BuzzerBeater Forums

Who balled this?

This is absolutely ridiculous. Both Jordan and Kobe, had the 2nd best player in the league on their team, at the time. In Kobe's case, he WAS the 2nd best player. sheesh. You guys just love rewriting history. Jordan's team was awesome, that even when he went on his hiatus, they still won 55 games, without him. Yeah the NBA must have been really soft those years, if you could remove Jordan from a team, and they still win 55 games.

Jordan's team was awesome, I don't deny that. But Scotty Pippen was not at all the 2nd best player in the league. Even on Jordan's hiatus, when he broke out, he was just top 5. If he was so easily number 2 when Jordan was there, why wasn't he by far the best during that? Maybe my memory is flawed, but I also don't think those Bulls were as good as the Heat are now.

And are you saying Shaq/Kobe were the best 2 players in the whole league? I actually could see that argument being true in... 2000 was it? Their first in the threepeat? You are right about Shaq being better than Kobe then, if nothing else, but I could argue Allen Iverson, Jason Kidd, or Tim Duncan were better than Kobe a lot of that year too. That was Shaq's year. But before long he was noticeably slower and worse from what I believe was a foot injury, and Kobe took over. Not that Shaq was bad, just not in the best of the best anymore.

I never said that Kobe/MJ didn't have talent around them. I just think that neither ever had as much as the Heat do now. In hindsight though, that 99-00 year for the Lakers is definitely arguable....

Last edited by Double B at 4/5/2013 4:02:54 AM

He's 29.... Lol. And by the time he's 34... He won't be shit. His knees will be bad.

I like how you can predict the future. You know robert, not everybody suffers two serious knee injuries in one season....

ROFL

Pippen is underrated! I honestly believe he may have been the 2nd best player in the league for a couple of those seasons. All Scottie did was win.

Pippen was great and was a great complement to Jordan but he wasn't the second best player in the league in either the early to mid 90s or the late 90s. In the early to mid 90s it would have to have been Barkley, Malone, or Olajuwon and in the late 90s it would have been Shaq.

With regard to who's better now, that's not even a debate. Lebron is by far the best player in the league and has been for a few seasons. Durant and Anthony are great scorers and players but Lebron is much better than either of them. At this point there are a few guys I'd take over Kobe just for this season though you can make a case that from 2001-2010 he was the best overall player in the league even if guys like Duncan, Garnett, and Lebron were more complete players.

It's tough to do a comparison with Jordan because the league was very different in both the early and late 90s compared to today. The early 90s still featured a lot of deep teams that had not yet been adversely affected by expansion, though there were some truly awful expansion teams (anyone remember the Magic before Shaq or the Timberwolves before Garnett?) By the late 90s the overall talent was spread out so there were really only a few deep teams left, one of which was the Bulls. Even they, however, didn't have a lot of talent in their front court compared to the elite teams of the 1980s (Celtics, Sixers, Rockets, Lakers, even the Pistons). As Bill Simmons has right pointed out Jordan also benefitted from not having to play against Bias (who died before entering the league) or Reggie Lewis or Drazen Petrovic, both of whom died in the early 90s and were very good guards who were improving.

Also, I totally agree with the writer who said that Lebron can't play all 5 positions. He can distribute the ball and can guard true point guards in stretches but he's a 3/4. That's not a shot against him, I'm a Celtics fan and I have no problem admitting he's the best overall player I've ever watched (that's different than saying he's "better" than Jordan or Kobe). By the way I would add one last comment that is up for dispute. While Lebron is the best overall player I've ever watched and Jordan was the greatest winner I've watched, in his prime Shaq was by far the most dominant player I've ever seen, he just didn't always play with intensity. I'm not broken up about it as I'm glad the Lakers don't have 2-3 more championships.

Last edited by Lloyd Braun at 4/5/2013 6:33:00 PM

I laugh at your paycheck.

Oh, by the way, basketball and football, yeah two completely different things.

Football you actually get hit. Basketball you don't Lebron weights 280 some pounds. You think his knees really are going to last? Your argument is invalid.

I think you mean he weighs 280 pounds.But do you know that he weighs 250.30 lbs can make a big difference

Last edited by Knowledge at 4/5/2013 11:24:29 PM

I think SOMEBODY missed the joke...

I'll still go with Kobe, the league is about winning championships, and Kobe has 5 (2 without Shaq). Shaq and Kobe was the 2 best players in that 2000 team playing with declining veteran players exception Robert Horry and a still young Derek Fisher. Then he went on to win 2 more with Gasol, not all there Artest, and a very aging Fisher while Bynum was basically a phantom during those runs with injuries. Lebron finally won one with the Heat with Wade still in his prime with good role players finally when he's peaking at the top of his prime?

If it's all about winning championships,Russel is the best and Scalabrine is better than Barkley,Malone and as of right now Melo,Durant and as good as Nowitzki.
Great logic