ESPN and Netflix to Produce a 10 Part Jordan Doc
ESPN & Netflix will release a 10-part documentary in 2019 about Michael Jordan called #TheLastDance
— Ballislife.com (@Ballislife) May 15, 2018
Director Jason Hehir (The Fab 5 & Andre The Giant) had access to 500 hours of unseen MJ footage!
pic.twitter.com/fLDR9HIL1p
I watched Jordan play all the time, every chance I could. And I've seen LeBron play. Jordan is blaringly better. It was a special event to watch him play. The only player I would consider close to him was Bill Russell. Bill Russell's influence on winning was sublime.
My best of all time team:
C: Bill Russell
PF: Tim Duncan
SF: Kevin Durant
SG: Michael Jordan
PG: Isaiah Thomas
Hot take is very hot.
Get Durant out of that list. He couldn't win for his life until he sold his soul to the devil. Erving, Bird, Pippen, and LBJ all belong ahead of KD. There are several others you could make an argument for as well. Your list is nullified by your terrible SF selection.
Completely agree. His opinion was nullified once he made that Durant pick.
Durant's best games have come in the clutch. LeBron has not done as well as Durant in the clutch. Clutch is more important than stats.
cant stand the m-f, and an agument could probably be made against him being top 5 'right now' but at the end of his career, yes, he will be (if he already isn't)
belongs in the Top 5 of all time other than Jordan and Bill Russell.
But I think I can say this, LeBron is not the best player in the league now. I think Kevin Durant is. So where would that leave LeBron in Top of all time rankings? And where would it leave Durant?
The best I have personally seen play live on tv:
1) Jordan
2) Hakeem Olajuwon
3) Tim Duncan
4) Kevin Durant
I guess since I think Bill Russell (watched him on video) is the 2nd best player of all time, that doesn't leave room for LeBron in my Top 5.
There must be 2 Bill Russell's. Youre thinking of the one that didn't win 11 Championships.
I mean, obviously MJ was tough and not many stopped him. Lebron would play that turnaround fade away pretty tough though. Michael would score on Lebron as we all know. Lebron however would destroy Michael Jordan in one on one. I don't care what anyone says. You don't know jack shit. Oh but Lebron isn't a one on one player and he is more of a facilitator. LEBRON would MURDER Jordan. I've watched many of the Bull's games back in the day. I still watch Jordan's highlights on youtube. Doesn't matter. Lebron is a freak of nature. Jordan is not a "natural born athlete and freak". He worked is ass off to get where he was and is as the greatest in history. The dude could barely dunk in high school for most of the time. You think Lebron wasn't dunking in the 7th? You're probably fucking wrong.
You grew up in Naperville or something similar. Nobody born and raised in the actual City of Chicago would share your views.
James has lost a slew of finals. MJ would never lose an NBA Finals. Plus the East has been hot garbage for most of LJ's career and was at its peak when MJ was dominating it. Those Pistons, Knicks and Celtics teams would each win championships today but were stopped by 23 (and 33, of course).
Those Piston, Knicks and Celtics teams were not good when MJ played. Unless you're talking about the first 7 years of his career when he couldn't beat them. Then they grew old, MJ had about 4 or 5 significant pieces put around him and then they won.
People seem to have selective memory of Jordan. Yes, he was unbelievably good. Maybe he was better than LeBron, maybe he wasn't. But just throwing out 6-6 is a lazy man's argument because you're cherry picking. How about these years for Jordan's playoff runs:
1985- Lost in the first round to the Bucks. 3-1
1987- Lost in the first round to the Celtics. Swept
1988- Lost in the Conference Semi to the Pistons. 4-1
1989- Lost in the Conference Finals to the Pistons. 4-2
LeBron on the other hand has never had a first round exit and has never been swept and has done so with a significantly less supporting cast. Again, I'm not saying LeBron is better but to laugh it off as if its not a legitimate question is just wrong. I mean, the guy is going to finish his career as the leading scorer in NBA history, 2nd or 3rd all time in assists and top 5 for non centers in rebounds. Thats pretty remarkable.
But just throwing out 6-6 is a lazy man's argument because you're cherry picking.Let's not forget the fact that those 6 championships came against five different opponents. The Western Conference in the 90's was a mess of mediocrity.
Jordan didn't do squat until those dynasties peaked and fell. Heck, the 2004 Pistons were better than the 1990 Pistons, and I don't think the 2004 Pistons would make it past the East finals today. And please, please do not call the 90s Knicks a dynasty, that's just insulting.
