The Sporting News recently conducted a poll among 23 experts to determine a consensus for the NBA’s greatest team ever and the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls came out on top of the voting. It had to be a coincidence that the man who anchored the Bulls wore No. 23 the number of experts assembled to make the choice.
The 23 voters included The Sporting News editor-in-chief Garry Howard and Hall of Famers Jerry West, Rick Barry, Gail Goodrich, Cliff Hagan, Earl Monroe and Chris Mullin.
No doubt, his Airness was the glue that kept the Bulls together in compiling the league’s best-ever record of 72-10. Michael Jordan, in his first full season back after a brief retirement to play baseball and mourn his father’s untimely death, averaged 30.4 points. He powered Chicago to its fourth NBA crown, sweeping Orlando in the Eastern finals before demolishing Seattle in the Last Dance.
The previous season, the Magic eliminated Chicago in the Eastern semifinals – something Jordan never forgave Orlando for. Bulls guard Steve Kerr told writer Steve Greenberg it was motivation “unlike anything I’ve ever seen from another athlete.” In Game 1 of the Chicago-Orlando series in 1995-96, Magic guard Nick Anderson recalled, “You could see the determination in (coach) Phil Jackson and every player on that team, they were focused, they didn’t take anything for granted.” The Bulls crushed the Magic in the opener, 121-83, and set the tone for the wipe-out.
To underscore the Bulls’ supremacy that season, Greenberg pointed out that Chicago led the league in scoring with a 105.2 clip and outdid the opposition by 12.2 points, 6.6 rebounds and 5.4 assists. Additionally, the Bulls forced 2.8 more turnovers a game.
Jackson’s starters were Ron Harper at point guard, Jordan at the two-spot, Scottie Pippen at small forward, Dennis Rodman at power forward and Luc Longley at center. Coming off the bench were sixth man Toni Kukoc and Kerr. Pippen often brought down the ball as the point forward with Harper a floater in the triangle offense. Kerr said Harper was the team’s unsung hero as “he gave us a fourth guy in the starting lineup who could guard multiple players with length and quickness.”
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How would the 1995-96 Bulls have fared against the newly crowned NBA champion Dallas Mavericks?
Dallas coach Rick Carlisle parlayed a deep roster and a 2-3 match-up zone into a winning formula over Miami in the recent finals. His starting cast featured Jason Kidd at point guard, J. J. Barea at two-guard, Tyson Chandler at center, Shawn Marion at small forward and Dirk Nowitzki at power forward. The primary relievers were Jason Terry and DeShawn Stevenson.
In the matchups, Harper would’ve made Kidd’s life miserable with his long arms and excellent anticipation. Barea or Terry would’ve been no match for Jordan so that Marion would’ve probably slid over for defense but that would’ve caused a serious mismatch problem for Carlisle because of Pippen. Longley would’ve kept Chandler busy at the slot as the fulcrum of Chicago’s triangle offense. Rodman and Pippen would’ve alternated on Nowitzki. The Bulls would’ve obliterated Dallas’ pick-and-roll or pick-and-pop because they had defenders of equal size and agility.
Dallas would’ve been lucky to win two games in a title series against the 1995-96 Bulls. Carlisle’s match-up zone wouldn’t have made much of a difference because the Bulls’ movement and spacing off the triangle offense would’ve created the looks at mid-range for Jordan to score.
In The Sporting News poll, the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers ranked as the second greatest NBA team for compiling a 69-13 mark and 33 wins in a row. West, Goodrich and Wilt Chamberlain had starring roles with the squad that overcame the loss of veteran Elgin Baylor who retired nine games into the season because of knee injuries.
The third team in the honor roll was the 1986-87 Lakers who registered a 65-17 mark and beat Boston, 4-2, in the finals. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, James Worthy and Michael Cooper were the mainstays of the team that scored at least 100 points in 93 of 100 games, including the playoffs.
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The fourth was the 1985-86 Boston Celtics who racked up a 67-15 record behind Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson and Bill Walton. Bird earned his third straight MVP award, averaging 25.8 points, 9.8 rebounds and 6.8 assists.
“It was a great passing team,” said Celtics reserve Jerry Sichting. “Everybody was willing to give up the ball. Bird was the leader of the team, he was the captain. He was the guy who set the mental tone for the team. There was hardly a day that I went to practice that he wasn’t already on the floor shooting. He was the first guy there, one of the last to leave, though we had a lot of guys who would stay after practice and work on certain things. The practices were unbelievable. What people saw in the games, the practices were almost as good.”
Cooper disagreed that the 1995-96 Bulls were the best ever. “Our 1987 team would have beaten them, 4-0,” said Cooper. “All they had was Jordan and Pippen and that’s it. Our team was too fast for them. Who’s going to guard Kareem on that team? Luc Longley? Kareem would have sky-hooked him to sleep.”
Sichting’s choice was the 1985-86 Celtics. “We had five Hall of Famers and seven guys who made All-Star team,” he said, quoted by Matt Crossman in The Sporting News. “I’d challenge you to look at their roster and compare. They had a couple of great players but they didn’t have seven guys who were All-Stars at one time or another and five guys who are in the Hall of Fame.”
One thing’s for sure, the Dallas team that won the title this past season doesn’t come close to the lofty quality of play that was a trademark with the 1995-96 Bulls, the 1971-72 Lakers, the 1986-87 Lakers and the 1985-86 Celtics.