OT: Would Jordan have won 6 in a row today?

[the Q]

The answer is no because Jordan didn’t win 6 in a row.

He got pounded by the magic too.

 

[superjohn]

I seriously can’t believe anyone thinks any player would win 6 chips in a row in this era. Teams can barely win 2 in a row.

And teams hadn't won 3 in a row since 1966 until Jordan came along and Jordan most likely would've won 8 in a row. Warriors would've won 4 in a row had Draymond not gotten suspended when Lebron teabagged him.

 

[the Q]

And teams hadn't won 3 in a row since 1966 until Jordan came along and Jordan most likely would've won 8 in a row. Warriors would've won 4 in a row had Draymond not gotten suspended when Lebron teabagged him.

Or if Steph didn’t hit the popcorn vendor instead of klay getting a wide open 3.

 

[CardiacAndre7]

And teams hadn't won 3 in a row since 1966 until Jordan came along and Jordan most likely would've won 8 in a row. Warriors would've won 4 in a row had Draymond not gotten suspended when Lebron teabagged him.

You deal in what ifs too much. Draymond was suspended because it was his 4th flagrant of the playoffs, not because “LeBron teabagged him.” Not everything is LeBron’s fault, that’s called pushing buttons strategically, something MJ certainly did.

As someone said earlier, there is too much talent moving around for any team to win 6 in a row. That Warriors team is an enigma yet they only went back to back with probably the greatest team ever assembled.

 

[DayDayTFS]

They didn’t call them on Jordan anyway.

Didn’t know he played 1 v 5

 

[mauconnfan]

They didn’t call them on Jordan anyway.

Agree 2 1/2 or 3 steps back then. Now they get 4 occasionally and that 2 step back 3 by Harden is painful to watch and not be called. But again, Michael had his share.

 

[the Q]

Agree 2 1/2 or 3 steps back then. Now they get 4 occasionally and that 2 step back 3 by Harden is painful to watch and not be called. But again, Michael had his share.

It started with him. To me those extra steps made the nba hard to watch, even back then. Ok it’s a joke. And it trickles down to the lower levels because people think it’s normal.

 

[Lefty2one]

And teams hadn't won 3 in a row since 1966 until Jordan came along and Jordan most likely would've won 8 in a row. Warriors would've won 4 in a row had Draymond not gotten suspended when Lebron teabagged him.

Difficult to say if MJ would have won eight straight. Does Horace Grant leave in the summer of '94 if MJ is on the team all along? He might have, I think he wanted to get paid and wanted a bigger piece of the spotlight. That '95 team as it stood wasn't going to win it all IMO without a Grant or Rodman on the roster. I think they would have reached the Finals but HOU would have topped them. If MJ was there the whole time, Krause may have done a better job of finding a PF replacement immediately in '94 if Grant did leave.

 

[Huskyforlife]

Lebron made 8 straight finals in today's NBA why would you think that's impossible for MJ?

Get him there and then MJ's finals record speaks for itself...

Because LeBron is better...*ducks*

 

[Huskyforlife]

I'm glad to see people acknowledging all the things that broke right for MJ back then. It wasn't like he dragged a group of bums to the finals every year to play stacked rosters.

 

[huskyfan224]

Lebron is 3-6 in finals and has plenty of instances where a “GOAT” simply doesn’t do what he did. Switching off from KD with game clock winding down, settling against Barrea, getting outplayed by Jason Terry in a series, scoring 8 points in a finals game, etc..

Harden has averaged almost 40 ppg during stretches of seasons (at least mid 30s) throughout a few seasons. Jordan avg 37ppg while attempting 2 three pointers a game.

He would win 6 at least haha

 

[tzznandrew]

This tells me you know nothing about basketball. Pippen and Rodman are both hall of famers...

Pippen:
-Hall of famer
-One of the all-time great NBA SF
-3x NBA 1st team
-7x NBA all-star
-8x NBA all-defense 1st team

Rodman:
-Hall of Famer
-Arguably best NBA rebounder of all time, at least this era
-Rebounding champion 7 straight years
-2x NBA defensive POY
-2x NBA All-Star
-7x NBA all-defense 1st team

These guys would still crush it in the league today.
People complain about LeBron having a "big 3 helping get him his ring" but Jordan had a better supporting cast for all 6 title teams than LeBron ever had.

I don't think Rodman translates well. A 6'7" guy who'd essentially get tossed out all the time and would be a guy whose defender sag off of?

