MJ speaks!

Filed under: by: Stankoniforous 0ne



[Disclaimer: This post may anger you, alot. You've been warned.]

MJ has finally weighed in on LBJ's decision.  He is not kind and seems to play into the myth of MJ himself.

"There's no way, with hindsight, I would've ever called up Larry [Bird], called up Magic [Johnson] and said, 'Hey, look, let's get together and play on one team,'  "But that's ... things are different. I can't say that's a bad thing. It's an opportunity these kids have today. In all honesty, I was trying to beat those guys.""
And Sir Charles chimed in as well. 

"He'll never be Jordan," Barkley told 790 The Ticket in Miami earlier in the week. "This clearly takes him out of the conversation. He can win as much as he wants to.
"There would have been something honorable about staying in Cleveland and trying to win it as 'The Man' ... LeBron, if he would've in Cleveland, and if he could've got a championship there, it would have been over the top for his legacy, just one in Cleveland. No matter how many he wins in Miami, it clearly is Dwyane Wade's team."
Stank-0 will get to Sir Cumference but for now let's look at MJ. 

What MJ said sounds great and strengthens our collective memory of MJ but let's break it down shall we? Now, Stank-0 agrees with him not calling them up to join on a team.  That ain't MJ.  His HOF induction speech showed his inexhaustible will to dominate.  Thankfully, MJ was honest about the "trying" part because Bird went through MJ a few postseasons for his rings. Of the two, he beat Magic in 1991, for a title.  Now Magic was drafted in 1979 so Magic is no spring chicken by this point, himself.  Jabbar, you know all time leading scorer Kareem Abdul Jabbar, has retired by then so this isn't exactly the Showtime Lakers we are talkin about here either. Those are the facts.

Some more facts: uh MJ didn't exactly win rings by himself.  A list of players he played with: SP (50 greatest), Horace Grant, Dennis Rodman (arguably the greatest rebounder in NBA history), John Paxson, Steve Kerr (best 3-pt % in NBA history), Toni Kukoc, and Ron Harper.  That's just off the top. MJ won rings with a trio because that's conventional championship wisdom. 

On to Sir Charles... isn't it ironic that a man that MJ kept from ever gettin a ring is yappin about legacy? Sir Charles' legacy is: 2 time Olympic gold medalist, one of the 50 greatest of all time, MVP, and one of the best undersized PF's of all time.  It's because of Barkley and players of his generation not getting any hardware that LBJ made the decision that he made.  He didn't want to join the long list of players with this caveat: great player BUT no ring.

Now we the sports fans need to quit being so fickle.  When Jesus Shuttlesworth and KG joined up with P-squared to form the Boston 3 Party, many of us (Stank-0 included) thought: if only they had joined up earlier in their careers.  Well, now you have a new trio and you (Stank-0 is not in this group) are mad because they joined up... too soon?!  Was it because they didn't waste double digit seasons being The Man on a team going nowhere? Did we want to see them waste seasons out of some misplaced sense of loyalty to an organization that is in the business of making money (not championships)?

Now with the specter of Barkley, Stockton/Malone, Ewing, etc in their minds, LBJ might have just started a paradigm shift.  Instead of beating their heads against the wall for 7-10 seasons and then going to a better team, these players may do skip out as early as 4-5 seasons in. You know what, Stank-0 don't blame them at all.

Stank-0 thinks the only thing players concern themselves with is HOF, and at this point LBJ is IN.

P.S. MJ is showing some hater-ish behavior.  Maybe b/c LBJ was called the most sought after free agent in NBA history and MJ expects his name to be at the top of anything with the word "greatest," "best," or "most sought after. " Just a thought.

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