Lakers All-Time Starting 5 vs Bulls All-Time Starting 5

[air gordon]

That Lakers team got too much alpha dogs in it, it would've imploded... Shaq was probably not that confident that any of the Lakers team he's with can beat any of the 90's Bulls so he just went that way... It's sad that a lot of people is still underrating the A-Train eventhough he's a hall of famer already...

It would probably be better to debate a matchup of a Shaq laker champion team against one of the Bulls championship teams.

Eliminate the alpha dog hypothetical. Quite frankly I do not think Jordan could mesh with another top scorer. A young MJ did not mesh well with Theus, nevermind his party habits, so he was shipped out. Whenever a teammate would have a great scoring game, Jordan was notorious for following up with a killer game of his own. Even when Jason Caffey went off for a career high of 20 something...

Pip and kukoc could put the ball in the hole but neither had the score first mentality. Maybe someone like the player formerly known as Brian Williams but he's hardly an alpha dog

[Sauru]

well the only way shaqs teams would have a chance against jordans bulls teams would be if they had magic and kareem. the shaq/kobe teams just were not on par with the jordan/pippen/rodman bulls teams


also the entire thing is hypothetical so if we are to talk about a hypothetical matchup i will always bring all factors into play with team chemistry being a major one. if shaq was with kareem he would have told him he was the top dog and that kareem can be the second option


i wonder if it haunts shaq on a nightly basis that kobe won 2 without him

[NovU]

None of Shaq, or Kobe's team is beating the 95-96 Bulls team that won 72 games. They aren't even beating this year's Warriors.

Chemistry is important. You don't put 5 Michael Jordans on the floor. Is why Karl Malone and Gary Payton were useless alongside Kobe and Shaq. Similar should happen with the Lakers poorly thought out roster above.

[Moz]

It would probably be better to debate a matchup of a Shaq laker champion team against one of the Bulls championship teams.

The mid-90's Orlando Magic has the same structure so I reckon, like the people above me, the Jordan-Pip-Rodman team can compete with any of Shaq's Lakers teams... Tim Donaghy excluded...

Eliminate the alpha dog hypothetical. Quite frankly I do not think Jordan could mesh with another top scorer. A young MJ did not mesh well with Theus, nevermind his party habits, so he was shipped out.

IIRC I read a Sam Smith article back then that the animosity between them has something to do with MJ dating Theus' ex... I don't know about Orlando Woolridge but it seems they don't have any issues with each other...

also the entire thing is hypothetical so if we are to talk about a hypothetical matchup i will always bring all factors into play with team chemistry being a major one. if shaq was with kareem he would have told him he was the top dog and that kareem can be the second option

Also you have Kobe and Baylor on that team who are both ball dominant players...

i wonder if it haunts shaq on a nightly basis that kobe won 2 without him

He's probably not that upset with it since he won one in Miami...

[air gordon]

I agree with the team chemistry thing but the Bulls are almost at an unfair advantage since their all time greats are pretty much from the same team

Haha the rumors about Theus. Forgot about woolridge! I think it was in the Jordan rules I read he had a coke probelm. The Theus bit is prolly in the same book

Hue hollins too... That wasn't a foul against Pippen on Hubert Davis shot

[Sauru]

He's probably not that upset with it since he won one in Miami...

i think thats exactly why he is so upset with it. him only winning 1 to kobe 2 while separate is why he has to go around telling everyone how it was his team every chance he gets. some of his shots at pippen were also shots at kobe. i still think pippen was one of the most underrated played to play the game. people constantly say "he was the side kick" well of course, anyone, and i mean every last player to ever play the game of basketball would be a side kick to jordan. how is that an insult?

[air gordon]

Good to see some love for Pip. He probably had his best statistical season during Jordan's retirement but probably his worst as a professional.

“Sometimes a player’s greatest challenge is coming to grips with his role on the team

[Andrew]

I dunno. At least Scottie's responses were on point. Shaq's last one was pretty cringe-worthy. I think it was the response of someone who got burned.

I was thinking the same thing. Shaq's insults pretty much boiled down to "You weren't the best player on the team" (not really an insult to the second best player on the team, and great player in his own right), and "You're a girl" (cringe-worthy enough in high school, let alone a guy in his 40s).

Eliminate the alpha dog hypothetical. Quite frankly I do not think Jordan could mesh with another top scorer. A young MJ did not mesh well with Theus, nevermind his party habits, so he was shipped out. Whenever a teammate would have a great scoring game, Jordan was notorious for following up with a killer game of his own. Even when Jason Caffey went off for a career high of 20 something...

also the entire thing is hypothetical so if we are to talk about a hypothetical matchup i will always bring all factors into play with team chemistry being a major one. if shaq was with kareem he would have told him he was the top dog and that kareem can be the second option

I agree with the team chemistry thing but the Bulls are almost at an unfair advantage since their all time greats are pretty much from the same team

I agree with you both there, and I believe that the latter point about most of the Bulls' players coming from the one era gels with the alpha dog mentality factor in the hypothetical. Jordan's the only real alpha dog on that roster (Rose is probably the only one that comes close in that regard, and it isn't close), and he already showed he could co-exist with the three other players, one of whom definitely wasn't very interested in scoring anyway. It probably is a bit unfair, but then, you could say the same about the Lakers' ability to draw upon all those great individual players when assembling an all-time lineup.

I'd also agree that comparisons of individual championship teams are probably fairer and more interesting. If it's an all-time lineup battle though, Lakers vs. Celtics would be a far more interesting matchup.

[Moz]

He's probably not that upset with it since he won one in Miami...

i think thats exactly why he is so upset with it. him only winning 1 to kobe 2 while separate is why he has to go around telling everyone how it was his team every chance he gets.

Shaq can always claim that Kobe took some time to win it while he only needed a year to get one...

[Andrew]

Two years, though the Heat had a respectable run his first year there.

[Sauru]

the one ring shaq has without kobe he was robin on the team though and really only won it becomes the refs didnt want to see the mavs win so they straight up handed the title to miami

[Andrew]

A couple of the more controversial calls aside, the Mavericks didn't make the appropriate adjustments; neither to their game plan, nor the officiating.

[NovU]

Wade got Kobe/MJ treatment by the refs. The NBA was starved for up and coming superstars back then because they were making a transition from VC/Tmac/Iverson era. It needed to be done, they got family to feed.