How NBA rules prevented Michael Jordan's Bulls from facing superteams in the 1990s

[DoctorX]

I have to say I had no problems with NBA rules preventing super teams from forming back in the day considering my benefited from it. No way Spurs win 5 titles if super teams were easily formed during the early '00s granted they did get dicked over by the Lakers super team in '04. It definitely would have taken my enjoyment of the game away.

[yesh]

The 90's Bulls got a little lucky too.


1991, Worthy injures his ankle against Portland in the playoffs, comes in hobbled into the Finals. With their second best player Worthy slowed, on top of losing him in top health the Laker were further incumbered because the Bulls were able to slide Pippen onto Magic, who was making short work of Jordan when guarded by him but had more trouble with Pippen(though make no mistake, Magic consistently got by Pippen but was swarmed by the Bulls team D). A healthy Worthy prevents this because Pippen has to stay on him. Byron Scott also got injured later in the series. Although the series went 5 games, it was very competitive and might have been a different series if Worthy was healthy. Also keep in mind, this wasn’t Prime Magic. He’d been in the league since he was 20 and had played as many playoff games at this point as Jordan would in his entire career. He was still great, but his knees were shot compared to what he was athletically a few years earlier. Give the Lakers a Peak Magic, healthy Worthy and Scott and who knows?

1992. I don’t really have anything to say about this year, the Bulls were one of the best teams ever and still got really tough series from the Blazers and Knicks. Actually, I do have something to say which you will see below.

1993, the Suns lose Cedric Ceballos in the Western playoffs, a key rotation player and offensive contributor. Again, another very competitive series where having Ceballos might have been enough to tip the balance. Ceballos dropped 27 points in the Suns regular season win at Chicago, and was generally pretty effective player against them. I think this series is a 7 game toss up with a healthy Ceballos.

1996. The Magic beat the Bulls in 1995, regardless of Jordan being “rusty”(Keep in mind Jordan still put up better numbers in those playoffs than he did in 96/96/98), a key reason being that the Bulls didn’t have the services of a Horace Grant or Rodman to crash the boards and play defense downlow. Flash forward to 1996, and Horace Grant comes into the series with a bad elbow, and is forced to sit almost the entire series. He was the Magic’s 3rd best player, and for all the talk of revenge the Magic played them well in the regular season. The Bulls most likely still win, but a healthy Grant makes it a 6 or 7 game series.

1997: The Bulls may have avoided 2 of their biggest challenges this season in the Rockets/Knicks. The Rockets and Bulls exchanged blowout wins in the regular season, the Rockets also had I believe the best or second best winning percentage in the league when all 3 of their stars were healthy. There was a lot of talk then about how they may have been a tougher matchup for the Bulls than the Jazz. In all fairness the Jazz beat the Rockets fair and square, but the Rockets may have been a tougher matchup for the Bulls. There’s been some who thought(some of the players on the team who’s names have been lost to time) that the 97 Knicks were the best of the 90’s Knicks teams and that would have been their best shot against the Bulls. They were up 3-1 against the Heat and the huge brawl in the middle of the series resulted in key suspensions which led to them losing the series. They most likely would have given the Bulls a much better playoff series.

1998: See below. The Bulls gutted out a great championship but were obviously a step below the previous teams. Teams they faced in earlier Finals like the Lakers, Blazers, Suns, and Sonics(not to mention the 92/93 Knicks) may have all beaten this years Bulls in a series matchup.

Short 3 point line: The short 3 point line really boosted the 96 and 97 Bulls by turning both Jordan and Pippen into pretty solid 3 point sharpshooters. It’s not just about hitting more of them at a better clip, but about it helping to open up your whole game. Undoubtedly, it made guarding Jordan tougher because now teams had to really respect his 3 point shot, opening up all possibilities for his game like easier driving lanes. Jordan made as many 3’s in those short years I believe as he did in the rest of his career, this really helped prolong his effectiveness as he aged. I don’t think the 96 and 97 Bulls teams are as dominant with the real 3 point line, period.

Now think about this. The two series the Bulls played that went 7 games were in 92 against the Knicks and 98 against the Pacers. Reggie and Ewing were both great players, but a step(In Reggie’s case a significant step) below tier 1 greats. I'm not even talking about guys like Duncan or Magic, but below guys like Barkley, D-Rob, or in Reggie's case even a Ray Allen or Paul Pierce.

