Game Theory - Could A Pokémon Beat LeBron James 1-On-1?

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Join Game Theory Host Tom as he dissects the battle of the titans... Mewtwo versus LeBron James. Who Would Win?! Credits: Writers: Tom Robinson and Justin Kuiper Editors: Dan "Cybert" Seibert, Danial "BanditRants" Keristoufi, Tyler Mascola and Shannon (Bomb0i) Sound Designer: Yosi Berman

At 6-7, 269 pounds, do you think, was it, Moutu? Is that how you pronounce his name, Muta? Moutu could beat LeBron in a game to 21. Well, he's shorter than LeBron, but he weighs more. Well, it says here, abilities, pressure, unnerve, hidden ability. All right, so he's got composure, psychic, yeah. He can anticipate moves and stuff like that. Yeah, maybe he could pull it all.

Maybe. What do you mean, maybe? The people need answers. Where's your journalistic integrity, Stephen? Ah, fine. If you won't figure it out, I will. Hello internet, welcome to Game Theory, the show that's dropping dimes and breaking ankles. Yeah, I barely understood what I said either.

But I had to brush up on the old sports vocab because just a few weeks ago, we were treated to an incredibly memeish moment from sports analyst Stephen A. Smith. At the end of his show, the Stephen A. Smith show, he typically shifts gears from talking about sports to answering fan questions from Twitter. about literally anything. This has varied wildly from Who Would Your Starting 5 Pick Be from the Sesame Street? First of all, my start by Cookie Monster. What kind of bender would you be? You know what?

When I watch Aquaman, I think water. Or who you think the best SpongeBob athlete is. Now, SpongeBob with the Big Squarehead, I gotta consider that, because I always wish I had a big square head. It's pretty random and it's kind of hilarious to watch him stumble his way through pop culture references. Ladies and gentlemen, I haven't seen much of SpongeBob. Damn it.

But one of them stood out above all the rest. Someone asked Stephen, who would win in a 1V1 game of basketball? LeBron James or Mutu. That's right, the Pokemon. People lost their minds over this, mainly because of how he said the name Mutu. Mutu? I never thought of Mutu as a cow before, but now that I have, I can't unthink it. Of course, the discussion raged on Twitter.

Could LeBron James actually stand up to the likes of Mutu? Surely it's a one-sided fight, right? We all saw what happened the last time a human went toe to toe with muters. The Pokemon fan in me, along with the rest of the internet, thought this was an open and shut case. But the theorist in me knew I couldn't leave this up to a hypothetical. I mean, LeBron is arguably one of the greatest basketball players of all time. I may have been the kid in high school being bullied by the jocks, but I actually enjoyed basketball. Plus, the playing part and more the learning the rules and regulations part.

Yeah, I was a nerd. What did you expect? But I can't imagine that a lot of MUTU's movesets would be legal in an actual game of basketball. Plus, I think we forget that the LeBron is more than just a man. While MUTU has appeared in dozens of games, movies and episodes of the show, LeBron has also made appearances in over 38 NBA video games, a number of movies and TV shows, and a few other mediums that all offer their own unique styles and powers that might just help level the playing field. So, get out your rule books theorists, because we are going to answer the question

that Stephen A. Smith couldn't. We are going to go through everything to see who would win in a game of basketball, legendary NBA player LeBron James or legendary psychic Pokemon, Mew2. Ladies and gentlemen, it's game on. As I've already mentioned it, let's start with some basic rules before we really get into this. Obviously, groups like the NBA, NCAA and the International Basketball Federation, or FIBA, have never had to account for psychic powers before. So, we're going to be doing our best to interpret the rules as fairly as possible in a way that keeps things fun,

but also means the spirit of the game remains somewhat intact. For example, Mew 2 could use his psychic powers to just hold LeBron in place and have free reign over the court. Now, there isn't technically a rule against that, but there is a rule that says a player shall not hold, push, charge into, or impede the progress of an opponent. Typically, this applies to physical contact. But I think it would be safe to say that regardless of how you hold the player, it's still impeding their progress and breaks the spirit of the game. Therefore, this won't be allowed. Similarly, there's a rule about doing something that,

is considered, quote, detrimental to the game. Which is basically the ref's airbud clause. Just because it's not in the rules, doesn't mean it's okay to do. So if Newtude tried busting out some of his powers that we see from Pokemon the first movie, like mind controlling LeBron or erasing his memory of basketball, that would likely fall into this category. Not exactly good sportsmanship to make it so your opponent can't even face you properly. Other rules, however, require a lot less interpretation. The NBA has policies against surpassing your natural ability thanks to synthetic substances, or as most people call them,

