yup..cuz like we stated before...you need two great players to win a ring.
Be that as it may, Gasol does'nt have an excuse to not even squeeze a single win on 12 tries. Its like a random guy coming to your place and starts pounding your girl in front of you and your family on 3 seperate occasions while you failed to demonstrate an ounce of pride or gut to at least strike back and show this guy that he's not going to have an easy way to your girls vagina.
In my opinion that's a myth. Hand checking rules are much less impeding than zone defenses, which are seen in this era of the NBA.
Pippen's teammates in the starting line-up that season were BJ Armstrong, Pete Myers, Horace Grant, and Bill Cartwright. The second leading scorer was Horace Grant who was a jumpshooting power forward who couldn't create his own shot. They replaced Michael Jordan with Pete Myers who averaged 8 PPG that season. They did have Kukoc off the bench but it was his rookie season.
What Pippen helped Chicago to accomplish in 1993-94 was pretty incredible considering the lack of talent he had around him.
I'm not one to say Pippen is still absolutely a top 50 player today. I think he's probably on the fringe. But I do think he's a legit HOFer. He was basically putting up 20/7/6 in those Bulls championship runs. He's a weird case though, because he's often either really overrated by some or really underrated by some. But, while Jordan helped make Scottie the player he ended up becoming, I still think Scottie deserves much of the credit. I mean, if Jordan could do that to Scottie, why couldn't he do it to BJ Armstrong or Stacey King or Jason Caffey? Give credit to Scottie for working hard to becoming the player he was.
Of Course Lebron would make the Lakers better than they are without Kobe, The Royal treatment he gets from the refs would be a huge asset as far as winning games. Bring the media's darling to the most popular team in the League with the royal treatment he gets from the refs, the Lakers would be unstoppable.That would be sterns dream for Lebron to play for the Lakers.
I think Jamstone pretty much nailed it as far as their leadership goes. They both lead, but do in a different way. Kobe is about business, no bull . Lebron jokes and have fun with his teammates, but lets see if that dancing and clowning around on the sidelines bring the cavs championships in the future. It's also funny people having amnesia forgetting how good Micheal Jordan really was, Jordan would make the Cavs an elite team as well.
I dont think anyone said Jordan would'nt make the Cavs elite. The Cavs today even without Lebron are a playoff team. What was said is that "Jordan replacing Lebron would not make them a le contender" with Mo Williams as your second option. Thats the sticking and ongoing point.
The thing with Jordan's great 50% field goal percentage is that I don't think he'd shoot 50% if he played in this era of NBA basketball (late 90s to present). I don't think it's necessarily about the hand check rule or zone defense. I think it's more about Jordan's height, size, and strength for the shooting guard position in that era and the lack of emphasis on defense in that era of NBA basketball.
For much of the 80s and even early 90s, shooting guards were around 6-2 or 6-3 and 175-180 lbs. Jordan and Drexler were the new bigger, longer, taller breed of shooting guards. That gave them advantages in scoring on most nights. And, especially when Pippen joined the Bulls, it was difficult for teams to switch their small forwards to guard Jordan because Pippen would be able to exploit whatever smaller guard would switch on to him.
Also, defense has changed a lot since the time of the mid 80s to the mid 90s. It's not just zone defenses and the charge circles. It's strategies and emphasis. There were only a few teams like the Pistons and the Knicks in Jordan's time that played really tough, hard nose defense. You can see it in the FG% of a lot of players in the same era. Guys like Chris Mullin and Bernard King were well over 50% field goal shooters for their careers. Even less athletic, jumpshooting, smaller 2-guards like Jeff Hornacek and Rolando Blackman shot 50% from the field. In today's NBA, athletes are bigger and stronger and longer, they close harder on jumpshooters, have more length to bother shots, are more athletic, there are better coaching schemes. In fact, that's what makes players like LeBron and Wade (except for this season) so special that they're still able to shoot 47-50% from the field as perimeter players, although I do attribute it much to the fact that they attack the basket more than most perimeter players. But if you look at some of the other "great" scoring 2-guards over the last 10 years or so, like Ray Allen, Allen Iverson, Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter, none of them have been better than 45% from the field. It's a different NBA than when Jordan played, especially his prime years.
