Another scratch track!

This time the song is called "Cardboard box."  I don't have any vocals recorded yet, hopefully within a couple of months I'll be able to record a finished version with drums and bass and vocals and glockenspiel and mouth harmonica; but for now, this is what I got.  I do have finished lyrics for it though, which I present to you below.  Have fun imagining how they fit in; or don't, I don't know.  I'm not the boss of you.  And if I were, I would tell you to get back to work!

The video is too big to imbed, so here's the youtube link.

Lyrics:

Will you brave the fire for your love?
If history repeats, probably not;
Cause you take back your things in a cardboard box
On the top of which in sharpee she's scrawled out:
You've lost your last chance

So why postpone the inevitable?

(Chorus)
No she won't be made a fool of again.
No she won't be made a fool of again.
Spent the last three months tightening your grip while she's chafing to leave
Like there's a fire in the yard which you tried to put out with a gallon of gasoline.

Now she won't look back
Cause there's nothing back there but you.
One more meal that she eats alone,
While you're out somewhere forgetting to phone;
At least that's what you'll tell her tomorrow
When you really you both know you just preferred to stay gone.

No she won't be made a fool of again.
No she won't be made a fool of again.
Spent the last three months sharpening her teeth on the bit for the leave,
Cause there's a fire in the yard which you tried to put out with a gallon of gasoline.

So why postpone the inevitable?

No she won't be made a fool of again.
No she won't be made a fool of again.
Spent the last three months tightening your grip cause she's soon breaking free
But there's a fire in the yard and it won't be put out with a gallon of gasoline.

For the 1 of You Reading this

I've spent a lot of time over the last 9 months trying to write jokes for standup.  I've gone to three open mics and sucked terribly, which I think is a pretty good sign.  What I actually noticed was that, when starting out, I was struggling to find a punch-line but was locating plenty of original premises on which to base my "jokes" (you'll see why it's quotes if you actually start reading them); now I've started hitting the punch-lines pretty well, but I'm not getting to them fast enough.  I'm talking way too much without actually saying the joke, and so when I was finally getting to the joke no one really cared anymore.
     That's something that I've always found sort of interesting: with stand-up, if you don't have a punch line every 15-20 seconds you'll lose the room in 30; but they'll then go across the street to an altogether pretentious monologue in some under-stage theater, and sit there for an entire hour without even so much as cracking a smile, and throw roses at the actor's feet.  In a way, though, no other form of entertainment is more similar to comedy than a monologue; except that when a comedian does it, it tends to actually be entertaining,  Hell, even a terrible comedian can be funny; especially if he/she is a friend: there's nothing funnier than when a friend bombs a set.  I'm sure there's all sorts of psychology that can explain why, but really I don't need to know why; I just need to know that it happens to be the case, and so I have something to look forward to every time they take the mic.  Of course if they do well, that's great too: so it's really a win-win, no matter what.
     Anyways, here are some "jokes."  Feel free to be disappointed; everyone else always seems to be.  Also, you'll notice that I title my jokes.  I'm not sure what that indicates about myself as a person, but it's probably not all that flattering so I'm just going to ignore it.

Absinthe Party at Bono’s on Friday

The weird thing about music to me is that every song you hear on the radio is basically just a remix of a previous hit from twenty years ago.  With that said…do you think Bono ever wakes up after a trip, hears whatever sh*tty, mediocre Coldplay song is on the radio and thinks, "I don't remember recording that?  I‘ve got to stop soaking my vegan patties in absinthe, that s**t is rotting my brain."

Impotent Contentment

My girlfriend and I broke up the other day.   It was kind of rough.  She came up to me and said, “Mark I'm pregnant.  It's yours.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, jokes on you b***h: I'm impotent!  [Long beat] Finally my once-embarrassing inability to impregnate a woman pays off!  By the way, get the h**l out.”

Dogs: Emotionally Honest People That can also Lick Their Own Genitals

Dogs are hilarious to me because they have no emotional middle ground; they‘re like what people would be if we couldn't process our emotions and just immediately expressed them all, and were also able to lick our own genitals.  Like when you put the dog out: “Oh, outside!  We’re going to go play?  I hope you throw the stick a couple times, I love it when you throw the stick. Hey where are you going, the sticks over there?  Buddy?  Hey!  Hey!  Heeeeeeeey!  [Beat] F**k you!

Lost in Law School

My dad still likes to try to get me to do something with my life; “all you have to do is finish school, take the LSAT, and go into law school.”  Yeah, that sounds like an awful lot of work just to get paid to be a liar; I can do that tomorrow in any job interview based off of my resume.
Sometimes I want to tell him, “Look Dad: It’s taken me seven years just to complete a single semester of regular university courses.  Law school is no longer the issue; I probably couldn't pass a kindergarten class at this point.
“Okay Mark; you've failed nap time every day for the last two months, and while your finger painting technique is obviously more advanced than the other students-”
“-thank you.”
“-I don’t see any real creativity in them.  It’s all too rigid, and well-formed.  And look at these ‘Science is a Blast!‘ coloring pages: not one smudge of crayon outside the lines.  I don’t know, its not looking good.  Did you remember to bring your final project?”
“Oh; that was…that was due today?”
I think my final college GPA was, like, 1.2; which is a great turnovers stat-line for the starting point guard on your fantasy basketball team, but it’s not getting you into law school.  I’m not worried, though: someone just offered me a fantastic opportunity.  Yeah.  It turns out, I can win millions of dollars playing on draftkings.com one-day fantasy basketball leagues!  So I think I’m gonna be all right.


