I seriously hope you are joking. Based on stats OR play OR otherwise Jordan is the best ever. That is not a fact but IT IS the general consensus. Hakeem is one of the best ever, but if you think he's better than Jordan... You argue that Jordan HAD to have another superstar, how about looking at the competition he played against? When he came into the league he played against the Celtic, the showtime Lakers and the Pistons. Then he played against Utah. I know we all hate Utah but they do have 2 of the 50 greatest players EVER (guess what, 2 superstars). Just how great are they? Utah had arguably the best teamwork in the league for the longest time and they led a bunch of nobodies and took the Bulls to 6. Then you have the Rockets, who at least arguably might not win the championship with MJ around (not to mention the second time around, Dream had Clyde). Btw, MJ WAS out of shape. He spent 1 1/2 seasons playing the dumbest sport ever, if you don't expect his shooting is a bit off @ least, then you never played basketball in your life.
You know what, I have a better idea. Why don't we post this thread in a PUBLIC forum. It will be laughed out in 3 seconds.
Umm, I was summarizing what other people were saying. You had misconceptions there. As far as my opinion goes, I think they were about even in production, but given a choice between the two I would probably take Grant. But that's a whole separate issue. The point is that I agree with their general argument that there was not a huge gap effectiveness-wise in their games (I said "right about even," remember?). That's all most people have been saying. We're not nitpicking about whether one is slightly better than the other, and we're not talking about the type of player you "prefer." As I already said, I never called OT "better." I was damn glad we traded him for Drexler too. That has nothing to do with what we're talking about: whether or not Thorpe was about about as effective a player as Grant. I say he was.
That's always the response of MJ idolizers. "why does everyone else agree he's god, etc" If MJ was so friggin out of shape in 95, explain how his playoff ppg and FG% were BETTER in the 95 postseason than from 96-98 postseasons. He was so out of shape he shot a worse % after an offseason and scored less?
Well, that's why I was debating the "effectiveness" part in terms of whether or not it should be considered "better." "Specialized effectiveness" whether it be rebounding, dunks, or shooting does not necessarily equate "better" on a team scale. At least compared to what a versatile player can contribute for the WHOLE team, not just their stats (or niche). Because if one takes a step back for second, you'll see that the Rockets could have been "better" if Grant was on the 94 Rox team, rather than OT. Grant's versatility COULD HAVE mixed very well with Maxwell. PG: Smith SG: Maxwell SF: Horry PF: Grant C: Hakeem Bench: Cassell, Elie, Bullard, Herrera, Jones, Brooks, Cureton The following year... PG: Smith SG: Drexler SF: Horry <---bad as* team! PF: Grant C: Hakeem Bench: Cassell, Bullard, Herrera, Jones, Brooks, Chucky (Elie and Max traded). That's why I brought up Drexler, because he was versatile. And to me, that is more important than being good a one or two things, regardless if the other player in question is "effective" in those one or two things.
You know what, you are absolutely right. Everybody else is wrong because they say MJ is the best and you are right. Do you know you have to keep playing basketball or take some time to adjust to hit your shots? Because you might gain/lose weight and because it's no longer second nature to make shots. I took 3 months off without playing ball and was putting up bricks for 3 weeks. MJ took like 6 times that long, you think his shooting wouldn't be off? I also love the way you say MJ shot better without looking at who he played against. In his first season (when we won), he played against Charlotte and Orlando. In 96 he played against Miami, NY, Orlando and Seattle. My belief was kind of that when you play better teams your FG% most likely drops. And in 96 he played much tougher competition.
So basically the Hersey Hawkins checking MJ in the 96 Finals as a Sonic was a vastly better defender than the Hersey Hawkins checking MJ in 95 with Charlotte and the Orlando 96 team was a much better opponent and much different opponent than the 95 Magic, which made no changes in personnel at all??! Save the BS. Jordan's FG% dropped from .485 to .459 from 95 to 96. If his conditioning were such an issue, it would have hindered his game in the 95 postseason but it did not. The lack of an interior presence like a Rodman or Grant is the reason that team could not win. You can't compare your 3 months off from basketball to friggin MJ taking 18 months off from professional bball. Professional athletes train a hell of a lot differently than casual pick-up gamers, especially a competitor like MJ even if he was away from the game. If his performance in the 95 postseason was significantly less than his career post-season performance, you'd have a good argument but that is clearly not the case and any attempt to say otherwise is really just spin. It's like people want to give MJ every ounce of credit for that team's 2nd 3-peat and completely ignore that they added a rebounding beast and defensive presence, a HOFer with championship experience. No, that had nothing to do with it. Sure, it was all Jordan's offseason. That's deification. Let me guess: In your mind, the Bulls would have won 3 more titles even without adding Rodman, right? After all, they had God, right?
