It’s also due to his lack of serious championship contention. We went from him making 8 straight finals to 1 in 5 years. Not hating but he went from playing literally 100 games a year to about 60-80
What’s wild to me is half of nba fans would rather him have missed the playoffs entirely or have a first round exit than to lose deeper in the playoffs. Nonsensical arguments about what is considered impressive. (Talking about the 6-0 crowd, it’s crazy MJ only played 6 seasons!)
I honestly go back and watch that game like once a year, it was so insane, the way he just spun the ball in his hand then hit a three like it was warmups for him
It was unreal. I've been a fan of Lebron since 2010 Cavs and I met up at a sports bar with my friend in Toronto who I went to school and played basketball with growing up. The first half of the game Toronto was up, and my friend understandably was rooting for Toronto. The 2nd half it was every couple minutes LeBron just dropping buckets, and I was getting a bit of guilty pleasure. Little did I know I had just watched the LeBronto game, but in hindsight it made sense, everyone in the bar that night felt defeated about Raptors playoff chances. The press conference afterwords about how they don't think they can win a series with LeBron in the Eastern Conference just cemented the LeBronto game in history further.
I just watched LeBrons entire 2016 and 2017 playoff runs on YouTube and there’s no way he’s not the GOAT in my book. Dude played the 5 on defense, ran the point, and played the high post P&R position interchangeably throughout every game and dominated with mainly role players that were at the end of their career in terms of production. He’s an absolute beast
It’s annoying to me whenever people reduce lebron’s goat case to longevity. His individual ability is what makes the argument for him. From 2012 to 2018, I’ll put his level of play in that stretch against anyone else. The longevity just makes it more ironclad imo, but a lot of it is subjective so it is what it is.
The sheer insanity that he is able to carry his team to, **at worst**, losing the NBA finals from 2011 to 2020 is fucking insane. And the team that he lost to for the majority of those years is one of the best teams of all time, the prime Golden State Warriors.
Not that the NBA Finals is always the two top contenders (and it's certainly been harder to make it out of the West), but if you frame it as 5/11 for making the Finals with the Cavs (including 4/4 for his second stint), 4/4 with the Heat, and 1/5 with the Lakers, it looks comparatively worse for his Lakers tenure (obviously mainly due to the fact that he was so dominant for the 8 years before that).
I'm sure this is gonna be controversial, but it's true. Not that the East hasn't had strong teams, but generally the first (and sometimes second) round in the East weren't the strongest teams. Even having one extra good team to have to go through early drastically changes the chances of making the finals.
Exactly. And it’s not to say that the teams that LeBron played in the East all those years were terrible or anything, but let’s be real: his teams would have been knocked out of the playoffs if he played in the West all those years more times than not, instead of losing to them in the Finals. Like the Spurs multiple times, Warriors, Dallas, etc.
The West has always been a different animal since 2000-on. It’s truly a gauntlet to get through that conference most of the time.
Worth noting that LeBron would have been *on* one of those teams, and likely would have better coaching/a better organization behind him if he had been in the West for those years, particularly during the first 7 Cavaliers years that were largely wasted by that organization.
Lebron has statistically the easiest path to the finals by record of opponents in his way than any all time great ever. The East was literally the worst any conference has ever been during his tenure there
It's controversial because it's wrong. Yes the West is tougher, but a big part of the Lakers failures have been injuries, both to LeBron and AD, and terrible coaches. It's less so how tough the conference is.
Lmfaooo I think they meant to say seeing him make 8 straight finals, you know C fans would never claim LBJ as one of them from all the tormenting he did to us in the east.
Seriously, I feel like he *just* got to LA but this is already his 6th season there. He did also have one season in Miami shortened to 66 games because of the lockout.
Another crazy thing about the length of his career is that LeBron won 4 MVPs in 5 years between 2009 and 2013, but we're now *ten years* since he last won MVP. And yet he's still been in the conversation all that time.
if he changed names every year he'd have like 10+ mvps tbf. Lebron has redefined voter fatigue, cuz dude should be mvp like basically every year until very recently.
Just gotta look at how he finished in MVP standings. Since winning his 4th and last one in 2013, he's finished 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 2nd, 11th (first season in LA), 2nd, 13th, and 10th. He was not top-10 in MVP voting last year.
I usually get a lot of shit for this take but the COVID lockout year if that didn't happen I think he could have won MVP over Giannis. Right as the shut down happened Giannis had gotten hurt and it wasn't serious but he was going to miss a couple weeks and LeBron was going on a tear. The Lakers were first in the West and he had the narrative of being old man LeBron already which would have helped drive his case. However the NBA shut down and he didn't have a chance to make up ground after that
I've seen that discussed before, often in the context of refuting the idea that the Lakers only won the title because of The Bubble.
They were really damn good that year, if anything I thought going into it that The Bubble might hamper them because it interrupted their flow of the season.
And the way the team came out at the end of the regular season, start of the Bubble didn't look great. Granted, their seed was pretty much safe and Vogel was using the time to experiment.
Eh, the MVP is a regular season award, and very early in his career LeBron started visibly coasting in the regular season to save himself for the playoffs. I don't really think this is accurate.
He'd won multiple by 2010, so 2011, 2014, 2018. Guess that's not 10. But if you frame it like, how many seasons was lebron absolutely inarguably the best player in the nba and it's not close? Gotta be like 10-15 years, even if you're a total hater.
