Best Non-MVP Regular Seasons in NBA History

[OhayoKD]

90 MJ is a GOAT caliber season, probably THE GOAT season, in fact.

I don't think THE GOAT season produces 50 wins with a 30 win cast(that's the low-end estimate btw). Maybe THE GOAT slashline

[OhayoKD]

Probably a prime season from Jordan, James, Chamberlain, perhaps Russell.

feel like russell (and maybe wilt) seasons would top the list as far as a relative to era comp goes.

[JordansBulls]

I’d say limit it to guys who won less than 3

[pedrobrazil1000]

Harden the year Russ won the MVP

18´LeBron also deserves a honorable mention. He was amazing.

Also, 22´Giannis had a 32 PER season (better than both years when he won MVP),

[No-more-rings]

90 MJ is a GOAT caliber season, probably THE GOAT season, in fact.

I don't think THE GOAT season produces 50 wins with a 30 win cast(that's the low-end estimate btw). Maybe THE GOAT slashline

55 wins…and that team is more like 25-28 wins realistically, not enough offensive creation outside of Pippen to do much better than that.

You can argue there are better ones, but it doesn’t seem blasphemous to put that in contention with goat regular seasons. Unless you think Jordan wasn’t as good as his box scores somehow.

[OhayoKD]

90 MJ is a GOAT caliber season, probably THE GOAT season, in fact.

I don't think THE GOAT season produces 50 wins with a 30 win cast(that's the low-end estimate btw). Maybe THE GOAT slashline

55 wins…and that team is more like 25-28 wins realistically, not enough offensive creation outside of Pippen to do much better than that.

A much weaker version of that team won 27 games in 1984. So no, realistically, "30 win" is an extremely generous estimate. There was rolling srs analysis that put it at 40 wins but since i can't find i'm going to be kind and use the 84 bulls as a baseline. If your claim is that Jordan is ~ rookie kareem, it's a solid result. If you're claiming it's the best regular season ever, then no, 55 wins is a pretty terrible outcome.

but it doesn’t seem blasphemous to put that in contention with goat regular seasons. Unless you think Jordan wasn’t as good as his box scores somehow.

A guard's box-score being inflated relative to their actual value is obvious no? The only basic box-stats pertaining to defense are steals and blocks. You've been on this forum long enough to know that virtually all signals on Jordan's defensive impact are fairly pathetic relative to his steal/block totals.

You've also been on here long enough to know Jordan performs dramatically worse relative to his historical peers the less the box-score is a factor in a metric/method of analysis.

Yet "somehow" we're justifying a 55 win regular season as the "goat" because of his box-stats...

[Ein Sof]

In no particular order:

2018 LeBron
2006 LeBron
2011 LeBron
2020 LeBron
2022 LeBron
2003 TMac
1994 Robinson

[No-more-rings]

A much weaker version of that team won 27 games in 1984. So no, realistically, "30 win" is an extremely generous estimate. There was rolling srs analysis that put it at 40 wins but since i can't find i'm going to be kind and use the 84 bulls as a baseline. If your claim is that Jordan is ~ rookie kareem, it's a solid result. If you're claiming it's the best regular season ever, then no, 55 wins is a pretty terrible outcome.

Wait how is 84 anything like the same team? They were a better defense than the 1990 Bulls even with Jordan playing. You are just making up crap as you go along here.

Pippen and Grant weren't all league defenders yet, and on offense they would be very bad without Jordan.

Just as a reference to your 30+ wins, the Bullets won 31 games that year and averaged 107.7 ppg that year. Outside of Jordan the rest of the cast averaged 75.9. Where are they getting that other 30+ points to even become an average offense?

A guard's box-score being inflated relative to their actual value is obvious no? The only basic box-stats pertaining to defense are steals and blocks. You've been on this forum long enough to know that virtually all signals on Jordan's defensive impact are fairly pathetic relative to his steal/block totals.

Eh, not sure I totally follow you here. Saying Jordan's defense is overrated, doesn't mean his box scores are inflated. Not sure what you're referring to when you say all "signals" indicate Jordan's defense is overrated.

