Robert Parish was fortunate enough to add a fourth championship to his resume as a member of the Chicago Bulls in his last NBA season—at 43, he played in 43 regular season games and averaged 9.4 minutes per contest. Still, despite witnessing Michael Jordan’s greatness firsthand in their lone season together, The Chief couldn’t crown his former teammate as the greatest player ever.


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“Michael didn’t beat great teams”

Whether it was Jordan’s hard-nosed and challenging leadership style or his ball-dominant playing style, Parish seemed to always have an issue with His Airness. However, that didn’t stop the Hall of Famer from giving MJ credit for leading the Bulls to two separate three-peats in the same decade.

Nevertheless, he did question how good the teams Jordan beat en route to basketball immortality were. Most notably, Robert mentioned Mike’s inability to overcome the Boston Celtics in the mid-80s and the Detroit Pistons in the late-80s.

“Michael didn’t beat great teams, in my opinion. Now think about this: When Larry, Kevin, and myself were in our heyday, he couldn’t beat us. He couldn’t get past the Pistons until Joe Dumars and Isiah got old. He couldn’t beat the Lakers in their prime. When he beat Phoenix, they only had one Hall of Famer.” Parish said on the ‘In The Post with Elvin Hayes’ podcast. “Now, don’t get me wrong now. Michael was great in his era. But the greatest of all time?”

Despite being swept by Boston in two consecutive playoff appearances, Jordan displayed unprecedented individual greatness in those series.

As a sophomore, MJ averaged 43.7 points per game in 1986, highlighted by an iconic 63-point Game 2 in a 135-131 double overtime loss—still the highest-scoring postseason performance in NBA history. The following year, Jordan once again led both teams in scoring with 35.7 points per game, with only two of his teammates—Charles Oakley and Gene Banks—averaging double digits in points.

Boston Celtics Legend Robert Parish Said Michael Jordan Wasn't the GOAT on Multiple Occasions: 'Michael Didn't Beat Great Teams' - Sportscasting | Pure Sports

In the 1988 second round, MJ was the best player in the series, but the Bulls lost to the Bad Boys in five games. In the 1989 ECF against the Pistons, Mike put up a series-high 29.7 points per contest, but that wasn’t enough for Chicago to beat Isiah Thomas and Co. The same was the case in the 1990 playoffs when the Bulls came one win away from reaching the NBA Finals but once again faltered against Detroit—Jordan averaged 32.1 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 6.3 assists in that series and dropped 31 in Game 7.

So even though it took years for Jordan to finally lead his team to the first NBA championship, very few blame His Airness for it.

Parish picked Kareem as the GOAT

That wasn’t the only time Parish picked someone else as the GOAT over Jordan. During an appearance on Cedric Maxwell’s podcast, the Louisiana native said Kareem Abdul-Jabbar should be recognized as the greatest player ever simply because he had the most unstoppable shot ever.

“…Kareem’s skyhook was unstoppable. The jump hook and the skyhook are, in my opinion, the two most unstoppable weapons in basketball,” he said.

While his take is legit, and the legendary big man undoubtedly deserves more recognition in these debates, there’s a chance Robert’s back-and-forths with MJ impacted his opinion.