Where would ‘97 MJ rank today?

[mysticOscar]

I don't want to get to an essay slugest with individuals here due to time constraints and having to respond via phone which is not ideal.

But just want to summarise a reasonable pro Jordan argument that he would be imo one of the favourites if not the favourite MVP player in the league (although many variables could effect this such as team success).

There's been a few stats thrown around about the effeciency of perimeters today vs in 90s era...but lacks the volume associated to those comparisons which tells a more complete story.

Perimeter players today can get historic effeciency while maintaining a high usage. And these aren't just outlier individuals, we seem to be getting them now in droves.

Historically post oriented positions now are trying to play like perimeter whcih tells a big story about the league.

Some posters seem to believe that a lot of the scoring abilities that MJ possessed in '97 are not relevant or very valuable today...I think many people are underselling it.

When is a quick decision on offense, driving ability, elite at evading defenders and mid range and general shooting ability no longer valuable?

Perhaps if you just had one of these abilities then maybe...but if you possessed all of them then it just gives you soooo much options in your arsenal..especially for a player like MJ who ihas a natural scorer mentality - in a league with so many more scoring opportunities

Also the FTr for MJ in '97 I just want to point out was not primarly because he slowed down to a point where he could no longer attack the rim. It was more a by product of him just settling for his mid range since he was quite effective at it in '97.
He had no issue in upping his FTr when his shot was not falling the following year. But today there's more favourable calls for shooters and the perimeter in general, with his elite ball fakes, I can't fathom why he would not be getting as much calls as the other high FTr players in the league.

But anyway I think at least the conversation is evolving more towards the middle ground. I see no issue for people that place him as top 5 but not clearly above the rest (which is somewhat reasonable since there are so many variables in these scenarios that all we can do is take a guess)

[DraymondGold]

I dont always agree with ben taylor views but my own eye test suggests jordan was a solid but fairly "basic" passer so while he could score a ton he wouldnt be as good to have as your team lead passer than many of this era best offense stars (lebron, harden, luka, paul) which would be relevant in this era oh heliocentric pick and roll passers

but he would also be likely to generate much easier passes for himself than guys like harden and luka and paul. i watched harden score 36 ppg iso'ing and blowing past people and spamming 35-36% step-back 3's on a spread out court in 2019, without anything nearing 1997 MJ athleticism and speed. maybe jordan's not automatically equaling the sheer volume of that particular season, but MJ's getting open even easier on a per possession basis and probably generating easier reads because you have to come over even more to try to stop him.

Hi f4p, falcolombardi I'm not sure I agree with your take on Jordan's passing at all, falcolombardi. I'm actually a bit surprised by it. I was watching some of the 91 playoffs recently (a lot of the games are available on YouTube), and I was pretty consistently impressed with Jordan's passing.

For example:

Watch on YouTube

1) 16:44
Layup pass from the 3 point line over 3 defenders. It’s a touch to the left of the guy, but it’s a crazy difficult pass to sneak through this opening and the defense, and he delivers with good vision and speed.

2) 19:31
Goes for the alleyoop pass form the top of the 3 point line. Another very difficult pass, that takes good vision and placement… just a split second too late, but this is a Trae Young level pass.

3) 21:18
Another layup pass from 5 feet behind the 3 point line. This one’s between 2 defenders, with the lookaway to fake out the defense

4) 29:35
Pick and roll left-to-right pocket pass through 2 defenders for the layup.

5) 32:57
Classic Jordan midair pass. Draws the double / soft-triple team, then passes out at the last second. It’s a touch low, but his teammate’s wide open if he wanted the midrange shot (and would have been even more open if he was a 3 point shooter today)

6) 33:53
Another layup pass around 3 defenders. Sees teammate cutting off ball and hits them at the perfect time.

I'm not sure I could confidently name 10 players who could make passes like 1, 2, 3, 5, 6.... and this is from just one single quarter!

