Odinn21 wrote:I believe you had pretty strong feelings towards Bird in the top 100 project or the top peaks project. That's an impression lasted with me.
Bird is very highly rated, so it's normal that I often argue against him here, but I'm still high on him
Magic wasn't asked to create and lead an offense in 1982 and 1983 though. Magic had Abdul-Jabbar from the get to, Abdul-Jabbar was their main offensive weapon until 1982 and he was also their main half-court offensive weapon until 1986. And Bird had to wait for McHale. The amount of help they got on offense in the first half of the decade isn't comparable really. Their roles and tasks were very different. In a way, this is like saying Kobe Bryant or Dirk Nowitzki was better than Kevin Garnett in 2001-2003 time span.
This is a good point, although we should also keep in mind that Celtics weren't anything special in 1981 and 1982 seasons offensively. Bird having less help on offense doesn't make him necessarily better.
Another thing to be talked about is the strength difference between the conferences. The '80s West was the weakest conference ever and the '80s East was the strongest conference ever with the post-Jordan West.
I posted this on your 1984-88 Bird vs. 1986-90 Magic thread;Spoiler:
Magic played in the weakest conference ever (almost a joke when compared to the '80s East especially) with more help in the decade. (I don't have enough patience to complete the decade right now TBH.)
I think there's no consideration of the help they got and the competition they faced in some of your calls.
Here I 100% agree with you - Magic faced much weaker competition. Still, even if you look at RS you can get a good idea of how close they were.
This is pretty contradicting.
I don't think it is - Magic was clearly better h2h in 1985 and 1987 finals, while facing better defensive team. I'll give you 1986 though.
I mean I'm probably one of the people that you wouldn't get to play "I spent enough time watching them" card. Though it's normal that we don't see everything eye to eye.
I won't I just want to underline that my opinion isn't based on narratives and I spent a lot of time evaluating both. I'm sure you did that as well, that's why I like basketball talks so much - because we have different opinons