IG2 wrote:NZB2323 wrote:had the coach run an offense designed to take the ball out of his hands and he still put up insane stats.
Oh yes, when I watch 90's Bulls games they're certainly doing their best to keep the ball out of MJ's hands
Bro, the goal was to prevent MJ from overdribbling, not to actually prevent him from getting the ball. He still comfortably led the league in FGA every year under Phil. The triangle actually made it easier for him to get the ball in his spots.
I think it’s worth people taking a look at the Bulls offense prior to the triangle. Aside from the brief period in 1989 when Jordan played point guard, he didn’t really handle the ball a ton—and certainly not a lot by today’s standards. I know there’s a lot of quotes of Jordan talking about the Triangle taking the ball out of his hands, but this is all relative to the era—where there wasn’t really the type of heliocentric offense we see today. And, of course, Jordan’s quotes also probably relate to a comparison with that brief period he spent as PG, since that was actually the time period right before Phil Jackson took over. The triangle definitely did take the ball out of Jordan’s hands relative to that, but it wasn’t a huge difference relative to the vast majority of Jordan’s pre-triangle era. The triangle was less about taking the ball out of Jordan’s hands, and more about creating a structure that could help the supporting cast make good decisions that would help generate some easy buckets for them.
I think 1998 is more impressive than any Lebron run. 1998 Bulls are the oldest team to ever win a championship
Bulls' opposition in the Finals was quite geriatric too lol. Testament to how diluted the league was in the late 90's. Expansion and disappointing drafts meant old, past-their-prime greats were still headlining the league's top teams. Any time I watch the '97 and '98 Finals I'm left wondering how Utah was making it that far. But that's the point....they were making it that far because the league was weak.
I think it’s less that the league was “diluted” and more that there’d been a few fairly weak drafts in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which meant that there weren’t a whole lot of MVP-level guys in their mid-to-late 20s in the late 1990s (there was Shaq and arguably Payton, but that was kind of it when it comes to several straight draft classes). Of course, the flip side of that is that the draft era prior to that had been unusually strong, so the league as a whole was still quite strong—just with an unusual bent towards teams led by older players.
In any event, the Bulls were abnormally old even by the standards of that era. The average age of their top 7 guys in playoff minutes played was 32.3. The average age of the top 7 guys for the 1998 Jazz was 29.0. The Jazz’s best three players weren’t a lot younger than the Bulls’ best three players, but the rest of the Jazz team definitely was. Guys like Harper and Kerr were past their best too.
And the other thing with the Jazz, of course, is that Malone and Stockton were abnormal iron men. Malone really wasn’t past his best at all at that point—in fact, he was right in the middle of the best years of his career. Stockton was past his best, but did have more left in the tank at that point in his career than Pippen did. Meanwhile, Rodman was totally cooked and was pulled from the starting lineup and basically didn’t have an NBA career after that, so Hornacek was further from the end than Rodman too.
Finally, in the sense that both teams were old, it’s certainly extremely relevant that the Jazz had like 9 days’ rest before those Finals, while the Bulls had 2 days’ rest. A big advantage under the circumstances.
Lebron never won a championship in a season where his 2nd best player only played in 44 games
Ummm ok? MJ never beat a 73-win team in his career. See, it's easy to play this game. Let's just say they both did things in their career the other didn't and leave it at that.
I think that’s a fair point, and it’s of course true that they both did things in their career that the other didn’t.
That said, do we really think that the Warriors the Cavs beat were the same level of team that had won 73 games? Was Steph playing at nearly the same level after that injury he got early in the playoffs? After Steph came back, they had put up a 6.2 SRS in the playoffs before the Finals and come extremely close to losing in the conference finals. And Steph ultimately did not have a good Finals. I think it’s about as accurate to say that LeBron beat a 73-win team as it is to say that the Nuggets only beat a 44-win Heat team in the Finals. Sure, both statements are factually correct, but it’s clear that in the playoffs these teams were at meaningfully different levels than they’d been in the regular season.
