushmore, which is not easy.

“I would say obviously, the easy three, that we all talk about in our league is Michael Jordan, Larry Bird and you got Magic Johnson. And I would say my fourth… this is so tough, the greatest players of all time that I would like to see on Mount Rushmore… this is not fair. You know how many great players there is?

“Oscar Robertson.”

Then comes the question that will ignite hours of sports talk radio: When his career is over, will LeBron be up there?

“Yes.”

Why?

“Because I’m going to be one of the top four to ever play this game, for sure. And if they don’t want me to have one of those top four spots they better find another spot on that (mountain).”

LeBron refused to be drawn into the “who are you bumping off?” discussion.

First off, what do you expect LeBron to say? You don’t get to be a player of LeBron’s status without some ego and drive; he should say he wants to go down as one of the all time greats. If you asked Kobe about this mid-career, what do you think he would have said? What about Jordan? Bird?

I will say once again what I have said since LeBron first signed in Miami: We can’t accurately judge LeBron’s legacy right now. Right now he’s basically playing for that legacy (and a whole lot of cash, to be fair) — how many championships, MVPs and all of it factors in. Mostly the titles but there is more than that. For example, if LeBron goes to Rio with Team USA for the 2016 Olympics and wins gold, he will be the only basketball player ever with three golds, how would that factor in?

LeBron will go down as one of the most physically gifted players ever, without a doubt. He’s a guy that’s worked hard to improve his weaknesses (remember his jump shot the first few years?) and has accomplished a lot. But his overall legacy? Ask me when he’s been out of the game for a few years, that’s when we’ll have perspective on all of it.



bob
MY NOTE:  He's going to be on the NBA's Mt. Rushmore?  It better be on the NBA's Mt. Rushmore range.






























And I could go on and on and on.  This is precisely the type of dumbass comment you'd expect from someone who thinks the league should retire #23, and then goes to Miami and wears #6.



.

.

God he is pretentious...

Heck, Kobe belongs up there before he does.




KJ

This is absolutely not going to be a fair discussion on this forum.
When you factor in Lebron's scoring, passing, rebounding and his defense, he will easily be a top 10, if he's not already. I think he will be a top 5 player in history when he retires.

LeBron should already be ranked higher than Kobe despite the 5 to 2 ring count. It's close, but LeBron has been a more all around dominant player.

He's smoking the same stuff doc is.... He couldn't knock off anyone from celtics or lakers mt Rushmore...

TJ. LeBron won't be top 4. Ever. That's solidified. It should not even be a discussion.

Can he be considered top 10? Possibly.


KJ

TJ, you're right that it won't be a fair discussion on this forum, but I consider myself reasonably objective when it comes to something like this, and LeBron is wrong here.

Look, he fell into a trap by even answering the question. Great players have huge egos, and LeBron has good reason to believe in the supremacy of his talent and skills, but he's wrong here.

I'm not a fan of ranking individual players. When these topics come up, I instead prefer to group players -- a group of the absolute best and another level just below that group, for example. So I wouldn't even answer the Mt. Rushmore question, because that limits the top group to four, and I have more than four in that group.

It may be that when all is said and done and time for reflection has passed that I'll add LeBron in that top group. He's not there yet, but that fact that I consider it a possibility speaks to the respect I have for him as a player.

Here's the problem:

• First off, he doesn't include Russell, Wilt, Oscar, or anyone from the old days, as if the league began with Magic and Larry in the 1980s. It's like when he changed his number from 23 because that was Jordan's number and was practically sacred, and chose the number used by the greatest winner in the history of professional team sports. The ignorance shown in those choices is astounding.

• Limiting the group to four means considering LeBron better than players left off that short list. I'm sorry, but LeBron isn't better than Russell, Wilt, Oscar, Elgin, or Kareem. I could be convinced to say that he's not better than Cousy or West. You start pressing me, and I might very well say he's not better than James Worthy and Dr. J. Add Larry, Magic, and Michael and he doesn't even crack the top 10.

So, yeah, you're the greatest player in the world, but don't give me this "top four of all time" nonsense. He should be more worried about seeing Durant coming up in his rear view mirror.

Hi,
IMHO, the mere fact that he talks about it now should disqualify him to be there.

AK

k_j_88 wrote:TJ. LeBron won't be top 4. Ever. That's solidified. It should not even be a discussion.

Can he be considered top 10? Possibly.


