What was the ceiling for the 90 and 95 Bulls?

[ceiling raiser]

To preface this, not holding the Bulls to a win every year standard (that's reserved for Russell /s). But I do wonder how much they left on the table these two seasons.

1990: Win 55 games. Make it to the ECF. Lose in 7 to the eventual champion pistons. Game 7 was a 19-point blowout, and by SRS the Bulls overachieved, most likely (Detroit had a 5.41-2.74 SRS advantage). All that said, the Bulls were learning the Triangle, and really picked up the second half of the year (28-19 pre-ASB, 27-8 post-ASB).

1995: Win 47 games. Make it to the ECSF. Lose to Orlando in 6, but all four losses are single digits. There is a lot of narrative around not having Grant anymore, but this was not a bad team (34-31 without MJ, 13-4 with MJ). The Magic would go on to get swept by Houston by an average of 7 ppg. Could have been a bit closer a series.

What do you guys think about these two seasons?

[prolific passer]

Finals for both at the very least but for the 95 squad they had no rebounding and interior defense.
90 squad it was one bad game for Pippen at the worst time but even healthy I don't see them upsetting the Pistons on their home court.

[lessthanjake]

I think the 1990 Bulls were probably better than the 1995 Bulls. The ceiling for both was winning the title, but I think that was a decent bit more likely for the 1990 Bulls than the 1995 Bulls.

In both cases, the Bulls had one of the very best seasons ever a year later. And I guess I just think there’s more obvious improvement in the roster from 1995–>1996 than there is from 1990->1991. Pippen and Grant (and some others) got better from 1990 to 1991, but that seems like a wash at least when compared with Jordan only having barely come back from baseball right at the end in 1995 compared to having a full offseason and season in 1996. Meanwhile, getting Rodman for 1996 was a bigger roster improvement than anything that happened from 1990 to 1991. So I see the 1990 team as being closer to the 1991 team than the 1995 team was to the 1996 team.

I also just think the way things went in 1990 feels like more was left on the table than in 1995. In 1990, the Bulls basically lost because the Bulls’ supporting cast just couldn’t shoot against the Pistons. Some of that is the Pistons defense, of course, but that supporting cast had shot a decent bit better against the Pistons in 1989 despite not being as good. I think we were looking at some real random variance that didn’t go the Bulls’ way. Not to mention that Jordan got hurt early in the series by Rodman (which contributed to Jordan having a subpar game 2). Without these factors, I think one can imagine the Bulls winning against the Pistons. Against Orlando in 1995, I’m not sure as much was left on the table. The supporting cast wasn’t as randomly bad as in 1990. And, while Jordan didn’t have his best series, I don’t think that was just variance as much as that Jordan was not actually at his best yet after the time off. Basically, I think if you played the 1990 series over again 100 times, the Bulls probably play better than they did in the vast majority of those 100 times, while I don’t really think that’s true about the 1995 series.

The other thing to note in 1990 vs. 1995 is that the Bulls lost a round earlier in 1995. The series against Orlando in 1995 was close, so it’s plausible to say that the Bulls were capable of winning it. But if they won that series, they’d still have to have played the Pacers just to make the finals. Would the Bulls have beaten the Pacers? Probably, I guess, but those Pacers were no pushover, so I would give them a decent shot. In contrast, the 1990 Bulls would’ve gone straight to the finals if they’d managed to win the series they lost.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

I think the ceiling for the 1990 Bulls is a championship.

In the first six games of the ECF, Pippen averaged 19ppg and 4apg; in Game 7, he recorded 2 points and 2 assists. That's a 17 point difference, and the 2 assist difference is good for another 4 points, assuming they lead to two point shots. That's a 21 point difference. The Bulls lost Game 7 by 19. That's a very crude way of looking at it and the game in reality is more complicated than that, but I think the point stands - Pippen was completely debilitated and wouldn't have even played if it was a regular season game. Essentially not having your #2 guy in a Game 7 against a team like the Pistons is a big deal. It is not unreasonable to think the Bulls would've won if Pippen had not been suffering from a debilitating migraine.

And then in the Finals, they're facing a very similar Portland team to the one they beat in 1992, the most significant difference being Petrovic coming off the bench instead of Ainge. I'm not saying it's a lock or anything, but it's certainly possible the Bulls could've won.

---

As for 1995, I think the ceiling might be what happened. I think the team was not equipped defensively to beat that Magic team.

Obviously there's the issue of having Kukoc at PF in 1995 vs Rodman in 1996.

But there was also a big mismatch at the PG position, with 6'2' BJ Armstrong on 6'7' Penny Hardaway. I haven't studied the video, but logically, I'd think that means Michael and/or Scottie would've been helping on Penny a fair amount, meaning Nick Anderson and/or Dennis Scott either get left open, or they get the height mismatch of having BJ on them.

The next year, they had 6'6' Ron Harper at PG, alleviating the mismatch issue.

In the 1995 series, Nick Anderson averaged 15.2ppg on 57.1% TS. In the 1996 series, he averaged 8.3ppg on 36.9% TS(albeit he missed the last game).

In the 1995 series, Dennis Scott averaged 14.8ppg on 51.1% TS. In the 1996 series, he averaged 7.3ppg on 36.5% TS.

(I should note that Rodman may have been able to double up those guys too because Horace Grant essentially missed the 1996 series after the first half of Game 1. I don't want to bury that.)

Given those defensive realities, I think it was always going to be tough for the 1995 Bulls to win that series.

I don't think MJ was the issue.

His 1995 playoff numbers: 31.5ppg/6.5rpg/4.5apg/2.3spg/1.4bpg, 55.7% TS, 8.0BPM, 6.3 PO RAPTOR
His 1996 playoff numbers: 30.7ppg/4.9rpg/4.1apg/1.8spg/0.3bpg, 56.4% TS, 10.7BPM, 9.0 PO RAPTOR

[Dr Positivity]

I have 95 Bulls supporting cast as better than 90 Bulls, however 90 Bulls have the stronger MJ. I'd rather take the team with close to peak Jordan.

[OhayoKD]

I don't think MJ was the issue.

