Of course everyone knows the story of how Coach George Karl finally decided to put Gary Payton on Jordan beginning in Game 4. And these were the results:

Game 4: MJ was 6/19 with 23 points while shooting just a .316 FG% (Sonics win 107-86)

Game 5: MJ was 11/22 with 26 points while shooting a .500 FG% (Sonics win 89-78)

Game 6: MJ was 5/19 with just 22 points while shooting an abysmal .263 FG% (Bulls win 87-75)

Gary Payton was also injured the whole series. He played through a torn calf muscle he had just sustained in the Western Conference Finals.

Additionally, against MJ’s 23 ppg, Payton averaged 21 ppg on 50% shooting because MJ was guarding him.

I'll start

With the dodgers losing tonight their chance of threepeating is over.

Here we have 1991 Jordan, 2016 LeBron, 2022 Curry, 2010 Kobe, 2021 Giannis but I also forgot to include 2011 Dirk who is a strong candidate. Is there any one of these championships or another championship that strongly validated and diminished any doubts left about an all time great player?

Good or Bad mentality?

And the Western Conference has had 7 different conference champions in the last seven finals.

I read that Amare went through rigorous training for months and it wasn't just given to him based off who he is

I was arguing with someone who argued Kobes finals record (5-2) is better than Magics finals record (5-4) and thats why Kobe is better. First off, Magic is better for a multitude of unrelated reasons and second... how can 5-2 be better than 5-4?? Is making the finals bad???

Even OKC barely won it in 7 games, yet 80% of people voted for them to repeat next season.