LeBron James punched a ticket to his eighth consecutive NBA Finals on Sunday night in Boston, leading the Cavaliers to an ugly, yet effective 87-79 win over the Celtics.
James had 35 points, 15 rebounds, and nine assists on the night as he carried the load offensively for the Cavs as he’s done all season. It was just his latest virtuoso performance in an elimination game, and considering the rag-tag cast of role players around him (especially with Kevin Love out of Game 7), many were wondering if getting to the Finals this year was LeBron’s most impressive feat of his astounding career.
Naturally, any conversation about the peak of LeBron’s career leads to arguments about who is the greatest of all-time. Kobe Bryant hopped on Twitter to applaud LeBron’s effort in Game 7, and then was asked who was the NBA’s GOAT, to which he shut down the notion that we have to choose one.
#Lebranium 👏🏾
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) May 28, 2018
We can enjoy one without tearing down one. I love what he’s doing. Don’t debate what can’t be definitively won by anyone #enjoymy5 #enjoymj6 #enjoylbjquest
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) May 28, 2018
It’s a good message and one that is the rational, objectively correct way to go about it. There is no way to definitively make a claim of who the best ever is because there isn’t an infallible catch-all metric with which to rank players. That said, even Kobe trying to shut down GOAT talk will have no effect on the debate moving forward.
If anything, Bryant only fueled the fire with his hashtags as he inserted himself into the conversation when only he tends to only get brought up by the most loyal of Kobe fans.
