Was Michael Jordan the GOAT?

June 5, 2024June 5, 2024 Rilaly3 Comments

“If you think Michael Jordan is the greatest NBA player of all time, by far, you’re probably between the ages of 40-60,” blared one reddit commenter.

Some call it recency bias, but seeing as how Jordan took his Bulls’ jersey off for the final time 25 years ago, we could say that the recency bias exists in the pro-Kobe, pro-LeBron arguments. I’d call the pro-Jordan argument a generational bias. The generational bias suggests that everything that happened before and after my prime is not as great as it was during this relative window. With all these biases rolling around in everyone’s, it’s almost impossible to arrive at a final objective answer.

Some might also argue that the most instrumental bias in such arguments is the emotional bias. Those of the 40-60 demographic cheered harder for and against Jordan than later generations did Kobe and LeBron. That’s an almost impossible argument to debate, of course, as it’s all relative, but we do have statistics to argue and counter. That’s still impossible to argue, as Mark Twain once said, “There’s lies, damned lies and statistics.” It’s true, both teams can argue their statistics in the Jordan v LeBron argument, but there are stats and there are advanced metrics. Before we get into that argument, however, we must discount longevity, games started and played, and minutes, as LeBron entered the NBA straight out of high school, and Jordan played three years in college. Longevity and games played are valuable stats in our determination, but LeBron never retired, and Jordan did three times. LeBron obviously wins all of these categories.

The advanced stats dig deep into actual games played, and they include value over replacement statistics, player efficiency rating, and fifteen other advanced statistics of the players’ respective careers that favor Michael Jordan 9-6, by category, in the regular season and LeBron James wins these metrics 9-8 in the postseason metrics. LeBron beats Jordan by a substantial number in win share, or the total number of wins contributed by a player, in both regular season and playoffs, which is surprising, but Jordan barely beats him in a majority of the regular season categories. It’s also surprising to see that the deep metrics in the postseason favor LeBron, as I would’ve guessed that would’ve been flipped. Big Game Mike, to my mind, took his game up to stratospheric, untouchable levels in the postseason. LeBron was better. If postseason is far more important than regular season stats, and an overwhelming number of people agree this is the case, LeBron actually has a slight advantage in most cases against Jordan.

Another publication used a more comprehensive approach, regular season and postseason combined, with advanced stats compiled by various publication. Their categorical verdict: dead even.

In the Clutch

Whenever Kobe or LeBron missed, and misses, a clutch playoff shot, some of us hit that “He’s not Jordan!” button. We don’t even consider that a bias at this point. It happened. We don’t remember Jordan ever missing a clutch playoff shot, but we do remember the many misses by Kobe and LeBron. The Bleacher Report developed a very simple formula for a definition of clutch shots in the playoffs. “Playoff games only (no regular season), go ahead or game-tying shot attempts (free throws, turnovers, and the like were ignored, [and the shot attempt had to occur in the]) final 24 seconds or he fourth quarter or overtime.” Within the constraints of this definition of playoff clutch shots, Jordan, they found, was 9-18 in clutch, playoff attempts, for “an astounding” 50% clip. LeBron is 7-16 for a 43.8% rate. (Not Jordan, but it was a lot closer than some of us remember.) Kobe was 7-25 for a 28% (or 5-17 for a 29.4% in the chart they provided).

Player	Makes	Attempts	FG%
Michael Jordan	9	18	50
LeBron James	7	16	43.8
Kevin Durant	5	12	41.7
Dirk Nowitzki	5	12	41.7
Kobe Bryant	5	17	29.4

Microsoft’s Co-Pilot program lists the following clutch field goal percentages for NBA greats in the playoffs. Jordan 45%, Kobe 41%, Bird 40%, Lillard 42%, Wade 42%, and Horry, LeBron, Magic were all at 40%. So, although, Jordan leads the pack, it’s not by as much as the 40-60 aged demographic remembers.

One contrarian argument I read online, states that the disparity between the elite talent and average player the 90s and the 2020s, favors the 2020s. They argue that the worst teams of the 90s were far worse than the worst teams of the 2020s. They argue that “There’s no question that the average player is more skilled today than in the 90’s.” They also write that The Chicago Bulls were able to achieve total dominance of the regular season thanks to expansion and a difference in defense rules. Another decent argument I’ve heard is that no one in the NBA, prior to Mike, had the marketing and promotion packages that he would receive.