A couple of loose thoughts here. 1. I don't think you can analyze it on paper by talking about matchups. The Rockets didn't match up real well with any team they played in the 1995 playoffs on paper...they just won. 2. When you talk about matching up Horry against Rodman...over the course of their career, absolutely Rodman was the more valuable player. But not in the 1995 playoffs. Not even close. Horry was busy scoring, stealing, blocking, rebounding and defending the league's best power forwards. Rodman has NEVER played as complete a stretch of basketball as Horry did in the 1995 playoffs. That's just the truth. 3. The Rockets got other contributions from players that you wouldn't say had the careers that matched up with other players around the league. Freaking Mario Elie averaged 17 ppg in the Finals. That's ridiculous. 4. We talk about MJ's will to win. It was immense. It was huge. But I saw that same quality from the entire Rockets team in 1995. Down 3-1 in a series...without homecourt advantage...and coming back to win the series in a decisive game 7 with a big shot on the road. Amazing. 5. No one has even talked about the benches...or at least not that I've seen. The Rockets were able to bring Cassell off the bench. A legitimate scorer. A guy who turned into an all-star player. One of my biggest criticisms of the Bulls champions was how guys like Jed Buechler were integral parts of the rotation. 6. The 72 win season was certainly impressive. But geez, come on. Talk about having perspective? 72 wins in the NBA today ain't what it used to be. That was an expansion year, too, I believe....the Bulls fattened up on the expansion Raptors 6 times that year. Had they been in the West, do you really think they would have won 72 games? 7. As has been pointed out...Jordan and the Bulls had every chance in the world to get to the 1995 Finals to end this debate. They got beat by the same Orlando team we swept in the Finals. Too bad they weren't strong enough to beat that team, because I would have loved to see those teams match up.
What are you talking about. 95 Hornets were nothing. 96 Magic WERE better than 95 Magic. 96 Sonic beat both hands down. . OK let's say MJ played his ass off in pickup games (or whatever games you like to make up). How does that compares to playing against NBA level competition? What FG% do you think you'd get after not playing top level competition for 18 months. Jordan was a professional, I like that one. He played friggin' baseball. Want me to list all the fat MLB players? Btw, I just love the way you say MJ 95 then lump 96-98. MJ was how old? You'd think if you get older you slow down a bit more every year. Also, if it is as you put it, then MJ is nothing more than a superstar, certainly not deserving the credit he deserves. Face it, Rodman was a role player. And how good was Scottie Pippen without MJ? You tell me, he played for us. If MJ really isn't THAT good, then why do people think he is?
Man....I don't think you watch any of the Bulls playoff games at 95. There's no need to talk about FG. If you ever watched MJ at 95, you know he could barely dunk the ball like Reggie Miller. But when the 96 season started, he was doing that "Air" thing again, though not too often.
Dennis Rodman was a role player? A role player who most probably will be a HOFer. A role player who won 2 rings before his 3 peat with the Buls...A role player who was one of the best rebounding/defensive forwards in league history...He was more than just a role player. the guy was an all-star. As for Pippen, using what he did on the Rockets in his late 30's after his back surgeries is a stupid barometer. He was a top 5 player in his prime and the Bulls used him, not MJ to guard the other team's best offensive players. Hell, in 94, without MJ and with Pippen as their leader, the Bulls won all of 2 less games than they did the year before with MJ and may have even gotten to the Finals if not for a terrible call in game 5 vs. NY in the playoffs, so that proves what kind of player Pippen was in his prime. He was runner up to Hakeem for MVP that year, so don't give me any of this "Pippen was nothing without Jordan BS" the Jordan devotees love to foolishly claim. He proved damn well what kind of player he was that year without MJ around him. A whopping 2 game dropoff from the year before. Not everyone got the MJ treatment from the refs either; if Pippen had gotten it in 94, the Bulls may well have at least gotten to the 94 NBA finals and wouldn't have been a cakewalk for Houston even without MJ. -I'll ask again. As great as MJ was, why should anyone believe he'd have won 6 or even 3 or 4 rings without a 2nd superstar besides him? There's a huge difference between thinking a player was one of the best ever and thinking that a player was far and away the best player ever. I believe the former.
