[Project:Primes of the top 10 ever] List the top 12 seasons between Michael Jordan vs. Larry Bird

[His Dudeness]

I definitely hope to contribute. Very disappointed to have missed out on Russell v Wilt

[Djoker]

Maybe I couldn't word it in the way I wanted to.

Imagine the situation as Jordan letting a mini fast-break in half-court with his (over)aggressiveness. Jordan's steals usually turned into open-court fast-break points and his failed attempts also did. When he gambled, didn't pay off, in that moment, he was not just slightly out of position, he was entirely out of position. He was giving up too many easy 2 on 1s or 3 on 2s. That sheer havoc as you referred to, didn't pay off as much as you'd think. That was kind of my point.

I can agree with this.

Jordan was definitely a worse player than before when he came back. It's actually quite visible. He was stronger during the 2nd 3peat but he wasn't just as agile as before, he wasn't scoring on the efficiency he was scoring before (he lost around 5% relative ts), his playmaking value took a dive basically, his defense was also worse as he was picking his moments to play defense, his motor was lower, his awareness was different (a bit worse), etc.

1985 Bird was a better player because he was making a bigger difference for his team. Just simple as that. His playmaking volume was higher, his off-ball value was higher, he was a better passer, he was a better rebounder, he wasn't a better defender but he wasn't picking his moments unlike Jordan, so defensive end is kind of a wash. Surely Jordan was still a better scorer but that's not enough for me. 1985 was goat level regular season from him but that usually goes unnoticed due to the bar fight incident during the playoffs.

His rTS also took a dive because he started playing more from the midrange. That's a naturally a less efficient area of the court. He also gambled less for steals which means fewer runouts for dunks. There's no doubt fast break opportunities helped Jordan's efficiency! Playmaking wise I agree. His playmaking responsibilities were generally reduced but I think that is the biggest area of decline though and to a lesser extent defense.

Good points about Bird's regular season. Sometimes the emphasis on the playoffs is a bit too strong and I think I'm guilty of that to some degree in all comparisons.

Jordan always went all-out in the playoffs. There's no doubt about that. This looks like a media fed, narrative talking. To be honest, some of your argument is looking like for Jordan the myth, rather than Jordan the player.
In 1992, the Knicks and the Blazers
In 1993, the Knicks and the Suns
In 1996, the Sonics
In 1997, the Jazz
All of these teams were pretty great teams, demanded the best out of Jordan and Jordan brought his best against them. Some of them turned out to be entirely insane performances like 1993 NBA Finals (one shot away from a game 7 still) or rather below average performances like 1992 2nd round or 1996 NBA Finals.

Also we do not reward for players "the potential there was" in this project, do we? If we're going down that road, there's no point in recognising injuries (1985 Bird is a very alive example of this right now) or even issues without injuries such as LeBron James' issues during regular season in 2018.

I didn't mean that he wasn't trying. It's just that the 1996 and 1997 Bulls were so dominant that maybe there was no need for him to put up the numbers that he did in say 1992 and 1993. That's all I meant to say. Maybe I didn't express myself properly.

[sansterre]

1. 1991 Michael Jordan
2. 1990 Michael Jordan
3. 1989 Michael Jordan

These three are a pretty good ways above everything else.

4. 1988 Michael Jordan
5. 1993 Michael Jordan
6. 1992 Michael Jodan

These could be in any order. '88 is still in his fireball prime when he was setting fire to everything and a better pure scorer, but less of a passer and a more erratic defender. '93 is the ultimate carry-job season, where his efficiency suffered and he had to take on way, way more of the offense than the #1 option of a championship-caliber team should. From a pure analytics point of view '93 falls a little short (low efficiency) but it was a classic "this was what the team needed" season. And '92 was a blend of excellence in everything.

7. 1986 Larry Bird

I really wanted this higher, because I have so much respect for Bird's game. But Jordan at his best was . . . on on another level. Even Backpicks CORP values would have '86 Bird 7th, and that's with how portable Bird was.

8. 1984 Larry Bird
9. 1996 Michael Jordan
10. 1987 Larry Bird
11. 1997 Michael Jordan

I have a soft spot for '84 Bird. Larry was never really optimized to be a #1 option, and he often struggled with postseason resilience. 1984 was the season where he pretty much carried the roster in the playoffs, and I've always appreciated that season for that reason. As for the rest, you could put these four in pretty much any order.

