Micheal Jordan Denial

Generations move ahead, humanity is supposed to be turning smarter as the years go by and yet the same "if the X legend played/existed today, he'd be nothing special" stuff lingers on. Maybe (with Jordan) to a smaller degree than with others like Wilt/Russell, due to the abundance of footage after the 70's, but it does. Based on this logic, of course, the only "lucky" generation of viewers will be the ones before the economic (if not total) destruction of the world/the NBA.
On the other hand, though, I disagree with this:

[QUOTE]Michael Jordan will always be the greatest in Basketball
Babe Ruth will always be the greatest in Baseball
Wayne Gretzky will always be the greatest in Hockey
Ali will always be the greatest in Boxing[/QUOTE]

Apart from the fact that certain people have their objections with some of these choices, things aren't so romantic and simple, anyway. If "X will be forever the GOAT in his sport", well, this sport should better sooner or later disband, because no great player plays to become the #2 GOAT [B]at best[/B]. If they were to know the future that easily, they'd pick another sport or move to another league...

[QUOTE=dejordan]funniest thing about these threads, which pop up all the time, is:

A - the overwhelming evidence that jordan at least has an equal argument to anybody else for goat being ignored by young posters who didn't really watch him using theories that they've concocted that fly in the face of every top sports analyst of the last decade, as though nobody on the planet is as smart as their 13 year old ass.

B - the bizarre way that it's almost always lakers fan who side against mike - and not kobe fans really, but honest to god lakers fans. magic fans especially. which is fine, but odd. i almost never hear celtics fan toting bird or russell or phili fans on wilt.

anyway. even if you never saw him play a game, if 10 scoring titles, 6 finals mvps, 9 all-d teams, and one title for every season in which he played with another all-star doesn't at least merit consideration against anybody else you can think of, then you're just being obtuse. i wholeheartedly agree with really looking into your selection as deeply as possible and not just riding the popular wave to a conculsion, but writing off the accepted goat because you want to be different is just as stupid as accepting him because you want to fit in.[/QUOTE]

I've said B for the longest. I'm sure if you were to take a count of the posters that try to side against Mike, it will overwhelmingly be Laker fans. For some, I think they don't want to admit he was better than Magic and others are Kobe fanatics. Whatever the case, Laker fans really seem to have it in for Jordan at a rate much higher than fans of any other team.

* Most Three Point Field Goals Attempted in a Game, none made

* 11 by Antoine Walker vs. the Philadelphia 76ers on December 17, 2001

/thread

[QUOTE=SHEED_ gangsta]Isiah Rider (Jordan's student) was better than MJ if he did'nt mess up his carrer he'd be at an insane level right now[/QUOTE]

:wtf:

[QUOTE]B - the bizarre way that it's almost always lakers fan who side against mike - and not kobe fans really, but honest to god lakers fans. magic fans especially. which is fine, but odd. i almost never hear celtics fan toting bird or russell or phili fans on wilt.[/QUOTE]

Well, the main explanations, in short, are:

1) Some are young Kobe fans, with all the consequences.
2) The Lakers are one of the 2 most storied teams ever and 4-5 of the 10 greatest players ever played for them, even though some didn't spend their whole careers there. The Celtics, for all their titles, have "only" 2 such players. The only other team which has a case for more such players than one is Philadelphia, if you consider Dr.J top-10 ever.
3) One of the Celtics' 2 players is Bill Russell, who often gets accolades like "greatest winner ever" or "greatest team player ever", but his scoring and the fact that a good deal of fans don't respect his era get him only modest "greatest player ever" votes.

And an objection:

Quite contrary to some, I don't see more Magic fans calling Magic the GOAT than Bird ones. Go to Youtube videos' comments, Larry Bird tributes' comments, or comments in other sites like rateitall.com and you'll see a lot of [B]very [/B]high Bird praise, moreso than Magic, imo.

[QUOTE=clayton]I kinda agree with the "[B]right time right place[/B]".

