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Comment by jimmy1 | Hacker News Reader

Right. Napoleon had a much lengthier career, but the manner in which Alexander won is what makes him the greatest. He didn't just win the battle, he truly conquered your entire civilization and turned you into his asset. Alexander didn't have the need to fight so many battles, and he avoided them whenever possible. Napoleon had 60 battles (probably more), Alexander, much fewer.

An analogy in my mind is calling LeBron James and his career longevity the greatest over Michael simply on career length alone. In my mind, the manner in which Michael dominated, and going 6-0 in the NBA finals is what makes him clearly the best.

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I think you have to look at the environment in which Alexander fought, compared to Napoleon. Alexander fought in a world that was sparse and heterogenous. His enemies were unable to learn from their failures and they were not able to adopt the means of Alexander's success. Alexander fought asymmetric wars were he benefitted from the asymmetry.

Napoleon fought on a continent that had effectively been locked in a military stalemate for over 200 years (maybe as long as 800 years depending on how you count). The density of Europe during that time meant information about his means of victory would spread all his enemies, and the prevalence of writing helped ensure a degree of accuracy. Napoleon fought symmetric wars. He had no great advantages of culture or technology to help him. His enemies were able to learn from him and despite this he achieved incredible victories against huge numerical odds. Even his losses were incredible. The Battle of Leipzig started with Napoleon outnumbered and surrounded, then a third of his army (the germans) defected. Despite this, Napoleon inflicted more casualties then he received, and he escaped with his army in relatively good order despite the fact that an idiot colonel botched Napoleon's retreat plans.

And let's not forget that Napoleon comes right at after the French revolution. Everyone else was planning to invade France since it'd become so weak - the country was a mess. And somehow, Napoleon managed to bring it back to the scene.s

I think that's where I find him the most amazing, he was given 1990s Apple and made it 2010 Apple - on the scale of a country.

So maybe, just maybe, there isn't a thing such as "best general" and to try to create such a title is a misguided viewpoint on history.

Not everything has a best or worst. This kind of reductionist thinking is wrong.

If it's something like a "just for fun" project sure fine, but this is not the way to evaluate wars and peoples.

Calling MJ "clearly the best" is insane. MJ had a much better supporting cast, one of the greatest coaches of all time, and didn't have to play the most dominant team ever (Warriors) for 4 consecutive Finals.

The Bulls won 55 games during the first year of MJ's hiatus. The Cavs won 19 games the year LeBron went to Miami.

Then again, MJ never had a 2011 Finals. He also never had his counterpart at the same position when FMVPs. Jordan was the best in every single finals he showed up in. Jordan was pretty much the best in every playoff series he played in, where the couple exceptions might be Shaq or Larry Bird.

And MJ has the highest career playoff scoring average along with being tied with Wilt for career scoring average. Opposing players feared and respected Michael Jordan in a way they don't Lebron.

To piggyback on this, MJ played in a very different NBA. Today's NBA is much more offense friendly. No hand-checking, much less physical play allowed. Jordan would be shooting 50 FTs a game if he played in today's NBA.

Jordan was a below avg 3 pt shooter. He may have gotten to the line frequently today but he'd also be relying on the his classic mid range shot which is the most inefficient in today's NBA.

Players adapt to the rules in place and how they're enforced. MJ would have thrived in today's league, as would Magic, Larry, Nique, and Charles.

Russell Westbrook just averaged back to back triple doubles and won an MVP last season while being a below avg 3 pt shooter. Jordan was a lot more efficient scorer than Westbrook, while being just as explosive. Today's spacing, thanks to all that 3 point shooting, would be a huge boost to Jordan. He doesn't have to worry about all the rim protectors guarding the paint that existed during his day.

He didn't have a 2011 finals perhaps because at the same age that Lebron was in 2011 (26) Jordan was getting his behind handed to him by the pistons and not even making the finals. That's the fallacy with the "6-0" argument

Since you think the argument is fallacious, let me spell it out really simply: 6-0 is greater than 3-6.

I am so tired of the "Lebron carries teams on his back" argument. He sets it up this way. It's his own doing. The only time he didn't is when he went to the Heat.

> Now, it’s tough to identify a part of the Cavs’ basketball operation that isn’t dictated by James’s preferences. In 2015, he needled the organization into handing Tristan Thompson an onerous five-year, $82 million contract. That same year, it became clear LeBron liked assistant coach Tyronn Lue more than head coach David Blatt, with James famously ignoring a Blatt play call before hitting a game-winner in a playoff game against the Bulls. Unsurprisingly, Blatt was fired and Lue promoted to the top job in January 2016. James publicly meddled with another free-agency decision the following offseason, urging the Cavs to give Smith a four-year, $57 million contract. While ensuring his team would handsomely pay some of its midtier talents, his connection with his costar weakened: Nobody has claimed that LeBron’s relationship with Irving is the primary reason Irving demanded a trade, but it seems odd that a player who once orchestrated an alliance of superstars lost the allegiance of his best teammate.