What happens if you swap Ewing with Shaq or Olajuwon? Reggie with Kobe or Curry? Good chance the Bulls lose those series. Or let’s take it a step further, give both those teams better second options along the lines of most legit contenders. Jalen Rose, Mark Jackson, Starks, McDaniel? Good players, not great players. The Bulls faced great teams and players in their 90’s runs, but the two teams who took them to 7 games could have easily beaten them if given a star player of top 5-10(yearly) caliber.

The 2 biggest shots in lebrons finals were from his teammates, and what state were the heat in when it came to injures last finals?


That last paragraph is NBA wish fulfillment masturbation. Imagine being taken to 7 by Oladipo and a young/injured Celtic.

[Bergmaniac]

The insecurity of the Jordan fanboys will always be hilarious.

I find it humorous and ironic when people say this. There have been countless threads over the last half decade on here hammering away at MJ's legacy with few in opposition, often made by Lebron supporters with the ulterior motive of providing an explanation/defense of some perceived Lebron shortcoming or criticism.

Jordan fanboys - mostly guys in their 40s and 50s with jobs and families and better things to do - eventually show up to point out the hypocrisy and correct all the misinformation flooding the threads, leading to someone attempting to use that as proof of their insecurity. It's projection combined with an inability to give someone their proper due, and it fits perfectly in today's postmodern culture that eschews facts for perception, argumentation, and power games.

Ah, the good old "It's all projection" argument, you can always count on it to make an appearance at some point. Please explain how I am projecting since I don't have a horse in the GOAT discussion and never started any of these threads you mentioned in your first paragraph.

"Eventually show up" is a pretty funny phrasing, BTW, since it always happens within 15 minutes of anyone daring to imply Jordan isn't the clear GOAT by far. And I like how you basically said that the Jordan fans are reasonable adults who are above these things unlike the immature children who prefer LeBron. So objective of you.

[LakersLegacy]

Jordan didn’t want to team up and the players of his era didn’t want to team up either.

It would have taken a super team team up similar to the 2012 Heat, the 2016 Warriors or the 2020 Nets to push the Jordan Bulls. It was a different game back then. Scoring is about 6.5 points a game easier now for star players.

[VanWest82]

Ah, the good old "It's all projection" argument, you can always count on it to make an appearance at some point. Please explain how I am projecting since I don't have a horse in the GOAT discussion and never started any of these threads you mentioned in your first paragraph.

You showed up to insult an entire group of fans for having to defend yet another slanted accusation against their guy. I have no idea what your motivations are. Maybe you're bitter that MJ beat Penny and Shaq and effectively ended their run. Maybe you'd like to tell us what they are. It's not like Jordan fans are running amok and starting threads to gloat about his greatness.

"Eventually show up" is a pretty funny phrasing, BTW, since it always happens within 15 minutes of anyone daring to imply Jordan isn't the clear GOAT by far. And I like how you basically said that the Jordan fans are reasonable adults who are above these things unlike the immature children who prefer LeBron. So objective of you.

If we assume the biggest Jordan fans grew up watching him play then the youngest in the hardcore group are probably late 30s with most in their 40s. Lebron has played longer but his biggest fans will likely be somewhere between teen and mid to late 30s. I didn't say anything about immature children - that's just you inferring/projecting again - but it's a pretty fair assumption, I think, that MJ's fans are on average a decade or two older. With age comes wisdom, or something like that. At the very least they're the ones who got to experience both in real time.

[DCasey91]

Thing I don’t get which doesn’t get brought up enough

90’s was a weak era in terms of depth that’s pretty exhaustive by now

In saying that even the Finals teams the Bulls faced were solid but nothing spectacular. I mean Jazz took them to 6 twice and they weren’t deep at all. In fact they only had one legitimate scorer. It was always vs one superstar. Pippen is one heck of second option not mention the depth. I think the 91-93 has a straight better starting five.

The Bulls Team (the whole squad) was head and shoulders above the rest top to bottom. I think management deserves a lot of credit.

You take Malone out of the Jazz one year they ain’t winning 55 games lol in fact take the best player of any 90’s team one year they ain’t doing squat.