KJ

I said he could be a top 5. Why can't it be a discussion?
This is all opinion based on each persons views and what facts they present.
Only Kareem, Jordan and Russell have more MVP's than LeBron's 4.
LeBron could win 7 or 8 MVP's by the time he retires.
All 10 years of LeBron's career he has finished in the top 9 of MVP voting and in 9 of those 10 years he finished in the top 6. This is not even comparing stats, because his are off the charts.
His defense is extremely under rated.
He might be the only player in the league that can truly guard all 5 positions.
I saw pictures of Maravich and Cousy as maybe better than LeBron. Really?
Maravich finished in the top 14 of MVP voting 1 time.

TJ,

You also left out the fact that the NBA is immensely softer than it's ever been.

It's easier for LeBron to pad stats because of how the game is called now.




KJ

k_j_88 wrote:TJ,

You also left out the fact that the NBA is immensely softer than it's ever been.

It's easier for LeBron to pad stats because of how the game is called now.




KJ

Do you think the NBA was physical when Bill Russell and Cousy played?
It was a fast paced, little contact league.
LeBron is one of the greatest athletes in the history of the sport.
If LeBron played in the 50's, 60's or 80's when teams were scoring 110-118 points per game and averaging over 100 shot attempts per game, how much better would LeBron's stats look? Significantly.
The Only player that I can say that I have seen play that I can confirm is absolutely better than LeBron is Michael Jordan. We can argue Magic and Larry but not Kobe or anyone else in my opinion.

TJ

Wrong!!


There was a hell of a lot of contact when wilt and Russ played. I SAW IT!

little contact league??? funny

What rules are we playing under? 60s-70s NBA had no 3 point shot. The game was physical and played under the basket. Outside shots didn't matter so much because a 22 foot shot counted just as many points as a 2 foot shot.

Todays stars would be in for a surprise if they played a 60's team under 60's rules. They'd drive inside, get an elbow to the mouth, and there's no whistle, Nope, perfectly legal play.

And of course, if a 60's era team played a modern team under modern rules, they'd all foul out by halftime.



beat

beat wrote:TJ

Wrong!!


There was a hell of a lot of contact when wilt and Russ played. I SAW IT!

little contact league??? funny

What rules are we playing under? 60s-70s NBA had no 3 point shot. The game was physical and played under the basket. Outside shots didn't matter so much because a 22 foot shot counted just as many points as a 2 foot shot.

Todays stars would be in for a surprise if they played a 60's team under 60's rules. They'd drive inside, get an elbow to the mouth, and there's no whistle, Nope, perfectly legal play.

And of course, if a 60's era team played a modern team under modern rules, they'd all foul out by halftime.



beat

Beat,


An elbow to the mouth and there's no foul called, a perfectly legal play?
Are you sure you weren't watching roller derby?

I'm not a big LeBron fan for obvious reasons but I hope he does win 7 or 8 MVP's.
He is that good. He is that dominant. He has been from the first game he stepped onto an NBA floor.
There's nothing he doesn't do extremely well. Just like Jordan.
Even Magic and Larry had weaknesses in their game.

TJ,

LeBron isn't a great FT shooter. He's pretty average there. And is a 33.8% 3P FG shooter.

I wouldn't say every facet of his game is flawless.


KJ

tjmakz wrote:I'm not a big LeBron fan for obvious reasons but I hope he does win 7 or 8 MVP's.
He is that good. He is that dominant. He has been from the first game he stepped onto an NBA floor.
There's nothing he doesn't do extremely well. Just like Jordan.
Even Magic and Larry had weaknesses in their game.

I have to disagree with several things.

How many MVPs LeBron wins may indicate how dominant he is during his time, but it is not a way to measure him compared to other legends of the game. Oscar Robertson won only one MVP, but that's not because he wasn't one of the absolute best players in NBA history. During his peak playing years, he played at the same time as Russell and Wilt. Now, you take LeBron and have him play at the same time as Russell and Wilt, and I guarantee you he'd be like Oscar -- lucky to win one MVP.

I also disagree with your contention that LeBron was "that good" from the first game he stepped onto an NBA floor. He was a very good player, and he has marvelous physical gifts. To be that big, that strong, and that fast is amazing. He has tremendous skills. But it's only been in the past few years that he has advanced to a level that he could possibly enter into a discussion with all-time greats. Only in the past couple of years has he shown that he can be the guy to lead a team to victory under the toughest of circumstances and at the highest level. Even his first year in Miami, he was a disappearing act in the fourth quarter, especially in the finals against Dallas. Before that in Cleveland, he was like the Cavs in general -- good during the regular season, but not good enough when it counted.

