Are Kevin Durant's Warriors better than Michael Jordan's Bulls?

Michael Jordan led the Bulls to one of the greatest seasons in NBA history. SI's Ben Pickman and Fantasy exec Corey Parson debate whether Jordan's 1996 Bulls were better than the 2017 Golden State Warriors.

Michael Jordan led the Bulls to one of the greatest seasons in NBA history. SI's Ben Pickman and Fantasy exec Corey Parson debate whether Jordan's 1996 Bulls were better than the 2017 Golden State Warriors.

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Robin Lundberg: Steve Kerr said on 'The Last Dance' that the 96 Bulls were the best team he's ever been a part of. So that leads to a question which team was better that Bulls squad or the Warriors team he coached the year after seventy three when they added KD? For more, I'm joined by our Ben Pickman and the fantasy exec Corey Parson. Corey, who are you going with? The Bulls are the Caity Warriors? 

Corey Parson: I think Steve Kerr was wrong in this one. Listen, being a part of all of those teams he has good insight and I'm going to disagree. I think the 73-win Warriors team is better than that 96 Bulls team. They didn't win a championship. Just because you don't win a championship does not make you not the best team. Now, let's go to the season that you're talking about right here. Firstly, bringing Kevin Durant. Now you've got a superstar team in the regular season alone in the NBA. Regular season they didn't lose back-to-back games until March 2nd. The average margin of victory was eleven points in the NBA. Then they got to the playoffs and got even more dominant. They rolled off fifteen straight wins in the NBA Western Conference before getting to the finals. Their margin of victory was 16 points. That's insane. That's unheard of. They lose one game in the finals. They go 15-1 and their playoff run the greatest team. That's a better team than the 96 bulls team, in my opinion. 

Robin Lundberg: 73-win plus KD, that math is kind of unfair. And we did say they broke the NBA. But Ben, if there was one team that's equipped to deal with them, it would be the Bulls squad because they had the best collection of perimeter defenders when it comes to Jordan Pippen and Robin. 

Ben Pickman: Without a doubt. And it's not just having this kind of talented roster. You look at that Bulls team, they won 18 games in a row at one point. That is four games longer than the Warriors who in that in that season, only one up to 14 games. Now, the Bulls only lost two games in a row. That was their longest losing streak compared to the worst losing three games in a row during that season. Now, one other thing to consider is that the Bulls 95-96 played in an era of expansion, right. 

Bill Frakes/Sports Illustrated

There were two more teams in the NBA that year adding the Raptors and the Grizzlies. And so the Warriors actually played and would probably is a more talented or more concentrated NBA because you have that initial dilution adding those two Canadian teams. And so one other thing to consider in this hypothetical matchup is, of course, the three point shooting, as Corey talked about. Right. And so this is where these two teams are pretty tough to compare. And the Warriors honestly will probably just outscore the Bulls if you put them head to head on a neutral court right now. But that's not fair in this comparison. So I probably still would give this slightly now to those Golden State Warriors.

Manny Millan/SI

Robin Lundberg: Yeah. I mean, ultimately, I think that could be the difference, the explosiveness of the three point shot when you had the Splash Brothers and Kevin Durant. I don't know how you deal with that. And I've argued they're the best team of all time. But if there was any team that could give them a run, it would be those Bulls.