Magic took his team to the Finals the year he retired, when he came back, his team made the playoffs as well.
In 1991, the Lakers had Magic, James Worthy, Vlade Divac, Byron Scott, A.C. Green...that's a much better starting five than the Wizards had last year or this year, not to mention a better bench.
And I'm pretty sure the 95/96 Lakers would have made the playoffs with or without Magic. He came back after the All-Star break, so he didn't exactly lead them all season long, nor did he save them from being eliminated from the playoffs.
MJ came back with the purpose of making the playoffs with the Wiz, something he didn't get, did he retire as a winner after being unable to accomplish that? NO.
That was one of the team goals, yes. But I thought MJ originally came back because he wanted to prove he could still play this game, because he still had the desire to play. Making the playoffs is a goal that is set by pretty much every team. If the supporting cast fails, can all the blame be put on MJ? Is he playing 1 on 5? NO.
And what about all the winning that took place before the last couple of seasons, seasons were Jordan was at times very un-Jordanlike? Does that suddenly not matter, because his last couple of years were not as successful?
If you are a winner, you better show it taking your team to the Playoffs.
Like I said, the Bulls made the playoffs every year Jordan played there, including his first season (after missing the playoffs the year before). Just because his last couple of years, with a subpar roster and battling age did not yield a playoff appearance, MJ is not a winner?
They missed last year as well.
They were above .500 with MJ in the lineup last season, but if you'll check, MJ did miss 22 games that season, including around 20 in the second half of the season, during which the Wizards faltered and fell out of the playoff picture.
Did you want MJ to play 48 mins when the team was already out? what would have been the purpose of making him play 48 mins? having a Vice President or whatever MJ is there in a wheelchair?
I don't think playing significant minutes over the last few games of the season would have put him in a wheelchair.
Andrew, I didn't say anything bad about his scoring average.
That wasn't what I was implying, I was talking about his whole season - his individual stats and the team's performance.
Andrew, You have to agree with this statement: If you have on mind who the players are, the Wiz were a much better team than the Magic, they even were much better than the same Celtics who just can count with those 2 superstars. I'm not a Wiz fan but you should know that much better than myself.
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With all due respect, I don't
have to agree with that statement, since my opinion is different to yours. I consider the Magic to have the stronger team - especially after the mid-season trade that they made. I also consider the Celtics the better team.
At any rate, what we're discussing now is MJ's rank amongst the other great players, whether he was great, how he was in his final season, etc. I was just making the simple point that even though Kobe has tied a mark set by Jordan (yes, Wilt's mark is higher, but we're just talking about Kobe and MJ), there's other marks that Jordan has set, other things that he has accomplished, that Kobe has not.
And not just Jordan, but other great players as well. All I was trying to say was, there's more than a few more things that Kobe must do before we can give him such a high accolade as greatest ever - without being able to argue against it, anyway.
No matter who we individually think is the greatest of all-time (since we'll never be able to agree), Kobe has some way to go before he'll pass any of the candidates whom we deem to hold that honour.