In his first NBA season, LeBron averaged 20.9 points on 41.7% shooting, 5.9 assists, and 5.5 rebounds, which is very good but not spectacular. This is what being "that good from the first time he stepped on an NBA floor" looks like:

• Despite joining the team mid-season, Bill Russell averaged 14.7 points and a league-leading 19.6 rebounds. Yet his biggest impact was that he literally transformed the game from how it had been played before, blocking shots, intimidating opponents into turnovers and poor shot opportunities, and igniting the fast break. In his very first game, he guarded the reigning MVP, Bob Petit, and blocked three of his shots. In his first playoff game, Russell had 16 points and 31 rebounds and prompted Dolph Schayes to say, "How much does that guy make a year? It would be to our advantage if we paid him off for five years to get away from us in the rest of this series." Russell immediately transformed what had been a good team into a championship dynasty.

• Wilt had 43 points and 28 rebounds in his first NBA game and averaged 37.6 points and 27.0 rebounds as a rookie, breaking NBA records for both, and becoming the league MVP in his first season. LeBron wouldn't earn his first MVP until his sixth season.

• As a rookie, Oscar Robertson averaged 30.5 points, 10.1 rebounds and a league-leading 9.7 assists (and the awarding of assists was much more stringent in those days; if the recipient of the pass dribbled or made any move other than going directly up for the shot, it wasn't counted as an assist). In his first five seasons, he averaged a triple-double one season and missed a triple-double by less than one rebound or assist in the other four seasons.

• In his first season, Larry Bird led a team that was 29-53 to a 61-21 record (unless you think the acquisitions of M.L. Carr and Gerald Henderson were responsible for the turnaround). The 32-game improvement is the biggest in NBA history except for the 1996-97 Spurs, and that team had been 59-23 two years prior, sunk the next year when David Robinson got hurt, then added both Robinson and Tim Duncan (the prior year when they were 20-62 was the exception, not the "turnaround" season). In Bird's rookie year, he was the only new starter from the prior season.

• In his first season, Magic Johnson led a team that was 47-35 the previous season to a 60-22 record and a championship with an unforgettable 42-point, 15-rebound, seven-assist performance in game 6 of the finals, jumping center and playing all five positions when Kareem was out with an injury.

Regarding the "LeBron does everything well like Jordan, even Bird and Magic had weaknesses in their game" comment, being an excellent all-around player doesn't automatically mean that he's better than anyone who has a demonstrated weakness in their game. Russell was a limited offensive player and relatively poor at free throws, but he dominated games with his defense and rebounding, and that defense and rebounding was the engine that made the Celtics' fast break go, which was yet another advantage Boston had over the rest of the league. He turned a good team into a championship dynasty, and whether he could win the NBA skills competition doesn't diminish his impact.

When it comes to being a physical specimen, LeBron isn't the only physical marvel to ever play in this league. Despite their size, Wilt and Russell were track athletes who could run faster than anyone on their team and jump high enough to touch the top of the backboard and look down on the rim. Oscar was big, strong, and fast enough to guard any position on the floor, too. Magic was a 6-9 guy playing a small-man's position who was as fast, as quick, and as good a ballhandler as any of the little guys and used his height to do things no other guard could do; his size didn't become a disadvantage until later in his career when he got heavier and couldn't defend the small, quick guys any more.

LeBron is a tremendous player, and he may deserve to be considered among the best to play the game by the time his career is over, but he absolutely does not deserve to be considered better than Russell, Wilt, Oscar, or any of the guys I mentioned in my previous post. In fact, I might add even Bob Pettit and Kevin McHale to that list.

Outside

one other point, How many years of compiling stats has lebron gained by NOT attending a day of college?

beat

He will definitely get there.

Best all around player since the big O who us better than both bird and magic and kobe.

LeBron is the best player in the NBA

Dboss

Beat,

There's two sides to that coin. Yes, he was able to add to his stat total by coming into the league directly from high school, but you also have to give him props for being good enough to average 20 points per game right out of high school.

Another thing to consider is the impact coming out early will have on the second half of his career. Even though he's only 29, he's already in his 11th season, and as Kobe said, it's not the years, it's the mileage. All the cumulative wear and tear from starting in the NBA so early may mean he'll be done at an earlier age.

