A RealGM Scandal, and a Conversation about Projects

[Doctor MJ]

Hello netizens of RealGM's PC Board,

I'm afraid we've got a scandal on our hands that's going to stop a current project, shed light on a previous project, and I'd say demand a community conversation not just about rules, but what we should try to do next.

The current project that is being halted is:

2025 Peaks Project

The previous project that was part of this same story was:

2024 Retro POY Project Update

So what's going on?

1. From multiple sources, we've received proof of posters who were either Previously Banned or Sock Puppets.

2. The two key (Previously Banned) accounts here that I'll focus on are OhayoKD & AEnigma.

3. In these last two projects, there has been a conspiracy launched on a discord to create new iterations of prior PC Board projects, and skew the results.

4. The leader of the direct conspiracy was OhayoKD, who didn't simply recruit like-minded people from elsewhere to take over the projects, but explicitly scripted many of the voters ballots (the number they reference is 10) - some of whom by their own admission "don't know much about basketball" - in service of specifically trying to lower Michael Jordan's ranking. As part of this process, OhayoKD specifically voted for Bill Russell to make himself look more credible despite being lower on Russell than Jordan, and both in prior projects and elsewhere on RealGM used Sock Puppet accounts to further manipulate perception.

5. AEnigma knew all of this was happening and stated that when he included Jordan on his ballot, it was done - like OhayoKD - to throw off suspicion and make the project seem more credible.

6. As part of the recruitment of posters to take part in these "missions" (OhayoKD's wording), many new RealGM accounts were created which appear to mostly be real people whose awareness of how unethical this all was is poor. At this time we are not banning these accounts - we'd much rather new users simply learn our expectations and be productive members of the community - but do be aware that we will keep an eye on these accounts in the future, and will not cut slack if they cause more problems.

Some background

1. The fact that OhayoKD & AEnigma were likely Previously Banned Posters was clear to us a long time ago, but in the absence of proof, they've merely been going through the same escalation of moderation consequences as anyone else. They've been close to getting banned simply because of their anti-social behavior, and one might say it was only a matter of time before that got them banned, but I'll also say that as both had previously been banned, I would believe that both were shrewd enough to back off and say the right things when they received warnings.

2. Something I'll just say folks: These guys are no dummies, and between their understanding of limitations of the volunteer mod team and other technology, they've basically been outsmarting RealGM's systems for as long as these accounts have been around (after failing to continually outsmart these systems while using earlier accounts.

3. While I've mentioned two specific projects that are corrupt to the core, this doesn't mean all other projects were "clean". We don't know when the scheming - beyond the creation of new accounts - began, but it does seem clear that this is something that became bigger & bolder with time. To the point that the scope of evidence we've now received has frankly left many on the moderation team stunned by the lengths people would go to do something like this - let alone those in my real life who aren't basketball fans, who are confused why anyone would care so much about our little voting projects that they would devote themselves primarily not to understanding basketball, but manipulating the basketball perception of others.

4. As I alluded to, as this scandal began to percolate up in the Peaks project, the incentive to want a group ranking to more closely align with your personal preference is something that I completely understand, and it's something I think tends to happen naturally once you get invested enough in the actual debates inside the project. Hence, the nefarious motives of these guys are not something I see as unexpected at all, but rather represent a temptation that many of us needs to recognize in ourselves, and from there decide whether we want to give into them, or reject them.

For anyone looking to understand the principles of this sort of thing, I'd recommend reading up on Goodhart's Law. In a nutshell, The PC Board's projects got goodharted once some folks started caring so much about the final results that they prioritized that over the actual goal of the projects, which is get people together to talk about basketball, and then learn together.

Before I leave the conversation about these particular posters, I'll speak to them directly:

OhayoKD & AEnigma, whoever you guys are, stop using your intelligence and talents to mess up other people's journeys. I know from what was shared that you have a tremendous disrespect for anyone who you believe is wrong about particular basketball opinions, and I just have to say, you have no idea how small you look to everyone else that you've let this disrespect fester to the point it has.

Because of what you've done, if people outside of RealGM talk about these particular projects you've put so much into, the fact - say - that Jordan ranks lower than elsewhere in basketball consensus is not going to have people talking about a shift in opinion among hard core basketball nerds, but rather that pro-LeBron basketball nerds were so obsessed with being anti-Jordan that they contaminated projects to try to hurt Jordan and his "stans".

