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...which is what I tell myself every time I have flashbacks of dropping pop-ups in little league.

Coach told you to use two hands , but you were out there hot doggiing it...

It seems as MJ is as infallible as the pope now....i don't know, Jordan may have been the greatest player ever, but its debatable. Was he really better than Wilt or Magic or Russell or Mars Blackmon?

i'd take wilt out of the discussion. of course he is one of the alltimegreats but potentially losing just for pushing his stats... great example of teamwork and sportmenship ;-)

In the Wilt Generation, which is what I’ll call it since his stats symbolized the era of inflated stats, it seems the game was sometimes about how fast a team could try to score. Okay, not really like that, but the there were a heck of a lot more possessions and shot attempts in those days, which is why you’d see some crazy stat lines with hyper rebounding totals and tons of FGA. Plus, Wilt never had to score against a team fielding the occasional lineup with 3 or more players 6’-9” or taller on the floor at the same time, or teams with 7-foot bench players like we see in today's NBA (or what we would see in today's NBA if the league weren't currently on, uh, vacation). The Chicago Bulls hadn’t invented Hack-a-Shaq yet, so Wilt didn’t have to learn to adapt to Jilt-a-Stilt, not that teams had the rosters capable of doing that since Wilt never faced a team with three 7-footers. I’m not just trying to say that you can’t compare MJ to Wilt, which is like comparing Nolan Ryan to Albert Pulhols (who may or may not be taking performance-enhancing substances, I’m just saying). I’m saying that even if you are, don’t even think about bringing stats into the argument. You just can’t. (But if you really want to, here’s an article about Dennis Rodman that takes a moment to suggest that pound for pound Rodman was a better rebounder than Wilt, et al. (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ms-silver_dennis_ro...).)

the question is if you could have stop him with a lot 7 footer, i see just very small pieces of his play on youtube - but he was very agile played Point Guard(ok at the harlem globetrotters) but he had a skillset to stretch the game. And i don't have so much pace adjusted stats, but his stats was also of the board in his era.

And about Jilt-the-Stilt i never saw his old free throws, but they changed the rule of them because of him when i remember right - if someone have footage of it and how his free throws are leading to dunks would be intresting for me.

Overall i think the stilt. have a good shot in the goat discussion - especially when it comes to individual ability(and don't forget in the beginning of MJ career he was stated to egoistic to win anything, and did his game change that much in direction or was it just the observation with the succes and better teammates?)

I’m not sure I understand all of what you are saying, but… with MJ (unlike with LeBron), he wasn’t made better by his teammates so much as he made his teammates better. Scottie Pippen may not be in the Hall of Fame if he didn’t have MJ in his face all of the time (early in his career he and MJ did not get along so well since MJ was so hard on him). The invention of the 3-point specialist may not have happened the way it did if the Bulls didn’t have a MJ (and Pippen) able to control the ball and allow for players like Craig Hodges and Steve Kerr (and some would say B.J. Armstrong may have fit this category, though he liked to shoot from everywhere) to focus on stretching defenses and shooting threes. (Okay a little revisionist history there, but only a little since the Bulls were the first team to employ players like this with great success, the Cavs when they had Kerr not-withstanding.) Sure, after MJ’s first retirement they were a bad foul call away from returning to the Finals without him, but with him they would have had yet another season with a 12+ point differential on the way to another near-70-win season. (And yes you lousy stinkin Knicks fans, that was a bad foul call and you know it. The Bulls were so robbed, and a mini-Houston Rocket dynasty was born.)

It is very hard for me to judge Russell and Wilt because I never saw them play. I think both deserve to be in the discussion. I am unwilling to accept the consesus of a bunch of sports writers etc. who suggest that Wilt was only chasing individual numbers, because in my experience, they;re often more about telling a good story than the objective truth.

As for MJ, everyone seems to remember the championship MJ -- but before that, he took a lot of heat and a lot of shots and missed a lot of buckets. To paraphrase Colbert....great player or greatest player? But like I said, its a debate -- one which Lebron might eventually be the answer too. Honestly, if you had a pick one player who was a champion from season one in the NBA, it would have to be Magic. MJ had a lot of learning to do. So does Lebron, evidently.

Here are the rosters of a few players in their rookie seasons:

Magic Johnson (1979-80 Los Angeles Lakers, 60-22 record and won Finals, 47-35 record previous season):
7 Kenny Carr, 7 Marty Byrnes, 9 Jim Chones, 10 Norm Nixon, 14 Brad Holland, 15 Butch Lee, 21 Michael Cooper, 24 Ron Boone, 25 Oliver Mack, 31 Spencer Haywood, 32 Earvin Johnson, 33 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 35 Don Ford, 52 Jamaal Wilkes, 54 Mark Landsberger

Michael Jordan (1984-85 Chicago Bulls, 38-44 record, 27-55 record previous season):
0 Orlando Woolridge, 1 Wes Matthews, 3 Ennis Whatley, 10 David Greenwood, 13 Charles Jones, 21 Sidney Green, 22 Rod Higgins, 23 Michael Jordan, 27 Caldwell Jones, 32 Steve Johnson, 33 Jawann Oldham, 34 Chris Engler, 40 Dave Corzine, 44 Quentin Dailey

