The Book of Basketball (112 page)

And that’s what makes ranking the ’87 Lakers so difficult. Yes, they were a great team led by one of the five best players ever at his zenith. Yes, they had one of the only coaches that mattered. Yes, this was the best Lakers team of the Magic era. Yes, they caught a series of breaks. Yes, they had some flaws. Ultimately, they have to be ranked third for two reasons:

• Defensively, they were somewhere between okay and good—sixth in opponent’s FG percentage, twelfth in points allowed, fourteenth in forcing turnovers and
  last
  in defensive rebounds. Kareem and Magic were liabilities. Byron Scott was okay. Green and Worthy were good, not great. Only Cooper and Thompson were elite. They couldn’t lock teams down or sweep the boards, and quicker point guards routinely lit them up like nothing we’ve seen since … oh, wait, we see it every night with whomever Jason Kidd and Steve Nash are guarding. But remember Sleepy Floyd decimating the ’87 Lakers for one of the all-time memorable scoring explosions: 34 points in the final 11 minutes of Game 4, 13 for 14 from the field, no threes, no shots from more than 15 feet, eight shots from 3 feet or less (six in traffic)?
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  Or Stockton, Isiah, Dumars, KJ and Hardaway going bonkers against them in later years? As many matchup problems as Magic caused offensively, he caused nearly the same number defensively. Against bigger back-courts like the ’87 Celtics or ’87 Sonics, it didn’t matter. Against elite penetrators/distributors? It mattered. Cooper and Scott couldn’t guard those guys; neither could Magic. So what do you do? Take the hits on one end and outscore them on the other. And for the most part, that’s what the Lakers did. But that’s a pretty glaring weakness, no? And we haven’t even acknowledged Kareem’s vulnerability against those explosive Hakeem/Tarpley types (none of whom faced L.A. in the ’87 Playoffs). I know it’s nitpicking, but we can’t see the words “glaring weakness” in any capacity with the Greatest NBA Team Ever.
  

• Even with Larry Bird dragging the carcass of an eleven-man roster into the ’87 Finals (five of the top seven were either injured or unable to play),
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  Boston came within a late-game collapse, a terrible break on a rebound, two sketchy calls and Bird’s desperation three missing by 1/55,000th of an inch of tying the series at 2–2. And yeah, you could argue that the Garden willed the Celtics to those two home victories in the Finals. But when you consider the physical condition of that Boston team—I mean, Darren Daye (Game 4, Milwaukee) and Greg Kite (Game 3, Finals) had
  signature playoff moments
  for the ’87 Celtics—it’s hard to understand why the Best Lakers Team of the Magic Era didn’t sweep them or at least finish them in five. They soured critics just enough that Jack McCallum wrote after the Finals, “They may not be ‘one of the greatest teams ever,’ a phrase that was bandied about after they devastated the defending-champion Celtics in Games 1 and 2. But they are, assuredly, the league’s best team this season.” Damning praise. I actually think the ’87 Lakers were better than that; nobody blended transition and half-court better, and Magic had become a cold-blooded killer of the highest order. But they wouldn’t have beaten these next two teams.
  

2. The ’96 Chicago Bulls

Regular season (72–10): peak of 71–9 … 39–2 at home … 12.3 SD (105.2–92.9) … 1st in points scored, 2nd in points allowed … 47.8 FG% (7th), 74.6 FT% (14th), 44.7 RPG (4th), 24.7 APG (7th) … 12–4 vs. 49-win teams … 2 double-digit losses (fewest ever) … best winning streaks: 18 + 13

Playoffs (15–3): 10–0 at home … 10.6 SD (97.4–86.8) … fourth in PPG, 1st in PPG allowed … 10 double-digit wins … 44.3% FG (8th), 73.8% FT (7th), 30.4% 3FG (11th), 35.7 RPG, 22.7 APG, 13.7 stocks … closeout wins: 21, 13, 5, + 12 … following season: won title (beat Utah in 6)

Cast and crew: Michael Jordan (super-duper star), Scottie Pippen (super wingman), Dennis Rodman (wingman), Toni Kukoc, Luc Longley, Steve Kerr, Ron Harper, Bill Wennington (role players), Phil Jackson (coach)

“Number two?” you’re saying. “Number two? A team that went 87–13? Really? You’re that much of a homer?” Are you really asking that after I dropped Bird below Magic in my Pyramid? There are specific reasons for dropping the Bulls to no. 2, including …

• They took full advantage of the We Overexpanded and Overpaid Everybody era (1994–99). Was it a coincidence that Chicago banged out 72 wins during the same season when (a) the Association expanded to Vancouver and Minnesota and (b) six teams won 26 games or fewer (compared to two in 1986)? How do you explain Utah averaging 52 wins from ’91 to ’93, then 61 wins from ’96 to ’98 … even though they had a worse team and their two stars were in their mid-thirties? You don’t find this fishy? As Bird told
  SI
  in ’97, “The league is a lot more watered down than when I played, so if you have a star like Michael Jordan today, you rule the league. Once he leaves, things will level out.”
  

