Best player on a championship team is very debatable for Isiah. He peaked in the mid 1980's and by the time the Pistons were a championship team you could argue that Dumars or Rodman was their best player. That team was pretty stacked from top to bottom.

Isiah had a short prime and really couldn't shoot very well so he relied on his quickness and ball-handling to get to the basket.

I'd probably go:

CP3 (best all-around, no weakness)
Nash (best shooter AND best passer, worst defender but LOL PG defense anyway)
Kidd (great passer, great defender, huge longevity, mediocre shooter for most of his career)
Stockton (good but overrated as a passer and defender, huge longevity)
Payton (super similar to Kidd but less longevity)
Thomas (great slasher in his short prime, good passer, mediocre shooter, short career)

So your telling me In today nba Jordan would score less ?

Yeah Isiah was still solid in '89 and '90 when they won it all but that team was really a core of Isiah, Dumars, Rodman, and even Laimbeer. They were all pretty equal. Even Aquirre coming off the bench (I think the came off the bench) contributed a ton. Crazy balanced. Isiah may have been the leader but he wasn't easily their best player.

Yeah this whole illegal defense/had to stay glued to your man narrative is super weird. I feel like it came from the depths of the LaSlappy fanclub home forum or something to defend LeBron's honor. If you watched basketball in the 90's players obviously didn't just simply stay right on their man the entire game, and illegal defense wasn't called when they didn't. Also, despite zone defense being some magical "shut down the greatest scorer of all time" pill, teams hardly ever play zone defense in the modern NBA. I wonder why that is? Or would zone defense only work specifically on Michael Jordan to hold him to 10 points per game, but it doesn't work on any modern players? (super weird how that happens to be the case)

Literally no one has said that modern defensive rules would hold Jordan to 10 points a game, but the Jordan fanclub seems determined to make wild exaggerations and strawman arguments in order to defend their guy. No one from the LeBron side is arguing that LeBron is untouchable like the Jordan side is implying about Jordan.

Most of the LeBron side, maybe with a few exceptions think that Jordan and LeBron are 1a and 1b and both are better at different things. Most of the Jordan side is basically LOL LeBron.

But in 2020 since zone defense is allowed couldn’t everyone just guard Jordan 5 on 1 and shut him down since he can’t pass? How is Jordan possibly going to score 5 on 1 in 2020 with zone defense?

Then it goes something like LOL HANDCHECKING and golden state would sweep the ‘96 Bulls because in the 90’s everyone had to do handstands while playing defense and that’s why Jordan averaged 30 something ppg

You should make some more strawman arguments, I'm done with this topic.

No the Warriors are sweeping the Bulls cause they'll score 150 a game

The Warriors averaged 116/game in 2016-17. While I’m sure you did a statistical analysis that showed they would scale up 34 points going up against one of the greatest defenses ever, it looks like you forgot to apply the same scaling algorithm to Chicago b/c their margin of victory was 3 points/game more and they won 5 more games. So it looks like mathematically the Bulls would actually score 160/game or thereabouts. This is of course assuming they don’t have to stand on their heads while playing offense and Golden State can’t play zone defense which holds opponents to negative ppg in the modern NBA.

Sabr42 fwiw I’m not making fun of you specifically with my sarcastic exaggerations/strawmen. There are a couple other posters in this thread who don’t quite have the analytical capabilities to not say something dumb and I’m making fun of them. I’ll let you guess who they are. No hard feelings and I’m just messing around.

Really tho, I've always been surprised at how lebron never really developed a first class post game. Hes bigger and stronger obv and could destroy and conserve energy playing downlow on some possessions.

Btw a zone wouldn't stop Jordan anymore or less, he'll still get to the hole but he excelled mostly on off the dribble pull ups so hed fine.

I dont think theres any doubt that a zone makes it much tougher for 1 on 1 drives to the hole.

also, Lebron does have a post game. no reason to use it at all times when he can score from any other position just as well.

I mean, harden seems to get to the hole at will. Hes not the athlete jordan is but may have had a better handle. Either way if playing a zone were that effective in the NBA the rockets would be the ideal team to play it against. Yet, they let them run pick and roll from the key every play.

I honestly dont know exactly why they dont so I'm genuinely curious.

Harden drives to the hole at will because of spacing. Remove their shooters and Harden wouldn't be able to do much.

also bc Harden can bury long range shots so the defender needs to get up on him.

its not like zone makes it impossible to drive. just makes it harder.

the defenses that were implemented against Lebron would have been illegal in Jordan's era. thats all. and I dont think hand checking Lebron would make up for it lol.

Twog you’re doing God’s work in this thread.

How excited are you that you havent been banned again?

Talking about the rockets I'm pretty damn bummed we're going to miss out on the rest of this season.

Looooool

Yeah it's a combination of factors. They have shooters who space out the floor and leave the paint open. Then Harden's elite ball-handling and threat of shooting from deep = lots of lay ups and high ORT.

LeBron's "weak shooting" on full display:

Ah yes, Kobe's quick-hitting, hot jumper style that continually wore teams down. He would never do something like shoot 38% for an entire finals series and get blown out. Oh wait he did do that.

LOL twog.