I also think there's another factor that could shorten his career -- his size. I've heard various estimates of his weight, but 275-280 seems realistic, and I expect that moving all that mass with such quickness and explosion will have a cumulative physical toll. He's been remarkably injury free, but I expect to see tendonitis and other leg issues crop up before too long. Guys who rely so heavily on their physicality can suffer a drastic drop-off in production when their body starts to go (Dave Cowens and Vince Carter are two that come to mind). Maybe he can adapt his game -- Jordan, Magic, and Dr. J were able to -- but that remains to be seen. With his large bulk, I think he has a higher potential for injury than those other guys I mentioned.

Outside,

How old was LeBron when he first stepped on the basketball court? He wasn't even 19 yet. Yes, he was a force even as an 18 year old. He finished 9th in the MVP Voting as a rookie. How many players average 20/5/5 in a season? LeBron did it as an 18/19 year old rookie. In his first game of his career as an 18 year old, LeBron had 25 points, 6 rebs, 9 assists, 4 steals with just two turnovers. Yes, he dominated from day 1.

I can't really comment on Oscar, Wilt and Russell. They were all obviously dominant players. I never saw them play.

I can comment on Magic and Bird who I watched their whole careers.
They had defensive weakness compared to LeBron who is a dominant defensive player and Magic wasn't a terrific shooter for many years.
You mentioned Worthy and Dr. J earlier? What did either of them do that was better then what LeBron does? Worthy is not even a top 25 player in my opinion. Top 50 yes.

Do you think Magic could have guarded centers for any significant time?

I won't get into why this whole thing is stupid, because I don't want to insult any people for whom it's unfathomably meaningful. I could, but I won't. Suffice it to say that I'm with Outside in terms of the invalidity of this type of discussion involving different eras among people with such diverse tenures as fans.

Sam

TJ says:" I can comment on Magic and Bird who I watched their whole careers.
They had defensive weakness compared to LeBron who is a dominant defensive player..."


Larry Bird may have had "defensive weaknesses" but, oddly,  the coaches voted him three times to the all-defensive second team.

Yes, he spent his career playing free safety or, to the less charitable, an illegal zone but he sure did that well.

I recall that when he was asked about this, Bird just shrugged and said something like, "The rules is real complicated so you can do it 13 or 14 times before they catch you."

I always loved Bird's plain spoken honesty.

I think this is a mostly useless discussion but in all sports we have ideas and discussions about who is the greatest or who is better than who. It's ok to share our opinions.

Some think Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player, some think Willie Mays was.
Some think Montana was the greatest football player, some think Jim Brown was or Lawrence Taylor or Dick Butkus.
Some think Wilt was the greatest basketball player. Some think it was Jordan or Russell.
If someone is going to post an article like this one that Bob posted that is obviously going to be debated mostly because it involves LeBron who many Celtics fans hate, we should be able to share our views, especially if we attempt to do so with some points in mind which support our argument. I don't know if people realize how much LeBron hatred there is on this forum.

I don't necessarily think anyone feels this discussion in and of itself is all that important. It really just came up because there are very highly regarded players throughout the years and when someone makes a claim it does attract some attention.



KJ

"Russell was a limited offensive player "

I only saw Russell when I was about eight years old but there's some interesting comments by John Havlicek about Russell's offense.

From Havlicek's autobiography:

"People think of him in terms of defense and rebounding but he had been the key to our offense.  He made the best pass more than anyone I have ever played with.  That mattered to people like Nelson, Howell, Siegfried, Sanders and myself...Russell made us better offensive players.  His ability as a passer, pick-setter and general surmiser of offense has always been overlooked."

Wilt Chamberlain in his book said much the same thing when he wasn't telling us about the 20,000 women he had sex with.

tjmakz wrote:How old was LeBron when he first stepped on the basketball court? He wasn't even 19 yet. Yes, he was a force even as an 18 year old. He finished 9th in the MVP Voting as a rookie. How many players average 20/5/5 in a season? LeBron did it as an 18/19 year old rookie. In his first game of his career as an 18 year old, LeBron had 25 points, 6 rebs, 9 assists, 4 steals with just two turnovers. Yes, he dominated from day 1.

Yes, averaging 20/5/5 as a 19-year-old rookie is a nice achievement, but that is not "dominating." I gave you examples of players who were far, far more dominant as rookies.