The theory that Jordan-heads are the craziest homers around? Well, it just got a lot weaker, because of y'all. Many crazy Jordan-heads exist...but they didn't do this. You did.

As I've said, you don't look "dumb" - I have no doubt you've got plenty high IQs - but you do look incredibly immature. I'm quite sure you guys aren't teenagers, but that's where your development seems to have arrested, and it's a shame. I urge you to take a step back, and think about what you want to accomplish with your life, because THIS, aside from everything else that it did to everyone else, wasted your time and efforts in service of undermining a community that wasn't actually talking about anything truly important anyway.

This is a KID'S GAME. Never forget that.

The fact that we adults spend so much time on it is silly, but so long as it let's us take a breather from the actual serious stuff in our life, and we try to do more good than harm, it's fine. That's what hobbies are for. But when you devote yourself to a hobby of messing with other people's hobbies, it's only going to take your darker places without any real benefit.

Going Forward

While people can comment on what I've communicated above, the important thing is what we do going forward, and so now I'm going to lay out some questions for the community to consider, and while it won't be a formal democracy, the will of the community is important to us mods.

1. We are pausing the Peaks project, and there should be a discussion about what to do with it. It goes without saying that the existing votes that have already taken place are not meaningful, and so what do we do about it?

We could start over at #1 with more explicit rules run by a new project runner.
We could just lump all the existing voted in guys together without an ordering and just say "Yeah we talked about those guys already."
We could just stop this iteration of the project, and at a later date start over.
Most generally, we could move away from projects like this which are so goodhart-able by moving on to more qualitative projects.

2. For the Retro POY Update, well, it's already done and I have no intention of erasing it from existence, but the corruption involved will need to be explicitly added to the project's original post, and I will not be merging the results from the Update with the original.

On this project, I really feel for all the sincere posters who felt like they finally got a chance to participate in what many felt was the greatest project we ever ran on the Board, and put in effort for many months to participate. I'm not sure what else to say there, but others can chime in.

3. Me personally, I'm on the fence about whether I'm going to try to run more projects, or even participate in them. I think I can safely say that I've put at least as much effort into building up community through these type of projects since the first one I ran back in 2006, and back then I think it's accurate to say that in some ways these projects "put RealGM" on the map enticing knowledgeable basketball fans from around the internet to join here and participate even if they were already established elsewhere.

For a number of years, I felt that the PC Board was the single best place on the internet to talk serious basketball analysis & history, and while that didn't come out of nowhere - RealGM first broke out in 2001 after ESPN bought Chad Ford's sportstalk.com and turned it into ESPN's own message board which quickly got overrun by the worst of the internet at the time - but actually being a place that people sought out from APBR & APBRmetrics as well all the more typical rivals was a big deal, at least to me.

But times change, the internet changes, most of the old people move on to bigger and better things, and new folks come in for whom the initial things that excited us, are perhaps now mere abstractions that seem unreal, all while the social internet's troll culture grows in both adherents and methods.

I don't want to say goodbye to RealGM as I know it, but I think we have to be honest about the fact that we're never going to be sure again that each poster is an independent human being with an earnest wish to rabbit hole with other human beings to see what they can learn together - and yes, Generative AI looms very large in my mind here, because while I suspect it was involved in this scandal, there's really no doubt that could be taken to far more extreme levels if only there are smart, talented people with nothing better to do with their time than hurt others in unimportant domains.

The big question for me is:

What's the best way to re-build a social internet culture on a site in the mid-2020s?

I ask for people's sincere thoughts after they spend some time in introspection, and consider what makes the most sense for them personally, and for the larger group that when we are here, we are all apart of.

Sincerely,
Doc

[Elpolo_14]

Damn. Just because people don't have the same List it suddenly become a "Skew the Results" thing Cause y'all are Crying about Player not being placed where y'all like him to be.

[jalengreen]

Damn. Just because people don't have the same List it suddenly become a "Skew the Results" thing Cause y'all are Crying about Player not being placed where y'all like him to be.

[Elpolo_14]

Damn. Just because people don't have the same List it suddenly become a "Skew the Results" thing Cause y'all are Crying about Player not being placed where y'all like him to be.

