From: gary@ccs.northeastern.edu (Gary Duhaney)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.pro
Subject: Re: Jordan >= Magic && Bird
Date: 29 Aug 92 05:57:58 GMT
Organization: Comp. Sci. @ NU

In article <1992Aug28.154746.44563@uvmark.uucp> davem@uvmark.uucp (Dave Meeks) writes:
>In article <1992Aug27.190856.6592@rti.rti.org> wgr@rti.rti.org writes:
>>In article <1992Aug26.213743.16703@uvmark.uucp> davem@uvmark.uucp (Dave Meeks) writes:
>>
>>One thing people always seem to overlook is that Bird's teammates also made
>>*him* better.  Dennis Johnson was a great player before he ever teamed up
>>with Bird.  For several years Kevin McHale was easily the best low post
>>player, and one of the top five players overall, in the league.  He and Bird

[Stuff about DJ and McHale helping Bird deleted]

You guys are forgetting Parish.  The guy knew when to set the pick
for Bird, when to roll to the Hoop.  A lot of the best plays that
the C's had were either with DJ passing to Bird under the hoop while
the defender wasn't looking, or the pick and rolls with Parish.
Not to mention both Parish and Bird were pretty adept at throwing the
long outlet passes to each other.  Parish also saved Birds butt
on Defense many times once an opponent got by Bird.

That team perfectly complemented and supplemented each others game.

>But, look at Pinckney and how much better he looks with Bird on the floor, or
>Dee Brown, or Gamble, etc..  It is clear however, that Bird did have more 
>talented people around him.  

Actually Eddie looks better with Bird off the court.  He gets more PT that
way.  When both are on the court at the same time Eddie becomes clueless.
He often has to play a more small forward oriented game.  On D he has to
play the small forward, on offense he often has no idea what his role is.

With Dee, Bird often takes over.  Both Bags and Shaw ran the offense
when they were here.  When Bird is on the court Dee reverts to a role
of ball dribbler - he brings the ball down and that's about it.  One
often finds Dee standing around with no idea what to do when the team
needs direction.  It's an entirely different story, especially when
Bags is playing.

As to Gamble, I would say that he benefits most, not from
Birds skills but more because Bird (playing the PF spot) doesn't hang
around the middle, when Gamble drives to the hole or shoots the little
10"s.  With middle hogging PF, Gamble has problems because he can't
pass the ball very well and he often faces an extra opponent when he
gets that close.  Take the playoffs, Mchale played a lot, Bird wasn't
around, and he dissapeared.  I wasn't because of the lack of fast breaks.

>>
>>So I'm not arguing that Jordan is a better than Bird was, but I think it's
>>hard to determine who was superior at making his teammates better.  In my
>>opinion, Bird's teammates would have been better than Jordan's even if they
>>hadn't played with Bird.
>
>Good point...

Ditto

P.S 	I'm not blaming Bird.  Just wanted to point this out.
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