His 1995 playoff numbers: 31.5ppg/6.5rpg/4.5apg/2.3spg/1.4bpg, 55.7% TS, 8.0BPM, 6.3 PO RAPTOR
His 1996 playoff numbers: 30.7ppg/4.9rpg/4.1apg/1.8spg/0.3bpg, 56.4% TS, 10.7BPM, 9.0 PO RAPTOR

Given that those Bulls played at a 50-win pace before Mj arrived, I'd say throwing out box-numbers to argue he "wasn't the issue" when they lost to a soon-to-be swept finalist is pretty dubious

[OhayoKD]

To preface this, not holding the Bulls to a win every year standard (that's reserved for Russell /s). But I do wonder how much they left on the table these two seasons.

1990: Win 55 games. Make it to the ECF. Lose in 7 to the eventual champion pistons. Game 7 was a 19-point blowout, and by SRS the Bulls overachieved, most likely (Detroit had a 5.41-2.74 SRS advantage). All that said, the Bulls were learning the Triangle, and really picked up the second half of the year (28-19 pre-ASB, 27-8 post-ASB).

1995: Win 47 games. Make it to the ECSF. Lose to Orlando in 6, but all four losses are single digits. There is a lot of narrative around not having Grant anymore, but this was not a bad team (34-31 without MJ, 13-4 with MJ). The Magic would go on to get swept by Houston by an average of 7 ppg. Could have been a bit closer a series.

What do you guys think about these two seasons?

34-21 without MJ by record, 50-win by srs despite Pippen filing a trade-demand. Apparently not stacked because of certain poster's eyeballs though.

Ultimately part of the reason the Bulls lost in 95 was Jordan was pretty poor in 95 by the standard of an all-time-great(this was a matter of retirement).

Part of the reason the Bulls lost in 90(while coming much closer) was Jordan, even at his best. wasn't really a goat-level player, regardless of the subjective box-weightings people like to throw as player-rankers.

[Jaivl]

but that seems like a wash at least when compared with Jordan only having barely come back from baseball right at the end in 1995 compared to having a full offseason and season in 1996.

Eyes, individual performances and numbers don't support the notion of Jordan levelling up from '95 to '96. The more relevant thing is that the '96 team was just loaded.

[migya]

1990 was championship and 95 finals with probably just under half chance of winning it as Rockets were on fire.

[homecourtloss]

To preface this, not holding the Bulls to a win every year standard (that's reserved for Russell /s). But I do wonder how much they left on the table these two seasons.

1990: Win 55 games. Make it to the ECF. Lose in 7 to the eventual champion pistons. Game 7 was a 19-point blowout, and by SRS the Bulls overachieved, most likely (Detroit had a 5.41-2.74 SRS advantage). All that said, the Bulls were learning the Triangle, and really picked up the second half of the year (28-19 pre-ASB, 27-8 post-ASB).

1995: Win 47 games. Make it to the ECSF. Lose to Orlando in 6, but all four losses are single digits. There is a lot of narrative around not having Grant anymore, but this was not a bad team (34-31 without MJ, 13-4 with MJ). The Magic would go on to get swept by Houston by an average of 7 ppg. Could have been a bit closer a series.

What do you guys think about these two seasons?

34-21 without MJ by record, 50-win by srs despite Pippen filing a trade-demand. Apparently not stacked because of certain poster's eyeballs though.

Ultimately part of the reason the Bulls lost in 95 was Jordan was pretty poor in 95 by the standard of an all-time-great(this was a matter of retirement).

Part of the reason the Bulls lost in 90(while coming much closer) was Jordan, even at his best. wasn't really a goat-level player, regardless of the subjective box-weightings people like to throw as player-rankers.

Under scrutiny, Jordan’s peak doesn’t hold up to its mythical status. Obviously is a great all-time peak, but doesn’t approach the myths.

1990 Jordan was similar to 1991 Jordan (near consensus Jordan peak); inn1990, you had an 82 game, 39 mpg 1990 Jordan (essentially peak Jordan), great team health, and the 1990 team had a +3.3 NRtg, +2.87 SRS. You’ll sometimes get “the team was learning the system and was getting better in 1990,” and though while it was, it seems odd that a 25-26 year old, 5+ years veteran GOAT level player needs a system to make GOAT impact (apparently wasn’t doing so on defense in the first 2/3 of 1990 while the team “learned the system”).

Pippen in ‘95 was +8.1 on court, +12 on/off, 50 win pace when healthy, a higher SRS than the 1990 Bulls’ SRS, a 1990 Bulls with 3000+ minutes, 82 games of essentially peak Jordan. The impact of what others made is often just lost and credit given to Jordan, both in the 1990-1993 period and the 1996-1998 period.

I remember when the ‘97 and ‘98 and then the ‘96 play by data became available and people were rightfully high on Jordan and the line of thinking was always “imagine what peak Jordan looked like.” Well, it looks like peak Jordan wasn’t making some mythological untouchable impact by the data we have, i.e., ElGee’s playoff on/off data, squared2020’s partial RAPM data (great impact, but not anywhere near the myths, and not anymore impressive than 1996-1998 Jordan), and Moonbeam’s Regressed WOWY data:

Here is a spreadsheet with up to 100 positive coefficients for each 5-year window for Ridge, Lasso, and ENet.

Moonbeam’s RWOWY for Jordan (Jordan in the Ridge set, Jordan in the LASSO set)

This was a cursory count, and others can do their own, but I took out every player who only played one year in the data segments unless stated or the player in question, and I also took out every player who didn’t at least play solid rotational minutes for two of the years in the data segments (1,000+ minutes a season in at least two seasons).

