The FINALS that wouldve been had MJ never left (98 Bulls vs 99 Spurs)

Bulls in 4.

 

Random subject.

Spurs.

 

Da Bulls in five games.

 

MJ left partly because Phil and Scottie were out the door. That team was breaking up no matter what. Krause wasn't willing to pay Pippen or Phil.

Evan

 

Bulls came very close to losing the year before to the Pacers. Even if they stayed together, I don't think they could have pulled it off the following year. I'll take the Spurs.

 

I think if the Bulls did decide to go one more run...they probably would've one....

1) I think they knew they had retool the team anyway...I still think the 3 superstars would've been back, but other parts would've been upgraded, like the bench and center spot.

2) 99 was 50 game year.

3) Most of the teams that got far into playoffs, really weren't that much better than were in 98, if you look at most teams that had similar rosters. The Knicks or the Heat probably would've been the Bulls match up in Eastern finals...and we saw easily Chicago disapposed of the teams sort of easy.

 

Would've been fun to see Rodman try to guard Duncan.

 

That would have made the Spurs/Cavs series look like a Celtics/Lakers series from the 80s...

 

Bulls in 4, 5 tops.

The bulls would struggle with the big man not being guarded by Rodman, but the Bulls backcourt + Pippen would silence the Spurs' 1-2-3.

 

so if the spurs actually played a real team in the finals what would happen? they'd probably lose.

 

Yeh - Rodman would have owned him

 

In every sense imaginable.

 

Hmm, how can we say we know we would have won in 95 (and maybe 94) because Chicago had no one to contain Hakeem, yet say the Bulls would beat SA when they had Duncan and Robinson (who still put up 16 and 10 that season)? That team also had Elie, Elliott, J.Jackson, A.Johnson, Kerr (i.e. plenty of shooters when the Bulls double down).

It would be a classic matchup of inside game vs perimiter game. I'm going with the inside game because Duncan is actually a big-man that you can go to in the clutch, unlike the centers the Bulls usually beat in the postseason (Ewing, Smits, Oneal...even though they beat Chicago once). And teams with those centers still either beat Chicago or took them to 7 games....

 

Bulls in two.

 

The 1998 bulls were barely able to beat a Utah team that was probably only the 3rd best Utah team or so of that era and seemed pretty bored and disenchantd with doing anything other than just barely enough to win.

I think winning that 1998 series took every ounce of what that team had left and that they broke up afterward for a reason, they couldn't go through the mental grind of going through it again and were unsure if they could tarnish their legacy.

Not that the 1999 spurs were that great but they were red hot at the time of the finals and the Bulls would have had a fair bit of trouble with them inside, even with rodman around.

Anyway, htis thread is idiotic. Nobody gives a crap about spurs in 1999 and nobody cares about them in 2007. They are TV ratings poison for a reason.

Everybody knows that the greatest series that never happened SHOULD have been in 1997 Rockets vs. Bulls.

 

Rodman did play in 1999 for the lakers. He didn't own anybody.

 

Da Bulls, Jordan would haved wiped that annoying smirk off Timmys face.

 

That's coz he played for the Lakers. Since we're all talking hypothetically, hypothetically, if he'd have stayed with the bulls, they would have hypothetically won. Hypothetically.

 

He played next to shaq and did very little owning.

His tank was empty by 1998, IMO.