MD/DC/VA Golfers - Twelve Monkeys Mental Divergence

[TheCityGame]

If I could watch 2MoreTerpZ puppy dogging Tiger for an entire round at Timbers trying to pick his brain, I'd take that over playing Augusta with friends.

 

"hey, Tiger, what did you hit there? Why'd you hit that club? How do you practice that?"

https://media.giphy.com/media/JEoPqzFXlfZjW/giphy.gif

Side-effect of Covid shutdown, wife just got her bill for her business credit card. . .$71.

She said it was negative for a while because she got all these refunds back from planned travel.

[baddomes]

Let's say Tiger doesn't stonewall. What would he actually have to say? Would you want to hear tiger tell golf stories for four hours? I get that there are huge fans of his and this would be a life goal, but I can't imagine having an actual conversation with him about anything.

 

In my head it'd be four hours of him saying things like "At the Quicken Loans National that one year on Friday on #11 the wind was left to right so I hit a nice draw to hold it up against the wind" and you having to be like

 

[aiyyer]

 

2 more, myself, Altsean and this guy for a 4sone.

 

[ALTSean]

We playing at Timbers?

[SullGolf]

Augusta. No question.

[ceejay81]

I think Eldrick would punch 2more in the face for at least three things: 1) turning down Augusta 2) not having any silence on the course and 3) asking a billion questions he doesn’t want to answer and won’t nerd out with you about.

Give me Augusta all day long. There’s no celebrity out there that could make me change my mind.

[aiyyer]

CJ, remember no selfies or Linksoul bags allowed at Augusta

[dcmidnight]

Interesting nugget from doing some more reading after watching the first two Jordan episodes. Even as under paid as Scottie PIppen was during the Bulls years - he made $16M more than Jordan over their careers.

People always know that Jordan made $30M a year but he only made that much for two years. Nuts.

[SullGolf]

As a complete NBA novice fan (both past and present), I could never figure out if Pippen was the most overshadowed superstar of all time or the most overrated 2nd fiddle of all time. Off the top of my head the closest thing I can think of is Chris Bosh as part of the "Big 3" in Miami.

[TheCityGame]

If you asked me last week about Pippen -- before I watched the special and have fresh data in my head -- I would have said, "elite defender for almost all his career. Great finisher. excellent teammate. Top 40 guy all time. Sort of an attitude problem. There was the famous incident where Jackson wrote up the final shot for toni Kukoc and Pippen didn't come off the bench. He was on original dream teamer and that wasn't because Jordan brought him along."

I don't know what I'd compare him to these days. . .not like when Lakers had Shaq and Kobe because there was no question Jordan was alpha dog, but almost more like Steph and Klay in the first championship (the roles were different.) Where Steph was the alpha dog, but it was obvious that Klay could go nuts at any time and occasionally looked every bit as good even though you knew he wasn't.

It's hard to classify Pippen because Jordan was such a force of nature. Bulls were good when Jordan left to play baseball. I think you could have won a championship if you built a team around him in a non-Jordan era.

[TheCityGame]

I guess "excellent teammate" doesn't jive with "bad attitude" ,but I mean that he was always a good second man to Jordan. Like he didn't have to be alpha.

[dcmidnight]

I think the Steph/Klay comparison is definitely closer. Pippen's stats during the Jordan years were pretty crazy when you consider he wasn't the #1 option on the floor.

Cannot wait for the Rodman stuff this Sunday.

[ALTSean]

Pippen was much better than Bosh, though Bosh's career was cut short.In addition to @TheCityGame 's points, for the 50th anniversary of the league in 1996, Pippen was named as one of the Top 50 Players of All Time. If they redid the Top 50 list today, Pippen maybe falls a few spots as guys like Kobe, Lebron, etc. were too young in 1996 to make the list, but I don't think Pippen falls out of the ~top 60 of all time.

Besides the 6 championships with Jordan, he won 2 gold medals, 7 time all star, 3 time All NBA First Team meaning he was one of the top 5 players that year, 2 time All NBA Second Team (top 10 players in the league), and 2 time All NBA Third Team (top 15 player in the league), plus 8 time All NBA Defensive First Team meaning he was one of the top 5 defenders in the league for 8 years.

Agree with City that Pippen could have been the superstar that you build a team around if it was not for Jordan.

[XHoop24]

I haven't watched the doc yet...but will at some point soon. I love watching Scottie play defense. There are some good youtube videos you can go down the rabbit hole with Scottie playing D. This is a good one with Kobe breaking down two plays

 

[ALTSean]

This Top 50 Ranking by Bleacher report is from Sep 2019. I do not love this list because it seems to have recency bias and it has Steph above Kobe, but it ranks Pippen #25 all time:

Bleacher Report's All-Time Player Rankings: NBA's Top 50 Revealed

 

[TheCityGame]

Simmons had him 24, all time, in Book of Basketball.

