In the 1990s, Mario Elie was a valuable role player for several NBA teams. He won back-to-back NBA championships as a member of the Houston Rockets in the middle of the decade, and he added a third ring in 1999 while with the San Antonio Spurs.
These days, many basketball fans see the 1990s through rose-colored glasses. They feel that decade was a hallowed golden era when the game was played perfectly, players didn’t play for big money and superstars wanted to compete against each other rather than team up.
There is plenty of hyperbole in that assessment of the NBA of the 1990s, as the league had some real issues during that time. But the reality of what that era was like didn’t prevent Elie from attacking James’ argument as being possibly the greatest of all time (G.O.A.T.) while on “Willie D Live”.
He implied James isn’t as great as some claim because of the superstar’s habit of teaming up with other elite players and stacking the deck in his favor (h/t Lakers Daily).
“All these guys wanna join each other…and play with each other,” Elie said of today’s NBA. “No, I wanna beat you. I wanna beat you. LeBron, you say you the G.O.A.T. — why you joinin’ [Chris] Bosh and — you know what I’m sayin’? We wasn’t doin’ that in the ’90s. Like Dream (Hakeem Olajuwon) callin’ [Michael] Jordan, ‘You wanna link up?’ And callin’ [Larry] Bird and Magic [Johnson] up, ‘Y’all wanna link up and play?’”
Elie took it a step further and claimed James’ habit is a generational habit.
“These boys want it easy right now,” he said. “It’s the AAU era right now. … Everybody want it easy. LeBron want Anthony Davis. Who else you want, LeBron? You talkin’ ’bout you the G.O.A.T. Come on, man. … Great player, love him, but everybody wanna play buddy ball.”
The other side of this argument is that all-time great players have always needed help from at least one other Hall of Famer to win championships, especially multiple championships. Kobe Bryant needed Shaquille O’Neal and Pau Gasol, Magic Johnson needed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James Worthy, Michael Jordan needed Scottie Pippen and so on.
The one possible exception may have been Elie’s Rockets teammate Hakeem Olajuwon. Olajuwon won it all in 1994 without any Hall of Fame teammates, or even one other player who made the All-Star team that year, albeit in a very watered-down NBA. However, the following season, he had Clyde Drexler by his side when Houston won another world title.