Ya a team with Bird/Pippen/Rodman would beat the Knicks, Pacers, Sonics too. Jordan/Wade/Bosh would also have a couple of championships, Durant/Moses Malone/Mo Cheeks could probably go Fo-Fi-Fo in '83. I don't get this comment. Replacing a great player with a similarly great player will lead to similar results.
Not necessarily, and especially in Jordan's case, imo.
Yes, with Bird & Magic in the league Jordan never won jack. It wasn't until they left the league and the Pistons declined that he won. What did Jordan accomplish with Bird & magic in the league KG?
Jordan beat Magic 4-1.
That's not an overhill Magic, that's a 31 year old, 1st All-NBA, 2nd in MVP voting, with a 25.1 PER on a 58 win team Magic Johnson. Jordan beat prime Magic (along with prime 29 year old James Worthy). In no universe is that not considered a worthy opponent.[/quote]
Perhaps not over the hill, but Magic was at, or at least very close to, the end of his "prime", whatever that means in this context, and speaking of Worthy, the guy injured his left ankle during game 5 of the Western Conference Finals against Portland, which not only limited him greatly in the 1991 NBA Finals, but even caused him to miss the final contest of that series, and ditto for Byron Scott. They just weren't the same players, but Worthy, in particular, was definitely hampered, and had he not sustained that injury, who knows what happens?
Personally, I believe that had the Lakers kept Michael Cooper for one last go around and pulled the trigger on the deal that they later consummated in the offseason of 1991 at the trade deadline that would have given them Sedale Threatt, well, I can't say for certain as to whether or not they would have beaten Chicago, but if you go back and look at the games played between the two teams over the following, well, two seasons, you'll find that the Lakers actually had a great deal of success against the Bulls, whether it was on the road or at The Forum, and despite the aging of their veteran core, not to mention the loss, on at least one occasion, of Vlade Divac, in a game that they still one, and by a quite sizable margin the The Chicago Stadium, at that, so again, I'm not guaranteeing that said hypothetical Lakers' team would have defeated the Bulls, but I do believe that it was definitely doable, but I'm weird, so there's that.
And to do that he beat the reigning 2x champion Detroit Pistons, led by 29 year old Isiah Thomas, 29 year old DPOY Dennis Rodman, and 27 year old All-NBA/All-Defense Joe Dumars. Not only did he beat them, he swept them. Again, in no universe is that not considered a worthy opponent.
Again, that Pistons' team was nowhere near being close to the caliber of their title teams, primarily due to the injuries of Zeke, who already had surgery on his wrist during the season only to injure his ankle and hamstring in the prior series against Boston and Atlanta, hence why he only played in 4 of the 6 games against the Celtics, so this is nowhere near the same Isiah Thomas who won the MVP of the 1990 NBA Finals.
Additionally, Dumars had something wrong with his big toe that had hampered him throughout the year, iirc, Vinnie Johnson had some kind of shin problem, and James Edwards had been having problems with his back (welcome to our world, Buddha. Sigh.), so again, they were not the same players, never mind the same team by the time of the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals.
That said, and while I am certainly no fan of the Bad Boys, they still had more than enough to beat Chicago at that time, imo, and I have a number of questions about that series. Mind you, I'm not saying that they just threw the, well, series, but a number of things don't add up to me, to say the least, not to mention the fact that the league changed the rules for Jordan to make the game easier for him, which had a huge impact on that, well, again, series, not to mention the rest of Jordan's career. You already couldn't breathe on the guy from the moment that he entered the league, but when he started winning titles, I mean, forget about it. He just never fouled. Anyone. Ever, and the same goes for Pippen
. Every strip was clean, every block never made body contact, he could literally hold the jersey of his defensive assignment while the latter was shooting without being cited for an infraction, and he could bite on a pump fake, land on you, and not be called for a foul
. I don't even care about the officials, anymore, but that's just beyond ridiculous, and let's not forget his favorite referee Jake O'Donnell
.
So yeah, sorry KG. I love you, man, but I completely disagree. I swear, Jordan was the biggest whiner, along with Jackson and Pippen, that I've probably ever seen until the coming of Lebron. I mean, has there ever been a coach in the history of the sport who has literally whined about his opponent before every playoff series in which he was involved, whether that was Detroit, the Knicks, or us? Idk, I guess that I wouldn't care if the officials didn't always adhere to his "suggestions". Ugh.
On another front, and as someone who loves watching classic basketball, I wonder if the Knicks, with a few simple adjustments, could have beaten Chicago in 1992. That series was already incredibly close, and I would have loved to seen them employ a lineup of -
Patrick Chewing
Mase In Yo Face
The X-Man
Not Dominique
Momma there goes that man
only put Mason on Jordan, McDaniel on Grant, and Wilkins on Pippen. Of course, re-signing Trent Tucker, who was waived by Phoenix after the deal with New York involving McDaniel, could have really helped them in that series and beyond. Why couldn't the Celtics have signed him? He would have been a great fit with the 1991-92 team, imo.
Okay, rant over, lol
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Topic: Kevin Garnett passionately explained why MJ is the GOAT (Read 2407 times)