by Simmons Bill
I mean, would you have wanted to play these guys that spring? We haven’t seen anything approaching Shaqobe in the 2001 Playoffs; 45 it’s the only time in NBA history that two top-twenty Pyramid guys joined forces as an inside/outside combo with both either approaching their primes or enjoying their primes. Check out Shaqobe’s regular season and playoff numbers.
Good God! Two 42 Clubbers on the same title team? That’s the one and only time it’s ever happened. Just for shits and giggles, let’s compare their combined 42 Club average to every other memorable one-two championship punch since Chamberlain and Greer combined for a jaw-dropping 49.3 in the ’67 Playoffs. Nobody topped 37.5 other than these ten combinations:
A good example of how ridiculous Shaqobe’s ’01 postseason was: in the second round, you might remember them sweeping a quality Kings team. They prevailed by three in Game 1, with Shaq notching 44 points (17 for 32 FG), 21 rebounds and 7 blocks. They won Game 2 by six, with Shaq springing for a 43–20–3. In Sacramento for Game 3, Kobe dropped 36 and Shaq added a quiet 21–18 in a twenty-two-point drubbing. They finished the sweep with a six-point win as Kobe played the best all-around game of his career: 48 points, 16 rebounds, 15-for-29 from the field and 17-for-19 from the line with no less than Doug Christie (one first-team All-Defense and three second teams from 2001–4) guarding him. Again, this was a really good Kings team with the best crowd in the league … and the Lakers blew them out of their own building like Fartman. In fact, the ’01 Lakers swept a 50-win Blazers team (that nearly beat them the previous spring), a 55-win Kings team (that almost beat them 12 months later), and a 58-win Spurs team (that won three titles in the next six years), 46 then came within an overtime loss of sweeping the 56-win Sixers. The ’01
Lakers were the only NBA team to beat four straight 50-win playoff teams to win a championship. How does that 15–1 sound now?
One more thing: If you were creating the perfect Shaqobe team, you’d surround them with elite role players like Horry, Fox, Fisher, Shaw and Grant; you’d give them Phil Jackson for the Zen/harmony stuff; you’d definitely want 2000 or 2001 Shaq; and you’d want 2001 Kobe (only twenty-two with a ring and valuable playoff experience, back when his ego hadn’t erupted yet and he was closer to Young Pippen than Young MJ). The 2001 Kobe might have been the greatest second banana of all time; teaming him with a twenty-eight-year-old Shaq was almost criminal. Matching them up against the ’96 Bulls:
Center: Shaq vs. Longley
Forwards: Horry + Harper vs. Rodman + Pippen
Guards: Kobe + Fisher vs. Jordan + Harper
Bench: Grant, Lue, Shaw + Fox vs. Kukoc, Kerr, Wennington + Buechler Coach: Jackson vs. Jackson
Would you take the ’01 Lakers in that series? I feel like I would—they were a better version of the
’95 Magic team that topped the Bulls. But what about the ’86 Celtics?
Center: Shaq vs. Parish
Forwards: Horry + Harper vs. Bird + McHale
Guards: Kobe + Fisher vs. Johnson + Ainge
Bench: Grant, Lue, Shaw + Fox vs. Walton, Wedman, Sichting + Kite Coach: Jackson vs. KC Jones47
Don’t you think the ’86 Celtics swallow them up? They’d have two Hall of Fame centers to throw at Shaq, a Hall of Fame defensive guard to throw at Kobe, and a scoring mismatch with Bird/McHale against the Guy Who’s Not Robert Horry. The ’86 Celtics were vulnerable against speedy point guards and athletic small forwards and the ’01 Lakers didn’t have anyone fitting either of those categories. Either way, they were the best team of the last twelve years and in the top five of all time regardless of how late they got going. Shit, will we ever see two top-twenty Pyramid guys playing on the same team in their primes again in our lifetimes?
(Insert sound of every Knicks fan screaming, “Yes! Starting in 2011! We will see this again! I don’t know the combination of guys, but we will see this again! Yessssssss!”)
