greatest basketball player

Originally posted by TheBloop
Jordan played 5 seasons in the NBA without Scottie Pippen as a teammate.

All five teams had losing records.

Jordan also never made it out of the first round of the playoffs without Scottie Pippen, and missed the playoffs twice.

The Bulls never received any recognition as a good defensive team until AFTER the arrival of Scottie Pippen and Horace Gra ...[text shortened]... n, Jordan is nothing more than an bald-headed Dominique Wilkins.

Talk about intellectual dishonesty.

Pippen left for teams that were ALREADY great. He was always playing second-fiddle to someone and his petulance and arrogance (i.e. the Kukoc incident) led him to have problems with coaches (Phil Jackson) and team-mates (Olajuwon).

Originally posted by Palynka
Talk about intellectual dishonesty.

Pippen left for teams that were ALREADY great. He was always playing second-fiddle to someone and his petulance and arrogance (i.e. the Kukoc incident) led him to have problems with coaches (Phil Jackson) and team-mates (Olajuwon).

Nothing dishonest at all about what i said. If you'd care to dispute any facts i outlined, feel free, I'm listening.

Pippen left for teams that were "already great"... so what? Fact is, Pippen made the all defensive team without Jordan, Jordan never made it without Pippen. You'd think an all time great like Michael could have at least made it once on his own, without having another top-50 player as a teammate.

The first Bulls championship was won because Phil Jackson had the guts to basically admit that Michael Jordan couldnt handle Magic Johnson.

Besides, as I said, Pippen still made the all defensive team no matter where he was... and the Bulls did pretty well with just him when Jordan retired after the 93 season. As I mentioned, Pippen made all-stars out of Grant and Armstrong, who played a combined 28 years in the NBA and only made the all star team one time each.

Even Jordan's presence on the 92 Dream Team was overstated in terms of its impact....JORDAN WAS THE ONLY MEMBER OF THE TEAM (other than Christian Laettner, who doesn't count because he shouldn't have been there in the first place) who shot under 50% from the field.

Here are the FG percentages for the Dream Team players in the 92 Olympics:

Barkley .711
Malone .645
Ewing .623
Mullin .619
Pippen .596
Drexler .578
Robinson .574
Johnson .567
Bird .521
Stockton .500

Jordan and Laettner were the sole members of the "UNDER .500 " club

JORDAN .451 (includling .211(!) from 3 pt land )
Laettner .450

Jordan missed by 1 percentage point of being the WORST shooter on the entire teamA, beating LAETTNER by .001!!

That team would have been the most dominant in Olympic history had Jordan not been such a ball hog...he was the only player on the team to take more than 100 shots (113, Barkley was 2nd with 83 FGA, except Barkley made most of them). (Russell's 1956 team was the most dominant in Olympic history, in terms of avg. margin of victory).

Not that the Olympics are the sole measuring stick of a player, but Jordan was the worst NBA player on that team, in terms of his performance in the games themselves.

Jordan was the best player of the 90s, but that's as far as it goes with him.


Yeah, i know all about the "Kukoc incident". One play in 16 years... Can I use a potential game-winning shot that Jordan missed in order to prove that he wasn't good in the clutch? (Game One, 1991 finals, missed the 12 foot buzzer beater with the Bulls down by one, just to name one)



Pippen left for teams that were "already great"... so what? The BULLS were not even a winning team with Jordan until after Pippen (and Grant) got there. Did it take Bill Russell 4 years to finally lead his team to a winning record, as it took Jordan? Did it take Wilt 4 years? Jabbar? Bird?

In the time it took Jordan (4 years)just to lead his team to a .500 season, Bill Russell won 3 NBA titles.

And Pippen still made the all defensive team no matter where he was... and the Bulls did pretty well with just him when Jordan retired after the 93 season. As I mentioned, Pippen made all-stars out of Grant and Armstrong, who played a combined 28 years in the NBA and only made the all star team one time each...and they did it despite the fact that Jordan wasn't around to "make them better".


I agree with you that it's really just about impossible to pick one player as definitively "the best"... however, I think it has to be either Wilt or Russell...