In terms of marketing alone, I won’t even hear arguments about Bill Russell, Wilt, Kareem, or Dr. J. The only NBA marketing argument that comes close to that which Jordan received was Bird v Magic. If Bird v Magic saved the NBA, on a national level, however, Michael Jordan took it to the worldwide stage. Larry Bird was allergic to the press, and he only gave interviews begrudgingly, so that leaves the media-friendly smile and laughter of Magic Johnson. He was a hero to many, but his media attention paled in comparison to the worldwide, superstar treatment afforded Jordan. Kobe and LeBron later had a taste of it, of course, as they were the best players of their era, but they could never escape the cloud of “the chosen one”. The implicit statement is that Kobe and LeBron may have been as good, or better, than Jordan, but the 40-60 demo wouldn’t allow anyone to flirt with that notion. As a person who doesn’t follow the intricacies of the league, I must concede to the argument that part of Jordan’s impenetrable image as the GOAT revolves around how much the media adored him. The only marketing push that could come close to Michael Jordan was that of the “King of pop” Michael Jackson.

The Competition

To get to the core of this particular argument, we must dismiss the regular season records and the stats they achieved against average players. Even playoff teams have average, role players in every lineup, but if we were to stack the elite teams of each era against each other, let’s go seven deep on the various rosters, how would the late-80s, 90s Bulls, Pistons, Knicks, Jazz, Rockets, Sonics, do against the 2000s Spurs, the Shaq, Kobe Lakers, or the 2010s Warriors, Heat, Celtics and Lakers?

If we could somehow move the Jordans’ Bulls forward a decade or three, how do they fare against the elite teams of latter decades? First question, whose rules do they play under? Does Jordan operate better or worse in the wide-open rules of latter decades, or did the Warriors play an almost indefensible offense at their peak? On the flips side, if we could move the elite modern teams back, under the rules of yesteryear and Detroit’s “Jordan Rules” become “Kobe Rules” or “LeBron Rules”, do they overcome them in the manner Jordan eventually did? Would Tim Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker survive against Pat Riley’s brutal lane enforcement rules carried out by Charles Oakley, Anthony Mason and Xavier McDaniels? Do Jordan and the Bulls 4-2 Shaq and Kobe in championship series? If Jordan and LeBron play in the same era, does Jordan kill LeBron’s legacy the way he did so many others? As with just about every sport, it’s almost impossible to compare eras. The game changes, evolves, and adapts with rule changes. The brutal nature of the game in which no one was allowed a layup, became a wide-open, almost 3-point dependent game.

Focusing on the elite level alone, one reddit writer submits that: “There’s no evidence to support [the idea] that the [elite] players from the 90s are any better or worse than the [elite] players of today. In 632 games, Jordan never lost three games in a row, went 27-1 in playoff series [during that span], won three consecutive championships twice, 10 scoring titles, nine 1^st-team all-defense awards. Led the league in steals 3 times, was the first player to ever record 200 steals and 100 blocks in one season and he did it twice [This stat, some would argue is timeless]. Won 14 MVPs (6 Finals, 5 regular seasons, 3 All Star game) plus 2 dunk contest championships. [He] was outscored once in 37 playoff series (in 1985 Terry Cummings outscored MJ by 1 point in the first-round series, 118-117), and [he] is 1st all-time in the number of times a player averaged 40 or more points in a playoff series. He did it 5 times and there’s a 4-way tie for 2nd place who have all done it [once]. [Jordan] also has outscored 982 out of 983 total opponents in career head2head match ups. (Alan Iverson being the only player ever by avg 27.1ppg in 7 games vs MJ who avg 24.4ppg). And this was all in 12 full regular seasons and 13 playoff appearances (15 active seasons). It’s basketballs greatest resume by a mile and those who weren’t there to see it do not want to believe it so, that’s why the 90s era gets no respect.”

The reddit user ends with a compelling argument. Most of the argument centers on the idea that we, the 40-60 demo, suffer from a number of biases, but the same could be said of those in the generation where Michael Jordan officially became a grandfather. If all you know of Michael Jordan are the YouTube videos, the “If I could be like Mike” commercials, the idea that Jordan was the GOAT might sound like “The Three Stooges were the greatest comedians of all time” or “The Andy Griffith Show was a greater sitcom than Seinfeld” arguments did to us. Unlike Curly or Barney Fife, most of Jordan’s exploits occurred between the highlights, on nights when it seemed like he couldn’t seem to miss midrange shots that only counted for two points. These weren’t the dramatic shots that we see on YouTube, but they don’t show what those in the 40-60 demo know.