How to you post Pic? I can't find it

[tsherkin]

How to you post Pic? I can't find it

He uploaded it to imgur and then used the img tag option.

[IlikeSHAIguys]

Gonna be real. This seems kind of weak to me.

[ScrantonBulls]

Hello netizens of RealGM's PC Board,

I'm afraid we've got a scandal on our hands that's going to stop a current project, shed light on a previous project, and I'd say demand a community conversation not just about rules, but what we should try to do next.

The current project that is being halted is:

2025 Peaks Project

The previous project that was part of this same story was:

2024 Retro POY Project Update

So what's going on?

1. From multiple sources, we've received proof of posters who were either Previously Banned or Sock Puppets.

2. The two key (Previously Banned) accounts here that I'll focus on are OhayoKD & AEnigma.

3. In these last two projects, there has been a conspiracy launched on a discord to create new iterations of prior PC Board projects, and skew the results.

4. The leader of the direct conspiracy was OhayoKD, who didn't simply recruit like-minded people from elsewhere to take over the projects, but explicitly scripted many of the voters ballots (the number they reference is 10) - some of whom by their own admission "don't know much about basketball" - in service of specifically trying to lower Michael Jordan's ranking. As part of this process, OhayoKD specifically voted for Bill Russell to make himself look more credible despite being lower on Russell than Jordan, and both in prior projects and elsewhere on RealGM used Sock Puppet accounts to further manipulate perception.

5. AEnigma knew all of this was happening and stated that when he included Jordan on his ballot, it was done - like OhayoKD - to throw off suspicion and make the project seem more credible.

6. As part of the recruitment of posters to take part in these "missions" (OhayoKD's wording), many new RealGM accounts were created which appear to mostly be real people whose awareness of how unethical this all was poor. At this time we are not banning these accounts - we'd much rather new users simply learn our expectations and be productive members of the community - but do be aware that we will keep an eye on these accounts in the future, and will not cut slack if they cause more problems.

Some background

1. The fact that OhayoKD & AEnigma were likely Previously Banned Posters was clear to us a long time ago, but in the absence of proof, they've merely been going through the same escalation of moderation consequences as anyone else. They've been closed to getting banned simply because of their anti-social behavior, and one might say it was only a matter of time before that got them banned, but I'll also say that as both had previously been banned, I would believe that both were shrewd enough to back off and say the right things when they received warnings.

2. Something I'll just say folks: These guys are no dummies, and between their understanding of limitations of the volunteer mod team and other technology, they've basically been outsmarting RealGM's systems for as long as these accounts have been around (after failing to continually outsmart these systems while using earlier accounts.

3. While I've mentioned two specific projects that are corrupt to the core, this doesn't mean all other projects were "clean". We don't know when the scheming - beyond the creation of new accounts - began, but it does seem clear that this is something that became bigger & bolder with time. To the point that the scope of evidence we've now received has frankly left many on the moderation team stunned by the lengths people would go to do something like this - let alone those in my real life who aren't basketball fans, who are confused why anyone would care so much about our little voting projects that they would devote themselves primarily not to understanding basketball, but manipulating the basketball perception of others.

4. As I alluded to as this scandal began to percolate up in the Peaks project, the incentive to want a group ranking to more closely align with your personal preference is something that I completely understand, and it's something I think tends to happen naturally wants you get invested enough in the actual debates inside the project. Hence, the nefarious motives of these guys are not something I see as unexpected at all, but rather represent a temptation that many of us needs to recognize in ourselves, and from there decide whether we want to give into them, or reject them.

For anyone looking to understand the principles of this sort of thing, I'd recommend reading up on Goodhart's Law. In a nutshell, The PC Board's projects got goodharted once some folks started caring so much about the final results that they prioritized that over the actual goal of the projects, which is get people together to talk about basketball, and then learn together.

Before I leave the conversation about these particular posters, I'll speak to them directly:

OhayoKD & AEnigma, whoever you guys are, stop using your intelligence and talents to mess up other people's journeys. I know from what was shared that you have a tremendous disrespect for anyone who you believe is wrong about particular basketball opinions, and I just have to say, you have no idea how small you look to everyone else that you've let this disrespect fester to the point it has.