So I don't think MUTU taking those weird TM-HM disk things and learning a new move from them is gonna fly either. With that out of the way, let's dive into the specifics of how a human might win a game of basketball against a psychic cat. The most important factor when it comes to winning a game of basketball is, of course, your ability to score. And how you can achieve that can be broken down into a few key areas. Starting with the most obvious one, height. When you have another player trying to block your shots, having a few extra inches makes it that much easier to make it over them. Conversely, being taller also makes it easier to block your opposing shots. And as Stephen pointed out, he's shorter than LeBron, but he weighs more.

LeBron is two inches taller than you two. So, there you have it case closed. Kinder. Because you see, height is actually only part of the equation. You're not shooting from your head after all, but your arms. The bigger your wingspan is, the higher you can reach to block or shoot. According to Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian man, your wingspan should be the same as your height. But, fun fact, that's not how humans work.

to get measured for a shoot once and it turns out my wingspan is actually three inches shorter than my height. So while I'm by no means short, I do technically have short arms. And it turns out, LeBron also has the same issue, just in the other direction. He's 6'9, but he's gained an extra 3 inches in his wingspan, making it a whole 7 feet. Mewtoe, on the other hand, looks lanky, but actually is pretty average in that department. By taking Muto's 3D model from one of the games and posing him to assert dominance, you can see that he fits neatly into a perfect square. That means that his wingspan is exactly the same as his height, six foot and seven inches, which is impressive but not compared to LeBron's seven foot wingspan. But Mutu has one final trick up his sleeve.

He can mega evolve. Mega Mutu X specifically gains an entire foot of height and it gives him an infinite wingspan as according to his Pokedex entry, its psychic power has augmented its muscles, which we then see in Pocene leads to limbs that can stretch infinitely. However, that's not going to fly here, as in order to Mega-evolve, Muto has to be holding the Muto Knight X item, and Fibar has a very specific rule about that. Quote, any equipment that is designed to increase a player's height or reach, or in any other way given unfair advantage, is not permitted. The Moutu-Night would be considered such an item,

literally making him taller and longer, and therefore is going to be disallowed from play. At this point, I was starting to think LeBron might have. actually stand a chance. A lot of MUTU's powers have been disallowed and he doesn't have the height or wingspan to keep up. But sadly, it's all downhill from here for LeBron. Remember, wingspan and height matter for the same reason. You want to be able to reach up and block shots and to shoot over the opponent or just reach the basket directly. But there's another element that can add to your height that is less physical. Vertical leap or how high you can jump and boy, oh boy, does MUTU clean up in this department. In Super Smash Bros. Ultimates training arena, you

can see that the top of MUTU's head goes from 2 meters to 4.8 meters in a single jump. That's a vertical leap of 2.8 meters or 9 feet and 2 inches. He would be able to clear LeBron easily and still have space to go because LeBron only has a vertical jump height of 1.1 meters or 3 feet and 8 inches. Which is impressive by human standards. It's about a foot taller than the league average, but he ain't getting over MUTU or blocking any shots with that. Or is he?

See, this is where LeBron's. extracurricular activities come into play. And the first thing I turned to was his starring role in Space Jam 2. Now, I'd never seen Space Jam 2, but Michael Jordan got some pretty cool stretch powers in the first one, and that would be a huge advantage here. So, I sat down and I watched the whole thing, and man, does this movie suck? Wait. I could do a whole video just complaining about it, but the most frustrating thing besides LeBron's acting

is LeBron doesn't even get any powers. He only gets boosts from the court, and it's just. His son gets a bunch of powers, but he doesn't get any, which is a complete letdown. But don't worry. From the ashes of Space Jam to there would rise a Phoenix that would bring me hope. Warner Bros. Smash clone Multiverses. Okay, maybe Phoenix was a bit strong. The game is fine, I guess.

