The greatest team of all-time debate was recently re-ignited when former NBA guard Nick Young claimed that the 2018 Golden State Warriors group he played on was the best in the history of the NBA.
Young's statement drew a response from former No.1 pick Kenyon Martin on the Gil's Arena podcast. K-Mart argued that the 2002 Los Angeles Lakers would beat the 2018 Warriors because the Dubs don't have anybody to guard Shaquille O'Neal .
With the current discussion going back and forth with the Dubs and Lakers, ESPN's Stephen A. Smith has entered the conversation and declared Michael Jordan's 1995-96 Chicago Bulls as the rightful claimant of the GOAT team title.
"We just gonna forget the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls that went 72-10 and ran through Cats winning the championship?" said Smith. "We going to forget Michael Jordan with Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman? We going to forget how volatile the game of basketball was then and how you could get away with stuff then that you couldn't get away with now?"
Fewest losses by a championship team in a season
MJ's Bulls were a dynasty in the NBA during the 90s. They won six NBA championships from 1991 to 1998, winning them in two three-peats. The first one they won after MJ's comeback stands out as the most impressive chip among the six titles.
During the 1995-96 NBA season, the Bulls won a then-NBA record 72 regular season games. That record was broken by the 2016 Golden State Warriors, who won 73 contests. However, since LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers defeated that Dubs squad in the 2016 NBA Finals, Golden State is often left out of the discussion.
Meanwhile, the 1996 Chicago squad also owns the record for the fewest total losses by a champion team in a single season, with 13. Because of that, many consider Jordan's fourth championship group the GOAT NBA team.
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Stephen A. dismisses the 2002 Lakers
Martin's argument was predicated on Shaq's dominating performance. Because K-Mart's Nets faced Shaquille's Lakers during the 2002 NBA Finals, he knows the weight of O'Neal's 36.3 points, 12.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 2.8 blocks per game Finals average first-hand. But according to Stephen A., the '96 Bulls would've had an answer for Diesel's dominance.
"K-Mart, because you know better than me bro," added Smith. "Y'all play, Sh**, I ain't in y'all class. Y'all know. And when you look at 'Yeah, no, you ain't got nobody to guard Shaq or anything like that,' But you've got 18 fouls to give if you look back at that team from the big man spot. With Luc Longley and those brothers. You've got those 18 fouls to give. You could send Shaq to the free-throw line. He gonna hit 50% of them."
To Stephen A.'s point, the '96 Bulls had Luc Longley, Bill Wennington, John Salley, Dickey Simpkins, and even Buddha Edwards to throw at Shaq. That's more than the 18 fouls that Smith mentioned, but it's hard to say he is correct, too. Shaq also shot close to 60% from the foul line in the 2002 Finals, and if he put the Bulls in a penalty, Kobe would have taken advantage, too, at 80.6%.
Related: "Everybody came over and started putting the champagne on me, and I was like wow, they actually like me" - Dennis Rodman on why the 1996 Chicago Bulls championship meant so much to him
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