I guess the first really nice day of weather to hit the east coast has really gotten to Channing Frye. I have no idea where Channing Frye currently resides, but if it’s not the east coast, he’s probably just experiencing residual overwhelmness from folks like myself who call the east home. Everyone is having Michael Jordan fever, from The Last Dance documentary. So, everyone has to get out all their Jordan takes while sports are in limbo. Channing Frye fired off, what I think is the most off base take on the career of Michael Jordan.
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js“He only had really one job. And that was to just score. And he did that at an amazing, amazing rate. But I don’t feel like his way of winning then would translate to what it is now. Guys wouldn’t want to play with him.”
— NBA Central (@TheNBACentral) May 15, 2020
-Channing Frye on Michael Jordan
(NBC Sports North West) pic.twitter.com/ouPbLEbuMr
Look, go right ahead and say that LeBron, Magic, Russell or Kareem is the best or the GOAT or whatever name you want to use is better than Michael Jeffrey Jordan. I don’t agree with that but go feel free and say it. But, to come out as a former professional basketball player and say that Jordan only had one job to do when he played, which was to school is simply a ridiculous thing to say. I can see any of the really cool and fun debate shows that people just love to watch because they’re so interesting saying this, but not a former player.
I know you’ve probably seen these stats a bunch of times over the last five weeks, but here they are again. Jordan won five MVPs, made the All NBA First team 10 times, made nine All NBA Defensive First Team, ten scoring titles, and three steals titles. Notice the bold print. It seems that those items are not scoring related. In fact, you could say that they are the opposite of scoring. If only Channing Frye had such capabilities, like I do, to look up information like this.
Frye doesn’t just say that Jordan only had one job when he played. But that the way he went about business, guys today wouldn’t want to play with him. To that, I say, that’s possibly true. I don’t want to go on a tirade saying that guys back then were tougher, meaner, and had no problem pretty much bullying other guys to get results compared to today’s crop of players. But, I imagine that is the case.
Players today probably don’t have to encounter as much “tough” teammates such as Jordan. Is that a good or a bad thing? It really depends on how you look at it. What I’ll say is that Jordan’s methods won him six championships and the absolute majority of players that played with him say that even though Jordan was a jerk at times, it was necessary and it made everyone that made those teams play better. jell, Steve Kerr got his fucking eye punched and he said that it actually was positive in the end.
Enjoy that beautiful weather this weekend. Go outside and soak everything up. Make sure to watch the final two episodes of The Last Dance on Sunday night. I’ll have my review of those episodes on Monday morning. And if you see Channing Frye, ask him is he’s alright.
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