The whole "MJ never lost in the finals!" thing is just stupid... is losing before the finals better than losing in the finals or something? MJ was 1-9 in the playoffs before Scottie Pippin joined the Bulls. Which also happened to be the year Phil Jackson was hired. Truth be told, what is too often lost in this debate is the fact that Phil Jackson coached 3 separate dynasties in multi-championship runs. The Bulls were thoroughly mediocre until Jackson took the helm in '89. MJ was great, but if you think he could have done it without his support cast you are lying to yourself.
he could not do it alone. Nobody is arguing that he could have. Seriously, that is a complete strawman argument. Lebron has never done anything by himself either. The narrative that Lebron is carrying teams to titles is the real BS in the entire argument. He has this perpetual self-pity that makes people think he carries so much of the burden on his own. Truth is, he won two titles with Wade and Bosh, his hand-picked team, and couldn't even do it then until he cherry-picked Ray Allen from Boston. And the title he won in Cleveland he had Irving and Love. Love had been an All-Star his entire career and Irving is an incredible talent. People are really getting carried away with the fact that Lebron took the Cavs to a 6 game loss against Golden State a few years ago and swept an always-shitty Raptors team this year. Those are not super-great acheivements. And the 6 game loss to the Mavericks with old Dirk and Jason Terry? Really?
It is the in-thing right now to say that Jordan never beat anybody, but it is simply false. It is not accurate. The Knicks were really good when the Bulls are on top and they had to go through them basically every year. The Bulls went through Orlando with Shaq and Hardaway, the best Pacers team, a very good Portland team in the Finals for the 2nd time in 3 years. Utah had two of the top 50 players of all time with Stockton and Malone in their formidable years and the Bulls beat them twice.
The 2004 Pistons were absolutely not better than the Bad Boys teams.
There are so many things wrong with your post that it is hard to know where to start and where to stop, but that is really all the time that I have.
Chuckled at the Naperville reference
What I learned from some of these comments,
some Piston fans still hate Michael Jordan.
Perhaps. Another way to look at it is that Pistons fans aren't blinded by Jordan's inflated legend and are able to evaluate his career with more objectivity. Nobody on this board isn't claiming that MJ isn't a great player, just some are contesting the idea that he's the greatest player who ever lived.
Truth is, most of Jordan's legend was built on a foundation of an NBA that just wasn't very good. The NBA owes him a big debt, honestly, because without MJ and the Bulls, the league throughout the 90's would've been unwatchable; but that doesn't necessarily make him the greatest to ever play the game.
You are literally the only person I've ever heard have that stance. The Cavaliers of the early 90s were full of talent and were huge rivals of Jordan and the Bulls. Wilkins, Rice, Barkley, Mullin, Dumars, Hardaway, Webber, Hill, Penny, Mourning, Motumbo, Kemp, Malone, Stockton...the list could go on. Those players were spread around the league and it was certainly not unwatchable outside of Jordan. Your take appears to be jaded for whatever reason. Pistons fans of the 80s and 90s definitely hate the Jordan Bulls teams, but that doesn't make them more intelligent than other teams' fans.
I don't think my take is jaded, it's based on results.
During the 90's the Bulls faced six different opponents in their six Eastern Conference Finals appearances. They faced five different opponents during their six NBA Finals appearances. The NBA certainly had individual stars beyond Jordan, but competition within the league was at it's nadir and the Bulls benefited from this and I think it inflates their significance.
None of the Conference Finals the Bulls played in went seven games. None. The Bulls were the best franchise of the decade, no doubt, but the fact that no other team demonstrated any level of high end consistency to act as any kind of foil just highlights that the league overall in these years wasn't as good.
And as for the Cavaliers being huge rivals against the Bulls; during their championship run they faced the Cavs in the playoffs three times. Results? 1992 - Eastern Conference Finals, Bulls won in six. 1993 - Eastern Conference Semis, Bulls swept them in four. 1994 - Opening Round, Bulls swept them in three. If that's the Bulls big rival, then I think it's proving my point.
Pacers ECF series in 98 went 7 games.
Wouldn't the fact that those guys are spread around the league make it easier to reach a championship? Might make for a tougher first or second round matchup, but would you rather play an Atlanta team centered around Dikembe with not much else or a team like the '16 Thunder or the warriors of late?
In terms of what Jordan had to go through in the East, the teams were far stronger when Jordan couldn't win in the early 90's. His second three peat had a serious lack of elite talent in the East that wasn't on the bulls. HOFers in the east for that second threepeat included:
-32 year old Joe Dumars
- 42 year old Robert Parrish who was on his retirement tour for the hornets
- 33 Year old Patrick Ewing (who was admittedly still a strong double-double guy
- Reggie Miller
-Alonzo Mourning
- Dikembe
- Shaq for one year / And Penny even though he is not HOF
-Grant Hill
Certainly some solid players, but it's not like Jordan had to plow through dynasty after dynasty to win his second three peat, especially when he had two hall of fame teammates as well. I am also not saying that Lebron doesn't have similar paths through the east, it's just that people tend to reference Jordan beating up on super teams, which just wasn't the case in the late 90's east.
he couldn't win in the early 90s? The Bulls won NBA titles in 91, 92, and 93. The individual players beat by the Bulls during that stretch - Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Patrick Ewing, Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Charles Barkley, Kevin Johnson.
