Even the King didn't know when Jordan was there or not. http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...veland-cavaliers-says-start-superteam-era-nba "No," James said when Green's superteam comments came up in the episode released Friday. "No. I mean in 2003, the Lakers combined Karl Malone, Gary Payton, Shaq and Kobe. And in '96, when Jordan was retired, the Rockets joined Charles Barkley, Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler all on the same team. "But I don't look at it as ... I definitely didn't start the superteam, if that's what he's trying to say. But I just feel like that it's great that on the day you're celebrating your championship, my likeness and my name is in your head. I love that."
The bigger story here is Lebron giving Dennis Rodman no respect for forming a super team with Jordan, Pippen, Kukoc in 96' Why Green, but not Rodman? I mean, his comments are aimed at Green.
Rodman was a 7 time rebounding champion and defensive player of the year twice. We need to brush LeBron up on his history
I see nothing wrong with past their prime future HOF'ers joining up. People don't seem to understand that when they mention Barkley and Drexler joining Hakeem as if it's the same thing LeBron and KD do in their absolute MVP primes.
I just like these guys pretending to talk smack with each other, when they're all a bunch of creampuffs. None of today's stars could win a fight with a soft breeze.
Not only that but the Rockets traded for Barkley and Drexler, it's not like these dudes all colluded together to form a team or take advantage of free agency loopholes. That Rockets team had to compete with the likes of the Sonics, Jazz, Spurs and had they made the finals they would have had to face the Bulls. All of those teams were great and had decent chances to win titles back then so it's not like the Rockets had a superteam when compared to the other top tier teams. What Lebron did when he went to Miami was straight up collusion and it set a bad precedent for the league, imo. Durant has already stated that Lebron paved the way for his decision to go to Golden State. It's funny how now the league is starting to care about this as we see with the new CBA. Lebron and Durant get their way, easy championships, then close the loophole in the CBA and make it harder for other teams to keep up. Now, we get another 3 or 4 years of Cavs vs Warrios in the finals.
Nothing they did was illegal. They all took max, I think Wade took a small paycut to fit them in, but nothing substantial. Warriors didn't do anything wrong, they drafted well and coincidentally benefited from the sudden cap increase while all their stars were on bargain deals, Durant took a max. Nobody "exploited" free agency. Players have a lot of leverage and say in free agency; rather them than the owners.
Well, technically collusion is against the rules but that's beside the point. My comments were more so directed at what Lebron said when comparing super teams of today to super teams of yesterday. It's an apples and oranges comparison because what Lebron and KD did was unprecedented. Both guys are perhaps the two best players in the NBA and left teams to join up with other MVP and Finals MVP calibre players while still in their 20's. It would be like Bird joining Magic, Hakeem joining Jordon, Kobe joining Duncan, etc while in their prime. That's basically what Lebron and KD did when Lebron joined Wade and KD joined Curry, and while I don't think KD did anything illegal per say, I do think its bad for the game of basketball. Lebron on the other hand is guilty of collusion, because he planned on joining the Heat and talked about it with Wade/Bosh while playing for team USA and while he was still under contract with Cleveland. Lebron even admitted as such. This was done two seasons before Lebron actually left Cleveland. Of course, there is no way on earth the NBA would ever enforce any penalties on Lebron since he basically owns the NBA.