As good a rebounder and defender as Rodman was, he would really struggle. Everyone guarding him would essentially pack the paint. He was a net negative most years on offense, and he was guarding PFs who weren't as mobile. He was also far more physical than they allow now, and he'd absolutely get suspended way more. In a world where he's chasing mobile 4s or 5s, his rebounding comes down by necessity. And it'd be hard to play him at the 5, though you can imagine him as a Draymond-esque center. The difference there, though, is that Dray could at least keep the paint clear on the offensive end.

Pippen was obviously great. I'm less of a Pippen fan than many on the board, but I obviously think he is a great player.

 

[superjohn]

I'm glad to see people acknowledging all the things that broke right for MJ back then. It wasn't like he dragged a group of bums to the finals every year to play stacked rosters.

All the things that broke right for him?

Like breaking his foot? Like having his dad murdered and leaving the game for 2 seasons in the middle of one of the all-time dynasties when he was at the peak of his abilities? Like having his team broken up and retiring at 34 when he was still the best player in the league? Like having to go through a gauntlet in the East every season?

 

[tzznandrew]

I'm glad to see people acknowledging all the things that broke right for MJ back then. It wasn't like he dragged a group of bums to the finals every year to play stacked rosters.

I mean, once you get beyond Pippen, it's pretty grim, particularly on the offensive side. For all the talk that expansion diluted the league, it also diluted the Bulls.

 

[tzznandrew]

All the things that broke right for him?

Like breaking his foot? Like having his dad murdered and leaving the game for 2 seasons in the middle of one of the all-time dynasties when he was at the peak of his abilities? Like having his team broken up and retiring at 34 when he was still the best player in the league? Like having to go through a gauntlet in the East every season?

The West was already better and deeper than the East by 1992 or 1993, so that did benefit Jordan some. But, I mean, you want to talk about things breaking right, LeBron playing the bulk of his career in the East is definitely that. He scored a 2 seed in 2007 that would have been a 7 seed in the West. Being in the West would have at least helped his Finals record, though.

 

[Huskyforlife]

All the things that broke right for him?

Like breaking his foot? Like having his dad murdered and leaving the game for 2 seasons in the middle of one of the all-time dynasties when he was at the peak of his abilities? Like having his team broken up and retiring at 34 when he was still the best player in the league? Like having to go through a gauntlet in the East every season?

I didn't say everything went right. His father dying was obviously brutal, and he deserves all the respect for playing through that(and on fathers day sheesh).

Supposedly he left the game of his own volition, so he doesn't get a pass for that. We don't even know what would've happened if the team stayed together. The gauntlet stuff doesn't appeal to me either, the league was worse back then.

This is all to say he's definitely in the top 3 all time, but I would argue he had a lot working in his favor, compared to the other all time greats.

 

[TheChamps990411]

All excellent points - well thought out and supported with facts. When I think logically about it, there does not seem to be any way MJ could do it today. But then you watch the old games, listen to the stories, think about how Jordan is wired, and I think - I would not bet against him. He was, and is, just different. No matter what challenges were put in front of him, I believe he would have done what ever necessary to win. Think about how Bird and Magic respected him - the two of them were the kings of the league for almost a decade, and they both quickly seemed to realize, Jordan is now the king. I don't like getting into the Lebron vs. Jordan stories, athletes have evolved over the last 20 years - they are in better shape, take better care of their bodies, Lebron in particular has treated his body like a temple, yet I still believe that if MJ was in his prime today, he would have changed, done whatever necessary, to be the best. The dude is just wired different than anyone else.

Jordan if he played today would still be the best player in the league and it wouldnt be close. Sounds crazy i know but yeah he was that great. There is nothing on the court LeBron can do that MJ couldnt and do it better.

 

[TheChamps990411]

I finished the Last Dance last night. I think Jordan is still the greatest player that ever played, but there is now way he would have won 6 in 8 years in today's game. Jordan and the Bulls benefited from 4 major factors in the 90's.

1) Expansion - this is the biggest factor, by far. The NBA went from 23 teams in 1987 to 29 in 1995. The dilution in talent around the league was profound, and made it possible for a Championship team that could hold its core together and make smart supporting cast pickups to dominate. Imagine if Alonzo Mourning, Shaq, Glen Rice, Kendall Gill, Nick Anderson, Isaih Rider, Larry Johnson (in his prime), Steve Smith, Rony Seikaly, Horace Grant, Pooh Richardson, Damon Stoudamire, Marcus Camby, Walt Williams, Shareet Abdur-Rahim were all taken off expansion teams and consolidated onto the original 23 teams. Somewhere there would be a few teams that were really, really good.

