f4p wrote:AEnigma wrote:— ~28 shots per 75 possessions / 36 minutes
— Using 1997 Jordan’s free throw rate (again, likely higher than it would be today relative to era norms), he takes 7.5 free throws, making 6.2 of them
— Using Booker as an analogue, 1997 Jordan takes 7 threes and converts on 2.5 of them
— Using Mitchell as an analogue, 1997 Jordan attempts 5 field goals within three feet of the basket and converts on 3.5 of them
— He makes 50% of all remaining shots because he is an incredible midrange shooter
How good of an overall scorer would that be? For my eye, very impressive, but not exactly best in the league level on its own merits.
am i just not understanding this example? that would be 6.2 pts from ft's, 7.5 from 3's, 7 from close 2's, and 16 on his 16 other shot attempts from 3-22 feet (16 shots, 50%), which would be 36.7 ppg. that seems pretty good. i would struggle to think he's only going to be at 58.6 TS% in this era so maybe a minimum of 1.5 less shots is what i would think. even looking at 1997, you had guys like KJ and rice and miller who easily outpaced jordan in TS%, but that didn't really change the end calculation that he was the best player. i think y'all underestimate the impact of his volume, even if it wasn't right at the tippy top of efficiency.
Where do you see him rising above 58.6% TS in that example? You arbitrarily reduce shooting volume without examination, or address of AEnigma's specific discussion of how he came to those numbers. Part of the problem in this whole conversation is that people are crediting Jordan, in his mid-30s, with an ability to just sort of "get better" than he was at that time in terms of efficiency.
He was older. He had already begun to drive a little less aggressively and shoot more jumpers. His FTr was already dropping relative to his earlier days. He had himself admitted that he was a little slower, not able to shoot the gap as much as he'd done when he was younger. Yeah, there's some trade-off with the way things are officiated right now, but that goes only so far. In 2012 and 2013 at a similar age, Kobe did manage to post .338 and .392 FTr, but at 20.1 FGA36 instead of 28... which is not actually the shooting volume that MJ posted in his own 97 campaign (21.9, which is similar to the 21.5 from Kobe's 2012 lockout campaign). LAL played at 90.5 possessions per game that year and Kobe played 38.5 mpg, which is a minutes load we haven't seen in some time and likely wouldn't happen for MJ in the modern age. The 97 Bulls played at 90 possessions per game and Jordan played 37.9. I touched on this earlier, but league average is 99.4 right now in 2023. The slowest team in the league is playing at 95.4 possessions per game. That's an extra load on older bodies with large minutes loads already on them, which is what we're discussing with Jordan. MJ posted a .304 FTr in his own 97 campaign. AEnigma scaled that down with an escalated shooting volume (which makes sense, especially with more 3s and the emphasis on mid-range shooting Jordan clearly had in his actual 97 season).
Like, I get it: MJ was great. He has one of the best GOAT arguments out there, with less than a handful of other guys who really belong in that discussion with him. He was also a marvelous physical specimen, exceptionally skilled and dedicated to his craft. Good stuff. Even at 33/34, he was pretty athletic, though not the same as he'd been in his 20s, which is just a physical reality. Stronger, less explosive, still had great elevation on his J. Far less likely to boom on you than he was to stick a fadeaway in your face, but you didn't want to give him a lane or leave him unchecked in transition, for sure, and from time to time? He'd bring the thunder. But it wasn't the same as even during the first three-peat, which is normal. He found other ways, and that's awesome.
There's a temptation to believe that players have unlimited scalability, though, and I think there's a little of that at play here. And then there's also the question of exactly how you think a player would adapt. Some guys foul-bait like absolute demons to get their higher FTr (Harden comes to mind, as does Embiid). And beyond that, volume 3pt shooting has become a thing. So something people have continually failed ITT to address is Jordan's mentality ABOUT 3pt shooting. When we're speaking of translating a player forward, if you fundamentally change the way they thought about the game and HOW they played the game, are we even then speaking of the same player? Is that a relevant discussion any longer? Adaptation is great, but without recognition of physical limitation and how the player actually approach the game, then what are we even discussing?
If we're talking about 27 year-old MJ, he'd dominate the hell out of the league and would probably be a wild-ass helio player. His turnover rate would rise but he'd jam out higher assist rates than he produced in his own career because sure, that's fine. Teams would arrange the PnR and mismatch-hunting switch game for him and he'd go to work with his ridiculous acceleration. That is a foregone conclusion. But that wasn't how Jordan was playing in 97, and he wasn't even doing what he'd been doing in his own career during his 20s. He'd slowed down some, had to conserve energy a little more, spent more time moving without the ball. he certainly wasn't slow, I don't mean to suggest that. He still had a really nice change-of-pace crossover, and against a lot of defenders, he could still turn on the jets when he had the angle. But he was a half-step slower than he'd been before and went to the J a lot more, that's just how his game worked. We can see it easily enough in basic things like how 58.7% of his shooting volume came from 10 feet out to the 3pt line, and an additional 15.7% from 3.... aka just shy of 3/4s of his shots from 10+ feet. That didn't happen because he was getting to the rim the same way he did as a younger player.