These require vision (e.g. #6 requires seeing the cutter and thinking ahead faster than the defense can recover), they're difficult in timing and placement (e.g. #1 requires sneaking it through multiple defenders), they show passing ambition (e.g #2 is Trae-Young like in how ambitious it is), they're high-value passes (#1, 2, 3, 4, 6 are all layup passes on opportunities that wouldn't be generated otherwise), they show the ability to pass in the pick & roll which would be more valuable today (#4), they show Jordan's able to pass in dynamic situations (#5), they show he's able to pass easily out of double teams off his scoring threat (#4-6).... I'm really not seeing this lack of lead-pass ability. Again, this is from just one random quarter I turned on.... and I see similar stuff in his other 91 games. Am I missing something? How do any one of these passes fit the profile of someone who was just a "fairly 'basic' passer"?

Now to be fair, 91 was definitely one of his best passing playoffs. But people normally don't lose passing vision or passing accuracy as he gets older. To me, he just focused more on off-ball stuff as he got older, but if you put him with a coach that pushes him to pass more... I see no reason why he wouldn't be able to make pass #4 out of the pick and roll or pass #5 to a 3 point shooter, or pass #6 at the top of the 3 point line to a cutter.

This absolutely has potential as a heliocentric Top 5 player. It seems miles better than the stuff Durant or healthy Kawhi could ever do, and they're both capable of leading top-of-the-league offenses... and it's not like they're clearly better than Jordan as scorers or off-ball threats.

Do you disagree? I'd love to see film of Jordan's passing limitation if you have any

[f4p]

I think a player you describe would probably be a candidate for top 5 player in the league. His efficiency wouldn't be top notch, but he was a movement shooter who was very hard to gameplan against. He also rarely lost the ball and was a positive defender.

I think him fighting for a 4th spot with Luka and Tatum sounds fair, would you agree?

This is an interesting way to think of it, and I think AEnigma did a nice just outlining a best-case for 97 MJ. Older but still quite athletic... just not at his peak level, as he himself has admitted ad nauseum in recollection. Assuming he changes his mentality and has the capacity to develop a Lebron-ish level 3pt shot, which isn't unreasonable all told, just something worth discussing because he himself has also said on multiple occasions that he went out of his way NOT to develop the 3.

I think the idea of him V Luka is interesting, because of the array of stuff Luka does on O that older MJ did not, and because even older MJ was a visibly more effective defensive presence. That would be a very interesting discussion to have.

a best case? his best case is not even in the conversation for top 3? some extra international players and the best from the past can't crack the top 3. again, to get back to curry. roll back the clock 1 year and this is 1996 jordan vs 2022 steph. steph is not close to that level, i don't care how much era translation you want to do. and now, just a few months and 30 or so games later, steph has not only caught up, but is now so far ahead that jordan can't even hope to fight for his top 3 position (which weirdly is in the jokic/giannis tier and not down with the next group, but i digress).

and he might be fighting with jayson tatum? am i missing the boat on jayson tatum? the guy was maybe the best offensive player or 1a/1b on a really deep team that made the finals, and, however much y'all want to bristle at the box score, he put up a playoff run of 17.6 PER, 99 TS+, 0.110 WS48, and 4.5 BPM. unless he has bill russell's defense, he would have to be the most intangibly impactful player in history to even start a conversation that he was 2 tiers behind jordan in last year's playoffs. and after a hot start this year, he's settling down somewhat close to his career numbers. jordan's best case cannot be battling jayson tatum.

[f4p]

When is a quick decision on offense, driving ability, elite at evading defenders and mid range and general shooting ability no longer valuable?

Perhaps if you just had one of these abilities then maybe...but if you possessed all of them then it just gives you soooo much options in your arsenal..especially for a player like MJ who ihas a natural scorer mentality - in a league with so many more scoring opportunities

yeah, i watched 36 year old chris paul go 14/14 from the field in a playoff game just last year. i don't recall all 14 shots, but i recall him doing a lot of it by his usual routine of finding a good matchup and exploiting it or snaking his way to mid-range and rising up. are we saying jordan couldn't just spam a reasonable facsimile of that routine against like 80% of the teams in the league?

[Gooner]

34 year old MJ would average 34 points per game in this era with 55% shooting.