More like a scorched chicken. But LeBron is a playable character, so we gotta try. I analyzed some of his jumps in the game and using pixel measurements, we can conclude that his vertical leap is around 8 foot 4 inches, which is nothing to snuff at, though it It still fails to match up to Mu-2's 9 foot 2 inches. And it gets worse when you consider that in basically every TV or movie appearance, Mutu can just levitate. It's basically just an infinite extension of his jump,

going as high or as far as he wants to to get over LeBron and position himself perfectly next to the net. You can't get a travel violation if your feet don't touch the ground. But to top it all off, Mutu doesn't even need to jump or levitate to win here. Because it's time to talk about the thing that I know you've all been screaming at me this entire time. his psychic powers. Those give him the biggest advantage of all. Perfect accuracy. He can throw the ball from anywhere on the court and just manipulate it to go exactly where he wants it to, while LeBron only has a 59.9 effective field goal percentage, meaning he's missing 40% of his shots. Is there any way he could improve those odds? Besides, you know, just getting good. Turns out, yeah.

Because as I mentioned earlier, LeBron has been in dozens of NBA titles and one of them broke away from the realism and gave you power-ups to fix this exact problem. The game is called NBA Playgrounds and in it you could activate powers known as lottery picks, one of which is called Electric Ball. This power-up makes your next shot unmissable and it cannot be blocked. So even with Mutu's height, levitation and psychic abilities, he's not going to be able to stop LeBron. If LeBron is able to get this power-up, that is.

Not only are lottery picks randomized, but their randomization is actually weighted. with electric ball being more likely to go to those already winning the game. Given LeBron's lack in every area compared to MUTU so far, he definitely isn't. Plus, you build up your lottery pick bar by doing things like dunking, which LeBron also isn't going to be able to do without the power up. Mew2 can just perfectly block every shot. Okay, so things are looking pretty bad for LeBron here, but he isn't completely defenseless.

While his defense stat in most NBA games isn't super great, in multiverses, it's a different story. When he doesn't have the ball, his down triangle attack called denied changes to create a fence behind him that can perfectly block incoming projectiles. Now, as we've shown, he doesn't have the height or wingspan to get in front of the ball as it's being shot. But he does have enough height, wingspan and leap to get in front of the basket, which are only 10 feet off the ground. Therefore, he could just jump up and block the ball from going in at the last minutes. Now, if you're a fan of basketball, at this point you're probably yelling at me that this tactic wouldn't work, as blocking the ball that is in, quote, downward flight towards the basket would be considered

goaltending, and you'd be right. But there is an exception, and that's if an offensive player is dunking the ball. So long as the ball hasn't left their hand, it's not considered in downward flight, and therefore, you can use your hand to block the ball. And if MUTU's psychic powers are considered breaking the rules of holding a player, which is normally associated with physical contact, then MUTU using psychic powers to hold and guide the ball also count as physical contact, which means that even if Mew2 is shooting from the other side of the court, it would still be considered a dunk because the ball never entered downward flight. It's still being held by the player.

Now, I'm not saying Mew2 can't use those powers. It just means that if he does, it would allow LeBron to jump up and block the ball with his denied attack without receiving a penalty. And the best part is, if LeBron does successfully block Mew 2's shot with that power, in the game, he immediately gains possession of the ball. Possession is actually the second major part of winning at basketball. The more you have the ball, the more opportunities you have to shoot. Sure, we've established that shooting is going to be a challenge with Mew2's jumping advantages,

but if he can keep the ball away from Muteu, then he might be able to figure something out, right? Well, I thought so too, but the issue arises that LeBron can't just hold onto the ball forever. He's either going to have to start dribbling to get closer to the basket, or take a shot at some point, and in both instances, he's going to have to let go of the ball, which gives Mue 2 the chance to use his speed, strength and psychic powers to steal the ball, go for another shot. Though, if Mew 2 didn't want to wait for LeBron, he could always do what's even suggested. That long tail, you never know.

My stripled. Stripping the ball is just when a defensive player knocks the ball out of the offensive player's hand, and LeBron isn't used to defending against a third appendage. All of these options lead to Mewu once again psychically dunking, LeBron denying and the cycle repeating over and over again until the heat death of the universe. Or until LeBron gets too tired and Mewt manages to score some baskets. Basically, no matter what way you slice it, The internet is not winning this match.

