MJ: "I would never have called up Larry, Magic & say lets get together."

And he managed to get to the Finals and ECF, while Jordan didn't get past round 1. Now Jordan clearly had more help when winning titles.

 

where are you going with this? i'd tread lightly

 

Which first 6 years of Jordan's career are you talking about?

Jordan's Bulls reached the ECF twice before winning their first NBA title. And before those 2 ECF appearance, they reached the 2nd round.

 

I think Jordan's saying he can't imagine even having the opportunity to band together with other great players like that when he was playing. But he notes that these are different times. Who knows what Jordan would do if he were playing in today's NBA and on a team like, say, the Cavaliers or the Heat, and had the same opportunity.

I don't blame LeBron, Wade and Bosh for doing what they're doing, and I don't think it makes them any less worthy as competitors. It's smart of them to take advantage of the opportunity they've been presented with. Heck, you could argue that their willingness to subjugate their own egos (and pay) a little -- to share the glory -- in order to win a championship is admirable.

We criticize players for "putting money above winning" or for not being able to "lead their team to a championship," even when they have little control over the players with whom they're surrounded. Now, when they do something else, instead of finding it refreshing, or acknowledging that it's a smart move, we criticize them for not wanting to be "the man" and lead their team to a championship alone. You can't have it both ways.

Players have never really been in a position to sort of form their own team; that's always been management's job. Now there's a backlash because these players have managed to do that. It's sour grapes. I'm not a Heat fan, and I hope the Rockets beat them. That would be extra sweet. But if Miami does win a championship, I'll congratulate them for being smart enough to make it happen.

 

Of course, Magic and Bird were in decline when Jordan was reaching his peak. If the question involved Dream, you might get a different answer.

 

so is bosh bird or magic?

 

at this point i think it is premature to name bosh in the same category as bird or magic

 

well the great michael jeffery jordan of the famed chicago bulls of the 1990s, widely known as the best player to ever dribble a basketball did...or was he comparing the heat franchise to the lakers and celtics franchises that had just elminated him in the playoffs. thats what lebron did he joined the team he could just never get past in the playoffs, the heat always spanked the cavs in the playoffs i remember all those games.

 

i don't know that he's comparing....i think he references them because those were the players he had to beat/get by to win titles, ultimately.

 

"scouting talent" was a very bad way for me to explain that...i should have said MJ had the ability to get use out of their talent. To find what each guy could do that worked for him, what he could feed off of.

Miami? Atlanta? Miami and the hawks were pretenders. The bottom half of the east is still not very strong, so teams like the heat and hawks are the teams they are suppose to beat. They went 12-3 against those two, so if you take them away it's 7-7 against the true top teams in the East, boston and Orlando.

They struggled mostly against defensive minded teams, the tougher and scrappier teams..it was obvious they were an eastern version of the suns and would have trouble in the playoffs...i dont mean they didnt have defense, but that they were a regular season team and couldnt cut it in the playoffs.

 

LOL im sure thats exactly what happened, so are you a janitor at quicken loans arena? That must be how you go that super insider information. Way to go

 

except your stats still didn't seem to prove anything. they were 12-3 against atlanta and miami the last 2 years. the only time they played one of those teams, they swept them. those teams weren't their problem. they were 7-7 against boston and orlando, and specifically 3-4 against bos/orl in the years they faced them, even with boston playing like crap last regular season. does a 3-4 record mean you have to lose a playoff series against that team(s)? certainly not, but it doesn't seem to indicate they were any better than the actual elite teams that you have to face to win it all.

this was a stat i looked up the other day. out of lebron's 78 games last year, 30 came against teams that finished the season with less than 40 wins. their record in those games? 29-1. and the 1 was somehow washington in mid-november. so basically, they never lost to a bad team for 5 straight months. lebron is good enough to make it easy on everyone against weak/mediocre teams. but against the elite teams, role players are going to have to make some plays. shaq, mo, and jamison were 3 of cleveland's starters and they were all fairly bad at offense and fairly bad at defense in the boston series. that would be hard to argue. and teams don't win series if 3 of the starers are having a terrible series.

if you can honestly say you think in the boston/orlando series that cleveland's role players have been making plays like a championship caliber supporting cast, then i don't know what to say. considering lebron had a better boston series than kobe, it would certainly seem that he at least had a championship caliber "team leader" series (even if it wasn't lebron's best) because i saw a team leader have a worse series and still come out victorious. so yes, they've won 60+ games the last 2 years, but how is that relevant if those guys don't bring their games to the later rounds of the playoffs? the refs don't count a few extra mo williams 3's each round just to get his percentage up to regular season snuff. they're just bricks.