Who knows what will happen if our current SG Stars get a chance to play back 15 years ago, surrounded by a supporting cast such as the Bulls with modernized atheletic move sets.[/QUOTE]


I disagree.the current SG/SF's in the NBA have inflated stats because you can no longer touch these guys on the perimeter,hence the inflated FT's numbers.Jordon would average 40ppg easily in todays league

[QUOTE=kgisbigticket]Not only that, but MJ could win titles without a dominant big man because MJ had the efficiency of a dominant big man. In fact, his effiency was greater than Shaq and Wilt as indicated by him having the highest PER.

[url]http://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/PER_career.html[/url]

1 Michael Jordan 27.91
2 Shaquille O'Neal 27.63
3 David Robinson 26.18
4 Wilt Chamberlain* 26.13
5 Bob Pettit* 25.34
6 Tim Duncan 25.17
7 Charles Barkley* 24.63
8 Neil Johnston* 24.62
9 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar* 24.58


Your Top 9 are all big men except MJ. Just goes to show how good he really was.[/QUOTE]

great post:rockon:

[QUOTE=Phenomenon]I heard numerous times Magic Johnson telling to Larry Bird that he's the greatest player he's ever seen. I guess it's out of respect for their rival, and him picking Jordan is his un-bias opinion. Fair enough.
[/QUOTE]

Here goes one...

[quote]Even contemporaneous superstars recognized the unparalleled position of Jordan. [b]Magic Johnson said, "There's Michael Jordan and then there is the rest of us."[/b] Larry Bird, following a playoff game where Jordan dropped 63 points on the Boston Celtics in just his second season, appraisal of the young player was: "God disguised as Michael Jordan.[/quote]

[url]http://www.nba.com/history/players/jordan_bio.html[/url]

An interesting article with all time greats prasing MJ..

[b][i] Michael Jordan Retires - Praise from his peers - Monday February 01, 1999 03:52 PM[/i][/b]

[url]http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/1999/jordan_retires/news/1999/01/13/jordan_greatest/[/url]

[I]In NBA, how a few tweaks became a scoring extravaganza[/I]
Published: MONDAY, MAY 16, 2005

[url]http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/15/sports/POINTS.php[/url]

[quote]The new defensive rules went into effect for the 2001-2 season. Two years later, the league's offense bottomed out, with a .421 field-goal percentage and an average combined score of 176.1 points a game. That was not the result anyone wanted, but in the NBA, evolution is slow.

Coaches needed time to teach zone defense, and players needed time to learn how to play it. They also needed to learn how to attack zones, through better ball and player movement.[/quote]

[I]NBA teams scoring less than ever, and the Nuggets are the worst offenders[/I]
Monday, February 24, 2003

[quote]Ten years ago, 25 of the NBA's 27 teams averaged 100 points or more per game. This season, three of the league's 29 teams average 100-plus. The image of athletic stars soaring to the hoop often gives way to the reality of players walking the ball upcourt and clanging shots off the rim.[/quote]

[quote][B]TOLBERT'S RANT[/B]
For all the talk about Detroit's Bad Boys making defense fashionable in the late 1980s, the Houston Rockets also changed the landscape. The Rockets won back-to-back championships largely by slowing down their offense and dumping the ball into Hakeem Olajuwon, who either shot or kicked the ball back out for a 3-pointer.

In other words, Houston's offense seldom involved more than two players. As teams around the league began to mimic the Rockets, by Tolbert's thinking, the game slowed and the number of shots taken dropped.

RISE IN 3-POINT ATTEMPTS

This decrease coincided with a rise in 3-point shot attempts, as more and more teams let fly from long range. As Tolbert put it, the bottom line consists of worse shots, worse shooters, fewer shots and better defense.

ZONE'S EFFECT

The most controversial rule change allowed NBA teams to play zone defense. Colangelo expected the zone to encourage teams to run fastbreaks and involve more players in the halfcourt offense, because defenses more easily could double-team the top threats.[/quote]

[I]Four Years Later, N.B.A. Sees the Points[/I]
May 13, 2005

[quote]It was deliberate and it was planned, through a series of often unwelcome rules changes and rules emphases, aided by an influx of new talent on the court and, finally, abetted by coaches who saw no choice but to adapt.