• Jordan turned thirty-three this season with over 800 games (including playoffs) already on his NBA odomoter. Pippen turned thirty before this season and hit the 800-game mark during it. Rodman turned thirty-five that season. Ron Harper turned thirty-two. Of their top five guys, only Kukoc was in his prime. And that’s why even die-hard Chicago fans would concede that the Sistine Chapel of the Jordan-Pippen era was reached during the ’92 season, when a younger, deeper Bulls team played two relatively perfect games: Game 7 vs. New York (110–81 final, 42 for MJ, a 17–11–11 for Scottie, a 58%–38% FG disparity) and Game 1 vs. Portland (122–89 final, 63 points and 21 assists for MJ/Pippen). The ’96 Bulls had a few postseason blowouts; none resonated like those two. And it comes down to the age thing: Pippen and Jordan were just
  better
  in ’92. Nobody remembers any of their ’96 playoff games because their competition was weak, but also because Jordan and Pippen weren’t as breathtaking anymore (like Wilt and West in ’72, actually). They were smarter about their games and bodies, better teammates and leaders, more efficient in myriad ways, demoralizing defensively … but Jordan peaked from ’91 to ’93 and Pippen peaked from ’92 to ’94. The stats back it up and so do the tapes.
  

• The Bulls didn’t play particularly well (for them) in the playoffs, missing 70 percent of their threes and getting subpar offensive performances from Pippen (39% FG, 64% FT), Kukoc (39% FG, missed 55 of 68 threes) and Kerr (32% on threes).
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  Even Jordan submitted his worst career playoff numbers of any title season (31–5–4, 46% FG). I want my Greatest Team Ever to leave me thinking after the Playoffs, “Not only could they
  not
  have played better, I will probably never see another team play better than that in my life.” You did not feel that way about the Bulls after the ’96 Playoffs. If anything, you were wondering if the Sonics could have stretched it to seven had Gary Payton been defending Jordan all series.
  

• Can you really have a Greatest Team Ever that featured so many rejects, castoffs, role players, and past-their-primers? Their third scorer was Kukoc, a frustratingly soft forward with considerable gifts (terrific passer, streaky three-point shooter, post-up potential) who never totally delivered for them.
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  Their center combination? Longley and Wennington. (If you’re telling me that the Greatest NBA Team Ever should have a center combo that averaged 12 points and 6 rebounds a game, provided no low-post threat and little shot blocking and floundered as NBA players before and after playing with Jordan/Pippen, then you have lower expectations for this stuff than I do.) Kerr frequently played crunch time, which was fine because he stretched defenses and was a Hall of Fame cooler … but he’s another one who struggled mightily in the before/after portions of his Pippen/Jordan experience.
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  Harper was a terrific defender who hobbled around on a bad knee (the players even jokingly called him “Peg Leg”) and couldn’t shoot threes or create his own shot. And their ninth and tenth men were Jud Buechler and Randy Brown. Enough said. So if you’re scoring at home, 70 percent of their ten-man rotation never made an All-Star team, averaged 7 rebounds a game or played for fewer than four teams.
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• Operating under Bob Ryan’s time-tested Martian Premise—that is, a team of highly skilled aliens land on earth and challenge us to a seven-game basketball series with the future of mankind at stake—are you really saying you’d go to war with Longley and Wennington as your centers?
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  The dirty little secret of Jordan’s six title seasons (twenty-four series in all) was his astounding luck with opposing centers: Ewing (four times), Brad Daugherty (twice), Alonzo Mourning (twice), Greg Ostertag (twice), Vlade Divac (twice), Mike Gminski, Bill Laimbeer, Rony Seikaly, Kevin Duckworth, Kevin Willis, Mark West, Shaq, Sam Perkins, Gheorge Muresan, Dikembe Mutombo, Jayson Williams and Rik Smits. He never battled two of that decade’s dominant big men (Hakeem and Robinson) and only faced the third one (Shaq) twice. Was it a coincidence that Chicago’s four toughest series from 1991 to 1998 were against quality low-post centers: Ewing (’92 and ’93), Shaq (’95, when they lost) and Smits (’98)? Shaq, Hakeem and Robinson played eight games against the ’96 Bulls (including playoffs) and averaged a 27–11 on 58 percent shooting. The 47-win Knicks played them surprisingly tough in the second round—losing by 7, 11, 3 and 13, and winning Game 3 in OT—with a sore-kneed Ewing averaging a 23–11. During Orlando’s upset the previous spring, Shaq blistered them for a 23–22 and a 27–13 in the deciding contests, averaging a 24–14 and shooting 83 free throws in six games. Well, what if the Martians had someone like Shaq or Moses in their prime? Jordan’s teams never needed a dominant center to win, but they also had an uncanny knack for avoiding dominant centers. Could they have handled a powerhouse like the 2001 Lakers? Wouldn’t 2001 Shaq have feasted on Longley/Wennington the same way he feasted on Todd MacCulloch, Vlade Divac and everyone else in that phylum? I say yes, and if you’re incorporating the Martian Premise, you have to assume the Martians would be better than the 2001 Lakers. I can’t get past the center issue. I just can’t.
  

