A poll on social media was recently started posing the question, "Is it harder to win an NBA championship ring or score 50,000 career points.
Five-time champion Ron Harper made his answer clear.
"Rings," Harper posted on X.
Rings
— Ron Harper (@HARPER04_5) March 6, 2025
While many from the old school era respect LeBron James for passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the regular season leading scorer and surpassing 50,000 total points (playoffs included), it hasn't swayed them from thinking Michael Jordan is the greatest player ever.
Jordan still holds a 6-4 edge over James in titles. Even Harper, who won three championships alongside Jordan with the Chicago Bulls and two with Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, has more rings than James.
REMEMBERING P.J. BROWN VS CHARLIE WARD
One of the most bizarre moments in NBA playoffs history occurred in 1997 during the Eastern Conference semifinals series between the Miami Heat and New York Knicks.
The Knicks led the 3-1 when everything changed after guard Charlie Ward got into a scuffle with Heat forward P.J. Brown.
Because the benches cleared, the Knicks played without Allan Houston, Patrick Ewing, Larry Johnson and John Starks in Game 6. Starks and Johnson also missed Game 7 while Brown was the only Heat player banned two games.
The Heat eventually won the series in seven games.
"We had a really good team that year," Ward told Back In The Day Hoops On SI. "These things do happen, whether it's injury. In our case, we had the fight that broke out. Anything can happen in a series. We were trending in the right direction. We were up 3-1 at the time of the fight. You never know what have happened long term. The brawl kind of brought us down but it fueled them."
Ward and Brown are forever linked because they started the brawl. It began when Brown reacted to Ward trying to box out on a free throw attempt. Brown then body-slammed Ward into the stands.
Ward said there was never any bad blood between the two. In fact, they have remained friends over the years.
"P.J. and I, it was more of a in-the-heat-of-moment kind of deal," Ward said. "We still were friends. We were going to chapel together. It wasn't anything like that, even after the game. Even here later, he supported a couple of my football programs as well. It was no hard feelings. It was just a Miami-New York thing. It was a thing at that time, where the competitive juices got the best of everyone."
Shandel Richardson is the publisher of Back In The Day Hoops. He can be reached at shandelrich@gmail.com
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