4: THE ’89 DETROIT PISTONS
Regular season (63–19) … 37–4 at home … 5.8 PD (106.6–100.8) … 49.4% FG, 44.7
defensive FG … 16–12 vs. 50-win teams
Playoffs (15–2): 8–1 at home48… 6 double-digit wins … 9.5 PD (100.6–92.9) … closeout margins: 15, 2, 9, + 8 (all on road) … following season: won title (beat Portland in 5)
Cast and crew: Isiah (superstar); Joe Dumars, Dennis Rodman (wing-men); Vinnie Johnson (sixth man); Bill Laimbeer, John Salley, James Edwards, Rick Mahorn, Mark Aguirre (supporting cast); Chuck Daly (coach)
Not technically a Level One team since they were hardened by crushing losses in ’87 (Boston) and
’88 (Lakers). No NBA champ had more versatility and toughness: they were physical as hell; they could execute a fast break or half-court offense equally well; they played defense as well as anyone with the exception of the ’08 Celtics and the ’96–’ 97 Bulls; they controlled the boards; they could exploit any mismatch; and they always seemed to have two different hot players going offensively. Fans unfairly discounted Isiah’s Pistons because they couldn’t beat Boston or the Lakers at their peaks—even though they defeated Jordan’s Bulls twice and won back-to-back titles—and because they lacked a dominant center or super-duper star, which confused everyone who didn’t follow basketball obsessively. I hated these bastards but grew to respect their hard-nosed swagger; they never allowed layups or dunks, never gave an inch, never stopped fighting and didn’t care if they maimed you as long as they won. Their relentless competitiveness brought out the worst in opponents; I always found it fascinating that, for a team that ended up in so many fights, the Pistons never threw the first punch or had the most enraged guy in the brawl. And if you remember, the ’87 Celtics and ’88 Lakers spent so much energy fending them off that they were never the same afterward.
So much of what the Pistons accomplished was based on intimidation and the understanding that they’d do whatever it took to win, even if it meant intentionally stepping on McHale’s broken foot (which Mahorn did repeatedly in ’87) or hammering Jordan and Pippen during their forays to the basket. For them, the mental game was bigger than anything. If you were frustrated by their elbows and shoves, if you were afraid of getting clocked every time you drove to the basket, if you were obsessing over punching Laimbeer instead of just thinking about ways to beat him … then they had you. That’s what they wanted. You could say they figured out a loophole in the system, and after Pat Riley exploited that loophole even further with his bullying Knicks teams, the NBA finally stepped in and instituted taunting/fighting penalties and a system for flagrant fouls.49 If we’re judging the ’89 Pistons against other landmark teams, the question remains: would they have succeeded to that degree with 2009 rules in place? Probably not. But they were so intelligent/competitive/versatile/bloodthirsty that those particular qualities translate to any era.
One bummer for these guys: 1989–90 was a transition period with the Bird Era slowing down, the Kareem Era ending, the Jordan Era not totally rolling yet, the Stockton-Malone Era stalling, the Hakeem era floundering, the Ewing/Robinson/Barkley peaks still a few years away, and only the Bulls and Blazers rounding into legitimate contenders. The Pistons filled a void of sorts and became the Larry Holmes of NBA champs: unliked, resented and ultimately dismissed. We wanted them to go away and eventually, like Holmes, they did. But like Holmes, when you watch those old tapes you end up thinking, “Man, those guys were really good.” 50
3: THE ’87 L.A. LAKERS
Regular season (65–17): peak of 65–15 … 37–4 at home … 9.3 SD (117.8–108.5) … 12–6
vs. 50-win teams … 51.6 FG%, 78.9% FT … winning streaks: 11 + 10
Playoffs (15–3): 10–0 at home … 11.4 SD (120.6–109.2) … 10 double-digit wins … 52.2%
FG, 78.5% FT, 36.1% 3FG, 28.2 APG, 14.4 stocks … closeout game margins of 37, 12, 31,
+ 13 … following season: won title (beat Detroit in 7)
Cast and crew: Magic (super-duper star); Kareem + Worthy (super wingmen); Michael Cooper (sixth man); Byron Scott, A. C. G
reen, Mychal Thompson, Kurt Rambis (supporting cast); Pat Riley (coach)
How do we know this was Magic’s best Lakers team? He said so himself after the Finals: “There’s no question this is the best team I’ve played on. It’s fast, it can shoot and rebound, it has inside people, it has everything. I’ve never played on a team that had everything before.”51 He left out the biggest reason: Magic jumped a level and cruised to his first MVP, submitting his best statistical year (regular season: 24–6–12; playoffs: 22–8–12, 53% FG and an impossible 78–13
assist/turnover ratio in the Finals) and gently yanking control from a declining Kareem. Their humiliating Rockets defeat qualified them for Level Three status; it also helped that they got faster instead of bigger, dumping Maurice Lucas and Mitch Kupchak, handing their minutes to Green and Rambis and routinely going smallball with Magic-Scott-Coop-Worthy-Kareem. They mastered the art of juggling transition and half-court offense, running on every opportunity and waiting for Kareem to drag his ass up the court otherwise. From there, they had three devastating options: Kareem posting up, Magic posting up (a new wrinkle) or Worthy facing up and beating slower forwards off the dribble. And of their two glaring weaknesses (defending quick point guards or dominant low-post scorers), one was miraculously solved when San Antonio gift-wrapped Mychal Thompson and FedExed him to them for their stretch run.
