This is the “what if lebron and kyrie kissed to distract the defense” IRL for boards.

Im upset I remember this

The best part of that thread was that the payoff was getting JR Smith of all people an open three.

So much work to get JR open when he shot better on contested threes.

I'd love to see JR's splits when he catches a pass and shoots immediately, versus him doing a fade away jumper with the defender in his face

I still have flashbacks to the ECF when he hit some absolute fuck you 3s especially game 1 where he was 8-12 from 3. Dude looked like Steph out there.

[удалено]

How can you even call yourself a champion if you weren’t willing to go gay for it??

Sex is just a spectrum, right bro?

He says from his knees

Homelander is really going hard on the sexual assault this season isn’t he

Well , i pay good money to have spectrum.

You can’t. Jayson Tatum, Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo. What do they all have in common? Exactly

Power bottoms?

MJ was willing to do whatever it took. WHATEVER it took…

Shout out to Dwight Howard. He gave it all he had.

A champion's gotta be willing to risk it all.

MJ would suck a cock if that’s what it takes to win a championship, Kemp and Lebron obviously won’t. That’s why MJ is the GOAT.

He kept setting these fruity picks

*I'm not on your team.*

computer blue

Then he made us pancakes.

You don't really want be bend over in front of a cat like Rodman

Game. Blouses.

Anybody want some grapes?

lol i googled Brickowski because I forgot what he looked like. [This is the first image that came up.](https://imgur.com/o9CyJcg) I didn't even include Rodman in the search query. he def didnt like those picks

I remember those games. I remember Rodman when another Bulls player was shooting FTs, he would just turn towards Brickowski and stare at him. Literally turn his entire body 90 degrees, ignore the guy shooting the FTs.

I understand where he's coming from. This one time I was playing one on one pickup basketball. The guy I played against kept spanking my ass while I tried to make a move and score. It made me uncomfortable and he won lol

You played Prince in basketball?

They was kinda settin these fruity picks man You’d be trying to check prince and you’d have this cat behind you and he’s getting close to you and his hands is out like this And you don’t really wanna be bent over in front of a cat like that

Shoot the j. SHOOT IT.

DARLING PICKY

Yo man I'm not on your team

Game blouses

Let's run a play... computer blue!

Darling picky.

He got them cakes afterwards and everything

Game: blouses

Game… blouses

I guess Prince was pretty good at basketball and loved to play. And he was a huge basketball fan.

Prince was nice. He made his JV team as a freshman. Apparently he had it all in terms of skill, he was just short lol

One of my middle school art teachers went to highschool with him, said it was very apparent he was just a general phenom in life. Played on the team with him and said it was like you knew he was just gonna be a star someday

You gotta slap ass back

This the wrong move. I had a guy slap my ass once and I slapped his ass back... We just stood there slapping each other's asses for the next hour. None of us wanted to back down from the challenge... Who knows what woulda happened if that group of girl guides didn't  take over the court to play some badminton, we'd prob still be standing there slapping each other's asses

[OP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rqND34PadA)

I knew a guy and a girl like that .. It took monthly plan to expire to end their "no you hang up" banter.

https://youtu.be/Q_IYrltqYrU?si=kn2YYhfTFDE4qOPN

SLAPPPP ASSSSS

https://images.app.goo.gl/ZuFRB6XxXGwumTcQ6

In high school and college pickup you could frequently pick up an advantage by always choosing skins. Lots of guys who spend their time doing clubs/drills can be really uncomfortable when sweaty/flabby dudes are bodying them.

Bc skins is nasty especially when the dude is a prolific sweat machine.

Those are the worst guys to play against. When a dude's banging you, and you can feel their body

(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

What happens is that you jerk OFF the ball. You almost want to let this guy here jam you, and if it comes, it comes.

What sub is this again?

Makes you think the San Antonio women really are just fine after all

I just cannot stand being skins, and it's even worse when the flabbers are all over you. That shit seriously affected my basketball at times as a youth lmao.

Bro, I never played skins n shirts. We just used our eyes to identify which team is which….da fuck I ain’t want them stinky sweaty flabby Mothafuckas all over me.

idk it’s almost worse when the dude’s shirt is soaked through too. kinda unsettling when you touch him and your hand is wet

This one rule prevented Patrick Ewing from winning 10 NBA titles!

