NBA Great Admits Super Teams Surely Existed Well Before LeBron James

LeBron James is often criticized for creating the term "Super Team." It came about when he joined Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh with the Miami Heat in 2010. They won two titles in four straight trips to the NBA Finals.

But at least one NBA great feels there were plenty of Super Teams in the 1980s and `90s. In an interview with Brandon "Scoop B" Robinson, Hall of Famer Michael Cooper said there were lots of stacked teams.

"I think so," Cooper said. "I think that whole era in the 80’s we won. We went to the NBA Finals 9 times. People don’t understand that — from 1980 to 1991, we went to the Finals nine times. And we won it five times. And we went through a lot of tough, talented teams. You look at it for us, we had the Seattle Supersonics when they won the championship in ‘79. We dethroned them in 1980. You had George “Iceman” Gervin and the A-Train (Artis Gilmore), you had Portland the team that they had up there with Mychal Thompson and Clyde Drexler; you had the Utah Jazz with Karl Malone and John Stockton just to name a few, ok?"

And then there was the other side of that bracket that featured the Detroit Pistons (Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Dennis Rodman), Boston Celtics (Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish), Philadelphia 76ers (Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Maurice Cheeks, Bobby Jones) and Cleveland Cavaliers (Brad Daughtery, Mark Price and Larry Nance).

"Then you look at the East," Cooper said. "You had Detroit. You had Boston. You had the Sixers. You had Cleveland. You had Atlanta with Dominique [Wilkins] and the group that he had. So we went through some very good teams, you know? Fortunately, we only had to play one of the East teams one time for the championship but the things that we did and we were able to do throughout the 80’s, I would call us a super team for sure."

In the 1990s, there were the Chicago Bulls (Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman) and Houston Rockets (Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler and later Charles Barkley and Pippen joined), teams with multiple Hall of Famers.

MORE BACK IN THE DAY HOOPS COVERAGE

LeBron shows love for Barkley, Iverson

Shaq makes crazy money on Instagram

Stephen A Smith puts LeBron in his place in GOAT debate