TurdFerguson wrote:
FavreFan wrote:
He was a more dominant scorer and defender. Like Turd said, we probably won’t see a 10 year run of undisputed best scorer in the league and all nba first team defense ever again. This combination allowed him to dominate in a way leBron hasn’t been able to as consistently.
You can credit Krause for the rings all you want but then you have to address his post-MJ career.
Crediting the organization with championships always takes away from what Jordan created in Chicago. I always enjoyed Boers talking about Jordan's early days. The whoa we may have something here time. At what point in his rookie season where the Bulls officially his team?
He set the tone in games, he set the tone in practice. If you couldn't match his expectation he would drive you out of the team. You defied him or crossed him he would punch you in the face. I don't consider these positive attitude traits. Jordan was a psychopath. But this is where I have him separating himself above Lebron.
Logically both components must be credited. The Bulls aren't winning without MJ being great and MJ isn't winning without the front office making the rest of the roster competitive. Krause isn't hitting game winning shots in the fourth quarter but MJ isn't on the phone at 2 a.m. trying to make a deal for Kerr or Rodman or whomever to come to the Bulls.
TurdFerguson wrote:
VF - I don't think anyone is saying 4 rec league guys and Jordan win a title.
I think that's precisely what FF is saying.
FavreFan wrote:
The argument that Jordan would have won zero titles drafted into a different situation is just a bad one. And veganfan actually did suggest it.
But why is it "a bad one"? To just say it's bad without offering a rebuttal sounds rather dogmatic. Your points on great players winning titles is noted, but plenty of great players haven't come close. Other great players could/should have won more. Why didn't they? Were we wrong to consider them great? Not at all. It just means the variables they couldn't control (roster talent and other circumstances) didn't work out for them. They worked out for Jordan. Why is it so irrational to suggest Jordan wouldn't have won anything in Minnesota? An expansion team with no talent whatsoever, why isn't it entirely reasonable that as great as he was Jordan probably wouldn't have won anything with them. And it would entirely be the fault of his own circumstances, and not due to a lack of brilliance on his part.
leashyourkids wrote:
It's not. It's a 100% legitimate argument. And it's true of any player in any sport in any era. It's not a knock on Jordan. There is no way to say with assurance that any player in any TEAM sport would automatically win championships. You could probably make a decent argument for extremely dominant players in individual sports like tennis or boxing.
Exactly.
FavreFan wrote:
The history of the league suggests the best players figure it out eventually with the right cast.
"With the right cast" = players, even GOATs, need help from management? So you agree with us now?
TurdFerguson wrote:
Isn't it also circumstance that the team Jordan was dropped on was pretty much devoid of talent. It became his team pretty damn fast and from there his leadership and locker room terrorism set the tone for the team.
leashyourkids wrote:
In addition to being a freakish talent, he was also the benefactor of circumstance.
The last two posts get to the root of the matter i think, which is how you read history and, more broadly, make sense of achievements both big and small. Are you self-made or are you the product of your environment? Are you a noted medical professional because you're a genius or is your genius owed to you building upon the breakthroughs of doctors who came before you?
I think guys here are reading Jordan the first way - he's a self-made badass who was gonna win rings regardless. I don't view things that way though. At the same time individual determination and willpower are obviously real. Try as he might, Jordan would never win anything if the circumstances that lyk mentioned didn't come together the way they did. To be fair, even if things came together the way they did, MJ wouldn't have won anything if he wasn't as competitive and determined as he was.
To go back to the medical example, whoever cures cancer is only able to do so because millions of people tried before him and ran out of time before figuring it out. The guy who cures it is simply lucky that he was born at the right time and place since he can benefit from the state of medical knowledge at that time. Individual talent will carry him/her the rest of the way.
Similarly Jordan was lucky to benefit from the circumstances lyk described earlier. And that takes away nothing from his individual talent and determination.