Where would ‘97 MJ rank today?

[f4p]

i'm only to the end of page 1, but some people really think the best player in the world in 1997 wouldn't be top 5 in 2022? and several more are calling top 5 a close call.

giannis and jokic are a somewhat clear #1/#2 right now with luka coming up fast. maybe those 2 would be above MJ, but i'm gonna need giannis to win a title without everybody else in the nba being injured and i'm gonna need jokic to hold a team under a 200 offensive rating in a series before really putting them above MJ, who in 1997 won 69 games and his 5th title and finals MVP. luka is close but still exploitable defensively. who else is there?

34 year old steph is better than 34 year old jordan? after coming off a mediocre regular season in 2022 and a playoffs that was nice but not even steph's best and certainly wouldn't crack jordan's top 10.

tatum is close? he's coming off a finals where he shot 36.7% from the field and he certainly isn't a better defender than jordan.

perfectly healthy kawhi would probably be better but he has to get there first, and so far he hasn't.

[f4p]

Or even if not, do you not think he’d easily be a top 3 offensive player along with Curry and Jokic, and easily the best player in the league when considering defense and postseason resilience?

No, I don't think that's a guarantee.

It worked for him in-era. It was efficient in-era, particularly with his ball protection. The offensive environment has changed to the point where that level of efficiency would be inefficient. Him attempting to drive more would be more exhausting on his older body, so it's something I question if he'd be able to maintain at that particular age. People are assuming he'd just suddenly be efficient enough relative to contemporary league average to be a top-3 player, but a lot would have to go into that.

the 1997 bulls had a higher ORtg than the 2023 warriors (and 2022 and 2021). not relative ORtg, absolute ORtg! this is in a league with a 6.2 lower ORtg than today (106.7 vs 112.9). i don't see why we are worried jordan or his team would be efficient. the '97 bulls (and '96) were 1st in the league in offense. curry hasn't even had a top 10 offense the last 3 years.

[f4p]

I'd be skeptical of any jordan keeping up with curry in terms of o-value in the modern league

jordan led the #1 offense in 1991, 1992, 1996, and 1997 and was 2nd in 1993. and 5th in 1990. he never played on an offense that finished below 12th, while steph has not had an offense ranked above 14th (this season) since durant left. and he almost didn't manage to finish above 12th before kerr, but he did get an 11th place finish. and of course, individually, one guy goes up in the playoffs and one guy goes down.

Sure you're not confusing box-production with goodness again?

sure you're not confusing PI RAPM and non-regularized WOWY for goodness? 1997 jordan won 69 games, had the #1 offense, had the #4 defense and won a title going 15-4 in the playoffs. that sounds pretty good. i have to agree with No More Rings, that this box score aversion seems to have an agenda behind it. even winning in dominant fashion can apparently not validate mr. box score.

[NO-KG-AI]

Top 3 player for a full 82 games, and 40 minutes a night, and then the best player in the playoffs. 1st team all nba, 1st team all defense, Finals MVP all locks.

[AEnigma]

i'm only to the end of page 1, but some people really think the best player in the world in 1997 wouldn't be top 5 in 2022? and several more are calling top 5 a close call.

giannis and jokic are a somewhat clear #1/#2 right now with luka coming up fast. maybe those 2 would be above MJ, but i'm gonna need giannis to win a title without everybody else in the nba being injured

The comparison here is presumably 1997, so then worth asking, what makes you think the Jazz were so much better than the Suns?

before really putting them above MJ, who in 1997 won 69 games and his 5th title

Well, his team did.

34 year old steph is better than 34 year old jordan? after coming off a mediocre regular season in 2022

Because his shot was a bit off? Do you feel it is off now?

and a playoffs that was nice but not even steph's best and certainly wouldn't crack jordan's top 10.

Is this where you quote BPM at us to “prove” that stance.

It worked for him in-era. It was efficient in-era, particularly with his ball protection. The offensive environment has changed to the point where that level of efficiency would be inefficient. Him attempting to drive more would be more exhausting on his older body, so it's something I question if he'd be able to maintain at that particular age. People are assuming he'd just suddenly be efficient enough relative to contemporary league average to be a top-3 player, but a lot would have to go into that.

the 1997 bulls had a higher ORtg than the 2023 warriors (and 2022 and 2021). not relative ORtg, absolute ORtg! this is in a league with a 6.2 lower ORtg than today (106.7 vs 112.9).

Okay? And what were their strengths in that. What was the main difference between the two. Jordan is not also getting a 35% team offensive rebounding rate. And if he is, the team’s defence will suffer a lot more than it did in 1997.

Oh, and by the way: totally different story when looking at what happened when Jordan and Curry were on the court. You know, the relevant bit to this question? I know we love to praise Jordan for his team’s bench production, but there should be a limit…

i don't see why we are worried jordan or his team would be efficient.

I think tsherkin explained that extremely thoroughly.

the '97 bulls (and '96) were 1st in the league in offense. curry hasn't even had a top 10 offense the last 3 years.

Which is a team and league relative accomplishment. In this hypothetical, do you imagine Jordan also has one of the league’s top benches?

I'd be skeptical of any jordan keeping up with curry in terms of o-value in the modern league

jordan led the #1 offense in 1991, 1992, 1996, and 1997 and was 2nd in 1993. and 5th in 1990. he never played on an offense that finished below 12th, while steph has not had an offense ranked above 14th (this season) since durant left.

None of that is an analysis of how they would perform in the modern league.

By the way, funny bit of that “never finished lower than top twelve” factoid: that includes 1986 and 1995! Tell me, what happens to the Warriors whenever Curry sits or happens to miss time? What would their offence look like with him missing 65 games?

individually, one guy goes up in the playoffs and one guy goes down.

Yes, 2022 Curry goes up in the playoffs and 1997 Jordan goes down.

Sure you're not confusing box-production with goodness again?

sure you're not confusing PI RAPM and non-regularized WOWY for goodness?

He might be, but at least the correlation is a lot stronger even before we get into era evolutions.

1997 jordan won 69 games, had the #1 offense, had the #4 defense and won a title going 15-4 in the playoffs. that sounds pretty good.

Yep, almost like he had the league’s best supporting cast.

i have to agree with No More Rings, that this box score aversion seems to have an agenda behind it. even winning in dominant fashion can apparently not validate mr. box score.