The 90s Knicks

The best team the Bulls beat during this era would have to be the New York Knicks. Those Knicks 90s rosters may have been the best assemblage of NBA talent to never win an NBA Championship Ring. During Patrick Ewing’s run with the Knicks, they had John Starks, Charles Oakley, Anthony Mason, Xavier McDaniel, Greg Anthony, Gerald Wilkins, Derek Harper, Doc Rivers, Charles Smith, Mo Cheeks, Bill Cartwright, Bernard King, Hubert Davis, and the later rosters included Larry Johnson, Allan Houston, Marcus Camby, Anthony Bowie, and Latrell Sprewell, and they never won a ring.

Jordan and the Knicks faced each other five times, in this era of their respective primes, and Jordan and the Bulls went 5-0 in those matchups. If the reader doesn’t consider that record eye-popping, go read Blood in the Garden to get a grasp on how talented those Knicks’ teams were.

Jordan retired (the first time) to play baseball? and Ewing and the Knicks lost to Hakeem Olajuwon’s Rockets then Reggie Miller’s Pacers. Jordan retires again, and the Knicks lose to Tim Duncan, David Robinson, and the Spurs. I still cannot believe Patrick Ewing, and his Knicks’ teams never won a ring.

The Late 80’s Early 90’s Pistons

The late 80s/early 90s Pistons’ run was not near as lengthy as the Knicks’, but they packed a whole lot of winning in that shorter time frame. Some rightly blame the talent around Jordan, but the Pistons beat Jordan and the Bulls in three straight playoff series from 1987-1990.

We can all admit to some type of bias in these never-ending arguments, but those of us in the 40-60 demographic will never be able to get passed “The Run”. When Jordan and the Bulls finally found a way to beat the Pistons, no team could stop them. They won six championships in a row (not counting the retirement years), and no one, outside the 60s Celtics, have been able to match such a run. Those of us in this demo will listen to arguments about stats and advanced metrics that suggest the argument between LeBron and Michael is a lot closer that we thought, and we might even entertain the idea that on many of those scales, especially in the postseason, LeBron was statistically better, but LeBron was never able to amass anything equivalent to “The Run” of six championships in a row (not counting retirement).

If Michael Jordan never existed, how many rings would Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, Clyde Drexler, and Malone and Stockton have? How many more would Magic, Bird, and Isiah have? How many different legacies would have been cemented with a ring, if he never existed? There’s a reason they call Michael Jordan the legacy killer.

The counter argument might be, that if Michael Jordan had to compete against “The virtually unstoppable” David Robinson, Tim Duncan combo, the Kobe, Shaq combo, the LeBron, Kyrie combo, or Steph Curry and the Warriors ability to shoot the ball from outside the arena, he might not have had such an almost unprecedented run. Before we strip Jordan of his crown, however, we do need to go back those names of elite, hall of fame names from the era’s elite teams of its own “virtually unstoppable” combos and elite talent that Jordan and the Bulls defeated. Our conclusion matches that of the Reddit use who claimed: “There’s no evidence to support [the idea] that the [elite] players from the 90s are any better or worse than the [elite] players of today.”

Of all the biases involved in these arguments, the toughest to overcome is the emotional one. We can all argue our generational biases, as we all deem the best players of “our” era as the best to ever play the game. Others, from other eras, might argue that Bill Russell, Wilt, Dr. J, Pistol Pete, Oscar Robertson, Kareem, Magic and Bird, Isiah, Tim Duncan, Kobe, LeBron, Steph Curry, and Nikola Jokic were/are better, but these arguments focus on tangible elements of the game. No NBA player I’ve witnessed, in my life (and I admit to many biases to arrive at this conclusion), has combined elite talent with elite levels of doing anything and everything he had to to win better than Michael Jordan. His own teammates talk about how vicious and downright mean he could be to them during practice. He played psychological games with them, his opponents, and himself in order to gain some kind of edge for that series, or that night, for one win in a series. On some level, we have to throw the idea of biases and metrics out the window and put ourselves in Michael Jordan’s shoes. He had all the money in the world, he couldn’t leave his hotel room in most countries around the world, because of his fame, and he had every creature comfort a human being could dream up, but when one of his teams needed a win, he almost always came through in the final six years of his career as a Bull (the one series loss to the Shaq, Penny Hardaway-led Magic being the sole exception). Five of the six championships, during his much talked about run, were 4-2, six game wins. Each of them required him to dig deep to help his team find some way to overcome his opponent, and I’ve never seen another player will his team to win as often, or with as much consistency, as the greatest basketball player who ever lived, Michael Jordan.

