Quantitatively, how much could MJ have added to his career without retirements? And would he be your goat?

[Gibson22]

How many:
-points (and other stats if you want to)
-rings
-mvps
-all nba teams/al def teams/dpoys

Would he be your goat? Me personally I have him as 2nd behind lebron and yes, to me he would easily be the goat, vastly above lebron and the guys i have after him.

Lets say he has an average nba great player retirement point, which is basically when they are not really good anymore. MJ took off 2 years when he was just 30, and also retired when he was 35 and clearly the best player in the world. I get that they probably don't win 8 in a row because a)it's not easy to win those 2 against the rockets and b)without those 3 years off it's possible they don't win those other 3, but still it's realistic that they win at least 1 more, and also that's okay from a team standpoint, but from an mj standpoint i don't see a world where a)he isn't best player in the world in those 2 years b)he needs those 2 years off to be the best in the world for those 3 other years.

regarding the second retirement, mj was still clearly the best player in the world and to me there's not much doubt that he would have been the next year too. after that shaq takes over as the best player and i think the lakers start winning rings anyway. i think in 99 he's still favored for ring and mvp, in 2000 he gets overtaken by shaq and the lakers, he's still a strong all nba first-second team in 00 and 01. in 02 he's still a borderline all nba third team but he gets injured, and after a few years of not winning he retires after 18 seasons.
so imho he has 3 years where he has a great chance for ring and mvp, obviously all-nba 1st team and all def 1st team too.

Let me have a go:
Mvps: I'll give him just 1 more. Just 3 chances imho, mj was winning most of the mvp but not all of them, and there was great competition in 94 and 95. also the possibility that playing those 2 years impact his 2 mvps in 96-98. that makes it 6 mvps.

Rings: I'll give him 2. same concept 3 chances and possibility that... then after 2000 they obviously have to remake the team and it would have big a tight window with mj being 37. 1/2 is the realistic answer, i will give him 2. 8 rings, between 7 and 8 anyway.

points: he was scoring 2500 a season in the first 3 peat, so lets give him 4500. -500 in his 2nd 3 peat because lets say he misses some games or whatever in the 2nd 3peat due to fatigue. then 2000 in 99, 3300 in the next 2 years, 1000 in 02, -3000 from his canceled wizards year. that puts him at around 39,5k, he breaks kareem's record but lebron breaks his next year. i don't care much about rebounds assists and blocks cause he doesn't have a lot, but he gets at around 3k steals, 2nd all time.

selections: 3 all-nba 1st team, 2nd team. 2 all-def first team, 2nd team.

[Gibson22]

note: i know that every breathe can change everything but we're trying to give a realistic scenario in which mj doesn't strangely retire twice. also thinking that he more or less has the same career or barely adds anything is fatalistic and stupid, the world doesn't go the only way it can possibly can. obviously you only get judged by what you did, but it's also clear that mj didn't have an mj to chase and also lived in a world where things like goat rankings and overall your status was less discussed, and he basically was as worshipped and respected as any athlete or any human ever. anyway yeah, he's basically the only great great player who retired (twice) when he could still add a lot to his career, with the exception of bill russell to a lesser degree. so that's another reason why this exercise is meaningful.

[HeartBreakKid]

I assume this is talking about 94, 95, and 99.

Rings - probably none. But I could see a 7th ring.

99, no chance against the twin towers.

94 and 95, don't think they match up well with the Rockets. East is getting quite tough by 95. We already saw a sample of how the Bulls look with the "rusty" version of Jordan. Making it seem like they'd win titles in 94 and 95 because they won in 96 is the same thing as basically saying Dennis Rodman makes no difference.



Points - I reckon he has two seasons of 30 PPG in the mid 90s and maybe a season of 27-28 PPG 99, perhaps lower if he ages quickly in 99 (he'd have two more seasons on his legs than he didn't have before). Whatever that adds up to.

I think he'd be all nba 1st team every year. Likely get all defense as he has basically every year. If he decided to take off playing defense he'd likely still get them anyway.