Making Out at the Olive Garden

The way that people “Make out” really confuses; it's basically just a place holder for sex.  So why the hell is everyone doing it for so long?  That's like going to the Olive Garden and filling up on the breadsticks and the salad, and then leaving before your pasta arrives.
"May I take your order now sir?"
"No, I'm good.  Your endless supply of bread and lettuce was enough to satiate my appetite."
Although, come to think of it: if you’re going to be making out for a while, you might as well just do it at the Olive Garden.  Not only would you get unlimited food and drinks while you’re there, but your unsolicited PDA could only class up the joint.  What are they going to do, tell you to stop?  The guy at table 3 is wearing jean shorts, flip flops with socks on, and a Nascar T-shirt.  It’s not exactly a high-end restaurant; it’s no Macaroni Grill, yo.

ODDS COLLECTOR; NO ENDS

I like to collect weird, random s**t: because someday its going to be useful.  Someone’s going to walk up to me and say, “Excuse me sir, I know that you’re busy, but…I need three thousand bottle caps.  You wouldn't happen to know where I could find them, would you?”

And then finally I get to respond: “Cool!  I got ‘em!  Finally my admittedly creepy behavior pays off, just like I always knew it would.  By the way, good sir…would you prefer those bottle caps alphabetized or chronologicalized?”

Poorly-Timed Mic Drops

You know what the worst time to do a mic drop is?  When you still have s**t to say afterwards.

“And if you look at the graph on table 7, you’ll notice that I’m out of this b**ch, suckas!”

[Act-out drop, wait a moment, and then pick it back up.]

  “Also, it shows that our net profits fell from 20% to 19% last quarter, so the CEO is recommending that we cut back the lowest rung of the workforce by 90%, or else he’ll only be able to play golf every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, instead of MondayTuesdaywednsdaythursday and Friday.”

The Neon Speed (that's what I actually named my van.  Hence using it as the title)

I had an old van that broke down recently, which I affectionately referred to it as “that red price of s**t“, but which my neighbors referred to as "the mobile amber alert."

It wasn't the worst car in the world, but I still had the police called on me a number of times ~ that number being one.  It was an old 1993 red ford cargo van with no side windows.  I’m not surprised I had the cops called on me; I’m just surprised they didn't immediately throw me in jail instead of searching the car.  And the officer was surprised to find it completely empty of kidnapped children.  ‘Cause I had planned ahead; and removed all of the evidence.

Seriously, I drove through New Mexico and got stopped every fifteen minutes by the border patrol; but it was my own fault, really.  I was trying to make some extra gas money, so I let a social awareness group put a gigantic sticker down each side.  The worst part was their slogan: “Together we can break down the walls that separate us.”

Once I even had a forty-five year old soccer mom accost me; and not in a good way.

“What are you doing here,” she asked; brandishing her garden trowel up against my window like a tomahawk.

“Just here  to pick up a friend,” I said.

And literally, this is what she asked me: “How old is he?”

Well now I was pissed.  I mean if I had rolled up in any other vehicle, we would never have even had a conversation.  I could have been sitting in a Lexus with "I’m going to kidnap and rape your children" painted all over it, and she wouldn't have even blinked.  But I didn't; cause I couldn't afford a Lexus; or the paint.  So I drove my van.

“Well how old is he?”  She demanded again.

“I don't know,” I responded.  “How old was your son again?”

That was the one time when I had the cops called on me.

John Wayne: Didn't Eat at Taco Bell

Manliest dude in the history of the world; who was it?  No!  No!  Wrong; just stop guessing cause unless you said John Wayne, you're wrong.  Although given that his name is in the title, you should have been right - even if you wouldn't have otherwise guessed his name; in which case you'd figuratively be right, but still be oh so very wrong.  Hands down.  Dude was so manly, that simply by virtue of walking through a couple of dusty towns and riding around on some pure-bred equestrian wildfires, he birthed the stereotype that single-handedly killed the western - the world's manliest type of movie -  as a viable film genre.  Think about it: after he died, no one wanted to watch a western anymore; because they knew, without a doubt, that there was no chance John Wayne was going to show up and immediately make this boring movie AWESOME!  But I mean, can you blame us?  "Okay, so I'm going to watch a bunch of Italian dudes trudge around in the desert on horseback while pretending to speak in horribly overdubbed English, while Clint Eastwood pretends to be able to communicate with them, and you're telling me there's no chance that John Wayne's going to put in an appearance?  Like, not even a cameo or something?  No?!  Then what the hell am I watching?!  And Johnny Depp's in it?  Hmmm...pass."
Seriously, everyone watched any movie that John Wayne was ever in, and they all loved it.  Every dude in the 60's and 70's tried to act like John Wayne, bearing great burdens with dignity, remaining aloof from the women they loved because love was a weakness, an emotional frailty which the Duke could not afford: because shit was about to go down in the streets, and he didn't have time to be ruled by something as mundane and unimportant as feelings.
But it wasn't just the men; all the women loved him too!  And why not?  He was tall, handsome, had a deep, rich, baritone voice, called everybody "pilgrim," and had charisma leaking out of him like the after-shocks of a late night run to taco bell.