[ceoofkobefans]

34 year old MJ would average 34 points per game in this era with 55% shooting.

IA numbers suggest he would average 32 PTS/75 on 57.5% TS% or +1 rTS (assuming that’s what you meant by shooting and aren’t seriously using FG% in damn near 2023)

[Gooner]

34 year old MJ would average 34 points per game in this era with 55% shooting.

IA numbers suggest he would average 32 PTS/75 on 57.5% TS% or +1 rTS (assuming that’s what you meant by shooting and aren’t seriously using FG% in damn near 2023)

No, I meant FG.

[HeartBreakKid]

34 year old MJ would average 34 points per game in this era with 55% shooting.

IA numbers suggest he would average 32 PTS/75 on 57.5% TS% or +1 rTS (assuming that’s what you meant by shooting and aren’t seriously using FG% in damn near 2023)

He's been on record as saying FG% is what matters and everything else is just gimmicky 3 pointer stuff. It was explained to him step by step how guys who shoot 3s are going to have lower FG% but still be more efficient and he just did not accept it. He probably didn't even realize that Jordan would take 3s today that would lower his FG% and make it impossible for him to have 55% FG.

There is no point really with Gooner. It's like watching a True Crime where the criminal was caught red handed and he still denies it. He knows already as it's impossible to think otherwise, he's just being stubborn.

[ceoofkobefans]

34 year old MJ would average 34 points per game in this era with 55% shooting.

IA numbers suggest he would average 32 PTS/75 on 57.5% TS% or +1 rTS (assuming that’s what you meant by shooting and aren’t seriously using FG% in damn near 2023)

No, I meant FG.

Why would you use FG% to represent efficiency when it doesn’t measure efficiency and TS% is clearly the best way to measure efficiency

[HeartBreakKid]

Incoming comment about how TS% overrates 3 point shooting while somehow not realizing that FG% doesn't take into account 3 point shooting or even free throws for that matter.

[Gooner]

IA numbers suggest he would average 32 PTS/75 on 57.5% TS% or +1 rTS (assuming that’s what you meant by shooting and aren’t seriously using FG% in damn near 2023)

No, I meant FG.

Why would you use FG% to represent efficiency when it doesn’t measure efficiency and TS% is clearly the best way to measure efficiency

It measures overall efficiency from the field. Basketball is much more than 3 point shooting. This ideology that you and many others promote has ruined the game.

[ceoofkobefans]

No, I meant FG.

Why would you use FG% to represent efficiency when it doesn’t measure efficiency and TS% is clearly the best way to measure efficiency

It measures overall efficiency from the field. Basketball is much more than 3 point shooting. This ideology that you and many others promote has ruined the game.

No it doesn’t. FG% shows accuracy or how likely someone is to make a shot. The problem with this is that accuracy doesn’t matter we want to see efficiency. FG% doesn’t even account for FTAs let alone 3s there’s no reason to use it lol. TS% is showing points per shot (actual efficiency). If someone is making a lot of 3s they’re obviously going to have a very high TS% but guys like MJ that don’t have very high 3pt% still have high TS% because he’s an elite FT shooter and foul drawer and is an all time finisher and mid range shooter

3s are more efficient than 2s so that is going to be reflected in TS% lol that doesn’t mean guys That don’t shoot alot of 3s can’t have good TS%

[Gooner]

Why would you use FG% to represent efficiency when it doesn’t measure efficiency and TS% is clearly the best way to measure efficiency

It measures overall efficiency from the field. Basketball is much more than 3 point shooting. This ideology that you and many others promote has ruined the game.

No it doesn’t. FG% shows accuracy or how likely someone is to make a shot. The problem with this is that accuracy doesn’t matter we want to see efficiency. FG% doesn’t even account for FTAs let alone 3s there’s no reason to use it lol. TS% is showing points per shot (actual efficiency). If someone is making a lot of 3s they’re obviously going to have a very high TS% but guys like MJ that don’t have very high 3pt% still have high TS% because he’s an elite FT shooter and foul drawer and is an all time finisher and mid range shooter

3s are more efficient than 2s so that is going to be reflected in TS% lol that doesn’t mean guys That don’t shoot alot of 3s can’t have good TS%

Ok, but I used FG% and to me that still should be relevant because everything else unfairly favors the 3 point shooting and has a negative impact on the game. Space is the most important thing in basketball. There is a lot of space between the 3 point line and the basket.

[ceoofkobefans]

It measures overall efficiency from the field. Basketball is much more than 3 point shooting. This ideology that you and many others promote has ruined the game.

No it doesn’t. FG% shows accuracy or how likely someone is to make a shot. The problem with this is that accuracy doesn’t matter we want to see efficiency. FG% doesn’t even account for FTAs let alone 3s there’s no reason to use it lol. TS% is showing points per shot (actual efficiency). If someone is making a lot of 3s they’re obviously going to have a very high TS% but guys like MJ that don’t have very high 3pt% still have high TS% because he’s an elite FT shooter and foul drawer and is an all time finisher and mid range shooter

3s are more efficient than 2s so that is going to be reflected in TS% lol that doesn’t mean guys That don’t shoot alot of 3s can’t have good TS%

Ok, but I used FG% and to me that still should be relevant because everything else unfairly favors the 3 point shooting and has a negative impact on the game. Space is the most important thing in basketball. There is a lot of space between the 3 point line and the basket.

3s are exactly 1.5 times more efficient than 2s and TS% and EFG% reflects this so no it doesn’t unfairly favor 3s

You’re using FG% for literally no reason other than I can assume nostalgia purposes

[Gooner]

No it doesn’t. FG% shows accuracy or how likely someone is to make a shot. The problem with this is that accuracy doesn’t matter we want to see efficiency. FG% doesn’t even account for FTAs let alone 3s there’s no reason to use it lol. TS% is showing points per shot (actual efficiency). If someone is making a lot of 3s they’re obviously going to have a very high TS% but guys like MJ that don’t have very high 3pt% still have high TS% because he’s an elite FT shooter and foul drawer and is an all time finisher and mid range shooter

3s are more efficient than 2s so that is going to be reflected in TS% lol that doesn’t mean guys That don’t shoot alot of 3s can’t have good TS%

Ok, but I used FG% and to me that still should be relevant because everything else unfairly favors the 3 point shooting and has a negative impact on the game. Space is the most important thing in basketball. There is a lot of space between the 3 point line and the basket.

3s are exactly 1.5 times more efficient than 2s and TS% and EFG% reflects this so no it doesn’t unfairly favor 3s

You’re using FG% for literally no reason other than I can assume nostalgia purposes

Let's just shoot the 3's then, why get inside the line. All that space means nothing.

[ceoofkobefans]

Ok, but I used FG% and to me that still should be relevant because everything else unfairly favors the 3 point shooting and has a negative impact on the game. Space is the most important thing in basketball. There is a lot of space between the 3 point line and the basket.

3s are exactly 1.5 times more efficient than 2s and TS% and EFG% reflects this so no it doesn’t unfairly favor 3s

You’re using FG% for literally no reason other than I can assume nostalgia purposes

Let's just shoot the 3's then, why get inside the line. All that space means nothing.

Rim shots are still the most valuable shot but 3pt shots are easily the most efficient shot outside of the rim which is why teams mostly take shots at the rim or 3pt line unless they have an elite mid range shooter unless that player is allowed to shoot mid range shots since he’s good enough to make the shots at good efficiency rates

[HeartBreakKid]

Ok, but I used FG% and to me that still should be relevant because everything else unfairly favors the 3 point shooting and has a negative impact on the game. Space is the most important thing in basketball. There is a lot of space between the 3 point line and the basket.

3s are exactly 1.5 times more efficient than 2s and TS% and EFG% reflects this so no it doesn’t unfairly favor 3s

You’re using FG% for literally no reason other than I can assume nostalgia purposes

Let's just shoot the 3's then, why get inside the line. All that space means nothing.

YOU'RE the one who is arguing that 3 pointers are all that matters and 2s do not.

TS values BOTH which is why it is useful. You value only one. You are the biased one.

