Where would ‘97 MJ rank today?

[Peregrine01]

There’s this mythology around MJ that it’d be blasphemous to even think that he might not be a top 3 player today at any stage of his career. It’s almost like religion.

[OhayoKD]

.

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.

Okay so looking at this play myself, "crazy difficult" seems like a serious stretch. There are multiple bodies in front of him, but he's given a fair bit of space and loads of time. Good on Jordan to call the play and deliver it clean, but the man is wide open under the basket, jordan knew that cut was coming, and his defender is giving him space and several dribbles worth of time. Calling for plays like this is something basically every helio in the league does these days and that's a read you'd expect most of them to make most of the time(typically with less time and maybe with a hedge narrowing the angles). I think the defense there may have been a product of illegl d rules? Even in the 2000's, defenses made exploiting help a bit more difficult:
https://youtu.be/aQhhYPc0MCY?t=107
And even with that increased time and space, per Ben's film-tracking, Jordan was finding "good passes"(those which lead to high-value chances like the aforementioned play) half as often as say, Kobe Bryant was. Kobe's a good passer, but I'm not sure i'd consider him at the very top of his era, let alone today.

Honestly I see jordan as similar to Giannis in terms of passing in a vacuum. Jordan's probably more creative, but Giannis seems to have better velocity and is able to hit a greater variety of angles(size helps!). Both seem able to quickly exploit openings when they emerge, but I don't think either does a whole bunch of anticipation or manipulation which I think passers like Kobe and Curry were able to incorporate more of.

I'd say he's a good passer, but I think assuming he translates cleanly as a super-helio is a stretch. I can't see him doing what say a Luka does to be perfectly honest.

I think curry's a better comp where you have trade-offs in terms of shooting, off-ball and passing, but advantages in terms of inside-stuff, ball-security, and defense.

I'm in a bit of a time-bind so you'll have to excuse me skipping the rest for now(sorry!) but I'd guess falco would be down to get into the film for this(and they're much better at that than I am! )

[mysticOscar]

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?

Him not taking 3s is a by-product of the rules and gameplay in that era. You make it seem like the way the game is played today is the way it should have been without the league stepping in and making big changes in the rules to allow today's game style to flourish.

Jordan doesn't have to be the best at everything, I never claimed that (and as far as I know no one has said that here) but he was good as elite at a lot of many things which is when you combine it all together allows him to score in many different ways and easily adapt especially in a league which has many more ways to score .

It seems like anyone half decent can score at a clip today if the coach allows them to.

Regarding the FTr, I'm projecting his '97 version to be higher because in this hypothetical, his going to be playing today and not in '97 right?

Today there are more driving lanes, more favourable calls on shooters, more favourable calls on perimeter drives which I'm projecting MJ would adapt and take advantage.

The FTr rate has decreased today because 80% of the shots are now coming from the perimeter rather than the big man post players where the main objective before was to get your scoring as close to the basket and go for offensive rebounds which meant a lot more physical play and grappling for position in the paint which naturally means a lot more whistles and stoppages.

But a lot of the previous era free throws was very well distributed....today it's a lot more concentrated on the high usage perimeter players

Also as a side note, I just want to emphasize basketball has 2 sides....offense and defense.

Teams adapt and adjust both in offense and defense. Historically teams defense were able to catchup and adapt to whatever offensive schemes and rule changes the league put down.

But right now, the scoring when compared to previous eras is historically high and and there is no sign of defense ever catching up. To me, this says something about the state of the league and the rules.

People claim that there are many talented players right now (which I'm sure there is)....but how much of that is a by-product of how much the league has made it easier for perimeter players?

Because in the same breath of saying how much scoring talent there is now...we can say how bad are the players in defense right now right?

But it's not the players.....it's the current rules and how the league has consciously shaped the league to ensure a fast flowing high scoring game.and.continue to make modifications to ensure it stays that way

[DraymondGold]

Okay so looking at this play myself, "crazy difficult" seems like a serious stretch. There are multiple bodies in front of him, but he's given a fair bit of space and loads of time. Good on Jordan to call the play and deliver it clean, but the man is wide open under the basket, jordan knew that cut was coming, and his defender is giving him space and several dribbles worth of time. Calling for plays like this is something basically every helio in the league does these days and that's a read you'd expect most of them to make most of the time(typically with less time and maybe with a hedge narrowing the angles).

How many true hello players are there in the league that can do these 6 passes at this frequency? LeBron, Luka, Trae, maybe Chris Paul or Harden... again, I'm struggling to come up with 10. If you have film supporting more names tho, I'm all ears!

I think the defense there may have been a product of illegl d rules? Even in the 2000's, defenses made exploiting help a bit more difficult:
https://youtu.be/aQhhYPc0MCY?t=107
And even with that increased time and space, per Ben's film-tracking, Jordan was finding "good passes"(those which lead to high-value chances like the aforementioned play) half as often as say, Kobe Bryant was. Kobe's a good passer, but I'm not sure i'd consider him at the very top of his era, let alone today.

Ben's biggest issue with Jordan was his willingness to pass, not his ability... he says so just a few sentences before that quote about finding good passes less often than Kobe.

Directly after that quote, he says "MJ morphed into an elite creator, posting rates in the 94th to 98th historical percentile between 1989 and 1997." If we're going by Ben's hand tracking, that sounds pretty good to me. And remember, Ben also has Jordan as a Top 10 creator of all time when accounting for his scoring gravity and off ball gravity (see his top 10 creators podcast)... which is backed by Jordan's Box Creation numbers.

If Jordan was brought into a different culture, where the focus was on Helio-style offensive players who both score and playmake, I don't see why he'd have trouble playmaking.

Honestly I see jordan as similar to Giannis in terms of passing in a vacuum. Jordan's probably more creative, but Giannis seems to have better velocity and is able to hit a greater variety of angles(size helps!).

Now this I have a ton of trouble believing.