Jack McKinney: The Forgotten Man

April 24, 2022October 15, 2023 RilalyLeave a comment

“He created “Showtime!” Norm Nixon said. “That should never be forgotten. You can talk about me, Kareem, Earvin, and Pat Riley all you want. But Jack McKinney created “Showtime!”

If you were paying any attention at all in the 1980’s, you knew the Lakers, Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Pat Riley, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and “Showtime!” A fella didn’t have to watch the NBA to know the names Magic Johnson or “Showtime!” We didn’t even have to enjoy watching sports to know these names. They were in the news, on the news, and the news. Decades later, the names “Showtime!” and Magic Johnson still resonate so well that networks like HBO and Apple+ are willing to pay top dollar for retrospective broadcasts that recall how special this era was in sports and entertainment.

Lakers former head coach Jack McKinney on the sidelines cheering on the team from sidelines in first quarter action.

The term “Showtime!” is still so flashy that this writer feels compelled to surround it with quotes and follow it up with an exclamation point. Even though we weren’t yet teenagers, we knew the names Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Norm Nixon, Byron Scott, Michael Cooper, Jamal Wilkes, James Worthy, Kurt Rambis, Pat Riley and Earvin “Magic” Johnson. We knew the big names, we couldn’t escape them, but as with all sports franchises, title runs, and dynasties, those names not in lights often contributed far more than we ever knew. The name almost criminally absent from this list was the architect of the “Showtime!” game plan of the run the Lakers enjoyed in the 1980’s: Jack McKinney.

Jack McKinney might be the last name we think of from this era, but the first name that comes to mind when talking about the Lakers 1980’s “Showtime!” run is Magic Johnson. He was the superstar, the smile, the face of the franchise, and a celebrity on and off the court. He was one of the few athletes of his era who lived up to such over-the-top billing. Prior to the ’79-’80 Laker season, Magic lead his college basketball team, the Michigan State Spartans to a college basketball championship, then he was the number one pick out of college. In his rookie season with the Lakers, Magic was one of the few to prove the hype machine correct when he awarded the Lakers for using a number one draft pick on him by winning an NBA Championship in his rookie season. He had some help, of course, including a man named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who many argue was the best basketball player of all time, and if statistics matter, Jabbar still has the most points ever scored by an individual over the course of his career.* In the 1979-1980 season, however, the 21-year-old rookie from Michigan State had every spotlight the national media owned on him, and he succeeded beyond all expectations.

Just about every highlight of the Lakers in the 80’s contains something Magic did. Whether it was some crucial shot, powerful dunk, or one of his highlight reel passes. Magic Johnson could get anyone the ball at any time, at just about anywhere on the court.

Was Magic the best fastbreak point guard of all time, perhaps, but we might also ask the question was Magic Johnson so great because he fit McKinney’s scheme so well, or did owner Jerry Buss hire McKinney, because he wanted the scheme, and he knew his first draft pick would flourish in it?

As Jeff Pearlman wrote in the book Showtime, the Lakers’ strategy prior to the arrival of Magic and McKinney, was “See Kareem, wait for Kareem, pass to Kareem, watch Kareem shoot and hope ball goes in.”

Was Magic better in McKinney’s scheme than he would’ve been in Jerry Sloan’s with the Chicago Bulls? (The Bulls lost a famous coin flip for the rights to draft Magic Johnson in 1979.) Was Magic so great that he would’ve been great wher eever he played, or did the “Showtime!” game plan play to his strengths? If McKinney didn’t fall prey to the accident, and he coached a different team, with all of his facilities intact, would he have succeeded regardless? Or was the Magic/McKinney gameplan a marriage made in heaven?

Would Joe Montana have succeeded regardless when and where he played? Was he so driven to be great that it would’ve happened no matter where he played, or did he fit the scheme the coaches implemented? We could ask this of any coach, scheme, and player marriage, but while most of the credit is given to the player, most sports nuts divide the credit more equally. How many sports nuts, the freaks of sports knowledge, know enough to know the name Jack McKinney.