TS takes into account BOTH of them and evenly values them - FG% and you do not take into account 3 point shots at all. You're making some strawman argument about how "3s are the only thing that matters, right?" when you're the only one arguing that.

[AEnigma]

why would MJ not adapt to the modern game? i think it's very likely MJ designed his game around what worked in his era, not that he would refuse to change.

Oh, did threes not work in his era?

the guy was fundamentally sound at almost everything he did so i don't think he's got some fatal flaw that would keep him from changing. he was a driving dynamo when he started, switched to the triangle, then became a post-up savant late in his career. it's not like he was doing sub-optimal things and wouldn't change.

… His refusal to shoot from the perimetre was exactly that though.

he was leading league-leading offenses and winning championships. it was working at as high a level as it could work.

And that means it would be the same in any era, right.

why would a guy with a money 18 foot jumper not notice that putting in some 3's would be important and why wouldn't he be able to add a 3?

If only we had any examples of that being a legitimate trend in player mentalities — including Jordan’s.

if brook lopez can do it in one offseason, i would think jordan could do it at some point in his career.

He probably could do it at a Brook Lopez level, sure, but that is not keeping pace with the league let alone with his own position.

and maybe he's not a lebron-level passer but he's still going to be generating so many open looks and racking up the easy passes that we're talking about improvements on the fringes. he got made a point guard for like 5 minutes in the late 80's and started racking up 10 assist games like it was nothing.

And we know that assist totals are the measure of passing quality and offensive impact, right.

MJ is not some low IQ player. the idea he's not going to pick up the vast majority of all but the highest level passes seems hard to believe.

I am curious, what over Jordan’s history since his Bulls retirement, and over the history of his star contemporaries, has given you the impression that most stars of that era legitimately seem to understand the modern league. Maybe Jordan was smart for his time, but that league relative status would not be the same today. Then again, you are so averse to any specifics that for all I know maybe your point is merely that he would be a better passer than guys like Giannis and on par with guys like Demar, in which case, sure, no real disagreements with that.

and it's hard to believe his other qualities (mostly tremendous volume scoring, especially in the playoffs) aren't going to make up for whatever he's leaving behind.

I recognise it is hard when you have a mental block on the subject, but the entire point here is that his volume scoring would be decidedly less “tremendous” now than it was in 1997.

but he would also be likely to generate much easier passes for himself than guys like harden and luka and paul. i watched harden score 36 ppg iso'ing and blowing past people and spamming 35-36% step-back 3's on a spread out court in 2019, without anything nearing 1997 MJ athleticism and speed.

Or maybe 1997-Jordan-level athleticism and speed does not guarantee the ability to spam threes or decelerate at will or act as the guy who makes every decision for your team.

maybe jordan's not automatically equaling the sheer volume of that particular season, but MJ's getting open even easier on a per possession basis and probably generating easier reads because you have to come over even more to try to stop him.

Stop him from doing what. At absolutely no point in Jordan’s career did he draw fouls like prime Harden. Fine, pretty much no guard does or ever has, but he is not approaching Luka’s levels either. And old Jordan was not even driving as much as Harden relative to his own league. Luka is more comparable on that front, but Luka is also stronger and compared to old Jordan at least better at finishing attempts close to the basket.

I know you want to act like Jordan is some sponge who would just innately mimic the best guards of any era because he was athletic and a winner, but it does not work like that. Do you think Jordan alone would realise those two have a successful playstyle? Why do we not see identical approaches out of “more athletic” guards like Mitchell or Shai or Ja? I guess they must simply lack Jordan’s intelligence for winning, right?

i watched 36 year old chris paul go 14/14 from the field in a playoff game just last year. i don't recall all 14 shots, but i recall him doing a lot of it by his usual routine of finding a good matchup and exploiting it or snaking his way to mid-range and rising up. are we saying jordan couldn't just spam a reasonable facsimile of that routine against like 80% of the teams in the league?

Yes, I am saying Jordan could not go 14/14 from the field on any remotely regular basis.

