I mentioned him in comparison to saying MJ never won without Pippen, and that Kareem had 2 GOATs and other HOF'ers and all star teammates before we got to Worthy who is more of Pippens level, and Kareem never won without any of them.
@JayGoogle Enjoying the conversation going on. Just wondering when LeBron won an Hakeem in 94 like championship?
Well. I mean, if we take away Pippen or Phil developing, were talking about a GOAT individual TALENT who wouldn't have a SINGLE all star caliber player to help him at all. With how competitive the era was, no stars are ditching out to join up. Chuck wanted out of Philly, but went to Phoenix who had underrated all star KJ and an under the radar type team instead of trying to join another super star. If MJ continues down a path with no help and no Phil to take the ball out of his hands and implement the triangle and let Scottie take over more pg duties, were looking at MJ continuing down a Wilt Chamberlain like path, which would still be getting him GOAT talk because of his individual dominance and accolades as it was before Scottie or Phil. I'm sure he'd have a Wilt like legacy without any rings, but even greater due to aesthetic of play style, and modern footage and still during the NBA's greatest marketable era. Realistically though, I think Jerry Krause could build something. I'm sure if he can't get Pippen, he still turns the #8 pick(was Olden Polynice FOR Seattle) for something and lets Oakley and Horace develop as the front line, Paxson/BJ backcourt still there. Maybe he could have moved up a pick for Kevin Johnson and KJ gets the respect he deserves as a star pg playing with MJ? Maybe they envision MJ as a combo guard and draft Reggie Miller?? Or maybe they use the pick for a veteran or disgruntled veteran/all star player? Maybe MJ asks for them to move up for UNC Kenny Smith? Fun to think about. Another Magic/Lakers vs Bad Boy PIstons in 90/91 - Pistons win 3rd in 4, 1 game away from 4 peat? No. I think Magic gets his 6th ring. 4th FMVP Knicks vs Blazers in 92 - Ewing/Knicks finally bring the championship back to NY Knicks vs Suns in 93 - High powered O vs Bully Ball Defense. Awesome. I think Chuck falls short unfortunately and Knicks win b2b 93/94-Knicks would have been in the Finals 3 years in a row. Rockets still win their b2b. 96-Seattle Sonics vs Orlando Magic. Can Shaq erase the embarrassment of Rockets sweep and get his first ring in Orlando? This is the toughest one to pick. I'm going Orlando in 7. Shaq never leaves to LA now?? 97- If Shaq stays in Orlando and now motivated to win more rings, Orlando vs Utah- Shaq and Penny get b2b 98. Utah vs IND - Penny hurt. Larry Bird coaches Reggie Miller to first ring. Jazz never get a ring. THE END.
Yeah, you are right, he didn't. He did have Kyrie...and while I really don't think Kyrie is all that good, not on the level of any names mentioned here today, I guess it seems more impressive for Lebron because of who he was up against. Dirk's mavs championship is more of a carry job than Lebron's Cleveland one when I think more about it. But none of them were like Hakeem's.
I think that is what probably happens. You'd see MJ trying to break scoring records instead of focused on winning and his legacy would be more Wilt like, yeah, that's probably exactly what happens. Or maybe, even despite the era, maybe he'd go join someone else. I'm never doubting MJ or anything, I've never said he's not one of the GOATs, I just think it's not as clear cut.
There is goat forwards which had certain responsibilities! There are goat guards. There are goat emerging talent no one seen coming!
