How do the players on the 2012 US Olympic Team match up with the 1992 Dream Team?

When I’m bored at work I often turn to ESPN polls and Sports Nation Rank Em to see how in-tuned the rest of the world is with me when it comes to sports.

It’s not the other way around. One of my favorite personal tag lines is I’m not the man, but I’m definitely one of them.

The last few weeks every media outlet and barber shop in America has debated if the 2012 Olympic Team could beat the Dream Team after Kobe Bryant’s brash statement saying his team could. I think it’s safe to say the 1992 team has won hands down. I’ve only heard one man, my brother in-law, say LeBron James and company would beat Michael Jordan and company. Honestly, I think he is crazy and his lifetime stay in Milwaukee has ruined him as a sports fan.

When I was on ESPN earlier this week, I noticed a ranking game which consisted of ranking 24 players from both this year’s Olympic team and the 1992 Dream Team. This sparked my interest and kept my attention for quite some time.

After I completed my rankings — about an hour after I started — I analyzed the averages of votes done by the rest of the country, or in this case Sports Nation. I’m not surprised to find out how crazy the basketball/sports world is.

Here are my findings:

These are the players ESPN offered to rank: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, David Robinson, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Love, Chris Mullin, Scottie Pippen, Patrick Ewing, Clyde Drexler, Deron Williams, Russell Westbrook, Blake Griffin, Tyson Chandler, Andre Iguodala, James Harden and Christian Laettner.

Michael Jordan doing what he did best, attack and score.

I was not surprised Jordan was voted as the No. 1 player out of this group because he is the greatest player of all-time, hands down. I was surprised on how many first place votes he received though, 55,365. LeBron, at No. 2 on the list and in first place votes, only had 3,320. This is quite the landslide.

James will probably be the second player on this list when his career is officially over and he is in the Hall of Fame; he will be. However, I had a rough time picking him over some of the game’s best players to ever play. With this said, James didn’t make my list until the five spot.

Yes, I realize this is a Heat blog and James is the man right now. This is one of the things I tried to stay away from, the “Now” factor. A lot of times we get stuck in what is happening now or what we saw last instead of what happened 20 years ago that we’ll never see again.

Magic cracked my list at two, Kobe at three and for everyone’s surprise Barkley at four.

Barkley was a beast in his prime during the 92 Olympics as he lead the team in scoring with 18 points per game. He was a great defensive low post player and one of the greatest rebounders the league had ever seen until Dennis Rodman began to put up legendary numbers. Also, he took a Phoenix Suns team with hardly any real players — excusing Kevin Johnson and Dan Majerle — to the NBA Finals.

SN followed James with Kobe, Magic and Bird to round out the top five. I had Bird at seven underneath Malone, who was a mountain of a man and the second leading scorer of all-time in the NBA.

Here is where I got confused until I remembered the “Now” factor. SN put Durant at six, which have him above Barkley, Malone, Pippen, and Stockton. Again, he could very well crack the top five when it’s all said and done. But, he is only 23-years-old and hasn’t really done anything except score a lot of points. Each one of the four guys listed above him where three to five tool players, not just scorers.

Is Kevin Durant already better than Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Scottie Pippen and John Stockton?

How do you put the man who is the all-time leader in steals and assists –Stockton — outside of the top 10. I had him at No. 9 behind Malone at six, Bird at seven and Pippen at eight.

The middle of the list is all up to the individual. I didn’t have a single player after Durant more than two spots different than the SN list. I put D-Will at 14, SN had him at 16. Any of the mid-level Olympians are interchanged.

The only issue I had at all was Melo receiving 213 first place votes. If he wasn’t a Knick, he wouldn’t have received one. Who in their right mind would take Anthony over anyone in the top 10, whether my list or the SN list.

The top 19 players of this list I mixed up from the real rankings to make you guess until you actually get that point of the post. On the other hand, I left the last five guys on the SN’s list the same. Let’s face it, Laettner will never rate above Westbrook, let alone one of his individually nominated Hall of Fame inducted Dream Team teammates.

I also had Griffin, Chandler, Iggy, Harden and Laettner in the bottom five, just not in the same order.

Andre Iguodala is a better player than Blake Griffin, but ESPN voters don't think so.

You Tube and highlight reels have confused the entire world of what makes a great basketball player. Griffin is a dunker; probably one of the best, besides Vince Carter. However, he is not a great basketball player. He does not have a jump shot, plays little defense and is not a good rebounder for his size. His pure athletic ability does have him above Laettner, Chandler and Harden but Iggy is by far a better player.

Iguodala can throw down a monster jam. He can hit a three-ball. The Philadelphia 76ers’ is an elite perimeter defender, who can take the ball coast to coast after a steal and can either create his own basket or make a pretty pass to an open shooter. Griffin can’t do all of that.

I’d take Chandler over the other four if I needed size or defense, but Laettner could score better than him, let alone the rest of this group.

