Why not? Folks do that to uplift Lebron all the time. Isn’t Luka facing better competition too? That’s what y’all say in Bron vs MJ convos.
LeBron's rookie year had the 2nd slowest pace since the early 50s, had zones AND hand-checking legal simultaneously, was loaded with defensive giants, and was arguably the most difficult year to score in of all time.
I mean come on now, you had a team with prime Kobe and prime Shaq (two supposedly unstoppable offensive talents) coached by the GOAT Phil Jackson and they only averaged 82ppg in the Finals. A Prime Kobe/Prime Shaq team scored 68 points (Shaq 14, Kobe 11, no one else on the team in double figures) in a Finals game.
Kobe played 45 minutes just to put up an 11-3-5 with 4 turnovers stat line. That's some crazy shyt.
The last two years, on the other hand, are being played with fastest pace since 1990 (though isn't necessarily easier since it's not an expansion year like 1990 was and defense has locked in a lot since then), and is clearly the most opened up basketball has been in a couple decades.
Yet MJ's rookie year (and all the way up through his 5th year) was played at an even faster pace. AND the pace only dropped significantly when the NBA added six expansion teams between 1988 and 1995 (the most the NBA history had ever added in such a short time), fukking up the chemistry of so many teams and forcing so many unready players to get playing time that the league actually moved the three-point line in for MJ's comeback seasons just because fools couldn't shoot for shyt.
And that's before you even get into the teammates part of the equation.
THAT'S why some of y'all are so annoying. You try to make stat arguments from a place of total ignorance, then get pissed off when people use actual context to explain stats as if that should give you the right to use made-up context.
Post stats from Kobe’s first 100 games.
Don’t start laker brehs.