Jordan has 6 years at or better than Giannis best regular season Passer Rating and 4 years at or better than Giannis' best in the postseason.... and both of Giannis' best passer rating years come early in his career. If we take Giannis' peak / current passer rating, Jordan has 9 years with better passer rating in the regular season, and 8 years with better passer rating in the postseason. Jordan has 7 years with better postseason Box Creation.

If we're going by Ben's hand tracking, Ben's Giannis videos/podcasts cite Giannis' slightly slower processing speed (at least from his content back in 19/20, I don't remember his specific comments for 21/22) compared to his film analysis of Jordan in the Greatest Peaks series.

And I've never seen Giannis throw anywhere near this number of layup passes in a game, much less one quarter.... so I'm definitely going to need film to back this claim. But if you have film of Giannis' passing, I'd love to see it!

Both seem able to quickly exploit openings when they emerge, but I don't think either does a whole bunch of anticipation or manipulation which I think passers like Kobe and Curry were able to incorporate more of.

I'd say he's a good passer, but I think assuming he translates cleanly as a super-helio is a stretch. I can't see him doing what say a Luka does to be perfectly honest.

I think curry's a better comp where you have trade-offs in terms of shooting, off-ball and passing, but advantages in terms of inside-stuff, ball-security, and defense.

I'm in a bit of a time-bind so you'll have to excuse me skipping the rest for now(sorry!) but I'd guess falco would be down to get into the film for this(and they're much better at that than I am! )

No worries about the time bind! I've been there

To me, the core issue with Jordan is a willingness to pass not an ability.... I've supplied plenty of film / stats that back Jordan having the ability to be a great passer. To me, like Kobe, his issue was always that he was a bit over-calibrated towards scoring. But if we're transplanting him to an era where passing is a greater focus, that seems like one thing that he'd improve on, at least somewhat.

Re: whether Luka or Curry is the better comparison, fair point. Jordan's clearly the much better off-ball player than Luka -- like Curry, I wouldn't want him entirely giving that off-ball ability up. Regardless, both seem like Top 5 level players, so I suppose having Jordan comparing to them is more reasonable than the rather ridiculous claim that he wouldn't be better than Jayson Tatum I just push back against the idea that he didn't have the ability to be a great passer. It just doesn't track with what I've seen or the stats I've looked at.

As always, happy to look at film to the contrary if you or falc have any!

[DraymondGold]

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.

I just wanted to touch on this point specifically, as it speaks to a pretty fundamental philosophical disagreement with how to handle a cross-era comparison.

When discussing the time-machine argument, most people say that any player would suffer if dropped into a vastly different era and given no time to adjust. If you dropped Jordan into today's era and told him he was playing tomorrow, he'd be unfamiliar with the offensive strategies, the defensive strategies, the common plays on either side of the ball, the new practices around sports health or technology or statistics.... and so he'd probably be worse.

But (and here's an important point), the same would be true in reverse! If you dropped prime LeBron in an old era and told him he had to play the next day, without the 3 point spacing of today, playing with different rules and coaching philosophies, without any of his modern sports health or medicine or tech or stats, it seems to me that he would be quite a bit worse too.

To me, that's a less interesting discussion. I'm not really interested in how many days or months or years it would take Jordan to fully adjust to playing basketball with a different set of rules and styles, any more than I am interested in how many days or months or years it would take for him to adjust to playing a different sport altogether (... like baseball, for example ).

What I am interested in is how Jordan would handle a different style of basketball, if he was given full time to adjust to it. Perhaps if he was given a full offseason, or if you think players in general would need more time, if he was raised in today's era. This is a lot harder to pin down, but most people on this board seem to agree that basically any all-time player in one era would still be an all-time player in another era, even if their exact value and ranking in GOAT lists would change.

Do you really not think players like Oscar/West/Russell/Wilt/Magic/Bird/Jordan/Kareem/Hakeem would be strong MVP level players at a minimum if brought to the modern era and given time to adjust? That seems like quite the controversial take if so, and one that I have a lot of trouble supporting. Unless you're significantly higher than I am on Jayson Tatum and think Tatum is headed for that all-time tier.... or unless you think 97 Jordan (who's still pretty universally considered prime Jordan) was massively worse than when he was closer to his peak... then I can't really understand how you'd think any all-time player would be struggling to be better than 24-year-old Jayson Tatum.

[tsherkin]

When discussing the time-machine argument, most people say that any player would suffer if dropped into a vastly different era and given no time to adjust. If you dropped Jordan into today's era and told him he was playing tomorrow, he'd be unfamiliar with the offensive strategies, the defensive strategies, the common plays on either side of the ball, the new practices around sports health or technology or statistics.... and so he'd probably be worse.

But (and here's an important point), the same would be true in reverse! If you dropped prime LeBron in an old era and told him he had to play the next day, without the 3 point spacing of today, playing with different rules and coaching philosophies, without any of his modern sports health or medicine or tech or stats, it seems to me that he would be quite a bit worse too.

I'm with you, though it bears mention that in this particular scenario, we ARE crediting MJ with the benefit of the doubt on key issues with relation to era differences. We're talkinjg about him as if he'd magically change himself into a 36% 3P guy on 7 3PA/g, after all, and crediting him with a FG% he hadn't managed for nearly a decade prior in his own career.

or unless you think 97 Jordan (who's still pretty universally considered prime Jordan)

No one sensible considers him prime Jordan in 97 at 33/34 years old. That's not what the word "prime" means in a sport context. He was still playing very well, but playing well and being in your prime are not the same thing.

was massively worse than when he was closer to his peak... then I can't really understand how you'd think any all-time player would be struggling to be better than 24-year-old Jayson Tatum.

Because there is an end-point to adaptation. Because some guys are better at certain skills than other guys. Tatum is a better volume 3pt shooter than is reasonable to expect from someone like Jordan. Younger, able to give better, higher-level defensive energy for more of a game. And relative to 2023 Tatum and 97 Jordan specifically, you're speaking about a 30/8/4 All-Defensive player, and people are treating that as if he's going to maintain that over the whole season instead of working in a little out in case the past 8 games are more indicative of where he's at, or some sign of normalization (that seems more likely). The Tatum thing isn't a foregone conclusion, I think a lot of people are just really hot about his PPG in October and November (aka his first 21 games).