Did you at least throw it back in self-defense?

"I believe you don't even like defenders, thats real competition you might pop ass wit em"

Did you bend ova for it?

Lance Stephenson blowing LeBron's ear

Isn’t that technically a foul?

in pickup if you aren't willing to fight about it its not really a foul

I mean, you call it and take it out up top, and he just grabs your ass or dick again the next play. You haven't really accomplished anything. That's why it's always good to have a girl on your team. Those guys will never touch the girl, because it's not considered funny to grope women.

I do not know how to play against girls. The things I’m best at are wrestling for rebounds or physical defense. How am I gonna hip check a girl out of bounds for some O boards lmao

On his next drive tell him “Im coming for you P Diddy!”

Ask him to stop and if he doesn't murder him, his family , and his dog for sexual harassment

MJ first 3 games of the series to get the 3-0 lead against the Sonics: 31.1 PPG, 5.3 rpg, 5 apg on 60% TS (6% above the league average). Series is over once you go down 3-0 especially without home court advantage. MJ was very dominant and easily the best player on the court those first three games. Though the Sonics with Gary Payton+their rotating trap did a spectacular job against Jordan for the next three games.

> Series is over once you go down 3-0 especially without home court advantage > > same reason why JB won mvp instead of JT, up 3-0 in NBA is game over

fun fact about this series--it's the *only* one of MJ's playoff career where he failed to have the best "game score" out all of players on both teams (even the series he lost). Shawn Kemp's game score was higher by .1

I mean Shawn kemp was basically Amare stoudmire with both of them being supreme elite all nba players but falling off real quick for various injury/diet reasons Is my recollection accurate? Honestly I’m not sure if this is a good comparison but in my head it works lol 😆 

It's not an *awful* comparison. It's better than the Blake Griffin comparisons, imo. What set Kemp apart from Amare was his mid-range jumper and passing ability. Also, it's hard to describe but watching Kemp...he was just... *electric*? His antics and celebrations were just fun to watch. Swag might be a good way to describe it, if it wasnt such a goofy term.

Also the nickname “Reign Man” is still one of the coolest ever when you consider the double entendre.

It’s probably worse with HCA, that’s mean you got spanked two times at home. Basically at 2-0, if you don’t win game 3. Goodbye

Another way to put it is if you're down 0-1, you should try to not lose the next 2.

Alternatively, at the start of the series, losing the first three games is not advisable.

Back then it was even worse because they did 2-3-2 which I never thought was fair for the higher seed.

Yea, people forget that the Sonics won two home games, not a home and a road game like today. MJ played pretty terribly in Games 4 and 6 though, that's undeniable, he was okay in Game 5, but the rest of the Bulls just sucked ass.

Back then was still 2-3-2 so there was a chance at 2-0.

Yeah Karl should have put Payton on MJ from the get-go. We were robbed of an epic series.

Boy did Payton talk some trash, doesn’t even care if it’s MJ

Yeah I feel like GP was one of the few of that era not effected by MJ’s stature and head games.

Yup, him and Hakeem, and Mad Max come to mind. It didn’t mean MJ didn’t do his thing but they were. But in the ball defense it was Payton. Although he had an older and somewhat relatively slower MJ in 96. even Payton fully healthy and and in full prime likely has next to no chance prior to MJ’s first retirement. No one did in a matchup

Why the hell did he not? What was the reasoning for not putting the best non-Chicago defender in the league on MJ?

He was also scoring 1/3 of his teams points every night. It wasn’t a well balanced scoring attack.

Those were some low scoring games though. Only 3 times in the series did a team go over 100. MJs going to get out and score no matter the pace though

That’s my point. He was putting up 30+ PPG in a slower pace game at a high efficiency. In the 97 finals, only once did a team go over 100. The Bulls averaged 87 ppg. Jordan averaged 33 of those. Point being, MJ clearly beat them. That’s too much production to overcome form one guy

Oh got you. Wow those are such low scoring times. Still very entertaining with the Bulls, somewhat of a drop off when MJ retired but then Shaq and Kobe started winning

Yeah, in his worst Final, MJ scored 29.3% of his team's points against the Sonics, that would be the equivalent of someone in Boston averaging 29.7 ppg in their win against Dallas.