You know what I mean, right?  You get up to the drive-thru and you're like: "Yay, fourth meal!" And then ten minutes later you're like "ugh...fourth meal.  Sorry guys, I gotta...go."  And no one argues with you, because they're all thinking the same thing: "Please god, don't let the one hot girl in our group see me waddle away like this."  She did though; and that's why she broke your heart the next day when she canceled your previously scheduled date.

"Oh yeah, Kyle?  I know we said that we were going to go watch the sunset up at Boink-Out point tomorrow night, but...one of my girlfriends just came into town, and I kind of promised to take her antiquing so..."
"Oh,  [covers phone to hide the sound of his heart and ego shattering into so many smithereens] What about Friday?"
"Ah, you know I kinda just feel like...I mean, I like you so much as a friend - like, so, so, so, so much - that I don't really want to jeopardize what we already have; I just don't feel like the timing is right you know?"
And even though every fiber of your genitals is screaming at you to say "No! NOOOOOOOO that's a load of bullshit; tell her you want to jeopardize the hell out of it!  I don't care if we're even Facebook friends in three months, you seal this deal you stupid idiot!"  Instead, you hear yourself saying words out of very own back-stabbing, Benedict Arnold-ing mouth, "yeah; yeah I...that makes sense, you know?  Maybe we can try again later, when the timing's right  -"
"Yeah...it won't be though.  Anyways, gotta go.  Bye!"

Then as you're about to hang up, you hear her say, "Hey Mike!  That was Kyle; yeah, can you believe he actually asked me out?  I know, after he totally crapped his pants at taco bell last night!  So anyway, I'm free right now; want to go bone?"  And that's just how it goes, because girls are weird: they do not find incontinence attractive in a man.  What can do?  They just don't, and they never will, no matter how many times you try to convince them otherwise.  Zach Effron could reveal to the world tomorrow that he has struggled for years with severe IBS issues, and every woman in the world would stop following him on twitter, as they let out a unison, and positively, staggeringly Worrell-ian,  "Eewww."

There's only one man in the world who could get away with it (and probably already did), and that man's name...yep, you guessed it: John M. F'ing Wayne.
Well, and Jeff Daniels (and no, I'm not going to link to the video.  Give me some credit, geez!*); so, two guys I guess.  But that's it; that's the list.  So keep that in mind the next time you're looking for a cheap date and even cheaper "Mexican" food; just buy some ground beef and tortillas from the store and cook it at home.  That way if it doesn't sit right, you can always feign some sort of emergency and get her the hell out of there before the uprising in your stomach reaches DEFCON 1.  (By the way, that whole video gets even funnier it you are childish and immature, and imagine the war-room as the inside of your colon.  But you probably already realized that).

And yes, I'm aware that this started out as ridiculously effusive praise of a man long dead, and ended up quite literally in the toilet.  But you know what?  Life is full of these little oddities, and I'm okay with it.  Maybe you should be too.

*Just kidding!  No credit asked, none given, as my denied loan applications always say.

Michael Jordan vs. Lebron James for the GOAT! (Actually, that prize sounds kind of lame)

I should preface this by stating, first, that I am a huge fan of Michael Jordan; that's literal and figurative, because I weighed in this morning at just over 255 pounds.  Yuck.  I've watched a lot of Lebron James' basketball games, and he always gets a deservedly large amount of praise for his passing and play-making ability.  Hardly a Cleveland/Miami/Cleveland again game goes by, without the commentators fawning over how "brilliant" and "beautiful" Lebron's passing game is; I'm not disagreeing, necessarily, Lebron is a fantastic play-maker and passer.  I just always thought it was strange how emphatically the broadcasters felt the need to bring the matter to our attention, like we wouldn't realize it without their continually pointing it out to us.  Which got me thinking...

Is Lebron a better play-maker/passer/point guard than Michael Jordan was?  I have close to 200 hours of Chicago Bulls games - around 80 gigs - on a hard drive, and I watch them all of the time; but I don't just watch them, I study them.  Two things about them have always impressed me: Michael Jordan seems to make much better passes than he is generally given credit for for being able to make; and second, no one really seems to talk about it - even on the broadcasts.  They say something like, "great pass!", or "wonderful pass," or "look at that pass," and then they move on.  It's not nearly as effusive as the praise that Lebron gets for passes which, from my observations, seem to be rather equal in difficulty.  So that piqued my curiosity.  (Also, I love the old games that still have the commercials from the 90's on them.  Especially the car commercials: they tout the vehicles as advanced, and sleek, and fancy and whatever, but every one of them you see today is a junker.  The juxtaposition makes me giggle).

