Bird-Magic-Jordan

[JR Giddens]

Ok I'm 14 years old (NBA fan since 2002) and I never saw these 3 guys play live. However I have seen highlight DVDs of past players. But my question is how good do you think these 3 players would be in today's 2008 NBA. Younger NBA fans(less knowledgeable) say they wouldn't be as good because the league is more athletic now but older NBA fans say that without the no-handheck rule that half of these Jordan wannabees like Lebron, Dwade, and others wouldn't be half as good back in the day. What do you think?

[Roy Hobbs]

I think they'd be the three best players in the league.  Michael is a better Kobe, Larry is a better passing, rebounding, and defending Dirk, and Magic is a 6'9" Chris Paul.

[RebusRankin]

I think they'd be the three best players in the league.  Michael is a better Kobe, Larry is a better passing, rebounding, and defending Dirk, and Magic is a 6'9" Chris Paul.

I'd add Bird is a better shooting, more clutch Dirk and Michael is a better defender and better offensive player than Kobe.

I'm laughing at the people who say the 2008 Olympic team would beat the Dream Team but the argument that kills me is the 08 team would win in a up tempo game. Jordan, Pippen, Drexler, Robinson, Barkley, Malone and Magic were all athletic and could play up tempo. Heck Mullin played in an uptempo, small ball system under Nellie.

[Jon]

Well the athleticism argument really doesn't apply to Jordan: he was as athletic as anyone who has ever played the game.  But still, in a more general way I'd disregard the athletic argument for a few reasons.

1) While Kobe and LeBron are obviously super-athletic, guys like Steve Nash, Tim Duncan, Dirk Nowitzki, and Paul Pierce aren't, and they're still dominating this league.  So it obviously proves you don't need to be an athletic freak to be a great player in today's league. 

2) It's not like there weren't great athletes in years past going back to guys like Dr. J., David Thompson, and Elgin Baylor.  And while all were great players, it's not like they were scoring 100 ppg. 

3) If any old player played today, we'd have to factor in the improvements they'd get in conditioning and training in today's league.  Bill Russell was listed at 6-9 220, which would be considered undersized for the power forward spot in today's league, let alone the center spot he played in the '60s.  However, you put him in today's league, you can pretty much count on him having another 30+ pounds of muscle that he'd get from an improved diet and weight lifting program.  Similarly, LeBron James wouldn't be built like a linebacker if he played 50 years ago. 

Red Auerbach once said something to the effect that today's NBA doesn't have better players than it did when he coached Russell and Cousy, today's NBA just has more of them.  I tend to agree with that given the fact that more kids grow up learning to play basketball now than they did in the '50s in more parts of the world.  Thus, the talent pool is bigger than it was then to choose from.  But I also agree with Red that the truly elite players from his era could have dominated in our era as well. 

To take his theory one step further, I think you can also make an interesting evaluation of the league by comparing the amount of talent in the world to how many teams there were in the league at a given standpoint.  In my opinion, the league pretty much kept up with the expanding the league to accommodate the amount of talent available to it through the '80s.  However, in the '90s I think we saw the low point of basketball with the expansion teams coming and diluting the league.  However, I think over the past 5-10 years or so, I think we see the league slowly starting to catch up as more great players from around the world come into the league and (for the most part) the league is limiting expansion. 

[Andy Jick]

watch the '86 playoffs (boston/chicago) or the '88 playoffs (boston/atlanta) and you'll see how athletic the nba really was.  there is a myth that just because the shorts are shorter and there are more white players that the league lacked athleticism and skill.  but the league wasn't watered down by 1) expansion and 2) youth.

bottom line: these three players would dominate today...jordan is better than kobe...nobody compares to magic's skills...and bird could run circles around nowitzki. 

larry would put up numbers that were near triple-double each night...it was the norm.  jordan was worth the price of admission...and though i hated magic, he was well worth staying up for those 10:30 pm games (when my parents would let me - ha!).

[nickagneta]

I can't see how anyone could ever imagine that Larry, Magic, and Michael in their prime wouldn't be just as dominant if not more so than they were in their own days. There skills and athleticism and basketball minds were off the chart.

I know how some say Larry wasn't an athlete but they were wrong, wrong wrong. He might have had some of the best hand-eye coordination of any player ever. Add that to the fact that he was extremely strong and had unbelievable cardiovascular conditioning better than probably 90-95% of today's NBA players and you start to get a better picture of the p[layer that he was.

Jordan needs no explanation and Magic had passing skills unequaled ever in the history of the game, a drive to win and to better himself every minute he could that was unearthly, and the versatility to play and excel and dominate while playing any position on the court. Any position. How anyone young or old, knowledgeable of the game or not, could not see this after watching just one game of Jordan's, Bird's and Magic's is beyond me.

There are just players that transcend generations and years and would be dominant always. Bird, Jordan, Magic, Chamberlain, Russell, West, Robertson, Baylor, Olajawon, LeBron, Kobe, Shaq, and about a dozen or two more players all fall into that category. All would have dominated the game in the fifties and all would have dominated the game today and all would have dominated the game in 2040.

