What has Jordan achieved without Pippen?

[IAMZOOTED2]

Breaking news: you need more than one good player to win a team sport played 5 on 5.

It's well know OP that Jordan won titles with well above average supporting casts. It's also well known that Michael Jordan was a tremendous basketball player well before the Bulls had the roster improved around him.

Anyone who uses teammates to diminish another player has a fundamental lack of understanding of basketball and team sports in general.

This is a mic drop reply. I’m one of the biggest Pippen stans here, but let’s not act like Scotty was dropping 30- and 40-pieces like Michael

[prophet_of_rage]

To answer your absurdly reductionist question: zero times in three seasons.

To provide a bit more context to the answer to that absurdly reductionist question:

23 year-old Jordan in his third season put 35.7/7.0/6.0/2.0/2.3 on 40/40/90 against a team that lost in 6 in the NBA Finals.

22 year-old Jordan in his second season put 43.7/6.3/5.7/2.3/1.3 on 51/100/87 against a team that coasted to 67 wins and won the NBA championship.

21 year-old Jordan in his rookie season put 29.3/5.8/8.5/2.8/1.0 on 44/13/83 against the first or second-ranked defense in the league while being guarded primarily by a player who has just won back-to-back DPoY's.

The ten games you've chosen to tear Jordan down only do the opposite: they actually served as a teeny tiny piece of the immense body of work supporting his case as Greatest of All-Time. Thanks for calling everyone's attention to those games!

Cool story, but MJ still took the L.

This is the same thing LeBron gets criticized for. when he puts up monster numbers and lose in the finals he gets villified.

But MJ putting up monster numbers and getting swept in the first round is glorified.

OP had valid points and they're just simple facts.
MJ did nothing without Pip.
Pip made it past first round at least without MJ.

Feel bad for Pippen. Since everyone seem to forget how good he is.
MJ was playing with top 5 player in the game. And at any given game bulls had the 2 best players on the court or at least 2 of the 3 best players. But everyone always make it seem like MJ took gardeners and plumbers to finals.

At what point was Scottie Pippen ever a top 5 player in the league?

MJ, Magic, Barkley, D-Rob, Shaq, Ewing, Hakeem, Malone... this is just naming a few. Pippen had an argument for top 10-15 for sure. But he was never top 5. No need to prop him up to make an argument.

When he was named first team All-NBA

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[KodiakBear]

Breaking news: you need more than one good player to win a team sport played 5 on 5.

It's well know OP that Jordan won titles with well above average supporting casts. It's also well known that Michael Jordan was a tremendous basketball player well before the Bulls had the roster improved around him.

Anyone who uses teammates to diminish another player has a fundamental lack of understanding of basketball and team sports in general.

This is a mic drop reply. I’m one of the biggest Pippen stans here, but let’s not act like Scotty was dropping 30- and 40-pieces like Michael

And it is all so stupid. Is the only way you can be great if you don't have any good teammates? Of course Jordan wouldn't have won 6 titles in the 90s if you put him on the Clippers during that time. Jordan was great, he had a superstar teammate and other good players that allowed him to win 6 titles if he played at an elite level.

[bronxknicksfan1]

Cool story, but MJ still took the L.

This is the same thing LeBron gets criticized for. when he puts up monster numbers and lose in the finals he gets villified.

But MJ putting up monster numbers and getting swept in the first round is glorified.

OP had valid points and they're just simple facts.
MJ did nothing without Pip.
Pip made it past first round at least without MJ.

Feel bad for Pippen. Since everyone seem to forget how good he is.
MJ was playing with top 5 player in the game. And at any given game bulls had the 2 best players on the court or at least 2 of the 3 best players. But everyone always make it seem like MJ took gardeners and plumbers to finals.

At what point was Scottie Pippen ever a top 5 player in the league?

MJ, Magic, Barkley, D-Rob, Shaq, Ewing, Hakeem, Malone... this is just naming a few. Pippen had an argument for top 10-15 for sure. But he was never top 5. No need to prop him up to make an argument.

When he was named first team All-NBA

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Spree was a top 5 player in 94?

[scrabbarista]

If people had the sense not to reply to ridiculous threads like this, they'd die as soon as they're posted.

Setting aside the issue of (mostly, people who weren't around to see him play) artificially propping up Pippen, the really silly part about the thread's title is that MJ only played two full seasons before Pippen joined the Bulls. What was he supposed to do in two seasons? Win MVP? He finished second to 1987 Magic Johnson. Beat the 67 win Celtics in his second year in the league - by himself? He averaged 44/6/6/2/1 against them on 51/100/87 splits.

The question in the title is basically asking, "What did Jordan accomplish? But let's not talk about when he was ages 24-37."

It's absurd.

To answer the question:

All you need to know about Jordan's first three seasons is that his supporting cast was so weak that he finished 2nd in MVP while on a team with a losing record.

Jordan put up 36/6/7/2/2 in the playoffs those three seasons while losing to teams that won an average of 26 more games than the Bulls in the regular season.

[Lalouie]

A bunch of first round exits...and let's not forget at Age 33 he needed Dennis Rodman who was another Freak of Nature and HOFer to win and let's not forget his stint with the Wizards which didn't even made the playoffs.

With that said basing on the narrative here.. Can we compare MJ to AD since they basically didn't achieve anything before being paired with another all time great?

Or is Jordan immune from that kind of narrative?

only one player carried a team if that's the route you are taking.

bill russell made all his teammates hof'ers

there aren't many players who can make this boast of even one or two players. magic made worthy. imo, it's very hard to parse whether a players actually made a teammate an hof'er in the way that russell or magic did. did parrish mchale, scottie, johnson, ginobili, parker benefit or was that more of a collective thing? hard to say

[prophet_of_rage]

At what point was Scottie Pippen ever a top 5 player in the league?

MJ, Magic, Barkley, D-Rob, Shaq, Ewing, Hakeem, Malone... this is just naming a few. Pippen had an argument for top 10-15 for sure. But he was never top 5. No need to prop him up to make an argument.

When he was named first team All-NBA

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Spree was a top 5 player in 94?

Yes he was. Check his numbers. And he was voted All NBA. He was the best 2 guard in the league.

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[bronxknicksfan1]

When he was named first team All-NBA

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Spree was a top 5 player in 94?

Yes he was. Check his numbers. And he was voted All NBA. He was the best 2 guard in the league.

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Barkley, D-Rob and Shaq all made All NBA teams that year too. And I’d argue that Kevin Johnson was better than Spree that year too. Shawn Kemp too. This is just from All NBA teams.

[Prokorov]

[chrbal]

A bunch of first round exits...and let's not forget at Age 33 he needed Dennis Rodman who was another Freak of Nature and HOFer to win and let's not forget his stint with the Wizards which didn't even made the playoffs.

With that said basing on the narrative here.. Can we compare MJ to AD since they basically didn't achieve anything before being paired with another all time great?

Or is Jordan immune from that kind of narrative?

Because wade, bosh, Irving, love, and Davis are all pure garbage?

[spikeslovechild]

Lebron has probably the easiest Championship run since Russell.