NBA Player Comparisons (Bird Vs Magic)
Sunday, July 30, 2006
This offseason I've been doing a lot of thinking about head to head comparisons of which players are better. Malone Vs Stockton, Hakeem Vs Barkley, Nique vs Drexler.
There's one I'm going to look at right now and that is Larry Bird Vs Magic Johnson.
These two guys helped define the NBA up until the point that Michael Jordan became The Man.
So which of the two was better??
Well, lets take a look at the stats!
Both players were awesome, here's what they did:
Magic:
19.5ppg, 11.2apg, 7.2rpg, 1.9stl, 52%fg
Bird:
24.3ppg, 6.3apg, 10.0rpg, 1.7stl, 49%fg
So overall pretty even there, with Bird having an edge in pts and rebs, and Magic having the edge in assists and slight edge in steals and fg%
Both guys won 3 NBA MVP awards. Magic has the edge with NBA titles (Magic won 5, Bird won 3).
It is very difficult to split these two players as they played different styles. One the playmaker, and one the hard nosed scorer/rebounder. Both guys were clutch shooters and were successful at what they did.
If I had to choose though, I would say Magic was slightly better, because of how flashy and unpredictable he was with the ball. He made the game exciting while winning many NBA titles!
People talk about how well rounded Chris Paul is as a rookie, well consider this, Magic Johnson in his rookie season averaged 18.3 points, 10.5 rebounds and 9.4 assists throughout the playoffs as a rookie and went on to win the title and get the Finals MVP award.
Both players were special! But Magic gets my pick! :D
posted by Thumbboy @ 10:06 PM
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