Now, that said, I still think Jordan would likely be a 46-48% field goal shooter, which would still be better than most 2-guards in the league, but I don't think he'd be a career 50% FG shooter and have seasons where he'd be shooting 52-53% from the field.
The cavs have more than just Mo Williams. Jordan wouldn't make the cavs a le contender? How you figure he wouldn't? Especially in today's era
If D-Wade and Lebron can shoot 48-50% from the field then i don't see why Jordan couldn't, he would get to the Line at will just like they do also.
Amen.
and i'm not saying Kobe is = or > than Mj ...but to say MJ won with little help when Pippen at this point in his career a sure HOF'er and Gasol is not it's RIDICULOUS to not consider this when counting supporting cast as side-kicks:
Pippen>Gasol>>mo williams ...
Because other teams are simply better. The equation is pretty simple. No one man team is going to lead a team to a le in todays generation. Team's are simply stacking up with talents. Gone were the days where a "Deep team" consists of at least 2 All Star players. Having 3,4 or even 5 All Star Caliber players are the norm nowadays.
agreed. Great post no one is diminishing MJ but the two gaurds were weak athleticaly ...
Perhaps in his first few seasons in the league when he was driving and dunking all the time, he'd be in that range. Perhaps even 1 or 2 seasons where he's right around 50%. But, I was suggesting he wouldn't be able to shoot 50% for his career in today's NBA the way he did when he played. I don't think he'd ever get close to shooting 54% from the field for a season like he did 2-3 times. For his career, if he played in today's NBA, I think Jordan would be more of a 46-48% FG shooter, a little better than Kobe's career FG%.
No one is arguing that you are being foolish. But Pippen carried a team MINUS MJ to a great record and one questionable call fromthe ECF ... THAT team was NOT very good and to be honest outside of the the rings they got with MJ are the brightest spots on PJ's and Pip's HOF resume ...
Dont get me wrong some people overrate Pippen and he did not win anything significant without MJ butthe only number two option since the 80's in his class are Joe D, Kobe, Drexler and K.G. .... (that have won les)
Quality of defense was pretty good back in the day, but the quality of players were pretty bad. The advanatge of know how in fundamentals was simply offset by the lack of athleticism.
No disrespect to Mark Eaton and Manute Bol, but adding them in the All NBA Defensive teams nowadays would be laughable.
LOL so Lebron would inject some toughness into Pau fix Bynum's knees and Dfish's defense and Sasha's jumpshot? And LO's inconsistency ...idiot!!!
I think Lebron would also make the Lakers a better team. That's obvious and why the do we have a seperate thread here? I thought we have a Kobe thread stickied here?
How many assists would LeBron average with Gasol, Bynum and Odom on his team? I'm going with 14 or 15.
you already said that several times in this thread.
why doesnt he do that now since he has the top 2 "3 point shooters" in his team?
No surprises here, this is something everyone but Laker homers realize. Lebron has a more complete offensive game in the sense that he isnt just a scorer but also a facilitator. Not to mention the fact that he isnt the type of player that will shoot 30 times every game in order to get his stats all while ac ulating a grand total of about 3 assists. Defensively, Artest always guards the opposing teams best swingman so there is no drop off there. Lebron will just guard the scrubs that Kobe usually guards.
Yeah. I can't believe Dan Majerle was a multiple nba all defense player. same with Dumars. Jordan even went on his way calling joe d as the best defensive player he ever faced lol, dude was like 6'3 lol. like you said, those players are probably great with fundamentals that justified their selections, but they lack the athletic ability of today's nba players.
Playing most halfcourt sets out of the triangle, probably about 6-7.
You do realize LeBron gets 50+ isolation plays called for him every game. He takes 20 field goal attempts per game and another 10 free throw attempts per game which is another 5-7 possessions. That leaves him about 23+ times a game (probably more) in isolation for him to pick up an assist in the halfcourt. That doesn't include transition.
Assist average/totals has nothing to do with playmaking abilities. Kobe gets a lot of hockey assists, similar to Duncan. Without a doubt in my mind, Kobe is a better playmaker, has a better court vision than Bron. In an isolation setting, Kobe would average more than 5 assist a game. Matter of fact he already did average around 8 a game in one season.
The difference is Lebron is much more of a willing passer than Kobe.
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