“Oh obviously I did not mean that” then why bring it up. You know that is not some normative feat for Chris Paul. It is not even normative for Durant. And Jordan is not Durant. I already gave him 50% on all mid-range shots, what more do you want? Well, what you want is for those shots to be more valuable than the math says they are, but that is not how it works.

There's been a few stats thrown around about the effeciency of perimeters today vs in 90s era...but lacks the volume associated to those comparisons which tells a more complete story.

Perimeter players today can get historic effeciency while maintaining a high usage. And these aren't just outlier individuals, we seem to be getting them now in droves.

And tell me, what exactly is driving that efficiency.

Historically post oriented positions now are trying to play like perimeter whcih tells a big story about the league.

Yeah, it tells us that the league realised where the most valuable shots are. Again, the biggest increases in positional efficiency have come from bigs, and it is not especially close.

Some posters seem to believe that a lot of the scoring abilities that MJ possessed in '97 are not relevant or very valuable today...I think many people are underselling it.

When is a quick decision on offense, driving ability, elite at evading defenders and mid range and general shooting ability no longer valuable?

Perhaps if you just had one of these abilities then maybe...but if you possessed all of them then it just gives you soooo much options in your arsenal..especially for a player like MJ who ihas a natural scorer mentality - in a league with so many more scoring opportunities

Yeah that is not how it works, you are (as is often the case with Jordan “arguments”) projecting off vibes rather than anything real. This is a comparative exercise. Jordan is not de facto the best at evading defenders. Old Jordan is certainly not the best driver. He is not the best shooter by any means, and while he is one of the best in the midrange, you need impossible efficiency there to keep pace with where everyone else is scoring. At best, the sum of those skills is what makes Jordan more playoff resilient than someone like Booker or Demar… but those are not the comparisons you want anyway.

Also the FTr for MJ in '97 I just want to point out was not primarly because he slowed down to a point where he could no longer attack the rim. It was more a by product of him just settling for his mid range since he was quite effective at it in '97.
He had no issue in upping his FTr when his shot was not falling the following year.

His FTR+ was 116 that year. Today, that would be just a bit shy of Bradley Beal, whose .315 free throw rate in absolute terms is just slightly higher than Jordan’s .304 in 1997.

But today there's more favourable calls for shooters and the perimeter in general,

Okay, but the overall rate has not increased (it has in fact decreased, but I nicely ignored that for my projection of Jordan).

with his elite ball fakes, I can't fathom why he would not be getting as much calls as the other high FTr players in the league.

Because he was not an excessive foul-baiter at that point (maybe young Jordan…) and did not crash into the paint at the rate of the truly high ftr players today. He was not even a standout in his own league on that front; why would he be one now?

[tsherkin]

There is no point really with Gooner. It's like watching a True Crime where the criminal was caught red handed and he still denies it. He knows already as it's impossible to think otherwise, he's just being stubborn.

I see where you're coming from, but let's leave it to the mods, lest folks here who are participating in actual quality discussion get hammered for addressing the poster instead of the post, yeah?

[tsherkin]

a best case? his best case is not even in the conversation for top 3?

I was speaking of his scoring output and efficiency when I made that particular remark.

ome extra international players and the best from the past can't crack the top 3. again, to get back to curry. roll back the clock 1 year and this is 1996 jordan vs 2022 steph. steph is not close to that level, i don't care how much era translation you want to do.

Yeah, he had a down year. He was injured, had the worst shooting campaign of his career and in general his weakest season since 2013. What's your point?

jordan's best case cannot be battling jayson tatum.

Why not?

Myth and man are not the same. This is the biggest issue ITT, fighting this mentality that impact translates from era to era. Jordan was very good. He was a titan in his own time, but he wasn't an unlimited font of dominance which translates across all eras. It's been a quarter century since he was last relevant to any meaningful degree. Things are different. The roll of years is a thing, and eventually, everyone gets passed by. Eventually, Lebron and Steph and Giannis and Jokic and everyone gets passed by, just as were Russell and Wilt and Kareem, Magic and Bird, and now MJ. When you are speaking of translating someone forward, out of their own era, then yeah, they're gonna take a hit. And we're not even speaking of prime Jordan, we're talking about the Old Bull.