The 20/5/5 stat isn't something magical that proves LeBron's worthiness. Tyreke Evans averaged 20.1 points, 5.8 assists, and 5.3 rebounds as a 20-year-old rookie; should we include him in the discussion as one of the greatest of all time? What about Lamar Odom, who had 30 points, 12 rebounds, and three assists in his first game as a 19-year-old rookie?

tjmakz wrote:I can't really comment on Oscar, Wilt and Russell. They were all obviously dominant players. I never saw them play.

But that doesn't mean they should be excluded from the discussion. As with the law, when it comes to discussions of all-time greatness, ignorance is no excuse, and it is certainly no excuse for excluding them from the hypothetical Mr. Rushmore in favor of LeBron.

tjmakz wrote:I can comment on Magic and Bird who I watched their whole careers.
They had defensive weakness compared to LeBron who is a dominant defensive player and Magic wasn't a terrific shooter for many years.

I think Bird and Magic were better defensive players than you give them credit for, especially Bird, who was a master at the intricacies of playing effective team defense and was a leader on defense. LeBron can be an excellent defender, but in my opinion, people put too much emphasis on the showy stuff like chase-down blocks and brief stints guarding a star guard like Derrick Rose like he did in the playoffs a few years ago. I've seen him look very average for long stretches on defense

As for Magic's shooting, he was limited in range when he entered the league, but he was very efficient as a rookie, shooting 54.0% from the field, 81.0% from the line, and averaging 18.0 points. For his career, he shot 54.1% from the field and 84.8% from the line. But even quibbling over his shooting is missing the point that I made in my previous post, that being a transformative, dominating player does not require having no area of weakness, and having no area of relative weakness does not automatically make a player dominating.

tjmakz wrote:Do you think Magic could have guarded centers for any significant time?

No, but neither can LeBron.

tjmakz wrote:You mentioned Worthy and Dr. J earlier? What did either of them do that was better then what LeBron does? Worthy is not even a top 25 player in my opinion. Top 50 yes.

That's your opinion. I obviously have a higher opinion of Worthy and Dr. J than you do.

But again you're missing the point. I didn't say they were better than LeBron. I said that I might very well say that LeBron isn't better than them. The whole problem with the Mt. Rushmore idea is that it claims LeBron is better than all but three players in NBA history, and that is absurd. You said that he could be in the top 5, which means that he's better -- not as good as, but better -- than all but four other players in NBA history, and I say that is also absurd.

It's like this stupid thing they had recently about Kevin Durant scoring 30 or more points in whatever number of consecutive games. I really like Durant, and he's my son's favorite player, but as I pointed out to him, pay attention to how they phrase it, because when they discussed the streak, they included the caveat "in the past 30 years" or something like that. Yet many fans I'm sure think that he was setting some sort of record, despite the fact that in 1961-62, Wilt scored 30 or more in 78 out of 80 games.

So if you don't want to comment on anyone prior to Bird and Magic, make your Mr. Rushmore or best 5 list for the last 30 years and include LeBron, but please, please for love of the game, do not presume that LeBron belongs on any top-4 or top-5 all-time list. As far as I'm concerned, no such list is possible because the number of players who belong in "best of all time" group is too large. Perhaps LeBron may join that group someday, but he's not there yet, and for him to presume that he's better than others in that group displays an ignorance about the game that is truly sad.

tjmakz wrote:I think this is a mostly useless discussion but in all sports we have ideas and discussions about who is the greatest or who is better than who. It's ok to share our opinions.

Some think Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player, some think Willie Mays was.
Some think Montana was the greatest football player, some think Jim Brown was or Lawrence Taylor or Dick Butkus.
Some think Wilt was the greatest basketball player. Some think it was Jordan or Russell.
If someone is going to post an article like this one that Bob posted that is obviously going to be debated mostly because it involves LeBron who many Celtics fans hate, we should be able to share our views, especially if we attempt to do so with some points in mind which support our argument. I don't know if people realize how much LeBron hatred there is on this forum.

I don't mind having the discussion. Far too many basketball fans are unaware of the great, great players who played in earlier years, and I look on these discussions as an opportunity to educate.

I think attempting to name one player as the greatest in a particular sport is a flawed idea, and I use these discussions as an opportunity to promote that idea also.

Unless I missed a post, I don't think the discussion on this thread has shown any hatred toward LeBron. On the contrary, I think he's been shown a great deal of respect. Just because most people commenting here don't agree with putting him in the top 4 or top 5 doesn't mean they hate him. I know that's certainly not the case for me.