I Can't Believe I'm Saying This, But...

Fellas. Do you know that uncomfortable experience you occasionally get when you have morning wood and you have to piss? And, after doing all kinds of gymnastics just to get the right angle, you have to spend 10 minutes strenuously pushing out the few drips you can? And then as you wait for your dick to finally relax, you have that lingering stinging sensation because you haven't nearly gotten all of the pee out?

Excuse me for being so graphic, but what I just described is just as uncomfortable to me as what I'm about to say:

Magic Johnson, NOT Michael Jordan, might be... *sigh*.... the greatest basketball player of all time. MIGHT be. It's blasphemy, I know. But I've done the research; you decide for yourself.


1) CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Jordan - 6 Rings
• Magic - 5 Rings

Advantage: Jordan (but keep in mind that Magic led the Lakers to 9 Finals appearances, which includes losses to Bird's Celtics, the Bad Boy Pistons, and Jordan's Bulls - the three best Eastern Conference dynasties of all time)

2) MVPs

• Jordan - 5
• Magic - 3

Advantage: Jordan

3) TEAMMATES

Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson both played with two Hall-of-Famers. Jordan played with Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman; Magic played with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy (yes, he's in the Hall of Fame).

But look at this: It's easy to mistakenly believe that Kareem joined the Lakers late in his career and past his prime, but that's not true. Kareem played with the Lakers for more than two-thirds of his career, and joined the team when he was only 28 years old.

Dennis Rodman, on the other hand, joined the Bulls when he was 34 years old (although he still led the league in rebounds for all three seasons that he played in Chicago). Kareem in his prime along with James Worthy is a better duo than Scottie Pippen and an old Dennis Rodman. And Byron Scott, A.C. Green, and Vlade Divac were better than Ron Harper, Horace Grant, and Luc Longley as well.

And before you say anything, Steve Kerr only averaged 6 ppg for his career.

So... seeing how the player with the least talent on his team would win this category...

Advantage: Jordan



4) SCORING

• Jordan - 30 ppg
• Magic - 20 ppg

Advantage: Jordan

Looks like a landslide win for Jordan so far, right? Just wait...


5) REBOUNDING

• Jordan - 6 rpg
  
• Magic - 7 rpg

Advantage: Magic


6) ASSISTS

• Jordan - 5
• Magic - 11

Advantage: Magic

7) ENHANCED STATS

Okay, for the sake of argument, let's say that every one of Magic's and Jordan's assists led to a 2-point basket. And if we take that number and add it to their PPG average, we'll have a new number of which I'll call "Total Points Per Game." The formula looks like this:
2(apg) + (ppg) = tppg

Got it? Here are their career total points per game:

• Jordan - 40 tppg
• Magic - 42 tppg

Advantage: Magic

*NOTE* Keep in mind that I'm including Jordan's two Wizards years, which is fair because he still had incredible stats in those seasons. It's also fair because I'm including Magic Johnson's 1995-1996 season, which came after a FOUR-YEAR hiatus after his retirement due to HIV.

8) AT AGE 29

Because of Magic's HIV diagnosis and because of Jordan's multiple retirements, neither one of them played at the same time after they met in the 1991 NBA Finals. In fact, the oldest age in which both players played a full season was age 29. So let's look at their season numbers at age 29:

• Jordan - (1992) 33 ppg, 7 rpg, 6 apg, 3 steals per game
• Magic - (1988) 23 ppg, 8 rpg, 13 apg, 2 spg

ENHANCED:

• Jordan - (1992) 45 tppg, 7 rpg, 3 spg
• Magic - (1988) 49 tppg, 8 rpg, 2 spg

Advantage: Um... well...?

See what I mean? It's open for debate, so let me know what you think. Personally, I think it's almost impossible to choose objectively if you're a fan of either player. I'll always think that Jordan is the greatest ever. But these numbers, at least some of them, tell otherwise.