I always think about how dominant LeBron would have been on D back then.

I honestly think he would have had a better career back then. His skillset is better suited for that era.

When you think of Michael Jordan's biggest rivals, people often think of Larry Bird, the Bad Boys of Detroit, or Magic Johnson. The problem is, Jordan never beat any of these opponents in their prime. In fact, these opponents are some of the only players in MJ's career that could rival his skill and ability as a team. They're the only opponents who could arguably be considered dynasties, had multiple rings under their belt while facing Jordan, or ever challenged him as a player.

Here is the list of Hall of Fame players Jordan faced in the Finals, where Jordan was undefeated:

Magic Johnson
James Worthy
Clyde Drexler
Charles Barkley
Gary Payton
John Stockton x 2
Karl Malone x 2

Total: 9 Final face-offs

And here is Jordan's record against every Hall of Fame player he faced in the playoffs:


Larry Bird
0–2

Dennis Rodman
1–3

Kevin McHale
0–2

Patrick Ewing
5–0

Dennis Johnson
0–2

Charles Barkley
2–0

Robert Parish
0–2

Dominique Wilkins
1–0

Bill Walton
0–2

Alonzo Mourning
3–0

Isaiah Thomas
1–3

Shaquille O'Neil
1–1

Joe Dumars
1–3

Dikembe Mutombo
1–0

Adrian Dantley
0–2

Reggie Miller
1–0

Michael Jordan faced 16 Hall of Famers during the playoffs on 39 occasions. He posted a winning record against just 6 of the 16, a tied record with one, and a losing record with 9 of the 16. His total record in the playoffs against Hall of Fame opponents was 17-22, with 10 of his 17 wins coming against Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley and Alonzo Mourning alone. If you include his Finals appearances, MJ faced 24 Hall of Famers on 48 separate occasions, with a final postseason record of 26–22, or 54%.

The problem with this is that 20% of his entire postseason wins came against three players who never won rings. The biggest issue with Jordan's career is he never beat an opponent of his caliber in their prime. Another knock on his career is that of the fifteen Hall of Fame opponents he faced more than once in the postseason, he only posted a winning record against four.

Simply put, Jordan never beat a truly GREAT team to win a Championship. Period.

Words from Jordan's mouth in an interview recently:

"Different Era. If You Ask 20 Years From Now, I'm Pretty Sure Lebron James May Beat Me"

AD is better than any teammate Jordan had and the Heat are by far the worst of the Finals opponents given that two of their top 3 players were hampered by injuries for significant time

That's one Championship

How about the other 3, or should I say the other 9 times he was in the Finals?

Also, Jordan had Scottie Pippen a top 20 NBA player of all time who was a top 5 player in the 90's during their run. All-NBA 1st Team and All-Defense 1st team every season there, and the one season Jordan was retired Pippen almost won MVP himself. Without Pippen, Jordan wasn't shit.

put some respek on Pippen's name. One of the all-time greats.

This post was edited by Sixers on Oct 22 2020 01:44pm

Pippen top 20 all time... fuck you’re dumb

Clear cut ahead (then there’s many you could argue a case over Pippen)

LeBron
Kobe
Wade
KG
Dirk
Duncan
Durant
Curry
Kawhi
Giannis
AD
Shaq
Malone
Wilt
Kareem
Russell
Jordan
Bird
Hakeem

Giannis? BRUH, homering much????? A little early. He'll be up there one day, but slow your roll the guy has never even made it to the Finals and is literally just a regular season warrior. No fucking chance I'm putting a guy up there who can't even get to the big dance, knock it off.

Also...Kawhi??????? Scottie has way more Championships, All-Star selections, All-NBA selections, All-Defense 1st team selections, etc. It's not even much of an argument.

Pippen is maybe top 25 at worst, pretty much in the 18-24 range at worse by every credible source. He's up there without question, and that might be underrating him so please don't do this to yourself lmao.

My god, so many people these days suck on Jordan's dick and completely forget about how GREAT Pippen was. It's a shame.

This post was edited by Sixers on Oct 22 2020 03:20pm

but yet you agree that AD is better than Pippen?

I also didn't mention

Oscar Robertson
Jerry West
Julius Erving
Patrick Ewing
John Stockton
Moses Malone (I meant Karl Malone in the original list I gave)
Isiah Thomas
Allen Iverson
Chris Paul
Dominique Wilkins

This post was edited by Giannis on Oct 22 2020 03:26pm

No, I don't. At least not yet.

I mean AD and Giannis are both getting there, but if we're talking about accomplished careers I think they both have more work to do. Giannis had an insane regular season obviously, but how does he go down in history as the all-time great who always led his team to the best record in the league, won MVP and DPOy in the same year but always fell apart early in the playoffs....

At least AD added a ring to his resume, even if it was against a shit opponent in a weird bubble playoffs.

Then again, as I mentioned before the era that Jordan and Scottie played in was kind of watered down, so the argument can go both ways. It's hard to compare eras, but Scottie was one of the best in his era and is definitely an all-time great.