Yeah the agenda is for you to think about the sport rather than the basketball-reference page. I am similarly skeptical of the translation potential of the 2000 Lakers, the 1987 Lakers, the 1986 Celtics, the 1983 76ers, the 1972 Lakers, the 1971 Bucks, the 1967 76ers, and the 1962-65 Celtics. Leagues change. Just because an approach worked in the past does not mean it works now. And just because a player saw a lot of success in a certain circumstance does not mean they get to replicate that league relative circumstance wherever they go.

[Jdw38]

My huntch is top 3. He was still quick enough to get to the paint at will pretty much, especially it he had the spacing so commonplace in the league now (a lot depends on his team setting). And I recall him making two game winners when it counted most, in the finals. Not mention the wisdom and know-how he acquired by this point, which made him so resilient, the flu game being a case in point.

[Jdw38]

Ps-given the choices, I voted top 5, however.

[oaktownwarriors87]

Where would he rank?

There are 120 international players from 40 different countries spread across 6 continents today.





The league also hasn't expanded in almost 20 years. It added 6 (truly awful) teams from 1988-1989 through 1995-1996, expanding to 29 teams by 1997, the year in question.

Jordan would and could not dominate like he did in his actual career, today. The league is SO much deeper, broader, and more sophisticated today.

Almost.

The NBA is the youngest it's ever been, and in contrast 97/98 was when it was at it's oldest. There are almost 100 more player under the age of 23 (development years) today than there were in 1996/97, and about 60 fewer players between the ages of 26 and 34 (prime years).

There is more disparity in the league today as teams drafting and developing younger guys that aren't able to compete at as high of a level. This is also going to allow guys like LeBron and Curry play and dominate for longer.

No reason why Jordan couldn't dominate a bunch of kids. Especially if they played AAU ball.

[The Explorer]

Why are these hypotheticals always 1 way where we put the player in a time machine?
I prefer to use hypotheticals where the player was born later, benefited from the knowledge, techniques, and strategies of those who came before him, and then we can have a comparison.

If MJ was born in the 80s instead of the 60s, he would have of course played differently. He would have more more emphasis on his 3 pt shot, he would have been even more of a playmaker. Probably many other things as well that changed with the generations - recruiting other star players, etc.

[OhayoKD]

Sure you're not confusing box-production with goodness again?

sure you're not confusing PI RAPM and non-regularized WOWY for goodness?

He might be, but at least the correlation is a lot stronger even before we get into era evolutions.

Wow, a double quote! I think that might be my first.

Before we get married to simplistic classifications like "box-score" and "impact", it might be worthwhile to take a closer look at the various types of data frequently featured in these discussions. Assessing the various types of "evidence" we use(and where they work/don't work) calls for more nuance than boiling things down to "winning/dominance vs box-score vs impact". Let's dive a bit deeper before picking up our internet pitchforks for stat x or analyses y.

From what I understand it's actually the other way around. Pure box aggregates like PER and the like still do the worst(predictivity and flexibility), however you split it, but box-heavy impact metrics are better able to account for role players due to stability while less box-based metrics like PIPM, AUPM, On/Off, and RAPM do better with stars because they can better account for defense.

Raw signals in particular have an advantage over RAPM when looking at the most valuable seasons as RAPM(and all plus-minus based stuff really) set artificial caps which end up misattributing superstar value as role player value(lebron and hakeem see this happen several times)

The most predictive metrics are epm and rpm specifically because they draw directly from rapm as opposed to using a bunch of box stuff, though they too, suffer due to setting aritifical caps.


I think the big thing to consider here, is that the specific metrics you are choosing here[bpm/per/ws/48/gamescore(which is really just PER not adjusted for possessions)], consistently rate primary paint protectors low relative to their raw impact signals, or less offense-skewed data. Steph Curry and Jordan look as good as anyone in say PER(at least in the regular season), but Lebron and Duncan score higher in RAPM, on/off, and AUPM, and then when we go to raw impact, Hakeem, Russell, and Kareem all look as good or better. Considering that Jordan has the least discernable defensive imapct of anyone we've talked about in this thread, relying heavily on box-stuff and dismissing everything else seems questionable.

Let's not turn this into another Lebron vs Mj thing(and to everyone's credit, NMR excepted, we've avoided that), but I think there's good reason to weigh box-stuff less, especially when assessing superstars who generate significant value on the other end.(like Giannis). While curry's box-stuff may not have popped in 2022 due to his shooting slump, we should keep in mind that alot of what curry offers comes as a creator. If ben is to be believed, curry, when you account for spacing, creates more open looks than either Jordan or Lebron. And, if we assess the 2022 holistically, the klay-less warriors won at a 60 win pace with him and were average without him. I'm not sure that really counts as "mediocre". Curry also looked quite good in

Enig did a solid job addressing the rest but I feel like I should comment on this:

and he almost didn't manage to finish above 12th before kerr, but he did get an 11th place finish. and of course, individually, one guy goes up in the playoffs and one guy goes down.

Factoring coaching/systems is good practice... but let's be consistent. Chicago weren't able to cross 50 wins until their SRS skyrocketed upon the implementation of Phil Jackson's triangle. Jordan's success is closely correlated with Pippen and Phil much in the same way Curry's is tied to Draymond and Kerr. This isn't to say Jordan and Curry are exactly the same(relative-to-era, Jordan has a significant advantage in playoff resiliency), but context should be considered evenly.

[f4p]

i'm only to the end of page 1, but some people really think the best player in the world in 1997 wouldn't be top 5 in 2022? and several more are calling top 5 a close call.

giannis and jokic are a somewhat clear #1/#2 right now with luka coming up fast. maybe those 2 would be above MJ, but i'm gonna need giannis to win a title without everybody else in the nba being injured

The comparison here is presumably 1997, so then worth asking, what makes you think the Jazz were so much better than the Suns?

so much better? not sure. but better, definitely. 51-21 is not nearly as good as 64-18. +5.7 SRS is not nearly as good as +8, even accounting for some expansion inflation. one team was a deep superstar-less squad with several young guys as some of their better players, the other was a battle-tested veteran squad with 2 superstars (one the mvp). one strictly beat injured teams in the western playoffs (even lost 2 games to the clippers) and the other took a full broadside from hakeem in the WCF and still managed to win.

before really putting them above MJ, who in 1997 won 69 games and his 5th title

Well, his team did.

well, yes, rules did dictate that 4 other people be on the court with him, as it is for most teams. nevertheless, being the best player on the team that would have tied the wins record if not for his own team the year before seems like a pretty big accomplishment (and they would have won 70 if not for a very weird 1-3 finish to the season).

