Pippen: Jordan may not be the best

[MR2-Sooner86]

Scottie Pippen: LeBron May Be Greatest Player Ever, Michael Jordan Best Scorer (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/27/scottie-pippen-lebron-michael-jordan_n_868077.html?ir=Chicago)


Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen went on theESPN Radio's Mike & Mike show on Friday morning and said that he believes LeBron James might surpass Michael Jordan as the best player ever.

"Michael Jordan is probably the greatest scorer to ever play in the game, but I may go as far to say LeBron James is probably the greatest player to ever play the game," Pippen said. "Not only can he score at will, but he keeps everybody involved."

Pippen, who said in March that his former teammate could score 100 points in a game today, went on to say that "everybody is a threat to score" when James is in the game.

"LeBron James will dominate the game on the offensive end and he’s able to do it on the defensive end as well," he said. "He can get in those passing lanes and dominate the game."

James dominated down the stretch of Game 5 on Thursday night, leading the Heat in a game-ending 18-3 run to close out the series.

The Heat will take on the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals.

zqayRyqU-7c&feature

[bigfatjerk]

At least Kobe had the championships with him. LeBron hasn't got that yet and hasn't lead teams to championships like Jordan did. Jordan did some things we'll never see again.

[Eielson]

He could be. He won't, though.

[texaspokieokie]

if you go by no. of rings, who has most ??

[Eielson]

if you go by no. of rings, who has most ??

Lebron should have at least 6 more seasons of basketball left. You can't compare career championships yet.

[JLEW1818]

anyone who thinks this should get shot in the face about 1000000 times, and then shot in dong 5 times.

Rings aside

MJ is the greatest leader in sports history.
Pippen is a top 50 player b/c of MJ
MJ never ran like a punk bitch to play with a top 3 player in the NBA, and another top 20 player.

Lebron's drive to the basket game will start to fall off in about 3-4 years, and his jump shot is good, but not great.

[SoonerNate]

if you go by no. of rings, who has most ??

Robert Horry?

And if you go by rings then you are a fool.

[Sooner74]

Lebron has proven he can't play without others around him. At Cleveland, he had people around him. He just didn't perform when the pressure was on him. To be great, you need to win with the weight on your shoulders. That in itself ends the Lebron vs. MJ stupidity.

[SoonerNate]

Lebron has proven he can't play without others around him. At Cleveland, he had people around him. He just didn't perform when the pressure was on him. To be great, you need to win with the weight on your shoulders. That in itself ends the Lebron vs. MJ stupidity.

You are clearly trolling.

[boomersooner28]

Pippen is on crack. MJ could score whenever he wanted, got everyone involved whenever he wanted, and shut down the opponents best player on the defensive end of the floor whenever he wanted. IMO, D. Wade is closer to Jordan then LBJ.

[JLEW1818]

Robert Horry?

And if you go by rings then you are a fool.

horrible argument, and i hear this all the time.

Rings only are a factor when comparing two ELITE players. Robert Horry was never elite, he himself will tell you that.

Only the GREATS get compared with rings. Horry is not a great, so he does not even enter the conversation.

Lebron is a GREAT, and he will get judged on rings later on.

but then, u must go a step further, when comparing top 10 talent of all time. Who went where? Who had what? Who has 6 NBA Finals MVP's.

time will tell


People bash Kobe for his first 3 rings with Shaq, saying anybody could have been Shaq's robin, and still won. If that's the case, anybody could have been MJ's robin. and don't give me this crap that MJ didn't win till Pippen. Well guess what, Shaq didn't win till Kobe.

[Eielson]

Didn't we have the rings conversation and the pippen conversation before...except with more knowledgeable people?

[JLEW1818]

:D

[SoonerNate]

Didn't we have the rings conversation and the pippen conversation before...except with more knowledgeable people?