[AEnigma]

Him not taking 3s is a by-product of the rules

3s were very much legal.

and gameplay in that era.

This is more on point, but that gameplay was also more directly suited to Jordan’s style of play. Again, this is the point. There is no equally distribution adaption to every change. Many of these all-time players are vocal about that.

You make it seem like the way the game is played today is the way it should have been

In the sense that every team should have been practising and pushing threes, yes; the value of the shot has always been greater than anything inside the arc.

without the league stepping in and making big changes in the rules to allow today's game style to flourish.

Again, in large part by changing a lot rules which particularly benefitted Jordan. You see improved offence and assume that translates without any analysis of what that translation would require.

Jordan doesn't have to be the best at everything, I never claimed that (and as far as I know no one has said that here) but he was good as elite at a lot of many things which is when you combine it all together allows him to score in many different ways and easily adapt especially in a league which has many more ways to score.

Unfortunately all those skills do not include literally the most important one to league offence.

It seems like anyone half decent can score at a clip today if the coach allows them to.

Provided they can shoot, perhaps. But once more you are just going off vibes.

Regarding the FTr, I'm projecting his '97 version to be higher because in this hypothetical, his going to be playing today and not in '97 right?

Yes, a league where everyone, including shooting guards, draw fewer free throws.

Today there are more driving lanes

Not anywhere near as much of Old Jordan’s game.

more favourable calls on shooters

Have you checked how Glen Rice’s and Reggie Miller’s free throw rates compare to modern “shooters”.

more favourable calls on perimeter drives

Amazing, more favourable calls everywhere, but somehow, rates are down all the same.

More vibes-based analysis, love to see it.

which I'm projecting MJ would adapt and take advantage.

Advantage of what. Why is not every perimetre player simply failing to take advantage of all these incredibly freeing foul rules.

The FTr rate has decreased today because 80% of the shots are now coming from the perimeter rather than the big man post players where the main objective before was to get your scoring as close to the basket and go for offensive rebounds which meant a lot more physical play and grappling for position in the paint which naturally means a lot more whistles and stoppages.

Remember how I showed that it decreased relative to position too.

But a lot of the previous era free throws was very well distributed....today it's a lot more concentrated on the high usage perimeter players

Are Beal and Booker not high usage enough for you.

As for the remainder, not interested in a post cribbing that much from kcktiny and his logic of “League average offensive rating always equals league average defensive rating, and that means all eras are the same but for rule enforcements.”

[mysticOscar]

Him not taking 3s is a by-product of the rules

3s were very much legal.

and gameplay in that era.

This is more on point, but that gameplay was also more directly suited to Jordan’s style of play. Again, this is the point. There is no equally distribution adaption to every change. Many of these all-time players are vocal about that.

You make it seem like the way the game is played today is the way it should have been

In the sense that every team should have been practising and pushing threes, yes; the value of the shot has always been greater than anything inside the arc.

without the league stepping in and making big changes in the rules to allow today's game style to flourish.

Again, in large part by changing a lot rules which particularly benefitted Jordan. You see improved offence and assume that translates without any analysis of what that translation would require.

Jordan doesn't have to be the best at everything, I never claimed that (and as far as I know no one has said that here) but he was good as elite at a lot of many things which is when you combine it all together allows him to score in many different ways and easily adapt especially in a league which has many more ways to score.

Unfortunately all those skills do not include literally the most important one to league offence.

It seems like anyone half decent can score at a clip today if the coach allows them to.

Provided they can shoot, perhaps. But once more you are just going off vibes.

Regarding the FTr, I'm projecting his '97 version to be higher because in this hypothetical, his going to be playing today and not in '97 right?

Yes, a league where everyone, including shooting guards, draw fewer free throws.

Today there are more driving lanes

Not anywhere near as much of Old Jordan’s game.

more favourable calls on shooters

Have you checked how Glen Rice’s and Reggie Miller’s free throw rates compare to modern “shooters”.

more favourable calls on perimeter drives

Amazing, more favourable calls everywhere, but someone, rates are down all the same.

More vibes-based analysis, love to see it.

which I'm projecting MJ would adapt and take advantage.

Advantage of what. Why is not every perimetre player simply failing to take advantage of all these incredibly freeing foul rules.

The FTr rate has decreased today because 80% of the shots are now coming from the perimeter rather than the big man post players where the main objective before was to get your scoring as close to the basket and go for offensive rebounds which meant a lot more physical play and grappling for position in the paint which naturally means a lot more whistles and stoppages.

Remember how I showed that it decreased relative to position too.

But a lot of the previous era free throws was very well distributed....today it's a lot more concentrated on the high usage perimeter players

Are Beal and Booker not high usage enough for you.

As for the remainder, not interested in a post cribbing that much from kcktiny and his logic of “League average offensive rating always equals league average defensive rating, and that means all eras are the same but for rule enforcements.”

3s very much legal in MJs era...but you do realise you are giving up pretty much OReb when you took a bunch of them? Without the complimentary threat of a drive the 3s is not as amplified and defense can adjust on this 3pt threat.

I mean we saw this when they shortened the 3pt line in ''95 and 96, we saw the score go up then the defense adjusted.

There was a reason why the league for very long time relied on the post because generally it was an efficient shot due to OReb and the free throws it can garner.

We saw how the league looked like when they shifted offenses to high usage perimeter in late 90s and '00s...the effeciency just dropped.

The league tried to shift the game away from the post by allowing players to double without the ball and empower perimeter by ensuring a big man is not camped in the lane for more than 3 seconds without an arm length from opposition. Plus now you can't have any hands on perimeter player when they are in a driving motion, which was very common in 90s to just slow down perimeter enough for defense to take position in the paint. This also impacts shooting. Plus other minor rules which are all to the benefit of the perimeter.

