OT: Jordan is the greatest ever to play the game

Wilt is the only one I would put in MJ's category. LBJ will probably get there though.

 

Wilt was very good. He played guys a foot shorter then him on average though.

 

I've always felt Wilt Chamberlain was just a bit better individually. He dominated his competition. Rules were changed to make it harder for him to dominate the game (goal-tending, 3 second in key, size of key expanded, etc.). The reverse is true for Jordan (hand checking).

 

The problem with the "What If" game is that people always make the assumption what if X happened, but EVERYTHING else stayed the same, which is unfair, and likely inaccurate. It's assuming nobody ellse made moves to counter Sabonis comin gover, or that everything else remained virtually the same with Portland, but they just had a dominant C in the middle, without guessing how it miht have affected anything else. Who knows, maybe Chicago keeps Olden Polynice over Pippen! lol

 

I understand that. And admitted that you can never really know what would have happened. But in my world, the Blazers with the addition of Sabas would have been Champs regardless of any moves that other teams may have made.

 

I think Oscar Robertson and Wilt were better than MJ. That said, they were all very great players.

 

Not once they start testing for HGH he won't...

 

My reasoning for LBJ is this - virtually every night he is:

The best defender on the court. The best passer on the court. The smartest player on the court. The best scorer on the court (except against Melo, KD, Kobe) and you could start him at all 5 positions and have him guard the opposition, other than 2 or 3 centers. He is automatically a top 3 PG, a top 3 SG, the best SF OR PF, and probably a top 5 center. That is versatility that is irreplaceable.

He won't eat your heart and savor it like Jordan, but he will slowly and methodically beat your team down into a little pulp either through defense, scoring, passing or rebounding. The issue with Jordan is he would dominate purely by scoring...LBJ just isn't like that. I don't think it's fair to say that scoring makes you dominate, but passing, rebounding, defending make you a pushover.

LBJ isn't on Jordan's level yet, but he is close. And he is 28. And with his new found post game he is lengthening his career.

 

He already is.

 

I think James is the best player since MJ. At the end of his career he will probably be a top 5 of all time.

 

Jordan dominated in the most media-successful era for the league. One thing's for sure: every time he opens his mouth he diminishes what legacy he has. Case in point: weighing in on the whole Kobe vs. Lebron thing. It's so transparent that the reason he picks Kobe is that nobody will ever say that Kobe is better than him because Kobe plays the same position but came after him, whereas Lebron is a real threat because he's a freak of nature. So saying Kobe's better is a way of saying HE'S better. And that's all Jordan cares about.

 

The only player who really can contend with Jordan for GOAT is Lebron and that question can't really be answered until Lebron is out of the league. But what I'd like to point out is that yes the game was more physical in the 90's but todays athletes are on a whole other level then the athletes of back then. Conditioning/training/nutrition is all at a much more advanced level then back in the 90's. You hear it all the time when players from even 5 to 10 years ago compare athletes from now to athletes of their generation. So to say that players of today wouldn't last in that environment is an absurd thing to say.

 

nice post. MJ certainly fell into a favorable destiny in Chicago. Not only did he benefit from landing in one of the biggest/most favored markets of David Stern's NBA, but he played with an elite talent and many other All Stars. If his draft selection had flipped with Houston's selection of Hakeem, and the best team mates he played with for most of his 20's was a Sleepy Floyd or Jim Peterson level talent, I'm pretty sure the GOAT discussion would be a little more unsettled. Also it seems pretty impossible to compare Bigs and Guards as while both are very important they do such different things. Jordan is the best smaller player I've seen. On this same question with the Bigs I always want to better define things. Sabas & Walton were absolutely dominant players when right. Is the greatest question weighted towards individual success or who was most talented and dominant while at the top of their game? If career success & sustained health matters more I'll go with Hakeem

adding Sabas in his prime wouldn't have been something other teams could counter. Drexler Porter Buck Cliff Jerome... the what if is after how many championships would Stern have shot himself?

STOMP

 

Just think of how god damn close we were to having this lineup:

Porter
Jordan
Drexler
Kersey
Sabonis

That would have gone down as one of the most dominating teams in pro-sports history. But no, not the Blazers....KING FUCKUPS of the draft.

 

Basketball more than any other sport is where greatness is measured by rings. If Lebron ever wants to be in the conversation as better than Jordan he's got a lot of catching up to do.

 

Greatest is a vague term. Jordan was certainly one of the most athletic ever, but like the anal-raper his ego kept him from making his teammates great.

As far as most skilled and most complete players, Sabas and Magic eclipsed anything Jordan ever did.

 

if it's all about the rings, then Jordan isn't in the conversation for GOAT as Bill Russell has more rings then fingers. Hell, Hakeem Sabas and Walton aren't in the conversation with the great Luc Longley...

STOMP

 

Jordan is blown way out of proportion, media talks about him as though he's a demi-god, but he played with another one of the best wing players of all time, in Scottie Pippen, and the Bulls filled out their roster with very disciplined role players, that did their jobs well.

They won a lot of hard fought battles against teams like the Blazers, Suns, Sonics and Jazz. Many of those series almost went the other way, it's not like they were invincable.