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How many MVP votes did he get that season? 2? Barkley got most then Olajuwon.

He was constantly gambling and thinking about retirement. Athletically he was worse than ever.

But was he better in anyways than before?

Made Milt Palacio look like a scrub.

He was basically the best player of all time at his peak. If that's too vague to conceptualize watch Game 4 of the Finals that year. If you're a stat person, he put up 35/7/6 with 2 steals on 56 TS%.

He averaged 41-9-6-2 in the Finals that year.

For me personally, I preferred the MJ of the 93 season than to the preceding two. This was the year where his swagger reached its zenith. He walked around the court like he knew he was the 'GOAT', and it was during this time when people began referring to him as such on a regular basis.

Many people feel 1993 was his apex, and that we were actually robbed of 1-2 apex years in '94 and '95 due to his retirement.

33/7/6/50% FG, third in MVP voting (only because people were tired of giving it to him) and second in DPOY voting (and actually voted DPOY by the coaches) in the regular season and then 35/7/6/48% FG in the playoffs despite playing with a severely sprained wrist for several games, and goes out averaging 41/9/6/51% in the Finals capping a three-peat in one of the top 7 Finals series of all time at a minimum.

He was pretty good. PS - where did you get the idea that he only got 2 MVP votes from?

cb4_89 wrote:Made Milt Palacio look like a scrub.

Not too often do one liners make me LOL, but this was classic, well done!

Everything else is in here.

If we're talking of 1993 exclusively MJ was the second most dominant all around player in the NBA.

Jordan23Forever wrote:Many people feel 1993 was his apex, and that we were actually robbed of 1-2 apex years in '94 and '95 due to his retirement.

33/7/6/50% FG, third in MVP voting (only because people were tired of giving it to him) and second in DPOY voting (and actually voted DPOY by the coaches) in the regular season and then 35/7/6/48% FG in the playoffs despite playing with a severely sprained wrist for several games, and goes out averaging 41/9/6/51% in the Finals capping a three-peat in one of the top 7 Finals series of all time at a minimum.

He was pretty good. PS - where did you get the idea that he only got 2 MVP votes from?

Was it really that or was it because MJ's team won only 57 games. Barkley's team won 62 games. Barkley's cast was better IMO, but not that much better. MJ's cast had Pippen, Armstrong, and Grant who all made the All-Star the next season while MJ was gone. They were very good players. They just lacked the depth that Phoenix had. And can you really say that MJ deserved the MVP over Hakeem? Both of their teams won 57 games but Hakeem had a worse cast:

Smith
Maxwell
Thorpe
Horry (rookie)
Hakeem

That's not a good lineup. Plus Hakeem put up monster stats 26-13-4 with 4 Blk, 2 stl per game.

colts18 wrote:

Jordan23Forever wrote:Many people feel 1993 was his apex, and that we were actually robbed of 1-2 apex years in '94 and '95 due to his retirement.

33/7/6/50% FG, third in MVP voting (only because people were tired of giving it to him) and second in DPOY voting (and actually voted DPOY by the coaches) in the regular season and then 35/7/6/48% FG in the playoffs despite playing with a severely sprained wrist for several games, and goes out averaging 41/9/6/51% in the Finals capping a three-peat in one of the top 7 Finals series of all time at a minimum.

He was pretty good. PS - where did you get the idea that he only got 2 MVP votes from?

Was it really that or was it because MJ's team won only 57 games. Barkley's team won 62 games. Barkley's cast was better IMO, but not that much better. MJ's cast had Pippen, Armstrong, and Grant who all made the All-Star the next season while MJ was gone. They were very good players. They just lacked the depth that Phoenix had. And can you really say that MJ deserved the MVP over Hakeem? Both of their teams won 57 games but Hakeem had a worse cast:

Smith
Maxwell
Thorpe
Horry (rookie)
Hakeem

That's not a good lineup. Plus Hakeem put up monster stats 26-13-4 with 4 Blk, 2 stl per game.

Rockets won 55 games in 1993. Also you need to watch the Bulls championship video in 1993 to see why the team won less games. From the outset MJ and Scottie mention they weren't ready to go thru the long season after having won it all the previous year and playing in Barcelona.

Yeah Colts....that's a good question. You'd think a guy with two all-NBA defensive members one of them arguably the best SF in the world would do more than finish a mere two games ahead of another superstar and a band of entirely role players and zero bench to speak of. Even the teams were neck and neck defensively despite the disparity in talent that regular season

Funny how the Olympic tiredness copout is used in that 92-93 season when Kobe who is inferior and slightly older age than 93 MJ in Beijing with nearly 300 MORE professional games in the midst of Finals appearances wasn't crying tired.

Jordan despite his all world stats wasn't as valuable to that teams success as the TRUE best player in the NBA that year.