A second comparison I noted when watching the tapes was the disparity in rebounding; and not in the way that you'd think.  It seemed to me that Michael Jordan flew into the paint and stole more rebounds away from the defenders than Lebron generally did, who seemed to just sort of happen into many of them.  Again, I'm not saying that Lebron is not a good rebounder, or that he doesn't work for his rebounds; he is obviously a fantastic rebounder...but think about it.  He's 6'9", maybe 6'10", and plays his minutes at either the small or the power forward position.  By virtue of the necessary floor spacing to run an offense, he's going to be positioned near the basket on defense a lot of the time anyway, and he will come up with some rebounds that might have otherwise gone to any other player on the court, in that position.  That's why big men always get more rebounds than smaller players: they are taller and closer to the basket on almost every missed shot, so they have more opportunities to grab rebounds.

So those were the two issues which I wanted to check the stats on, and compare: was Lebron really that much better of a rebounder and passer than Michael Jordan?  It's a legitimate question; I feel like the majority of comparisons between the two seem to concede that, sure, Jordan was a better scorer.  But Lebron is a better defender, or at least more versatile, a better passer, and a better rebounder.   So I wanted to see if the stats backed that thinking up.  First: I'm going to show a stat line that one of them placed in a 5 game playoff series, and you guess who it is.  Deal?

																					FG%	3P%	FT%	MP	PTS	TRB	AST	STL	BLK
																					.558	.500	.848	44.0	31.2	6.6	11.4	2.8	1.4

Can you guess who it is?  Probably, since I obviously have an agenda; and even if you weren't aware of that, you still have 50/50 odds of getting it right.  Here's the full stat line, as per basketball-reference.com:

Rk	Player	Age	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	3P	3PA	FT	FTA	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS	FG%	3P%	FT%	MP	PTS	TRB	AST	STL	BLK
1	Michael Jordan	27	5	5	220	63	113	2	4	28	33	8	25	33	57	14	7	18	18	156	.558	.500	.848	44.0	31.2	6.6	11.4	2.8	1.4

That's way more assists than you would have thought for Michael Jordan, right?  My point here is to say that maybe his scoring ability has, over time, begun to overshadow how complete of a player he actually was.  We remember the shot to end the 1998 NBA Finals more than we remember the pass to end the 1997 Finals.  But that's life; some things stick with us, and others don't.

So, in order to check my hypothesis I decided first that I wasn't interested in looking at career totals or stats, because those are always influenced generally by a rough year or two at the beginning of a player's career, and another year or two at the end.  Also, I wasn't really interested in total number of rebounds grabbed or assists made: because those numbers are subjected to the position into which a player is slotted, the type of offense the team runs - which is dependent on the coach - the other players on the team, and some other factors.  I didn't want to know which of them grabbed more rebounds; I wanted to know who was better at grabbing the rebounds that he managed to get his hands on.  I mean, rebounding is a skill, right?  So rebounds that a player fights to get and snatch away from the opposing team should count more than rebounds which happen to bounce to his position; although I don't know if there are any stats to measure this, there absolutely should be (and if this sounds like a lot of reasoning just to make my eventual point sound stronger, well, yeah; you caught me).  What I wanted to know was: what was their best overall statistical season, in regards to points, rebounds, and assists; and, borrowing an idea from Bill Simmons (which he may have borrowed from someone else, I don't know), if you take each player's single statistical peak, what would that stat line look like?  So, if they were to play at their absolute best in every facet of the game, what line would they end up with?  

So first, for their best overall statistical seasons - which, I know, aren't always their actual best season.  For example 1993 is generally considered Jordan's most impressive season, but his stats were higher in previous years when he was shouldering a heavier offensive and defensive loud for an inferior team.  Not a bad team, mind you, just inferior to the three-peating 1992-1993 championship team.  

Before I drop the stat lines, here's a key of the abbreviations used:

   G          GS               MPG           FG%      3P%          FT%                  OFF          DEF   
games    games       minutes per      field   3-point%    free-throw%   offensive    defensive 

              started           game            goal%                                            rebounds    rebounds

RPG            APG             SPG            BPG            TO                     PF                    PPG

rebounds    assists          steals             blocks       turn-overs      personal fouls       points

per-game   per-game    per-game     per-game     per-game                                     per-game

So here is Jordan's most impressive - in my opinion - statistical year, with some of the stats we'll be discussing highlighted:

