I gotta go Michael. I'll disclose my biases. I grew up and live in Illinois. I watched every Bulls game back then. Michael had Scottie Pippen. One of the best defensive players of all time. The overshadowed Pippen was probably better than anyone LeBron ever played with. Be that as it may, Jordan is 6-0 in championships.
Had Michael not been suspended for gambling for 2 years (the fake retirement angle), the Bulls would have 8-peated.
I'll grant you that Michael had better teams around him, but he had to overcome better teams to win the championships. He had to overcome the Pistons, to get there led by Isiah Thomas and co.. He beat he Magic led lakers, Barkley led Suns, Drexler led Trailblazers, Ewing led Knicks (in the playoffs several times).
For 6 years of Michael's prime, no one could knock him off the throne.
I gotta be honest, it's tough to evaluate sports teams that I watched as a child because they felt larger than life at the time, in a way teams can't really feel to me now. But I do believe the NBA was in a Golden Era when he had to do it.
Reasonable.
And I know exactly what you mean regarding players back then seeming larger than life. I don't know how much of it is BECAUSE of being a kid and how much is just that era.
A friend of mine who analyzes sports says that his data reflected the 80s and 90s were the best players. And he wasn't sure why, since in general you expect people to be bigger and better as time goes on. He said it finally occurred to him that the way the US demographics work, baby boomers or whatever, that there were more people in their athletic prime back then. (I think.. in any case, he says stats do seem to suggest this was the golden era for basketball.)
I'm probably threading the needle really tight to take Brady over Manning (and other obviously very good players who didn't win as much) but then not take Jordan, hehe.
I love Scottie Pippen and that's a part of why I lower Jordan.
My main argument -- whenever I finally make this post (at this point I've basically said all my arguments lol) -- is that Pippen is a great "compliment". He doesn't have negative overlap in the way you usually have when you pair stars together (because they both want the ball). So I believe Pippen was uniquely team-oriented for someone of his ability, and basically like the dream piece that would help make a team a GOAT dynasty type of team.
That's interesting about the boomers. I could see that being true about the higher population meaning more great players. Scottie Pippen was 6 foot 7 and even played a lot of point guard. You could slide him in at 1 - 4 on a moment's notice. I think Brady over Manning is an easy pick. Manning vs Favre would be a better debate then Manning vs Brady. Both great regular season players that were, for the most part, not at all clutch in the playoffs.