Anyone other than me watching it? I was contemplating DVRing it and then binge watching. But there was no way I couldn't watch last night. My oldest, who was born in 2000 has been telling me for years that Lebron was the GOAT. He changed his mind after just 2 episodes. He still has Lebron at #2, but I do think I will be able now that the shell has been cracked to think about Kareem and Russell. Fuck I miss the mid 80's...
The mid eighties were the dark ages when the black and gold couldn’t do shit. And Lebron is more like Wilt Chamberlain than Bill Russell. Lebron couldn’t hold, Bird, Magic, Dr J, Russell, Chamberlain, Al Cinder, MJ, Barkley on and on’s jock.
I watched in live on Sunday night. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Can't wait until this week's episode which will focus on the Pistons rivalry. So far we have been reminded how Krause broke up the last great dynasty in sports for no reason other than his own insecurity for not getting enough credit for its success. We all saw what happened to the Bulls after he forced out Phil, and consequently MJ and Scottie. Not sure there was a worse team in NBA history than the Bulls from 99-2003. As far as Lebron vs MJ. I've tried having this conversation with people under 30 and there's simply no reasoning with them. They'll all admit to not have watching MJ on the Bulls, maybe a few saw him on the Wizards. But even so Lebron is their GOAT Here's what I will concede: MJ between the ages of 22-30, basically 1984-1993, is the greatest player of all time. No one is close. Lebron from age 32 on is a better all around basketball player than MJ. For sure. Lebron has amazingly gotten better with age, whereas MJ was declining from 96 on. Still, if I needed to win ONE game and had to take ONE player to help my team win that game, I'll take 35 year old MJ over 35 year old Lebron 100 times out of 100.
Yes, watched the first two episodes. Very enjoyable but were just a bit drawn out I felt. Looking forward to the next ones coming up on Sunday. MJ v LeBron? Please. SIX championships, ONE team. Three championships, two teams. End of discussion.
And after years of coming up short before 1991, MJ didn't leave the Bulls to form a super team like Lebron did in 2010. Lebron's championships while in Miami are less than impressive.
I haven't watched these episodes yet, and this is by no means an area of expertise, so there's the context to this question: I always thought it was kinda the accepted wisdom that Krause was the bad guy/shithead in all of this. MJ hated him for getting rid of Phil etc, but my question is do you not think Riensdorf always got off lightly over the whole thing? I know ideally you want the owner to let the GM, GM. But knowing what Krause wanted to do, how on earth did Riensdorf let him go through with it all? Maybe I just never read up enough on it but I always wondered that.
Reinsdorf definitely deserves the blame as well. You don't allow your GM to dismantle a team that not only had just won it's 3rd championship in a row, but also had the best record in the East by far, tied for best record in NBA, had the best defense in the NBA, had the leading rebounder, and the league MVP... Oh, and did this without Scottie Pippen for half the season... Fuckign stupid.
Mongo is right, Reinsdorf deserves blame. He held onto Krause even though he knew Krause alienated people and had a personality problem. But it actually could have been worse. Were not for Reinsdorf's direct intervention, Krause would have fired Phil after 1996 (the 72-10 season), this according to former Bulls coach Tim Floyd, who says that Krause wanted to hire him in the summer of 96. Reinsdorf also went out of his way to convince Phil to come back for 1997-98, again against Krause's wishes. Imagine that, Krause would have blown up the team after the 1996 Finals, after the team just completed the greatest season in basketball history with the greatest player in basketball history. He was a fucking madman.
Loved these two episodes and am hungry for more. brought back a lot of good feelings from those days and a lot of buried hatred of Krause and Reinsdorf came back to the surface.
Anyone have a way to watch this if you don't have ESPN? Netflix apparently only airs it in other countries and ESPN has the exclusive rights at the moment. I guess I could set up a VPN but that seems like a lot of work. https://nypost.com/2020/04/30/michael-jordan-is-only-fourth-best-player-i-faced-isiah-thomas/ - if you guys didn't see this, what a douche-canoe. Not that the players he ranks higher aren't great in their own right, his comment that MJ was just the "first to three peat" is so ridiculous it's not even funny. This dude is still burt hurt over the Dream Team decades later, but that only happened because of the way those fucknuggets used to play us. Man, I forgot how much I hated the Pistons.
Have caught up with all eps so far and man, what a great series. My wife is no kind of basketball fan but she's watched them all with me and really enjoyed it too. Due to the non-linear storytelling(which I really like), she just keeps coming back to the same point saying "how could they have done this to that team?" The immortal question. All this stuff will be a walk down memory lane for some of you, but for me there's a lot that has been very informative, particularly as we're still in the early years which I didn't know too much about. Never knew Phil was a double NBA title winner as a player. Never knew Phil did acid ha! I do have a question for you guys tho. Lets just say Reinsdorf did find his balls for a second time and Phil didn't leave, how many championships do you think they could've won? The aging team excuse has always been the flimsy reason for blowing it all up, but surely they had more in them. What an incredible display of bitchassedness that was when they lost in the '91 playoffs and walked off before the game finsihed. As Jordan said, even tho it was tough he shook their hands after defeat. Twice. Straight up bitches.
If you guys don't know, it's now streaming on Netflix in the US as well, so anyone can watch it, I'm going through it now, and man does it reignite the madness. How fucking petty do you have to be, to take a massively winning coach and show him the door because he has the audacity to want more money because he's one of the best of all time? And knowing full well that your GOAT player has said explicitly he won't play for anyone else? I mean, they hadn't even slipped and missed the post-season or anything yet, or not even made the finals. Jordan's two years off they still had enough talent to make the playoffs, and he had some left in the tank. As is he retired for 3 years before the very forgettable Wizards run. It's the equivalent of the Patriots saying in the 2010s, "yeah, Brady's getting old, and Belichek wants more money so lets blow it all up". Instead they did what sane teams do, replace pieces at a time, keep a HOF one of the best of all time coaches and have continued success and two more super bowls. My analogy is a bit weak because different sports and situations, but it's the best I can do to highlight how other teams WOULDN'T have fucked this up so badly. Honestly Reinsdorf would have had to threaten Krause's job, because that's the second time he would have had to interfere and Krause had to change his outlook. It's a tough question though, age would start to be a factor, and Krause would have had to continue to improve the team without blowing it up (which was very possible). Assuming you can somehow keep Jackson, Jordan and Pippen and get some other role pieces as necessary, they are competing for, if not winning another 3, though it wouldn't be a slam dunk with the Kobe/Shaq Lakers coming up. Of course, would the Lakers have made it over the hump without the Bulls GIVING them Jackson? At the very least, 3 years of Jordan/Pippen Bulls vs. Kobe/Shaq Lakers finals drama? Sign me up for this alternate universe. Edited to add how much more satisfying it would be to see the team dethroned by the new generation even if they lost, than dismantled by an ego-maniac. The Lakers didn't have to break through the Bulls, like the Bulls had to break through the Pistons, for example.
