“I guess you have to be under 7ft to be considered the greatest basketball player of all time.”

Kareem writes open letter to Pippen about LeBron, Jordan

Everyone has climbed all over Scottie Pippen in recent days for putting LeBron James on the same pedestal with Michael Jordan, calling Jordan the best scorer of all time but LeBron a potentially better all around player. At best it felt a little premature. In Chicago that was blasphemy.

Now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has entered the discussion with an open letter to Scottie Pippen given to our man Mark Medina at the Los Angeles Times.

The letter says Pippen is wrong — Jordan isn’t even the best scorer ever.

Dear Scottie,

I have nothing but respect for you my friend as an athlete and knowledgeable basketball mind. But you are way off in your assessment of who is the greatest player of all time and the greatest scorer of all time. Your comments are off because of your limited perspective. You obviously never saw Wilt Chamberlain play who undoubtedly was the greatest scorer this game has ever known. When did MJ ever average 50.4 points per game plus 25.7 rebounds? (Wilt in the 1962 season when blocked shot statistics were not kept). We will never accurately know how many shots Wilt blocked. Oh, by the way in 1967 and 68, Wilt was a league leader in assists. Did MJ ever score 100 points in a game? How many times did MJ score more than 60 points in a game? MJ led the league in scoring in consecutive seasons for 10 years but he did this in an NBA that eventually expanded into 30 teams vs. when Wilt played and there were only 8 teams….

In terms of winning, Michael excelled as both an emotional and scoring leader but Bill Russell’s Celtics won eight consecutive NBA Championships. Bill’s rebounding average per game is over 22.5 lifetime, MJs best rebounding years was eight per game (1989).… Bill played on a total of 11 championship teams and as you very well know, Scottie, the ring is the thing, and everything else is just statistics. So I would advise you to do a little homework before crowning Michael or LeBron with the title of best ever. As dominant as he is, LeBron has yet to win a championship. I must say that it looks like Miami has finally put the team together that will change that circumstance. Its my hope that today’s players get a better perspective on exactly what has been done in this league in the days of yore.

Affectionately,

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,
NBA’s All-Time Leading Scorer

I love that Kareem puts on his letters “NBA’s All-Time Leading Scorer.” Which also was a reminder to Pippen that there were other guys at other positions who could score a little.

by Kurt Helin
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