Didn't you claim Kobe was better than Lebron? Just sayin'

[Eielson]

Didn't you claim Kobe was better than Lebron? Just sayin'

I said that Kobe was a more complete player than Lebron, and I still stand by that.

[yankee]

Lebron has proven he can't play without others around him. At Cleveland, he had people around him. He just didn't perform when the pressure was on him. To be great, you need to win with the weight on your shoulders. That in itself ends the Lebron vs. MJ stupidity.

lolwut?

[Sooner74]

You are clearly trolling.

No, you are. I gave my opinion. This is a Lebum thread is it not?

[Sooner74]

lolwut?

Seriously, what has Lebron done to warrant any of this? The media blew hard, but Lebron has been in the NBA for 7 years. I don't get the hype for someone who until recently hasn't displayed that he is even the top player in the league much less of all time.

I'm discussing GOAT, as pippen is. Not whether he is actually great.

[SoonerBread]

Lebron has proven he can't play without others around him. At Cleveland, he had people around him. He just didn't perform when the pressure was on him. To be great, you need to win with the weight on your shoulders. That in itself ends the Lebron vs. MJ stupidity.

Who? Drew Gooden? Big Z? Mo Williams? Boobie Gibson? Delonte West?

He had scrubs around him in Cleveland. See how well Cleveland did this year? At least the Bulls went to the playoffs both years of MJ's pseudo-retirement hiatus. That team had Kukoc, Pippen, Kerr, Longley, Harper. They were also coached by Phil Jackson. Who do the Cavs have now?

Not saying LBJ is MJ good. Just saying your comment about him having players around him in Cleveland is absurd. He NEVER got any help. Even when Shaq was there, he was hurt/old/slow. I guess if by having people around him you meant the roster was full, then, yeah, he had people around him.

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

The difference between Jordan and Lebron can be summed up two different ways. One, Jordan in 1986 was playing against a Boston Celtics team that had 5 Hall of Famers on their team. Jordan surrounded by a 30 win team talent drops 63 in a losing effort to arguably one of the most talented teams in NBA history. Lebron facing a somewhat talented but aging Celtics team last year absolutely gave up and stopped trying...Jordan you would have to murder to make him give up. Second point being how many times a game does Lebron get dropped on his head during a drive....I saw Pistons games against Jordan when I was little and let's just say Laimbeer, Mahorn, and Rodman would have been suspended for 3 or 4 games now-a-days for what they did to Jordan back then. You know what they got for those outlandish technicals (at least in 2011) back then...a personal foul and two free throws....there was no ejection and a shot and the ball back then...

[JLEW1818]

I said that Kobe was a more complete player than Lebron, and I still stand by that.

yes, right now Kobe is a top 10 player of all time.

Lebron is not.

[SoonerofAlabama]

Hard to be in seven years.

[SoonerofAlabama]

Michael Jordan didn't win his first championship until his sixth or seventh year, I think.

[My Opinion Matters]

Lebron doesn't belong in the conversation with Michael Jordan yet. Or Scottie Pippen, for that matter.

[texaspokieokie]

Robert Horry?

And if you go by rings then you are a fool.

russell
call me a fool.
11 pro & 2 ncaa

[JLEW1818]

under my theory, i don't think Russell was at talented nor as good as MJ, Magic, Kareem, and maybe Wilt

therefore, his rings do not matter when being compared to the above.\

but a top 10 player of all time

[Eielson]

russell
call me a fool.
11 pro & 2 ncaa

Wilt was ridiculously better at scoring and rebounding.

[My Opinion Matters]

Wilt was ridiculously better at scoring and rebounding.

And losing.

[Eielson]

And losing.

Myeh. Wilt won championships on two different NBA teams. Russell only won with one.

[texaspokieokie]

Myeh. Wilt won championships on two different NBA teams. Russell only won with one.

DUUUH

he was only on one. won 11 times in 13 yrs, & was the coach the last year.

if the rings count for anything, russell was best, if they don't, then he wasn't.

he did average 23 reb/game for his career. that was good.