I think you are really understating how much the rules have impacted the league and how now the league is maturing to take advantage of it.

[MyUniBroDavis]

A post centric offense and an offense with threes are not mutually exclusive

Eliminating midrange spot ups and catch and shoots off screens for the most part for shots from three, pick and rolls spot ups being more from three too, is the bigger change that rule changes don’t really have a reason to account for, altho the spacing aspect of it isn’t quite as important because of illegal D, the 3>2 aspect is.

Don’t really know what the argument is for where Jordan would rank but would wanna say that, pullup mid rangers which obviously he did a lot of are fine and most wing players still do that a lot in iso, but that three point shooting wasn’t used at all because it was inherently suboptimal isn’t really true

As for where he’d rank, idk if I’d put him at #1 for the RS clearly, but probably in that top 5 discussion. The top 5 are pretty much even for me for a whole year, assuming health. In no order

Jokic
Embiid
Curry
Giannis
Embiid

Are a pretty clear top 5 for me talent wise, each have their pros and cons. I think Jordan would be up there as well, and assuming Giannis doesn’t repeat his 2021 stuff, Curry doesn’t maintain his 2016 like stretch in the playoffs, and Jokic’s defense continues to look like it did in other playoff runs, he’d have an argument for first, for sure.

If Jokic becomes a positive playoff defender which I feel is possible, I’d def take him, ditto with Curry going 2016 mode all the way through or Giannis going god mode in the playoffs again

[homecourtloss]

There’s this mythology around MJ that it’d be blasphemous to even think that he might not be a top 3 player today at any stage of his career. It’s almost like religion.

This board in particular is a sanctuary for those who want to analytically discuss things and it is a godsend. What’s really interesting is that though it seems like hyperbole to talk about the mythologies and the blasphemous and the hagiography, etc., it really isn’t, and the discussion will start off with, or engage in the middle of, or end with “these people must not have watched Jordan,” as if watching him ipso facto proves that any type of dissent about his exceptionalism is misguided. I am of that age that lived through the hagiographing of Jordan’s career, and I don’t think I have met anyone my age that dissents from the the opinion that there isn’t even an argument to be made against Jordan’s GoAThood.

[MyUniBroDavis]

There’s this mythology around MJ that it’d be blasphemous to even think that he might not be a top 3 player today at any stage of his career. It’s almost like religion.

This board in particular is a sanctuary for those who want to analytically discuss things and it is a godsend. What’s really interesting is that though it seems like hyperbole to talk about the mythologies and the blasphemous and the hagiography, etc., it really isn’t, and the discussion will start off with, or engage in the middle of, or end with “these people must not have watched Jordan,” as if watching him ipso facto proves that any type of dissent about his exceptionalism is misguided. I am of that age that lived through the hagiographing of Jordan’s career, and I don’t think I have met anyone my age that dissents from the the opinion that there isn’t even an argument to be made against Jordan’s GoAThood.

Tbf, I get that Jordan was the best player in 1997 so it would be weird for him to not be top 3 today

I just think in the context of this year you have 5-7 players that all have legit arguments for #1, and it’s more of a case where the field is strong than just wide open.

I would say he’s in that discussion as well, sure he could be number 1 he also might be like #4 like I think everyone 1-5 could be as well, I think the best case scenario of a few of the guys trump Jordan personally

(Jokic with his RS defense in the playoffs is approaching top 5 peak territory maybe, altho there are reasons to think it won’t translate, Giannis for me is a top 10 ish peak if he does his playoff stuff again cuz then it’s at that point pretty clear, and Curry on his BS for a whole season is a top tier peak as well, considering 2016 Curry was in peak Jordan and bron talks till he took a dump in the playoffs)

[mysticOscar]

There’s this mythology around MJ that it’d be blasphemous to even think that he might not be a top 3 player today at any stage of his career. It’s almost like religion.

This board in particular is a sanctuary for those who want to analytically discuss things and it is a godsend. What’s really interesting is that though it seems like hyperbole to talk about the mythologies and the blasphemous and the hagiography, etc., it really isn’t, and the discussion will start off with, or engage in the middle of, or end with “these people must not have watched Jordan,” as if watching him ipso facto proves that any type of dissent about his exceptionalism is misguided. I am of that age that lived through the hagiographing of Jordan’s career, and I don’t think I have met anyone my age that dissents from the the opinion that there isn’t even an argument to be made against Jordan’s GoAThood.

Tbf, I get that Jordan was the best player in 1997 so it would be weird for him to not be top 3 today

I just think in the context of this year you have 5-7 players that all have legit arguments for #1, and it’s more of a case where the field is strong than just wide open.

I would say he’s in that discussion as well, sure he could be number 1 he also might be #5 like I think everyone 1-5 could be as well

And I think this is the middle ground. There's so much variables that its anyone's guess where '97 MJ ends up out of the best players today

[MyUniBroDavis]

This board in particular is a sanctuary for those who want to analytically discuss things and it is a godsend. What’s really interesting is that though it seems like hyperbole to talk about the mythologies and the blasphemous and the hagiography, etc., it really isn’t, and the discussion will start off with, or engage in the middle of, or end with “these people must not have watched Jordan,” as if watching him ipso facto proves that any type of dissent about his exceptionalism is misguided. I am of that age that lived through the hagiographing of Jordan’s career, and I don’t think I have met anyone my age that dissents from the the opinion that there isn’t even an argument to be made against Jordan’s GoAThood.

Tbf, I get that Jordan was the best player in 1997 so it would be weird for him to not be top 3 today

I just think in the context of this year you have 5-7 players that all have legit arguments for #1, and it’s more of a case where the field is strong than just wide open.

I would say he’s in that discussion as well, sure he could be number 1 he also might be #5 like I think everyone 1-5 could be as well

And I think this is the middle ground. There's so much variables that its anyone's guess where '97 MJ ends up out of the best players today

I think the thing that makes it hard is because the season is still ongoing and the top guys have a pretty large range of where they’ll end up

If everyone gets their top percentile outcome then Jordan probably falls a lot. At the same time, I think there’s a bit of a mistake if we’re talking about 1997 Jordan as if it’s one of his top tier years or anything.

