lebron who?

[Surealistic]

Name a sporting accomplishment that trumps him single-handedly beating the Jazz with stomach flu and being carried off the court by Pippen

magic johnson playing in his first season, his first nba finals, game 6 i believe, playing center for the injured kareem, and getting i believe a triple double with 40 points, and ending up with finals mvp

argue with me if you want, idc, michael jordan is not the best PLAYER of all time, he is the best shooting guard of all time, magic johnson is the best PLAYER of all time

[Andarvi]

michael, magic, kareem, russell, and wilt are all really close.

[Surealistic]

thing is though, i do agree with you, except all of them except magic were basically one position players, yeah, jordan could prolly play point or small forward "maybe" power forward, but not center, and lets see wilt or russell play anything other than center

[Andarvi]

agreed, i still love watching old footage of magic as point. built like a forward but can move better than any gaurd.

[Surealistic]

i know ill catch hell for this but oh well lol, put magic in todays game and he's still a star, but you put wilt in todays game, and you have an average center, dont get me wrong, wilt invented how to play center with russell, but over the past 30-40 years, what they invented has been refined to the point where they would be low first round to second round draft picks at best

[Andarvi]

yeah there is an asterisk next to wilt and russel, its just a totally different era and hard to compare. but still, regardless of era, wilt scoring 100+ points in a game, averaging 50+ points per season multiple times, i wonder how he would fair today.

[Kross]

So how about those oilers?

Series 2 - 0, fuck yeah!!!!

go Oilers Go!

[Surealistic]

yeah there is an asterisk next to wilt and russel, its just a totally different era and hard to compare. but still, regardless of era, wilt scoring 100+ points in a game, averaging 50+ points per season multiple times, i wonder how he would fair today.

http://www.nba.com/playerfile/shawn_bradley/index.html

[Andarvi]

LOL come on now bradley is no wilt.

[Surealistic]

lol, ok maybe not, but bradley isnt a "bad" player persay, but in his day wilt was towering over everyone and played a style of center that noone had seen before, but he was also pretty skinny, put wilt in todays game and i really think you have a shawn bradley type player, maybe wilt would be a little better, but i dont think by much

put wilt up against shaq, and its no contest, shaq would prolly end up killing the guy lol

[Luminaire]

magic johnson playing in his first season, his first nba finals, game 6 i believe, playing center for the injured kareem, and getting i believe a triple double with 40 points, and ending up with finals mvp

argue with me if you want, idc, michael jordan is not the best PLAYER of all time, he is the best shooting guard of all time, magic johnson is the best PLAYER of all time

Jordan is the best player of all time because he is the only player in history with an area of effect. Look at the people Jordan had around him when he won SIX championships in a strong league: Pippen, Toni Kukoc, Luc Longley, Paxton, Horace Grant, Rodman. Even Magic had Worthy and Jabbar around him among others. Jordan's supporting cast was, how should we say, lacking. Look at today's NBA, at say the Spurs - you get the sense that Duncan, Parker, Ginobli, Finley are all good players on their own, not just because Duncan is standing on the court, giving off some aura. Jordan had that, all the while reinventing himself three times and completely retooling his game twice. His drive is also something that I think would be stunning to see on a player like David Robinson, who just didn't seem to care enough to ever really push himself.

Sure, there are more 'talented' people than Jordan but no one else had his impact. I think you could argue for both Magic and Bird being more talented but no one else had Jordan's impact overall. Magic and Bird never made the outcome a foregone conclusion.

[Surealistic]

um, not to take away from what you said, but when jordan won his championships the league was weak overall

[tiberion02]

Pippen and Grant were also pretty good players when MJ was winning titles with them.

[Tyche]

um, not to take away from what you said, but when jordan won his championships the league was weak overall

Lol, that era had the best players to ever play the game.

[Xavier]

Pippen and Grant were also pretty good players when MJ was winning titles with them.

Pippen was awesome at the time.

[Surealistic]

um, not to take away from what you said, but when jordan won his championships the league was weak overall

Lol, that era had the best players to ever play the game.

o.O, that era had the biggest names because the league was huge at the time, but to say they were the best players, please

they had this thing on espn a while back that went as far as saying this years detroit team would have destroyed jordans 70 win team, and to be honest, i completely agree with them, the league overall is a lot tougher than it was then, back then you had the bulls, and um... , and there was...., oh yeah and there was the bulls, and then ....., oh yeah cant forget the.....

[Xavier]

Just because there was a player who completely overshadowed everyone else in the league, doesn't mean everyone else in the league sucked.

[Surealistic]

dont get me wrong, im not saying everyone else sucked, but comparatively speaking, back then look at the dominate teams, there were none besides the bulls, there were some strong teams, but you knew at the start of the season the bulls were going to win, the only thing was, how many games were they going to win and who were they going to beat in the finals, most likely being utah, and that was it really, yes you had some other teams that could throw monkey wrenches into the fray, i.e. orlando (but that was because of shaq and shaq alone really), houston was a contender kinda (yes they won 2 rings, i know but they werent really a dominate team)

flash ahead to this season

begining of the year, you knew right off the bat that detroit, phoenix, san antonio, dallas, new jersey, and miami were going to be strong, but didnt really know for sure who was gonna go all the way, and not because its a weak league, but because they are all very strong teams, and hell, its still up for grabs, and come the end of the year, you have the clippers, THE FUCKING CLIPPERS, what the fuck lol, cleveland is coming into their own, washington, the lakers are coming back into the groove (thanks to kobe finally learning what a teammate is)

basically the league is much stronger now than it was then, not because one player dominated everyone, but because more and more teams have learned that teams win championships, not players, back then you had players that took teams to another lvl, that will not work anymore, just ask lebron >.>, mark my words, after this season, cleveland will be picking up more people to compliment lebron, cleveland will be a powerhouse next year without a doubt

[Flash]

you all might hate him, but kobe bryant is most definatley one of the best of all time. Don't forget either that he is still a young guy that the lakers can build around.

[othellojr]

Oh wow, I thought some of you were older but I guess not...Back when the Bulls and Jordan first began to win the league had some strong teams too, I mean there were the Celtics (Larry was no joke yo), Knicks, Lakers (Magic anyone?), Pistons (Isaih sp?), Utah, Portland (Clyde), and to some extent, Atlanta (Dominique). If anything, the league had some amazing players, more well-known "household" names, though admitedly most retired/phased out by time the Bulls won their second three titles, but you can't deny during their first stretch they did not have great competition; these days, the league seems to lack as many great players as they were during the late 80s, early 90s, so it seems like actually, the league is weaker now instead(more like the level gap between talented players has closed up between teams, and rare to have one person be as talented as the people I mentioned above).