Oh, I see. So it's okay to cite one year when Pippen was 33 to determine how good a player he was, but it's not okay to cite 3 years when Jordan was 32-34 to determine how good a player he was. Oooookay. Jordan never did a thing without Pippen. Not a thing. Oh sure, he scored a lot of points on crap teams. Big deal. No Pippenless MJ team ever broke .500. The one year Pippen had without Jordan while he was still in his twenties? He led what was basically the same team as last year (with Pete Myers replacing Jordan) to 55 wins, 2 less than the previous year. Yeah, he didn't win a title, but it's better than Jordan ever did. People act like Jordan could have won it without Pip and a dominant PF. Yeah right. He had chances to prove it. He didn't. Deal with it. What is it that makes everyone point out how Pippen fared without Jordan, and never the other way around? It's staggering how much Pippen is belittled and how much MJ is deified.
You're kidding me right? My opinion? I'll address both you and Cato=bum here. Pippen, good or not, played all the way from he first came into the league until now. MJ took one and half seasons NOT PLAYING. You think it magically doesn't affect his game? Sure, let's talk stats. MJ shot 41.1% in 94/95, the LOWEST in his career, he also averaged 26.9 PPG which is the SECOND LOWEST in his career behind only his sophmore season. So I guess he's not rusty at all. Come playoff time he was just getting warmed up. Let's also talk about Pip. You said it was MY OPINION that MJ's game went worse as he got old. Well, when MJ was around Pip averaged around 20 PPG. After MJ retired his PPG miraculously dropped to 14 and been dropping ever since. According to your logic on Grant and Thorpe, then Pip should average more points. Also according to your logic, he didn't suddenly get old in 1 year and I should at least expect him to contribute 17-18 PPG. Rodman not a role player? Rodman is the blue print for Ben Wallace. Is Big Ben a HoFer? Now let's compare Jordan to Dream. You said there's no way Jordan would have won 6 titles without a second superstar. You said he would have won 3 to 4 if lucky and probably 2. How many titles did Dream win without a second HoFer? 1 to be exact (even this is arguable). And btw, Pip is not a HoFer in my book. I'd take Clyde over him any day. Also, MJ can put up 20 points when 40 years old. How good did Hakeem look when he's 40?
That's because centers hit a point and there game falls drastically. But going back to the original question the 95 ROckets would have beat any Bulls championship team. Olajuwon at that point was the best player in the world. Jordan would have put up a good fight, he would have got his points, but Olajuwon was just unstoppable. The Rockets had guys who could have taken Jordan off his rythme from time to time (Elie, Drexler). But the Bulls had no one to contain Olajuwon. If Olajuwon tourched the best centers in the leauge at that time imagine what he would have done to Wennington, Longley, or any other Bull who would have tried to stop him.
-First of all, hell no Rodman is not a role player. Mario Elie, Robert Horry, Steve Kerr, John Paxson, Bruce Bowen: those guys are role players. Rodman is one of the best rebounders in NBA history and was a huge part of the mini-Pistons dynasty. The guy was an all-nba defender as well. Much more than a role player. -Second of all, there's no arguing that Hakeem did win a title without a 2nd HOFer. That's simply a fact. There's no way Horry or Thorpe or Cassell will make the HOF. -You can bash Pippen all you want, but the fact of the matter is the guy did lead the 94 Bulls to a whopping 2 less wins with a swapout of Pete Myers for God, aka MJ than they reached in 1994. It's like you and the Jordan devotees won't even acknowledge that this did occur. The guy finished 2nd in the MVP voting that year and is a lock for the HOF. If Jordan is God, you'd think the team would just completely fall apart without him and be god-awful but in 94, they won 55 games and were a bad call away from another finals appearance. I guess the real reason the Jordan is god crew won't try to address is that there's nothing really they can say about it. Have you even bothered to look at Pippen's stats the year MJ was out in 94? They are superstar caliber stats, period. Don't look at the washed up-Pippen as a barometer, it's only fair to look at the guy in his prime WITHOUT MJ. -Lastly, no one is arguing that MJ at 38 wasn't better than Hakeem at 38. Karl Malone was a much better player late in his career than Hakeem was and that doesn't mean malone had a better career. -If Jordan is so damn good, why did he not once win a title or advance deep in the playoffs without Pippen? He had several years to prove he could. -As for Jordan's 95 stats, yes in the reg season they were not up to par, but he clearly did turn it on for the playoffs, which kills the argument that his shot was off that postseason, because it was not.
