Yeah, there were definitely accusations before that Pat Riley cut his players' careers short with his regular trainings from hell. I would say its pretty obvious Lebron made a dumbass decision going to Miami, at least in terms of non-basketball related stuff. He owned Cleveland, and being the only star all of the attention/adulation was on him. Ferry and Mike Brown were definitely the wrong coach and GM, but considering how much pull he had, lebron could have just run them out of town instead of running himself out of town.
I was using Pistons as an extreme example. There were teams like Clippers in 1987 that gave up 115 and 51.8% fg% for opponents. I don't know any team that bad defensively in the last 10 years. Yet Jordan didn't score over 70 against them.
True. But also consider that in Jordan's most prolific scoring seasons, he was not a 3-point shooter (it was much less common shot in those days). Its much harder to reach 70 points when you are relying on 2s and free throws.
You harp on how pace today is slightly slower than in the late 80s, but don't mention that it is much faster than in the mid-to-late nineties. Talk about conveniently selecting numbers to support your bogus argument. If you understand basic statistics, you know that any event, as long as its probability is greater than zero, will happen with probability one in the long run. It is stupid to argue that an event such as Jordan scoring 100 in a game today cannot happen. You could, of course, argue that the prob. of Jordan scoring 100 today conditioning on observed metrics such as possessions/game is lower than the prob. of him scoring 100 in the late 80s. That may be a valid argument. But so what? Does it then follow that since Jordan did not score 100 in the late 80s, he could not score 100 today? Certainly not. I hope I have made you realize the idiocy and frivolity of your argument.
LeChoke should have seen this coming, and he's even dumber than I think he is if he didn't have a detailed discussion with Riley about what perks he'd be expected to give up if he signed with Miami.
Quick Before any one else: Miami Gets: Shane Battier Jared Jeffries Chuck Hayes Chase Budinger Ish Smith Jermaine Taylor Both N.Y.Knicks Picks Houston Gets: Lebron James Lebron Gets: His own Flight schedule on his own jet Jobs for all of his posse and unlimited VIP at any "Gentlemen's Club" in Houston Rick Adelman's Office & Parking Spot
Adrian W. takes a shot at Lebron. What a surprise. Everyone knows MJ never got special treatment. MJ never partied till sunrise the day before a playoff game....
Dude, Whether Jordan scored 70 before does not provide any useful information about the prob. of him scoring 70 today. Let A be the event that Jordan score 70 today and B be the event that he scored yesterday. A and B are independent. Prob(A|B) = Prob(A) So it's pointless to use the fact that Jordan did not score 70 against a sorry clippers team as evidence that he is less likely to do so now. Understand? What you should do, is to try to infer his likely scoring distribution today from his scoring distribution in his playing days. For example, you could argue that his around 30ppg in 96 and 97 when the league-wide pace and offensive rating are both much lower than today means that he could well surpass this scoring average if he is to play now. Maybe he could approach 35ppg. Adding the fact that he achieved his 30ppg on a title team rather than some sorry LA team on which a star player could shoot as much as he wants, you could certainly make the case that the prob. of Jordan scoring 81 today is higher than the priori prob of Kobe scoring 81 in 2005. Of course, all this sounds pretty much bullsheet. And that's exactly what you were doing with your frivolous arguments
Does it matter? It wasn't like MJ got his high in mid-to-late 90s, his only 2 games over 60 without OT was on 1986-87 season. He had quite a few years with higher pace and he couldn't score 70, what makes you believe he can do 100 today with a slower pace today? Everything has a probability, like you being kidnapped and killed by an alien. Do you call that impossible? If you understand a little bit of basic statistics, there's a thing called confidence interval. It's fine to worship Jordan like a religion. But I hope you don't show off your ignorance again like it's science.
The article seems fake. As for the jobs for family and friends. That could be believable as the Heat owner is tighter with team finances. He refuses to pay the LT at any cost and all their ticket sales staff did get fired after the season was sold out.
While this is the consensus on MJ, is this really true? I know he was the ultimate competitor, but there is one HUGE difference today and the previous era. We have unprecedented access to athletes and teams overall. I feel like the older guys operated in a system where the media was kept at a distance whereas now its 24/7 in your face access
Sigh. You still don't understand, don't you? Scoring anything beyond 60 are fluke incidents - statistically speaking, outliers. It not only depends on your ability, but on your opponents' decision to not bring their defense, on your teammates decision to watch you make a disproportional # of fg attmeps, on the game being close so that you are not taken off by your coach, and ultimately, on luck that your shots go in. You don't use these outliers as proof or disproof that similar rare events will happen in the future or not. To say Jordan didn't score once over 70 in the late 80s means that he cannot do it today is like saying I have sampled 100 points out of a normal(25,25) distribution and did get a number >= 70, therefore I will not be able to get a number >= 70 if I am to draw from a normal(20,25) distribution. This is just a stupid argument. And to answer you why it matters that we look at the nineties instead of the eighties: it matters because Jordan is a much better 3-point shooter later in his career. You understand what that means? and lmao to mentioning confidence interval. CIs are only constructed to give prob. bounds to statistical estimates you understand? Since when are you giving an estimate that needs be bounded by an CI? by the way, I am no Jordan worshiper. I just like to educate ignorant people.
@goodbug: letting folks provoke you into an internet fight never helps your cause, even when you're in the right. It's unfair that some folks here will jab at you over your English, since I highly doubt more than 5% of the American posters here would do have as well in a second language. Regardless, best to just say that you're not a native speaker but trying. You should really drop the 104-Pistons/104-Raptors argument though - it makes it very clear that you aren't aware of NBA modern history. The 88-89 Pistons were the NBA equivalent of the Black Curtain Steelers. That year, every team but the Heat (expansion) averaged over 103. The Pistons that year held their opponents to a 101 ppg average. Opponents hit 45% against them (only Miami had a FG% of 45% or lower). You say it doesn't matter, but it is an indication of how hard they made opponents work for their points. Last year, the Raptors allowed 106 a game (only the Warriors and Wolves allowed more) and 47% shooting (league averages for team offense: 46% and 100 ppg). Those Pistons and Knicks got so good at choking off offenses, Stern and company had to start altering half the rulebook to handcuff defenses. Even then, you can't look at those Pistons and these Raptors and see even a tenth of the defensive tenacity and intensity.