Prior to being hired by the Lakers, Jack McKinney was a basketball lifer who lived and breathed basketball. He was a college basketball assistant coach and a head coach, then he was an assistant coach for five years in the NBA. At the age of 44, he was hired to coach his first NBA team, the Los Angeles Lakers. It’s not an exaggeration to say his whole life had been leading up to that moment. How many hours, months, and years of his life did he sacrifice to one day see his dream to fruition? How many dark, quiet rooms did he sit in all alone, watching tape, learning the game, developing game plans, and correcting and perfecting it when others were out living a life? He sacrificed his life for basketball, and when all his work finally started to pay off, it was all taken away from him.

If Shakespeare were alive today, he would’ve devoured Jack McKinney’s narrative as a modern tragedy of epic proportions. He probably would’ve started his production with McKinney’s solo bike ride in which his gears locked up. Jack McKinney was thrown off the bike, and he landed in a manner that put him in a coma. The serious injuries he experienced would plague him for the rest of his life. It took him so long to recover that the Lakers named Paul Westhead coach, and then they named Pat Riley, the man credited with the Lakers fast break offense that we would eventually all call “Showtime!” This accident happened 14 games into Jack McKinney’s tenure as coach of the Lakers. He would never coach them again.

Prior to the accident, Jack McKinney implemented his revolutionary fast break offense, and the Lakers used that game plan to win the ‘79-’80 NBA Championship, their first of that era. When McKinney’s successor Paul Westhead later tried to institute a different gameplan, it didn’t work for the talent on the court. Pat Riley took over, re-instituted McKinney’s gameplan, and the rest is history, Pat Riley’s history. The Jack McKinney story is interesting whether you are a Lakers fan or not, but it also interesting because prior to HBO’s retrospective broadcast Winning Time, based on Jeff Pearlman’s book, this sports aficionado had no idea how instrumental Jack McKinney was. The Jack McKinney story is interesting because it highlights the “forgotten man” in sports history.

“This is the guy who made my career possible,” McKinney said that Lakers’ coach Pat Riley always said when introducing McKinney, “This is the guy.”

The question author Jeff Pearlman put to Lakers’ point guard Norm Nixon decades later was, “Is Jack McKinney universally acknowledged as one of the greatest coaches in the history of the NBA?”

“I have no doubt that he would be [were it not for the accident],” Nixon said. “No doubt whatsoever.”

How many forgotten men and women, like McKinney, have changed the landscape in their world? How many little guys and girls helped the names in lights edit an otherwise flawed premise, or rescued an otherwise flawed scientific finding by disproving it so well that the genius had to go back to the drawing board to find a more perfect resolution? How many little-known advisors instructed world leaders to follow a different plan that resulted in a different outcome that defined history? We all know the names in lights, the names that sell newspapers and collect internet hits, but how many lesser-names who shunned the spotlight defined history as we know it.

I don’t know these names, and either do you. I didn’t know the name Jack McKinney prior to this year, and unless you’re a die-hard Lakers fan, or you’ve watched the story of the Lakers in the 80’s Winning Time on HBO, you didn’t either. I heard some foggy details about a coach who started out with Magic, but I heard he died weeks into Magic’s rookie season. I didn’t know what role he played, if any, and I had no idea how instrumental he was. I just thought he was hired, and he died shortly into his tenure as coach. Jack McKinney didn’t die. He went onto coach a couple other teams, and he won coach of the year in ’80-’81 coaching for the Indiana Pacers, but after working so hard, as a coach in college and an assistant in college and the NBA, he never achieved the dream he could have with the talent Jerry West, Jerry Buss, and the rest of the Lakers’ brain trust amassed in ’79-’80, and the years that followed. McKinney is recognized by those in the know as one of the great basketball minds of his generation, but how many outside that very small world have even heard his name?

“McKinney is not a bitter man,” Jeff Pearlman writes to close his intro on the now-deceased McKinney, “but he is human.”

“Life isn’t always fair,” McKinney said. “I’m OK with how everything has turned out. I’m loved. But, well, it’s not always fair…”

“Jack McKinney is the man more responsible for the birth of the Showtime era of professional basketball,” Pearlman writes, “If only he could remember it.”

