Here is my take on Wally's issues with Kobe being MVP. First of all, just because Kobe is MVP calibre, doesn't mean his team has to be as good as Garnett's. For one thing, the Wolves as a team are playing better ball than the Lakers have most of this season, as refelcted in their records. The only man on the Lakers who has had a decent year is Bryant. Even Shaq is scoring almost 10ppg below his average. Secondly, he makes reference to Jack Haley. But in all fairness, Jack Haley is probably no worse than Mark Madsen. And Will Perdue, for what he was worth, was a seven foot journeyman backup centre. As of now, I see the Lakers trotting out Sergei Medvendenko when Shaq is not around. Finally, Luc Longley, I daresay, is probably a better basketball player than Samaki Walker, and probably better than Rick Fox is this year, as well.

Now, this leads me to my rant of the day. Today, I am targetting the population of 'casual basketball fans' and specifically within that demographic, the "Jordan lover." I consider myself a basketball purist, and it sickens me no end to see all these non serious basektball fans (people who flippantly cast votes for Yao Ming for MVP for instance) denigrating this great sport. Not coincidentally, many of these casual basketball fans are also Jordan lovers. In fact, I know many people who watch no basketball (for instance, many girls) who know nothing about the game, but are also Jordan lovers.

Now, do not get me wrong here. Michael Jordan is a great basketball player, one of the best I have ever seen. He won 6 NBA championships and was probably the best player in the game for almost a solid decade. However, his accomplishments must be taken into context.

1. For one thing, one needs to consider the quality of the NBA competition that he faced during the period from 1991-1998, when he won the 6 championships and was at the peak of his powers. The quality of the league during those years was in my opinon, very low in comapriosn both to the 1980s, and to the present day. In the 1980s, there were a good three dominant teams at least that were NBA dynasty potentail, the Lakers, the Celtics, and later the Pistons. By the time Jrodan reached his peak, all of those teams had fallen by the wayside, and Jordan was left to pick on poor Patrick Ewing and Karl Malone all those years with the Bulls. In truth, we can probably judge the quality of the NBA by the quality of its top teams, and there is no question that the top teams during Jordan's era were a lot weaker than teh teams in the 80s. As well, teams today, such as the Kings, Lakers, Mavs, Spurs, make today's NBA much more compelling and competitive then it was even five years ago. Fortuantely for Michael, his dominance in the game coincided with a brief lull in the history of the sport, right when the previous generation of stars (Magic, Bird) had retired, and the next generation (Kobe, McGrady, Kidd, Duncan) had not yet fully developed.

2. My cousin was making the ridiculous argument that Jordan's scoring average is far superior to Kobe's. This in itself is true, if you look at the raw data. In fact, Jordan averaged 37 a game in his 2nd or 3rd year. However, one forgets that the average NBA game in those days was in the 110, 120 point range, whereas today, teams struggle to pass 100 on a nightly basis (or even 90 in the last few seasons). Therefore, I challenge anyone to go and recalibrate Jrodan's stats, adjusting for the point deflation that has occured in recent years,, a trend brought on by smarter, stronger, more physical defences.

3. Finally, I believe that all of Jordan's accomplishments, while great, have been blown out of proportion by an overzealous media which has turned him into a sort of basketball demi-god. The fact is, he won six championships and while that is impressive, he is not the only player to have ever done so. Last time I checked, the Celtics under Bill Russell won 9 in a row, yet I don't hear anybody mentioning him as the greatest player ever. More recently, Magic Johnson won 5 championships, in a much more competitive era, no less, yet even he has been discounted from these discussions. The fact is, Michael Jordan was a very smart man. He latched onto Nike and NBC and these things made him into a much larger than life figure than he really is.

In summation, all I have to say is that if you account for all these things, most of which the casual Jordan lover never even thinks about, because they are too busy reliving Jordan's highlights in their minds to think rationally, then you have to consider that there is a strong possibility that Michael Jrodan is not the greatest basketball player of all time. In fact, I would hesitate to give anybody that label at this point, there just is not enough separation between the top few names that come to mind.