Wilt Chamberlain is the greatest ever. When you compare him with Jordan, MJ has no chance. And I'm a big fan of His Royall Airness. Scoring, both are number 1 with 30,1 PPG. But Wilt has a lot more scoring records then MJ and I mean a lot more( 4 highest scoring seasons ever! , 4 highest scoring games ever!, ......)And don't forget not only was Wilt the best scorer ever but he is allso the greatest rebounder of all time. He has almost every rebounding record (highest career average, 11 times the best of the league, most rebounds in one game,...). Of course a C takes more rebounds then a SG. But Wilt is the leader of everybody, all centers ever included. So Wilt is the best scorer and best rebounder ever = the greatest player ever.
mj is the greatest player in this era of basketball. and a player shouldn't be judged on greatness on the court mj revolutionized the game to what we see today. so no matter what people say about the numbers michael jordan has mad basketball a top 3 or 4 sport in the world.
O no that was thanks to the companies and the massa media. They used MJ. They gave him mythical proportions. Why? The greater the myth, the more money. (The whole Nike company has supported him and spread his fame) or more viewers= more money. In the previous eras there were not so much media possabilities as there are now. Now the media are much more spread and have more possibilities to spread something worldwide. In the past the media did not have the same possibilities to do that. World wide media= nba world wide spread with MJ as the mythical symbol The next level is that they(media/companies who advertise) hype players before they proved themselves on the higheste level= Lebron James. It's all about the money.
Myth? We don't just select these guys and say "this is the lucky guy we will call the greatest just to make money!" That is a complete joke. So players like Bird and magic, when they call MJ the greatest, are just victims of a myth? So based on your screen name and avatar you are a victim? Players like MJ and LeBron get where they are because they play the game. Every other player has the same exact chance to put their own stamp on the game. Weird, odd, confused
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Sandman:</div><div class="quote_post">Myth? We don't just select these guys and say "this is the lucky guy we will call the greatest just to make money!" That is a complete joke. So players like Bird and magic, when they call MJ the greatest, are just victims of a myth? So based on your screen name and avatar you are a victim? Players like MJ and LeBron get where they are because they play the game. Every other player has the same exact chance to put their own stamp on the game. Weird, odd, confused </div> Really, Lebron james had a bigger sponsor contract before he was in the nba than Magic, Bird,....when they were in it and proved themselves. And he deserves that? Very interesting. He's an 18 year old talent, that proved nothing when he signed. He has great talent, but he should have gotten his money when he proved he was a new MJ in the nba and not before like now. They make a myth of him so early just for the money, to sell procucts, advertising. And MJ was a great player, the greatest of his generation, I'm a big fan. But what I'm saying is that he made the nba world wide now thanks to the marketing machine that promoted him. And 20, 30 years ago that was not possible, the media was not well spread and did not have the means that it has now.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting BeLikeMike:</div><div class="quote_post">Wilt Chamberlain is the greatest ever. So Wilt is the best scorer and best rebounder ever = the greatest player ever.</div> Sorry, but your logic here is sorely lacking. Maybe you've been blind to the NBA for the past 30 years, but the game has changed, and players have changed. Wilt was the biggest behemoth of his day who indeed had skills, but it was only because he had those skills in a 7'1" body that he set scoring records. Guys who played against both of them attested that Jordan was more dominant. It is because with Wilt, you know what to do to stop him, you just can't because he's bigger. With Jordan, no one knew how to stop him. Fact. Jordan put up 37 ppg followed by 35 ppg while jumping over guys, jumping through them, zipping around 2, 3 defenders, and hitting shots all over the court, while in the flow of the game. With Wilt, his teams just dumped the ball into him on every possession. Imagine a Shaq 5 inches taller, then you have Wilt back then. Stronger than everyone, bigger than everyone, and once he had it on the blocks he was gonna score. But because for Wilt to get his points all plays were run to him, that was the offense, so it only ran at his pace. Consequently, he couldn't win, because he was trying to keep up with 5 other guys. His first season he won a ring was the first he didn't lead the league in scoring, and in LA(the team that won) he wasn't even one of the top two scorers on the team. With Jordan, he could lead the team to victory(6 times in fact) and still get his points because he was unstoppable in the flow of the game. I can't stress this enough. If the Bulls just continously ran isolation play for him, he would have averaged about 35 points a game over the years '87 to '93, and easily have surpassed Kareem(for total points) and Wilt(for scoring average)(the latter of which he did, btw. it was only his washington years that pulled him down to wilt's level). As it was, the Bulls instituted the Triangle, and STILL he got over 30 ppg. And he was more consistent than Wilt, who only had 7 scoring titles, since he waited two years, came back and then with ease led the league 3 more times. You CANNOT ARGUE WITH GREATNESS.
Yes MJ is the greatest player ever to grace the court, he has done a lot more than those people you named........ Jordan lead a crappy team to one of the best team with the best record in NBA history as 72-10........... 6 rings all him as MVP, Chicago Bulls WILL never won a ring if MJ wasnt there.........
And yea, basketball now is a lot harder if you noticed, so many creative moves, crossovers, good ball handlers, make a if those old school basketball legends were same age as those bball stars now, the 90s bball players will beat them i know for sure, basketball is revolutionized, it was a lot easier for Wilt Chamberlain at that time, but now there are a lot of good players in this league, he might had broke a lot of records, but back THAN it was a lot easier than now
^ TheHitman Please don't post-pad. Click on the Edit button when you need to add something. I can go on and on again on why I believe MJ is the greatest. But I'll just tell you to read the previous posts.
@startman 85. Yep the game has changed, but not like you think. In our society we think that how further time goes how better things become. You get that thinking pattern in your education over and over again. Well that's not always true. The game has improved in some areas and in others it is just the opposite (for example the fundamentals are way down, shooting free throws,... more and more players skip college is one reason) Swede Hallbrook was 7'3, he did not dominate the league, and he played when Wilt did. Height is not = succes. Wilt scored a lot of his points against Bill Russell. You know Bill Russel the man who everybody sees as the beste defensive center ever. And in the days of Wilt teams met each other a lot more than nowadays. There were less teams so more confrontations against good players. In the Jordan era you had a lot more (bad) teams, so more easy points. Wilt is the most dominant scorer ever, and the best rebounder ever. Scoring and rebounding are 2 of the three most important statistical categories. He's the greatest. And as a reminder he is the only center who could lead the league in assists. Jordan never did that, and he is a guard.