LeBron James (2003-2004 Cleveland Caveliers, 35-47 record, 17-65 record previous season):
0 Jeff McInnis, 1 Carlos Boozer, 2 Dajuan Wagner, 3 J.R. Bremer, 4 Tony Battie, 4 Chris Mihm, 5 Kedrick Brown, 8 Mateen Cleaves, 11 Zydrunas Ilgauskas, 12 Kevin Ollie, 13 Michael Stewart, 14 Ira Newble, 21 Darius Miles, 23 LeBron James, 24 Jason Kapono, 31 Ricky Davis, 32 Jelani McCoy, 41 Bruno Sundov, 52 DeSagana Diop, 54 Lee Nailon, 55 Eric Williams

So let's see here, the Lakers were a playoff team each of the previous 3 seasons before drafting Magic and they already had a HOFer at center. The Bulls missed the playoffs the previous 3 seasons including the 2nd worst record in the NBA the year before drafting MJ, but made the playoffs every single year from his rookie season through his second retirement. The Cavs went from the worst record (tied with Denver) the year before drafting LeBron, which was also the 5th season in a row without making the playoffs, and it took them another 3 seasons before they made the playoffs with a 50-win season. Looking over the rosters, I'd say Magic was given a playoff team and made them better. That he meant the difference between "contender" and "champ" maybe makes him a champion, but relative to the teams MJ and LeBron found themselves in, it's hard to say that he was any better from day one. The second-best player on MJ's team was Orlando Woolridge. Seriously. MJ was by far the best player on his team from the moment he landed in Chicago, and he had to shoulder the team until Jerry Krause, who took over as GM the next season, could build a team around him. The six Bulls championships were MJ's more than anybody else. With Magic, well, sure he was star of the team by the mid-80's, but a strong case can be made that it was Kareem who was still the best player on that team until maybe the '85 championship season, but of course by that time the Lakers also had the likes of James Worthy and Byron Scott helping out. I'm not knocking Magic at all, I'm just pointing out that I'm not conceding to him the title of ultimate NBA champion compared to what MJ had to do and did. LeBron, now, he of course had the worst team to dig out of the grave. But it did take him three seasons to get them to the playoffs, and he never got them a title, and not for a total lack of supporting cast. MJ won his first title in his 7th season. LeBron got close in his 7th season, but in this 8th he couldn't get it done with his personal dream team, and he's got a lot of doubters if his Heat will get one in his 9th. He still has a lot of career ahead of him, but he's out of contention for ultimate champion barring an amazing run before he retires, which is looking more and more doubtful the years tick by.

Anyway, that's probably more information than somebody like me, who sometimes forgets what day it is, to be able to jot down in a Forum post here. But what can I say, I spent too much of my youth obsessing over the NBA. If only I spent so much time doing homework...

MJ had a lot of learning to do

Sure, he had a lot of learning to do but in his first season:

Win Shares
1. Larry Bird*-BOS 15.7
2. Michael Jordan*-CHI 14.0

Player Efficiency Rating
1. Larry Bird*-BOS 26.5
2. Michael Jordan*-CHI 25.8

From the time he joined the bulls, even up to the year prior to them winning the championship, look at the 2nd/3rd highest PER on his team:

84-85:
Player PER
Michael Jordan 25.8
Orlando Woolridge 19.5
Quintin Dailey 15.2

85-86 (injured, played only 18 games)
Player PER
Michael Jordan 27.5
Orlando Woolridge 19.6
Quintin Dailey 18.1

86-87
Player PER
Michael Jordan 29.8
Sedale Threatt 16.2
Charles Oakley 14.2

87-88
Player PER
Michael Jordan 31.7
Sam Vincent 16.1
Charles Oakley 15.4

88-89
Player PER
Michael Jordan 31.1
Craig Hodges 14.9
Scottie Pippen 14.9

89-90
Player PER
Michael Jordan 31.2
Horace Grant 16.6
Scottie Pippen 16.3

From the time he joined the bulls, even up to the year prior to them winning the championship, look at the 2nd/3rd highest PER on his team:

Lets run these for lebron (yeah, it's beating a dead horse, at this moment in time, to say LBJ isn't as good as MJ):

03-04
Player PER (LBJ was 19 his first year, compared to MJ who was 21)
Carlos Boozer 20.8
Zydrunas Ilgauskas 20.2
LeBron James 18.3

04-05
Player PER
LeBron James 25.7
Drew Gooden 19.7
Zydrunas Ilgauskas 19.5

05-06
Player PER
LeBron James 28.1
Zydrunas Ilgauskas 21.9
Drew Gooden 17.6

06-07
Player PER
LeBron James 24.5
Zydrunas Ilgauskas 18
Drew Gooden 16.5

07-08
Player PER
LeBron James 29.1
Zydrunas Ilgauskas 18.7
Joe Smith 14.9

08-09
Player PER
LeBron James 31.7
Zydrunas Ilgauskas 18
Mo Williams 17.2

I wonder if LBJ would have been more successful getting the team he had his first 2 years later in his team with cleveland. surprised how bad his supporting cast was in 07-08, almost as bad as MJ's in 08-09.

So if teammates matter now...what's wrong with Lebron seeking out good ones to help him win a championship?