In fact, it's interesting to me that the NBA is really the only league that tries to promote one player as being better than all the rest who ever played the game... Jordan is David Stern's boy, no question about it!

Wilt and Russell played against each other 142 times in 10 seasons, including playoffs...in those 142 games, Wilt scored exactly as many points as he had rebounds, averaged 28+ of each per game against Russell... Russell averaged about 14 and 23 against Wilt. Awesome battles!

But Jordan was most certainly NOT the geatest player ever... if you follow the money in terms of how much advertising revenue ESPN has received from NIKE over the last 20+ years, it's easy to see why ESPN picked Jordan as "the greatest athlete of the 20th century" (incidentally, without announcing any sort of criteria for thier evaluations). Follow the money! 🙂


Russell would be a much better choice as the best player ever instead of Jordan.


Bill Russell was 10-0 in game 7s (plus, he also won a game 5 of a best-of-five series)... you don't get much better than that.


Bill Russell in game 7s (he averaged 14 pts and 22 reb/game in his reg season career):

57 NBA Finals - 19 pts 32 rebounds

59 East Finals - 18 pts 32 rebounds

60 NBA Finals - 22 pts 35 rebounds (Russell's eye was hemorrhaging in this game, result of getting hit... but hey, let's not forget, Jordan played with the sniffles one time)

62 East finals - 19 pts, don't have rebound number (this was against Wilt..he also held Wilt to 22 pts, after Wilt averaged 50 ppg during the regular season)

62 NBA finals - 30 pts 40 rebounds (THE GREATEST PLAYOFF PERFORMANCE IN HISTORY...THIRTY POINTS, FORTY REBOUNDS in GAME SEVEN)...

63 East finals - 20 pts, don't have rebound number

65 East finals - 15 pts 29 rebounds 9 assists (against Wilt... this was the "Havlicek stole the ball" game)

66 NBA finals - 25 pts 32 rebounds (OK, this is getting silly now!)

68 East finals - 12 pts, held Wilt to 14. Also chipped in 26 rebounds

69 NBA finals - 21 rebounds vs. Wilt...won his 11th title in a 13 year NBA career... that was his final game


When the championship was on the line, Russell had no equal.

Yes, Wilt lost a lot of playoff series to Russell and the Celtics... but Wilt beat the Celtics one time, in 1967...and that's once more than anyone else was able to do during the decade of the 60s.

Russell was 11-1 in NBA finals, losing in 1958 (six games) after breaking his ankle (and still playing)... Jordan's considered an iron man because he played a playoff game with the flu one time (as if that's never happened before... again, Jordan, maximum hype-age.. gets the sniffles, "Oh my God how can he play like that???"😉.

Plus, guys like Wilt and Russell would give you 48 min/game.

Wilt averaged 48.5 min/game in 1962, sitting out only EIGHT MINUTES of the ENTIRE SEASON (but playing all overtime minutes in something like 7 overtime games).

Comparing Wilt to Jordan, unless you only consider free throws, Wilt would dominate Jordan in every category, even passing, as Jordan never led the league in assits (which Wilt did, becoming the only non-guard ever to do so).

Also, Wilt and Russell didn't compile their numbers in a league full of high school players.

In addition, when you consider what Russell had to put up with, racially, in Boston in the 1960s, Jordan never could have survived in that environment.


btw, it was JORDAN who objected to the triangle offense, not Pippen, because he knew it would take shots away from him. Jordan was always about his own numbers.

Originally posted by TheBloop
Nothing dishonest at all about what i said. If you'd care to dispute any facts i outlined, feel free, I'm listening.

Pippen left for teams that were "already great"... so what? Fact is, Pippen made the all defensive team without Jordan, Jordan never made it without Pippen. You'd think an all time great like Michael could have at least made it once on h way from him. Jordan was always about his own numbers.

Intellectual dishonesty comes from citing only the particular statistic that serves your point.
From giving as an example a tournament where no real competition was present.
From using correlation as causation.
From trying to prove Jordan wasn't good in the clutch from the fact he didn't make ALL of them.
From using a reverse ad populum argument.
From comparing Jordan with Chamberlain and Russell to defend your view point about Pippen.
From making speculative and unprovable claims about Jordan not being able to "survive" in a racist environment.

