Re: Why Jordan is not the greatest player of all time.

["Robert A. Bowman" <Robert.A.Bowman-1@tc.umn.edu>]

In message <33A2AB43.747E@theshop.net>  writes:
> Rhett,
> 
> I'll tell you what I've been telling all my friends here.
> 
> Michael Jordan entered the league in 1984 (I believe) and it took him
> *7* years to win a title. And he couldn't do until he had Pippen.
> 
> In *2* years, Larry Bird brought the Celtics a championship. Before
> Larry came to the Celts in 1979-80, the Celts were 29-53. The first year
> he was with them, they won 50+ games (as I recall). That's a 20+
> turnaround because of 1 guy. (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong about the
> specific games won/lost.) 
> 
> And in 1980-81, the Celts went all the way. All this in a league that
> wasn't diluted by expansion and included Dr. J AND Magic Johnson. Who is
> out there to harass Jordan on his "superstar" level. No one.
> 
> This is my reasoning for why Larry Bird is the greatest PLAYER of all
> time. Michael Jordan is probably the greatest ATHLETE of all NBA time,
> possibly the greatest SCORER. But it took him almost 4 times as long to
> win a title as it did Bird.
> 


For me the real discussion is not over who is the greatest player, altho my 
short list would include Jordan, Abdul-Jabbar (who many overlook for reasons I 
know not), Bird, Russell, but over who is the greatest team because BBall is a 
team sport and thus what truly matters is who wins the title.  I got into a 
fairly entertaining discussion with first, my wife (who knows a LOT more about 
BB since marrying me), and then later a small group of friends over (again) how 
this year's Bulls team would fare against the vintage Celtic and Laker teams of 
the 80s.  I was able to get them to agree with me that the Bulls of the 90s(any 
vintage) would have great difficulty with the Celtics/Lakers and would probably 
lose in 6, possibly 7, games.  The great leap that no one in the group could 
make was in accepting my eyewitness account that the great Russell led teams 
would also beat the current Bulls and possibly in even less games i.e. 5 maybe 
6.  One point of comparison that I used in my argument was that the highest per 
game scorer in the NBA playoffs ( I believe it's the final series, help me out 
here) history is Jerry West at 38 ppg and 2nd is MJ at 31 ppg.  Who did West 
score most of these pts against?  None other than the Celtics.  West had a 
better supporting cast (arguably), if you can call them a "supporting" cast, in 
Baylor and Chamberlain ( 1 yr only) along with other guys like La Russo, T. 
Hawkins, Goodrich, Hazzard etc.than MJ has had with the Bulls in Pippen, Grant, 
Kerr, Paxson, RainbowMan etc. Yet despite having the highest per game playoff 
scorer, the Dr J of his day and Wilt (the original worst freethrow shooting big 
man) and a strong string of role players, the Lakers of the 60s never beat the 
Celtics.  These Celtic teams epitomized the concept of the team game, 
fastbreaking at opportune moments, stifiling team defense, dominant rebounding, 
clutch shooting, and yes, a fair amount of luck.  Now I'm 41 and these other 
guys are all early 20s so none of them has more than a faint memory of Dr J 
(from his late NBA days) let alone anyone before him, so it is quite a leap for 
them to make and I didn't expect them to make it.  However, and I've heard this 
many times before, I was disappointed to hear them fall back on the old, "the 
game is changed, they don't play it like they used to, there's better all-around
talent" argument.

The thing I will say about Jordan is this: I think he's done more with less than
any other great player who's led his team to the title.  In other words Magic 
had Kareem and Worthy along with some pretty great players in Cooper, Nixon, 
Scott, Wilkes, McAdoo et al.  Bird had Chief, Kevin, Ainge, Max, Tiny, DJ et al.
Compare that to who Jordan's had to work with and aside from ~possibly~ Pippen 
none of his guys make my top 7 or 8 on either Celtic or Laker squads.

Well, this is certainly a break from all the posts about trades and the draft, 
which I enjoy and read everyone of them.  Thanks to those who have been posting 
news articles from various sources, btw, I appreciate them.  My feeling on the 
whole thing is to sit back and let Pitino do his thing and then sort through it 
all when the dust clears.  I'm kinda leaning towards keeping both picks and 
adding them to Williams and Walker (and possibly Wesley) and getting everybody 
into camp and on the same page and going from there.  With what we have and who 
we draft we could be only a player away from a serious run in the postJordan 
era.  But I, for one, am glad we finally have some direction and leadership in a
guy such as Pitino.

Bob