FuShengTHEGreat wrote:Yeah Colts....that's a good question. You'd think a guy with two all-NBA defensive members one of them arguably the best SF in the world would do more than finish a mere two games ahead of another superstar and a band of entirely role players and zero bench to speak of. Even the teams were neck and neck defensively despite the disparity in talent that regular season

Funny how the Olympic tiredness copout is used in that 92-93 season when Kobe who is inferior and slightly older age than 93 MJ in Beijing with nearly 300 MORE professional games in the midst of Finals appearances wasn't crying tired.

Jordan despite his all world stats wasn't as valuable to that teams success as the TRUE best player in the NBA that year.

Then how does Hakeem only win 47 games in 1995 despite having Drexler on his team a guy who had more win shares than Hakeem did the season and playoffs? Or how do the Rockets finish with a worse record in 1997 than 1994 when Hakeem has Barkley (former MVP), Drexler (guy who led a team to the finals twice as the man) and finish with a worse record than the Jazz whose stars were even older?

Why is everyone crying about regular season numbers? Who cares how many games the Bulls won in 93, they proved they were the best in the playoffs. Same with the Rockets in 95.

Skill-wise MJ's peak was probably the 92-93 season. Slightly worse athletically than his '91 and '92 self, but even more polished offensively all all facets of the game, featuring a more lethal fadeaway than before and more athleticism than his 2nd 3peat self. 92-93 MJ combined the best of both 3peats. He was at his absolute best here, make no mistake.

FuShengTHEGreat wrote:Yeah Colts....that's a good question. You'd think a guy with two all-NBA defensive members one of them arguably the best SF in the world would do more than finish a mere two games ahead of another superstar and a band of entirely role players and zero bench to speak of. Even the teams were neck and neck defensively despite the disparity in talent that regular season

Funny how the Olympic tiredness copout is used in that 92-93 season when Kobe who is inferior and slightly older age than 93 MJ in Beijing with nearly 300 MORE professional games in the midst of Finals appearances wasn't crying tired.

Jordan despite his all world stats wasn't as valuable to that teams success as the TRUE best player in the NBA that year.

Hakeem is so overrated in hindsight. If Jordan never retired, he would likely have 0 rings. He would be seen as on a Karl Malone tier, which is still very very good however.

Better than any version of Kobe, Wade, or Lebron.

Kobe8Forever wrote:

FuShengTHEGreat wrote:Yeah Colts....that's a good question. You'd think a guy with two all-NBA defensive members one of them arguably the best SF in the world would do more than finish a mere two games ahead of another superstar and a band of entirely role players and zero bench to speak of. Even the teams were neck and neck defensively despite the disparity in talent that regular season

Funny how the Olympic tiredness copout is used in that 92-93 season when Kobe who is inferior and slightly older age than 93 MJ in Beijing with nearly 300 MORE professional games in the midst of Finals appearances wasn't crying tired.

Jordan despite his all world stats wasn't as valuable to that teams success as the TRUE best player in the NBA that year.

Hakeem is so overrated in hindsight. If Jordan never retired, he would likely have 0 rings. He would be seen as on a Karl Malone tier, which is still very very good however.

MJ came out of retirement and lost the year Hakeem won a title.

colts18 wrote:

Kobe8Forever wrote:

FuShengTHEGreat wrote:Yeah Colts....that's a good question. You'd think a guy with two all-NBA defensive members one of them arguably the best SF in the world would do more than finish a mere two games ahead of another superstar and a band of entirely role players and zero bench to speak of. Even the teams were neck and neck defensively despite the disparity in talent that regular season

Funny how the Olympic tiredness copout is used in that 92-93 season when Kobe who is inferior and slightly older age than 93 MJ in Beijing with nearly 300 MORE professional games in the midst of Finals appearances wasn't crying tired.

Jordan despite his all world stats wasn't as valuable to that teams success as the TRUE best player in the NBA that year.

Hakeem is so overrated in hindsight. If Jordan never retired, he would likely have 0 rings. He would be seen as on a Karl Malone tier, which is still very very good however.

MJ came out of retirement and lost the year Hakeem won a title.

yes, but he did not play a full season and was not performing at his peak individually or with the team.

Kobe8Forever wrote:yes, but he did not play a full season and was not performing at his peak individually or with the team.

The Bulls lost plain and simple.

In the 1995 playoffs, he shot over 48%
averaged 31.5 ppg;
6.5 rebounds/game;
4.5 assists/game

In the 1996 playoffs...the following year...he shot 45%
averaged 30.7 ppg;
4.9 rebounds/game
4.1 assists/game

He was better in the 95 playoffs than he was in the 96 playoffs, statistically. Certainly not rusty.

The difference was...he didn't have a power forward in 95. Horace Grant had left for Orlando...and when the Bulls met Orlando in the playoffs, they were completely overmatched down low by Shaq and Horace.

The next season, the Bulls acquired Rodman to address that very problem. It worked.

via Madmax @ clutchfans

do you think the bulls would have 3peated again if they hadnt acquired rodman? how many titles do you think they would have won, if any?