Was there some extensive study done on this? Who did it? I think you're just likely making up more crap.

You've also been on here long enough to know Jordan performs dramatically worse relative to his historical peers the less the box-score is a factor in a metric/method of analysis.

Such as what and compared to who? I've seen some indicate that Lebron could be above, though to be fair we don't have the same amount of data to guy by for Jordan's real peaks years.

Yet "somehow" we're justifying a 55 win regular season as the "goat" because of his box-stats...

Well last I checked, his "box scores" are what won games that year .

Aside from that, I never knew 55 wins with a subpar supporting cast was something bad.

That's more or less what's been in line with typical goat caliber floor raising seasons, Drob's best statistical season resulted in 55 wins, Kg's mvp season resulted in 58 wins, and Duncan's mvps resulted in 58 and 60 wins.

We can talk about how Lebron got 66 in a goat level floor raise season, we can discuss how that was better than Jordan's although just going by win total and calling it a day seems like a lazy way out of discussion.

[AEnigma]

Well last I checked, his "box scores" are what won games that year .

Aside from that, I never knew 55 wins with a subpar supporting cast was something bad.

That's more or less what's been in line with typical goat caliber floor raising seasons, Drob's best statistical season resulted in 55 wins, Kg's mvp season resulted in 58 wins, and Duncan's mvps resulted in 58 and 60 wins.

We can talk about how Lebron got 66 in a goat level floor raise season, we can discuss how that was better than Jordan's although just going by win total and calling it a day seems like a lazy way out of discussion.

I mean yeah this is his main point. The 1990 Bulls supporting cast was a good deal better than the 1994-96 Spurs, 2003-04 Wolves, and 2009-10 Cavaliers, so what is the argument for it being the best regular season. 1988 works a lot better there in much the same sense that 2009 is Lebron’s most impressive regular season.

[No-more-rings]

Well last I checked, his "box scores" are what won games that year .

Aside from that, I never knew 55 wins with a subpar supporting cast was something bad.

That's more or less what's been in line with typical goat caliber floor raising seasons, Drob's best statistical season resulted in 55 wins, Kg's mvp season resulted in 58 wins, and Duncan's mvps resulted in 58 and 60 wins.

We can talk about how Lebron got 66 in a goat level floor raise season, we can discuss how that was better than Jordan's although just going by win total and calling it a day seems like a lazy way out of discussion.

I mean yeah this is his main point. The 1990 Bulls supporting cast was a good deal better than the 1994-96 Spurs, 2003-04 Wolves, and 2009-10 Cavaliers, so what is the argument for it being the best regular season. 1988 works a lot better there in much the same sense that 2009 is Lebron’s most impressive regular season.

I don’t agree that cast was a “great deal” better than the ones you mentioned. In fact I don’t see what makes it any better at all.

What makes you say that?

[AEnigma]

For one, not dismissing the quality of play of Pippen and Grant simply because they were even better the following year. What exactly is your assessment of the apparently massive leap in skill they both took in one offseason. Because being mildly less efficient scorers and defenders and for the sake of argument passers does not make either of them the equivalent to Mo Williams. It is better to have slightly rawer top players than limited ones playing at their peak.

[OhayoKD]

Wait how is 84 anything like the same team? They were a better defense than the 1990 Bulls even with Jordan playing. You are just making up crap as you go along here.

Why are you cherrypicking defensive rating? The 86 bulls play without jordan matches up with how they played in 84 and the Bulls then added Pippen and Grant(who by 90's were already established starters), cartwright, armstrong, Phil Jackson, and the triangle leading to their srs dramatically improving over the course of the season.

Unless you think Phil, Pippen, and Grant made the bulls worse(not to mention that we directly saw the result of the cast improving with the bulls rolling srs), 30 wins is a generous assessment(to jordan) of how bad the Bulls were in 1990.

There's also the matter of the Bulls lineup ratings without jordan steadily improving between 86 and 90.

You're welcome to make unsubstantiated guesses at how good teams are, but this unsubstantiated guess doens't track with reality.