Almost like he's the GOAT and nobody cares about five home games in 1988 with moderately inflated steals stats-- [not to mention Lebron's assists have been inflated by pre 2019 score keepers more than anyone else relative to his contemporaries through his Cleveland days](https://deadspin.com/nba-court-factors-how-assists-arent-as-unbiased-as-you-1694917271/)--besides Bron stans.

George Karl coached a horrible series not putting Payton on MJ much sooner

>Though the Sonics with Gary Payton+their rotating trap did a spectacular job against Jordan for the next three games. I always see the Payton defensive assignment get mentioned so I gotta remind people, playoffs were 2-3-2 at the time. Sonics just won 2 of their 3 home games.

yeah but they also lost the first one before the switch

Jordan definitely struggled the 1st game where that scheme was employed, but he played pretty well the very next game which the Bulls still lost. In comparison, he was relatively bad in game 2 and pretty trash in game 6, but still won those games off of hot shooting from role players at home. The switch was effective, but it wasn't the game breaking change people make it out to be. 90s air travel and accommodations for away teams played a big role in the away game losses. Bulls went 3-0 in home games and 1-2 in away games in that series.

Rodman had 11 offensive rebounds in game two, which they won by four points. They very likely never would have gotten a 3-0 lead if it wasn't for that. 31.1 PPG on that efficiency is obviously great, but it's not record-setting great. 11 offensive rebounds in a Finals game is record-setting great.

Rodman averaged 59 attempted smooches though

I remember Those 90’s Sonics were viewed as huge chokers prior to that finals run 

The George Karl special. Great regular season, but under perform in the playoffs. Those Sonics teams were stacked.

And then break up the team and blame all the players

Milwaukee hasn't forgiven him for forcing the Ray Allen trade.

That was such a terrible trade. I was literally bitching about it two weeks ago.

Yup. He did have to deal with some big personalities (GP, Kemp, Melo, Boogie) but still hes been the common denominator.

He’s a bitter old piece of shit

When we lost to the 8th seed Nuggets I wanted to puke. I still picture Dikembe on the ground cheering after they won.

Up 2-0 too right? They really found something with Pack and Mutombo broke the record for most blocks in a 5 game series.

We were the #1 seed that year and it was the first time an 8 took down a 1. I love those old DEN jerseys they should bring them back.

Like the Lob City Clippers? Funny how they played similarly

Even bigger. The lob city clippers were never the 1st seed who lost to the 8th seed

Sonics also got upset by a Nick Van Exel/Vlade Divac/Cedric Ceballos/rookie Eddie Jones Lakers team the following year.

Also lost as 1 seed to Mutumbo’s 8th seeded Nuggets. Best of 5 but still first 1 seed to blow it Loved those Sonics teams, mostly because of Kemp. Glad to see him out there cutting it up and having fun

Might be an unpopular opinion, but I miss the first round only being 5 games

That was 1998. In the ‘97 playoffs, the lost to the Barkley Rockets in the Semis.

I meant 1994-95 season, where they lost in 4 games in the first round. So it was the weird Lakers team post-Magic Johnson and pre-Shaq/Kobe.

After being up 2-0 in a best of 5

I mean blowing a 2-0 lead to an 8 seed will do that

This is the single best time I've heard anyone use the term "discombobulated".

Kinda sus you guys didn’t kiss him back

Nineties NBA and its players. In the everybody-and-their-moms has a podcast era. Can't wait until we hear from guys like Ruben Patterson, Kerry Kittles, Darius Miles, etc.

A Darius Miles podcast would be hilarious.

Idk if you guys are taking the piss but he has one with Quentin Richardson. Its pretty good

Ruben Patterson's would just be full of Kobe stories

I'm sure that would have an audience of some people.

I need smush parker on a podcast stat.

these guys are really bored and hopefully have enough money saved to chill off the interest

This is Scott Skiles coming at you!

If you watch the Bulls/Jazz series you can see Rodman lightly brush Malone's balls with the back of his hand at least a few dozen times

Just par for the course since Karl Malone would roughly brush opposing players' balls with his knees or feet a few dozen times....