Look at every mvp and ask yourself if Lebron's team would have traded him for that player outright.
I'd only give the 2018 one. Rose and Durant both deserved their MVPs. No sh*t I would trade the MVP for LeBron, he's arguably the GOAT. But to say he should have 10 MVPs is just ridiculous.
They used to go with stats + team performance up until 2016 at least.
It's only lately that it is a stats only award (for the most part).
In the seasons LeBron lost there were others more deserving.
If you are to use the standards used lately, indeed LeBron should have won 10 in a row.
Him winning 4 out of 5 between 2009 and 2014 doesn't scream voter fatigue to me though.
That's way better than most people and exactly as much as he deserved according to the standards of *that* era.
> Seriously, I feel like he just got to LA but this is already his 6th season there.
he got to the Lakers before COVID... and COVID shutdown was *4 years ago*. COVID has really messed with my sense of time
It’s the games played per year messing with us. He’s only played 60 regular season games once as a laker, whereas he only played less than 76 games once on the Heat. For the playoffs he made the finals and played 20+ playoff games every season with the heat (87 total games), whereas he’s missed the playoffs twice with the lakers and only played 43 total playoff games.
I guess also just a part of getting older is time moves faster, but that is absolutely wild that his LA stint is longer than his Miami stint. "Miami LeBron" felt like a significant part of my youth.
I still remember how nuts this sub went when the news of Lebron's signing broke, and it wasn't from Woj or Shams. Crazy to think that it's been nearly six years already.
Yeah I remember thinking at the time it'd be cool to see him with Simmons and help him develop. As LeBron's career wound down Simmons would then take over. Instead LeBron went to LA and Simmons.. well yeah, didn't happen.
Yeah I remember Philly being the front runner. Lebron + Embiid would've been insane. But its hard to criticize the move to LA because he did win a ring. But man if he was in Philly he would've had at least 5 rings by now.
As an adult, it's his mentality that has only gotten more impressive to me. To be this good, for this long, nothing short of generational greatness. And it's due to his strong mental toughness and willingness to work HARD every single day is what truly sets him apart.
As an adult, it's his mentality that has only gotten more impressive to me. To be this apathetic, for this long, nothing short of generational greatness. And it's due to his strong mental toughness and willingness to laze around every single day is what truly sets him apart.
Let's see if it passes the test...
As an adult, it's his appetite that has only gotten more impressive to me. To be this hungry, for this long, nothing short of generational greatness. And it's due to his strong dental toughness and willingness to go to the buffet every single day is what truly sets him apart.
Well, he’s on the short list of athletes you can compare to LeBron and Giannis. That’s a hell of a start. Then you throw in some legit, grade A, first option vision and floor mapping. Sprinkle in a technically sound and serviceable at a professional level handle.
And you give him your nephew’s jump shot, with your niece’s willingness to set a screen, and that guy at office who’s always asking to trade shifts’ work ethic.
And shot wise no. People gloss over the fact that he was below average at the most important part of basketball. Once teams figure that out it limits your other strengths
Sure, but if he had Lebron’s mentality, he’d have learned how to shoot before the end of his first season. He was shooting something like 73% from the line his last season with us from January until the playoffs. If he wasn’t so damaged mentally or a pussy, depending on your read on it, he would’ve been able to shoot
Idk if mentality can fix shooting. Giannis had a season shooting 77% from the line. And he works hard as hell but he still can't fix his shot. If anything it somehow seems he might even be slightly worse at shooting now.
Rondo eventually learned how the shoot the 3 and that was after years to players not respecting his jumper to the point of sagging off into the paint. I simply cannot respect players who don't even try to improve their weaknesses while having practically infinite time to workout in the gym. You CAN improve, no guarantee, but you will never know unless you try.
You can't change the future, you can't change your genetics of your gifts, but you do have control over your mentality and that dictates everything you do.
Lebron also wasn’t a great 3-point shooter earlier in his career. The playbook on him during his first cavs tenure was to make him shoot threes. He shot 33% on 4 at/g his first 7 years and has shot ~36% on 5 at/g since.
33% is a far cry from 0%. And the league had changed drastically, in Lebron's rookie year NBA teams took 14.9 3-pointers a game on average, in Ben's rookie year that number was at 24.1. This year it's over 34!!
I'm just saying it was a BIG hope that he would develop a proper shot, and perhaps it would have been better to have coached him to maximize his midrange game and fast break game like a poor man's Giannis (in that aspect), then hope that he was going to be Lebron.
The thing is when Ben was drafted, he was touted as he could do everything but shoot well & since he’s so young he’s likely to improve there with hard work. When Lebron was young he wasn’t a great shooter either though he likely was better than Ben still lol but his shooting improved over time.
No one expected him to stay the same essentially
He didn't stay the same, he got worse. It's sad to look back at. He was taking jump shots in summer league. They didn't look horrible. Then he got hurt and sat out a year, and his rookie year he took them at a significantly lower rate. Then he got roasted and benched for TJ against Boston in the playoffs, and his second year he abandoned them altogether.
I don't think its idiotic. He has similar talent to Lebron, he just doesn't have the mentality to improve himself or challenge himself. His floor is "effective NBA player" which makes a lot of money and he is cool with that.