That is why all your arguments are intellectually dishonest.

Originally posted by Palynka
Intellectual dishonesty comes from citing only the particular statistic that serves your point.
From giving as an example a tournament where no real competition was present.
From using correlation as causation.
From trying to prove Jordan wasn't good in the clutch from the fact he didn't make ALL of them.
From using a reverse ad populum argument.
From c ve" in a racist environment.

That is why all your arguments are intellectually dishonest.

OK, fine...but it's ok to use the Kukoc incident as proof that Pippen was overrated (one play in a 16 year career)...

then what's your reasoning for referring to Scottie Pippen as the most overrated player ever? (in your first post here)

Based on what Scottie was able to do without Michael vs. what Michael was UNable to do without Scottie (e.g. play for an above-.500 team) how is Pippen THE most overrated player EVER?

Why would you consider Pippen to be more overrated than, e.g. Shawn Kemp?

It is really difficult to argue who is the most overrated player ever because even if we can agree on actual ratings it is hard to agree on perceived ratings. Shawn Kemp is a good example of player who pretty much wasted his talent but I think most people recognize that therefore he isn't overrated.

Originally posted by myteamtrulystinks
It is really difficult to argue who is the most overrated player ever because even if we can agree on actual ratings it is hard to agree on perceived ratings. Shawn Kemp is a good example of player who pretty much wasted his talent but I think most people recognize that therefore he isn't overrated.

Yes, you're correct, and excellent point about Shawn Kemp...

I always considered Kemp to be overrated because he relied totally on his overwhelming physical talent as opposed to actually learning how to play basketball... but you're right, in his case, it's more of an example of wasted talent and potential as opposed to solely being overrated...

A lot of fans did in fact like Kemp because of his monster dunks... to me, that was never a criteria for judging a player and i was never really impressed with him. That's kind of why I considered him to belong in the overrated category. He came out of high school to the NBA (through a circuitous route) and never really learned how to play the game.

But I think that Pippen was a very underrated player because when the facts of his and Michael's career were in, I think that he was able to do much more on his own than Jordan ever was. Together, they formed one of the all time great duos, but it's ridiculous to suggest that Jordan "made" him, or that he was "nothing" without Michael. Scottie was one of the greatest defensive players ever at any position, in addition to being a great ball handler, passer and playmaker.

In 1995, without Jordan around, Pippen became just the 2nd player in NBA history (actually, the 2nd since blocks and steals were official stats in 1974) to lead his team in scoring, rebounding, assists, steals and blocks... (Dave Cowens was the other)... the guy simply did it all.

Just food for thought, but could it be said that the quality of opposition that played against Wilt and Russell in the infant NBA was low or below average compared to latter generations? If that were true, it would explain why both players were able to put up such monster numbers in the paint and on the boards. I mean I don't know if this is true or not, but when Wilt and Russell went up against each other, didn't they hold each other to more normal, but still great numbers in regards to current NBA averages?

Originally posted by TheBloop

I don't think Pippen is underrated at all, he is listed on the NBA's top-50 greatest players of all time. In regards to Jordan, I think it is unfair to detract from his greatness just because he was one of the most marketed athletes in history. Despite the advertising, Jordan continued to perform on the court until he retired; I do belief he is the only player in the history of the NBA to score 50 points at age 38 and 40 points and age 40--and both incidences he shot at or above 50%. Sure Pippen was a key member of the Bulls, but I think people considered Jordan the best player. I mean Jordan was the player that for the most part would take over the key playoff games. I don't think the Celtic series should be used against Jordan in anyway. If anything, it set the tone for Jordan's brilliant career. Just look at the facts:

* Jordan was extremely young, it was only his sophomore season. Young players aren't usually expected to score such an outrageous volume of points like MJ did.
* It was the 80's Celtics
* He averaged .505 fg% and 43.7 ppg
* 60 points win or lose, young or old is amazing in itself.

