Actually, I wrote that MJ never led the majors in Scoring AND Assists as Jerry West did. "The majors" is shorthand for major-league pro bkb, avoiding the stunted statistics of the NBA-only whose stat-men/rulesmakers were ignorant of Errors, Off Rebs, HRs, & other windows of observation like Blocks & Steals (Team Defensive FG%, too) during the years the ABA tracked those stats.

Sure, Tiny Archibald did lead the big leagues in Scoring/Assists, even in the same season, to one-up West & Wilt's feats, but it's West's Defense along w/ the playmaking and scoring that set him apart from the other three alltime Guards, who are close-as-can-be to equivalent w/ Kobe hoping he'll be remembered for nipping at their heels because of the six-rings chase. Jordan is the only "2-guard" of the Top Four, which says a lot for him despite his playmaking deficiencies.

The rest of the Top Ten (two Centers + four wingmen plus the aforementioned Guards) would be Wilt & Kareem, Bird, Pettit, Doc, & Duncan. A full squad usually requires twelve players, aiding us to dodge bullets by adding Bill Russell & Olajuwon to leave four players at each of the three positions. Even if someone wants to argue that the ringless Barkley & MailMan belong instead of Pettit & Erving, Jordan is clearly the Best SwingMan on the squad & thus the best swinger of all time.

That said, Jordan would be just as clearly the weakest Forward on the floor for our AllTime Team, having never approached league leadership in Off Rebbies as the similar-sized Doc did, nor defensively boarding a la any of the Top Four Forwards. He would spend virtually all his court time at off-guard, leaving the heavy lifting on playmaking to Oscar, Jerry, & Magic, the backcourt Rebounding to Big O & Earvin, & primary defensive chores to West, the perennial All-D guy (at the tailend of his career) w/ the rubber arms that've have sadly been forgotten by talking heads on today's NBA broadcasts who can't see past the Logo. When The Logo came out everybody knew it was West, but nobody cared to caricature him that way until years later.

BTW, I agree w/ the guy who said Barkley was a better player than MailMan, but Karl wound up posting a better career.

Not that it was an appropriate criticism to focus on just that, anyway.

Yeah, Jordan officially retiring because he was beginning to burn out is absolutely nothing like what Pippen did. The '94 Bulls in that 2 second span had no need to rely on Jordan, like they hadn't needed to all season. They needed to rely on Pippen, and he failed them (even though they won the game).

I said the the NBA was better when they combined, not that either league was expressly superior before then. And keep in mind that by rambling off on your statistical diatribe about how the ABA was better than the pre-merger NBA, you're insulting Russell, Wilt, Kareem, and Walton, four of the best centers of all time, two of which were retired by the time of the merger, one of whom would become severely debilitated by injury soon after.

Call me a Michael-ite or Michael-tard all you want, but I'm a guy who appreciates greatness. Michael Jordan was great. Bill Russell was great. KAJ was great. Is LeBron great? Other than one great game-winner against Orlando in 2009 and an outstanding game against Detroit in 2007, we haven't seen evidence yet from LeBron.

And who are you kidding? All of the greatest players of all time frequently fight ghosts from the past and usurpers from the future. Look at Floyd Mayweather Jr, who said he was the best of all-time, better than Ali, but still refuses to fight Manny. Roger Federer is tentatively considered the GOAT because Sampras never won the French Open and Laver won his Slam in an era of weak depth, but is fighting to stop Nadal from taking his place in history. It's all part of the sporting narrative to have battles and arguments among the media and fans about who's the greatest. I'm just not as ready to jump on the latest bandwagon as many are. In any case, Jerry's greatness is not depreciated because, frankly, virtually no one considers him to be the greatest of all-time, and thus, not a threat to MJ's legacy. That may be a sad reflection of the collective mindset, but it's also the truth.

LeBron and Mike are clearly the best players of their era and "Doc's" era. No one cares that Doc was great none of the objective figures puts him at LeBron's or Mike's level.

Well, actually you had written that "it's definitely a stretch to say Pippen was a top 3 player. Now we recognize Pippen Top Threed in MVP balloting, & attribute it -- of course! -- to Michael Jordan's absence from the NBA. Pippen's sitting out 1.8 seconds of a game the Bulls ultimately won pales in comparison to Jordan's capriciously sitting out 1.8 seasons in which the Bulls ultimately lost.

Like the NBA league office, for some reason Michael's fans see fit to belittle the ABA which kept far more professional statistics (which we enjoy in Bkb-Ref) under more modern rules than the NBA did. More ABA veterans made post-Merger All-D and All-League teams, won more MVP awards, and led in more statistical categories (PPG, FG%, HRs, RPG, Steals) than did their pre-Merger NBA counterparts. But somehow we're supposed to believe the ABA was a lesser league, and that belief by extension somehow makes Michael Jordan a greater player.

Michael is still the Top Swingman ever, one of the Top Four Guards (he never led the majors in PPG and Assists nor Defended as West did), and surely should be on an AllTime Team of the top dozen players in pro bkb history. Yet as we've seen with King James, who proclaimed himself the New #23 after hitting a shot against Orlando in 2009, a list of shining achievements is never long enough for some NBA hypemeisters. Michael & LeBron are the only All-Timers whose "greatness" depends on running down the abilities of others, including their own teammates.

And you must be joking about Pippen's impact. The Bulls were better with both of them, certainly, but Jordan won Game 6 of the 1998 Finals practically by himself. Pippen was ineffective on both ends of the floor for most of the game. With Pippen's outrageous benching of himself in the second round in 1994 and their ultimate loss in that series, it's pretty clear that Jordan was, by far, more important to the team.

Dr. J was a phenomenal and revolutionary player, but let's be serious - he won two of his championships and three of his MVPS in the ABA. Was the ABA a complete joke or something? No, but NBA was clearly better and had more depth when the leagues combined. Doc won an MVP and a championship after the merger, but did so playing side-kick to Moses Malone, who won three MVPS and the Finals MVP after the merger. Doc never approached the numbers he put up in the ABA before the merger after 1976 because he had to play against legitimate defenses.

Another example: Jordan led Chicago to a winning half-season in 1998 w/out Pippen, to be sure (they trailed Indiana in their division) but then Pip came back & the Bulls roared to a far-better 36-8 record to nip the Pacers in the Central. Pippen's positive impact joining Jordan's '98 team was obviously greater than the impact of losing Mike had been on the '94 Bulls.

A third: Most teams worsen when a great player leaves (see Russell's Celts, Doc's Nets, Magic's Lakers), but as we see that didn't happen in 55-27 Chicago sans MJ. Nor in Washington -- the Wizards quickly became a playoff team w/ Haywood, Kwame, Hughes, Jeffries, etc after Abe Pollin fired Jordan. Rip Hamilton had had to put up w/ Mike's insistence on hogging the "touches," got out of town, and went on to win a title the next year in Detroit. Jerry StackHouse had to defer to Mike, too, & the whole team suffered by His Airness's selfish-yet-revealing tone.

And one more: Jordan-jealousy extends to Erving, it appears, from the poster who opined Moses Malone was "better than Dr J." Doc won four MVP awards and three world championships, and never posted a sub-.500 record in his career. Moses came close, but never quite stepped on such holy ground. Erving's in the exclusive 200/200 Club, once led the majors in Offensive Rebbies himself, shot a higher 3-pt% in the ABA than Jordan did lifetime w/out the benefit of the shortened arc. He has a number of bragging rights and breakthroughs Mike can't match. LeBron neither, for that matter -- he's closer to a George McGinnis in talent and temperament.