<p>Is it really a question of nature vs. nurture if your friend is given superhuman ability as part of the scenario?</p>
<p>Hmm… what about the rules of the game. By then your friend would be super jacked if he ate right and exercised on a daily basis. If there are no fouls than he could just knock down MJ and keep fouling.</p>
<p>Michael Jordan would be ****ed. On top of the training, he would also have access to all of Michael Jordan’s tapes and be able to come up with counter strategies. 1000 years is an insane amount of time. Given 100 years though, the friend probably won’t win.</p>
<p>come on now, it would take ALOT less than 1000yrs of doing nothing but train to surpass MJ. 1k yrs is hella long. Even someone who didn’t even know what basketball is would be able to beat him after that. No doubt MJ is an awesome player but you are overestimating him.</p>
<p>I think it would be possible if it was 1,000 years of training with no physical detoriation</p>
<p>There really needs to be televised 1 on 1 b-ball, how do I tell ESPN this?</p>
<p>well MJ isnt as good as LeBrown or Koby</p>
<p>Probably invent three new dialects.</p>
<p>well there’s nature vs nurture but if you have natural skills and practices alot… they’ll definitely get ahead of someone who just practices (but no natural talent)</p>
<p>and 1K seems like a long time… lol. Would MJ keep his skills during those 1000 years or would he be just be sitting on his butt? Because I’m sure he’s going to get pretty crappy if he doesn’t practice for 1000 years himself.</p>
<p>I still think MJ would destroy your friend. We’re all forgetting about natural abilities too. I think it’s pretty obvious that to be the greatest player of all time you’ve got to have the genes as well</p>
<p>“I think it’s pretty obvious that to be the greatest player of all time you’ve got to have the genes as well”</p>
<p>It all requires practice. MJ didn’t make it in his high school varsity team the 1st time he tried out. He worked at to be where he got. He is not magically good </p>
<p>“practice makes perfect”</p>
<p>Assuming his friend’s body wouldn’t get damaged, he would definitely win.</p>
<p>this seemed interesting to me…so here is my view on it. From experience as a D1 athlete, i would have to go with MJ. Although 1000 years is a lot of time, i think both nature and nurture has to be considered. Even if your roommate was working out non stop for 1000 years, he would ended up reaching his genetic potential after 10 years or so. And i am willing to bet that MJ’s potential is far greater than your room mates. </p>
<p>this is the reason that there are all pros and just bench players in pro sports. Everyone works out non stop for years, but some people just have more potential than others, and thus it allows them to become better.</p>
<p>^A limited amount of time plus general body wear is also a factor in real life. In this scenario the former isn’t a factor, and the latter doesn’t seem to be either.</p>
<p>MJ could still dunk on him every time, no matter how much your friend practices</p>
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<p>riiiiight.</p>
<p>no hope for your friend. he wont magically grow, and it doesnt matter how buff he gets or whatever. wingspan, height advantage, and overall genetic advantage would MJ ahead at all times. no matter how much your friend trains he wont jump as high as MJ does, regardless of what people say, our genes control us more than we like to think. </p>
<p>thats why kenyans are “naturally” faster than other races because they naturally have lower bone density (and they live in altitude too i guess…but so are people in other parts of the world but i digress)</p>
<p>MJ, absolutely no doubt. doesnt matter if your friend studies his tapes and things like that. jordan used to be paid millions of dollars per year to think on his feet against opponents who saw his tapes.</p>
<p>@x90: practice doesnt always take precedence. i’m 5’8, theres no way i’ll ever beat lebron james. hes 6’8, 250 pounds. his vertical jump is insanely high. im 145 pounds. i can practice for a millenium and wont ever jump as high as him, or grow as tall as him.</p>
<p>@drash: he didnt make his team solely because of genetics, he was deemed too short. that summer he grew 5 inches i believe. sure he practiced, but it was the height and new wingspan more than anything.</p>
<p>sorry to keep adding but theres more i have to say:</p>
<p>there are people who practice harder than D1 athletes but arent even close to as good solely due to genetic makeup. its a very tricky area, but in terms of genes, everything just has to fall into place properly. for MJ, everything did. he has the perfect build for basketball. long wingspan, pretty tall (suits his position EXTREMELY well), jumps extremely high.</p>
<p>conclusion: in a game up to 21, your friend will be lucky to get 5 points. and just to bring “lebrown” (haha) into this, your friend would have 0 points. i’m not saying MJ is worse than him, but in a 1 v 1 game, lebron would overpower MJ pretty easily. hell, current shaq would beat MJ in 1 v 1 but once again im going off-topic.</p>
<p>MJ would wipe your friend out, unless your friend has unknown genetic potential that hasn’t been developed. Michael Jordan only became the best after training and development, but he had the capacity to benefit from it. Plenty of people train really hard in real life, and never get very good at all. You friend would probably get a lot better in his 1000 years of practice, but it probably wouldn’t make him win.</p>
<p>The real question would be in the same situation if your roommate would be able to defeat Bruce Lee.</p>
<p>In a 10 game series, your roommate may win 1 game.</p>
<p>Your roommate would be able to perfect any shot and be able to hook shot a 3 pointer and make it 99% of the time(unblockable). However, in the game he would get nervous and miss one of those, and once he misses, that’s it. He won’t get a rebound over MJ, and Mj will just drive it in and dunk on him every time. If your friend can make 10 straight shots(possible after 1000 years of practice), he may be able to win 1 time. But he has to get the ball first. And even if he does he’s getting dunked on.</p>
<p>As I think about this some more, perhaps in a thousand years an OK player would be able to perfect a series of bizarre trick shots that would befuddle even Michael Jordan. Maybe.</p>
<p>even if he can do a trick shot, shooting it over somebody 4 inches taller with a longer wingspan who can jump significantly higher would be pretty difficult</p>