This is the game the N.B.A. wanted when it overhauled its defensive rules four years ago. It just needed several more tweaks and some fine tuning to get it here.[/quote]

[QUOTE=Diesel J]An interesting article with all time greats prasing MJ..

[b][i] Michael Jordan Retires - Praise from his peers - Monday February 01, 1999 03:52 PM[/i][/b]

[url]http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/1999/jordan_retires/news/1999/01/13/jordan_greatest/[/url][/QUOTE]
wow, some high praise from some great players.

[B]Patrick Ewing[/B]
"All I can speak for is people in my era, and from what I've seen, he's definitely the greatest. Unfortunately, I didn't have an opportunity to see Bill, Wilt or Oscar or some of the other guys. But based upon what I've seen, definitely.

[B]Magic Johnson[/B]
"He's an icon, a one-man show. He's won one more championship than I did. He'll be rubbing it in my face for eternity. I was hoping he would stay just one more year to help these young NBA players learn how to be a true professional."

[B]Bob Cousy[/B]
"He's by far the best since Naismith hung up the basket. He touches every base. He could play three, maybe four positions and maybe even center, too. He has no discernible weakness. The keys to basketball, despite the emphasis on big men, is still speed and quickness. He has them in abundance. When I jumped as high as I could, I got to the bottom of the net. When he jumps as high as he can, he's over the backboard. He's the best, without question."

[B]Elgin Baylor[/B]
"Not only do I admire Jordan's accomplishments and his phenomenal basketball ability, but also the way he has conducted himself on and off the court. I don't think there will ever be another player to have the same impact on the game of basketball as Michael Jordan. If you look up the definition of greatness in the dictionary, it will say Michael Jordan."

[B]Shaquille O'Neal[/B]
"Michael's definitely the best basketball player of all time. He's the greatest offensive weapon to ever play, and probably the best defensive player we've ever seen."

[B]Bill Walton[/B]
"He has no peers but Michael Jordan. He competes against himself. That's the level he's taken it to."

[B]Isiah Thomas[/B]
"From all the players I have seen and played against, he's definitely the best player ever. A lot of people like to argue this guy was better or this guy was better. But every player you think of there was some weaknesses and deficiencies in their game. He has the complete package in all facets of his offensive game, and when you break him down defensively, he's also the best defensive player in the game. ... He should be remembered as the greatest of all time."


and that's just a few

The thing is no matter how good Michael Jordan was, eventually someone will surpass in the media and game's eyes (and a lot sooner than any of us think) whether or not that player is actually better than Jordan, because in time all things in the past get pushed aside for something new. It could be Lebron, it could be Durant, it could be a number of different players. He won't always be viewed as the greatest to ever play the game by the majority. The only pure thing you can say about Jordan is that he was the best of his generation and even then that will eventually be questioned (although he has the benefit of no other patheon level player playing during his era). Ultimately you have no idea how he would match up with players like Chamberlain, Russell, Jabbar, Erving, Bird, and Magic, it's all just speculation and in a few years (less than a decade I bet) a player is going be coined as the greatest of all time and Jordan will by and large be pushed aside because that's how it always works.

[QUOTE=steve] He won't always be viewed as the greatest to ever play the game by the majority. .[/QUOTE]
maybe 20-30 years from now when the new kids coming up didn't witness him first hand. But even then, there would still be people around to put them in their place. And it will always be generally understood, no matter who passes him statistically, nobody will ever do for the game what Jordan did.

MJ practiced today with the Bobcats and judging from this picture, he's still schooling everybody...

Fixed: Kobe to MJ HAHA!!

[img]http://www.nba.com/media/bobcats/jordan_inside_071218.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=gencbiba]Kobe practiced today with the Bobcats and judging from this picture, he's still schooling everybody...

[img]http://www.nba.com/media/bobcats/jordan_inside_071218.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
That's Kobe?:oldlol: