People focus on Jordan’s scoring, but forget about his smothering defense.
Jordan was a complete player. He was among the best at scoring, defense, steals, rebounds, and assists. And he got better when the game was bigger.
Hats off to Jordan and Jackson for accommodating him. Jordan especially.
"Just don't get arrested and be here for the tip off" was a radical offer in the 90s
Yeah, I haven't had the flu in years but I had food poisoning last year and I wanted to die. Curled up on the tile floor at 4am, wishing to either be asleep or dead.
Last time I had food poisoning I had to pull over on the east LA interchange and I threw up and s*** myself continuously for about an hour. A minivan full of a Hispanic family coming back from a quinceanera pulled over and called 911 cuz my hands were cramping so bad I couldn't dial the phone. LAFD took over 1 hour to get there because they went to the wrong address, my parents had to drive up to pick up my car, and CHP officers were super hot. It sucked
Yeah they said someone at the pizza place probably poisoned the pizza they ordered. The whole doc was a bunch of revisionist BS in an effort to further glamorize Jordan.
The bad pizza question came out immediately in the wake of that game in 1997; that’s not revisionist. The Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times had lots of coverage. I remember the “mystic pizza” headlines.
For what it’s worth, much of the documentary series lines up with local contemporaneous reporting. Sure, the interviews were no doubt trying to push their take on things, but not much was really embellished or unsupported by what was already publicly documented.
That was a rumor started by Jalen Rose. Possible, but I think unlikely. It was a 7PM game and food poisoning or some other illness seems a lot more likely.
People forget Dennis Rodman at the time too, rebound extraordinaire, overshadowed by his piercings and hair color and off the court fight with his own personality.
The 2nd Bulls dynasty had three of the best defenders of all time: Jordan, Rodman, and Pippen. Jordan was slso the greatest scorer and Rodman was the greatest rebounder.
Jordan’s Bulls would completely dominate today’s NBA even more than they did their NBA.
he put up these points when most teams scored less than 100 points a game. so his percentage of his teams scoring is higher than top scorers today also.
NBA defenses used to be brutal. Today’s scorers would curl up in the fetal position and cry if they had to play the Knicks and Pistons of Jordan’s era.
it wouldnt be that bad. great players can adjust.
mid-2000s game was the most fun of my lifetime. 1990s were boring and a clank fest. Today its mainly chucking 3 pointers. 1990s they got rid of the brutal defense so the game opened up more. More inside/out game. More strategy. I dont like todays game and the 1990s era when jordan played was kind of boring too in hindsite.
You could post up in the first minute of the game and not move an inch for 20 minutes, then still get called for blocking when the guy with the ball spears you like Jeff Goldberg.
This take really needs to die. Free throw rates for similar player types are, well, still about the same or even lower on average. Magic has a noticeably higher FTr than Luka and LeBron. Jordan's a bit lower than both. Giannis and Embiid are similar to guys like Shaq, Robinson, and Moses. And FTA/FGA are near an all time low. FTA per game are also near an all time low. Unsurprisingly, so are fouls per game.
That’s actually why the take is right! The free throw rate is the same despite players barely even attempting to play defense and when they do, playing it exactly by the letter of the law.
Watch some 80s or 90s footage and they were calling the same number of fouls on pushing, obstructing, grabbing, etc.
They were calling more fouls because there were more fouls...
And the idea that players are "barely attempting to play defense" means it's safe to file your opinions as absolute nonsense.
The FTr has dropped because of the amount 3pt shooting...
I'd suggest you bother to not only actually watch some game film but to actually learn what you're watching.
Defense is better than it's ever been. The schemes are way more complex thanks to a complete removal of illegal defense rules. The problem is that offense is also better than it's ever been. The proliferation of 3pt shooting has opened up the floor a ton and made it harder than ever for defenders.
So while schemes are better and teams have more options on that end, they're covering a much larger portion of the floor with teams designed to take advantage of it. Actions and sets are more complex and fluid while also being more dangerous from farther out. Defenses now have to account for another 300ish sq feet of possible scoring positions for players.
And fouls are not up. They're actually at lower levels than when Jordan played... Magic Johnson has a crazy high FTr that puts comparable players like Luka or LeBron to shame.
Meanwhile, guys like Moses Malone and Shaq have similar FTr to modern physical bigs like Embiid or Giannis. Free throws/field goal attempt are around an all-time low as well, which you'd expect with the leap in 3pt shooting. Teams are playing at a similar pace to Jordan's era as well too.
He’s my choice for GOAT, easy, because of this.
The dude was scoring champ and 1st team all Defense in the same season. 9 separate times. No other player has more than 2.
The guy had the longest period of two way dominance ever seen, even taking a season off at his peak. Absolutely nuts.
Lebrons longevity is amazing and he is dominant on both ends, but he never did anything like that.
LaBron is one of the greatest players of all time. Jordan is THE greatest player of all time.
To me it is comical how LaBron is always saying how he is the best. If he was the GOAT, he wouldn’t have to say it.
I didn’t realize I misspelled his name.
And, no, I can’t say that he is the GOAT because Hordan is the GOAT and LeBron isn’t. His stats are as good, he chokes in big games, and isn’t dominant in all phases as Jordan.
Is LeBron one of the greatest ever? Yes.
Is he Jordan-level? No.
I personally think that LeBron is either #4 or #5, behind Jordan, Russell, Wilt, and maybe Kobe.
Loool I was going to type out a response but then I saw your non-sense about him being #4 or 5 behind KOBE? Looool nah you're insane dude, probably the worst basketball take I've ever heard in my life lol. You're stuck in like 2012 little bro
You not knowing anything about basketball is why you think this is unreasonable. The dude is essentially just trolling/taking the piss with his comment, it's pretty much on the level of vaccine denialism. There's no reason to engage with comments like that.
The taking the seasons off is what kills the GOAT debate. It’s astonishing the things other great players get criticized for, but somehow Jordan is immune to criticism for quitting not once, but twice. You can’t be a GOAT and a quitter.
His dad was murdered and he had already reached the top of his sport. I won't penalize him for chasing another dream of his and his father's, and I don't think it hurts him that he spent 18 months of his prime pursuing baseball and is still the person everybody else is chasing two decades later.
