LeBron would have greatly benefited from the illegal defense rules of the 90's. It was much easier to iso guys back then, when teams doubled they had to commit earlier too, LeBron would have picked them apart with his passing. Also LeBron could just back dudes down from the 3 point line since this was pre Mark Jackson rules. He would have thrived under those rules too. Just like Jordan would have thrived in the modern game.
97-98 Bulls Documentary (The Last Dance)
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LeBron would have greatly benefited from the illegal defense rules of the 90's. It was much easier to iso guys back then, when teams doubled they had to commit earlier too, LeBron would have picked them apart with his passing. Also LeBron could just back dudes down from the 3 point line since this was pre Mark Jackson rules. He would have thrived under those rules too. Just like Jordan would have thrived in the modern game.
Heck he was out of basketball not even for two seasons and when he came back, except for a couple of big scoring games, he wasn't the same at all.
There's a certain rhythm and conditioning to playing a game that can take years to find.
550 × 310Haha, this is exactly my point. That'd been considered a light pick back in the day. Imagine how he'd react with Rodman, Barkley, Oakley, Mahorn, Malone, et al bruising on the guy for 48 minutes.
The only two players where I've never seen their physical gifts equal are Shaq and LeBron. With MJ he had elite physical gifts but it's his mental game where I've never seen the equal.
I think some of the young LeBron fans are morons for their fantasy that MJ played on stacked All Star teams, but I definitely think LeBron would dominate equally in any era of basketball he played in. The idea that LeBron wouldn't have kicked @$$ in the 70s, 80s, or 90s is fantasy.
LeBron is Magic's skills with Karl Malone's physical presence. A ridiculous thing to dream up if we hadn't seen it.
This is a long read, but chronicles Jordan's baseball years. I think this is an article I read a while back that made the case for how he was improving.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id...ichael-jordan-brief-promising-baseball-career
And here is a clip of Jordan in the 1994 exhibition game against the Cubs at Wrigley:
Yeah, it's pretty crazy, because people that don't really follow baseball buy the notion that he sucked at it, and the hardcore baseball people seemed to be a bit insulted by it and downplayed what he did.
He got thrown into a level that was significantly higher than a guy that was the best prospect in recent years in Bryce Harper. It took Mike Trout, one of the All-time greats his third year I believe to reach AA.
LeBron has 40 lbs on Rodman, 25 on Oakley, 10 on Mahorn, he’s the same size as Malone. He’s huge. He played 40+ min a game through four rounds of the playoffs for eight straight years. Any argument that he would be the one who couldn’t handle the physical aspect of the game is crazy. Players flop all the time in today’s game, it’s part of the modern NBA unfortunately.
Hitting .206 or whatever is was he hit in AA is impressive. Not really sure how it was back then, but high level college ball is considered to be somewhere around the High-A level, and the jump from high A to AA is considered the biggest jump in the minors
Kind of think pitchers were being nice and just feeding him fastballs though.
It would have been interesting to know if MJ played baseball instead of basketball how good he would have been. Obviously he wasn’t good in the minors but he went from the couch to the minor leagues. Not hard to figure out why he didn’t succeed.
Beat me to it. Hell Connor Mccaffery plays baseball in college and he couldn’t hit .200 in AA.
Maybe their managers instructed them to throw a few cheeseballs to him because Jordan was putting butts in the seats of minor league games.
I don't think is the case. It's really hard to believe a guy battling for his livelihood and dream is going to serve up meatballs. Not to mention there was a lot of resentment by people that thought it was a sideshow and a slap in the face that Jordan was playing and going right to AA. He did earn a lot of respect.
I find it interesting that at the start of Jordan's baseball career, those outside of baseball seemed to mostly think, "he can probably be really good" and by the time he called it quits, they just assumed he sucked. The "inside baseball" guys thought there was no way in hell a guy can be away from the game for 13 years and succeed at any level, let alone AA. By the end those guys were saying how good he was and could be if he stayed with it.
Agree too, I have always read that A to AA is the biggest jump. I remember Kirby Puckett talking about how AA was the toughest for him. Combination of great pitching talent that was still raw and unpredictable, bad lighting and really weird fields. He said it wouldn't be like that for everybody, but for the less patient hitters like him it was a struggle.
Double AA is typically where the young stud prospects go before their jump to the show, at least it used to be.
