I don't necessarily disagree with you, but MJ was the most competitive and intimidating athlete I've ever seen. Everyone in the building was terrified of him and once he got over the hump nobody was beating him. He was a 35 year old shooting guard and won the 1998 playoffs/finals basically by himself. Pippen was hurt and Rodman was in la la land. Looking past the nonsense about how competitive and intimidating he was, when is the hump defined? Is it conveniently 1991? Then what happened in 1995 when he was punked by Nick Anderson? Oh that doesn't count he just came back from baseball. Where was his competitiveness and imtimidation factor though? And why did none of that transition into baseball? What about the Wizards? Does competitive nature fade with age? Or was he and his team just not that good. Wait strike the and his team part, teammates and context do not matter. And the '98 finals...the one where Jordan shot worse than all but 2 of LBJ's Finals, one of which where Drew Gooden was LBJ's 2nd. Gooden, presumably equaling some sort of Barkley/Malone hybrid at that point in his career.