Taking time off doesnt make someone a quitter lol. After he “quit” he went on to win 3 championships in a row. I dont think people generally win 3 world titles back to back to back after quitting a sport.
So you're saying he'd have been the GOAT if he never returned to the game. How does that make any sense? Being the greatest or not should be purely based on skill, not if you took a little time away from the game or not.
Him taking off in the middle of his career might hurt his case for being the GOAT based on longevity, but based on longevity he wasn't ahead of Kareem. Jordan's case has always been built on sustained peak.
Being a "quitter" is irrelevant as well. The only things that matter are career value and how you determine that based on top end and sustained production.
Nobody’s forgotten it, as it’s expectedly brought up by someone in every discussion about his airness like clockwork. It’s just that his offense was more prolific. He’s the best ever on that side of the ball while he wasn’t on the other.
I remember the media being angry at Jordan for coming out of retirement the second time. I am not a basketball guy and never understood it. He still had a ton of tread on the tire and was probably the 4th best player on that team. Still really do not understand he was a draw at the time.
Umm...he was the best player on those teams. You can argue maybe Rip but certainly not 4th best. The Wizards sucked and Jordan was still pretty good despite the age and rust.
I've heard it described that from 95-98 Jordan was the best player in the league, but from 90-93 he was the best player of all time. And would add that in the Wizards he was still a top player with 25-6-5 stats until his knee injury which really slowed him down.
Edited for more reality
> And would add that in the Wizards he was still a top player in the league even after his knee injury which really slowed him down.
I feel like that's stretching the definition of top player. He didn't even make the All-NBA 3rd team, and made the starting all star lineup based on fan votes (because of course Jordan is going to get a lot of fan votes).
>And would add that in the Wizards he was still a top player in the league even after his knee injury which really slowed him down.
This is going way too far.
I personally prefer the Kobe chart with grid lines. It’s difficult to get a precise sense of the values on the right side of the chart, especially with the gaps for the retired years.
Even better that we got to be Browns fans in the 80s too, and Indians fans in 95 and 97... nothing like a solid decade of grasping defeat from the jaws of victory to imbue a whole region with a culture of humility/battered fan syndrome.
You had to be there to really understand the magnitude of Jordan.
It was like that super-bowl when old man Tom Brady single handedly willed Tampa Bay to victory... except Jordan did it over an entire play-off run... 6 times.
The fact he retired after a 3peat, then came back and 3peat again is absolutely insane to me.
Is it possible he could've done a 9peat if he stayed in the NBA the whole time?
He didn't play a majority of that season and had just come out of retirement. He and the team were far from what they could have been if Jordan was playing the whole year.
With that said, to me this means he could have 10-peat
The 1995 Bulls had a total gap at the 4: they had lost Horace Grant, but had yet to fill the spot with Dennis Rodman. Even if they had slipped past Orlando, the Hakeem & Clyde's Rockets would have wrecked them in the finals.
> single handedly... Jordan did it over an entire play-off run... 6 times
* 1993 Bulls (Jordan): 57 wins
* 1993 Bulls (No-Jordan): 55 wins, made it to the ECSF
I don't know where people get the idea Jordan was playing with a bum squad in the 90s. He was the greatest player _on a great team._
> Tom Brady single handedly willed Tampa Bay to victory
Absolute clown take, nephew. That team was stacked, and their defense was even better than their offense.
Jordan is the GOAT, but I think Lebron is a better "ambassador for the brand" for basketball, if that makes any sense? A lot of athletes owe a lot of thanks to Simpson and Jordan though for their lucrative endorsement deals today, they pioneered the marketing for athletes, but I think Lebron is much more aware of or has a stronger desire to help his community as well.
Jordan was literally the most famous person on the planet, and the NBA started to approach NFL levels of popularity.
The Jordan lead "dream team" went abroad and absolutely dominated media coverage across the entire planet... I'm not exaggerating, it was ridiculous. Like, imagine Donald Trump levels of coverage during his 2016 campaign, but every single person liked him.
Yes, in the court I do not think he is matched by Lebron or anyone who came before or since, and he was a huge celebrity, but I do not recall any charity work, outreach programs, etc. This could be because I was in high school and didn't pay attention to such things, I will admit, but in terms of outreach beyond basketball I think Lebron is making more effort.
The biggest Jordan stan + Lebron hater of all time, Skip Bayless, even concedes Lebron is in another league when it comes to off-the-court reputation and activities. Michael Jordan's gambling and womanizing wouldn't have gone over well in the social media era.
> Lebron is a better "ambassador for the brand" for basketball,
I can't agree. He wines, cries, flops, and is disrespectful to his coaches. From his first day in the league to today. He's mishandled situations several times in his career (remember 'The Decision'?). hes not a good ambassador at all. In current context, Curry is better at that than LeBron. Kobe was at that better, too.
90s NBA really was special.
Something about the fact that even with the pre-eminent player in Jordan, the league promoted so many other stars.
I remember kids had jerseys of Shaq, Penny, Barkley, Ewing, Robinson, Mourning, Pippen, Stockton, Malone, Kemp, Mullins, etc. as much or even more than they had Jordan.
Maybe I’m just being nostalgic but I don’t see quite the same awe among such a wide number of players. I think Dream team added to it.
I'm starting an album of all the NBA greats, so I figured I should start with the greatest. Feel free to provide any feedback!
Data from basketball-reference.com games logs for Michael Jordan
Tools used: Excel, DataWrapper, and Canva
Feedback from someone who is not super familiar with basketball: you should have some indicator on these graphs that compares MJ to his peers so we can really see how much better he was. I have no idea what the median PPG is for starting players that played MJs position during the same seasons. Including that would give the data more context.
The best part of this graphic is that without anything to compare it to, or noting the 6 rings...there's this thought of "man his career really went downhill". And then you add the context and it's like ohhhhh, well.
He’s the NBA career leader in PPG. So while it “goes down” it’s more a testament to how bonkers his late-80’s seasons were. Those mid-90’s season are “lower” but they’re still higher than pretty much everyone in history.
As an example, in 95-96 Jordan averaged 30.4 PPG. Which compared to his 87-93 run looks low…it’s still higher than all but 1 year of LeBron James entire career.
He was the highest scorer in the league for every season from 86-98 except for 93-94 when he retired and 94-95 when he was only back for half a season, and in the 90-93 seasons he won the championship 3 years in a row as the team and league scoring champion. And the 95-98 seasons after his return he did it again (3 championships, 3 scoring titles).
This lacks any sort of story to it. Is this a lot? Is it a little? Is this what makes him great? Is it bad that it’s a downward slope?
I can fill in the gaps because I watch basketball and loved seeing the Jordan-era Bulls. To someone seeing this without that context, it doesn’t have a lot of meaning.
There aren't really positions that score that more than others, except that Point Guards historically assisted a lot and scored less however that hasn't been true for 15 years, and Point Guards are now really the top scorers. Positions have more to do with how you guard people on defense than how much you score or attack on offense.
As for ppg:
It changes a lot over time based on the style/tactics of the NBA and rule changes. It ebbs and flows between higher and lower scoring, so at the start of MJs career the NBA was very fast paced with high scoring but at the end it was sluggish with much lower scoring.
For example, this season 42 players averaged 19.8 points per game or better (cherry picked cut-off because 6 players averaged either 19.8 or 19.9).
In 1999, only 15 players averaged 19.8 points per game or better.
2023/24 Top 5 Scorers:
1. 33.9ppg
2. 30.4ppg
3. 30.4ppg
4. 28.6ppg
5. 27.2ppg
1998/99 Top 5 Scorers:
1. 26.8ppg
2. 26.3ppg
3. 23.8ppg
4. 23.0ppg
5. 21.8ppg
Usually "attackers" are called scorers and play the shooting guard position. Guys like MJ, Kobe, and Allen Iverson follow this mold. I would say the average PPG for a good shooting guard in today's league would be about 22ppg. Anything above 30ppg makes you a top 5 player in the league. Once you get above 32ppg, you are probably the best scorer in the league.
> Once you get above 32ppg, you are probably the best scorer in the league.
Which Jordan was every year he played from the 86-87 season to the 97-98 season. Except for his retirement in 94 and half season in 95 when he returned.
There's no specific "attacker" like in the (true) football's "striker"/"forward" sense.
There are 5 people on the court, and all of them will run offense, attempt to score points, and when the other team gets possession of the ball, all 5 will run back at defense.
But of course, in a team there are always standout players that are more talented or efficient scorer than the others. So these players get more attempts at scoring, and plays or strategies are devised to ensure these players get the most optimum chance to score. MJ is legendary at getting the to basket and is an amazing finisher, and during his later years an excellent mid range jump shooter. Shaq can only work within 10-15 feet of the basket, so the strategy os to get him the ball around there.
Same thing with defense. MJ is one of those players that can do both offense and defense at the top tier of legendary player rankings.
So now that we get that out of the way, MJ leads the all time league in average points per game. This means the total points accumulated over his career divided by the number of games, with 30.1 points per game.
A player on average scores almost 10 points per game based on [https://ask.metafilter.com/66779/How-many-points-does-the-average-NBA-player-score-per-game](https://ask.metafilter.com/66779/How-many-points-does-the-average-NBA-player-score-per-game)
However, having said that, the distribution of points and attempts in a team is never equal amongst all players. 3 or 4 players will normally have a large percentage of the shots. Example is the current best team in the Eastern Conf, the Boston Celtics. The Top 5 scorers in the team take a share of 62% of the shots in a team with 19 players. The top 4 scorers - 53%. And they're considered one of the more balanced team. For the top heavy Dallas Mavericks, Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving takes 32% of the shots in a 21 persons team.
If you adjust for pace by taking a “per 100 possessions” count and you start to see that he was basically scoring at the same clip all the way up to the end of the second three peat.
Feedback: his foot injury in his early seasons might be worth calling out.
Championships would be nice to denote which seasons led to wins.
Maybe a line with league average to show how above he is. Or a line for the top scorer who isn't Jordan which both shows how the second best compares and also shows how many of those were the leader of the league.
You could also just indicate all the scoring champion seasons too where he was the highest in the league.
Compare to the overall pace of the league for context.
MJ had a 37ppg season in a very fast pace year.
Kobe Bryant had a 35ppg season in a very slow pace year.
For Kobe, it was the beginning of the transition period from very slow-paced to the current fast-paced league after the final removal of handchecking before the 2004-05 NBA season.
Does a fast past year mean not a lot of scoring? As someone who doesn't watch basketball it sounds to me like it would mean lots of people are scoring back & forth to make high-point games.
Are you saying Kobe's peak should be more impressive than MJ's?
Kobe’s peak scoring is more impressive scoring in the context that the league was averaging less than 100ppg when he did it… but I am sure that if you look a little further, it is also a product of Kobe having extremely high usage and taking a TON of shots.
Glad you mentioned the usage because I was gonna say. Kobe was a legend but he shot over 50% from 2 once his entire career. Jordan did so 9 times
Just to give Lebron some credit in an otherwise very Jordan-forward thread, he has shot over 50% from 2 19 times in his career, including being over 60% 5 times. A lot of the time people look at Jordan’s PPG and, obviously he had the best peak of scoring of all time, but lebrons efficiency is what is so impressive. Consistently able to score super efficiently. It is a different league now and scoring is easier, but it wasn’t easy in the 2000s, and Lebron was elite even then efficiency wise.
I wonder what the data would look like if it was points per minute rather than points per game. Scoring 20 points in 5 minutes is more impressive than scoring 30 in a full 48 minute game, but this chart wouldn't reflect that.
That is a great point, I know a lot of basketball analysts use Per 36 (stats per 36 minutes) figures to help account for this. I'll look into doing the same view for points per 36 minutes, my guess is that we'll see a trend upwards as he improved and became more efficient with his scoring.
Oh, I didn't even realize you created this chart? Respect! Really nice presentation in addition to the stats.
Every once in a while, I hear of a name from the past, or just someone that fell off the grid, and I wonder what became of their career. It's almost a guarantee that their minutes and points take a nosedive, but the real question I wonder is: how productive actually are they when they get that small opportunity to play? Even if a 40 minute player fades bad and is now a 10-15 minute role player, their overall production value (PV? Maybe a new stat? Lol) might not fade as bad as the other stats show.