The Finals matchups that people are calling "bad teams" when Jordan returned in 95 have 3 Hall of Famers alone in Malone, Stockton, and Gary Peyton.
This idea that Jordan did not beat anybody is a completely false narrative. As is the idea that MJ losing first round series lessens his greatness. Seriously, look at the Chicago Bulls roster in 1986. It is worse than any even expansion team I have ever seen aside from Jordan. The very fact that those teams made the playoffs is a remarkable feat by itself.
Sorry, meant Late 80's. Narrative remains the same though, the teams he was losing to were great, the teams he was beating in the east (especially the second three peat), were not. I never was making the argument that he didn't run into tough teams in the finals, I was more comparing the Eastern conferences because the anti-Lebron guys tend to bring up how weak the east has been over the last decade.
Besides the Pistons you mentioned and Ewing, every single other player you threw out there was on a Western Conference team.
The '91 Pistons were good, not great, as Lambier was officially old and even IT had lost a step from his prime. The 90's Knicks are so ungodly overrated. The Orlando team with Shaq and Penny were legitimate, and that's about it in the east.
91 Pistons were good, not great, because they had aged. But that team did not beat the Bulls, the 89 and 90 teams did, and those Pistons teams were great. Aside from his rookie season, the only other team to beat the Bulls was the mid 80s Celtics. They weren't great?
After re-reading what I have written in the last few posts, I feel confident in saying that I am making my point pretty clear and for whatever reason, you are just misunderstanding, or choosing to argue a different point. My main point is that Jordan lost to the good teams in the east over his career, and beat up on not so great teams.
As you said, they lost to the 80's celtics, and the Pistons those 3 straight years. As soon as the Pistons and Celtics got old, that is when Jordan and the Bulls were able to shine, and no other team in East after that '91 season was very good, or at least good enough to be a threat against the Bulls.
People tend to say that Lebron has beaten up on a weak eastern conference, well, so did MJ.
think the point you are making instead is that Jordan's Bulls lost early in his career to great teams who were loaded and then lost to literally nobody after that.
That certainly goes into it, except the 95 Magic, which everyone conveniently forgets time and time again. Jordan is a maginificent 6 for 6 in NBA finals, something that Lebron will obviously never have. But there is an argument to be made that Jordan got to those finals only because the good teams in the east faded away, allowing him and the bulls to stroll through to the finals year after year.
And, I think it would be an interesting discussion to see whether Lebron or Jordan played tougher teams in the finals. Obviously the Mavs team that the heat lost to will forever by a blemish on the resume of Lebron (certainly because he himself played horribly in that series). But other than that, Lebron played the following:
- Oklahoma City, with 3 MVP's
-San Antonio, with potentially 4 future HOF's
-San Antonio again
- Golden State
- Golden State again, after they broke the record for most wins in a season
- Golden State again, after that same team added Kevin MF Durant
Say all you want about Barkley, Malone, Stockton, etc. But I would choose to play Gary Payton's Seattle team over every single one of the teams listed above.
Joe Dumars belongs high on the list of most overlooked players ever in the NBA.
re: players spread around the league. My point was more of a retort to the league being unwatchable. There was plenty of talent around the NBA and certainly enough exciting players to make up for a lack of Jordan.
As a Piston fan I hated Jordan. My opinion is probably skewed because I am a little older, but I don't think guys like Lebron or KD could have stood up to Jordan mentally. They would have lost to him three years in a row, then worked it out so they could sign a free agent deal with the Bulls so they could win a championship on his team. They are all great athletes, but Jordan was on a different level as a competitor.
It's like when I hear people talk about Chris Paul being better than Isiah Thomas. I don't know what the numbers say, but I would take Isiah every time. I usually settle the argument with a hypothetical, one basketball game, life on the line, the two point guards are Isiah and Chris Paul. I will give you first pick and I dare you to pick CP3 over Isiah. See what happens. Ask John Stockton how that goes.
But what's the fun in that completely reasonable take??
Would you take Kareem instead of George Mikan or Hakeem Olajuwon? Would you take Larry Bird instead of Kevin Durant, Dr J, or Elgin Baylor?
two of those losses came to a Celtics team that many consider one of the top 2 or 3 NBA basketball teams of all time, with Jordan going for 63 points in the Boston Garden.
And Lebron did not even make the playoff his first two years in the league.
The ultimate Michael Jordan moment was when in a playoff game he has the ball & with his free hand happens to grab Reggie Miller by the throat, pushing him to the floor. Whistle. Foul on Miller. (Who rightfully went nuts over it.)
The league helped a player who didn't need the help to be great.