Just as a reference to your 30+ wins, the Bullets won 31 games that year and averaged 107.7 ppg that year. Outside of Jordan the rest of the cast averaged 75.9. Where are they getting that other 30+ points to even become an average offense?

You do understand that points don't just magically dissapear, right? Similarly offense/defensive focus can change schematically depending on personell.

Again...

The bulls lineup rating without jordan improved between 86(when they played as well as they did without mj in 84) 90 and the trinagle/jackson/grant/pippen improving led to a dramatic increase in srs over the course of the 1990 season.

Is this really the hill you wanna die on?

Eh, not sure I totally follow you here. Saying Jordan's defense is overrated, doesn't mean his box scores are inflated. Not sure what you're referring to when you say all "signals" indicate Jordan's defense is overrated.

Was there some extensive study done on this? Who did it? I think you're just likely making up more crap.

If jordan's defensive impact isn't on par with historical peers you're placing his regular season above, then yes, actually, the box-score would inflate his "goodness". Here's a quick tldr:
-> Every impact stat that splits defensive impact and offensive impact has jordan's best year(88) well below the likes of lebron, kawhi, and pippen, let alone hakeem, duncan, ect. Even lebron's 2020 rs compares favorably. RAPTOR is the exception as it places jordan's best ahead of all the non-2009 lebron years by a bit but he still trails all the bigs dramatically.
-> RAPM for MJ so far has him at +1.5 on D at his best. One of his better defensive scores and it doesn't stack up to lebron let alone -> Cutting out colinearity issues/mega regularization, Jordan has only anchored one good regular season defense(1988) which immedately collapsed to mediocrity when co-paint protector Oakley departed
-> Jordan's defensive metrics granular and holistic all faded between 1988 and 1991 and yet the bulls jumped from average to the best defense in the league coinciding with Pippen and Grant's acension(granular tracking og the 91 yoffs has Pippen making as many plays in the paint as grant and more plays on the perimiter than jordan with a lower ratio of defensive breakdowns to plays than either mj or grant)
-> The bulls were unaffected defensively by Jordan's depature in 93
-> Steals per game to d-rating analysis showed that Kawhi's steals had a stronger correlation with improved defensive rating than jordan despite jordan averaging more steals per game, supporitng the idea that there was a trade-off to his gambling

If you go by slashline either defense is not a factor ooor steals and blocks(which jordan racked up a high volume of) are how you assess defense. Unless you think Jordan was as good defensively as all the other atg's, his box-score would inflate his goodness, something backed up by "the best regular season ever" leading to less wins than rookie kareem.

Such as what and compared to who? I've seen some indicate that Lebron could be above, though to be fair we don't have the same amount of data to guy by for Jordan's real peaks years.

Even with Lebron, jordan does much better in box-aggregates and box-plus minus than he does with anything else..

This becomes even bigger with players like Duncan and Hakeem who don't match him in BPM but compre favorably using real-life impact signals and even can outdo him with a less offensive slated metric like PIPM or AUPM.

Well last I checked, his "box scores" are what won games that year .

What is this supposed to mean? Can I not say this for every all-time great who won more?

Aside from that, I never knew 55 wins with a subpar supporting cast was something bad.

That's more or less what's been in line with typical goat caliber floor raising seasons, Drob's best statistical season resulted in 55 wins, Kg's mvp season resulted in 58 wins, and Duncan's mvps resulted in 58 and 60 wins.

We can talk about how Lebron got 66 in a goat level floor raise season, we can discuss how that was better than Jordan's although just going by win total and calling it a day seems like a lazy way out of discussion.

[/quote]
You understand the standard here is "best regular season ever" right? Not being "something bad" doesn't cut it. It's rather telling you listed three examples of players(who jordan's regular season was allegedly better than) winning more games than Jordan did with less or comparable help. Again, Kareem joined an equally bad team and won more games as a rookie than Jordan managed in 90 without any signifcant additions. Surely that's not too high a bar to clear?

I also have no idea why you're designating leading one of the best rs teams ever as "floor-raising", but I would think the burden is on those backing Jordan to provide positive counter-evidence when they're making the claim that leading the bulls to 55 wins is the most impressive regular season ever.