Magic seemed to hit his athletic, physical, and statistical peak when Kareem started sliding in 1986-87, the run he went on for the following 5 years I believe was comparable to what Jordan was doing at the time, judging by Magic's accolades in that window. And seems like Magic's 5-year run coincided with Cap's slide and Worthy's elevation to second option...
I guess I've always had a hunch Magic and Kareem are both slightly overrated, obviously benefitted greatly from having each other. And Magic routinely ends up higher on lists than Bird, but nothing I can find shows me why that is. My dad is 55 and says both Bird and Magic were thought of as equals in real time but he always thought they were both overrated and never on Cap or Mike's level at their bests...
(he doesn't think Kareem is overrated, though. He does think Mike is overrated by old heads caught up in "my era was better" and people who only saw a year or three of his career and base their opinions on that, but only from the standpoint that his career has been mythologized and he benefitted from advantageous situations a number of great players, he specifically says Kobe and LeBron and has said them both for years, thinks they accomplish the exact same in Mike's circumstances. He doesn't believe in mythologizing guys who clearly in his opinion had better circumstances to achieve high level success over guys with less fortunate circumstances, but he does NOT think Mike is overrated as a basketball player in and of itself)...
So when I look at Bird and see he was the superior scorer with superior offensive gifts besides passing, see Bird was the better defender of the two, see Bird had the tougher road to The Finals and while McHale was great he wasn't as dominant a wingman as Kareem, which means Bird had more responsibility and "hats" to wear...I see all this and it's hard to understand why there's such a strong belief that Magic is ahead of Bird...
It's interesting to me to try to figure out when who was who as I can more properly gauge the team's success rate based on who the team flowed through. Like the Kobe/Shaq thing, Kobe was great but he was the second star/option the three years they won those championships. He had several bright moments but those championship teams went as far as Shaq could take them, as from a developmental standpoint Kobe wasn't what he later became, developmentally. If that's what Kareem and Magic were like with Kareem as their primary option, I get it, i just don't know what year the transition took place...
The Jordan/Pippen comp i fully believe isnt the same because the only time Pippen was the best player on the team was when Mike left. There was a transition of hierarchy in both Shaq/Kobe (either 2002-03 or 2003-04) and Kareem/Magic, so it's easy to see it wasn't quite a Jordan/Pippen thing...
