Don’t you just love it when when your team is number one and people who think they know everything about sports blast them because their own team sucks? I do and the recent Lakers bashing is starting to tick me off…
The Lakers are royalty of the NBA, (purple stands for royalty and for the imbeciles that don’t know, purple is the Lakers’ primary color) The list of kings who have donned the famous Laker jerseys is too long to mention. From Mikan to Kobe, the Lakers hold the all-time records for wins (2,970), winning percentage (61.7%) and NBA Finals appearances (30). Who’s better? The Celtics? Nope.
Let’s talk about the Celtics for a minute. So what if they won eight titles in a row, it means nothing to me because look at the competition they played against. If the Lakers had a coach like Red Auerbach, who’s famous for “allegedly” paying off refs and setting off alarms in the visiting teams hotels to deprive them of sleep, the Lakers would be sitting alone, on top of the championship mountain. But isn’t it crazy that with all the shenanigans Boston is known for, they’re only two rings ahead of those fabulous Lakers?
Back to those Celtics of the 1960s. Boston fans are lucky that Bill Russell did not have a descent center to play against him during that decade. OK I’ll be unbiased and say that he had one player in the entire league who could guard him, Wilt Chaimberlain. The sad thing about Wilt was that he didn’t have a complete team (just like every team in the 60’s) and when he Wilt finally got the players he needed, his team knocked off the Celtics. If Boston had more competition, they would probably have about 8 titles instead of 17.
One more thing. Sorry Boston, but Bird couldn’t beat Magic 1 on 1 with Magic’s right hand tied behind his back. Better yet, he’ll spot Bird a 7 point lead in a game played up to ten and still win. It’s obvious Magic was better, just check his resume, 9 Finals appearances, 5 rings (Bird only has three) and when he retired, he was the NBA’s all-time leader in the all important assist column. Did Bird ever retire with such an important record that he was number one in? Nope! Last but not least, tell the refs who took the 2008 championship from us, they are lucky David Stern didn’t investigate the fact that the Mob probably had a hand in the way they deliberately called foul after foul against the team who clearly was the best.
- The Wanna-be Sports Guy
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If you’re going to take away titles from the Celtics because Russell “did not have a descent center to play against him during that decade”, then I can take away all five titles from the Mikan era with more than enough justification. If anyone didn’t have competition, it was Mikan during the era in which he played. At 6′10″, he was hardly rivaled by any players due to his size (which was at a premium and hardly rivaled) and unique skill set (being his frame and the sheer size he was…) that separated him from any other big at that time.
The breakdown of a few players taller than Mikan? Jim Slaughter who stood at 6-11 and only managed to make it through one NBA season in 1951-52. His statistical output that year? A sterling 5 points a game to go with an earth shattering, glass decimating 5 rebounds. Chuck Share standing at 6-11 who was a career 8 and 8 guy who peaked in ‘56 with 13-11. Coincidentally, this was the year where virtually everybody saw their stats increase (mostly due to the institution of the 24 shot clock, but still, forwards and centers weren’t facing Mikan up to 11 times a season anymore) as a hobbled Mikan managed to only play 20 minutes a game over 37 games (George was the acting GM for the Lakers and after they started a dismal 5-15, he made his “comeback”).
With that in mind, almost the entire pre-shot clock era can be discredited to an extent because the shot clock was what revitalized the NBA and kept players like Mikan, who couldn’t handle a season (little lone 31 games), hobbling and panting to keep up with the shot clock. On the other hand, Russell (as well as Chamberlain because I don’t want to try and provide any reason to believe I’m being bias), on the other hand, played against the likes of Chamberlain, Pettit, Schayes, Kerr, Thurmond, and Reed. Hell, I could go on, but that is more elite centers than there is in the NBA now, and Russell played them night in, night out with the number of teams in the league at that point in time.
Oh, and as for Magic being so talented that he could beat Larry with his right hand behind his back and spotting him seven? Basketball, last time I checked, was a team sport, and championships are won as a team. As a matter of fact, when Magic did hold that title of all-time assists leader in NBA history, he couldn’t have done that without teammates like Kareem, Worthy, Scott, Cooper, McAdoo, and Wilkes. Some food for thought, “Larry, you only told me one lie. You said there will be another Larry Bird. Larry, there will never, ever be another Larry Bird,” Earvin “Magic” Johnson.
Warm regards (it’s freezing here in Detroit),
Ryan Mathews