Did MJ really go against tougher competition?

[OdomFan]

Whos thougher to beat

The 97-98 jazz or the 2017 Warriors? Lmaoo

The 91 lakers with injured worthy and scott or 2008 Celtics?? LOL

The 98 Jazz who swept a Shaq led team? laugh your ass off all you want but it doesn't take anything away from how good they were.

As for worthy injuries happen but when it comes down to it the Bulls still won fair and square. Let's not make Worthy out to be this Huge superstar that would have shut the 91 Bulls down just for the sake of your agenda.

Worthy was a great player but im not trying to do that bro. Those teams I named are better than any MJ finals opponent imo

Then what are you trying to do "bro" because the fact that you're laughing off the Bulls victory just because Worthy wasn't there at full healthy pretty much convinces me that you're saying that things would have been different all because of this guy which is ridiculous.

You obviously know nothing about any of the teams Jordan faced in those Finals based on your lack there of argument.

[OdomFan]

Not in the finals he didn't. When you face 5 teams in 6 years you're facing a division with no standout team.

Wow so now you're trying to punish the 90s because the Finals didn't have the same teams year after year. That literally makes no sense.

[OdomFan]

LeBron has faced tougher competition no doubt. Spurs in 2007, 2013, and 2014, and Warriors in 2015 and 2016 were probably better than any team Jordan faced in the finals.

Jordan wouldn't have lost to the 2011 Mavericks though!

Pretty much this. 2017, 2016, 2015 Warriors for sure are better than any team Jordan ever faced , and 2014, 2013 and 2007 Spurs are all either better or tied with maybe two teams Jordan faced as the best. 2012 OKC (the team that was favored in the finals) was more talented than any team Jordan ever faced.

The 1992 Knicks took the Bulls to 7 and the 1993 Knicks were up 2-0 and choked away game 5. Those teams were +3 to + 6 SRS teams with not much offensive talent. Keep those teams exactly the same but replace Mark Jackson with 2015-2017 Curry and those Knicks knock out the Bulls in both years.

As for the Finals opponents, I would have it like this:

2017 Warriors
2016 Warriors
2015 Warriors
2014 Spurs
2013 Spurs, 1997 Jazz, 1996 Sonics
2007 Spurs
1992 Blazers, 1993 Suns
1998 Jazz
1991 Lakers

Just saying "oh this team is better than that team" without any real arguement to prove that you know anything about those teams only makes your post look foolish.

How about you explain your case on how the Warriors are soo much better than any of those teams. Because of the season record? Last I checked the Warriors didn't win 73 games in the 90s against those teams and I'd bet good money that they wouldn't accomplish that had they been there during that time.

Hows about you explain how they're just unquestionably better than the 98 Jazz, 96 Sonics, 93 Suns who had just as much talent from top to bottom and great coaching.

[NaturalThunder]

The thing about the Jordan team is. It is the best team in their era, much like Golden State Warriors now, and the only guy that could possibly guard him is Scottie Pippen which is ironically is his own team mate. During the times when Michael didn't have pippen he's just an Allen Iverson out there scoring monstrously but cannot lead his team past first round playoff. In short, without Pippen he's a plain loser. Pippen was such a force of nature that even at michael jordan's absence and abrupt retirement he would hold the fort and lead his team to the finals by himself and almost won a championship. That is because Pippen is not just the best perimeter defender the game has ever seen but he is also a very great leader.

I don't know what's more insane: the fact that this post got two and-1's or the fact that you actually posted it in the first place.

[OdomFan]

A lot of people on here clearly know nothing about MJ or the 90s era.

[Lalouie]

Not in the finals he didn't. When you face 5 teams in 6 years you're facing a division with no standout team.

Wow so now you're trying to punish the 90s because the Finals didn't have the same teams year after year. That literally makes no sense.

You do not see the big picture. In sports as in life, everything exists on a bell curve. The history of all sports is two three top teams and everyone else. There was only Ali and Frazier - there was no 3 Ali's and 4 fraziers. There was never 4 celts and 4 lakers.

In sports when you have a jockeying of SEVERAL competitors that is evidence of parity and parity is absolute mediocrity. No one in the west was good enough to rise above the others. That's lack of a truly significant adversary.

Take men's tennis. A field of 128 but you always see the same 2,3,or 4. This is true in bball as well because it is the most predictable of the team sports, reliant on a few stars to carry a team. A predictably strong final two conversely means a predictably soft final if you keep getting different teams that can't determine who's best. When you get mediocrity you get the bullets winning the ring. That's what hurt the NBA until magic and bird.

