The 2016-17 Golden State Warriors might be the best team ever assembled. Here are five reasons they would beat Michael Jordan’s 1995-96 Chicago Bulls.
After the first two games of the 2017 NBA Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors, the overarching NBA narrative has change. With Golden State crushing Cleveland twice in Oakland, this may not be LeBron James’ league any more. Golden State may now run the league.
The Warriors have gone 14-0 in the 2017 NBA Playoffs. If they take two in Cleveland, the Warriors will be the first team to go 16-0 en route to a championship. Last year’s club may have won 73 games, but they lost to Cleveland in seven games in the NBA Finals. However, Golden State added small forward Kevin Durant in free agency. Is this the best team ever assembled?
Well, Westgate Las Vegas thinks so. The popular sports book would have the 2016-17 Warriors as a 6.5-point favorite on a neutral site against the supposed best NBA team of all-time: Michael Jordan’s 1995-96 72-win Chicago Bulls.
With Steve Kerr as the only commonality between these two historical juggernauts, here are five reasons the team he coaches would beat the team he played for in a best-of-seven series. Either way, Kerr wins!
5. Chicago couldn’t play with pace
Like the Cavaliers in the 2017 NBA Finals, the only way that the Bulls would be able to hold serve against the Warriors is to muddy it up. It was a different era of NBA basketball where The Triangle was king in Chicago and halfcourt offense was the preferred pace of play.
If the hypothetical game slowed down to a crawl between Chicago and Golden State, Chicago could definitely win a few games in this best-of-seven series. However, the Bulls would not have the foot speed to keep pace with the Warriors in transition.
Chicago might be the only team historically that could challenge Golden State defensively in transition, but would not be equipped to play with that kind of up-tempo pace offensively for multiple games. While Golden State would get their buckets offensively, Chicago would do as good of a job containing the Warriors’ attack of any team ever assembled.
The problem is that Golden State is almost as good as Chicago was defensively. In a way, these two elite defenses would cancel each other out in the long run. However, it’s not like we’d see Jordan feeding Kerr for open 3-point looks on every fast break opportunity. Playing with that level of urgency on offense would definitely knock the Bulls out of rhythm.