 

the problem with this statement is that it isn't easier or harder because the player has no control over it. it wasn't like MJ wasn't putting in enough work and then decided to really accept the challenge of building a team and went into the gym and worked extra hard one particular summer and scottie pippen magically showed up on the court next year. MJ had nothing to do with it. jerry krause made a draft day trade and pippen happened to be a top 50 all-time player. same way horace grant, toni kukoc, or dennis rodman showed up on the team. that's the problem with everyone saying lebron/any player that leaves didn't want to accept the challenge. it isn't their challenge. it's their GM's challenge. so basically you get judged based on someone else's performance and that's supposed to be the fair way to do it. but if you're proactive and try to make your situation better, then you're just a quitter and have no competitive drive.

 

As (mostly) Rockets fans, we all think the West is the better and tougher conference top to bottom, right?

To build off of what MadMax wrote:


In 2008-09, the Cavaliers went 14-4 against Western Conference playoff teams.

In 2009-10, the Cavaliers went 11-5 against Western Conference playoff teams.


People really think the Cavs weren't a legit team the past 2 years?

 

to be the best you have to beat the best...

for leBron, he decided that he doesn't want to be the best.. simple.

if he wins, it's nto going to be the same honor as Wade's ring against the Mavericks, Kobe's leadership. Even if they win 3 rings, he's not going to get the ultimate satisfaction.

But all he needs is a ring.

 

No doubt mj, magic, and bird would kill them, if they were in their prime like the Miami thrice.

 

it's not that they weren't legit, it's that pointing out that they had the best record and must be the favorite and thus failed ignores the fact that they have killed bad teams better than anybody the last few years and haven't been that awesome against the top teams, and of course those are the teams in your way deep in the playoffs. their record against western playoff teams doesn't mean much if they aren't facing those western playoff teams. they haven't been losing to teams they handled easily in the regular season. they've gone 12-1 against them in the playoffs the last 2 years. the fact that they were 1-2 against orlando and then lost a playoff series 2-4 to that same orlando team seems to be more relevant.

it's like the year the mavs went 67-15 and then lost in the 1st round. even though they were 67-15, they were 0-3 against their 1st round opponent, the warriors. so when they lost it was kind of hard to say they choked/underperformed, considering they were probably facing the 1 team out of the other 29 that had the best chance to beat them and that was clearly a matchup nightmare.

now if cleveland had rolled orlando and boston the last 2 regular seasons then the playoffs rolled around and lebron suddenly played like crap and they lost to them, then saying he had a 60 win team and couldn't get it done would mean more. but when lebron puts up 38/8/8 against orlando and they still lose to a team that beat them in the regular season, it seems ridiculous to say "well clearly, lebron had a good enough supporting cast, he just couldn't get it done."

 

Wade and team will win and we'll never know how his legacy would have turned out...he's made the decision and we all have to suffer...a train wreck waiting to happen...

 

you're setting a standard for them that would have them be a 70+ win team....there's only been one of those in league history.

this is silly. so it's not enough they went 19-10 against the East's best over those 2 years...and 25-9 against the West's playoff teams to assume they were absolutely legit?

they won 66 games just a season ago. seriously, that's not enough? do you know how few teams in the history of the game have ever won 66? hell, our beloved Rockets have never come close to even approaching that number.

the revisionist history on the Cavs in light of all this is just crazy out of control. no one didn't think this team was a real championship contender heading into the last few seasons. it's ridiculous to pretend now that they weren't.