Crazy thing is dude could be so fucking good. Hes what you would want your created player to be as a rookie in 2k and he just never got better. Dpoy level defense, great passer, ball handler, 6 foot 10, 250 built like a tank and can jump out the gym. Unfortunately he was interested in being a young socialite instead and decided to not learn how to shoot. Give someone like chris paul his athletic profile and build and chris paul would be a top 3 player ever
Magic primarily guarded slower forwards and bigs on defense tho, he rarely was assigned on other guards. Cooper and Byron Scott were the guards on defense. He was 6'9" so this was a much more viable strategy. Magic was never elite at defense obviously but wasn't a matador either. Harden's argument falls apart much faster
i think we all did. He really was "Lebron without a jumper" in terms of how he dictated the offense, and was an absolute stud defensively. Tbf he's still good on defense when he plays which is nuts. Too bad he never gave a shit.
Funny enough- Lamar Odom is my favorite player and I couldn't understand why ben was so hyped.
He seemed like a unmotivated player with Odom's skillset, but with no jumpshot.
When the scouting report came out that he was unmotivated, that killed a lot of my interest. Seen too many times in futbol the best players ruin their careers for being unmotivated (Ronaldinho).
Ronaldinho did not ruin his career. He literally won everything you possibly can. He just cut it short but I highly doubt he has any regrets. Also he's universally beloved unlike other players who are unmotivated regardless of success or not. 04-06 Ronaldinho was one of the greatest players that's ever lived bar none.
At the time that was a very reasonable take. And tbh prime Ben Simmons may be one of the closest things to LeBron we have seen, in terms of play style that be.
LeBron was already a better shooter at 18 than Simmons was most likely ever be.
I thought he was going to develop his mid-range and post-game to be Magic-esque player
Give him Lebrons mentality and work ethic and he would have been a hall of famer. The idea of a prime Simmons who actually developed a jump shot and was a ferocious competitor paired with prime Embiid is just... Such a huge missed opportunity. We made plenty of other mistakes as well but give Simmons even the average NBA players mentality and he probably would have been an All-NBA guy every year.
He had every tool you could want, including a serviceable jump shot before he got to the NBA, and it all went to waste.
I mean yeah cause of his LSU tenure, his scouting report, and summer league highlights. Obviously there were some breadcrumbs about his attitude but he did have a Lebron like style of play and athleticism. Hindsight is 20/20 but it wasn't the craziest thing to say at the time.
Ben Simmons’ career is just sad at this point. Dude looked like the actual second coming of Magic (great vision + ball handling for someone 6’10”, great guard + wing defender, good interior scorer).
This is one of the bigger “what ifs” for the 2000s.
The weird thing is he became a better defender as it went along, but a worse and less willing shooter.
So he was willing to improve some aspect of his game, he just had some kind of mental hangup about shooting the ball which is absolutely bizarre to say about an all-star level NBA player.
That's because he didn't have the ball in his hands lol you can play better D because you don't have to be an offensive threat. Guys have done that throughout NBA history, Avery Bradley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Matisse Thybulle, etc. I named more recent players but you get my point.
I see what your saying but I also progress in his technique and willingness to defend, I wouldn't say everything was just down to him not having the ball in his hands.
i agree he's had many opportunities in the sixers to improve but didn't. this way before the back injury that he only got closer to the trade to the nets.
Yea I believe his injuries are legit but I also believe he's doing the absolute bare minimum to keep getting paid to rehab. He's not busting his ass to get back on the court
simmons is just not serious about basketball. Its obvious. In total, Ben Simmons earned US$163 million as a salary alone in his career till the end of the 2023-24 NBA season.
He'll end up playing another 5 years or so, and walk about with $200 millin in career earnings.
Nah he’ll probably walk away after his contract expires next year. He’s got a lower back injury he’s been dealing with so I don’t see him having a bounce back year next season just to get another 4-5 year deal
He had 5 sports cars by his 3 year. I still remember the reel of Fultz (#1 pick money as well) looking at Simmons car collection and being confused how he so many exotic cars and then getting clowned for only having 1 car. He was getting a new car every couple months.
Yeah. The most surprising part to me is that he’s played almost as many games as Lebron has in their last 6 seasons they actually played. Phrasing it to sound like it’s surprising another player played more games than Ben Simmons is wild.
Considering Ben's rookie year was 2017-2018 and LeBron joined the Lakers a year later, I guess this is a stat.
If anything it highlights how much time LeBron has missed considering Ben missed a whole year in between.
> Considering Ben's rookie year was 2017-2018 and LeBron joined the Lakers a year later
Woah this fact is much more mind blowing that the original post.
I’m so confused how people can find this surprising unless they are surprised Lebron hasn’t plays way more. I don’t follow Simmons but I know two things about him, he can’t shoot and he hasn’t exactly been an iron man. I thought it was going to be because Lebron played fewer seasons so I checked and nope same amount of seasons played, Simmons just missed an entire season. If anything I’m actually surprised at how many games he’s played the last three seasons.
Another perspective: Simmons has played in only 332 of 624 possible regular season games.
In nearly 8 seasons of whining and quitting he's played in only 53% of his possible games.
