Ok, I think some of y'all have me confused. No where did I say Pippen was as important to the Bulls as Jordan, or that Pippen was better than Jordan. The writers argument is that Pippen was DAMN GOOD, and that's the part I agree with. Again, the Bulls without MJ won 55 games. 55 GAMES. Y'all may hate Scottie, but that season he was the only the 2nd player in LEAGUE HISTORY to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals. He did this on a team that won 55 games (i.e. not some guy filling up the stat sheet on a scrub team). Scottie was great.... The writer doesn't like Jordan, but some of his takes are right on. The "Jordan in college" take is right on (Worthy led that team to a title). The "Jordan - the greatest athlete ever?" take is right on. The "Jordan was an overrated defender (from 96-98)" take was right on. He checked the weakest swingman every night (Pip took option #1, Harper option #2). The "Jordan did not carry a bunch of marginal role players to 6 championships" take is right on, as the Bulls won 55 games without him, and were still on course for the playoffs the following year without him and Grant.
I think you're giving your colleagues way too much credit. The "Jay Mariotti-type" writer is the popular style in the ESPN era. It's not that cut-and-dry. You make an argument that Jordan is the "best all-around" player because of his scoring, defense (pre-retirement), and clutchness. I'd make the argument that Magic is the best all-around because of his size, ball-handling ability, court vision, versatility, and feel for the game. Both are opinions, neither is necessarily wrong.
Wilt and the OTHER MJ come to mind I hated Magic Johnson but come on. . they guy could play every position Wilt is the Pure Dominance Rocket RIver
As I already stated: Bill Russell, Walt Bellamy, Nate Thurmond. Those guys were DAMN good competition, and there were only 8-10 teams, so Wilt saw them ALL THE TIME. Yeah, Shaq had Robinson, Ewing, Dream, but he didn't really win anything until those guys were all in their twilight years... then add in the fact that there were three times as many teams as when Wilt played, and the "Shaq's competition was better" argument starts to look really, really weak. And how is it that a 7'1, 285-pound Wilt (that's about where he was in his best years, sometimes lighter) gets penalized for his size, when a 7'1, 335-pound Shaq doesn't? Where's the logic? Wilt's average competition was 6'10, 220. Shaq's was what, 6'11, 245? What's the difference? Are you saying Nate Thurmond and Bill Russell weren't athletic? Get real. Then add in the fact that the refs penalized Wilt for his physical dominance, while Shaq gets whistle after whistle in his favor.
Are you kidding me? Shaq does get alot of calls, but he is hacked on nearly every play. Also, Shaq dominated Dream,Ewing,Drob early in his career, atleast on the offensive side of the ball. Shaq is the modern day Wilt.
I guess you didn't see this take on Jordan vs Wilt: http://airjudden2.tripod.com/jordan/betterchamberlain.htm Fine, Wilt is a center so it's not fair to compare. I guess you also missed the take on Jordan vs Robertson: http://airjudden2.tripod.com/jordan/betterrobertson-complete.htm But I guess a man that averaged a trip dub over 5 years isn't as good as MJ, all around.
Oh oh oh! Lookee lookee! It's king I-put-words-in-people's-mouths-and-never-give-any-evidence from this thread! Joy! Wilt was hacked on every play, and he rarely got the calls, unlike Shaq. I'm not saying Shaq is never hacked without a call, but it's not nearly as bad as it was for Wilt. Star treatment reigns today. It didn't back then. Ask refs OR opposing players of the era. Shaq dominated those guys? He dominated Dream? How come he couldn't win one game in the '95 with at least equal, if not superior talent surrounding him? Modern-day Wilt? That's insulting. What can Shaq do that Wilt can't do as well or better? Anything? We've been over this in that last thread. Since you're arguing against me again, how about answering some of my points from that last thread, hmmm?
You weren't reading or listening before. One more time, and I'm done: THERE WERE 20-25 EXTRA POSSESSIONS PER GAME IN THE ERA WHERE WILT/ELGIN/OSCAR PLAYED IN, COMPARED WITH THE ERA THAT JORDAN AVERAGED 37, 5 and 5. That's more possessions where you're allowed to score, dish assists, whatever. And because teams regularly shot in the low 40s on average (Bob Cousy, off memory, shot over 40 percent ONCE in his career), there were dozens more oppurtunities to pull in rebounds. You can't run this comp in a vacuum. Context and era have to be taken into consideration. And anyone who thinks slow-footed, get-a-screen-from-Wayne Embry, back-em-down Oscar Robertson is Jordan's equal -- or would have pulled off what Jordan did from 1984 to 2003, is just sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming real loud. EDIT: Oh, and Bells Bellamy was a defensive sieve. That's like pumping up Kareem's contributions because "he had to go up against guys like Bob McAdoo."
