What was the general consensus, just curious ?

how can you say with MJ , bulls were worst ( in 95 ) than the last year with grant without MJ (bulls 94)?
You serious ?
With mj ( replacing grant some sort in 1995) they went 13-4 end regular season when MJ came back , trending to a 62-63 wins season in 95 ....,
And that was ... like 70% full strength MJ ? !?
1996 real mj with training came back and what happen ? Even a better trend than 13-4....NBA record before the supposedly goat team in 2016...


It’s like MJ ran hot for 6 years for multiple reasons to explain his success but just one year regular season for the warriors is enough to be sure not to be a fluke but a certainty to be goat ??
Even with Durant they never went close to a 73 win season .

Much harder to run hot for 6 years for two 3peat ( over expectations) than 1 year for the warriors ( not over expectation performance)

I mean really look at the results , lebron did great but he did terrible as well while with MJ , can you name me a player as consistent as MJ in great results ? what season or series you consider bad for MJ and where he actually lost ?

This is an area where Lebron absolutely dominates. Lebron's intangibles >>>>> MJ's intangibles. Lebron doesn't gamble late at night during the playoffs, punch his teammates, retire multiple times while perfectly healthy due to lack of motivation. Despite having been the anointed one for nearly 20 years at this point, Lebron's never made big mistakes or lost his edge. I don't know what to say if you think MJ's "competitiveness" and fighting with teammates to assert dominance is a positive thing that's conducive to winning. It's a toxic attitude that was tolerated because of his talent.

MJ's petty competitiveness likely comes from having had to prove himself even within the team, as he wasn't always the best. He wasn't even the best Jordan in the family early in his life from what I heard. So he's just internalized the need to compete with teammates to prove that he's the top dog. Lebron was always the best everywhere he's been by a mile, so he's never had to compete against his teammates. Instead he's channeled his competitiveness towards team success, doing whatever he needs to do to get the most out of his often underwhelming teammates, going back to high school days. This is, naturally, far more conducive to winning in team sports and again it's not even close. If you're going to succeed in a group endeavor, you need team players, not egomaniacs.

MJ ultimately needed a Phil Jackson type to lead, manage egos and run a team and bring an offensive system in which decision-making was more mechanical, since MJ's decision-making skills prior to this were always impaired by his ego. MJ's mindset and need to compete with everyone was only okay because he operated within a system where he was a cog. He wasn't asked to be a QB, he was more like a WR who just needs to run their routes and do what they are told. MJ's disposition would have been highly problematic if he was asked to be a leader and held accountable for the performance of his teammates. MJ at his best was the queen on the chess board, Lebron at his best is a chess grandmaster. MJ may have had the killer instinct, but Lebron runs the intelligence agency that tells killers who to kill.

If you're not considering things like coaching, you're not doing any kind of analysis at all. No one has to take only one - that's not how things work. That's like saying that scoring is more important than rebounding, so I'm just going to compare players by how many points they score. Base hits are more important than walks, so I'm just going to judge baseball players by how many total hits they have. If you're going to compare careers, you have to look at everything. And coaching is an extremely important part of why some teams are successful while others aren't.

This kind of simplification leads to KD either getting all the credit for the Warriors success (he was the Finals MVP both years, if you had to pick one reason, it's him) or getting none of the credit (they were already a championship-level squad, Steph has a ring without him, so KD didn't have to do anything). If you want to understand anything at all, that's not how you should approach any topic. You can influence the probability of something happening significantly without being the sole reason for why something did or did not happen.

The Bulls were worse in the playoffs in 95 than in 94. And again, I don't know what your point is here. Your point here seems to be that MJ is better than Horace Grant. Yes, we expect that MJ is better than Horace Grant.

Phil Jackson did a really nice job incorporating new players into the team the next season, leading to the beginning of another dynasty. But what is your point? I thought you were trying to say Phil Jackson wasn't that good? Then why are you going on about Phil Jackson's achievements?

GSW would win, nobody could stop them, even MJ and Pippen couldn't defend them. Also a sports site had those virtual type battles and GS would win in 7.

Please don’t do that , judging the “virtue” of an era with the same factors as of today era ...
The context in totally different and the past will always be guilty of evrything with the present because it is always easier to make better decisions with more information in the present .
those guys wanted to be there and it wasn’t seen as negative as of today .

Different people are motivated by different ways .

