There’s a lot of talk about the Greatest of All Time. Every good player that comes around, every great game that we watch, every great comeback, every great shot, hit, catch, pass… Right away, we want to label something as the greatest of all time, and put that little picture of a goat in the facebook or twitter post. It’s a much overused term.
First off, don’t you have to be a certain age to say that? Don’t you have to watch sports for decades before you can say something like that? How many you think? How about minimum 25 years? OK, so if you haven’t been watching sports for at least 25 years, you shouldn’t be using that term. Fair? Maybe not, but you get what I’m saying. You need to have put your time in… to have watched a number of players and games to determine who is really great. Sometimes it’s easy to see who or what is great. It doesn’t take long. To call someone great is not a huge deal… To call someone THE GOAT… don’t go tossing that around.
Why am I grinding this ax today? Well, because THE GOAT’s birthday is today, that’s why. Michael Jordan turned 54 on this February 17th of 2017. I don’t say that lightly.
Yes, being from Chicago, being a die hard Chicago sports fan, you can definitely call me biased. But you know what else? I’ve watched a whole lot of MJ playing basketball. Yeah, more than those games that everybody knows. I’ve seen way more than all the highlight reel shots or dunks that you can find on YouTube. I’ve seen the Monday night game at home against some bum team. I remember that feeling of not wanting to miss a minute of ANY Bulls game during the MJ days. If you missed a game, you missed a highlight. There is no highlight reel that can capture all those moments.
I want to point out something that maybe not everybody knows. I’m not going to talk about the titles, the MVPs, the scoring titles. Let’s look at something simple: games played. It’s kind of relevant to look at considering the recent NBA culture of taking games off for rest. We’ve seen this from all the greatest players on the court today. We’ve seen this from DRose and DWade. You know why we talk crap about it? It’s because of MJ, that’s why.
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There was nobody that went harder than MJ. There was nobody that pushed himself that hard all the time. Do you remember how many times he played sick? Yes, everybody knows about the flu game, but do you know how many flu games he had? I remember. I remember before a game, when they said MJ was under the weather. I remember 2 things. First off, he WOULD be playing. Second off, he would be playing better than his healthy self.
Let’s take one more look at this games played thing. Preseason NBA basketball is meaningless right? Well, it didn’t used to be that way. In his Bulls days, MJ played in 94 out of 98 preseason games; that’s 95.9%. Oh yeah, and although I don’t like remembering the Wizards years, but in his final season, at the age of 39, he played in all 82 regular season games. I think that’s called “the love of the game.”
I can go on here OK. This is just one blog… I’ve written others… I can write a lot more. I can write a book about this stuff. Maybe one day I will. I just wanted to talk a bit about THE GOAT on his birthday. I would love to meet him to thank him. Yes, for all the titles, and the annual celebrations, and the pride he brought Chicago and Bulls fans. I would also thank him for all those games when the whole world wasn’t watching… before the NBA package gave people a view of any game they wanted all year round. For those plain old regular season games a teenager was watching in front of a small TV in his bedroom… knowing he’d be playing…. knowing he’d do something great… never being disappointed. That is called greatness. That is why he is THE GOAT.
MK
Hapoy Birthday MJ and thanks! Thanks for everything you did for the Bulls and Chicago. You were, are, and will always be the Greatest Of All Time! MJ knew people were coming to games to see him play. He knew everybody that was watching on tv wanted to see him wow them. Because of these things, he played…always. No preseason games off, no rest games, no sitting out the 2nd game of a back to back. He loved to play and wanted to put on a show for all to see at all times.
To add on to your blog, in addition to the preseason and regular season games, MJ played in 179 out of 179 playoff games in his career. His minutes per game average in regular season games was 38.3. To give that some perspective, the league leader this year is averaging 37.7 while last year’s leader was at 38.1. MJ’s playoff average rises to 41.8 minutes per game. Last year’s playoff leader averaged 40.3, and these fools today take how many games off during the year for rest??? Yeah, things have definitely changed, but one thing never will, and that is MJ being the GOAT!!! Thanks for the 6 titles and countless memories!