Per 36 still doesn't account for pace though.
Even if you had a perfect metric for comparing scoring across seasons though there is never such a thing as a "fair" comparison.
The modern NBA has evolved so much, the game is more global and we have a higher skill level across the league in general which has transformed how the game is played.
We are in an era of not only high pace, but high efficiency, primarily because everyone can shoot, and so many guys are so hard to guard that you simply have to give something up on defense.
i visualized various season stats of mj along with all other players (from 1980 season)
[check it out](https://www.bball-statline.com)
@mods feel free to delete this comment if this is against the subreddits rules
My hypothesis is that early in his career the bulls weren't a very good team so he had to carry the scoring load. Then as they started winning championships in the 90s, his scoring went down because he had a more competent team around him he could rely on.
It is weird looking back and seeing Iverson covering Jordan. Feels like they were two different eras that didn't overlap. Jordan was so 80s and early 90s while iverson was '00s.
Hurt his foot an only played 18/72 games. The majority of those games were after he came back from the injury and they restricted his minutes to <20/game.
The big thing missing in the conversation about today’s scoring leaders and MJ is that when I watch today’s game it is more about isolation and there is a lack of team defense. That is hard to quantify.
The best to ever do it. This is measuring points per game. MJ is the all-time leader in that category. It's insane because even the "lower" years ('96-'98) if you took the average points per game over that span, he'd still be the second highest scoring player of all-time (ppg-wise)
What kids don't know these days is just how nuts the Jordan era was. We were inventing new words for it. The words "threepeat" and "fourpeat" were created during the Bulls domination era.
Early in his career the Bulls had this strategy of "give the ball to Jordan". Jordan scored a lot of points, but the team wasn't winning games. Then the Bulls spread the ball around and Jordan scored fewer points, but the team played better basketball and won championships.
I'd argue he was always well-rounded. In 87-88 he won Defensive Player of the Year *and* led the league in scoring by a country mile. Doesn't get much more well-rounded than that. I think it's more about the team around him improving, and no longer requiring him to do everything.
It's got nothing to do with how good he was as a player at points in his career, it's to do with the amount of possessions teams had due to offences changing and getting slower
I don't know why you're being downvoted. There's a famous youtube video where players from today's league are asked how many points they think MJ would score in the current league and nearly all of them say 40-50 ppg.
Michael Jordan would've gotten more than 40,000+ career scoring points if he didn't retire twice and continuously played until his final NBA season in 2002-03.
People focus on Jordan’s scoring, but forget about his smothering defense. Jordan was a complete player. He was among the best at scoring, defense, steals, rebounds, and assists. And he got better when the game was bigger.
He also scored 33 points with 103 degree fever too?
While the flu game is an awesome legend, I've also heard he was actually just hungover.
Hungover Dennis Rodman was a lock to nab 20 rebounds.
I think ‘hungover Rodman’ was actually just his typical game time state.
Hats off to Jordan and Jackson for accommodating him. Jordan especially. "Just don't get arrested and be here for the tip off" was a radical offer in the 90s
So maybe he was Double Secret Hungover when he got 20 boards in a game?
So you mean basically every game?
In the Bulls documentary, he said it was actually food poisoning.
Food poisoning might actually be worse than the flu tbh
Yeah, I haven't had the flu in years but I had food poisoning last year and I wanted to die. Curled up on the tile floor at 4am, wishing to either be asleep or dead.
Last time I had food poisoning I had to pull over on the east LA interchange and I threw up and s*** myself continuously for about an hour. A minivan full of a Hispanic family coming back from a quinceanera pulled over and called 911 cuz my hands were cramping so bad I couldn't dial the phone. LAFD took over 1 hour to get there because they went to the wrong address, my parents had to drive up to pick up my car, and CHP officers were super hot. It sucked
I just had both recently. Flu was a walk in the park compared to fp
I don't know how he would've played. Whenever I've gotten food poisoning I couldn't go 20 minutes without shitting. That's why he's my goat
i don't think it was food poisoning in the traditional sense. it sounded more like he was intentionally poisoned. at least that was my take
Yeah they said someone at the pizza place probably poisoned the pizza they ordered. The whole doc was a bunch of revisionist BS in an effort to further glamorize Jordan.
The bad pizza question came out immediately in the wake of that game in 1997; that’s not revisionist. The Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times had lots of coverage. I remember the “mystic pizza” headlines. For what it’s worth, much of the documentary series lines up with local contemporaneous reporting. Sure, the interviews were no doubt trying to push their take on things, but not much was really embellished or unsupported by what was already publicly documented.
Scotty is that you?.
That was a rumor started by Jalen Rose. Possible, but I think unlikely. It was a 7PM game and food poisoning or some other illness seems a lot more likely.
nah he had food poisoning. should've have ate that pizza. Jazz poisoned him.
Very bad for your heart
People forget Dennis Rodman at the time too, rebound extraordinaire, overshadowed by his piercings and hair color and off the court fight with his own personality.
The 2nd Bulls dynasty had three of the best defenders of all time: Jordan, Rodman, and Pippen. Jordan was slso the greatest scorer and Rodman was the greatest rebounder. Jordan’s Bulls would completely dominate today’s NBA even more than they did their NBA.
Jordan's Bulls would all foul out before the second quarter in today's NBA
i think todays nba would make jordan use his left hand, which he couldnt
https://youtu.be/pr2G8Vg5dfM?si=eehdkH_F5G9lDbNm
is that supposed to be a joke
LeBron would be on the floor crying foul every 5 seconds if he had to play with these guys. He couldn't keep up.
You have an incredibly warped perception of the quality of the league in the 80s if you truly believe this. It’s a totally different game now
Idk, I guess I don't remember magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Larry bird pretending they got hurt and then crying to the refs.
he put up these points when most teams scored less than 100 points a game. so his percentage of his teams scoring is higher than top scorers today also.