At basketball reference, his VORP is something like that (24th). he was just so good at everything. Like an A+ defender, then an A in every other aspect of the game. Great basketball body, too. Really long and rangy, but if he was any longer, he might have seemed awkward. Like a body built right to the extreme.

 

[ALTSean]

Through the first two episodes I was surprised to see how many mid-range jumpers MJ used to take and make. That mid-range shot is basically gone from the game now as everything is threes or dunks / layups. Jordan never shot many threes until later in his career, but was such a good shooter it is interesting to think how different his game would have looked if he started playing today vice the early 80s.

 

[dcmidnight]

They have been showing this shot chart a lot on ESPN lately

[therealsneek]

My wife and I watched 1st 2 episodes last night. Awesome stuff. Even she was engaged the entire time.

 

After Jordan hit the game winner against Georgetown she was like "was that a 3? Wait, why is there no 3-point line?" With the amount of 3's that are shot per game now, it's crazy to think there was a time when the 3-point line didn't exist.

[ALTSean]

I had not seen that chart, but that is a great visualization (even though they did cherry pick years like Jordan's last couple years with the Wizards).

[TheCityGame]

I don't know if they cherry picked it or if those were the only years they could create that shot chart for. A lot of the basketball analytics started mid-90's. It didn't really creep into the league in actionable ways until well into the 2000's. Anyway, there are stats at Basketball reference that start in that 94-96 era.

I suspect the rest of his career the shot chart would have been similar.

Lastly, Jordan would have been absolutely perfect in today's game. He'd score and have a shot chart like James Harden except he'd also lead his teams to victory.

Nope. . .lastly now. . .there are "kids today" that want to argue whether LeBron or MJ is the GOAT and the LeBron people tell MJ people that they're doing it out of a sense of nostalgia or whatever. In the 90's when people were saying Jordan was the GOAT, there weren't people arguing, "no, Kareem is" or "Russel is" or "Wilt is". People were like, "yup, Jordan is the GOAT." I love LeBron, but there's never been that one extra bit that Jordan had.

or maybe I'm like Kent arguing about Jack. but I don't think so. There are very few who remember Jordan well who don't think he's the GOAT.

[ALTSean]

The advanced analytics may of had more to do with it. I also need more coffee as my years were off as Jordan did not play for the Wizards until 2001.

 

100% agree that Jordan is the GOAT. His stats are already ridiculous, but it is fun to imagine what his stats would have been if he didn't retire to play baseball or retire for 3 years after the Bulls before he joined the Wizards. Kind of like projecting Ted Williams stats if he did not go to WWII for 3 full years and then Korea for almost 2 more years all while in his prime.

 

[Kent01putt]

18 -15 Jack wins

[TheCityGame]

Drive for show, putt for dough, baby.

[dcmidnight]

Jordan has 6 rings, Lebron has 3. Rings or GTFO.

There is a long standing rumor about Jordan's baseball "career" being part of a secret agreement between him and the league to leave in lieu of a gambling suspension. Its the one thing I am hoping to get out of this documentary but theres no chance they actually talk about it.

[bubbagump]

Lebron is arguably the greatest specimen to play the game and is at least in the discussion of GOAT, though personally agree that falls with Jordan. The debate over generational GOATS in sports is really impossible though as there is so many moving parts, unique situations and differences to try and make an apples to apples comparison.

[GoTime]

Greetings Threadizens - I have a tee-time for Stonewall on Friday the 1st, 1050am, cheaper than rack rate cart+balls included. Let me know if you're interested :)

[ALTSean]

I hope we eventually hear the truth, but with Stern now gone, I doubt Jordan would ever admit to being suspended or agreeing to a suspension, but there is a lot of smoke there. Jordan's father was murdered in the summer of 1993 before Jordan retired in the fall of 1993 to play baseball so the idea of Jordan chasing his father's dream is a more romantic version of the story, but maybe not as believable.

[Golfer827]

 

Also, there's this:

 

Jordan had to deal with the 'Bad Boy Pistons' who had their own 'Jordan Rules' and were much more aggressive than today's players. LeBron gets a small waft of air and flops like he got hit by a .50 cal. Hell, Jordan had people all over him with some of his drives to the rim. Hands on his head and all of that.

 

Jordan over most, if not all. That includes 'The Chosen One'.

[TheCityGame]

I hope we eventually hear the truth

The problem is that no one is going to believe what Jordan says unless it's "oh yeah I was caught gambling on games and I reached this agreement with the league."

If the truth is what he's said all along, there's always going to be people who suspect otherwise. These stories start and they dont' go away. People still think Elin knocked Tiger's teeth out with a 4 iron, or 9 iron even though there was never a single reliable account to that effect. Probably some guys here even think that happened.