I agree. Ewing's spot is solidified on the list and would probably hold his spot for another 50 years should a new list be created.
I don't know anybody who rates Baylor or West in the Top 10, so I don't know what you are talking about, West maybe....Baylor? No, because IMO, you can't be a Top 10 player to ever play with ZERO lead dog rings. and as for the Ewing comment.... He's probably a top 20 player ever, He's around 25 for me.
You don't know many people then. Plenty of people consider Baylor a top 10 player. Oscar Robertson never won a title without Kareem carrying him there when he was past his prime. I guess Oscar gets no top 10 consideration, right? He couldn't possibly given your criteria...
You are still essentially right in that when Pippen was switched to guarding Magic full time, the Lakers offense became unhinged and they never recovered after that. That was a decisive move in the Bulls first championship.
Ya, but Magic still had a great individual series...but with Worthy and Scott injured, his younger supporting cast didn't step up that much. I think everybody in Houston remembers Pippen's horrible season here in Houston. However, he did not fit in this offense at all. He was never a great isolation scorer or a great spot up shooter. Those are the things he was asked to do here in Houston. Also we had a rookie backcourt which made a lot of mistakes...our bench was also brutal. Losing Mario Elie had a huge impact on our team. Dream and Barkley couldn't be ignored in the post, so no way Rudy changes his entire offense for a slasher on a post oriented team. Drexler fit in fine because he was a great isolation scorer and he could post up. The Rockets assumed that since Pippen was about the same size and that he was an multi-time all star that he would just replace Drexler and the Rockets wouldn't miss a beat...we were definetily wrong about that. Lastly, he was 33 years old when we signed him and he was already having major back issues in the 98 playoffs. He wasn't what he used to be. He couldn't play 1-on-1 defense anymore vs. the elite wings, he wasn't as effective bringing up the ball and setting up the offense, and he wasn't as effective scoring/shooting as he was a couple of years earlier. It was the Rockets mistake for paying a 33 year old player who had played 11 seasons in the league in which he never played fewer than 72 games, EXCEPT for the year before he joined the Rockets where he played in only 44 games due to his bad back. Also Pippen had played in 178 playoff games up to that point as well. So considering he played very healthy for his 1st 10 seasons, and then all of a sudden misses 38 games due to a troublesome back, and then had even more trouble with his back in the playoffs, and played 178 playoff games on top of that in his 1st 11 seasons...why the Rockets gave him a 5 year-67$ million contract is beyond me. It simply didnt make any sense. That is A LOT of wear and tear on a 33 year old player who is coming off of an injury plagued season and playoff run. I'm not saying what Pippen did in Houston was right...but in my opinion it shouldn't have happened in the 1st place.