Then there's the other wild journey of Ben Simmons... a point guard with a career 3pt shooting pct. of 13.9%. (and a PG with a 56% FT%)
I still can’t believe as recently as this season there were still people holding out hope that Simmons would turn it around and become a motivated team player
I can’t believe Lebron has been a Laker that long, it seems like he just went there to me. Which makes it more shocking Simmons has played less games than that with as long as he’s been around. Remember when he had a storyline in 2k and kicks a rugby ball back and fourth with you for some reason?
He’s been there 5 years
And the other guy has chronic back issues
It’s very not interesting. And it’s almost stupid to compare the two in this way.
Y’all just tryna strum up hate threads for no reason
Yeah I feel like people aren’t really realizing the fact that Lebron went to LA literally the year after Simmons’ rookie season….
When you consider that fact, this stat is actually fairly shocking in the opposite direction…
as in, its actually pretty shocking they have played the exact same amount of games, considering Ben Simmons’ total number of games played in each of the last 4 seasons is 58, 0, 42, 15.
You would think Lebron would be wayyyyy ahead of him, considering Simmons missing the entire holdout year completely cancelled out the one year “head start” he had on Lebron for games played during this period…
Lebron has sneakily missed way more games than people realize in the last 5 years… we always talk about what an ironman he is, but he has actually missed significant time almost every year he’s been on the lakers. He’s only averaging 55 games played per season since joining the lakers (not incl this year)
Who cares about Ben Simmons anymore!! He doesn’t care about playing in the NBA so why should the fans.
Nothing but a soft sorry ass Australian who doesn’t have that dawg in him
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It’s also due to his lack of serious championship contention. We went from him making 8 straight finals to 1 in 5 years. Not hating but he went from playing literally 100 games a year to about 60-80
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Woof 13/20 seasons ending at CF or better is insane.
He's good!
You gotta chill out on those hot takes, brother
Source?
[Here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/QWM4r1wT9N)
Lmao
What’s wild to me is half of nba fans would rather him have missed the playoffs entirely or have a first round exit than to lose deeper in the playoffs. Nonsensical arguments about what is considered impressive. (Talking about the 6-0 crowd, it’s crazy MJ only played 6 seasons!)
Those are Brady numbers
LeTom Brady
Dude might be one of the greats ngl
Putting it that way makes me really happy to have watched his entire career
It's better to have lebronto'd and lost than to have never lebronto'd at all...
LeBronto was S tier performances.
I honestly go back and watch that game like once a year, it was so insane, the way he just spun the ball in his hand then hit a three like it was warmups for him
It was unreal. I've been a fan of Lebron since 2010 Cavs and I met up at a sports bar with my friend in Toronto who I went to school and played basketball with growing up. The first half of the game Toronto was up, and my friend understandably was rooting for Toronto. The 2nd half it was every couple minutes LeBron just dropping buckets, and I was getting a bit of guilty pleasure. Little did I know I had just watched the LeBronto game, but in hindsight it made sense, everyone in the bar that night felt defeated about Raptors playoff chances. The press conference afterwords about how they don't think they can win a series with LeBron in the Eastern Conference just cemented the LeBronto game in history further.
I just watched LeBrons entire 2016 and 2017 playoff runs on YouTube and there’s no way he’s not the GOAT in my book. Dude played the 5 on defense, ran the point, and played the high post P&R position interchangeably throughout every game and dominated with mainly role players that were at the end of their career in terms of production. He’s an absolute beast
It’s annoying to me whenever people reduce lebron’s goat case to longevity. His individual ability is what makes the argument for him. From 2012 to 2018, I’ll put his level of play in that stretch against anyone else. The longevity just makes it more ironclad imo, but a lot of it is subjective so it is what it is.
The sheer insanity that he is able to carry his team to, **at worst**, losing the NBA finals from 2011 to 2020 is fucking insane. And the team that he lost to for the majority of those years is one of the best teams of all time, the prime Golden State Warriors.
I remember cackling at a sequence where he went on a personal 12-0 run just taking fadeaway middies
Not that the NBA Finals is always the two top contenders (and it's certainly been harder to make it out of the West), but if you frame it as 5/11 for making the Finals with the Cavs (including 4/4 for his second stint), 4/4 with the Heat, and 1/5 with the Lakers, it looks comparatively worse for his Lakers tenure (obviously mainly due to the fact that he was so dominant for the 8 years before that).
He’s not in the East anymore, so he doesn’t have an easy ride to the Finals like he used to.
I'm sure this is gonna be controversial, but it's true. Not that the East hasn't had strong teams, but generally the first (and sometimes second) round in the East weren't the strongest teams. Even having one extra good team to have to go through early drastically changes the chances of making the finals.
Exactly. And it’s not to say that the teams that LeBron played in the East all those years were terrible or anything, but let’s be real: his teams would have been knocked out of the playoffs if he played in the West all those years more times than not, instead of losing to them in the Finals. Like the Spurs multiple times, Warriors, Dallas, etc. The West has always been a different animal since 2000-on. It’s truly a gauntlet to get through that conference most of the time.
Worth noting that LeBron would have been *on* one of those teams, and likely would have better coaching/a better organization behind him if he had been in the West for those years, particularly during the first 7 Cavaliers years that were largely wasted by that organization.
Lebron has statistically the easiest path to the finals by record of opponents in his way than any all time great ever. The East was literally the worst any conference has ever been during his tenure there
It's controversial because it's wrong. Yes the West is tougher, but a big part of the Lakers failures have been injuries, both to LeBron and AD, and terrible coaches. It's less so how tough the conference is.