34 year old steph is better than 34 year old jordan? after coming off a mediocre regular season in 2022

Because his shot was a bit off? Do you feel it is off now?

am i not supposed to consider how he was shooting for a full 82 game season? when does it stop being a slump? a guy who lived in the 115-120 TS+ range for his whole career cratered to 106, just barely above his rookie season. as for if it is off now. no, but it also wasn't off early last year and then it stayed down for a long time. also, the point is that at no point in time at the same age in their respective careers would steph be considered better than jordan. so if he is going to surpass him at the same age, i'm going to need to see some big downward trend in jordan that is avoided by steph (or steph having his own uptrend). the season he had last year does not support the idea that he was in the process of passing jordan and that somehow this season has cemented that process.

and a playoffs that was nice but not even steph's best and certainly wouldn't crack jordan's top 10.

Is this where you quote BPM at us to “prove” that stance.

what would you like to quote to prove the opposite? some PI RAPM and PIPM's? whether you like the BBRef suite of stats or not, i think we can fairly say that they have measured steph curry, accurately or inaccurately, in the same way throughout his career. there is no reason to believe a much better version of curry would do worse in these numbers (or vice versa). 2017 stands out in every measure as his best playoffs and 2022 wasn't that close to matching it. it looked more like 2015 and was closer to the more subpar 2016/18/19 playoffs than to 2017. and whether you like PER/BPM or not, i don't know who has many, if any, steph curry playoff runs up there with almost anything jordan did. now maybe you're going to tell me that you've got a bunch of steph curry playoffs runs right in there in the mix with jordan's best stuff, but that would be far from consensus, as far as i can tell. in fact, 2017 would probably be the only steph playoff run that would belong in a conversation with almost anything jordan did (even ignoring the low pressure and easiness of it all). and, so if 2022 wasn't as good as 2017, what top 10 jordan playoff run is it beating out?

It worked for him in-era. It was efficient in-era, particularly with his ball protection. The offensive environment has changed to the point where that level of efficiency would be inefficient. Him attempting to drive more would be more exhausting on his older body, so it's something I question if he'd be able to maintain at that particular age. People are assuming he'd just suddenly be efficient enough relative to contemporary league average to be a top-3 player, but a lot would have to go into that.

the 1997 bulls had a higher ORtg than the 2023 warriors (and 2022 and 2021). not relative ORtg, absolute ORtg! this is in a league with a 6.2 lower ORtg than today (106.7 vs 112.9).

Okay? And what were their strengths in that. What was the main difference between the two. Jordan is not also getting a 35% team offensive rebounding rate. And if he is, the team’s defence will suffer a lot more than it did in 1997.

does MJ get to have klay thompson being a much scarier shooter who gets way more defensive attention than anyone on the bulls (kerr just standing there isn't warping the court). does he get a 6th man like jordan poole who averages over 25 every time he gets to start and just put up 43 super efficient points yesterday? that 35% OReb also comes with a side of rodman being a non-spacer who does almost nothing for the offense before the shot goes up. i don't know which affects win out for which team, but it's a bit presumptuous to think jordan couldn't create an efficient offense like curry when we're talking about a 7.3 rORtg difference between the teams as it stands. the league has only gone more and more in favor of athletic wings since jordan retired so it seems weird to think he would somehow be hurt by the new environment. i would be hard pressed to think the 7.3 advantage is going to shrink, much less that it's all going to evaporate.

Oh, and by the way: totally different story when looking at what happened when Jordan and Curry were on the court. You know, the relevant bit to this question? I know we love to praise Jordan for his team’s bench production, but there should be a limit…

i don't love to praise jordan for that. it's one of my main (small) knocks against him. either way, a guy with four #1 offenses in 5 years seems hard to argue against creating efficient offense, especially if the argument is that 1997 michael jordan is just going to time warp into the 2023 nba season and keep shooting the exact same shots he took, when he would have certainly used some of his 34 years on earth to acclimate to the modern game, just as he did in his day.

the '97 bulls (and '96) were 1st in the league in offense. curry hasn't even had a top 10 offense the last 3 years.

Which is a team and league relative accomplishment. In this hypothetical, do you imagine Jordan also has one of the league’s top benches?

i don't know what i imagine he has. i know that he had four #1 offenses and a #2 in 5 years, and sprinkled in many other top 10 offenses throughout his career. why is steph curry the god of offense when he's had 2 top 10 offenses in his career without kevin durant? none before kerr. none since durant. if he's such a surefire thing and jordan is such a shaky proposition, shouldn't the opposite hold? people love playing the "lebron ball" card every time someone says lebron's teams struggle without him. is it not possible that a team trying to play curry-ball, a much less common offense throughout the league than lebron-ball, keeps his bench from being able to execute it perfectly? now i don't necessarily buy either argument, but i'm still not sure why the warriors don't need to crack the top half of offense in the league at least once in the post-durant era before i just assume that jordan and his #1 offense wouldn't be able to keep up with a bottom half offense if jordan came forward in time.

I'd be skeptical of any jordan keeping up with curry in terms of o-value in the modern league

jordan led the #1 offense in 1991, 1992, 1996, and 1997 and was 2nd in 1993. and 5th in 1990. he never played on an offense that finished below 12th, while steph has not had an offense ranked above 14th (this season) since durant left.

None of that is an analysis of how they would perform in the modern league.

being amazing in your own time would seem like a pretty good argument that you would figure it out in a new time. either way, i suspect the mid-range GOAT would turn himself into at least a respectable 35% three point shooter while still exploiting the mid-range as KD manages to do these days just fine, MJ would find himself in love with how open the court is and, while he may not be the most instinctive passer ever, would still create gobs of open shots for teammates (wasn't it favorite son ben taylor in one of his videos who pointed out how many creation opportunities jordan was responsible for, even without being a great passer?). you would have to be very low on MJ to think that a guy scoring like 32 efficient points per game with a bunch of assists is not going to be a good offense. there's only so many other possessions to go around for the rest of the guys to drag it down.