I think the most important reason why Jordan should be considered the greatest player in NBA history is that he was the first non-big man to dominate the NBA. Before him, it was mainly big men that dominated the basketball scene: Wilt, Russell, Kareem, Bird, Magic.

Originally posted by MoneyManMike
Just food for thought, but could it be said that the quality of opposition that played against Wilt and Russell in the infant NBA was low or below average compared to latter generations? If that were true, it would explain why both players were able to put up such monster numbers in the paint and on the boards. I mean I don't know if this is true or n ...[text shortened]... ey hold each other to more normal, but still great numbers in regards to current NBA averages?

Hi Money -

Yes, you raise a legitimate question. One thing i'll say in favor of the "old timers" is that, since Wilt and Russell played against each other 14x per season over ten years, that's a LOT of head to head battles... and if it wasn't Wilt that Russell was going against, it was Hall of Famer Jerry Lucas...or Hall of Famer Walt Bellamy...or Hall of Famer Willis Reed... Or Hall of Famer Wes Unseld... Or Hall of Famer Elvin Hayes... or Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes....

Yes of course, there were some non-HOFers during that time too.. but the fact that Russell (and Wilt) had to go against fewer centers more times per season, at least levels out the quality of competition argument.

The USA basketball team has gotten their heads handed to them by teams from Europe who play basketball the way we (the USA) taught them in the 50s and 60s... and they're kicking our butts with it... the next Olympics might be different, but the 2004 USA Olympic team lost as many games in the Olympics as we lost in the 20th century as a whole.

And it's not just that the rest of the world is getting better...because if the USA were ALSO getting better, it wouldn't matter WHAT the rest of the world did... we're going backward.

One interesting thing I read recently is this:

I don't know how old you are, or how long you've been watching basketball, but Mike Dunleavy (the coach, not the current day player) was a journeyman guard who played in the 70s and early 80s... absolutely nothing special about him.

When Dunleavy was coaching the Milwaukee Bucks, he regularly played one-on-one with against all of the players he coached there over the years. According to the Milwaukee Sentinel newspaper, Dunleavy was UNDEFEATED in his one-on-one matches with his players... those players included two NBA all stars, Glenn Robinson and Vin Baker.

Although admitedly anecdotal, Dunleavy's record against his players (who were 20-25 years younger than him at the time) does demonstrate one thing, to a point... that is, that the players in the NBA (as well as other sports) may be "more athletic" than the players of 1-2 generations ago, but the increasing specialization in sports makes it possible to be a profession player today without being able to do all that's required to play a great all around game... today,the NBA is full of shooting guards who can't put the ball on the floor, point guards who can't shoot, and centers who totally suck... you can count on one hand the number of NBA players who can consistently hit a 12 foot shot from the baseline. Everything's either a dunk or a 3 point attempt...because that's what gets you on Sportscenter...which is the goal of 95% of all NBA players today... forget all that crap with players whining that they want to win a ring...it's all talk... they want to see themselves on Sportscenter, hopefully as one of the "plays of the week".

With the exception of Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain played against more Hall of Fame centers than any center who ever played the game...


Hall of Famer centers against whom Wilt competed included: Bill Russell, already discussed, Kareem Abdul Jabbar (played against each other in only 3 full seasons, yet still faced each other 27 times), Bob Lanier, Bob McAdoo, Dave Cowens, Walt Bellamy, Wes Unseld, Nate Thurmond, Elvin Hayes, Jerry Lucas, Dolph Schayes, and Willis Reed.

In fact, basically the only Hall of Fame NBA centers against whom Wilt did not compete were Bill Walton, Robert Parish and Moses Malone....well, there's also George Mikan, who's career preceeded Wilt's, of course. But you get the idea... (Dan Issel played in the ABA until after Wilt retired).

And again, Wilt was going against these guys on a nightly basis... he didn't have the luxury of competing against high school players (although he would have welcomed the nights off, I'm sure).

How many centers in the NBA today are (eventual) hall of famers? Not many... there's Shaq... Tim Duncan if you want to count him as a center, but he really isn't... Ben Wallace isn't going to the Hall of Fame, and he's been a 2nd team ALL NBA selection... Alonzo Morning probably isn't, but it'll be close... Yao Ming might go because of his impact on basketball overseas, but he's not a hall of fame caliber center... whatever happened to Hall of Fame centers?