Pippens contract was gold
MJ, contract one year would not have happened with today’s rules.

90’s was wild lol. Even had college 3 lines. Neg records making playoffs.

Still MJ ruled the roost

If an ATG teamates hit an important shot
I’m pretty sure bulls teamates hit very important shots too (Paxson/Kerr). No mention of game 4 against the Knicks, or the hog shot for Kukoc.

[AussieCeltic]

Pippen/Kukoc were once shot away from winning the East. I have no idea what you're talking about.

You mean that YOU have not idea what you are talking about.

I meant ECF.

https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/1994-nba-eastern-conference-semifinals-bulls-vs-knicks.html

There is no single "super-team" in this era that goes this far without its best player.

KD Warriors could easily make the conference finals without KD.

The 2012-13 Heatles could also make the conference finals without Lebron. The East was really thin those years.

The current Nets can easily make the conference finals without one of KD or Harden.

So, you’re wrong. Plus the Bulls added Kukoc/Kerr to the team when MJ left.

How were they going in 1995 before MJ came back btw?

[jordan0386]

Jordan didn’t want to team up and the players of his era didn’t want to team up either.

It would have taken a super team team up similar to the 2012 Heat, the 2016 Warriors or the 2020 Nets to push the Jordan Bulls. It was a different game back then. Scoring is about 6.5 points a game easier now for star players.

Free Agency worked different then. You dont know what those players would've wanted If they were able to sign max deals every 4 years.

[DCasey91]

The East wasn’t thin, Celtics (08-12) was a goddamn problem for everybody. Legit Big 4 not a big three.
Bulls would have been up to their necks against that squad, if Knicks/Pacers gave em trouble.

Garnett/Allen/Pierce/Peak Rondo is heavy.

[LakerLegend]

The East wasn’t thin, Celtics (08-12) was a goddamn problem for everybody. Legit Big 4 not a big three.
Bulls would have been up to their necks against that squad, if Knicks/Pacers gave em trouble.

Garnett/Allen/Pierce/Peak Rondo is heavy.

The Celtics weren't a factor in 09 and in 11 and 12 they were just shells of what they were.

[DCasey91]

The East wasn’t thin, Celtics (08-12) was a goddamn problem for everybody. Legit Big 4 not a big three.
Bulls would have been up to their necks against that squad, if Knicks/Pacers gave em trouble.

Garnett/Allen/Pierce/Peak Rondo is heavy.

The Celtics weren't a factor in 09 and in 11 and 12 they were just shells of what they were.

So 08 and 010 doesn’t count and 012 really? How are you shells when you make the finals the next year in 010 after injuries in 09 makes no sense whatsoever. They were very very good even the 11 team was as deep as the Heat team and 12’ was a classic series. Don’t give me that nonsense. How can you be a shell yet still win what is that.
A 4 pronged core like that is heavy for stuff for any team.

08’ Champs
09’ injuriy and lost to the finalist
010’ classic 7 game series in the finals
011’ lost to the finalist
012’ ECF classic 7 game series was a way better series than the finals

Bruh.

[twyzted]

Thing I don’t get which doesn’t get brought up enough

90’s was a weak era in terms of depth that’s pretty exhaustive by now

In saying that even the Finals teams the Bulls faced were solid but nothing spectacular. I mean Jazz took them to 6 twice and they weren’t deep at all. In fact they only had one legitimate scorer. It was always vs one superstar. Pippen is one heck of second option not mention the depth. I think the 91-93 has a straight better starting five.

The Bulls Team (the whole squad) was head and shoulders above the rest top to bottom. I think management deserves a lot of credit.

You take Malone out of the Jazz one year they ain’t winning 55 games lol in fact take the best player of any 90’s team one year they ain’t doing squat.

Pippens contract was gold
MJ, contract one year would not have happened with today’s rules.

90’s was wild lol. Even had college 3 lines. Neg records making playoffs.

Still MJ ruled the roost

If an ATG teamates hit an important shot
I’m pretty sure bulls teamates hit very important shots too (Paxson/Kerr). No mention of game 4 against the Knicks, or the hog shot for Kukoc.

Lakers were deeper then the bulls infact all of the teams the bulls faced except the jazz were deeper then the bulls. Portland 7 10ppg+ guys with the 8th man chipping in 8ppg 7rpg.