By the way, funny bit of that “never finished lower than top twelve” factoid: that includes 1986 and 1995! Tell me, what happens to the Warriors whenever Curry sits or happens to miss time? What would their offence look like with him missing 65 games?

i suspect it would be bad. but is the argument that curry has only played with the worst offensive talent his whole career? klay thompson seems like a pretty good person to have next to your side for your whole career. jordan poole started 3 playoff games and averaged 29 ppg on 84 TS%. can we not catch a top 10 finish out of that? and the 1994 bulls finished 14th. without looking at the pace of the games, MJ's final 17 in 1995 scored 3.3 more ppg so probably drug the team up from like 12th to 10th. either way, MJ went 1/1/2, retired and team went to 14th, came back and they went 1/1. the point isn't that curry isn't good, it's the idea that the guy finishing at the top of the league damn near every year wouldn't have been efficient. isn't steve nash and his amazing top 1 and 2 finishes what i always have to hear about when arguing against him? why does steph get a pass?

individually, one guy goes up in the playoffs and one guy goes down.

Yes, 2022 Curry goes up in the playoffs and 1997 Jordan goes down.

hey, steph finally did it. of course by did it, i mean he sucked so much in the regular season that having his normal playoff stats from the rest of his career were a step up. they would have been a step down from either '21 or '23, when he was good in the regular season. what's the basis for jordan going down in the 1997 playoffs? i would personally say he did, but that's based on the box score and that doesn't count obviously. his team went a solid 15-4 in the playoffs so the team held up really well.

Sure you're not confusing box-production with goodness again?

sure you're not confusing PI RAPM and non-regularized WOWY for goodness?

He might be, but at least the correlation is a lot stronger even before we get into era evolutions.

oh i'm sure that correlation is amazing.

1997 jordan won 69 games, had the #1 offense, had the #4 defense and won a title going 15-4 in the playoffs. that sounds pretty good.

Yep, almost like he had the league’s best supporting cast.

almost like he won the most games ever except for himself with that league-best supporting cast. with great power comes great responsbility, and MJ lived up to it.

i have to agree with No More Rings, that this box score aversion seems to have an agenda behind it. even winning in dominant fashion can apparently not validate mr. box score.

Yeah the agenda is for you to think about the sport rather than the basketball-reference page.

i think about the game plenty beyond the box score and BBRef. it's just that when i go beyond them, i don't go the same place as you do. i look at a team's roster, how much help a guy had (this board is not big on that, which is why you see people higher on guys like steph and duncan), who they had to beat, was it reasonable to expect them to win, how far should they have gone in a given year and did they go that far (or further). i hate wasted championships. i don't like homecourt losses and SRS favorite losses. winning without star help against superior opponents is big to me. making the best of bad situations is better to me than making the best of great situations. but if you do get a great situation, not having blemishes is big. did you come up big in the biggest moments. did you drag down your averages with a "meh" performance against an overmatched opponent your team beat easily? don't care. give me an 80 in the 1st round and 90 in the WCF over an 85 in both rounds. do you blow series leads? can you come back from a deficit? these are the things i care about.

i'm a math nerd. if i though that the RAPM and PIPM's of the world were really strong enough to put much stock in, i would do so. if i really thought they factored everything out and could get to the core of who is better and who isn't, i would love them. but i don't see it when i look at those numbers and the results on the court. i see noisy numbers. i see team- and situation-dependent numbers. i see guys who inexplicably do well without matching the criteria i described above and inexplicably do poorly while meeting the criteria i described above (say, luka last year example). just because we don't go to the same places, doesn't mean i don't like to travel.

[LukaTheGOAT]

i'm only to the end of page 1, but some people really think the best player in the world in 1997 wouldn't be top 5 in 2022? and several more are calling top 5 a close call.

giannis and jokic are a somewhat clear #1/#2 right now with luka coming up fast. maybe those 2 would be above MJ, but i'm gonna need giannis to win a title without everybody else in the nba being injured

The comparison here is presumably 1997, so then worth asking, what makes you think the Jazz were so much better than the Suns?

so much better? not sure. but better, definitely. 51-21 is not nearly as good as 64-18. +5.7 SRS is not nearly as good as +8, even accounting for some expansion inflation. one team was a deep superstar-less squad with several young guys as some of their better players, the other was a battle-tested veteran squad with 2 superstars (one the mvp). one strictly beat injured teams in the western playoffs (even lost 2 games to the clippers) and the other took a full broadside from hakeem in the WCF and still managed to win.

before really putting them above MJ, who in 1997 won 69 games and his 5th title

Well, his team did.

well, yes, rules did dictate that 4 other people be on the court with him, as it is for most teams. nevertheless, being the best player on the team that would have tied the wins record if not for his own team the year before seems like a pretty big accomplishment (and they would have won 70 if not for a very weird 1-3 finish to the season).

34 year old steph is better than 34 year old jordan? after coming off a mediocre regular season in 2022

Because his shot was a bit off? Do you feel it is off now?

am i not supposed to consider how he was shooting for a full 82 game season? when does it stop being a slump? a guy who lived in the 115-120 TS+ range for his whole career cratered to 106, just barely above his rookie season. as for if it is off now. no, but it also wasn't off early last year and then it stayed down for a long time. also, the point is that at no point in time at the same age in their respective careers would steph be considered better than jordan. so if he is going to surpass him at the same age, i'm going to need to see some big downward trend in jordan that is avoided by steph (or steph having his own uptrend). the season he had last year does not support the idea that he was in the process of passing jordan and that somehow this season has cemented that process.

and a playoffs that was nice but not even steph's best and certainly wouldn't crack jordan's top 10.

Is this where you quote BPM at us to “prove” that stance.

what would you like to quote to prove the opposite? some PI RAPM and PIPM's? whether you like the BBRef suite of stats or not, i think we can fairly say that they have measured steph curry, accurately or inaccurately, in the same way throughout his career. there is no reason to believe a much better version of curry would do worse in these numbers (or vice versa). 2017 stands out in every measure as his best playoffs and 2022 wasn't that close to matching it. it looked more like 2015 and was closer to the more subpar 2016/18/19 playoffs than to 2017. and whether you like PER/BPM or not, i don't know who has many, if any, steph curry playoff runs up there with almost anything jordan did. now maybe you're going to tell me that you've got a bunch of steph curry playoffs runs right in there in the mix with jordan's best stuff, but that would be far from consensus, as far as i can tell. in fact, 2017 would probably be the only steph playoff run that would belong in a conversation with almost anything jordan did (even ignoring the low pressure and easiness of it all). and, so if 2022 wasn't as good as 2017, what top 10 jordan playoff run is it beating out?