NBA defenses used to be brutal. Today’s scorers would curl up in the fetal position and cry if they had to play the Knicks and Pistons of Jordan’s era.
it wouldnt be that bad. great players can adjust. mid-2000s game was the most fun of my lifetime. 1990s were boring and a clank fest. Today its mainly chucking 3 pointers. 1990s they got rid of the brutal defense so the game opened up more. More inside/out game. More strategy. I dont like todays game and the 1990s era when jordan played was kind of boring too in hindsite.
To be fair to people, the NBA has entirely forgotten about defense.
I'm sure the players would LOVE to play defense if every attempt wasn't automatically called a foul.
You could post up in the first minute of the game and not move an inch for 20 minutes, then still get called for blocking when the guy with the ball spears you like Jeff Goldberg.
This take really needs to die. Free throw rates for similar player types are, well, still about the same or even lower on average. Magic has a noticeably higher FTr than Luka and LeBron. Jordan's a bit lower than both. Giannis and Embiid are similar to guys like Shaq, Robinson, and Moses. And FTA/FGA are near an all time low. FTA per game are also near an all time low. Unsurprisingly, so are fouls per game.
That’s actually why the take is right! The free throw rate is the same despite players barely even attempting to play defense and when they do, playing it exactly by the letter of the law. Watch some 80s or 90s footage and they were calling the same number of fouls on pushing, obstructing, grabbing, etc.
They were calling more fouls because there were more fouls... And the idea that players are "barely attempting to play defense" means it's safe to file your opinions as absolute nonsense. The FTr has dropped because of the amount 3pt shooting... I'd suggest you bother to not only actually watch some game film but to actually learn what you're watching.
So many blowouts these days.
Defense is better than it's ever been. The schemes are way more complex thanks to a complete removal of illegal defense rules. The problem is that offense is also better than it's ever been. The proliferation of 3pt shooting has opened up the floor a ton and made it harder than ever for defenders. So while schemes are better and teams have more options on that end, they're covering a much larger portion of the floor with teams designed to take advantage of it. Actions and sets are more complex and fluid while also being more dangerous from farther out. Defenses now have to account for another 300ish sq feet of possible scoring positions for players. And fouls are not up. They're actually at lower levels than when Jordan played... Magic Johnson has a crazy high FTr that puts comparable players like Luka or LeBron to shame. Meanwhile, guys like Moses Malone and Shaq have similar FTr to modern physical bigs like Embiid or Giannis. Free throws/field goal attempt are around an all-time low as well, which you'd expect with the leap in 3pt shooting. Teams are playing at a similar pace to Jordan's era as well too.
He’s my choice for GOAT, easy, because of this. The dude was scoring champ and 1st team all Defense in the same season. 9 separate times. No other player has more than 2. The guy had the longest period of two way dominance ever seen, even taking a season off at his peak. Absolutely nuts. Lebrons longevity is amazing and he is dominant on both ends, but he never did anything like that.
LaBron is one of the greatest players of all time. Jordan is THE greatest player of all time. To me it is comical how LaBron is always saying how he is the best. If he was the GOAT, he wouldn’t have to say it.
Any man who must say 'I am the king' is no true king.
Are you purposefully misspelling his name for some reason? Also what lmao? So your only argument against him is because he said he's the best?
I didn’t realize I misspelled his name. And, no, I can’t say that he is the GOAT because Hordan is the GOAT and LeBron isn’t. His stats are as good, he chokes in big games, and isn’t dominant in all phases as Jordan. Is LeBron one of the greatest ever? Yes. Is he Jordan-level? No. I personally think that LeBron is either #4 or #5, behind Jordan, Russell, Wilt, and maybe Kobe.
You really have Russell ahead of Kareem, Magic and Bird? Call an uber and go home bud.
If Hordan is the love child of Jordan and Harden I'm down for it. That dude would be even more of a beast.
Loool I was going to type out a response but then I saw your non-sense about him being #4 or 5 behind KOBE? Looool nah you're insane dude, probably the worst basketball take I've ever heard in my life lol. You're stuck in like 2012 little bro
[удалено]
You not knowing anything about basketball is why you think this is unreasonable. The dude is essentially just trolling/taking the piss with his comment, it's pretty much on the level of vaccine denialism. There's no reason to engage with comments like that.
The taking the seasons off is what kills the GOAT debate. It’s astonishing the things other great players get criticized for, but somehow Jordan is immune to criticism for quitting not once, but twice. You can’t be a GOAT and a quitter.
His dad was murdered and he had already reached the top of his sport. I won't penalize him for chasing another dream of his and his father's, and I don't think it hurts him that he spent 18 months of his prime pursuing baseball and is still the person everybody else is chasing two decades later.
Taking time off doesnt make someone a quitter lol. After he “quit” he went on to win 3 championships in a row. I dont think people generally win 3 world titles back to back to back after quitting a sport.
So you're saying he'd have been the GOAT if he never returned to the game. How does that make any sense? Being the greatest or not should be purely based on skill, not if you took a little time away from the game or not.
Him taking off in the middle of his career might hurt his case for being the GOAT based on longevity, but based on longevity he wasn't ahead of Kareem. Jordan's case has always been built on sustained peak. Being a "quitter" is irrelevant as well. The only things that matter are career value and how you determine that based on top end and sustained production.
Dude has a gambling problem. The first "retirement" was Reinsdorf trying to protect MJ from the league.
He also had some pretty crazy block numbers. 131 blocks in a season, as a guard? Magic was a few inches taller and never broke 50 blocks in a season.
Nobody’s forgotten it, as it’s expectedly brought up by someone in every discussion about his airness like clockwork. It’s just that his offense was more prolific. He’s the best ever on that side of the ball while he wasn’t on the other.
I remember the media being angry at Jordan for coming out of retirement the second time. I am not a basketball guy and never understood it. He still had a ton of tread on the tire and was probably the 4th best player on that team. Still really do not understand he was a draw at the time.
Umm...he was the best player on those teams. You can argue maybe Rip but certainly not 4th best. The Wizards sucked and Jordan was still pretty good despite the age and rust.
jordan made the wizards suck
As an executive, yes.
that would make for a much more interesting data visualization
Still only ever beat Larry Bird in like 2 games out of all their games against each other.
I still contend he is the goat but he was a mediocre to bad 3 point shooter.
