NBA
Is Michael Jordan the best basketball player ever? Most basketball fans and experts alike would agree that he is. But is he really? John Salley doesn’t think so.
Salley recently went on ‘The Herd’ with Collin Cowherd and made some heading turning remarks, claiming that he doesn’t think Michael Jordan is the greatest player of all-time.
“I love Michael. I’m a Michael Jordan fan like everyone else. I just don’t think he’s the greatest player ever. I think the greatest player I ever played against was Magic Johnson. Next was Larry Bird, then Kareem Abdul Jabbar. The hardest guy I had to guard? Hakeem Olajuwan.”
Salley continued to say:
“The greatest player I‘ve played with… Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan. I played with Michael Jordan, Scotty Pippen but Isaiah Thomas is the best player I ever played with.” Said Salley “[Jordan’s] a good player, a great player, but he wasn’t the best. I watched Joe Dumars and Dennis Rodman push him left and he’d shoot 32 times”
It’s hard to agree with Salley but the truth is the mythos of Jordan has overshadowed the actual player. There have been fantastic players to come and go in the NBA, but somewhere over the last 10 years the media simply decided that Jordan was the best player of all-time and that believing differently is absurd.
Saying that Jordan is the best player ever without giving the rest of NBA history its due is disrespectful to the players that came before. What about Bill Russell and his 11 champion rings? What about Wilt Chamberlain and the 50 points he averaged for a season?
Jordan may very well be the best, but it’s not absurd to think otherwise.