It worked for him in-era. It was efficient in-era, particularly with his ball protection. The offensive environment has changed to the point where that level of efficiency would be inefficient. Him attempting to drive more would be more exhausting on his older body, so it's something I question if he'd be able to maintain at that particular age. People are assuming he'd just suddenly be efficient enough relative to contemporary league average to be a top-3 player, but a lot would have to go into that.

the 1997 bulls had a higher ORtg than the 2023 warriors (and 2022 and 2021). not relative ORtg, absolute ORtg! this is in a league with a 6.2 lower ORtg than today (106.7 vs 112.9).

Okay? And what were their strengths in that. What was the main difference between the two. Jordan is not also getting a 35% team offensive rebounding rate. And if he is, the team’s defence will suffer a lot more than it did in 1997.

does MJ get to have klay thompson being a much scarier shooter who gets way more defensive attention than anyone on the bulls (kerr just standing there isn't warping the court). does he get a 6th man like jordan poole who averages over 25 every time he gets to start and just put up 43 super efficient points yesterday? that 35% OReb also comes with a side of rodman being a non-spacer who does almost nothing for the offense before the shot goes up. i don't know which affects win out for which team, but it's a bit presumptuous to think jordan couldn't create an efficient offense like curry when we're talking about a 7.3 rORtg difference between the teams as it stands. the league has only gone more and more in favor of athletic wings since jordan retired so it seems weird to think he would somehow be hurt by the new environment. i would be hard pressed to think the 7.3 advantage is going to shrink, much less that it's all going to evaporate.

Oh, and by the way: totally different story when looking at what happened when Jordan and Curry were on the court. You know, the relevant bit to this question? I know we love to praise Jordan for his team’s bench production, but there should be a limit…

i don't love to praise jordan for that. it's one of my main (small) knocks against him. either way, a guy with four #1 offenses in 5 years seems hard to argue against creating efficient offense, especially if the argument is that 1997 michael jordan is just going to time warp into the 2023 nba season and keep shooting the exact same shots he took, when he would have certainly used some of his 34 years on earth to acclimate to the modern game, just as he did in his day.

the '97 bulls (and '96) were 1st in the league in offense. curry hasn't even had a top 10 offense the last 3 years.

Which is a team and league relative accomplishment. In this hypothetical, do you imagine Jordan also has one of the league’s top benches?

i don't know what i imagine he has. i know that he had four #1 offenses and a #2 in 5 years, and sprinkled in many other top 10 offenses throughout his career. why is steph curry the god of offense when he's had 2 top 10 offenses in his career without kevin durant? none before kerr. none since durant. if he's such a surefire thing and jordan is such a shaky proposition, shouldn't the opposite hold? people love playing the "lebron ball" card every time someone says lebron's teams struggle without him. is it not possible that a team trying to play curry-ball, a much less common offense throughout the league than lebron-ball, keeps his bench from being able to execute it perfectly? now i don't necessarily buy either argument, but i'm still not sure why the warriors don't need to crack the top half of offense in the league at least once in the post-durant era before i just assume that jordan and his #1 offense wouldn't be able to keep up with a bottom half offense if jordan came forward in time.

I'd be skeptical of any jordan keeping up with curry in terms of o-value in the modern league

jordan led the #1 offense in 1991, 1992, 1996, and 1997 and was 2nd in 1993. and 5th in 1990. he never played on an offense that finished below 12th, while steph has not had an offense ranked above 14th (this season) since durant left.

None of that is an analysis of how they would perform in the modern league.[/quote]

being amazing in your own time would seem like a pretty good argument that you would figure it out in a new time. either way, i suspect the mid-range GOAT would turn himself into at least a respectable 35% three point shooter while still exploiting the mid-range as KD manages to do these days just fine, MJ would find himself in love with how open the court is and, while he may not be the most instinctive passer ever, would still create gobs of open shots for teammates (wasn't it favorite son ben taylor in one of his videos who pointed out how many creation opportunities jordan was responsible for, even without being a great passer?). you would have to be very low on MJ to think that a guy scoring like 32 efficient points per game with a bunch of assists is not going to be a good offense. there's only so many other possessions to go around for the rest of the guys to drag it down.

By the way, funny bit of that “never finished lower than top twelve” factoid: that includes 1986 and 1995! Tell me, what happens to the Warriors whenever Curry sits or happens to miss time? What would their offence look like with him missing 65 games?

i suspect it would be bad. but is the argument that curry has only played with the worst offensive talent his whole career? klay thompson seems like a pretty good person to have next to your side for your whole career. jordan poole started 3 playoff games and averaged 29 ppg on 84 TS%. can we not catch a top 10 finish out of that? and the 1994 bulls finished 14th. without looking at the pace of the games, MJ's final 17 in 1995 scored 3.3 more ppg so probably drug the team up from like 12th to 10th. either way, MJ went 1/1/2, retired and team went to 14th, came back and they went 1/1. the point isn't that curry isn't good, it's the idea that the guy finishing at the top of the league damn near every year wouldn't have been efficient. isn't steve nash and his amazing top 1 and 2 finishes what i always have to hear about when arguing against him? why does steph get a pass?

individually, one guy goes up in the playoffs and one guy goes down.

Yes, 2022 Curry goes up in the playoffs and 1997 Jordan goes down.

hey, steph finally did it. of course by did it, i mean he sucked so much in the regular season that having his normal playoff stats from the rest of his career were a step up. they would have been a step down from either '21 or '23, when he was good in the regular season. what's the basis for jordan going down in the 1997 playoffs? i would personally say he did, but that's based on the box score and that doesn't count obviously. his team went a solid 15-4 in the playoffs so the team held up really well.

sure you're not confusing PI RAPM and non-regularized WOWY for goodness?

He might be, but at least the correlation is a lot stronger even before we get into era evolutions.

oh i'm sure that correlation is amazing.

1997 jordan won 69 games, had the #1 offense, had the #4 defense and won a title going 15-4 in the playoffs. that sounds pretty good.

Yep, almost like he had the league’s best supporting cast.

almost like he won the most games ever except for himself with that league-best supporting cast. with great power comes great responsbility, and MJ lived up to it.

i have to agree with No More Rings, that this box score aversion seems to have an agenda behind it. even winning in dominant fashion can apparently not validate mr. box score.