1981-1985: 4th, 3rd
1982-1986: 12th, 20th [here you have a large off segment]
1983-1987: 16th, 30th [Again a large of segment]
1984-1988: 30th, 21st [and again]
1985-1989: 40th, 17th [and again]
1986-1990: 65th, 27th [And again, including 1990, close to his consensus peak]
1987-1991: 56th, 52nd [Includes his peak and 1990]
1988-1992: 23rd, 7th
1989-1993: 15th, 5th
1990-1994: 7th, 5th
1991-1995: 2nd, 4th
1992-1996: 1st, 1st
1993-1997: 1st, 2nd
1994-1998: 2nd, 3rd
1995-1999: 1st, 2nd
1996-2000: 9th, not listed
1997-2001: 3rd, 4th
1998-2002: 6th, 18th
1999-2003: not listed, not listed
2000-2004: 86th, not listed [note: did not check for players were only played one year or non-rotational minutes in this segment]
2001-2005: not listed, not listed
2002-2006: not listed, not listed
2003-2007: not listed, not listed

Moonbeam’s RWOWY for Magic (Magic the Ridge set, Magic in the LASSO set)

1976-1980: 7th, 6th [counting one year of Bird]
1977-1981: 3rd, 7th
1978-1982: 2nd, 3rd
1979-1983: 1st, 2nd
1980-1984: 1st, 3rd
1981-1985: 2nd, 3rd
1982-1986: 3rd, 2nd
1983-1987: 4th, 4th
1984-1988: 4th, 2nd
1985-1989: 3rd, 1st
1986-1990: 3rd, 1st
1987-1991: 5th, 1st
1988-1992: 4th, 2nd
1989-1993: 2nd, 1st
1990-1994: 1st, 2nd
1991-1999: Magic has only one year samples (i.e., 1991 and 1996) but he’s basically
top 5 in Ridge in every segment of 1991-1995, 1992-1996, 1993-1997, 1994-1998, 1995-1999

So basically top 5 every year which is beyond ridiculous in a pure, non-prior informed set. This is what one would expect Jordan’s peak years to look like given the mythological and unassailable status it has reached

Often times the first three-peat Bulls are regarded as a lesser talented team, but you can see the large amounts of impact both Horace Grant and Scottie Pippen make, and would make a 1994 and then Pippen by himself in 1995 (+8 on, +12 on/off)

And the 90s Bulls:

Eyes, individual performances and numbers don't support the notion of Jordan levelling up from '95 to '96. The more relevant thing is that the '96 team was just loaded.

True—he cut down on turnovers from that Orlando series, and had a great regular season, but overall, there was no great difference, just like there was no great difference from 1990 to 1991 but that the team and coaching all came together at the perfect time after expansion with someone like Rodman having value at the right time period, i.e., illegal defense rules forced his man out to the perimeter even though he wasn’t a shooting threat).

[OhayoKD]

To preface this, not holding the Bulls to a win every year standard (that's reserved for Russell /s). But I do wonder how much they left on the table these two seasons.

1990: Win 55 games. Make it to the ECF. Lose in 7 to the eventual champion pistons. Game 7 was a 19-point blowout, and by SRS the Bulls overachieved, most likely (Detroit had a 5.41-2.74 SRS advantage). All that said, the Bulls were learning the Triangle, and really picked up the second half of the year (28-19 pre-ASB, 27-8 post-ASB).

1995: Win 47 games. Make it to the ECSF. Lose to Orlando in 6, but all four losses are single digits. There is a lot of narrative around not having Grant anymore, but this was not a bad team (34-31 without MJ, 13-4 with MJ). The Magic would go on to get swept by Houston by an average of 7 ppg. Could have been a bit closer a series.

What do you guys think about these two seasons?

34-21 without MJ by record, 50-win by srs despite Pippen filing a trade-demand. Apparently not stacked because of certain poster's eyeballs though.

Ultimately part of the reason the Bulls lost in 95 was Jordan was pretty poor in 95 by the standard of an all-time-great(this was a matter of retirement).

Part of the reason the Bulls lost in 90(while coming much closer) was Jordan, even at his best. wasn't really a goat-level player, regardless of the subjective box-weightings people like to throw as player-rankers.

Under scrutiny, Jordan’s peak doesn’t hold up to its mythical status. Obviously is a great all-time peak, but doesn’t approach the myths.

1990 Jordan was similar to 1991 Jordan (near consensus Jordan peak); inn1990, you had an 82 game, 39 mpg 1990 Jordan (essentially peak Jordan), great team health, and the 1990 team had a +3.3 NRtg, +2.87 SRS. You’ll sometimes get “the team was learning the system and was getting better in 1990,” and though while it was, it seems odd that a 25-26 year old, 5+ years veteran GOAT level player needs a system to make GOAT impact (apparently wasn’t doing so on defense in the first 2/3 of 1990 while the team “learned the system”).

Pippen in ‘95 was +8.1 on court, +12 on/off, 50 win pace when healthy, a higher SRS than the 1990 Bulls’ SRS, a 1990 Bulls with 3000+ minutes, 82 games of essentially peak Jordan. The impact of what others made is often just lost and credit given to Jordan, both in the 1990-1993 period and the 1996-1998 period.

I remember when the ‘97 and ‘98 and then the ‘96 play by data became available and people were rightfully high on Jordan and the line of thinking was always “imagine what peak Jordan looked like.” Well, it looks like peak Jordan wasn’t making some mythological untouchable impact by the data we have, i.e., ElGee’s playoff on/off data, squared2020’s partial RAPM data (great impact, but not anywhere near the myths, and not anymore impressive than 1996-1998 Jordan), and Moonbeam’s Regressed WOWY data:

Here is a spreadsheet with up to 100 positive coefficients for each 5-year window for Ridge, Lasso, and ENet.

And the 90s Bulls:

Eyes, individual performances and numbers don't support the notion of Jordan levelling up from '95 to '96. The more relevant thing is that the '96 team was just loaded.

True—he cut down on turnovers from that Orlando series, and had a great regular season, but overall, there was no great difference, just like there was no great difference from 1990 to 1991 but that the team and coaching all came together at the perfect time after expansion with someone like Rodman having value at the right time period, i.e., illegal defense rules forced his man out to the perimeter even though he wasn’t a shooting threat).

1991 MJ being better than 90 MJ really doesn't hold up too well under scrutiny I think. Putting up similar numbers on weaker defenses with better help doesn't really suggest he improved. Even 90/91 being treated differently than 89 MJ is probably a matter of situation(shooting over single coverage a bunch helps). By advanced creation(passer-rating/box-creation), MJ peaks in 89 and then progressively declines on both fronts int he next two seasons(never mind his defensive activity dropping post 88...)

