So who's going to win The NBA Finals?

[rocketpig]

Kasz216 said:

rocketpig said:
Not to rain on the Jordan parade but he was able to do things that are now defended differently or just flat-out illegal.

Even MJ wouldn't be MJ in today's league.

To be fair, he's still one of the greatest players to ever play and probably the greatest I ever had the pleasure of watching.

In some cases... in other cases it's easier though.

No hand check, more calls on drives... etc.

The main problem with a Jordan V Kobe matchup is that Kobe is just an inferior Jordan.  So he's just a bad match.

There are definitely different aspects that are easier now, calls on drives being one of them. On the other hand, I consider that offset by his flailing jumper, which served two purposes. One, look at how guys defend Kobe now. He's shooting mid to high 40 percentage with a hand stuffed an inch from his face a lot of the time. With Jordan's flailing, that was almost impossible to do. Then there was the incidental contact with his legs, which was often called for a foul and allowed Jordan to often go for a three point play because it was such a chickenshit foul that didn't disrupt his shooting motion. Now that doesn't happen.

Hand checking was a pretty big deal though but if you look at how much Jordan manhandled his coverage (a foul almost every time nowadays) by pulling, tugging, whatever, it's hard to get over how much that helped him play later in his career.

Also, guys in the middle are just plain bigger now. How would Jordan have fared driving to the lane like Kobe and meeting a Shaq or Howard in the middle?

I'm not saying that Kobe is on par with Jordan, I don't think he is. Not yet, anyway. A lot rides on how Kobe lasts into his mid-30s. But I think it's a lot closer than many people want to admit.

On the other hand, many of the modern rules regarding screens, jumpers, and contact were enacted because Michael was so damned devastating at exploiting the rules at the time.