RS wise, sure, he was fantastic, a 2 way 30-32 ppg scorer is gonna translate very well.

While there’s of course context, I also think it’s fair to say that playoff wise he wasn’t infallible to the same extent his top tier runs were

However I think bottom percentile outcomes also hurt the field today a lot, if Embiid gets hurt again, jokic’s defensive concerns are as valid and extreme as they are, Giannis ends up not performing in the playoffs and Curry’s hot streak ends then while the field is strong the pinnacle of it isn’t particularly high historically in my opinion

I don’t think MJs play style would inherently not work today, I mean playoff Jimmy was arguably the best when healthy, but I think there is a bit of a overhype when it comes to his latter years historically as well

[f4p]

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?

they did, but outside of Rudy T, no one seemed to care and you certainly didn't seem to need them to be an effective primary scorer.

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.

again, when he sat down at the end of the season, all he saw was #1 offense and championship. the fact that he didn't change to a seldom-used strategy of taking way more 3's does not mean he had some derozan-like stubbornness to adapt in the face of terrible results. i suspect if he kept putting up middling offenses and losing in the 2nd round, a pathologically competitive guy like him would figure it was time to adapt. there's obviously no way to prove it one way or the other, but i don't see why we think he wouldn't adapt with the times.

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.

what would work? maybe we are talking past each other. are we just dropping MJ off from a time machine and telling him to play and he looks around and wonders "why is everyone taking so many 3's?" as he hoists up his 25th mid-range jumper of the game? that's not how i'm looking at it.

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.

i mean we have the modern nba, where 3 point attempts have exploded over the last decade, with guys who were there at the beginning and end taking more 3's.

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.

and we know that no one ever uses shorthand to make a point. the question is would he be a helio guy. he basically became one overnight in the late 80's. whether you think he was amazing at it can be its own argument. but the idea he wouldn't know how to rack up assists and potential assists in a spread out league made for such things seems dubious.

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.

you can't compare him to the players from his time on TV because they lack the crucial things 2023 MJ would have, feedback and consequences. old football players can get on tv and tell us they want teams to run the ball all the time and chuck and shaq can get on tv and tell us teams should post up and not shoot 3's because there are no consequences to those thoughts. they were good in their time with those strategies and nothing has changed how good they were. they just go home and count their tv money. but if they were in practice everyday listening to a coach telling them that they should shoot 3's and spread the court. if they were playing and losing because they didn't do those things, watching their peers surpass them, getting called out on espn and twitter everyday, they would almost certainly come to see the light. because then it would mean something. because they would be immersed in it as part of their job.

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 why? is the argument that there is some upper limit on volume and MJ reached it back then and now would simply be caught? i assume numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5 in scoring back in the day thought they were scoring as fast as it could be done and MJ was still outpacing them. why would MJ, a man apparently obsessed with scoring titles, not just go up the volume ladder with everyone else?

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.

i mean i keep seeing that jordan was old and might not have the energy to be a helio guy. ok, but luka doncic's fat ass is putting up 32/9/8 right now and pudgy, asthmatic james harden was putting up 36/7 just a few years ago. they are about as helio as it gets.
why would jordan, a man in much better shape and with legendary endurance, not be at least as in shape as those guys, even at age 34? maybe offensive helio in the world of today is not quite as draining as we think it is. lebron isn't quite lebron anymore and not quite as impactful with his numbers, but he is still putting up monster slashlines at 37.

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.

stop him from getting to the basket when like 7 of the 10 guys on the court aren't 5 feet from the paint.

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'm not sure what this means. i don't think jordan would play identically to harden/luka. everyone is slightly (or a lot) different. but i certainly think his team would give him the ball as much as he could stand, as we simply live in a world where helio PnR is spammed relentlessly on some teams and was basically never done in MJ's day. i certainly don't get the impression watching mitchell or Ja that they understand the game like jordan and Ja doesn't have the jumper to make me think he and jordan would look much alike, no matter the era.

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.

and as you mention right below, you obviously know that was not the point. the point was that 36 year old chris paul didn't go 14/14 with a legendary assortment of step-back 3's, trick layups, and heavily contested mid-range jumpers. he just did chris paul things and got to his spots like it was nothing and had a good shooting game on top of it. i don't see what is keeping jordan from getting shots like that anytime he wants and, unlike the mid-range shots he took out of the post or against heavy contests, he'd be taking 10-12 footers against a backpedaling big. i feel like he would be deadly in those kinds of circumstances.

[falcolombardi]

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

Hi draymond! Nice to talk with you again.

First and foremost i will point out the bolded parts are not the same meaning. I didnt say jordan was a bad passer or couldnt be a lead ball handler. I think that his vision was able of making the correct but basic reads. Which is good enough when you are a top 3 scorer ever

If the word basic sounds more harsh than it should it is unerstandable, but is the word i would use for when someone passing vision goes as far as doing the correct but obvious pass. Which to be kinda honest...most of those passes you highlighted are(more of that in a second, need to explain myself on this)

There is first a need of separating vision from scoring gravity. Jordan passed the former with flying colours but was imo more a solid passing grade at the former

A guy who is a great scorer but lacks a decent vision will waste great creation chances over and over in lieu of tough shots for himself, jordan had a solid enough vision that he could find most of those passing windows hence why he was a great proto helio in the late 80's with his huge scoring threat and offensive load. But he rarely found the "hidden gems" that better passers do

those often hidden in plain sight by the less valuable but safer and clearer dimes or "lost great assist" chances to take a "good enough shot". Side effects of the shot first/pass second that led to his historical scoring seasons (and low turnovers)

as those highest value assists often are more likely to be deflected or stolen, there is a reason most passers dont want or cannot go for them well enough

There are many aspects to creation.

