Scholarship table
I'm a Bulls homer, but this is correct. The Bulls were just as good offensively, better defensively and much better at rebounding. And they had a better bench.
Gotta disagree. Pakuni.The Bulls were never this good offensively. They never had 2 of the top 5 offensive players in the league to go along with 2 other all-stars and one of the better 6th men ever. The Bulls had MJ, who could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, Pippen who is a top 50 all-timer and then a bunch of one dimensional guys.Defensively. each team had/has 3 elite defenders, so I would rank them about even on that end of the floor.As a matter of fact, I put the '96 Bulls at #3 all-time. I also think the '86 Celtics (5 Hall of Famers on the team) were better.
Gotta disagree. Pakuni.The Bulls were never this good offensively. They never had 2 of the top 5 offensive players in the league to go along with 2 other all-stars and one of the better 6th men ever. The Bulls had MJ, who could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, Pippen who is a top 50 all-timer and then a bunch of one dimensional guys.
Defensively. each team had/has 3 elite defenders, so I would rank them about even on that end of the floor.
Statistically this is kind of fun to talk about, but the Bulls would have never seen anything like Golden State back in their day. No team shot this much from deep, this well, and from multiple positions. So while they obviously were a great defensive team, they did so in a league with a slower pace and lack of this many outside threats.So the real question is, could they have adapted to Golden State?
The Bulls would have the best player between the 2 teams but the Warriors would have the next 2 best and 4 of the next 5 best players.The difference between the Bulls defense and the Warriors defense would be no more than the difference between the Warriors offense and the Bulls offense. The Warriors defense is incredibly underrated. When KD is playing defense the way he has been the past 2 years and he's only your 4th best defensive player, your defense is pretty dang good. Green would be the best defensive player between the 2 teams and while Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman are better than Iggy, Klay, and Durant, the difference isn't as big as Bulls fans want it to be. Klay can continue to shoot horribly like he has and it doesn't matter one bit because he can completely take the opposition's best guard out of the game. If Green wasn't on the Warriors Iggy would be looked at as one of the best defenders in the league. Their defense is really good. They were 2nd in defensive rating in the regular season (0.2 behind the Spurs) and the best in Playoff defensive rating this year.
Green a better defender than Jordan and Pippen?! Is this your anti-Chicago bias coming through again? You can't actually believe that.
No, it's not. Jordon won a single DPOY award in his 15 year career. Pippen won 0 DPOY awards in his career. Green is in his fifth season as a professional and might win his first DPOY award this year (one of 3 finalists for the award). Draymond can guard anything from the 1 (on a switch, you aren't just going to match him up with the one but he can definitely guard them) to the 5. He's as versatile of a defender as I've seen at any level of basketball.
The Bulls would have more easily adapted to the current NBA than GS would adapt to the old school NBA.
If the 1996 Bulls played the 2017 Warriors in a seven game series, the Bulls would win in 6.After adjusting to style/game plan back and forth, ultimate talent would take over. The '96 Bulls are vastly more talented. If the game is called in 1996 officiating, it's even easier for the Bulls to win, even Steve Kerr acknowledged that last year.
Back when Harrison Barnes was shooting 5-36 over the last 3 games of the NBA Finals and Kevin Durant was sitting at home in OKC.
Agree. Bulls would've swept the 2006 Warriors. Durant makes this team on their level.
I am surprised the story about reporters smelling weed in Cleveland's locker room after game 2 hasn't been mentioned here.
It's an interesting discussion - and a natural one, too.Top of my head, I was going to say those Bulls wouldn't keep up with today's Warriors because they didn't have the 3-point shooting. But then I looked it up and the 1995-96 Bulls shot .403 from behind the arc while this year's Warriors shot .383. I have to admit I was pretty surprised by that! Jordan, never considered a big-time 3-point threat, shot .427, better than ANY of this season's Warriors. That was stunning to me.But then I realized that the 3-point distance was shorter then than it is now. In 1997-98, the first year the line was moved back to where it is now, the Bulls shot .323. And Michael shot - yikes! - .238.
Hand. Down. Man. Down.
I said GS in 5 before the series started, but I see no road to a victory for the Cavs. They can't play better than tonite.