Now, to some extent, he was always going to adapt and benefit from some things from the new era. That's a given. The discussion comes from the idea of "to what extent does this affect his game?" 3pt shooting is a huge, huge part of why perimeter guys are more efficient right now, and that's a large question with MJ. But following AEnigma, let's assume that he does crack off 7 3PA/g and even that he shoots 36% or so. In order to facilitate that, he's got to shoot even less in close and be even less likely to draw fouls. Jordan wasn't a foul-baiter. He did the little leg kick on his fadeaway like Reggie and Malone, mostly as he got older, but he wasn't an aggressive foul-baiter and it went away from a lot of his basic mentality in-era. Change that, change the nature of the player you're discussing.
I don't agree with the shooting rate that AEnigma tossed out. He didn't post a shooting rate that high in his own career even in in 87, and neither have Harden or Durant. Neither has Lebron. So that's inflating the volume in that given situation.
So let's bring this down to 22 FGA, 15 of which will be beneath the arc. Let's be generous and say he hits .400 FTr "because of the era," even though that's still probably too high, so that's 8.8 FTA/g. Real Jordan shot 83.3% that year, so let's give him roughly that, which is about 7.3 FTM/g. Let's say 35.7% from 3 on 7 3PA/g, so 2.5 3PM/g. That leaves him 15 FGA/g, and we'll say he shoots 8/15, or 53.3% on those. He hadn't shot that well on 2s since 1992, but we'll call that era, add in some love for the faster tempo creating more transition opportunities and so forth and call it good. Harden's a career 51.0% 2FG guy, Kobe peaked at 51% FG in 2013, and Ja Morant shot 53% in 2022. *shrug* We'll be generous, if only to illustrate how much has to go right to get to this specific plateau, and with a little love because it's MJ, even the Old Bull.
Now we're talking 30.8 ppg on 59.5% TS, or +2.5% rTS. Which is actually similar to what he did in his career.
I am still a little stuck on that 3pt shooting volume and don't think MJ would blast it out like that. I think he'd probably end up at a more Durant-like 4.5 3PA/g, grudgingly, but whatever, it's a thought exercise. He has two seasons in his career without the pulled-in line where he took a semi-modern volume of 3pt shooting (90 and 93), and he was pretty decent those years. Moving from that to having a Ray Allen-like season is a different thing, but if Lebron can manage capably, Jordan probably could if he put his mind to it. One undeniable difference between the two is that MJ was clearly the better shooter, even if his mechanics were a little better-suited to mid-range Js. They were still better than Lebron's are now, heh.
Okay. So now we're got MJ at a strong volume and a decent level of efficiency, comparable to what he was doing in his own time. Probably still a similar level of ball protection because he moves so much without the ball and attacks so effectively in transition, nice. It's not titanic stuff, but it's efficient usage of those possessions. He's not playing helio while doing any of that, though. He wasn't in his own time and it's unlikely that would change. Again, we'd have to be discussing a whole different player if that were the case, and that's sort of fruitless, theater-of-the-mind type stuff even more than is this basic exercise.
comparing him to KD, who also loves the midrange, would seem to make me think he would score something like KD, very likely more volume but less efficiency (though KD is off to a crazy start this year so we'll see if he can stay at 67%), while being a better passer and probably better defender.
Things to factor in... KD is nearly half a foot taller than Jordan, and a dramatically superior shooter. That makes a large difference in many facets of how he drives his efficiency. That isn't a particularly good direct comparison as far as assessing how one player's game might function. KD has a competitive advantage against a lot of the defenders he faces. He's faster and more comfortable outside than the bigger guys and with his height, wingspan and high release, that J is brutal to guard for smaller defenders as well. He does also have issues when you get a shorter guy who can stay in front of him, though, much as did Dirk prior to him really doubling down on his mid-post game (I'm remembering Shawn Marion and James Posey and so forth).
The other deal here is you're leaning really hard on the idea that MJ's passing would be a major factor here. His passing volume was already depressed during the second 3pt as he adapted his game. Jordan made clever passes when he was put into situations when they were warranted, of course; he was a skilled passer with good vision. But 97 Jordan was past the point where he was spamming a lot of POA sets. Might it happen if he ended up on a team where he didn't have another major ball-handler? Sure, but then you'd expect a concurrent drop of some form in his efficiency, shooting volume... or maybe more games missed due to injury. Or load management. Or maybe not; Jordan was an iron man and able to handle an offensive load to an extent we haven't really seen in the 3pt era, so, maybe he helios even in his 30s just fine. But it WOULD be a major departure from how he actually played and would be an extra level of stress on the body.
Either way, though. +2.5% rTS on 30.8 ppg would be pretty amazing. And he would be something like a 6 rpg and 4.5 apg guy who was a solid defender. So let's circle back to that level of scoring over the past 4 or 5 seasons. 2018 forward, there are 7 player-seasons of 60+ GP, 30+ ppg and 59%+ TS.
Embiid had one last year, Steph had one in 2021, as did Bradley Beal. Dame in 2020.
Harden has the other 3 (18-20). All but Beal were actually at 61.6% TS or better (Beal was 59.3%). All but Embiid shot 85.8% or better from the line. In 5 of those 7 seasons, the player took 10+ 3PA/g. Beal took 6.2, Embiid 3.7 (but he's a center, obviously, and a mad foul-baiter).
So, it's interesting enough that Jordan would potentially be in that discussion, even on the lower end of efficiency. But it nicely illustrates the point of how much of a role 3pt shooting plays into things.