[lessthanjake]

but that seems like a wash at least when compared with Jordan only having barely come back from baseball right at the end in 1995 compared to having a full offseason and season in 1996.

Eyes, individual performances and numbers don't support the notion of Jordan levelling up from '95 to '96. The more relevant thing is that the '96 team was just loaded.

I don’t really agree with that. I mean, the 1996 team was better than the 1995 team even aside from Jordan—I specifically mentioned that in my post. So I agree that the rest of the team improving was a major factor in them being better in 1996. But Jordan in the 1995 playoffs was not as good as Jordan the next year after actually having a full offseason and year with the team.

The biggest thing in the 1995 playoffs was the turnovers. He averaged 4.1 turnovers a game in those playoffs, and then proceeded to average 2.3, 2.6, and 2.1 turnovers a game in the playoffs in the second-three peat years. It’s a pretty big difference, and did actually manifest itself in important moments. Largely probably due to those turnovers, it was easily the worst playoff PER he had in his career besides his rookie year. And that’s despite not actually playing particularly good defenses. Orlando was ranked 13th in defensive rating that season and had a bad +3.2 rDRTG in the playoffs that year. So, I’d say the numbers *do* support the notion of Jordan leveling up after 1995. It’s not really that he was *bad* in 1995, but he just wasn’t quite at his normal level. But I think that was basically baked into the pie in 1995 due to the situation, so I don’t know that the “ceiling” for 1995 should involve assuming Jordan could’ve been much better at that point. In fact, he was significantly better in the playoffs than he had been in his games back during the regular season, so my guess is that what Jordan did in those playoffs was probably *better* than what the average performance from him would’ve been at the time (i.e. if you ran those playoffs 100 times, I think Jordan plays worse more than 50 of those times). On the other hand, I think the Bulls’ supporting cast in the 1990 playoffs was definitely below what their average performance would’ve been (they shot almost historically badly in the ECF, despite not actually being a bad group of players), which is part of what makes me think that team’s ceiling was higher.

[lessthanjake]

To preface this, not holding the Bulls to a win every year standard (that's reserved for Russell /s). But I do wonder how much they left on the table these two seasons.

1990: Win 55 games. Make it to the ECF. Lose in 7 to the eventual champion pistons. Game 7 was a 19-point blowout, and by SRS the Bulls overachieved, most likely (Detroit had a 5.41-2.74 SRS advantage). All that said, the Bulls were learning the Triangle, and really picked up the second half of the year (28-19 pre-ASB, 27-8 post-ASB).

1995: Win 47 games. Make it to the ECSF. Lose to Orlando in 6, but all four losses are single digits. There is a lot of narrative around not having Grant anymore, but this was not a bad team (34-31 without MJ, 13-4 with MJ). The Magic would go on to get swept by Houston by an average of 7 ppg. Could have been a bit closer a series.

What do you guys think about these two seasons?

34-21 without MJ by record, 50-win by srs despite Pippen filing a trade-demand. Apparently not stacked because of certain poster's eyeballs though.

Ultimately part of the reason the Bulls lost in 95 was Jordan was pretty poor in 95 by the standard of an all-time-great(this was a matter of retirement).

Part of the reason the Bulls lost in 90(while coming much closer) was Jordan, even at his best. wasn't really a goat-level player, regardless of the subjective box-weightings people like to throw as player-rankers.

Lol, a guy has a 31.7 playoff PER and 13.7 playoff BPM (both of which are top 10 all time for a single playoffs), alongside a playoff on-off that was around +36 per 100 possessions (maybe the highest ever recorded for a player that got to at least the conference finals), and somehow the reason his team lost is that he “wasn’t really a goat-level player.” Despite the fact that his supporting cast shot so badly in the series they lost that it’s almost impossible to find any series in the history of the NBA where a supporting cast shot so badly and the team still won. That’s just not a serious argument.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

I don't think MJ was the issue.

His 1995 playoff numbers: 31.5ppg/6.5rpg/4.5apg/2.3spg/1.4bpg, 55.7% TS, 8.0BPM, 6.3 PO RAPTOR
His 1996 playoff numbers: 30.7ppg/4.9rpg/4.1apg/1.8spg/0.3bpg, 56.4% TS, 10.7BPM, 9.0 PO RAPTOR

Given that those Bulls played at a 50-win pace before Mj arrived, I'd say throwing out box-numbers to argue he "wasn't the issue" when they lost to a soon-to-be swept finalist is pretty dubious

Well, there's not a whole lot non-box to go by in terms of MJ's individual performance in those years given we don't have +/-, on/off, RAPM, etc for those years. Perhaps some of Ben Taylor's metrics are of use, but I don't have access to most of them(paywall).

But you know, I'll give you this. Those numbers I posted were his overall playoff numbers for those years, but I went ahead and looked at his numbers specifically those two Orlando series.

1995 Orlando:
31.5ppg/6.5rpg/3.7apg/2.5spg/1.8bpg on 53.9% TS

1996 Orlando:
29.5ppg/5.5rpg/4.8apg/2.3spg on 62.5% TS

So he was much more efficient against Orlando in 1996 than in 1995. Ok, you got me. In that respect, he played worse in 1995 and I don't imagine that helped the Bulls' chances in that series.

But I think my other point is also still right - that that Bulls team had certain defensive weaknesses that were particularly exploited against the Orlando team, and that were remedied by the addition of Rodman and the adjustment of moving Harper to PG.

To preface this, not holding the Bulls to a win every year standard (that's reserved for Russell /s). But I do wonder how much they left on the table these two seasons.

1990: Win 55 games. Make it to the ECF. Lose in 7 to the eventual champion pistons. Game 7 was a 19-point blowout, and by SRS the Bulls overachieved, most likely (Detroit had a 5.41-2.74 SRS advantage). All that said, the Bulls were learning the Triangle, and really picked up the second half of the year (28-19 pre-ASB, 27-8 post-ASB).

1995: Win 47 games. Make it to the ECSF. Lose to Orlando in 6, but all four losses are single digits. There is a lot of narrative around not having Grant anymore, but this was not a bad team (34-31 without MJ, 13-4 with MJ). The Magic would go on to get swept by Houston by an average of 7 ppg. Could have been a bit closer a series.