1- One is not taking shots where a pass would do better to your team, jordan failed this at a relatively high rate when a "good enough" shot was available to him. Times where he takes a good pull up where a teammate had a better spot up.

2-Another is not making overt mistakes, those where a player goes for a near impossible shot rather than passing (jordan did this a ton before cleaning up around 87) makes a terrible pass to nowhere,etc. Jordan cleaned these up after his first seasons which is how a player goes from a weak passer to a solid, average capable one like jordan did

3-The next one is precision, the ability to make passes others wouldnt dare to makr threading a narrow path of rival bodies and limbs. Jordan attempts one in the lob you mention but failed to thread the needle (trae young who you mention threads those lobs or other kind of high precision passes consistently but trae young is actually a fairly high standard of a passer to compare to jordan here)

4- the most flashy one is finding the really hidden passes nobody else would see or imagine and frequently seeing them and imagining them. The ones that magic or bird were iconic for but that nash doncic, lebron and others can find with some frequency. These ones that in my analysis jordan rarely made

To look at your examples

16:44 pause the video at roughly the start 16:48 and see how there is a wide open bulls player in the paint clear for everyone to see right in front of jordan field of vision. Is the correct read but is also the obvious one a coach would be angry at his players for missing. Is the right choice of course but is not particularly impressive to send the ball to your teammate totally alone under ths paint right across you

19:31 the lob attempt, the right idea but execution is a bit off the mark. I dont blame jordan for missing the hard but high value pass slighlty...but i know that trae or luka or harden hit those a majority of the time which is another component of why they are better passers

21:18 this is the best pass of the six, as jordan finds the better pass to the interior with grant over the corner 3 and seems to regognize that divac is going to the corner leaving a easy score for horace but if you pause at 21:21 is still a easy one

with a open grant (his defender is basi prop in that angle as he "fronts" him) a inmefective double team that is so far enough that jordan has a comfortable straight line pass in a straight field of vision to make over the two lakers players. As divac is going to guard the corner shooter.

Good pass but one i would expect an starting ball handler make nearly every time

29:40 another good and correct pass that i would expect my ball handler to almost always be able to make in that situation (having the scoring pressure or athletism to create the opening is a different question)as is not exactly that small of a window

is a precise pass quickly delivered but not exactly passing through a narrow corridor of arms, is the kind of good and correct read that is the expected baseline of a modern heliocentric star to be seen as a great passer. Pause at 29:39 and see that the closest rival arms in the ball path is the guard running -behind- jordan who is in no good position/angle to challenge the passing angle even

Jordan obviously stops his momentum while the chasing guard doesnt so it looks like a tighter window it was

32:57 kinda tricky to evaluate. On one side jordan went for the ultra tough shot but then he managed to pass in the air to keep the play moving

If you think he did it on purpose to draw the defense attention it would be a impressive pass but it honestly seems more like a mistake that his athletism and hand size let him solve along some luck that there was a teammate in the right spot for a bailout kick out

Either way it was a score created by jordan scoring pressur more than great vision or anticipation (unless we think he had planed a 3d chess move to pass in the air from the start)

33:53 nice awareness to notice the cutting player getting in position for a pass, easily a good and correct pass but you overstate a fair bit the "3 player wall" im fromt of him a fair bit.

Good but not -great- pass as he recognizes his teammate (again, right in fromt of his field of vision) moving into scoring position and delivers an accurate pass to him.

All of these are good passes, correct reads.(even the bailout pass in the air once he got himself there) but neither is remarkable, they are 6's, 7's maybe one or two 8's. But not the 9's and 10's that the best passers do with relative frequency

Jordan was an all time scorer with huge scoring pressure om defenses and athletism so he could create these "6's and 7's" and maybe some "8's, the kind of assist profile i would expect of an average nba ball handler guard if the average nba guard could score and create off his scoring threat at industrial quantities like jordan

But modern star helios are expected to do those highlight "9's and 10's" assists too, make those though lob passes consistently and not prioritize their own "good enough scoring options" at the expense of better shots for teammates

[f4p]

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?

yeah don't accuse me of disregarding things when i don't even have the data at hand. did someone post their respective on court offensive ratings in this thread and i missed it? because otherwise, i don't have michael jordan's 1997 on/off offensive rating memorized.

what are the numbers? and are we sure it's more pertinent than the team ratings? team's use different lineup strategies. i noticed when i check warriors box scores this season that their starters tend to have similar +/-'s and their bench players tend to have similar +/-'s, making me think they don't cross-pollinate much, so to speak. that feels similar to how they worked in the past. maybe jordan, even just by virtue of playing more minutes, got more time with lesser offensive players. either way, when i look at the two teams, i don't see drastic offensive differences. klay vs pippen offensively would probably be pippen with klay being diminished right now. but after that? draymond vs rodman is 2 non-scorers, but one with point forward abilities to run the whole offense and one who gets a bunch of extra possessions with offensive rebounds. wiggins and the explosive scoring of poole vs the passing/shooting of kukoc and floor-spacing 3 point shooting of kerr? i'd probably say the bulls are more offensively talented, but we're not talking about equal results. we're talking about 7.3 rORtg points. that's enough to knock a team from 1st to middle of the pack in 1997. from 1st to 26th in the 2023 nba. it takes a lot of era translation problems to make up that difference for jordan.

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.

seems very hard to believe. dudes like PJ tucker and shane battier with pitiful box numbers but big impact are being less well evaluated than extreme defensive guys like hakeem and duncan who still do very well by box numbers (because they just do so much stuff that it can't be ignored)?

The most predictive metrics are epm and rpm

is this espn's rpm or a different rpm? the one that says steph is the best player every year (well, except when it's kyle lowry)?

"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.

and giannis hasn't accomplished anything near what jordan did when jordan had really good help. giannis won a hospital ring by the skin of his teeth against a ridiculously injured nets team and still needed overtime game 7 to barely win. and had embarrassing playoff losses on massive SRS/win% teams in 2019 and 2020. jordan has had a 15-2, 15-3, 15-4 and 15-4 playoff run.

