NBA.com erased my post about Larry!

[Salesgod]

On NBA.com today they decided to shove another Michael Jordan video down our throats about how he beat the Hawks at the buzzer "on this date, blah, blah, blah", wearing number 45, which was lame.

I had the second comment and I said: "Who cares? How about a Larry Bird highlight once every three months? You guys are redic."

I had 350 likes in 8 minutes and 100 replies mostly all agreeing with me and dozens of comments on how they're tired of him and no one cares anymore. Would have been the top comment with thousands of likes and comments. Of course I'm not enough of a nitwit to think there's anything cool about Facebook stats. I'm just mentioning this because they erased it. I thought that was strange from something directly represented by the league.

The MJ debate can go on for hours. All I know is he never faced any one team more than once in the finals and Larry C's and the Magic Lakers would have beaten every single opponent his teams beat. Not to take away from his personal greatness, but his team's greatness, I think is very inflated. Those Pacers, Heat, Knicks teams were tough, but there is nothing about them that will go down in any record books. He's a marketing tool. If it wasn't for there being no social media at the time, he would have went down in flames like Tiger Woods.

I'm just sick of him. And as a person, I find him to be a disgusting, rude and greedy individual. He's stopped talking to Charles. His HOF speech was absolutely PATHETIC. I've never seen someone get the blind eye like he does. It's insane.

Thank you for accepting my vent.

[Beat LA]

That's outstanding, TP. I can't stand Jordan, either.  He's the luckiest basketball player of all time, though, imo, because the reality is that had Len Bias and Reggie Lewis lived, not only does MJ not win 6 titles, but he would have been lucky to win one, and he'd probably be known today as the selfish version of Oscar Robertson.  Putting Bias and Lewis on those Bird teams would have been redic.

Now, admittedly, I don't visit nba.com, but to echo your point, I do wish that they would put up videos of other greats, like Zeke, Bird, Magic, Kareem, Dr. J, Dominique, Walton, Barkley, Bernard King, Sidney Moncrief (how that guy isn't in the hall of fame is beyond me), etc.

[Nerf DPOY]

Here's a couple Real GM threads I lurked on that I feel are appropriate. This first one is based off an article where the Chief contrasts MJ and Larry and how he(Parish) was having none of Jordan's tough guy act during his Bulls stint. I found it amusing:

"What set Larry apart from Magic and Jordan was he wasn't an in-your-face leader like they were," Parish said. "He had too much respect for us. If you weren't having a good night, he was more inclined to encourage you, or not say anything at all.

"But Magic and Jordan would jump all over you."

In one of his first practices with the Bulls, Parish botched one of the plays and was amused to find Jordan jawing at him just inches from his face.

"I told him, 'I'm not as enamored with you as these other guys. I've got some rings too,' " Parish recalled. "At that point he told me, 'I'm going to kick your ass.' I took one step closer and said, 'No, you really aren't.' After that he didn't bother me."

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1379484#start_here

Another is from a few days back where crazy Vernon Maxwell opined that they'd have beaten the Bulls had they played them even if MJ had never taken that nearly two years off.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1378840#start_here

[freshinthehouse]

All I know is he never faced any one team more than once in the finals and Larry C's and the Magic Lakers would have beaten every single opponent his teams beat.

[RAAAAAAAANDY]

All I know is he never faced any one team more than once in the finals and Larry C's and the Magic Lakers would have beaten every single opponent his teams beat.

He also beat Magic to win his first championship.

[BornReady]

All I know is he never faced any one team more than once in the finals and Larry C's and the Magic Lakers would have beaten every single opponent his teams beat.

He also beat Magic to win his first championship.

True but that laker team did not have kareem who was one of the reasons why they were so hard to beat

[BornReady]

That's outstanding, TP. I can't stand Jordan, either.  He's the luckiest basketball player of all time, though, imo, because the reality is that had Len Bias and Reggie Lewis lived, not only does MJ not win 6 titles, but he would have been lucky to win one, and he'd probably be known today as the selfish version of Oscar Robertson.  Putting Bias and Lewis on those Bird teams would have been redic.

Now, admittedly, I don't visit nba.com, but to echo your point, I do wish that they would put up videos of other greats, like Zeke, Bird, Magic, Kareem, Dr. J, Dominique, Walton, Barkley, Bernard King, Sidney Moncrief (how that guy isn't in the hall of fame is beyond me), etc.

