Kareem is the GOAT. Until somebody beats his all-time NBA scoring record, the Big Fella IMO stays at #1. And let’s not even bring up High School and College. The Captain altered the game of Basketball. Such an insult lol
MJ the best to do it
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It is unfortunate that Kareem gets less talk in this conversation than he deserves. He has the stats, the rings, the hardware to be in the conversation. As much of a threat as Jordan was, Kareem was just as dominant in HS, College, and in the NBA. Imagine if all the former greats had access to social media? Jordan was WORLD wide before any of it and 20+ years after he last played everyone still wants a piece of him.
Kareem (Lew Alcindor) was drafted by a 27-55 first year expansion team, and they won the NBA title in just his 2nd year beating the heavily favored Lakers. He was a bad ass. Just as today’s kids don’t really appreciate MJ as much as they should, those who grew up after Kareem’s prime have no idea what they’ve missed.
My personal favorite, but I'd say MJ is the better athlete. But you'd expect that at 6'6" vs 7'2". He's the reason I'm a UCLA basketball fan to this day
He was still good at 40! haha but you don't appreciate it as much when they're playing...I was a Celtic fan and hated the lakers...80's was a golden age of hoops for me.! And, of course 90's with the Bulls
UCLA and Kareem were what got me started watching hoops... I remember reading a newspaper article previewing what I think was Kareem's first varsity game with the Bruins... It mentioned how the freshman team had handled the varsity in the previous year's annual Blue v. Gold game while mentioning Wooden and how he'd coached the Bruins to two title in a row before Lew's, err, Kareem's freshman year.
I took that game in on the tube... Yes, the soph Kareem was awesome, but the thing that really hooked me was Wooden's then-innovative 2-2-1 zone press. Nobody had really figured out how to break it yet, and the Bruins would often run off several buckets in a row without the other team even managing to get the rock past their own FT line before some All-American Bruins guard would pluck it away. Fun times for Bruins fans...
Over the next couple years, opponents started to get that press figured out, at least somewhat... But they were powerless against Alcindor, errr, Jabbar.
He was a total beast.One pair that so far has not been mentioned in this thread (and they really have to be mentioned together) are Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell. These guys were true studs. Too bad that not a whole lot of film of these guys exists, but the little clips I've seen make it look like Chamberlain was a total Superman out there. Going wayyy above the box to swat away shots, dunking at will (or Bill, or George, and maybe even Sue!), piling up tons of rebounds... And he could handle the rock on the break, too... Got quite a few assists, but I'm not sure how well that stat was recorded back then. They changed the rules of the game to try and slow him down by doubling the size of the key, and it didn't phase him a bit. I think a 25-year-old Wilt would be the best center in the NBA today, and it might not even be close.
It's harder to evaluate Russell because he basically had the NBA All-Star team (except Wilt) around him, but he had many epic individual battles with Wilt, sometimes out-playing him statistically.
Yeah Wilt was quite the stud as well, in more ways than one. Basketball & Volleyball HOF, a Track & Field legend, and popular with the ladies. Here is an argument for Wilt being the greatest athlete of all time.
https://howtheyplay.com/team-sports/Why-Wilt-Chamberlain-was-the-Greatest-Athlete-of-All-Time
https://howtheyplay.com/team-sports/Why-Wilt-Chamberlain-was-the-Greatest-Athlete-of-All-Time
Watching this Detroit defense again is amazing. Just the hatred teams and players had for each other back then. Players today too worried about being friends. Then jumping teams.
What separates Jordan from LeBron is the early years when there were NO championships. Jordan went through a buzz saw and never gave up and we all know LeBron had some courage issues in the early years. Jordan had to go through Magic, Bird and the blood bath of the bad boys. LeBron faced nothing like that.
Detroit was a beast no love in those days, No swinging by the house when we come into town.
To be fair to Lebron. He took that first team to the finals versus the Spurs. That cavs team couldn't even beat Mitty girls team let alone the loaded spurs.
