The Top 10 NBA Players Ever - #2

This is another installment in my list of the top 10 NBA players of all time. It is admittedly a subjective list. Are individual statistics more important than the number of championships a player led his team to? These types of lists will always be contentious. However, it should be known that this list was compiled with a tremendous amount of thought.

#2 Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan was the flashiest player ever to play in the NBA. He was also the best offensive player of his era and quite possibly the best defender of his era as well. Jordan was quite popular throughout his career and has been a world famous figure for the past 25 years. I once got into an argument with a 4 year old about who was the greatest player in NBA history. His argument was that Jordan "won that game," referring to his victorious performance in the movie Space Jam. He left behind a generation of rueful NBA superstars, who blame him for denying them a championship.

His career mark of 30.1 points per game is the highest average in the history of the NBA. He led the league in scoring average ten times and finished third another season. He scored the third most amount of points in a career with 32,292. Though his scoring statistics are quite impressive, they don't tell much of the story. Jordan was clutch. This was best exhibited in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals. After a steal with 20 seconds left, Jordan drove the ball down the court, waited, and rose above the defender to nail a picture-perfect, championship-winning jump shot.

In the beginning of his career, Jordan redefined the art of athleticism. His exploits earned him the nickname "Air" Jordan. By the time of his second three-peat, he was perhaps the best jump shooter in the game. He was a lockdown defender who led the league in steals three times. His huge hands allowed him to manhandle the ball. His patented fadeaway jumper was unblockable and impossible to duplicate. He taunted his helpless opponents with a tongue that wagged to the side as he maneuvered his body in spectacular fashion on his way to two points.

For the first six seasons of his career (he scored 35 ppg or better in two of them), Jordan was considered a fantastic scorer who didn't make his teammates better and couldn't win the big one, even though he averaged 8 assists per game in 1988-9 and once scored 63 points against the Boston Celtics in the 1986 playoffs (a postseason record). It wasn't until his Chicago Bulls won the 1991 NBA championship that Jordan received his due as a winner.

Those Bulls teams featured Jordan, a top ten player of his day in Scottie Pippen, and a slew of revolving role players. Phil Jackson, arguably the greatest coach in NBA history, ran the show. Jordan, whose hatred of losing was obsessive, led those teams to six titles, separated into two three-peats. Those series of championships were interrupted by the one season Jordan played minor league baseball (in 1994) and his late-season comeback in 1995. In 1995-6, Mike led his team to an NBA all time best 72-10 record. It began the Bulls' second string of titles.

Jordan was a 5-time MVP and a 6-time NBA Finals MVP. He was voted to the All-NBA 1st team 10 times and to the All- NBA Defensive 1st team 9 times. More than the accolades, Jordan set the standard by which all wing players past, present, and future are judged.