Add everything up and that 72–10 record doesn’t make a ton of sense … until you remember that the ’94 Rockets ushered in the We
Overexpanded and Everyone’s Overpaid Era. Suddenly you only needed to surround two studs with the right role players. You needed good chemistry and the right coach, you needed to stay healthy, you needed to play defense at a high level, and over everything else, you needed the league’s dominant player. That was good enough. And that’s not to belittle what the Bulls did; their 41–3 start ranks among the all-time “holy shit” statistics in NBA history, and as we covered in Pippen’s Pyramid section, it was truly an experience to watch them play in person. Their defensive prowess and collective confidence were almost unparalleled, and their ability to maintain their focus/hunger as they became part of the day-to-day pop culture whirlwind—no other NBA team dealt with such a high level of scrutiny, media exposure and hysterical admiration from opposing fans, to the point that Jordan was trapped in his hotel on road trips like one of the Beatles—remains their single most impressive quality.

If it wasn’t for one undeniable truth—namely, that you would have had to shoot Jordan with an elephant gun to prevent him from winning the title that season—I probably would have slid the ’96 Bulls down to fourth for the aforementioned reasons, as well as the sobering fact that they won only eight more games than the ’96 Sonics. I like a starting five of Payton, Kemp, Hersey Hawkins, Detlef Schrempf and a fading Sam Perkins … but 64–18 with no bench?
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How is that possible? What about San Antonio winning fifty-nine games with Robinson, Elliott, Avery Johnson, Vinnie Del Negro, Will Perdue, a fading Chuck Person and a washed-up Charles Smith? I can’t shake this stuff. Just because the ’96 Bulls had the greatest season ever and the greatest player ever doesn’t mean they had the greatest team ever. If that makes sense. I swear it does.

NO. 1: THE 1986 BOSTON CELTICS

Regular season (67–15): peak of 64–13 … 40–1 at home … 9.4 SD (114.1–104.7) … 29.1 APG (2nd), 46.4 RPG (1st), 50.8 FG% (2nd), 35.1 3FG% (1st), 79.4% FT (2nd), 46.1 defensive FG% (1st) … 18–2 vs. 49-win teams … 3 double-digit losses (2nd-fewest ever) … best winning streaks: 14 + 13

Playoffs (15–3): 10–0 at home … 10.6 SD (114.4–104.1) … fourth in PPG, first in PPG allowed … 11 double-digit wins … 50.7% FG (2nd), 79.4% FT (1st), 39.1% 3FG (2nd), 15.0 stocks, 45.1 RPG, 28.4 APG (2nd) … closeout wins: 18, 33, 13, + 17 … following season: lost in Finals (L.A. in 6)

Cast and crew: Larry Bird (super-duper star, 26–10–7–2, 50–90–42%); Kevin McHale (super wingman, 26–10, 60% FG); Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson (wingmen); Bill Walton (super-duper sixth man); Danny Ainge, Scott Wedman, Jerry Sichting (supporting cast); KC Jones (coach)

Let’s run through the Greatest Team Ever Checklist that I just made up thirty-seven seconds ago …

Pyramid guys.
The ’86 Celts had five of the top sixty, with no. 5 and no. 38 peaking that spring: 50.8 PPG, 17.9 RPG, 10.9 APG, 54% FG, 45 steals and 53 blocks combined in 18 playoff games. Fellas, here are your Greatest Inside/Outside Combo lifetime championship belts. Seriously, how did you stop them? Bird threw world-class entry passes and doubled as a dead-eye shooter. McHale had world-class low-post moves and commanded doubles and triples at all times. What could you do? Teams be-grudgingly settled on doubling McHale with a guard and keeping someone on Bird, which meant Johnson and Ainge got to shoot wide-open 15-footers all game. (Not wide-open threes … wide-open 15-footers.) Throw in the Parish/Walton center duo (24.9 PPG, 15.2 RPG, 3.1 APG, 42 blocks) and the Celtics were basically announcing, “Our front line is going to notch 75 points and 33 rebounds, protect the rim, shoot
50-plus from the field and hit wide-open shooters and cutters all night; you will be foolish to double-team any of them, and you will not get a break from them for four quarters … good luck.”
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