The internet was right, and I was ready to give up. There's just no way the king is coming back from this. I'd watched every cameo appearance he ever did on TV. Nothing. I watched gameplay from every NBA video game there is to look for power-ups and scoring bonuses. Nudder. I even checked all the random mobile games he's in, including the Pokemon Go clone NBA All-World. Ha, a second Nintendo clone featuring LeBron.

Weird. Oh, and now I have two nickels. Regardless, I had zero. to work with. Every appearance was boring, played for laughs and gave him no powers, which is especially disappointing when he cameos in shows like Teen Titans, which are about superheroes. And that's when it hit me. Where's the one place we'd expect someone to have superhuman abilities more than anywhere else? Comics. They do collaborations with other media entities all the time, and LeBron is no exception. He's got a DC comic and two Marvel comic appearances, and one of them completely flips the tables on

Mew 2. It's called LeBron King of the Rings, and it's all about LeBron's hypothetical rise to gaining the seven championship rings that he declared he would win. It's honestly a lot of fun because the creators are basically just making jabs at his ego. But it all adds up to Lebron getting some insane powers. For starters, LeBron can levitate. That's right, he apparently spent some time with some street magicians and instead of getting scammed out of his millions, he learns to fly, meaning he's going toe to toe to toe with Mew 2. The sky is quite literally the limit. Suddenly, LeBron can use his deny attack on any shot from any height, and he doesn't have to risk the potential goal-tending strategy. Although, here you might think that this is where LeBron falls into the same issues as before.

Mew2 will steal the ball back when he lets go, and we'll end up in a continuous loop again, but oh no. Because, and I can't believe I'm saying this, LeBron can also turn invisible. Yep, he trained with Tibetan monks and learnt to turn invisible. Not only that, but the comics specifically call out how it's useful for getting around players during a game, which means it's unlikely we're getting the Invisible Woman powers from the 2005 movie, where she can only turn herself invisible but not her clothes. It would be a pretty useless strategy if we could still see LeBron's uniform and the ball while he's holding it. Instead, it seems like these powers reflect the actual Marvel comic version of Invisible Woman,

where in 1964, she was given the ability to turn objects around her Invisible 2. So, just remember, kids, the movie can never be as good as the original. Anyway, this level of power would allow LeBron to turn himself and the ball Invisible. MUTU won't be able to see him or aim any kind of psychic power at him. It's pretty hard to focus your energy on moving a ball you can't see. And yes, while MUTU has telepathy, movies like Detective Pikachu show that he's able to be snuck up on and captured, so he's not super aware of things that he can't see. LeBron can just do his multiverse's block, get hold of the ball, turn invisible, levitate towards the basket, and dunk.

But would invisibility even be allowed? Well, the NBA in the comic didn't seem to mind. And even if they did, Mewu or the ref would have to count. catch LeBron doing it, which is going to be pretty hard because LeBron has one final trick up his sleeve. He can create decoys. It's not fully explained how he does this, but we do know there is a move that does the same thing in the Pokemon games. Substitute, quote, the user makes a copy of itself using some of its HP.

The copy serves as the user's decoy. And despite MUTU being one of the most intelligent and powerful Pokemon in the games, he is not immune to this diversion. 100% of his attacks will go towards the decoy. LeBron can set a decoy and then increases evasiveness to max level by going invisible, making it impossible for Mutu to correctly identify and target his opponent. Which means, after many days of deep diving, I have done it. I have answered the question of who would win in a game of basketball, LeBron James or Mewto.

And in a surprising turn of events, the answer is actually LeBron. So long as you're letting LeBron use all of his powers from across the various games and comics that he's been involved in. Mutu would just be too busy aiming at a decoy or trying to figure out where LeBron is before you can even try and dunk the ball. And here's the thing. This comic is from 2012. It's 12 years old and yet it's the most fun and interesting piece of non-sports media that LeBron has been a part of. What happened? Why is every power you get so boring if you even get powers at all?

Like, my guy, you were a producer on Space Jam. Couldn't you have given yourself the powers rather than your kid? All I'm saying is maybe for your name. Next project, let the creators have some fun. Let them give you the wacky powers, make you look a little bit silly, because that's what makes these kinds of debates fun. Heck, it would have at least made Space Jam a little bit more enjoyable. Then, the next time Steven A. Smith puts you up against some impossible fictional creature, it won't require someone like me bending over backwards to prove that you really are the king, regardless of who you're up against. But, hey, that's just a theory.

A game theory! Thanks for watching!