Yeah the agenda is for you to think about the sport rather than the basketball-reference page.

i think about the game plenty beyond the box score and BBRef. it's just that when i go beyond them, i don't go the same place as you do. i look at a team's roster, how much help a guy had (this board is not big on that, which is why you see people higher on guys like steph and duncan), who they had to beat, was it reasonable to expect them to win, how far should they have gone in a given year and did they go that far (or further). i hate wasted championships. i don't like homecourt losses and SRS favorite losses. winning without star help against superior opponents is big to me. making the best of bad situations is better to me than making the best of great situations. but if you do get a great situation, not having blemishes is big. did you come up big in the biggest moments. did you drag down your averages with a "meh" performance against an overmatched opponent your team beat easily? don't care. give me an 80 in the 1st round and 90 in the WCF over an 85 in both rounds. do you blow series leads? can you come back from a deficit? these are the things i care about.

i'm a math nerd. if i though that the RAPM and PIPM's of the world were really strong enough to put much stock in, i would do so. if i really thought they factored everything out and could get to the core of who is better and who isn't, i would love them. but i don't see it when i look at those numbers and the results on the court. i see noisy numbers. i see team- and situation-dependent numbers. i see guys who inexplicably do well without matching the criteria i described above and inexplicably do poorly while meeting the criteria i described above (say, luka last year example). just because we don't go to the same places, doesn't mean i don't like to travel.[/quote]

I also question the criticism to say Jordan dropped off while Steph rose, as if that is some sort of point in Steph's favor? Jordan actually rose in the PS per the metrics we have and was more impressive per many the numbers we have.

Jordan during the 97 Playoffs still played at a higher level than Curry, so even if you wanted to argue he dropped off in comparison to Curry, he played above him..

97 Jordan in the RS

Backpicks BPM 6.8
AuPM/G-5.1
BPM-8.9
Full-season (RS/PS) PIPM-6.27
PIE-19


97 Jordan in the PS

Backpicks BPM-7.5 (+0.8 from RS)
AuPM/G-6.1 (+1 from RS)
BPM-9.9 (+1 from RS)
PIE-21.6 (+2.6 from RS)


22 Steph in the RS

Backpicks BPM-4.7
AuPM/G-4.4
BPM-5.8
Estimated PIPM per the basketballdatabase-5.32
PIE-15.5

22 Steph in the PS

Backpicks BPM-6.2 (+1.5 from RS)
AuPM/G-4.3 (-0.1 from RS)
BPM-7.7 (+1.9 from RS)
PIE-15.8 (+0.3 from RS)


MJ finished #2 in 1997 in NPI and PI RAPM behind Christian Laettner. We don't have RAPM done by the same person in the same period, but if we compare their relative league ranks in pure RAPM, Steph also finished #2 in NBA ShotCharts RAPM.

When you consider that Jordan was starting from a higher starting point in the RS, and he still improved as much as he did, you could argue his PS rise was more impressive than Steph's. Many of these metrics are not linear in nature, and therefore it gets harder and harder to rise as much, the higher you are on the scale to begin with.

Jordan actually lead a better PS offense to. His team had a PS rORTG of +7.7, compared to a +3.9 for the Warriors, and I find that point compelling, as I don't think the Bulls' offensive talent was several tiers ahead of the Warriors.

[AEnigma]

I also question the criticism to say Jordan dropped off while Steph rose, as if that is some sort of point in Steph's favor? Jordan actually rose in the PS per the metrics we have and was more impressive per many the numbers we have.

Jordan during the 97 Playoffs still played at a higher level than Curry, so even if you wanted to argue he dropped off in comparison to Curry, he played above him.

…

MJ finished #2 in 1997 in NPI and PI RAPM behind Christian Laettner. We don't have RAPM done by the same person in the same period, but if we compare their relative league ranks in pure RAPM, Steph also finished #2 in NBA ShotCharts RAPM.

When you consider that Jordan was starting from a higher starting point in the RS, and he still improved as much as he did, you could argue his PS rise was more impressive than Steph's. Many of these metrics are not linear in nature, and therefore it gets harder and harder to rise as much, the higher you are on the scale to begin with.

Jordan actually lead a better PS offense to. His team had a PS rORTG of +7.7, compared to a +3.9 for the Warriors, and I find that point compelling, as I don't think the Bulls' offensive talent was several tiers ahead of the Warriors.

Ignoring the odd response to a quip framed specifically around the argument that 2022 Curry had a weak regular season, no one at any point has disputed that Jordan had better league relative impact than Curry recently has.

The point of the thread, and the recurring discussion throughout, has been whether Jordan maintains that, and if not, to what degree that drops. I think plenty of strong arguments (mostly by tsherkin) have been offered as to why some skepticism seems reasonable. Assuming you bothered to read that preceding discussion, maybe you err more toward migya’s form of basketball analysis, but in that case seems like it would be more worthwhile to try to argue why you think none of those impact numbers would change when transposed to the modern league than to just robotically post those numbers in response to an idea — Jordan playing in 1997 > Curry playing in 2022 — that was never remotely in contention.

n.b. You should fix your quotation formatting; I think it was partially because of a formatting error on f4p’s end, but a second layer down it has become a total mess.

[colts18]

Are the posters here going to really ignore how much easier it is for Perimeter players to score with both volume and efficiency in this era? The numbers for perimeter players have exploded this era.

# of 20+ PPG scorers:
1997: 22 (16 of them perimeter players)
2023: 40 (32 perimeter players)

Number of 25+ PPG scorers:
1997: 4 (3 perimeter players)
2023: 25 (20 perimeter players)

Number of 30+ PPG scorers:
1997: 0
2023: 7 (5 perimeter players)

Number of 20+ PPG, 55 TS% players:
1997: 14 (4 60+ TS%)
2023: 39 (19 60+ TS%)

The stat inflation in this era is on another level. If Jaylen Brown can average 26 PPG and Tyler Herro can average 21, are you telling me that MJ can't dominate in the same era?

[magicman1978]

Are the posters here going to really ignore how much easier it is for Perimeter players to score with both volume and efficiency in this era? The numbers for perimeter players have exploded this era.

# of 20+ PPG scorers:
1997: 22 (16 of them perimeter players)
2023: 40 (32 perimeter players)

Number of 25+ PPG scorers:
1997: 4 (3 perimeter players)
2023: 25 (20 perimeter players)

Number of 30+ PPG scorers:
1997: 0
2023: 7 (5 perimeter players)

Number of 20+ PPG, 55 TS% players:
1997: 14 (4 60+ TS%)
2023: 39 (19 60+ TS%)

The stat inflation in this era is on another level. If Jaylen Brown can average 26 PPG and Tyler Herro can average 21, are you telling me that MJ can't dominate in the same era?

