Bill Simmons Latest take on Portland.......

I'd say him and Magic are on the same level. Magic just played with so many quality options in his arsenal offensively. I can only imagine what Stockton would have done with that Lakers roster. Probably just as many titles I'd think. But, he did have Malone who is arguably the best PF of all-time and....Jeff Hornacek? Tom Chambers? Antoine Carr?

He's the leader in all time steals and assists, two records that I don't see anybody topping in the distant future.

Oscar Robertson was of course a stud, but he played in a completely different era of basketball. A complete 360 from whats been played since the 80's. Without a doubt he wouldn't average a triple double today, the game was so drastically different in the 60's. But for his era, most definitely him and Cousy were on a completely different level than everyone else at that position.

 

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but I've suspected that Stockton MIGHT have been a product of a system that he played in for his entire career.

 

Some of you seem to be obsessed with this fool

 

Same could be said for Magic and his showtime squad. I'm not so sure Magic would have been that magical had been in a half court oriented offense like say, what Chuck Daly ran in Detroit.

 

Shocking considering his ties to Spokane

 

You're right. If he weren't from Spokane he'd be a scrub.

 

Indeed.

 

Sure, but no smart coach would have put in place a system around Magic designed to take away what made Magic Johnson special. Daly's system was designed to take advantage of the talents of the players he had. It's not like these things are random and Magic was lucky not to be in "Daly's offense."

And, really, while Magic did have talented teams around him, he was the one who made it work. He was the guy who made the offense special. He had no true superstars around him, IMO. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a great name, but he didn't play with a prime Abdul-Jabbar. He played with a past-his-prime version who was starting to break down. James Worthy was a very good player, but certainly not the type of player who could "make" another player into a superstar by his presence.

I would say that Karl Malone gave Stockton a more talented teammate than any Magic played with (when one considers that Magic did not play with Abdul-Jabbar in Abdul-Jabbar's prime).

Thus, I wouldn't necessarily say that Magic was much more fortunate in circumstances. Magic was one of the few perimeter players who was in the tier with Michael Jordan (along with Robertson and Bird)...he's what made "Showtime" special.

 

Magic wasn't the only reason they decided to go get up and go. They had the personel there besides him, with Worthy, Scott, Cooper, Green and even Rambis to certain extent that were perfect for that system. Westhead realized this and they brought in guys that fit around Magic. Then Westhead handed the keys over to Riley, who got a good understanding of what worked.

 

It was pretty much entirely due to Magic Johnson. They didn't run prior to drafting him, because they were built around Abdul-Jabbar, who was pretty slow at that point in his career. Yes, they had other guys who could run...if they didn't, they'd have gotten new guys. Magic Johnson was seen as a franchise-changing player and upon drafting him, they immediately began building the team to take advantage of his talents. None of those guys you listed except maybe Worthy were a priori "perfect" for such a system. Byron Scott, AC Green, Kurt Rambis and even Michael Cooper were solid but largely run-of-the-mill players that could have been used in any number of systems. And all of those guys were acquired after Magic, except Cooper, so the fact that they could fit in is not a coincidence...they were acquiring guys who could run with Magic.

 

Paul Westhead had a system in place before Magic was there though, they drafted Magic and he made sense with what they were already trying to do. McKinney coached teams played uptempo ball as well.

Magic also played with Jamaal Wilkes, Norm Nixon, Worthy and Jabaar were all multiple time AS's and a guy like McAdoo was no slouch either.

I'm just saying he had much better talent around him than Stockton had to work with.

 

I love this board. Whenever a national writer says something about the Blazers that we don't agree with, we gang tackle him. What a moron! What's he thinking? Doesn't he know ANYTHING about basketball! Everybody chimes in, and pretty soon we're all feeling much, much better. Through our collective pile-on, we feel somehow vindicated, and extremely pleased that we have proven WE are the true experts on the Blazers, and guys like Bill Simmons don't have a clue.

 

You must be new here?

 

So you agreed with Bill Simmons assessment last year that we wouldn't make the playoffs?

This is the kind of shit that makes me think its apparent he knows we have a rabid fanbase and he just likes to rile it up. It generates hits for his columns.

 

Link

 

ahahahahahaha thats been my battle for 2 years

 

Dud is funny. Still is.

He also predicted that the Blazers will not make the playoffs last year, before Oden and Pryzbilla went down.

Is MIXUM really Simmons? That would verify the Nostradumbass nickname even more.

PS - I know, I know. Save your typing.

Attack the post, not the poster.

- barfo

 

And I'm optimistic that you will win your first skirmish this year.

Go Blazers

 

Heh. That's almost exactly the same take Simmons has on Stockton, and I think he even put Isiah Thomas above Stockton on his PG list.

 

I'm still laughing! Classic.