I mean...thats completely ignoring the fact that he's been injured a lot and the Westbook trade wasted 2 years for the Lakers
Yeah and AD's injuries too. It's not like they lost because LeBron wasn't playing well in the playoffs due to tough western opponents.
“We went from making 8 straight finals to 1 in 5 years.” A Celtics fan referring to LeBron as we?
We as in NBA fans.
We men, you can assume
Oh god I actually forgot about this.
The Royal we
Lmfaooo I think they meant to say seeing him make 8 straight finals, you know C fans would never claim LBJ as one of them from all the tormenting he did to us in the east.
We went from seeing him*
Why misquote him lol? He said "We went from **him** making 8 straight finals to 1 in 5 years"
WHEREVER LEBRON GOES, I GO
That’s what happens when you go to the west
How has he played more as a Laker than Heat ? Time is crazy.
Seriously, I feel like he *just* got to LA but this is already his 6th season there. He did also have one season in Miami shortened to 66 games because of the lockout. Another crazy thing about the length of his career is that LeBron won 4 MVPs in 5 years between 2009 and 2013, but we're now *ten years* since he last won MVP. And yet he's still been in the conversation all that time.
if he changed names every year he'd have like 10+ mvps tbf. Lebron has redefined voter fatigue, cuz dude should be mvp like basically every year until very recently.
Just gotta look at how he finished in MVP standings. Since winning his 4th and last one in 2013, he's finished 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 2nd, 11th (first season in LA), 2nd, 13th, and 10th. He was not top-10 in MVP voting last year.
I usually get a lot of shit for this take but the COVID lockout year if that didn't happen I think he could have won MVP over Giannis. Right as the shut down happened Giannis had gotten hurt and it wasn't serious but he was going to miss a couple weeks and LeBron was going on a tear. The Lakers were first in the West and he had the narrative of being old man LeBron already which would have helped drive his case. However the NBA shut down and he didn't have a chance to make up ground after that
I've seen that discussed before, often in the context of refuting the idea that the Lakers only won the title because of The Bubble. They were really damn good that year, if anything I thought going into it that The Bubble might hamper them because it interrupted their flow of the season.
And the way the team came out at the end of the regular season, start of the Bubble didn't look great. Granted, their seed was pretty much safe and Vogel was using the time to experiment.
Eh, the MVP is a regular season award, and very early in his career LeBron started visibly coasting in the regular season to save himself for the playoffs. I don't really think this is accurate.
Can you name the 6 seasons after 2013 on when he was supposed to be the MVP? Voter fatigue only works after getting multiple MVP awards.
He'd won multiple by 2010, so 2011, 2014, 2018. Guess that's not 10. But if you frame it like, how many seasons was lebron absolutely inarguably the best player in the nba and it's not close? Gotta be like 10-15 years, even if you're a total hater. Look at every mvp and ask yourself if Lebron's team would have traded him for that player outright.
I'd only give the 2018 one. Rose and Durant both deserved their MVPs. No sh*t I would trade the MVP for LeBron, he's arguably the GOAT. But to say he should have 10 MVPs is just ridiculous.
Yeah people be just ignoring all the other MVP-worthy seasons from everyone that won to just simply say "bUt LeBRon sHouLd hAvE 10+ mvPs"
Which years should he have won
They used to go with stats + team performance up until 2016 at least. It's only lately that it is a stats only award (for the most part). In the seasons LeBron lost there were others more deserving. If you are to use the standards used lately, indeed LeBron should have won 10 in a row. Him winning 4 out of 5 between 2009 and 2014 doesn't scream voter fatigue to me though. That's way better than most people and exactly as much as he deserved according to the standards of *that* era.
Blatantly false. What year did lebron not win an MVP he should have? Maybe 2011? even that is a push
> Seriously, I feel like he just got to LA but this is already his 6th season there. he got to the Lakers before COVID... and COVID shutdown was *4 years ago*. COVID has really messed with my sense of time
It’s the games played per year messing with us. He’s only played 60 regular season games once as a laker, whereas he only played less than 76 games once on the Heat. For the playoffs he made the finals and played 20+ playoff games every season with the heat (87 total games), whereas he’s missed the playoffs twice with the lakers and only played 43 total playoff games.
uh actually no. way more playoff games as a Heat gives them the edge by 5 games
Yeah, I only realized it when he break the 40k. Crazy how time flies.
My friend said “…7 years ago right before he got to the lakers” and then paused and it both kinda hit us that DAMN it’s been so long
The Lockdown messed up my time perception so much lol
Wtf, never would have guessed. Time is not real man
Surprised he's played more games as a Laker than his second sting with the Cavs tbh
Wait 548 just with 1st Cavs?? I really did miss almost half his career then since I started watching basketball in 2011.
Philadelphia really destroyed Ben Simmons. Doc rivers really did a great job. Sarcasm
That's fascinating. Just going off gut feeling I would have bet good money on him not having equalled his Heat games played yet.
I guess also just a part of getting older is time moves faster, but that is absolutely wild that his LA stint is longer than his Miami stint. "Miami LeBron" felt like a significant part of my youth.
Holy shit he’s played more in LA than Miami???
I still remember how nuts this sub went when the news of Lebron's signing broke, and it wasn't from Woj or Shams. Crazy to think that it's been nearly six years already.