I liken the Warriors losing their starting C(Bogut), Draymond game 5 suspension, and Limping Iggy all series to the 72 Bulls missing Luc Longley(Wennington would start)after game 4, Rodman suspended in game 5, and and Kukoc playing hurt all series. Warriors at full strength were almost knocked out by KD and Russ in the WCF. At full strength- banged up Iggy, they were up 3-1. Only after losing Bogut and Draymond for a game, did they fall apart. Likewise, Bulls went up 3-0 on the 64 win Sonics. Imagine if Well, no, i don't think he'd be "trying to break scoring records." It's just what Doug Collins wanted. And MJ of course wouldn't complain having the ball always in his hands, but if you listen to him clearly, his issue was, if you're going to take the ball out of my hands, i don't want it in Bill Cartwrights hands with 5 seconds to go or something like that. Cartwright an example, but mostly a shot at the whole team just not being talented enough to take it out of MJ's hands. Pip still hadn't developed yet either. Same for Horace. They were both 2 year pros only. I think MJ would be more than happy to change up strategies with more talent around him,but their best chance to win with the lack of talent at the time was always going to be going through MJ. He's been maniacally competitive his entire life. Of course he wanted to win and was focused on it. And for as much as the triangle was key to winning, i mean... MJ ISO was still pretty much most of their 4th quarter and still won 6 rings anyway. Doug Collins got fired after taking an MJ dominant team with a not yet developed Pip and Grant to a game 6 in the ECF against the Bad Boy Pistons who we know won b2b, could have been 3peat. Keep in mind also that Detroit swept the Lakers in the Finals. Detroit only lost TWO games in the playoffs. Both to MJ and his undeveloped teammates. As i said before, MJ just needed SOME help and once he got it, there was no looking back. Phil takes over in 89/90 and they lose in game 7 to Detroit the next year. A 1 game improvement over the prior year with Doug. Let's pretend Doug never gets fired. 1 more year of Scottie and Grant developing, but you also add BJ Armstrong, Stacie King, and Perdue gets heavier min. You don't think the team could have progressed to the same result under Doug Collins? You could say Scottie developed into an All Star under Phil because Phil gave him the ball, but i mean..come on. He still would have developed into an All-Star under Doug Collins. You don't think MJ says enough is enough, and gets the entire team to train with him the entire summer and build muscle that offseason under Doug Collins all the same? Team still develops and progresses under MJ's leadership.
The argument will always be there that Phil took over a team that already had a destined for GOAT-MJ and an on the rise HOF project in Pippen. The team kept trending up as Phil took over. Beyond that, Phil hand picked star studded Laker teams. Kobe under Phil with minimal help after he couldn't keep Shaq/Kobe's ego's in check anymore, resulted in pretty much nothing but letting Kobe go for scoring records to try and win and missing playoffs and 1st rnd exit. Sounds worse than what Doug got out of MJ with no help but very, very similar results. Phil maybe being more of an ego manager and Tex's triangle offense really being the genius coach that should get most credit. But Tex wasn't head coach or leadership material. A little like Steve Jobs getting all the credit he gets. Though even Steve Jobs was an idea guy. All of Phil's strategy just came from his assistant coach who created it from the ground-up.
Like no other guy? Based on what exactly? How was he more of these things than Russell (led teams to 11 titles) or Kareem (literally won more than anyone considering all levels of basketball)?
@Caesar I will take nothing away from Phil. I think half of coaching is managing egos and personalites, you can be the best strategist in basketball history but it means nothing if your players ignore your strategy. Phil makes his players buy in to his assistant's strategy. So I'm not sure they would have had that same success under Collins who was pretty much that era's MDA. A really good solid coach that could never get over the hump for one reason or another. Also, MJ was a very selfish player. He's even admitting as much in this documentary series basically saying he didn't like Phil at first because it meant he had less touches. The Pistons players developed the Jordan rules around the idea that Jordan was selfish and wouldn't involve his team so just double him, give him all the attention, punish him inside, he's not going to move the ball around and so it worked. Stackhouse then reveals that Jordan came to the Wizards and immediately took over to have the offense run through him, even at that age. Jordan then basically tells the Bulls he's not playing without Phil, sounds similar to Kobe. They had to bring Phil back just to keep Kobe. I believe with Collins they win a championship though, not 6, no way. I think Phil's a special coach, as I said top 3 all time in the NBA. Auerbach, Popovic, Jackson...I think the more stories I hear about Phil the more I realize how good he was at pushing players buttons to get the best out of them or to get them working together. While the players might have still developed the same I'm not sure that's a certainty. I do think coaches have some impact on how a player is developed. I think Harden developed bad tendencies under McHale that he would not have developed if MDA had been his coach at first. I think Kawhi directly benefitted from Pop who IIRC gave him Jordan videos to try and model his game after...which might seem like a small thing but imagine your coach putting that confidence and belief behind you? I think coach's can definitely have a large impact on a career, MDA has always been great with PGs and I don't think that's a coincidence. While I'm not saying all glory should go to PJ, I'm just not sure the Bulls win 6 with Collins.
