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Psst, the 2015-2016 Golden State Warriors/1995-1996 Chicago Bulls match-up is never going to happen...

Truth be told, I'm a sports nut and an over-analyzer. Even so, I still find it ridiculous to be debating the never-possible match-up of the 2015-2016 Golden State Warriors and the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls. 

In the '95-'96 NBA season, the Chicago Bulls set a league record by going 72-10 during the course of the regular season. Many players, coaches, and analysts alike thought the record would never be broken. If the Golden State Warriors win at home tomorrow night against the Memphis Grizzlies, they will do just that and finish the season 73-9. So what is every NBA analyst under the sun discussing? Who would win in a 7-game series between the two teams. I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. It would have been one thing if the two teams had broken the league's regular season win record in back-to-back seasons, but it's quite another for the record-setting teams to be separated by two decades. The game is much different in 2016 than it was in 1996. In '96 teams were often led by their big men: Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo, etc. Name me three such centers in today's game, let alone six. Can't do it, can you? Today's game largely revolves around the three-ball. If you don't believe me, just ask Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and the 72-win Golden State Warriors. Like in any sport, for better or worse, the NBA has changed through the years, and not only is a match-up between the '95-96 Bulls and '15-'16 Warriors never going to happen, it's impossible to even accurately hypothesize who would win the series due to the changes in the league over the past 20 years. The only reasonable comparison we can make is how dominating the two teams were in their respective seasons. Did one team face stronger competition than the other? How many blowouts did each team record throughout the season? Given the rules and style of play at the time, did one team face certain obstacles the other didn't, or did one team perhaps appear more consistently impressive than the other according to the eye-test? These are all reasonable, debatable questions. However, the question, "Which team would win in a 7-game series?" is nothing but gobbledygook. Let's just learn to appreciate greatness when we see it and not feel the need to immediately grade it like it were competing in a Miss American pageant. Simply appreciate the past and present for what they are and don't try to conjoin the two in an impossible future event.
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