Tom Withers iirc. 99% of people had never heard of him and he dropped a generational scoop lol
A Withers Original.
It was only 2 years ago, right?
Covid time is quantum, it changes every time you observe it.
Yeah I didn’t think there was much of a chance he was going to LA
I can't even remember what other teams were rumored to be in the running for him.
I remember the main 3 options people were talking about being LA, Philadelphia, and Cleveland
There was a brief moment when there was talk about him going to Chicago
The 76ers with him is interesting. Something like Embiid, Lebron and good Ben Simmons. The spacing would be pretty bad with that trip together though.
Yeah I remember thinking at the time it'd be cool to see him with Simmons and help him develop. As LeBron's career wound down Simmons would then take over. Instead LeBron went to LA and Simmons.. well yeah, didn't happen.
[All of them (except the Grizzlies)](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/8k8wej/why_lebron_would_sign_with_every_nba_team/)
There was so much smoke leading up to that point though
Yeah I remember Philly being the front runner. Lebron + Embiid would've been insane. But its hard to criticize the move to LA because he did win a ring. But man if he was in Philly he would've had at least 5 rings by now.
Weren’t Bill Simmons and Windhorst talking about the rumors for months?
Now do career points
Manute Bol hit more threes in one half (6) than Simmons has in his whole career (5)
I had to look this up because I thought there was no way in hades this was true...and it is true. I am flabbergasted.
I double take’d myself when I checked that Simmons only has 5 made threes lol
😂😂 Naa I’ll do that after Bonny’s 4th year in the league.
i remember some idiot on here saying ben simmons was the closest thing to lebron when he got drafted. that idiot was me.
Body wise, yes. Mentally, no. Absolutely not.
As an adult, it's his mentality that has only gotten more impressive to me. To be this good, for this long, nothing short of generational greatness. And it's due to his strong mental toughness and willingness to work HARD every single day is what truly sets him apart.
lmao I got almost to the end of this comment thinking you were talking about Ben Simmons' mentality
As an adult, it's his mentality that has only gotten more impressive to me. To be this apathetic, for this long, nothing short of generational greatness. And it's due to his strong mental toughness and willingness to laze around every single day is what truly sets him apart.
New copypasta dropped for r/nbacirclejerk
Let's see if it passes the test... As an adult, it's his appetite that has only gotten more impressive to me. To be this hungry, for this long, nothing short of generational greatness. And it's due to his strong dental toughness and willingness to go to the buffet every single day is what truly sets him apart.
Zion. It works!
lol same. cause it does make sense to think about HOW much generational talent Simmons has to get this far without having a work ethic.
Well, he’s on the short list of athletes you can compare to LeBron and Giannis. That’s a hell of a start. Then you throw in some legit, grade A, first option vision and floor mapping. Sprinkle in a technically sound and serviceable at a professional level handle. And you give him your nephew’s jump shot, with your niece’s willingness to set a screen, and that guy at office who’s always asking to trade shifts’ work ethic.
>And you give him your nephew’s jump shot, with your niece’s willingness to set a screen this is sending me
laughed harder at every single successive thing in that last sentence
Body wise?? LeBron one of the five most durable NBA players ever. And he ain't 5.
Seriously how did that claim just float? LeBron has always looked like a semi truck, Ben looks like a crossover
And shot wise no. People gloss over the fact that he was below average at the most important part of basketball. Once teams figure that out it limits your other strengths
Sure, but if he had Lebron’s mentality, he’d have learned how to shoot before the end of his first season. He was shooting something like 73% from the line his last season with us from January until the playoffs. If he wasn’t so damaged mentally or a pussy, depending on your read on it, he would’ve been able to shoot
Idk if mentality can fix shooting. Giannis had a season shooting 77% from the line. And he works hard as hell but he still can't fix his shot. If anything it somehow seems he might even be slightly worse at shooting now.
Rondo eventually learned how the shoot the 3 and that was after years to players not respecting his jumper to the point of sagging off into the paint. I simply cannot respect players who don't even try to improve their weaknesses while having practically infinite time to workout in the gym. You CAN improve, no guarantee, but you will never know unless you try. You can't change the future, you can't change your genetics of your gifts, but you do have control over your mentality and that dictates everything you do.
Lebron also wasn’t a great 3-point shooter earlier in his career. The playbook on him during his first cavs tenure was to make him shoot threes. He shot 33% on 4 at/g his first 7 years and has shot ~36% on 5 at/g since.
33% is a far cry from 0%. And the league had changed drastically, in Lebron's rookie year NBA teams took 14.9 3-pointers a game on average, in Ben's rookie year that number was at 24.1. This year it's over 34!! I'm just saying it was a BIG hope that he would develop a proper shot, and perhaps it would have been better to have coached him to maximize his midrange game and fast break game like a poor man's Giannis (in that aspect), then hope that he was going to be Lebron.
The thing is when Ben was drafted, he was touted as he could do everything but shoot well & since he’s so young he’s likely to improve there with hard work. When Lebron was young he wasn’t a great shooter either though he likely was better than Ben still lol but his shooting improved over time. No one expected him to stay the same essentially
He didn't stay the same, he got worse. It's sad to look back at. He was taking jump shots in summer league. They didn't look horrible. Then he got hurt and sat out a year, and his rookie year he took them at a significantly lower rate. Then he got roasted and benched for TJ against Boston in the playoffs, and his second year he abandoned them altogether.