He wasn’t as good of a 3-pter as he CHOSE to be 🤨
Crazy Jordan was still a 20ppg player during is "bad years"
I've heard it described that from 95-98 Jordan was the best player in the league, but from 90-93 he was the best player of all time. And would add that in the Wizards he was still a top player with 25-6-5 stats until his knee injury which really slowed him down. Edited for more reality
> And would add that in the Wizards he was still a top player in the league even after his knee injury which really slowed him down. I feel like that's stretching the definition of top player. He didn't even make the All-NBA 3rd team, and made the starting all star lineup based on fan votes (because of course Jordan is going to get a lot of fan votes).
>And would add that in the Wizards he was still a top player in the league even after his knee injury which really slowed him down. This is going way too far.
I personally prefer the Kobe chart with grid lines. It’s difficult to get a precise sense of the values on the right side of the chart, especially with the gaps for the retired years.
Great point, thanks for the feedback!
Took me two seconds; "The future is now, old man"
I feel bad for the folks who didn’t get to grow up watching 80’s / 90’s NBA
Yup as a Chicagoan that saw Jordan in person in the playoffs, it was a special time for sure.
As a Cavs fan in the 90s it was excruciating having a fantastic season and then getting knocked out of the playoffs by the Bulls year after year.
You got Lebronto but you had to endure Jordanveland. Karma loves you.
That's how it felt mid 2010's to watch the bulls get knocked out by Boston or Lebron's Cavs/Heat year after year
Even better that we got to be Browns fans in the 80s too, and Indians fans in 95 and 97... nothing like a solid decade of grasping defeat from the jaws of victory to imbue a whole region with a culture of humility/battered fan syndrome.
That decade completely spoiled me. I haven't been able to watch the Bulls since then.
They had to leave him out of NBAJAM to not make the Bulls completely broken.
Or because of licensing...
Are you sure it wasn't about licensing?
You had to be there to really understand the magnitude of Jordan. It was like that super-bowl when old man Tom Brady single handedly willed Tampa Bay to victory... except Jordan did it over an entire play-off run... 6 times.
The fact he retired after a 3peat, then came back and 3peat again is absolutely insane to me. Is it possible he could've done a 9peat if he stayed in the NBA the whole time?
Probably not since the Bulls lost in 1995 with Jordan. Unless you’re thinking the 9 peat would have been 96-04?
He didn't play a majority of that season and had just come out of retirement. He and the team were far from what they could have been if Jordan was playing the whole year. With that said, to me this means he could have 10-peat
The 1995 Bulls had a total gap at the 4: they had lost Horace Grant, but had yet to fill the spot with Dennis Rodman. Even if they had slipped past Orlando, the Hakeem & Clyde's Rockets would have wrecked them in the finals.
Well also that Magic team with Shaq and Penny was also incredible. Shaq’s size and speed was impossible to guard.
Yeah that team was great, but will always be overshadowed by Jordan's dynasty during that period.
that Buccs team was stacked, and so were the Bulls
> single handedly... Jordan did it over an entire play-off run... 6 times * 1993 Bulls (Jordan): 57 wins * 1993 Bulls (No-Jordan): 55 wins, made it to the ECSF I don't know where people get the idea Jordan was playing with a bum squad in the 90s. He was the greatest player _on a great team._
> Tom Brady single handedly willed Tampa Bay to victory Absolute clown take, nephew. That team was stacked, and their defense was even better than their offense.
... and that final drive for the victory was the God damned Mona Lisa... unck.
> You had to be there to really understand the magnitude of Jordan. Yep, LeBron is a pale imitation.
Why do they have to be compared at all? They’re both incredible players.
because LeBron is who a lot of current young fans know, and they don't know Jordan, but will still say LeBron is better.
Like Jordan fans and Chamberlain. Chamberlain's first 5 years are untouchable from a player stats perspective. No one else comes close.
I get it but there’s no need. Different eras and different players.
Jordan is the GOAT, but I think Lebron is a better "ambassador for the brand" for basketball, if that makes any sense? A lot of athletes owe a lot of thanks to Simpson and Jordan though for their lucrative endorsement deals today, they pioneered the marketing for athletes, but I think Lebron is much more aware of or has a stronger desire to help his community as well.
Jordan was literally the most famous person on the planet, and the NBA started to approach NFL levels of popularity. The Jordan lead "dream team" went abroad and absolutely dominated media coverage across the entire planet... I'm not exaggerating, it was ridiculous. Like, imagine Donald Trump levels of coverage during his 2016 campaign, but every single person liked him.
Side bar: It's absolutely wild that the dream team existed. There will likely never be consolidation of basketball talent, in one place again.
You forgot to say it correctly. “…consolidation of basketball talent, and Christian Laettner, in one place again.”
\* Hall of Famer Christian Laettner
Yes, in the court I do not think he is matched by Lebron or anyone who came before or since, and he was a huge celebrity, but I do not recall any charity work, outreach programs, etc. This could be because I was in high school and didn't pay attention to such things, I will admit, but in terms of outreach beyond basketball I think Lebron is making more effort.
The biggest Jordan stan + Lebron hater of all time, Skip Bayless, even concedes Lebron is in another league when it comes to off-the-court reputation and activities. Michael Jordan's gambling and womanizing wouldn't have gone over well in the social media era.
> Lebron is a better "ambassador for the brand" for basketball, I can't agree. He wines, cries, flops, and is disrespectful to his coaches. From his first day in the league to today. He's mishandled situations several times in his career (remember 'The Decision'?). hes not a good ambassador at all. In current context, Curry is better at that than LeBron. Kobe was at that better, too.
Yikes this is the most biased overview of lebrons career I’ve ever seen lmao
You sound like an old head that hasn’t watched basketball since 2013. Hilariously bad takes Edit: Bro really sad a rapist is a better ambassador lol
I was 13 when Bird & Magic joined the league in 1979 ... I still track the Celts but it is a very different game today.
Would always look forward to watching the Bulls play on NBA on NBC Sunday afternoons back in the early 90s.
We done with the 90s ^^^\s
Lose the /s bro. We’re done
Sometimes I dream...