12. 1987 Michael Jordan

This last spot could go to several seasons ('85 Bird being one of the leaders). But I'm putting '87 Jordan on, as a tribute to one of the greatest one-man-offense seasons of all-time. I know his defense suffered, but it was freaking unreal on offense.

[70sFan]

I don't think 1987 Jordan was a better player than Bird in 1984-88 period. If you have 1984, 1986 and 1987 Bird clearly ahead of 1987 Jordan, then I don-t understand why you have 1985 below.

Usually, the criticism is about Bird's postseason performance, but Jordan wasn't that good in 1987 playoffs either.

I'd like to see a longer elaboration for this statement.

[Odinn21]

Michael Jordan vs. Larry Bird results;

Code: Select all

1.   96 points / 1.000 share / '91 Michael Jordan
2.   88 points / 0.917 share / '90 Michael Jordan
3.   79 points / 0.823 share / '89 Michael Jordan
4.   63 points / 0.656 share / '93 Michael Jordan
5.   60 points / 0.625 share / '88 Michael Jordan
6.   57 points / 0.594 share / '86 Larry Bird
6.   57 points / 0.594 share / '92 Michael Jordan
8.   39 points / 0.406 share / '84 Larry Bird
9.   30 points / 0.313 share / '87 Larry Bird
10.  27 points / 0.281 share / '96 Michael Jordan
11.  17 points / 0.177 share / '85 Larry Bird
12.  10 points / 0.104 share / '97 Michael Jordan
                               
13.   1 points / 0.010 share / '87 Michael Jordan

Points within top 12 seasons voted;
Michael Jordan 61 - 18 Larry Bird

Points totals in top 12 seasons voted;
Michael Jordan 480 - 143 Larry Bird

Winner: Michael Jordan

Results on Google Sheets

[sansterre]

I don't think 1987 Jordan was a better player than Bird in 1984-88 period. If you have 1984, 1986 and 1987 Bird clearly ahead of 1987 Jordan, then I don-t understand why you have 1985 below.

Usually, the criticism is about Bird's postseason performance, but Jordan wasn't that good in 1987 playoffs either.

I'd like to see a longer elaboration for this statement.

I could totally be wrong, obviously.

But are we sure that Jordan "wasn't that good in the playoffs"? He's rocking a +9.9 OBPM over those three games and it's easy to see why. He took 40% of his team's shots (a mark hit by very few players) and managed to shoot pretty decently. His unadjusted rTS% was -0.9% which isn't good, but he was doing this against the '87 Celtics' defense which had the best opposing TS% in the league. Assuming a linear relationship between those regular season TS% defense and postseason defense, Jordan actually shot +1.2% rTS on 40% of his team's shots, which is damned fine. And he assisted on 30% of his teammates' shots while turning the ball over really rarely (7%). He also grabbed 10+% of available rebounds and 6+% of available offensive boards. Was his defense as good as DBPM thinks it was? Almost certainly not. But it was a pretty impressive postseason performance. You may be thinking that the '86 performance was better. And it was, in terms of scoring. But in '87 Jordan's rebounding, assists and turnovers all improved considerably. OBPM thinks the two are comparable and I don't think that's an unreasonable position.

Bird in '85, on the other hand, faced relatively weak shooting defenses but saw his volume drop by 1.6% and his rTS% (adjusted for opponent) by 4.4%. This are *big* drops for anyone, with an 800-minute sample size and for a player in the Top 10 all-time. Was Bird more valuable on defense than Jordan? I won't argue that point, let's say he was. What I can see from the numbers suggests that Jordan was considerably better on offense in the playoffs, by enough that any defensive difference was likely not enough to make it up.

And I know that Ben Taylor has '85 Bird as being better by a fair margin in CORP, though that's driven mostly by the fact that he sees '87 Jordan as a less portable season and Bird as always being extremely portable. But even Taylor sees '87 Jordan as being better in the postseason.

This is a long way of saying that I'm hardly asserting that '87 Jordan is obviously better. I'm just saying that there's an argument.

And since 6 of the 7 other voters had the *exact* same 12 seasons (with the 7th voter having 11 of those 12) I kinda just wanted to throw a grenade in there. For one season anyways.