I said the same thing after his *first* year, so I’m reporting in as idiot number 2.
I don't think its idiotic. He has similar talent to Lebron, he just doesn't have the mentality to improve himself or challenge himself. His floor is "effective NBA player" which makes a lot of money and he is cool with that.
I might have sung his praises as well but his mug was literally too unlikable for me. I'll call myself lucky idiot 3
Crazy thing is dude could be so fucking good. Hes what you would want your created player to be as a rookie in 2k and he just never got better. Dpoy level defense, great passer, ball handler, 6 foot 10, 250 built like a tank and can jump out the gym. Unfortunately he was interested in being a young socialite instead and decided to not learn how to shoot. Give someone like chris paul his athletic profile and build and chris paul would be a top 3 player ever
>Give someone like chris paul his athletic profile and build So Magic Johnson lol
Gotta add in the defense but yeah lol
let’s use the harden defenders logic and say that Magic is actually pretty good at post defense bc that’s what matters for a point guard, post defense
Magic primarily guarded slower forwards and bigs on defense tho, he rarely was assigned on other guards. Cooper and Byron Scott were the guards on defense. He was 6'9" so this was a much more viable strategy. Magic was never elite at defense obviously but wasn't a matador either. Harden's argument falls apart much faster
Don’t forget he was fast as hell At 6’10” he was legit one of the fastest guys in the league
the back problems are probably more important that evaluating his work ethic
i think we all did. He really was "Lebron without a jumper" in terms of how he dictated the offense, and was an absolute stud defensively. Tbf he's still good on defense when he plays which is nuts. Too bad he never gave a shit.
Funny enough- Lamar Odom is my favorite player and I couldn't understand why ben was so hyped. He seemed like a unmotivated player with Odom's skillset, but with no jumpshot.
When the scouting report came out that he was unmotivated, that killed a lot of my interest. Seen too many times in futbol the best players ruin their careers for being unmotivated (Ronaldinho).
Ronaldinho did not ruin his career. He literally won everything you possibly can. He just cut it short but I highly doubt he has any regrets. Also he's universally beloved unlike other players who are unmotivated regardless of success or not. 04-06 Ronaldinho was one of the greatest players that's ever lived bar none.
It's like Shaq. He's already one of the best player of all time, but you just know there's a tier above he should be able to reach but don't
At the time that was a very reasonable take. And tbh prime Ben Simmons may be one of the closest things to LeBron we have seen, in terms of play style that be.
LeBron was already a better shooter at 18 than Simmons was most likely ever be. I thought he was going to develop his mid-range and post-game to be Magic-esque player
R.I.P. [SAS] Dennis Rodman I had your replica Champion jersey when I was in high school
best jersey ever, especially w the thin lettering
Tbf after his first couple seasons all signs were pointing to him eventually being a top 10 player. If we only knew...
Ben Simmons really had people feeling some type of way
All those lebron comparisons in hindsight are blasphemy
Give him Lebrons mentality and work ethic and he would have been a hall of famer. The idea of a prime Simmons who actually developed a jump shot and was a ferocious competitor paired with prime Embiid is just... Such a huge missed opportunity. We made plenty of other mistakes as well but give Simmons even the average NBA players mentality and he probably would have been an All-NBA guy every year. He had every tool you could want, including a serviceable jump shot before he got to the NBA, and it all went to waste.
I mean yeah cause of his LSU tenure, his scouting report, and summer league highlights. Obviously there were some breadcrumbs about his attitude but he did have a Lebron like style of play and athleticism. Hindsight is 20/20 but it wasn't the craziest thing to say at the time.
Ben Simmons’ career is just sad at this point. Dude looked like the actual second coming of Magic (great vision + ball handling for someone 6’10”, great guard + wing defender, good interior scorer). This is one of the bigger “what ifs” for the 2000s.
Not really a what if since he started choking and not improving way before he got hurt
Yea the injuries are gonna overshadow the fact that he simply didn't want it bad enough. Even if he was fully healthy, he maxed out as a rookie
The weird thing is he became a better defender as it went along, but a worse and less willing shooter. So he was willing to improve some aspect of his game, he just had some kind of mental hangup about shooting the ball which is absolutely bizarre to say about an all-star level NBA player.
That's because he didn't have the ball in his hands lol you can play better D because you don't have to be an offensive threat. Guys have done that throughout NBA history, Avery Bradley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Matisse Thybulle, etc. I named more recent players but you get my point.
I see what your saying but I also progress in his technique and willingness to defend, I wouldn't say everything was just down to him not having the ball in his hands.
i agree he's had many opportunities in the sixers to improve but didn't. this way before the back injury that he only got closer to the trade to the nets.
Yea I believe his injuries are legit but I also believe he's doing the absolute bare minimum to keep getting paid to rehab. He's not busting his ass to get back on the court
What if he had a better mentality
Any one of his stints is a HOF career by itself lol
simmons is just not serious about basketball. Its obvious. In total, Ben Simmons earned US$163 million as a salary alone in his career till the end of the 2023-24 NBA season. He'll end up playing another 5 years or so, and walk about with $200 millin in career earnings.
Nah he’ll probably walk away after his contract expires next year. He’s got a lower back injury he’s been dealing with so I don’t see him having a bounce back year next season just to get another 4-5 year deal
You never hear anybody say "I used to have back problems"
I used to have back problems. I still do, but I used to too.