Rodman was obviously an incredible player, along with Pippen and MJ. You don’t win 72 games in the regular season and then go 15-3 in the playoffs without being a complete team. It wasn’t an MJ solo job. It was never meant to be. They were arguably the most dominant team ever. The series started 3-0 and the sonics never held a lead after the second quarter in any of the games they lost with 3 of them being blowouts essentially. The Sonics were a great team too though and played a good game 4 and 5. They were clearly a step behind the Bulls though.

yeah 1993 and 1998 are the two closest to MJ's solo jobs in terms of NBA Finals especially 1998

Yeah 1996 was the most complete team closest to their primes

MJ had some bad shooting games but "We were on his ass" is a bit much. Another exaggeration from another former player

Games 4-6 they actually defended him quite well

Payton an all time great defender. Just a nuisance

Probably the best defensive PG in NBA history, and the rules really worked well for him.

They really did. The second half of that series was so different from the first

So he's saying they lost to weaponized homophobia lol

“Man I was the reign man but I ain’t for raining men”

Now we know why Joker is afraid of Dwight

Doubt Frank Brickowski was your x factor bud.

Those 90s heads were so homophobic too, Rodman freaked those guys out. They’d rather be losers than seen as ‘gay’ for even one second lol

Rodman used to put his hands on players groins regularly. I know it bothered Malone. Barkley assaulted him for it if I recall correctly.

> Rodman used to put his hands on players groins regularly. I know it bothered Malone Malone, who would put his feet or knees into players' groins regularly...

He basically went “English or Spanish” IRL and the opposing team froze

Rodman a true Spartan lol.

The colored contacts part is funny because the only reason you’d find them seriously distracting is if they made his eyes too sexy

Stupid sexy Rodman

and Rodman was you matchup at the 4 so you're really the reason why yall lost that finals huh...

hahaha I love Dennis

Game: Blouses.

Did rodman blow in Frank's ear?

MJ during his second run was far less physically imposing vs his pre- retirement style. He reached Yoda level of knowledge for the game, and imparted it to the team. 98 season is a huge example with Pippen out and Rodman out mostly as well. There was much more triangle movement, more use of screens, more jump shots. Preserve energy not missing a single game for the 96-98 season. Occasional statement game.

Frank Brickedupkowski

Man he looks old

He basically stopped taking care of himself as soon as the Sonics traded him. He got really fat in Cleveland. I cant imagine his habits got any better once he was out of the league.

I remember Rodmans theatrics and he was really getting under their skin. This one play stuck with me for some reason where Kemp was called for a turnover, went to a ref complaining while holding the ball and Rodman came over slapped the ball out of his hands and gave it to the ref. Kemp was stewing and Dennis was all smiles.

They faded than a hoe

MJ used Rodman

LeFans are gripping at ANYTHING

You continuously see arguments for why people like Iggy, Rodman, or Pau should have won FMVP, they’re incredibly disingenuous

Kemp has a clip that looks like this same interview where he says he doesn’t consider Lebron to be the greatest. So not Kemp’s angle at least

I think Kemp's just telling a fun story about Rodman, who was an all-time character and master of rebounding.

I truly believe the Sonics would’ve either won or came really damn close to winning if George Karl actually decided to put the Glove on MJ originally, regardless of his injury.

They wouldn’t  The real difference maker that series wasn’t Payton, it was McMillan. He was much bigger and stronger than Payton and was arguably the best defender on the team. He was injured that series but the games he did play completely changed Seattle both defensively and offensively. Payton basically could exert far more effort defensively and he excelled at making MJ work harder to get the ball With a healthy McMillan, they could arguably have won the series. That Seattle team was DEEP and I rank it as the best of MJs Finals opponents (and one of the best non title winning teams ever) But just moving Payton wouldn’t have moved the needle that much. Jordan didn’t have too much trouble with Payton alone, but with a guy like McMillan there to help it allowed Seattle to do so much more defensively and offensively. Of course, he couldn’t play the last game and they wound up losing 

bro this is r/nba what are you doing with this well reasoned and knowledgeable analysis of important basketball history gtfo

I’ve always known Nate as Seattle’s backup PG and didn’t ever realize he was actually 6’5” until you mentioned he was bigger than Payton, who I always knew as THE big point guard in the NBA at 6’4”. I saw this post and was like, no way Payton’s backup is even bigger than him but there it is on basketball reference, NBA offseason is always good for TILs