[OdomFan]

Literally none of that is correct. The Western Conference of the 1990s was so stacked and competitive that more than 1 or 2 teams were able to reach the NBA Finals throughout that decade and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

[Lalouie]

Literally none of that is correct. The Western Conference of the 1990s was so stacked and competitive that more than 1 or 2 teams were able to reach the NBA Finals throughout that decade and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I have sports history to validate me... You?

But I'll play your game. MJ didn't face a tough schedule in the east and the Bulls only had to focus on the west. And please don't say ewing and starks were worthy.

[OdomFan]

yea you don't have a clue guy.

[JGOJustin]

Haven't read the thread but there's just no way that the climate of the 90's is better than the climate of the NBA today in regards to competition. Expansion clearly diluted the overall product and the 16' and 17' warriors alone are better than at least 80% of the NBA in the 90's.

[OdomFan]

You probably should have read the thread because that's incorrect. You guys keep saying the Warriors are better than this or that team from the 90s without giving any logical explanation to show that you know anything about the teams that you're claiming these Warriors are better than and it all just makes you sound very silly.

No winning 73 games in a season does not mean that team would just run over everybody in NBA history.

[slick_watts]

You probably should have read the thread because that's incorrect. You guys keep saying the Warriors are better than this or that team from the 90s without giving any logical explanation to show that you know anything about the teams that you're claiming these Warriors are better than and it all just makes you sound very silly.

No winning 73 games in a season does not mean that team would just run over everybody in NBA history.

what's your logical explanation that shows the 73-win warriors are not better than teams from the 90's?

for what it's worth, relative to their league, the warriors of today are better than any team from the 90's except maybe peak bulls. i'd say the impetus would be on you to show that the nba of the 90's as a whole is significantly stronger than the nba of today, since things like MOV would show that unless this is the case you cannot make an argument against gsw.

[nk657]

I think MJ is the GOAT. I don't wanna debate that. Lebron would have to accomplish a lot in the 4-5 seasons to get over that hump. Possible, but note likely IMO.

Without discussing whether Jordan was better than who, I'd like to get the board's opinion on if MJ's competition was as good as everyone says it is. I think it's pretty obvious where I stand since I'm making the thread.

For example, MJ's Bulls lost to the Pistons in 89 and 90 when the Pistons were a deeper, better team and Pippen hadn't yet come into his own.

1990 was a 7 game series and much closer than 89. MJ was MJ, but the difference from the year before was Pippen playing much better.

1991...pretty meh series all around from Detroit as Chicago dominated. But again, MJ's stats were lower than they had been in previous seasons in this series. The real difference was an increase in production from Pippen and Grant. MJ did as MJ had done, 30/7/5, but he had done even better in series where his teams had lost.

So 91 is when MJ breaks through, beating the Pistons who were clearly on the way out. 4 game sweep in the ECF and 5 game series in the finals against the Lakers. That team also was past its prime, though still pretty good at 5th in offense and 5th in defense during the reg season. I'm pretty sure Magic had already contrated HIV by that time anyway....but even so, a few of the games weren't even close.

Other major rivals to MJ's Bulls throughout the 90s

Knicks - one star team that hung it's had on defense. Never had talent approaching the Jordan/Pippen level though IMO (sad to say as a Knicks fan).
Pacers - always a good team, but Reggie never was a superstar IMO

BTW, when MJ retired, the Bulls still won 50 + games. Was the league really that good?

Western Conference oppenents in the finals were always a treat to watch

Blazers
Suns
Sonics
Jazz

They were definitely great teams too. But the way they are venerated in hindsight is almost cult-like. For example, the Suns of that year were barely a top 10 defense. The Blazers were really deep and good defensively, but relied heavily on Clyde to carry the offense. etc.

I don't buy the narrative that MJ not only bulldozed the whole league, but won each title beating better competition than there is today. Seems to me like he played a lot of oppenents with 1 or two star players max. And even when he retired the team was still a 55 win team that took the conference champ Knicks to 7 games.

Of course you can't compare teams aross eras, but I think it's fair to evaluate the relative strength of teams to each other in different eras. How do you think MJ's finals oppenents compare to finals oppenents of Lebron? Namely the Ws and the Spurs.

"History is written by the victors.” 50 wins in the late 80s and the early 90s is like 80 wins now .lol NBA is a joke now.

[OdomFan]

You probably should have read the thread because that's incorrect. You guys keep saying the Warriors are better than this or that team from the 90s without giving any logical explanation to show that you know anything about the teams that you're claiming these Warriors are better than and it all just makes you sound very silly.