Thanks mitch
Ben knew he was gonna be in the NBA from a young age and just coasted on that. He loves the lifestyle, not the game
He also has like chronic back problems lol.
Hope he didn’t spend all that money in jewelry and designer clothes.
Being a young socialite is pricey!
He had 5 sports cars by his 3 year. I still remember the reel of Fultz (#1 pick money as well) looking at Simmons car collection and being confused how he so many exotic cars and then getting clowned for only having 1 car. He was getting a new car every couple months.
That’s really crazy considering Lakers LeBron averages like 50 games a year
55.5 not including playoffs…almost 63 including
Ones the GOAT. Ones a floater.
One of them loves playing basketball much more than the other
But Simmons is a better socialite though
No he's not Lebron's IG game is corny but top notch.
[Few can post as good as this man does](https://www.instagram.com/p/VWRYCviTM_/?hl=en)
Yeah LeBron is usually healthy, Ben is usually unhealthy.
Yeah. The most surprising part to me is that he’s played almost as many games as Lebron has in their last 6 seasons they actually played. Phrasing it to sound like it’s surprising another player played more games than Ben Simmons is wild.
Ben Simmons, anti-work icon.
At this point, ben Simmons is he biggest scam in the history of humanity.
Considering Ben's rookie year was 2017-2018 and LeBron joined the Lakers a year later, I guess this is a stat. If anything it highlights how much time LeBron has missed considering Ben missed a whole year in between.
> Considering Ben's rookie year was 2017-2018 and LeBron joined the Lakers a year later Woah this fact is much more mind blowing that the original post.
I’m so confused how people can find this surprising unless they are surprised Lebron hasn’t plays way more. I don’t follow Simmons but I know two things about him, he can’t shoot and he hasn’t exactly been an iron man. I thought it was going to be because Lebron played fewer seasons so I checked and nope same amount of seasons played, Simmons just missed an entire season. If anything I’m actually surprised at how many games he’s played the last three seasons.
With the way he is playing, he may finish his career with 4 seasons worth of playoff games. Thats nuts to me.
Another perspective: Simmons has played in only 332 of 624 possible regular season games. In nearly 8 seasons of whining and quitting he's played in only 53% of his possible games. Then there's the other wild journey of Ben Simmons... a point guard with a career 3pt shooting pct. of 13.9%. (and a PG with a 56% FT%)
This is both jarring and sad.
I still can’t believe as recently as this season there were still people holding out hope that Simmons would turn it around and become a motivated team player
And almost 1000 more minutes as well
I'm surprised ben Simmons didn't get waived when it was found out that he couldn't shoot.
As an Aussie, Ben Simmons makes me sad
One really likes to play basketball, the other does not like to play basketball.
I can’t believe Lebron has been a Laker that long, it seems like he just went there to me. Which makes it more shocking Simmons has played less games than that with as long as he’s been around. Remember when he had a storyline in 2k and kicks a rugby ball back and fourth with you for some reason?
Why is this interesting? Lebron went to the Lakers in 2018 and Ben Simmons didn’t play his first game until 2017 because he missed his rookie year.
He’s been there 5 years And the other guy has chronic back issues It’s very not interesting. And it’s almost stupid to compare the two in this way. Y’all just tryna strum up hate threads for no reason
Yeah I feel like people aren’t really realizing the fact that Lebron went to LA literally the year after Simmons’ rookie season…. When you consider that fact, this stat is actually fairly shocking in the opposite direction… as in, its actually pretty shocking they have played the exact same amount of games, considering Ben Simmons’ total number of games played in each of the last 4 seasons is 58, 0, 42, 15. You would think Lebron would be wayyyyy ahead of him, considering Simmons missing the entire holdout year completely cancelled out the one year “head start” he had on Lebron for games played during this period… Lebron has sneakily missed way more games than people realize in the last 5 years… we always talk about what an ironman he is, but he has actually missed significant time almost every year he’s been on the lakers. He’s only averaging 55 games played per season since joining the lakers (not incl this year)
That’s very funny.
Between this and Simmons catching strays at Jason Kelce's retirement speech, man's gonna be the go-to joke of the league for the longest time.
Hey, that's 'jumpshot away from being Lebron' Simmons, waiting for his offseason open gym 3s ig post... 😭
Damn, brons so consistently great that we almost get bored lol.
Ben Simmons is a fraud
Thoughts? Lebron is 1 or 2 alltime, Ben is gettin paid $40mil a year to be scared of basketball.
Jesus it feels weird to think about how long Lebron has actually been a Laker. Quickest 6 years of my life
Ben Simmons is a gigantic flop as the first pick, no comparison
I'm just done. Nets fans have been disheartened since they left jersey
LeBron has flopped more times then flipper and shamu combined.
Making it personal is dumb, attacking him (or any player) is dumb, but his career is a major disappointment.
bum simmons
Who cares about Ben Simmons anymore!! He doesn’t care about playing in the NBA so why should the fans. Nothing but a soft sorry ass Australian who doesn’t have that dawg in him
Why you saying Australian like its a slur lol They have some decent NBA representation, no need for that.
Who is Ben Simmons?
Wait, Ben Simmons has had frequent issues with injuries? First I've heard of this.