OT:Larry Bird

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/CHI/1991.html

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/HOU/1992.html

PIP was known as a point forward when he was with the Blazers... even broken down and well into his 30's he was the guy who made the team go. Just like in Chicago, Portland was able to start two shooting guards (Wells & DA) beside him. I see absolutely no reason he wouldn't have initiated the offense in Chicago if MJ hadn't been there... after all they were running the triangle.

In the time frame you are doubting having a Paxson-BJ backcourt would have been able to get the Rockets over the top, Buck Johnson was the Rockets starting SF and 35 year old Tree Rollins would have been their starting 5 sans HO. You said Big guys win titles... how would you access MJ's championship chances with that frontcourt? Hakeem may have become bored with winning the title every year and taken a couple year sabbatical to pursue his boyhood dreams of being a soccer goalie.

STOMP

 

Interesting to ponder. Of course, you never know how the two rosters would have developed. Had the Rockets taken MJ in 84, they probably would have drafted bigs after that. And who knows who the Bulls would have drafted after taking Hakeem in '84. They probably would have been looking for an outside scoring threat to compliment Hakeem's inside game. So, they might never had drafted Ho Grant or Pip.

Jordan may have won fewer titles with the Houston roster (sans Hakeem), but he probably would have won at least one earlier in his career - while Ralph Sampsom was still healthy and productive.

Ultimately, the point is moot. If the Rockets had taken Jordan at number 1, the Blazers would have taken Hakeem with the second pick and the Bulls would have likely taken Barkley, or possibly Perkins, with the third pick. About six months ago, I read a great book about the 84 draft: Tip-Off: How the 1984 NBA Draft Changed Basketball Forever. The chapter on Barkley alone is worth the price of the book ("But Mr. Katz, round is a shape" - hilarious).

BNM

 

Koo koo for CoCo puffs crazy.

Not only was PIP better talent-wise then Mitch, he was also a vastly better fit beside MJ.

STOMP

 

How high was Bowie ranked back then, in terms of talent? When do you think he'd have been drafted had no one "reached for need," as the Blazers did?

 

Fair enough, but I'm still not sure I aggree with your point. Jordan off playing baseball certainly removed the most significant roadblock to Hakeem's championship aspirations, but I still don't think there was some huge league wide talent void at that time. You still had Robinson, Ewing, Barkley, Malone and Stockton in their primes and Shaq already starting to dominate. Hakeem was the only one able to captialize on Jordan's absence and grab a ring (or two) before his airness returned.

BNM

 

weren't Hodges, Paxson, and BJ on the Bulls because they were outside scoring threats? Without Ho and PIP, who are the Bulls starting forwards? Of course this is a hypothetical and things would have evolved differently, I bring up this to demonstrate why I think team context should be considered when discussing the GOAT

okay okay... how many titles would the Blazers have hypothetically won with Hakeem, Cliff, Kersey, Clyde, and Porter? I'm guessing a hell of a lot more then MJ with Kenny Smith, Mad Max, Buck Johnson, Otis Thorpe and Tree Rollins.

btw... Sampson's knee and back problems became chronic in the 1986-7 season... which would have been MJ's 3rd year in the league.

STOMP

 

So, late in his career, does this mean Jordan gets teamed with Drexler, Barkley and eventually Pippen in Houston?

If the circumstances had been different, Jordan might not have gotten bored with backetball and twice retired after winning three consecutive championships. He may have won fewer mid-career, but he might have stuck around longer with the desire to win more later in his career.

Too many variables - makes my head hurt.

BNM

 

3rd or 4th would be my guess... ah hindsight

STOMP

 

Maybe it's just my Warrior bias but I think Mitch is pretty underrated because of the teams he was on. People discount his Warrior stats becuase it was Nelson's team and no one noticed him in Sac becuase it's Sac. I think he was a better outside shooter and scorer than pippen but wasn't anywhere close defensively.

Looking at the stats, you're right, I definately overvalued Richmond, but I still think Jordan/Richmond could have won titles. Jordan's that good and Mitch would have been the best offensive player he played with.

 

it's so unusual for posters to admit they were wrong on something... very refreshing! You're welcome here anytime WarriorFan

STOMP

 

Hard to say. Perhaps if they had drafted Hakeem in 84 they would have taken Karl Malone instead of Keith Lee in the 85 draft. Or, maybe without Jordan, they would have taken a guard like Joe Dumars. They most certainly would not have wasted a top 10 pick on Brad Sellers in 86 if they had Hakeem at center. And, there would have been a lot of better options available to them in the backcourt instead of Hodges, Paxson and BJ Armstrong if they wouldn't have wasted so many high first round draft picks (Lee, Sellers, Will Perdue, Staci King etc.) desparately trying to find a center to pair with Jordan. For example, rather than take Staci King with the 6th pick in 89, they could have had their choice of Nick Anderson, Mookie Blaylock or Tim Hardaway instead of BJ Armstrong.

Yep, but Jordan was already starting to dominate as a rookie, and Sampson was a 20/10 guy at the time - something Jordan never had as a teammate in his entire NBA career.

Again, too many unknows, too many variables.

