The Golden State Warriors, up 3-1 in the NBA Finals, will ty to close out the Cavaliers in Game 5 on Monday night in Oakland.

 

Of course, here’s hoping – really, really, really  hoping — that the Cavaliers continue their good vibes from Friday night’s 137-116 runaway victory and stave off elimination with another win.

 

But – gulp! – should the Warriors triumph and gain their second league title in three seasons, the talk of their place on “the greatest teams of all-time” list will resume. Those discussions were going hot and heavy after the Warriors beat the Cavs three times, two by lopsided scores and then last Wednesday night after scoring the game’s last 11 points, but that aforementioned 21-point beatdown put all that on hold.

 

I heard an ESPN Radio talk show host late last week analyzing how the Warriors might have fared against Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls from the 1990s or the great Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics teams of the 1980s.

 

Bad idea. An extremely bad idea.

 

It’s absolutely, positively not the way to do it.

 

Guaranteed.

 

The game today is a far cry of what it was during the Bulls’ run, and it’s even more different than it was when the Lakers and Celtics dominated a decade earlier.

 

The players today are so much bigger, faster and stronger than they were back in the day. They just are. As such, player-to-player and team-to-team comparisons are simply not possible. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. They are two totally different things.

 

Instead, the comparisons that would have to be made with another Warriors title is whether they have been more dominant in their eras than the Bulls, Lakers and Celtics were in theirs. That’s it, how they fared against their own competitors, not against teams from other eras after being transported back to those decades in some time machine. That’s fairy-tale stuff. It’s useless, not worth anyone’s time.

 

I ran into this on several occasions when I’ve ranked the best Browns teams and players of all-time. More on that in my next post.

 

And oh, one last thought before I close: what if, with the comeback of all comebacks, even topping the one last season, it’s the Cavs – and not the Warriors — who end up winning the series and capturing their second championship in three seasons. How would LeBron James and the guys rank?

 

Just sayin’. Just putting that out there.