YEAR TEAM  G GS    MPG  FG%     3P%      FT%  OFF    DEF  RPG 

88-89 CHI        81 81   40.2 . 538       .276    .850       1.80 6.20    8.00

APG      SPG  BPG    TO         PF          PPG

8.0         2.89   .80    3.58        3.00        32.5

Did you know that for the first 6 seasons of his career, Michael Jordan basically ran his team's offense?  Lebron James gets credit for doing this every time the Cav's play, and has for his entire career, but Jordan does not get the credit for having done so.  Sure he never won a championship running point for the Bulls, but he also never ran point with teammates as good as Dwayne Wade and Chris bosh (Pippen didn't really reach his peak until the last half of the 1990 season, after which Phil Jackson decided to have Pip run most of the plays.  Which, by the way, was something Charles Barkley was always saying about Lebron's first stint in Cleveland: Mike Brown needed to have someone else initiate the offense so that Lebron could be finishing more often).  In fact, Doug Collins literally made Michael Jordan the initiator of most of their "Play a Day" offense, as some of the players referred to it, in the 88-89 season (the stats above), and also the 89-90 season; and which Doug Collins once described as "get the ball to Michael, and everybody else get the fuck out of the way."  Guess what?  Jordan hit his career highs in assists, rebounds, and field goal% during his first run at the point.  His turnovers are a little high, but when you are the main ball handler on every possession, the turnovers are going to be a little high.  You want to take 25-30 shots, and dish out 6-8 assists a game?  Your turnovers are going to be a little higher than league average; sometimes way higher, depending on the player.

Now, here's Lebron's best Statistical Season, the year in which all of his pertinent stats (points, rebounds, assists) were the collectively the highest: 

Year *        Team   G GS   MPG FG%    3P%     FT%  OFF  DEF   RPG

09-10           CLE   76 76 39.0  0.503    0.333     0.767    0.9    6.4        7.3

APG      SPG      BPG   TO     PF      PPG

8.6         1.6       1.0 3.43    1.57 29.7

He scored more points and grabbed more rebounds in other years, but this was his best year in those three combined categories; also, notice the semi-high turnover rate as I noted on Jordan's stats.  Because, again, when you're that involved in the offense, you're going to end up giving a few more possessions away.

*This season ended with Lebron seemingly quitting on his team in the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals, in a loss to the Boston Celtics.  So, neither player's best overall statistical season ended very happily.  

Comparing the two, Jordan played more minutes in more games, and averaged more points at a slightly more efficient rate, although he was not as effective of a three-point shooter - they both actually shot below the league average for that season - but Michael was a significantly better free-throw shooter.  Lebron was marginally better at picking up assists, but worse at rebounding.  Notice also the disparity in offensive rebounds - which, as most coach will tell you, are all about effort and hustle: Jordan grabbed twice as many offensive rebounds that season.

Now, let's take their peak stats in all of these same categories, and see what they look like:

    - For the Rebounds per game, I have their actual season high for total rebounds listed, and in the parenthesis is the offensive rebounding high and defensive rebounding high added together.  Basically measuring what their stats would like like if they peaked at both individual rebounding stats.

   - The stats in red are higher than the other players' stats in the same category

Michael Jordan

G GS     MPG  FG%     3P%      FT%   OFF   DEF    RPG       APG SPG     

82     82      40.4    .538       .427    .857     2.00      6.2    8.0(8.2)    8.0      3.16

 BPG TO     PF       PPG

  1.6         2.11     1.8       37.1

Lebron James

G GS     MPG      FG%     3P%      FT%   OFF   DEF    RPG       APG   SPG   

81     81     42.5       .567       .406        .78       1.5     6.5   8.0(8.0)      8.6      2.2

 BPG TO     PF        PPG

1.0     2.97    1.45     31.4

So in the ten categories listed above, including games played - which is not really important, so far as stats go, but it makes the math easier- Jordan at his peak was better at 10/15 of the categories, with the rebounds dead even.  Here are some other less-quick thoughts about the comparisons:

- Lebron at his peak did not average more rebounds than Jordan at his peak.  In fact, he was fully 33% worse at offensive rebounding than was Michael.  Their overall peak was exactly the same, although Lebron did average more defensive rebounds, which slight number can likely be attributed to floor positioning and height.  Why is the .5 difference between offensive rebounds significant, while the .3 difference between defensive rebounds is marginal?  Because their are more defensive rebounds in the sample, so the percentage of shift is greater with the offensive rebounds.

       - So, by my reasoning, that means that Michael Jordan created more rebounds than Lebron                    James.  You may disagree with that logic; and then you may also spend hours writing a blog                that no one will read about it, and then stuff your opinions up your...nose.  This is my house!

       - Which also proves what I had seen by contrasting their playing styles: Jordan tended to fight              for more of his rebounds, by necessity, whereas Lebron happened into some, not all, some of              his.

- The same goes for the difference in peak assists; I wouldn't say that it was marginal, but that's not nearly as significant a shift as you might have expected, were Lebron truly a better play-maker than Jordan.  

- My favorite weird stat that I discovered: Lebron James has apparently never played a full 82 game regular season.  It's not significant in any way, I just thought it was interesting and wanted to point it out.  "You know, for kids!"  (and if you can tell me what movie that's from without having to google it, you're either someone that I know and have seen it with, or someone that I should probably know...and then see it with).