The Thompson trade would have sparked an Internet riot if it happened today (take how everyone reacted to the Pau Gasol hijacking, then square it): the Spurs were 18–31 and considering a full-fledged tank job with the David Robinson sweepstakes looming, unwilling to pay $1.4 million combined for Thompson and a decomposing Artis Gilmore. Lakers GM Jerry West barraged them with Thompson offers for a solid month, finally landing him for a pu-pu platter deluxe offer of Frank Brickowski, Petur Gudmundsson, a 1987 first-round pick (destined to be last) and cash. Everyone went crazy, and rightly so: Thompson was a former number one overall pick and one of the league’s better low-post defenders.52 Within a week of the trade, Thompson played crunch time in a CBS game against Philly as everyone collectively said, “My God, what the hell just happened?” Thompson earned 22 minutes per game in the playoffs, rested Kareem for chunks of time, gave McHale fits and made the most underrated play of the Finals: when he jumped over Parish and McHale in Game 4 (foul! foul!) and caused Kareem’s pivotal free throw to bounce off their hands, setting the stage for Magic’s soul-wrenching baby hook. 53 The Lakers also benefitted from Lenny Bias’ sudden death, a rash of Boston injuries, Houston’s untimely demise and the up-and-coming Mavericks (55 wins, 3–2 against the Lakers) unexpectedly choking in the first round one against Seattle. 54 Since the playoffs expanded to sixteen teams in 1977, no Finals team ever played three worse conference opponents than the ’87 Lakers: in this case, the 37-win Nuggets (round 1), 42-win Warriors (round 2) and 39-win Sonics (round 3). Meanwhile, the banged-up Celtics faced MJ’s 40-win Bulls and endured seven-game slugfests against a veteran 50-win Bucks team and the 52-win Pistons. Gee, who do you think was fresher for the Finals?
And that’s what makes ranking the ’87 Lakers so difficult. Yes, they were a great team led by one of the five best players ever at his zenith. Yes, they had one of the only coaches that mattered. Yes, this was the best Lakers team of the Magic era. Yes, they caught a series of breaks. Yes, they had some flaws. Ultimately, they have to be ranked third for two reasons:
• Defensively, they were somewhere between okay and good—sixth in opponent’s FG
percentage, twelfth in points allowed, fourteenth in forcing turnovers and last in defensive rebounds. Kareem and Magic were liabilities. Byron Scott was okay. Green and Worthy were good, not great. Only Cooper and Thompson were elite. They couldn’t lock teams down or sweep the boards, and quicker point guards routinely lit them up like nothing we’ve seen since … oh, wait, we see it every night with whomever Jason Kidd and Steve Nash are guarding. But remember Sleepy Floyd decimating the ’87 Lakers for one of the all-time memorable scoring explosions: 34 points in the final 11 minutes of Game 4, 13 for 14 from the field, no threes, no shots from more than 15 feet, eight shots from 3 feet or less (six in traffic)? 55 Or Stockton, Isiah, Dumars, KJ and Hardaway going bonkers against them in later years? As many matchup problems as Magic caused offensively, he caused nearly the same number defensively. Against bigger back-courts like the ’87 Celtics or ’87
Sonics, it didn’t matter. Against elite penetrators/distributors? It mattered. Cooper and Scott couldn’t guard those guys; neither could Magic. So what do you do? Take the hits on one end and outscore them on the other. And for the most part, that’s what the Lakers did. But that’s a pretty glaring weakness, no? And we haven’t even acknowledged Kareem’s vulnerability against those explosive Hakeem/Tarpley types (none of whom faced L.A. in the ’87 Playoffs). I know it’s nitpicking, but we can’t see the words “glaring weakness” in any capacity with the Greatest NBA Team Ever.