Zdrunis Ilgauskas? ugggh
Eddy Curry? puh-leeeze!

The 90s had three great centers, Ewing, Robinson and Olajuwon. Mutumbo and Morning are on the next level down (quite a ways down, actually)... they were the best Centers Shaq played against, but he only had to go against each of them 2-3 times a season, with many, many more nights off than Wilt had (in terms of the competition he faced).


But yeah, i'll totally agree that today's players are more "athletic", but being more athletic doesn't AUTOMATICALLY make you a better basketball player... Vince Carter is more athletic than Larry Bird, but...

Anyway, i see your point, hope u see mine too... thanks!

in other sports it can get debatable, but jordan was really dominant...

Originally posted by jvanhine
in other sports it can get debatable, but jordan was really dominant...

Not really.

Baseball: Babe Ruth
Football: Jim Brown

Basketball is actually the one sport that's MOST debatable as to who was the best player ever... unfortunately, it's also the sport with the most intellectually lazy fans (thanks to ESPN)... that's not a comment on you personally, so please do not take it that way! I'm talking about the average Sportscenter-watching fan who watches SC rather than the games themselves, and there are a lot of them out there!

And Jordan's dominance pales in comparison to Bill Russell's.

The fact that Jordan was able to "dominate" as a smaller player might be his best argument to be called the best ever.

Of course, the NBA , with all the expansion that went on, wasn't exactly chock-full of Hall of Fame Centers during the 90s. Nor was the league overrun with high school players until the 90s and 2000s .

Sebastian Telfair??? WTF ? The guys flat out sucks. Kwame Brown? Man, Wilt would be drooling over the possibility of playing against HIM 142 times in 10 years instead of having to go against Russell that many times.

The fact that NBA centers sucked during the 90s was not Jordan's fault... but the fact that he was able to dominate such a league speaks more of the lack of quality big men than it does of any all-time superiority on Jordan's part.

And again, I have to go back to the way the rules were changed and/or ignored in order to help Jordan's game, whereas the league was constantly legislating against Wilt and Russell' dominance.

Originally posted by MoneyManMike
Statistically, Michael Jordan is one of the best players to play the game. In 15 seasons, he won 10 scoring titles, 6 rings, 6 NBA Finals MVP, 9 time All-Defensive First Team, and 5 time MVP. So he basically dominated the league when he was around. Bird and Magic played extraordinarily well, but their list accolades doesn't quite match up with MJ. Jo ...[text shortened]... hn Stockton, Isiah Thomas, and Jason Kidd on youtube. All are great passers like Magic.

yeah that does help, thanks a lot

Originally posted by TheBloop
Nothing dishonest at all about what i said. If you'd care to dispute any facts i outlined, feel free, I'm listening.

Pippen left for teams that were "already great"... so what? Fact is, Pippen made the all defensive team without Jordan, Jordan never made it without Pippen. You'd think an all time great like Michael could have at least made it once on h ...[text shortened]... way from him. Jordan was always about his own numbers.

Dont agree with everry point . But nice to see a good argument against Jordan and Supporting Pippen.... Amazing what glazy eyes people have when Jordan is on the Floor.

NB. It amazes me how Chicago fans go on and on about their first Ring against the Lakers. Granted They won, but they seem to forget that Magic was out of most of that series due to and Injury. SO i ask those fair weather fans if the opposite had happened and Jordan had been out of the series do you think that Chicago would have won?

Originally posted by MoneyManMike
Rambis! He popularized the taped frames.

Rambis was God...

Originally posted by mochiron
Rambis was God...

For me the greatest in no particular order:

Dr. J
Kareem
Bird
Magic
Russell
Wilt

also like:

Sir Charles
Oscar Robinson
Hayes

and Team:

80's Lakers: seeing Worthy, Magic, Kareem, Scott and company run and gun... was Fun. And Worthy had the quick step round the defender..could not be beat.....