Well if you take 1 guy out and replace him with 4 other guys who slot in at 4th 5th 6th 7th in minuted played you might win games its not like jordan left and no one replaced him.

[twyzted]

That has nothing to do with why I rated the post the way I did.

People aren't mind readers. Perhaps you should include some actual substance rather than your trademark empty posting

Why would I do that when the post I use my trademark on is entire devoid of substance or a valid argument? Even better why should I care when I have been saying the same things over and over only to read the same old debunked nonsense from ignorant posters over and over again and again?

[The_Hater]

Your information is good but I think your conclusion from the title is way off base None of the free agency rules of the 90’s were directed specifically at MJ. That’s a pretty big reach.

In fact, since there was no such thing as unrestricted free agency during MJ’s first 3-4 seasons, one could argue that the league did the exact opposite since they finally made free agency a viable way to help build a team. Prior to that, it was basically only draft picks and trades.

Michael Jordan has cited a number of compelling reasons for his surprise retirement in 1993, but one stands out as utterly perplexing in a modern context. Jordan revealed in Episode 7 of "The Last Dance" that he told Phil Jackson at the time that he had "no more challenges."

This was a uniquely 1990s problem. In the modern NBA, new challengers arise to face the champion every year. When LeBron James couldn't get past the Boston Celtics, he joined Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in an effort to take them down, and when James similarly intimidated Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, they united to win the Golden State Warriors two championships. Superteams are not an organic element in the NBA ecosystem. They are a response to the last superteam.
L
But Jordan reigned over the NBA for most of a decade and deprived many of that era's greatest players of championships in the process. So why didn't, say, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and Reggie Miller team up to oppose him? It's simple: the rules didn't allow it. While free agents were free to do as they saw fit for most of Jordan's career, the rules in place at the time made it almost impossible for superstars to actually use free agency to build their own contenders. To understand why, we need to venture back several decades to the very origins of free agency.

A brief history of free agency
The free agency enjoyed by modern players is a relatively new phenomenon. In fact, even the limited movement of the 1990s was an enormous shift from the league's early history. The NBA didn't grant any sort of free agency until 1976, and it only did so to settle a 1970 lawsuit brought about by Oscar Robertson.

The free agency adopted then had little in common with modern free agency. Teams were granted the right of first refusal on any contract offered to their own players, essentially making every player whose contract expired at that point the equivalent of a modern restricted free agent. If a team chose to let a player walk, the original team was granted compensation. That compensation was either negotiated between the two teams as a sort of trade, or decided unilaterally by the commissioner if the two sides could not agree.

This all changed four years into Jordan's career, when the 1988 CBA finally granted players unrestricted free agency once they'd hit certain criteria. As big a win as this was for players leaguewide, it didn't lead to the immediate formation of superteams. In fact, superstars were largely hesitant to explore unrestricted free agency at first. From the onset of unrestricted free agency in 1988 and Jordan's second retirement in 1998, only two reigning All-NBA players changed teams through free agency.

One was a 34-year-old Dominique Wilkins, who had already been traded a few months earlier. The other was Shaquille O'Neal, whose hometown fans infamously told him they didn't want him back at the price he was demanding. A third, Juwan Howard, tried to leave the Washington Bullets for the Miami Heat, but failed because the league ruled that the contract was illegal and that Miami had miscalculated its cap space.

Imagine something like that happening today. Teams spend years planning to have cap space in a specific moment because free agents change teams so frequently. It may have only happened twice in that first decade, but in the summer of 2019 alone, four different All-NBA players changed teams in free agency. It easily could've been more. The modern salary cap is designed to encourage player movement. The one that existed during Jordan's peak, though, was still built around the only reality the league had known to that point: superstars staying put. As a result, it functionally bound the overwhelming majority of superstars to their original team for the duration of their primes.

So let's look at some of the rules that enforced that reality, and how they were changed immediately after Jordan's retirement in the 1999 CBA. In some cases, they made it significantly harder for teams to create cap space. In others, they made it significantly harder for teams to use it. After all, the NBA at that point gave incumbent teams one enormous advantage in retaining their own players.