If that doesn’t give you chills on how unfair life can be, then I don’t really know what I’m talking about. We talked about the scheme, player marriage earlier. Magic Johnson might not be “Magic!” today, were it not for Jack McKinney, James Worthy might have been an all-star and nothing more, Jerry Buss might have been nothing more than an American businessman who tried and failed to resurrect the Lakers franchise, and Pat Riley might’ve ended up nothing more than a failed sports announcer. What if’s, and could’ve been, should’ve beens dot history, but the ’80’s Laker dynasty we know today, probably wouldn’t have happened were it not for one forgotten man in history, the late-great Jack McKinney.

Ain’t Talking About Sports

February 21, 2022 RilalyLeave a comment

Baseball

I used to be a baseball guy, a Major League Baseball fan, until I wasn’t. And it wasn’t the 1994-1995 strike either, as it was for so many of my friends. I was a long-suffering Atlanta Braves fan, and the Braves were in the World Series four out of six years in that era. I was then glued to the McGwire v Sosa v Maris run. I attended the 8/30/1998 game against Atlanta in which McGwire hit #55. I remember feeling torn, because he hit one off my team, but I felt a part of history. If he broke Maris’ record, I rationalized, I could always say I attended #55. No, from about 1985 to about 1998, I was a huge baseball fan.

Something happened shortly after the strike that conspiracy theorists believe helped Major League Baseball regain popularity. Some suggest the steroid era loosely existed between the late eighties to the late 2000’s, but most baseball fans would suggest that it only became an issue requiring attention between 1997 and 2000. Some diehard baseball fans suspected that something was amiss early on. Something intangible and tangible changed about the game. It was no longer a secret, but many in my inner circle of MLB diehards chose to deny it was happening.

I don’t remember ever considering the idea that an MLB player might take performing-enhancement drugs a moral issue in a larger sense, but during the 1997-2000 run, Major League Baseball became Sega, Nintendo, or Playstation baseball. In just about every console’s baseball game of that era, the obsessed gamer found ways to artificially edit a player’s attributes to monstrous proportions, and we believe the upper echelon either encouraged such actions in Major League Baseball, or they turned a blind eye.

Some deniers argued that steroids can’t help a major leaguer see the ball better, and they don’t help a hitter turn his wrists quicker. Those arguments are true, but we argued that they could make an average major leaguer better, a good major leaguer can become great, and a great one can break every record on the books with steroids. The question of the era gradually shifted from why would they take steroids to why doesn’t every Major Leaguer do it? If everyone took steroids, it would level the playing field, right? Yes, until we measure their ability against past performance. The best argument against steroids I heard at the time was most barstool debates about baseball involve its storied history. Was Ty Cobb better than Babe Ruth? Was Ted Williams better than Joe DiMaggio, and has any modern star earned a mention in those debates? Other than some subtle changes involving spit balls and the height of the mound, the game largely remained consistent for over one hundred years, until the steroid era.

The question I always asked, in debates with agnostic and apathetic friends, was are Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Roger Clemens that much better than Roger Maris, Roberto Clemente, and Sandy Koufax? Statistically, it appears as though they were, but to level the playing field Maris, Clemente, Koufax we probably would need to go into a time machine and give them some steroids.

It was an era of “no one’s guilty, so everyone is” that stated “we all know that Greg Maddux and Ken Griffey Jr. are on the juice. Every Major Leaguer was.” I didn’t believe that. I thought some of those big names weren’t, and I held them in high regard for avoiding that temptation. I honored them for playing the game clean, but we were never sure who was clean and who wasn’t. Plus, if everyone else was on the juice, why wouldn’t they join in, to level the playing field? This question of the morality of taking steroids was such a confusing, complicated one that baseball fans debated it ad nauseam, and it led to a level of cynicism that ruined the core of the game for some of us.

FOOTBALL

On a separate but similar note, the NFL passing and receiving records are now an absolute joke. Whatever barstool chatter we once had, regarding the comparisons of one generation’s superstars versus another’s is so ridiculous now that I can’t imagine anyone is still having them. On the current, NFL’s all-time passing yards list, Joe Flacco and Kerry Collins surpassed a man that many, who saw him play, declare the greatest quarterback of all-time Johnny Unitas. Flacco and Collins are also ahead of Joe Montana, a quarterback who many of my generation bestow that crown. Flacco and Collins had fine careers, but those of us who saw them play never thought they would end up in the top 20, and no one imagined that they would boot Joe Cool and Johnny U out.