- Huge difference in PPG, but that was anticipated.  

- I'm most surprised to learn that Jordan shot nearly 43% from the 3 point line for an entire year, which occurred during the 1995-1996 season...which, for those of you (read: me) keeping track, was Michael's first full season back from his first retirement.  The season culminated in an NBA record 72 wins with only 10 losses for the entire season, and the Bulls won the first ring of their second three-peat that summer.  I mean, everyone always says that Jordan was a below-average three-point shooter, and I used to drink that kool-aid; but, to shoot 42.7% in a full season in which he played nearly 38 minutes of all 82 games?  That is elite level three point shooting, even in the modern 3-point obsessed NBA.  

         - Also, three-point shots are sort of a product of their time, so to speak.  The 3-point line itself

          wasn't introduced  in the NBA until 1980, and even then the league average 3PG% didn't reach           even 30.1%  until the 1986-87 season.  Why?  Because no one in the NBA had grown up                     playing with a 3- point line.  Not only was it a new concept to incorporate into their games, so              they were shooting fewer of them, but they weren't making as many of them.  So  today's                   players should absolutely have a slightly higher 3PG% than they did during Jordan's career.  

         - During the 19 years from when Jordan entered the league until he finally retired for the last

         time, the NBA league average for 3-Point shooting was 33.35%.  Seriously, I did the math...

         twice.  In the 15 seasons that Michael  Jordan played in the NBA, he finished above the                        average only 5 times; but his career 3-point% was 32.7%, barely off the league average.  So no,         he wasn't a great shooter from behind the arc, but he wasn't all that bad either.  I mean, he's no           Josh Smith...(Get 'em Smoove!), but overall  not bad.  (Because Josh Smith is most certainly a               poor 3-point shooter).

-Lebron was a significantly worse free-throw shooter, and has shot below 80% for both his career, and the most recent 2013 - 2014 season.  

- Also surprising, given the present narrative regarding Lebron's defensive prowess: Michael Jordan was significantly better at coming away with steals, and over 33% better at blocking shots.  So by these quantifiable margins, Lebron James was not, in fact, a better defender than Michael Jordan.

Now, just for fun, here's that table again; but this time I'm also adding in Kobe's peek stats.  This time, the Red categories are the ones in which that player scored the highest out of the 3.  Also, for Kobe's peaks I'm ignoring his first 2 seasons, during which he had a significantly lighter work-load than usual (which only affected the turnovers and fouls).

Michael Jordan

G GS     MPG     FG%     3P%      FT%   OFF   DEF    RPG       APG SPG     

82     82     40.4       .538      .427       .857     2.00     6.2    8.0(8.2)    8.0      3.16

 BPG TO     PF    PPG   Rapes

  1.6      2.11    1.8    37.1     0

Lebron James

G      GS     MPG  FG%     3P%      FT%   OFF   DEF    RPG     APG     SPG   

81     81     42.5    .567       .406      .78        1.5     6.5   8.0(8.0)    8.6        2.2

 BPG    TO    PF     PPG      Rapes

1.0      2.97    1.45   31.4        0

Kobe Bryant

G    GS     MPG  FG%     3P%      FT%   OFF   DEF    RPG       APG   SPG  

82   82      41.5    .469      .383      .868     1.6     5.6     6.9(7.2)      6.3     2.2

BPG       TO     PF PPG    Rapes 

  1.0       2.6     1.8     35.4       1

Before I continue, I want to reiterate - because I did an earlier post about this, that I think all of 1 person read (#hoorayfortoilingawayinobscurity!) - I am a fan of Kobe Bryant.  He's a great player, probably the best of his generation...I mean, it's pretty much either him or Tim Duncan.  But having said that, a lot of this next section is going to seem sort of unflattering to him.  I'm not trying to bash the guy, but these statistic-ular hips don't lie!  Okay, I now feel really dumb for having just written that.

- Kobe Bryant has never shot above 50% in a single season.  Not once.  I don't know, it just sort of feel like...if he's your pick for the best shooting guard ever (if he is, you're wrong; but that's cool, everyone's entitled to their incorrect opinions) shouldn't he have made more shots than he missed at least once?  Even when he had Shaq in the paint and could slash around the big guy all day for easy layups and open jumpers, he still never broke 50%.

         - Weird Sports Theory Alert: I think he never broke into the 50s not because he was incapable 

          of doing so, but because Kobe has always sort of been in love with taking difficult shots, just to           prove that he can 1) Take them; and 2) Make some of them every once in a while.  

- So...Statistically speaking, Kobe was only superior in his free-throw percentage.  Compare his peak stats directly to Jordan's, since he is generally compared to him all of the time now anyway. and Kobe only comes out ahead in two categories: Minutes-per-game, and free-throw percentage.

