Greatest of All-Time: Dr J

Everyone has their opinion of who is the greatest of all time and for various reasons, so up front I apologise if I miss anyone out or if my opinions don’t quite mirror your own.

My own personal favourite is Dr J, he had the moves, a cool nickname and was one of the first people to have a trainer with his name on. Obviously he didn’t have the stats that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had or the championships like Larry Bird but he had that certain something, a swagger on the court and some of THE greatest moves the NBA has ever seen. Some of the dunks he produced were outstanding and in the 82-83 season when Moses Malone joined the Sixers he got his reward of an NBA Finals ring, despite getting the NBA regular season MVP in 81. As NBA Champions in 82-83 the Sixers were an outstanding team, Mo Cheeks, Andrew Toney & Bobby Jones made a great team. All this aside should a player be considered great if he wins only 1 championship, Bird won more, Johnson won more, Jordan won more so why do I think Dr J is the greatest? The battle he had between Larry Bird in the early 80’s were memorable and will go down as some of the best ever in playoff history but as a player he had character, style and his highlight reel is second to none, he had game!

Now, with my opinion and feeble rationale of it out the way let’s get down to another question, are the players playing now on the same level as the players of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s??

The all time points scorer is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain has the most rebounds and John Stockton leads the assists league by a country mile. All these players plied there trade many moons ago now but still remain at the top, granted they have played more games that LeBron or Kobe or KG but they are still up there. Should they be considered better that the current crop of players? In the 70’s basketball was huge, shorts were short and trainers were flimsy bits of canvas but the top players posted outstanding stats. There shoes didn’t have shock absorbing, ankle supporting, jump higher technology, they also didn’t have cutting edge technology to aid there fitness or training. So, does the fact that they posted outstanding stats make them better than the players who have state of the art gyms, nutritionists and sports councillors?

Dr J could dunk as well as Vince Carter, if not better, and Bill Russell has played in and won more NBA championships than anyone else and that was years ago! Ok, I’ll give the current crop that fact that the standard of the average NBA is significantly better now than it ever has been, they can jump higher, run faster etc and Kobe/LeBron are ruling the roost which is impressive against possibly a higher standard of competitor but does that make them better?? Honestly I don’t know but all know is that the list of NBA greats is full of players who wouldn’t be great without other players.

Kareem played with Magic Johnson, Ewing played with Charles Oakley, Shawn Kemp had Gary Payton, Shaq had Penny/Tim Hardaway, Karl Malone had John Stockton and Larry Bird had Robert Parish and Kevin McHale. All these players are legends but as duo/trio they were all unrivalled.

Special mention also for Oscar Robertson for averaging a triple double one season and for Bulls 72-10 team but overall I’m going to stick with my pick of Dr J, feel free to suggest your own.