No winning 73 games in a season does not mean that team would just run over everybody in NBA history.

what's your logical explanation that shows the 73-win warriors are not better than teams from the 90's?

for what it's worth, relative to their league, the warriors of today are better than any team from the 90's except maybe peak bulls. i'd say the impetus would be on you to show that the nba of the 90's as a whole is significantly stronger than the nba of today, since things like MOV would show that unless this is the case you cannot make an argument against gsw.

My logical explanation? How about the fact that multiple teams from the 90s can simply match up well with these modern Warriors and cause problems.

The 1998 Utah Jazz were a very smart and talented team with a good mix of youth and Veteran players who knew the game well enough to defend all types of styles of basketball imaginable and because of this they were able to sweep a Laker team who also had 4 all star players and if you put them on the floor with the Warriors there's no doubt in my mind that they'd be able to do Defeat them as well.

No Draymond Green will not just cook 3's in Karl Malone and Antonie Carr's face all game long, and I refuse to believe that Steph Curry would just do anything he want with Stockton guarding him. Hornacek and Stockton were one of the greatest backcourts in the NBA so they'd surely be a hell of a challenge for the splash brothers in general on both ends of the floor. The only real shot Warriors have is if K.D absolutely goes off but even if that happens there's still a good chance that Utah still wins because they were that good of an overall team.

Same with the 93 Suns, 95 Magic, 98 Pacers, Bulls themselves, 95 Rockets and 96 Sonics to name a few. When it comes down to it the Warriors won 73 games in a completely different era which proves nothing at how well they'd stack up in a actual game against any of those teams from the 90s.

[slick_watts]

My logical explanation? How about the fact that multiple teams from the 90s can simply match up well with these modern Warriors and cause problems.

i'm not really interested in how the teams of the 90's would match up against the warriors. that's a red herring. what i'm interested in is how you are able to show that the nba of the 90's is stronger than the nba of today.

because unless you can show that this is the case, i'm not sure how you can controvert MOV difference between a top team like the 2016 / 2017 warriors and teams from the 90's.

[OdomFan]

My logical explanation? How about the fact that multiple teams from the 90s can simply match up well with these modern Warriors and cause problems.

i'm not really interested in how the teams of the 90's would match up against the warriors. that's a red herring. what i'm interested in is how you are able to show that the nba of the 90's is stronger than the nba of today.

because unless you can show that this is the case, i'm not sure how you can controvert MOV difference between a top team like the 2016 / 2017 warriors and teams from the 90's.

Well again the Warriors won 73 games against completely different competition so you can't not use that to prove that they'd just run over every team from the 90s or any other era from the past unless you do go into the conversation on individual matchups.

With that being said the Western Conference in general was much more competitive with the likes of the Sonics, Suns, Jazz, Blazers, Rockets, and Spurs of that decade which is why nobody was able to break that record for a long time until things slowly broke down around the time the Warriors took off.

[anarchy24]

The East was the tougher conference during MJ's two 3 peats. Only when Shaq went to the Lakers, Duncan got drafted, that it shifted to the West.

[slick_watts]

Well again the Warriors won 73 games against completely different competition so you can't not use that to prove that they'd just run over every team from the 90s or any other era from the past unless you do go into the conversation on individual matchups.

i don't see how the individual match-ups are pertinent. we know how the warriors performed relative to 2016 / 2017 nba. we know how teams like the bulls and sonics and whoever performed relative to 1995 / 1996 nba. warriors performed better, with the 1996 bulls being the only team to seriously challenge this.

the question is not whether or not the warriors could 'match-up' against those teams. that's nonsense. different eras, valuing different elements of play, to take advantage of different rules. the question is whether or not there is evidence that the nba of the 90's was, as a whole, stronger than the nba of today. strong enough to make up for the MOV advantage modern warriors have over any team from the 90's save the 1996 bulls.

i haven't seen any convincing evidence. and i'm not even sure how you would go about showing that.

[benson13]

LeBron has faced tougher competition no doubt. Spurs in 2007, 2013, and 2014, and Warriors in 2015 and 2016 were probably better than any team Jordan faced in the finals.

Jordan wouldn't have lost to the 2011 Mavericks though!

Give credit where credit is due. The 96 Sonics were the best runner up in NBA history until the 2016 Warriors. I think they would have beaten the 2012 Heat.

[Tommygriffin]

MJ's competition is vastly overrated. Imagine LeBron facing the Clippers (with CP3) every year in the finals. That is the level that those Jazz teams were.