MVPs, don't think he has a chance in 99. He already lost out to Malone in 98 for one. I assume he'd be a bit worse in 99. Malone, O'Neal, and Duncan are pretty stiff competition for a player who has already exhausted MVPs.

94, don't think he has a chance over Olajuwon. Olajuwon probably should have been MVP in 93, and the media had already voted Barkley over Jordan for MVP so he was already losing steam.

95, would depend on how Jordan bounces back from 94 (if his team loses). He might get a fire lit under his ass, but I think it's more likely that it is just David Robinson's time and they give him the MVP.




Other than the extra points, all nba, and all defensive selections I'd say the biggest possible occurrence is a title in 94. I think they are a better team than the Rockets but it's hard to say how they'd match up with them, and it's also possible they just burn out.

[penbeast0]

I think Jordan's retirement was necessary for both him and the team to go on the 2nd 3 peat. I get the feeling he was burnt out on basketball, inventing challenges, and getting even nastier with teammates after the 1st 3 peat. Could he have made it a 4 peat? Quite possibly, but I'd guess it wears out before the 6th ring and he ends up with only 5 titles instead of 6 plus a far less gracious actual retirement (though possibly avoiding the whole Wizards situation).

My take, based on nothing but my general experience with toxic but successful workplace personalities (mainly lawyers fwiw).

[One_and_Done]

As people said, retirement likely helped his story. Getting waxed by the 99 Spurs, as he surely would have, would not have helped.

[Cavsfansince84]

I think the retirements definitely helped his legacy. I highly doubt the Bulls win it in 94 and after that I'm not sure its a certainty that they pick up Rodman and those long playoff runs really start to add up after 94 which means MJ has less effort to likely give on defense(which already was dropping off after 91). I think if he plays every year from 94-say 2000 he actually finishes with less rings or the same amount. Maybe more mvps though.

[penbeast0]

Wow, I sort of expected to be out on an island with this one.

[lessthanjake]

I don’t think we can really know. Like it’s possible that not retiring the first time would’ve resulted in him getting run down or maybe even injured, such that the rest of his career was worse. It’s also possible that he’d have won titles in those years and maybe even developed chemistry earlier with the second set of Bulls teammates such that the second-three-peat teams would be even better. We also have no idea if the Bulls would’ve made the same roster decisions during Jordan’s retirement years if he weren’t retired. Maybe they make worse decisions, or maybe they make better ones. It’s hard to know. I think our baseline assumption should probably be that playing more years would be a good thing for his legacy, but it’s definitely an inherently speculative exercise.

[Owly]

Like others if reset is at 1993 and all after is up in the air I think that even if he may outstrip IRL career value his achievements may go down and the value isn't entirely a given if he burns out sooner.

1) IRL the narrative arc works beautifully (fwiw, personally,to the extent I care, I think '95 probably help, though latterly some would ignore it). The odds are though that the Bulls with MJ, in that particular run, without baseball as a excuse probably do lose at some point. Honestly if you think a team is a 50% chance at the start of each season (generally a pretty aggressive number in a 29 team league ... though maybe not so for the '96 Bulls) you only collar all 3 one in eight times (and thats just the ones they won irl).
2) I understand his first retirement to be a result of burnout. With the Dream Team and 3 titles plus earlier runs he (and Scottie) played a lot. Grant and Pippen stepped up to a new challenge in '94, Kukoc was a nice addition given they weren't going to get that type of talent typically with their draft slots
3) circling to 1 ... for Pippen to get a taste of 1st option recognition (make a really dumb call and get burned) some accolades ... for MJ to struggle at something else, and come back more willing to promote Scottie as an equal, as an MVP ... as strained as it seems now ... that relationship was perhaps helped by a break.

I get that resetting 96-98 seems harsh, for me it might be the price of admission for getting 94 and a full 95 ... without those years as they were the Bulls roster as in IRL doesn't exist and we don't know what could be in its place.