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.

good point about jackson. jordan certainly did not lack for a good situation after a pitiful first few years. but jordan also made the most of it, would be my main argument. he ripped off 67/69/72 win regular seasons (with 61 and 62 thrown in) and 15-2, 15-3, 15-4 and 15-4 playoffs. he got a good situation and could hardly have made more out of it. no blown winnable series. no blown series leads. dominant overall W/L runs. no bad performances where his team carried him instead of the other way around. just...inevitability.

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.

a nice 18-2 start doesn't really seem representative of the warriors season last year. klay missed 2 years and the warriors didn't even make the playoffs (2020 looked worse than 2021 before steph got hurt so at best they are scraping for a low seed). he seems valuable. it's hard to really compare jordan's WOWY because he basically either plays 82 games or 0 real games. the '94 bulls are probably the biggest argument against jordan. worth noting that the '86 bulls were 9-4 when jordan played more than 16 minutes and 21-48 without (+39 win%) and 1995 were 13-4 vs 34-31 (+24%). and those were coming-back-from-injury/baseball games for the "on" stats.

...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.

yeah, but where is this idea that everyone today is just a genius who can read every passing angle and everyone is relatively catching up to jordan? there were good passers in MJ's day. i don't see why the zone creating some more difficult reads than illegal defense and the more spread court creating easier reads than the non-3 point era is going to be much different than whatever existed back then. there were harder and easier passes back then, otherwise we wouldn't say things like magic johnson and larry bird are amazing passers and michael jordan is somewhere in the middle. there are harder and easier passes today. jordan will load up on the easy and medium ones like in his day and will probably miss the difficult lebron-level passes today. in a ridiculous 113 ORtg league, that's still going to result in tons of good looks he creates. if bradley beal can have a 30/6 season, i'm going to say even 34 year old jordan will have no problem matching that. lebron and giannis create looks by forcing you to build a wall against a non-shooting physical freak. jordan creates looks by forcing you to get up close to a very fast shooter and then getting past you.

ty has covered(and many posters have brought up) the league is more talented, developed, and sophisticated,

and yet anyone who can walk and chew gum can average like 27 ppg. why is it if you insult the league bill russell played against, when the shot clock was less than 10 years old, guys had offseason jobs, and they limited black players per teams, you get told you are insulting the old guys and it was practically the same as the 80's and 90's. but now 1997, from a much more full-fledged league, can't even compare to 2023. i agree with the overall uptrend in talent over time, but pushing the best player in the league, and best by what most would consider a decent margin, down to like 5th indicates an enormous change in the league in only 25 years. are there 5 people per current player so like 20th would be 100th? are we just arguing that's it's the top that is so much better than the top in 1997 and the 20th best player in 1997 would be like 27th now but it's just at the top that 1st drops to 5th?

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.

smart, still very athletic, best player in his day, not exploitable defensively, no bad playoff series when it mattered possibly ever and definitely not in the 90's.

[f4p]

I recognise a lot of people struggle with that. But it is how the math works. Being a high volume mid-range shooter has clear limits.

agreed, we just have different opinions about how much jordan would stay like jordan and how much he would adapt.

i think y'all underestimate the impact of his volume, even if it wasn't right at the tippy top of efficiency.

You underestimate how normative that volume has become.

i think we just also disagree on this. i don't think there's an upper limit where jordan will remain while everyone else catches up. hell, knowing how much jordan loves scoring titles, if worst came to worst, at the very least he would sacrifice every last TS% point he had to win the scoring title.

Do you think it is fun being the Jordan buzzkill. No, it is exhausting. And it is exhausting because of this default attitude most people have toward him, as if there were some basketball rule of law enshrining him as the pinnacle of the sport.

""You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend."

if you think i defend jordan because i love him, then you are wrong. this place makes for weird arguments, which i suppose makes it interesting. i have spent most of my basketball fandom trying to knock down the jordan mythos, same as you. it's just that when i got done, i couldn't supplant him at the top. i tried. i looked for the failures. i tried to convince myself that the bulls winning 55 in 1994 meant he just had too much help so the 6 titles weren't really that great. i tried to tell myself he was 1-9 in the playoffs without pippen. i thought lebron is a more impactful defender and more of a swiss army knife. i thought kareem played longer. i thought russell won more. maybe this next paragraph will just mean that i've bought into the hagiography, but for once, the legend seems pretty close to the facts.

i tried to tell myself that jordan going 15-35 while his teammates went 19-32 in game 6 against the jazz meant jordan was just hogging the ball. but i couldn't get there. if my life depended on winning a playoff series, and i got one player to pick to come up big, to play in any era, to make sure nothing went wrong if we had the advantage, to maybe eke it out against a stronger team, to make sure they came up big in the 4th quarter and could even hit the final shot, i just can't pick someone other than michael jordan. i can get close with lebron, but i still want MJ. in that game 6 where his teammates shot 60% from the field and he shot 43% and only had 1 assist, those numbers didn't seem to matter. at age 35, he scored over half of his team's points, with pippen hobbling and rodman no longer rodman. he scored 8 points in something like the last 2:30 of the game. with his legacy of finals perfection on the line, with the highest ratings of any nba game ever, with the thought it was probably his last game ever and what everyone would remember him for most, his team was down 3 with a minute to go and...? he calmly made a tough layup. then calmly made a great defensive read and stole the ball from the other team's best player. then, even though his team was the one trailing, he calmly wound the clock down because he knew. i hoped somehow he would miss and we would have game 7 and someone would finally beat jordan in a finals. but i knew. and if you were a jazz fan in the stands, you knew. and if you were one of the millions watching at home, you knew. that shot was going in. dribble right, stop on a dime, rise up, perfect swish. inevitable.