Because of what you've done, if people outside of RealGM talk about these particular projects you've put so much into, the fact - say - that Jordan ranks lower than elsewhere in basketball consensus is not going to have people talking about a shift in opinion among hard core basketball nerds, but rather that pro-LeBron basketball nerds were so obsessed with being anti-Jordan that they contaminated projects to try to hurt Jordan and his "stans".

The theory that Jordan-heads are the craziest homers around? Well, it just got a lot weaker, because of y'all. Many crazy Jordan-heads exist...but they didn't do this. You did.

As I've said, you don't look "dumb" - I have no doubt you've got plenty high IQs - but you do look incredibly immature. I'm quite sure you guys aren't teenagers, but that's where your development seems to have arrested, and it's a shame. I urge you to take a step back, and think about what you want to accomplish with your life, because THIS, aside from everything else that it did to everyone else, wasted your time and efforts in service of undermining a community that wasn't actually talking about anything truly important anyway.

This is a KID'S GAME. Never forget that.

The fact that we adults spend so much time on it is silly, but so long as it let's us take a breather from the actual serious stuff in our life, and we try to do more good than harm, it's fine. That's what hobbies are for. But when you devote yourself to a hobby of messing with other people's hobbies, it's only going to take your darker places without any real benefit.

Going Forward

While people can comment on what I've communicated above, the important thing is what we do going forward, and so now I'm going to lay out some questions for the community to consider, and while it won't be a formal democracy, the will of the community is important to us mods.

1. We are pausing the Peaks project, and there should be a discussion about what to do with it. It goes without saying that the existing votes that have already taken place are not meaningful, and so what do we do about it?

We could start over at #1 with more explicit rules run by a new project runner.
We could just lump all the existing voted in guys together without an ordering and just say "Yeah we talked about those guys already."
We could just stop this iteration of the project, and at a later date start over.
Most generally, we could move away from projects like this which are so goodhart-able by moving on to more qualitative projects.

2. For the Retro POY Update, well, it's already done and I have no intention of erasing it from existence, but the corruption involved will need to be explicitly added to the project's original post, and I will not be merging the results from the Update with the original.

On this project, I really feel for all the sincere posters who felt like they finally got a chance to participate in what many felt was the greatest project we ever ran on the Board, and put in effort for many months to participate. I'm not sure what else to say there, but others can chime in.

3. Me personally, I'm on the fence about whether I'm going to try to run more projects, or even participate in them. I think I can safely say that I've put at least as much effort into building up community through these type of projects since the first one I ran back in 2006, and back then I think it's accurate to say that in some ways these projects "put RealGM" on the map enticing knowledgeable basketball fans from around the internet to join here and participate even if they were already established elsewhere.

For a number of years, I felt that the PC Board was the single best place on the internet to talk serious basketball analysis & history, and while that didn't come out of nowhere - RealGM first broke out in 2001 after ESPN bought Chad Ford's sportstalk.com and turned it into ESPN's own message board which quickly got overrun by the worst of the internet at the time - but actually being a place that people sought out from APBR & APBRmetrics as well all the more typical rivals was a big deal, at least to me.

But times change, the internet changes, most of the old people move on to bigger and better things, and new folks come in for whom the initial things that excited us, are perhaps now mere abstractions that seem unreal, all while the social internet's troll culture grows in both adherents and methods.

I don't want to say goodbye to RealGM as I know it, but I think we have to be honest about the fact that we're never going to be sure again that each poster is an independent human being with an earnest wish to rabbit hole with other human beings to see what they can learn together - and yes, Generative AI looms very large in my mind here, because while I suspect it was involved in this scandal, there's really no doubt that could be taken to far more extreme levels if only there are smart, talented people with nothing better to do with their time than hurt others in unimportant domains.

The big question for me is:

What's the best way to re-build a social internet culture on a site in the mid-2020s?

I ask for people's sincere thoughts after they spend some time in introspection, and consider what makes the most sense for them personally, and for the larger group that when we are here, we are all apart of.

Sincerely,
Doc

Lmao. I'm sorry for laughing but I can't believe these guys would spend so much time and energy trying to rig a "Peak Project" on a forum. That's just wild and pathetic. It makes sense now why OhayoKD would always PM me telling me to participate in it. He thought I'd vote for LeBron. I probably would have voted for him #1, but I didn't feel like I put the effort in that the thread deserves to make a vote. So I never voted.

