Not at all. It is a tough call as to who is more overrated between Larry Bird and Larry Holmes. Both are vastly overrated. Great, not all time with both of them.
Adrian Dantley was as productive as Bird. Were the French Lick Hick a black man, he'd be Antoine Carr.
(1) Adrian Dantley was a great scorer. There have been many great scorers, and there will be many more. Bird, on the other hand, was a great all-around player. In what was arguably his best year (86-87), he averaged 28.2, 9.2, and 7.6. Those are Lebron numbers. I mean, those would be Lebron numbers if Lebron were grabbing two more rebounds a game. How do you argue with that? How did you fit those numbers into a narrative that isn't Bird completely controlling all facets of the game? If Bird in his prime were in the league right now, he'd be second in the league in scoring, second in assists, 13th in rebounding, 7th in steals, 6th in true shooting %, and of course first in FT%. I won't look any further. Again, not even Lebron is putting up numbers like that. And I don't think numbers are racist. (2) That's absurd.
And how in the hell is Larry Holmes overrated? The guy's not rated at all. He gets no respect historically. If anything, Holmes is underrated. No, Holmes is definitely underrated.
I don't care one way or the other, I just got a good chuckle out of it. Am surprised LeBron didn't get the call though.
That's funny, but Magic, on a team of overall number 1 draft choices won some titles while unable to defend or shoot gets no overrated mention. Funny stuff. Bird won titles with freaking Ainge, Robert Parish and a 73 year old DJ. Dantley scored and single handedly slowed his own offenses, couldn't pass and was a mediocre rebounder.
To be fair, King James is a fairly awesome nickname. Not as awesome as 'kidbourbon', but certainly in the conversation.
He's the guy I left off, because he was legitimately a difference maker. He wasn't Kareem, Worthy, Scott, Thompson, Cooper rolled up. Those Celts weren't bums for sure. They also had an old Cornbread, but Bird gave that group some toughness, an offensive out and a will to win. McHale was an all time great type 4 man, but needed offensive help to make it work in the post. Jabbar simply couldn't be defended.
But the best one of those Lakers' team was that '88 team, when Kareem was two years past being completely washed up, and the team was 100% Magic's. I loved those Lakers. Byron Scott was a sniper. That was the first team I was really a fan of (correction: I was a fan of the '85 bears). By extension, I hated the Celtics, and hated Larry Bird. I still hate the Celtics, but I've grown to appreciate Bird.
I understand what you're getting at as far as who had the better teammates but Parish was an 18-10 player during their hey day. DJ was a 15-6 player and of course there's McHale, who was a 22-8 player. None of them are Kareem, I get that but Bird had some really good players around him as well.