[zerophase]

see i've also never seen these players play and my issue is... sure bird made a ton of clutch plays, sure he had some  magical moments, but like a lot of people said, for every game winning shot he made, he missed one too. i mean if you put together a highlight reel of pierce, he would look like a god too. was bird really magical all the time? i say no because it is impossible to do so. therefore, aren't we just over rating past players? it's very common that player's reputations precede them.

[wdleehi]

The lack hand checking means that the guys today will never have to push there game to overcome that. 


Jordon got better because of it. 




Harder competition and rules force the best to be even better. 

[Roy Hobbs]

see i've also never seen these players play and my issue is... sure bird made a ton of clutch plays, sure he had some  magical moments, but like a lot of people said, for every game winning shot he made, he missed one too. i mean if you put together a highlight reel of pierce, he would look like a god too. was bird really magical all the time? i say no because it is impossible to do so. therefore, aren't we just over rating past players? it's very common that player's reputations supersede them.

Do you really think the fans on here are making their assessment of Larry Bird based on highlight reels, though?  I mean, yes, the guy was that magical.  He and Magic were the two most exciting players I've ever seen play.  No, they didn't hit every clutch shot they took, but they made them much more often than most players, or even most stars.

See, the youtube videos you see of Larry, Magic, Michael, et. al....  those aren't highlight reels in the sense of Gerald Green youtube highlights, where every highlight of his entire career is condensed into three minutes.  If you wanted to show all of the great plays of Larry Bird's career, you'd have a 16 hour dvd, rather than a 3 minute highlight clip.  Remember a couple years ago, when Paul Pierce had his streak of something like eight 30+ point games in a row, and we were all in awe?  Well, that was Larry, night in, night out, for about seven straight seasons.  The guy was amazing.

[LB3533]

Wow if we were to put those 3 players in their primes within today's game....with all the advances in technology, game footage, nutrition, training, health facilities, etc. etc.....so many various resources...those 3 guys would be sitting up top while the rest of "today's stars" are shinning their shoes.

[Steve Weinman]

see i've also never seen these players play and my issue is... sure bird made a ton of clutch plays, sure he had some  magical moments, but like a lot of people said, for every game winning shot he made, he missed one too. i mean if you put together a highlight reel of pierce, he would look like a god too. was bird really magical all the time? i say no because it is impossible to do so. therefore, aren't we just over rating past players? it's very common that player's reputations supersede them.

I'll echo Roy: As RH notes, most of the people on this board aren't speaking from highlight reels.  Because it was more recent, I can remember Michael even more clearly than Bird, and what he did was so absolutely amazing that folks at least began to gain this understanding when he was doing it.  Same goes for Larry and Magic.

Further, while they aren't all completely transferable (as noted by several posters regarding rules and officiating changes), there are statistics of both the individual and team variety that serve to demonstrate these players' greatness outside the highlight reel.

I would only contradict Roy on one point, which is that I'm not entirely sure it's possible to stretch the GG highlight reel to three full minutes...(I kid, kind-of, I promise)

-sw

[Roy Hobbs]

I would only contradict Roy on one point, which is that I'm not entirely sure it's possible to stretch the GG highlight reel to three full minutes...(I kid, kind-of, I promise)

Come on, Steve...  if you include Gerald's high school games, summer league, and dunk contests (including showing the same dunk 12 times, in super slow-mo) you can stretch Gerald's highlights to  5 minutes, if not longer.  No need to exaggerate. 

[kgiessler]

Well, that was Larry, night in, night out, for about seven straight seasons.  The guy was amazing.

That's a bit of an overstatement:
http://www.nba.com/history/players/bird_stats.html

I would be interested to know what Larry's longest streak of 30+ games was, just for novelty though.  Not really meaningful, as its all about context (Pierce did that while carrying a team of young players).

And I think that's probably what makes Bird stand out so clearly: context.  Even on a team of *amazing* players, his skills were very obvious.

There is a bit of exaggerated nostalgia with him (there's an actual psychological word for this...anyone know it?), so going back and watching videos is worth it. 

Here's one of my favorites.  Really, it shows a couple things: 1) His shooting wasn't always remarkable  but 2) When it came time to win, not only did he do it, but he walked away with #1 in the air before the shot even went in.  Thats confidence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITj7y1M4D5k

[kgiessler]

Ok, had to post this too, I saw it in the related videos, and it is just too great to not post:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iFhNi9t4L4&feature=related

[Hoops]

While people want to spend all this time comparing today's athletes with Bird-Jordan-Magic era athletes, the comparison that never really gets discussed is basketball IQ. The IQ level of the average NBA player has dropped twofold in the last 20 years, I swear. You had to be a really smart ballplayer to excel 20-30 years ago. Now-a-days, all these guys want to do is jump out of the gym, most of them. Fundamentals are weaker and b-ball IQ is weaker. But they can sure do a through-the-legs windmill dunk, by golly!!

Bird-Jordan-Magic, regardless of how their athleticism translates to today's NBA, would pick most of these guys apart (mentally) so fast it would be downright embarrassing. Why is Duncan so good today? Not because he's a super athlete, but because he's got very high b-ball IQ. Bird and Magic in particular were basketball geniuses compared to Tim Duncan.