At one point, we can only guess, The NFL Rules Committee decided that their game is not a tradition-rich game in the vein of baseball, and they eviscerated the comparative-analysis barstool discussions for the now. With NFL ratings constantly topping previous years, it’s obvious The Rules Committee made the right choice, and the collective ‘we’ have determined that we want now too, and the who’s better now is the only discussion we can have, as it’s ridiculous now to debate the statistical merits of current players versus the past.

Writers and broadcasters state that Tom Brady’s highly disciplined regiment and diet are the reasons that he’s been able to have such a long career. That is a huge part of it, but no one asterisks that conversation with modern rules against a defense touching a quarterback outside legally designated areas. Couple that with the updated pass interference penalties, and the defenseless receiver penalties, and you open up the game, and make every passing record nonsense when compared to previous eras. Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Peyton Manning compiled impressive stats throughout their respective careers, but were they that much better than Joe Montana and John Elway, Terry Bradshaw and Roger Staubach, or Jonny Unitas and Sonny Jurgensen? The NFL game is so different now that you just can’t compare different eras in true side-by-side comparisons, without adding five asterisks at the very least.

Thanks to those rule changes, Emmitt Smith and Walter Payton’s records will never be threatened, because very few teams run anymore, except to throw the defense off. Why would you run? I’ve read well-researched articles stating even running to throw the defense off is a waste of time. I disagree with those articles, but I wouldn’t say they’re ridiculous.

Lynn Swann played in an era when cornerbacks, safeties, and linebackers could maul a player at the line and rough them up throughout their route, and no receiver who valued their career went over the middle. Due to the rules at the time, Swann could only play nine years, and his opportunities to catch the ball often occurred only on third down. To catch Shannon Sharpe at #50 on the list of most receiving yards of all time, Swann would’ve had to double his career total. The NFL rules tightened up on that during Rice’s era, but they became ridiculous during Megatron’s and Julio’s current era.

I’m a fan of NFL teams, but for some reason individual players ruin teams for me. I loosely cheered on the Packers for much of my life, but I really enjoyed the Brett Favre era. Favre was confident/brash/arrogant, but I loved it. The same characteristics could be applied to Aaron Rodgers, but I dislike him for his play on the field, and I’ve disliked him for as long as he’s played. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything else he’s done. I loosely cheered on the Matt Hasselbeck-led Seahawks, but I can’t stand Russell Wilson or Pete Carroll. My fickle nature is not based on winning or losing either. I liked Tom Brady and Peyton Manning throughout their careers, but I couldn’t stand Terry Bradshaw or Joe Montana. I also liked Ben Rothlisberger and Steve Young, so my preferences are not team specific either. Every time I think I’m above the soap opera of the NFL, then I go about disliking some players for no clearly defined reasons.

HOCKEY

As hard as I’ve tried to force myself to like hockey, I just can’t. I appreciate how grueling it is, and I respect the idea of how much mastery the game requires. I respect the idea that it might be one of the toughest sports to master, and how those playing it might be some of the toughest athletes in all of sports, but I just can’t force myself to enjoy a match.

Basketball

Magic v Bird was my entry point into the NBA. I followed the NBA loosely before Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were drafted, but I don’t remember ever sitting down and watching a game tip to :00. I knew of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Dr. J before Magic v Bird, but Magic v Bird was the beginning of the NBA as far as I was concerned. I watched their regular season matches with mild amusement, but their Finals’ matches were must-see-TV for me.

Save for some Bad Boy years, a disruptor became the game in the form of Michael Jordan. I watched Magic v Bird from the comfort of my home, but Michael Jordan in the Finals was an event that required get-togethers, on par with crucial Cornhusker games and Super Bowls. The roles reversed and the Bad Boys, the Knicks, and Magic v Bird became the disruptors, or the side show. Every male and female I knew during that era loved or hated Michael or Jordan. Few called him Michael Jordan, and no one, other than a few announcers, called him Mike. He attained the one-name status previously enjoyed only by entertainers like Cher or Madonna. Just about every male I knew wore something with his iconic image on it, or they dribbled a basketball with his name on it, while sticking their tongue out.

After Michael left the game, I gravitated to Chris Webber and the Kings v Lakers, but it just wasn’t the same. I also held on, somewhat, to watch Tim Duncan and the Spurs team game, then Chauncey and his defensive Detroit Pistons, but the epitaph for my love of the NBA was Game 6, 2002.