While there is some truth that some people embellish the statment "Jordan is God of basketball." You first have to look a the total of his career to realize why fans around the world have this consensus. Although you may not agree with this consensus, that's fine. Jordan was dominating the first time he stepped on the floor. Lead the league in scoring (multi-year scoring champ), 35ppg at one time during the 80's, battled the Celtics, Pistons, Lakers, Blazers and beat them all. Year after year, All-Star. All-Star MVP. Multi-Year Finals MVP. Six Time Champion, Two time Three-peat. Defensive player of the year. One of the best steals leader. The guy scored 50-69 points 30+ times! Freak of nature!!!! He was also an All-American NCAA player, Gold Medal Winner, and NCCA Champion. It's the cumulative accomplishments that have given Jordan the title as the "Greatest NBA player that ever lived." Now to say that Jordan never won a championship without a 2nd Hofer is missing the point of winning. Phil Jackson, and other great Dynasty builders never say, "Let's get the best player and have them lead that team to a championship by themselves, because, well...we have to prove to the world that he's a great player can can do it alone." No. That's just silly. The goal of a coach and staff is to build the best damn team possible, not to just squeak by, but to dominate for years! And if that means bringing in the best talent possible, then that's what should be done. This in no way should diminish what Jordan has accomplished on his own, but should emphasize the importance of the TEAM concept. Because as we all know, you need a TEAM to win (Hakeem had a team in 1994, so he didn't "win it alone." Even though idealistic images might suggest otherwise.). Players don't live in a vacuum in which they just run around on the court all alone. To turn the table, if Drexler had joined Hakeem in 1990, then the Hakeem and Drexler duo might have lead the Rockets to 3 or 4 titles. It's safe to say that we would have been a better team, and would have benefited by getting Drexler while still in his prime, not at the end of career. It would have given the Rockets more time (Father time) to win more championships. If Hakeem would have won 3 or 4 championships, would he have been looked at as a greater champion that he is today? Probably. Because accumulative accomplishments can't be ignored. But to say that him "winning ONE championship" should equate to him being greater than Jordan is silly. That would diminish Hakeem's greatness if he were to win 3 or 4 championship with Drexler. Any Rocket fan would trade our 2 rings for 4 rings in a second even if that meant that we would have brought in more talent early in Hakeem's career. This does not diminish Hakeems greatness. It's heightens it.
I agree that a very strong argument can be made that MJ is the best ever; I just do not think it's nearly as clear cut as many think it is, but then again most people who subscribe to the notion that MJ was far and away the best ever are casual fans who aren't all that knowledgable about the game. I believe Bob Costas said it best when he said MJ was probably the best player ever but probably the most overrated ever as well due to the media. -My argument really is not that Hakeem had a better career than MJ or was a better player overall. He didn't have the longevity MJ did and didn't maintain his peak for as long as MJ did, but I believe that at his peak in 93-95, esp in 95 Hakeem actually reached a level of play that surpassed the highest level of play ever exhibited by MJ. That may sound like a homer to you, but I'd say the same about Shaq and Magic relative to MJ as well, esp Shaq from 99-00 when he was just ridiculously dominant. -It may seem unfair to hold the talent of the Bulls against MJ, but the quality of supporting cast has to be considered at some point in comparing players. Wilt Chamberlain is another guy you could argue as the best player ever, but he doesn't have the rings as one person simply can not do it all. Would he not have won as many rings as Russell had he had Russell's supporting cast of HOFers? Yet, most regard Russell as more of a "winner" although Chamberlain had much more basketball skill IMO.
I think the 1993-94 Rockets would have beat the 1993-94 Bulls with Jordan. Just as most Rockets fans were afraid of the Sonics (thank you Dikembe), most Rockets fans were not afraid of the Bulls at that time. The 1996-98 Bulls are a different story. I'd take them over Houston.
