Magic Johnson: "We didn't think about it 'cause that's not what we were about"

This thread is going to turn into a clone of the Jordan thread.

 

yea magic and bird were a different species though; people should see that HBO documentary on them.

 

Just a stupid, jackass comment from Magic. What a surprise. First off, while Lebron has been compared to the greats like Magic, MJ, and Bird, Wade is much farther down the list of great players. Bosh doesn't even come close to making that list. Second, Lebron didn't have the fortune of being picked #1 overall by a team that had the league MVP on it already.

 

spoiled ass lakers. how many losing seasons has that franchise had in the last 30 years? and how many of the top 50 players have been on the lakers 10 or more and now you could include kobe.

 

I'd take Wade over Lebron in a heartbeat as far as careers go...

 

Wade has the championship. But Lebron is the better player.

 

D.Wade is always in the top 5 in race to MVP every season. he even won finals MVP.

 

so what?!?!?! I'm getting a bit irritated with the thread police

 

For the last two seasons he has been, before that it is very debateable.

The better player is the guy who put the team on his back and got a ring, but that's just me. We will probably find out who the alpha male is this upcoming season...

 

Lebron put his team on his back and took them to the Finals. That team was much weaker than the team that Wade went to the Finals with (Shaq was a first team all-NBA player that year). Miami was minutes away from being down 3-0. If they had been playing the Spurs, they would have lost. They were lucky to be playing the chokers from Dallas.

 

Wade has been in the top 5 in the MVP race the past two years. Prior to that, he had never been in the top 5 of MVP voting.

 

I'm not even sure if that's true. Wade's numbers have been just about as impressive throughout his career, and in much a more defensive-minded era. There's no doubt in my mind a player like Wade would have been in the same conversation as those guys. He lacks the mystique and publicity of those other players, which hurts him in these types of conversations.

His two injury shortened seasons also hurts him. Would have undoubtedly been a top five mvp candidate the past 4 seasons after his championship run, but only played about fifty games in each of the two seasons after the title run. He's probably a top 10 player of the entire decade.

 

This guy needs to be hired on Lebron's PR team asap!! He's deflected more criticism off Lebron than Lebron has himself

 

Easy to say that when you stepped right into a championship winning franchise out of college and had the opportunity to play with hall of famers on your team.

Let's not forget that Johnson is also the same guy who demanded he either be traded or his coach be fired.

But really the best explanation is that the game is different now.

 

I don't care for the new game then if it means players aren't going to be competitive as they use to be. But, honestly I don't even think most players today would have even done what Lebron did or maybe I'm must being hopeful. I like to think there are still other players in the league like Durant saying what happened to being competitive.

 

For me Magic has walked the walk so he has the liberty to sandbag Lebron's decision. Same with Jordan's comments. I find their comments way more intriguing than average joe six pack's comments on a bbs. I'm not saying they are right all the times (especially with Magic), but I do want to know what they think about stuff like Lebron running away.

I find it refreshing that NBA legends are pissing all over Lebron and the whole let's get together thing. It's called keeping your pimp hand strong on the sport you made greater for the kids like LBJ, DWade, and Bosh. When one of the kids start doing stuff that the legends don't like, they slap the kids around with comments like Magic and Jordan's.

 

I wasn't deflecting criticism of Lebron. I was pointing out that when Wade made the Finals in 2006, he didn't carry his team there, he had another first team all-NBA player with him. They also lucked out in playing a mentally fragile team in the Finals. When Lebron made the finals, his team got destroyed by the Spurs, who wouldn't have fallen apart after losing one game the way Dallas did.

 

I think players today are still competitive, but it is a different type of competitiveness. They are willing to go out and shape their career rather than wait for it to come to them. And with the prevalence of trades and free agency, loyalty has gone out the window on both the player and team side, and there is less of a stigma in regards to player mobility. Knowing there are no guarantees in this sport, its tough to fault players for wanting to win as soon as possible. Nobody wants to be the next Charles Barkley.

In this post-Jordan culture, players are judged not only by how great they are, but how many rings they have. There is no question that has affected the psyche of star players. Exposure and scrutiny are at all all-time high and players feel that pressure to win soon and often.

But to loop back to the article about Magic, I don't think Magic and Bird are particularly good measuring sticks for anything that has gone on in free agency. Both of them were born into the NBA with silver spoons in their mouths. Magic stepped into the NBA as a rookie to play with the highest scoring player in NBA history, and he won a ring in his first season. In Bird's second season, he was playing with two hall of famers. Jordan is the best measuring stick, but he locked himself into a long-term contract for financial reasons, and then Chicago started racking up the rings in the middle of that contract.

I think it's too early to hold Durant to a higher standard than Wade, Bosh, and James. He clearly believes he has a good thing in Oklahoma City and wants to continue that. We'll have to wait and see how his team does and what choices he makes as he nears the end of his new contract.