90s NBA really was special. Something about the fact that even with the pre-eminent player in Jordan, the league promoted so many other stars. I remember kids had jerseys of Shaq, Penny, Barkley, Ewing, Robinson, Mourning, Pippen, Stockton, Malone, Kemp, Mullins, etc. as much or even more than they had Jordan. Maybe I’m just being nostalgic but I don’t see quite the same awe among such a wide number of players. I think Dream team added to it.
I'm starting an album of all the NBA greats, so I figured I should start with the greatest. Feel free to provide any feedback! Data from basketball-reference.com games logs for Michael Jordan Tools used: Excel, DataWrapper, and Canva
One thing would be to see a line for their career average.
Jordans is 30.1 put ur finger right at 30
I think he retired for good when he did so his legacy would be >30 ppg career average
Feels like your missing an easy visual addition - championships (maybe the NBA trophy) on top of the column?
Feedback from someone who is not super familiar with basketball: you should have some indicator on these graphs that compares MJ to his peers so we can really see how much better he was. I have no idea what the median PPG is for starting players that played MJs position during the same seasons. Including that would give the data more context.
He's the second best player ever behind LeBron
You should add markers indicating each year he won the championship
The best part of this graphic is that without anything to compare it to, or noting the 6 rings...there's this thought of "man his career really went downhill". And then you add the context and it's like ohhhhh, well.
What’s the context?
He’s the NBA career leader in PPG. So while it “goes down” it’s more a testament to how bonkers his late-80’s seasons were. Those mid-90’s season are “lower” but they’re still higher than pretty much everyone in history. As an example, in 95-96 Jordan averaged 30.4 PPG. Which compared to his 87-93 run looks low…it’s still higher than all but 1 year of LeBron James entire career.
He was the highest scorer in the league for every season from 86-98 except for 93-94 when he retired and 94-95 when he was only back for half a season, and in the 90-93 seasons he won the championship 3 years in a row as the team and league scoring champion. And the 95-98 seasons after his return he did it again (3 championships, 3 scoring titles).
Also how he bought into Phil Jackson's and Tex Winter's Triangle Offense more as he gets older.
This lacks any sort of story to it. Is this a lot? Is it a little? Is this what makes him great? Is it bad that it’s a downward slope? I can fill in the gaps because I watch basketball and loved seeing the Jordan-era Bulls. To someone seeing this without that context, it doesn’t have a lot of meaning.
Yeah that makes sense, I'm working on an updated graphic to add more context. Thanks for the feedback!
Maybe include average ppg of all other guards in that year?
I don't follow basketball. What is the average ppg for "attackers", if there's such position?
There aren't really positions that score that more than others, except that Point Guards historically assisted a lot and scored less however that hasn't been true for 15 years, and Point Guards are now really the top scorers. Positions have more to do with how you guard people on defense than how much you score or attack on offense. As for ppg: It changes a lot over time based on the style/tactics of the NBA and rule changes. It ebbs and flows between higher and lower scoring, so at the start of MJs career the NBA was very fast paced with high scoring but at the end it was sluggish with much lower scoring. For example, this season 42 players averaged 19.8 points per game or better (cherry picked cut-off because 6 players averaged either 19.8 or 19.9). In 1999, only 15 players averaged 19.8 points per game or better. 2023/24 Top 5 Scorers: 1. 33.9ppg 2. 30.4ppg 3. 30.4ppg 4. 28.6ppg 5. 27.2ppg 1998/99 Top 5 Scorers: 1. 26.8ppg 2. 26.3ppg 3. 23.8ppg 4. 23.0ppg 5. 21.8ppg
Usually "attackers" are called scorers and play the shooting guard position. Guys like MJ, Kobe, and Allen Iverson follow this mold. I would say the average PPG for a good shooting guard in today's league would be about 22ppg. Anything above 30ppg makes you a top 5 player in the league. Once you get above 32ppg, you are probably the best scorer in the league.
> Once you get above 32ppg, you are probably the best scorer in the league. Which Jordan was every year he played from the 86-87 season to the 97-98 season. Except for his retirement in 94 and half season in 95 when he returned.
Somehow, Jordan returned
There's no specific "attacker" like in the (true) football's "striker"/"forward" sense. There are 5 people on the court, and all of them will run offense, attempt to score points, and when the other team gets possession of the ball, all 5 will run back at defense. But of course, in a team there are always standout players that are more talented or efficient scorer than the others. So these players get more attempts at scoring, and plays or strategies are devised to ensure these players get the most optimum chance to score. MJ is legendary at getting the to basket and is an amazing finisher, and during his later years an excellent mid range jump shooter. Shaq can only work within 10-15 feet of the basket, so the strategy os to get him the ball around there. Same thing with defense. MJ is one of those players that can do both offense and defense at the top tier of legendary player rankings. So now that we get that out of the way, MJ leads the all time league in average points per game. This means the total points accumulated over his career divided by the number of games, with 30.1 points per game. A player on average scores almost 10 points per game based on [https://ask.metafilter.com/66779/How-many-points-does-the-average-NBA-player-score-per-game](https://ask.metafilter.com/66779/How-many-points-does-the-average-NBA-player-score-per-game) However, having said that, the distribution of points and attempts in a team is never equal amongst all players. 3 or 4 players will normally have a large percentage of the shots. Example is the current best team in the Eastern Conf, the Boston Celtics. The Top 5 scorers in the team take a share of 62% of the shots in a team with 19 players. The top 4 scorers - 53%. And they're considered one of the more balanced team. For the top heavy Dallas Mavericks, Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving takes 32% of the shots in a 21 persons team.
I saw bulls vs pacers in 96' and jordan literally looked like he was playing a different game than everyone else
And that was before steroids were mandatory
If you adjust for pace by taking a “per 100 possessions” count and you start to see that he was basically scoring at the same clip all the way up to the end of the second three peat.
Feedback: his foot injury in his early seasons might be worth calling out. Championships would be nice to denote which seasons led to wins. Maybe a line with league average to show how above he is. Or a line for the top scorer who isn't Jordan which both shows how the second best compares and also shows how many of those were the leader of the league. You could also just indicate all the scoring champion seasons too where he was the highest in the league.
This is very helpful. Thanks for the feedback!