Stats do not clearly reflect the player's value, or greatness. Stats is crap. Jordan was great. Wilt was great. Others have been great. There are few in their pantheon of greatness. Magic> Jordan is the 80's. Magic > Bird in the 80's. Bird > Jordan in the 80's. Hakeem > Jordan in the mid-90's. Jordan > overall than they. Oscar > West in the 60's. West > Oscar in the 70's. Frazier > West from end of 60's to mid-70's. West > Oscar and Frazier overall. Wilt > Russell. Russ > Wilt. Wilt/Russ - use your own measuring sticks. Wilt and Thurmond would have been great competition for Shaq. Hakeem > Shaq in the mid 90's. Shaq > Hakeem in the late 90's. Kareem = Hakeem in the 80's. Kareem > Wilt in the 70's. Walton > Kareem in the late 70's.
You say this, and yet why does everyone think Wilt was such a great player? It has everything to do with statistics. And obviously it doesn't follow that stats are worthless from "stats do no clearly reflect the player's value", unless you can show me something else that more clearly reflects a player's value. And if you could ... then you'd be a millionaire, because every NBA team would want to know what that is. You think NBA teams maintain internal advanced stats just for the hell of it?
Well duh. Who said Pippen wasn't a really good player? Yeah, and that's not controversial at all. Pippen was recognized as an MVP candidate that season. Jordan was a college freshman. What does this have to do with anything? Hey, Jordan was also cut from his high school basketball team. He must really suck. He might have been overrated at the end of his career. He was still very good. And in his physical prime he WAS the best defense perimeter player in the game. My problem with all these takes is they're nothing but strawmen. He takes ridiculous propositions (eg. all of Jordan's teammates sucked, even when he was winning championships, or Jordan was the best defensive player in the game even into his mid-30s), and argues against them. I'm not impressed.
One thing to add is that Jordan had no weaknesses playing the guard position. There wasn't a single facet of the game in which he wasn't at least above average. If nothing else, one could say that Magic struggled guarding his position one on one.
i should first point out that i wouldn't piss on michael jordan if he were on fire, unless i suddenly developed the ability to piss lighter fluid. i also think he is overrated and not the god everyone makes him out to be who could take 4 guys from this thread and win a title. however, i still think he's the best ever. then i think hakeem, kareem, wilt, shaq, and magic fight it out for #2, taking whoever you want based on your own personal preferences. and yes, russell and bird are not in that group on purpose. i've been doing too much debating in the world championships threads so i'm kind of burned out right now so there are way too many arguments in this thread for me to agree with or contradict right now. i liked durvasa's normalization of wilt's stats. as for the talent level is better now than in the 60s argument. while the population hasn't quite doubled, basketball is far more popular than back then. that alone causes a much larger talent pool. wilt did play with up to 17 teams at the end of his career, and 9, 12, and 14 throughout his career so there aren't 4 times as many teams as he always played with. interestingly, his scoring average went from 34 and 33 to 24 and 24 in the 2 seasons after they went to 12 teams. then dropped to 20 and 20 in the 2 seasons after going to 14. so talent dilution doesn't seem to be a good argument for wilt, though he was getting older by the second expansion. jordan played with very good teammates to get his 6 titles but he also put up dominating stats his whole career, basically won every time his team was good enough to be champion, almost never didn't show up big in big games, and was as clutch as anyone ever. those last two points are huge for comparing basketball stars. and while wilt did get rolled by russell's teams, russell himself did no such thing as school wilt if the stats are to be believed.