• Even with Larry Bird dragging the carcass of an eleven-man roster into the ’87 Finals (five of the top seven were either injured or unable to play),56 Boston came within a late-game collapse, a terrible break on a rebound, two sketchy calls and Bird’s desperation three missing by 1/55,000th of an inch of tying the series at 2–2. And yeah, you could argue that the Garden willed the Celtics to those two home victories in the Finals. But when you consider the physical condition of that Boston team—I mean, Darren Daye (Game 4, Milwaukee) and Greg Kite (Game 3, Finals) had signature playoff moments for the ’87
Celtics—it’s hard to understand why the Best Lakers Team of the Magic Era didn’t sweep them or at least finish them in five. They soured critics just enough that Jack McCallum wrote after the Finals, “They may not be ‘one of the greatest teams ever,’ a phrase that was bandied about after they devastated the defending-champion Celtics in Games 1 and 2. But they are, assuredly, the league’s best team this season.” Damning praise. I actually think the ’87 Lakers were better than that; nobody blended transition and half-court better, and Magic had become a cold-blooded killer of the highest order. But they wouldn’t have beaten these next two teams.
2. The ’96 Chicago Bulls
Regular season (72–10): peak of 71–9 … 39–2 at home … 12.3 SD (105.2–92.9) … 1st in points scored, 2nd in points allowed … 47.8 FG% (7th), 74.6 FT% (14th), 44.7 RPG
(4th), 24.7 APG (7th) … 12–4 vs. 49-win teams … 2 double-digit losses (fewest ever) …
best winning streaks: 18 + 13
Playoffs (15–3): 10–0 at home … 10.6 SD (97.4–86.8) … fourth in PPG, 1st in PPG
allowed … 10 double-digit wins … 44.3% FG (8th), 73.8% FT (7th), 30.4% 3FG (11th), 35.7 RPG, 22.7 APG, 13.7 stocks … closeout wins: 21, 13, 5, + 12 … following season: won title (beat Utah in 6)
Cast and crew: Michael Jordan (super-duper star), Scottie Pippen (super wingman), Dennis Rodman (wingman), Toni Kukoc, Luc Longley, Steve Kerr, Ron Harper, Bill Wennington (role players), Phil Jackson (coach)
“Number two?” you’re saying. “Number two? A team that went 87–13? Really? You’re that much of a homer?” Are you really asking that after I dropped Bird below Magic in my Pyramid? There are specific reasons for dropping the Bulls to no. 2, including …
• They took full advantage of the We Overexpanded and Overpaid Everybody era (1994–99). Was it a coincidence that Chicago banged out 72 wins during the same season when (a) the Association expanded to Vancouver and Minnesota and (b) six teams won 26
games or fewer (compared to two in 1986)? How do you explain Utah averaging 52 wins from ’91 to ’93, then 61 wins from ’96 to ’98 … even though they had a worse team and their two stars were in their mid-thirties? You don’t find this fishy? As Bird told SI in ’97,
“The league is a lot more watered down than when I played, so if you have a star like Michael Jordan today, you rule the league. Once he leaves, things will level out.”
• Jordan turned thirty-three this season with over 800 games (including pl
ayoffs) already on his NBA odomoter. Pippen turned thirty before this season and hit the 800-game mark during it. Rodman turned thirty-five that season. Ron Harper turned thirty-two. Of their top five guys, only Kukoc was in his prime. And that’s why even die-hard Chicago fans would concede that the Sistine Chapel of the Jordan-Pippen era was reached during the ’92
season, when a younger, deeper Bulls team played two relatively perfect games: Game 7
vs. New York (110–81 final, 42 for MJ, a 17–11–11 for Scottie, a 58%–38% FG disparity) and Game 1 vs. Portland (122–89 final, 63 points and 21 assists for MJ/Pippen). The ’96
Bulls had a few postseason blowouts; none resonated like those two. And it comes down to the age thing: Pippen and Jordan were just better in ’92. Nobody remembers any of their
’96 playoff games because their competition was weak, but also because Jordan and Pippen weren’t as breathtaking anymore (like Wilt and West in ’72, actually). They were smarter about their games and bodies, better teammates and leaders, more efficient in myriad ways, demoralizing defensively … but Jordan peaked from ’91 to ’93 and Pippen peaked from ’92 to ’94. The stats back it up and so do the tapes.
• The Bulls didn’t play particularly well (for them) in the playoffs, missing 70 percent of their threes and getting subpar offensive performances from Pippen (39% FG, 64% FT), Kukoc (39% FG, missed 55 of 68 threes) and Kerr (32% on threes).57 Even Jordan submitted his worst career playoff numbers of any title season (31–5–4, 46% FG). I want my Greatest Team Ever to leave me thinking after the Playoffs, “Not only could they not have played better, I will probably never see another team play better than that in my life.”