[texaspokieokie]

obviously, i just googled some stuff. Wilt averaged about 1/2 more rebs/game than Russell.

something i didn't know, russell was drafted by st. louis hawks.

[Eielson]

obviously, i just googled some stuff. Wilt averaged about 1/2 more rebs/game than Russell.

Career Rebounding Averages:
Wilt: 22.9
Russell: 22.5

Career Head-to-Head Rebounding Averages:
Wilt: 28.7
Russell: 14.5

You tell me who the better rebounder was.

[Eielson]

The fact that Russell won more games than Wilt is nullified due to the fact that Wilt wiped his *** with him everytime they played. Hansbrough "beat" Blake, and UNC went on to win the championship that year. Does that make Hansbrough a better player than Blake? I'll let you decide.

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Hell I am pretty sure that those 70's Celtics teams could have trotted Mongo out as their starting center and still managed to win at least 9 championships with their other 11 Hall Of Famers on the roster!!

[texaspokieokie]

russell will never get the credit he deserves. Boston was absolute throne
of pro basketball for 13 years & only one there for all 13 was russell.

if you want to mention rings, his name must come up, otherwise forget them.

(the rings)
he's not as athletic as guy like jordan but for a 6'-10" guy, he had extra long arms. wasn't as tall or as strong as wilt.

who ever heard of USF before or after they won 2 NCAAs ??

[My Opinion Matters]

Myeh. Wilt won championships on two different NBA teams. Russell only won with one.

I haven't seen this approach from the Wilt apologists yet. Nice try, but 2 is not greater than 11.

[texaspokieokie]

I haven't seen this approach from the Wilt apologists yet. Nice try, but 2 is not greater than 11.

Welllll, it was different teams.

[Eielson]

http://cdn.faniq.com/images/blog/55ee0779740b6d95a19dda6da983e43c.jpg

I'm going with the better rebounder, better scorer, and the guy who is just an all-around better player. Not the guy who had the head to head win, and the ring.

[Eielson]

Losers:

http://cdn.everyjoe.com/files/2008/02/pau-gasol.jpg

http://i.a.cnn.net/si/2007/writers/ian_thomsen/07/30/garnett.trade/p1.kg.jpg

Winners:

http://www.sportro.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/2011-NBA-Superstar-Bio-Pau-Gasol-Superstar-Player-from-Los-Angeles-Lakers.jpg

http://clnsradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Kevin-Garnett.jpg

[Scott D]

Marc Gasol > Pau Gasol

[JLEW1818]

up until this this season, Pau Gasol was arguably the best consistent big man in the NBA

now he blows

[Scott D]

consistently overrated perhaps.

[JLEW1818]

so more credit for Kobe? ;)

[texaspokieokie]

for what it's worth, head -to-head, celts beat whomever wilt played for,
like 84 to 58 or something like that.

they were both fantastic athletes !!!

Wilt (i'm sure),shagged more women.
according to him 20k.
(i've never believed that.)
Wilt scored 62 points in a game that celts won, like 145 to 136.

[Eielson]

up until this this season, Pau Gasol was arguably the best consistent big man in the NBA

now he blows

His statistics have been basically identical every year since joining the Lakers (and pretty much his entire career). The only difference is that he's gotten stronger the last few years and now rebounds better.

http://espn.go.com/nba/player/stats/_/id/996/pau-gasol

If Pau blows, I'd love to hear what NBA big men don't.

[Eielson]

for what it's worth, head -to-head, celts beat whomever wilt played for,
like 84 to 58 or something like that.

they were both fantastic athletes !!!

Wilt (i'm sure),shagged more women.
according to him 20k.
(i've never believed that.)
Wilt scored 62 points in a game that celts won, like 145 to 136.

I admit, the Celtics were better than the Lakers/76ers back then. Russell better than Chamberlain, though? Absolutely not.