Sports Nation                                                                                                     LaChance

1. Michael Jordan                                                                                        1. Jordan
2. LeBron James                                                                                          2. Magic
3. Kobe Bryant                                                                                             3. Kobe
4. Magic Johnson                                                                                        4. Barkley
5. Larry Bird                                                                                                 5. James
6. Kevin Durant                                                                                           6. Malone
7. Charles Barkley                                                                                       7. Bird
8. Karl Malone                                                                                             8. Pippen
9. Scottie Pippen                                                                                         9. Stockton
10. David Robinson                                                                                     10. Durant
11. Patrick Ewing                                                                                         11. Ewing
12. John Stockton                                                                                        12. Robinson
13. Chris Parul                                                                                              13. Paul
14. Clyde Drexler                                                                                         14. Williams
15. Carmelo Anthony                                                                                  15. Anthony
16. Deron Williams                                                                                     16. Drexler
17. Russell Westbrook                                                                                17. Westbrook
18. Chris Mullin                                                                                           18. Love
19. Kevin Love                                                                                              19. Mullin
20. Blake Griffin                                                                                           20. Iguodala
21. Tyson Chandler                                                                                     21. Griffin
22. Andre Iguodala                                                                                      22. Harden
23. James Harden                                                                                        23. Chandler
24. Christian Laettner                                                                                 24. Laettner

LeBron James holds his first NBA Championship with hopes of holding more.

The time has finally come. The basketball gods have finally aligned the stars. The freight train which seemed to hit every road block, got through.

In other words, after nine NBA seasons LeBron James has finally won an NBA Championship.

James has been the face of the league since he was the first pick of the 2003 NBA Draft and has been one of the most talked about professional athletes since his arrival to the pros. Actually, he was national attention when he was in high school.

We all know the story, so I’m not going to get into all of the details readers can read on Wikipedia or skim through in a biography about “King James”. Here’s the skinny: He is a three-time regular season MVP, a top scorer, top rebounder and assist man as a small forward and had lost twice in the NBA Finals before finally winning one last night.

Then there is the “Decision” — his one hour special on ESPN two summers ago to tell the world that he “is taking his talents to South Beach”. In the eyes of many, his decision to do the show made him look selfish and demoralized the Cleveland Cavaliers as a franchise and James as a human being.

Now, we have the NBA’s media darling — or Cinderella-type figure in most cases — on top of the world. Where does the story go from here?

When he made the decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers and join Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, James instantly became a villain because of the manner on how he left. No one wanted to see him be successful in Miami.

Miami's Big Three were in it to win it in Game 5 to close out the 2012 NBA Finals.

Well, with him winning the NBA Championship, does the James hate die?

Honestly, I am the kind of journalist who doesn’t care about what athletes do off the court. Call me old fashioned — I was born before reality TV — but a persons character and what they do in their personal life really doesn’t matter to me.

With that said, when I didn’t like James it wasn’t because of who he was, it was what he didn’t do on the court. He wasn’t clutch at all last year and hardly showed up in the 2011 NBA Finals. His actions made me think he couldn’t win a ring.

Obviously the 2012 NBA Finals MVP grouped himself together and put on a fantastic performance in not only the finals but the entire postseason.  My beef with him is now gone and the respect I already had for him as a player is at a much higher level than before.

Unfortunately for James, not everyone sees it that way. A friend and I got into a debate on Facebook after the Game 5 victory. I asked him why people look at athletes as people instead of an athlete. What does it matter what James does off the court or if he has a selfish, me first attitude in terms of his basketball success.

There are millions of people who wanted to see him lose this finals and every other playoff game he is in simply because he used his given right to take his time to decide where he wanted to play.

I agree, the Decision was a bad public relations move. On the other hand, he knew he had a better chance of winning a title with the Heat than the Cavaliers; this isn’t brain science.

My friend then said subjectively people don’t think there is a separation between a basketball player we only see on TV for three hours in a game with media exposure and the guy at home or in his head. In my friend’s opinion, James will always be ridiculed because of how he acts instead of how he plays.

This is exactly why I think reality TV has ruined the world.

LeBron James has a game similar to Magic Johnson, a man who has a statue of himself outside of the Staples Center, a building that has housed many superstars. Think about it?

James is an unstoppable force on the court and can do whatever he wants to. He has a Magic Johnson-like game because of his size and talent but pushes it as a physical beast instead of a finesse showman like Magic.

The description alone reads greatness. This is how we should view an athlete such as James, not whether or not he made the decision you wanted him to make or if he accurately proposed it.

ESPN’s First Take’s Skip Bayless harked on James  on today’s show about it’s about time he won since he has been an All-Star since before he came to the NBA and has been to the finals three times.

James’ said it himself in the post game “it’s about damn time”.

This could be a horrible sign for anyone else in the league because the initial spark has now been lit under a sleeping beast. James looked poised to take over a game if he needed to in order for his team to win.

Now that the monster is fully awake, it’s going to be awfully hard to put him back to sleep.