Larry Bird rights
The NBA has always used some version of this rule to allow teams to go over the salary cap to retain their own free agents. Those rules just became more stringent with time. In its original state, the Larry Bird Exception applied to any player who had been under his previous contract for at least one year. There were no exceptions and no tiers. All Bird Rights were created equal. The 1999 CBA altered this system into the one we have today. The current model includes three tiers: Non-Bird Rights (which came after one year), Early-Bird Rights (which come after two) and full Bird Rights (which come after three). Full Bird Rights allow a team to re-sign its own free agents for up to the max. Non-Bird Rights and Early-Bird Rights circumstantially allow some wiggle room, but not nearly that much.

This rule came from the right place. No team should lose an icon because of cap concerns. But it was utterly abused in practice, as players managed to use the it to circumvent the cap entirely and earn contracts that just wouldn't be possible today. Having no time restraints on Bird Rights meant that free agents pretty routinely signed short-term deals with the unwritten understanding that in the near future, they would re-sign newer, bigger deals that made up for the money they lost.

Horace Grant was the most famous example. He signed a suspicious five-year deal with the Orlando Magic in 1994. That deal paid him under $2.8 million for the 1995-96 season, but included an opt-out in the summer of 1996. Grant took it, and the new deal Orlando gave him paid him a cool $14.8 million for the 1996-97 season. Under the current rules, Grant would have only Early Bird Rights, and with them could have made only around $5.3 million that season from Orlando. This tactic was hardly confined to players of Grant's caliber, though. Chris Dudley executed a version of this plan so egregious that the league publicly called it "a blatant and transparent attempt" to circumvent the cap and challenged it in court.

If you're wondering why superstars didn't take advantage of this loophole, the short answer is that they didn't reach free agency often enough to do so. We'll explain why down the line. For the most part, teams used this tactic to bring in valuable players that weren't quite superstars. After all, if the NBA was willing to go to court over Dudley, imagine how it would have reacted if a team had nabbed Karl Malone on this sort of deal.

Almost every team in the league was taking advantage of this loophole in some form at the time. Without a Mid-Level Exception in place, it was the only tool a capped out team could use to add talent, and conversely, it was the only way a player could land with a team that lacked cap space. These under-the-table deals were so tempting and so inflated a team's cap numbers that preserving space required far more willpower. That was especially true given the lack of consequences of spending at the time.

The luxury tax
The NBA did not adopt any sort of luxury tax until the 1999 CBA. Even then, the tax would only be paid if the league as a whole paid players over a certain amount, not just individuals teams. That was corrected in 2005, and the more punitive version currently in existence was ratified in 2011. This meant that, so long as a team operated within the rules of the cap in acquiring and signing players, they would not be punished for spending literally any amount of money.

So what did this mean in terms of roster construction? Essentially, it gave teams the freedom to spend with impunity. The small-market Indiana Pacers had the third-highest payroll in the NBA by the 1996-97 season. Why? Because they spent over $18.7 million -- just under 77 percent of the cap -- on four players at the same position. They spent more on the combination of Dale Davis, Antonio Davis, Rik Smits and Derek McKey, all big men, than either Toronto or Vancouver spent on their entire rosters. There just wasn't a reason not to. They happened to have those players. They all produced. There was no financial punishment for keeping them. So they kept them. On some level, this was happening practically everywhere. Opportunity cost leads to prudence that didn't exist in the 1990s.

The combination of limitless Bird Rights and no luxury tax practically begged teams to spend money retaining their own players. As such, as their cap sheets were occupied with players modern teams would have the restraint not to spend on. As meaningful as that combination was, though, it is dwarfed in importance by the single biggest driver of free-agent movement.

The max contract
Players were legally allowed to be paid any amount a team would willingly pay them until 1999, so long as that number fit either underneath the salary cap or the player's Bird Rights. There were no restrictions on amount (Michael Jordan made 123 percent of the salary cap for the 1997-98 season), or options (Chris Webber's 15-year rookie deal included a first-year opt-out), and while the 1995 CBA created a seven-year restriction on length, prior contracts greatly exceeded it (such as Magic Johnson's 25-year deal).

The 1999 CBA created the current three-tiered max system we have today. Players with between four and six years of experience can earn 25 percent of the cap in the first year of a new contract. Players with between seven and nine years of experience can earn 30 percent of it in the first year of a new contract. Players with 10 more years of experience can make 35 percent of it in their first seasons. Lengths have varied over the years, but currently, a team can get five years from his own team and four years from a new one.