And I might add, there isn’t one type of leader that would work every moment in history , each era as its own needs and values.
So when you see MJ was a bad leader , I sincerely don’t think so with the interviews he had ...
Even if it’s not 100% , no one is perfect anyway but his sentiments were great values of a leader imo .

I mean seriously, the level of sensitivity that exist everywhere in our society today needs a leader like lebron but I garante it would of been the same in other period of time ....

Thx

I’m showing that Phil Jackson without prime mj he didn’t win nothing .....even with a 70% mj that was good enough in 95 in end regular season to be on a trend of over 62 wins , they failed .

And it probably wasn’t a fluke the 13-4 record en season ....but to win the bulls really needed full MJ .

You say without MJ Jackson one 5 more rings ....
Not a lot of coaches with that 2000-2003 would of lost ...and they did lost in 2004 .

Lmao you're the nut job who brings up lebron's hairline and lack of a father like those are knocks on LeBron as a basketball player or any kid deserves not to have a dad

I had to hear people cry for ten years about lebron leaving as a free agent but it's ok to quit on your team got it

You don't know **** about me or what I know about baseball
What happened to jordans dad was awful and I know they were close


I never questioned jordans work ethic in basketball or baseball
So first you're telling us this is some unprecedented season in the NBA like we didn't all know that and now youre telling us about jordan having a great work ethic.such riveting insight.next you'll tell us that basketballs bounce.

Terry franconia is one of the few managers in baseball I think is excellent at his job and adds a lot of value to his team but he's dead wrong on this. I already commented on this months ago.

It's laughable Jordan would have made the major leagues on merit which again is irrelevant as far as quitting on his NBA team.
We're comparing NBA players at basketball but here you go bringing up more irrelevant stuff. Even if he made the major leagues and hit 50 home runs what would that have to do with basketball?

If you would take jordans NBA career over Lebron's that is fine
I actually agree with that but it's way closer than you think.

But when you're talking about hair lines,making fun of him for not having a dad and ripping one guy for changing teams and playing ten less games bc of covid (and trying to act like this ring won't matter)while ignoring the other guy quitting under contract and playing 140 less games as a result you're not even arguing on merit.but your inability to argue based on merit makes me a life loser got it.

You're the pathetic idiot trying to downplay all of Lebron's accomplishments to make yourself feel better about your worthless life while gargling jordans balls.good luck with that.

Bron fans love saying Finals opponents were so much better than what the Bulls have.

Fun fact - Heat are worse than any of the Bulls Final opponents.

I'm old. I know GP was better than Steph, that today's league is soft, etc

But you have to be drunk to claim that Lebron is not clearly the best basketball player ever anywhere.

Drunk or epically ignorant about basketball.

Real finals was in the west. Like when Shaq lakers had to go through quality teams in the west.

We don't knock Shaq lakers because they had to go through tough teams in the west.

The real finals was Lakers Denver.

To be fair, when you get to the finals 8 out of 9 years it's inevitable you come in as a massive favourite once or twice.

ya Ill take Steph. 3 pters are worth a lot.

It just shows how easy lebron had it the east for over a decade .

Nuggets was the real final or not , seem to me , no nba final opponents Jordan faced was weaker than nuggets.
But contrary to lebron excuses from his fan about MJ , those on Jordan side don’t care .....
He deserve its 4th ring.
Some years he had an impossible challenges and sometimes he got it easy .
Over the long haul it evens out .

You're really confused here. If MJ + Phil Jackson can't win, that's on both of them. And they both had a great supporting cast, not just each other, but other great players that fit perfectly. Lebron never had this, but still succeeded against much tougher competition. He's probably worth slightly more than peak MJ and peak Phil Jackson combined.

And we don't have to rely on this half season - both have had many seasons without the other and the result is not close. Phil Jackson won 5 titles without MJ. MJ had zero Finals appearances without Phil Jackson.

I already pointed out Shaq's track record - he's spent a decade in the NBA as an MVP-level player and more than half those seasons were without Phil Jackson. The result wasn't very good.

Let's not forget that Phil Jackson also made a dynasty out of Kobe / Pau.