How did they convince random people who know little about basketball to make accounts? That's so odd. They weren't just the same posters but using proxies and maybe AI to change how their sentence structure looks?

Sorry you and other mods have to deal with this BS doc. Nobody wants to deal with this **** on the thankless job that is moderating a forum. While I have small criticisms, I think this place is modded well, and it's one of the lasting "old school" forums out there with a healthy population. Reddit style sucks for discussion, and we need to keep places like this going.

Question regarding the bolded part. What makes you think Generative AI was part of this? I'm genuinely interested. I think this is a danger NOW and even more in the future for places like Twitter and Reddit especially. Swaying peoples views politically, etc. I think RealGM is relatively safe. How many people will waste time with that on a basketball forum? Obviously these two guys, but I think it's rare. While AI will have some amazing and some terrible consequences, I think this place is relatively safe. I guess I don't share as much of your gloom as to how it will impact RealGM and "saying goodbye to RealGM as we know it". I think that's a bit extreme. Maybe I'm just being naive.

[One_and_Done]

I can't imagine caring that much about what other people think.

As I've mentioned before, I was invited to this discord long ago, but like with all my PMs I didn't reply, because I'm not here to make friends.

I'm not surprised though, as they seemed way too invested in the rankings, even if I often agreed with them. I thought the way Enigma conducted themselves during the RPOY project was completely unprofessional, though oddly the project worked out better just because it wasn't run by a mod. I quite like the idea of non-mods running all future projects.

[jalengreen]

I don't want to say goodbye to RealGM as I know it, but I think we have to be honest about the fact that we're never going to be sure again that each poster is an independent human being with an earnest wish to rabbit hole with other human beings to see what they can learn together - and yes, Generative AI looms very large in my mind here, because while I suspect it was involved in this scandal, there's really no doubt that could be taken to far more extreme levels if only there are smart, talented people with nothing better to do with their time than hurt others in unimportant domains.

For what it's worth, I do think this problem is mostly limited to the projects. A lot of the accounts that popped up randomly had very limited participation outside of / prior to the projects. And even when they do participate, having your view point spread across multiple accounts as opposed to one account isn't actually particularly meaningful in the context of a discussion. It just became rather glaring for the projects themselves.

Seeing the top 100 project come to an end would be a shame. Frankly, the Ohayo fellow is a bit of a weird egg and I don't think this problem will be likely to manifest without the same persons being involved. And ideally they'll eventually move on from this mission of their's. But perhaps that's optimistic, in which case some sort of requirement for participation with post count or join date might be advisable if there seems to be signs of manipulation.

[Cavsfansince84]

I'll share a few thoughts and I'm not trying to single anyone out for criticism, just with an intention of making the board a good place to discuss its purpose:

1. I have felt for the last couple years that certain posters needed bans and were obviously using alts and other methods to manipulate both threads and projects on this board which includes a lot of ugly thread derailments and people being caught replying to their own alts with the wrong account. That shows a very unhealthy mindset when it comes to discussion in general that certain posters felt the need to go to these kinds of lengths just so they can try lecture everyone else in a thread.

2. This current project felt very off and full of red flags from the get go so it's probably a good thing its getting shut down. There is so much animosity built up between the MJ/LeBron camps over the years that it's pretty hard to do projects which include them without shenanigans going on and people taking it overly seriously.

3. I hope the projects live on but I'd recommend waiting until next year for a new iteration of the peaks project which I think needs better ground rules regarding what is being discussed and how to be included. I also suggested a minimum of 500 or 1000 posts on an account for similar projects because how people will just come in with 20 posts and want to be included which is kind of ridiculous.

The pc board will survive and I think it will be whatever we make of it.

[taikibansei]

I also got a pm. It surprised me--as I'd not interacted with OhayoKD before--but I realize now that he must have seen somewhere a post by me saying that I have Lebron as my GOAT.

Personally, I don't feel strongly enough about the topic to argue--Lebron, Jordan, KAJ, etc. all have good arguments, and I couldn't care less which one you choose. (As long as it's not Kobe.... )

Sorry the mods have to deal with this!!

[ScrantonBulls]

I can't imagine caring that much about what other people think.

