The greatest professional athlete in history?

[elprincipe]

amp316 said:

elprincipe said:

amp316 said:
I gave my answer earlier but some people are claiming that Michael Jordan wasn't the best basketball player ever and that's an absolute joke. MJ is every bit as good at basketball as Gretzky or Pele were in their respective sports. No one is even close and any other answer is ridiculous. I'm old enough to have seen Kareem, Dr. J, Magic, Bird, and many others play and I'm telling you that Michael Jordan is unquestionably the greatest basketball player ever.

If you saw Kareem, Dr. J and Magic play, why in the world would you think jordon is better than them?  They are all much superior players.

If jordon was the best, why did they change the rules to help him?  You know, they changed the rules to slow down players like Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

You must be from L.A.  That's the only logical explanation for this comment.

They changed the rules so the Detroit Pistons could do anything but pull out a gun and not be called for a foul in order to try and slow Jordan down.  They didn't change them to help him.  I don't know what games you were watching.

Definitely not from L.A. (thank goodness!).  They changed the 3-point line to make it closer to help jordon because of his crappy 3-point shooting record.  Then they changed the rules so you couldn't hand-check a player to help jordon because it suited his game.  Anyway, that would let the league legitimize fouls being called virtually every time jordon missed  shot or was otherwise breathed upon.  When even those extremes didn't work, the referees literally gave Chicago the championship against Utah.  That's when the NBA finally lost me as a fan, seeing as it's either rigged or a joke.