So in Bill Simmon's (Sports Guy) basketball blog on ESPN.com, he commented on the Kobe vs Jordan article by Jemele Hill, and i thought i'd quote his reply:
5. Got a ton of feedback about Jemele Hill's "Kobe over MJ" column yesterday. Look, the whole point of a sports column is to take an angle, then argue the hell out of it. That's what she did. I wish more people would do this. Anyway, I didn't agree with the column for two reasons:
A. Kobe's scoring took off only after they changed the hand-checking rules and made it impossible for anyone to play defense. That's why Kobe scored 50-plus points in four straight games, that's why Steve Nash has a chance to win three straight MVPs, and that's why guys routinely score 50-60 points these days. If the 1987-93 MJ played in the current era, he would have obliterated every non-Wilt scoring record there was. That had to be mentioned.
B. MJ played in the most competitive era in the history of the league (1987-93) and emerged with three titles from 1991-93. Jemele argued that Kobe's current competition is tougher than the teams from 1991-93, which is just plain wrong. There's no comparison. The league sucks right now. Back in the early '90s, you had Magic's Lakers, Drexler's Blazers, Riley's Knicks, Isiah's Pistons, Price's Cavs, Hakeem's Rockets, Robinson's Spurs, Malone's Jazz, the TMC trio in Golden State, some underrated Celtics teams (they averaged 52 wins a year during Reggie Lewis' prime), some great Suns teams (including a 62-win team in 1992-93 with Barkley) and a Sonics team that was just taking off with GP and Kemp. It was a top-heavy league back then, unlike now, when 80 percent of the teams are mediocre and there are only four good teams (Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio and Detroit).
He makes good points, i think this is a topic worth debating, i just lack the people to debate it with.
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3 comments:
Hakeem Alajowan! (sp?) I remember that guy! oh man, memories. anyeay, kobe sucks. in order to be the best, you have to have some class. Kobe has none of that. of course, what do i know?
true, you have to have some class, but..Jordan lacks class in a lot of areas too, i mean, slapping a teammate, and he just got divorced, and he has a gambling problem, and he hangs out with Charles Oakley.
I don't care about Jordan's off the court behavior.
Fact is. . the league is not as top heavy as it was when Jordan played. . .the league is "heavy" about 5-6 teams right now. These teams are automatic wins most nights. That was different back then. There were some bad teams, . . but not as many. And, there were way more than 4 elite teams. you know me. . I love me some simmons
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