As I've mentioned before, I was invited to this discord long ago, but like with all my PMs I didn't reply, because I'm not here to make friends.

I'm not surprised though, as they seemed way too invested in the rankings, even if I often agreed with them. I thought the way Enigma conducted themselves during the RPOY project was completely unprofessional, though oddly the project worked out better just because it wasn't run by a mod. I quite like the idea of non-mods running all future projects.

Yep. Me too. I didn't join it either. Must have been were he recruited his shmucks. He also hounded me about voting.

You and me One and Done, we're simply men of integrity.

[trelos6]

Shame. I’ve read some great intellectual arguments over the years for making a player’s case. With WOWY stats, player tracking and observations, it’s been a great to read the serious posters and learn from their collective years of watching nba.

I hope to participate in future projects, but completely understand Doc’s sentiment.

[Special_Puppy]

Scattered thoughts
-I’m personally fine with not banning OhayaKD and AE as I would miss their contributions. Would make sense for them to apologize though.

-In the future I think it makes sense for posters to have to have posted AT LEAST 50 times before getting a vote to help stem potential sock puppeting issues

-AE obviously should not be allowed to run future projects.

-I think you should be one of the following to be allowed to run major projects: have been posting for 6 years, have over 8k posts, or is a moderator

-I’d be fine restarting the peaks project in 2 months with a new moderator and new restrictions on who can vote

-Be more heavy handed about people who try to shoehorn Jordan vs LeBron debates into unrelated topics

[Ol Roy]

I was a lurker for several years before joining RealGM. I appreciated the diverse set of opinions, often backed up with research not found on other sites. Integrity definitely matters and I appreciate the action being taken. The process matters more than the outcome.

Regarding the question about the forum atmosphere:

In high school we had a philosophy/debate club. Inevitably, it seemed that no matter what the topic was, it always turned into a discussion on the existence of God or capitalism vs. socialism. Needless to say, it got repetitive and the club dwindled away.

While LeBron/Jordan and retro/modern debates can't and shouldn't be avoided, I know myself and others are tired of most PC threads devolving into the exact same methodological discussion. It's a vibe/thread killer and wasn't there to inhibit the great threads of years past.

I would suggest an insistence on:

1. No tolerance for deliberate baiting.
2. Player comparisons need to focus on the players. Insert mod warnings to put things back on track.

[GeorgeMarcus]

This is crazy. Thanks for the detailed post Doctor MJ and for defending the integrity of PC projects

To the people who participated... What does it say that you prioritize being right over the genuine pursuit of knowledge? I promise you, that mindset is more toxic to your own existence than it is to the world it pollutes. I challenge you to reflect on the type of people you want to be in this life

[One_and_Done]

I was a lurker for several years before joining RealGM. I appreciated the diverse set of opinions, often backed up with research not found on other sites. Integrity definitely matters and I appreciate the action being taken. The process matters more than the outcome.

Regarding the question about the forum atmosphere:

In high school we had a philosophy/debate club. Inevitably, it seemed that no matter what the topic was, it always turned into a discussion on the existence of God or capitalism vs. socialism. Needless to say, it got repetitive and the club dwindled away.

While LeBron/Jordan and retro/modern debates can't and shouldn't be avoided, I know myself and others are tired of most PC threads devolving into the exact same methodological discussion. It's a vibe/thread killer and wasn't there to inhibit the great threads of years past.

I would suggest an insistence on:

1. No tolerance for deliberate baiting.
2. Player comparisons need to focus on the players. Insert mod warnings to put things back on track.

Yeh, I don't agree with that. That is siding with one perspective over another.

I have an alternative suggestion. When a modernist posts a one line response along the lines of 'KD and it's not close, the league is much stronger now', just don't reply. If you just let people with different opinions have their own views then there isn't a need to have the same debate in so many threads. It's the vehemence of the fans of older players that leads to threads getting 'derailed' by the same discussion over and over.

Alternatively, just set the parameters in the OP to 'only rating them relative to their era'.

[tsherkin]

. It's the vehemence of the fans of older players that leads to threads getting 'derailed' by the same discussion over and over.

This is not really an absolute at all.

[One_and_Done]

. It's the vehemence of the fans of older players that leads to threads getting 'derailed' by the same discussion over and over.

This is not really an absolute at all.