- When comparing with Lebron's peak stats, Kobe comes out ahead in PPG, TO, FT%, MPG, and number of games played; because again, Lebron James has never played a full 82 game season (seriously, I think that's one of the weirdest stat-lines I've ever seen.  Well, not as weird as Wilt Chamberlain never fouling out of a basketball game for his entire life, since that one can have a direct, negative impact on games, whereas the stat about Lebron is just...I don't know, weird.  I mean, we always talk about how many minutes he's played. and how he bears such a heavy workload for all of his teams.  So it seems pretty ironic to me that he's never played a full season).

- 

- This is the part where I, or you, or some anonymous third party points out the fact that all of these stats are irrelevant, because basketball is not about stats, its about winning as a team and all of that...stuff.  And while I don't inherently disagree with that sentiment, shut the hell up.  These stats don't prove which of the 3 have won more games(probably Lebron, I never looked that one up.  I'm tired, sue me!) , or has more rings (Jordan), or has been accused of more rapes (Kobe); but they can show each player's peak ability to impact every game they played in, and thus influence their teams' odds of winning or losing.  

Lastly, I wanted to discuss Lebron's supposed defensive superiority.  True, his size and height allow him to guard the 4 and 5 positions better than Jordan could; and his speed and quickness, relative to his size and height, allows him to guard those positions extremely well.  But his best season of steals never came anywhere close to Jordan's peak, nor has he ever - even with that height and size advantage - averaged more blocks than Michael Jordan did.  I don't mean that he never averaged more blocks in a single season, only that his peak has never really been all that close to Jordan's Peak Blocks.  

You're not going to believe this, but I have a theory about this too!  Again, one based upon copious re-watching  of old Bulls games.  Lebron James isn't very quick.

Hear me out on this, just hang on!  He's quick, and agile, and fast for his size, but no one is ever going to be quicker than someone who weighs 50 pounds less than he does.  Lebron reaches extremely high speeds in the open court, and gets up very high when he has the room to prep for the steps, but he's just too big to generate the sort of quickness required in a compacted half-court setting that smaller players like Jordan and Bryant were able to achieve.  Which is why most of Lebron's impressive plays come in transition, but in the half court he has a habit of finishing shots that look a lot uglier - I mean, they go in, and two points is two points and all that, but still...Lebron's size makes him have to go through players, especially once in the air, while Jordan and Kobe were able to go around them.  That may seem like an arbitrary difference, but so much of defense on the wings is all about foot-speed and quickness.  So Lebron wins in the post defense category, but probably loses on the wings to Jordan; he's still a great defender out there, but I don't think its even comparable (but then, I'm of the opinion that Jordan was probably even better than we realize, even after all of this long-winded rhetoric).  

Let's talk about those blocks for a second, too.  We all know what Lebron's signature block is: the transition chase down, slammed off the backboard for emphatic effect.  Do you know what Jordan's "signature" block was?  I'd bet that you don't, because that's another aspect of his game that just sort of went overlooked by most people.  Jordan would wait for a big man to commit to a post move - wherein they generally would be spinning towards the basket after having been posted up, ball extended to keep it out-of-reach from their main defender - and then Jordan would fly in to the air-space behind them and rip the ball out of their hands.  It seemed to happen a lot to Patrick Ewing, cause that dude loved to put his back to the basket and then fade away.  Seriously, Jordan's timing on these is every bit as impressive as Lebron's chase-down block, maybe more.

Feast your eye-holes on this deliciously visual slice of cake.  (Notice specifically the block on Patrick Ewing.  That's the first play I think of in reference to Jordan's blocks).

And here's an equally impressive array of blocks from Lebron James.  That Splitter block was sick!  Also, more than a little soul-crushing for me personally, since I wanted to see Timmy get another ring that year.  Although it was quite satisfying when they won it next year, exorcising some demons and expediting Lebron's flight back to Cleveland.  By the way, that SI letter?  Awfully transparent and tacky; not as bad as the Decision, but come on, man; get over yourself.  Or at least pretend to, like Michael did.  What ever happened to the days when a guy could just call a press conference and say "I'm back," answer a few questions, and then slam some dudes in bid whist?

Does that mean that Jordan's signature block was better, or more effective?  No, it just means that Jordan's quickness allowed him to get more blocks in a slower, half-court setting, while Lebron's freakish athleticism was more apparent in transition.  Jordan's blocks end up being higher, then, because there are more shots taken in the half-court than in transition; thus, more opportunities for blocks - if you have the quickness and positioning to get to them.  So much like Lebron's rebounds, the disparity in Peak Blocks owes a lot to positioning and opportunity.

Forget discussing whether Lebron was a better defender than Michael Jordan.  Was he ever a better defender than Scottie Pippen?  (Some may think this is a slight to Lebron; others to Pip.  I personally think it is a compliment for them both.  So there.)  That's saying a lot anyway, because Scottie Pippen was one of the most destructive defensive forces the league has seen since Bill Russell, and he managed to do it all in a mostly-wiry 6'7" frame, from the small forward position.  I'll pass on the discussion of why Pippen is one of my absolute favorite players ever - because this damn post is already too long - and simply cut myself to the chase: I present Scottie's peak defensive stats, such as they are, below: 

Scottie Pippen

OFF    DEF         RPG       SPG     BPG

2.5       6.3          8.7(8.8)   2.9        1.1

And for comparison, here are Lebron's Peak Stats in the same Categories:

Lebron James

OFF    DEF         RPG       SPG     BPG

 1.5       6.5        8.0(8.0)    2.2        1.0

So Pippen was better in every category but Defensive rebounding, but only marginally worse even in that, and his offensive rebounding proficiency was so much higher that it boosted his total rebounds to almost 1 more rebound a game.  

