People forget that Jordan never had to face peak Olajuwon in the Finals because he was suspended for gambling.
NBA Playoff Megathread
- Thread starter Gladstone
- Start date
allpurpleallgold
New Fish
This has gotten stupid. MJ and Lebron both had a ton of help. Doesn’t take away from their greatness.
Gladstone
New Fish
"Despite being underdogs to the heavily-favored Warriors in round two, he believes the Pels are going to shock some folks. "We know we can beat them. We've done it in the regular season, and we've been in every game that we've lost," Davis said. "We know we're a good matchup against these guys and we've got a lot of confidence in ourselves.""
Tequilla
Active poster
Seriously, what did he do without Jordan?
Lost in the 2nd round to New York in '94.
Part of one of the biggest choke jobs in NBA Playoff history with Portland in '00 blowing a 15 point 4th quarter lead to the Lakers ... after that his Blazers team did NOTHING the rest of his career there.
Let's be 100% clear here ... the Bulls with Jordan in '94 win another title. Without Jordan, they lost in the 2nd round. With Jordan (full seasons) they won 6 straight titles with only 2 of their 24 series during that time period went the distance.
Jordan's dominance is only compared in the history of the NBA to what Bill Russell accomplished.
Akeem only played in the NBA for two seasons?
The point is that video is food for thought. 4 straight years of making runs to the Finals and playing a very good Rockets team would not have been a gimme for Jordan. This is where credit is due to LeBron. Staying power greater than anyone in history.
Tequilla
Active poster
I'll give LBJ credit for making it to a number of different Finals ... that being said he's also benefiting from greater nutrition, therapy, etc. knowledge than what was in place 25-30 years ago. One thing that I think needs to be said about LBJ with respect to his "staying power" is that he's often used the regular season to rest and cover some of the energy needed for these long seasons. In his 15 year NBA career, he's played 78 or more games in a season only 7 times. In contrast, Jordan did so 11 of his 13 seasons with the Bulls (only times he didn't was when he broke his foot early in his career and when he came back mid-season in '95) as well as playing 82 games at the age of 39 playing 37 minutes per night.
I would have loved to see Jordan's Bulls play against peak Hakeem ... there's no question that that would have been the most difficult challenge for the Bulls. That being said, how many times did Jordan's Bulls beat Ewing in the Playoffs? We all remember aging Ewing but a lot of those battles against New York came relatively earlier in Ewing's career before his knees really started going down south.
Honestly, the only thing that could stop Jordan was if you took his supporting crew out of the picture. The supporting cast wasn't quite ready for prime time in those early series with Detroit. Once they got there you couldn't stop Jordan.
BaldwinIV
New Fish
It's like you took some ~2009ish Kobe fanboy, beat him in the head with a brick until he was functionally retarded, waterboarded him 500 times, castrated him, and then asked him his opinion on LeBron. I find it hard to believe people are this stupid. And I'm a Tequilla fan when he isn't talking about basketball but holy shit. You've lost me permanently. Maybe stop while you're behind.
CuntWaffle
New Fish
Adam Silver made the call to the refs when Oladipo was starting the comeback.