[LukaTheGOAT]

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?

yeah don't accuse me of disregarding things when i don't even have the data at hand. did someone post their respective on court offensive ratings in this thread and i missed it? because otherwise, i don't have michael jordan's 1997 on/off offensive rating memorized.

what are the numbers? and are we sure it's more pertinent than the team ratings? team's use different lineup strategies. i noticed when i check warriors box scores this season that their starters tend to have similar +/-'s and their bench players tend to have similar +/-'s, making me think they don't cross-pollinate much, so to speak. that feels similar to how they worked in the past. maybe jordan, even just by virtue of playing more minutes, got more time with lesser offensive players. either way, when i look at the two teams, i don't see drastic offensive differences. klay vs pippen offensively would probably be pippen with klay being diminished right now. but after that? draymond vs rodman is 2 non-scorers, but one with point forward abilities to run the whole offense and one who gets a bunch of extra possessions with offensive rebounds. wiggins and the explosive scoring of poole vs the passing/shooting of kukoc and floor-spacing 3 point shooting of kerr? i'd probably say the bulls are more offensively talented, but we're not talking about equal results. we're talking about 7.3 rORtg points. that's enough to knock a team from 1st to middle of the pack in 1997. from 1st to 26th in the 2023 nba. it takes a lot of era translation problems to make up that difference for jordan.

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.

seems very hard to believe. dudes like PJ tucker and shane battier with pitiful box numbers but big impact are being less well evaluated than extreme defensive guys like hakeem and duncan who still do very well by box numbers (because they just do so much stuff that it can't be ignored)?

The most predictive metrics are epm and rpm

is this espn's rpm or a different rpm? the one that says steph is the best player every year (well, except when it's kyle lowry)?

"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.

and giannis hasn't accomplished anything near what jordan did when jordan had really good help. giannis won a hospital ring by the skin of his teeth against a ridiculously injured nets team and still needed overtime game 7 to barely win. and had embarrassing playoff losses on massive SRS/win% teams in 2019 and 2020. jordan has had a 15-2, 15-3, 15-4 and 15-4 playoff run.

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.

good point about jackson. jordan certainly did not lack for a good situation after a pitiful first few years. but jordan also made the most of it, would be my main argument. he ripped off 67/69/72 win regular seasons (with 61 and 62 thrown in) and 15-2, 15-3, 15-4 and 15-4 playoffs. he got a good situation and could hardly have made more out of it. no blown winnable series. no blown series leads. dominant overall W/L runs. no bad performances where his team carried him instead of the other way around. just...inevitability.

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.

a nice 18-2 start doesn't really seem representative of the warriors season last year. klay missed 2 years and the warriors didn't even make the playoffs (2020 looked worse than 2021 before steph got hurt so at best they are scraping for a low seed). he seems valuable. it's hard to really compare jordan's WOWY because he basically either plays 82 games or 0 real games. the '94 bulls are probably the biggest argument against jordan. worth noting that the '86 bulls were 9-4 when jordan played more than 16 minutes and 21-48 without (+39 win%) and 1995 were 13-4 vs 34-31 (+24%). and those were coming-back-from-injury/baseball games for the "on" stats.

...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.

yeah, but where is this idea that everyone today is just a genius who can read every passing angle and everyone is relatively catching up to jordan? there were good passers in MJ's day. i don't see why the zone creating some more difficult reads than illegal defense and the more spread court creating easier reads than the non-3 point era is going to be much different than whatever existed back then. there were harder and easier passes back then, otherwise we wouldn't say things like magic johnson and larry bird are amazing passers and michael jordan is somewhere in the middle. there are harder and easier passes today. jordan will load up on the easy and medium ones like in his day and will probably miss the difficult lebron-level passes today. in a ridiculous 113 ORtg league, that's still going to result in tons of good looks he creates. if bradley beal can have a 30/6 season, i'm going to say even 34 year old jordan will have no problem matching that. lebron and giannis create looks by forcing you to build a wall against a non-shooting physical freak. jordan creates looks by forcing you to get up close to a very fast shooter and then getting past you.

ty has covered(and many posters have brought up) the league is more talented, developed, and sophisticated,

and yet anyone who can walk and chew gum can average like 27 ppg. why is it if you insult the league bill russell played against, when the shot clock was less than 10 years old, guys had offseason jobs, and they limited black players per teams, you get told you are insulting the old guys and it was practically the same as the 80's and 90's. but now 1997, from a much more full-fledged league, can't even compare to 2023. i agree with the overall uptrend in talent over time, but pushing the best player in the league, and best by what most would consider a decent margin, down to like 5th indicates an enormous change in the league in only 25 years. are there 5 people per current player so like 20th would be 100th? are we just arguing that's it's the top that is so much better than the top in 1997 and the 20th best player in 1997 would be like 27th now but it's just at the top that 1st drops to 5th?

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.

smart, still very athletic, best player in his day, not exploitable defensively, no bad playoff series when it mattered possibly ever and definitely not in the 90's.

97 MJ in the Playoffs

His team was almost -14 WITHOUT him and and over +8 WITH HIM per Ben Taylor.

That's a gigantic on/off signal, and the fact that MJ had this kind of impact on an all-time level team is insanely impressive.

[f4p]

97 MJ in the Playoffs

His team was almost -14 WITHOUT him and and over +8 WITH HIM per Ben Taylor.

That's a gigantic on/off signal, and the fact that MJ had this kind of impact on an all-time level team is insanely impressive.

BBRef also has the data ('97 is the furthest back it goes). +8.8 on and -14.8 off so they agree.

[tsherkin]

97 MJ in the Playoffs

His team was almost -14 WITHOUT him and and over +8 WITH HIM per Ben Taylor.

That's a gigantic on/off signal, and the fact that MJ had this kind of impact on an all-time level team is insanely impressive.

BBRef also has the data ('97 is the furthest back it goes). +8.8 on and -14.8 off so they agree.

This does raise a relevant question though: would that style of play be able to replicate that on/off impact in today's game? How much would his game have to deviate from what he personally espoused as his mentality in order to replicate that sort of impact in today's game? At what point does him deviating from who he was render a discussion of "Jordan" moot as we begin to discuss a player who exists only in fantasy hypotheticals?