How the hell did the 93-94 Bulls manage to go 55-27 after losing MJ?

[ScrantonBulls]

It's incredible what that team did. In 92-93 they went 57-25 and won the chip. MJ retires to play baseball, and they go 55-27 next season. Should have beaten the Knicks and contended for a title too IMO.

They made some minor changes. Tony Kukoc being the biggest. They added Luc Longley, but he was only a 7 pt and 5 reb guy that season.

Was Kukoc THAT good and just generally underrated? It's crazy how a team can lose a GOAT in his prime and still only lose 2 fewer games the next season.

[RRR3]

Pippen was pretty great.

[EmpireFalls]

A Bulls fan asks this question? Aren’t you supposed to tell us?

[DirtyDez]

Because they were sick of MJ so everyone had a bigger role and great chemistry for a season. Until Pippen bowed out of a playoff game that is.

[Himothy Duncan]

Because that dude from NC was all smoke and mirrors backed by the Nike and Gatorade hype machine.

[The Master]

1. They improved their roster excluding Jordan in '94 vs '93.
2. Bulls, maybe besides '98 - had a super team in the 90s (adjusted to the league level after expansion), so without Jordan they were still a ~2nd tier contender.
3. Bulls were +8.6, +10.1 and +6.2 SRS team in 91-93 period and +2.9 in '94 (and +4.3 SRS in '95), so they regressed much more than 2 wins in '94 vs '93, as they underperformed in '93 after b2b. Jordan improving Bulls from ~2nd-tier contender to ~GOAT-level team (91-93 and 96-98) is ~GOAT-level impact.

That's the interpretation.

[Effigy]

It's incredible what that team did. In 92-93 they went 57-25 and won the chip. MJ retires to play baseball, and they go 55-27 next season. Should have beaten the Knicks and contended for a title too IMO.

They made some minor changes. Tony Kukoc being the biggest. They added Luc Longley, but he was only a 7 pt and 5 reb guy that season.

Was Kukoc THAT good and just generally underrated? It's crazy how a team can lose a GOAT in his prime and still only lose 2 fewer games the next season.

They didn’t only lose 2 more games the next season. They also lost in the second round of the playoffs after winning 3 titles in a row. Sometimes teams overachieve. The next year the Bullls had the regression more like you would expect before MJ came back.

[Snake3]

Phil Jackson was a great coach.

Pippen was a great player.

Triangle was great system.

Bulls role players stepped up.

[picko]

There are a few things going on.

First, they still had a lot of talent and a great coach and that can certainly take you a long way. Pippen, Grant, Kukoc is a pretty good core in 1994. Pippen and Grant were able to take on additional offensive responsibilities - and did so without becoming less efficient - while Kukoc was a new addition and had a very nice rookie campaign. Jordan's loss was mainly felt on the offensive end, with his absence seeming to have little meaningful impact defensively.

Second, the record underestimates the gap between the two teams. In 1992-93 the Bulls had a net rating of +6.8 (2nd in the NBA) which was consistent with a 58-24 record (actual record 57-25), whereas the 1993-94 Bulls had a net rating of +3.4 (11th in the NBA) which was consistent with a 50-32 record (actual record 55-27).

So their net rating suggested that there should have been an 8 win difference between the two teams, compared to the actual gap of 2 wins. That suggests that the 1993-94 team managed to win a lot of really close games - they were 13-3 in games decided by 3 points or less - whereas the 1992-93 team wasn't so successful in those types of games (7-7). Close games tend to be a bit of a coin-flip and so if a team has a really great or terrible record in such games it can make their record look a lot better or worse than it should be.

[The Master]

They didn’t only lose 2 more games the next season. They also lost in the second round of the playoffs after winning 3 titles in a row. Sometimes teams overachieve. The next year the Bullls had the regression more like you would expect before MJ came back.

Not really.

First, in '95 they lost Horace Grant.

Second, record-wise, they (statistically) overperformed in '94 in the regular season, but underperformed in '95 (before Jordan returned) vs their SRS.

