cecilthesheep wrote:bledredwine wrote:
You guys are hilarious.
Way to skip over Pippen/Grant/Paxson/Cartwrite. You also fail to mention that while an elite rebounder and defender, Rodman was a gaping hole on offense. But that was ok because they had plenty of offensive talent. You take away Jordan and the Bulls offense is screwed with that lineup.
You’d take that support over Duncan’s. Laughable. Grandpa Cartwrite, who couldn’t rebound, at the C? What are you going to do now? Overhype Horace’s defense got try and make him look good?
That’s a three-peat right there with by far the worst supporting cast to ever win two in a row, let alone three-peat. For the umpteenth time- Duncan has 5 championships, 3 finals MVPs. Jordan has 6 championships, 6 FMVPs. Yeah that’s right, one of those guys was the best player on the court every time. And you’re trying to tell me about Tim Duncan’s lack of help. Sorry, who’s logic is terrible here?
i'm kind of surprised how you're talking down about Rodman and Grant ... Rodman wasn't a "gaping hole", he was an all-time great offensive rebounder, and a competent passer who understood the offense completely and filled his role. Horace was a perfect third option who just set picks, rebounded, and knocked down jumpers, and he made four all-defensive teams! For the third-best player on a team, yes, those guys were amazing. And we haven't even mentioned Toni Kukoc.
Parker and Manu were better on the whole than Rodman, Grant, and Kukoc, I'm not saying they weren't. But first of all, they weren't nearly as good as Pippen, and the other thing is, most of the years that make those two guys better all-time come after 2005. Manu balled out in the '05 finals but Duncan was still clearly the best player on the team, and I'd say the same thing about 2007 although that's more arguable.
So I think at least the first three and arguably the first four of Duncan's title teams were clearly weaker than all of Jordan's except for maybe 1998. The only teammate Duncan ever had on Pippen's level was Robinson, and that was only for a couple post-injury years.
We are also skipping over the fact that Jordan never played with even a good center, which was a trait that almost every contender possessed in the 90s (a true game changer defensively and offensively).
Rodman was an awesome role-player, one of the best defenders ever and the GOAT rebounder. But yes, he was a hole on offense and he was a role player, not an allstar. Even commentators would mention it in games because you couldn’t really pass to him and expect him to do anything but look for a guy moving around to feed the ball. He was passed to when open near the rim and anywhere away from the rim, was given no defensive attention at all, leaving bigs inside.
He wasn’t a perennial allstar quality player like Manu or Parker. He wasn’t a top 30 player in the league, for that matter. The 96 supporting cast was awesome, but trying to hype Horace Grant is a bit ridiculous. And how would you compare Shaqs supporting cast of Penny Grant, in that case? Swept.
Horace was a great, not phenomenal defender and didn’t do much offensively. Both of these guys were known as great role players. Even on the Bad Boys, Rodman was considered 4th or 5th best player, and he was better then. Posters here like to fabricate narratives based on their desires.
Duncan had more help. I don’t even think it’s debatable, and the finals MVPs, ranges of offensive output show it. I’d like to see otherwise if so. Defensively? Yes, Jordan had more help, but not nearly enough to outweigh the offensive help.
What Duncan had is the equivalent of Jordan playing next to two top three positional players of his era which complimented his game perfectly, like Kidd and Ewing.... Except Jordan didn’t need that because of his offensive dominance. But it would have been unstoppable.
I wish you guys knew how many times the Bulls went into offensive lulls with their lineups. The 1993 game 6 4th quarter is not the only example of Jordan winning a game that definitely should have been lost. A Parker and Manu would have been a ton of help. Though Jordan got defensive help and the offensive help through Pippen, I’d go as far as to say he did it with the least offensive help ever in that first three-peat. Even the teams he faced were loaded with great offensive players. All of the Lakers, Blazers and Suns were more offensively talented. You can also attribute the consistency of the Bulls supporting casts in part to Jordan making practices harder than games, which all players and coaches have attributed to him so far in interviews.
So who can you name during Timmy’s era who had more help in that regard?
I’ll give you the 96 team. Pippen Kukoc Harper is great help alongside Rodman. But even then! The Sonics has more help when taking into account on both sides of the court and both stars were in their prime.
But that first three-peat? No way in hell. I agree with the true narrative, the one that the stats show, that the legends and commentators spoke of at the time, that Jordan was going HAM to keep the Bulls competitive, despite a great second fiddle in Pippen.
And the Bulls went 24-0 in series with home court advantage. Are you going to tell me that doesn’t have to do with Jordan’scimpetitiveness and consistency in performing at the highest level? You can’t find a single of those series where he didn’t do his job as the greatest on the court. Duncan's never been that consistent. All ridiculous records, be it the Celtic’s 69 wins, Bulls 72, that 24-0 home court series record, or Golden State’s 73 win streak have great supporting casts but get to that crazy high mark via one thing- a player playing at the very highest level. That’s Jordan, Bird, 2015 Steph who was ridiculous.
When you have a great player who’s not quite that level, even with great supporting casts, you don’t have the consistency to reach all-time great records. Hence the incredible streak of 50 win seasons that Pop/Duncan had but without any records or crazy stats showing dominance, and a single player leading every one of those series. That’s the dominance of Jordan vs a Duncan or Lebron put into words.
Finally, if you go back to the thread I posted about Jordan help and the finals (to dispel myths created here that are frankly frustrating to read), you will notice that the supporting cast of the other team’s first option was considerably more productive than Jordan’s, with one or two exceptions (if I remember correctly, one). The difference was that Jordan was an automatic pure shooter with an unstoppable inside game to boot and knew when to pass.
I’m also going to state that both the Sonics and Jazz played defense at least as well as the Bulls, the Sonics straight up outplaying the Bulls defensively and should-have-been offensively as well. Games like the flu game, 6 3’s shrug game, 13 fg straight and “shrug” game, series with 3rd all time assists or championship steal/winner aren’t fabricated. That’s the type of stuff Jordan had to do to win series. The trivial quote “he did whatever he took to win” has been said by players and coaches for decades with good reason. No, it wasn’t his unbelievable supporting cast that allowed the Bulls to stay close in games against talented squads.
Compared to other ATG’s (Key statement, think about this one), Jordan had straight up significantly less help for the first three-peat, maybe equal help in 96, and comparible help to others for the second 3-peat.
You guys can go ahead and choose the stats you want me to dice this with. That’s how confident I am in what I’ve seen and can create another thread on it comparing other greats, their performances, stats of supporting casts. Just let me know whatever stats you want and I will do it. There’s been enough trying to play down Jordan’sdominance and trying to put players like Tim Duncan on the same level. It can get pretty annoying. I think you guys know what players and coaches would say if asked who carried squads more and which player was in another tier from the other.
LeBron is 0-7 in game winning/tying FGs in the finals. And is 20/116 or 17% in game winning/tying FGs in the 4th/OT for his career. That's historically bad 