Before these restrictions were in place, teams greatly exceeded them on both fronts. Let's start with salary. The highest first-year salary any current free agent can get is 35 percent of the salary cap. But according to Hoops Hype's salary database, between Jordan's first championship season (1990-91) and his last (1997-98), a staggering 26 players made salaries above 35 percent of the cap. That list includes plenty of players who might've liked a superstar teammate with which to battle Jordan: David Robinson (five times), Patrick Ewing (four times), Reggie Miller (twice), Gary Payton (twice) and Alonzo Mourning (twice) all make multiple appearances on that list.

In many cases, players took up comical percentages of the cap. Ewing routinely took up gargantuan amounts, as high as 76 percent of the cap in Jordan's final season, though he did grant the Knicks a bit of flexibility in 1996 by structuring his contract to include a lower cap number that summer. That was flexibility the Spurs, for instance, lacked. David Robinson cost San Antonio 46 percent of it in Jordan's final season.

These huge numbers didn't just make cap space harder to create, they made it harder to use. It's common sense. Modern free agents are hardly incentivized to remain in place. The ceiling on their max could rise if they gain supermax eligibility, but under no circumstances can that exceed 35 percent, and without it, they can only get one extra year on their contract and slightly higher annual raises to stay put. If LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh had all been allowed to negotiate for their market value in 2010, there is no way that the Heat would have been able to afford all three. But the max essentially took financial incentives off of the table. If all three could play together for virtually the same amount of money that they would make on their own, then suddenly playing together becomes far more appealing.

Older superstars did not have to make such sacrifices. If Ewing could make 76 percent of the cap from the Knicks, then he'd essentially have to take a 50 percent pay cut to join a new team even a modern max deal. Top players at that point hogged such a ridiculous percentage of a team's cap space, and could similarly demand that much from their own teams thanks to their Bird Rights, that building a superteam elsewhere would simply be financially impractical.

It wasn't just the sheer salary of these deals that made free-agent movement so difficult. It was their length. Ewing, for example, didn't reach free agency until 1996, 11 years after he was drafted. His rookie contract could have lasted anywhere from six to 10 years based on options. The length of those contracts incentivized early renegotiation because market conditions change during the life of those deals.

Nowadays, player contracts are organically so short and so often contain opt-outs that if a player is underpaid, he'll reach free agency soon enough to correct that. At that point? A player might be underpaid and still have six or seven years left on a deal. Making more money meant committing more years. Superstars routinely signed new deals years before their old ones would expire to ensure that they were properly paid.

Now think about those longer contracts in the context of an entire roster. When a team wants to sign multiple stars today, it simply jettisons its role players, who are typically on short contracts. Doing so becomes significantly harder when those role players are on six- and seven-year deals. There was no stretch provision at this point in history either. If a team wanted to clear cap space, trading contracts was the only way to do so.

And finally, there's the mental toll of all of this. Teams were aware of all these realities. They knew that clearing cap space would require convincing stars to take pay cuts, hoping other stars didn't extend their contracts, and spending years either dumping their bad contracts or waiting for them to expire. It was such a perilous and unpredictable track that no team truly attempted it until the 2000 Orlando Magic. Using the methods described above made it easier to aim lower. Getting and retain role players was so simple that aiming for stars just wasn't appealing. To an extent, this was by design. Most of the past methods of superteam formation had been eliminated by league-intervention.

Where did the superteams of the 1980s come from?
Superteams were plentiful in the 1980s, and they are plentiful now. They just happened to be built in entirely different ways. Broadly speaking, most of the best teams of that decade stacked the deck using methods that are now illegal. One such practice involves an owner so infamous he now has a rule named after him.

Ted Stepien had no interest in rebuilding when he took over the Cleveland Cavaliers. He wanted a playoff team immediately, so he traded all of his draft picks for veteran help. That isn't an exaggeration. The Cavaliers did not keep a single one of their first-round picks during Stepien's entire tenure. Another team had their pick every year from 1980-86, and each selection was in the top nine. In 1982, that pick went to the Lakers. It was No. 1 overall. They used it to select James Worthy. Nowadays, this would be impossible because of the aptly-named Stepien Rule. It prevents teams from trading first-round picks in consecutive years.