What do you guys think about these two seasons?

34-21 without MJ by record, 50-win by srs despite Pippen filing a trade-demand. Apparently not stacked because of certain poster's eyeballs though.

Ultimately part of the reason the Bulls lost in 95 was Jordan was pretty poor in 95 by the standard of an all-time-great(this was a matter of retirement).

Part of the reason the Bulls lost in 90(while coming much closer) was Jordan, even at his best. wasn't really a goat-level player, regardless of the subjective box-weightings people like to throw as player-rankers.

Jordan recorded 31 points, 9 assists, and 8 rebounds on 48% FG in that Game 7. Now I realize that his efficiency in that game wasn't quite up to his standards, but here's what his teammates did in that game:

Pippen: 2 points, 2 assists, and 4 rebounds on 1/10 shooting with a migraine
Paxson: Didn't play at all due to an ankle injury
Grant: 3/17 from the field(albeit he did grab 14 boards, so he contributed in the way)
BJ Armstrong: 1/8 FG
Craig Hodges: 3/13 FG

It just seems nuts to me to blame MJ for that when his whole team laid an egg outside of Grant's rebounding.

[Tomtolbert]

I don't think MJ was the issue.

His 1995 playoff numbers: 31.5ppg/6.5rpg/4.5apg/2.3spg/1.4bpg, 55.7% TS, 8.0BPM, 6.3 PO RAPTOR
His 1996 playoff numbers: 30.7ppg/4.9rpg/4.1apg/1.8spg/0.3bpg, 56.4% TS, 10.7BPM, 9.0 PO RAPTOR

Given that those Bulls played at a 50-win pace before Mj arrived, I'd say throwing out box-numbers to argue he "wasn't the issue" when they lost to a soon-to-be swept finalist is pretty dubious

Maybe I'm not following, but how were the 1995 Bulls playing at a 50 win pace before Jordan's return?

[lessthanjake]

I remember when the ‘97 and ‘98 and then the ‘96 play by data became available and people were rightfully high on Jordan and the line of thinking was always “imagine what peak Jordan looked like.” Well, it looks like peak Jordan wasn’t making some mythological untouchable impact by the data we have, i.e., ElGee’s playoff on/off data, squared2020’s partial RAPM data (great impact, but not anywhere near the myths, and not anymore impressive than 1996-1998 Jordan), and Moonbeam’s Regressed WOWY data

The problem is that this isn’t really true. Much of the data you refer to there shows Jordan as having GOAT-level impact.

- Ben Taylor’s playoff on/off data has Jordan at around a +23 playoff on/off per 48 minutes from 1988 to 1990. Which is obviously enormous. In the first-three-peat years, that goes down to about a +7.5 on/off (because the team does better with Jordan off the court than before). What do those numbers look like combined? Well, if we do weighted averages of the figures in those time periods, using the actual number of minutes on and off in each period and eyeballing the values in the charts in Ben’s video (for 1988-1990, I used -20 off and +3 on, while for 1991-1993 I used +1.5 off and +9 on), we get an overall average of about +6.41 on and -6.84 off, in the playoffs from 1988-1993. That’s a +13.25 on/off. Which looks great, but that’s also in per 48 minutes terms, not per 100 possessions. The weighted average of the Bulls’ pace in those playoffs is 90.06. Which means that, using the Thinking Basketball on-off numbers, in the 6-year span from 1988-1993, Michael Jordan had a playoff on/off per 100 possessions of about +14.71! That certainly looks pretty GOAT-like!

- And then, Ben Taylor also provides similar data for the 1996 playoffs, with Jordan having about a +16 on/off per 48 minutes, which would translate to about +18.4 on/off per 100 possessions. And we know it was +23.6 in the 1997 playoffs and +13.1 in the 1998 playoffs. So, you’re right in the sense that the on-off numbers from 1988-1993 are not more impressive than those from 1996-1998, but it’s *all* super impressive. If we combine those 1998-1993 numbers with the 1996-1998 numbers, we get a playoff on/off per 100 possessions of about +16.0! Which is enormous and obviously GOAT-like. Obviously, that’s missing some shorter playoff runs (i.e. his first three years and 1995), where we don’t have this data, but we have the most important years and they look incredibly good.

- I genuinely don’t understand the idea that Squared’s RAPM data suggests anything but great things about Jordan. Squared has RAPM for four different seasons for Jordan: 1984-1985, 1987-1988, 1990-1991, and 1995-1996. Jordan is ranked 1st in the NBA in 1987-1988, 1990-1991, and 1995-1996, and no one is even particularly close to him in any of those years. Meanwhile, 1984-1985 was Jordan’s rookie season, and he’s still ranked 6th in the NBA (and only behind three actual star players). While Squared’s data is obviously just a snippet, this is clearly quite supportive of Jordan as having been a dominant impact guy.

- The Moonbeam stuff is interesting, but it has some unsolvable problems with distinguishing impact when multiple good players didn’t miss many games. Given that Jordan, Pippen, and Grant missed very few games for many years, the model has virtually no way of distinguishing who had what impact between those guys in those years. And it has some pretty obvious issues with overestimating certain players (the BJ Armstrong Problem is one we’ve talked about in that thread, where his impact on the Bulls was clearly overestimated due to the minutes cutoff, which suppressed others’ impact; and there are plenty of other examples). In any event, until Jordan retired the first time (at which point the model quickly recognizes Jordan as super elite), it has basically no data to distinguish Jordan/Pippen/Grant’s impact, except for the 1986 Jordan injury season that factors into those early data points for Jordan. And, of course, even that injury-season signal is pretty iffy when we realize that Jordan had a steadily increasing minutes restriction and the Bulls got destroyed in the games where Jordan played but had super low minutes and those games end up counting against him for purposes of that signal. If the model even just only counted specific games where Jordan played the minutes cutoff (i.e. 18+ minutes), that signal would look way better, and Jordan would end up looking substantially higher in those early years (since that’s really the only signal for him that the model has and it’s clearly distorted). I should also note that a version of Moonbeam’s analysis (Lasso) has Jordan pretty immediately vaulting to the top range once that year is out of the system and then has him staying there for a long time. And even the Ridge version has Jordan hovering right near the top for quite a while in a way that only a handful of other all-time greats have. Meanwhile, the aggregate of multiple WOWYR ratings—which is the same sort of analysis as Moonbeam’s—has Jordan ranked above every single other serious GOAT candidate. Overall, I think it’d be really flimsy analysis to decide that Jordan’s impact is not GOAT-like on the basis specifically of Moonbeam’s Ridge model—which is one piece of data (in which Jordan still looks really great, just not the best) amidst a sea of data going the other way, and it pretty clearly has inherent limitations that make it not all that suited to accurately measure Jordan’s impact in his peak years. And, frankly, I don’t even think Moonbeam would disagree with me.