Maybe not, but an approach of 'this board only accepts criteria X' strikes me as a case where the cure is worse than the disease.

I also think people are taking this all a bit seriously with talk of 'scandal' and 'conspiracy'. Maybe it's because my emotional investment is much lower, but people are getting too serious about it. It's a message board, not a 'sacred trust' on 'hallowed ground'. People have their own views and agendas, and that will influence their votes. Whether they do it in an 'organised' way strikes me as not terribly relevant. My support for a post minimum to participate is just to stop drive by voting. If they are willing to join and participate all the way through then whatever.

I mean, there was a post on the general board that lobbied for ppl to come vote during the #1 thread, the obvious intent being to rope in a demographic that would favour Jordan. I saw no complaints about that, which is just a different variation of the same issue.

[jjgp111292]

Like I said in another thread, I knew there was some shenanigans afoot when I was in the 1991 thread and saw these two posts:

My honest instinct here was to put Jordan fourth below Barkley, but in the interest of avoiding controversy or accusations of trolling, I will mark him third because I do understand why people prefer Jordan this year. Nonetheless, let me at least offer my reasoning for my original vote.
I’m quite high on Barkley. Rim pressure and creation, playmaking, and better rim protection than a certain other 6’6 guy. By 91 Jordan’s defense has deteriorated, and his scoring is easier to contain, something a much weaker iteration of Detroit were able to attest to, at least with Rodman on the floor. He picks up jumper’s foot in 1990 and the results are clear in the film. Frankly, for a majority of the playoff series that transpired during the first three-peat, including 3 finals, I’m not sure Jordan’s defense is even a positive. For those 3 finals, it’s arguably a negative, unarguably for 92 frankly. And it’s not like Jordan ever did so much. Either way to me what seals it is we see Barkley and MJ head to head. And head to head, I think Barkley was just better.
Jordan scores more, but Barkley shoots 10 points better. 10 points. As the sole focus of the Bulls much much better defense, Barkley is far more efficient than Jordan, and I think in terms of real playmaking and defense there’s not nearly the gap people pretend at that point. Hawkins burned MJ plenty. And many of those assists are just taking what’s there rather than making things appear. Jordan’s perfect season just wasn’t really perfect. Or close. The “advanced stats” don’t count most of those imperfections, but they’re there. I like rim-protection. And I also like the best rim-pressure guy in the league who invalidates top-level defense. That’s what Barkley did to Jordan’s Bulls. And that’s why, unofficially, I have him ahead.
Finally Pippen. He’s kind of already this in 1990 but in 91 it’s polished. In the postseason, maybe as polished as it’ll ever be. He’s the best rim-protector. Or at worst a close second. He’s the best man defender. By far. He’s the best help defender. By Far. He’s the floor-general, both sides. He’s the primary ball-handler. And he’s as much of a creator as Jordan is. And yet many will balk reading this vote. Like we didn’t see him outscore Jordan’s biggest nemesis the year Jordan left. He’s extremely easy to play next to for the majority of stars, yet can take over as the 1. See: 1994 and 1995. See: The first 2 games of these Eastern Conference Finals. The common stats only care about the scoring the times you pass to the scorer and the times you touch the ball as a defender. So they say Pippen shouldn’t be so high. But this is a useless approach to evaluating Scottie. A guy who does just about everything that isn’t there really really well.
When Jordan gets his average to 30 against Detroit, it’s on the back of the Pistons trying to blitz him in the last phase of game 2. Why? Because they are 15 points behind. An overwhelming disadvantage in the 90s. Why are they 15 points behind? Because while Jordan slept walk for a second straight game, Pippen crushed detroit. Pressing them full-court. Ramming their defenders at the basket. Creating boatloads for his teammates.
It didn’t show up in BPM, but it showed up where it needed to. In the wins. Jordan’s best years are behind him. Yet Chicago’s best years are ahead. Pippen is why, and more than worthy of my vote.

2. Jordan


So this is not really peak Jordan. People will bring up his box-score to say it is but I think if you watch the games it’s clear his d isn’t all that and alot of those stats come from plays where MJ isn’t doing much. Most importantly MJ is playing terrible defensive competition and honestly, he’s not doing that great. Without a quarter of super aggro d from detroit, the pistons with rodman, average playoff defense before they face the bulls, are doing a great job containing him despite not really throwing extra bodies his way. Barkley shoots 10 points better facing the likes of Pippen and Grant and Cartwright. It might be the tendonitis but next two years facing actual opponents the Bulls almost lose a bunch and I think some of that is just Jordan not creating or defending as well.

