This this and more this. All of these teams either had no second scorer or no depth or were sorely lacking in defense on the wings or in the paint. All of these teams were terribly flawed besides the sonics and the magic, and they tragically blew up before they were ready to take over their conference. If any of the others were actually great, they would have won at least once. As for the notion of how a team gets built and stars teaming up, you do what it takes to to win. Screw all that "built the right way" shyt. That's a media driven narrative entirely spawned out of jealousy of teams that spend money smart in free agency. There never was or is an "easy way out". Real competition is searching for every way to win. If your top concern is if you're the top dog on the team as opposed to winning, then you aren't as great as advertised in the first place. We didn't have real competitiveness among the rest of the 90's in the sense that these teams were great. We had mediocrity. If they had teamed up, maybe they would have won a few titles and get the credit they should, and the Bulls would have actually had some competition. It's absurd we credit Jordan with the Bulls front office making great trades to fit the team well and lay blame on other stars for not being as fortunate. How is it Patrick's fault that his best teammate during his prime is best known for going 2-18 in game 7 of the finals? It wasn't just Mike either, which is the worst part of how the 90's gets remembered. He wasn't the guy guarding magic in the 1991 finals, and the Bulls won series clinching games and title clinching games with mike shooting 5-19 and 7-22. The reality of the 90's is that the Bulls were the only team that both had the potential to be great AND reached that potential.