[lessthanjake]

I don't think MJ was the issue.

His 1995 playoff numbers: 31.5ppg/6.5rpg/4.5apg/2.3spg/1.4bpg, 55.7% TS, 8.0BPM, 6.3 PO RAPTOR
His 1996 playoff numbers: 30.7ppg/4.9rpg/4.1apg/1.8spg/0.3bpg, 56.4% TS, 10.7BPM, 9.0 PO RAPTOR

Given that those Bulls played at a 50-win pace before Mj arrived, I'd say throwing out box-numbers to argue he "wasn't the issue" when they lost to a soon-to-be swept finalist is pretty dubious

Maybe I'm not following, but how were the 1995 Bulls playing at a 50 win pace before Jordan's return?

The justification here is going to be that they were not actually winning at a 50-win pace, but their SRS was about +3.5 or something, which you’d generally *expect* to lead to winning at about a 50-win pace. Of course, they also only *actually* went 34-31 without Jordan (a 43-win pace; please note that OhayoKD keeps saying 34-21, which is false). And either way, even if we ignore that they clearly couldn’t close tight games well (that’s how you win a lot less than your SRS would indicate you would win), the Bulls then lost in the playoffs to a team with a +6.44 SRS, which you’d obviously generally expect to beat a +3.5 SRS team. So this doesn’t actually provide any basis whatsoever for blaming Jordan for them losing. Chicago would almost certainly not have beaten Orlando without Jordan. They certainly weren’t playing at a level without him that would suggest they would’ve beaten Orlando (and weren’t even really playing at a level meaningfully better than their first round opponent Hornets that they easily beat with Jordan). Jordan was only to blame for them losing in the sense that, having barely come back to basketball, he wasn’t at *his* best form, and if he had been then maybe/probably they could’ve won. But of course, these same people would tell you that actually Jordan wasn’t any worse in the 1995 playoffs than other years. So their argument is evidently somehow that Jordan was actually a net negative in the 1995 playoffs (not as compared to his normal self, but as compared to what the team would’ve been without him) that caused the Bulls to lose to the Magic, and that he wasn’t any better other years but that his team was better those years and simply carried him to titles. That’s where this is going, and it’s obvious nonsense.

[homecourtloss]

I remember when the ‘97 and ‘98 and then the ‘96 play by data became available and people were rightfully high on Jordan and the line of thinking was always “imagine what peak Jordan looked like.” Well, it looks like peak Jordan wasn’t making some mythological untouchable impact by the data we have, i.e., ElGee’s playoff on/off data, squared2020’s partial RAPM data (great impact, but not anywhere near the myths, and not anymore impressive than 1996-1998 Jordan), and Moonbeam’s Regressed WOWY data

The problem is that this isn’t really true.

- Ben Taylor’s playoff on/off data has Jordan at around a +23 playoff on/off per 48 minutes from 1988 to 1990. Which is obviously enormous. In the first-three-peat years, that goes down to about a +7.5 on/off (because the team does better with Jordan off the court than before). What do those numbers look like combined? Well, if we do weighted averages of the figures in those time periods, using the actual number of minutes on and off in each period and eyeballing the values in the charts in Ben’s video (for 1988-1990, I used -20 off and +3 on, while for 1991-1993 I used +1.5 off and +9 on), we get an overall average of about +6.41 on and -6.84 off, in the playoffs from 1988-1993. That’s a +13.25 on/off. Which looks great, but that’s also in per 48 minutes terms, not per 100 possessions. The weighted average of the Bulls’ pace in those playoffs is 90.06. Which means that, using the Thinking Basketball on-off numbers, in the 6-year span from 1988-1993, Michael Jordan had a playoff on/off per 100 possessions of about +14.71! That certainly looks pretty GOAT-like!

- And then, Ben Taylor also provides similar data for the 1996 playoffs, with Jordan having about a +16 on/off per 48 minutes, which would translate to about +18.4 on/off per 100 possessions. And we know it was +23.6 in the 1997 playoffs and +13.1 in the 1998 playoffs. So, you’re right in the sense that the on-off numbers from 1988-1993 are not more impressive than those from 1996-1998, but it’s *all* super impressive. If we combine those 1998-1993 numbers with the 1996-1998 numbers, we get a playoff on/off per 100 possessions of about +16.0! Which is enormous and obviously GOAT-like. Obviously, that’s missing some shorter playoff runs (i.e. his first three years and 1995), where we don’t have this data, but we have the most important years and they look incredibly good.

- I genuinely don’t understand the idea that Squared’s RAPM data suggests anything but great things about Jordan. Squared has RAPM for four different seasons for Jordan: 1984-1985, 1987-1988, 1990-1991, and 1995-1996. Jordan is ranked 1st in the NBA in 1987-1988, 1990-1991, and 1995-1996, and no one is even particularly close to him in any of those years. Meanwhile, 1984-1985 was Jordan’s rookie season, and he’s still ranked 6th in the NBA (and only behind three actual star players). While Squared’s data is obviously just a snippet, this is clearly quite supportive of Jordan as having been a dominant impact guy.

I didn’t say that Jordan’s impact data looks anything but great and is in the discussion for possible GOATdom.

I said that the idea that his peak of 1991 and the surrounding years is some type of outlier mythological monster isn’t supported by any of the data at all. Everything you just listed is very nice and good, but it’s type of data that other players have done similarly or in the case of someone like LeBron, even better since we have RAPM numbers.