94: +2.9 SRS, 55-27
95: ~ +4 SRS, 34-31

Average: +3.6 SRS, pace for +49 wins in 82-game season.

Obviously, the irony is they were better statistically in '95 despite losing Grant and yet had much better record in '94.

They also played a very close series against Knicks (+6 SRS team) in '94, eventually losing. That's enough data to say they were a ~2nd tier contending team, especially in '94. Hard to argue that they overperformed in '94 when in ~145 games sample they were a ~50W, +3.6 SRS team in the regular season, despite losing Horace Grant in '95, without Jordan.

~+3.6 SRS is a ~top8-level team in regular season - and obviously they had championship-level experience and GOAT-level coaching in the playoffs, that's why they were able to play such competitive series against Knicks without MJ.

[scrabbarista]

They were tired after three-peating with the same roster the previous year.

They added Kukoc, Longley, and Kerr, all rotation players in the second three-peat.

Their SRS in '94 was much lower than a 55 win team should've been, so there was a lot of luck involved, and they were probably more like a 48 win team. In fact, the next season, the team pretty much only lost Horace Grant, and they went 34-31, less than a 43-win pace.

Everyone was very motivated to prove themselves without the GoAT.

They lost in the Second Round.

There was a lot more to it than this, but that's the best I can do off the top of my head.

There are old threads that break all of this down in much, much more detail. You can find them if you really want to know.

Hint: it's not because Michael Jordan was worth 2 wins.

[Hellcrooner]

Because not only was pippen greater thatn what people thinks.
Bulls were Deep as ****.

and also
The competition was NOT THAT GOOD , the old timers had wanned ( bird, magic, kareem, thomas etc etc) and the new dudes were just too young.

Refs screwed them against the knicks.
Im not entirely convinced they would have not defeated the Rockets in teh finals if they had been allowed to get there.

[FarBeyondDriven]

Pippen, Armstrong and Grant were smack dab in their primes. They added an amazing talent in Kukoc who wasn't your typical rookie since he was a seasoned pro from overseas and just entering his prime. They improved their front court depth. They were in the same system with the same coach. Continuity really counts for something in the NBA

[scrabbarista]

Because not only was pippen greater thatn what people thinks.
Bulls were Deep as ****.

and also
The competition was NOT THAT GOOD , the old timers had wanned ( bird, magic, kareem, thomas etc etc) and the new dudes were just too young.

Refs screwed them against the knicks.
Im not entirely convinced they would have not defeated the Rockets in teh finals if they had been allowed to get there.

[Rust_Cohle]

The ‘93 Bulls’ rORTG - 4.9, 2nd ranked
The ‘94 Bulls’ rORTG - -0.2, 14th ranked
The ‘95 Bulls’ rORTG - 1.2, 10th ranked
The ‘96 Bulls’ rORTG - 7.6, 1st ranked
There’s a clear, in fact aggressive correlation between Jordan’s presence on and off the team, and whether he spent a full season’s worth of time with them.

They won games in ‘94 because they had two DPOY-caliber forwards, the best coach in the league, and much-needed career years from B.J. Armstrong and a rookie Toni Kukoč.

[MavsDirk41]

Your a Bulls fan and you dont know?

[MrPainfulTruth]

Hes not a bulls fan, this is just an angle shot at MJ as usual from this guy.

[zimpy27]

They were an impressive team even without Jordan.

Not quite GSW without Durant level. More like Celtics without Jaylen Brown.

[FeatheryTouch]

Maybe it was a bit of a statistical outlier compared with the year before, but even without Jordan it was still a talented roster(Pippen was a top-10 player in the league at that time for sure) with fresh championship experience and quality coaching(Phil and Tex at the peak of their powers) and infrastructure.

[Calvin Klein]

Winning 55 games is not some kind of amazing feat that only contenders do. There's plenty of teams that have won 55 games without having a generational superstar.

Anyways, troll thread as always from this one.