The Philadelphia 76ers were able to take advantage of a different sort of desperation. When the ABA and NBA merged, the then-New York Nets owed the Knicks a $4.8 million fee for entering their territory. This is a fairly standard expansion and relocation clause that still exists in many sports today. The problem was that the Nets couldn't afford it, so they sold Julius Erving to the 76ers in order to pay off the Knicks. Today, any new ownership group would be vetted. It would have to be financially stable enough to support the franchise, and even if it wasn't, the sale of players for cash is now illegal. That it wasn't then allowed the 76ers to steal a Hall of Famer.

And then we have the Boston Celtics. Rather than exploit the trade market, they turned to the NBA Draft. With the No. 6 pick in the 1978 draft, they took Larry Bird. The only problem? Bird hadn't entered the draft. He remained in school at Indiana State, but the Celtics were able to retain his rights and sign him a year later, after he graduated. As with practically every other rule we've discussed, this one was changed as well. Players cannot be drafted and still return to college anymore. It is the second rule mentioned in this story named after Bird.

The perfect storm
The above moves were a staple of the 1980s. As Larry O'Brien gave way to commissioner David Stern in 1984, the NBA went from a somewhat lawless league into one with structural order. When a team exploited a rule to gain an unfair competitive advantage, the NBA changed that rule to protect the balance of the sport. By the time Jordan starting winning, the old methods of combating a team as dominant as the Bulls were all gone, yet the new ones that would eventually be concocted weren't yet possible. In other words, building a superteam was only possible through brilliant, by the numbers management.

And that's what the Bulls had. Not only did they select Jordan, but they had the foresight to select Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant in the same draft. They stole Dennis Rodman in a trade and pathologically underpaid Pippen to maintain flexibility. They identified Toni Kukoc in Europe and prioritized 3-point shooting guards next to Jordan like Steve Kerr and Craig Hodges before the rest of the league caught on to analytics. Jordan would have won championships practically no matter what. He was that good. But that he won six with dominant rosters around him came down to his front office's ability to surround him with more talent than anyone else.

In that sense, Jerry Krause was right all along. At that point in NBA history, players couldn't forcibly build their own dynasties. It was organizations that won championships.

https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/the-last-dance-how-nba-rules-prevented-michael-jordans-bulls-from-facing-superteams-in-the-1990s/

[DCasey91]

Yep versing the Celtics in 08 plenty of superstars would have left, seriously a 37yr old Shaq.
The Pippen contract
The MJ contract
The lower end 90’s teams
The Bird Rule
No luxury Tax
Pay ridiculous amounts to keep what they had. People complain about what stars/role players earned today. Has nothing to do with money it’s about how much buying power that money (monkey sinks) holds. One million back then, and one million now are in different galaxies of buying power.
One superstar teams
Barkley/Pippen/Hakeem joined together too late

It’s all there nothing new

It’s obv Krause was a ahead of his time (Hinkie/Morey type stuff). Did him dirty in the Doco.

[Jordan Stopper]

There were loaded teams in the mid to late 90s close to if not equal to the Bulls in terms of talent.
Magic = Shaq, Penny, Grant with good shooters
Heat = Zo, Hardaway, Mashburn, plus solid supporting players like PJ brown, Dan Majerle and coached by Pat Riley.
Knicks = Ewing, Houston, LJ, Oak, Starks, coached by JVG
Hawks = Deke, Mookie, Laetner, Smitty coached by Wilkins

and that's just the Eastern Conference.
The difference was the Bulls' best player just so happened to be the best ever.

[Pg81]

People aren't mind readers. Perhaps you should include some actual substance rather than your trademark empty posting

Why would I do that when the post I use my trademark on is entire devoid of substance or a valid argument? Even better why should I care when I have been saying the same things over and over only to read the same old debunked nonsense from ignorant posters over and over again and again?

There were loaded teams in the mid to late 90s close to if not equal to the Bulls in terms of talent.
Magic = Shaq, Penny, Grant with good shooters
Heat = Zo, Hardaway, Mashburn, plus solid supporting players like PJ brown, Dan Majerle and coached by Pat Riley.
Knicks = Ewing, Houston, LJ, Oak, Starks, coached by JVG
Hawks = Deke, Mookie, Laetner, Smitty coached by Wilkins

and that's just the Eastern Conference.
The difference was the Bulls' best player just so happened to be the best ever.