Also, it’s interesting to me because a while back, you were mentioning that the on/off numbers for someone like LeBron look so good because other players don’t touch the ball and then they don’t know what to do or are cold and haven’t felt the ball or something similar, but now you are using Jordan’s on/off numbers to show how good he was (which he was) but that wasn’t the argument about LeBron’s on/off numbers. Anyway:

Under scrutiny, Jordan’s peak doesn’t hold up to its mythical status. Obviously is a great all-time peak, but doesn’t approach the myths.

I remember when the ‘97 and ‘98 and then the ‘96 play by data became available and people were rightfully high on Jordan and the line of thinking was always “imagine what peak Jordan looked like.” Well, it looks like peak Jordan wasn’t making some mythological untouchable impact by the data

Also, the partial RAPM looks very good for Jordan, but does not approach anything close to an outlier mythological peak that is above everyone else’s, which is what I was arguing. In fact, Magic Johnson looks every bit as good and maybe even peaks higher. Additionally, those who have been saying that Jordan’s defense in his younger/peak years was overrated have some data that possibly corroborates that:

DRAPM
1985 Magic, +2.01; 1985 Jordan, -.13
1988 Magic, -.16: 1988 Jordan, -.05
1991 Magic, +.43: 1991 Jordan, +.61

Overall RAPM
1985 Magic, +8.92; 1985 Jordan, +5.03
1988 Magic, +6.62; 1988 Jordan, +7.47
1991 Magic, +4.00; 1991 Jordan, +6.40

- The Moonbeam stuff is interesting, but it has some unsolvable problems with distinguishing impact when multiple good players didn’t miss many games. Given that Jordan, Pippen, and Grant missed very few games for many years, the model has virtually no way of distinguishing who had what impact between those guys in those years. And it has some pretty obvious issues with overestimating certain players (the BJ Armstrong Problem is one we’ve talked about in that thread, where his impact on the Bulls was clearly overestimated due to the minutes cutoff, which suppressed others’ impact; and there are plenty of other examples). In any event, until Jordan retired the first time (at which point the model quickly recognizes Jordan as super elite), it has basically no data to distinguish Jordan/Pippen/Grant’s impact, except for the 1986 Jordan injury season in some of those very early data points for Jordan. And, of course, even that injury-season signal is pretty iffy when we realize that Jordan had a steadily increasing minutes restriction and the Bulls got destroyed in the games where Jordan played but had super low minutes and those games end up counting against him for purposes of that signal. If the model even just only counted specific games where Jordan played the minutes cutoff (i.e. 18+ minutes), that signal would look way better, and Jordan would end up looking substantially higher in those early years (since that’s really the only signal for him that the model has and it’s clearly distorted). I should also note that a version of Moonbeam’s analysis (Lasso) has Jordan pretty immediately vaulting to the top range once that year is out of the system and staying there for a long time. Meanwhile, the aggregate of multiple WOWYR ratings—which is a version of the same sort of analysis as Moonbeam’s—has Jordan ranked above every single other serious GOAT candidate. Overall, I think it’d really flimsy analysis to decide that Jordan’s impact is not GOAT-like on the basis specifically of Moonbeam’s Ridge model—which is one piece of data amidst a sea of data going the other way, and it pretty clearly has inherent limitations that make it not all that suited to accurately measure Jordan’s impact in his peak years. And, frankly, I don’t even think Moonbeam would disagree with me.

Again, Jordan looks very good in Moonbeam’s set BUT his supposed peak (1991) does not match the mythological outlier status that’s so many have given it. Again, when the data about 1997 and 1998 and 1996 afterwords became available, people wondered what peak Jordan was like. We still don’t know completely impact wise, but the data suggests that he didn’t have the type of impact in these years as he did in his later years. Also, something tells me you would look at Moonbeam’s data much differently had the results been different, i.e., had Jordan coming out looking like the impact king.

Other players players look better than Jordan does. Russell for sure, though, as you have mentioned, there are fewer players in the league; Magic Johnson, which there really is no rebuttal to, even if you want to talk about the later years after he retires, but the years and in segments in which he played all the years look incredible; LeBron, especially in the LASSO data though this doesn’t matter much since we have confidence level RAPM data; curry looks comparable. If we had lineup data, maybe all of this would be sorted out differently but we don’t, but we DO have does not in any way suggest that Jordan’s suggested peak matches the narratives. It’s a great peak, but it doesn’t look like the unassailable, unquestioned GOAT peak at all.

Moonbeam’s RWOWY for Jordan (Jordan in the Ridge set, Jordan in the LASSO set)

This was a cursory count, and others can do their own, but I took out every player who only played one year in the data segments, and I also took out every player who didn’t at least play solid rotational minutes for two of the years in the data segments. If it was close, I didn’t count the player; if somebody wants to go through and find players who played rotational minutes in every one of the years in the five year segments they can, but even if you did, Jordan would not look better than magic Johnson does, nor would he look better than Bill Russell does.

1981-1985: 4th, 3rd
1982-1986: 12th, 20th [here you have a large off segment]
1983-1987: 16th, 30th [Again a large of segment]
1984-1988: 30th, 21st [and again]
1985-1989: 40th, 17th [and again]
1986-1990: 65th, 27th [And again, including 1990, close to his consensus peak]
1987-1991: 56th, 52nd [Includes his peak and 1990]
1988-1992: 23rd, 7th
1989-1993: 15th, 5th
1990-1994: 7th, 5th
1991-1995: 2nd, 4th
1992-1996: 1st, 1st
1993-1997: 1st, 2nd
1994-1998: 2nd, 3rd
1995-1999: 1st, 2nd
1996-2000: 9th, not listed
1997-2001: 3rd, 4th
1998-2002: 6th, 18th
1999-2003: not listed, not listed
2000-2004: 86th, not listed [note: did not check for players were only played one year or non-rotational minutes in this segment]
2001-2005: not listed, not listed
2002-2006: not listed, not listed
2003-2007: not listed, not listed

[OhayoKD]

I don't think MJ was the issue.