Actually bird said he would have retired earlier in an interview with Simmons I recall , If bias had joined the team

I also think that a duo of Lewis and bias would have been a hard matchup for Jordan
I feel like Lewis matched up better against Jordan compared to Reggie miller who people say was one of his rivals despite only having played one playoff series but an entertaining one at that 

[GC003332]

Not hating on Jordan but this is bigger than you, nothing is stopping this money train.

[Salesgod]

Ha ha, all good points.

Yeah, they beat the Lakers comprising of Elden Campbell, A.C. Green, Vlade Divac and Terry Teagle. Oh yeah, two Jazz. I didn't bother to look back, my bad. I didn't watch the second Jazz finals really. Just caught the clinching jumper game. It was too drab.

[GratefulCs]

Wow


The NBA is a type of mafia.. David stern knows where the bodies are buried


Except they aren't that discrete..



I applaud you for writing that on NBA.com though


MAJOR TP


 

[Moranis]

All I know is he never faced any one team more than once in the finals and Larry C's and the Magic Lakers would have beaten every single opponent his teams beat.

He also beat Magic to win his first championship.

True but that laker team did not have kareem who was one of the reasons why they were so hard to beat

The Bulls also swept the 2 time defending NBA Champion Pistons in the ECF that first season. 

Most of the posts in this thread are just silly.

[Moranis]

Also, lets not act like Boston was going through the gauntlet on the way to titles.

80/81
Beat Bulls 4-0.  Bulls were led by a very young Reggie Theus and David Greenwood with an aging Artis Gilmore.  Then were pushed to 7 games by the Sixers, who were excellent on the wings with Dr. J, Mo Cheeks, and Andrew Toney and had basically just Dawkins down low.  A good team, but not a great team.  In the finals they beat the Rockets in 6, but that Rockets team was basically just Moses Malone and Calvin Murphy and Murphy missed 2 games. 

83/84
Sure everyone remembers the battle with the great Lakers team in the Finals, but it isn't like Boston faced a murderers row to get to L.A. that year.  They played a 35 win Bullets team in the first round who was led by Jeff Ruland.  Boston next faced the Knicks who pushed them to 7 and were basically just Bernard King and Bill Cartwright.  In the ECF, Boston faced a solid but certainly not great Bucks team. 

85/86
Much of the same before facing the Rockets.  The first two rounds were the Bulls and Hawks, who both at that time were basically their young star and not much else.  That is also the year Jordan was injured for much of the season though was healthy for the playoffs.  Boston again faced a solid but certainly not great Bucks team in the ECF.  The Rockets were very young down low with Sampson and Dream and pretty mediocre in the backcourt.


Look I get we are all Celtics fans and think much more fondly of them than any other team, but we do a terrible of job of remembering the past when it comes to the Celtics.  This board consistently overrates the Celtics' path and undersells the path of every other team.  I mean the Bucks of the 80's are pretty similar to the Knicks of the 90's (as an example), yet we somehow remember Boston going through gauntlets while the Bulls had a cakewalk.  That just isn't borne in reality.  Sure the Lakers were a great team and a great rival to the Celtics, something Chicago didn't really have, though the Lakers were 2 and 1 against the Celtics in Finals so it isn't like they were playing every year or that Boston was the better team. 

[bdm860]

All I know is he never faced any one team more than once in the finals

Besides the fact that this is wrong (as has already been pointed out), what does this have to do with anything?

The Shaq/Kobe Lakers faced a different team each year in their 4 Finals.

Until last year, thes Spurs never faced the same team twice in their 5 Finals.

Do you think this really says anything?

[Celtics17]

Weather Jordan is the GOAT or not is debatable but some things aren't. Like, the 80's Celts did face much better competition did the Bulls. Name on team the Bulls played that could match up against the Piston's Bad Boys of the 80's or the Lakers of the same era. I know the Bulls beat both of those teams but they weren't as good as they were in the 80's. And, does anyone think that Moses Malone would have been a nice guy to MJ dunking on the 76'ers?

It's also pretty obvious that the league did what it could to promote the Jordan legacy. Contrast that to all of the rules that were made to slow down Chamberlain and I can make a very good argument that Wilt was the superior player.

[CapnDunks]

I'm pretty surprised they bothered to pull that comment off. I don't really get that. Seems like harmless Homerism.

As for GOAT. Wilt and Russel have the handicap of being old.  Out of living memory for exactly the young fans that the NBA is trying to recruit.

You gotta live through an era to understand how huge it was for someone to be that dominant. Early memories of Bird's retirement and Jordan being everywhere had a big impact. And you can't get that same understanding from watching grainy videos of Cousy and Russell. No matter how many times I try.

Also, Jordans clearly a Rude human being. But he is the definition of iconic, has any athlete been as successfully marketed?