re: Things that would not exist without ESPN...

It's funny how everyone is just saying "you're dumb" when he actually has good points that no one is responding to

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It's not even that... Pippen didn't just lose Jordan. He lost Horace Grant also, who was arguably a top five center in the league. Even with that, they still made the playoffs and had a chance to win it all.

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When Jordan retired, Grant was still there and the Bulls went out in the 2nd Round.

And while I liked Grant, '94 was the only year he was ever an all-star.

A huge part of Jordan's legacy is he never lost in the finals 6-0, compared to 5-2 for Kobe. Another plus for Jordan is despite the original posters claims that Pippen was more important to his team than Jordan, Jordan won the finals MVP in all 6 finals and the only year that was even debatable was 96, when it maybe should've gone to Rodman. Kobe on the other hand was only Finals MVP in two of his 5 championships, and probably shouldn't have been in 2010 when he went for 6-24 in the deciding game 7 but got bailed out by his insane frontcourt. Finals MVP's are usually a pretty good indication of who the best player on a championship team was.

Jordan has 5 MVP's. Kobe has one MVP. Jordan has ten scoring titles, Kobe has two scoring title pretty important considering they were both primarily scorers. Pretty huge disparity no?

Stats wise for their career, and this includes Jordan's two years in Washington which lowered all his averages, we haven't even seen Kobe's washington years yet and you know he'll have them.

Jordan averaged 30.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 5.3 assists, on .497 % shooting.

Kobe currently averages, and this is with a Germany knee surgery that Jordan never had a chance to use, 25.6 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 4.7 assists on .448% shooting.

Now the shooting percentage is a huge difference and is extremely important when comparing players bc as the OP mentioned the overall pace and average league scoring has varied drastically over both these players careers but the stats show Jordan was consistently the better scorer. And while the league may have been faster paced when Jordan got into the league, by the time he won his second three titles scoring was almost at an all-time low and it didn't really affect him at all. Meanwhile you forget to mention that the NBA eliminated the handcheck rule as well as hard fouls like the Bad Boy Pistons used to pride themselves on after Jordan retired, but Kobe got the benefit of those rule changes.

In terms of competition, the league may have been watered down to expansion teams in the mid-90's but the bulls beat some legit teams, including two teams with the MVP of that year on the team, on their way to the finals and in the finals. Compare to the three teams the Lakers beat in their first three peat. Yea the west had some good teams in the Kings and Spurs but the East was downright awful. Even 2009 they beat the Magic who had Howard and.....Turkoglu? Lewis?

Finally this ridiculous "they won 57 games with Pippen and without Jordan" argument. First off you're assuming that if Pippen doesn't retire they don't do even better with just Jordan. Second of all yes they did well that one year, the next year they were struggling just to stay in the playoff hunt until Jordan came back. Thirdly imagine taking Lebron off this heat team, or bird off the celtics, or Magic off the lakers, or Russell off the early Celtics. Now look who's still left on those rosters, multiple all-stars. Are you telling me those teams with multiple all-stars aren't coming close to 57 games? Yet Lebron, Bird, Russell, and Magic are 4 of the top ten players of all time. If we've learned anything from Lebron the past two years it's that having other great players on your team shouldn't diminish your own greatness.

Also, Kobe hasn't even won a playoff series without Phil and that was in his prime. Jordan was making the conference finals without Phil early in his career

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A huge part of Jordan's legacy is he never lost in the finals 6-0, compared to 5-2 for Kobe. Another plus for Jordan is despite the original posters claims that Pippen was more important to his team than Jordan, Jordan won the finals MVP in all 6 finals and the only year that was even debatable was 96, when it maybe should've gone to Rodman. Kobe on the other hand was only Finals MVP in two of his 5 championships, and probably shouldn't have been in 2010 when he went for 6-24 in the deciding game 7 but got bailed out by his insane frontcourt. Finals MVP's are usually a pretty good indication of who the best player on a championship team was.

Jordan has 5 MVP's. Kobe has one MVP. Jordan has ten scoring titles, Kobe has two scoring title pretty important considering they were both primarily scorers. Pretty huge disparity no?

Stats wise for their career, and this includes Jordan's two years in Washington which lowered all his averages, we haven't even seen Kobe's washington years yet and you know he'll have them.

Jordan averaged 30.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 5.3 assists, on .497 % shooting.

Kobe currently averages, and this is with a Germany knee surgery that Jordan never had a chance to use, 25.6 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 4.7 assists on .448% shooting.

Now the shooting percentage is a huge difference and is extremely important when comparing players bc as the OP mentioned the overall pace and average league scoring has varied drastically over both these players careers but the stats show Jordan was consistently the better scorer. And while the league may have been faster paced when Jordan got into the league, by the time he won his second three titles scoring was almost at an all-time low and it didn't really affect him at all. Meanwhile you forget to mention that the NBA eliminated the handcheck rule as well as hard fouls like the Bad Boy Pistons used to pride themselves on after Jordan retired, but Kobe got the benefit of those rule changes.

In terms of competition, the league may have been watered down to expansion teams in the mid-90's but the bulls beat some legit teams, including two teams with the MVP of that year on the team, on their way to the finals and in the finals. Compare to the three teams the Lakers beat in their first three peat. Yea the west had some good teams in the Kings and Spurs but the East was downright awful. Even 2009 they beat the Magic who had Howard and.....Turkoglu? Lewis?

Finally this ridiculous "they won 57 games with Pippen and without Jordan" argument. First off you're assuming that if Pippen doesn't retire they don't do even better with just Jordan. Second of all yes they did well that one year, the next year they were struggling just to stay in the playoff hunt until Jordan came back. Thirdly imagine taking Lebron off this heat team, or bird off the celtics, or Magic off the lakers, or Russell off the early Celtics. Now look who's still left on those rosters, multiple all-stars. Are you telling me those teams with multiple all-stars aren't coming close to 57 games? Yet Lebron, Bird, Russell, and Magic are 4 of the top ten players of all time. If we've learned anything from Lebron the past two years it's that having other great players on your team shouldn't diminish your own greatness.

Also, Kobe hasn't even won a playoff series without Phil and that was in his prime. Jordan was making the conference finals without Phil early in his career

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Ka-Pow.

Bulls lost Horace Grant to free agency in 94-95.....he was signed to the Orlando Magics.

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Bulls lost Horace Grant to free agency in 94-95.....he was signed to the Orlando Magics.

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that's correct. OP is referring to the 93-94 season, the bulls first season without Jordan. Horace Grant was still there.

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Prepare your anus. I'm in this bitch like an unborn baby

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The First thing that came to my mind after reading the OP

JORDAN CAN'T WIN WITHOUT SCOTTIE OR PHIL

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JORDAN CAN'T WIN WITHOUT SCOTTIE OR PHIL

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Don't forget, he couldn't win an NCAA title without Worthy either.