[Eielson]

Marc Gasol > Pau Gasol

No.

Pau:
18.8 points, 10.2 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 1.6 blocks 1.7 turnovers, 52.9 FG%

Marc:
11.7 points, 7.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.7 blocks, 1.8 turnovers, 52.7 FG%

[Scott D]

you never will get it Eielson...never.

[JLEW1818]

Pau looked like a **** in the playoffs

[Eielson]

you never will get it Eielson...never.

I know you said it just to get at me, but you had a follower.

[MR2-Sooner86]

The plot thickens.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s nasty open letter to Scottie Pippen (http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/Kareem-Abdul-Jabbar-8217-s-nasty-open-letter-to?urn=nba-wp4090)


It's a tricky situation, navigating all these barroom hypothetical arguments about who's done what and who was the best at whatever. But there are some things people are missing, when it comes to Scottie Pippen's continued annihilation of the 2010-11 Chicago Bulls, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's patronizing tsk-tsk'ing of Pippen after the former Bull dared compare LeBron James'(notes) potential legacy to that of Michael Jordan's.

As you no doubt know, last week Pippen called his former teammate Michael Jordan "the greatest scorer to ever play the game," before going on to point out that LeBron James "may be the greatest player to ever play the game." Not, "LeBron James has already caught up to and/or passed Michael Jordan in terms of accomplishments," but that he may someday be the greatest ever. Pippen's right. No player with James' skills and athleticism has ever graced the NBA. If he doesn't retire as the best, then something will have gone wrong.

And though endless people took horrified offense at the thought of James and the sainted Jordan being referred to in the same breath, Kareem took umbrage at the first part of Pippen's statement in an open letter to his Hall of Fame counterpart. That he was the greatest scorer ever when, how dare you, Kareem scored more points than anyone in NBA history.

Kareem couches this personal offense with one buried mention (signing his open letter to Pippen with "Affectionately, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, NBA's All-Time Leading Scorer"; Jordan holds the NBA's best per-game scoring average) after several paragraphs spent building up the accomplishments of Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. Kareem wants to know why Jordan never averaged 50 in a season, nor dropped a hundred in a game, like Wilt did. He wants to know why Jordan never managed 11 rings, as Russell did.

He also kind of wants to be a jerk about it.

"You obviously never saw Wilt Chamberlain play who undoubtedly was the greatest scorer this game has ever known. When did MJ ever average 50.4 points per game plus 25.7 rebounds? (Wilt in the 1962 season when blocked shot statistics were not kept). We will never accurately know how many shots Wilt blocked. Oh, by the way in 1967 and 68, Wilt was a league leader in assists. Did MJ ever score 100 points in a game? How many times did MJ score more than 60 points in a game? MJ led the league in scoring in consecutive seasons for 10 years but he did this in an NBA that eventually expanded into 30 teams vs. when Wilt played and there were only 8 teams."

After rattling off this series of statistics, Abdul-Jabbar chides Pippen "to do a little homework before crowning Michael or LeBron with the title of best ever," before reminding (?) Pippen that "the ring is the thing, and everything else is just statistics." So, erm, why even bring up Chamberlain? Because Robert Horry and Steve Kerr have way more rings than Wilt, and everything else is just statistics, right?

Worst of all is Kareem's revisionist role as Wilt Chamberlain's John the Baptist. The two never liked each other (and Kareem possibly still holds some enmity with the late Chamberlain, referring to him in this open letter by Wilt's long-hated nickname, "Stilt."), and Kareem isn't too far removed from penning the infamous, "To Wilt Chumperlame" open letter from his book My Turn.

In it, Kareem offered this doozy:

"People will remember that I worked with my teammates and helped us win. You will be remembered as a whining crybaby and a quitter, stats and all."

Stats that, 21 years later, Kareem can't get enough of. Stats that, even with Jordan flashing six rings to Wilt's two, are enough in Kareem's eyes to hold Wilt in higher regard over MJ.