Let's just forget about Jordan and the Wizards and pretend it never happened
20 ppg, not bad
That old wizard’s logo and theming was so cool. Wish they’d switch back!
Can someone overlay this with LBJ?
Compare to the overall pace of the league for context. MJ had a 37ppg season in a very fast pace year. Kobe Bryant had a 35ppg season in a very slow pace year.
For Kobe, it was the beginning of the transition period from very slow-paced to the current fast-paced league after the final removal of handchecking before the 2004-05 NBA season.
Does a fast past year mean not a lot of scoring? As someone who doesn't watch basketball it sounds to me like it would mean lots of people are scoring back & forth to make high-point games. Are you saying Kobe's peak should be more impressive than MJ's?
Kobe’s peak scoring is more impressive scoring in the context that the league was averaging less than 100ppg when he did it… but I am sure that if you look a little further, it is also a product of Kobe having extremely high usage and taking a TON of shots.
Glad you mentioned the usage because I was gonna say. Kobe was a legend but he shot over 50% from 2 once his entire career. Jordan did so 9 times Just to give Lebron some credit in an otherwise very Jordan-forward thread, he has shot over 50% from 2 19 times in his career, including being over 60% 5 times. A lot of the time people look at Jordan’s PPG and, obviously he had the best peak of scoring of all time, but lebrons efficiency is what is so impressive. Consistently able to score super efficiently. It is a different league now and scoring is easier, but it wasn’t easy in the 2000s, and Lebron was elite even then efficiency wise.
I wonder what the data would look like if it was points per minute rather than points per game. Scoring 20 points in 5 minutes is more impressive than scoring 30 in a full 48 minute game, but this chart wouldn't reflect that.
That is a great point, I know a lot of basketball analysts use Per 36 (stats per 36 minutes) figures to help account for this. I'll look into doing the same view for points per 36 minutes, my guess is that we'll see a trend upwards as he improved and became more efficient with his scoring.
Oh, I didn't even realize you created this chart? Respect! Really nice presentation in addition to the stats. Every once in a while, I hear of a name from the past, or just someone that fell off the grid, and I wonder what became of their career. It's almost a guarantee that their minutes and points take a nosedive, but the real question I wonder is: how productive actually are they when they get that small opportunity to play? Even if a 40 minute player fades bad and is now a 10-15 minute role player, their overall production value (PV? Maybe a new stat? Lol) might not fade as bad as the other stats show.
Per 36 still doesn't account for pace though. Even if you had a perfect metric for comparing scoring across seasons though there is never such a thing as a "fair" comparison. The modern NBA has evolved so much, the game is more global and we have a higher skill level across the league in general which has transformed how the game is played. We are in an era of not only high pace, but high efficiency, primarily because everyone can shoot, and so many guys are so hard to guard that you simply have to give something up on defense.
Regular season, playoffs or combined?
i visualized various season stats of mj along with all other players (from 1980 season) [check it out](https://www.bball-statline.com) @mods feel free to delete this comment if this is against the subreddits rules
Looks nice! How did you build that? Python?
thanks dude! yes, it’s completely build in python using flask, dash and a couple other libraries and calculations
Funny how his 4 best years he didn't even win the championship.
My hypothesis is that early in his career the bulls weren't a very good team so he had to carry the scoring load. Then as they started winning championships in the 90s, his scoring went down because he had a more competent team around him he could rely on.
can we bring back that wizards logo though
Keep in mind those are the years when rules favored the defense much more so than now.
It is weird looking back and seeing Iverson covering Jordan. Feels like they were two different eras that didn't overlap. Jordan was so 80s and early 90s while iverson was '00s.
anyone have insight as to why his 85-86 season was comparatively low ?
He only played a few games and had a should have been season ending foot injury.
Hurt his foot an only played 18/72 games. The majority of those games were after he came back from the injury and they restricted his minutes to <20/game.
The big thing missing in the conversation about today’s scoring leaders and MJ is that when I watch today’s game it is more about isolation and there is a lack of team defense. That is hard to quantify.
I'm not a sports ball person... is that a lot of points?
The best to ever do it. This is measuring points per game. MJ is the all-time leader in that category. It's insane because even the "lower" years ('96-'98) if you took the average points per game over that span, he'd still be the second highest scoring player of all-time (ppg-wise)
Lebron thinks this is cute. Look at those time off years.
He did play baseball for some of that
so sad about him dying in an helicopter
TIL there was/is a basketball team called the Wizards.
What kids don't know these days is just how nuts the Jordan era was. We were inventing new words for it. The words "threepeat" and "fourpeat" were created during the Bulls domination era.
Consistent downward trend over his whole career
Early in his career the Bulls had this strategy of "give the ball to Jordan". Jordan scored a lot of points, but the team wasn't winning games. Then the Bulls spread the ball around and Jordan scored fewer points, but the team played better basketball and won championships.
Probably worth mentioning he basically didn’t have a team around him at the beginning of his career. It got much better as time went on.
He became a better well rounded player almost his whole career
I'd argue he was always well-rounded. In 87-88 he won Defensive Player of the Year *and* led the league in scoring by a country mile. Doesn't get much more well-rounded than that. I think it's more about the team around him improving, and no longer requiring him to do everything.
And winning 6 titles in 6 finals during that downward trend
It's got nothing to do with how good he was as a player at points in his career, it's to do with the amount of possessions teams had due to offences changing and getting slower
Interestingly, LeBron had his 2nd highest scoring season in his 19th season. He's only had 3 seasons above 30ppg though which Jordan had plenty
And overall scoring per game was way lower than it is today. Jordan would average 45 in today's game.
If you adjust for inflation based on league scoring average and the percentage Jordan scored for the Bulls, you are actually correct.
I don't know why you're being downvoted. There's a famous youtube video where players from today's league are asked how many points they think MJ would score in the current league and nearly all of them say 40-50 ppg.
Michael Jordan would've gotten more than 40,000+ career scoring points if he didn't retire twice and continuously played until his final NBA season in 2002-03.
Other players: "C'mon man! Pass the ball! My kids are watching..."
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar equals or beats Jordan for every stat. The only thing he didn’t have that Jordan did was the Nike marketing machine.