He doesn’t bring up the ball, he’s barely involved in the half-court press, he’s way less involved on the perimeter, he’s even less used as a rim-protector (not that he was ever a big contributor there), he’s boxing out less….yeah he’s just not what he was in 90. Feel at some point people just need to let go of the narrative that him hitting his peak is why the Bulls went crazy.

Read these back to back and try not to think the second post reads like a SparkNotes of the first. Or in today's day and age, somebody generated two ChatGPT responses to the same prompt. "Talk about how Charles Barkley shot 10 TS points better in semi's, talk about how his ECF numbers were juiced by free throws at the end of Game 2, talk about how he wasn't as engaged in the offense anymore, attribute his deteriorating defense to tendonitis (c'mon guys, this is amateur hour), throw in some digs at advanced box score stats, and close it out with a statement about how Jordan is past his prime and the Bulls' ascent to champion contenders had nothing to do with him. Hell for funzies, I spat it into ChatGPT:

Michael Jordan’s 1990-91 season is overrated as the year he “figured it all out,” but if you actually watch the games, it’s clear he was past his peak.

Offensively, he wasn’t as engaged. Sure, the box score looks nice—thank the triangle and some stat-padding—but he wasn’t dictating the flow like he used to. A lot more of the offense ran through Pippen, who was initiating more, pushing pace, and taking over big stretches. Jordan picked his spots instead of controlling the game like in ’88-’89.

Defensively, same story. Still flashed the weakside steals, but the on-ball intensity slipped. He wasn’t locking guys up anymore, and tendonitis might’ve had something to do with that. He looked less explosive laterally, took more possessions off, and wasn’t the same tone-setter on that end.

And let’s talk playoffs. In the ECSF, Barkley flat-out outplayed him. Shot 10 percentage points better, got to his spots, and carried a Sixers team that had no business hanging with the Bulls as long as they did. Then in the Detroit series, MJ’s numbers are inflated by a free-throw parade at the end of Game 2. Strip that out, and he struggled—Rodman and the Pistons' D played him tough and limited his efficiency. Bulls didn’t win because Jordan dominated; they won because the team finally cracked Detroit’s code.

Meanwhile, Pippen? Ascending. He was the engine. Guarding every position, running the break, making plays, dictating tempo. That team leveled up because of him, not because Jordan hit another gear.

So yeah, Jordan wasn't peak MJ anymore. And yet that’s when the Bulls finally became unbeatable. Funny how that works.

My own attempt from another thread:

Well let's take 1991 for instance. Oh sure the BPMs and PERs of the world will tell you MJ was brilliant but according to my carefully crafted eye test 1991 he was clearly getting worse. He just wasn't creating much any more and frankly, his defense had become an outright negative. Call it jumper's knee, call it a step-slower, but he was getting beat a lot more than he was getting stops. I honestly have a mind to rank Barkley above him this year; no other offensive options around, and yet he still shot 10 points better than Jordan when his Sixers faced the Bulls. Ten. Points. And the box score will tell you he killed Detroit but without the Pistons gifting him with free throws at the end game 2 it was clear for all to see how mortal Rodman and their D made him.

Despite what every single person for the last 30 years has said, this was the year MJ stopped being "MJ", yet the Bulls started being champions. ☝️ ☝️ Now why is that?

Like, I write ads for a living. A significant part of my job is writing the same thought in a million different ways (I've never had to use ChatGPT for it, by the way ). I know it when I see it

But to me, this speaks to a shift in internet culture. Being 32 and close enough to all that stuff, Twitter has given rise to particularly nasty form of debate bro that is just obsessed with being right and puts way too much stock in opinions on stuff like basketball and make it some sort of indicator of character, becoming obsessed with narratives and trying to twist any perception in their favor just so they have the illusion of their ideal world. It's what happens when you're young - you're intelligent, but due to a lack of maturity and self-awareness you still make yourself look stupid in practice without an ego being in check. And in Ohayo's case, as someone a little spectrum-y himself - like I said, I know it when I see it lmao