Stats that, as we've known for years, can't really be trusted.
Because not only were Chamberlain and Russell playing a different game back then, acting as modern era athletes (hell, both Wilt and Russell to a lesser extent would be modern-era dominant all-world athletes even today) in an ancient game, but they were playing a different game amongst a different game.

There were often 30 or 40 more possessions per game back then, as shots caromed off the rim (on average) 60 percent of the time, and teams endlessly raced up and down the court as a result. It was a cherry-picking time for stats even amongst the guys who didn't have Wilt and Russell's athletic gifts, modern timing, and smarts. But for those two? With that package? It's you against a 5-year-old on a Nerf hoop, and you're allowed to shoot from wherever you want.

But that's not really the point here, is it? Kareem, obviously, is arguing on his own behalf. A classic passive/aggressive move that sees him arguing with a stats-based stance for players who scored less, rebounded less, and blocked fewer shots than Kareem.

And of course Abdul-Jabbar isn't going to point out the difference in competition and pace in his argument, or point out how the game grew significantly in the 1970s. It's the reason he averaged nearly 10 points per game fewer in his athletic prime in the late 1970s (before Magic Johnson came by, mind you, to take a bunch of shots) then he did at the young age of 24 while in Milwaukee. He knows, and it's slipping away. He's probably been doing nothing but watching cable TV and listening to talk radio over the last week, he's not even being mentioned amongst the top-five players in NBA history on some occasions, and it's clearly set him off. So much so that he's embraced the "legacy" (his word) of a former unfriendly combatant in Chamberlain.

It's all a sad show. Not unlike the way the Bulls played over the last four games of their 2010-11 run. Though the spirit of competition was there as they lost four close contests, Pippen has kept on the offensive with his pointed criticisms of a team he sat courtside to watch for most of its 98-game season.

First, in an interview with ESPN's Melissa Isaacson (someone who has covered Pippen for over 20 years), he defended Derrick Rose's(notes) terrible shooting marks from the Eastern Conference finals, blaming Chicago's lack of options beyond Rose for his litany of missed bailout shots:

"They hound [Rose] off the pick with two guys who are 6-9, so he has to make a pass," Pippen told ESPNChicago.com. "And now you give it to a guy who can't make a play. Derrick passes to Joakim, Joakim passes it back and now the shot clock is against him.

"How can you be efficient when you don't even have to make the defense move or shift, because they're not rotating to Joakim, they're not doubling Boozer. You put a little traffic around Boozer, and he couldn't hold on to the ball anyway. I don't know if his toe was the cause of [some of his poor play], but it doesn't explain bad hands. He didn't perform."

Yikes. Pippen also went on to criticize Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau for not playing big man Kurt Thomas(notes) more in the series, based on a solid regular season and an impressive (if not offensively successful) second-half performance in Game 5 last Wednesday.

Trey Kerby has the breakdown:

Unfortunately for Bulls fans, Pippen's pretty much right about all of this. Joakim Noah(notes) failed to make plays in the Eastern Conference finals, Carlos Boozer(notes) was inconsequential when he wasn't outright bad, and Tom Thibodeau probably should have played Kurt Thomas more than he did.

Such sober, spot-on analysis, Trey. Pity, because if you ramped it up a bit, you may have been a Hall of Famer.

[Eielson]

It's articles like that that make me never want to read one. Kareem didn't contradict himself. He said that Wilt was the greatest SCORER. He didn't say he was the best player...in the same way that Pippen didn't say Jordan was the best player. His talk about rings would not support Wilt as the best player, but it would support the claim of who he thinks is the best:

"I think the greatest player of all time was Bill Russell because he led his team to 11 NBA championships including eight in a row. That's an awesome feat. He didn't do at the offensive end, he did it at the defensive end. But he was the key ingredient in their dominance. I think he deserves the accolade of being the greatest player to ever play the game."