In short Jordan was great, more prime years would be great, but there's risks he burns out, gets injured, wears on people, moves elsewhere ... and the upside is pretty great (if Horace stays [not sure MJ helps the odds of this but, if resetting, it is possible], they don't need to acquire Harper with MJ [though Harper wasn't expansion projected so maybe this upgrade means somebody better than BJ going?] ... maybe they still add Rodman and have a death lineup [Kerr probably has to be point, Brown could do the job for defensive version)) and maybe worth it (maybe ... at a franchise level it would be galling to "un-lock" three straight titles) but may well not because what happened to happen went really well.

[Gregoire]

He is already almost undisputed GOAT.

[70sFan]

He is already almost undisputed GOAT.

Is he?

[rk2023]

Yeah, I don't even think the descriptor of "consensus goat" is one that's a good faith argument - as I feel that takes away from formidable cases in favor of Russell (GOAT championship equity and floor-setter prime for prime - relative to era), Kareem (longevity titan, all the moreso relative to era - GOAT NCAA player if such is valued and clearly best start to NBA career along with some GOAT caliber years), and LBJ (in a vacuum, best combination of peak/prime/longevity with highest W/V above replacement).

A consensus Mount Rushmore imo feels more appropriate, as I don't think anybody put together a body of work as consistent / robust as these four. And seems such is the case given past voting.

[oaktownwarriors87]

Would he be your goat? Me personally I have him as 2nd behind lebron and yes, to me he would easily be the goat, vastly above lebron and the guys i have after him.

Just playing more years wouldn't make him a greater player, just like LeBron playing more years doesn't make him a greater player. It's what you accomplish in the years you do play.

Jordan was more dominant and accomplished more in fewer years than LeBron, so I already have Jordan over LeBron. Extending his career for the sake of extending it doesn't add any value unless he's getting MVPs and rings.


When comparing him to Bill Russel or Kareem the added years would potentially help his argument. Kareem is tied with 6 rings and has him beat in MVP awards. Russel has him easily beat with 11 rings and just as many MVPs (5).

[OhayoKD]

It would have taken a historic choke not to win in 94 lol

[penbeast0]

It would have taken a historic choke not to win in 94 lol

Which teammate do you think he would be choking?

[MacGill]

It would change nothing in my eyes of him being the 1a) Goat of basketball. Aside from most likely having over taken K. Maolne for second in scoring, a possible 6th MVP, and of course 1st team all nba's, it wouldn't matter if he 4-peated or not. Whether a player retired for being (burnt out, speculative) or no longer seeing eye to eye and becoming toxic (Shaq/Kobe) it should tell most that in the history of this league, it's only been done 4 times, by 3 teams.

Build a super team, or trading for multiple stars, hardly no one breaks this code, and when you look at the similarities of the players who did, you'll come to appreciate the feat that they actually did and less about if you'd want to be a personality like them on the court or in real life.

[Texas Chuck]

OP seems to be suggesting that Jordan keeps his existing career and then just adds season to that. Except that's not at all how real life works. You can't leave the 2nd Threepeat in pen here for instance.

So many big egos/personalities in play in Chicago. This idea they could have kept that all together and cohesive for a decade straight feels crazy optimistic to me.

[Djoker]

I agree that we can't assume anything but this idea that MJ would burn out if he didn't retire is not based in reality. Dozens of professional athletes have played 20 consecutive years at top level. The notion that one of the most driven, psychotically competitive players ever would burn out feels far-fetched to me.

As far as consensus GOAT he kind of already is among the general public but I think gun to my head, I'll still peak Russell over MJ and those two are in a tier of their own to me. Then the next tier is Kareem and Lebron.

[falcolombardi]

It may move him confidently to 3rd all time for me below lebron and kareem

[Gibson22]

Guys. 1st of all it's about career value, not just rings. second yeah, it that's the case everybody should take 2 years off in the middle of their prime and that would do good for their career. also, leave alone the 93 retirement, michael jordan was NOT done by 98. maybe the bulls, but things could have happened. also switch teams, whatever.