Again, let's not forget that these are dumbed down arguments that are made specifically for the MJ crowd who doesn't seem to understand that basketball isn't tennis and teams aren't just the sum of their individual parts. If you analyze this more from a basketball angle, it's not really close. Lebron is better at just about everything except shooting mid-range jumpers. Oh yeah and we now have MJ's shooting splits from the final 2 championship seasons and they are unimpressive. 50% of his 2-pointers were assisted, he was below-average at the rim, he was great but nothing special from mid-range. especially relative to the league. I'm not sure if he was legitimately still a great player then or was coasting on reputation. I'll spare the comparisons to modern wings since it's already kind of embarrassing.

Good point. West has had the Finals a few times in the last several years.

Unfortunately that dents the "LeBron made the Finals lots of times" thing I always here.

As above.

What players shaq had that was as good as Kobe during that time ?
And most importantly .... why do you think shaq didn’t win anything even if he was , from your OWN words , MVP caliber for a lot of years prior to Phil Jackson ?
Because of MJ !!!!

Shaq was lucky of being born later or he would of end up like a lot of older hall time great with no ring ..

Like a lot says about MJ:
“MJ start to win when older legend stop playing ....”
( which btw is totally false with magic (Lakers) and Thomas (Pistons) and all the great players in the 90 he had to face .

Well when did kobe and shaq start winning ?
That’s right , MJ was retired right ???

But of course no one would say that for the success of shaq even tho he couldn’t win while MJ was playing for so many years ....
We blame MJ he couldn’t win his first 6-7 years but guys like shaq we say it’s because he didn’t had Phil Jackson as a coach instead of MJ was still playing 0o .....

Ps: btw when shaq beat the bulls , Phil was there but not goat MJ and we saw exactly the difference the year after ....
Shaq got swept because MJ was back !
Phil Jackson was there both time and he lost without a goat MJ so please ....

Shaq lost In his early years because MJ was the playing goat and not because Phil Jackson was the coach ffs....

I let this slip but yes , and rightly so ...

But lebron stance keep knocking MJ in his earlier Years for not being good enough to go trough 2 goat team in his conference tho and confirming he was bad for not reaching more finals ....

Shut up bro. Get banned again.

Kobe wasn't anything special in their first championship season and he wasn't much worse the previous season in the playoffs (3.9 vs 4.2 BPM). Penny Hardaway was much better in the playoffs in both 94-95 and 95-96 (5.5, 7.4) and Eddie Jones was better in 97-98 (6.1).

Of course this is factually incorrect. Out of the 6 seasons from 93-94 to 99-00, Shaq and MJ met just twice in the playoffs and they split those series. More importantly, Shaq was eliminated by 5 distinct teams during this period. Here's how Shaq fared against these teams:

Indiana Pacers: 4-6
Chicago Bulls: 4-6
Houston Rockets: 3-5
Utah Jazz: 1-8
San Antonio Spurs: 0-4

So not only did MJ not present any sort of unique difficulty, Shaq had the best record against the Bulls, out of any team that ended up eliminating him during this period.

And Shaq's teams weren't just losing in the playoffs - they were getting blown out consistently:

98-99, against Spurs

Swept - by an average margin of 8 points

97-98, against Jazz

Swept - by an average margin of 14.5 points

96-97, against Jazz

4-1 - by an average margin of 3.6 points

95-96, against Bulls

Swept - by an average margin of 16.7 points

94-95, against Rockets

Swept - by an average margin of 7 points.

93-94, against Pacers

Swept - by an average margin 5.3 points.

That's a 1-24 combined record in the final series in each of the 6 seasons. A huge part of this is coaching - a well coached team with peak Shaq can lose a series or two, but should not get blown out consistently.

It’s not worth my time to argue with you anymore. Lebron speaks for himself. I have the most posts in this thread. You and your cronies are exhausting.

It’s because shaq played vs great teams but you just don’t acknowledge it because it would hurt your case about MJ facing weak competition ......
And shaq start winning when prime Kobe started ....

The only bad performance shaq really had was vs pacer in 93-94 I gave it to you
.
It was his second year and first play off , shrug.

But thinking it’s bad to lose vs the spurs /jazz/ bulls and the rockets is totally insane ...
They were very good team .

But if for you thinking Phil Jackson as more weight in winning than a prime MJ or Kobe in a team , well I just can’t help u there .

I would give you a lot of coach in 2000-2002 that would of win with that laker team And they freakin lost in 2004 with Gary Payton and Malone in the team !!!
Phil Jackson was there and he lost !
Maybe the worst performance evervof a nba team staked this much ....