Quote Originally Posted by crustyme View Post
maybe, maybe not.

but fact remains that jordan's teams never won anything without pippen while kobe won championships without shaq.
Yeah, Kobe won titles without Shaq, with a starting five some argued was one of the best of all time.

No line-up starting Bill Cartwright or Luc Longley would ever get that distinction---save for the fact the 2 guard was a dude by the name of Jordan.

The only team MJ ever had that could compare to one of Kobe's stacked Laker rosters was Jordan's '96 squad and Kobe's unit last year....

BULLS

1 Ron Harper
2 Jordan
3 Pippen
4 Rodman
5 Longley
6 Kukoc

LAKERS

1 Derek Fisher
2 Kobe
3 Artest
4 Bynum
5 Gasol
6 Odom

Those rosters are practically identical. Even down to Rodman/Artest being volatile mental cases played more for defense than offense. They would be a complete wash, except that Gasol is lightyears better than Longley.

Oh, and it should be pointed out that MJ's Bulls went 72-10 in the regular season with that line-up. The Lakers were 57-25. Plus the Bulls went 15-3 in the playoffs en route to winning the title. The Lakers were 16-7.

Jordan never won championships without Pippen because the best guys on his team before Pippen got there were John Paxon and Dave Corzine. Not exactly Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom.

Besides, Jordan came into the league in the midst of the Lakers/Celtics dynasties with Magic/Bird. He would later run into Isiah's Pistons. When Kobe was hitting his prime there were no other truly great teams established in the league.

The top five greatest NBA players of all time never to win a ring are Elgin Baylor, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Patrick Ewing, and Charles Barkley. Four of those never won a ring precisely because of Michael Jordan. You think Kobe could have stopped those guys from winning a title? Kobe couldn't even stop Richard Hamilton.

Tim Duncan is considered by many to be the greatest power forward all-time. It used to be Karl Malone. The only difference is Malone had to play against MJ, and Duncan got Kobe. The guy who faced MJ has 0 titles. The guy who faced Kobe has 4.

And you can't even really compare the teams Kobe faced in the finals to the Stockton/Malone Jazz or the Kemp/Payton Sonics or Barkley's Suns. Those teams averaged 63 wins a season.

In the history of the NBA, 40 total teams have won 62 games or more in a season.

Wilt Chamberlain had 3 of them.
Bird's Celtics had 5 of them.
Magic's Lakers had 5 of them.
Jordan's Bulls had 4. (And 3 of the top 8 highest win totals ever.)

Kobe's Lakers? 2.

The same number as those two Jazz teams Jordan's Bulls beat in the Finals.

Jordan has better numbers and had stiffer comp. And let's not forget the time off after his father was murdered. Had that not happened, who knows. Jordan might have won 10 titles in a row.