It seems like the main argument is that he wouldn't stand out as much from his contemporaries (due to increase in talent amongst other factors), not that he wouldn't dominate. Some arguments seem to suggest his game wouldn't translate well. That skepticism is valid, but I don't buy it. Jordan would still be the most athletic guard today, he would still be just as obsessive about being the best, he has displayed all the required skills and ability to adjust his game to be just as good today as he was back then. The greats adjust their game to the era/rules and to their team (one reason second three-peat Jordan was even more mid-range reliant was because of Rodman clogging the lane for offensive rebounds - which was a good thing, but do we think Jordan's game looks the same if you swap Rodman with a stretch PF?). We've seen players transcend Jordan's, Kobe's, Duncan's, LeBron's, etc., etc. eras and not have any issues dominating against newer more talented players. I mean with the explosion in talent - you'd think there would be no way some of the late 90s players should have been as good they were in the late 2000s/early 2010s.

I don't think there's anything to suggest that Jordan wouldn't be as good today as he was in his time - and one of those reasons is what you've shown here. The game is easier for players of his archetype today.

[AEnigma]

Okay, since much of this discussion apparently cannot progress beyond, “Jordan was the best scorer 25 years ago and because of inflation that should not change,” I am curious what specifically in his playstyle against the modern league would make Jordan significantly better than say Kevin Durant. Because to me, that ultimately seems to be the projection a lot of you want to give. No matter how much time is spent trying to explain why that probably would not be what happens.

[magicman1978]

Okay, since much of this discussion apparently cannot progress beyond, “Jordan was the best scorer 25 years ago and because of inflation that should not change,” I am curious what specifically in his playstyle against the modern league would make Jordan significantly better than say Kevin Durant. Because to me, that ultimately seems to be the projection a lot of you want to give. No matter how much time is spent trying to explain why that probably would not be what happens.

I'll admit, I don't recall everything said in this thread and I tend to ignore some of the more extreme views altogether - but where are you seeing that people are saying he would be significantly better than Durant? I do think he would be better. Although Durant is an excellent individual scorer, Jordan would be a better offensive initiator in today's league (where his skills align well with heliocentric offenses of today) and provide more team offensive lift.

[falcolombardi]

Okay, since much of this discussion apparently cannot progress beyond, “Jordan was the best scorer 25 years ago and because of inflation that should not change,” I am curious what specifically in his playstyle against the modern league would make Jordan significantly better than say Kevin Durant. Because to me, that ultimately seems to be the projection a lot of you want to give. No matter how much time is spent trying to explain why that probably would not be what happens.

I'll admit, I don't recall everything said in this thread and I tend to ignore some of the more extreme views altogether - but where are you seeing that people are saying he would be significantly better than Durant? I do think he would be better. Although Durant is an excellent individual scorer, Jordan would be a better offensive initiator in today's league (where his skills align well with heliocentric offenses of today) and provide more team offensive lift.

I have some doubts with jordan passing, i think he is a solid enough passer to be a helio, but i dont know if he could do the passing part as well as say, james harden or doncic (other 30+ ppg scorers who played helio)

He would gain separation from players like those with defense and off ball game (as well as being a better shooter than luka and morr resilient that harden fsirly likely) but i think he would execute the passing part of heliocentrism worse than the best helios of this era

[magicman1978]

Okay, since much of this discussion apparently cannot progress beyond, “Jordan was the best scorer 25 years ago and because of inflation that should not change,” I am curious what specifically in his playstyle against the modern league would make Jordan significantly better than say Kevin Durant. Because to me, that ultimately seems to be the projection a lot of you want to give. No matter how much time is spent trying to explain why that probably would not be what happens.

I'll admit, I don't recall everything said in this thread and I tend to ignore some of the more extreme views altogether - but where are you seeing that people are saying he would be significantly better than Durant? I do think he would be better. Although Durant is an excellent individual scorer, Jordan would be a better offensive initiator in today's league (where his skills align well with heliocentric offenses of today) and provide more team offensive lift.

I have some doubts with jordan passing, i think he is a solid enough passer to be a helio, but i dont know if he could do the passing part as well as say, james harden or doncic (other 30+ ppg scorers who played helio)

He would gain separation from players like those with defense and off ball game (as well as being a better shooter than luka and morr resilient that harden fsirly likely) but i think he would execute the passing part of heliocentrism worse than the best helios of this era

I agree, but the question was Durant vs Jordan.

[OhayoKD]

jordan led the #1 offense in 1991, 1992, 1996, and 1997 and was 2nd in 1993. and 5th in 1990. he never played on an offense that finished below 12th, while steph has not had an offense ranked above 14th (this season) since durant left.

None of that is an analysis of how they would perform in the modern league.

being amazing in your own time would seem like a pretty good argument that you would figure it out in a new time. either way, i suspect the mid-range GOAT would turn himself into at least a respectable 35% three point shooter while still exploiting the mid-range as KD manages to do these days just fine, MJ would find himself in love with how open the court is and, while he may not be the most instinctive passer ever, would still create gobs of open shots for teammates (wasn't it favorite son ben taylor in one of his videos who pointed out how many creation opportunities jordan was responsible for, even without being a great passer?). you would have to be very low on MJ to think that a guy scoring like 32 efficient points per game with a bunch of assists is not going to be a good offense. there's only so many other possessions to go around for the rest of the guys to drag it down.

By the way, funny bit of that “never finished lower than top twelve” factoid: that includes 1986 and 1995! Tell me, what happens to the Warriors whenever Curry sits or happens to miss time? What would their offence look like with him missing 65 games?

Double quoted again! Though since we all seem to have given up on formatting, I'll be a bit loose with the attribution and chronology of quotes if you don't mind.


I'll start with this since I think it gets to both in-era impact and relativity. Let's first touch on their impact in-era, even though this is largely tangential to the thread.