It is not a coincidence that the Bulls' run starts when Charlotte started to get good and accelerated when Miami and Orlando get competitive. The expansion teams all sucked their first couple of seasons, but when they started to collect real talent, it was diluting the rest of the league, and making it easier for the Bulls to win.

2) Zone Defense - You can breakdown the NBA into pre-zone and post-zone basketball in a lot of ways. The illegal defense rules were ridiculous, and the Bulls were not the only team to benefit. The Jazz and Rockets did too. That said, if teams could help away from the ball in the 90's like they can now, Jordan would have been denied the rock a lot, and had to give up a lot more when he got it.

3) Pre-Euro - There were a handful of good foreign players at the beginning of the Bulls run (Olajuwon, Petrovic, Marcilonius, Divac, Shrempf, Smits), and even by the mid 90's there were maybe 10 that were capable of starting or contributing to a playoff team, and the Bulls had one of the best in Kukoc. Since then, Yao Ming, Dirk Nowitski and Tim Duncan are first ballot HoFers, the Spurs won 5 titles with 3 foreign players as their stars, and the Lakers won 2 titles with Pau Gasol as their second best player. Today, the best player in the NBA is from Europe, and almost every NBA team has 2-3 foreign players that are at least decent.

Europe was not churning out top talent then like it is now, and some of the best didn't make it to the states in their primes. If Arvydas Sabonis played for Portland starting in 1988 like he was supposed to, (before his knees turned to concrete, he gained 50 pounds, and consumed a few thousand liters of vodka) Portland would have won multiple titles. Sabonis in his prime with Drexler, Porter, Cliff, and Kersey would have been unstoppable.

4) Moneyball - Teams would have played Jordan differently if there were advanced analytics in the 90's, and they certainly wouldn't have left defenders on an island against Jordan for 30 possessions a game like they did then.

Are you kidding? The Easternn conference was loaded when Jordan was coming up and finally broke through. LeBron has spent a big part of his career in a weak Eastern conference.

 

[upstater]

I didn't say Pippen sucked. I said he was a very good player, akin to top players in hockey at the time playing aside Gretzky. But do I think he's a Hall of Famer if not playing alongside Jordan? Of course not.

 

[upstater]

This tells me you know nothing about basketball. Pippen and Rodman are both hall of famers...

Pippen:
-Hall of famer
-One of the all-time great NBA SF
-3x NBA 1st team
-7x NBA all-star
-8x NBA all-defense 1st team

Rodman:
-Hall of Famer
-Arguably best NBA rebounder of all time, at least this era
-Rebounding champion 7 straight years
-2x NBA defensive POY
-2x NBA All-Star
-7x NBA all-defense 1st team

These guys would still crush it in the league today.
People complain about LeBron having a "big 3 helping get him his ring" but Jordan had a better supporting cast for all 6 title teams than LeBron ever had.

This post tells me you know less than nothing about basketball.

 

[tzznandrew]

I didn't say Pippen sucked. I said he was a very good player, akin to top players in hockey at the time playing aside Gretzky. But do I think he's a Hall of Famer if not playing alongside Jordan? Of course not.

He's absolutely a Hall of Famer without Jordan. His resume speaks for itself.

That said, he's gone from underrated to overrated.

 

[UofCT]

I don't see MJ or anyone else winning six in a row in today's NBA. Too much player movement. It's still crazy to me that GSW only has three chips.

Warriors have arguably the three least impressive rings I have ever seen.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Are you kidding? The Easternn conference was loaded when Jordan was coming up and finally broke through. LeBron has spent a big part of his career in a weak Eastern conference.

Was Expansion a myth? I could have sworn 6 teams joined the NBA between 1988 and 1995.

 

[superjohn]

Game 6- 1998 Bulls Jazz is on ESPN now.

 

[Scoe]

Game 6- 1998 Bulls Jazz is on ESPN now.

This is so fascinating to watch, I gotta say I'm very unimpressed with the rest of the Bulls, Pippen wasnt himself. The Jazz did have more help this game off the bench they had Eisley, Morris and Anderson spelling minutes.