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Message: [QUOTE="Dogdeacon, post: 4154571, member: 1026"] C'mon this is silly. One can certainly make a case against Bill Russell's championships as there are quantitative statistical reasons (fewer teams/players/drafting rules), this reasoning is largely subjective (despite ironically starting with analytics?!). [B]Analytics[/B] - Should no titles prior to 2017 or so count & we assess the current analytics as definitely best ever? Competition is competition - everyone uses their best edge & analytics have not made perennial suckless teams like Sacto any better. [B]Zone[/B] - I see your Zone and raise you Hand-Checking [B]Expansion[/B] - Shaq made the finals in his only 4 years in Orlando and then multiple titles with Lakers, putting Shaq on the 90's Suns doesn't create more titles for him & Shaq served a shorter apprenticeship on crappy teams than Jordan endured. Mourning is a strange anecdotal choice as well, facts are those expansion teams were given crappy draft picks so you can't cite Big Country's Vancouver teams diluting the league. Early expansion teams were really terrible & all finished bottom of league with very little talent on their rosters (hence Zo rare elite player found). Jordan burned 6yrs in the league on a pretty crappy bulls team (esp 1st 3 seasons <.500), If you put Jordan on Houston or Portland instead of the Bulls he probably wins 9 titles. [B]European Invasion[/B] - Jordan very arguably CREATED the worldwide popularity of basketball so you don't get to ding him for it. [B]Analytics Part Deux[/B] - the best way to view players historically is to analyze them vs their peers. Paradoxically, at times is also used as an argument against Jordan b/c he had no peers and was statistically so much better than everyone else. It is way more logical to assume that happens regardless of the era of Michael Jordan. [/QUOTE]

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