This isnt true, and it makes it seem like MJ had no flaws in his game to improve on to become a champion, which he did. Zeke broke down the Jordan rules on the J&J podcast, and highlights two often ignored aspects of Jordan’s game that he had to improve on before beating them: 1) Jordan wasn’t great driving left or passing when driving left. Forcing him to do that led to more turnovers. 2) Jordan wasn’t trying to come off the ball anyway. Even the documentary highlights this. 3) Jordan had to get stronger. The documentary highlights this too. After improvements were made in these areas, along with teammates getting better, then they got past Detroit. And even then they still needed the wear and tear of 5 consecutive deep playoff runs to get to Detroit, and Zeke to have a wrist injury that essentially ended his career.
I agree with everything, but i don't believe MJ was selfish. MJ would have been fine with the idea of taking the ball out of his hands if there was anyone to give it to. He even eludes to that by mentioning giving the ball to Bill Cartwright with time running out. As far as Stackhouse, he was a high USG, extremely low efficiency nobody with the ego of a star. Of course he was bitter that a 40 year old MJ was better than him. Doug Collins was the coach in Washington(MJ got him hired), so maybe there's something to MJ wanting to get his boy in to get himself going. Were talking about one of the worst teams in the league, MJ could have easily gone on to reunite with Phil and be the 3rd wheel of a Lakers b2b championship team before retiring for good, but he joined one of the worst teams in the league in hopes of becoming part owner. So keep in mind that he's one of the only real major changes from the previous season and read this well reasearched part about MJ in Washington at that age: http://nobodytouchesjordan.blogspot.com/2015/05/section-20-michael-jordans-wizards-years.html http://nobodytouchesjordan.blogspot.com/2014/09/section-2-how-washed-up-jordan-did.html
Oh, im not saying he wasn't flawed. I'm saying a flawed MJ could give a HOF stacked team that much trouble with barely any help, and i'm asking how anyone could think even flawed MJ couldn't get past Detroit if he had just 1 or 2 all star teammates on his team? The 2nd ring, the Pistons were a 63 win team at the top of their powers. They swept the Celtics in the 1st rnd, swept the Bucks, and swept Magic/Worthy/Kareem/Coop in the Finals. Their only 2 losses coming to flawed MJ with no help who was up 2-1 before those "Jordan Rules" who people like to make it "technical" to show MJ's flaws, but was really just prison ball. Of course the Pistons would make it sound professional, but their only gameplan was to beat the **** out of him and get away with it. Craig Hodges the 2nd leading Bulls scorer with 12ppg that series.
Lol, that’s it? Man please. EVERY YEAR JORDAN WON HIS TEAM HAD THE MOST TALENT COMPARED TO HIS OPPONENTS! Pippen was arguably as good as the top option for most of his playoff opponents. The Bulls were so good Jordan retired and they still almost went to the Conf Finals. Then they added a third HOF player to the team, that was only on thin ice due to his behavior, but still got opportunities due to his immense talent. When Jordan didn’t have the best team in 95, he lost.
He had Pippen when he gave Detroit trouble. That’s not barely any help. The team switched from a system that let Jordan shoot as much as he wanted to one that got others....the exact same talent....more involved. The documentary even highlights that. The game where they show him constantly driving and kicking it Paxson....that wasn’t Paxson’s first year on the team. He didn’t just learn how to shoot that season. In the past his star wasn’t as willing to come off the ball. We gotta let these mythical Jordan myths die.
Another well put together research pointing out a lot of my feelings on Kareem's "GOAT" status. Hakeem is better. http://nobodytouchesjordan.blogspot.com/2015/01/section-17-jordan-and-hakeem-vs-kareem.html
That was just to illustrate Phil's ability to see the court. Paxson averaged more ppg several seasons before that as MJ's pg. He averaged his career high whopping 11ppg and career high 5.7apg back in 87 when MJ was averaging 37ppg. Paxson's career high 11ppg was the 3rd highest scorer on the team.
