Who faced tougher defenders/defenses? Jordan or Harden? Debate/Poll

Besides mad Max Clyde the glide was pretty damn good as well

 

Is it the same guy who keeps posting these? Seems I am seeing an increasing number of MJ vs. Harden posts. Probably stop it. You're not doing him any favors among even his fans. Forget about the critics (& enjoy the media this year).

There's already a significant contingent of fans here who in part because of the WB trade, are just looking for a reason to say F. It! You are pouring rocket fuel on them. Please stop.

 

Lets keep in mind Vernon Maxwell on MJ

 

lol. the defenders were not bigger, and certainly not stronger.... i dont think they were that tough either, just allowed to get away with more and obviously were used to that certain style of play. they used their hands because they couldnt move their feet. if you take any team from today, they would embarrass the so called great defense. not so easy to defend when the floor is so spaced.

90s basketball is so damn overrated.

 

The fact that you dont know who Michael Adams is, or understand how good a player he was speaks volumes for your understanding of basketball from any generation ither than right now.

 

In the 90s you had real centers and real Power fowards. I could list you the amazing number of 6 foot 10 or taller great players but the list would be too long. Now you have 6 foot 7 players playing center. Please dude....stop.

In the 9ps you had 4 different centers win or play at an MVP level year after year. Name me one center from the last 10 to 15 years who is a bonafide hall of famer?

 

Who cares about the power forwards and centers ? They didn’t guard MJ first of all. It was a bunch of 6’5 and under off guards. Most of also weren’t all that athletic, so after MJ would blow by those midgets the bigs would be at his mercy anyway. Today’s defense is better and more complex.

I don’t see how anyone can actually watch a game from the 90s and call it good defense. The game was just slow and plodding, and defenders were handsy. Now you have actually move your feet. We have guys that can cover lots of ground quickly. Teams in the 90s wouldn’t have a chance playing against teams today on either end. It was seriously be laughable.

 

OP forgot to say "let's settle this once and for all" . . . or some such words to that effect

 

You tried and failed with this one, OP.

 

The guys now are slightly shorter in stature but make up for it with superior reaches and wingspans and overall better athleticism. If Draymond Green played in Jordan's era I think Jordan would be in crutches with pending technical or flagrant 1 possibly waived for Green. The best defenders can better conceal dirtiness and with the 80s and 90s rules those are just hard fouls..

 

Dwight and Chris Bosh are all first ballot HOF. The reason the centers all went away is because they turned into forwards. Guys like Lebron, Giannis, Kristaps, Blake Griffin, KD etc would have been centers given their height and athleticism if they played in the 80s.

Being a big man in the 80s/90s is just all about bulking up, people didnt give a damn about speed they just want muscle mass so they can push people around. It made your job as a center easier because you just need to hit the gym and take steroids and you are good to go. Thats why MJ was able to dominate despite having slow ass white boy nobodies as centers, those dudes just bulked up and were able to neutralize the "premier" centers the other teams had. Patrick Ewing and David Robinson were touted as some of the best Cs in the league lmao just send 4 roided up enforcers to beat them up for the entire game and they are out with a 4 week injury gg ez. Nowadays your enforcers better be extremely quick and athletic which is why guys like Draymond and PatBev are in hot demand.

Anybody who tries to argue the competition was better in the 80s/90s is just straight up wrong and dumb. You are like a redneck somewhere holed up in your farm arguing about the "good old days". You realize globalization happened in the 2000s and technology continues to get better right? I wonder which will have better athletes, NBA with a population pool of 250 million or NBA with a potential pool of 7.6 billion? Obv there would be some exceptions like Kareem, Hakeem, MJ etc who would have been great even in this era but majority of the athletes then wouldnt make the cut today.

 

You claimed teams were smaller. They were not. I gave you examples of prime players at big positions. Now...there are zero.

Your claim that D is better now....laughable. go watch some old Pistons games. You couldnt trap, couldnt double the way you can now. The game is all 3s and layups. There were no shooter landing rules.

You are a long way off.

 

Go and watch any old Bulls vs Pistons matchup somewhere and you'll see it wasn't as tough as these oldheads love to claim. Lots of phantom calls. Lots of wussy fouls. There were really only a few iconic HARD fouls that the Pistons committed on Jordan over the course of a few seasons, with a ton of matchups together. Handchecking was indeed still a rule back then, it was only clarified in the early 2000's which then enabled zone defenses & doubling over from the weak side. I can pull up clips on YouTube of defenders being called for a handcheck foul on Jordan.

And that's what made those useless PF's "useful" in that era. They were forced to be defended out to the perimeter because zone & doubling over from the weak side wasn't allowed. If you couldn't shoot, you could still stretch the floor.

*Side Note* you know there were players who played in their prime through BOTH eras, right? After the rule change (hand-check clarification & zone/doubling) there were notable complaints from many players including KG and Paul Pierce, both saying something close to "it's way harder to score the ball now than it was with the rules we had last season and prior.." etc etc. Many even saw statistical dips.

 

You can't compare eras/

 

I mean...I personally think athletes are better today, but you have gone WAAAAAY to far in the other extreme, and you're disrespectful dude, chill.

 

Back then steroids and human growth hormones was part and parcel of the nba. Sure the players were not as tall or as fast, but they were a lot stronger and physically intimidating. Anthony Mason(RIP big man) Charles Oakley, Karl Malone, Antonio Davis and Mark Eaton to name a few. They would rag doll any of today’s big men like they were toilet paper.

 

It's not being disrespectful it's called progress, globalization and competition. It's almost 30 yrs ago now dude, people move on and get better you think a young Royce Gracie has any chance vs Jon Bone Jones? Like I said there will be exceptions but apart from those select few the average NBA player in the 80s just wont be good enough in the NBA today.

 

Lol being able to ragdoll doesnt really mean much nowadays thats why guys like Marbury and Francis got phased out. WB is getting so much hate for being inefficient nowadays if he played back then he might have been the goat esp if he roided up like those guys.

 

Michael Jordan
Isaiah Thomas
Magic Johnson
Kobe Bryant
Mahmoud Abdul Rauf
Anfernee Hardaway
Grant Hill
Scottie Pippen
Joe Dumars
Reggie Miller

Only Power Forwards, Centers in 90s were more talented.

Hakeem Olajuwon
Shaquille O'Neal
David Robinson
Patrick Ewing
Shawn Kemp
Charles Barkley

Only Hakeem Olajuwon and Shawn Kemp can play stretch Center in today's NBA