His 1995 playoff numbers: 31.5ppg/6.5rpg/4.5apg/2.3spg/1.4bpg, 55.7% TS, 8.0BPM, 6.3 PO RAPTOR
His 1996 playoff numbers: 30.7ppg/4.9rpg/4.1apg/1.8spg/0.3bpg, 56.4% TS, 10.7BPM, 9.0 PO RAPTOR

Given that those Bulls played at a 50-win pace before Mj arrived, I'd say throwing out box-numbers to argue he "wasn't the issue" when they lost to a soon-to-be swept finalist is pretty dubious

Maybe I'm not following, but how were the 1995 Bulls playing at a 50 win pace before Jordan's return?

Srs/point differential places them at 52-wins. That is typically more predictive of playoff success so a lot do posters here and analysts in general prefer using that to ballpark teams. Important to remember it’s not always worth the same across eras though.

By record they were 34-31. opposite of 1994 where they overperformed(unsure of that holds for full strength where the bulls srs goes to 55-wins in games with pippen and grant)

[lessthanjake]

I didn’t say that Jordan’s impact data looks anything but great and is in the discussion for possible GOATdom.

I said that the idea that his peak of 1991 and the surrounding years is some type of outlier mythological monster isn’t supported by any of the data at all. Everything you just listed is very nice and good, but it’s type of data that other players have done similarly or in the case of someone like LeBron, even better since we have RAPM numbers.

But that chart is just taking the absolute best +/- periods for other players over relatively short timespans in a low-sample-size measure. Jordan’s best playoff on-off years aren’t all distributed next to each other. When you go to larger sample sizes—which is obviously an important and superior thing to do with playoff on/off data since it’s all low sample size in general and we want to look at as large a sample as we can—we see that in the data we have over 9 playoffs, Jordan has about a +16.0 on-off per 100 possessions overall. For reference, the best 9-playoff span LeBron has in playoff on-off is +13.9, and it was +10.4 in his prime years (defining 2009-2020 as his prime) and +10.2 for his career. Of course, we don’t have *all* the years for Jordan, so we can’t make a full comparison, but it certainly looks very GOAT-like for Jordan when we actually properly look at all the data we have.

Also, it’s interesting to me because a while back, you were mentioning that the on/off numbers for someone like LeBron look so good because other players don’t touch the ball and then they don’t know what to do or are cold and haven’t felt the ball or something similar, but now you are using Jordan’s on/off numbers to show how good he was (which he was) but that wasn’t the argument about LeBron’s on/off numbers.

Did Jordan play a ball-dominant heliocentric style? No, not really. All but two of the years we have data for here are in the triangle, so I don’t see your point. The same factor pretty obviously doesn’t apply.

Also, the partial RAPM looks very good for Jordan, but does not approach anything close to an outlier mythological peak that is above everyone else’s, which is what I was arguing. In fact, Magic Johnson looks every bit as good and maybe even peaks higher.

I’m really not seeing how being #1 by a significant margin in every season there’s data on except his rookie year could in any way be described as “not approach[ing] anything close to an outlier mythological peak that is above everyone else’s.” In the Squared data, Jordan has literally got an outlier RAPM that is above everyone else’s in every year except his rookie year!

And that includes Magic Johnson. Saying Magic “looks every bit as good” is just incorrect. They overlapped in three years in the Squared data. Magic is above Jordan in Jordan’s rookie season. But then Jordan is well above Magic in the other two seasons where they’re both actually in their prime. And to the extent you’re saying “peaks higher” by comparing RAPM values in different years, let’s remember that we’ve agreed at your insistence that that type of cross-year comparison of RAPM values is invalid.

Again, Jordan looks very good in Moonbeam’s set BUT his supposed peak (1991) does not match the mythological outlier status that’s so many have given it. Again, when the data about 1997 and 1998 and 1996 afterwords became available, people wondered what peak Jordan was like. We still don’t know completely impact wise, but the data suggests that he didn’t have the type of impact in these years as he did in his later years. Also, something tells me you would look at Moonbeam’s data much differently had the results been different, i.e., had Jordan coming out looking like the impact king.

The thing is that Jordan doesn’t need to have had *more* impact in his earlier years than in the second three-peat for him to have been GOAT-level, because the impact in the second three-peat is itself GOAT-level overall (with that last season maybe being a shade off that, but the overall three-year span being GOAT-level impact for sure). So basically, I agree we don’t have enough info to really know for sure exactly how his earlier impact shaped up compared to the later impact, but the signals for all of it that we have is really really great and entirely consistent with a GOAT-level player, so I don’t really see the point of parsing through limited data trying to determine which of his time periods were more or less impactful. It looks like it was all incredibly impactful!

And no, I don’t really care what the output of the data is—there’s just obvious limitations and potential distortions of the data that shouldn’t require any motivation to notice. Again, I don’t think Moonbeam would disagree with this either.

Other players players look better than Jordan does. Russell for sure, though, as you have mentioned, there are fewer players in the league; Magic Johnson, which there really is no rebuttal to, even if you want to talk about the later years after he retires, but the years and in segments in which he played all the years look incredible; LeBron, especially in the LASSO data though this doesn’t matter much since we have confidence level RAPM data; curry looks comparable. If we had lineup data, maybe all of this would be sorted out differently but we don’t, but we DO have does not in any way suggest that Jordan’s suggested peak matches the narratives. It’s a great peak, but it doesn’t look like the unassailable, unquestioned GOAT peak at all.

Again, though, Jordan’s “peak” cannot really be properly measured in Moonbeam’s data, because the three best players on his team (Jordan included) barely missed games during that timeframe, so the model has virtually no way of figuring out who was having what impact between them. It can just try to estimate the role players’ impact based on their missed time (and sometimes do that in a way that ends up being flawed, see, e.g., BJ Armstrong), and then make a rough guess at how to distribute the rest of the impact between Jordan, Pippen, and Grant, using the extremely limited number of missed games that each one had. Once the data actually saw what the Bulls did without Jordan, he quickly catapults to the top, with no player with substantial playtime throughout the time period being ahead of him for the next 5 time periods starting with 1991-1995 (said based on Ridge version). This isn’t really a picture of a guy who was less impactful in those earlier years. It’s a situation where the model doesn’t have the data to isolate out the impact of the top few guys on the team, and then once the model gets more data to do that with (which also includes more data from Grant leaving Chicago), Jordan catapults to the top of the league.