Scottie Pippen was part of arguably the greatest team in NBA history, the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, and he posed an interesting question to fans on X on Tuesday. Pippen put forth three superteams and wanted to know which one the fans would back to come out on top.
The first was his Bulls with Kobe Bryant, the second was the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors with LeBron James, and the third was the 2003-04 Los Angeles Lakers with Larry Bird. Pippen’s own pick for the winner was, of course, the Bulls.
“Who do y’all got? You know my answer.”
NBA fans were split on who would come out on top.
“Bulls because that’s 4 all world defenders!!! Oh, and they can score as well (minus Rodman),” one is backing the Bulls for their defense.
“At first, I thought Bulls hands down. But who’s gonna guard Shaq? No one… no one can guard Shaq,” another picked the Lakers because of Shaquille O’Neal.
“Warriors with LeBron smoke all of them. Spacing is a thing,” one fan believes the shooting prowess of the Warriors gives them the edge.
“You don’t even need Kobe to beat those two other teams,” one claimed the Bulls would win without Bryant.
“Only so much ball for MJ and Kobe to share…I think it slows down the triangle and hurts the offense and their individual effectiveness. Warriors’ D is not up to stopping the Bulls or Lakers. Bird fits beautifully into the Lakers’ triangle with his passing and feasts on Shaq getting constantly doubled by the other 2 teams… Lakers win this,” one fan is backing the Lakers.
It is quite difficult to pick one team over the other here.
The 1995-96 Bulls won a then-NBA record 72 games in the regular season en route to winning the championship. Adding an all-time great like Bryant would make them just that little bit more unstoppable on paper.
This Bulls team doesn’t really need an iso-scorer, though, because of Michael Jordan’s presence. Bird would have perhaps been a better fit, but he’s going to the 2003-04 Lakers. Now, of course, that team with Bryant, O’Neal, Karl Malone, and Gary Payton didn’t win the championship in 2004, losing in the NBA Finals to the Detroit Pistons.
One could certainly make the case that the Lakers’ failure to win the title should hurt their cause here. The other two got the job done in style, with the Warriors losing just one game in the 2017 playoffs. They set a new NBA record by going 16-1 in the postseason.
Adding James to a team that had Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green seems almost unfair. Like Bird, LeBron would fit in well, and you struggle to imagine how anyone could potentially slow this group down.
At the end of the day, you can’t really go wrong with any pick here. There are cases that can be made for all three teams, and it’s a pity that we’ll never actually get to see them face off.