BNM

 

According to this article, there was no doubt that if the Blazers had picked Jordan, Chicago would have grabbed Bowie with the third pick.

http://www.bigbluehistory.net/bb/bowie.html

Chicago needed a big man desperately, and the Tribune reported that the Bulls were actually shopping the third pick for a big man (either Jack Sikma or Tree Rollins).

And then this...

Sounds kind of familiar..

 

Actually, more like 5 - 6. Barkley, for sure would have gone ahead of Sam, and most likely Perkins. After that, it probably would have been a toss up between Bowie and his teammate Mel Turpin (who had not yet earned the "Dinner Bell" knickname). Bowie had more talent, but Turpin had put up better scoring numbers at Kentucky - and of course, there were already injury concerns about Bowie.

BNM

 

it's extremely unusual for broken leg bones to be a longterm concern as opposed to say a player already having a weight problem at age 20. You can guess (not guarantee) that a 6'4 forward would have been the choice for them at 3, but I'll go with guessing conventional wisdom of the value of a long 7' coordinated defensive center coming off a healthy season would probably have won out.

btw... the Bulls had a pretty decent collection of frontcourt players at the time, so I don't think need would have pushed them towards either.

STOMP

 

My assessment was based on the book, Tip-Off that I mentioned previously. It breaks down the top picks in that draft with interviews by GMs, scouts, coaches, players, owners, etc. Barkley was the most interesting (and funniest, of course) story of the lot. While they didn't have the pre-draft camps back then, like they do now, they had something even better in 1984 right before the NBA draft - the 1984 Olympic try outs. Bobby Knight was the coach and he was hellbent on assembling the best US team ever (at that time). He originally planned for two weeks of tryouts starting with the top 72 college players in the nation. That wasn't enough for him. They ended up with 76 players competing for 12 roster spots.

Barkley dominated the first week, and stood out much more than even Jordan. By all accounts, he was the best player at the tryouts. But, Barkley's goal was not to make the team. He knew every NBA team would have scouts there watching the try outs. So, his goal was purely financial - to cement his place as a top five pick and secure a million dollar contract. The first week, Barkley was the buzz of the camp. He was convinced he'd wowed the scouts and played his way into a guaranteed top 5 pick. After the first week, many of the players had been cut (I think they were down to something like 20 - 24) and the NBA scouts had seen all they needed to see and left. So, for the second week, Barkley was insubordinate, insolent and did everything he could to piss off Bobby Knight. It worked (surprise, surprise). He viewed the Olympics, which didn't pay anything, as a waste of his time. He wanted to get cut - and did - even though he was clearly far better than several of the players that made the team.

Anyway, it's an interesting read with lots of different first hand viewpoints on the 84 draft.

BNM

 

I disagree here. While he was certainly dominate offensively. He definitely lacked on the defensive side of the ball. Which is half the game. I would also argue that the 5 players I named were just as dominant if not more so. And finally, if you look at the numbers and times they have played Shaq has never once bested Duncan. If you're going to include Shaq you almost certainly have to include Duncan in top 5.

The notion not to include championships among the accolades of players is ridiculous. They were all integral parts of winning a championship so why wouldn't they get credited for it?

 

Shaq wasn't a great individual defender, but he was still one of the bigger team defensive presences in the league over his prime. He definitely altered the paths and shots of slashers routinely. Plus, he was a great rebounder. He wasn't merely a scorer.

Because it's noise in terms of evaluating their abilities. Their abilities contributed to their team's success, but aren't directly reflected by their team's success. Kevin Garnett was a much better player five years ago, but he only won a championship last year...when he was surrounded by much better talent. Tim Duncan wouldn't be a worse player if he had toiled without a championship for the Timberwolves in place of Garnett.

Sometimes great players and great team success coincide, sometimes they don't. I think it's a much better idea to evaluate a player by his contributions to the team's success, not by the team's success, since the latter is too dependent on the player's teammates.

 

Tim Duncan in 2003 had a team much like the teams Garnett had in Minnesota. Duncan had a rookie Parker, Ginobli who were nowhere near they players they are today. He had David Robinson who was way past his prime. Yet Duncan still carried that team to the championship. He was clearly the "reason" they won it. So why wouldn't he get accredited to it.

Like I said players like Kareem, Wilt, and Russell all showed levels of dominance for longer than Shaq did. I think Olajuwon, individually, was a better center than Oneal. But only a few would put Olajuwon in the top 5 greatest of all time.

 

Why should he get "credit" beyond what he did on the court, that is his production (which can be measured by stats to a pretty decent extent) and his defense (which can't, it's a subjective thing but an evaluation of him, not what the Spurs accomplished)?

Are you talking about leadership and other such intangibles? Or that statistics and judging defense don't really measure players very well and that what their teams accomplished measure individual players better?

Suppose in an alternate universe, the exact same Tim Duncan was put on a different team and never won a title...would you say he was a worse player then?

I agree with you on Kareem and Wilt...and I have both ranked ahead of Shaq. I don't agree with Russell. He was a great defender and rebounder, but I don't think his advantages there close the enormous scoring gap between them.

Okay. I think you're right that only a few would, but that doesn't change my appraisal of Olajuwon, since I saw him play and can look at the numbers. I'm always open to listening to the opinions of others, but just because most people wouldn't rank a player at a certain level doesn't change my opinion. I'm not looking to reflect a consensus, I'm trying to reflect my own opinions.