Ignoring that the bulls offensive rating wasn't better than the warriors when jordan himself was on the court is odd given you later say...

i look at a team's roster, how much help a guy had (this board is not big on that, which is why you see people higher on guys like steph and duncan)

Frankly this segment strikes me as completely at odds with your general dismissal of holistic cast evaluation. So you look at "how much help they had" but you just repeat "the offensive ratings were better" while disregarding that they were "better" based on what was happening when jordan and curry were off the court? How does putting heavy emphasis on metrics that don't really assess defensive value, or ignoring how teams do *without superstars help here? The best way to compare teams when assessing how strong they were relative to the competition, is to see how they far, relative to the competition. Factors like "depth/quality of stars/spacing/flexibility and(to a degree) fit all coalesce in actual games and we are shown how they come together. Taking a part of the soup and trying to guess what the full thing tasted like is simply a vastly worse way of assessing team quality than tasting the stew as a whole and then applying context. It shouldn't be suprising that metrics that root themselves in winning, the stew so to speak, consistently out-pace those that ignore the stew partially or all-together:

From what I understand it's actually the other way around. Pure box aggregates like PER and the like still do the worst(predictivity and flexibility), however you split it, but box-heavy impact metrics are better able to account for role players due to stability while less box-based metrics like PIPM, AUPM, On/Off, and RAPM do better with stars because they can better account for defense.

Raw signals in particular have an advantage over RAPM when looking at the most valuable seasons as RAPM(and all plus-minus based stuff really) set artificial caps which end up misattributing superstar value as role player value(lebron and hakeem see this happen several times)

The most predictive metrics are epm and rpm specifically because they draw directly from rapm as opposed to using a bunch of box stuff, though they too, suffer due to setting aritifical caps.


I think the big thing to consider here, is that the specific metrics you are choosing here[bpm/per/ws/48/gamescore(which is really just PER not adjusted for possessions)], consistently rate primary paint protectors low relative to their raw impact signals, or less offense-skewed data. Steph Curry and Jordan look as good as anyone in say PER(at least in the regular season), but Lebron and Duncan score higher in RAPM, on/off, and AUPM, and then when we go to raw impact, Hakeem, Russell, and Kareem all look as good or better. Considering that Jordan has the least discernable defensive imapct of anyone we've talked about in this thread, relying heavily on box-stuff and dismissing everything else seems questionable.

Why don't we actually talk about these stats and why we're using them instead of claiming "this better, this worse"?

"help" also seems like an odd angle when you chide giannis for not beating good enough teams. Giannis, whether you go by accolades, name-value, or actually looking at how well the cast performs isolated from their superstar, has never had as much help as jordan(and to a lesser extent curry) has had when they experienced success. You bring up Kerr as a factor in curry's success, but seem to ignore that we see a big, big schematic improvement with phil jackson's entrance. And unlike curry, whose own individual metrics skyrocketed, jordan's dipped during the period where the bulls skyrocketed via the triangle.

Honestly your comments about klay, a player who the warriors had the best record in the league without(before curry got injured) showcase the limitations of whatever approach you seem to be taking to "help". It's not like the lift curry shows here(average without 60 win with) is some fluky outlier. You bring up 72 wins and 69 wins, but the warriors got 67 and 73 with, at least based on what we saw from both teams when their superstars help, less support.

"ah curry got older" can also be turned on Jordan here, because, assuming we agree that 88-91 is his apex (supported by jordan's box-metrics, partial apm(squared sample), on/off, pipm(the things that account for defense prefer 88/89 to 90 to 91), Jordan isn't crossing 55 wins without the triangle and he's reaching 50 wins(pre-kerr warriors territory) joining a 27 win team that incrementally improves. These regular seasons also suck if we're only going to look at the team success without isolating the help. If we "Look at the help" as you suggest, then these "bad regular season" allegations look pretty shaky. in 2020 and 2021 the warriors are a 20 win team without curry and are a 45 win team with him. In 2022 they are .500 without, and 60 wins with(not accounting for klay's absence from when they were the best team in the regular season).

But this is all somewhat tangential because, this is not about era-relative impact, this is about translation, and translation is not about whether jordan's numbers go up, translation is about whether jordan can outpace the field who has also seen their numbers go up. I think their are posts here which, somewhat ironically, outline this distinction:

Are the posters here going to really ignore how much easier it is for Perimeter players to score with both volume and efficiency in this era? The numbers for perimeter players have exploded this era.

# of 20+ PPG scorers:
1997: 22 (16 of them perimeter players)
2023: 40 (32 perimeter players)

Number of 25+ PPG scorers:
1997: 4 (3 perimeter players)
2023: 25 (20 perimeter players)

Number of 30+ PPG scorers:
1997: 0
2023: 7 (5 perimeter players)

Number of 20+ PPG, 55 TS% players:
1997: 14 (4 60+ TS%)
2023: 39 (19 60+ TS%)

The stat inflation in this era is on another level. If Jaylen Brown can average 26 PPG and Tyler Herro can average 21, are you telling me that MJ can't dominate in the same era?

Colts isn't defining dominance via "goodness", he's defining dominance with ppg, and in doing so, just compared Jordan to two players who probably aren't even top 10 for most everyone here. "friendly" really just means "ppg go up" and as colts has brillantly demonstrated for us by bringing up derozan, herro and jaylen brown, "ppg go up" means absolutely nothing.

Chosen son ben taylor had jordan miles ahead of every other peak till faced with a shitton of data saying, huh, jordan doesn't look like an outlier relative to other top tenners, and only then conceding its arguable. So when the chosen son's film-tracking shows him as limited as a raw passer relative to kobe bryant, we need to ask ourselves if we expect him to not get worse against defenses which now can freely hedge thus putting a premium on skill and size by narrowing the angles. Sure jordan can use a spaced floor to create looks, but so can everyone else, and now teams don't have to wait till he has a head of steam. This should better equip them to exploit the fact he lacks the size and power of transcendent rim threats like giannis or prime lebron, and force him to rely on his, relatively speaking, limited passing and vision. He created a shitton with limited passing, in his era. If he is no longer able to create as much as anyone else in the league, he's gotten worse, regardless of whether his apg goes up or down. That shooting and off-ball stuff is way less rare and a player who compensates for size with aggressiveness on d is probably easier to exploit in the era of pace and space, a limitation which does not really apply to versatile switchable primary paint protectors.

The greater frequency of those types(ad, giannis) probably increases the difficulty of jordan exploiting his quickness to manuever to the rim. As it was jordan's rim gravity that opened up avenues for him to create a ton, there's good reason to think his creation, relative to his peers anyway, is diminished. And all that aside...

As ty has covered(and many posters have brought up) the league is more talented, developed, and sophisticated, so in the absence of a compelling case(i dont think mj>derozan counts) suggesting otherwise, you would guess a player gets worse when the competition they play against has improved.

I'm open to hearing any and all rationale for why jordan would defy my expectations, but i dont really think "jordan scales over fringe all-nba player x" gets you there.