[Spud6]

Jordan did an excellent job of making his teammates better. First off, one thing people often forget is that Jordan is Chicago's all time assist leader with 5,012 assists for his career. Second, look at the guys that were around Jordan on the teams in the late 90's besides Pippen - Ron Harper, Dennis Rodman, and Luc Longley. Those teams didn't really have a true point guard or a true center. Harper and Longley were capable, but weren't as good as some of the other players in the league at their positions. So how in the world would that team be able to get 70 wins, even with Jordan and Pippen? There were other factors such as great coaching, but it was that Jordan's unselfish play made those guys better because when everybody was concentrating on Jordan he would just give it to one of them to score. One thing Jordan had which probably led to his great clutch play was his play selection. Jordan always made the big play, whether it was a steal, a rebound, a shot, or a pass. Jordan had a high IQ and knew what to do with the ball and when to do it (I think that is the one factor that separates Kobe Bryant from Jordan). When you see highlights of him you typically see him making the difficult shots. What they don't show is the 95% of shots that he took that were simple drives, pulling up from 15 - 20 feet for an easy jumper. Jordan also shot .497 from the field from his career, .505 before he played his last two years in Washington. That is just incredible for a shooting guard.

Jordan is without a doubt the greatest clutch player ever. It wasn't just his shooting. It was the fact that he knew when to make the big play, and also knew when to get it to his teammates when they were open. Had Jordan not been a great team player, there is no way his team would have come close to winning NBA championships - or even winning in the regular season like they did.

:notworthy