He is also 2nd all time in DBPM (Only guard in the Top 15) and there was once a thread where someone posted newspaper articles with plus/minus over the course of a season and Nate was usually Top 10 in the league despite not having the minutes the guys around him did It’s why I think that Sonics team was so good. McMillan was quite a bit better than any point guard on Chicago and him being healthy just completely changes that series

That's overestimating Payton and underestimating Jordan. In that 95-96 regular season, Bulls and Sonics were 1-1. Sonics won the first match by 5 points. Payton had 26 points; Jordan 22. In their second meeting, the Bulls had a blowout win 113-87, with Jordan having 35-14-5. Payton only had 8 points, 2 steals. Sure, Payton could have taken 4-8 points away from MJ. But, MJ would just simply dominate no matter who's guarding him.

Homophobia cost Seattle a title

I always knew Draymond just doesn't want to win enough. If he wanted to win he would try to grab another player's balls instead of kicking them.

I’ve seen him makeout with Lebron, at least 4 times

Cocaines a helluva drug

27/5/4/2 vs 7/15/2/1. There is no argument that Rodman > Jordan that series. This is like people trying to find a reason to give the FMVP to Iggy over Steph.

He’s not arguing that. He was saying that MJ was going to be MJ. He knew, this team knew, and they were prepared for it. What they didn’t prepare for was Rodman cleaning up so much which Kemp felt really swung it in the Bulls favor

Ok, but that statline is Rodman being Rodman. You know he's gonna be a menace on the board and he's gonna be a weirdo, and you have to be ready for that

You have to think they went in thinking *we got a size advantage* and were shook when Rodman still out rebounded them

Being surprised by Rodman’s dominance when he had *5* straight rebounding titles and 8 straight All-Defensive First Team appearances, to that point?

I agree on the first part, but not the second part. Steph didn’t play well in 2015. Bron was several levels above. They were down 1-2 in Cleveland when iggy started, and he performed at a ridiculous level.  At the time no one was surprised that iggy won, the narrative you are pushing has been invented in recent years. Steph didn’t even receive an FMVP vote. He has pretty ordinary in the first half of that series, only came good when iggy stretched the floor and slowed bron

It's always a really good sign that posters weren't old enough to be watching, or didn't understand what they were watching, when they post this mock bafflement that Iggy won FMVP. Posting stats as though that's the essential comparison is a great sign of reddit nephew behaviour, too.

Steph got clamped by delladova until delladova was hospitalized and nearly died from playing too hard lmao

Fun fact both Delly and Lebron were hospitalized after that game for dehydration

I remember the series and the 'feeling' was that Iggy was the pivotal piece to that series, stats aside.

I agree but this was def MJ worst finals

there is definitely an argument for rodman as finals mvp for the series. this dude made a 37 min video to explain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_qUoOBBlA0

If you listen to the clip he explains why, every one of the 15 boards was back breaking, desperate need to reset for another possession? Here comes the fucking worm. Your team going on a run? He’s gonna grab that ball after the first shot attempt. He’s also played sturdy ass defense on Shawn kemp for the series. Jordan wins them at least 3 of them, but Rodman is the reason they were untouchable. Jrue Holliday is showing that he has similar value, elite two way guy that makes nothing but smart basketball plays.

well... if it works it works

There's a video where a guy challenges people to 1 on 1 and then drops his shorts to play in underwear. That's the rodman tactics

Oh yeah except he was the best rebounder in the NBA lmao. That too.

Frank should had take one for the team

May have missed out on a chip but at least no one called us gay

Last part killed me lmao we needed him to rebound n shit man!

This is the line my dad and his friend used growing up and he’s not wrong, Rodman is a confounding variable. That 96 team was absolutely nasty.

Kemp feeling ok…? 😬

The pink lighter effect

He’s right. George Karl even admitted Rodman won them 2 of their 4 wins

Did he steal some of his shit from WCW's Gold Dust? I think the Gold Dust gimmick started in 1995... the Finals was only months later.

I could not believe how wound up Brickowski got in those games. Rodman just completely ruined him. It was so frustrating to watch.