> When Lue makes questionable decisions, remember that he’s the coach James wanted. When Smith ruins late-game possessions and Thompson appears to have no real use on the floor, remember those are players James wanted. When Jordan Clarkson falters and Rodney Hood fails to even crack Cleveland’s rotation, keep in mind that those are the guys the Cavaliers traded for due to James’s midseason malaise. The team’s general lack of depth stems from overpayments to players like Smith and Thompson, contracts that were offered to appease LeBron.

> As we consider James’s legacy—and that’s seemingly all basketball fans want to do at any given moment—we need to consider the size of the hills he’s had to climb. In Cleveland, he has helped create those hills.

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2018/6/5/17429314/lebron-james...

Jordan was losing to a superior Pistons team while still putting up the best numbers of anyone in the series. The Heat were supposed to beat the Mavs in 2011. Lebron had a historically bad finals for an all-time great. There is no comparison here.

This is common argument that comes up in the MJ debate and easily defeated.

Besides, you can apply the same "supporting cast" argument to Lebron. Lebron pioneered the approach to forming super teams to chase championships in the modern NBA. That garbage is now rampant thanks to him. (Remember when David Stern blocked the trade of Chris Paul to the Lakers due to "competition concerns?" Boy that seems laughable now)

(All this aside -- Lebron's a great dude, great role model, etc)

Lebron has been on one 'super team', the Heat. The Cavs were never even close to a super team, and the Lakers aren't shaping up to be either.

I grew up watching Michael Jordan but I think the game is much more difficult now. It's much faster, and a little more physical. Adding Lebron to any team makes them a finals contender overnight. MJ didn't have much luck once he left Chicago. MJ wasn't as dominant after his prime, Lebron will be dominant long after his because of his size.

The Chris Paul trade was blocked for "basketball reasons" because the NBA temporarily owned New Orleans at the time and didn't want to utterly destroy the value of the franchise before finding a new owner.

I think there are a lot of good points in favor of LeBron, but I still think MJ wins out, if only slightly.

> MJ had a much better supporting cast

To what degree were Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant/Dennis Rodman "much better" than Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, or Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and later Ray Allen? Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely bullish on Dennis Rodman, but none of Jordan's teams ever had an All-Star big man, and consistently defeated teams that did (New York, Utah, Seattle, Detroit). That was especially abnormal in the late 80's and early 90's.

> one of the greatest coaches of all time

This is the biggest point in LeBron's favor, though Eric Spoelstra is a little underrated. There's a lot of overlap between the greatest coaches of all time (Popovich, Jackson, Auerbach, Riley) and the greatest players of all time (Duncan, Jordan, Kobe, Shaq, Russell, Magic, Kareem), and LeBron is the biggest exception to that.

At the same time, the pre-Phil Jackson MJ was dubbed "God disguised as Michael Jordan" by Larry Bird and was clearly a wasted talent in search of a coach, team, and system that would make the best use of him. And the biggest criticism of Phil Jackson is that he's never succeeded without having either Michael Jordan, Shaq, or Kobe Bryant playing for him. Aside from the frankly bizarre end of his tenure as GM of the Knicks, Phil Jackson's greatest strength was the ability to manage the egos of passionate, erratic superstars.

> and didn't have to play the most dominant team ever (Warriors) for 4 consecutive Finals

Michael Jordan was the centerpiece of "the most dominant team ever" for two sets of three consecutive finals.

(And frankly, if you want to talk about "the most dominant team ever", you have to look at the 1957-1969 Boston Celtics, who won all but two titles during that span.)

> The Bulls won 55 games during the first year of MJ's hiatus. The Cavs won 19 games the year LeBron went to Miami.

This is a pretty good point. I think removing Michael Jordan from the league entirely led to greater parity overall, and the 1993-94 season had a lot of indications of that (three conference semifinals going to seven games, the 8th seed in the West knocking out the 1st seed in the first round, only one team below 20 wins, only one team above 60 wins). The Bulls without MJ were worth a second round exit, which isn't nothing, but a Cavs team with Kyrie and Love would have done just as well if not better, and the 2016 Heat also bounced back to a second round exit two years after LeBron left.

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