You can try to fight math all you want, but you're going to lose - and lose badly. In 1960, you had a small subset of 160 million Americans playing basketball, which, at that time, was distinctly a second tier sport. In the public eye, it was significantly below Baseball, College Basketball, College Football, Pro Football, Boxing, Tennis, Golf, and Horse Racing. It was probably closer to Pro Wrestling in terms of popularity than to Baseball (although boxing wsa the undisputed king of sports in terms of being lucrative - Ali and Frazier took home paydays that dwarfed the salaries of Chamberlin/Russell/Jabbar). NBA finals games were shown late night TV, on tape delay - if they were shown at all. Why would an aspiring young athlete go into basketball, when there were so many better paying options? In 2000, we have a subset of 300 million Americans playing basketball (studies have shown that people who say that they played recreational basketball increased dramatically in the 80's and 90's). Pro Basketball has become huge business and has exponentially increased its fan base, and revenue from 1980-1990's - which is reflected in salaries. NBA related programming has become iconic in popular culture, and it has eclipsed all professional sports in terms of audience and exposure, domestically, save for the NFL and arguably MLB. Globally the growth has been equally rapid if not more so. NBA programming is now broadcast in 215 countries in 43 languages, and features players from 39 different countries. Basketball has rapidly become the world's second most popular sport over soccer, and because of more money, training, and exposure both domestically abroad, roughly. So, not only do we have a larger proportion of a larger population of Americans in basketball, and there is more money and training in it to keep them there longer, and less competition from other sports, but we have a subset of 700 million europeans playing basketball (the best of which now have the opportunity to get to the NBA), a subset of 1 billion Africans playing it (most African basketball feds were in their infancy in the 60's), as well as a subset of 1 billion plus chinese, where hoops are ubiquitous (though I would guess that soccer has edged ahead of bball in china, still it remains quite popular), as well as Koreans and Japanese. So to say that talent pool is "less than twice as big" is a giant, giant, fallacy. It is probably 10 times as big, at a minimum. But you're telling me there were better players available, when it was a small time sport, with only a fraction of the participants (many of whom had to work off-season jobs), and only a fraction of the amount of time, money, and resources were spent on training or finding players that is spent today? That is not a credible theory at all. But anyway, since you asked - yes, I firmly believe that, had Olajuwon, Robinson, Ewing, O'Neal, Duncan, Yao been around in the 60's, they'd be dominating their competition similarly to the way that Chamberlain and Russell did in their day. Why would you belive otherwise? Those men are great athletes for any era. I alos think that modern 6-10+ PF's like Garnett, Wallace, Elton Brand, who would have been centers in the 60's, would have posted dominant performances superior to the players of that era. Let's look at the competition in 1960: here are the starting centers for each team: Wayne Embry CIN 6-8 240 Red Kerr SYR 6-8 230 Willie Nauls NYK 6-6 225 Clyde Lovellete StL 6-9 230 Walter Dukes Det 7-0 220 Jim Krebs MIN 6-8 230 These guys were not bad players, in fact some were HOF'ers, but with the exception of Dukes (one of the weakest player of the bunch) most of these guys would be average to undersized PFs in today's game. Putting Shaq on Willie Nauls would be first degree murder, it's not like the help defenders or backups, all 6-6 195 lbs of them, are going to be much better. But you're telling me that these guys are tougher to play against than today's competition? I find that very hard to believe. If I am Shaq, do I want to go against the 1960 Minnesota PF-C combo of 6-8 Jim Krebs and Hot Rod Hundley (6-7 220 lb)? or the 2006Minnesota combo of Kevin Garnett and Mark Blount? I know which one I would want to deal with. And yes, I don't doubt that Mark Madsen or Ryan Bowen could likely have been credible 12th men on the 1960 Syracuse Nationals, unless you think they couldn't match 6-7, 170 lb reserve forward, the immortal Barney Cable .
Do you ever read the threads about Pippen on this board? Jordan is typically given the credit for carrying that team to the title, hitting the big shot, etc. Rarely is Worthy given his proper due for leading that team to the title, for his game winning steal, etc. As the writer pointed out, Jordan makes the list of all-time great moments and Worthy doesn't for that season (when Worthy was the man). Might have been overrated? I don't know how good he was then because he rarely had to check anyone as Pip and Harper took the tough assignments. How do you get an All D selection when you are always checking the 3rd option? And I still think Scottie was a better perimiter defender. You would be suprised how often those ridiculous propositions are used in the "MJ is GOAT" argument. Again, I don't agree with everything he said and it's all subjective (what argument isn't), but there were certain takes that I think he hit right on.
