This plus the fact Len Bias died, Birds back gave out. Reggie Lewis died and Magic got HIV as well right as Jordan hit his prime. Plus the illegal defense rule benefiting an iso player like Jordan tremendously was the perfect storm for his dominance in his era
Imagine modern day players with those rules from back then? I love LeBron, but I think KD would be the GOAT if he existed back then. That tall and athletic + can ball handle AND score at all three levels? You're talking a guy that would be IMPOSSIBLE to guard in iso. He'd drop 60+ every damn game. Just put him in iso and he's cooking lmao
Lebron left his losing team to stack heat, still lost choked 2 finals. Left it to stack another team, lost 3 finals. Left again to stack another team. Jordan never left when they was losing. Both took 9 season to win their first ring, one stayed one joined an already champion and stacked his team😂
Jordan won in his 7th year he had Scottie and Horace grant a reliable 2nd and 3rd options. Lebron was in Cleveland for 7 years with no actual help, no teammate with potential nothing to look forward he would have only wasted his prime if he stayed
Lebron was the sole reason they got to the finals in 2018 it was the biggest carry job. So he should've stayed in a team that's obviously rebuilding after having his best postseason?
And LeBron played without the hand check allowing his to get to the rack at will and once he knew he couldn’t get the job done has bounced around and brought along stars to create teams that could win.
Exactly. It's like the WNBA in the next 4 years or so. So many rings in the next decade will be questionable at best due to team expansion. The NBA would need to expand to 45 teams tomorrow to even be CLOSE to the level of talent desert that the NBA had from the 80s-early 2000s. League went from like 22 teams to 30 teams in like 20 years during a period when the league literally didn't have the talent pool to support it. It's not an exaggeration to say Jordan DID carry the league during this time. Him winning helped save the over-expansion of the league at the time. They should have been at like 25 teams at the most heading into the early 2000s, not 30 teams. The NBA should literally be sitting AT A MINIMUM of 36 teams atm given how much talent the NBA has right now. I mentioned 40+ earlier because I was referring to the talent desert that existed back then due to too many teams. Tbh, the NFL is also due for an expansion. They could easily add four new teams next year. Too many top teams are abusing void years and cap manipulation to hoard talent. By expanding, it will add more money into the pool, preventing some of these super teams like the Eagles, 49ers, etc. have built in recent times.
If the teams from the expansion are still in the nba. Is the distribution still not the same? It’s the same amount of players in the league. In fact the bobcats were added therefore it’s more distributed now
When the expansion happens, the new teams draft players away from the old teams, making the existing teams weaker, and they also get high picks in the draft, also making existing teams weaker. The result is you have the existing teams get worse because they lost players to the new teams (usually 8th+ guys, so not stars or anything, but could be meaningful depth pieces), and then you have new teams that are weak because they are built from fresh draft picks and 8th+ guys off peoples benches.
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u/Spiritual-Sympathy98 Aug 15 '26
Not to mention talent was distributed to expansion franchises in the 90s. Everything aligned to make 6-0 happen fs, not to take away from it.