But ignore all of that; here's what I can't stop thinking about, when comparing Pippen and Lebron, defensively.  

I can only ever recall Lebron really having one signature defensive series, and that was in the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals when he shut down Derrick Rose.  Wonderful performance, and he basically carried the team that whole series into the NBA Finals, where he was...well, not as impressive.  But we'll hit that later.  Pippen, on the other hand, had at least 3 such series during his career: 1991 NBA Finals when he was shutting down Magic Johnson, 1998 Eastern Conference Finals when he effectively corralled Mark Jackson, and either the 1997 or 1998 NBA Finals against the entire Utah Jazz roster, where he nearly single-handedly derailed what had been, up to that series, the most efficient and prolific offense in the league (I can't remember which of the two years it was, but I want to say 1998 since he was battling a severe foot injury during the 1997 series).  It was so impressive that a lot of the talking heads were saying by game 5 that he might deserve the Finals MVP for the manner in which he was destroying the Utah Jazz.  There aren't any real specific stats that I know of to show this, I'm going mostly off of the eye-test.  Trust me: I have never seen a series so completely controlled on the defensive end than that Finals Series against the Jazz; it's probably Mr. Pippen's Opus. Lebron James has never done anything that defensively impressive. I mean, I never got to see Bill Russel play, but I imagine it was something like Pippen's own-ment of Utah, except that instead of doing it against one team, in one NBA Finals series, Russel did it to the entire league for 13 years.

Don't believe me?

How about now?

And yeah, that last bit is not very provable, statistically speaking, but that's okay.  Because we're not really talking about stats: we're talking about the difference between being one of the greatest players ever, and being the absolute GOAT; and in that discussion, sometimes the most important factors are not quantifiable.  And even if I didn't believe anything I've already written in this article - I do believe it, I believe it all; which is why I wrote it - I still can't shake a few memories from my head, memories which prevent me from ever agreeing with anyone foolish enough to say that Lebron James is the greatest basketball player ever.  I can't help but remember when Jason Terry torched him in the last half of the 2011 finals; or when Paul George and Jimmy Butler put up career numbers in the 2012 playoffs, playing directly against Lebron.  All of which is circumstantial, and based off of personal opinion and my own perhaps-not-so-unique perspective.  So here's something that isn't subjective:

2010 Eastern Conference Semifinals, 6-Game Loss to Boston

Game 4: 22 pts, 7-18 shooting (0-5 from 3); 9 rebounds; 8 assists; 7 turnovers

Game 5: 15 pts (3-14 shooting; 0-4 from 3); 6 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 turnovers

Game 6: 27 Pts (8-21 shooting; 2-4 from 3); 19 rebounds; 10 assists; 9 Turnovers

Final 3-Game Averages:

PPG        FG%      3P%    RPG    APG    TO    Teams Quit On   

21.3        .339      .154      11.3      8.33    6.3              1

Number of Blank Stares Which Succinctly Displayed Lebron's Inner Thoughts of " I've Got to Get the Hell Out of Here"

                                      8.27

2011 NBA Finals, 6 Game Loss to Dallas

PPG        FG%      3P%    FT%    RPG    APG    TO    MPG 

17.78      .478       .321     .600      7.2      6.8       4..0     43.0

Here's my final weird theory: I think Lebron might be more emotionally fragile than we're used to seeing from our professional athlete/superheroes.  I mean, something precipitated that nosedive in the 2010 Boston Series, and shattered his ability to perform in the 2011 finals; although that's not the first time an all-time great had a bad series, only to bounce back later - as he did in 2012.  It happened to Magic, once; it happened to Michael for three straight years against the Pistons.  But with those failures, we could see what the problem was: Magic kept forcing plays and coming up short, Michael was trying to do everything himself and ground himself down to dust against the Detroit Defensive Onslaught.  But with Lebron...we have no answers.  It was if he pulled a Larry Sanders and realized he didn't want to play professional basketball anymore; or Jim Carey and decided that he didn't want' the be funny anymore.  I don't know if we'll ever have answers.

Lebron is great, no doubt, I'm not saying he isn't; because he obviously is one of the greatest ever. But he's already 30, and has played an ungodly number of minutes throughout his career, and if he isn't already on the downhill slope, he will be very soon.  Look how quickly Kobe went from still-looking-like-the -league Alpha Dog in 2010 and 2011 to missing 80% of the next two years due to injury, and returning as grumpy, cantankerous old volume scorer?  I guess what I'm saying is, let's all enjoy the rest of the ride while we can, because this track may not have much uphill left.