Yeah, no.

[Jordan Stopper]

Why would I do that when the post I use my trademark on is entire devoid of substance or a valid argument? Even better why should I care when I have been saying the same things over and over only to read the same old debunked nonsense from ignorant posters over and over again and again?

There were loaded teams in the mid to late 90s close to if not equal to the Bulls in terms of talent.
Magic = Shaq, Penny, Grant with good shooters
Heat = Zo, Hardaway, Mashburn, plus solid supporting players like PJ brown, Dan Majerle and coached by Pat Riley.
Knicks = Ewing, Houston, LJ, Oak, Starks, coached by JVG
Hawks = Deke, Mookie, Laetner, Smitty coached by Wilkins

and that's just the Eastern Conference.
The difference was the Bulls' best player just so happened to be the best ever.

Yeah, no.

Compare the 93 Suns and Bulls
What's the difference talent wise?
The Suns actually seem more talented on paper.

Bulls role players have been romanticized too much because of their success.

Paxson was no better than Elliot Perry, Kerr no better than Danny Ainge.
Ceballos = Kukoc
KJ = Pip

If those Bulls were a super team so were the Suns.

[Winsome Gerbil]

Good info but I don't know why it's directed at MJ rather than just being a primer on the league and salary cap at that time. MJ didn't face superteams but he also wasn't on a superteam. And other players were also not on or playing against superteams. So there was no superteam-related competitive advantage or disadvantage for MJ or anyone else.

Bulls was a superteam for 90s standards.

Being talented doesn't make you a superteam.

They built their team, not bought it. No friends teaming up to pick on the weak kids. Superteams involve multiple franchise players intentionally coming together to take the easy way out. The closest analog to superteams from back in those days was the Lakers ability to consistently get all time centers to bail on their teams to come join them. But the 90s weren't the Lakers' decade.

[DCasey91]

There were loaded teams in the mid to late 90s close to if not equal to the Bulls in terms of talent.
Magic = Shaq, Penny, Grant with good shooters
Heat = Zo, Hardaway, Mashburn, plus solid supporting players like PJ brown, Dan Majerle and coached by Pat Riley.
Knicks = Ewing, Houston, LJ, Oak, Starks, coached by JVG
Hawks = Deke, Mookie, Laetner, Smitty coached by Wilkins

and that's just the Eastern Conference.
The difference was the Bulls' best player just so happened to be the best ever.

Yeah, no.

Compare the 93 Suns and Bulls
What's the difference talent wise?
The Suns actually seem more talented on paper.

Bulls role players have been romanticized too much because of their success.

Paxson was no better than Elliot Perry, Kerr no better than Danny Ainge.
Ceballos = Kukoc
KJ = Pip

If those Bulls were a super team so were the Suns.

Suns lacked on defense, talent wise offensively they were right there. Bulls actually faced the highest scorer they come across (Barkley) in the finals with a legit offensive team, they just weren’t as great on defense that’s all. Blazers/Suns
It’s just that Bulls always had the two greatest wings for that era. And was stacked at the top. No one really had a Pippen as the second star.
Pippen is a legit two way stud muffin, KJ is not equal to Pippen, dude has like a billion All NBA 1st defensive awards lol
Kukoc is better than Ceballos too. 96-98 Kukoc was basically Ginobili for them off the bench. If Ceballos played though maybe a 7 game series who knows.
I mean Pippen and roleplayers got 55 wins
No other 90’s team that I’m aware of would have got close to that mark.
If anything Rodman was a tad overrated vs Grant/Kukoc

Goat 1st option Best 2nd option for that whole era and solid depth/great depth I mean Bulls 90’s was stacked let’s not kid ourselves

Pippen contract
MJ contract
Bird rights
No luxury
Krause is a visionary
It’s all there, if anything MJ has been mythicized/romanticized way out of proportion than anyone else.

MJ made Pippen is legit the dumbest thing I’ve heard on this forum and there’s been a lot of bad takes.

Pippen finals averages - 18/8/6 while being the best wing defender easily for that decade I mean teams nowadays would kill for a player like that or at any point in time.